Third Squad is a documentary podcast about war.

Every episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence that may not be suitable for all listeners.

I don't want to offend you with my skepticism.

You're not going to because I like you, man, I like you.

I don't want to be a fucking dick, but you're not a dick.

I'm just saying, what's gonna fucking change?

Right?

Maybe nothing?

Probably nothing?

But you know what will change if I don't do it?

Definitely nothing.

I'm Elliott Woods.

This is Third Squad Episode seven, make Peace or Die.

Alright, So we've got our side by side a t V, all geared up, ready for an adventure.

David rich Volsky is behind the wheel, wearing a mad bomber hat, got our goggles on, shiploads of clothes.

It's what about five degrees outside something like that, all right, and we are ready to rock.

Dude, this thing's gonna sucking all ass.

There's one Third Squad marine we couldn't reach by road.

I mean it was possible, but there just wasn't time to squeeze an extra five thousand miles into the itinerer.

So I hopped on a flight to Alaska to meet David rich Volski, who lives about an hour northeast of Anchorage.

Check check, check, Why aren't you showing on my channels anymore?

Tommy had to go home for a few days, so I'm flying solo on this one, getting familiar with the recorder while wearing mittens the size of boxing gloves.

Super fun.

Ready for me to go?

Yeah, I'm gonna spend the tires to see if I can see if the fronts turn into Okay, Yeah, Richbolski hits the gas and soon we're ripping down the Connect River at fifty miles per hour, looking like a couple of Mad Max characters.

This is so cool.

My hands freeze into claus whenever I have to take off my mittens to adjust the recorder.

But I'm having such a good time I barely notice we being out here reminds me of Montana, where I live.

Oh Man.

Thankfully, the sun is starting to warm the air when we pull up to our destination, the Connect Glacier, a massive sheet of ice that spills down from the chew Gash Mountains, just ten miles up river from Richbolski's house.

Should we jump out and walk around exactly what I was thinking.

We park on a hill where we can see the four hund foot calving face where the icebergs break off.

I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like this before.

Man, I managed to give a fucking World Traveler reporter guy a fucking first time huh.

Yep, there you, of course, because this is America.

There's a guy doing donuts on the frozen lake in a vintage pickup, and another guy shooting a flamethrower next to an iceberg that looks like a giant hunk of frozen wind.

As the carbon orgy clashes a bit with the pristine surroundings, but rich Volsky digs all of it, living the dream.

Rich Volsky, it's pretty good, man, pretty good.

The combination of remote wilderness and Arctic redneck culture is what made him fall head over heels for Alaska.

I feel like it's one of the last free states.

Honestly, I just have freedom.

I can do what I want.

I can come out here and get out here by myself and cruise around and hang out.

Man, it's a great place to decompress after work.

Rich Bosky grew up in most people's idea of Paradise, Hawaii, but he had no desire to go there.

When he got out of the Core in two thousand fourteen, he hit the road for Alaska with the promise of a job and never looked back.

It was around the same time that I moved to Montana from the East Coast for some of the same reasons.

It took rich Bolski two weeks to drive all the way from Camp Pembleton's up through Canada to Anchorage, his first landing spot.

Now he lives in a secluded subdivision near a town called Palmer.

He makes his living as a plumber, working on big commercial projects all over the state.

His hobbies are pretty full time too.

Like me, he's a serious hunter, and in Alaska that means lots of scouting and planning for bear and moose hunts.

With so much going on, rich Wolski tells me Afghanistan isn't something he thinks about much anymore, almost never, almost never do on a different portion of my life moved on.

So when you do think about Afghanistan, what do you think about?

Ah?

The funny stuff, sad stuff.

Sometimes I no excitement, you know, adventure is there?

Anything that you miss about it.

That's simple, man, a simple place to be.

You know.

You get up and walk around, get shot at, you walk back and sleep and do it all over again.

A lot of people, I think would be shocked to hear that being at war, even in a very dangerous place in certain ways, is kind of easy.

It is.

It's it's it's definitely easy, you know.

I mean, now I got you know, bills, gotta go to work, you know, I mean, it never felt like work to me.

As we're talking, heard a moose trots down the river bed.

We're a long way from Hawaii, and we're even farther from Sangin, where we first had a decade ago.

All right, So the first thing I need you to do is just introduce yourself in that kind of outside voice.

I'll just see your regular voice, all right.

Um, I'm last Corporal Davids Falsky, and I'm nineteen years old and not from Hawaii.

Great, perfect, Okay.

So number one, why did you join the Marine Corps?

I joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to have the island.

Back then, he was a lanky teenager and I'm not sure he could have grown a beard if he tried.

Now he's six ft tall and two thirty pounds, with the righteous beard and thick forearms covered in tattoos.

His hair is still buzz short, but that's about the only thing that hasn't changed since Sangon.

Sitting in the a t V by the river, I asked him why he was so eager to get out of Hawaii all those years ago.

I think it's just hot, small, you know, to go to the beach so often surfing gets quite repetitive.

I was ready to go, you know, independent, young and looking for adventure.

He tells me Hawaii was a great place to grow up, and he had a happy childhood.

He just never felt like he fit in there.

The military promised away off the island, but like several of the other members a third Squad, rich Folski was only seventeen when he started thinking about enlistening, so he needed his parents permission.

I told my dad and he goes, okay, we'll go talk to some recruiters, right.

So we go to town and there's like an Army and Marine Corps recruiters right next to each other, like sharing a wall office.

He didn't have a clear idea of what he wanted to do in the military, let alone which branch.

He wanted to join Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, but first impression settled things.

The Army recruiters were literally fat and nasty, and the Marine Corps recruiter looked like a guy in the military.

And I hate to say that because the Marine Corps is all about appearance and the unit form, and I always hated that about the Marine Corps.

But that was the turning point where we were like, no, I don't want to be in the Army.

You're not gonna hurt my feelings.

Don't worry.

I was in the National Guard, a reserve component of the U.

S.

Army.

We get made fun of by pretty much everyone, including the regular army.

Anyway.

It was two thousand nine when rich bold Sky and his dad visited the recruiter, and the war in Afghanistan was barely on the radar for the average American.

But we'd just come through the most brutal years of the Iraq War.

What was your awareness of of what kind of fighting was going on at the time, if you can remember when you were in high school, I mean, I always knew there was fighting.

You see the ship on the news, you know.

But I mean I wasn't come from a family that's in the military, you know.

I didn't.

I didn't know anybody, you know, that was in the military.

So my understanding of what it actually was, you know, was zero.

But I knew for a fact that there was a war, if that makes sense.

Did you know where that war was in the Middle East?

I could, I could narrow it down to the Middle East at that time.

Did you have a sense of what the war was about, or how it was going or anything like that.

No, I don't think I have a sense now.

I mean when I tell you right now that I legitimately kind of still don't understand.

I'm serious.

No, you know, yeah, I do know.

Rich Foldski's dad, who's also named David, supported his son's decision to join the Marines.

They signed the paperwork together, and as soon as high school was over, rich Folsky shipped out for boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego.

Yeah, that's funny.

My My my first thought was, oh my godly, all these white people.

I just went to a high school.

It didn't have very many white people.

Your your school is mostly what a lot of Filipino, a lot of Asian, uh, you know, Polynesian.

So suddenly you were in a group of people who looked like you for the first time.

For a lot of recruits, the shock of the first few days of boot camp is utterly terrifying.

Some of them literally pissed their pants, But not rich Volsky.

You kind of thought it was funny.

Everybody's yelling and everybody's running around checking with their head cut off, all this kind of just taking her all in.

Were you intimidated it all?

You know?

No, I really wasn't.

I knew I knew what it was gonna be like, so you kind of knew it was theater a little bit for sure.

After thirteen weeks of boot camp, rich Volsci went about an hour up the road to Camp Pendleton for Infantry School, where you learned how to be what the Marines call an O three thirty one, a machine gunner.

Then it was a short ride to his new unit, Weapons Platoon, Blackfoot Company, first Battalion, fifth Marines.

He barely had time to settle in before he shipped out to Afghanistan.

In about ten months.

He'd gone from surfing in Hawaii to slipping an m to forty Bravo machine gun and sang it.

Here he is again, back at patrol based fires.

I live in a fucking mud hut.

It's just three ft thick walls of mud right now.

It's actually pretty dirty, just because I've been discussing and not cleaned it.

And uh, I got fleas because of the fucking chickens that run around.

At just nineteen years old, rich Volski was the youngest guy in third Squad.

He joined the Marines looking for adventure and he definitely found it.

But by the time I arrived four months into the deployment, the novelty had worn off.

I always like doing my job when I'm shooting.

Is that makes carrying the two forty round not just seemed like a giant piece of metal that's pulling me into the air slowly, But like getting shot, It's it's not it's not fun.

It's it's fun when you're shooting.

You know, sometimes you a hammer, sometimes you nail.

It's real fun when you need a hammer.

But is it the kind of fun that you want to keep having for a long time?

Um No, it's it's a kind of fun where it's like it's like you get really wasted one night and you do a bunch of stupid ship and it's fun to talk about, but you don't want to do it for the rest of your life.

No, it's definitely had way too many close calls to I want to do that for this my life.

Okay, you can only dodge bullets for so long.

Richbolski managed to dodge bullets for his entire deployment, but the bullets were only one of the threats, and sang In describe like one of the scariest or toughest things that you've had to deal with out here in as much detail as you can, something that really sticks out in your mind that you think about kind of like sucked me up.

Yeah, it's probably when I got bought up.

I got me pretty good.

Rich Volski was one of the seventeen who got injured on June twelve.

The blast left him with a slight stutter and with permanent brain damage.

So when he tells me he doesn't think about Afghanistan much anymore, there's a caveat my whole memory of all of this is very fuzzy, you know, but uh, and it's hard for me to put it in chronological order.

Rich Volski's memories all scrambled from the explosion.

When I try to drill down into specifics, it goes something like this, So just tell me what your first impression of Afghanistan was, Brown Sandy.

He's talking about Camp leathern Neck, the huge logistics base in the middle of the Helmon Desert where they stopped over on their way to sang It Hot.

I don't particularly remember Hot too much when we first got there.

Well, it was probably the perfect time of year.

It was like March right spring.

You don't remember, tell me, man, It's not like his memories got erased.

They're just out of order and smashed together.

I think I remember, Uh, somebody got their foot blown and a half.

It was Captain Frank Is that right?

Lost half his foot?

But what was that?

Right in the beginning, No, somebody else talked about that.

I forget which I think?

Is it the foot thing though?

Or or am or am I wrong?

Rich Volsky's memory trouble stem from a traumatic brain injury, or t b I.

It's a catch all diagnosis that includes everything from concussions to open head wounds.

Rich Volski had both, and he's still dealing with the effects a decade later.

But well, I have a thought.

It's gone.

It's gone.

That happens a lot, doesn't it.

It does.

Yeh.

TV is a bitch man.

You know what's really funny about this whole thing is I feel like, unless you saw me there, you wouldn't even believe that I did it because I don't remember all of those bullshit, you know, because you're asking me questions.

I God, I do not know.

You know, good thing, I did see him there, and I've got photos and audio to prove it.

We'll be back after the break.

I stayed with rich Bolski for a few days and got to meet his wife, Samantha, and all of his pets.

This his mouse.

He's a vicious little bastard.

Yeah you don't.

You don't like that guy.

You keep an eye on him, okay.

Mouse is an American Eskimo dog.

He looks like an overgrown cotton ball with fangs barely bigger than the cat.

Mrs Claus Richbosky also has a big lazy Bernies mountain dog.

Actually they're polar opposites.

This one's sweet, nothing but love, and then the other one is very skeptical.

Of everything, including journalists who show up with big microphones and headphones.

Especially journalist.

I got him trained, you know, journalists, lawyers, auditors, politicians, that's who we have them.

Bite Mouse's training has been highly affected.

Hey, no, that one was a straight up ambush.

I keep an eye on MOUs will Rich Volsky shows me around the home he's building.

I guess you would call this what open concept, with the living rooms and the kitchens in the same spot.

It's a quantt hut, a prefab steel shell in the shape of a giant upside down you similar to the ones cranked out by the tens of thousands to house American troops during World War Two.

Quant huts are quintessential Alaska, gurable, no frills shelters for the kinds of frontier characters you find in Jack London stories.

But this one would fit better in the pages of Martha Stewart living.

The three bedroom design has heated floors, an entire wall of windows looking out on the mountains, and a deluxe kitchen for Samantha.

We got the old lady a nice big Viking range because she does love to cook.

You know, rich Volsky is putting the finishing touches on the interior.

Now he's one of those guys who can do pretty much anything that involves tools.

And you did this all yourself?

Yes, yeah, with I mean obviously the help of so my good friends and co workers and lots of cases of beer, lots of barbecues.

It's been two years since a big group of his friends helped put up the quantip frame, and now the end is finally in sight.

Are you ready to be done?

Absolutely?

Like last year, the new house doesn't have much furniture yet, so when it's time to sit down and talk, we walk over to the one room cabin that was on the property when rich bold Sky first bought it.

It's about as close to an ideal mountain man hideout as you could imagine, unfinished lumber walls, a cast iron stove, a bear skull on the kitchen table, and a double barrel shotgun hanging by the front door.

Rich Bolsky might have stayed in this place forever if he'd never met Samantha.

He pulls down a bottle of whiskey from the top of the refrigerator and grabs a couple of glasses.

Then he warns me and I can remember ship in any kind of real order, and it's going to be frustrating for you.

Okay, So then what's probably necessary is to figure out how you remember things, like what how does your memory work?

I can get specific moments, and if somebody else's talking about it, you know, I can go, oh, yeah, you know, like, yeah, I remember that clear as fucking day, you know what I mean.

But it's also it's almost gotta be planted or or dug up, if that makes sense.

We decided to dig up some of those memories together, which means we have to go back to Sangin.

As a member of Weapons Platoon, rich Volsky was technically an attachment to third Squad, not one of its original members.

As the machine gunner, his weapon was critical whenever the squad got into a firefight.

I was normally towards the front of the patrol, so that when the sweeper and uh the spot or right term there.

Yeah, the sweeper and the spotter would poke through a tree line, you know, and if they got shot, I was normally towards the front, so I could pop up there real quick and uh start laying suppression down.

The Only time it wasn't effective is if it came from the rear, and then that's where you're automatic rifleman Moody was was fucking handling that portion, and he carried a slightly while lighter machine gun.

Yeah.

So, while Moody took care of the rear with his saw, the M two four nine squad automatic weapon, rich Volsky was at the front with his M two forty Bravo, a nearly four ft long belt fed beast.

The gun and ammo weighed around sixty pounds.

It was a lot to be hauling around in the Afghan heat, but it was worth it.

The first thing I do is, uh, I make noise, even if I'm just flying ship in the wrong direction.

You know, entirely I am.

I'm making noise.

I'm basically allowing the rest of the guys to move by keeping the enemy's head down.

Most of the guys in the squad carried M four car beans, semi automatic rifles that fire a small, high velocity round that's barely bigger than twenty two rounds used for hunting squirrels.

If you've ever seen a picture of an A R fifteen, then you know what an M four looks like.

They're lightweight and easy to shoot quickly and accurately, but they lack the intimidation factor of machine guns like the two forty and the fifty Cow, which fires around big enough to take out a truck engine.

So tell me if you were on the other side of that, why would that be intimidating to you?

I guess the only way to put it would be, you know, twenty two long rifle will kill you, but a fifty cow makes you feel like you'll be more dead, you know.

Yeah, I mean it'll make you It'll make you more dead.

That's the psychological effect it gotta be.

Yeah.

So do you remember the first time that you fired your M two forty Bravo and a firefight?

Yeah, I was shooting out a building.

What do you feel like?

It's just a great, great feeling to just let a let her up.

Man.

I always loved, I always love shooting machine guns.

I mean, even in training, it was a it was great.

So did did you get to fire your machine?

Got a lot after the fighting season started.

There's a lot of shooting.

It's what you wanted to do, right, absolutely, I guess the shooting is exactly what I wanted to do.

And the blowing up is not what I wanted to do, and that was the unavoidable part.

So tell me about that.

Tell me about when that happened.

It was shortly after the ninth, But it feels like like when I when I think about it, it feels like we had just got back in from picking up O'Brien.

In my memory, it feels like it was those those two days between the nine and the twelfth just don't exist.

The the unimportant part just gets gone, if that makes sense.

It was June twelve, two th eleven, the day Joshua McDaniels died.

In sixteen other Marines got wounded in a series of I D blasts.

Rich Volsky got knocked to the ground by the explosion that hit McDaniels.

Then he got hit again moments later by a secondary blast that knocked him unconscious.

The pock marks from shrapnel and debris were still visible on his face when he told me about it back in Sangin.

When I came to, I was just laying face down the sand.

It's like pull of blood and Sheer, last corporal Sheer rolled me over and he has, hey, man, you got all your limbs, got your legs.

I don't know how you did it.

I was like, you can be okay, and I was like what because I I had a severe concussion.

Um, I just got knocked straight retarded, and uh he started dragging me out in his cabin.

Ten years later, I asked rich bold Sky what he still remembers about that day.

I remember when I heard the first explosion, Uh, trying to I heard the first explosion, and then there was like just the dust, you know, and then just like kind of silence, kind of put my dick in the dirt, you know, and uh, just quiet, and I'm going, fuck, you know.

And then I remember hearing McDaniels screaming, and uh that was like, holy fuck man, this is bad.

So I screwed up that direction best I can, and uh, I get up there and I see McDaniels and looking at him, I'm I'm thinking, uh, I can't believe that he can make that much noise with how small he is.

He was essentially blown in a half.

Yeah he was.

I remember him making an insane amount of noise for for how much of him was left, and I thought that was crazy.

So I was talking to him, but it was I'm not sure if I got to him first or if Lopez got to him first, But I remember Lopez being there.

He's talking about Jeffrey Lopez, one of Third squads riflemen.

And this is where it gets real fuzzy, like I'm not sure about a lot of this, you know what I mean.

But I remember Lopez being there in that moment before we blow up again, right, and I think what happened next was well, I mean, I know what happened next.

The I D fucking went off when Elliott hit it because he was coming running up from the rear towards us and stepped on another I D.

The route that I took to McDaniels just happened to be better than the route that Elliott took to McDaniels.

Cody Elliott supervised all the platoons machine gunners, including rich Wolski.

He floated between squads and happened to be out with Third Squad that day.

I can remember looking at him as it as he ran up to me and blew up.

I can I can see it in my mind, you know what I mean.

That's one of those ones that's burned into me.

You know.

It's just like just like looking at McDaniels, that one's burned into me too.

The explosion from Elliott's I d erupted in a cone shape, widening with intensifying force as it moved upward from the ground.

Fortunately for rich fold Sky and Lopez, they were crouched down low when it went off.

I think if I was standing, I probably would have died or something.

I don't know, or it would have been incredibly worse than it was worse for rich bol Sky, that is, it was plenty bad for Elliott.

He lost his left leg and took shrapnel all over his body and face.

Parts of Elliott's gear and bones slammed into rich Bollski, like you know, your temple's got a little whole.

It's a little a little piece of shrapnel went in like an upward angle and scoot it in the hole and like the perfect way to like not kill me pretty much, but would have it were went straight in, I mean I would have been dead.

Oh wow, it was inside your skull.

Yes, wow, I didn't know that.

Rich Bolski has a shadow box on the cabin wall with this Camo name tape, his dog tags, his purple heart metal and a little plastic tube with that piece of shrapnel inside of it.

It was removed by a field trauma surgeon at Camp leather Neck, where he got meta ACT along with some of the other serious casualties from that day.

It was actually kind of cool because I'm fucking rolling in there and uh, it was like a reunion and we're coming in on the gurney and it's like, what's up, man, Like, Hey, you know, I know everybody in the yard, you know what I mean, high fives all around.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

I remember the nurses got rid of the little fucking separator sheets because we're all yelling back and forth to each other talking.

Rich Basky thinks he had two surgeries, but he can't remember for sure.

His condition was serious enough that he was laid up in the hospital for a couple of weeks.

Here we are again, back at patrol based fires, not long after the incident, and what was the recovery?

Like, it really wasn't that bad.

I mean, it didn't really hurt until the next day.

Yeah, because I was I was just so confused and out of it from the concussion at h It's kind of just a daze the whole time, and that you are and like in the exciting care awards and stuff.

I didn't really start getting my memory back or anything like that until like a week later.

Rich Foldsky's shrapnel wound healed quickly enough, but his memory would never be the same.

At the time, that was the least of his concerns.

He was desperate to get back to the squad, even if he had doubts about the bigger mission.

Tell me about how you wanted to get out of the hospital and come back, Like you probably could have gone home if you cried a little bit and told him that's what you wanted to do.

I end up coming back, like not not because I wanted to fight anymore.

Oh yeah, I want to find more because I kind of a serious problem with the Taliban, you know.

But uh, I had some revenge to get with them.

But it's really not it's really not about that I came back because of these guys, the guys I'm out here with, Like this really isn't this really isn't my fight.

It's not really America's fight either.

We're kind just here, so I mean, it's not for that reason.

It's only because I still got boys out here that I wanted to come back.

Two weeks in the hospital was long enough for rich Bollski to feel like he was letting the squad down.

Now, he tells me he still feels bad about being away.

One thing that I found out afterwards that kind of really made me sad, Oh man, is that a h put a moody in a spot where you do carry the machine gun.

Yep, that was my responsibility, not his.

Yeah, sorry to get back rich Falskis.

Memories maybe out of order and fuzzy around the edges, but dates and place names don't matter much.

In the end.

It was the people who mattered back and sang in the PB fires Marines, especially the guys in the squad, And it's the people who mattered to rich ball Ski all these years later too.

He throws another log into the wood stove, and then he tells me about Dutch glasses.

It's a guy who can do smart stuff.

Happens a lot in the Marine Corps.

Guys who have glasses get tasked with smart people's stuff.

For sure.

That's funny.

He is a sweet human being man.

The word I would put on him was sweet, loving, caring, not what you would expect of a marine or what of a marine where we were good human being a lot better than me.

Do you remember the day that he got killed?

What do you remember about that day?

Remember the fucking explosion.

I remember the crack, I remember the dust.

By that day, September eleven, rich Volski had already survived one near death experience.

Instinct took over.

I had one of them gut feelings.

Man, afterwards, he had already blown up at this point.

But that's one of the few times I remember having a intense gut feeling that said, do not fucking move.

Then I didn't.

War is usually about force, not choices.

Marines are told where to go and what to do when they get there.

Sometimes that means rushing headlong into machine gun fire.

But this time rich Volsky did make a choice.

While other third Squad marines rushed up to help Dutch, rich Volsky stayed glued to the dirt behind his gun.

It may be one of the tougher things I've done.

I guess is not go, But I didn't.

Something fucking told me don't fucking go over there.

Tactically, I made the right choice.

Morally, maybe not.

What could you have done differently if you had rushed up and gotten closer, clogged it up, kutting in the way, gotten in the way, hit another I again again.

Yeah, as we've been talking about all this, I can't help noticing how even keeled rich Foldsky is.

And it isn't just the whiskey.

Rich Foldski was laid back and sang into like he was just rolling with the punches.

Do you ever get angry?

Do you ever?

No?

I don't.

I do not have rage.

I did a lot of thinking about it.

I think is is what it was, you know, of whether I wanted to be piste off about it or not.

There's a short period of time after I got blown up, after the ninth, after the twelve brooded.

That that brood took a long time, more than more than most of my broods.

But yeah, came up with no, no, what, I don't have any hatred towards them.

By them, rich Foldski means the Taliban, like fucking it's it's ward is just some guys killing each other, and it's that's the way it's supposed to be human nature.

That's what it is.

Dudes have been killing each other since the beginning of time, and we will continue killing each other till the end of time.

That's not gonna change, man, you know, so there's no real grudge to be had.

You know, this is pretty close to what Rich Bolski told me back in Sangin.

What do you think about about Taliban?

Why do you think they're fighting?

What do you think they're their purposes?

I'm sure if I was fucking born in Afghanistan, i'd probably be Taliban.

Yeah, it's their deal, this is my deal.

I remember being surprised by rich Boldski's sober view of the war.

Back then.

He didn't say anything about good guys or bad guys, nothing about good or evil.

He didn't hold himself for America's cause up to be morally superior.

And after all these years, outlook hasn't really changed, you know.

I honestly believe they probably hated us more than I hated down Uh, because I'd really hate a guy that was fucking landed on my property coming up into your village.

Yep, this is mine, you know.

And yet his lack of hatred for the enemy does not imply an abundance of sympathy.

I would have gladly killed any race of people for that any religion for that purpose of war at the time.

If we were going anywhere else in the world, it wouldn't have mattered what the opposition was.

All it is is opposition the enemy, right, Yeah, yeah, all that's all that.

That's all it would have ever been.

You know, it didn't matter that they were in Muslim, didn't matter that they were you know, brown, It didn't matter man, that was the enemy at the time.

It would be comforting to think that seventeen and eighteen year olds and lists out of patriotism and a deep commitment to service.

But in my experience, the U.

S Military, especially the Marine Corps Infantry, is chock full of rich Bolski's young men looking for adventure, who want to fight and don't really care where the war is happening or why, like Brian Sheer doing pull ups in the recruiter's office when he was eight years old, for John Bollinger, who just wanted to fight.

Some guys have doubts farther down the road once they've had a taste of the big sock, but not rich Volski.

For him, the war happened and now it's over.

He proved himself in the ancient right of combat, made some great friends, and now he's home.

Time to move on.

I asked rich Volski if he thinks of what helps some of the other guys, if they learned to view their own war experiences dispassionately the way he does, to let go of their hatred of the enemy, for example.

I don't know, man, I don't know if that would help him.

I do not know.

I think some people, some people need there to be a demon there to justify their feelings and their actions.

Huh.

I just don't need that.

I don't go to sleep at night and wonder if I'm a good person or not, you know what I mean.

I can look at myself and know that I'm a good person, regardless of whether you know I did some killing or not.

Rich Volski tells me about one specific time in Sangin when he shot and killed a man on a roof the way he remembers it, the guy was setting up to shoot at Brian Scher.

When you squeeze the trigger and took that life, did you feel like it was muscle memory, like it was doing your job or not.

It's fucking exhilarating.

It's good, it really is, you know, because that motherfucker was about to kill Sheer.

So yeah, it's good, and it's still good, still good to this day.

I like Shear Mourner, like that motherfucker.

It will be easy to apply the word dehumanizing here.

Rich Volsky had dehumanized the enemy, and therefore killing was easy.

Rich Volski himself had been dehumanized by the military before he even arrived in Sangin, and therefore killing was easy and so on.

But it's only dehumanizing if you believe that the capacity to kill for whatever reason is alien to human nature rather than part of what makes us human.

Well, what's interesting to me about you versus the other people I've talked to so far is I think you're will nus to say that you don't hold a grudge, your willingness to say even back then, Hey, if people like us showed up in my hometown, I'd be fighting them too.

You were willing back then and are still willing now to say that your enemy was doing something that made sense to you.

Your enemy was basically human.

And yet you're also willing to say that you felt exhilarated when you neutralize the threat, when you got to do your job, when you got to fire your machine gun, particularly when you got to eliminate the threat, when you got to kill the person who was trying to kill you.

That that felt good.

It's primal, man.

The surge of adrenaline that comes with that primal experience is intoxicating, and I know how addictive it can be.

The feeling of being the hunter and the hunted in a place where life isn't precious and the future isn't guaranteed, and you feel more alive because you're always ready to die.

We'll be back after the break.

In the decades since rich Bollski came home from Sangin, he says he's cried exactly twice.

He was hammered drunk both times, and with other veterans, though not guys he served with.

I asked him what brought on the tears?

I just wish everybody would have come back.

That would be what brings the sadness?

And are there questions related to that?

Uh?

Like what I mean?

Example?

Can you give me an example?

The simplest example would be why did I come back and they didn't.

I do not have that question though, because life's a bit man.

That's the way it works.

So another question would be, and this is a question that a lot of your squad mates asked themselves, is could I have done something different?

That's also one that doesn't doesn't get to me either.

I accept my actions, man, So what what would you say to guys who put that personal responsibility on themselves, who are asking themselves that question, could I have done something different?

Or maybe if I had done this and not that, so and so would be here?

What would you say to people who are kind of tortured by that?

Make east with it, bud, and they're never gonna fucking change.

Rich Volski is adding a new layer of meaning to the motto of the first Battalion, Fifth Marines, make peace or die, or maybe he's got a new motto altogether, make peace and live your life.

It's fucking ten years later.

If you're still blaming yourself, you better accept that it's your fucking fault.

At this point, you gotta move on with your life.

That sounds fucking savage, I know, to fucking say that a better way, Well, don't you think it would be better for them to accept the other side of it, which is accept that it's not my fault.

Just I do think that's better, you know, And that's the side of it that I think is the truth.

But it's been a fucking while now, and I feel like if you're still on that one, I think you need to figure a way to live with yourself because you may not be able to change it at this point.

So correct me if I'm wrong.

And I don't want to, I don't want to say this the wrong way, but correct me if I'm wrong that you've had an easier time making peace with things than some of your friends.

I would say, do you ever wonder about why that is?

Do you ever or do you have any ideas about why that is?

The The only answer to that question that I can give you is when I saw the Wizard, I only went to one once ever, and uh, she said, you had a good childhood, essentially, and that's why you're all right.

So the whether there's a truth behind that or not, I don't know how anybody could her.

No, you know, I don't know how a psychiatrist knows anything, because in my opinion, you can't be in anybody's brain.

I think your brain is your brain, and I don't care how much science you'll throw at it.

Fucking nobody's ever been in here but me, Like, you know what I mean?

So the wizard this is a fun expression.

What does the wizard mean?

That's the shrink psychiatrists.

You know.

I remember being there.

I feel like I just played, I played the game, you know.

Uh Like I felt like I knew the answers that she wanted, you know, and I just I went with that, you know, And then she was like, all right, good you go.

Richbolski and the rest of third Squad had to go see the Wizard after they got home from Sangon as part of a routine post deployant health screening.

What were the answers that you thought she wanted to hear?

What were the questions?

Oh, there's a lot about guilt.

I mean, funk man, you could be a psychiatrist.

Hey, you're talking to me about all the same bullshit she did.

You know.

I swear to God, I believe this is it.

It's not a very It's not all that different when you get down to it.

Yeah, yeah, this is it.

This is what we fucking did, except what we're putting it on audio.

Well, also, you're not telling me what you think I want to hear.

Are you no good?

Because I don't want that.

Like Michael Miner and Brian Sheer, rich ball Ski doesn't think the mental health profession has much to offer him.

Do I think it's a bad thing.

No, I think it's a good thing for people who need it.

I just I don't think I needed it, and I didn't want to get roped into a thing.

I feel like I could have easily got prescribed some fucking weird brain drugs to fucking make my brain crazy.

I didn't like it.

Shrinks aren't the only people rich Volsky is skeptical of.

Should I'm skeptical about you, Bud.

Tell me about that.

Tell me about what what your skepticism is, because you weren't.

You weren't skeptical of me when I was in Afghanistan.

Yeah, I know I was.

I was young and dumb.

But you're skeptical of me now?

Yes.

I think there's a lot of ways to twist everything that I've said in the last hour, and it uh worries me that you're gonna do that.

Rich Volski is built a quiet life for himself up here in Alaska, and he wants to keep it that way.

When I first got in touch with him.

He told me I could come visit and that we could talk, but he said he didn't really want to be the story and he didn't want to get too political.

Now that I'm here, he tells me what he thinks I need to focus on.

I don't think it's the killing that needs to be touched on.

I don't think it's uh why we got sent there that needs to be touched on.

I don't think any of that fucking matters.

The only part of this that would matter would be the guys who didn't come back, that didn't get to the side, if they want to be fucked up or if they want to fucking build a house.

I think that's the part of the news to be touched on.

Like well, I would be a very dishonest person if I told you that that's all I was going to touch on, I would be lying to you.

I know, I know, because why you got sent there, the sense that you all made of it at the time, how you remember it, the nitty gritty, bad, sad, terrible things that happened, the killing, the aftermath, what you've all done since all of that stuff is is the story, right?

I think a little uh, distrust on my end.

It needs to go in there because I'm sure I'm not the only one.

There's there's no fucking way, you know.

I think you need to show that.

It makes us feel weird to tell the story.

It's not just that rich Volsky is skeptical of how I'm going to tell his story.

It's also that he doesn't really see the point.

I don't want to offend you with my skepticism.

You're not going to because I like you, man, I like you.

I don't want to be a fucking dick, but you're not a dick.

I'm just saying that what's gonna fucking change, right?

Maybe nothing?

Probably nothing, But you know what will change if I don't do it?

Definitely nothing.

I doubt the Third Squad Marines were thinking about their historical legacy when they were in the thick of the fight and sang in they had more urgent concerns.

But they are a part of history, and I think it's important to hear their stories.

Rich Volski would just as soon close the book, and he's not tortured by his memories or his feelings about the war like some of the other guys.

Why some people struggle more than others after a traumatic experience is one of the great unanswered questions.

In rich Volski's case, his tb I induced memory problems might actually be a blessing, like the fact that there isn't this very clear, organized set of memories that you go back to over and over and over.

I'm wondering if that doesn't help you in a certain way, sure does.

Nothing is forced upon me repetitively by my own brain.

Rich Volsky's tb I symptoms are relatively mild, but not everyone is so lucky.

T b ies can cause serious problems like amnesia, seizures, chronic fatigue, and increased risk of dementia, as well as a host of emotional issues like violent mood swings, anxiety, depression, and sexual dysfunction.

T b I and PTSD often go hand in hand, and veterans with t b ies are more than twice as likely to commit suicide.

World War One veterans who showed similar symptoms in the aftermath of artillery barrages were said to have shell shock, the signature injury of trench warfare.

Almost a century later, t B eyes emerged as the signature injury of the post nine eleven Wars because of troops frequent exposure to i EB explosions.

According to the Department of Defense, more than four hundred thousand U S service members experienced to t b I in the past two decades, including as many as one in every five I Rock and Afghanistan veterans.

Rich Volski has come to view his tv I is something that helps him more than it hurts him, and there may be other reasons why he seems so unburdened by the war.

Like the Wizard said, he might have bounced back because he had a good childhood in a supportive family.

Or maybe it's just his laid back Hawaiian side shining through his gruff Alaskan exterior.

I've made peace, man.

You know, I'm at peace with myself.

I'm at peace with where I'm at in my life.

I'm good.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho.

It's off to work.

We go.

It's so much better of a drive when there's not anybody else.

It's single digits and pitch black outside.

The next morning, when rich Revolski and I climb into the cab of his pickup, I've got an early flight out of anchorage, and he has to be at work by seven am.

On the drive, we keep our eyes peeled for moose.

We swap hunting stories and talk about our mutual love for the wilderness, the mountains, rivers and wildlife that demand respect and deliver swift punishment to anyone who doesn't give it.

Do you feel free?

You know, no distractions, nobody around you, rely on yourself.

Being out there in those vast and unforgiving places is exhilarating, but nothing matches the high of being at war.

Unfortunately, that high and its soul shaping effect came at the steepest price.

For us to have that primal experience that made us who we are, others had to die.

Next time on third Squad, I'll be back in the lower forty eight visiting Scott mccitchen in Kentucky.

I got kicked to the curb because I made one poor choice after fallless service, I would say when I got kicked out, I had no benefits or no direction or guideline, or none of my friends I had served with around me or in my life.

I started selling cocaine, so I mean, and I was going to school as well, But how the hell else am I going to payper.

I'm back to square one.

What did that feel like for you?

Suck felt like fucking defeat.

I would describe it like the same way a guy feels when he walks in on his fucking wife Lane in bed with another dude.

It felt that shitty.

Third Squad is written and produced by Elliott Woods, Tommy Andres, and Maria Burne.

It's an Heirloom Media production distributed by iHeart Media.

Funding support for Third Squad comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities in collaboration with the Center for Warren Society at San Diego State University.

If you're interested in supporting our work, please visit the donate page at third squad dot com, where you'll also find photographs from Sangin and from our road trip.

Original music for Third Squad by Mondo Boys, editing and sound designed by John Ward, fact checking by Ben Kalin.

Special thanks to Scott Carrier, Marianne Andre, Ted Genoways, Benjamin Bush, Caitlin esh Kerry, Gracie, Kevin Connolly, and Lena Ferguson.

If you got a minute, please leave us a rating in your preferred podcast app.

It will help other people find the show.

You can Find me on Instagram and Twitter at Elliott Woods.