Coleman Ruiz

I hope guys are getting it now, but what we didn't get a lot of was the real story, in a sense.

Meaning, I will say definitively, my first combat deployment was 03 when we invaded Iraq.

I was a platoon commander when we invaded Iraq.

And I remember within a week of being in that situation, thinking not one single instructor had the experience to mentor and coach me on this.

Not one.

And so...

you have to go back to that wild, suspended, fuck you factor mindset.

Like all your silly rules about how the military works, none of that shit's happening out here.

Like all this other stuff is happening that doesn't have anything to do with your training manuals, except for the things you don't violate, which is to your best of your ability, stuff happens, but the rules of engagement and laws of armed conflict, everything else is a toss up.

The tactics aren't.

That's not a toss up, but you know what I mean?

Like the environment is completely chaotic.

It's a new sport.

I mean, every 15 seconds is a new consequential decision.

Yeah.

I mean, at this point, you know, I'm fully indoctrinated in a sense, you know, the Naval Academy really does give you a sense of, again, bigness and you meet people from World War II and Vietnam and, and,

You know, an amazing guy, which, you know, we can cover later.

I don't I wasn't around when he was coming up.

But Colonel John Ripley is a guy who won the Navy Cross in Vietnam.

The book, The Bridge at Dong Ha is about him.