Constant Combat

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Great conversation with Dave Dobb, 1st Lieutenant in 2004 in charge of Rainmaker platoon. 
Dave gives a raw account of how a massive 81 mm mortar platoon split into Rainmaker and Sledgehammer... then they all learned to fight and he learned to lead through the hardest weeks of 2004 in Ramadi. Dave paints the big picture with the choices, costs, and the thin line between plan and chaos.

• Why we divided 81s into Rainmaker and Sledgehammer
• Balancing personalities, skills, and admin control
• Training gaps, ad hoc urban ranges, Pat Rogers course
• Convoy north, first casualties, and mindset shift
• April 6 movement from Government Center to Route Nova
• April 7 ambush on Sunset and rapid counter-fire
• County fair cordons, field hospitals, and caches
• Lioness teams’ role and performance under fire
• Interpreter shortages, vetting failures, and a mosque incident
• Night IED near Snake Pit and vehicle recovery
• Command at the truck, comms constraints, and control
• Writing to families, loss, and responsibility


If you like what you've heard this is a multi part episode make sure you listen to the rest of the story

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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

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We revisit Ramadi with Kevin Sakaki for part 2 and go thru what it cost in lives and sanity, and how Weapons Company Marines built tactics, SOPs, and coping tools under fire. 
There’s history in here - lost awards, messy command chains, journalists who chose safer roads - and there’s heart: the smoke pit therapy, the jokes that kept people sane, the friends who kicked down doors figuratively to drag each other back to life. These Whiskey Company Ramadi Marine’s legacy is more than a battle; it’s a blueprint for adapting under pressure and finding meaning when the mission ends.

• why Ramadi 2004 was overshadowed by Fallujah and media access
• human realities at VCPs and inside the city under siege
• leadership, rapid SOPs, and the no-extended-mourning rule
• PTSD as a normal response to abnormal duration and intensity
• overmedication, VA gaps, and better care pathways
• “cowboy” labels versus street-forged tactics that worked
• award bureaucracy and how unit credit gets lost
• brotherhood, meaning, and building a life after the “dragon”

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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

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Great conversation with Kevin Sakaki. The heart of this conversation is a ground-level look at Iraq in 2004 through the eyes of a Marine sergeant who straddled two worlds: headquarters platoon responsibilities and a rare, high-trust integration with an ODA team. His experience and resourcefulness threaded through everything; tracing how training, trust, and improvisation shaped survival in a city on fire. Blue-on-blue incidents, comms failures, and leadership moments reveal what kept people alive when luck ran thin.

• weapons training standard set by Gunny Carl Mararchi
• selection and integration with ODA... and direct action
• CQB, breaching, foreign weapons and tradecraft drills
• surreal life with ODA amid daily risk
• return to battalion and Map 3 after a KIA
• late-stage operations near the government center
• improvised armor and innovative gun mounts
• Kevin's NJP story and leadership standards under stress
• M1 Abrams Tank blue-on-blue incident
• repeated friendly fire and inter-service comms failures
• memory, loss, survivor’s guilt and moving forward

If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.

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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

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In part 2, we get more of Ramadi through Blake Pepper’s eyes: river searches, javelin shots from bridges, a Mark 19 jam under fire, and the day Conde didn’t come back. Between firefights, we find the small rituals that kept a platoon human and the long road from anger to remembrance. It’s the texture of a deployment you won’t find in an official military publication, told without bravado and without flinching.

• night patrols with face paint and bridge overwatch
• two-day river search with no sleep
• javelin engagements on a stalled car and enemy buildings
• hooch grappling, volleyball mishaps, and downtime mixtapes
• candy for kids from ammo-can boxes
• chow hall clashes, saluting in combat zones
• weapon malfunctions, lubrication, and field fixes
• Okinawa and Philippines training to rebuild the unit
• "the Blue Mile", Arlington visits, and honoring Gold Star families
• Sergeant Kenneth Conde’s leadership, loss, and the crew’s aftermath
• mental health dips, reunions, and brotherhood as lifeline

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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

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We sit down with Blake Pepper, a MAP-3 machine gunner in Ramadi. LCpl Pepper was nineteen, standing behind a .50 cal in a raw highback Humvee called Old Yeller; rolling from Kuwait into Ramadi with armor they welded themselves with gunner's view, from Easy Street to the palm groves, and a VBIED that “missed” by heartbeats. Training, trust, and small-unit leadership carry the story, along with names that still matter.

• convoy north from Kuwait and early vehicle setups
• scrounging armor, welding plates, and adapting highbacks
• April 6 QRF to Easy Street and casualty runs
• Sergeant Conde wounded yet pushing to rejoin the fight
• RPG near miss, Halal and Gentile loaded into trucks
• April 7 bounding with Golf Company near the fields
• April 10 palm grove contact and Cummings wounded
• sniper hunt in the marsh and recovered rifle
• escorting General Mattis, Oliver North filming, VBIED near miss
• Library OP fight, Mark 19 suppression, and gas can detonation
• hooch life under mortars, rockets, and dark humor
• games, golf balls across the river, and unit morale

If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story

----------------------------------------------
If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

Send us Fan Mail

Some battles make headlines; others build the leaders who carry a generation. Our continued conversation with Hector takes us from the rooftops to the hooch, tracing how a single moment under fire with a sergeant major and an M14 recalibrated his idea of leadership for the next two decades.
We talk about memorial bands that never come off. Survivor’s guilt that doesn’t fade. Early counseling, numbness on Zoloft, and the quiet fear of being labeled unfit around recruits. Hector explains why he volunteered again and again: the mission and the team felt more honest than the silence at home. That choice had a cost, but it also forged a leader determined to pass on what he’d seen done right under pressure.

• why Ramadi 2004 rarely gets credit compared with Fallujah 
• survivor’s guilt, memorial bands, and the cost of coming home 
• counseling, Zoloft, stigma, and identity after deployment 
• volunteering for more tours to find belonging and purpose 
• leadership moments that shaped future Sergeants Major 
• letters home, care packages, music, and smoke pits 
• shifting from highbacks to up-armor and how it changed risk 
• interpreters’ stories, house searches, and life inside the city 
• the “bench warmers” slight as fuel for excellence

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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

Send us Fan Mail

The map is fuzzy, the feelings are not. We sit down with Hector Fernandez to map a foggy but powerful memory of Ramadi 2004, from April 6–7 to sniper evacs and two IED blasts a week apart. The dates blur after traumatic brain injury, but the brotherhood, the field-learned tactics and the bond of 2/4 remain sharp.

• unit placement in Weapons Company 2/4 and Rainmaker 81s
• the pivot from SASO to urban combat on 6–7 April
• breaching with donut charges and stubborn doors
• highback patrols and the sniper evacuation in Sophia
• VBIED near checkpoints 295–296
• chasing triggermen during curfew
• two IED strikes, blackout, TBI and medical stops
• loss of Savage at Nova and Gypsum and aftermath
• counter‑IED training with an Australian instructor at Junction City
• why this deployment forged a lifelong bond stronger than later tours

If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.

----------------------------------------------
If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

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We share raw, funny, and hard memories with Louie "Fuey" Fuentes about raids in Ramadi, field life defined by chow and improvisation, and a harrowing detour through Balad that ends with a midnight flight back to Hurricane Point. Every detail is tactile: dust in your teeth, a McDonald’s on the horizon when the chow hall is closed, and the kind of laughter that only shows up when the stakes are unbearable. The talk closes on grief, therapy, and why telling these stories keeps people connected.

• raids, rooftop overwatch, and a high-value target capture
• locked gates, cultural misreads, and a lesson in knocking
• Bridgeport training, heavy guns, and field leadership
• the Balad hospital detour and a hitchhikers story
• chow as morale: powdered eggs, bacon, and protein mishaps
• Afghanistan later, friends lost, and honoring names over dates
• why Ramadi is underwritten in books and official histories
• mental health, therapy wins, and open-door peer support

Supplemental link to a TED talk we reference from former Weapons Company commander, Marine Officer and former midshipman Chuck Smith: https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_p_smith_how_the_us_can_address_the_tragedy_of_veteran_suicide
(Semper Fi sir, thank you for sharing your leadership and thoughts!) 

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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

Send us Fan Mail

Having a laugh with Louie "Fuey" Fuentes as we trade hooch humor for hard lessons from Ramadi, from convoy ambushes and botched handoffs to the training that saved lives when plans fell apart. Between a Humvee in a sewer and a colonel on a rooftop, we cut through some bullshit and put names with some of the moments we still carry.

• boot camp starts and variable first days
• hooch banter as stress relief - the legend of Joe
• first convoys and early IEDs
• civil affairs rollover and leadership in the sewer
• LAR night fallout and risky door-knocks
• market ambush, Bradleys, and split-second calls
• left-seat right-seat with 2/5 and “cowboy” labels
• training, MOUT drills, and muscle memory
• UFO sightings in Ramadi !! 
• compound fire, civilians, and restraint
• fog of war and first rounds under fire
• farm cordon, getting separated, and re-linking

If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.

----------------------------------------------
If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

Send us Fan Mail

In part 2, Joe walks us down some school of hard knocks education from Ramadi 2004, where platoons welded armor and learned tactics under fire, to later deployments with drones, MRAPs, and precision fires, and how those lessons shaped his leadership and training. 
From LCpl Latham to SSgt Latham: he learned counterinsurgency in real time, codified lessons, and handed a better playbook to those who followed.
Stories range from a Nokia-triggered IED and an overpowered breach, to a Javelin through a window, all grounded by humility and a focus on legacy over accolades.

• Lioness teams engaging and the tempo of constant firefights
• near misses from IEDs, RPGs, and landmines, and the cost of contact
• transition from improvised armor to MRAPs, drones, and HIMARS
• calling fires, precision targeting, and the maturation of tactics
• government center escorts, leadership presence, and media on patrol
• personal boundaries with memory, privacy, and why legacy matters
• training platoons hard to save lives and pass on hard-won lessons
• awards, recognition gaps, and valuing bonds over medals


To read an excellent book by our guest, now known as Dr. Latham, check this link: https://a.co/d/hRpn0cM

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If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ [email protected], or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM