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Today we have a brutally honest conversation with Mike Bundeson, a Hospitalman/E-3 Corpsman during Ramadi 2004, to trace how combat medicine, gear, and mindset evolved under fire. From raiding a pharmacy before the flight to running tourniquets on the dam road after an IED strike. A freshly minted Navy corpsman steps off a packed C‑130 into Ramadi and learns to fight with a rifle in the stack while keeping Marines alive under relentless pressure.
We walk through the real decisions Corpsman face via a dam road IED story in harrowing detail - tourniquets high and tight, a blind casualty still speaking, a sprint down the slope to evac - and the surreal moment of a medical misstep that could have upended everything. 

• joining as a boot Corpsman and volunteering for Iraq
• building a field loadout beyond the basic med kit
• the C‑130 breakdown and mid‑air gastro outbreak
• packing trucks, memorizing bags, working in the dark
• improvising care with MRE heaters and ratchet straps
• new airway tools and chitosan hemostatics
• combat triage vs civilian EMT mindset
• mental rehearsal and staying outwardly calm
• rifles for Corpsmen and learning CQB in country
• the dam road IED: treatment, stretcher run, evacuation
• training Marines to save lives under fire
• later tours, advisory work and returning to Ramadi

** Warning - These episodes discuss traumatic injuries in graphic detail **

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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Our continued conversation with Dave Dobb pulls you straight into Ramadi 2004. A plywood roof full of bullet holes. A windshield that wasn’t ballistic.  Buzz Lightyear “earning” a Purple Heart. Dave relives the ambush on the 7th, the massive IED on the 12th, and the aftermath that forced immediate security, fast decisions, and the unglamorous work of keeping everyone alive while expecting the next hit.

• Ambush on the 7th and the massive IED on the 12th
• Triage decisions, perimeter security, and second-blast risk
• Informal After Action Reports shaping tactics, routes, and OPs
• Vehicle overload, improvised armor, and broken transmissions
• The log train fiasco and friction with 2/5 during turnover
• Driving urgency, leadership presence, and command culture
• “Bearded ladies” standby order, one-night relief, reinstatement
• Rotation rhythm, radios, and scarce downtime
• Coming home, recruiting duty perspective, and hearing-loss appeals
• Awards process challenges and Savage’s posthumous recognition

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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 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

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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

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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.

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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 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