GRP 104-Geraint Jones:The Story of a British Infantry Soldier in Iraq

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GRP 104- This episode is co-hosted by the creator of The Veterans Project U.S. Army Veteran Tim Kolczak. Our guest for today is British Army combat veteran Geraint Jones. Gez served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. We took a dive into what it was like serving during the height of the Iraq war in Basra where the British military was primarily operating. Basra at the time was like the wild west and Gez shares stories of his time patrolling into some of these areas as well as the complexity of dealing with very tight rules of engagement as a British warfighter.

He shares some hilarious and tragic stories of life in Basra. We touched on several topics to include tourniquet use, politics in war, dealing with extreme heat while conducting operations, and searching for roadside bombs. This is a good one.

0:00-Intro

11:48-British Army Infantry

24:28-Basra, Iraq

43:07-Rules of engagement

54:30-Operating in Iraqi heat

1:00:38- “Orders Are Orders” checking for roadside bombs in Iraq  

1:13:50-Tourniquet use

1:20:42-Don’t mix politics and war

You can keep up with Tim Kolczak at:

www.thevetsproject.com

www.instagram.com/theveteransproject

Geraint Jones is on Instagram at:

www.instagram.com/grjbooks

Follow my co-host and my pages on social media. Links below.

Global Recon:

www.Globalrecon.net

https://www.instagram.com/igrecon

https://www.instagram.com/blackopsmatter

www.twitter.com/igrecon

https://www.facebook.com/GlobalReconPodcast/

HP Lefler:

https://www.instagram.com/4runner.freyja

Chantel Taylor:

https://www.instagram.com/mission_critical

https://www.instagram.com/altern8rv

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net

GRP 72-Raise The Black|Army Special Forces|ISOF

ITunes, or Soundcloud. Be sure to like, share, subscribe, and download the episodes. Thank you.

GRP 72-Raise The Black. On for this week's podcast are two retired Special Forces Green Berets. Bryan Myers and Loren Schofield both have multiple combat deployments into Afghanistan and Iraq. The Army Special Forces which Bryan and Loren were a part of were responsible for standing up an Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force early on in the war. ISOF (Iraqi Special Operations Forces) has contributed in a tremendous way to the fight against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and now ISIS. The ICTF (Iraqi Counter Terrorism Force) are a group of battle hardened Iraqi patriots who don't identify themselves as belonging to any particular tribe, or religious sect. They consider themselves Iraqi's and fight for their country. This is important as this region has been embroiled in religious and sectarian violence for many years. 

Raise The Black is a campaign started by Bryan and Loren to give back to the families of fallen ICTF Operators as they have been fighting constantly for over a decade. The ICTF is single handily responsible for stopping the ISIS advance on Baghdad, and they now lead the offensive to rid Iraq of the terrorist group. Here is the link to the Go Fund Me Account where you can contribute. They plan on moving away from the GoFundMe but are using it to kick start the campaign. 

https://www.gofundme.com/raise-the-black

Below is an excerpt from the podcast.

John: You guys spent a lot of time in Sadr city(Iraq) working with the ICTF. Can you share a story with the audience of your time there?

Bryan Meyers: It was a brutal time. It was decided to wall it off with these big tall Texas barriers. They wanted to limit the access to this dangerous area.  You were never going to have issues getting in. It was getting out that was the issue. This one night we went in to hit a target. We got our guy and are heading out. I'm manning a .50 cal on our Stryker at this point. An IED had gone off. I look up and I see the Abrams Tank hauling ass. It becomes apparent very quickly that we're missing a Bradley. We went from urgency to a panic. We call to an Apache Gunship. We're like hey man can you fly over Sadr and check if you see a rogue, Bradley. In the chaos, this Bradley had taken off. Just like a typical male instead of asking for directions they just kept driving. They ended up being as deep as you can get. All I can imagine is all of Sadr's army thinking this has got to be a setup. We were about to have an international incident. We linked up with the Bradley and began our exfil. We had an Abrams tank drive over one of the barriers and decided to exfil that way. The AO commander was pissed.

Raise The Black:
https://www.gofundme.com/raise-the-black

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/03/24/raise-the-black-former-u-s-special-forces-fundraise-for-the-families-of-fallen-iraqi-comrades/?utm_term=.bbe4af41435c

 
Loren Schofield: @loren_notaseal Instagram
@SpecialForces_INC Instagram
@Lorenkschofield Twitter
@spec_Forces_INC Twitter

Bryan Myers: @the_bearded_bryan Instagram
@thebeardedbryan Twitter

Global Recon:
www.globalrecon.net
IgRecon – Instagram
BlackOpsMatter- Instagram
Mission_Critical – Instagram
IgRecon- Twitter