Closing Thoughts and Book Promotion

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You have a story that I've only heard in part about chasing A Nemesis it's like a Hollywood movie story about chasing a Nemesis sniper U can you tell that story? I I'd like to hear the rest of Of course, of course. Hey everyone it's Andrew Clavan, with this week's interview with AJ Pashuti. He is a retired US. Marine former Force recon scout sniper, Marine gunner. He's done had multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He tells some of the best war stories I have ever heard from a living person. and he's now the author of Dark hse dark horse harnessing hidden potential in war and life. AJ is a pleasure to meet you and thank you for all you've done. And thanks for coming on. Thank you so much Drew, for having me on the show. I'm excited to be here. Well, I have to tell you, first of all, you've lived a life that a lot of people, a lot of guys, I think, day dream about And I'm really interested in the idea that you learn things in that life that we can use in our less exciting lives. But before I get that, I want to hear the good warar stories because you have some stories that are incredible. First, can you tell us how how did you wind up as a sniper? Well, you know, I think maybe less eventful but you know, not less impactful lives that people leave. What I wanted to be able to convey through the book itself was this idea of service and the idea of service to a greater good. And so for me, the genesis of my service came from nine hundred eleven U I was a senior in high school. I was only sixteen years old I'm from Northern California. I know you went to school in Berkeley, so I'm about thirty minutes south of Berkeley. And as you know, the area itself, it's not the most I would say militaristic kind of area. you know, joining the military isn't the thing that everybody does Yeah in the area. I'm being very kind I was going say In Berkeley, you're lucky they didn't surround you did, right? It's u But for me, was I was raised with this idea of service to the country. So my father's an immigrant from Italy. My mother was a plane air pastel painter And I was raised through the Boy Scouts. And for me, it service felt like the next right step. But I was a young kid who didn't really have an idea of where he wanted to go And the towers fell and I was just absolutely compelled. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know where I was going to go, but I knew that I wanted to raise my hand and serve the country that I was told and raised to love and kind of give back to that And then very quickly right after I graduated high school, ended up in, you know, Marine Corps boot camp and then started this kind of journey. But You know, one of the things that we write a lot through the book is this idea of self doubt, of self efficacy. I struggled with that as a kid a ton. you know, and what I like to say is even now as an adult, I still struggle with that at times And I wanted to show people the realities of what it's like of just being a person who's constantly trying to strive more and finding that failure is offtten the first step of success. Yeah. That's a tough lesson to learn, I think any in any field. too become a sniper though, you have to separate yourself from the rest and take that training, right? I mean, is that is that something in and of itself that that builds that kind of confidence You know, yes, it's a kind of a learned response, I think over time. So when I wanted when I had identified that I wanted to be a sniper, the first time I'd ever actually seen marine snipers was when I was in combat in two thousand three during the initial invasion And you know, I've told these stories where I'm like tripping over myself, right? And I jam my weapon into the mud, right? And like there's bullets and things and chaos going around. and I'm like, you know, like Mr. Bean goes to war, right? I'm like trying to figure my gun out, right? You know? And then I see these two snipers I mean, they just look like right out of a movie and they're just like predators. like they've got their prey in in, you know, in eye and they're just hunting and they're like gliding across the battlefield. And I remember through all of the chaos, I have this moment where I'm like Who are those people, right? And they go and what they do is part of the things that we teach snipers is that they are to take you know, tactical assets off the battlefield. And what they were doing was they were targeting an RPG gunner that was, you know causing a lot of chaos on our side And so that clarity that they had, the ability to be able to see through a lot of the noise first attracted me to wanting to do that And so, you know, to answer your question directly, I when I got back from, you know, OIF one I was still eighteen years old and I had this idea that I wanted to become a sniper. But I was like a buck thirty, you know, five, ten, right? You know, like it's not the quintessential like marine sniper kind of build And so I had this other marine, you know, his name is gun at the time, Gunnery Sergeant Ricky Jackson. Who was, you know, born of poverty, born in the south, you know, marines, marine. And he was the first person in my career not to laugh at my aspirations. And for the next six months, what he did is him and his wife, you know, kind of like beat me into shape, right you know and got me ready to take what's called a sniper indox And so you take this indDoc and it's this kind of week long gut check to kind of weed people out Um And it's not always looking necessarily for strength, it's looking for perseverance. And so I was able to make it through that. And then I entered into sniper training inside of a sniper platoon And now for listeners, I wanted to be able to clarify, there's a difference between being what's called a pig in a sniper platoon. So a sniper in training and a hog, which is someone who has gone to the formal Marine Scout sniper school and graduated. So pigs and hogs are very different. So I was a pig And then we entered into the Battle of Fallujia as a pig and a sniper pattoon. So You know, you've written this book. course harnessing hidden potential in war and life You're in a sniper plalloon and the Battle of Fallugia was a true battle. I mean, it was one of the historic battles and one of the great great battles, I think in marine history really. You must have to make sitting there as a sniper, you must have to make decisions of life and death decisions. are're going to continue to be with you for the rest of your life Can you explain how that thought process works? I mean, is that something you're trained for or that something you can only learn in the field Really good question and really getting to the root of it, you know So the answer is yes and no. So there's moments in time where what I've told people before, and one of the things that I'm kind of loudest on is that clarity is the first casualty in combat You know, pop culture, books, movies will tell people that, you know, a bad guy, you know, will stand up and like, you know, wave his arms at you, right? You know, like they don't want to die either, right? And so they, you know, they work in the shadows just as much as we do The thing that really helped with the mentors that I had and a lot of the training inside of the Marine Corps honor, courage and commitment, thoseose are values, those tenets to us should carry into every conversation, every experience, every piece of dialogue that we have. And so we wanted to keep our aronmor clean. When we're in, you know, combat, U there is a natural, you know, inclination to want to be able to protect your brothers and sisters as best and as most efficiently as possible But you have to maintain a set of values while you're there. And I've found that maintaining a moral north, right and trying to maintain that moral north when clarity falls away is the thing that can make you decide between pulling the trigger or not And you know, I've discussed, you know, openly, and I think to give a little bit more context as to what a service member experiences, I've openly talked about mistakes that I've made. when I you know whether it be youthful naivete, whether it be the chaos of combat, have pulled a trigger one when I maybe shouldn't have or maybe should given a little bit more time But what I wanted to do and what I've what I've trained a number of young Marines before they step onto their first, you know combat patrol is make sure that you make a decision, any decisions you make, you will have to live with for the rest of your life And keep your honor clean because sometimes it's the only thing that we have that separates us from our enemy You know That is a fascinating answer. That is a really interesting answer. I have to dig down on that just a little bit because course just just a really interesting answer. You want to You want to have a moral viewpoint before you get to the battlefield. I mean, is that a fair? V very much. So can you describe a little bit of that moral viewpoint? I mean, I know you're a man of faith, I believe as I am. I mean, is that where that comes from? or Where do you find? So I do have a, you know, a belief in a higher power and I have What I believe in is America. and I believe in what we, you know, the beacon on the hill, right? You know, and I don't want to throw around terms to be performative. That's the word. I don't want to be performative in some of the terminology. You know, when we get sent to war We are sent, so war and conflict is an avenue of diplomacy, right? I believe it should be one of the forms of diplomacy that is used sparingly and used as a last resort becausecause at the end of the day, those are young men and women that are going forth and having to step into very, very complex situations So maintaining that value set that they instill us inside of them Rinkor. You know, also the Souts, I think was a big thing for me. And then this idea that we are going forward to help carry American influences And part of what we needed to do is specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan was we wanted to be able to win the hearts and minds. And the way that we did that was by being you, I would say, efficient with our actions when we needed to be, almost binary at times, good guy versus bad guy, but then being able to release the trigger and come off of that weapon system when somebody didn't meet all the criteria itself Because at the end of the day, Infantry means child soldier. whoo we are actually sending into these conflict zones, right are young men and women before you know, eighteen years old, right, before their prefrontal cortexes developed, right? So there's a lot of higher level thought that comes from, you, A hindsight and B experience, you know over time But we put them in these scenarios that do not fit the binary checklist of rules of engagement. And oftentimes You know, onene of the lines that I write in the books, specifically with my time in Afghanistan, was that we fought in Afghanistan with weapons in our hands and rulebooks in our pockets. So our enemy is just as attuned to our rules of engagement as we are. And they often use those against us. And it's the decision point, the thing that makes us different as American service members is our ability to understand that, yes, the enemy may be maneuvering against us or they may be using You know, women and children as human shields, but We are not that type of military. We are not the type of military that is going to mow those people down for a strategic objective. We are willing to sacrifice ourselves and who we are without giving up our values. So you went from being But a pig, a hwog, you you went from being a trainee to being a leader of men, and this is what your book, Dark Horse is about How do you make that transition? Where is the point when you go from I have no idea what I'm doing to I can show other people how to do this Well, first of all, I'm not sure I'm really at the point where I know I don't know if anybody's at point, you know so The you know, this idea for us is what combat strips away and what I really tried to write with Dark Horse was, listen, you and I exist in the world, right? We see division We see Vitriol. We see Americans who are looking at each other with confusion, sometimes vitriol I wanted to write a book that got to a deeper meaning of that. What combat does for us is combat strips away the illusion that any one of us get there alone. No single objective in combat is achieved by a lonely person. It is always a team And so when we're working together as a unit, as an organization, we start to be able to gain momentum together and I start to build strength from those around me For me, I had multiple people throughout my life who fundamentally affected the trajectory of my life by seeing something in me and helping to carry the weight, whether it be physically, emotionally, or psychologically before I could carry the weight myself The lessons that I hope people take from Dark Horse. I wrote Dark Horse with one purpose in mind when I sat and was doing like the publisher dance, right? And we're you know interviewing my opening line with the publisher that we ended up working with, which is Harper Collins, they said, So what do you want to do with Dark Horse? And I said I want to change the world I want to give people a different look at America, a different look at service When I recognize that people have made me better than I ever thought I could be, the responsibility of anybody who has succeeded through that pathway, their first responsibility is to turn around and help the next person up the ladder. And so that's what I conveyed through the entirety of the book. 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Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing I have to ask you this because while you were getting shot at overseas, I was working in Hollywood for my sins. And I felt I was actually there during what I feel is probably the most disgraceful moment Hollywood ever went through, which is saying a lot, which was that they started to turn out movies about how we were the bad guys in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while you guys were in the field U this this is how I lost my Hollywood career was you know arguing against this that You know, it's one thing. Anybody can be against the war. It's America, you can believe whatever you want Anybody can make a movie against war War is a bad thing. It's a horrible thing. But while the guys are in the field Either be supportive or keep your mouth shut. That's the way it seemed to me Did the reaction at home, did that ever get in your head And did you have to work your focus on the fact that you're at the tip of the spear of a great country. and to keep that project that to the people you were leading Very much so You know, I'll tell you a story There was a produc and I actually mention this in the book. It is a story about a very close friend of mine. His name was staff Sergeant Raymond Plower And Staff Sergeant Raymond Plower was a sniper when I was a sniper in training And he the way that I describe him in the book was, you know, very kind, but very big eared, right? So he had these really, really, really big, you know, protruding ears, a really nice guy, right? kindind of soft spoken And he was from a place called Lake Orien, Michigan And Ray was featured in a documentary by a producer of whom I will rem remain nameless in this, but what he did and what his team did was approach the Marine Corps and say that they were filming a documentary surroundingper highigh school students you know options after high school, and one of them being the Marine Corps And so they followed a marine recruiting team around. And so Ray was one of the nicest men I'd ever met in my entire life. And once he got to know you, he would open up his entire heart Well, Ray was on recruiting duty because what he had done was there was a family member of his that needed a kidney and was going to die if he didn't get a kidney. And Ray was a donor and a match. And so instead of Getting out of the Marine Corps, what the Marine Corps allowed Ray to do was take a non combat role for two years as a Marine recruiter And he gave his kidney to his family member and stayed on recruiting duty That recruiting team filmed Ray in you know, high schools and malls. And the way that they portrayed Ray was as this they vilified him, as this person who was preying on the weak or praying on the lower class and trying to sell them on a war that was going to exploit them And that really couldn't have been further from the truth Um and that was a shame that Ray carried to, you know, carried with him until the day that he died. And he died not in Fallusia with me. You know, beforefore we went to Falluia, he made a promise to my mother. My mom is like this tall, four foot eleven, right the nicest person in the entire world. He made a promise to my mom to my mom that he would bring me home safe. And he did And the next deployment, a week before we got home from that deployment, he was struck by an IED in his vehicle and he was killed almost instantaneously But with that, he went to the grave with a shame that, you know, and the burden of that shame that he had no responsibility to bear. and I wrote about that because when people , I get it. peopleeople have their views of war. I have my own views of war U and my own views of conflict in American foreign policy. But the thing that we cannot attack is the young Americans, the service members that go forward, because for us Politics goes out the window. I mean, I was in Fallusia in two thousand four, obbviously it's an election year. So in between firefights, we're talking about politics. and people are interested in my politics because I was from Northern California and they wanted to know what people in Northern California thought about the war, right And so The politics for us go is right out the window once that first bullet snaps by your head and it always comes down to the marine to your left and to your right. And I wrote stories about that You know, my friend described the book to me, very close colleague, you know, I said to him I didn't want to write a book about politics. and he goes, no, AJ. Your book is deeply deeply political It's non partartisan We go through the idea of policymakers who brought us to a conflict and then who tried to run the conflict or the wars from back in Washington while not letting American service members do the thing that they were sent there to do. And so again, a lot of this war was fought with a rifle in our hand and a rulebook in our pocket, which kind of gets in the way of some of the objectives that we're trying to fight. But to answer your question It was tough. It was tough to be able to exist in America that was naturally divided as they should have been and as they could have been and is their right to do so But attacking American service members, that's the place where I start to see red, and I start to be able to defend those servus members because you know, the abdication of responsibility towards American service members is something I will not I will not accept. Yeah. was it was bad. It was bad a bad moment. You have a story that I've only heard in part Chasing A Nemesis it's like a Hollywood movie story about chasing a Nemesis sniper U can you tell that story? and I'd like to hear the the rest of Of course, of course. So I think the first thing that I'll answer to that is why you're only hearing about the story now You know, for us, marine culture is not about self aggrandisement. Marine culture is never the I above the W. It is always the team. It is always the core. It is always the marine to your left and to your right And so You know, I'll give you the punchlinees. It's kind of like a Tarantino film. I'll give you the punchline before I give you the story is I never took credit for killing Juba because the credit never felt like mine to claim I may have pulled the trigger on Juba, but I wasn't the one to kill him We were. The Marine Corps was, you know, the United States was, it was a team effort to give the backstory and why I decided to step forward was because There are actually three parts to the story behind, you know, Juba. In two thousand four, a Marine sniper team was operating in Ramadi and were unfortunately, they were ambushed and they were killed. And when the four Marines were killed, with them went a Marine sniper rifle So from two thousand four, until two thousand six We called these Juba videos. what Juba would do in a number of You know, I know there were spells of snipers working in Iraq at the time frrame, but what they would do was they would videotape their exploits. They would videotape hunting American service members and taking shots on American service members and then uploading them to Al Jazeera and Ogarish and putting them all over the internet. Well, marine snipers have a saying that says, you know, , you know, kill one, terrorize a thousand. Well, what Jubin did was he took it a step further killed one, terrorized a thousand. he uploaded those videos to the internet and terrorized millions. And so those were, you know, they were what we called ghost stories passed around on USB drives. So the first part of the story is how we lost the rifle. The second part of the story is what that rifle did in enemy hands. Juba was using an American sniper rifle to hunt and kill Americans for two years. And our estimates, you know, is that he killed upwards of one hundred forty Americans And this was a problem that the United States couldn't solve I'm an advocate for technology in any space that we need, but I'm not an advocate for technology over human beings. And so in Iraq, what we did was We tried every technological gizmo that we could to try to stop Juba But at the end of the day, what it took was bringing another hunter to hunt hunter And so it took a sniper to hunt another sniper. And so for months My sniper team and I hunted Juba. And the way that we did that was we sat and we watched every single Jupa video ever created. And we watched hundreds of Americans die Um, you know, through the book, The book is nonfiction, right? These are all stories that actually happened the way that they happened There are there is one portion of the book that would be classified as fiction. And it's when we're introducing, it's a segment on what I call the green Beret. And it is the last moments of an American's life after they've been shot and are ultimately, you know, succumbing to their wounds from Juba That moment isn't actually one single service member. I would never want to profit, glorify, or paint a light around an American service member losing their life. That story is an amalgamation of all of the stories of all of the videos that we watch But what we said during the book was through cigarettte smoke and contemplation, we sat and watched every Juba video Because what he did was his hubris was the thing that did him in. When we watch those videos as another sniper, we picked those things apart to figure out his modus operandi, how he set up, how he established and where he engaged from And then through a series of pretty fortunate events and pretty bold commanders We briefed a mission to set up a trap for Juba U and we wanted to use what we would consider the absence of marines as bait And so we created a gap in our lines for Juba to enter into while snipers, myself and another team, were covering that gap unbeknownst to us and through a little bit of You know, whether it be luck or a higher power or whatever it may be, a Marine patrol entered into the trap. So they walked into the trap that we had set And it was not a good place for them to be because we're hunting IED emlacers, we're hunting Juba and now a prey, you know element wanders into this standoff And ultimately what happens is Juba, unbeknownst to me, is across the street in what we call a vehicle hide site. So they werere using a car as a hideite And they were set up, established and were going to kill a squad leader friend of mine named Kyle Burton And as I go through, you know, I'm sitting in my position and we're entering into this odd, like almost like a three way standoff. You have Juba at one end of the street. you've got me on another side of the street in an urban hide, and you've got Sergeant Burton in the middle who is going to get killed by Juba. But Juba makes a mistake. He has his Sony handy cam is sitting on the ledge of the vehicle. The thing that did him in was his hubris I never saw a sniper rifle. I saw a Sony handy camp So his desire put to put his exploits onto the world or to give them to the world were the reason that I keyed in on that glare I keyed in on the glare, zoomed my scope in, and saw this Sony handicam and instantly knew that something was about to happen I radio to the squad immediately to button up behind cover and at that point And what happens is Juba then realizes something is wrong his shot goes away. But at this point I still have yet to see a human inside of the vehicle. All I have is this camera Our rules of engagement, especially in Iraq at that time frrame We're not necessarily restrictive, but again, we're trying to be a moral army. We're not trying to blow random things up or shoot indiscriminately. So I have to wait for more. I have to identify that there's actually a human being in this vehicle. And then eventually what happens is I mean, it felt like seven years, right? As I'm standing here, you know, I hear the track gurgling in front of me. I see a Sony handicam I have, you know u America sorry, I have, you know, Copenhagen long cut, you know, in my mouth. It's a million degrees outside, you know, my mouth dries up and I'm and I'm sitting here waiting for some sort of movement But what happens was Juba's shot went away when Kyle Burton closed the hatch and protected himself. And he gets frustrated and now he knows something is wrong. But he doesn't have the patience of a Marine sniper and he waits and gives up on waiting and moves his hand forward turnurn the Sony handicam off. At that moment, I see a hand in the vehicle. I recognize that there's a person inside of it. I have checked all of my boxes for positive ID and positive intent And I take my shot. I take a shot right above the Sony handandicam to try to break the glass inside of the back of this vehicle, and I send two more shots immediately through it. But I don't actually have again, not like the movies. I don't have they don't raise their hand and Im like, you got me, right? You know? What had happened unbeknownst to me wasas Juba was actually looking through the viewfinder on the camera And the round came through the top of his forehead and out of the bottom of his mouth, killing him instantly But what Juba did was he operated just like snipers do. He operated with a spotter And that spotter was actually sitting at a chai shop ty meters a hundred meters from this location. That spotter hears the report three rounds from an M forty series sniper rifle, stands up from his chai shop, walks towards the vehicle you know, wiping the breadcrumbs from his, you know, ultimately his last meal and walks towards the vehicle with this air of like nonchalance, like this arrogance, right? There They were running the same mission they had done literally hundreds of times And he gets to the vehicle. Once he touches the vehicle, he crosses the threshold to be a military combatant for us We engage that target and then put him down before the Marine Rifle squad is able to come around the corner and you know provide security to the situation. I saw something that looked like a sniper rifle, but I didn't have positive ID onlyn until that squad got to the vehicle itself Did they see the sniper rifle and hold the sniper rifle in the air for me as I'm looking over their shoulder And I recognize it immediately M forty series sniper rifle, McMillan stock, Remington Short action, and had a different scope on it. But I have them read the first four digits of the serial number me And our Marine sniper rifles have very similar serial numbers. And once they read Remington seven hundred and the first four digits of that serial number, I knew it was two four or Segmatine fourth Marininees sniper rifle The only bad part of this story which is a really big win for everybody. But the only bad part of the story was when we did a, you know, an intelligence analysis of the Sony handicamp at the end of the we go back to base and we're you know, now safe and everything like that Juba and I were looking directly at one another I was in an urban hide and he couldn't see my position. And the video was rolling right up until the moment where he goes and he turns his he brings his hand forward and turns the camera off If he had not done that, A I wouldn't have seen him, but we would have had our own form of ajuba video. It would have beena a Juba video from the perspective of getting killed by a marine sniper. That was our only thing that we missed from that. But all of that to say, we removed a strategic asset from the battlefield The National Museum of the Marine Corps holds that in their new display, the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, they have that on display currently that people can go and see just like what I have been you bred and trained to do in the Marine Corps, my name is nowhere near that rifle because the rifle and that kill was not mine to claim We wanted to give the credit back to the service, back to the team and back to the Marine Corps so that all of us could share in that win itself That is That is an incredible story. I did not want to interrupt with a single moment. That was just a great great story.. But we are now out of time. AJ Pashutti, the book is Dark Horse harnessing hidden potential in war and life. Terrific interview. It was a real pleasure to meet you and to talk to you. and I just that's an amazing story. an amazing story. Thank you very much. I do appreciate the time, Drew. And if anyone wants to pick up Dark horse, it's anywhere books are sold I also did the audioobook as well. Harper Collins was fantastic and allowed me to do so So you'll hear me laugh at myself, chuckle, you'll even hear me, you cry and break down as I'm reading some pretty harrowing stories. I will make sure that we get you a copy of the book. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. It's great to meet you My pleasure. Have a great on, sir. You too. Well, I don't know about you guys, but I was just riveted by that story. J an unbelievable war story. And again, it's AJ Pasuti. It's P A S C I U T I. and the book is Dark Horse, one word, Dark Horse harnessing hidden potential in war and life Come on over to the Andrew Clain Show on Friday. I will be there and I hope to see you there as well Let me tell you the secret of how to look like you know what you're doing. Use mushrooms, Tssam and eggs, noodles. Bom, it's delicious. It's not magic. It's mushrooms. 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