ANOTHER FREE (half) EPISODE | A GRUNT'S LIFE SEASON 2 | VET Tv

Most Marines are under the age of 24 years old, many come from low income neighborhoods, and many of them chose the Marine Corps because they’ve dealt with some form of abuse or neglect.
The Marine infantry is an even more unique group of violent men, because we all have some desire for up close and personal violence, danger, killing, and death. Additionally, the Marine Corps instills high standards of proficiency, fitness, motivation, hygiene, and appearance.
On top of that, the Marine Corps (and Army) infantry instills huge egos in these young, aggressive, testosterone filled men.
When you put a group of men like that in a small living space with a group of Afghan soldiers who not only have lower standards across the board, but who are terrible at their jobs, and further, don’t appear to give a fuck about protecting their nation - you’re gonna get a little drama, and fists are gonna fly.
I never personally experienced a brawl on my base, but I did experience a Mexican standoff, which is almost worse.
Jamie Goldstien on the other hand, (Army grunt, co-Director, co-writer, and actor) did experience at least one brawl with the Iraqi Army, and thankfully wrote this scene.
(08:04) IED’s were the primary cause of casualties while we were there, so lots of our SOPs were intended to mitigate the IED threat. We grunts had a few hard rules in Helmand.
1 - Don’t go through doors if you don’t have to. Why? Doors have IEDs.
2 - If you see wires anywhere, there might be IEDs nearby. If you see wires on a door, there’s an IED on the door, so, don’t go through the door.
3 - If you can blow your way in, do it. There are no IEDs in holes you made yourself.
In the scene, the platoon sees a wire on a door, and immediately knows two things. 1) The door has an IED, so we’re not going through it. 2) The compound is home to either Taliban, or Taliban sympathizers, because if the homeowners didn’t place the IED themselves, they allowed the Taliban to do it.
If we think we’re entering the home of our enemy, we’re going to raise our level of aggression, and we’re gonna blow our way in.
Sadly, those wires were not connected to an IED, and the people in the home were not the enemy, but a shitty situation led to shitty circumstances, and a civilian got hurt. Further, the assaultman who placed the demo on the wall might have the civilian death on his conscience for the rest of his life, contributing to poor mental health.
It’s all a part of the clusterfuck that was Afghanistan…
(11:43)
This scene was based on a true story about Matiyes Kinker, a Marine grunt who served in the Helmand Province shortly after I did. Matiyes is also the actor playing Sgt Jax Bishop, and one of the writers of AGL 2.
In the real story, Matiyes was on a small patrol base with a group of Afghan National Army soldiers, when one of the ANA started making his buddies laugh with monkey noises and words that Matiyes didn’t understand. Matiyes yelled, “somebody get the fuckin terp, I wanna know what this piece a shit is saying.”
The terp came over, Matiyes said, “what’s this guy saying?”
The terp asked the ANA soldier in Pashtu, “what did you say to the Marine?”
The ANA soldier said something that looked condescending, Matiyes cringed. The terp said to Matiyes, “he’s just being stupid, you shouldn’t worry about him.”
Matiyes’ anger rose as he paced back and forth, “Na f$k that, tell me what he f$kin said!”
The terp was visibly uncomfortable, “he’s just a punk kid, it’s no problem.”
The ANA said one more thing that made Matiyes lose his shit, and his squad had to hold him back until the platoon commander and platoon sergeant got involved.
When the Marines and Afghans went back to their tents, Matiyes had to sit with the reality of the situation. He was in Afghanistan, risking his life to save Afghans from the Taliban, and the people he was there to help, looked at him like he was a monkey. To this very day, this hurts his soul and spirit, and he wonders how he was put into that position.
When he told me this story, I saw it as clearly as you see it on the screen now, except I asked an important question that changed the course of the show.
“What did you WANT to do to that racist?”
Matiyes’ head cocked to the side and he smiled, “I wanted to beat him to death man, F$k you think I wanted to do?”
I lit up and jumped around the room, “ok, what if we wrote that into the scene? But what if we made it NASTY, like you bum rush him, push kick him into the wall, and then pick him up and pile drive him, snapping his neck and turning him into a quadraplegic that we abuse for the rest of the show!!!??”
Matiyes and the rest of the room laughed, we hugged and I said, “that’s happening bro, just you watch, that’s happening.”
This, my friends, is how we process tragedy, and “make the best of it.”
If you want to find out what happens in the second half of the episode You gotta Subscribe! Don’t worry, we made it worth it for you!
Love and xoxo,
Donny O‘Malley