Episode 527 Joseph Fontenot From Musician to Soldier and the Invisible Wounds After War Transcript

This transcript is from episode 527 with guest Joseph Fontenot.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Joseph Fontenot left behind a life touring with rock bands for the uncertainty of the army. The missions he encountered were nothing like he expected, and the challenges afterward were even tougher. He doesn’t offer polished answers or motivational speeches in this episode, but he talks about his stories from his deployments and the hidden struggles.

He like. A lot of veterans carry home. Before we get into this episode, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something deeply important to our community. The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians impacted by the global war on terrorism.

This memorial will serve as both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you want to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get [00:01:00] into today’s episode.

Scott DeLuzio: Hey Joseph, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here. It’s really an honor to have you here, uh, on the show today.

Joseph Fontenot: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. Hey, so before we get into episode, really, let’s kind of take a step back. Tell me a little bit about yourself kinda your background. I know you were a successful musician. You, you left that career to join the. Army. How did that transition take place? Uh, kind of tell us about a little bit about that career and, and how you decided to move on, move on from there and, and get into the Army.

Joseph Fontenot: I

am from south Louisiana. I. Born and bred not from New Orleans, from actual South [00:02:00] Louisiana, where uh, like Bobby Boucher kinda accents from. Uh, a lot

of my friends,

talk very heavy Cajun French.

Scott DeLuzio: The Cajun,

Joseph Fontenot: uh. There’s, uh, only a couple of bands that

come from down the Bayou

where I’m from. Uh, there’s a lot of bands that made it outta New Orleans. Uh, not many bands made it out from like down the Bayou. Conveniently one of the bands that I was in, I was able to, um. Gain some notoriety. And, um,

Scott DeLuzio: And uh,

Joseph Fontenot: so, I was, I

was lucky enough to be part of

that. And

Scott DeLuzio: to

Joseph Fontenot: I, I left

Louisiana sometime around 97, 98 I guess, um, after our bass player Dy got killed, uh, by drunk driver and, um. Moved over to, uh, [00:03:00] Dallas. Played in a couple of bands there, played in a band called Prophecy. Played in a band called Devour and then ended up in a band called Jackknife, um, which I was really proud of. Jackknife was more along the lines of bands like, um, I don’t know. All that remains. Um, stuff like that.

Uh, Jamie Josta from Hatebreed mastered our, uh, our demo. Uh, so that was pretty, pretty cool for

us. Uh, but then we ended up getting, um, we ended up

getting, signed by Paul Bassmans label.

And at the time he, it was a startup label that he was working on. He was, uh, he was the, um. Kind of like the mastermind behind the Damage Plan band that the guys from Pantera were working with,

uh, dime Bag and

Vinny. Uh, so

we were kind of like his startup band that he

was working with for for that label. And, um, [00:04:00] unfortunately we were

on tour when our a and r representative,

Chris Paluska, who was Damage Plant’s tour manager, uh, was also shot. So that threw a big

wrench in the whole music thing for

us. Um, but Chris Paul wanted us to keep touring.

So we kept, we kept

touring

Scott DeLuzio: to tour,

Joseph Fontenot: and, um, we were on tour with MOD in crisis. And during that tour came across a young man in, in New York. He was probably in a National Guard unit. Probably around 1920, somewhere around that, uh, went up to him, said, thank you for serving our country. And, uh, he said, no need to say

thank you.

I do what I do for my family. I, at the time I was probably around 30, 29, 30

years old.

Scott DeLuzio: 30.

Joseph Fontenot: And, um, at that I just decided I was just [00:05:00] like this, this kid’s got more. Direction in his life than I do. And, um, I’m gonna join the Army. And, uh, I came home and, uh, I called Paul and, and said, Hey, I’m, I’m gonna join the Army. And, uh, he was like, are you, are you insane? Do you not see what’s going on in the world right now? And, uh, and, uh, I, I said, uh, I said, yeah, yeah, I, I see what’s going on. But, um. Um, but I’m gonna, I’m, I’m, well, I said I’m, I’m gonna enlist is what I said. Because initially I was gonna join the na en I was gonna join the Navy. But, but the Navy said I had too many tattoos. So I wasn’t able to join the Navy. And conveniently, uh, the Army recruiting station was next door. So, uh, you know, here I am.

Scott DeLuzio: So it was second best for you then, I guess?

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah,

it was, it was, it was[00:06:00]

it was the uh, it was the second, second pick.

Scott DeLuzio: second choice. Yeah. So like around what time was this? Like what, what year was this

Joseph Fontenot: So it, I, I enlisted in 2000.

Technically I enlisted at the end of

2005 and I shipped January,

2006. Scott DeLuzio: Okay. Yeah. So yeah, stuff was definitely kicking off around then. That’s around the same time that I enlisted as well. And, and so, you know, I, I know the message that was sent to us when we were in basic training was, it’s not a matter of.

If you’re gonna be deployed, it’s a matter of when you’re gonna be deployed. It, it was pretty much a guarantee you know, depending on what your MOS was, that you’re probably gonna be deployed at some point.

Um, just, just a matter of when that, that happens to be. So,

um, that was the message I got drilled into us.

Joseph Fontenot: We, we had, uh, when they were handing us out our, our assignments for our first duty stations, there was, I remember there,

was this

kid and, uh, [00:07:00] his first duty ti duty station was gonna be Hawaii, and he was all excited. That he was going to Hawaii and the drill sergeant, uh, said, uh, hey, uh, hey kid. So you’re excited you’re going to Hawaii? And uh, kid was like, uh, yes, drill sergeant. I’m like super excited. And he was like, okay. He was like, lemme break this down for you. He was like, uh, what’s in Hawaii? And kid was like, sand. And he was like, what’s in the desert? And he was like, sand. He was like, congratulations, you got a one way ticket to Iraq. So,

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Um, yeah, it, it’s yeah, you, you might, you might get to Hawaii, you might be there for. A little bit, but yeah, you’re probably gonna be deployed, I guess, at some point. Right. So,

uh, so you, you ended up, uh, deploying yourself as well to Iraq and Afghanistan during your, your enlistment.

Tell us about some of those experiences, uh, from those deployments to, you know, both Iraq and [00:08:00] Afghanistan, kind of what what took place there and, and how did that kinda shape your view of what’s going on in the world?

Joseph Fontenot: So I, I deployed later in Iraq, um, because I had my first ACL surgery right when the guys deployed. Uh, so my first ACL surgery would’ve been around October timeframe, and they deployed in a 15 month deployment. So, um, that would’ve been their. Uh, that’s, that’s pretty much when their, their sp time was when they, they left Fort Campbell and, um, when they left I had my, my first

surgery and

I ended up,

I think, going to meet

them right around January.

’cause I rushed my recovery to go and meet

them, uh, in Iraq. We were stationed at camp Victory. Um, most of our patrols were around route [00:09:00] Steelers and, um, the, the area that we were patrolling was more or less, it was, it was a coin mission. Um, it wasn’t like in sold city. But we, we we inherited the Abu market right after. The incident that happened in the Abu grave market. So there, there was, there was no love lost for the Americans in the Abu grave market.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that, that was probably a real tough time to be there, right?

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah, when we first got there

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, when we first

Joseph Fontenot: I, if I remember correctly, it wasn’t long after we got there. Sergeant McCort Grill’s truck. Had a gasoline bomb thrown inside the, the gunner’s turret. So we didn’t have like a whole lot of IEDs, they didn’t [00:10:00] have like a whole lot of catastrophic events that happened during the deployment. Like I said, it was, it was mainly they were there to win hearts and minds. They were there to try and win back to the population. But. Uh, for the most part, it was a complete opposite of everything that happened in Afghanistan. We were there, uh, doing like, ve vet, like vex. So the, the Iraqis that had come to the United States to get their degrees in veterinary they were. Employing them to try and, um, to, to, I guess, give the shots to a lot of the animals that were there to help the population have healthier animals so [00:11:00] they can, you know, have a healthier living environment, which I’m sure that played

into a bigger

Scott DeLuzio: animals? Yeah. Were those animals, uh, primarily the like, like farm type animals? like

like is that what, what they’re, they’re

looking at there?

Joseph Fontenot: yeah, They were looking, it

was,

it was, we would, we would round up like sheep, like,

you would see farmers coming from miles and miles and miles with sheep and cows. It was like big animals. It wasn’t like,

chickens. It was big animals.

Scott DeLuzio: mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We, when we were in Afghanistan, there was a, a time, it, it didn’t happen often, but it, it rained and it was like downpour rain. It just dumped on us, uh, on the whole area. And we had some some folks come to our base and come to ask for our help with some of their animals.[00:12:00]

And like, we didn’t have any veterinarians. We didn’t have any like. Doctors that can help them. Uh, and we didn’t really know like what it was that they were even looking for. And so we went to go see like, what can we do? They, they just kept telling us that they’re, that the animals were stuck and we didn’t know, like really, we didn’t have a good inter interpretation of what it was that they were trying to tell us.

And so we went to go check it out, I guess. And the way the water rushed into this area, there’s this small like. Island that that was created and all this water was rushing around them and on that island were probably 10 cows that they had. And there was no way that they could have gotten their cows

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah.

Scott DeLuzio: Without, um, them drowning basically. And, and, you know,

there really wasn’t much that we could do for them either. I mean, there, you know, um, we didn’t, we didn’t have any assets or equipment that we were able to, uh, handle that we’re a, you know, a light infantry unit. And I mean, we had basically the same amount of resources that they had available.

So honestly, not [00:13:00] much we can do. But, but I get that. I, the reason why I bring that up is because like that, that does happen. It’s a very important part of their their existence is having having those animals available to them and, uh, you know,

whether it’s for. You know, for, for the meat or for you know, milk and, and things like that, that, that come from these animals like, it, it’s an important thing to them.

And so, you know, they they look to us to try to help in any way that we can. Unfortunately, we weren’t really, really able to do much to, to help them. But you know, in, in your case it seems like you guys were able to provide some, some help and probably went over some hearts and minds through that, that assistance.

Right? I.

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah, there, there’s actually some, some videos

on YouTube from when we were in Iraq, uh, I think it was like the, it’s under like the ghost riders or something like that. And there’s, if I’m not mistaken, on one of the videos specialist Pullman is. Wrestling, a a, [00:14:00] a steer to the ground in full battle rattle. And so they could come in and and give it its shots and that’s,

Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

Joseph Fontenot: yeah. Pretty impressive stuff.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely not stuff that the recruiter tells you about when you go to sign up. Like what, what is it that you’re

gonna do? You know, you, you, you

think about the kicking in the doors and shooting the bad guys. You think of those things, but not, not wrestling cattle, you know. Um, but, um, so.

Throughout your deployments you know, towards the end of all, all that I, I guess you sustained some injuries during, during, uh, the, these deployments, right? Like, kind of what, what took place, uh, during all that and, you know, how did the recovery look after, after those injuries?

Joseph Fontenot: So most of my injuries, were not like the, the typical injuries that you would expect, like from from like a deployment. [00:15:00] Like it wasn’t like purple heart type injuries. Most of my stuff was like post-traumatic stress type stuff. Um, I had my ear eardrum blown out from

an IED. So that’s, that’s the injuries that I had. You know, I, I, I look at.

Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

Joseph Fontenot: You know, my, my, my close friends like, uh, Sergeant Casey, who’s a, a single leg amputee. Like, that’s, that’s, I think that’s more of what the population think of when they think of like what kind of injuries we come home with. But as, as far as my injuries, it, it wasn’t like that, like my injuries.

Like I came home, uh, from Iraq with a ruptured A-C-O-M-C-O and, and, and, um, meniscus from being on a night patrol, stepping in a hole and just,

Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Fontenot: tearing everything up and then needing to have everything fixed again. And that just, you know, that’s just wear and tear on, on a, on a patrol. But it, you

know, it’s [00:16:00] not.

Scott DeLuzio: that, that happens, you know.

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it wasn’t, wasn’t like, um, it wasn’t from a, a, a gun, a a gun fight. So, yeah, I, I, would say, I would say, it was definitely, definitely a different kind of injury.

Scott DeLuzio: I would say it’s definitely, so after your recuperate recuperation period, from that, after you, you went through, you know, whatever medical stuff you had to go through were you. Kind of at a crossroads, like, what do I get out, do I continue staying in the, the Army?

Like what, were you kind of at that crossroads or,

uh, was the thought process there?

Joseph Fontenot: No. So I,

Like, I, I never wanted to get out. So I. I had my surgery after my surgery. Um, I knew that we were gonna be going to Afghanistan and like my focus was 100% get better, go [00:17:00] to Afghanistan. I got put in the training

room and,

Scott DeLuzio: I got

Joseph Fontenot: uh,

Scott DeLuzio: and,

Joseph Fontenot: it’s, it’s, it’s. It’s a, it’s a funny story that’s kind of in the book, kind of not in the book because case mate felt like it was kind of

redundant, so they wanted to kind of like cut it out. of The book

Uh, but I, I’ll give, I’ll give kudos to, uh, Sergeant, Sergeant David Parker on this one and Sergeant Stout on this one. So I was in the training room

because I was recovering from. My ACL surgery and I was holding a UFC fight at my house and um, and we were all having a couple of drinks or whatever the case is like happens and, uh, Sergeant Stout said, uh, I bet you won’t go up to

FAU And, ask him if he likes likes UFC or knows anything about the UFC. So. Sure enough he did. He came up to me and he said, uh, he said, Hey, Fontano, you know anything about the [00:18:00] UFC? And I said, yeah, I know a little bit about it because I had been through Combatives one and you know, I had gone to Combatives two and you know, I like watching UFC, so like, I’m no expert, but I know enough to get my ass whipped. But he is like, yeah, I bet you do. He was like, yeah, I bet you do. You paper pusher. And when he said that, I was just

like.

Scott DeLuzio: said that, just like

Joseph Fontenot: I was like, bro, you will never come in my house and insult me again. And like that was the fire, that was the fire that like

Scott DeLuzio: that, like.

Joseph Fontenot: lit whatever needed to be lit to get me back to the gun line.

And right after that was like, I told my smoke, smoke haner at the time. I was like, Hey, smoke, like I want, I want to get back to the gun line. And we started doing everything we needed to do to get me back to the gun line and, you know. Next thing you know, I was back on the gun line. We were training, getting everything back ready, but initially we were supposed to be going to Afghanistan to [00:19:00] shoot our howitzers. And little, little did we know that that mission would change rapidly.

Scott DeLuzio: So tell us about that, that mission and how that, that changed and, and kind of what, what took place there.

Joseph Fontenot: So we started, uh, we Started, doing all our, our tables, regular artillery tables, getting ready for Afghanistan, um, which artillery one through, uh, artillery tables one through five. Really, it’s just certifications. You know, you do your qualifications, which your individual, uh, rifle, and then you do your written test, and then you, you qual you qualify what your, uh. Whatever artillery piece you’re on dry and then you go and you shoot your first table with your, your rounds, but then you go out and you do your platoon live fire and then,

uh, that, that kind of certifies you and then you start moving into your, your battery certification. Um, but I don’t really remember us making it past our battery [00:20:00] certification. Uh, once we got to the battery certification, everything just kind of like hit a screeching halt it was like. You are no longer gonna be going to Afghanistan to do artillery. You’re gonna, you’re gonna go out there and you’re gonna be provisional infantry. And I just remember someone coming in and saying, you guys are going to, you’re gonna go to the AR,

river Valley and everybody getting on the

computers and

looking and

we’re trying to figure out like where

is this place at?

Like what is the terrain? Trying to figure out anything at this point.

Scott DeLuzio: trying to figure

Joseph Fontenot: Um, and even, like, even in our wildest dreams

Scott DeLuzio: even in our

Joseph Fontenot: we were, we were still far off. I,

I, I don’t think anybody had like, I don’t know. We, I think we were just, we were just off, we were off from our estimation of what

[00:21:00] we thought we were doing. If I, if I’m not mistaken fourth platoon. Was, was under the, under, under the understanding that they were gonna be artillery up until the time that they got to Afghanistan. So like their whole mindset was artillery until the day they got there. So we trained at JRTC. But we had only found out maybe a month or so before JRTC that we were gonna be doing infantry. And when we, when we got to JRTC, we were shooting from the hip based off of ranger

handbooks

the, the infantry background, uh, if you wanna call it that, that we had from Iraq, patrolling in Iraq. Uh, so like some of us had a little bit of background from patrolling in Iraq. But if you try and [00:22:00] compare Iraq to Afghanistan and you try and compare hardball patrolling to, Arghandab River Valley, like. It’s

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, two different worlds. I mean, they, they’re in the same, you know, geographic region, uh, you know, of the world, but they are two completely different different. Uh, you know, different worlds when, when you’re you’re looking at more urban, hard, like you said, hardball, uh, buildings, uh, things like that versus mountainous terrain with very limited paved roads or,

uh, roads of any sort.

You know,

you’re, you’re not driving vehicles up these mountains. You’re, you’re walking, you know,

on these mountains.

Um, and, and it’s it’s a different, different ball game.

Joseph Fontenot: yeah, yeah. Every, everything,

everything.

is definitely, uh, night and day between the two [00:23:00] environments.

Scott DeLuzio: So how did you guys adjust when you got there? To not only having a different mission from what you were expecting, just, you know, a little while before, but, but then you know, performing that mission and you know, comparing it to what you guys had experienced before in Iraq.

Joseph Fontenot: So when we first got there.

What we had, what we had practiced at JRTC,

I think we thought had set us up for minimal success. At least I think it, we thought in our, our innocence, we, we thought that it at least had set us up for some kind of success. When we. First got to Jir. We were, we were pretty, we were still pretty [00:24:00] far away from everything that was actually going on. And we could hear two Charlie and we could hear the guys that were at Cop Nolan and we could hear that they were in the gunfights just daily. Um, and I think that’s, it was kind of a realization, but until you’re actually on the ground, I. Hm. It’s, it wasn’t a realization. Um, and then they finally called us forward and we started driving, going to our respective cops. And when we were going to cop times, we were in the back of an mrap and you could, you could see how much like there was, there was no love loss. Like they didn’t want us there. It was no love loss. And

um, when we got to cop times, I, [00:25:00] I remember thinking like, where’s the rest of this place? Like this is this, is it? Like this is holy crap. Like, where’s the rest of it? But little

did, little, little did

I know. Like, not now that I’ve seen what two Charlie inherited, like, like that, that was, you know, exponentially more than what they inherited.

So like we should be thankful that what we got compared to what they inherited. Because what they inherited was literally nothing.

Scott DeLuzio: Right.

Joseph Fontenot: but, how

did, how did we,

Scott DeLuzio: For, how did we, no,

Joseph Fontenot: but like how, how, how did, how did we, I, I guess how did we get our feet

under us? Well, like right off the rip two, Charlie was like,

Hey, we’re go, we got a patrol spinning up [00:26:00] here in a little bit. We’re gonna go to the north side of Julia. Um, you know,

you guys come with us. So we went out to the north side of Julia.

First thing

you could see was that like our spacing was just.

Scott DeLuzio: our.

Joseph Fontenot: It was not good. Like we needed to work on that. That was like number, number one thing. Spacing, uh, number two,

hydration. Um, because like the

heat and the humidity was

just like

I, it was, it was violent. The terrain, even on the north side. Was harsh, and that was the

easy part to, to maneuver through. So that was just a, like that patrol was a wake up call. Um, and it gave us a chance to

walk through with, you know, the, the leadership from True Charlie. And they, it gave them a chance to talk to us and, you [00:27:00] know, kind of give us. You know, tips like what to look out for typical relief in place. Um, and then a few days later, uh, was whenever, uh, the shit hit the fan. And that’s whenever, you know, that’s, that’s whenever in the chapter or in the, in the book, the chapter, the Death of Innocence. that’s that’s when it really. Kicked off and that’s whenever like, win, win, lose a draw. You, you are now here, you are now acclimated and you are now going to get adjusted whether you want want to or not.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. They call that, uh, uh, baptism by fire, I guess. You know, where, where it’s like you’re, you’re in it now and, and you, you just, you gotta, you gotta figure it out, you

know? Uh, for whatever maybe lack of [00:28:00] training that you guys might have had, none of that stuff matters anymore.

The, the enemy doesn’t care.

As a matter of fact, they’re counting on it.

Uh, that, that you, you miss something in, in training, so they can take advantage of that. But you had to figure out kind of on the fly, what, what’s going on what’s going on on the ground, and how do we plug any of those holes that, that you had. So, you know, I’m assuming, know, you obviously talked about the book, um, which I want to, I want to get into that in just a second here. But obviously realized some of these, these, uh, kind of holes that you guys had. What was the thought process on the ground as far as like, how do, how do we write this situation?

How do we make the best of what we have, uh, going on here?

Joseph Fontenot: Um. So I, I can only speak for myself because

Scott DeLuzio: myself.

Joseph Fontenot: at, at that point, like I, I know for me, like I, I went and I, I spoke to the guys that were in the gym. Uh, so I remember, [00:29:00] uh, Rosa Inger. I don’t remember the other guy’s names, but there, I remember Rosa and Knowledger being in the gym. Um, and, and speaking to them about kinda like what was some of the lessons learned and what are some of the things that they, you know, they picked up on and, and what was some of the things that helped them.

And, um, they actually put us, in, in touch with some of their, their junior guys, like their specialists and, and those guys

were pivotal in helping us because they were teaching us like down gunner drills and, and things that we hadn’t even, you know, really worked on. Like, those were in the artillery.

It’s, it’s not really something that you’re, you’re, you’re more worried about your artillery piece. Not really a two 40. But. You know, it’s, you

know, it, it becomes a, a different, a different world. But then

Scott DeLuzio: but then

Joseph Fontenot: when we, uh, [00:30:00] a as we, as we

went along and, and you know, we went out and we did the, uh, the Devil’s Playground

mission and, and we had the, the, a a r after the Devil’s Playground mission. There, there was a lot of lessons learned. After that and, um, there was a lot of hard lessons learned

after that because once, once you pulled two Charlie out of the mix altogether,

Scott DeLuzio: I

Joseph Fontenot: at that point it was like I, all of the weight falls on our shoulders now. So at that point, it’s like, all right, so I saw this guy do this.

I saw this guy do

this I saw this guy do this. So now we need to replicate what we saw

them doing. Uh, we need to get better at this. So what’s the number one thing that we need to do when we get on ground? So we, we basically became a sponge to everything that we saw them doing. The little bit of time that we were [00:31:00] on the ground with them. Um, it didn’t matter if, if we hated them, we liked them. It didn’t matter if we got in arguments with them while we were on the ground, like it, none of that mattered at that point. What mattered

was we were trying to get ourselves and our guys home alive, and we were trying to beat the guys that were trying to beat us and bottom line.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I mean that, that’s, uh, the name of the game. You know, when, when you’re out there, I mean, try, try to get everyone home alive and yeah, definitely wanna accomplish a mission, whatever the mi, the mission is. But when you’re looking around and. You know, the guys who you’re serving with, you know, their, you maybe even know their families, you know, some of the, their, their stories and their, their background and all that kind of stuff.

It, you don’t, you don’t want those guys going home. Any other way than, than vertically, you know, on their own two feet. Um, and so you, like you said, you put all those differences aside and it doesn’t matter if you [00:32:00] liked the, like the other guys who were there who kind of were running the show. And it doesn’t matter if you liked ’em or not, but they kind of knew what was going on.

So you gotta, you gotta suck in all that information so that that way you can continue to. You know, operate in a way that is gonna be most advantageous to you guys and get you guys all home. Right.

Um, so you, you mentioned your book in just a minute, the, the book just a minute ago. And, uh, I want to get into that a little bit.

Uh, tell us about the book and, and kind of what it, what it all entails and you know, what readers can, can hope to get out of the book.

Joseph Fontenot: So, uh,

one of the things about

Sunda that I think. Readers

will find that’s different than

other books is, uh, sun that are Ada is not written solely from like my purpose or

solely from my point of [00:33:00] view.

Scott DeLuzio: Point.

Joseph Fontenot: I wrote the book with the intent of writing it from each cop because I wanted to be able to tell

stories of what was

going on throughout the Oregon dob.

Scott DeLuzio: of what was going on throughout.

Joseph Fontenot: I wanted it

to be like a story that

Scott DeLuzio: to be like a story that

Joseph Fontenot: captured multiple avenues of what was

going on because there was so much going on throughout that whole year that we could probably write 10 books and still have stuff that was going on. Like as I was writing the book, I found out that. We had a casualty at Cop Nolan at the same time that we had bakers Bakersfield going on.

And I had, I had no idea, um, that that had happened. So that was like eye-opening to me that, that that even happened. And that was during an interview that I did with Smoke Manley. So during the [00:34:00] reading of the book,

It’s, it’s very apparent that like it

jumps from one

combat outpost to another

combat outpost, to another combat outpost.

But all of the different outposts tie each other into each other based off of

the flow of.

the battle and how everything is moving and how. We are slowly taking over the Ardo River Valley piece by piece by piece until eventually the Top Guns Battalion eventually is, is at a point where we have an opportunity to, to have a strong hole. But it’s all about whether or not we’re able to get the

stronghold or we’re not.

Scott DeLuzio: Right. And so I think books like this are important, and I know you said [00:35:00] you, you could probably write 10 more books and still have content left that didn’t get touched. And, and that’s, you know, I, I think also important to. Recognize too is that this may not be the complete story, but it, it is a a piece of the story.

And books like this help tell the, the war story from the perspectives of the people who are there on the ground. The, in your case, it’s the perspectives of the people on maybe different cops throughout the, the region. But it. Ties that whole piece of the story together. And from, you know, a historical perspective, you know, somewhere down the line after you and I are both gone someone might pick up this book and, and read it and, you know, get an understanding of.

There are some things that went right, some things that went wrong, and you know, even just learning about the people who were there all of that stuff is [00:36:00] important for, for people to, to take away. And you know, hopefully, hopefully folks will, will read the, the book and learn more about what you guys experienced and, and understand.

You know, there, there’s, there’s actual real people on the ground. It’s not, not just, uh, you know, like in a movie where it’s, you know, these, these people who, you know, are getting shot at and everything, and it, it’s. Exciting to watch. It’s real people on the ground and, and it’s scary as shit when you get, when you get shot at and when, when things start going sideways, like, and you’re not sure what what’s going on you know, the it it gets, it gets pretty hairy.

So, you know, I think it, it’s important that you have these you know, your book out there and other people who’ve, who’ve written books similar to that you know, detailing the experiences that, that we all have have witnessed. Throughout these deployments. And, and it’s a, a big, big piece and I, I think it’s important for folks to tell their, their [00:37:00] stories,

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah, I, I, if if I

had like one part of my

book.

that I could say that was special for me in the, in the writing of my book and, and doing like my interviews, uh, it was the fact that the, the people that I interviewed ranged from a private. All the way up to a lieutenant colonel. So like the, the,

Scott DeLuzio: So.

Joseph Fontenot: the, the experiences vary.

The points of view vary like every, everything varies. So like when you look, look through the, the lens, everybody has these very, very different views of how they saw things. And, uh, you know, when you talk to a private, his view is gonna be very different than when you talk to a major. So, you know, and, and

it’s

and it’s very, [00:38:00] and, and it, and it, it, I feel like it comes out in the book because there’s these little, there’s these little bits and pieces in the book of, uh, like comic relief. And that comic relief, a lot of time comes out

from the enlisted

side. I. Because, you

know, that’s just, that’s just where it is.

Scott DeLuzio: That’s just the way it is. Yeah, exactly. And I, I think it has to be that way, you know, for the, the, the enlisted guys are, are definitely gonna have that, that sense of humor, that dark humor, the, the kind of screwing around, joking around. And you know, I. That it’s important that tho those things come out too, because I, I think that that makes it more realistic.

But but you’re absolutely right. The different perspectives are, are important too because it’s, you know, anywhere, like you said, anywhere from the private, all the way up to the lieutenant colonel. They all have different perspectives and even people who are in the same situation, like maybe the same firefight.

They might have [00:39:00] been in the same same firefight, but they may have experienced it in in different ways. They may have seen different things. They may have heard different things. You know, different things may have occurred to them where, you know, in their sector of fire, they’re, they’re worried about this guy over here and, you know, somebody else is worried about that guy over there.

And just different things are happening and they’re experiencing the same firefight. It’s just from a different perspective.

Um, I know when I wrote my book I went through I had a, a stack of probably 20, 25 sworn statements, uh, of after an incident that, that I talked about in the book. And, trying to read through all of those, and they’re all talk, all 25 of these, these individuals were talking about the same exact incident. But trying to piece together what actually happened was so difficult because sometimes some of the, the, even the sequence of when things happened were, were just different.

And so perspectives are, are such a strange thing. How, how we how we remember things, how we interpret things that happen. You know, we, it’s just [00:40:00] a, a strange thing, but, it’s no small feat to try to piece all those things together like you did in your book. And so I, I, you know, hats off to you on that because I know from my per uh, experience, it’s not an easy thing to do.

Right. So I want to kind of fast forward a little bit. So after after this deployment which I don’t want to get. too too much into it. I know we, we talked a little bit about this already, but I don’t wanna get too much into it ’cause I want people to get the book and read it and, and kind of hear you know, the full story.

Uh, and, ’cause I know we’re not gonna do it justice here on, on this episode ’cause there’s, there’s a lot more to the story than, than we can cover here. And you know, I want people to be able to, to read the story and get a copy of the book you know, for themselves. But, so after getting out of Afghanistan, coming back home when you kind of got back, was, uh, writing on the wall as far as like what post service life was gonna look like for you?

Or how did that, that transition period looked like for you?

Joseph Fontenot: [00:41:00] Post post service, uh, life still. Isn’t written on the wall for me yet. So I, I’m, I’m, I’m cur I’m currently actually still, um, I, I’m about five months from retirement right now. So

I’m, I’m working, I’m working on

Scott DeLuzio: I’m working on,

Joseph Fontenot: working on what comes

next. Um, I’ve.

Scott DeLuzio: uh,

Joseph Fontenot: I am trying to figure out exactly what I want to do. I want

to I know that I’ve talked to several different agencies, uh, locally about working, uh, with the va, working with the veterans organizations, groups talking with veterans organizations, groups, talking with just

different groups and helping, uh, veterans groups in general or even just groups that help like humanitarian groups. Because in, in my opinion, part of the [00:42:00] reasons why I got in the Army was because I wanted to help people and that was a. There’s, there’s, a big reason why I got in the Army. A big reason why I got in the army was because I wanted to, I wanted to do something for my son to set him up for success.

So that’s the big, the big o overarching theme that of why I joined the Army. But the other reason was because I wanted to be able to help people. And now that I’m at the end of my career. Like, I see all these natural disasters going on, and I try and think of how I could help people in even the smallest way, even if it’s like Samaritan’s Purse and, or things, things along the lines of those organizations. Um, and those are kind of the things that I’m, I’m leaning towards, I had, uh, I had received an

award a while back for volunteering and, um, and, and [00:43:00] it was, it was kinda a, a spotlight award that it was, I don’t know, it was just one of those things that, that made me realize like how important going and, and helping other people are. And because of that, it, it’s, it’s one of the things that’s made me want to be able to continue to help people, uh, in some way, shape or form. And I think in my personal opinion, the veteran community needs more more spotlight, especially senior leaders. I feel like, and this is my own personal my own personal belief, I feel like once you get to the top of the mountains, senior leaders are just kind of, here’s your two dd, two 14, hope you can swim.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:44:00] Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just in pushing the deep end. Right. And, and hope, hopefully you can, you can make it, but I. You know, it’s interesting to hear your perspective at, at this point in your, your career. You know that at this tail end of it and kind of seeing what those next steps are because, you know, you do have a little bit of time, not a ton of time, but, um, you have some time to kind of, poke around and, and see what’s out there.

And I think it’s important that you know what your, what’s important to you as far as what, what gives you a sense of purpose and, and meaning? Part of your, your thing is, is helping people and there’s a lot of ways that you can help people, obviously serving in the military, that’s, that’s helping people in, in one way you know, by providing defense and, and protection to you know, the citizens here in the United States, but also, you know, abroad.

When, when we’re deployed overseas, we’re, we’re hopefully, better lives for the folks who, who are you know, in those countries as well. You know, and [00:45:00] I’m sure we can get into that too, but I, that, that might be another episode and that might be a rabbit hole. We don’t necessarily want to go down, but, um, but, you know, I, I think, you know, helping people is a kind of a broad area and.

I’m sure you can find many different ways that you can help folks, whether, like you said, whether it’s helping with natural disasters or helping out with veteran groups or, uh, you know, any number of different things that are out there. You, you can certainly find something that will provide you that sense of purpose and, and meaning, and allow you to continue.

Doing that mission, even though you’re not wearing a uniform anymore, but you’re still able to do that type of thing as well. And as far as you know, helping other folks. So, you know, I, I think I think that’s, that’s, it’s awesome that you have a direction that you have at least that, that baseline, like this is my core, you know, core values and, and things that I want [00:46:00] to experience post-military life and, i, I think a lot of people don’t necessarily have that, and that’s where a lot of people end up struggling. I heard some statistics that within the first two years of a service member getting outta the military they’re, they’ve already switched jobs at least once, uh, within the first two years.

Most of ’em within the first year. So it’s. It’s like, that’s just crazy. If you don’t have any sense of purpose or direction and you’re, you’re getting out there and you’re just taking whatever comes your way probably not gonna be very fulfilled with that. And you know, even if it’s good paycheck that may not necessarily provide that fulfillment.

So, you know, for you you know, you have that, that direction at least. And then it’s just a matter of where are you gonna apply it and, and where you gonna where are you gonna. We’re gonna find the most people to be able to help out, you know?

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah.

Scott DeLuzio: So, well, looking [00:47:00] back at all of your career, right, which, you know, we’re, we’re at what the 20 year mark at, at this point now. What would you say the greatest lesson has been that, that you’ve learned throughout? All of those years and you know, how do you apply it? How would you, uh, suggest that you apply it to your life today?

Joseph Fontenot: I would say the greatest lesson,

uh, that I’ve learned has been there’s, there’s. There’s, there’s, there’s quite a few. But I would say pro, probably

the greatest lesson is remain

humble.

Scott DeLuzio: the greatest lesson.

Joseph Fontenot: And, and, and

I, I and I, I think it’s, it’s very simple. But I think that that’s part of the biggest downfall in a lot of people’s careers, uh, is they forget where they come from. If you look [00:48:00] at some of the best, best leaders that we have out there,

Scott DeLuzio: Best

Joseph Fontenot: I’ll, I’ll, I’ll point to General Petraeus. General Petraeus, like how many, how many people like Lo like love him. He’s beloved by like, so many military. As high as he got, never forgot where he came from. He would still go down, visit the troops still go to Afghanistan, cruise around, visit Afghanistan, hand out awards to everybody.

Even the, despite how, how dangerous the, the zone was. Certain major pr, certain major Preston, another one, sorry, major Preston. Um, I remember being at the Slawsky Air Assault School. And Sergeant Major Preston, he was getting ready to retire. Sergeant Major Preston showed up at the Salki Air Soft School, talked to us, gave us a little [00:49:00] motivat motivation speech, and we were getting ready to graduate. And he was like, I feel like doing the old course. And everybody was just like.

Scott DeLuzio: He.

Joseph Fontenot: And of course, like

Scott DeLuzio: he had really no reason to do it at that point. Right. Like

Joseph Fontenot: Yeah, no. So SAR major Army says, let’s do the old course. What are we doing? We’re doing the old course. You know,

but,

Scott DeLuzio: the O course. Exactly.

Joseph Fontenot: but it was like, there was, there was no, there was like, there was no kickback from it. There was no drawback to it. It was just like. You got to do the old course with Sergeant Majors of the Army. You got to hang out with general, you know, general Petraeus and like

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

Joseph Fontenot: when the leaders at the top forget how important it is to be a second lieutenant. [00:50:00] Forget that fear of being a second lieutenant, or when a Sergeant Major forgets the fear of being a PFC or a PV two and how hard it was to be that rank, and they forget how it is to be humble, then what are we doing Like remain humble.

Remain

humble, be a humble leader. And if you can re, if you can retain that, you’ll always have your respect of your soldiers. And I, I’ve, I, that’s, that’s, that’s like the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is that

you, if you stay humble, you’re going to, you’re going to be able to keep your soldiers respect.

Scott DeLuzio: and I think that’ll take you far in the civilian world as well. With with that humility and you [00:51:00] know, folks who either are working for you or that you’re working for or whatever the case may be they, they’ll notice that and they’ll. they’ll. recognize that as a, a good trait in you and, um, either want to continue working for you or you know, definitely want to keep you working for them.

You know, depending on where you, you fall in the, uh, you know, whatever organization you, you end up at you know, would whatever leadership position that you might have. But you know, yeah, staying, staying true to those roots and you know, those, those humble beginnings I, I think are. Are super important too.

So that’s, that’s great. And, uh, you know, again, I, I think that’ll, that’ll take you a long way in the civilian world as well. So, so before we wrap up can we, uh, can you let the listeners know where they can find your book and any other, uh, things that you might be working on, uh, you know, other, you know, groups and things like that that they might want to check out?

Joseph Fontenot: Uh, so you can find sunset are [00:52:00] ADA on Amazon. You can also find it on the Casem Mate Publisher’s website. Uh, I believe that it’s about to be available on pretty much any, uh, any book, website here shortly. Uh, it’s also gonna be out on audiobook, um, very soon. I’m, uh, working on the, um. The, the finishing touches for the audio book, so we can get that out to you guys as soon as possible. As far as websites, uh, we

have the, uh, sunset AR group on Facebook and, um. Probably gonna put one up on Instagram, which is mainly just for, you know, videos and things like

that.

Also there’s

a YouTube page for Sunset ar

where you can see different videos that are made as, uh, compilations, as well as, uh, videos that are made that kind of correlate with the different chapters for the books kind of as a tribute to [00:53:00] different, some of the different guys in the, uh, in the books.

Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. Well, I’ll have links to all of that in the show notes too. So for the listeners, if you’re, uh, looking to get a copy of the book, I’ll have a link to, to the book there and also to the, you know, the Facebook group and the other stuff that you mentioned you know, have links to all that in the show notes too.

So, um. But absolutely been a pleasure, uh, speaking with you today.

And, uh, you know, definitely,

Yeah, definitely, definitely a great conversation. And, uh, you know, I’m, I’m glad to be able to hear a little bit of the, the story from your point of view and, uh, you know, looking forward to digging into the book and, and, uh, you know, kind of learning a little bit more about, about what took place.

So, uh, thanks again.

Joseph Fontenot: Thank you, Scott.