Blue Falcon
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I'm your host, Troy Gent.
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TROY GENT: Welcome everybody.
My guest this week, per the introduction, is Joey Diaz.
Welcome, Joey.
Tell us a little bit about your introduction to the National Guard, why you joined, and where you went to basic.
JOEY DIAZ: So growing up as a kid, I was poor, I guess.
That's where I came from.
Just a hard life.
Eh, it wasn't that hard.
I had a great life but thinking back when I was in high school, the question was, "What's next?
What's your ambition?
Where are you heading to?"
I liked the idea of college, man, but I couldn't afford it.
So naturally, I was drawn to it not because I chose it.
Honestly, it was just at the time there were a lot of other high schooler guys, bros, that I've known to this day, that kind of recruited me.
It was one of those things where if you sign someone up underneath you, they're gonna get a bonus type of thing.
TROY GENT: Okay.
Where'd you grow up?
JOEY DIAZ: Cedar City.
TROY GENT: Cedar City.
JOY DIAZ: Yeah.
TROY GENT: So you joined because a friend said, "Hey, sign up so I can get a bonus."
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, essentially.
And honestly, the interesting thing about that story is that the guy who recruited me didn't even end up enlisting.
So, yeah.
I don't know if he got his bonus or whatever but he came to me and was like, "Hey, this is a great idea!"
We were really good friends.
I grew up with him since sixth grade.
We were out of high school.
He said, "I'm doing this, man.
You should do this."
He talked me up.
He was kind of a lot like you just shorter though.
He was an all-state wrestler.
I don't know if he won state but he was good and so I really looked up to this guy.
He was a stud needless to say.
I enlisted, I signed, and everything, and Reuben, of all things, was like, "Man, I don't think I'm going to do this anymore."
I was like, "What?!"
TROY GENT: Did he just get cold feet?
JOEY DIAZ: I think so.
TROY GENT: Yeah?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, if I remember correctly.
Knowing him now, he wouldn't have probably done well in the military.
He's not insubordinate but he just likes to make his own choices, make his own decisions, and kind of run his own show.
TROY GENT: Okay.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah.
Still a great guy.
Outstanding guy.
TROY GENT: Yeah.
So you joined in what year?
JOEY DIAZ: I believe it was 2000.
TROY GENT: And where did you go to basic?
JOEY DIAZ: Man, I went to what a lot of people called Relaxin Jackson in South Carolina.
TROY GENT: Relaxin Jackson?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, Fort Jackson.
TROY GENT: In basic, were you one of the guys that kind of tried to hide a lot and who didn’t volunteer for anything?
JOEY DIAZ: That didn't work out in my favor though because I did.
I just kept my head down.
That's what they said.
That's what my recruiter told me.
That's what a lot of the guys that went out before me and came back said.
"Just fly low."
And then they wanted to make me a PG, a platoon guide.
With that came lots of smoke sessions, man.
I was messing up left and right.
I was eighteen or nineteen years old, wet behind the ears, didn't know a lick about leading whatsoever.
And so, yeah.
I was constantly just getting drilled, man.
TROY GENT: So explain what smoking is.
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, it's the same thing as like when they say, “Beat your face.”
Right?
Like, "Get down and get some push-ups," or "Go do some squat thrusts, Diaz," or, "Go make yourself look like an ass and do some donkey kicks or something until we tell you to stop."
TROY GENT: What are donkey kicks?
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, man.
It's like you just jump up and down.
It's like a jumping jack but instead you just kind of rear up your foot and you got to make sure your heel or the back of your foot kicks your butt.
TROY GENT: They made us do high-knees but didn't make us do those.
So which one was your least favorite?
They all suck after a while.
JOEY DIAZ: They really did.
I can't say I had a favorite one that sucked the most.
Squat thrusts were always the hardest.
It's kind of like that burpee status thing.
So those ones...
Man, those ones killed me.
TROY GENT: Do you have a specific smoke session that you remember that was particularly awful?
JOEY DIAZ: It was some silly too.
I was just marching the platoon up to the chow hall.
TROY GENT: You were the PG at the time?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, yeah.
TROY GENT: Okay.
JOEY DIAZ: I was kind of new, maybe just promoted.
We were kind of in the middle of lots of different trainings.
I think we were just getting out of like the classroom, doing classroom stuff, but we also drew our weapons and we were starting to get familiar with those.
We had two soldiers that stayed back and watched all of the weapons and I didn't think that they needed to eat, apparently, and I forgot all about them so I marched the rest of the guys up.
I came back and they were just still standing there at parade rest.
The best soldiers you could find.
Right?
Just standing there.
The look on their faces, however...
They were just pissed.
TROY GENT: So maybe it worked the same way in the Marines.
You were supposed to designate two to eat faster and then run down and replace them.
JOEY DIAZ: Yes and then leave the other two.
TROY GENT: But you didn't do that.
JOEY DIAZ: Totally forgot.
Yeah.
TROY GENT: Okay.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, and I'd been watching it this whole time.
I wasn't platoon guide up until this point.
I saw it but it just slipped my mind, I guess.
And so that was ongoing.
That was from the end of chow until everything was done.
TROY GENT: So if you weren't doing something essential, you were being smoked.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, essentially.
Well, if you weren't listening or if you were falling asleep in class.
I had guys that would put water in their mouth and fall asleep and they would leave it in there and the drill sergeant would walk by and be like, "Wake up!"
TROY GENT: I've never heard of anybody doing that on purpose.
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, no?
TROY GENT: They'd put it in their mouth on purpose because then if they fall asleep, it'll wake them up.
JOEY DIAZ: Right.
Right, right.
But no, man.
They were honest man.
TROY GENT: That's hilarious.
So the drill stars would see the water dripping.
JOEY DIAZ: Yes.
TROY GENT: Like, “We know what you're doing!”
JOEY DIAZ: It would be a huge mess.
They'd just see drool like in excessive amounts and it would just be all over their BDUs.
Busted.
TROY GENT: That's hilarious.
This is one time in officer candidate school...
They said, “If you need to, smack the guy in the back of the head infront of you to kind of keep him awake.”
So I saw this guy kept falling asleep.
I hated being smacked in the back of my head so I was like, “Well, I'll just help him out and pour some cold water down his back.”
I poured a little cold water down his back.
He was pissed.
JOEY DIAZ: I don't know.
I'd take water, I guess.
I'd imagine this guy like you smacking someone and you'd have to piss them off even further.
TROY GENT: That's funny.
I've never heard that before.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, we did whatever we could to try to stay awake.
TROY GENT: So did you remain PG for the remainder?
JOEY DIAZ: I did, man.
I graduated from basic as as the platoon guide.
TROY GENT: Did you have a favorite drill sergeant and least favorite drill sergeant?
JOEY DIAZ: I thought they were all equally hardcore.
Even the female one scared the hell out of me from time to time.
She was even pregnant when I was there.
TROY GENT: Why did she scare you, her in particular?
JOEY DIAZ: She was just tough, man.
She could do more push-ups than some of the guys.
She could rucksack further.
TROY GENT: And she was pregnant.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah and she was pregnant he whole time.
I was like, "Okay, that's very intimidating."
TROY GENT: Did you ever see any of your fellow privates...
For example, one night they were making this guy clean when we were all in the rack and he was screaming the whole time.
Right?
So did you have anything like that happen?
JOEY DIAZ: No, not necessarily.
That sounds like a psychotic breakdown.
They're really putting us through some hard stuff.
You know?
Uh, no.
There was an incident where there was a scuffle in the barracks.
Everybody was pissed off at everybody and it actually woke up the barracks next door and I think their quartermasters called our drill sergeant.
He came in and we did what's called “An Address Change” that night.
It's basically where we take all of our possessions.
Well, we don't have much.
Right?
Just your bunk and your wall locker.
You take all of that outside and you set it up and you sleep outside.
And it wasn't like we went to sleep outside though.
TROY GENT: So you took all the bunkbeds outside with everything else and set it up just like it was set up inside.
JOEY DIAZ: Just right outside our barracks.
Yeah, our barracks, I think they were like mobiles.
At the time the barracks were being renovated so we had these mobile units and we had an asphalt pad.
That's where we set it up.
TROY GENT: I've never heard of that happening.
That's crazy.
So how long did you spend out there?
JOEY DIAZ: It was a humbling experience.
It wasn'tt very long.
As soon as we got all of our stuff out.
We thought we were maybe going to sleep outside.
He said, "Guess what!
Get it back inside now!"
So, yeah.
We did that one time and then after that, we squashed it and we all made amends.
TROY GENT: So all the privates were mad at each other, basically.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, I can't really remember what the heck it was about.
It might've had something to do with like the rotation for sleep.
The quartermaster is the person that stays up.
Guys weren't having the roster that night or something.
I don't remember.
TROY GENT: Basic was ten weeks?
And then where'd you go after that?
JOEY DIAZ: I stayed right on base, man.
We just moved to a different location.
TROY GENT: The initial entry into the school, was it kind of like the introduction to basic or was it a lot more toned down?
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, it was way more toned down.
They actually treated us like students.
TROY GENT: Like soldiers?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, soldiers.
TROY GENT: And it was a mechanic school?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, right.
I was a wheeled mechanic.
TROY GENT: A wheeled mechanic.
JOEY DIAZ: We still had to earn our privileges.
It wasn't until about three or four weeks into it where we knew we had the opportunity to ditch base and go out for the weekend.
And so we were really hyped about that but we had to learn or work cohesively and our drill sergeant wanted everything dress-right-dress.
TROY GENT: And how'd that go?
Did anybody getting in trouble?
JOEY DIAZ: Did anybody lose privileges?
No, we actually maintained.
At this point, we were still too nervous to make stupid choices.
We had been broken down a little bit.
We had some discipline and a better head on our shoulders then than the buffoons we were going into training, thinking we had it all figured out.
Nah, we did good.
We hit some clubs and I want to say it was like the five star district in downtown Columbia.
Is it Columbia?
South Carolina.
What is the capital?
Whatever the...
It was Charlotte.
Charlotte.
Charlotte, yeah.
There was just a whole block of bars.
We went there and we stayed together as a group.
No one got in trouble.
No one got in any fights.
It was a good time.
TROY GENT: That's amazing.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah.
TROY GENT: That's good.
JOEY DIAZ: I hope.
Right?
Just to think we're all pent up and we're just getting our asses beat the whole time.
TROY GENT: Did you get a break between basic and MOS school?
JOEY DIAZ: I just went straight into it.
TROY GENT: The next day.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah.
TROY GENT: So where'd you go after ten weeks of MOS school?
Did you come back and join the unit in Cedar City?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, so I was always a part of that unit.
I had just shipped off for training.
I came back here and then started doing the weekend warrior stuff.
I think I got back sometime in October.
The unit already knew about the up and coming stateside deployment, which would have been the 2000 Winter Olympics.
They weren't looking for volunteers
They already knew we were going to get mobilized so I came home.
I worked for a little bit and then moved up to Salt Lake which was kind of a neat experience.
TROY GENT: How long were you up there for?
JOEY DIAZ: I think it was only for like two to three months.
TROY GENT: Two to three months.
JOEY DIAZ: I don't really count that as an activation but they do.
It's all time counted as active service versus what I signed up to do.
TROY GENT: What did you do?
What was your role up there?
JOEY DIAZ: Magtometer sweeping.
A lot of that stuff.
TROY GENT: Checking for bombs?
JOEY DIAZ: Yep and then sweeping vehicles.
We worked directly with the Secret Service, which was really cool.
That was like really good cross training.
JOEY DIAZ: They have great insight.
They have all the bells and whistles, all the resources, the dogs, and stuff.
But that was it.
That our primary gig was just security.
Yeah, we didn't have any actual fun, but it was still kind of cool to be a part of.
TROY GENT: Yeah.
It was cold as ice, though.
Twenty-four hours in Salt Lake in the winter time.
So it was like negative three degrees downtown sometimes.
TROY GENT: Was there someone always on shift?
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, no.
It was a twenty-four-hour hour ops.
Yeah.
TROY GENT: Okay.
Would you have twelve hour shifts?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, we had guys go in at night and then guys go in during the day.
At some point, halfway, I think we switched that around.
They gave us some liberty time on that too.
It was hilarious.
We got our time and we were so excited.
We forgot how to drive, man.
A buddy of mine had a cousin or somebody that loaned him just a little single toyota tacoma with a camper shell.
Actually, there might have been a little crew cab because I remember there being him, a driver, two guys in the back, and then me and Shey Callen in the actual back ready to hit the road and head back to Cedar just for the weekend.
And we leave our barracks but we hit Downtown Salt Lake.
Right?
The roads are one way, some of them are not, and we hit the opposite traffic.
We were going head-on with these cars and he's going left and we're going right and we're in the back.
TROY GENT: He didn't know it was one way or something?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
TROY GENT: Okay.
JOEY DIAZ: We were still really young, keep in mind.
And then he takes the median, jumps the median, and then hits the freeway.
I'm like, "Oh my goodness.
That's a good way to start Liberty Weekend off."
TROY GENT: All the guys you were with were living in Cedar?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, essentially.
Not everybody but a lot of guys that are close to me now joined the military and we're still close to this day.
So a lot of the guys that are in the stories are people that I still talk to.
TROY GENT: That's awesome.
So you came back 2002 after the Winter Olympics deployment and then you were back to more of the same until you deployed to Iraq.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah.
So at this point, I was working and doing the daily grind weekend stuff and then there was Operation Upward Movement.
Right?
This was around 2003 where we almost...
We got activated but they started moving into Iraq and that's when I feel like everybody was just on high alert.
Well, we got mobilized and we went and shipped out to Fort Carson.
Essentially, we just accelerated into the summer camp.
I think we were there for maybe two months and then all of a sudden, "No, we're not shipping you guys out anymore."
We actually took off to Fort Lewis Tacoma after this and that was probably by far the coolest activation I'd ever been on.
Our directive changed from warfare to training ROTC college cadets.
We didn't even do the teaching.
We just did a lot of the demonstrating.
We set up the land nav.
I was actually in charge with some other guys in charge of the automatic weapons range.
TROY GENT: We had lance corporals through sergeants in OCS that were just doing demonstrations and the training like that and they loved it.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah.
Oh, man.
TROY GENT: They loved that duty.
JOEY DIAZ: We set up the mark nineteen, the fifty-cal and just lit up the range, man.
We put so many rounds down range.
We lit it up on fire.
TROY GENT: Yeah.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah.
And they just let it burn.
You'd think, "It's Fort Lewis Tacoma.
It's going to be raining."
No.
We got there right at the end of the wet season and it was just all dried up and here we are with our tracer rounds like, "Yep, it's burning.
Just watch it burn."
TROY GENT: So explain what happened after that.
You went to Ramadi, right?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, this was in 2003.
I came back home, got back into the daily grind, and then about a year and a half, maybe two years later, they had established themselves in Iraq and were rotating soldiers out.
So naturally, we got on that rotation and it was around 2004.
We shipped out to Camp Shelby in Mississippi and did more urbanized training.
We got fresh with our weapons qual.
And yeah, it was kind of the same thing.
Camp Shelby was great training but there were even better party times for us and the guys.
I got to meet some really cool guys and they had a NCO club right on base and so they could always tell when we had indulged ourselves or had a a great time.
And I was like, "How could you tell?
One of the guys was like, "You know how I could tell?
You're walking down the street, flapping your arms, diaz going, 'Blue falcon!
Blue falcon!'
And Clifton is being held up by two other guys because he's got blood coming down his knees."
TROY GENT: You can usually tell when someone's been drinking.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah and the whole squad looks like crap when we're coming back to the barracks.
TROY GENT: What was the blue falcon thing?
JOEY DIAZ: It's like, “You're a buddy fucker.”
TROY GENT: Oh!
That's right!
I had forgot what that meant.
I know what it means.
JOEY DIAZ: I know, me too.
I'm just refreshing it up, man.
TROY GENT: It's been a while.
So who were you calling a blue falcon?
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, man.
I don't know.
Somebody who left.
We were walking back from the NCO club.
I know we didn't walk there to begin with.
TROY GENT: Oh, so somebody left you there.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, our ride just left us.
Luckily it's a really small base but still.
I think what happened was Clifton fell in a ditch and that's why he was being carried and he was like one of the bigger guys.
Like, "Just leave him in the ditch.
We'll come and get him tomorrow."
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JOEY DIAZ: I think we flew into Qatar and then Kuwait and then we took some Chinooks into southern Iraq, which was a base called NAFSTAR.
But from there, there was just like a group, a detail, that took all of our equipment.
We convoyed it up to Ramadi, the Anambar province or whatever.
So that was the very beginning, but at the end of the whole deployment, looking back at that experience, we're so blessed that nothing went off because we had sandbags and steel plates all around us.
We had nothing on top.
And when we were there, we had the M11-14s that started to move out, which were just completely armored Humvees all the way up to the turret.
It had a shield and a bulletproof vest.
That was a shitty drive needless to say.
It was long.
Oh, man.
We stopped.
I remember there was a security team from our battalion.
And I remember them stopping the whole convoy because they're like, "Oh dude, there's IED on the side of the road."
We got to check this out."
So they were out there driving around and what felt like hours.
They found the IED, which was awesome, but it didn't detonate.
And we're like, "Dude, we're so lucky.
You're so lucky."
TROY GENT: Was it on the road?
JOEY DIAZ: I believe it was just off on the side of the road.
TROY GENT: Okay.
JOEY DIAZ: I don't remember exactly.
It was really dark but I heard someone else's side of the story and that's essentially what happened.
Like, "Yeah, we found one.
It didn't go off.
Lucky us.
We'll just keep on trucking."
And then we get into Fod Ramati and we go right through the gate and there's like a hard shed building, like really big.
It's almost like a warehouse size.
That's where our gym was and it was the rec building almost.
Anyways, they had all of us pop out some cots and sleep there.
Little did we know, that was like right at the front gate.
We didn't know.
We just came in the gate, we stopped, we put up our racks, and then hit the bed.
And this is like what?
Day two now of being in country?
All of a sudden we hear this loud, "Shhhhhh... BOOM!"
And I thought, "What hit the building?!"
It shook us all awake.
We all rolled off our cots and onto the ground and yeah.
That was the start of it.
"Okay, we're here everybody!"
TROY GENT: Was it a rocket?
JOEY DIAZ: "Did you see us coming in?"
Yeah, it was just indirect fire.
It sounded like a rocket.
Looking back, after learning the difference between mortars and rockets, that was definitely a rocket.
TROY GENT: Yeah.
JOEY DIAZ: That was just ongoing.
They were always indirect fire.
Always.
TROY GENT: The rockets they had weren't very accurate.
Right?
JOEY DIAZ: No.
TROY GENT: Yeah.
They get lucky sometimes but...
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, they got real close.
So close.
TROY GENT: Yeah.
JOEY DIAZ: I felt the dirt hit my face.
I'd be like, "Yep, I'm alright.
Wait, wait.
Nope, I'm all right.
I'm alright.
I'll check on McCoy or something."
TROY GENT: Yeah.
So you were in Iraq for a year.
JOEY DIAZ: So, yeah.
That went down for a whole year.
So it was like...
I swear it was like half of 2004 and then all the way to 2006 or the end of 2005.
That's pretty standard stuff.
You go out there, convoy security, OP, lots of OP, and then wrecker missions.
We weren't really doing the door-to-door stuff.
That was you guys.
Marines came in and out of Fob Ramadi all the time and I got to meet some of the guys, which was awesome because being a mechanic, they would see the bay and be like, "Hey, man.
Can you hook us up?"
I'd be like, "Hell, yeah.
I'll hook you guys up.
Whatever you guys need."
TROY GENT: So were you working on their vehicles too?
JOEY DIAZ: Oh yeah.
TROY GENT: Yeah.
JOEY DIAZ: Obviously, I made sure my chief was okay with it but I think he was on the same page.
TROY GENT: But they had their own mechanics.
They did but they clearly were from a different fob.
These guys might have been out of Baghdad, the Air Force base.
TROY GENT: So it was more like an impromptu ask.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah.
TROY GENT: "Hey, this happened.
Can you fix this real quick or something?"
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah so there was a lot of camaraderie built.
There's a lot of stigma sometimes between Marines and Army guys but not when you're in country.
TROY GNET: Yeah, not when you're in country.
JOEY DIAZ: It's different
TROY GENT: Things change.
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, it's really different.
TROY GENT: I had two intelligence guys with me from the Army and the ordinance disposal team was Air Force.
We never had any problems there were really no jokes going on or nothing in country.
TROY GENT: It wasn't your battalion commander but a lieutenant colonel was killed in that suicide bombing.
Right?
JOEY DIAZ: Yeah, that's correct.
He was attached to us.
TROY GENT: He was attached to you.
JOEY DIAZ: So we did technically lose a man when we were in country but I believe he was the only man.
TROY GENT: Yeah because your whole battalion came back.
I think right I think the whole battalion one of your guys lost his arm.
Right?
JOEY DIAZ: I don't know.
TROY GENT: I think he went to check on IED on the road and it went off and it took his arm.
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, I think you're right.
I think I remember that.
TROY GENT: I think he was the only major casualty but he survived.
Right.
Well, we had another one too.
Braxton McCoy.
I don't know if you heard about him but he was also out there with that suicide bomber.
TROY GENT: Okay.
I happen to be on that detail as well and he got blasted.
He didn't lose any extremities.
TROY GENT: But he got some shrapnel.
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, yeah.
TROY GENT: Was it pretty nasty?
JOEY DIAZ: Oh, yeah.
They carried him out and then he left the country
I think I've talked to him once since, maybe twice.
He's come around.
When I was living in Cedar still, he would come down there.
Obviously, that's the hub.
It's headquarters battery so he would go down there and say hi from time to time.
TROY GENT: Was there anything that happened with your mental health or PTSD that you would like to share and then also how you overcame it.
JOEY DIAZ: I'm a pretty level-headed guy, man.
I usually try to always see the upside in all, even bad, scenarios.
But little did I know that I suffered from it though just based upon like the evaluations they did on me.
I find, honestly, what works the best is prayer and stretch and meditation type of stuff to really lower the anxiety.
What gets me the most is the uncertainty, I suppose.
TROY GENT: Yeah, the uncertainty will drive you nuts if you let it.
Thanks for being here.
I really appreciate it.
JOEY DIAZ: You're welcome, Troy.
Anytime.
OUTRO: Thank you for listening.
Please tell your friends and family so that we can bring more joy and awareness to those struggling with suicide ideation and the families who desperately need help after the loss of someone they loved to suicide.
