Cleared Hot Episode 253 - Alan Mack
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- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2024
- Alan C. Mack joined the Army upon graduating High School. His desire to see the world as a US Army helicopter mechanic took him to the Republic of Korea, West Texas, and the Federal Republic of Germany before attending Warrant Officer flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama. The nearly year-long flight school yielded a UH-1H, Huey, and CH-47D, Chinook, aircraft qualification before his first pilot assignment in Savannah, Georgia. He arrived in time to progress with his new unit as a copilot in Operation Desert Shield. Then, several months later, he flew combat missions in the lead aircraft penetrating deep into Iraq.
Upon his return to the United States, he quickly achieved the status of Pilot-in-command and eventually assumed the coveted role of Night Vision Goggle Unit Trainer. The NVG UT position is a precursor to flying as an Instructor Pilot (IP). Another assignment to the Republic of Korea was in store for Alan before attending the CH-47 Instructor Pilot course at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
The call to adventure was persuasive, drawing Alan into the special operations community as an MH-47 pilot, where he served for nearly 17 years at the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (TF-160th). He carried in the Horse Soldiers in 2001, Navy SEAL Neil Roberts fell from his helicopter when he was shot down during Operation Anaconda, he was the overall flight lead for Operation Earned Respect (the recovery of fallen from Operation Redwings, and the rescue of Marcus Luttrel), among many other missions.
CW5 Alan C. Mack is a Master Aviator with more than 6700 hours of flight time, of which over 3200 hours were flown with Night Vision Goggles.
Alan C. Mack’s awards include
• Legion of Merit
• 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses
• 3 Bronze Star Medals
• 3 Meritorious Service Medals
• 10 Air Medals; one with Valor device, Combat Action Badge, and the Army Broken Wing award.
You couldn't ask for a better host & guest than this pair.Both were great & excelled in their former jobs & those characteristics have carried over to their current jobs as host & interviewee. Both are so well spoken & knowledgeable and one great thing about this episode was how several OP's were covered.Anytime I learn new info about a particular OP or event,like Anaconda & Redwings,it's always a great watch IMO.Eventhough it may seem like no big deal to them as individuals in the number of subjects,courses, certifications,OP's,events &/or titles each one of them has completed/been a part of/held,it's quite a feat that both of them have accomplished considering just how much damn time,skill,effort and hard work it took to do the things each one of these two done in their former lives,one as a SEAL & one as an Aviator. Congrats to you both for being an important part of our military history,whether we were privy to it or not...
BTW - Great Episode
Alan is so calm and cool
I know Alan personally. See him all the time. He’s a really great standup guy. Amazing person. Truly one of our unsung heroes.
Andy you should make a "clips" channel. I really think it would broaden your audience and you could give them a clip of a really interesting part of the podcast and they would want to check out the rest.
I dont think allot of ppl watching knew who Alan Mack was, but if they saw in the title that he was apart of Roberts ridge and Redwings, allot more ppl would be interested. Im glad i clicked this by chance cause i wouldve passed on a gem and i think a lot of others dont know who exactly this man is so they passed by it as well
I’d love to see you interview Mike Rutledge, former Navy seal turned 160th SOAR pilot, then went on to command the 2nd flight detachment at West Point.
Thanks Andy, always enjoy hearing stories from Nightstalkers.
If I didn’t know who this man was beforehand I probably could have guessed that he was a pilot. They all have a very similar- calm, cool, and collected demeanor about them and they all speak in very clear, precise details.
Very true!!!
Very tough to hear Alan talk about his wife, she paid the price for her service and for his service. She deserved decent leadership when she was in the army, no one stood up for her and that makes me sick. May she Rest In Peace
She Absolutely Did! My prayers to her family and Alan. PTSD is real
“I’m scared of heights” - said the pilot
Damn, I couldn’t have missed this gentleman but more than a month or two when I got to 2/159th. Awesome unit weird knowing the people he’s talking about
Refreshed my feed and this podcast is 36 seconds old!
I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed listening to this. Thank you
Always kook forward to these on Monday mornings. Thanks Andy!
I think this is the Alan Mack I served with at Ft Bliss ACT 3ACR? 84-85, great guy!
Scout platoon with Chuck H, Wes, and others, had a lot of fun.
“....I’d have to have Glover check me.” 😂
I like the thoughtful and specific way that Andy speaks. Good podcast.
That’s an American hero! No fear of any fight! Andy great choice for an interview, you make it easy to like a podcast!
I love rotary wings. I done a lot of underslung work and aerial delivery and then MALT work. So almost the whole gamut of air supply and resupply logistics. 47’s are awesome.
Ramp riding was some of the best memories. Even out the pack as a manual load dispatcher.
Boat bundles out of rotary and fixed was good too.
Worst and best part about working with aviation was repatriation flights.
Nice, that Andy knows what buttons to push and how to get to the perspectives we got to hear. Interesting stuff.
It’s so cool hearing the same story but from a different perspective. I’ve read a bunch of books and listens to a few podcasts about op anaconda but never from a pilots pov. Super interesting
Another amazing episode. If you continue with TF 160 guys; I think it would be an awesome interview with Mike Rutledge (TF 160 and former Navy SEAL).
Thanks Andy!
Thanks Alan!
It would be awesome to have an Enlisted Crew Chief, Flight Engineer, Door Gunner (whatever the Army calls them) that was with 160'th on. As far as I know Ive never seen or heard of a podcast with an Enlisted Nightstalker.
Great interview! I look forward to reading his book.
One of the best podcasts I’ve ever listened to. Thank you
Very cool listening to people who were on these famous missions.
Love when Andy has the aviators on the show. There is nothing not cool about the stick-jocky's and fixed wing guys.
Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
The Chinook in ANY variant is by far the best sounding aircraft in the US Rotary Wing Arsenal
Very interesting brothers...always like new guests & stories...bravo 💪👍🌠
Another great one Andy!
Keep up the hard work.
1:44:51
"Hey Ackmed, lets go take a look and see what that noise was"
LOOOL
I don't know if I've said this before, but you really ought to get Jimmy Hatch on the show. Both of you have somewhat similar arcs in your respective careers so it would be interesting to hear you guys talk.
Woke up saw it was Al Mack was like he'll ya. I have read all the books on Afganistan what a hero with big huge balls thanks I wish you would have went a little deeper into what his thoughts were on the change of insertion points for Takur Gar, Slab and Pete Blaber wanted to wait 24 hours were turned down just thought might get a little insight from pilots perspective but i could tell he just isnt one of those guys to talk freely as one would say but thanks to both of you always awesome to here from guys that there are no words to say how much i respect what you did for each other and our country.
I was an Army Brat and lived on multiple bases. Recently, a retired LTC said thank you for your service. I had to remind him, I didn’t have the choice. I was born into it - to CW5 Mack say the families deserve the thanks… damn. My dad knew what he signed up for, his wife knew, but that was our everyday. We didn’t know anything else…
Such a cool guy one of my favorites so far!
Great guest, great show Andy !
Monday Cleared Hot !
This is your best pod yet Andy. Good stuff.
Got my two bags coming in today!
Another excellent podcast very informative🇺🇸🇺🇸
Get his son on too!
Let's get this week done! 💪
Mr Stumpf, today is a good day. Thank you for your continued content, and your guests.
Quote of the podcast "Oh they're out of their fucking minds".
@Andy Stumpf can you get some Delta Force guys on? They're super interesting and not much is known about their day-to-day work.
They have to want to come on lol..a lot of them don't wanna talk at all
Hey everyone have a wonderful week and stay safe
Bad ass to see more nightstalker content. Your pod is easily in my top three
Excellent stories on this one
This episode made me love helicopters even more. I bet it's pretty neat to do maneuvers and shit in a helicopter. Fuckin send it.
Did you guys and lady know that Andy collects old truck bumpers?
Andy, if you want some AC-130 guys to talk with if know a few.
Really good interview man, brought back a lot of memories during anaconda days.
Good stuff!!
I was on many Chinnooks and there are some national guard ones over at our airport but the one I remember is when I was on an aiirborne operation last man in about a 25 man stick and I am standing next to the pilots close enough to say hello. Like can you check the pack closing tie on my chite as no room for the safety to do it. Jumped anyways.
Loving the pod cast Andy, knocking it out, also turn on that dudes mike
I think the army’s WO helo pilot pipeline is awesome. A cousin of mine did it. It’s weird the navy/marines don’t have a similar track. Both had flying petty officers/sergeants back in ww2 flying fixed wing aircraft. It’s kind of wasteful considering commissioned officer pilots end up on non flying duties for bulk of their career.
Pay my due, thx buddy
Just a show suggestion. You should see if you could get Rob riggle in there to interview. He was a part of the horse soldiers
Monday!
Great stuff guys. Riveting, edge of my seat shit.
woooo!!!!
4k views and 345 likes? C'mon gents.
Great Show!! Regular guys doing extremely heroic shit every day. Fucking Awesome!
Awesome podcast as usual. I hope at some point his book will be available in an audiobook platform.
I know him personally. I’ll ask if he will narrate one.
@@jesterking1 Awesome! Thank you
My station's callsign was 'Brogue'. We were a frickin shoe, honestly who picks a frickin shoe?!?
The issue with the MoH was the Navy would not support Chapman's medal, because it showed that they abandoned Chapman.
okei then,😊
👍
Awesome episode !!! I want you to have a Horse soldier on. I would like to hear a podcast, rather than watching a very over exaggerated movie
Return to sender
😎
⛩
BJJ is just spicy wrestling.
Schweet
On a serious note i see Montana Treasure on the table. Just sayin
Ok, just gonna put this out there bc it bothers me in general and it comes up a lot:
1. a sh*tty childhood is not an excuse to be a sh*tty person, stop thinking about it that way. Seriously. STOP. You need to stop and they need to stop with this ''logic". Bc it's like brain cancer and corrupts virtually every interraction. This is extremely important for you and for them. Sh*tty childhood should be about the same as ''car accident". They might be skitting around certain stuff which reminds them of the abuse for a while but they just need help moving on. In time the skittishness goes away. The less you draw their attention to it usually, the faster it goes away. This is general information. People do NOT want to be constantly reminded of something negative which happened to them. It prevents them from moving ON. It prevents you from moving on. It becomes a corrosive thing in your relationships if every time there's a problem, every conversation ends with them reliving their childhood trauma. It is not healthy for either of you. There are good ways to get past trauma, and bad ways. This is something which is very easy to do in real life. And which the people who grew up with that type of history need to do themselves and which you, if you're in a relationship with them, need to be on the same page with. Primarily, it needs to come from THEM, but you also need to respect and understand what their process is, and where they'r at with this stuff.
Think of all those videos with abused pets. They need to step outside the cage and onto the green grass and roll around for a while. You don't keep reminding them of the damn cage. you don't sit around and try to force them in and out of the cage. You just let them get out, roll around and then destroy the cage if possible. ( I have a pooch that loves destroying stuff he's afraid of and this is the best metaphor I have for you. If you want to give them a bat or something (or they want them) to help with the cage destruction, go for it. There are programs like that. )
The LESS of an impact you make it have the better it goes for everyone involved. The faster those wounds heal and you can move on. It's the same as a car accident. It sucked, It happened. We move on. We don't dwell on it and stew in the emotional trauma for decades at a time. That's toxic. And it is not your job to convince them of this, if they're unclear what they need. I'm just telling you so you know and to combat the ridiculous levels of misinformation around these topics.
There is no shame, no guilt, no self-recrimination, no nothing. You have to see it that way and so does the other person (the trauma person). No on is allowed to heap blame onto victims. No one is allowed to try to use their history as a way to abuse them further. This needs to be something your entire community (and ideally all of society) needs to commit to. Trauma is meant to heal. Blaming people for random stuff which happened to them which was outside their control does nothing to help heal them. Therefore it is useless, and we don't do it.
2. it's not the job. substance abuse happens in a lot of jobs. if people want to abuse substances they will always find an excuse to do so. There is a high corellation to your jobs bc of the cracks in your medical system and the fact that a lot of you get injured and then treated with substances which are known to be addictive. But that's all. Beyond that, it's not the job.
We do NOT repond to stress levels with substances!! Regardless of the stess level. The substances make it worse not better. And you all need to be VERY clear on that. Bc otherwise the combination of trauma and constant stress will eventually break you/them/whoever. Its' life, There will be some trauma.
3. once they're ON substances it ALWAYS gets worse. Even if they had a totally fine childhood and history and you're home 24/7. It's the substance itself which degrades the human body. If they're looking for ways to self-damage the substances will help them do that. Plain and simple.
No, this is not an emotional analysis, bc chemicals do not care about your emotions. Be VERY wary of people trying to drag emotions into these conversations bc guilt tripping is something addicts do, so 90% of the time they're the addicts or they're acting in accordance to the wishes of other addicts. If you need counselling to deal with such emotions this is not that counselling. That is done with a therapist and look for one which does *not* prescribe meds to discuss your emotions, if you just want to talk it out and it feels unresolved in your mind. There are no meds which will help you recognize toxic behaviours in other people. It's not a chemical thing, you just need to make the conscious decision to not listen to BS excuses or guilt trips.
4. Never support addicts. NEVER. It is not a maybe, it is a never. It's bad for you and for them. Especially not in a financial way. They need a medical intervention aka detox. There is nothing else for them to do. It's the equivalent of bleeding out slowly. It will kill them eventually, and it's just a matter of when. So, the best thing you can do for them is get them in a program.
Your relationship is already over if you're living with an addict. Maybe not in a legal way, but in an emotional and practical way, it is. They do need help, but that needs to be done professionally now. They cannot have a healthy relationship any more than they could if they were literally bleed*ng out in front of you. You're just confused bc it takes longer for the addiction to kill them than the bleed*ng out would. It does, but the fact that they cannot think about or care about anything else, is the same. It is a vortex and it consumes them. You're just circumstantial. If it was not you, it would be someone else. There is no point trying to reason wth them while they're addicted to substances bc they cannot reason! They cannot care and they cannot ''save themselves". The time for ''will power" is before they are addicts not during. During is too late. They need to detox.
5. As long as highly addictive substances are prevalent in the military community this problem area will NOT go away. If you want to make things better for your coworkers you have to start educating them and yourselves. There are better options out there, which can be used instead of the super addictive stuff, they're just not available to you guys. No one asked for them to be available. This is a weakness (imo) in your medical system which should be addressed. And immediately. It should have been done years ago, but clearly no one got around to it. Since you have a platform and ppl are paying attention it would not hurt to start getting around to it.
6. A person who underwent personal trauma is not allowed to sympathize with their abuser. And neither are you, if you know who their abuser was. They fked up. Either they're in jail or they managed to avoid jail but they did fk up. Loop holes in the system does not mean they were not guilty of abuse. You will maintain the standards of you will end up suffering the consequences. There is no such thing as ''we're not gonna complain about that". Not on any level.
I'll be more than happy to fire her for you if you don't have the stomach. Someone "create a position" for me to do that, and I'll be the happiest little clam in the world! 😁
If there is a malfunctioning chink in the grand chain of command and your superior feels the need to NOT do their job appropriately (whether male or female) they can and will be replaced. If you want a healthy work environment you need to create that and you need to patrol that work environment.
The end. It's not hard. Its the easiest thing you've ever done.
Not having to put up with fked up people who are there to just mooch off the system and drag everyone down will be the biggest relief of your lives. Like opening a window in a stuffy room. All of a sudden everyone feels better.
You don't need to fight yourselves and your instincts to protect fk heads. Have THAT attitude and I promise you this problem will vanish like the freaking morning dew... it will be a wonderful feeling and a great moment for morale and team work. You won't lose a wink of sleep having to NOT worry that your commanding officer is trying to r-word your wife while your back is turned... Not a wink.
7. Bad things happening to you are not a reason for you to give up or give in. Never. It doesn't matter what the "bad thing" is... that is your enemy and shall be eliminated. You can be creative in HOW you shall eliminate it, but it's life and you do need to win. Survival is a great skill set. Abuse is just another scenario to get through, nothing more, nothing less.
I hope this helps. I know it's not the same as therapy but I still hope you can take something out of it which helps you get through. It's something which has always helped me and people around me when I encoutered such topics. The trick is to get everyone to see it that way, so that we stop loosing people through the cracks... bc I do hate that part. The loosing ppl who could have been saved part is always the worst.
Third
Travis Kennedy
COMMENT
Either Alan's levels are really low or he is just a really soft spoken guy