Men's Health USA 09.2021

Courtesy subject (Afghanistan, ceremony) Air Force Senior overwatch of the area, so as soon as we Before 9/11, I thought grit and resilience
Master Sergeant breached the compound, it was on. meant working long days or shifts, trying
to grind through and just live a life of peace.
Robert We took cover in a building under heavy After two decades of fighting, I’ve come
Gutierrez fire. What we thought were ten enemy fight- to realize that grit and resilience means
ers turned out to be 40-plus. I was working never quitting. That, in the end, it’s never
41 years old the radio when one of my teammates was about you but those around you who make
in a rifle-mag change. I took his position at you better each day, to serve selflessly for
I WAS WORKING as a meter reader for San the doorway and looked up—20 feet away, a higher cause or being. For me, that cause
Diego Gas & Electric on 9/11, getting ready elevated, was an enemy combatant. was my country.
to go in for the day, when I turned on the TV
and literally watched the second tower fall. We made eye contact and engaged at the Resilience is a lifelong journey. That’s
same time. something I try to impart now to the next
I got filled with this overwhelming sense generation in my role training and sup-
of anger and frustration. I couldn’t believe He died. I lived. porting future operators.
this had happened to our people, our coun- When I got hit, I understood immedi-
try. I was healthy, I was young, and I knew ately. When blood’s pouring from your I felt that commitment to country I had
that if anyone was going to go to war, it mouth and nose, that’s not a good sign. made on September 11 hadn’t yet been ful-
should be me. I pretty much quit my job that Same when you can’t talk. filled. I had more to give. More to do. I have
day. Went straight to the recruiting offices. Time slowed down, and I thought about an obligation to my teammates, and their
so many things. I had a child coming. I families especially, to continue honoring
The Air Force recruiter was walking into thought about my teammates and knew them with my service. I always mention in
his office when I got there. I asked if they they needed me to help get out of this sit- conversation the teammates we lost. Their
were hiring. “We’re always hiring,” he said. uation. So I got up. I had a collapsed lung, sacrifice will never be in vain, because as
And that was that. and the medic, he was amazing. long as we continue to say their names, they
In the middle of a gunfight, under night will always be alive and remembered.
I became a combat controller because vision, he gives me a needle decompres-
I wanted to be in the fight. Our motto is sion. Saved me so I could breathe and work When the battle became public knowl-
“First There,” and we mean it, we live that. coordinates with the pilots. edge [Gutierrez was awarded the Air Force
To quickly integrate with any special- I requested guns—high-angle strafes Cross in 2011 for extraordinary heroism in
operations teams on the ground, it’s vital. from two A-10’s. On danger-close strikes combat], my hometown paper did a story. I
We’re their technical expert, the force mul- like that, the risk of fratricide is huge. heard from all sorts of people. Some didn’t
tiplier that connects the ground to airpower. Closest distance to the enemy was less even know I’d joined the military. Some said
than ten meters. they didn’t know the Air Force fights.
The military’s not for everyone, but I can It was so damn loud. But it was on target.
say that for me, it changed my life. I had God bless. I personally consider them the I still find peace in challenging myself.
goals but no direction. The Air Force best pilots in the Air Force. Try to get better every day, every time. I’m
gave me that direction and path to get Shout-out to “Bluto” and “Rally.” big into bowhunting—I eat everything I
where I wanted to be. One of my eardrums had burst. On the hunt. The Rocky Mountain elk I’d say is
exfil, my lung collapsed again, so the medic the toughest challenge. It’s hard to get to,
Commitment to country means every- had to stick me again. A sucking chest terrain-wise. Many things worth finding are.
thing to me. That commitment was based wound, basically. Turned out I’d lost about
on knowing that other people came here to five and a half pints of blood. But I wasn’t
hurt and try to terrorize our country into the only one hurting. Most important, the
submission. Our country’s foundation of high-value target was dead.
principles comes from patriots who wanted We know there’s inherent risk to this
to put themselves and their families in a business, to this profession. And that
better place. They fought for that. That’s it might take your life. But the honor in
what’s seen me through these 20 years. dying for your country while fighting for
it, it’s an accepted fate. It’s an honorable
I’ve deployed to Operation Iraqi Free- fate. At that point, I was okay with that fate,
dom, Operation Enduring Freedom in because we’d done our job, carrying out jus-
Afghanistan, and Africa. tice for the people we lost on 9/11.
Nineteen months of recovery. Wasn’t
In October 2009, I was a JTAC [joint ter- easy, but I wanted to get back to the fight.
minal attack controller]-qualified com- A senior NCO told me once, “Get comfort-
bat controller for a Special Forces team in able with being uncomfortable.” That
western Afghanistan. The mission was a served me well. It means you can work in
Taliban target, middle of the night, high whatever environment may be present
illumination. They’d packed the road with and be okay with the fact that it may be
IEDs, improvised explosive devices, so we hard, it may be miserable weather or dif-
moved in on foot. They had elevated, armed ficult circumstances, but you can prevail
and get the job done.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTOPHER LEE MEN’S HEALTH | SEPTEMBER 2021 93

were clearing an area to take it and hold it from entrenched

Marine Master Sergeant Taliban positions with our Afghan counterparts, a multiday
operation, and came under heavy fire.
Raider Eight*
A teammate of mine was shot in the face. There was a lot
of blood. I got onto the radio and organized a medevac. But
it was too small of an area, too close to the enemy, for a heli-

39 years old copter to fly in and get him. So I moved him out on foot. Just
the two of us, because our team was small and they needed

every rifle and specialized skill in that moment. Despite an

I GREW UP IN QUEENS, kind of by LaGuardia Airport. AK bullet in his face, my teammate walked out on his own

After the first plane hit on 9/11, I went to a nearby park two feet, with a slight helping hand from me. We continued

with a view of the skyline. People didn’t really have cells, so to address some enemy threats from point A to point B. Then

a group of us huddled around an AM/FM radio, trying to he put himself onto the medevac truck. Fortunately, he is

make sense of the jumbled news. still with us today and thriving.

You could see the smoke from both towers at this point. America is a beacon of hope in a lot of places, to a lot of peo-

A little smoke turned into a lot of smoke. We didn’t know ple. Anyone who’s spent time abroad in these places knows it.

what had happened. You know things are going on but don’t They want what we have here, freedom and democracy. They

yet have a full grasp of what, let alone why. are fighting for those same things. They want their country

The Marines were already on my radar on 9/11, and I’d to represent that as well. These aren’t just notional ideas or

signed up for the delayed-entry program through college. talking points. They are as real as can be.

But that day definitely gave me a clear purpose for what I was Before I joined the military, physical strength meant just

about to do. I arrived at boot camp November 5, 2001. that: the ability to complete an exercise or a run or a swim.

Everyone in our Marine special-operations community Mental strength meant not quitting. After two decades, I

and the broader military has a story about pain and loss and realizethatyourphysicalandmentalstrengtharepartofyour

grieving. That’s the through line of these wars, these years team dynamic. Now mental strength is resilience, intro-

when I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. You have to find spection, and growth from your experiences.

a way to deal with that. I’m a reader, so two books that have I didn’t have an awareness of resilience early in my career.

helped me in this regard: Antifragile, by Nassim Nicholas To be resilient, you have to accept the things that are happen-

Taleb, and Struggle Well, by Ken Falke and Josh Goldberg. ing. There’s an inherent vulnerability to that. Experiencing

Ultimately, life isn’t about what happens to you; it’s about 20 years of problem-solving in high-stress environments has

howyourespond.IreadalotoftheStoicphilosophers,Marcus made it much easier to put things into perspective. Challenges

Aurelius,Epictetus,Seneca.Aquietreadinthemorningisvery are now not as serious as the initial emotional reaction seems.

reinforcingbeforeyoustarttheday.Ifsomethingisbeyondmy You will get through the hard times and be better for it.

circle of influence? Leave it there; accept it for what it is. When you have experienced true life-and-death situa-

One time I lived that: About a decade back, Afghanistan. We tions, it reframes how you look at “difficult” things. Imag-

*The subject requested anonymity because he is still an active-duty special operator. ine the difference between a two-year-old with a
scraped knee and a trauma surgeon with a scraped

knee. They are looking at the situation from very dif-

ferent perspectives.

I no longer wear a uniform to work every day, but

my military experiences lead me in the decisions I

make on Capitol Hill. You have to work with a diverse

group of people, with different goals and ideas on

how to accomplish them. What I have found is that

interpersonal-communication skills are universal.

Left: The Marine master sergeant, who currently
works in national security, on Capitol Hill in June
2021. Below: In Afghanistan in 2011.

Courtesy subject (Afghanistan)

PHOTOGRAPH BY JARED SOARES

Right: The Navy master chief at Camp
Pendleton in California during a

training exercise in June 2021. Below:
Working construction, circa 2001.

Navy Master Chief

Delta Seven*

37 years old

Courtesy subject (construction) WHEN 9/11 HAPPENED, I was at home, morning, there were probably seven to ten training and fighting, I’ve come to realize
having coffee, getting ready to work con- Peshmerga, Kurds, fitted into each ambu- that through identifying and understand-
struction, the family business. Like a lot of lance. We treated over 100 very critical ing our personal or professional vulnerabil-
people, we thought it was fake at first. trauma casualties that day. By midday, we ities, we can become stronger teammates
started receiving accurate mortar fire and and a stronger unit by focusing our efforts
Joining the military was something I’d rockets. So that was different, treating on improvement and lending a helping
thought about, but nothing too serious. The casualties during all that. A couple hours hand where others fall short.
events of that morning solidified that choice later, they began bringing in injured civil-
for me and inspired me to action. ians. ISIS was losing, and they’d detonated Pay attention, learn, improve. Every day.
some suicide vests to cause chaos. I thought physical strength was how
I had a contract within the month. much weight you could lift, how big your
I had a yearning to do something in We were able to save most of the civil- muscles were. But serving alongside the
the medical field, not just to be one of ians attacked by ISIS. But two small chil- toughest men I’ve ever met changed my
the guys on the ground but also to help. dren didn’t make it. definition: Executing multiday operations
I’ve spent almost 20 years in the Navy over arduous terrain in 130 degree heat
and not once set foot on a ship. My entire To make it in emergency medicine, you with a ruck that weighs as much as a small
career has been as a corpsman, a medic. learn early: Sometimes there’s nothing adult and then having to fight for your life
Navy corpsmen have a longstanding, you can do. All you can do is your best. So when you get to your destination is beyond
tight-knit history with the Marines. I’m that’s what we did, tried to have the resil- the traditional standard of strength.
now in MARSOC—Marine Forces Special ience to bounce back. I’ve also learned that the mind is stron-
Operations Command. ger than the body. Psychological strength,
Deployments? Once to Afghanistan, That mission went on for three to four the resolve to break past barriers when
once to Yemen, five times total to Iraq. more days. And we won. It was a big, vic- you’re already depleted, is vital.
In 2015, we deployed to Iraq, when the torious day for us, the Peshmerga, and the I thought spirituality just meant being
ISIS caliphate was at the height of its power. people of Kirkuk. That can’t be forgotten, religious. I’ve learned that we each have a
We were the first Marine special-ops team even through the tragedy. fire inside connecting all of us, kept kin-
on the ground there, to advise and assist. dled by a sense of duty to our team, our
ISIS was coming for the Kirkuk oil fields. The time goes by quickly. A decade in, families, our country. The fierce American
Everyone knew: This is where we push I realized I had training and experience spirit is what we rely on to both calm and
them back. We established a forward med- some of the junior folks didn’t have yet. embolden us to do such dangerous deeds.
ical station as near the fighting as possible. That they needed me there for that. It’s a We’re also just regular people. We are
Our job was to stabilize casualties so calling, in that way. It really is. sons, brothers, sisters, parents. That’s
civilian ambulances could get them back something I wish more people understood.
to the hospital, Kirkuk General. That first Before 9/11, I thought vulnerability was
weakness or incapability. Honestly, I think
we all felt vulnerable when the World Trade
Center was attacked. After two decades of

*The subject requested anonymity because he is still an active-duty special operator. MEN’S HEALTH | SEPTEMBER 2021 95
PHOTOGRAPH BY TARA PIXLEY

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96 SEPTEMBER 2021 | MEN’S HEALTH