Evidence of our Passing: A Veteran of Afghanistan, Iraq, West Africa, and Ukraine

Editor’s Note: the following is a series of excerpts from Evidence of our Passing, a pending book by Sean “Grizz” O’Malley. Grizz was a machine gunner in the Marines and served in Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times before becoming a firefighter and smoke jumper. He later worked as a private security contractor in places including West Africa and fought in Ukraine, where he was wounded and lost an eye. But some of the toughest battles that he and his comrades faced were those on the home front.

Look for Grizz’s book in 2025, and hear from him on an upcoming episode of the Urban Valor podcast. All photos are the author’s.

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Afghanistan
The definition of Irony: We roll down “Peace Street,” the recent hearts-and-minds-friendly name
for the newly paved and IED-laden Route 611. Some general far from Afghanistan probably
named the route on his map from the confines of his air-conditioned office and thought it was a brilliant
name of change for the people that hate us. Our support attachment is armed to the teeth with vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns and anti-armor missile launchers. As the foot mobile element, we’re
carrying large counter IED devices that look like computers from 1982 with various other necessary tools and weapons made to bring anything BUT peace to the sorry soul on the other end.

We conduct some mutually supporting squad movements near “Peace Street” expecting some massive
fight, only to be ever so humbled by the lone flip-flopping Taliban sniper who sets down his chai for a
moment to take a pop at us on our egress out of the village. His gunshot ends up hitting our high
ranking, false bravado spewing loudmouth Regimental Combat Team Gunner that only minutes before
was casually blabbing to anyone within earshot of him how we WOULDN’T get any action today.
Where? Right in his big fucking mouth. Alanis Morrissette would have another verse. A little bit ironic,
don’t ya think?

…hearing ”RPG FRONT!!” As I rapidly search and assess possible firing positions riddled throughout the mud compound alley. I immediately ID one of the three enemy RPG gunners that have all taken aim on me at once for a well-coordinated volley fire at my position. He’s about 50 meters away, but as I move quickly to look over the barrel of my M2 .50 caliber machine gun to get a hasty field sight and engage, everything goes black. My ears begin the cacophony of ringing that has only worsened each time (3x) I’ve been blown up over the years. My vehicle’s rooftop turret firing position is instantly filled with smoke. Two of the RPGs have directly hit and detonated on my position. One of the rounds spiderweb shatters the resistance glass plate 2 feet in front of my face.

Immediately, before the smoke can even dissipate from the turret, I begin blindly firing to the direct
front knowing that I only have friendly forces on foot to my flanks and vehicle mounted in a column at
my 6. The few seconds that have passed since hearing the “RPG FRONT” alert feel like slow-motion
minutes, and I immediately became worried that the Taliban were rushing our vehicle (they were not), so I did what I needed to do to provide some type of suppressive fire in their direction to keep them at bay. I lay on the trigger in the dark while I vomit, presumably from the blast concussion, smoke inhalation, or both. The Taliban obviously never rushed my vehicle, so it’s weird to still have random dreams of them ascending my turret as I fire blindly with no effect while they crawl into my position, easily overpowering and dragging me away.

Iraq
The sky is currently at the point of light projection lying somewhere in a state of purgatory between day
and night. The sun has been down for about 30 minutes and the moon is visible but not at full form. I asked my buddy lying next to me if he saw the light in the 1 o’clock direction in the thick vegetated tree line 50 meters out. He begins his scan while we talk in a tone between a whisper and conversational volume. As I continued scanning the more precise area where I saw the light and explaining what caught my eye, I ceased mid-sentence. The small light appears again at a glowing projection that slightly expands. As I stare through my optic, I can now see the shadow silhouette of a man, increasing his shape with the growing small light and then slowly starting to fade. It’s a dude who thinks he’s concealed, watching us next to a tree smoking a cigarette.

The light increases again as I immediately flip the safety off my rifle while aiming the reticle below the
cigarette cherry at the chest of his silhouette. I pull the trigger, and the silhouette drops like a bag of
bricks. I fire a few more 5.56 rounds into the vegetation patch he fell at and begin scanning the area for
any others that might begin movement. 1st Sergeant Sandoval immediately runs to the position and
yells up to us on the roof, “O’Malley, what do you got Brother?” Without hesitation, I reply with a lucid
calm that, “There was a haji in the tree line. I shot him.” He being an extremely well-respected Grunt
his whole career with experience from the early days in Iraq, he projects a long 3 seconds of silence.
He then gives a firm “good to go” in a voice that still carries the acoustics from his days as a Drill Instructor. He immediately moves away from my position, choosing not to ask the question he already knows the answer to regarding any weapons being visible on the target…

Ukraine
…conducting Pre-Combat Checks and Inspections (PCC/PCI) for the raid on the Russian-controlled small town. I remind one of the guys to start filling a few of the empty water bottles with
gasoline and make sure one man in each team has a bottle. As I had mentioned during the mission brief, If we end up hitting a position that turns into a stalemate with the enemy holding their well-fortified bunkers as defensive positions baiting us to attempt a clear while waiting for their Quick Reaction Force (QRF), we’re just going to burn them out (an old Irish Republican Army trick). As with all things in life: When in doubt, send it…

….hearing the enemy tank down the street heading back toward our positions, I immediately tell
my anti-tank guys to be ready for their rocket shots while the two former SEALs move to
staggered positions to distract and draw fire from the tank. The Russian tank comes within 50 meters as I charge the M249 SAW, move to an exposed position, and lay on the trigger….

West Africa
…the phone starts ringing and it’s AJ. Because of the recent attack and hasty organization of
countermeasures, the last 36 hours on contract in West Africa have been without sleep and I’m finally in bed. Now I’m staring at the caller ID. I break my own rule set in place because of the rampant suicides in the old battalion and I don’t answer the phone because I’m fucking tired. I feel better about it a couple of minutes later though when **** calls too and I get a wave of relief assuming they’re both together drunk dialing me as usual and I crash out.

I wake up several hours later to see the missed calls and messages of “call me as soon as possible” from my Mom (completely out of the norm when she knows I’m abroad). I don’t need to call her back
because I already know. A surge of violent, anger-enveloped adrenaline hits me, and I know immediately that I’ll be requesting a break of contract from higher command to go back stateside and bury AJ with the rest of them….

The Home Front
…the second wave of puke flowing from my mouth while I hover over the Las Vegas toilet, and
Thompson runs into the bathroom yelling “Corporal O’Malley, are you here?” I give an ominous grunt
that gives away my position as I continue puking over the toilet. He recognizes my voice and lets me
know that the Battalion Commander, head honcho shit, is repeatedly calling for me to report over the
microphone. I clean up with haste and smash through the giant wood double doors of the grand
ballroom with over 2,000 people in attendance who immediately heckle me while I stumble in.
The Battalion Commander, in clear disapproval, stands me front and center while reading some
highlights of Afghan Operations and presents me a sword as an award. He immediately realizes that I’m a little drunk and decides to hang onto the gifted sword until I’m of cleaner eyes. I walk back to the table of my 12-year-old niece, as shame grips. An immediate and discomforting reminder that I’m an infinite distance from any kind of love, and only know how to react accordingly to violence…

…back stateside a few days before Halloween under strict orders from the medical team not to
do any kind of gym activity for at least a year because I could drop dead from a brain hemorrhage due to the shrapnel lodged deep in my brain. On Halloween, I decide to weigh myself and see 163lbs on the scale. My average weight was 205lbs before I got hit 6 weeks ago. I immediately go to my truck and
begin slowly rolling away from my Idaho mountain property en route to the gym in town. I happen to
glance back in the rearview mirror and see myself running through the driveway flagging me down. I
stop and he comes up to the window asking where I’m going. I stare at him, holding back tears in my eyes and voice, to sternly tell him that I’m going to the gym. He just stares at me for a tactical pause, knowing that I’m under strict medical orders of zero physical activity, but also knowing that we hold the same principles. He simply says, “Goddamnit. Well, let me jump in.”

…7 months later, the overseas assignment tempo allows for what I can only describe as fate. I’m at
Thermopylae on Memorial Day weekend having the privilege to run the MURPH wearing a 25lb vest (1
mile run (100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats-1 mile run) and toast my dead Brothers with honor.
After the toast, I move off the beaten path to dig a hole. I bury their memorial cards right there at the
Hot Gates and thank them for allowing me to continue the fight, vowing to them that I will only quit
when it is no longer my choice…

Why We Write
(I want to) write something that will give guys like you something to do when they’re bored, hot,
dusted, and MIND NUMBINGLY BORED. The guys who are pissed off that their friend just got killed by a sniper because the POG fucking 1st Sgt decided an outpost needed to be free of garbage, so he went just a little too far outside the sniper screen for a piece of trash that cost him his life. The guys who are heartbroken because their chick wrote them a Dear John letter and took off with some dude that dodged the wars. Write something for the guy who needs something to do to get his mind off the fact that his turret took multiple direct hits from a volley of RPGs, and all he remembers is hearing “RPG Front!” followed by the ringing in his ears. The blackness of the thick smoke that engulfed him and wondering if he was dead or about to be overrun. Dry heaving and gasping for the air that was knocked out of him from the concussion of the blasts.
 
(I want to) write something for the guy that for the first time actually takes someone’s life, and he needs
something to do because he can’t sleep. He can’t wrap his mind around the fact that somehow, he’s not
dead. He can’t sleep because he feels terrible that he DOESN’T feel terrible. He feels powerful and
invincible. He thought it was supposed to be hard to pull the trigger on another man crouching twenty-
feet away wildly firing an AK-47 and can’t get over how easy it was, how little thought it actually took.
How at that moment everything else that was going on seemed to freeze and both sides vanished
leaving just the two of them for those few seconds that felt like hours. The only people on this planet
until one of them left this world forever in a flash of misted blood and dust.

He can’t sleep because it wasn’t just one of them that left this world forever. He would never be the
same person he was before that moment. Neither better, nor worse, but certainly not the same. Life
would never again be the same because now he is a taker of it. He can’t sleep because he is disgusted
with himself for feeling so good. Because he wants to go back out and do it all over again. And he will…

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As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.