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Sean Stanley, otherwise known as Mama, is an aviator in the US Marine Corps Reserves.
To learn more about Isagenix, visit nmp.isagenix.com.
To learn more about Isagenix, visit nmp.isagenix.com.
Creators & Guests
What is The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast?
The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast was born out of a place of grief. Having lost my best friend from the Marine Corps in the early hours of 2023, I realized that this feeling was all too familiar. I wanted to do something, not only for the loss I felt, but for the loss I knew many families were enduring day to day.
We believe that a major way to relieve the stressors of life is to talk, laugh, cry, and share our experiences without fear of offense. We hope to attract veterans and first responders as well as anyone who is interested in knowing more about what it’s like to be in our shoes while we wear or wore those shoes.
PODCAST INTRODUCTION: Hello everyone and welcome to Ghost Turd Stories.
I'm your host, Troy Gent.
Ghost Turd Stories mission is using humorous stories from veterans and first responders to reduce the burden of families whose veteran or first responder committed suicide.
Ghost Turd Stories vision is to use humor from veteran and first responder stories to prevent suicide within our ranks and reduce the burden of families whose veteran or first responder committed suicide.
We hoped to attract veterans and first responders as well as those interested in knowing more about what it's like to be in our shoes while we wear or wore those shoes.
TROY GENT: Hey everybody!
This is Troy Gent your host of Ghost Turd Stories.
Today I've got a special guest, Sean Stanley.
He's a major in the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserves.
He's an Osprey pilot and did several years of active duty as a pilot.
His main job today is a commercial airline pilot.
Welcome, Sean.
It's great to have you.
How are you?
SEAN STANLEY: Hey thanks, Troy.
Man, it's great to be here.
It's great to talk with you.
It's been a while.
TROY GENT: Yeah, it has.
You're a busy guy and I'm getting to the point of becoming an empty nester and you still got lots of kids in the house.
We'll just roll right into it.
What's the dumbest thing you ever did when you were in the Marine Corps?
SEAN STANLEY: My wife was pregnant when I joined.
So by the time I got to the fleet, had about a two-year-old.
We lived on base.
I had big aspirations that I was going to be a general.
I was kind of this wet blanket.
I'd work and then I'd just go home and I'd hang out with my wife
I'd go to squadron functions but that was just about it.
So me doing dumb things...
Man, that just didn't happen.
Probably the dumbest thing that anybody ever asked me to do and I didn't mind.
We join to go into combat and to do all those silly things.
The Marine Corps just has you just do dumb things.
It's part of being a Marine.
But the dumbest thing my CO ever had me do is we were living in North Carolina and there was a big old freaking hurricane bearing down on Eastern North Carolina.
So they had everybody evacuate.
Everybody flew all their birds away that they couldn't fit in the hanger.
So all of our birds, they all took them up to Nashville.
And our CO came up with this idea because the Marine Corps says that you've got to have a duty watch, right?
You've got to have fire watch.
Even though there's a hurricane coming, you still got to have a fire watch in your freaking building.
So our CO was like, "Well we gotta have fire watch."
He looks at the squadron and he's like, "Oh, you know what?
Man, Lieutenant Stanley, you live on base.
You're the best option.
You're gonna be the SDO while this hurricane rolls through."
Everybody's families were going to Charlotte.
They were gone, right?
They were going to Atlanta.
Everybody was gone.
And here Lieutenant freaking Stanley is.
I'm sitting in the hangar by myself.
Hurricane comes through, right?
Obviously it knocks out power.
I have nothing to do.
I don't have cell phone service
There's no one I could call if there was a fire.
There's no way I could call anyone.
There's nothing I could do but by golly, I'm sitting in that hanger.
I am on duty and it's freaking hurricane comes through.
You know, nothing really happened.
I mean, panels came off here and there.
The Marine Corps is dumb with their duty.
All the Air Force cats, they learn how to fly the Osprey at the Marine Corps Osprey training squadron there at New River.
And so when I was in training, I became good friends with a guy, Andrew.
It was Saturday and he said, "Hey man, why don't you and your wife come over for dinner?"
And I'm like, "Ah, dude.
I can't.
I can't.
I gotta go to the squadron.
He's like, "Dude, it's Saturday.
We're not flying.
I'm like, "Oh no, man.
I gotta go stand duty."
He's like, "What are you talking about?"
I'm like, "I got to go.
I'm SDO.
I'm Spotted Duty Officer.
He's like, "What do you do?
I'm like, "Well, it's a twenty-four-hour watch.
You know, you spend the night.
Make sure...
He's like, "You make sure what?"
What are you going to do if something does happen?
I'm like, "Well, I'm going to call somebody.
And he's like, "Wait a second.
You're telling me that you've got to get into our building.
It's on the flat line so you've got to get through a turnstile.
You have to have access to get to the turnstile.
You've got to have access to get into the door.
Oh, by the way, you have to get access to get onto a base and you're not gonna do anything.
You don't have a weapon.
You don't have nothing but a cell phone."
He's like, "Man, you Marines are so dumb.
In the Air Force, we have this same duty but we all have a cell phone.
I just go do it from my house.
What are you guys doing?"
I'm like, "Awe, dude.
We're fire watch buddy."
Obviously we saw Marines do a lot of dumb things because you know Marines love to do dumb things.
Probably the dumbest thing I ever saw a guy do and I'm sticking with officers.
I'm not gonna pick on enlisted guys.
I'm gonna stick with officers here.
I thought it was just a marine thing but this freakin dude loved to draw dicks everywhere.
He just drew dicks everywhere and he was such a skilled artist.
He wouldn't just draw a dick.
He would draw just a detailed, veiny, just proportional dick everywhere.
We'd be studying together, I'd go hit the head, I'd come back, I'd go home, and my wife's helping me study.
I've got dicks drawn all over my study material.
In the squadron, we have what we call an operations duty Officer, an ODO.
And his job is to make sure the schedule goes through.
That the flight schedule works out and he works directly for the OPSO.
The ODO, he got a phone call.
And while he was on a phone call, The Air Force dude took the schedule, he flipped the schedule over, and he sketched this just incredibly detailed penis on the back of the schedule.
Like the full length of the schedule, there's just this huge eruption.
If you could just imagine a detailed sketch artist's penis, that's what this was.
I mean it was epic.
And he then turned the schedule over.
Well, the freaking phone call was...
We had a V22 that was out flying, had a maintenance issue, and had to make an emergency landing off base.
So the ODO, he gets off the phone call.
He tells this Air Force cat, "Hey man, something real is going on.
I kind of need to be by myself."
So the guy gets up and leaves.
The actual real ODO comes over, gets the brief, gets all the information, and now the next step is you got to go brief the CEO.
He's got to make the final decision.
Uh, I can't remember his last name is Sanchez, but I think his call sign was Sanchez.
He was always joking around.
Well, for the one time in his life, he was serious.
He grabs the schedule, he's writing all this stuff down on the schedule, "Like this is who the pilot was.
This is who the co-pilot was.
These were the events.
This is where they were going."
Colonel Rock was the CO, legend in the V22 community, right?
He was one of the very first people to start the V22 up and he'd been with it forever.
So XO is sitting on, the couch, the CO's at the desk, and Sanchez is just up and he's briefing him, and if you can imagine, he's holding the schedule up and he's reading the schedule.
"This is who's on the schedule, blah blah blah," and on the back side of the schedule, there's this big, hairy, veiny penis just staring at the face of the CO.
And at the end, the CO kind of puts his hand on his desk and he says, "Sanchez, do you have a serious bone in your effing body?
Why is there a penis on the back of the schedule?"
He turns the schedule over, sees it, and then just...
There's the emotions of embarrassment mixed with anger.
This is what this Air Force cat did.
Everybody knew.
The Air Force cat was getting ready to do a flight and the CO pulled him off the flight and into his office.
More of a joke than anything.
He kind of had to talk with him.
And then the next day, maybe two days later, we had a kangaroo court.
That's how people get their call signs.
You cannot get a call sign outside of Kangaroo Court.
It has to happen that way.
So if you remember the movie Superbad, one of the stars, his name is Seth, and he draws penises.
TROY GENT: Oh man.
What's your callsign?
SEAN STANLEY: My call sign is Mama.
You know, as an active Mormon and got kids and a family and always the designated driver, always making sure people get home on time, I was the mama of the squadron, which I like.
I never tried to change it.
You know, we have guys that have terrible call signs.
We had a guy...
He was a great dude in the squadron.
Everybody liked him but the dude was clueless, man.
Like he was just...
He could fly but he couldn't think and fly.
He couldn't run an airplane.
We were in the squadron for about a year when we had our kangaroo court.
As a result, he got the callsign of NINI, which stands for No Impact, No Idea.
So now this dude has gotta go his whole career and tell everybody his callsign is NINI when people are like, "Why is it NINI?
Why's your callsign NINI?"
"Well, because I have no impact, no idea."
We were getting ready to go to Afghanistan.
Our entire squadron shut down and we all went to the rifle range the same day to kind of make sure that we limited impacts to flight operations and we just got this stuff done.
So we kind of did all of our ground training on one day.
So we went to the rifle range and here you have twenty-six officers on the range.
They treated us a little bit differently.
Like we could get away with a little bit more talking and bantering.
So we're talking smack, right?
We're talking smack the whole time.
We're aviators pretending like we can shoot guns and old NINI, he was on...
I don't know.
I'm gonna say target point fourteen and he's talking smack.
We're all talking smack and he gets down, he shoots, and completely misses the target.
So then they come over the loudspeaker and they're like, "No Impact, No Idea, target point fourteen."
Talk about losing bearing.
To include our CO, man.
People are falling over laughing cause here is NINI who just shot a noimpact, no idea.
TROY GENT: Say your major and there's a lieutenant colonel and you're all flying, do you typically call each other by the names or do you say, "Hey sir," or do you say, "Hey NINI," even if he's a rank higher than you or that?
SEAN STANLEY: Yeah, that's a great question, man.
Yeah, once you get in the cockpit, all rank goes away.
Everybody knows you by your call sign.
There are very few people in my squadron that know my first name.
Everybody calls me Mama.
And once you have a call sign, that's what everybody just calls you.
Everybody just calls you that.
In my phone, the majority of my buddies, I just have their call signs in there.
So even if you're on the rifle range or anywhere out, you still go by your call signs.
When you get to a cockpit man, it's like rank goes away.
Rank actually goes away.
You're using call signs and there are many many times when I'll be the flight lead.
Say we have two three four aircraft and I'm leading it and even though our CEO who's a lieutenant colonel and I'm just a captain he's following me.
He acquiesces to me.
I make the decision and I go, which is what's great about aviation is, you know, he's got so many other things to worry about.
But as a captain, I did the planning.
I know what we're doing.
We're going in.
So he follows me in.
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Did you ever have a peer subordinate or leader who was clueless, had zero common sense, or was a butt-kisser?
Obviously, NINI was our clueless dude in the squadron.
Man, when I was in OCS...
Dude, this was, fantastic.
We're in OCS.
I did a ten-week course, so we're probably seven weeks into it.
And you know how every Saturday morning you have that formation and they go through they're checking your uniform.
They're asking you all these questions.
I'm in the second row and I'm standing right behind this dude.
He was a good dude, great PTer, but just dumb as a brick, man.
He was from Missouri.
He went to the College of the Ozarks
I've never even heard of that place.
He tried really hard but just wasn't picking up.
If you didn't know an answer, you would say, "This candidate doesn't know but this candidate will find out!"
That was his go-to.
They would ask him and before they could even get the question out, he'd say, "This candidate doesn't know but this candidate will find out!"
Well, the sergeant instructors had had enough of that.
They get to him and are like, "Ah, this is messed up.
It looks like a bag of garbage.
Blahdy, blahdy, blahdy.
Candidate, who's the first female Marine?"
"This candidate doesn't know but this candidate will find out!"
Sergeant Strokes is like, "That's bullcrap!
Absolutely not!
You will get an answer before I leave!"
"This candidate doesn't know, but this candidate will find out."
He's like, "I'm gonna go through and I'm going to inspect the rest of your uniform and by the time I'm done you will give me an answer."
The sergeant starts going through just detailing a bunch of bullcrap.
And then this kid blurts out, "This candidate thinks he knows the answer."
And the Sergeant Instructor's like, "Well, what is it?"
And he goes, "The first female Marine is Opa!"
Opa Mae Johnson, right?
First female Marine was Opa Mae Johnson.
And the Sergeant Instructor looks at him and is like, "And?!"
And the guy, for probably ten to fifteen seconds just stares at the sergeant instructor.
And the sergeant instructor's like, "Opa who?!"
And I swear this is not made up.
I promise that this happened.
The dude blurts out, "Winfrey! Opa Winfrey!"
And the fucking sergeant instructor does a one-eighty.
The dude that was behind our Sergeant Instructor, both of them together make a beeline for the freakin barracks.
Our squadron collectively...
We fell about the place.
Every platoon was looking at us.
So they both leave and they're gone for like ten minutes.
So we all get together.
The residual laughs, the residual giggles, everybody shakes those out.
You bounce around on your toes a little bit, do some jumping jacks.
Everybody's good to go.
And then the candidate platoon commander comes back in, grabs the sergeant instructor, the sergeant instructor comes out, and he walks.
He just makes a beeline right for this dude.
And he's like, "You mother effer!
For six years I've been doing this and you're the first one to ever make me lose my bearing.
You have failed this inspection simply because you made me lose my bearing!"
Nobody got in trouble for laughing or anything and we laughed hard.
Needless to say, this dude did not make it.
This dude did not make it through.
He did not become a Marine Corps officer.
After nine weeks of the ten weeks, they booted him.
TROY GENT: That's an awesome story.
Did you ever see anyone throw up or mess their pants from running and formation or a fitness test?
SEAN STANLEY: Now, once again, in the wing, we don't PT as a unit.
We never PT as a unit.
The only time we ever PT as a unit is to do the PFT and the CFT.
That's it.
Everything else is completely on your own.
The last setting I had for group PT was OCS cause even in TBS, we really didn't do much.
But in OCS, we had this dude from New York who was definitely on the spectrum.
Definitely on the spectrum and he tried hard.
He tried.
He wanted to be a Marine.
His dad was a Marine.
Like that's what he wanted to do.
So we were out.
We were doing a boots and utes run.
We were coming towards the end of OCS so your points and grades are stacking up
We all run and we start doing our fireman carries
This one candidate picks this dude up, the dude from New York, and then immediately throws him down.
He's like, "What the hell?"
The sergeant instructor comes running over.
Boom!
He's like, "What are you doing candidate?!"
This dude's like, "This dude's just crapped himself.
He's got poop everywhere!"
The sergeant instructor looks over and this dude had poop coming up his back.
It was coming up out of his pants and up his back.
The sergeant instructor was like, "Dude, what the hell are you doing, man?"
And the candidate, no kidding, was like," I'm not quitting.
I'm not quitting.
Like, I'm not gonna stop to take a dump.
I'll just go in my pants."
And the sergeant instructor was just beside himself.
Just absolutely beside himself.
He was like, "And then you're gonna ask your fellow candidate to pick you up?
Get the hell out of here.
Just go take a shower."
Yeah, it was mind-numbing.
Now that guy...
TROY GENT: That's crazy.
Did he make it through OCS?
SEAN STANLEY: That guy made it through.
Yeah, he made it through OCS.
TROY GENT: Did you ever see anyone sneak contraband or banned stuff and get caught and made an example of?
SEAN STANLEY: I feel like everything I have is from OCS, man.
Like in a squadron, the biggest contraband we had was when we were on the MEU.
We were sitting off the coast of Yemen, right?
Like once we no longer were going to the Gulf, we just set off the coast of Yemen and waited for them to do something.
So there we were.
We were just sitting off the coast of Yemen, just absolutely doing nothing.
Well, our birds, the ospreys, we could range Djibouti.
We put together a flight schedule.
We could go range Djibouti.
The 53s couldn't go because the 53s were the only ones that had the lift to go to Sana'a in Yemen because it was so high up in the mountains.
Ospreys were useless, man.
We couldn't lift anything so the 53s had to do all that.
They were on alert the whole time.
They couldn't do anything.
So not really a whole lot of people were leaving the ship except for the Osprey.
So we'd go to Djibouti and it was about a two-hour flight to Djibouti.
We would land.
We'd kick a bunch of people off.
We'd get gas.
We'd go do a mission.
Then we'd come back to the airfield, get more gas, swap out pilots and crew chiefs, and bladdy bladdy bladdy.
So while we were doing that these dudes that, these dudes that were just waiting, they were going onto the base there in Djibouti and they were buying skull.
They're buying chew, cigarettes, all this other stuff, and then they would take them back to the ship.
These dudes were absolutely killing it, man.
They were taking...
I think it's called a brick.
I don't freaking I don't know.
I think it's called a brick.
And these guys were bringing it back to the ship and they were selling the can.
A single can they were selling for twenty bucks a pop.
A single can for twenty bucks.
These dudes were making a killing.
Other than that…
I mean, that's not a whole lot of contraband on active duty other than those guys being straight-up entrepreneurs.
But when I was in OCS, Saturday night and Sunday they let you go in town.
They wanted to give you enough rope so you could hang yourself.
You would get crushed all week and then they'd see how you behave out in town.
And then you would come back, you'd get online and you had to put everything into your, footlocker or whatever, so they could take it back.
We were all standing on the line.
The Sergeant instructor was walking up and down.
"Alright, I need everybody's contraband.
Get your cellphones, get your this, get your this, and blahdy, blahdy, blahdy, blahdy.
Throw it in."
And this dude, he just makes this comment under his breath but kind of to everybody.
He's like, "Well, I hope they don't find my cocaine."
And you had no idea that our sergeant instructor heard that, right?
His name is Staff Sargeant Necker.
He's a sergeant major now.
Staff Sergeant Necker walks all the way to the front of the squad bay, just talking.
"I want cell phones.
I want this.
You do this.
You do that.
Blahdy, blahdy, blahdy, blahdy."
And then he gets in front of this kid and then it's like all hell breaks loose.
In one move, his hands come from behind his back.
He's got the knife hand to the face.
"You've got cocaine, candidate?!
You got cocaine?!
Let's fight it!"
Pushes the dude out of the way, grabs his wall locker, and throws it into the middle of the room.
Goes to the next guy.
He makes his way all the way down the squad bay.
"Who's got cocaine?!"
He throws everybody's stuff into the middle of the floor.
Everybody's stuff.
He finishes it and then just walks out.
That was it.
Now all of our wall lockers, everything is just in the middle of the floor and we're just dumbfounded.
And this dude is like...
He wanted to cry.
He just wanted to cry.
That's all he wanted.
He didn't but all this dude wanted to do was just cry.
That's it.
And he didn't even have contraband.
He just made a stupid comment that Staff Sergeant Necco overheard.
TROY GENT: Yeah, people get a little stupid in OCS and Boot Camp saying the stupidest things.
They tend to learn though.
I mean, by the end, it seems like most people learn what to say and what not to say.
I guess that's the point.
SEAN STANLEY: You're right man.
That is the point.
PODCAST 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 love to suicide.