Boss Larson

Jake served in the Marine Corps Infantry from 2005 to 2009. He joined the Marines instead of playing collegiate soccer because of what he saw on September 11, 2001. 

He did two combat tours to Iraq before being honorably discharged after four years. 

If you are interested in having your story written, visit linktr.ee/ghostturdstories and select the 'Let us write your story!" tab to find all inquiry and pricing information. 

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Creators & Guests

Host

Troy Gent

Troy Gent is the Host of The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast. He served a total of eight years as an infantryman in the US Marine Corps.

Editor

Rebecca Gent

Rebecca is the editor and publisher of The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast.

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.

GUEST INTRODUCTION: Jake served in the Marine Corps infantry from 2005 to 2009. Jake joined the Marines instead of playing collegiate soccer because of what he saw on September 11th, 2001.

He did two combat tours to Iraq before being honorably discharged after four years. He now lives with his beautiful family in Arinoza.

PODCAST INTRODUCTION: PODCAST INTRODUCTION: Hello everyone and welcome to The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast. I'm your host Troy Gent.

Ghost Turd Stories' mission is to use humorous and challenging stories from veterans and first responders to reduce the burden of families whose veteran or first responder took their our life.

Ghost Turd Stories' vision is to use humorous and challenging stories to prevent suicide among our ranks and reduce the burden on families whose veteran or first responder took their own life.

We hope to attack veterans or 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.

LET US WRITE YOUR STORY! COMMERCIAL: At Ghost Turd Stories we tell and write the stories of veterans and first responders for their families and friends. We love storytelling and believe that there is nothing more inspiring and nothing that gets people to take action like a great story.

Family and friends want to know the sacrifices we made, the services we rendered, and the people we lifted so that they can be inspired and learn about the legacy we left.

Our podcast is the face of our company but we want every family who cares to know about the experiences their veteran and or first responder went through for them. We interview veterans and first responders, collect pictures, write their stories, and compile them in a book for their families and friends to enjoy.

Oftentimes it is difficult for us to talk to our loved ones about what we did, saw, and heard while serving. At Ghost Turd Stories, we bridge the gap. For pricing, visit linktr.ee/ghostturdstories and click on the second tab directly under the podcast link called Let Us Write Your Story!

TROY GENT: Welcome to The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast. As mentioned in the introduction, my guest this week is Jake. Welcome Jake. It’s great to have you.

JAKE CULWELL: Well, thank you. I appreciate this opportunity.

I was a sophomore after 9/11 and the whole school had shut down and it changed life dramatically for students.

My dad had been in the Air Force and my grandpa had been in the Navy, so I looked forward to contributing. I wanted the hardest military there was and at the time, that is why I signed up for the Marine Corps my junior year.

My mind was warped around what happened at the trade centers and I saw this woman. She jumped out of one of the buildings that got hit and she actually dove and closed her dress for decency. That killed me. I couldn’t function because I respected women so much. My wife and my daughter, my sister who helped raise me as a child when my dad was going to war, and my mom who had to work two jobs. I wasn’t forced to look at the TV, but you couldn’t take your eyes off of the people who were jumping out. You couldn’t look away.

I felt like I had lost a lot of my talent, so I signed up for the Marine Corps and said goodbye to the scholarships. I had one scholarship to Croatia, an intramural scholarship. I had a lot of friends that still played soccer and I watched their games after the war when I came home. They were playing in a Junior MLS League. I got to see them as amateurs and that was great but I couldn't play because of that video and watching people jump from the trade centers.

TROY GENT: That is an incredible story and an incredible reason to join. What year did you did you graduate high school?

JAKE CULWELL: I graduated in May of 05.

TROY GENT: Considering how much you loved soccer, seeing your friends play, what type of impact did that have on you when you got back?

JAKE CULWELL: When I came back from the war, I saw one of my friends who played with me on a club soccer team in my city. He was playing on a team, I got invited, and I said, “It would be great to go.”

It was very dramatic, Troy. I cried and held onto a rail for a good ten minutes just watching them practice and warm up. It was very emotional for me to let go. I didn’t have the same body to even run or lift weights or shoot the ball the same way because my back is destroyed and my knees are messed up from walking through 29 Palms or the trails in Iraq running patrols.

I had lots of issues with letting that go. It’s emotional just talking about it. I mean you can probably tell in my voice. I loved it. I have silver medals, gold medals, bronze medals, medallions, tokens, and all kinds of things for soccer. But just like the Marine Corps, there’s a time you have to hang up the hat and you have to put the boots on the shelf.

For me, it was very tough. I’m an emotional person as it is, so it was tough to watch the whole game and stay there. I waited till he was done and gave him a hug. I cried with him and said, “Good job. Congratulations for sticking to it and staying with it.”

TROY GENT: Usually we touch on this towards the end but we are on the subject so I will just go for it. What had been the most instrumental thing or couple of things that you’ve done, habits that you’ve created to manage your post-traumatic stress in a healthy way and overcome your fears and regrets?

JAKE CULWELL: I would say that I had to find proper coping mechanisms and realizing that I had none was huge. I didn’t have a way to cope with what I had regrets about or what I felt guilty about. So number one, coping mechanisms. What are they?

Number two was realizing that I had a support system the whole time. I had very good friends, a good sister, and family. My dad and my mom, I am very close to them.

Number three was letting go. That took me about ten years and losing sleep. I used to listen to people yawn and it would drive me fucking crazy. I’d be like, ‘What are you fucking yawning for? Dude, it’s twelve o’clock in the afternoon.”

I would never sleep. I would sleep for like an hour and a half maybe and I thought that would be enough. After ten years of not really sleeping that much, I began to age. I was referring to myself as only a Marine. I am so much more than that. I went to college. I do Jiu-Jitsu. I used to be a brick mason.

But yeah, Troy. I basically realized that I had no coping mechanisms and how to develop those. It really changed the ball game and turned myself into the VA. After the car crash, I had to get resuscitated and learn how to talk and walk again. I was able to reset my whole life.

TROY GENT: How did that car crash happen?

JAKE CULWELL: I was in the complaints department for work as a brick mason. I dealt with customers who had issues with the company and would go and fix their plants, lights, etc. I would deal with these harsh people who didn’t like the company or who wanted to sue the company and I actually completed three of the major company issues.

The company wanted to have a party on my behalf. So we went to a local restaurant and I had a good time with what I thought were my friends, but they weren’t. They all disappeared and left. Didn’t say a damn thing to me.

I had a couple of shots for free, called my wife, and said, “I’ll be home in about five minutes.”

I was making an eastbound turn but turning left and someone ran a red light turning green. The diver accelerated and hit me while I was still turning and I was ejected, broke through the windshield, broke eight bones in my face, landed on the curb at Dunkin’ Donuts, bled out, and died.

I suffered two TBI injuries to the brain. That brought back a lot of flashbacks and is why I turned myself into the VA. I can’t walk or run very well. I can’t talk that well. It sounds like I am intoxicated a lot. My vision is very obscured. I can’t throw a baseball the same way. I can’t kick a soccer ball the same way. I can’t run the same way. Life is a lot different now.

I’m humbled by what I receive but at the same time, I think I would give just about anything to be able to be able to run fast, throw the ball like I used to, or kick the ball in the net the same way.

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JAKE CULWELL: The drill instructors that I had in 05 had just gotten back from Iraq. There was no chill. There was never any chill. The first two weeks, I think we ran out of the building trying not to get punched by a drill instructor. The drill instructors would hold their hand out as soon as the doors opened. You would run as fast as you could but you would run into their hand.

I knew they were going to scream a lot but back then they could put their hands on you and they could say whatever they wanted.

I was running to pugil sticks and there were drill instructors punching people on the bridge so I thought, “I will just ump the ditch instead like a little goat.”

So I jumped the ditch and there was a fucking drill instructor in the ditch, punching Marines that were jumping the ditch. Like, “This dude’s not going to get me. I’m athletic, bro.”

I run, I jump, and sure enough, he comes up a little bit more and close-hangs me. I fall down on the ground and hyper-extend my knee. I’m in the ditch with this drill instructor and I know for a fact that he just got back from Iraq because he has the devil’s look in his eyes.

My leg is messed up and he’s like, “Get up.”

And I’m like, “I can’t.”

And he’s like, “Don’t say I.”

I was like, “I’m hurting. This hurts.”

He says, “Don’t say I!”

I’m like, “Dude, we’re past that right now, bro. This is serious.”

He’s like, “Don’t fucking call me bro! Get the fuck up!”

He’s picking me up and I’m like “I can’t stand!”

He’s punching me in the ribs telling me to not say ‘I’. I had to put in two weeks in the “stay behind platoon”. I’m on the third day I saw my best friend marching and I was like, “Kyle! Kyle! It’s Jake! What’s up dude?”

He’s like, “Shut up you fucking pussy.”

My drill instructor comes up right behind me. I turn around and he goes, “What are you doing?”

And I was like, “This recruit is saying hi to his best friend.”

He goes, “What the fuck you faggot? Are you gay?”

I was like, “No, this recruit is not gay.”

And he was like, “Bullfuckingshit. Go to him.”

I am looking at my drill instructor like a little bitch. He was a Mexican-Latino guy. He looks at me and he’s like, “I told you to go to him.”

I was thinking, “What? Like, go through the window?”

TROY GENT: Are there any other stories that you have about boot camp? If not, we will go ahead and move on. I was going to ask you about your introduction as a boot to the fleet and how that was for you.

JAKE CULWELL: I landed in one-seven in 05. There was immediate hazing. There was nothing but yelling going on. There was no order. It was just chaos but I was glad to be a part of that angry bunch of bastards. I almost felt at home because I played G.I. Joe my whole life. If I wasn’t playing soccer, I was playing G.I Joe, playing Army, throwing rocks, or shooting guns.

We had to stay in a barracks room with Marines that had been in the fleet already for like six months. I didn’t know who was a senior Marine or who wasn’t because they were all Lance Corporals. It was like an Army of Lance Corporals.

One private had been to Iraq two times but he did cocaine so they bumped him down to private. They would still call him Private Larson. Like, “I’m a Lance Corporal. Why am I calling this guy Private Larson?”

His name for you as a dude was Boss Larson. It was insane.

TROY GENT: Boss Larson.

JAKE CULWELL: Boss Larson. He did cocaine, hookers, everything, the whole nine yards.

He was the most fucking chill Marine from California too.

TROY GENT: Even though you had to call him Boss Larson, he was still pretty chill?

JAKE CULWELL: Oh, he was super chill but he was always warning us like, “You guys are going to die before Iraq.”

TROY GENT: Did he get out before you went on your first deployment?

JAKE CULWELL: No, he did a third one with my platoon.

TROY GENT: He did. Oh my gosh. How many Sergeants and Corporals did you have in the platoon and what were they like compared to the Senior Lance Corporals?

JAKE CULWELL: We only had one high-ranking NCO and he was a Staff Sergeant. He was my Platoon Sergeant, who I am still best friends with to this day.

The Senior Marines would get really personable with us and really real with us. That chill factor finally came after I used my K Bar to do some damage on some insurgents. I had to play a target or a dummy. I had to get them to look and point at me and that’s what gained the respect of my squad. That’s when my senior Marine was like, “Hey, chill. We are cool now. Call me Nick.”

TROY GENT: Will you explain what a Cheeto Round is, what it’s for, and what type of gun it comes out of? Explain a situation in Iraq when you had to use a Cheeto Round on some insurgents.

JAKE CULWELL: Yeah, so the first compound that we got to was very easy to look at from the hill. The insurgents knew where we were. They knew what we were doing and when we would leave. They would come up and test us by seeing how far they could come up with an AK and drive by or get one guy who wasn’t an insurgent but was being paid by the insurgents to see how far he could walk by our compound. They tested us in several different ways within that first month in Iraq.

A Cheeto Round is to mark an LSD or a hotspot. When I say hotspot, I mean like a nest of insurgents in a building and you need close air support to shoot the insurgents in the building. You just mark the building with a fucking Cheeto Round instead of like lasers and everything they can see in daylight.

TROY GENT: What does a Cheeto Round come out of?

JAKE CULWELL: A Cheeto Round is a 203 round typically at the bottom of your M16 or it can be used in a single thumper. It’s a grenade round but a paint round to mark houses. There are three different weapons it can be shot out of: the bottom of the M16, which would be a 203-handgun, and the thumper, which is the single-shot breakdown.

At the time, we were very limited as far as bodies were concerned so we had a ghost base runner. We painted a fucking broomstick like in WWII and put a silhouette inside the post at my fob.

Anyways, I’m on post. I have a Thumper. I saw the insurgents and I actually had my scope with me so I identified that they both were carrying an AK47 and RPG rounds. I was describing the situation to the CP. It’s the very beginning of the war for me in Iraq and the radio operator was like, “Shut the fuck up. What’s going on? Give me your adrax.”

I shot the Cheeto Round and was like, “It’s where ever I marked the Cheeto Round.”

The aircraft was flying by and he’s like, “Roger that. I’m one mic out.”

He’s an A10 guy. Like, “Coco one. Is this CP?”

I was like, “Roger! Oh wait, that’s my Cheeto Round! That’s my Cheeto Round!”

He’s like, “Roger. I’m one mic out.”

He comes right over us with an A10 Warthog which my dad worked on when he was in the Air Force. It was so amazing and exhilarating to see that machine fly over my head and just riddle the door.

The guys didn’t make it and within an hour or two, the sunset, and we sent a patrol out to pull the bodies away from each other. Some fucking wild dogs ended up playing tuck-of-war with them and shit like that. I never really touched the bodies because I had to stand on post for four days.

TROY GENT: You fired the Cheeto Round and it exploded on the motorcycle, right?

JAKE CULWELL: The paint exploded on the building and actually Cheeto Round part of this dude’s head. So both of their man dresses and man buns were all orange. The A10 had no issue.

I think he came over twice. The first time he just warned them and they tried to start the bike to take off. He looped around again and they were done. That was it.

TROY GENT: That’s incredible. I love those A10 Warthogs. They are my favorite airplane. They’re pretty awesome.

I know you’ve got a lot more stories. What if we end this one and schedule another one and we will continue where we left off? How does that sound?

JAKE CULWELL: That would be awesome. It’s interesting to talk to you about this because you’re actually laughing and it feels good to make people people laugh about this stuff.

TROY GENT: The dark humor, right?

JAKE CULWELL: I guess so because I have that and people say that all the time.

TROY GENT: “People ask me all the time, “Do you miss the Marine Corps?” and I say, “No but I miss being with Marines because you can laugh about stuff that everybody else feels uncomfortable about. I mean, I guess that is one of the reasons doing this is so that I can reconnect with like-minded people who can not only be vulnerable but also find humor in things that most people can’t.

JAKE CULWELL: Well hey, brother. You have my full support. My honor goes out to you. My camaraderie, you have that. I am thrilled to be with you on this conversation journey and I appreciate this opportunity. I am very happy to explain and let this all out.

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.