Rudy Reyes II (MARSOC, Masculinity and Mental Health) - Episode 973

Behind The Shield

Rudy Reyes is an American conservationist, martial arts instructor, actor, and Recon Marine. He is best known for portraying himself in the HBO TV miniseries Generation Kill. In this second conversation we discuss the suicide epidemic, courageous vulnerability, the importance of tribe, hormonal disruption, peptides, emotional TCCC and so much more.

Rudy was born in 1971 on Richard’s Gebauer Air Base in Missouri while his father, a US Marine, was fighting in Vietnam. His parents had 2 other sons, all three boys a little over a year apart. After his parents' divorce in 1975, and with his mother unable to look after the boys, Rudy and his brothers were moved around Texas staying with various relatives before eventually settling with his grandmother. Sadly, four years later both grandparents passed away within the same year, leading to Rudy (then aged 7) and his brothers drifting throughout the mid-west, to eventually (at age 11) be saved by the Omaha Home for Boys. Rudy and his brothers would remain at the boys’ home until age 17, when Rudy would then emancipate himself and take formal custody of his brothers by the age of 18.

During his younger years (age 11 throughout his youth), Rudy began competing in wrestling and football, as well as developed a deep affection for comic books and heroes. At the age of 18, he then began to study martial arts, training in Kung-Fu, eventually winning the title of International Jing Woo Martial Art College Champion, multiple times. In sum, his martial art achievements are over 20 medals, 14 of which were gold. He worked various jobs, from construction to table bussing, while simultaneously training as a kickboxer, in an effort to provide stability and discipline for himself and his brothers (who he also got into kickboxing.)

In 1998, Rudy found himself watching a film covering orphans in Kosovo who’s parents were killed by their own countries snipers. Rudy, at the age of 26, was so compelled to do something to help, decided to enlist in the United States Marine Corps (USMC).

Military Career

Rudy enlisted in the USMC as a infantryman, and graduated as the honour grad and iron man of Boot Camp and School of Infantry. Rudy, due to his merit and initiative, was granted an opportunity to try out for Recon. The Reconnaissance Marine Community is 300 strong, between 5 units, making it the most prestigious and difficult group in a Marine Corps of 300,000. A group that no man may sign up to join but must be invited and prove their worthiness to earn the title of a United States Recon Marine.

After being a special forces operator for three years, during which Rudy became a “schooled-out“ (paratrooper, combat diver, demolitions expert, scout sniper, closed quarter combatant, and SERE trained) Recon Marine, Rudy was called for his first combat reconnaissance mission in 2001 in Pakistan – a preparation mission for USA's Special Ops insertion to Afghanistan. Once the war officially started, his team ran operations that located and destroyed Al Qaeda within Afghanistan.

In 2003, Rudy’s dear friend and senior Recon mentor was killed. Later in combat, his team leader was wounded in a horrendous night-time ambush, which lead to Rudy leading his four man team after cas-evac (casualty evacuation), through Baghdad to the Syrian Border and back. These events are what the HBO series Generation Kill was based on, telling their story of the Invasion of Iraq. His last active combat was in The Battle of Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq in 2004, where he served as Senior Team Leader of his platoon. It was a brutal fight that took the lives, and limbs, of some of his most beloved comrades.