Lt. Col. Tom Schueman served in Afghanistan for sixteen months, including the single bloodiest battle of the war in Afghanistan, as a platoon commander with the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines in Helmand Province. He redeployed to Afghanistan as a JTAC and advisor to the Afghan National Army while he was a member of First Reconnaissance Battalion. 

Schueman went on to get his master's in English literature at Georgetown University and teach English literature at the United States Naval Academy. 

In 2022, alongside his friend and Afghani interpreter, Zak, he published Always Faithful, a book about his time in Afghanistan and the effort to get Zak and his family to America before the Taliban could make good on their promise to kill them. 

Thomas is still an active-duty Marine and the founder of the nonprofit Patrol Base Abbate, based in Montana. PB Abbate provides a space for veterans and service members to reconnect around shared interests.

More about Major Schueman:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kill.z0n3

Patrol Base Abbate: https://www.pbabbate.org/home-0

Always Faithful: https://amzn.to/3M6EI1n

Timestamps:

00:00:22 Intro to Thomas Schueman

00:01:22 Overview of Thomas Schueman’s Career

00:05:25 Infantry Officer Course and Recon Selection

00:06:44 Why the Basic Reconnaissance Course Didn’t Work Out for Thomas

00:15:25 Sponsor Note: Buildingtheelite.com

00:15:53 On Which Deployment Did Thomas Meet Zack?

00:17:56 Marines Lost in Thomas’s Unit

00:18:44 More Deaths in Infantry Than Other Sections of Military

00:24:49 Working With Zack

00:27:15 Thomas’s Mindset After 100 Firefights in 100 Days

00:42:19 What is Patrol Base Abbate?

00:52:53 Where is PB Abbate in Montana?

00:53:53 How is PB Abbate Funded?

00:56:36 Getting Zack Out Before the Fall of Kabul

01:06:53 Outro