"We Thought We Were Going to Die Every Night" | Ramadi Veteran Story With Marin Raider Joshua Shores
Combat Story
Ryan Fugit
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2026
⏱️ 129 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on Combat Story, we hear the story of Joshua "Josh" Shores — Marine infantry combat veteran, Purple Heart recipient, former Marine Raider, retired firefighter, entrepreneur, and author of Counting on Death: A Marine Infantryman's Journey from the Front Lines of Combat to the Fight for Peace.
Josh served with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines during some of the hardest fighting in Ramadi before later deploying to Afghanistan with Marine Special Operations. In this conversation, he takes us through the reality of combat as a 19-year-old Marine, the burden of surviving when others did not, and the long fight to make peace with the memories that followed him home.
Although AJ and Josh never served together, this episode becomes a deeply relatable conversation between two Marines who carried similar experiences through different units, deployments, and years of war. There are moments where the interview gives way to recognition, where both men are able to sit inside the same memories, ask harder questions, and give language to parts of combat that are rarely spoken about clearly.
This episode goes far beyond firefights and deployments.
Josh speaks candidly about the culture inside the infantry during the height of the Iraq War, the emotional toll of losing friends to IEDs, the confusion of counterinsurgency warfare, survivor's guilt, shame, identity, suicide, and the struggle many veterans face trying to reconnect with life after combat.
This is a conversation about consequence.
About brotherhood.
About grief.
And about trying to find peace after war.
🎙️ Guest — Joshua "Josh" Shores
Marine infantry combat veteran, Purple Heart recipient, former Marine Raider, retired firefighter, entrepreneur, and author of Counting on Death. He served with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines in Ramadi before later deploying to Afghanistan with Marine Special Operations.
🔗 Find Joshua Online:
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CountingOnDeath/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuashoresofficial/
🔗 Website: https://www.countingondeath.com
📕 Book (Counting on Death):
https://www.amazon.com/Counting-Death-Marine-Infantrymans-Journey/dp/1636245706/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1#detailBullets_feature_div
🎧 Audiobook:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Counting-on-Death-Audiobook/B0F1Z1HJSG?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp
🎙️ Host AJ Pasciuti
AJ Pasciuti is a retired Marine Force Recon Scout Sniper and Infantry Weapons Officer (Marine Gunner), author of Darkhorse: Harnessing Hidden Potential in War and Life, and host of the Combat Story Podcast, where veterans share honest, unfiltered stories of service, leadership, and life after combat.
🔗 Find AJ Online:
📕 Book (Darkhorse): https://www.ajpasciuti.com/book
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajpasciuti/
📘 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelo-pasciuti/
🔗 Website: https://www.ajpasciuti.com/
🎧 Featured Combat Story Episodes with AJ
👉 Combat Story Podcast – Part 1 (USMC Sniper & Force Recon) - Battle of Fallujah | Shooting w/ Chris Kyle | American Sniper | AJ Pasciuti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4QI-5sNeCs
👉 Combat Story Podcast – Part 2 (Sniper vs Sniper Battle) - Killing the Enemy's Most Lethal Sniper | Force Recon | AJ Pasciuti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ggly1TGAU
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And they're like, we're gonna go on a raid. |
| 0:04.0 | We think we found some high-value targets. |
| 0:06.0 | So we leave the wire and we're going driving down route Michigan. |
| 0:11.0 | We go by checkpoint 295, that's where we got blown up the night before. |
| 0:15.0 | We turn and we're going down these side roads that are right behind the government center, |
| 0:20.0 | like directly south of it. And there are these concrete dividers that are on highways. |
| 0:24.6 | And I just remember thinking, |
| 0:26.6 | I'm like, God, that'd be a good place to put an IED. |
| 0:29.6 | And next, it was like, I was out, like reset, boom. |
| 0:34.6 | And that's, like, being blown up that close feels like nothing. |
| 0:38.3 | You don't feel anything until you wake up. |
| 0:41.3 | Welcome to combat story. |
| 0:46.3 | I'm A.J. Peschuti, a retired Marine, force recon, scout sniper, and Marine gunner with 21 years of service, |
| 0:52.3 | multiple combat tours, and a lifetime of lessons |
| 0:55.2 | learned in the arena itself. On this show, I sit down with warriors from every front line |
| 0:59.9 | to uncover what combat truly feels like and how it shapes the way we see life, each other, |
| 1:04.9 | and ourselves. This is Combat Story. Today on Combat Story, we're joined by Joshua Shores, a Marine Infantry Combat Veteran, |
| 1:13.6 | Purple Heart recipient, former Marine Raider, and retired firefighter. |
| 1:18.6 | And he's the author of Counting on Death, a Marine Infantryman's Journey from the Frontlines of Combat to the Fight for Peace. |
| 1:24.6 | Josh served four and a half years in the Marine Corps with combat depletes |
| 1:28.5 | to Iraq and Afghanistan, including time with the First Marine Special Operations Battalion. |
| 1:34.1 | In counting on death, Josh takes readers from Ramadi as a 19-year-old Marine with Alpha Company |
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