Unified Task Force

He grew up idolizing his father, a highly decorated Vietnam Marine, and wanted to become the kind of Marine his father had been.

At just 21 years old, Tony found himself leading a squad of Marines into Somalia during Operation Restore Hope.

He was part of the first wave into Mogadishu, encountered death on a scale he'd never experienced, survived a bullet strike in the sandbag beside his head, and later endured a monsoon that washed human remains into his fighting position.

Years later, after becoming a police officer and building a family, Tony was recalled to active duty by name and sent to Iraq, where he helped train Iraqi security forces.

I didn't know where it was at.

It's on the Horn of Africa there, south of Yemen, near Ethiopia and north of Kenya.

And, uh, around the 3rd or 4th of December- You know, we, we were told we were going in on the eighth or the ninth, and, um, the decision was made to make the landing December ninth, uh, Operation Restore Hope.

And so December eighth, we've got news groups, news crews on board, covering, covering the, the, uh, the workup that we're doing.

[instrumental music] Came back to Saudi.

The Americans were in Somalia doing Operation Restore Hope, and bin Laden's people bombed a hotel in Yemen.

Of course, in 1998, Al-Qaeda blew up the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

Car bombs exploded minutes apart.

He is responsible for marketing the Veteran Tickets and First Tix brands, with work spanning public and community relations, campaigns with teams and bowl games, OHH efforts, and events and shows.

During his 32-year military career, Steve served in deployments across the Western Pacific, the Persian Gulf, Somalia during Operation Restore Hope, and on two combat tours in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

After retiring in 2019, he's remained deeply committed to supporting veterans, working with numerous organizations in Arizona and across the country to help transitioning service members access critical resources.

His dedication has been recognized with honors, including We Are the Mighties Mighty 25 in 2021 and induction into the Arizona Veterans Hall of Fame.

So some of the things he said in the interview I frankly didn't understand because we didn't kn- So he mentioned Aden.

Well, it turned out, I, many years later, that the, his men had bombed a hotel in Aden that was housing American soldiers who were on their way to Somalia to support Operation Restore Hope, which was feeding starving Somalis in 1993.

So the interview sort of came along, and, you know, he, he spent an hour with us.

And he was, they were very kind of...

The U.S. went in.

And the operation was called Operation Restoring Hope.

The idea was that the US military would support humanitarian aid operations and facilitate the delivery of aid to starving Somalis.

in a very insecure environment.

Operation Restoring Hope began in summer of 1993.

And as part of that operation, there was also an effort to go after a Somali warlord.

So kind of a special forces detachment was present as well, and they were going after