Chris: When we got back from Iraq, I don’t know if it was intentional, but they put all the 3/5 guys on the same street in base housing. All the Lima Company guys were neighbors living around a cul de sac. Matt was living in the barracks, but naturally whenever we’d do barbecues and hang out in the cul de sac he would come over. One night I was in my house and I’m upstairs asleep. I heard noises downstairs so I got up. I didn’t have a gun in base housing, so I grabbed a knife. I get down the stairs and I can hear somebody right around the corner. I jump out ready to stab somebody, and there’s Matt standing in the kitchen with a bowl of Mac n cheese from the fridge, shoveling it into his mouth and laughing his ass off.

Matt was somebody who was welcoming, immediately part of your family, almost to his detriment. So many guys talk very highly of Matt because he died, but it almost doesn’t show his true personality. He was absolutely a flawed character, but his flaws really made us love him more. To the guys who really knew him, the tattoos, the long hair, the jokes, the bar fights, those were all part of the things that we loved about him. He had a really crazy childhood. We would really only get glimpses and pieces of it. There were definitely time periods where it wasn’t smooth. There were times he spoke about where he was sleeping on a beach in Hawaii where some other homeless dudes taught him how to catch eel and cook it over a fire. He worked as a waiter on a cruise ship one summer and had been to Thailand. He just had a big hunger to see the world, push the boundaries, and do big things, so coming into the Marine Corps made perfect sense, especially with the wars going on. Matt was the quintessential “break glass in case of war” type Marine. He joined for that, and that’s what he wanted to do.

Ryan: While we were in Iraq, we had a buddy who had a Harley back in the States and he got me and Matt interested. We started doing a bunch of research, looking up different bikes whenever we could get internet. As soon as we got back to California, the first thing we did was buy bikes and all we did was ride.

Matt’s first bike threw a rod on the way to Vegas, so we brought it back, he sold it, and bought a new one. Then, one day we were riding to Fresno. We hadn’t made it very far up the highway when all of the sudden I see him ahead of me start throwing his hands up in the air one at a time. I rode up next to him and saw that his handlebars had split right in the middle of the riser. They just broke in half. So he’s holding the handlebars together while trying to keep the bike straight, while trying to exit, while trying to slow down. The whole time, he’s just dying laughing. We finally made it off the highway and he walked down the street to a bar and waited while I rode back to my house and got my truck. We got the bike loaded up and I was like, “well, what do you want to do with it?” He’s like, “I don’t know bro. Why don’t we find someone who does fucking apes?” We called around to a bunch of bike shops and found one that would put these ape hanger handlebars on his bike. Matt told the guy, “Listen bro, I don’t want these things to be legal.” Your handlebars could only be so many inches high off the bike above your shoulder. We go over there and drop the bike then come back to pick it up a week later. We get there and this mother fucker has his arms stretched out all the way above his head, barely a bend in his elbow reaching his handlebars. He just looks at me like, "Bro, this is so fucking badass.” I was like, “dude, how the hell do you expect to take turns and shit in traffic??” He was just like, “fuck it!” We got on the bike and rode back to my house and he let me take it for a spin. It was almost impossible to make a hard turn with those apes. I made it back to the house and was like, “Never again. It’s impossible to turn on that mother fucker.” He was just like, “Yeah, but it looks badass!” And that was the way he was; it didn’t matter as long as it looked badass.

We were in my garage at my house in the cul de sac one day and he brought his bike over. We were changing the oil or whatever on my bike and he decided to do some work on his bike too. Well, there’s this metal derby cover over the clutch that he decided to pull off. I walk inside the house to grab some drinks for us and as I’m walking back around the side of the house, all of the sudden, I see this shiny metal disk go skipping down the driveway and stick in the grass in the neighbor’s yard across the street. I ran into the garage like, “Matt, what the fuck was that?” Matt’s all mad and he’s like, “Brah, what the fuck?!” I’m like, “What? What the fuck? What’s going on?” He’s like, “Go look at that fucking derby cover!” So I go grab it and I’m like, “Well yeah, it’s all scratched now.” He’s like, “No, turn it over bro.” So I turn it over and it says, “Made in China.” I look at Matt and he yells, “How the fuck are you gonna have a Harley and it says made in mother fucking China?! Get in the truck! We’re going to buy an American-made goddamn derby cover!” We drove all over southern California to every damn bike shop just to find one fucking derby cover that was made in the U.S.A. so he could put it on his bike. I mean, he was absolutely pissed off that this thing was made in China. He was just like the patriotic, steak-eating, red-blooded American. I can still see his face right now the way he looked at me when he found that out.

The Beast

Britt: My first experience personally meeting Matt was a few days after I saw him running out of the barracks. I was a PFC, he was a corporal. As a young PFC, speaking to a corporal meant like parade rest, don’t look him in the eyes, especially in the infantry. I did not expect to be spoken to like a human by anyone who had been in the Marine Corps more than 40 seconds longer than I had. I met Matt at 0430 on the basketball courts with our gear list to begin sniper indoc. Matt was just like, “what’s up bro? Are you excited? You ready to do this?” I was just speechless, like, “Uh, why don’t you hate me??” He just gave me a slap on the shoulder and said, “let’s fucking go!” I proceeded to spend the entire indoc staring at his ass. He was always in front of the rest of the pack, finishing everything ahead of everyone else, then looping back to make sure the last guy made it in.”

Jake: I met Matt during scout sniper indoc. I was a junior Marine. They actually gave Matt time away from squad leader’s course to do the indoc. My first impression was just how much of a beast he was. He was just destroying all of us on the physical events. I was like, “who is this guy?” I didn’t really get to know him until a couple weeks later when me, Britt, and Matt all joined the sniper platoon working up for the MEU, but we all got close quickly. He graduated honor grad from squad leader’s course, even though he missed part of it for the sniper indoc. His ability to learn military skills in general was second to none. That’s one thing that gets lost in all the stories about Matt. Everyone talks about how much of a beast he was. I mean the dude was huge. 6 foot 2, 220 pounds, strong as an ox; everyone talks about that but they don’t talk about how smart he was. His intelligence related to military skills blew me away.

“Matt was the quintessential 'break glass in case of war' type Marine. He joined for that, and that’s what he wanted to do.

— Chris Woidt

Britt: We did an entire workup together and deployed on the 31st MEU; Matt’s second deployment. He went advon to Okinawa, arriving about 2 weeks prior to the rest of us. Somehow he got invited to join a HRST Master course [Helicopter Rope Suspension Techniques]. On graduating night, he’s at The Palms on Camp Hansen. There’s some 9th Comm dudes there drinking and there gets to be some confrontation. One of the guys cocks his arm back to throw a haymaker at one of Matt’s fellow HRST students. Abbate punches him in the face, breaking his jaw, completely flooring the dude. Abbate and the other guy run. The battalion shows up the next morning. We get off the plane and it’s not good news. It’s like, “Good morning, welcome to Okinawa. One of your Marines has hospitalized a Marine permanently stationed here,” and we’re all just like, “aahhh fuckkkkkkkk.” It was 2009, so all the security camera footage was centrally located at a military police mega center on a DVD. We were told years later that the evidence disappeared. Abbate narrowly dodges another career-ending NJP.

Jake: Matt started getting tattoos while we were gone on the MEU and he didn’t stop until we left for Afghanistan. So over the course of maybe a year and a half, he got two full sleeves. At the time, it was that weird policy on tattoos; couldn’t be visible or had to be spaced a certain way or whatever, but Matt never really got in trouble for anything. He was just untouchable. Everybody in the battalion knew who Abbate was, from the sergeant major down to every PFC. Over the course of the MEU, everybody in the MEU knew who he was. He was that guy who would talk to you once and you’d think, “man, this guy is my best friend!” Matt liked his hair, he liked his tattoos, he was high risk on libo, but that’s just part of what you get when you have a man like Matt. You’re not gonna get one without the other. 

While we were gone, Matt tried to lateral move back to Recon, but something kept getting messed up with his package and it never worked out. He was kind of like, “fuck this, maybe I’ll try to go to MARSOC when I get back, or maybe I’ll get out and do something else.” We were all pretty downtrodden being on the MEU. Everybody just wanted to to go combat. We got back in September 2009. Right before Christmas leave, we found out 3/5 was going to Afghanistan. Matt could not have moved faster to get the paperwork done and reenlist. I had to extend my contract to stay with the battalion for the deployment. We were all like, "ok, send us to sniper school and let’s get this done.” We deployed on the MEU with the sniper platoon, but we were not yet school trained. I lucked out and I got to go with Matt.

While we were getting ready to go to sniper school, Matt pushed us super hard everywhere we went. He had to workout every day, it didn’t matter what we did that day. We’re doing all this deployment workup training during the day, then we get back to the barracks and Matt is dragging me out of my bunk to the pull-up bar and dragging his 53 pound kettlebell with him. We’d be driving all over base getting our medical paperwork or whatever else all signed off so we could go to sniper school, he’d see a pull-up bar and make me pull over. Looking back, that’s just how he was who he was. He never missed an opportunity to make himself better. By the time we went to sniper school, I knew Matt really well; I knew what kind of performer he was. But, under the microscope in a school like that, he elevated his already high performance and outshone everybody. It was wild watching him perform at that level. He finished sniper school number one in every skill except for stalking. Stalking is extremely hard. It’s a very, very patient skill, and Matt was terrible at it. It was his kryptonite. I’m about 90 percent sure he actually failed, but the instructors passed him because they knew how much of a badass he was. He graduated the class as high shooter, instructor’s choice, and honor graduate.

Britt: During our workup for Afghanistan, Matt was given meritorious sergeant. In the sniper platoon, he only wanted to be called Matt, he never wanted to be called sergeant, because he truly believed that you didn’t follow people because of their rank. You follow people because you trust their decision making, maturity, experience and character. He went to scout sniper team leader’s course, finishing high shooter and honor grad. He eventually became our team leader, working with John Browning our assistant team leader, in charge of the 10 snipers of  “Banshee Three” attached to Kilo Company.