Carl Bott
Lt. Col USMC (Ret.)

Carl Bott was born in Charleston, West Virginia and moved throughout the United States while growing up. He graduated from high school in Yakima, Washington and attended Central Washington State College. From there he moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he graduated from Vanderbilt with a BA degree in education (social sciences).

He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1970 and completed boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. In 1972 he was selected to attend Officer Candidate School and upon graduation was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant.

His military career has taken him all over the world. He has lived or worked in Japan, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Africa, the Middle East and several other countries. Assignments include deploying to Saudi Arabia and then into Kuwait for Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, deployment to Mogadishu, Somalia for Operation Restore Hope and then a tour in Sarajevo, Bosnia during the unrest there.

In 1999 LtCol Bott retired and opened his own consulting business which took him to Croatia where he successfully led a multi-national team that built all the infrastructure for the first privately owned cellular phone company in the country. Upon his return to the United States he worked as a consultant for DoD and private industry in security and communication matters. In 2003 he traveled to Iraq in support of a US corporation tasked to open all media outlets in Iraq. Upon completion of that contract he returned to the US and acted as a consultant to private industry.

In December 2005 the Marine Corps requested that he return to active duty and lead a group that would assess the readiness of the Iraqi Security Forces and government to take over all security and government matters for Al Anbar province in western Iraq from the Coalition Forces. He returned from Iraq in February, 2007 and retired once again in May, 2007.

Mr. Bott then moved to Redding in May of 2007 and began his new life there. In July he was asked to host a radio show which he agreed to do and is the host of Free Fire Saturday every Saturday from 7-8 AM on KQMS 1400.