vcvcvc

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Subtitles by explosiveskull
akumenang.com

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Eight, nine, ten...

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Colossal 31,
it was an NVG mission,

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night vision goggles,
which means we're flying at night time

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using nothing but the, uh,
binoculars that we had.

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- 4143, you're in the group.
- South.

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We had a Chinook unit
that was attached to us

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called the Washington
Air National Guard,

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who had been going
in and out of the same LZ

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during the day time,
weeks prior.

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So when they heard that we were
gonna be coming out of Bagram

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doing it under NVGs, they kinda
called us up and said,

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"Don't do it, because it's
really high on the ridgeline,

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very high winds,
and a very steep valley".

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But the Ground Force Commander
wanted to be exfilled under NVGs.

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So with that being said,
we put our most experienced pilot

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in command on board, we put
our most experienced PI,

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and we put four crew members
in the back, not just three.

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You got a bad filter?
Hold your fort.

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- Hold her down.
- Roger that.

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Dropping back down
to about 500 AGO.

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- Maintain it at 81.
- Okay.

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Copy that, 06. Looks like
we're about two clicks from the LZ.

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We've only got 364 days to go.

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The winds were pretty high,
the landing zone was essentially

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a rock ledge that was
probably 20 meters wide.

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Colossal 31,
be careful on the approach,

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I see a lot of trees
on that ridge line.

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What the pilots were trying to do
was back in with the ramp down,

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put the lip of the ramp on the
rock, uh, ledge, have the LRAS team,

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I believe was seven people,
uh, come onto

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the Chinook and then,
uh, fly away.

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They had to do
a tailgate landing.

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It's something we'd practiced,
it's in our ATM, this is what we do.

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Alright,
I'm bringing her down.

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Keep it steady,
keep it steady.

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So, we were tearing there.

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They kinda started drifting aft.

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It's coming awful close
to that tree line, Colossal 31.

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We're right
on the ridge.

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A massive, 31.
Come in, come in.

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Back at Bagram,
probably about eleven o'clock at night,

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our SP knocked on the doors
and said that, uh,

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Eric Totten's aircraft
went down.

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The aft rotor system hit a tree,

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causing the forward
and the aft rotor system

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to collide and completely tore
apart the entire helicopter.

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Nobody survived,
we lost all ten.

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There was nothing but burning
embers at the bottom of the valley.

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We were in disbelief that like,
"This cannot be happening right now."

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We were all listening.

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We were listening
for our friends to come home.

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And they never came home.

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What happened with the Apache?
They left our friends.

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So, this is all the stuff
I have from Afghanistan

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and, and my time
of active duty in the army.

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This is the actual patch
that we had on our flight suits,

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it says, "Ugly but well hung".

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This is 10th Mountain's,
a patch they gave to us.

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The Apache, the Hawk and the,
and the Chinook right there.

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So, they came in that night,

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we're standing in between
our B Huts outside,

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it was already getting dark

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and the captain starts
telling us about what happened.

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He starts telling us that,

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"I guess you heard,
the Chinook crashed last night.

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And those guys pretty much killed
themselves and everybody on board",

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and he came across blaming them.

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Sat there for... what seemed like
forever, I think, "What, what the hell?

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That's... that's horrible."

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And he said, "No,
that's not the worst of it."

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You know, you... "What do you
mean that's not the worst of it?"

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So, he goes, "10th Mountain's blaming
us, the Apaches, for leaving them.

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Your buddies left them."
At that point he said like,

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"If y'all hear anything
from 10th Mountain

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bad about us, just ignore them.

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They don't know
what they're talking about."

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And at that point,

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my blood pressure was
through the roof.

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I pointed at the captain
and told him,

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"Who the fuck are you

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to bad-mouth
American troops like that?

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Who the hell are you to leave
American troops on that mountain.

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Don't you ever do that.
How dare you leave our guys like that?"

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I read that every now and then
to remind me also that

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you gotta watch out
for everybody else in life.

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"He called upon us all the sum of
his knowledge and made a judgement.

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He believed in it so strongly that
he knowingly bet his life on it.

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That he was mistaken in his judgement
is a tragedy, not stupidity.

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Every supervisor
and contemporary who ever spoke

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to him, had an opportunity
to influence his judgement,

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so a little bit of all of us goes
in with every troop we lose."

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Now, gotta read that,
every now and then.

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I haven't been up here since
these guys started shooting and stuff.

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- Oh really?
- Yeah.

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Won't be surprised if we find
some RPGs in that woodpile down there.

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Stay to the right here, till we
can get over this thing, if not we can make

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a left turn. Don't descend
unless you have to, alright?

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- Roger.
- Keep the altitude that we got.

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What we were being told
to expect coming into Afghanistan

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was that the insurgency
was ba... basically broken.

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Roger and over.

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So we'd turn on the lights,
we found a lot of Taliban and Al-Qaeda,

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and all of a sudden,
we were in contact just about everywhere.

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Shit.

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I'm taking
fire. Just...

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Yeah, pick up your speed as fast as
you can. It's really not good up here.

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Nobody up here.

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We just received fire

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about two clicks east
of the Lumberyard...

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That looked to be a direct
hit, good shooting, Deadwood.

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We were not making friends
when we first started, so...

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God help us.
We've got ten months left,

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and it will be brutal.

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We had to be perfect.

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On this day, it was a day mission,
we were just to follow several Chinooks

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as they made it to the different FOBs
dropping off different things and people.

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Yeah, Deadwood 6-3,
uh, coming in from the West.

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We'd like to uh, open up their
range, give it a sweep here.

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Roger that.

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We're flying across
the Gardez Desert.

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I was looking around and just at
that point...

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...I was thinking, "Jesus, what is
wrong?" It was like a solid rush of heat.

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Something's going wrong here,

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something... I wanna get out
of the helicopter.

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The Apache helicopter went down

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while trying to land at the
Montgomery County Airport.

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Jeez, we're roasting across
the desert floor at 120 knots.

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00:11:51,128 --> 00:11:52,995
If I just get out of here,
all I gotta do,

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all I gotta do is just...

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- Maybe just open the door and jump out...
- jump out.

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Daniel Flores'
chopper went down.

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I got a hotspot under my helmet,
I gotta change my helmet here.

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I gotta move my helmet around.

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Jesus, I gotta get out of here.

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00:12:06,010 --> 00:12:07,811
How did I even drive home?

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My wife will wake me up
any minute now.

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And I'm like Jesus.

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Just take a deep breath.
Just take a deep breath.

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I gotta get out of here. This is...

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Just take
a deep breath.

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That was my first bout of what
would later become claustrophobia,

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anxiety and anxiety attacks
that go with it.

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That was the first time I'd ever
experienced something like that.

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Somewhere in the
crumpled metal of the Apache helicopter

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lies a clue as to what made it
fall from the sky.

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We set up to do
traffic patterns.

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I was doing the flying
from the front seat.

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Just as I was
about to reduce power to land

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to the approach end
of runway 1-4,

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a Learjet calls up
on the radio saying,

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"Montgomery County traffic,
this is Learjet 6-5 Charlie.

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00:13:06,338 --> 00:13:10,573
We are four mile final
for runway 1-4."

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I was thinking, "Yeah, this guy is gonna
be bearing down on us pretty fast".

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So as I'm starting to slow down,
even more to land,

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Tommy's thinking the same thing.
He took the flight controls,

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and we went forward
a little bit.

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That's the last thing I remember.

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Less than five
minutes after take-off,

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the chopper fell to the ground,
it's landing gear mired in the mud.

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00:13:36,034 --> 00:13:40,637
Chief warrant officers, Daniel Flores and
Thomas Einhorn were shaken up in the crash.

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Both were taken to Medical
Center Hospital in Conroe,

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put under observation,
then released.

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How did I survive?
Literally by the grace of God.

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That was in August when
I had that first bout of anxiety.

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I went and saw
the flight surgeon.

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He... I told him
what was going on.

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00:14:03,562 --> 00:14:06,597
He worked with me a little bit, not much.
He just said, "You, uh,

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you gotta learn to live with it, or you
want me to take you off flight status?"

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And there was no way
I could do that. So...

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I did what we all do
in the military.

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I fought through it.

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00:14:29,155 --> 00:14:33,524
On that day, early October 2006,
we had already set the aircraft up,

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00:14:33,526 --> 00:14:38,228
as we call them, we cocked them up
for the QRF, quick reaction force.

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00:14:38,230 --> 00:14:41,132
We'd just sit around and wait for the
radios to come alive, to go help somebody.

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We were in the chow hall and
our Icom radios came to life.

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00:14:47,406 --> 00:14:51,308
The Apache crew Deadwood
launch the QRF right now.

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We all looked at the radio,
going like,

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"Are they serious?
This has never happened before."

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We ran across the flight line.
The other Apache on the QRF,

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they were already sitting at 100
percent RPMs, waiting for me.

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00:15:07,159 --> 00:15:09,159
Clear right,
clear left. Clear.

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00:15:09,161 --> 00:15:11,662
We were stationed
at Bagram at the time.

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00:15:11,664 --> 00:15:15,265
Most of our QRF missions were
just escorting Medivacs.

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00:15:15,267 --> 00:15:17,769
So, it was a little odd
that we were actually dispatched

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00:15:17,771 --> 00:15:22,038
to a firefight in the Tagab
valley, because as far as we know,

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at the time,
the Tagab was quiet.

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00:15:51,805 --> 00:15:54,404
October 14th was
our first mission

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00:15:54,406 --> 00:15:57,475
to roll down
through the Valley of Tagab,

190
00:15:57,477 --> 00:16:02,214
and meet with the senior members of
the village, and conduct a jirga.

191
00:16:05,217 --> 00:16:09,253
And we were also taking along a
donation of, um, school supplies,

192
00:16:09,255 --> 00:16:12,292
that we were gonna pass along
to the children of the village.

193
00:16:18,163 --> 00:16:21,133
I had turned 50 in 2006.

194
00:16:24,503 --> 00:16:27,539
And I arrived in Afghanistan.
I was not assigned to a unit.

195
00:16:29,209 --> 00:16:32,644
I was a forces
command fill,

196
00:16:32,646 --> 00:16:36,714
because they needed embedded
tactical trainers, ETTs.

197
00:16:38,985 --> 00:16:42,486
The job as an ETT,
as an embedded tactical trainer is...

198
00:16:42,488 --> 00:16:45,156
you're supposed to embed
with the Afghan army,

199
00:16:45,158 --> 00:16:48,258
and you... you liaise
between the US military

200
00:16:48,260 --> 00:16:49,461
and the Afghan military.

201
00:16:51,131 --> 00:16:54,899
We were two-man teams,
one officer and one senior enlisted.

202
00:16:54,901 --> 00:16:58,736
"Hall and Best, you go over there
and you guys report to your unit",

203
00:16:58,738 --> 00:17:01,839
and we reported, and they said, "Okay,
you guys are just gonna be paired up."

204
00:17:01,841 --> 00:17:03,174
It's total happenstance.

205
00:17:05,478 --> 00:17:08,881
You would have these
teams embedded and 100

206
00:17:08,883 --> 00:17:12,149
to 200 Afghan national
army personnel, you know.

207
00:17:13,620 --> 00:17:17,488
Because only once
you've got them sufficient

208
00:17:17,490 --> 00:17:21,528
to where they could secure and
govern themselves, could we leave.

209
00:17:24,497 --> 00:17:28,766
When we left Nijrab, my vehicle
was commanded by Lieutenant Hall,

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00:17:28,768 --> 00:17:31,570
he was sitting
in the team chiefs' seat,

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00:17:31,572 --> 00:17:34,608
and then I was the gunner
in the, uh, turret.

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00:17:35,875 --> 00:17:38,910
And we had Naser
as our interpreter in the back,

213
00:17:38,912 --> 00:17:41,379
with radios to allow us
to communicate

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00:17:41,381 --> 00:17:43,850
with the Afghan forces
that we were working with.

215
00:17:45,318 --> 00:17:48,453
I was a civilian
contractor. When I was working

216
00:17:48,455 --> 00:17:51,189
with the coalition forces
and NATO,

217
00:17:51,191 --> 00:17:53,358
my position was an interpreter,

218
00:17:53,360 --> 00:17:55,461
and I was doing
language services.

219
00:17:55,463 --> 00:17:57,930
Naser was, was one of those kids

220
00:17:57,932 --> 00:18:01,566
who loves his country so much,
he loves Afghanistan so much...

221
00:18:01,568 --> 00:18:04,870
...that he did whatever he could to help out.

222
00:18:04,872 --> 00:18:07,205
It wasn't
about the paycheck with him.

223
00:18:07,207 --> 00:18:09,874
It was all about helping
his country.

224
00:18:20,721 --> 00:18:23,254
In Afghanistan,
in the villages as soon as

225
00:18:23,256 --> 00:18:25,523
the light's up and after prayer,
they open up shop

226
00:18:25,525 --> 00:18:27,559
and they close
when they wanna close.

227
00:18:27,561 --> 00:18:30,863
Uh, so, when we were going down through,

228
00:18:30,865 --> 00:18:31,864
no shops were open.

229
00:18:35,302 --> 00:18:38,470
As we moved through
the little village of Afghania,

230
00:18:38,472 --> 00:18:43,442
we noticed that the kids weren't out
there waving, giving us thumbs up.

231
00:18:43,444 --> 00:18:46,612
We started seeing women and
children running from the fields.

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00:18:48,816 --> 00:18:50,615
We continued on up the road

233
00:18:50,617 --> 00:18:53,419
and there was an Afghan
National Police post

234
00:18:53,421 --> 00:18:56,755
that you could always see Afghan
National Police walking on top of.

235
00:18:58,725 --> 00:19:01,495
The building was
completely abandoned.

236
00:19:02,797 --> 00:19:06,266
So that kind of put your Spidey
senses on tingle a little bit.

237
00:19:08,402 --> 00:19:11,036
As we roll
past that post,

238
00:19:11,038 --> 00:19:14,539
the Afghan commander
stopped the vehicle

239
00:19:14,541 --> 00:19:17,276
and was calling Naser,

240
00:19:17,278 --> 00:19:19,580
our interpreter on the radio,
and telling us to stop.

241
00:19:20,981 --> 00:19:25,753
Uh, so, I asked them what's going on.
He said, "Enemy, enemy".

242
00:19:27,288 --> 00:19:28,355
Stop right here.

243
00:19:31,525 --> 00:19:34,626
The Afghan commander
comes out, he walked out,

244
00:19:34,628 --> 00:19:37,295
he snatched the Dragon
off Sniper Rifle.

245
00:19:37,297 --> 00:19:39,600
He stuck it into
a hole in a compound.

246
00:20:03,892 --> 00:20:06,860
And he gets back out and smiles
and looks at me and goes,

247
00:20:06,862 --> 00:20:08,029
"Two. I got two."

248
00:20:09,764 --> 00:20:10,798
That's when I learned...

249
00:20:12,868 --> 00:20:14,801
what it sounds like
to get shot at.

250
00:20:23,744 --> 00:20:25,744
I began returning fire,

251
00:20:25,746 --> 00:20:29,015
and Lieutenant Hall called back
to the rear American vehicle

252
00:20:29,017 --> 00:20:32,486
to alert them that we were...
we had troops in contact.

253
00:20:36,458 --> 00:20:38,858
Big, long combo right, nine,
ten vehicles, something like that.

254
00:20:38,860 --> 00:20:42,761
The front three or four are the
ones getting engaged right now.

255
00:20:46,101 --> 00:20:50,937
I'm lieutenant, I have a
captain, uh, in the Humvee to my rear.

256
00:20:50,939 --> 00:20:53,540
Their radio's not working
or something, so he gets out

257
00:20:53,542 --> 00:20:56,810
and starts running up to us,
bounding and hopping.

258
00:20:56,812 --> 00:21:00,046
And, uh, he comes up to say,
"Hey, what's going on?"

259
00:21:00,048 --> 00:21:01,817
And that's when I kinda
give him the situation.

260
00:21:02,884 --> 00:21:04,753
Hey, get some guns
up high.

261
00:21:05,954 --> 00:21:09,022
When I turned my face,
I saw, uh,

262
00:21:09,024 --> 00:21:11,059
the rounds were hitting
in the Humvees.

263
00:21:14,864 --> 00:21:16,798
Four, shot to four o'clock.

264
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:20,733
The whole time I'm trying
to call for air support.

265
00:21:23,405 --> 00:21:27,640
Deadwood 6-7, Deadwood 6-7,
this is Vandal 1-6, over.

266
00:21:27,642 --> 00:21:29,943
I know if I can get
some Apaches,

267
00:21:29,945 --> 00:21:32,445
they come with rockets, big guns

268
00:21:32,447 --> 00:21:34,649
and they can s... They come
with elevated positions.

269
00:21:44,893 --> 00:21:50,563
Zero-five, 0-5,
6-7 to the blind and 8-4.

270
00:22:00,176 --> 00:22:04,444
You don't wanna send one
aircraft out on its own ever.

271
00:22:04,446 --> 00:22:07,447
That was policy at the time,
in case one goes down,

272
00:22:07,449 --> 00:22:10,151
you wanna have somebody else there to
be able to provide support for 'em.

273
00:22:11,787 --> 00:22:16,723
Stay up high
down in there.

274
00:22:16,725 --> 00:22:20,027
When they dispatch us
to these situations,

275
00:22:20,029 --> 00:22:21,862
all we get is a brief,

276
00:22:21,864 --> 00:22:24,064
"Troops in contact
at this grid location.

277
00:22:24,066 --> 00:22:27,637
Here's a radio frequency,
go make contact with them and help them."

278
00:22:30,672 --> 00:22:34,674
Vandal 0-5, Vandal 0-5,
this is Deadwood 6-7

279
00:22:34,676 --> 00:22:38,511
to the blind and Deadwood
8-4 inbound here rotations.

280
00:22:38,513 --> 00:22:40,580
Their front seaters got put
in their coordinates to the entrance,

281
00:22:40,582 --> 00:22:42,484
to the Northern entrance
of the Tagab Valley.

282
00:22:44,153 --> 00:22:47,254
Where what we call, we're buster, we're
going as fast as we can. Military power.

283
00:22:47,256 --> 00:22:50,657
We didn't have any intelligence,
you know, on, you know,

284
00:22:50,659 --> 00:22:52,126
who these guys were
or what their...

285
00:22:52,128 --> 00:22:53,928
what their mission
actually was at the time.

286
00:22:53,930 --> 00:22:57,597
We knew we were supposed
to go talk to a Vandal 1-6,

287
00:22:57,599 --> 00:23:02,571
which was Lieutenant Hall and escort
him back, uh, back to their base.

288
00:23:04,106 --> 00:23:08,444
Any Vandal elements, any Vandal elements.
This is Deadwood 6-3.

289
00:23:10,646 --> 00:23:12,114
All these people on the trail
to the right.

290
00:23:14,750 --> 00:23:17,584
From the time we launched,
to the time we got to the north end

291
00:23:17,586 --> 00:23:20,888
of the Tagab, was all
of 15 minutes at the most.

292
00:23:20,890 --> 00:23:23,724
Those guys had already been
in a protracted fight

293
00:23:23,726 --> 00:23:27,695
for easily two hours
before we got called out.

294
00:23:27,697 --> 00:23:30,297
They were getting surrounded
by the Taliban.

295
00:23:30,299 --> 00:23:33,834
Deadwood 6-7, is
that 1-6, we are in convoy,

296
00:23:33,836 --> 00:23:35,604
uh, to evac out of here.

297
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:40,943
OK, coming in high? Big guy roger,
are you still in contact at this time?

298
00:23:43,980 --> 00:23:48,549
From the standpoint
of a helicopter pilot,

299
00:23:48,551 --> 00:23:50,718
one of these things
is just like all the others.

300
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,921
It's a lot more
of a significant experience

301
00:23:53,923 --> 00:23:56,824
for the guys who are actually
on the ground swapping bullets

302
00:23:56,826 --> 00:23:58,494
with the bad guys,
back and forth.

303
00:24:00,763 --> 00:24:06,267
5-3-3-7, this is 5-3-0,
coming hard now, coming hard.

304
00:24:11,141 --> 00:24:12,175
And where's it at?

305
00:24:14,111 --> 00:24:15,911
Man,
where the fuck are they?

306
00:24:20,117 --> 00:24:22,285
Fuck, they're shooting at
us from the trail.

307
00:24:24,321 --> 00:24:27,255
- And where's it at?
- Now we're getting hit from our two o'clock.

308
00:24:29,292 --> 00:24:31,992
The Afghans came out
and tried to envelop us

309
00:24:31,994 --> 00:24:34,629
on both sides,
kinda like a bull's horns,

310
00:24:34,631 --> 00:24:38,035
and tried to enclose us in
and circle us on both sides.

311
00:24:45,776 --> 00:24:48,143
Now the Afghans,
they fight hard and they fight

312
00:24:48,145 --> 00:24:51,746
with no body armor, they fight
with no pay, no socks,

313
00:24:51,748 --> 00:24:53,114
some of them don't have
boot laces,

314
00:24:53,116 --> 00:24:54,983
I mean, they... they fight hard.

315
00:24:54,985 --> 00:24:57,052
It was kinda
inspiring to, to work

316
00:24:57,054 --> 00:25:00,088
with these Afghan guys who,
who did so much for so little.

317
00:25:03,860 --> 00:25:07,762
Damn! I'm out.
Gonna need more rounds, need more rounds.

318
00:25:07,764 --> 00:25:11,632
Terry's in the gun shooting,
he's focused on,

319
00:25:11,634 --> 00:25:13,767
uh, firing rounds
and suppressing the enemy.

320
00:25:16,206 --> 00:25:20,875
I thought to myself,
because the Mark 19 had a lot of them,

321
00:25:20,877 --> 00:25:22,844
"Maybe that will be
the next target".

322
00:25:22,846 --> 00:25:25,849
I yelled at them to move,
move, move from that place.

323
00:25:27,751 --> 00:25:29,086
Move, move forward.

324
00:25:39,063 --> 00:25:40,862
That was an RPG.

325
00:25:40,864 --> 00:25:44,732
After they moved,
fortunately, uh,

326
00:25:44,734 --> 00:25:47,069
they had that place
with the RPG,

327
00:25:47,071 --> 00:25:49,737
but the, uh,
Humvee was not there.

328
00:25:49,739 --> 00:25:53,674
And that was our ride back
also to go to the base.

329
00:25:53,676 --> 00:25:57,679
So, uh, to make sure
we don't have to walk.

330
00:26:13,897 --> 00:26:16,831
Ceasefire!
Ceasefire! Ceasefire!

331
00:26:16,833 --> 00:26:20,835
Over about a 45-minute period,
we were able to quell the contact.

332
00:26:20,837 --> 00:26:23,771
We thought the fight is finished.

333
00:26:23,773 --> 00:26:26,942
One of the company commanders,
he sent one of his platoon soldiers

334
00:26:26,944 --> 00:26:30,812
with the squad to go down see the damages.

335
00:26:30,814 --> 00:26:33,948
When those people came
back, they brought the flag

336
00:26:33,950 --> 00:26:36,819
of the Taliban, which was
on top of one of the compounds.

337
00:26:36,821 --> 00:26:40,054
So we're just taking some photos.

338
00:26:40,056 --> 00:26:45,361
The Taliban already had
the Afghan army radio scanned.

339
00:26:45,363 --> 00:26:48,730
They was listening the Afghan army
communications on their radio.

340
00:26:48,732 --> 00:26:52,301
One of the Taliban guy,
maybe their leader or one of their men,

341
00:26:52,303 --> 00:26:56,272
he called the call sign of the
platoon Sargent when he answered,

342
00:26:56,274 --> 00:26:59,110
and respond, "Yes",
and he start, uh...

343
00:27:00,278 --> 00:27:03,978
Uh, sorry to say that, he said,
"We're gonna fuck you guys up."

344
00:27:03,980 --> 00:27:06,114
Target in!

345
00:27:12,989 --> 00:27:16,158
At this point, we still
had integrity of our convoy,

346
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,028
with an American vehicle
in the lead, uh,

347
00:27:19,030 --> 00:27:22,765
followed by five Afghan vehicles,
and then an American vehicle.

348
00:27:22,767 --> 00:27:26,535
The senior person on this convoy
was in the rear vehicle.

349
00:27:26,537 --> 00:27:31,374
And he asked Lieutenant Hall to have our vehicle

350
00:27:31,376 --> 00:27:35,012
maintain our position while they moved up.

351
00:27:36,214 --> 00:27:38,180
Some of his people got out,
Captain got out,

352
00:27:38,182 --> 00:27:40,517
went to aggress
and move to another building.

353
00:27:56,301 --> 00:28:02,905
Move, move, move!

354
00:28:02,907 --> 00:28:04,276
Hey, watch
your rifle, Lee!

355
00:28:08,045 --> 00:28:10,815
They got shot on,
leave it, leave it don't touch.

356
00:28:14,553 --> 00:28:18,488
- Oh my God, dude.
- Where's Gus! We need air support.

357
00:28:22,893 --> 00:28:24,594
We had been calling
for the Apaches for three hours.

358
00:28:24,596 --> 00:28:27,464
Now we were running out of ammo,
running out of fuel, and...

359
00:28:27,466 --> 00:28:30,233
but I was so focused
on what was going on, uh,

360
00:28:30,235 --> 00:28:33,804
I didn't really worry about what
could happen if they didn't come.

361
00:28:41,112 --> 00:28:45,017
I'm out a little
bit further.

362
00:28:46,285 --> 00:28:49,086
We get over the northern end
of the Tagab Valley,

363
00:28:50,021 --> 00:28:53,025
and, uh, we're circling,
circling would seem like...

364
00:28:54,126 --> 00:28:55,394
Oh man, at least 30 minutes.

365
00:28:56,762 --> 00:28:59,896
I see smoke in the
one o'clock, about two miles.

366
00:28:59,898 --> 00:29:02,967
Okay, we're, uh, armed.
We're armed all the way around.

367
00:29:04,001 --> 00:29:07,404
Deadwood 6-7,
do you have eyes on the Humvee, over?

368
00:29:07,406 --> 00:29:09,406
There's a couple
of Humvees.

369
00:29:09,408 --> 00:29:15,011
Vandal 1-6, Vandal 1-6,
this is Deadwood 6-7,

370
00:29:15,013 --> 00:29:17,949
over east now.
This is your location

371
00:29:19,984 --> 00:29:24,187
Sure enough, we find a convoy
that was engaged on an orchard

372
00:29:24,189 --> 00:29:26,458
on the other side of a ravine.

373
00:29:27,626 --> 00:29:31,094
Vandal 1-6,
just give us the direction

374
00:29:31,096 --> 00:29:34,132
where you're taking fire from,
we can put down some fire.

375
00:29:38,504 --> 00:29:40,440
Roger, Deadwood 6-7, 8-1.

376
00:29:43,308 --> 00:29:45,876
God dammit, do you have eyes
on our location, over?

377
00:29:47,647 --> 00:29:52,315
We've got eyes on
several

378
00:29:52,317 --> 00:29:57,356
along the roadway, uh,
kind of hiding behind a wall.

379
00:29:58,557 --> 00:30:02,961
Roger, Deadwood 6-7,
that's us in the Humvee, over.

380
00:30:04,364 --> 00:30:09,566
Okay, here is the situation,
what you need is to put fire on them.

381
00:30:09,568 --> 00:30:15,004
Roger, they are in the
orchard to our east.

382
00:30:15,006 --> 00:30:19,379
- Anything you can fire up in there will be granted.
- Roll it out, rolling.

383
00:30:20,413 --> 00:30:23,581
He's trying to direct us
where we need to put fire down on.

384
00:30:23,583 --> 00:30:26,283
It's a little more difficult
for us during the day

385
00:30:26,285 --> 00:30:29,186
to identify specifically where
they're being attacked from,

386
00:30:29,188 --> 00:30:33,156
because, you know, at night time you
can see where the rounds are coming off,

387
00:30:33,158 --> 00:30:37,294
you can see where the fires are coming
from, uh, you can utilize the flare,

388
00:30:37,296 --> 00:30:40,633
but it's more difficult during the day,
'cause you're primarily using your naked eye.

389
00:30:43,336 --> 00:30:46,470
Roger and
there's smoking going on over here

390
00:30:46,472 --> 00:30:49,941
that could be a village, and the orchard
to the east that you're talking about.

391
00:30:51,511 --> 00:30:56,381
Roger that, 6-7, that's
go ahead and fire that up.

392
00:30:58,150 --> 00:31:00,019
Okay,
we're gonna put down so fire.

393
00:31:03,523 --> 00:31:07,691
Alright, go ahead. That was some good shooting
right there that kicked up all the dirt.

394
00:31:07,693 --> 00:31:12,532
Yep, I saw it.
OK, let's come around.

395
00:31:13,466 --> 00:31:17,034
Coming around
Are you gonna fire rockets...

396
00:31:17,036 --> 00:31:18,702
Yeah, I'm gonna
try and fire rockets on this.

397
00:31:18,704 --> 00:31:21,104
Okay, you fire rockets and then
I'll clean up a gun.

398
00:31:21,106 --> 00:31:25,044
I got the gun now.
Finger's on the trigger.

399
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,682
- Follow our guys a little bit and shoot into it.
- Okay

400
00:31:30,684 --> 00:31:36,420
- Eh, come on, right.
- Alright, coming right. 6-1 to...

401
00:31:41,327 --> 00:31:43,260
OK, fire when you...

402
00:31:43,262 --> 00:31:49,166
1-6 and 1-6

403
00:31:58,644 --> 00:32:01,078
That's when Vandal gets
on the radio saying like,

404
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:02,681
"Who are you guys shooting at?

405
00:32:02,683 --> 00:32:05,752
We are a convoy
at the south end of the Tagab."

406
00:32:09,789 --> 00:32:12,691
"We're all standing behind this
wall and shooting to our east,

407
00:32:12,693 --> 00:32:16,260
is that what you're seeing?" He says,
"Yeah. It... Every shooting to the east".

408
00:32:16,262 --> 00:32:19,399
I'm, "Well, that's us,
but I don't see you."

409
00:32:24,570 --> 00:32:29,308
6-7, Deadwood 6-7. I believe
we are south of your location, over.

410
00:32:30,811 --> 00:32:35,847
- Hold up on this round.
- Alright, holding up.

411
00:32:35,849 --> 00:32:38,650
Roger that. He said
they're south of our location.

412
00:32:38,652 --> 00:32:42,152
6-1, see what these
guys are doing right here.

413
00:32:42,154 --> 00:32:45,792
- Deadwood 6-7
- Get ready.

414
00:32:48,695 --> 00:32:49,695
Go ahead.

415
00:32:50,597 --> 00:32:55,534
W-D-5-8-1-5-5-

416
00:32:55,536 --> 00:32:58,372
6-0-4-3-0.

417
00:33:01,375 --> 00:33:03,810
Roger. Good copy.

418
00:33:05,378 --> 00:33:09,748
I was talking to, uh,
Lieutenant Hall on the radio,

419
00:33:09,750 --> 00:33:11,485
the radio reception
was crystal clear,

420
00:33:12,653 --> 00:33:15,389
but we were not supporting him.
He was...

421
00:33:16,423 --> 00:33:19,560
What? Five or seven kilometers maybe
further south of where we were.

422
00:33:20,694 --> 00:33:23,395
Oh my God,
who did we just shoot?

423
00:33:23,397 --> 00:33:24,663
Shoot.

424
00:33:43,750 --> 00:33:46,151
There were three Afghans that were hurt.

425
00:33:46,153 --> 00:33:50,755
- Over here! I saw two police!
- Where, where?

426
00:33:50,757 --> 00:33:55,193
The Captain got on the
radio and he called for a Medivac.

427
00:33:55,195 --> 00:33:59,331
The Medivac indicated
that they would push one up,

428
00:33:59,333 --> 00:34:03,103
but they would not land until the area was secure.

429
00:34:04,538 --> 00:34:07,272
So the Captain indicated
to Lieutenant Hall

430
00:34:07,274 --> 00:34:10,476
that he was taking half
the Afghans in the ambulance

431
00:34:10,478 --> 00:34:13,345
and they were gonna roll back
to combat output in Nijrab.

432
00:34:13,347 --> 00:34:14,816
"And you continue the fight."

433
00:34:18,519 --> 00:34:22,320
Lieutenant Hall indicated he
did not think it was a good idea.

434
00:34:22,322 --> 00:34:27,960
I was, uh, very vocal from my position
that it was an absolutely horrible idea.

435
00:34:27,962 --> 00:34:30,732
They needed to understand they
still had ten people pinned down.

436
00:34:31,698 --> 00:34:35,401
They took away a big gun,
on top of that Humvee is a 50-cal.

437
00:34:35,403 --> 00:34:37,603
We have a Mark 19,
an automatic grenade launcher.

438
00:34:37,605 --> 00:34:40,305
You split those up,
and you don't have anybody

439
00:34:40,307 --> 00:34:43,411
to cover for him
while he's reloading.

440
00:34:44,479 --> 00:34:47,545
Reload. I'm out.
I need more rounds.

441
00:34:47,547 --> 00:34:49,614
You don't choose
who leads you

442
00:34:49,616 --> 00:34:52,818
in those situations.
They get force-fed to you,

443
00:34:52,820 --> 00:34:55,387
and my job
as an enlisted soldier,

444
00:34:55,389 --> 00:34:57,925
is to mitigate
the mistakes they make.

445
00:35:01,329 --> 00:35:03,596
The shots are coming
from right below us.

446
00:35:13,941 --> 00:35:16,776
They left us with only one American
vehicle and the American vehicles

447
00:35:16,778 --> 00:35:19,812
were out there because we had
the most fire power,

448
00:35:19,814 --> 00:35:22,248
and because we could
communicate with the skies.

449
00:35:38,399 --> 00:35:43,571
So, this was a month after my first
real deal claustrophobic anxiety attack.

450
00:35:44,639 --> 00:35:48,909
There's trails and everything down
here, they could be hiding in all those trees.

451
00:35:48,911 --> 00:35:55,048
It was on the back of my mind.
If I had a moment to stop and reflect...

452
00:35:55,050 --> 00:35:58,484
Yeah, here it comes.

453
00:35:58,486 --> 00:36:03,826
Deadwood 6-7,
we are in convoy, we need evac out of here.

454
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,988
And that's when I started realizing,
that as long as I can keep

455
00:36:34,990 --> 00:36:38,390
my mind preoccupied
with something else,

456
00:36:38,392 --> 00:36:41,863
yeah, the chances of having an
anxiety attack was much, much less.

457
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:50,570
- Roger, Deadwood 7-6, I'm right underneath you.
- Roger.

458
00:36:50,572 --> 00:36:53,339
What we actually wound up
flying over first

459
00:36:53,341 --> 00:36:55,909
was a ground QRF force,

460
00:36:55,911 --> 00:36:59,880
that had been sent out
from their base to go help them.

461
00:36:59,882 --> 00:37:04,750
And so we supported those guys at
first for a good 10-15 minutes or so,

462
00:37:04,752 --> 00:37:07,956
before we realized this is not
where we're supposed to be.

463
00:37:10,492 --> 00:37:14,663
Deadwood 6-7,
we are in the last vehicle in this convoy.

464
00:37:16,064 --> 00:37:18,064
Roger,
we have eyes on you.

465
00:37:18,066 --> 00:37:21,734
As soon as they got over the orchard
where the fighting was going on,

466
00:37:21,736 --> 00:37:27,408
sure enough there was a volley of
RPGs and smoke from all the shooting.

467
00:37:30,914 --> 00:37:33,747
I quickly slammed the stick
to the left, lined up my rockets

468
00:37:33,749 --> 00:37:36,650
and fired off three high
explosive rockets.

469
00:37:36,652 --> 00:37:39,553
Oh yeah,
oh yeah, oh yeah.

470
00:37:39,555 --> 00:37:42,589
And I tell you, right now,
that felt great.

471
00:37:52,134 --> 00:37:53,166
Come on back.

472
00:38:03,847 --> 00:38:07,082
Going in
look good at this point.

473
00:38:09,818 --> 00:38:11,685
Go around, you're in
a good position, over.

474
00:38:11,687 --> 00:38:19,060
Here we go.

475
00:38:19,062 --> 00:38:22,129
RPG, 0-8. Yeah!

476
00:38:22,131 --> 00:38:27,136
Deadwood 6-7, we are still
receiving fire from our inside, over.

477
00:38:28,570 --> 00:38:31,471
north and
south so we get a little more to run.

478
00:38:31,473 --> 00:38:33,540
Yes, and that way
he's coming in that direction.

479
00:38:33,542 --> 00:38:36,478
- I agree with them. Coming out
- OK.

480
00:38:50,026 --> 00:38:53,930
- 6-1 is inbound
- Roger.

481
00:39:20,555 --> 00:39:22,723
- Okay.
- Good round,

482
00:39:22,725 --> 00:39:25,026
Deadwood 6-7
you're right on target.

483
00:39:25,028 --> 00:39:27,997
Okay, 6-7, roger.

484
00:39:31,534 --> 00:39:33,634
We had all our Afghans
in the trenches,

485
00:39:33,636 --> 00:39:36,670
so we had to get everybody,
find them all with no radios.

486
00:39:36,672 --> 00:39:38,973
Get them all back in the vehicles
and I'm calling, I'm trying

487
00:39:38,975 --> 00:39:41,776
to talk to the Afghans and I
don't know, I don't know Dari,

488
00:39:41,778 --> 00:39:45,012
so I'm trying to find my interpreter,
and he's up on the front line,

489
00:39:45,014 --> 00:39:47,583
you know,
taking ammo to the Afghans.

490
00:39:48,952 --> 00:39:52,753
I had to call him and...
and provide cover fire for him

491
00:39:52,755 --> 00:39:55,690
to start bounding back to me,
and I had to grab him

492
00:39:55,692 --> 00:39:58,726
by the collar and...
and try to yell at him,

493
00:39:58,728 --> 00:40:01,663
"Hey, I need you with me, man.
I need you to stay with me."

494
00:40:02,833 --> 00:40:06,035
We finally got everybody together,
you know, we started, started to move out.

495
00:40:08,738 --> 00:40:13,876
Deadwood 6-7, we
are loading up to evac out of here, over.

496
00:40:15,678 --> 00:40:16,646
Roger.

497
00:40:18,816 --> 00:40:24,018
There was about 500 enemy
insurgents in the valley at that time.

498
00:40:24,020 --> 00:40:28,991
When we came down, all the... the enemy
insurgents decided to come out to the road

499
00:40:28,993 --> 00:40:32,760
because they knew we'd have to come
back, and they laid in probably seven,

500
00:40:32,762 --> 00:40:35,631
eight ambushes for us
along those 17 kilometers.

501
00:40:41,070 --> 00:40:48,210
Roger, Deadwood 6-7, we are in route and we
are gonna have ambushes all the way home.

502
00:40:48,212 --> 00:40:50,812
- OK, we're going with 'em.
- OK, we stay with 'em.

503
00:40:50,814 --> 00:40:55,718
Roger won't be, uh,
location as you are north.

504
00:40:57,620 --> 00:41:00,789
I could see that they were
starting to head north along the road.

505
00:41:00,791 --> 00:41:04,326
I rolled in, flying as fast as I
could, catching up the convoy,

506
00:41:04,328 --> 00:41:07,796
and roasted over them
at about 100 feet,

507
00:41:07,798 --> 00:41:09,998
to let them know
that we were with them,

508
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,833
and for any other possible
ambushes in front of them to know

509
00:41:12,835 --> 00:41:15,904
that there's Apaches that are
protecting our guys on the ground.

510
00:41:40,764 --> 00:41:42,266
Do you copy, 1-6.

511
00:41:48,038 --> 00:41:51,139
The next village they came
up to, looked literally

512
00:41:51,141 --> 00:41:55,311
like an old western town,
with a dirt road down the middle.

513
00:41:59,383 --> 00:42:02,886
It was a tight one lane
road, with buildings on either side.

514
00:42:15,299 --> 00:42:18,434
That's when Vandal 1-6

515
00:42:18,436 --> 00:42:20,902
screams down the radio that
they're shooting from the rooftops.

516
00:42:20,904 --> 00:42:27,076
- Rooftops, get down! Over.
- Shit!

517
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:33,916
They were literally putting the gun
over the edge and just squeezing

518
00:42:33,918 --> 00:42:37,086
the trigger and letting,
letting them fly.

519
00:42:37,088 --> 00:42:39,754
We can take out that house.
That's where they were shooting them from.

520
00:42:39,756 --> 00:42:41,960
I'm checking to see
where the shots came from.

521
00:42:43,361 --> 00:42:48,464
I was in a position right there, just above
the town, saw one building and I thought,

522
00:42:48,466 --> 00:42:51,200
"Alright, I'm fixing to put a
rocket right through the top of it."

523
00:42:53,404 --> 00:42:56,707
Okay, we're armed,
we're armed all the way around.

524
00:43:00,478 --> 00:43:01,712
But it didn't feel right.

525
00:43:03,448 --> 00:43:05,383
- He's got nowhere to go if he get shot at.
- Yeah, yeah.

526
00:43:10,455 --> 00:43:12,357
- Alright, just get ready.
- Roger.

527
00:43:16,227 --> 00:43:20,864
I eased off and circled around, I thought,
"Alright. Give them a little bit of time

528
00:43:21,933 --> 00:43:24,333
before I go make a shot and
possibly kill innocents in there."

529
00:43:24,335 --> 00:43:26,835
Because it's still, it's
a country where normal people

530
00:43:26,837 --> 00:43:28,939
that don't wanna be in this war.
That's where they live.

531
00:43:29,908 --> 00:43:32,310
So, in my mind,
that was a good...

532
00:43:33,478 --> 00:43:35,712
a good decision
not to take that shot.

533
00:43:37,882 --> 00:43:41,250
He's pointing that
way somewhere, what the heck?

534
00:43:41,252 --> 00:43:43,352
Those guys are
right in front of us.

535
00:43:43,354 --> 00:43:45,855
Vandal to Deadwood.

536
00:43:45,857 --> 00:43:48,291
Roger. See if there's
anybody down there as well.

537
00:43:48,293 --> 00:43:50,461
I'm looking and lost.

538
00:43:52,397 --> 00:43:56,265
So that's when I started
making runs up and down the road,

539
00:43:56,267 --> 00:43:58,303
popping flares
to let people know that,

540
00:43:59,370 --> 00:44:01,172
"You mess with them,
we will level this town".

541
00:44:02,874 --> 00:44:05,276
- I'll send some flares.
- Go ahead. Roger.

542
00:44:06,844 --> 00:44:09,314
Power. Speed.

543
00:44:14,553 --> 00:44:17,486
And flares away.

544
00:44:17,488 --> 00:44:20,357
We're throwing
flares everywhere.

545
00:44:26,031 --> 00:44:28,198
The Afghans stopped
because they're taking fire,

546
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,234
and they got out of the vehicles
to try and engage.

547
00:44:36,141 --> 00:44:38,442
Deadwood 6-7,
we have

548
00:44:38,444 --> 00:44:44,581
- We are loading up to evac out of here, over.
- Roger.

549
00:44:44,583 --> 00:44:46,849
They were out fighting, because they
didn't wanna be in their vehicles,

550
00:44:46,851 --> 00:44:49,053
so we get them back in the
vehicles and we start moving again.

551
00:44:50,556 --> 00:44:51,888
2-40!

552
00:44:57,395 --> 00:44:59,930
Oh fuck! Go ahead!

553
00:44:59,932 --> 00:45:02,900
We need airborne!
We need airborne!

554
00:45:03,935 --> 00:45:08,605
We were close to being black on ammo,
meaning that we were out of ammo.

555
00:45:08,607 --> 00:45:12,275
I had used all my Mark 19
rounds, so the guys in the skies

556
00:45:12,277 --> 00:45:15,848
had the only rounds
that were really being fired.

557
00:45:16,548 --> 00:45:19,583
Considering how many people
were stacked up against them,

558
00:45:19,585 --> 00:45:22,019
they were sitting ducks.

559
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:33,497
The FOB was not even a mile away
and that's when Vandal 1-6

560
00:45:33,499 --> 00:45:37,166
yells out, "They're shooting from the
fields, they're shooting from the field."

561
00:45:37,168 --> 00:45:41,238
6-7, 6-7

562
00:45:41,240 --> 00:45:44,441
They're in the fields,
in the fields. Over.

563
00:45:44,443 --> 00:45:48,646
They're in the fields,
6-7, in the fields.

564
00:45:48,648 --> 00:45:53,049
Roger, in the fields. I got
it, it's gonna be a tight turn backing up.

565
00:45:53,051 --> 00:45:57,187
Right down below
us, 6-7, right down below us.

566
00:45:57,189 --> 00:45:59,925
My front seater saw somebody
run into the fields shooting.

567
00:46:00,992 --> 00:46:03,396
- Here we go. You see 'em?
- Yep.

568
00:46:06,665 --> 00:46:07,599
I didn't see 'em.

569
00:46:09,034 --> 00:46:11,269
Good shot, 6-7,
good shot.

570
00:46:11,271 --> 00:46:15,274
I got it,
alright, coming left.

571
00:46:18,345 --> 00:46:23,015
- Left.
- Yeah, take a left turn, I saw the guys on the ground.

572
00:46:24,483 --> 00:46:27,084
We'd gotten so good at this
point with shooting rockets

573
00:46:27,086 --> 00:46:31,922
that I could put a rocket in a
window at a mile away. No problem.

574
00:46:31,924 --> 00:46:33,524
Alright, straight on.

575
00:46:33,526 --> 00:46:38,563
- Oh, nice.
- Right there, there you go.

576
00:46:38,565 --> 00:46:41,566
I'm out of, I'm out of...

577
00:46:41,568 --> 00:46:43,969
Good round, 6-7,
good round.

578
00:46:44,671 --> 00:46:47,106
- Roll out.
- Alright out.

579
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,145
By about that time the convoy
made up the last hill to the FOB.

580
00:47:09,027 --> 00:47:11,598
6-7, it's 1-6,
we are in the FOB, over.

581
00:47:19,238 --> 00:47:21,037
If we would not
have shown up

582
00:47:21,039 --> 00:47:22,308
at the time that we did,

583
00:47:23,576 --> 00:47:25,510
the chances are they would
have had a lot more casualties

584
00:47:25,512 --> 00:47:27,612
if not all of them
getting killed.

585
00:47:27,614 --> 00:47:32,118
They secured our safe passage
out of that valley.

586
00:47:33,686 --> 00:47:36,019
I mean we shot a lot
of ordinance that day,

587
00:47:36,021 --> 00:47:38,456
in those,
in those three and a half hours.

588
00:47:38,458 --> 00:47:40,591
Terry brought
700 rounds of grenades,

589
00:47:40,593 --> 00:47:44,062
700 grenades that he shot.

590
00:47:45,433 --> 00:47:48,599
The Afghan are an amazing
fighting force and, uh,

591
00:47:48,601 --> 00:47:52,938
Matt is the best battle buddy
I've ever had.

592
00:47:57,143 --> 00:47:59,243
If we would have had to
run back through that gauntlet,

593
00:47:59,245 --> 00:48:01,212
without cover fire,

594
00:48:01,214 --> 00:48:02,683
who knows how many people
would have made it back.

595
00:48:04,284 --> 00:48:07,086
We saved them that day,
we saved them that day.

596
00:48:22,035 --> 00:48:24,235
We got back
that night and...

597
00:48:24,237 --> 00:48:26,338
And we had flat tires

598
00:48:26,340 --> 00:48:27,606
and we had no ammo.

599
00:48:27,608 --> 00:48:29,507
We were tired,

600
00:48:29,509 --> 00:48:31,142
and there was a point where I...

601
00:48:31,144 --> 00:48:33,177
you know, I sat on a berm

602
00:48:33,179 --> 00:48:34,748
and just kinda looked out
into the distance.

603
00:48:35,649 --> 00:48:38,617
You know, I needed a minute.

604
00:48:38,619 --> 00:48:41,152
And, uh, Naser came up
and sat down and I said,

605
00:48:41,154 --> 00:48:43,789
"Hey, you know,
I... we fired a lot of grenades,

606
00:48:43,791 --> 00:48:48,092
and we fired a lot of guns and,
we, we shot a lot of things, and...

607
00:48:48,094 --> 00:48:51,697
Uh, I'm sure we killed some bad
guys, but I'm worried that we...

608
00:48:51,699 --> 00:48:56,534
Uh, that we killed, you know, maybe,
maybe women and children. I don't know.

609
00:48:56,536 --> 00:48:59,240
And he kind of put his hand on my
shoulder and said, "We did good today."

610
00:49:00,139 --> 00:49:03,474
You know? "We did, we did good,
you did good today."

611
00:49:03,476 --> 00:49:08,647
That was huge. That little
ten seconds probably saved

612
00:49:08,649 --> 00:49:12,550
a lot of, a lot of therapy
and issues for me later in life.

613
00:49:21,629 --> 00:49:24,164
Got us here in the nick of time.

614
00:49:27,701 --> 00:49:30,204
You know,
this is a whole lot of lightning going on.

615
00:49:31,705 --> 00:49:33,805
And actually it's fixing
to rain like crazy

616
00:49:33,807 --> 00:49:37,174
on us here in just a second.
We need, gonna get on a Hawk,

617
00:49:37,176 --> 00:49:39,578
to get back in this thing,
and here it comes.

618
00:49:46,220 --> 00:49:50,589
Um, like I said,
we didn't... we didn't make it.

619
00:49:50,591 --> 00:49:56,063
This is just like Jurassic Park, so as
long as we don't move, we should be okay.

620
00:49:56,764 --> 00:50:00,164
But it's raining like crazy
and we are,

621
00:50:00,166 --> 00:50:04,438
in bad guy country. Dust off,
the other Apache and us.

622
00:50:06,340 --> 00:50:09,411
I'm expecting a T-rex any minute
now, so we're not moving.

623
00:50:10,845 --> 00:50:14,513
And I'm scared.
Signing out for now.

624
00:50:19,821 --> 00:50:22,089
- Ahem, Chris, it's 2006.
- Hey.

625
00:50:24,692 --> 00:50:29,294
And what are we doing, all of us
from Texas? Shoveling snow.

626
00:50:29,296 --> 00:50:31,396
- Snow!
- You'd think we lived in Amarillo.

627
00:50:31,398 --> 00:50:33,802
That's true.

628
00:50:35,202 --> 00:50:38,639
Anyway, sometime in the middle of the
afternoon, it's snowing like crazy.

629
00:50:40,841 --> 00:50:47,114
And it's been snowing
all night, all... our Christmas.

630
00:50:48,749 --> 00:50:51,684
We had two weeks left
before we would start packing up

631
00:50:51,686 --> 00:50:55,322
and heading home after a yearlong
battle there in Afghanistan.

632
00:50:56,256 --> 00:50:58,393
The fighting had
increased tremendously.

633
00:50:59,561 --> 00:51:01,326
At the morning brief,
we got the weather for the day,

634
00:51:01,328 --> 00:51:03,763
and we got all the missions
that were going out.

635
00:51:03,765 --> 00:51:05,932
One of the missions
that I'd heard was

636
00:51:05,934 --> 00:51:09,435
taking The Code
to the Korengal Valley

637
00:51:09,437 --> 00:51:11,570
in a Black Hawk
to go visit the FOBs.

638
00:51:11,572 --> 00:51:14,273
The Code is the General.

639
00:51:23,618 --> 00:51:29,656
I was gonna spend Christmas
Eve of 2006 with Captain McKnight

640
00:51:29,658 --> 00:51:32,227
and his company,
up in the Korengal outpost.

641
00:51:33,595 --> 00:51:35,928
We had been collecting
all these letters...

642
00:51:35,930 --> 00:51:40,533
...to see the smiles on troops faces when they open

643
00:51:40,535 --> 00:51:43,770
a "to any soldier" letter, it
just makes a huge difference.

644
00:51:46,675 --> 00:51:50,576
Completely socked in,
snow, fog, everything.

645
00:51:50,578 --> 00:51:53,681
I told my aide, "Alright,
we're gonna go New Year's Eve.

646
00:51:53,683 --> 00:52:00,354
And snowed out, fogged out. And January
5th, 2007 was a crystal-clear day.

647
00:52:04,526 --> 00:52:08,260
Alright, okay.

648
00:52:08,262 --> 00:52:10,964
Flight brakes released,
panels in, lock lights on.

649
00:52:10,966 --> 00:52:14,000
- System check?
- Systems, I got no crosses, no transfers.

650
00:52:14,002 --> 00:52:17,905
We're full of gas,
are green, 3000 hydraulics,

651
00:52:17,907 --> 00:52:20,974
no caution or warnings.
Supporting systems are checked. We're good.

652
00:52:27,850 --> 00:52:32,285
The Korengal Valley was the most hotly
contested valley in all of Afghanistan.

653
00:52:32,287 --> 00:52:34,688
The Valley of Death
is what some people called it.

654
00:52:34,690 --> 00:52:37,592
Asher, I hear we're on the back
side of the.

655
00:52:40,595 --> 00:52:44,834
And we started heading to the east
towards Jalalabad and then north to Asadabad.

656
00:52:49,538 --> 00:52:52,906
Two types of people
that troops often

657
00:52:52,908 --> 00:52:56,411
talk about regarding
who you'll find in a firefight,

658
00:52:57,379 --> 00:53:03,951
are those that will immediately
return fire or initiate fire,

659
00:53:03,953 --> 00:53:07,087
because their training
kicks in and they execute,

660
00:53:07,089 --> 00:53:11,091
and then, you have some
that are more contemplative

661
00:53:11,093 --> 00:53:14,461
and take a step back
and, and hesitate,

662
00:53:14,463 --> 00:53:18,665
but I didn't see too many
of those. What I saw mostly

663
00:53:18,667 --> 00:53:24,938
were troops that whenever, uh,
we needed fire on target,

664
00:53:24,940 --> 00:53:27,741
uh, rounds on target.
They would put it on target,

665
00:53:27,743 --> 00:53:31,112
and there's no greater
demonstration of that

666
00:53:31,114 --> 00:53:34,617
than that January 5th, 2007 day.

667
00:53:37,753 --> 00:53:40,489
Dog 3-7, Deadwood 6-6.

668
00:53:41,557 --> 00:53:44,927
Deadwood 6-6,
Dog 3-7 read your over.

669
00:53:46,062 --> 00:53:49,398
0-1-6-6, hear you loud and clear.
We're about one minute out.

670
00:53:51,366 --> 00:53:53,002
Dog,
copy that one minute out.

671
00:53:54,403 --> 00:53:57,838
We got radio traffic saying
that there's a troops in contact,

672
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:01,876
a fight going on in the Pech River
Valley, right before the Korengal Valley.

673
00:54:01,878 --> 00:54:05,512
So, we had to land at Asadabad
to let that fight play out,

674
00:54:05,514 --> 00:54:09,050
because we could not go past there.
At that point, The Code gets out,

675
00:54:09,052 --> 00:54:14,721
the Black Hawk runs into the TOC and a second
later, they call us up on the radio saying like,

676
00:54:14,723 --> 00:54:17,926
"Deadwood, can you go
over there to that TIC,

677
00:54:17,928 --> 00:54:21,595
and help stop it so we can
go on to the Korengal valley."

678
00:54:21,597 --> 00:54:23,897
I probably said like, "We're
the only Apache out here,

679
00:54:23,899 --> 00:54:26,935
we're not allowed to go single
ship anywhere in this country."

680
00:54:26,937 --> 00:54:29,803
And right about then is
when the TOC called up saying,

681
00:54:29,805 --> 00:54:32,107
"The Code has just authorized
you to go single ship."

682
00:54:36,046 --> 00:54:37,680
OK, copy.
Be looking for them.

683
00:54:44,653 --> 00:54:47,188
So, we took off,
talked to Dog 3-7 on the ground

684
00:54:47,190 --> 00:54:50,692
and he said, "Up on this ridge line,
the entrance of the Shuryak Valley,

685
00:54:50,694 --> 00:54:55,065
there's, uh, somebody's shooting at 'em with
RPGs and some, you know, small arms fire."

686
00:54:57,167 --> 00:55:00,969
Hey, Dog this is Deadwood 6-6,
where are you at from me right now?

687
00:55:00,971 --> 00:55:04,039
Is that you, uh,
are you on the main road?

688
00:55:06,743 --> 00:55:09,210
Dog 3-7, negative,
we are at control base.

689
00:55:09,212 --> 00:55:13,783
We are east of you right now,
as you're flying, over.

690
00:55:15,819 --> 00:55:18,585
Okay, uh, let's
right now.

691
00:55:18,587 --> 00:55:23,693
Fly to is in, and they just gave
us southeast of that.

692
00:55:25,996 --> 00:55:30,832
Dog 3-7 to Deadwood 6-6.
Dog 3-7, over.

693
00:55:30,834 --> 00:55:35,738
Yes, that last coordinate that
you gave me, is that friendly or enemy?

694
00:55:37,174 --> 00:55:42,045
That's enemy. You are
safety. Over.

695
00:55:44,147 --> 00:55:46,017
Deadwood 6-6, roger.

696
00:55:47,651 --> 00:55:53,590
Okay, that's enemy position. Just run
on the nose, right there somewhere.

697
00:55:55,159 --> 00:55:56,491
And some rockets.

698
00:56:18,748 --> 00:56:23,017
This spot level, I don't like, but it
looks like somebody come back to get 'em.

699
00:56:33,563 --> 00:56:35,967
No, that is not working.

700
00:56:37,934 --> 00:56:40,535
And that's when the,
the gun stopped shooting.

701
00:56:40,537 --> 00:56:43,606
We could hear it cycling,
but no bullets were coming out.

702
00:56:45,076 --> 00:56:47,809
- Can't be out of rounds already.
- No way.

703
00:56:47,811 --> 00:56:51,146
Sounds like the gun was
running, but it wasn't firing.

704
00:56:51,148 --> 00:56:52,515
Oh Jeez.

705
00:56:54,151 --> 00:56:58,053
OK, Dog 3-7, Deadwood 6-6, either we're
out of bullets or our gun is broken.

706
00:56:58,055 --> 00:57:03,194
We're gonna get back to ABAD and continue with
the mission, we'll be back in a little bit.

707
00:57:04,295 --> 00:57:06,764
This is Dog 3-7, copy, over.

708
00:57:09,100 --> 00:57:11,102
At that point,
we went back to Asadabad.

709
00:57:12,903 --> 00:57:17,006
The crew chiefs on the ground there, at Asadabad,
said like, "Hey, do you need any fuel?"

710
00:57:17,008 --> 00:57:21,643
And I said, "No, but could you check
the gun, see if it's broke or not?"

711
00:57:21,645 --> 00:57:25,147
So, they open the avionics bay
and they check the gun,

712
00:57:25,149 --> 00:57:27,749
and sure enough,
we're just out of bullets.

713
00:57:27,751 --> 00:57:32,354
So the kid comes back with a big
ammo can of 30 millimeter,

714
00:57:32,356 --> 00:57:35,157
and then they look at us
and that's when we find out

715
00:57:35,159 --> 00:57:40,029
that they don't have the proper equipment
to load the 30 millimeter bullets

716
00:57:40,031 --> 00:57:45,201
into the Apache. Unbeknownst to
us, that was taken away a week ago.

717
00:57:45,203 --> 00:57:48,370
Bullets, going into the Korengal
Valley was an absolute necessity.

718
00:57:48,372 --> 00:57:50,875
We had to have bullets.

719
00:57:51,808 --> 00:57:56,011
So, I suggested, "Hey, how about if
we fly back down to Jalalabad here,

720
00:57:56,013 --> 00:58:00,382
and, uh, get our guys to put bullets
in our Apache, refill us with gas,

721
00:58:00,384 --> 00:58:02,951
and we'll be back up here
45 minutes tops,

722
00:58:02,953 --> 00:58:05,154
and then we can go on
into the Korengal."

723
00:58:05,156 --> 00:58:08,858
At that point I saw the...
the Code getting out of the TOC,

724
00:58:08,860 --> 00:58:11,227
and running
and getting into his Black Hawk.

725
00:58:11,229 --> 00:58:14,730
And right at that point,
Ark Angel gets on the radio and says like,

726
00:58:14,732 --> 00:58:17,367
"Hey, you guys.
The Code's ready to go.

727
00:58:17,369 --> 00:58:20,272
You've got rockets and missiles,
let's go."

728
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:28,045
5-3-7, roger. I just got word
that the General

729
00:58:29,713 --> 00:58:32,818
says that you have to have
an escort with you, over.

730
00:58:34,419 --> 00:58:37,822
- Alright.
- Dog 3-7 copy, over.

731
00:58:46,163 --> 00:58:50,902
This really sucks not having...
us going in here.

732
00:58:52,370 --> 00:58:58,374
So, I took off, Ark Angel, the Black Hawk
with the Code, takes off right behind me.

733
00:58:58,376 --> 00:59:01,010
Rolling straight
into the Korengal Valley.

734
00:59:13,725 --> 00:59:18,130
Korengal outpost, Lumberyard, this is
Deadwood 6-6, getting down with the Code.

735
00:59:19,864 --> 00:59:23,268
This is Lumberyard COP
control, copy that, over.

736
00:59:25,203 --> 00:59:30,206
I call up the Lumberyard,
or Korengal outpost, or the COP,

737
00:59:30,208 --> 00:59:33,044
tell 'em that, uh, it's
Deadwood inbound with the Code.

738
00:59:38,917 --> 00:59:42,784
Go in, take left turn now,
I'm at your right five o'clock high.

739
00:59:42,786 --> 00:59:46,091
Roger that.

740
00:59:48,326 --> 00:59:52,097
Uh, don't go any further south,
make a left turn now, make a left turn now.

741
00:59:53,865 --> 00:59:57,369
Yeah, pick up your speed fast as you
can, really not good up here.

742
00:59:58,403 --> 01:00:01,037
We're moving out at a
pretty good clip because we know

743
01:00:01,039 --> 01:00:04,307
that there's enemy in the area.

744
01:00:04,309 --> 01:00:07,410
Holes started appearing
in the side of the helicopter,

745
01:00:07,412 --> 01:00:10,214
which, you know, either rivets
are popping or somebody's

746
01:00:10,216 --> 01:00:13,283
shooting at us and of course,
it was the latter.

747
01:00:13,285 --> 01:00:17,887
And the left engine catches
on fire as we're landing,

748
01:00:17,889 --> 01:00:20,992
uh, hard landing
inside the Korengal outpost.

749
01:00:22,761 --> 01:00:25,329
So, they're on the ground
dropping off the Code and the package

750
01:00:25,331 --> 01:00:28,332
and whatever else they had,
and I'm circling overhead

751
01:00:28,334 --> 01:00:32,035
and Lessum and myself, my copilot,
were discussing like, "Okay,

752
01:00:32,037 --> 01:00:35,139
we'll go back to Jalalabad, get
some bullets in this helicopter,

753
01:00:35,141 --> 01:00:38,009
and that should be about the time we
come back to pick up the... the Code."

754
01:00:38,944 --> 01:00:41,412
All he's gotta do is
drop off and we go back to Abad.

755
01:00:41,414 --> 01:00:43,846
Yeah, as far as we
know that's all he's doing.

756
01:00:43,848 --> 01:00:46,082
You know, we ought
to, I don't know how much time

757
01:00:46,084 --> 01:00:49,453
they've got, but, I think
we can run down to ABAD,

758
01:00:49,455 --> 01:00:54,092
and get, get bullets.

759
01:00:55,327 --> 01:00:56,829
Would be nice, wouldn't it?

760
01:01:00,899 --> 01:01:04,133
At that point,
they came under attack.

761
01:01:04,135 --> 01:01:05,805
Oh my god!

762
01:01:14,113 --> 01:01:17,481
Now we're in full-fledged
ambush. There's rocket,

763
01:01:17,483 --> 01:01:21,252
propel grenades, criss-crossing
like Roman Candles.

764
01:01:21,254 --> 01:01:23,954
Open it up, open it up!

765
01:01:23,956 --> 01:01:26,791
And there's machine
gun rounds coming in.

766
01:01:27,859 --> 01:01:28,794
Eh!

767
01:01:34,866 --> 01:01:38,402
Captain McKnight comes
running up and, and grabs me

768
01:01:38,404 --> 01:01:41,372
by the body armor and says,

769
01:01:41,374 --> 01:01:45,209
"Sir, the last thing I need is
a dead general in my base camp."

770
01:01:45,211 --> 01:01:47,478
Go, get out, get out!

771
01:01:52,117 --> 01:01:55,521
Coming down the hill,
the young man named Sergeant Vile.

772
01:01:56,422 --> 01:01:59,225
And Sergeant Vile gets shot.

773
01:02:04,630 --> 01:02:08,465
He gets up, ties up his own
tourniquet and we all go piling

774
01:02:08,467 --> 01:02:13,172
into the command post,
be that what it was.

775
01:02:17,076 --> 01:02:21,245
The Korengal outpost
was under pretty significant

776
01:02:21,247 --> 01:02:22,946
contact at this time.

777
01:02:22,948 --> 01:02:24,982
Here you go.

778
01:02:24,984 --> 01:02:27,251
And I'm watching
Sergeant Vile,

779
01:02:27,253 --> 01:02:30,020
who is starting
to go into shock.

780
01:02:30,022 --> 01:02:34,326
But he was a mortar ballistic computer
operator, he had a very important job.

781
01:02:34,328 --> 01:02:38,564
He has a radio and he's punching numbers
into his mortar ballistic computer,

782
01:02:39,465 --> 01:02:42,400
and his left arm
was severely wounded.

783
01:02:42,402 --> 01:02:45,171
There was blood dripping
on the plywood floor.

784
01:02:46,305 --> 01:02:49,474
I tapped the medic and say,
"You need to check him out,

785
01:02:49,476 --> 01:02:53,545
he's getting ready to go into shock".
Because he was visibly shaking.

786
01:02:53,547 --> 01:02:57,082
And, uh, the medic sort of
smirked at me and says,

787
01:02:57,084 --> 01:03:00,585
"You don't know Sergeant Vile,
sir." And I said,

788
01:03:00,587 --> 01:03:04,188
"That may be, but, you know,
he looks like he's gonna...", and so...

789
01:03:04,190 --> 01:03:09,059
The medic goes over, I guess not wanting to upset the General

790
01:03:09,061 --> 01:03:13,298
and Sergeant Vile turns at him and growls,
you know, and get the F away from me.

791
01:03:13,300 --> 01:03:16,101
And this is, you know, the beauty

792
01:03:16,103 --> 01:03:20,239
of the American soldier is that he
didn't wanna let his teammates down.

793
01:03:28,583 --> 01:03:34,488
At this point, there's a string of bullets
coming at me between myself and Ark Angel.

794
01:03:36,455 --> 01:03:40,427
Oh shit, what was that?
There, they are right there.

795
01:03:42,496 --> 01:03:46,464
I rolled in hard left, and I
thought, "Jeez, I have no bullets."

796
01:03:46,466 --> 01:03:49,300
At that point, I could
not go to our rocket shops

797
01:03:49,302 --> 01:03:52,471
because the Korengal outpost
was right on the other side.

798
01:03:52,473 --> 01:03:54,474
- See that smoke right there?
- Yeah, shit.

799
01:03:56,176 --> 01:04:01,281
Yeah, you're taking fire, just, uh, I
don't know if you saw it, it was left low.

800
01:04:03,650 --> 01:04:07,685
I squeezed over and I said,
"I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you."

801
01:04:07,687 --> 01:04:11,358
Shoved the helicopter over into a
negative G push, squeezed that trigger.

802
01:04:12,559 --> 01:04:15,393
- It was right there. Right there, right there.
- Woah!

803
01:04:18,699 --> 01:04:19,700
Come on.

804
01:04:21,668 --> 01:04:25,604
Nothing was coming out,
I was in a one and a half negative G push.

805
01:04:25,606 --> 01:04:29,276
The safety inhibit on the Apache keeps
me from firing rockets at that point.

806
01:04:30,677 --> 01:04:36,214
You could see flashes of everybody
shooting at us from that ridgeline.

807
01:04:36,216 --> 01:04:38,418
Was like the paparazzi
was right in front of us.

808
01:04:41,289 --> 01:04:43,489
I pull back on the stick

809
01:04:43,491 --> 01:04:46,660
at that time to get out of a
stream of gunfire coming at me.

810
01:04:48,028 --> 01:04:51,564
That's when I saw my... my wife

811
01:04:51,566 --> 01:04:55,400
and my kids at the front
of the door of our house...

812
01:04:57,772 --> 01:05:01,039
...thinking that...

813
01:05:01,041 --> 01:05:04,510
"How could dad have gotten killed
with less than two weeks left?"

814
01:05:08,816 --> 01:05:13,287
And then I looked and I saw my
daughter smiling saying, "No, uh...

815
01:05:15,389 --> 01:05:16,357
It's not gonna happen."

816
01:05:23,364 --> 01:05:26,732
My copilot says, "Daniel, you're hyperventilating."

817
01:05:26,734 --> 01:05:30,236
That was the point where like I thought, "No stop."

818
01:05:30,238 --> 01:05:32,738
Finally, I breathe again.

819
01:05:32,740 --> 01:05:35,306
So now, I'm trying
to line up the nose

820
01:05:35,308 --> 01:05:38,746
and trying to get at least a half
a positive G to get a rocket out.

821
01:05:46,554 --> 01:05:47,688
Fuck, fuck, fuck.

822
01:05:49,423 --> 01:05:53,762
And sure enough by the grace of God, I fire
one rocket and it goes right, center mass.

823
01:05:54,729 --> 01:06:00,534
Combat Main, Combat Main. They were
just shooting at us underneath me right now.

824
01:06:00,536 --> 01:06:05,239
Combat main, they were just shooting at
us, just now. Did you see 'em?

825
01:06:07,241 --> 01:06:08,510
That was a big gun.

826
01:06:10,646 --> 01:06:12,745
Yeah, I saw some
big traces coming around here.

827
01:06:12,747 --> 01:06:15,514
It was a big
machinegun shooting

828
01:06:15,516 --> 01:06:18,252
traces out of the next spot and
we were not allowed to shoot.

829
01:06:19,821 --> 01:06:23,155
Come back around, screaming on the
radio, telling the Korengal outpost,

830
01:06:23,157 --> 01:06:26,392
"We're taking fire from this spot.
Get a fire mission going."

831
01:06:31,566 --> 01:06:35,602
You hear the loud funk
of the mortar go off.

832
01:06:39,340 --> 01:06:41,741
The hang time's
probably about a minute.

833
01:06:41,743 --> 01:06:45,845
It's just silent in there except from
some of the machinegun rounds coming in.

834
01:06:45,847 --> 01:06:49,349
But nobody was talking
and you hear the explosion.

835
01:06:52,854 --> 01:06:54,854
The machinegun rounds stop.

836
01:06:54,856 --> 01:06:56,756
Vile gets confirmation

837
01:06:56,758 --> 01:06:59,158
of a first round direct hit.

838
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:02,896
He pushes the mortar ballistic
computer across the picnic table

839
01:07:02,898 --> 01:07:06,366
to his private. He turns
to the medic and he says,

840
01:07:06,368 --> 01:07:08,369
"Now you can work on me."

841
01:07:09,705 --> 01:07:13,342
At that point, I could see
the Taliban running on the ridgeline.

842
01:07:14,543 --> 01:07:19,647
Deadwood 6-6, we're engaged right now, we got
them, we got them straight in front of us.

843
01:07:20,716 --> 01:07:25,417
And that's just when I begin to fire as
fast as I could, all the rockets I could,

844
01:07:25,419 --> 01:07:29,623
and actually remembering a World
War II pilot that I know, saying,

845
01:07:29,625 --> 01:07:31,858
"Wiggle the pedals back
and forth a little bit, that way

846
01:07:31,860 --> 01:07:34,428
all your rockets
won't end up in one spot".

847
01:07:35,463 --> 01:07:38,498
I wiggled the pedals just a little bit right
and left, as I'm squeezing the rockets

848
01:07:38,500 --> 01:07:41,235
and making my rockets hit
everywhere around them.

849
01:07:42,638 --> 01:07:43,903
- Fucking...
- There we go.

850
01:07:50,746 --> 01:07:56,683
Deadwood 6-6, we got up on that spot. Combat
Main. Lumberyard, permission to.

851
01:07:56,685 --> 01:07:59,719
Swing back around again, we're
running out of high explosive rockets.

852
01:07:59,721 --> 01:08:04,524
We start shooting
flechettes, 2000

853
01:08:04,526 --> 01:08:08,294
two-inch nails coming
at those guys ripping into them.

854
01:08:21,543 --> 01:08:23,910
After that, run out
of flechettes, come back around

855
01:08:23,912 --> 01:08:25,782
and I start shooting
white phosphorous.

856
01:08:31,386 --> 01:08:34,824
At that point,
I have nothing left.

857
01:08:35,758 --> 01:08:39,259
I call the... the, uh, Korengal
outpost, tell them like,

858
01:08:39,261 --> 01:08:41,731
"We are Winchester.
We are out of here."

859
01:08:43,766 --> 01:08:50,037
- Alright, Deadwood 6-6, Winchester, we're out of here.
- Roger that, over.

860
01:08:50,039 --> 01:08:52,706
Fuck, why wouldn't that rocket
shoot on that first run? Damn it,

861
01:08:52,708 --> 01:08:56,477
that pisses me off.
And no gun. Dammit of all the...

862
01:08:56,479 --> 01:08:59,247
Oh yeah, of all the times
not having a fucking gun, man.

863
01:09:04,887 --> 01:09:05,888
Yes.

864
01:09:06,989 --> 01:09:11,458
The heroism of both
the Black Hawk crew

865
01:09:11,460 --> 01:09:16,664
and the, uh, Apache crew,
was just unbelievable.

866
01:09:16,666 --> 01:09:19,399
They stayed on station

867
01:09:19,401 --> 01:09:21,904
when it was so risky,
so dangerous,

868
01:09:23,840 --> 01:09:26,708
to help the troops
on the ground.

869
01:09:28,311 --> 01:09:30,411
Alright, you sure
you guys did not take a hit

870
01:09:30,413 --> 01:09:31,914
cause they were shooting
all over you.

871
01:09:33,649 --> 01:09:36,018
Yeah 1-32, we took a hit, our
generator's out and our stabilizers out.

872
01:09:37,887 --> 01:09:40,788
We're totally viable
but we're gonna have to shut down

873
01:09:40,790 --> 01:09:43,757
and take a look at it
when we get to ABAD.

874
01:09:43,759 --> 01:09:48,631
We're gonna have to fly around and
get another aircraft for.

875
01:09:49,599 --> 01:09:51,598
Sounds good.

876
01:09:51,600 --> 01:09:56,003
Much later that evening, they
sent, uh, another Black Hawk out

877
01:09:56,005 --> 01:10:01,509
to recover my team and me.
You know, I had five other stops

878
01:10:01,511 --> 01:10:05,079
I was gonna make that day, but that,
that sort of changed the whole dynamic

879
01:10:05,081 --> 01:10:09,350
of the visit
and so all the "to any soldier",

880
01:10:09,352 --> 01:10:11,819
uh, packages and letters,
they all stayed right there.

881
01:10:14,123 --> 01:10:16,557
We put Sergeant Vile
on our aircraft

882
01:10:16,559 --> 01:10:18,960
and medivacked him to Bagram.

883
01:10:18,962 --> 01:10:24,565
And before he got evacked, I pinned on his purple heart.

884
01:10:24,567 --> 01:10:28,602
He's a personal hero of mine today.

885
01:10:28,604 --> 01:10:33,809
This was the best teamwork I've ever seen.
It was completely unrehearsed,

886
01:10:33,811 --> 01:10:37,814
it was all instinctual. These pilots knew
what to do, the soldiers knew what to do.

887
01:10:38,781 --> 01:10:44,652
It was one of those days where I was never
prouder to be an American fighting soldier.

888
01:10:44,654 --> 01:10:50,058
Because everybody did their job
above and beyond the call of duty,

889
01:10:50,060 --> 01:10:53,961
and avoided
what really could have been

890
01:10:53,963 --> 01:10:57,499
a catastrophic type of event.

891
01:10:57,501 --> 01:11:00,938
It was just
an incredible sight to see.

892
01:11:44,781 --> 01:11:49,985
It was a, a moment a few
years ago when he had, uh...

893
01:11:49,987 --> 01:11:53,089
tweaked his elbow pretty bad
and he was in a cast,

894
01:11:53,091 --> 01:11:56,591
and we were all just sitting
in here watching TV one night,

895
01:11:56,593 --> 01:12:00,997
and he just started sweating
profusely and got up and just...

896
01:12:00,999 --> 01:12:03,832
pacing around the room
and cussing saying,

897
01:12:03,834 --> 01:12:05,901
"I need to get out of this,
I need to get out of this cast

898
01:12:05,903 --> 01:12:07,969
right now, they need
to take this off."

899
01:12:07,971 --> 01:12:10,805
'Cause he was having an anxiety
attack from being claustrophobic.

900
01:12:10,807 --> 01:12:14,209
Then I started to think about it
more and looking back at like,

901
01:12:14,211 --> 01:12:17,746
when we were in Colorado
and packed into that gondola,

902
01:12:17,748 --> 01:12:21,650
packed in the long car rides
where you would start to notice

903
01:12:21,652 --> 01:12:25,553
he's a little off about something,
but he's trying to hide it,

904
01:12:25,555 --> 01:12:29,824
but he can't just quite do it.
It did humanize him a little bit

905
01:12:29,826 --> 01:12:34,663
to see him act this way,
you know, have this episode.

906
01:12:34,665 --> 01:12:39,534
But, uh, for the most part, I mean,
it was maybe two minutes of that,

907
01:12:39,536 --> 01:12:43,239
and then he calmed right back down,
and just sat back down and said,

908
01:12:43,241 --> 01:12:46,975
"Alright, I need to call the doctors tomorrow,
tell 'em to help me out with this",

909
01:12:46,977 --> 01:12:50,212
and then, we just went right back to
watching whatever we were watching.

910
01:12:50,214 --> 01:12:54,015
For a while there it was pretty
intense and with the cast thing,

911
01:12:54,017 --> 01:12:58,988
like Eric was talking about earlier,
on his arm, that surprised me also.

912
01:12:58,990 --> 01:13:01,556
I really never have even thought
about something like that.

913
01:13:01,558 --> 01:13:05,527
I was thinking more of, you know,
the gondola, being in an enclosed space,

914
01:13:05,529 --> 01:13:08,965
kind of made sense to me,
but having something on your arm,

915
01:13:08,967 --> 01:13:11,533
didn't really make any sense,
why that would bother him.

916
01:13:11,535 --> 01:13:15,137
He wrote this book and it, you know,
maybe thousands of people are gonna read

917
01:13:15,139 --> 01:13:18,773
and he's talking about it just
like it's a normal thing, but he...

918
01:13:18,775 --> 01:13:21,110
didn't quite talk about it
to everyone at home.

919
01:13:21,112 --> 01:13:25,647
And, uh, it was a little off-putting,
you know, reading it, but I mean,

920
01:13:25,649 --> 01:13:29,952
you understand it's a part of it and it's
a part of the story that he needs to tell.

921
01:13:42,866 --> 01:13:46,302
- Hey, you must be Matt.
- I'm Matt, nice to meet you.

922
01:13:46,304 --> 01:13:48,070
- Good to meet you, Ross Hovey.
- Hey Ross.

923
01:13:48,072 --> 01:13:50,672
- Ross, man.
- Good to see you, brother.

924
01:13:50,674 --> 01:13:52,842
- It's been a while.
- Yeah, great to see you.

925
01:13:52,844 --> 01:13:54,677
And who are these guys?

926
01:13:54,679 --> 01:13:58,147
Naser, my buddy. How are you?
Good to see you, Ross.

927
01:13:58,149 --> 01:14:01,884
- Naser, I'm Daniel, nice to meet you, brother.
- I'm Terry.

928
01:14:01,886 --> 01:14:04,820
Terry, nice to meet you, man, it's been years.

929
01:14:04,822 --> 01:14:08,191
- Yeah, I know, for sure.
- And you were the translator, is that right?

930
01:14:08,193 --> 01:14:10,327
- I was the translator.
- OK, yeah.

931
01:14:10,329 --> 01:14:12,261
That is too good,
and he was the door guy or...

932
01:14:12,263 --> 01:14:14,629
I was the gunner
up top the Mark 19.

933
01:14:14,631 --> 01:14:17,867
- He was the gunner, he was backseat and I was the TC.
- Alright.

934
01:14:17,869 --> 01:14:19,168
- So, Vandal 1-6.
- Yep.

935
01:14:19,170 --> 01:14:20,903
1-7.

936
01:14:20,905 --> 01:14:22,638
- And Naser.
- I was relaxing in the backseat.

937
01:14:23,942 --> 01:14:26,343
He was handing
the rounds up to me.

938
01:14:26,345 --> 01:14:28,878
That's pretty good,
I like that. Yeah.

939
01:14:28,880 --> 01:14:31,313
Well guys, you wanna
just step inside the bar,

940
01:14:31,315 --> 01:14:33,818
we can just hang out, grab a...
grab a cold drink if you'd like?

941
01:14:35,354 --> 01:14:39,923
A toast to our Afghanistan team,
our army family and friends

942
01:14:39,925 --> 01:14:43,060
and all those that didn't get to come back.
That didn't make it home safe.

943
01:14:43,062 --> 01:14:46,162
I remember that captain,

944
01:14:46,164 --> 01:14:49,698
from the 2-6 cab, he said like,
"Guys, everything's heating up

945
01:14:49,700 --> 01:14:53,270
there in the Korengal and the
Pech, but don't forget the Tagab,

946
01:14:53,272 --> 01:14:56,807
'cause it is about
to explode and, uh,

947
01:14:56,809 --> 01:14:59,109
I thought ah, whatever.
Same thing, flew over it all year long.

948
01:14:59,111 --> 01:15:01,077
Two months after that,
I've forgotten what he's said

949
01:15:01,079 --> 01:15:05,115
and then all of a sudden one day
we're on QRF and they say,

950
01:15:05,117 --> 01:15:07,817
"We gotta take a tog out",
and I'm like,

951
01:15:07,819 --> 01:15:11,220
"Really? There's something going on?
There's firefighting in the Takab?"

952
01:15:11,222 --> 01:15:16,126
I say, "There's a convoy that's
been ambushed, and there's 200

953
01:15:16,128 --> 01:15:19,228
Taliban out there
that are surrounding them."

954
01:15:19,230 --> 01:15:21,698
I can't remember how long
it was, but it had to have been

955
01:15:21,700 --> 01:15:25,202
five to ten minutes we were
supporting that QRF team.

956
01:15:25,204 --> 01:15:27,236
And that it?
It felt like five hours.

957
01:15:29,141 --> 01:15:30,209
I thought the same thing too.

958
01:15:31,510 --> 01:15:34,144
I... I was looking up to the sky,
I'm like, "You guys are saying,

959
01:15:34,146 --> 01:15:36,713
'Hey I'm dropping rounds.'"
I'm like,

960
01:15:36,715 --> 01:15:39,416
"I don't see you,
let alone your rounds."

961
01:15:39,418 --> 01:15:41,851
That's hit me in the leg.

962
01:15:41,853 --> 01:15:44,688
Like you were saying, there were
ambushes all the way up there.

963
01:15:44,690 --> 01:15:46,823
- Yeah, you didn't shoot anybody...
- That didn't need shooting.

964
01:15:46,825 --> 01:15:50,360
...that were up to good. They
were actually after our QRF.

965
01:15:50,362 --> 01:15:52,330
We were in the business of killing
and right then, business was good.

966
01:15:52,332 --> 01:15:55,265
All I could tell was,
that there was American

967
01:15:55,267 --> 01:15:58,701
made vehicles with A&A men in
them and they were under attack.

968
01:15:58,703 --> 01:16:01,838
Yeah, we started moving up and as
we started moving up, uh, you know,

969
01:16:01,840 --> 01:16:05,408
it was literally seven different
ambushes waiting for us.

970
01:16:05,410 --> 01:16:07,978
They were laying on top,
not accurate firing,

971
01:16:07,980 --> 01:16:10,414
but to hide themselves
in firing,

972
01:16:10,416 --> 01:16:16,953
when we got back, I had a 8k round
in between my vest and my dune.

973
01:16:16,955 --> 01:16:19,322
- Wow!
- That's I mean, so you know we were like, "Oh my gosh".

974
01:16:19,324 --> 01:16:22,926
- Holy mackerel!
- And yeah, they were, it was crazy.

975
01:16:22,928 --> 01:16:29,065
God bless the A&A, they would always
leave us in the Humvee sick.

976
01:16:29,067 --> 01:16:33,237
We had... I had to get Naser out and say,
tell them to move up, move up, move up.

977
01:16:33,239 --> 01:16:37,908
One of the Taliban, he already...
he was like, uh, the radio channel

978
01:16:37,910 --> 01:16:41,112
of the enemy because he was
scanning the communication.

979
01:16:41,114 --> 01:16:45,817
He called one of the sergeants, which he called
me, he took his handset, he answered, "Yes".

980
01:16:46,752 --> 01:16:48,119
Oh yeah?

981
01:16:48,121 --> 01:16:51,322
He said, "I'm gonna
fuck you all up."

982
01:16:53,325 --> 01:16:56,294
So, all you guys alive,
that's what the Taliban said.

983
01:16:56,296 --> 01:16:58,697
- Wow, it's just...
- Kudos.

984
01:17:03,404 --> 01:17:08,404
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