1 00:00:03,670 --> 00:00:05,670 _ 2 00:00:05,797 --> 00:00:09,635 _ 3 00:00:11,887 --> 00:00:16,849 _ 4 00:00:16,850 --> 00:00:23,774 _ 5 00:00:25,817 --> 00:00:29,738 _ 6 00:00:31,531 --> 00:00:33,364 On April 7th, we were really just moving 7 00:00:33,389 --> 00:00:36,267 from Camp Fallujah over to another base 8 00:00:36,369 --> 00:00:39,003 which should have been a routine drive. 9 00:00:39,072 --> 00:00:40,505 The mission obviously changed 10 00:00:40,607 --> 00:00:42,473 the moment we encountered the enemy. 11 00:00:42,576 --> 00:00:44,275 They kicked off with RPGs, 12 00:00:44,377 --> 00:00:46,611 and a lot of machine gun fire. 13 00:00:46,713 --> 00:00:48,313 If we're gonna get shot, we're gonna fight back, 14 00:00:48,415 --> 00:00:49,914 and sure enough, that's what we did, we fought back. 15 00:00:51,985 --> 00:00:53,985 When you decide that you want to survive, 16 00:00:54,087 --> 00:00:57,121 whoever it is, if they have a weapon, they're gonna die. 17 00:00:57,224 --> 00:00:59,691 One thing we brought to the table that day 18 00:00:59,793 --> 00:01:03,027 was that overwhelming acceptance of violence. 19 00:01:07,017 --> 00:01:11,120 Synced & corrected by -robtor- www.addic7ed.com 20 00:01:11,196 --> 00:01:14,433 _ 21 00:01:16,940 --> 00:01:22,967 _ 22 00:01:23,083 --> 00:01:28,864 _ 23 00:01:30,857 --> 00:01:34,025 We deployed to Iraq in 2004. 24 00:01:34,127 --> 00:01:37,495 I'd been to Iraq before with the invasion, 25 00:01:37,597 --> 00:01:39,597 but I could tell that somethin' was different. 26 00:01:41,201 --> 00:01:43,067 It went from the groups of kids cheerin' 27 00:01:43,169 --> 00:01:44,602 and givin' you the thumbs up 28 00:01:44,704 --> 00:01:46,271 and wavin' on the side of the road, 29 00:01:46,373 --> 00:01:49,908 saying things like "Bush, number one," you know, 30 00:01:50,010 --> 00:01:53,244 to staring us down, 31 00:01:53,346 --> 00:01:55,446 derisive looks, you know, 32 00:01:55,548 --> 00:01:59,083 like they weren't hiding the fact that we weren't welcome. 33 00:01:59,185 --> 00:02:01,185 So I knew it was a different war. 34 00:02:01,288 --> 00:02:04,055 And I knew that it was gonna be more dangerous and more difficult. 35 00:02:05,250 --> 00:02:07,945 Today, four American contractors... civilians, 36 00:02:08,014 --> 00:02:09,967 were massacred in Fallujah. 37 00:02:10,069 --> 00:02:13,389 Four Americans in two SUVS stuck in traffic. 38 00:02:13,491 --> 00:02:16,559 They're ambushed. The four men, all civilians, 39 00:02:16,661 --> 00:02:20,463 ex-military, worked for a Carolina firm, Blackwater USA. 40 00:02:20,565 --> 00:02:22,532 The jubilant crowd, honking their horns 41 00:02:22,634 --> 00:02:25,034 the same way people here rejoice at weddings, 42 00:02:25,136 --> 00:02:26,703 set the SUVs on fire, 43 00:02:26,805 --> 00:02:28,971 then tied ropes around the charred bodies 44 00:02:29,074 --> 00:02:31,007 and dragged them through the streets, 45 00:02:31,109 --> 00:02:34,243 and hung two of the Americans on a bridge. 46 00:02:34,345 --> 00:02:36,412 When the Blackwater contractors got killed, 47 00:02:36,514 --> 00:02:39,549 we had just spent a little bit of time with them. 48 00:02:39,651 --> 00:02:43,730 I don't know, maybe a week before? Something like that. 49 00:02:45,023 --> 00:02:46,556 So that brought it home. 50 00:02:46,658 --> 00:02:48,091 Once we'd heard about it, 51 00:02:48,193 --> 00:02:50,860 we're like, "Man, we were just with them." 52 00:02:50,962 --> 00:02:52,995 And now to find out that two of their bodies 53 00:02:53,098 --> 00:02:54,731 were hanging from the bridge, 54 00:02:54,833 --> 00:02:55,932 and the other two were drug through the streets, 55 00:02:56,034 --> 00:02:57,867 it kind of hit us. 56 00:02:57,969 --> 00:03:00,203 We'd only been there about a month when that happened, 57 00:03:00,305 --> 00:03:05,007 so we hadn't really learned what was actually out there. 58 00:03:05,110 --> 00:03:08,277 You know? How many of the enemy were actually out there. 59 00:03:08,379 --> 00:03:10,046 Our platoon sergeant pulled us aside 60 00:03:10,148 --> 00:03:11,948 and said, "All right, let's put this in perspective. 61 00:03:12,050 --> 00:03:14,884 because it's gonna be us out there on the line managing this. 62 00:03:14,986 --> 00:03:16,886 We're gonna be the response to this 63 00:03:16,988 --> 00:03:18,087 in some way or another." 64 00:03:20,658 --> 00:03:23,292 This is outside Fallujah, Iraq. 65 00:03:23,394 --> 00:03:25,695 They pretty much have the whole city surrounded 66 00:03:25,797 --> 00:03:28,798 and they've been hitting it for a couple days. 67 00:03:28,900 --> 00:03:31,701 Second Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Recon Battalion. 68 00:03:31,803 --> 00:03:34,237 I couldn't have asked for my first recon platoon 69 00:03:34,339 --> 00:03:36,073 to have been a better group of guys. 70 00:03:37,347 --> 00:03:38,498 We just meshed well. 71 00:03:38,576 --> 00:03:40,309 So this is one of the things that we do out here... 72 00:03:40,411 --> 00:03:41,458 drive around 73 00:03:41,892 --> 00:03:42,903 looking for cachet sites. 74 00:03:42,981 --> 00:03:45,081 We just found some IEDs on this road. 75 00:03:47,986 --> 00:03:50,153 We had darn good leadership. 76 00:03:50,255 --> 00:03:53,256 Dan Griego kicked us square in the nose and made sure we were ready. 77 00:03:53,967 --> 00:03:57,293 I was platoon sergeant for Bravo Company. 78 00:03:57,395 --> 00:04:01,831 I wanted to make sure that my teams had as much 79 00:04:01,933 --> 00:04:04,300 as they needed, so they would be ready 80 00:04:04,402 --> 00:04:08,315 in case of, you know, contact or fighting with the enemy. 81 00:04:09,007 --> 00:04:11,974 This is from our rooftop position here in Fallujah. 82 00:04:12,194 --> 00:04:14,443 He was a hands-on platoon sergeant, 83 00:04:14,863 --> 00:04:16,946 but he let the team leaders run the teams. 84 00:04:17,048 --> 00:04:18,681 He didn't micromanage, 85 00:04:18,783 --> 00:04:23,653 and he did well working with our platoon commander, 86 00:04:23,755 --> 00:04:25,374 Captain Brent Morel. 87 00:04:25,857 --> 00:04:28,357 Captain Morel and I were like... 88 00:04:28,810 --> 00:04:30,493 we were friends. 89 00:04:30,595 --> 00:04:31,961 We worked well together, 90 00:04:32,063 --> 00:04:34,797 and he would listen to any input I had 91 00:04:34,899 --> 00:04:37,726 on what we were gonna do or how we were gonna do things. 92 00:04:38,095 --> 00:04:39,368 Some of the guys, you know, 93 00:04:39,470 --> 00:04:41,704 were having a hard time warming up to him. 94 00:04:41,806 --> 00:04:44,874 He took us to the gym one day before we deployed. 95 00:04:44,976 --> 00:04:48,911 He proceeded to try to box everybody in our platoon. 96 00:04:49,356 --> 00:04:52,901 And I was impressed at how many shots he could take. 97 00:04:53,610 --> 00:04:57,486 I thought that was cool of him to put himself out there like that. 98 00:04:57,989 --> 00:05:02,391 Blair... "Doc Dell"... knew his job really well. 99 00:05:02,493 --> 00:05:03,960 He worked real hard with us 100 00:05:04,062 --> 00:05:06,529 and ran us through combat trauma, 101 00:05:06,631 --> 00:05:08,998 and made sure we were all well-trained 102 00:05:09,100 --> 00:05:13,135 on first aid and trauma medicine. 103 00:05:13,238 --> 00:05:14,731 I was an assistant team leader. 104 00:05:14,833 --> 00:05:16,205 Assistant team leader 105 00:05:16,307 --> 00:05:18,741 actually does most of the controlling of the team 106 00:05:18,843 --> 00:05:20,679 and making sure everything's together. 107 00:05:21,279 --> 00:05:23,546 The team leader tasks him with that and he takes care of it. 108 00:05:23,648 --> 00:05:25,514 Ready to go out and patrol. 109 00:05:25,617 --> 00:05:27,683 Eddie Wright was a machine gunner. 110 00:05:27,785 --> 00:05:31,879 Definitely serious as hell when it came time to do the job. 111 00:05:31,981 --> 00:05:35,358 This was a platoon of straight-up alpha males. 112 00:05:35,460 --> 00:05:38,027 Everybody out there was the baddest dude on the planet. 113 00:05:39,864 --> 00:05:41,697 But we loved each other through our hard training 114 00:05:41,799 --> 00:05:43,866 and we were real tight. 115 00:05:43,968 --> 00:05:45,601 - One, two, three... - Kill! 116 00:05:45,703 --> 00:05:47,503 All right, get in your vehicle, get out of here. 117 00:05:48,431 --> 00:05:53,706 _ 118 00:05:53,728 --> 00:06:00,260 _ 119 00:06:03,955 --> 00:06:06,856 April 7th was supposed to be an administrative run 120 00:06:06,958 --> 00:06:08,977 to move our company headquarters. 121 00:06:09,794 --> 00:06:11,394 We knew we were just gonna go down 122 00:06:11,496 --> 00:06:13,963 this main supply route, Route Boston. 123 00:06:14,065 --> 00:06:16,732 It was gonna be our platoon, five vehicles, 124 00:06:16,834 --> 00:06:19,769 the headquarters element with administrative personnel leadership. 125 00:06:21,439 --> 00:06:24,206 We were gonna take them to a secure point. 126 00:06:31,641 --> 00:06:33,668 We have, total, 25 Marines. 127 00:06:34,485 --> 00:06:35,918 We've been on this route before. 128 00:06:36,020 --> 00:06:37,386 Usually there's kids running around, 129 00:06:37,488 --> 00:06:38,955 there's people walking. 130 00:06:39,057 --> 00:06:41,009 There's local vendors. 131 00:06:41,926 --> 00:06:43,292 But this day, there wasn't. 132 00:06:45,496 --> 00:06:47,663 It was just eerie. 133 00:06:49,100 --> 00:06:50,499 Almost like in one of those movies 134 00:06:50,601 --> 00:06:51,968 where you get the little tumbleweed 135 00:06:52,070 --> 00:06:54,670 that jumps across the main street. 136 00:06:54,772 --> 00:06:56,238 It was almost that quiet. 137 00:06:59,277 --> 00:07:01,877 On this movement, I was in the lead vehicle. 138 00:07:01,980 --> 00:07:05,614 so I could see the vehicle traffic coming towards us. 139 00:07:08,853 --> 00:07:11,854 When you see... flip a U-turn and take off, 140 00:07:11,956 --> 00:07:13,956 you know, that right there's a big red flag, like, 141 00:07:14,058 --> 00:07:15,958 "Uh oh," you know. 142 00:07:16,060 --> 00:07:19,295 So I stopped the convoy. I got on the radio. 143 00:07:19,397 --> 00:07:20,930 And I radioed back, you know, like, 144 00:07:21,032 --> 00:07:22,531 "Hey, something's going down here. 145 00:07:22,633 --> 00:07:24,100 We should probably stop and get eyes on it." 146 00:07:25,278 --> 00:07:27,136 And the word came back, like, "Okay, 147 00:07:27,238 --> 00:07:30,606 well, push forward and pick up your speed." 148 00:07:30,708 --> 00:07:31,874 "Roger that." 149 00:07:35,046 --> 00:07:36,393 Yeah, I just got ready. 150 00:07:36,495 --> 00:07:39,815 It was like we knew we were rolling into an ambush. 151 00:07:39,917 --> 00:07:42,118 It's one of those things where you've got a job to do 152 00:07:42,220 --> 00:07:43,953 and don't have the luxury to worry about it. 153 00:07:44,055 --> 00:07:45,788 It's like, "Okay, here we go." 154 00:07:48,459 --> 00:07:50,393 It was two low fields 155 00:07:50,495 --> 00:07:53,029 with one road right down the middle of it, 156 00:07:53,131 --> 00:07:56,499 and we're talking about hundreds of meters. 157 00:07:56,601 --> 00:07:58,034 Basically, if you were to pick 158 00:07:58,136 --> 00:08:00,069 the ultimate place to set up an ambush, 159 00:08:00,171 --> 00:08:01,504 they chose wisely. 160 00:08:03,741 --> 00:08:06,075 Those senses start kicking in, you know, 161 00:08:06,144 --> 00:08:08,511 that sixth sense that some people have? 162 00:08:10,014 --> 00:08:11,814 Contact right! Contact right! 163 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:17,019 Contact left! 164 00:08:17,121 --> 00:08:19,422 I see muzzle flashes. 165 00:08:19,524 --> 00:08:20,756 We're getting shot at from both sides. 166 00:08:31,302 --> 00:08:32,902 It looked like they wanted to wipe us out. 167 00:08:53,158 --> 00:08:59,356 _ 168 00:08:59,456 --> 00:09:04,819 _ 169 00:09:12,176 --> 00:09:14,076 Contact right, contact right! 170 00:09:19,550 --> 00:09:21,450 It was basically a close ambush. 171 00:09:26,524 --> 00:09:28,757 And our SOPs for this type of engagement 172 00:09:28,860 --> 00:09:32,628 was to stop and lay down a base of fire... 173 00:09:34,265 --> 00:09:36,265 ...so it kind of was counter-intuitive 174 00:09:36,367 --> 00:09:37,733 to what you'd think you'd do, 175 00:09:37,835 --> 00:09:39,768 like run away or get out of Dodge. 176 00:09:39,871 --> 00:09:41,737 No, you go right to it. 177 00:09:47,245 --> 00:09:49,445 We were not in a good spot. 178 00:09:49,547 --> 00:09:51,614 We were in the kill zone, basically. 179 00:09:51,716 --> 00:09:53,582 I kept hearing these explosions. 180 00:09:53,684 --> 00:09:56,752 You know, just boom, boom, boom, boom. 181 00:09:56,854 --> 00:09:59,255 I thought, "Damn, they're shooting RPGs 182 00:09:59,357 --> 00:10:01,257 at the back half of our platoon." 183 00:10:01,359 --> 00:10:03,192 Well, they weren't shooting 'em at them, 184 00:10:03,294 --> 00:10:04,527 they were shooting 'em at us. 185 00:10:07,298 --> 00:10:10,699 They were missing us and exploding... hitting behind us. 186 00:10:11,969 --> 00:10:13,769 That's when I got hit. 187 00:10:39,897 --> 00:10:44,500 It was like... like a tremendous thunderclap 188 00:10:44,794 --> 00:10:46,969 originating from inside your head. 189 00:10:47,071 --> 00:10:48,337 You know, like, you can't really... 190 00:10:48,439 --> 00:10:50,372 it was just a "boom!" 191 00:10:51,876 --> 00:10:54,009 I thought I got shot in the face. 192 00:10:58,316 --> 00:10:59,882 I was thinking to myself, "All right, 193 00:10:59,984 --> 00:11:02,017 I guess I'll see what it's like to die." 194 00:11:04,822 --> 00:11:07,108 And then I thought to myself, "Okay, 195 00:11:07,984 --> 00:11:10,226 you gotta chill out, 'cause you're going into shock. 196 00:11:10,328 --> 00:11:11,694 Like, relax." 197 00:11:11,796 --> 00:11:14,663 And as soon as I made that conscious thought, 198 00:11:14,765 --> 00:11:16,198 it's like somebody hit the light switch 199 00:11:16,300 --> 00:11:17,700 and turned the lights on. 200 00:11:17,802 --> 00:11:19,235 Everything cleared up in my vision, 201 00:11:19,337 --> 00:11:22,605 and I started to assess the situation. 202 00:11:24,041 --> 00:11:26,075 My hands were killin' me. 203 00:11:26,177 --> 00:11:27,910 Like, I was just in pain everywhere, 204 00:11:28,012 --> 00:11:31,347 and I remember liftin' my arm up and looking down, 205 00:11:31,449 --> 00:11:33,682 and it was just nasty. It was gone. 206 00:11:33,784 --> 00:11:37,286 It was shredded, and I remember thinking, "Damn." 207 00:11:37,388 --> 00:11:39,088 And my right hand was hurting, 208 00:11:39,190 --> 00:11:43,192 and I, you know, lifted my arm up and I looked down, 209 00:11:43,294 --> 00:11:46,595 and I saw, uh... 210 00:11:46,697 --> 00:11:49,198 where, you know, my hand was blown off 211 00:11:49,300 --> 00:11:51,400 right at the base of my palm. 212 00:11:51,502 --> 00:11:54,870 And it was kinda strange, 'cause my hand was hangin' down. 213 00:11:54,972 --> 00:11:58,774 It was like a... it looked like a glove that got shredded, 214 00:11:58,876 --> 00:12:01,277 like somehow all the meat and bones were out of my hand, 215 00:12:01,379 --> 00:12:03,812 so it was like an empty glove, but shredded. 216 00:12:03,914 --> 00:12:06,048 And I remember thinking,. 217 00:12:06,150 --> 00:12:07,669 Both of 'em?" 218 00:12:08,486 --> 00:12:12,221 I looked down and my femur was stickin' out of my leg, 219 00:12:12,323 --> 00:12:13,956 off at an angle, kind of. 220 00:12:14,058 --> 00:12:16,792 And the whole top of my quadricep 221 00:12:16,894 --> 00:12:18,894 from the knee all the way up almost to my hip 222 00:12:18,996 --> 00:12:22,164 was blown open, and it was just nasty. 223 00:12:22,266 --> 00:12:24,265 A pulpy red mess. 224 00:12:24,807 --> 00:12:26,297 And I remember thinking, "Damn, 225 00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:27,569 I gotta get a tourniquet on that," 226 00:12:27,672 --> 00:12:29,838 and you know, "How am I gonna do this?" 227 00:12:29,940 --> 00:12:31,985 You know, my hands are shot up. 228 00:12:32,877 --> 00:12:35,411 So I turned to the radio operator and I'm like, 229 00:12:35,513 --> 00:12:36,679 "Bro, get the blow-out kit." 230 00:12:36,781 --> 00:12:39,315 and he was just looking at me... 231 00:12:39,417 --> 00:12:40,749 Like, he probably thought I was gonna die, 232 00:12:40,851 --> 00:12:42,418 'cause I looked terrible. 233 00:12:45,856 --> 00:12:50,426 I was born in Chicago. I moved around a lot growin' up. 234 00:12:50,528 --> 00:12:52,294 I always had to make new friends. 235 00:12:52,396 --> 00:12:54,096 Sometimes I'd make good friends, 236 00:12:54,198 --> 00:12:57,157 and sometimes I didn't make good friends. 237 00:12:57,259 --> 00:13:00,507 I actually joined a gang in high school, 238 00:13:00,905 --> 00:13:02,137 a Samoan gang. 239 00:13:02,239 --> 00:13:04,973 It's crazy. I was the only white guy in the gang. 240 00:13:05,435 --> 00:13:07,376 You know, those guys were my family 241 00:13:07,478 --> 00:13:11,207 when I didn't really feel that I had anybody I could connect with. 242 00:13:12,149 --> 00:13:13,515 I got expelled. 243 00:13:13,617 --> 00:13:15,617 Spent some time in juvie for fighting, you know. 244 00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:17,186 I was a little punk. 245 00:13:17,288 --> 00:13:19,188 But getting in trouble was also 246 00:13:19,290 --> 00:13:21,724 one of the best things that's ever happened to me. 247 00:13:21,826 --> 00:13:23,492 I needed to get in trouble. 248 00:13:23,594 --> 00:13:25,678 I needed to think about the path my life was going. 249 00:13:26,055 --> 00:13:28,458 And I had to make a conscious decision to change it. 250 00:13:29,233 --> 00:13:30,999 I had always wanted to be a Marine, 251 00:13:31,102 --> 00:13:33,669 and I gravitated towards the reconnaissance community. 252 00:13:33,771 --> 00:13:37,373 The books that I had read about recon teams in Vietnam 253 00:13:37,475 --> 00:13:39,995 were to me, as a kid, amazing. 254 00:13:40,708 --> 00:13:42,285 And it took some time, you know? 255 00:13:42,387 --> 00:13:45,555 I had to make amends for all the fights that I'd been in 256 00:13:45,657 --> 00:13:46,923 and pay some restitution. 257 00:13:47,025 --> 00:13:48,692 But I stuck with it, 258 00:13:48,794 --> 00:13:50,961 and I talked to the recruiter for over two years. 259 00:13:51,063 --> 00:13:53,563 The fact that I was able to join the Marine Corps 260 00:13:53,665 --> 00:13:56,778 in itself is a small miracle in my eyes. 261 00:13:57,836 --> 00:14:00,270 But I think I was put on this earth to be a Marine. 262 00:14:00,372 --> 00:14:02,072 I thought he was a bit of a jokester, 263 00:14:02,174 --> 00:14:04,374 you know, the typical smart aleck 264 00:14:04,476 --> 00:14:06,076 that every group's gonna have. 265 00:14:06,178 --> 00:14:09,879 I went to the Marine Corps standards board last week. 266 00:14:09,982 --> 00:14:12,182 Apparently piercings are "eccentric," 267 00:14:12,284 --> 00:14:16,464 but paper clips, and uh, clothespins are not eccentric. 268 00:14:17,155 --> 00:14:18,591 That sense of humor 269 00:14:18,693 --> 00:14:21,758 and just general smart-aleck approach to things, 270 00:14:21,860 --> 00:14:24,494 how could you not bond with that? 271 00:14:24,596 --> 00:14:26,164 He really is full of life. 272 00:14:26,189 --> 00:14:29,332 I mean, he's an individual that has so much heart in him, 273 00:14:29,434 --> 00:14:32,068 if you need something, Eddie will be there. 274 00:14:38,777 --> 00:14:41,511 Just from the boom that went off, 275 00:14:41,613 --> 00:14:44,481 you knew that the Alpha element had been hit bad. 276 00:14:47,452 --> 00:14:50,186 In my mind, I thought I was dying. 277 00:14:50,288 --> 00:14:52,322 There was a radio operator, 278 00:14:52,424 --> 00:14:54,624 and he was looking through the back of the Humvee, 279 00:14:54,726 --> 00:14:56,426 trying to get the first aid kit, 280 00:14:56,528 --> 00:14:59,257 and he couldn't find it. 281 00:15:00,232 --> 00:15:02,198 And I'm like, "Just get my tourniquet," you know. 282 00:15:02,300 --> 00:15:03,700 And I leaned like this 283 00:15:03,802 --> 00:15:07,937 'cause we had the pockets in our sleeves. 284 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:11,728 So my radio operator gets a tourniquet on my left leg. 285 00:15:12,944 --> 00:15:15,545 By this time, my team leader turned around 286 00:15:15,647 --> 00:15:19,049 and grabs the tourniquet to make sure it's on tight, 287 00:15:19,151 --> 00:15:20,383 and the thing pops off, 288 00:15:20,485 --> 00:15:21,518 and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh." 289 00:15:25,290 --> 00:15:27,857 The radio operator has to reapply it, 290 00:15:27,959 --> 00:15:29,826 and this time he really cranked it on there. 291 00:15:29,928 --> 00:15:31,461 He probably saved my life, 292 00:15:31,563 --> 00:15:33,229 'cause I probably would have bled out, slowly. 293 00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:37,701 He put a tourniquet on my left arm. 294 00:15:37,803 --> 00:15:40,303 When we got hit, the blast deafened us, 295 00:15:40,405 --> 00:15:42,972 so you didn't hear that small-arms fire anymore, 296 00:15:43,075 --> 00:15:44,808 so it's like "Oh, they're not shooting at us anymore." 297 00:15:44,910 --> 00:15:47,474 No, they were shooting at us. We just didn't hear it. 298 00:15:47,576 --> 00:15:50,213 As our hearing kind of came back, 299 00:15:50,315 --> 00:15:53,616 we realized, "Oh, man, we gotta get out of this kill zone." 300 00:16:01,711 --> 00:16:07,784 _ 301 00:16:09,234 --> 00:16:11,334 If you count all of the different positions 302 00:16:11,436 --> 00:16:14,437 that were shooting at us, almost 360 degrees. 303 00:16:14,539 --> 00:16:17,974 It was building up into the southwest, 304 00:16:18,076 --> 00:16:19,776 one behind us to the northeast. 305 00:16:19,878 --> 00:16:21,711 We had at least five positions in the berms, 306 00:16:21,813 --> 00:16:23,113 I was in vehicle two. 307 00:16:23,215 --> 00:16:24,681 We were trying to attract attention to us. 308 00:16:32,390 --> 00:16:33,957 Vehicle One was hit. 309 00:16:34,059 --> 00:16:35,792 That's when our platoon commander, 310 00:16:35,894 --> 00:16:37,527 Captain Brent Morel said dismount. 311 00:16:37,629 --> 00:16:39,295 Assault back, Assault back! 312 00:16:49,341 --> 00:16:50,840 To get out of a close ambush, 313 00:16:50,942 --> 00:16:52,876 you assault through. That's in the handbook. 314 00:16:52,978 --> 00:16:54,544 Unless you want to be a sitting duck, 315 00:16:54,646 --> 00:16:55,879 you know, you're gonna close with 316 00:16:55,981 --> 00:16:56,913 and destroy the enemy. 317 00:16:59,951 --> 00:17:01,985 Most of the guys went through, straight through the field, 318 00:17:02,087 --> 00:17:04,420 right into the teeth of the gunfight. 319 00:17:07,592 --> 00:17:08,758 We're running through a hail of bullets 320 00:17:08,860 --> 00:17:10,527 up to the first berm. 321 00:17:13,198 --> 00:17:14,564 The Marine that I was with, 322 00:17:14,666 --> 00:17:16,599 he starts to shoot his machine gun, 323 00:17:16,701 --> 00:17:19,202 and he can't because his weapon got shot 324 00:17:19,304 --> 00:17:20,937 and he didn't realize it. 325 00:17:21,039 --> 00:17:22,705 And now he has a weapon that doesn't function. 326 00:17:22,808 --> 00:17:23,740 Moving! 327 00:17:37,856 --> 00:17:39,556 I see a couple of enemy fighters 328 00:17:39,658 --> 00:17:41,791 just rockin' away with their PKs. 329 00:17:44,062 --> 00:17:46,229 It was a perfect setup for an ambush. 330 00:17:48,900 --> 00:17:51,067 They never knew what was coming to them. 331 00:17:54,991 --> 00:17:56,601 I was in disbelief. 332 00:17:57,342 --> 00:17:58,975 I was like, "Did I just shoot my first guys? 333 00:17:59,110 --> 00:18:01,711 Did I just kill somebody? Did I just take a soul?" 334 00:18:07,570 --> 00:18:09,485 I was in shock after that, 335 00:18:09,588 --> 00:18:11,955 but I just accepted it. 336 00:18:12,057 --> 00:18:13,556 I accepted the violence. 337 00:18:13,658 --> 00:18:15,825 I accepted, you know, where we were. 338 00:18:15,927 --> 00:18:19,128 That's just what I knew and that's what I ran with. 339 00:18:25,937 --> 00:18:28,905 I knew I was gonna be a Marine, since I was a young age. 340 00:18:29,007 --> 00:18:31,774 It could have been the "Rambo" movies I was watching. 341 00:18:31,877 --> 00:18:33,509 I don't know where the seed was planted, 342 00:18:33,612 --> 00:18:36,159 but I always knew that I was gonna join the Marine Corps 343 00:18:36,261 --> 00:18:39,936 ever since, I would say, I was a grade-schooler. 344 00:18:40,895 --> 00:18:44,020 You know, I bypassed, you know, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force. 345 00:18:44,122 --> 00:18:46,789 I went straight into the Marine Corps recruiting office 346 00:18:46,892 --> 00:18:48,691 and I was, like, "Hey, wanna join the Marine Corps." 347 00:18:48,793 --> 00:18:50,293 He was like, "Well, you want to know anything about it?" 348 00:18:50,395 --> 00:18:52,195 I was like, "Well, all I know is that, you know, 349 00:18:52,297 --> 00:18:53,663 I wanna shoot guns, I wanna blow things up." 350 00:18:53,765 --> 00:18:55,932 And he says, "Well, Infantry, it is." 351 00:18:56,034 --> 00:18:58,579 Um, that's the route that I took. 352 00:18:59,705 --> 00:19:01,504 Mike Mendoza was pretty quiet, 353 00:19:01,606 --> 00:19:04,941 so I really never, you know, heard him say much 354 00:19:05,043 --> 00:19:07,443 or do something that was, you know, 355 00:19:07,545 --> 00:19:09,345 gonna draw my attention to him. 356 00:19:09,447 --> 00:19:11,281 I guess as a platoon sergeant, that's good, 357 00:19:11,383 --> 00:19:13,216 because if my attention is drawn towards you 358 00:19:13,318 --> 00:19:15,721 it's probably for something bad. 359 00:19:16,588 --> 00:19:19,022 I just always knew I could go to him for advice, 360 00:19:19,124 --> 00:19:23,026 talk to him, just chat, you know, sanity check. 361 00:19:23,128 --> 00:19:27,030 He's the type of guy you want beside you in a gunfight. 362 00:19:38,009 --> 00:19:39,375 It was chaos. 363 00:19:39,477 --> 00:19:40,977 I looked to my left, somebody was shooting. 364 00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:42,412 I looked to my right, somebody's shooting. 365 00:19:45,850 --> 00:19:47,917 That's when I saw Captain Brent Morel. 366 00:19:49,854 --> 00:19:53,589 He just fell, and I just knew he was shot. 367 00:19:53,692 --> 00:19:56,025 I just knew he was shot. 368 00:20:05,036 --> 00:20:07,270 I tried to carry him, 369 00:20:07,372 --> 00:20:08,705 but Morel is a big boy. 370 00:20:08,807 --> 00:20:10,673 He's tall and full of muscle. 371 00:20:10,775 --> 00:20:12,775 I think I made it about three feet 372 00:20:12,877 --> 00:20:14,344 before, you know, my knees gave out under me 373 00:20:14,446 --> 00:20:16,746 because he was such a large individual. 374 00:20:19,217 --> 00:20:20,850 Fire started zipping in right at us. 375 00:20:20,952 --> 00:20:23,186 You could hear the cracks and see dirt 376 00:20:23,288 --> 00:20:24,354 kicking around around us. 377 00:20:36,534 --> 00:20:38,434 And then we started taking off his body armor. 378 00:20:38,536 --> 00:20:40,514 We wanted to see exactly where he was hit. 379 00:20:43,808 --> 00:20:47,377 My hand feels a small hole here, 380 00:20:47,479 --> 00:20:49,112 and then I look on the other side. 381 00:20:49,214 --> 00:20:52,648 All my fingers pretty much just fell into his body cavity. 382 00:20:59,591 --> 00:21:03,162 He just said, "I gotta get outta here, I'm gonna die." 383 00:21:04,195 --> 00:21:05,748 Um... 384 00:21:07,499 --> 00:21:11,334 when he said that to me, it was eye-to-eye contact. 385 00:21:11,436 --> 00:21:15,177 So that's why it's pretty much... it burned. 386 00:21:15,279 --> 00:21:17,259 It's burned in my mind. 387 00:21:18,410 --> 00:21:20,410 So... 388 00:21:22,847 --> 00:21:26,015 So when he said, "We gotta get outta here, I'm gonna die," 389 00:21:26,117 --> 00:21:28,484 I lost it inside. Not physically, 390 00:21:28,586 --> 00:21:31,107 but I was just like, "I don't know what to do." 391 00:21:50,809 --> 00:21:56,065 _ 392 00:21:56,257 --> 00:22:01,053 _ 393 00:22:03,321 --> 00:22:06,489 There was three battles happening in one ambush. 394 00:22:06,591 --> 00:22:08,424 On the kill zone, Eddie's vehicle 395 00:22:08,526 --> 00:22:10,793 was disabled by the RPG. 396 00:22:10,895 --> 00:22:12,962 And then the second battle where I was, 397 00:22:13,031 --> 00:22:15,498 was Captain Morel, who was severely injured. 398 00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:17,233 We were being shot at. 399 00:22:17,335 --> 00:22:18,968 The Marines that were with us, 400 00:22:19,321 --> 00:22:22,505 they were doing their best to make radio contact 401 00:22:22,607 --> 00:22:25,007 to try to get a vehicle to extract them out. 402 00:22:25,110 --> 00:22:27,343 And then we had another battle, which was Dan Griego. 403 00:22:27,445 --> 00:22:29,445 _ 404 00:22:30,748 --> 00:22:33,282 He was our Bravo element. 405 00:22:33,384 --> 00:22:35,251 He broke off from our convoy, 406 00:22:35,353 --> 00:22:38,354 and he did like an L-shaped position. 407 00:22:38,456 --> 00:22:41,357 From the time we started taking fire, 408 00:22:41,459 --> 00:22:43,493 I immediately said, "Turn right." 409 00:22:46,698 --> 00:22:48,297 When we made our flanking move, 410 00:22:48,399 --> 00:22:50,032 now we were on a dirt road, 411 00:22:50,135 --> 00:22:52,468 and it's next to a canal. 412 00:22:52,570 --> 00:22:54,003 Get ready to flank! 413 00:22:54,105 --> 00:22:56,172 I initially thought we could move the vehicles 414 00:22:56,274 --> 00:22:58,174 into a position where we'd be able to just fire 415 00:22:58,276 --> 00:22:59,675 big guns from the vehicle. 416 00:22:59,777 --> 00:23:00,977 I got too much grass in front of me. 417 00:23:01,079 --> 00:23:02,645 Look out. 418 00:23:02,747 --> 00:23:04,380 And we couldn't tell where the enemy was 419 00:23:04,482 --> 00:23:06,482 because we had the tall reeds to our left-hand side. 420 00:23:06,584 --> 00:23:09,685 I got a shot. You want to take the hill? 421 00:23:09,787 --> 00:23:11,521 Get in position! 422 00:23:11,623 --> 00:23:12,989 Not being able to see them, 423 00:23:13,091 --> 00:23:14,557 we had to get out of the vehicles 424 00:23:14,659 --> 00:23:16,159 to go through the reeds, across the canal 425 00:23:16,261 --> 00:23:17,560 up to the other side so that we can see 426 00:23:17,662 --> 00:23:19,061 where the enemy was. 427 00:23:26,104 --> 00:23:27,670 The biggest thing was just to draw the fire 428 00:23:27,772 --> 00:23:30,673 away from the Alpha element. 429 00:23:30,775 --> 00:23:33,687 When we started firing, then machine gun fire started coming at us. 430 00:23:34,479 --> 00:23:36,512 We knew they'd turn their fire in our direction, 431 00:23:36,614 --> 00:23:38,648 which takes fire off that Alpha element, 432 00:23:38,750 --> 00:23:41,017 which would allow time for them to move. 433 00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:42,885 You turn yourself into this person 434 00:23:42,987 --> 00:23:45,655 that will kill anybody in front of you 435 00:23:45,757 --> 00:23:48,691 to protect your guys. 436 00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:50,193 I'm not gonna take time to think about it. 437 00:23:50,295 --> 00:23:51,260 I'm not gonna take time to, you know... 438 00:23:51,362 --> 00:23:52,929 I'm gonna kill you. 439 00:23:58,836 --> 00:24:01,003 I grew up in Whittier, California, 440 00:24:01,105 --> 00:24:02,605 and hated school, 441 00:24:02,707 --> 00:24:05,007 so I enlisted in the Marine Corps. 442 00:24:05,109 --> 00:24:07,554 I enlisted when I was 17, 443 00:24:08,279 --> 00:24:11,214 and then I went in, actually went in when I was 18. 444 00:24:11,316 --> 00:24:13,549 I had an actual long lineage 445 00:24:13,651 --> 00:24:17,420 of another Marine that was from my family. 446 00:24:17,522 --> 00:24:19,222 The great-great-great- grandfather 447 00:24:19,324 --> 00:24:21,090 that was in... in... 448 00:24:21,192 --> 00:24:23,359 like 1786, something like that. 449 00:24:24,238 --> 00:24:26,362 My mom wasn't supportive. 450 00:24:26,464 --> 00:24:28,798 She was like, "You're not gonna make it, 451 00:24:28,900 --> 00:24:30,366 because you don't listen to me, 452 00:24:30,468 --> 00:24:32,301 and you're not gonna listen to anyone else." 453 00:24:32,913 --> 00:24:34,804 I stayed in the reconnaissance community 454 00:24:34,906 --> 00:24:37,584 the entire time in my 20 years. 455 00:24:38,376 --> 00:24:41,377 Pretty much I was deployed, I mean, constantly. 456 00:24:41,479 --> 00:24:44,046 I'd come back, retrain, and then redeploy. 457 00:24:44,148 --> 00:24:46,782 By the time we deployed in 2004, 458 00:24:46,884 --> 00:24:49,485 that was my ninth deployment. 459 00:24:50,989 --> 00:24:53,556 Dan Griego, he was the most senior enlisted 460 00:24:53,658 --> 00:24:55,258 member in our platoon. He was our platoon sergeant. 461 00:24:55,360 --> 00:24:58,628 He had more deployments than, I think, 462 00:24:58,730 --> 00:25:00,062 any vehicle put together. 463 00:25:00,164 --> 00:25:03,099 He's very... he's very smart 464 00:25:03,201 --> 00:25:04,634 when it comes to tactics. 465 00:25:04,736 --> 00:25:06,969 Here we are, back out in the desert again. 466 00:25:07,071 --> 00:25:08,571 It's a day out at the range. 467 00:25:08,673 --> 00:25:10,306 We're firing the MK19s. 468 00:25:10,408 --> 00:25:12,074 When other teams and other platoons 469 00:25:12,176 --> 00:25:14,443 were out getting a soda or something like that, 470 00:25:14,545 --> 00:25:16,012 he had us out doing rehearsals 471 00:25:16,114 --> 00:25:17,480 and beating the hell out of us with that, 472 00:25:17,582 --> 00:25:18,748 which is what we should be doing. 473 00:25:18,850 --> 00:25:21,083 We never doubted what was required of us, 474 00:25:21,185 --> 00:25:23,252 because of his leadership. 475 00:25:29,360 --> 00:25:31,861 At that time, we were way outnumbered, 476 00:25:31,963 --> 00:25:35,598 but the Bravo element was in the best position possible. 477 00:25:35,700 --> 00:25:38,000 And the enemy had set up only expecting us 478 00:25:38,102 --> 00:25:41,170 to be coming from the direction that they initially engaged in. 479 00:25:41,272 --> 00:25:44,440 They didn't expect us to be coming from the side. 480 00:25:44,542 --> 00:25:46,008 We're laying on a berm, 481 00:25:46,110 --> 00:25:48,644 and it's open ground in front of us, 482 00:25:48,746 --> 00:25:51,047 with an open enemy in front of us. 483 00:25:51,149 --> 00:25:54,050 So we're able to shoot straight across the ground, 484 00:25:54,152 --> 00:25:57,320 and with a .50 caliber sniper rifle, it's pretty easy 485 00:25:57,422 --> 00:26:00,289 to, you know, be able to hit whatever you want with it. 486 00:26:03,428 --> 00:26:05,161 There is really no thought, 487 00:26:05,263 --> 00:26:08,631 other than "try to hit as many people as you can." 488 00:26:08,733 --> 00:26:10,366 This is basic infantry, 489 00:26:10,468 --> 00:26:12,068 close with and destroy the enemy 490 00:26:12,170 --> 00:26:13,636 by fire and maneuver. 491 00:26:13,738 --> 00:26:15,971 You would think that your heart would start racing 492 00:26:16,074 --> 00:26:19,608 and you know, everything would pick up and speed would pick up, 493 00:26:19,711 --> 00:26:21,844 but it seemed more like time slowed down. 494 00:26:24,682 --> 00:26:25,881 I remember breathing and everything 495 00:26:25,983 --> 00:26:27,216 was just like really relaxed. 496 00:26:27,318 --> 00:26:29,652 And I was able to fire 497 00:26:29,754 --> 00:26:32,688 just the way you should fire a sniper rifle. 498 00:26:32,790 --> 00:26:36,192 I know at least I hit the guy that fired the RPG at Eddie. 499 00:26:36,294 --> 00:26:37,927 I shot him right through the face. 500 00:26:51,142 --> 00:26:54,210 Our team leader told our driver to punch forward 501 00:26:54,312 --> 00:26:56,946 and the vehicle really is barely moving. 502 00:26:57,048 --> 00:26:59,014 It's like "putt-putt... putt-putt, putt, putt-putt." 503 00:26:59,117 --> 00:27:02,618 Obviously we have mechanical damage to the vehicle, 504 00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:06,088 but it did start to move us out of that kill zone. 505 00:27:08,226 --> 00:27:10,359 About then, Eddie's vehicle started 506 00:27:10,461 --> 00:27:12,495 finally moving again, starting to move our way. 507 00:27:17,969 --> 00:27:19,902 Everybody in Eddie's vehicle 508 00:27:20,004 --> 00:27:22,571 was injured to some degree or another. 509 00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,040 They were working their way back to us. 510 00:27:25,143 --> 00:27:27,376 We needed to set up a casualty collection point. 511 00:27:27,478 --> 00:27:29,111 And we set up our own security 512 00:27:29,213 --> 00:27:31,113 right there in the middle of the kill zone. 513 00:27:31,215 --> 00:27:33,916 So we had kind of a triangle of vehicles. 514 00:27:54,038 --> 00:27:55,771 Eddie had both arms ripped off, 515 00:27:55,873 --> 00:27:59,141 and a good chunk of his left upper leg. 516 00:27:59,210 --> 00:28:01,143 Shrapnel everywhere. 517 00:28:02,847 --> 00:28:04,413 First words out of his mouth, 518 00:28:04,515 --> 00:28:06,916 with a smart-aleck grin on his face, 519 00:28:07,018 --> 00:28:09,051 "Hey, Blair, can you give me a hand?" 520 00:28:11,022 --> 00:28:13,956 And he meant every bit of that pun. 521 00:28:14,025 --> 00:28:16,659 Testament to his will to live, 522 00:28:16,761 --> 00:28:20,129 and his warrior spirit. 523 00:28:20,231 --> 00:28:23,766 As a medic, you want to take care of every patient, 524 00:28:23,868 --> 00:28:28,637 but it means a lot more when it's somebody you know. 525 00:28:30,541 --> 00:28:33,142 Grew up in Washington state. Allyn, Washington. 526 00:28:33,244 --> 00:28:34,977 Little town still waiting on its first stop light. 527 00:28:35,079 --> 00:28:36,879 Had the Olympic Mountains as my backyard, 528 00:28:36,981 --> 00:28:38,380 and the Puget Sound as my front yard. 529 00:28:38,483 --> 00:28:40,149 Couldn't ask for much better. 530 00:28:40,251 --> 00:28:42,818 I had the opportunity when I was 16, 531 00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,165 and I joined the fire department as a volunteer. 532 00:28:46,123 --> 00:28:48,190 While I loved what I was doing with the fire department, 533 00:28:48,292 --> 00:28:50,170 I knew there was more I could do. 534 00:28:50,754 --> 00:28:53,829 Started with the grunts, with Marine grunts, 535 00:28:53,931 --> 00:28:56,212 infantry, 1996. 536 00:28:56,314 --> 00:29:00,336 And saw... just about every country you could hope for. 537 00:29:00,438 --> 00:29:02,805 And thought I was gonna go back to the fire department, 538 00:29:02,907 --> 00:29:05,975 and realized the Marines had ruined me, 539 00:29:06,077 --> 00:29:07,877 'cause I couldn't be a reactive medic anymore. 540 00:29:07,979 --> 00:29:10,145 I couldn't wait for people to get screwed up 541 00:29:10,248 --> 00:29:12,314 and then me and my buddy show up and fix it. 542 00:29:12,416 --> 00:29:14,350 I wanted to be more proactive. 543 00:29:14,452 --> 00:29:15,684 Blair, he was our doc. 544 00:29:15,786 --> 00:29:17,753 He was our platoon corpsman. 545 00:29:17,855 --> 00:29:19,321 Blair was the "wise owl." 546 00:29:19,423 --> 00:29:21,557 He always had something clever to say. 547 00:29:21,659 --> 00:29:24,994 Blair was like a happy-go-lucky kind of a guy. 548 00:29:25,372 --> 00:29:27,029 Knew his job really well, 549 00:29:27,131 --> 00:29:28,831 didn't have to worry about him medically, 550 00:29:28,933 --> 00:29:30,533 you know, how he was gonna take care of anything. 551 00:29:40,845 --> 00:29:43,279 I was working on Eddie for quite a bit, 552 00:29:43,381 --> 00:29:45,781 and then I got the word Brent Morel was hit. 553 00:29:47,184 --> 00:29:50,019 At some point they had managed 554 00:29:50,121 --> 00:29:51,287 to get a vehicle out to him or something. 555 00:29:51,389 --> 00:29:52,588 I don't know, I'm not familiar 556 00:29:52,690 --> 00:29:53,656 with how they got him back to me. 557 00:29:59,997 --> 00:30:02,298 But I turned around and they were laying him down. 558 00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:04,900 Yeah, and... 559 00:30:05,002 --> 00:30:07,870 That definitely punches you in the gut. 560 00:30:07,972 --> 00:30:10,205 I checked on Eddie one more time real quick. 561 00:30:10,308 --> 00:30:12,041 I said, "Hey, buddy, I'm gonna have to go 562 00:30:12,143 --> 00:30:14,777 take care of the boss." 563 00:30:16,715 --> 00:30:19,982 Brent had a torso wound... 564 00:30:20,218 --> 00:30:21,762 pretty significant. 565 00:30:23,654 --> 00:30:25,087 I did everything I could, 566 00:30:25,189 --> 00:30:27,222 and it seemed like nothing I was doing 567 00:30:27,325 --> 00:30:28,518 would, uh... 568 00:30:30,646 --> 00:30:32,522 ...gain purchase. 569 00:30:33,431 --> 00:30:35,531 I was not... I... 570 00:30:35,633 --> 00:30:37,666 didn't want to give up. 571 00:30:45,042 --> 00:30:48,143 He deserved nothing less than everything I had, 572 00:30:48,245 --> 00:30:49,581 but at some point, 573 00:30:50,081 --> 00:30:52,114 some wounds, you're just not gonna win. 574 00:31:03,236 --> 00:31:08,321 _ 575 00:31:08,450 --> 00:31:13,747 _ 576 00:31:16,849 --> 00:31:19,475 First I heard the Cobras fly over a couple of times, 577 00:31:19,577 --> 00:31:22,111 and I could hear them firing their rockets 578 00:31:22,213 --> 00:31:25,180 and I could hear their machine gun. 579 00:31:25,282 --> 00:31:27,016 That's a wonderful sound. You're just like, 580 00:31:27,118 --> 00:31:30,519 "Ah, yes, we're good. We got Cobras." 581 00:31:30,621 --> 00:31:33,088 That really helped to turn the tide of the battle. 582 00:31:41,198 --> 00:31:44,133 It seemed like ages, but I think it might've been 583 00:31:44,235 --> 00:31:46,201 like 45 minutes or something. 584 00:31:48,075 --> 00:31:50,539 But the medevac chopper finally came, 585 00:31:50,641 --> 00:31:52,174 and landed. 586 00:31:58,582 --> 00:32:00,649 Captain Morel, my platoon commander, 587 00:32:00,751 --> 00:32:02,951 he was, uh, 588 00:32:03,054 --> 00:32:04,953 white as a ghost. 589 00:32:05,056 --> 00:32:07,523 He'd lost so much blood that he... I mean, he was just... 590 00:32:07,625 --> 00:32:08,924 I'd never seen somebody that white. 591 00:32:15,433 --> 00:32:18,367 You can't hear anything, the bird's so loud, 592 00:32:18,469 --> 00:32:20,969 but I told him, I said, "Hang in there, sir." 593 00:32:39,256 --> 00:32:41,356 At that point, they informed us that 594 00:32:41,693 --> 00:32:43,492 Captain Morel had been hit, 595 00:32:43,594 --> 00:32:45,728 and Eddie had been hit, and were medevacked 596 00:32:45,830 --> 00:32:47,696 in the aircraft that we had just seen 597 00:32:47,798 --> 00:32:49,409 come over and fly off. 598 00:32:50,868 --> 00:32:52,829 I knew it wasn't good. 599 00:32:53,771 --> 00:32:56,338 The company commander told us, 600 00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:57,906 "Just get your guys back outta there," 601 00:32:58,008 --> 00:32:59,608 and, you know, he already had known 602 00:32:59,710 --> 00:33:01,376 how severe the injuries were, 603 00:33:01,479 --> 00:33:04,446 you know, who we'd already possibly lost 604 00:33:04,548 --> 00:33:06,615 and let's just get the rest of us 605 00:33:06,717 --> 00:33:08,220 back out of there and move out. 606 00:33:21,451 --> 00:33:23,610 That enemy was ready for a battle that day. 607 00:33:24,235 --> 00:33:26,435 They had more weapons. 608 00:33:26,537 --> 00:33:29,605 They had equal to or more, you know, than we had. 609 00:33:29,707 --> 00:33:31,451 They were ready to take on a city. 610 00:33:32,710 --> 00:33:34,810 Captain Morel didn't do what he did, 611 00:33:34,912 --> 00:33:36,678 we would've had more casualties. 612 00:33:43,087 --> 00:33:45,821 We realized later how many people 613 00:33:45,923 --> 00:33:47,210 they threw at us that day. 614 00:33:47,312 --> 00:33:50,592 We've heard varying accounts, from as little as 30 615 00:33:50,694 --> 00:33:53,095 to as many as over 100, 150. 616 00:33:57,601 --> 00:33:59,501 So once we finally got time for us, 617 00:33:59,603 --> 00:34:01,904 I remember the CO bringing us all together, 618 00:34:02,006 --> 00:34:05,374 and letting us know that, officially, Brent had passed. 619 00:34:15,022 --> 00:34:17,820 It was really tough to swallow that information. 620 00:34:20,191 --> 00:34:22,157 Recon Battalion hadn't lost anybody 621 00:34:22,259 --> 00:34:26,547 up to that point in Operation Iraqi Freedom. 622 00:34:26,650 --> 00:34:30,699 For me, it was the only time I'd ever lost a Marine 623 00:34:30,801 --> 00:34:33,388 that was, you know, in my platoon... 624 00:34:35,072 --> 00:34:37,183 for my time in the Marine Corps. 625 00:34:38,075 --> 00:34:40,475 It hit us all pretty hard. 626 00:34:40,578 --> 00:34:43,857 No medic ever wants to lose one of their guys, 627 00:34:44,648 --> 00:34:47,850 but we were so small and so close-knit 628 00:34:47,952 --> 00:34:51,553 that we... every loss is felt exponentially. 629 00:34:57,595 --> 00:34:59,494 Brent Morel took it straight 630 00:34:59,597 --> 00:35:02,664 into the, you know, the monster's mouth. 631 00:35:02,766 --> 00:35:04,032 I don't know if there's much more 632 00:35:04,134 --> 00:35:05,837 you could ask for in a leader. 633 00:35:14,945 --> 00:35:18,347 There was no "mourning" feeling. 634 00:35:18,449 --> 00:35:20,582 I guess it wasn't the time to mourn. 635 00:35:20,684 --> 00:35:22,354 It was the time to fight. 636 00:35:22,786 --> 00:35:25,454 Mourning was when the mission's done, 637 00:35:25,556 --> 00:35:27,233 when we're back in the United States. 638 00:35:40,170 --> 00:35:43,772 I don't think I processed it 639 00:35:43,874 --> 00:35:46,909 until I met with his father, 640 00:35:47,011 --> 00:35:49,878 and sitting on the beach, smoking a cigar 641 00:35:49,980 --> 00:35:51,847 and talking about everything, 642 00:35:51,949 --> 00:35:53,218 that's when, you know... 643 00:35:54,184 --> 00:35:56,952 when you understand it's someone else's son. 644 00:35:59,056 --> 00:36:00,923 You know, that's... I mean, that's the biggest thing 645 00:36:01,025 --> 00:36:04,092 is knowing he's never gonna see him again. 646 00:36:04,194 --> 00:36:06,228 His mother's never gonna see him again. 647 00:36:08,699 --> 00:36:12,100 But it's just not the time to process it out there. 648 00:36:13,470 --> 00:36:15,938 Maybe it's forever processing it. 649 00:36:33,008 --> 00:36:41,474 _ 650 00:36:44,368 --> 00:36:46,568 When I woke up at the National Naval Medical Center 651 00:36:46,670 --> 00:36:50,639 in Bethesda, Maryland, I was happy to be alive. 652 00:36:50,741 --> 00:36:54,376 I had been out for nine days 653 00:36:54,478 --> 00:36:58,313 in a medically-induced coma. 654 00:36:58,415 --> 00:37:01,411 I found out later I had to be resuscitated three times. 655 00:37:02,412 --> 00:37:06,221 I spent some time... a month... in ICU. 656 00:37:08,392 --> 00:37:12,160 I handled it all relatively pretty well from the beginning, 657 00:37:12,262 --> 00:37:14,563 because I knew no amount of lamenting 658 00:37:14,665 --> 00:37:16,898 the loss of my hands is gonna make my hands come back. 659 00:37:17,343 --> 00:37:19,634 And it was kind of the attitude that I've always had. 660 00:37:20,096 --> 00:37:21,937 I'm always coming up with little ways 661 00:37:22,039 --> 00:37:25,340 to cut corners or adapt, 662 00:37:25,442 --> 00:37:27,075 or do things the way... I mean, 663 00:37:27,177 --> 00:37:29,277 so that I can still do what I used to do. 664 00:37:31,215 --> 00:37:33,081 You know, part of me, it was just killing me 665 00:37:33,183 --> 00:37:35,183 that I wasn't gonna be deployable. 666 00:37:35,285 --> 00:37:36,752 I wasn't gonna be able to do the job 667 00:37:36,854 --> 00:37:38,353 that I'd always dreamt of doing. 668 00:37:38,455 --> 00:37:40,856 Done a lot of introspection I guess, you know, 669 00:37:40,958 --> 00:37:42,591 trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with myself 670 00:37:42,693 --> 00:37:45,527 for the rest of my life, but, uh, 671 00:37:45,629 --> 00:37:48,830 You know, as of yet I haven't made up my mind 100%. 672 00:37:50,601 --> 00:37:54,136 You know, I'm only limited by my imagination, I guess. 673 00:37:56,206 --> 00:37:58,640 But you know, I try to put it into perspective. 674 00:37:58,742 --> 00:38:01,009 Eventually, everybody has to get out of the Marine Corps. 675 00:38:01,111 --> 00:38:03,979 Does it get easier if you put 20 or 30 years in? 676 00:38:04,081 --> 00:38:05,180 I doubt it. 677 00:38:06,216 --> 00:38:07,816 Mmm. 678 00:38:07,918 --> 00:38:10,719 Dee-licious. 679 00:38:10,821 --> 00:38:12,220 I ended up using Eddie's case 680 00:38:12,322 --> 00:38:13,989 quite a bit over the years following 681 00:38:14,091 --> 00:38:15,390 as a case study, 682 00:38:15,492 --> 00:38:17,359 as we were developing new technologies, 683 00:38:17,461 --> 00:38:21,163 and from 15 years of war, we have tools now, 684 00:38:21,265 --> 00:38:23,665 based on his and other similar cases, 685 00:38:23,767 --> 00:38:26,068 that would've made that whole day an easy day. 686 00:38:26,170 --> 00:38:28,904 Junctional tourniquets, hemostatic dressings, 687 00:38:29,006 --> 00:38:31,506 things like that that we just didn't have at those times. 688 00:38:31,608 --> 00:38:33,408 Silver lining out of all that. 689 00:38:35,245 --> 00:38:37,379 The things that happen to me in my life 690 00:38:37,481 --> 00:38:40,682 are things that shape me into being the person that I am today. 691 00:38:40,784 --> 00:38:44,753 So I don't think that I would really change anything, 692 00:38:44,855 --> 00:38:47,823 and that includes getting my hands shot off. 693 00:38:50,912 --> 00:38:54,096 April 7th, it was life-changing, for sure. 694 00:38:54,198 --> 00:38:56,568 That's... I guess that's a good way to put it. 695 00:38:57,534 --> 00:39:00,071 I sure enough became a different person that day. 696 00:39:01,538 --> 00:39:03,705 When I returned, 697 00:39:03,807 --> 00:39:06,942 good friends that I'd had throughout my career 698 00:39:07,044 --> 00:39:09,847 in the Marine Corps just said that... 699 00:39:10,681 --> 00:39:15,016 my whole face had changed, that I was a different person. 700 00:39:17,287 --> 00:39:19,254 You don't turn violence on and off. 701 00:39:19,674 --> 00:39:20,922 You decide to do it, 702 00:39:21,467 --> 00:39:24,092 allowing yourself to be that person. 703 00:39:24,194 --> 00:39:26,294 If you're the enemy and I'm talking to you, 704 00:39:26,396 --> 00:39:28,141 I'm gonna eat you. 705 00:39:29,166 --> 00:39:31,266 I'm gonna kill anybody I have to 706 00:39:31,368 --> 00:39:33,368 to get back to my kids. 707 00:39:33,470 --> 00:39:37,572 And I think that is what will effect people 708 00:39:37,674 --> 00:39:39,641 throughout their life, is the process 709 00:39:39,743 --> 00:39:42,644 of turning yourself into that. 710 00:39:46,083 --> 00:39:48,917 You know, we're just not out there being violent to be violent, 711 00:39:49,019 --> 00:39:51,386 but you have to meet... 712 00:39:51,488 --> 00:39:53,583 you have to meet your enemy 713 00:39:54,658 --> 00:39:57,459 with equal and greater force 714 00:39:57,561 --> 00:39:59,661 than what they're bringing to you. 715 00:39:59,763 --> 00:40:02,497 That doesn't need to mean that we need to be animals, 716 00:40:02,599 --> 00:40:05,100 but that just means we have to be very effective 717 00:40:05,202 --> 00:40:07,903 in our jobs, or we lose. 718 00:40:11,441 --> 00:40:14,776 I think one of the things that we've really identified more 719 00:40:14,878 --> 00:40:16,811 in the whole operational psychology, 720 00:40:16,914 --> 00:40:18,747 everything that we've tried to learn, 721 00:40:18,849 --> 00:40:23,018 is that you just adapt that to winning in another environment. 722 00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,354 You still plan for everything with the same intensity 723 00:40:26,456 --> 00:40:27,989 you would for a mission. 724 00:40:28,091 --> 00:40:30,025 Why would I give up that intensity? 725 00:40:30,127 --> 00:40:33,261 That's what helped me win in the military. 726 00:40:33,363 --> 00:40:35,297 I can't do what I was doing before, 727 00:40:35,399 --> 00:40:37,499 and it was my dream job. 728 00:40:37,601 --> 00:40:39,935 But now I can find another dream. 729 00:40:40,037 --> 00:40:41,770 A lot of people don't get a chance 730 00:40:41,872 --> 00:40:44,172 to live two dreams in the same lifetime. 731 00:40:45,475 --> 00:40:47,108 But I do. 732 00:40:48,545 --> 00:40:50,212 When I look back on that day, 733 00:40:50,314 --> 00:40:53,281 I'm really proud of my brothers. 734 00:40:53,383 --> 00:40:55,517 Man, they did a great job. 735 00:40:57,454 --> 00:41:00,222 We were able to fight our way out of that ambush 736 00:41:00,324 --> 00:41:02,224 and turn the tide on the enemy, 737 00:41:02,326 --> 00:41:04,859 and I don't think there are very many units 738 00:41:04,962 --> 00:41:06,294 that could've done that. 739 00:41:06,396 --> 00:41:08,797 If I wasn't with men of that caliber, 740 00:41:08,899 --> 00:41:11,666 I would be dead, you know? 741 00:41:15,872 --> 00:41:19,040 _ 742 00:41:19,102 --> 00:41:22,439 _ 743 00:41:22,522 --> 00:41:24,522 _ 744 00:41:28,444 --> 00:41:34,934 _ 745 00:41:35,125 --> 00:41:36,391 Yeah, we came down here 746 00:41:36,493 --> 00:41:38,994 into south in Fallujah. 747 00:41:39,096 --> 00:41:40,328 Pretty nice building here behind us 748 00:41:40,430 --> 00:41:41,997 that they've taken over and it overlooks 749 00:41:42,099 --> 00:41:43,498 the entire area around here, 750 00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:45,000 including the palm tree growth 751 00:41:45,102 --> 00:41:47,202 that they were really having a problem with. 752 00:41:51,508 --> 00:41:53,742 Let's go.