01x07 - The Green Berets of 7115

[bunniefuu]

Ian Gerdes: We were in a boxed canyon, and there was, you know, high ground to all four sides of you, basically.

We knew that we were in trouble because there's only one way that we can get back out.

And then the ridgelines just lit up.

We were taking fire from everywhere.

That's when I felt, like, a punch in the back of the head.

All medics come to this truck. "She's been hit."

Steve Hill: Your actions are gonna determine whether or not your teammates live or die, and I wasn't gonna let them die.

I wasn't gonna let them die.

Male Reporter: U.S. Army Special Forces were created in 1952, but it wasn't until 1961 that President Kennedy OK'd the colorful cap that gave them their name, "The Green Berets."

Male Reporter: U.S. Special Forces carry out some of the m*llitary's riskiest operations, their work often as secretive.

Male Reporter: Only about 150 elite soldiers earn Special Forces status each year, through the Army's toughest command school.

I think the difference with Special Forces is that we're senior soldiers.

Ian Gerdes: You didn't have guys recruited right off the street.

You had to do some time in the m*llitary, and then you volunteered again to be Special Forces.

Steve Hill: We usually work in a smaller unit, so because there's less of us, when we'd go out on missions, Green Berets are exposed a little bit more to the, you know, the local nationals.

Ian Gerdes: We're basically put into situations where we have to deal with the cultural sensitivities of other people, but, you know, that's what we all volunteer for.

You know, that's the kind of thing that we wanted to do.

Romy Camargo: You're motivated by the people around you, and we wanted to make a difference in our area 'cause if we're gonna be there for eight months, might as well make it a good eight months.

Steve Hill: Our team was so dynamic. We had such a great cohesive unit.

We fed off each other's strengths and weaknesses.

Romy Camargo: I had a great team at the time.

I got the best 7th Special Forces Group, you know, the most aggressive team, the guys that are after it.

Ian: We're all pretty positive.

We're all pretty upbeat, but Romy's just one step above everybody else.

Romy was the Warrant Officer, and he empowered us to be able to be the team that we needed to be.

Romy: I remember somebody telling me that, "Hey, this is your team," you know.

"You're the continuity of this group. You're the one that's supposed to hold everybody together.

I tried to take care of those guys and made sure that we were doing the missions with everybody's voice involved.

That was the number one thing that I wanted, you know, with my head as a commander.

Growing up, my childhood was full of excitement and full of fun, lots of family, friends.

I mean, it was very, you know, everything a kid could dream of.

Everybody knew me as bouncing off the walls. My dad was a pediatrician, in the army, and then my brothers, you know, they both served.

You know, I thought highly of them, and I was, like, when I saw them graduate Airborne School, I was, like, now that's what I want to do.

I thought it was the coolest thing. I mean, when I was 12, I took a brown plastic bag, and I climbed the roof of my apartment, and went ahead and jumped off, and my mom about flipped out. But, you know, what can you do?

As kids, we had no fear. I mean, no fear at all.

I wanted to follow my brothers' footsteps, so I entered the army when I was 19.

From there, you just get motivated and go on from one thing to another, to another. So, I made the decision to go to Special Forces, and then I knew that we were gonna do our part in, you know, in what America was doing, and I... I believed in that.

But I always made sure that my family was in my heart, and, you know, I made sure that I could do my little piece, so my wife Gabby and my son and daughter could... could live, you know, the great life that we live here in the United States.

Male Reporter: There is a guerrilla w*r going on here in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. The last time Special Forces were here, they got ambushed by Taliban, who then slipped away.

Soldier: They know the mountains like we know our backyard back in the States, and we're on their turf now.

Male Reporter: And as you can see from the terrain here, nothing in Central Afghanistan is easy.

Ian: So in 2008, this was our second deployment into Afghanistan, and at that time we were really gelling as a team.

We got to Afghanistan, and we had the floor running.

And about four months after we got there, our company was doing a bigger mission northwest of us.

Higher command decided we would go in and support the bigger company mission, but we had to go through Mydan Valley.

That area right there was a major highway of Taliban fighters moving through Kandahar.

Romy: Since we knew that there was a village that had been cut off from the main route, we decided to help that village out with medical care.

Ian: They weren't the objective for this bigger, larger mission, but we wanted to be able to provide them with something, you know, other than, you know, just being there and occupying, you know.

Steve: We were gonna go out and basically set up a little clinic at this village, and I would treat sick and wounded, and, you know, I requested a female treatment team to, you know, be attached to our unit, 'cause with their culture, you know, they don't allow men to treat the women.

Set up!

Ian: You know, the hope is when we bring med supplies in, that normally, you know, they're pretty receptive.

Steve: And while that was going on, we were gonna be looking for the bad guys because another mission was happening in a different part of Afghanistan.

The Shalakur commandos were coming in from the south, pushing to the north, and our intel said the enemy would basically... they would run away into an east-west running valley called Mydan.

Ian: We were actually put in a blocking position, so my job was to, you know, provide fire.

Steve: You know, the thing about Afghanistan that's different from Iraq and other locations is the terrain is just so treacherous and so dictating on your movement.

Ian: At the mouth of it where we entered, there's a, you know, suspended footbridge probably 30 feet over the canyon river.

So, you drove under that thing, and, uh...

So that's how tight it was in there.

And then once you passed that, it kind of opened up, but there was, you know, high ground to all four sides, that it's basically a boxed canyon, and the only way we could get through there, 'cause a river ran through it, was to bring in a bucket loader and actually build a road through the river that we had to be able to cross to get up in there.

When you talk about special operations, that is kind of a unique, unconventional movement, really, and we were able to get into an area that no one else has really been able to get into by utilizing that bucket loader.

The canyon was basically a river area with lots of vegetations. You had farm on one side, tilled fields on the other.

Lots of almond trees, lots of vegetation.

You know, pretty difficult area to move through and fight in.

When you're there, and you're doing these missions, you know, you plan, and you prep, and you take every step to ensure that you guys are gonna make it, but you always have to be prepared for an unsuccessful mission.

You can do the best you can to survive, but you can't control everything.

Romy: So, September 15, 2008, our team 7115 packed up and went ahead and left to go execute our mission in Mydan Valley.

It was very difficult to get into that area right there 'cause it was one of the major routes that Taliban fighters used to get into Kandahar.

I had the 12-man team. I had a female lieutenant colonel, a registered nurse, and then we had support personnel, guys that were supposed to secure our convoys, and those are Afghan security guards.

We also had a platoon of infantry with us as well.

So we had quite a few vehicles with us.

You know, we had very aggressive guys. We had some very senior guys on the team. Steve Hill was a very senior medic in the m*llitary.

Steve, being the medic and being one of our sn*pers, he brought a lot to the table.

Steve: I was a soldier before I became a medic.

I didn't think of myself as, you know, I'm a medic.

I'm a warrior.

That's why I'm here. That's what I'm doing.

I'm here to, you know, make sure that all my brothers come back alive.

My father, he was a Vietnam veteran, and he was a great inspiration for me. So, I was kind of a m*llitary rat in the early part of my life, and I moved around a lot, I think 13 times, before I turned 18 and joined the army.

Because I moved around a lot, I didn't always end up meeting the right people.

You know, they have this cadence in the army and it says, "Go to w*r, go to jail," and it was kind of a situation like that, believe it or not.

I did well through basic training, and I just needed more.

I didn't really know as much about Special Forces.

I just kind of always had a feeling that that's what I wanted to do.

I actually got to my team in 2006, and that's when I met Romy and Ian and everybody else that was part of the team. And once you start doing your training together, that's kind of when you start building that bond.

When you start realizing that these are the men that you're gonna have, your left, your right, while you're in combat.

I think because I moved around so much, and I don't have those roots and those people in my past, that it's so important to me now, and that's why that team forever will be my family.

Romy: That night, September 15th, we went in and, you know, received fires right off the bat.

We were at this part right before entering the mouth of the valley, and we made our first contact. I remember they came out with a lot of RPG rounds, and I just remembered being in the turret and, like, looking and seeing the RPGs just coming out of the mountain.

Some of them were airbursting.

Some of them were duds and skipping and hitting the ground.

Some of them were, you know, detonating on impact.

It was just the beginning of that mission, and we were pretty much in contact the entire time, fighting our way to get to that position and support the larger mission.

Right before we got to this one particular part, I remember looking and seeing the tracer rounds around the vehicle in front of me.

(Rapid g*nf*re)

I was thinking to myself, "Those guys are toast. They're done." I was Mark 19, which is a grenade launcher. I turn the turret and sh**t in a can of Mark 19 rounds up, you know, where we're receiving fire, trying to suppress the enemy.

(Rapid g*nf*re)

Once we had suppressed the enemy, and we pushed out security elements and stuff, I jumped out of the turret. I went up to the truck, and, uh, there wasn't a scratch on anyone.

Everybody was fine. Their vehicle was Swiss cheese, all four tires sh*t out. The radiator, you know, got sh*t out.

Ian: We've been lucky.

You know, we had guys sh*t between the legs.

Missed everything.

We had a guy that, you know, got... he hit with an RPG.

You know, nothing happened.

You know, it's all about luck, I guess.

I don't know.

(Vehicle doors opening, closing)

The bucket loader was moving up into the far end of the canyon to cut the road for us, or to help improve the road for us to get our vehicles up in there.

About three-quarters of the way up, the Afghans had dug this irrigation, like, trench.

It was large enough, to where we weren't capable of driving our vehicle over top of it. So, we get the bulldozer, and the bulldozer, you know, scoops up some earth and rock, and it's driving up the side of the mountain.

Then it goes and drops some stuff inside this irrigation ditch.

As the bucket loader was clearing the road and the path... it kind of tiptoed on its side and rolled over.

And this 18-ton, you know, bulldozer...

(Crashing sound in distance)

...comes crashing down on top of itself.

And we were stuck at that point.

Steve: You know, we knew that we were in trouble because we kind of have the ability to hear the enemy.

They use radios sometimes that we're capable of, you know, intercepting their transmissions, and we have interpreters, and all of the interpreters were, like, "Hey, they know that the vehicle's down, and they're calling for all the fighters in the region to come to this area because there's only one way that we can get back out.

Ian: I think it's pretty late at night at this point, when our bucket loader rolled down the hill, and where we were in that box canyon was the village that we wanted to provide the support to, but at that point it became a recovery mission of the bucket loader.

So we never really pulled the, you know, the medical supplies out to give to those people.

Romy: At that time, the mission kind of changed because now we have a big hazard that we have to take care of.

There was no way we can recover that piece of equipment.

There was no getting it out.

You know, you're not gonna get a crane back there.

You're not gonna get helicopters in there to...

It was done.

The problem is we've got to secure this bucket loader until the command decides whether we can destroy it in place or what we're gonna do with it.

So, uh, and of course, we also have to follow on mission.

We were not in a great spot to support.

However, we were still within striking distance.

Steve: Ian was great because he knew his job, I mean, without a doubt.

He was directing the Afghan National Army Police and constantly staying on top of us and seeing what we needed.

And it made him great to be with, especially in situations like that.

Ian: I was the oldest guy on the team. In 1987, I was 20 years old.

I had just left college, decided college wasn't for me, and decided I was gonna do something different, so I joined the m*llitary.

I just walked into the recruiter's station. That's what happened.

You know, Special Forces never really entered my mind. I mean, they were the guys down the street at Fort Lewis, Washington that wore green berets, and you had rangers there, too.

My friend came back from Desert Storm and said, "I'm gonna join. I'm gonna go to selection."

And I said, "Well, I'm gonna go, too."

So the next week I volunteered to go to selection anyway.

Years later, I volunteered to go to 7th Special Forces Group and I became the Team Sergeant, which is basically in charge of all the enlisted men.

You know, you've got leaders that, you know, when they get into those stressful situations, and they're frantic, and they can't control themselves, and they're all over the place, and he wasn't like that.

Ian was very, very, very calm and cool.

He's just always very, very low-stress.

Ian was, you know, a great Team Sergeant, and I remember everything he did for the team.

Ian: You know, it's just, you know, team camaraderie, 12 guys living and working together and, you know... every day.

You know, that's your family. So, after the bucket loader rolled, we had some Afghan forces with us who we sent to the high ground to secure it, and then Romy and I cleared the high ground villages up there, so we were able to secure the canyon pretty well.

And then we basically waited the night out to see if we got called from the other unit for support.

So we stayed there until the mission was complete, basically.

Steve: I want to say it was about eight hours until we finally got permission to blow this thing up and return to base.

Ian: So, Romy and Ruiz, our engineers, who were expl*sive experts, they went up there, and they rigged the bucket loader with expl*sives.

Steve: We needed to make sure that it was destroyed and that the enemy couldn't end up, you know, taking apart and reassembling it.

Romy: We strapped a lot of expl*sives to it and blew it up to where all the pieces would be inoperable.

We decided to return to base 'cause that was a lot of expl*sives to blow that big of a piece of equipment.

And, you know, we had just made a big signature, and we drew a lot of attention to ourselves.

And I remember, as we were pulling out, that the ambush kicked off.

(g*nf*re, shouting)

It was like the Fourth of July.

(Man shouting)

Ian: At that point, we started to leave with all our support people.

With the Afghans, we, of course, we had to bring them off the hill.

So, we started moving people out of the high ground.

We had to move the infantry platoon back as well.

Steve: I was in the turret of one vehicle, and Romy, and my best friend Ramon were in the other vehicle, and me and Romy were just talking about going to bike week and going to Sturgis and, like, all the things that we wanted to do when we got back from our trip.

Romy: And I remember, as we were pulling out, the ambush kicked off.

The ridgelines and mountain just... just lit up.

(Rapid g*nf*re)

Soldier: Get that setup!

There's about 25 to 30 insurgents at the time.

They were coming from the woodline, in the village...

the high ground...

It was pretty chaotic.

RPGs, r*fle fire, AK-47s all over the place.

You could see the tracers, the green tracers, red tracers, I mean, all around us.

(Soldiers shouting)

Romy: I grabbed the interpreter that we had who was with the nurses. I told her to go in the front seat of the Humvee and to put her head down because things were gonna get crazy.

I always made sure that if anything ever happened, I'd try to be out, but...

We were taking fire from everywhere.

You could hear rounds cracking past your head.

They're hitting the vehicle.

Ian: We were taking fire from both ridgelines.

Steve Hill was actually having trouble f*ring through the trees because they were already in the river.

I'm sitting there next to the water, and I look down, and one of the... one of the females that we had brought with us, Sandy, she was a Demo Tech, she was on a 240 machine g*n, and she was just getting down.

And I remember her sh**ting, and I was looking at her and I was, like, that is a warrior.

And, you know, she was f*ring rounds, and then, you know, she ran out, and she was in the process of changing, and I remember looking, and all of a sudden in the water I could see b*ll*ts hitting the water and water was splashing. And it was coming right at our truck.

I remember, you know, telling everybody to take cover, and as soon as the rounds went over the top of the vehicle, I just turned the turret, and I'm, like, just tried to line up from where those rounds went and I just started throwing grenades down.

Ian: I was about to enter the river, and so I was still in that area right there and was able to drop a couple of mortars.

I'm returning fire, and I had to reach down to grab some more... two or three grenades, and then all of a sudden...

(g*nsh*t)

That's when I felt, like, a punch in the back of the head.

That's the only thing I remember from that part.

I heard the call that Romy was sh*t, and they need all medics to his truck.

All medics come to this truck. Chief's been hit.

Soldier: Romy's sh*t!

Steve: As soon as we got the call, and we were the vehicle right behind him, we were there.

I mean, we're talking 30 seconds.

Our vehicle pulled up right next to theirs, so I was in the top of our vehicle.

I jumped out and into the back of their vehicle, where he was sh*t, and then that's when I started doing my treatment.

I saw Romy, and there was blood everywhere.

I don't know. You kind of...

That's the one thing about the training that we do.

We're constantly, you know, just training, training, training, training, to when it comes down to actually doing it, it's almost like muscle memory.

It's like a reflex.

It's happening so fast, that you don't even realize what's going on. There wasn't a lot of room to work in the back of the truck, so I was actually straddled over top of Romy. He was laying on his back, and I took my hair protection out, so I can listen for breath sounds, and I cut his body armour and stuff, and I was going through my treatment protocol, and we originally thought it was a glancing g*nsh*t wound, like it just clipped him.

It actually... it came in the left side, in his hairline, and you know, when we're there, we're usually... our hair's long.

You know, you grow your beards out and stuff, trying to fit in with the local populace.

And so you couldn't even see the entrance wound.

And when I did my initial sweeps on him, I didn't even know.

But I just knew because it was a g*nsh*t wound to the neck, I'm assuming there's C-spine involvement.

Your C-spine, it goes through the spinal canal, and if something's moved, you could cause more damage. So, I'd said, "Maintain C-spine till I tell you otherwise."

I knew that he had to have an airway, and if we were to intubate him, that would've required us to change the position of his head, which if we moved his head back like that, then all of that spinal cord damage, it probably would've severed his C-spine, and he would have d*ed.

Soldier: Romy! You okay?

I wasn't gonna let him die.

I wasn't gonna let him die.

Romy wasn't breathing, and he didn't have any vitals, didn't have a pulse.

And I remember I was getting ready to make the cut on his neck.

We're taking some heavy fire from the rear, and Reesey, he turned, and he just lets out this, like, 20-round burst right over my head.

(Rapid machine g*n fire)

And a 50-cal machine g*n has a overpressure that's just... it's crazy.

And I remember I looked up, and he's looking down at me, and I said, "Give me five seconds."

And he nodded like that and turn off, and he started sh**ting to the front.

And I looked down at Romy, and I'm like, please, God, and I made the initial incision.

I didn't have any crike, anything, no trach hooks, nothing, just the razor blade and an ET tube.

And I take it, and I pass the tube in and it felt right going in.

I'm like, all right, it passed, and I got placement. I got the bag, and I'm having to straddle him, bag and give him air, and then engage the enemy until we could fight ourselves to a safe location and actually call for medevac bird in.

Of course, as soon as we circled up in that open area, my gunners all sat on their g*ns and were f*ring at the high ground, and then we went over to Romy's truck.

When I looked at his eyes, they were leathery, black, leathery.

You know, Romy was dead.

We're all there, you know, cussing Romy out to breathe. You know, "Breathe, breathe."

And, uh... and he did.

And I remember seeing his chest rise and fall, and then immediately his color started coming back.

Steve saved his life, and when he gasped that breath, I mean, it just, "Hey, man. He's gonna make it."

Steve: But even though I had brought him back, because of the level of his injury, he couldn't breathe on his own.

Ian: So we would try to stabilize the neck as best we could, you know, you're trying to lift him out of the truck, keeping his head, you know, stabilized and then get him on the ground.

I remember telling the junior medic. I was, like, "Your sole purpose until I tell you otherwise is to maintain proper alignment."

We were still taking fire at the time, and it was another mad minute, you know, 'cause we wanted to flush out all the bad guys.

Steve: And we were on the side of the vehicle, and I was prepping him for transport, and Romy had given up his position in the TCC, which is the passenger seat of the vehicle, an armored vehicle.

So, he had a spot, where he would've been safe, and he gave that spot up for one of the female interpreters. Her name was Soraya. I remember as I was packaging him up, I saw Soraya... just looking down at Romy.

There's tears coming down her eyes.

I looked at her. I'm like, "It's gonna be okay."

And then the bird came in.

The medevac, they didn't want to come in because we were taking direct fire.

They didn't want to come into a hot LZ.

The medevac must have said, "We're gonna land no matter what" 'cause they came in.

If he'd seen the canyon where they had to land and knowing that we were taking fire up to the last minute, uh, I'm surprised they landed.

And right as the bird was coming in, they're like, "You're going with them!"

(Helicopter blades whirring)

I remember looking out the side of the bird, as we started to pull out, and the team starting to move on again, and I remember seeing the ridgelines, and I remember them sh**ting their machine g*ns and just taking a moment and praying and saying, "God, please watch over him."

And, uh, I looked down and Romy's got his eyes opened, and he mouths to me, "What happened?" And of course I was a wreck. I was, like, "You got sh*t, dude!"

I was, like, "But you're okay. You're stable.

We're getting you out of here.

You're gonna see your family soon."

And I just remember him...

He always does this thing with his lips, and he goes like that, and he closed his eyes.

Bird's left, and everything was quiet, and we went ahead and finished exfilling to get everybody out of there, and with mixed emotions, you know, that we got him out was huge, but we still didn't know whether he was gonna live.

Ian: You know, after Romy got hit, and we stayed back to make sure everybody got out of there in an orderly fashion, the mission was complete, basically.

Later on, uh, you know, we were getting all sorts of rumors. You know, so he's doing all right, or, you know, but you still... prognosis was that I don't think they were sure that he was gonna live until much later, till almost when he got to Walter Reed.

I received this phone call from one of his teammates, um, asking me, "Hey, Gaby, how are you?"

And I was, like, "I'm good. Why?"

But immediately I felt something weird.

I mean, I was cold and shaking.

I remember asking, "Is he alive?"

And he say, "We don't know yet."

The actual injury was pretty bad.

That's when we found out that the trajectory had gone across the backside of the C-spine.

He had spinal cord damage.

Gabriela Camargo: I drove from North Carolina to Washington, DC to Walter Reed Medical Center.

His brother, I remember that he say, "Romulo, he... he's paralyzed, and he... he's looking really bad."

They took me to his room to see for the first time my husband.

Romy: When I came to and I see Gaby next to me, I thought, I had just d*ed and gone... have gone to heaven.

Gabriela: Well, by that time, our son was 18 months old.

And I say, "Romulo, look who's here, Andres."

And he was smiling.

He was so happy to see his son.

And I say, "You know what day is today?

And he say, "No."

"Today is my birthday."

And he was, like, "Wow. Happy birthday."

And I say, "And you are my best gift."

Well, at the time, you know, I was just happy, you know, to be there with them.

In my eyes, I thought that six months top I'd be out.

My spinal cord would get better, and I would be...

I'd be back.

When they told me I was replaced on a team, I think I spent, you know, a good couple of days thinking about it.

What am I gonna do now?

Gabriela: The first time that his teammates came to the hospital, I remember seeing all of them around his bed.

It was like ten guys, uh, kissing him, hugging him.

I've never told so many men in my life that I love them, or kissed men in the cheek as much as I do with those guys.

They were there, I mean, supporting him.

"Hey, bro. Don't worry about it. We're gonna be with you."

I went down with all the guys, actually.

We came back, and, you know, it's emotional.

It was bad, but, you know, Gaby stops you at the door and says, you know, "It's all right."

The first three years I think after he was wounded, it was difficult for me to go visit him because I didn't know if I would've wanted to have been saved and live in the condition with the disability that Romy has.

I had a, I guess, survivor's guilt.

You know Forrest Gump? Remember Lieutenant Dan?

"I should've d*ed on the b*ttlefield! I was supposed to be a w*r hero!"

That's what I thought. That's what I thought.

I thought, you know, maybe that's what he wanted.

But after time and seeing the things that Romy was doing, and seeing that even though he was disabled he was living, he was living.

Life doesn't stop, you know. I still have to be a father.

I still have to be a husband, a brother, and I don't stop.

Gabriela: He's a real warrior, and he say, "You know what? This is not gonna stop me.

I'm gonna keep moving, Gaby. You will see.

They say no, but they don't have the last word."

Steve: There's a lot of wounded vets that have come back, and they haven't had the support that Romy has, and they haven't recovered the way Romy has, and they've lost their families, and they're depressed.

You know, they need help.

Romy: I know for a fact that if I didn't have Gaby or Andres or Alina, that I probably wouldn't be sitting here today.

You know, I'd probably be depressed or sitting there, all medicated, you know, wondering how the hell I'm gonna drive my chair into a pool.

I always say this, Paralysis is not an individual issue.

It's a family issue.

Romy: Gaby, being who she is, said, "You know what, Romy?

Let's open up a rehabilitation center here in Tampa."

And you know, we decided to call it Stay In Step.

It is a program with a sense of family.

I feel fortunate and blessed to have been a part of all of it, and he wants me to come work for him, you know, and be a trainer and be a part of that and help other families recover.

You know, if God picks somebody to lead other people to walk, he'd pick Ranger Camargo.

Romy: I'm here today because of those guys.

And to me, they're just... they're all my brothers.

Ian: That's what being a 7th is about.

You know, you love the guys on your team, and you've got to have that tight bond with them.

That's what you do, you know. That's your job.

Steve: That was the beauty of that team. Everybody knew what their job was.

It's almost like nothing have to be said.

Everybody just knew what they had to do, and that is what made it so amazing.

I'd do it all over again.

I wouldn't change a thing.

I don't even think about it.

Wow!

Welcome home, bro.

(Cheers, applause)