01x10 - Ranger Machine

[bunniefuu]

DAVE: It was a hot deployment.

There was a lot of action going on.

A lot of high-value targets
that we were after.

Going in, we knew we
were gonna make contact.

We were doing special operations raids

on any known t*rrorists
that we could find.

But things happen every...
everyday that change the plan.

Some people need to be k*lled
and that's how it is.

And there's social taboos
that say it's bad,

but, really, I mean,

they're just people
that need to go away.

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

HAL: To me a Ranger is
somebody's that's constantly

evolving, changing.

sh**t g*ns, blow stuff up

and do extreme things.

[DISTANT g*nf*re]

You're there to eliminate
the nation's enemies,

and you're premier fighting
force in the world.

DAVE: The Regiment is...
it's a competitive culture.

You got to have thick skin.

If you can't handle the heat,
then, you know,

get off the field.

[FAINT g*nf*re]

MAN ♪ : There's a couple
year window there

when we just had a really strong,

um, group in our... in our platoon.

People were just unbelievably talented

in so many different ways.

HAL: This was a very
experienced platoon

with a lot of good guys... quality guys.

Everybody knew their position,
knew what they had to do.

It just came to be
machine-like after a while.

ALEX: I was the Alpha
team leader at the time.

HAL: I was the sn*per.

DAVE: I was the overwatch.

My role was to make sure

that my buddies were... were safe.

And, together,
we made an unstoppable force.

ALEX: We did everything %,
the best of our ability

all the time.

You know, part of this team,

you know, being so close
for that... that time

was that our personalities jelled well

on our downtime.

DAVE: We were around each
other all the time, / .

If we weren't working,
we were messing around.

We were at the gym.

The running joke was, you know,
we'd go to the gym,

and we had minutes
of mandatory mirror time.

Uh, and then, after that we just kind
of goofed around with each other.

Everyone just made... we found little
quirky things to make fun of each other.

Alex's tan lines,

or something ridiculous like that.

And that's how things just went.

You know, you gotta find a way
to take the edge off.

ALEX: We even setup a...
like, a living room.

And we've setup TV in there,
we moved some cots around

and turned them into, like, couches.

My wife would send us,
like, gossip magazines.

At first it was kind of a joke,
like, why'd she send these to us?

No one's gonna look at 'em.

And before you know it, we'd be sitting
in our TV room thumbing through it,

and, you know, then it
became almost a need.

We were like,
"Did you get a new package?

'Cause we wanna see what's
going on with this celebrity."

The gossip magazines, uh, I refuse
to touch his gossip magazines.

I'm not interested
in what Britney Spears'

latest haircut is.

HAL: No one had smart phones.
You couldn't have cameras.

You can't have a lot of this stuff.

So you're reading, like,
Paris Hilton and...

you just need something else
to take your mind away

and, like, stimulate you somehow.

ALEX: That became a funny little
thing that we were doing.

Right before we would go down,
you know, go to bed,

we would, you know, throw a movie in

or a television series on a disc
and throw those in, watch some TV.

"Lost" was big at the time.

So we would get word
that we have to go on a mission

we're in the middle of an episode,

we would be like,
"No, we're in the middle!

How're we gonna know what happens?"

So, we would kid, like, All right.

Now we're really mad at these bad guys.

Right? Like, now they've really angered
us. They interrupted our show.

DAVE: It was always like, "Okay.
We're in this together."

I never had an experience like that.
Not like battalion.

FEMALE REPORTER: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,

this man is considered
by U.S. officials

to be more dangerous to post-w*r Iraq

than S*ddam Hussein ever was.

Zarqawi was pretty much
the number one guy.

You know, you had Bin Laden,
but Zarqawi was the big guy

everybody was trying to sh**t for.

They'd been going a lot for him.

He'd been there. He's running the show.

And on the deployment,
you know, he was k*lled.

Big news for U.S. Forces in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi was k*lled in a U.S.
airstrike Wednesday north of Baghdad

just outside the town of Baqubah.

MALE REPORTER:
U.S. officials say they found

a treasure trove of intelligence

at Zarqawi's safe house,
which they have already used

to launch at least raids
against Al-Qaeda militants

in and around Baghdad.

HAL: After Zarqawi got k*lled,

that shook up the leadership structure.

And that was about halfway
through our deployment

he got k*lled.

DAVE: Everyone was jumping
over each other to, like,

get the next high-value target.

Or, you know, on the other side,

to be the next Zarqawi.

And it made for a very
active deployment.

The first mission
it's a little frightening,

but once you get
that first one under your belt,

it's... I mean, it's game on after that.

It's like, you're going
after the people that...

that are coming after us.

ALEX: We were bringing the
fight to the bad guys,

and we were doing
Special Operations raids

on any known t*rrorists
that we could find.

Sometimes we would
get back from a mission,

put our stuff down,
only to put it right back on,

'cause we were going back out again.

MALE REPORTER: Fast, dark and
potentially very confusing...

pre-dawn raids are getting
to be about as routine

as having breakfast
for many U.S. troops.

We came there to do our job,

and we knew the risks
associated with that job

and... and that, you know,
that's what we wanted to do.

America needed someone
to be fighting this w*r

we wanted to be the ones doing it.

[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]

ALEX: This particular mission,

we were the primary as*ault,
my group was.

When we were on the helicopter,

I would just kinda say a little prayer

every single time we went out, I mean...

some of the guys may have seen me

kinda leaning down for one second...

"Please keep me and my
guys safe," kinda thing.

A little internal prayer.

Yeah, I'd pretty much do that
every single time we went out.

You know, it's funny. I never...

I never really
talked about that before.

But, yeah, there you go.

I took the lead walking out.

I can remember walking through fields,

um, and some light forest,

a lot of farm land.

And... and we landed quite a ways away.

DAVE: We did have to walk a distance.

I mean, that was mostly
for the element of surprise.

We wanted to make sure
that when we hit them,

we hit them hard.

HAL: There's probably like of us.

So us sneaking around,

you know, one guy could blow it.

And when you're on missions,
everything has to be perfect.

Everything has to be a hundred percent.

'Cause if you fail, you may cause
the death of somebody else,

or, you know,
an injury or what have you.

And nobody wants that on their
conscious or on them, like,

hey, I messed up
and this guy's paralyzed.

Or, this guy's dead.

You know, I'd rather be
the dead guy than that.

ALEX: We were getting
close, and the sn*per team

had moved up to get in front of us

so that they can start to set in.

I'd go in with one of the squads.

We had to cut through some
fencing, some wire to get through.

We went through a lot of trees.

And the whole time I was just like,

"We have to be quiet about this."

As we got closer,
I heard this loud noise.

I was just like, "Is that something
somebody's not telling us?"

Or something's going on?"

So as we got up to the chicken coop,

we noticed what the noise was

and it was a generator.

Really loud, too,
and we were just like,

"Wow, that was... that was pure luck."

It could've not been running.
It could've been dead.

You know, probably one of the only
things that runs correctly in Iraq.

I pulled security

while the other sn*per
went around, got the ladder.

We had intelligence
and stuff like that,

so, we knew a ladder
was already gonna be there.

So we used the ladder
on the actual target.

We didn't carry one in.

There was light on, too,

so as the other sn*per
went around, you know,

he was kinda exposed
to the actual guard.

But his back was turned to us
the whole time.

We were both pointed towards his back

and we let the platoon sergeant know,

"Hey, we're set."

The other guys, they'd
already been moving around

setting up their positions.

DAVE: My job is to make sure
that nobody gets in the fight

that shouldn't be in the fight.

It keeps the objective secluded from...

from anything that's outside

and it keeps outsiders

from getting into the objective.

It's a necessary role,
but there's no way around it.

Being in the back sucks.

It's like being on the sidelines
during the Super Bowl.

Like it just... it sucks.
You want to be upfront.

You wanna be the guy that's like
kicking the door down.

You wanna be the guy that's like
getting to the action.

But someone's gotta make sure
that the rest of the guys...

while they're not looking,
are being taken care of,

someone's watching over 'em.

On that mission...

on my overwatch was over the open field

between the chicken coop
and the village

just to make sure
that we didn't have any

insurgents coming in
from any other areas.

My group made a wide circle

around everyone.

To the back side of the building

that all of our enemy were located.

We decided we were gonna
enter that rooftop

from the external staircase.

I definitely remember being underneath

looking up at that building

and trying to keep my w*apon pointed up

while finding the staircase.

I'm looking right at the staircase,

I got my w*apon pointed
where if they leaned over,

you know, I could see 'em.

HAL: It seemed like it took forever

for Alex and his squad to setup,

and that's what we were
really worried about.

We're like, "The guard, he
doesn't know we're here yet"

But he... something's up.

He knows something's up.

He would sit on the ledge
and he would just

look up like this,

up at the sky and like,
around and stuff.

DAVE: Hal and his partner

are giving us the play-by-play.

So I'm listening to this
the entire time.

I'm making sure that my guys are setup

with their sectors of fire

just to make sure that I
keep them away from...

from what's about to happen.

ALEX: You know, at that point

Hal is talking to the platoon sergeant

and the platoon sergeant
gave him, um, the green light

to take out the... the guard

before the guard took my group out.

HAL: The platoon sergeant called up,

he's like, "Hey, everybody's set.
It's on you."

I congratulate our troops
on this remarkable achievement.

But the difficult and necessary
mission in Iraq continues.

We can expect the t*rrorists
and the insurgents

to carry on without him.

We can expect the sectarian
v*olence to continue.

Wednesday night's airstrike
swiftly and suddenly

decapitated the Al-Qaeda organization...

at least part of it,

and you can be sure that already

there are insurgents making moves

to be the next man in charge.

ALEX: We had done so many missions.

We were getting into, um,

different engagements with enemy often.

We had seen numerous
su1c1de bombers, uh,

numerous fire fights.

But it was kind of normal
at that point.

HAL: This deployment, we
were always going after

high-level guys, you know?

We didn't want low level

because those were replaceable.

You'd want to go after
the leadership guys.

And those guys were smarter,
they're mobile.

They're moving around a lot,

you know, and they're more dangerous.

ALEX: On this particular mission,

there's a number
of heavily-armed individuals,

and all of them were sleeping outside

with one guard awake.

The sn*pers were setup in buildings

directly across from us.

Right at about meters away.

They had a really good vantage point

of the whole chicken coop area

where the bad guys are.

Platoon sergeant called up,

he's like, "Hey, everybody's set."

So the other sn*per and I,
we, you know,

we did a three-two-one at the same time

- and sh*t, uh, the target.
- [g*nsh*t]

And he just flew off that lip
of the chicken coop.

ALEX: Hal, really good as a sn*per.

Very fortunate that, uh,

he was on this particular mission.

HAL: You know, I like it
when they trusted me.

I like it when they gave me
that responsibility.

And it would've hurt me
if I let them down.

You just don't want
to be a failure in general.

Especially in that environment
where we were at,

you know, Ranger Battalion.

You don't want to be the weak link.

We came from a sn*per platoon

where it was really dog-eat-dog.

It is very small 'cause they
were constantly f*ring people.

And that's what they told us.

You know, we will constantly have

somebody's head on the chopping block,

because that's how we get
the best out of people.

And, honestly, I like
that type of environment.

It definitely weeds out the weak,

and that's what you want.

DAVE: Hal is one of those guys

that I can count on
to deliver no matter what.

And those are the type
of guys in Battalion

that you want to surround
yourself with.

You don't want people that aren't
gonna hack it in... in Regiment.

HAL: You know, growing up
in Jackson, Mississippi,

by just running around
the woods hunting

or doing whatever,
and, you know, blow up stuff,

you know, do all that
childhood fantasy stuff.

Every weekend, it was,
"What're you gonna get into?"

You know, you had the Friday
night football games.

And then you'd go to parties
later, get in fights later.

Go out on the weekend, same stuff.

And I definitely wasn't a goody
two-shoes, by any means.

I'd read books about executive
outcomes, mercenary books,

stuff like that, and it was all about,

you know, this life
adventure going overseas.

You know, my senior quote was,

"It'll be something
to tell our grandkids about."

You know? I just don't
see the point in living

if you're just gonna do
what everybody else is doing.

The goal was always
to go to sn*per school.

To me it's just like a test of manhood.

You know, you got to test
yourself and push it.

It was that urge...
that insatiable appetite,

to go see that type of action.

What I was told coming to Regiment,

you're there, you engage,

you destroy and that's it.

And that's essentially,
you know, how it's done.

You know, this mission,
I think we're about

at our second month.

So we were kinda peaking.

We were getting to that place where

this is just another mission.

But you really
had to bring your "A" game

because they're a bunch of sharks.

You're in deep waters with sharks.

ALEX: Once Hal and
Alex, the sn*per team

were engaging,

everyone else on the rooftop,
of course, is now awake.

The surprise element's done.

We proceeded to engage
the other insurgents there.

And I know we got at least four guys.

There were seven up there.

As I was engaging, this one guy,

he was looking right at us,

myself and the other sn*per.

Our only concealment was the darkness.

And since we had the suppressors,

he couldn't see our muzzle flash.

I tried to... to really eliminate
that, but I couldn't.

[g*nsh*t]

I didn't find out till later,

but that he's behind a...

like, a little wall like this,

and only his eyes were showing.

And I was aiming, like,
two inches below his eyes.

I was aiming center mass,

so I was hitting the lip
right in front of him.

The platoon sergeant called up,
"Hey, lift fire."

The other guys
were about to as*ault the roof.

ALEX: My squad leader moves
into the spot right behind me,

and he pulls a grenade from my back.

At that point,

he is radioing
with our platoon sergeant

and the sn*per team in here
that, you know,

he's prepping to enter that roof.

Once it detonates,

that's the signal for all fires

from our other elements
to stop completely.

They're no longer engaging anyone

because we are gonna be
on top of that roof.

DAVE: That was my cue to
say, "Okay, we're in it."

I need to shift my guys

to cover the rest of the guys
going on that rooftop

"as quickly as possible."

What we didn't know

was that the grenade lodged
underneath a water t*nk.

And water is a great way
to absorb impact.

So, that grenade did nothing

but maybe give us a little bit of
element of shock or something.

But the down side is, it kinda told 'em

that we were coming up on the roof.

We got up there and we engaged

as fast as we could.

[g*nf*re]

We basically formed a line...

what we would call like a strong wall,

and we just started
walking towards them

to close the distance between us,

and the enemy had a lot
of firepower on that roof

and they were set up to fight.

They had magazines setup in a way

that they could do
mag changes very fast.

HAL: I just get down

because I need to keep
from getting stray rounds.

So my head was on the ground.

Like, I didn't know what was going on.

It's all happening so fast, too.

I mean, split seconds.

The muzzle flashes stopped.

ALEX: We were fortunate that day.

It's one of those you reflect back now

and then you take the time
to think about it

and you're like,
you know, we trained so hard,

and we worked so hard together,

and to see it
result the way we want it to.

It doesn't always happen like that.

Most Rangers you'll see
wearing a KIA bracelet.

It's just sometimes unavoidable,

um, you know, that we lose someone.

So, I'm certainly, you know, no hero,

but I was surrounded
by many heroes that day.

DAVE: Alex, when he first showed up,

he was different because he
had gone to college before.

We were a bunch of young dudes

trying to figure life out.

He already had a little bit
of experience under his belt.

ALEX: My father passed away
my freshman year of college.

Through college, I spent a
lot of time back and forth,

you know, to help
my Mom and sister out.

During all that time,

the m*llitary was just in my head.

So it was something that I...
I really wanted to do.

You know, that kind of incident
just drove me to it.

My brother who is a Marine
had, you know,

kind of tried to steer me
towards going in the Air Force

or... or the Navy.

You know, I didn't listen.

I wanted to try
and one-up him, if you will,

"So I was like," If I go in the Army

and then I try and go to
a special operations unit,

I can kind of, you know,
that brotherly rivalry.

So that was, I guess,
kind of what drove me

to the Army, you know,
as a final decision.

What I remember about
Ranger Indoctrination Program

is that was the worst part
of all the things I did.

I did not like that place. It was hard.

I mean, it was physically
demanding, of course,

but the selection process

is meant to drive out those
who are not the right fit.

So, I was very motivated to make it.

You're working with the best.

So, you're always trying
to be a part of the best.

And, you know, I...

yeah, absolutely loved
being around that group.

HAL: Once Alex and the other guys

eliminated the other
insurgents on the roof,

and I got the call, like,
"Hey, everything's good."

And we went down
the ladder and, you know,

there's a dead insurgent not far away.

There were two more enemy located
inside one of the buildings.

They had tried to sneak up

behind a part of Dave's element.

He was able to eliminate
one of them right away.

It sent a another one running

into a chicken coop building.

I'm bringing my team back around

the backside of the
objective at this point.

And because we don't know
what the insurgent is doing,

what he's got.

There was kind of like a main door.

I don't know what that
door was made out of,

um, I don't know
if it was steel or what,

but they had like three main...
just huge latches.

We were trying
to actually open it manually

and we couldn't.

ALEX: We did all our missions,
you know, at night.

We're doing a lot of raids

and our method of entry,
for the most part,

was an expl*sive charge.

We spent a lot of time
building the charges.

So we'd come home from mission,

we'd get out all the expl*sives

and build the charges.

So we were ready to go at anytime.

DAVE: I had my breacher,

set the charge to blow the door up

to get into the coop.

[CHICKENS CHATTERING]

DAVE: I was the first
one through the door.

But I couldn't see anything.

I saw just the cloud
of the expl*si*n still.

And so there was, like, debris,

chickens everywhere.

I wasn't expecting
that many chickens in the coop.

It was disgusting.

There was chicken poo everywhere.

It smelled horrible.

I thought I was gonna walk away
with some kind of disease.

When we were kicking
these chickens everywhere,

I was getting hit
in the side of the leg

by chickens getting kicked
by the guy next to me.

I was kicking chickens.

I mean, we were just punting
chickens everywhere.

There were support beams,
like, throughout the coop.

He was hiding behind one of 'em

and once we saw where he was,

I mean, after that it was...

I mean, it was just
everybody making sure

that we eliminated the target.

[CHICKENS CHATTERING]

HAL: The other sn*per and myself,

we get the ladder
and put it on the chicken coop

that Dave and his squad
had just cleared

and we're gonna pull
overwatch over the city

because we heard over coms that
people were coming out of the city

and actually
coming towards our position.

Usually people run away from us,

but these people were very aggressive,

and they were actually
coming towards us.

We had helicopters
circling our position.

They were armed with some g*ns
and some rockets.

They started to engage these...

all the armed fighters that
were approaching our position.

And they were having to come in very,
very low to do these g*n runs.

HAL: The other sn*per and myself,

we're on the other chicken coop

and we're running across that roof

to overwatch this field

to engage people coming towards us.

As this little bird was doing
g*n runs or engage in targets,

the guys coming out of the
village, there's a loud boom!

[expl*si*n IN DISTANCE]

And I see blue sparks everywhere.

One of the little bird helicopters

caught a telephone line

that you obviously
couldn't see in the dark.

HAL: And when it did that,

it set off all the rockets in the pods.

The pilots were smart enough
and experienced enough

to try and... they sh*t
them away from everybody.

So they landed out in the field
where none of the force was.

And then the primary
concern at that point

was the helicopter, the pilots.

The platoon sergeant then
immediately hops on the radio,

connects with one of the squad leaders

and we send one of the squads out

to make sure we secure the crash site.

ALEX: It had to have
been close to a mile out

as far as where
the helicopter went down.

We could hear a little bit of
activity g*nf*re in the distance.

They had a few enemy try and
kind of probe the position.

That squad began to treat the pilots.

The pilots were banged up but good,

so that was a welcome,
you know, radio call

to know they were okay.

DAVE: We knew that
things happen everyday

that change the plan.

We were always prepared
and ready to act in a way

that no matter what happened

we were still gonna make sure
that we were successful.

When I was a kid,

my Dad was always like,
"If you're gonna do something,

you're gonna be the best at it."

When I was in basic,
I wasn't challenged.

RIP challenged me.

I was excited
to sign a Ranger contract.

I had no idea what I was doing,

what I was gonna learn,

what I was gonna experience,
but I was like,

this is my chance to just
do the best that I could

and that I was gonna give it my all.

I grew up in Anaheim, California.

Both my parents are immigrants,
so they're both Mexican.

I was raised speaking Spanish.

I got a younger brother
and a younger sister.

So I was the oldest one.

My parents worked long hours,

uh, so... my mom had two jobs.

She'd clean houses on the weekends

and then during the week
she'd work her normal job.

And then my Dad was an
upholsterer who would work...

I mean, there'd be sometimes

seven days a week, six days a week.

My dad was always big on education.

And, you know, it's like,
"You need to go to college

if you're gonna make
something of yourself."

As I got older, I knew I
couldn't pay for college,

and so the only logical
option for me was,

"Well, I guess
I'm gonna join the Army."

I think it was wanting to be
a part of something bigger.

We knew that when the bird goes down,

you could pretty much squash any plans

of exfiling anytime soon,

and because you have villagers
trying to get into the fight.

By that point, it's find a job,

make sure that we're
providing good security

for the rest of the team,

and, basically,
just wait for the next move.

I had full view
of the rest of the field

that was in between the little bird

and the insurgent village.

I saw personnel coming in
and out of a main house

and it was the decision by higher-ups

to see what's inside that house.

DAVE: Our main objective
was done at this point,

except for the fact that we
had a downed little bird

and we had hostiles in the village

that we had to make sure
that we cleared.

HAL: We re-grouped and then
we went into the village.

A lot of people hideout
in those average towns.

You know, you overlook 'em.

Here's a main building we're
gonna go to and, you know,

everybody had their position,
what they were supposed to do,

and then we went into the city.

ALEX: There's so many missions

that you go to a particular location,

think that's where the target
you're looking for is,

it turns out it's another location.

Or this particular place
led you to a clue

to another place or something.

So it's common.

You know, we go in with a great plan

and it gets shifted,
your training takes over.

HAL: It's just machine-like.
You got to do your job.

That's it. It doesn't matter what
happens, what they throw at you.

At the end of the day,
"Is the job done? Yes or no."

And you need to say, "Yes."

When we got to the town,

we cleared some of the buildings.

In particular, one of the
buildings where we knew

one of the enemy

that was trying to move in
retreated to.

[SOLDIERS SHOUTING]

HAL: As they were clearing the house,

they found personnel in the house.

[SOLDIER YELLING]

He had two of his fingers sh*t off,

and there was a large hole in his shin.

It's more likely from the minigun

from the little bird.

He was not screaming...
was not anything,

he handled it very well.

Going in, yeah, we knew we
were gonna make contact.

That was well-known. But we'd been
making contact the whole time.

We were comfortable with it.

It's just kinda robotic
machine-like, you know?

This is the place for people

who want to run the razor's edge

and live an extreme lifestyle.

And people say, "Well, you could die."

Well, you know what?
Then your worries are over.

They looked through the house
and think they just got

him and a couple other people.

He wasn't gonna die. You know, there
was nothing life-threatening there.

And, uh, they, uh, you know,

you need him for information later.

I ran up on the roof
and setup overwatch...

and overwatch other rooftops,
other alleys, stuff like that.

Myself and another sn*per,

we see another guy
on a adjacent rooftop...

maybe yards away.

Our main force
was now down to street level.

We saw a weapons system.

So we set up and called over the net,

"Hey, we're about to engage this guy."

Some people need to be k*lled,
and that's how it is.

You know, that's just how the world is.

You know, there's social
taboos that say that's bad,

but really, I mean,

they're... there're just people
that need to go away.

And most people are not
comfortable with that.

The other sn*per and I did

a three-two-one sh*t.

If I don't get 'em, the other guy does.

He fell off the top of the
third story, you know,

and he was... he was expired.

So, we left the top of the
rooftop, went downstairs,

and prepared for exfil.

One of our advantages

was starting to disappear very quickly,

which was the cover of the night.

ALEX: Missions were
probably a couple hours.

like, we'd ride there,

do the mission assigned to us,

gather intelligence,
check our people, and leave.

It all happened very fast.

We were very precise
with how we did things.

And we all definitely
knew this one was...

it was continuing to drag on.

It's just an eerie feeling.

We're more vulnerable

and it makes it
more difficult for us to...

to keep everybody safe.

HAL: There's a lot of
things that were happening.

We weren't in control
like we usually are,

so we had to eliminate that.

We had to get out of there.

Wherever we go,
we want to be in total control.

ALEX: We moved out, um,

kind of through as much
tall grass and wooded area

as we could to an open field.

DAVE: We were waiting around for exfil

and I remember
this low-flying fighter jet

that just came down...
it was like a nosedive,

and it must've flown,

I mean, I felt like I could touch it.

It was a very surreal feeling.

[FIGHTER JET FLYING OVERHEAD]

It was like, this is the path to exfil.

That was probably the thing
that I remember the most.

I mean, every now and then,
I'd just look back

and I remember that feeling
of... of just American firepower.

And it felt awesome.

ALEX: I went out into the field

and held up a big florescent thing

that the helicopters could see
to kinda tell 'em where we were.

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

ALEX: As soon as they
landed, we hopped on

and got out of there
as quick as we could.

HAL: When you're in the bird
or riding in the doors,

you can let your guard down.

You're not operating
at a hundred percent

in a sense of, you know,

that the pilot's are mostly
in control right now.

DAVE: The rivers and the trees,

they just, like, pulls you out
of the fight for a little bit.

Then you get snapped back
into reality and you're like,

"Oh, well, except that, you know,

there's a lot of bad people
there, actually."

HAL: You know, this mission,
looking back, I guess,

everybody came together to perform

and it is a well-oiled machine.

It just... it ran
how it was supposed to run.

ALEX: This was a successful mission

from the standpoint that we all
made it out of there alive.

And I would say that with
any mission that you go on.

Y'all leave there alive,
it's a success.

DAVE: I think that in those
moments on that deployment,

I was around the best guys.

That mission without Alex,
would've been way different.

Without Hal, it would've
been way different.

You know, without the rest of the guys,

it would've been...

it wouldn't have been the same.

The Regiment's a special place.

It quenched my thirst for that...

that eagerness to be
a part of something bigger.

That was probably the...
one of the biggest...

or, it has been one of the biggest
impacts on my life still.

Does this mission change
anything about me?

I would say that there's...
every mission does...

my whole time in the m*llitary does.

HAL: And I tell guys, you know,

once you cross over the dark side,

you're not coming back.

And that's just how it is.

DAVE: I think I learned to
value things differently.

Then you're back home
and things look different.

They smell different.
It's not the same.

HAL: It's depressing within itself

because here you are around
all these guys,

and then it gets taken away from you.

You have to go back to a lot of people

who you'll never bond or relate to.

You notice from the instinct
they don't understand that.

They don't realize we'll never
be the same and as good.

We appreciate life so much more now

because we know how short it is.

You drive yourself crazy
trying to find that rush again.

[MUSIC PLAYING]