01x09 - Roberts Ridge

Episode transcripts for the TV show "The Warfighters". Aired: November 11, 2016 to present.*
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"The Warfighters" features first-person accounts chronicling recent U.S. Special Operations Forces missions in the global w*r on terror giving an inside and candid look at the realities of w*r.
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01x09 - Roberts Ridge

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(BELL RINGS)

Decision-making in these environments
is all... it's all instinct.

We decided to as*ault enemy positions.

And when we got to the top,

I could see what the enemy had up there.

It was a hard bunker.

We didn't know how many
enemy were in there.

So we couldn't continue to as*ault it.

MAN: They were prepared
and waiting for us,


so most of our advantage was gone.

MAN # : We were just
kind of pinned down


This is what you raise
your right hand for.

You want to be a ranger? It's time.

My name is Nathan Self.

I'm from... originally
from, Waco, Texas.

A little town outside of
Waco, called China Spring.

A real simple life. Hunt birds and fish,

and do pretty much anything
that we wanted to do,


as kids growing up.

Played a lot of sports, and,
uh, went to church a lot.


Just small town Texas stuff.

I went to the Academy at West Point,

It's a four-year college.

It's all m*llitary.

I chose to join the Infantry
coming out of there,


and so I was commissioned as Lieutenant.

But when I read the
book "Black Hawk Down"

I really was drawn to
wanting to serve in that unit.

The Army Rangers.

My first impressions of the rangers
were that they were all really fit.


There were several guys in the platoon

that ran their two miles

in under nine and a half minutes.

I thought I was a decent runner,

at around minutes,

and I was in my old unit,

when I got there it wasn't even close.

So, I was a bit intimidated
by the physical abilities

of some of these guys.

And then, from a tactical perspective,

they had been doing things
that I'd never done before.

That was tough for me,
kind of on the inside,

to know how to get
by, in that environment

and... and gain respect.

(SIRENS WAILING)

SELF: I remember on September th,

I was listening to the radio,

and there was this news bulletin

that an aircraft had flown
into the World Trade Center.


When I got to the platoon,

they were watching stuff on TV,

and then we watched together,
uh, the second aircraft

fly into the second tower.

I was actually on CQ,

basically a guy sitting at a desk,

outside the barracks.

And it was just like, "Wow,
what is going on here?"

And I remember everybody
else went to the range,

and I said there and watched everything,

and when everybody came back,

I remember giving them updates.

(SIRENS WAILING IN THE DISTANCE)

I remember one guy called,

and said, "Hey guys, I know what
you're getting ready to go do.


He says, "I just want to say,

'Hey, get some. I'm with ya.'"

FEMALE REPORTER: As America's
offensive in Afghanistan pounds


Taliban targets from the air,

some U.S. troops have already
been sent in on the ground,


And not just any troops.

The U.S. Army Rangers.

FEMALE REPORTER # : Rangers
conduct raids...


(expl*si*n)

search and rescue missions,

they are fast and elusive.

They are often the
first ones in and out.


We can go anywhere in the world,

at any given time, any given day,

and accomplish any mission given to us.

MAN: Our Special Operations Community

are a very tight-knit group,

that when you ask us to do a mission,

you know, we're gonna do it.

We're gonna take it out,

you're gonna carry on to
the best of our ability.

(HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING)

SELF: From the moment we stepped foot

on the ground there, in Afghanistan,

I just remember seeing...
all the mountains around,

all the wreckage of the tanks,

and the MiG fighters,

and it was just, uh, kinda eerie.

You know, the terrain

mixed with these skeletons of...

you know, the previous w*r.

VELA: We get off the bird,

Third Range Battalion gets on the bird,

takes off, and they're...
greeted us very kindly saying,

"Make sure you don't get
off the tiles and stuff,"

because there were still a lot of,
uh, mines that were in the area,

trying to mess with us and say like,

"You get off, you're gonna get blown up

by all the Russian mines

that we had left...
that they had left behind

back when the, uh, the Russians

had invaded Afghanistan, so...

that's how we were
greeted, so... (LAUGHS)

MICELI: We built a little makeshift gym

in the basement of, uh, a building.

Path going out to there,

path going to a little place
to lay out and get some sun,

and you know, make things
as normal as possible.


SELF: The mission that were were given,

that was a nonstop mission,

was to be a quick Reaction Force

for our task force.

That's kind of like the First
Responders here on call all the time.

MICELI: We were assigned

to the Special Op teams over there,

and if something happened, or went down,

something went bad, we
would be recalled quickly


to go in and pull guys out

you know, add security on the ground.

Whatever it may be,

just to have a jack-of-all-trades.

I was working on route planning,

or planning zones, or
something like that,

and I heard over the radio

some traffic about one of our aircrafts.

I heard them say that
they were going down,


or that they had just gone down

and crashed.

Hearing that an aircraft that had
flown out of our compound was down,

there was no denying,
there was no escape,

there was no one else that would...

would respond to that call.

Someone had the predator
feed on the big screen


of the downed aircraft.

There were men walking
around the aircraft,


the aircraft was in the snow.

So, you could see, like,
where you were going,

and it was a weird feeling.

And then, there was this other mission

that came in at the same time,

which was we have a
missing American somewhere.

It was really confusing at that point,

we have our mission, that's
our aircraft on the ground,

but there's a missing person somewhere.

Don't know if it's related to this,

if it's completely unrelated,

but it's really important

if we have somebody
that's missing in action.


I really didn't like the
idea of having two missions

that were potentially divergent,

but I was told, specifically that,

"You've got to plan for
both of these missions."

So, I just left the
Joint Operations Center,


and ran down to where our tents are,

and I told them,

"Hey get up, we have a mission."

I mean, this is what we
did, we trained all the time,

b*at ourselves up constantly for it,

and we get to do what we do.

It's only a matter of time.

VELA: I was pulling
guard with my gunner,


that's when we noticed
all the vehicles moving,


and then another
Ranger coming to get us.

The only thing we knew
is that we had men down,


And we have to get
up there to help them.

SELF: Right before we were gonna load

to fly away, someone walked up and said,

"I need one of these two Chinooks,

because we gotta get fuel down

to the b*ttlefield."

I didn't like that.

I was planning on
Rangers, or something,


to secure this aircraft, that we
would get cut down to or .


Talk to Arin Canon, who was my
second-in-command at the time,

and said, "Try to see if
you need another Chinook,

and get down there with us."

And he said he would.
Before we flew away,

I heard Arin Canon call me on the radio

and said, "Hey, we found
another Chinook, we're on board.

We're coming with you."

So, I felt great.

(HELICOPTERS WHIRRING)

SELF: As we're going down from Bagram

to this b*ttlefield,

I'm talking on the radio

from the aircraft, back to our job,

trying to figure out
what the real mission is.


He said, "We don't know yet,

we're still trying to sort it out.

Just fly down to the area."

MICELI: There would have
been more information


had we had more information
at certain times.


You get what you need to do your job.

I mean, the big picture,
that's up to Nate.

He... he takes care of the big picture,

and that's just the way it's set up.

SELF: We lost radio contact
with our trail aircraft,


which had Arin Canon,

and the other half the Rangers.

We couldn't talk to
them, they didn't respond,

couldn't see them behind us anymore,

which is very dangerous
if you're flying that low

in between the mountains.

Thirty seconds!

MICELI: More information's
already coming in


that maybe the mission was gonna change.

SELF: The pilots started
to circle this mountain.


Kinda leveled off, and nose up flared,

it went right into this mountain peak.

Probably feet off the ground.

You could feel the rotorwash
coming up into the aircraft,

and the kind of the grainy, snowy air

come flushing through the aircraft.

And then, immediately I hear,

the right door gunner start sh**ting.

(ALL SHOUTING)

There was so much commotion.

You could feel the...
the b*ll*ts going by.

SELF: You could feel the helicopter

kind of jolt to the left,
and then just, um...


(LOUD CRASH)

(g*nshots)

SELF: I was on my back and I could see

tracer rounds coming through
both sides of the aircraft.

I didn't know what was
going on at the time

because I didn't see out before that.

But I did roll to my stomach,

and I looked out from the front

of the aircraft all the way down
the Chinook and out the ramp,

and I just saw most of our Rangers

were just in a pile.

Marc Anderson on my
right was already dead.


The door gunner across from me

on the left was already dead.

The door gunner touching
me on my left side,


had his leg broken with
a machine g*n round.


And I wasn't hit in the
middle of these three guys.

Two of them were k*lled.

And, so...

It's hard to make sense
of that kind of stuff.

You know, even years beyond, um...

There were two Rangers dead on the ramp.

Brad Gross and Matt Collins.

Brad was faced down in the snow,

his arms were to his side.

His feet were still in the ramp.

And then Matt was lying
across the ramp face up.


I didn't know it at the time,

but there was someone

on the left side of the aircraft

that was sh**ting right across the ramp,

and so they had a... a perfect position

to hit every person as
they came out of there,

and I just happened to
fall under the burst.

(LOUD expl*si*n)

As I stepped off,

it was probably knee-deep snow.

My first step, I hit the ground.

I just tumbled face-forward.

Went to fire my w*apon,
and it didn't work.


I noticed part of my
laser was hanging off.


And then it was like,
"Oh, my SAW got sh*t."


RPG came by.

Took my r*fle before I could touch it.

Ditched the SAW, couldn't use it.

And went back up,

and got one of the causalities weapons.

SELF: I remember just thinking,

"The sun hasn't even come up,

and we are gonna be here all day."

And I think the reason
why I thought that was


because I didn't feel
like there was any reason


why anyone would bring
an aircraft in there

to support us during the daytime.

It's just too dangerous.

At that point, we were
just kind of pinned down.

You can't get up and run

because they're still sh**ting at you,

and there's nowhere to run to anyway.

SELF: And then one of the pilots

kind of dropped out of the cockpit,

said he couldn't feel his leg,

thought his leg was blown off.

We told him put your leg in the snow,

and he had a r*fle,

he'd just protect that
part of the aircraft.

MICELI: Some time had gone by.

Not sure exactly how much.

There was no cover around the bird,

everything was, uh, was pushed
off to the sides on the ridgelines

that were surrounding us,

and at that point, you couldn't
have as*ault those ridgelines

because you didn't know what
was on the other side of them.

But to see the b*ll*ts tumbling

after they would hit
the rocks around me,

and I'm like, "This isn't gonna work,

I'm dropping down into this depression."

And... stayed there.

I was a lot more
protected at that point.

SELF: Miceli at this point,

essentially covered the whole rear side

of the aircraft

and the left side of the aircraft

from his one position.

I didn't worry about it.

I just felt confidence in knowing that

if there's one guy that's gonna
take care of all that for us,

then that's fine.

That's him.

Tony's a guy that, when I came to
know him, seemed to get hurt a lot.


And so you take him
coming off the aircraft,


and his w*apon,

getting sh*t up all in his hands,

and he doesn't get wounded,

and the motto was, "No one
can k*ll Miceli but Miceli."

VELA: Well, the guy
belly flopped off of...


a fast-moving boat at one point,

and belly flopped into
the... to the river,

and he had to get a spleen operation...

'cause he ruptured it.

He was just an accident-prone guy,

'cause he's such a nut.

MICELI: I had a reputation
of getting into everything.


If something was gonna happen,

it was gonna happen to me.

My old man laughs about it now.

He's like, "I just didn't think

you were gonna make it out, man."

(LAUGHS)

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri.

Three older sisters, tortured.

I wore dresses, I wore makeup,

it was, uh, it was awful.

I wrestled for a while
until I found booze.


And then it was pretty much
partying, and the rest of that.


I wasn't bad, I just did stupid things,

and I think that kind
of fits the reputation

that everybody else knows of me.

I just run through life, face-first.

I joined the army while
I was in high school.


And my recruiter in the
Army actually was a Ranger


who was in Desert Storm,

and we got to talking about that,

and as soon as we started
getting into the details

I was like, "Oh, yeah,
that's what I want to do."

That's what I want...
that just fits me perfect.

I remember showing up.
You're a brand new private.


And you get crushed.

The whole Ranger experience just...

basically getting... the
crap knocked out of you.

It makes you harder in
a better way, you know?

There's... there's a reason for it,

that you don't understand until later.

SELF: I really felt like the mission

of the downed aircraft,

the mission of the missing American,

those missions were irrelevant.

I just kind of felt
like were were alone,

and we were getting sh*t at.

Meanwhile, a couple guys

were talking to aircraft overhead,

and within a few minutes, he told me

that he had a pair of F 's

that had bombs, and they
were ready to drop bombs.

Well, the enemy was really close to us,

I mean, we were... -
meters from each other.

You don't drop -pound
bombs that close to yourself,

so I said, "None of that
right now. We don't want that."

And he said, "Well, what about g*ns?"

And I said, "That sounds good."

I'd been to a few air shows growing up,

you know, as a child,

and sometimes the Blue Angels
will do these low flyovers.

That's kind of what it felt like.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Where's...
where's that other aircraft

with more Rangers on it?

Where's Arin Canon
and that other squad?"


We haven't heard from them.

VELA: Our main goal

was to get to the top of the mountain.

So, whatever they're
throwing at us right now,

it's basically, "Hey, get up. Get down.

Continue to move.

Move.

Move. Continue. We
have to get up there."

There is no easy way to do it.

Because under that snow is jagged rock.

SELF: When they landed,
Arin Canon called me,


and he got up on the radio,

and said, "Hey, we're on the ground.

Where are you? We're
gonna come to you."


Right around that time,

we also started hearing water rounds
being fired off, in the distance.

And they started coming
in on our position,

which meant that there was a coordinated

kind of enemy, uh, effort,

and they were trying to
bring an indirect fire on us,

and put pressure on us.

(expl*si*n)

The first set of rounds
didn't land on us,

it landed, um, I think behind us,

the next set went over us,

and so, from an a*tillery perspective,

that's how you do it.

I mean, you bracket to your enemy.

It's like sh**ting free throws.

If you're long, the next
one needs to be short,

and then the next one
might be in the middle,

and then you keep sh**ting there.

We decided to move all the
causalities into the aircraft,


so that the shrapnel
blast wouldn't hit them.


We decided we would
just hold what we had

until the other group
of Rangers got to us.

VELA: I was the assistant gunner.

And a*mo Bear.

So, I had not only my w*apon,

but over -
rounds of the amm*nit*on

to supply for the g*n.

Plus the body armor,
I was probably carrying

anywhere from - pounds of gear.

It definitely was slow-moving

because of the terrain
and because of the snow.

Me, Miceli, and Marc Anderson
did a crazy leg workout


the night before.

We were doing all these
types of different...

you know, lots of reps on squats

and we'd get down on the floor

and do different elevated
leg raises, flutter kicks.

So, we were just doing a circuit.

I remember Marc specifically saying,

"Vela, are you trying to k*ll my legs?

Or what the hell, man? I'm
just... this is my first workout


I've done with these, come on."

You know.

So... what I thought climbing up, is,

one, (SCOFFS). "My legs are crazy
smoked because of that workout.

Two, how are Marc's
legs feeling right now?

Because if mine are feeling sore,

man, I wonder how the heck he does,

cause he hadn't been working out

with us during that time."

MICELI: Omar and I are
pretty good buddies.


He's one of those guys,

that no matter what he's doing,

he's gonna make you laugh.

Just listening to him
talk about anything,

the way he talks about
it, makes you laugh.

He played football in high school.

Yeah, I was always looking at him.

Yeah, how do I get big? I wanna get big.

He'd give me tips and
we'd work out together.

And that was kind of our routine there.

VELA: I went to Baylor University,

and I graduated there
with a B.A. in Biology,


I was pre-medicine.

But a year before graduation,

uh, I started wanting to push myself

and challenge myself,
physically and mentally.

Then I started looking at the
different branches of the m*llitary,

from the Navy, to the
Army, to Special Operations.

What were the differences between them?

I decided on the Army,

I went right to the recruiter,

and I said, "Hey, I
wanna Ranger contract."


You know, they really came at you hard,

as far as trying to test your mental.

You know, test you...

"Do you realize that going
into the Ranger Battalions

is a way of life?

Halfway through, Nate Self
radioed back to our chop leader.


You know, the sense of
urgency was really kicking in

a little bit more.

Especially when, you know,

we weren't making the time hacks.

SELF: I called Arin and
said, "Where are you?"


And he said, "We're in really
deep snow, we're moving slowly."

Forty-five minutes passed,

and the more the fire
started to increase.


You know they're coming,

you can hear them come out to you.

(LOUD POP)

(g*nf*re)

I remember just trying to make myself

as small as possible.

Squeeze myself into the ground.

If I could have crawled under a penny,

I could have crawled under a penny.

SELF: I kind of feel
like, this is a position


where if... if the motor
fire comes in on top of us ,


with a lot of volume

we're gonna be in bad trouble.

And so, when that happened,

I told three or four of the Rangers

that were there with me

to get ready to move and att*ck.

(g*nf*re CONTINUES)

MICELI: The things that were
going through my mind were just


not worry, not fear, just kind of like,

all right, here we are.

Let's get this over with.

SELF: There was one big tree

that we were calling the
Bonsai tree at the time.


There was a guy that
came out from around it,

and fired at us and went back

and I noticed that
he was down into a pit

at the base of this tree

and that there were logs

that had been latched
together with rope,

and that there was fresh foliage

that was put over the top of it, so...

It was a hard position.

My instincts just told me

this is not... this isn't right.

So, I said, "Get back."

The reaction of the
Rangers that were with me


was kind of like, "Are you kidding?"

It felt a bit cowardly when it happened.

Decision-making in these environments
is all... it's all instinct.

It's... it's not easy.

I remember at West Point,
when we started there,


they had this honor code where
it was really black and white.


You don't lie, cheat, or steal.

Those kinds of things.

And it's really clear

when someone's done something wrong,

and so the cases they presented us with

were pretty easy.

And that's not the
kind of decision that...

that I'm talking about
on the b*ttlefield,

and I can say that

the experience that you have

builds an intuition inside of you

that you have to rely
on in those situations

because you... you have
to make decisions where

you won't know for years if it
was the right or wrong decision.

You might not know for your whole life

if it was the right or wrong decision,

but something has to push
you one way or the other.

They were prepared and waiting for us,

and they ambushed us and had us

in a really bad position.

We are the elite,

and we're essentially
up against the ropes.

SELF: It definitely felt wrong

that we were so highly trained,

so well-equipped, and so cohesive as
a unit to be in such a bad position.

This shouldn't be happening.

At that point I needed
a different solution


that I can't really as*ault again

unless I get more
firepower on the bunker.


So, I called the... back to Arin

and said, "How much longer?"

"Probably another minutes." Right?

So, I'm getting pretty
frustrated at that...

so, the only way I can get
more firepower on the bunker

is to drop bombs on the bunker?

Which was the original offering

from the aircraft, that we had
pounders that we can drop,

but there wasn't meters of you.

We typically in training

would want that to be
- , meters out,

so your likelihood of your
own causalities is pretty high,

even if they hit the target.

I heard the combat controller
talking on the radio to the Predator,


and I asked him to see if it's armed,

and he called back and told me
it's armed and has two hellfires,

and I said, "sh**t
them into the bunker."


Fired the first hellfire.

It was a little off target.

Something in me said, "Hey,
I want to look at this,

I want to watch this expl*si*n."

And I... I caught the brunt of it.

I just remember hot rocks
just blasting all of my face.


It felt like they were sticking
to me, so I had to brush them off,

but it was... it was something
that I needed to see, I don't know.

And then fired the second hellfire,

and it went right into the bunker

that we were assaulting,
and basically blew it up.

Then the guy that was up on
the radio talking overhead,

he called over to me and said,

"Hey, I'm talking to a SEAL team there

that's down the mountain from us.

They said, 'Don't sh**t that way

'cause they're down there.'"

At that point I realized,

that was probably the SEAL team

that was asking for us to come in.

But I said, "Okay, got it.

We're down here, you're up there.

Let's make sure we
don't sh**t each other."

And that was it.

At the same time,

the mortar rounds that
were landing around us,


were shifting down
toward the other Rangers,


and so the pressure on
us was a bit alleviated.


If they could get to us, then
we could complete our as*ault.

VELA: I remember there was a point

when the mortar rounds were coming,

and I remember getting down at one point

and looking and seeing
a mortar round land...

it had to have been, about, you know,

maybe meters away, if that.

And it just went (THUMP) into the snow.

And it didn't do anything,
and I was just like "Huh."

And I just got back
up and started moving.

MICELI: The linkup was
uh, it was difficult.


You know, A, they were coming
from a different direction


than we thought they were coming from.

B, just the terrain,
trying to... you know,

they're down here, there's
rocks, we're in depression...

It came down to throwing
a bunch of snow in the air,

"Can you see us throwing
snow in the air?"

And then, finally, yeah,
everybody just, you know, filed up,

past our position first,
and they just looked crushed.

It was a high mountain

just walking from point to point

up on top of it b*rned your lungs.

The altitude was k*lling us.

I almost felt bad
because I'm sitting there,

you know... almost
laying down in the borne

leaning up against the
rock relaxed almost.

And these guys just...
just k*lled it coming up.

VELA: Once we linkup, there was no rest.

It's time to go.

We just started laying down fire

onto the bunker,

while two squads came around

to flank onto the bunker himself,

and to try and sweep him through.

MICELI: It felt like a sh**ting gallery.

They'd go from the bunker to a tree.

And would just take
them down as they'd go

or they'd get to the tree,

and we'd wait till they pop out.

You fire, I fire, You fire,
I fire, You fire, I fire...

and that's when our guy swept through

and eliminated the rest of
the insurgents up there.


Regardless of how many
hours we had been walking,


it didn't matter, they
were no match for us.


We overwhelmed them.

SELF: I got a call from Arin Canon,

who had moved up with that squad,

right at the edge of the bunker.

And he said, "Hey, sir,
you need to get up here,

we have a... we have a blue causality."

I'm thinking someone got hurt, somehow.

When I started walking up there

to the top of the mountain

I saw a pair of boots.

A guy was laying out in the snow

right at the edge of that bunker

that we had fought
against the whole morning.

And when I got to him, I recognized
he wasn't a part of our team,

and he was an American, and he was dead.

And... when I got to Arin,

I said, "Where did this guy come from?"

He goes, "I don't know."

We weren't sure what was
going on at that point.


And we found another
American in the bunkers.

And he was in the bunker that
we had hit with the hellfire


so he was down under

a bunch of brush and everything.

A lot of thoughts
running through my head.

Like, I'm thinking,
"These guys were captured,

and brought here, and no one knew that.

Why are there two guys here

that we didn't know were here?

They were here before us.

Did we k*ll them...

when we were dropping bombs
and sh**ting up in here?"

Something sour went on here.

I don't know how this happened.

SELF: We start trying to find out

who these two dead Americans are,

that are in the midst of this position.

Arin and a couple other guys

were able to pull personal effects,

and find out the names of the two guys.

My combat controller called a SEAL team

that was down on the low ground again

and said, "Yeah, they
came from our team."

Everything came into clarity for me.

One of these guys was Neil Roberts,

the man that was originally missing

that was potentially
part of our mission.

This is the SEAL team
that was calling us in.

Now, it's kinda starting
to make sense for me.

But, I mean, we're four or five hours

into the fight, and I had no idea

that those guys were up there.

So, it was very
disruptive for me to know


that we were sh**ting into that position

and f*ring and dropping bombs

into that position knowing
that they were there.

We found out that, hey, all the enemy

had been eliminated in the bunker,

all enemy to the rear
has been eliminated.

We're clear, we're good to go,

to move openly, to move freely.

That's when the command comes out

to start to collect the casualties.

Where they had set up a
consolidation was brutal.

I mean, you just had
to stop every couple...

you know, , ,
feet to catch your breath.

There was even a point
when we were consolidating,


that the pastor said, he said, "Man,

that look... that's Anderson."

He's like, "I can't
believe that's Anderson."

And I'm like, "Man, we can't
think about that right now."

There's time to think about that later.

My sister's joke about
me being coldhearted,


but I don't think it has anything

to do with that.

You got to be able to
turn your emotions off

to do your job, because it's what we do.

I mean, it's not a pretty job sometimes.

VELA: They had tried to do
a trauma attention to him.


But it was a direct sh*t to the side.

It went through his body armor

and immediately hit his heart.

I remember looking at Marc,

you know, called his name, you
know, once but that was about it.

Then as were moving casualties up,

I remember all this g*nf*re

came up from behind the aircraft.

(expl*si*n ROARS)

Everyone just kind of hit the deck.

Well, another group
had snuck up below us

and had set in an ambush.

It was bad.

We called the Air Force again,

and got bigger bombs and
dropped them all around

where the enemy was.

We tried to contract our position

as tight as we could and
dropped more ordnance


around us to try to keep anyone

from trying to get up that mountain.

That went on for a long time

trying to move people
to get them to safety.

That was a tough part of the fight.

I didn't know it at the
time, but a pararescue jumper


that was on my aircraft,
Jason Cunningham,

Corey Lambrow the flight medic

were both sh*t in the abdomen

as they were working on casualties.

So, we had two of our
medical personnel down.


We started asking somehwere
around noon or :


for a medevac aircraft to get them out.

They did not want to do a daytime exfil.

They couldn't... they didn't want to...

they didn't authorize it, so.

SELF: You've got guys that you think

are gonna die if they don't get

high level medical attention

in the next two or three hours.

It's a really tough thing
to... come to grips with

when they're right there next to you

and they're still alive.

I was irritated, because,
you know, it was cold

and we were tired and lost guys

and we had casualties and
we had to get these guys out.

But you also understood, you
can't get more casualties.

I mean, to lose more guys

would just make the
situation so much more worse.

SELF: After a period of several hours,

Jason Cunningham started to
take a turn for the worse.

He started to slip away

and then he d*ed in our midst.

Then I called in and reported

that we had lost one, and that was it.

SELF: I wonder if I
did a good enough job


of painting the picture as to what
the situation on the ground was,


because it was completely different

once we took the mountain
with them before.


And I feel at times a lot of guilt

around whether I
communicated well enough

to get those guys out.

I've thought about whether

I should have lied to
manipulate the situation.


I'm still not sure if I had tried

to manipulate that decision,

if I could have
manipulated that decision.

And I've been told that I couldn't have.

We paired up everyone,

I didn't really want guys alone.

I didn't want their minds
to do things to them.


You know, I wanted them
to have someone to be with,

the kind of Ranger buddy mentality.

VELA: Then came the
waiting game to leave,


but that's when you started
to really, you know, feel it,

as far as, man, we're getting
pretty, pretty tired up here.

MICELI: There's MREs
and we'd split them up.


Dropped some M&Ms in the dirt.

I'm like, "Oh, man,
listen. I don't care."

So, I'm digging through the dirt

just to get these things.

And... somebody said,

"You have no idea what's
on this ground here."

And I'm like, "I don't
really care, either.

This M&Ms' going in my mouth."

It's one of those things.

And the cold was just horrible.

We were spooning just to keep warm,

and then wrapping up with, you know,

a map to try to keep ourselves warm.

(HELICOPTER WHIRRING)

The snow had started to freeze on top.

You would step on it,

and feel secure, and
you'd break through.


Whoever I was carrying,

I dropped him like, three times.

And I remember the guy's
like, "Hey, damn it man."

I'm like, "I'm sorry,
man. I'm so sorry."

He's like, "No, it's okay, I get it."

I just remember dropping that guy

and just feeling
terrible, 'cause, you know,

he was wounded and
to make matters worse,

I'm throwing him on the ground.

SELF: The first Chinook that went out

had the guys that were wounded.

And the second Chinook that went out

had the guys that were still able

to walk around and were okay
plus the k*lled in action.

So, when I got on that aircraft,

I moved all the way up to the front,

sat down next to Arin Canon.

We were just trying to make space,

and I think I just sat down

in between his legs

and leaned back on him the same way.

And just went into a
little daze as we flew off.


And I heard my platoon sergeant

get on the radio and...
and he asked Arin


where's the platoon leader.

And I keyed my mic and I said,

"I'm in between his legs."

And I didn't mean for that to be funny,

but as soon as that
came out of my mouth,

I knew that probably was
not sounding too good.

You know, I think that mission itself

is emblematic of a creed.

If someone is in need

that you're gonna go help him.

Neil Roberts was a SEAL

that was missing and essentially

the man that we went to get

that we wouldn't leave behind.

And a lot of people kind of
scratch their heads as to say

"We had one missing
and we lost six more?"

But you have no way of knowing

that you're going to lose
six or going to get one.

VELA: That day shaped me.

The going up the mountain,

the stress that it put on your body.

There's nothing that will ever...

and after that, come on,
you know, what else you got?

The whole "I wanna get out and k*ll,

I wanna get out and get these guys,"

at least for me, that was gone.

I slayed my dragons.

I always thought that, you
know, guys that went out


and did stuff and nothing bad happened

always came away with
a different attitude


of "Yeah, that's awesome."

Compared to, you know, hey,
it's not always awesome.

You know, there's bad
stuff that can happen.

The next day, I was cleaning my g*n

outside in the back, that's
when it started to hit me.


These guys are gone.

SELF: I remember just
sitting on the bunk,


and probably some blood on my pants,

the chaplain came in and told me

to get out of those pants.

Put some clean clothes on

and, you know, kind of
get out of that state.


We went to Afganistan to
k*ll or capture people.

I can say for the most part,

my role in that wasn't significant.

But when given a mission to
bring back one of our own,


there's nothing more
important than that.

There's several men that d*ed there

that have families.

You had young kids at the time

that don't have their fathers

and I think it's important
that we tell these stories

and that we remember that these men

gave their lives for another man.

You know, I think that
is a very special thing

about... about who we are

that I don't want people to forget.
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