For the 25

you [Music] happy birthday happy birthday to your right starting off at your right you got I'm shot I'm will Matt hey Casey Kevin Cameron Jake John I'm Sally happy birthday Vanessa [Music] you [Music] for a while it's kind of like a joke throughout our team that nobody wanted patrol next to me because multiple occasions I was like the guys standing to my left or right we get shot so people were before with like now you know what you go with Nexus Smith like people would get shot next to him like let's like you know if you think smart here I'm like come on guys like we don't know what patrol next to me is my friends like you or the camera me and my wife will be married seven years in April and then my daughter's three years old and my other daughters turning one this month so yeah I'm originally from California and raised there all my schooling there enlisted in the military the station there like you know California is my home what do I introduce myself as alright film student veteran how about your slogan oh that's a tough question I don't even know the answer to that to be honest with you I guess I was called thousands of years from all the different cultures there's always been a group of people that's always been set apart there's the warrior class when you're in the middle like they drill things in your head to get you all pumped up ready to go and you're around your buddies and you're all thinking the same thing so yeah you get all excited and I was it was Kevin Kevin Matt Smith Corey Jordan I think there were five of us and so we made the decision me and my friends we changed battalions we went from two five over to 35 and because we knew they were going to Afghanistan and pretty much all of us I think felt we needed to like prove ourselves and just kind of like get our stripes you know so I all I wanted to do was get pretty much get into a gunfight right away I was like there's no way I'm signing up in the Marine Corps out of all the military branches I was like huffing a hot you know I got to go to some combat zone that kind of kind I wanted to experience or I guess when we came over from 2:5 and we were only like four or five months before the deployment and these guys have been training together for about a year they had deployed together and I didn't know how we were gonna fit in if they were gonna be pissed off that we were coming in their platoon they were glad to have us and you know we right off the bat we were pretty close with everybody there and it was one of those group of men that you become really close with like the chemistry that we all had like it just clicked I mean we had guys come from the East Coast and why because there's just a bunch of snipers who wanted to go to Afghanistan and I think that mentality bonded us together then what really hit me was about a week before deployment was the battalion commander did a gear inspection of the whole battalion and at first it's like dude was gonna take like three years you know first gotta get through all this gonna take forever so he's coming around and he's really not checking he knows the Marines have the gear he just wants to look at him and kind of when he looked at me and shook my hand and asked me if I was ready to go that's what it really hit me because I was like wow like this guy's looking me in the eye and he's telling me he's like dude were going over I could just feel it he's like we're going over to there's gonna be some bad [ __ ] going down over here you know I thought it was gonna be easy you know like video games or movies it wasn't we took a lot of casualties right away I think we took it was nine in either two or four days there's something awful like that and it was that was right at the beginning of the deployment and then experiencing that off the bat you knew or you had the feeling that that could be like that the whole time and there was a possibility that there wouldn't be very many people going home hi Amanda just got back from Patrol I'm gonna go through my gear real quick for you and your brothers right here I have eight magazines with five five six and then I carry my two tourniquets so I can grab them out really quick if I need to got two frags got my pig-sticker then I got my medical shears for cutting off sleeves and pant legs for when we have to put tourniquets on I'll get the broom got a smoke here usually but I just threw it today on today's patrol so it's not there right here I have my comm my comm just stick this in my ear right here and then I just talked normally and I just got a press a little button down here and I where they don't see me like I really look important or anything then right here I got my laser rangefinders I'm a Camelback right here it has my emergency pistol in it them right here is my eye FAC with all my medical supplies in it I think you got shot at your first patrol didn't you I've even gone Petrolia we were driving into the base and the guy on the turret the gun on top of the trucks and stuff he was just standing up and the guy from the other battalion was like hey you know we've had some sniper fire here so you might want to sit down and he sits down as we're going up the hill just just a round hits right on the shield where he was at like oh crap you know like we're already getting shot at I think we were at the base we landed like mil night and then the next day we were like bullshitting with the British guys just like hanging out and I just know were seeing a bullet like right in between the two like hooches like the little fortified like living areas that we had like right in the middle dally to skip on the ground the first day the first 24-hour period I was there bullets came in the fob yeah almost came in the base of those first 24 hours I was before we even knew where we were going just as dusk smoking a cigarette like that just happen and everybody in our section all the snipers just ran straight to our base or right to our hooch grabbed all of our gear and ran straight up to the wall that's when it hit real for me is like okay they're out there literally are our first mission there's our first time going out the wire do that's like really really early in the morning like 0-3 or 0-4 and we were kind of we were in this cornfield and we saw the two like team leaders I guess you would say of that like insurgent group and they had like their aks and their radios and they were pointing like where they were gonna set up and stuff and so we initiated contact and took out the two team leaders and then in just all hell broke loose and then with the enemy on that point they started maneuvering around us and just like getting us into a 180 and that's when I knew like this is gonna be a whole different ballgame I mean it's the very first day four hours into the day and you're already two clicks away from any help and you're getting cut off and surrounded and moved on by the enemy at 7:00 in the morning and there's nothing you could do about it right here there's the m-40 sniper rifle with the suppressor this is when I got my first two kills on 308 meters and they were running from left to right didn't even know I hit him it's pretty funny next is my rifle I got a knight's armament suppressor on it 19 magazine and then I'd be tour bus stop these are the carry nine mags because uh the past couple firefights have been going through five to six mags so it's always good to add three extra and right here you have the mark 11 sniper rifle two semi-automatic 20 round magazine it's pretty much like an m16 only shoot 762 it's just as accurate as the 40 and you can take off the suppressor and it helps it make it look like an m16 when it's on patrol alright I hope you enjoyed that I loved I would say it it's a rollercoaster ride kind of you get there and all amped up you know you're excited and then you start stuff so it's happening you're like wow this is real you know and like he said no day was the same get your good ones and you had to give her bad ones and you just roll with it how I was working is we were clearing out a section of the city and the IEDs the whole place is just littered with them and I was maybe 200 meters behind Kevin's element so literally we'd go into a compound we'd find two or three dispose of them move up to the next compound four of them were in there you know it was a very slow process of doing this [Music] knowing sharpshooter in that area and so we were all pretty nervous going in there we had had a couple precision shots on some machine gunners on rooftops that came very close to hitting people and we moved up and I was at the beach like in the forward of the element and we get up on top of the roof for this next compound and I'm looking down into the next one and there's a dog in there and his dog is just going nuts barking at us and we were talking and we're like okay you know we might have to put this dog down so we could send our bomb dog in to sniff around you know and so we're in overwatch position and we hear a single shot so I'm up there I'm like all right yep all right game plan got it and I'm turning around to talk to the squad leader to tell him what we're gonna do him oh just just like that and light all sudden on the radio we hear routine gunshot to the head and then they said his kill number and like I just felt like everything come out of me because in my mind he'd been shot in the face and died and I jumped right off and I went to the squad leader I said we're gonna go get him team leader crawls up to me he's like dude he's got shot in the head you know and I'm like like am i bleeding he's like text me I was like just a little bit but you know you're talking to me and I was just getting me out of here dude like just I want to get out of here I grabbed me and uh Mark Hammett so we're gonna go get Kevin and then right after I said that they're like no no he's fine don't worry it didn't puncture is like it just scraped his helmet we're like are you [ __ ] kidding me so we go back down the stairs and we're sitting down there and the corpsman comes up and he's like little flashlight checking me out and everything and he's like you're good man he's like do you need anything I was like can i smoke a cigarette he's like oh see why not so yeah they gave me a cigarette so we go over there but I don't know what to think I'm still like my you know Adrenaline's pumping I'm like terrified and I'm happy because he's not Ted and we get over there and she comes into this compound we meet in this compound he kissed his when I was like [ __ ] dude and I I popped my helmet off and like look at it in like all the padding's blown out inside I'm like what is all this stuff so this is a helmet I was wearing while I got shot and you can see that's the entrance where obviously went in and it traced traced around on the inside of the Kevlar and then tried to poke itself out through here but it just it got stopped within and you can see in the pads how it ripped through all the pads as well and then I looked over at mark and he's as white as a ghost and like if I were to looked at him at the same time I would have thought that mark was a guy who got shot in the head because he was so much more concerned about it Kevin was just Dazed and Confused he wanted to get the [ __ ] out of there but just like the emotion that you know Mark was showing like true emotion like one of the best friends died and that's one of the things that I struggle with the most is because I feel I'm better than that I should never put myself in that situation I should have never gave him the opportunity to even take a shot at me that was like such a strong like impact on me cuz I just wanted to go shoot everyone I [ __ ] saw and I remember the doctor telling me so I have some advice for you and if you follow it he's I guarantee you'll make it out here like alright what's the advice don't get shot again and don't step on any IEDs I was like whoa go figure buddy you know I've already got that down when Kevin got shot I found out so much later that it was just I was so addition to being used to hearing things like that when I heard that Kevin got shot it was Kevin got shot but he's okay so I was like oh you know and it was something that I needed to ask him about later when I saw him but it was just it was standard it was typical to hear that somebody got shot by then you know just boom and it happened I was like I got super lucky and I'm like thinking those next couple days I was like dude I definitely got a second chance you know got to push the restart button kind of and then it was like that's that's when I was completely changed I was like dude it's it's on you know and it's kind of a fight every single day just to make sure you get out of there you know I was much more afraid of stepping in ID than getting shot the gunfights weren't as scared he's just walking around some of the scariest patrols I went on I never even took got shot at and I remember I would wake up feel like I would look at my legs but like well it's been a wild ride but might not come back might not be walking back into base tonight I mean those first three months [ __ ] miserable because every time a log train came in to resupply us like a convoy to give us more supplies every time those came in we were just bringing more bad news you know somebody's friend either died or you know got both his legs blown off and it just you could see the emotional toll took on those first three or four months for just every day something was going on and it was just it was kind of demoralizing and we're in Afghanistan don't want you knowing this you I love you and I want you to have a good birthday command I love you a lot water [ __ ] my hair cyst on it's amazing watching now I'm going to come home safe you're fighting hard and yeah I'm not showing any mercy so we're gonna make sure we all come back home alive no the Lord is with us now he's protecting us and guiding us otherwise it was pretty safe and some hairy situations and so there's like the small gap between the tree I was with like on and then like where I was you know because I was trying to stay behind it in this like pee cam or a ke bursts just ripped us like right up into us and we're in a tight alley it was like 13 of us in a tight alley and we only way we could do was a ranger file which is just one man after the other like a long line and the round like hit the tree bark and like sprayed my face with the tree bark I turned to shoot and there were three guys in front of me so I like my field of fire were cut off so I started running back and I remember as I was running back the dirt was like every step I took a bullet would follow my foot and like went right I mean it was like a gap like that big in between my head in this tree and the round like went right in there ripped up the front of the tree and it ripped up Matt's whole side I mean that's on Foley that's the definition of like perfect situation with an automatic weapon to have that many targets lined up in that small of a space that close and only one guy got hit inside Sapp you played it doesn't it's like it's almost impossible and like got rocked back and we're just sitting there in this like ditch and we were just laughing like holy crap you know like whoa you know just like kind of surreal feeling there were times when I was like someone was moving bullets around with their hands because there is no way in hell that didn't hit me I think what got us through it the most was our ability to like laugh at the situation because when you were put in that suit like severe of a circumstance you can either like let it [ __ ] you or you can just make fun of it and you know if you make fun of the kind of disarms of like the danger of it so that was pretty much how we got through it just like making a joke out of it and kind of becoming a little cynical about the whole deployment I think the way that we'll do laundry is shirts been britches then underwear and then socks and then Logan's socks Logan's socks will always be last you get throw all your other blood I'll even do your your britches and your shirts for you but but your socks you just hugs girl hats I've important pair of socks for a week that came off not smelling that bad earlier he was I don't know he got his front tooth knocked out so he had a fake one in and oh yeah I want to say losing within the first month of deployment and why the one before we even got in the country like when you're getting ready to get on the helo to go remember that like this thing I just I can't take it out and even keep it there's this little compartment in the buttstock of our gun and he would keep his tooth in there and right we're like we're like getting ready to get on the helo I would like to go to the main base like ok here we go you know and they're like choppers like ten minutes out you know and we're like all right like loading up he's like my tooth fell out in the rocks gravel everything looks like a tooth everyone's got their eye there's not their iPhones but the iPods like yeah and it's dark so we're down here I don't know how we found that damn tooth before the job we got it like if we heard that someone was an amputee from ID the first question we would ask is did he get to keep it's nuts because we really didn't want to deal with the fact that a guy just lost his legs we wanted to make like okay if he keeps his nod to leash he's you know still man still gets a you know have some fun so as long as the guy gotta keep his nuts that's that's how we pretty much look at it so he's got it there but then within a month in deployment we get into contact and he's screaming orders out and he just screams his tooth flies right out so we're like starting to bound back you know to get out of the the danger area and he's just sitting there pat in the ground like she's looking for his tooth and we're like we got it go like people are shooting at us he's like why - like - I'm like leave it dude like get you another one and we never did you know but so the another six months he had to walk around and we were so short on bodies that we were bagging the Marine Corps to send this Marines to help us we had 25 K+ over 200 wounded we're not gonna let the enemy see that we're taking down easily we're gonna let them know that America is here or you know you're gonna chew bubblegum and kick ass and we're all out of bubblegum you know morning Amanda and Vanessa this is singing and this is TV fires this is for were stains the northern most northern part of singing this is a bot a room it's kind of dark in there cuz we don't have power if you could have anybody living her dead past a present fictional and non-fictional jump out of a birthday cake and your next birthday a bat a Matthew I'm about to cuz guy he's the greatest man or not and I don't think there was any other person alive that you would instantly touch somebody's life like he did like even if he knew for like 30 seconds within that 30 seconds of meeting him you'd feel like he was your best friend already yeah the first time I met him was when we went to he'll like interview with three five to see if they would take us and he's just walking out of the shack the 53 found [ __ ] kettlebells like what's up brother like welcome to the platoon man like just like that was the kind of guy he was like everybody wanted to be around him he was an alpha he was that man that women wanted to be with him men wanted to be him he was that guy that could change the outlook of anything I mean like you think it like the perfect marine like that was it just tall built like a brick [ __ ] [ __ ] phenomenal whatever he did he was just kind of like our the heart and soul of our platoon because people would come back like our students are gonna come back and he would try to recreate the story the way it bought they said it's like I shot the guy and this body was flapping like this it was hairless sick and just I mean everything about him I heard he would just they'd be in the middle of a gunfight and he would just run out to the middle you open just like it's got to keep blazing brother I mean I'm sure the stories are skewed from what actually happened I'm sure the real stories are much cooler than that yeah I was like super stoked and just like ready to go blaze yeah I'm gonna be with his brothers and he completely redefined that battle space that we were in and by the time it was done had rallied you know hundreds of men like I ran into a guy at the [ __ ] gym the other day and I was wearing a 3/5 shirt and he happened to be in 3/5 he's actually in Lima company and the first thing he said to me was like did you know about a I was like yeah dude like I'm in Chicago two years later some [ __ ] random guys he's a 3/5 a shirt he's like do you know about a yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] this yeah I don't have this pic this is the day that you all came for Matt's remembrance ceremony and it was the first time we had all seen each other the whole deployment was a good good time yeah well it was [ __ ] [ __ ] you guys for there for like I don't know nine hours and like get the hell out of here but uh it was amazing - first of all walking into B threes lair as it were it was like the happiest moment of my life like seeing you and seeing you know Sherwood and if anything would happen to that person you know you just be crushed and so seeing you guys still I've been walking around you know like just gave me so much peace to like visually see you and embrace you and hug you and hold you and and talk to you and and you know smoke cigarettes you got to see each other for the first time in many months and that was the first time the 29 of us were together and like you just really saw these relationships come back together and how much these people didn't really cared about each other and then walking in and seeing them and like it was like a family reunion and it was just amazing to see them at first and then I mean I had more closer ties with your section and then finally when your section came in it was like a [ __ ] party you know I remember I have a videos of us just sitting around that little fire pit for some reason there's a [ __ ] dog remember the thing smelled like [ __ ] but just being with everybody it was a big morale booster and it sucked when they like brick you guys out of there and then to talk about all the memories of Matt you know together and everybody's laughing and that it wasn't like a depressing Matt's dead we all mourned instead we all mourned and like dude that guy was awesome you know like it was a good death it was a it was a time of remembrance and it was a lot of healing we didn't even have to talk about you know the gunfights we've been in or anything it wasn't even like that because we all knew that we had been through hell we just wanted to like talk about good times you know and just be with each other not dwell on that because we that's every other day of the appointment that was like our vacation what had happened in that deployment and with all the death and carnage that was going on there's like a little glimpse of oh yeah this is why I'm here this guy these are my brothers you know this is this is it for sure it was those brothers will always mean a lot forever that's a bond that'll never go away [Music] you [Music] [Applause] the stories throughout deployment I mean we have endless stories you know it's just what kind do you want to hear your funny sad you know crazy life is it every day it was every day is a story [Applause] [Music] get hammered drunk the honest with you you know a party like yeah we did yeah we did you know I mean obviously like any other marine come back of the plane we just drink you know to make up for lost times you know and they just told myself um I'm just celebrating like anybody should but I mean after a while you I realize like a celebration has stopped at some point you know you know parties got it in at some point when I first got back I was like obviously really angry with everyone anybody um I was alone like depressed coming back from a deployment like that you feel I mean we did we accomplished something very big over there you know we did something very important choose to live this lifestyle of learning how to kill and survive and protect you know all at the same time you know and when you come back and you get out into the civilian lifestyle and you're making minimum wage you know you're not even doing anything you sit at home learning how to be tough like push through pain go on so ever many mile humps with like a ruck and a backpack you know with all that weight and just toughing it out the weather and the cold you feel like you're like wow dude I used to be like this I used to be a Marine like fight wars and defend in my country and everything and now I'm I'm a sales rep at t-mobile you know and I'm selling phones to people you just feel like why am I here you know and no one can relate to you you try to find help you can't just like to just after a while it gets with us like we're bred to be these big tough creatures and then all of a sudden you you know your mind starts going to these dark places and all of a sudden like whoa what what's going on here there would be random times and you just for no reason dollars you start thinking about it like you could be doing like the fun like you just feel like golfing or you know doing something really fun and all sudden you're just like why am I think about all these depressing things like why are they my mind right now you know like it's like there's no reason for me to think about this and I don't know I just continued doesn't mean it still continues it obviously goes away a little bit but I mean it's always gonna be there it's nothing it's gonna stop that because of you know who I am I didn't want people to know that I was having those struggles or whatever so I put on a face at work and act like everything's fine you know and I think a lot of us did you know try and just hide that we were actually having problems because I know personally I used to like like if I heard somebody had PTSD or I heard somebody was having a problem with like obviously wasn't cut out for the job you know people told me going in you're gonna come out a way different person and I never thought I always I mean I feel I'm a strong-minded person and not a lot of things can affect me mentally but looking back at it now I'm like wow and then so when I was struggling it myself I was struggling with the things that I thought was weak you know my mind was like I shouldn't be struggling with this you know I'm a warrior you know I'm a sniper like shouldn't be struggling with this you know um so I tried to hide it you know I don't know what no one knows ever like you have PTSD you know PTSD is this definition that you just gets put at you and you're like okay well I either feel like I do have this or don't have it and and I think that is absolutely wrong to say it's a disorder it's just it's something that happened you know there wasn't anything we could do about it do you think I mean pretty damn sure I had PTSD I know it's like kind of hard to diagnose but I mean I have flashes of depression and you know bad dreams and I think it's very it's common in Marines but I mean the typical thing is that Marines don't want to admit it or whatever and I totally agree with that I don't want I don't want people to know that I have like a weakness even though it's not a weakness it's just something you have to deal with so many people come back from war and they're like oh I'm fine I'll deal with it and it's not a big deal and you know maybe some of them can but you know I tried to deal with it on my own for so long coming back at first I like thought you know I gone through the wringer and it was me that had all the problems and then you look back and you got to think it all like the toll it took on your loved ones you know I saw what I was doing to my family and you know it was just like I heard my mom say like what what can we do and I realized that I was affecting the people around me and that was when I was like okay you know what what steps do I need to take to change this and that was you know a year a year and a half after I got back and then with my home life you know I felt like I couldn't talk to my wife or whatever and I just felt like dealing with people I could talk to is like you guys and and like my friends you know that I actually went with and then finally when when I saw my daddy's give me I mean if I didn't move out to Michigan if I were to stay back in California and live my really close friends I would live with them it's still when you need to talk to somebody you need somebody that can relate to it and there's just no one unless you've been through it you can't relate to it you know she's still stuck at out with me in this faithful and and still like you know it's constantly doing stuff cleaning the house and making sure that you know I have a good life he just you just gave me a beer like welcome home son yeah I wouldn't I wouldn't be where I am today if he was she wasn't here my girlfriend Amanda she's helped me out a lot she knows like she's seen the bad sides of me when I've had problems it wasn't I don't know if I would have been alright if yeah you know if you weren't and she stuck around and she calmed me down and talked with me and held me through things so I mean I got it like I gotta thank her so much for that and it sucks too cuz I mean we know some people that aren't in the same situation as us and we see the struggles that they go through so we know it's working she's like me three four I think that was the biggest realization with my family is realizing the importance of them you know three you're such a girl go to ten and when I came back I was like oh yeah I was one who went through all this [ __ ] and it just came back like Christmas this year I was when I first realized it was like this had an emotional toll on everybody that's close to me it wasn't just me you know I'm like it took me a year and a half to realize it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] throughout this film I questioned whether I was doing the right thing asking my brother's to relive those moments to delve back into that pain has been a trying task but now I understand we owe it to the 25 who didn't come home and every other warrior who has paid the ultimate sacrifice we owe it to them to keep their memory alive no matter how hard it is for us still walking in third we owe it to the fatherless children to the wives who will never feel the touch of their husband again to the girlfriends who keep that last letter in the top drawer of their bedroom dresser to the brothers sisters and friends who would do anything to hear their laugh one more time we owe it to the mothers who never stopped praying and to the fathers who buried their sons too early and to the grandparents that watched them girl we owe it to the ones who came home missing limbs and to the men who left their innocence on the battlefield we owe it to the twenty-five to keep our Brotherhood alive to live our lives with their memory in our hearts to help each other the way we did when death was a constant companion and to make them proud because they will always be with us in spirit [Music] you [Music] Vanessa yes I say goodbye come on something goodbye say by what she's looking unison hey goodbye okay

Channel: Logan Stark

Views: 4,846,654

Rating: 4.9076886 out of 5

Keywords: Sangin, Afghanistan, Marines, Combat, 3/5, 3rd Battalion 5th Marines, For the 25, Logan Stark, MSU, Gunfight, Military, Navy, Royal Navy, Force, war in afghanistan, Soldiers, us marine corps, marine corps, US Marines, Army, Forces, documentary, air force, afghanistan war, afghanistan news, us troops in afghanistan, conflict in afghanistan, usa today, detroit freepress, new york times, what are veterans, USMC, doc movies, us military, war in afghanistan documentary

Id: GkpNZWf8lw0

Length: 48min 25sec (2905 seconds)

Published: Sun May 05 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Deviate_1988]

Pretty powerful stuff. I was near there in Now Zad in 2009. We were frequently reminded that there was a tough fight going on in Saigin. I’m glad for all those who made it home and proud of all those who left it in the field. Semper fucking Fi, Marines.

[u/GTheZombie]

One million steps is a great book on 3/5's deployment if anyone is interested.