SCOUT SNIPER: The most FEARED Marines on the Battlefield | Silver Star Recipient Ethan Nagel

my buddy stops shouey he's leading the patrol and and uh he takes a knee and and I get over and take a knee next to a tree and he looks back at me he just looks at me he goes do you hear that and I kind of just lean in and that's when it all kicks off you know alak bar and all hell breaks loose the tree explodes next to me just rapid machine gun fire shooting right down into us and uh I took shrapnel to the eye in my face that was when I the first time I was wounded in the battle I end up taking shrapnel along my my nose my face my eye almost lost my eye uh cut my face everything like that and then uh we returned fire just Voli fire back so it was just Voli fire just going back and forth had to get them off our off our back my radio is gone it's I can't communicate you know we're in the middle of this Valley surrounded on all sides and that's when everything really opened up and that's when they really started to hit us and I just remember saying to myself you're not dead yet so keeping fighting that was it that's all that went through my head you are about to Embark upon the great crusade to meet this mounting aggression and make no mistake about it good will prevail I was uh born in Fairmont Minnesota and so a Midwest boy and uh um basically my my uh grandparents served in the military so they were both in the Marine Corps one was in the Pacific on the USS Lexington as a as a pom pom Gunner or anti-aircraft Gunner and then my uh my mother's side my grandfather was the Korean War so he was infantry but he ended up doing uh uh I think he drove with the general and also did typing but he was also going back and forth to the front a lot um but that influenced me uh a little bit through my childhood and I was kind of was drawn to watching The History Channel a lot like going over to my my uh uh grandparents house and and just they had cable so I just love watching History Channel so I learned a lot about like World War II and like that era in the '90s and then as a filmmaker maker and and loving movies I always was drawn to war films and you know acts of heroism and like what people do Under Fire and you know the The Bravery and the Band of Brothers all that all those themes so as I was uh growing up I you know learned more and more about the military uh the Marine Corps infantry was renowned as the best infantry in the world and the hardest fighting force and you know all these things so uh when I went in or when I uh was making my choices you know it helped to influence that my grandparents were both Marines so I made the decision um my senior year because both Iraq and Afghanistan was going on that this was the time to join and to really prove myself um I had influences through high school that you know really if I wanted to be the best I want to go where the best are and that was the Marine Corps infantry and uh I wanted to fight hold a gun do all that stuff especially when you're like you're you're a kid so that what really drove me to become the war be be a part of the warrior class like I think that's something that we see in both literature and film and film and storytelling is that consistence of every generation of is the warrior class and to be a part of that is an honor and but it's also very difficult it's painful there's a lot of sacrifice um so I kind of I want to be a part of that I want to be a part of that special group and um and I didn't know if I had What it Took and that's kind of what everything think everybody you know has to ask themselves or prove to themselves that first day when we're going to our platoon everyone's freaked out no one knows what's going on it's the you know the fear of the unknown and I remember just being like holy sh I'm doing it this is it I'm becoming a Marine like this surreal feeling but also of excitement and um and then it was Black Friday and all you know droners come out start throwing every all of our gear everywhere they start ripping our bunks apart and it's just chaos for the first few weeks you just don't know what's you know just lock step get your stuff done you know you're not going to do it right so you know you get hazed you get you know you know uh PT quarter deck all that stuff so um you know it was it was it was really cool uh going through that experience and then learning more and more and honestly it was just it when we started doing more of the combat stuff that's when they don't do a lot of it in boot camp but when you do it it's like it's it's fun like we were you know they played the Omaha beach scene on a loudspeaker like on Loop and they just like made us crawl around with like M16s and would like shoot blanks at us every once in a while and I thought it was the coolest thing ever you know and um but yeah once you go through boot camp obviously it's a there's a lot of Pride involved uh discipline you know how you look regulations all that stuff so coming out of boot camp you know you're God's gift to the Earth and you you totally drink the Kool-Aid and and everything so but even in boot camp you know it was a it's a journey that I never planned on going through life like for like a career it was just it was a goal I wanted to meet and so by the end of boot camp I was already like like man I got like three and a half more years you know well over three and a half years of this to go and um so I was uh uh a little like damn it well now I'm now I'm going to be a marine tomorrow you know I go back home but now I got three and a half years to to keep going with this so but it was uh it was great and um you know the real reality starts sinking even more after boot camp because that's when the rubber really meets the road you know that's when you go to infantry school and we you start to realize the difference in culture in the Marine Corps from people who are infantry and then people who are not and that got put into instilled into us right away we got into infantry school they're like hey we're going to we have to train you for war this is no this isn't regulations this isn't you know uh drilling this isn't you know slapping rifles around and let looking good you're going to war and we need to train you to go to war and a lot of that stuff goes out the window American Military University is a proud sponsor of this video AMU is excited to announce a 10% veteran grant for eligible veterans and their families which can be applied to undergraduate and Master Level courses I personally love AMU because I took many courses on my diplomes to Afghanistan that really helped me get a head start when I left the military for more information and eligibility follow the link in the description below we deployed Iraq in March 2006 and uh we had the haditha Triad so it's hakia haditha and barana uh right off the haditha dam I believe it was the Euphrates river we were on I was for some reason I always got but I'm pretty sure we were on the Euphrates river and uh my company Lima Company which was I was assigned to I was uh in barana most of the deployment um that uh the 2006 deployment to Iraq was pretty much set the standard for misery and pain um that what we went through it was you know um we were in the middle of a city it was hot as hell it was 110 120° you know 13 guys to to a room that's you know the size of a regular bedroom stacked up on top of each other um you know patrolling uh 24/7 you know maybe getting two three hours of sleep and then when you did sleep it was actually inside of Iraqi houses that you would take over for the afternoon or the night to hold security and then we just keep moving we we just go out for four days straight and just wouldn't come back and then you know refit come back and then we'd stand post for six hours at a time which doesn't seem like that bad of a deal but when you haven't slept in weeks it's brutal to sit on in a post that's 120 degrees and then you have to wear full body armor and you know you're up from 10 you know 10 uh 10 10 p.m. or midnight to 6:00 a.m. in the morning it sucks um the misery and just like our our nerves were on fire the whole time we were getting hit with iids dismounted iids so not even vehicle born iids the guys in our mobile section just were getting slammed and then we were getting slammed with with uh dismounted iads snipers snipers taking pop shot at all the time and so it was just your nerves were constantly on fire because we were always reactive you know we we' it didn't matter what was going on we weren't High speeded we weren't like running around a corner hitting a building and going home it was you're going to patrol this area for the next eight hours whatever happens to you happens to you you're basically either drying fire or you're patrolling to make sure that things are secure um and so it was just highly nerve-wracking incredibly exhausting and then uh we are also getting mortared every day so we're taking direct fire constantly uh they zeroed our fob in with 120 mm mortars and they got really accurate and they got really good at it at one point they blew up our fuel Farm they blew up our generator they would hit our post blow our posts up um they landed it right in the middle of our our base and it was blown out all the tires and the base wasn't very big it was maybe the half half the size of a football field about two School houses that we took over so it wasn't anything formal and um at one point we had a motor round basically blow through through my door and we had a bunch of guys like we we ran inside and the motor hit right outside and shot trapnel right into our door like right into our right where I lived right into my room so I had my buddies you know they got hit and so we had blood all over the floor where I slept like a foot away and and so you just had to deal with all that type of stuff and it was just we didn't shower for seven months I had one good shower in seven months so one time other than that it was water bottle shower we barely cleaned our our cammies they could stand up on their own you know it's some of those small details that they just don't tell you about you know in combat and War it's like just how miserable and how much you smell you don't notice it and you know unless you're outside of the bubble um and uh so that really was it's set a high threshold of misery and pain and both mentally and psychologically um you know you look back on it and you're like I can't believe I went through that but just like everything else you take it day by day you know um you can't think about it all at once cuz it'll it'll overwhelm you um so um you know that was it was suck too because we we' gotten all the way through the deployment and you know a good friend of mine was killed about a week before we left and then um we had another uh I didn't know him as well but another guy that was close to everybody was killed EST Strada uh Miller my friend Miller was killed about week before we left and then Estrada was killed on the last mission we were already in alassad and he was on the last Patrol coming back in my map section and IED got him so and it was a rough time in Iraq 2o 23 relieved us and they were getting absolutely hammered just absolutely hammered I think they lost multiple guys before we even left country so um so that was really the height of the war that was pre- Surge and so you know we came back we got a chip on our shoulder and we were um you know I was I knew I I was I lack of a better word tweaked out or whatever but you know you're young and you want to get back into the fight so we just I put all that energy back into training and uh I wanted to go where the best were I wanted to actually make a difference I wanted to go and smoke uh you know the the bad guys with a sniper rifle and to kill IED imp placers and all that stuff so and to Pro protect my boys and I think that's kind of what it really came down to was be able to help and make a difference to help my guys on the ground so I tried out for scout snipers uh about a week after they held the indoc about a week after we got back so right away jumped right into it uh was uh selected uh you know and um that was incredible I mean going through it everyone was just we're all out of sorts so you know it was just a whirlwind and they held the indoc and we all you know I gave my best and and um you know at the end of it they're like yep we're going to give you 30 days to prove yourself and if you after that 30 days will either decide to kick you out of the platoon or send you back to your your unit or or to your company and then we're going to to uh or we're going to train you up and go to sniper school we'll keep you in the platoon and I was like holy they're giving me an opportunity everything to me was an opportunity so don't it up like it was never it never felt like yeah of course I belong here I'm in amazing shape I'm one of the best Marines here not at all like you know nothing ever really comes natural to me I have to work hard I have to work twice as hard as everyone else and then the people that are up at that level I have to work 4 to five times even harder than them so I uh just put all my heart and soul into everything and that SI program I didn't go never went out I buried myself in all the uh sniper knowledge they you know they gave us basically the whole the sniper Pub and I read that thing back to you know back back to back front to back uh they would go through through it as well with us but then I was constantly having Q cards and we were going back and forth like I took it very very seriously very seriously and then they would train us and then if we did something wrong they would you know take us out on a Ruck run for 3 four miles and then set us back into the uh into the sniper Hooch and then start learning again and rewrite the you know rewrite all the all the definitions and and uh attention the detail and the Kim's games and they they did an amazing job training us we even got to go out get out on the stock Lane to do some pre-training before we went to sniper school so we built our ghillies and and you know started learning all the fieldcraft of being a scout sniper which is also one of the biggest uh basically one of the biggest killers of guys going through school is stalking that's like probably the hardest part shooting is actually pretty easy um it's the stocking that really gets you and so because you either get it or you don't like you can you can train somebody on it if they don't get it it's going to take a long time for them to figure it out um so you kind of have to figure it out quickly and then if you don't you know it's just just all about time and experience and and some guys just don't they just don't get it they just they can't but then there's guys that are the opposite they're just ninjas like they just it's in their head they just like oh yeah I get it and they're they're like you know they're they're a savant and and scout sniper school is notorious for a high attrition rate I believe it was was about 60% so we got there and just from our unit there were 12 guys that we sent from third Balan third Marines obviously there's other units there as well but 33 sent 12 guys and then four of us graduated so I think that was really cool I mean not it sucked for those guys that didn't make it but you know at the end of the course our uh skinna who was our uh uh wasn't our chief Scout but he was like the the lead instructor you know said to us say Hey you know at the end of the day he said hey you're a scout sniper you have what it takes because you're still here you know and I that meant a lot it like he goes we didn't think you guys were the ones that would make it but clearly you did and you are the ones that have what it takes to be a scout sniper cuz you're the one standing at the end here you got everything you proved everybody wrong um and you know they we weren't the studs you know we weren't the senior guys we weren't the you know the fastest we weren't the the you know all the you know some it was it was pretty wild so to stand there and become a scout sniper and be you know given the Hogs tooth and graduate that was one of the biggest highlights of my career and so we deployed with right after I graduated in March of 2007 I had a little about a week or two off and then we started to train up again and then by June we were in predeployment training and combined armed exercise in 29 Palms and I was in Iraq by the end of July so we had about 7 eight months uh between the last deployment and and the next one or so roughly that and uh then we deployed to the fuia provinces uh we our main headquarters out of camp fujia but then we covered out on uh garma Omar and zadon and uh we would operate out of the uh out of um we'd operate out of camp fuia but my team 85 Charlie we uh operate mostly out of uh garma so with Lima Company and uh that was uh awesome experience uh miserable I was a radio operator so I had the carry all the batteries I was in The Sniper hike cuz I was a scout sniper I was part of the sniper element but I had to do you know all the radio stuff I hated radios but radios are actually pretty awesome once you aren't you know under the pain of 100 pound Rock um but my rock was roughly 100 pounds so inserting was an absolute nightmare um and uh I carried extra batteries for you know five days worth of operations we carried food for 5 days and then we also had to carry ammunition for 5 days and then I had to carry ammunition of the uh uh the sniper like you know the ammo for the sniper rifle so it was yeah it was awesome to operate that we were now suddenly the guys in the darkness creeping around we were the ones you know that everyone was afraid of and you know inserting and uh it was really cool it was really it wasn't as uh intense that deployment so slightly disappointing on the aspect that we didn't get to you know go and smoke a ton of dudes or or you know um do some big operations by that point in ' 07 it would it was insane it was like a light switch turned on and it went from you know G uh fua provinces were absolutely insane to nothing and it was really weird and so that kind of sucked because we were just kind of sitting and and you know for the base of the last half of the deployment we were just you know playing XBox and and working out a lot and kind of figuring things out for the next stage in life you know um my brother was about to deploy so I'm coming home in February of A8 my brother's about to take off and uh February way to Afghanistan and he's we're on you know Myspace I think Myspace yeah I think we were on MySpace or Facebook and we're just talking he's like he goes hey what what's going on in Afghanistan like we're going to this Afghanistan and I I laughed I said Afghanistan I was like nothing's going on in Afghanistan I was like you're going to be a boot for the rest of your career you'll never see combat I knew nothing about Afghanistan and next thing I know we get back and all hell is breaking loose in Afghanistan so my my brother was a part of six as a combat engineer they called it the reinvasion of helmet and they just went down and it was wild it was insane we were getting after action reports from sniper platoon that were there and we were reading them we had the direct line into our emails and everything and so then it after we had got back and the combat advisors were you know they had asked and I didn't quite know all that stuff and then my brother I was getting all his what he was doing and then all these all these other messages and we were like we need to get to Afghan right now like they are killing platoon siiz element of Taliban on ambush on sniper ambushes they wouldn't go out without two teams because the because the Taliban were so big or like their their units their their their movement element size were so big that they would didn't want to be overran so the sniper elements would go out in two teams and just smoking dudes left and right and so and it was just absolute chaos and so my brother was there and um you know I I was trying to get over I was like how do we get to Afghanistan how do we you know we thought thought about you know is there a way to to switch units is there a way to to get on and help with combat Replacements you know um all this other stuff so we were trying to figure stuff out and and I heard about the combat advisers my buddies were on them and they were like this is going to be awesome we're going to do this I was like I should have I should have you know volunteered for it or whatever and to this day I tell the story I to this day I do not remember how I heard about someone dropping from the teams from the ET teams and I I absolutely was like holy I need to get on this team so I heard about it I end up calling my buddy Maddy and I'm like yo I heard somebody dropped from the the ETS and he goes I don't know how you know about that that was like an hour ago and I was and I I still to this day I don't remember who told or what happened or how I even found out I I call up Herman staff AR Herman it was a good friend of mine now and I said hey hold this slot for me do not let it go I'm I'm I'm getting on this deployment so yeah so I got on the on the advisor teams about halfway through their training cycle and that was just just a blast I mean we were just shooting Mark 19s and then it was a very uh definitely A Step Above um where I was at because they acted as if it were a special forces team because essentially that's kind of the mission um is it was supplementing the Special Forces guys who were standing up the Commando brigades and Special Forces Afghan Special Forces so we took the Infantry forces which is what they initially did the SF guys well so now we have that mission so they had about 20 man teams and in each team there's like a sub team about three sub teams and then like a little headquarters element so I was ET one Tac 11 so embedded trainer team one Tac 11 and um our sister team was et5 Tac four um and those were the two Hawaii teams and I believe there's about five teams from okanawa Japan anyway so yeah so we um I was attached to a special forces team in July or sorry in June of 2009 and uh I was with them for about a month until uh we until July 29th 2009 which was the uh battle for which I received the Silver Star so the mission was basically to go as far as we can and at this point I was attached to the Special Forces team so I was with I was in the lead with the SF team and then we had some uh some of our Afghan counterparts mine my my recom platoon and then we had a kind of staggered down the road we had elements of the amp and then also my buddies as well on the TT they were like in different positions so but there was r one Road in and one road out out of Usman Valley and it wasn't very good so going in there's no you can't like go off the road it's it's very mountainous it's all this stuff in and and kind of like somewhat Northeast Afghanistan so the terrain was is was beautiful but it was also treacherous like and uh there was no if what the road went out the road went out you're not getting around it you know so we went we were like we needed to find out what was at the end of our Valley and we also knew that they were running weapons through the valley at one point because once we got into the valley we actually cut off a lot of the weapons supplies going into kabo which was great but that the northern part of the valley we hadn't touched yet and so my uh the team I was on this SF team as well as ET we're like we got to we got to push in like we got to see where the road ends so we kind of disguised it as a key leader engagement but we also wanted to see who was up there so it was kind of like a hybrid we were like all right we're going to do a key leader engagement we're going to find out the village Ella are going to talk with them but we're also going to take photos and kind of Recon the area of how far this road goes so that morning we stepped off about 3:00 a.m. and we drove all the way up and it was it took us about probably two hours or so to make the movement and then we got to the end of the road which is wild so I have like photos of the end of the road uh where the road ends in the valley and we took Everyone by surprise every they were just like holy the Americans are here and in a and not in a good way there's other valleys we had been in that they were like oh who are you the Afghan government like nope we're Americans they're like oh all right like they were just on in their own Planet but this time it was wasn't good they were like oh the Americans are here and so we got to the end of the road and it was fighting season so all these military age males come out which we knew absolutely were Fighters we're like there's way too many men for the amount of homes in this Village like it was it was unsettling and so we sat down and and we met with the village Elder and we talked you know just about small small talk whatever I had I drank tea I kind of took photos and I sat down with the village Elder along with the Special Forces team as well and we kind of sat and talked and they drank tea with him and and all this other stuff in fact some guys were like look I'm an and they took you know we like oh cool took a photo of his ID you know they're kind of friendly and but everyone was eyeballing us we're like okay like we're in enemy ter we're deep into enemy territory right now and the only reason they're not hitting us is because we basically woke them up and so they're just kind of looking around and we're taking it all in you know and even then you know sad you know sadly we never got to the to the other Villages so there was like the end of the road and then we saw more villages we just couldn't get to them with the vehicle we we end up not going down even further down the valley so we had the the meeting everything goes well and we're like all right well there's we're let's go back back south we'll mark our way back to the our our base and then we uh uh stopped and and uh Chief Warrant Officer Vose who Special Forces Chief Warrant was like hey let's cut off and do a kind of a Recon Patrol and we'll parallel down the the the the we'll parallel the road we'll take a riverbed and we'll we'll Patrol down through the villages and kind of Behind The Villages almost you know kind of like through uh so we we dismounted and I always have this little detail in my head I uh I uh we so a little bit backtrack so the new ET team one Tac 12 has came that morning to to basically start ripping rip TOA with us left seat right seat so I had a gunny gunny Rogers was the new guy that or not new guy but part of the new team and he was on my patrol and so we didn't know who who they really were you know like how do they operate so I was like I was running a ball cap a lot and I was like so I Dismount off of the Ana vehicle and he's coming with and I'm like it's like ah he's a Gunnery Sergeant I don't know how anal he's going to be or he's some or something I didn't know I never had speak a word to him but he was coming on this Patrol so I I I step off about 10 ft and I look back and I'm like yeah I'll go grab my helmet you know cuz I was used to run around the valleys and like t-shirts and play carrier and a ball cap and so I grabbed my helmet you know thank God and so uh I throw on my helmet like all you know reluctantly and then I I we start patrolling down and basically the element was four Special Forces guys myself gunny Rogers who was uh new to the ET he just showed up that like they rolled in at like 2:55 a.m. and then they hopped on the trucks with us to go at like 3:00 a.m. and about uh I think about eight of my 8 to 12 of my Afghan Recon platoon so it was pretty small element per se about 20 odds some guys but you know when you're alone in The Valleys that's not a big element especially in Afghanistan so we started making our way uh through some of the The Villages and then basically into a riverbed and we're like all right we'll take the riverbed South and uh immediately we lost visual contact with our our you know gun trucks our our support element that nowhere to be found or like and and they're they're starting to move and they're clearly moving faster than we are so now they're South in the valley and we're like okay and then over the radio we start getting chatter like we're about to get hit everyone be ready we're about to get hit cuz villagers were walking up to our Southern element which was about 15 20 clicks South we're like your guys are going to get hit just be ready and so like a farmer came up to them like you guys are going to get hit and so we relayed it we're like okay you know be ready so I remember looking back at at uh my Afghans and give them the signal to to put their AK off safety and one of these kids I still can see his face today he just looked at me he was like oh my God like it was obviously it was like in Posh too like you know he's like a you know and uh and he was just like cuz he's alone you know I mean this isn't like hey we have the bmps and the Americans have three gun trucks and we're okay and air support's coming like he is alone with and so he was just looks back and passes it down and puts his weapon on fire you know and he's ready to rock and roll so it was kind of tense you know we knew something was was going to happen and uh so we started working our way down and we you know v i remember was like hey let's keep taking the the riverbed and see where it goes and myself and Sh are like well let's try to get to some High Ground here and he's like no no let's keep going this way like okay so we kept doing it I remember the vegetation there's a riverbed you know and kind of about 20 30 feet down and you have these kind of rock Terraces almost but there's a vegetation of canopy of like trees that just cover up the river bits it's say it's like quite a beautiful place actually and so we were walking through and I kind of my buddy stops shouey he's leading the patrol and and uh he takes a knee and and I get over and take a knee next to a tree and he looks back at me he just looks at me he goes do you hear that and I kind of just lean in and that's when it all kicks off you know I bar and all hell breaks loose the tree explodes next to me just rapid machine gun fire shooting right down into us and uh I took shrapnel to the eye in my face that was when I the first time I was wounded in the battle I end up taking shrapnel along my my nose my face my eyeball almost lost my eye uh cut my face everything like that and then uh we returned fire just Voli fire back so was just volum fire just going back and forth had to get them off our off our back started firing back and forth and and then uh stoval who was the 18 Delta Medic SF medic he he got hit in the leg so basically we're shooting back and forth he's like I'm hit and I was like okay and so I ran over to him you know still taking fire and I looked at his leg and again one those like fun fog of War weird funny things you remember I whip out my Kar and I'm about to like cut cut up his leg and he's like hold on careful and I and I look at him he looks at me I was like oh yeah put my K Bar away and then I took out my medical shears I actually kept the medical shears on me cuz we were we were actually you know we we were really good at Medical we were trained on it you know and so I oh yeah I got excited pull out a Kar to cut it off his pants you know but I I put it back and then I took the medical shears and you know and got it all you know got and he had a clean in and out so I patched him up got him rocking and rolling I was like all right you're good good to go went back kept fighting alongside shuy and then finally we were like okay we got to get to some higher ground you know after this initial Ambush so we end up going up the side of the of the of this kind of Riverbed Rock Terrace and I remember this the canopy it was like it was still covering us giving us some sort of concealment and we're kind of you know bounding up you know and I remember Bose and we're bounding he bounds past me but it wasn't that far and he stops and and I like look at him he's like set and he kind of looked at me and smirked cuz right about 2 feet more is going to you're going to break the canopy of the concealment and then basically your ass is hanging in the breeze and so I look back at me goes set and smirks and I looked at I said you mother and I L so laughing and I I went past them and broke through you know the canopy per se and the concealment that we had and it's just like the valley you see everything and it's you know they're still firing on us you know the whole thing like we're completely exposed so we get up we get get behind a rock wall Terrace I get everybody up you know we're firing shooting back get everybody kind of online and then we start start picking off you know targets and and start picking off Taliban that are maneuvering on us and all sorts of stuff you know we're uh lit up uh you know you know contrary to popular belief you know everyone thinks like you know ask question do you ever kill anybody it's like well you know most people have the answer of no because they're shooting at you know uh buildings or you're suppress a fire but you know I I didn't get my first kills until my third deployment and and it was in that battle and that's when uh I had I had a M14 A1 and and uh these two guys took off running with machine guns and they were you know Taliban so I just immediately whip over drop them just dropped them and you know there was one I I I admit it I I'm embarrassed by it but I got all excited and there was one guy popped around a corner and I I was shocked because he came around this finger and there's about you know 15 20 of us lined up and I see him and I'm like holy sh like it's just one of those things where you're like they just blantantly came around the corner with like an AK he's just like comes around the corner not suspecting to see us comes around this corner and I I have him in the crosshairs I'm like just shocked just shocked that he just casually walks around this corner and he stops he looks at us I get I was like I I just like excited I pulled the shot hit right by his foot I go back for a follow on shot cuz he turns and he's like I saw his face he's oh he turns starts running I hit right by his foot go on for a follow on and the dude just just gets ripped apart it was basically like online volley fire like everyone saw him at the same time and so we were like oh we got him you know but it was uh you know and then after that the the two guys popped up and I smoked those two guys running down the finger or kind of running along this like say like a a little Ridge but you know they weren't far from us but it was kind of like next next little like Ridge over I guess you would say but it wasn't far and uh come to find out later you know they was those were high value targets they're jel targets so that were on that finger so that was I don't say cool knowing that but it was it was those guys they were they were hunting for a very long time and at the end I'll you know I'll kind of emphasize why everything went the way it did so you know I smoked those two guys put them down and then we're still just getting and fire from multiple positions um you know trying to we're trying to get a good foothold um trying to get I'm not calling in for air support quite yet you know we're in a pickle but we're not you know we're not it's not completely gone to yet but we are getting hit from three different sides and so we're holding our own I go over to towards the road I said okay everything by that time you know more stuff happened but basically the overall is you know we were things were like uh covered everyone was good doing their job I was like all right I'm going to go to the west side and I'm going to try to see if we can get back to the road so I bound over take the West Side to see if we can say hey let's start getting these guys so I actually jump onto this one side of the rock wall face like on the west side of this rock wall thinking all right they're shooting at us from this direction I'll be good now I'm sitting there I'm kind of scanning the area kind of looking back okay the road's that way I'm looking this way and then I it I I thought I got hit with an RPG like straight up it was just I remember the explosion or what I thought was an explosion everything goes black and the next thing I know I'm running so and that's kind of what was crazy about it was I was I took off running every like I said every it was an explosion everything it goes like black but I'm I'm back at it and I'm next thing I know I'm running and my neck is on fire my forearms on fire and I'm assessing my wounds as I'm running so I literally I'm like okay my blood bl's not pumping out in my neck like I don't feel anything wet I don't it's hot but it's not you know um like I don't feel any blood running down me bullets are kicking up all around me and I just remember saying to myself you're not dead yet so keep fighting that was it that's all that went through my head and and so I'm running and all these the bullets were kicking up all around me it was machine gun I was getting hit with a machine gun with PKM and so I'm running down this rock wall and the path is starting to come up a little bit and the rock wall is still the same height or the the Height's starting to reduce and I was like I have to jump over this wall but if I stop I'm going to get up because I'm going to get shot up with a machine gun so I like my mind was just like calculating you know a billion times a second just like and and I remember seeing my Afghan sniper one of my ddms he looked at me and he's like come on come on you know like and and so come to me and uh so I'm running and then I I finally get to a point where I feel like I can jump over the rock wall so I go over and jump on over and uh start returning fire start you know engaging guys that are now to the west of us now we're surrounded gunny Rogers I thought he was dead so I'm like well I can't leave him behind so I call out for him cuz he's face down in this Terrace in this farming Terrace I like he's dead like I got to go get him I got to go get his body and I call for him doesn't answer call for him doesn't answer and I'm like I'm going to call for him one more time and if he does an answer I have to coordinate with my Afghan to cover for me cuz I'm going to go grab the body and bring it over the rock wall to get the safety he answers call out he answers the third time and he's like he's almost like playing dead and he's I was like you okay and he's like I'm okay I was like all right well you know on the count of three I'm going to get you know lay down cover fire and you know get over to me and so count of three gave him a count you know one two three and he just got up and started running zigzags you know traditional little zigzag infantry tag he's like T you know and I'm just you know engaging dudes that are trying to shoot at him and and then he jumps on the rock wall and I'm literally having one hand on my M14 firing and I'm dragging I'm pulling him over the rock wall to safety and then so I get him over and then he's uh you know check him out I was like you good I was like hey check my you know cuz I knew I got hit I was like how does it look how's everything am I bleeding am I dying you know like just check and he's like no you're good I was like awesome get on my radio antenna had gotten ripped out of my inviter and so it's gone so comms are gone and I'm like this is absolute worst case scenario now we're surrounded on all three sides and I don't have any type of communication other than maybe a cell phone but that's that's if we were like absolutely I mean that it got to that point where we're you know we could have used it per se but also relaying stuff back to the to the talk and all such stuff it would almost wouldn't have been as effective so I the my radio is gone it's I can't communicate you know we're in the middle of this Valley Sur on all sides and that's when everything really opened up and that's when they really started to hit us and then uh I uh was engaging Targets on the west side and then all I hear is man down and man down and it was the radio operator um Justin afog and he we kept screaming it it it was it was kind of a haunting yell too because you could tell the distress in his voice like it wasn't like man down man you know got to do this or whatever it was just screaming like he it was his friend Vose had gotten hit and they were good friends and you could just tell in his voice like he was a bit shook like it was a very distressing call so I kept asking I was shouting back and you know we were shouting I just was like how bad is it you know CU I need to hold this West Side how bad is it and he just kept screaming and kept scre it was was like a scream for help like he was just like okay this is bad he can't think right now and so I looked at at gunny and I said you know can you hold the West Side he's like yeah I'll hold I was like okay and so I just I said I'm going to go going to go help and so I ran over and it was like these kind of Rock Terrace I was jumping down some rock Terraces and just sprinting as fast as I could to get to to Vose and to affag and come to find out later my buddy shuy told me that he goes yeah I saw I turned around and saw you running and bullets were and RPGs were flying over your head and you're you know basically running through hail of gunfire and I was like really you know I just got zoned in and just I needed to get to him you know it's one of those things where you leave leave no man behind but you also want to at the time you know find a job stay busy I'm just not going to like let affle freak out and and or you know his friend just got hit I don't expect him to to you know immediately go to Medical Aid and all stuff and like so and I knew what I was doing I had experience with that so I was like okay boom Going to get right to it and uh got to Vose and he had basically had a kind of a a sucking chest W he got shot like right above his plate and then right down uh down lower but it hit other organs kind of found out later so I get to him and the where he got shot too was kind of like on this lip and on a little Trail and like this lip and I jump over a rock wall and he's laying there and it's like the he's your ass is hanging in the breeze like it's the B the whole valley it's like it's almost like the whole valley could see this one spot that's what it felt like so I I'm looking around like this is bad and so I jump on him and I look at Justin I said Justin get on the radio get me a bird you know you can do it like I'll take care of O and he looked at me he's like okay okay and I was like I'll take care of O just get us the metab back you know get us on the radio and he's like okay kind of calm them down a little bit and then I started working on Bose and it was just I could feel the over pressure of all the all the like just machine gun fire all around me I could just feel feel feel it over my head they're shooting at us you know we were surrounded on all sides I'm engaging you know in between working on him like I had to cut it off I cut off his his plate carrier and uh started working on started patching him up and then I return fire again and then patch him up and return fire again and uh you know at one point I I took out my pistol because it was just easier than grabbing the rifle and I had my hand on on his chest with a bandage and then I'm you know engaging guys with my pist still to keep them off us and um you know it was truly at that point that I was like okay like if I die here I die here that's okay like I'm not going to let him one die alone or two get his body taken cuz at that point too they I knew they were trying to take his body they saw someone down they clearly saw it in the daylight they are going to try to take this body they're going to try to overrun us and that's what they were trying to do I mean we were getting so much fir um again the fog of War about probably 10 20 meters away uh uh the medic stoval and my buddy shuy who's a 18 Bravo they were throwing grenades it was all within grenade distance they're so they're throwing grenades back and forth and um you know I'm engaging dudes to get off us like kind of like about 20 met away just like using the pistol and then I get back down again and then you know uh pick up the rifle start shooting that and I I remember seeing his the look on V's face was like he's actually got better like he was like kind of took a breath his eyes came back he's looking and um and and I was like oh he's going to make it I was like this great he's going to make it but as the battle went on and and and stoval came over uh who's the medic and we kept working on him like he started to fade back again and that's when it was just like we just need to get him out of here like we're surrounded we can't get him we can't move him and it's all about the metac at this point um and so we're engaging stoval had a saw so at one point we're working on them and I just pick up the saw and just start raking all these positions that are absolutely hammering us so there was a point where we were I was working on them and it just wasn't looking good I was like you know and I was like we're surrounded they're closing in on us and I I remember I look up and I see two Taliban fighters going up a hill going to a position that I I saw I was like they're going to see and they're going to just light us up and I remember seeing them run up this hill and I'm working on V and I look up and I see it and I go I'm to say myself like it's going to be a long day and just like out of a movie two rockets come in like spom blow them up and then 50 c just right up the Hillside and I look over it's like ca and K was just starts screaming in the Rockets are you know and I was like holy like this oh you know and then like it BR just breathe life back into us you know and and so that was awesome so they they start engaging but some of the guys are too close that they can't they can't engage so they're engaging the targets that they can and then um you know and then that's when the next the The Southern element finally got to us the gun trucks and everything and um you know my buddy Gilbert like runs past us and uh you know I'm yell like Gilbert and he's just like holding his position you know he's just zoned in he's a he's a Corman and so I was like Gilbert you know and he's like oh oh like he he just he wouldn't even known we were there you know and so I call him over and and I was like hey you need to take him like I'm going to hand off the duties to you now like work on him I need to check the perimeter I need to check on my Afghans you know we're still in it we're still in the fight but we know the west side now is covered because we have the gun trucks over there and they that's what they maneuvered from so I jumped down and check on my Afghans and then the Medevac is coming in so we get a few more reinforcements and we knew they were going to try to shoot down the bird and so what I did was is we coordinated with the medevacs the that they're going to do one fake and then the second second bird was going to come in it was like there's barely any room to land and these guys were phenomenal so I said okay like soon as the bird comes in I got everyone lined up I said here's the target so they are they're clearly shooting at us like as soon as the bird starts second bird starts coming in light everything up so I coordinated like basically a counter attack or counter fire to make sure that the bird didn't get shot down so as soon as the second bird came in I you know scream you know you know fire and everyone just lit up and we started engaging targets and and it did work because you could tell the machine gun fire started slowing down and then the RPGs went over that over the bird so we managed to to give down enough cover fire to uh um to distract them or to essentially have them throw them off of the bird of the metac bird coming in so they got Bose in there and then um they got him on the metac bird and and got him out of there and and uh even the the guys that were on the on the Blackhawk jumped off it my buddy shuy like ran VES in the to the Blackhawk and then those guys that came off of that you know like the security element on the Blackhawk they jump out and he said he said I saw the guy their face they just went what the and then they just started it like put up the rifles and just start engaging guys and so we got them or they got Vose on carried him on got him on the metac got him on the metac bird got him out um and then uh gathered up my guys and you know it was uh one of those things that made sure everyone was good and then uh we started making our way back to the west side to the gun trucks and uh uh you know myself I was with shuy me and him were like the last ones off the battlefield you know I made sure everything was good and I was the last one out of the patrol out of that area and um yeah we got to the gun trucks and you know there's it was like a kind of that moment you're just like relief you know there's you know six Humvees just armed to the teeth you know I see my team leader I'd been shot well twice they were kind of like what happened you know and and I'm kind of miserable you know and and um so we end up working our way south and then uh we s getting in contact with like RPGs and machine guns the front element and then we just kind of engaged and just forced our way back and and we got back to the fob and that was the end of it but come to find out what happened was was there's a really big uh basically head honcho meeting of Taliban leaders uh you know uh anti-coalition forces that were meeting just so happened for about three or four days in our Valley when we went up to do this Patrol so there's all these top Taliban leaders and they basically wanted to flex it was like a target of opportunity and they had their fighters in the valley so they were like all right we're going to these dudes up and so that's essentially what happened is it was just a coincidence that they were there and we did the patrol control and so they coordinated the attack they hit all of our elements there was a r element a mid element and then the southern element and then they they hit them all all at the same time basically our element got hit with about uh was probably 7500 strong and you know overall All the Other M you know probably 150 you know and maybe more of hitting all the elements to slow them down from coming to get us so the guys that were fighting their way up the valley they were just engaging dudes left and right like almost just running through the villages like there's some you know little Villages along the way and they're just and shooting in every direction just try to get to us and they're they're hitting them to slow them down so that they could overrun us um and uh yeah and we ended up killing three high value targets um some of the tier one units came down and we like what the but thank you and then uh you know uh and we were like we didn't plan it you know like don't take us it was just coincidence and uh but there it was uh there were some targets there that had killed um kaiwa pilots and so they were you know were the pilots were like hey anything you need from us you know we're in debt to you um and uh so that was kind of a silver lining you know it suck to losing Vose was you know and it was a loss for the SF team and um you know we end up killing well over 25 Fighters just by a hand count that I I talked to all my buddies and the SF guys just by a rough like numbers there was over 25 Taliban killed and and the report says more but you know it's uh I relied on Intel but um like guys that we knew that we put down visibly we knew was over 25 um so yeah and um years later uh I was nominated for the Silver Star and I was awarded the Silver Star for uh actions Under Fire and and um you know uh basically protecting V from being taken by the Taliban you know or being from being overrun holding our ground and then you know basically holding holding the Taliban back from taking his body so um I think that's uh you know I kind of think back on that and um and the mentality of everything that I was trained to do taking it to heart and and and being tested and you know like everyone goes to combat it's awesome and it's you know and they they kind of prove themselves but to be put in that situation to be like you know this is It's not just a motto on a t-shirt it's not just a motto you stick on a poster or or a recruiting slogan it truly is like I'm going to die here I'm going to I accept death and that's okay and I'm going to you know die if I die I die here and I'm going to die in a pile of brass protecting you know one of my brothers in arms you know a special force Soldier and I'm not going to let him die alone so and they're not going to take his body and I'm going to give every ounce I can to that and to kind of live through that I think that's Pro you know like like that's when I probably get emotional about stuff cuz that truly you know people talk about it and and um you know I think just that the the just that feeling of like hey this is this is the end but that's okay and uh you know if this is what I have to do this what I have to do and that that type of sacrifice like to go through it accept it and then come out at the other end is you know uh you know sadly Vose didn't make it but you know and um you know there's nothing that we could do more is this time you know uh we couldn't get the metac birds in you know you know I always say yeah he probably could have made it if we were next to a hospital if he got shot we managed to get him into a you know like right away or something but also not it wasn't just a clean in andout sucking chest wound it had gone down and hit another organ and so he was like internally bleeding plus the sucking chest wound so it was a lot more complicated than that um but yeah so that was that

Channel: American Veterans Center

Views: 263,182

Keywords: AVC, American Veterans Center, veteran, veterans, history, army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard, military, navy seal

Id: tzu6dgeC1AI

Length: 52min 12sec (3132 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 19 2023