Note to our viewers: due to the sensitive
nature of some of the details in this episode, certain elements have been changed to protect
operational security. At least three city blocks have been turned
into a bonafide warzone, and the night is filled with the roar of weapons fire, flash
of muzzles, and tracers from our M-249s and M-240s reaching out into buildings like sweeping
laser beams. This was not how it was supposed to have gone
down, but in the dusty corners of Afghanistan, it was about as well as one could expect,
I suppose. We are four teams, ten men each, an overstrength
platoon so to speak, only we lack a lot of the firepower of a real infantry platoon. We've got no recoilless rifles for instance,
and only two LAWs amongst all forty of us. Once more, we weren't supposed to need them. Once more, we definitely did. Thankfully the enemy doesn't have armored
vehicles, but they've sic'ed three converted trucks mounted with anti-air cannons on the
buildings we've been using for cover. A 240 took one out, the LAWs got the other
two. Then they put a round into the vehicle the
240 took out for good measure. I'm trying to keep an ear to both my team
and command's radio nets, being team leader all too often means having to do three or
four things at the same time, while trying really hard not to die. My team's taken up positions inside a small
abandoned warehouse of some kind- the walls are thick enough to not crumble under the
fire of AKs, and the upper floor has some great vantage points to watch enemy movement
on the street in front and behind us. The other three teams are strung out in a
rough L-shape formation across various other buildings to our nine o'clock, we make up
the far right element of our formation. Next to me our sharpshooter is singing a nursery
rhyme to himself, pausing only to take shots. “Mary had a little lamb, little lamb-”
boom! “-little lamb, Mary had a little lamb-” Boom! “-who's fleece was white as-” Boom!
“snow...” It's a mental trick I've seen him use before,
something to help him cope with the pressure, and the fear. The fighting in front of us is too close for
him to engage, so he's popping targets a quarter mile away threatening one of our other teams. Occasionally somebody will fire up at his
position, but one of the SAWs downstairs is always there to cut them down if they do. Still, all it would take is one RPG and he-
and I- would be goners in this small upstairs room. Best not to think about that. “Whiskey-1, be advised, Reaper-4 confirms
VIP has been KIA'd by hostiles.” Shit. Somewhere two miles above our heads an Air
Force drone is watching the firefight with its multiple cameras. Its infrared camera spotted the VIP we came
here to rescue, and it's recorded his murder in some back alley a few hundred yards away. I key my radio on the command net, “Whiskey
1, Whiskey 4... VIP is KIA, do we extract?” There's a long wait on the command net, while
on my team net my guys all over the building are calling targets out to each other. I check my watch in the dark- it's been 33
minutes since hostile contact. What started out as a very target-rich environment
has finally started to diminish, my guys are calling less and less hostiles over the net. Or maybe the hostiles are just trying to pull
back and retreat. “Whiskey leaders, be advised- top says terminate. Acknowledge.” Terminate. We failed to reach our VIP in time, so now
we're going to do what we really came out here to do- eliminate every single hostile. This op has basically just turned into an
extermination mission. Four days before all team leaders get called
into a briefing. You always know when it's going to be something
serious, and very complicated, if only the team leads get called in for a mission brief. Less complicated, and therefore less dangerous
ops typically get mass briefings. When we finally get our brief I can't help
but sigh in wonder, this one's going to be a doozy. Forces friendly to the Taliban have taken
a local village elder and one of his sons hostage. The other three sons they shot in the head
in the middle of the street as a warning. This village has been collaborating with NATO
forces, and in return NATO's been giving them food and other aid. The message is clear: the Taliban is still
here, and if you cooperate with the Americans or their allies, this is what you get in return. Our goal is simple: rescue the VIP. Except nobody believes that's possible. In fact we're not even sure why the enemy
took hostages in the first place, it's well outside of their MO. Typically they simply torture, rape, and kill
anybody they think is collaborating with the Americans. The intel guys think that the Taliban is going
to try and put this guy and his surviving son on trial before executing them. It's a total show trial, but it's meant to
try and show the Afghan population that they are still very much in power. The intelligence guys don't want that to happen,
we can't let the Taliban have a chance at claiming any amount of legitimacy. Realistically though, there's no chance of
rescue for this poor guy. As soon as we make first contact with the
enemy they're going to put a bullet in his head. No way are they going to let us score a huge
morale victory and actually rescue this village elder. Sadly, this man's life has become nothing
more than a football to be kicked back and forth in a great big game of propaganda. We put this guy in danger when he offered
to cooperate with us, so the least we can do is our damned best to rescue him. If we can get him, good, but the real mission
is loud and clear: we're there to neutralize every single hostile we come across. NATO does not negotiate with terrorists, and
we're here to show that if you resort to kidnapping for extortion or propaganda purposes, we'll
eradicate you completely. There can be no other response- otherwise
kidnapping and other hostage-taking will spread like a cancer throughout the nation. We have to cut this cancer out immediately
to prevent its growth. Our primary objective though is to rescue
the VIP alive, and we're going to do that to the best of our abilities. Intelligence has been watching the perp's
movements, and finally spotted where they're holding him, a small industrial city near
the eastern mountains. Makes sense, they were probably hoping to
smuggle him across the border into the Pakistan tribal areas where the Taliban could hold
its fake trial in relative safety. Pakistani border forces are supposed to stop
militants crossing back and forth across the border, but everybody knows they're double-dealing
NATO and helping the militants out. They don't want a free Afghanistan, they want
the Taliban to remain in power and act as a buffer against Iran. We make our insertion at night via two Chinooks
escorted by Apaches. The choppers drop us off about fifty miles
outside of town so that we can hoof it the rest of the way. We're not using vehicles, and we move only
at night time so that we don't give ourselves away- not an easy feat for a force of 40,
but the wilderness in this part of the country is very vast and most of the land inhospitable. We come across a single group of herders in
the middle of the first night, who practically need a new pair of pants after seeing a troop
of 40 Americans armed to the teeth descend down a wadi towards them. We give the herders the equivalent of fifty
dollars each, an astronomical sum for these dirt-poor Afghanis, and hope that it buys
us their silence. If not, well, we did come looking for a fight. The farmers bless us several times and offer
us cheese for our journey, there's not nearly enough for all of us but we gladly accept
what they offer. The Afghan people are incredibly generous,
and mostly honorable- the gesture is one of respect and kinship, and it sets us at ease
about having our movement betrayed. On the second night of our march we near the
small city and widen the distance between each team, putting about half a mile between
us. In the dark rocky wilderness it's very hard
to spot us, but we have a couple of Australian Special Air Service guys with us who are incredible
scouts and guides. They pick a path through the wilderness that
keeps us moving along wadis and canyons, hidden from prying eyes. Surprisingly, the infiltration into the city's
outskirts should be easier than remaining hidden throughout our wilderness trek. Most of the city has been abandoned due to
the proximity to the Pakistani border and the prevalence of foreign fighters sneaking
into Afghanistan through Pakistan, and besides the city was never very big to begin with. Some sort of small industrial center, likely
supporting the mining industry in the mountains. All around the outskirts buildings have been
abandoned, moving through them should be easy. Our intelligence says that the VIP is held
on the eastern edge of the city, and we each have an aerial snapshot of the target building
along with the streets around it. Using our digital pads we can pull up a map
of the city, and every few minutes it gets updated with red pings from confirmed hostiles
that the Air Force drone loitering silently overhead has detected. Its powerful night vision and infrared cameras
have spotted a few armed checkpoints in the city, but it seems like they don't have a
mobile patrol force. The insurgency is made up of some pretty fierce
fighters, but their tactics are seriously lacking. All four teams move to the city outskirts
at once. Our rifles are silenced, but the silencers
don't last very long and aren't nearly as effective as Hollywood makes them out to be. The key to success is going to be to move
fast and hit them hard. As soon as we make contact, a quick reaction
force will land on blackhawks and chinooks on the west end of the city, trapping the
enemy between us. Once things get loud several air assets, to
include apaches right now on station several miles away, will come in to deliver air support. An Air Force combat controller with us has
a laundry list of Air Force toys to call on if we need them, but generally we'd like to
avoid flattening the entire town. Fast forward thirty something odd minutes. Things got loud, everything went sideways. All four teams got pinned down by a huge number
of hostiles. Typical op stuff. Worst of all though, VIP got himself KIA'd
by the bad guys who now know they're losing this fight. Nobody wants to drop heavy ordnance in the
middle of a city, so instead our air support gave us a few strafing runs with cannons. The fighting's been door to door, and most
of the job is going to be on us, and not the air force. Still, what I wouldn't do to have just three
or four buildings imploded with a 500 pound bomb. It's now on to phase 2 of this fight, there's
no hope of hostage rescue so we have to do our best to deter any other hostiles from
trying this shit again, mostly by killing as many of them as we can. It's the only way to deter this type of tactic,
even if it's thoroughly unpleasant. The teams move again, and it's a stand-up
real live wild-west door-to-door fight the whole way. These guys may be losing, but they're fanatics
and surrender isn't an option. That's not a problem for me, or at least it
won't be until I get home from this mess and have to start sifting faces out of my memory. What is a problem though is what me and my
team find next. We breach a small gathering place, something
like a gymnasium. Inside there's three hostiles, though they're
all dead. One of them took a while to die, I can tell
because there's a long streak of blood going from the outside door to where he crawled
to and died. There's other figures in here though, huddled
up against the far corners. Somebody yells out “Civilians!” before
any of us accidentally open fire. We've been trained to keep our cool under
severe circumstances, but all of our nerves are shot, and we've got a few of our own at
a casualty collection point a few hundred yards away, some of which won't be going home. Nobody feels like taking any chances. We keep on keeping our cool though. The civilians are women, but most of them
are missing the typical burkas they wear. They're dressed in rough linen garments, and
there's smaller figures with them too- children. I get a sinking feeling about what we've just
discovered. The Jihadists are fond of abducting women
and children, forcing them into marriages. In essence, it's sex slavery. But that's not what this is. Almost at the same time as I hear the women
start shouting in alarm, I take in the contents of several tables in front of me. There's ball bearings, gravel, random pieces
of small, sharp metal. There's also linen vests, and if I had to
stake my life on it, blocks of homemade explosives. This is a suicide bomber factory. The Taliban and their jihadist allies have
taken to using mentally retarded children and adults to carry out suicide attacks against
NATO and Afghan government forces. The reasoning is simple, and devastatingly
effective: what NATO soldier would suspect a mentally retarded individual- let alone
a child- to be a suicide bomber? The realization sinks in and suddenly nothing
I've seen, or done, in this god-forsake piece of the world matters. This is the black heart of hell itself. I barely even notice that the women are shouting
in alarm though, and turn just in time to spot a child- maybe thirteen or fourteen-
rushing towards us. It's not like in the movies, time doesn't
slow down to a crawl for you- it only does that weeks, months, or years after the fact
when you're home in bed and your brain makes you relive the memory. I have to piece together what happened from
memory. I remember somebody shooting, one of our guys. There was the roar of an M-4 carbine. But it was only one shot, not our usual double-tap
to confirm a kill, and not a quick burst from our rifle's three-round burst fire setting. It was just one shot, a single, reluctant,
shot... center mass on a child. It didn't matter though, the detonator had
already been triggered. When I came to, I remember thinking to myself,
“That's the second time. You can't keep taking concussions like that.” I follow the NFL, I know how bad concussions
can be. Your brain is funny like that, it pulls the
most random concerns to the forefront of your mind smack dab in the middle of a crisis situation. I remember talking to a guy once who got shot
up pretty bad and things didn't look good for him. He told me that he just kept thinking silly
random things like, I really need to get a haircut. I let my hair grow too long. It's definitely out of regs. Concussions was my silly thought, and I suppose
it was really just my brain rebooting itself. Things became hazy after that. I would end up getting dragged back to our
casualty collection point, took a large ball bearing directly to the hip and it shattered
half the bone. From that point on sitting for long periods
of time would become extremely uncomfortable and eventually painful. Cuts and bruises other places too, broken
wrist from another ball bearing. Incredibly, nothing life threatening, though
the armor plate on my vest took several hits. My lack of life-threatening injuries was a
miracle shared by the three other guys that had been inside when the vest went off. Everyone got hurt, some worse than others,
but nobody died. That's a pretty good day. Wish I could say the same for the half-dozen
or so women in that building. The kid had been a lot closer to them than
to us, and I can blame faulty, low-yield homemade explosives for our survival, but they still
had enough punch to decimate several of the women. I remember seeing them extracted out along
with our wounded, though I never really found out what happened to the survivors. Never even found out where they had come from. Were they given up by families that supported
the Taliban or its Jihadist allies? Were these the mentally retarded daughters
and sisters of jihadists, used as suicide bomber fodder because they couldn't possibly
know better? Or were they abducted from local families,
and then set loose against them? I guess I never really wanted to know. You can only take so much evil in, sometimes
its best to leave the details out. I know guys who didn't learn that lesson,
and I wanted a chance at a normal life one day. A life back in the real world, comfortably
numb in American suburbia somewhere, with my biggest concern being that my neighbor's
grass was growing better than mine. Now, to see what it would be like to be in
this situation for most people, go watch “How Can You Survive In A Warzone With No Military
Training?” If you liked this video then you’ll love
that one so go watch right now!
