<i>( music playing )</i> On April 7th,
we were really just moving from Camp Fallujah
over to another base <i>which should have been
a routine drive.</i> The mission
obviously changed the moment
we encountered the enemy. <i>They kicked off
with RPGs,</i> <i>and a lot of
machine gun fire.</i> Mike Mendoza:<i>
If we're gonna get shot,
we're gonna fight back,</i> and sure enough,
that's what we did,
we fought back. <i>( music playing )</i> When you decide
that you want to survive, <i>whoever it is,
if they have a weapon,
they're gonna die.</i> Blair Dell:<i>
One thing we brought
to the table that day</i> was that overwhelming
acceptance of violence. <i>( music playing )</i> Eddie Wright:<i>
We deployed to Iraq
in 2004.</i> I'd been to Iraq before
with the invasion, but I could tell
that somethin' was different. <i>It went from the groups
of kids cheerin'</i> <i>and givin' you
the thumbs up</i> <i>and wavin'
on the side of the road,</i> saying things like
"Bush, number one," you know, <i>to staring us down,</i> <i>derisive looks, you know,</i> <i>like they weren't
hiding the fact that we
weren't welcome.</i> So I knew it was
a different war. And I knew that it was
gonna be more dangerous
and more difficult. Today, four American
contractors-- civilians, were massacred
in Fallujah. Reporter:<i>
Four Americans in two SUVS
stuck in traffic.</i> <i>They're ambushed.
The four men, all civilians,</i> <i>ex-military, worked
for a Carolina firm,
Blackwater USA.</i> <i>The jubilant crowd,
honking their horns</i> <i>the same way people here
rejoice at weddings,</i> <i>set the SUVs on fire,</i> <i>then tied ropes around
the charred bodies</i> <i>and dragged them
through the streets,</i> <i>and hung two of
the Americans on a bridge.</i> Wright:<i>
When the Blackwater
contractors got killed,</i> <i>we had just spent a little
bit of time with them.</i> <i>I don't know,
maybe a week before?
Something like that.</i> So that brought it home. Once we'd heard about it, we're like, "Man,
we were just with them." <i>And now to find out
that two of their bodies</i> <i>were hanging
from the bridge,</i> <i>and the other two were drug
through the streets,</i> <i>it kind of hit us.</i> We'd only been there about
a month when that happened, so we hadn't really learned
what was actually out there. You know?
How many of the enemy
were actually out there. Dell:<i>
Our platoon sergeant
pulled us aside</i> <i>and said, "All right,
let's put this in perspective.</i> because it's gonna be us
out there on the line
managing this. We're gonna be
the response to this in some way or another." This is outside
Fallujah, Iraq. <i>They pretty much have
the whole city surrounded</i> <i>and they've been hitting it
for a couple days.</i> Dell:<i>
Second Platoon, Bravo Company,
1st Recon Battalion.</i> <i>I couldn't have asked
for my first recon platoon</i> to have been
a better group of guys.
We just meshed well. Griego:<i>
So this is one of the things
that we do out here--</i> drive around
looking for cachet sites. <i>We just found
some IEDs on this road.</i> Dell:<i>
We had darn good leadership.</i> Dan Griego kicked us
square in the nose and
made sure we were ready. Griego:<i>
I was platoon sergeant
for Bravo Company.</i> I wanted to make sure
that my teams had as much as they needed,
so they would be ready in case of, you know,
contact or fighting
with the enemy. This is from our
rooftop position
here in Fallujah. Wright:<i>
He was a hands-on
platoon sergeant,</i> but he let the team leaders
run the teams. He didn't micromanage, and he did well working
with our platoon commander, <i>Captain Brent Morel.</i> Griego:<i>
Captain Morel and I
were like--</i> we were friends. <i>We worked well together,</i> and he would listen
to any input I had on what we were gonna do
or how we were gonna do things. Wright:<i>
Some of the guys,
you know,</i> were having a hard time<i>
warming up to him.</i> <i>He took us to the gym
one day before we deployed.</i> He proceeded to try to box
everybody in our platoon. <i>And I was impressed
at how many shots
he could take.</i> I thought that was cool
of him to put himself
out there like that. Blair-- "Doc Dell"--
knew his job really well. Wright:<i>
He worked real hard with us</i> <i>and ran us through
combat trauma,</i> <i>and made sure
we were all well-trained</i> <i>on first aid
and trauma medicine.</i> I was an assistant
team leader. Griego:<i>
Assistant team leader</i> <i>actually does most of
the controlling of the team</i> <i>and making sure
everything's together.</i> The team leader tasks him with
that and he takes care of it. Ready to go out
and patrol. Dell:<i>
Eddie Wright
was a machine gunner.</i> Definitely serious
as hell when it came time
to do the job. Wright:<i>
This was a platoon of
straight-up alpha males.</i> Everybody out there
was the baddest dude
on the planet. ( gunfire popping ) <i>But we loved each other
through our hard training</i> <i>and we were real tight.</i> - One, two, three--
- All: Kill! All right,
get in your vehicle,
get out of here. Dell:<i>
April 7th was supposed
to be an administrative run</i> <i>to move our company
headquarters.</i> <i>We knew we were
just gonna go down</i> <i>this main supply route,
Route Boston.</i> <i>It was gonna be our platoon,
five vehicles,</i> the headquarters element
with administrative personnel
leadership. <i>We were gonna take them
to a secure point.</i> Mendoza:<i>
We have, total,
25 Marines.</i> <i>We've been on
this route before.</i> <i>Usually there's kids
running around,</i> <i>there's people walking.</i> <i>There's local vendors.</i> But this day,
there wasn't. Dell:<i>
It was just eerie.</i> <i>Almost like in
one of those movies</i> <i>where you get
the little tumbleweed</i> <i>that jumps across
the main street.</i> It was almost that quiet. Wright:<i>
On this movement,
I was in the lead vehicle.</i> <i>so I could see
the vehicle traffic
coming towards us.</i> <i>When you see...
flip a U-turn and take off,</i> <i>you know, that right there's
a big red flag, like,</i> "Uh oh," you know. So I stopped the convoy.
I got on the radio. <i>and I radioed back,
you know, like,</i> <i>"Hey, something's
going down here.</i> <i>We should probably stop
and get eyes on it."</i> <i>And the word came back,
like, "Okay,</i> well, push forward
and pick up your speed." "Roger that." <i>Yeah, I just got ready.</i> <i>It was like we knew we were
rolling into an ambush.</i> <i>It's one of those things
where you've got a job to do</i> <i>and don't have the luxury
to worry about it.</i> <i>It's like,
"Okay, here we go."</i> Dell:<i>
It was two low fields</i> <i>with one road right down
the middle of it,</i> <i>and we're talking
about hundreds of meters.</i> Basically,
if you were to pick the ultimate place
to set up an ambush, they chose wisely. Mendoza:<i>
Those senses start
kicking in, you know,</i> that sixth sense
that some people have? ( gunshots popping ) Man:<i>
Contact right!
Contact right!</i> ( gunshots ) Contact left! Mendoza:<i>
I see muzzle flashes.</i> We're getting shot at
from both sides. ( heavy gunfire
crackling ) It looked like they wanted
to wipe us out. ( gunfire continues ) <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( music playing )</i> ( gunshots ) Contact right,
contact right! ( gunshots ) It was basically
a close ambush. ( gunfire continues ) <i>And our SOPs for
this type of engagement</i> <i>was to stop and lay down
a base of fire...</i> ( gunshots rattling ) <i>...so it kind of was
counter-intuitive</i> <i>to what you'd
think you'd do,</i> <i>like run away
or get out of Dodge.</i> No, you go right to it. ( rapid gunfire
continues ) We were<i> not</i>
in a good spot. We were in the kill zone,
basically. I kept hearing
these explosions. You know, just boom,
boom, boom, boom. I thought,
"Damn, they're shooting RPGs at the back half
of our platoon." Well, they weren't
shooting 'em at them, they were shooting 'em
at us. ( gunfire continues ) <i>They were missing us
and exploding-- hitting
behind us.</i> That's when I got hit. ( whistling ) ( explosion blasts ) It was like--
like a tremendous thunderclap originating
from inside your head. You know, like,
you can't really-- it was just a "boom!" <i>I thought I got shot
in the face.</i> I was thinking to myself,
"All right, I guess I'll see
what it's like to die." <i>And then I thought
to myself, "Okay,</i> <i>you gotta chill out,
'cause you're going
into shock.</i> <i>Like, relax."</i> And as soon as I made
that conscious thought, it's like somebody
hit the light switch and turned the lights on. <i>Everything cleared up
in my vision,</i> <i>and I started to assess
the situation.</i> <i>My hands
were killin' me.</i> Like, I was just
in pain everywhere, and I remember liftin'
my arm up and looking down, <i>and it was just nasty.
It was gone.</i> It was shredded, and
I remember thinking,
"Damn." And my right hand
was hurting, and I, you know, lifted
my arm up and I looked down, and I saw, uh... where, you know,
my hand was blown off right at the base
of my palm. And it was kinda strange,
'cause my hand was
hangin' down. It was like a--
it looked like a glove
that got shredded, like somehow all the meat
and bones were out of my hand, so it was like an empty glove,
but shredded. And I remember thinking,
"( bleep ). Both of 'em?" I looked down and my femur
was stickin' out of my leg, off at an angle,
kind of. And the whole top
of my quadricep from the knee all the way up
almost to my hip was blown open,
and it was just nasty. A pulpy red mess. <i>And I remember
thinking, "Damn,</i> <i>I gotta get
a tourniquet on that,"</i> and you know,
"How am I gonna do this?" You know,
my hands are shot up. <i>So I turned to the radio
operator and I'm like,</i> <i>"Bro, get
the blow-out kit."</i> <i>and he was just
looking at me--</i> Like, he probably thought
I was gonna die, 'cause I looked terrible. <i>I was born in Chicago.
I moved around a lot
growin' up.</i> <i>I always had
to make new friends.</i> <i>Sometimes I'd make
good friends,</i> and sometimes I didn't
make good friends. I actually joined a gang
in high school, a Samoan gang. It's crazy.
I was the only
white guy in the gang. You know, those guys
were my family when I didn't really
feel that I had anybody
I could connect with. <i>I got expelled.</i> Spent some time in juvie
for fighting, you know. <i>I was a little punk.</i> <i>But getting in trouble
was also</i> <i>one of the best things
that's ever happened to me.</i> <i>I needed to
get in trouble.</i> <i>I needed to think about
the path my life was going.</i> And I had to make
a conscious decision
to change it. <i>I had always wanted
to be a Marine,</i> <i>and I gravitated towards
the reconnaissance community.</i> The books that I had read
about recon teams in Vietnam were to me,
as a kid, amazing. And it took some time,
you know? <i>I had to make amends
for all the fights
that I'd been in</i> <i>and pay some
restitution.</i> But I stuck with it, and I talked to the recruiter
for over two years. <i>The fact that I was able
to join the Marine Corps</i> <i>in itself is
a small miracle
in my eyes.</i> But I think I was
put on this earth
to be a Marine. I thought he was
a bit of a jokester, you know,
the typical smart aleck that every group's
gonna have. I went to the Marine Corps
standards board last week. -<i> ( laughter )</i>
- Apparently piercings
are "eccentric," but paper clips, and uh,
clothespins are not eccentric. Dell:<i>
That sense of humor</i> <i>and just general smart-aleck
approach to things,</i> <i>how could you not
bond with that?</i> Mendoza:<i>
He really is full of life.</i> <i>I mean, he's an individual
that has so much heart in him,</i> if you need something,
Eddie will be there. Just from the boom
that went off, you knew that the Alpha
element had been hit bad. Wright:<i>
In my mind,
I thought I was dying.</i> <i>There was
a radio operator,</i> <i>and he was looking through
the back of the Humvee,</i> <i>trying to get
the first aid kit,</i> and he couldn't find it. <i>And I'm like,
"Just get my tourniquet,"
you know.</i> And I leaned like this 'cause we had the pockets
in our sleeves. <i>So my radio operator
gets a tourniquet
on my left leg.</i> <i>By this time, my team
leader turned around</i> and grabs the tourniquet
to make sure it's on tight, and the thing pops off, and I'm like,
"Oh, my gosh." ( groans ) The radio operator
has to reapply it, and this time he really
cranked it on there. He probably saved my life, 'cause I probably would
have bled out, slowly. <i>He put a tourniquet
on my left arm.</i> <i>When we got hit,
the blast deafened us,</i> so you didn't hear that
small-arms fire anymore, so it's like "Oh, they're
not shooting at us anymore." No, they were shooting at us.
We just didn't hear it. <i>As our hearing
kind of came back,</i> we realized,
"Oh, man, we gotta get
out of this kill zone." <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( music playing )</i> If you count all of
the different positions that were shooting at us,
almost 360 degrees. <i>It was building up
into the southwest,</i> <i>one behind us
to the northeast.</i> <i>We had at least five
positions in the berms,</i> <i>I was in vehicle two.</i> We were trying to
attract attention to us. ( gunfire rattling ) <i>Vehicle One was hit.</i> That's when our platoon
commander, <i>Captain Brent Morel
said dismount.</i> Assault back,
Assault back! <i>( music playing )</i> ( gunfire continues ) Mendoza:<i>
To get out of a close ambush,</i> you assault through.
That's in the handbook. Unless you want to be
a sitting duck, you know, you're
gonna close with and destroy the enemy. ( pops, hissing ) Dell:<i>
Most of the guys went through,
straight through the field,</i> right into the teeth
of the gunfight. <i>( bullets whistling )</i> Mendoza:<i>
We're running through
a hail of bullets</i> <i>up to the first berm.</i> <i>( gunfire crackling )</i> <i>The Marine
that I was with,</i> <i>he starts to shoot
his machine gun,</i> <i>and he can't because
his weapon got shot</i> and he didn't realize it. <i>and now he has a weapon
that doesn't function.</i> Marine:<i>
Moving!</i> <i>( music playing )</i> ( gunshots ) <i>( music playing )</i> ( gunshots ) <i>( music playing )</i> I see a couple
of enemy fighters just rockin' away
with their PKs. <i>It was a perfect setup
for an ambush.</i> ( gunshots ) <i>They never knew
what was coming to them.</i> <i>I was in disbelief.</i> I was like, "Did I just
shoot my first guys? Did I just kill somebody?
Did I just take a soul?" <i>I was in shock
after that,</i> <i>but I just accepted it.</i> I accepted the violence. I accepted, you know,
where we were. That's just what I knew
and that's what I ran with. <i>I knew I was gonna be a Marine,
since I was a young age.</i> <i>It could have been the "Rambo"
movies I was watching.</i> I don't know where
the seed was planted, but I always knew that I was
gonna join the Marine Corps ever since, I would say,
I was a grade-schooler. <i>You know, I bypassed,
you know, the Army, the Navy,
the Air Force.</i> <i>I went straight
into the Marine Corps
recruiting office</i> and I was, like, "Hey,
wanna join the Marine Corps." He was like, "Well, you want
to know anything about it?" I was like, "Well,
all I know is that, you know, I wanna shoot guns,
I wanna blow things up." And he says,
"Well, Infantry, it is." <i>Um, that's the route
that I took.</i> Mike Mendoza
was pretty quiet, so I really never, you know,
heard him say much or do something that was,
you know, <i>gonna draw
my attention to him.</i> I guess as a platoon sergeant,
that's good, because if my attention
is drawn towards you it's probably
for something bad. Dell:<i>
I just always knew I could
go to him for advice,</i> talk to him,
just chat, you know,
sanity check. <i>He's the type of guy you want
beside you in a gunfight.</i> <i>( music playing )</i> Mendoza:<i>
It was chaos.</i> I looked to my left,
somebody was shooting. I looked to my right,
somebody's shooting. <i>( bullets whizzing )</i> <i>( gunfire popping )</i> <i>That's when I saw
Captain Brent Morel.</i> <i>He just fell, and
I just knew he was shot.</i> <i>I just knew
he was shot.</i> ( gunshots ) <i>I tried to carry him,</i> <i>but Morel is a big boy.</i> <i>He's tall
and full of muscle.</i> <i>I think I made it
about three feet</i> before, you know, my knees
gave out under me because he was such
a large individual. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>Fire started zipping in
right at us.</i> <i>You could hear the cracks
and see dirt</i> <i>kicking around
around us.</i> ( loud gunshots ) <i>And then we started
taking off his body armor.</i> <i>We wanted to see exactly
where he was hit.</i> <i>( music playing )</i> My hand feels
a small hole here, and then I look
on the other side. All my fingers pretty much just
fell into his body cavity. He just said, "I gotta get
outta here, I'm gonna die." Um... when he said that to me,
it was eye-to-eye contact. So that's why
it's pretty much--
it burned. It's burned in my mind. So... So when he said, "We gotta get
outta here, I'm gonna die," I lost it inside.
Not physically, but I was just like,
"I don't know what to do." <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( bullets whizzing )</i> There was three battles
happening in one ambush. <i>On the kill zone,
Eddie's vehicle</i> <i>was disabled by the RPG.</i> And then the second
battle where I was, <i>was Captain Morel,
who was severely injured.</i> <i>We were being shot at.</i> <i>The Marines that
were with us,</i> <i>they were doing their best
to make radio contact</i> <i>to try to get a vehicle
to extract them out.</i> And then
we had another battle,
which was Dan Griego. ( men shouting ) Mendoza:<i>
He was our Bravo element.</i> <i>He broke off
from our convoy,</i> <i>and he did like
an L-shaped position.</i> From the time
we started taking fire, I immediately said,
"Turn right." ( gunshots crackling ) <i>When we made
our flanking move,</i> <i>now we were on
a dirt road,</i> <i>and it's next to
a canal.</i> Griego:
Get ready to flank! I initially thought
we could move the vehicles into a position where
we'd be able to just fire <i>big guns from the vehicle.</i> Griego:
I got too much grass
in front of me. Look out. <i>And we couldn't tell
where the enemy was</i> <i>because we had the tall reeds
to our left-hand side.</i> Marine:
I got a shot.
You want to take the hill? Marine #2:<i>
Get in position!</i> Griego:<i>
Not being able
to see them,</i> <i>we had to get
out of the vehicles</i> <i>to go through the reeds,
across the canal</i> <i>up to the other side
so that we can see</i> <i>where the enemy was.</i> <i>( music playing )</i> <i>The biggest thing was
just to draw the fire</i> <i>away from
the Alpha element.</i> <i>When we started firing,
then machine gun fire
started coming at us.</i> <i>We knew they'd turn
their fire in our direction,</i> <i>which takes fire
off that Alpha element,</i> <i>which would allow
time for them to move.</i> <i>You turn yourself
into this person</i> <i>that will kill anybody
in front of you</i> <i>to protect your guys.</i> I'm not gonna take time
to think about it. I'm not gonna
take time to, you know-- I'm gonna kill you. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>I grew up
in Whittier, California,</i> <i>and hated school,</i> so I enlisted
in the Marine Corps. I enlisted
when I was 17, and then I went in,
actually went in
when I was 18. <i>I had an actual
long lineage</i> <i>of another Marine
that was from my family.</i> The great-great-great-
grandfather that was in-- in-- like 1786,
something like that. <i>My mom wasn't supportive.</i> She was like,
"You're not gonna make it, because you don't
listen to me, and you're not gonna listen
to anyone else." <i>I stayed in
the reconnaissance community</i> <i>the entire time
in my 20 years.</i> <i>Pretty much I was deployed,
I mean, constantly.</i> I'd come back, retrain,
and then redeploy. By the time
we deployed in 2004, that was my
ninth deployment. Dan Griego, he was
the most senior enlisted member in our platoon.
He was our platoon sergeant. He had more deployments
than, I think, any vehicle put together. <i>He's very--
he's very smart</i> <i>when it comes
to tactics.</i> Here we are, back out
in the desert again. <i>It's a day out
at the range.</i> <i>We're firing the MK19s.</i> Dell:<i>
When other teams
and other platoons</i> <i>were out getting a soda
or something like that,</i> <i>he had us out
doing rehearsals</i> <i>and beating the hell
out of us with that,</i> <i>which is what
we should be doing.</i> We never doubted
what was required of us, because of his leadership. <i>( music playing )</i> Griego:<i>
At that time,
we were way outnumbered,</i> <i>but the Bravo element
was in the best position
possible.</i> <i>And the enemy had set up
only expecting us</i> <i>to be coming from
the direction that they
initially engaged in.</i> <i>They didn't expect us
to be coming from the side.</i> We're laying on a berm, and it's open ground
in front of us, with an open enemy
in front of us. <i>So we're able to shoot
straight across the ground,</i> <i>and with a .50 caliber sniper
rifle, it's pretty easy</i> <i>to, you know, be able to hit
whatever you want with it.</i> <i>( music playing )</i> <i>There is really
no thought,</i> <i>other than "try to hit
as many people as you can."</i> <i>This is basic infantry,</i> close with
and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver. You would think that your
heart would start racing and you know,
everything would pick up
and speed would pick up, but it seemed more
like time slowed down. <i>I remember breathing
and everything</i> <i>was just like
really relaxed.</i> <i>And I was able to fire</i> <i>just the way you should
fire a sniper rifle.</i> I know at least
I hit the guy that fired
the RPG at Eddie. <i>I shot him right
through the face.</i> <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( engine sputtering )</i> <i>( engine starts )</i> Wright:<i>
Our team leader told
our driver ter tpunch forward</i> and the vehicle really
is barely moving. it's like "putt-putt...
putt-putt, putt, putt-putt." <i>Obviously we have
but it did start to move us
out of that kill zone.</i> <i>( music playing )</i> Dell:<i>
About then,
Eddie's vehicle started</i> finally moving again,
starting to move our way. <i>( engine starts )</i> <i>Everybody
in Eddie's vehicle</i> <i>was injured to
some degree or another.</i> <i>They were working
their way back to us.</i> <i>We needed to set up
a casualty collection point.</i> <i>And we set up
our own security</i> <i>right there in the middle
of the kill zone.</i> <i>So we had kind of
a triangle of vehicles.</i> <i>Eddie had both arms
ripped off,</i> <i>and a good chunk
of his left upper leg.</i> <i>Shrapnel everywhere.</i> <i>First words
out of his mouth,</i> <i>with a smart-aleck grin
on his face,</i> "Hey, Blair,
can you give me a hand?" ( chuckles ) And he meant every bit
of that pun. Testament to his
will to live, <i>and his warrior spirit.</i> <i>As a medic, you want to
take care of every patient,</i> <i>but it means a lot more
when it's somebody you know.</i> <i>Grew up
in Washington state.
Allyn, Washington.</i> Little town still waiting
on its first stop light. Had the Olympic Mountains
as my backyard, <i>and the Puget Sound
as my front yard.</i> <i>Couldn't ask
for much better.</i> <i>I had the opportunity
when I was 16,</i> <i>and I joined
the fire department
as a volunteer.</i> <i>While I loved what I was doing
with the fire department,</i> <i>I knew there was more
I could do.</i> <i>Started with the grunts,
with Marine grunts,</i> infantry, 1996. And saw... just about every
country you could hope for. And thought I was gonna go
back to the fire department, and realized the Marines
had ruined me, 'cause I couldn't be
a reactive medic anymore. I couldn't wait for people
to get screwed up and then me and my buddy
show up and fix it. I wanted to be
more proactive. Mendoza:<i>
Blair, he was our doc.</i> <i>He was our
platoon corpsman.</i> <i>Blair was the "wise owl."</i> He always had
something clever to say. Griego:<i>
Blair was like a
happy-go-lucky kind of a guy.</i> <i>Knew his job really well,</i> didn't have to worry
about him medically, you know, how he was gonna
take care of anything. <i>( music playing )</i> ( popping ) Dell:<i>
I was working on Eddie
for quite a bit,</i> <i>and then I got the word
Brent Morel was hit.</i> <i>At some point
they had managed</i> to get a vehicle out to him
or something. I don't know,
I'm not familiar with how they
got him back to me. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>But I turned around
and they were laying him down.</i> Yeah, and... That definitely
punches you in the gut. <i>I checked on Eddie
one more time real quick.</i> <i>I said, "Hey, buddy,
I'm gonna have to go</i> <i>take care of the boss."</i> <i>Brent had a torso wound--</i> <i>pretty significant.</i> <i>I did everything I could,</i> <i>and it seemed like
nothing I was doing</i> <i>would, uh...</i> <i>...gain purchase.</i> I was not-- I... didn't want to give up. He deserved nothing less
than everything I had, but at some point, some wounds,
you're just not gonna win. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( helicopter blades
whirring )</i> <i>( engine buzzing )</i> Wright:<i>
First I heard the Cobras
fly over a couple of times,</i> and I could hear them
firing their rockets and I could hear
their machine gun. That's a wonderful sound.
You're just like, "Ah, yes, we're good.
We got Cobras." <i>That really helped to turn
the tide of the battle.</i> <i>It seemed like ages,
but I think it might've been</i> <i>like 45 minutes
or something.</i> <i>But the medevac chopper
finally came,</i> and landed. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>Captain Morel,
my platoon commander,</i> <i>he was, uh,</i> <i>white as a ghost.</i> He'd lost so much blood
that he-- I mean,
he was just-- I'd never seen somebody
that white. <i>( music playing )</i> You can't hear anything,
the bird's so loud, but I told him, I said,
"Hang in there, sir." <i>( music playing )</i> At that point,
they informed us that Captain Morel
had been hit, and Eddie had been hit,
and were medevacked in the aircraft
that we had just seen come over and fly off. <i>I knew it wasn't good.</i> <i>The company
commander told us,</i> <i>"Just get your guys
back outta there,"</i> <i>and, you know,
he already had known</i> <i>how severe
the injuries were,</i> <i>you know, who we'd already
possibly lost</i> <i>and let's just
get the rest of us</i> <i>back out of there
and move out.</i> <i>( music playing )</i> That enemy was ready
for a battle that day. <i>They had more weapons.</i> <i>They had equal to
or more, you know,
than we had.</i> <i>They were ready
to take on a city.</i> <i>Captain Morel
didn't do what he did,</i> we would've had
more casualties. <i>( music playing )</i> Dell:<i>
We realized later
how many people</i> they threw at us
that day. We've heard varying accounts,
from as little as 30 to as many as
over 100, 150. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>So once we finally
got time for us,</i> I remember the CO
bringing us all together, and letting us know
that, officially,
Brent had passed. <i>( music playing )</i> It was really tough
to swallow that information. <i>( music playing )</i> Griego:<i>
Recon Battalion hadn't
lost anybody</i> <i>up to that point in
Operation Iraqi Freedom.</i> For me, it was the only time
I'd ever lost a Marine that was, you know,
in my platoon... <i>for my time
in the Marine Corps.</i> Dell:<i>
It hit us all
pretty hard.</i> No medic ever wants
to lose one of their guys, but we were so small
and so close-knit that we-- every loss
is felt exponentially. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>Brent Morel
took it straight</i> <i>into the, you know,
the monster's mouth.</i> I don't know
if there's much more you could ask for
in a leader. <i>( music playing )</i> There was
no "mourning" feeling. I guess it wasn't
the time to mourn. It was the time to fight. Mourning was when
the mission's done, when we're back
in the United States. <i>( music playing )</i> I don't think
I processed it until I met
with his father, and sitting on the beach,
smoking a cigar and talking
about everything, that's when, you know... when you understand
it's someone else's son. You know, that's--
I mean, that's the
biggest thing is knowing he's never
gonna see him again. His mother's never
gonna see him again. But it's just not the time
to process it out there. Maybe it's forever
processing it. <i>( music playing )</i> <i>( music playing )</i> Wright:<i>
When I woke up at the
National Naval Medical Center</i> <i>in Bethesda, Maryland,
I was happy to be alive.</i> I had been out
for nine days in a medically-induced coma. <i>I found out later
I had to be resuscitated
three times.</i> I spent some time--
a month-- in ICU. <i>I handled it all
relatively pretty well
from the beginning,</i> because I knew
no amount of lamenting the loss of my hands
is gonna make my hands
come back. And it was kind of
the attitude that I've
always had. I'm always coming up
with little ways to cut corners
or adapt, or do things the way--
I mean, so that I can still do
what I used to do. <i>( water splashing )</i> <i>You know, part of me,
it was just killing me</i> <i>that I wasn't gonna
be deployable.</i> <i>I wasn't gonna be able
to do the job</i> <i>that I'd always dreamt
of doing.</i> Done a lot of introspection
I guess, you know, trying to figure out what
I'm gonna do with myself for the rest of my life,
but, uh, <i>You know, as of yet
I haven't made up
my mind 100%.</i> You know, I'm only limited
by my imagination, I guess. But you know, I try to put
it into perspective. Eventually, everybody has
to get out of the Marine Corps. Does it get easier
if you put 20 or 30 years in? I doubt it. Mmm. Dee-licious. Dell:<i>
I ended up using
Eddie's case</i> <i>quite a bit
over the years following</i> as a case study, as we were developing
new technologies, and from 15 years of war,
we have tools now, based on his and other
similar cases, that would've made
that whole day an easy day. <i>Junctional tourniquets,
hemostatic dressings,</i> <i>things like that that we just
didn't have at those times.</i> <i>Silver lining
out of all that.</i> The things that happen
to me in my life are things that shape me
into being the person
that I am today. <i>So I don't think that I would
really change anything,</i> <i>and that includes
getting my hands shot off.</i> April 7th,
it was life-changing,
for sure. That's-- I guess
that's a good way to put it. <i>I sure enough became
a different person that day.</i> When I returned, good friends that I'd had
throughout my career in the Marine Corps
just said that... my whole face had changed,
that I was a different person. You don't turn violence
on and off. You decide to do it, allowing yourself
to be that person. If you're the enemy
and I'm talking to you, I'm gonna eat you. I'm gonna kill anybody
I have to to get back to my kids. And I think that
is what will effect people throughout their life,
is the process of turning yourself
into that. You know, we're just not
out there being violent
to be violent, but you have to meet-- you have to meet
your enemy with equal
and greater force than what they're
bringing to you. That doesn't need to mean
that we need to be animals, but that just means
we have to be very effective in our jobs,
or we lose. ( chuckles ) I think one of the things
that we've really
identified more in the whole
operational psychology, everything that we've
tried to learn, is that you just
adapt that to winning
in another environment. You still plan for everything
with the same intensity you would for a mission. Why would I give up
that intensity? That's what helped me win
in the military. Wright:<i>
I can't do what I
was doing before,</i> and it was my dream job. <i>But now I can find
another dream.</i> <i>A lot of people
don't get a chance</i> <i>to live two dreams
in the same lifetime.</i> <i>But I do.</i> <i>When I look back
on that day,</i> <i>I'm really proud
of my brothers.</i> <i>Man, they did
a great job.</i> <i>We were able to fight
our way out of that ambush</i> and turn the tide
on the enemy, and I don't think
there are very many units that could've done that. If I wasn't with men
of that caliber, I would be dead,
you know? <i>( music playing )</i> Griego:<i>
Yeah, we came down here</i> <i>into south in Fallujah.</i> Pretty nice building here
behind us that they've taken over
and it overlooks the entire area
around here, <i>including
the palm tree growth</i> that they were really
having a problem with. ( speaking faintly ) Let's go.