<i>Sometimes I get asked,</i> <i>"What does it take to win?"</i> And that is, will. You have to have
the will to kill because you cannot win
without killing the enemy. And the other side
of that coin is that you have
to have the will to die. <i>If you're gonna go to war,
you've got to make sure</i> <i>that you have
those two types of will</i> in the deepest part
of your soul. <i>But if you believe
in what you're doing,</i> <i>and the will is there,</i> then victory is
always possible. And in fact, if you have the true will
and the true belief, victory is imminent
and undeniable. Reporter:<i>
Insurgents and Jihadists
have found a home</i> in Iraq's sprawling
Anbar Province. <i>and have turned it
into a hotbed of violence.</i> My name is Leif Babin.
I was a lieutenant, a platoon commander
of Charlie Platoon that SEAL Team 3
Task Unit Bruiser. <i>Right away, we wanted
to take our performance
to the next level,</i> <i>and so we trained harder
than anybody.</i> Every, every type
of operation you could
think of <i>out in the deserts, you know,
shooting our weapons,</i> <i>patrolling on foot,
jumping out of planes,</i> <i>and we had
an awesome group of guys</i> <i>that, that were
just fired up,</i> <i>ready to go get after it.</i> We just had a,
a solid level of trust across the board, up and down
the chain of command. It's not about actually
doing the skills and all the, the tactics
perfectly. It's about knowing
each other, and that's where,
where everything really gels. When you're
with these guys 24/7, for months at a time, it's, it is family,
it's the same thing. It's a group of friends
that hang out together, live together,
work together, work out together,
go out together, and do everything
together. That's, that's
what a SEAL platoon is. Leif Babin:<i>
Marc Lee joined
our platoon</i> <i>after we'd been working
together for about six months.</i> Right away you could tell
he a presence about him. You knew he was a
smart guy, a hard worker, a very strong Christian guy.
His faith was very important
to him. He came in,
and he's just a big dude,
quiet, humble <i>and pretty fun loving,
you know,</i> <i>liked to have
a good time.</i> Me and Marc,
we were in the same
boat crew going through BUD/S
and Hell Week <i>and all of that stuff.</i> <i>You really get
to know people</i> <i>when people are mad
and tired and hungry.</i> He would always
be making jokes. Didn't matter how much
we were hurting. He was just
absolutely hilarious. He liked to push
the envelope on stuff. <i>Marc showed up
to Charlie platoon,</i> he very boldly stated
that, uh, "I've never been
choked out before." And so Chris Kyle
and a couple of other guys immediately helped him out
to make sure that that,
that was not the case. <i>Marc immediately
was one of us</i> <i>and a big part
of our platoon.</i> We did a trip, where we were
up and around Las Vegas. And when he would gamble,
he would get everyone
all riled up. He would
always be the loud one
at the table. Jocko Willink:<i>
You know, when you're
playing Blackjack,</i> <i>the dealer busts,
and everybody else wins.</i> If the dealer busted,
Marc would just throw up
his arms and, "Everybody is
a winner! " Everybody is a winner! Everybody's a winner when, you know,
when the dealer busts. Then they bring in
another dealer because like, oh, we're winning, we gotta
bring another dealer in. And he was like,
"Oh, they're bringing
the iceman in." He would start clapping
and cheering, and he would get
everyone all riled up, and people would start
betting more money, and it was just create,
create a lot of fun. And, that's,
you know, that's kind
of what Marc was like. Debbie Lee:<i> I remember
so much Marc trying</i> <i>to explain to me
the brotherhood.</i> Like "Yeah, yeah, I get it,
you're close to these guys. But as close
as your brother you grew up
with for 28 years?" "Yeah, mom,
I'm that close." Maya Elbaum:
You know, Marc had
a thing about him. Everybody loved Marc. He was completely
compassionate to everybody. Debbie Lee:<i>
He was that personality
that was bigger than life,</i> <i>not that, you know,
we didn't go through our share
of trials and tragedies,</i> but he could just
take a situation in life
and make it funny. <i>Two years in a row
his friends voted him
Class Clown.</i> He always brought
joy and humor into the people
that he knew. Maya Elbaum:<i>
He had a lot of layers.</i> He was funny and silly.
He was very serious at times, athletic, like he,
he looked like a Greek god. <i>He loved soccer.
He actually played
professionally</i> before he blew out
his knee. And then he went to school
to become a pastor. So, he was
a very religious man. And then he realized,
"no, I want to become
a Navy SEAL." <i>We were completely in love.
We knew we wanted to spend</i> <i>the rest of our lives
with one another.</i> I remember when he told me that he was going
to Ramadi, Iraq. It was just
this feeling of,
of sadness. <i>It's a six-month
deployment,</i> <i>and the truth
of the matter is,</i> <i>is that they're gonna
be in harm's way.</i> <i>But he believed so much
in what he was doing.</i> And as much
as Marc felt invincible, there is always this back, back, you know, burning, burning feeling of,
of like as, you know, is this gonna
be the last? From Iraq tonight,
we have an exclusive look at what has become
the single most dangerous city in that country
for US forces. An hour west
of Baghdad, <i>terrorists hold the city
of Ramadi in a deadly grip,</i> <i>fueling the insurgency
and taking a terrible toll</i> on the several thousand
American troops who are trying
to hold them at bay. In 2006, Ramadi
was the worst part of Iraq. <i>It's the capital
of Al Anbar Province,</i> <i>the biggest state
in Iraq.</i> <i>It was a total war zone.</i> Leif Babin:<i>
We were facing,
in what I would deem,</i> as evil an enemy
as the US has, has ever faced. Back then, the enemy
was identified as AQI,
Al-Qaeda, Iraq. Leif Babin:<i>
You're talking about,
you know,</i> some of the same people
who are now ISIS. When you see
the kind of things that they do
to people and, and just the torture
and rape and murder, <i>talking people into becoming
suicide bombers.</i> Anyone that stood
against them, I mean, they're gonna
cut their head off and make an example
out of them, and, and they're absolutely
brutal and ruthless. <i>And Ramadi was kinda
the epicenter</i> <i>of their insurgency.</i> The Marine Corps
and Army units that
were there, <i>they were doing
their utmost to beat back
insurgent attacks</i> <i>and defend their bases,</i> <i>but they certainly took
a huge amount of casualties.</i> <i>I think they had 94 guys
killed in action</i> <i>and several hundred
wounded, you know,</i> in the 15 months
that they spent there. The guys that were there
fighting before us, they had kind
of surrounded the city. <i>but there was no
major combat outposts
inside the city.</i> Tony Eafrati:<i>
The conventional forces,</i> <i>all the things
they wanted to do</i> <i>building COPs,
you know, combat outposts.</i> And forging relationships
with the local populace and the sheikhs
and all that, that's
kinda hard to do when you have
an untouched enemy force who is just
running rampant throughout that area. Jocko Willink:<i>
The other problem
is the urban environment.</i> The enemy can fade
in and out of the populace
in a split second. All they have to do
is put down their weapon,
and they're a civilian. <i>The IED threat
is completely,</i> you know, horrible. ( explosion ) Improvised Explosive Device.
It's a roadside bomb. Jocko Willink:<i>
In an urban environment,</i> <i>everything is man-made,
so anything could be an IED.</i> They would make IEDs
look like curbs and look like brick walls and look like mailboxes
or whatever. Among military commanders,
there is a growing sense that defeating
the enemy there may be impossible. Leif Babin:<i>
There was a Marine Corps
intelligence report</i> <i>that was leaked
to the press</i> in the spring of,
of 2006. US forces are
militarily incapable of defeating the insurgency
in Ramadi and Al Anbar. It was described
as a, as an unwinnable
situation. Leif Babin:<i>
What other people see
as impossible is possible</i> <i>with the right folks
who believe in the mission.</i> <i>Guys like Marc Lee
really believed in this
mission,</i> <i>that we can,
we were trying to liberate
the Iraqi people</i> <i>from an evil insurgency.</i> I, I totally believed
in what we were doing there. I mean, you know,
somebody has to kill
the bad guys. And I think we were
the best suited for that. Leif Babin:<i>
When we showed up,
Ramadi,</i> was a violent
terrorist stronghold,
a total war zone. <i>TIME Magazine
had called it,</i> <i>I think, the most dangerous
place in the world
at the time.</i> Tony Eafrati:<i>
It was bad there,</i> but I remember
the smell a lot. <i>Physically, it stinks.</i> But in the same breath
it's kind of like that... ( sniffs ) It's kind of war,
you know, so it... it's the slap in face
that kind of feels good. Jason Hogan:<i>
It's just a whole
different world.</i> Driving down the streets, it was almost like being
in a movie. Jocko Willink:<i>
There would be
machine gun holes</i> <i>in all the buildings
and walls rubbled down,</i> <i>and that's what
it looked like.</i> That's where I wanted
to be my whole life. <i>When I was a little kid
I wanted to be some kind
of a soldier,</i> <i>some kind of a commando,
and I realized</i> <i>that there was guys
that were fighting and dying,
and I wasn't with them.</i> And so I immediately
figured out how to get in. <i>I heard that the SEALs
was a tough organization</i> <i>and hard to get through,
and that made me want to do it.</i> It was just one
of those things that I was,
you know, I had inside my, my... I guess
inside my head or soul or whatever,
for lack of a better word. It's what I always wanted
to do since I was, since I could remember
wanting to do anything. Jason Hogan:<i> Jocko
was a task unit commander.</i> <i>He was
an intimidating guy.</i> Um, I never saw
that man sleep. I, uh, he, I remember any time I woke up
in the morning, he was already up.
I went to bed at night,
he was still up. Jocko Willink:<i>
If Ramadi would
have fallen,</i> you would have
a very secure area for the insurgency
to grow. You can't have it fall
to the enemy. That's all there is to it. Leif Babin:<i>
The Ready First Brigade
strategy</i> <i>of seize, clear, hold, build</i> <i>was about going into the worst
enemy held areas,</i> seizing those areas,
building a permanent
combat outpost, and then moving out
into the enemy territory
from there, taking them back
one neighborhood at a time. <i>It was a radical strategy.
There were people that thought
that was crazy.</i> Of course for us,
we initially thought, how can we get
into those areas, right? 'Cause if that's
where the bad guys are, that's where we can have
the most impact. <i>To be able
to go into the worst
enemy held areas</i> to build a combat outpost, <i>we had to bring
a massive amount of firepower
with us.</i> Jocko Willink:<i>
Marc Lee was
a machine gunner.</i> And a damn good one. Leif Babin:<i>
When you're under attack,</i> <i>and a dozen bad guys
are trying to overrun
your position,</i> <i>it's the machine gunners
that keep you alive.</i> Jason Hogan:<i>
I was the same as Marc.</i> I did the Mark 48,
call it 60 gunner. If you don't have a 60 gun
on your team there, you're not moving
anywhere, really. Jocko Willink:<i>
They had to lay down
suppressive fire</i> <i>and keep
the enemy head down,</i> so that we could
maneuver to safety or maneuver
to a more aggressive
position. Marc was just
absolutely fearless. He'd stand out there
in the middle of the street with rounds ricocheting
all around him, and just lay down fire,
running through the streets <i>with that big
automatic weapon.</i> Tony Eafrati:<i>
You know, being
a machine gunner,</i> if you're
really good at it, man, you're
such an asset. Guys like Marc, who were
like big, rugged frogmen who can really carry
a lot of rounds and really
lay it down, <i>they're well worth
their weight in gold.</i> Going into these
neighborhoods involved bad guys
shooting at us, us exchanging some fire
with those bad guys, being able
to beat them back, and us coming
back home and, you know,
with everybody intact. Jason Hogan:<i>
Leif and Jocko,</i> <i>they were always pushing it,
uh, getting us ops.</i> They did a good job
getting us in the fight. Combat Outpost Falcon,
or COP Falcon was, uh, <i>was right
at a key intersection</i> <i>in this really bad area.</i> <i>It was a total Al-Qaeda
battle space.</i> That's where
the bad guys are,
I mean... So when they wanted
to go in there and put
a Combat Outpost there, we were overjoyed. We thought it was great. That, that was
kind of a, kind of a big operation
we did, and it was
pretty cool, too. Leif Babin:<i> We were gonna be
the lead element to support
the guys coming in.</i> <i>So we saw right away
that us being come
from the water,</i> the river's right here,
let's go in our boats. Tony Eafrati:<i>
There's a canal back there
off the Euphrates,</i> and they didn't
IED any boats. We'd slipped in
on the riverbank and patrolled in. <i>Chris Kyle was actually
our point man.</i> <i>I was right behind him
as the patrol leer.</i> <i>Chris kind of halts
the patrol for a second,</i> <i>and he starts changing
his battery out on his laser,
on his weapon.</i> I was like, dude,
what are you, what are you
doing, man? <i>We, we gotta keep moving.</i> <i>He doesn't have
a working laser,</i> and we come
to the end of a, kind of a dark alleyway,
and I see Chris just
kind of freeze. Not 25 yards away from us,
there's a bad guy. A Mujahideen fighter
is standing there with a keffiyeh wrapped
around his face and AK-47. I mean,
he's 25 yards away. Chris can't
accurately shoot him because he doesn't
have a laser. <i>I had to come up
and take that shot
over his shoulder.</i> ( gunfire ) Chris had 101 confirmed kills
from our deployment, and yet he never
forgave me for taking that away
from him. So, we smoked
that bad guy. Smoked, that means
killed, eliminated. <i>And then we moved
on to COP Falcon.</i> <i>We went in and cleared
this building.</i> <i>Put snipers
up on the rooftop
and in windows,</i> <i>and then we covered
the movement for all
the big heavy equipment</i> that was coming in to build
the Combat Outpost. <i>It's about working
together as a team.</i> <i>Snipers can only stay</i> <i>for maybe two
or three hours maximum
before they get fatigued.</i> And so guys like Marc,
who's a machine gunner,
and wasn't a sniper, but he'd rotate
in and man those positions. <i>I think there was
something like 50 tanks
involved in this</i> <i>and probably,
probably 800 to 1,000
soldiers.</i> It was, it was
a huge, huge operation. <i>And, I was
proud that we were</i> <i>the lead element on it.</i> Leif, Leif Babin. <i>We just kinda hit it off.</i> <i>We had the same goals
that we set for,</i> for the platoon
and where we wanted to go. Leif was our OIC,
Officer in Charge
of our platoon. Leif Babin:<i> I spent
13 years in the Navy,</i> <i>nine years
as a Navy SEAL.</i> I grew up in the piney woods
of Southeast Texas, <i>playing
with my Army men,</i> <i>G.I. Joe figures
out in the sandbox.</i> <i>I always knew
I wanted to be a combat leader.</i> <i>That's what I wanted
to do with my life.</i> <i>My dad served in the Army
and the Air Force.</i> I'm one of five siblings,
but I'm the only one that decided that
that's what I wanted to do. <i>I went to the Naval Academy
to pursue that dream.</i> <i>Throughout
the SEAL teams,</i> I think,
no matter how tough
things got, I think having
the attitude of,
thank God I'm here, <i>You know,
I actually got the chance
to do what I wanted to do</i> <i>and what I dreamed about.</i> <i>The reality is, yeah,
there's some tough stuff,</i> but you just gotta look
in the mirror hard and say,
"this is what I want
to do, and I'm gonna overcome
any challenge necessary
to do that." And in what became known
as the Battle of Ramadi, we would be truly tested. COP Falcon
gave us a foothold into this worst
enemy held area of south central Ramadi. Jason Hogan:<i>
We just ran operations
out of there after that,</i> just because it was easier
than going back all the way
to Camp Ramadi. Leif Babin:<i> The whole time
that the US Marines
and soldiers</i> <i>were building
those Combat Outposts
throughout the city,</i> <i>we had sniper teams
in place supporting
those guys.</i> <i>We formed
a huge relationship
with them,</i> <i>because they realized
how we could protect them,</i> and of course
we relied on them when they, you know,
we needed them to come out
and help us. I mean, that happened
very often. Jason Hogan:<i>
We did work hand-in-hand
with the Army,</i> <i>and we just would keep
pushing forward,</i> <i>pushing forward,
pushing forward.</i> It was my first time
going overseas like this, uh, first time
in combat, and from the time
I joined the Navy to the time I actually
got to go over there
was three years. Three years of training
and I was just thinking, "man, finally,
I get to do my job now,
why I signed up." <i>When I decided
to be a SEAL,</i> <i>I was bored with my life
at the time.</i> <i>I was just going to college
playing football.</i> <i>It's just a small little
school.</i> I just wanted
something more to do, something that was
challenging. September 11th happened. That was some stuff
I had talked about with my dad, like I wanted
to be part of something. I wanted to be part
of doing good. I wanted to go do something
that I thought mattered, and I thought that was it. I thought joining the,
becoming a Navy SEAL was it. Tony Eafrati:<i>
Jason was a new guy.</i> A lot of them guys are new,
and, uh, they came in with a really good attitude that, you know,
whatever it is,
we'll do it. And we did some
crazy ( bleep ). <i>We did
over watch operations.</i> <i>An over watch operation
is going into an area,</i> <i>99% of the time
over there in Ramadi</i> <i>it was a building.</i> And just sit there
on the scopes and watch
and watch and watch. So anywhere there
are insurgents trying
to lay in an ambush, we'd get 'em. Leif Babin:<i> So much
of the Iraq war was fought
on the defensive.</i> <i>For us,
sniper over watches
were a way</i> <i>to take the offensive
and really take the fight
to the enemy.</i> ( gunshot ) Leif Babin:<i> When we'd go
in our sniper over watch
positions,</i> <i>we'd go in under cover
of darkness at 2:00 or 3:00
in the morning.</i> <i>The first early morning
call to prayer,</i> <i>is it happens
just before daylight,
and so, you know,</i> those are, you know
the city is gonna awaken. <i>And we're kind
of waiting to hear that</i> <i>because that's
kind of a signal</i> <i>that the enemy might
rally to that.</i> <i>Marc Lee, he was very good
at imitating those.</i> He would be like--
( mimics call to prayer ) And he'd kick
that thing off, and you'd be like, "Dude, is it--
what time is it?" And you realize,
"Oh it's you, dude,
shut up, " you know. So he'd, he got
the best of me a few times
on that, definitely. Jason Hogan:<i>
Marc, he always had
a good attitude,</i> <i>even when things
were horrible.</i> Leif Babin:<i>
As daybreak comes,
first call to prayer went off</i> <i>in, in,
in the early morning,</i> <i>and the city
kinda comes alive,</i> <i>and we started seeing
bad guys moving around.</i> Our snipers start
taking shots and hammering
enemy fighters. And then, you know, they start
shooting back at us. <i>We got thousands
of rounds shot at us.</i> ( gunfire ) <i>I think it was Marc
and some of the other guys</i> <i>were just looking
at each other,</i> <i>just laughing.</i> <i>I remember crawling
into the room there</i> <i>and be like,
"hey, you guys all right?"</i> It's like rounds
are just coming in
and just shattering glass, <i>and literally inches
over guys' heads,</i> and they were just like,
"Damn, these guys can shoot." And Tony's standing
in the corner, and rounds are
bracketing him coming in two
different windows, and he's kind of just up
against the concrete, and he just looks at
me as, like, gives me a smile,
like a thumbs-up, was like, "This is,
this is crazy." So you're in a war zone.
It's combat, it sucks, it's hard, you know,
and fun at the same time. <i>But I was very fortunate</i> to be in a leadership
position in that platoon
at that time. Tony Eafrati
was the platoon chief, so he was the senior
enlisted guy. Tony Eafrati:<i>
I wanted to be a SEAL.</i> I wanted to go in the Navy
since I was like a teenager. <i>My grandfather was
a B-17 pilot</i> <i>in World War II.</i> <i>My dad was in
during the Vietnam War,</i> <i>and my brother
was in the Air Force.</i> I went over 20 years
in the Navy, and then I made Chief. <i>As an enlisted frogman,
that's what you want to be.</i> <i>Best job I ever had.</i> Especially when you got
a really good team, you know. <i>You just, you're really part
of something special.</i> Leif Babin:<i>
The strength of SEAL teams
is our team.</i> <i>You know, it's, it's,
it's our brotherhood.</i> <i>The reality is,
in combat,</i> yeah, there's
some tough stuff, but most of it
was an absolute blast. <i>We were fighting
a very evil enemy,</i> and, and we knew
we were making a difference, we knew we were
having an impact. <i>We stirred up
the hornet's nest,</i> <i>but it was right
where we wanted to be.</i> Tony Eafrati:<i>
To me the strategy
for defeating ISIS</i> is one ISIS guy,
put a bullet in his head. That guy is done,
onto the next one. How many of them,
a hundred thousand of them? Okay, get 100,000 bullets.
Job done. That's our part
of this mission. roughout <i>the months that Charlie Platoon
spent in Ramadi,</i> <i>we were a part
of probably</i> at least five or six
major Combat Outposts. Jocko Willink:<i>
We could feel
the progress.</i> <i>I mean, there's
a finite number of bad guys</i> <i>that are willing
to martyr themselves,</i> and so we dug in
to try and see where that bottom was. <i>But you gotta realize
there's gonna be risk</i> on every operation you do,
and that's one thing that, you know, we definitely
had to deal with. I always had,
like, this thing that
we're invincible. Just like the other units
thought we were invincible, I thought we were, too. <i>I don't know
how the older guys were,</i> <i>'cause they'd been there
and done that before.</i> You actually know that somebody's
gonna get killed
or wounded. I mean you--
It's, it's, you-- I mean,
I actually knew it. There's no way
you could stop it. You know that
it's gonna happen. I mean,
we can only be lucky so many times
in a row. And you can only mitigate
the risk so much. And you roll out there
with all those threats and all that evil
that's there. And you know
that at some point it's gonna happen. Leif Babin:<i> Uh, we were
conducting a big operation</i> <i>with the Army's
Team Bulldog.</i> We work very closely
with these awesome soldiers that we'd formed
a tremendous brotherhood with. And we were doing
a cordoned search operation
with Iraqi soldiers. <i>Basically moving,
like, block-by-block,</i> <i>house-by-house,
through an area.</i> On August 2,
the bad guys decided
that they were gonna, they were gonna fight
for this territory in a way that we hadn't
seen it before. <i>Marc was with me
and the clearance team
with Iraqi soldiers.</i> <i>We were moving through
and house to house.</i> <i>We had a sniper team
on the rooftop.</i> <i>Chris Kyle was there
as our sniper.</i> Ryan Jobe
was our machine gunner with Chris and a couple
of other SEALs <i>and some Iraqis
that were with them.</i> We were about to move down
into another building, and so as I walked
down the stairs, I just hear a gunshot,
a single gunshot. ( gunshot ) <i>And I just, I just could hear
Chris Kyle's voice.</i> ( shouting ) <i>He came up over the radio</i> and told us
that we had a man down and we needed a corpsman
on the roof right away. Jason Hogan:<i>
I was in the next
building over...</i> and we had heard
somebody got hit
on the radio, and we didn't--
I didn't know who
at the time. Didn't know
the extent of it. Leif Babin:<i>
We rushed to the rooftop,</i> me and a couple
of other guys, and immediately
got to Ryan. He had been hit,
hit in the head, and, and it was--
It just looked horrific. <i>You know, there was no way
we thought he could even
possibly survive that.</i> I just grabbed
his hand, I said,
"Hang in there brother, we're gonna, we're gonna
get you out of here." Tony Eafrati:<i>
I was on an opposite
building.</i> I mean, we were all
in the same group doing this like
huge operation. <i>We called in
the ground medevac</i> <i>to get him out of there.</i> And meanwhile, we got
an enemy sniper out there, we got one single round
that had hit a guy
and put him down. So, one of the most
courageous things I ever saw anybody do was Marc Lee
grabbing his machine gun and stepping right up
into the very position <i>where Ryan just got shot,</i> <i>and just laying down
suppressive fire for us.</i> <i>So we got Ryan
onto, you know,</i> to help
and got him evacuated. So after that,
all hell broke loose. There were just people
coming out of the woodwork, insurgents shooting
at soldiers, <i>as well as us.</i> We figured we got
a sniper out here. We gotta move back
to Combat Outpost Falcon. ( gunfire ) Jason Hogan:<i>
After Ryan was hit,</i> <i>people were
a little shaken by that.</i> It hadn't
happened before. We hadn't taken
any casualties. We had always been
the people killing, really. It was a first time
for any of us for that. Leif Babin:<i>
But when we got back
to COP Falcon,</i> we hadn't finished
our cordoned search
operation, but the Army troops
were still out in the midst of that, and they were
getting shot at
from all directions. <i>We could hear the gunfire,
and they asked for our help.</i> <i>They said, "We need
some help out here."</i> And so, you know,
for me as a platoon commander, that's a tough decision
to make, you know. But I had to make
that decision and say, "We can sit
in the camp here, or we can go out
and help these guys." Tony Eafrati:<i>
Well when Ryan got shot,</i> Marc was just
getting after it
and laying it down. I remember
when we came back,
and I'm like, "Hey, Marc, you did
a good job there, chum,
you know, real good." And he's like,
"Yeah, thanks, Ton." And I went,
"Well, what are you
waiting for? Reload your ( bleep ),
you know, 'cause we're
gonna go back out." He's like, "All right,"
you know, and he just, "Roger that,"
and just carried on. But, that's
the last thing
I said to him. Leif Babin:<i>
After Ryan was wounded,</i> <i>the Army, they gave
us some reports</i> of, we're getting shot at
from this building. So we loaded our guys up
and vehicles to go out and, and try to get
those bad guys. Jason Hogan:<i>
We got in some Bradleys,</i> went to the first house
and cleared it. No problem there.
Got back in the Bradleys. <i>Then we went
to the next place.</i> <i>Marc looks over at me
and he's like,</i> <i>"Hey, I'll race
you to the door."</i> So we raced to the door.
I end up winning. I go in the first room,
and he goes down to the end
of the hallway. Leif Babin:<i>
And as we moved
into that building,</i> we started taking fire
from an adjacent building. ( gunfire ) Jason Hogan:<i>
Bullets start flying
down the hallway,</i> <i>right when I was coming out
of the first room.</i> Leif was standing
right in front of me. He jumped into me,
hit me, knocked me back
into the room. He may have saved my life,
I don't know. If I had walked
out in that hallway, I might've gotten hit because he ended up
getting hit in the lat
by one of those rounds. And so Marc
stepped up in a window to, you know,
engage enemy fire <i>and protect
the guys behind him</i> <i>and was struck.</i> ( gunshot ) Leif Babin:<i>
We evacuated him
as a casualty,</i> sent our corpsman
with him, you know, corpsman tried
to do his best, utmost to work on him, but he had been
shot in the head
and killed instantly. And there was nothing
anybody could do about it. And it was,
it was horrific, absolutely horrific. <i>I was in the Tactical
Operations Center
that morning.</i> <i>Leif got on one
of the COP's radios
and called.</i> With so much emotion
in his voice that it almost sounded
emotionless, said "We had
another casualty. I think he's KIA. <i>Killed In Action.</i> <i>This radio net was monitored
by the entire brigade,</i> <i>so we were both doing our best
to remain professional.</i> <i>To prevent names of casualties
from leaking out,</i> <i>we do not use names
on the radio.</i> 'Roger, who is
the casualty?' <i>There was a pause,</i> <i>and then he responded,</i> 'Charlie 1-4.' I looked up
at the board slowly. I didn't want
to see the name, but there it was, Charlie 1-4,
Marc Lee. <i>I couldn't believe it.</i> <i>Our pillar of courage
and faith."</i> He was my best friend
in the platoon, by far. I'd been with him
since the day when I lived
with him for two years, and he's gone now.
It's like, just like that. <i>I just went over
and sat on my rack,</i> <i>and I put my head down,
and I just, I just cried.</i> <i>A couple of guys came over
and gave me hugs, you know.</i> <i>The other guys
were feeling it too,
for sure.</i> I felt like we were
invincible at the time, and all of a sudden
you're like, "wow, it can happen
to us, too." Jocko Willink:<i>
After Marc got killed,</i> Leif, who had made
the decision to go back out
onto the battlefield after Ryan
had been wounded, came to me, you know,
like the next day. I mean, he was crushed. And he said,
"Hey, you know, I'm questioning
the decision that I made." I said, you know,
I said to him, "Leif, you were out there
on the battlefield, and our Army brothers
were out there and needed our help." I told him
there was no decision
to make. You have to figure out,
like, what did we do wrong? And sometimes
there is no answer
for that. So why,
why did he get killed? You know,
probably could've been me. It could have
been anybody. You know,
he just was there, doing his job like,
like a good frogman, you know,
and that's it. I always wonder
what would've happened had he gone
in the door first. Would I have had
the courage to, you know,
do what he did? Put himself in harm's way
to protect his guys. I want to say yes,
but you never know until you're there. It's a crazy thing
to think about, for me. Leif Babin:<i>
A few days later
we had a,</i> <i>we had a memorial service
on Camp Ramadi,</i> and just hundreds
of people came out
of the woodwork. The soldiers
that we worked with, Marines
that we worked with. <i>The loss of anyone
would've been horrific,</i> <i>but for Marc in particular,
he was just such a beloved guy,
and interestingly enough,</i> <i>our Iraqi soldiers
were devastated as well.</i> Uh, we stood down the troops
for a couple days, and then we started
planning operations to go out and execute. What I told my guys,
because I said, "I don't know
any other way," is, "I'm gonna work. "I'm gonna work,
and we're gonna do what we came here to do." Jason Hogan:<i>
I actually went back
with Marc</i> <i>and went
to the service.</i> The close family and friends
went and actually buried him and put our tridents
into his casket. Yeah, and put him in,
put him in the ground. Maya Elbaum:<i> I thought
with Marc, there was no way
that he would ever die.</i> <i>I always thought
he was gonna be with me
for the rest of my life.</i> I felt so lost.
I felt like I lost
my other... I lost my other half,
and I remember, you know, just feeling like
I was being swallowed. Debbie Lee:<i> One of the things
that gives me hope,</i> <i>that young man
was redeployed to Heaven.</i> <i>I will see him
again one day.</i> Marc's tombstone,
the words that are on there
are perfect. It says, "Deeply loved,
loved deeply." And that definitely
describes Marc, <i>the friend that he was,</i> <i>the husband that he was,
the son.</i> Maya Elbaum:<i>
He loved his family,</i> <i>his friends
and his country.</i> He was the most
beautiful person in the whole entire world. Debbie Lee:<i>
He loved very deeply,</i> and because of that
he was deeply loved. <i>And I think
that's one of those things</i> <i>that's reflected
in his last letter home.</i> Male voice:<i>
Glory is something
that some men chase</i> <i>and others find themselves
stumbling upon,</i> <i>not expecting it
to find them.</i> <i>Either way,
it is a noble gesture</i> <i>that one finds bestowed
upon them.</i> <i>My question is,
when does glory fade away</i> <i>and become a wrongful crusade,
or an unjustified means</i> <i>by which consumes one
completely?</i> <i>I have seen war.
I have seen death.</i> <i>The sorrow that encompasses
your entire being</i> <i>as a man
breathes his last.</i> <i>I can only pray and hope</i> <i>that none of you
will ever have to experience</i> <i>some of the things
I have seen and felt here.</i> That letter has
impacted millions and millions of lives
around the world. I've gotten letters
from our troops who had thrown a tarp
in their garage and were gonna take
their own life, and said,
"I read Marc's letter, and I decided
I want to live." <i>And because
of that letter,</i> <i>I founded
"America's Mighty Warriors"</i> <i>to make sure that our troops
and the families</i> <i>who have given their very best
for this nation,</i> <i>their loved one,
know that we will never
forget them.</i> Tony Eafrati:<i>
That whole effort
in Ramadi,</i> people that lost
their lives there and got wounded and killed,
you know, I knew, I knew
who they were,
you know. I can't
get back Marc Lee. He's my brother, just like all
my other brothers that died in Iraq
and Afghanistan. But we made an impact. <i>When we left
towards the end of October,</i> <i>we had COPs
all over the place now.</i> <i>So they had, they had
a really good foothold.</i> We won in Ramadi,
and in a place that nobody thought
we could win. Ramadi was one
of the safest places in Iraq. For almost seven years
it remained that way. And, and we know
the formula. We can win again. <i>Marc Lee was absolutely
one of those guys</i> <i>who knew that he could
get shot and killed
at any time,</i> and he went out
and did his job
every single day, knowing that could happen
any time, fearlessly, because he knew
he was making a difference and believed
in what he was doing. I've learned that
that determination
that Marc had, it's something
that every SEAL has,
in their own way. Jason Hogan:<i>
If you're not willing to die,
you shouldn't be there.</i> I think that, that
will is either in you,
or it's not. I don't know
if you can develop that. I think it's just,
you're just born with it,
or you're not. I'd die in a second
for any of my bros. Not even think about it. Jocko Willink:<i>
It's not in everybody.</i> Guys like Marc
had that will, not only to take
the fight to the enemy but to make
the ultimate sacrifice. Nothing could
have prepared me for how horrific
that burden is. And, but, you
know, every time I stand
there at Marc's grave, I mean, there will never be
a time when I stand there and don't wish
that I wouldn't be lying there in the ground,
and not Marc. Definitely... definitely tough to... a tough thing. Jocko Willink:<i>
When you are lucky enough</i> <i>to experience war,</i> you can get very jaded
because you can see that human beings
can be... abhorrent creatures. And you can begin
to question if there's really
any good at all, and it can become... dark. Especially
when it is your job... to, in some sense, grow that darkness. Marc proved that there was light and good. And... maybe... it was hard to see that in his life, but for some
unknown reason, or reason
that's beyond
understanding, I saw it
in his death. Man's voice:<i>
To all my family
and friends,</i> <i>do me a favor
pass on the kindness,
the love,</i> <i>the precious gift
of human life to each other.</i> <i>So that when your children
come into contact</i> <i>with a great conflict,</i> <i>like the one we are faced
with here in Iraq,</i> <i>that they will be people
of humanity,</i> <i>people of pure motives
and of compassion.</i> <i>This is our real part
to keep America free.</i> <i>Happy Fourth.
Love you, Marc Lee.</i> Man:<i>
If I was a bomber, living
anywhere around here,</i> this is exactly where
I'd place a device. They were prepared
and waiting for us. <i>And they ambushed us.</i> <i>We lost radio contact,</i> <i>immediately I hear
all this gunfire.</i> We had men down
and we have to get up there
to help. Man #1:<i>
I'm a warrior.</i> <i>I'm here to make sure
that all my brothers
come back alive.</i> I wasn't gonna
let them die.
Just watched three of these on YouTube, they were all both amazing and slightly heartbreaking/daunting to watch...
Highly recommend.
I enjoyed this whole series. Episode 5 is about a good friend of mine and his team, heroes all I tell ya!