MAN:<i>
This was one
of the deadliest times</i> to be on the battlefield
in Afghanistan. <i> We were going into an area</i> <i> that was nothing
but insurgents,</i> so that we can
draw these guys out to fight. <i> Something detonating</i> <i> very often means the loss
of somebody's life.</i> <i> The last thing
that I ever did</i> <i> on the battlefield</i> <i> was to put myself
in between these guys</i> that I call my brothers
and impossible death. <i> [ music playing ]</i> <i> This is tracking
to be a very violent month</i> <i> here in Afghanistan.</i> [ gunfire ] MALE REPORTER:<i>
Across the country,</i> <i> these last few months
have been</i> <i> the deadliest of the war.</i> FEMALE REPORTER: <i>
4,900 mortars, rockets, IEDs,</i> <i> a 7% increase
over the month before.</i> REPORTER:<i>
The surge of troops
are in country,</i> <i> going through every single
compound in an area</i> <i> that they have
never been in before.</i> SOLDIER:<i>
The biggest threats
are the IEDs.</i> They're targeting us
dismounted walking through the fields. MAN: <i>
In the summer of 2010,</i> <i> it was
an incredibly intense period</i> <i> of being at war
in Afghanistan.</i> We had so many targets
to go after and so many casualties
across the board, his was just
one of the deadliest times to be on the battlefield. The country
was a little out of control in the areas
we were working in. You know, casualty rates
started going up, firefights
started getting longer, helicopters were being shot at
or shot down. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
Team Merrill is a task force
that was created</i> to gather intelligence
for the conventional military by entering areas
that coalition forces had not been in,
in a recent time. <i> We were able to give
good intelligence</i> <i> by being up front,
for lack of a better word,
behind enemy lines.</i> We didn't have
specific people, usually, that we were going after. We would have a specific area
that is a hotspot, you know, and we would target that area
because we knew that there was a lot
of enemy activity there. We were all,
all over the country, so different terrain
and different compounds, different people, so, like, anything can go on
at any time. MAST:<i>
It's often nothing</i> <i> but military-aged
male fighters,</i> <i> you know,
no women, no children,</i> <i> so you know
those are all people</i> <i> that are there to be
in the fight,</i> and we are gonna go
in the middle of them, and we're going to hoist up
an American flag, <i> and we're gonna stir up</i> <i> this beehive
as much as we can</i> so that we can
draw these guys out to fight. [ gunfire ] We were essentially just
the worm on the end of a hook, <i> but it was a great way
to spark things up.</i> That's kind of
every Ranger's dream, to go get in a fight. That's what you sign up for. That's what I signed up for. Hey, take this corner. DELONG:<i>
When you have
a enemy fighter,</i> <i> and you know about
where he's at,</i> <i> and you know about
what he looks like,</i> <i> and you know what
he's shooting at you with,</i> <i> you know, that's,
that's a, that's a problem,</i> <i> but it's a problem
you can deal with.</i> But when you have these,
these IEDs that are hidden
in all sorts of places where they think
that you're gonna walk, and you have no,
no way to detect them, <i> sometimes it's, that's,
that's a scary thought.</i> [ explosion ] SOLDIER:<i>
Get up! Get up!</i> <i> Get up!</i> The term IED simply means
Improvised Explosive Device, <i> and that was
the largest killer</i> <i> on our battlefield
at that time.</i> This is nothing
but insurgents taking what they can find
or they can buy <i> and manufacturing
a homemade explosive,</i> <i> and then
manufacturing a system</i> <i> to detonate that device
on the battlefield somewhere.</i> As we became more advanced
and became better troops, they got better
at what they did. [ explosion ] SOLDIER: <i>
Oh!</i> <i> IED! IED!</i> We were having to combat,
you know, vehicle-borne IEDs <i> and IEDs buried in the road
and IEDs attached to trees</i> <i> and IEDs attached
to trip wires</i> <i> and IEDs attached
to pressure plates.</i> <i> As a bomb technician,
you are at the tip
of the spear,</i> <i> and that's
a very dangerous place to be.</i> You're likely gonna be
the first one to run into an Improvised
Explosive Device, <i> or if there is a tripwire,</i> you're the one
that's gonna run <i> into that tripwire.</i> <i> You're taking the hazard</i> <i> that everybody else
wants to move away from,</i> and you are the person
that has to move very calmly and very purposefully
towards that hazard. It wasn't me using my rifle
to look for enemy combatants. <i> It was me using the tools
that I had</i> <i> to look off to the left
and off to the right</i> <i> to make sure there were not
any explosive hazards</i> <i> that were buried off
in the bush.</i> EOB techs have a special job,
obviously. <i> Their job is to keep people</i> alive
and to keep people safe. MAST:<i>
You're having to learn</i> <i> a lot of things
about physics,</i> <i> or the chemistry
that's associated
with explosives,</i> but you also have to be
a person that is, say, capable of opening up
the hood of a car and working on an engine,
and then on top of that, you have to have a person
that has the stones to go stand on top of a bomb <i> and say,
"I'm gonna disarm this."</i> <i> It wasn't too long ago,
my old high school</i> <i> reached out to me to go
to a speaking engagement.</i> The principal,
he was introducing me, telling the story of,
you know, "I pulled your file, Brian. The very first thing
on the top of that page, the very first incident
you ever did when you were a freshman
here in high school is you let
a few stink bombs off. I think we could've predicted
back then that you might have a future
in, in blowing things up." So, and I guess I did. <i> I was raised
in Grand Rapids, Michigan.</i> <i> It's like
a great blue-collar area.</i> It's just close enough
to a city, but I was in the suburbs. <i> You know,
I grew up watching GI Joe,</i> <i> and I grew up rolling
and playing in the mud</i> <i> and playing with guns
and being a kid</i> <i> that was out there hunting.</i> And so, I always wanted to be
in the military. I think it was something
that I knew probably
from a very young age, and I think at the time
that I was raised, in the place
that I was raised, it was just
so proudly touted, you know, the pride
that everybody has in America, and I wanted to be
a part of that growing up. <i> When I first entered
the military,</i> I became a combat engineer,
and a part of what you do is, you do a little bit of work
with explosives. You do work with landmines,
with cratering, with things like that,
and that's kind of where I got my first real taste
of working with demolition. And so I said okay, I'm gonna
become a bomb technician. <i> It's something
that you actually</i> <i> have to volunteer for.</i> I basically began the process
to select and assess for an Army special operations
bomb technician unit that was being newly created specifically to support
the Army Rangers. I had known
about the tradition of Army Rangers, you know,
long ago, <i> and I had some opportunities
to work with those guys,</i> <i> and I was always
very impressed</i> <i> by the work that they did</i> <i> and, you know, impressed
with the ethic that they had.</i> <i> And so when this unit
was being created,</i> basically saying
Army Rangers are out there
on the battlefield, they don't have
a specific group of bomb technicians
that can meet the need of, of working
on the battlefield. I went through
a very rigorous selection
and assessment process as a part
of joining this team. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
He's probably one
of the best techs</i> <i> that we've had
that I worked with, hands down.</i> I mean, he would move through,
through areas where I was kind of,
you know, tiptoeing around, hoping I don't step
on something. He'd just walk
right by me like,
"Get outta the way. I'm trying to look
for something," you know. Looking for tripwire
and stuff like that, and here I am on eggshells. You know, that's a big
threat factor, these IEDs, and Brian is the one that's eliminating
this threat factor. <i> And he saved our butts
a few times beforehand,</i> <i> so, you know,
we have confidence.</i> MAST:<i>
You learn the--
the hazards of the job,</i> <i> and you learn the best way
that you can combat
those hazards.</i> <i> You're never gonna
completely remove risk</i> <i> from the job
that you're doing,</i> but you know
what the risks are, and you know that somebody has to take those risks
for the purpose of something that's bigger
and more important than ourselves
as individuals. <i> I knew that
every single night</i> <i> that I was
going out with them,</i> I was going to have
the opportunity to, very likely, put myself in between,
you know, these guys
that I call my brothers and something that,
that's trying to kill them. <i> [ music playing ]</i> MAST:<i>
Working out there
on the battlefield</i> <i> during this time frame,</i> we were seeing
Improvised Explosive Devices, ambushes, and enemy gunfire on practically
every single mission
that we were a part of, and it seemed like
90% of the people
that we were going after were IED builders,
IED, you know, facilitators. DELONG:<i>
We would use
satellite imagery</i> <i> to figure out,
"Okay this is where
we're gonna land,</i> <i> and this is gonna be
the best route</i> <i> to walk to this compound,</i> and sometimes you'd have
to sacrifice safety for efficiency
and vice-versa, and depending on
whatever intel you had about that. [ overlapping chatter ] MAST:<i>
As the explosive expert</i> <i> that was
a part of that team,</i> <i> part of my job
during the planning phases</i> was to say,
"This is where our target is. Here's every
Improvised Explosive Device
that's gone off as long as I can find history
for this." DE LA FUENTE:<i>
I would actually
get some reports</i> <i> because I would work
in a conjunction</i> <i> with the guys who did my job
from Special Forces teams,</i> and I share it
with the platoon leader, which is what I do
for a job. <i> I always wanted
to be in the military.</i> When I was really small,
you know, Rambo and Top Gun and all these movies
were coming out, and Arnold Schwarzenegger
in Commando, and I really got interested
in the military at a very young age. <i> I-- My mom wanted me
to go to college</i> <i> because my two older brothers
were already in the Army.</i> So, I went
for one semester, didn't tell them
I dropped out, went and signed up
and got into the military. They weren't too happy
about that, so. <i> My father
always raised us up,</i> <i> you did something,
you have to do it
to the finish.</i> <i> That carried on
to the military also.</i> <i> I mean, obviously that's how
I got to the Ranger Regiment.</i> <i> I, I didn't ever go
to the conventional Army.</i> <i> I went straight through--
From selection,</i> <i> I went straight
to Second Ranger Battalion.</i> At that time
they were revamping our reconnaissance section,
and I went and tried out. For me, it was everything
that I wanted to do,
and I was good at it. <i> Individuals who are
in the reconnaissance section</i> <i> are kind of like
the computer geeks, you know.</i> We gather intelligence
via different means. They can be
sitting on the side of a mountain
taking pictures that help us hone in
on certain individuals
that we're looking for. <i> Then we use certain devices</i> <i> to help us
accomplish the mission.</i> DELONG:<i>
We would have a compound
that we had preselected.</i> These compounds were chosen
because they were, you know, advantageous to us
in some fashion, and they were chosen
because they were
in a particular hotspot, <i> and this is
where the Taliban is.</i> <i> And we would go in
at night.</i> BONK:<i>
As soon as you
get on the bird,</i> you're kinda thinking
and practicing in your head, like, what to do
when this happens, what to do when that happens,
just trying to be <i> mentally prepared
as much as you can.</i> DELONG:<i>
We'd get out, form up,</i> <i> and wait
for the helicopters</i> to take off,
just kind of listen, look, listen for a while, and then we make a formation
and start walking. MAST:<i>
There's a lot of nights
of walking</i> <i> some pretty long miles</i> to take over
a very specific area. DELONG:<i>
So, we would raid
one of these compounds,</i> <i> clear it,
secure all the people</i> <i> that are living in there,
and then we'd fortify it.</i> Get down,
get down, get down! We busted out
the sledgehammers
and the shovels and started putting holes
in the walls <i> and sandbagging everything
we could do</i> <i> and, and set up our gun ports
and gun points</i> and set up as best we could. DELONG:<i>
And then we'd take
all these inhabitants</i> that were living there
and we'd say, "Hey, you guys
know where the Taliban are. We want you to go out there
and go find somewhere safe
to be, leave the area, and tell them
that we're right here and that
we're here to fight. <i> A couple of times
we would take</i> <i> a big old American flag,
and we would throw it up
on the roof,</i> <i> and we would wait for them
to start shooting at us.</i> You know,
the sun would come up, and we'd get
that first little burst of machine gun fire
or something that was aimed at us,
and then it was on. <i> We'd let them
kind of surround us.</i> We'd let them close in on us,
get real close. <i> If we can draw them in
and get them into places</i> <i> where we can see them
we know where they're at</i> you know, because
they don't wear a uniform. It's difficult, you know,
but if we can get
all of the civilians <i> out of an area,
like we were doing,</i> <i> and draw
all of the combatants in,</i> <i> so that we--
They were clearly identified,</i> <i> then we could just
let the planes go to work
and do their thing.</i> The Taliban was getting
pretty dialed into where, where we were,
and they were starting
to get closer and closer with their mortar strengths,
and one of them came in and landed right
in the mortar pit, right where our guys were. BONK:<i>
Doing this mission,</i> <i> they were just
getting beat up,</i> <i> casualties left and right,
losing some guys.</i> As a medic, I have to be
the guy with the answers. I have to be the guy
who knows what to do. You want to do your job
and actually be fulfilled, but again you don't want
your guys to be hurt. <i> Growing up
in Columbus, Nebraska,</i> <i> I kind of wanted
a fresh start,</i> just kind of wanted
to venture out a little bit and kind of see maybe
who I was, you know, like what I could get into,
you know. Going into military I knew
just one thing, like I wanted to be a medic, and so, as close
to a paramedic as I could be. But being a 20-year-old kid,
I definitely didn't feel ready to be able to take care
of someone, until I got a slot
for SOCM, for a Special Operation
Combat Medic course, so that helped out a lot. I'd just run through
our training and our medical assessment just over and over
and over again, and just, you know,
really pound it in. <i> My first deployment
was to Kandahar.</i> We had 50, 60, 70 missions
that first deployment. I mean, no one got hurt,
I didn't have to do anything. <i> My second deployment
with Team Merrill</i> <i> was pretty much completely
different.</i> You're gonna take casualties,
you're gonna take contact, like you definitely
will be tested as a medic. And so me,
me with one deployment, I mean that was kind of
very nerve-wracking. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
Our ranger medics are awesome,</i> <i> and to see Cody just be
just as professional</i> <i> and just as elite
as every other medic</i> <i> that I held
at a very high standard.</i> Those guys,
for me are the kind of guys that,
I would say, are more of like our heroes,
because while everybody else is getting to fight,
they're trying to save lives. This is, you know,
a very dangerous mission that, that we were all a part of,
as is very evident by the number of casualties
that were incurred. We went into some really
hot places, and we were usually going
into compounds where we had
traditionally found a lot of Improvised
Explosive Devices. But in order for me
to save the lives that,
that I was able to affect, I had to also be there
for the day that, you know, being on the battlefield
almost claimed my own life. MAST:<i>
September 19, 2010.</i> <i> We were going out
for a whole night.</i> We were gonna try
to draw in the enemy to combat us all day long. <i> It was about my 40th,
maybe 45th mission
with this unit.</i> DE LA FUENTE:<i>
We had been doing
these missions already.</i> It was no different
than what we had been doing. <i> The objective
we were actually going to
was a Taliban stronghold.</i> We had an intelligence and,
from Special Forces guys that we knew that
that was a safe house for them. DELONG:<i>
A lot of missions,
as soon as the birds</i> <i> are coming in the area,
they are taking fire.</i> This particular one,
it was dead quiet, dead quiet. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
Coming into an area
that we knew</i> <i> was a Taliban stronghold,</i> and nobody in the area
kind of flicking their lights
off and on, nobody is checking up on us. BONK:<i>
We just pull our security,
and we take a knee,</i> and kinda hear that eerie
silence and, you know. All the dust is settling
and it's clear again, it's quiet,
like almost too quiet. My job basically was just follow
the platoon sergeant around, that's the easiest
way for me. Again, this is
my second deployment, so I was just kind of
lost in the sauce I guess. ZACH DELONG:<i>
My partner, James
was walking point.</i> Brian Mast, our EOD tech,
was right behind him. We would walk,
usually maybe like 100 meters ahead of the rest
of the platoon, and they would follow
right behind us. But when you have 50,
you know, some odd Rangers with all this gear,
all this equipment,
it gets loud. And when it's just
the four of us up front,
it was pretty quiet. Maybe I perceive it as safe,
and it really isn't. As a sniper,
we would use spotting scopes in our riflescopes
to just look. We're just looking
for target indicators. We're looking for Taliban
that are moving into position. BRIAN MAST:<i>
Working with the snipers,
I put the same trust in them</i> that they were protecting me,
that they had my back, that I didn't have to worry
for one second about somebody jumping out
and putting a bullet in me because they were gonna
put a bullet in them before they could ever
get to me. In our job, you know,
we don't deal with explosives. They, they're terrifying to us,
and they ask us to navigate and to walk point
and to lead out. I've always been enamored
with snipers. I always thought
that was the coolest thing ever. I shot a lot of guns growing up.
You know, your dad's a cop, he's got a safe
full of guns that we would always
go out and go shoot. I learned that early on
and I learned a love for that
early on. Maybe that translated
into wanting to do that job,
or being able to. And I would watch war movies,
Black Hawk Down specifically. I watched that movie
75 times. I was just obsessed with,
with being a part of that. <i> So, my heart was always set
on going and being a Ranger.</i> <i>Maybe it was just the mystique.
Maybe it was just, you know,</i> <i> they have a phenomenal
reputation.</i> So I kind of thought,
you know, Ranger Regiment, these people here, you know,
they want to be here. They've all endured
the same amount of, of-- of suck,
I guess is the word. That's the only one
I can think of. <i> I wanted to do
the team Merrill deployment.</i> <i> I wanted the, the action.
I wanted to test myself.</i> I'm not the strongest,
I'm not the fastest or anything, but I'll just keep putting
one foot in front of the other. Can't make me quit, so. As snipers, we were in charge
of navigating, planning routes before
the mission even kicked off and getting that platoon
to and from the compound
that we were going to. BRIAN MAST:<i>
So basically
we ended up walking</i> <i> a very rudimentary dirt road</i> with brush and weeds and,
and trees on both sides. ZACH DELONG:<i>
Just to the right of that,
right off the edge,</i> you have this, maybe six,
seven-foot deep sewage canal. BRIAN MAST:<i>
The waterways are disgusting,</i> but these are basically outflows
for, you know, for human waste. ZACH DELONG:<i>
On the other side
of that canal there's a wall,</i> <i> and the wall is probably
eight feet high.</i> BONK:<i>
We had to get, you know,
all 50 dudes across this area</i> <i> to get to where the possible
Taliban stronghold was.</i> BRIAN MAST:<i>
Because of the combination</i> <i> of the steep embankment
and the very high wall,</i> it was something that
we couldn't just ladder over. That's the, the normal way
that we would have preferred to cross a wall like that. We found a break in the wall that we had previously
identified and thought that could be
a potential crossing point. BRIAN MAST:<i>
As we approached, I said,</i> "Look, if I was a bomber
living anywhere around here, this is exactly
where I would place a device. ZACH DELONG:<i>
We took this ladder,</i> <i> and we laid it
across the canal,</i> and my partner James
walked across, then Brian walks across. BRIAN MAST:<i>
Walking on the battlefield
puckers you up.</i> Walking across
one of these bridging ladders in a wide-open area,
it's very likely a place that they might also conduct
an ambush. There might very well be
somebody's sights trained on me right now, and so it becomes
very precarious. Brian gets over there,
and they do their thing. They look for tripwires,
kind of check the ground to see if there is disturbed earth and
see if there's pressure plates or something
that was recently dug there. BRIAN MAST:<i>
I'm making sure there's nothing</i> <i> where the water
meets the embankment.</i> Eventually I think I got down
on my hands and knees, and I pulled that small handheld
metal detector out of my pocket, and I gently probed the earth
in front of me to, you know, to look and see
if I could find anything because I was so convinced
that there was something there. There had
to be something there. We were waiting for them
to give us the okay to cross. BRIAN MAST:<i>
We can't take forever
doing that, you know.</i> <i> The mission, it has to go on.</i> <i> The things that we're doing
are time-sensitive.</i> And as I remember,
you know, I gave the snipers
the signal, indicated that we were gonna
move ahead. ZACH DELONG:<i>
I start walking across,</i> <i> and you're doing all this
in the middle of the night,</i> <i> and you're doing it
weighed down by, you know,</i> however heavy your rifle
and machine gun is. You're doing it with a helmet
with night vision on. That is very disorienting. And I slipped. It's sewage,
It's gross, you know. And you're soaking wet. I remember dropping
just about every curse word in the dictionary,
just furious. Brian turns around
to come back and help pull me
out of that creek. I took maybe one or two steps
towards that river way... ZACH DELONG:<i>
There's just a cloud
of-- of dirt,</i> which browns out
your night vision,
you can't see a thing. The blast and the concussion, it's so, so fast, you know,
you don't know what that was. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
We're stopped up at the wall</i> <i> within the first 10 minutes,
15 minutes of, of the objective</i> and where everybody
is taking a knee and facing out, and we're figuring out
how we're going to get
past this obstacle. And the blast went off. The plume of smoke went up
easily 60, 70 feet into the air. To be honest,
my first assessment was whoever was hit by that,
is probably not alive anymore. The Improvised Explosive Device
that I thought was there found me,
or, or I found it. It was just
the brightest white flash that I can remember,
and, and it blinding me. You know, in the movies
people always think, oh you hear this click,
and then you have time to think, oh, what was that?
And then an explosion happens. This just,
it happened immediately just as quick
as you flick on the lights, and to me
it felt like this punch from some heavyweight boxer
had just landed on my chin, and it tumbled me
through the air. I can remember feeling
like my teeth were rattled from this explosion,
and as I'm laying there, I still had my earphones on
and I could hear at that point, "EOD was hit, that EOD is down."
And that's me. That's what really
brought it home, to say I was the one that,
that triggered this device. ZACH DELONG:<i>
I had no idea
what had just happened.</i> <i> I thought maybe
it had something
to do with me falling in</i> <i> or something because
it all happened at, like,
the exact same moment</i> Brian was coming back to help
pull me out of that creek. I started climbing my way
out of the canal. I got up there,
and Brian was laying on his back right in front
of this break in the wall. BRIAN MAST:<i>
The wind is knocked out of me,
and I can remember,</i> all this dust
and dirt that had buried
this IED in the ground, that was all blown up into me.
And I'm laying there, and I'm realizing, okay,
there's some good reason that I can't stand up right now,
and I was in a lot of pain. ZACH DELONG:<i>
I still can't see anything</i> <i> but just like the outline
of a person</i> <i> because it's so browned out
with sand and dust.</i> So I started patting down
his arms and his legs, and I get to where
his knees are, and it stops. And that didn't click, again. I didn't realize what had just
happened, what I was feeling. And I did it again,
and I looked down to his, about his knees, and then
I didn't feel anything else, and I thought,
that's really weird. And that's when my partner
started screaming for a medic. As soon as I hear that,
you know, it's just, I don't know
if it's instinct or what, like I started booking
straight through towards the, the bridge point. The training kicks over.
You go on autopilot almost. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
It was awesome to see Cody</i> immediately react
without regard
for his own safety. We could be in a minefield,
we don't know, and he didn't care. It was his job
to be there, and that's what Rangers do,
we're there for each other. And he just deadlined
straight for him. I didn't really think of,
you know, there could be more IEDs,
or could be an ambush or something like that. I just, you know,
someone yelled "medic." and that's where I'm gonna go. Cody comes up there,
and he just starts rattling, rattling off tasks,
"All right, we gotta
get this done," and he's just displaying nothing
but the utmost confidence. BONK:<i>
I still didn't know who it was.
I mean, I think I saw EOD,</i> <i> so I knew, like,
Oh, that's our EOD guy.
That's Mast.</i> The first thing I look at,
I see his legs. I'm like,
that's weird. What the heck are those
tree branches doing sticking out of his legs, like is he laying under,
under like a tree branch
or something? Like, what's going on here?
And I throw my aid bag down, and I look like, Oh my God,
those are his femurs. And I think he
said, like, "I can't breathe"
or whatnot, so that alarmed me,
so I threw his body armor off,
didn't find any holes. BRIAN MAST:<i>
You know, my lungs feel
like they are filled with,</i> you know, chalk or something.
It was making me cough, and I feel like I'm blinded.
I'm having to wipe all the-- all the dirt
and, and all of this
out of my eyes, And it was right about
at that time that I really started to figure out
that I was seriously injured. I'm, I'm looking
at my left arm, And my left arm,
all of these fingers,
they were broken, and they were pointing
in just really crazy directions. ZACH DELONG:<i>
This scenario.</i> <i> I had been trained on
what to do</i> in situations like this
a hundred times over, and I froze. It took a minute, it was weird,
definitely took a minute, but finally the medic said,
"Throw a tourniquet on him," and that's when everything
clicked. That's about when I kind of
came out of the haze, and everything kind of
kicked back on, you know. I had a little system reboot
and kinda thought, Okay, I know what to do here. I put a tourniquet
on one of his legs, the medics put one on his
other leg and then on his arm. It's probably
the most painful thing that I can remember
ever happening. You know, if the end of my limb
looked something like this, they were wrenching a tourniquet
down on top of it to tighten it down
as tight as they possibly could to make sure I don't hemorrhage
out on the battlefield. We're lucky that, you know,
the blast cauterized his legs, and he wasn't bleeding
very much. And then they start
working on other things, getting his equipment off,
you know, running fluids on him and doing their thing,
and at that point
I stepped back. BONK:<i>
The platoon sergeant is like,</i> "Doc, you have two minutes
to get over across the river before the medevac bird
comes down. Like, he wasn't even
on the cot at all, the blanket was,
like, getting set up, so we had to start,
start booking it. I remember thinking,
"Oh my gosh," you know,
"this is crazy." DE LA FUENTE:<i>
After the blast,
we pulled security,</i> held on tight.
They continued to work on Brian. We had, you know,
our medics working on him. BONK:<i>
I'm working on the edge
of this riverbank,</i> so I'm like, partly falling off
and trying not to lose my bag and my gear and not let him
fall in, you know, and trying to get him
packaged up, so we're like, we got two minutes
to get over across the river. I'm kind of talking to Brian,
trying to get IV access. I asked him to see if he was,
like, with it or not,
alert and oriented. So like, "Hey, Mast, can you
tell me your first name?" He was asking me questions
that they're trained to ask, you know, things to basically
help keep my mind sharp and my mind focused
and prevent shock. And he said that I was almost
offended as though, you know, What, you don't,
how do you not know my name? BONK:<i> He wasn't screaming
or anything like that,</i> so it kinda, kinda threw me off
initially, like I mean, he's lost both your legs,
a big wound on your arm, just kind of inappropriately
calm, you know? Before really getting ready
to lift him and move him, he's like, "Hey, can I have
something for the med-- for the pain?"
I'm like, that hit me like, Crap, like, how did I
completely forget about this? I grabbed one of our
fentanyl lollipops, just kinda like a morphine
derivative. So then we taped it
to his finger and told him to put it in his mouth
and just suck on it. BRIAN MAST:<i>
After that, they got
me onto the stretcher,</i> and this all happened
in a really quick period
of time. ZACH DELONG:<i>
This canal that
I was doing everything</i> <i> I could to not fall into,</i> we had to have a bunch of guys,
like, dive in there. We had a four-person carry team,
one on each-- one of the legs
of the stretcher. We kind of had to ladder down. ZACH DELONG:<i>
Brian is a big dude,</i> and he's weighed down
by all of his equipment, and carrying him,
it was tough, you know. BRIAN MAST:<i>
It was a very surreal
experience</i> <i> being transported
on the stretcher.</i> We're used to seeing
the world go by as we walk around the world
vertically, and all of a sudden I'm laying
on the flat of my back, and I'm seeing
the world go by like this. As we get close
to that helicopter, it kicks up a huge amount
of dust and dirt
and hay and straw and anything else
that might be on the ground. I don't have any goggles on,
and so all of that that the helicopters kick up,
it's all landing on top of me. And it was just,
it was a very surreal
experience. You know,
somebody gave me a salute and told me
that I was gonna be okay. And that's the last thing
that I remember from that night. ZACH DELONG:<i>
We got him out of that field,</i> and the helicopters
picked him up and took off, and it was dead silent. And we're right back
where we started, just short one guy. BONK:<i>
As soon as that bird
left, I was just exhausted,</i> <i> like, mentally
and kind of physically, too,</i> but we had a whole
30-hour mission ahead of us, so, you know,
you don't really
have time to relax and just do the next part. ZACH DELONG:<i>
We took a quick
regrouping break</i> <i> to kind of figure out where
we were gonna go from there.</i> It was about that time
that we started to realize that this area
that we're working in right now, there's nobody here,
and there's all these mines and explosives everywhere,
and I just kinda thought, you know, it's like this is like
one giant trap that they set. You have to fight on
to the Ranger objective. That's, that's the creed.
That's what we do. <i> And so we made a decision
to move on</i> <i> and to continue the mission
and find a new route.</i> I was terrified.
Terrified. And, you know,
I'm not ashamed to admit that. I think there's a lot of people
that won't, but, you know,
that's how I felt. BONK:<i>
We would cross
the river, waist deep,</i> <i> and cross back
and kinda go back and forth.</i> I feel like we crossed it, like,
four or five different times, and it sucks getting wet. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
It was a little
nerve-wracking to be walking</i> in waist deep, and up to
some parts chest-deep water, and not knowing
the next step. <i> It took hour, hour and a half,
to get to our objective.</i> That was an occupied compound,
people lived there, and we set up shop
just like we always do. BONK:<i> Once we were all
in the compound,</i> <i> and we had all our positions,
you just kind of sit there</i> and wait and pull security,
kind of calm down and let all this
kind of come over you. That's when I kinda realized
that when this blast went off, I was in this canal,
and Brian's standing maybe at four feet offset
from where my head was. Throughout my entire
military career, through all the training,
through all the missions prior, I had had nothing
but the utmost confidence that I was never frightened
by anything. I had been in, you know,
numerous firefights. I always felt, you know,
comfortable in my element, and this totally
threw me off. I was terrified. BONK:<i>
I thought we were,
like, the best, you know.</i> <i> No one can touch us.
We're invincible.</i> <i> It's part of the training,
part of the mentality,</i> <i> and, you know, once you,
like, have a casualty</i> or lose one of your own,
it's very humbling. Going through all this stuff
together just kind of solidifies
your unity. Say you have bad moments
here and there, but, you know, when you're down,
someone else is right there to pick you up, too,
and you kind of just feed off each other's strength
and courage. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
We were really tired,
and when you deal</i> <i> with something
like a medevac,</i> or you see somebody
get injured, your adrenaline wears down,
and you get a little
more drained. So mentally
I was a little more drained,
and I was ready to leave. We had very, very sparse
contact that whole day. It was a very,
very quiet mission relative to all the other
missions that we had been on. BONK:<i> I think it was
10:00 PM local time,</i> <i> it's when we kind of
make our way to exfil.</i> Once I got back to base,
not a lot of time to kind of sit and ponder
"what if's" or what happened here, or I wonder
how Brian is doing because you start planning
for the next mission, and we gotta go do the same
thing the next day. The next memory that I have
is about five days later, when I woke up to this nurse
asking me if I knew where I was, and, to which I said,
"I have no idea where I am." And she said, you know,
"Your name is Brian Mast. You're in Washington DC at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and you're gonna be in surgery
in a couple of hours. <i> I didn't even know
at that point</i> <i> really what my injuries were.</i> I didn't know
that I had just, you know, had both of my legs amputated
somewhere above my knees, or that I had
a missing index finger
or damage to my forearm. I really didn't know
what the injuries were. I honestly believed, you know,
in those first couple of weeks after injury that I was gonna
slap on a pair of prosthetics, do physical therapy
for a couple of weeks, <i> and I was gonna
be out on the next rotation,</i> <i> you know,
with those guys,</i> <i> working on
the battlefield again.</i> <i> I didn't fully realize
that I was about to enter
a new normal to life</i> <i> that didn't involve
being on the battlefield,</i> <i> you know, with these guys
that I call my brothers.</i> I would no longer
be able to be an asset
to the mission that, you know, if I ever ended up
on the battlefield again, I would probably,
in all reality, be a detriment to the mission,
and I think that's something that can be very difficult
for a lot, for a lot of guys to come to grips with,
to some degree. ZACH DELONG:<i>
The way that I perceive
this whole thing,</i> <i> I think
it's luck of the draw.</i> You know, you have
50-some people, so it's inevitable
that somebody is probably
gonna step on that. But I think it was because
Brian was coming back to help pull me
out of that creek, which was a crazy thought, something I thought
about a lot. I don't think there's,
for even one second, that Zach should feel guilty
about anything. We're on the battlefield,
and we do the best that we can for each other,
for as long as we can do it, in the best way that we know it
at that specific second. So I like to think that,
you know, the last thing that I ever did
on the battlefield was to put myself between,
you know, one of those brothers and possible injury
and possible death. It was supposed to be me. It wasn't supposed to be him
or any of the other Rangers. ZACH DELONG:<i>
It wasn't until
after this incident</i> that I really got to,
you know, see him, see his personality, kind of see how he handles
tragedy, how he handles this, you know, this, this horrible
thing that's happened to him. Being able to walk
and regain his normal
functioning is just, you know, it's quite
the testament of, you know, his strength and his drive. DE LA FUENTE:
It's awesome to see
a guy like that have so much determination,
and he's an inspiration to other veterans
who have gone through, you know,
situations like his. <i> The thing
that I'm most proud of,</i> it's not any,
any medal or award. <i> It's when the Rangers
gave me a ceremony</i> <i> to make me an honorary member
of the 75th Ranger Regiment.</i> That day they said, "You're officially a Ranger.
You're officially one of us." DE LA FUENTE:<i>
He is a Ranger in my book.</i> There is no question about that,
and a lot of guys are just as hard as him
and just as determined as him. BRIAN MAST:<i>
That was part of what
makes me so proud</i> <i> about these guys
that I work with,</i> is they are the tip
of the spear. <i> Going out every single night,
knowing the hazards</i> <i> that they were going
to have to combat.</i> Taking contact and losing guys,
it's just kinda, it's hard to put into words
that kind of experience. Just very thankful that you
get home alive, in one piece. I learned more about myself,
and more especially about the people
that I was working with on that deployment
than any other. DE LA FUENTE:<i>
It was a real learning curve</i> and involved
life and death. You couldn't ask for a better
group of guys to be with. ZACH DELONG:<i>
This Merrill deployment
changed the game.</i> <i> We had lost several guys,
we lost dogs.</i> We had at least a quarter,
if not a third, of everybody there
had received a Purple Heart for getting wounded
in some other fashion, <i> whether
it was something
on a grand scale</i> <i> like Brian
losing his legs,</i> or somebody just catching
a piece of shrapnel. Americans have always been
willing to pay that price, and those Rangers
that I work with, they, they embody
that every single night.