The Warfighters: Secrets Behind the Longest War in American History *Marathon*

[Music] we want to fight the enemy that's why we joined the ranger battalion every Mission you understand the risks and those risks definitely were Amplified the minute that we stepped off that aircraft it was crazy and it was it was chaotic but this was a very different type of objective for all of us it was just a series of chaotic events you could be the most well- trained badass in the world it doesn't matter if you have no training or all of that training like if it's your time there's nothing you can do about it if you're going to die [Music] I think everyone in the Special Operations Community you know has a a sense of invincibility um we Untouchable every 19-year-old kid already has that and then you give him the best training in the world the best gear surrounded by the best people and and now you truly believe it the first ranger battalion deployed in the beginning of August of 9 our platoon was pretty excited to get the chance to go to Afghanistan we knew we had a big opportunity there to to Really bring the fight to the enemy we were operating out of fob Sero and it was basically at capacity it's very crowded they're packing packing us into these tiny little tents like you could literally touch the guy to your left and to your right we're working out together we're eating together we're everything we're doing we're doing as a team I remember being a little nervous I think that's normal for everyone's first deployment but knowing that you are surrounded by the best people that special operations Community has to offer and knowing that I have their back and at the same time they have mine that's a really good feeling Jason doy was one of the best that we had in ranger battalion as far as uh you know being physically fit mentally strong everybody looked up to him and instead of just being the best he wanted to make everybody else the best he he had a way of teaching that was unlike anything I'd ever experienced since being in the military when he's teaching his guys it's not just to teach that one person but it's to benefit the group and he was very very adamant about that he just really wanted people to succeed I mean he really he really did and from what I hear from the guys he was a great teacher and a great leader to them I met Jason in middle school so we were like 12 or 13 probably he was in one of my Spanish classes I remember him being the crazy redhead who was talking all the time he was always on the go he was really active really adventurous Jason just loved to be outside I remember once he called me and told me um I think I'm going to enter into a triathlon that's on base I'm like okay I'm like when today I'm goingon to do it this afternoon he ended up doing it with his mountain bike that he just happened to have in his truck um you know he had his Mitch his military helmet not a Biker's helmet and he ended up winning the race I mean it was absurd I've never met anybody like him like even his walk was like this bounce and this like shoulders back chest forward and he was like bouncing when he came in the room and it's just like his presence was just there and he was going to make everybody there happy even deployed you know I never felt alone I always knew he was there and thinking about me he had been on three deployments to Iraq and this would be his third deployment to Afghanistan and there was something about this last deployment which made me very nervous We Begin this hour with Afghanistan and some very hard facts Taliban forces are on the rise again Al-Qaeda Training Camps on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border are said to be full militants continued to train and launch Terror attacks into Afghanistan and once feuding Taliban command ERS have pulled together for the common goal of fighting the US in 2009 in terms of the broad scheme of Afghanistan uh you know you had the hakani and you had the Taliban and they were able to still be a problem for the US in you know eight years after we entered Afghanistan there was lots of firefights it wasn't just you know doing nightly raids it was night raids and then getting in big fights with an actual an enemy that KN that knew what they were actually doing the Americans and the Taliban had almost become good at fighting each other and so we knew that it was going to be a a rough a rough deployment objective Berlin came down I think we had been in country about a month or so Third Battalion had found that there were a number of training camps near the Pakistan border and they basically requested a company from first Battalion to help them hit all of these camps our intelligence analysts have begun monitoring it lot of enemy movement in the area we can see that there was a a large you know set of bunkers and a bunker system built into the side of this mountain and we could see these tent systems and and there was reports of uh you know possibly enemy weapons cachets and anti-aircraft guns the camp is very important to the Taliban we thought us hitting the mountain would definitely disrupt their leadership Network because there had to be somebody important there with with everything that they had we had gotten word that they were going to be doing a kinetic strike before we were going to land kinetic strike basically is um you know dropping a large amounts of bombs or ordinance on the area um in efforts to eliminate the bad guys they were going to send us in to just make sure that the air strikes had done their job we're supposed to land at 8,000 feet and then our objective at the top of this mountain was right around 9500 to 10,000 feet one private was taken from each Squad four privates total I was selected from weapons and Eric Cario Ed being selected from third Squad Eric Hario and I we met back in the training cycle I had just gotten to Alpha Company first ranger battalion and he had been there for a month prior when you looked at Eric you have this big bulky guy huge forearms he he reminded me of Popeye just these giant forearms sticking out from his T-shirt and he had he had tattoos he looked mean I remember when I first met him the team leaders start to get a little you know bored and so um they would send all of our privates from weapon squad over to another Squad to try and um wrestle I drew the Unlucky straw of having to try and wrestle with Eric who came from a background of wrestling and football Here I Am this little you know I was 150 lbs and so we entered the cage and the last thing I remember is Eric having me in this headlock and my head bouncing off the concrete and me thinking in the back of my mind like this is a really bad situation you know I drew the wrong kid to mess with and uh we were laughing later on you know I I believe he said something the effect of hey man like I'll help you work on those wrestling skills or something like that as it led up to the planning for objective Berlin when the final manifest call came out and our names were on it like we were super excited that we had been selected as we took off you know I mean this is my second mission this is Eric's very first mission we were just both looking forward to the opportunity to go out and do our [Music] job I took a look out the window of the helicopter and the terrain it's so vast and just emptiness out there and I remember thinking they want us to climb up this you know these mountains are straight up we'd only been in country for a month living and training at sea level and this mission was going to be over 9,000 FT elevation so not only walking up a mountain but doing it while fighting um was going to be a huge challenge I've heard that this was was an area in the world that Alexander the Great couldn't even conquer because the terrain was just so challenging I vaguely remember someone saying we just got radio chattered that the enemy knew that we were coming just because of the bombs that had been dropped and and you know the Americans are coming get your guns ready you know we're going to have a fight [Music] as we were coming in and started taking fire the pilots made an assessment on the spot that they could actually land the aircraft when you land aircraft in an area like that they are the biggest Target on the battlefield every enemy combatant that's in that area they know that somebody's coming especially when it's at night we declip I run off to the right I take a knee and my team leader and I are pulling security the shooting is going on my team leader grabs me and pulls me down there was an enemy bunker built into the side of the mountain it was so well camouflaged that we didn't even see it I'm hearing reports that there's this enemy coming in from every direction there so much that they call off the next wave of helicopters because they want to use the air support to shoot the guys that are coming over the ridge lines at us the enemy was quickly eliminated and as was like a 19-year-old kid second mission first deployment to step off into a valley in which the enemy was prepared and precise and ready to attack was very eye opening my name is Greg Benner I am originally from a small town called manak Wisconsin from an early age I knew that I was destined for the military I just remember you know going to all these old yard sales getting these old uniforms and I lay in the bushes and practice my ambush techniques you know me and all my friends from the neighborhood uh would just sit there and Recon certain people in our neighborhood and write notes about him like you know this person left their house at this time and stuff so yeah we uh we definitely kept the place safe I learned about the Rangers and uh and their capabilities I knew that that that was going to be my route I signed up at 18 and then um I left uh two weeks after high school graduation as a private coming in you know you've read all the books and you've watched all the movies and this is the first time you've ever been out of the country and you're you're shipped to a war zone and it's good to know that you have brothers who care about your wellbeing want to contact ceased and it it got a little quiet you know almost eerily quiet that's when you guys started getting on the radio saying hey we we got a friendly wounded in [Music] action once you hear that one of your buddies got hit you start to run you know scenarios through your head you know who is it you know is it bad are they going to make it assist casualty on the west side of the see I wasn't very seasoned yet with um operating under night vision you have no depth perception you can see the Rocks down there but you don't really know how far they are away so um I tripped and fell like two or three times as I was running over I was able to reach this large amount of people that were taking a knee looks like they were working I remember just kneeling over closer and closer and and that's when I was able to look and um and I could tell at that point that it was Eric they had his helmet off and they had his body armor off and they were trying to assess his wounds 10 minutes prior we're seated across from each other in the aircraft you know an hour before that we were talking about things that every 19-year-old talks about girls and and and War and and and you know and and now all of a sudden you know we found ourselves on this battlefield and you know he's laying there with multiple wounds and that's when it like hit me really hard you know um I look at his situation you know in his late teens you know 6 months of Ranger experience from the Midwest and then I looked at myself and I was like 19 you know 6 months of experience in from the Midwest like our our stories paralleled each other and that's what became extremely real to me the possibility is that it could be me given the fact that they were working on him so frantically that told me that that was a good sign it came over the radio that he stable what happened to Hario was that he stepped off the aircraft and was shot within the first 30 seconds hit in the neck collarbone area when I first found out about it you know it's almost like this Shi field of you know invincibility is is [Music] gone they loaded him into the aircraft and um we sent you know a great medic with him that was a big stumbling block but we're going to make it through this you know and so with Eric but it was crazy to think that it happened so quick when we ran off the back of that aircraft and I had a feeling that we were going to be in for for a fight us is sending tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan but right now it seems the Taliban have never been [Music] stronger part of Landing in a beginning with any mission is to to you know dominate the terrain and establish control you know we had mountains on either side of us really vast Ridge lines that almost circled our entire position my fire team began moving to the north which was going to bring us to the base of the mountain that our Target was on top of my squad was a lead element uh for this target as the lead element you know you you know you're going to be the guys that are in the front my name is Michael Ross I'm 29 years old I grew up in Syracuse New York I didn't grow up in a big military family I didn't have the the typical childhood that you hear a lot of guys in the military you know they grew up you know hunting I didn't shoot a gun until I went to basic I grew up skateboarding and snowboarding I didn't play football I think everyone changed after September 11th you know our whole country obviously had a almost a face lift to it something sparked inside of me when that happened there was some sort of almost an anger or a rage you could you could almost call it um I felt like there something needed to be done and so I had tattoos and uh the Marine Corps they hated tattoos just as much as the Army does now and I had them below the elbow and that that kind of you know and funneled me into the army I enlisted in May of 2007 I knew that I wanted to fight that was I had that that desire in me I wanted to be you know the tip of the spear the guys that go in first Ross was definitely one of those guys you know that you kind of look up to you know he's a super humble guy so he won't tell you this but um he was actually awarded the Silver Star for something that he did later in his career you know which is a true Testament to the ranger that he was and the man that he is he's definitely one of the guys you know when you're moving through that difficult terrain you kind of look around to see how everyone else is acting especially as a younger private you know him and a couple other guys they were still doing everything [Music] right I had taken a quick pause when we heard contact from behind us there's word that enemy movers may be coming from multiple directions I moved to the Eastern side of the landing Zone because they said there were guys coming from the West Jason dokey was sitting a few feet from me all right so this rid line right 12:00 I'm going to paint the target man light them up he was using his laser to illuminate the ridge line got get to the left got him they go down dog someone comes over the radio and ask me to move where more guys are coming over some guy we thought had been dead earlier sat up and shot at Jason from pretty close range we take off his helmet and start taking off his body armor and our hands are covered in his blood we realize like he's pretty seriously wounded he was shot in the side a couple of times and I remember like standing over him and looking down after we' taken his his kit off and and I remember um I remember like standing over him and like refocusing my nods on his face was the first time I had like a surreal experience um where I kind of just like denied who it was at this point there wasn't really anything more for me to do besides sit there and watch I grabbed my shooter and we moved back over to where we were walking as we were sitting there poing security basically wiping the blood off of our hands I was like that was doy wasn't it and uh and he said [Music] yeah they packaged him up and the next two helicopters came in with a red to the Ground Force when you have a a friendly killed in action you like when when the helicopters are coming in they say hey we have you know x amount of people coming in on the aircraft and we're loading one Angel onto the aircraft and so yeah I mean everybody knew that dokey was dead right [Music] away looking around you know you could see on on our guys faces we had just gotten kicked in the chest test you know pretty [Music] hard Jason who is arguably one of the most respected Rangers you know in our group for someone that had his skill set and his knowledge and his physical ability and his mental ability you know if if he can be killed um we all have a Target on our [Music] back our mission was to go and deal with this training camp on this mountain so yes we we we get these casualties out of the gate but we haven't even started as the sun started coming up you you started being able to see these Peaks around us that kind of put everything back into perspective of just how small we were in this vast area I think all of us kind of came to the realization that this could be our night but this could be our time to go and I saw that sunrise and it was a very iconic moment in the middle of like a a really dark time and still find beauty we started moving up and uh the terrain was terrible it was some of the harshest terrain I've ever seen it was hands and knees the Slate rock that they have there it crumbles underneath your feet you're holding on to roots and limbs there was a tree at one point and I remember thinking you know I can take a break for 5 seconds if I can get to this tree that was like my mini objective I need to get to this tree it's hard to describe I've never been on any mountain similar to that a lot of jagged rocks it was like sharp edges that could actually tear your clothing very very few places suitable to even like sit down on with the weight our guys have on their backs they crack these rocks in half and it makes them tumble backwards I think I was 160 lb at the time my body weight and I think I weighed 240 with all of our gear on and now that's not even the heaviest I mean there was guys that that were that carried much more than that within the first 30 minutes or so of making our way up we see a dead Taliban with a backpack full of RPGs we have the dog handler bring his dog up just to sniff around see if there's anything booby trapped he sits up to shoot an RPG at us we all shoot him at the same time basically one of the bullets striked from the backpack full of rockets I remember feeling like a giant Heat Wave come off of it I was close enough to feel the heat from it it was crazy and it was it was chaotic the dog ended up getting a decent wound to the face and then the dog handler uh was seriously wounded he needed to be metac and that you know was clear and you know we knew knew we had to continue moving on so we start you know booking it up the side of this mountain the best we can with a difficult terrain that we're given we reach a point in which we were able to hit a [Music] plateau we set up a makeshift patrol base everybody's faces they're covered in dirt they're extremely winded trying to carry all this weight up the mountain generally you want to stay silent you know you're trying to you know conceal yourself and all of a sudden we hear this yelling at this point everybody shuts up immediately so they can hear it we realize it's some voice just echoing across between the ridg lines I start scanning immediately and I see a head pop up there he was right in front of us on this adjacent Mountain Top dressed in white and he was waving his arms and screaming and and yelling and what it seemed like he was doing doing was calling to the enemy spotting for them maybe telling him where our position was by this time we can hear him he's saying I think we think he's saying like stupid Americans and I had already basically ranged out all the key terrain features around us I had estimated it to be between 6 and 700 M it was a tough shot Mountain Top the mountain top there's no telling what the wind was doing in the middle of it and um at elevation Jordan Whit low in ranger battalion is a is a sniper Legend I became a sniper after this deployment and and a lot of it has to do with seeing Jordan on this Mission I grew up in Iowa in Indiana I guess you could say I had a normal Midwestern childhood I was also like the dentist the men type that be running around with like a frog in my pocket trying to catch snakes out in middle of nowhere in Iowa when I was like six years old you know before the internet was a big thing for us my mom would take us to the public library and instead of going to the children's book section I would go and check out the books about military history and I was pretty fascinated with snipers as a kid growing up I knew that the Rangers was an elite unit and so in October of 2003 I was 17 years old that's when I signed up it just so happened that in 2005 they had they needed more snipers in the Battalion and so they opened it up to some of the junior guys and I went through the assessment process and I was one of three other guys to get selected to join the sniper platoon I was the youngest guy by probably 5 years definitely admired him from afar yeah I'd heard that he grown up in the sniper section which is extremely rare and um and he was obviously good at his job and he proved it that day one of the squad leader yelled holy you hit him from 700 yard that type of Engagement you know across from ridg Line to ridg Line it's virtually impossible to gauge your wind couldn't have been placed any better it's it's just one of the most impressive things I've ever seen I'd like to say it was pure talent but I think it was mostly luck after these casualties that we had to see that we were still capable of putting a boot on the enemy was was a very uplifting thing the radio that our linguist was carrying that listening to their radio traffic he said they came over the radio and said hey don't move they can hit us from there so it was kind of like a giant middle finger to the Taliban like yeah we're here and we're going to move up this [Music] mountain [Music] we just walked probably 20 hours you know fighting through the valley up the mountain initially we started seeing uh tents every enemy combatant that's that's in that area they're very mobile these guys don't live in you know houses so we cleared through the tents and then we push forward into you know what what I would consider the primary objective the bunker complex U at the peak of the mountain coming upwards the objective area which is where the majority of the pr assaulting fires that occurred the trees were literally nothing more than like splintered stumps like trees that had been once 30 or 40 ft were now reduced to like 4T stumps it smelled like a pine tree air freshener so at this point uh we found enemy weapons cachets large amount of like machine guns and um grenades and there was just fighting positions and weapons scattered everywhere one of the initial things we found was a zpu which um an old Russian anti-aircraft gun and it was pointing directly at our helicopter landing Zone it's designed to to bring down an aircraft we inventoried any actual like serviceable weapons that we found and made this giant cache of weapons blew it up we had done it we had gotten up there we had cleared the objective and completed the mission to do that after being dealt such a a blow in the beginning with dokey and then to see it through to its fruition it just reins stilled how I viewed these [Music] guys a very proud moment to be a part of that as we're sitting up there pulling security I remember thinking like we got dates about all the guys that were wounded and we knew that we lost Jason donkey but we didn't know about Hario I walked to the middle of the patrol base and I asked the platoon Sergeant what happened to Hario he just looked at me with a blank stare and said he didn't make it and um I didn't know him well but I knew he was a good guy I knew he was only 19 years old in his first mission ever you know died basically stepping off of the aircraft you know initially we were told on the ground that there were some complications on the Medevac bird with Hario um but that they were able to you know to work through them they were able to uh Bas basically re Revitalize them a few times you hold on to that glimmer of hope and then when it when you get told otherwise you know I mean you know so it was a it was a challenging moment for me trying to grasp what just [Music] happened you'll never stop wondering could I have done more could we have done something differently that never leaves you have a quick second to to think about the family which you know I um you know you try not to do but it's you know you know that there's going to be someone that that comes to their door and tells them that their son was just [Music] killed my name is Becky Hario and I am Eric haro's mother Eric was born and grew up in Monroe Michigan he was very popular there he played every sport you can imagine football baseball wrestling he was a handful um he was was we have three sons my wife and I and Eric was most athletic he had a weight set um outside our front door every time he'd go out somewhere he'd do a couple reps and always competed with his friends to see who could lift the most amount a weight Eric was an honest hardworking person he wanted to earn things as opposed to be given things I told him do do what you want to do it's your life and he wanted to be in the military he really loved his country and he wanted to fight for his [Music] country I actually talked to him the night before the battle he knew he was going to a battle but he couldn't really tell me that but I know at this point that he had to have known it was a very beautiful phone call and he says I love I love you all very much and Mom you're always in my heart and then the phone line went dead so that's the last I heard from [Music] him I was in Minnesota and the phone my cell phone rang it was my son Mark um just yeah my brain shut down for a little bit trying to figure out you know what to do next he got home later in the day and we kind of fell apart together just a lot of talking a lot of hugging a lot of crying but honor too Eric was honored to serve for his country and I think he was honored to die for his country when you become a ranger you got to be ready to fight but you got to be ready to die cuz it might happen we had a memorial two days later on our compound and they have um you know their gun set up with their boots and you know and their dog tags and their helmet we all know that symbol you know that stuff has to be cleaned and that's something that you really don't think about garon made the call like Hey we're going to do it I remember all of us privates sitting around in silence you're asking kids that were friends with the deceased to clean blood off of their gear you can't be trained for that you you can't teach a guy how to lose a friend or how to lose you know what what we consider a [Music] brother We Gather this evening to honor the memories of private first class Mario and staff sergeant do who sacrificed their lives so that others did not have to sacrifice they were true Patriots and comrades who gave up themselves willingly they fought and destroyed an incredibly determined tenacious an evil enemy that night when the dust settled that day Alpha Company 175 had destroyed the enemy on the objective and owned the training camp thus limiting his ability to terrorize others unfortunately this Victory came at a tremendous cost a cost that we are all struggling to put into [Music] perspective I saw a lot of hard men who I had never seen show emotion before show emotion that's a true Testament to what these men meant to [Music] us you know when a guy dies you got to inventory his things and send them home my cop was in one corner and doy's cop was in the other corner and I remember as they started inventorying his stuff and basically creating a checklist of all his items and um I just turned around on my cot and that's when I like Let It Go and I um I remember like not wanting anybody to hear me crying or anything so I didn't sniffle so I just like had tears and snot rning down my face and I don't remember how long I just sat there for hours like that [Music] one of the last conversations I remember him saying I'm with the best guys I can be with they're going to bring me home cuz I specifically said that time you have to come back to [Music] me and he was just very very confident that I mean he was coming home I don't think Jason ever thought something would happen to [Music] him one thing that I took away was that bullets don't discriminate you know you can uh you can be on your very first mission or you can be on your 500th mission and you can be among the most highly trained Warriors that our military has to offer but at the end of the day you know if it's your time it's your time you know and um that night I took a right off the bird and Eric took a left it really is luck from Berlin on when our guys would get their boots on the ground you know we we knew what the possibilities were now you know more more than anyone we knew this is what could happen we'd seen it it's because of guys like Jason and Eric who weren't able to be here anymore that I I put my best for forward in everything that I do I mean it's very moving to see this many lives that he has touched his Spirit really from what we learned from Jason it's it's never going to [Music] end Eric kind of emulated Jason they worked out together and the gymnasium that was named after them just proves they're going to live on it's called the doy Hario crtf combat Readiness training facility it's a gym they have to name it something complicated it's a nice room by the front door is a big display case and it talks about Jason and Eric and why it's called the dokey Haro uh room it's a building where the Rangers can go and work out and they can look up to the two guys who their pictures on the wall and try to walk in their [Music] footsteps Beno was a dog that was 100% Warrior and was all business when it came to conducting Ranger missions he was always the platoon mascot and he had 42 apprehensions he was very legendary having that dog there is an extra line and measure of security and save your [Music] life Rangers are a direct action raid unit they're meant to go in and find the bad guy and eliminate them and the dogs working with them with that same purpose when you cut a dog loose inside of a bad guy's house bad guys are more focused on the dog and not all the barrel chested Freedom Fighters coming in there to do justice to this guy I've seen dogs and what they're capable of doing and and doing in combat and that is a humbling thing just the the physical prowess of a dog military working dogs they've been around since World War I they used them a lot in uh in trench warfare so they would like put a note on a dog and they would send a dog across the battlefield then they started using the dog to carry things like ammo so they could resupply the guys now military working dogs are trained in bomb detection weapon detection they can be trained in drug detection and to chase down combatants that are fleeing to do their job in war they have to be highly aggressive there are nearly 3,000 military working dogs and 600 are serving in war zones they eat sleep and fight alongside their handlers 24/7 as a dog handler I was always around the action if somebody ran from the building I was there I was the person that they called on I get to be up there at the breach I get to be right up there with the main assault I get to do all the fun stuff I was heavily heavily utilized and um and and I I wouldn't had it any other way I'm Julian Trent McDonald 29 years old I did eight combat deployments in a matter of 6 years throughout my military career three to Iraq and five to Afghanistan I was born in Clovis New Mexico at Canon air force base my father was in the military he did 25 years in the Air Force after my parents split up uh probably when I was about 12 years old that's when I moved to Northwest Arkansas with my mother we had a big farm lots of cattle lots of horses goats chickens you name it and it was one of those like you didn't eat in the morning until your animals ate I would wake up at 4:00 in the morning feed the animals and then that would give me enough time to get to school by 6 7:00 to do um football practice my mom taught me how to saddle break Colts that was a hard task especially for like 100 lb kid I mean I wasn't a big I wasn't very very big in high school I left 11th grade weighing like 155 lbs uh soaking wet with two bricks in my pocket so you know I was just I was just a little guy and these horses were just I mean they would manhandle me and throw me off and um you have to take a whole lot of caution um when When approaching something like that and if for for one second you you disrespect that animal you're going to know it cuz the animal has the potential to to hurt you or or kill you and um that's where my big respect for animals came from my grandfather had a rule that if you know if you if you had a dog and you owned a dog uh you took care of that dog everyday feeding everyday you know maintenance stuff like that on the animal you always took care of it what you also took care of is if the animal decided it was going to go after um farm animals and I remember I came home off the school bus and um I look out look out to the pasture I can't find my dog anywhere and I look out and he is he's literally hanging off the side of a cow so my grandfather comes he hands me my my rifle and he says well he said this is your problem I took the rifle and I said well what do you want me to do he said well you're going to kill him I said okay living out on the farm and living that lifestyle it was a lesson that had to be learned I learned real quick to train dogs was cuz I didn't want to have to kill them after that joining the military going into basic training like that was a joke that was easy stuff um you you know I got to eat I got to sleep and um and all I had to do is like run around and get yelled at like that was like that was every day on the farm Trent McDonald got to Ranger regimen a few years before I did I always called him Mac he's the wild one on deployment he's the crazy one he's a loud guy he's full of energy but he was honest and you knew exactly where he stood on on everything at all times I think Ma struggled early on in the Rangers uh keeping himself out of trouble because I think he has a lot of play to him but he really did find his calling with the dog section because when he went there he didn't have any trouble at all focusing on task at hand in Spring of 2009 I went to the dog section when I got there I found out that I was getting this dog Beno I had a big problem with Beno at the time he had a reputation of not being the most Stellar dog Beno is this Steely eyed idiot with four legs really he got kicked out of Afghanistan came to Iraq the dog did bit a bunch of assaulters out in Iraq and they didn't know what to do with this dog so now they give they now they give this new guy this dog and I just I almost looked at it as if um it was too much too soon almost like wait wait a minute I don't even know how to handle a dog why are you giving me this thing when McDonald Had it was initially like a power struggle Beno tested McDonald's limits McDonald trying to you know be the Handler to Beno it was a big LoveHate relationship right from the get-go my first mission with him I popped his muzzle off of him real quick and then when I went to go release him um I released him right into the back of a team leader uh calf yeah that was that wasn't a very good day there was a lot of learning curves at deployment we were going out on a mission to find known enemy combatants [Music] compound we did a call out try to get these guys to put down their weapons come out they still didn't seven this is Tango prepping k9 for assault I got to go ahead to go ahead and release um Beno you ready huh you ready that's a good burst of machine gun fire came through the breach I grabbed him I drug him back and what happened is I overcorrected him by putting too much pressure on him and I ended up paying the price for it he bit me so hard I started puking the guy next to me he said I really want to help you but you have to get your dog off you first and I remember thinking to myself like are you serious I have to get this dog off me too he actually didn't eat his food for like 2 or 3 days after he bit me he just refused to eat his food it was almost like he knew that he did something wrong I had to train that dog to standard because you don't want a dog on the ground that all your boys behind you like rely on and when you cut them loose all they're worried about is is he going to eat me seven this is Tango dog [Music] muzzle we had to go through a lot of scenarios and we had to go through a lot of things for me to openly trust Beno and be like all right this dog knows what he's doing not only that but then to have the platoon that I was working with have that same trust that I had was just as important I will probably say the biggest thing I learned from Beno is that he demanded a certain amount of respect and I think me bringing him around the platoon and around the boys as much as I did really helped him to be like oh oh these guys are part of my team too these guys aren't just people out there that I can bite you'd see other platoon and they wouldn't have that interaction with their dog or dog handler for that matter growing up I wasn't necessarily a dog person so I made it a point to to go see the dog every day have the dog smell me more for my own personal protection but uh it actually turned into a a friendship with McDonald and Beno my name my name is Chad CLA I'm 29 years old and I serve in the United States Army as a child I was always into sports and getting into trouble trying to make people laugh I did Karate I always wanted to compete so after I earned my black belt I really focused on competing and I earned several World titles at a pretty young age I fought in Venezuela and you know I went to Canada multiple times went to like Vegas and Atlanta and it was cool as a child get get in to travel get to do something you love to do from a very early age what was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to join the military all the research I had had done was that the Rangers were the premier direct action force and if you're going to do a mission I figured direct action would be the best mission to be a part of my first deployment was in 2009 and it was McDonald's first deployment as a dog handler he lived right across the little Hall from me that we were in Chad Cloud just another guy with a huge personality awesome sense of humor Chad and Dylan took a big uh you know they really likeed the dog um they really liked the capabilities of the dog find them you know I would have them help me every once in a while oh yeah Misha I would do classes where they would come in and they would see training hey this is what a dog looks like when he finds an explosive this is what a change of behavior Behavior looks like you couldn't watch Mac and not understand that this guy is passionate about training and caring for dogs I always used to joke with my friends in the platoon that McDonald was such a good dog handler because he was an animal himself and he could just he was on the same level as Beno like he's an animal Beno was an animal and they enjoyed the same things I mean you couldn't have matched up their personalities better really aggressive On Target want to find and kill some bad guys and then off Target I just want to create Havoc mess something up and have a good time the whole platoon got to know Beno and Beno went from being this almost like an outcast dog when he came to the platoon with McDonald to being the platoon's mascot he would come into the platoon area and we loved Beno and Beno loved us there was just this jerk running around eating your boots jumping on you smashing things over uh you couldn't get in the team room and you know be prepping your stuff without the dog running in there and just crash stuff walked into the talk one day and these guys have like two basketballs and Beno is benno is attacking one basketball he pops that basketball goes after the other basketball Pops that and everybody's looking at me like I'm the bad guy you know I'm like like you guys are the ones teasing him with a ball you know the thing we jabbed Mack for was having a love affair with this dog he would go somewhere the dog was going to be there I was I'm pretty sure I saw the dog coming out of the showers with him too Beno had a lot of names in Battalion he would pick up a nickname here a nickname there some were descriptive some were inappropriate Rock eater Rock muncher uh zombie dog fur missile hellhound was one of them Beno had lost a lot of teeth due to bites in training bites in combat so we joked that we had the best dog you know military working dog there ever was and he had two teeth Beno would have been surprised to see himself in the mirror uh I don't think Beno thought of himself as a dog or maybe he just thought dogs walked around on two legs and had rifles he was a character and he brought a lot of home to a place that wasn't so homey he was able to bridge a gap um of of being there but still kind of having the feeling of being home there's this bond that hard to really put into words he he's part of the team it didn't take long for Beno and McDonald to really gel together and be a cohesive force after my first deployment my second my third and my fourth deployment with them we were well well well oiled machine you really bond with the dog well when the dog is executing the same task that you are there was one incident where there was a tunnel that led to like an underground room and we were stacked waiting to go in and we opted to send the dog in [Music] first Beno got excited to do stuff like that all of a sudden you hear a man like screaming for his life when we got down there the enemy combatant was holding a burlap sack that was biting Beno had scared this guy so much that he was in fear for his life and was like screaming like he was about to die so Beno detained a guy without ever biting him just from he scared the guy into submission pretty much so that's the type of dog Beno was he was he was he could be very scary Beno was a dog that was 100% Warrior and was all business when it came to conducting Ranger missions we're going after some dudes who are pretty radicalized and when those guys flee and run for their lives and they run into like some thick opium Fields uh those dudes are real threats when you have a dog like Beno that you could release into a field like that then everybody's like all right he's going to find him this dog is going to go after with a high sense of prejudice towards the enemy and eliminate him I first met beeno in 2009 in Kandahar I kind of showed up in this my first deployment the only thing I know about Warfare is what I've seen in the movies and played on video games and then I see this dog Beno has several deployments more than me this dog's roaming around you know as a a grizzled veteran with four legs and I'm thinking again it's my first deployment I'm thinking I now wait a second people are acting like this dog is deserving of more respect than me what's going on here I'm Dylan Ford I'm 30 years old and I served in the army with us Rangers growing up I would say I had a drug problem I was drug to church on Sunday drug to church on Wednesday drug to church on Saturday night too which that was really formative for me growing up and I also had this fascination with the mil milary specifically with the Rangers as first John 3:16 would say and this is how we know love that Christ laid down his life for us and so we ought to be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers and that sounds like what a a call to Arms is I wanted to be on the very tip of the sphere I wanted direct action oh yeah buddy you ready huh you ready buddy B he was the only dog I'd worked with he'd been on more deployments than I had this dog very excitedly and very willingly ran into danger time and time again at one point me and my team were maneuvering around to get a squirter a squirt is anytime you've you've got an isolated Target that you're going after and you've got someone who break breaks out of the perimeter you don't want them to get away so you're going to chase them around you have a grasp that as you squeeze in something squirts out we're in a a swampy area everyone's kind of looking around then Beno is just running around like an idiot keeps going off in the swamp this dog's splashing around in the water you're going to give away our position he gets on this other guy with a marsh I didn't even catch that you know we had another squirter off to the right at that point he becomes this highly efficient highly effective tool of warfare boy oh yeah you look at things like that and say the dog has saved your life this dog's going to get me home after this deployment it was my birthday and I was hoping that we were going to get a lot of squirters we haven't had anybody Squirt from any Target compound it seemed like the whole deployment Beno was so experienced you could tell he knew what was going down every time he got onto a helicopter he was the type of dog that I could put down I could put his vest down um and he would walk he would walk into it and stand in there we would load the aircraft and the boys would come up around and they would get some love and off Beno that specific night I was on the same bird as McDonald and Beno I was tasked with going on squirter chase at 3 minutes the whole aircraft would get up and take a knee that's instantly when the dog knew like hey it's go time we got off the helicopter and we got a call that the squirters had Starburst which means when when we hear that that means that there's guys who LED in every direction the first squirter I went and got I released Beno on him he ran right up there and bit him textbook perfect the guy brought the dog to me begging me pretty much to get the dog off of him we followed another guy that fled the target compound into a Woodline it's pretty thick vegetation both underbrush and actual trees we used an interpreter to um to call him out tell him that we you know we had him just come out you know surrender he didn't respond and play along at that time we made the call to use the [Music] dog bite dog on bite go dog on bite me want to lock him down Beno was biting him but it seemed like the guy was looking like he was trying to reach for something or grab or something I didn't even see the pistol I remember I walked up I remember it happened and it was like in my head I was just thinking like oh my God like we can fix this and and I remember I rolled him over and uh and I felt a lot of blood and I looked and I was like oh no he's he's done I saw McDonald carrying Beno in his arms I knew something was wrong cuz benett was not one to be carried and McDonald laid Beno down and was like there's nothing you could do he he is's [Music] dead thanks buddy thank [Music] you it it sucked you know it hurt I just lost my best friend and um it was you know it it hurt so much but it was something that I couldn't I couldn't process it right there there was still two more guys that had to be God and I wanted to make sure that they paid for my dog's death and they did it drastically changed the mood cuz it you know spread around real fast that Beno didn't make it we had to walk a few kilometers to where where we were going to get picked up and um we all took turns carry and Beno as the walk went on you could you could tell it was sinking in for McDonald he he walked next to me for a good portion of it and uh you could tell it was sinking [Music] in after we had gathered up his remains and we had brought him back to the base I saw a lot of emotions come from a lot of uh a lot of guys who I have a lot of respect for all the guys in the assault Force I mean they just showed just so much love for him I mean not only as a dog but as a ranger like those guys they all respected him and they all loved him Ben was our mascot and our mascot just got killed you know we held a platoon memorial for for Beno we had a picture from the deployment before of Beno behind a minigun in a helicopter everyone you know gathered and a few people said some words about Ben Owen that was that was it a lot of people loved that dog you memorialize him to remember him and to thank him for the work he's done and half of that is appreciating every time he went out there and said saved you Beno loved what he did he was the best military working dog a platoon could ask for he was Warrior through and through and I don't think Beno would have enjoyed life after that and I know he was getting ready to retire as a military working dog and if Beno could have chose a way to go out I believe he would have chose to go out on the battlefield but I felt worse for McDonald's loss cuz McDonald lost his best friend basically one half of Mac is gone I think to be a dog handler it takes a very special very certain kind of bond with those dogs and so losing that that's a real hard deal Beno died on uh McDonald's birthday which compounded the loss I feel thus worst birthday present a dog handler could get I think is having your dog die on your birthday I was still in a whole lot of shock so I was still really pretty much emotionless and I remember that when I went to go pick him up from the morg the regular army did something that was really really touching um in the morg like they all came out the morg and they were shoulder shoulder Tosh shoulder and um they did something they put you know beno's beno's uh remains were draped in a an American flag and his toet tag uh said staff sergeant Beno hero and here are these regular army guys that they don't they've never messed with this dog they've never pet this dog they've never seen this dog they don't have any any connection with this animal whatsoever but yet they're treating him as if he is a soldier you know not just a dog but a soldier and uh they brought tears to my [Music] eyes after Beno got killed M needed another dog operations roll on and we're going to need a working dog with [Music] him I got the candle heart it was like hey here's beno's remains um gave like a quick brief to the vet the vet was real emotional and I got to pick between two dogs one dog was a male dog named Rico Rico had already been on two deployment hadn't done anything spectacular and then um I saw Leica she had this fire in her eyes she would get really really excited really really quickly over some small things and I like that because that's something that I can use another selfish reason why I pick Leica is because Leo was really stubborn like Beno had a lot of the same qualities and a lot of the same uh characteristics as uh good old beans did when McDonald came back with Leica we were so accustomed to the McDonald Beno relationship that was seamless that was very foreign to the platoon to watch the struggle between a a dog and dog handler leica's demeanor was not like benos uh and you I was about to say you got big boots to fill but I guess in this case you got big paws to fill she didn't like to go into dark rooms which is a problem for me because that's what we do we go into Dark Places and we go into dark rooms uh so it took a lot of um it took a lot of remedial training McDonald actually one time asked me if I'd do bite suit training with him sure I'll do bite suit training cuz I used to not really let on to the fact that part of these dogs terrified me I'm asking all these really in-depth questions trying to prepare myself yeah yeah it's a little tough to get that in I just remember him telling me that when the dog bites the sleeve you just need to yell like it's really biting you so it doesn't try to really bite you if I mean if I was scared before I was even a little little more scared then and I remember waiting for it her eyes lit up and uh she lashed on to the bite sleeve and I was thoroughly impressed with how strong a 75lb dog could possibly be get her the the you doing man doing all right okay the whole platoon got involved with it and that was something that really motivated me because never once had has the whole platoon ever gathered around and uh been like hey let's do some canine training see I had a dog that I had to train the standard and I had to get to a certain point to where the boys could trust her and I needed that trust more than I needed a mascot [Music] when I lost Beno and we got a new dog there was a sense of urgency of hey we need this dog as close as we can get her to [Music] Beno they would do training and you could tell that she would purposely not do things from the outside looking in it was comical but I'm sure for his point of view it wasn't as funny working with a brand new dog that liked to push his buttons with Leica no one had a story about her saving their lives cuz the first few missions didn't make her look like an allar we'd get back to base and the standard response from you from Mac was I know guys I'm going to work with her after doing a lot of uh remedial training getting L to go into dark rooms it really paid off platoon accepted Lan really fast as trustworthy dog cuz McDonald said she was we trusted him [Music] this specific night we had followed several Fighters we knew that they were heavily armed we landed we rapidly contained the target compound it was textbook we started proceeding with our call outs we called in a Hellfire strike on the compound and it collapsed the wall and like part of the roof compound was really capitated at that point in time I looked at it and I was like yeah every everybody's dead in there so let's yeah I feel comfortable let's send Lake up oh yeah that's a good girl the squad leader he said hey I'm going to show her this thermal barar grenade that look like a ball watch it girl watch it me and him are sitting there counting 1001 1002 13 let's go boom she lunges in there and I don't know what they're stepping into with me pulling security outside dog on bite dog on bite hey hey I got one ekia give me a second let me get this dog off of him she's been on this what I thought was a enemy killed in action and as I reach down that's when the guy comes back to life on me I thought oh God I'm dead I'm dead literally that's what I thought I thought I was I thought I was done for I fell back and that's when another team leader he took the shots to go ahead and and end him Lea hey here here here come on girl Lea here here so I started recalling Leica when she came to me she had her left arm in her mouth it was in her mouth and it was only held on by tendons I grabbed her and uh I remember the only thing I thought to do was just just run got you it's okay it's okay I got you I got you and the dog was back to a safe distance you can see the medic start working on her leg everyone started to re-engage the best they could we got to relaxed that's when we started to do you know work on her and figure out the extent of the damage that was done you have to dig through fur and uh clumps of hair I'm doing blood sweeps on her and I uh I come to her arm and and we see it the path that the rounded taken um had hit her in the top of the shoulder um and hit her in that ball in socket completely decimating that joint and I remember there was a split second there I remember like that's kind of when it all hit me and I was like here I am in this situation again like it hasn't even been a [Music] month the rest of the mission you've got this working dog that you pull out of there and you're trying to give Aid to but you still have to continue conducting operations we go ahead and achieve the objective but Le it gets shot and she went in there and sacrificed to keep me and the other guys safe she probably saved three lives that night everyone understood the magnitude of what could have happened if she hadn't been there we got worried that she was still alive and we were all hoping that she'd pull through but it was out of our hands at that point in [Music] time from the time she got shot the time the mission was over it was probably about two say 2 and 1 half hours we had her on Plenty of Narcotics and she was comfortable so we were just going to ride it out and uh and get her home with the rest of [Music] us we returned from that thinking man I hope she makes it so she obviously she had to go out of country she had several surgeries she ended up losing a leg they took out the whole shoulder and then there was another pretty serious injury that happened to her it was on the right tricep surgeons made the assessment that they did not have the equipment and the tools needed so they made the request to put her on a medac bird and send her to Germany and they performed another 7-hour surgery uh once they got her there I waited for about 2 to 3 days to figure out is is she going to make it you know is she going to heal up and is she going to make it um to be able to live a full life Leica no longer fighting in a war zone but she's fighting for her recovery as you see here she's learning to walk again with that remaining front leg this is at the University of Tennessee everyone was excited that she was going to pull through then we found out that she had lost a leg we were so happy that she lived that it the joke started flowing pretty fast you know nicknames for her try tripod and whatever it may be we were sitting there thinking hey this is a big victory that this dog even survived and Max thought was already on the process of well she's going to survive but what are we going to do to support her after she survives when I got back home um from that deployment um probably one of the first phone calls I made was to lackan Air Force Base they weren't really ready to release her to me because they thought she was too aggressive there was a lot of resistance assistance to him adopting this dog the thought being the wounded animal it's a dog that's specifically bred and trained is an attack dog and you want to bring that into a domestic setting you're going to have it around people you have a military grade weapon with legs and it's injured but Mac was unswayed by that logic they didn't want to give her to me because I had a year and a half oh boy um who's just a toddler so they were afraid that she was going to get a hold of him and something bad could happen and they didn't want any of that falling on them and I said let me try to give her a shot at having a full life and um and they did I went to San Antonio picked her up and um and now she's been part of you know been part of my family ever since this is Leica this is Big Booty Judy her and my son are like two peas in a pod he's always doing stuff in blaming it on her she had every reason to come out of this and be completely neurotic and be completely crazy for what's happened to her but she's came out and she is so social and she's so lovey and she's so sweet and when I see her transition like that to normal life to regular life um she inspires me like man if she can do it I can do it if she can be that social then you know I can be that social I'm really excited about the opportunity that Max created for himself and uh and really opportunities that lake has helped provide McDonald continued to be a great dog handler after I left the service maybe it is because he is an animal himself but I think he found his calling in life when when he became a dog handler and really excelled at it I have my own kennel I have nine dogs and uh what I do out there is I do exactly what I did I was when I was in the Army I train them how to find bombs and I train him to uh apprehend bad guys and as far as what Leake is doing I think she's just basking in her glory and lording over her position you know she gets to watch Gray's Anatomy and H you know she gets she's like she's like a diva you know she's her own person um she does she does what she wants she looks at uh my kennel dogs like they're common dogs I wouldn't be in the position I'm in right now if it wasn't for her and Beno I think about him every time I turn on my computer he's my screen saver you know he's my buddy you know he's I when when you walk into my kennel I have massive banners of Beno Leica my brothers that I've lost in combat um and they're all sitting up there so yeah every every time I go into work um I I see them I think of them being on those deployments and seeing what dogs can do really opens your eyes you're capable of so much more than what people give give them credit for or respect them for good girl fans please direct your attention to the North End Zone as we welcome Leica a 5-year-old Belgium Malamar to nean Stadium Leica is a decorated war doog that saved the lives of American troops in Afghanistan let's give a big orange Round of Applause for the caregivers from the College of Veteran medicine and service dog and hero [Applause] [Music] leer

Channel: Military Heroes

Views: 30,685

Keywords: Military Heroes, Military, Heroes, History, Full Episode, Army, Marines, Navy, Air force, General, Captain, Lieutenant, Soldier, Special Forces, Infantry, Cavalry, USMC, The Warfighters, full episode, full show, The Warfighers full episode, Iraq, Iraq War, Afghanistan, Iraq Conflict, routine mission, iraq mission, gunner, machine gun, military, military tactics, war zone, call of duty, warzone, season 1, weapons

Id: 8yPoU1wKXcg

Length: 82min 37sec (4957 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024