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Whenever I step out of a
compound getting ready to move from place to place,
you're always wondering, is there an IED out there?
It's always in the back of your mind.
In Afghanistan, the biggest threat facing
the Marines of 2nd Platoon, Golf Company.
Isn't the Taliban, it's their IED's.
Every step could be your last step.
I'm not going back with no legs.
So when the Marines breach
enemy compounds, they don't use the door,
they make their own entrances.
And then the real danger begins.
I'm not going to touch that right
there it's gotta wire coming out of it.
Subtitles Captions by National Geographic Sync & Corrected by iscol
Battleground Afghanistan
Two days ago,
the Marines of 2nd Platoon, Golf Company,
Helo'd in behind enemy lines
in Helmand Province, Afghanistan,
on a 2-week operation to search for
an destroy the Taliban.
Captain Middendorf and
his Marines still have 13 days to go on
this operation before they head back to base.
And after a brief rest, it's time to attack again.
We're going to do a targeted raid on
the building hopefully uh, hopefully we get something
out of that this morning, it's not a wasted time and
I didn't get up early for nothing.
They're heading out to clear a
large compound they believe is the home of
a known Taliban drug lord.
It's surrounded by fields of harvested poppies,
the source of ***.
To get to "Compound Ten"
as it's known,
they must cross dangerous open ground.
So Captain Middendorf splits his platoon into
two squads to reduce the risk of a single attack.
Sergeant Kurek, one of the platoon's veterans,
leads "Squad One."
As a squad leader you're looked upon
for that experience piece and that's why I keep coming
back here, it's for the experience to lead
Marines, when you get promoted later down the
line the junior Marines are going to look at that.
I mean they judge you right off the bat, about,
"Where have you been what have you done?
Oh, you haven't done ,
well then you," you know?
Start forming it up over by the tank hole.
Start moving.
I guess that's the status quo
around here, getting up this early,
doing our thing.
Sergeant Barrow with Lieutenant Jones
will lead Second Squad.
They're the perfect combo to execute
Middendorf's tactics.
Jones is as cool as they come,
not afraid of anything.
The Marines are taught to seek battle
from the very first training day the day they
entered the Marine Corp and that's what we're
going out to do, so every day when the sun comes up,
we're out the gate and really seeking out the
enemies is the fun thing.
Sergeant Barrow's
a little more anxious.
What a good squad leader should
do is always consider your Plan Bs.
What am I going to do if we get hit
right here by an IED?
What am I going to do if we get shot
at from this side?
What if we get shot at from that side?
What if we get shot at from both of these sides?
What am I going to do if so and so goes down?
If I need to setup an LZ right now,
where am I going to set it up at?
Like all these things have to be running
through your mind.
Once they leave the compound,
they face the enemy's most effective and
deadly weapon, the Improvised Explosive Device
or IED.
It's basically just a homemade
bomb thats been placed in the ground.
They're very strategically placed
by the enemy.
There are three elements of an
Improvised Explosive Device.
Your casing being a can a jug or even an animal.
Your charge as your main explosives what's packed
inside that casing, that's what makes it go boom.
Then you have your initiator which is usually
a battery pack, that gives it that like
light switch effect once you step on it.
Whenever I step out of a compound
getting ready to move from place to place,
you're always wondering is there an IED out there.
It's always in the back of your mind.
The enemy is pretty uh, he's pretty good with 'em.
Every step that you take here in
Afghanistan you know, it's literally
could be your last step.
If you ask anybody in their
right mind, they're going to tell you they
do not want to be amputees.
That's your first concern.
Um loss of life tense to be the second concern,
because most of the guys we know that have
been hit by IEDs, have mostly been amputees
over catastrophic loss.
If I was missing my legs
I probably wouldn't want to come back.
I'd probably just be like "Yeah you better shoot me,
if not I'm going to shoot myself,"
because I'm not going back with no legs.
Like I, I don't know how I'd look,
how anyone would look at me like that
if I had no legs.
Oh, man.
I don't want to do it.
You don't know what's going to be under
that ground that you're about to walk on,
and you uh, yeah you kind of just make that leap of
faith every single step that you take out here.
Oh, that wasn't cool.
It's, it's how I've been doing it you know,
it is very nerve-wracking you know,
very nerve-wracking sometimes but you kind of
got to just try and put it out of your mind
and uh, hope for the best.
The minesweeper's always
takes the lead.
But the metal detector is no guarantee.
IEDs can be made from almost anything
and often contain no metal at all.
Being able to work with tanks
in combat is a pretty awesome experience.
Uh, a very loud experience,
but awesome as well.
That's conventional artillery.
It's friendly fire.
The enemy's nearby.
They're firing at some Kurez Systems
that are possible uh known firing positions
um they're firing conventional artillery
right now out at Kajaki.
This is the safest place in
Afghanistan you'll ever be,
standing in the middle of a wheat field
after a tank ran over it.
Lieutenant Jones and Sergeant Barrow's
Second Squad reach their first compound but
won't enter through the door.
It could be *** trapped.
The Taliban is determined to
defend this ground.
Golf Company's been taking heavier fire
than the other companies on this operation.
Golf 1 is just to the
east of Compound 6402 Delta.
Moving south west.
Captain Middendorf maneuvers
his team around the battlefield to keep
the enemy guessing.
Golf 3, Golf 6.
This is the fourth compound they've
cleared and like the others, it's empty.
The Marines have yet to encounter any enemy
fighters or Afghan civilians.
The Taliban fight from a distance,
shooting from afar and planting
their IEDs at night.
It's like fighting ghosts and
there's another relentless enemy,
the heat.
Daytime temperatures can reach 130 degrees and
overwhelm the Marines with their 100 pound packs.
The sun is just ridiculously hot,
you go out there with six liters of water,
but six liters of water is not enough to
keep you hydrated throughout the day and
fight throughout the day.
This country is just;
it's just unforgiving when it comes to some
of the environment.
But they continue taking
the fight to the enemy and head out to
clear the next compound.
The tanks lead the way, providing cover and
testing the ground for IEDs but the tank covering
First Squad takes a sudden detour leaving
Sergeant Kurek and his men vulnerable.
This way sir.
Captain Middendorf calls
in the choppers to provide a watchful eye.
Righteous will be checking
in here shortly as well.
We definitely like to keep some aircraft overhead,
because they're pretty bold today.
After months of fighting,
Golf Company has yet to lose a man.
But some of that's luck and luck can change.
Sergeant Kurek's squad is exposed
in an open field and taking enemy fire.
Captain Middendorf needs to get
them some cover now so they can make it to
their primary objective, the Drug Baron's compound.
If somebody's coming to shoot
at my guys I'm going to kill that ,
as fast as I possibly can and take his
life from the battlefield and I don't care.
If you're coming to shoot at Marines, roger that,
I'll bring the weight of the Marine Corp and
I will crush you.
When it comes down to it, if you're coming to shoot
at me I'm going to kill you as fast as I can,
I'm going to use every single
tool I've got.
Tell him I'll contact him,
taking small arms of fire again.
Kurek can't tell how many Taliban
there are or where they're shooting from.
There's nothing like,
- getting shot-
being able to shoot back at them.
Come on up.
Keep going, keep coming.
It's liberating.
Hey suppress for us!
It's awesome.
All that aggression that gets built up
inside of you, you're able to release
in a matter of seconds.
Go, go, go, go!
Middendorf calls in tank and air support.
Roger.
Best place is for you to find uh be
prepared to fight heavy direct fire support
on the bazaar itself.
Cover Golf 1's left link.
Kurek and his Marines dash to safety.
You could skydive,
you could bungee jump or do whatever
as far as those thrills are concerned,
but for those split seconds getting shot at
and shooting back is just an adrenaline rush
like no other.
Anything coming down this
ally I'm smoking.
It's kind of like a drug,
you always want it.
The Taliban's radio
communication kicks in.
Well they just told one of the guy,
they say he just made a specify about a tanks,
he say if they come to this specified way,
so you better tell somebody to get engaged
with the tanks to shoot at them something.
Kurek's squad pushes southward
toward the Drug Baron's compound.
But they must be wary of the threat they can't see,
Improvised Explosive Devices.
The enemy what they want to do is
they want to draw you in with their
gunfire to their IED belts.
So if you can imagine they,
they setup a line and they try to lure you into that
line to set off the IEDs and that way they
kill you either by gunfire or by IED.
Captain Middendorf won't
fall into that trap and routes them a different way.
This frustrates the Taliban because they must
go back, disarm their IEDs and warn the civilians.
Middendorf outwits them again.
Lieutenant Jones and Second Squad move
to the other side of the drug lord's compound.
IEDs are placed at choke points,
they placed in doorways, alleyways,
they could protect a cache site,
protect Karez entrances, the same way that we would
use a mine, that's the way they use IEDs.
You don't always assume like every little crevice
that's already here could be IED'd,
cause there's no way we would've been able
to see anybody behind any of these walls,
sneak out, bury something and
move on you know.
Lieutenant Jones and Second Squad
move to the other side of the drug lord's compound.
They're now at the perimeter,
but must wait to breach it.
It could be rigged with explosives.
Captain Middendorf orders a tank to
make them a new door.
If they see white smoke or a secondary explosion,
they know they've hit an IED.
I'm just trying to get Golf 3
to blow this fighting position
and then I'll hold them back out.
Uh they're about to shoot.
Golf 2 this is Tiger 22.
Did you guys see any secondary explosions
or anything?
Negative.
It's really been hard to see from our end as
well 'cause we're behind this wall now.
Success!
But there's a second wall.
Is there any way if you could kind of,
if you could pull through that wall and see if you
could make a hole in the next wall as well, over.
Yeah I'll start by going through
this compound and on the other side
making another hole in the wall.
That would be amazing.
I can't say enough about the tanks that were there
to help us, they had the optics on their weapons
that uh, that Marines obviously don't have.
They're the Marines on the ground when they
have a four powered optic on our weapon and
uh it just, it makes it tough.
I'm gonna just have them pull through that
wall and just keep driving through the wall.
Hey, 2/3, 2/1 keep your heads up;
we're about seven, five meters away
from Building Ten break.
This time they use a different approach.
Apparently they having Tiger 22 make
us another hole, there is one already here,
but there's a lot of *** holes in
compound break.
The enemy is between Golf 3 and
Golf 1 in the bazaar based off those contact reports.
Golf 2, Golf 2, Tiger 22.
This dude's just having a wet dream
right now taking into running over that wall.
Hey, Tiger 22.
Back to two o'clock right now that wall is running
east to west, the long one where all the
green trees are, can you run over that,
so we can get through, over.
Sergeant Kurek and First Squad approach
the compound from the opposite side with the
tanks in the lead.
Malone, they over shot it a bit
we're back here.
We're still following them.
We're a little bit south of planned,
um our objective compound is about 300 meters that way,
but tanks might have a better out for us so.
The battlefield's always changing and tactics are
always changing and if you come in not being humble
and put yourself on a pedestal,
respect goes down the drain.
At least with me I'm always trying to think of
things, trying to stay one step ahead,
just wrapping my brain around either tactics or,
"What can I be doing better to better
myself and my Marines?"
Have you seen anything that
you feel needs to be reduced, just let me know
and we'll reduce it.
Again I know uh we gotta conserve some
tank main gun, but if you feel you
need that it's definitely a viable threat
let me know, over.
Hey Ozzie, they're gonna make us
another one that we can go through versus the one
that the Taliban probably have for us to
go through you know what I'm saying?
They've got to tread cautiously.
IEDs are the enemies' effective weapon for
maiming and killing Marines.
But there are psychological weapons too.
As a Marine the thought of stepping on
a bomb in the ground that you have no way to defend
yourself against other than proactively finding
it before it goes off, it messes with your mind
when your out operating.
It causes a lot of stress
on the battlefield.
You're relying on your eyes and uh your sweeper
to find these things and they're pretty hard to
find just because of the terrain, a lot of sand,
a lot of rocks, a lot of trash too,
so there's a lot of places to hide these IEDs.
But there's still no sign
of civilians or of the enemy.
They're chasing ghosts.
Tell Golf 2/3 that they're good to
blow a hole in the wall just let us know
when it's smoking.
But just as they're about
to enter the compound,
something catches their eye.
We've checked around and there's this
tiny little copper wire coming out of the ground.
Tell Golf 2/3 that they're good
to blow a hole in the wall just let us know
when it's smoking.
We've checked around and there's this
tiny little copper wire coming out of the ground.
Say again.
Lieutenant Jones and Second Squad
are steps away from entering the
Taliban Drug Baron's compound,
when something catches their eye.
Uh tiny copper wire,
sticking out of the ground,
possible command pull somewhere else.
Uh we're going to call EOD over and investigate.
We have a compound of interest that a lot of
intelligence has picked up uh is getting hits on
whether that comes from monitoring their ICOM
radios, monitoring the satellite telephones they
use uh so this, we came to search this compound,
upon coming in the compound,
tanks made entry uh ploughed the wall over and
then our point man Lance Corporal Kunitsky with his
keen eye found what we assessed to be
an IED at this time.
Patches of disturbed earth with plastic showing,
a possible pressure plate.
One strategically placed
tank round should eliminate this threat.
Hey, they may be able to hit it.
They will?
Maybe.
We're getting some ICOM chatter saying
that the uh that the enemy fighters they've emplaced
the IEDs in the alleyways which would make sense,
which would make sense for uh
where we found this at, so.
They're also saying they placed IEDs in
canals as well.
Golf 6, Golf 6, this is Golf 2.
Back in his command compound,
Captain Middendorf coordinates his tanks
and Marine's movements.
Are you about ready to
blow that thing up yet?
Roger, thirty seconds.
Thirty seconds.
Golf 2, this is Tiger22,
one round on the way.
Ten seconds.
Ten seconds.
One round on the way.
Whoo-hoo!
There was an IED inside of it!
There's white smoke, white smoke is IED!
Alright we gotta make this quick
just tell me what hole you want to go through
and I'll see if I can get tanks over here
to either drive through it or put a
canister round through it, all right.
The Taliban was expecting them,
but not their tanks.
Now they can make the final push
into the compound.
Roger.
2/2, 2/1.
Go!
Yeah I got eyes on tanks
it appears they're going to plough right
through our objective compound for us.
First thing, first thing you're kind of.
Tanks led us a little bit south a little bit
too east and uh I guess they're backtracking and
just gonna plough through, for us so.
Sergeant Kurek will lead
his squad inside once the tank clears the way.
Lieutenant Jones and Second Squad need to back
Kurek up, but they've got to clear an
adjacent building first.
And the IED threat is slowing them down.
When the Marines clear a compound,
they're not just searching for the enemy;
they're also searching for any evidence of them.
It doesn't look like there's
anything in here, it's unbelievable.
Weapons, ammunitions caches,
IED making material.
They're also looking for harvested poppy
or processed ***.
The more they remove from the battlefield,
the better.
It's a slow, dangerous process though.
The doors,
they ***-trap these the most.
They're really good at it too.
Disguise it like perfectly to where
you won't even know it's there.
It'll look completely natural like
it does right now.
And all it takes is one wrong step and
before you know it, we got a Marine down.
I don't like to take any risk in the middle
of a doorways, especially if it's
an un-abandoned compound.
And if it's an occupied compound,
most cases they're not going to IED
their own doorways you know what I mean,
so we can be a lot safer.
That's why we take such precautions
in not losing any guys.
Hey Unis, Unis you wanna go in this one at all?
That would be fine with me.
But do you want to is what
I wanna know, I'll trust your judgment.
Being in a country with trash
everywhere you look for certain trash that
doesn't belong in a certain area.
Uh you look for freshly packed um mud,
like newly packed mud into a wall,
just anything out of the ordinary.
It's hard 'cause when you're
going through training back in the States,
they tell you look for all these things and
you get out here and you see those things
constantly you know.
Piled rocks, I see that all the
time does that always mean it's an IED, no.
Yellow, yellow jugs, uh I thought the first
time I saw a yellow jug was going to be an IED,
I saw one probably the first day I was out here.
Hudson.
Thinking you're invincible is not a good
thing either, it's good to have that fear it's
good to know that you know you could die.
See anything up on the shelves?
There's things I can't tell what they
are from here, the ground looks pretty good.
There's a lot of supplies in here
but this is a store.
You just gotta know,
you just gotta know how to deal with it.
You need courage to really do what we do,
but there is no such thing as courage without fear.
Sometimes you know you need that fear
so that you're cautious.
Roger again we've made entry
into Building 46 and 50 at this time.
See if any of you guys can
identify any *** holes that uh you took fire from
or most of those fires that you took
were from the rooftops.
Roger, solid copy.
As soon as you got good over
watch you clear to push.
Keep pushing the company south,
so you get down go firm and
I got to get to Golf 2, push down.
Let'*** south a little bit to
see if we can hit on the Compounds 4-4 and 4-7.
Captain Middendorf needs them
to join up with Kurek's squad ASAP.
Hey, we gotta keep pushing.
Alright let's go.
Clear to push.
Alright.
But Kurek's in trouble.
One of the tank's has thrown a track.
They gotta fix a track.
The Marines provide cover until
they can get it back up and running.
They're on the verge of finally entering the
compound but can't risk using the doors or
windows for fear of IEDs.
They need the tank to breach the
inner compound wall.
It's ready to go.
Hey 2/3, 2/1
say again coming in broken.
That one is gonna flow in,
get the in so we ain't gotta swing around.
Guess we don't need demo when we've got
60,000 pounds.
This is it.
The two squads meet at the threshold.
We're good.
And enter the drug dealer's compound.
Hey boys would you just watch
that blue door to the left.
Troop come here radios on top.
Yeah I'd say affirm we're clearing
out at this time, it's kind of a big compound,
not a little house.
This compound is unlike any they've
seen so far, it's more of a home with
multiple rooms and creature comforts.
We may have to blow in the 50 or 52
'cause it look like there's a wall.
Roger, just give me uh,
once you give me the green light.
Green light.
It definitely belongs
to someone important.
I'm not going to touch that right there
it's gotta wire coming out of it.
And they knew the Marines were coming.
I'm not going to go in there,
that'll kill ya.
Out in the courtyard they discover
a suspicious alcove and break out their
holly sticks to explore it from a safe distance.
It might be ***-trapped.
We just found two AK magazines
I doubt those are supposed to be there.
It's not common to find AK magazines in here,
you know what I mean?
Uh, wants to know if that
compound is big enough for a tank to disrupt?
North East side is 69,
little hole in the wall.
North East side is 69.
Golf Company is finally inside the
Taliban Drug Baron's sprawling compound.
No sign of the Taliban,
but they've left something behind.
Oh, there's hand grenades right there.
Golf Company is finally inside the
Taliban Drug Baron's sprawling compound.
No sign of the Taliban,
but they've left something behind.
Oh, there's hand grenades right there.
Not sure if they're live.
Well I don't want to mess with those
yet just because I don't want to risk uh if they're
***-trapped or not, you know what I'm saying?
Do you think you need EOD over there?
I don't want to touch these hand
grenades unless uh 2 actual tells us that
he wants us to try to sickle it up,
but at the same time that's risky business.
You know that, you know how it is.
I'm about to go pick up that stuff
as soon as I get, as soon as I get authorization,
there's couple of mags over there,
you gotta wear these so you don't get your
fingerprints on the mags, we could probably pull
fingerprints off of those mags.
And uh I think we gonna wait for EOD to get the grenades.
This process of search and seizure is
what's known as "Tactical Site Exploitation."
What Tactical Site Exploitation is,
is you uh pretty much you exploiting a site
for different things uh, information, evidence,
anything like that, searching rooms,
taking pictures of things.
Just waiting on the all clear and
then I'm gonna have Corporal Unis finish up
what his doing and then I'm gonna bring him back.
Corporal Unis is definitely by far I'd
say the best at it within the company.
He's got his own traits that he brings to
the table that none of the other Marines
in my squad do.
We found those three mags;
we found a little switch that would go on
some sort of an IED or something like that.
This is going to take awhile.
We found a bag full of almost a 100 rounds.
Unis check out some hand grenades up
in the wall over here.
After you know bag them up and everything
you have to write all the information down on the
bags, you give them over to the mobile assault
platoon and they'll hand them over to the labs.
EOD took care of the pineapple grenades.
This is gonna hurt, a lot.
Where's the GO-PRO?
It's probably gone.
If you can get visual down
that alleyway and if umm make contact with my squad,
I'd really appreciate it.
You gotta stop and enjoy
the good little things in Afghanistan.
Roger worst case scenario we'll
blow another hole, so I'll keep you updated.
Sergeant Barrow is uh,
he's motivated.
He's uh, kinda has to be molded and
pushed in the right direction from
time to time, but once he do get em there,
he's an absolute bulldog for you,
like he'll do anything, I can count on
Sergeant Barrow to get you anywhere you want
to go to complete any task.
Can you stand in the alleyway,
sir it has a curve around, possible choke points.
The moment that you switch your mindset
like something back home like,
"Oh now I wonder how Stephanie's doing back home"
or something you know and
then something goes down your,
your mind your mindset is completely gone.
Uh we should be sitting around uh
30 seconds right about now.
The raid on the Drug Baron's compound
is a success.
But getting out is as dangerous as getting in.
The compounds are like mazes.
So the Marines take the most direct route
and blast their way out.
Hey is it clear out there?
We're heading back alright?
Did you say we're good to head out?
Hudson, get ready to hold right here,
because you have the coverage from the door
anyways so you could cover it on both ways.
Clearing these compounds is slow,
arduous work, especially in the heat.
You keep going one foot in front
of the other, no matter how bad you're hurting,
no matter how bad you're sweating,
no matter how much water you've used up
and how much less you have left in your pack,
the more you keep pushing it's the more
effective you are going to be for the squad.
They're taking small
arms fire over on the eastern flank.
Captain Middendorf calls his
Marines back to base.
8815.
He knows they're tired but can't
have them lose focus.
The heat you can get use to.
You just sweat your balls off and just whatever you
just have to deal with, but the weight is
what sucks and if you're shoulders don't go numb
like you just hoping they go numb so that
you can't feel the pain anymore.
Tell them to turn around,
hurry up and start taking us back.
Right away sir.
Yeah you got your flak jacket on you
got your pack on, you got you know if you're walking
and you get a little hot or something,
you can't just take your helmet off and you know
say "Oh I'm hot you know, I wanna just chill
out for the night," you can't really do that,
because you know you can get shot in the head right
there at that point, so you always got to keep
on everything pretty much.
But their walk back to the
compound requires crossing another open field.
Just gimme pole,
just gimme pole.
They're completely exposed
in the open poppy field.
Where are they impacting?
Right in front of you,
right in the compound.
The adrenaline is just
something that, that once you get it you just,
you just wanna feel it every,
you know you wanna feel it every single day
when you wake up.
Where's contact coming from?
You know it's dangerous.
You wanna do it on your terms,
but once you do get it uh the
adrenaline high is, it's a lot of fun.
I don't mind getting shot at.
There's some people that can do the job and there's
some people who can't do the job and
that's why they do other jobs.
I couldn't see myself doing any other job.
I like the rush of it I like the challenge of it.
They finally make it back
to the compound.
The enemy is firing at them from what
the Marines call "*** Holes."
The biggest frustration right now
is where the enemy is.
They're pretty good at what they do;
they hide behind what we call *** holes,
a very small hole carved into the side
of a mud wall.
They move under the tree line,
they'll shoot a couple of rounds and then egress to
another position so it's very hard
to see where they are.
The closest we've gotten to this point is about
150 meters away, but most of the engagements
are anywhere from the 500 to 1,000 meter range.
We've killed about 15 to 20 fighters at this point
and had no Marine casualties.
The Marine settle in to locate
those "*** Holes."
The savage heat is taking its toll.
One of the Marines is suffering from severe
dehydration and Middendorf must med-evac
him back to base.
It was fairly early in the
afternoon when we had to call Dusthoff and have a
med-evac come and pick up a Marine who had an
extremely high temperature and really
wasn't like getting any better.
It's a risky maneuver.
Middendorf knows the enemy is just to the west,
it will attack any chopper coming in.
We were very hesitant about doing it,
but the Marine never got better and it kind of
forced us to bring helicopters to come
and pick him up.
But the med-evac has an escort,
a cobra attack helicopter armed to the hilt.
What we're doing right now is we're
sweeping out the LZ to ensure the bird has a good
enough place to land in order to not land on IEDs
and not land on personnel and not land
on any power lines or any of that stuff,
that's what we're doing right now.
Hey, Slife.
Yeah?
Let me know when you're
ready to smoke.
I will.
We're inbound pop smoke, pop smoke.
Pop smoke.
What color?
I don't give a just not red.
Golf 6, does tiger have smoke out?
The smoke marks the landing zone
but it also provides a target.
Let's go gentleman,
move your ***!
ICOM chatters saying hide yourself from the birds,
but be ready.
Almost there.
The longer they stay, the more time the
Taliban have to attack.
Hey get out;
get your guys out of the way so they can take off!
Get out the way, get up out the way!
The med-evac flies right over the
enemy's firing position.
That's not the way you wanna
take off, low across that way.
Just as the med-evac chopper
clears the wires the Taliban unleash.
Just as the med-evac chopper
clears the wires, the Taliban unleash.
The Marine's cobra quickly responds.
What are they shooting at?
Hey, that direction is
where they shooting at the bird from.
Now the sick Marine can get the help
he needs back at base and Captain Middendorf's
men can get some needed rest.
Even though we're on ops and
we're constantly moving,
constantly doing ,
but you find yourself in a lot of downtime,
when you're not doing post or when you are not moving
or something like that and you really start
to think about things and appreciate all the
little things in life.
But they can't let their guard down.
They're only 3 days into a 15-day operation.
What's that?
Look behind you.
It's almost kinda pretty until you
remember where you're at.
Another sunset in Afghanistan.
Tomorrow's gonna be a hard day.
My views of the Taliban have definitely changed.
They've got all the things it takes to defend
a particular piece of terrain just as we would do, they a whole lot smarter
and better prepared for this than,
than I thought for sure originally.
We just try to stay just about as
unpredictable as possible because the moment you set
a pattern is the moment these guys are gonna catch onto it.
The Taliban keep taking pot shots
from that same "*** Hole,"
but it's too far for Marine weapons to reach.
Time for the tanks.
Tanks are pretty much the
epitome of awesome.
They rock!
That's it right?
Yeah!
There he is.
First round was right on target,
if you do anything,
just shift right another ten meters.
Just for a day I'd like to do what
they do and just be in their tank and just
traverse and shoot main battle tank rounds and
just destroy everything in their path,
they're just awesome.
Golf 3's got to get here sometime.
I love tanks;
they're just;
you just wanna kill someone.
They're just the coolest thing.
Roger.
Threat destroyed.
But Captain Middendorf's not waiting until tomorrow
to keep taking the fight to the enemy.
Golf Company's headed out tonight.