My Fighting Season (2016) s01e02 Episode Script
Brothers In Arms
1 Stand by.
[Explosion.]
Man: DUSTOFF 68.
DUSTOFF 68.
This is [Speaks indistinctly.]
[Radio static, beep.]
Man: Go for 68.
DUSTOFF 68 was nominated for Rescue of the Year due to an IED attack on American forces in Afghanistan in 2013.
Roger that.
The radios were tellin' us they had more patients.
They kept had more people.
They had more people.
The thought never once crossed my mind that I wasn't gonna pick up as many patients as I could.
These are our brothers out there.
I was always able to do the right thing when it needed to be done.
But at that moment, that was the first time I truly, like, was dealing with my brothers that had died.
You train for the worst, but nothing prepares you for something like that.
It was gruesome.
[Gunfire.]
Oh, fuck! Coming forward.
I joined so I could do somethin' that not everybody gets the chance to do.
[Gunshots.]
I feel like, you know, why join the Army? To, you know, to make a difference and, you know, to get back at the guys for 9/11.
What's up, motherfuckers? Well, I joined because I wanna serve my country.
I knew that's what I wanted to do.
I didn't know that it was going to be as life-changing as it really was.
Fuck! Oh! It also changes when -- when you -- when you do start losing people.
Doc! Doc! I got my finger on the trigger But I don't know who to trust When I look into your eyes There's just devils and dust Man: I'm hit! We're a long, long way from home, Bob Home's a long, long way from us [Gunshots.]
I feel a dirty wind blowing [Men shouting indistinctly, explosion.]
Devils and dust I got God on my side [Gunfire.]
And I'm just trying to survive What if what you do to survive Kills the things you love Fear's a powerful thing, baby It can turn your heart black, you can trust It'll take your God-filled soul And fill it with devils and dust [Beeps.]
Forward Operations, DUSTOFF 68 checkin' in on [Speaks indistinctly.]
DUSTOFF 68, DUSTOFF 68, this is DUSTOFF Operations.
[Speaks indistinctly.]
Go for 68.
Here comes Captain Hill.
I was the officer in charge of FOB Pasab, which is located about 30 kilometers to the west of Kandahar, along the, uh, Arghandab River.
Keliwall is a little village that's located about 7 kilometers to the northeast of where Pasab is.
And it was one of the patrol areas for the infantry unit that we were co-located with.
So I knew the soldiers.
Once we saw the message come across the board that there was IED strike in Keliwall and -- and it was that unit, it just kinda amped us up a little bit more because we're helpin' the people that we're -- we're essentially living with.
So when that mission came down, um, everyone was -- was ready to go.
Weather is clean, and you have launch at this time.
[Beeps.]
Roger, we have launch and a weather.
Thanks.
The crew is typically made up of four crew members.
Captain Ward -- he was my copilot.
Sergeant Rob Silva -- he was our crew chief.
And then Sergeant Jason Daniels, he's our medic.
We also had Sergeant David Hixson.
He was a ground medic.
And this was his very first MEDEVAC mission ever.
Roger.
The Arghandab River and the Horn of Panjway is essentially where the Taliban was created.
And with the number of poppy fields and the number of Taliban in the area, they needed a -- a MEDEVAC set up in a location that we could get the patients from the point of injury to, uh, the Role 3 at Kandahar as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, one of the nicknames that FOB Pasab had was FOB No Legs because of the number of IED makers that were prevalent in the area.
December of 2012 through August of 2013, we had the most CAT ALPHAS, which is the highest-priority patients in Afghanistan.
For us, MEDEVAC had that Red Cross comin' in.
It's a huge morale booster knowin' that the guys are gonna be rescued.
But for the enemy, it's a whole nother story.
For them, the Red Cross, it's a huge target.
The Taliban, they specifically said, "Don't shoot at the other aircraft.
"Wait for the one with the red cross on the side and shoot that one.
" May 14, 2013, I was, uh, pullin' guard duty, um, just like any other day for me as the company senior medic.
I heard over the radio that our second platoon element was being ambushed by, uh, what we thought at the time was small-arms fire and IEDs.
And, um, we just knew that we had at least two soldiers dead at that point and maybe one missing.
And the soldier that was missing was one of my junior medics, Cody Towse.
Um I freeze for a second.
And my buddy, Brian, next to me, he says, "Do what you gotta do, Doc.
" And I slide down the ladder and go grab my gear.
And I jumped on the nearest truck, had them call up that Doc Hart's circle was leavin' the COB.
I mean, technically, I didn't have to go.
But you have to go, you know? It's just -- it's your brothers, you -- it's people that you -- you love and care about.
Uh, you -- you go.
It was an easy choice, and it was the only choice.
10, 15-minute ride later, we showed up on-scene in Keliwall.
And, uh, it takes you more than a moment to process what you see 'cause, you know, there's -- there's a leg with MultiCam fatigues on.
There's a chunk of meat that is clearly part of a human body.
Somebody's plate carrier sittin' there, a helmet.
One of buddies who was already out there comes up to me.
He puts his hands on my vest and puts his helmet on mine.
And he goes, "Doc, Cody's gone.
" And, you know, that's when it sunk in that, you know, he was probably dead.
I got choked up a little bit in that moment.
But I swallowed it.
And I-I-- I got my -- my litter out.
And I got ready to pick up, you know, and do human-remains recovery 'cause we don't leave anybody behind, you know? You always, regardless of dead or alive, you always get 'em outta there.
Hill: As we're en route, when we're flying, we talk about, you know, who's goin' in where, who's picking up what patients.
And we don't actually know the area that we're going into until we get there.
We want to make sure that we get the patients as soon as we can.
Our goal within MEDEVAC is to respond and get that patient to treatment within 60 minutes.
If they can get medical treatment within the first 10 minutes after injury, their -- their chances of survival are gonna be much greater.
[Powering down.]
[Exhales deeply.]
[Gunfire in distance.]
[Panting.]
Oh, big fuckin' Dead-on, baby.
Yeah, Collin and I, we went out on, you know, every mission together.
Go ahead.
Get 'em goin'.
The first time that we took incoming - It's on drop.
- uh, it was pretty gnarly.
It -- it was pretty intense.
- Motherfucker! - Incoming.
Collin hated me.
I hated Collin.
It We -- neither one of us liked one another when we first met.
We were pretty much mortal enemies.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Get it goin'.
I actually did not like Waldon.
Uh, you know, uh, as a soldier, he [Chuckles.]
He -- he -- he was really, really comfortable, and I didn't like that.
Get down.
Get down.
- Got out.
- Let's go.
There aren't any fuckin'-arounds man.
Uh, I wasn't callin' people by their ranks.
I told my platoon sergeant, um, that I didn't want to be with Waldon, and I didn't want him to go to Tillman.
And sure as shit, he ended up gettin' both of 'em.
Hey, hand me those rounds.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Charge one.
Charge one.
[Groans.]
But once we got into, you know, a couple firefights, and I did my job, and he did his, and we realized that, you know, we worked really well together.
You say you got big? - Yeah.
- All right.
Kinda kicked his ass a little bit, but we liked to get in firefights, and he worked his ass off.
It's -- it was kind of my go-to.
Tell me when.
- We're clear.
- Go ahead.
We ended up getting into, uh quite a few TICs together.
Deployment in -- in -- in Army life in itself creates a brotherhood.
Uh, you get in firefights, that kinda stuff, it just, I mean, it's tenfold.
Essentially, our entire mission was, uh, we were closing out Tillman.
FOB Tillman was, you know, set kinda in the low ground between, uh, some ridges and ridge lines.
Our OP1 was just to the south of Tillman, probably, uh, you know, about a klick or so.
You have to have that high ground because if that wasn't there, then it's full rein on Tillman.
That's fuckin' where we get it from, 60, our humble abode.
D.
, Logan, Schumann Living on the OP, it was great.
Tillman, as itself, is kind of away from the flag, you know, away from the higher-ups and kinda got away with doing our own thing.
So the OP life was -- was that times 10.
So just woke up, day 1 of our, uh, new OP [Sniffles.]
mortar pit.
I'm about to take a shit.
Let me show you where we shit.
Makeshift shitter, see? Right down in there.
We actually brought a, uh, toilet seat up there.
So it -- it was pretty nice.
Look out, there's our mortar spot right there.
There's Tillman.
[Sniffles.]
We'd go through spurts where, you know, we wouldn't see anything for, like, a week.
But we started taking contact.
There -- there's no questions asked, I'm just gonna start shooting.
Fuck! Hey, oh You guys good or what?! Hey, what the fuck was that? RPGs, sir.
The top one and saddle one, yeah? It was directly We saw the glow.
We were just like, "What the fuck?" - I saw that light.
I was like, "There's a fuckin' light over there.
" Where is Hey, we'll throw some rounds on there.
[Indistinct conversations.]
Goddamn it.
[Rustling.]
Whoo! [Explosions in distance.]
There you go.
Being a mortar is like the best of both worlds, infantry-wise.
We were hot-gun.
So we had to be ready 24-7, you know, to shoot.
One of the biggest things is basically, you know, being able to help my guys.
You know, I wanna come home safe.
I wanted all of them to come home safe.
It's one of those things where you basically become a family.
And you don't want to lose anybody in your family.
[Gunshots in distance.]
Oh, fuck! Hey, we're takin' accurate fire on the OP.
Fine.
[Whizzing sound.]
Oh! Well, fuckin' shoot Snoopy then! There were several times that the OP got attacked.
Uh, and the guys were actually pretty close.
There were snipers on, uh, we called it Snoopy.
It was one of our TRPs.
So this guy, he sat up there for probably a good 3 weeks or so.
Hey, 9-1, are you guys gonna return fire or what? Goddamn! Fuck! Hey, Roger We had a sniper, which I'm fairly certain is the one that ended up, uh, getting Cody.
[Gunshots in distance.]
We took our first loss, uh, July 3, 2012.
It was, uh, Cody Moosman.
Got hit up on the OP.
And that was, uh, a real big turning event for us.
Obviously, you don't wanna lose anybody.
You don't want anybody to get hurt.
You know, I cared about everybody up there.
Fuckers.
It was pretty serious.
We ended up taggin' that sniper with white phosphorus from, uh, one of our mortar missions that we had set up later on.
Whoa! [Boom.]
Once you lose your first person, then you really think about what the mission actually is.
It changes.
I mean, it -- it becomes real.
Rest in peace.
[Click.]
[Helicopter blades whirring.]
So what we're gonna do is just start looking for a safe place to land, somewhere with no obstacles.
Roger, sir.
Roger, sir.
Dust landings are probably one of the most technical maneuvers that we do.
When you start to land in that, it just engulfs your entire aircraft in dust, and you can't see anything.
Got it.
The wheel was on the very edge of the road on both sides in between two Strykers.
It really did test, you know, some of my limits as -- as -- as doin' a dust landing in, uh, such a tight space.
[Man shouting indistinctly.]
Within that hour that we have to perform the mission, we give ourselves 5 minutes to pick up, to land, pick up the patient, get him packaged up and then take off.
And yes, the -- that day, it went completely out the window.
Yeah.
I saw them go back there.
For us and MEDEVAC and really, for -- for any aircraft, the longer we sit in one spot, it seems like the bigger that red cross gets over there on the side of the aircraft to be a target.
And it felt like an eternity.
I think it was 7 or 8 minutes that we were sittin' there on the ground.
And it -- it -- it gets tense because it just -- you -- you feel like they're -- they're gettin' ready to encircle you.
And it wouldn't be anything for them to get up on a hilltop or a mountaintop with an RPG or a SA-7 or something like that and just start firing at us.
Roger.
I don't remember how much time actually passed, but we sat long enough for the lead aircraft to tell us, "Hey.
We need to get these guys to the hospital.
" So they took off and started makin' way towards the Role 3.
At this point, we were actually really concerned about the rest of the patients.
So I ran down the road, uh, got to, uh, an officer.
And I asked the LT, I was like, "Hey, sir, where are you guys?" And he said, "They can't move," um, "There's -- they're just -- they're trapped.
They're, uh, pinned down.
" And, uh, he told me, yeah, that they're -- it's basically a minefield out there.
You guys got everyone? At that time, the EOD team showed up, bomb squad.
The EOD team leader, Sergeant First Class Jeff Baker, you know, comes up behind me.
And he says, "Don't worry.
Don't worry, Adam.
We're gonna get our guys outta here.
" And, you know, he pats me on the back.
And then, he just goes up and just go and defuse the device and secure our wounded and our -- I mean, our dead.
[Explosion.]
[Exhales deeply.]
He just, um, he must've just set off the device because all I saw was just a big cloud of dust.
I was deaf.
I got knocked down.
Um, I got up.
The, uh, PO out there shook me off, dusted me off, reminded me of where I was, you know, asked me if I was okay.
And I got to work treatin' casualties.
Roger.
Roger that.
[Speaks indistinctly.]
At that point, it was kinda just the way things are every time we go out.
Usually have bad information.
Usually, you know, obviously, somebody's hurt.
So the enemy's already there.
Those guys on the ground, obviously, you know, their friends are getting hurt.
So they're pretty amped up, um, you know.
So sometimes getting, you know, accurate information from them can be a little difficult.
It really -- it is crazy because there is no standard MEDEVAC mission.
Everything that could go wrong seems to almost always go wrong.
I mean, you just have to kinda roll with the punches.
[Indistinct conversation.]
[Boom.]
As we're repositioning the aircraft to the second pickup, which is closer to all the patients, all of a sudden, uh, another explosion just goes off.
[Explosion in distance.]
You could feel the shock and the concussion come, uh, and -- and hit the aircraft.
And so I banked the -- the controls over to get away from the debris and the blast.
And the aircraft was about 90 degrees.
For me, being in the aircraft and doin' that kind of stuff in combat, uh, I feel at home.
Something that we say in the Army is, "Slow is smooth.
Smooth is fast.
" And so, once you become a subject-matter expert in what you do, you train, everything becomes instinctual, that eventual slow becomes very smooth, becomes very fast.
And the fast is what you need in MEDEVAC 'cause minutes matter to save lives.
I was like, "This could get very shitty for us," because if we land on an IED, not only do we have the patients from the ground unit, now we're stuck on the ground.
And they have to bring in everyone to come get our aircraft, to come get us.
So, I mean, it was just, like, I don't know.
That was just, uh, somethin' that I wanted to make sure everyone was ready for.
Continue goin' down, sir.
When you look off to the right, you'll see the little white bags in the trees.
And that is a way for the Taliban to tell them where minefields are located.
- Clear on left.
- Clear on right.
All right.
- Be careful, guys.
- Rudder is hot.
Everything's already blowin' up.
And so you don't know what's gonna happen.
And the grass that we landed in, it was -- it was about 4-foot-tall.
And so you couldn't really see what is goin' on in there.
You're lookin' good, sir.
It's pretty level.
Essentially, we just landed in a minefield to pick up patients that had just stepped on IEDs.
[Panting.]
The unit before us told us to never go south.
Don't go to Pawas.
You know, we went there one time, and it was just hellacious.
So the whole time, I wanted to go south.
He wanted to go out on missions.
He wanted to go out, you know, kick down doors and do all the cool shit.
Lamair: We were closing Tillman.
And we finally got the -- the go-ahead to go south.
So I jumped on it with him.
And me and, uh, and me and Waldon rolled out there with them.
Waldon: Collin comes in, "Hey, man.
Wake up.
You wanna go to Pawas?" I'm like, "Yeah, you know, fuck it.
When are we goin'?" And he's like, "Well, pack your shit.
"We're gonna go up to the OP tonight so we can leave at, like, 3:00 in the morning.
" I'm like, "Fuck.
Okay.
Cool.
" Lamair: Took quite a lot of heat for -- for actually wanting to go on it.
One of the platoon sergeants, I remember him tellin' me, he's like, "What the fuck you doin' that for? Why?" He's like, "You're this close.
You don't -- you don't need to fuckin' go, dude.
" And he's like, "If one of you guys gets hurt," uh, he's like, "It's just not worth it.
" It would've been our last mission, I thought that that would, you know, make it seem like, you know, I actually did something.
That's -- that's how I know that I'm gonna make a difference.
[Panting.]
The last thing my First Sergeant said to me is, like, "Man, be careful, you know? I don't want you gettin' shot up there.
" I was like, "All right.
Cool.
Roger, First Sergeant.
" [Man speaks indistinctly.]
Waldon: It's about a 4-hour walk.
We didn't really see shit on the way up there.
A couple goats, you know, that was about it.
You know, it was kind of disappointing.
Lamair: Didn't set up for probably, I don't know, probably 2 or 3 hours, and nothing had happened.
So we're sitting there bullshitting.
And, uh, we've got our -- our back to the south.
And just all hell break loose.
Hey, they're just south of that fuckin' plot! Motherfuckers, man.
Started takin' PKM fire.
I had Waldon was on my left.
Sergeant Johnson was on my right.
And, uh, we took rounds in between both of us.
My buddy, Johnson, had a helmet in his hand.
They shot the helmet out of his hand.
Uh, he turned to the left and actually took a round across the magazines, uh, and actually hit his radio, too.
So lost his radio.
[Panting.]
[Gunfire in distance.]
Threw 'em both down behind the rock.
We all huddled down there and started laughing.
I was like, "You guys good?" [Laughs.]
And -- and Johnson was like, "Yeah.
I'm -- I'm straight.
" - Waldo! - Yeah? Bring 'em up.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
Waldon: I'm sittin' there, and, like, my mortar, all my rounds, everything is on the other side of this rock.
And I'm like, fuck, you know, I can't do my job unless I have my equipment.
I just, you know, jumped back over the rock to grab the mortar tube, and I see Collin's helmet.
So I grab Collin's helmet, flick it to him.
Lamair: As soon as he jumped over, he flicked me my helmet.
[Gunshots.]
And I just heard him.
- Oh Shit! - Hey, hey! You good? - Ugh! - Come here, bud.
[Men shouting indistinctly, gunshots.]
- Went through him? - Yeah, he got nicked.
He's, uh In the back right.
[Gunfire, men shouting indistinctly.]
Lamair: I opened the -- the back of his shirt up, and it's a pretty good size hole.
Basically just filleted him.
It was just wide-open.
- You could see his spine.
- He kinda starts freakin' out.
But he's tryin' to keep me calm at the same time.
From his words, he's like, that was the first time, uh, his eyes met my spine.
He moved for a second.
Uh, I don't even know what muscles are back there, but things started comin' out of his back.
And I was like, "Oh, it You're good, dude.
You -- you're totally fine.
" I was like, "It's just a nick.
" You're all right, buddy.
All right? - Don't worry.
- Strike out.
Strike out.
- Doc! - [Groans.]
Roger [Speaks indistinctly.]
[Gunfire, indistinct conversations.]
- Pretty sure I need to - Doc! relay back to the top.
Fuckin' weird right now.
It looked like it -- it was -- looked like it was really bad.
[Gunfire, men shouting indistinctly.]
Where the fuck are they? I need you to relay back to the top, we got a fuckin' wounded right now.
- I hear it.
- Don't worry.
The whole time, you know, he's like, "You're good, man.
You -- you're all right.
" And -- and, you know, I-I feel fine.
Like, I try to get back up.
But they keep tellin' me to stay down, you know, "Don't move.
" So, you know, I do the best I can as, uh, helpin' 'em.
And I try to tell 'em, you know, where exactly the shots had come from.
Where are they? They're further to the south side of that plot.
Okay, buddy.
[Gunshots.]
The shooting came from where we were at! They're over the ridge line! Hey, they're just south of that fuckin' plot! [Gunshots continue.]
My good friend just got hit.
Uh, I was pissed.
I wanted blood.
Picked up my buddies on the floor, started shootin' back, and then ended up goin' over, gettin' the rest of my mortar equipment to dry to drop some rounds on 'em.
[Gunshots continue.]
Hold your fire! Hold your fire right here! - Boys, hold your fire! - All right.
Can you see 'em from there? Yeah.
Fuckin'Waldon and just south of this plot.
No, I saw guys over there! - Right here? - Where the fuckin' [Speaks indistinctly.]
you go 100 meters south.
All right.
They went over that ridge line, runnin' back! This is one of the very, very, very few times we actually ever got eyes on someone.
Hey, hold your fire! Hold your fire! - Fire! - Hey, hold on.
I'm gonna egg-toss these mortar rounds to you, all right? - All right.
Give 'em here.
- Hold your fire.
Send 'em.
Hurry up.
Hurry up.
Toss 'em.
- Hey, what's the range of that? - 600 meters to my south.
I need you to get eyes on holding a grid.
All I could think about was, "My guys are in a firefight.
And I'm layin' here.
" Like, I didn't And nothin' really, like, crossed my mind about, is my back gonna be okay? My main concern was, you know, I'm layin' here, and my guys are doin' all this work.
And now I'm gonna end up leavin' 'em.
" And you know, it -- it sucked.
Hey, what's the distance to those fucking [Clang.]
Hey, what's the distance?! [Men shouting indistinctly, gunfire.]
Hey, 300 meters?! [Men continue shouting indistinctly.]
[Clank.]
And we were able to control fires without actually getting, uh, clearance.
So I wanted to make sure everything was set perfectly before I started firing.
Toss it.
One?! - All right.
Let's go.
- [Man shouts indistinctly.]
[Clank.]
Let's go.
Hey, you need to add, like, 400 meters! - 400?! - Yeah! I'd be advised to check out the [Speaks indistinctly.]
- Let me charge one.
- [All shouting at once.]
Stake the west side of the fuckin' [Man shouts indistinctly.]
[Clink.]
I got a few rounds down and then, uh, ended up relocating.
- Come on.
- Charge one? - Yeah.
- Go.
Lamair: Uh, on top of the rocks.
Continued to fire that way.
- Where you at? - What's up, motherfuckers? All right.
[Clanks.]
[Helicopter whirring.]
Get this fuckin' bird out of the way.
[Men speak indistinctly.]
[Clank.]
We had birds on station just doing, uh, again, presence patrols.
- I see 'em, sir.
- All right.
[Indistinct conversations.]
Then I realized they were literally in the -- in the line of fire.
I definitely puckered up for a second.
But they were -- they were pushed off a little more to the south than -- than where I was hitting.
But, uh, it still -- it was, uh, still close, nonetheless.
Hey - Why? - [Speaks indistinctly.]
- Like that? - Hit it.
Before the MEDEVAC got there, uh, we had actually pushed some guys down, uh, to the -- to the south to see if we could find some BDA.
But, yeah, they -- they were -- they were gone.
Where's he hit? - In the back right here.
- You all right, brother? Obviously, he was gonna have to get stitched up.
Um, our -- our medic came over and actually ended up putting a piece of cellophane on his back and then stuck that over.
And it -- it worked perfect.
How you doin', brother? Good? Yeah, here you go, right? - How you doin'? - I'm good, man.
Don't worry about me.
[Helicopter whirring.]
I mean, it -- it had to have hit his spine in some way, shape, or form.
Just centimeters, not even an inch game, just centimeters, millimeters to -- to really, really do damage and to paralyzing him or killing him.
[Helicopter whirring.]
MEDEVAC got there in about 20 minutes, I think, uh, give or take.
You were shot once, that's it? Like, thinkin' back at it, I'm like, man, I feel like there's more that I could've done.
I feel like it didn't really hinder me the way that it makes it look like it would've, if that makes any sense.
Um, I wish that, you know, I would've been able to get back up and help Collin, you know, grab the mortar tube, grab the rounds, you know? He shot my own four.
I didn't get to shoot it.
I was pretty pissed.
[Chuckles.]
This is gonna suck goin' up, I promise you.
Yup.
I'm not gonna let you fall, though.
All right.
Waldon: They put me on the litter, and, you know, they tell me that, you know, "This -- this is gonna suck 'cause you're on your back.
" And, you know, obviously, that's where the wound is.
And last thing I remember seein' is Collin.
You know, he waves bye to me and says he'll see me later.
I'm just sittin' there, and I'm like, "Oh, please," you know, "I hope my tag line doesn't snap.
" 'Cause a buddy of ours, you know, he had gotten shot a while back.
And his tag line snapped as he was bein' MEDEVACed.
And he did nothin' but just spin in circles the entire way they were lifting him up.
And it was terrible.
So I'm sittin' there, and I'm like, "Please, don't let that happen to me.
" Watchin' him get MEDEVACed was still kind of surreal.
But it was actually almost kind of warming 'cause I knew that -- I knew that he was good.
Uh, I knew his -- his wounds weren't life-threatening.
Um, and he was going home.
The doctor They told me that, you know, that it was millimeters away from my spine.
Every day, I think I about it.
I'm like, you know, I could be in a wheelchair right now.
Uh, you know, 'cause My -- my mom actually wanted me to come back and buy her a lottery ticket whenever I got home.
So [Chuckles.]
I definitely regretted, uh, having to leave my guys.
I wasn't prepared to, you know, leave 'em in there, you know, still probably in the shit.
And, uh, I was pretty upset about it.
I think me and Collin were two of the same breed.
He was the -- the soldier that I wanted to be.
Like, I modeled everything that I did after him.
So I, you know, I credit him with the success that I've had in my Army career.
Honestly, if I could stay deployed my entire Army career, like, I would do 20 years easily.
I definitely feel like I found the fight [Chuckles.]
That I was lookin' for.
Probably shouldn't have gone on the mission.
There's no greater adrenaline, you know, to being that close to -- to dying.
You're there with your brothers.
You As long as nobody gets hurt, it's -- it's great.
Um, that being said, it also changes when -- when you -- when you do start losing people.
- Be careful, guys.
- Rudder is hot.
Hill: Again, we do not like to be on the ground for any length of time at all.
And we'd already been in the area, I think, for close to 20, 30 minutes at that point.
With the IEDs keep goin' off like that, it just kind of draws the Taliban to that area.
And it -- it was a little tense.
If one IED goes off, there's no tellin' when another one's gonna go off.
Roger.
The first injured kinda stumbled up.
He -- he had shredded, you know, his clothes were shredded a little bit.
He didn't have his weapon.
He looked like he'd, you know, had been in a fight.
So we got him into the aircraft.
And you could immediately see him just slump his shoulders.
He knew, like, "Okay.
I'm here," like, "I'm -- I'm in the safest place I can be.
" [Speaks indistinctly.]
Sergeant Silva and the other pilot had to watch the right side of the aircraft, um, while Sergeant Daniels went to go find the wounded.
And, I mean, I honestly know, like, my thinking is like, "Man, I hope he comes back.
" [Chuckles.]
The first patient -- we got his body armor off.
And then I saw kind of, like, a hole in his shirt.
So, you know, I ripped his shirt.
And it was a sunken chest wound.
And you could just see air comin' in and out of it.
So I got the chest seal and, you know, seal it up.
And he, you know, he started breathin' better.
And right about that time, uh, Daniels comes back.
Like, I see him comin' back with the litter team.
I was just finishing up my basic life-threatening injuries sweep when Adam Hartswick was being brought on.
It looked like he had just been thrown on the stretcher and just like, "All right.
Let's go.
" Like, it's That's what it looked like.
And so, you know, and as they're bringin' him in, I realize he has no legs.
[Explosion.]
That explosion, that's the one that -- that first knocked me down.
The EOD team members that had been hit, did as best as I could to treat them, get them out of there.
Um, and then I made the decision.
I said, "I'm -- I'm goin' the fuck down there.
" And I went down, and I-I started to run on what I thought was a cleared path.
Little did I know, they were usin' a new pressure plate that wouldn't actually go off until, like, three or four guys had passed it.
So I was the, you know, third or fourth guy that passed it, stepped on it.
I went up.
Um, I think if I was out at all, I was only out for, like, a couple seconds 'cause And -- and honestly, when I -- when I woke up after those couple of seconds, I thought I was mental.
I was like, "Holy -- holy -- holy shit.
"I just stepped on an IED or I just got blown up.
And I'm still intact? Holy crap.
" 'Cause, like, at that point, I could still feel my legs.
[Chuckles.]
I-I kept tryin' to stand up.
And I was like, "Why the hell can't I stand up?" And I -- I finally did a push-up.
And I ended up flipping over onto my back.
And that's when I saw, you know, my legs [Chuckles.]
Were basically hamburger meat.
And I could see my skeletal kneecaps, my tib-fib on both sides.
I could see my foot was hangin' off on -- I think my left leg was hangin' off in a direction that was not natural at all.
But, um at that point, I, you know, I thought to myself, "Well, I'm -- I'm gonna die.
" And um At that moment, I was reminded that, you know, whether it was God or, you know, myself talking to me, it was I had a skill set.
And that skill was saving peoples' lives, and now I needed to save my own life.
And, uh, I grabbed one of the CAT tourniquets off my MOLLE on my vest and started puttin' it on my right leg.
And the PO out there, um, just said, "Doc, tell me what to do.
" And I said, "Tourniquets, high and tight," because that's what we're taught, just like the haircut.
Tourniquets, high and tight.
And he grabbed the other tourniquet off my vest and put it on my other leg and tightened it down as hard as he could, and my buddy Ivan from the EOD team says, "Adam, give me the thumbs up.
" And I go like this.
And my finger just flops into my hand.
I was like, "Well, I better hold onto that one.
" You know? It kept me conscious.
It, uh, it gave me somethin' to focus on, makin' sure I could hold my finger and see if they could sew it back on later, but They load me on the bird.
And, uh, at this point, I'm startin' to feel a little bit of pain.
It's startin' to burn a little bit.
So the first thing I say to the -- the medic was, "Morphine! [Chuckles.]
Morphine!" 'cause I could feel it comin' on.
They gave us the clear that that's all that patients we were gonna take.
I wanted to get up and outta there as soon as we can.
[Men speak indistinctly.]
Another IED had gone off towards the back of us.
Kind of heard, like, a blast and a little bit of a you know, we felt pressure.
And, um, Daniels had kinda gotten knocked forward.
Um, and the glass had came and hit me in the face.
Hill: I was yankin' and banking to get away from there.
I put the coals to the fire.
And, uh, we were -- we're haulin'.
Roger.
From Keliwall back to Kandahar Airfield, it was somethin' like 20 kilometers.
So it is about an 8-minute flight.
It wasn't a perfect situation.
There was a lot of chaos going on in the back, which MEDEVAC can be chaos.
But then, at the same time, I felt like we couldn't do anything in those 8 minutes.
I mean, we controlled bleeding, which is the most important step, and we kept him alive.
But we weren't able to serve fluids.
We weren't able to, like, flip him over.
We're about 97 It was the longest, shortest 8 minutes of -- of my life.
It was the shortest 8 minutes of care, but the longest 8 minutes of, "I'm hopin' this guy survives.
" [Indistinct conversation.]
We knew we had more patients back on the field.
So we were I was already planning, um, to go back in there and get the rest of the patients.
When we were leaving the MEDEVAC, I kinda felt like he gave -- he was -- his body was givin' up.
And, uh, you know, I thought he had passed.
You know, I didn't really have time to -- to grieve in that moment.
But, you know, we had to go back to helicopter and see if we needed to pick up more.
You know, it turns out that we did lose four guys that day -- Sergeant First Class Jeff Baker, Specialist Cody James Towse, Specialist William Gilbert, and, uh, Specialist, uh, Mitch Daehling.
Um For a while there, I, you know, I -- I dealt with survival -- survivor's guilt.
Um, you know, I -- I would've gladly traded with any of those guys.
You know, you always -- you always bicker and fight, you know, like -- like siblings.
But when it comes down to it, the guy to your left and right is always willing to die for you at a moment's notice.
So what are you guys expecting? I mean, you guys haven't seen him I mean, I think the hardest thing was me seeing, like, him, you know, at the last minute, was I thought he had died.
Yeah.
And I think that was a, you know, I really was, you know, I grieved him.
I think it's gonna be important for the whole crew, Ward, Hill, Hixson, Silva, all of 'em, that they I think it's just gonna be important for them to see me.
There he is.
Ah, come here, man.
- How's it goin', man? - Good! You know, I've gone from the corpse they picked up, basically, to being a walking, talking, laughing, productive member of society.
[Chuckles.]
I know all of these guys think it's an honor to be able to have you on our aircraft, and I mean, don't get me wrong.
I would rather have never have met you.
[Laughter.]
Yeah.
I mean, it's always -- that's always the best thing.
It was an amazing experience, and I'm so glad I got to meet him.
Well, you guys haven't seen me stand yet.
- So I'm gonna - Let's see it.
- I'm gonna -- I'm gonna do it.
- How's the walkin' comin'? Since I had that last surgery and, um, I got these new legs, it's been a little harder.
But for the most part, it's, uh it's goin' along pretty well.
The MEDEVAC crew did a hard landing in a hot zone.
And they didn't have to.
They volunteered for that.
And I-I didn't even know them.
I was a stranger to them.
It was -- it was an easy choice for me because they -- the -- the people I was treating were my brothers.
But they did this for a complete stranger.
- We're proud of you.
- That's awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, you guys literally are my heroes.
I owe you my life, all of you.
Here's to you, guys.
People talk about missing combat because of the adrenaline rush or the adventure or the sense of purpose.
But, really, what they miss is the brotherhood.
And it's -- it's that love that -- that I really appreciate about the military, the camaraderie, the brotherhood, the fraternity of it.
[Explosion.]
Man: DUSTOFF 68.
DUSTOFF 68.
This is [Speaks indistinctly.]
[Radio static, beep.]
Man: Go for 68.
DUSTOFF 68 was nominated for Rescue of the Year due to an IED attack on American forces in Afghanistan in 2013.
Roger that.
The radios were tellin' us they had more patients.
They kept had more people.
They had more people.
The thought never once crossed my mind that I wasn't gonna pick up as many patients as I could.
These are our brothers out there.
I was always able to do the right thing when it needed to be done.
But at that moment, that was the first time I truly, like, was dealing with my brothers that had died.
You train for the worst, but nothing prepares you for something like that.
It was gruesome.
[Gunfire.]
Oh, fuck! Coming forward.
I joined so I could do somethin' that not everybody gets the chance to do.
[Gunshots.]
I feel like, you know, why join the Army? To, you know, to make a difference and, you know, to get back at the guys for 9/11.
What's up, motherfuckers? Well, I joined because I wanna serve my country.
I knew that's what I wanted to do.
I didn't know that it was going to be as life-changing as it really was.
Fuck! Oh! It also changes when -- when you -- when you do start losing people.
Doc! Doc! I got my finger on the trigger But I don't know who to trust When I look into your eyes There's just devils and dust Man: I'm hit! We're a long, long way from home, Bob Home's a long, long way from us [Gunshots.]
I feel a dirty wind blowing [Men shouting indistinctly, explosion.]
Devils and dust I got God on my side [Gunfire.]
And I'm just trying to survive What if what you do to survive Kills the things you love Fear's a powerful thing, baby It can turn your heart black, you can trust It'll take your God-filled soul And fill it with devils and dust [Beeps.]
Forward Operations, DUSTOFF 68 checkin' in on [Speaks indistinctly.]
DUSTOFF 68, DUSTOFF 68, this is DUSTOFF Operations.
[Speaks indistinctly.]
Go for 68.
Here comes Captain Hill.
I was the officer in charge of FOB Pasab, which is located about 30 kilometers to the west of Kandahar, along the, uh, Arghandab River.
Keliwall is a little village that's located about 7 kilometers to the northeast of where Pasab is.
And it was one of the patrol areas for the infantry unit that we were co-located with.
So I knew the soldiers.
Once we saw the message come across the board that there was IED strike in Keliwall and -- and it was that unit, it just kinda amped us up a little bit more because we're helpin' the people that we're -- we're essentially living with.
So when that mission came down, um, everyone was -- was ready to go.
Weather is clean, and you have launch at this time.
[Beeps.]
Roger, we have launch and a weather.
Thanks.
The crew is typically made up of four crew members.
Captain Ward -- he was my copilot.
Sergeant Rob Silva -- he was our crew chief.
And then Sergeant Jason Daniels, he's our medic.
We also had Sergeant David Hixson.
He was a ground medic.
And this was his very first MEDEVAC mission ever.
Roger.
The Arghandab River and the Horn of Panjway is essentially where the Taliban was created.
And with the number of poppy fields and the number of Taliban in the area, they needed a -- a MEDEVAC set up in a location that we could get the patients from the point of injury to, uh, the Role 3 at Kandahar as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, one of the nicknames that FOB Pasab had was FOB No Legs because of the number of IED makers that were prevalent in the area.
December of 2012 through August of 2013, we had the most CAT ALPHAS, which is the highest-priority patients in Afghanistan.
For us, MEDEVAC had that Red Cross comin' in.
It's a huge morale booster knowin' that the guys are gonna be rescued.
But for the enemy, it's a whole nother story.
For them, the Red Cross, it's a huge target.
The Taliban, they specifically said, "Don't shoot at the other aircraft.
"Wait for the one with the red cross on the side and shoot that one.
" May 14, 2013, I was, uh, pullin' guard duty, um, just like any other day for me as the company senior medic.
I heard over the radio that our second platoon element was being ambushed by, uh, what we thought at the time was small-arms fire and IEDs.
And, um, we just knew that we had at least two soldiers dead at that point and maybe one missing.
And the soldier that was missing was one of my junior medics, Cody Towse.
Um I freeze for a second.
And my buddy, Brian, next to me, he says, "Do what you gotta do, Doc.
" And I slide down the ladder and go grab my gear.
And I jumped on the nearest truck, had them call up that Doc Hart's circle was leavin' the COB.
I mean, technically, I didn't have to go.
But you have to go, you know? It's just -- it's your brothers, you -- it's people that you -- you love and care about.
Uh, you -- you go.
It was an easy choice, and it was the only choice.
10, 15-minute ride later, we showed up on-scene in Keliwall.
And, uh, it takes you more than a moment to process what you see 'cause, you know, there's -- there's a leg with MultiCam fatigues on.
There's a chunk of meat that is clearly part of a human body.
Somebody's plate carrier sittin' there, a helmet.
One of buddies who was already out there comes up to me.
He puts his hands on my vest and puts his helmet on mine.
And he goes, "Doc, Cody's gone.
" And, you know, that's when it sunk in that, you know, he was probably dead.
I got choked up a little bit in that moment.
But I swallowed it.
And I-I-- I got my -- my litter out.
And I got ready to pick up, you know, and do human-remains recovery 'cause we don't leave anybody behind, you know? You always, regardless of dead or alive, you always get 'em outta there.
Hill: As we're en route, when we're flying, we talk about, you know, who's goin' in where, who's picking up what patients.
And we don't actually know the area that we're going into until we get there.
We want to make sure that we get the patients as soon as we can.
Our goal within MEDEVAC is to respond and get that patient to treatment within 60 minutes.
If they can get medical treatment within the first 10 minutes after injury, their -- their chances of survival are gonna be much greater.
[Powering down.]
[Exhales deeply.]
[Gunfire in distance.]
[Panting.]
Oh, big fuckin' Dead-on, baby.
Yeah, Collin and I, we went out on, you know, every mission together.
Go ahead.
Get 'em goin'.
The first time that we took incoming - It's on drop.
- uh, it was pretty gnarly.
It -- it was pretty intense.
- Motherfucker! - Incoming.
Collin hated me.
I hated Collin.
It We -- neither one of us liked one another when we first met.
We were pretty much mortal enemies.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Get it goin'.
I actually did not like Waldon.
Uh, you know, uh, as a soldier, he [Chuckles.]
He -- he -- he was really, really comfortable, and I didn't like that.
Get down.
Get down.
- Got out.
- Let's go.
There aren't any fuckin'-arounds man.
Uh, I wasn't callin' people by their ranks.
I told my platoon sergeant, um, that I didn't want to be with Waldon, and I didn't want him to go to Tillman.
And sure as shit, he ended up gettin' both of 'em.
Hey, hand me those rounds.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Charge one.
Charge one.
[Groans.]
But once we got into, you know, a couple firefights, and I did my job, and he did his, and we realized that, you know, we worked really well together.
You say you got big? - Yeah.
- All right.
Kinda kicked his ass a little bit, but we liked to get in firefights, and he worked his ass off.
It's -- it was kind of my go-to.
Tell me when.
- We're clear.
- Go ahead.
We ended up getting into, uh quite a few TICs together.
Deployment in -- in -- in Army life in itself creates a brotherhood.
Uh, you get in firefights, that kinda stuff, it just, I mean, it's tenfold.
Essentially, our entire mission was, uh, we were closing out Tillman.
FOB Tillman was, you know, set kinda in the low ground between, uh, some ridges and ridge lines.
Our OP1 was just to the south of Tillman, probably, uh, you know, about a klick or so.
You have to have that high ground because if that wasn't there, then it's full rein on Tillman.
That's fuckin' where we get it from, 60, our humble abode.
D.
, Logan, Schumann Living on the OP, it was great.
Tillman, as itself, is kind of away from the flag, you know, away from the higher-ups and kinda got away with doing our own thing.
So the OP life was -- was that times 10.
So just woke up, day 1 of our, uh, new OP [Sniffles.]
mortar pit.
I'm about to take a shit.
Let me show you where we shit.
Makeshift shitter, see? Right down in there.
We actually brought a, uh, toilet seat up there.
So it -- it was pretty nice.
Look out, there's our mortar spot right there.
There's Tillman.
[Sniffles.]
We'd go through spurts where, you know, we wouldn't see anything for, like, a week.
But we started taking contact.
There -- there's no questions asked, I'm just gonna start shooting.
Fuck! Hey, oh You guys good or what?! Hey, what the fuck was that? RPGs, sir.
The top one and saddle one, yeah? It was directly We saw the glow.
We were just like, "What the fuck?" - I saw that light.
I was like, "There's a fuckin' light over there.
" Where is Hey, we'll throw some rounds on there.
[Indistinct conversations.]
Goddamn it.
[Rustling.]
Whoo! [Explosions in distance.]
There you go.
Being a mortar is like the best of both worlds, infantry-wise.
We were hot-gun.
So we had to be ready 24-7, you know, to shoot.
One of the biggest things is basically, you know, being able to help my guys.
You know, I wanna come home safe.
I wanted all of them to come home safe.
It's one of those things where you basically become a family.
And you don't want to lose anybody in your family.
[Gunshots in distance.]
Oh, fuck! Hey, we're takin' accurate fire on the OP.
Fine.
[Whizzing sound.]
Oh! Well, fuckin' shoot Snoopy then! There were several times that the OP got attacked.
Uh, and the guys were actually pretty close.
There were snipers on, uh, we called it Snoopy.
It was one of our TRPs.
So this guy, he sat up there for probably a good 3 weeks or so.
Hey, 9-1, are you guys gonna return fire or what? Goddamn! Fuck! Hey, Roger We had a sniper, which I'm fairly certain is the one that ended up, uh, getting Cody.
[Gunshots in distance.]
We took our first loss, uh, July 3, 2012.
It was, uh, Cody Moosman.
Got hit up on the OP.
And that was, uh, a real big turning event for us.
Obviously, you don't wanna lose anybody.
You don't want anybody to get hurt.
You know, I cared about everybody up there.
Fuckers.
It was pretty serious.
We ended up taggin' that sniper with white phosphorus from, uh, one of our mortar missions that we had set up later on.
Whoa! [Boom.]
Once you lose your first person, then you really think about what the mission actually is.
It changes.
I mean, it -- it becomes real.
Rest in peace.
[Click.]
[Helicopter blades whirring.]
So what we're gonna do is just start looking for a safe place to land, somewhere with no obstacles.
Roger, sir.
Roger, sir.
Dust landings are probably one of the most technical maneuvers that we do.
When you start to land in that, it just engulfs your entire aircraft in dust, and you can't see anything.
Got it.
The wheel was on the very edge of the road on both sides in between two Strykers.
It really did test, you know, some of my limits as -- as -- as doin' a dust landing in, uh, such a tight space.
[Man shouting indistinctly.]
Within that hour that we have to perform the mission, we give ourselves 5 minutes to pick up, to land, pick up the patient, get him packaged up and then take off.
And yes, the -- that day, it went completely out the window.
Yeah.
I saw them go back there.
For us and MEDEVAC and really, for -- for any aircraft, the longer we sit in one spot, it seems like the bigger that red cross gets over there on the side of the aircraft to be a target.
And it felt like an eternity.
I think it was 7 or 8 minutes that we were sittin' there on the ground.
And it -- it -- it gets tense because it just -- you -- you feel like they're -- they're gettin' ready to encircle you.
And it wouldn't be anything for them to get up on a hilltop or a mountaintop with an RPG or a SA-7 or something like that and just start firing at us.
Roger.
I don't remember how much time actually passed, but we sat long enough for the lead aircraft to tell us, "Hey.
We need to get these guys to the hospital.
" So they took off and started makin' way towards the Role 3.
At this point, we were actually really concerned about the rest of the patients.
So I ran down the road, uh, got to, uh, an officer.
And I asked the LT, I was like, "Hey, sir, where are you guys?" And he said, "They can't move," um, "There's -- they're just -- they're trapped.
They're, uh, pinned down.
" And, uh, he told me, yeah, that they're -- it's basically a minefield out there.
You guys got everyone? At that time, the EOD team showed up, bomb squad.
The EOD team leader, Sergeant First Class Jeff Baker, you know, comes up behind me.
And he says, "Don't worry.
Don't worry, Adam.
We're gonna get our guys outta here.
" And, you know, he pats me on the back.
And then, he just goes up and just go and defuse the device and secure our wounded and our -- I mean, our dead.
[Explosion.]
[Exhales deeply.]
He just, um, he must've just set off the device because all I saw was just a big cloud of dust.
I was deaf.
I got knocked down.
Um, I got up.
The, uh, PO out there shook me off, dusted me off, reminded me of where I was, you know, asked me if I was okay.
And I got to work treatin' casualties.
Roger.
Roger that.
[Speaks indistinctly.]
At that point, it was kinda just the way things are every time we go out.
Usually have bad information.
Usually, you know, obviously, somebody's hurt.
So the enemy's already there.
Those guys on the ground, obviously, you know, their friends are getting hurt.
So they're pretty amped up, um, you know.
So sometimes getting, you know, accurate information from them can be a little difficult.
It really -- it is crazy because there is no standard MEDEVAC mission.
Everything that could go wrong seems to almost always go wrong.
I mean, you just have to kinda roll with the punches.
[Indistinct conversation.]
[Boom.]
As we're repositioning the aircraft to the second pickup, which is closer to all the patients, all of a sudden, uh, another explosion just goes off.
[Explosion in distance.]
You could feel the shock and the concussion come, uh, and -- and hit the aircraft.
And so I banked the -- the controls over to get away from the debris and the blast.
And the aircraft was about 90 degrees.
For me, being in the aircraft and doin' that kind of stuff in combat, uh, I feel at home.
Something that we say in the Army is, "Slow is smooth.
Smooth is fast.
" And so, once you become a subject-matter expert in what you do, you train, everything becomes instinctual, that eventual slow becomes very smooth, becomes very fast.
And the fast is what you need in MEDEVAC 'cause minutes matter to save lives.
I was like, "This could get very shitty for us," because if we land on an IED, not only do we have the patients from the ground unit, now we're stuck on the ground.
And they have to bring in everyone to come get our aircraft, to come get us.
So, I mean, it was just, like, I don't know.
That was just, uh, somethin' that I wanted to make sure everyone was ready for.
Continue goin' down, sir.
When you look off to the right, you'll see the little white bags in the trees.
And that is a way for the Taliban to tell them where minefields are located.
- Clear on left.
- Clear on right.
All right.
- Be careful, guys.
- Rudder is hot.
Everything's already blowin' up.
And so you don't know what's gonna happen.
And the grass that we landed in, it was -- it was about 4-foot-tall.
And so you couldn't really see what is goin' on in there.
You're lookin' good, sir.
It's pretty level.
Essentially, we just landed in a minefield to pick up patients that had just stepped on IEDs.
[Panting.]
The unit before us told us to never go south.
Don't go to Pawas.
You know, we went there one time, and it was just hellacious.
So the whole time, I wanted to go south.
He wanted to go out on missions.
He wanted to go out, you know, kick down doors and do all the cool shit.
Lamair: We were closing Tillman.
And we finally got the -- the go-ahead to go south.
So I jumped on it with him.
And me and, uh, and me and Waldon rolled out there with them.
Waldon: Collin comes in, "Hey, man.
Wake up.
You wanna go to Pawas?" I'm like, "Yeah, you know, fuck it.
When are we goin'?" And he's like, "Well, pack your shit.
"We're gonna go up to the OP tonight so we can leave at, like, 3:00 in the morning.
" I'm like, "Fuck.
Okay.
Cool.
" Lamair: Took quite a lot of heat for -- for actually wanting to go on it.
One of the platoon sergeants, I remember him tellin' me, he's like, "What the fuck you doin' that for? Why?" He's like, "You're this close.
You don't -- you don't need to fuckin' go, dude.
" And he's like, "If one of you guys gets hurt," uh, he's like, "It's just not worth it.
" It would've been our last mission, I thought that that would, you know, make it seem like, you know, I actually did something.
That's -- that's how I know that I'm gonna make a difference.
[Panting.]
The last thing my First Sergeant said to me is, like, "Man, be careful, you know? I don't want you gettin' shot up there.
" I was like, "All right.
Cool.
Roger, First Sergeant.
" [Man speaks indistinctly.]
Waldon: It's about a 4-hour walk.
We didn't really see shit on the way up there.
A couple goats, you know, that was about it.
You know, it was kind of disappointing.
Lamair: Didn't set up for probably, I don't know, probably 2 or 3 hours, and nothing had happened.
So we're sitting there bullshitting.
And, uh, we've got our -- our back to the south.
And just all hell break loose.
Hey, they're just south of that fuckin' plot! Motherfuckers, man.
Started takin' PKM fire.
I had Waldon was on my left.
Sergeant Johnson was on my right.
And, uh, we took rounds in between both of us.
My buddy, Johnson, had a helmet in his hand.
They shot the helmet out of his hand.
Uh, he turned to the left and actually took a round across the magazines, uh, and actually hit his radio, too.
So lost his radio.
[Panting.]
[Gunfire in distance.]
Threw 'em both down behind the rock.
We all huddled down there and started laughing.
I was like, "You guys good?" [Laughs.]
And -- and Johnson was like, "Yeah.
I'm -- I'm straight.
" - Waldo! - Yeah? Bring 'em up.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
Waldon: I'm sittin' there, and, like, my mortar, all my rounds, everything is on the other side of this rock.
And I'm like, fuck, you know, I can't do my job unless I have my equipment.
I just, you know, jumped back over the rock to grab the mortar tube, and I see Collin's helmet.
So I grab Collin's helmet, flick it to him.
Lamair: As soon as he jumped over, he flicked me my helmet.
[Gunshots.]
And I just heard him.
- Oh Shit! - Hey, hey! You good? - Ugh! - Come here, bud.
[Men shouting indistinctly, gunshots.]
- Went through him? - Yeah, he got nicked.
He's, uh In the back right.
[Gunfire, men shouting indistinctly.]
Lamair: I opened the -- the back of his shirt up, and it's a pretty good size hole.
Basically just filleted him.
It was just wide-open.
- You could see his spine.
- He kinda starts freakin' out.
But he's tryin' to keep me calm at the same time.
From his words, he's like, that was the first time, uh, his eyes met my spine.
He moved for a second.
Uh, I don't even know what muscles are back there, but things started comin' out of his back.
And I was like, "Oh, it You're good, dude.
You -- you're totally fine.
" I was like, "It's just a nick.
" You're all right, buddy.
All right? - Don't worry.
- Strike out.
Strike out.
- Doc! - [Groans.]
Roger [Speaks indistinctly.]
[Gunfire, indistinct conversations.]
- Pretty sure I need to - Doc! relay back to the top.
Fuckin' weird right now.
It looked like it -- it was -- looked like it was really bad.
[Gunfire, men shouting indistinctly.]
Where the fuck are they? I need you to relay back to the top, we got a fuckin' wounded right now.
- I hear it.
- Don't worry.
The whole time, you know, he's like, "You're good, man.
You -- you're all right.
" And -- and, you know, I-I feel fine.
Like, I try to get back up.
But they keep tellin' me to stay down, you know, "Don't move.
" So, you know, I do the best I can as, uh, helpin' 'em.
And I try to tell 'em, you know, where exactly the shots had come from.
Where are they? They're further to the south side of that plot.
Okay, buddy.
[Gunshots.]
The shooting came from where we were at! They're over the ridge line! Hey, they're just south of that fuckin' plot! [Gunshots continue.]
My good friend just got hit.
Uh, I was pissed.
I wanted blood.
Picked up my buddies on the floor, started shootin' back, and then ended up goin' over, gettin' the rest of my mortar equipment to dry to drop some rounds on 'em.
[Gunshots continue.]
Hold your fire! Hold your fire right here! - Boys, hold your fire! - All right.
Can you see 'em from there? Yeah.
Fuckin'Waldon and just south of this plot.
No, I saw guys over there! - Right here? - Where the fuckin' [Speaks indistinctly.]
you go 100 meters south.
All right.
They went over that ridge line, runnin' back! This is one of the very, very, very few times we actually ever got eyes on someone.
Hey, hold your fire! Hold your fire! - Fire! - Hey, hold on.
I'm gonna egg-toss these mortar rounds to you, all right? - All right.
Give 'em here.
- Hold your fire.
Send 'em.
Hurry up.
Hurry up.
Toss 'em.
- Hey, what's the range of that? - 600 meters to my south.
I need you to get eyes on holding a grid.
All I could think about was, "My guys are in a firefight.
And I'm layin' here.
" Like, I didn't And nothin' really, like, crossed my mind about, is my back gonna be okay? My main concern was, you know, I'm layin' here, and my guys are doin' all this work.
And now I'm gonna end up leavin' 'em.
" And you know, it -- it sucked.
Hey, what's the distance to those fucking [Clang.]
Hey, what's the distance?! [Men shouting indistinctly, gunfire.]
Hey, 300 meters?! [Men continue shouting indistinctly.]
[Clank.]
And we were able to control fires without actually getting, uh, clearance.
So I wanted to make sure everything was set perfectly before I started firing.
Toss it.
One?! - All right.
Let's go.
- [Man shouts indistinctly.]
[Clank.]
Let's go.
Hey, you need to add, like, 400 meters! - 400?! - Yeah! I'd be advised to check out the [Speaks indistinctly.]
- Let me charge one.
- [All shouting at once.]
Stake the west side of the fuckin' [Man shouts indistinctly.]
[Clink.]
I got a few rounds down and then, uh, ended up relocating.
- Come on.
- Charge one? - Yeah.
- Go.
Lamair: Uh, on top of the rocks.
Continued to fire that way.
- Where you at? - What's up, motherfuckers? All right.
[Clanks.]
[Helicopter whirring.]
Get this fuckin' bird out of the way.
[Men speak indistinctly.]
[Clank.]
We had birds on station just doing, uh, again, presence patrols.
- I see 'em, sir.
- All right.
[Indistinct conversations.]
Then I realized they were literally in the -- in the line of fire.
I definitely puckered up for a second.
But they were -- they were pushed off a little more to the south than -- than where I was hitting.
But, uh, it still -- it was, uh, still close, nonetheless.
Hey - Why? - [Speaks indistinctly.]
- Like that? - Hit it.
Before the MEDEVAC got there, uh, we had actually pushed some guys down, uh, to the -- to the south to see if we could find some BDA.
But, yeah, they -- they were -- they were gone.
Where's he hit? - In the back right here.
- You all right, brother? Obviously, he was gonna have to get stitched up.
Um, our -- our medic came over and actually ended up putting a piece of cellophane on his back and then stuck that over.
And it -- it worked perfect.
How you doin', brother? Good? Yeah, here you go, right? - How you doin'? - I'm good, man.
Don't worry about me.
[Helicopter whirring.]
I mean, it -- it had to have hit his spine in some way, shape, or form.
Just centimeters, not even an inch game, just centimeters, millimeters to -- to really, really do damage and to paralyzing him or killing him.
[Helicopter whirring.]
MEDEVAC got there in about 20 minutes, I think, uh, give or take.
You were shot once, that's it? Like, thinkin' back at it, I'm like, man, I feel like there's more that I could've done.
I feel like it didn't really hinder me the way that it makes it look like it would've, if that makes any sense.
Um, I wish that, you know, I would've been able to get back up and help Collin, you know, grab the mortar tube, grab the rounds, you know? He shot my own four.
I didn't get to shoot it.
I was pretty pissed.
[Chuckles.]
This is gonna suck goin' up, I promise you.
Yup.
I'm not gonna let you fall, though.
All right.
Waldon: They put me on the litter, and, you know, they tell me that, you know, "This -- this is gonna suck 'cause you're on your back.
" And, you know, obviously, that's where the wound is.
And last thing I remember seein' is Collin.
You know, he waves bye to me and says he'll see me later.
I'm just sittin' there, and I'm like, "Oh, please," you know, "I hope my tag line doesn't snap.
" 'Cause a buddy of ours, you know, he had gotten shot a while back.
And his tag line snapped as he was bein' MEDEVACed.
And he did nothin' but just spin in circles the entire way they were lifting him up.
And it was terrible.
So I'm sittin' there, and I'm like, "Please, don't let that happen to me.
" Watchin' him get MEDEVACed was still kind of surreal.
But it was actually almost kind of warming 'cause I knew that -- I knew that he was good.
Uh, I knew his -- his wounds weren't life-threatening.
Um, and he was going home.
The doctor They told me that, you know, that it was millimeters away from my spine.
Every day, I think I about it.
I'm like, you know, I could be in a wheelchair right now.
Uh, you know, 'cause My -- my mom actually wanted me to come back and buy her a lottery ticket whenever I got home.
So [Chuckles.]
I definitely regretted, uh, having to leave my guys.
I wasn't prepared to, you know, leave 'em in there, you know, still probably in the shit.
And, uh, I was pretty upset about it.
I think me and Collin were two of the same breed.
He was the -- the soldier that I wanted to be.
Like, I modeled everything that I did after him.
So I, you know, I credit him with the success that I've had in my Army career.
Honestly, if I could stay deployed my entire Army career, like, I would do 20 years easily.
I definitely feel like I found the fight [Chuckles.]
That I was lookin' for.
Probably shouldn't have gone on the mission.
There's no greater adrenaline, you know, to being that close to -- to dying.
You're there with your brothers.
You As long as nobody gets hurt, it's -- it's great.
Um, that being said, it also changes when -- when you -- when you do start losing people.
- Be careful, guys.
- Rudder is hot.
Hill: Again, we do not like to be on the ground for any length of time at all.
And we'd already been in the area, I think, for close to 20, 30 minutes at that point.
With the IEDs keep goin' off like that, it just kind of draws the Taliban to that area.
And it -- it was a little tense.
If one IED goes off, there's no tellin' when another one's gonna go off.
Roger.
The first injured kinda stumbled up.
He -- he had shredded, you know, his clothes were shredded a little bit.
He didn't have his weapon.
He looked like he'd, you know, had been in a fight.
So we got him into the aircraft.
And you could immediately see him just slump his shoulders.
He knew, like, "Okay.
I'm here," like, "I'm -- I'm in the safest place I can be.
" [Speaks indistinctly.]
Sergeant Silva and the other pilot had to watch the right side of the aircraft, um, while Sergeant Daniels went to go find the wounded.
And, I mean, I honestly know, like, my thinking is like, "Man, I hope he comes back.
" [Chuckles.]
The first patient -- we got his body armor off.
And then I saw kind of, like, a hole in his shirt.
So, you know, I ripped his shirt.
And it was a sunken chest wound.
And you could just see air comin' in and out of it.
So I got the chest seal and, you know, seal it up.
And he, you know, he started breathin' better.
And right about that time, uh, Daniels comes back.
Like, I see him comin' back with the litter team.
I was just finishing up my basic life-threatening injuries sweep when Adam Hartswick was being brought on.
It looked like he had just been thrown on the stretcher and just like, "All right.
Let's go.
" Like, it's That's what it looked like.
And so, you know, and as they're bringin' him in, I realize he has no legs.
[Explosion.]
That explosion, that's the one that -- that first knocked me down.
The EOD team members that had been hit, did as best as I could to treat them, get them out of there.
Um, and then I made the decision.
I said, "I'm -- I'm goin' the fuck down there.
" And I went down, and I-I started to run on what I thought was a cleared path.
Little did I know, they were usin' a new pressure plate that wouldn't actually go off until, like, three or four guys had passed it.
So I was the, you know, third or fourth guy that passed it, stepped on it.
I went up.
Um, I think if I was out at all, I was only out for, like, a couple seconds 'cause And -- and honestly, when I -- when I woke up after those couple of seconds, I thought I was mental.
I was like, "Holy -- holy -- holy shit.
"I just stepped on an IED or I just got blown up.
And I'm still intact? Holy crap.
" 'Cause, like, at that point, I could still feel my legs.
[Chuckles.]
I-I kept tryin' to stand up.
And I was like, "Why the hell can't I stand up?" And I -- I finally did a push-up.
And I ended up flipping over onto my back.
And that's when I saw, you know, my legs [Chuckles.]
Were basically hamburger meat.
And I could see my skeletal kneecaps, my tib-fib on both sides.
I could see my foot was hangin' off on -- I think my left leg was hangin' off in a direction that was not natural at all.
But, um at that point, I, you know, I thought to myself, "Well, I'm -- I'm gonna die.
" And um At that moment, I was reminded that, you know, whether it was God or, you know, myself talking to me, it was I had a skill set.
And that skill was saving peoples' lives, and now I needed to save my own life.
And, uh, I grabbed one of the CAT tourniquets off my MOLLE on my vest and started puttin' it on my right leg.
And the PO out there, um, just said, "Doc, tell me what to do.
" And I said, "Tourniquets, high and tight," because that's what we're taught, just like the haircut.
Tourniquets, high and tight.
And he grabbed the other tourniquet off my vest and put it on my other leg and tightened it down as hard as he could, and my buddy Ivan from the EOD team says, "Adam, give me the thumbs up.
" And I go like this.
And my finger just flops into my hand.
I was like, "Well, I better hold onto that one.
" You know? It kept me conscious.
It, uh, it gave me somethin' to focus on, makin' sure I could hold my finger and see if they could sew it back on later, but They load me on the bird.
And, uh, at this point, I'm startin' to feel a little bit of pain.
It's startin' to burn a little bit.
So the first thing I say to the -- the medic was, "Morphine! [Chuckles.]
Morphine!" 'cause I could feel it comin' on.
They gave us the clear that that's all that patients we were gonna take.
I wanted to get up and outta there as soon as we can.
[Men speak indistinctly.]
Another IED had gone off towards the back of us.
Kind of heard, like, a blast and a little bit of a you know, we felt pressure.
And, um, Daniels had kinda gotten knocked forward.
Um, and the glass had came and hit me in the face.
Hill: I was yankin' and banking to get away from there.
I put the coals to the fire.
And, uh, we were -- we're haulin'.
Roger.
From Keliwall back to Kandahar Airfield, it was somethin' like 20 kilometers.
So it is about an 8-minute flight.
It wasn't a perfect situation.
There was a lot of chaos going on in the back, which MEDEVAC can be chaos.
But then, at the same time, I felt like we couldn't do anything in those 8 minutes.
I mean, we controlled bleeding, which is the most important step, and we kept him alive.
But we weren't able to serve fluids.
We weren't able to, like, flip him over.
We're about 97 It was the longest, shortest 8 minutes of -- of my life.
It was the shortest 8 minutes of care, but the longest 8 minutes of, "I'm hopin' this guy survives.
" [Indistinct conversation.]
We knew we had more patients back on the field.
So we were I was already planning, um, to go back in there and get the rest of the patients.
When we were leaving the MEDEVAC, I kinda felt like he gave -- he was -- his body was givin' up.
And, uh, you know, I thought he had passed.
You know, I didn't really have time to -- to grieve in that moment.
But, you know, we had to go back to helicopter and see if we needed to pick up more.
You know, it turns out that we did lose four guys that day -- Sergeant First Class Jeff Baker, Specialist Cody James Towse, Specialist William Gilbert, and, uh, Specialist, uh, Mitch Daehling.
Um For a while there, I, you know, I -- I dealt with survival -- survivor's guilt.
Um, you know, I -- I would've gladly traded with any of those guys.
You know, you always -- you always bicker and fight, you know, like -- like siblings.
But when it comes down to it, the guy to your left and right is always willing to die for you at a moment's notice.
So what are you guys expecting? I mean, you guys haven't seen him I mean, I think the hardest thing was me seeing, like, him, you know, at the last minute, was I thought he had died.
Yeah.
And I think that was a, you know, I really was, you know, I grieved him.
I think it's gonna be important for the whole crew, Ward, Hill, Hixson, Silva, all of 'em, that they I think it's just gonna be important for them to see me.
There he is.
Ah, come here, man.
- How's it goin', man? - Good! You know, I've gone from the corpse they picked up, basically, to being a walking, talking, laughing, productive member of society.
[Chuckles.]
I know all of these guys think it's an honor to be able to have you on our aircraft, and I mean, don't get me wrong.
I would rather have never have met you.
[Laughter.]
Yeah.
I mean, it's always -- that's always the best thing.
It was an amazing experience, and I'm so glad I got to meet him.
Well, you guys haven't seen me stand yet.
- So I'm gonna - Let's see it.
- I'm gonna -- I'm gonna do it.
- How's the walkin' comin'? Since I had that last surgery and, um, I got these new legs, it's been a little harder.
But for the most part, it's, uh it's goin' along pretty well.
The MEDEVAC crew did a hard landing in a hot zone.
And they didn't have to.
They volunteered for that.
And I-I didn't even know them.
I was a stranger to them.
It was -- it was an easy choice for me because they -- the -- the people I was treating were my brothers.
But they did this for a complete stranger.
- We're proud of you.
- That's awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, you guys literally are my heroes.
I owe you my life, all of you.
Here's to you, guys.
People talk about missing combat because of the adrenaline rush or the adventure or the sense of purpose.
But, really, what they miss is the brotherhood.
And it's -- it's that love that -- that I really appreciate about the military, the camaraderie, the brotherhood, the fraternity of it.