Original subtitles

You guys ready to lift?

Roger that.

Packs are getting on board.

-All right. Take off. -Roger.

-Low oxygen. -Low oxygen.

You guys have your masks on in the back?

-Roger that. -I'll open the ramp and door.

-Roger. -All right, two minutes.

Roger, two minutes.

-Standing 'em up. -Copy.

Request clearance to drop.

Tiger 1-1, you are clear to drop.

First jumpers away.

One, two, three, four, five jumpers away.

The Marine Corps has its own myth around it.

I want the truth!

You can't handle the truth.

And those are the dudes people see in movies.

I thought that is the coolest thing.

That is the most badass job you can do.

You're gonna be Marines.

We're the roughest, toughest bastards on the planet.

Hey, let's hustle up!

-We get dirty. -Recovery and movement!

We do the ugly things.

-80% of it's gonna suck ass. -Slam his ass, knock his wind out.

I wanna go home.

I'm losing my fucking mind, bro.

And then 20% of it's like... It makes it worth it, you know?

We're the oldest American fighting service, founded in 1775.

On land, at sea, and in the air.

I don't wanna disparage the other services,

but there's sometimes a sense that it's more of a career or a job.

Where in the Marine Corps, it's more a calling.

-Marines. Down! -Again.

If you can't buy in, then, like, get fucked.

Contact! Contact!

When you look at all the branches, Marine Corps is a 9-1-1 force,

ready to go fight tonight.

Bobcat. Clear to lift.

Marines are sort of our entire military pressed into one branch.

They have unique abilities to overwhelm the enemy on virtually any battlefield.

With the lightning-fast, super-aggressive capacity that they're trained for.

The problem, though, is that for the last 20 or so years,

we have been fighting a war against terrorism.

And the Marines have been used like regular army,

fighting against lightly armed groups, holding territory, conducting patrols.

That would be different fighting a great power.

In the Pacific, which is now the focus for the Marine Corps.

And this is a tough neighborhood.

You've got North Korea, China, and Russia here.

We have to be ready to respond anywhere across these millions of square miles.

So the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit is here in Okinawa.

Ten-hut!

Ready to go out on patrol with these amphibious warships.

Now, we are less than two weeks away

from actually bringing all these units together.

We're expected to be a cohesive fighting unit.

We'll be sailing around the next two months.

We have to go through training exercises to make sure we're fit to the task.

If war breaks out,

it's on us to be prepared as America's first responders.

Die, motherfucker, die!

If another nation declares war on us,

these Marines will be the first to go.

Die, motherfucker, die!

They will be following orders that can get them killed.

No matter what, it'll be bloody.

Time now!

But at the end of the day, it's that young, 19, 18-year-old...

They are the guys that do

what needs to be done to America's enemies.

And not all of them are coming home.

You've got a moral obligation

to be as good as you can before this thing starts.

What?

World War III. Yeah.

I don't wanna say I'm praying for war or whatever,

but, like, that's what I want at the end of the day, you know?

That's what I fucking dedicated the last two years of my life to training for,

was that fucking feeling of sending hate downrange at somebody, you know?

I'm Pryce.

I'm a machine gunner with Alpha Company and 1-4.

We're Raiders.

Yeah.

Hi. I'm Rolan, and I'm a machine gunner in Alpha Company.

But I'm somewhat, to an extent, a go-with-the-flow type of guy,

so you just tell me what to do,

like, kill whoever.

But, uh...

-Um, I've been, like, focusing... -"Kill whoever."

Well, not like that. The bad guys, you know?

I like to say I'm a grunt by trade,

machine gunner by billet, and badass by default.

You're done.

A grunt is a hard motherfucker.

Someone that's going to do exactly what they're told,

when they're told and how they're told,

and they'll complain the entire time they're doing it.

They have this negative stigma about them, where they're just fucking stupid.

Bunch of rock eaters, bunch of fucking...

I hate that so much.

'Cause we think too.

We have fucking feelings, all right?

And people don't understand that.

I'm a grunt, but I'm not a dumb-ass, all right?

All right?

Damn, son, you're digging that shit in there, boy!

Rolan, he's my best friend.

He's a great guy. Like, my favorite person.

I lived with him before I joined the Marine Corps.

He's my family. He really is my family.

We enlisted and went to boot camp together and everything.

Company, attention!

Give me the command.

We get off the buses. They line us all up.

What's your name?

They still need two guys for machine guns.

About face.

And he's like, "I'm looking for the two biggest motherfuckers."

About face.

And he gets to me and he's like, "Okay, that's decent."

And then he looks at my neck.

I have a particularly wide neck.

And he's like, "Yep, I want you at guns."

About face.

And then he goes down the line...

About face.

He looked at Smith's neck.

And Smith also has a pretty damn wide neck.

Yeah, you're good.

And he picks me and he picks Smith.

That's pretty freaking crazy.

Then they hand out room cards, and we get the same fucking room.

I definitely know you're in a place

where you're not in a combat zone or anything like that.

And then, you know, feelings be way different

once you're actually in it.

I mean, I can't think of anybody that'd be more ready than us.

Yeah.

Machine gunner's job is the most dangerous in the infantry.

For example, in Vietnam,

the average lifespan of an employed machine gunner

is, like, seven seconds.

The idea of that is like, "Whoa."

I want to fucking outlast that seven seconds, you know?

I want that rush, that adrenaline. I want that feeling.

I love violence.

Ever since I was a little kid,

and I can say this for many other Americans,

the youth, how they always admired

the biggest action characters in the shows and movies.

Like superheroes and action figures.

Violence is the only thing that makes fucking life interesting.

Yeah, there's negative things about it,

but in my eyes, violence is, like, positive almost, you know?

I don't know how to explain it.

Maybe not towards people that don't deserve violence,

but everyone deserves a little bit of violence, you know?

I'm a fucking Marine,

and, like, somebody has to do this job.

I always thought about standing up for bullies and stuff.

So I just want to be as capable as I can

when it comes to protecting whatever family I have someday.

I think a lot of people hunger for purpose.

-Everything packed. -Ready to go to war.

So I think that was a big draw for a lot of folks.

It's not an easy life,

but that's part of what's rewarding about it.

You had to earn it.

Range control, this is Range 191.

We have all 21 packs back up-range, and ready to roll.

I am a machine gunner by trade,

which, in my opinion, is a lot more fun,

but currently scout sniper platoon sergeant.

Oh, I see. We're good to start squeezing triggers.

Thank you.

Scout snipers, they're very, like, ultra proud

and boastful of what they do and whatnot, and rightly so.

These are very high skilled, high trained...

There's a school-trained sniper.

So all our snipers had to do that.

Impact.

Boom.

-Nice. -Nice.

I grew up in the South, taught special ed for a few years.

That's where I met my wife.

Wound up getting a job for, like, an industrial cleaner company.

And we started having kids.

So I got three youngins, all girls.

They're my little birds.

The job I was working at the time,

the benefits plan was killing us.

Military had always been kinda interesting to me.

I liked... the camaraderie aspect.

I was, from day one, the old man.

I was 28.

But virtually everybody I was in boot camp with were, like, 18.

But I find myself in a slightly different role now.

I don't get to kick in doors and squeeze triggers as much anymore.

Now I have to be, like, the dad to these fellas.

Trigger pull's not working?

Yeah, something's wrong with the trigger, ma'am.

Traditionally, whenever somebody talks about "higher,"

it's just whoever outranks you.

My immediate higher is Lieutenant Miller.

Thank you, ma'am.

My name is Samantha Miller.

I am currently serving in a scout platoon commander billet.

Okay, time.

Being a scout sniper platoon commander,

I have a platoon consisting of 18 guys.

They help gather information on the battlefield

before the main force comes in

to help shape some of the commander's decision-making.

Make sure he gets the ears in.

Everyone has ears in.

Earplugs.

Becoming a scout sniper platoon commander,

I was...

Nervous isn't the right word,

but snipers are notoriously known as cowboys.

And they have never had a woman who was a platoon commander.

They've never even had a woman in their platoon.

So just kind of slowly... proving yourself.

You as a leader, but also you as a Marine.

What a loser.

It's more of like a friendship or a partnership,

but ultimately the decision is hers.

You done shooting?

-Silvestri? -Yes, ma'am.

Everyone's done?

All right. Line is cold!

My role now with this platoon is that of facilitator.

Four for four. That rates an "attaboy."

Hey, fellas, here's the mission.

Y'all are the experts with all the schools.

What do you need in order to make this happen?

Trust yourself. Look inside.

Listen to your heart. It'll guide you.

Miss, re-engage.

-Didn't guide that bullet though. -Five, four, three...

Who I was before?

I don't know. I was just some college kid from South Louisiana

that was kinda dumb and getting into some dumb stuff.

Who I am now?

I just hope that I'm someone that people can rely on.

Our mission set allows us to grab the ground guys,

pick them up, insert them to a different landing zone,

shoot guns, rockets.

So I kind of do a mix of all of it.

My name's Captain Jacob Rees, call sign "Dad."

The purpose of today is to just do an informal walk-around of our aircraft.

You get to talk to the pilots, the crew chiefs of both Hueys and Cobras.

We're basically showing them the capabilities, limitations,

how we would employ our aircraft as a weapon system.

We're going to employ crew-served weapons.

We're gonna get nose-down on the target

and then just employ rockets, rockets, rockets,

and then pull off.

I was in the infantry for three years.

Their job, it's very technical, but it's also way more physical.

Now I'm using an aircraft as a weapon.

While they're working out their actual muscles,

I get to work out the brain muscles.

Whenever we're talking about how we're shooting these guided munitions,

there's a few ways we can do it.

Ultimately, we're using this thing right here.

It's just a PlayStation controller, essentially,

and we are able to track a target.

That missile is going to track that laser to that target.

The difference between air wing and infantry is

kind of the difference between nerds and jocks a little bit?

No. Bullshit.

What I will say is

that different Marine Corps communities have different cultures.

The infantry unit,

they're paid to work out and hike and shoot guns

and all that stuff, right?

But...

I'm fucking strong.

Yeah, because you strike me as a jock a little bit.

No, no.

I, uh, think I'm a dork.

But, I don't know, I grew up around guns.

I like guns. Um...

You get to do that as a job, that's pretty sweet, right?

But then you get older, right?

And you start to see the impacts of what it means.

Right now, I have Marines that work for me.

What am I going to tell their parents?

I didn't realize that until I started... losing friends,

because, unfortunately, I have.

Right?

I think war can be romanticized.

Thanks for coming by.

I've never seen war.

And...

You know, like, I pray that I don't.

Because whenever you... pray for war,

you're not thinking of the lance corporals that are gonna go in first,

and probably... some of them may not come home.

So, I don't pray for war,

but I do work, in the off chance that it does happen,

to be able to... make sure that we win, you know?

I was able to grow up in a country

that has allowed me the opportunities

to believe what I wanted to believe,

to have the friends that I wanted to have,

of all different walks of life, backgrounds, orientations, right?

And...

Just for that alone, I'll lay down my life for this country.

Good afternoon, sir. The MEU is formed as ordered.

-Very well, take your post. -Aye, aye, sir.

Upon receiving the command, form a school circle around me.

-Fall out! -Oorah!

I'm Colonel Chris Niedziocha,

the commanding officer of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The 31st MEU...

At any given time, there's about 2,400 Marines in the MEU.

There's seven Marine Expeditionary Units,

three are in North Carolina, three of them are in California,

and one is permanently forward deployed here on Okinawa.

And that's unique for the 31st MEU.

Partnered with the Navy, so we have our own mobility.

We can get places and do things.

You've got aviation,

ground combat units,

a command and control structure,

they're all in one place under one commander.

That's me.

I'll leave you to your devices.

Nothing special about me,

as in Chris Niedziocha,

but the commanding officer of the 31st MEU is special.

And... people, especially Marines, you know,

they wanna believe in their leaders.

They want a man of character,

or they want somebody they can trust.

They know that I'm making all the right decisions,

and I'm doing the right thing, even when nobody's watching.

Especially when nobody's watching.

We only got a few days left before we go out there.

We have this much to do, and we've got about that much time,

so every day counts,

every minute counts, all right? Thank you.

-Attention on deck. -Carry on.

-One, two, three. -Four!

-One, two, three. -Five!

-One, two, three. -Six!

My experiences have taught me

you just have to spend the time and effort to conduct realistic training.

-Sir, they're ready. -Okay, thanks.

Thanks, everybody. Take your seats, please.

We've got about five days left before on load, so we spoke with the Navy.

They're ready. They're waiting for us.

We're gonna immediately go right into CERTEX, certification exercises.

The CERTEX is this exercise with a scenario.

About a week and a half of mission-essential, task-based training.

So we're gonna do a series of missions with role-players that we have to fight.

And they make it as realistic as possible.

It's supposed to approximate war.

Evaluators watch you, test you,

and if you pass,

you're certified to go in combat.

I really need everybody's full and undivided attention,

and if there ever really was a time to really lay it out on the line

and leave it all on the playing field, as they say,

this is definitely it.

Got that?

-Yes, sir. -All right.

If we don't get certified, that's a big deal.

And it would, frankly, have real consequences

that would last a long time.

There is no acceptable answer

other than, "I have failed," and, "This is my fault."

The stakes literally could not be higher for this.

There's just really not that much American combat power out here,

so if something happens in one minute, it's no longer gonna be about CERTEX.

It's gonna be about the real thing.

Okay.

Thanks, everybody. Carry on.

Let's go in. Don't leave any gear behind.

Hey, Raiders!

Hey, guys, hold your hands up.

-Count. -One.

-Two. -Three.

-Four. -Five.

My name is Jack Wasek.

I'm an infantry officer in charge of roughly 30 to 40 Marines.

We're part of Alpha Raiders.

I come from a very strong military family.

My dad was a Marine.

My grandpa fought in World War II.

My great-grandfather got his citizenship fighting in World War I in the Army.

Being raised in the culture,

it's what I always wanted to do.

This country provided so much for me and my family,

so definitely a way to give back and to serve.

If you're gonna join the military,

you might as well join the toughest branch.

We've got a boat transit planned for today to practice landings.

And this is something that the MEU requires.

This is that last rehearsal

before, "You're getting evaluated on this,

and you gotta prove that you can do it."

However, we got hit with a brutal storm.

Obviously, if we are on the water

with thunderstorms within five nautical miles,

it's a dangerous situation.

We're honestly just standing by, waiting to hear about that.

I am tired of being wet,

so coming back would not be that bad,

but... our job is to train every day

to do some shit that nobody wants to do.

And that... It's cool to me. Like, that's fucking noble.

If you're not working towards anything, what are you doing, right?

And I wanna be the best leader I can.

I wanna be a section leader, man.

I wanna be in charge of an entire machine gun section.

I wanna keep morale up.

If guys are feeling down and shit,

just go and, like, relate with them,

bullshit with them.

And make it to where, I don't know,

everything's a little bit more bearable, you know?

It takes a lot of work to do these really tactically complex events

well and safely.

You have to accept the reality of this business.

This is life-and-death stuff.

Word coming down that three US Marines have been killed.

Five others seriously injured in a military training accident.

We are learning a Camp Pendleton Marine was killed last night

in live-fire training on the base.

Five Marines were killed when their helicopter went down

during stormy weather late Tuesday night.

Sixty Marines have died in training in the last five years.

The training that the US military does

is meant to replicate the sensation of combat as closely as possible.

You're dealing with extremely dangerous weapons.

High explosives.

Fire!

I think when people sign up for the military,

they're thinking, "This is the best military in the world."

"We'll be extremely well-trained."

But they're probably not thinking that they could get killed in training.

I'm always thinking about the risks.

"Can I do this? Should I still do this? Is this worth it?"

That's kind of the question that you're always asking,

"What do I really get out of this? What could go wrong?"

It's time.

Hey, weapons, bring it in over there.

When you take command of a unit,

you're handed the unit's colors, its battle flag.

And once you get that flag, everything looks different

because you are the one actually responsible.

There is no, "Well, they said..." You're "they."

Weapons, listen up.

All right, so we had weather break our way.

What that means is we're gonna go out and train a little bit more.

All right.

Rep that Raider flag, rep that Raider patch.

It's because we do shit like this. Good to go?

Let's make it happen.

-Raiders. -Carson! Go check your boat.

Semper fi.

Honestly, I'm nervous.

I can keep myself afloat, but I'm not the best swimmer.

Hey, save your packs, today might be a wet day.

Keep it tight. Everything packed properly.

-One, two, three, up. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got you, brother.

Right now, there's no conditions outright telling us we can't do it,

so it's important to continue to get the reps in and be prepared

before we set out on ship.

Oh Shit!

Oh, fuck.

God damn, son.

It's rough out here, man.

We're Boat Company, so boats is our bread and butter.

Being out there on the water, getting comfortable with it,

not even just like the repetition,

like, actually... the actual individual actions,

is being comfortable being wet, you know?

What the fuck!

Man overboard. Man overboard.

What'd he say?

Be advised, we got a broken nose.

He smashed his face.

He's bleeding.

Roger, I'm copying on broken nose.

You wanna put him on a CRRC and bring him to the beach?

Link up with the SAFE Boat.

ESO. This is a Patrol Boat.

Be advised, I got one Marine with a broken nose.

Moving to pickup now. Thank you.

You wanna do this now, real quick?

Is he doing all right, or...?

I'm talking ambulatory, conscious...

We have him on the boat with us. It's a broken nose.

We hit that wave, and I came down on top of his helmet,

just right on the helmet.

-Is it usually this crooked? -No.

Okay. That's really bad.

Oh, yeah?

My mom's gonna kill me.

You guys stay out, stay with the group.

We'll take him into the boat basin, and then we'll return back out.

Roger.

So 1130, we're gonna go fill up the ice chest.

1700, we will occupy the range.

1800, we have the range inspector.

I'm assuming we're gonna push out a copy of that to the guys.

-Yeah. -So, yeah.

Don't worry, you don't have to dedicate all that to memory.

-Oh, thank God. -Yeah.

Alpha group, to the back.

Lahey, you still gonna be my partner?

No. Fuck no, dude.

Oh, man.

-Byron, we still partners? -I was like, "What's going on?"

-Listen. -Give me that!

Yeah, I don't know.

I just don't feel like I fit in my generation whatsoever.

My name is Logan Blake Cameron Roos.

Uh, I'm 22 years old,

and I was born and raised in the small town of Morris, Illinois,

just cornfields.

But ever since I was young, I've always wanted to be a sniper.

Maybe.

And I would be dressed up in camouflage and playing war.

You know, watching movies about guys in ghillie suits who are super far away,

and they shoot somebody,

and now everybody's scared.

To me, I was like, "That's the coolest thing ever,"

to be so dangerous and deadly.

That's what I wanted to do.

You've wanted to kill people since you were a child?

Yeah, I mean, like, I...

Without making it sound bad, uh, yeah.

Miss, re-engage.

As a man, if you are a person who is capable

of committing violence to protect others,

but don't, you are weak.

I think you're a coward.

And, as a grown man,

the more dangerous you are, the better.

So how can I be the most dangerous dude as I can be?

-Look at that. Shot four of them. -Purty.

I feel like what it is for me is I'm proving to myself I can be a real man.

So this chain, obviously super wobbly,

but you gotta get yourself in the right headspace.

Think about this as a fucking guard post,

and you just got a call over the radio from some fucking machine gunner

saying he sees Saddam Hussein down there, and you have 60 seconds to shoot him.

That's the mindset you need to have here,

that you're running up and shooting on demand, cool?

-All right. -Shooter, are you ready?

Always ready.

Hooyah, you may begin.

Your scope's on backwards. Open your scopes, guys, go and shoot!

Silvestri.

-Silvestri. -Silvestri.

You need more bullets.

-Silvestri! -Silvestri!

-Miss, re-engage. -Come on!

-You put the wrong dope in. -Four, three, two...

Impact.

Oh shit.

-Goddamn. -Nice.

32.63 with some crazy junk going down.

Some of these guys are brand-new,

but a commander expects their level of proficiency to be top tier,

because if it's not,

then there's no point in them to get on the boat.

You may begin.

-Your hair's messed up. -All right, first-timer.

You get this, I'll take you someplace nice.

Candlelight.

Flatten your fucking feet.

Are you even looking at the right target?

Today, Roos.

Miss, re-engage.

-Five, four, three, two... -Miss! He's choking!

-Double miss. -Goddamn.

Damn!

Everybody starts somewhere.

This is my first year being in the platoon itself in the community.

Miller, what are you doing, dude?

You gotta find it.

Roos, shut up.

I thought that was the point.

This was a gift to me

from my aunt and my mom.

My grandma passed away back in 2016,

and this bear was actually made out of her pajamas, um...

A lot of my buddies don't see... Don't know the story,

so they're like, "You have a fucking teddy bear?"

And they, like, make fun of it, but... I don't care at all.

Reminds me of, not just my grandma, but the love I have back home.

And this will be in my ruck if we go to war.

Wrapped up in plastic so it doesn't get wet and destroyed.

On ship, I heard it's very tight and confined space,

but I don't have any problems being in tight space with my boys.

It doesn't sound too bad to me.

Hoping that I get to hit the gym as much as I want to hit it.

I think it'll be fun.

Quit clogging the hallway.

If you're on the working party, let's move!

Which way?

Let's go!

And we're moving.

There are two ships that kind of make up our amphibious readiness group.

The America, it's a lot bigger.

It's got a huge flight deck

because they need a lot more aircraft to take off.

It's also got a lot more higher-ups.

It's where the command element is.

The America is the flagship of Amphibious Squadron 11.

It's the primary airport. It's the primary hospital.

And this is gonna be my home for the next couple months.

It never gets old seeing these.

It never does.

The F-35 combines the capabilities of a reconnaissance plane

with a bomber, with a strike aircraft.

Pretty impressive what they've crammed into this thing.

And on the other hand, the Green Bay is a little bit smaller.

The Green Bay is a ship that's been out floating for longer

than almost any other current ship in the US Navy.

For the most part, it'll carry grunts,

window-lickers, door-kickers, whatever you wanna call them.

So you'll make your way up. Again, do the proper procedures.

Once you get there, you'll salute and say, "Permission to come aboard."

All right, get up there.

Underway. Ship colors.

All right.

We're live.

Good afternoon, Team Green Bay!

This is CS-1 Pennington, and this is the First Class News Network.

Welcome to the Green Bay. We put Marines ashore.

I'm U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Angie Violante.

I'm the executive officer on the Green Bay.

The executive officer is the number two on board.

You've got the captain, and then there's me.

Everything that happens on board,

I try and keep a lid on it.

That's my day-to-day.

Underneath all that, though,

is everything that's mission-essential

to get Marines ashore.

The Green Bay is specifically designed

to transport Marines and support their missions.

Huge shout-out to all the Marines, right?

We just left Okinawa.

It's hot as fuck in here.

There's a lot of Marines in a limited space.

Why is it so hot?

Oh, it's so hot.

Two people can't walk side by side.

You have to press your body like Kronk in the Emperor's New Groove.

You're getting log jammed right here.

Is there space?

What's going on?

Excuse me.

For all you Marines, if you've never been on a boat before,

it's going to test you physically, it's going to test you mentally.

Hey, Roos.

-Where's Roos at? -Hey.

I'm a weirdo, so I like sleeping in confined spaces.

So I'm cool with the little tiny racks, the L-shaped racks.

I'm like, "I'm fine with this."

It is a sunless, moonless, sky less, ocean less nightmare of a prison.

-What's going on, y'all? Is this the LFOC? -No, LFOC is up.

-One more up. Dad gum, y'all are awesome. -I told you.

All you gotta do is go up.

Easy ways you can tell the difference

between a sailor and a Marine.

A sailor knows where they're going. A Marine is lost.

Okay, come on, y'all.

Fucking dying.

What's going on, Chief?

-Good morning. -Some...

Hey, have you guys found the gym?

There's just a lot of animosity sometimes between the Navy and the Marine Corps.

We look at them as lazy guys.

They look at us as a bunch of knuckleheads that don't really think.

I would have fucking blown him away.

I think a big misconception is that Marines are dumb,

and grunts especially are dumb.

But you gotta be smart to be a grunt.

You gotta have...

Like...

What's the word for it?

Fuck.

Oh, my shoulders are mad at me for these.

When the Navy set up the cardio room,

they're like, "No one's ever gonna touch this."

Because none of our fucking guys will.

The Marines like to say, "We do this," or, "We don't do that," "We're fat."

I think they're allowed a third of their body weight to just be fat.

-Oh my God. That's crazy. -Not that they all are.

Not that they all are.

-But, I mean... -I'll say it. Pretty much all of them are.

Some advice.

We're in charge of the mess deck,

so anyone who's coming through to eat chow,

when you go through the chow line, roll up your sleeves.

Roll your sleeves up, man!

-More? -Safety and sanitation. Yeah.

The Marines, the only thing they're good for on board, honestly,

is eating too much food.

Appreciate it, thank you very much.

Taking up space, not showering.

As soon as we left Okinawa,

you could just smell the stench throughout the ship.

It's very important to keep cleanliness on the ship, right?

Last thing you want is for someone to have a double dragon.

If you've never heard of double dragon, I hope you never have to.

Imagine puking and shitting at the same time.

A lot of times, young Marines, their understanding of things

is their lived experience.

And for folks that have been around the Marine Corps for a long time,

that's rarely the way it occurs, right?

The situation that we face out here is really dynamic.

My name's Lieutenant General Turner,

and I'm the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force Commander.

I've had combat multiple times,

and during most of my career,

the US was powerful enough

that we could overwhelm almost any adversary.

Our country and our forces haven't faced peer adversaries

since the Second World War.

The ranges of missions they could be called on to do,

some of these are very complex and would be extremely high stakes

if they were actually executing these.

Good afternoon. How are y'all doing?

Good. All right, our job over the next two weeks

is to evaluate your performance during CERTEX.

CERTEX is a series of complex exercises or tests

to certify the force to be able to do

the mission sets we think are most relevant.

Assuming they can meet all those things,

we would actually certify them as ready to deploy.

We're trying to stress you guys to prepare the 31st MEU

for conflict against a peer adversary.

We'll get a series of scenarios.

We'll decide what to do about it.

We'll be evaluated on whether we made the right call,

and then they'll evaluate how we do it.

-Game on. -Game on, sir.

Yeah, what's important here is that everybody take it real seriously,

but let me and the commodore worry about the certification.

There's a lot of focus on Colonel Niedziocha and his staff.

How long this goes hinges on how well they perform during CERTEX.

And not getting certified is a very real thing.

So Colonel Niedziocha, you could say, is in the hot seat.

If the unit fails to achieve something, then it's your responsibility.

I want a clean CERTEX, execute well, execute cleanly.

Remember what we're really here for. Be ready on the first night of the war.

Attention on deck.

Carry on.

Shipmates, XO from the pilot house.

Just a quick announcement.

Mission today is ship-to-shore movement, which means we're close into land all day.

We're already at 65% water.

We're gonna have a limited ability to make any more throughout the day

while we put the green team ashore.

That is all.

Okay, for mission overview, we'll be taking off today from the USSS Green Bay.

Supporting unit will be Alpha Company.

They'll have 18 boats with six Marines per boat.

Whenever we go through these exercises,

there's a bunch of things to get certified

to be able to go out and execute any sort of mission.

So today, we're working with Alpha Company,

and we are there to set conditions

for Alpha Company to land on this beach,

and maneuver from east to west through the beach

and secure the objective.

The mission is a combination of taking the boats,

going from ship to shore.

Then there's us,

who is going to be used to basically protect their movement from ship to shore.

Then once they land onshore,

we are going to be in the overhead providing fires

and looking forward just to clear their route.

Bobcat 8-1,

you can expect routing to Kin Bay, transition at 1,000 feet.

Bobcat 8-1 copies all.

Alfaro!

Delane!

Seymour!

Olsen!

It's the first step where we're launching from a Navy ship

integrated with the Navy.

We will take rubber boats in. We call them CRRCs.

Typical boat raid, if it's real-world, will be from over the horizon,

so over 26 miles away, middle of the night.

CRRCs is one way to take control of the beach,

and then post security to allow other forces to flow through.

Launching the CRRCs, that's really pretty sketchy, especially in the ocean,

if you got swells coming in.

So the timing's gotta be right.

The Navy, they got the two flags,

and he has a red flag and a green flag.

So red flag means you're not good to go.

Then once he puts up the green flag,

that means everyone's going to go off.

You gotta be careful because if it's too big of a swell,

it'll push the stern gate back up,

and that little swell coming back in

can put your CRRC up under the stern gate.

Launching is actually super dangerous

because there's risk of a CRRC flipping,

especially with some of the sea states.

So I have to be prepared to send these Marines

into a situation where they might die.

Push real hard! Push!

Push!

-Row! -Push!

-Row! -Push off!

Row! Row! Row! Row!

Row! Stroke!

Alpha boats going that way!

Alpha Company's role in the amphibious integrated training

is to launch several nautical miles offshore,

hit the beach, then seize that beach, destroy any enemy there,

and retain it for follow-on forces.

Be advised.

About 1,000 meters up north from our position, we have...

The last man.

...movement in the water.

We're acting as the adversary force for the boat raid.

Raider One, reorient to the east.

Trying to giving the guys a play as to what this'll look like in real life

if there were enemies on the beach.

-Keep your eyes peeled, okay? -Absolutely.

One minute, put 'em up!

Scout swimmers will ride with wave one

to make sure there's no obstacles, mines, anything like that,

then on the shore, make sure there's no enemy waiting for us.

Scout swimmers come through.

They'll set up for us to come in behind them.

Every boat raid you do, you are very vulnerable,

but it's an adrenaline rush like no other.

We're in contact. Leave it to the guns.

You've got fire, man! Don't move him!

Push to the wall. Push to the wall. Push to the wall.

That's right. To the right side of the wall. Go.

Hey, third! Hey, get to the right side of the wall. Let's go, now!

Sorry, we don't have exact grid, but it's IBO 949250.

We are approved routing and into the objective area, break.

Bobcat 8-1, you are cleared to engage.

All right, commencing engagement.

Right gun, open fire.

All right, I'm going to call it. Little bit too close.

Bobcat 8-1, I'm looking for immediate re-attack.

All right, I'm coming around.

Clear left.

Visual.

Mass Rams on.

GBU-12 in the air.

Splash at 30 seconds.

Enemy machine gun team with shoulder-launch weapon destroyed

north of our position.

Mission successful.

You're approved to push out back to the ship.

All right, you guys all set?

I'd say you guys did pretty fucking good.

Uh, you were tired coming off the boat, right?

So you're fighting to catch your breath.

Slow it down. There's the first thing.

Second thing is always have your REDS data close at hand,

especially in this kind of environment.

Cool?

-Good to go. -Thank you, sir.

Yeah, today we saw varying success.

Head out. Let's go.

But it's gonna get progressively harder.

The next time we do this, it'll be at night.

Let me know when we have 19 souls and 200 pounds of shit on.

Certification is rigorous

because out here in the Western Pacific, things can accelerate really quickly.

All it would take would be a new set of orders,

and all of a sudden we go to a really, really dynamic situation.

The world right now, it's an incredibly difficult time.

A Chinese warship crossed the course of an American destroyer.

The People's Republic of China,

they operate very aggressively here in the Pacific.

...showing Chinese fighter jets harassing US military planes in...

We see a major war in Europe for the first time in our lifetime

with the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

We see Iran using their proxies

and creating problems across the Middle East.

And then North Korea developing nuclear weapons

to be able to range to the US homeland.

Things are very tense.

We have to be prepared at any point that if things were to escalate,

the Marine Expeditionary Unit is ready to go to conflict

pretty much anywhere in the whole world.

I see you.

Looks like we have a friend off our port side.

So currently there's a Chinese information collections vessel nearby,

tailing us.

We are tracking their movements relative to ours.

The chess game of all this is that

neither side wants the consequences of a full-blown war,

but backing down does not put you in a position of safety either.

The risk calculus is incredibly complex.

Look how close that guy is.

That's crazy. What the fuck are they doing?

I'm ready for somebody to start a fight.

Dad gum. Let's yell a lot.

You're not really ever sure of what's gonna happen,

but with tensions being so high,

you know, it's only a matter of time

before something does happen.

You know, so I'm as ready as I can be.

The issue is they're right behind us,

and that's not ideal.