All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Warriors.S01E03.The.Delta.Force.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

They are
'Mission Impossible'.

An elite soldier
cloaked in secrecy.

They're deployed
everywhere.

There's places that
they're at right now

that nobody knows about.

Built to strike with
deadly precision

and overpowering force.

Delta Force is
called into action

when American's lives
are at stake.

A lifetime of training
for a moment of action.

It's muscle memory.
If I see a threat, I kill it.

Warriors aren't born...

they're built.

Understanding how
reveals the true nature

of their greatness.

From the cradle
to the grave,

these are the steps
to creating...

History's Greatest Warriors.

For a Delta Force operator,

no mission is too difficult.

The Delta Force operator is
probably the highest trained,

most professional
soldier in the world.

His training and
expertise make him

an elite warrior
unlike any other.

I was fortunate
in my career...

to walk amongst giants,
to walk amongst people that

I do think are some of the
greatest warriors in history.

The men of the Delta Force

are built to take out
any enemy.

They go after America's
most sought after targets.

The snakes in the grass,
terrorist networks...

drug networks, or narco
terrorist networks...

war criminals.

You can think of them as
the tier one unit of

Special Forces operators
in the US military.

It's really the best of
the best, the most elite,

in terms of precision,
marksmanship, skill.

Delta Force is under

Joint Special
Operations Command.

This is the president's
go-to command,

the army's premier
counterterrorism unit.

If there's an emergency,
he's gonna

pick up the phone and
call Delta Force.

Its structure is always
built on teams,

typically teams
of four men.

Some may have
different skills.

A team is a
part of a larger troop,

which is part of a squadron.

As far as we know,
there are seven squadrons

in Delta Force
at the moment.

They work on the Delta Force
compound at Fort Liberty,

formerly known
as Fort Bragg.

Delta Force has a number of
different names and acronyms.

The classified name is
1st Special Forces

Operational
Detachment Delta.

Delta Force members
will refer to it,

oftentimes in public,
simply as 'The Unit'.

The journey to becoming a
Delta Force operative

will require
extreme sacrifice.

He must endure
years of training...

become expert with all
the modern weapons of war,

and use precision tactics-
and violence-

to take out the enemy.

It is a path first charted

by one fiercely
determined man.

Charlie Beckwith
is a captain in

the US army.
He's a Green Beret.

In the early 60s, he sees
how the British SAS

do their training, he actually
embeds with them

when they go into
modern day Malaysia,

and he is totally
impressed.

Beckwith's exchange
with this

British Special Air Service
really affects him.

What he is seeing is
people who are

not just trainers,
but are doers.

They can operate
independently.

They can go undercover.

Beckwith sees that
the US doesn't really

have this type of
commando force.

And he wants to bring some
sort of force like this

to the US military.

The upper brass,
they don't see the need for

some sort of specialized
unit like this.

In 1970, the jungles
of Vietnam become

a proving ground for
America's elite warriors.

But it's a test
they're not ready for.

A lot of this idea
germinated in the aftermath

of the Son Tay raid,
a POW rescue mission.

The rescue force is recruited
from the Green Berets.

At the time, they are
the premier

special operations force
in America.

But as good as the
Green Berets are,

it just takes them too long
to train for this mission.

The POWs are long gone by the
time the team finally arrives.

The military sees the
need for something like

what will become
the Delta Force.

Charlie's real insight was
that you cannot create

a unit like this in response
to an emergency.

You need to have a force
that is already trained and

selected and ready to go.

Then, a wave of terror
sweeps the globe

in the 1970s.

This is a new world,
and warfare is changing.

You have, for example,
a Swiss Air jet that

is blown up,
killing many Americans.

The US ambassador
to Sudan is assassinated.

Generals turn to Charlie
to put together this force,

to put together the training,
to figure out

how this thing
would be created.

Built to fight terror
and rescue hostages,

Delta Force is deployed
for situations that

seem like
'Mission Impossible'.

In 1989, Kurt Muse

is working in Panama.

It's been alleged that he
was an employee of the CIA.

And he was taken hostage
by Noriega's forces

and held in a prison.

Several Little Bird
helicopters

land operators on the
roof of the prison.

They breach it.

Operators flow to
to this jail cell

where Kurt Muse is held.

They blow the jail cell open.

They give him a vest,
they give him a helmet.

And then they make
their way onto the Bird,

which then
takes them out.

They rescue him
in 6 minutes.

This was really exactly
the type of mission that

Delta Force was
designed for.

They planned and executed
the first successful army,

American-led hostage rescue

in history.

To execute these
high-risk missions,

the Delta Force demands a
special class of warrior.

Unlike other
warriors in history

who are molded from birth,

the selection process
for a Delta operator

begins with those already
considered to be

"the best of the best".

They take applicants
from all across the army,

even other services.

You could be
a Green Beret.

You could be a Ranger.
But now, with Delta,

things are raised
up a notch.

They're looking for the
person that has that

individual initiative.

Somebody who can make
quick decisions...

under stress,
when they're tired-

in combat conditions.

I was in
Third Ranger Battalion.

Once I learned
about The Unit,

I was very motivated
and very excited

to try and work
my way there.

I spent two years
going through

Special Forces
jump school.

I always wanted to climb up,
and when I heard about

The Unit the first time,
it sounded intriguing.

They were
superheroes to us.

They were exactly what we
wanted to grow up to be.

Recruiters came and
found me, actually,

and said, "We think you
have what it takes.

You should try out
for Selection."

Recruits face a
battery of brutal tests.

Most will fail.

It's designed to show you
who might quit

during a combat situation.

The 'Stress Phase' is a
physical and mental trial

designed to push Delta Force
candidates to the edge.

The rules and
requirements are

deliberately shrouded in darkness.

You start in the
middle of the night.

You're given your first
rendezvous point and,

off you go
into the woods.

Here, alone in the
Uwharrie Mountains,

comes a battle
within oneself.

You are asked to move
from point A to point B.

You're not given a
time standard.

You just have to move
as quick as you can.

I'm broken,
I'm destroyed, I'm sick.

My boots are wet.

I have blisters
all over my feet.

My rucksack is getting
heavier and heavier

as the constant rain
weighs it down.

They don't know when
they're gonna stop.

It's to see how far
you can push yourself.

If you can endure,
if you can go beyond

what normal
human limits are.

The mastery of land
navigation on hostile terrain

is essential to building
an elite warrior.

Behind enemy lines,
these skills will

determine who lives
and who dies.

When one goal
is achieved,

another is
immediately assigned.

The whole process
is about you

battling your own will.

It was just one foot
in front of the other.

I kept going...
I didn't stop.

I moved as quick as
I thought I could.

For the few
who make the cut,

another phase awaits.

Here, it's not the body,
but the mind,

that's pushed
to the limit.

At the end of the
Stress Phase is nearly

a week of psychological
evaluations.

I enter the room.

It is full of people I've
never seen in my life.

And they start
asking questions.

There is no way to
prepare for such a test.

Only those who can function
at an elite level,

under intense pressure,
will continue.

I wanted to
pull my hair out.

Then I would get another test.
Thousands of questions.

My mind is thinking
at the time,

"These are trick questions."

It has to do with your
personal psychology

and your emotions.

They're tired,
under duress, hungry,

been really pushed
to their limits.

That's what they're
assessing for-

how they make decisions
under pressure.

Are they able to do
that when exhausted?

So, you've got this
huge attrition rate,

where it's only gonna be-
not just the

physically strongest, but
the most mentally strong.

Only 5% of personnel
in the military

qualify to even try out.

Out of that,
90% will not make it

through the actual
selection process.

That leaves only half of
a percent of the entire

military making it
through selection.

After a gauntlet of
conflict and chaos,

the candidate faces
his defining moment.

And they looked at me,
and they said, "Okay.

You're young."
My shoulders drop.

"But you're very young."

I immediately wanted
to start crying and

run out of the room.

And then it comes up,
the last sentence:

"But we think you have
what it takes.

Welcome to The Unit."

But the selection process
is only the beginning.

What comes next is
even more arduous.

After demonstrating
perseverance, stamina,

and mental toughness,
the recruit has been

selected to join
Delta Force.

Now, he must learn
new ways of tracking,

of fighting, of killing.

If you make it
through selection and

you get asked to attend the
Operator Training Course,

you go back to zero, and
it builds on the basics.

It is approximately a
six-month course

designed to teach an
individual everything

they need to know to be
an operator in The Unit.

I entered OTC thinking I
knew everything in the world,

and I was ready to roll.

And then I realized
I didn't know anything.

A core set of skills

are the building blocks of a
Delta Force warrior.

Hostage rescue operations
are going to involve

breaking and entering,
breaching,

different types
of artillery.

You need to have people
with these different

sets of skills,
and combine them so that

you can deploy and be
more flexible and agile.

For six months,

the recruit's mind is
methodically shaped.

He learns,
he grows...

He evolves.

He is built to become
a superior warrior.

They teach you
everything that you're gonna

see possibly in combat.

We learned how to drive
every type of vehicle,

off road, on road.

Suburbans,
military vehicles.

We learn how to protect
VIPs around the world,

whether they be
ambassadors or generals.

You end up learning how
to skydive, free fall.

We focused on
different means of

infiltration and
exfiltration.

Whether it's getting to
the target on foot,

in a vehicle,
in a helicopter.

Explosive breaching,
I spent a lot of time doing it.

You want to use the absolute

minimal amount of explosive.

You don't want to hurt
or damage anything

behind that door,

particularly in a hostage
rescue scenario,

it becomes
absolutely critical.

The Delta Force operator
trains to fight the enemy,

and to protect the innocent.

He'll be called to
carry out missions

in an unforgiving landscape.

The idea behind the
arduous training that

these guys go
through is that

when they see it in
real world scenarios,

it's not something new,
it's not something

they've never
experienced before.

I think that paid
a lot of dividends

for these guys
in Afghanistan.

The Battle of
Tora Bora is a

US military operation to
try to go after

the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Bin Laden at this time,
he's hiding in the caves

of the Tora Bora
mountain range.

In the aftermath of
the 9/11 attacks,

Delta Force is deployed
to Afghanistan.

The mission is to hunt down
and kill Osama bin Laden,

America's public enemy #1.

Delta goes out and begins
conducting reconnaissance.

This is where you see the
training that Delta

goes through- carrying
a lot of equipment,

carrying heavy
rucksacks-

you see it pay off
in Afghanistan.

Every training we do is
exactly as we would do it

as in war, because
when you're in stress

you revert back to what
you know the most.

It's treacherous terrain.

The mountains
are so high that

you can start suffering
from altitude sickness,

or hypoxia, when your body
is deprived of oxygen.

This was about as
tough as it gets.

Bin Laden and his
fanatically loyal followers

hide among towering
mountain peaks.

They're dug in, ready to
face off against

a highly skilled adversary-
The Delta Force.

They're climbing through
the terrain in winter.

in the snow,
to find out exactly

what is happening
to the enemy.

And a short-wave radio
captured from an

al-Qaeda fighter lets Delta
teams listen in on

bin Laden's radio comms.

They use that intel to get
closer and closer

to bin Laden's
hideout in the caves.

Delta snipers pinpoint

Osama bin Laden's
cave hideout.

With their target surrounded,
they call in bigger guns.

The intelligence that is
gathered at that time is that

bin Laden was indeed up in
the Tora Bora mountain range.

They call in airstrikes,

using lasers to
designate targets.

The mountain fortress of a
determined enemy is

pounded by the
US Air Force's

most destructive bombers.

Delta Force operators
scour through the rubble.

Delta Force operators
are really

the tip of the spear there.
Al-Qaeda retreats,

and Delta operators
enter the caves.

They find basically
empty camp sites.

There's spent ammo
on the ground,

there's documents in Arabic.

But they don't
find bin Laden.

The battle of Tora Bora
reveals the terrifying power

unleashed by Delta Force.

But their target
escapes their grasp.

It appears that during
that bombing raid,

Osama bin Laden was
actually injured.

They came very close to
nabbing him before

bin Laden slipped across the
border into Pakistan.

Delta Force training
builds warriors

who can endure
fierce elements,

battle through
extreme discomfort,

and through it all make
clear strategic decisions.

At the end of the day,

the human brain is the
ultimate weapon.

These guys have to master
a whole slew of different

skills that range from
combat medicine...

explosive breaching,

using advanced pieces
of technology.

We are trained for
multiple scenarios, in case,

you know,
anything goes wrong.

We always train for the
worst possible scenario.

♪ SFX: [Helicopter blades
flapping] ♪

♪ SFX: [Helicopter blades
flapping] ♪

Every mission reveals new
lessons for the warrior,

even encounters
that end in tragedy.

It's the early 1990s,
and Somalia is

in the midst of a real
terrible famine.

Warlords start going after
the UN peacekeepers,

and really stopping the aid
that's coming in.

The US sends in
the Delta Force

to go after these warlords.

A Black Hawk helicopter
is shot down.

Rangers and the Delta
operators are both stranded

in the city of
Mogadishu overnight,

with practically the whole
city coming down on them.

I was in Somalia, 1993.

Black Hawk Down. And we
were getting hammered.

We were trapped
in a house.

We wouldn't leave the house
because the crash site

is outside the door,
and there's...

bodies of pilots
trapped underneath.

We couldn't get the
helicopter off of them,

so we had to wait.

It really does
become kind of a...

just all out drag that night

as these two forces are
fighting each other,

as one Delta operator
described it to me,

they're turning the
handle on the meat grinder.

Disaster strikes.

Besieged Delta operators are
forced to improvise

in an all-out fight
for survival.

The most elite
modern fighters in the world

have their backs
against the wall.

The Black Hawk Down
incident,

it is a watershed moment for
special operations.

Six Delta operators are
killed in the ambush,

two others are
gravely injured.

Two American helicopters
shot out of the sky

in Sunday's fighting
in Somalia...

It's a haunting operation
that provokes change...

from, you know, how we use
night vision goggles to

how we plan different
contingencies.

Delta Force rehearsed and
trained that mission over and

over and over again for years
after the incident because

what had happened out there
bothered them so much.

The tragedy
spawns hard lessons.

The Unit never stops training.

The ever-changing battlefield
always demands more.

They're constantly
striving to be

a little bit better and
a little bit better.

And I think that qualifies
Delta Force

as today's most
elite warriors.

Six months of
grueling training transforms

already skilled soldiers into

the most elite fighters
in history.

At the end of it,
I'm a million times better than

the soldier that I was
before I started.

Confident that if I have
to go to war tomorrow,

you know beyond a shadow of
a doubt that that you are

one of the best trained people
on the planet at what you do.

Built to rescue
hostages and destroy targets,

the Delta Force operator
is now

mentally and
physically trained.

Next, he must be equipped
with the weapons

he will use to fight a
determined enemy.

His body has
been strengthened,

and his mind has
been sharpened.

It is now time to
arm the warrior.

When people ask you...

how you do it: "How can
you shoot a human?"

I look at them, I say,
"It's the training."

It's literally the training
where it's beat out of you.

It's muscle memory.
If I see a threat, I kill it.

Your core level of
proficiency is on your issued

primary and secondary
weapon system.

Your primary being your rifle.

Your secondary being your
pistol or your sidearm.

Different guys on
different teams

carry different
lengths of rifles.

Snipers and your
reconnaissance guys

carry much longer-barreled
rifles for taking longer,

more precision shots.

The 416 was shorter.

I think it was a
14-inch barrel.

Just a little easier to
handle in confined spaces.

The Delta Force
operator is trained to engage

with his primary weapon...

but he will carry a backup

for life and death
emergencies.

The quickest thing to do
if you have a malfunction

with your rifle is to
transition to your pistol.

I started carrying a
9-millimeter Glock.

You know, whether it
was dirty or it was wet,

or it was muddy or whatever,
I knew that thing was gonna

go bang when I
pulled the trigger.

A member of
The Unit must be outfitted

for any combat scenario.

When a conflict escalates,

he will need a weapon
to match it.

Probably the scenario in
which an operator would use

a grenade launcher is if you
started receiving effective

enemy fire, and now you're
gonna put away the little

peashooter pistol,
you're gonna go to

something a little
more heavy duty.

One particular instance,

we were on a target
on a rooftop.

We had nothing but hostiles
inside the building

across the street,
and we were able to use

grenade launchers to
suppress that building,

to hit 'em hard with
high explosive.

The weapons needed to

confront any threat
are in hand,

but to become an elite
Delta Force warrior,

a trainee must go from
excellent to expert.

It doesn't matter if
you're a Green Beret,

an Army Ranger, or a
mechanic in the army.

It starts at square one.

You're shooting at 50 meters,
you're shooting at 100 meters,

you're shooting
at 200 meters, and then,

you're looking at
your bullet strikes,

and then you're continuing
to practice the fundamentals

to decrease the diameter
of your shot group.

So, what I want to
develop is muscle memory.

How's my trigger
finger gonna work?

How's my grip?
How's my breathing?

When do I pause?

Am I looking at my front sight
and looking at my rear sight?

You continue to build-
shooting on the move,

whether you're in the prone,
or you're on a knee,

or you're standing.

Over and over again-
did I jerk the trigger?

Is my finger on that
trigger properly?

But can he hit the target,
and only the target?

There is no margin for error.

You're gonna
have civilians,

hostages intermingled
with terrorists,

so they have to be very
precise in how they fire.

He has to strike fast,
be aggressive,

go after the target,
go after the terrorist,

but also be sensitive to
the lives that are at stake.

As much as the warrior
trains how to use his weapon,

what makes him great is
knowing when to fire.

We started our training
in the shooting house.

I look around at all the
targets in the room-

everyone has a
gun in their hand.

I'm like, "This is so easy."
We're lining back up outside,

I'm looking at the instructor.
He's like, "You ready?"

Like, "We're ready."
He's like, "Go."

I enter, turn, live rounds,
right. Shoot, shoot, shoot.

We're shooting
everything in the room.

Two in the head,
two in the head.

I'm good to go.

The instructor
walks in, he goes,

"Why did you shoot 'em?"
I start looking at him,

and then my, my face
makes it down to the hands.

And none of them
had a weapon.

Not one target in that room
had a weapon.

He said, "That's one."

"Another one and you're out."

When you train for
hostage rescue,

the most nerve wracking is
knowing that a shot that's,

that's even an inch off of
where your intended

aimpoint was could
be catastrophic.

They'll remove some
targets out of the rooms,

and they'll put students
in there to sit and watch.

Now I'm shooting in a room
with paper and humans.

Perfection is
the only standard.

There are no shortcuts.

I learned quickly that
you don't look at faces.

To know what a threat is,
you have to look at the hands.

Reliable weapons
and elite training

are critical when building
a warrior who must

respond to the most extreme
of surprise attacks.

It's 2015,
in the capital of Mali,

when terrorists take over
the Radisson Blu Hotel.

Delta Force operator,
Kyle Morgan,

is serving as a special
adviser to the ambassador.

He is woken up with
a phone call that

there's gunfire at the
Radisson Hotel.

He gets into action.

"We got to respond.
Let's, let's do something."

Gunmen start
assassinating people.

That's what they do.

Kyle Morgan, when he enters
the foyer of the hotel,

he sees dead bodies.

Kyle responds
unilaterally and

took the initiative and went
out there to try to save

as many people as
he possibly could.

He's not there
deployed for combat.

But of course,
as a Delta operator,

he has his combat gear.

Kyle Morgan is
wearing a bodycam,

his recording gives us an
inside POV of what he faces.

He doesn't know how
many enemy are there.

He doesn't know
exactly where they are.

Kyle Morgan relies on the
grueling weapons training

that has equipped him
with focus and stamina.

He's in there for
six hours, saving people.

He makes his way
through the hotel.

He's clearing rooms.

This is where that training
around uncertainty is key.

You have to look and
focus on so many things

at a time-
behind every obstacle,

every door, every window,
every rooftop.

Grenades are
tossed in his way.

He actually ends up in a
stairwell face-to-face with

the enemy, gets shot at,
shoots back.

Militants take
170 hostages,

and they end up
killing 20 of them.

Without Kyle being there,

it likely would have
been a disaster for

many more people.

He's really a hero.

Selected,
trained, and now armed,

a warrior's true mettle
will be tested next...

on the battlefield.

After 7 months,
the Delta Force operator

is honed and
ready for combat.

Built to execute missions-

dangerous, deadly,
and extreme.

When it comes to actual
man-to-man combat,

the Delta Force operator is
probably the highest trained,

most professional
soldier in the world.

Delta Force operators are,
in some ways,

today's Samurai.

It takes audacity,
it takes courage,

and it takes a person who can
reach rage through training,

and keep it controlled and
still get the mission done.

We were afforded the
opportunity to train on

mixed martial arts,

literally every day
if you wanted.

The warrior has been trained
to fight with any weapon.

And, if he is unarmed,

he must become
the weapon.

Delta Force, they do not
want to engage hand-to-hand.

But they know to be
ready for combat

without any weapons at all.

Abu Sayyaf is the
ISIS commander

who controls the oil
and gas operations.

So, the US military
goes after him,

and Delta is
leading the charge.

And it's actually Kyle Morgan
who's a part of that team.

They get involved
in a firefight,

there's even hand-to-hand
combat with some of the

ISIS fighters and the
Delta operators.

They're able to
get to Abu Sayyaf.

He resists, fires,
they kill him.

Although trained
to defeat the enemy

with devastating violence,

lethal force is often
a last resort.

The tenets of close
quarters battle is surprise,

speed, and
violence of action.

I would love to find you in
your bed asleep at night,

handcuff you,
and take you away.

You know, I don't want to
shoot people unless I have to.

So, if I can surprise you,
that's number one.

It's not always possible
to have the element of surprise.

Once the fight is
out in the open,

they need to neutralize that
other opponent very quickly.

So there's no playing around
about let's block and punch.

This is a life and
death situation.

The elite warrior
reads his enemy.

You're assessing
the entire body.

The way he walks,
the way his stance is.

There's a million things
going through your mind

in milliseconds.

Some weapons
pose unique threats.

Bladed knives
takes me back to...

the Medieval days of,
"You're gonna slash me?"

You want to make sure
that you're definitely

not being sliced.

We all have typically around
six liters of blood in

our body, but it can move
out of us pretty quickly.

Now, do I want to get
tied up in a knife fight?

Absolutely not. It's never
a good thing to do.

But, the mindset is
to win at any cost.

The 21 foot rule is,

any expert with
a bladed weapon,

can probably close a gap of
21 feet with someone

with a handgun by the time
they can pull it out.

They're already on top of
them stabbing him to death.

It's pretty brutal, and
it's been proven many times.

Combat is chaotic,
and requires the warrior

to assess a violent
encounter in real time.

The goal is to capture
the high value target.

If the person picks up a
weapon and tries to fight,

then they're taking their
life into their hands.

That's that.

In a one-on-one fight,
silence may be the

Delta Force operator's
greatest ally.

Enemy reinforcements
could mean death.

A jab
right in the throat,

the esophagus area
and the windpipe.

If I nail you
really hard there,

you're not gonna be talking
for a quite a while.

Training with the unit
prepares the warrior

for a key principle
of combat.

Most hand-to-hand encounters
end up on the ground.

It's hard to detain someone
who doesn't want to be.

When it's life or death,
you find that energy that

you've never had before
and that strength.

The Delta Force operator
has mastered

close quarters combat,

but his greatest
accomplishments

will come with his unit,
on the battlefield.

The warrior has been selected,
trained, and armed.

Now,
he awaits orders.

Delta is given exceedingly
difficult target sets.

Quite frankly, they are
'Mission Impossible'.

But, no matter how
difficult the mission is,

if the president tells them
to go, they will.

♪ SFX: [Helicopter
blades flapping] ♪

There's a situation where
maybe Americans are

taken hostage, where a
plane is hijacked.

There are terrorists
in control.

In order to stop them,
it's gonna take a

precise action by a small
group of individuals,

going quietly where
time is of the essence.

Speed is a key factor
with every mission.

But when the target is the
most wanted man in the world,

the strike must be
carried out quickly

and with precision.

So, for
Operation Red Dawn,

I'm in charge of a troop
that's in Baghdad.

The Pentagon issues
playing cards.

And so, you have
a deck of 52,

and each card has a
different high value target.

We'd hunting Saddam.

He's the top,
he's the Ace of Spades.

The Saddam Hussein
operation is the result of

months and months of
intel work by Delta.

That was a high,
high priority target,

the highest in the
country at the time.

Deploying with
high level intelligence,

Delta Force teams hunt for

Saddam Hussein's safe house.

They're getting
reports that

Saddam Hussein is here.

He's at X, he's at Y.

We were bouncing
all over the country.

We've been hunting
Saddam the entire time.

We've been hunting
his handlers.

We're hunting his family,

we're hunting anything
attached to him.

You know, they'd pass
some information to us,

and we would
launch on a target.

A lot of those leads

eventually turned up
being dead ends.

The 'Ace of Spades'
can't be found,

but every Delta operation
turns up more intelligence,

and the pursuit
picks up speed.

Within the Delta operator,
you don't just have someone

who's carrying a rifle and who's
just going after a target.

You actually have someone who
does intelligence analysis.

Delta is uniquely suited
for going after somebody like

Saddam Hussein, because
of specific man hunting

capabilities that
they've developed.

The US Special Forces
have been engaged in the

secretive campaign to capture
or kill Saddam Hussein.

We're gonna go out
and conduct

high frequency
of operations.

We're gonna hit a lot
of low-level targets and

generate intelligence
that's gonna

lead us to bigger targets.

We'd been chasing Saddam
for nearly a year.

We had a lead
on a, on a guy.

We called him
'The Golden Ticket'.

He was supposedly the
one individual that

knew where Saddam was.

That night I get an
intel hit that there's

one of his handlers in town.

And here's the
location we think.

My mind's going,
"I've heard this before."

You know, it's, it's gonna
be a no, but let's go.

Tom had noticed-
as we had rolled up to target-

a couple individuals
walking down the street.

And just kind of on a hunch,
thought, "You know,

maybe we should go
check that out."

We started taking fire,

pretty far away,
from an open field.

I'm talking to the troop,
I'm thinking, "Why?"

I think they just were
trying to draw us away.

So, that's when I
sent a team.

I said, "Walk down
to that house.

It's like three houses down,
you know, look for that-

look for the guy that
went in there and

take that house down."

One team went to the
door upstairs on the left.

My team went to the door
upstairs on the right.

I was the team breacher.

I slung my weapon
to the side,

and pulled out an
explosive charge.

This guy comes to the door
so quickly I pulled

my pistol out and stuck it
up in his face, and I said,

"Open the door." He just
looked at me and nodded.

They saw a mattress
on the floor...

And they flipped it up,
and there he was laying

underneath there with
a toy AK 47, plastic.

It's him, it's the
'Golden Ticket'.

We brought him back to our
interrogation cell at Baghdad.

And he is giving up the goods.

He knows exactly
where Saddam is,

he knows who's around him,
and he's gonna show us.

Delta Force teams home in
on their target.

They infiltrate the home town
of the fallen dictator.

They identified
two targets.

A house in a village,

and a farmhouse
outside of that village.

A year's worth of
intelligence gathering

leads to this final mission.

That evening, we went
to the house in town.

Went up to the exterior gate,
placed a charge on

the exterior gate,
blew the exterior gate open.

We blow the door open,
we go inside...

We find Saddam's cook.

I'm on a radio going, "He knows
where Saddam's at!"

Meanwhile, another team
is raiding the farmhouse

outside the village.
They're very persistent,

they don't just go to
that one location.

They go to the
adjoining locations.

At first, there's
no sign of Saddam.

The troop that
hit the farmhouse,

they were
looking around.

You know, was there a
hidden room someplace?

We knew he was hiding
out there somewhere.

We just didn't know where.

Sergeant Major was
kind of looking around,

and he sees this rug
laying in the dirt,

which didn't make
a lot of sense.

They lift up the cover...

♪ SFX: [Helicopter
blades flapping] ♪

And they find
Saddam Hussein there.

The call that came
over the radio was:

"We have a possible
for #1",

which to all of us meant,
we got him.

That's the result of good
intel work, persistence,

and being able also
to deal with sources,

talking to people
on the ground.

And it was a
successful operation.

I see him handcuffed
and looking, you know,

with a leaf in his beard.
I said,

"He looks like dirty
Uncle Fester,"

and that's when
he spits at me.

Witnessing him
walk out, for me,

was a pretty, pretty
profound moment.

You just removed
an evil dictator

from being the
head of a country.

Fighting terror in the
21st century means

operating on a rapidly
- evolving battlefield.

It poses a challenge

for even the
greatest warriors.

The Delta Force operators
are the tip of the spear-

built, trained,
and counted on

to protect Americans
and their allies

from an aggressive
and merciless enemy.

Delta force has been involved
in some of the more prominent

military operations that
you've seen in headlines.

This is the unit that
killed al-Baghdadi in Syria,

the leader of ISIS.

Delta Operators
successfully get to him,

and he's killed when he blows
himself up in a suicide vest.

To me, it's like being in
the NFL at the Super Bowl

every day- crushing skulls
and winning the game.

And it's painful.

And as you get older,
you break down.

It's a young man's game.

It is.

This job takes a lot of
wear and tear on

the body and the mind,

and, and on the
families of these guys.

As an old warrior
leaves the battlefield,

a new warrior takes his place.

Here, the storied history of
the Delta Force

precedes him.

The new fighter, carefully
selected and trained,

stands on the shoulders
of the elite few

that came before him.

There is a mindset that
comes with being a warrior.

The ones that are successful
are the hungry ones,

the go getters, the ones
with drive that don't need

somebody to tell them
to do it, to do it.

It's that thing in your
character that

makes you want to go
above and beyond.

The ultimate warrior
doesn't want to lose anything.

The ultimate warrior
wants to battle through

anything possible,
and to do that,

you have to be
always improving,

always growing.

The need for Delta isn't
going away as we think about

warfare further into
the 21st century.

What worked a few years
ago no longer works.

The enemy is adapting,
learning,

changing,
getting better.

They're using special
operations tactics.

That's the type of warfare
that is ahead of us.

So, there's gonna be
a bigger need for

The Unit.

Their mission set has
evolved greatly in the

weapons of
mass destruction space,

counter proliferation
operations.

There are also, you know,
World War 3 type scenarios

that The Unit has to be
prepared to respond to.

Delta is
not waiting for

terrorists
to do something.

Delta is now...

going to target terrorists
where they actually

are operating,
where their command is,

crushing their network,
seeking them,

finding them,
killing, capturing.

As the battlefield
evolves, as the enemy evolves,

your training and the
education you're giving to

new operators coming up
through the course

is evolving with that.

I do think it's one of the
things that sets us apart.

The future is kind of
transpiring right now,

and it's starting to look
more and more

like science fiction.

Delta Force
operators continue to

deploy around the world.

They have capabilities
that the world

has never seen before.

They train in some very
dynamic scenarios

that have never
been revealed.

They've never needed to
be revealed, thankfully.

They're always deployed.

They're deployed now,
they're deployed everywhere.

There's places that
they're at right now

that nobody knows about.

Let's just say that these
warriors are smart.

They're not resting
on their laurels.

They're noticing how
the enemy is adapting.

They're noticing how
the threat is changing,

and are adapting accordingly.

His extraordinary effort
to become the best,

his state of the art tactics
and covert training...

and, his determination
to carry out the

most difficult missions ever

earn the
Delta Force operator

his rightful place among

History's Greatest Warriors.