Original subtitles

- When he decided to back, I tried to stop him.

He had made up his mind.

- I told him, "Your blood in the sand over there

ain't gonna change a damn thing."

Anybody can die, living's the bitch.

- ISIS infiltrated Kirkuk over night and laid siege

to neighborhoods across the city.

- How many human bodies can I see before

I can't feel feelings?

- He calls it going down the rabbit hole.

- IV line!

How long can you run before your mind just snaps?

[explosion]

- ISIS, one of the most dangerous terrorist

groups on earth.

They've brutally conquered territories all across

the Middle East and spread fear across the globe.

Their goal is to create a worldwide Islamic state,

and they will do anything to achieve it.

Against the advice of the U.S. military,

some Americans are fighting back.

- In the truck! In the truck!

- This isn't just their war, it's everybody's problem.

- Over here, somebody grab him!

- Some of us were not able to just sit back

and watch this happen on the news.

- We're men of action, not men of words over here.

- This is their story.

[Sirens]

- [Muffled speaking]

- Shh, shh, shh, shh.

- A father walked up with his son in his arms.

He had a nice hole in his chest.

Probably all this from a mortar.

- [crying]

- Yeah, yeah, I know, buddy.

[crying]

- Shh, it's okay.

- We've got two IV lines in him.

I rode with him in case his lung went down,

which there's a pretty good chance of.

- [Speaking foreign language]

- It's a long drive.

Massive bleeds both legs.

- Massive bleeds both legs.

- Hole in the right lung.

He had like a 50 percent chance of making it.

We don't get the see the end of most of our patients.

You put them in the ambulance, send them back to the hospitals,

and just expect the worst.

It doesn't help knowing that your patients aren't making it.

It just makes your day worse.

You feel pretty useless and empty.

I'm starting to think what does it matter that I'm here?

ISIS, they know their end is coming.

They know their time is marked for them in Northern Iraq.

Eventually ISIS's main body will be destroyed,

but it's gonna go from fighting an army of bad dudes

to fighting an insurgency all over again.

- Today as many as 50 ISIS fighters attacked

the city of Kirkuk.

- This looks like retribution by ISIS for what's happening

on the battlefield around the city of Mosul.

[gunfire]

- I need some bandage.

- The hard fought battle to retake Mosul from

ISIL forces just entered a new phase.

- Iraqi forces say they've retaken all of the east side

of the city, and they're taking aim at ISIL

positions in West Mosul.

- On the streets there is a sense of relief.

- But it's some way off normal.

Many buildings are damaged.

People don't have basic water, sanitation,

or electricity services.

- Iraqi troops expect a much more difficult fight

to liberate West Mosul.

- Ambulance, go, we need these two.

Yeah, yeah.

Are we ready for what's in Mosul?

You know, three months ago when we had first started this is,

you know, early November, we had zero ambulances.

There was two to four medics, you know,

including me, and so to me, no matter what happens,

the situation is a hundred times better than it was in the past.

Will it ever be good enough? Probably not.

I mean, you're just never gonna have enough ready

for this kind of thing.

I am also afraid that the battle for Western Mosul

will be the most intense fight we've seen in Iraq.

- We are approximately five kilometers from

the center of Mosul.

There's still fighting going on in the city.

- We're leaving.

We're gonna go back and rest and refit.

Jorge's going home.

We'll be back out here in two days.

- What are you doing over there, buddy?

You trying to loosen that?

You have a ball cap on.

- It doesn't matter.

- Dude, please don't.

Jorge, please don't.

THanks. If that breaks, I'll kick your [bleep] ass.

I mean, I'll try, and you'll beat me up.

I won't fight Jorge fair.

I'm just gonna punch him in the dick as hard

as I can and run away.

- Cheers, guys.

- I need to like wrench this on.

I worry about Pete.

He's pretty scatterbrained and stressed out.

- The second phase of Mosul will be something like

my worst fears.

West Mosul is the old city where streets go down to six-feel

wide, and you can't fit a Humvee inside anymore.

Those are just gonna be ground units kicking down

doors where guys can literally be on the other side of it

and thrown a grenade across a small alley

and blow those guys up.

There's three-quarters of a million people on the west side.

That's a lot of people that are gonna get

fucked up on that side.

I hate that statement

"There's only so much you can do."

But how do you find out exactly how much you can do?

It's by trying a lot and failing even more times,

and I have tried and failed a lot of times.

And I've figured out what I can do.

I know my little realm of possible change,

but that gets smaller every day it feels like.

- I'm not sure why the truck's still running,

but whatever's clever apparently.

Once I came to the decision of returning,

I called the YPG, asked if they were willing to receive

me again, and they said yes, and within a couple weeks

I was back in Syria.

Being immersed in the culture, I've grown to love and respect

the Kurdish people here.

The YPG and the Kurds,

they're not gonna stop this fight.

Even if between a hundred of them they had one Kalashnikov.

They would still fight.

- [speaks in foreign language] No, it's video.

It's video. [speaks foreign language]

- Yeah.

- What are we doing here today?

- The morale and the upcoming operation?

- The end game of ISIS is now in sight.

- ISIS currently controls two major cities,

Mosul in Iraq, and Raqqa, which they consider

their de facto capital.

- The YPG are involved in an operation to retake Raqqa.

- A focus on surrounding the city on the ground.

Similar tactics are being used in the battle for Mosul

across the border in Iraq.

- For the last three years now, the YPG have been pushing

ISIS one town at a time, one city at a time,

one riverfront at a time, and it's slowly eroding what

ISIS has been able to capture in the last three years.

Now that Mosul is halfway liberated,

the last remaining stronghold for ISIS is the city of Raqqa.

When Raqqa falls, my volunteer work is done here in Syria

and in the Middle East.

We're just waiting for the word saying it's okay to go in.

There will be like probably six of us,

maybe seven, eight--

- Hit the restart button.

- Hit the restart button.

- I first met Jeff and Firat in Tel Tamir before

the Shaddadi operation.

They'll forever be brothers of mine.

♪ Go run that game

♪ I love that thing, what's that tattoo♪

♪ What's that say

- And get outta there.

As guys that have been here two, three times,

you know, we can share stories, we can give each other advice.

- There was one guy when we were getting ready to leave

for the last push that we made when me and you went.

- Yeah.

- And this guy was just like walking off.

- They're yelling his name, "Achmed!"

He's just walking home, bro.

He's just going. He quit.

He's like, I'm not going on this operation.

- He's like, no, I'm done.

- You know whose t-shirt this was?

Levi.

- Really?

- Yeah.

His sister sent it to me.

She said it was his favorite t-shirt.

He wore it so much, they said they called him "Bear."

- Levi dying was a direct motivator for me to return.

The fact that he can no longer fight,

and so I can--I can.

I don't know.

There's probably an infinite amount of reasons

that ran pretty instantaneously through my head

as I made that final decision that yes,

I'm going to return.

But at the same time, I mean, I can't be

selfish and wallow in pity for the death

of one person when there are hundreds dying.

So what we see here, this was all built by Daesh.

Where we're currently staying was a compound.

They say it trained something like 5,000 Daesh.

This is one of the obstacle courses.

They call it Commando Course.

[shouting in foreign language]

- The ankle breaker

As we get closer to Raqqa, we're walking into

the enemies backyard.

They know exactly how this city is laid out.

They fortified it themselves.

They've rigged these buildings.

They know where everything is.

We're walking in blindfolded.

Ah, if you're watching this on film,

I bet it looks so easy.

We're gonna be seeing stiffer resistance fighting

against guys that have been in these cities for years,

and they're ready to die fighting.

It's insane walking into this, but someone has to do it.

The latest news from what I heard yesterday,

two more Westerners were killed, one Canadian and one Brit.

Daesh now has their bodies, and they're using

them from propaganda.

So they're taking video and pictures with these

dead Westerners to bolster their cause.

This fucking pisses me the fuck off,

more than anything.

That puts the KIA of us Western volunteers,

not mercenaries, we do this free of charge, at 21.

It's an uphill battle to say the least,

and the latest word is that we'll be heading

to Raqqa in less than one month.

It's a burden on everyone's shoulders.

When we think about our loved ones that have

passed over here fighting the good fight,

trying to spread democracy and freedom,

they died protecting a very noble cause,

and this to me is a hero,

and these guys will always reign as heroes

for as long as I'm alive in my memory.

- So the operation is about to start.

[Speaking foreign language]

- I'm more than excited to get onto the front of Raqqa.

I got you with that Pepsi, bro.

- Yeah.

At the very least, in revenge for them that

can't be there anymore.

- We have this massive ISIS banner that we took

at the entrance of this town,

and all the guys that were there, we all signed it.

- I'm taking it back to America as

a souvenir from the war.

I wanted to be at the heart of the battle.

Whoo!

For as long as I can remember, that urge has always been there.

It's this nagging feeling that I need to do this.

Oh, shit, that was awesome!

- When the moment of truth comes,

I can say, hey, I was there.

I can tell you all about it.

From my perspective, this is what I saw.

Whoa, it's raining down.

Puppy, get out of there.

I might have come here for selfish reasons,

but good comes out of this too.

We were up in Sinjar Mountain, it's very cold up there.

On the road back, this guy was on the side

of the road just a mere six inches from traffic,

so we took him with us.

I'm gonna get all the records in order and bring him

back to America and he'll be a reminder.

You're gonna be a naturalized citizen of America.

Make America great again, little puppy.

I think they came up with the name Trigger, but --

- Twigger?

- [Bleep] piece of shit.

Ah!

Your teeth are so sharp.

- The future for me, I just want to shoot with my camera,

and that's it.

I want to be in places for the next crisis.

Whatever happens next,

I want to be in all these hot spots.

You need to have that perspective like you're

there with them, you're not looking from the outside in.

I try and make people look as stoic as possible,

or heroic, because I think that's how they see

themselves, right?

That's how I kind of like -- I see myself in a way, right?

There's so many forgotten stories,

so many forgotten heroes.

I wanna try and capture that.

- I think I've been around for 11 or 1200 patients

at this point, at least.

I've kept a few people alive, and most of those people

would look at me for one moment and find more

hate in their heart than anything else because the

amount of pain that I just caused them.

This stupid number 14 that keeps rattling in my head.

It's the number of pediatric patients I've

ridden with that died.

14 kids, that's a lot.

I've physically felt myself losing the battle to death,

right through my fucking hands I've felt it.

And it destroys you when you know that you've done

everything in your power and this kid still died.

[crying]

- [crying]

- IV lines, now!

IV!

I don't have time.

- [crying]

- I always had this idea in my head that dealing with

all this shit, which is pretty [bleep] horrible shit,

there was always a point where I could bend,

bend, bend, and I knew when I would break.

Two nights ago it was Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day 2011, one of my best friends,

Andy, was shot in the neck and he later died.

This year Valentine's Day I thought about everything

happened in the three-and-a-half months before that,

and then I started thinking about Andy.

Oh, and it hit me like a fucking tidal wave.

I just wanted out of here or a while.

I've relied heavily on several people.

The only reason I'm sane right now.

That's Alex.

That's my girlfriend.

Oh, she is not gonna enjoying being a part of this.

She's a photojournalist.

She's in Germany doing an assignment, which sucks.

- Yeah.

- Pete needs to kind of get his head right

and come back here and hit it hard.

Let Pete go relax and I'll take care of things.

- The battle for Western Mosul will start.

I will not be here.

Not being here with our team as they go out,

that does bother me.

- Have fun, man.

- Yeah, two weeks.

- Look at me.

I am the captain now.

[laughs]

- Oh, you've been waiting for that shit

for a while now.

I'm more worried that I'm not gonna fit back

into normal society again.

There are very few people who are gonna understand

what the hell I'm going through.

- Bad days in Eastern Mosul were the 50, 60, 70 casualties

a day, and now I think Western Mosul will dwarf

Eastern Mosul, you know, 120, 130 hard core trauma

patients in a single day.

Video check.

- Roger, I got you.

- Okay.

We are on our way out.

We're gonna begin an offensive soon without Pete.

I'm nervous, you know.

Pete's good at thinking on the fly.

He knows a lot about this stuff, more than I do.

Yeah, I wish he was around, but it's kind of nice

to know that it's my show for a little bit too.

- We're moving from village to village pushing in kilometer

by kilometer coming up the Euphrates River forcing

ISIS into a defensive posture within Raqqa

where we will finish them.

We're a quick response force moving through villages

and going house to house,

and we just move as fast as we can.

ISIS is well known for their tunnel systems.

They can tactically withdraw from one side of the city

and appear on the other side of the city

within minutes sometimes.

If we're meeting any resistance or we're

seeing anything sketchy,

we're calling in air support.

Oh, whee!

The U.S. has been stepping up

their air support,

and ISIS is steadily retreating from us.

I'm very optimistic about this new arrangement.

What I'm looking most forward to is fighting inside of Raqqa,

liberating the city.

- 40 kilometers to Raqqa. Here we go.

- Yesterday I was reading one of these serial tags.

This is a Ford.

Made at home in Detroit, Ford F550 Guardian.

Earlier today we were mortared.

We haven't located the perpetrators.

- Wait, wait, wait.

Wait.

- I hate talking about my emotions,

can't you tell?

Pete's been in Iraq since a year ago last November,

and I'm anxious to reconnect emotionally would

be the best way to put it.

When Peter was nine and his brother was ten,

his father and I got separated.

That was tough for the boys, and they were angry.

He had a huge fight with his father and myself.

It was one of the few things we agreed on that Peter

wanted to join the Marines in January

of his senior year of high school.

So we always knew it was going to happen.

When he gets something in his head and he's

passionate about it, there's no stopping him.

It's hard to answer a lot of questions about him,

because I don't know necessarily who he is

compared to who he was a year ago.

Pete!

This is a new man that's here,

and I'm anxious to see what that's like.

- Hi, Mom!

- Hi, Pete!

- Nice to meet you.

- I'm meeting Alex for the first time.

She's incredibly significant in his life.

- Gross.

- Go shower.

- What?

First time I met Alex, it was really muddy and crappy out.

There was three old ladies helping their

children across the street.

It's cold, and these old ladies are in sandals.

I was about to get out of my truck and go help them across,

then Alex came out of nowhere and just starts

like moving the kids.

And I was like, I am in trouble.

She's got bigger balls than most of the guys I know.

- I want to Iraq looking for stories.

I heard from some of the other journalists that there

were two American medics treating casualties in

the battle for Mosul,

so I called them up and they said come out.

When you work in these high-stress situations,

I think you get to know people really quickly.

You see their good sides, you see their bad sides.

I didn't have any feelings for him when we first met,

but the more we worked together,

the more I saw him as like a really

great leader and a great man.

Someone who has compassion, drive,

and that's what really drew me to him.

I think he has a really good heart.

- Yeah.

I'm a male version of her.

- I can tell he's calmer when I'm with him than when

I'm away in England or Germany or somewhere else working.

On Valentine's Day he called me and he's like,

I need to leave, I need to get out.

I was like, then I'll come with you.

- Oh, my God.

Soon as I got here, it was just like stress melting away.

I got on that couch, my mom sat right there,

and it was just easy as could be.

- We're gonna go dancing! - Yes.

- You know how you go south from here.

- Mm-hmm.

- And on the right.

You're not listening, you're mooning over--

- Mooning? Swooning.

- As much as I'd love to have him here and want to

hold him and want todo all of that at the same time,

he's gonna be gone, you know, in two days,

so this is just come here, chill, try to get you relaxed.

- That was between deployments.

- No, that was right before the first.

I was like, "Dad, I'm going on deployment in a couple weeks,

and there's something I really have to tell you."

And I just sent him a picture of me with this

perfect little blonde child,

which looked like it could've been my kid.

He, like, calls my brother and was like,

"What do you know about this?"

He's like, "Oh, my God, he told you?"

[phone ringing]

- And he calls and he goes, Mom--

- Who is it?

- Hello?

- The intensity of what is happening in Mosul,

he feels so responsible to be the one that saves these lives,

and if they don't get it

right they're not gonna save the lives.

- Apparently there's a problem which no one's told me about,

I guess because they're trying to let me enjoy vacation.

- What are you supposed to do?

- This is the ridiculousness of the situation.

Other international medical groups

could not, would not go into Mosul.

We went in there.

- Derek.

- Hey, where are you guys?

- We are now being told that I am unqualified,

half of our team is unqualified, and that it would be better

to have no medical staff there than the ones that are not

deemed by the international medical community

to be qualified.

What the fuck?

- Where's IV? Where's IV?

- For two months we were left alone because no one

had the balls to come in there and do this.

Now they're telling me personally,

[bleep] yeah, my ego comes into this,

that we're not qualified.

Bureaucracy, it's just arrogance.

- The ridiculousness that I have to through just to get

supplies to people on the front line who

are treating civilians, it's fucking insane.

[yelling] [bleep] me.

Ah, I need a minute.

- When it comes to stress of the job,

he makes his work his life, and I've seen that explode.

He's not good at knowing when there needs to

be some sort of breather.

- All right.

We're just gonna run across this road.

All right, now.

Run in the bar and lock the door.

Cheers.

The other day she was sitting there,

and she was like, "Are you okay?"

I was like, "No. "I think I wanna cry."

She was like, "Okay, then cry."

I cried.

So instead of just being like, no, fuck you, crying,

like sadness, like uh,

pushing it deep down inside, I was letting it happen.

Holy crap, that was fast.

Thank you.

That's the first time in a long time I thought-

- You got a little vampire drool there.

Holy shit, if I wanna be with this woman,

I have got to be better.

In my personal life I'm pretty bad at finishing things.

Mosul isn't done.

- No, I'm not. I'm a journalist.

- What else could I do with my life?

I'm 27, I don't even have a bachelor's degree.

I got four years of Marine Corp.

Alex, this is Nick.

- Hi, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

- He's also a former Marine.

- Yeah, Iraq and Afghanistan.

- Nice.

- What in the world could I possibly be doing that

would make a bigger impact on other people's

lives than what I'm doing right now?

[gunfire]

- I think spending four years in a combat role definitely

has defined who I am.

For the most part, what I know is what I've

seen on the front line.

I'm here as a selfish individual going to warzones.

- To do bad things to bad people.

- Ooh, Goddamn! It's time to saddle up.

Oh, whoo-hoo!