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[dramatic middle eastern stringer]

[high-pitched ringing]

WADE: Yeah, we're going into Baghdad.

We're gonna take Baghdad.

The Army had been engaging on the west side of the city.

They had dropped some paratroopers

into the, I think Baghdad airport.

So they had a foothold there.

But we were gonna come in from the east and because 24

hours prior to that, Intel had seen, or there had

been a public appearance of Saddam Hussein with the crowds.

And there's footage of this.

I remember watching footage later

on in years later afterwards.

It was like, oh, timeline connected it.

He'd done his first, like, outside of this famous mosque,

the rally is Citizens and then taken off.

And that was the last known place where the-- so we were

going to these palaces that had been bombed to look for him.

[dramatic middle eastern music]

WADE: We came in from the west side of the city.

And soon as we got on the outside

the enemy, the Fedayeen Troopers,

the Fedayeen were these guys in black pajamas.

They were, you know, Iraqis trained sort of

like paramilitary guys.

They blew up a oil tanker to sort of try and get us,

but also to like, sort of mark to the city,

"Hey, US is in this side of the city."

And as soon as that thing went on, it was like World War III.

I mean, I was in the back of a high back Humvee 'cause

what it was me and a couple other 51 that had

been making explosive breach charges to blow doors

because we were like, we're gonna hit a pallet.

We're gonna have some big heavy doors.

We gotta blow some doors.

And so while we're driving into the city before

we got to the actual city, we were making explosive charges

in the back of a Humvee with lights on our heads and

bumpy traffic, you know, movements.

And then as soon as, like, the shooting started,

we lift up the-- 'cause we were in a clear sight.

It was like little canvas-backed Humvee.

We open up the side thing so we can see.

And I had my night vision 7-Bravos on,

which is like a monocle that covers both eyes.

So it's really bad.

You don't get depth of perception or nothing.

And you just see all of our IR lasers from

everybody's rifles pointing everywhere.

And then you see all the shots going and the tracers.

- [gunfire] - WADE: It was like, intense.

- [gunfire] - [tense music]

[indistinct shouting]

WADE: And what happened was we got into the city and

the Abrams, I guess leading the way got lost.

And we had to go back through another, like,

we called it the gauntlet because it was intense.

I mean, there was guys left, right, center, above,

below shooting at us, the whole battalion.

It was like a shooting gallery for these guys.

And they just-- our battalion loved it so much

we went back through it again because we had

to take another turn to get to this palace.

Later on, I think [indistinct] palace.

We came in the green zone,

and I think it actually was in

another documentary called Gunner's Palace,

I think, from the video-- from the footage of that one.

I think I could say, yeah, that's the same palace we hit.

MAN: All right, let's go get ready.

- Go ahead. - WADE: We fight.

And you know, that fight starts probably

like three, four in the morning or something.

I can't remember. But we fight and we

finally get to the palaces

a few hours later after taking casualties.

I know Alpha company lost Gunner Sergeant Bori got shot in

the Humvee in the head, and he was killed.

Then, you know, everybody, every company took

casualties, guys got shot in the back

of the AAVs, RPGs were hit, and Humvees.

MAN: We just had an RPG impact right next to us.

[gunfire]

Miraculously nothing, you know, hit us. I mean,

my buddy's Humvee got hit with a RPG and went through

the driver's window and hit

the driver's windshield and

blew out the windshield forward.

And it had hit like his ISO mat or sleeping mat.

'Cause he had had it on the side of this like thing.

And that ricocheted saved I think a lot of people's lives.

It was just like crazy stories like that happened.

MAN: Stay back, stay back. We're good. Good.

One guy, one of the 81s platoon sergeants, he got shot.

He was wearing a tanker's helmet 'cause had

to be audio into the AAV. And he got shot.

And the bullet literally skipped over his head and went

out the other side.

He had like the burn mark from it.

And you could see like the Kevlar helmet.

You could see the scratch mark from where

the bullet just went out that way.

Couldn't believe it. You know,

like there was stories like that.

And we got to the palace and we breached inside,

got inside the palace, it was abandoned.

We had JDAM it weeks prior. Wasn't much into it.

But as soon as we got in there, then the Fedayeen tried

to-- they were really attacking position then.

And the mosque was still a block away.

And that was Alpha company's objective,

was to go clear the mosques to make sure he wasn't there,

which I don't think he was gonna be there.

So they go and as they're attacking the mosques,

you know, the Fedayeen really just poured on us.

They're trying to overrun.

But we had eight tens come and shoot their gun on

the streets, which was really cool to see.

[imitates gunfire, laughing] Just stopped right there.

[dramatic music]

WADE: And since we have weapons

that we can hop frequencies and get on like the Aircom channels,

but you'd see it and you'd see it coming and lining up.

And then you'd see it literally see the cloud of smoke.

And then you'd see the jet literally slowdown

in space and in the air.

And then you just hear the [imitates gunfire] of

the actual gun we got going.

That shit tore those boys up.

I mean, that gun is a badass.

It's a badass gun, badass weapon.

Having that come in, you were like phew!

And then I remember we, you know, 'cause we had

invaded this palace, so there was ten, 12-foot walls

that we were sort of behind, but we were getting on positions

on palace roofs and stuff like that to get eyes on

the alleyways and the roads to fight these guys off.

And I remember we had a Chinook come in.

Our FACA called in a Chinook to get casualties and prisoners out

and also drop off ammunition and medicine and stuff like that.

So I remember it came down and it was like small

courtyard because all the explo-- like

from the JDAM there was like a lot of debris.

And it like had its tail down, basically.

Picked up the casualties, picked out some box of ammo.

And then I remember it getting up,

and then I see RPGs fly by it.

You're like, whew, that could've been dangerous.

Like if Chinook go down that's the most vulnerable position.

Once it gets to like that it's going down.

But yeah, so the pilot took a face maneuvers.

I think they loaded up Gunny Bore's body on that one.

But yeah, you know, we had a good firefight.

A good firefight that morning into the early, you know,

afternoon things sort of quieted down and started doing patrols.

And we started, you know, fortifying our position.

[high-pitched ringing]

[dramatic middle eastern music]

♪♪♪

[music fades]

JOHN: I didn't have a lot of direction.

I graduated high school.

Of course, a lot of the really good

friends I have from back then, I still have now.

But it was a lot of just getting up every day, going to work.

I worked at a jail before I joined the Army.

I went to college the first time.

And like a lot of people that joined the military,

we weren't-- I wasn't mentally prepared or,

you know, emotionally prepared.

I was still a little, just a little juvenile in actions.

But it was like everybody else.

You're just kinda ignorant to anything you're gonna

go through whenever you get in the military.

So it was just living life every day, like I said, going to

work and playing with friends, hanging out, seeing family.

WADE: You know, just typical suburban life.

Played baseball as a kid, you know, sports,

had my brothers ran in the neighborhood,

got in trouble, you know, all the usual, all usual things.

And then, you know, around middle school and high

school started exploring more and doing things my way.

And I always knew I was gonna join the Marines, you know.

Young in high school I knew I wasn't ready for college.

I didn't have the maturity,

if that's possible to think like that.

I don't know. I just knew it wasn't for me.

And so the Marine Corps for me early on was something

I wanted to do at least.

And, you know, having my father serve in Vietnam as a pilot in

the Air Force, he wasn't too keen on me being in the Marines.

'Cause his last tour of duty he was repatriating the remains

of servicemen to Dover, Delaware from Vietnam.

And so he definitely didn't want me be in the Marines, but...

OMAR: I guess I was just a normal

mischievous kid, you know, liked to explore.

I know we went fishing quite a bit.

Went down to the river and just had fun as much as we could.

We didn't have a lot of money.

So whenever those times came that we were able

to get out, you know, we made the best.

It's just gonna sound silly and posterous I guess

but just watching Rambo and Predatorand stuff

like that made me wanna join.

We had various engagements then on my third deployment.

This was during the surge of 2006, 2007.

And my unit was sent to Baghdad.

On that deployment, I earned a silver star

and my first purple heart.

MAN: Oh, damn!

[indistinct shouting]

[gunfire]

OMAR: We were out on a joint patrol

with the Iraqi national police.

And I was in charge of a small team of INPs.

[camera shutter]

So we were set up on like at a T intersection.

The enemy was behind us roughly 100,

200 meters if that.

And as we were setting in,

we started receiving fire from the rear.

And I was shot.

I was shot in my right thigh.

And then two of my men were shot as well.

[gunfire]

I didn't realize they were shot until I moved to

cover behind those walls that I was instructing the INPs

to return fire when I noticed that I was missing two of them.

I returned some fire to kinda like keep the bad

guys' heads down 'cause they were still getting shot at.

And I ran out and I dragged one of 'em, one of the INPs,

and I went back out there and was still getting shot at.

I picked up the other guy and carried him.

And I put him behind the wall returned some more fire.

And my squad leader finally got to me and

was trying to patch my leg up.

Though I was shot and just bleeding,

like, just drenched in blood.

But, again, I wanted to make sure my guys were good.

They did have multiple shots.

One guy was shot in his back and in his arm.

The other guy was shot in his belly and his leg.

Everything was slow motion. Everything was slow motion.

And, you know, the guys that saw what I did were like,

"Dude, you were, you know, moving so fast.

And it looked like we were watching a movie."

And me, I felt like I wasn't moving fast at all.

Like I had sandbags weighing me down.

But my guys weren't heavy when I picked them

up or when I dragged them.

But I felt heavy.

I couldn't tell you what I was thinking.

It was just get to them, you know,

get to them and bring them home.

And a lot of people, you know, would tell me

like, "Dude, like, why'd you do that?

You're crazy. Those guys aren't American."

But they were fighting.

They've been fighting beside us for a few months.

And, you know, you get to know people.

You eat with 'em, you sleep with 'em, you know,

you sweat with 'em, you bleed with them.

And it doesn't matter if they were Americans or

from Mars or whatever.

They were my guys.

[soft pensive music]

On my second deployment,

something very, very significant did happen.

I received my citizenship, so I accomplished the mission

that I initially set off for and becoming a citizen

and earning my citizenship.

And of all places, I received my citizenship in

Iraq, in Baghdad, in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces.

And yeah, it was awesome.

So initially on my first deployment, my resident alien

card had expired and the guys would mess with me,

like, "Dude, you're gonna get deported.

Instead of going home, you're gonna go to Mexico."

And I was freaked out 'cause I didn't know anybody in Mexico.

You know, all my family's here.

And we tried the process for the citizenship.

And then before my second deployment,

I had taken the picture and everything.

And during--

If I'm not mistaken, like we were coming back from

a mission and I found out that I had to go to

Baghdad to receive my citizenship.

♪♪♪

OMAR: So they had an actual ceremony.

I wanna say it was over, maybe over 300 people.

It was quite a bit. Quite a few folks.

It was just awesome.

'Cause President Bush gave a speech to us.

And I just felt like I've done it.

[high-pitched ringing]

The day that I was injured... [sighs]

we had aerosoled out around two o'clock at night.

We rode in a Chinook out to the middle of nowhere,

into a valley, and walked for a couple

hours to set up on a coot.

We were out on a mission, it was called Operation Shark Attack.

It was gonna last like a week or so.

And it was not long after Bergdahl had

gone missing in '09.

I think, by the way, a crow flies.

We were 20 miles or so, I think away from the FOB

that he was-- that he absconded from.

But we were out to search every coot, house,

tent, nomad, whatever.

Everything that we came across for any kind of intel

weapon or whatever.

It may not have been strictly related to

Bergdahl through the private network,

but the higher OPs knew a little bit more about that.

So we were aerosoled out, slept in a ditch that night.

It was the first time I had legitimately slept in a ditch.

We woke up, had a brief firefight that morning,

and then made it to the first coot, searched the entire coot.

And we were there for about two hours too long.

As soon as our fighter pilots checked off station,

we came under fire.

And as soon as we started receiving fire,

I rolled onto all fours from the sitter position.

And an RPG landed under my face.

[loud blast]

[dramatic music]

JOHN: You know, I got really lucky, to say the least.

I caught the spinoff of the shrapnel and

the explosion kinda gave me a brain injury.

But, you know, I was conscious through pretty well all of it.

Got to run out to the bird after.

And if I got to meet the Medevac pilot,

I'd love to shake his hand.

'Cause he landed under heavy enemy fire.

It was a little while after I was hit

that set against the wall for a while.

The first medic that got to me, Lauren Pearson,

later Lauren Haskins, she made it to me,

took care of me until the Medevac Bird got there.

We actually lost her,

I think, three or four years after our deployment

where demons kinda got the better of her.

And, yeah, Lieutenant Lyon ran me out to the bird.

He tried to get me to be carried off,

and I said that I'm not being carried off, I'm running off.

So he picked me up, put my arm around his shoulder,

and we ran out to the bird and got to take

off like an episode of M#A#S#H.

It was great.

[helicopter whirring]

♪♪♪

Yeah. So I had my M4 sitting next to me on the bipod.

I had just eaten my first MRE in two or three days.

It was just, we were so burnt out on MREs that I mean,

I lost close to 80 pounds on deployment, at least.

It was pretty great, great for myself.

But the moment that we came under fire,

kinda like the first firefight, you just take cover.

So I rolled onto all fours.

And as soon as the RPG hit it was just black,

I was able to stand up.

And as the lights started coming back,

I could see some dust and blood pouring over, like a bad movie.

So I knew something was wrong.

And my buddy Kat Nao was on the exact opposite side of

me from where I was, where the RPG impacted.

Thankfully, he got a few small lacerations to his arm.

Years later, I found out that he actually

rode the Medevac helicopter with me.

I didn't tie two and two together until I got

to take my Lieutenant deer hunting

years ago and really recap on what happened.

But I could see the blood coming over,

made it over to the wall called for medic.

My buddies got the medic down there to me.

And she covered up my face with some gauze,

was, you know, just tending to me as Lieutenant Lyon,

just, you know, our hero.

He was running back and forth directing fire

from three squads.

I can't say enough good things about him.

He kept running by asking if I had been

hit with morphine yet.

And finally just told our medic to give me morphine.

And it felt like you hit the bottom of a roller coaster.

I asked her to never do it again.

It was-- I didn't really feel a lot of pain.

My face was lacerated from side to side from the nose

over to the right side of the eyebrow.

My eye, we couldn't tell at the time it had been,

you know, cut in half a couple muscles.

My tear duct kinda had shrapnel everywhere.

And then, of course, I had the bleed on the brain, but all

I could do was feel pressure, which maybe it was shock,

maybe it was just-- thankfully I couldn't feel the pain.

But, you know, and then I just sat there,

listened to my guys, you know, lay down fire and get after it.

And sat there for a while 'til medevac was able to come in.

Like I said, I was able to run out

under my own power and get on the bird.

And then we made it to the first medevac station

in FOB Shank where I was checked out.

Kat Nao actually came in because

I screamed like a little girl

whenever they were checking me for blood everywhere.

It was kind of funny, screamed like a little girl,

but it was still, still pretty bad.

And then, you know, I was medevaced

all the way to Bagram for surgery.

I was asked in Shank to call my folks, tell 'em what happened.

I didn't want to tell 'em.

A month earlier I'd hit an IED

and I didn't wanna call my parents,

but I had to call my dad. They made me.

And I told him, "Hey, Dad, I hit an IED today.

I'm fine. I just missed-- like, tore some muscles in my chest."

A couple weeks later, I hit my second IED.

That one wasn't very bad at all.

We were transporting spaghetti for our third platoon.

We got to go and take showers for the first time in a month.

And we were bringing hot shower to the guys.

And when we hit the IED I was the only

one in the back of that truck.

And it just threw spaghetti and marinara sauce

or ketchup in the army everywhere.

So I got out of that truck and I was covered in,

you know, ketchup and everything.

But yeah, my second IED I didn't have to call my folks.

After being injured from the RPG, they asked me to call

my parents at FOB Shank, the first medevac station.

I wouldn't do it.

Got to Bagram.

Before they even talked about doing surgery,

they asked me to call my parents and I said no.

The third time was right before I went into

surgery to have my eye removed.

The surgeon came in and told me I had to call my

parents or they were gonna call 'em for me.

So I called my dad.

It was two or three o'clock in the morning in

the United States in the Midwest and got to wake him up.

Say, "Hey, Dad, it's Michael."

He is like, "Yeah, I know. What do you want?"

You know, 'cause I understand he's sleeping.

But yeah, I got to tell him, "Hey, Dad, I got hit.

Might lose my eye. They're gonna try and save it."

I had a lengthy argument with the surgeon, with a few

threats in there because I'm young and dumb.

And asked him to call Mom and tell her what happened.

And not long after that, I think the entire,

you know, my entire hometown of a thousand people knew,

but went through surgery.

They did take out my eye.

Woke up to a priest giving me my final rights.

I told him, "Hey, bro, I'm not done yet." [chuckles]

And then just sat there.

You know, I'm in Bagram's Hospital.

I can't do anything combat-wise. I'm not any good to my guys.

And was just waiting for the next step.

That's where-- Sat there for about a day.

And then we loaded up and flew to Landstuhl in Germany.

And then long after that, we flew to the United States

to Walter Reed to be in the hospital for

almost a year and a half.

Going to appointments, going through occupational

therapy, rehabbing for my injuries.

[tense music]

WADE: My platoon commander, Lieutenant Glover,

was very aggressive and very interested

in getting into fights.

And I remember one morning we

were in Fallujah, waking up on the squawk box.

We were kinda like--

Half of us were on awake,

half us were sleeping at night

sort of doing that.

And I remember he comes to the squawk box,

which is like little speaker in the NVA.

He's like, "They put a roadblock up down by

this mosque on Michigan. We're gonna go pick a fight."

I said, "He just say that?"

He said we're gonna go pick a fight.

It's like four in the morning, five in the morning.

Like, ah man, okay. So we get on the road,

go to Michigan, we push down to where the mosque is,

and then the T section is route Violet.

And they create this little like, I mean,

it's like a couple tires and a couple obstacles or whatever.

And as soon as we get down there an RPG flies over

the truck behind us, this hood blows up.

And then it was game on.

They basically just tried to ambush us from Violet.

Well, in the Marine Corps, we're taught,

if you're in ambush, you push through it or

you take the fight to the enemy.

So we lead gun truck.

We literally face down Violet and just gunning down

Violet towards these people shooting at us.

And there's a guy, Haze, our 50 cal machine

gunner in our truck,

he cut 'em in half.

He was behind a bulldozer blade shooting at us.

And then the rounds-- [imitates shouting, falling]

And then, like, I realized that we're

in an ambush, like, on Violet.

'Cause I see, like, I don't think they were

expecting us to come down as fast.

They were like scrambling to get behind barriers to shoot at us.

I remember a guy with a PKM is, like,

behind these concrete blocks.

And I see him trying to line up his shot and

I start shooting him.

I just remember my peripheral vision seeing RPGs flying over

our hood and like, and we're gunning it.

And then you hear the squad like,

"Turn around, gun one, turn around, gun one."

Me, Peter, was our driver,

when we took that turn onto Violet,

we're pushing down, he'd gotten shot.

We didn't know what happened. He's like, "Ah, my ass hurts.

My ass hurts." And we're like, "Just keep driving.

Keep driving." And he's like, "It's on fire.

Is anything on fire? Am I on fire?"

I'm like, "You're not on fire, dude."

'Cause I'm back right. And I see that he's got

blood on his ass. I'm like, "You got shot.

It must have been through the firewall.

You're fine. It's not like spurting or anything.

Just sit on it. You'll be fine."

But like then that squawk box was like, "Gun one turn around.

Gun one turn around."

And he's like, "Turn the fuck around.

Turn the fuck around." And I remember this, like,

almost like a-- it had to be from like Hollywood movie.

I remember we turned around and you see the whole

platoon up on route Michigan.

We were the only truck that had gone down Violet

to fight with these guys.

And then I remember turning around RPG smack in the road

in front of us and some of the guys in the other gun trucks

and the other trucks were like, "Dude, I just remember you guys

disappearing behind clouds were like RPG explosions.

And then driving through it, like,

it was like a Hollywood movie."

Like us coming through the smoke clearing

still in one tack, you know, like in one piece.

And we're just, you know, firing our way down Violet.

And so we link back up with a platoon on Michigan and

the platoon commander's like, "Hey--"

Glover's like, "Hey, we're gonna call for tanks.

We're gonna go down there and clear it.

Don't do that again." [laughing]

And so he calls up tanks and tanks come up finally.

They're so slow. And they're like, so...

I'm like, "You guys are an armored tank.

We have nothing here and we're fighting."

We call the tanks up. And then we start pushing down.

And now what's gonna happen is we were, you know,

we were on this side of the city in Fallujah.

We had now taken up to Michigan and now we had to clear West.

So Alpha and Bravo company now had to start

clearing west of all the ground we had just

taken on Michigan so our flank wasn't exposed.

And so they start clearing and we push down Violet to do

a blocking position to hold Violet.

And it's pretty kinetic. There's fighting,

our tanks are shooting its main cannon,

and stuff like that.

[loud blast]

WADE: And we're like, "Hey, [indistinct].

He-- you know, he's good for now.

He's sitting on the wound, but he'll need to be medevac'd."

So we hold the line for like maybe an hour or two before

Alpha and Bravo come we can finish clearing

all the buildings that are south of us...

[gunfire]

...of bad guys so they can take

this now new position.

And that's our, you know, line of--

anybody in front of that, bad guys. Kill 'em.

MAN: All right, let's watch each other's back, baby.

Watch each other's back.

- Go! Go! - [indistinct shouting]

Roof is clear. We got roof.

WADE: Yeah, that was a crazy day.

It got pretty kinetic real fast.

[pensive music]

OMAR: So later on that day,

we made another movement.

And that's whenever I got injured.

My weapon squad leader was shot in the head.

[gunfire]

And I went to try and retrieve him so that my

medic and I can work on him and I can call it in.

And as I was dragging him,

the ground collapsed underneath us.

And we fell roughly 50, 60 foot

into a [indistinct] into a hole.

♪♪♪

You couldn't tell there was anything there.

Like it was covered up, camouflaged so, so good.

So good even that the weapon squad

was posted up almost on top of it.

And there was a small little berm that I wanted

to get my weapon squad leader behind so it could

provide us some sort of cover or something.

'Cause there were still rounds coming in.

And as I was dragging him, I can remember, like,

the rounds coming in around us like a cookie cutter.

They were just landing around us,

but not hitting us, thank God.

And I remember that there was another guy that was shot

as well, through the femur.

And again, it was three injured.

I think I remember exactly what I was thinking.

I was thinking like, man, it's gonna be, you know,

booby traps, it's gonna be some punchy sticks.

[exhales]

And everything with me seems like forever, right?

Like when we fell, I just, I felt like I was

falling for an eternity.

Like I had time to think about, man,

there's alligators in there.

There's explosives down there.

There's-- you know,

any type of scenario that you can

possibly think of probably went through my

head at that time just thinking about it.

And I remember hitting the ground and just

instantly feeling an enormous amount of pain.

And soon as I hit the ground, my weapon squad leader

landed on top of me.

And so I had not only my weight but his on top of mine.

♪♪♪

We could barely, barely fit in there.

And I remember having to call up and let the guys

know that we were in there.

They seen us fall and I remember having to assess Bouchard's

injuries, having to see if he was alive, if he was okay.

But I guess with all the pain,

we were both in and out of consciousness.

[brooding music]

OMAR: I fell straight down.

I felt like I hit so hard.

And maybe, you know, you talking about close to

500 pounds of meat and gear impacting.

My fib, tibs broke.

I have so much hardware in there right now and they had

to split my-- my legs open in order to save them.

'Cause there was a possibility that I would lose them.

We were in that hole for roughly two hours.

JOHN: And so we secured that site.

I had Saddam's revenge that night, again.

WADE: So I stayed up on the turret

the whole night for my truck.

'Cause I was like, "I can't sleep.

I'm puking shitting myself, so it'll be fun."

- [loud blast] - WADE: And I remember the first

mortars that came in and they hit and it was

early light, like just first light.

They weren't near us, but we're like,

"Hey, sir, I think we're getting bracketed."

Bracketing is when you shoot a mortar and

you sort of adjust and you shoot again.

Kinda-- okay, now where are we going?

[loud blast]

WADE: So the two commander's like, "Hey, yeah,

let's mount up. Let's start moving

our gun truck positions.

Let's move." And as we're doing that a mortar

lands in between our truck and the high back,

which the high back has no arm in the back.

It's literally an open, like, bench seat.

And guys are just hanging out there and

they get pepper shot and all.

So then now we have casualties.

So Lieutenant Glover's like, "Hey, we're gonna have

to call this one out.

We're gonna have to bounce.

We're not gonna hold this position."

'Cause what we were gonna have to do was hold

that position until they could get

like a wrecking crew out there

with a big 18-wheeler flatbed truck that they--

with a crane, that could pick that [indistinct] put it on

this truck thing and then haul it out of there.

That's got like two or three days' worth of sitting

around in the desert waiting for that to happen.

And we had a similar mission later on that sucked.

So he's like, "Hey, we're gonna call it in.

They're gonna have to blow it in place.

They're gonna have to drop a JDAM on it or something."

Just 'cause we have casualties.

And as we get together and we start pushing down

out on this road,

we take this road and that's when the real ambush happens.

We're in this road that's literally lined

up with just reeds.

Deep, deep, deep gullies and reeds 'cause it's farmland.

So they have this natural defense

that they can hide in and they just start chewing us up.

And we're pushing north through this town,

this little itty bitty town.

And it's bad folks in there too.

They're waiting for us,

RPGs, all that sort of stuff.

And we fight our way through that.

Somehow in the firefight, our crypto and our radio gets

kicked and it drops.

So we're only able to talk on unsecured comms

to the other trucks.

And the rest of its-- our private channel's just garbage.

We can't communicate with the rest of the platoon.

But anyways, so I think we have to

fall back in and let someone else take lead.

And the whole goal is to get to the cloverleaf.

That's casualty collections point.

And we're a few clicks away.

We're like 20 minutes away.

As we're driving through that firefight,

Boye is in one gun truck and he's in a high back,

but he's on a mounted-- he has his light machine gun saw.

[brooding music]

WADE: So he's on the top of that Humvee,

basically pretty exposed, shooting.

And an RPG hits and hits his leg and cuts

his femoral artery, I believe.

And he dies that day.

♪♪♪

WADE: He fought through that ambush.

I'm sicker than hell at Saddam's revenge.

So I'm, like, totally, like, just beasted out on me,

like nothing in me.

I'd fired all my rounds.

I had like 14 or 16 magazines.

I'd gone through all my ammo.

We fought in that fire really.

And we get to the cloverleaf and we give

Boye to the medics.

And they're trying to do the resuscitation.

I didn't really observe.

I was away from that looking at other things.

And then we go from the cloverleaf back to our soda

factory where we're sort of staging our operations

and all of our trucks have like a lot of damage.

So the mechanics are working on our trucks to

keep us operational.

And that's when Lieutenant Glover...

[somber music]

...he called us together,

let us know Boye didn't make it.

♪♪♪

The day was still young and we were still QRF.

And I think it was Charlie Company's AAV,

it might have been Bravos.

One of them they had pushed past Violet.

They were doing like a little patrol mission and their AAV,

I think got disoriented or whatever and it went past Violet

and it got ambushed and got mobility kill.

The driver, he got hit with a couple RPGs.

The driver was killed instantly.

The lieutenant and the platoon commander

had a, basically, RPG that was like a armor piercing.

So it basically turns into liquid hot copper and burns.

He had gotten a critical hit through his leg.

Luckily it cauterized his wound

so he didn't bleed to death, but he was done-zo.

So his guys got out and took over a building

next to them where the AAV was immobilized.

[gunfire]

And then they were getting overrun.

And so we as QRF have to spool up

and we go in there to try and get 'em out.

We get out to that location and it is very kinetic.

It's a hornet's nest.

They're trying to overrun those 'cause it's--

they want that AAV for propaganda.

They wanna kill that platoon

and get shown on Al Jazeera news.

And so Glover calls up the Abrams tanks

and is like, "Hey, you guys are towing this thing outta here.

Figure out how to rig this thing for tow

but you're towing it out there."

And I just remember hearing like the Abrams tanks guys

were like, "Well, it's getting dark." So he is like...

He's like, "We're out here. You're in an armored vehicle.

I don't wanna hear it. You're rigging this thing

for tow and you're pulling it out here.

It's not gonna be used. There's a dead marine in here.

You're not leaving him."

And so we were holding down the position

and I think it became too dangerous

for our Humvees 'cause we had an RPG

hit under our vehicle and blow us up.

And we were all sitting there and quiet

and like, "Nobody's injured. Nobody's--

And Lieutenant Glover's like, "Hey, pull the Humvees back

and just hang out this phase line

and we'll come to you and pull this out."

So we got the AAV outta there that night.

And it was a long day.

In between Boye's death and, you know,

us responding to that QRF call, I had been, like,

given a bunch of IVs 'cause I was just done.

The medic-- the Corman was like, "Hey,

you need some liquids."

And so they've put me like four or five bags

of IV and I was still barely hanging on.

I was real sick. That was a long day.

That was a tough one.

You know, but I think what shown was the leadership

of my platoon commander and he was like,

"We can sit around and wallow about it

or we can continue our job."

And I think that was the best thing for the platoon, you know.

Boye's death really affected the platoon I know that.

Universally loved, you know.

I remember in Okinawa he'd gotten

in a drinking incident and we were only there

for like three months, but they have this unique thing

in Okinawa called CCU, Correctional Custody Unit.

And he'd gotten sent there because he'd gotten

another NJP busted down a rank.

And in CCU what they do is they take small rocks

and make 'em into smaller rocks

and move those smaller rocks

across the parade deck in bags.

Like, that's all they do.

Then they'll move the other rocks and break 'em

with hammers, make 'em smaller,

put 'em in sandbags, and bring 'em up.

That's their days of activities.

And they march around like bootcamp

and it's like real crappy to be at CCU.

I remember he being lunched in the chow hall,

and we were already combat vets,

and we'd make fun of like the MPs

that were guarding and we'd get him in so much trouble.

[laughing] We would just talk to his guards

tell 'em they're, you know, pussies, pogues, you know.

And they would just take it out on Boye.

[laughing] But, yeah, Boye was just loved, you know.

He could sing, he could sing his ass off.

Dude could play a guitar.

[somber music]

Sparsky, this is when Sparsky

really started to shine as a sergeant.

You know, cold as ice on the comms,

not freaking out when we're in an ambush,

just being like, "Yeah, contact, right," blah, blah.

Just like monotone.

Like, I don't know.

I'm behind him, but it's like...

I'm shooting and shouting.

You know, like at some points

it's pure terror in those ambushes.

And it's a miracle, like...

I mean, our Humvee was riddled with holes.

We had RPG blasts in it, we had--

It was amazing how that truck looked

at the end 'til it got blown up.

But yeah, Fallujah then the sad thing was is,

you know, after that day, a couple weeks, days later,

maybe a couple days they came and told us

that we were pulling out of Fallujah.

[tense music]

MAN: Whoa.

♪♪♪

And that really, really was a gut punch,

because like, we had taken all this territory.

We were, you know, a quarter way through the city.

We were gonna finish the city.

We had the momentum. We had 'em on their ass.

They'd politically been trying to delay our offensive.

That's why we had a halt in operations at Violet.

We couldn't go any further. They didn't want us--

They had done a political agreement.

And our snipers were killing these guys.

I mean, we were just-- we had 'em on the run.

We were gonna take that city.

and politics came in and squashed it.

And, like, had us walk, you know,

basically, they pull outta the city

with these like Iraqi army units

that didn't know which side of the gun to look at

to shoot, you know, take over our positions.

And like, of course, they were hand in hand

with the insurgents.

We'd spend a month in Fallujah.

And to have that sort of taken from us was really--

it eats at me today, you know, 'cause three, five

and all those other units we had go in there

in November shouldn't have had to.

We could have finished it and been done with it.

So yeah, that's something that always eats at me to this day.

I decided to do this because I got tired of losing people.

I mean, I got out around 2013, I separated from the service.

And I'm probably averaging

around six to seven people, or at least one a year.

And I think I just got tired of losing people, man.

It's one thing to put money towards the charity or,

you know, say I, you know, I support veteran suicide,

or I wear a bracelet for 22,

you know, veterans the day that commit suicide.

But I wanted to do something

and it kills me that I can't be everywhere.

So I hope that this film is some sort of force multiplier,

what we call it in the military

to help veterans know, like,

"Hey, man, you're not the only one.

It's okay."

And then also to bring awareness

to the general public that it's not always PTSD.

It may not be this thing or that thing,

but they're struggling with something.

And just recognize that and just understand that

one veteran is okay, you know.

Fucking ask for help.

Sergeant Kershaw, you know, needs help sometimes.

Sergeant Hernandez need help.

Sergeant Span.

You know, Sergeant Gomez or Specialist Gomez,

or whatever it is, it's okay, man.

You know, we got your back.

It's not-- And again, like I'm sitting up here

talking like it's fucking easy before you ask me that question.

It's not.

There's no pill, no matter what the VA prescribes you,

it's always gonna be there.

You're changed forever. You just gotta deal with it.

You gotta surround yourself around people

that make you know, like, hey,

you're not the only one going through it, you can beat it.

It's like an ongoing battle, right? It's--

I don't think I've beaten it, but I've gotten better.

That thing starts crawling up my back again.

Like I know how to deal with it.

And everyone deals it their own way.

I know how to deal with it. But my daughter,

because at the time my son wasn't born.

And I remember...

like my wife would--

so the kind of like the battle rhythm

we had every day was-- and granted,

if you were to look at me outside of everybody,

like if you were to look at me like in a box

of like, how is his transition going?

I think you would probably think I was doing okay.

I work for a major company, doing well.

But that shit doesn't matter to me.

And I was chasing something.

I think I fell into that purpose, community,

and identity bucket personally.

And it didn't hit me 'til five years later.

And I can remember the battle rhythm we had was,

I would always take Camilla to school, no matter what.

That was my thing. Daddy took her to school.

And I worked, I drop her off, go into work,

travel, do whatever, go to DC, do some meetings,

come back, and then, you know, if I could pick her up

for the most part, I picked her up.

And then we got home.

Joanna, my wife, kinda took over.

Like she was, you know, the one that was really good

at putting her to bed because she wasn't a good sleeper.

She would do that. She was the nurturing one.

So I had this dead space of like,

from 7:30, and I didn't go to bed 'til like 2:00

every night of just like, up in my own thoughts.

And around 2019, I would just sit there

and stare at a fucking blank TV screen.

And I couldn't understand it.

If I could explain it visually,

and this is what I tell the other veterans

when I'm explaining it, is like, it feels like

if you could look at my body and something would represent

like that feeling, it feels like black tar.

Is like slowly creeping up and you're trying internally

in your head to fight that motherfucker off.

And then you're just like, "What the fuck? What the fuck?"

And then, you know, it creeps up there,

and then you're just super fucking depressed

and angry and you can't figure out why,

you don't think anyone fucking understands you.

All of us have fucking guns.

So you're fighting to, you know, to not make yourself a target,

a 50-meter target, right?

You know, your closest threat.

And for me, my purpose

and who saved me was my daughter.

'Cause I couldn't imagine-- And it was bad.

And I couldn't imagine her waking up

and seeing me like that.

And more importantly, this may sound weird,

in my head, I was like, "Fuck, who's gonna take her to school?

She's gotta get to school.

She counts on Daddy to get her to school."

So I think it was less of her finding me.

'Cause I feel like, you know, somebody else would've found me.

But it was more like, you know,

my baby counts on me to take her to school.

So, you know, one day...

I think one day, she's gonna know.

♪♪♪

She's gonna know that she saved her daddy's life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[brooding music]

So getting outta the Marine Corps, I was eager.

I got home on a Thursday and by that Tuesday

fall semester community college started.

So like my brother flew out to Camp Pendleton.

We got in the truck and we did a road trip

for like ten days across country, which is awesome.

I needed that. It was a good experience.

But it really helped me decompress,

but then hit the books right ahead right from then on.

And the suicides and all that stuff

started happening a few years later.

All the traumas finally caught up to us, I think.

We lost some guys in combat, but we lost more to suicide.

You know, the first one that I knew of was Nelson.

He was in 80 ones. I knew him.

Evidently, he'd been recalled back

to the Marines and I don't know.

Either wasn't allowed to be infantry,

or they weren't gonna let him serve in that role.

I've heard mixed stories, but he took his life.

And then Sparsky and another Sergeant Mansfield,

they went up to pay respects at the funeral as our unit.

War takes a toll and a price that, you know,

you can never necessarily justify,

but it's something that's gotta happen.

It's gonna happen, you know, inevitably

just like kids on the playground,

they're gonna fight at some point.

War's a heck of a lot worse.

But in a lot of instances, you can't get around it.

Luckily you've got people that'll go out

and fight it for you.

So you can sit back and have that argument.

You know, you can armchair quarterback

anything that you want, but until you've been there,

you'll never really know, you know, what war means

to a lot of us guys that have been there and fought it.

The transition was scary.

It was scary because...

I mean, all I've done for the past 16 years was the army.

And I was afraid.

I was afraid that I would fail as a civilian.

I was still learning to walk whenever I was retired.

I had to wear braces for a long time.

And even to this day I still do.

But having a good...

support group like family

and, you know, your brother-in-laws

and stuff like that was very, very beneficial

for the transition

'cause they just showed me all kinds of love

and letting me know that everything was gonna be okay.

I have lost quite a few actually.

And...

And just not too long ago,

we had a guy that committed suicide.

I mean, these are all good guys.

These are all great, great, great guys,

and you wouldn't expect that from them.

You wouldn't expect them to take their lives

and put their pain onto somebody else.

And the thing is that when we as veterans

commit suicide, we don't stop the pain.

We inherit it our loved ones, to our kids,

to our wives...

our husbands, our parents,

our siblings, and just anybody else that care for you.

And so I think it's very important

that we have a support group.

I was in school by time I think I was going to college in DC.

And Ski. I'd talked to Ski the week before

he was gonna get out.

He was getting medically separated,

'cause of the brain damage

from the explosion that we had had together.

And I was like, "Well, that's good.

You got all these options.

You got school, man. You're gonna be great. No worries."

You know, wife and kids, he's two sons.

And he came back from that funeral

and Lieutenant Russell had dinner with him that Sunday.

I barbecued with him.

And then Monday he killed himself,

shot himself in the head.

[somber music]

[exhales]

That's the toughest one.

'Cause, you know, Ski was a great leader.

We got along. We were best friends.

And...

to see how quickly he deteriorated

and he was still active duty.

And he'd been promoted meritoriously from sergeant

to Staff Sergeant, and made Gunny real quick.

It was an unheard of in the Marine Corps.

And...

yeah, for him to take his life,

I wasn't expecting it, didn't believe it.

I still, at times don't believe it.

And that was a hard one.

The whole platoon felt that one, I think.

You know, I've tried to make amends with it,

but it's something that lingers with me.

And then from that, we learned about Heinzic,

who was my platoon.

Heinzic had gotten out around the same time I got out.

He had a baby mama in San Diego,

and he was having custody battles with her, evidently.

And his dad came out to help him try and get him on his feet,

help him, you know, get right with things.

I think his dad was a veteran maybe too.

And Heinzic comes home from work one day

and his dad comes in, walking in,

and then Heinzic shoots himself in front of his father.

Killed himself right in front of his dad.

♪♪♪

WADE: And I only learned about this because few years later,

back about five years ago, 2016, I took a road trip.

I visited the graves of the guys that we lost.

And I left, you know, my contact information

and a little memento and a t-shirt,

I think, of the unit.

And Heinzic's grandma got ahold of me.

And she had been down at the plots

a week later after I'd visited for her husband,

her husband had finally passed away.

And she told me the story of what happened to Heinzic.

And then she told me that five years after

Heinzic killed himself, his father killed himself.

So this grandma was out there burying

her husband at a grave family plot

where her grandson and her son were buried

because of this war.

And Boye, I went and visited Boye's grave

and Lieutenant Childers's grave.

And at Boye's, I met his mom.

She met me out there.

She took a break from her factory job.

What was it?

Hornady. She works for Hornady.

And she met me at the grave site.

And then I noticed that there was

another headstone with Boye on it.

And she told me the story that Boye's brother

was in the Army when he got killed

and he was getting out already.

And a few years later, Boye's brother

took his own life, you know.

And I totally believe it's because of the war.

You know, he lost his brother

and he probably had his own traumas

that the military wasn't dealing with properly, so.

And the tragedy just keep going.

You know, I lost a lot of guys to suicide.

It's tough.

And, you know.

You don't know who to point the finger at.

I do know that some of these pharmaceutical companies

they put these guys up on wasn't helpful.

I know, without a doubt that caused a lot of the issues.

The VA couldn't handle it, handle the volume of patients.

Couldn't give the one-on-one care,

the direct counseling they need.

Just give 'em drugs, numb 'em out, cope 'em out,

make 'em numb.

They won't respond to anything then.

And it's been fatal ever since they started doing that.

And in the military we always talk about like,

not failing, not letting people down.

And that was one of my fears too

of letting my mom and dad down

or letting my nieces and nephews down.

And just thinking about all the people that I would hurt,

just because I thought that it would end my pain.

And just opening up, opening up to somebody.

And that really helped me out quite a bit

'cause you feel lighter at the end of the day.

I've called the hotline and...

I was a bit disappointed

with it because it's not like you talk to somebody right away.

And I wish that we could talk to people.

I now have a lot of regrets or things

I've had to come to grips with as far

as understanding my role in a war

that you look back on, it don't make sense.

It was tough to see Afghanistan

go the way it did, especially knowing

all the sacrifice put in that country as well.

And the treasurer. Fuck the money.

People made plenty of money off this war.

It's really the guys, the lives.

You know, even the Iraqis and Afghans,

you know, I feel bad for them. Worse.

We fucked them up.

Made 'em dependent, then left them behind to dry.

And it's something I have to accept my role in.

You know, at the time I wouldn't take anything back.

If you give me the experience, I'll take it over again.

I'll do it again.

But it's tough to realize

the consequences of these decisions

our country made, our leadership made.

I definitely think, you know,

it could have been done differently.

It should have been done differently.

But I think there's money to be made and people

are wanting to profit off of this.

It's sad.

But yeah, I got into college.

After I graduated from my four-year university,

I got into private security myself.

It was good money. And I was addicted to the adrenaline.

It's a simpler life overseas.

You have your job, sleep, work out, eat.

You know, job, sleep, work out, eat.

So it's simple. You don't have like the gossip.

You don't have the "what's going on in this city"

or what's going on here, this controversy.

It's a simplified life. And I loved it.

And I got addicted to the adrenaline rush of combat.

You know, my whole time in university

I kept on trying to join military.

Like I joined LRS unit, a National Guard LRS unit,

a Long Range Surveillance unit,

because I wanted to get trained

and I wanted to continue to fight.

And when Ski got killed, I got real close to joining

back in the Marines and going back in

'cause I was like, I gotta get in to fight.

I have some anger issues.

[laughing]

And luckily I talked to Lieutenant Glover still.

I was really in good contact with him.

And he sort of said, "Hey, do yourself this.

Go to school, complete school.

If you wanna go in, you can go in afterwards."

And so I'm really glad he told me to do that

'cause, at the time, I didn't have a real good compass.

I go with any direction.

And to have him encourage me to stay in school

and I did it, it's an accomplishment for me.

Especially going to, like, the school I went to.

If you would ask my peers in high school

they probably would've never thought

I could get into it and go to that school.

So I was kinda spiteful.

I think I mentioned early on about, you know,

being enlisted, of taking the dummies route,

going enlisted.

So for me, you know, I had this chip on my shoulder

for sure, and I probably still do about the wasted lives.

And I finally have accepted

that we probably shouldn't have gone into Iraq.

You know, looking at the facts now,

knowing we kinda all were lied to.

I mean, they used General Powell

and all those people as pawns to set something up

that I think didn't need to happen, you know?

And it's sad that nobody's been held accountable.

Our government lets them get away with it.

I definitely have some issues with the way

we abandoned things in Iraq.

And hell, if I would've lost.

I remember being in Kuwait,

searching the desert because someone lost a bayonet.

We weren't allowed to leave.

You know, get on line and look for a freaking bayonet

that's maybe $20 worth of equipment.

Yet the generals were allowed to leave

billions of dollars of equipment in Afghanistan.

And nobody's held accountable.

And it's just hypocrisy to me.

And I can't accept that like, they taught me

all these values and these things

that were important to me then to turn around

and them not even live by 'em and hold themselves up

to the same accountable things that I was held to.

It really is frustrating to see.

So, that's my gripe of the year, I guess.

[laughing]

You know, I like to go hunting.

You know, I go deer, go with some buddies,

and go elk hunting and all that.

And there's no comparison.

You know, you're taking a life, but one's feeding your family.

One's taking another human off this world.

You know, at the end of the day while we were deployed,

it kinda turned into who's making it home tonight?

You or me?

And I wanna go home worse.

You know, I wanna go home more.

Whenever I came back, I went and found my childhood priest,

tried to talk to him a little bit about it.

He's an older gentleman and he definitely gave me his time.

But when you haven't been there, you don't really understand.

There's one priest I wish I could run into

back home near Kansas City.

He was a, I think he retired as a captain

in the Marines from Vietnam.

Yeah, the Vietnam era.

But I mean, it's really something

you've gotta come to grips with yourself.

You know, you're sending 18, 19, 20-year-olds over there

if they're fresh and they're taking lives.

You know, if they're not lucky in a facetious way.

But the part of the military

that actually sees direct combat is very, very small.

So if you are lucky in the fact that you're part

of that percent you need to have your head on right.

I've got some friends that grew up, you know,

they're the same age, grew up close to the same way,

but in different parts of the country.

And I know that a lot of us have handled it all differently.

Taking a life is...

it's not something to be taken lightly.

But at the end of the day,

it's I wanna go home more

and I'm going home to my family.

So you made your choice and I made mine,

and you're going to meet your maker and not me today.

You know, when you leave the military,

you lose your purpose, your identity,

and your community.

I was fortunate I came home and I came back

to my old high school buddies

that were still around and family and friends

that were still there in the community.

And so I sort of had some people to safeguard me a little bit.

Like, I did implode. And I wasn't--

They told me to do something, I was gonna do the opposite.

But they at least, you know, they kept the rails on.

It kept me on the rails.

I think for a lot of people,

they lose one, you know, two or three of those:

purpose, identity, community,

and it creates a downward spiral.

So much so.

I think with Ski, I look back,

they were taking away his purpose.

They were taking away his identity.

He was no longer gonna be allowed to be a Marine,

a very good marine.

And I'm sure he had his own issues

with the war and his own family issues.

You know, I don't know exactly led him to pull that gun out.

But I know he was suffering.

And, you know, like I lost my identity,

but I still retain it.

You know, I still will tell people I'm a marine.

[laughing] But I think,

yeah, I think people--

the military does a good job at taking people,

making 'em the killers.

It doesn't do a good job

processing 'em out to be "normal."

And it's not their job to really.

They have a mission.

It's not to always do the backend stuff.

I think we're realizing now I think they put a great effort

into counteracting the negative things.

It's changed, you know, the talks of mental health.

You didn't talk about it in 2004, 2005.

Kidding me? No, you're not talking about it.

We're not pussies here.

[laughs] I knew I was fucked up,

but I always knew I wanted to work in the government

with a security claim, so I never brought it up.

It took me over a decade to finally

admit that I had PTSD.

And it was only after I was working overseas

I was like, "I need to get help."

I need to have a quality of life that it's worth

what I've done, what I've put myself through.

I think that's one of the bigger things.

And I think it plays with some of my childhood trauma,

was I've never felt worthy of love.

And, uh...

MAN: What are your hobbies now?

So, I weld sometimes.

I do fishing, take the kids fishing.

Heck just last week I took my niece

and my nephew's Tito's kids to go look at alligators.

And like, I just enjoy seeing

their smiles and their--

That's what makes me wanna wake up in the morning

to where they call for me.

And...

I don't wanna let them down.

And so I think if we as veterans find something

that makes you wanna wake up,

then we need to look for that, for whatever it is.

As long as it's productive, then I think we'd be okay.

But I really think, like the brothers I served with,

I'm so glad I can be in contact with a lot of them.

We've stayed together, we stayed pretty close together.

And a lot of us have found our paths in unique ways.

You know, I think for a lot of them.

And I encourage all of them that I served with,

you know, to do alternative therapies.

There's not a silver bullet that's gonna fix a veteran.

There's multiple paths to find a purpose,

a place in society and your new tribe.

I'm so grateful that I have the guys

I served with still around.

They'll check me when I'm fooling around

and being an idiot.

But they'll also tell me, "Oh no,

hey, it's not that big of a deal.

You screw that up. Who cares?"

You know, bigger picture of things.

They put thing in perspective for me

that a lot of times I forget.

Especially like my buddy Joe Wells,

he lets me know that like, I don't owe anybody anything.

You know? If I wanna do this for the rest of my life,

I'm good. I've made my peace. I have my friends.

I don't need to prove anything to anybody.

If there's something I want to accomplish,

I can accomplish it.

But I think a lot of veterans

get themselves into trouble is

in our society I can order everything to my house

and not have to deal with a single human being.

I don't have to engage with anybody.

And that's not a good thing, is what I try to tell people.

We're social creatures we need to have social interaction.

We need to have connections.

And where our fear is like we had this deep, deep bond.

And I know-- What's that author's name?

Sebastian Junger and he talks about that.

And I agree with his book, Tribe.

You have these deep connections with these guys.

They're intimate, you know.

[laughing] Deep jokes, like just meaning with each other.

And then they part ways and rip each other out.

It's hard. For years after getting out in the Marines,

my goal was I wanna be wealthy enough

to be able to pay for everybody's family

to come to a reunion for a week from each deployment.

'Cause each deployment we had different guys with us

and do a big, huge way and be able to be so successful.

That was my big heritage goal.

Be so successful that I could afford

to pay for everybody's families to take the week off.

You know, all that stuff.

Have all the sorts of therapies and, you know,

ways to reconnect.

And I realize like, I'm not gonna get there professionally,

but maybe there's a way for me to be a part

of a nonprofit that can do something like that one day.

But it's tough to see guys go home and suffer,

especially when you knew them in the military

as like the good-to-go guy, the guy that was reliable.

The guy who will watch your back.

And to see how this rot has set in with our country,

with drugs, with meth, with opioids,

and the same problems that plague these veterans

are the same problems that plague our nation.

And it sucks that nobody wants to step up

and try to really go after these things.

It's disheartening to see my buddies,

some of them, you know, I love seeing the success stories.

I've got guys that are successful

and it's not always the boohoo thing.

They've taken those experiences and turned it

into something positive, used it to make themselves

plenty of money and build a family that's full of love.

Then [indistinct] guys that have really

self-destructed and, you know,

done every bad decision they could think of if not more.

And I think a lot of it is lack of services initially maybe.

Or, you know, had something gone a different way,

break another way, maybe they'd have a better step forward

and never a new start.

But it's tough to see, you know,

that's probably like the road trips I've done cross country

multiple times is like, it's for me.

I'm gonna be selfish. It's a lot of--

It feeds my heart to be able to see these guys again.

But it's also part of it is me checking in on 'em.

And like, you see the guys that are really proud

to show off themselves, they're like,

"Hey, this--" My best friend Staples.

I lived with him for four years in the Marines."

And Stack, nicest dude ever from Youngstown, Ohio.

Big brother. Looks like Mike Tyson.

Has a lisp. And me and him were roommates

and we fought with each other initially

and then we became brothers after.

And he came home with me on leave.

And when he got out, he is a big guy.

So people like to try to test themselves with him.

And he wasn't gonna back down from a fight.

Evidently, he got into a fight in Ohio

and got arrested

and got put in the system

and that system holds onto him.

I did that road trip part of it to reconnect with him.

And I did meet up with him. I got to hug him, I'd see him.

But I could tell he was shy, didn't wanna talk

about his past, didn't wanna talk

about what he's up to these days.

'Cause he was in and out of, like, the legal system

and didn't have a whole lot of opportunities

in front of him, especially in, like, Youngstown, Ohio.

It's hard. But his family's there.

Guys like him I wish I could get ahold of

and give another opportunity

or just offer 'em whatever they need.

You know, like they're the ones

that I want to encourage, get services.

I'm fine. I can advocate for myself.

It's those guys like him.

And since I saw him, I've been outta contact with him.

You can't get ahold of him anymore.

I've gone back to Youngstown, Ohio

on my road trips and knocked on doors

and asked around but still can't find him.

And that's like I guess my big hairy goal eventually

is to have a real reconnection with him and other guys.

You know, I'm not worried about the guys

that are still texting me and I see on social media maybe.

It's the guys that have quieted up, sort of.

You see them extract themselves outta life.

Those are the guys I worry about.

'Cause it's never good.

You know, guys shouldn't have to fight

these battles by themselves, you know.

Ancient tribes, they're warriors.

They came home to different settings.

And I think for our veterans, we need to figure out

a way to bring these guys home and let them

integrate into a society that understands them.

There should never be a military-civilian divide

or veteran-civilian divide.

That's just veterans trying to put up walls.

I read a good story from a ranger who wrote it,

basically said, "Yeah, I had best friends,

best brothers in my life but that was 20 years ago

and I have 60 years of my life ahead of me."

He said, "Is that the last

of my relationships I'm ever gonna have?"

No, you have to build new relationships.

You have to find people that may not be that.

Now, I still have a habit of finding veterans

and they just gravitate towards each other.

But I do try to find people that aren't veterans to engage with.

You know, they might think my humor's

a little sick or weird.

I probably cuss too much.

But, you know, I do try to connect with them

'cause they're Americans just like me and you.

And I want them to understand what sacrifice is.

That's why I tell my story

or parts of it to anyone that asks.

It doesn't mean no good to hold onto it.

Nobody knows what sacrifice is.

Nobody knows what the cost of sending our youth to fight.

You know, what's the true cost?

Well, I'll tell you the true cost.

People like Heinzic.

That's whole family's destroyed.

Boye, a whole family's devastated.

[sniffling] You know, that's the hard part.

[somber guitar music]

♪ Trouble dies ♪

♪ And not out at the rocks ♪

♪ Does help praise ♪

♪ As the bullet shell struck ♪

♪ Be careful Don't be eager ♪

♪ When your fingers on the trigger ♪

♪ Out in the open, and your gun's all you got ♪

♪ Sin is like a wildfire, souls are quick to burn ♪

♪ When will I learn ♪

♪ That sometimes pain is underserved ♪

♪ Be careful Don't be bitter ♪

♪ When you could be a forgiver ♪

♪ Out in this world left alone with your thoughts ♪

♪ And I wish I could revive my soul ♪

♪ But maybe I'm too broken ♪

♪ Don't hold me liable ♪

♪ If I'm not outspoken ♪

♪ They say I'm tribal [indistinct] ♪

♪ Leading all my life full revival ♪

♪ But a broken tribe is all I know ♪

♪ Would you care ♪

♪ To try to understand ♪

♪ Hurt that was felt was more in our hands ♪

♪ Be cautious when you listen ♪

♪ 'Cause the tears don't seem to glisten ♪

♪ Out in the middle of the desert sand ♪

♪ Would you come running ♪

♪ And show me your love ♪

♪ If I said the memories are all creeping up ♪

♪ Be cautious with you talking ♪

♪ Don't you know that I was walking ♪

♪ Or carrying weight of a hurt friend? ♪

[music fades]