0:00

And he starts explaining, you know, what happened and if you're here where's everybody else?

0:03

And he just points up on the side of the mountain. He goes, there.

0:06

They're up there. They're dead.

0:10

Her capture by Iraqi insurgents and rescued by U. S.

0:14

Special Forces back in 2003 captured

0:16

the attention of a nation. One of the most extraordinary stories of

0:20

bravery from the war in Afghanistan. A team of Navy Seals was sent into the

0:24

mountains, but only one Seal came out alive.

0:43

Welcome to heroes behind headlines.

0:46

I'm your host, Ralph Pezzullo.

0:48

If you haven't already, please subscribe,

0:51

download and leave us a review.

0:54

Our guest today is Sergeant First Class

0:56

Nicholas Moore of the 75th Ranger regiment.

1:00

He's going to tell us about two historic

1:02

hostage rescue missions that he took part in.

1:05

First, the rescue of Jessica Lynch in March 2003

1:08

in Iraq, and secondly, the rescue of Navy Seal

1:12

Marcus Luttrell in Afghanistan in July 2005, a dramatic

1:17

mission which was the subject of the best selling

1:19

book Lone Survivor, and the highly popular movie of

1:23

the same name, starring Mark Wahlberg.

1:25

Today, Nick is going to give us his unique

1:28

perspective on both missions as someone who was actually

1:31

on the ground and executed the rescues.

1:34

He's also going to talk about his riveting

1:36

memoir "Run to the Sound of Guns".

1:39

We're honored to feature Sergeant First Class

1:42

Nicholas Moore of the 75th Ranger Regiment

1:45

as today's hero behind the headlines.

1:52

So I was born and raised in a small

1:54

town in Kansas and grew up hunting, fishing, and

1:58

just doing all the normal Midwest outdoor activities.

2:01

And we just kind of always felt there was a little

2:05

bit higher calling for what we are supposed to do.

2:08

And so junior year of high school, my brother decided

2:11

that he was going to talk to the recruiters and

2:13

sign a contract, and that's what he wanted to do.

2:16

And I kind of mulled over for about a

2:18

week and decided that I should go, too.

2:22

And we didn't know anything about the Rangers at the time that we signed at 17 years old.

2:26

But speaking to the recruiters and the recruiter station, and

2:30

they knew that we played sports and we were really

2:32

active outdoors and stuff, he goes, you're going to have

2:35

fun in the army, but you're never going to be happy if we didn't pursue your career.

2:39

And they kind of told us how to work that through the map station where you go as

2:46

a kid and sign all your paperwork and get

2:48

your contract and all your legal documents.

2:50

And so that went through.

2:53

And then we graduated high school.

2:57

And then a week after we graduated high school, we're

3:00

sitting down at Fort Benning, Georgia, for basic training and

3:02

then ride over to airborne school and then the Ranger

3:06

Indoctrination program as it was then. Now it's the Ranger assessment selection program.

3:13

Yeah, that was all 1999. So that was June through December of 99, and then both

3:21

of us got assigned to Second Ranger Battalion out here at

3:24

Fort Lewis, Washington, which is now a joint base.

3:27

Lewis McCord both assigned a Bravo company.

3:29

I went to first platoon and he went to third. And after about a year, I think he was asked

3:36

to go to the sniper selection in the battalion.

3:39

And so he got picked up to go over to sniper platoon and I stayed on

3:42

the line and we continued to work together.

3:45

And in that capacity he was a sniper assigned to the company or at

3:49

times are platoon and through training scenarios.

3:52

And then in 2001, it was my

3:58

turn to go to Ranger school. So I went down to Ranger school in

4:02

August to do the pre Ranger course at

4:04

the Ranger regiment and passed that on 911.

4:09

And I was in Ranger school. It's kind of a joke that we have amongst guys in

4:14

battalion prior to 911 actually happening was that something's going to

4:18

kick off in the world and we're going to be stuck in the one place where we can't go participate and we're

4:22

going to kind of get left behind. And so that actually happened.

4:26

And it was kind of a comical moment when I got back.

4:30

But the battalion hadn't deployed in

4:33

support of Operation Enduring Freedom yet.

4:36

The battalion was actually deployed forward in

4:38

Germany in graphenver doing the big

4:42

training center over in Germany. And when 911 happened, it froze everything.

4:46

So then go through Ranger school, pass the

4:49

first phase of Ranger school, and then go up to the second phase of Ranger school.

4:52

And the Ranger instructors at the time were kind of, well let me back up.

4:56

So 911 happens. It's like the second day of the course and

4:59

we're standing in formation waiting to go do land

5:02

navigation and some other check the box training things

5:05

that you have to qualify for to continue to

5:08

progress through the course and running around scurrying.

5:12

And we're standing formation, kind of going, what's going on?

5:15

And time hacks are being missed.

5:17

And we're like, well, we're getting out of here kind of late.

5:19

And so they come out and they ask if anybody

5:22

has family that works at the World Trade Center. And we're like, what does that

5:25

have to do with anything? That's weird. And then about a half hour 45

5:29

minutes later, they come out and say, hey, seriously, this is a legitimate question.

5:34

We're not trying to lie to anybody who has parents at work at the Pentagon.

5:38

And so one kid raised his hand. He said, you need to go inside and call.

5:42

And so luckily, that one Ranger, his

5:46

dad was out of the office because the plane actually destroyed his office. Oh my God.

5:51

And so his dad was in Virginia at the time. Wow.

5:54

And so he got lucky on that one.

5:57

But he was kind of a mess for about a few days until his dad called the school.

6:01

His dad's a colonel at the time and called

6:03

the school and said, hey, no, please tell him that everything is okay and I'm good and I'll

6:07

talk to him when he gets the chance. I know you guys are in the course.

6:10

So that was good for him.

6:13

Pass the first phase of Rangers and go

6:15

up to the second phase of Ranger school. And now we're looking at the end of September. October.

6:19

And so finish all Ranger school for that phase and

6:24

we're getting graded in evals and so the RIs wheel.

6:27

The TV out on the cart and so

6:29

this is right when Third Ranger Battalion is

6:32

making the jump onto a Kandahar objective rhino.

6:36

And so they let us watch and so all

6:38

the guys from Third Battalion are crying because they're

6:40

missing it and they're mad and upset.

6:42

It's kind of funny because we had gotten

6:45

word that a First Battalion hasn't gone yet

6:47

and Second Battalion hasn't gone yet. So we're just kind of sitting there laughing at

6:49

us like we haven't missed our chance yet.

6:52

And so we pass and go on down

6:55

to Florida and wrap up Ranger School.

6:57

Three weeks later, graduate, come back and get ready to

7:01

go on our deployment in the spring of 2002.

7:03

And so it was interesting because we kind

7:07

of got lessons learned from what 375 experienced

7:11

in their initial push into Afghanistan.

7:13

And then when First Battalion came over that's operation andacona in the early part

7:18

of 2002 with Roberts Ridge and Takagar.

7:21

And that was a huge deal and the lessons learned

7:23

and it was really interesting to talk to guys that

7:26

I had been arranged school with and friends that I had at first the time that I went through basic

7:30

training and Airborne School and rip with and said.

7:33

Hey man. We're on that mission. And said. Hey dude.

7:35

What was that all about? And so to hear that story firsthand account was kind

7:40

of eye opening as to what could be happening.

7:43

And unfortunately for us, Operation Anaconda kind

7:47

of pushed everybody, all the fighters back out of

7:49

Pakistan because they were expecting us to play the

7:52

same way the Russians did and we didn't.

7:55

So that first appointment was kind of a bust, if

7:58

you will, for us because we didn't really see anything. When we had one gunfight for

8:02

the platoon, it lasted 5 seconds. What was your first impression of Afghanistan?

8:08

Well, as a kid, I'd never been to, like, West Texas or New Mexico. Arizona.

8:12

I have no idea what the desert was other than

8:15

pictures or whatever, but to experience that kind of dry

8:21

heat and experience because we came from Washington in April

8:25

and it was in the then we hit Afghanistan and

8:28

it's in the high ninetys and hundreds in April

8:34

and it's just getting hotter as the summer goes on.

8:37

And so that was definitely eye opening, right?

8:40

And what about the people? Have you ever seen anything as primitive oh, no.

8:45

Even today, I've been there.

8:48

I was there back and forth for the better part of 15 years of my life.

8:51

And it's just you never get

8:54

used to that primitive lifestyle.

8:56

And I guess for us as a Western culture, it's weird.

9:00

They're okay with that. They're huts and chunky cars.

9:06

There's one paved road in Afghanistan, and it runs from

9:09

Kandahar to Bagram up to Kabul, and then up to

9:13

Bagram, which is not very far outside Kabul.

9:15

And that's it.

9:18

Everything else is just country, dirt roads.

9:21

That's how they live. And it's like man. Yeah.

9:25

It's like going back in time. Yes, it really is.

9:28

You can still go over there, and if you know where to look, you can still find stuff from, like,

9:31

Alexander to Great that's still left from the Romans.

9:35

Yeah. That's crazy. And it's odd.

9:39

And at that point, there was almost no resistance.

9:43

No, there wasn't anything.

9:46

Everybody was great, they were happy. And even later in the winter of 2003, we went

9:51

over there, and we were kind of up in the Konar and up in the mountains and stuff.

9:56

There are still people that at that point, and

9:59

I'm sure there are people farther up in Nangahar

10:03

and the provinces up in the mountains. I still believe the Russians are there. Yeah.

10:08

Because they don't get any news.

10:10

So it was odd to go, oh,

10:15

you're here to chase the Russians away. Congrats.

10:17

Thank you for you guys, and thank you for helping us.

10:20

And then you come back just a couple of years later, and kids are throwing rocks at you.

10:26

They're happy 1 minute, and they're mad the

10:29

next, that now you're here and you're occupying

10:31

them the same as the Russians. Yeah.

10:34

And it's hard to understand things from their point

10:37

of view because it's so very different from ours.

10:41

Right, well, and they're a country that has basically

10:44

always been invaded by somebody and occupied by somebody

10:47

whether they want them to or not. So there's no way they

10:50

understand the bigger, like.

10:52

No, you can try it and explain it

10:55

to them, but it's like trying to explain something to somebody from the American old west.

10:59

They just aren't going to get it right.

11:03

Okay, your deployment in Afghanistan ends, and then a

11:07

few years later, you end up in Iraq. Yes.

11:12

So we finished our deployment in

11:16

2002, and we thought, okay, great. That's going to be our only the whole

11:19

thing in Afghanistan is going to be wrapped up in like, six months or so.

11:22

We're just going to call it done and good. And so then we came home, and then everything

11:26

started winding up with Saddam Hussein and everything in

11:30

Iraq, and we're like, oh, okay, great, awesome.

11:32

I guess we're going to go over here and play.

11:36

So then everything started to fall apart

11:38

there around Thanksgiving, Christmas time, 2002.

11:43

So everything started coming along that, hey,

11:45

look, this is going to happen. And we're going to go.

11:48

And so we started leaning forward for all the planning and

11:53

prepping to be a part of the invasion for Iraq, which

11:57

was for us, it was kind of cool because like, okay,

12:00

great, we're going to go play somewhere else. We let the monster out of the box

12:04

and we're not going to contain it now. So pushed over.

12:10

We were initially launching out of cross border

12:16

ops into western Iraq and stuff, and so

12:21

there was no resistance out there. And that was for the first couple of weeks of

12:27

the invasion, maybe the first ten days or so.

12:31

And then we come back off a 24 hours patrol.

12:34

So at this time that's like a third ranger

12:38

Battalion made another combat jump into H one

12:41

and some of the other outlying places.

12:44

And so our job of that last patrol that we did

12:47

on vehicles was to go bring them back because they didn't

12:50

have to escort them and make the convoy bigger.

12:53

And so we went and tied in with them, turn

12:56

around, drove the trucks back on a 24 hours turnaround

12:59

and got back in, drove the trucks right up to

13:03

the tent and the company CP is right there.

13:05

And then we're all climbing off the trucks and the commander's like, hey, you got 3 hours and we're getting

13:09

ready to, we're going to go do a POW rescue.

13:14

On March 23, 2003, shortly after the US.

13:18

Led invasion of Iraq, US

13:20

Army private first class Jessica Lynch was

13:23

riding in a convoy of the US.

13:25

Army's 507th maintenance company near the city of

13:29

Nasiriya, 250 miles southwest of Baghdad, when they

13:34

took a wrong turn and were ambushed.

13:36

The Humvee Miss Lynch was riding in was hit by

13:39

a rocket propelled grenade and she was seriously injured.

13:43

She and five other soldiers were taken prisoner

13:46

and another eleven were killed in action, raped.

13:49

And sodomized during her 1st 3 hours of captivity, ms.

13:53

Lynch was later moved to a hospital in

13:55

this area where she was treated for a

13:57

broken arm, broken thigh and dislocated ankle. Ms.

14:01

Lynch's capture immediately became headline

14:03

news across the United States. Her rescue was the subject of a

14:08

popular TV movie called Saving Jessica Lynch.

14:14

I'm a 21 year old smartass.

14:18

I'm in the gunners turret on a march 19.

14:20

And I climbed out of the turret ring and jumped down on the hood.

14:24

I'm dog tired and looked at the commander.

14:26

I was like, oh, that's funny, I'm going to bed.

14:30

And he's like, no, seriously.

14:33

So my squad leader comes in and he's like,

14:36

hey look, the commander is not joking.

14:40

He's being serious. We're leaving. In 3 hours back your crap.

14:43

And I was like, where are we going? He's like, well, we're going to Nazarea.

14:47

And I was like, what is in Nazarea? That's where the marines are.

14:50

They're getting handed to him up there because we were

14:53

getting all the battle updates and it's like, how come we don't ever get anything where anything's fun.

14:57

We're out here patrolling through the open desert on a highway. Yeah.

15:03

Did you know anything about what had happened?

15:06

We knew that the convoy had gotten disoriented and lost

15:10

and then they kind of got off the route somehow.

15:13

And I'm thinking to myself, how is a maintenance unit getting ahead of the forward line?

15:18

I was like, how does that happen?

15:21

You stop thinking about the reality of, okay, now we

15:24

have missing Americans and we have one confirmed POW.

15:27

And you start thinking, how did the circumstances lead to this?

15:31

You start trying to figure that out and it's like, it's nothing against her.

15:36

It's just things happen. It really is.

15:39

Well, you're in a strange place and

15:42

you don't know where anything is. Well, at the time so 2003 support elements, not all

15:49

of them at the time, had not all the units

15:52

had the funding and the equipment granted for night vision

15:56

goggles so that everybody can see they're still driving the

15:59

same way that guys are driving old school blackout lights.

16:04

And then you just drive really slow.

16:06

And so we're used to as a

16:09

combat unit, special ops combat unit.

16:11

So we have all the latest gear, got the best

16:15

night vision that's available, lasers, optics, all this stuff.

16:19

And they're still like mid 90s

16:22

technology for the support units. And it's like, how do we invade the country?

16:26

Not everybody has the correct equipment. And it's just the funding wasn't there

16:30

and the equipment hadn't been built yet. So we've jumped on and flew up to the

16:38

Marine controlled base outside nasarea on the airfield.

16:41

And basically, I will call it was a down and dirty

16:46

helipad 24 hours plan on how this was going to get done.

16:48

And in football terms, we kind of sent one of the companies

16:54

from 175, kind of did an end around, and they went all

16:57

the way east of the city, way out and around.

17:00

And then they came in and dropped in from the north to kind of lock everything off from the north.

17:07

And then our plan was to jump on Marine Corps forty

17:10

sixes and just ten minute flight across the river, drop

17:15

west of the city and then run and lock down the

17:22

main roads leading in and out of hospital and just kind

17:25

of own that as an exfiltration route.

17:28

A helipad so as we're launching in on the first push of American

17:32

forces to do this, the Seals are launching in on a Black

17:37

Hawk to land on the hospital and then come down and pull

17:43

her up right on the roof of the hospital. I couldn't see it.

17:47

I don't remember exactly that part of their plan,

17:50

but I believe, yes, that is because there was

17:53

a hill pad on top of the hospital.

17:57

But yes, we had human intelligence from I can't

18:05

remember the name 20 years later, but the guy

18:08

that came across and told Americans, hey, there's an

18:11

american being held hostage in the hospital and she's

18:13

in this room on this floor. The whole thing happened from the time we landed on

18:20

the ground to the time the Seals hit the hospital. They were exfilling her by the

18:23

time we established our blocking positions.

18:26

It was fast, precise.

18:33

And so then it was a whole operational

18:37

lasted about three and a half hours.

18:39

And what made it take that long was because we were

18:43

trying to find where the rest of that convoy element was.

18:47

And so it led to searching and

18:51

digging and things along those lines.

18:53

And then we had accountability of everybody. And they had been killed. They were dead.

18:57

They were dead. Yes. She was just recovering survivors.

18:59

So it's just a recovery effort to make sure

19:02

that they were accountable and got to come home. So then we called exfill and that was it. That was it.

19:08

Yeah. Well, we've come back from it and as

19:13

a 21 year old, you're not really thinking about not the ramifications but kind of the

19:19

significance of what you've just accomplished.

19:21

That was the first successful POW rescue since Vietnam.

19:25

Yeah, it was good news. And so everybody was all super excited about it.

19:30

And guys that were my leadership, the magnitude of

19:36

what we just accomplished and the fact that for

19:40

the most part we didn't fire any shots.

19:42

There were just a few shots that were fired.

19:46

So there wasn't much resistance. There wasn't any resistance at all.

19:51

Okay, so the hospital people just the hospital was empty. It was empty.

19:55

We had eyes on the intelligence gathering.

20:00

Marines were watching the hospital from their positions

20:03

and there were lots of people going in the hospital and military people going in the

20:08

hospital and then turn around and there was

20:10

a lot of civilians leaving the hospital. So what we were figuring is they

20:14

were going in and taking off their military uniforms and basically surrendering.

20:18

And then they were just dispersing into the population.

20:22

They didn't want any trouble. Yeah, they didn't want any part of it.

20:26

And so we got back and everybody's

20:30

kind of high fiving and back slapping.

20:33

The great part of it was and we got to be

20:38

a part of that successful piece of history that had happened.

20:42

And it didn't really hit me for a

20:44

few years that that was something super significant.

20:48

And I hate to say it this way, but this is kind

20:50

of the way that we all feel about these kinds of things.

20:52

It's just another day at the office for us. Right.

20:55

And so as time has progressed, I think of the

20:59

significance of what I got to be a part of.

21:03

On the night of April 1st 2003 US

21:07

Marines staged a diversionary attack to draw

21:10

Iraqi troops away from the hospital where

21:13

Jessica Lynch was being held. Meanwhile, Joint Operations Task Force 121, comprised of

21:21

members of Delta Force, Special Forces and Army

21:24

Rangers, including Sergeant Nick Moore, swung into action.

21:28

According to Sergeant Moore, special Forces cleared

21:31

the hospital while he and the Rangers

21:33

held the area with blocking positions to

21:36

prevent potential enemy reinforcements and provide additional

21:39

muscle in case of a firefight.

21:42

Moore and the Rangers faced only light resistance.

21:46

Inside the hospital, green berets discovered that private

21:49

first class jessica lynch was the only US

21:52

Captive still alive. The rest of those killed during the

21:56

ambush had been buried in shallow graves.

21:58

Recovery was left to the first Ranger battalion to rescue.

22:03

A private First Class Jessica Lynch turned out to be

22:05

the first successful rescue of a serving member of US.

22:09

Forces in approximately four decades.

22:14

So push forward and then we established the operating bases

22:18

there in Baghdad and sped up the initial footprint and

22:22

then running around chasing the deck of cards.

22:25

The original 52 Saddam Qusay the rest of the players in

22:33

the deck and I wish I still had one now.

22:38

They're worth a lot of money, I bet. Yeah, well, just kind of put it up on the wall.

22:43

I got to do this.

22:47

Victory is declared. And that didn't really mean anything

22:52

because operations are still going on. But presidents declared victory. Right.

22:57

Victory was declared and then the war started. Yeah.

23:01

And it went on and on and on.

23:04

Same in Afghanistan. It was kind of over in 2002

23:10

and then it started building up again. Right.

23:18

One of the companies in the battalion got tasked.

23:20

So we went to Iraq with what we call Battalion Minus.

23:24

So we went with two of the companies and then one of the companies ended up going over

23:28

to Afghanistan and they were tasked with shutting down

23:31

those Special operations footprint in Afghanistan.

23:34

And so then they packed everything up and it was ready to shut it down.

23:38

And then they said, no, unpack it. We're staying.

23:41

And so then they had to turn around and unpack everything and reset everything back up.

23:46

And then we figured out that we were kind of

23:49

going to be in this for the long haul. But at that point, early 2003, 2004, and even

23:55

in 2005 in Afghanistan, we would go over there

23:59

and it's like, what are we doing here? We would spend a lot of time just training.

24:05

And what it was is that we just didn't have the

24:08

same way to target in Afghanistan as we were in Iraq.

24:11

And there was a technological difference in the infrastructure

24:16

in the countries that led to things kind of

24:20

being slow there for a while in Afghanistan.

24:22

And you go from Iraq and Iraq is a super fast

24:25

paced it's like running and gunning every night on a SWAT

24:30

team in the States and in any major US

24:32

Metropolitan city. I mean, it is busy for us.

24:36

Like, cops are serving search warrants and doing

24:40

all their thing on a nightly basis. Now you might not see it as the general public

24:44

and that's kind of the same way that we were in Iraq is we're just running through these cities and

24:48

we're just scooping up bad guys and trying to dive

24:52

into these networks and cells as all this stuff is

24:55

starting to develop for resistance, fighting against everything.

25:00

And then you go to Afghanistan and you're like, crickets. Crickets.

25:04

Because the targeting was different. It was a lot of human intelligence based targeting

25:08

and Afghanistan, so you have to vet all that

25:12

information through multiple sources and some of it pans

25:15

out and a lot of it doesn't pan out. And then we would spin up on a lot

25:18

of missions and then we'd get halfway to the

25:21

target and they would say, no scratch come back.

25:24

And so it's like kind of

25:26

irritating on the shooter's part.

25:29

All the boys that are amped up to get on target, right?

25:33

And then it's like, why is the helicopter turning around? Yeah.

25:37

And then you go, we found out it's bad

25:40

intel, and so we're going to start over. And it's like following Sergeant Nick Moore's

25:46

first deployment to Iraq in 2003 came

25:50

multiple deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq.

25:54

As the fighting ramped up in both places and

25:57

the role of the Rangers started to evolve.

26:00

The 75th Rangers, of which Nick was

26:02

a member, was considered an elite airborne

26:05

light infantry combat formation within the US.

26:08

Army Special Operations Command.

26:11

Previously, 75th Ranger deployments added muscle to Army

26:15

Special Forces, Delta Force and teams of Navy

26:19

Seals in order to provide security and blocking

26:23

positions, while the Tier One operators executed surgical

26:26

strikes on high value targets.

26:28

But as the pace of deployments quickened and the

26:31

Rangers earned the respect and confidence of their Tier

26:34

One counterparts, they ran more side by side missions.

26:39

The pace was relentless. Typically, the Rangers were running four

26:43

to six ops a night. By 2005, Nick was a 24 year

26:49

old staff sergeant and Ranger squad leader.

26:52

In late June, he received word that a four man team

26:56

was going out on a reconnaissance mission known as Red

26:59

Wings in the mountains of Kunar province of Afghanistan.

27:04

At first mention, it seemed to Nick that

27:07

a four man mission in a mountainous area

27:09

controlled by the Taliban was ill advised.

27:15

We were in the transitioning point as far as what the

27:18

roles of the Rangers were, what was being asked of us.

27:22

Instead of being more of the Special Operations support element

27:26

to go in and plus up the Delta Force and

27:30

the Seal teams to provide them outter security, now

27:34

we're being asked to kind of run the same target

27:36

decks as them because through the course of that year

27:41

we kind of shown that, hey, look, just because it's

27:44

not our task, we can do this.

27:47

We just bring more people to the table when we do it.

27:51

Seal team is going to run in there with about half

27:54

the numbers that arrangeable team is going to run in there

27:56

with and so we just bring more people when you talk

28:02

about a Ranger platoon, you're talking like 20 guys or no,

28:06

Ranger tune is typically somewhere between 45 and 50.

28:09

Okay? And So Seal team is going to run in there

28:12

with a lot less than that, and the same with

28:16

Delta Force guys, but we can do the same thing.

28:19

And so we started to work through the

28:21

progression of that and so we started to

28:24

operate on some of the same target decks.

28:26

So, like 2005 rolls around. There's still not a whole lot going

28:30

on in the late spring, summer 2005.

28:33

And so Marcus Luttrell's field team with

28:38

Mike Murphy, Danny Dietz and Matt Axelson.

28:41

And those guys, they were chasing a target set that had

28:46

been beaten the crap out of the Marines out in Konar.

28:49

And there was several fatalities from that.

28:52

Konar is northeast.

28:56

It's kind of east near the border.

29:00

Yes, that's where the mountains kind

29:02

of start climbing up north. North of Kabul. Right?

29:05

It's northeast of Kabul and kind of north of like a

29:09

Asadabad and the little combat outposts that are there.

29:13

So you're getting into the serious mountains.

29:19

They came in and had this reccy plan

29:23

to get eyes on, what is it?

29:27

Ahmed Shah. And he's a high level, mid level guy.

29:35

He was the leader of his little Taliban element out there.

29:39

So he had between two and 400

29:41

fighters that were fighting for him. So he's commanding quite a large element.

29:46

So they worked out the plan to do

29:48

this reconnaissance mission and they briefed it, and

29:52

then we got the briefing on it. And our reccy platoon had kind of got that strange

29:57

look on their face like, you're going to go in

30:00

here right in the middle of this where they just

30:03

killed like 14 Marines a week before, and you're going

30:06

to go in with four guys. It was like, okay, well, great.

30:11

You're Navy Seals. You can do what you want.

30:14

You can pitch that plan. And so we always talk about if it was our

30:18

mission, what would we do sitting around the dinner table.

30:21

And so I asked one of the reccy platoon sergeant,

30:25

who is I've known him for several years at this

30:28

point in my career, and I was like, hey, what

30:31

would you do if this was your mission? How would you do it?

30:33

He's like, Well, I'd go in with a full reccy element

30:36

with the whole reccy section, and I'd have one range of

30:38

rifle platoon sitting three to 5 km off that way.

30:43

It's not just four people. He said that's kind of ludicrous

30:47

for this type of mission. He says the train is terrible, communications

30:51

is even worse for satellite communications via

30:56

radio, and it's hard to get rescued.

30:59

He said it's just hard. And he said if you take a large element in, but

31:03

you don't take it all the way to the target, you still have the ability to either fight forward or fight back.

31:10

And then you. Have a stronger element to be able to take these on.

31:13

I said, okay, great. Awesome. It sounds like it makes sense to me.

31:16

And so we didn't think anything else of it.

31:18

We heard they were going, and so

31:21

they were infilling, and we're like, cool.

31:23

I guess we'll watch it on the TV through the feeds, and

31:28

we were supposed to go to the range the next day.

31:31

So we loaded up in the trucks and started business as usual.

31:33

In the morning, we're in Bagram, and so

31:38

we used to go out to mountain range.

31:41

We call it east river range because it's east of the base, so you have to drive through

31:45

the little town room to get off the base.

31:48

And then you just kind of drive for a few more minutes, and then you're out on this big flat.

31:51

And so we just throw the targets, and then the mountain range was the backstop for the bullets, and we're

31:57

driving along and getting everything set up, throwing target stands

32:00

and targets off the truck, because that was the easiest way to do it, is just drive down the line

32:03

and start throwing the gear off the truck. And then you just hop off, and

32:06

everybody spreads out and we start shooting. And we had no sense throwing all

32:11

the targets and everything off the truck. And they said, hey, get back on the truck.

32:14

We're going back. I was like, well, are we picking this stuff up?

32:17

They said, no, leave it. Just leave the targets there. Just leave it.

32:20

And I was like, okay, what's going on?

32:22

They said, we got to go back. I was like, well, what's going on?

32:27

Why are we going back? And they're like, shut up.

32:29

Get on the truck. Why are we going back?

32:32

Asked the two main questions. And they're like, we had a

32:34

helicopter that's been shot down. I was like, are you serious?

32:40

Nick learned that on the night of June 28, 2005, the four man Seal red wings

32:45

reconnaissance team had encountered heavy taliban contact near

32:50

the surreyac valley in kunar province.

32:53

A quick reaction force comprised of members of

32:56

seal team ten attempted an immediate rescue, but

33:00

as they approached, their chinook was shot down

33:03

and all aboard were killed. Sergeant nick moore was among 30 heavily armed rangers

33:08

who were tasked with securing the crash site, recovering

33:12

the bodies, and searching for any remaining men from

33:16

the original fourman Seal reconnaissance team.

33:20

He would soon learn that one of the four seals was still alive.

33:24

That badly injured man was Seal petty

33:27

officer Marcus Luttrell, subject of the very

33:30

popular book and movie lone survivor.

33:33

Nick was among the first rangers to reach him, and

33:39

I thought it was really stupid that they weren't giving

33:41

us any information because they're calling us back to be

33:44

on quick reaction for us to go in and still

33:47

going to find out soon enough. Yeah, well, I would figure this out

33:53

a few years down the road. Why that happens is that when helicopters get

33:57

shot down, it is a huge deal and

34:00

there are thousands of people that are trying

34:04

to gather as much information as possible. And so the guys who are going to go do

34:09

something, you don't need to know right now because we

34:11

don't know and we're trying to figure it out. So all we need you to do is to get back

34:15

here and be on standby to go when we say go.

34:20

So we get back and we're sitting there and now we're all amped up because this is real,

34:25

this is happening, but we're not doing anything.

34:30

And it's like, what is taking so long?

34:35

So when this happens, it's not that we're not going

34:38

to recommit America forces into that space because we are.

34:43

The problem is that we have to get enough assets over

34:49

there that it becomes an unfair fight in our advantage.

34:51

And so it's getting helicopter attack helicopters and fighter

34:55

jets and all of these things have to come

34:59

to bear on station and get coordinated.

35:08

Finally getting towards late afternoon, kind of

35:11

early evening time frame, they said, all right, we're loading up and going.

35:14

And by this point we've been through

35:17

several rounds of planning on this.

35:19

And they said, okay, well, the altitudes that we're going at, you only have this much weight that

35:25

you could put on the back of the helicopter because it's the end of June.

35:27

And what people don't understand when we talk about

35:31

aviation in the military is that even though these

35:33

helicopters are ready to carry a large amount of

35:36

equipment, it becomes an issue with air density.

35:40

And so the hotter it gets outside, the less dense

35:43

the air is, so there's less lift for these aircraft.

35:46

So we have to cut the weight on

35:48

the amount of people that we can bring. So we were one Ranger of tune going in at,

35:53

I think we were rolling probably, we were a little

35:56

up on Manning at the time and so probably like

36:00

55, 60 guys in arrangement platoon at the time.

36:02

And we went in with three squads of five,

36:06

the platoon command unit element, and then machine guns.

36:11

We're going in just two guys per machine

36:13

gun, and that's normally a three man crew.

36:15

So we're going in like 27 people, spread

36:19

it across two helicopters and so half the

36:22

young guys are sitting in the back. They can't do anything and it makes a cut to

36:26

get on the aircraft and not they did anything bad.

36:30

It's kind of one of those things where you take the

36:32

best guys that you can take and so that's yourself as

36:36

a leader and then you're taking your next two subordinate leaders

36:40

and then they each get to take one guy.

36:42

And you're a sergeant at this point. I'm a staff sergeant.

36:45

At this time, a brand new staff sergeant, so a Ranger squad leader.

36:50

So I'm in command of between at that time I had

36:53

like eleven guys I think, but normally it's about nine.

36:55

So it's two fire teams of four normally, but

36:58

we were running like two fire teams of five.

37:00

Plus myself would make about eleven guys,

37:03

plus or minus, I don't remember. You guys are going on the helicopter, right?

37:08

And so we launched to go.

37:11

And so people live in the mountains or they know

37:15

anything about weather in the summertime in the mountains, you

37:17

get random weird weather patterns in the mountains.

37:20

So we're flying target and has weather's rolled in and

37:25

we've got rain and fog and all kinds of stuff

37:28

and so the helicopters can't fly into that.

37:30

They have to be able to have a certain level of

37:33

visibility and so we had to abort infill that night.

37:36

So we diverted over to Jalalabad to stage at Jalalabad

37:41

and we ended up sitting on the flight line for

37:44

24 ish hours to be able to launch in that

37:48

next night and launched in just after sunset.

37:52

What do you know about the Seals at this point?

37:55

We knew that the helicopter was shot down the whole

37:58

time and it was presumed based on the feeds that

38:02

there were no survivors because there wasn't anybody moving around

38:05

it and that it was a fireball when it crashed.

38:10

There's no communication, there's no communication

38:13

with anybody on the ground. It's crickets on that end.

38:16

There's no communication with Murphy's team and

38:20

there's no communication with that helicopter.

38:23

There's no movement outside of that helicopter.

38:25

You just think it's going and you're going to go in and pick up some. Right?

38:29

So we're going in on basically what we call a combat

38:31

search and rescue with the anticipation that there are no survivors

38:37

based on all the activity that we've seen over like the

38:40

36 hours that this has been going on now.

38:43

And so on the board, Mike Murphy's team

38:47

just kind of gets a question mark because

38:50

we got to deal with these 16 Americans

38:54

that have been killed in this helicopter crash.

38:56

We have to confirm, deny any possible survivors out of that crash.

39:00

We have to account for everybody that's in that crash.

39:04

So that's the task at hand, the crashes first,

39:07

it's priority because we know where it is.

39:10

We don't know where anything is going on with Murphy's team.

39:14

So we'll figure that out.

39:17

We knew what we were going into. We knew it was going to be, well, we got

39:21

to deal with this first and hopefully intelligence comes around

39:24

or if there's any survivors out of Murphy's team, maybe

39:28

they'll make their way up kind of towards the crash

39:31

site and we'll be able to link up with them.

39:34

And you also know that there's enemy in

39:36

the area because they got down there. Right.

39:38

We know that there's the potential for

39:41

a large enemy force in the area.

39:44

So we finally get the clearance to launch out of Jalalabad

39:47

and launch up and they said, hey, we're going to.

39:50

The only insertion is fast rope.

39:52

So that's a big four inch diameter rope.

39:55

We kick out of the back of the helicopter and then slide down the rope like a fireman's pole.

39:59

And we try to do it normally in training and in

40:02

all tactical situations, we try to do it at under 40ft.

40:09

It's faster for us. And if guys were to fall, it's not

40:11

they're not going to get as hurt. But this one was at 60 plus.

40:15

It started at 60 and then kind of as the helicopter will drift, because

40:21

static cover for helicopters never perfectly stable.

40:25

They're moving around a little bit and it

40:28

feels like it's perfectly stable until you're sitting

40:30

on the ground and you're staring at it. And I was like, wow, that thing's dancing a little bit.

40:35

But when you're doing that, when you're fast roving

40:37

in at like 8000ft elevation on the ground and

40:41

you're roped in on the side of on a

40:43

ridge, that rope just kind of drifts.

40:46

And so the more it drifts off the side, the longer the rope gets.

40:49

And wearing leather work gloves that we're

40:53

supposed to wear, and their hands are getting burnt and they're blisters.

40:58

And so guys, some of the guys get about

41:01

ten to 15ft off towards the bottom of the

41:04

rope and they can't hold on anymore. Their hands are all blistered up and

41:07

so they just drop off the open.

41:09

A lot of twisted ankles. And there were a couple of twisted ankles for us.

41:15

The other team that came in behind us, they were the

41:18

actual we were kind of the advanced party, so we were

41:20

there to fight through any resistance so they could come in

41:23

with the recovery equipment, body bags and the equipment that we

41:28

carry for smash web crash actions and things like that, that

41:32

have to get brought up on target. And that stuff is not popular

41:38

to what people might think. That stuff is heavy and it's

41:41

compressed and it's not awkward. A body bag weighs 35 lbs.

41:45

Yeah, around 35 lbs.

41:47

Because it's a thick lined, heavy plastic bag and

41:51

it's waterproof, and because of what's going in, it

41:54

is biohazard, is human and things like that.

42:00

I don't mean to be grotesque, but you

42:03

can't have those bags leaking with 35 lbs.

42:06

People are like, oh, 235 pounds. Well, strap that onto the other 70 lb of junk

42:11

that you're already wearing and then let's get out

42:14

of a helicopter at 8000ft and walk to 10,000ft.

42:18

It hurts. We're acclimated.

42:22

I mean, Bagram Air Force Base is sitting at,

42:24

like, 5500ft of elevation, so we're not going that much.

42:28

But it's a big change, it's

42:30

a drastic change, even for that. And we're adrenaline going and you're carrying.

42:35

Right, so we finally get in and we start walking

42:41

and start I'm sorry, this is daylight or night time.

42:45

This is the night of the 29 July.

42:47

Okay, so drop in at night. Yes.

42:49

So the crash happened on june 28. And so with the weather delay on the night of

42:53

the 28th, we sat all day on the 29th.

42:56

And so this is the night of the 29th. We're finally getting inserted into to be

43:02

able to put American forces around this

43:04

crash site and start making accountability and

43:07

giving a visual first hand assessment. Is the helicopter still burning at this point?

43:11

It is, yes, it is. So we get infilled and so it's

43:17

like, okay, where are we going? And they say, you see that fire? Yeah.

43:20

That's where we're going. Yeah, start walking.

43:24

Nick from third platoon fast rope

43:27

from a blackhawk helicopter at 8000ft.

43:30

The Chinook, they soon learned, had gone down

43:32

2000ft higher at the crest of the mountain.

43:36

Now they had to climb up a small nasty

43:39

goat trail in the inky blackness of a rural

43:43

Afghanistan night while carrying their regular combat gear along

43:47

with heavy body bags and other equipment.

43:51

Once they secured the ridge, they went

43:53

about the gruesome job of recovering 16

43:56

bodies from the Chinook crash site.

43:59

The only recognizable parts of the helicopter

44:02

were the rotor blades and turbine engines.

44:05

Then they split up and started searching for the four missing Seals.

44:10

Nick was leading a 13 man Ranger element

44:13

that was joined by a special forces A

44:15

team when they spotted a small village ahead.

44:20

And so we start walking and guys try to

44:23

take off at this rabbit pace and it's like

44:26

that's not going to work for very long. And so that you can see the first

44:31

little bit, we're walking at a pretty good clip and then you're going uphill.

44:35

Yeah, we're going uphill. It's pretty steep.

44:38

Well, it's just off the top of the ridge

44:41

and we're about halfway up the ridge for this

44:43

and so I'm back up a little bit.

44:46

So all of this is happening on the 28th

44:49

and I've just kind of put this in there.

44:53

I know I put it in my book as well, but so

44:55

there was a rifle team that was stationed out of Jalalabad.

44:59

And so when all this happened, they just

45:02

jumped in the trucks and they took off. They said, hey, we're not waiting for you

45:05

to ask us to go, we're going. And so they started driving up there to the

45:10

base of the mountain and so then they're in

45:13

the bottom of the valley, in the big valley. And so then they literally started walking up

45:19

the entire mountain to get to the top.

45:22

And so even with that, a whole 24 hours of that,

45:30

they still haven't even made it as high as we had

45:32

gotten being inserted and they wouldn't show up for another day.

45:38

Oh my God, that tells you how

45:42

bad it was walking up there. And they left all their trucks

45:46

and stuff down at the bottom? Well, no, the gun crews and so the

45:51

vehicle crews, they stayed on the truck, so driver, gunner, and then one other individual.

45:54

And so what they did was once they did the

45:57

infiltration for those guys to drop off, then they turned

46:00

around and took the trucks back to Jalalabad.

46:04

They could have went to Camp Blessing, I'm not sure.

46:08

It's kind of a moot point where they went.

46:11

I know they didn't sit down there for two weeks.

46:14

So they're walking up and we've finally got infield and

46:19

now we're starting our walk and we're walking towards the

46:21

fire and maybe about an hour before sunrise when we

46:25

finally get up on the top and kind of push

46:27

through and secure what we are calling the objective area.

46:30

And so we own the top of the ridge where all

46:33

this stuff is happening and we've got guys that have swept

46:36

through and make sure there's no fighters hiding in wait.

46:39

And then we just locked down. Our platoon was responsible to lock down the entire

46:43

perimeter and so we locked it down and then

46:46

waited and then the sun had come up.

46:48

Now their platoon finally started to make their way onto

46:51

the objective and there was no rest for them.

46:54

They didn't stop. They just pushed through. They pushed through.

46:58

Give the platoon sergeant and PL at the time, they

47:01

gave the guidance of what needed to be done. And the boys started to go to work.

47:05

And come about noon, one local,

47:10

we had everybody accounted for.

47:14

And how many people had been on that?

47:17

There were 16. Wow.

47:19

And they all died. There were no survivors. Yeah, there were no survivors.

47:23

And so the next tasking that came was we have to

47:29

make a way for these guys to get out here. So we had a small clearing that we could fit a

47:35

small helicopter on, but it wasn't anything big enough to get

47:37

a transport helicopter in to get the remains out.

47:40

So we ordered a supply pallet of explosives and started

47:45

blowing trees off the mountain and created a helicopter landing

47:50

zone large enough for a Ch 47 to come in

47:52

and be able to load the remains. So that's the way you do it?

47:55

You just start clearing an area? Yeah.

48:00

Even if there hadn't been a clearing, we would have made one.

48:02

And so we had just finished our breachers training course.

48:06

And so we don't always use

48:08

timber charges and things like that.

48:10

It's very rare that we actually do. But since we had just finished the

48:14

course, it was fresh in everybody's mind. It's just something that we always train on when we

48:17

teach people how to do this because it's a very

48:20

basic task, but it's also a very complicated task.

48:23

It's like being a lumberjack and falling a tree the

48:25

correct way, but instead of using an accident, a chainsaw

48:28

and wedges, we're using explosives to do it.

48:30

So there's a few more tricks to doing it with

48:34

explosives, but we have a lot of fun doing it.

48:38

It's kind of something that kept us from

48:41

thinking about what had just happened and so

48:45

far you don't see any resistance at all?

48:49

No, there's nothing. I mean, we're not seeing anybody up

48:52

there, so we're like, okay, awesome. I guess nobody wants to play.

48:58

So we finished that up and come late, late

49:03

afternoon or the evening sun is still up, finally

49:06

got clearence to bring in the helicopter to load

49:11

the remains on and fly them out.

49:15

So then they flew out, and then we had got basically the daily intelligence dumped for what was

49:22

going on, and there was a random push to

49:24

talk that had been triangulated, that it was somewhere

49:28

down the mountain, like a walkie talkie almost.

49:31

Well, it's one of our radios. And so somebody was just pushing the push

49:35

button to Kia, not Morse code or anything,

49:39

but they were just pushing it. And so after so many times of

49:43

doing that, you could use technology to

49:45

triangulate the location or an approximate location.

49:49

That location got passed up. And we got tasked with two squads and

49:56

our platoon leaders element down the mountain at

49:59

night to figure out what was going on.

50:02

And so, like we were saying earlier, mountain weather comes in.

50:05

So we ended up walking down the mountain in this massive rainstorm.

50:11

You haven't slept, right? No, not really.

50:13

I mean, caught a few little cat naps here and

50:15

there, but kind of the best thing to do in

50:21

situations like that is to not stop doing things.

50:24

And it's not because you just want to run on adrenaline, but when you have downtime,

50:29

then your mind starts actually thinking about the

50:33

ramifications of what has just happened here.

50:37

And so if you can keep the boys

50:39

busy and keep them doing things, then their

50:41

mind doesn't think about what just happened there.

50:46

In helicopters.

50:49

We're going to fly out on helicopters. Interesting.

50:54

So you just keep moving. So just keep moving.

50:57

And so we got the tasking

51:02

and started walking in the rain. It's coming down, and it's wet and slick, and we almost

51:09

lost a couple of guys off the side of the ridge. And I was like, hey, we might want to stop

51:15

for a while because Nate almost fell off the mountain.

51:19

And that's all we need to do is have somebody else.

51:24

Now we have to go find somebody else, one of our own, right?

51:28

So we held up underneath some of the big

51:31

mountain pine trees there for the last couple of

51:33

hours of the night and just shaking and shivering.

51:39

We're hot and sweaty from walking,

51:41

but we're also soaking wet. And then when you stop moving and it's just miserable.

51:46

And so guys try to catch a little bit of sleep, but you can't really catch any sleep.

51:50

And so you just kind of turn in

51:52

your head, looking under your night vision and just seeing what's out on the landscape.

51:56

And there were some little spot fires, little

51:59

camps and things like that, and we were

52:01

assuming they were Taliban or farmers with goats.

52:06

They'll push the goats up in the mountains and let them graze on whatever grass and

52:09

vegetation is up that they'll eat.

52:14

And all you're going on is this ping of this rate, right?

52:17

And a grid that we had basically walking

52:20

to a grid down to this little village and trying to find the answer to this

52:30

American equipment in control by Taliban fighters, right.

52:34

Which of course is it just people who just

52:36

happened to cross it and do they know what

52:38

happened to the individuals that are still missing?

52:41

Right. And there's still no word from right.

52:44

There's no word from Mike Murphy's Seal team.

52:48

It's just no comms at all.

52:51

And so push down.

52:54

And there was a Special Forces team that had infilled at

52:58

the same time as the Ranger team, and they have come

53:01

up a different spur on the mountain and trying to see

53:07

which way was the fastest split forest type deal.

53:11

And so we tied in with them after the sun came up and the rain stopped and we're kind of trying to

53:16

dry our gear out for just a few minutes. We got food coming in on a cargo delivery system, so a

53:23

big pallet of gears get kicked out of the back of the

53:25

C 130 and we're just kind of waiting for breakfast to show

53:28

up and try our gear out before we keep walking.

53:33

So we tied with them, have a little bit something to eat.

53:36

Got dried off a little bit and get it it back

53:39

up and then started walking down to the little village.

53:45

What size village are we talking?

53:47

Oh, it's tiny. I mean, we're talking maybe one or two city blocks.

53:53

It's nothing big, maybe 100 people, 200 people. Okay.

53:57

And it's all like sheep herders. They're farmers, so they terrace the side of the

54:02

mountains and they'll farm in agriculture and that stuff.

54:05

And so we start rangers don't do the nice,

54:11

Ask questions first and then look later.

54:13

We just smash things. Special Forces guys? Yeah. Right?

54:17

So we let the Special Forces guys go talk to the village elders.

54:20

And then so me and the boys and my

54:24

buddy Jason, who's the other squad, later his squad,

54:26

we start kicking in doors and we're speaking English.

54:29

Where's the Americans? Where's the Americans? They're speaking Pashto and Farsi and

54:33

whatever else they're speaking over there. Some things all you can do is just point.

54:38

So we're just pointing on the shoulder to

54:40

our American flag and like, where is he? Where is he?

54:43

Where are they? So then they figured out what we

54:46

were doing while we were there. And so then the village people kind of helped

54:52

marcus up from where they were hiding him from

54:55

the Taliban and they brought him up to us.

54:59

And so when we stopped smashing stuff and went

55:01

over to the SF guys and we're like, hey, you probably got to pay for a few doors.

55:05

Yeah, right. Then we started asking marcus questions. How was Marcus?

55:12

What condition was he in? He was walking.

55:15

I'm sure he had some injuries.

55:19

We knew he had been shot in the

55:23

back end and some bruises and scrapes.

55:27

Yeah, he was pretty bruised up, but

55:31

he's walking under his own power. It's just come to find out later

55:37

from falling and all that stuff. He had cracked a rib right or two or something in

55:43

his back, but he was walking on his own power.

55:47

Was he still armed? He didn't have his rifle.

55:50

He had his tactical gear, and then that led us to that.

55:56

Okay, so that was his radio. And so the medics went over and kind of did

56:01

what they could do for him and all that stuff.

56:03

And so then we start asking questions.

56:06

Hey, what happened?

56:09

And so then he starts explaining what happened,

56:12

and then the question is, okay, well, if

56:15

you're here, where is everybody else? And he goes, they're dead.

56:18

I was like, okay, but where? He's like and he just points up

56:22

on the side of the mountain. He goes there. Up there.

56:25

I was like, can you be a little bit more specific?

56:29

And he's like, no. What was his mental state?

56:32

I mean, he was coherent, if that's what you're asking, but

56:36

you could tell that he was kind of I guess he

56:40

was in his own thoughts about what had happened, and he's

56:44

trying to think, but he's been in a running gunfight.

56:50

And then he comes in and he tells us that,

56:52

okay, well, while you guys were weathered out and the

56:56

29th, the Taliban actually came down here and they grabbed

56:59

him up and they took him up on the mountain. They showed him all the fighting positions and said, when

57:03

your friends come in here to get you, we're going to shoot them down, too, and all this stuff he's

57:10

saying that the Taliban had grabbed him. Right.

57:12

They came into the village and they grabbed him at

57:14

gunpoint and threatened the villagers that if they didn't let

57:18

him take them, but then they were going to kill

57:23

everybody in the village, so they let him take him.

57:26

But there's part of Afghan culture

57:29

I don't remember the exact term. pashtunwali Yes, thank you.

57:33

Pashtunwali, where they're responsible for him now

57:36

because they've accepted him into the village

57:39

and they've offered him care and attention.

57:41

And so then they are by their culture, they're required to fight for him.

57:47

And so the Taliban knew that as well.

57:50

And so that's why after they did their thing with him

57:52

and kind of threatened him, trying to intimidate him about what

57:55

was going to happen when everybody else came in, then they

57:59

brought it back and they handed him back over, and that's

58:01

when they decided they were to hide him. And so he was kind of in a root seller type,

58:07

so the villagers were hiding him right down in the bottom

58:11

of the draw, and a little root seller type thing that

58:14

they had down there, and they were just kind of keeping

58:16

him out of the village, but safe.

58:18

And so when we got down there shooting them and stuff, right?

58:21

So we start trading information with him and he's

58:25

explaining all this stuff that's happened, and we're passing

58:31

information back up the mountain to our guys.

58:33

And so then basically, we're tasked with just babysitting

58:36

him and securing that village until nightfall, when they

58:41

can fly into Medevac helicopter and put him on the medevac and fly him out.

58:47

So we're two days into this op now, and

58:50

so that starts twelve more days of us, twelve

58:54

more days combing this mountainside, looking for three missing

58:59

Navy Seals who are presumed dead, according to Marcus,

59:05

and he has no idea where they are.

59:07

He knows generally they're up from him,

59:10

so they're up on the mountain. So what happened was we had our small element where we

59:14

were, and the rest of our element was on the top.

59:16

So then those guys were climbing from the top of

59:19

the mountain halfway down, and we were climbing from the

59:22

bottom halfway up and meeting in the middle.

59:24

And so one pass would take about all day.

59:29

And so then we were combing through all

59:31

of this and leadership is keeping track of

59:35

what sections of the mountains that we've covered.

59:38

And we thought we were going to be real quick

59:41

about it because the first day that we actually search

59:47

so it'd be like the 30th as we're searching through.

59:52

Or actually it's probably July 1.

59:57

We make our first push halfway up the mountain

59:59

and tie in with the guys coming from the

1:00:01

top down and high five and hey.

1:00:04

I've seen a couple of days. How's it going? Kind of have a five minute break and just talk

1:00:08

with your friends and stuff and then split back.

1:00:12

They go back up the mountain. We turn around and come back to the bottom.

1:00:15

And as they're going back up to the top, they stumble across two of them.

1:00:20

And it was just stupid luck.

1:00:23

Somebody happened to slide into a little

1:00:26

wash, lost his footing and fell in.

1:00:29

Unfortunately for him, he's like, laying on

1:00:31

top of them face to face. So I felt bad for those

1:00:36

guys because they had found him. And so they're still going up in

1:00:40

elevation to get back to the top.

1:00:42

So now they've got to carry two sets of remains

1:00:45

all the way up to the top, and then they have to carry them down the ridge to the helicopter

1:00:50

landing zone, and then we've got to get the helicopter back into Medevac, those remains out, and then now it's

1:00:56

looking for one person on the side of a mountain.

1:01:01

So we just searching, searching, searching, and

1:01:05

there's a little small spur kind of

1:01:09

in the middle of this bigger draw. The big draw is kind of wise as

1:01:13

the mountain came up, and so we had.

1:01:15

Searched for a couple of days on the side

1:01:17

where the village was, where we picked up Marcus.

1:01:19

And so we thought, well, maybe we need to take

1:01:22

part of the element and shift over to the other

1:01:24

side, because he couldn't remember where anybody was.

1:01:27

And guys get separated in this type of a gun fight

1:01:30

and this kind of terrain, and if he slipped and fell and nobody saw it, he might be over here.

1:01:34

So we were spending on the other side. And so we just spent a day or so and kind

1:01:39

of searched that other side and said, well, he's not here.

1:01:42

And so then we just kept continuing the search.

1:01:45

And so at this time, in the big picture

1:01:49

of everything that's going on, our deployment window had

1:01:53

ended, and we're on the side of this mountain.

1:01:55

And so our replacement Battalion third

1:01:59

Ranger Battalion had just showed up. And so they were getting kitted up

1:02:02

and briefed up on what's going on. So you were supposed to leave Afghanistan. Yeah.

1:02:08

And so we're ten days into

1:02:11

this now, and we're worn out.

1:02:16

Some of the guys have gotten sick because

1:02:19

at this point, we're not getting bottled water dropped in for us or anything.

1:02:22

We're just kind of trying to purify our own water through the mountain stream systems.

1:02:25

And I think some of the guys didn't quite get the mix of iodine drops to quarts of water. Correct.

1:02:32

And so they kind of got in the runs.

1:02:35

Yeah, that's not good. And upset stomach, and I got sick too, but I had eaten

1:02:39

a bad MRE, so I had food poisoning for about 14 hours.

1:02:43

Oh, God. So all this is going on three of the

1:02:46

times, getting their stuff together and getting straightened up,

1:02:49

and we're trying to work out the relief and

1:02:52

place on the mountain and all this stuff.

1:02:55

And finally the call comes that, hey, you're out tonight.

1:03:00

And so we pushed over to where we could get a helicopter in on our location, and Third Battalion guys

1:03:06

jumped off, we jumped on, flew back, and after everybody

1:03:12

had gotten back from our platoon and our company was

1:03:17

probably about maybe 8 hours, they had recovered the final

1:03:22

missing American that and it just happened.

1:03:25

It just wasn't a place that we hadn't looked yet.

1:03:27

And they were fresh eyes, and we weren't taking

1:03:30

the assumptions that we were from first hand account.

1:03:33

They were just kind of going, okay, yeah, right.

1:03:36

And they're looking at it like first Platoon

1:03:40

and Third party Charlie Company have searched this

1:03:43

much area, and so there's well, there's no

1:03:45

point in searching that again. So let's look just outside of where they searched,

1:03:49

and they found him pretty much right away.

1:03:55

These guys had died. Just gunshot wounds. Yeah. Okay.

1:03:59

So from your perspective, was it a

1:04:04

big battle that had taken place?

1:04:06

Was there, like, evidence of a lot of combat?

1:04:10

No, not from our perspective of what we had seen,

1:04:14

according to what was passed over on the radio from

1:04:18

Murphy when everything was first jumping off for them versus

1:04:22

even when the helicopter got shot down.

1:04:24

We found a lot of Soviet brass and things like

1:04:28

that from machine guns and them shooting, but not so

1:04:31

much on the NATO American five, five, six and four

1:04:38

ammunition or pistol ammunition or anything like that.

1:04:42

It wasn't there, or at least we just didn't see it.

1:04:47

So they were probably it sounds like they encountered

1:04:50

the enemy and it was over pretty quickly.

1:04:52

It wasn't like a prolonged battle that went on.

1:04:56

You can still pull up some of the feed.

1:04:59

Some of the video clips are still available on YouTube.

1:05:01

You can search it and you can actually see it and hear the gunfight that's going on.

1:05:08

It's nothing graphic, nothing's shown.

1:05:10

It's just from the Taliban's perspective of what they're doing.

1:05:17

So that was that. Now, when you saw the movie, what was your reaction?

1:05:22

Oh, I fought not watching that for a long time.

1:05:32

I was at an Advanced non commissioned officers course. When I finally decided to try and read Marcus book, because

1:05:38

we had a school got shut down for a day and

1:05:40

I went into town and sat at Barnes and Nobles drinking

1:05:43

coffee, and I was like, well, let's give this a try.

1:05:46

And I was like, well, tried reading it and I read a little

1:05:51

bit of it and I put it back on the shelf and I

1:05:53

was like, Well, I don't need to read it, I lived it.

1:06:04

I give Hollywood credit, dramatize

1:06:08

things and add things. It's based on a true story.

1:06:12

But I think the end of the movie

1:06:15

is not the way it should have been.

1:06:17

I think you had a better dramatic effect if you

1:06:20

actually had a shown the actual course of events that

1:06:23

happened and the amount of effort that went into finding

1:06:28

him and yeah, well, just recovering everybody.

1:06:32

Not just helicopter, but the amount of effort that was

1:06:36

put into finding not only Marcus, but Murphy, Dietz and

1:06:41

Axelson, and making sure that they came home.

1:06:45

Did you ever see Marcus after that? No.

1:06:50

I did the warfighter segment on this piece a few years

1:06:54

ago with the History Channel and just timing work out.

1:06:59

He filmed his piece the day before we filmed ours.

1:07:04

Myself, Brian and Mario came in and filmed it.

1:07:10

I personally don't hold any animosity to the guy.

1:07:13

No, of course not. He was clearly deeply affected by whatever happened.

1:07:19

Yeah, that story, from my perspective, on my side

1:07:27

of sitting there on the ground and enjoying two

1:07:31

weeks on the side of a mountain. After rescuing Marcus Luttrell and confirming his

1:07:40

identity, nick and his fellow Rangers asked

1:07:44

him about the location of the rest

1:07:46

of his four man Seal reconnaissance team.

1:07:49

Luttrell told them how the Seals had shifted their observation

1:07:52

post early on to better see their target, but that

1:07:56

he and his teammates had been compromised by goat herders

1:08:00

who had stumbled upon their new location.

1:08:03

Their decision to release the locals would,

1:08:06

Marcus inform them, have dire consequences.

1:08:10

Luttrell was unable to give them even the most general

1:08:13

location of where the Seals had encountered the enemy.

1:08:17

Still, Nick and his Ranger colleagues scoured the

1:08:21

mountain for two more weeks until they were

1:08:23

able to identify and recover the bodies of

1:08:27

Luttrell teammates petty Officer Danny Dietz, petty Officer

1:08:32

Matthew Axelson, and team leader Lieutenant Michael Murphy.

1:08:37

We thank Nick Moore for his incredible tenacity and bravery

1:08:42

and his wonderful book Run to the Sound of Guns.

1:08:46

He is today's hero behind the headlines.

1:08:51

Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Ralph Pezzullo.

1:08:54

Please subscribe, and don't forget to tune in to

1:08:57

the next episode of Heroes Behind Headlines