Danger Close

1

(people chatter)

MALE COMMANDER:

All right, gentlemen...

MAN 2:
Right here is

Black Rock Mountain, men.

Fifteen to twenty minutes ago,

Alpha Coy, became engaged

by 50 to 100 fighters,

up, around, and on the vicinity

of Black Rock mountain.

They're also taking some indirect

fires from this location.

They hope to have them, uh,

backstopped by Bravo Coy

and compress the enemy

between the two of 'em,

setting the conditions

for us to come in

and do our air assault.

QUADE:
What's our

plan for this evening?

Basically, we're rolling in with

the attack of the Command Element

in order to secure

a, uh, high-traffic region

for the, uh...

The Taliban.

QUADE:
So you'll be with

Command Element in a Black Hawk

and I'll be up with

the Joe's in a Chinook, yeah?

Absolutely. Yeah, you get

the better spot, though.

(helicopter lightly whirs)

PILOT 1:
Beck Becks. I actually

have an L-10-11 going out.

PILOT 2:
(on radio)

Upper foresight is good.

- Internals are incomplete.

- (radio crackles)

(indistinct chatter)

PILOT 2:
30 mag, all cooling.

- You can go ahead, over.

- PILOT 1:
Roger, work it off.

AIRMAN:
Arrow 2-5, I have

contact on all friendlies.

- We have good situational awareness.

- (radio beeps)

(men speak Pashto)

(men speaking Pashto)

ARROW AIRMAN:
Arrow's clear.

- Plug it in.

- Yep, Roger.

(men exclaiming in Pashto)

(frantic speech continues)

ARROW AIRMAN:
Truckade...

Her movement's the tree line.

- Got anybody in there?

- I'm looking, sir.

Right there,

clock him, hold on a second.

- Oh, sh*t, right.

- (camera clicks)

AIRMAN:
Arrow 2-5, we have multiple enemies

in trees, engaging west of road.

(overlapping chatter)

ARROW AIRMAN 2:
Ah, we're getting shot at.

- Roger...

- AIRMAN:
Oh, sh*t, their in...

ARROW PILOT 2:
That's affirmative.

We are taking fire

from the west side...

(cursing)

And, Hard Rock, this is Arrow,

we need permission

to engage the tree line,

where the RPG came from.

HARD ROCK COMMAND 1:

Roger, you're clear to engage.

HARD ROCK COMMAND 2: Uh, f***ing

light that tree line up, hit it.

- ARROW AIRMAN 1: Roger.

- (machine gun fires)

- Just to the left. Hit it.

- Roger.

(machine gun fires)

HARD ROCK COMMAND 2: Okay, make

sure that-Okay, looking good.

- ARROW AIRMAN 1: Oh, sh*t.

- Hit it, hit it.

- RPG right over there.

- Right, hit it!

(man cursing) We have multiple

RPGs coming from that side

at the aircraft, I copy.

(men speaking Pashto)

HARD ROCK COMMAND 2: Right, hit it.

- (gunfire)

- Hit it again.

- Hit it again.

- (gunfire)

(men shout)

HARD ROCK COMMAND 2: Good man, good man.

AIRMAN:
We neutralized the one RPG site.

ARROW AIRMAN 1:
Roger, that's good, copy.

- Come up the road.

- Up the road, Roger.

Up the road, up the road

to the left... to the left.

- Right there in that building.

- Arrow 2-5, are you seeing

- or we're taking more contact?

- Okay.

Roger, we're engaged.

Oh my god, I got a bucket.

Oh, sh*t... (indistinct)

On, sh*t.

(radio crackles)

- (radio feedback)

- (woman utters)

(radio crackles)

AIRMAN:
2-5, 2-5, one

of our vehicles got hit.

- We lost the line of...

- (overlapping chatter)

Standby, we're

missing friendlies.

We're trying to

get him out of there.

WOMAN:
There was a huge,

huge air assault operation.

This was involving

the first and 5-0-8,

the parachute infantry

regiment, an entire regiment.

It was involving

7th Special Forces Group,

more than 15

different air assets.

It was a huge operation,

and it was going to be going on

for weeks and weeks and weeks,

and within that first hour,

one of the Chinooks

had been shot down

by a Taliban Surface-to-Air missile.

QUADE:
They had to try to secure this huge,

flaming crash site,

and they didn't know

if there were any survivors.

ANDERSON:
What happened

when you touched down?

We had heard that

there had been a Chinook

that was shot down,

but I just focused

on my job of shooting video

and trying to get the story.

(helicopter continues whirring)

(aircraft flying)

1-3-6, over.

Air Humvee.

(chatter)

Roger, we heard there was a downed

aircraft. Can we confirm that?

Is anybody looking

to our North route?

(overlapping chatter)

QUADE:
I'd linked up

with the Commander,

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Menace.

And we were moving

to clear a compound

so he'd have a secure location

because they needed

to control 15 aircraft

that were racked

and stacked in the sky.

This had now become a combat

search-and-rescue mission

in addition to the ongoing

offensive operation.

(gun c*cks, shot)

Spread out.

(cow moos)

- AIRMAN:
Moo.

- I need to get by you.

- Do you speak English?

- (cow moos)

Hey, he does.

(whistling)

- Hey, get him over here now.

- (dog barking)

Get him over here now.

Get him out here.

(barking)

(men calmly speak Pashto)

Come on.

(man speaks Pashto)

Let me see it.

Here, all right.

Yeah, these guys check out.

They're friendlies.

Thank you.

Who the f*** is our...

(radio crackles)

- AIRMAN 1:
All right, you guys ready?

- AIRMAN 2:
Yeah.

AIRMAN 3:

Which contact...

- AIRMAN 1:
That one right there.

- AIRMAN 2:
Okay.

Up, up, right there.

Hit it.

Roger.

Take that, f***er.

Here we go.

- Coming up left.

- Roger.

We nailed the sh*t

out of that one.

QUADE:
Hey, Jimbo,

what are we hearing?

QUADE:

Thank you.

I think what's

important to remember

with this huge

operation is that...

And it was an operation

that still went on

for weeks and weeks thereafter.

And there were many

battles that still followed

and towns that these troops

had to clear, and...

but the important thing that...

That can't get lost in this

is that seven souls were lost.

The five crew of the flipper

and our coalition partners,

a Brit and a Canadian...

And that it... it

made no difference

that... that it

was internationals

or that they

might be reporters...

That we had Americans that

were willing to risk their lives

and go after and make sure

to recover the fallen.

They had to count

the bodies of the fallen.

And when I tracked down

Sergeant Greg Strickland,

whose little six-man platoon...

He had gone in there

and had counted five bodies.

And he thought, okay,

well, I found the crew.

And he was ordered

over the radio

to go back in and

count the bodies again

because the reporters

are missing.

And he told me on camera

that he went back in there

to look for the reporters,

and he said he...

That... to look for me.

I didn't know I was

supposed to be on that...

On that helicopter,

on that Chinook.

It was the guys

who told me afterwards.

It was a punch to the gut

because it was

this realization that...

men put their lives at risk

to come after reporters,

to come after people like me,

even though I'm

not a service member.

It's not that I have a purpose,

but it's that I have

this huge responsibility.

I have a debt to

pay back to these guys.

I have to tell their stories.

Did you stay embedded

with this group

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