Legion of Brothers Page #2

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You know what it is.

- Little dust off that.

- A pickle tea.

- A lot of memories,

you know what I mean?

It's like--that you kind of

tamp down and put away.

Not so good,

but that's okay.

- Every one of the husbands

will tell you

That they're gonna die

before us spouses do.

- Suck it up, buttercup.

- Suck it up, will.

- Hey, how about we toast

to everybody who's not here?

- Yeah, there you go.

- 'cause we got chad,

we got pete...

- Pete.

- We got steve.

- Bill.

- Bill, wherever you are.

- Wherever he's at.

- Salud.

- Salud.

- Whoo!

That sh*t's nasty.

- What is this sh*t?

- Hey.

Say hello.

Come on.

It wasn't until you were

forced to retire,

You had to retire.

Then you isolated yourself

from your family

And everybody else.

You internalize everything.

You try to find a new normalcy.

- Off.

Sit, sit, sit.

Psst, sit.

What I found kind of peace with

Is to go out here,

crawl around on jeeps

And, you know, be one again.

Being out here, I mean, listen.

You know, you get to have

no thoughts at all.

Each one of our stories

are almost similar,

How we isolated ourselves,

our family, everything else.

Started reaching out and found,

You know, the only way we're

all gonna heal each other

Is to get back together.

- Holy sh*t.

- That's that blooper.

- Oh, there we go.

Big marky mark.

- Marky mark.

- I'm up here somewhere.

That's me right there.

- You know, in special forces,

you have a team,

And a team is 12 men.

You've got a captain,

a team sergeant,

A team warrant officer,

Two engineers, two commo,

Two medics,

two weapons sergeants.

That formulates a team,

And each team

would have a specialty,

Like high-altitude,

low-opening jumping

Or scuba diving

Or assaulting direct action.

- I was the greatest tactician

For direct action

that there was.

Back then, I thought I was

on top of the world.

- In the back.

- Right here?

- Yes.

- General franks,

again, on special forces,

Can you give us a sense

of how the size and scope

Of their mission will expand

over the next month,

From classic liaison

with northern alliance groups

And reconnaissance,

To more direct action,

Shoot-em-up ambush

type of situations?

- A short answer,

and that is that...

One should not assume

that there has not been

Strategic reconnaissance

and direct action activity.

You would not expect for me

to tell you

Exactly what they're doing.

- Evidence that another,

much more covert operation

Is well under way...

- These special forces

are trying to hunt down

Suspected terrorist

osama bin laden...

- The letter-like attacks

by commandos

To go after and root out

some of that infrastructure.

- The mission statement

was to kill or capture

Senior al-qaeda

and taliban leadership, stop.

Insert name, stop.

Insert location, stop.

At our level,

there was a big map there,

And the big map is synchronized

by who's next,

Who's on first, okay?

And then, who's on first

is a number

And a picture

and a little bit of background.

Went into one room,

it was total chaos.

Seven guys, machine guys,

Dodging bullets,

shooting people, hand-to-hand.

You run into the next room,

Guys are shooting

out the back of the window.

One guy is surrendering.

You went into the next room,

bam.

It was on-off, on-off,

on-off, on-off, on...

Helicopter home.

As a kid, I was forced

to read homer's "odyssey,"

You know, about a warrior king

trying to come home

And the family

going through its situation.

You never really understand it,

Because you don't have

the maturity.

Now, you know, you're trying

to find, you know,

The subtleties

and calmness of life.

That, right now,

is more valuable

Than a million dollars

in the bank.

- As a leader,

You have to balance, you know,

"what's the mission?

What are you trying

to accomplish?"

And the mission is invariably

To put your soldiers

in harm's way.

So, I think, as a soldier,

There's a part of you that,

as an individual,

You want to see it,

to understand it,

To be tested by it.

But then, as a leader,

You're so terrified

at the thought

Of making bad decisions

that get your soldiers killed.

- You need a very strong

team leader.

Amerine was outstanding.

- It's like a democracy.

You've got to

kind of, you know--

There's strong wills.

12 strong wills.

- You're stuck

with this bunch of guys

And thrown into afghanistan.

And it was just fun.

Yeah, it was awesome.

- You know,

we identified tarin kowt

As the first step

in our campaigns.

The goal was, seize kandahar.

I met hamid for the first time

in the hallway.

You know, he was going

to the bathroom,

And I was walking

to get some coffee,

And it was just men

trying to work with one another

That didn't have

any time for bullshit.

Even as all the tensions rose

Between the u.S.

And hamid karzai,

He still had an uncanny ability

To hold things together

over there.

I think it was around

3:
00 in the morning or so.

The f-18s spotted a small

convoy of trucks heading north.

So here are these f-18s

flying overhead,

And they're calling

for permission to engage.

And that was when--

that was then the war

Really became real.

There was just this moment

where alan looks at me

And says, you know,

"are they clear to engage?"

And, like, everybody

was suddenly quiet.

I mean, I was--

I was gonna authorize

these f-18s

To drop bombs on pickup trucks

that were likely the enemy.

But, you know,

what if I was wrong?

And it was the silence

that always sticks with me.

You know,

"are they clear to engage?"

And suddenly all eyes

are on me.

I looked at allen,

and I said, "smoke 'em."

And after I said the words,

It was just sort of,

where did that come from?

Smoke 'em?

I don't say sh*t like that.

I mean, that's just not me.

The thing we didn't

realize, though,

Is that these trucks weren't

the leading edge of the convoy.

They were actually

at the tail of the convoy

Of maybe 1,000 taliban.

- So we're just kind of lookin,

you know, with binos,

And we saw this glimmer.

- I mean, these guys

were coming heavy,

And we're talking 23mm guns.

A 23mm is, like, that big.

I mean, it will--

it will blow you, "pah."

You'll be like mist.

- We tell the pilots,

"okay, we're the two truck

right there."

And the pilots would go like,

"that's it."

"yep, that's us; everybody else

is the enemy south of us."

We were f***ed.

- And yoshida assured us,

he's like, "man, I'm on tune.

"I'm talking to these pilots.

We're knocking them out."

And he would just keep saying,

"cleared hot, cleared hot."

Through the whole night,

It just kept going further

and further and further.

And we just, like, bombed out,

like 100 vehicles

Through the whole night.

"pop-pop-pop."

- I mean, I don't know that we

were high-fiving and euphoric.

It's like, "whew."

We were just trying to win--

and live.

- I think, for me, the notion

of fighting from a distance,

Of fighting

with these airstrikes,

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