Restrepo Page #5

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In the location where we was actually going

to conducting this operation and stuff,

was where the bad guys,

their safe haven was at.

: They wasn't coming to you.

Sometimes you had to go out there

and reach out to them.

Go into program,

go into your radio configurations,

and then where it says

SINCGARS or basic,

change that to ANDVT.

- Coming after you, motherf***er.

- Right here, b*tch?

Let's do this, motherf***er!

l'm coming back.

I'm coming back, don't worry.

Do you get nervous

before something like this?

I get nervous for the guys.

I get nervous for myself.

I mean, I just--

I just called my mom and dad

and I'll try calling my wife

before I take off,

just one last "I love you"

to all of them.

And, you know, the guys,

that's the hardest thing is like,

you know, if something happens to me,

there's not much I can do

about it or anything like that.

But it takes a little bit out of you

every time you see one of your boys

get hurt or you lose one of them.

It's really like a big family.

We flew in the middle of the night.

Guess what, they're not

quiet helicopters that we fly.

The enemy's awake now.

What the f*** are the Americans

doing flying over us right now?

So now everybody's on

their radio's, l'm sure,

you know, "Hey, the Americans

are heading this way."

So we got on the ground

and we were already being told,

be on alert, you know,

everybody knows we're here.

If we could get one going

from west to east into that draw, over.

It's real hot.

- All right, break.

- Coming out.

I'd like you to come in

for one more re-attack.

Come down in elevation in that draw

and fill right there in the center, over.

So you did hit the target.

This house right there.

This is the aftermath of what AH-64s do.

Good old attack helicopters.

He said that there is

five guys already dead

and ten of the females and kids already,

they are injured, you know.

Show me which of them is the Taliban.

There is no Taliban.

Damn it.

You know?

I need to know better.

I need to figure this stuff out better

so that l can do this,

so that l'm not killing these people

and not making them mad.

I mean, first impressions

are the lasting impression.

That's the first time anybody's been

in Yaka China, and what do l do?

I kill a bunch of bad guys,

but in the same instance,

I'm killing five locals

that may not have been

the ones that pulled the trigger,

but in some way shape or form,

were connected to them.

There you go.

Dishka?

Afghan dishka,

not American dishka, right?

This is divorce paper.

- What?

- Divorce paper.

- Di-wars?

- Paper, yeah.

- What does that mean?

- Divorce.

Like some woman you getting married

then you're going to get a divorce.

- Divorce papers?

- Yeah.

Okay.

Who owns the house?

Did you ask him where the pistol was?

Eight RPG heads.

One, two, three, four boosters.

Got four boosters,

three batteries, shotgun.

This is Colonel Ostlund,

he's my boss,

you know, the one I always tell you.

We brought the Colonel

down there to talk to them,

and we did that because

basically we felt bad

for the fact that we injured

some of their kids

and that we killed

some of the locals.

The ACM that comes in

and gives you five dollars

to carry this stuff

around the mountains

and tells you that

you're doing a jihad

and go fight the Americans

is doing nothing for you

except making you a slave

for five dollars

as he hides on a mountain,

because he won't fight my soldiers.

These foreigners,

they don't fight my soldiers.

They hide on a mountain in a cave,

under a rock and talk on a radio

and pay your sons

a small amount of money

to go ahead

and shoot at my soldiers

and my soldiers

end up killing your sons.

But this is the deal we'll make.

Everybody needs a job,

and we're going to try to bring

progress here and some jobs,

and Captain Kearney will talk

to the Shura on Friday

about some job projects.

The whole time we were there,

we were thinking, "Okay.

When's it coming?

When's it coming.

They're going to hit us.

When's it going to happen?

- This sucks, dude.

- I'm just going to double check it.

ICOM chatter right now

coming out of Chappadara,

a guy named Obed's talking

to the elders,

and apparently said that the elders

are in charge of what's going on.

The elders basically want

jihad down here in the Korengal,

and whatever they want, they'll--

they're here to assist,

so we'll see what happens.

But it doesn't sound

very good for us, huh?

Hey, Sergeant Patterson,

I found four fighting positions

over there, AK-47s.

I'm going to push to this next hilltop.

I'm also getting ICOM traffic

that there may be enemy close to us.

Getting intel saying that they've got eyes

on three to four US personnel

and they're getting close to them.

So they've got eyes on us

and it can be anywhere,

this high ground there,

there's some more spurs back there,

there's one we crossed

to an open patch back there.

They could have easily had eyes on us

when we were moving in.

What the f*** was that?

Did you hear that?

It might be the birds, sir.

Shooting?

Am l just jumpy?

F***ing Christ, monitor this.

Sergeant P...

do we got guys in these

pine trees right here?

Do we?

When the attack finally happened,

I remember it was myself

and my team

on the south eastern corner

of basically the area

that we were covering.

We got ambushed, like,

just every single position got hit

at the same time pretty much.

They placed a PKM a machine gun

down into our position

and one orientated

into the scout position,

and just rained down hell.

I just look over to my right

and I see rounds breaking

branches off the tree.

They were shooting RPGs at us,

they were shooting

pretty much everything.

When l got hit,

it actually came

with enough force

that it rolled me forward.

You know, initial thought was,

"What happened?"

I felt pain, you know,

placed my hand there

just underneath my IBA

because that's where I felt,

you know, the initial pain,

pulled my hand out,

saw blood, knew l was hit.

I looked up in time from all fours

to watch a guy come over the crest

probably about 35-45 meters

to fire an RPG directly at me.

lnitial thought was, "Wow,

this is the last thing l'm going to see,"

because the guy was so close.

And, you know,

the round came in, exploded.

Took shrapneI all throughout

my body, but...

kind of did--

after the explosion, like,

"I'm still here, I'm still alive,"

and then proceeded to basically roll

down the mountain into the bushes.

And they were all up in position,

I could hear them talking to each other.

To our north we heard somebody

yelling for a medic.

I was the first one that heard it.

I yelled back to Sergeant Hoyt,

telling him if I could go

and see who who it was.

Myself along with Cortez

started moving--

we started bounding towards where

we heard the guy yelling from.

We didn't know who it was.

I got to the wounded and found out

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