Boucher: they attacked us every day, almost.
We would laugh and joke
And go about our day as if nothing was happening.
Everybody's gonna die. It's just a matter of when.
Man: holy [bleep]
Hey!
Ever since I was a little kid, I used to put camouflage on
And run up into the woods and go play army.
Hey! But this is real.
Sergeant santos was a head cook there,
And the first sergeant was teaching him how to return fire.
When you have a cook shooting an m4 up the mountain,
You kind of realize that cop michigan
Was a pretty bad place to be.
Oh!
Mccool: I got to the point where I didn't put on any kit anymore.
I didn't put on body armor, a helmet.
I'd just say, "hey, if it happens, it happens."
Boucher: I don't think anybody was the same person
That they were when they left.
Watch yourself!
We became so desensitized to everything.
Go! Go!
in may 2010,
A small unit from the legendary 101st airborne
Is among those deployed in an attempt
To defeat the taliban.
President obama: it is of vital national interest
To send an additional 30,000 u.s. Troops
To afghanistan.
Shriver: move, move! Go, go!
Maddow: the korangal valley is frequently described
As the valley of death.
Man: hurry up! Hurry up! Get up there!
oh [bleep]
Oh!
Mccool: we knew that it was gonna be the deployment
That people would write books about.
I figured I wanted to be able to document that.
What is that? Is that a camera or something?
the 101st airborne
Is four months into its yearlong mission
To intercept weapons and fighters
Pouring into the korangal valley
From taliban safe havens in neighboring pakistan.
Among them, rookies private j.j. Mccool...
Mccool: I'm a pretty spontaneous guy.
I've always been one to kind of do whatever I liked.
...and private kyle boucher...
Hi, mom.
...led by combat veteran
Sergeant first class ken shriver.
-Let her rip!
Make sure you watch these ridgelines.
and reporting to shriver, sergeant chris adams.
It's his first time leading a squad in a war zone.
There are times you have to go above and beyond...
...to look after your men.
oh, [bleep]
Boucher: you could die in a matter of seconds.
Man: stop messing around and finish 'em all off!
¶ Jingle bells, jingle bells ¶
It is kind of that journey from boyhood to manhood.
-Aah!
[Bleep] you!
Got hurt from...
Boucher: I don't really think
There's anything that could bond you more.
All right, let's go!
These are my brothers.
This is my family.
Man: we'll put 'em down here and deposit it.
Boucher: and on cop michigan, they knew where we were.
It was kind of like you're a sitting duck.
But, uh, after four months, you adapt.
Mccool: every day, it was once, if not twice.
We were under fire all the time.
Holy [bleep] oh!
Hey, don't stand here,
'Cause there's rounds landing right here.
What can I help with?
Sergeant adams was my first squad leader.
He really just wanted to make sure that everyone was okay.
Mccool: no way. It's a picture of sergeant adams with coffee.
Any time you see him, he's gonna have a cup of coffee,
And if he's outside, it'll be a cigarette.
-Whoa! -Got it!
Adams: is this a bad time to say I could use some coffee?!
Holy [bleep]
Adams: if I would've not had one or the other,
I probably would've went crazy.
Man: yeah. They're flying right through there.
I've served twice in afghanistan, once in iraq.
Up!
My first two deployments were actual cakewalks
In comparison to cop michigan.
It is the wild west.
Oh!
My job is to make sure
I know where my guys are at all times.
Hey, anybody else in there with you?
Mccool: he's almost like a sheepdog.
He'd try and herd his sheep
Into these places that were more safe.
Adams: if you call out to 'em,
If you don't hear 'em, you call out again.
If you don't hear 'em, you find 'em.
-Yeah! -Who's with you?!
Boucher: he'd run across an open area
While bullets were hitting at his feet...
...to make sure that you're okay.
It's not opening!
Okay.
Boucher: yeah, oh, there's sergeant adams again running around.
That's the kind of squad leader you want.
Adams: after the attack was over...
...we're checking on our guys, making sure everybody's good.
We walk into the chu,
And they're sitting there playing.
Mccool is not even paying attention --
Choo-choo-choo, playing on his xbox.
It really irritated me.
Mccool: everyone responds to attacks in a different way.
I kind of just hung out.
It didn't matter whether you were running or not,
You can still get hit anywhere,
So it's kind of like wide-eyed tired.
Adams: mccool is one of those kind of guys --
You love him and hate him at the same time.
But then there are times you just want to strangle the kid.
Hey, do me a favor, man. When someone comes in here
Asking have we seen all the guys because mortars are going off,
Stop what you're doing.
That was very disrespectful.
All right.
Military runs deep in my family.
We've had members
In almost every major conflict that the u.s. Has been in.
It made me act different from everybody else.
All right, y'all.
I wanted to be the best.
Six years ago, I'm getting shot at,
Worrying about if I'm going to make it to the next day.
Now I'm walking around inside these entertainment places
Servicing arcade games.
You got the lights flashing and, you know, all the noises.
And it's going to sound weird, but it's calming,
Because I'm in a safe place.
This machine ain't gonna shoot at me.
Hey! Be careful!
There's a dude sitting in a house over there shooting at us.
All right. Yeah, as soon as I came out --
Hey! Stay in there!
As soon as I walked out, rounds cracked in the sand bags!
Yeah, they're waiting for people to walk out right there!
the cop is strategically placed
On a major supply route at the bottom of a valley.
Surrounded by mountains,
The soldiers are most exposed to enemy fire
When running between buildings.
Adams: with the amount of attacks that we were having on the cop,
Whenever I got the opportunity,
I enjoyed being down in the motor pool.
It was a stress reliever.
When I would work on vehicles,
You get into what I call "the zone."
They think --
-that was not funny.
I got to know all the mechanics, like negron.
Little owl.
This one day, we started receiving indirect fire.
I was able to get my helmet on.
Hey!
The cop was getting hit with rockets.
The enemy are becoming more aggressive.
The o.p. Was shooting at stuff,
And I know something's not right here.
Hey, I think the o.p.'S firing on us.
Oh, my goodness. That's higgins, one of the mechanics I knew.
Sit. Sit down.
Adams: our medic kept asking,
"Hey, was anybody else down at the motor pool?"
And then he started saying the words that just haunt me.
I just ran. We got to get to the motor pool.
We got to get over there.
Adams: we got to get to the motor pool.
When the rpg hit, it just destroyed everything.
The place was a disaster.
Got it!
We need a stretcher!
We need a stretcher now!
You think they got one near the chu?
I met up with one of the lieutenants from another platoon
As I come around the corner screaming.
Yeah.
Shriver: everybody else was taking cover.
Not too many people knew that somebody had been hit.
Adams: all I could think --
"I got to get there. I got to get back.
We got our man down."
We got another one of my buddies that's hit.
-I need your help over here. -Up here, up here.
1, 2, 3. Lift, come on.
Adams: we just got to get him to the aid station,
And the aid station is far away.
We got to go out into the open.
You go numb.
We call it "the switch" -- when you flip the switch.
Come on.
We need a p.a. Now!
That's it!
One more. Hold on.
Get over here.
1, 2, 3.
Shriver: heard a commotion outside,
And there was somebody on a stretcher.
They had to run through a large open area
To get to the aid station.
I took the saw and provided cover.
Adams: sergeant shriver and others start firing
At the ridgeline, and we just kept going.
Once they talked, knew what was going on,
They called blackjack immediately.
And all towers start shooting.
Negron, stay with me, buddy.
Shriver: negron had quite a bit of shrapnel wounds everywhere.
Hey, hey, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath.
Adams: the p.a., He looked at him.
He's like, "he's gone."
Shriver: the taliban hit one of the mechanics.
Negron ran to go help.
They must've seen negron run in there...
...to try to help his guy.
And then they shot negron.
Adams: it wasn't fair.
He was a really good guy, and he didn't deserve that.
And, you know,
You tend to carry a little bit of guilt.
Was there something I could've done better?
While we were carrying him, I got his blood all over me.
And there are times I can still smell it.
That's when you had to accept the reality
And realize that, you know, what happened happened.
And I vowed -- you know, I vowed,
You know, not to lose another guy.
Okay, doing the audio check,
Trying to find out how loud I got to be
When talking to the camera without the cool case.
Adams: after we lost negron, I went home on r&r.
Just being able to hug my wife,
There's no way to describe how I felt.
Isabela: every time chris came home, he changed a little.
He would stay up at night
And just rewatch what he filmed.
It was not a good thing for him.
He was home, but he was not home.
He was still back there.
He felt guilty that it was not him, but negron.
Adams: oh, god! No!
Adams: I told her, "we're into something pretty rough.
I might make it. I may not make it."
I think it shocked her.
And we decided
That we were going to try to have a child together.
Isabela: that was a turning point for me.
Now there is a very, very good possibility
That he will not come home.
At least I will have something left of him.
Adams: I went to the airport to go back,
And the thought came in my head --
All I have to do is not get on this plane
And I ain't got to go back to that hellhole.
Pulled myself together and knew I had to get on that plane...
Because you got to go back and be there for the other guys.
It ain't just you.
You got to get everybody else home, too.
Boucher: when he came back from home...
Adams: slow down.
...he became a little bit more anxious and nervous.
You seen so much bad stuff happen
That you kind of wonder,
Okay, well, it's going to happen.
when is it going to happen?
Keep going straight. Get on it. Let's go!
Come on, hurry up. Get over the bridge, get over the bridge.
Go!
Oh, god! [Bleep]
Adams: go!
Shriver: so, for the guys who were there,
Carrying the stretcher, helping with negron...
There was a change.
Sergeant adams became very hyper-vigilant all the time.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
You can't worry --
Is there an i.e.d. In that pile of dirt
Right there, right there, right there, right there?
As you drive down the road.
You will literally go crazy.
You can't do it.
Adams: people said that I was overthinking things,
But once we decided to have a kid,
I just had this -- this impulse.
I got to make it back.
About halfway through the deployment,
The situation was getting worse.
We were getting hit from all directions.
Mccool: the threat definitely became more real.
Everyone kind of has their own ways to cope with that,
But there really was no place that was safe.
Adams: we'd been in country for a little while,
And we got intel that one of the remote villages
Was a possible insurgent stronghold.
Tantil was in an area
Where we knew that there was enemy movement,
So somebody has to get on the ground
And, you know, check it out.
We established relations with the village
So that if there are bad guys in the area,
They'll tell us.
Mccool: in afghanistan, it's rare to be proactive.
It was nice to be taking a step outside of the cop.
Adams: but we're now going into a new area
That we'd never been before.
Are we going to walk into a firefight?
Boucher: we didn't know what was up there.
Help was a long ways away.
We were all on edge.
Adams: started pushing down this road
That we've never been on before, and I was point man.
The ridgeline is getting higher,
And so it's like people can look down on us.
I started getting really nervous.
2-6-2-2.
This is about as far as I've ever pushed into here before.
How far do you want me?
You have to think fast.
I start putting guys into security positions.
You want to put your men in the safest place possible.
If you tell them to get behind a rock
And you see them run up and get behind a little rock,
You have to take control.
This one particular part of the ridgeline
Just kept catching my attention.
And it was an area where a person
Could hide up in there and not be seen.
Bassett, I want you looking up this way, big man, all right?
If we take any fire from up there. Got it?
We set up security.
A p.l. Comes up,
And they start to do the k.l.e. With the town elder.
Boucher: mccool turned on his camera
And just started filming, too.
Mccool: we talk about, "you guys don't control the taliban,
But you know when they're around.
So if you can even just tell us when they are,
We can try and develop some projects that can help you."
Adams: 2-6.
One house that was on the side of the mountain,
People come out onto their deck
And they're just sitting there looking at us
And just staring at us.
Could be curiosity, could be like,
"Who are these guys? Why are they here?"
-Straight shot? -Yeah.
Less than that. 250? Easily.
All right. Get these guys up.
Pick it up, bassett.
-We're trying to move quick. -Let's go.
Adams: but at the same time, turning around,
Checking on all the guys.
Is everybody here?
Because a lot of times, they would get us on the way out.
Alpha mad dog. 2-6 Romeo.
I'm looking to see, is anybody pointing?
You know, is anybody looking at us
And then looking up on the ridgeline?
These -- you try to look for these little things,
Because these little clues can give you a heads-up
That something is about to happen.
Roger. We are expelling and pushing into tantil.
All right. I'm picking up point, mccann.
Mccool: myself, the l.t., Some of the other guys
Were having a good laugh.
Adams: and I'm thinking to myself,
"Guys, this ain't the time to be joking around.
You need to pay attention to your surroundings
And be ready."
Adams: keep pushing.
Now we have our backs to tantil.
I started getting that itchy feeling again.
It's like -- keep looking. You know, just --
I don't like my back being to a town
That we just met for the first time.
I'm definitely nervous, cautious,
Looking around more.
Adams: I flipped the switch.
You cut out all emotion. You just react.
Boucher: every single person shot
At where this gunfire was coming from.
We call it "the mad minute."
Adams: that first minute is the most important minute
Of a firefight.
Either they're going to get fire superiority
Or you're going to get fire superiority.
I want to lay down as many rounds as I can
And get their heads down, take control of the situation.
Cease fire! Cease fire!
Hey, cease fire!
Cease fire!
Guys! Cease fire!
Whoo!
...juarez...
Hey, mccann!
-Hey, sergeant adams. -Hey, you guys good up there?!
-Yeah! -All right, man!
Mccool: I started calling in
What the situation was, that we were under attack.
Boucher: you look for enemy,
And you look for muzzle flashes.
If you see those, that's when you engage.
Mccool: it's up that spur.
Hey, put some rounds in it.
Aah! Aah! [Bleep]
Adams: he pulled the trigger,
And the barrel was right by my head.
It felt like my eardrums blew.
There's nothing but a high-pitched squeal in my ear.
What?!
Well, yeah, but...
If we see a bad guy that we can't get
With machine guns or our rifles, we call in artillery.
Splash!
Takes care of the problem.
Sir?
All right, roger.
All right, get ready, guys.
Flash out.
Let's move.
let's go! Let's go!
-What up, boy? -Come on, you.
Oh, my god, they're way back there.
Mccool: you're like, "that was crazy, that was awesome," right?
No one got hit. Wow.
Once again, nothing happened.
Whoo-hoo!
Adams: some people are a little hyped up.
When you're dealing with soldiers that young,
They're immature.
Ooh-whee!
People start to feel invincible, you know?
"They can't take me out," and stuff.
But there's never a time and place to be complacent.
Man: mad dog base. Mad dog 2-6 romeo.
I felt detached from everybody.
Roger.
Isabela: after he went back, he was not happy.
He just didn't understand
How they can just act like it never happened.
And he changed on the phone.
His voice was different. More short-tempered, as well.
Adams: I'm stressed out, because I'm trying to cope
With what's going on.
I give her a call
And she's like, "well, the car broke down."
I can't do nothing. I'm here, she's there.
Isabela: I was worried that if he does come home,
He would've changed so much mentally,
That it won't work out between us.
Boucher: you go there and you fight so much,
You know, you become a different person.
Man: uh, what are we doing here, j.j.?
This is a slap bet again.
Mccool: slap betting. I'd like to say it was my idea.
All right, ford, how do you feel
About getting slapped right in the mouth?
You make a bet, knowing that if you win,
You get to slap the other person as they stand.
-You ready? -Sure.
Adams: I actually stumbled in the middle of this.
Because they want to lose. I don't know.
I'm appalled by watching this,
But everybody had a different way
Of coping with the stress.
Go on. Ready?
Boucher: nobody gave a [bleep] if we got shot.
We didn't care about getting slapped in the face.
Man: ow!
They just -- you don't even care anymore.
I think it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life.
That's assault.
Not what I raised my platoon to act like.
Once I found out about it, it ended.
Adams: the only reason I didn't stop it
Is because I don't want to take away a coping tool,
Even as ridiculous as it sounds.
But sometimes people start to get cocky,
And it's a very dangerous thing.
Man: yay.
There was a couple suspicious areas
Close to cop michigan,
And the purpose of our mission is to move up the mountain
About 200 meters to check out hostile caves.
if they find the caves
The taliban use as fighting positions,
They'll be able to target them with long-range artillery
Next time the cop comes under attack.
Mccool: I like being on the ground.
I was excited to hopefully
Eliminate a future strategic advantage for them.
Adams: and it was a simple mission.
Eight of us on the ground,
And our support are these trucks.
Adams: where at?
Oh. Yeah.
P.l. Noticed that there was a couple more holes
A little bit further up the mountain.
Want to push up to that?
Mccool: we kept on realizing
That there was one just slightly above that
And then one slightly above the next.
Adams: when I looked back down at the trucks,
They literally looked like little micro machines,
And I knew we were way too far up this mountain.
That's when it really started hitting me --
Like, "this isn't right."
We're only eight people on the ground
With one machine gun.
If we don't stop, I know something's going to happen.
Man: oh. Geez.
Adams: one place it seemed like
The taliban always loved to hit was the gym.
Our gym made it into a magazine.
It was named "the most dangerous gym in the world."
Wow. I'm glad i wasn't in here.
Boucher: the chow hall was hit a lot, too.
Bassett stuffing his face.
And a few people had been hit in the bathrooms.
You only went there if you really needed to.
Man: hey, sir.
Somebody was shooting at something up here.
Up here?
Adams: some of the soldiers, they'd been through a few fire fights.
Nobody was hit. Nobody was injured.
They'd get complacent.
Complacency is a very dangerous thing.
When you have a soldier who feels like superman,
There's a possibility he'll get himself or others injured.
I don't think this is a good idea.
We were pushing up way too far.
Our support by fire are getting further and further away.
All right.
-Idiot. -Hey.
All right.
No, I don't.
I need people to start using their [bleep] heads.
I got eyes on mccool, where that supposed cave is.
Mccool's pushing up in an area he should not be going.
Mccool: we realized, "okay, we're pretty far up.
It's time for us to start heading back to the truck."
Adams: when the p.l. And mccool were almost to us,
Everybody stood up.
Move it!
When you get into an ambush, you hit the switch.
This particular incident, I didn't hit the switch.
Earlier that day, I'd called home.
I had an argument with my wife.
And when I hit the ground,
That was the first thing that popped in my mind.
I was going to die on this mountainside,
And the last words to my wife were, "okay, whatever. Bye."
Mccool: sergeant adams and his crew
Were just about 25 meters below me.
Where's l.t.?
You guys all right?
Adams: we start calling out to people.
You can't go run and check 'em, because as soon as you get up,
You're just an open target.
Hey! Is that popping coming from the south?
Yeah, it's coming from that direction!
Hey, look on that southeastern ridge.
Right here. You'll see the dust kick up.
I'm looking. Yeah, got it.
What's up, sir?
Hey, guys! Conserve your ammo!
-Got it. -How many you got?
I don't really have much over here.
Adams: do not go black on ammo.
If we went black on ammo, we were done.
Southeast.
Eight men's lives have been put in danger.
Hey, lay down fire!
Go!
The odds are against us.
I'm going to die on this mountainside.
On me, on me!
Mccool: as the election cycle neared...
Stay low, bro.
...activity increased significantly.
Ooh!
We had never seen anything like it before.
Casualty. In his shoulder.
Boucher: we knew during elections that the taliban
Were going to be out in -- in mass numbers.
And I got a wire something, right up ahead.
Rpg!
Man: on election day, the taliban were everywhere.
It was a 360-degree firefight.