"SometimesI getasked," ""Whatdoesit taketowin? "" "And that is, will." "You have to have the will to kill because you cannot win without killing the enemy." "And the other side of that coin is that you have to have the will to die." "Ifyou'regonnagotowar, you'vegotto makesure thatyouhave thosetwotypesofwill  in the deepest part of your soul." "Butifyoubelieve inwhatyou'redoing, andthewillisthere, then victory is always possible." "And in fact, if you have the true will and the true belief, victory is imminent and undeniable." "InsurgentsandJihadists havefoundahome in Iraq's sprawling Anbar Province." "andhaveturnedit intoa hotbedof violence." "My name is Leif Babin." "I was a lieutenant, a platoon commander of Charlie Platoon that SEAL Team 3 Task Unit Bruiser." "Rightaway,we wanted totakeourperformance tothenextlevel, andsowe trainedharder thananybody." "Every, every type of operation you could think of out in the deserts, you know, shootingourweapons, patrollingonfoot, jumpingoutof planes, andwehad anawesomegroupofguys  that,thatwere justfiredup ," "readytogo getafterit." "We just had a, a solid level of trust across the board, up and down the chain of command." "It's not about actually doing the skills and all the, the tactics perfectly." "It's about knowing each other, and that's where, where everything really gels." "When you're with these guys 24/7, for months at a time, it's, it is family, it's the same thing." "It's a group of friends that hang out together, live together, work together, work out together, go out together, and do everything together." "That's, that's what a SEAL platoon is." "MarcLeejoined ourplatoon afterwe'dbeenworking together for about six months." "Right away you could tell he a presence about him." "You knew he was a smart guy, a hard worker, a very strong Christian guy." "His faith was very important to him." "He came in, and he's just a big dude, quiet, humble andprettyfunloving, youknow, likedtohave agoodtime." "Me and Marc, we were in the same boat crew going through BUD/S and Hell Week andallof thatstuff." "Youreallyget toknowpeople whenpeoplearemad  andtiredandhungry." "He would always be making jokes." "Didn't matter how much we were hurting." "He was just absolutely hilarious." "He liked to push the envelope on stuff." "Marcshowedup  toCharlieplatoon, he very boldly stated that, "I've never been choked out before."" "And so Chris Kyle and a couple of other guys immediately helped him out to make sure that that, that was not the case." "Marcimmediately wasoneof us  anda bigpart ofourplatoon." "We did a trip, where we were up and around Las Vegas." "And when he would gamble, he would get everyone all riled up." "He would always be the loud one at the table." "Youknow,whenyou 're playingBlackjack, thedealerbusts, andeverybodyelsewins." "If the dealer busted, Marc would just throw up his arms and, "Everybody is a winner! "" "Everybody is a winner!" "Everybody's a winner when, you know, when the dealer busts." "Then they bring in another dealer because like, we're winning, we gotta bring another dealer in." "And he was like, "They're bringing the iceman in."" "He would start clapping and cheering, and he would get everyone all riled up, and people would start betting more money, and it was just create, create a lot of fun." "And, that's, you know, that's kind of what Marc was like." "Iremember somuchMarctrying toexplainto me  thebrotherhood." "Like "Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're close to these guys." "But as close as your brother you grew up with for 28 years?"" ""Yeah, mom, I'm that close."" "You know, Marc had a thing about him." "Everybody loved Marc." "He was completely compassionate to everybody." "Hewasthatpersonality thatwasbiggerthanlife , notthat,youknow, we didn't go through our share oftrialsandtragedies, but he could just take a situation in life and make it funny." "Twoyearsin arow  hisfriendsvotedhim  ClassClown." "He always brought joy and humor into the people that he knew." "Hehadalot oflayers." "He was funny and silly." "He was very serious at times, athletic, like he, he looked like a Greek god." "Helovedsoccer." "Heactuallyplayed professionally before he blew out his knee." "And then he went to school to become a pastor." "So, he was a very religious man." "And then he realized, "no, I want to become a Navy SEAL."" "Wewerecompletelyinlove ." "Weknewwe wantedtospend therestof ourlives withoneanother." "I remember when he told me that he was going to Ramadi, Iraq." "It was just this feeling of, of sadness." "It'sa six-month deployment, andthetruth ofthematteris,  isthatthey'regonna beinharm'sway ." "Buthebelievedsomuch  inwhathe wasdoing." "And as much as Marc felt invincible, there is always this back, back, you know, burning, burning feeling of, of like as, you know, is this gonna be the last?" "From Iraq tonight, we have an exclusive look at what has become the single most dangerous city in that country for US forces." "An hour west of Baghdad, terroristsholdthecity ofRamadiin adeadlygrip , fuelingtheinsurgency andtakingaterribletoll  on the several thousand American troops who are trying to hold them at bay." "In 2006, Ramadi was the worst part of Iraq." "It'sthecapital ofAlAnbarProvince, thebiggeststate inIraq." "Itwasatotalwarzone." "Wewerefacing, inwhatIwoulddeem , as evil an enemy as the US has, has ever faced." "Back then, the enemy was identified as AQI, Al-Qaeda, Iraq." "You'retalkingabout, youknow, some of the same people who are now ISIS." "When you see the kind of things that they do to people and, and just the torture and rape and murder, talking people into becoming suicidebombers." "Anyone that stood against them," "I mean, they're gonna cut their head off and make an example out of them, and, and they're absolutely brutal and ruthless." "AndRamadiwaskinda theepicenter oftheirinsurgency." "The Marine Corps and Army units that were there, theyweredoing theirutmostto beatback insurgentattacks anddefendtheirbases, buttheycertainlytook a huge amount of casualties." "Ithinktheyhad 94guys  killedinaction andseveralhundred wounded,youknow, in the 15 months that they spent there." "The guys that were there fighting before us, they had kind of surrounded the city." "buttherewasno majorcombatoutposts insidethecity." "Theconventionalforces, allthethings theywantedto do  buildingcops, youknow,combatoutposts." "And forging relationships with the local populace and the sheikhs and all that, that's kinda hard to do when you have an untouched enemy force who is just running rampant throughout that area." "Theotherproblem istheurbanenvironment." "The enemy can fade in and out of the populace in a split second." "All they have to do is put down their weapon, and they're a civilian." "TheIEDthreat iscompletely, you know, horrible." "Improvised Explosive Device." "It's a roadside bomb." "Inanurbanenvironment, everythingisman-made, so anything could be an IED." "They would make IEDs look like curbs and look like brick walls and look like mailboxes or whatever." "Among military commanders, there is a growing sense that defeating the enemy there may be impossible." "TherewasaMarineCorps intelligencereport thatwasleaked tothepress in the spring of, of 2006." "US forces are militarily incapable of defeating the insurgency in Ramadi and Al Anbar." "It was described as a, as an unwinnable situation." "Whatotherpeoplesee  asimpossibleis possible withtherightfolks whobelievein themission." "GuyslikeMarcLee  reallybelievedin this mission, thatwecan, weweretryingtoliberate theIraqipeople fromanevilinsurgency." "I, I totally believed in what we were doing there." "I mean, you know, somebody has to kill the bad guys." "And I think we were the best suited for that." " When we showed up," " Ramadi, was a violent terrorist stronghold, a total war zone." "TIMEMagazine hadcalledit ," "Ithink,themostdangerous placeintheworld atthetime." "Itwasbadthere, but I remember the smell a lot." "Physically,itstinks." "But in the same breath it's kind of like that..." "It's kind of war, you know, so it... it's the slap in face that kind of feels good." "It'sjustawhole differentworld." "Driving down the streets, it was almost like being in a movie." "Therewouldbe  machinegunholes inallthebuildings andwallsrubbleddown, andthat'swhat itlookedlike." "That's where I wanted to be my whole life." "WhenI wasalittlekid Iwantedto be somekind ofa soldier, somekindof acommando, andI realized thattherewasguys that were fighting and dying, andI wasn'twiththem." "And so I immediately figured out how to get in." "Iheardthatthe SEALs wasa toughorganization andhardto getthrough, and that made me want to do it." "It was just one of those things that I was, you know," "I had inside my, my..." "I guess inside my head or soul or whatever, for lack of a better word." "It's what I always wanted to do since I was, since I could remember wanting to do anything." "Jocko wasa taskunitcommander." "Hewas anintimidatingguy." "Um, I never saw that man sleep." "I, he, I remember any time I woke up in the morning, he was already up." "I went to bed at night, he was still up." "IfRamadiwould havefallen, you would have a very secure area for the insurgency to grow." "You can't have it fall to the enemy." "That's all there is to it." "TheReadyFirstBrigade strategy ofseize,clear,hold,build was about going into the worst enemyheldareas, seizing those areas, building a permanent combat outpost, and then moving out into the enemy territory from there," "taking them back one neighborhood at a time." "Itwasaradicalstrategy." "There were people that thought thatwascrazy." "Of course for us, we initially thought, how can we get into those areas, right?" "'Cause if that's where the bad guys are, that's where we can have the most impact." "Tobeable togointothe worst enemyheldareas to build a combat outpost, wehadto bring a massive amount of firepower withus." "MarcLeewas amachinegunner." "And a damn good one." "Whenyou'reunderattack, anda dozenbadguys aretryingto overrun yourposition, it'sthemachinegunners thatkeepyoualive." "IwasthesameasMarc." "I did the Mark 48, call it 60 gunner." "If you don't have a 60 gun on your team there, you're not moving anywhere, really." "Theyhadto laydown suppressivefire andkeep theenemyheaddown, so that we could maneuver to safety or maneuver to a more aggressive position." "Marc was just absolutely fearless." "He'd stand out there in the middle of the street with rounds ricocheting all around him, and just lay down fire, running through the streets withthatbig automaticweapon." "Youknow,being amachinegunner, if you're really good at it, man, you're such an asset." "Guys like Marc, who were like big, rugged frogmen who can really carry a lot of rounds and really lay it down, they'rewellworth theirweightin gold." "Going into these neighborhoods involved bad guys shooting at us, us exchanging some fire with those bad guys, being able to beat them back, and us coming back home and, you know, with everybody intact." "LeifandJocko, they were always pushing it, gettingusops." "They did a good job getting us in the fight." "Combat Outpost Falcon, or COP Falcon was, wasright ata keyintersection inthisreallybad area." "ItwasatotalAl-Qaeda battlespace." "That's where the bad guys are, I mean..." "So when they wanted to go in there and put a Combat Outpost there, we were overjoyed." "We thought it was great." "That, that was kind of a, kind of a big operation we did, and it was pretty cool, too." "Weweregonnabe the lead element to support theguyscomingin." "Sowesawrightaway  thatusbeingcome fromthewater, the river's right here, let's go in our boats." "There'sa canalbackthere offtheEuphrates, and they didn't IED any boats." "We'd slipped in on the riverbank and patrolled in." "ChrisKylewasactually ourpointman." "Iwasrightbehindhim asthepatrolleader." "Chriskindof halts thepatrolforasecond, andhestartschanging his battery out on his laser, onhisweapon." "I was like, dude, what are you, what are you doing, man?" "We,wegottakeepmoving." "Hedoesn'thave aworkinglaser, and we come to the end of a, kind of a dark alleyway, and I see Chris just kind of freeze." "Not 25 yards away from us, there's a bad guy." "A Mujahideen fighter is standing there with a keffiyeh wrapped around his face and AK-47." "I mean, he's 25 yards away." "Chris can't accurately shoot him because he doesn't have a laser." "Ihadto comeup andtakethatshot overhisshoulder." "Chris had 101 confirmed kills from our deployment, and yet he never forgave me for taking that away from him." "So, we smoked that bad guy." "Smoked, that means killed, eliminated." "Andthenwe moved ontoCOPFalcon." "Wewentin andcleared thisbuilding." "Putsnipers upontherooftop andinwindows, andthenwe covered themovementforall  thebigheavyequipment that was coming in to build the Combat Outpost." "It'saboutworking togetherasateam." "Sniperscanonlystay formaybetwo orthreehoursmaximum beforetheygetfatigued." "And so guys like Marc, who's a machine gunner, and wasn't a sniper, but he'd rotate in and man those positions." "Ithinktherewas  somethinglike50 tanks involvedinthis andprobably, probably800to 1,000 soldiers." "It was, it was a huge, huge operation." "And,I was proudthatwe were theleadelementonit." "Leif, Leif Babin." "Wejustkindahit itoff." "Wehadthesamegoals thatwesetfor , for the platoon and where we wanted to go." "Leif was our OIC, Officer in Charge of our platoon." "Ispent 13yearsin theNavy, nineyears asa NavySEAL." "I grew up in the piney woods of Southeast Texas, playing withmyArmymen ," "G.I.Joefigures outinthesandbox." "Ialwaysknew I wanted to be a combat leader." "That'swhatIwanted todowithmylife ." "MydadservedintheArmy andtheAirForce." "I'm one of five siblings, but I'm the only one that decided that that's what I wanted to do." "Iwentto theNavalAcademy topursuethatdream." "Throughout theSEALteams," "I think, no matter how tough things got," "I think having the attitude of, thank God I'm here," "Youknow, Iactuallygotthe chance todowhatIwantedtodo andwhatIdreamedabout." "Therealityis ,yeah, there'ssometoughstuff, but you just gotta look in the mirror hard and say, "this is what I want to do, and I'm gonna overcome any challenge necessary to do that."" "And in what became known as the Battle of Ramadi, we would be truly tested." "COP Falcon gave us a foothold into this worst enemy held area of south central Ramadi." "Wejustranoperations outofthereafterthat , just because it was easier than going back all the way to Camp Ramadi." "Thewholetime thattheUS Marines andsoldiers werebuilding thoseCombatOutposts throughoutthecity, wehadsniperteams inplacesupporting thoseguys." "Weformed ahugerelationship withthem, becausetheyrealized howwecouldprotectthem , and of course we relied on them when they, you know, we needed them to come out and help us." "I mean, that happened very often." "Wedidworkhand-in-hand withtheArmy, andwejustwouldkeep  pushingforward, pushingforward, pushingforward." "It was my first time going overseas like this, first time in combat, and from the time I joined the Navy to the time I actually got to go over there was three years." "Three years of training and I was just thinking," ""man, finally, I get to do my job now, why I signed up."" "WhenI decided tobeaSEAL," "Iwasboredwithmylife atthetime." "Iwasjustgoingtocollege playingfootball." "It'sjustasmalllittle school." "I just wanted something more to do, something that was challenging." "September 11th happened." "That was some stuff I had talked about with my dad, like I wanted to be part of something." "I wanted to be part of doing good." "I wanted to go do something that I thought mattered, and I thought that was it." "I thought joining the, becoming a Navy SEAL was it." "Jasonwasanew guy ." "A lot of them guys are new, and, they came in with a really good attitude that, you know, whatever it is, we'll do it." "And we did some crazy." "Wedid overwatchoperations." "Anoverwatchoperation isgoingintoanarea , 99%ofthetime overtherein Ramadi itwasabuilding." "And just sit there on the scopes and watch and watch and watch." "So anywhere there are insurgents trying to lay in an ambush, we'd get 'em." "Somuch oftheIraqwar was fought onthedefensive." "Forus, sniperoverwatches werea way totaketheoffensive andreallytakethe fight totheenemy." "Whenwe'dgo  inoursniperoverwatch positions, we'dgoin undercover ofdarknessat 2: 00or 3: 00 inthemorning." "Thefirstearlymorning calltoprayer, isithappens justbeforedaylight, andso,youknow, those are, you know the city is gonna awaken." "Andwe'rekind ofwaitingto hearthat becausethat's kindofasignal thattheenemymight rallytothat." "MarcLee,he wasverygood  atimitatingthose." "He would be like" "And he'd kick that thing off, and you'd be like," ""Dude, is it-- what time is it?"" "And you realize, "It's you, dude, shut up, " you know." "So he'd, he got the best of me a few times on that, definitely." "Marc,healwayshad  agoodattitude, evenwhenthings werehorrible." "Asdaybreakcomes, first call to prayer went off in,in, intheearlymorning, andthecity kindacomesalive, andwestartedseeing badguysmovingaround." "Our snipers start taking shots and hammering enemy fighters." "And then, you know, they start shooting back at us." "Wegotthousands ofroundsshotatus." "Ithinkit wasMarc andsomeof theotherguys  werejustlooking ateachother, justlaughing." "Iremembercrawling intotheroomthere andbelike, "hey,youguysall right?"" "It's like rounds are just coming in and just shattering glass, andliterallyinches overguys'heads, and they were just like, "Damn, these guys can shoot."" "And Tony's standing in the corner, and rounds are bracketing him coming in two different windows, and he's kind of just up against the concrete, and he just looks at me as, like, gives me a smile, like a thumbs-up," "was like, "This is, this is crazy."" "So you're in a war zone." "It's combat, it sucks, it's hard, you know, and fun at the same time." "ButI wasveryfortunate to be in a leadership position in that platoon at that time." "Tony Eafrati was the platoon chief, so he was the senior enlisted guy." "Iwantedto be aSEAL." "I wanted to go in the Navy since I was like a teenager." "Mygrandfatherwas aB-17pilot inWorldWarII." "Mydadwasin duringtheVietnamWar , andmybrother wasintheAir Force." "I went over 20 years in the Navy, and then I made Chief." "Asanenlistedfrogman, that'swhatyouwanttobe ." "BestjobIeverhad." "Especially when you got a really good team, you know." "You just, you're really part ofsomethingspecial." "Thestrengthof SEALteams isourteam." "Youknow,it 's,it 's, it'sourbrotherhood." "Therealityis , incombat, yeah, there's some tough stuff, but most of it was an absolute blast." "Wewerefighting averyevilenemy, and, and we knew we were making a difference, we knew we were having an impact." "Westirredup  thehornet'snest, butitwasright wherewewantedtobe." "Tomethestrategy fordefeatingISIS is one ISIS guy, put a bullet in his head." "That guy is done, onto the next one." "How many of them, a hundred thousand of them?" "Okay, get 100,000 bullets." "Job done." "That's our part of this mission." "Throughout the months that Charlie Platoon spentinRamadi, wewereapart ofprobably at least five or six major Combat Outposts." "Wecouldfeel theprogress." "Imean,there's afinitenumberofbadguys thatarewilling tomartyrthemselves, and so we dug in to try and see where that bottom was." "Butyougottarealize there'sgonnabe risk on every operation you do, and that's one thing that, you know, we definitely had to deal with." "I always had, like, this thing that we're invincible." "Just like the other units thought we were invincible," "I thought we were, too." "Idon'tknow howtheolderguyswere , 'causethey'dbeenthere anddonethatbefore." "You actually know that somebody's gonna get killed or wounded." "I mean you-- It's, it's, you" "I mean, I actually knew it." "There's no way you could stop it." "You know that it's gonna happen." "I mean, we can only be lucky so many times in a row." "And you can only mitigate the risk so much." "And you roll out there with all those threats and all that evil that's there." "And you know that at some point it's gonna happen." "Wewere conductinga bigoperation withtheArmy's TeamBulldog." "We work very closely with these awesome soldiers that we'd formed a tremendous brotherhood with." "And we were doing a cordoned search operation with Iraqi soldiers." "Basicallymoving, like,block-by-block, house-by-house, throughanarea." "On August 2, the bad guys decided that they were gonna, they were gonna fight for this territory in a way that we hadn't seen it before." "Marcwaswithme andtheclearanceteam withIraqisoldiers." "Weweremovingthrough andhouseto house." "Wehadasniperteam  ontherooftop." "ChrisKylewasthere asoursniper." "Ryan Jobe was our machine gunner with Chris and a couple of other SEALs andsomeIraqis thatwerewiththem." "We were about to move down into another building, and so as I walked down the stairs," "I just hear a gunshot, a single gunshot." "And I just, I just could hear ChrisKyle'svoice." "Hecameup overthe radio and told us that we had a man down and we needed a corpsman on the roof right away." "Iwasin thenext buildingover... and we had heard somebody got hit on the radio, and we didn't-- I didn't know who at the time." "Didn't know the extent of it." "Werushedto therooftop, me and a couple of other guys, and immediately got to Ryan." "He had been hit, hit in the head, and, and it was-- It just looked horrific." "Youknow,therewas noway wethoughthe couldeven possiblysurvivethat." "I just grabbed his hand, I said, "Hang in there brother, we're gonna, we're gonna get you out of here."" "Iwason an opposite building." "I mean, we were all in the same group doing this like huge operation." "Wecalledin  thegroundmedevac togethimout ofthere." "And meanwhile, we got an enemy sniper out there, we got one single round that had hit a guy and put him down." "So, one of the most courageous things" "I ever saw anybody do was Marc Lee grabbing his machine gun and stepping right up into the very position whereRyanjustgot shot, andjustlayingdown suppressivefireforus." "SowegotRyan onto,youknow, to help and got him evacuated." "So after that, all hell broke loose." "There were just people coming out of the woodwork, insurgents shooting at soldiers, aswellas us ." "We figured we got a sniper out here." "We gotta move back to Combat Outpost Falcon." "AfterRyanwashit , peoplewere alittleshakenbythat ." "It hadn't happened before." "We hadn't taken any casualties." "We had always been the people killing, really." "It was a first time for any of us for that." "Butwhenwe gotback toCOPFalcon, we hadn't finished our cordoned search operation, but the Army troops were still out in the midst of that, and they were getting shot at from all directions." "Wecouldhearthe gunfire, and they asked for our help." "Theysaid,"Weneed somehelpouthere."" "And so, you know, for me as a platoon commander, that's a tough decision to make, you know." "But I had to make that decision and say," ""We can sit in the camp here, or we can go out and help these guys."" "WellwhenRyangot shot," "Marc was just getting after it and laying it down." "I remember when we came back, and I'm like," ""Hey, Marc, you did a good job there, chum, you know, real good."" "And he's like, "Yeah, thanks, Ton."" "And I went, "Well, what are you waiting for?" "Reload your , you know, 'cause we're gonna go back out."" "He's like, "All right," you know, and he just," ""Roger that," and just carried on." "But, that's the last thing I said to him." "AfterRyanwaswounded, theArmy,theygave ussomereports of, we're getting shot at from this building." "So we loaded our guys up and vehicles to go out and, and try to get those bad guys." "Wegotin someBradleys, went to the first house and cleared it." "No problem there." "Got back in the Bradleys." "Thenwewent tothenextplace." "Marclooksoveratme andhe'slike," ""Hey,I 'llrace youtothedoor."" "So we raced to the door." "I end up winning." "I go in the first room, and he goes down to the end of the hallway." "Andaswe moved intothatbuilding, we started taking fire from an adjacent building." "Bulletsstartflying downthehallway, rightwhenIwas comingout ofthefirstroom." "Leif was standing right in front of me." "He jumped into me, hit me, knocked me back into the room." "He may have saved my life, I don't know." "If I had walked out in that hallway," "I might've gotten hit because he ended up getting hit in the lat by one of those rounds." "And so Marc stepped up in a window to, you know, engage enemy fire andprotect theguysbehindhim  andwasstruck." "Weevacuatedhim asa casualty, sent our corpsman with him, you know, corpsman tried to do his best, utmost to work on him, but he had been shot in the head and killed instantly." "And there was nothing anybody could do about it." "And it was, it was horrific, absolutely horrific." "Iwasin theTactical OperationsCenter thatmorning." "Leifgoton one oftheCOP'sradios andcalled." "With so much emotion in his voice that it almost sounded emotionless, said "We had another casualty." "I think he's KIA." "KilledInAction." "This radio net was monitored bytheentirebrigade, so we were both doing our best toremainprofessional." "To prevent names of casualties fromleakingout, wedonotuse names ontheradio." "'Roger, who is the casualty?" "'" "Therewasapause, andthenhe responded," "'Charlie 1-4.'" "I looked up at the board slowly." "I didn't want to see the name, but there it was," "Charlie 1-4, Marc Lee." "Icouldn'tbelieveit." "Ourpillarof courage andfaith."" "He was my best friend in the platoon, by far." "I'd been with him since the day when I lived with him for two years, and he's gone now." "It's like, just like that." "Ijustwentover andsaton my rack, andI putmy headdown, andI just,Ijustcried." "Acoupleof guyscameover  andgaveme hugs,you know." "Theotherguys werefeelingit too, forsure." "I felt like we were invincible at the time, and all of a sudden you're like," ""wow, it can happen to us, too."" "AfterMarcgotkilled," "Leif, who had made the decision to go back out onto the battlefield after Ryan had been wounded, came to me, you know, like the next day." "I mean, he was crushed." "And he said, "Hey, you know," "I'm questioning the decision that I made."" "I said, you know, I said to him," ""Leif, you were out there on the battlefield, and our Army brothers were out there" "and needed our help."" "I told him there was no decision to make." "You have to figure out, like, what did we do wrong?" "And sometimes there is no answer for that." "So why, why did he get killed?" "You know, probably could've been me." "It could have been anybody." "You know, he just was there, doing his job like, like a good frogman, you know, and that's it." "I always wonder what would've happened had he gone in the door first." "Would I have had the courage to, you know, do what he did?" "Put himself in harm's way to protect his guys." "I want to say yes, but you never know until you're there." "It's a crazy thing to think about, for me." "Afewdayslater wehada,  wehadamemorialservice onCampRamadi, and just hundreds of people came out of the woodwork." "The soldiers that we worked with," "Marines that we worked with." "Thelossof anyone would'vebeenhorrific, butforMarcinparticular, he was just such a beloved guy, andinterestinglyenough, ourIraqisoldiers weredevastatedas well." "We stood down the troops for a couple days, and then we started planning operations to go out and execute." "What I told my guys, because I said," ""I don't know any other way,"" "is, "I'm gonna work." ""I'm gonna work, and we're gonna do what we came here to do."" "Iactuallywentback withMarc andwent totheservice." "The close family and friends went and actually buried him and put our tridents into his casket." "Yeah, and put him in, put him in the ground." "Ithought withMarc,therewas noway thathewouldeverdie." "Ialwaysthought hewasgonnabewith me fortherestofmylife." "I felt so lost." "I felt like I lost my other..." "I lost my other half, and I remember, you know, just feeling like I was being swallowed." "Oneofthethings thatgivesme hope, thatyoungman wasredeployedto Heaven." "Iwillseehim  againoneday." "Marc's tombstone, the words that are on there are perfect." "It says, "Deeply loved, loved deeply."" "And that definitely describes Marc, thefriendthathewas,  thehusbandthathewas,  theson." "Helovedhisfamily, hisfriends andhiscountry." "He was the most beautiful person in the whole entire world." "Helovedverydeeply, and because of that he was deeply loved." "AndI think that'soneof thosethings that'sreflected inhislastletterhome ." "Gloryissomething thatsomemenchase andothersfindthemselves stumblingupon, notexpectingit  tofindthem." "Eitherway, itisanoblegesture thatonefindsbestowed uponthem." "Myquestionis , whendoesgloryfadeaway  and become a wrongful crusade, oranunjustifiedmeans bywhichconsumesone  completely?" "Ihaveseenwar ." "Ihaveseendeath." "Thesorrowthatencompasses yourentirebeing asa man breatheshislast." "Icanonlyprayandhope thatnoneof you will ever have to experience someofthethings Ihaveseenand felthere ." "That letter has impacted millions and millions of lives around the world." "I've gotten letters from our troops who had thrown a tarp in their garage and were gonna take their own life, and said, "I read Marc's letter, and I decided I want to live."" "Andbecause ofthatletter," "Ifounded "America'sMightyWarriors"" "to make sure that our troops andthefamilies who have given their very best forthisnation, theirlovedone, knowthatwe willnever forgetthem." "Thatwholeeffort inRamadi, people that lost their lives there and got wounded and killed, you know, I knew," "I knew who they were, you know." "I can't get back Marc Lee." "He's my brother, just like all my other brothers that died in Iraq and Afghanistan." "But we made an impact." "Whenweleft towardstheendofOctober, wehadcops allovertheplacenow." "Sotheyhad,theyhad areallygoodfoothold." "We won in Ramadi, and in a place that nobody thought we could win." "Ramadi was one of the safest places in Iraq." "For almost seven years it remained that way." "And, and we know the formula." "We can win again." "MarcLeewasabsolutely oneofthoseguys whoknewthathecould getshotandkilled atanytime, and he went out and did his job every single day, knowing that could happen any time, fearlessly," "because he knew he was making a difference and believed in what he was doing." "I've learned that that determination that Marc had, it's something that every SEAL has, in their own way." "If you're not willing to die, youshouldn'tbe there." "I think that, that will is either in you, or it's not." "I don't know if you can develop that." "I think it's just, you're just born with it, or you're not." "I'd die in a second for any of my bros." "Not even think about it." "It'snotin everybody." "Guys like Marc had that will, not only to take the fight to the enemy but to make the ultimate sacrifice." "Nothing could have prepared me for how horrific that burden is." "And, but, you know, every time I stand there at Marc's grave," "I mean, there will never be a time when I stand there and don't wish that I wouldn't be lying there in the ground, and not Marc." "Definitely... definitely tough to... a tough thing." "Whenyouareluckyenough toexperiencewar, you can get very jaded because you can see that human beings can be... abhorrent creatures." "And you can begin to question if there's really any good at all, and it can become... dark." "Especially when it is your job... to, in some sense, grow that darkness." "Marc proved that there was light and good." "And... maybe... it was hard to see that in his life, but for some unknown reason, or reason that's beyond understanding," "I saw it in his death." "Toallmy family andfriends, domeafavor passonthekindness, thelove, thepreciousgift of human life to each other." "Sothatwhenyourchildren comeintocontact witha greatconflict, liketheonewearefaced  withherein Iraq, thattheywillbepeople ofhumanity, peopleofpuremotives andofcompassion." "Thisisourrealpart  tokeepAmericafree." "HappyFourth." "Loveyou,MarcLee ."