"Whenever I step out of a compound getting ready to move from place to place, you're always wondering, is there an IED out there?" "It's always in the back of your mind." "In Afghanistan, the biggest threat facing theMarinesof 2nd Platoon, Golf Company." "Isn'ttheTaliban, it's their IED's." "Every step could be your last step." "I'm not going back with no legs." "So when the Marines breach enemycompounds, they don't use the door, theymake their own entrances." "And then the real danger begins." "I'm not going to touch that right there it's gotta wire coming out of it." "Subtitles Captions by National Geographic Sync  Corrected by iscol" "Battleground Afghanistan" "Two days ago, theMarinesof 2nd Platoon, Golf Company," "Helo'din behind enemy lines inHelmandProvince, Afghanistan, ona 2-week operation to search for andestroytheTaliban." "Captain Middendorf and hisMarinesstill have 13 days to go on thisoperationbefore they head back to base." "Andafterabriefrest , it's time to attack again." "We're going to do a targeted raid on the building hopefully uh, hopefully we get something out of that this morning, it's not a wasted time and" "I didn't get up early for nothing." "They're heading out to clear a largecompoundthey believe is the home of aknown Taliban drug lord." "It'ssurroundedby  fields of harvested poppies, thesourceof heroin." "Togetto  quot;" "Compound Tenquot;" "asit'sknown, theymustcross dangerous open ground." "SoCaptainMiddendorf splits his platoon into twosquadsto reducethe  risk of a single attack." "SergeantKurek,oneof the platoon's veterans, leadsquot;" "SquadOne.quot;" "As a squad leader you're looked upon for that experience piece and that's why I keep coming back here, it's for the experience to lead" "Marines, when you get promoted later down the line the junior Marines are going to look at that." "I mean they judge you right off the bat, about, quot;" "Where have you been what have you done?" "Oh, you haven't done , well then you,quot; you know?" "Start forming it up over by the tank hole." "Start moving." "I guess that's the status quo around here, getting up this early, doing our thing." "Sergeant Barrow with Lieutenant Jones willleadSecondSquad." "They'retheperfect combo to execute" "Middendorf'stactics." "Jones is as cool as they come, notafraidof anything." "The Marines are taught to seek battle from the very first training day the day they entered the Marine Corp and that's what we're going out to do, so every day when the sun comes up, we're out the gate and really seeking out the" "enemies is the fun thing." "Sergeant Barrow's alittlemoreanxious." "What a good squad leader should do is always consider your Plan Bs." "What am I going to do if we get hit right here by an IED?" "What am I going to do if we get shot at from this side?" "What if we get shot at from that side?" "What if we get shot at from both of these sides?" "What am I going to do if so and so goes down?" "If I need to setup an LZ right now, where am I going to set it up at?" "Like all these things have to be running through your mind." "Once they leave the compound, theyfacethe enemy's most effective and deadlyweapon,the Improvised Explosive Device orIED." "It's basically just a homemade bomb thats been placed in the ground." "They're very strategically placed by the enemy." "There are three elements of an" "Improvised Explosive Device." "Your casing being a can a jug or even an animal." "Your charge as your main explosives what's packed inside that casing, that's what makes it go boom." "Then you have your initiator which is usually a battery pack, that gives it that like light switch effect once you step on it." "Whenever I step out of a compound getting ready to move from place to place, you're always wondering is there an IED out there." "It's always in the back of your mind." "The enemy is pretty uh, he's pretty good with 'em." "Every step that you take here in" "Afghanistan you know, it's literally could be your last step." "If you ask anybody in their right mind, they're going to tell you they do not want to be amputees." "That's your first concern." "Um loss of life tense to be the second concern, because most of the guys we know that have been hit by IEDs, have mostly been amputees over catastrophic loss." "If I was missing my legs" "I probably wouldn't want to come back." "I'd probably just be like quot;" "Yeah you better shoot me, if not I'm going to shoot myself,quot;" "because I'm not going back with no legs." "Like I, I don't know how I'd look, how anyone would look at me like that if I had no legs." "Oh, man." "I don't want to do it." "You don't know what's going to be under that ground that you're about to walk on, and you uh, yeah you kind of just make that leap of faith every single step that you take out here." "Oh, that wasn't cool." "It's, it's how I've been doing it you know, it is very nerve-wracking you know, very nerve-wracking sometimes but you kind of got to just try and put it out of your mind and uh, hope for the best." "The minesweeper's always takesthelead." "Butthemetal detector is no guarantee." "IEDscanbe made from almost anything andoftencontain no metal at all." "Being able to work with tanks in combat is a pretty awesome experience." "Uh, a very loud experience, but awesome as well." "That's conventional artillery." "It's friendly fire." "Theenemy'snearby." "They're firing at some Kurez Systems that are possible uh known firing positions um they're firing conventional artillery right now out at Kajaki." "This is the safest place in" "Afghanistan you'll ever be, standing in the middle of a wheat field after a tank ran over it." "Lieutenant Jones and Sergeant Barrow's" "SecondSquadreach their first compound but won'tenter through the door." "Itcouldbe boobytrapped." "The Taliban is determined to defendthisground." "GolfCompany's been taking heavier fire thantheother companies on this operation." "Golf 1 is just to the east of Compound 6402 Delta." "Moving south west." "Captain Middendorf maneuvers histeamaroundthe  battlefield to keep theenemyguessing." "Golf 3, Golf 6." "This is the fourth compound they've clearedandlikethe  others, it's empty." "TheMarineshaveyet  to encounter any enemy fightersor Afghan civilians." "TheTalibanfight from a distance, shootingfrom afar and planting theirIEDsat night." "It'slike fighting ghosts and there'sanother relentless enemy, theheat." "Daytimetemperaturescan reach 130 degrees and overwhelmtheMarines with their 100 pound packs." "The sun is just ridiculously hot, you go out there with six liters of water, but six liters of water is not enough to keep you hydrated throughout the day and fight throughout the day." "This country is just;" "it's just unforgiving when it comes to some of the environment." "But they continue taking thefightto the enemy and head out to clearthenextcompound." "Thetanksleadthe way , providing cover and testingthegroundfor  IEDs but the tank covering" "FirstSquadtakes a sudden detour leaving" "SergeantKurekand his men vulnerable." "This way sir." "Captain Middendorf calls inthechoppersto provide a watchful eye." "Righteous will be checking in here shortly as well." "We definitely like to keep some aircraft overhead, because they're pretty bold today." "After months of fighting," "GolfCompanyhas yet to lose a man." "Butsomeof that's luck and luck can change." "Sergeant Kurek's squad is exposed inanopenfield and taking enemy fire." "Captain Middendorf needs to get themsomecovernow  so they can make it to theirprimaryobjective, the Drug Baron's compound." "If somebody's coming to shoot at my guys I'm going to kill that , as fast as I possibly can and take his life from the battlefield and I don't care." "If you're coming to shoot at Marines, roger that," "I'll bring the weight of the Marine Corp and" "I will crush you." "When it comes down to it, if you're coming to shoot at me I'm going to kill you as fast as I can," "I'm going to use every single tool I've got." "Tell him I'll contact him, taking small arms of fire again." "Kurek can't tell how many Taliban thereareor where they're shooting from." "There's nothing like," " getting shot- being able to shoot back at them." "Come on up." "Keep going, keep coming." "It's liberating." "Hey suppress for us!" "It's awesome." "All that aggression that gets built up inside of you, you're able to release in a matter of seconds." "Go, go, go, go!" "Middendorf calls in tank and air support." "Roger." "Best place is for you to find uh be prepared to fight heavy direct fire support on the bazaar itself." "Cover Golf 1's left link." "Kurek and his Marines dash to safety." "You could skydive, you could bungee jump or do whatever as far as those thrills are concerned, but for those split seconds getting shot at and shooting back is just an adrenaline rush like no other." "Anything coming down this ally I'm smoking." "It's kind of like a drug, you always want it." "The Taliban's radio communicationkicksin ." "Well they just told one of the guy, they say he just made a specify about a tanks, he say if they come to this specified way, so you better tell somebody to get engaged with the tanks to shoot at them something." "Kurek's squad pushes southward towardthe Drug Baron's compound." "Buttheymustbewary of the threat they can't see," "Improvised Explosive Devices." "The enemy what they want to do is they want to draw you in with their gunfire to their IED belts." "So if you can imagine they, they setup a line and they try to lure you into that line to set off the IEDs and that way they kill you either by gunfire or by IED." "Captain Middendorf won't fallintothattrapand routes them a different way." "Thisfrustratesthe Taliban because they must goback,disarmtheirIEDs  and warn the civilians." "Middendorf outwits them again." "LieutenantJones and Second Squad move totheothersideof the drug lord's compound." "IEDs are placed at choke points, they placed in doorways, alleyways, they could protect a cache site, protect Karez entrances, the same way that we would use a mine, that's the way they use IEDs." "You don't always assume like every little crevice that's already here could be IED'd, cause there's no way we would've been able to see anybody behind any of these walls, sneak out, bury something and" "move on you know." "Lieutenant Jones and Second Squad movetotheotherside  of the drug lord's compound." "They'renowat  the perimeter, butmustwait to breach it." "Itcouldbe rigged with explosives." "CaptainMiddendorf orders a tank to makethemanew door." "Iftheyseewhitesmoke or a secondary explosion, theyknow they've hit an IED." "I'm just trying to get Golf 3 to blow this fighting position and then I'll hold them back out." "Uh they're about to shoot." "Golf 2 this is Tiger 22." "Did you guys see any secondary explosions or anything?" "Negative." "It's really been hard to see from our end as well 'cause we're behind this wall now." "Success!" "Butthere's a second wall." "Is there any way if you could kind of, if you could pull through that wall and see if you could make a hole in the next wall as well, over." "Yeah I'll start by going through this compound and on the other side making another hole in the wall." "That would be amazing." "I can't say enough about the tanks that were there to help us, they had the optics on their weapons that uh, that Marines obviously don't have." "They're the Marines on the ground when they have a four powered optic on our weapon and uh it just, it makes it tough." "I'm gonna just have them pull through that wall and just keep driving through the wall." "Hey, 2/3, 2/1 keep your heads up;" "we're about seven, five meters away from Building Ten break." "This time they use a different approach." "Apparently they having Tiger 22 make us another hole, there is one already here, but there's a lot of murder holes in compound break." "The enemy is between Golf 3 and" "Golf 1 in the bazaar based off those contact reports." "Golf 2, Golf 2, Tiger 22." "This dude's just having a wet dream right now taking into running over that wall." "Hey, Tiger 22." "Back to two o'clock right now that wall is running east to west, the long one where all the green trees are, can you run over that, so we can get through, over." "Sergeant Kurek and First Squad approach thecompoundfromthe  opposite side with the tanksinthelead." "Malone, they over shot it a bit we're back here." "We're still following them." "We're a little bit south of planned, um our objective compound is about 300 meters that way, but tanks might have a better out for us so." "The battlefield's always changing and tactics are always changing and if you come in not being humble and put yourself on a pedestal, respect goes down the drain." "At least with me I'm always trying to think of things, trying to stay one step ahead, just wrapping my brain around either tactics or, quot;" "What can I be doing better to better myself and my Marines?" "quot;" "Have you seen anything that you feel needs to be reduced, just let me know and we'll reduce it." "Again I know uh we gotta conserve some tank main gun, but if you feel you need that it's definitely a viable threat let me know, over." "Hey Ozzie, they're gonna make us another one that we can go through versus the one that the Taliban probably have for us to go through you know what I'm saying?" "They've got to tread cautiously." "IEDsaretheenemies' effective weapon for maimingand killing Marines." "Butthereare psychological weapons too." "As a Marine the thought of stepping on a bomb in the ground that you have no way to defend yourself against other than proactively finding it before it goes off, it messes with your mind when your out operating." "It causes a lot of stress on the battlefield." "You're relying on your eyes and uh your sweeper to find these things and they're pretty hard to find just because of the terrain, a lot of sand, a lot of rocks, a lot of trash too," "so there's a lot of places to hide these IEDs." "But there's still no sign ofcivilians or of the enemy." "They'rechasingghosts." "Tell Golf 2/3 that they're good to blow a hole in the wall just let us know when it's smoking." "But just as they're about toenterthecompound, something catches their eye." "We've checked around and there's this tiny little copper wire coming out of the ground." "Tell Golf 2/3 that they're good to blow a hole in the wall just let us know when it's smoking." "We've checked around and there's this tiny little copper wire coming out of the ground." "Say again." "Lieutenant Jones and Second Squad arestepsaway from entering the" "Taliban Drug Baron's compound, whensomething catches their eye." "Uh tiny copper wire, sticking out of the ground, possible command pull somewhere else." "Uh we're going to call EOD over and investigate." "We have a compound of interest that a lot of intelligence has picked up uh is getting hits on whether that comes from monitoring their ICOM radios, monitoring the satellite telephones they use uh so this, we came to search this compound," "upon coming in the compound, tanks made entry uh ploughed the wall over and then our point man Lance Corporal Kunitsky with his keen eye found what we assessed to be an IED at this time." "Patches of disturbed earth with plastic showing, a possible pressure plate." "One strategically placed tankroundshould eliminate this threat." "Hey, they may be able to hit it." "They will?" "Maybe." "We're getting some ICOM chatter saying that the uh that the enemy fighters they've emplaced the IEDs in the alleyways which would make sense, which would make sense for uh where we found this at, so." "They're also saying they placed IEDs in canals as well." "Golf 6, Golf 6, this is Golf 2." "Back in his command compound," "CaptainMiddendorf coordinates his tanks andMarine'smovements." "Are you about ready to blow that thing up yet?" "Roger, thirty seconds." "Thirty seconds." "Golf 2, this is Tiger22, one round on the way." "Ten seconds." "Ten seconds." "One round on the way." "Whoo-hoo!" "There was an IED inside of it!" "There's white smoke, white smoke is IED!" "Alright we gotta make this quick just tell me what hole you want to go through and I'll see if I can get tanks over here to either drive through it or put a canister round through it, all right." "The Taliban was expecting them, butnottheirtanks." "Nowtheycan make the final push intothecompound." "Roger." "2/2, 2/1." "Go!" "Yeah I got eyes on tanks it appears they're going to plough right through our objective compound for us." "First thing, first thing you're kind of." "Tanks led us a little bit south a little bit too east and uh I guess they're backtracking and just gonna plough through, for us so." "Sergeant Kurek will lead hissquadinside once the tank clears the way." "LieutenantJonesand Second Squad need to back" "Kurekup,but they've got to clear an adjacentbuildingfirst." "AndtheIEDthreat is slowing them down." "WhentheMarines clear a compound, they'renotjust searching for the enemy;" "they'realsosearching for any evidence of them." "It doesn't look like there's anything in here, it's unbelievable." "Weapons, ammunitions caches," "IEDmakingmaterial." "They'realsolooking for harvested poppy orprocessedheroin." "Themoretheyremove from the battlefield, thebetter." "It'sa slow, dangerous process though." "The doors, they booby-trap these the most." "They're really good at it too." "Disguise it like perfectly to where you won't even know it's there." "It'll look completely natural like it does right now." "And all it takes is one wrong step and before you know it, we got a Marine down." "I don't like to take any risk in the middle of a doorways, especially if it's an un-abandoned compound." "And if it's an occupied compound, most cases they're not going to IED their own doorways you know what I mean, so we can be a lot safer." "That's why we take such precautions in not losing any guys." "Hey Unis, Unis you wanna go in this one at all?" "That would be fine with me." "But do you want to is what" "I wanna know, I'll trust your judgment." "Being in a country with trash everywhere you look for certain trash that doesn't belong in a certain area." "Uh you look for freshly packed um mud, like newly packed mud into a wall, just anything out of the ordinary." "It's hard 'cause when you're going through training back in the States, they tell you look for all these things and you get out here and you see those things constantly you know." "Piled rocks, I see that all the time does that always mean it's an IED, no." "Yellow, yellow jugs, uh I thought the first time I saw a yellow jug was going to be an IED," "I saw one probably the first day I was out here." "Hudson." "Thinking you're invincible is not a good thing either, it's good to have that fear it's good to know that you know you could die." "See anything up on the shelves?" "There's things I can't tell what they are from here, the ground looks pretty good." "There's a lot of supplies in here but this is a store." "You just gotta know, you just gotta know how to deal with it." "You need courage to really do what we do, but there is no such thing as courage without fear." "Sometimes you know you need that fear so that you're cautious." "Roger again we've made entry into Building 46 and 50 at this time." "See if any of you guys can identify any murder holes that uh you took fire from or most of those fires that you took were from the rooftops." "Roger, solid copy." "As soon as you got good over watch you clear to push." "Keep pushing the company south, so you get down go firm and" "I got to get to Golf 2, push down." "Let's hit south a little bit to see if we can hit on the Compounds 4-4 and 4-7." "Captain Middendorf needs them tojoinup with Kurek's squad ASAP." "Hey, we gotta keep pushing." "Alright let's go." "Clear to push." "Alright." "But Kurek's in trouble." "Oneofthetank's has thrown a track." "They gotta fix a track." "The Marines provide cover until theycangetit back up and running." "They'reontheverge of finally entering the compoundbutcan't risk using the doors or windowsfor fear of IEDs." "Theyneedthe tank to breach the innercompoundwall." "It'sreadyto go ." "Hey 2/3, 2/1 say again coming in broken." "That one is gonna flow in, get the in so we ain't gotta swing around." "Guess we don't need demo when we've got 60,000 pounds." "This is it." "The two squads meet at the threshold." "We're good." "And enter the drug dealer's compound." "Hey boys would you just watch that blue door to the left." "Troop come here radios on top." "Yeah I'd say affirm we're clearing out at this time, it's kind of a big compound, not a little house." "This compound is unlike any they've seensofar,it's more of a home with multiplerooms and creature comforts." "We may have to blow in the 50 or 52 'cause it look like there's a wall." "Roger, just give me uh, once you give me the green light." "Green light." "It definitely belongs tosomeoneimportant." "I'm not going to touch that right there it's gotta wire coming out of it." "And they knew the Marines were coming." "I'm not going to go in there, that'll kill ya." "Out in the courtyard they discover asuspiciousalcove and break out their hollysticksto explore it from a safe distance." "It might be booby-trapped." "We just found two AK magazines" "I doubt those are supposed to be there." "It's not common to find AK magazines in here, you know what I mean?" "Uh, wants to know if that compound is big enough for a tank to disrupt?" "North East side is 69, little hole in the wall." "North East side is 69." "Golf Company is finally inside the" "TalibanDrugBaron's sprawling compound." "Nosign of the Taliban, butthey'veleft something behind." "Oh, there's hand grenades right there." "Golf Company is finally inside the" "TalibanDrugBaron's sprawling compound." "Nosign of the Taliban, butthey'veleft something behind." "Oh, there's hand grenades right there." "Not sure if they're live." "Well I don't want to mess with those yet just because I don't want to risk uh if they're booby-trapped or not, you know what I'm saying?" "Do you think you need EOD over there?" "I don't want to touch these hand grenades unless uh 2 actual tells us that he wants us to try to sickle it up, but at the same time that's risky business." "You know that, you know how it is." "I'm about to go pick up that stuff as soon as I get, as soon as I get authorization, there's couple of mags over there, you gotta wear these so you don't get your fingerprints on the mags, we could probably pull" "fingerprints off of those mags." "And uh I think we gonna wait for EOD to get the grenades." "This process of search and seizure is what'sknownas  quot;" "Tactical Site Exploitation.quot;" "What Tactical Site Exploitation is, is you uh pretty much you exploiting a site for different things uh, information, evidence, anything like that, searching rooms, taking pictures of things." "Just waiting on the all clear and then I'm gonna have Corporal Unis finish up what his doing and then I'm gonna bring him back." "Corporal Unis is definitely by far I'd say the best at it within the company." "He's got his own traits that he brings to the table that none of the other Marines in my squad do." "We found those three mags;" "we found a little switch that would go on some sort of an IED or something like that." "This is going to take awhile." "We found a bag full of almost a 100 rounds." "Unis check out some hand grenades up in the wall over here." "After you know bag them up and everything you have to write all the information down on the bags, you give them over to the mobile assault platoon and they'll hand them over to the labs." "EOD took care of the pineapple grenades." "This is gonna hurt, a lot." "Where's the GO-PRO?" "It's probably gone." "If you can get visual down that alleyway and if umm make contact with my squad," "I'd really appreciate it." "You gotta stop and enjoy the good little things in Afghanistan." "Roger worst case scenario we'll blow another hole, so I'll keep you updated." "Sergeant Barrow is uh, he's motivated." "He's uh, kinda has to be molded and pushed in the right direction from time to time, but once he do get em there, he's an absolute bulldog for you, like he'll do anything, I can count on" "Sergeant Barrow to get you anywhere you want to go to complete any task." "Can you stand in the alleyway, sir it has a curve around, possible choke points." "The moment that you switch your mindset like something back home like, quot;" "Oh now I wonder how Stephanie's doing back homequot;" "or something you know and then something goes down your, your mind your mindset is completely gone." "Uh we should be sitting around uh 30 seconds right about now." "The raid on the Drug Baron's compound isa success." "Butgettingoutisas dangerous as getting in." "Thecompounds are like mazes." "SotheMarinestake the most direct route andblasttheirway out ." "Hey is it clear out there?" "We're heading back alright?" "Did you say we're good to head out?" "Hudson, get ready to hold right here, because you have the coverage from the door anyways so you could cover it on both ways." "Clearing these compounds is slow, arduouswork, especially in the heat." "You keep going one foot in front of the other, no matter how bad you're hurting, no matter how bad you're sweating, no matter how much water you've used up and how much less you have left in your pack," "the more you keep pushing it's the more effective you are going to be for the squad." "They're taking small arms fire over on the eastern flank." "Captain Middendorf calls his" "Marinesbackto base." "8815." "He knows they're tired but can't havethemlosefocus." "The heat you can get use to." "You just sweat your balls off and just whatever you just have to deal with, but the weight is what sucks and if you're shoulders don't go numb like you just hoping they go numb so that you can't feel the pain anymore." "Tell them to turn around, hurry up and start taking us back." "Right away sir." "Yeah you got your flak jacket on you got your pack on, you got you know if you're walking and you get a little hot or something, you can't just take your helmet off and you know" "say quot;" "Oh I'm hot you know, I wanna just chill out for the night,quot;" "you can't really do that, because you know you can get shot in the head right there at that point, so you always got to keep on everything pretty much." "But their walk back to the compoundrequires crossing another open field." "Just gimme pole, just gimme pole." "They're completely exposed intheopenpoppyfield." "Where are they impacting?" "Right in front of you, right in the compound." "The adrenaline is just something that, that once you get it you just, you just wanna feel it every, you know you wanna feel it every single day when you wake up." "Where's contact coming from?" "You know it's dangerous." "You wanna do it on your terms, but once you do get it uh the adrenaline high is, it's a lot of fun." "I don't mind getting shot at." "There's some people that can do the job and there's some people who can't do the job and that's why they do other jobs." "I couldn't see myself doing any other job." "I like the rush of it I like the challenge of it." "They finally make it back tothecompound." "Theenemyis firing at them from what theMarinescall quot;" "Murder Holes.quot;" "The biggest frustration right now is where the enemy is." "They're pretty good at what they do;" "they hide behind what we call murder holes, a very small hole carved into the side of a mud wall." "They move under the tree line, they'll shoot a couple of rounds and then egress to another position so it's very hard to see where they are." "The closest we've gotten to this point is about 150 meters away, but most of the engagements are anywhere from the 500 to 1,000 meter range." "We've killed about 15 to 20 fighters at this point and had no Marine casualties." "The Marine settle in to locate thosequot;" "MurderHoles.quot;" "The savage heat is taking its toll." "OneoftheMarinesis suffering from severe dehydrationand Middendorf must med-evac himbackto base." "It was fairly early in the afternoon when we had to call Dusthoff and have a med-evac come and pick up a Marine who had an extremely high temperature and really wasn't like getting any better." "It's a risky maneuver." "Middendorfknowsthe enemy is just to the west, itwillattackany  chopper coming in." "We were very hesitant about doing it, but the Marine never got better and it kind of forced us to bring helicopters to come and pick him up." "But the med-evac has an escort, acobraattack helicopter armed to the hilt." "What we're doing right now is we're sweeping out the LZ to ensure the bird has a good enough place to land in order to not land on IEDs and not land on personnel and not land on any power lines or any of that stuff," "that's what we're doing right now." "Hey, Slife." "Yeah?" "Let me know when you're ready to smoke." "I will." "We're inbound pop smoke, pop smoke." "Pop smoke." "What color?" "I don't give a just not red." "Golf 6, does tiger have smoke out?" "The smoke marks the landing zone butitalso provides a target." "Let's go gentleman, move your asses!" "ICOM chatters saying hide yourself from the birds, but be ready." "Almost there." "Thelongertheystay, the more time the" "Talibanhaveto attack." "Hey get out;" "get your guys out of the way so they can take off!" "Get out the way, get up out the way!" "The med-evac flies right over the enemy'sfiringposition." "That's not the way you wanna take off, low across that way." "Just as the med-evac chopper clearsthewires the Taliban unleash." "Just as the med-evac chopper clearsthewires, the Taliban unleash." "The Marine's cobra quickly responds." "What are they shooting at?" "Hey, that direction is where they shooting at the bird from." "Now the sick Marine can get the help heneedsbackatbase  and Captain Middendorf's mencanget some needed rest." "Even though we're on ops and we're constantly moving, constantly doing , but you find yourself in a lot of downtime, when you're not doing post or when you are not moving or something like that and you really start" "to think about things and appreciate all the little things in life." "But they can't let their guard down." "They'reonly3days into a 15-day operation." "What's that?" "Look behind you." "It's almost kinda pretty until you remember where you're at." "Another sunset in Afghanistan." "Tomorrow's gonna be a hard day." "My views of the Taliban have definitely changed." "They've got all the things it takes to defend a particular piece of terrain just as we would do, they a whole lot smarter and better prepared for this than, than I thought for sure originally." "We just try to stay just about as unpredictable as possible because the moment you set a pattern is the moment these guys are gonna catch onto it." "The Taliban keep taking pot shots fromthatsame quot;" "Murder Hole,quot;" "butit'stoofar for  Marine weapons to reach." "Timeforthetanks." "Tanks are pretty much the epitome of awesome." "They rock!" "That's it right?" "Yeah!" "There he is." "First round was right on target, if you do anything, just shift right another ten meters." "Just for a day I'd like to do what they do and just be in their tank and just traverse and shoot main battle tank rounds and just destroy everything in their path, they're just awesome." "Golf 3's got to get here sometime." "I love tanks;" "they're just;" "you just wanna kill someone." "They're just the coolest thing." "Roger." "Threat destroyed." "ButCaptainMiddendorf's not waiting until tomorrow tokeeptaking the fight to the enemy." "GolfCompany's headed out tonight."