Serial S02 - Ep. 6: 5 O’Clock Shadow
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First plan was go from point a to point b.

That was IT previously. I O P M, probably the worst place humanly imaginable, that place, socks.

And he had the little bucket, everyone, shit.

And he was in the town asking if people about english.

I rather be sitting and words and standing over the body, not that far. Notice in a gucci .

tors one minute cow has a baby.

Our mission, he's one of our guys we've got .

to find him. We're going .

to do ah yeah still so I think I so angry about IT.

Before mark started asking bow, what happened? Why did he walk away from his cartoon? Bow had already talked about IT to general Kenneth doll. Doll was in charge of investigating what you did and writing up a report for the army.

His inquiry was confined to the period that LED up to those decision to leave, not both time with the taliban or anything just wide. He walk, mark s. Bow about the statement he gave. General doll.

how long is your statement? Three hundred and some pages. Shut up, it's three hundred pages, three hundred plus like three hundred and eighty five pages.

Are you fucking seriously? Your statement is three hundred eighty pages. Yes, why? What did you do, tom? Every fucking in million you had when you were deployed.

Now, I just thought of key point and animal is just that was this story OK? He told me to tell the story. I told the story. And three hundred minutes later I came to where that I picked me .

up at a military hearing, doll said he and both spoke over the course of a day and a half quote. And Frankly, at the end of that, I had no more questions to ask him and he had no more story to tell me. So we exhausted each other and we were done unquote.

He wanted IT wasn't just like, give me your statement of what happened that night or whatever. He wanted to understand who I was as a person. No, nobody knew who I was because I was so quiet.

OK, all right. Why didn't understand that? I thought I was just about the deployment. No, no, you like, basically, in the very beginning, he said, all right, this is your chance to tell a story. And so as a welsted, in order for me to explain you what happened, I need to go back and explain you again.

From this american life and W B, easy chicago is cereal, one story told week by week. I'm Sarah ane. And fear not, I am not gonna you through every one of those three hundred eighty some pages, but in the next two episodes we are and assume back in so you can understand what doll and mark and I came to understand about bow, whether he told the truth about what he did, and whether there's truth in what he told.

Because those are two different questions. One of the things that's interesting to me about bow is that he broke this cardinal rule of the military. He left his unit, walked away from his post, but at the same time he was completely devoted to being a good soldier.

And up until the day he left, he was a good soldier at the military hearing his former weapons squad leader, a guy named greg leader men said, the leadership used to do this thing sort of like fantasy football, like a mark draft. If you could form a squad from anyone in the company, who would you choose? Quote, in first pic, you know, surgeon burgle was going to be the first pic for everyone. Almost every time he said he was a great soldier.

He did things like study, the render handbook, which is something we were all supposed to do, but none of us actually did know. You looked through IT. You get some notes and say, yeah.

I looked at IT. That's Jason fried. He was in both platon. They were friends. The ranger handbook is a pocket guy for soldiers on tactics and techniques.

And he would know he'd come back, he had highlighted he'd look at and study IT and leaderships saw that they were like, well, you know, this guy is trying and he he cares about his job. He cares about what he's doing. And I think that's that's significant. As far as understanding bell, he he isn't a person who carelessly does something.

Back then, bose goal was special forces. He joined the army in two thousand eight and was assigned n to the first batan of the five o first infinity regiment blackfoot company as an inventory soldier. You are so far from special forces.

You are a workforce. You are the guys who get sent out to guard a trafic control point in the middle, nowhere afghanistan but bow intended to be a footless example of an infant remen. He volunteered for extra duty, took impetuous care of his weapon, helped other people with their jobs.

Once he was done with his shob extra snacks s in his pockets in case the other guys got hungry, he was fit. One of his former patron mates told me he was A P. T.

stud. Pt is the often read physical training soldiers have to do. He was what military people call squared away, right place, right time, right uniform.

Everybody agrees about that. The other thing people will say about boback then is that he's not your typical grant. They can all describe A O but not one of them would say they totally got him or understood what made him tech.

Shame cross was friends with bow also. They're in the same attune. He said bow wasn't isolated from the group.

He just wasn't into the usual stuff. These guys played video games. Both didn't.

They talked about sex and women. Both didn't. He'd say i'm not into that kind of thing.

He he didn't live the average of the bark solder lifestyle of drinking all night, all weekends, everything. He would always listen to classical music. He would read a lot.

Would he ever joke around? Did he a sense humor?

He has a sense of humor. Joy in the community of teasing, joking around, not the extent that most of the orders will playing the grab action stuff.

He kept journals. He tried to study things passed to, for instance, and the quiet ness. It's just how bois, he's an introvert. But IT was also intentional.

The best way to create, believes them on a friction is not be as one I don't run your mouth and act like a you know domus, don't get in people's personal space. Don't go out your way like no at all you know if you're quiet, if you're up to the side, if you listen and if you watch and if you help people because then you're able to help them me, you're watching and you're seeing you when somebody need to you that they thought within as far as the team is concerned.

he doesn't want to annoy anyone or create a problem. He's thinking about the best way he can contribute to the collective, how he can be most useful. He's like the perfect guest, except that the strong philosophy nerd component he has, people might find IT interesting or irritating. Example, boat up smoking sof a lot of private smoked cigarettes, but he smoked a pipe. If the other guys were honored up in the window of smoking cigarettes.

he would bring his pipe. So now even though I don't smoke there i'm going is, you know, if you look at this, you at all cigarette ritual thing is kind of a bonding ritual. You, more or less .

like he was participating, but with an anthropogenic bent boat, probably be the first admit that he had a bit of a tin year for social interaction, sometimes not with everyone, but with some.

One times at barrow was talking about wanting to travel around europe, go to amsterdam, for all the reasons a Young man would want to go to amsterdam, both contribution, he talked about amsterdam major exports and the financial stability of the netherlands. He was that kind. I mean, is weird, like you would tell stories like that or talk about women. And he was like a fact driven bow was a fact driven dude. The problem was he wasn't always great in the moment at sorting out what was fact and what wasn't.

First time in the army started out, okay, he had specific ideas about leadership, about how you practice IT. And in basic training at fort bedding, georgia, both found what he was looking for, a senior drill sergeant who was everything he felt like a military leader should be.

My, see, your jill surgeon was amazing surgeon to follow them. Yeah, would have follow them in the battle. I would not have a problem with that because, you know, he was somebody that you could trust. You could certainly take pride in back in him because you just said, you know, that type of a leader. But unfortunately, when I got out of basic, everything just went down over there.

both sides up, everyone. He came into contact with the army. And while he has some nice things to say about the confidence of some of his button mates, a couple of his surgeons, as far as both concerned, not one leader, especially the guys up the chain, held a candle to the senior .

drill sergeant like I told general, all my dissolution in was a look, I didn't start in afghanistan. An IT. Basically its snowing from the moment I got to my unit in all these little things, just started taking off and just started being locked back in my memory.

A worried some catalogue began to compile at first. Just to comment here there, when he got to his unit in alaska, where the first to the fio first is based, someone suggested bell lock up his stuff because others SE. And I gets swiped a bit of advice to a newcomer, but both thought, how am I supposed to go onto a battlefield? I can even trust these guys here.

All those years later, he remembered IT, and he told IT a general doll. Then there was a comment by the command sergent major, can wolf. Prior to deployment, wolf did a full formal inspection of the batan. While he was added, he explained to them what the mission would be in afghanistan, or at least what .

IT wouldn't be. Basically gave the same speech are the same spill to all fourteen cartoons, which was, hey, we're not going on here to rape, kill, pill, gan burn. Yes, we're doing just the opposite of that. And I said, I know a lot of you guys join the army to do that, and everybody in the organization you .

to find .

the humor in that .

not well, he did not find the humor in that welf a joke that he joined back in eighty three to rape, kill village in burn also. But though, even if he understood IT was intended as a joke, he did not think he was funny. He found a distressing, he told all.

He was taken a back. In early two thousand nine, both sent an email from alaska to his family and friends called my deployment ment dates to afghanistan have been set to the ninth or tenth of march, so the countdown has started, he wrote. I'm looking forward to the next year of learning and chAllenges.

In fact, boat didn't end up deploying with the rest of his unit. He'd rode, marched in a pair of new boots, is trying to break them in and gotten blister on his left foot that turned into a serious staff infection. He had to go to the hospital, so he stayed back on what's called real d rear attachment.

But almost everyone else shipped off to pack tika province, eastern afghanistan. And when they landed spring of two thousand, nine was a turning point for U. S.

Forces there. The taliban and other anti afghan government groups had push back into the country in a big way. There were taliban shadow governors in thirty three out of the countries, thirty four provinces.

Casualties among U. S. And coalition forces had Spiked. Almost every measure we were losing. President obama had ordered a review of the war when he came into office that year.

And by the end of march, in a speech, he declared the situation, quote, increasingly parallels, and quote, we've been focused as a country and as a military on iraq. Now, he said we'd be turning our attention back to afghanistan in the next year. We'd more than double our troop numbers there to meet the surge.

The army was scrambling for recruits, issuing wavers to people who might not have qualified a few years earlier, and units like the first of the fio first, both battle an that had just done a fifteen months tour in iraq were coming home, absorbing new recruits and turning around and heading back into war, this time to afghanistan. The day after obama made his increasingly parallel speech, both bital an officially began its mission in afghanistan. And that mission was counterinsurgency coin for sure.

General David patrice had embraced the doctor an in two thousand and six, he crowed a new counterinsurgency manual for the army. He explained, coin means you're not just gonna fighting. Quote, soldiers and marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors, he wrote.

The idea of coin afghanistan was to be back the enemy, and at the same time trained the afghan security forces to take over the fight themselves, and very important to build support among the people for the afghan government, try to win them over, shore up the economy, the infrastructure, so that they will turn away from the insurgents. The monta became clear. Hold, build, transfer in portrays is manual.

There is a graphic of something that looks sort of like a double a battery. At one end are the people who are for the cause. At the other are the people who are against the cause. Everything in between was the quote, uncommitted middle. Those were the people we wanted to pull over to our side.

Basically the first few months, all we are doing was uh, making sure direct routes to other fobs were secure and and kind of us showing force, I guess, as well making our self known, I guess, to the towns people for the first few months. That's z borrow and the uncertainty in his voice about what exactly they were doing. A lot of the soldiers felt that way.

I gotten contact with a lot of these guys through Marks company page one, by the way, which was super helpful. Some of the coin stuff made sense to the soldiers. They might back up afghan police in submission or they're help rebuild to hospital.

But other stuff seemed fuzzier they're doing a lot of handing out some things of gee bags of rice. We would hand out crayons for the kids. I distinctly remember the um map puzzles of afghanistan with water color painting set.

We handed out quite a bit of those does john herman. There was a lot of confusion um you know because instance men, we I think by definition we're not supposed to be doing humAnitary arian things and we'd been we'd been trained from the get go in basic training. You know your mission is to close with and destroy the enemy and they were out there handing out, you know, what color maps of afghanistan watering? How is this gonna?

How do we beat .

the taliban this way? Here's mark for curry and shame cross. And I think a lot of guys were a little bit weird out by going out and shaking hands. And I figured there would be a little bit more shooting involved.

One, go meet the enemy. It's going take there's a bag there you go find them and you kill them that go give his mother in law some flower to give insert, join your side. You know.

about two months after both patrons on deployed on may thirteenth s two thousand nine, both finally joined up with them at fab Sharona shame cross brought into the barracks.

I could definitely pick up on his disappointment when he realize what we are doing, where we are living. Casing.

why? What was he disappointed about?

He, he wanted hardships. I think .

I like, like, toronto was too cushy.

yeah. We had we in hard stand rooms, everyones, upon the bomb bunk. You put your stuff on the top bunk.

I think, as all of this pointed him, he wanted next thing, want a hardship. You wanted more what you were seen in the movies. I mean, he, he wonderly by his matches.

He put his match of office burning. He shut on the springs that underneath IT IT isn't like a box. Spring was just these metal coils going across the wooden frame of the bed.

Sure, he would just lay on that. He, he was really in the knife. He's in the big knife guy. He slept. He had a tomahawk that he slept with.

When wears the tomahawk .

chest holding IT.

I wanted to be a solder. I wanted be A, A security contract there. I wanted people to take a serious. I wanted to go on the special horses go.

Told mark that, yeah, he did want that movie version of the military.

And I want to that adventure. I want of that action. I want in that moment of a journal, and I want that moment of, you know, your contact, you know, be the soldier that you know diking firefight to get new goes around and other trucks yeah.

Lesson a week after boo arrived at his base, his poot did see action. And this incident and its aftermath became the first solid building blog in both argument for trigger a dust one. They went on a mission to oma, a district center up in the mountains.

I spoke to a bunch of the soldiers who were there, and they all said IT was the scarious thing that happened during their deployment. They've been called up in the middle the night to help out another convoy that had hit an I D. That first convoy had been trying to help afghan n security forces up at oma. I'd recently come under fire, but they hidden ID up there. And so now both bottom e was going to recover the disabled vehicle.

This was like our first mission. Like we're going somewhere.

We're doing something, josh, quarter IT was a mission that was supposed to take maybe eight hours to get up to ha. They have to drive up to the plateau and just the drive itself is heroin. The road isn't much bigger than a goat path.

There's a steep drop off the side. There's no room for error. And they're driving in these huge trucks, brand new mine resistant trucks.

just a giant tank that's just like like the best description I could give. But IT was a really nice tank. IT had like leather seeds and and like all the all the new stuff because we just literally got how does .

that do like a goat path, though?

Well, honestly, to be honey with you a little bit Better than you might expect that we didn't know because we just we were brand newdorf because we were driving around. And humbly, we before that.

we're driving up this mountain and the truck right in front of me. So on the last, this is the second to last, a vehicle just explodes. Austin.

the enford was in the same truck as josh.

And then I just disappeared in the dust. Like, I didn't see IT anymore else like that. The trucks just fall off the Cliff.

Like, is IT going? Like we started trying to call them and be like, are you OK? Are you there? Like where what's going on? And then, like, pieces of the truck fell on our truck.

but they were okay. That's the beauty of these massive, ungainly vehicles. The generic name is m rap, mine resistance, ambush protected.

You can survive these I D explosions if you're inside, but now this end up is severely damaged and axles broken, and so they have to drag IT the rest of the way up the mountain. Because you can't just ditch IT. You never leave army equipment in the battle field if you can help IT, even if it's broken.

And amErica has sophisticated systems in IT. You don't want the enemy to get those or to use the truck for propaganda. Austin is driving the ema p behind the one that got blown up.

They make everyone but him get out of his vehicle and they tell, be ready to jump out in case your m rap goes over the Cliff or if the disabled and rap falls back on you, he's terrified. But they managed. They hall the disabled and rap the rest of the way up to the oma district center, which is a kind of fort upon the platter where some afghan security forces were stationed. They've been attacked by taliban a couple of days earlier.

Josh quarter, this was like the first time that I saw something that I was like this place is fucked up like bad. There's just bullet holes off the walls. There's um holes from where R P G S head and like rockets, we're hitting them. Their towers were like worn down because they're been firing so many machine gun rounds that like the concrete was chipping away. And just like, oh my god, this is serious.

They came to rescue another vehicle and now they need rescuing. They spend the night in their trucks. They don't trust the afghan n security guys, first of all, in second, if a firefight starts, they don't want to be trapped in a building.

They want to be able to drive away. So they're nervous that first night, zh barrow said. When they finally walk around, they realize pretty quickly that the people up there on that don't want anything to do with them have no interesting interacting, its tense. So they are pulling guard shifts in, spending a ton of time, crowded trucks.

extremely close truck, and trying to scramble from guards. st. Whatever spot they can find the sleep in.

They're trying to sleep in contorted positions. All your gear made as you. You couldn't really fit in your seat if you were lucky enough to get a seat during the day.

They are so hot and board, so board. They used in M, R, A box in caps from water bottles to play checkers. They're under supply in every way.

IT was just the most miserable place ever. We had nothing and I smoke. So we ran out of cigarettes.

We had like no chewing ing. Tobaco had nothing. They actually had to drop food, water with airplanes because they couldn't get to us.

We didn't bring raisers. Nobody had any changes of clothes so the first thing you .

said was we had no readers yeah which to me would be like the last thing you would think about is like SHE oh, is that a thing?

Yeah that is the thing. Actually it's not OK for the army people to be growing no a beard um you're aware .

all the time like yeah I got to have to.

got to, got to and it's in your brain like my god, what going to say like they going to say i'm stupid because I didn't bring a rather are they get pissed at us are like .

what's gonna en days are going by. But IT feels like nothing's happening the whole time. They're trying to communicate with their commanders, trying to figure out what they're supposed to do with these broken vehicles.

Emacs, in particular, were valuable until they came along. U. S. Soldiers were getting killed in named by the hundreds because of ideas in iraq and afghanistan. The emacs were the solution.

They kept you so much safer than a humpy by the time bogue to afghanistan. If soldiers were moving around on land, they were pretty much in an m rap, but they weren't all that many of them yet, and they got blown up a lot. You could, Frank and stand them back together if you had the right pirates.

But because the'd been rushed into production by the dod and suppliers had scrambled to get them in the market, you get something like four different models in circulation at any one time, all of which needed their own parts. You couldn't necessarily mix and match. So even a couple of blown up ones on top of a plateau had value.

Both bottom likely didn't know all the insignis ce of why they couldn't just slowed the things on sight and go home. All they knew was that they were waiting what seemed a preposterously long time for someone, Harry, up to come up with a plan. We're they going to send a record up there or was a platoon going to have to drag these disabled monsters back down the mountain? They had a mechanic up there with them, but he was stomped, but trying to communicate the situation back to their commanders. It's not going well.

So we had the mechanic there and they said, send us a list of the parts that you need to fix IT and yeah and so the mechanic gets on there and he says, there's it's not onna, get fixed the .

mechanics and the surgeons are calling down the radio oing down, saying the truck is blown up.

We can fix IT and and then commences, why not? And we all look each other like what .

we literally had, the jack, the thing up to try and change out of tire, the mechanic sitting there with a use, look on this space going. We're not driving this thing off the mountain.

It's been blown up. We all felt like, why are we appear what is going on? Like all the combat veterans, the ones that have been there for a lot longer in the army, were all scratching their heads. Nobody understood why we were doing this.

Eventually, on about day five, they're told to head home. Another team will come dealing with the emirates. They're also instructed to take a different route back down the mountain. They passed through a village is bad, sancroft said. IT was military aged men, no kids, who all just stop and stare at the convoy.

We pass some cattle le by themselves. And a burney, like I was a smaller in campfire by itself that time. That's a sign also of, well, there's unintended cattle, unintended fire where that was going. As then people booked and got out there.

I I had this terrible feeling that we were about to get blown up or shot out.

Austin langford, suddenly there's an I E. D. explosion. Another truck hit and disabled.

Well, once again, that truck gets blown up right in front. Y, we are like, right? Well, we gotto go assess the situation, so we get out.

An E O D guy gets out too. E O D is explosive ordinance disposal. They're the bomb experts, his josh.

And so the od guy was out there sweeping with a little mine sweep, and he comes across something, and he picks IT up. And then he starts pulling on IT and it's like it's like a wire, like a buried wire and so he's picking IT up and sees its like stringing kind of the woods and then he was kind of drops IT and goes, oh shit. My first reaction was that I cocked my machine gun, and I, I said out loud and I said, let's do this.

Very clear, I understand that. But that was exactly what I did. I was exactly what I did.

I like, this is going down. There's not any way that we're not about to get attacked. IT was so obvious. So I cock my weapon else. I OK let's .

do this in RPG came like flying bias and hit on the ground in front of us and right then, like, scared the crap at emy, because then gun started firing. Like, immediately I get out. I first started sprinting towards the truck trying to find covered.

This is what's called a complex attack. They've been waiting for the convoy to pass by this way. Now it's a mess of gunfire and explosions.

Josh a is a gunner, so he's up in the terrible his truck. People below are calling out targets, saying, one o'clock, three o'clock, two a eight o'clock, six o'clock. The attack is coming from everywhere. My fortune .

surgeon gets in the truck and he literally starts punching me on my ass and telling me to keep firing um so know I went through like four hundred rounds initially. I keep firing, keep firing and keep firing. And I I don't let up.

Bow was also a gunner, but he wasn't in the third of his truck. Borrow was up there. But immediately jax gun jammed. So boo hands his weapon up called the saw. Zx starts firing close .

to fifty six round, I think. But am I saw.

Another guy now, hands up, his sa, the third weapon works. The convoy needs to get out of this revenge. They're trapped in.

But now they've got this disabled truck, which they need to toe out. So the platoon leader, J. P. Buildings, jumps out of his truck to hook up a cable. Shame was the gunna in that truck.

He is, he is. He else out cover me. And he opened the door and jumps out and runs often. Max pro are were, be a really big talk. So I can't see where he read and and he'd run off the truck behind us, grab the cable hook, hook up our truck, and then ran, climb back inside. I could see my clinic drivers'.

He he had mod all over him, spas a mood from like bedi rounds, hit the dirt and flying a mod under him oh my god, he's covered in legget's inside. Go go for some side drive. He is that I was in turkey.

He says, don't you ever let me do something, dad? Again, it's hard floors that in the cable snaps and tenability calls out coming. You need to dive right back out of view. So again.

so twice billings goes out there. Second time the cable holds, they move out. Air support moves in. Incredibly, no one from their unit got hurt during the firefight.

One soldier who was there said that by the end, he heard that up to ten taliban had been killed. Both, both tunes eventually limbs home back to the fab. Their emb s are all bound up flat tires in bullet holes. Here's what bow remembers about what happened when they pulled back .

into the wire after oma ire, the italian commanders standing their weight for us to our platoon. Arding gets after the trucker. Now, when you get the grounds apple to are the telling commander says something they know, what does he say? Does he say, hey, good graduations.

You get a job, you back and gratulation lose. Anyone else there are proud of you. Hey, how's the man doing? How you feel and how's everything? He didn't say anything like that.

His concern was not anywhere close to how the man well being doing. How are my men who are out there in the war zone? He didn't say anything like that.

Most of the students surgeon stabbed out of the dark. It's the ground. And the first thing that comes out of argentine commanders mouth is what you couldn't shave.

Both usually pretty measure the way he talks to mark in the phone calls. But whatever he talks about this incident, whenever you at all about the batan commander tenant, cornel clinton Baker, broken, barely temp down his anger, he goes on and on about this shaving comment, which he heard about second hand.

So it's just like, are you serious after all of that bullshit, after everything that we've gone through, we get back here and now we have to go shave the best six days mud of our face because some jack s who has been sitting in an air conditioning, the office office giving more ship orders entire time. He's got a problem with the fact that what we couldn't shave.

some of those opportune mates annoyed also, but they shoot IT off from then on.

a love guys Carried a, put a disposable razor and just stuck IT on their kit on their chest kind of thing. It's like a no way I can save any time money to.

oh, it's like a little fuck you yeah, bow was noticing the same things the other guys were. He was getting mad at the same things they were. But while the other guys might bitch about something and then flushed away for both, these things were sticking, attaching to other incidents he'd already lodging in his memory, starting in like pieces of a puzzle only he was putting together in the phone calls. Mark comes back again and again to oma, trying to fit IT correctly. And the gose overall argument.

when you say the problems, you're talking specifically about putting people at risk for things like retrieving broken equipment or are you talking about because I don't know, i'm not sure.

The most obvious complaint a soldier might have about oma would be exactly what mark is getting at that. That sounds like a wrong headed dangerous mission, and it's just luck that no one from his bottom that heard or killed.

But what makes both furious about this on the incident wasn't so much the crappy communication between the mechanics and the commanders, or the being rated for days, or their unfortunate route home, which clearly the enemy had had ample time to plan for. More than all that IT was the shaming thing. Both says, yes, i'm a was scary.

But when they come home, the betiding commander doesn't acknowledge the scaring us. Moreover, to bow, at least he seems unconcerned about the welfare of his men. And to bow, that's what starts to feel scary, that maybe they are not in safe hands .

and .

interestingly, confusing singly, but was also complaining at the time that they were playing IT too safe. IT was miserable. But I was also exciting, especially for the new guys in the platoon who hadn't been in iraq before something had happened.

And theyd survive and bonded over IT. Both didn't seem to share on that he hadn't fired his weapon in an email to a friend he sent the day they got back from arma, he wrote, quote, I SAT there and watched. There was nothing else I was allowed to do. And quote, he added, but afghanistan mountains are really beautiful.

Judge quarter says he noticed something shift in bow after they got back from arna, his tone changed.

I was in the truck with him, a fuel emissions after that. And he was talking to one of the guys down below the truck. And if would they were to everybody y's talking about the firefight, everything like that um cause it's like the most significant thing that happened on a whole deployment.

So course everybody talks about IT over over again and he when during the conversation said all that stuff is just bullshit and would like, what what's all shit about IT? He's like, we should gone out there and we should killed every single one of those guys. We think we should like he, he thought we were being cowards because we hit our trucks and we didn't go out there and do that, and is like what we go to these villages and we hand out these blankets and all this stuff, we shouldn't be doing that. We should be out there just killing these people who are shooting at us, killing these people who are just don't care about afghan people, to be killing the bad guys then and he says at that point.

he's like our .

whole entire, the whole entire army is just policies. Everyone's a policy because we don't go out there and we don't kill the enemy like we're supposed to.

I don't know if dashes quotes are precisely accurate, but other guys have told me both said versions of this sentiment. And it's true and understandable that botox to mark about a bunch of different feelings he had about the war, wanting more action, but also feeling that they should be doing coin Better, should be working harder to engage with local afghans, taking every opportunity to talk to them. And he says he felt like, and that a lot of guys felt like, whatever is we're doing over here, it's not helping regular afghan.

I everybody was saying in this important, this all thing is stupid. I in my, where we look at each other, when were the truck and take like, no, what we're doing there.

All right, so I wanna take him into here just to stare at that notion was IT bullshit. My best parameter for that is Jason deam sa P H D, the guy you heard a few episodes ago. He was an officer at the battle, an and brigade level, and he did tours in both iraq and afghanistan.

He was there when boat missing. He went back in twenty twelve as a combat advisor to the afghans, and then again in two thousand fourteen to see how that was going. So he's got a lot of perspective.

I asked Jason. Was the mission bullshit? The problem, he said, is that the army said IT was doing coin. IT planned its mission and Operations in iraq and stand as if IT we're doing coin.

But I never fully committed to coin because for coin to work, you've got ta commit to a place for decades. Probably we're talking thirty, forty years. If you wants to drive political change, you have to have people out there long enough to understand the politics of the place they're in, Jason said. You can't rotate units in and out in seven or twelve months increments and .

expect success. You're really effective from month three to month nine because you're .

just figuring IT out.

you figured that out, you're off and roll and you're really don't great things for six months and then you're transitioning out for those last three months. And then whether or not the lessons in the momentum you learned in those .

six months .

get Carried on units coming in. They merely not share your vision. Even if they do share your vision, they explain the first three months confused themselves.

The army didn't really train units like both for coin in afghanistan, Jason said they couldn't, not the time allowed. He said he and other soldiers were basically told, if you make their lives Better, they'll support you. And so a unit gets to afghanistan.

But he doesn't really understand the society there. Whose, who, what the power dynamics are, the tribes, the families, the alliance is, the annic groups, the whole root system of a country that's pretty much been at war on enough for thirty years. And so you plunk down and try to convey your message of goodwill on the ground. IT doesn't .

translate very well. If you are Young american, say a company commander or opportunity ader you walk can do your typical afgan village cr a thousand nine and an elder approaches like, hey, what's up? What guys don't want here, your average Young, the ten and captions and say, well, we have to make your life Better.

We want to build some roads.

We want to connect the central government. We want yeah, you just want to improve your life, make sure kids and go to school hole bit.

So immediately was said that afghan thinking the back was, mine is like a shit, the student line through his teeth, who the buck comes to afghanistan to make my life Better, right? It's an absurd notion in the mind of this after, and that the united states, america, would send people around the world just to build roads for local africans. So the action is okay.

That's cool. Thanks guys. Good to me. Walks away, goes back to the village and say, you should hear what the american told me and you last time, what we, you and quiet they here and there can be a Young club site there. And they can say there here because I hate islam among those two messages for your average asking in the idea that where there because her hate islam is much more rational, right? For them it's just there are more prone to believe IT.

But won't we say we're here? I mean, were we saying to them, was that Young lu tani going to say, we want, we want to get you on our sites so that we together can get rid of taliban in foreign ghz, in the arabs that are coming in, or they just sing, no, no. We just wanted give you rise and build.

You can say it's in our interests .

for you guys to be supporting our mission is a valid point.

And a lot of times that would get lawed though at the on level.

lost at the tune level because if the soldiers don't know who's supporting them, who's supporting the taliban and why, then of course, the message and is pretty crude.

Much as we never really understood all these overlapping power structures and incentives and relationships that preexisting us. We never want, want to understand what the afghan were actually doing. We just wanted build a walk again and say, here's a temple let for how you should run an army, go for IT because we don't want to get a hand start.

We just show you how .

we're going to show you .

how just watch all we do exit.

It's a great way to put you to show you how what should we do. And then if you don't end up on IT must not be because of any structural issues underneath that must be because you don't care. And that's prd of the most infuriating thing about all this, says we have an entire generation of army folks, marines.

It's that our who've gone through and at the end of the deposit of said, well, the afghan just not care about this fight as much as we do, which is quite possibly the most preposterous than you could say about the war in afghanistan, that they don't care about IT as much as we deo the audience. They're fighting their struggle. We're fighting hours and we never bothered to OK to these two things. Actually.

overnight in november of two thousand nine, then secretary state Hillary clinton got a memo to the same effect its inside an email recently released by the state department, its notes from a conversation in adviser of clinton had with a guy named bill murine who'd had a long and distinguished career at the cii had been stationed ft in pakistan in the nineties and all that, apparently, after starting in the movie, strives anyway, CIA bill murray said the same thing.

Jason is saying that there's a giant, protracted misunderstanding going on. Seems marie do not mess words. The memory reads almost like an urgent overseas telegram quote, we are literally fighting the people they think we are fighting islam.

The problem is not the number of troops. It's a failed mission. The afghans believe we are there to stay.

This is the thing they will never accept. They will allow armies to go through and even stay for a few years, but not stay forever. I don't see how to make this work.

Morry's overall advice, abandoned coin, don't try to build the afghan n nation or restructured society. Stop talking about democracy, they don't care. Tell them you wanted.

Get bladon and then get out. Inside the army leadership, though, the message was very different. IT was, we can do this if we keep trying. We just need more time, more money, more men.

Of course, bone, as plutonia tes didn't have all this perspective. They might wonder whether what they were doing was worthwhile, but mostly they were just doing their jobs, doing what they were told, knowing IT was sometimes or often sucky right after oma bow was sent with his bottom to meet the little outpost twenty miles south of fob, shona must to have deliver the rest of those complaints.

The mess mission fit in exactly to patrice, his coin idea to get soldiers off the fobs out into other, more remote parts of afghanistan to work within, train local security forces. When both first got to mess in late may of two thousand nine, the there wasn't much of anything on top of the hill there. There was a cemetery and a tiny little bunker fortified with sandbags.

So we're on this observation post, and they put six of us up there the first night, while the first night that foxall was big enough for two guys to be undercover. So that's four guys sleeping out on a bare hill with the town that is probably maybe so many five yards away at the bottom of this little help. Anybody could know with that hill up with an R, P, K, in more than likely what have gotten.

And this wasn't consider a security risk. This wasn't considered a safety risk. You know, by the guy who put us up there.

The surgeons that were up made a call to start digging a bigger hole so that we could quora fy the position. Here we are, digging this hole in the middle of blast, the e wave of the summer. And they call down to ask for given on uniform.

In other words, are we allowed to take off some of our stuff, vests and helmets, while we dig this hole in the punishing heat? Remembers them getting a vague answer that amounted to yes. Greg leather, man who was in charge up there on the hill, told doll that he did remember calling for instruction on uniform.

We could sit down below and they didn't have their gear on. I asked a commander, when we are digging, if we can take argue off. He replied that as long as we were working on digging, IT should be fine. And quote, it's not all that uncommon for soldiers to do this, by the way, by the uniform rules, a little Austin langford was at mess too. He wasn't up above where boo was, but he was doing similar work down below where the trucks were darl hanson was there as well.

IT was hot. IT was extremely, extremely hot, and we're digging into a mountain full of rock. So you can either be in long sleeves, pants and black, the full kit and die, or you can drop, load and do IT.

How you have to do is to get that done as fast as you can, because time is of the essence. And so you decide to put your sleeves up, you decide to take your home and off and maybe put a band and on to keep your sweat out your face. And maybe you can blow your boots because you're head.

So here we are .

trying to fortify this thing because the first nightly slept out on open um and so here comes as B C.

B C is bital an commander, clint Baker, he of the shaving remark. And of course, Baker sees them out of .

uniform and he comes running up the hill by himself with afghan governor and his entrance. They get up to the hill. He doesn't stop to talk to anybody.

He doesn't stop to ask what's going on. All he does is he getting a face of the sergeant there. He doesn't give him a chance to explain fully what's going on.

You see nothing but aggression. And he literally went up chest, though he Price this chess play up against the other surgeon, like trying to get into the space. And you could see nothing but a aggression in coming problem. And then he turns around, he throws the little shaking.

Petra cin Baker told general doll he remembers the incident and said he was, quote, putting on a bit and act to drive a point home on, quote, so that relevant might have been the end of IT. Except there was a photographer hanging around the platoon at that time, sean Smith of the guardian newspaper. And he published bunch of photos online of both and the others, not in their proper uniform. And that sent the commanders .

through the roof, PPT all the detail command. The italian commander goes on a went, he calls, he calls me, basically calling us all the names and eating cause and he saying, what you guys, your your action, you guys are bad as child rapist. Your actions are as bad as if you had murdered the entire village in vietnam.

And he's going on and you know, why would he? Why would he say that? That's ridiculous. yeah.

IT was because we, you know, we we were things is your little idea new? Is little fashion. This is, this is what he was concerned about, what you know, how you look when .

I first heard both account, which again, he was hearing second hands and ce, he wasn't in the room, I didn't quite believe that. I mean, I believe they've got shoot out, but not to that degree. I figured he was exaggerating.

Kernel Baker didn't respond to my request for an interview, which are not surprised by since he'll likely be involved in both commercial proceeding. But I asked can wolf about IT he was kono Baker's number two, and IT seems kenya ded them about the photos two. He explained that, yes indeed, this was a very big deal. Kent had dropped the guardian photographer at mast and then kept driving for themselves. He was at another command center down there when someone showed him the photos I interview can over the phone.

if we could ever find those photos and pulled them back up.

You can see me actually. I just see like guys standing around.

分之 a different well.

i'm .

looking at one.

Do you see anybody with body .

armor on what does bar body armor look like .

a body armor? You know like if you see the video games like a .

big best to something, no, I see guys. You see.

guys with help is .

on nobody as a helmet.

You see a bunch of guys, wait ting, get fucking killed. You see.

The other thing that made me crazy was the way the weapons looked in the photos, machine guns pointing up in the air, not on tripods like they should be. I do look very hard at the photos to even find the offending guns, but can took IT all in right away, the scarves on people's heads. Oh, and then there is bird doll standing off to to the right. And the pipe, the pipe.

oh yeah, that's a classic. I love IT. And this is doing what I said, and I don't want to see more. This fucking learns of a rabia .

should bow .

points out to mark that pipes actually have a longer, richer place in military history. And cigarettes see general pattern anyway, to can. The whole scene screamed lack of discipline. A laun bells went off.

If these guys aren't following the basic rules, how can they be trusted when a bigger problem comes along? Prior to deployment, insurgents had come up with uniform rules they all agree to enforce. And now they were saying, well, I know it's against the rules.

but but what I think I know Better and I don't care so you do what the fuck you won.

I see. And that's the breakdown in discipline. In fact, it's right. Do whenever .

the fuck you want, you want to shoot fifteen people in my life. Go ahead.

Oh, like you go right there. You go, you go there in your .

head like that. Things start now. I do. I think these guys were ever gone to, you know, put fifteen afghans in a room and shoot.

M, no, not at all. But I I surely didn't want to to let IT start. And this is early in the deployment ment.

I mean, this is may. Yeah, right, right.

So early we've decided we're just going to do whatever we want.

So i'd wash your bow. Heard what? He heard me lie in the world's point of view, wasn't singular that leadership genuinely considered this worthy of punishment?

After the photo thing, three people got in big trouble. Greg leather man was demoted in. Two other surgeons were moved sideways out of the bottom. Both at Baker had turned against them.

He was going out of his way to make as everything as miserable as possible in another necessary way. You know, that's what I got, and I saw the effect they had on everybody did. I guess you weren't the only my guy that felt that way.

Obviously, I wasn't only guys. I was the one of many who thought I was a complete joke. As one of many who were shaking their hands as more in your eyes, I was one of many. You were just going, I can't believe this is happening.

I was mad about IT. I was felt as the stupid thing I ever heard and like we're out of doing what you tell .

us to do .

like I didn't understand why that's Austin.

He and the other guys didn't like that. They never got to explain why they were out of uniform. They felt like maybe the commander's reaction had less to do with the actual infractions and more to do with the fact that photographic evidence of them was on a website making the army look bad, making leadership look bad. Dell hanson said he felt like they were .

being judged unfairly off of .

just a picture. You know, they had no idea what we're about. And I are so worried about the way we look at our own professionalism, not knowing what the atmosphere is like, what the actual op is like. Flies certainly constantly a hutter and ten degrees, no hot food, no hot shower.

Getting shot at of.

Room IT ruin the feeling girl had that they were a really good platoon. They were doing a good job. The punishment messed with moral.

This is when both level of discontent boils over. Both didn't see the commanders actions as corrective. He saw them as punitive and worse, irrational.

Specially after that things they're falling apart.

He'd been Carrying around these worries for months, he said. The omniscan, of course, also talked to mark and a doll about a couple of incidents where he felt like private were being gang up on, and he was rising them about their personal lives. Who was offended by that? But the uniform to buckle, and the photographs and Bakers freak out for boat, that was the last straw. W.

and that's why I ended up doing what I did. He was out of control from what I could see. He was unfit for what he was doing. I won't for the past and to be the proper guy to previously put near my put to mates in harms way just because he is a personal graduates because we soiled IT is reputation or whatever full ship idea here is that.

He said his fear essentially was that clint Baker would try to get rid of them, maybe by sending them on a suicide mission that they might get killed simply because he didn't like them. Boat told general doll quote, what could happen is this battling commander could see us, my platoon, as the stain on his reputation. Now, sending us on a suicide mission wouldn't be the first in military history.

Somebody doing, somebody giving out in order on personal agendas or off of personal grievances. IT is not going to be a first in military history. So worse case scenario, what happens? Unquote both saw threat.

He says, quote, and I saw that somebody needed to do something about IT. Somebody had to do something that called the situation into check. And, quote, but decided he was the somebody who should do something.

He had to save them on june seventh. Boo wrote to a close friend back home, kim Harrison's daughter. He tells her, in case you guys get word of anything weird about me from the red cross of the military, please keep kim calm.

He wrote, quote, no red flags. I'm good, but plans have begun to form no timeline yet. SHE writes back exactly what kind of plans are you thinking of? About three weeks later was when he walked off the O P.

At mast, hoping, he says to cause a dust one, hoping to show up back at fab, Serena, hoping to tell his fears to a general, hoping to be listen to if you're thinking what those are his reasons for leaving because he decided his billing commander was an income anent asho. That's why he makes this nutty, radical dangerous move. What am I missing? You are not alone for one thing, markers with you. We've talked about this a bunch of times .

actually the first time he kind of related out for me and i'll take, I said this on the tape, but I was thinking, I get the fuck out here.

Do you like a camp? What you're say?

Just like what? Okay, there was no point in hearing that story that I thought, oh, great. I have the answers.

cool. thanks. IT was more, my action was more just like you've got to be kidding me.

All these years, so many people around you try to figure out, is he selfish or self less? Is even telling the truth? He was looking at the same set of circumstances as the other soldiers in his unit.

Why do you react so differently? Take such drastic steps, have you make sense of this guy? Well, you have to go deeper.

The story, the story that he told didn't really ever change, but my understanding of the person telling that story changed.

Next time on cereal.

Serials produced by Julie snyder, dana chivy me in partnership with mark boll, Megan ellison, hugo lindon, jusko whisper g page one and anionic pictures irr glasses are editorial al advisor editing help this week from brian read, Nancy update and joe level witney danger field ld is our digital editor, research by Kevin garnett, factual king by macho Harris, copy eating Emily condon is our line producer.

Our music is composed by nick thorpe, orne for mires and mark phillips. The show is mixed by kate linski, Christian Taylor, our community editor, other serial staff settlin alease bergson and Kimberly Anderson. Special thanks this week to Christian loose and will your man.

Our website is serial podcast dot war, where this week you can find the link to those guardian photos that got those bottle in trouble. And also for anyone nursing out on the military right now, da, we've posted our own beautiful army orchard showing how those regiment was structured. Next week, we will also have audio extras and more.

Again, that serial podcast dot org. Stay tuned for a preview of our next episode. But first, it's another wild week night. So you pick an easy new york times cooking sheep pen recipe, but when you open the pantry, no onions and as usual, somehow you're low and olive oil with inter card. There's another way where equality ingredients don't require a road trip for the contents of your pantry. You don't define your meal where you can click shop ingredients on instincts on new york times, cooking recipe for delivery and as fast as thirty minutes. Learn more A M I T cooking, not calm flash instant ard that's M I T cooking, not calm slash instincts.

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a production of this american life and W B E Z chicago.

So you just grow up like fucking around in the woods. W up.

coming up on the next episode. cereal. Here's a cute kid from idaho with blond hair and blue eyes.

They think quiet first is very quiet. You.

a nineteen year old kids liping on your roof, probably do .

something about .

the logical.

And he shows up in union always that wanting to serve and wanting to protect.

or you trying to pass the time, or did you literally lose your mind and now you just got a back.

They even when they hear the the true story, it's going to be learn to think it's crazy. But will those people already fill with hate and filled with judgment?

Will they change their mind?