Apache Warrior (2017) - full transcript
Apache Warrior is a feature film made with 100% unprecedented real footage, actual attack pilot gun tapes, multiple cameras and interviews. We researched hundreds of hours of footage in ...
I'm gonna cut
to my left a little bit
and pick up Texas
and head up Texas.
:
Looking for their aircraft too.
: Roger.
All right,
we're going two up,
one back.
-That means--
Yeah. I've got it.
We'll take left
and long, he'll take
right and short.
Roger.
16.
We're going to way-point four.
Okay, can you get me
direction in, please?
Let's go,
a little bit further north.
We're ready to roll, baby.
We'll be all right.
Okay.
Command, I'm flying
with a master gunner,
Desert Storm veteran.
You think I'm worried?
We are south of Karbala,
heading 2-0-0.
All right,
missiles are powered back up.
I've got you inside.
I'm going out your right rear.
Roger that.
Sure have
a lot of people out
driving around
this late at night,
especially when they know
an attack is coming.
Apache pilots
are a unique breed
of human beings.
Technically proficient,
tactically proficient.
Most of us have
some serious IQ levels.
I'm pulling 0-5-3
position confidence
on INU 1 and 2 check
and no satellites.
Speed up
a little bit more, 1-9.
You're in
a big hurry to get
to this battle, aren't ya?
6-0-6, roger--
What the heck was that?
I don't know.
Maybe a bird.
There are no birds out here.
How many birds have you seen?
But we ask an awful lot
of our young officers
when we say we need you
to go to this location
and do this and come back.
We've lost
all the satellites,
so just maintain-- make sure
we're on the route good.
Roger. Continue on, uh,
move to contact zone.
All right. Up there
to the left is way-point 2-7.
That's where we're gonna
initiate the battle handover.
Hey, 1-9.
I'm gonna go in
and start slowing up here,
slow left-hand turn.
See you at the red rally point.
All right, here's the,
uh, battle handover.
Hey, 1-6 and 1-9.
You still back there?
Hey, this is 1-6.
We're still back here.
We just don't like the fact
we have to fly over
a goddamn city.
In a perfect world,
you go in, you do your mission,
and you get your objective,
and you come home.
In a perfect world.
And lights just went
out to your left, low.
What'd you say, lights?
Yeah, the city lights
to your left went out.
It's back on.
The hell's happening here?
Taking heavy enemy fire.
We need to haul ass
out of here, brother.
Okay, we got hit
in the fucking tail.
Whoa! That was overhead!
Taking fire.
We're taking fire.
We've been hit multiple times,
but we're still trying--
I'm hit.
Break. Break.
0-6, 1-9 has been hit.
His front seater has been hit.
But this ain't a perfect world.
The thing about the Apache is
it's a mission, not an aircraft.
Attack is a mindset,
it's about supporting
the soldier on the ground.
For that
18-year-old kid on the ground
with a rifle in his hand...
we are there for him.
We knew we were valuable asset
to the guys on the ground.
And our role is to go up
and protect them
from that attack.
-2-3 Alpha. This is 2-6.
We're gonna need
some suppression...
Whenever your ready,
you're clear.
Firing. Roger.
Yeah, that's what
I'm talking about.
It is
the most sophisticated
attack helicopter in the world.
And there's a lot of people
that don't wanna be
on the receiving end of it.
There's no room for error
when you're putting missiles,
rockets, and 30s
in close proximity
to soldiers that are
maneuvering on the ground.
It means that you got to be
a damn good pilot.
...our guys a little bit
and shoot into it.
Once you pull
that weapon's trigger
and it goes into a target,
that target will die.
And I'm
gonna shoot right there.
You have to be prepared
to make that decision.
Kill something every day
just to maintain proficiency.
Sitting in a Apache helicopter,
it's what we call
a tandem configuration.
Front seater's
primary goal
is to fire the weapons systems.
Uh, the back seater
is the primary pilot
who keeps
the aircraft in flight.
You have got to be able
to manage everything as a crew.
And you only have nanoseconds
in some cases to make it happen.
We try to assign
an aircraft to two pilots
and a crew chief.
Crew chiefs are some of
the hardest working soldiers,
and they have a lot of pressure
and stress on them
because they are essentially
responsible for making sure
that the aircraft
that you and this other pilot
are getting into
is gonna come back safe.
It equates to,
you know, long days
and hot days.
And the most
important thing to us
is making sure that we can put
safe aircraft in the air.
It shapes
who you are, right there,
the first time you hear
everything going on.
When you see it launch,
and you're like, "Wow!
That was me!"
Exhilarating and scary
at the same time
because you start
to think to yourself...
"Did I tighten that pole?
Did I use the torque wrench?
Did I drop the torque wrench?
Oh, my God. Was the TI
on point that day?
Oh, the pilots are-- Oh, that
looks so cool. That looks--
Hope the blades don't fall off."
Udairi was somewhat
austere when we got there.
It was obviously
still under construction.
Think they had the runway down.
They were still working
on the apron.
There was couple of hangars up,
and the food was good there.
Until the chow hall
burned down.
And there's just
black smoke rolling up.
And it's the chow hall.
And we're all laughing,
then we realize
that's the fucking chow hall.
Waking up
to go eat breakfast
and seeing smoke billowing
from one of the tents
and it's like, "Well, I'll just
go to the other one."
And all of the sudden,
that one went up
and it's like, "Uh-oh,
we're not gonna eat anymore."
There were tears shed
when the chow hall burned down.
The wind is blowing
from my right to my left,
in a westerly direction.
All three
chow hall tents burned down
in less than fifteen minutes.
Full standing to nothing,
just ash.
And that's kind of like
a unifying factor
the original invasion force has,
is anybody was there during
those days, you just say,
"Remember when
chow hall burned down?"
I think morale took
a hit that day.
We knew what
it was that we were gonna do
on our first two
or three missions.
Some of that was even planned
all the way back in Germany
before we even deployed.
And we were busy rehearsing
our-our first mission.
Our plan was to execute
a maximum destruction mission.
In other words, we were
gonna have all three troops
attack simultaneously.
A lot of our training
was derived
from the types
of combat operations
that came from the 1991
Desert Storm deep attack.
Our training scenarios,
the types of targets.
Party at ten.
Okay, little bit left pedal.
This one's
for you, Saddam.
Yes!
I see people
running around now.
Burn it.
Go to a certain area,
hover, scan the area,
and shoot some hellfire at it,
turn back around and come back.
They lined up.
They saw the enemy.
They fired on the tanks.
Whoo-hoo.
This is all great.
We turned around, went back.
Hold her steady.
That mission is solidified,
going in deep,
it solidified some
of the theories
in how to go in
beyond the forward line
of troops
and take the fight to them
without them knowing
you're even there
until things start blowing up.
That was all very much
a part of the scenario,
a part of the construct
of how you do a deep attack.
So it, it created the framework
that we used
in our understanding
of how that was done.
We flew it,
we rehearsed it.
Uh, we did it during the day
and then we were doing it
at night.
We would set up
these huge terrain boards
and go through these
very in-depth rehearsals.
Um, and they would even include,
you know,
the radio communications.
"Hey, you, I'm here." "I've
got left. You've got right"
We would go through
the entire mission
as we saw it would unfold.
Probably need
to turn right.
Break right.
Go around,
deviate to the east.
It's probably
the most rehearsed mission
I've ever participated in
in my 28 years in the Army.
I don't think I was ever more
prepared to go on a mission
than we were
at that point in time.
There was a sense as we were
going through the training,
we're gonna be the ones
at the tip of the spear.
It just kind of had
a sense of destiny
that we were gonna be
called upon
to go do something important.
My fellow citizens,
at this hour, American
and coalition forces
are in the early stages
of military operations
to disarm Iraq,
to free its people,
and to defend the world
from grave danger.
Now that conflict has come,
the only way to limit
its duration
is to apply decisive force.
And I assure you,
this will not be a campaign
of half measures,
and we will accept
no outcome but victory.
May God bless our country...
and all who defend her.
The very first mission
that we had
was an attack near Tallil.
And our job was
to basically conduct
an attack, destroy everything
defending that airfield
so that it couldn't threaten
the highway,
threaten 3 ID as they moved
north in the march to Baghdad.
And in order to make it back--
We didn't have enough fuel to go
in and attack the target...
and be able to make it back
to our base at Udairi.
So the key part of this
was that Chinook helicopters
were gonna be used
with fuel tanks loaded
in the back
and a forward arming
and refueling point
would be set up with these
Chinook aircraft
that would allow
the Apaches to come in,
get just enough fuel quickly
to get them out of Iraq.
The 19th rolls around,
and we did not have
the weather minimums
we needed to execute
the mission.
The Chinook aircraft
that were our get-home plan
were not able to go.
That was
a mission abort criteria.
So we had to turn around
the aircraft.
There was a real sense...
that we had let our soldiers
on the ground down.
And the idea that
they might be taking fire
as they went by Tallil--
and they did--
because we hadn't been able
to accomplish our mission,
that really bothered us.
I don't care what happens,
by God,
we're not gonna allow that
to happen a second time.
It affected the decisions
that we made,
you know,
a couple of days later.
Next morning,
they were saying,
"Hey, we've got
another mission."
Initially, we thought,
all right...
we'll plan it, rehearse it,
and execute it
the way we had done
for the 19th,
and then we found out,
"Hey, this one's going off
on the 23rd,"
um, and our resources
that we had available to us
for planning and rehearsing
for the 19th weren't there.
We were very, very focused
on the planning
of that next mission.
Very different scenario,
'cause now we're gonna fly
over a populated area,
and we're gonna fly over
an area that is defended.
This is gonna require
some brute force.
It was gonna be a attack
against the
Medina Division artillery
and armory in and around
the city of Karbala.
The corps commander
was very concerned
about 3 ID getting
bogged down right there
in the potential kill zone,
and so he wanted
to destroy any forces
that could contribute to that
happening to 3 ID.
There's a lot of planning
that goes into
a successful deep attack.
You have to have
a logistics package
that is pushed
as far forward as possible
so that you can stop,
hit a forward arming
and refuel point or a FARP.
The convoy
would leave ahead of us,
and they'd go out and they'd
get the field site all set up,
and then the Apaches
would fly in
and we would land, and we would
set up camp there basically.
The absolute key part of this
was the fuel
and our communications.
Two things that had
to come together
in this assembly area
so that we could get
the latest intelligence,
help us understand where the
enemy forces had maneuvered to,
and of course we'd flown
all the way across to Iraq
to get to this assembly area.
We had aircraft that would need
a lot of fuel.
Lot of things had to happen
in exactly the right order,
synchronized, so you could get
the combined effects
of all those things.
Because if those things
didn't align...
bad things were gonna happen.
As we were
getting ready to go launch
our attack,
I remember thinking about
what incredible diversity
of talent and experience we had.
We had a Vietnam veteran.
We had Desert Storm veterans.
But we also had brand-new,
just-out-of-flight school
aviators.
Think I was 22
or 23 at the time.
I never had any aspirations
to join the military.
And I did a four-year
ROTC scholarship at UCLA.
And upon graduation,
I owed the military four years
for four years
of college essentially.
I wanted to go
to medical school.
Took the MCAT, didn't think
I did well enough on it
to actually get in.
So I said, what does
the military want for me to do?
I applied for medical service
corps, MI, and aviation.
And I applied for aviation
because they told me
if it's not your first choice,
you'll never get it.
I said, this will guarantee me
other choices,
you know, kinda like
a wasted choice.
And we had an Apache pilot that
was one of our instructors,
and he put a letter in
without me knowing
saying you should really
get her into aviation.
This is a good fit. Which
I didn't know he had done.
And I got branched to aviation.
That's a six-year commitment.
That commitment doesn't start
until you graduate
from flight school
which takes a year
to 18 months.
And at that point,
I'm just like, "Oh, my God.
Eight years of my life.
How could I have possibly
gotten myself into this?"
Attack Princess Extraordinaire.
That was her nickname.
You can see the little tiara
that says "Attack Princess"
in the red, white, and blue.
C ommand, I'm flying
with a master gunner,
Desert Storm veteran.
You think I'm worried?
No, you're flying
with the squadron SP.
- But thanks anyway.
Brian Stewmon,
he was in the first Gulf War
and is probably one of the best
pilots the Army could have had.
If he were afraid
on any of our missions,
I would not have known.
You know?
He was very confident,
very comfortable
in the aircraft.
How you doing up there, LT?
I'm good.
How are you doing?
Not bad.
All right.
Still gotta fucking
do a dirt landing though.
I joined the military because
I wanted to do something
in aviation.
Father was a crop duster.
That's where my love
for aviation kinda came from.
I didn't particularly want
to be a crop duster though.
You have two types of pilots.
Your commission officer pilots,
the captains, the majors,
who are
the company commanders.
Then you have
the warrant officer pilots.
They're very, very different.
The culture's very different.
Warrant officer pilots are...
They're your primary pilots.
Your instructor pilots,
the ones that train you.
They have some
fantastic mustaches,
they've got great attitudes
and personalities.
So while I was a lieutenant
and a captain in charge,
I'm flying
with a warrant officer
with so much more experience.
He's the one
that's training you
and getting you
where you need to be.
Captain Mace came to us
before we actually went
to Iraq,
which was a weird transition
for all of us.
We thought, if you get
the word to go for combat,
you're thinking you're gonna
bring the same commander
you've been training with.
So when they changed
right before we go to Iraq,
we're all, "What the hell
are they doing?"
We hadn't trained
with this guy at all.
He doesn't know how we operate.
Captain Mace had
a rough road to hoe.
He's brand-new.
No one knows the guy.
We know he's a West Pointer.
There's a certain amount
of reputation
that comes with that,
some good, some bad.
He had to show everybody that,
A, he cared about them,
all equally, and that he was
proficient at his job
and that he understood
how to take care of people.
I think before
we went across the burm,
he had made his footprint
that he had, he had sewn,
uh, his standard into the troop
and the troop knew
what he expected
and that he was in fact
the troop commander, no doubt.
We're ready to roll, baby.
Me and Bob Duffney,
we were the lead aircraft
for the whole regiment.
Neal was
one of our new aviators
He had the right kind
of mentality,
kind of a bravado
that really was the kind of guy
that you wanna have
leaning forward
in the front seat of an Apache
with their hands
on the weapons system.
It was a pretty hard
transition. I can't lie to you.
From being in the Marine Corps,
with that, that mentality.
But then going into WOC school
where you had
a little bit more
relaxed atmosphere.
And that it was just being
full of that Marine gusto.
And Bob Duffney, his pilot,
is a larger-than-life figure.
And the two of them together
in a cockpit
was a winning combination.
My grandfather
was also an aviator.
My uncle was an aviator
I actually joined to get
my college paid for.
I defaulted on the agreement
my dad and I had
about getting good grades.
Before I even went home
and told my dad
what my grade point average
was working out to be,
I went and talked
to the recruiter.
I had started out thinking
I was gonna fly Black Hawks.
My wife and I had talked
a couple of times.
She's like, "Fly the Apache,
it's sexy."
I'm like, "Okay."
Jason King
was actually my liaison officer
in my S3 section
of the squadron
before he went down
with Bryon Mace
to take over
as a platoon leader.
He was in
the 75th Ranger Regiment.
He brought that mindset
and that sense of...
responsibility that you have
as an Apache pilot
to supporting the soldier
on the ground.
The convoy
pushed us to the limit.
I think it was four days
non-stop driving.
We were always in a kill zone.
Our convoys were constantly
getting probed.
We would drive at
breakneck pace and then stop.
And we would be stopped
for hours.
And you never knew how long
you were gonna be stopped for.
I didn't change my socks
for four days.
I didn't change my underwear
for four days.
It pushed you
to the brink of insanity,
trying to stay awake
because you're frightened.
It's a hundred
and plus degrees outside.
It's miserable,
I basically passed out
in the back of the Humvee.
Wake up.
Curf, wake up.
I wake up and I look,
and we are in a town.
I don't think it was
a hand grenade.
Everybody in that
town had come out to see us.
And so we are now surrounded
by people.
And I'm 21 years old
at the time,
and we are scared shitless.
Because all it takes
is one dude in that crowd
that doesn't want us
to be there
to open up.
And we're-we're--
There's nothing we could do.
Turns out, we were sitting
and waiting
for the armored vehicles
to roll past us
because we had gotten
ahead of them somehow.
Then here come the Apaches.
We'd flown
all the way across Iraq
to get to this assembly area,
and there was nothing.
We were the first to get there.
It was just dirt.
We landed and it was
like talcum powder dust.
But from my perspective,
it's pretty evident
that we wasn't gonna
take off that night.
There was five abort criteria.
If this happens, we're not
gonna go on the mission.
If one of them doesn't go,
you don't go.
Every one of those
five things happened.
A HEMTT tanker came over
and started refueling
the aircraft for the mission
that night.
And at some point in time,
he was out of gas.
All the trucks with the fuel
are still back at a convoy,
still waiting to come up.
So right off the bat, an entire
third of the combat power
of our unit was gone.
We didn't have any communication
with our headquarters.
We didn't have current intel.
We posed for
some pictures with our 9 mms
like we were pulling security
because we were the only ones
out there at that time.
In reality, that was
probably not that funny.
You know, we were
already well behind
our planned timeline
for executing the mission.
The moon was
at its zenith that night,
and I think it was
98 percent.
So anybody that was standing
on the ground looking up
could see the helicopters.
There was a picture of all
the pilots sitting around
and chairs and everything,
and we're all like this.
And the caption was gonna be,
you know,
"Here we are at war."
We were pretty much asleep
because we knew
we wasn't gonna fly
because of all the stuff
that happened.
But regardless,
it was an important mission.
We got to set conditions so that
3 ID can roll through that
Karbala gap.
A short time later,
here comes Captain Mace,
out of breath with maps
and drawings,
and he laid everything out.
The decision was made to go.
Thing I remember the most
is that there really wasn't
a place
where you could say,
"Where's our
central rally point?
Where are we gonna be?"
There was one pile
of rocks and dirt.
This mound.
And we kinda likened that
to the ant mound,
and we were soldiers once
and young.
So on top
of this pile of rocks
we put up a single ChemLight,
and that was
our rally point.
And we got everybody around,
and we said a prayer.
Almighty God,
you are the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob,
the omnipotent God.
Lord, I thank you
for what you've blessed us
to achieve thus far.
God calls us
to reign in victory tonight.
Defeat the enemy victoriously.
And then bring each pilot
and aircraft back safely.
This I ask of you...
Amen.
I was flying with the FLIR,
and I had Jason King in
the front seat with goggles.
So I'm pulling the power to get
the aircraft off the ground,
and we're totally browned out.
And I couldn't see
through it at all.
Finally get up
out of the cloud,
and there is
a huge sense of relief.
It's like,
"The most dangerous part
of the mission is done now."
So...
The first troop to take off
was Bravo Troop.
Okay now, from here
where do we go?
Let's go
a little bit further north.
Okay.
And then myself
with our Black Hawk helicopter.
I also had another
Black Hawk helicopter with me
that was in trail that had
our flight surgeon in there.
Slow up
the bird like 65 knots.
Roger.
Thanks. Roger.
We called
the airfield clear
and started to go north.
When we flew
up the route,
it was eerily quiet.
It was almost as if we were
on a training mission.
I was a month away
from my 20th year in the Army.
I had never been
in combat before.
And I thought, "Wow, is this
what combat really is?"
I'm pulling 0-5-3
position confidence on INU 1
and 2 check and no satellites.
Hey, 0-6,
check your position confidence.
Okay.
Want me
to pull out the map?
Uh, not right now.
Okay.
When you do a deep attack,
you're supposed to know
exactly where the enemy is.
In this case, we did not have
grid locations of the enemy.
So we ended up planning
a movement to contact.
And we wanted to establish
contact and find the enemy
with the minimum force
necessary.
And that was gonna be
Bravo Troop.
Bravo Troop with the leadership
that was in the troop
was known from our training
to be the best at doing
the maneuver to contact.
The cavalry mission, uh, suited
Captain Mace and the leaders
and the warrant officers
in that troop very well.
Then I was gonna
bring in Charlie in the north
and Alpha in the south.
They were gonna receive
a battle handover from Bravo
and continue that movement
to contact
and destroy everything in zone.
All right,
missiles are powered back up.
Had we all gotten refueled,
we would have been
a flight of seven.
We didn't get enough refuel,
so we were down
to a flight of five.
One breaks on crank,
one crashes on takeoff,
so now we're down to three,
is the attack force coming in
to get the enemy that
the first company
was supposed to locate.
I bet Bravo Troop's
real excited
that we're only coming up
with three aircrafts.
I was the platoon leader.
We've got to quickly revamp
who's taking care of this job
'cause we all had
individual responsibilities.
So you have to really quickly
come up with a new plan.
All right, up there to the left
is way-point 2-7,
where we're gonna initiate
battle handover.
I got vehicles
on the road up there.
Is that helicopters?
What is that?
Which way?
Left.
Eleven o'clock.
We'd always envisioned that
we would come in over the lake,
but, uh, the plan changed.
and the 101st
Airborne Division came in,
and they suddenly
owned the area
that we had originally
envisioned
that we were gonna maneuver in.
So about half
of the battle space
went away on the west side.
And then to the east of us,
the battle space went away
to the Air Force.
This narrow corridor became
the area that we had
to operate in
to go up and attack
the Medina Division.
Sure have
a lot of people out
driving around
this late at night,
especially when they know
an attack is coming.
Right now, we got
the Archers approaching,
uh, set point...
What the heck was that?
I don't know.
Maybe a bird.
There are
no birds out here.
How many birds have you seen?
Brian, I think someone took
a potshot at us.
Well, it didn't hurt.
I can't feel my leg.
-What do you mean
it didn't hurt?
Oh, my God.
You're killing me,
Lieutenant.
This is not funny, Brian.
I can't feel anything
below the waist.
Oh,
it's probably just a bird.
You're in a big hurry
to get to this battle,
aren't ya?
When you have a mission
like a deep attack like that
and you encounter
enemy en route,
generally you're just gonna
bypass that enemy and go
because that's not as important
as where you're going.
The first time I heard
a round hit the cockpit,
I thought we were actually
hitting bugs.
I'll tell you
what it sounds like.
When you're driving
down the highway,
you kick a rock up,
hits your windshield,
that hard tap, like, tap!
That's exactly
what it sounds like.
What's that?
Break right.
Get the fuck away from that.
And also
Red Team is moving--
0-6, 1-9 We're taking
fire to the south of our RP--
our rally point.
We're breaking north
at this time.
Archer 2-6, Archer 6.
Be advised we took
a tracer round about
one klick back, right over
the nose of the aircraft, so
keep your head in a swivel.
Roger.
Maybe it wasn't a bird.
Getting a little sporty,
isn't it?
I'm not scared.
Ain't no reason
to be scared.
You're flying
with a master gunner.
All right,
if I see tracer rounds,
I'll try and call out
the direction.
Okay.
Should be able
to see it under goggles.
I was on night vision goggles
in the front seat,
and my back seater was
on the FLIR,
forward looking infared.
We thought that would maximize
our ability to see the enemy.
I could see lights,
he could see heat.
I'm seeing tracer rounds
coming towards the aircraft,
he's not seeing any of it.
Okay, we're getting shot at.
I don't see 'em.
Goggles are picking 'em up.
Yeah, they're bright
under the goggles.
Oh, you can see 'em.
They're like red.
They're red, red--
The hell!
I can' see 'em. I just said it.
Okay. I'm telling you
what they look like.
So the front seater
starts announcing
tracer fire off in the distance.
Well, back seater cannot see
that tracer fire.
All right, LT. Don't tell me,
"What is that?"
You tell me
what you think it is.
Okay, I see
bright white lights
shooting up from the ground
about five to ten K out.
You do right now?
Uh...
Nope, but they're
to the left of us.
At this point, we were still
fighting an active enemy
with all of
his full capabilities,
so you wanna be
as low as possible
to avoid the radar.
In that case,
it puts you right down
in the small arms envelope.
So our routes, height-wise,
when we were going in and out,
we were probably
a hundred feet or below.
As we're flying
over these towns,
I started to recognize
what was shooting at us,
and it was literally people
in the backs of pickup trucks.
It was people on the street.
We would see Iraqis
with weapons in the backs
of trucks with kids.
We had lot of speeches
by, um, leadership that said,
you know, be careful
what you fire at,
what you shoot at.
You know, positive
identification is key.
Don't think you're gonna
just start shooting
at anything
that's shooting at you.
And it caused them some concern
over whether when a difficult
situation were to come up,
would somebody be
second-guessing
their actions?
You go
and make decisions
off of information
you're provided.
Sometimes
your information's great.
Spot on, no hiccups.
You go in, you do your mission,
come out...
...no harm, no foul.
Sometimes your information's
not that great.
All right,
they're coming from behind us.
It was more built up
than I had expected it to be.
We were actually
in an urban area.
There's lights, uh,
all over the area.
The maps that we had
were very old
at that point in time.
And I think it was dated 1992.
And just as
we were turning to the west,
every light for as far
as you could see
went out.
Became completely pitch black.
What'd you say, lights?
The hell's happening here?
When the lights came back on,
all hell broke loose.
That was the sign for everyone
who had a gun
to walk outside and just start
shooting in the air.
I think we probably need
to turn right.
We're taking small arms fire
at this time.
Taking heavy enemy fire.
Taking fire. We're taking fire.
Coming right, Mikey.
Dammit! Oh, my...
I don't see 'em.
Keep coming right.
Keep coming right.
Tracer rounds like fireworks.
It was unreal.
Roger.
We're getting hammered.
We need to haul ass
out of here, brother.
It was everywhere.
No matter which way you moved,
it was all coming at you,
and so the best thing you
could do was fly straight.
1-9, roger. We're seeing fire
on the left also,
so we're gonna try to go
right down the center.
-We got hit
in the fucking tail.
-Okay.
Shit! Fuck!
Dude, fuck!
Keep on going, dude.
Keep on going straight.
Keep on going.
Mike, you're taking fire.
We knew that
there was the Medina Division.
What we didn't know
was that the Republican Guard
Infantry Divisions
that were actually on
the north side of Baghdad
had been moved and placed
to the south.
Hundreds and thousands
of soldiers
everywhere underneath us.
In corners of fields
and tops of buildings
and at that point in time,
the hunter became hunted.
I can feel it
under my feet.
We ain't
giving up yet.
Situation's
deteriorating pretty quickly.
We're taking some intense fire.
But you have to remember,
these are all people
who are absolutely focused
on getting to that objective.
There's no turning back.
You know, we'd turned back
on the previous mission,
and nobody wants to turn back.
Roger, let's continue,
and we'll see what we got here.
What'd he say?
We'll continue
and see what we got.
Pretty heavily populated
up there too,
but there's no way around it.
2-6, just come
to the left just a little bit
and stay away from the lights
off to the right-hand side.
As we were making our
reconnaissance to the west,
somehow our wingman got
in front of us,
being Mike Tomblin
and Jason King.
-Oh shit.
-Come left. Left.
You just fucking dr--
You just shot the aircraft
in front of us.
I didn't see
where it was coming from.
All right, if you could speed
up a little bit more, 1-9.
I'm taking a little bit
more fire than I'm used to.
That's it. Way-point 4. Over.
Mike Tomblin
returned fire,
and apparently this guy was
sitting next to an LP gas tank.
So put the crosshairs on him,
pulled the trigger,
aiming at the guy,
hit the gas tank,
and the whole gas tank exploded.
Whoa! Oh, shit!
When we came out of
the ball of fire essentially,
we were going backward and down,
and we were able
to get the aircraft
back under control
and move forward.
Goddammit.
Standby. Take it easy up there.
1-9, this is 1-6...
Oh shit!
Taking fire to the right.
Break right. Break right.
We've been hit
multiple times,
but we're still trying
to make it.
We're taking more hits.
-Mikey, we're taking fire.
More and more aircraft
are experiencing
significant issues.
Loss of engines, hydraulics.
It occurred to me that
we were not gonna bring
all the aircraft back.
Whoa!
1-6 is hurt.
1-6 was shot in the neck.
Palerider 1-6,
which is Lieutenant King.
It's hard to put
your head around this thing
and really wrap your mind
around it, but...
it now changed to a fight
for survival.
All right, 1-9,
you got to take us back.
-We have...
Goddamn it!
Oh shit!
Utility hydraulic level.
Okay. Okay.
We realized, this isn't
a question now
about whether or not we're going
to accomplish the mission.
This is now a question
of whether we're gonna
get out of here.
The voices in my head
were getting really loud
at this point,
and I just wanted to start
talking on the radio,
but there was so much
other anxiety,
uh, that I waited.
I reckon I'd say this...
this mission has changed.
From destroying armory
and artillery,
which from everything
I could see
wasn't there
in the objective area
to preserving combat power
to live and fight
another day.
And so at that point,
I gave the order
to, to egress.
6-0-6, Archer 6.
Significant ground fire.
Looking for your authorization
to go ahead
and egress back to the AA.
Affirm.
Affirm, Archer 6.
I concur.
Typically, you're
gonna have multiple routes
in and out.
But for this
particular mission,
we had one.
One route in,
one route out
We navigated the gauntlet,
now we gotta go
right back through it.
I don't know.
All right,
how bad... Can you...
-You're talking to me.
Roger.
All right, keep talking
to me, okay?
Roger.
We are egress
at this time.
Hey, 1-9,
did you hear 0
Everybody's egressing
at this time.
Keep your eyes out.
Jason, at that point,
he wasn't talking.
When you're in the back
of the Apache at night,
there's nothing,
you can't see anything.
You're separated by
a very thick blast shield.
So there was no way for me
to be able to confirm
what was going on
in his front seat.
You know, in my mind,
his portion of the aircraft
was gone.
Hey, what am I gonna do
with this aircraft.
What I knew was that
he was not able to respond
verbally with Mike Tomblin.
Now you have an incapacitated
crew member in your front,
and at the same time,
you're experiencing,
you know, intense fire coming
at you from the ground,
rounds slamming
through your cockpit,
decisions that you have
to make continuously
evaluating what's
the right thing to do,
how to keep fighting
and flying the aircraft.
A real tribute to a man
like him is that
that would be overwhelming
for, for, for most people.
They were gonna fly to
a restricted operating zone,
a ROZ,
and they were going to land
a Medevac Black Hawk,
and then that Medevac aircraft
would have took
Lieutenant King
wherever he needed
to go to get treatment.
And Major Christensen was
gonna get in the front seat
of Mike Tomblin's aircraft, and
then they were gonna go back.
And I thought that was
probably the quickest way
to get Jason out of there
and into surgery
or whatever it was he was
gonna need at that point.
We get down closer to
where we're gonna drop King off
and to pick up
Major Christensen.
By the time we got down there,
we were just getting hammered.
Taking heavy enemy fire.
This craft's not gonna fly
very much longer.
Yeah. Now we're
taking fire again.
-Okay.
Oh!
Breaking left.
We're getting
shot at here. Yikes.
I can feel it
under my feet.
Can I shoot the gun if we start
taking fire again?
You're damn skippy you can.
If you see
where it's coming from...
As soon as
the aircraft starts shooting,
they're gonna stop shooting
at me.
We actually had an RPG
coming at the aircraft.
I saw this white light
coming at us.
And Mr. Stewmon didn't see it.
-Oh shit.
What?
Break right.
Break right.
We're taking fire.
Oh shit!
Hell, we just got hit.
Nice maneuvering.
Fucking them
sons of bitches was close.
Oh my...
We're taking fire.
Break left.
My gun has failed.
My gun has failed.
So I need you whenever
you see those tracers,
if you front-seater,
or if you just put it on HMD,
at least put some
suppressive fire out,
and that will keep them
from shooting quite so much.
Fucking on!
All right, you little fuckers.
Come on, shoot at me again.
-Bring it!
Dammit!
Three times we tried
to get that Hawk landed
in a place where we could do
the crew swap,
three times we took RPG
and machine gun fire.
We never got that done.
I mean, I just couldn't lose,
you know, eleven folks
on that Black Hawk
trying to make that happen.
Because, at that point,
we didn't know
if Jason King was even alive.
All right, 1-9,
go back to the assembly area.
Understand? Go back
to the assembly area at the--
Location unknown at this time.
Okay, stay right
to the route a little bit.
Mikey, you still with us?
1-6, this is 1-9 on uniform.
1-6, 1-9 on uniform.
1-6, this is 1-9 on uniform.
Shit!
Dammit!
All right up there?
Yeah, I'm fine.
What can I do up here?
It's like I--
You just hang tight.
Okay.
Somebody let us know
what's going on up there.
We'd taken a round
through the load
maintenance panel,
and for some reason,
our radios came offline.
There was a point in time
where I lost
all the ability to communicate
to any aircraft.
How you doing, Mike?
You still back there?
We're still back here.
Just keep talking
to me every couple minutes.
Making me nervous.
Roger. I'll keep
an open line of communication.
What you found was just a lot
of individual heroism
in terms of what
those pilots were doing
to try to mutually support
each other.
They would see something
that would be attacking
their lead aircraft.
They would try
to suppress that.
It was just a fight
all the way
to try to get ourselves
back to our assembly area.
Roger.
Roger.
At that point,
I gave the order
to avoid urban areas.
That's where we were
getting fire from.
Fly where you gotta fly
to get safely back
to the assembly area.
It is like a lot longer
back than it was out there.
Tracer fires
out to left.
Coming right. We wanna
get over that dead space.
Roger.
Okay.
I wanna take you
through this dark area.
Be coming left.
That's a lot of dark area.
Hey, Palerider 1-9.
This is 6-Shooter-6
on 4-3-8. Over.
This is 1-9.
Go ahead.
Yeah, we had
to move to the east.
I got hit again. I've got
multiple problems
with this aircraft.
...1-9. 1-6 is wounded
in the neck.
We'll try to get medical
attention when we get back.
Roger.
We'll get him
medical attention.
You just hang with us.
I'm not sure.
My guns failed twice,
but help me with suppression
if you can.
Motherfucking...
Roger.
Oh shit. Taking fire.
Break right. Break right.
Break right. Break right.
I tried to shoot.
The gun's fucked up.
Oh shit.
0-6, there's somebody else.
Oh, shooting now
from the left.
Get some, motherfucker!
You little fuckers.
Come on.
Shoot at me again.
Baddest ass chick
in a damn Apache, aren't you?
Yeah, right.
Hey, 0-6,
I'm gonna cut right...
Speed up
a little bit more, 1-9.
My front-seater is critical.
Okay.
A dog fight for
an hour trying to get back.
It wasn't until about five
or ten minutes before we
actually got back to RAMS
that the firing had stopped.
Let's see,
the SDR failed,
so they shot that.
The GPS failed, so they
must have shot that.
Engine one is out.
Backup control systems
seem to be...
And they're continuing
to work south.
A lot of blades
were damaged,
you had a lot of vibrations
in the aircraft.
Aircraft were leaking fuel.
Some didn't have
sighting systems on them.
Can you just keep
flying towards Germany?
That would be good.
Thanks.
Half our combat power
is destroyed.
One that crashed at takeoff,
we got three that are
shot up pretty bad,
and the 1-9.
We'll be coming
from the west,
looping back with a left turn,
and landing to the north.
About ten minutes before
getting back to RAMS,
we thought it was over.
But what had really happened
is everybody was coming back
at the same time.
The way the mission
was staged out,
we should have been
coming back at different times.
Because of the chaos
that occurred
and the mission
being aborted,
we arrived back at the
assembly area at the same time.
Meaning two and a half squadrons
of Apaches coming back
to about a three-mile
radius area.
There's some
aircraft off the nose.
All right,
I got them on the FLIR.
We have got an aircraft
at twelve o'clock.
I'm looking at them
through the system.
Through the system.
I don't see them otherwise.
Yeah.
You break to the right.
Coming on the left.
There's an aircraft
off my nose,
passing left to right.
2-0-1-0, on guard.
0-6, that might be
the wounded aircraft...
So I'm gonna slow back
a little.
Palerider 6 is behind me
by a couple of kilometers.
And we both got shot up
aircraft pretty bad.
If you want us to hold
short and allow the aircraft
that are really shot up bad
to get in first, you want us
to get in to land?
No, I think we go ahead
and get them on the ground.
Okay, 0-9, 0-6.
Put the airplane down.
It doesn't have to be
in your parking space.
Put it down
where you got the space.
There's an aircraft
in the air above me.
Whoa!
It is a mess.
It is total chaos.
They had engines shot out.
They had systems shot out.
They had to do roll-on landings.
They couldn't see anything.
They're just winging it.
If you did land,
get there on the ground,
and we'll sort it out
when daylight comes up.
This assembly area
is a madhouse.
People are gonna die out here
from hitting each other.
Get the aircraft
on the ground, get it stopped,
get it shut down, get out
and kiss the ground.
Still have control,
and I've got heavy vibration.
All right,
I'm going to go around.
Actually, I'm gonna set up
to the right here.
Brake for me, sir.
Brake for me.
Altitude low...
6-0-6, Palerider 1-9.
Altitude low. Altitude low.
And 2-9 affirmative
that we're all down, but we
need to get medical attention
to the northernmost aircraft
on the parking row.
All right,
just stand fast, okay?
You sit right there.
You just stay
right where you are...
I'm gonna be out in a minute,
and I'll come up there.
There were
probably two or three times
where they had had
to stop and revive Jason.
You know, those Army docs
did yeoman's work.
They saved Jason King's life
that night.
And I got out...
I started surveying.
I wasn't even sure
exactly where we had landed.
But off in the distance,
I could see
the one red ChemLight.
So I gathered up my team,
and we all kinda walked
in together in the dark,
and we met around
the termite mound.
I started calling off names.
Mr. Stewmon,
Lieutenant Bruhl.
Mr. Tomblin...
I then just checked
everybody off.
And I gotta tell you, man...
When I got that last name
checked off the list...
it was euphoric.
I've never been so happy
as to have
all the men, uh,
and women, uh,
safely back, uh, on the ground.
'Cause I gotta tell ya,
it was not evident to me
that that's what
was gonna happen at all.
And so in the dark, you know,
as I'm calling off
all the names
and they're responding,
it was a, it was a beautiful,
beautiful moment,
and at that point,
I knew that...
...we were gonna be
forever linked as a, as a,
as a group of warriors
that had just been through
a pretty intense situation
and that we were all
so ecstatic
to see each other again.
And I think at the time,
I said, you know,
it was only by the grace
of God that we had managed
to get everybody
back there in that
assembly area together
'cause we had really been shot
up pretty bad on that mission.
I woke up in the 86th cache
back in Camp Udairi.
So I think I'd been gone
from Camp Udairi for...
less than 24 hours...
...on my first combat mission.
Not ideal. Not ideal.
I still have the shrapnel,
um, which is kind of cool.
I think I might melt it down
and mold it into something
someday for my kids.
When people ask about
the first few days of the war,
I-I don't get into
any kind of detail.
But I tell them that...
the first time
that you're shot at
and the first time that
you have to pull the trigger,
your morality changes.
And I tell them about
your mortality.
When you're shot at
and not hit,
you can still think you're
that youthful immortal,
but the first time you're hit,
you realize...
you know, I'm not immortal.
There's a story about
the pilots that flew it.
It's only half the story.
The other story is about
the-the men and women
who fixed those airplanes.
We roll in,
and it looked like
something out of Mad Max.
It looked like just
post-apocalyptic destruction.
There was aircraft rolled over.
Everything was covered in dirt.
They were shot to shit.
We all wrote
letters to Boeing.
Told them how much
we appreciated the aircraft.
There were blades
with 20 mm bullet holes
through 'em
that came back,
driveshafts that had been shot
clean through
that didn't fail.
And those aircraft,
as badly damaged as they were
with bullet holes everywhere...
we're flying those aircraft
ten days later
on another major mission.
We went on a deep attack
the first night of the war.
We were told, "You guys need
to go pick the fight
with the bully."
And we did that.
I look at it now,
I don't consider it a failure.
The information that
we brought back,
negative report of enemy armor,
was still the report
that that ground forces
commander needed.
Throughout
the history of our
armed forces,
and especially the US Army,
uh, one of the things that
I think I'm most proud of
is the fact that even though
we don't always succeed
in our, our missions,
we always learn from it.
We focus on being better.
And 2003, we were not successful
in that combat mission
other than the fact that
we were able to bring
all of our folks home
from that mission.
What was successful
about that mission
was that it was a forcing
function of change
that brought about
new tactics,
in some cases
revisiting tactics
that we re-learned
from experiences in Vietnam.
Had we had nothing but success,
and never faced any of the
challenges and obstacles
from our initial
combat operations,
we wouldn't have adapted
and learned
and been successful later on.
Much of what our success is
today in Afghanistan and Iraq
owes from the lessons
learned early in combat.
And our Army has had experience
after experience with that.
We're not always successful
in our first outing in combat,
but the mark
of a professional soldiering
is that you learn,
you adapt,
come back,
and fight the next day
better than you did
the day before.
* Coming down is
The same everywhere *
* What happens then
Isn't always clear *
* Sun rose on a brand new day
* Tonight just seems
A million miles away *
* I need to find
My guiding star *
* Wherever you go
There you are *
* Yeah there you are
* Flying high never keeps you
Off the ground *
* Up above you just see
Where you're coming down *
* You make a friend of the sky
When you're in flight *
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
* My broken wings keep me up
* Lots of time
It's just not enough *
* Seems years all been lost
* All this time
At what cost *
* I don't leave
Any shadow up here *
* No trace of me anywhere
* No trace of me
That's clear *
* Flying high never keeps you
Off the ground *
* Up above you just see
Where you coming down *
* You make a friend of the sky
When you're in flight *
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
* Yeah
You fall from flying high.
* Flying high never keeps you
Off the ground *
* Up above you just see
Where you coming down *
* You make a friend of the sky
When you're in flight *
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
Whoo!
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
Whoo!
to my left a little bit
and pick up Texas
and head up Texas.
:
Looking for their aircraft too.
: Roger.
All right,
we're going two up,
one back.
-That means--
Yeah. I've got it.
We'll take left
and long, he'll take
right and short.
Roger.
16.
We're going to way-point four.
Okay, can you get me
direction in, please?
Let's go,
a little bit further north.
We're ready to roll, baby.
We'll be all right.
Okay.
Command, I'm flying
with a master gunner,
Desert Storm veteran.
You think I'm worried?
We are south of Karbala,
heading 2-0-0.
All right,
missiles are powered back up.
I've got you inside.
I'm going out your right rear.
Roger that.
Sure have
a lot of people out
driving around
this late at night,
especially when they know
an attack is coming.
Apache pilots
are a unique breed
of human beings.
Technically proficient,
tactically proficient.
Most of us have
some serious IQ levels.
I'm pulling 0-5-3
position confidence
on INU 1 and 2 check
and no satellites.
Speed up
a little bit more, 1-9.
You're in
a big hurry to get
to this battle, aren't ya?
6-0-6, roger--
What the heck was that?
I don't know.
Maybe a bird.
There are no birds out here.
How many birds have you seen?
But we ask an awful lot
of our young officers
when we say we need you
to go to this location
and do this and come back.
We've lost
all the satellites,
so just maintain-- make sure
we're on the route good.
Roger. Continue on, uh,
move to contact zone.
All right. Up there
to the left is way-point 2-7.
That's where we're gonna
initiate the battle handover.
Hey, 1-9.
I'm gonna go in
and start slowing up here,
slow left-hand turn.
See you at the red rally point.
All right, here's the,
uh, battle handover.
Hey, 1-6 and 1-9.
You still back there?
Hey, this is 1-6.
We're still back here.
We just don't like the fact
we have to fly over
a goddamn city.
In a perfect world,
you go in, you do your mission,
and you get your objective,
and you come home.
In a perfect world.
And lights just went
out to your left, low.
What'd you say, lights?
Yeah, the city lights
to your left went out.
It's back on.
The hell's happening here?
Taking heavy enemy fire.
We need to haul ass
out of here, brother.
Okay, we got hit
in the fucking tail.
Whoa! That was overhead!
Taking fire.
We're taking fire.
We've been hit multiple times,
but we're still trying--
I'm hit.
Break. Break.
0-6, 1-9 has been hit.
His front seater has been hit.
But this ain't a perfect world.
The thing about the Apache is
it's a mission, not an aircraft.
Attack is a mindset,
it's about supporting
the soldier on the ground.
For that
18-year-old kid on the ground
with a rifle in his hand...
we are there for him.
We knew we were valuable asset
to the guys on the ground.
And our role is to go up
and protect them
from that attack.
-2-3 Alpha. This is 2-6.
We're gonna need
some suppression...
Whenever your ready,
you're clear.
Firing. Roger.
Yeah, that's what
I'm talking about.
It is
the most sophisticated
attack helicopter in the world.
And there's a lot of people
that don't wanna be
on the receiving end of it.
There's no room for error
when you're putting missiles,
rockets, and 30s
in close proximity
to soldiers that are
maneuvering on the ground.
It means that you got to be
a damn good pilot.
...our guys a little bit
and shoot into it.
Once you pull
that weapon's trigger
and it goes into a target,
that target will die.
And I'm
gonna shoot right there.
You have to be prepared
to make that decision.
Kill something every day
just to maintain proficiency.
Sitting in a Apache helicopter,
it's what we call
a tandem configuration.
Front seater's
primary goal
is to fire the weapons systems.
Uh, the back seater
is the primary pilot
who keeps
the aircraft in flight.
You have got to be able
to manage everything as a crew.
And you only have nanoseconds
in some cases to make it happen.
We try to assign
an aircraft to two pilots
and a crew chief.
Crew chiefs are some of
the hardest working soldiers,
and they have a lot of pressure
and stress on them
because they are essentially
responsible for making sure
that the aircraft
that you and this other pilot
are getting into
is gonna come back safe.
It equates to,
you know, long days
and hot days.
And the most
important thing to us
is making sure that we can put
safe aircraft in the air.
It shapes
who you are, right there,
the first time you hear
everything going on.
When you see it launch,
and you're like, "Wow!
That was me!"
Exhilarating and scary
at the same time
because you start
to think to yourself...
"Did I tighten that pole?
Did I use the torque wrench?
Did I drop the torque wrench?
Oh, my God. Was the TI
on point that day?
Oh, the pilots are-- Oh, that
looks so cool. That looks--
Hope the blades don't fall off."
Udairi was somewhat
austere when we got there.
It was obviously
still under construction.
Think they had the runway down.
They were still working
on the apron.
There was couple of hangars up,
and the food was good there.
Until the chow hall
burned down.
And there's just
black smoke rolling up.
And it's the chow hall.
And we're all laughing,
then we realize
that's the fucking chow hall.
Waking up
to go eat breakfast
and seeing smoke billowing
from one of the tents
and it's like, "Well, I'll just
go to the other one."
And all of the sudden,
that one went up
and it's like, "Uh-oh,
we're not gonna eat anymore."
There were tears shed
when the chow hall burned down.
The wind is blowing
from my right to my left,
in a westerly direction.
All three
chow hall tents burned down
in less than fifteen minutes.
Full standing to nothing,
just ash.
And that's kind of like
a unifying factor
the original invasion force has,
is anybody was there during
those days, you just say,
"Remember when
chow hall burned down?"
I think morale took
a hit that day.
We knew what
it was that we were gonna do
on our first two
or three missions.
Some of that was even planned
all the way back in Germany
before we even deployed.
And we were busy rehearsing
our-our first mission.
Our plan was to execute
a maximum destruction mission.
In other words, we were
gonna have all three troops
attack simultaneously.
A lot of our training
was derived
from the types
of combat operations
that came from the 1991
Desert Storm deep attack.
Our training scenarios,
the types of targets.
Party at ten.
Okay, little bit left pedal.
This one's
for you, Saddam.
Yes!
I see people
running around now.
Burn it.
Go to a certain area,
hover, scan the area,
and shoot some hellfire at it,
turn back around and come back.
They lined up.
They saw the enemy.
They fired on the tanks.
Whoo-hoo.
This is all great.
We turned around, went back.
Hold her steady.
That mission is solidified,
going in deep,
it solidified some
of the theories
in how to go in
beyond the forward line
of troops
and take the fight to them
without them knowing
you're even there
until things start blowing up.
That was all very much
a part of the scenario,
a part of the construct
of how you do a deep attack.
So it, it created the framework
that we used
in our understanding
of how that was done.
We flew it,
we rehearsed it.
Uh, we did it during the day
and then we were doing it
at night.
We would set up
these huge terrain boards
and go through these
very in-depth rehearsals.
Um, and they would even include,
you know,
the radio communications.
"Hey, you, I'm here." "I've
got left. You've got right"
We would go through
the entire mission
as we saw it would unfold.
Probably need
to turn right.
Break right.
Go around,
deviate to the east.
It's probably
the most rehearsed mission
I've ever participated in
in my 28 years in the Army.
I don't think I was ever more
prepared to go on a mission
than we were
at that point in time.
There was a sense as we were
going through the training,
we're gonna be the ones
at the tip of the spear.
It just kind of had
a sense of destiny
that we were gonna be
called upon
to go do something important.
My fellow citizens,
at this hour, American
and coalition forces
are in the early stages
of military operations
to disarm Iraq,
to free its people,
and to defend the world
from grave danger.
Now that conflict has come,
the only way to limit
its duration
is to apply decisive force.
And I assure you,
this will not be a campaign
of half measures,
and we will accept
no outcome but victory.
May God bless our country...
and all who defend her.
The very first mission
that we had
was an attack near Tallil.
And our job was
to basically conduct
an attack, destroy everything
defending that airfield
so that it couldn't threaten
the highway,
threaten 3 ID as they moved
north in the march to Baghdad.
And in order to make it back--
We didn't have enough fuel to go
in and attack the target...
and be able to make it back
to our base at Udairi.
So the key part of this
was that Chinook helicopters
were gonna be used
with fuel tanks loaded
in the back
and a forward arming
and refueling point
would be set up with these
Chinook aircraft
that would allow
the Apaches to come in,
get just enough fuel quickly
to get them out of Iraq.
The 19th rolls around,
and we did not have
the weather minimums
we needed to execute
the mission.
The Chinook aircraft
that were our get-home plan
were not able to go.
That was
a mission abort criteria.
So we had to turn around
the aircraft.
There was a real sense...
that we had let our soldiers
on the ground down.
And the idea that
they might be taking fire
as they went by Tallil--
and they did--
because we hadn't been able
to accomplish our mission,
that really bothered us.
I don't care what happens,
by God,
we're not gonna allow that
to happen a second time.
It affected the decisions
that we made,
you know,
a couple of days later.
Next morning,
they were saying,
"Hey, we've got
another mission."
Initially, we thought,
all right...
we'll plan it, rehearse it,
and execute it
the way we had done
for the 19th,
and then we found out,
"Hey, this one's going off
on the 23rd,"
um, and our resources
that we had available to us
for planning and rehearsing
for the 19th weren't there.
We were very, very focused
on the planning
of that next mission.
Very different scenario,
'cause now we're gonna fly
over a populated area,
and we're gonna fly over
an area that is defended.
This is gonna require
some brute force.
It was gonna be a attack
against the
Medina Division artillery
and armory in and around
the city of Karbala.
The corps commander
was very concerned
about 3 ID getting
bogged down right there
in the potential kill zone,
and so he wanted
to destroy any forces
that could contribute to that
happening to 3 ID.
There's a lot of planning
that goes into
a successful deep attack.
You have to have
a logistics package
that is pushed
as far forward as possible
so that you can stop,
hit a forward arming
and refuel point or a FARP.
The convoy
would leave ahead of us,
and they'd go out and they'd
get the field site all set up,
and then the Apaches
would fly in
and we would land, and we would
set up camp there basically.
The absolute key part of this
was the fuel
and our communications.
Two things that had
to come together
in this assembly area
so that we could get
the latest intelligence,
help us understand where the
enemy forces had maneuvered to,
and of course we'd flown
all the way across to Iraq
to get to this assembly area.
We had aircraft that would need
a lot of fuel.
Lot of things had to happen
in exactly the right order,
synchronized, so you could get
the combined effects
of all those things.
Because if those things
didn't align...
bad things were gonna happen.
As we were
getting ready to go launch
our attack,
I remember thinking about
what incredible diversity
of talent and experience we had.
We had a Vietnam veteran.
We had Desert Storm veterans.
But we also had brand-new,
just-out-of-flight school
aviators.
Think I was 22
or 23 at the time.
I never had any aspirations
to join the military.
And I did a four-year
ROTC scholarship at UCLA.
And upon graduation,
I owed the military four years
for four years
of college essentially.
I wanted to go
to medical school.
Took the MCAT, didn't think
I did well enough on it
to actually get in.
So I said, what does
the military want for me to do?
I applied for medical service
corps, MI, and aviation.
And I applied for aviation
because they told me
if it's not your first choice,
you'll never get it.
I said, this will guarantee me
other choices,
you know, kinda like
a wasted choice.
And we had an Apache pilot that
was one of our instructors,
and he put a letter in
without me knowing
saying you should really
get her into aviation.
This is a good fit. Which
I didn't know he had done.
And I got branched to aviation.
That's a six-year commitment.
That commitment doesn't start
until you graduate
from flight school
which takes a year
to 18 months.
And at that point,
I'm just like, "Oh, my God.
Eight years of my life.
How could I have possibly
gotten myself into this?"
Attack Princess Extraordinaire.
That was her nickname.
You can see the little tiara
that says "Attack Princess"
in the red, white, and blue.
C ommand, I'm flying
with a master gunner,
Desert Storm veteran.
You think I'm worried?
No, you're flying
with the squadron SP.
- But thanks anyway.
Brian Stewmon,
he was in the first Gulf War
and is probably one of the best
pilots the Army could have had.
If he were afraid
on any of our missions,
I would not have known.
You know?
He was very confident,
very comfortable
in the aircraft.
How you doing up there, LT?
I'm good.
How are you doing?
Not bad.
All right.
Still gotta fucking
do a dirt landing though.
I joined the military because
I wanted to do something
in aviation.
Father was a crop duster.
That's where my love
for aviation kinda came from.
I didn't particularly want
to be a crop duster though.
You have two types of pilots.
Your commission officer pilots,
the captains, the majors,
who are
the company commanders.
Then you have
the warrant officer pilots.
They're very, very different.
The culture's very different.
Warrant officer pilots are...
They're your primary pilots.
Your instructor pilots,
the ones that train you.
They have some
fantastic mustaches,
they've got great attitudes
and personalities.
So while I was a lieutenant
and a captain in charge,
I'm flying
with a warrant officer
with so much more experience.
He's the one
that's training you
and getting you
where you need to be.
Captain Mace came to us
before we actually went
to Iraq,
which was a weird transition
for all of us.
We thought, if you get
the word to go for combat,
you're thinking you're gonna
bring the same commander
you've been training with.
So when they changed
right before we go to Iraq,
we're all, "What the hell
are they doing?"
We hadn't trained
with this guy at all.
He doesn't know how we operate.
Captain Mace had
a rough road to hoe.
He's brand-new.
No one knows the guy.
We know he's a West Pointer.
There's a certain amount
of reputation
that comes with that,
some good, some bad.
He had to show everybody that,
A, he cared about them,
all equally, and that he was
proficient at his job
and that he understood
how to take care of people.
I think before
we went across the burm,
he had made his footprint
that he had, he had sewn,
uh, his standard into the troop
and the troop knew
what he expected
and that he was in fact
the troop commander, no doubt.
We're ready to roll, baby.
Me and Bob Duffney,
we were the lead aircraft
for the whole regiment.
Neal was
one of our new aviators
He had the right kind
of mentality,
kind of a bravado
that really was the kind of guy
that you wanna have
leaning forward
in the front seat of an Apache
with their hands
on the weapons system.
It was a pretty hard
transition. I can't lie to you.
From being in the Marine Corps,
with that, that mentality.
But then going into WOC school
where you had
a little bit more
relaxed atmosphere.
And that it was just being
full of that Marine gusto.
And Bob Duffney, his pilot,
is a larger-than-life figure.
And the two of them together
in a cockpit
was a winning combination.
My grandfather
was also an aviator.
My uncle was an aviator
I actually joined to get
my college paid for.
I defaulted on the agreement
my dad and I had
about getting good grades.
Before I even went home
and told my dad
what my grade point average
was working out to be,
I went and talked
to the recruiter.
I had started out thinking
I was gonna fly Black Hawks.
My wife and I had talked
a couple of times.
She's like, "Fly the Apache,
it's sexy."
I'm like, "Okay."
Jason King
was actually my liaison officer
in my S3 section
of the squadron
before he went down
with Bryon Mace
to take over
as a platoon leader.
He was in
the 75th Ranger Regiment.
He brought that mindset
and that sense of...
responsibility that you have
as an Apache pilot
to supporting the soldier
on the ground.
The convoy
pushed us to the limit.
I think it was four days
non-stop driving.
We were always in a kill zone.
Our convoys were constantly
getting probed.
We would drive at
breakneck pace and then stop.
And we would be stopped
for hours.
And you never knew how long
you were gonna be stopped for.
I didn't change my socks
for four days.
I didn't change my underwear
for four days.
It pushed you
to the brink of insanity,
trying to stay awake
because you're frightened.
It's a hundred
and plus degrees outside.
It's miserable,
I basically passed out
in the back of the Humvee.
Wake up.
Curf, wake up.
I wake up and I look,
and we are in a town.
I don't think it was
a hand grenade.
Everybody in that
town had come out to see us.
And so we are now surrounded
by people.
And I'm 21 years old
at the time,
and we are scared shitless.
Because all it takes
is one dude in that crowd
that doesn't want us
to be there
to open up.
And we're-we're--
There's nothing we could do.
Turns out, we were sitting
and waiting
for the armored vehicles
to roll past us
because we had gotten
ahead of them somehow.
Then here come the Apaches.
We'd flown
all the way across Iraq
to get to this assembly area,
and there was nothing.
We were the first to get there.
It was just dirt.
We landed and it was
like talcum powder dust.
But from my perspective,
it's pretty evident
that we wasn't gonna
take off that night.
There was five abort criteria.
If this happens, we're not
gonna go on the mission.
If one of them doesn't go,
you don't go.
Every one of those
five things happened.
A HEMTT tanker came over
and started refueling
the aircraft for the mission
that night.
And at some point in time,
he was out of gas.
All the trucks with the fuel
are still back at a convoy,
still waiting to come up.
So right off the bat, an entire
third of the combat power
of our unit was gone.
We didn't have any communication
with our headquarters.
We didn't have current intel.
We posed for
some pictures with our 9 mms
like we were pulling security
because we were the only ones
out there at that time.
In reality, that was
probably not that funny.
You know, we were
already well behind
our planned timeline
for executing the mission.
The moon was
at its zenith that night,
and I think it was
98 percent.
So anybody that was standing
on the ground looking up
could see the helicopters.
There was a picture of all
the pilots sitting around
and chairs and everything,
and we're all like this.
And the caption was gonna be,
you know,
"Here we are at war."
We were pretty much asleep
because we knew
we wasn't gonna fly
because of all the stuff
that happened.
But regardless,
it was an important mission.
We got to set conditions so that
3 ID can roll through that
Karbala gap.
A short time later,
here comes Captain Mace,
out of breath with maps
and drawings,
and he laid everything out.
The decision was made to go.
Thing I remember the most
is that there really wasn't
a place
where you could say,
"Where's our
central rally point?
Where are we gonna be?"
There was one pile
of rocks and dirt.
This mound.
And we kinda likened that
to the ant mound,
and we were soldiers once
and young.
So on top
of this pile of rocks
we put up a single ChemLight,
and that was
our rally point.
And we got everybody around,
and we said a prayer.
Almighty God,
you are the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob,
the omnipotent God.
Lord, I thank you
for what you've blessed us
to achieve thus far.
God calls us
to reign in victory tonight.
Defeat the enemy victoriously.
And then bring each pilot
and aircraft back safely.
This I ask of you...
Amen.
I was flying with the FLIR,
and I had Jason King in
the front seat with goggles.
So I'm pulling the power to get
the aircraft off the ground,
and we're totally browned out.
And I couldn't see
through it at all.
Finally get up
out of the cloud,
and there is
a huge sense of relief.
It's like,
"The most dangerous part
of the mission is done now."
So...
The first troop to take off
was Bravo Troop.
Okay now, from here
where do we go?
Let's go
a little bit further north.
Okay.
And then myself
with our Black Hawk helicopter.
I also had another
Black Hawk helicopter with me
that was in trail that had
our flight surgeon in there.
Slow up
the bird like 65 knots.
Roger.
Thanks. Roger.
We called
the airfield clear
and started to go north.
When we flew
up the route,
it was eerily quiet.
It was almost as if we were
on a training mission.
I was a month away
from my 20th year in the Army.
I had never been
in combat before.
And I thought, "Wow, is this
what combat really is?"
I'm pulling 0-5-3
position confidence on INU 1
and 2 check and no satellites.
Hey, 0-6,
check your position confidence.
Okay.
Want me
to pull out the map?
Uh, not right now.
Okay.
When you do a deep attack,
you're supposed to know
exactly where the enemy is.
In this case, we did not have
grid locations of the enemy.
So we ended up planning
a movement to contact.
And we wanted to establish
contact and find the enemy
with the minimum force
necessary.
And that was gonna be
Bravo Troop.
Bravo Troop with the leadership
that was in the troop
was known from our training
to be the best at doing
the maneuver to contact.
The cavalry mission, uh, suited
Captain Mace and the leaders
and the warrant officers
in that troop very well.
Then I was gonna
bring in Charlie in the north
and Alpha in the south.
They were gonna receive
a battle handover from Bravo
and continue that movement
to contact
and destroy everything in zone.
All right,
missiles are powered back up.
Had we all gotten refueled,
we would have been
a flight of seven.
We didn't get enough refuel,
so we were down
to a flight of five.
One breaks on crank,
one crashes on takeoff,
so now we're down to three,
is the attack force coming in
to get the enemy that
the first company
was supposed to locate.
I bet Bravo Troop's
real excited
that we're only coming up
with three aircrafts.
I was the platoon leader.
We've got to quickly revamp
who's taking care of this job
'cause we all had
individual responsibilities.
So you have to really quickly
come up with a new plan.
All right, up there to the left
is way-point 2-7,
where we're gonna initiate
battle handover.
I got vehicles
on the road up there.
Is that helicopters?
What is that?
Which way?
Left.
Eleven o'clock.
We'd always envisioned that
we would come in over the lake,
but, uh, the plan changed.
and the 101st
Airborne Division came in,
and they suddenly
owned the area
that we had originally
envisioned
that we were gonna maneuver in.
So about half
of the battle space
went away on the west side.
And then to the east of us,
the battle space went away
to the Air Force.
This narrow corridor became
the area that we had
to operate in
to go up and attack
the Medina Division.
Sure have
a lot of people out
driving around
this late at night,
especially when they know
an attack is coming.
Right now, we got
the Archers approaching,
uh, set point...
What the heck was that?
I don't know.
Maybe a bird.
There are
no birds out here.
How many birds have you seen?
Brian, I think someone took
a potshot at us.
Well, it didn't hurt.
I can't feel my leg.
-What do you mean
it didn't hurt?
Oh, my God.
You're killing me,
Lieutenant.
This is not funny, Brian.
I can't feel anything
below the waist.
Oh,
it's probably just a bird.
You're in a big hurry
to get to this battle,
aren't ya?
When you have a mission
like a deep attack like that
and you encounter
enemy en route,
generally you're just gonna
bypass that enemy and go
because that's not as important
as where you're going.
The first time I heard
a round hit the cockpit,
I thought we were actually
hitting bugs.
I'll tell you
what it sounds like.
When you're driving
down the highway,
you kick a rock up,
hits your windshield,
that hard tap, like, tap!
That's exactly
what it sounds like.
What's that?
Break right.
Get the fuck away from that.
And also
Red Team is moving--
0-6, 1-9 We're taking
fire to the south of our RP--
our rally point.
We're breaking north
at this time.
Archer 2-6, Archer 6.
Be advised we took
a tracer round about
one klick back, right over
the nose of the aircraft, so
keep your head in a swivel.
Roger.
Maybe it wasn't a bird.
Getting a little sporty,
isn't it?
I'm not scared.
Ain't no reason
to be scared.
You're flying
with a master gunner.
All right,
if I see tracer rounds,
I'll try and call out
the direction.
Okay.
Should be able
to see it under goggles.
I was on night vision goggles
in the front seat,
and my back seater was
on the FLIR,
forward looking infared.
We thought that would maximize
our ability to see the enemy.
I could see lights,
he could see heat.
I'm seeing tracer rounds
coming towards the aircraft,
he's not seeing any of it.
Okay, we're getting shot at.
I don't see 'em.
Goggles are picking 'em up.
Yeah, they're bright
under the goggles.
Oh, you can see 'em.
They're like red.
They're red, red--
The hell!
I can' see 'em. I just said it.
Okay. I'm telling you
what they look like.
So the front seater
starts announcing
tracer fire off in the distance.
Well, back seater cannot see
that tracer fire.
All right, LT. Don't tell me,
"What is that?"
You tell me
what you think it is.
Okay, I see
bright white lights
shooting up from the ground
about five to ten K out.
You do right now?
Uh...
Nope, but they're
to the left of us.
At this point, we were still
fighting an active enemy
with all of
his full capabilities,
so you wanna be
as low as possible
to avoid the radar.
In that case,
it puts you right down
in the small arms envelope.
So our routes, height-wise,
when we were going in and out,
we were probably
a hundred feet or below.
As we're flying
over these towns,
I started to recognize
what was shooting at us,
and it was literally people
in the backs of pickup trucks.
It was people on the street.
We would see Iraqis
with weapons in the backs
of trucks with kids.
We had lot of speeches
by, um, leadership that said,
you know, be careful
what you fire at,
what you shoot at.
You know, positive
identification is key.
Don't think you're gonna
just start shooting
at anything
that's shooting at you.
And it caused them some concern
over whether when a difficult
situation were to come up,
would somebody be
second-guessing
their actions?
You go
and make decisions
off of information
you're provided.
Sometimes
your information's great.
Spot on, no hiccups.
You go in, you do your mission,
come out...
...no harm, no foul.
Sometimes your information's
not that great.
All right,
they're coming from behind us.
It was more built up
than I had expected it to be.
We were actually
in an urban area.
There's lights, uh,
all over the area.
The maps that we had
were very old
at that point in time.
And I think it was dated 1992.
And just as
we were turning to the west,
every light for as far
as you could see
went out.
Became completely pitch black.
What'd you say, lights?
The hell's happening here?
When the lights came back on,
all hell broke loose.
That was the sign for everyone
who had a gun
to walk outside and just start
shooting in the air.
I think we probably need
to turn right.
We're taking small arms fire
at this time.
Taking heavy enemy fire.
Taking fire. We're taking fire.
Coming right, Mikey.
Dammit! Oh, my...
I don't see 'em.
Keep coming right.
Keep coming right.
Tracer rounds like fireworks.
It was unreal.
Roger.
We're getting hammered.
We need to haul ass
out of here, brother.
It was everywhere.
No matter which way you moved,
it was all coming at you,
and so the best thing you
could do was fly straight.
1-9, roger. We're seeing fire
on the left also,
so we're gonna try to go
right down the center.
-We got hit
in the fucking tail.
-Okay.
Shit! Fuck!
Dude, fuck!
Keep on going, dude.
Keep on going straight.
Keep on going.
Mike, you're taking fire.
We knew that
there was the Medina Division.
What we didn't know
was that the Republican Guard
Infantry Divisions
that were actually on
the north side of Baghdad
had been moved and placed
to the south.
Hundreds and thousands
of soldiers
everywhere underneath us.
In corners of fields
and tops of buildings
and at that point in time,
the hunter became hunted.
I can feel it
under my feet.
We ain't
giving up yet.
Situation's
deteriorating pretty quickly.
We're taking some intense fire.
But you have to remember,
these are all people
who are absolutely focused
on getting to that objective.
There's no turning back.
You know, we'd turned back
on the previous mission,
and nobody wants to turn back.
Roger, let's continue,
and we'll see what we got here.
What'd he say?
We'll continue
and see what we got.
Pretty heavily populated
up there too,
but there's no way around it.
2-6, just come
to the left just a little bit
and stay away from the lights
off to the right-hand side.
As we were making our
reconnaissance to the west,
somehow our wingman got
in front of us,
being Mike Tomblin
and Jason King.
-Oh shit.
-Come left. Left.
You just fucking dr--
You just shot the aircraft
in front of us.
I didn't see
where it was coming from.
All right, if you could speed
up a little bit more, 1-9.
I'm taking a little bit
more fire than I'm used to.
That's it. Way-point 4. Over.
Mike Tomblin
returned fire,
and apparently this guy was
sitting next to an LP gas tank.
So put the crosshairs on him,
pulled the trigger,
aiming at the guy,
hit the gas tank,
and the whole gas tank exploded.
Whoa! Oh, shit!
When we came out of
the ball of fire essentially,
we were going backward and down,
and we were able
to get the aircraft
back under control
and move forward.
Goddammit.
Standby. Take it easy up there.
1-9, this is 1-6...
Oh shit!
Taking fire to the right.
Break right. Break right.
We've been hit
multiple times,
but we're still trying
to make it.
We're taking more hits.
-Mikey, we're taking fire.
More and more aircraft
are experiencing
significant issues.
Loss of engines, hydraulics.
It occurred to me that
we were not gonna bring
all the aircraft back.
Whoa!
1-6 is hurt.
1-6 was shot in the neck.
Palerider 1-6,
which is Lieutenant King.
It's hard to put
your head around this thing
and really wrap your mind
around it, but...
it now changed to a fight
for survival.
All right, 1-9,
you got to take us back.
-We have...
Goddamn it!
Oh shit!
Utility hydraulic level.
Okay. Okay.
We realized, this isn't
a question now
about whether or not we're going
to accomplish the mission.
This is now a question
of whether we're gonna
get out of here.
The voices in my head
were getting really loud
at this point,
and I just wanted to start
talking on the radio,
but there was so much
other anxiety,
uh, that I waited.
I reckon I'd say this...
this mission has changed.
From destroying armory
and artillery,
which from everything
I could see
wasn't there
in the objective area
to preserving combat power
to live and fight
another day.
And so at that point,
I gave the order
to, to egress.
6-0-6, Archer 6.
Significant ground fire.
Looking for your authorization
to go ahead
and egress back to the AA.
Affirm.
Affirm, Archer 6.
I concur.
Typically, you're
gonna have multiple routes
in and out.
But for this
particular mission,
we had one.
One route in,
one route out
We navigated the gauntlet,
now we gotta go
right back through it.
I don't know.
All right,
how bad... Can you...
-You're talking to me.
Roger.
All right, keep talking
to me, okay?
Roger.
We are egress
at this time.
Hey, 1-9,
did you hear 0
Everybody's egressing
at this time.
Keep your eyes out.
Jason, at that point,
he wasn't talking.
When you're in the back
of the Apache at night,
there's nothing,
you can't see anything.
You're separated by
a very thick blast shield.
So there was no way for me
to be able to confirm
what was going on
in his front seat.
You know, in my mind,
his portion of the aircraft
was gone.
Hey, what am I gonna do
with this aircraft.
What I knew was that
he was not able to respond
verbally with Mike Tomblin.
Now you have an incapacitated
crew member in your front,
and at the same time,
you're experiencing,
you know, intense fire coming
at you from the ground,
rounds slamming
through your cockpit,
decisions that you have
to make continuously
evaluating what's
the right thing to do,
how to keep fighting
and flying the aircraft.
A real tribute to a man
like him is that
that would be overwhelming
for, for, for most people.
They were gonna fly to
a restricted operating zone,
a ROZ,
and they were going to land
a Medevac Black Hawk,
and then that Medevac aircraft
would have took
Lieutenant King
wherever he needed
to go to get treatment.
And Major Christensen was
gonna get in the front seat
of Mike Tomblin's aircraft, and
then they were gonna go back.
And I thought that was
probably the quickest way
to get Jason out of there
and into surgery
or whatever it was he was
gonna need at that point.
We get down closer to
where we're gonna drop King off
and to pick up
Major Christensen.
By the time we got down there,
we were just getting hammered.
Taking heavy enemy fire.
This craft's not gonna fly
very much longer.
Yeah. Now we're
taking fire again.
-Okay.
Oh!
Breaking left.
We're getting
shot at here. Yikes.
I can feel it
under my feet.
Can I shoot the gun if we start
taking fire again?
You're damn skippy you can.
If you see
where it's coming from...
As soon as
the aircraft starts shooting,
they're gonna stop shooting
at me.
We actually had an RPG
coming at the aircraft.
I saw this white light
coming at us.
And Mr. Stewmon didn't see it.
-Oh shit.
What?
Break right.
Break right.
We're taking fire.
Oh shit!
Hell, we just got hit.
Nice maneuvering.
Fucking them
sons of bitches was close.
Oh my...
We're taking fire.
Break left.
My gun has failed.
My gun has failed.
So I need you whenever
you see those tracers,
if you front-seater,
or if you just put it on HMD,
at least put some
suppressive fire out,
and that will keep them
from shooting quite so much.
Fucking on!
All right, you little fuckers.
Come on, shoot at me again.
-Bring it!
Dammit!
Three times we tried
to get that Hawk landed
in a place where we could do
the crew swap,
three times we took RPG
and machine gun fire.
We never got that done.
I mean, I just couldn't lose,
you know, eleven folks
on that Black Hawk
trying to make that happen.
Because, at that point,
we didn't know
if Jason King was even alive.
All right, 1-9,
go back to the assembly area.
Understand? Go back
to the assembly area at the--
Location unknown at this time.
Okay, stay right
to the route a little bit.
Mikey, you still with us?
1-6, this is 1-9 on uniform.
1-6, 1-9 on uniform.
1-6, this is 1-9 on uniform.
Shit!
Dammit!
All right up there?
Yeah, I'm fine.
What can I do up here?
It's like I--
You just hang tight.
Okay.
Somebody let us know
what's going on up there.
We'd taken a round
through the load
maintenance panel,
and for some reason,
our radios came offline.
There was a point in time
where I lost
all the ability to communicate
to any aircraft.
How you doing, Mike?
You still back there?
We're still back here.
Just keep talking
to me every couple minutes.
Making me nervous.
Roger. I'll keep
an open line of communication.
What you found was just a lot
of individual heroism
in terms of what
those pilots were doing
to try to mutually support
each other.
They would see something
that would be attacking
their lead aircraft.
They would try
to suppress that.
It was just a fight
all the way
to try to get ourselves
back to our assembly area.
Roger.
Roger.
At that point,
I gave the order
to avoid urban areas.
That's where we were
getting fire from.
Fly where you gotta fly
to get safely back
to the assembly area.
It is like a lot longer
back than it was out there.
Tracer fires
out to left.
Coming right. We wanna
get over that dead space.
Roger.
Okay.
I wanna take you
through this dark area.
Be coming left.
That's a lot of dark area.
Hey, Palerider 1-9.
This is 6-Shooter-6
on 4-3-8. Over.
This is 1-9.
Go ahead.
Yeah, we had
to move to the east.
I got hit again. I've got
multiple problems
with this aircraft.
...1-9. 1-6 is wounded
in the neck.
We'll try to get medical
attention when we get back.
Roger.
We'll get him
medical attention.
You just hang with us.
I'm not sure.
My guns failed twice,
but help me with suppression
if you can.
Motherfucking...
Roger.
Oh shit. Taking fire.
Break right. Break right.
Break right. Break right.
I tried to shoot.
The gun's fucked up.
Oh shit.
0-6, there's somebody else.
Oh, shooting now
from the left.
Get some, motherfucker!
You little fuckers.
Come on.
Shoot at me again.
Baddest ass chick
in a damn Apache, aren't you?
Yeah, right.
Hey, 0-6,
I'm gonna cut right...
Speed up
a little bit more, 1-9.
My front-seater is critical.
Okay.
A dog fight for
an hour trying to get back.
It wasn't until about five
or ten minutes before we
actually got back to RAMS
that the firing had stopped.
Let's see,
the SDR failed,
so they shot that.
The GPS failed, so they
must have shot that.
Engine one is out.
Backup control systems
seem to be...
And they're continuing
to work south.
A lot of blades
were damaged,
you had a lot of vibrations
in the aircraft.
Aircraft were leaking fuel.
Some didn't have
sighting systems on them.
Can you just keep
flying towards Germany?
That would be good.
Thanks.
Half our combat power
is destroyed.
One that crashed at takeoff,
we got three that are
shot up pretty bad,
and the 1-9.
We'll be coming
from the west,
looping back with a left turn,
and landing to the north.
About ten minutes before
getting back to RAMS,
we thought it was over.
But what had really happened
is everybody was coming back
at the same time.
The way the mission
was staged out,
we should have been
coming back at different times.
Because of the chaos
that occurred
and the mission
being aborted,
we arrived back at the
assembly area at the same time.
Meaning two and a half squadrons
of Apaches coming back
to about a three-mile
radius area.
There's some
aircraft off the nose.
All right,
I got them on the FLIR.
We have got an aircraft
at twelve o'clock.
I'm looking at them
through the system.
Through the system.
I don't see them otherwise.
Yeah.
You break to the right.
Coming on the left.
There's an aircraft
off my nose,
passing left to right.
2-0-1-0, on guard.
0-6, that might be
the wounded aircraft...
So I'm gonna slow back
a little.
Palerider 6 is behind me
by a couple of kilometers.
And we both got shot up
aircraft pretty bad.
If you want us to hold
short and allow the aircraft
that are really shot up bad
to get in first, you want us
to get in to land?
No, I think we go ahead
and get them on the ground.
Okay, 0-9, 0-6.
Put the airplane down.
It doesn't have to be
in your parking space.
Put it down
where you got the space.
There's an aircraft
in the air above me.
Whoa!
It is a mess.
It is total chaos.
They had engines shot out.
They had systems shot out.
They had to do roll-on landings.
They couldn't see anything.
They're just winging it.
If you did land,
get there on the ground,
and we'll sort it out
when daylight comes up.
This assembly area
is a madhouse.
People are gonna die out here
from hitting each other.
Get the aircraft
on the ground, get it stopped,
get it shut down, get out
and kiss the ground.
Still have control,
and I've got heavy vibration.
All right,
I'm going to go around.
Actually, I'm gonna set up
to the right here.
Brake for me, sir.
Brake for me.
Altitude low...
6-0-6, Palerider 1-9.
Altitude low. Altitude low.
And 2-9 affirmative
that we're all down, but we
need to get medical attention
to the northernmost aircraft
on the parking row.
All right,
just stand fast, okay?
You sit right there.
You just stay
right where you are...
I'm gonna be out in a minute,
and I'll come up there.
There were
probably two or three times
where they had had
to stop and revive Jason.
You know, those Army docs
did yeoman's work.
They saved Jason King's life
that night.
And I got out...
I started surveying.
I wasn't even sure
exactly where we had landed.
But off in the distance,
I could see
the one red ChemLight.
So I gathered up my team,
and we all kinda walked
in together in the dark,
and we met around
the termite mound.
I started calling off names.
Mr. Stewmon,
Lieutenant Bruhl.
Mr. Tomblin...
I then just checked
everybody off.
And I gotta tell you, man...
When I got that last name
checked off the list...
it was euphoric.
I've never been so happy
as to have
all the men, uh,
and women, uh,
safely back, uh, on the ground.
'Cause I gotta tell ya,
it was not evident to me
that that's what
was gonna happen at all.
And so in the dark, you know,
as I'm calling off
all the names
and they're responding,
it was a, it was a beautiful,
beautiful moment,
and at that point,
I knew that...
...we were gonna be
forever linked as a, as a,
as a group of warriors
that had just been through
a pretty intense situation
and that we were all
so ecstatic
to see each other again.
And I think at the time,
I said, you know,
it was only by the grace
of God that we had managed
to get everybody
back there in that
assembly area together
'cause we had really been shot
up pretty bad on that mission.
I woke up in the 86th cache
back in Camp Udairi.
So I think I'd been gone
from Camp Udairi for...
less than 24 hours...
...on my first combat mission.
Not ideal. Not ideal.
I still have the shrapnel,
um, which is kind of cool.
I think I might melt it down
and mold it into something
someday for my kids.
When people ask about
the first few days of the war,
I-I don't get into
any kind of detail.
But I tell them that...
the first time
that you're shot at
and the first time that
you have to pull the trigger,
your morality changes.
And I tell them about
your mortality.
When you're shot at
and not hit,
you can still think you're
that youthful immortal,
but the first time you're hit,
you realize...
you know, I'm not immortal.
There's a story about
the pilots that flew it.
It's only half the story.
The other story is about
the-the men and women
who fixed those airplanes.
We roll in,
and it looked like
something out of Mad Max.
It looked like just
post-apocalyptic destruction.
There was aircraft rolled over.
Everything was covered in dirt.
They were shot to shit.
We all wrote
letters to Boeing.
Told them how much
we appreciated the aircraft.
There were blades
with 20 mm bullet holes
through 'em
that came back,
driveshafts that had been shot
clean through
that didn't fail.
And those aircraft,
as badly damaged as they were
with bullet holes everywhere...
we're flying those aircraft
ten days later
on another major mission.
We went on a deep attack
the first night of the war.
We were told, "You guys need
to go pick the fight
with the bully."
And we did that.
I look at it now,
I don't consider it a failure.
The information that
we brought back,
negative report of enemy armor,
was still the report
that that ground forces
commander needed.
Throughout
the history of our
armed forces,
and especially the US Army,
uh, one of the things that
I think I'm most proud of
is the fact that even though
we don't always succeed
in our, our missions,
we always learn from it.
We focus on being better.
And 2003, we were not successful
in that combat mission
other than the fact that
we were able to bring
all of our folks home
from that mission.
What was successful
about that mission
was that it was a forcing
function of change
that brought about
new tactics,
in some cases
revisiting tactics
that we re-learned
from experiences in Vietnam.
Had we had nothing but success,
and never faced any of the
challenges and obstacles
from our initial
combat operations,
we wouldn't have adapted
and learned
and been successful later on.
Much of what our success is
today in Afghanistan and Iraq
owes from the lessons
learned early in combat.
And our Army has had experience
after experience with that.
We're not always successful
in our first outing in combat,
but the mark
of a professional soldiering
is that you learn,
you adapt,
come back,
and fight the next day
better than you did
the day before.
* Coming down is
The same everywhere *
* What happens then
Isn't always clear *
* Sun rose on a brand new day
* Tonight just seems
A million miles away *
* I need to find
My guiding star *
* Wherever you go
There you are *
* Yeah there you are
* Flying high never keeps you
Off the ground *
* Up above you just see
Where you're coming down *
* You make a friend of the sky
When you're in flight *
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
* My broken wings keep me up
* Lots of time
It's just not enough *
* Seems years all been lost
* All this time
At what cost *
* I don't leave
Any shadow up here *
* No trace of me anywhere
* No trace of me
That's clear *
* Flying high never keeps you
Off the ground *
* Up above you just see
Where you coming down *
* You make a friend of the sky
When you're in flight *
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
* Yeah
You fall from flying high.
* Flying high never keeps you
Off the ground *
* Up above you just see
Where you coming down *
* You make a friend of the sky
When you're in flight *
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
Whoo!
* Things change when you fall
From flying high *
Whoo!