The Line (2021–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Episode #1.2 - full transcript

I got back from deployment
somewhere in that first week of September.

I had just landed in San Diego,

and I got a group text message
from the Sewing Circle,

which was a group of guys
that were on that deployment.

Some of the guys were saying,
"Yeah, we need to talk about the stuff

that's been going on with Eddie."

"We need to report him."

I really tried to block out
what happened on that deployment.

I was having problems
looking my family in the eyes.

I was filled with guilt and shame.

So I was like, "Hell yeah."



"Let's do this."

It goes against everything
you've ever been taught

to turn in someone on your own team.

It was just totally foreign
and uncharted territory.

I was done. Completely done with him.

We thought we had information that could
put Eddie Gallagher away for life.

My only regret is that
I did not do more to stop him.

We're here to train and go to war.

I was like, "Hell yeah. Let's do this."

These men were my family, my brothers.

This bond of warfighters.

You could just tell
that something was off.

There was this undercurrent
in this platoon.

How do you sleep at night
knowing what you did?



I just saw it as good versus evil.

It's that simple.

What we're going to talk about
today is that there are

issues with a case involving

the Law of Armed Conflict
and a murder case.

- Yep.
- Okay.

So, what I want you to do is just
read this first sentence for me out loud.

"I, SOC Edward Gallagher,
have been advised

by SA Joe Warpinski that I am suspected
of violation of Article 118, murder."

Okay, so

I'm not saying you're guilty.
I'm not saying anything like that.

Just, that's what we're going to have
a discussion about today.

Are you aware of,
like, the allegations in this case?

Are you aware of some of the crimes
that have been alleged against Eddie?

I am aware that
he's charged with premeditated murder.

Before we even left for deployment

we were having a barbecue.

He'd been drinking a little bit
and he just turns to me and he goes,

"It's gonna be a good deployment."

I'm like, "Yeah, I'm real excited."

It's gonna be an awesome deployment."
He's like, "Yeah.

Someone's gonna die."

And I'm like, "What are you talking about?
Why does that make it a good deployment?"

He's like, "We'll see."

What was Gallagher's
reputation like when you got there?

He was good. Tactically, he was good.

When we got overseas,
it was a complete 180.

It changed immediately.

The chief is
the big brother of the platoon.

He's got the authority
that's given to him,

but he's also the one that's going to be
mentoring the guys from his experiences.

Are you talking about
being on this side facing that way?

Yeah.

Eddie had a great reputation
going into it.

He had combat experience.

I know.

Eddie was a mentor and a personal friend.

All right, we got everybody here?

- Yeah.
- Yeah?

Let's go. Let's fucking go. Let's go.

We had built up a level of trust.

We had a great group of guys out there
that were very motivated.

Watch out!

They had so much promise.

But then all these little things
which started growing and growing

and tearing us apart.

The chief really dictates
the culture of the platoon.

And the best platoon has
a really strong chief

and the officer in charge
who keeps the law and order

and isn't afraid to put people in check.

But we weren't a normal platoon.

Jake Portier was
a officer in charge of our platoon.

We have three guys going back and forth.

Cleanups, mortars.
Go and hit them with those.

He was a younger guy,
certainly younger than Eddie,

and he was supposed to be
the person that Eddie reported to.

Although, that relationship was different
because Eddie had been his instructor.

What about your altitude?

I'm over a thousand.

Jake Portier, I knew him.
I was Jake's instructor through BUD/S,

and he was also on my previous deployment.

He's overall in charge,

but I'm also overall in charge
of the tactical picture.

I have a lot more experience than him.

I'm a stubborn dude.

If I want to do something,
I'm gonna do it.

Jake, here's his original impact.
Here's his second.

Just call it out for him. Just
tell him where but don't say right 40...

What Eddie said.

I don't think Jake was ever able
to picture himself as in charge of Eddie,

and Eddie basically assumed
control of the platoon.

Once we're set, have them
pull up to their positions again.

See if we can see who's fucking shooting.

Because ERD just took a round
up there as they fucking crossed.

And once we get in the general direction
of where we think it's coming from

- get at 'em.
- Okay.

As we were on deployment,

we started noticing
something was, like, off.

We kept going back
to the same locations operationally.

Which doesn't make sense

if you're a special operator
trying to be "sneaky-peeky."

This is one of the reasons why
I didn't like Eddie on this deployment.

All right, Eddie.

Your GPS.

Eddie was going against what I thought was

an acceptable amount of risk
for an operation.

Yeah.

So I have airplane
and location services turned off.

On one of our morning roundups,

Eddie came out and said,
"Everyone, turn off your... your ATAKs.

We're gonna stir up the hornet's nest."

And what he meant was that

anyone who was wearing this GPS locator
should turn it off

because he intended to go into
a place that was not allowed.

The ISIS safe house is this one.

This road that runs that way.

There's a whole fuck ton of them
running around.

Okay. We'll keep moving forward.

Turning off all trackers is stupid

because now you've got people,
bopping around the streets with guns,

that are unidentified.

Our own aircraft can target that.

Like, that looks like ISIS,
you know, from 30,000 feet.

The decisions Eddie was making

and the areas that we were going to,
how often we were going to those areas

over and over again

just became reckless.

Unfortunately, I was so naive and green

that I was like, "You know what,
I'm going to follow him everywhere.

At the end of the day, there's no way
he's gonna call me a coward."

Stay out here, yeah?

On this day, we were in front of
where we were allowed to be.

Shut that gate.

There's Jake, Shu, Corey,
Eddie, Dragon, and myself and Gio.

Corey and Dragon,
one of the new guys, go up to the roof

while we're one floor below.

Suddenly we heard a shot,
then we heard Dragon, you know, grunt.

Like…

And somebody yelled up like,
"Hey, are you okay?"

And he said, "No, I'm not."

It was that mad minute
to get him off that roof.

Hurry up and get off this fucking...

Book it, dude!

Ready. One, two, three.

Hey, he's fucking resisting.

Yeah, I know.

Pick up his legs. Pick up...

Dragon! You gotta help me out, dude.

How much blood has he lost?

He still had a radial pulse,
like, five minutes ago.

But he's got at least two gunshot wounds.

And one exiting out of his ass.

Hey, I got you, buddy.

It was one of those moments
where it was like, "Hey,

we are a little bit, um, out of
where we're supposed to be right now."

- Jake!
- Yeah?

Let's transfer him to the RG.

Jake just started freaking out.

He's like, "Eddie, we gotta go.
We, uh... We gotta go.

ISR is gonna see us. We're gonna
get caught. Let's go, let's go."

Eddie looks Dragon in the eye.
Gets in his face, and he goes,

"Dragon, you're gonna tell everyone
that you got shot back at the ME.

You're not gonna tell anyone that we moved
past where we're supposed to be."

And Dragon just looks up,
and he's like, "Yeah, okay."

Like, he's still in shock
that he even got shot.

He was shot in a place that if
it was two or three inches right or left,

then it would have been a fatal injury.

It worked out, and he survived.

And so, for that, we're fortunate.

But had that been a fatal injury,

there was an unwillingness to call it in

out of fear of the consequences of being
in a place that's clearly forbidden.

You're always gonna have
guys not agree with other guys' tactics.

You should be expected
to be in some sort of danger.

Um, you know,
you can't mitigate all the risk.

And it is war. Um,
bullets are gonna fly around regardless.

As far as my thought process?

Yeah, I'm... I'm willing to risk
my life or, you know,

put my life in danger to get the job done.

If that wound had been any different,

or he had been killed,
Eddie's directly responsible.

He was using us as bait, really.
Putting us in dangerous situations,

trying to get us hurt
just so he could get a medal.

And if we raised concern over it,
he'd be like, "Oh, you're being a pussy."

But I still worked for him, right?
He had power over me.

He had authority over me.
We still had a mission to do.

So, I just kept my mouth shut.

As time went on,

Eddie created this divide between himself
and the rest of the platoon.

It was very clear that

the rift between the chief
and the platoon is growing.

When we would get
care packages from our families,

Eddie would go up to our rooms

and take stuff out from under our beds
when we weren't there.

It's not like a massively big deal,

but it's not cool to go through
someone's stuff,

especially in, like,
such a resource-constrained environment.

People are gonna hate you.

Sometimes you come up with
a nickname for your boss,

and Eddie's nickname is El Diablo.
The Devil.

We're all sitting here
working for this guy,

and we're all fighting
this battle together.

And we're all talking about

what we're gonna do
when we go home to San Diego.

I'm not doing that with Eddie Gallagher.

He's a dick.

I don't give a shit if you like me or not.
Um, I have friends already.

Like, I don't... I'm not looking for...
You know, to make new buddies.

Like, if you...
We can be cool, but I'm your chief.

Other than that, if you don't want to have
a personal relationship with me,

I could... I could... I could care less.

It seems like, through the deployment,

there was an obvious change in Eddie?

He, like, started losing weight.

He started looking really skinny.
He wasn't sleeping. Like,

we would be, like, operating every day.

And it was just go, go, go, go, go.

And guys were worn out,
and he just wasn't.

Obviously it doesn't take a scientist
to put two and two together.

It's, like, that's not natural.

We're always in pain. That's a fact.

We run around day after day after day.

Tramadol is
a great way to help some of that.

The thing is,
Eddie didn't just need some tramadol.

Eddie was doing
insane amounts of tramadol.

He would wake up in the morning
just looking like a sack of crap.

Just dragging his gear.
His magazines weren't loaded.

We'd get in the car.
He wouldn't know the head count.

He'd be like,
"You know where we're going?"

And then, you know, he'd dig in his bag,
and he'd pop a pill in his mouth.

And then, you know,
20 minutes later or something,

he's got that look in his eyes of...
Like he's on something.

On a day-to-day basis,
I saw very little of him

because Eddie would often be
in a separate location,

uh, set up with the snipers,
which was very atypical for a chief.

Eddie started spending
more and more time on the gun

and less and less time being a chief.

And as deployment went on,

he got sucked into that gun
more and more and more

to where he was just popping pills
and on the gun.

The two buildings that we used primarily,

you just had a clear, unobstructed view
of the entire old Mosul neighborhood.

All right, what do we got?

- It's like fucking sniper central.
- Yep.

Yeah. That's where I'm gonna set up.

All right.

Targeting the enemy with a sniper rifle,

you get an up-close
and personal look at the people.

We had been looking at the same streets
for, like, a couple of weeks.

Like, we knew everyone
on the street block.

We recognized people by their faces,
where they lived.

And you're making decisions
about who's good and bad.

For every one ISIS guy,

there was that bell curve of people
who were in the gray area.

That just really pulled at
every ounce of your soul,

trying to decide
how to navigate that situation.

Are those them right there?

That's what I'm saying.
Those two white spots?

It is highly unusual

for a tactical lead or a chief to be
on the rifle all day long.

And Eddie was on the rifle
every single day.

Eddie was up there just blasting away.

And we're like, "What is he shooting at?"

We know that
Eddie's not seeing ISIS fighters.

On a combat deployment, you have ROEs.

ROEs are rules of engagement.

And they did change during the deployment.

Jake said, "Hey, we have intel that

women are providing
material support to ISIS.

And according to that,
they fall within our ROEs."

And Eddie smiles and goes,
"Yeah, that means chicks are good to go."

And Jake kind of looks at him
and was like,

"Well, you know,
use your best judgment. I trust you."

One day I was in the southern tower,
and Eddie was in the northern tower.

And I see four, uh, young girls.
Twelve, 14 years old.

And as soon as they came out
underneath that bridge,

there's, like, a pathway.

There was a shot taken,

and I saw the girl
in the gray dress grab her stomach.

And the girl
in the blue dress grabs her arm,

and she looks right at our position.

Immediately, I rolled over,

and Jake was in my hide, and I was like,
"I think ISIS is shooting civilians."

Later that day, I was walking
into the house with my ruck on.

Joe Arrington was in front of me,
and I was like,

"Man, Joe, I saw a little girl get shot
today under the bridge."

And he... he turns around.
He looks me square in the eye and says,

"That was Eddie.
Eddie told me he shot those girls today."

And my jaw just dropped,

and I was like, "You gotta be kidding me."

All this suddenly clicked,
and it was a big revelation.

Hey, maybe the times that Eddie said,

"I shot five chicks today,"
bragging about it.

Maybe he wasn't lying.
Maybe he was telling the truth.

That was a huge day for me.

My deployment completely changed.
I couldn't even look him in the eye.

I'm just like,
"I'm frickin' done with you, man."

They changed our ROEs

with the expectation
that we are professional warriors.

We know when to pull the trigger
and when not to.

We know when to take the shot
and when not to.

There is gray area, but there is also area
like shooting women on the Tigris River.

That is not even remotely a gray area.

Eddie came up to me after an operation.

And said that he killed four women today.

And, um...

And I said,
"Why the fuck did you do that?"

Craig was very conscientious,

but in terms of moral leadership,
that was Craig.

And he took that
on himself as his responsibility

to figure out the best way to handle it
without compromising our platoon.

I talked to Dylan Dille.

"What the hell are we gonna, you know?

What are we gonna do about this?"

At that point, we took matters into our
own hands in the best way we could

and just tried to shoot warning shots

to scatter civilians
before Eddie could... could kill them.

I was very close to Eddie

when he was shooting into
a whole crowd of civilians.

I saw Eddie shoot
at a woman along the river.

I saw Eddie try to kill
a young teenage boy.

It's fair to say that

every man, woman and child
that came into his line of sight...

He tried to kill 'em.

It's freaking crazy.

I was in the pink building
on Father's Day.

I was scanning these various positions.

And I just happened to scan back to

a place that we referred to
as Murder Alley.

As soon as my, you know,
scope tracked to... to that spot,

there's two old men standing on a corner.

The shot goes off
and hits the guy on the right.

I clearly saw the bullet strike his body,

and then there was a red splotch,
you know, that big on his kidney area.

He stood up and he was really wobbly,

and he was, like,
grabbing on to all kinds of stuff

to, uh, just try and walk
and get out of there.

Later, his spotter
for that engagement confirmed that

it was Eddie that took that shot.

It really weighed heavily on me
that I had, um, failed.

It felt like I should have been able
to stop that, um,

because we had been successful
so many other times,

shooting warning shots,
getting civilians to scatter.

And…

I…

I just, uh…

Yeah, it-it-it's, uh…

You know, it's hard.

We were there to protect civilians.

Whether that's targeting ISIS
or keeping Eddie from getting 'em.

And in the core of who I am,
that's what we were there to do.

And when you fail to do that,
it, um... it hurts.

I didn't join the SEAL teams
to terrorize a civilian population.

I joined to protect them.

And at that point, I was like,
"Man, what are we doing here?"

Did you ever
intentionally shoot any unarmed civilians?

No.

Did you ever try to kill
an unarmed teenage boy?

No.

Do you remember
ever shooting a little girl?

No.

Their story is that

I was popping pills
the whole deployment like a madman.

I was shooting civilians left and right
in front of them.

It's insane.

Let's just say…
everything they're saying is true.

Why would they not report this up,
you know, to somebody?

Like, "Hey, my chief is, like,
shooting civilians every day."

But instead, they took it upon themselves
to shoot warning shots every day,

trying to save the civilian populace?

Like, that's... It's absurd.

It was reported.

And, as a matter of fact,
on our deployment, the protocol,

if you have an issue to report,
is you go to Craig Miller.

Craig would go to Eddie.
Eddie would go to Jake.

And then it would go up from there
if need be.

The first problem
with that structure is that

Eddie was the one committing the crimes.

When we bypassed Eddie to go to Jake,
Jake did nothing.

On multiple occasions,
we brought it up to Jake that,

"Hey, just so you know,
Eddie is killing civilians,

and we are not all right with it."

As far as I know, on deployment,

the allegations and complaints stopped
at Jake and never went higher.

Have you guys talked about or have fear

that he was just targeting civilians?

You could tell he was perfectly okay
with killing anybody that was moving.

Did he make comments, um, regarding

what his thoughts were on, like, Iraqis?

Was it, like, a racial thing
where he just had no problem

killing anyone in the Middle East at all,
I mean?

I think he's just…
wants to kill anybody he can.

You start off a deployment,
justifying, you know,

the... the dream kill of the guy with...
With material wrapped around his face,

with an AK, you know,
and you're gonna take that guy out.

Well, you don't see that.
So, maybe it's the guy without the gun.

Maybe he's got a shovel
'cause he's digging for IEDs.

And then maybe it's the guy with...
With a beard and no shovel.

And then, you know, you...

That bloodlust starts
to rationalize kills.

And there was no accountability.

You could kill anyone you wanted,
and you'd get away with it.

And I think that's exactly what happened
with Eddie.

You can't act
like a knight in shining armor

and be like, "I'm a Boy Scout,
and I have all these ethics."

ISIS, they use
the civilian populace to their advantage.

You know, they have them help them.

It ranged from old men to women to kids.

Moving weapons for them,
carrying guns for them.

You know, it's on you
if you're gonna engage that person or not.

There can be, like,
a dilemma in that, I guess,

if you start thinking about it.

But it's war.

If you can justify the shot,
and you can sleep well at night,

then go ahead.

All right. So,

let's go back to

why do you think you're here,
first of all?

Probably for the prisoner incident.

Okay.

So, I guess probably

the big incident
that everyone's talking about

is the, uh,

- the prisoner issue.
- Okay.

Obviously this is some big shit, so

take your time.

Gio!

Where's your spot, bro?

May 3rd is a great day for me.
It's a great day for the platoon.

One of the functions that I provide is
targeting information

to my ground force commander.

Where's your spot?

It's over here.

Right here is my spot.

I developed this building
as being a known ISIS stronghold.

And through our JTAC,
we were able to shoot two Hellfires in it.

- Got him?
- Oh, yeah! Fuck yeah, dude!

Yes!

That was me, boys.

Whoo!

And I got positive confirmation

that we had just killed
basically a mid-level commander.

The ISIS guy in charge, the captain,

the dude that was fighting
Iraqis that day,

got taken off the battlefield,
with a few of his cronies,

in one air strike.

The Iraqis go,

and they recover
one of these fighters that's still alive

from the site of this air strike.

It came over the radio that

there was a wounded ISIS fighter being
brought to us by the Iraqi partner force.

And immediately,
everyone was like, "Whoa, this is nuts."

Our platoon has not received
a live ISIS fighter.

Normally, these dudes are dead
well before we get there.

The Iraqi partner force drives
up to our compound

with a guy strapped to a stretcher
on the hood of a Humvee.

I don't know why they brought him back
from up there in the front lines to us

'cause they had never... you know,
they hadn't done that before.

But either way, it was like, "All right,
let's get a look at this dude."

This is a celebratory moment for us.

This is the first time that we have seen
the fruits of our labor up close.

We never crossed the imaginary line

to go actually physically touch
these guys.

I wanna, like, see evil from two feet away

and look into this guy's eyes.
And I asked TC. I was like,

"Are you gonna film this?
This is gonna be crazy."

But when they bring him in,

it kind of immediately becomes clear

it's a 80-pound middle-school-age kid.

He had a wristwatch around his bicep.

That's how skinny he was.

And it's like, this is ugly.

This ain't the grisly ISIS fighter
with a beard

who just got done doing terrible things.

This is like a rebellious kid.

Then Eddie came over the radio and said,
"Nobody touch him. He's all mine."

I hopped out of the vehicle
I was in and walked up.

And there was a crowd
around this ISIS fighter.

I saw he was fucked up, so I was like,

"I'll get the med bag
and start treating this guy

and see whatever information
we can get out of him later."

Eddie came up and had a backpack.

I got it. I got him.

I'm gonna treat him.

He is a medic.
But I've never seen him treat anyone.

He had never helped anyone to that point.

And so, you know, looking back,

it should have been a red flag. Like,
"Hey, why's Eddie showing up right now?"

Eddie's about to put him out, dude.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm gonna help him.

I say something that's very,
um... very dark humor…

Hey, Eddie, this is from my SIGINT strike.

Let me know if you need help.

And the reason why I said that was

because 30 seconds ago
we're trying to kill this guy.

Now we're trying to save his life.

What are they doing to him?

I had no idea that TC turned off
his helmet camera.

I have no idea why he...
He turned his helmet camera off.

What happened after that?

So I came over.
The kid had a wound on his leg.

He had...

I think he had a bandage on it.

He had, like,
a chest tube in when I got there.

And he was unconscious.

And I think they did a crike
while I was there.

Okay.

Corey Scott was a medic,
and so he was so close to it all.

He was right there,
watching Eddie treat the prisoner.

Usually when I'm working on somebody,

you kind of sit,
like, kneel at their head.

So that's where I was,

like, kind of monitoring
his breathing, and

just checking vitals on him, periodically.

Did you think that they were
life-threatening injuries that he had?

I don't think so.

At that point in time, like,
he probably wasn't gonna die.

And then

all of a sudden
Eddie just starts stabbing the dude.

Like, all of a sudden Eddie's, like,
stabbing this dude in the neck.

Our medics were
working on him, and then

he was on his last leg,

and Eddie finished him.

How did he finish him?
Did you actually see it happen?

Yeah, I saw it happen.

What did you actually see Gallagher do?

I saw him stab him.

Did you actually see him stab him?

Or did you just walk up
after the guy was already dead?

No, I saw him put
the knife into the guy's neck.

I saw him put the knife in the neck.

That's without a doubt.

It was like a holy shit moment, like,

no idea what to do.

I kind of looked around.

I was like,
"Who else is seeing this?" And then,

like, I kind of stayed at the dude's head,
and then...

Like, for a few minutes until he died.

There's nothing I could do at this point.
And, uh, so I left that scene

and, uh,

just tried to, like, catch my breath,

and, like, try to, like,
just think about what I just saw.

As I was walking back to the truck,

Craig was just pissed off
and said something to the effect of,

"This whole situation is,
you know, fucked up."

I saw the ISIS guy laying there, expired.

I noticed that he had
a lot of work done to him.

That there was
a tube sticking out of his neck.

There was bandages and medical dressing
and wrappers all over the place.

I was just repulsed
by the whole situation.

You can't take a prisoner of war

and then stab them in the neck.

You can't do that,
according to the Geneva Convention.

Everybody knows that.

There isn't a single special operator

that doesn't know
what he can and can't do.

How do you handle that?

Do you tackle your chief onto the ground?

Take the knife from him?

When someone is firing upon you,
you can fire back.

But what makes us the best fighting force
in the world is that

we have constraint
when they're laying there a prisoner.

We're better than stooping to that level.

The level of ISIS.

We hold ourselves to a higher standard
because we can.

Corey Scott says that you

suddenly walked over, pulled out a knife

and stabbed the detainee
in the neck, twice.

Mm-hmm.

I have no...
No, I did not stab him in the neck.

I'll say, once the IO, um, chest...

The IO was put in, um,

the guy did not flinch.

I was like, "Is this guy dead?"

He's, you know... Obviously,
I was like, "I think he's gone."

Um, Corey was like, "Yeah, I think...
I don't... I think he is too."

Uh, I was like, "All right, check to see,
you know... Check for a pulse."

I had leaned down, uh, or got on my knees

and thumped him in the eye
to see if there was any reaction.

I couldn't tell if he moved or whatever
when I thumped him or not.

Um, but we were pretty positive.

Like, all right, this guy's gone.

At that point, I pulled a knife out,

and I poked him in the side of the ribs
where he had a wound.

It was... His shirt was still there, so
I... There was no skin broken or anything.

I just jabbed him real quick. No movement.
And that was it. I literally put it away.

I was like, "This dude is done."
Um, and that's all that happened.

What happened on scene
after Gallagher stabbed this individual?

You know, after this whole thing,

I think photographs were taken.

And at one point,

it was like,
"Hey, we're taking a group picture."

I was sitting in the truck,

and Jake says,
"Hey, De-de, we're taking a photo."

And I immediately was like,

"Nope. I know what this is...
I... I can see where this is going."

He asked me one more time.
Like, "Hey, get in this photo."

And I was like, "Jake,
I'm not getting in the fucking picture."

I got out of the truck
and watched from the edge.

And then Jake was reading
Eddie Gallagher's reenlistment ceremony

over this dead ISIS fighter's body.

I wanted to reenlist in a combat zone.

It's where I had reenlisted before.

And Jake was like, "We have free time now.
Do you want to reenlist now?"

And I was like,
"Yeah, let's... All right. Awesome idea."

When you reenlist,
you raise your right hand.

Swear the oath again.

I'm gonna give five more years
of my life to this job.

That's, like, the ceremony,
and I was able to get it done.

There just happened to be
a dead ISIS fighter there.

When we were driving back from that day,

I thought we were done operating.

I thought there was too many people
taking selfies, taking photos.

Some international law enforcement
is gonna show up tomorrow morning.

I thought I was gonna be
in trouble just for being there.

I was like, "It's not if this gets out,

it's when it gets out."

Because Eddie is way too narcissistic
to keep that internal.

The gravity of the situation,
I think, began to manifest itself.

Like, we are so screwed.

Like, we're all going to jail.

Like, we're done.

Craig called the meeting
and is talking about,

"Hey, I'm not all right with this.
Who else isn't all right with it?"

And a bunch of hands raise.

Craig's like, "I'm telling you right now,
this is not Alpha Platoon.

This is not what we do.
This is not why we came here.

And it's not gonna happen again."

At some point, Corey Scott,
he said something to the effect of,

"I don't want the video of me assisting
Eddie with war crimes floating around."

And then Gio was like,
"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let's not throw around
this word 'war crimes.'"

And I absolutely said, "Absolutely not.
That's not a war crime.

Don't even say that.
Like, you have no idea,

when you start throwing around
those terms,

what can come from it."

At which point Eddie walked in,
right at that moment.

And he said, "All right,
all senior E-6s in my room, right now."

He sat down, and he said,

"You know, I don't know
why you guys are not okay with this."

ISIS does terrible things to kids.

The fact that you guys are upset with this
is completely fucked up,

but I get it.

So, next time I do this,
it'll be out of sight, out of mind,

"and you won't even have
to know that it happened."

I think he's taking what I said
and again distorting it.

But I definitely said
something along the lines of, like,

"Hey, yeah, if you're not cool
with what happened,

if you have a problem with it,
that's your prerogative.

Like, that's... that's fine."

And that's when I was like,
"You know, delete it."

Never once did they say,
"We're not good with the stabbing."

Or we're not good with
whatever they were accusing me of.

It was the pictures the whole time.

There is no doubt
in anyone's mind what happened.

Eddie came in bragging about it.

The debate wasn't,
"Did Eddie kill a prisoner?"

The debate was "Eddie killed
a prisoner, but is that okay?"

There's no training of
how to report your chief for war crimes.

Outside of going to Jake,

it didn't seem like
we had any other options.

And so I felt pretty trapped
and that nothing was gonna get done

until we could get home
and talk to people who cared.

Everybody knew that
the backlash was going to be intense.

Like, this was gonna have catastrophic
consequences to Naval Special Warfare.

W-We just didn't know
how big the damage was gonna be.

Shortly after getting back
from deployment,

a text thread was started
called the Sewing Circle.

That text message thread was
essentially just a group of guys

that were really upset with
what happened on deployment

and didn't know what to do.

No one was holding anything back
from any SEAL who said,

"Hey, how was deployment?"

If you're a SEAL and you could possibly be
serving under Eddie Gallagher,

you need to know this information.

These stories that started
to permeate through the community

came back to Eddie, and he was just livid.

As soon as I got back,
I had two guys come up to me

from other platoons telling me that,

"Hey, some of your guys in your platoon
are running their mouth about you."

And they're saying that I was putting them
in dangerous situations.

And the big thing was that I was a thief.

Which is the first time I was like,
"Wait a minute. I'm a... ".

Like, they called me...
Like, the aggressiveness

and putting them and me in bad situations,
I was like, "Whatever."

But being called a thief,
that really pissed me off.

It all started to come to a head,

probably within a week of
us getting back home.

I think that Eddie started to hear
what people had been talking about.

Hearing it from other sources.

It clearly bothered him,
and he convened a meeting in the high-bay.

I said, "Let's get this out in the open."

I've been hearing a lot of rumors.

Being called a thief.

You don't like my tactics.

Just get it all out right now.

Tell me what I stole

because I've never been called
a thief before.

"And I'm...
That's what I'm most pissed about."

And in my mind, I'm like,
"Dude, I called you a murderer

and a lot of other things
worse than a thief."

Vriens brought up that
he thought my tactics were dangerous.

And I told him,
since he's on his second platoon,

that he was so experienced
and all of his knowledge.

I was like, "I'm not gonna get into
a debate about... with tactics,

you know, with you."

Eddie came down,
tried to control the conversation

and base it around
PowerBars and cookie butter.

But when we brought up
some of the other stuff,

he didn't even want to talk about it.

You know,
we didn't even get to the civilians

or the prisoner in that conversation.

Eddie had said, "Look,
the way that we conducted ourselves,

that's just your opinion.

And when you're a chief,
then you can make those decisions."

And after the meeting ended,
and Eddie left, I remember saying,

"The Law of Armed Conflict
is not an opinion."

It's a very rare occurrence
that SEALs are, you know,

going against one of their own.

So navigating the process was
completely foreign.

We always wanted to handle it
at the lowest level possible

and cause the least damage
to the SEAL teams as possible.

So Craig immediately
went to Jake and said,

"Jake, I'm using my chain of command.
I'm going to you first.

The guys aren't happy with
what happened on deployment,

and it's got to be rectified."

When Jake came back,
he was like, "Listen,

these guys bombarded me,
getting me to, like, turn on you."

And they were also telling Jake
a bunch of lies.

Um, telling Jake
that I manipulated him, that...

They're trying to get in his head.
Um, and he admitted... He was like,

"You know, at first I started getting
mad at you, but now I'm... I'm... I'm back.

I know this is all... It's all bullshit."

Jake was completely on Eddie's side.

So, it was clear that
Jake was just gonna cover for Eddie.

Everything that we're given
during training is

"report it to your chain of command."

Great. So we reported to our chain of
command several times, several times.

Just keeps getting kicked back down to us.

And then, at that point

we reported it to our troop SEA,
Master Chief Alazzawi.

He came up to me personally, and he said,

"Hey, man, we can't have guys that are
shooting little girls in SEAL teams.

All right? So don't worry about this.
I'm going to handle this."

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

We need to go through,
and figure out what you heard.

What your interactions have been
with SOC Gallagher,

looking into this investigation.

Overall, great platoon.

I don't know if you need this or not.

I mean, they were
a great platoon on paper.

At the time,
Eddie Gallagher was a rock star.

Alazzawi and I's relationship was good.
He came over and pulled me out,

and we sat down in a room.

And he said, "Listen, these guys came
to me with these accusations."

Did you ever ask him
what happened that day?

In not so many words. I said,

"Hey, man. The guys are coming out with

some pretty strong allegations
against you."

And he said, "Whatever it is that
they're talking about, I can clear it."

- "I'm comfortable that I can clear it."
- Okay.

It definitely felt like
he had the full backing of the command.

We didn't have friends
that were master chiefs that had our back

like Eddie did.

Everything gets reported multiple times,
and nothing happens.

Nothing happens. Nothing happens.
And that process took six months.

And then we find out that
Eddie was in a... a command

where he was running
the classes for new officers.

There was obviously nothing being done,

and I think they just hoped that
nothing was going to be done.

When Eddie went over to the SOUC,

which is our Special Operations
and Urban Combat,

he was put in a position of power

where he was gonna be able
to influence everyone,

not just Team 7,
but all the West Coast teams.

It was an incentive
to blow the whistle against him.

If we didn't do something

and force these situations
to get brought to a higher level,

Eddie could potentially lead more SEALs,

put SEALs in harm's way,
and kill more civilians.

And that was too much weight
for anyone to bear.

And so it... you know,

it was time to elevate
the situation as a whole.

Master Chief Alazzawi sat down with us
and said, "Here's the deal, guys.

Just know that if you do
a NCIS investigation,

there's gonna be a huge frag radius."

Meaning maybe
a lot of people get in trouble.

A frag radius is like,
when you're talking about a hand grenade,

how far out
the shrapnel is gonna get thrown,

and how far out
people are gonna get fragged

from the center of impact, right?

So, if Eddie's the center of impact,

how many other people
are gonna get hurt by this investigation?

We were fully aware of that.

We knew that there were pictures,

and we said, "You know what?

So what if we get in trouble?

There's something bigger here,
and it needs to be done."

I called a meeting with the... the boys.

We were like,

- "Hey, fellas, this is an NCIS problem."
- Okay.

"Take it to the 1-800 hotline.
Make a call.

That's how it gets investigated."

I'm like, "Fellas, you guys understand

the frag radius on this is fucking major.

Like,

here we go."

We all met up in the BUD/S classroom.

There was ten of us in there.

We basically took a vote and said,

"Who's in favor of
launching an investigation?"

Speaking out against our chief
comes with huge consequences.

Tons of things were at risk.

Reputation, career.

Just the feeling of being a "snitch."

Putting my family in danger.

And I kept asking myself, like,
"What the heck am I doing?"

We knew that it was gonna get really ugly.

Everyone's worried about, kind of,
what's gonna happen from the fallout.

Are we prepared for this?

I think everyone just wanted to know
we all had each other's back.

Everyone's gonna stick together
through this.

I actually looked at Corey
to see if he was okay with this

because he was so close to it all.

And he put his hand up,
you know, right away.

Corey Scott was actually the big push.

His exact words were something like,

"If Eddie goes on
and does another deployment

and gets one of our students
hurt or killed,

how could we look
their parents in the eyes,

"knowing that we could've stopped him?"

And I was like, "Hell yeah,
let's go to war, boys. I don't care if...

How many master chiefs and...
And officers don't agree with us.

I know what I saw.

You guys know what you saw.
Let's do this."

So you guys have been trying
to report this since you got back,

basically?

Yeah. It was, I mean,

a very, like, challenging thing
for us to deal with. And, like,

we're trying to report it to people

and then get it dealt with,
and it just gets pushed back down.

This thing has been, you know,

a weight on a lot of people
for a long time.

The big purging,

and the big weight off my shoulders was
when I reported everything to NCIS.

Because I knew that that set
something in motion that was huge.

But I was also expecting that
as soon as this all got out

that Eddie would just try
and silence everyone.

Do you believe
that the guys back in San Diego

are at risk from him?

Yeah, I do.

I think their families are.

I think he's a dangerous person.

And I think if he… if he gets the chance,

he might act upon that.

We were in fear for our safety

because Eddie Gallagher was
consistently going past our house.

It came to the point where, you know,

I was going to put
my young child in the car,

and I'm stepping out my front door.

And here comes Eddie, smiling at me.

Kind of letting me know that
he knew where I lived.

So I'm going to protect my family
how I need to protect them.

The day after I gave an NCIS interview,

I went straight to the gun store
and bought a home defense weapon.

I think everyone felt
the pressure to beef up their self-defense

and be ready for
a retaliatory, uh, action.

Not once had I threatened any of them.

I literally made sure
I didn't have contact with any of them.

I was done talking to them.

Am I dangerous? Yeah, I can be dangerous
if you force me to get to that level.

What kind of knife did Eddie carry?

It was Half Face Blades.

Did you ever see that knife
after the deployment?

After deployment? No.

Do you think
he still has it, realistically?

I would put money on it
that he has the knife still.

Whether it's at his house,
whether he framed it,

whether it's still in his go box,
I don't know.

I get a phone call to come into work,

and there was
about six NCIS agents in there.

And they took me
over to an interrogation room,

and that's where Joe Warpinski came in
and said that I was being investigated.

What we're going
to talk about today is that there are

issues with a case involving

the Law of Armed Conflict
and a murder case.

Mmm. Just so...
No disrespect to you guys or anything,

but I've been advised not to answer
any questions without my lawyer.

Like, at all. And I don't...

I'm not trying to sound like a dick.
I just…

Have never gone through
any of this stuff before.

Okay, we'll be back.

They left the room
and didn't come back for seven hours.

My daughter called me.

She's like, "Mom, where are you?
The boys are outside in their underwear.

There is police everywhere."

And I'm like,
"Wh-What are you talking about?"

I arrive on the scene.
It looks like something out of a movie.

There's, like,
seven to ten armored vehicles.

There's people that look like

they're literally going to war
in full militia riot gear.

There's people just streaming
out of my house.

When they raided his house,

they found his knife.

And they found, from his own phone
to his friends, a text message.

I knew that that picture and that text,

which was sent to one of my best friends,
looked pretty damning.

But it was dark humor.

I wish I would have never,
like, said that,

but it was now being used against me.
Like, "See, he admitted to it."

That's when I knew.

I was like, "I'm getting fucked."

Unfortunately for NCIS,
they messed with the wrong family.