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  • Rangers problem.

  • Best kept secrets in or me.

  • They can do special missions in support of national directors that no other unit can do.

  • Ranger Creed is what you live by.

  • That's what you follow.

  • You lived on entire creek.

  • Every word in there is important.

  • Nobody wants to have to deal with a mass casualty combat search and rescue, where you know you're going into a situation where you know there's potentially no survivors.

  • But certain people are called to do certain things, and that's what we do.

  • The grim drama has been unfolding at 10,000 feet in the mountains of Afghanistan.

  • We can't report all the facts yet because American lives are still at stake.

  • Yeah, all right.

  • We finally get to the crash site.

  • Son was just about coming up on Cassie.

  • Fire still going on.

  • And the crash site is literally on the side of a steep ledge.

  • We secure the area and we started pulling a perimeter.

  • We hope that we when we came in, we would find alive crew members.

  • No, but we did it.

  • There was nothing left of the helicopter on.

  • This is a Chinook.

  • It's It's a big helicopter and the only thing that resembled a helicopter with some rotor blades.

  • You know, there was nothing left, man.

  • It's It's one of those sites that you don't ever want to see.

  • And once you see it, if you ever have to see it, you'll it will never forget it.

  • A lot of the bodies were really mangled.

  • There was bodies that weren't even bodies, you know, they were just ashes.

  • As a young guy, I was like Holy smokes.

  • I didn't think that was possible.

  • How?

  • How does a body just get burnt up like that?

  • My platoon was on security.

  • The second platoon was on body recovery.

  • I think it was late in the day when they finally recovered all 16.

  • The whole time Intel's being gathered about one person process possibly being captured.

  • My blocking position was right next to the command center and I get over here.

  • Everything going on, they're hearing radio chatter about a live American, one of the radios that initial seal team had had with them.

  • I should have been kept on the individual, so once it's started moving, we thought that there was a survivor pushed out one platoon going down to the village where the equipment and sent off a signal information is being passed down was that there is an American being hidden.

  • So we start searching the buildings Way assumed that the village was like any other village.

  • Then we just started clearing it as it's known threat.

  • So we started kicking in doors.

  • We're asking people where the Americans are, and of course, they speaking, you know, Pashtu and we're speaking English and doesn't translate.

  • So it's pointing to an American flag patch on his shoulder.

  • And you know where the Americans way start Hearing commotion going on down the mountain and at this point is when we start seeing a bunch of men pushing another guy, and he's tall, taller than everybody else.

  • When I get down there, I see that it's an American that's dressed up with the Afghan hat and Afghan dress on and everything they do.

  • You know, the ordinary hate, what's your name and the security questions, and they find out that it's one of the seals that was missing.

  • There's a radio transmission saying, Hey, we've got control of Marcus Luttrell.

  • My name is Marcus Luttrell, on 39 years old and I'm from Texas.

  • I didn't kid myself.

  • I didn't tell myself that I was gonna make it out of there.

  • But I did tell myself that my boys were coming to get me.

  • If I could hold out, we'll be OK.

  • That's what I did.

  • I just waited.

  • How long it took?

  • No, I also put in the back of my head that I was an expendable asset.

  • I'm a Navy SEAL.

  • I get paid to take risks and die if necessary.

  • That's one of you to join in for the job because of that line right there.

  • That's how sexy and cool it is.

  • But then when it's really happening, you're like, Wait a minute.

  • But make no mistake forever in trouble.

  • And you call the Rangers and they'll come get her ass.

  • That is, Oh, bring everything.

  • I mean, sure, there's a lobster.

  • There's a lot to it.

  • They love the satisfaction of saying they gotta come rescue our ass all time.

  • That's got to be part of it.

  • Why wouldn't it be all right?

  • Do you recall Marcus saying that he would never live down being rescued by Army Rangers?

  • At least he could make light of the situation that, you know he was in.

  • I just never sit against that wall.

  • I mean, and I was beat up, too, But I remember looking at Damn it.

  • Just gotta think like this guy doesn't know me.

  • He doesn't know anything about me, but he just went through hell to come get me, man.

  • There's a chance he he wouldn't like me if you knew me.

  • It doesn't matter.

  • Just sitting back and looking to go, Man.

  • These guys got a phone call saying I was jammed up.

  • That is pretty good chance they weren't gonna make it out of there if they came to get me.

  • All right, Miles.

  • Good game.

  • It was a total of four on the team.

  • And so, you know, the next questions is hate.

  • Where is everybody else?

  • They were like, Where's your, uh there's a rescue team.

  • I was a dead man, but I don't.

  • I'm not sad at the fact how they died.

  • And in combat next to your brother's file, a brass.

  • That's how we die.

  • Now we have solid answer of Okay, There's only one survivor.

  • So we're looking for three more.

  • You know, Kay is at least we had an answer to the fate of that reconnaissance team.

  • At this point, Brian starts assigning the rest of the guys that we're back at the crash site to start doing body recovery because we know they're dead.

  • But we don't know where they're at, and we never leave a fallen comrade behind.

  • One of our guys slipped into a little Washington had actually stumbled on on the 1st 2 remains that we found markets.

  • And we have to.

  • Now we're looking for the needle in the haystack is to, you know, where's the fourth and final member of this team For the next 10 days?

  • We continued to search.

  • We weren't leaving there until we found the third body.

  • But my higher power said, Hey, you got to go.

  • If they had kept telling us to stay, we would have stayed.

  • That would say, within eight hours of us getting relieved, they had found, um, the final missing American Rangers did what they were asked today.

  • They completed the mission.

  • We thought we were going in for eight hours.

  • We stayed there for 12 days.

  • It was our job was admission.

  • Bodies were recovered, equipment was destroyed, captured U.

  • S.

  • Service members was rescued.

  • Way saved someone.

  • That is an accomplishment.

  • And it wasn't me.

  • It was the men of Charlie Company, Second Ranger Battalion.

  • Unique things about this particular operation is it showed the ability of our military to come together as one fighting unit and get something done.

  • All right, guys died.

  • It was a Let's go.

  • And it worked like a surgeon's scalpel, man, just to get me out of there, get the boys back home.

  • I couldn't walk outside right now.

  • Somebody would help me change my tire.

  • These guys were Middle Afghanistan, and they're just don't know me from Adam.

  • And they walked through them straight to the gates of hell.

  • Shake hands with the devil.

  • Come get me.

  • Because that's where I was at.

  • I was in hell, So I did it.

  • Our creed ends with you.

  • Really?

  • Will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission.

  • Though I be the lone Survivor Ranger Regiment makes you a better man.

  • It makes you the best warrior there is flat out on time.

  • I'll go to my grave believing that you can sleep safely.

  • I know that there's people like that.

  • They're gonna defend your country.

  • I'm problem.

Rangers problem.

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