WEBVTT - Help 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:09.959 There was been a recruiter, an army recruiter when I 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:14.040 worked at Bank of America who wanted me to come in. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:15.640 Was like, hey, man, you come over and fill out 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:16.680 some paperwork for me. 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.320 Before Robert Bales enlisted in the military in two thousand 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.599 and one, he was working in financial services as a 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.360 broker dealer, but when two planes crashed into the World 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:32.800 Trade Center, the twenty eight year old felt compelled to 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:33.559 make a change. 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:39.640 September eleventh happens, and I'm literally in watching it happen. 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:42.840 That morning when we were long oil contracts and oil 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.600 and gas futures, the price shot way up. So the 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.120 guy I'm working for is happy. He's like, man, we're 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.800 going to make tons of money off this. You know, 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:54.880 we're gonna make tons of money. And like the whole 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:56.440 time is sitting here and I'm like, man, I can't 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.040 do this. I was like, this is just morally wrong. 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.600 And I hear my dad talking to me, Man, life's 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.480 more than about money. Life's more than about money, you know. 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.400 I went back to that army recruiter and I enlisted 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:10.760 and join the army. And if you're not the first 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:15.240 guy in line stand up for America. 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:14.959 What's wrong with you? 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:18.800 Previously, I'm the war within. 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.640 I grew up in Norwith, Ohio, blue collar town. 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:23.839 We didn't have much money. 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:26.840 He was really popular before he turned thirty. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.880 Nobody joins the army after September eleventh to be. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:30.360 The bad guy. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.280 I think that people like Bobby Baals are probably inherently broken. 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.280 He started publicly becoming a little bit more unhinged. 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.200 Part construe dark Hole, all report over there. 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.759 He starts looking for people like who is here? Who isn't. 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.680 I was interviewing a little girl and she said to me, 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.200 I saw many soldiers with lights, and they came and 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:53.040 they killed myself. 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.200 I'm Mike McGinnis. This is the war within the Robert 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:08.960 Baal story. In the mid nineteen nineties, long before his 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.839 days as a soldier, Robert Bales went to Ohio State 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.000 University with dreams of playing for the famous Buck Guys 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:18.480 football team. After failing to secure a spot on the roster, 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.560 he searched for a different way to spend his free time. 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:24.400 I thought maybe I had a chance to play at 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:29.000 Ohio State. I didn't, you know, But when I got 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.560 up there, the school wasn't in yet, so I needed 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.200 to find a job, right, so I started interning at 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:36.000 Smith Barney. 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.120 At the time, Smith Barney was one of the nation's 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.120 premier wealth management firms during the rise of Wall Street. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.920 It was basically a household name, due in part to 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:48.639 a classic commercial. 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.920 Smith Bonnie is among a handful of top investment firms 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:56.840 singled out for their work in research. Smith Barney they 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.600 make money the old fashioned way. 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.360 As a college kid, Bales was enticed by the opportunity 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.600 to work in this prestigious industry. 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.680 I really wanted to be successful. I really wanted not 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.639 to have to worry about money the way my mom 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:15.600 and dad did. And I want to be able to 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.480 take care of him. And so I started working at 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:22.560 Smith Barney for a broker there and just doing terrible 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:27.280 work really, you know, phone calls and envelope stuffing things 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.280 like that. One day there's this other broker that shows 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.160 up and he's trying to do business with Smith Barney 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.240 and he is one part owner and a small broker 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.280 dealer in Columbus, Ohio, and he had had some real 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.760 success very early. So the guy's probably thirty five years old. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.800 You know, he's wearing the rolelegs, you know, he's living 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.160 the life, you know. So here I am this blue 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:54.120 collar kid with no money, and it's not only attractive, 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.000 it's where I want to be. So I started working 0:03:58.040 --> 0:03:59.560 for him. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.640 Was decided to drop out of Ohio State before graduation 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.800 to pursue his Series seven exam and become a registered 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.440 securities trader between the years of nineteen ninety six and 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.440 two thousand. He advanced in this cutthroat field. 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.280 If you go to work in a broker dealer, you're 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.240 gonna work hard. And so if I'm going to start 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:19.880 at the bottom or something, I want to make sure 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:21.479 that when I climb to the top of that ladder, 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:22.400 it's where I want to be. 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:24.159 What that guy saw. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.560 In me was an aggressive nature, to be tenacious to 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.320 the point of, you know, telling you what I think 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.480 and putting it all on the line. And I think 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.760 that he saw a little bit of just you know, 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.119 the hunger, you know, the real hunger to do something 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:44.480 other people aren't willing to do. My thought process here, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.080 I saw not only the money, but I saw what 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:51.640 I could do with the money and help people. Like 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:53.719 I know it sounds kind of crazy, but you know, 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.360 who's more important than a guy's taking care of the money. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.920 When someone in bails his position and is elevating your 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:05.080 net worth, there's no better friend to have. But when 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:10.799 their investments aren't making money, it's a different story. Early 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.040 on in Bob's tenure as a trader, his firm embarked 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.280 on a new strategy we. 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:17.239 Called a bunch of people. 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.159 Met a bunch of people, and through one of those people, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.480 they were talking about individual community bank stocks. So they 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.040 were very thinly traded, but they were moneymakers, and they 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.839 were great investments, and they were great investments over time. 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:33.720 So we would come in and buy out these blocks 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.679 of these small community bank stocks, and we would piece 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.320 them out instead of to five people in town, and 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:41.920 piece it out to twenty five people or fifty people 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.880 in town. And we did very well with this, and 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:50.599 so these were super stable, consistent investments. And this is 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.680 a time when the dot com thing was going on, 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.039 so everybody's flying these high flying dot com things, and 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.159 in my mind, I'm building a business. It's going to 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.680 be here for the next fifty years. And I'm a 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.680 young guy. I'm aggressive, but at the time I totally 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.000 believed in what we were doing. 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.360 At twenty six years old, Bales was managing over twenty 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.360 two million dollars of client funds when his company's previously 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.360 sound model took a downturn. 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.240 In nineteen ninety nine, we bought a bank out of 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:25.000 West Virginia. On paper, it was the number one community 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.039 bank in the country. The book value was one hundred 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.760 dollars more than a share price. I bought stock in it. 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.400 I put my family's money into it, I put friends 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.120 money into it, and in September of nineteen ninety nine, 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:38.520 they shut the bank down. 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.839 Full disclosure here. We reached out to a bunch of 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.640 people in the hopes of better understanding what happened with 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:51.160 this West Virginia bank, Bob's old boss, some form of clients, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.080 third parties, nobody took us up on our invitation to talk. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.880 What follows is Bob's version of what trans fired. 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.320 And what this bank was doing was they were fraudulently 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.440 keeping their books. They were cooking the books for lack 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:07.600 of a better way to do it. They were packaging 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.200 up loans and selling the loans off, leaving the loans 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:15.840 on the books, and basically inflating what they were doing. 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.640 So the company we worked for basically shut down. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.280 That West Virginia Bank was the first national bank of Keystone. 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.400 It was supposedly quite profitable, with assets totally over a 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.720 billion dollars until a regulatory agency discoveredy five hundred and 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:39.240 fifteen million dollar discrepancy on their books. The US government 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.640 would later close the bank, drawing intense scrutiny towards the 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.920 brokers who touted it as a good investment. 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.240 I had purchased for a client this bank stock and 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.120 the bank went out of business. What I did that 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:55.320 was wrong wasn't that I purchased the bank and it 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.360 went out of business. It was my client was in 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.760 the hospital at the time and I didn't get his authorization. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:06.120 What I did do, and this is not mitigating because 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.320 I contacted his wife. I'd taken this guy from two 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.960 hundred thousand dollars to two million dollars. He's not going 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.160 to tell me no, right Like, let's be honest about it. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.480 If I did that for you in five years, would 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:23.480 you tell me no? Anyway, I put him into this 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:28.320 bank and lost money, lost a lot of money. There 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.640 was an arbitration suit against me, lost my brokerage. 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:37.520 License in May of two thousand. Bails and his Bosses 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.160 were sued by Gary and Janet Leebschner, an aging couple 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.520 that had invested with the firm. The suit aledge that 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.400 the company systematically pressured elderly customers into buying stock in 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.679 the First National Bank of Keystone, falsely implying that the 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.839 bank would soon go public. Decades later, Bail still has 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:57.920 a hard time reconciling what happened. 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.000 I was greedy to like I literally thought we were 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.720 gonna make millions of dollars off this investment. And I 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:06.760 thought it would be enough to where I didn't have 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.800 to work like that anymore. You know, I think it 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:11.040 would have changed my life. 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:11.760 You know. 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:16.240 It was a true feeling of letting people down, you know, 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.640 like people work twenty years, thirty years for this money 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:21.640 and you lose them that money. 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:22.719 Man. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.600 I mean, they trusted me, you know, and think about that. 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.400 They believed in me enough to give their labor to me, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:31.040 and I screwed it. 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:35.520 Up with the arbitration process. In his own fate and 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.360 Limbo Biles decided it was time to get out of 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.560 Ohio and turn over a new leaf. 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.320 I really loved Florida. I figured if I had to 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.760 start over, I'm going to go to Florida because it's 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:54.320 son had fun right. So I had a total of 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.160 four hundred dollars cash, I had a car that was 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.080 paid off. I jumped in my car twenty seven years old. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:02.520 Drive to Florida. 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.440 Ended up meeting some people from a first Investors group 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.160 of West Palm Beach and started working trading oil and 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.199 gas futures. Like I still thought I could get up, 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.600 you know, like I'm in an industry where I can 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.000 make money. Once I make the money, I can go 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:19.959 back and take care of. 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:20.960 This, you know. 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.640 And so that was my thought process. And once I 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:25.719 make the money here, I'll come back and take care 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.840 of these people here, and then, you know, obviously September 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.719 eleventh kind of changed my mind. 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.760 It's SAT fifty two here in New York. We understand 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.200 that there has been a plane crash on the southern 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.200 tip of Manhattan. We understand that a plane has crashed 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.360 into the World Trade Center. We don't know anything more 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:45.640 than that. 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:48.719 I have another one. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.880 Another plane just hit right. 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:52.360 Oh my gosh, another. 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:54.920 Plane had just hit hit another building. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:11:00.400 Were right into the middle of it. Explosion was definitely 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:01.640 looked like it was on purpose. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:11.040 Sitting in Leavenworth. Documentarian Paul Pulowski asked Bales whether, at 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.920 such an uncertain moment in his life, America's response to 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.280 the nine to eleven attacks presented a different path forward. 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.520 After everything you've been through, obviously, you know, give banked 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.400 about where were you kind of seeking some purpose? 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:27.960 You know, that's a that's a good question. 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.040 You know, was I seeking purpose in my life? And 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:37.160 I would say most definitely when September eleventh happened, it 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.720 was a way to give back feeling of trying to 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.000 make it right, you know, trying to make something right, 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:44.800 you know what I mean. Hell, I couldn't do anything 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:46.040 else right, I may as well try that. 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:46.440 You know. 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.080 Bales was already serving in Iraq by the time the 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.520 arbitration really came in. When all was sudden done, the 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.040 defendants were fined one point two million dollars in damages. 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.120 At that point, the trading firm had already filed for 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:06.439 bankruptcy and had been expelled from the industry. The elderly 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.120 couple never got the retirement funds back. 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:20.320 I sure don't think I would have lived in my 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.959 car if I had a million dollars sitting back somewhere. 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:28.000 I sure, don't think I would have went in the infantry. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.959 The rationale behind Baals' decision to enlist after nine to 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:36.400 eleven was complex. Yes, he believed it was his patriotic 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.840 duty to fight terrorism, but in his mind he also 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.240 had debts that he somehow had to repay. 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.160 She told me about it. He could screw up really 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.280 God previously and made some core decisions. 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.240 The soldier ex repalls a conversation where Bailes confided in 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:53.960 him about this scandal. 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:54.320 From his past. 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.800 He essentially talked about how he was in charge of 0:12:57.880 --> 0:12:59.920 large sums of money for people, and he ultimately wat 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.160 I stood all rust a whole bunch of people's party. 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.400 He was like, I'll have to do something different with 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.400 my life because I felt so bad at this. 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.400 Bob also discussed the situation with soldier David Lesley when 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.920 they served together. In his retelling of it so many 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.000 years later. One comment stands out. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.160 I remember him telling me a little bit of his story, 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.000 and what I gathered the most from what he was 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.280 saying was that they were people who weren't doing the 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.440 right thing around him, and he had to take blame 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:28.160 for that as well. 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.720 He wanted to make sure everyone was protecting, contacting. 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.480 It's a point that Robert Bales has made repeatedly. He 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.720 put upon himself the safety and security of his peers 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.480 and his loved ones. He bore the burden for the 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.680 well being of a lot of people like Wade, his 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:46.440 next door neighbor with special needs. 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.000 Wade half falling down a flight of steps, broke his hip. 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:51.840 And so I took a year off before I went 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.240 back to Ohio State. And so it was a lot 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.400 of rehab to get him back to normal. It wasn't 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:58.920 like this was a job. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:04.760 This is my brother on deployments too. Bales wanted to 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.440 be the person in charge of getting everybody back to 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:08.840 the States in one piece. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:11.720 How was the guy that people turned to to bring 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.199 their loved ones back home? Their family members came and 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.920 talked to me, and so did I feel responsible? 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:17.320 Yes? 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:18.480 I felt responsible. 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.360 Just days before the killings, Bales blamed himself for another 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.360 soldier's dismemberment. In his mind, he should have shot the 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.680 person who triggered the faithful ied Asbury. 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.120 They took his leg off of not having shot the Afghan. 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.160 You know, it's hard to say, man, I mean I 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:39.840 feel responsible a. 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:44.240 Little bit Why does Bals keep harping on this? Why 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.080 is he so eager to tell the world that he 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.880 always takes care of other people? Is there something else 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.960 that he's implying but not saying about the Kandahar Masaker. 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:59.520 During his interview, David Wesley made another interesting remark that 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.240 we've heard whispers of before. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.800 The army turned a blind eye to a soldier that 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.760 obviously needed not to deploy anymore. 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:11.600 To me, they're culpable. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:16.040 What he did was wrong, but he didn't do it 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:20.320 without assistance, and a part of me believes that it 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:21.880 might not have been him alone. 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:22.440 Outside the wire. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.960 Bob Bels didn't do this alone. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:27.240 He had help. 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.520 The phrasing of Wesley's point compelled our producer Max Nelson 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:32.400 to follow up. 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.920 You said one thing there that we don't quote people 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.040 out of context, So I want to check on one 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.240 thing when you said Bob Bells didn't do this alone 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:41.800 yet help. 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:42.840 What you mean by that? 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.520 I meant exactly what I said, Bob didn't do this 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:47.840 on his own. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.320 I remember sitting on the ground and turning on my camera. 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.520 I was interviewing a little girl sitting there with her grandfather, 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.320 and he was saying to her tell her what we saw. 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.200 Remember yalde Hakim, the reporter who risked her life to 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.840 interview the Afghan victims of Bales's attacks and heard some 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.080 startling perspectives in the process. 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.880 But something that stayed with me and that I found 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.960 quite chilling, was that she said to me, I saw 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:28.960 many soldiers with lights, dude headlights coming out of their helmets, 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.240 and I saw many many soldiers and they came and 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.840 they killed my father. Another child was saying there were 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.920 multiple people, and then later some of the adults started 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:39.600 to say. 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:40.720 He wasn't on his own. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:41.800 There's multiple people. 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.320 President karas I was then saying, we're hearing that there's 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:46.360 more than one soldier. 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:47.800 What is actually going on here? 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.600 So that was also clouding the clarity. 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.680 That we were trying to establish in terms of whether 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:55.480 it was just bails or whether there was more to it. 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.600 The United States never took these statements made by the 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:06.120 villagers of Alakosai and Naujabien all that seriously. Baiales's name 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.399 was released to the media almost instantly, and he was 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:14.600 the only person tried and convicted under the UCUMJ, But 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.760 the Afghan witnesses maintained that they saw multiple American soldiers 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:23.760 during the Kanahar massacre. Do you believe that Robert Bales 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.400 did this act all by himself. That's Afghan journalist Merewi 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.520 Satal speaking to Haji Mohammad Wazir, an Afghan man who 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.920 lost eleven family members that night. 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.960 No, it was not alone, but it was the Americans 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.440 who put the responsibility of this act on this one person. 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.359 I don't know how it would be possible for a 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.800 person to go to one village and make four or 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.479 five people martyrs, and then go to another village and 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:55.520 make ten or twelve more people martyrs. This is not possible, 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.200 nor is it believable to us. One person did not 0:17:59.320 --> 0:17:59.760 do this. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:05.199 Another local farmer, Mulla Baran, made a similar argument. 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.520 We can say for sure that Robert Bales was not alone. 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.000 They all did this together. They just presented this one person. 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.200 We know their military tactics. When the American forces surround 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:23.280 the house, they send one person inside to kill. I've 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.439 seen this before myself. When they claimed that one person 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.080 had gone crazy and did this alone, we rejected their 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:32.040 words completely. 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.720 Hick Matula is Mulla Baran's nephew. He was just a 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.560 child in twenty twelve, but his personal recollections line up 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:42.640 with his uncle's theory. 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:45.320 Was Robert Bales alone in this? 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.879 He was alone in the room, there were people outside? 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:53.000 Who were they? 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:55.040 They were his friends? 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.960 It might sound like a stretch. How could such a 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.560 serious revelation about this highly publicized tragedy stay hidden for 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:09.160 so long? Yalda Hakim had these questions herself after returning 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:10.960 home from Panhue, Afghanistan. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.800 Now, after that interview, we spoke to like a trauma 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.280 person off the record back in Australia. 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.879 I was worried about driving that multiple soldier narrative if 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.320 it had no basis. And one of the things the 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.720 trauma expert said was. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:32.280 That sometimes people misplace events in trauma and in a 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.280 child's mind, they can't quite figure out the sequence of 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.000 events and it's all mishmash. 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.639 March eleventh, twenty twelve was likely the worst day that 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.399 the Afghans we interviewed whatever hope to live through, And 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.879 some of the details they reference would imply that the 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.680 attacks were not committed by a lone gunman, but in 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:56.119 an entire platoon. For example, there's this from Hajji Wazir. 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.920 Go Quickly there were twenty to twenty five people there, 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.119 because when people came out of their houses in the morning, 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.199 they saw the footprints from their boots. About twenty to 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.480 twenty five people must have collaborated with him in this act. 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.160 Airplanes were with them, providing light for. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.840 Them, airplanes, twenty five people. These points were repeated by 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.400 the other villagers. 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.159 He was not alone in doing this act. There were 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:31.280 two or three airplanes with him that night. I went 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.359 to the back of our house in our alley and 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.240 saw the footprints of twenty five American soldiers. 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.640 In the military's reports on the incident, there's no mention 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.080 of planes flying overhead, and the notion of twenty five 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.119 soldiers covertly executing this mission is hard to fathom. Y 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.879 all who believes it's possible that the Afghan civilians are 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.679 confusing the events of that night with what happened the 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.760 next morning when Bales was evacuated in a massive commotion 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:01.800 formed outside VSP BELLUMBI. 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.359 I don't know this sure, but it could be the 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.960 bails came, the incident took place, and then they came 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.480 to get him, and then that's where you have the 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.160 multiple soldier theory, where you know then all the other 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.879 guys came to pick him up, and that's where the 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:17.199 helicopters then turned up. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.720 Maybe the Afghan's arm is remembering the details like the 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.280 aldest trauma specialists suspected, it'd be the easy conclusion to reach, 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.919 especially when you're trying to prove an argument beyond a 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.840 reasonable doubt, like Bailes's prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel J. 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:33.439 Morse. 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:36.560 If I'm conducting an investigation and there are multiple witnesses 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.159 and all the witnesses say the exact same thing, I 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.000 got a problem. People don't see things the exact same way, 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.840