Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, this is Elliott Woods, host of Third Squad.
Speaker 1: I hope you had a great Thanksgiving on behalf of
Speaker 1: the team. I want to thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: this journey so far. I know it's been an intense ride,
Speaker 1: and I'm truly honored to have you listening. It's hard
Speaker 1: to believe, but we've already traveled more than five thousand miles,
Speaker 1: crossed thirteen states, and visited with five of the Third
Speaker 1: Squad survivors. And we've still got thousands of miles and
Speaker 1: six more episodes to go. If you appreciate what you've
Speaker 1: heard so far, please consider supporting our work with a
Speaker 1: financial contribution. To find out how, visit the donate page
Speaker 1: at third squad dot com. That's th h I R
Speaker 1: D s q U A D dot com. We'd also
Speaker 1: love to hear your feedback and your stories from the
Speaker 1: Forever War, so shoot us an email at mail at
Speaker 1: third squad dot com or leave us a voicemail at
Speaker 1: four zero six seven six three eight to one four.
Speaker 1: And if you got a minute, please rate and review
Speaker 1: Third squa ODD on your preferred podcast app. It will
Speaker 1: help other people find the show. We're off this week,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back next Thursday with episode seven. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we got an interview to share with you
Speaker 1: that I recorded recently with w b U R Boston's
Speaker 1: Here and now. Thanks again until next time, keep pushing
Speaker 1: as the calendar goes. America's longest war ended in August
Speaker 1: with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but for the men and
Speaker 1: women who fought there, you can imagine the memories and
Speaker 1: the demons remain with them. A new podcast, Third Squad,
Speaker 1: tells the story of first Battalion, fifth Marines sent to
Speaker 1: Afghanistan's Hellman Province in Tleven. This was the bloodiest stage
Speaker 1: of the war, the so called surge. Twelve men deployed,
Speaker 1: eleven returned alive. Now, before going on, we should note
Speaker 1: that this conversation deals with descriptions of war and violence
Speaker 1: that may not be suitable for all listeners. The host
Speaker 1: of Third Squad is a journalist and veteran himself, Elliott Woods.
Speaker 1: And Elliott joined this welcome to hear it now, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. You embedded with Third Squad back in
Speaker 1: Tleven and you know from the audio they were, frankly
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids for some just at a high
Speaker 1: school and then a decade later, you go on this
Speaker 1: trip to reconnect with them. What's the origin story this project? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the origin story is, like you said, I went
Speaker 1: on this EMBED with this group of Marines and Sangin
Speaker 1: District and Helman Province back in two thousand eleven. I
Speaker 1: came home from that embed just completely exhausted. And then,
Speaker 1: as the story of the podcast tells, one of the
Speaker 1: young men who I interviewed and photographed got killed shortly
Speaker 1: after I left, and so I just figured, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I can do this anymore. The risks that
Speaker 1: I was taking didn't seem justifiable to me anymore, and
Speaker 1: I was just worn out. But I always felt bad
Speaker 1: about turning my back on that mission. I always felt
Speaker 1: like I abandoned something. So ten years later I decided
Speaker 1: to go find these guys who made such a deep
Speaker 1: impression on me and see what had become of their
Speaker 1: lives and what they made of the war after all
Speaker 1: those years. So that's what I did. Now. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the one member of the squad who died in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: Michael Dutcher was killed by an I E ed and
Speaker 1: his death hits his colleagues very hard. Here's Marine Manuel
Speaker 1: Mendoza describing what happened. I'm looking at Dutcher, He's running
Speaker 1: in front of me, and then the whole world turns
Speaker 1: brown and then black. The next thing I know when
Speaker 1: I got my hand on his on his flak, and
Speaker 1: I'm pulling him out of this crater and he's just
Speaker 1: covered in dust. This leg is destroyed. It's got a
Speaker 1: hole on his pelvis, tinn hole. Now a decade later,
Speaker 1: Mendoza tells you he's haunted by guilt about Dutcher's death.
Speaker 1: He blames himself. He considers at one point taking his
Speaker 1: own life, and these are things he's never talked about.
Speaker 1: He describes relive in that moment, feeling everything all at once,
Speaker 1: the fear, the apprehension, the exhaustion, and then doubt or
Speaker 1: you start wondering which you couldn't done different that what if?
Speaker 1: And you start thinking where you live? Why am I alive?
Speaker 1: So Elliott, I guess what did you tell him to
Speaker 1: get him to talk about this? Well, there's a part
Speaker 1: in that episode where Mendoza gets to a point where
Speaker 1: he says he doesn't really want to tell these particular
Speaker 1: stories because he worries that it would be disrespectful to
Speaker 1: the families of the dead, and disrespectful to his dead friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I told him before the interview. I told all
Speaker 1: these guys before the interview, you have the wheel, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to point out some places that I want
Speaker 1: to go, but you decide how close we go or
Speaker 1: if we go there at all, And if you want
Speaker 1: to stop and take a break at any time, or
Speaker 1: if you just want to shut it down, we'll do that.
Speaker 1: So that happened in this interview, and we shut the
Speaker 1: recorder down. And I told Mendoza about why, basically why
Speaker 1: I became a journalist and why I was out there
Speaker 1: talking to them. I told him the story of two
Speaker 1: guys from my unit who were killed by a suicide
Speaker 1: bomber on December two thousand four. And I told him
Speaker 1: about how I went to Afghanistan in the first place
Speaker 1: because I thought that Americans needed to hear these stories
Speaker 1: and and we weren't paying enough attention back home, and
Speaker 1: the silence I thought was dangerous. And I told him
Speaker 1: about how the first story that I ever wrote as
Speaker 1: a journalist was about the parents of those two guys
Speaker 1: from my unit who were killed, and how I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to worry about disrespecting the dead or
Speaker 1: making making these kinds of horrific incidents profane. And eventually
Speaker 1: he said, okay, let's do it. Let's talk. As you
Speaker 1: can hear with Mendoza, it led to him opening a
Speaker 1: locked place inside of him off and letting out some
Speaker 1: things that had really been torturing him. Well, Elliott, we
Speaker 1: also hear this in your podcast with John Bolinger, another
Speaker 1: member of this squad ten years ago. John Bollinger, the
Speaker 1: kid in Afghanistan, professes himself as this out and not killer.
Speaker 1: Let's listen, firefights are fun. I enjoy firefights. He had
Speaker 1: drop bombs on people and kill badman. That's that's what
Speaker 1: we're here for. And then he comes home to his
Speaker 1: wife and his young son and he's mentally wounded. He's
Speaker 1: suffering from PTSD and p and his wife tell you
Speaker 1: they realize he's not okay. I don't think it was
Speaker 1: really until you know, second week being back m hmm.
Speaker 1: Woke up in the middle of the night getting choked.
Speaker 1: So John Bolinger seeks professional help. And suddenly John and
Speaker 1: his wife are shamed at Camp Pendleton where they lived there,
Speaker 1: shunned by the people around them. You're a veteran yourself,
Speaker 1: what do you take at this system, this mental health system.
Speaker 1: So the Marine Corps is an incredibly rigid culture that
Speaker 1: values bravery, courage, and physical strength and determination above all else,
Speaker 1: and so anybody who's seen as weak in any way
Speaker 1: is a risk. And I think there's been progress over
Speaker 1: the years, UM, But I think at the time that
Speaker 1: that Bollinger was coming home from sang In, that deeply
Speaker 1: entrenched culture that saw any kind of admission of mental
Speaker 1: weakness as a liability was still very very much alive.
Speaker 1: And so he goes to seek help from a Navy
Speaker 1: therapist counselor, and immediately he's made aware in the unit
Speaker 1: that he's basically not welcome anymore. And so that was
Speaker 1: was a terrible time in his life, UM. And fortunately
Speaker 1: for him, and this really speaks to his perseverance, he
Speaker 1: didn't give up on it. He kept going, He kept
Speaker 1: seeking help through the military, even though they didn't make
Speaker 1: it easy for him. And then when he got out
Speaker 1: of the Marine Corps, he kept seeking help everywhere. He
Speaker 1: moved after that from the v A and he's still
Speaker 1: in therapy a decade later and has made tremendous progress
Speaker 1: in his therapeutic journey. Well, there's this striking moment in
Speaker 1: John's story. He's back in the States and he sees
Speaker 1: this twelve year old kid in a memory from Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Just hits him. There's this kid who was it's kind
Speaker 1: have been much older, and we're in a we're in
Speaker 1: a gunfight, and I saw him and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to take the shot, but he was shooting, yeah, and
Speaker 1: a K I had to take the shot. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to take the shot, but I had to take
Speaker 1: the shot. That's the one. I that's the one. MH.
Speaker 1: You know, Elliott. As I listened to this, I feel
Speaker 1: like a voyor. I mean, this is so raw. And
Speaker 1: so the question for you is what is the point
Speaker 1: of of bringing us, the listeners so close to these men.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody who hasn't been to war witnessed
Speaker 1: these horrifying events up close, or in some cases perpetrated them,
Speaker 1: which is what John Bollinger is talking about. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any way for somebody who hasn't been there
Speaker 1: to really know what it's all about. But I think
Speaker 1: we all have a duty to try our hardest to
Speaker 1: understand what it is that we're asking of people when
Speaker 1: we ask them to go kill and die on behalf
Speaker 1: of the country. And of those two things, the killing
Speaker 1: and the dying, I think the killing is the thing
Speaker 1: that we're most embarrassed to talk about, we're most ashamed of.
Speaker 1: And so what that act does to the people who
Speaker 1: committed to some of them, not all of them, but
Speaker 1: to a good number of them, is incredibly transformative and powerful,
Speaker 1: and it can be a form of trauma or to
Speaker 1: use another phrase, moral injury that affects people's lives forever.
Speaker 1: So my goal with this entire project is to bring
Speaker 1: people into the room to really sit with the the
Speaker 1: consequences of these wars that have been so far from
Speaker 1: most people's consciousness, to basically ask them to reckon with
Speaker 1: the human costs and consequences to the people that we
Speaker 1: asked to do this on our behalf. And I think
Speaker 1: John Bollinger and Manny Mendoza and these other guys were
Speaker 1: incredibly brave to open up and talk about their private pain.
Speaker 1: And as far as reckoning for you, you set out
Speaker 1: in this project to ask what was this all for?
Speaker 1: And where do we go from here? How do you
Speaker 1: and how do these men answer those questions? Well, everybody
Speaker 1: has a slightly different answer, but on the level of
Speaker 1: the front line troop answer to the question what was
Speaker 1: it all for? Is we did it for each other.
Speaker 1: We were fighting for each other, to keep each other
Speaker 1: alive and to support each other. Not all of them
Speaker 1: have an answer to the bigger question of what was
Speaker 1: it all for? Why did we spend twenty years in Afghanistan?
Speaker 1: Why people die there and tens of thousands of other
Speaker 1: people get wounded. Most of them don't have an answer
Speaker 1: to that question, And to be honest with you, I
Speaker 1: don't have a great answer to that question either. But
Speaker 1: I also think it's my job as a journalist and
Speaker 1: it's our job as civilians and citizens to demand answers
Speaker 1: to that bigger question. Why was all of this sacrifice necessary?
Speaker 1: Why was all of this damage done? And so that's
Speaker 1: a question that I'll continue asking and seeking to answer
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of the series and probably for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. Well it is a powerful listen.
Speaker 1: Elliott Woods is a veteran and multimedia journalist and the
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Third Squad. You can find it,
Speaker 1: as they say, wherever you find your pod guests Elliott,
Speaker 1: thank you,