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♪ >> the only person who walk into the country, heck, you had the weight of the nation on your shoulders. you know, we were america's response to the most catastrophic terrorist attack on u.s. soil ever. and for a lot of us, you know, we felt that we had a responsibility to the people that died to set the stage that you just don't do that to america and not pay the price. it was about not retribution, but it was about justice. >> what's that saying about who

will go, send me. sir? >> as i say who will go and who shall i send? >> send me because i'm the dude that wants to make somebody pay for kilng my brothers and sisters. >> i think we have to assume that there will be more attacks. >> the united states military has begun strikes. >> coalition war planes have free rein over afghanistan. >> the public, though, i think 94% of the public wants us to go in somewhere and do something. >> special forces known as the green berets. >> the green berets.

>> inside afghanistan, these reports first appeared in pakistani newspapers. >> known as the quiet professionals. >> so secretive we do not disclose even their first names. >> i never spoke out the way i felt like i should have. >> it was american green beret raid in the dark of night. >> starting to flail back and forth. >> pow, pow, pow. >> this is another type of warfare. war by guerrillas. >> unconventional war. >> to me it's like brotherhood. >> what is winning? you are just praying you'll get to prove yourself to your brothers. >> what began as a hundred day mission -- >> the longest war. >> -- war in american history.

>> we've been living it for 15 years. >> i was 10, 1970, i guess. i saw john wayne and the green berets,nd i thought, man, yeah. >> they all seem to think that because my dad joined that it was natural for me to join. but that wasn't the case. i went to go see a movie. >> funny thing. fella takes one of these into battle and carries a strange sense of guilt all the rest of his life. >> i figured everything else i've done in the army hadn't been all that hard for me. i figured how hard could it be.

it was pretty hard. [ laughter ] pretty good, yeah. ♪ >> the taliban must turn over osama bin laden and must destroy the terrorist camps. otherwise, there will be a consequence. >> a spokesman for the taliban denies afghanistan allowed bin laden to strike from its territory. >> good afternoon. on my orders, the united states military has begun strikes against a taliban regime in afghanistan.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> i'm as close to these people as anyone in my own family and in some ways closer. these are my 11 best friends in the world. that's how i feel. >> no. >> this one.

>> this is us in afghanistan. >> i mean, and we were in, you know, some harsh -- >> we were probably in the extremest combat environment as you can fathom. it tested you in every way, physically, mently, emotionally. >> we are it. when you need the army, we are the vanguard, the spearhead, the praetorian. >> 15 years. >> wow. since vietnam. >> yeah. >> we're talking about people, you know, as a unit we've been deployed doing some pretty crazy crap. wow. you get into a unit like this and that's what you do. that's your game. >> i've been in the military now 30 years. that mission was the pinnacle of my career. the absolutely finest thing a team of green berets could do.

>> mark wasn't on the team anymore at that time. so i thought i was good to go. i was 6 1/2 months pregnant. and he got a call. we were in a baby store shopping for things. i think mr. paul called him and said, guess what? you're back on the team. you know, like, oh. >> we both realized i was probably not going to be there for the birth of our child. on the drive back from nashville, then we realized we better pick a name. amy knew we were going to go, but she didn't know well. were going exactly. whe we

>> ramp runs down a big cloud of that fine talcum powder dust. we compiling out of the back of that, haul all of our -- out. helicopter takes off. the dust kind of settles and out of the dust comes the sand people. >> that's right. >> you see a man with an ak who is dressed just hike your enemy and you got to walk over to him and basically ask him, hey, how are you doing? and you have no idea whether he's going to say -- put out his hand and shake it or he's going to shoot you. >> the taliban's army is some

30,000 fighters. born from the crucible of war. captured kabul in 1996 and imposed draconian laws. >> indiscriminate and brutal. >> whipped for public adultery in front of an all-male audience. >> osama bin laden called for money and his fighters. [ chanting ] >> the northern alliance came together in mutual opposition to >> general dustin and his advanced security party come riding up. >> gent dostum who has a fierce reputation for his treatment of

prisoners. >> he jumps down off of the horse. >> general dostum agreed to take my team members and i up to his former command post. >> i can't guarantee your safety. there are some people who are upset that the americans are here. >> so we would mount horses for the first time in combat. >> mark knows horses. he knew horses when he got there. we did. mark figured out real quick that if you go up to 400 dudes on a horse and say, somebody get off a horse and give it to an american, you ain't going to get a smooth horse. >> we got to general dostum's headquarters. my job at that point is to establish and maintain rapport. his plan that he had briefed to us was mazar-e sharif was the key. if we could liberate maz ar

eerks sharif, then the provinces could be liberated. from there harat, kandahar, islamaba we represented fifth group. we recommended america's policy at the nasty pointy-end bloody end of that fight that we went in to help enable the possibility of a brighter future for the people of afghanistan. >> it was my first rodeo. we got married in april. he left in october.

he was a medic. i thought it was safe. yeah, he lied to me, guys. no, he didn't lie to me. he was a medic. >> every time they leave and they come back, they're a little bit different each time. >> a lot of memories. you know what i mean? you kind of tamp down and put away. not so good, but that's okay. every one of the husbands will tell you that they're going to die before us spouses do. >> i'll drink scotch. >> toast. >> there you go. >> we got chad. >> d.b. >> stev >> bill, wherever you are. >> salute. >> salute >> dear god in heaven.

>> that's nasty. >> what is this? >> say hello. it wasn't until you were forced to retire you had to retire, then you isolated yourself from your family and everybody else. you internalize everything, you try to find a new normalcy. sit. sit. what i found kind of peace with was to go out hoer and crawl around on jeeps and be one again. being out here, i mean, listen,

you know. you get to have no thoughts at all. >> each one of our stories are almost similar how we isolated ourselves, our family, everything else. started reaching out and found, you know, the only way we're all going to heal each other is to get back together. >> holy -- >> is that bloopers? >> there w go. marky mark. >> marky mark. >> i'm up here somewhere. that's me right there.

>> you know, special forces you have a team and a team is 12 men. you got a captain and a team sergeant, a team warrant officer, two engineers, two como, two medics, and that formulates a team. each team would have a specialty, like high altitude, low opening, jumping or scuba diving or assault iing. >> i was the greatest tactician for direct action that there was. back then i thought i was on top of the world. >> again on special forces, can you give us a sense of how the size and scope of their mission will expand in the next month from classic liaison and reconnaissance to more direct action shoot 'em up ambush type of situations? >> a short answer, and that is that one should not assume that

there has not been strategic reconnaissance and direct action activity. you would not expect me to tell you exactly what they're doing. >> evidence that another much more covert operation is well under way. >> these special forces are trying to hunt down suspected terroris terrorists. >> the commandos go out and root out some of that infrastructure. >> the mission statement was to kill or capture senior al qaeda and taliban leadership stop. insert location. stop. at our level, there was a big map there, and the big map is synchronized by who's next? who's on first. then who's on first is a number and a pitcher. a little bit of background. >> into one room, total chaos, seven guys, machine guns, shooting people hand to hand.

you run in the next room guys were shooting out the back of the window, one guy surrender. you go into the next room, bam. it was on, off, on, off, on, off, on, helicopter, home. when i was a kid, i was forced to read homer's odyssey about a warrior king trying to come home and the family going through that situation. you don't really understand it because you don't have the maturity. now you're trying to find, you know, the subtleties and calmness of life. that right now is more valuable than a million dollars in the bank.

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as a leader, you have to balance what's the mission, what are you trying to accomplish, and the mission is to put your soldiers in harm's way. i think as a soldier, there's a part of you as an individual that you want to see it, to understand it, to be tested by it. but then as a leader, you're so terrified of the thought of making bad decisions that get your soldiers killed. >> you need a very strong team leader. amering was outstanding. >> it's like a democracy. you have to kind of -- there's strong wills. >> you're stuck with a bunch of guys, thrown into afghanistan

and it was awesome. >> you know, we identified as the first step in our campaigns. the goal was seize kandahar. i met hamid for the first time in the hallway. he was going to the bathroom and i was walking to get some coffee and it was just men trying to work with one another that didn't have any time for bull.

even as all the tensions rose between the u.s. and hamid karzai, he still had an uncanny ability to hold things together over there. >> i think it was around 3:00 in the morning or so that the f-18 spotted a small convoy of trucks heading north. so here are these f-18s flying overhead and calling for permission to engage. that was when the war really became real. there was just this moment where allen looks at me and says are they clear to engage? and like everybody was suddenly

quiet. i was -- i wasng goi to authorize theses to drop bombs on pickup trucks that were likely the enemy, but, you know, what if i was wrong? it was the silence that always sticks with me. are they cleared to engage and suddenly all eyes are on me. i looked at allen and said "smoke 'em." and after i said the words, it was just sort of where did that come from, smoke 'em? i don't say stuff like that. that's just not me. the thing we didn't realize, though, is that these trucks weren't the leading edge of the convoy. they are the tail of the convoy of maybe a thousand taliban. >> so we're just kind of looking

and we saw this glimmer. >> these guys were coming heavy. we're talking 23 millimeter guns. 23 millimeter is like that big. it will blow you. it will be like mist. >> we tell the pilots, okay, we're the two trucks right there. the pilots are like, that's it, that's us, everybody else is the enemy south of us. >> we were [ bleep ]. and yoshida assured us. he's man, i'm on tune. i'm talking to these pilots. we're knocking them out. and he would just keep saying clear and hot, clear and hot, through the whole night. he just kept going further and further and further.

and we just bombed out like 100 vehicles through the whole night. >> i mean, i don't know that we were high-fi and euphoric. we were just trying to win and live. >> i think for me the notion of fighting from a distance of fighting with these airstrikes, it didn't sit well with me. i mean, it -- it almost promoted just the promiscuous use of military power. i don't know how to explain it. it's just -- i mean, we would have died otherwise. there was no alternative, but something just didn't feel quite right about it. in the end, we slaughtered them.

as they were retreating, we kept bombing them. we wiped them out. but i didn't feel good about how we had to do it. i just felt like i should have been looking the enemy in the eye before i killed them. >> we went down and started doing battle damage assessment and counting destroyed vehicles and some of them there were still some charred bodies -- they are traveling these little toyota trucks, and you jam as many guys in the back of the truck and as many guys in the front of the truck as can be. and there might be eight or nine people in a toyota truck, and there was hundreds of those trucks. >> i don't know how to describe it. it was just what it is.

you just -- you're like initially i don't want to say shocked, but you're seeing people that are literally burnt and charred to death. you're like, wow. >> that was the first of any of that carnage i had seen with my own two eyes. it didn't really bother me. it was just kind of gruesome, whatever. but you're the enemy and so it's okay. and that's kind of how you programmed it. if i don't do this to you, you're going to do it to me. it's really that simple.

>> one of the things people -- the first thing out of their mouth, how many people have you killed? i didn't know we were counting. i didn't know we were supposed to count. if you knew how many people you have killed, it's probably not enough. >> it's not a score card. >> it's not a score card. >> you know, it's -- >> and there's a difference between shooting somebody face-to-face. >> yeah. >> and somebody from a distance and dropping a bomb. it's impersonal. it's not ooh, got them, dust, high-five. a little longer shot, the mechanics of that shot was great. face to face, i could tell you what they smelled like, you know, how long it took them to bleed. some guys can't get rid of the smell. okay? the smell of burning body is different than the smell of a burning tire. you never know until you walk by. oh, shit. those smells are now implanted in your brain what that means. >> my beard was covered in

blood. i didn't just see, smell, i tasted. i thought i had broke my nose but then i realized i didn't get hit by anything. why am i bleeding. oh, it wasn't my blood. and i still i will get that flash smell on occasion and it will take me right back. that's the horror of it all. it's very personal. >> i grew up with that strong american cowboy, u.s. calvary heritage.

was probably on a horse before i could walk. i had studied u.s. and confederate cavalry commanders. we had walked the battlefields of gettysburg and down through the tennessee campaign. it was not lost on me that here i am in the 21st century and i'm leading a 19th century cavalry. >> one of the things about the sf guys, most of them are kind of rough and tumble guys to begin with. >> i believe you just said -- >> which model?

>> just trying to find the other way with that. >> put that down first. >> the way i grew up in west virginia, it was clannish. certain hollow, certain families lived up this one and certain families lived up that one. and if you make an enemy of this one guy here, there's more. understanding how tribal people think is obviously going to help. >> every one of these leaders told us do not become portrayed as the invaders. you're here as liberators. that's what you say. because we were so few guys, we could actually portray the taliban are actually the foreign invaders. the pakistani taliban what had come over, the al qaeda that had taken over and hijacked these people's country.

>> that is foreign taliban. >> foreign taliban. >> the one to the left? >> we have now raised this army. we're going to rise up across the northern provinces and we're going to press from mazar esharif. the situation dictated we needed to decentralize. each of these three men's cells then were tasked to support an afghan commander that had between 300 to 750 fighters. each of those cells is a four to eight-hour horse ride. it was hot, dusty, dirty riding the meanest, rankest, nastiest horse. >> i rode vince's horse that one time. >> rusty? >> i was oh my god, vince, how are you staying on this thing? >> that horse was cross bred with a werewolf.

>> the americans would get bucked off. afghans would get bucked off and everybody would kind of cheer. that was another bonding experience. >> extraordinary defense department photo released today. united states special forces on horseback. >> when was the last time you saw u.s. military personnel in combat. >> we haven't had combat in a long time. that's a tough mission. >> that was kind of a giveaway. >> first one i got the phone call at 3:00 in the morning. >> where could they be. afghanistan perhaps. yeah. >> we couldn't talk about where we were at or anything we were about to do. coming back from a skirmish, i

get a message something is wrong. call home. >> i had kya and michelle. bless her heart. she was on the phone trying to find a way to get ahold of mark to let him know i had delivered our daughter. but i didn't hear from him until we were alreaddischarged and at home several days later. >> amy went in for a normal appointment and there were some complications evidently and the ob specialist said you're having this baby today and it was over a month early. >> yeah. she said i had two hours to get my affairs in order, and i was not to leave, that i had to stay on the hospital grounds. so i called -- >> she called these wives, and they came. from what i understand, every one of you were in the delivery room. >> but it's what you do. you do what you have to do to keep your house in order, to keep your kids doing what they

are supposed to be doing and while they are doing what they do, you do what you have to do. that's just the way we are. that's the way this group of ladies are. >> bounce back. they teach you that in the cue course. they teach that in ranger school. in sear school. you just have to bounce back. so i regrouped, took a deep breath and we're about to go into battle.

>> morning. >> i wish we had that frost machine. >> yeah, whatever. >> worth $7 a cup. >> i want to do something, man. >> you know there's going to be a fight. what are you going to do, slap each other? there's a breaking of a wrist, a breaking of a finger that's on you. there's a chewing of a nose off.

>> we hit one of the compounds and you could just tell right away that it was going to be a difficult hit. >> they are on building one. >> you had less than one hour from the time you left the helicopter. if you weren't on the helicopter within one hour, they would fly off for 24 hours and you had to stay there. >> unlike you, we didn't have any afghanistani counterparts. it was us on our own and we were out in bad guy country with no support. >> and we breached into the house, and it was all squishy and everything. we were walking around and we're like what the heck. at the time we didn't realize they didn't have beds or furniture. they just pile rugs. we're under night vision and you can barely see anything. your eyes are going glean. and on the floor you some some movement, squirming. all of a sudden, we see two hands come up from this blanket

and lift it over and looks up and sees green little eyes and she sits up for a second and squeezes her eyes like this. i'm like, you don't want to say nothing because their dad could be in the next room. we all got kids. imagine your girl starts screaming. so all of the sudden she did. she started screaming and going nuts. we're like -- shh. >> yeah, be quiet. >> so i pick her up. start screaming even more. one of the other rooms had caught fire. so now she's really going crazy. >> we could hear it over the radio. >> we were outside. >> we were all in different houses. >> yeah, we were outside in a gunfight. >> i remember i had a baby ruth bar. so i reached in my pocket and pull out a little baby ruth bar. she didn't know what candy is.

she is screaming and turning her head and everything. i put it on her lips and she licks it and she's like. i came around the corner where they were lining up some other family members and i come out of the darkness and rodney was going what are you doing? put the kid down. we're in a gunfight over here. d using an electric toothbrush. for an exceptionally fresh feeling choose philips sonicare diamondclean. hear the difference versus oral b. in a recently published clinical study, philips sonicare diamondclean outperforms oral-b 7000, removing up to 82% more plaque and improving gum health up to 70% more. its sonic technology cleaning deep between teeth. from the most recommended sonic toothbrush brand by dental professionals. switch to philips sonicare today. philips sonicare. save when you buy now. adult 7+ promotes alertness and mental sharpness in dogs philips sonicare. 7 and older. (ray) the difference has been incredible. she is much more aware. she wants to learn things.

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i got the rest of my tattoo colored in. >> did you really? wow. >> i need to get some more ink. >> one of the big things about combat is being able to keep your emotion in check. a lot of people say that we don't have emotions anymore. well, maybe it's because we're good at controlling our emotions and not letting our emotions overtake everything else. >> because you suppressed all those emotions so much and so long, you don't know what you're supposed to be happy for or sad for anymore.

zero emotions across the board. i don't get overly happy, i don't get overly sad, i don't get overly excited. it becomes a big burden on the family too because they don't know where i'm at. did i do a good thing, dad? of course, i love you, way to go. >> my name is bill howe. nice to meet you. i worked with jefferson. i am special forces guy. yes, ma'am. i worked with him. fix the bike, put it back together, get it running. yes, sir. >> that's it right there.

>> oh, look at that. september '02. >> to be able to do this for jesse is awesome. he was a man that could walk in the room and tell you how it is. that's how the bike is. it's loud. you feel it. the engine is strong, just like my father. >> y'all want to try to push it back? >> that emulates everything what my father was and what i missed about him. >> i mean, there's no way that anyone could ever replace his dad, but if each one of us can give him a little something of what j.d. is not able to, i believe we're doing our job as brothers.

>> i would have never wanted to be my wife. i wouldn't have wanted to be one of my sons. back and forth, back and forth, not knowing if you're going to come home. somebody else getting killed. what kind of father was i? i was young, very hard, very mean. it's the whole intimacy of family that i didn't have it when i was a green beret, because i was a good green beret. did a lot of things wrong, good lord.

if i could, i would do a lot of them different. i would sure be a better father and a better husband. you know? it's just -- but what can you do? but try to learn and move forwd, younow. >> i remember when my dad initially got his paperwork about how he was going to be. that was my dad's biggest dream, to be a team sergeant. >> working the tobacco field. >> he was a real scorpion right

there. >> he left and then it felt normal again in the sense that that's what he did. he would leave and go do his work and we would all be here and go to school and then he would come back and in six or nine months and we would see him again. >> this is a first letter i received from him. hello, sweetheart. today is the 31st of october. this has been hardest trip for me. i really didn't want to go, but i just didn't want to leave you and the kids. >> i never read it. i have never read it. >> his love for family extended to h he treated the team. it was an extension of his family.

>> he was a good team sergeant. he was rather soft spoken. he was like a big bear until you pissed him off and we didn't piss him off a lot. >> the anti-taliban forces appear to be closing in on the taliban stronghold of kandahar. >> talks on afghanistan's future began this morning. >> a 44-year-old pashtun tribal commander hamid karzai. >> after terencode, we had all these indicators that he we had the taliban scared. >> we go through a village and not even fire a shot. these guys would come out of the woodwork and you would be amped up. you know, about ready to shoot. you know, they would be like ahhhh. once they could see the force coming in, they were all about it. they wanted to be with you. they wanted to get the taliban

out. >> we were literally throwing aks in the back of suvs, stacks and piles. got a couple more guys, let's keep going. >> we had this 400 man mob of afghan fighters, and we just had to move this mob down to kandahar. term like an afghan convoy.e >> i knew it was completely unrealistic when i went in the special forces they would be given the kind of autonomy. this is exactly the campaign i dreamed of. >> the northern alliance commander, they have moved their troops into areas close to mazar-e-sharif. >> the fighting is intensifying. >> we had greater

maneuverability on horseback in that terrain than al qaeda or taliban did. they were in armored vehicles and pickup trucks. they're tied to their fuel depots, so we were able to cut them off from reinforcement and cut them off from retreat. i probably rode 300 miles or more. i was determined i was going to ride that horse all the way into mazar-e-sharif. >> crossed over the river. the water was high enough that the horses actually started to float down the river. and of course we did not want to go for a swim. >> standing in the water, very cold water, water up to my waist. i just looked back, looked south, and then i just realized it was -- it was the most unbelievable shot i had ever seen. it was a thousand riders on

horsebac it was peacel yet magnificent. >> mazar-e-sharif has indeed by captured by the northern alliance. >> they perceived us as liberators. i didn't learn until later that they perceived my team as from the uzbek lore as avenging angels with swords of lightning. >> the fall of this city is the biggest blow to the taliban since allied air strikes began 35 days ago. >> that was the pinnacle of what all ssf soldiers trained for.

>> i graduated from the university of nevada, las vegas with an accounting degree. went to work for an accounting firm and determined that i did not like it at all. and i said, there's got to be more to life than balancing a checkbook.

don bolduck was the best officer in the battalion and also my operations officer. >> it was the opinion of the senior leadership at the pentagon that they wanted a lieutenant colonel, a more experienced officer on the ground in afghanistan, and so that's why we deployed. to me it was, it was exciting. i mean one day i'll tell my grandkids about it when i'm old and decrepit and they'll say oh, yeah, sure grandpa. >> while left to our devices we felt like we were able to get a lot done. it was almost the seeds of our own destruction because everything went well. and then we find out from headquarters that 20 folks are going to come in. >> i remember celebrating thanksgiving in pakistan and then we infilled the next night.

>> once i got there, i had a big meeting. you know, getting coffee breath close with them and i explained it to them. i said okay, here's the deal. this is the way it's been organized. this is the way it's been directed. and we're soldiers, so let's salute the flagpole, get beyond the emotion of it. so the thing we had feared when this higher command ces in and starts giving us orders and we're going have to follow them, well, higher command comes in and giving us orders and now we have to follow them. somebody else is now controlling the fight. >> i meet the captain for the first time and master sergeant davis. >> i don't think they were -- i don't think they were real happy.

>> oh, god. i hate it. telling this story just sucks. always sucks. but i've seen all the ways that the truth can be twisted and i couldn't let that happen. >> how are you? >> i don't know. i don't know.

the morning of the 5th things were done. >> 7:00, we started seeing people, hey, all right. what's going on. and then the mail. so you know, we were reading mail, burning it as soon as you read it. >> on the 5th of december the targets were predominantly in this area. we received intel from what we on where the taliban and al rce

qaeda that were still resisting us on the other side of the bridge were. so i went to colonel fox, i said, sir, i would like to start initiating some close air support, daytime close air support in this area. >> the hostilities were over. the taliban were coming to surrender. why was the battalion headquarters calling an air strike to begin with. to me, it was pretty obviously a way to say that they'd engaged the enemy before the war ended. >> i don't know if the sun hit it just right, but we observed the opening of a cave. >> every air strike that we directed was basically personally authorized by me. i explained it to fox and

boldock. >> i'm a colonel, he's a captain. both professional enough to know, you know, i'm giving the orders, u kn, you execute the orders >> i was livid in trying to contain my anger. there was no valid target to bomb there. >> he's a commander. i mean, he outranks you. he can do whatever he wants, really. is it the most tactically proper way to do things? no. no with us being there. >> we could have done nothing, but nothing was -- you know, i don't believe that was the proper course of action. >> we were just -- we were just trying to interdict them and drop enough on them to ruin to make a statement and kind of ruin their day and get them to dislodge and go in retreat.

>> b-52s overhead. they look back at me and say are we clear to drop a 2,000 pound on the cave opening? i say yes. you know, i -- it's a -- it's something that i'll take to my grave with me as, you know, should i have done something different. should i have -- should i have just ignored this? >> when you call in an air strike, you have to be hyper sensitive of all of the things that could go wrong. you're talking about 2,000 pound bomb. >> i would give everything back, all the promotions, all of the recognition, all of the medals, everything that i have, everything that i have for none of this to ever have happened.

>> all emotion and everything just kind of shut off for a little bit. and i remember this feeling, it was [ bleep ] you, i'm not dead. >> the next thing i know is that my head is being driven into the dirt. >> mag was blown apart over here. i didn't see anybody. i mean, you're focused right here. >> and i had blood and body parts, various, all over my uniform. >> and i'm just sitting there looking at myself and this thumb was touching the inside of my arm here. and i'm like, oh, that's bad, as i arched, i had a sucking chest wound, all of this blood starts blasting out of my shirt here

and i remember starting to go into shock and i said oh my god three times. the last thing i thought was as i was looking at that, if i go face down, i'm going to drown in this. and so when i go out i got to go and turn my head this way. that's the last thing i remember. >> you know, there's really not a day i don't think about that whole event. i mean, we never found enough of master sergeant davis. we had to do a dna analysis because the bomb hit exactly where he was standing. >> our company sergeant major came in with the news that 574 had a jdam drop on their

position and said j.d. and dano were kia. and that was -- that was kind of a devastated moment. >> the 574 casualties hit me pretty hard. trying to figure out how i want to tell you this. >> these guys on your left and right, and they will always be there, no matter what. and to me, it's like brotherhood. excuse me.

>> i finally shut off for a minute and i just cried my eyes out. the first americans killed in afghanistan, killed by their own people. >> afghan fighters have deserted the taliban. >> soldiers are now deserting in the hundreds. >> they surrendered kandahar that day. and i just need a minute here. e

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in four short months our nation has begun to rebuild new york and the pentagon. rallied a great coalition. >> i was down there below on the floor of congress, listening to the president give the evil empire speech, which would end up being a very defining speech for the next 14 years, really. >> terrorists training camps, saved people from starvation and freed a country from brutal oppression. >> what does victory feel like? it felt like we had done our jobs. i mean as hindsight it was the perfect -- it was the mission we trained for from the time we came in special forces. that was the mission. >> we had less than 100 guys.

we toppled the taliban and ran al qaeda off. and 20,000 troops have been bogged down ever since. >> we did make it look too easy, but we didn't really have time to reflect on that before we're invading iraq with the expectation that it would be over quickly. >> what we have found in afghanistan confirms that far from ending our war against terror is only beginning. >> so when we chased bin laden out of afghanistan into pakistan, as far as the commander told us, we have done our job. great job. we all but tied the bow on afghanistan athe time. that same team, group of guys went to iraq. and in less than 90 days we

thought iraq was over too. >> yeah. >> we were having tea in baghdad. >> literally. >> eating in a restaurant. >> you're welcome. >> you're welcome. and here's your country. nine months later, you come home again, and you've got a new mission. you just go into vfw and you hear one guy had one tour and you're like, oh, wow. and you hear one guy had two tours. ooh, he's a little crazy, you know what i mean? someone had three tours, they're out of their minds. what you see now is people have five, seven, nine, ten tours and they're still going. >> me and scotty -- scotty and i retired the same year. and when i retired, i just went home and i'm going to tell you this. 11 days after i retired, i put my wife in the hospital. i don't even know why. i just kind of freaked out. i'm not saying it was ptsd. i'm not saying it was anything.

i don't remember what happened. it's just, it's just like, you know, you go and do things and you do some really stuff that's crazy and then when you're done, they just tell you bye. you know? >> i came back from afghanistan again, another deployment over there. this was my 26th deployment total. >> i forgot to get some stuff last night. >> how long have i known mark. for as long as i can remember. probably since 3 or 4. i've known him for a long time.

i usually know what he's thinking and sometimes he does me. yeah. but -- >> amy has raised our family, you know, being a single working mom the majority of the year. >> i've had some trying times at home but i managed to get through it. and then i yell at him for it later, going, this is what i had to deal with. >> it's just adapting, continuing to evolve and adapt to that new normal. maybe that's part of it, is we keep turning up the heat, go a couple of degrees at a time over 26 deployments and then you're kind of at that new normal. my tolerance level for bullshit is kind of at its max. and, you know, i -- i'd say

that's maybe one thing, just lose some patience with myself or my family. >> when he comes home from deployments, we try to bring everybody here to just be a family, hang out outside. but, yeah, 14 years. kaya was born when he was in afghanistan. she's almost 14. >> wait, wait, wait. now. [ gunfire ] >> i kept going back because i want to believe that we made a difference. the ranger creed still in us is readily on display, test the

fortitude, you know, carry on the objective, though i would be the lone survivor, i keep going back. >> i never do morning. 2:00 in the morning, i happen to be just up, and i see it on the cnn. it goes two special forces soldiers got killed. and i'm just thinking, oh god, i hope they're nody that know. >> i was 13, yeah, i was at school. they called my name for dismissal to come to the office to be dismissed. and i went and the person picking me up was someone who i never thought would be picking me up. and we got in the car and we

were driving home, i said, why are you picking me up? and he said, well your mom just wanted me to come get you, pick you up early. and i remember saying out loud to him, maybe my dad came home. maybe my dad is coming home today. >> i walked in the door, that's when i saw the chaplain stand ing there and i actually saw my mom and my sister crying. and the next day when they said that they dropped the bomb, it hit him, i was angry. i actually hated the military for a little while.

i had to act like i didn't. >> how many soldiers die? and what is it for? what is it for? okay. it's for our country, but what is it for. >> hey, this is a little special rum from guatemala. that was introduced to me by a

good friend. his team worked in guatemala for like a year doing ait mission and kicked ass. all right. one for the brotherhood. >> legion. >> legion brothers. >> hello, cuz. doing all right? good to see you. good to see you. how are you? what did you think, man? >> she's here, man. >> dude. it's right here inside. >> what do y'all thing, man. ready to give it a try? >> make sure it's in neutral, turn the key on, let her rip.

>> jason why don't you sit on it. >> sit on it. >> that way you can balance it. it's not on the stand. there you go. put some fuel in that bad boy. woo hoo! >> just hearing the bike, it was almost hearing my dad again. like i'm here. like i'm right here.

>> there are just certain spots around the world where i feel like i can just get lost. where i can just disappear. >> every soldier i ever led in action was wounded or killed. what does that say about me? what does it say about my abilities as a leader? what does it say about me as a soldier? everybody was off the hill and i walked back up on the hill to

where i knew j.d. had been and i just started kind of doing a loop, looking for anything i could. i looked. i couldn't find anything. all that could come to mind for me was this poem futility by wilfred owen. this was pervasive naivety about what modern war was about. and then the trenches of europe wiped out a generation. move him into the sun.

gently its touch awoke him once, at home, whispering of fields unsewn. always it woke him, even in france, until this morning and this snow. if anything might rouse him down, the kind old sun will know. think how it wakes the seeds. woke once the seeds of this cold star. are limbs so dear achieved, sides full nerved, too hard to stir. was it for this the clay grew tall. what made fatuous sun beams toil to break earth's sleep at all.

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the trump administration announces new travel restrictions affecting several new countries. the u.s. president revives an old controversy saying nfl teams should fire those that don't rise for the national anthem. and election falloff. a german far right political party will be represented in parliament for the first time in half a century. these stories are all ahead. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm natalie allen. we're live in atlanta where it's just turned 1:00 in the morning. cnn newsroom starts right now.