Short Change Hero but you're the only survivor of Operation Red Wings

"I'm still alive you fucking amateurs" Has got to be one of the ballsiest things to shout when you're surrounded and under heavy fire.

He's not cut off behind enemy lines. He is the enemy line.

The masculine urge to survive and tell the story of your fallen comrades

you can’t have PTSD if you are the traumatic event

The Insurgency voice lines are on point! Love the work you do!

The recovery operation was equally dramatic. The 75th ranger regiment spent 4 days hiking up and down the mountains looking for the bodies of those SEALs or a survivor. The tripped stumbled and fell all over those slopes until marines came in to assist. Then they spent 10 more days taking shifts from a patrol base to continue searching. For the remaining 3 SEALs.

The Marines of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, who had planned OP RED WINGS, were going after a relatively low level target named Ahmed Shaw, as their previous operations, and the unit they'd replaced, had nabbed all the known high and medium value targets successfully. Unfortunately, they were not part of a Marine Air Ground Task Force, and didn't possess organic lift assets needed to conduct it. So they asked for helo support from 160th SOAR (the famed Night Stalkers) who were assigned to Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A). The region SOTF command was run by SEALs who only agreed as long as they were to run the recon, and act as the main effort assault element to conduct the air assault raid against the target buildings thought to house the HVTs, while the rest of the Marine infantry company tasked with supporting missions, specifically the outer cordon. Because they had no options, and they wanted the mission to go ahead to nab the bad guy, the Marines agreed. This is not uncommon, its actually the norm. SOCOM are often on the lookout for good missions and they often get them from "poaching" intel or fully developed ops from conventional units. Per the planning of Red Wings, the recon element was was going to be inserting the day before on the high ground nearby to three named areas of interest (NAI) that were supposed to be under observation to spot the targets. They were supposed to not only confirm the presence of Shaw, but also provide additional intel. 2/3 had planned to conduct the recon using a Scout Sniper six man team, headed by a very experienced team leader. They had worked in that area often before, knew the relative ground, knew the limitations of radios, etc. Their plan was to get helo lifted miles away from the objective, land, then infiltrate by foot. When the SEALs poached the recon mission, the new recon element was a four man team who had never worked recon in Afghanistan before, weren't trained in recon, only one individual ever having deployed to a combat zone before. They ignored advice to bring more powerful radios, as the Marines knew from experience that the one the SEALs brought couldn't push out far enough, it didn't have enough power. Additionally, the SEAL recon team didn't have a Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency (PACE) plan for comms, only having the weak MBITR and a sat phone as backup. Neither were adequate, and they were warned. More so, their plan was significantly flawed. Not wanting to spent the time and energy walking to the objective, they decided to get helo inserted a few hundred meters away. They attempted to mitigate the risk of landing near directly on the Observation Point (OP) by having numerous false insertions done all over the valley area over the previous week, to keep the locals guessing, which only ended up tipping them off that an operation was in the works. But in recon, its an outright sin to ever airlift onto the OP. Every measure must be taken to keep it hidden, to keep the presence of the recon team hidden. After they fast roped down on the landing zone, per norm, the fast ropes were disconnected from the helicopter, but the SEAL recon team did not hide them, they left them in the open. Locals, sent out when they'd heard the choppers, found them pretty quickly, and using their own comms, reported it back. At that time the SEAL team had made it to the high ground and beyond, were trying to find a good OP to overwatch the NAIs, which proved difficult as the position they initially chose at night proved poor when light came at dawn. After daybreak they moved OPs. [Map of area and NAI and OPs](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-edab31a62fcaf190fd909e25ba9413e6.webp) The locals, knowing ISAF rules of engagement, sent up some unarmed individuals, with radios, with some sheep, into the hills to scout them out. This is a common TTP in COIN ops to find snipers and recon element hide sites. In Iraq, they'd sent kids or unarmed adults to check on certain buildings, knowing we wouldn't kill them if we found them. If they found us, they'd report back. It worked during Red Wings. The SEAL recon team was spotted. Compromised, they detained the sheepherders. At that point the operation was blown. They have just been soft compromised, though without knowing it they'd also been hard compromised as those herders were part of a deliberate counter-recon element so Shaw and the enemy fighters in the village knew they'd been caught when they didn't report back. But because the SEAL recon team never established a formal plan for being compromised they had to make the decision on the spot of what to do. Instead of executing the actions of a pre-made drill for compromise, (depending on the story version) they got into a debate about what to do and even possibly held a vote. Confusion was also on what to do with the detainees. AT NO TIME WAS KILLING THEM ACTUALLY A LEGAL OPTION. Or realistic. The easiest thing to do would have been to gag them and flex cuff them to a tree. Instead they let them go (where they instantly ran off to warn everyone), while the SEALs picked up and moved, but not far. So after being compromised, the SEALs moved to high ground to make the call on their radio to alert the command element what had happened. Note, they didn't vacate the area, they moved maybe a hundred meters away from where they'd been spotted. Meanwhile, their comms weren't working, so the radio traffic was broken taking far longer than it should have without any real benefit of transmitting information. Meanwhile, the local enemy, realistically numbering about 12 fighters, having been briefed by the returning herders on the location of the SEALs, their size, their weapons, created a plan, climbed the hills to reach a position where they could ambush the infidels on their way back up to the high ground which was on the way back to the LZ (which they sent RPG gunners to overwatch in case a helicopter showed up). Finally, the SEAL recon team moving back toward the high ground through a draw (the NE Gulch), but got ambushed at relatively close range by roughly a squad sized element in strength, with machine guns. Possibly RPG and mortar, though in the video the insurgents made I never saw evidence of explosive weaponry. [Map of ambush, blue arrow is SEAL retreat](http://www.darack.com/sawtalosar/ambush-graphic.php) The fight was brief, and the SEALs that weren't hit immediately tried to break contact downhill. Luttrell effectively fell down the mountain, while the patrol leader, Mike Murphy, made a call on the sat phone before dying. The other two died during this time too. They didn't kill any of the locals, it was an entirely one sided fight. The Quick Reaction Force 10 SEALs in a 160th SOAR Chinook, escorted by two Apaches. The SEAL mission commander aboard the Chinook ordered the pilots to reach the LZ ASAP, and because the Chinook flies faster than the Apaches they arrived first. Because the Apaches weren't present, despite them having the thermal optics that would have been able to visually clear the landing zone, and the weaponry to physically clear it, the Chinook flared and started its landing, in broad daylight, under the observation of RPG gunner stationed there, and was targeted and hit, crashing, killing all onboard. [Map of area of operations, with original RT insertion LZ and QRF LZ/Shootdown pos marked](http://www.darack.com/sawtalosar/sawtalo-oblique-west.php) Another SOCOM QRF element, of primarily Rangers, were sent in the next day, they landed elsewhere and walked in, they are the ones who found Luttrell, who had been rescued by a villager in a local village, who apparently still had all his mags, loaded. They also recovered the bodies and secured the helicopter crash site. Besides recovering all weapons and equipment belonging to the SEALs, and having video footage of the fight, the local leader and target of the raid, Ahmed Shaw, also got a computer they'd brought that once broken into possessed the schematics of the US embassy in Kabul, as well as other sensitive information. He took that intel, and the videos, and cobbled together an effective propaganda video that earned him major credibility, which led to increased funding, recruitment, etc., causing him to turn into a legitimate High Value Target. [For more info](http://www.darack.com/sawtalosar/)

"I AM STILL ALIVE YOU FUCKING AMATEURS!!" Best line

"We all have our crosses to bear. We carry them heavily, out of love for our brothers in arms. But sometimes you have to let go of the idea that anyone down here is in control." Marcus Luttrell (Survivor of Op Red Wings)

That 0.01% of germ after hand sanitizer.

Amazing, I can mentally visualize this entire interaction and it’s phenomenal. Thanks again for the great content

As an Army Aviation vet, the very word "RPG" being screamed sends chills through my spine every time I hear it. No matter how many times I hear this.

Reading the back story on this whole thing really tells you a lot about how extreme overconfidence and underestimation can get a bunch of otherwise extremely skilled people killed. It also shows how you need to look at your fuck ups, acknowledge, and learn about them, not bury them.

"should I stay or should I go" but you're a British soldier being ambushed in Londonderry "Run trough the jungle" but you're running to the evac site "La victoire est a nous" but the Prussian have arrived at Waterloo

As veteran of the Afghanistan war, I really appreciate this work. 2009-2010 RIP PO2 Mcneley and PO2 Newlove

When the audio tells a story, the music resonates with you. The context, the voices, the desperation, its awesome. Never stop doing what you do. You absolutely kill at this man!

Down under by the men at work but you're an Australian soldier tasked with hunting down emus.

When he said "Right, here we go" as bullets started flying, I felt that.

Short Change Hero used to make me think about Borderlands, but now it'll always remind me of this.

"You all better not be dead"- the last surviver rip