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00:00January 1991, in the small Saudi Arabian border town of Khafji, American soldiers face the unexpected, an Iraqi invasion.
00:22The first thing that entered my mind was fear.
00:27If you say you're not afraid, you're either lying or you're insane.
00:32The real story behind the Persian Gulf War is that of the individual soldier.
00:38I was wondering at one point what size bullet was going to come through the wall all the way.
00:44It is a story of honor, determination, and valor.
00:50Having been in the Battle of Khafji, I appreciate life.
00:55Very, very much.
00:56Life is precious.
00:58It is a story forever written in the hearts of those who lived it.
01:02A story told by those who were there.
01:05You know, this business of warfare, it's a nasty, brutal, deadly business, but they weren't going to win.
01:12What?
01:15What's going on?
01:17What are we all doing?
01:18What's going on?
01:26What is it?
01:26A story had lifequisito.
01:28What is this?
01:30The Persian Gulf War.
01:53550,000 American troops have amassed in Saudi Arabia.
02:00They are ready to face dictator Saddam Hussein and his notorious army, now occupying Kuwait.
02:10This guy was no genius at war.
02:14He stopped on that border and waited and decided that somehow he was going to get away with this.
02:22And then he sat and waited month after month while we built up.
02:27And this thing proceeded like a Viennese waltz or something, very slowly and stately.
02:36Now, the 28 countries with forces in the Gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution.
02:45Have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force.
02:52We will not fail.
02:53As I report to you, air attacks are underway against military targets in Iraq.
03:03The nightly airstrikes pound Iraqi positions throughout the region.
03:09Despite the initial success of the air war, the battle comes to the soldiers on the ground.
03:19The Persian Gulf War was sort of presented as this bloodless, high-tech, almost a video game war.
03:27And wars are never that. Wars are about soldiers, they're about sacrifice, they're about fear.
03:37Along the border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, forward observers call in these airstrikes from observation posts, called OPs, that are positioned across the desert.
03:48Marine Kurt Lang is posted at OP-8, monitoring the road that leads to the Saudi Arabian town of Qafji.
03:58Under the cover of darkness, he calls in an air raid on Iraqi forces advancing toward the border.
04:04Following the raid, we got a radio call.
04:10I was asked to come back to Shrig headquarters there at the northern end of Qafji for a debriefing.
04:18We had offset a massive offense into Qafji.
04:24So we got a lot of kudos, a lot of high fives, a lot of applause.
04:27And the word that was passed to us was, hey, you know, there's no way that they can mount another attack that size.
04:35So, you know, look forward to a pretty peaceful evening.
04:38I drove back to the observation post and was immediately met by my team chief, Sergeant Lozano.
04:46Sergeant Lozano was all excited.
04:48In my absence, there were three Iraqis that had walked in the sand without varying their path directly up to our position, waving white flags.
05:01They each presented a little leaflet that had been part of the psychological campaign that was dropped behind, saying, hey, with this leaflet surrender, we'll treat you nice.
05:10Sergeant Lozano and the other team members, when they took them into custody and they searched them, came up with maps.
05:20And on the map, our position there, our observation post was plotted as a target.
05:25Obviously, they knew exactly where we were.
05:28Six kilometers away, at OP-7, Doug Clinesmith and his team aid reconnaissance Marines and Army Special Forces.
05:37Like Kurt at OP-8, they sit less than two kilometers away from Iraqi artillery.
05:44Artillery aimed directly at their position.
05:48Well, I had artillery sitting in front of me, so when the air came up that evening, you know, I got it.
05:56We brought it in over top and we nailed them.
05:59We were watching it through the thermal sites and you could see the little guys running around and then just kind of stop.
06:05And then the color on the thermal site that would change from bright yellow to orange to red to purple.
06:15You know, that was our body temperature changing.
06:18So, I mean, we hit them. We got them good.
06:20And then we thought, hey, all right, good night.
06:25Got one.
06:26And let's set up a watch and see what happens tomorrow.
06:33The next thing I know is Corporal Calhoun comes down and wakes me up.
06:37He goes, sir, you got to get up here.
06:39It's bad. There's stuff going on.
06:42I had not seen a concern like that on this face before.
06:45And I go, all right, coming up.
06:47And as soon as I walked out on the roof, across the horizon, you could just hear like a hundred tanks had just started up.
06:55It was loud. It was a lot of them.
06:57There is a distinct sound that even two, two and a half kilometers away and over a desert environment without trees, distinct sound of the metallic squeaking and creaking of armored vehicles.
07:15You know, if you've been around them, you know.
07:18It started out as one, and then two, and then many.
07:26Unbeknownst to me, this activity was happening all along the Allied lines, all the way up to the elbow of Kuwait.
07:35On a routine mission high above Western Kuwait, pilot Mike Edwards suddenly becomes part of an effort to stop the Iraqi surprise attack.
07:51All right, let's say it all again.
07:54Eight minus four.
07:56I'm burning big time. I don't know what it is.
07:58There's just kind of a different buzz in the radio, a different feel.
08:04You know, you sense it in the voices of the people you're talking to, that there's something going on.
08:10We got some big shooting going on down here, and they're shooting till it's the good guys.
08:14As we start to cruise that direction, we're talking to different people, picking up more bits of information.
08:19Ghost 02, Ghost 02 Blacklist, check fire, check fire, contact Blacklist, call 5 for Ghost 02, check fire.
08:28Eventually, Blacklist hands us off to an OV-10 forward air controller.
08:33All right, what way of the rider and what exactly does he have for us?
08:38So we're listening to this story kind of unravel as to where the good guys are and where the bad guys are.
08:45What targets the forward air controller wants hit.
08:50BTR is entering cost. If you go to that area and check out the site, over.
08:54See the chutes? They're shooting right at the end of town.
08:57Understand. We can see the shooting down there.
08:59But I'm getting really low on gas at this point, and I keep adjusting my bingo so we can at least get some weapons off.
09:08I tell the forward air controller I have everything in sight, brief my wingmen that we're going to come in, shooter, shooter, maverick, maverick, which means we'll both shoot a maverick.
09:22And we go in and we take out a couple vehicles, and immediately we head south because we're really pushing the gas.
09:30Edwards is with the Fighting Falcons, the 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron. He flies an A-10 fighter jet.
09:40The nice thing about the A-10 is we can sit there and employ against targets, you know, time and time again, so it can be very effective and really help out the guys on the ground.
09:51The A-10 is affectionately called the Warthog.
09:59The Warthog is built to stay up there for a long time, carry a huge amount of weapons.
10:05It can take a lot of beating and a lot of shooting up and still fly back home when it's done.
10:13And it's a tank killer extraordinaire.
10:16Not surprisingly, the A-10 also has a nickname among the Iraqis.
10:24They used to call us like a silent death.
10:27And because of the altitudes we were operating at and the type of engines we have, they couldn't hear us.
10:33So at that point, you're picking out targets and you're launching weapons against them and they don't even know you're there.
10:38And the next thing they know is things are blowing up around them.
10:42If you know that you're not going to hear the threat come to you, then you're always on edge.
10:48You know, and it has to wear on their mind and bodies.
10:51Tonight, the Iraqis have an advantage.
11:02The scope of their surprise attack exceeds available air support.
11:07At OP-7 and OP-8, Doug Clinesmith and Kurt Lang can't get the aircraft they need.
11:13They are nearly defenseless, carrying only radios and their personal weapons.
11:19I mean, we were a couple dozen guys with small arms and some anti-tank weapons.
11:26We may have been able to hold off and hit a few of them, but we wouldn't be able to do much against a determined armored assault.
11:34It was enough for the mission that we were sent out to do.
11:41It was not even a speed bump for the rest of that evening.
11:47I was asking for higher headquarters, you know, we're an observation post.
11:51We're not an offensive unit here. Let us relocate. Let us leave.
11:56Mission, we're not effective.
11:58And over the course of many radio transmissions, it was finally spelled out to me,
12:06no, you're going to remain until your position is untenable.
12:10You know, stay where you're at, out.
12:12And so I told my team to prepare for the worst. You know, we're here to stay.
12:18Doug Clinesmith is on the radio as Wild Eagle 3-2.
12:24I got on the radio, and Kurt was on the radio, and he's describing what he's hearing,
12:27and I'm just grabbing what he's hearing, and we're trying to find him.
12:29And we started shooting illumination rounds over top of our position, over top of Kurt's position.
12:47And I'm saying, Kurt, you seeing this? He's, yeah.
12:49I'm seeing, I'm also hearing a lot more in front of us.
12:54I said, yeah, I'm hearing stuff all over the place.
12:57And he said, they're there, they're in front of me, and they're coming at us.
13:05They're coming at us. They're coming at us. They're coming at us.
13:07And I looked over where he was, and he was about eight kilometers away, but in the desert, that's, you know, we could see very clearly it was very flat.
13:20And all of a sudden, his whole position was a fan of green tracers coming over top.
13:29I looked out there, and I was like, oh, he's dead. Those guys are done.
13:38The word came down that there had been this Iraqi attack on a small and insignificant border town on the Kuwait-Saudi border.
13:53The reaction of the military was somewhat astonished. You know, they just didn't believe that this had happened.
14:03It was kind of like someone had stuck a stick in an ant's nest. There were a lot of folks scurrying around trying to figure this thing out.
14:13Doug Clinesmith is caught in the fervor of the attack. He holds on to his observation post, now with the help of four Cobra gunships.
14:25I know they saved us because they asked what I wanted them to do, and I kept them circling.
14:31I said, just, you know, press forward, let yourself be known. And as long as those guys are there, I know those guys weren't coming at us.
14:39There's no way they're going to approach us with four Cobras around us. I had pressed a few of the Cobras. I had sent them toward Kurt's last location.
14:49Kurt Lang barely holds on as the Iraqi 5th Mechanized Division rolls over his position toward Kofji.
14:57The man was just materializing out of the sand dune in front of us.
15:01There was the gunner on top of a tank, and he swang his .50 caliber machine gun in our direction and just started letting out a string of fire.
15:10And I remember just hitting the ground, you know, face down. I'm on my stomach now.
15:16I recall looking and seeing the bunker that we had put together with all these sandbags.
15:21It's just melting in front of my eyes with the impact of all the machine gun rounds.
15:26I'm laying there trying to low crawl back was my team chief, Sergeant Lozano.
15:31He's now right on top of the sand dune, just yelling, come on, sir, get down. He's yelling, crawl, crawl.
15:38Sergeant Lozano was just pumping these M203 smoke and illumination rounds at this gunner, and he got him to go back down into the tank,
15:48which gave me a chance to look for crawling back to what was the bunker and behind the bunker where the vehicle was.
15:56Lang and his team have no choice. Leaving behind personal belongings and sensitive cryptological equipment, they make an escape.
16:05We ran right into this T-55 tank that was in front of us and so close that it couldn't depress its tube low enough to shoot us.
16:27But at the same time, if it continued its rate of speed, it would just crush us. It would roll right over us.
16:32The driver stomped on the gas, and we took off, and we were really just bouncing from one little sand dune to another.
16:39But we were expecting that final and fatal shot to happen at any time.
16:44And then there was a flash, a huge flash, and a fireball.
16:48You know, is it us that's getting blown up?
16:51And then we realized it was a tank. The tank had literally been destroyed. It had been blasted into flames.
16:56A Cobra gunship sent by Clinesmith makes it just in time.
17:03Launching a Hellfire missile, the Cobra is able to take out the Iraqi T-55.
17:08Kirk came back up on the radio.
17:12Oh, Doc, I thought you were dead.
17:15Oh, Kirk, dude, man, I thought you were dead.
17:17And he's like, oh, my gosh. Are you okay? I thought you were dead.
17:21You know, we saw your position go up like a Christmas tree.
17:24And, you know, after he finished, I'm like, hold on, sir, sir, sir.
17:26I thought you were dead. Where are you?
17:29And he finds out, he goes, I'm still here at Observation Post 7.
17:35I'm telling him, sir, be advised.
17:38You're five to seven kilometers behind enemy lines.
17:41They're in the city.
17:43In a matter of hours, the Iraqis roll into the city of Qafji.
17:47This is Brad Willis reporting from the front gates of the city of Qafji.
17:51The Iraqi strikes last night caught allies by surprise.
17:52We can hear light weapons firing and see the smoke.
17:56To the Saudi border town in Iraqi hands, Saddam has already proclaimed a major victory.
18:01The areas of Qafji still apparently burning.
18:04We have heard some loud explosions and sporadic small weapons fire.
18:08Clearly, there is still some resistance in Qafji.
18:13There had been this Iraqi attack, which was mounted by a couple of very good units.
18:19Probably as good as Saddam Hussein had.
18:24An armor column came roaring up the road.
18:28They burst into the town.
18:31By the time that they got there, it was pretty much a ghost town.
18:35Not everyone gets out of Qafji.
18:44J.D. Brown and Kevin Callahan, known as Doc to his teammates, are members of a six-man marine reconnaissance team.
18:52They opt to stay, hidden on a rooftop in the city, isolated by the Iraqi advance.
18:57Liberation of Qafji, take one.
19:03At the time, we had no idea what kind of scope this attack was.
19:08It's a lovely moonlit evening in the Saudi here.
19:12We can't think of a better way we'd like to spend our time over.
19:15We didn't have any idea whether it was just a raid, or a spoiling attack, or if it was the entire Iraqi army coming across the border.
19:29It was kind of a surreal moment to see the enemy for the first time, and realize that all of those troops that you see coming down the street are there to kill you.
19:43They basically just flooded into Qafji in mass.
19:50He couldn't count them. There was just too many.
19:54I was thinking, they don't know we're here, and we're going to inflict some really heavy damage, as long as they don't discover us.
20:02And that this is a recon marines dream, is to be able to not only report on the enemy, but call in fire on them.
20:10To be effective, the recon team has to move to a building with a better vantage point, a building closer to the Iraqis.
20:21Normally a recon team would not move in broad daylight, but we really had no choice.
20:28We snuck through the streets of Qafji and the back roads, and made it to the other building, luckily, and got up on the roof.
20:36I think that was probably the most nerve-wracking time for me, was making that first move into the streets.
20:45And if we had been spotted as a small team, we didn't have a whole lot to fight back with.
20:51It starts to mess with your mind a little bit, because there's all these dark windows everywhere you look, and storm drains, and just any place where anybody can be hiding.
21:04It's just all over.
21:05In terrain like that, you have to keep your eyes out 360 degrees around you, and spherical, along all three axes.
21:14Because attacks can come, not only from left, right, front, and back, but they can come from above or below as well.
21:21I've got your car, come straight ahead, you guys, ma'am.
21:24Combat forms the closest bonds between men.
21:40You are dependent, for your life, on the man on your left, the man on your right, the guy behind you.
21:54And you know that if you get in trouble, either one of these guys, or the one behind you, would lay down his life for yours.
22:05Doc Callahan and J.D. Brown served together for only nine months.
22:12After the war, they went their separate ways.
22:16Today, 12 years later, their bond remains strong.
22:20I've been looking for you for 12 years, Jeff.
22:23Oh, yeah?
22:24Yeah.
22:25I've tried everything.
22:27It's good to see you.
22:30Glad to see you kept your Marine Corps haircut there.
22:33This is zero-maintenance haircut.
22:36I meant to bring my bush cover that still has that silver star on it that you gave me by the dumpster in the parking lot.
22:42I remember that.
22:43I'll never forget that as long as I live.
22:48They reunite at a Marine Urban Training Facility, a facility that resembles Kofji.
22:54Yeah, this is not that far off, is it?
22:57No.
22:58You know, the center block buildings and everything, it's a lot like the buildings we had over there.
23:02That's very similar.
23:10You know, they almost had to have copied these off of those towns.
23:16They might have.
23:17And then it pretty much went out just like this.
23:25This is a lot like it.
23:27This is a lot like it.
23:29Actually, there was more room going that way coming out of the stairwell.
23:33There were some concrete structures, about eight of them I think, that provided those ventilation shafts going down through the building.
23:42I'll never forget that sound, that metallic sound of Iraqi armor flooding down the street.
23:48We heard the whine of the turbine engines.
23:52Then we knew this was going to be a little bit more than we expected.
23:56I know what I thought at first was it sounded like a jet engine.
24:00And I thought that we were going to see a Marine Harrier jump jet coming down the city.
24:06And it just kept getting closer and closer, but it was coming slowly.
24:11And then the ground starts shaking.
24:12Yeah.
24:13And you start hearing the metallic clanks, you know, the treads on the pavement and everything.
24:18I was like, that's no jump jet.
24:20I'll never forget looking over the side of that first building and seeing Iraqis going by.
24:26And they seemed like they had dark uniforms and dark hats.
24:29And to me, they looked like Darth Vader's forces had just come into town.
24:33I thought, oh, boy.
24:37Blocks away from the recon marines position,
24:39Army specialists, Melissa Coleman and David Lockett are on a routine assignment.
24:46They become lost and unknowingly drive their truck into the center of the Iraqi stronghold.
24:53I wasn't at the town of Kafji intentionally.
24:56We kind of rolled into it on accident.
24:59The entrance to the city has these huge arches that were white with green paint.
25:03And it reminded me of McDonald's arches.
25:08And as my coworker was driving in, we didn't know it had just been fought for that morning.
25:17Corporal Brown and I saw it first as it was two lost trucks.
25:22And we got on the radio again.
25:24Got to get these guys out of here.
25:26I remember telling Chuck you need to call this in because they're about to get waxed.
25:30We had no radio communication.
25:33We're in Saudi Arabia in the desert.
25:36We were just like blind ducks.
25:40They fired up that truck.
25:44They fired the truck up and the truck veered off to its right, our left.
25:48And we lost sight of it behind that building.
25:49My coworker and I came under enemy fire.
25:54We just heard these gunshots ringing out, had no clue where they were coming from.
25:59And I had been hit.
26:01I had just a hole in my forearm with a pool of blood in it.
26:06During the capture, I had been sitting in the passenger seat.
26:10We headed into Kafji.
26:13The enemy fire came from this direction.
26:15And we tried to do a U-turn, but as we got here, they shot a hole in the steering box and we went straight into the wall.
26:26I was actually cowered down on the floor right there is pretty much where I had gotten shot at.
26:35A U.S. vehicle took a wrong turn, leaving two soldiers pinned down inside Kafji.
26:41A rescue operation was quickly mounted.
26:42They weren't in the vehicle.
26:45The tires were spinning, Deuce gear was in there, but they weren't in the vehicle.
26:49We don't know if they fled or were captured.
26:51The rescuers were turned back by two Iraqi armored personnel carriers called BMPs.
26:57Cobra assault helicopters were called in.
27:01But the missing soldiers were nowhere to be found.
27:05The staff sergeant that went up ran around the vehicle looking for them, hollering U.S. Marines, U.S. Marines.
27:09We got no response.
27:12And then we had to get out of there.
27:14It's got to be disappointing not to be able to find those men.
27:17Yeah.
27:19It's, uh, we wanted to get them pretty bad.
27:23Melissa Coleman, just 20 years old, is the first American female POW to be captured since World War II.
27:33She and Lockett face an arduous journey to the heart of Iraq.
27:43Doug Clinesmith and the Marines at OP-7 evade capture.
27:49As their position is overrun, they drive south to a marsh area known as the Sabkas.
27:57I just wanted to get as deep into the marshland as possible.
28:01But I didn't want to go all the way back to the Saudi lines because, uh,
28:06I haven't been with those guys for the last six months.
28:09In the dark, they'll shoot first, ask questions later.
28:13Sure as I predicted, there was a Saudi force that came out of the line, and they'd met us.
28:21And for a while there, it was like the Mexican standoff.
28:23I mean, they turned every gun toward us, ready to blow us away.
28:26So I threw some red smoke, and I walked over to them.
28:30And when they saw me, one of the guys recognized me.
28:33Oh, it's you, Captain Doug. We were about to shoot you.
28:35He says, I know you guys were.
28:36He says, you guys do that all the time.
28:38Oh, you're too funny.
28:40And they took off, and we took off.
28:43POWs Melissa Coleman and David Lockett are transported to a prison compound in Baghdad.
28:50During their three-day journey, they are interrogated.
28:53They are given food, but not allowed to sleep.
28:58Lockett is treated poorly by his captors.
29:01Coleman has not, as of yet, been touched.
29:06The Iraqi soldier reached across me and tried to touch my chest.
29:11And I said no.
29:14And he tried again, and I said no.
29:18And he nudged me with the butt of the weapon on my leg.
29:20And, you know, I was adamant about it.
29:23In my mind, if he was going to touch me, he'd have to touch me dead.
29:27He was going to touch a corpse because I was not going to go out without dignity.
29:31And so I was fighting tooth and nail.
29:35You know, and I kept getting louder and louder.
29:37So finally his superiors in the front turned around, and they talked back and forth in Iraq.
29:41So then he did it again.
29:44Like, okay, he doesn't understand English.
29:47David started to raise up and say something, and they hit him with the gun.
29:54And pulled the pistol out and threatened to shoot him in the head.
29:58So he went to reach again, and I just reached across myself and punched him in the arm.
30:02You know, I'm just not going to sit there and say, yeah, here, have a field day.
30:07By that point, they had the thought I was just a lunatic.
30:11Back in Kafji, the Saudis, with the help of U.S. forces, lead a counterattack to regain control of their city.
30:23The recon marines call in artillery strikes against the Iraqi invaders.
30:29But every moment they stay on the rooftop increases their chance of detection.
30:34We heard the armor coming towards the building.
30:41We peered out over the parapet that surrounded the rooftop and saw the tanks and armored personnel carriers moving into positions around our building.
30:51The Iraqis dismounted, and they moved into our building because they realized that, just as we had realized,
30:59that building was the best vantage point in that entire part of the town.
31:04The team had already instituted security measures in the stairwell just below their position.
31:10Two small explosives, known as Claymore Mines, and two marines protect them from the Iraqis below.
31:17We heard and saw their vehicles pull up all around.
31:23That's when we were first surrounded.
31:24And then they started heading up the stairwells, and I remember looking down the stairwell,
31:30and seeing those helmets coming up, and they were talking.
31:34I remember Lance Corporal Sterling had a saw, Lance Corporal Bowling had the shotgun,
31:40and you or Chuck had put them on the stairwell, and those two marines didn't move for three days.
31:46I guess one of them told us that they were coming in the building.
31:51Yeah.
31:52And I remember looking over the rail and seeing the helmets like you did,
31:56and looking at Sterling and saying, don't shoot or hit those Claymores unless they look up.
32:01Yeah.
32:03Because we didn't want them to see us.
32:04We would have rounded that corner on the third floor to come up.
32:07It would have been another different story.
32:08That's when we would have hit the clackers, and we would have taken them out in the stairwell,
32:12but what are we going to do after that?
32:14We would have been compromised.
32:17The only thing that I remember thinking was, more than likely this is going to end up in a fight,
32:24because I saw no reason why they wouldn't come up to the roof.
32:27And if they came up to the roof, we would have taken out the first group of them when we detonated the Claymores,
32:34but after that it would have been a firefight.
32:36I suppose once or twice it crossed my mind that, okay, you're probably going to die here.
32:41But I just forced it out of my head, and just continued to do the job.
32:46The Iraqis stop short of the roof, and never look up.
32:51I've been wondering about this for years, why they never came up,
32:53and it just dawned on me that when they were coming up, they did see the Claymores.
33:00But they didn't know enough about our weaponry to realize that these mines are command detonated,
33:05so probably in their minds, what they thought was the roof is booby-trapped.
33:10So they didn't go up there.
33:14A mechanized infantry platoon began staging their vehicles on the north side of our building, out in the street.
33:23And they put them there because it provided them excellent cover and concealment.
33:30Iraqi troops actually got out of the vehicles and were standing on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes with their rifles over their shoulders and stuff.
33:39So we started calling in a mission.
33:41Outside the city, a Marine artillery unit gets the call to direct fire on Iraqi troops below the recon team's position.
33:50Callahan and Brown are directly in the line of fire.
33:54They said this is going to be danger close, which means the rounds are going to be hitting our position.
33:59Did we have cover?
34:01We told them, yes, we have cover.
34:03Shoot it. Shoot it now.
34:05Fire!
34:07So we only have a matter of seconds.
34:12It was like, you know, a thousand bolts of lightning hitting the roof.
34:15The rounds that the artillerymen were firing for us were called DPICM, stands for Dual Purpose Individual Cluster Munition.
34:24And when it reaches a prescribed altitude above the target, the shell bursts apart.
34:29And it spreads out these softball-sized submunitions that spread out over a larger area than a single round could cover.
34:39And each one of those is capable of piercing the armor of an armored personnel carrier if it hits it on top where the armor is the thinnest.
34:48So you can do a lot of damage over a very wide area with just one shot.
34:53The second ones that hit, the outer edge of them was over our position.
35:03We heard a thunderclap above us, and I remember I looked up, and I see all these bomblets spreading out over us.
35:11And those started exploding all around us, so 64 of those, and I don't know how many of the smaller munitions come out of this thing,
35:17but the explosions went on for, it seemed like a lifetime, that it just went on and on and on, and it was incredibly loud and violent.
35:32So we start sprinting this way to get back inside the building, and I think you were behind me, and Chuck was in front of me.
35:40And we got right about here, and then something, it felt like a baseball bat hit me in the upper thigh, and I went end over end, and landed on the concrete.
35:55I just remember the first thing that went through my mind was, no way, I can't believe it, I just got hit, this can't happen to me.
36:01And the rounds were, were calling them in very close to our position, we knew that, but we also knew we had to take out those APCs.
36:11Armored personnel carriers.
36:12Armored personnel carriers.
36:14And, basically, a round went off overhead, and I got hit in the leg.
36:21I just remember seeing a lot of burned up vehicles, and just rocks and building debris everywhere.
36:30I personally don't recall seeing any bodies, because I don't know what happened to them.
36:36I mean, there was that much explosion that I'm not sure what happened to them.
36:40In a Baghdad prison compound, Melissa Coleman is in solitary, but receives humane treatment from her guards.
36:52I was treated differently than the men. I don't know if they were trying to prove to the allies that they could treat women fairly.
37:01The men were burned with cigarettes, they were electrically shocked with batteries, they were almost starved to death.
37:08Melissa is still in the path of danger.
37:12U.S. airstrikes dropped bombs close to her prison.
37:16One night, there was an air raid, and this is the only time that I feared for my life.
37:21And I said, Lord, you let me live through the Iraqis, now the Americans are going to kill me.
37:26We had an air raid, and they bombed the compound, and it had to have been within two miles of my prison.
37:32Because as I laid there, and I could see this ball of fire coming from the sky, and it hit, and it hit so hard.
37:41Everything shook, and after every air raid, the Iraqi guards would stand outside my window and go,
37:47Melissa, are you okay? Melissa, are you okay?
37:49And one of my guards got a piece of shrapnel in his eye shooting Sam back at one of our airplanes.
38:02Pilot Mike Edwards knows firsthand what it's like to face a Sam.
38:06Most of the times when we were shot at, the temporal distortion kind of kicks in.
38:14You know, like people say, everything starts to slow down.
38:17The time I was shot, I just remember everything was just so crystal clear,
38:24and I saw this Sam come up at me, and it had a little corkscrew thing going,
38:29and I'm like, I can't believe someone's shooting at me. I don't believe this.
38:36And then, all of a sudden, you're going, how long have I been sitting here talking and thinking and looking at this thing coming up at me?
38:43And then your training kicks in. In reality, it's probably a fraction of a second, but it kind of wakes you up.
38:51In Kafji, the recon marines are in the middle of a firestorm.
38:56From the outskirts, American artillery pounds the city to hold back the Iraqis.
39:02Right now, all we're doing, the only mission that we have currently is to continue to block further advancement.
39:09But, I mean, marines in general, what are they going to do about the Iraqis being there?
39:13Well, I expect we're going to go up and spank them. That's what we're going to do.
39:16And they probably ought to call 911 right now.
39:20I expect we'll go expel them rather violently, rather shortly.
39:26Kafji is located in a sector of Saudi Arabia controlled by Saudi and Arab forces.
39:34So it is the Saudis, with limited help from U.S. air and ground forces, that have to retake the city.
39:40This was a matter of need for the Saudis themselves, to give them a point of pride.
39:49This is their territory. And somebody has come in and taken one of their towns.
39:55They ought to be the ones to retake it.
39:58On the third day of the battle, the Saudis make it into the city.
40:02The recon team is caught in the clash between Iraqi forces and the advancing Saudi units.
40:10As the fight rages around them, an Iraqi tank faces off against a Saudi armored vehicle.
40:16The Saudis fired that tow missile and hit the tank. And the turret of the tank blew up and exploded into flames.
40:25And Corporal Brown and I were standing there watching the Iraqis jump out of these vehicles and start running.
40:31They were burning in flames and a huge billow of black smoke started coming out and actually started covering the street and kind of covering our building.
40:40That's when we realized, this is it. It's now or never. We go now.
40:45We got out on foot. We were running. And we headed out to the west, across the street, down a side street for a little ways.
40:55Then we turned south to head towards Saudi lines.
40:58The town actually stops. The pavement stops and the sand starts.
41:02We kept running into the desert and one of our team leaders, Sergeant Imes, came speeding up in a stripped-down Humvee and said,
41:12Get in. And we all dove in the back and took off into the desert.
41:18As Saudi and Arab forces push further into the city, Doug Clinesmith rejoins a Saudi brigade.
41:24They head north to cut off Iraqi reinforcements entering the city.
41:29Along the way, they encounter Iraqi soldiers who want to surrender.
41:34There's about a dozen of them or so.
41:37And the closer they got, they realized, oh man, these are Americans and not only that, they're Marines.
41:46Some of them knelt down and you could see that they were just like, oh, my life's over.
41:49My life's over.
41:51And one of the guys gets up, one of the Iraqis.
41:54He comes, as he's being searched, he's talking, he says to one of my corporates,
41:59he says, please, you know, no, kill me. Don't kill me.
42:05And he goes, no, we're not going to kill you. Go get back in line.
42:09So he gets back in line and he talks to his friends.
42:11Another guy jumps up and says, you're not going to kill me. You're not going to kill me.
42:14No, we're not killing anybody. Get back in line.
42:16I had an interpreter tell me, he says, oh, man, sir, you know what they told these guys?
42:21They told these guys that you get caught by an American Marine.
42:26He's going to cut off your arms and legs and leave you in the desert there.
42:31And that was the propaganda on their side. And they believed it.
42:35Now, with the Iraqis on the retreat, Kurt Lang and some of his team decide to go behind enemy lines to retrieve the equipment they had abandoned.
42:47We're the Marines. You know, we don't leave anyone behind.
42:52And I didn't. And then after that, we don't leave anything behind.
42:55It was important just maybe a personal save a face.
43:00You know, when you're put in a desperate situation where, you know, being overrun, you're undermanned, under equipped, being overrun by a mechanized unit, you know, escaping with your lives.
43:15Well, now we had regained the initiative. Now it was time for me to go back and get everything.
43:25We came up with a plan to race back up to the observation post and do a quick search of our positions there.
43:33So it was very light resistance going up there.
43:36We got up to the sand dune, stopped the vehicle, back ramp goes down, and it was just, it couldn't have been, it couldn't have been more perfect.
43:49We recovered everything. Everything that had been missing a day or two ago was now back in our hands.
43:56At the end of the war, Saddam Hussein releases 10 POWs as a show of good faith.
44:05Most were starved, beaten, and tortured.
44:08After 33 days of imprisonment, Melissa Coleman was about to be free.
44:13They took us to a hotel.
44:16We got in the room and they had the 10 of us sitting at a table for the photo ops.
44:21All this media, they're all going, Melissa, how do you feel? Melissa, how did they treat you? Melissa, are you okay?
44:28Looking around at these people, who in the hell are these people? And why do they know my name?
44:34And I couldn't comprehend that. It was just so naive.
44:37On March 10th, Melissa arrives at Andrews Air Force Base. Aboard Air Force One, on her journey home, Melissa celebrated her 21st birthday.
44:54When things have come up, I've dealt with them on my own and moved on.
45:01It's not a part of my everyday life. I see my scars and it doesn't faze me.
45:07Kids ask me at my kids' school, you got shot and you didn't die. Yep, didn't die.
45:14You know, it's just nothing to me. It's life.
45:17We got letters from Bangladesh, from Tibet, from all over the world.
45:31One little girl even just drew a picture of a female soldier and said, United States.
45:38And it got to me.
45:40Melissa and the men and women who fought and won the war in the Gulf were home.
45:50That's all I remember is how neat the green grass was.
45:55It almost hurt your eyes.
45:58For seven and a half months, we hadn't really seen green grass.
46:03Now I was coming home.
46:08Eating ice cream and going to movies and pizza and all that.
46:15It was kind of sad to see the unit breaking up because we had all become so close.
46:22He's hands down one of the best guys I've ever served with.
46:26I can't imagine what Kopchi would have been like without him.
46:29I can't imagine what the team would have been like without him.
46:31I bought him a Silver Star ribbon because that's what I thought Doc deserved.
46:42I think I said to him, you know, nobody else knows what we did up there.
46:48But we know what we did up there.
46:51So this is for you.
46:55I realized that I meant something to them and they meant something to me as well.
46:59So I put that ribbon on my desert cover and left it there until this day.
47:07Well, there are no combat virgins in 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 3rd Recon anymore.
47:16Staying low.
47:17Staying low.
47:18Staying low.
47:20If you go through a searing experience together, you come out the other end as brothers, maybe
47:31closer than your blood kin.
47:33What I did was lead men in battle, and that is a privilege every Marine officer hopes
47:47to have, and there's no doubt in my mind that any one of them would have given their life
47:54for the others, and I would have the same for them.
47:57Man, if I would have said, charge the gates of hell, they would have been gone, and would
48:01have done it.
48:03There are a lot of heroes that no one's going to hear about.
48:11The odds, they're not just against you a little, they're against you a lot.
48:17When given an impossible task, who but a Marine?
48:23I felt like I had asked those Marines to stay and do their job in Kofti, and they were young
48:30guys, so, you know, I asked them to stay, and they did, and they did a great job, and I'll
48:46never forget them.
48:47And I'll never forget them.
48:48They would have served in Kofti and Kofti, and they had their life, and they were
48:51that they're, and they were.
48:52Good luck!
48:53So, when you were there, and we're all out for the matter, and I'll never forget them.
48:59And they will keep you with them.
49:01They'll never forget them.
49:02And they will always forget them.
49:04They will also...
49:05Let them know them.
49:07They will do that.
49:08Then they will support their lives and they will be with their children.
49:10They will be with you.
49:11I am a great city star, but they will not then be with you.
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