The Blackwater Massacre | SRS #011

all right guys so september 16th 2007 what's  known as the blackwater massacre raven 23 incident. i want to get each and every one of  yours firsthand accounts of what happened. black water security guard shot more  than 30 unarmed iraqis in baghdad in 2007.

black water security contractors were serving  time for killing 17 iraqi civilians in 2007. four americans receive lengthy  prison sentences today for an. infamous incident during the iraq war all  four former blackwater security contractors. convicted in the killings of 14 unarmed iraqis  including women and children in baghdad in 2007.

especially in 2007 with it being deemed the  most violent bloody year of the entire war. they said that in 2007 there was an average  of 180 engagements from insurgents a day.

as soon as we came to a stop within a  minute or less i started hearing the. pings on the side of my vehicle and at the  same time i heard i don't know if i heard. paul yell it out on the radio or  just yell it out down the turret that. there was a white kia that was presenting a  threat and was coming towards the vehicle so.

so he landed in the middle of this gun battle and  just walked over as we were loading the uh our our. brother's remains we had already put him in body  bags and we're dragging him back up the hill and. he just lands in the middle of the gunfight he  lands his bird and he gets out he wanted to see. that it was his brother and then as soon as  he seen it was his brother he got back up and. they started laying down suppressive fire for  us again but like it was just a crazy moment.

you know that it was just it was tragic man  like i said his worst day of my life for sure. he had just taken a drag off his cigarette and  the efp came through the window compartment. and he lost his arm and the only reason why he's  the driver is he took his hand off the wheel to do. something i don't know if it's the light one take  a puff or what but he lost his his arm behind it.

the other thing that he said that was so critical  that didn't get introduced at trial was that these. iraqi witnesses said the white kia punched  forward like a car bomb a really good friend. on the line here you guys might  know his name's eddie gallagher. ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the sean ryan  show this is episode 011 the very first episode.

in our brand new studio i want to start off by  saying thank you because we had a massive influx. of patrons after the last episode and it's patrons  like you that make this entire production possible. if you can't support us on patreon head down  to the description please click the itunes tab.

go over there leave us a review even if it's  just one word that helps us more than you know. so please leave us a review now let's get on with  it in srs011 what you are about to hear is an. untold side of the most controversial gun fight in  the iraq war also known is the blackwater massacre. these gentlemen have never been given the  opportunity to tell their side of what happened.

in nasir square baghdad iraq that  day please welcome paul slock. evan liberty nick slatten and  dustin hurt raven23 enjoy the show.

all right gents welcome to the uh sean ryan  show so just for the audience you gentlemen. are from raven 2 3 also known as the blackwater  massacre and which is the most controversial. gun fight in all of the iraq war and possibly in  american history so kind of how this happened is.

um how i got introduced to you guys is evan you  know i was uh checking messages on instagram and. check the out box and there's a message  from evan and i'm pretty sure it just said. yeah i just uh said i i loved your podcast and uh  was a big fan yeah thank you for everything you're. doing and you were part of raven23 incorrect  i was like it's been a long time since i heard.

that name so i jumped off real quick googled it  now i blew my mind i was like holy [ __ ] you. know i didn't even know you guys were out and  so i reached back out to you and uh i think you. kind of got cold feet and uh you know you're like  i don't think you're actually going to reach back. out and i was like well here i am you know let's  do this [ __ ] and uh got in touch with the rest. of you guys and so here we are but um you  know kind of taking this thing on this is.

i just want to say this is the biggest probably  most important interview i will ever do. and i'm going to do my damnedest to to give  you the best interview you will ever have. and and i want to give you guys a platform  as we all discussed for you guys to tell. your side of what happened and um you've never  been given the chance or the opportunity to do. that and so that's exactly what we want to do here  is give you guys the opportunity to get everything.

off your chest and 100 percent your side of of  what exactly happened back on september 16 2007. so when i took this you know and i agreed  to do it and i started digging in i got. overwhelmed with the amount of information and  just how in-depth this case went and uh so kind. of before we get going i just want to say you  know thank you to you guys and your families for.

um for helping me with all the information  gina keating did an amazing job on her podcast. which is the number one thing that i used and uh  that's linked below com it is full of information. uh that you can't find in the regular press  the mainstream media bill cofield helped a lot. and support raven23.com uh there's a ton of  information on there and we'll be talking about.

some documents some videos all kinds of stuff  email chains cables from state department and um. just for the audience that will all be linked in  the description none of this [ __ ] is being made. up it's all fact it's documented and the links  are below if you don't believe me or these guys.

don't take our word for it all the proof is uh  linked below so um kind of when i want to take. this interview with you guys is there's a lot  of people that probably don't know exactly what. blackwater was so i kind of want to start at the  beginning or what it took to get in so i want to. go around the room and get an introduction  from you guys kind of what you were doing. before you went to blackwater how you got into  blackwater what was the vetting and training like.

when did you guys all meet what was the op tempo  and the deployment schedule when you guys got in. then we'll walk us into the incident the the  raven 2 3 blackwater massacre and then the. indictment prison what you guys are doing now so  um let's just start with paul you know what were. you doing before uh before i just come back from  a rotation uh in iraq with the national guard unit.

we were primary convoy security and then a psd  for for our battalion commander and our s3 shop. i'd come home and uh basically was was working  at a home depot um and it just wasn't a good fit. i missed the mission i missed um being in in what  i felt was an honorable task for the nation in.

helping another nation just come out of a horrific  season that they that they had been in and so i uh. ironically enough went to a job fair um  and there was a blackwater wrap there. and i met him and i'd heard the name before and  i had a very limited understanding of really what. blackwater was other than um being in iraq  and and so i conversed with him and he said.

yeah give me your resume and give me your dd214  all that good stuff and we'll go from here and. and so the process was really just kind of a  back and forth filling out the packet and then uh. being accepted and going to the  vetting process there in moya. so you've been you'd had combat  tours before with the military. yeah how many tours did you do uh that year just  just prior to that okay in the garden yeah uh.

where were you when 9 11 happened i was at  hunter army airfield we were on a tarmac. weirdly enough we were on what was red cycle  at that time and so we were attached to a tank. battalion um and a ranger battalion and we were  set up as a response force for for the globe. in the in the uh and then you know  if there was a need for that and so.

um yeah we were sitting on the tarmac our  lieutenant came outside and said hey guys. we're under attack and at the moment we were all  just kind of ribbing one another because we were. on this red cycle right that we were going to  deploy here deploy there and deploy you know. any other number of the places in the in  the world and anyway he said yeah he said. for real we're under attack and at the time his  father-in-law was a chaplain at uh the pentagon.

and was reading last rites when he called him  and and said it's it's it's really happening. nick so i was in the 82nd airborne division i  was a infantry sniper and i was a team leader. um i was at the point of re-enlistment. you know deciding to stay in or get out and they  were pushing me to either go to division lures. or to go to sfas and so i had to get out of the  82nd in order to do that i had to like out process.

and part of that out process is you have to go  to job fairs as well and it was a triple canopy. recruiter that picked me up first they said hey  you know you're sniper qualified we could use you. and they said you can get into the oga after you  do some time on state so that was my goal anyway. that's what i wanted to do and you know blackwater  ended up winning the contract so it switched from. canopy to blackwater they they took me to training  and it was it was amazing man there was you know.

high level seals high level cag dudes high level  sf dudes you know i was still a kid i was like 22. and so they were they had been fighting longer  than i had been alive you know so it was awesome. just and they took me under their wing because i  came with a real humble attitude you know and i. was just like man i don't know this stuff i need  you to help me and they did you know they were. they were very awesome and that was the best  training i'd ever received it was just out of this.

world how good we were trained just uh for the  audience it's civilian types what can you describe. what sfas is yeah it's just the entry selection  i think it's called for special forces assessment. so it's like they wanted you to become a green  bird yes sir you're trying out for green berets. and you've done combat tours sir i had  two tours with 82nd my first tour was.

right around the fallujah area and then  that was um we're basically attached to. uh special forces units and and kag and stuff  doing raids where we would just uh be after high. value targets you know this is the guy we're  looking for we either capture or kill this guy. and then after that i came home they slotted me  for sniper school went to sniper school and then. my second deployment was more like a peacekeeping  mission it was just in the kurdistan region.

nothing was really going on there so it was just  it was very nice you know i didn't like it at the. time because i was an infantryman i was like i  need to be fighting but looking back on it it was. nice because i got to see the dark side of iraq  and also the good side of iraq they're the kurdish. people they loved us you know first mission i  went on i was a team leader and uh it was a very. good chance we were going to get ambushed because  it was basically a village that set back in this. mountainside and it was almost like a cul-de-sac  the mountains so there was only one way in and.

one way out so i call a hawk and i'm like i'm just  gonna push up and if anything happens to me y'all. just leave me you know i was like come back and  get me later call airstrike or whatever and so. as i'm pushing up i notice these local villagers  are kind of going in and out of their their huts. and i see this woman come running out and she's  holding something so i look at her in my optic. and she's got a tea kettle and she's screaming and  and kurdish saying berkarbic which is like welcome.

and she sets the tea kettle on the fire and  then she starts dragging chairs out of her. house and i'm like where are we at man you know  it was like night and day difference so it was. very awesome just to see the you know my first  tour they were they were shooting at us they. were blowing us up versus come come have some  tea with us you know it was it was really good. right on evan well i grew up in new hampshire  doing a lot of outdoor stuff fly fishing camping.

hiking things like that plans playing sports  basketball i was a big runner when i was a kid. and pretty much decided i was going  to go in the marine corps pretty early. in 1998 when i was a junior in high school  i signed up for the delayed entry program. and um me and my best friend were going to go  in the marine corps together once we graduated.

um one of the big mistakes i made  when i was a kid was basically. just deciding pretty quick that i was going to  go in the marine corps but not really giving. a lot of thought into what job i wanted to do  i just knew oh you know my uncle was a marine. the marines are the the toughest branch um i want  to do something challenging so i just signed up. and then i had a female recruiter and she asked  me what do you want to do for a job so she gave.

me the pamphlet and i started looking through  it and of course you you see machine gunner. security forces mp things like that so i said you  know what i think i want to be in security forces. you know i didn't do any research or anything like  that we didn't have the internet so i just uh it. sounded cool and i was like yeah i'll do that so  she came back within a week and said you know what.

uh because of the date that you and your best  friend want to go to boot camp there's gonna be. a big uh time gap between graduation and boot camp  and when you can go to security forces school so. she said pick something else so i said you know  what uh put me in for mp i want to be a military. police so same thing a week later she comes  back and says well bad news you have to be 19.

to go to mp school you're only 17 right  now so go ahead and pick something else. so you know typical kid i went off doing whatever  i was up to in those days and about a month later. she calls me and said you know what i i  found an mos for you i put it in for you uh. it's my mos you're gonna love it it's uh you  know go to work in the morning you're done by 16.

30 and that's it and i'm like well that doesn't  sound like the marine corps that i'm imagining. wha what uh what job is it and she said supply  and my heart sunk i was like what what is that. what do you do with supply and she kind  of explained it to me and i was sick man. i i was like man i want to be in the marine  corps but i want to do something badass so.

i go off to boot camp i'm hearing all  these guys talk about how they're going. infantry they're doing machine gunner they want  to be a sniper and all this and i'm stewing i. feel like i got screwed but the paperwork was in  i was a young kid and i just went along with it. after boot camp of course you go to your  mos school and the school is only a few. weeks long it's a joke so i went to the  school got stationed in north carolina.

and from the moment i got to north carolina i  was trying to get out of that mos any by any way. possible so i'd uh i'd volunteer for different  duties i'd volunteer for different classes i'd. go to the rifle range when i didn't need to go  to the rifle range i'd go on different exercises. and i was kind of proving myself  as a good marine but my higher-ups.

knew i was not into the job that i  was doing so after about six months. my master gunnery sergeant came in with a  marine corps times newspaper and he said. hey i think you should go down to uh talk to this  recruiter and he threw the paper at me and it was. for marine security guard school and i said what's  what's marine security guard and he said well.

there's an embassy basically in every  country and there's a detachment of marines. at every embassy that protects the embassy  protects classified materials and protects. the diplomats that are in the embassy you know  the american americans working abroad so i. got excited and there was quite a process  to get get ready for the interview just to. basically prove that you're qualified to go  to the school so i went to the uh recruiter.

and i sat down with him and he looked  over my file and he said you know what. you look like you're a good marine um you're a  little young but you're qualified the only problem. is you have to be at your duty station for one  year so he said i'm going to put you in the class. slated for right after you get one year on  station i'm like okay perfect i go back to my unit.

and all these guys are you know lance corporals  corporals sergeants they've been stuck in this mos. and they hate it and they've been there two three  almost four years so i came back and i said yeah. they selected me i'm going to marine  security guard school and they said. no [ __ ] way man you you just got here  you've been here like five six months. you're not going to marine security guard  school i've been hearing whole enlistment so. i said i don't know that's what he said  about a month later the message comes out and.

sure enough my name's on the list to go to the  school so as soon as i hit a year on station in. camp lejeune i left went to marine security guard  school in quantico and my first embassy was cairo. i spent about 18 months in cairo and i'll  backtrack a little bit uh 9 11 happened right.

after i got selected for a marine security guard  school and then uh the invasion of iraq happened. around the time i was in egypt so yeah i was in  the middle east but not necessarily in combat and. then my second duty station was cairo egypt i mean  guatemala city so anyways throughout my enlistment. all this combat is going on and i'm pretty much  dying to get over there and and take part in it.

because i feel like hey this is my duty you know  like after 9 11 i just felt this huge feeling of. patriotism and i wanted to contribute to that  cause so when i came to the end of my enlistment. i was thinking well do i try to get off marine  security guard um get out of marine security guard. battalion and lap move to a different mos and get  over there in in iraq or afghanistan or i could.

get out and go in the private sector and go with  uh blackwater or dyncorp at the time and pretty. much guaranteed to be over there within a couple  months so before you go on how did you hear about. blackwater and dyncorp piers or well at the time  the only thing i knew about blackwater was the big.

incident that happened in um in 2004 in fallujah  where four blackwater guys got ambushed and. pretty much burned alive and drugged behind their  vehicles and strung up on a bridge and it was a. big international incident it was in the media  a lot so i knew that that happened right around. the same time frame and you wanted to go in after  you saw that well i i would i that caused me to. backtrack a little bit because my friend was  writing me emails back and forth say hey you.

know i think we should go with blackwater you  know it's a it's a quick way to get over to iraq. and i said hey have you been watching the news  like four guys just got strung up on this bridge. he's like well you know it's it's always a risk  in combat and you know he's trying to justify it. and at the end of the day i i knew that  was my fastest way to get over there and. i didn't know how long iraq or afghanistan  was going to last i mean little did i know.

20 years later they're still in afghanistan but  at the time you didn't know that you just thought. hey i'm 21 years old this is my chance you know  i'm in the marine corps i'm patriotic i want to. uh serve my country in pretty much the  highest way possible and going to combat. right so yeah i i emailed a black  writer recruiter and i said hey.

it was really informal i just kind of outlined  hey uh i'm a marine i'm a sergeant um marine. security guards uh element marine security  guard battalion i have a security clearance. i've worked alongside the state department  and i'm interested in working for blackwater. so i got a response filled out some paperwork and  they accepted me and i got out of the marine corps. in november of 2004 and within 60 days i  was in north carolina training at blackwater.

right on for those listening the incident  that he's talking about that happened in. 2004 those were blackwater contractors correct  all four of those men were prior special forces. or special operations i do i believe they  were all special forces green berets uh. correct me if i'm wrong but they were stopped at  a checkpoint by iraqi insurgents who were dressed.

as police uh you get a police uniform  over there for what 20 30 bucks yeah um. and so they they they stopped thinking they  were police cracked seals on the vehicle. they were shot and killed by the insurgents  dressed as police then they stripped them down. strung them upside down and burned their  corpses from a from a bridge while the.

local population cheered and celebrated the  company said they were guarding convoys delivering. food around fallujah a small crowd descended  on the burning cars what happened next was. gruesome the bodies of the four americans were  pulled from the flames poked prodded and beaten. one charred body was tied behind a car and  dragged through the streets a procession that.

included children two mangled corpses were  hanged on a bridge over the euphrates river. participated in it and participated and  and you know there's that's well documented. that's a well-documented event i had a  friend uh who's actually uh part of that. but um that's so i'm kind of bringing that  up because i want to paint the picture of. you know this is who we're dealing with uh over  there with general population and bad guys dressed.

as friendlies so uh dustin um a marie as well uh  i joined back in 2004 or 2000 and got out 0-4 i. went into marine infantry and then i went to fast  company which is in the security force battalion. it's the same school that he went through  but i did that after my machine gun and stuff.

i spent two years or three years with  fast and then i spent another year with. battalion 8th marines as a machine gunner  you know you're talking about 11 earlier. we were out doing a side security exercise  which is if the embassy gets in trouble. or anything like that we roll in and we take it  we hold it we do whatever it is with fast you're. basically on call somewhere in the world they  got different stations and if something happens.

they send us in to reinforce take different  things like embassies or whatever they want done. and so we've actually set up around our armory  saying hey you know this is how we would do this. we set everything up we put our machine guns  into position and my captain comes out and. said i planes just hit the twin towers and  we're like okay this is part of the drill. and he's like no really this is not part of the  drill this is real life and it's still not sinking.

in well we went from having no ammunition because  we're on american soil just doing exercise to they. started passing that elmo and when they did me  being a machine gunner i went through advanced. machine gun leadership school and it was me and  one of my buddies that i'll talk about later. we did the machine guns and he said hey heard  go lock and load the 50 and i'm like sir we're.

aimed in on base housing if you want me to  lock and load it somebody hits the butterfly. we're gonna shoot into the housing and he's like i  understand but lock and load and i'm like oh damn. [ __ ] just got real and so we ended up doing  a normal rotation to bahrain and we were there. i think three four months i don't know  exactly and then we got the order to go. to kuwait for the build-up so when before any  troops crossed the border we were in kuwait.

doing hanging out waiting for a task for the  build-up itself and we ended up hitting the wool. platforms off the coast of iraq with one of the  seal teams and the polish special forces the grom. and then we came back to kuwait we went in and did  a trap mission for one of our f-somethings that. got shot down uh went recovered the officer's body  i think it was lieutenant wide if i'm not mistaken.

and uh the seals dove the lake and got  out the stuff that needed to be taken out. that way you didn't have the classified stuff  just sitting in the bottom of the lake in iraq. outside of kerballer so we rotated back to kuwait  again well we'd already been deployed for so long. they went ahead and sent us home after that that  was the first time that i went to iraq was the. trap mission and then hitting the old platforms  you were the you were hitting the oil platforms.

you were with a good friend of mine mike ritland  uh who i interviewed on here as well and he was. on those ops i should connect to you guys that'd  be cool yeah [ __ ] the seal i was talking about. that i seen later on whenever i was with black  water you know he was one of the seals that was on. there too and so we rotated back well my my wife  at the time what her girlfriend at the time fiance. was supposed to get married sometime in the spring  well whenever i left fast and i went to sagan.

battalion 8th marines i said oh by the way heard  we're going to afghanistan here in a couple months. and i'm like okay cool so i call kelly and i'm  like hey we got two choices get married now or. get married later so we decided to go get  married and then my honeymoon literally i. got married on the marine corps birthday november  10th and that next week i was back in afghanistan. or you know first time i've been to afghanistan  but what i'm saying back in the middle east.

so we're over there we do our rotation there  we was in a pretty light area we just got blown. out a couple times and a few little stuff we  rotated back and i got out of the marine corps. october november i was in vetting december i was  back in iraq again with black water and so for me. it was just a you know left one i got a job at  a liquor store just because i didn't have any.

income coming in and then i got called and said  hey your package went through you got a school. date and so i went to school and went to the  vetting portion and went to the training portion. you know doing the movements and all that  stuff and then i was back in iraq december 2004. wow i stayed there till november 2007. so how did you hear about blackwater well my buddy  billy actually uh went to a job fair that i was.

unable to attend and he came back and he said hey  man um we need to get a bio and a resume together. because i was talking to one of the recruiters for  blackwater and he wants us to submit our stuff and. billy and i did the same thing all the way through  the core we're both machine gunners we went to. advanced machine gun leadership school he's got  a driving course that i didn't get but other than.

that our resume and bio is almost identical and  so um he went with me too after fast the second. battalion eight marines to afghanistan and  so he's the one that's like hey dude we need. to get together on this and we talked to the same  recruiter and he helped us get everything in order. and then we went to the same  class together for blackwater good. so open forum now when you guys  were talking to the recruiters um.

at blackwater blackwater is a massive it turned  into a massive company it was the biggest private. military contracting company uh in the world and  uh i believe that i don't think it will ever be. outdone but with that being said they had  several different contracts they had state. department contract a couple different  state department contracts i believe that.

air contracts for pilots they had oga  contracts um other government agencies. i believe they had did they have the dea  project as well i'm not sure or was that dyncorp. they might have but all these different  government agencies had separate contracts. and just because you worked for blackwater wasn't  all grouped into one they had several different. whatever you want to call it divisions which were  different contracts for different organizations.

and so when you guys were talking to the  recruiters were they telling you about all the. different contracts or were they did they have one  specific one in mind like you had mentioned oga. in my case anyways i didn't know  those other contracts were available. i think when i told the recruiter  my history with the state department. marine security guard battalion he pretty much  decided right there that my best fit would be.

with the state department contract in iraq so  i didn't know those options were available they. might have been to these other guys but not in  my case mine was pretty similar to evan i'd been. i was active duty before going into the garden  i'd been to bosnia and and done some things and. for me it seemed like the best fit that was kind  of proposed to me was was the whips contract and. besides that i didn't really know anything other  than that so yeah yeah oga was what i was wanting.

to do but he said that this was like a foot in  the door he's like you know you you get in and. you get a reputation as a guy that's reliable  and uh does his job well then he's like they'll. pick you up for sure so that was that was my  plan all along that's what i wanted to do yeah. i really didn't know it was just whatever they  wanted me to do i was i was game was there any.

type of uh sales pitch at all or did they no not  really nothing i was so on board with anything i. just i just wanted to get over there i didn't  give a [ __ ] you know i was i felt like i was. missing out especially having the mos that i had  originally and then being stuck at the embassies. all through 9 11 invasion of iraq all that i was  just um anxious to get over there i shared a lot. of those same sentiments of wanting to get back  to the mission because it felt like when we left.

we were gaining traction and to nick's point when  you go past mosul and you're up in in kurdistan. you you can see just the the differences between  northern iraq and southern iraq and it's like why. why can't this be mirrored south of here what what  is the the bifurcation yeah i could definitely see. that you know continuing on with the mission the  service to the country i just wasn't ready to hang.

it up i was debating on re-enlisting or if black  water didn't work out i i wasn't going to continue. just that little piddle job doing a liquor store  i worked for a great dude but when you served as. a marine and everything else and then you're  sitting there while everybody else is still. doing service to their country they're out there  fighting that fight and you're just sitting there. and it's like this is not what i was made for i  was made to continue the service wasn't fulfilling.

enough yeah this is this just is not me you know  stocking a shelf at a liquor store and you know. helping people do that and it's like man i've  got a skill set that needs to be used because. stateside there's no use for machine gunner  there's no use for stuff like that unless you. go law enforcement or something like that and it  just really didn't fit with who i am you know i. wanted to go out and continue to serve the country  in any manner it didn't really matter to me so.

what was the training like when you guys got there  how many different you know how many guys were in. the course and or how long actually sorry how long  after you guys talked to the recruiters were you. offered a position uh or an opportunity  to prove yourself at vetting and training. well i know i went through i think is ds class 14  or 15. i went through some of the very earliest.

classes they had you know because they were  running them like every week every two weeks. and so you had like three or four classes  still going through as i was going and you know. later on we had to go back and recall on like 203s  and stuff like that because we wasn't authorized. and i know we showed up i don't remember how  many we had but the vetting portion of just the.

shooting the rifle the pistol the shotgun the 240  the saw the fan fire the ak the cqb and stuff like. that it's i can't tell you how many dudes that  we dropped during all that because it was for us. it was show up perform or you get the window or  i'll see going home and so i don't know how many. we started out with but i know we lost tons of  dudes in that and dudes that are supposed to be. you know top tier guys but it's either they're  out of shape they haven't shot in a long time.

they just for whatever reason they didn't  make it through the vetting portion and then. you know then you had to learn the movements  which is mirrored um like the secret service moves. off of the formations to move principles around  when you're doing the the protective detail and. so you had to learn all that and it was it was  awesome i mean just learning the different stuff.

because in the marine corps i was never exposed  to any of that what about you guys how long after. you talk to the recruiter did you wind up with  betting was it months was it a year was it no. weeks in my case it was weeks and when i initially  got over to uh moyock north carolina that's. where the blackwater training was i was just  impressed by the facility because you know it's. thousands of acres with long range  shoot ranges and you know cqb houses.

there's a driving track there's i mean  everything you can imagine uh is there so. it was it was pretty impressive and then as far  as the class goes there was maybe 15 guys in the. class i was right behind him so he was class 14 i  think i was 17 or 18 so maybe a month or so later.

um and like i said the class was relatively  small but i was the absolute youngest guy and. and by a long shot so you had guys that had been  in the seals for 20 years you had former green. berets you had guys that have seen you know a lot  of combat and i was pretty intimidated you know. but um a lot of the training was just  ensuring that you were qualified and.

you could actually do what you said on your  resume for example qualifying with weapons. qualifying it land navigation came  a little bit later medical stuff. stuff but the one thing that they did  uh actually teach you there and not just. verify that you were who you said you were was  like he said executive protection type stuff. because most guys in the military aren't doing  that type of mission so that was the one thing.

that we did they did hammer that home because  that was going to be our mission overseas. and just like him we dropped a lot of guys and i  think we started with maybe 15 and we graduated or. we finished with less than 10 for sure okay  so it's like a what 30 nutrition rate yeah. yeah the attritional rate was even higher in my  when i went through um i had a similar experience. the shooting was basically just a vetting like  you had talked about like you can either do it or.

you can't we had dropped a lot of people in that  but when it changed over to the personal security. they like i remember one of the instructors he  really took me under his wing and because he knew. i was just an infantry yeah you know he he knew  i'd never done this kind of stuff before and he. really helped me and uh and uh i learned a lot  from that man i mean he had been over there. you know walking the box for years in baghdad so  he knew exactly what he's talking about he gave me.

a lot of tips that kept me alive when i was over  there and after i graduated that they sent me. to the ddm course and they said it was completely  opposite you know everybody was nervous they were. going to fail the first course this course was  like look we're just here to make you shoot better. they're like the only person that's ever  failed this course he lied on his resume. he said he was a sniper and he wasn't you  know and you know you can talk to somebody for. five minutes and figure out whether or  not they were really a sniper right so.

it was awesome they just showed us a lot of  holdoffs you know i had done a lot of dialing. you know ddm is designated marksman yes  correct yes right so they that was the most. fun i think i've ever had you know we just  shot a lot and those guys had been over all. over the world you know as a sniper and they were  they were very helpful it was really cool you know. because i was a kid i was in 22 so i had all these  older guys that just took me under their wing and.

you know they gave me the shirt off their back so  to speak they filled me with knowledge and sent me. over there and a lot of things they showed me you  know kept us alive you know when i was at ddm the. things they showed me it worked you know  in a real world situation so it was awesome. that i share a lot of similar sentiments  i was 25 26 maybe when i went to moyock. and was just completely blown away by the  professionalism at every turn i mean from the.

chow hall to to the classroom time to being behind  a firearm or being behind the wheel of a car. every instructor there was professional to the  letter and i'd never walked the box before i. i didn't know what that was and and frankly  i'd never driven um in the manner that that. they wanted you to drive um meaning you know  you got the lead and the limo and the follow and. and so your your ultimate purpose is to be  in between a threat and that principle period.

however it works out that that principle  comes home alive and that was our mission. and so again to be around a lot of these guys  one of them uh his name was carlos and forgive. me i can't remember his last name but he was an  sf guy had had been around this line of work for. years almost as long as i've been alive and i  think he sensed that that i was willing to learn.

and i was a cultural kid and and he taught me a  lot of things that that had a lot of carryover. in into that that position in that that  environment can you explain what walk in a. box is yeah so walk in a box is basically you've  got plates on principle if you're walking from. point a to point b you have plates on at any any  given angle because you're in a 3d battlefield. and so you've got typically one to two guys on the  flank you've got your lead agent and you've got.

your follow agent and it can be other layers of  protection outside of that but that box is what's. plates on principle in the event that that rounds  come in when you're talking plates you're talking. armored plates you're you're literally putting  yourself with you're the sponge between you. blackwater's had a bad rap for a long  time and um i remember when i was in the.

seal teams i heard a lot of bad things about it  and then later on i also worked for blackwater. and uh found a lot of that to be so what i  want to do now is you know when i was in there. it was we're hiring walmart security guards  that's the kind of [ __ ] i was hearing. and then when i actually showed up for my  vetting it was a state-of-the-art facility. it was like nothing i'd ever seen before in  all my time in the seal teams i had never seen.

anything uh that's state-of-the-art and we used  it a lot we would fly in uh from the teams right. down because you know moyock's right down the  road from the seal teams and so we would train. there and so kind of what i want to get at  now is the fact that it wasn't there were no. [ __ ] walmart security guards working there and  um so i kind of want to walk through and this just.

once again open forum what was it like day one  when you showed up to training at blackwater you. know what was what happened were they welcoming  what were you guys doing was it right to training. well day one for us you know we went right into  it if i remember correctly you're gonna think. that's been almost 20 years ago uh getting pretty  close on that but i know the first thing if i.

remember correctly that we did was the pt test  and coming out of the core it was like a joke. after you know what we did and it was like a  mile and a half run instead of three you did. some sit-ups some pull-ups uh dummy drag  stuff like that and then you know it's one. of those things that you're sweating everything  because you're basically told when you show up. show up and perform or go home and it's not  a it's not a here let me show you what to do.

and so there was a lot of pressure with it and  it's one of those things that when you're not. used to that environment when you're used to  being military and everything else and you're. used to having somebody say all right well look  you did it this you did this wrong do it this way. it brings a whole different um mental aspect  to it because it's one of those things that.

show up or perform or window or owl  whichever and so you know it's it was. that portion of it was just a mental game as  far as having to get through it so the first. thing was was the physical fitness test right  well i think in my case i probably had a little. different experience because i remember when i  showed up at the airport like i said i was 21 year.

old kid so i showed up at the airport and there  was supposed to be somebody there to pick me up. this is the day before training supposed to  start so i'm looking around i don't see anybody. i'm calling i can't get in touch with anybody  there's no cell phones i'm using a pay phone so. um i called my dad and he said listen because i  was about ready to say no i'm out of here you know. uh you know i just i'm kind of reconsidering  it you know maybe maybe this is a sign maybe.

i shouldn't go because this is right after the  four blackwater guys got hung up on the bridge so. um he said listen get a hotel uh go tomorrow  do the training everything's gonna be all right. so of course everybody else was already at the at  the classroom and somebody picked me up at the the. hotel brought me over there and they had already  done like a a physical exam you know like checking. you over oh they were given physicals was the  first thing yeah well for in my case so i remember.

you know 21 year old kid i walk into  this classroom there's a bunch of. whatever 30 40 year old guys in there and there's  a female nurse and she said all right well uh. drop your pants we got to do a hernia check  literally like right in front of everybody she did. the hernia check and i'm like okay well welcome  to blackwater i guess i was so embarrassed um.

but yeah after after i got over that uh horrible  experience uh the first thing after that was i. think the pt test and i didn't have an issue with  it i've always been pretty good at stuff like that. um one thing that was different than marine corps  uh pft test was like a dummy drag so i think they. have a 100 pound dummy or something you have to  drag it a certain distance in a certain time frame.

and then i think we moved into the weapons  qual and like dustin said you got a call on. m4 you got to qualify on glock 19 shotgun 203 i  believe uh m249 saw all that stuff and um yeah. got through that and moved on to the next thing  i can't really remember the exact order of things. but the the training was outstanding they tried  to make it as realistic as possible what you were.

gonna face once you got on the ground in baghdad  and they did an excellent job as far as vetting. you know the the weapon squall like they said  it was just either you pass or you don't but the. actual personal security side of it they really  took time to teach us the correct way to operate. overseas and yeah i was just grateful to all those  instructors man they're awesome awesome people. when you showed up was it the same was it  physical physical fitness huge balls yes sir.

paul yeah same get to the hotel and it was  really almost like a a conveyor belt for. lack of a better term of just you know you hit  the station station station station and it was. it was either pass fail it wasn't well you know  what you need to improve here go there it was just. either it passed failure and then one thing i  will say that later on i know evan and i both.

had to go back for recall because the state  department brought in 203 grenade launchers. and originally when we went through they  were you know not authorized and then they. you know started bringing them in well  the guys that had been there for a while. like evan and i we had to fly back to the  states and go through wpbps2 qualification. which was just basically abbreviated version  of the original qual vet that we went through.

and then you know we went in and re-qualified  on all the weapons we went out to the 203 range. did that and i think we did the simulated  uh attack on principles and stuff like that. before we went back out and i know that from  the first time i was there to the second time. i mean it was just a world of difference they  actually had the conex box town the last time. i went there and so you know blackwater was  always improving it was you know always going.

and one thing i will say that was just excellent  was the driving course because it wasn't just. a high-speed track to where you just drive they  actually had people bump you with cars and you. learned how to ram through push through you know  learn how to pit people but the the thing that was. awesome about it too is they had simulated ieds.

along the side of the road and so you'd be driving  and here you know it would be projected up but. here an explosion would happen and then you know  you went into your medical stuff behind it and so. it was it was good good stuff so when you guys  showed up it was physical physical fitness. weapons calls how many weapons calls and exactly  what weapon systems were were just pass fail. it was there was no instruction correct it was  here's the weapon system here's the qualification.

you got one shot it was the glock [ __ ] it up  you're out glock nine millimeter it was the m4. um it was the saw 249 it was the 240 i don't  know bravo i think we had golfs in the core. we had uh ak and then later on like i said  when we went back you had to do the 203s. as well in the shotgun as well and  they actually they actually yank.

you guys off the deployment in iraq to fly  you back just to repo just to qualify on it. right on a new weapon systems that's that's been  implemented so like they were extremely proactive. to make sure you guys were up to snuff and up  to speed on everything that you might and then. there was guys um you know they couldn't meet the  standards and they were out of there before the. end of the day i mean it was passive fail you  you couldn't qualify on a weapon too bad see.

you later i mean you had to meet the standards and  everybody did is there so after the weapons quote. i like this because they're literally getting  rid of people the minute you show up they're. eliminating the weak links starting with things  that people can't control you know the physical. and then physical fitness if you don't show  up prepared get the hell out of here yeah even. with the pt test there were some guys that that  didn't pass the pt test i was like wait a minute.

the medical training was good too i remember there  was one simulation where they put you in a vehicle. and you're blindfolded and there's two  other people in the vehicle they're. trainers and um you could they're simulating that  you're driving down a road in iraq and when they. tell you to pull the blindfold off you have to  react to whatever situation they present to you. so you know they they're just talking back and  forth they're pretending they're on you know.

whatever mission in iraq moving down route irish  for example and then they throw like a flashbang. or something to simulate an explosion you pull the  blindfold off you look at your driver the driver's. got his eyeball hanging out the guy in the back  seat's got his leg blown off and i remember i. did really well in that because it was drilled  into me that security is first you know treating.

your teammates for whatever injuries they may  have comes after security so i provided security. laid down some fire where the threat was and then  started working on the guy with the leg that was. blown off because he was the pretty much the most  serious injury and then i moved on to the guy with. the eye injury and uh yeah i did really well in  that but that knocked out a lot of people as well. so they so it was a process how many days did it  take to get through the weapons call on the pt.

test i don't recall various days it took a little  while maybe a week yeah it might have been a week. and then you moved on to the next thing i like i  said i can't remember exactly the order of things. but in every step of the way you would lose  somebody you know if somebody was good at pt maybe. they they couldn't shoot certain weapons or maybe  they couldn't perform in the medical training.

or the attacks on principal they were a little  shaky and they just get rid of them how long. uh altogether was betting slash training i think  the certificate says 164 hours so i don't know how. many days it was broke down to over a month yeah i  want to say it was a month about something about a. month yeah yeah and then the ddm course was like  half that after that so you went through about. a month and a half of of evaluations yes it's  not even really it doesn't even sound like it's.

really training it's more they want to see how you  react in certain scenarios and their value they're. constantly evaluating and then you had the period  of evaluation too yeah that was your evaluation. yeah if you're are sliding through but your  peers see it then you could be pure uh peered. out and so you know that's that got a few people  too was somebody just doing something stupid the. instructors didn't see and you know basically we  could be like hey man you [ __ ] up you did this.

and take it to the instructor and they'd send  them home then the the training blocks were. cqb which is close quarters battle  let's just talk about that specific. uh training block how how was it what did they  what were they doing were you guys hitting houses. were you hitting shoot house shoot house it  was for us it was because everybody's got a.

different background as far as you know each  unit has their own type of cqb they do whether. you know you got a man high man low around the  corner different things and so what they did is. they walked us through it one time and they said  i don't care how you did it where you come from. this is how i want you to do it here and so that  way everybody's running like a standard format. yeah and we went through the shoot house  several times i think the first time was.

a dry run second time with sim and then if  i'm not mistaken the third time was live fire. and so it was a fast pace it's fast paced  and if you couldn't keep up or perform it was. get out window row one big thing during  that portion specifically was safety so if. you're in a stack about to go into a room and  you flag somebody even you know the lower part. of their leg and for people that don't know when  you flag somebody basically you're pointing your.

weapon at some something that you don't intend  to shoot so as if it's just for a split second. yeah just want to reiterate that so if i'm  holding a gun and i go like this and sweep. you guys even if it's just for a split second  that that's an ejection from the course yeah. they took safety safety violations big that was  a that was a serious thing yeah to dustin's point. um and not to step on your neck but uh it was  trying to get everybody on the same page as.

as what the stack looked like and and how they  wanted you to move and flow through a room or. through a hallway or whatever presented itself and  how everybody had their specific responsibilities. and to dustin's point again it wasn't necessarily  you know you had guys from marshall you had. guys from sf units from seal teams and they just  wanted everybody to be on the same sheet of music. moving forward to see really kind of how you  operated as a team if you were able and willing to. do that that's extremely hard to do you know when  you're coming i mean i remember doing it uh on the.

oga side and i thought it was a huge pain in the  ass trying to get on the same page as the marshal. guys as the green berets as the cag guys you know  the rangers and then you know and then when you. throw soft and unconventional and conventional  together then it gets even trickier so that's. uh no easy task at all because everybody has  a different way of doing that and um so do you.

the reason you were probably doing cqb because  it's a reactive unit correct so do you think the. reason you were doing cqb is if the principal  was taken hostage you would have to go in and. and extract that principle that you're protecting  you've also got something that is called alamo up. and what that is if somebody alamos up is  a principal gets hit on venue right well.

if they if the team can't make it out to their  vehicles what they're gonna do is they're gonna go. find a hardpoint and they're gonna hold that  hardpoint and basically put shooters throughout. wherever they need to be then they're going to  put the principle somewhere where it's safe as. safe as they can get them and like us uh you know  we're all in raven23 which is one of the tst teams. and so as a tst team when something goes boom or  bang we're the ones that would go and so with the.

cqb stuff that we were doing if a team's ala mode  up let's say on the tenth floor of a building in. iraq well then as a unit we've got to be able to  clear up and get them and then clear back down on. the way back out so i mean it was real life you  know it wasn't just how you're gonna do this to. check this box it's how you you know whenever you  get to your team everybody's going to start doing. their own form and get whatever needs to be  done but i mean it was stuff that we could.

actually use it wasn't just check a box yeah  what does tst stand for tactical support team. okay it's quick react force all it is is qrf  and most of our vehicles had uh two 240s one. in the front one in the back except for one that  just had a teacup up on top which was one 240. how long was the cqb portion and and how  how complex did it get were they throwing.

in live role players on that as well with hostage  scenarios it was it was uh it was three days of. cqb training without the role players and then  at the end basically it was like accumulation. it was like they taught us all this stuff along  the way and it was like vetting and then at the. end your final vetting was a tax on principles so  it was like basically this is all we've taught you. this is all you've learned and then they put it  to the test and you know the instructors were. the bad guys they're the ones shooting at us  so yeah it was really good and they you know.

they had run those scenarios countless times  and so you're coming into it fresh so it's. they've got the upper hand for sure the  instructors know that area like the back. of their hands so it was it was awesome it  was great training how about the driving. awesome for sure yeah that was probably the the  funnest part yeah getting to do a pit maneuver. on a bmw is something like you don't get to  do every day when you get to smash through.

vehicles that are parked and ram through punch  through that's when you're wrecking vehicles and. you see how much abuse that vehicle can take  and still keep running for a time i mean it's. opened your eyes to what you're going to be  doing in country yeah why why would they have. you recommended vehicles what because if you're  driving the streets of baghdad and they try to. set up a blockade to keep you from moving toward  you get a l-shape ambush or anything else you got. to learn how to where to hit the vehicles  to push through everything you got to know.

be able to drive out or reverse out if you have to  yeah and how long was the driving portion i think. it was three days as well right 340. or something  like that i think everything was three or four. days okay some i mean each block each one was  its own individual block so it's like you did one. block then you moved to the next block and then  to the next one the next one until you're done.

medical yeah you had to do a full psyche valve to  make sure that you went off your rocker oh they. did that as part of the physical they did that  as part of your overall evaluation and you went. in there i know me personally the lady which they  try to trip you up just to see if you got anything. so you sit down and they're asking you questions  and they just pick something and they just keep.

pushing and pushing and pushing and then finally  you're like what have i done and they're like. okay you're good but they want to make sure  that your sound of mind before you continue. what i was what i was getting at that's  good to know but what i was getting at. is the medical training the triple c did they how  in depth did they go with that what kind of stuff. were you guys learning did you do any live tissue  labs what was that like it was what he was talking.

about mostly it was uh scenarios like you would  come up on whatever on the battlefield and then. they were evaluating you know do you know how to  put on a tourniquet it was just basically like. combat lifesaver stuff basically like i can patch  you up good enough to get you to the cash kind of. thing so they had really awesome props like they  had arms that were amputated that like would would. pump out liquid and stuff so like it was it was we  hadn't seen anything like it in the military you.

know yeah so it was the scenarios were very well  thought out and i think it was just because they. had such a good collective of guys you know like i  said they had all those high tier level guys that. kind of put their heads together and  they're like well what worked in your unit. what didn't work and they kind of just put  all that together and got rid of the stuff. that didn't make no sense about the military and  used the stuff that didn't make sense right and. so i think it was just by the time i got there you  know i was the last one in by the time i got there.

it had involved it had evolved into something that  was just amazing you know everybody talked about. how well the training was i've never heard anybody  say that it wasn't good training you know so yeah. the continuance of that training too with  the medics on your team was always i mean. they wanted everybody to be as proficient as they  were in the event that that they were taking out.

is there any uh more training that did they  get via final exercise or that was the tax on. principle yeah we were talking about the scenario  and like paul said once you finish the vetting and. you're qualified to get deployed the training  doesn't stop there it's not oh you're good to. do a whole contract you don't have to train we'd  rotate uh work days off days but when we were off. we would be training so we would continue on  with the cqb stuff uh the vehicle maneuvering.

you know you go to the rifle range a lot  more than i would in the military anyways. because all that stuff was available so uh yeah  i i got a lot out of the training in country as. well because you like paul said you learn from  the experienced guys on the team that have been. in country and have probably seen every possible  scenario that you can encounter over there. so uh yeah that was very beneficial to me too we  didn't talk about the psd training the uh personal.

security detail training how in depth was that and  i think i think that was one of the portions that. they really went uh in detail with  because that like i said there's nothing. there's not really many units in the in the  military that are doing executive protection. type stuff in high threat environments so if for  me at least i got a lot out of that because um.

i i hadn't had any experience with it so i don't  know about you guys definitely yeah they i mean. that's what i was saying earlier is we didn't do  any of this stuff in the marine corps we never. learned how to walk formation how to you know  stand on the doors and wait till everybody's set. and when you're running a three-car motorcade  you gotta think you've got shooters that are in. the front or in the back seat of each vehicle  you got shooters that are in the back seat.

of the other vehicle and everybody's gotta  move into a position to where everybody but. the driver gets out there's always a driver with  the car and then that way if something happens. at any time you know you got to be able to go  in a heartbeat and so learning how to go from. carrying a machine gun to moving a principal  around that was the only portion that really. wasn't vetting quote unquote until the end because  they wanted to make sure that you understood what.

you were doing and how you were doing not just hey  you move over here so i know like at the hotel at. night we had matchbox cars and we would say hey  you know the door guys are moving to here the aic. is going to get out and whenever everybody  gets set and they call set over the radio. then they're going to say hey cracking the door  open the door whatever terminology and then they. open the principle where the guys on the far  side of the vehicle is going to come around to.

the principal side catch up the principal and  then you're gonna have one guy in the front one. guy in the back and at least one guy on each  side of them sometimes two guys on each side. and everybody in there has got a sector a job  to do the aic the person is the agent in charge. of what aic means he's going to be right behind  the principal and so he's within armed reach to. where if something happens his job is to reach up  and grab him by the collar of the shirt and then.

just take him to a vehicle get him in climb on top  of him put his body on top of the principal's body. to move him out of the hostile situation and  then you worry about everything else later. yeah with that there was also advanced team  training as well as far as what the advanced. team is to look for because the advanced  team is the one that's going to receive.

the three-car motorcade and so you're going  through all your steps and processes and boxes. that you have to check to be to be ready for  this principle because you've got to set up. the time the person that they're meeting all the  extemporaneous stuff that goes into the meeting. plus you have your own team that's on-site  security that's got the scene locked down ready. to receive the principal and that was so that was  the only portion that wasn't passed bail until you. mess up you're out in the end yeah it was it was  it was but during but during the training itself.

um it was it was training i remember during  that training when you were talking about. if you didn't pick it up quick enough like they  would get fed up they sent a couple people home. during that portion they're like look if you  we've told you this many times if you don't. perform this movement the way you're supposed to  you're out and a couple guys just they couldn't. grasp it for whatever whatever reason but yeah  they broke it down very simple i felt like they.

they because that was like the meat and potatoes  of what we were gonna do over there you know. so they were like get this you know this is  very important and basically they just said. you know you you are the one that gets shot  not the principal so you're stepping in front. of any danger you're taking that round you're  killing whoever's trying to kill your principal. it's all about getting him back  safe you know they told us that. those people are worth more than you are  they're worth more than anybody over here.

you do whatever you got to do to get them home to  their family and so you know that's what we did. so throughout the entire betting slash  training they're just constantly running. you through scenario after scenario whether  it's a medical scenario whether it's a. psd scenario driving scenario cqb scenario  um target id scenarios and they're just.

constantly throwing [ __ ] at you evaluating  you and jet launching dudes that can't. it can't keep up out yes sir so and then so you  guys all got through it and what happened then. they give you a contract i know for  me i got through um i graduated the. vetting course there i went home for like a week  or so and then i know it was like around december.

15 december 20th i was back in baghdad and i  stayed in baghdad for most of the three years. that i was there and i know whenever we first got  there dynacore and blackwater shared the contract. and so they were still building what was known  as the man camp and we actually lived in a big. warehouse with all the kbr and everybody else guys  because they were still building facilities there. and so you know i'll never forget back whenever  i first got there like around christmas and stuff.

we'd go up on the roof of the trailers and  you'd watch the fireworks show out in the town. and they were dropping j dams they were you know  ieds you could see the tracer around skipping. and i mean it was it was wild because back  in those days i mean it was it was full on. they were they were going hard out there yeah. yeah i i i deployed pretty quickly because like  i said when i was on marine security guard duty.

i had a top secret clearance already  so with blackwater i believe this the. security clearance was secret so it was  below that so i i deployed pretty quickly and. it was kind of like a culture shock when i got  over there uh these guys might have already. had experience in bad baghdad but for me it  was uh kind of like okay here we go because. this is this is what you asked for so i remember  when i got over there they put me they assigned.

me to a team and i met with the team leader and  he said listen our team is being tasked to go. out in the middle of the desert and protect some  scientists that are digging up a mass grave site. they're preparing for saddam's trial so if  you're not willing to do that or you're not. prepared to do that i could put you on another  team so i said i was willing to do it so.

uh we i think we went out in the desert it  must have been two weeks after i got there and. i was actually on the advanced team to go  out there so it was me and two other guys. and i think the arm army transported us out there  so we're flying out into blackhawk helicopters and. there's nothing to see for miles around all  dirt and then all of a sudden we're getting. close to where the mass grave site is and  you look down and there's a perfect square.

of grass and that was exactly where all the bodies  of the people that saddam had killed were buried. so we were out there maybe  i think it was over a month. and you just slowly watch the scientists dig  up the dirt with a tractor first and then. each step of the process they got smaller  and smaller tools until they're like. using brushes and uncovering all these skeletons  so you would see uh what i assume would be.

a woman with a small baby skeleton with  a bullet hole in in the skull and it was. it was a it was a shocking uh moment for me but  it kind of uh validated why i was over there. and um it it made the mission even more important  because um it was a historic thing you know uh.

we took saddam out of power and he was going to  pay for all the things that he did to those people. how many bodies were in there i think there was  over a hundred were they all skeletons or were. there yeah they had been in there a while and you  could tell they must have said uh you know pack up. all your belongings we're gonna put you in a in  a different place or move you somewhere else i.

don't think these people knew they were going to  get marched out in the middle of the desert and. basically be shot in the back of the head because  you could see layers and layers of clothing a lot. of the clothing was still there but it was  just skeletons and uh just bodies stacked up. on top of each other so it was the first thing  you did the very first thing i did when i got. to iraq we found another one of those down around  hillary in the joff is i went out with the team of.

i guess it was the same scientists or different  ones that were looking for mass graves and. we found another one out there and they actually  started digging until they found something they. covered it back up and then later on they went  out and retrieved the bodies out of that one too. so after whips training i went to the ddm  course and then after graduation of the. ddm course i think like the next day they  shipped me over to baghdad and they said.

based on my background in the infantry they wanted  to put me straight on raven23 and like they said. you know that was a tactical support team and  within a few months uh january 23rd happened. where they shot down one of our helicopters and  killed five of our brothers what had happened was. the door gunner of one of the helicopters  had taken around to the head and.

they flew him back to the cache and the other  little bird they always operated in pairs right. so the other little bird elected to stay  with the team that was in contact on venue. and so we were tasked with at first we were  tasked with extracting the principal team. and so when we were in route we got ambushed and  they shot out one of our tires out of our lead. vehicle so we had to execute a tire change after  we fought our way out of that ambush and then.

as soon as we got the new tire  on we get a new mission that. the secondary little bird that stayed  with the team on venue had been shot down. and that we had to recover them and the last grid  that they gave us was actually over the river. so we were like man this bird crashed  into the river so we were driving. all these dead end back alley roads and we were  just getting shot up man we you know it's it's a. miracle that we even made it to the crash site  and we fought our way through five ambushes.

just to get to the side five ambushes yes and so  once we made it to the site we realized that we. were completely overwhelmed with enemy combatants  there were way too many of them and the army shows. up and they save us you know like we we would  we would have died there was like 19 or 20 of us. and the apache helicopters i remember being up  in the machine gun and one of my buddies was in.

the lead vehicle i was in the second vehicle and  we had set up in what's like called a herringbone. so that more effective field of fire so like this  vehicle pulls that way the second one the third. one and the fourth one right so that you've got  better angles to shoot and there was a five-story. building that was probably about 800 meters away  so pretty pretty long ways away and all sudden. round hits in the street in between  my vehicle and the lead vehicle.

and i call out i was like there's a sniper  like i call it out on the radio second shot. it hits my vehicle and so i'm just i'm laying  waste towards where i think he's at he's in the. in the third i think he's in the third level and  my buddy thinks he's in the fifth level and so i'm. shooting at the third story my buddy's shooting  at the fifth story and then i can just picture. in my mind dudes got me in his crosshairs like  i'm about to get shot right and then all sudden.

apache just flies overhead and it puts a hellfire  missile in the fifth one and then the third one. and then the building just pancakes like that and  we didn't take any more fire from that building. you know he i don't know who that uh apache pilot  was but i'm thankful man because he definitely. saved us that day and so we we uh fought for about  three and a half hours and we finally recovered.

our brother's remains and i found out that it  was a art he was one of my boys that i went to. whips with and he was he was a really good guy he  was actually a vietnam helicopter pilot so he was. an older gentleman but he was he was an awesome  pilot and you know those guys they elected to stay. when they didn't have to you know they they  put their lives on the line to protect that. principal team until that principle was able to  be extracted and moved back to the green zone and.

you know they gave their lives for it and  it was the worst day of my life man for sure. was this the gentleman you were telling me whose  twin brother was also flying yes sir so he landed. in the middle of this gun battle and just walked  over as we were loading the uh our our brother's. remains we had already put him in body bags and  we were dragging him back up the hill and he.

just lands in the middle of the gunfight he lands  his bird and he gets out he wanted to see that it. was his brother and then as soon as he seen it was  his brother he got back up and they started laying. down suppressive fire for us again but like it  was just a crazy moment you know that it was just. it was tragic man like i said it's the worst  day of my life for sure sorry to hear that man.

um yeah so uh we we uh graduated  they called a ceasefire and. said uh you're still standing uh you  made it um you're deploying and uh. so it was probably a month after that i  guess i deployed and i show up to baghdad and. they said that they needed bodies in  kirkuk which is in northern iraq kurdistan.

having been up there before i was somewhat  familiar with it the uh the embassy up there was. not much bigger than a postage stamp uh it  was a little bitty we were known as a spartan. element i believe um it was us some members  from british parliament and i want to say. some kiwis were there too i know there were some  some kiwi new zealand security forces there but uh.

for the most part in that region it  was it was pretty quiet in other words. when there were times when we would go  to solomonia we would take off our kit. because it was such a welcoming environment  they they really wanted us there and and it. was almost like having an extra layer of security  being in that area that said there were of course. car bombs here and there there was an attack on  the front gate but it wasn't it wasn't baghdad and.

once dyncorp took over that contract we were  all moved down to baghdad and set up as as an. advanced team for ambassador uh khalilzad  and uh we operated from that point as as. apd green ambassador protection detail green  and so we were the advanced element for him.

at that time we i was not part of  raven23 but january 23rd the next point. is uh let's that's one of the bracelets  that we all wear because it was. uh yeah a horrible day. shane stanfield which was the the first gunner he  talked about was the first uh hilo gunner that was.

that was met with around and then um all of us  were listening to the radio while they were out. we were in suburbans we weren't in fighting  platforms so we were really kind of handicapped. but every one of us staged and were ready  to move at any given moment and there was. almost just a line of suburbans from every  gate that was in the iz all the way back. to the man camp of people lined up  ready to go at any moment's call.

and it was probably one of the most helpless  feelings that i've i've ever experienced because. here you have a team that is actively engaged  and in part my language but there was a damn. thing we could do about it except stand  by and wait for some directives because. in the end it could have been way worse of us  getting in the way in in non-fighting vehicles.

but yeah that day will probably  live in infamy for for my lifetime. how many when you guys got in the country and  you were all in baghdad at the mancav how many. how many state department contractors lived  there i think it was a 600 capacity man camp 600. state department contractors now you got  to think there's people rotating in and out.

basically monday through friday they're  running flights i don't know if it was. two days a week three days a week  or five days a week i'm not sure. but i know that you would fly from wherever you're  at the us to jordan from jordan you would fly into. baghdad from baghdad you'd be picked up by another  blackwater element that was called the team house. and then they would take you in and drop you off  at the man camp when they finally got it finished.

and so i think it was 600 capacity now  how many rooms were open at a given time. i had no idea but you i know we had 26 teams  out of baghdad if i'm not mistaken there's. 26 teams yeah how many people on a team what  1920 because you had or 22 23 something because. you had to give guys days off because sometimes  the off tempo you just you had to give a guy a.

day off if he needed it and so that's not  counting all the outline sites like hilla. up there where he was at and then you  had some just different locations and so. there was there was a bunch of us they  called it the man camp and there was. females in there but i mean that's what it was  dubbed and so i don't i can't tell you how many. people were there at a time was that part of  the green zone yeah were you guys flying into.

biop yes yeah take him around irish which was  the most dangerous road as long as i know that. to be honest with you though yeah we got hit on  there but it was when we ran down haifa street. that you're almost guaranteed to get hit  everybody talks about buyout being a bad. place but i'll tell you right now that every  time that we made a run down haifa street it's. i was there for the founding of two three when  they stood up the team i was already doing uh psd.

i did that for like a year and some change  before i went over there to the tsd teams and. every time i know in the beginning days before  we realized how bad that area was to run down. that we'd run down it and we got hit every time  we went down it we got grenaded ied or something. one day by ips iraqi police because they actually  closed the checkpoint behind us and when they did.

everybody's like ah [ __ ] here  we go and sure enough it happened. so i mean bob yeah we made countless  runs down that and yeah we'd get hit. every once in a while bob but it wasn't  like some of the other roads really. what was this what was uh your  deployment schedule like was it. two months on one month off was it different for  everybody were you guys working with the same guys.

the entire your entire career i think um for the  most part they do rotations of 90 days in country. and then 30 days vacation and you  could sell your leave back sometime. if you wanted to stay but they didn't really um  like that all the time because if you stay over. there too long like these guys were saying the  threat level was so high and you never get a.

break from that that stress um it starts to take  a toll on you um so you had an option of doing uh. a year contract at least when i first got there  they had year contracts where you could do the. 90 30 rotation for a year and they also had a  six month contract so you did 90 go home for 30. then do another 90 and that was a completion of  your contract and i switched teams a few times.

so the first contract i did was the team that went  to the desert and did the mass grave site security. and when we weren't in the desert we did  traditional psd movements and uh then i got. moved to another team where we had a um like a  permanent principle a lot of times you're not. protecting the same person a lot of times you just  get a run sheet from the embassy and it could be.

whoever whatever diplomat needs to go out in  the red zone and meet with an iraqi official. so you go to the embassy you bring them out and  bring them back and and that's what it is and your. the person that you're protecting could change day  to day uh with the second team i was on we had a. designated principle so we rode with this guy  every day he worked in the green zone but would. go out in the red zone a lot and then i took  a short break between contracts uh between my.

second and third contract i believe it was just  you know a month or so or a couple months and. when i came back they were going to assign me to  the ambassador detail the ambassador's detail so. i wasn't real keen on that i didn't really  want to go to the ambassador's detail because. it there's so much support and there's uh is so  much um you're the the inner layer of security so.

uh you're never really on the front lines um so  to speak so i kind of put up a little bit of a. fight to the the detail leader or whoever was  assigning me i said listen uh there's no way. you can put me on another team and he said well  i can put you on red detail and red detail is. is made up of the teams that were quick reaction  force teams the tactical support teams and that.

was right up my alley so i said yeah go ahead and  put me on that and that's when i moved over to. raven23 i believe dustin was already on the team  and then i showed up and then uh nick and paul. came later so none of you guys knew each other  until you were all attached to raven 2 3 right. and that was what 20 man team 19 man team i'll  say this there's when you're in such a large camp.

there's a lot of people that you know  you recognize faces but you may not know. names so still to this day whenever i see people  that reaches out to us and everything else. i'm like who is this because one it's been so  long and two over there with just so many of. us that were there it's like oh i know that  dude by his face but i didn't know his name. and so for us we're you know evan and i were on  two different i was on team six originally and so.

he was on a different team and your team is  kind of the the tighter knit group you know. every dude on there because you're going in  and out of uh the red zone in baghdad and so. like like i said whenever we started up 2-3  i was one of the founding members of it and. um then evan came i got to know him he  was in the truck with me in the back. and then later on if i'm not mistaken paul came  and you're pretty much in the uh erv or uh follow.

follow oh no you're in the follow with me okay  so paul was in the follow with me the nick came. and you know that's how we all gotta kind of  got to know each other was we had the different. when they bring you together on a team is  whenever you really start meeting people. i don't know if this still holds true today but um  i remember hearing prince say that blackwater is.

the only private military contracting company that  never lost a principal is that do you guys know if. that's still true to this story i believe that  history was true and the figures i'm not exactly. sure the exact figure but it was over a hundred  thousand missions and we never lost a principal. not even a principal injured so that's a pretty  amazing job with one of the most difficult tasks. there were over there especially in 2007 with it  being deemed the most violent bloody year of the.

entire war they said that in 2007 there was an  average of 180 engagements from insurgents a day. and baghdad alone we did lose 43 of us right of  all the different contracts there's the number. that we know that i know is 43 and so there's 43  contractors and whatever a lot of it was on the. wpps contract because we was running baghdad every  day and you know where the other ones are at i'm.

not real sure but you know it's we never lost  one and we ate a lot though yeah you know a lot. of our brothers died a lot of your brothers died  yeah in this so yeah it was the most effective. protection unit in the entire world and  that was with some um standards that were. put down from the state department for example  they dictated that the psd teams roll around.

in high-profile convoys in black suburbans and  big big vehicles that everybody in the city knows. there's an important american in there there's  an important diplomat in there and they just. create a huge target and despite that we still  didn't lose a single principle that's incredible. but hey guys let's take a quick break when we  come back i want to talk about just kind of. the daily routine and the op tempo of what  you guys were facing uh once you all met.

all right guys we're back from  the break you guys have just. uh all met you're a part of raven 2  3 now and uh so i want to kind of go. over like i said earlier the op tempo of  kind of what your day-to-day life was and. what the operational environment was what the  threat was but just before we get into that uh. paul if you could talk a little bit about use of  force and the steps that you guys would take that. were mandated from state department your rules  of engagement before you actually fire a shot.

yeah so with with the environment that it  was there was there was always the use of. force there was the use of force continuum and it  started with literally just your voice and and the. hand motion to stop or kiff and then it could  elevate to water bottles and then to pin flares. and then to if you if you had to you had  to engage a threat directly be it in the.

engine of the vehicle or the driver or or the. the threat themselves and so that those were the  steps that were always i mean just pounded into. your psyche at that point they were part of your  everyday vernacular and just a big piece of your. toolbox and it was something that that all of  us followed to a tee i think we probably threw. more water bottles than anything and and a lot  of times it wasn't even necessarily a threat.

it was somebody just not paying attention or it  was someone in a car that was pulling right into. traffic and they just didn't see you coming it's  just an honest mistake so it wasn't always this. environment of of just total chaos and destruction  did you guys have signs on the back of vehicles. that said in arabic and in english stay back 100  feet or you will be shot yeah so so that was the. first thing they would see second thing would be  vocal yelling third thing would be water balls.

hand signals yeah i mean it could be both in the  same yeah throwing a water bottle at the vehicle. pencil flares which are it's basically  a nine millimeter flare and and then. then of disabling the threat keeps coming you can  raise your weapon uh and then if it continues to.

come you can put a round into the grill and if  they continue to come after that you can go to. the windshield and neutralize the threat see so  the reason you guys are doing that is because of. all the vehicle-borne ieds out there and i just  want to throw a couple examples up real quick. of exactly what a vehicle-borne ied is so what  happens over there is you'll get a white corolla. because that's probably the most common vehicle  a white toyota corolla and they would come out of.

traffic whether you stopped at a checkpoint  they'd blend in with the gen population and. it would speed up while you guys are giving  these signals you know hey stop that way if. it is somebody that is not a car bomb then they  get it they see hey don't go any closer or i'm. going to be neutralized but if it is a car bomb  you guys have to protect your boys and as i'm. talking there's there's video up right now of  different examples of what exactly that looks.

like and how devastating a car bomb can be  right and what people have to understand is. everyone in this city every iraqi knows  the rules of engagement they know that they. shouldn't get close to a convoy and our convoys  like i said before they are super high profile. it's not like we're riding around in taxis  and trying to blend in with the crowd we have. shiny black suburbans we have big armored  vehicles so it's pretty common knowledge.

that okay when you see a convoy come through  you stop you pull off to the side of the road. let them go by and then continue on with your day  and another thing in a v-bed explosion every meter. is very important so when people watch  in the movies i guess they might get an. image of a v bed like okay well if i'm 100  feet away from this thing and it goes off.

oh i'll be all right no there's explosions there  were explosions during that time period that will. level a building we were just talking about a  specific incident where an explosion happened. i think it was 600 or more pounds of explosives  went off early morning and it blew up a hotel. and this explosion was literally miles away from  where i was and i was sleeping at the time and i.

had one of those old webcams on my table and the  shock from that explosion that was miles away. was so strong it knocked the camera off my  table and i jumped on the ground because i. thought it was a rocket that hit right outside  my my uh trailer and when i opened the door i. couldn't believe it because i could see the um the  smoke rising from you know miles and miles away. so when you're talking about just for the audience  when you're talking about every meter counts what.

you're talking about is how fast a blast wave  can die down and just one meter could possibly. save your life maybe you'll keep a couple of limbs  you know and so the you know obviously the farther. you are you know the the weaker the blast wave  gets and that happens you know espec with with. a regular ied it happens faster than something  like a 600 pounder but so with that being said.

it's imperative that you go through that use  of force continuum you know fairly fast because. the greater the distance the better  the probability that you're going to. survive the blast and so i just wanted to you  know say that for for the audience who haven't. who hasn't experienced you know blowing the [ __  ] up one thing to add on the use of force that was. dictated to us specifically by state department  that wasn't something that we made up ourselves.

and you had a big issue with the military  because they had a different continuum of. forced use of force and so they had a problem  with some of the ways that state department said. the guidelines that we should  follow they didn't think that. certain things should be done this way that way or  whatever but at the end of the day our boss was us. department of state it was not the military it was  in blackwater it was us department of state and so.

when the embassy puts out it says hey i want  you to take this step this step this step. before you do anything the military might say well  you got to do all these other steps before you can. do something but the problem was is we didn't  work for them and a lot of the friction that we. had with military units and everybody else that  was in the area was that the commander thought. that he should be able to dictate what goes on in  his area of operation that's fine if he's running.

his area for the military but whenever it come to  us we were set in stone the steps that we had to. follow by state and so it's not something that we  took lightly because if we overstepped our bounds. then we were responsible for what we did at the  end of the day if we did something messed up. you could get charged or you could be fired like  this so it's not something that's we took lightly.

and another thing in regards to the rules of  engagement blackwater was the largest contractor. in iraq at certain times and it was the highest  profile name but there were many many companies. from other countries as well that were operating  in iraq that didn't have those same rules of. engagement so when they would go out and they're  not wearing a military uniform the local iraqis.

would assume it was blackwater but 99 of the  time it was just some other contracting company. that may have engaged a car or a person and not  followed the same strict rules of engagement. that we had but because the only name that they  knew was blackwater we got thrown under the bus. for it that's a good point oh think about that if  somebody asked you who do you work for because you.

did something messed up are you going to tell them  hey man i work for triple can if you're going to. be like oh no i work for blackwater that's good  take it to take it up with them so a lot of the. dirt that was put on us that smeared with uh you  know you talked about this the notoriety that had. to do with black water during that time everybody  thought was true trigger happy but you got to. think how much was actually us versus how much  was other companies that were doing things that. instead of saying hey i'm dynacore i'm kbr i'm a  triple canopy i'm whoever uh no hey we work for.

blackwater go ahead and call the embassy with your  complaint i forget what the percentages are but. eric prince said once in a in an interview that  our percentage of our ratio between actually. engaging a target and disengaging and getting  out of the area was i was like single digits it's. less than one half of one percent yeah i mean  the percentage is just unreal if you look at the.

narrative as opposed to the actual percentage it  doesn't even line up and another thing people have. to keep in mind is it depends on what team you are  working with in blackwater so you had psd teams. that were doing protection for diplomats and then  you had the quick reaction force teams or the tst. teams that we were on so if you are on a psd team  the likelihood of you shooting was relatively. slim because of your mission you know you're  trying to move your principal from a to b safely.

let them do his business and bring them back to  the green zone safely and as quickly as possible. um so i i worked over there for two contracts  on psd teams and i didn't shoot a single round. it was only until i moved to a tsd team where we  were actually going to the engagements where i saw. more firefights and shot rounds so when people  say oh these guys sound like they're into a lot.

well we were into a lot because our teams were  getting hit a lot so raven23 was only mobilized. when there was an active engagement happening to  people that to your teammates and the principal. who's being protected no the way that worked  is there was three tst teams you had two two. two three and two six all right what  we did is we did a three day rotation.

we did one day on one day off one day or one  i'm sorry one day on one training day one day. off and most of the time it didn't work out that  way most of the time if your secondary primary. you're both working and then the the third  team is on standby in case something happens. and even if we're training we're still fully  loaded out because at any time that we could. be called i showed you the picture that we'd  just come from the gym and we're in gym shorts.

and we got our armor our weapons on because we  had to go out because we're off we're all in. the gym we're all doing this and that we got the  call and every second that you take to get gone. is people are in a bond and so what they would  do with us is let's say that you got five teams. running in this part of baghdad you got five  teams running over here in this part of baghdad. well they would get one tst team to cover these  guys one to cover these guys now we may go out.

to a different location in baghdad to stage and  then the other one may stay in the green zone at. one of the checkpoints waiting to see if something  happened or we get a call in like on may 23rd like. we'll talk about a little bit all three tst teams  ended up showing up for that event i guess what. i was getting at is you're only mobilized you're  only going to go into the red zone if there's an. active gun fight happening and people need support  you're not there to do surveillance reconnaissance.

d d the uh what i want to say traditional psd  work you're you're there for when [ __ ] hits. the fan and that's it right oh the only other  function we served as going out in the red. zone was kind of what he was hitting at is  like say the venue was a high threat venue.

and so the psd team was worried you know arrivals  and departures is usually when they would get hit. you know when they're showing up to the venue  they would get attacked that happened a lot. so we would basically escort them in to the venue  with these big trucks with big guns you know kind. of like a show of forced uh so the insurgents  would be like oh these guys got back up let's. leave them alone so we would do that sometimes  as well but yeah mostly our function was what you. said uh we're just waiting and if anything happens  we're going to help whoever needs help if you guys.

leave things have already gotten bad yes they're  expected to be extremely bad that's right okay. so kind of moving on to you know day-to-day  operations which were kind of you know covered. in a nutshell but i want to kind of give like  what the deployments were like and uh and. how many engagements would you  guys say you would get in a week.

well personally when uh when i like i said when  i when i was on my first couple contracts and i. didn't shoot a single round so on a pst team  in 2005 and midway through 2006 we didn't see. much much combat at all when i moved over to  2-3 and it started to get progressively worse in. in iraq because of a different  situations on the ground. i think we were getting engagements a few times a  week especially towards the summer of 2007 leading.

up to this incident that happened we were where  we're going out multiple multiple times a week. on top of that with the rocket  attacks the mortar attacks. we we were you know talking downstairs earlier  about the the tcns who who worked in the in the. kitchen and the child these were people that you  saw every day you actually developed relationships. with these guys and and one rock attack  attack in particular we we went and.

scooped up bodies um and they were in their bags  in the back of the bearcat we were taking them to. to the cache and and so it was i don't know it  was almost layer upon layer and it was like a. you could feel like the momentum  just picking up all the time. and it was like where where does it stop because  at some point it's got to come to a stop right.

and it felt like the enemy were getting more  brazen more aggressive and more tactical. it wasn't anymore just kind of engaging and  then it would just break off i mean they were. starting to button hook around corners and i  mean they were they were getting sharp back. in the old days you'd hear mortar you can tell  the difference in between outgoing and incoming. and you'd hear that thump in the background and  you'd hear it fly off you're like oh that's nice.

and then it progressively got more and more  and towards the end of 2007 right about the. time that our stuff was happening it's like  you'd be sitting outside we used to hang out. in like folding camp chairs and we'd all  sit around and everything and you'd look at. your watch and be like well it's getting to be  about that time and then in the background you. can hear all the thumps of the mortars and the  rockets being launched and it wasn't anymore oh.

that's nice one just went by it was time to hit  bunkers and get behind sandbags because i mean. they were raining on us hard you know used to it  was just if they got lucky they might get somebody. then they got the embassy dialed in which  we're right across from this embassy in the. uh lz washington so i mean there was [ __  ] coming in on us and i know one night um. forgive me i don't recall the name cartouche  something katusha rocket kertucha rocket hit.

right in the middle of our camp i'm talking hit  the top of a sandbag bunker one of our guys was. actually on skype with his wife and a piece went  through his eye and lodged in the back of his head. well the tst teams there's three of us our job  was to go in and make sure nobody was dead or. injured in the camp and so we had a guy that was  on another team with me he got hit in the leg and.

we were actively working our medics  were working on him trying to get him. patched up to where we could take him to the cash  and the next volley started coming in and instead. of the medics leaving they hunkered down over the  top of this guy and you know we're still receiving. uh rockets and mortars and when that guy got hit  somebody kicked in his door and they thought he's. dead because he had [ __ ] coming out of the eye  what they didn't know is that his feet of skype or.

whatever it was bondage skype whatever was still  going and his wife could hear everything that was. going on and he ended up living through it but  i mean we were getting hit hard from all angles. i'm talking just getting the [ __ ] kicked out  of us i remember when i was there in 05 it became. pretty routine and and it was every night and  then bullets were coming through the conex box. you know just be sleeping and like especially when  a soccer game happened yeah yeah and that specific.

incident i was actually sit sitting right outside  on that block with my best friend over there tommy. lopez who passed away um in the states later but  uh yeah he he actually heard the rocket coming in. so he was the one that warned me we popped up  out of our chairs to dive in the dunk uh bunker. and it hit like dustin said and destroyed this  guy's trailer so um that that explosion was uh.

so big we were kind of out of it and  we're in the middle of the smoke and i. it was like out of a movie because i looked at  tommy and we had been going through a lot of. [ __ ] recently you know he was on 2-3 also  and i said tommy are you all right you know. what's wrong are you all right and he just  looked out of it and he didn't answer me. and that very next day he quit and went  home he just couldn't take it anymore damn.

let's talk about some day-to-day operations  and and some of the engagements that you guys. got in leading up to 16th september so you're  going to talk about uh the next one that we. we talked about january 23rd we did  so uh the next one that i recall. would be considered the central rail  station incident that was in february so.

we get called out that there's a team in contact  on venue at central rail and that one of the ddms. has been shot and so as we were driving up we  noticed it's the iraqi army is engaging our team. so the people that are supposed to be on our  side are killing our brothers up there and. the helicopter lands on the rooftop as we were  pulling up black water assets load up the injured.

guy he actually lived he got shot through  the wall and i believe it lodges in his hip. yeah i think it went through  his side into his hip maybe so. he actually lived though and they they  got him to the cash and again you know the. the air assets they one of the birds elected  to stay with us while the other one took him. back so we had a close air support from  that helicopter and we got into probably.

25 minute engagement there and it was  taking too long and i remember i was. you know i was pretty fresh to the team i had been  through the january 23rd incident and so i was the. machine gunner that day as well in my vehicle and  i remember i was in the command vehicle that day. on the gun and i remember it was taking too long  to get the principal to us and so i said you know.

open the back doors and so we opened the back  doors and we just backed the bearcat you know. the bearcat is almost like a brink security  truck it was like the worst vehicle we had. you know it sucked but anyway that day it was  very beneficial because it had two doors that. opened up and they just the driver was awesome  he just sandwiched it against the side of the. building and so they just brought the principal  and literally like chucked him in there to us and. so we were able to close the doors and we got the  psd team into our motorcade and we drove out but.

i just thought it was just crazy that it was the  iraqi army engaging us and they they clearly knew. that this was uh americans that were having  business here and it was just like it was like. our first really taste or my first taste of like  iraqi army you know turning against us and then we. and then we saw that like they were talking about  the tempo in 2007 and i believe that was like the. the troop surge time is that  correct it was so it was like.

the more troops it got over there the just  the hotter it got and it just kept picking up. and then uh anybody want to talk  about the next one was uh may 23rd. so we had a what i was talking about when a team  alamo is up they had a guy jump across the fence. and pop a few rounds or something they had some  fire from the buildings too and uh we was not. too far away at one of the camps i believe was  eating lunch at shields if i'm not mistaken.

and we come rolling into the traffic circle and  we start picking up fire well by the time that. we're done we ended up having all three tst teams  there but we had a army team come up behind us and. they ended up opening up with at4s and a  50 cal and then apaches came on station. about the time that we were leaving and  they hit some stuff after we had left. and so you know it's by the time you get three  tsd teams all in one area it's it's a bad day.

it's a it's not just a hey we're in a skirmish  we're popping some rounds then we're moving on. our job was to stand there and take it  until they could get the principal out. until they deemed it was safe to move the  principal so we stood there and went toe to toe i. don't know how long i know it was a long time and  so how many rounds that we went through that day.

is a lot that's the one that i gave you the video  clip of so i mean when you get an army convoy. open up with their 50s and everything else plus  you get all three tst teams and then the psd. team was actually in the venue and  they're shooting over the top of us.

hey follow is that us army or uh.

240.

rogers.

into the building that we're taking fire from and  what people don't understand is when they think. they see in the movies of a war you got a guy  standing there you got another guy standing there. and you see each one of them bring their weapon up  what they like to do is they like to take and get. on the the rail of the building the lip and just  hang their aks over and just spray down at you. and so it's not like you can kill that dude with  one shot it takes multiple shots and getting lucky.

he's got to look up to see where it's at and  be firing before you can actually hit him. it's hard to hit the end of a barrel just being  shot at you so when you're just standing there. you would think that hey man we can  roll in here we can take care of this. but the difference in between what we're doing  at that time versus the military the military. you closed with and destroyed the enemy by fire  maneuver we didn't do that we would stand there.

and fight until they got ready to leave and  then once they once they leave we can disengage. were you guys able to communicate with the  apaches or was that military community military. we didn't have columns what the way that we you  didn't really know if they were going to show. up or not no the way that we could communicate  though was actually calling back to the base. in in our talk the tactical operations center i  think there's military assets in there and they. could communicate but we had no direct columns  with military i will say that any time we got.

into a major engagement though the apaches were  there within minutes like those guys were spot. on whoever i don't like i said i don't know who  those apache pilots were but they saved our lives. more times than i can count like like i would be  dead if it wasn't for those guys so thank you if. you're seeing this we appreciate y'all yeah save  the rest on that specific firefight me and dustin. kind of had a close call we were telling you about  earlier um as we were rolling out um we both kind.

of experienced something weird at the same time  and we didn't really realize at the moment but um. we were you know pushing back to the green zone  we just rolling out of the circle and i felt. like something wet on the back of my neck so  i reached up and my initial thought this just. popped in my head i thought he got shot i  thought it was blood because it was warm. liquid in the back of my neck so i just went  like this and it was clear and uh i went about.

my business and we rolled back to the green zone  when we back when we got back to the green zone. somebody that was on one of the other teams i  believe he said uh to dustin hey uh who was the. who was the uh gunners in the in the follow  vehicle and he said oh it was it was me and. he said hey you guys almost got shot so uh  around or multiple rounds must have came through. uh this case of waters that we had on the top  of the trucks and they exploded on the back.

of each of our necks so you're talking not  that far behind me a water box disintegrated. how many vehicles uh did you guys go through. they would break quite often um it  seemed like we had such good mechanics. that they always were able to piecemeal us a  motorcade together you know like you rarely.

had the same truck like it would last for  a while and it would take damage and then. by the time you started work the next day they  would have you a replacement like they were just. yeah we had something we had some great  mechanics they worked i never seen them. not working like they were always in there fixing  something at night that and the lights set up. i think we lost what four vehicles i think the  efps and uh ieds yeah and uh stuff like that total.

is i know two that just got mangled and now  i mean they'd get shot but it wouldn't really. do nothing to them but the efps would would  mangle them were you guys ever hit with uh. ieds or efps or car bombs uh i was on half  a i don't know if it was a grenade or ied. i'm pretty sure it's a grenade i know we got hit  then with one but i don't think 2-3 ever took a.

efp or a car bomb but i know i think it was two  two and two six i'm pretty sure they both did. and that was our sister teams and uh one of our  guys he had just taken a drag off his cigarette. and the efp came through the window compartment  and he lost his arm and the only reason why he's. the driver is he took his hand off the wheel to  do something i don't know if it's the light one. take a puff or what but he lost his his arm  behind it and then another one with an efp yeah.

another efp hit the vehicle and i know we went out  and recovered the vehicle and the guns and radio. and everything out of machine guns and the damn  barrel of the 240 was bent like this because. i don't know if that vehicle topped and then came  back up or what but through the armor of that. vehicle in the engine compartment there was a hole  about like this and the efp went through the armor.

of the vehicle and lodged in the center of the  motor our intel analyst went out with us her. name was mia and she actually i was there when she  did it she recovered the piece of the efp that was. in the motor compartment and so our team never  took a blast like that but our sister teams did. they they they got smarter as time  went on with those efps as well.

because yeah they started  you know using uh one of my. temperature temperature controlled uh detonators  you know to trigger the efp so that when. instead of uh like a remote debt like a garage  door opener or a cell phone or whatever the. hell they were using that day uh his vehicles  will come by they would pick up the temperature. the temperature of the engine and that would set  the efp off well then i remember when i was there.

i saw vehicles starting to put ammo cans on poles  out front because then they um they were also. doing just regular motion would set it off well  it would hit the ammo can and it would detonate. right in front of the vehicle so then they started  putting them on a time delay like a second delay. or something so the the efp would be triggered  wait a second for the vehicle to pass and then.

you know and it just got more and more and more  effective you know as time went on and uh so i. just want to you know put that out there but  that reminded me of uh what happened that day. because we got you know aars and debriefed on  any incident that had to do with any any kind. of insurgent improvement that you were talking  about how they got smarter in their tactics but.

they had actually the iraqi police had stopped  traffic and waved our sister team through and. they had a watermelon stand set up and they  had put the efp inside the watermelon stand. i think it was multiple array i think it was more  than one actual projectile but they had a laser. that they could turn on and off and so they would  turn it off you know for normal traffic but when.

we were coming through our  sister team they turned it on and. detonated it so like the cops were complicit with  it you know they left they let them set it up the. cops were probably the ones that actually set  it up but they uh yeah they blew our guys up. didn't kill any of them but he got ejected  from the turret and hurt really bad. one of them lost his arm i believe and then there  was a follow-up attack so these guys are having to. having to cross-load the casualties  they're having to engage the enemy.

secondary attack and then they're having to burn  the vehicle because it's immobile they can't get. it out of there so they're having to thermite the  vehicle all within a matter of you know seconds. because seconds count at that point so yeah those  guys did a great job by the time we got out there. to help them they were already they had already  took care of business and sanitized the vehicle. all we did was hook up to the vehicle and drag  it out so i mean they were they were squared. away yeah they would use ieds to initiate the  ambushes and they would hide them and trash bags.

cars concrete t-walls um curbs whatever they  could whatever would just blend in and then. it got it got so ridiculous every time you'd  see a trash bag on the side of the road it was. an alternative trigger yeah i still have  a problem with that i see a trash on the. side of the road dead animals i mean just  anything that they can put them in bodies. yeah everything so i mean you know  it's uh i think the next one was.

right around the corner from i don't  remember the date but the traffic circle. is here where my vehicle was in this lane and  then we arched in this way we got another one. in between the next traffic circle same exact  venue almanac city hall and i know that i don't. think that one was as bad as the the first  one i don't think we stayed there as long but.

it's you lose track whenever you're out there you  you know it's sometimes it feels like you've been. there forever and you've only been there a minute  sometimes it feels like you hadn't been there very. long but you've been there forever and so you know  one of the things that we was discussing earlier. is when they ask us well what was this guy doing. i don't know what this guy's doing i have  a sector of fire that i'm responsible for. in me being the very tell-in gunner of the convoy  i have a whole range to cover and so you know.

there's times like in that one i had guys with  aks that were moving down well if i engaged as. a machine gunner i'm accuracy by volume of fire  so in other words i'm not shooting one round. and laying it down i'm shooting a burst if i was  to shoot a burst into where those guys were in. that particular one i'd have been hitting all  kinds of traffic and everything else around and.

that's where nick came into play is i said over  the radio i'm like hey man i got a problem back. here can you take care of it and he took care of  the issue and so um i'll let somebody else go into. the rest of that one well you particularly have a  reputation i believe it's you of being extremely. you err on the side of caution when it comes to  firing around well am i correct is that yeah it.

and it's not that i err on the side of caution but  unlike 90 percent of our team actually probably. i know that there's only like one or two actual  machine gunners that were on there that's been to. machine gun school and done everything like that  um i i fully understand what that weapon does and. so it's it's an area weapon it's not a precision  weapon and so whenever i'm taking a shot with it.

i've got to know my target what lies beyond  because if i hit somebody with a machine gun it's. not going to stop there and if i hit somebody with  a burst yeah i may get you with one or two rounds. but i've also got a lot of rounds pushing through  an area and so i've got to know what's behind it. now granted if you're in a fight for your life  you do whatever it takes to survive because you.

don't have a choice but if there's a different  tool for the job why hit something with a hammer. whenever it can be done with a screwdriver  and so you know that's like nick being the ddm. he can take a precision shot because he's got  an optic and so there was so much traffic stuff. from where i was at that if i put a big burst into  those guys that were back there i would have ate. all kinds of stuff and i wasn't comfortable with  doing it and now later on some of those guys were.

coming through alleyways and everything else and  that's fine because there's no collateral damage. and so i've got to know what i'm hitting i  got to know what's beyond my target because. a 240 for me is a small weapon i'm used to 50 cows  in mark 19s and so whenever you start playing with. 50s and marks that's a lot more damage causing  weapon and whenever you shoot those into things.

it'll punch through a wall and keep on going  you know what i mean it'll go through a car. and keep going so it's not that i'm cautious i  understand the weapon system it was i meant that. as a compliment but it's i'm i'm not saying  it negative towards you i'm just saying it's. i understand what that thing's capable of. yeah it's as best as i remember  though the principal was hard pointed. and we pulled up and if i if memory served  me well it was almost immediate it wasn't.

a pause it was um as soon as the drivers put the  vehicles in park or maybe they didn't put it in. park yet we were just we just kind of settled into  our our area we started receiving small arms fire. i remember hearing over the radio  of someone saying watch the disco. because the cops were starting to get up towards  the vehicles where the discus were mounted. and had that opened up on us we i mean  you're not going to stand up against that.

a disco just being the the  russian version of the 50 cal. and so i think what what dustin was talking  about the guys he was trying to engage they were. coming down the alleyway trying to button hook  towards me which was the broadside of our bearcat. and at the same time we were receiving  small arms fire from a guy up on a.

remember the great big water red water  towers that were on top of the houses. there was a guy up there that had me in his sights  and it was the lead lead gunner whoever i can't. remember who that was had stopped that threat  because had they not i mean they had me dead. to rights i was in the middle of doing a a reload  with the 240. um and then we broke contact pretty. quickly i don't think we were there yeah that  one didn't last too long it was about 10 minutes.

total i think i think we were probably like five  minutes on the scene and then we got the principal. in our motorcade that's what we would do a lot of  times we would once the psd team had the principal. loaded we would just put him in our package so  we have two vehicles in front we put their three. three vehicle motorcade inside of our motorcade  and then we'd have two vehicles behind that so.

we would just kind of escort them in to the  green zone that happened quite a bit and uh. they had ambush set up on both sides of the river  i remember and it was kind of stressful because. they actually traffic was blocked so we actually  had to get out and deploy the fire team on foot. so we were taking contact while we were on foot  and we had to clear out traffic you know and we. got that done pretty quick because we were  taking rounds while we were out there so we.

had to leave the safety of the skin of the vehicle  and get out there on our feet and take contact and. we got the vehicles out of the way finally and  yeah it was 10 minutes for me that was the first. time i had actually seen them bounding towards us  and they were coming down the bank of the river. and yeah it was that was a mess and the  guys like you say they've gotten out of. the suburban to try to clear traffic and  you know fortunately we got out of there but.

yeah what was your guys relationship with  the principals with the state department. we didn't know people didn't have a clue who it  was who they were what they were doing or anything. else never worked with the same one no sometimes  was on psd yes but on the tactical teams no no no. no clue who they were or anything it didn't  matter the only time we ever saw them. is when they were in trouble and we were  dragging them out of somewhere that's.

the only time we oh no you know that's my only  experience with a principal because i was on the. i was on 2-3 the whole time so i never had any  encounters with principals or state department. officials unless they were in trouble when  they were calling for our help to come get them. as the advanced team for uh ambassador khalilzad  he he seemed to really have a lot of respect. for us because he i'm not going to speak for  the man but he i think he really understood.

what it was in that environment because  he had been there for so long and. and he i think he truly appreciated everything  that we put on the line for for he and his staff. and again i don't mean to put words in the man's  mouth or that or by any means any of that but um. just giving my very limited interaction with him  um he really seemed to to respect us and and to.

care about us you know there wasn't a disconnect  there at all that's good what what were you. guys were you guys getting fed intel at all  did you get any intel briefings bolo lists. anything every morning every morning yeah below  list for the audience is be on the lookout for. blank whatever white kia opal always was  on the list yeah i mean like you're saying. earlier the toyota it was kia's toyota  motorcycle motorcycles taxis taxis trucks.

yeah ambulance they always stole ambulances and  blew those up too oh that was the first thing. we saw that one that was our last day i remember  seeing that thing thinking all right here we go. every every morning you guys were getting an  intel dump and who was giving that to was it. mia mia our intel analyst was uh she she was  blackwater do you know where she was getting that. intel from was it military department i assume  all those all those assets had a uh like he said.

earlier they had a talk and they would all share  it we didn't know we never went to the talk but. the way the way that we were we were informed  is this was a united effort basically all. interagency cooperation they would kind of lay  out and they had sources out there at the time. and this is what's going on in the city we had  really reliable intelligence as far as routes.

like they had really good assets on the ground  that would tell us these are the routes where. you're going to get hit so we advise you to take  this route and it was usually spot on i mean as. far as the routes go we we are traveling to the  same places a lot of times where the psd teams. are traveling to the same places so there's  only so many routes you can go i mean you. could pick three different routes but normally  only maybe two of them are useful maybe one. so there's no uh way around it you got to go down  the same streets normally around the same time uh.

all the time so you're just a huge rolling target  one of the biggest needs too for like coordinating. intelligence is you may have an army asset team  over here doing whatever it is they're doing and. it's it's your objective at that point  then to kind of stay out of their way. because you don't want to you don't want to  cross paths unnecessarily and you don't want. to to interrupt what's going on so for instance if  if a principal is over here at say ministry of oil.

and your route happens to cut right through  where some military operations are going. obviously you don't want to do that if  if you can help it and so that's where. that interagency cooperation really helped for  for any kind of blue on blue incident because. that's obviously the last thing you would ever  want to happen friendly fire is never friendly. how well did you guys know the city they  were great from backwards core he knew.

it like the back of his hand yeah very  well yeah our tactical commander he was. he had [ __ ] together he knew he knew  all the back streets all the main avenues. like dustin said he's he was normally the  the rear gunner in the follow vehicle so he's. he's looking at the city rolling backwards all the  time so if you turn him around he might get lost. but uh yeah we knew this we dropped backwards i  can tell you where to we knew the city pretty well.

i mean it's you know there's  places like sauder city and stuff. that they didn't want military going in but  if we had a meeting there if the principals. had a meeting we didn't have a choice but  to go wherever it was that they were going. and so i mean when it was the military couldn't go  we still would and so because if the boss says hey.

you got to take somebody here you're taking  them there it doesn't matter the only place. that i knew that was blacklisted to drive into was  ministry of health and most time they would fly a. team in drop some people in let the diplomat  do his meeting and then fly them back out um. is there anything specific you guys  want to cover before we move in.

to september 16th there was also  the the dart incident as well so. there was a helicopter that was shot down at one  of our sister camps which was like south of us it. was called hillary yeah it was halfway between  hillary and back there so they were flying they. were taking guys for their leave they would fly  them back to baghdad so that they could hop on. a plane and come back to the states and like you  said they were halfway in between so it was about.

it's probably like a 15 minute flight from where  we were to the crash site where they got shot down. and they always traveled in pairs so the  air guys were squared away as soon as that. helicopter got shot by rpg it crashed landed all  occupants er all of our brothers on there survived. and the other one set down and immediately  cross-loaded and they were able to get them. all back to safety in the green zone but the bird  was still out there so our mission was right quick.

if i can the pilot got his tail rotor shot off  and he landed his bird under high line wires. wow to put it in context of how good a pilot  this man was or two pilots um so it yeah it. was amazing that that i mean the biggest thing i  think was a scratch maybe on a couple of the guys. but in in in context of a  good pilot that that's what he. was saying he was my neighbor actually  i knew i knew the man and he was a.

vietnam area pilot we had like vietnam era  aircraft we had hueys and we had little birds. and the huey he was flying that i think he was  one of the only guys that had been through the rpg. simulator back in vietnam so i think he had been  shot down like three different times by rpg fire. and all of his crew always lived like everybody  like he knew how to crash land like wow he was. a very good pilot but so our mission was we're  supposed to fly out there and set up security.

which was like 10 or 15 minute flight and then  we had to wait for them to fly back and load up. mechanics to bring the mechanics out take the  sensitive stuff off the bird and then that was. going to be our mission so as we're flying out  there they tell us you're going to land in a hot. lz there's active enemy combatants out there and  so as we were flying closer i realized that the.

army is already on station and there was apache  gunships that were circling there was two of them. and there was a mind sweeping vehicle a bradley  and a humvee out there already right beside the. crash site so when we landed i noticed and a lot  of the guys were talking about how the apaches. were they were engaging with their chain gun they  were lighting up this tree line and this village.

where they where the rpg attack had come from  and so we set up security around the bird. and i i linked up with the local assets the  i think he was a lieutenant and a sergeant is. who i talked to and another guy on our team  talked and we're just saying all right look. y'all got the big guns we're we're here told him  what our mission was he was like all right and so. we're sitting there for a minute and then we  notice all these locals start coming out of.

the woodwork and there was this crowd that had  men women and children in it and they're looking. through the optics on the bradley and they're  telling me this and they've got people with aks. but they've also got civilians intermixed in this  crowd and so what the apache did it he just kind. of flew low and kind of dispersed the crowd and  so they all kind of peeled off and they started. chucking their weapons into the fields and a  lot of times what they would do they would just.

put them in a feed sack and pitch them out in the  field so we've been there maybe two minutes three. minutes and then they just started coming back out  of their houses when the apaches gained elevation. again they started pulling their weapons back out  and they started engaging us and then firefight. broke out and then somewhere in the middle of that  the mechanics show up and then and then they start. they start helping us engage and then uh the  apaches they uh i guess they were asking for. permission to use hellfires and we we eventually  got the apache logs later and they laid down a.

lot of ordinance like they they blew up a couple  buildings in a tree line and then we didn't take. any more contact after that they killed all the  bad guys and then we uh yeah that was it we took. the the mechanics took the sensitive stuff off  the bird and we loaded back up flew back i know. this is not on this subject but you said before  we moved to september 16th uh we'd be all over.

baghdad all over the city and everything right  and one of the the things they like to do to. convoys in general over there with the military  is cut off the last vehicle and then everybody. else would have to turn around and come back and  so you know you're always on the watch for ambush. and everything else well it was my vehicle we had  a car right as we were coming across a bridge that. jacked out in front of us i'm talking just  pulled well my driver did what he's supposed.

to do he drove through to keep us from getting  ambushed i don't recall if we took rounds that day. i did i don't i got my bell wrong i actually broke  my back i got two raws six screws in my lumbar. and i couldn't tell you if we took a single round  because we hit so hard that it almost ejected the. front gunner it rang everybody's bell inside of  it and i ended up i knew i hurt got hurt but i.

didn't realize how bad and so you know the threat  that we faced every day was all day every day. of [ __ ] could happen at any second  any time and we wasn't a team that. didn't leave the wire in other words we wasn't  sitting around just playing on our computer and. doing whatever we were constantly on the go  because somebody needed us for something whether. it's just like they're saying earlier okay they  bring in the heavy trucks and it's a show of force.

or whether it's something that went boom  or bang that we're actually responding to. but you know we're under the threat of attack  all day every day and that's what people don't. understand is the prosecution sold missouri square  like this is right outside of here in nashville. that it's a safe place that nothing ever happens  there yeah but you know baghdad wasn't like that.

baghdad was like the wild west of what was it  about a month prior to that the car bomb went off. underneath the square and blew a crater in that  thing the size of something you'd see on the moon. bill cofield said that that crater i believe was  50 meters deep and 75 meters wide that's how big. that [ __ ] car bomb was yeah so and it was sold  as if it were dupont circle in washington dc. it was rivers of blood when we went out there  like it was like you know how you you hear.

that that term rivers of blood or like blood  flowing in the streets it was literally like. just people like they're they didn't even know  how many people got killed like it was a crowded. thing dude drove it i think it was actually in  april i think it was a few months before that. but he actually drew drove his car underneath  there was like a tunnel that went underneath it. and the people were milling about that  circle and he detonated it and it just.

i mean just blew people to pieces man and we had  drove through there and it was just it was insane. still being repaired that day yeah and  all those months later september like. they were still repairing it the  tunnel wasn't open yet i don't believe. bill cofield also said that that's why the  circle was so crowded that day was because. that that entire section was shut down that's  right and there's we'll get into this later but.

and the threat was real whether they want  to admit it or not and that's why when the. fbi team eventually showed up three weeks after  it happened they didn't just walk out there and. and try to take pictures of the curb and pick  up supposed evidence they went out there with. a platoon of security guys as well because they  didn't want to get blown up full kit yeah apache. is on station and when apaches come in it's a game  changer you don't want to jack with a flying tank.

yeah and so whenever they're there to start  with things are a lot less likely to happen yeah. they were definitely they had the privilege  of being the full protection air ground. everything and you guys didn't. but um let's take one more quick break when we  come back we'll we'll get into the september 16th.

okay.

oh. all right guys so september 16th 2007 what's  known as the blackwater massacre raven 23.

incident i want to get each and every one of yours  firsthand accounts of what happened when you got. that call so let's start with nick so we were  all in the green zone there was a huge explosion. and immediately we started moving to the  vehicles we were all running they called. us on the radio said that one of our  teams had been get got hit by a v bid.

as we rolled out we rode through checkpoint 12 we  ended up in eastern square and as we were rolling. into the circle we noticed uh it was strange man  we noticed a lot of military iraqi military and. a lot of iraqi police just on foot scattered  throughout the circle and we had never seen. anything like that more than usual yes sir usually  they were at specific locations like guard posts.

and stuff but there was a heavy presence and so  immediately that got my hackles up and i felt like. that something was about to happen and so we were  directed that everybody was okay in the team that. the v bit it went off it had actually exploded  outside their venue so what they were going to. do they were going to load up the principal and  they were going to travel through neisser square. and so we were just going to facilitate a fast  route for them to get back into the green zone.

then we were going to put them in our package and  drive into the green zone right so we had been. there for maybe 15 seconds maybe 30 seconds at  the most and we started taking incoming fire and. i heard on the radio the ips are engaging  us and so i looked out and i saw multiple. iraqi police at first they were kind of like this  with their aks and then they started raising them.

up and they started engaging and then firefight  broke out and i heard our vehicle just cut off and. evan had said that our vehicles down i heard that  on the radio and we were hearing impacts on the. side of our vehicle and so i was like man we're  we're hit i just knew we were going to die and so. i heard the machine gunners engaging and  eventually the firefight ceased and it was.

probably maybe two or three minutes of  back and forth between us and the enemy. and then the shift league calls for a tow out  which means the second vehicle our vehicle was. the third vehicle the second vehicle is going  to back up and then they're going to dismount. fire team members and hook up a tow strap to  our vehicle so that we can be pulled out right. and so they do that they execute the toe out  and we're traveling back to the green zone.

and i remember hearing on the radio that the psd  team raven 4 that the initial attack had happened. our sister team i believe it was raven 2-2 had  picked them up and put them in their motorcade and. they were receiving contact as well on their route  back so they took another route away from easter. square back to the green zone and so that was  two separate fire fights yes sir within how.

close of each other within probably two and a half  miles i would say is the heart compound that was. the compound they were at it's probably two miles  from the circle so within that area i didn't know. exactly where they were at but on their way back  to the green zone they were taking incoming as. well so you've got a you've got a radio log where  we've got multiple engagements going on we've got. we really believed on on an after action report we  really believed that this was a kidnapping attempt.

we really believed that they were going to  detonate that v bid and have the psd team. drive through neisser square because that was  the most direct route back to the green zone. and there was a huge water truck and a bus like  a big city bus and they were going to just block. off that intersection so that the psd team would  be trapped in there and then they were going to.

kidnap the principal that's how i feel about it  but they didn't expect guys with machine guns. up armored vehicles to roll into their  their ambush so i think they just panicked. and initiated their ambush prematurely and  so we get towed out we make it back out of. the circle and as we're leaving the circle i  hear on the radio we're still receiving fire. and somebody else calls out will shoot back and  then he says i can't shoot back because i can't.

see where it's coming from and that was the last  thing that i heard on the radio we made it back. to uh the parking lot that was it do you have  any idea how many people are engaging you. i saw personally i saw two people  engaging me i saw two iraqi cops engaging. paul yeah my memory is much the same as  as far as coming into the circle it was.

it was really uh spooky it was weird because there  was a lot of active ings and ips and not to beat. a dead horse but it was it was really something  that was not normal and everybody knew that that. something was wrong and so as we pulled in to the  square it was again as we got settled it seemed. to be almost immediate as far as incoming fire  and at the same time there was the white vehicle.

that was pulling out of of uh stopped traffic  and and everybody including iraqi witnesses. said that it was what they what they thought  was was an apparent v-bit and so in in in uh. the thought process of of preserving the team  and engaging a legitimate threat the thought for. me was was to stop that that v-bit and uh and  so that's what i did i engaged the threat and.

and following that there were uh five  other if i recall correctly five other. um threats that were engaging us and as the call  was was let out that the that our command vehicle. was was uh disengaged and not able to start  anymore i heard corey wainscott say over the radio. command turret gunner take up six because it  basically it was the wall of steel between us.

and the enemy were re-receiving fire from and  then the erv yeah backed up hooked up the toe. out and that's when i witnessed other threats  trying to engage what i thought was dustin. and so we got the the toe out we got hooked up and  we start moving out and the the volume of fire had.

had died way down but there were still there were  still other rounds coming in and and again like. nick i heard uh we're still taking fire we're  still taking fire and i heard um shoot back or. fire back and and it was clearly dustin saying i  don't i don't have a clear threat i don't i don't. have a clear target and uh he and you know  pop smoke and we would we'd move back and uh.

we're driving down the down the right side of  the road buttonhood back going towards the iz. there were people up on rooftops um of apartment  buildings that were watching us clearly they were. they were watching what we were doing we got back  in the iz and then went to patriots and then nick. pulled me out of the turret peeled off my kit and  my flight suit to check for holes but i was good.

and the way the weight was at the kia  and the white kia were you being engaged. by threats when the white heel was headed  your way as i recall it was all at the. same time it all happened at the same time it was  definitely it appeared to be a coordinated attack. and that that same car if i remember  right was on the bolo list that morning. that same car was on the there was a b on the  lookout for the white kia for a possible uh.

would all you say that. were there any other assets in there did you guys  have air did you have drones where is mill there. so there was a drone i think nick can speak a  little better than that than i can i know that. air showed up kind of at the tail end of things  and they were our support as we were coming in. but as far as i recall air didn't engage at all.

the yeah the helicopters the gunfighted pretty  much dissipated by then and the drone was already. on station from the v-bed that had gone off  earl uh just a couple minutes earlier correct. because it was already up in the air by the time  you guys even rolled out a checkpoint 12. yes. so uh i was the driver of the command vehicle  the third vehicle of the convoy so we rolled out.

uh rolled into nesour square and i agree with  these guys that um there was something off. about the iraqi police activity it  just seemed to be a bigger number of. of iraqi police and even i think iraqi national  guard um and typically when you see them. they're either directing traffic by shooting their  weapons in the air or they're lounging around. in the in the in the shade resting they're not  really too active so i did notice when we pulled.

up into the circle um it was totally packed  with with traffic and um the ips seemed to be. maneuvering around and kind of like frantic  movements and and that caught my attention. so pretty much as soon as we came to a stop  within a minute or less we received incoming fire. small arms fire and i started hearing the pings  on the side of my vehicle and at the same time.

i heard i don't know if i heard paul yell it out  on the radio or just yell it out down the turret. that there was a white kia that was presenting a  threat and it was coming towards the vehicle so. i'm kind of scanning the eric area looking  for threats i see the activity i see some ips. raising their aks firing at the convoy and then  at the same time that white key is coming forward.

as well but as a driver your job is to safely move  the team from point a to point b and also give the. the turret gunner a secure platform to protect  the team so while i was looking for threats and. scanning the area and calling out things that i  was seeing my job was to drive so i just happened. to glance down at the at the dashboard and all  of the dash lights were illuminated which which.

kind of concerned me because that would mean that  the vehicle is turned off so i i i turned the key. again and it wouldn't start it just kind of  clicked so i did a couple times and i and i. looked over the team leader to my right and i  said hey hoss this vehicle is dead man and uh. we were kind of in the middle of receiving  all that fire so as we spoke about earlier um.

we we were in armored vehicles but just because  you're in an armored vehicle doesn't mean that. you're totally protected it doesn't mean you're in  a behind a force field yes it does protect about. against a small arms fire but once you receive  a certain number of small arms rounds or. even explosion or an rpg you're  going to have big problems no matter. what armor you have so one of the images that kind  of would pop into my head was that image of the.

four guys in fallujah that got burned in that  convoy and and strung up on that bridge and um. you know uh it was a it was a life-or-death moment  so the team leader kind of snapped me out of my. my driver mode uh because the vic was  obviously disabled from incoming rounds. and he told me to open the door so he could  engage so i i swung the door open with my foot.

leaned back against the seat and he leaned over me  and fired at some threats that he was identifying. i'm not sure how many rounds he really shot it  wasn't more than one one magazine but he pulled. back i shut the door and started working on the  vehicle again um shortly after um i i kind of gave. up on the vehicle because uh it was not going to  start it was just um yeah it was a it was a waste.

waste of time so he told me they'll open the door  again and that's when we both engaged um i saw ip. that was kind of behind a fighting position there  was like some sandbags um and he was actively. shooting at the convoy so i shot in his direction  neutralized the threat and uh shut the door um. i think it was at that time where there was  like a little lull in the fire fight and um.

there's a few things that you could do when when  you're being actively engaged or you get hit by. a ied or v-bit one of the things that you could do  is the x is what you call the the area when you're. basically it's the danger area where all the  fire is going to be directed at the x so the x is. basically the best way to describe the x the x is  the entire focus of the battlefield it is a magnet.

for bullets right so you want to get off the  x as fast as possible your vehicle being the. x because it's disabled and they're  already shooting at it right so we. were kind of sitting ducks at that point  um so one of the options that we had was. for the follow vehicle to actually put their  bumper against our rear bumper and push us out.

but because of the way the vehicles were  positioned the the amount of traffic in. the circle in the route that we would have to  take to get just off the x it wasn't feasible. it just would have been too hard to  maneuver the vehicle without power steering. so the team leader made the call that we're going  to tow out and like nick said the erv vehicle. which is the second vehicle in the convoy backs  up the follow vehicle covers provides cover.

for the side of the threat they hook up the tow  strap and then they tow you out so on the way back. i do remember uh guys calling on the radio that  were receiving fire still from back in the circle. and dustin came on the radio and  said he didn't have a clear shot. and then um just uh we we got pulled back to  the green zone fighting the vehicle the whole. time and that was it it was a a relatively  minor engagement in the big scheme of things.

it's serious anytime you discharge your weapon  but the amount of firefights that we had been in. in the weeks leading up to that in comparison  it was relatively minor engagement in my opinion. well um as we rolled into the circle. we started receiving fire i don't recall exactly  the timeline of how fast everything happened.

i mean it's been been some time ago i just know  that we're being shot at from the south down there. there's an area that i could clearly see people  engage in us and i neutralized the threat and. i'm not sure how many people was there it's  just one of those things that you've got a. problem and you've got to solve it and like  they were saying about the ips and everything.

one of the things that was dividing my attention  is there was a bunker that had a belt fed in it. off to the uh it'd be out of the area that we came  leaving the checkpoint we drove right by it and so. not only was i dealing with the the active threat  but i was also kind of keeping an eye on that too. and so i know that after everything it was  short there was it wasn't a big firefight.

it was after everything was done i  started throwing smoke on the way out. and that way it covers our exit to where if  the enemy can't see you then they can't shoot. you you're providing concealment for the entire  convoy yeah i threw every smoke that we had and. um you know they said it was acting irrational  or stuff like that and so my fire team member. which is the guy inside the vehicle he handed me  up a thermite and i looked at that and realized.

it was a thermite and not a smoke i could have  thrown it i could have just chunked it wherever. and let whatever burn but instead i handed  it back to him saying hey man if we need this. we're going to need it you know i'm not just  going to throw it so as we were leaving and. it'd be to the north of the circle i could still  see [ __ ] skipping off the the pavement around us. and i called out on the radio and  i said hey we're still taking fire.

and that was after the toe out and everything  else and it wasn't a lot but it was still. enough to concern me well i actually got hit  by something um i don't know what it ricocheted. off of but it hit me in the chin strap my my  kevlar and so i had a big old pop knot on my. chin and it landed in the bend of my arm  right here and the nomax suits like 12.

1500 degrees before it's supposed to  combust and i was actually on fire and so. i put the fire out with my glove and everything  and then um whenever i called and i said hey. we're taking fire i got the order from my team  leader saying shoot back and i called back over. the radio i said i can't shoot back i don't have  a target i'm not just going to open up i had. 400 rounds linked together and if i wanted to be  malicious i wouldn't had a one linked up i had all.

kinds of ammo in the truck too so i had plenty  of ammo if i wanted to be malicious and we got. back to the patriots parking lot and as soon as we  came into the gate before we got there i stripped. off my armor and had my fire team member check me  because i knew i'd been hit by something to make. sure that i didn't have a hole in me that i didn't  feel because of the adrenaline and everything else. and so i didn't have any holes in me which  was good and when we got back to patriots i.

went and got my burns dressed and everything so  that was pretty much the short and sweet of it. how many other teammates out there  out of the 19 you guys were engaging. threats do you know was everybody. no it would have been i think there was like seven  together seven seven out of the 19 i think engaged.

the the way the trucks were positioned uh we were  spread out across the southern side of the circle. pretty good so the distance between the league  lead vehicle and the follow vehicle would be what. it was a good good distance so what the people in  the the lead in the second vehicle are looking at. is not necessarily the same as the third and  fourth vehicle and there was a median that went.

basically right where the second and third vehicle  were separated so if you were in those first two. vehicles that street that most of the threats  were on was blocked by palm trees in that median. so and it's hard to really say with any  accuracy how many guys were firing also because. we were all in us three were in one  truck dustin was in the follow so um.

like we've said before when you're in a  firefight you're kind of paying attention. to the threat and doing your doing your thing  you're not really conscious of hey this guy. in this truck is firing out this porthole  or this gunner is shooting in this direction. you really don't know so anything that i would say  now would be something i heard after the fact so. yeah how how much distance was between you  guys and the threats that you were engaging.

the kia did get pretty close as well um  as far as the ips maneuvering yeah 50. 75 meters the kia was a very controversial  topic when you guys got to court and there was a. another shooter who engaged the kia who was in  there right that wasn't you guys there's actually.

two other shooters besides us that engaged the  kia and one was dropped for lack of evidence. because nobody saw him shot him shoot he's the  one that said in his sworn statement that he shot. and then the other one that's not  here with us today took a guilty plea. and um he's admitted to killing the passenger and  if not the driver if i'm not mistaken so just to.

recap there was a v bid your team  got hit your sister team got hit. they went out to go recover them there's also in  a there was a uh army engagement also happening at. the exact same time plus your engagement so that's  three firefights within five mile radius correct. then you showed up there was already a drone on  station who was filming footage and you had two.

black water little birds on station  as well out there so you get back. did you guys think anything of  it no it sounds like a pretty. minor engagement compared to some of the  other stuff that we just talked about. i'm sorry no when we got back the main concern  was get ready in case we had to go back out. yep i brought the vehicle straight to get repaired  and get loaded up and my uh my main concern was.

getting that vehicle uh ready to go back out yeah  there are still other teams out there on venue. and remember this there was  180 there was an average of 180. engagements a day in the year 2007  when this happened so at what point.

did you guys get indicted well uh 2009 before  we go into the indictment the thing that was. weird about this shoot versus others is  okay normally the shooters do a statement. okay at the end of the day if you shot your  weapon if you discharged it in any manner. you're supposed to do an after-action report an  aar and when you do the whoever shot supposed to.

turn the statement and to the detail leaders and  then the detail leaders walk that to the embassy. and as soon as we got back in we was eating  chow and they started looping the video from. the tower over and over on cnn a video of your  guys's firefight a video was already a video. how fast are we talking about 30 minutes 30  minutes cnn was rolling this yeah it took us just.

enough to go from cross loading our vehicles to  make sure that we're ready to go back out i got my. burns treated we went back in we were eating lunch  in case we had to roll again and my whole team is. sitting at a table and there's the big old school  tv that's back there in the back big square one. and it's on cnn or it's just starts looping  the the video footage afterwards and you see.

one burning vehicle the iraqi fire department or  whoever it is hasn't even got there to put it out. yet there's a couple vehicles that are still there  that i guess were disabled back behind the kia. and um you don't see bodies littered all over  the street like what it says and if i remember. correctly that video was shot within just a few  minutes after the after the firefight itself and. so the thing that struck me odd like i was saying  about the statements is normally the shooters just.

do a statement and then it's taken over there to  the embassy if they got questions they call you. but later that evening they wanted the whole team  to write a statement and i guess because of the. cnn stuff and so the whole team had to sit down  and do their sworn statements which are garrity. statements it's uh says i declare underneath the  penalty of perjury that this can't be used against.

me as long as i tell the truth and whatever the  statement is i don't remember the exact heading. i'm sure one of those can be found actual  statement and what you do then is you go. in and it's a work statement it's just like a cop  when a cop discharges a weapon on the streets here. in the u.s he's got to go in and he's got to give  a work statement and what he's telling his boss. is because of that investigation is going  to happen and so he gives a statement well.

it was weird that the whole team got called over  so we started doing our statements then we went to. the embassy and turned them in in person and then  um i know that we went back like three other times. and there was people that said that  they didn't shoot that did and uh. that caused a lot of friction  because there was a grenade or two. i don't remember how many that were shot  and there's only certain people within.

the motorcade that had grenades i was one  of them paul was one of them and there's. i don't remember who the others were but there's  unaccounted rounds that were spent and so what. created friction was the person that shot that  said that they didn't they started putting. point in the finger and it went from just a  questioning to a more aggressive interrogation of.

where did this round come from well if it  didn't come from you and it didn't come from him. where did these rounds come from it's like i don't  know dude i don't know what to tell you and so. after we all did our statements and we kept  going back and forth in between the embassy and. the man camp and answering the investigators  questions and you know being honest i haven't.

deviated i've never said anything outside of my  sworn statement and i stand by that because what i. said right after the incident whenever i wrote  that statement out everything was fresh in my mind. if i tried to give you a recap of anything that's  today there's been so much talk of everything. else and the years that's gone by i just couldn't  give you an accurate statement because of all the. things that we've heard in court the you know and  everything else it's just not fresh and so i know.

that after we gave those statements before we were  indicted that there was a state department agent. that actually leaked those to the press so i  know paul's statement was on cnn part of my. statement was on cnn and so they took a protected  document and leaked it to the general public.

i don't recall how long after that until we got  doubted it so um i think so the incident happened. september 16 to 2007 uh i stayed  until the end of my contract i wasn't. able to go out and work and like  he said that initial night when. instead i could just call in the shooters they  called everybody over there and the way they were. interviewing everybody there was definitely  something a little different about that um.

that fire fight so we can we kept going on with  our days over there working out watching tv. hanging out waiting to go back  to work and then it was about. three weeks later that we received word that the  fbi was going to come over and investigate so in. my mind the fire fight was a minor engagement  so i invited them to come over and investigate.

i'm like you know what if this is what it takes  to resolve this thing come on over and do it so. shortly after that my contract was up so i went  home and that was the first time i met with a. lawyer and i was so naive at the time i guess you  could say or i just didn't have any experience. with the justice system i didn't realize how  serious this whole thing was about to get.

because one of the first things i asked my lawyer  i said hey when can i go back to work and he said. listen forget about blackwater and right there  i knew it was about to get serious so it took. about a year later when i've i got that final call  where he said listen i was in columbia at the time. overseas and he said you gotta come back they're  gonna indict five guys on the team i don't know if.

it's you but you better come back just in case so  i came back and sure enough i was one of the five. well let's take a quick break and then um and  then we'll get into what happened in court.

all right guys so now it's 2009 two years past  the actual incident nazar square and you're just. now getting indicted correct late 2008 late 2009  2008 2008 so about a year and a half afterwards.

so press says there were 17 killed 17  innocent civilians killed and i believe 20. 20 injured 21 if i'm not mistaken something like  that now they didn't send an fbi investigative. team for what three weeks after the incident so  i don't know what the hell they could have found.

three weeks after the incident at a in a circle a  major traffic circle in the middle of baghdad but. they didn't show up for three  weeks until after the incident and. let's start with what happened  when they indicted you guys.

well how many of you got indicted  and what were you being indicted for. like i said i i got a a call from my  lawyer saying that he got word that. five guys from the team were getting indicted and  he wasn't absolutely sure it was me but it was my. best interest to come back to the united states  just in case because i was one of the shooters so. came back to the states i met with them  and i figured out that it was going to be.

me dustin nick and paul and a fifth guy on  the team and the first thing that popped in. my mind was well why us and not the other  shooters and one of the reasons was because. simply they they took the reports the protected  reports that we wrote and used those against us.

to figure out who shot first of all in the  case of one of our teammates as soon as they. started pressuring him and he figured out he  was in in in the middle of a big investigation. he immediately flipped and started to cooperate  with the government and that was the first time. where i caught word of that because you know  in my mind no one did anything wrong out there.

and i was gonna fight and prove that i was  innocent and i sure as hell wasn't gonna. cooperate with a faulty investigation  and throw my buddies under the bus. so when i learned that there was a guy on the  team willing to do that i thought well maybe he. feels like he did something wrong which to this  day i don't believe he did anything wrong either.

i just think that he's weak and he folded when  they pressured him and you know we hear a lot of. stories about heroic deeds in in combat and people  getting medals of honor for jumping on grenades. and in his case he's actually the total opposite  of that so instead of jumping on a grenade to save.

his teammates he was willing to push us on the  grenade to save himself and the only problem with. with that is that uh we survived and uh  i'm willing to tell everybody he's a coward. now this specific person they're talking  about ridgeway correct there was beef. within the team between nobody really liked him  he was kind of known as being late all the time.

he didn't keep himself in shape what else so  there was there was a grudge between him and the. rest of the team correct well it's not that nobody  didn't like him it's he used to hang out with us. and would drink beer and scotch or  whiskey whatever in the evenings and. it's the worth ethic you know it's all right  we got a mission to do you need to be on time.

to do the mission personally he wasn't that  bad of a dude but when it came to work itself. that's where people had a problem with it was  job performance type stuff that was the issue. yeah can i just say one more thing i would  agree with dustin my problem with ridgeway. is is nothing stemming from what he did  in iraq or how we interacted on the team.

i was friendly with him we joke around you know  he was a prankster or whatever his job performance. like like dustin said subpar but my main problem  is what he did when he came back to the states. you know so i just want to make that clear it's  not like uh we were at each other's throats. overseas we worked together we got along fine did  i agree with everything that he said or everything.

that he did no but you don't really get along  with everybody on your team anyways it wasn't. a major problem my problem is what he did when he  came home when he when he showed his real colors. well when you guys say that he flipped  and this this investigation and the courts. there's so much [ __ ] that goes into  this i don't know if we can cover it all. but he reversed his statement  correct five times five times.

there's i believe five different fbi 302s  that's right initially he said that uh. he was taking enemy fire he's he stuck with that  he stuck with that part of the story until like. i think like 2014 and um he just uh they convinced  him that he shouldn't have done what he did.

as far as uh people in vehicles they convinced him  that he did something wrong like he should have. done everything he could not to engage a few  people that were in vehicles but he maintained. for years that he was taking contact from that  bus stop where there was right after the incident. there were there was brass pitchers of brass taken  at that exact location that he had maintained that. he was receiving enemy fire from pictures of what  kind of brass ak-47 shell casings were scattered.

at the exact location that he said he was taking  fire from and he even that's even in his fbi. 302s right the initial interviews he's like he  admits that he was taking fire from here but. his lawyer got him to plead guilty to account both  counts were like had to do with vehicles like that. he shouldn't have engaged for some reason so they  basically convinced this guy that he did something. wrong and then they just kept chipping away at him  over the years it's the same place that i said i. took fire from it's it's not just him saying that  he took fire from there because i engaged threats.

in that area too and so it wasn't him just saying  hey i shot here here and here i don't know where. i'll be shot i've never read a statement but i  can tell you for sure where the ak shells were. is where i took fire from 100 and there are photos  of the shells at the exact location where you guys. said that you took fire from yes sir and then he  reversed his statement made a plea deal with the.

government saying that uh i changed my mind i was  wrong i wasn't taking nobody took any fire that's. right the government accepted his first statement  saying that okay you took fire and we'll let. you plead guilty on that and then the government  changed its strategy to nobody took fire and when. they did that it was we're no longer going to give  you the plea deal unless you say that you took.

fire or did not take fire i apologize and so he  had to go back and say all right well i never took. any fire out there that day i was never engaged  at all i never heard or seen anybody shoot at us. they said there were 17 17 bodies 17 dead  correct they only found two bodies no. autopsies were done there was no attempts  to match the bullets to the victims.

and the iraqi army and the iraqi police were in  infiltrated by iranian influence uh suleimani so. you guys gotta help me out here with the with with  with the chronological order here because there's. so much stuff to cover i got some things to say  about what you just said about the autopsies right.

so they did pull bullets out of some of the bodies  but they didn't match ours they were actually. ak-47 rounds that they pulled out of some of the  dead people that they were trying to put on my. brothers and then they lost those rounds that they  had pulled out so they actually did find bullets. in some bodies that they had at the hospital  where they supposedly took all these victims to. but when they tried to match them to our  weapon systems they found out that they were.

more consistent with the ak-47 than our  weapon system so they lost those rounds. they never brought them back to the states who  lost those rounds the fbi the fbi just happened. to they left them in iraq that's right what  about the drone that was over top because that. seems like the drone could have proven everything  they deleted the footage they deleted the footage. absolutely so the way that it was  presented is there's a beginning.

and there's an end but there's no middle and  in the middle that's the actual engagement. so they're trying to say that it was  deleted as a normal course of business. how can the middle of a of a stream from a drone  be deleted it doesn't make any sense why would. why would it be deleted so they  had drone footage were you guys in. any of the drone footage were your vehicles  in any of the drone footage yes we pulled in.

and then there's just a black hole and then that's  being towed out so there's what roughly three to. ten minutes of drone footage pulled the drone  footage shows our vehicles in the in the circle. and then it's not until later on that it  picks back up in the circle and it's like. we're already gone out of the circle by then so  i don't know how much time had elapsed it shows.

a lot of iraqi police milling around and it  shows uh that's all it shows you know there's. there's a big gap and we were trying to  track down that gap my lawyers were and. the only answer they could give us was it  was deleted as a normal course of business. but they didn't delete the drone footage of you  pulling and setting the vehicles into the circle. they should delete that that's right they've  got pictures of us they're still photos of us.

sitting in the circle i don't know if  it's satellite or drone but there's. there's beginning drone footage and there's  a middle drone footage that's missing and. then they've got end drone footage right  so at some point they took the middle out. and we got them to confirm that yes at one  time this was whole footage like a man from. the geospatial agency testified and he said  yes at some point this was complete footage.

and so my lawyer was like so you had it and now  you don't and he's like correct and he's like no. further questions and the footage leaving shows  the big wet spot on the ground where the radiator. was blown out of the vehicle that had to be  towed out so you can see all the radiator fluid. the the big wet spot on the ground so there wasn't  much time they just they'd literally just pulled.

the actual fire fight that's right right because  i mean it was over 100 degrees how long does. uh a wet spot on the street last in iraq you  know sure that's a good point u.s army captain. took photos of. the documented uh 762 shell casings he  reported to the fbi that iraqis were cleaning.

the shell casings from the exact  spot they took the fire from. that's there's a picture or there's a disc that  had 52 pitchers on it and they turned over to. us 50 pictures of the 52 if i remember correctly  that's almost the exact number and what happened. was during trial they let the iraqis testify and  that's the the captain that took those pictures.

he gave those over to the investigators well  midway through trial after everybody had gone home. they said oh we found these pictures it's a  honest mistake well what that did for me is. i'm like alright cool this shows exactly where  i said i fired at this shows that somebody was. shooting at us and then the next pictures  that they took those shell casings are gone.

it's ak brass and our judge said well that's  old brass how can the judge determine if it's. old chinese russian whatever it is ammo that's  been stored in the warehouse or anything else. and where's the forensic analysis of anybody  saying that this is old brass new brass. this stuff had been sitting out there for  a week a month prior to our stuff it's. i've never been a conspiracy theorist but i mean.

when you got a picture of one time  that they took it the brass is there. you got a picture the next time they took it and  the bottle cap that's still sitting on the ground. is gone i mean that's convenient just like the  drone footage and this army investigator had no. no communication with you guys no  relationship with you guys you'd never met him. it wasn't it wasn't like no i think what it was is  he was based relatively close to where it happened.

so he heard the gunfire and he loaded up his his  platoon and headed out so he was at the scene. pretty quickly and he's he started taking  pictures of different things that he thought. would be important uh if something happened  there and one of the things he took a picture was. of was ak-47 shell casings exactly where  everybody was seeing incoming fire and. basically what it comes down down to is it just  shows from the very beginning this guy was on.

the scene minutes after it happened and there  was evidence that supported us and then as time. elapsed and even a day later two days later three  weeks later when the fbi shows up and tries to. do an investigation in a unsecured crime scene  they didn't lock anything off all the cars were. moved there was only one car that remained in the  circle and that was the white kia and that wasn't.

even secured it was just pushed on the side of  the street um basically what this all shows is. from the first minute those iraqi police  under their iraqi police chief colonel ferris. was cleaning all all these evidence that supported  our theory of incoming fire and basically piling. on all the all the all the evidence that would  make us look bad so you know if it was five five.

six rounds or shell casings on the ground oh  you know let's let's show all this and on this. video and and send it to cnn or oh there's  magazines over here there's uh 203 rounds. over here um it was just it seemed like it  was just rigged against us from the very start. how long did the first i mean how long did the  first case go on for before you guys before i got.

thrown out it was about a year so we got indicted  we figured out that ridgeway was cooperating and. you know the four of us we we stood strong and  said you know [ __ ] no we we don't feel like. we did anything wrong we're going to we're going  to push this to trial and we're going to make you. [ __ ] prove that we're guilty and if not you  got to leave us the [ __ ] alone because we. at this point a couple years  has passed or a year and a half.

we were already tired of dealing with this you  know we like we said in the very very beginning. the fire fight was not a major engagement and as  it ballooned from there and got media attention. and just got you know exaggerated we were just  exhausted from this whole process and we just. want it resolved so we were fine with pushing it  to trial it was only later that i understood that.

that's a bad idea i don't care who you are i don't  care how innocent you are if if you go to trial. you have less than one percent chance of winning  and most people that are criminals they understand. that and ninety percent of people plead guilty  before they ever get to trial we have never been. in trouble trouble i've never had even a speeding  ticket so my experience in the justice system is. it was basically zero before this so i figured i  didn't do anything wrong i'm going to be cleared i.

want to go back to work i want to keep serving my  country let's go to trial and get this resolved so. it was about a year after the indictment that we  were filing doing the final preparations for trial. and we were presenting different things that the  prosecution was doing that was basically illegal. things having to do with evidence  using our protected reports against us.

basically using those reports to figure out who  shot um and we presented this all to the judge. and we all went home the the hearing for that  all the misconduct that the prosecution was doing. that took a couple weeks but our lawyers said  listen don't get too excited this type of stuff. rarely works plan on going to trial so it was  about a month or so after that hearing and you.

guys can talk about your personal experience when  you heard it but i was driving in new hampshire. and i got a call from my lawyer and back  then any time i got a call from my lawyer. i got sick to my stomach i was  like [ __ ] [ __ ] what now. sometimes i get an email if i was overseas  because i lived in columbia a lot of times. he would email me and say call me asap and i'd  start sweating because he never had good news.

so he called me and he told me that he  had my dad on the other line but he was uh. i guess obligated to tell me first that the judge  had dropped all the charges against all of us. we were good to go the prosecution got hammered  because of all the illegal [ __ ] they were doing. and i can get my passport back i can go overseas  i can do whatever the [ __ ] i want i'm good and i.

thought this [ __ ] was over and that was in late  2009 it was on january or december 31st 2009 and. i thought i was totally cleared and here  we are in 2021 we just barely resolve this. i don't really understand why they hammered you  guys you know at the beginning i mean i i kind of. i know now the end game and we'll get into that  later but you know just for an example in 2005.

alone 17 000 civilians were killed by tribal and  or insurgent violence uh and that's according to. iraqi body count.org so um you know they only  found two bodies with you guys that were you know. civilians and we already went over that that was  a justified shoot but well the original body count.

and i'm not real sure on the numbers but i want  to say it was around 10 people total that was. reported to the u.s embassy before everybody got a  hold of it it was reported but was not found that. was reported and how they found the report let's  talk about that because the iraqi police corner. kareem ferris yeah sure how did he  id the the bodies let's talk about.

how that happened well i'll go into it a  little bit basically we didn't find out his. whole history until well down the road we're  talking seven years later but um basically um. he was the main uh iraqi investigator  in iraq so immediately after.

he was the guy that was in charge of gathering  evidence gathering up supposed supposed witnesses. organizing statements and basically doing  everything having to do with the investigation. so when the fbi showed up three weeks after the  fact they went straight to him and of course he. turned over all the evidence that he had collected  and what a coincidence there was no ak-47 shell.

casings even though you could walk down any street  in iraq in that time frame frame and pick him up. off the street so he had none of that all he had  was five five six and he had 203 shell casings and. he had um everything that basically made us look  bad and then he had all the witness statements. organized where you could tell that they were  not written by the specific person because they. used the same verbiage and the same language  throughout all of them and you have different.

people from all walks of life that may have been  out there that have different levels of education. different vocabulary but for some reason in  these witness statements they're all very similar. and one of the things that he did to speed up his  investigation was he basically made uh infomercial. and he put it out on iraqi tv and he said  listen if you're if you were in this area if you.

or anyone else you know was involved in this  come to the police station and make a statement. and in my mind that was basically promoting  people to go down there and make a claim to get. possible payment from the us embassy or some other  benefit from the united states as far as asylum. or was that in the commercials that they would be  paid i'm not sure what was in there but i think it.

was implied and there was one particular witness  that sat on the stand and actually testified that. the police chief had told him he said if i tell  somebody go left they go left if i tell somebody. go right they go right put down on paper what  i tell you and that same police chief said hey. if black order will pay us x amount of dollars per  person and we'll make all the witnesses go away. there won't be any to testify so that  can basically explain why right after.

the incident the body count is disputed okay was  it four five six whatever the number was it grew. over time wouldn't they know pretty much within  24 hours how many people were involved in this. that commercial put it out across iraq  to basically come down and make a claim.

and you can possibly benefit from it and we'll  get into this later but when we finally went to. trial we we figured out that that colonel ferris  had links to two terrorist organizations and. that only later did the government try to distance  themselves from him after all the things they they. worked hand-in-hand with this guy for seven years  and he was their main guy and then when it became.

a little bit public or unsealed  that he was a possible terrorist. they didn't want to work with him anymore. they had video of the us  government finding 762 by 39 shells. the u.s attorney assistant u.s attorney hid those  photos that you were talking about for seven years. of the shell casings at the i believe it was the  bus stop that they were shooting at you guys from.

hid those photos for seven years and there were  no repercussions for withholding the evidence. uh on the on the uh assistant u.s attorney's  side was that the first indictment yes the. no no that was the second indictment but  the judge said that it was a harmless error. and that's how he ruled on that because i mean  at that point you can't cross-examine a witness. if they're not in the country.

they have video of gunmen dressed as police  changing their shirts and walking away after. the gun fight did you guys know that i  didn't know that i just knew that we had. uh guys uh in the little bird helicopters  that witnessed that too so yeah i knew it. was actually footage of that yup this says  that uh there was a actual video from pilot. but um. then there is a ton of evidence here that  was not released that was in your guys favor.

one thing that people have to keep in mind. when when we tr we're trying to prepare  for trial throughout the years we only have. access to what the prosecution gives us  access to so it's not like our defense team. could fly to iraq and put in a subpoena and talk  to random witnesses and possibly get somebody that.

was gonna say oh yeah those blackwater guys were  getting fired upon they weren't allowed to do that. this is a very um unconventional trial it's never  happened before like this so the fbi team and the. prosecution went overseas and they gathered  up the people that colonel ferris gave them.

on a platter and they didn't dig and try to  find people that supported our side of the story. so they flew those same people including the guy  that was linked to two terrorist organizations. they flew him over to washington dc to testify  in front of a grand jury and you know he could. do it stay in a nice hotel and take a picture  in front of the white house and we didn't have. the freedom to go and actually proactively find  people that could support our side of the case.

so from the very get-go it was one-sided it was  it was a the the deck was stacked in their favor. and they knew it all the uh vehicles that were  supposed to be there that had anything to do. with the incident was moved to a military base  and if i'm not mistaken it's the same paper run. infomercial whatever the the statement was done  that said hey if you had a part in this if your. vehicle was there if you were there come in well  they moved all that stuff to a military base.

and our attorneys actually requested permission  to go to iraq with a forensic team of their own. and do a trajectory analysis analysis  to do just any type of analysis on that. the vehicles itself well those vehicles were later  deemed that they got crushed or lost or something. and they were denied the right to go and  actually look at the vehicles themselves.

so case the first time you guys got indicted  the case was dismissed for all for you. ridgeway flipped he said you guys weren't taking  incoming fire they couldn't have enough they. didn't find enough evidence to convict you any of  you guys so they dismissed the entire case right. how long was it between that case and the next  one where you were reindicted for the second time. how much time has passed it took about  two years to reindict us so you guys were.

you thought everything was fine for  two years no then biden comes on tv. and what happens right so when we got the news  that we got the case dismissed on december 31 2009. i really thought i was cleared i was celebrating  um was gonna go on with my life and put this. behind me and it was about a week later less than  a week later somebody sent me a link to a video of.

vice president joe biden in iraq addressing  the media and they were questioning him. on our case because the iraqis were outraged  about the whole incident mainly because of. the way it was portrayed in the media  and vice president biden basically said. listen dismissal is not an acquittal we will  appeal this and they will be prosecuted so.

when i heard that my heart kind of sunk because  when the vice president says you're going to. be prosecuted you can damn sure believe that  you're going to get prosecuted so that happened. so technically we were cleared but we knew that  the government was going to appeal that dismissal. and possibly bring it back but i still had  confidence that it would never make it to the.

inside of a courtroom again so it took a good  two years before they reversed the dismissal. and indicted us for a second time all right so  the first case got dismissed you guys are free. then joe biden comes out he announces he's  going to re-indict you again and this is. where it gets extremely complicated what i  like to do is bring in an expert gina keating.

the investigative journalist has been following  us for six or seven years now and uh so i'd like. to get her in here get her take she's gonna give  us chronological order on exactly what happened. and then when you guys come back we'll talk  about what happened when you got the verdict.

all right gina i'm i just want to say thank you  so much for taking the time to come down here. we tried to film this and it got a little  confusing there was a lot of emotion and. uh i don't think anybody knows this case  better than you other than maybe the attorneys.

yeah so i just want to say thank you for  coming down here and and uh helping us out. to get this stuff scored away oh it's my  pleasure it's nice to be able to use this. knowledge again because i accumulated it over  five years of covering the case so yeah you're. the expert your podcast that you produced uh  was incredible and it was really hard to find. uh anything that of informative that wasn't the  typical media [ __ ] and uh so really helped.

me put this whole thing together thank you  yeah it was i wouldn't say fun to do but it. was really rewarding because we finally got to  tell the story of how this could actually happen. in the united states to american citizens in  the u.s judicial system one thing that i would. like to bring up just for the audience uh you  know with everything that's going on today in. politics and in our country is when i made the  phone call i had no idea that you were a liberal.

and i think the first thing that you said to me  is i just want you to know i'm a liberal yeah and. uh which actually i think is um great because it  brings a new light to this and i it it shows that. um regardless of what everybody sees in the  media today that there are things that democrats.

and republicans can come together on uh for the  greater good and uh you just you don't see that. anymore anywhere in the media and so when i get  the opportunity i want to i want to bring that out. and tell people and show people that it's possible  that we can still work together so oh yeah i mean. absolutely it was um so obvious to me that this is  one of the basic things that we all need to agree.

on is that the criminal justice system needs to  work for everybody there needs to be a presumption. of innocence regardless of what your job is or who  you work for or who you support politically and. one of the reasons that i kept going on this case  for so long and i was so passionate about it is. a little selfish which is i don't ever want this  to happen to me or anybody else who i love and it. was such a broadening experience for me because  i grew up in a big city i worked in los angeles.

for a long time that's most of my media experience  and i was covering you know four red states small. town guys and their families and really getting  to know them and the reason that they think the. way that they do and what they expected of the  justice system and that's something that we all. agree on regardless of where we're from so it's  really important that we stand up for each other. especially in this kind of thing it's the most  basic thing that we all deserve you're a major.

reason on how these guys got pardoned and uh you  and the team that you put together on the podcast. you got trump's attention and um and uh  congratulations because it worked and but before. we kind of dive into the nitty-gritty stuff that  happened in court and all the evidence withholding. how did you get involved in this whole thing yeah  that's a really kind of funny story and i'll i'll.

tell you the whole thing and you know you can  keep it in or not but um i had this shih tzu. named jessica simpson who's one of my favorite  actresses i just think she's really cool and um. she would go went outside one day i mean she  never did this she got out in the front yard. of the house where i was living in texas with  my boyfriend and she dragged a newspaper in and. she'd never done this and we lived in a really  blue-collar neighborhood not a lot of people got.

newspapers so i was like this is weird i wonder  whose this is and i just sort of ignored it and. then over the next few weeks like she would just  every once in a while get out and drag a paper to. our door and so my boyfriend just picked it  up you know and he would read it and one of. the times that he dr she dragged the paper in  it was the story of the raven 23 guys getting. uh sentenced in 2015 and he saw dustin hurd's name  and he said i wonder if this is my good friend's.

kid but he lives in maryville tennessee and he  said but i think this is him and he said there. is no way this kid did this there is no way that  he did this and he was really upset about it and. you know obviously i'm an investigative reporter  and he said you've got to do something about this. and i said no way dude i'm a business reporter  i don't know anything about foreign policy or.

the military i was totally against the iraq war i  am not touching this but he kept bugging me about. it and a few months later when we went to back to  his hometown olney texas we met stacy hur dustin's. dad and my boyfriend pushed me you know on him  and said she'll you know she can help you with. this and i said all right give me the case file  because i've actually done a lot of reporting on.

on criminal cases i won some awards investigative  awards so just give me the case uh transcript and. i'll look at it so i got it over christmas and  i went over it um in 2016 for a few months and i. looked at it and i thought man there are a lot of  irregularities in this case there's um things that. i would have questioned uh things that should  have resulted in a new trial prosecutors had. hidden some evidence or you know refused or  failed to turn it over when they should have.

um there are just some things here that that  really don't seem right but i'm not a lawyer. so i wasn't sure and about this same time the  national association of criminal defense lawyers. wrote an amicus brief supporting these guys and  saying that they should never have gone to trial. at all that the case was rife with prosecutorial  vindictiveness and misconduct that the judge had. made fatal errors that there were precedents that  were being made in this case that were dangerous.

for civil liberties so i i then thought okay i'm  not crazy there is something really wrong with. this case and that's when i made the decision okay  i'm gonna go and visit these guys in prison and if. they are good guys and i feel comfortable with  this then i'm gonna take this um and try to get. some coverage for it or write something i didn't  know what i was going to do but that's how i got. involved so you picked it up pretty much right  after they went to prison right yeah so they had.

they got sentenced i think was october of 2015  and then i heard about it it was april i heard. about it uh sometime in that same time frame like  days after they got sentenced because we we saw. it in the paper so it took me about eight months  i would say to actually convince myself to do it. wow and you dedicated you pretty much put  just about everything on hold yeah and gave.

damn near six years of your career to get these  guys yeah i mean i'll there were times when it was. like i went to graduate school uh during those  years also and you know had some family things. that i had to take care of um but yeah i mean  i wrote i wrote my netflix book i i did a movie. but this was always on the back burner i was  always trying to find some way to get some. publicity for this but it wasn't clear exactly how  that was going to happen because there was such.

animus against these guys you know they were  monsters they were war criminals and all this. stuff so it it seemed like a real losing battle  and in fact i had you know colleagues of mine and. in fact my agent when i went to him said don't  touch this nobody wants to hear about this no. one's interested in this anymore just let it lie  it isn't going to work and i just i could never. i couldn't interest anyone in it you know and so  and that was the really difficult part was there.

were a lot of months when i would be talking to  them either through email or they would call me. from prison we would try to figure out you know  what can we do how can we get some um how can. we get some light brought on this case because  it's as it unfolded there were more and more. crimes that were committed against them in in the  course of these three trials that took place i. mean the prosecution was shameless they just kept  violating their rights and nobody seemed to care.

that was the most frustrating thing damn  well let's move into let's move right into it. so i'm going to uh use this report that you sent  uh to kind of guide me here because this case is. so complicated but just before we get started  i just want to let uh the audience know that. we're going to be gina is going  to prompt us if there's actually. emails or documents videos everything is linked  below in the description so if you don't believe.

us you have to take our [ __ ] word for it you can  go to the description and download the documents. yourself and uh we'll be splicing videos in uh of  evidence uh throughout the interview great so uh. i'm gonna let you pick it off okay so um just to  talk about how you know how the case got started. um so the most important thing to remember here  is this case dragged on for 13 years um it was.

brought before the first judge in 2008  that's when the first indictments came out. and it was um dismissed by the first judge  to hear of it in uh on january 31st of 2009. at that time the obama administration was very  interested in getting nuriel maliki to be elected.

as prime minister because they felt that they  could work with him but his big beef when the. blackwater guys were pardoned was you know i need  somebody to blame for all the violence that's. going on here and you just let these guys go and  i need a win i need to not look soft with the. americans um so you need to bring this case back  it was two days after the judge threw the case out. not on a technicality but because the prosecutors  had violated their constitutional rights.

so thoroughly that the judge said you can't bring  this case it's dirty and and so hillary clinton. wrote an email to her second in command at the  state department and said what do we got to do. to bring this case back and we know that because  there were emails leaked from hillary clinton's. email server that we found that show exactly that  so that's one document that you can link to is.

is hillary clinton clinton talking to harold cohen  saying what do we have to do to bring this back. at the time the state department i'm sorry the  embassy in baghdad were writing these cables to. washington dc saying oh my gosh iraq is going  crazy baghdad is going crazy they're so angry. that this case was dropped we need to do  something about this and the three main. things that they were upset about were that they  were threatening to do was kick all of our troops. out of the country this is in 2000 early 2010 they  wanted to kick all of the contractors out of the.

country who were protecting us diplomats  and they were talking about nullifying. some leases with exxon mobil all of those things  are in the diplomatic cables that i gave you and. people can read them and they can they can see all  of the things that were coming out of baghdad at. the time the imams were upset about it the iraqi  congress was upset about it everyone was up in.

arms about this and blaming these guys and  saying that they were getting away with murdering. iraqi civilians so this is if you look at  these it's very obvious where the impetus. to try these guys came from so for the rest of  that year they went to grand juries trying to. come up with a theory of how you can put these  guys in prison for a combat related incident. and that's difficult because if you're going  to charge someone with manslaughter or murder.

they can't be trying to defend themselves which  is what was happening there was evidence that is. you can now see we have a video that we gave  you showing army investigators looking at. shell casings on top of a bus stop that show  that insurgents were shooting at these guys. i think they probably described that there were  probably eight to ten insurgents in the square and. they when they returned from the incident told the  state department investigators exactly where they.

were the next day the state department went out  and found shell casings in the places where they. had designated and the state department said this  is a clean shoot there is no problem with this.

but because of all of these things  that were happening politically. they had to go back and reinvestigate it  and you know and then they came up with. this ridiculous theory that they had so they  go to trial in 2014 and they are convicted they.

the prosecutors bring over the largest number of  foreign witnesses ever in any u.s trial to testify. there was a failure of the defense to  challenge the number of victims so you had. all of these people coming to testify on the stand  in washington dc and it was i'm sure extremely.

difficult for a jury to rule against these  people i mean some of them definitely had lost. loved ones and had seen horrible carnage but  it's not even really clear whether all of that. occurred in nessur square because there were  two other incidents that happened that same day. so this was such a flawed investigation um that  um you know it just was kind of like a show trial. yeah let's uh start on this you have you've  written a great timeline here oh okay and uh.

i want to go kind of start from the top why did  the government indict these men in 2008 but wait. almost seven years to try them in 2014. okay so as  i um as i said the first judge to hear this case. was judge ricardo urbina who was a clinton  appointee um and he looked at the case and he said.

no you know you not only do you have some tech  technical issues here with using their statements. against them but you don't have a case you  you violated their constitutional rights. multiple times so i'm throwing this case out you  can't bring it so then it goes to the appeals. court and as i describe you know the appeals the  appeals court comes back and says yeah you can try.

them so all this political stuff is happening at  the same time but it takes such a long time for. them to formulate a new theory of the case to get  witnesses like jeremy ridgeway who was their main. witness and matt murphy and some of these other  guys to change their stories and do plea deals. that it took that long to reindict them and bring  them back and at the same time the fbi and and the. doj was exerting an immense amount of pressure on  them just to plead guilty and testify against each.

other because they didn't want to bring this case  to trial because they had no case so that's why it. took so long okay just before we kind of get into  all the corruption and evidence that was withheld. they weren't even allowed to try them or got  extremely tricky because they had the military.

extra territorial judicial act right and so  basically what that is saying is they couldn't. well that was saying they couldn't try them  in iraq correct so they had to bring them home. yeah it's something like that okay so when  it was they were caught in a very a gray zone. all of them are veterans and had this happened um  while they were in their respective services they.

would have you know come home and been tried in  in the uh military justice system but because they. were civilian contractors um there was an order  that paul bremmer made when he was in charge of. iraq when we first invaded that said that any  civilian contractors or civilian employees of. the united states had to come back to the united  states to be tried but um there was a question. as to whether or not they could be tried under  media because that applied to defense related.

contractors dod contractors exactly so but the  blackwater was working for the department of state. they were protecting diplomats and that was what  their job was because it was so violent in iraq. um there was a lot of overlap with their mission  they would actually get called out to help the dod.

on different uh combat missions and so because  of this the doj wanted to try them under. mija now they argued no that's not right we  shouldn't have to be charged under that we. should just have civilian you know civilian  contractors under the state department but. they lost that the appellate court said that they  actually were on the defense mission even though. the number two guy testified for the defense  and said no i am number two at the defense.

department they weren't working for us they're  state department contractors what's interesting. is i think it was talking to nick uh offline at  dinner uh the night before i interviewed them and. how they kind of went around that is they saved  a army convoy that got hit and so it's they saved. active duty service members lives and they use  that against them so that they could try them.

under musia right so no good deed goes unpunished  i mean they they did that a lot there were several. leading up to the nasser square incident they  were called out a lot to support the army so that. it just makes it even more galling that they're  out there doing an active duty combat mission not. just protecting diplomats and they and they  get they get hammered hammered for that it. was so so hypocritical it's really hard to  believe so kind of moving on about the next.

kind of block we have here is how why did this  take so damn long which kind of covered but um. well it was three don't forget it was three  trials so we had the 2014 trial all of them. were convicted um and then they went to the  appellate court and the appeal appellate court. said okay nick's latin should be tried separately  and so he gets a new trial and these other guys.

need to be re-sentenced because this gun charge  that you convicted them on does not apply to them. so that dragged on because the judge was waiting  for nick to be retried they retried him one time. and the jury uh found uh hung and and they didn't  get a conviction and then they went back again. and convicted him three months later then the  guys were able to appeal so or were re-sentenced. so it just it was it was horrible it was so  bad of the government to do this 13 years on.

those families 13 years on those guys it was  absolutely a waste of resources nick took a. polygraph yes and so before not just any polygraph  according to nick the top polygrapher from fbi had. recently retired and was now it kind of started  his own private business so they hired him. to give nick the polygraph and it sounded like  the gentleman that gave him the polygraph uh.

was had convinced himself that this guy that nick  was guilty and and it kind of verbalized in that. i'm going to find out that you're lying and  so nick takes polygraph passes the polygraph. and um the guy apologized to him  saying you did you didn't do this.

oh yeah i mean that polygraph was kind of like  the last desperate act because it was there was no. first of all there was no evidence that nick did  what he was accused of and in fact the government. decided not to include him in the early stages  of the case because they didn't have any evidence. that he did anything wrong so after uh the case  was dropped um they decided you know we kind.

of want to put him back in but they had let the  statute of limitations on a manslaughter charges. expire against him so they couldn't file really  any charges against him except murder because that. doesn't have a statute of limitations so they put  him back in the case with this ridiculous theory. that somehow out of the porthole of one  of the uh vehicles that he was able to. shoot someone that wasn't even in  the range of his rifle um and that he.

he shot this white driver of the white kia even  though paul slough and every other team member on. raven 23 said paul slough did it paul  slough made four sworn statements. i'm the one who shot the kia driver everybody  said paul slough shot the kia driver the fbi. told the father of the kia driver that paul  slough shot his son in fact the fbi tried.

to bring the father back to the united states to  testify against nick in his second and third trial. and the guy said no we have that email too  he told the fbi i will not come back and and. testify against nick's latin you told me for seven  years that it was paul slough that shot my son. i won't come and and participate in this lie so i  don't know what more you need they had no forensic. evidence in fact it wasn't even physically  possible for him to have shot the kia driver.

you have paul slough saying i shot it in all the  sworn statements that he made contemporaneous. and for years after that no one said nix flatten  shot the kia driver except for the prosecutors so. this attempt to exonerate himself and to bring  some kind of sanity into these proceedings. was him going to the calligrapher and saying can  you just show i'm not lying but that failed too.

because they decided to prosecute him again  yeah what so how did this how did they just. because that this gets so frustrating uh because  of how did they just completely dismiss the fact. that paul was the one that shot the white kia  and now they're bringing it on to nick and they.

used their statements that they made at the end  which was apparently also illegal to use those so. what happened they had bridgeway who flipped  his entire story who said all along that he. was that they had they had taken contact they were  receiving fire and that it was self-defense yeah. then ridgeway changes the story how did  to where that they shot first how did.

they switch how did they take how did  this happen i mean this is the most. difficult thing to understand because it's not  like it you know nobody knew about this case. the national and international media were covering  this case um nothing was done in secret they just. literally between the time that judge or being in  was was through the case out to when they brought. it back and this other judge named judge lamberth  took it over they simply decided okay we're going.

to go to a grand jury and instead of letting  people testify the witnesses testify to what they. saw we're going to write these summaries and the  summaries are going to be whatever we say they are. so we're going to take all the witness  statements and we're going to edit them. just to say all the stuff that we want them  to say they've kept out everything that was. exculpatory towards the guys all the evidence  that they were shot at was removed from these.

summaries that were presented to the grand jury  they were threatening witnesses um they were. hiding evidence from the witnesses who um  like jeremy ridgeway uh who testified ended. up testifying against the guys so those witnesses  felt like okay i'm gonna be railroaded i might as. well just fall in line here that was the decision  that ridgway apparently met made because he didn't. know he that you know there were shell casings  that were found there were photographs that the.

prosecutors had there was plenty of evidence  showing that this was a gun battle and not. some kind of freak out by these guys like the  prosecutors were saying they just completely. made up this theory of the case and they shopped  it to the grand jury and they got away with it and. there's a wonderful document that i'll give you  which is was written by a former prosecutor who. was representing this guy named donald ball who  was also in the case for a while but this lawyer.

said to the prosecutors hey you better watch out  because if you keep doing this i'm going to report. you for misconduct because he they he saw what  they had presented to the grand jury and he said. every single witness that testified that there  was shooting even the iraqi witnesses you've. removed that from what you presented  to the grand jury this cannot be right. but by this time they have this new  judge judge lamberth royce lamberth.

who for some reason just decides to go  along with whatever these prosecutors want. he allows this case to go forward even with these  flawed indictments and he just kind of went along. with the story when the prosecutors would come  to court and they'd get caught not bringing in. evidence that the defense eventually found out  about he'd just say series of harmless errors. so the judge was also complicit in this and it's  not just me saying this the national association.

of criminal defense lawyers also questioned this  judge and his rulings found him very vindictive. found him violating the men's civil rights so it  was very it was very disturbing and it happened in. broad daylight and no one in the media questioned  this which was very upsetting to me he brought up. some interesting points uh in her document about  this judge who also had something happen to him.

in vietnam yeah do you want to dive into that  a little bit sure so that was another thing. that was really disturbing to me because when  i was trying to get people interested in this. story they would say well how come the judge  is allowing this and i thought you know what i. got to figure out who this guy is so i went and  did a good investigation on him he's a career. federal employee he was a jag in vietnam  for a year he went he went in country.

and there's an incident that he talks about a  lot that he seems to be very proud of which i. find incredibly hypocritical and that is that he  went um into a village to investigate a case in. which some rangers were accused of capturing  some viet cong guys and slitting them open. and stuffing their bodies with rice and this  obviously is a war crime they were caught um.

talking about it in a bar so um he was charged  with representing them and he flew into the place. where the bodies were supposed to be but on the  way down to the landing the helicopter started. having engine trouble he freaked out and grabbed  an automatic weapon and started firing into the. jungle towards the village just firing like crazy  because he thought that they were being shot at.

and they have this hard landing and he realizes  ha ha nothing was happening it was just um. it was just engine trouble so that to me was so  incredibly hypocritical that he could sit on the. stand and accuse these guys of freaking out and  losing their cool and you know they're good men. but they just lost their nerve well that's what  happened to you you ought to know about that but. that isn't what happened to these men and there's  no evidence that they did this and the other thing.

that about that story that was so hypocritical  was that he brags that he wasn't allowed. that he won that case in favor of the rangers  because they couldn't find the victim's bodies. there were no autopsies performed in this case  none and so here you have this major case with. not one single autopsy performed well so how  do you how are you proud of that yeah you know.

that you're putting these veterans in prison  with no evidence whatsoever let's talk about. all of the evidence withholding starting with  maybe the first thing which i think is the rounds. right okay so let me get to the page of that that  page because there's a lot to go through there. is so this was so incredibly angry because this  didn't just happen um you know again there were.

three trials so this was a constant element  of this case so in the very first case um. involving all four of them there were two major  brady violations and that's a violation when. the prosecution is aware that  it has exculpatory evidence. and doesn't turn it over so the first  thing was there were photographs taken. right after the incident within minutes of raven  23 exiting nisser square there was an army captain.

named peter decaro who was at a base right  near mr square and he heard the gunshots. and came out with a camera to um to take  photographs to see what had happened and he also. uh interviewed several of the iraqi civilians  who were walking around in the square at the time. those civilians described hearing a  gunfight they described seeing gunmen.

who were shooting at the convoy they he took they  showed here's here the shell casing so decaro took. pictures of these shell casings handed over the  notes that he took of his interviews with these. iraqi civilians handed over the can the film  to the army investigators and they were lost. they were lost until halfway through the first  trial when the prosecutors magically found them.

and the witness statements were lost were lost  forever do you have those pictures by chance yes. i do well we'll put them on screen here  real quick okay and we also have at the time. um army investigators went uh to the square  and took video of this so we also have video. of that of that investigation  where you can see the ak-47 shells.

so that was one the second thing  was during the trial there was um.

a witness who was very important um who was a. a traffic cop who was in a kiosk real near the  square and he was right the closest policeman to. the kia that was shot and in his testimony  during the trial he testified that the. the driver was shot and like immediately uh coming  into the square um and that you know he ran to.

the car and he was trying to get the mother out  and then she was shot and and he had to retreat. because there was so much gunfire well so the guys  get convicted and they do something called victim. impact statements which allow people to tell the  judge you know this is how this affected me and. and this is why you should sentence this person  harshly or whatever so this guy writes a statement. that says well i wasn't actually i didn't really  run up to the car i actually was so afraid that i.

stayed in my kiosk but i could hear the the boy  and his mother in the kia talking about what to. do because they were being shot at and this is  completely different from what he testified to. and it proves that nick slatten could not have  killed that driver because the prosecution's. theory was that he drove into the square  shot the driver so that he could set off this.

massacre of iraqi civilians so clearly you know  there's a huge discrepancy in this guy's testimony. that was not disclosed to the defense until about  five days before sentencing and it was buried at. the bottom of this massive pile of victim  impact statements they didn't tell anybody. and so when the defense found it they moved for  a new trial and the judge said no wow so that. was the first two in that in the first trial  just for before we move on with the um for.

everybody listening the white kia was it did  wind up being two innocent people exactly but. the the other thing that peter decaro the captain  army captain who testified and who took pictures. of the shell casings and talked to the witnesses  the other thing that he said that was so critical. that didn't get introduced at trial was that these  iraqi witnesses said the white kia punched forward.

like a car bomb and you know as they i'm sure told  you they had received a security briefing that day. saying look out for a white kia it might be a car  bomb so there was perfect it was very tragic but. there was a reason for them they had a reasonable  belief because of the way that this vehicle was. behaving that it was a car bomb they it was a  justified engagement and i believe the court even.

said that that was a justified engagement  correct at one point yes and so just for. everybody listening the whole reason that  was a justified shoot is because that's. that's their tactics they load up a car nine times  out of ten it's a white corolla or a white kia. yeah and there's signs everywhere they went  through um the use of force and the car.

just kept coming come and come and coming if it  doesn't stop and you're going through use of force. then you have to protect yourself because  it may be a car bomb and there was a v-bid. was it a v-bit or a regular id that just went  off yeah like 20 minutes or 20 minutes before. they came out yeah so it was it was perfectly  reasonable for them to believe that this was an. attack on them and like i said iraqi witnesses  interviewed by peter decaro also believed that.

it was a car bomb so you know i mean you the  thing is the standard for self-defense was met. yeah and they should never have been tried it they  shouldn't have anyway so and as we talked earlier. these guys only come out they only leave the green  zone if there's an engagement and they need to.

and somebody needs backup somebody  needs them to come get them out of uh. out of a gunfight and so they're not just rolling  around town looking around for stuff right exactly. um okay so i'll let me go quickly through the  rest of this so then there was also um some. evidence that this is so ridiculous um the there  was a drone fl an army drone flying over the scene. at the time of this incident and they managed  to find out about the footage the defense did.

and said okay you need to preserve this they said  this to the government you need to preserve this. so that we can examine it and and look and see if  it helps our case well oh my gosh what happened. when they finally got to look at it a huge chunk  in the middle was gone and they the defense asked. the government and the government said well it was  your responsibility to get this preserved which. is completely [ __ ] and then the second thing  was well um you know we uh we uh repurpose this.

but if it's repurposed then why is the  beginning and the end still there in the middles. in the middle is gone they have talking to these  guys they had this drone footage actually had. them rolling out to nassar square you can see  the vehicles rolling out then the footage is. cut and then when it picks back up they said i  think they said it was maybe a 10-minute segment.

gone missing when they when they when the drone  footage picks back up you can actually still see. where the radiator uh had leaked all its  fluid on the ground it still hadn't dried. up by the way it's about 100 and i don't  know how many degrees right every day. in baghdad right and the other thing that we  all wanted to know about was there was testimony. from some of the helicopter pilots that were  flying over at the time and also some civilians.

that there were gunmen dressed as iraqi  police and iraqi army who were leaving the. scene after this was over and taking off these  uniforms and abandoning them so we you know. if that was the case you know the government's  theory that there were no gunmen in the square. is completely null and void which brings me to  one of the other most important brady violations.

that occurred during this case which was the  government contended there were no enemy gunmen. in the square there were no terrorists and yet  they had evidence that the guy who investigated. this case the iraqi national police colonel named  ferris karim was known to us intelligence as. a potential terrorist he was allegedly selling  information about american troop movements to the.

botter core and the mahdi army and they knew  this and they didn't turn this over when the. defense finally asked for evidence just any kind  of background that the government had on witnesses. policemen army people who were in the square  that day they came up with two people that had. intelligence files on them one was the guy  who headed the investigation and the uh and. they couldn't figure out who the other one was  so that nullifies the government's theory that.

there were no terrorists in the square that day  and they didn't get that evidence until 2018. is this the same guy that they flew into the u.s  and then didn't come and then didn't call him to. testify and then somebody had leaked to the  prosecution that he had two different ties to. two different or two he had ties to two different  terrorist organizations so they quietly flew him.

back in the middle of the night before court the  next day right that's the i heard that theory i. was never able to confirm it i had no cooperation  from the department of justice at all i filed. multiple uh freedom of information act  requests about this case i never got. one single document i went to washington dc during  this sentencing and tried to talk to the one of. the prosecutors the lead prosecutor there he ran  for me like little red riding hood from the wolf.

so it's been very difficult especially talking  to them about who these iraqi witnesses were i. know that none of them had any kind of background  checks before they came into the united states um. so and and nothing was shared about these people  uh to anyone until nick slatten's second trial. so um yeah so we don't we don't know a lot  about what was going on but it's it seems. pretty clear from the from the summaries that  were filed by the government that this guy who.

was prosecuting american soldiers was  a terrorist wow is that unbelievable. that is uh infuriating. to say the least and they don't even know who the  second guy is because the judge wouldn't unseal. um the report these are 13 year old reports why  can't we see them that's what i want to know yeah.

that's a damn good question maybe we will get to  see them someday but maybe i doubt it so that's. one let's see where were we those were the two  all the biggies but there were there were more i. mean there were so many more things that they did  oh let's talk about the dart mission okay that's. a good one okay so one of the main things that  the government had to do to keep nick's latin in. the case and prove their theory that he you know  had this he was like an iraqi serial killer who.

you know had this tactic where he would go into  these engagements and purposely shoot somebody. innocent so that he could you know convince the  rest of the people around him to just set off a. massacre that was their theory was that he hated  iraqi so much that he had these you know he had. these different engagements where you know he he  wouldn't really see a threat but he would try to. get everybody to go along with him to kill as many  iraqis as possible so the only way that they could. prove that he had intent to commit murder which  you've got to have and premeditation those are.

the two main elements that separate manslaughter  from murder and so how do you prove that when he. goes into a combat situation he's never seen  the victim before and he doesn't know anything. about the situation so this is how they do it they  decide that they're going to prove that he's done. this before so um a few days or weeks before the  nissar square incident blackwater gets called to.

um help rescue a downed helicopter okay it's a few  miles outside of baghdad and the army is already. there by the time um blackwater gets there nick  is a a sniper and he sees a guy in an apartment. building who is uh who has a scope and a rifle and  he shoots the guy and takes him out at the time.

the army says you know this is a clean shot  it happens probably 20 or 30 minutes after. a lot of other ordinance is shot into this  building during this engagement by the army. and and that's really what happens it's completely  unremarkable because it happened every day. but the prosecution seizes on this and because  the defense has no record of this incident they. completely reconstruct it to be guess what  blackwater rolls up and nick slatten says to.

his buddies jeremy ridgeway and matt murphy  hey guys i'm going to just shoot somebody. you just follow my lead and he gives them a wink  and a nod and that's what the prosecutors say who. told the prosecution that was it one of the guys  no i mean this is the thing that's so crazy they. had a powerpoint from the state department which  investigated this they had matt murphy and jeremy.

ridgway's original testimony from this which  described the incident the way that i described it. at first and then they had an apache helicopter  log telling them what the timeline of this all. was but instead of being straight with it they  take this incident and completely rewrite it to. where blackwater gets there first and nick's latin  sets off this massacre by shooting an unarmed guy. in an apartment building and nick knew that it  was complete [ __ ] but nobody else but they.

couldn't prove it because they had no documents  showing this until after nick is sentenced. someone finally comes up and says hey here's  what really happened on that dart mission. they completely fabricated it so that  they could make it look like he had a. prior incident where he was trying to get his  fellow blackwater guys to shoot at civilians.

wow is that unbelievable yeah so they basically so  they get matt murphy and um jeremy ridgway on the. stand in the case knowing that they had already  testified to something completely different. got them on the stand and got them to lie about  what happened in that dark mission in nick's trial. and how these prosecutors are not in  jail or disbarred i don't know because.

i can't think of anything that spells  suborning perjury more than that yeah. god dang oh did they tell you about how um  the fbi used to would chase them down in. their hometowns nick and no and dustin  yeah so when they were trying to get. the guys to um to plead because they knew that  they had no case um they went uh they sent agents.

to nick's house to his his family farm uh to try  to question him uh and to dustin's house also and. just parked there and went around town and tried  and followed them and tried to intimidate them. really they did not tell me about that yeah  they did let's talk about the motives on. why this case became so important with the sofa  agreement with the exxon mobil contracts coming.

up so the sofa agreement is the status of forces  agreement yes and the status of forbes the status. of forces agreement was uh between iraq and the us  which basically stated when we uh went over there. that our troops would be out by a certain date i  think was it december of 2009 i think is when we.

were supposed to start withdrawing with us you  know we're gonna have to check this but it was. actually 2011 for the sofa agreement that we're  talking about okay i think it was you'll start. pulling troops in 2009 and the last ones will be  out by december 2011. i think that's right yeah. so what was going on at that time when the  sofa agreement was getting ready to expire.

so um and and this you're talking about like what  happened with the um with the iraqi can we talk. about the election too because that kind of feeds  into it as well that's why yeah right so then this. is this was very hard for me being a democrat to  talk uh critically about the obama administration. and joe biden um because what i saw in these um in  these diplomatic cables was really troubling to me.

um so at the time if you if everybody  remembers hillary clinton and barack obama ran. in 2008 on getting out of iraq and they were about  as anti-contractor as you could possibly imagine. i mean they were like fighting each other for  which one hated contractors more which to me was. extremely disingenuous later when i found out that  by the time obama got out of office there were. three contractors to every soldier in afghanistan  and two contractors to every soldier in iraq.

we could not have prosecuted the war without  contractors um and the contractors were exactly. the same people in most cases as the troops so to  um to put the this blame on contractors i found. really pretty repugnant um so what was happening  in january of 2010 when the you know what hit the.

fan with judge rabina dismissing the case was  two things number one muriel maliki was about. to stand for election in march of 2010 and he  was not according to the polls gonna win but he. was the person who we backed because we felt like  we put him in when we invaded iraq and we could. deal with him we felt like he was somebody that  we could negotiate with he was a known quantity.

surprisingly iran's suleimani also backed him  which is kind of ironic if you think about it. so when the blackwater case was dismissed and  everything started going crazy in baghdad um. the iraqi gov iraqi government threatened to  not approve the sofa agreement which would let.

the our forces stay in iraq and stabilize it  and we had some massive things going on that. needed to keep on going which was we needed to  withdraw in an orderly fashion and we needed to. keep everything kind of calm for the oil  companies that were trying to get their leases. so they did not want so they wanted to keep they  didn't want the sofa agreement to expire because. we would have had to pull troops out right if  we pull troops out that destabilizes the entire.

country which makes for a complicated  election cycle right so obama and biden. needed that agreement side so that we could keep  troops in country so that they would have a smooth. election yes iraqi prime minister did not want  to keep the troops there because he wanted these. blackwater guys prosecuted so he told them i'm not  signing it pull your troops out we reindicted well.

first joe biden ran over to iraq and stood up with  iraqi government officials in front of the cameras. and said hey we're really sorry this happened  we're really disappointed at this outcome we. don't think that it's right and we'll we promise  we're going to get justice for the iraqi people.

okay so what you're you know a defendant and the  second most powerful man in your country says. hey you're guilty i mean that's basically  what he's saying when he's over there in a.

foreign country talking about your case so  yeah i mean he did it essentially because. the iraqis needed the uh muriel maleki  needed to look tough and that's also. in those diplomatic cables uh in front of  the americans or he was threatening not to. approve the sofa or allow contractors to stay  in the country and then when they did ran died.

the sofa agreement was signed how fast  afterwards for next week i don't know. i can't answer that because i can't remember i  think uh when i talked to coafield bill cofield. evan's attorney he said that the sofa agreement  was signed the very next week yeah i'm sure that's. probably true it there was no there was no hiccup  with the sofa agreement um so that that tells you. you know tells you everything you need to know  yeah what was going on i'm a little confused with.

what was going on with the exxon mobil contracts  at that time that was something that was mentioned. in one of the very first cables and um when i  looked at those i uh paul slough's lawyer is the. one who found those and he gave them to me and  i called robert ford who was the charged affair. at the time in iraq in baghdad and i called him  up and went over all these cables with him i sent. them to him and said hey do you remember sending  these and he goes well i didn't write them but i.

absolutely remember sending them and i said well  explain this to me explain what was going on here. um and you know he just he kind of glossed over  that part of it but he said what happened here. was not their fault they did exactly what we told  them to do everything that they did in this square. was in their contract they followed the contract  so i can't really speak anymore to the exxon.

mobil part but the fact that he included it  as the third paragraph of all the fallout of. the dismissal of that case says a lot yeah  interesting um were there any other political. um reasons on why they wanted these guys  down in prison the other thing that was um.

difficult for them was eric prince was not  popular during the obama white white house. years he's christian conservative rich they just  you know they didn't like him they didn't like. that he was making a lot of money on the war but  it wasn't his fault you know reinstitute the draft. if you're so upset about contractors you know  but nobody had the political courage to do that. so it was really convenient to get mad at eric  prince for being successful at something which was.

training veterans and equipping them  properly as we should have done when we sent. people over to iraq so everything having to do  with this case was reflected in the blackwater. logo that is something they could not  escape they could not escape the association. with blackwater and i think that that's why it  was so easy to convict them in washington dc. i think that if they had actually tried  them where they should have tried them.

which was in salt lake city or tennessee or  texas where they were from there's no way. that they would have got this result but eric  prince was such a bet noir in washington dc. that they were never going to get a  fair trial because of him damn did he. jump in and help at all um that's something you  would have to ask ask the guys about um i um i.

think that probably you know he used whatever  influence that he had to try to get them freed. um i talked to him for my podcast and he did give  me an interview but i think that he was well aware. that any kind of association with him was  negative for them and i had a an expert.

who actually defends a lot of these cases and  is a former federal prosecutor and a former jag. and i said how much do you think this case cost  the government and he said oh 50 million dollars. easy 50 they spent 50 million dollars think about  it three trials 13 years they brought probably 45. people over from iraq and put them up they went to  iraq and back stored cars that were supposedly in. nisser square i mean collected evidence think  about that think about how expensive that is.

well for uh an iraqi election um let's talk about  the bodies okay how many bodies were found um. that's a really good question  because they were actually convicted. for killing two people whose bodies never  showed up whose bodies were never found. they were basically people who uh whose relatives  said that they were in nissar's square around that.

time that same day but they never came home they  never found any bodies and they were accused of. what's 17 killing 17 and wounding 20. yes okay so  the body situation was very interesting because. when i first started looking at this case  i went back to all of the contemporaneous. uh news stories that were filed from baghdad that  day and i also looked at the government the iraqi.

government statement about the incident okay  don't forget there were three major incidents. that day involving contractors and american  soldiers right shootouts okay so when i looked. within just a few miles of each other we're not  even talking all of baghdad we're talking you. could hear right exactly they were so close  so when i looked at this the new york times. reporter who was there in baghdad reported on that  day that eight people were taken to the hospital.

eight okay on all of baghdad that  day the iraqi government put out. a statement that said something like less  than 10 people were killed in that incident. and all of a sudden you know their the american  government is running ads on iraqi tv asking. anybody who might have had something to do with  the nissar square shooting to please come forward.

and all of a sudden you get this enormous number  of dead and wounded some of whom as i mentioned. were never found the bodies were never  found what were it what was in those ads. is there a reward well their compensation it was a  phone number and just a call for you know anybody. to come forward but by this time it was very well  known that the u.s embassy was paying people cash.

for being involved in shootings with american  personnel and in the state department cables which. you will have on uh your website you'll see that  it was the standard payment was ten thousand. dollars for a dead family member 5 000 for wounded  and 2500 for property damage this was well known. by the time the surf square incident happened  this is something i discussed with robert ford.

everybody knew this whenever there was  a big incident people would just show. up at the embassy and say hey i i had somebody  killed we used to get that all the time i spent. 14 in and out of middle eastern countries and war  zones for 14 years and every time i would go to. the embassy there was always a line yeah of  locals trying to get some kind of compensation for.

a dead goat or a shot car or a dead family  member and there's never seems to be any proof. yeah i mean that and you can't blame these  people i mean they're you know their society. was completely upended by this war you know i i do  everything i could to get to get money as well but. um you know when you're prosecuting people  um and taking away their liberty and you know. putting their family through this hell you want  to have actual bodies you want to have actual.

crimes anyway one thing i wanted to read to you  because i when i was preparing for this i wanted. um i wanted to say this because i think that  people don't know it one thing that was really. um disturbing to me about the way this case was  presented um to the washington dc juries was the. prosecutors acted like you know that these guys  drove into times square and just started shooting. people like like it was that kind of atmosphere  was just a normal day in baghdad and no one was.

shooting and no one was dying but in fact this was  at the height of the killings in baghdad there's. a a very reliable website that i used a lot just  to try to get some kind of perspective on how much. um how many casualties um were occurring at in  baghdad at this time in 2007 september right um. and you'll remember that this is the time of the  surge um and there was a lot of uh of fighting.

that was going on uh in opposition to this  so according to iraqi body count the first. eight months of 2007 saw the most massive  vehicle bomb-based attacks in iraq's history. um they occurred with greater frequency  that in any time during the war. that's right when this was happening there  were 20 bomb attacks killing 50 people. one in one case 500 civilians were killed so the  u.s government was going around to the media and.

saying this is the worst massacre in iraq history  and if you go on wikipedia you're gonna see that. it's the worst massacre in iraq history that  is complete [ __ ] it is a total lie there were. somewhere between 868 to 326 deaths of civilian  bystanders by u.s led coalition forces in 2007.

so i mean and that includes 88 children okay so  to say that this was the worst massacre in iraq. in the history of the iraq war is a total lie and  it shocks me that this continues to be perpetrated. in the media it shocks me when these guys are free  and the united nations makes a statement that this. is the worst massacre the worst massacre in the  entire war yeah right at that time was what years.

were they putting that out well up to 2007 so yeah  four years i think we went in an o3 yeah for the. first time four years and they were only able to  recover two bodies no they actually well let's. put it this way they recovered no bodies because  the bodies were removed from the scene immediately. but of the body count for the nissar square  incident they counted two people where they don't.

even know what happened to them because they had  no bodies they don't have death certificates or. anything else they allowed them to be prosecuted  for two people who just disappeared that day. the two uh did they remove the bodies from the  kia no those were still that they were still at. the scene and they were the only two bodies that  were still at the scene that's kind of what i was. getting at yeah the only recovered two bodies  exactly and that was a justified shoot exactly.

so interesting okay so i yeah we talked about nick  about the fact that the government just basically. set out to defame him and that's  that was their entire strategy. i mean they were attributing things that he said  to other people i mean they essentially according. to the documents that i reviewed they interviewed  all 19 members of uh the raven 23 convoy.

and they essentially from what i could see took  everything negative that every one of those people. said about iraqis and attributed it to nick  you know what i don't understand is why did. they move it from paul to nick what was why did  they want nick so bad so this is something that i.

spoke to nick's sister jessica slatten  who's a a lawyer and she's even she is. incredible on this case she knows every single  detail and i asked her that because it just. seemed like it'd be so easy to just let him out  of the case and just go with the other three guys. and what she told me was that right after the  incident um nick was talking to jeremy ridgeway.

back in the green zone and they were discussing  where they had taken enemy fire and ridgeway went. to back to the state department and said hey you  know nick's latin saw gunmen in this place this. place this place and then the next day the state  department investigators went out this is probably. the first time that they'd ever done this a an  investigation to this uh degree of um you know. scrupulousness they went out and found the shell  casings exactly where nick described they were.

okay but then they get ridgeway to flip and say  oh you know there there wasn't anybody shooting. in the square so if they had not had nick as a  defendant he could have been called as a witness. he would have been able to verify the state  department report that was introduced he would. have been able to impeach jeremy ridgeway so he  was kind of a dangerous witness oh good so i think.

when i talk to jessica that's kind of what she  comes up with but frankly you know i'm going to. just say what the national association of criminal  defense lawyers says about the prosecution they. were just vindictive and they wanted to re-indict  him and he said no and he went to the appeals. court and he won and that made them angry so what  they decided to do was charge him with murder and. their vindictiveness had no end i mean i can tell  you stories from that moment to the moment that he.

was released that you would not believe the doj  continued to go after him while he was in prison. it was terrible you weren't allowed to talk  to any of these guys at first correct right. so when i first decided to um to investigate  this case i tried to go into i applied to the. bureau of prisons as a journalist and said i want  to come in and and interview them with a recorder.

or whatever and they turned me down they said no  you can't so i reapplied as a friend of the family. and uh under my maiden name and they let  me in however i got to see um paul evan. and dustin and i went to florida to visit  nick in the supermax where he was at the time. and um and the prison wouldn't let  me in so i i can't explain that.

but the other thing that was i thought really  horrible was they designated these guys as all. high-risk inmates dangerous inmates because of  their training and they had a lot of um a lot. of strictures put on them because of this they  weren't allowed to communicate with each other. which i thought was particularly cruel there  were a lot of times when i would try to get.

a hold of dustin and he would just disappear  into the solitary housing unit for no reason. and i'd call and say where is he you know  what's going on and they wouldn't tell me. so it was it was terrible i mean they were  violating their rights torturing them essentially. the entire time they were in prison so moving on  from that you started gaining traction after you.

after you were able to gain access uh and speak  with them and kind of start putting your research. all together and that amazing podcast that's out  and linked below but one thing um that i wanted to. kind of cover is when you started trying to get uh  president trump's attention to pardon these guys. at some point you kind of renamed was i can't  remember if it was you but the case got renamed. the biden for right and that it sounded like is  eventually what got his attention yeah that was um.

by the time that i started making the podcast  i had the very good fortune of hooking up with. a a very well-known producer michael flaherty who  was the co-founder of walden media we met doing a. different project and he asked me one day if i had  any other projects and i was so desperate i said. i know this is gonna sound completely crazy but  you gotta hear about this case and to his credit.

you know he really um researched it and took it in  and he was absolutely outraged and the great thing. about mike is that he has a lot of contacts in on  the conservative side of the political spectrum. and with the media so he immediately as soon as he  kind of wrapped his head around what was going on. contacted all of his friends and people  he knew on that side of the aisle and.

it was wonderful to see um how they really  dug into it and really looked at the facts. before they said anything but then they came  out in great favor of them being pardoned so. mike knew someone who was very close to the white  house counsel's office under president trump and. that was how we helped get the pardon packet that  had already been filed by paul slough's lawyer.

kind of helped move it along a little  you know we just sort of combined forces. those guys knew some people we knew some people  and it got escalated that way and then mike um. got us on fox news together and he got kristen  slough on laura ingram's show and so very slowly. we started to get traction david french from  the national review wrote a really wonderful.

well-researched well thought out article about  why these guys needed to be pardoned and it. had extra meaning because he was a jag and he also  was active duty in iraq so when we started to get. these credible people saying hey i looked at this  and this is really wrong that's when we started to. get traction and the whole idea of renaming  them the biden 4 i think yes what had to do. with the election but also you know just because  we we also wanted to send a message to joe biden.

that this isn't right what you did you  know interfering in this way doing this. in the criminal justice system is wrong  and we want you to know that we saw it. do you think you saw it i don't know but i was  a little bit happy that you know he's taking. seriously the need for criminal justice reform  because we really need it yeah you know i'd be.

extremely angry if you know anybody in the biden  administration tries to mess with these guys again. that would be all hands on deck we would not  forget it do you think that's possible well you. know what i was a little worried about it when  they first got pardoned um i was really worried. when the u.n came out negatively against it um  that was kind of none of their business and it. made me angry that nobody seemed to research  what was going on in this case before making.

those stupid statements and then you know people  in the media even people i knew coming out who. knew me and knew about how i was involved in this  case getting angry that they were pardoned without. even knowing what was going on i mean if this  had happened anywhere else in the united states. with any other people the press should  have been outraged that they were in prison. but because they were black water and because of  the association with the iraq war and because they. were contractors no one will look below the  surface of this story it's a real shame that.

it doesn't seem like anybody will look below the  surface on any media anymore whatever they see. is gospel and that's it yeah and uh  and that's a dangerous spot to be in. it is but you know what the great thing about  now is we can post all these documents and videos. that show you exactly what was going on and  people can make up their own minds well so before.

we kind of wrap this up one last question i i  understand at least why the u.s government was so. motivated to put these guys uh to lock these  guys up to appease the iraqi government what i. don't one piece that i still don't understand  is how and why they flipped ridgeway which. was a major turning point in the in the entire  case so he completely changed his statement and.

do you know why the government when it used those  protected statements that it wasn't allowed to use. from the guys the ones they gave right after the  incident to the state department investigators. when they were not allowed to use that they  decided to change the theory of the case. to say they just went out into nasser  square and started shooting people. for no reason they didn't have any reason  to discharge their weapons therefore.

they're guilty of manslaughter involuntary  manslaughter attempted manslaughter whatever. so they needed somebody to say someone on the  team to say no i didn't see anybody shooting. i don't know why we were shooting and the person  that they got to do that was jeremy ridgeway. and my theory about this is that jeremy ridgeway  was one of the most vulnerable members of the team. he had real bad ptsd he had lied on  his blackwater application about his.

experience he was the one person who was described  by the other people in the vehicle as having shot. a lot probably a lot more than he needed to in  fact tommy vargas who was the vehicle commander. in that vehicle told me that at one point during  the incident he grabbed ridgeway who was up in the. turret and told him to cease [ __ ] firing because  he was worried that he was going to melt the.

barrel of his weapon because he was shooting so  much so ridgeway was very vulnerable if there was. going to be someone held accountable for killing  civilians it was going to be ridgeway and he knew. it so the government worked on him a lot and then  they also remember were withholding evidence and. they were saying we got no physical evidence that  you guys were being fired at which was a total lie.

because they had the decaro reports and the  decaro photographs that they didn't turn over. to the defense so jeremy ridgeway is operating  in this universe where nobody is going to believe. him and if anybody gets caught it's going to  be him so he says what do you need me to say. and that's essentially what happened at  the time like i said he was suffering from. very severe ptsd and i don't think it was  very difficult for them to intimidate him.

into testifying he was also older than  the rest of the guys he had a family. and i'm sure he was thinking about that as well  but he completely reversed his previous statement. he did and there were also um you know he had  statements that were made to the state department. he had emails that were sent to people that were  part of the evidence i don't know if they were. shown or not but he absolutely changed his  testimony from we did nothing wrong we were being.

fired at to i didn't see any gunmen well i can  tell you just about everybody that's been on this. show has severe ptsd yeah and uh that has nothing  to do with flipping a story yeah so i uh don't. think that's a valid excuse no i don't either but  i think that you know he's he's not the same kind. of man as the rest of the guys that's for damn  sure yeah but it was so tough for them that was.

you know i mean imagine that you come out  of combat you can't get your life together. really because you have this hanging over  your head and then you have to go to and. every decision went against them by the time they  got to that trial in 2014 their lives had been on. hold for seven years and they didn't you know  and they and they all walked in there thinking.

there's no way we're gonna get convicted the only  one who thought that they would was nix latin. because of the experience that he had with the  prosecutors and getting charged with murder but. when i saw them and when i went to visit all the  prisons i ran into bill cofield at uh evans prison. in pennsylvania and i just said why didn't you  put on more of a case and he said we didn't think.

we could lose with the evidence that they had they  had no evidence we shouldn't have lost and i think. they all believe that dane baswinkus the guy i was  telling you about who stood up to judge lamberth. he stood up there during nick's sentencing and  said i almost left law because of this case damn. that's one of the most powerful lawyers in this  country and that's what this case did to him wow.

i mean i have that transcript too bucket  let's throw it in yeah well gene i just. want to again say thank you so much for coming  up here and jumping in and helping us kind of. organize this portion and uh to try to  fit this in uh whatever we just did an. hour and a half two hour segment is no easy task  so hope everybody can follow along but once again.

all the documents are linked below you can  download them you can read them yourself. for those that are listening that don't know what  a cable is that is a government email essentially. um and but before we do close out where  can we find you how can people find you. follow you i'll link the podcast that you  did below but yeah that's i really want. that to get as much attention as possible because  that will tell everybody the story of it so.

it's um raven23 presumption of guilt is the  name of the podcast and if you want to follow me. on twitter i can't remember  what my twitter handle is. you can't remember i can't i think it's just  gina keating all right well we'll link that. below too okay so we'll link your twitter below  the podcast is linked below all the documents. and the videos uh are all in that file down  there so go check it out and uh gina thank.

you again and uh if you have not heard of it  netflix versus the world which you produced i. wrote it and produced it wrote it and produced it  uh phenomenal duck so cheers thank you thank you. so many of the articles say this is a  war crimes trial the president publicly. showing support for the navy seal he was a great  fighter he was the one of the ultimate fighters.

tough guy not to mention 19 years of service  eight overseas deployments he was found not. guilty of murder and attempted murder and has  long proclaimed his innocence we overcame this. and we're going to continue to make sure that this  does not happen again to warriors in this country. our family saw behind a curtain we never  knew existed after enduring a very public.

two-year trial overcoming a travesty of  justice filled with false allegations. mainstream media slander political and legal  corruption we came out vindicated we learned. firsthand how broken and politically corrupt the  system is and that our service members and first. responders can be unfairly and unjustly targeted  simply for doing their job we vowed having escaped. injustice we would commit ourselves to helping  others in similar situations and fight to reform a.

broken system the pi peter foundation is dedicated  to defending the rights and freedoms of our men. and women in uniform the same rights and freedoms  they risk their lives to uphold as a 501c3. our mission is to support service members  police first responders and their families. through financial and legal support advocacy and  public affairs throughout my career i was always. taught we don't leave our own behind on and  off the battlefield the pipebitter foundation.

will continue that sentiment and make sure our  men and women get the due process they deserve. by highlighting their stories and  supporting them in their fight for justice. join us together let's fight for those who fought  for us donate now at pipepitterfoundation.org. so you guys just got the verdict you're going  to prison what's going through your heads.

this can't be real it's we all prepared  for it because you get a 50 50 chance and. you know it's a yes or no verdict and i never  thought it would happen i mean it's always in. the back of my mind that it could happen  and it was just complete and utter shock. it was like you're living in a daze and whenever  they put the cuffs on you it's like oh [ __ ] it. just got real how long how long are you going  away for um they upped the annie from the original.

indictment to where we was facing a 30-year  indictment if we got convicted for anything. and nick went from a 30-year indictment or  the original indictment to a life sentence. and so i know for me it's like well i just  got found guilty i know it's going to be at. least 30 years that i want to do because  i'm 33 years old i believe it's my age at.

the time and it's like i want to be 60 years  old 60 plus by the time i walk out of prison. yeah i was uh just devastated to say the least um  throughout trial i was pretty confident you know. of course you never know and you're scared out of  your mind but i was confident that we were gonna. be found not guilty um the jury when they came  back i remember them walking in the courtroom.

and you're you're standing there everybody's  silent and you're trying to kind of read the jury. to see if you can catch you know somebody  looking at you somebody smiling you know give. you a little indication of what they're about  to tell you and i remember i saw one of the. one of the younger girls um was kind of joking  back and forth with the other jury member.

and in my mind i thought well you know if they're  so jovial there's no way they're about to convict. anybody so the first count that they were  going to read was nick's count so nick's. count was first degree murder and it carried  like dustin said a life sentence so in my mind.

nick was good i i thought there was no way on  earth he was going to get convicted of that. the standard of evidence for first  degree murder charge is too high. how you going to charge somebody with first degree  murder in a war zone the evidence was non-existent. i thought that was no doubt about it he was not  guilty so they said count one nicholas slatten. guilty and as soon as they said that  i knew we were all [ __ ] because.

in our cases myself dustin and paul  it was we were charged with first uh. with voluntary manslaughter so um  if they found nick guilty on that. we were all done for and sure enough they went  down the whole list and it was multiple counts. it took them you know five ten minutes to  read them all but you know as soon as they.

say guilty on one count that 30-year mandatory  minimum is tacked on there and you're going away. so i always uh told these guys as the trial was  progressing that we were going to be found guilty. because of all the stuff that gina  talked about that they got away with. all the evidence that they hit and stuff so  it wasn't a shock to me at all i knew that. the jury saw us a certain type of way because we  were blackwater and they had it was basically a.

trial against the name blackwater not they didn't  view us as individuals and they didn't judge our. individual actions you know so it didn't shock me  at all at what point did you realize that you were. just being used for political gain i don't know  what would y'all say maybe a week into it i told. y'all that yeah there abouts i i think i didn't  want to accept reality and when nick would he.

would constantly say no this [ __ ] matters it's  rigged and i didn't want to hear that you know. i thought no it can't be [ __ ] rigged this is  the united states you know i i'm a [ __ ] former. marine i i was over there serving my country it's  not rigged you know these people all that matters. is the people in the jury what they think it  doesn't matter what the judge says or what the. prosecution says it matters what the jury thinks  and boy was i wrong they slammed us on every count.

yeah the the term that i've used a lot is just  crushed and i don't i don't think there's really. an english word that that aptly describes that  feeling of hearing the word guilty and knowing. what's attached to it my wife and mother-in-law  were sitting in the courtroom and and there.

was just an audible gasp um when nick's verdict  came out because all of us were certain that if. if they found nick guilty like evan said  it was opening i mean it was closed for us. and so are the marshals were lined up against  the wall and uh they got through the couch. and read everything and and i remember locking  eyes with the the lead attorney anthony ascencion.

and uh he just blinked and  looked back at the judge. uh and at that moment the prosecutors said you  know it with in light of the heavy sentences. that this carries we think that the defendant  should be automatically taken into custody. and so we were and the marshals came and  got us escorted us to the back and uh. had us up against the wall they were emptying  out our pockets cutting our shoelaces out and uh.

it it was it was a feeling of helplessness  like i felt on on january 23rd and and there. there was so much uncertainty tied to it that  i knew my wife needed to hear something and she. deserved more than just seeing my backside leave  that courtroom and the attorneys came back and.

linda bailey was one of the attorneys and  she was just grabbing up our wallets and. belts and shoelaces and everything i mean  they just handed her a wad of [ __ ] and. and basically told her that you know this is  this is it for now and and i told linda um. i mean at that point i think i was probably  sobbing to tell kristen keep the faith. and and that was the last  statement i got to give her. for a while because they took  us directly to d.c county jail.

thank you uh had some interesting stuff to say  about being in prison and how you found out. yeah absolutely uh so we left dcg i went to a  northern neck which was like a regional jail. they put me in the hole in there because i was  uh pretty crazy i was coming down off of a lot. of medication you know they had me on xanax and  stuff and they didn't really know what to do with.

me you know they they believed what they read  in the papers they thought we were all monsters. but me particularly for some reason they they just  put me in in segregation so i was by myself and. i got a bible really quick and i remember the  first night i was calling out to god and praying. and you know i was i had really turned my  back on god when i came back from the war. i was very angry and bitter and i was  eating a lot of pills and drinking a lot.

and i would hurt people i was really  violent you know quick to fight. and so i really believe that god let me  go down for something that i did not do. just so that i would return to him because uh  like he was talking about being broken that. is the most broken you will ever see a human  being is when they are separated from society. like you just that's about as low as you can  get and i knew that i was going to be locked.

up for the rest of my life i knew that i was  facing a life sentence so you know i'm calling. out to god i'm like you know i didn't do this  what are you doing and like he answered he said. you don't run this i run this i'm like well what  am i supposed to do and he said love god and love. your neighbor and so that's what i started  doing i started just digging into his word. and seeking his face every day and you know i saw  many miracles that happened while i was locked up.

you know this is it was a daily thing that i had  to meet god i had to pray i had to get in the word. and talk to him but years later down the road you  know eventually we were pardoned by the president. it was a miracle but like that road he was  just shaving off all the bad pieces of me the. six years all the anger and all the hate that  i had stored up all the all the grudges that i. had towards people he was just slowly chopping  those off as i would do what he said he would.

he would just cut those pieces off of me and i  remember this was after my third trial you know. gina talked about all that but this was after my  third trial i'd actually been found guilty again. and they had me in a little regional  jail and they had a riot in that jail. and so the prisoners broke the sprinklers they  set the microwaves on fire they ran the police out.

and so i didn't participate in the ride i just  went and sat on my bunk and got my bible and. started reading it and one of my friends he  saw me in there and he just came by and shut. my door and so the door is electronically  locked so only the police can open it from. the control panel and so my cellmate was caught  out there in the riot because he was participating. in it so when the riot team came in with their  flashbang grenades and their tear gas canisters.

he got pulled out so they took him to the hole  so after that they weren't being nice to us at. all they they were starving us they um it was  about seven days they just brought us styrofoam. trays but there wasn't hardly anything in  them i mean there was maybe that much food. a tiny amount of food in each tray and so we  were hungry and i had been reading my favorite. chapter in the bible is psalms 91 and i  read that every day i still do to this day.

first thing so in psalms 91 and verse 3 it says  surely he will save you from the fowler's snare. and that really irked me that day when i read  it because i was like here i am i'm starving. i didn't do this i've already been to trial three  different times and i'm found guilty again and i'm. getting a whole another life sentence right like  what are you doing god because you said surely you. will save me from the fowler snare i was like  that's where i'm at and i remember i boxed in.

the word fowler snare and then immediately  i hear on the speaker there's like a little. speaker in your cell where you can push  a panic button you know something happens. i hear over that slat and pack your  stuff you got a presidential pardon. and this was a year and a half before the pardon  even happened there had been no mentions of. pardons it wasn't on any of our radar none of that  and so i was like man i'm going crazy right and so. it was a couple days later they  let us out of ourselves finally.

to call our family i called my sister and she's  like nick have you talked to anybody i said no. i've been locked down she said well the new york  times reported that president trump is considering. pardon soldiers accused of war crimes and it  mentioned you by name i was in the paper with. gulstan and gallagher and myself those were  the three names in the article that was written. and i was like that's the same day i heard the  voice that i was praying and i was like that's.

the day that the article from the newspaper was  dated i was like i was like i told her i was like. look god told me i'm going to get pardoned  she's like yeah you're going crazy bro right. but it wasn't until a year and a half later that  god fulfilled his word but like it happened and. then immediately my lawyer started trying to  track down leads whether this was true or not. and then they had a whole new approach we were  already appealing in the courts so they had.

this whole political thing that they were doing  and then i told them i said look it has to be. all of us or i'm not going to take the pardon and  they're like well it just says you in the article. i was like you heard what i said i'm not going  to accept a pardon unless it's all of us and then. paul's wife ended up hiring a pardon attorney  and he put his head together with my lawyers and. they started advocating they started  lobbying and a bunch of like congressmen. and people got in our corner and it was just  god was just showing me that if i would have.

faith like he fulfilled it man and it was just  amazing like it was it was a complete miracle the. one thing i'll say is whenever we stood there the  first and second time and you get people speaking. on your behalf that you've known all your life  my daughter spoke in my second sentencing and. it's one of the hardest things that  you'll ever have to listen to because.

i can tell you right now my back was to the court  i was at the very back they were sitting sideways. and i was trying not to tear up my daughter got  done it's when you listen to people speak on your. behalf it's really like listening to your own  eulogy there's no other way to put it it's like. you're not even there and they're talking about  the man that you are the man that you have been. and then the man that you know if the court  goes lenient on you that you can be again and.

that's not an easy thing because you're standing  there the first time it's like okay well i know i. got a 30-year mandatory minimum we know life's  where nick's got life and then the judge says. the prosecution if i'm not mistaken the first go  around was trying to give me 63 67 72 or something. some crazy numbers like that basically giving us  a life sentence without a life sentence and the.

judge said no i want to give these three guys 30  years in one day and then nick still got life and. until you actually face down odds like that  it's it's you you can't understand that feeling. of getting a sentence like that and basically  knowing that okay i'm 33 34 years old and by the. time i do my sentence if they give me a 60 year  sentence that they're trying to do you're not.

walking out of there you'll be carried out in a  box and i can't imagine receiving a life sentence. like nick did i mean it's just you can't you  can't comprehend that and so to make it through. not once but twice of listening to stuff like that  that's probably one of the hardest moments ever. is listening it's like you're dead and gone  and people are talking about you maybe to add.

just a bit to nick's experience as well is  i called myself a christian for a long time. and and i said that i knew christ  and then i followed them but. um i'd never really had that intimate relationship  and i'd heard about it but i didn't understand it. and there's so many there's so many analogies  within the text to our own situation.

um and i don't pretend to choose  anybody else's world view but. just reading the story of of daniel and shadrach  meshach and abednego and what they went through. as innocent young men there are there is tons of  material just within those four men's experiences. and the the furnace that the three went  through and then daniel was in the lion's den. um there there was no way out in natural  terms for those four men there was none.

but in god's miraculous provision all three  men walked out of that furnace and didn't even. have a hint of smoke on them and daniel walked  out of the lion's den and not a scratch on him. and so i say that to say this is four men  are sitting here in front of you today. again as as proof of miraculous providence and  god's care well gents last night at dinner uh.

paul you brought this up you wanted to  say thank you to somebody for the pardon. and uh i think the best way maybe to do that  is go through each one of you guys and uh. kind of explain what it was like when you  heard that you were getting that pardon. yeah and uh so however you  guys want to kick this off.

starting with you paul okay um. president trump thank you um. and thank you doesn't cover it you gave me  my life back you gave me my freedom back. you gave me my my little girl and my wife back.

and it's something that i. i didn't know how to experience  again in this lifetime. and out of your abundant grace and mercy you. you gave me a second chance at  life with them with these three men. thank you sir thank you.

uh president trump we love you man thank  you thank you so much uh like he said it. it's like we're back from the  dead you know we thank god. and we thank you we think you know you  had more guts than anybody we've ever. ever seen or ever heard of so you're an awesome  man and uh you're welcome down in sparta tennessee. anytime you come hang out anytime you want we  love you everybody down there loves you you man.

well said guys um president trump thank you thank  you for having the confidence in us for having. the courage to act despite getting political  backlash thank you for giving me a second chance. i promise to not let it go to waste and i look  forward to seeing you in the white house in 2024. sir i can't thank you enough um my two children  are no longer going to be without their father.

you give us a second chance at life and. we're going to try to do our best to make  it worthwhile thank you very much sir. and i just want to say thank you guys for  everything you've done for this country and. and um if anybody deserves the freedom  they fought for it's definitely you guys.

okay.

when you guys came here i said that i wanted to  connect you with some people and uh a really good.

friend on the line here you guys might know his  name's eddie gallagher and uh he wound up having a. situation very similar to your guys and so i want  to introduce him right here i got him on the line. eddie gallagher eddie what's  up what's going on pleasure.

wow so eddie runs the pie pitters  foundation and that whole foundation is. you know to kind of help guys like you so  eddie i'm just going to turn it over to you man. hey man what's up fellas uh dude i can't tell you  how awesome it is to see you guys here especially. at sean's place man like i can't imagine what you  guys went through man i got a taste of what it is.

to be you know have our government turn against  you and sort of hang you out to drive man but uh. it's honestly it's it's an honor to be able to  talk to you guys man i'm glad guys are using this. platform to tell your side of the story um but i  just think i would want to let you know man sean. uh told me that you guys were going to be on here  we were following everything that's been going on. and uh our non-profit the piper foundation uh we  authorized an emergency relief fund for 10k for. you guys uh and that one of our board members has  also donated 2500 on top of that we also started a.

fundraising portal on our site uh for you guys  to raise to raise all the money you guys need. to pay off your legal fees man yeah that's that's  what our nonprofit's all about man that's what we. can do man but we're i'm stoked for you guys and  i can't wait to hear you guys side of the story. thank you brother thank you thank you very much so  much well uh that'll be linked in the description.

so if anybody wants to donate and there's going to  be a lot of people that want to donate the links. below you can donate to pipe hitters foundation  there's going to be a porthole like eddie said. for uh your guys's legal fee specifically so  um yeah eddie yeah you're the [ __ ] man dude. foundation.org go there you'll be able to access  it and donate we can't thank you enough we thank. you i followed your story from inside the walls  man that's you know it's awesome to be able to.

talk to you on this platform and be able to  interact yeah likewise i i followed uh your. story closely too i used to be running up and  down the stairs in my unit watching fox news. and listening about uh about your case and of  course all these other guys i was locked up with. would uh would assume you were my co-defendant but  i had to tell him no i i'm not on his level uh but.

uh seriously when uh i saw that clip of you  walking into court with your uniform on with. that big stack of ribbon ribbons and metals it  uh it made me sick in my stomach because you had. handcuffs on and i knew you didn't deserve  that uh you deserved more from your country. and i'm glad you got acquitted i'm glad you're  doing well and thanks again we love you brother.

we love you brother man america loves you you know  we got your back if you ever need anything let us. know we really appreciate you anytime hey thank  you guys matt eddie you truly set the standard man. and keep showing the rest of us what it looks like  um anytime in the future if there's ever anything. that that we can do for you or your family your  organization please never hesitate to reach out. one more thing i got one more thing i've seen  you on instagram doing the murphy workout and i.

officially want to challenge you but i  need a couple months to prepare all right. uh you know afterwards when all  this stuff blows over it's it's. not easy man so anything you guys need hit me  up and uh you know our foundation will be there.

so you know god bless you  guys and i can't wait to hear. your guys side of the story god bless you brother  thank you thanks thanks eddie thank you brother. thank you my man appreciate it i'll talk to you  soon man love you bro love you brother you do. wow goddess awesome wow he's a good dude i was  sitting here looking at the orange spots on the.

carpet i'm like what the [ __ ] those wasn't there  well again right were you guys expecting that. no no i'm pretty happy though yeah that's awesome  guys i was looking for a cool coffee cup like. a shark glass yeah i thought you're going to give  us some gummy bears or something you know i've. seen the podcast i can give you plenty of gummy  bears but i thought maybe that would be a little. bit more special than that yeah what type of gummy  bears they are yeah i'm out right now man but yeah.

eddie is just uh you know he's like you guys you  know he's just a solid [ __ ] war fighter uh who. got [ __ ] over and uh you know when when uh i  was talking to you guys and you had mentioned. the legal fees and nick like when you were  sitting in here yesterday and um you said. the only reason i'm here is to.

raise money for the guys that still have  legal fees i mean man i just you know and. i think maybe you think that i took a little  offense to that but dude i think that is uh. the most honorable thing that you know you could  do you're not out here looking for fame you're not. out here you know doing anything you just you just  want to hook your boys up and same with you evan. and all you guys you know you know one thing also  very respectable god is good man one thing i'll.

say about this is we got locked up together and we  walked out together they never broke us as a team. yeah it's six years two months we got they put  the handcuffs on us and then the times may have. been a little bit staggered on which prison  let who out but i know that i talk to everybody. directly thereafter you know it it may take us a  minute to get a hold because of number situations.

but you know one thing i can say about these  three men sitting next to me is there's nobody i'd. rather sit next to because we rolled in together  we stood there we took it like men we didn't turn. our backs on each other we didn't turn our backs  on the country and then we walked out with our. heads high in the end because i'm not going  to take a deal for something that i didn't do. i'm not going to sell these men out for something  that they didn't do to save my own ass and.

we can talk about who should have done what who  did what this that the other but at the end of the. day we went in together and we walked out together  there's no and my family didn't understand one day. we were sitting inside the visitation room in fci  memphis i reached down and i pointed at the floor. i said you see this spot right here my ex-wife  got all beside herself i said there's no place i'd.

rather be and she's like what do you mean i said i  wouldn't have lived with myself had i took a deal. and did what ridgeway did i wouldn't  live with myself at the end of the day. if i'd turned my back on these men i mean i'm not  even lie to you i wouldn't i would ate a bullet i. would have [ __ ] something drank myself to death  but instead i'm sitting here next to these men. and i mean dude i can't thank y'all enough thank  you brother thank you i'm alive today because of.

you three i'm confident in that yeah y'all saved  me more times than i encounter over there for sure. well you guys are definitely a hell of a band of  brothers there's no doubt about it and uh you know. America owes you one there's no doubt about  that either so for everybody that's watching. go to the pipepittersfoundation.org and donate and  get rid of these guys [ __ ] legal fees right now.

they deserve it and uh i just want to say thank  you guys for coming out here and getting your side. out i hope that felt good and um i just wished  all you guys the best of luck and god bless you. god bless you thank you thank you brother  thank you sir guys pete thank you cheers.