foreign so I I'm I commend them for having as positive an attitude as they do and it puts in perspective whatever I've had to go through that they literally lost a number of years of their life and they're now doing well at putting it back together yeah I mean they lost what from 2007 to what a year ago 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 Easter 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 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 nisser 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 vehicle's 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 engage in 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 lead calls for a toe out which means the second vehicle our vehicle was the Third vehicle the second vehicle is going to back up and 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 raving for 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 the Easter squat Square back to the green zone and so that was two separate firefights 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 greens when 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 a 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 Nisswa 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 um 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 Matt my memory is 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 stop traffic and and everybody including Iraqi Witnesses said that it was what they what they thought was was an apparent v-bit and so on in in uh the thought process of preserving the team and and engaging a legitimate threat that thought for me was was to stop that that v-bit and uh and so that's what I did I engaged the the threat and and following that there were five other if I recall correctly five other threats that were engaging us and as the call was was let out that the that our command vehicle um was was uh disengaged and not able to start anymore I heard Corey Wayne Scott say over the radio command turret Gunner take up six because it basically it was the wall of Steel between us and the enemy we're receiving fire from and then the Erv yeah backed up hooked up the toe out and that's when I witnessed um 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 uh 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 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 buttonhoot back going towards the Iz there were people up on rooftops 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 shoot to check for holes but I was good and the way the weight was of the Kia and the Wake here were you being engaged by threats when the white care was headed your way as I recall it was all at the same time it all happened at the same time so 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 field there was a B on the lookout for the white Kia for a possible yeah would all you say that were there any other Assets in there did you guys have air or did you have drones where is Mill there so there was a drone um 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 um but as far as I recall aired didn't engage at all they're at the yeah the helicopters the gunfighted pretty much dissipated by then and the Drne was already on station from the v-bed that had gone off or uh just a couple minutes earlier correct because I 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 nissour square and I agree with these guys that um there was something off about the Iraqi police activity uh it just seemed to be a bigger number of of Iraqi police and even I think Iraqi National Guard 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 IP seemed to be maneuvering around and 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 um 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 Kia is coming forward as well but as the 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 turn the key again and it wouldn't start it just kind of clicked so I did it a couple times and I and I looked over the team leader to my right and I said hey Haas this vehicle's 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 um yes it does protect about uh 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 so that was March 31st 2004.
so that's about um eight nine months after the US originally invades Iraq and we had I'd actually been to that area just three weeks before it happened and we had uh four guys that were just escorting some trucks to go move some food equipment that's all it was it was nothing more elaborate or exotic than that and they had met with the the supposed to be the the reliable trusted Iraqis to give them guidance about where to go and you know these are remember the areas of Fallujah and ramadi had heavy fighting after that because they'd never really been pacified they'd never really been cleaned out right the maneuver Warfare lightning approach of the U. S invasion in 2003 bypassed many of those spots of hot resistance and Fallujah and ramadi were where a lot of uh it was effectively in Iraqi Republican guard retirement area right so it was a real hotbed of people that were not happy and the guys were basically led into an ambush and they were shot up immediately and their bodies desecrated you know the terrible scenes of them being dragged to the streets and hung from the bridge that was all done for uh the propaganda effect to try to terrorize the U. S presence in the country I'll never forget it um like I said I'd been there I I knew some of those guys like I'd been with zopko every day for 10 days prior to that happening and I actually went and because I knew him I I immediately flew to do the notification for his family in Cleveland Ohio that night and Gary went and took care of um um one of the the seal um uh that was lost and one of our aviators went and took care of Mike Teague and so it was it was personal for all of us we'd never I never lost anyone under my command or authority when I was in the SEAL Teams and this was the first for us as a company and it was um you know early in the Iraq days it was went from quite peaceful after the initial shock into the the Insurgency kind of exploded um March 31 are those guys are ambushed in Fallujah three days later our guys are ambushed on the road between Baghdad and the airport and at least two or three of our guys are killed and one of them put on a a literally a Navy cross-level performance which saved them and and then like by the 4th of April in Fallujah and sorry in the Joff right you have a thousand plus Shia militiamen attacking a coalition facility and they initiated attack by attacking by taking a Colombian Soldier stuffing a grenade his mouth and pulling the pin that's how they did that yeah okay so it was on and we had eight we we were not supposed to be protecting the facility down in a Joff we had um we had eight guys there providing PSD support for the lead Diplomat that was there and that's it but between I'll never forget that phone call I got it like two o'clock in the morning and it was our air boss Richard pair saying hey boss um our guys are are in it and they're surrounded and they're running out of ammo and we'd like to send the little birds I said of course send him he says but remember we're not insured right because three weeks before the um uh there was a DHL cargo jet that had been shut down by a missile flying out of Baghdad and their insurer was our insurer who promptly told us hey uh we're canceling your insurance policy we were on a firm fixed price contract so I couldn't just say oh by the way I'm going to add another million and a half dollars to our insurance policy to our charge and and buy insurance no so they canceled it so the aircraft were self-insured by me if they were shot down I had to replace it you know within days to have it going again so he was calling to tell me to say it's on us but it's on me but we're sending these aircraft um if it's okay with you I said absolutely and so off they go and again the right people with the right experience and the right Mission the tf-160 guys had already taken it upon themselves to have a cachet of heavy weapons ready to go staged right there next to the ramp so that when the alarm bell went up there was no drama they literate the birds asked for volunteers down go the three helicopters evacuated a a marine who had been shot through that the Marine Corps gave him a silver star and Ron stars to a bunch of the other soldiers that day and the dod hadn't given any of our guys Awards we gave him Awards but that's that's that also kind of started our tradition of presenting Awards to our guys that that went above and beyond the Call of Duty I remember we um we ended up coining a medal and it was an image of Saint Michael the Archangel with a sword stepping on a demon and the top of it just said serbium right serbium is the Latin word for I will serve because their guys were ultimately volunteers what was going through your head on March 31st 2004 and when did you see that [Applause] um I'd gotten phone calls that they were missing that we had a team that was not accounted for and were missing and then when the the video came in of a Mitsubishi Pajero Pajero on fire then it was yeah we knew it was bad it's a that is the ultimate gut Punch Yeah you just it's it's awful and then to fly to see his parents I remember I told his brother and sister-in-law first and then his parents came to their house and um we had a connection with U.
S Marshals so I had a marshall come with me and he just waited outside just so I guess the people knew it was a it was an official thing but um yeah just terrible will those bodies ever recovered yes thanks God to the Marine Corps good moving into the incident which undoubtedly was the downturn of Blackwater 2007 Missouri Square yep what's your take I want to give a big thank you out right now to all the vigilance Elite patrons out there that are watching the show right now just want to say thank you guys you are our top supporters and you're what makes this show actually happen if you're not on vigilance lead patreon I want to tell you a little bit about what's going on in there so we do a little bit of everything there's plenty of behind the scenes content from the actual Sean Ryan Show on top of that basically what I do is I take a lot of the questions that I get from you guys or the patrons and then I turn them into videos so we get right now there's a lot of concern about self-defense Home Defense crimes on the rise all throughout the country actually all throughout the world and so we talk about everything from how to prep your home how to clear your home how to get familiar with a firearm both Rifle and Pistol for beginners and advanced we talk about mindset we talk about Defensive Drving we have in end of the month live chat that I'm on at the end of every month where we can talk about whatever topics you guys have it's actually done on Zoom you might enjoy it check it out and if zoom's not your thing or you don't like live chats like I said there's a library of well over a hundred videos on where to start with prepping all the firearm stuff pretty much anything you can think of it's on there so anyways go to www. patreon. com vigilance Elite or just go in the link in the description it'll take you right there and if you don't want to and you just want to continue to watch the show that's fine too I appreciate it either way love you all let's get back to the show thank you it was uh it was a life or death moment so the team leader kind of snapped me out of my my driver mode 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 uh at some threats that he was identifying um I'm not sure how many rounds he really shot um 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 it was not going to start and 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 and he was actively shooting at the Convoy so I shot in his Direction neutralizes 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-bid one of the things that you could do is uh 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 and the route that we would have to take to get just off the X it wasn't feasible um 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 and like Nick said the Erv vehicle which is the second vehicle in the Convoy backs up the fall of 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 uh a relatively minor engagement in the big scheme of things it's serious anytime you discharge your weapon but the amount of uh 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 um 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 up from the south down there there's an area that I could clearly see people engaging 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 a problem and you 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 rational or your 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 in 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 all right that was after the toe out and everything else and it was 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 and 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 the shortest way to it how many other teammates out there out of the 19 of you guys were engaging threats do you know who's everybody no it would have been I think there was like seven total seven yeah 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 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 on the threats that you are 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 the 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 engage the Kia and uh one was dropped for lack of evidence because nobody saw him shot here's 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 fire fights within five mile radius correct then he 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 what do you think I'm sorry when we got back the main concern was get ready in case we had to go back out yep I brought the uh 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 because there are still other teams out there on venue the Iraq War was a Maelstrom of conflicting forces right you had angry sunnis you had angry Shia you had constant Iranian presence in the irgc and the goods forces the Iranians uh special special units were very very active in the country stirring up hate and discontent to make it impossible or difficult for the U.
S to stay and you know for people that think it's all peace love and happiness in Baghdad at that time that this that our guys just started shooting willy-nilly unprovoked and all the rest it had been a very dangerous week for us just in the seven days prior right we had uh another Convoy of guys that got ambushed and shot up on the Baghdad Highway uh another one that had been hit by an efp right and efp is an explosive form penetrator it's a a copper plate in front of a a coffee can full of explosives and when you initiate that the explosive goes off at 22 000 feet per second turns that copper plate into a slug of copper going 8 000 feet per second and board right through their armored vehicle unfortunately didn't kill any of our guys that time but it sent him to the hospital uh we had a helicopter shot down just days before that and then the day of mystery square a car bomb goes off where we had a team it went outside it went off outside of a venue where he had a team um protecting a usaid official instead of hard pointing at that facility um which they normally would all the Iraqis had run away so they decided to move and so you know in the in the chaos that follows Raven 23 one of the teams is called and I'm not going to try to redescribe the the masterful description you did sitting down with those guys but just suffices to say that traffic circles in Baghdad are like the trail intersections if you're hunting deer right if you're a deer hunter you know or if you're an Insurgent trying to hunt Americans you hunt the traffic circles and so they go to block the traffic and um uh some traffic doesn't stop and uh and shooting entails what I can tell you though is how badly the Iranians wanted the U.
