Inside the Green Berets: Under Attack | National Geographic

my best to stay behind the camera and
not not appear in front of the camera as
we headed out to the fire base in the
Special Forces chopper none of us could
imagine that we ourselves would become
part of the story before the trip was
over but the way events unfolded
everything changed in this trips
Afghanistan we did become part of the
story was because we were caught up in
the same mass casualty event as a lot of
the soldiers we were filming other than
the guys inside the vehicle we were
closest to the truck just 35 feet away
when it blew up
when it blew up I do remember in an
instant just seeing the back end of the
truck he Bupp into the air the sound was
so loud it was the only way I can
describe it as it was almost silent
there was a flash of light
the flash of light essentially seemed to
consume my cameraman Ryan Ryan just
disappeared and at that time I just
figured he was dead your reaction is
holy SH I can’t believe that just
happened to me
I have a little baby at home I have a
wife what am I doing here I’m here by
choice I was shocked I was surprised
that I was intact I was certain that I’d
lost a foot or a hand or arm or
something when I first saw Ryan he was
covered in a blanket he looked pretty
bad he was going into shock but I knew
he was alive and I said to him I said I
thought you were dead man and he looked
at me and he said I thought you were
dead too
Ryan was injured worse than I was a lot
worse than I was I thought and he had
deep second-degree burns up and down his
arms and it on his face
we both had shrapnel through our faces
and up and down her arms and I too had
second-degree burns up and down my face
but not as deep as his in the dutch
field hospital I reached over to Ryan
and I held his hand and he reached back
and held my hand and he said to me Steve
it’s not your fault
I don’t blame you for what happened we
both made the decision to come here and
uh you know I pretty much broke down in
tears a little bit because um that
weighed heavily on my mind making films
is always personal but this film had
become intensely personal my cameraman
was in a burn center we both were at
risk of losing our sight we witness guys
die in combat essentially we’d witnessed
a lot of other guys suffer pretty
significant wounds and we weren’t just
going to let the story go
it was too intensely personal by that
time hopefully we’re just holding up a
mirror to a reality to what’s going on
out there people can take away from it
just deeper insight into the complexity
of the war being waged in Afghanistan
and the incredible difficulties and
sacrifices being made by those who are
who are waging that war the one thing
that strikes you when you get out there
is just how kind of resourceful these
guys are how autonomous and how alone I
mean how on their own they are
yeah we have the most powerful military
the world’s ever created but these guys
are pretty much out there on their own
with what they have you know on the base
and at their disposal I don’t want to
gather too much attention to well what I
went through and what the National
Geographic film crew went through
because the focus should be on on the
Special Forces soldiers who were out
there in the field and who are still out
there in the field and enduring all of
the hardships and dangers and losing
friends and taking risks every day just
watch out cause you got this mouse over
here we went out for just a short brief
window of time and came back home these
guys go out and and see friends get
killed and wounded and then go out again
the next day and the next day and the
next day