The Kill Team

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THE KILL TEAM goes behind closed doors to tell the riveting story of Specialist Adam Winfield, a 21-year-old infantryman in Afghanistan who attempted with the help of his father to alert the military to heinous war crimes his platoon was committing. Tragically, his father's pleas for help went unheeded. Once Adam's fellow soldiers got wind of what he'd done, they threatened to silence him — permanently. Forced to choose between his conscience and his own survival, Adam found himself drawn into a moral abyss, faced with a split-second decision that would change his life forever.

With extraordinary access to the key individuals involved in the case — including Adam, his passionately supportive parents, and his startlingly candid compatriots — THE KILL TEAM is an intimate look at the personal stories so often lost inside the larger coverage of the longest war in US history.

'This is a remarkable documentary. It reveals the members of the Kill Team as sympathetic characters even as the horror and immorality of their actions are on display. The movie also demonstrates the anguish of whistle-blowers and their families embedded in a military culture that circles the wagons to defend even the most egregious acts. Finally, it adds depth and nuance to our understanding of the political theater of that war.' Dr. Charles Anthony Smith, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of California - Irvine, Author, The Rise and Fall of War Crimes Trials, From Charles I to Bush II

'Soberly executed and highly principled documentary filmmaking.' Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

'Brutally honest, this is the true story of how soldiers in the most lethal army known to humankind can wantonly kill when leadership fails. It is a story that must be told, and will leave you staring thunderstruck at the screen as you sit speechless, watching the credits roll by. It would be unbelievable - if it weren't true.' John D. Hutson, retired United States Navy rear admiral, Dean Emeritus, University of New Hampshire School of Law

'An essential film no matter what your political convictions.' David Edelstein, New York Magazine

'Kill Team is an unusual and startling documentary, with far fewer stereotypes and more disturbing truths about infantry soldiers at war than the 10,000 TV news chats, movies and recruiting advertisements you've seen during the past decade. The Kill Team does not exploit gore. It instead relies on first person interviews, 21st Century pervasive media, and US Army prosecution evidence to explore genuinely complex questions about fear, combat teams, and war crimes in ways I've not seen on film before. ROTC and military audiences should make a point of seeing and discussing The Kill Team.' Christopher Simpson, Professor of Journalism, American University, Author, Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare

'Chilling, concise, and clear-eyed.' Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

'A highly dramatic and necessary documentary. It will make you both sad and angry, just the way that the long, long war in Afghanistan does. Highly recommended.' Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist

'The Kill Team is a very powerful study of the power of one leader and of unit culture in shaping ethical conduct on the battlefield, and the difficulty of exercising moral courage amidst that pressure.' Dr. Martin Cook, Professor of Professional Military Ethics, US Naval War College, Author, The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the US Military and Issues in Military Ethics

'Devastating...A formidable contender.' Stephen Holden, The New York Times

'This powerful film traces the moral dilemma of a 21-year-old U.S. Army private forced to choose between blowing the whistle on war crimes being committed by fellow soldiers and facing their deadly wrath, or becoming a participant in the illegal killing of unarmed civilians. It highlights the dehumanization of Afghan people by some members of the military, which enables them to become killing machines. The Kill Team serves as poignant evidence that the U.S. military does not belong in other countries, killing their people and damaging our own soldiers who remain haunted by what they did.' Marjorie Cohn, Professor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Co-author, Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent

'Has the kind of urgent intimacy that characterizes the best such non-fiction films...Astonishing.' Ian Bailey, The Globe and Mail

'The Kill Team tells the stories of young, immature soldiers who find that some of their enemies are 'within.' How, they ask, are they supposed to react when their team is led by those who are willing to murder innocent Afghans? How, they also ask, should they be treated by the military establishment once it discovers what is going on? These stories exhibit the struggles of these soldiers and their families, as the soldiers face imprisonment for what has happened.' Nicholas Fotion, Professor of Philosophy, Emory University, Author, War and Ethics: A New Just War Theory

'The most daring documentary of the year so far...A stunning, powerful film that boldly complicates the conversation around America's wars.' Daniel Walber, Film School Rejects

'Among the most vital documents of the war in Afghanistan.' David Ehrlich, Film.com

'Hits all the right buttons: political injustice, moral outrage, and emotional catharsis.' Anthony Kaufman, Indiewire

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Main credits

Krauss, Dan (film director)
Krauss, Dan (film producer)
Krauss, Dan (cinematographer)
Krauss, Dan (screenwriter)
Davis, Linda (film producer)
Davis, Linda (screenwriter)
Lerew, Lawrence (screenwriter)
Lerew, Lawrence (film editor)
Winfield, Adam (interviewee)

Other credits

Editor, Lawrence Lerew; composer, Justin Melland; cinematographer, Dan Krauss.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Adam Winfield, ; atrocities, platoon, Afghanistan, war crimes investigation, US history, 21-yeear old infantryman, conscience, moral abyss, longest war in US history, warrior's paradise, first kill, war trophies, no good men left, immorality, whistleblowers, failure of leadership, military culture; "The Kill Team"; Bullfrog Films,doc; history; politics; sociss; Oscar; Academy Award;

WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[music]

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I love being in the military.

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I love wearing the uniform.

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I’m proud to wear the uniform. I’d
have never in a million years imagined

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that I would be going to jail.

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After the first murder everything
that I believed in the army was gone.

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People in my platoon,

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they just changed.
Something in them changed.

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This was the platoon from hell.

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Accused of shocking crimes that
include murdering Afghans for sport.

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At the time, what was going on around us didn’t…
It wasn’t far-fetched. It wasn’t bizarre.

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It was just, like, \"All right.
Sure.\" You know? \"This is okay.\"

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Soldiers allegedly formed a kill team mutilating
corpses, taking pot shots at Afghan civilians.

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Right now, if you handed me a human finger
it would, it would scare me. But over there,

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it’s, it’s combat, man. It happens.
Unarmed Afghan civilians picked out,

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stood up, shot and then blown up. I was
so dead set on just avoiding this,

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staying out of it. I never
wanted to kill anyone ever.

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Specialist Adam Winfield’s father, Chris,
warned the army but tragically army

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officials refused to investigate. His
son now charged in the third killing

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that took place three months later. Is
your son a whistle-blower or a murderer?

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He’s a whistle-blower. He, he tried.
The army didn’t listen.

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When we first heard that Adam was brought
in and we felt like he was safe…

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the army told us everything
was gonna be okay.

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But as soon as he stepped off the
airplane they arrested him for murder.

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[music] We don’t, we don’t know what’s going
on. We don’t know how this has occurred.

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We, we know that months ago he tried
to tell people what was going on

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and now suddenly he’s being charged
with the same crimes that he reported.

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[music]

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Left. Left, right.

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The army says they want to move
this case but yet every action

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that they’ve taken beguiles that very notion.
I mean, we were supposed to be going to trial

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and they’re just now coming to the table
with new evidence they’ve discovered?

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Bullshit. Okay? It’s just bullshit. So my
eye is toward getting… I’ve been confined

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367 days.

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They are trying to get me

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for premeditated murder in the first degree,
which is a mandatory minimum sentence of life.

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So I’m depressed constantly,

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constantly and my anxiety is at levels
that I’ve never experienced before.

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Same guy, right?

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Yup. Same situation. Same guy as this guy.
Same guy as this guy.

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So, the army’s evidence… At one point in
time, overseas the people in my platoon

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and my squad leader were murdering people.
Are they trying to say this is the victim?

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Well, then they come along and then
they say that this is the victim.

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It was, like, I can make a stand
out here… and risk my life,

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or I can just… try to stay
out of it as best as I can.

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You know. Unfortunately, it
didn’t pan out that way.

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[music]

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And ripped them away. She was
queen for about an hour.

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After that, shit got sour.

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As infantrymen, your entire existence
is like a series of tests.

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Are you man enough? Are you tough enough?

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Uh, you know, can you pull the trigger?
Can you kill? Can you survive?

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Our brigade commander
described it before we left.

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\"Afghanistan is a warrior’s paradise.\"

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My first firefight… We were just getting ready to walk into this village
through the wall and then bullets are flying right over your head.

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I mean, hitting the trees right behind you. And the
first thing that came to my mind when that was,

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was \"Danger Zone\" from Top Gun.

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It was intense. You know,

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it was, it was really cool. You can hear the firefight going on
right down the way and we’ve got helicopters and fast movers

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and, uh, explosions. All the
bullshit paid off right there.

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I mean, all the, all the rock marchin’…
and the dumb shit, it was all worth it.

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I mean, I don’t know if it was the adrenaline or what it was… but
to finally be able to start and do your job for real was, like…

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\"All right. Right on. This is
cool.\" Like, a couple guys like,

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we were laughing our asses off… the first time we started getting
shot at. You get the, the reason why you wanted to join for all of,

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you know, 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes but then it’s
just back to the grind, you know? Hating life.

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Just suckin’.

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This is boring as fuck.

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So, uh…

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here we are. Middle of
nowhere, Afghanistan.

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Uh… been out here about three days now.

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This sucks a lot.

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I expected climbing mountains and firefights
every day and staying out for days at a time.

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It really wasn’t anything like that.
You drive out to a village,

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find the local elder, mullah, whatever and the LT
asks him some questions, and then you drive back.

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Oh, look. There’s an IED.

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One-two. One-two, you okay?

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What the hell we were, you know, risking our fuckin’ necks for
driving across the desert, waiting for a buddy to get blown up

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just to go ask some old dude some
questions. Like, for what? You know?

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Patrolling the streets of… Where are we?

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We are in Tabin-eh Bulya.

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Tabin-eh… Whatever. Yeah. We’re in
Afghanistan. Great place. Lots of, uh…

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friendly people here wanting to kill us. Our
biggest fear is stepping on land mines.

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Yeah. Look at the ground. Or pressure
plates. We gotta walk around all day.

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Making sure we don’t hit any IEDs.

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We’ve been training to do one thing
all this time… counterguerilla stuff.

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And, you know, being a warrior and going kicking
ass. And then you get there, and we’re forced to go

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and help them and build them a
well, a school or whatever.

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To do any offensive operation you
needed the top fuckin’ signature from,

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you know, whoever big dog general
or President Karzai himself.

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You can’t shoot somebody because of this reason. You
can’t do it because of that reason. They blow you up,

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and you see them driving away.

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It was nothing like what everybody hyped
it to be. And part of that’s probably why,

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you know, things happened.

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[sil.]

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There are certain facts
that are not in dispute.

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You have dead guy. Two people

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within 15-20 meters pointing
their gun at this guy…

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unarmed civilian, and he’s dead.

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Why is that?

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So, we’ve got to walk a fairly close
line with the moral piece on this

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because he’s not totally clean-gloved.

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I guess I’m looking at it
from a different perspective.

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To somebody who’s looking at it in a vacuum

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they’ve got to decide, is it more likely
than not or beyond all reasonable doubt,

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that this guy on that day, knew what was
about to happen and participated willingly.

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And it sounds like he did under
one version of the story.

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It’s plausible. It’s possible.
Adam was there.

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He discharged his weapon. There are a lot of
witnesses that will corroborate that the only,

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the only distinction is: What was
in his brain at that moment?

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Was he a willing participant or not?

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We’re doing a battalion push on this village. And, I
mean, it wasn’t even 30 minutes in. Pulled up to town.

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Our squad leader hit an IED. And
I think it severed his left leg.

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I only got to see him in the hospital
before they flew him to Germany,

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and he was heavily sedated. He had his eyes
closed and we went up and we said you know,

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we apologize we couldn’t have been there, man. You
know, you’re a brother to us and we love you.\"

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Hey, you fuckin’ move.

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After that, we were down a guy.
We needed a new squad leader.

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And then it was a couple of weeks later,
I guess… that’s when Gibbs showed up.

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You know, we’d been in country a while and you’ve been training with each other for years
and you get a new guy. You’re like, \"All right. Who the fuck’s this guy, you know?\"

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I mean, you see him, you’re,
like, \"All right. Well, that’s,

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that’s the mold of an
infantryman right there.\"

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If the government was gonna push ‘em out on
an assembly line, that would be the guy.

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He was an infantry vet already. He’d already been in
Afghanistan and Iraq. He wasn’t afraid to change the tactics.

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Bring the fight to us versus going
looking for one that didn’t exist.

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Other squad leaders follow the rules to
a T. Gibbs was a much different story.

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Odds are, you work for him, you’re
probably gonna come back in one piece.

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Or you could work for the guy who follows the rules and get your
ass blown up. He never talked to me about what he did in Iraq.

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I did see his tattoos.

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He was sittin’ there, workin’ out and I was, like, \"Skulls.\" You know.
\"That’s cool. What does it mean?\" You know, I didn’t get an answer from him,

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but I asked someone else. They’re, like,
\"Oh, those are the dudes he’s killed.\"

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People outside this room

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are not our friends, not one.
We have to protect the zone.

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Nobody gets in the zone.
Nobody comes in this room.

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We don’t talk to anybody. They, they,
Nothing. Okay? They are on lockdown.

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It is a military justice system.
Unlike the civilian world

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where there are impartial
parties… the people that

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are accusing Adam of these very crimes are
in essence, the same people that determine

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who will hear the case, who will be the jury and
who will hand down the decision for sentencing.

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They are the judge and jury.

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Literally, judge and jury.
So, talking to any of them…

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even if they have a smile on their
face, means absolutely nothing.

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They’re all the enemy.

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And so we go into every meeting knowing

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that we’re fighting for his life.

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[sil.]

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Me and Gibbs spent a lot of time together on
the same truck for those first couple weeks.

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We were just getting to know each other and shooting
the shit. \"Hey, what was your last deployment like?\"

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He spoke specifically about one incident
I remember. Uh, when he was in Iraq,

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he was a SAW gunner. And, um, he was
crossing a road. I don’t know. And, um,

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a car was coming at him, didn’t
stop… so he opened up on the car,

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and it ended up being a family. I think, a
mother, father and a small child was killed.

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He could have stopped the vehicle or let them
go by and nothing would have came of it but

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he described it to me as, like, he was looking
for that opportunity for a while and had been.

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‘Cause that could have been something very easily turned
around and justified. You could easily justify that situation.

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They were charging. There was no one there to see
anything different. He was, like, \"Yeah, dude.

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I just said this and it was cool. No one
questioned it. You know, it was that easy.\"

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So, that was, like, the first step which ultimately
ended up leading into our own conversations about

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how we could maybe implement things in that
sort of same way. The first conversation was,

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it was based around the
idea of a drop weapon.

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I’ve always heard about people, you know
in Iraq or Afghanistan or whatnot when

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you find a weapon, you know, you hold
onto it in case you need it. In case,

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you know, some, you know, a
civilian gets hit, and you need to

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drop it on ‘em… so they’re not, you know, they don’t
look innocent. During one of our smoke sessions,

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Morlock brought up the fact that
he could get easy kills by, uh,

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setting people up. He just said he’d
been talking with Sergeant Gibbs,

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and he was telling him how he could get a
kill. Just buy a hand grenade off the books.

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That’s all you need. The idea he kind of pitched me was, like, \"Well,
hey, dude. I’ve got a couple extra grenades that aren’t being tracked.\"

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So, the idea, we could say, was
we were approached by a local,

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a bad guy, was what we’ll call
him and he approached us,

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we, he either threw the grenade at us or we noticed the grenade
in his hand and we detonate the grenade to make it look like

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this guy was attacking us and we had to take him out. Who
in their right mind’s gonna think that we made this up?

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You know what I mean. If we… I mean, it’s
a believable enough situation to where…

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who’s gonna question it, you know what I mean?
So, you’re just, like, \"Well, you’re right.

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Doesn’t sound, yeah. We could pull that off.\"
On our minds, we’d been here for months.

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And nobody’s innocent because these guys… either know the Taliban,
they’re either working with them and they’re not working with,

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or for us and we’re here to help ‘em,
and they don’t give us any help.

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We’re just getting blown up every time we go out there to, you
know, just talk with them or build them a well, so fuck ‘em.

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[sil.]

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Ever since I made my first
statement, it’s just been

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.999
fear of the guys from my platoon.
I get nightmares about that even,

00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.999
just them hunting me.

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.999
And it’s always back over there too.
It’s back in the theater.

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.999
It’s not, it’s never in the States.
It’s always, I’m always over there.

00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.999
In the last year, I felt kind of

00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.999
as the enemy of the platoon,
because I was one of the few to

00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.999
come clean and. And do you
die in these nightmares?

00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.999
You do? Mm-hmm. How do they kill you?
They blow me up, mostly.

00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.999
Normally, it involves a grenade.
Couple times,

00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.999
it’s been, like, blunt objects.

00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.999
And it’s just not ever even have a chance to
run from ‘em. It’s just… They always catch me.

00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.999
You know, I’ve said some incriminating
things about some of these guys…

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.999
and, you know, it’s not hard for me to believe
that they would wan some sort of retribution.

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
And that’s the worst part about it.

00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.999
The same people that I was been in fear of
the last year are also the same people that,

00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:39.999
you know, I’ve lived with
the last four years.

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.999
These people were my friends
and, at some point in time

00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.999
they were also willing to lay their
life down for me. And I, you know,

00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.999
I have to remember that.

00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.999
Specialist Winfield, do you understand that you are still under
rights advisement, as you were advised of your rights earlier.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
And you indicated that you
did not want an attorney.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
Before you went out on patrol

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
do you remember any discussion
ahead of time involving Sgt Gibbs?

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
Did he ever set a \"scenario?\" The only
scenario that really had been discussed

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
was just simple drop-weapon type stuff.
Did that ever happen to your knowledge?

00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
- Yes. A drop weapon? - Yes.

00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
Can you tell me when and where that may have happened?
The first time was in maybe January or February

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:40.000
in La’l Mohammad Kalay… there
was an incident with a grenade.

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
That day, you know,

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
we had our high-ups… on the top of the hill
talking to the village elder. Myself and, uh,

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
Holmes found ourself kind of secluded
from the majority of the platoon.

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
And uh, I said \"Hey, man. Let’s see if we can get one of
those guys over there. There’s a guy farming a field.\"

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
And so we talked about specifics.
What was gonna happen.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
\"Hey, this guy was coming towards us. We told him to stop. He didn’t
listen to our commands. Holmes identified something in his hand.

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
He thought it was a grenade. Threw
something at us, and so we engaged him…

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
and took cover behind the wall.\" And that’s what we talked
about. I’m standing back up, getting ready to look back over

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
and I have, you know, Morlock scream in
my ear, \"Grenade Holmes, shoot him!\"

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
Pulled the grenade, dropped it, got down. Yelled at Holmes,
\"Fire.\" Which, you know, seemed like a fuckin’ eternity.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
I had five seconds from the time
that pin falls off from the grenade

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
until it will explode. He let off a burst from the
SAW. I pulled his ass down. Grenade goes off.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
A lot of confusion, a lot of dust come
up, you know. I looked over to my left,

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
’cause that’s where Morlock was. He had his back against the wall.
He has his radio and he’s yelling. Um, he was telling everyone,

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
\"Contact. Contact. Contact.\"
I just heard, \"Contact,\"

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
and thought we got contact. Then, as soon as I heard
the description of what happened, it all clicked.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
That he just said that someone tried to
throw a hand grenade at him and Holmes

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
and they shot him. And that was the
same scenario he explained to me.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
And I look over and I ask him, you know, \"Do
we reengage?\" Do we get back up and, you know,

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
shoot the guy or whatnot? And, uh… Morlock didn’t answer
me. He just stood back up, looked over at the guy

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
who was on the ground… you know, pulled up
his M4 and just pop, pop, two more shots.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
He didn’t register as a person.
He wasn’t, he was just,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
you know, there.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
I was excited. Me and Holmes both kinda were.
I mean, like he said, it plays that whole…

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
you know, ideology of the infantry world.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
It was just like, \"Fuck. Right on, man.\"
We got a kill, whether, you know, it was…

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
we knew he was a bad guy or not. So they brought the father down,
the brother down. They said, \"Well, do you know this guy?\"

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
The guy goes, \"Yeah. That’s
my son.\" You know and, uh,

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
the brother’s sitting there and they
just they’re both just crying. You know.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
We then put him in a black body bag

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
and took him to the top of the village. And strapped
him down to the front of one of the Strykers

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
and we took him back to the, to the FOB.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
Jumped back in the truck. You know, we’re all
hyped up on all this freakin’ adrenaline…

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
and just not knowing what’s gonna happen next. And
we get back to the FOB and, you know, it was,

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
it was like I was looked
upon like a, like a hero.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
They were gettin’ all the applause. Everybody was,
you know, giving ‘em high fives and handshakes…

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
and, you know, telling ‘em
they’re, you know, made men…

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
and, you know, they’re the…
everyone needs to look up to them.

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
And, you know, I knew differently. And everybody
else knew differently too, but it was accepted.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
Anybody with half a brain can go \"Okay.
You guys set this guy up

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
to get shot. Whatever.\"

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
I didn’t care. And I remember we were smokin’,
we were high. And Morlock’s like, \"Man.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:20.000
You know, we straight murdered that dude.\"

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
Hello. Hello. This call is from a collection
facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
Hey. How you doing? All right.
How was your day?

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
It was okay. Was it? What’d you do today? Anything?
Did you get to go outside at all? Got back from rec.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
Did you? That’s good. We’re
probably thinking of

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
Mom coming out next Friday. What’s the
point? What do you mean, what’s the point?

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
I’m not getting out. Adam,
don’t start losing faith now.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
I mean, I know that you’re there day to day…
but, believe me, my heart breaks every day too.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
I know. And maybe I’m not confined,

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
but I am confined.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
When I joined the Marine
Corps, it was peacetime.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
It was, it was completely different. When Adam
came home and said he wanted to join the service,

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
we were in war. I had a couple
long talks with Adam about that.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
You know, he had pretty much
told us that… you know,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
\"I want your permission… but, you know, when I turn 18, I’m
gonna sign up anyway.\" If we made him wait until he was 18,

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
there was always gonna be that… \"They didn’t believe
in me and they didn’t think I could do this.\"

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
And I didn’t ever want Adam to feel
like we didn’t believe in him.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
When we flew out there and he said…

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
\"This is it. I’m going to Afghanistan.\"

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
I told him, \"Don’t be a hero.
Just do your job and come home.\"

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:13.000
[sil.]

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
Gibbs, like, a couple hours after we got back… is like, \"Hey, Holmes,
come check this out.\" So, I walked in the tent back to his room…

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
and he pulls out a little piece
of cloth inside of a bag

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
and he pulls out a finger and he’s like, \"This is from your
guy.\" His idea behind it was he was gonna take the fingers

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
and then let them decompose and then take the
bone and make a finger bone necklace out of it.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
And you’re, yeah, well, fuck, lookin’ at it… it’s
like, \"All right. That’s pretty fuckin’ crazy, dude.\"

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
But, at the same time, like, our mind-sets… are
not on the normal level of everybody else’s…

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
and so it was just like, I mean, war trophies
have been, you know, since the Bible.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
They cut Solomon’s head off. You know what I mean? So, it’s just like.
Then we’re there, and you’re seeing bluts and gore all the time.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
It’s war, and you’re just like, \"All right. Well,
whatever.\" I’m not gonna make a fuckin’ bone necklace…

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
but if you want one, man, whatever. That’s cool. It’s your fuckin’
thing. Go for it. I just thought, \"What happened to these guys?

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
What happened to the guys that I knew?
Why are they all okay with this?

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
Why isn’t anyone stepping up? Like,

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
why am I the only one that’s not
okay with this? Why is it just me?\"

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:38.000
[music]

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
Adam had to actually tell
me in the Facebook chat…

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
\"Don’t you understand what I’m saying?
That they’re killing people here…

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
that are innocent.\" I
had to do a double take

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
and it just was like, \"Whew.\"

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
It was, like, uh…

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
a rush just came over me. Just…

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:23.000
[sil.]

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
The only thing I could think
of was… he was, like,

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:35.000
8,000 miles away… and there
was nothing I could do.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
I couldn’t take any more.

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
I wanted to tell somebody what
was going on. I didn’t have

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
access to the MPs. If I told someone…

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
in the chain of command, it would come right back…
‘cause that’s how things are in the infantry.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
We tend to handle things in house.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
I felt like I had nowhere to go in the platoon.
Everybody was on Sergeant Gibbs’ side,

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
and he had their loyalty. So, it’s my word

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
against 30 other guys.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
Someone had told us that Winfield was gonna go out and
talk to the chaplain ‘cause he was having, uh, issues.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
I can tell the chaplain. He’s not
gonna fail me. He’s the chaplain.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
And, uh… before I went over
there to talk to the chaplain,

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
Sergeant Gibbs escorted me. As we’re walking down there,
he says \"You’re not thinking about saying anything

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
that you shouldn’t be talking about, are you?\"
So, Gibbs, I don’t even know when it took place.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
You know, brought up the idea, kinda like… \"Hey. man, Winfield
might be a liability. I might have to take that guy out.\"

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
I go, \"What the fuck you talkin’ about,
man?\" He says, \"Well, you know, he knows

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
a lot of stuff about what’s going on and what
we’ve done and, you know, it’s too easy.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
\"What are you, What do you mean, it’s
too easy?\" And he says we could…

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
We could take him to the gym, drop a weight
on his head. We can drop a tow bar on him,

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
so he’ll go away. Did you think
he was serious about discussions

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
about he may have to take out Winfield?
Oh, fuck yeah. For sure. Definitely.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
So you didn’t take that as a joke

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
or maybe it was just bullshit
or he was just talking?

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
Gibbs doesn’t bullshit. I asked Morlock about
it a few times. \"Hey, man, what’s going on?

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
Are you guys plottin’ on me or something?\"
And he even told me straight up,\" Yeah.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
You know, we’re thinkin’ about doing
something to you. Don’t know what,

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
but something, definitely.\"

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
Okay. So you got safety on… on white.
Mm-hmm.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
Flip it up to red. You’re ready to go.
Mm-hmm. Okay?

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:53.000
[sil.]

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
You know, this has become a big story in the press and
we had people standing at our front door with cameras.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
We had people following us everywhere
I went. You know, you get people that

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
think the worst of everything… and they, you
know, they hear \"Oh, he’s arrested for murder,

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
then he must be guilty.\" Three. How
many can you put in there? Eleven.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
We have had some threats. I mean,
not in so many words… but you know,

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
you could read between the lines that \"we know where you live,
we know your address.\" And I have to protect my family.

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
It’s a 9mm Ruger.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
I have it sitting by the bedside, loaded and
ready to go. We don’t want to be caught

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:45.000
with our guard down.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
So, I started making phone calls. I
didn’t know who to call. I was getting

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
voice mail everywhere I called, for the
most part. Um, and I was leaving messages

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
hoping somebody would call me back. I thought about, you
know, what I would have to do if they came after me

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
in the middle of the night. I
kept a gun always around me

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
and, you know, a knife on me handy and
stuff like that and always looked over

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
my shoulder all the time. I was frantic.
I was just, I was just panicking.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
I was loud. I was, \"Please call me back.\" I mean,
there was stress in my voice, and I and, you know,

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
I was just, I did not, I was scrambling.
I didn’t know who to call.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
Gibbs just seemed like he was recruiting more
people to this kill team idea, basically.

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
I, you know, I see other squad leaders,
other soldiers going up to Sergeant Gibbs…

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
\"Hey, man, you gotta get me a kill. You gotta
help me get something.\" And he’d be, like,

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
\"Just tell me when.\" I called the army.
Called the army hotline. I called,

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
um, Army C.I.D. in Virginia…
the main C.I.D. office.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
I called the C.I.D. office in Fort. I kept calling, I kept calling,
I kept calling numbers. I called Senator Bill Nelson’s office.

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
Figured somebody would definitely be there at the army chaplain’s office at
Fort Lewis. Chaplain and the assistant chaplain. I called both, got messages,

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
voice messages on both of ‘em. Sergeant Gibbs,
the whole time, he was talking shit to me

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
calling me a pussy and this and that.
Saying, you know, I should be down to kill.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
They’re all savages. And, you know, they’re pieces of shit. They’re
not worth anything. And that was just everyone’s attitude, really.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
I finally got a hold of somebody
at Fort Lewis at the, at the,

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
at the Command Center and I
told the guy the whole story.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
And the guy said, \"Nothin’ I can do about it.
It’s your son’s word against everybody else’s.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
Unless somebody else comes out and says the same
story then I can’t do anything.\" And I expected,

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
within a few days someone to just come grab
me in the middle of the night and say,

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
\"Hey. Come with us. It’s over. You’re
safe.\" And then it never happened.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
[sil.]

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
This is another option on the table. I think
this is the realest and most truest option.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
There’s been talk of a plea deal.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
My lawyer is trying to talk the charge
down. That it’s not, I’m not guilty

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
of first-degree murder. Don’t get visceral
on me, just hear what I’m saying. Okay?

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
Cowardly conduct. Okay? \"That the accused
committed an act of cowardice.\" Okay?

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
In this scenario, you didn’t stop them

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
from doing something bad. Mm-hmm. Okay?
‘Cause you were scared. \"Conduct is cowardly

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
only if it amounts to misbehaviour which was
motivated by fear. A mere display of apprehension

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
is not sufficient. Cowardly conduct is the refusal
or abandonment of the performance of duty

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
before or in the presence of the
enemy as a result of fear.\" Okay?

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
Well, the enemy in this case was not only
the Taliban man, but it was also Gibbs.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
I mean, the guy was continuing
to threaten to kill you.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
What’s the… What are you looking at?

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
I mean, I get the misbehaviour before the
enemy, cowardly conduct charge. Mm-hmm.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
What are you looking for as
the cap to… Eight years.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
[sil.]

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:53.000
[music]

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
Time went on, and the second murder happened which,
at first, I didn’t even know it was a murder again.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
I thought this was a real engagement.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
I heard Morlock and Sergeant Gibbs joking
and talking about it. And I found out

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
what really happened. Set up a kill
with an AK. Shot a dude, just,

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:25.000
you know, in cold blood. Dropped the AK
next to him and said it was a legit shoot.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
It seemed like everything was
falling apart… just from the seams.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
My whole unit, my whole, just, concept of

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
the military and honor and
integrity and just, you know,

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
the image you get from a
soldier what you would expect

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
a soldier to be. About to show you
what Apaches do to fuckin’ bodies.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
All right?

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
It’s a good shoot. He’s
dead as a motherfucker.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
Word.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
Don’t show ‘em that shit, man.
Everybody had their own cameras.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
Take a picture of your little combat experience. Sure. Why the hell
not? You sit down with all your squad leaders and, you know, other guys

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
and they all bust out their DVDs and discs
of their prior deployments… and, you know,

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
\"Hey, look at these dead guys we
killed here.\" Death and dead bodies…

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:35.000
and bluts and gore, and, you know, that thing. You
get taught to be the norm and be okay with it.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
It was just that I was pissed at everything.
I was pissed at the whole situation. Just…

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
What is… Just… What’s
the point of all this?

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
And the thing that really got me was

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
from other stories I’ve heard from people from other
units. I knew that this stuff happens more than…

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Well, I knew that it was happening
really more than people were letting on.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
If I were to do it all over again, I would probably have kept
calling but it’s easy to say that now as I’m sitting here.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
At the time, I was just worried
what is If I continue to do this,

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
am I gonna get my son killed?
It was, it was probably

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
the most difficult decision I have ever had
to make in my life. You know, he only had

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
a couple more months and he would be home,
and we would report it and he would be safe.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
And it just didn’t turn out that way.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:48.000
[music]

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
Adam used to go in my closet and put on my uniform on.
He would always look through my Marine Corps books.

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
Essentlals of a Marine. You know Adam
probably read that book 50 times.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
Before he was supposed to ship off to
boot camp, he was about 100 pounds.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
He was too light, so they picked
up a gallon of water before they

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
went in there and they made him drink it and said, \"Don’t pee until
you get weighed.\" So I just kind of stepped on the scale real fast

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
and got off and went to the
bathroom and threw it up.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
But you know, I was, I was really motivated
to get in. And he’s putting a pack

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
that weighs 80 pounds on his body. It’s, you know, almost
heavier than him. So, you know, he had a lot, he had a

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
huge uphill battle to climb. See him, you’re, like, ah,
there’s no… That guy’s in the infantry? No fuckin’ way,

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
you know what I mean? But he’s got heart.
If we were rockin’ 20 miles,

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
he’s rockin’ 20 miles. You’d run into some guy and \"Oh, he’s not infantry.
Look at that scrawny little bastard.\" You could go up to him and be, like,

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
\"Hey, listen, motherfucker. He’s probably the most
squared-away, bad-ass infantryman I fuckin’ know.\"

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
[sil.]

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
It just sounds heinous. It just sounds,

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
you know, manslaughter
just sounds horrible.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
Just came from the prosecutor. They came
back with… This is what they are offering.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
Involuntary manslaughter.
They’re saying he failed to act

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
when he could have acted. What they expect him
to have done, I still don’t quite understand.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
I don’t know how Adam’s gonna react to that. What
do you think he’s gonna say? Maybe, in his mind,

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
it would be better to do involuntary
manslaughter than cowardice.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
I don’t know. I don’t know.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
The whole thing sucks. Bottom line. Yeah.
They just still want to say…

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
\"Well, see, we got him and he was the bad
guy.\" I think that’s a bunch of crap.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
They still have to try to get him for eight years to
make it look good? I’ve been saying that same thing.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
You know, at this point

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
we don’t have a choice.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
He’s being forced to make
another decision that…

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
isn’t right…

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
no matter what he chooses. Again.

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
[sil.]

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:28.000
[music]

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
Going on leave is probably

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
one of the worst parts of deployment ‘cause you
go home, and you want everything to be normal.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
But nothing’s normal. You’re angry and
you’re pissed off. I mean, you know,

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
you surround yourself by people that love you and
care about you but you don’t know how to deal

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
with their emotions ‘cause you don’t have a grasp
on your own, and it was just… I don’t know.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
It all weighed on me. I actually spent
some time thinking about it quite a bit.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
Who I would tell. Would I talk to my
girlfriend or my brother or my mom?

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
But how do you tell somebody something like that, you
know? And so, I don’t know. I did what most guys do.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
Or, you know, most fuckin’ macho. I just
turned it inward. You know what I mean?

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
I’ve never been a guy that’s been really good with emotion
to begin with… and so I did what I always did, you know?

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
Buried… Buried it and
fuckin’ powered through it.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
So, I got back, I think, sometime
early, early April… and then, you know,

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
instantly, I mean, not even a day or an
hour, I literally got off the Black Hawk

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
and made my way to my room and ran straight into Gibbs. \"Hey,
look at all the fuckin’ goodies I got while you were gone.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
And soon as I get back from patrol, I’ll tell you all the
cool shit you missed while you were gone,\" you know?

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
It was right there, right back into it.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
[music]

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
As long as they have,

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
you know, open season on whatever sentence the
case they want to put the worst he’s going to get,

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
regardless of the facts, is eight years. That’s
what the government’s saying. The worst.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
So, what, what the hell matters is the
charge. I can’t reconcile with the fact

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
that they won’t move off this eight
regardless of what the charge is.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
When that’s what Morlock got for murdering
people. And I’m not saying that

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
Adam was innocent and that he made every
single right decision… but I also know

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
that on January 20th, he e-mailed
us… as early as January 20…

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
saying, \"There’s something I
need to talk to you about.\"

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
And then February comes. Oh, well, you know
what? Just suck it up. Suck it up and be a man.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
Gibbs is, what, a
200-and-something-pound man?

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
This is the ultimate case of bullying…
and I can’t reconcile with the fact

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
that they’re just gonna say… \"Well, let’s give him
eight years.\" The government can excuse themselves

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
from all of the missteps they made.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
But let’s get, let’s get, in your own words…
let’s get our pound of flesh from Adam Winfield…

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
even though, of all the people out there…
he was the only one that did anything.

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
I-I-I have a problem with that.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
And I guess ultimately, it’s not my issue.
It’s Adam’s issue.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
But I have a problem with that, ‘cause, to me,
that’s not justice. The army still has my son…

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
and unless we do what they
say, I never get him back.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
Listen, I know you’re a mom.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
I know that’s your child. I’m tracking
on all that. But you are the only mom

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
in the world to him. To
everybody else, he’s a soldier.

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
[sil.]

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
So, what do you think?

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
Fine. I don’t really
have a problem with it.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
Are you sure?

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
’Cause ultimately, worst-case scenario…
everything falls apart, it’s eight years.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
And I don’t want you to feel like

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
we’re giving up on you.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:58.000
[music]

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
Why are we making this deal?

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
What else are we gonna do, Emma? We
don’t have a choice. Do we go to trial?

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
No. We can’t. I don’t know, Chris.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
I just feel like in some ways… we’re
just leading him to the slaughter.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
I should have done more. I shouldn’t
have accepted the answer that I got.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
I’ve been thinking about
that for a long time.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
It’s always on my mind.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
And we wouldn’t be standing here right
now if I’d done something more.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:48.000
[sil.]

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
March went by,

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
April went by, and you know, we’re coming up
to the end. We got maybe one more big mission.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
I knew Sergeant Gibbs had a lot of stuff planned.
If I could just hold out two more months till

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
June, July, and it’s all over.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
The task on that day was to go

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
re-engage an individual that had been arrested while I
was on leave. They found an ID or something in his house

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
so the PO wanted to check him out and see what he’s
up to. Me and Winfield ended up leaving that compound

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
and then making our way towards an adjacent
compound that’s kind of attached to it.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
And then we ended up running
into an individual,

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
a local there. Sergeant Gibbs was coming around
the other side. He had a few other guys with him.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
Most of the guys that were with him kind of had
an idea of what’s going on, what you know,

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
these sort of scenario things that had
been taking place. Umm… and then…

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
So, there wasn’t a whole lot of conversation. Sgt Gibbs
asked us, \"is this the guy?\" \"You want to do him?\"

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
What do you mean, \"do him?\" Kill him.
I knew right then

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
and there that I couldn’t kill an innocent person. I
couldn’t shoot an innocent man just in cold blood.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have it. I
didn’t have any drive or want to do it.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t
want that situation. I wanted to get up and just run.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
Sergeant Gibbs started you know,
telling us how things were gonna go.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
Saying, you know, \"We’re gonna set this up to make it
look like we’re doing a movement and this guy came out

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
and attacked us when we were passing through.
\"\" We saw a grenade. We had to shoot him.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
And that’s, you know, that’s the way it’ll play out.\"
My heart started going a thousand miles a minute.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
Just, just started getting nervous.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
My muscles started to twitch.
Just… I just froze.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
We were laying right next to each other,
so I you know kinda talked him through it…

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
speaking in his ear, letting him know, \"Hey, yeah.
Nothing to worry about, man. It’s too easy.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
We’ve done it before. You got nothing to worry about.
Stick to the story, and just get it over with.\"

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
I can stand up and shoot Gibbs and Morlock.

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
But shooting one of our own
guys over, in their opinion,

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
over a worthless Afghan? Reason
to show me absolutely no mercy.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
I fired a couple shots off

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
after the grenade blew up.
I didn’t aim at him.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
I didn’t, I just, I drew
my weapon away from him.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
After the dust settled from the
explosion… Sergeant Gibbs walked up

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
and, uh… smile on his face and he
just shot the guy two more times.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
Then he said, \"Hey. Come take a
picture with me with the body.\"

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
And he told me that I was a made man and I didn’t
have anything to worry about from him ever again.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:58.000
[music]

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
What, what, what just happened? How did I
get in? I was doing fine just avoiding it,

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
and now I’m in it.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
His face is… I can’t forget his face.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
Yeah. It’s his dead face. His head just…

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
you know, with shrapnel, and it’s so swollen.
I just see it staring at me all the time.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
Like whenever I think about it.
And that scream from that woman.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
I’d never heard anything like it before. I’ve
never heard such sheer just grief. Yeah.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
[sil.]

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
And that’s, I’d say,

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
the hardest part to live with is that.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
[sil.]

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
And just the smile on his face
when he shot that guy again.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
Gibbs’s smile on his face? Yeah. It
just… He was pleased. He was happy.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
He just had this huge smile, a grin. And
just looked straight at me, smiling.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
Oh. And then I just… The thought
that I know he would have

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
the same smile if he did it to me.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:28.000
[sil.]

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:38.000
[music]

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
I’m living a nightmare right now.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
If I don’t take sleeping
medicine, I, I’m… You know,

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
I have nightmares. I fight, I gotta fight
this, this evil monster in my dreams.

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
A lot of times, I don’t remember what they
are. I just know that they’re violent.

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
I’ll jump up and I’ll try to get something
or grab it or stop it from coming.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
And I’ve actually physically fell out
of bed a couple times doing that.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
I worry about Chris.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
Um, I think he’s dealing with…

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
maybe some guilt. Did I raise him right? You know,
did I… Should I have let him go in the army?

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
Should I have continued to pursue it?
You know, that… It’s…

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
You know, he’s a great father.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
And when your son comes
to you and asks for help…

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
and you’re not able to help him.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
We tried to do the right thing, and…

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
it still wasn’t good enough.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:08.000
[sil.]

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
We only had a couple months left deployment. We’re
safe from here on out. The lid’s on everything

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
and the stories were in line and we’ve got nothing
to worry about. And that’s when the whole

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
incident with Stoner arose. You want to
go ahead and start from the beginning

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
when you got to the FOB and when everything kind of started? You want
to start with the drug use? Stoner went and expressed his concern

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
about guys in his platoon
smoking hash which led

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
to him getting beat up. Why would you get
stoned in my room? Why would you do that?

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
The shit reeked. And who are
they gonna blame? The private.

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
You got called into SGT Gibbs’ room?
Yeah, roger.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
What was the basis of that conversation?
Basically, I mean…

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
there was a bunch of conversation going on. But the
end statement from Gibbs was: snitches get stiches.

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
And I heard the knock on the door, so
I, I just opened it and let them in.

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.999
I knew it was coming. I knew what was gonna
happen. He said some cheese dick line like,

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.999
\"I understand you guys are here to beat my
ass. Go ahead and… Go ahead and do it.\"

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:29.999
So after that, it was just, like, \"All right.\" My entire goal the entire
time was just don’t give ‘em the pleasure of letting ‘em know it hurts.

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.999
I’m just sitting here
and I’m gonna take it,

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.999
and I’m just gonna deal with it. But you’re
the weak ones for snapping like this.

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.999
Now we got an issue, ‘cause he’s
rattin’ us about fuckin’ hash.

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:49.999
You know, what else is he rattin’ us about?
Gibbs was very polite, actually.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:54.999
He was almost like a
crazy, happy, nice person.

00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:59.999
Umm… he explained to me, you know,
\"You understand why we did that.\"

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.999
I got involved in quite a bit of that conversation. I just let Stoner know, \"Hey dude…\"
\"…if you don’t keep your mouth shut from now on…\" \"it’s pretty apparent that Gibbs here…\"

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.999
\"…can kill people. Has killed
people…\" \"…and is pretty willing

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.999
to do it if he has to.\" Gibbs
went so far as to tell me…

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:19.999
\"We could stick you in a Hesco barrier and
kill you. You know, no one will ever find you.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:24.999
Fill you in with dirt. No big deal. Or
take you out on a mission. Kill you.

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:29.999
No one would ever know the difference.\"
He wanted to prove his point…

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:34.999
by rolling out the guy’s fingers which
were his war trophies you know,

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:39.999
out on the floor. The next day, an
acquaintance of mine down… a medic down

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:44.999
at the aid station. I was going down there for
some shit. She’s like, \"Stoner was just down here

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:53.000
and saw our major and they were all super-secretive
and shit.\" They took me into his personal tent

00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:04.999
to talk to me about everything that had happened.
It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:09.999
I’d just gotten my ass whupped. And
of course, he just immediately

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:14.999
contacts the guy higher than him and it
just goes higher and higher and higher.

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:19.999
When C.I.D. got involved, they, uh,

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:24.999
started asking other questions. The one
thing I did know about was the body parts.

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:29.999
Once that was said, that opened
up the door to everything.

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:34.999
Five US soldiers stand
accused of shocking crimes…

00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:39.999
that include murdering Afghans for sport. Today
near Seattle, the alleged ringleader of…

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:44.999
You know, the story’s out. They got
Gibbs locked up. Morlock’s locked up.

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:49.999
Umm…… they brought everybody else in. And so, initially,
we were, like, \"Okay. Good. So, it’s out there.

00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:54.999
He’s safe.\" The Army C.I.D.
people came here,

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:59.999
and they told us, you know we asked them, \"Does Adam need
a lawyer?\" They said, \"No, he shouldn’t need a lawyer.\"

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:04.999
It was really from the direction
of Adam that had said

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:09.999
\"You can call my parents. Go talk to my parents.
I told them about this back in February.\"

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:14.999
\"He’s fine. He’s just… He’s… He’s the
witness here. He’s the main witness.

00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:19.999
Everything’s gonna be okay.\" I was relieved,
you know? A huge weight just got lifted.

00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:24.999
I finally got to express everything…

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.999
and really tell somebody about what I’d been wanting
to say for the last, like, six months, almost.

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:34.999
They told me that I was gonna help them
with their case against Sergeant Gibbs.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:39.999
That they’re not coming after me. But they
lied to me. You thought they had lied to you?

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:44.999
Yeah. They, they, they just tricked me.

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:49.999
I was at work, and, um…

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:54.999
Emma… Emma called me. She said that the
commander at the base had called her

00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:59.999
and told them that Adam had been
charged with first-degree murder.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:04.999
And she was… Emma was hysteric,
and I was just, like, \"What?\"

00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:09.999
I mean, \"What? What…\" I was stunned.
I mean, I… I was stunned.

00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:14.999
I mean, I… I, like, lost it.
I was just… I, like…

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:19.999
I started hyperventilating. I fell on the floor.
You know, I was, like… I couldn’t believe it.

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:24.999
I almost killed myself that night.
I was, like,

00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:29.999
\"I’m gonna do it tonight for
sure.\" Tonight’s the night.

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:34.999
Just kept thinking about it. I was having
panic attacks the whole night and,

00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:39.999
um…

00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:44.999
I was sitting at the desk, and I had
an M4 sitting right next to me.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:49.999
I loaded it. It was ready to go. I
had one in the chamber already.

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:54.999
Um, and I was getting
ready to write a note.

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:59.999
To whom? Uh… my parents.
Apologizing for everything.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:04.999
Sorry for leaving this way,

01:00:05.000 --> 01:00:09.999
and… So, um… As I was
looking for some paper

01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:14.999
and a pen to write… I actually
found a Bible instead.

01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:19.999
Started reading that. Started praying.

01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:24.999
Started crying and asking
God for forgiveness, and…

01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:29.999
I just kept reading the Bible.

01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:34.999
And it said something about your… You’ll be brought
before kings and the judges in the synagogues

01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:39.999
and judged but, um…

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:44.999
if you stay faithful and
suffer for my sake then

01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:49.999
I’ll be with you. So, I just…

01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:54.999
I just kept praying all morning.
Unloaded the weapon

01:00:55.000 --> 01:00:59.999
and put it back.

01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:08.000
[music]

01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:19.999
He smiled at everything.

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:24.999
Just talked a thousand miles an hour.
He was, like,

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:29.999
the happy-go-lucky kid.

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:34.999
You know, a mom, a dad, a house,

01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:39.999
jobs, three kids…This is what we hoped for.
This is what

01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:44.999
every American family hopes for.
And we had it.

01:01:45.000 --> 01:01:49.999
He reads all the history books and he reads
all about these great American patriots

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:54.999
and how heroic they were.

01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:59.999
He wanted to prove to himself that
he could do something like that.

01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:08.000
[sil.]

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:19.999
[music]

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.999
The trial’s finally here.
I’m pleading guilty to

01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:29.999
involuntary manslaughter. My other charges…

01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:34.999
of premeditated murder and
conspiracy are being dropped.

01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:39.999
The army is just wanting to, you know, make this
all go away and they’re trying to drop it down

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:44.999
to the lowest common denominator. You know they want the
lowest guys to pay for it. There’s nobody been charged.

01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.999
You know, staff sergeant or below, and that’s it. There’s
no officers have any responsibility for anything.

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:54.999
[music]

01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:59.999
It’s huge. This thing is big.

01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:04.999
It’s bigger than Adam. It’s bigger than me.
It’s bigger than everybody right now.

01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:09.999
Best-case scenario, umm… the
judge awards me time served

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:14.999
and I’d walk out with my family that day.
Worst case,

01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:19.999
I get an eight-year sentence. If Adam
would have went to somebody out there,

01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:24.999
he would have been dead. He would have came home in a body bag
if we were lucky. ‘Cause, you know, Gibbs had threatened him

01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:29.999
that he would cut him up in a million pieces
and throw him to the wild dog packs out there

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:34.999
and nobody would ever find him. The only remnants he
would have would be Adam’s finger on his necklace

01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:39.999
that he was making of body parts.

01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:44.999
It’s all about getting that first
kill and going home with a mark

01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:49.999
that says you killed somebody. You get
the badge that says you been over there

01:03:50.000 --> 01:03:54.999
and that you fought in a war and that’s what
they’re all shooting for, regardless if it’s

01:03:55.000 --> 01:03:59.999
legitimate or not. And it’s just ridic…
It just makes me sick to my stomach.

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:04.999
[music]

01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:09.999
Part of my job over there
was to protect civilians.

01:04:10.000 --> 01:04:14.999
I had a responsibility to put
a stop to what was going on.

01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:19.999
You know, I feel… You know, I am guilty.

01:04:20.000 --> 01:04:24.999
[music]

01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:29.999
Adam’s a pawn in the big picture,
is what he was. He was stuck

01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:34.999
in the middle of nowhere. He had the
Taliban shooting at him on one side.

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:39.999
He had his own guys threatening to kill him if he
didn’t… if he said anything on his other side.

01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:44.999
He had guns pointed at him in both
directions. What do you do? What do you do?

01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:53.000
[sil.]

01:04:55.000 --> 01:04:59.999
It’ll be the first time I’ve seen you in those.
I’ve never seen you in your dress blues.

01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:04.999
No. It’s the second time
I’ve actually worn them. So…

01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:09.999
Will you, will you have to wear
those for the rest of the trials?

01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:14.999
No. Okay. It depends on what happens

01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:19.999
and if I’m still in whatever
I’m wearing in the jail.

01:05:20.000 --> 01:05:24.999
All right.

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:29.999
After tomorrow, no matter what…

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:34.999
either he’s out, or we can circle
a date on a calendar and say…

01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:39.999
we have X number of days till you’re home.
We have one less day until you’re home.

01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:44.999
And I think that’s huge for
him that he can at least say…

01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:49.999
it’s gonna be over. He said… He told me
he doesn’t expect to walk away tomorrow

01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:54.999
but we’ll see.

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:59.999
I sure would like him to.

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:04.999
[sil.]

01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:13.000
[music]

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:24.999
Take two, three deep breaths, and then
just go into what you’re gonna say.

01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:29.999
And just keep that in mind and keep an image and
then you might want to look at your parents.

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:34.999
Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay?

01:06:35.000 --> 01:06:39.999
Don’t give up. Promise me
that, all right? I won’t.

01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:44.999
Things are gonna be okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.

01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:49.999
All rise.

01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:54.999
Specialist Winfield
understood on May 2, 2010

01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:59.999
that they were blowing up an innocent man.

01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:04.999
He could have made a scene that day. He could have
done anything. What does Specialist Winfield do?

01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:09.999
Nothing.

01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:14.999
He had the opportunity over and over and
over again to ensure he did the right thing.

01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:19.999
And he himself told you he failed.

01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:24.999
And that failure had
catastrophic consequences.

01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:29.999
Sir, not protecting

01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:34.999
that man was…

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:39.999
It’s haunted me for the last year now. And…

01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:44.999
I just want to go home, sir. Sorry.

01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:49.999
Specialist Adam Christopher Winfield

01:07:50.000 --> 01:07:54.999
this court-martial sentences
you to be confined

01:07:55.000 --> 01:07:59.999
for three years and to be discharged from
the army with a bad conduct discharge.

01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.999
I’m all right.

01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:09.999
I can do this.

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.999
I’m sorry we didn’t protect you. It’s okay.

01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:19.999
Mom. Hey. He got three years.

01:08:20.000 --> 01:08:24.999
Three years. And a bad conduct discharge.

01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:29.999
Are you okay? Are you okay? I’m fine.

01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:34.999
Just promise me you’re not gonna do anything to
yourself. I’m not gonna do anything. Okay? Good.

01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:39.999
I was proud of you today. So was I.
You’re stronger than me.

01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:44.999
I’ve already been through
the worst of this.

01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:49.999
It’s over right now. It doesn’t
matter what… You know what?

01:08:50.000 --> 01:08:54.999
They can’t do anything else to you.
It’s over. Exactly. It’s all done.

01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:59.999
It’s all over.

01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:08.000
[music]

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:19.999
I find myself thinking sometimes

01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:24.999
how are you gonna tell this story later on?

01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.999
Somebody told me a way to look at it
is it’s not that you’re a murderer.

01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:34.999
You were convicted of murder.

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:39.999
Pretty much initially after the
first incident it was, like,

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:44.999
\"Fuck, welcome to the club, Morlock.\"
You know? \"You’re a grown-ass man now.\"

01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:49.999
And that’s what every infantryman’s looking for.
They’re looking to be… to fulfill their job.

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:54.999
To fulfill, you know, the way of life
of an infantryman. And so, I mean…

01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:59.999
Your superiors, in a way, kind of become your father
figures. They become the guys that you most want to impress

01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:05.000
and this was a way to do it.

01:10:10.000 --> 01:10:14.999
[music]

01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:19.999
I was 19. Fresh out of high school.
I thought I knew everything

01:10:20.000 --> 01:10:24.999
that there was to know… but,
man, I was really, really wrong.

01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:29.999
I didn’t know who to talk to, you know? I didn’t
know what to say. I didn’t know what to think.

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.999
’Cause these were the guys that I was walking into combat.
I was doing patrols with these guys, and I didn’t want to…

01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:40.000
I didn’t want them to, you
know, think different of me.

01:10:55.000 --> 01:10:59.999
[music]

01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:04.999
We’re training you from the day you
join to the day you’re out to kill.

01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:09.999
Your job is to kill. You’re infantry.
Your job is to kill everything

01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:14.999
that gets in your way. Well, then why

01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:20.000
the hell are you pissed off when we do it?

01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:34.999
I never want to be referred
to as a whistle-blower…

01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:39.999
’cause it’s worse than what they’re
being portrayed as. If I could go back,

01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:44.999
I wouldn’t have said anything.

01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:49.999
Everything we did was put into the media
as we’re horrible, we’re the Kill Team…

01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:54.999
we’re rogue platoon, we’re all these things.
I don’t care what the military wants to say…

01:11:55.000 --> 01:11:59.999
but this goes on more than just us.
We’re just the ones that got caught.

01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:04.999
There was no way for me
not to be a part of it.

01:12:05.000 --> 01:12:09.999
There’s no way not to
be surrounded by Gibbs.

01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:14.999
There’s no way not to be pressured into
these things. The constant pressure

01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:19.999
of having to kill and then the risk of being
killed yourself… It was impossible not

01:12:20.000 --> 01:12:24.999
to surrender to the insanity of it all.

01:12:25.000 --> 01:12:33.000
[music]

01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:39.999
I think about it a lot.

01:12:40.000 --> 01:12:44.999
The war. All the stuff that the
guys in my platoon were doing.

01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:49.999
I never understood it. I…
Even now, I don’t understand.

01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:54.999
I just… I don’t know. I’ll
never understand, I guess.

01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:59.999
[music]

01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:04.999
War is dirty.

01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:09.999
It’s not how they portray it in the
movies where, you know… there’s just a

01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:14.999
bunch of honorable men…

01:13:15.000 --> 01:13:19.999
with, you know, unshakable patriotism.

01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:24.999
It’s just a bunch of guys with guns.

01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:29.999
How would you describe that? The incident?
Just the incident and how you felt from it.

01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:34.999
It was pretty much the worst thing I’ve ever
done in my life. I took a man from his family.

01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:39.999
And I don’t know if was my
bullets that killed him

01:13:40.000 --> 01:13:44.999
or the grenade that killed him.
But I was still part of it.

01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:49.999
And I wish that

01:13:50.000 --> 01:13:54.999
I could fix it.

01:13:55.000 --> 01:13:59.999
And I wish… I don’t know.

01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:04.999
I wish that none of that
had to happen to them.

01:14:05.000 --> 01:14:09.999
Umm…

01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:14.999
And I wish I could tell them that myself.

01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:23.000
[music]

01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:18.000
[music]

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The Kill Team

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