(upbeat rock music) - All right, welcome to day one at 2:40.

Throughout this journey, I will be your studly guide, Jake Wallace, soldier of the apocalypse.

- Handicam.

- This right here is documentation for our future fucking Marines.

(soldiers screaming) And for my lady back home.

- [Soldier] Who's already fucking someone else.

- Ashley, I don't blame you for moving on, girl.

- [Soldier] You'll miss these guns.

Looking like a Vienna sausage in there.

- I've seen it in the shower.

- It was small.

- A little fun size.

- All right, all right, all right.

- [Pat] What are you most excited about?

- I think it's the camel spiders, but I also love the MREs, give you the shits.

- Oh, I'm just looking for some peace and quiet.

- [Soldier 2] Peace and quiet, motherfucker.

You ain't gotta got no peace.

- Don't worry, there will be no peace on my end.

- [Pat] Okay, what are you most excited about?

- Well, Pat, I'm glad you asked.

See fellas, I'm a simple man.

I'm just out for some adventure.

Wanna hunt me some Afghans.

- Yeah, a little DM Ford.

(object popping) (fingers snapping) (gentle music) - All right, y'all.

This one right here is real special to me.

I've known this dude for a good minute now.

Pat's a combat marine who fought overseas.

Pat fought against the Taliban in Marjah, Afghanistan.

His unit saw more combat than 90% of the soldiers in Afghanistan.

And he's here tonight to share with us in the language we all know and love.

(fingers snapping) - Uncle Sam wants you.

(gentle music) He wasn't pointing at you.

He was pointing at me.

A confused little boy unable to see, crying for his mother, begging to be free.

Free from what, you ask.

- [Radio] Tuesday, 9:47 AM.

(radio beeping) - [Speaker] Ernie, listen to me.

I'm stuck in this building and there's smoke and it's getting hard to breathe.

I want you to know that I love you.

(person gasping) Please tell that I love.

(people screaming) - [Man] Oh my God.

- Guilt, this family we had proudly built, consumed by cowards, crashing into towers, incinerating families, our hearts have devoured, but those motherfuckers cannot take our power.

So we load up our guns and listen the earliest hour.

18 with a dream to take the souls of the men that made us winterscreen.

(bombs banging) Begging for her life, I make them beg for theirs.

No joy in that I come to find.

The joy is in the unity of towing the line.

This brotherhood, this closer than close family, I can finally call mine.

(guns banging) (gentle music) I ask you honestly, what's worse?

Losing the ones you go off to fight for or losing brothers you forge in the Marine Corps?

Those you promised you'd bring home.

Protect the man to your left and to your right, they said, but you fail and he drops dead, enemy sniper moved his rifle one centimeter left instead.

You swear to avenge, God as my witness, that will not happen again.

But it does again and again and again.

(drums rolling) Drum roll please, your six months are up.

It's time to come home.

Take off your cammies, kick back, clear your mind of these Afghanis.

That bleeding heart you bared arms to heal has returned cold and impenetrable like stainless steel.

(melancholy music) (people shouting) (phone buzzing) (feet clopping) (gentle music) (gun banging) And the guilt consumes those that come back.

"I'm fine," they say as their brains lie still with shrapnel at 5:00 in the cul de sac.

Civilians struck confused fuck you as high school quarterback.

Not knowing post-combat you were a paranoid insomniac, the result of the Klonopin Zoloft Seroquel stack, given to numb the troops.

Their overwhelming guilt and flashbacks, normal feelings.

On a return from the depths of hella hell, civilians slap with a thumbs up.

Thank you for your service and a pat on the back.

(melancholy music) (people chattering) Not knowing most days I'm on the attack, begging my mind.

(helicopter whirring) Stay alive for your son so he never knows loss like you.

Need I remind, stay alive for your fallen brothers.

That fell liberating Marjah.

If only for that reason stay alive.

- [Radio] Yes Gary, it appears a team of American special forces became pinned down by Taliban during heavy fighting in the city of Marjah in the helmet province of Afghanistan.

The city has now been recaptured by Taliban forces after the Marines liberated and left the town in the hands of the Afghan army back in 2015.

- What was it all for, you gotta ask.

A task carried out valiantly alongside adopted family, the strongest of the core losing their lives in a process that led to reverse progress.

(melancholy music) (bombs banging) (person shouting) There will be no peace on my end.

Confused, angry.

I fight to repress the feelings that make me a mess and kill me so I get on this stage and I share my healing or attempt to, a process with progress.

Though they fight to rediscover home and who they once were, the calls have been made.

(vehicle engine revving) Uncle Sam can't wait.

He was pointing at you, he wasn't pointing at me.

A confused little boy unable to see what it was all for.

It's up to us to open up and discuss.

We must let the pain breathe so others can take it in and see that war isn't all it's cracked out to be.

Veterans stand up, speak and share so our brothers and sisters with the same nightmares can hear that they are not alone.

And for those that are eager to enlist, that they fully know the hell where youth and laughter go.

(melancholy music) (helicopter whirring) (melancholy music)