The story of seven young men

They were in Iraq and at war, but they were still a group of guys living together 24/7 and they couldn’t resist goofing around.

Nathan Brown was not camera-shy. The guys’ horseplay seemed to alleviate the boredom when the days were long and uneventful.

But in mid-April 2004, less than two months after they arrived, the Nighthawk platoon came face-to-face with the realities of war. It was Easter Sunday.

They had just discovered a huge weapons cache outside of Samarra and were feeling upbeat. The soldiers were then ordered to clear out insurgents from a section of the city. But as they approached, they sensed danger.

Rob Hemsing: We had just turned into the city and once we notice, “Hey. Hold up. There’s nobody outside. That little girl’s running back to her house. That car just turned around and went backwards down the street. Something’s going on.”

Rob, Chad, Tim and Nathan were in the same vehicle. It wasn’t a mobile armored Humvee which are often used to transport troops. The company didn’t have enough of those to go around.  Instead they were sitting in the back of a five-ton truck, an open, cumbersome vehicle used primarily for transporting goods.

Within minutes of entering the city the empty streets erupted into chaos as hidden insurgents opened fire. Two rocket-propelled grenades blasted their truck knocking everyone to the ground.

Hemsing: I remember "boom," and opening my eyes and I’m laying down in the truck instead of where I was. 

Shrapnel had torn into one of Rob’s legs and shattered his hands, the hands that made him such a gifted guitarist. Three fingers on one hand were reduced to stubs. On the other, one finger was dangling, barely attached.  He was losing blood rapidly.

Brokaw: You can feel the life draining out of you a little bit at that point?

Hemsing: I could tell. I’m not too religious but I felt there was a voice in me saying, “You know, if this is too much just close your eyes and it’ll be done. But if you want to live you got to stay awake.”

Rob was aware enough to realize something else had happened during the ambush.

Hemsing: I looked around and someone said “Nate’s dead.” And, I remember looking over being like, “What?  No he’s not. What are you talking about? And, I looked over and, you know, Nate was gone.”

Nathan Brown had been hit directly by one of the RPG’s and he was killed instantly. The boys from Glens Falls had lost one of their own.  But there wasn’t time for them to mourn.

They were under siege.

Brokaw: Could you see who was shooting at you and trying to take you out?

Pete Hull: There were people everywhere. I mean, everyone who was on the streets was shooting at us. 

Tim Haag’s training kicked in. He jumped off the truck and returned fire.

Tim Haag: For some reason it made sense for me just to shoot the area where I was looking at.  So I shot there with my machine gun.

Later, Tim would be decorated for his actions, but the events of that day would continue to haunt him.

Medic Andy Flint, who had dreams of becoming a doctor, was recovering from an appendectomy miles from the attack, miles from being able to use his skills to help his injured friend Rob.

Brokaw: Andy, you were trained to help them in circumstances like that. That had to be hard.

Andy Flint: It still kills me. I mean I know if I was there, you know, I have medicine that I could have put in to prevent one of the bone infections in his finger that he lost eventually.  You know, maybe have a finger if I was there.

Rob was evacuated to a military hospital in Germany. The rest of the platoon went back to the base trying to make sense of the carnage, the loss of Nathan.

Hull: You’d lay in bed for two or three hours and try and go to sleep and you’d realize you couldn’t so you’d get up and walk down to see if anyone else was awake. And everyone was. 

Patrick Abrams was the Nighthawk platoon sergeant.  He had a special feeling about the young men in his command.  His own son was in Afghanistan while he was in Iraq. 

Sgt. Patrick Abrams: I was hoping that, you know, I would take care of those guys like I would want to have somebody to take care of my son. When somebody got hurt or worse, it affected us all.  You know, it was like tearing part of your guts out.

Ken Comstock:  Nate was one of the youngest guys in the platoon, yet he was one of the most popular, one of the closest friends we had. And we always go back to saying if the enemy had to hit one person that would affect the entire company, they found that one person.

They were all grieving for Nathan, but Tim was also grappling with complex feelings about the Iraqis he killed that day.

Brokaw: You see those scenes playing out in your head again and again, Tim, for the next couple of days.

Haag:  It bothered me what I did because, like, I mean, you join the Army, and the whole idea of killing people, even at basic training I’m sure it was like a lot tougher back in the day.  Now it’s like—

Flint: It’s a game.

Haag: Yeah. It’s not even really that challenging. And so like my mentality of killing someone would be like, all right, just like they said, you know, one shot, one kill, bang. And, when I saw, it’s not just a target falling down it’s bullets going through people. And they’re just trying to figure out, how they got that hole in them.

And Sgt. Abrams had to get the Nighthawk platoon back into action.

Sgt. Abrams:  I mean, the war doesn’t stop because somebody’s wounded or dead. And that was a tough thing. And it was my job and the lieutenant’s job, is to get people back on their feet moving. We can’t focus on that, or none of us will come home. 

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