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Glenn Beck
Encore Presentation: Behind the Scenes with Combat Search and Rescue
Aired May 28, 2007 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, behind the scenes with combat search-and-rescue teams.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on back, come on back!
BECK: These are the men and women who risk their lives to save lives in the most dangerous places on earth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of Taliban sympathizers and basically, you just have to keep your calm.
BECK: From Jessica Lynch, hostile enemy territory in Iraq to high atop Oregon`s Mt. Hood, we`ll show you what it takes: the training, the mission. These are their stories in their words.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: The world is a very scary place these days and, sadly, it`s only getting scarier as our enemies get stronger and their aggression becomes bolder.
Sometimes, in the defense of our country, American soldiers get hung up. They get stranded behind enemy lines, the danger increasing with every passing minute. Can you imagine what it would feel like?
Then when things at their worst, the American military calls on their very best, the highly trained teams specializing in combat search and rescue.
Our correspondent, Alex Quade, spent time with these elite soldiers and for the very first time, got them to talk openly about what they do, how they feel about the crucial role they play in the defense of our country and the safety of their brothers and sisters in arms.
It`s a rare look at a wildly secretive corps of America`s finest, and in this hour you will see their stories told in their own words.
First up, when that call comes, the combat search-and-rescue team hit the ground running.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Downed air crews...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ninety-one, this is Mud Hawk (ph) 5-1.
QUADE: ... looking for cover. Isolated in the middle of a war zone...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you guys threatened right now?
QUADE: ... desperate for rescue before enemy insurgents find them first. Training based on the real thing in Iraq and Afghanistan. That`s what happened to these soldiers, their Chinook in a sandstorm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were on a resupply mission and the aircraft started to roll. We really didn`t have time to think. We hit the ground. The aircraft rolled over on its right side.
QUADE: two combat search-and-rescue helicopters, known as Jollies, responded. Pilot, call sign Shrimp.
(on camera) They worried that they -- that you wouldn`t come get them because of the sandstorm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had to. That crashed helicopter is like a beacon. The insurgents, they will definitely descend on that. They would have became POWs.
QUADE (voice-over): Though Shrimp and the second Jolly, piloted by Chef, flew into the same sandstorm that took the Chinook out...
(on camera) How difficult were the conditions?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s kind of like being in a heavy rainstorm without the windshield wipers on.
QUADE (voice-over): The soldiers, injured but alive, waiting for the pararescuemen, or PJs, just like they`ve learned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The PJs run out armed, you know, to the teeth. They kind of drag them back to the aircraft, you know, because we need to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sight of these guys coming in, those two aircraft coming in, that was one of the best sights I`ve ever seen in my life.
QUADE: It was the best sight, too, during a different incident, for a shaken up master sergeant Jeff Gore, cousin of former vice president, Al Gore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we picked him up, he`d just watched a very close friend of his die.
QUADE: Pilot call sign Eeyore, picked him up after a fatal convoy attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, he was just another serviceman on the field of battle who was injured. It was our job to take care of him.
QUADE: The PJs treated Gore in flight to the CASH, combat support hospital, Baghdad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He took the time as he went by to give me the thumbs up and I saw him say "thank you" as he passed the cockpit.
QUADE: Later, the PJs who treated Gore went on to ground rescue and recovery back home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tonight, breaking news and it`s tragic news from high atop Oregon`s Mt. Hood.
QUADE: Their photos of this high-risk mission seen now for the first time. PJ Mark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn`t have to be overseas to make it dangerous. It`s one of those careers where a few miles away from home base is -- can be dangerous.
QUADE: The PJs` war experiences, from Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, prepared them for this challenge.
And the challenges don`t end once they`re back in the helicopter. Remember pilots Shrimp and Chef, rescuing those soldiers in that sandstorm? They now faced an insurgent ambush, the event described by one of their co- pilots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were being engaged.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Multiple missiles fired from shoulder of insurgents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Corkscrew missiles come up. I kind of break to the right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was being shot at, and the only thing I knew to do at that time was to turn back into it and put as many rounds in that area that I could.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He fired the 50 cal, and the 50 cal is a very intimidating weapon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I`m being all I could be on the controls, trying to evade the missiles coming in at, you know, plus mach 2.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Almost immediately, he gets to come out the left- hand side of his aircraft. I did the same for him. I just opened up the 50 cal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We evaded the missiles, broke hard, banked, caught our breath and flew the rest of the way back to our base and delivered the five individuals to the hospital.
QUADE: These are their night scope photos landing at Balad air base, delivering the soldiers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seemed like one of the longest nights of my life.
QUADE: The soldier most injured, specialist Roxanne Shim, now back home with her daughter.
SPECIALIST ROXANNE SHIM, RESCUED BY COMBAT SEARCH-AND-RESCUE: I walked in and she went, "Mom?" She couldn`t believe it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know that we`re going to go through some hard stuff, and -- but that`s why we do it.
QUADE: They`re doing it in Iraq and Afghanistan right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They say the two soldiers have been recovered. The crash site has been secured.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both of the soldiers were recovered.
QUADE: Combat search-and-rescuemen ready for the next call.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is a recovery operation going on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it happened once, there`s a very good chance it can happen again.
QUADE: Alex Quade for Glenn Beck, Avon Park Air Force range, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: Launching a rescue effort behind enemy lines, it`s complex and it is a dangerous task. But when behind the lines takes the rescue team into the deep, it`s a whole new ball game.
The training for that mission can be brutal, but these men and women are committed to the task of being ready even when things get slippery when wet. Into the deep next.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
QUADE (voice-over): They rescued survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Went literally from Afghanistan and rolled halfway around the world to Hurricane Katrina relief in about a 28-hour period.
QUADE: But combat search-and-rescue is their mission. Pilot T.C. worked the very first water rescue of the Iraq war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was the F-18 that went down in Lake Karbala. The other one was Marine 46 was flying down the Tigris River and it hit wires, and it flipped over and went in the water.
Who would have thought when we left for the war that we`d be doing water rescues in the desert? But the PJs train for that stuff.
QUADE: PJs or pararescuemen like Mark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do have dive missions going on in Iraq. Humvees into the canals, helicopter crashes in the canals.
QUADE: PJs like Kyle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People realize that, you know, water is just one of those things that, you know, somebody`s going to find their way into it and it`s going to be bad. And you know, helicopters will go down in it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty seconds.
QUADE: In a C-130, the PJs tell me they train constantly based on these war realities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`ve got to make sure that, no matter what the winds are, you`re going to be able to get to the target or to the survivor that you`re going after.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five seconds, free line on.
QUADE: PJ Nate explains.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. Keep your eyes up. Roger that.
QUADE: As they deploy a hard duck, a fully inflated Zodiac raft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is as little as five, ten, 15 degrees means that we don`t make it. Especially in the water, if we don`t make it to the survivor, you know, we could be one, two, 300 meters apart, and in the middle of a raging storm, you`re never going to get to them. You know, that will be the last time you saw them was when you got out of the airplane.
QUADE: At sea level, PJ Mark shows me how they handle a mass casualty situation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rescue, rescue, spider 7-1.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you`re doing a water mission, as you`re surrounded by something that could make things terribly, terribly wrong.
QUADE: From helicopters, the PJs drop bundles, boats assembled. They also use ARCs, advanced water craft. Translation? Souped-up JetSkis. Then they go (ph) in.
The scenario, 13 crew men scattered in the water after their aircraft went down. They gather the survivors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pick up another guy, all right?
QUADE: Triage them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re also checking to make sure that they`re OK as far as physically, and they`re not injured, suffering from hypothermia.
QUADE: And, PJ Kyle says, hoist them out according to the severity of their injuries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You might have to, you know, restrain them just to keep them above the water and as you can tell, when the wind`s beating on you like that, it can get tough.
QUADE: In hostile territory, the PJs also watch for threats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of folks experienced that, especially in Vietnam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have a weapon on you, you have to, I guess, you could shoot while you`re hoisting, you know, that`s a bad day if you`re having to shoot from the hoist.
QUADE: Then, my turn. As a reporter embedded with a unit whose aircraft went down, PJ Will makes sure I`m not hurt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was all ready to go in. Get blood pressure, get I.V. lines and whatnot.
QUADE: While PJ Kyle and Nate are on their way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Air speed is 60 knots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We brought around the helicopter with two PJs on it. Located her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One o`clock, 30 feet, 12 knots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They come into a hover over -- over the top of us. Then it gets real stormy. That`s a hurricane there for you.
QUADE: I`m gulping for air, but PJ Nate reassures me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes folks gets a little bit combative in a situation like that. They get very desperate, and they just start to fight you, so you have to be careful of how you handle the survivor.
It helps, too, to tell them what`s going to happen. You say, look, don`t worry about it. It`s going to suck a little bit, but I`ll get you through it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger. Continue forward 25.
QUADE: PJ Kyle hoists me up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As we`re going up, I`m just making sure that you`re inside the secure, with the device, that you`re not flipping out, making sure that the hoist cable isn`t getting wrapped around us. So I`m trying to make sure that`s not getting wrapped around anybody`s neck. The helicopter`s drifting, it can get wrapped all around.
Try to make sure that, you know, you`re not going to hit your head on the underside of the aircraft.
QUADE: Their job doesn`t end once we`re in the helicopter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it`s just the beginning. Now, we have to figure out if there`s anything wrong with you and if there is, then we`ve got to fix it. Or at least stabilize it.
QUADE: It isn`t just a drill. The next time you see this...
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: We are just getting word to CNN...
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Another Marine helicopter, a CH-46 made an emergency landing in a lake in Al Anbar province. There were 16 on board.
QUADE: ... think of them.
Alex Quade for Glenn Beck, Key West.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: Coming up, our combat search-and-rescue special continues. As the Special Ops get ready to take their mission to the streets, over seas and in danger.
You`ll also meet the woman who collected these stories and went where no reporter has ever gone before. Correspondent Alex Quade joins me in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: I`ll tell you why we`re a joke to the world, because nobody believes we ever can finish anything. We are a country with A.D., except this A.D. is not caused by some mental imbalance. This is caused by politics, because our soldiers have turned into the ultimate political toy. This war has turned into a way to get elected.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: You know, working here in New York City, you can`t escape the hectic, insane energy of a dense, urban environment, but still, nobody`s shooting at me -- well, at least most of the time that I know about.
But that is not the case with the combat search-and-rescue team. Sometimes their fellow servicemen get caught in the most crowded, overpopulated cities on earth full of hostile enemy combatants, but they still need to get the job done no matter what the risk.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. troops in Iraq tonight are searching for a missing Air Force fighter pilot after his F-16 jet crashed near Fallujah.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A U.S. Army Kiowa helicopter hit by ground fire near Samarra.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: A U.S. helicopter is down in Baghdad.
KAYE (voice-over): Urban rescue. Hostile territory, nightmare for trapped U.S. troops.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rescue, rescue.
KAYE: Challenge for combat search-and-rescuemen trying to save them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The scariest thing I`ve ever done in my life.
QUADE: Helicopter pilot P.C. shares for the first time his urban rescue with Special Forces.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we got the call to go in, and these guys are pretty busted up pretty bad. Had it not been for the pararescuemen, these two Special Forces guys would have lost their lives.
KAYE: Pararescuemen or PJs like Kyle, who work the urban recovery of a British aircraft in Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were basically the first ones in on the ground. You`ve got the whole town is coming out, you know, to check you out. A lot of Taliban sympathizers and basically, you just have to keep your calm.
KAYE: Calm was key on a different Afghan mission for rescue pilot call sign Skinny.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a SEAL team executing their evasion plan in a running gun battle with the enemy that was out there.
KAYE: Skinny`s crew went in to get an injured Navy SEAL hiding in a village out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had taken an RPG in the middle of their group, and that`s how he had actually gotten wounded and he had gotten separated from them.
KAYE: More on his story later.
With ongoing operations in hostile urban terrain, real world training is crucial.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rescue, rescue.
QUADE: Rizzo (ph), a back seater in a F-16, will soon deploy. Tonight, he plays survivor, shot down onto a building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m right in the middle of an urban area where there`s obviously enemy.
QUADE: Injured, stuck, his GPS broken.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have my radio but I can`t tell them exactly where I`m at because I don`t really know.
QUADE (on camera): How real is this for you? I mean, you are going to be deployed very shortly after this scenario.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As real as it can get without being in enemy territory. Just set your goggles up so all you have to do is slide them down off of your helmet.
QUADE (voice-over): Tips from survival, evasion, resistance and escape, or SERE-Specialist Jesse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as enemy position, we need to have a fairly decent idea of locations of these forces.
QUADE: So the rescue helicopter coming for him doesn`t get shot down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smoke 4-1 bravo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The enemy is left of you.
QUADE: Rizzo (ph) reaches Sandy, the A-10 fighter pilot looking for him overhead with the helicopters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you threatened or are you hurt?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My leg is potentially broken.
QUADE (on camera): Does it bring it any closer to home that, hey, you`re going over there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Makes me think long and hard about it.
QUADE (voice-over): The voice on the radio is A-10 pilot Sandy who`s also about to deploy.
(on camera) You`re up there trying to watch out for these guys, but that could be you on the ground someday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely and it could be me on the ground while we`re out there trying to pick somebody else up, too.
QUADE (voice-over): Jolly arrives. That`s the helicopter team and the PJs, like Mark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. The potential for disaster there is phenomenal. When you`re looking at a 22,000-pound aircraft hovering within six inches of its position...
QUADE: They could be blown off the roof or, PJ Kyle says, get shot at.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s very vulnerable. Everyone and their mom`s going to come out and they`re going to want to, you know, take potshots at you.
QUADE: In the middle of all this, they`re medically assessing the survivor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`ve got to be fast, you`ve got to be quick and you`ve got to be -- know what you`re doing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The best feeling is probably once they get back on board and you pull out.
QUADE: Which brings us back to the Navy SEAL hiding in a village in Afghanistan, waiting for Skinny`s combat search-and-rescuemen after a gun battle killed the rest of his field team.
(on camera) When you were flying into this Afghan village, you never felt at all that this might be a trap?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was always in the back of our mind that it could be.
QUADE (voice-over): Especially when his PJs jumped out and were met by men dressed in traditional clothing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The one Navy SEAL identified himself. And he had been wounded. They grabbed him, and we got out of town.
QUADE: Later, they recovered the bodies of the SEALs` teammates in a challenging, high-altitude mission.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Came into a hover and, basically, this little small hole in the trees and hoisted, you know, their two bodies out.
I`ll never forget when we landed back at Bagram. The rest of the SEAL team was all out there. And when we opened up the doors, and the flags were on, you know, all these special operator guys all trying to come to attention and saluted.
QUADE: From villages in Afghanistan to cities in Iraq, from assisting Special Forces to get POW Jessica Lynch out of town, to helping recover more than 100 wounded and dead in the 2003 U.N. compound attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not only do you have combatants, you also have civilians.
QUADE: This is urban combat search-and-rescue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I see something like this, the mission this big, hey, that feels great because I know that they`re coming for me.
QUADE: Alex Quade for Glenn Beck, Avon Park Air Force range, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: They tell me combat search-and-rescue operatives are a secretive group. Their work depends on them being discreet and staying behind the scenes, which has made this whole series even more remarkable that our correspondent was able to gain their trust and bring the stories that have never been seen on television before. And that reporter is Alex Quade.
Alex, when I first talked about this series, you had gone over that, you know, they`re a secretive group and most of their missions are top secret, right?
QUADE: That is so. In fact, that is exactly the point. They want to keep their anonymity because they want to be able to do their work behind enemy lines.
BECK: I don`t understand. Why -- why is that?
QUADE: Well, they -- they need to be able to do their work without being compromised. They don`t want their faces shown. They don`t want people really to know what it is they do. So this -- this access that we got is really phenomenal.
I worked this beat trying to gain their trust, trying to get them to open up to us, and they did. And they shared these stories that we haven`t heard ever before. And these stories that we`re going to hear more of later on this hour.
BECK: OK, so what was the biggest surprise when you met them? And by the way, let me just -- let me just clarify this. We`re showing their faces now on television.
QUADE: That is true.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m looking next to you. Give me the special dispensation so we -- we let our audience know that we`re not putting these guys in danger.
QUADE: We are not putting these guys in danger. These guys, they let us show them on camera. They said, hey, if you can keep us with the call signs, and that`s what we did. We called them by their PJ call signs, their pilot call signs. So they will be able to continue to do their work in hostile territory.
And it`s not just them. It`s an entire wing, an aircraft wing that is -- you know, these folks are up there. Aircraft circling overhead trying to get just a few of these guys on the ground so they can do their jobs, so they can save one person that is trapped.
BECK: Biggest surprise in doing this series?
KAYE: Actually, the biggest surprise was -- was getting the access, was taking the time with these guys and just seeing all the phenomenal things that they do. I mean, I had no idea. I had heard about these guys a little bit about this.
I didn`t realize that they are SEALs with stethoscopes, as they`re sometimes called, just the amount of things that they do and the things that they do behind enemy lines and some of the stories that they`ve -- they`ve told us about.
For instance, and you`re going to see a little bit later, they had to hoist down into Afghan minefields trying to recover folks with limbs missing. I mean, very precision work. And the measure for error, they just really don`t have any -- any measure for error.
BECK: What is -- what is their background? I mean, who are these guys?
KAYE: These -- these are really the cream of the crop. They are type A personalities. In fact, one of the PJs said, really, anybody who wants to do this needs to be obstinate, needs to be pretty stubborn and headstrong.
And they need to be able to, when somebody says, hey, you know, it just can`t be done, that they will find a way to overcome an obstacle and get the job done, no matter what it is.
These guys also, I mean, their motto is "that others may live", and they will literally take one for the team. They will do whatever it takes to bring somebody home, and they have.
BECK: These are -- these are real American heroes.
Did you get a chance to meet any of them that had been retired? I mean, I can`t imagine that you just go back to, you know, working at the 7- eleven or, you know, the office after something like this.
KAYE: Well, that`s just it. A lot of folks, when they get -- when they are done with this, they still try to stay within the community. And they really, really, they do miss what it is they do.
And so, a lot of them try to stay within the community in some sort of a support function, try to really help out the young guys that are coming through the system.
BECK: Alex, thanks. Incredible stories. We have more to come. Stick around, back in a flash.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: You know those days when everything that can go wrong does go wrong? We all have them. Usually, you know, it means we`re late for work or something, you know, inconvenient. Not so much for those in combat search and rescue. When they`re having a bad day, lives are at stake. Not just theirs,, but fellow troops who have nowhere else to run.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A simulated covert operation is underway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Zero-nine-zero.
QUADE: Pararescue men or PJ`s get ready to jump HALO, high altitude, low open. Using the darkness and stealth PJ Mark sets up a drop zone for his unit to jump into.
(on camera): In a war zone, they may not have anybody who`s doing this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In real life, it wouldn`t -- it wouldn`t be that luxurious if someone on the ground received them.
QUADE: The pilots, A-10, they`re up there trying to find a good drop zone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The same as they come down and take look at the threat here in the area, and then jumpmaster will come out here on the side and call it good.
QUADE (voice-over): PJ Nate is jumpmaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Combine darkness with a lot of noise. You would have to be jumping with oxygen. You`ve got a mask over so you can`t talk to each other. So you have to rely on those hand and arm signals.
QUADE (on camera): PJs are coming out of the plane. What are they looking for?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re looking to maintain team integrity. Keeping the team together. That`s most important.
QUADE (voice-over): Behind enemy lines...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move in.
QUADE: ... the PJ`s mission, extract injured special operatives after an IED attack. But then...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go back, go back.
QUADE: ... contact.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s game on. Real life scenario we would be laying lead down range.
QUADE: Smoke means enemy fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you`re not nervous there`s something wrong. You know, that`s when Murphy comes and gets you.
QUADE: Things change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One-three, two-two, fire mission, over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys are with us. You guys saw how we moved. We moved as stealthily as possible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three hundred meters, troops in the tree line. Over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that another new heading over there to the left? They`re shifting left.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Murphy`s Law takes over and things can go bad really fast.
QUADE: Matt is a CRO, combat rescue officer. He didn`t want to show his face, since he provides command on tactical missions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We immediately made contact.
QUADE (on camera): Which is a nice way of saying that...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got ambushed, correct.
QUADE (voice-over): So they call in Jolly, helicopter support.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jolly, one-three-two. Anybody watching on six?
QUADE: The PJs are the eyes on the ground for the guns in the sky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear them.
QUADE: Using hand-held lasers they mark or lace targets for Jolly to destroy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re telling the helicopter where you are and where you want him to shoot. You`re the eyes for his trigger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jolly, three-one-two, be advised we are moving.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fall back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the enemy and press on to our objective to take care of the IED victims.
We`re going to sanitize the area, and we`re going to press on with the scenario.
QUADE: In training Murphy`s Law focuses the PJs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, you have to really have your head screwed on.
QUADE: In war zones Murphy`s Law means danger or death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twelve men of the parachute regiment went on patrol, the ground underneath them sewn with anti-personnel mines.
QUADE: PJ Kyle led this rescue in Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had 12 -- 12 patients down in the minefield, some missing limbs. You could actually see the mines within inches of the survivors.
We hoisted right down on top of the survivors, literally we were almost landing on top of them. They were all very critical patients.
QUADE: The PJ`s medical expertise, what they are known for, kicked in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can get really hectic in the back of the helicopter. You know, you`re trying to do the correct thing, the best thing for the patients. If need be, you know, we might take a hit ourselves, and that`s just part of the job.
QUADE: PJ Matt also told me that in Iraq at the start of the war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At any minute, something can go wrong and the bad day that somebody else is having that you`re there to pick up, you know, that can turn around and be your bad day.
QUADE: PJ Chuck learned that in Iraq.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was the first guy off the helicopter. I lost my way and hit the ground from about 50, 60 feet up and broke four vertebrae in my back, and both my feet were pretty well shattered.
QUADE: Chuck is recovering and wants to rejoin his team.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m itching to get back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re putting their lives on the line.
QUADE: Their boss, Brigadier General Doug Rayburn of air combat command.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A very, very tough situations. Obviously, in combat situations they don`t worry about that. They worry about getting the individual saved and returned back home.
QUADE: PJ Kyle`s team in that Afghan minefield.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our actions out there that day saved a lot of lives.
QUADE: They also recovered the body of a British paratrooper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During the whole operation, you know, you never once doubted your training. You knew that everything was going to turn out all right and successful.
QUADE: Which is why the PJs train like they fight: hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those coordinates take us back to the east.
QUADE: To overcome current war zone situations, PJ Mark tells me...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to be, the term I like to use, is rigidly flexible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`ve cleared this road all the way down for about a mile.
QUADE (on camera): With the training that you all have, being ready for every contingency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s difficult, but that`s our goal. We try to be ready for anything to pop up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re moving out. We`re going to parallel this road for about a click.
QUADE (voice-over): The PJs, who dealt with pop-ups tonight, mark a landing zone for helicopter extraction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You three out on the first aircraft, all right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger.
QUADE: Combat rescue officer Matt, just back from Iraq.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re forced to operate under stressful conditions. You need to find the clarity to get yourself out of that situation. My biggest thought is just taking care of the guys and get back out there.
QUADE: Alex Quade for Glenn Beck, Avon Park Air Force Base, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: When we come back, our combat search and rescue series concludes with a story that`s going to have you on the edge of your seat. If the action were any closer, you`d be in it, next.
(NEWSBREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Jeff, by the way, is on our station in Dallas, KLIF. And, Jeff, you have made several trips over to the Middle East. You`re in Iraq now. What are you seeing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Baghdad is portrayed in media very differently than it is on the ground. I will tell you that, on the ground, when you talk to citizens from Baghdad, what they tell you is, "Our economy is growing, we`re getting back on our feet, we`re rebuilding our infrastructure, and, by the way, we`ve got a significant security problem we have to solve."
Baghdad residents, to a person that I have talked to, have said, "This is not going to be a failed state, and it`s not nearly, nearly as miserable as Western media`s reporting it."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: You know, I have to tell you, I work here in New York City. And sometimes I get spooked by looking out of some of the windows here or sitting on a high stool at a pizza place at an airport terminal. I`m not good with heights. I can`t even imagine jumping out of an airplane, especially if I was flying behind enemy lines. No, thank you, not something I`m going to be trying any time soon.
But to the elite members of the combat search and rescue team, this is just another day at the office. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Combat Search and Rescue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can roll into anything, because we train in so many different scenarios.
QUADE: Each based on real war zone embeds. Urban rescues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rescue, rescue.
QUADE: Water rescues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone is willing to give their life. They`ll sacrifice to try to save someone else`s.
QUADE: Ground rescues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those two aircraft come and pick us up. That was one of the best sights I`ve ever seen in my life.
QUADE: And special covert missions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Troops in the tree line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of this is geared towards getting back one person.
QUADE: Like A-10 pilot call sign Chalks, his head (ph) display, or cockpit video, seen now for the first time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is some breaking news coming out of Centcom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The A-10 Warthog or tank buster, the one that was seen or like it over the skies of Baghdad this morning, has crashed.
QUADE: Chalks, hit by a SAM, surface-to-air missile, during shock and awe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was pow. I mean, it hit. It was like a big hand was out in the sky and just swatted the airplane.
QUADE: His wing man Dono (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve never seen an airplane do this before, but he`s actually flying sideways. The airplane rolling over inverted straight into the ground and makes a big explosion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Centcom saying that the pilot did eject from the plane before it crashed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s -- wow. You know, pulled the handles and, you know, it`s gone. The canopy pops up. There`s a big pop, and the lock and loader ignites, and you`re out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn`t know if he was alive or dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You hit the ground. Pow. You know, hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Behind enemy lines, Chalks hears gunfire and yelling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Initially they`re going to that plane, but now I see the footprints across the field, and I just thought to myself, "Oh, (bleep), because now they`re going to know where to come looking for me."
QUADE: His SERE, Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training, kicks in and what should he do when he comes under fire. More on his story later.
His training and that of the PJs, or pararescuemen, is the key to survivors coming home. PJ Will takes us on immediate action drills. Translation, enemy contact.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out of the rear. Down in the rear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We did take fire, and we hit the ground. Take efforts as quickly as possible and break off, break contact.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bravo. Six. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was screaming and yelling to command, saying, you know, go left, go right, go straight, go back, and throw smoke, engage.
Something PJ Mark has seen for real, which I ask him about while his PJs keep training.
QUADE: How important is that feeling that if things get really bad, you`re watching each other`s back?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it helps you get a little bit closer to the edge. Knowing that there`s someone waiting dedicated just to recover you when things go wrong, I think it allows you to move forward a little bit more.
QUADE: Which brings us back to A-10 pilot Chalks, hiding, waiting for extraction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy just ejected. We got to go.
QUADE: Rescue helicopter pilot call sign T.C.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody came over the radio and said, "That others may live." We`re like, "That`s it, we`re going. Rock on. We`re out of here."
QUADE: U.S. soldiers fighting nearby find Chalks and alerted T.C.`s team.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said PJs, if you have to, you take them by force.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He came busting in. He`s like, "We are out of here." You know, he almost -- he almost grabbed me. I was, like, well, hold on a second. "No, we have to go."
Seeing a PJ, it`s literally a relief. That vulnerability, you know, the -- thinking that I`m going to get tortured, exploited, you know, it evaporates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Centcom saying that the pilot had been safely rescued.
QUADE: But not before getting shot at again, this time in T.C.`s rescue helicopter, or jolly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, beep, beep, beep, boom. Things start flying off the airplane, and you`re jigging and jiving again. The battle doesn`t end just because you get to sit down in -- you know, in the jolly.
He told me, he says, "The only thing that was going through my mind was, oh, lord, everything that happened to me today, I`m going to die in the back of this helicopter with these guys."
QUADE: Chalks` wing man, Dono (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he got in the helicopter, I was just so happy to see him. Just to see my best friend come back was amazing.
QUADE: Chalks and others alive today because of combat search and rescue teams, like these soldiers whose Chinook crashed in a sandstorm in Iraq. The cousin and former U.S. vice president, Al Gore, whose convoy was attacked. In Afghanistan a Navy SEAL hiding in a village after an ambushing shootout killed his team. And British paratroopers in a mine field. Limbs missing, all critical.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s the price of a life? My opinion is how important this is. We do not want to leave anybody behind.
QUADE: Including their own.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The search and rescue operation is underway. The Chinook helicopter crashes in rocky terrain. U.S. military reports eight American soldiers dead, 14 wounded.
QUADE: Among them, one PJ killed, Air Force Tech Sergeant Scott Duffman, and two PJs critically injured. PJ Dan, training for Afghanistan, was one of those hurt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We put our own lives on the line. You know, we`ll live up to our motto, "that others may live."
QUADE: While Dan`s recovering, his fellow warriors are on alert everywhere U.S. troops are fighting.
And they`re ready to help back home: from Hurricane Katrina to Mount Hood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A rescue effort is underway as we speak for three climbers.
QUADE: To standing by for every NASA shuttle mission to rescue or recover astronauts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wherever people can go, we can get there and get them out.
QUADE: Which is why they train for everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone is having their worst day, we need to be having our best day.
QUADE: Combat search and rescue men.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re not in it to be on camera. We`re not in it for the thank yous. We do it because in our hearts it`s the right thing to do.
QUADE: So that others may live.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bottom line is they`re coming home.
QUADE: Alex Quade for Glenn Beck, Rudy (ph) Air Force Base, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: You know, we spend a lot of time in America discussing what job our military should or shouldn`t be doing, but when I first started thinking about this series, I wanted to spend time focusing on the actual jobs that our servicemen and women do every single day. Sometimes I think we lose sight of that.
Some in America are focused in bringing the troops home at any cost. Others are focused on achieving democracy in the Middle East no matter how difficult the road may be. Now, if you watch this show every night, you know which one I think is right and which one I think is incredibly dangerous, but either way, at least they`re both defensible positions.
To me, what isn`t defensible is Congress going back and forth based on how much political capital they feel like risking that day. But all the while, all the while that`s going on, our troops just keep doing their jobs, day in, day out. They perform admirably, even though there`s normally not a single camera around to see it. Can you imagine our politicians doing the same thing? I can`t.
I wanted to show you the daily lives of these soldiers to put things into perspective. You know, when politicians talk about predetermined deadlines, put restriction on political demands on our military leaders, even add pork to bills that fund the troops, they`re not affecting some abstract group of theoretical people. It`s these people. These are America`s finest sons and daughters stuck in the middle of political pressure that can`t be measured, unsure sure if they`ll even be welcomed back with open arms or spat on, unsure if the country sees them or what they`re doing is virtuous or just violent. These people aren`t sure if they`re even going to make it home to find out.
So when I say we have to either commit to winning or pull the plug immediately, I don`t mean it as a recommendation. I mean it as a demand. Our country must absolutely demand that we don`t use our troops as some political tool on either side just to move opinion polls or to raise a few extra bucks from some dot-org. We owe our troops at least that much.
I hope you took time this hour to not only immerse yourself in our soldiers` daily lives, but also to look them in the eyes. These are the people left living that middle ground of mixed messages that Congress and the media and many people here in America seem to want to force on them. But even with that being said, we can still count on our soldiers to continue to do their jobs better than anybody else in the history of the planet, every single day.
From New York, good night.
END
