November 4, 2021 • 57 mins
The Woodlands, TX: The Marines offered Manny Mendoza a ticket out of the small Texas border town where he grew up. In Sangin, he felt a crushing burden of responsibility for his fellow Marines, who he loved like brothers. At his home in the Houston suburbs, Mendoza tells Elliott about the debt he owes to the dead.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Third Squad is a podcast about war. All episodes contain
strong language and graphic descriptions of violence that may not
be suitable for all listeners. There's a line that Manny
Mendoza almost never crosses. He gets close sometimes, but I
won't say it. Well, you recorded, there's the line. Do
(00:24):
you want to stop the recorder? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, stop it.
I'm Elliott Woods. This is Third Squad Episode four, A
Soldier's Heart. This is on now. So the first thing is,
(00:53):
let me take you back to sang In for a minute.
It was two thousand eleven and I was in one
of those hot mud brick room is where the Marines
slept at patrol based fires. I was trying to interview
each of the guys when they had a few minutes
between patrols and sleeping. All right, go, I am Copra Mendoza.
Weis Loco Texas. I'm twenty years old. All right, try
(01:14):
again a little bit louder. Mendoza was shirtless, and unlike
some of the guys, he hadn't thinned out from the malnutrition.
I was cutting into his chill time, and he wasn't
all that excited about it. He was also nervous and
listening back to the tape, I don't know whether to
cringe or laugh at my stage directions. I'm Coporate Mendoza,
Manuel Mendoza, I am corporate Manuel Mendoza. I'm twenty years
(01:38):
old and from Wedlico, Texas. Mendoza barely looked back when
he left Westloco to join the Marines. He earned the
rank of corporal and became a team leader responsible for
half the squad in one of the most dangerous combat
zones in all of Afghanistan, and he took his job seriously.
You gotta be on top of everything. You've gotta be
thinking about real security, front security, everything. You got to
(02:02):
be pretty much thinking for your team. He still had
the wide eyes and bashful charm of a teenager. Everything
was new and exciting for him, but it was also horrific.
I wasn't expecting the blood bones dangling everywhere. I wasn't
expecting that. I was hoping I wouldn't have to see that,
but I did. Sangin was Mendoza's first deployment, and by
(02:24):
the time we met, he'd been on the ground for
four months. He'd already seen more than enough. He decided
to get out dream scenario like ten years from now,
just having a home, a family, and a job. I
guess as that is, that would be considering the American dream. Yeah,
I think so. I think so too. Now it's March,
(02:56):
almost ten years have gone by since we talked and
sang it. Mendoza is back living in Texas, and I'm
here to find out how his plans shook out. How
close has he gotten to that American dream? The home,
the family, the job. That is a lot of cool stuff.
Do here, we'll go, We'll start over at the engine.
(03:16):
So Mendoza is a volunteer firefighter. Now, among other things,
he's on shift tonight. It's about eleven PM and Tommy
and I are here at the firehouse. He's showing us around.
The very first thing I do coming in here, number
one is figure out where your assignment is, because you
don't actually just come in and just jump on the
(03:37):
engine like you're good. No, you need an assignment. Tonight,
Mendoza is on nozzle, the typical new guy job, and
what that means is that in any case we respond
to a fire, I would be the first one to
grab a hose. So you keep your stuff in here
ready to go. At all times. Usually in the movies
you might see that they have their stuff outside. No,
(03:58):
we we get dressed inside. In other words, jump in drive,
get dressed on the way. That saves like two to
three minutes. That's plenty of time to help save somebody.
He's a volunteer, but the gig is demanding. It's at
least twenty hours a week, and he often has to
spend the night, which means he has to head straight
to his other job as a civil engineer in the morning,
(04:19):
what you might call his real job. So this is
pretty intense. This is not just like you know something
you do just because you have some spare time to volunteer.
This is like a huge learning curve with a ton
of real responsibility. Yeah you love it. Yeah, learning it's
sucking awesome, dude, learning its fucking legit. The boyish enthusiasm
I remember from saying and has not diminished. But do
(04:41):
you ever take a day off? Yeah? Do you sleep? Yea?
How often do you sleep? Right now, I'm trying to
stick to go to sleep at ten, wake up at
three because Jim, you're gonna get that gym in. It's
getting close to midnight and we need to let Mendoza crash.
We're gonna be around for a few days, so we
make plans to meet up at his place on one
(05:02):
of his nights off to talk more. But we can't
leave without seeing the fire truck. This is what every
little boy's dream is, to stand up top of that ladder.
Do you want to go up there? Um? Now, you
can go up there? Sure, Okay, we climb up onto
the top. Be very careful to watch your head. We're
(05:22):
probably ten ft off the ground. Crouch beneath the ceiling.
One of the most important things to know about this
thing is that little liver right there. Mendoza shows us
how it works, but after a few minutes he gets
a little confused. Where was it when we got here?
I don't remember? He said it was set up for rescue.
He flips the lever back and forth a couple of times. God, damn,
(05:43):
can't you remember anymore? What is this? Did I break
the fire truck? We're gonna this part? I just don't remember.
Remember me to YouTube it now. I can use reasoning here.
(06:03):
I just use YouTube YouTube rescue setting for scannon setting there.
When we finally meet up with Mendoza at his apartment,
he's watching Training Day, the Denzel Washington film for maybe
(06:26):
the hundredth time. King Kong ain't got on me. He
lives in a tidy, one bedroom in a suburban complex
about a half hour north of Houston. The decorations are sparse.
He's got a poster near the kitchen of retired Marine
General Jim Mattis in the style of a religious icon,
complete with a halo and a grenade. Underneath, there's a
(06:49):
little shelf where I noticed a copy of I Am Malala,
and there's a knee high stack of engineering textbooks piled
by a small computer desk. Back in sang In, Mendoza
told me he wanted to go to college, and he
followed through on that plan. He earned a degree in
civil engineering from Texas A and M in two thousand nineteen.
Then he moved here to the Woodlands for a job
(07:10):
with the construction firm. In less than two years, he's
already worked his way up to manager. He tells me.
He even bought a house, just not for himself, for
his mom back in the Rio Grand Valley where he
grew up. I was born in Weslico, Texas, which is
deep deep south Texas. The very very south spout the
(07:30):
stone toss away from Mexico. Um he was born, I
didn't like it. He's the youngest of six with four
sisters and a brother. His parents are from Mexico. They
came to the US for work before Mendoza was born.
They always went job to job. I was working in
general labor. Everybody had to pitch in, even the little kids.
(07:52):
I got my first job when I was like, We
found a job for me out in the field because
they couldn't work the factories because I was too long,
and they had like laws or whatever, child labor laws. Yeah,
one of one of the major advancements of the twentieth century. Yeah,
I heard us. Yeah. Anyway, So I was working out
in the fields where you know that nobody ever came
(08:14):
to inspect. Every summer, the entire family went north to
pick cherries. Where up north all the way from West Dakota, Michigan.
That's basically all the way from the Mexican border to
the Canadian border almost pretty much. Man, So there was
work up there. The pay was good and even though
it was seasonal, still provided some decent monitor income for
(08:39):
the summer times. So you all went up there as
a family, Yeah, in your family car or how did
you get up there? Yeah, big old trucks that used
to buy up north. Whatever was a good deal and
whatever could hold all of us. One of the coolest
ones was this big old brown band that we had.
I think it was. Yeah, it was a big old
brown band. We had a table in the back. We
(08:59):
could all kind of just laid down. We would all
just kind of enjoy the day or two day trip
up to Michigan. They lived in migrant housing provided by
the owners of the fruit farms. They were usually out
in the field, kind of just out of the way. Um,
kind of hidden because you know, a lot of us
were a lot of them were illegals. A lot of
the workers were illegal or undocumented whatever. Um. So yeah,
(09:24):
they were kind of we were kind of in secluded
areas in the farmers fields. It's pretty much a shed
with sometimes with the running water in electricity other time
it's not not that um. I think the worst one
we dated and had a head and out house, like
no no running water, just ship house in the back
(09:46):
out in the orchards. Mendoza usually got the little kid jobs.
Remember I had a tennis racket. I would scoop up
all the bad ch Harris running behind this tractor, this
equipped piece of equimage. That's pretty cool. So then did
you get to keep the money that you made for
that or did you family all pull the money together
and use it to live for the rest of the year.
(10:07):
That was for clothes, uh, for me, for my clothes
for end whatever I needed for the coming school year.
He has fond memories of this time in his life,
the long road trips, the people he got to meet,
and especially the sense that he was helping his family
get by. But there was a cost for him that
didn't help out with my education at all. I'll tell
you that because you would come in sometimes a month
(10:29):
or too late to school in the fall. The super
student who showed us around the firehouse and excelled at
college wasn't always so hungry for education. I hate school.
I just buys died it. Didn't like it, and in
my head always had that mentality of I'm gonna go
on the military. If he ever had any doubts, he
(10:50):
says they vanished one autumn day in two thousand one.
I knew right away that I want to join the military.
At nine eleven, was ten years old. Yeah, that's when
I absolutely you I was going to join. This isn't
the first time I've heard this story. We play Mendoza
(11:10):
some of our interview from Sangin joined the Marine Corps
because I'll never forget September eleven. I'll never forget the
what happened in New York, and I'll never forget um
people never heard people that died. I love my country.
I'm a patriot straight up like your Mexican. I love
I love America because we had a lot of great
(11:33):
things in our country, and I like to I feel
like I have I have a depth at depth that
try to speak in a little bit louder the voice,
not like shouting, whispering this somewhere in the middle of
just a strong, strong I feel like I got a
(11:54):
debt to the United States because I have such a
great life back home. I out my family, I got
I had a good education. Now, so I felt like
I needed to pay that dead you you busted out
laughing when you heard I got a good education. You
had like a full belly laugh. So why is that
(12:16):
because it contradicted what I just said? Yeah, so why
do you think you told me that? Back then, why
do you think you said you had a good education
back then? I don't know any better, And I think
subconsciously what I was thinking was that compared to the
Afghan kids, that's what I had, Yeah, a great education.
Mendoza worked three jobs in high school. He steered clear
(12:39):
of the drugs and the gangs that he says we're everywhere,
and he kept his grades up enough to stay on
the football team and graduate. All I was worried about
was finishing up so I can, yeah, go ahead and
get the hell out of here, out of the valley
and go fight boredom and testosterone curiosity about the big
wide world. Roman took ideals about the greatest adventure of
(13:01):
them all. War. It's a powerful cocktail for a small
town boy, and it leads often enough to the military.
But there are a lot of other roads to adventure.
There are a lot of other ways to get the
hell out. What I want to know is why Mendoza
was so eager to fight. What did that feeling in
like in your body, this desire to fight? What did
that feel like? I guess it wasn't a feeling. I
(13:25):
guess my just my imagination just took me places with
what I could do and what I wanted to do,
because I had no really, no real way of feeling
what combat might be like. His imagination was fueled by
war movies, video games, and books about battles. Seventh grade,
(13:46):
the first book I ever read like actual. It wasn't
a Goose Bones book, it wasn't um some Captain Underpants whatever.
It was a legit novel, and it was A Soldier
His Heart. The books about a fifteen year old boy
named Charlie who lies about his age so he can
(14:08):
enlist and fight in the American Civil War. When he
comes home from the war, he's walking with a cane
and pissing blood, and he's tortured by the horrors he witnessed.
He has what we now call PTSD, but back then
it was sometimes called soldier's heart. In the final scene,
(14:32):
Charlie sits down by a river to have a picnic.
He takes out some bread and cheese, a chunk of
roast beef, some coffee, and a pistol. It's not clear
whether Charlie kills himself, but it's definitely not a happy ending.
(14:54):
It may sound strange that someone would read that story
and want to go to war. But Mendoza did, So
what year did you? And listen to the Marines? Okay,
so you really are what they call a surge baby. Yeah.
The surge babies are a generation of military recruits who
joined during the surges in Rock and Afghanistan, when tens
of thousands of extra troops were deployed to try to
(15:16):
turn the wars around. The Iraq Surge began in two
thousand seven and was ordered by President George Bush. If
we increase our support at this crucial moment and help
the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can
hasten the day our troops begin coming home. The Afghanistan
Surge began in about two thousand ten and was ordered
(15:37):
by President Barack Obama. These are the resources that we
need to seize the initiative while building the Afghan capacity
that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces
out of Afghanistan. Most of Third Squad were surge babies.
For Mendoza, becoming a Marine changed his entire sense of identity.
(15:58):
You said, and this really stuck out to me at
the time. You said, I love my country even though
I'm Mexican, And I remember thinking, why did he feel
like he had to make that clarification, probably because of that,
the whole migrant thing. Growing up, my mom said, you're Mexican.
(16:19):
She used to get mad at us for speaking English
in the house. Um so, so it was weird learning English.
That's probably why my my English is a little bit
off at times, even though you you told me to
speak louder. It's sometimes I get confused within this word.
So now it was actually abusing bilingual kid. Who is
you know? Great? Now I feel really great about myself.
(16:41):
That's awesome. Um No, so growing up it was like
not your Mexican, like you have cactus on your forehead.
But at that time, do you think that you felt American?
I mean because again, like, what's what's interesting about that
is that in that clip that and when that up
that we played, you're talking about how powerful of an
(17:02):
impression nine eleven made on you. You're saying, I love
my country even though I'm a Mexican, but you clearly
felt that that attack as an American. Tell me a
little bit about what it was like to have that
split identity and how that identity has grown or changed
over the years since then. I want to say that
(17:25):
once I joined the Marine Corps. It was like, no,
it was just you're you're. You've chosen your identity there,
like you're you are American now. Teenage Mendoza didn't hesitate
to claim that hundred percent American identity anymore than he
hesitated to leave West Loco in the dust. But for
his mom, his departure was a heavy blow. He tried
(17:46):
to soften it the way boys often do by lying,
and it is sound really fucked up, because I didn't
want to make her worried, so I told her I
was an electrician, I was in the Marine Corps. Yeah.
I didn't tell her I was infantry until, oh, the
night before I left. That's a big lie. Yeah, but
(18:06):
it's my moment, man, I just I don't want to
fucking put so much stress on her. He came clean
while he was home in Westlico on leave from Camp Pendleton.
He'd already been in the Marines for two years now.
His battalion was gearing up for the Sangin deployment. That
was at night. Uh, my flight was at like two
in the morning or something like that or some ridiculous hour.
(18:27):
But it was dark. I remember the only light in
the house was on was the kitchen. I told him, oh,
it's time to go. I mean just one. It's here
to take me to my sisters, here to take me
to the airport. And that's when I told him. I
(18:50):
was like, Mom, so I'm not actually electrician, and uh yeah,
I'll be on my way to Afghanistan within the next week.
She's like, I am me who, Like why, why? Why
(19:11):
did you do this? My dad he had just suffered
a stroke, and I remember, oh, god, man, I remember
him standing outside the front porch, the light on and
(19:36):
the shadows like we're casting over his face, like he
couldn't see his full face, but you could just see
the figure of his face and his glasses and he
had a cane. His left side was just hanging, you
could barely hold himself up. And he was just standing
as best he could to look at me, look at
(19:57):
the car, see as I was going away. And I
know my mom was crying in the kitchen. I can't
that that image doesn't escape me as my dad as
I'm driving away, looking back. So my dad watches me
go away. We'll be back after the break. Not long
(21:03):
after Mendoza told his family the truth, he deployed to
Afghanistan with Third Squad. When we sat down to talk
one on one at patrol based fires back in two
thousand eleven, it was obvious he took his team leader
responsibilities very seriously. He was putting a ton of pressure
on himself. I love my Marines. Those are my boys.
They got a lot of things going for them, and
(21:26):
I just don't want anything to happen to them. I
want to keep them as safe as I possibly can.
And what I'd like to consider the most probably one
of the most dangerous place on Earth. When Third Squad
went out on patrol, the guys walked in single file
with a marine at the front sweeping for I. E. D. S.
As a team leader, Mendoza didn't want to leave anything
to chance, so we walked behind the sweeper on every
(21:48):
patrol if he could. It's the position the Third Squad
Marines called point. Another thing I noticed is that you've
been up front a lot. Tell me about why you
like to be upfront in the sweeper. You gotta lead
by example, and I like to tell my sweeper where
to go because he's a pretty good he's a good sweeper,
(22:11):
But like sometimes you know, the complacency starts to kick in,
and they like to take the easy routes. I like
to go the hard way. I like to go all
the way around because that's where we're at least likely
to get hit by anything, run into anything. It's kind
of reckless. But I like to be up front because
I found the second one through. Most likely I'll be
(22:33):
the one to step on a pressure plate and nobody
else behind me, I'll step on one. When I interviewed
him in sangin June twelve was fresh on Mendoza's mind,
the worst day of my life. That was definitely a
reality check. That was the first day my whole team
was in front of me, and that was literally the
(22:54):
first day they were ever in front of me. And
the one day that I let them walk in front
of me is the one day that we run into
an I D. That was the day of third Squad's
mass casualty when they ran into a cluster of I E.
D S just outside of patrol based fires, the day
(23:15):
that Joshua McDaniels died. But you must know that you
didn't hate that idea because you weren't up in front
for me. If I would have been up front and
somebody else wouldn't have got wouldn't be missing legs right now,
somebody else might be alive. I trade places with him anytime.
(23:36):
With O'Brien or mc daniels, I trade places with him anytime.
Here in Mendoza's apartment, photos of McDaniels, O'Brien, and Dutcher
looked down at us from a shelf in the corner.
So who have you talked to? About? You know? Back
in saying and I asked every one of you guys,
I said, what are you gonna tell your friends and
family when you come home? And I didn't say, you know,
(23:57):
who are you going to talk to? But now I'd
like to know who? Who have you learned that you
can open up to? And when you do find someone
who you think you can open up to, what what
do you talk about? And go through basically levels? I
guess a vetting process, if you will, for each person.
And then we got to meet a certain criteria for
(24:19):
me when it comes to talking, the depth of conversation
in which we're having. I think one of my favorite
tests is you're holding a conversation, the other person gets distracted,
they come back, and then you change the subject and
if they flow with a new subject, they're just like
(24:39):
and then I'm just like, oh, okay, you don't care
what I was saying just now before you get distracted
by the butterfly. So okay. Yeah, then so you actually
do that with new friends, love interests, family, who who? Who?
Have you applied that test too? That's pretty ingenious. Everybody really,
(25:00):
Hardly anyone passes the test. He tells me about one
particular failure. I got to that point, like in the relationship,
like we started dating and I was gonna open up
to her, and I had a picture of mc daniels
in my glove compartment, and um, she so happened to
go into my glove compartment for some reason, one reason
(25:21):
or another. She opened up my glove compartment, saw McDaniels
a picture there. She looks at it. She's like, oh,
who's this, Like, oh, that's mc daniels. Uh, just one
of the guys that we actually lost. She oh, that's depressing,
throws it back in there, slams the fucking thing clothes.
(25:42):
It's like a ship. All right, what we're done? You know?
She filed the test. Man Even if he manages to
find someone who passes the initial test, he's still not
in the clear. It sucks because you find the next
ye you're like fuck yeah, like oh dude, like let's
(26:04):
hang out again. But then it just kind of that's
where it ends. So right when it gets good, it dies.
Why does it die? Because I mean, man, I want
to talk more, and I get excited and yeah and
then and and yeah, and I just jumped the gun.
I'm free. Yeah, you feel like you frea come out. Yeah.
So yeah, romantically sucks nowadays, it just comes off as desperate,
(26:28):
like oh, like I'm I'm excited that I can talk
to you this way. But that's they're mm, they're desperate. Yeah, God,
but you're not like desperate to get in bed with someone.
You're desperate to find someone you can actually be yourself
with and actually be real with. I mean, that's not
that's not like when we talk about men being desperate
or women being desperate, we're usually talking about a sexual
(26:50):
thing or like someone who just badly needs, like like
a needy person. But your desperation is actually like for
the kind of connection that makes a relationship where having
got either eager to have a meaningful conversation. So that's
what I'm thirsty for Have you talked to therapists at
all over the years? Do I need a professional, just
(27:12):
somebody who cares. What is it that you want to
talk about? If somebody would be willing to listen, gotcher McDaniels.
I mean, let's let's let's talk about it if you
if we can. And also before we do this, I
(27:32):
just want to make sure that I tell you and
that you know that you have the wheel. If things
get too intense, we can take a break. If you
really don't want to talk about something that's totally your call,
I am maybe going to push you a little bit
too to explore some difficult territory, because that's what people
need to hear. That's what makes this so important. But
(27:54):
you know, if ever things are are going into a
place that you think would be unsafe for you and
not good for you, then tell me and and we'll
we'll hit the brakes. Okay, it's not easy to watch
Mendoza struggling with this. He's clenching his fists and taking
shallow breaths. I'm gonna be extremely vulnerable here. Uh, let's
(28:18):
that's what I foresee. I'm trying to prepare for that
and right now kind of feeling it in my heart.
And what's really affecting it is the fact that it
will be on record and people will know. And that's
not something I generally share. I don't really share it
with anybody. So, dude, talking about those moments is reliving them.
(28:45):
Maybe it's just me. I don't like to consider myself being,
you know, better than somebody at anything. But when I
think I'm pretty good at his empathy, feeling, feeling perspectives,
feeling others emotions. Um, that also translates to memories being
(29:08):
pretty vivid. So whenever I share that, mhm hm, you
just feel everything, you really love everything, fill it all again,
(29:30):
the smell, the sounds, the taste, first things you saw,
last things you saw, and then the in between. Sometimes
that are just flashes and the natural responses to cry.
(29:55):
And I du so right now we're kind of reliving
some of them in my head. Mendoza takes a few
seconds to compose himself. The one that that's really scarring
(30:19):
is O'Brien. We had just gone back from patrol, but
I just remember I was sick and I was just
just shipping like they're not tomorrow, and I was. I
was in the restroom just shipping water and I hear
(30:41):
the explosion when a couple of seconds later see the
squad run and then Matelski asked me like, hey, are
you good to go? Like I look him in the eyes,
like I got my pants down, I'm shipping right now. No,
I'm not good. It's like okay when they take without me,
(31:01):
third squad rushes out of the compound gates to help,
but it was too late. Nicholas O'Brien had been killed
by an i EB and third squad came back and
up we got called back out to secure the site.
It's told security overnight and in the morning pick up
(31:28):
whatever we could of Nick. That is got to be
the most depressing, one of the most depressing times in
my life because as soon as the sun comes up
and we're out there looking for pieces, and we found
(31:50):
him everywhere, all over the place in the ditch, the ease,
like right at eye level, when you start looking higher,
start seeing pieces of boot, pieces of trousers, piece of
(32:16):
meat flesh. So we looked for what kept looking for, Well,
we can find trash bags, black trash bags, picking this stuff,
picking them up. We had gloves on. It doesn't help.
(32:51):
It didn't help. The smell, it didn't help with you
can still feel it, still feel it, still feel the
chunks h After a certain point, we just gave up.
We're like, no, we're done, We're done. We're done looking
for this. We shouldn't be out there doing that. We
(33:11):
but it's gotta be us. It should be us. It
(33:44):
feels wrong to talk about this. What what feels wrong
about it? It feels disrespectful to the parents. Didn't they
starts my squad mates of a tune. It doesn't. It's
really hard because getting the empathy. I'm starting to feel
(34:04):
what they might they might think once they hear about this,
and I care about what they think. I care, I
care about them. I understand Mendoza's concerns. I also worried
that describing the ugliest moments of these marines lives, including
the moments of their violent deaths, could be disrespectful or profane,
(34:28):
like an invasion of the privacy of the dead and
of their family's grief. Just so you know, we contacted
the families of the deceased Marines to let them know
what was going to be in this podcast. Unfortunately, it
comes down to this. If we want to show you
the reality of war, we can't shield you from the
(34:48):
most horrific moments. And for Mendoza, those moments remain just
as vivid now as they were. Then. What does it
feel like in your body when the flash has come back?
Like I'm there? The best way described is every motion
that you've ever felt, Just try to put that into
(35:10):
one feeling like you're feeling all of that at the
same time, if you can recall them. But one time
you knew that you were in love, or the most
scaredy you've ever been in your entire life, the most
apprehensive you've ever been in your entire life, the most
tired you've ever been in your entire life, all of that.
(35:33):
Condense it down and feel it all at the same time.
That's what I feel. And then doubt or you start
wondering what you could have done different that what if?
Now you start thinking why are you alive? Why am
(35:56):
I alive? Mhm h m hm, And that leads that
leads to other doors. So when that doubt creeps in
and that set of what ifs comes up, what's the
big what if? For you? This one big what if?
(36:23):
We'll never shared this with a few people. I don't know.
I don't think I can do it. I won't say
it while you're recorded. There's the line, do you want
to stop the recorder? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, stop it. M h,
(36:53):
We'll be back after the break. M While the recorders off,
(37:26):
I tell Mendoza why I decided to return to the
story of Third Squad after a decade. I tell him
I think we've done a poor job of talking about
the war since nine eleven, and to me, the silence
seems dangerous. We sit quietly for a few minutes, and
then Mendoza says, okay, let's talk. Hey. I want to
(37:48):
thank you for being willing to talk to us about
any of this. I think that this requires a kind
of courage that's actually harder to find and more rare
than the kind of courage that you need to step
into a minefield or go rush toward a firefight. Yeah,
(38:11):
it's pretty hard. It's a very hard thing to do
for me. It's hard emotionally. It's hard to thinking about
we just squad will say what they'll think of you?
Will they change? Well, if it does, there's still a
(38:34):
nothing I want to do for for my guys. So
maybe even if they hate me for this, I'll still
love them. He takes a few deep breaths, then he
tells me about the day Dutcher died. So we overworked
our sweepers to the point where they were exhausted. So
(38:58):
when you're exhausted you and it's dressed. It's only so
much he could take, so they needed rest, and so
other people started sweeping m dutch Are. Being the guy
that he was, it was happy to do it, even
(39:23):
though and it was the most dangerous spot. It was
almost guaranteed. It wasn't necessarily a matter of if it
was more when when you would find that I d
and be unlucky enough to have set it off. But
he stepped up anyways, because he was just the most
(39:48):
selfless guy to ever walk this earth my eyes, at
least in our eyes. So I was always up front
and I was choosing the routes that we would take.
(40:08):
At this stage in the deployment, Mendoza usually walked point
behind the sweeper. That job often fell on another third
squad member, Jeffrey Lopez. We didn't always agree on the
routes that we were going to take. But we didn't agree,
we found and in between, I didn't argue. We just
show something that we're both happy with. It wasn't so
(40:31):
smooth when Mendoza worked with Dutcher. He and Dutcher were
good friends, but they've been on a couple of patrols
together as point and sweeper, and it hadn't gone entirely well.
We kind of argued a little bit on which route
to take, and so he was kind of mad at me.
(40:51):
That was the mood between the two of them when
they stepped out and patrol that day. I was running
point and he was at the very front with the
middle detector, and uh. We had a crossed a couple
of canals, and then after we had crossed, we passed
(41:12):
some trees and behind these trees was this old, abandoned
compound and then I see a farmer. They're farming goats,
and all I'm like, okay, you weren't there yesterday, but
now you're farming. That should have been the first red flag.
That's it's like almost an immediate tell, like the student
is probably up to no good. So that's how that
(41:35):
your head. Dutcher, Let's go over there and talk to
this guy. It's like, okay, we entered this guy's field.
I started arguing with them because I tell him like, hey,
what you doing here? He's like, oh, farming. I was like,
that's bullshit. What are you doing here? It's like, oh,
(41:58):
I'm farming. I was like, where the Taliban it. He's like,
Nista the other band, there's no Taliban here all right?
Where the bombs? That? Where the A D S? A
pull much up to day. He's like, Nista, Nishta, there's
no bombs here. I was like, bullshit, there's sucking. There's
probably some A D S right there. Where are they?
He's like, no, there's no bombs here. I was like, okay, well,
(42:20):
then walk us right through there. He's like no, there's
there's probably bombs there. It's like, okay, you fucking piece
of ship. Mendoza had just caught him lying, and he
says this should have been another red flag. He ordered
the man to lead the squad through the field. He's
like no. I was like, no, you're walking him through
and sold Dutcher, Hey, that'tcher, follow this guy. He's gonna
(42:44):
walk us through this area right here. That when we're
making him walk through these A D rets like where
we suspect there to be a a d S because
he says there's none, but then he says there is.
We're walking him through that and we start following this
dude starts off right in front of us, right in
(43:06):
front of Dutch Air. Now he starts walking faster and
we're right behind him, and then he speeds up to
the point where we start kind of playing catch up,
kept following him. The most the obvious, fucking tell last
(43:31):
red flag it should have been when he jumped over
a fucking berm. It's a little it's a little area
next to a wall. He steps over it very carefully.
Dutcher follows, and that's the last thing I remember, rather
(44:14):
than dust. I'm looking at Dutcher. He's running in front
of me, and then the whole world turns brown and
then black. The next thing I know when I got
my hand on his on his flak and I'm pulling
him out of this crater and he's just covered in dust.
(44:41):
His leg is destroyed, it's got a hole on his pelvis,
tinant hole, and everything's brown except for that whole what's
black and it turns red bright red. Hm hm mmmm
just a matter of seconds. Let's start working on him
(45:07):
pressure on that wound, started playing tourni kids. I felt
like an eternity before the medic got there. We start
working on him, working, working, working, just putting it together
as best we can, working on we know he's in pain, NICs,
(45:47):
to try and look him in the eye, to talk
to him as he always doing. M h m. Everything
we could do, we're doing. M y okay, start telling
(46:17):
me you're gonna make it. It's gonna be fine. It's
gonna be fine. He's gonna be fine. I don't know how.
We've just pull the picture of his mom and his
brother and Rachel exolutely. Don't you're looking at the picture.
(46:42):
That's a little what you're gonna make you man, You're
gonna get home to him. We're fine, You'll be fine,
You'll be fine. M hm. Scream at him, screaming his name.
Just stay with stay with us, man, just stay with me.
(47:05):
Dutch helicopter finally arrives. Let him up on the helicopter.
We had a pulse, so we're like, we got him.
He's gay, he's going home. We got him, hold his
(47:32):
hand and told him by duchy, I love you, and
then fly away. It was only after the bird took
off that Mendoza realized he was wounded too. He took
shrapnel to his leg and arm, and he was disoriented
and felt like throwing up. The squad was worried enough
(47:55):
that they wanted to medivac him, but Mendoza refused and
on the way back get radio traffic. Dutcher's status has changed.
He's gone from critical two heroes status. Ducher had died
(48:23):
on the bird. He left behind his twin brother Tim,
his fiance Rachel, and his mom Teresa. That's it, man,
(48:55):
that's my word. If so, what's the what if? M
If I would have shot the dude right then and
there after every single fucking red flag, it's four times
I should have killed him. What if I had just
told Dutcher, I don't follow this guy, or Dutcher stop,
(49:21):
Or if I hadn't been there, if I had when
somebody else take point. There's plenty of what ifs, man,
so many different ways that could have gone, but he
went the wrong way. Those what ifs rattled around Mendoze
(49:51):
his head after he got back to the States and
through the rest of his time in the Marines. When
he took the uniform off for the last time the
what followed him to college. He was living the dream
that he described me and sang in, but he felt
painfully out of place outside the embrace of his marine family.
The what ifs began to torture him. It was after
(50:14):
that point I accepted that it was me. I did it.
Mendoza didn't just take responsibility for Dutcher's death. He became
convinced that he killed Dutcher. It was like my first
year in college pretty much, and nobody got me. Man.
(50:36):
That transition was hard, you know, going to school, being
in the classroom. The classroom just felt totally totally alien
to me. And so I was drinking a lot. I
drink a lot, smoke a lot. And when night, you know,
I just felt like I gave up, or actually I
(50:57):
did give up. It was like, let's just put it
all the way now, let's just put it all away.
I remember I went outside because I don't want to
make a mess inside the inside the apartment and my bread.
(51:18):
But for some reason, I just called Fry with his
pistol in his hand, Mendoza called his old squad leader. Yeah, man,
He answered the phone to like four in the morning.
He was in Pittsburgh. Yeah, I told him I was
feeling and it was all my fault that I did it,
(51:43):
and he put the blame on himself and he said, no,
I was a squad leader, I was the sergeant. I
was in charge of that patrol. And yes, that got
to me. It got to me. It made me. I
realized that there are people who care because I was
(52:05):
feeling the burden and here is Jared putting the burden
on himself and it wasn't even him, but here he
is trying to take that responsibility because he cares and
he was listening. He actually listened. At the most crucial moment,
(52:30):
Fry passed the test and Mendoza says that phone call
saved his life. Do you still have the Brenna good?
Have o'clock now? Oh my god, it's going on one
am and Mendoza has to work in the morning. He's
(52:52):
going to skip the gym, which means he might sleep
until five. Do you think that you work at the
fire station and you hustle, hustle, hustle, and try to
do so much because you're trying to not so much
payback in debts to society, but you're trying to make
up for for these feelings of guilt that you have.
(53:15):
Do you think there's a connection between those two things. Possibly,
I haven't thought about it. I've thought about it like that.
It seems there's a good chance. There's a chance that
might be. It seems like you don't really let yourself
slow down too much. Mhm. As we're packing up, Mendoza
(53:38):
shows me something else he keeps on his shelf next
to the photos of his dead friends. You've got three soldiers,
three toy soldiers, green armament that you get into the
giant bag. My mom gave him to me. She gave
me just three, one for O'Brien, one for McDaniels, and
(53:58):
one for Dutcher, one for each of the empty spaces
in his soldier's heart. One of them's on watch, one
was ready for attack, the other one is just standing by.
So the idea is that they're all looking over, they're
watching me, they're protecting. I'm not judging, We're just there.
(54:27):
I'm just here to make sure that the I don't
let him that next time. On third Squad, I joined
(55:11):
to fucking stacked bodies, not in a crazy way, like
does that make sense to like, not in a psycho
way of saying that I don't even see him as people.
I really don't the Taliban or African Talban. I've shot
prairie dogs, like prairie dogs, like fucking ground rats that
I've felt worse about shooting. I don't give a fuck.
(55:34):
It's one two o'clock in the morning, my phone rings,
it's it's Brian, and we're talking and everything's good. Then
just all of a sudden, I hear it shoo shoo
that that that that that look. I gotta go click.
(56:03):
Third Squad is written and produced by Elliot Woods, Tommy Andres,
and Maria Byrne. It's an Heirloom Media production distributed by
iHeart Media funding support from the National Endowment for the
Humanities in collaboration with the Center for Warren Society at
San Diego State University. Original music by Mondo Boys, editing
and sound designed by John Ward. Fact checking by Ben Kalin.
(56:27):
Special thanks to Scott Carrier, Marianne Andre, Ted Jenaway's, Caitlin Ash,
Carrie Gracie, Kevin Connolly, and Lena Ferguson. If you'd like
to see my photographs from Sangin and from our road trip,
please visit Third squad dot com. You can find me
on Instagram and Twitter at Elliott Woods. Before we go.
(56:47):
If you're having thoughts about suicide or self harm, please
don't wait to get help. Call the National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline to talk to someone now one hundred to seven three,
eight to five five
Third Squad is a podcast about war. All episodes contain
strong language and graphic descriptions of violence that may not
be suitable for all listeners. There's a line that Manny
Mendoza almost never crosses. He gets close sometimes, but I
won't say it. Well, you recorded, there's the line. Do
(00:24):
you want to stop the recorder? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, stop it.
I'm Elliott Woods. This is Third Squad Episode four, A
Soldier's Heart. This is on now. So the first thing is,
(00:53):
let me take you back to sang In for a minute.
It was two thousand eleven and I was in one
of those hot mud brick room is where the Marines
slept at patrol based fires. I was trying to interview
each of the guys when they had a few minutes
between patrols and sleeping. All right, go, I am Copra Mendoza.
Weis Loco Texas. I'm twenty years old. All right, try
(01:14):
again a little bit louder. Mendoza was shirtless, and unlike
some of the guys, he hadn't thinned out from the malnutrition.
I was cutting into his chill time, and he wasn't
all that excited about it. He was also nervous and
listening back to the tape, I don't know whether to
cringe or laugh at my stage directions. I'm Coporate Mendoza,
Manuel Mendoza, I am corporate Manuel Mendoza. I'm twenty years
(01:38):
old and from Wedlico, Texas. Mendoza barely looked back when
he left Westloco to join the Marines. He earned the
rank of corporal and became a team leader responsible for
half the squad in one of the most dangerous combat
zones in all of Afghanistan, and he took his job seriously.
You gotta be on top of everything. You've gotta be
thinking about real security, front security, everything. You got to
(02:02):
be pretty much thinking for your team. He still had
the wide eyes and bashful charm of a teenager. Everything
was new and exciting for him, but it was also horrific.
I wasn't expecting the blood bones dangling everywhere. I wasn't
expecting that. I was hoping I wouldn't have to see that,
but I did. Sangin was Mendoza's first deployment, and by
(02:24):
the time we met, he'd been on the ground for
four months. He'd already seen more than enough. He decided
to get out dream scenario like ten years from now,
just having a home, a family, and a job. I
guess as that is, that would be considering the American dream. Yeah,
I think so. I think so too. Now it's March,
(02:56):
almost ten years have gone by since we talked and
sang it. Mendoza is back living in Texas, and I'm
here to find out how his plans shook out. How
close has he gotten to that American dream? The home,
the family, the job. That is a lot of cool stuff.
Do here, we'll go, We'll start over at the engine.
(03:16):
So Mendoza is a volunteer firefighter. Now, among other things,
he's on shift tonight. It's about eleven PM and Tommy
and I are here at the firehouse. He's showing us around.
The very first thing I do coming in here, number
one is figure out where your assignment is, because you
don't actually just come in and just jump on the
(03:37):
engine like you're good. No, you need an assignment. Tonight,
Mendoza is on nozzle, the typical new guy job, and
what that means is that in any case we respond
to a fire, I would be the first one to
grab a hose. So you keep your stuff in here
ready to go. At all times. Usually in the movies
you might see that they have their stuff outside. No,
(03:58):
we we get dressed inside. In other words, jump in drive,
get dressed on the way. That saves like two to
three minutes. That's plenty of time to help save somebody.
He's a volunteer, but the gig is demanding. It's at
least twenty hours a week, and he often has to
spend the night, which means he has to head straight
to his other job as a civil engineer in the morning,
(04:19):
what you might call his real job. So this is
pretty intense. This is not just like you know something
you do just because you have some spare time to volunteer.
This is like a huge learning curve with a ton
of real responsibility. Yeah you love it. Yeah, learning it's
sucking awesome, dude, learning its fucking legit. The boyish enthusiasm
I remember from saying and has not diminished. But do
(04:41):
you ever take a day off? Yeah? Do you sleep? Yea?
How often do you sleep? Right now, I'm trying to
stick to go to sleep at ten, wake up at
three because Jim, you're gonna get that gym in. It's
getting close to midnight and we need to let Mendoza crash.
We're gonna be around for a few days, so we
make plans to meet up at his place on one
(05:02):
of his nights off to talk more. But we can't
leave without seeing the fire truck. This is what every
little boy's dream is, to stand up top of that ladder.
Do you want to go up there? Um? Now, you
can go up there? Sure, Okay, we climb up onto
the top. Be very careful to watch your head. We're
(05:22):
probably ten ft off the ground. Crouch beneath the ceiling.
One of the most important things to know about this
thing is that little liver right there. Mendoza shows us
how it works, but after a few minutes he gets
a little confused. Where was it when we got here?
I don't remember? He said it was set up for rescue.
He flips the lever back and forth a couple of times. God, damn,
(05:43):
can't you remember anymore? What is this? Did I break
the fire truck? We're gonna this part? I just don't remember.
Remember me to YouTube it now. I can use reasoning here.
(06:03):
I just use YouTube YouTube rescue setting for scannon setting there.
When we finally meet up with Mendoza at his apartment,
he's watching Training Day, the Denzel Washington film for maybe
(06:26):
the hundredth time. King Kong ain't got on me. He
lives in a tidy, one bedroom in a suburban complex
about a half hour north of Houston. The decorations are sparse.
He's got a poster near the kitchen of retired Marine
General Jim Mattis in the style of a religious icon,
complete with a halo and a grenade. Underneath, there's a
(06:49):
little shelf where I noticed a copy of I Am Malala,
and there's a knee high stack of engineering textbooks piled
by a small computer desk. Back in sang In, Mendoza
told me he wanted to go to college, and he
followed through on that plan. He earned a degree in
civil engineering from Texas A and M in two thousand nineteen.
Then he moved here to the Woodlands for a job
(07:10):
with the construction firm. In less than two years, he's
already worked his way up to manager. He tells me.
He even bought a house, just not for himself, for
his mom back in the Rio Grand Valley where he
grew up. I was born in Weslico, Texas, which is
deep deep south Texas. The very very south spout the
(07:30):
stone toss away from Mexico. Um he was born, I
didn't like it. He's the youngest of six with four
sisters and a brother. His parents are from Mexico. They
came to the US for work before Mendoza was born.
They always went job to job. I was working in
general labor. Everybody had to pitch in, even the little kids.
(07:52):
I got my first job when I was like, We
found a job for me out in the field because
they couldn't work the factories because I was too long,
and they had like laws or whatever, child labor laws. Yeah,
one of one of the major advancements of the twentieth century. Yeah,
I heard us. Yeah. Anyway, So I was working out
in the fields where you know that nobody ever came
(08:14):
to inspect. Every summer, the entire family went north to
pick cherries. Where up north all the way from West Dakota, Michigan.
That's basically all the way from the Mexican border to
the Canadian border almost pretty much. Man, So there was
work up there. The pay was good and even though
it was seasonal, still provided some decent monitor income for
(08:39):
the summer times. So you all went up there as
a family, Yeah, in your family car or how did
you get up there? Yeah, big old trucks that used
to buy up north. Whatever was a good deal and
whatever could hold all of us. One of the coolest
ones was this big old brown band that we had.
I think it was. Yeah, it was a big old
brown band. We had a table in the back. We
(08:59):
could all kind of just laid down. We would all
just kind of enjoy the day or two day trip
up to Michigan. They lived in migrant housing provided by
the owners of the fruit farms. They were usually out
in the field, kind of just out of the way. Um,
kind of hidden because you know, a lot of us
were a lot of them were illegals. A lot of
the workers were illegal or undocumented whatever. Um. So yeah,
(09:24):
they were kind of we were kind of in secluded
areas in the farmers fields. It's pretty much a shed
with sometimes with the running water in electricity other time
it's not not that um. I think the worst one
we dated and had a head and out house, like
no no running water, just ship house in the back
(09:46):
out in the orchards. Mendoza usually got the little kid jobs.
Remember I had a tennis racket. I would scoop up
all the bad ch Harris running behind this tractor, this
equipped piece of equimage. That's pretty cool. So then did
you get to keep the money that you made for
that or did you family all pull the money together
and use it to live for the rest of the year.
(10:07):
That was for clothes, uh, for me, for my clothes
for end whatever I needed for the coming school year.
He has fond memories of this time in his life,
the long road trips, the people he got to meet,
and especially the sense that he was helping his family
get by. But there was a cost for him that
didn't help out with my education at all. I'll tell
you that because you would come in sometimes a month
(10:29):
or too late to school in the fall. The super
student who showed us around the firehouse and excelled at
college wasn't always so hungry for education. I hate school.
I just buys died it. Didn't like it, and in
my head always had that mentality of I'm gonna go
on the military. If he ever had any doubts, he
(10:50):
says they vanished one autumn day in two thousand one.
I knew right away that I want to join the military.
At nine eleven, was ten years old. Yeah, that's when
I absolutely you I was going to join. This isn't
the first time I've heard this story. We play Mendoza
(11:10):
some of our interview from Sangin joined the Marine Corps
because I'll never forget September eleven. I'll never forget the
what happened in New York, and I'll never forget um
people never heard people that died. I love my country.
I'm a patriot straight up like your Mexican. I love
I love America because we had a lot of great
(11:33):
things in our country, and I like to I feel
like I have I have a depth at depth that
try to speak in a little bit louder the voice,
not like shouting, whispering this somewhere in the middle of
just a strong, strong I feel like I got a
(11:54):
debt to the United States because I have such a
great life back home. I out my family, I got
I had a good education. Now, so I felt like
I needed to pay that dead you you busted out
laughing when you heard I got a good education. You
had like a full belly laugh. So why is that
(12:16):
because it contradicted what I just said? Yeah, so why
do you think you told me that? Back then, why
do you think you said you had a good education
back then? I don't know any better, And I think
subconsciously what I was thinking was that compared to the
Afghan kids, that's what I had, Yeah, a great education.
Mendoza worked three jobs in high school. He steered clear
(12:39):
of the drugs and the gangs that he says we're everywhere,
and he kept his grades up enough to stay on
the football team and graduate. All I was worried about
was finishing up so I can, yeah, go ahead and
get the hell out of here, out of the valley
and go fight boredom and testosterone curiosity about the big
wide world. Roman took ideals about the greatest adventure of
(13:01):
them all. War. It's a powerful cocktail for a small
town boy, and it leads often enough to the military.
But there are a lot of other roads to adventure.
There are a lot of other ways to get the
hell out. What I want to know is why Mendoza
was so eager to fight. What did that feeling in
like in your body, this desire to fight? What did
that feel like? I guess it wasn't a feeling. I
(13:25):
guess my just my imagination just took me places with
what I could do and what I wanted to do,
because I had no really, no real way of feeling
what combat might be like. His imagination was fueled by
war movies, video games, and books about battles. Seventh grade,
(13:46):
the first book I ever read like actual. It wasn't
a Goose Bones book, it wasn't um some Captain Underpants whatever.
It was a legit novel, and it was A Soldier
His Heart. The books about a fifteen year old boy
named Charlie who lies about his age so he can
(14:08):
enlist and fight in the American Civil War. When he
comes home from the war, he's walking with a cane
and pissing blood, and he's tortured by the horrors he witnessed.
He has what we now call PTSD, but back then
it was sometimes called soldier's heart. In the final scene,
(14:32):
Charlie sits down by a river to have a picnic.
He takes out some bread and cheese, a chunk of
roast beef, some coffee, and a pistol. It's not clear
whether Charlie kills himself, but it's definitely not a happy ending.
(14:54):
It may sound strange that someone would read that story
and want to go to war. But Mendoza did, So
what year did you? And listen to the Marines? Okay,
so you really are what they call a surge baby. Yeah.
The surge babies are a generation of military recruits who
joined during the surges in Rock and Afghanistan, when tens
of thousands of extra troops were deployed to try to
(15:16):
turn the wars around. The Iraq Surge began in two
thousand seven and was ordered by President George Bush. If
we increase our support at this crucial moment and help
the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can
hasten the day our troops begin coming home. The Afghanistan
Surge began in about two thousand ten and was ordered
(15:37):
by President Barack Obama. These are the resources that we
need to seize the initiative while building the Afghan capacity
that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces
out of Afghanistan. Most of Third Squad were surge babies.
For Mendoza, becoming a Marine changed his entire sense of identity.
(15:58):
You said, and this really stuck out to me at
the time. You said, I love my country even though
I'm Mexican, And I remember thinking, why did he feel
like he had to make that clarification, probably because of that,
the whole migrant thing. Growing up, my mom said, you're Mexican.
(16:19):
She used to get mad at us for speaking English
in the house. Um so, so it was weird learning English.
That's probably why my my English is a little bit
off at times, even though you you told me to
speak louder. It's sometimes I get confused within this word.
So now it was actually abusing bilingual kid. Who is
you know? Great? Now I feel really great about myself.
(16:41):
That's awesome. Um No, so growing up it was like
not your Mexican, like you have cactus on your forehead.
But at that time, do you think that you felt American?
I mean because again, like, what's what's interesting about that
is that in that clip that and when that up
that we played, you're talking about how powerful of an
(17:02):
impression nine eleven made on you. You're saying, I love
my country even though I'm a Mexican, but you clearly
felt that that attack as an American. Tell me a
little bit about what it was like to have that
split identity and how that identity has grown or changed
over the years since then. I want to say that
(17:25):
once I joined the Marine Corps. It was like, no,
it was just you're you're. You've chosen your identity there,
like you're you are American now. Teenage Mendoza didn't hesitate
to claim that hundred percent American identity anymore than he
hesitated to leave West Loco in the dust. But for
his mom, his departure was a heavy blow. He tried
(17:46):
to soften it the way boys often do by lying,
and it is sound really fucked up, because I didn't
want to make her worried, so I told her I
was an electrician, I was in the Marine Corps. Yeah.
I didn't tell her I was infantry until, oh, the
night before I left. That's a big lie. Yeah, but
(18:06):
it's my moment, man, I just I don't want to
fucking put so much stress on her. He came clean
while he was home in Westlico on leave from Camp Pendleton.
He'd already been in the Marines for two years now.
His battalion was gearing up for the Sangin deployment. That
was at night. Uh, my flight was at like two
in the morning or something like that or some ridiculous hour.
(18:27):
But it was dark. I remember the only light in
the house was on was the kitchen. I told him, oh,
it's time to go. I mean just one. It's here
to take me to my sisters, here to take me
to the airport. And that's when I told him. I
(18:50):
was like, Mom, so I'm not actually electrician, and uh yeah,
I'll be on my way to Afghanistan within the next week.
She's like, I am me who, Like why, why? Why
(19:11):
did you do this? My dad he had just suffered
a stroke, and I remember, oh, god, man, I remember
him standing outside the front porch, the light on and
(19:36):
the shadows like we're casting over his face, like he
couldn't see his full face, but you could just see
the figure of his face and his glasses and he
had a cane. His left side was just hanging, you
could barely hold himself up. And he was just standing
as best he could to look at me, look at
(19:57):
the car, see as I was going away. And I
know my mom was crying in the kitchen. I can't
that that image doesn't escape me as my dad as
I'm driving away, looking back. So my dad watches me
go away. We'll be back after the break. Not long
(21:03):
after Mendoza told his family the truth, he deployed to
Afghanistan with Third Squad. When we sat down to talk
one on one at patrol based fires back in two
thousand eleven, it was obvious he took his team leader
responsibilities very seriously. He was putting a ton of pressure
on himself. I love my Marines. Those are my boys.
They got a lot of things going for them, and
(21:26):
I just don't want anything to happen to them. I
want to keep them as safe as I possibly can.
And what I'd like to consider the most probably one
of the most dangerous place on Earth. When Third Squad
went out on patrol, the guys walked in single file
with a marine at the front sweeping for I. E. D. S.
As a team leader, Mendoza didn't want to leave anything
to chance, so we walked behind the sweeper on every
(21:48):
patrol if he could. It's the position the Third Squad
Marines called point. Another thing I noticed is that you've
been up front a lot. Tell me about why you
like to be upfront in the sweeper. You gotta lead
by example, and I like to tell my sweeper where
to go because he's a pretty good he's a good sweeper,
(22:11):
But like sometimes you know, the complacency starts to kick in,
and they like to take the easy routes. I like
to go the hard way. I like to go all
the way around because that's where we're at least likely
to get hit by anything, run into anything. It's kind
of reckless. But I like to be up front because
I found the second one through. Most likely I'll be
(22:33):
the one to step on a pressure plate and nobody
else behind me, I'll step on one. When I interviewed
him in sangin June twelve was fresh on Mendoza's mind,
the worst day of my life. That was definitely a
reality check. That was the first day my whole team
was in front of me, and that was literally the
(22:54):
first day they were ever in front of me. And
the one day that I let them walk in front
of me is the one day that we run into
an I D. That was the day of third Squad's
mass casualty when they ran into a cluster of I E.
D S just outside of patrol based fires, the day
(23:15):
that Joshua McDaniels died. But you must know that you
didn't hate that idea because you weren't up in front
for me. If I would have been up front and
somebody else wouldn't have got wouldn't be missing legs right now,
somebody else might be alive. I trade places with him anytime.
(23:36):
With O'Brien or mc daniels, I trade places with him anytime.
Here in Mendoza's apartment, photos of McDaniels, O'Brien, and Dutcher
looked down at us from a shelf in the corner.
So who have you talked to? About? You know? Back
in saying and I asked every one of you guys,
I said, what are you gonna tell your friends and
family when you come home? And I didn't say, you know,
(23:57):
who are you going to talk to? But now I'd
like to know who? Who have you learned that you
can open up to? And when you do find someone
who you think you can open up to, what what
do you talk about? And go through basically levels? I
guess a vetting process, if you will, for each person.
And then we got to meet a certain criteria for
(24:19):
me when it comes to talking, the depth of conversation
in which we're having. I think one of my favorite
tests is you're holding a conversation, the other person gets distracted,
they come back, and then you change the subject and
if they flow with a new subject, they're just like
(24:39):
and then I'm just like, oh, okay, you don't care
what I was saying just now before you get distracted
by the butterfly. So okay. Yeah, then so you actually
do that with new friends, love interests, family, who who? Who?
Have you applied that test too? That's pretty ingenious. Everybody really,
(25:00):
Hardly anyone passes the test. He tells me about one
particular failure. I got to that point, like in the relationship,
like we started dating and I was gonna open up
to her, and I had a picture of mc daniels
in my glove compartment, and um, she so happened to
go into my glove compartment for some reason, one reason
(25:21):
or another. She opened up my glove compartment, saw McDaniels
a picture there. She looks at it. She's like, oh,
who's this, Like, oh, that's mc daniels. Uh, just one
of the guys that we actually lost. She oh, that's depressing,
throws it back in there, slams the fucking thing clothes.
(25:42):
It's like a ship. All right, what we're done? You know?
She filed the test. Man Even if he manages to
find someone who passes the initial test, he's still not
in the clear. It sucks because you find the next
ye you're like fuck yeah, like oh dude, like let's
(26:04):
hang out again. But then it just kind of that's
where it ends. So right when it gets good, it dies.
Why does it die? Because I mean, man, I want
to talk more, and I get excited and yeah and
then and and yeah, and I just jumped the gun.
I'm free. Yeah, you feel like you frea come out. Yeah.
So yeah, romantically sucks nowadays, it just comes off as desperate,
(26:28):
like oh, like I'm I'm excited that I can talk
to you this way. But that's they're mm, they're desperate. Yeah, God,
but you're not like desperate to get in bed with someone.
You're desperate to find someone you can actually be yourself
with and actually be real with. I mean, that's not
that's not like when we talk about men being desperate
or women being desperate, we're usually talking about a sexual
(26:50):
thing or like someone who just badly needs, like like
a needy person. But your desperation is actually like for
the kind of connection that makes a relationship where having
got either eager to have a meaningful conversation. So that's
what I'm thirsty for Have you talked to therapists at
all over the years? Do I need a professional, just
(27:12):
somebody who cares. What is it that you want to
talk about? If somebody would be willing to listen, gotcher McDaniels.
I mean, let's let's let's talk about it if you
if we can. And also before we do this, I
(27:32):
just want to make sure that I tell you and
that you know that you have the wheel. If things
get too intense, we can take a break. If you
really don't want to talk about something that's totally your call,
I am maybe going to push you a little bit
too to explore some difficult territory, because that's what people
need to hear. That's what makes this so important. But
(27:54):
you know, if ever things are are going into a
place that you think would be unsafe for you and
not good for you, then tell me and and we'll
we'll hit the brakes. Okay, it's not easy to watch
Mendoza struggling with this. He's clenching his fists and taking
shallow breaths. I'm gonna be extremely vulnerable here. Uh, let's
(28:18):
that's what I foresee. I'm trying to prepare for that
and right now kind of feeling it in my heart.
And what's really affecting it is the fact that it
will be on record and people will know. And that's
not something I generally share. I don't really share it
with anybody. So, dude, talking about those moments is reliving them.
(28:45):
Maybe it's just me. I don't like to consider myself being,
you know, better than somebody at anything. But when I
think I'm pretty good at his empathy, feeling, feeling perspectives,
feeling others emotions. Um, that also translates to memories being
(29:08):
pretty vivid. So whenever I share that, mhm hm, you
just feel everything, you really love everything, fill it all again,
(29:30):
the smell, the sounds, the taste, first things you saw,
last things you saw, and then the in between. Sometimes
that are just flashes and the natural responses to cry.
(29:55):
And I du so right now we're kind of reliving
some of them in my head. Mendoza takes a few
seconds to compose himself. The one that that's really scarring
(30:19):
is O'Brien. We had just gone back from patrol, but
I just remember I was sick and I was just
just shipping like they're not tomorrow, and I was. I
was in the restroom just shipping water and I hear
(30:41):
the explosion when a couple of seconds later see the
squad run and then Matelski asked me like, hey, are
you good to go? Like I look him in the eyes,
like I got my pants down, I'm shipping right now. No,
I'm not good. It's like okay when they take without me,
(31:01):
third squad rushes out of the compound gates to help,
but it was too late. Nicholas O'Brien had been killed
by an i EB and third squad came back and
up we got called back out to secure the site.
It's told security overnight and in the morning pick up
(31:28):
whatever we could of Nick. That is got to be
the most depressing, one of the most depressing times in
my life because as soon as the sun comes up
and we're out there looking for pieces, and we found
(31:50):
him everywhere, all over the place in the ditch, the ease,
like right at eye level, when you start looking higher,
start seeing pieces of boot, pieces of trousers, piece of
(32:16):
meat flesh. So we looked for what kept looking for, Well,
we can find trash bags, black trash bags, picking this stuff,
picking them up. We had gloves on. It doesn't help.
(32:51):
It didn't help. The smell, it didn't help with you
can still feel it, still feel it, still feel the
chunks h After a certain point, we just gave up.
We're like, no, we're done, We're done. We're done looking
for this. We shouldn't be out there doing that. We
(33:11):
but it's gotta be us. It should be us. It
(33:44):
feels wrong to talk about this. What what feels wrong
about it? It feels disrespectful to the parents. Didn't they
starts my squad mates of a tune. It doesn't. It's
really hard because getting the empathy. I'm starting to feel
(34:04):
what they might they might think once they hear about this,
and I care about what they think. I care, I
care about them. I understand Mendoza's concerns. I also worried
that describing the ugliest moments of these marines lives, including
the moments of their violent deaths, could be disrespectful or profane,
(34:28):
like an invasion of the privacy of the dead and
of their family's grief. Just so you know, we contacted
the families of the deceased Marines to let them know
what was going to be in this podcast. Unfortunately, it
comes down to this. If we want to show you
the reality of war, we can't shield you from the
(34:48):
most horrific moments. And for Mendoza, those moments remain just
as vivid now as they were. Then. What does it
feel like in your body when the flash has come back?
Like I'm there? The best way described is every motion
that you've ever felt, Just try to put that into
(35:10):
one feeling like you're feeling all of that at the
same time, if you can recall them. But one time
you knew that you were in love, or the most
scaredy you've ever been in your entire life, the most
apprehensive you've ever been in your entire life, the most
tired you've ever been in your entire life, all of that.
(35:33):
Condense it down and feel it all at the same time.
That's what I feel. And then doubt or you start
wondering what you could have done different that what if?
Now you start thinking why are you alive? Why am
(35:56):
I alive? Mhm h m hm, And that leads that
leads to other doors. So when that doubt creeps in
and that set of what ifs comes up, what's the
big what if? For you? This one big what if?
(36:23):
We'll never shared this with a few people. I don't know.
I don't think I can do it. I won't say
it while you're recorded. There's the line, do you want
to stop the recorder? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, stop it. M h,
(36:53):
We'll be back after the break. M While the recorders off,
(37:26):
I tell Mendoza why I decided to return to the
story of Third Squad after a decade. I tell him
I think we've done a poor job of talking about
the war since nine eleven, and to me, the silence
seems dangerous. We sit quietly for a few minutes, and
then Mendoza says, okay, let's talk. Hey. I want to
(37:48):
thank you for being willing to talk to us about
any of this. I think that this requires a kind
of courage that's actually harder to find and more rare
than the kind of courage that you need to step
into a minefield or go rush toward a firefight. Yeah,
(38:11):
it's pretty hard. It's a very hard thing to do
for me. It's hard emotionally. It's hard to thinking about
we just squad will say what they'll think of you?
Will they change? Well, if it does, there's still a
(38:34):
nothing I want to do for for my guys. So
maybe even if they hate me for this, I'll still
love them. He takes a few deep breaths, then he
tells me about the day Dutcher died. So we overworked
our sweepers to the point where they were exhausted. So
(38:58):
when you're exhausted you and it's dressed. It's only so
much he could take, so they needed rest, and so
other people started sweeping m dutch Are. Being the guy
that he was, it was happy to do it, even
(39:23):
though and it was the most dangerous spot. It was
almost guaranteed. It wasn't necessarily a matter of if it
was more when when you would find that I d
and be unlucky enough to have set it off. But
he stepped up anyways, because he was just the most
(39:48):
selfless guy to ever walk this earth my eyes, at
least in our eyes. So I was always up front
and I was choosing the routes that we would take.
(40:08):
At this stage in the deployment, Mendoza usually walked point
behind the sweeper. That job often fell on another third
squad member, Jeffrey Lopez. We didn't always agree on the
routes that we were going to take. But we didn't agree,
we found and in between, I didn't argue. We just
show something that we're both happy with. It wasn't so
(40:31):
smooth when Mendoza worked with Dutcher. He and Dutcher were
good friends, but they've been on a couple of patrols
together as point and sweeper, and it hadn't gone entirely well.
We kind of argued a little bit on which route
to take, and so he was kind of mad at me.
(40:51):
That was the mood between the two of them when
they stepped out and patrol that day. I was running
point and he was at the very front with the
middle detector, and uh. We had a crossed a couple
of canals, and then after we had crossed, we passed
(41:12):
some trees and behind these trees was this old, abandoned
compound and then I see a farmer. They're farming goats,
and all I'm like, okay, you weren't there yesterday, but
now you're farming. That should have been the first red flag.
That's it's like almost an immediate tell, like the student
is probably up to no good. So that's how that
(41:35):
your head. Dutcher, Let's go over there and talk to
this guy. It's like, okay, we entered this guy's field.
I started arguing with them because I tell him like, hey,
what you doing here? He's like, oh, farming. I was like,
that's bullshit. What are you doing here? It's like, oh,
(41:58):
I'm farming. I was like, where the Taliban it. He's like,
Nista the other band, there's no Taliban here all right?
Where the bombs? That? Where the A D S? A
pull much up to day. He's like, Nista, Nishta, there's
no bombs here. I was like, bullshit, there's sucking. There's
probably some A D S right there. Where are they?
He's like, no, there's no bombs here. I was like, okay, well,
(42:20):
then walk us right through there. He's like no, there's
there's probably bombs there. It's like, okay, you fucking piece
of ship. Mendoza had just caught him lying, and he
says this should have been another red flag. He ordered
the man to lead the squad through the field. He's
like no. I was like, no, you're walking him through
and sold Dutcher, Hey, that'tcher, follow this guy. He's gonna
(42:44):
walk us through this area right here. That when we're
making him walk through these A D rets like where
we suspect there to be a a d S because
he says there's none, but then he says there is.
We're walking him through that and we start following this
dude starts off right in front of us, right in
(43:06):
front of Dutch Air. Now he starts walking faster and
we're right behind him, and then he speeds up to
the point where we start kind of playing catch up,
kept following him. The most the obvious, fucking tell last
(43:31):
red flag it should have been when he jumped over
a fucking berm. It's a little it's a little area
next to a wall. He steps over it very carefully.
Dutcher follows, and that's the last thing I remember, rather
(44:14):
than dust. I'm looking at Dutcher. He's running in front
of me, and then the whole world turns brown and
then black. The next thing I know when I got
my hand on his on his flak and I'm pulling
him out of this crater and he's just covered in dust.
(44:41):
His leg is destroyed, it's got a hole on his pelvis,
tinant hole, and everything's brown except for that whole what's
black and it turns red bright red. Hm hm mmmm
just a matter of seconds. Let's start working on him
(45:07):
pressure on that wound, started playing tourni kids. I felt
like an eternity before the medic got there. We start
working on him, working, working, working, just putting it together
as best we can, working on we know he's in pain, NICs,
(45:47):
to try and look him in the eye, to talk
to him as he always doing. M h m. Everything
we could do, we're doing. M y okay, start telling
(46:17):
me you're gonna make it. It's gonna be fine. It's
gonna be fine. He's gonna be fine. I don't know how.
We've just pull the picture of his mom and his
brother and Rachel exolutely. Don't you're looking at the picture.
(46:42):
That's a little what you're gonna make you man, You're
gonna get home to him. We're fine, You'll be fine,
You'll be fine. M hm. Scream at him, screaming his name.
Just stay with stay with us, man, just stay with me.
(47:05):
Dutch helicopter finally arrives. Let him up on the helicopter.
We had a pulse, so we're like, we got him.
He's gay, he's going home. We got him, hold his
(47:32):
hand and told him by duchy, I love you, and
then fly away. It was only after the bird took
off that Mendoza realized he was wounded too. He took
shrapnel to his leg and arm, and he was disoriented
and felt like throwing up. The squad was worried enough
(47:55):
that they wanted to medivac him, but Mendoza refused and
on the way back get radio traffic. Dutcher's status has changed.
He's gone from critical two heroes status. Ducher had died
(48:23):
on the bird. He left behind his twin brother Tim,
his fiance Rachel, and his mom Teresa. That's it, man,
(48:55):
that's my word. If so, what's the what if? M
If I would have shot the dude right then and
there after every single fucking red flag, it's four times
I should have killed him. What if I had just
told Dutcher, I don't follow this guy, or Dutcher stop,
(49:21):
Or if I hadn't been there, if I had when
somebody else take point. There's plenty of what ifs, man,
so many different ways that could have gone, but he
went the wrong way. Those what ifs rattled around Mendoze
(49:51):
his head after he got back to the States and
through the rest of his time in the Marines. When
he took the uniform off for the last time the
what followed him to college. He was living the dream
that he described me and sang in, but he felt
painfully out of place outside the embrace of his marine family.
The what ifs began to torture him. It was after
(50:14):
that point I accepted that it was me. I did it.
Mendoza didn't just take responsibility for Dutcher's death. He became
convinced that he killed Dutcher. It was like my first
year in college pretty much, and nobody got me. Man.
(50:36):
That transition was hard, you know, going to school, being
in the classroom. The classroom just felt totally totally alien
to me. And so I was drinking a lot. I
drink a lot, smoke a lot. And when night, you know,
I just felt like I gave up, or actually I
(50:57):
did give up. It was like, let's just put it
all the way now, let's just put it all away.
I remember I went outside because I don't want to
make a mess inside the inside the apartment and my bread.
(51:18):
But for some reason, I just called Fry with his
pistol in his hand, Mendoza called his old squad leader. Yeah, man,
He answered the phone to like four in the morning.
He was in Pittsburgh. Yeah, I told him I was
feeling and it was all my fault that I did it,
(51:43):
and he put the blame on himself and he said, no,
I was a squad leader, I was the sergeant. I
was in charge of that patrol. And yes, that got
to me. It got to me. It made me. I
realized that there are people who care because I was
(52:05):
feeling the burden and here is Jared putting the burden
on himself and it wasn't even him, but here he
is trying to take that responsibility because he cares and
he was listening. He actually listened. At the most crucial moment,
(52:30):
Fry passed the test and Mendoza says that phone call
saved his life. Do you still have the Brenna good?
Have o'clock now? Oh my god, it's going on one
am and Mendoza has to work in the morning. He's
(52:52):
going to skip the gym, which means he might sleep
until five. Do you think that you work at the
fire station and you hustle, hustle, hustle, and try to
do so much because you're trying to not so much
payback in debts to society, but you're trying to make
up for for these feelings of guilt that you have.
(53:15):
Do you think there's a connection between those two things. Possibly,
I haven't thought about it. I've thought about it like that.
It seems there's a good chance. There's a chance that
might be. It seems like you don't really let yourself
slow down too much. Mhm. As we're packing up, Mendoza
(53:38):
shows me something else he keeps on his shelf next
to the photos of his dead friends. You've got three soldiers,
three toy soldiers, green armament that you get into the
giant bag. My mom gave him to me. She gave
me just three, one for O'Brien, one for McDaniels, and
(53:58):
one for Dutcher, one for each of the empty spaces
in his soldier's heart. One of them's on watch, one
was ready for attack, the other one is just standing by.
So the idea is that they're all looking over, they're
watching me, they're protecting. I'm not judging, We're just there.
(54:27):
I'm just here to make sure that the I don't
let him that next time. On third Squad, I joined
(55:11):
to fucking stacked bodies, not in a crazy way, like
does that make sense to like, not in a psycho
way of saying that I don't even see him as people.
I really don't the Taliban or African Talban. I've shot
prairie dogs, like prairie dogs, like fucking ground rats that
I've felt worse about shooting. I don't give a fuck.
(55:34):
It's one two o'clock in the morning, my phone rings,
it's it's Brian, and we're talking and everything's good. Then
just all of a sudden, I hear it shoo shoo
that that that that that look. I gotta go click.
(56:03):
Third Squad is written and produced by Elliot Woods, Tommy Andres,
and Maria Byrne. It's an Heirloom Media production distributed by
iHeart Media funding support from the National Endowment for the
Humanities in collaboration with the Center for Warren Society at
San Diego State University. Original music by Mondo Boys, editing
and sound designed by John Ward. Fact checking by Ben Kalin.
(56:27):
Special thanks to Scott Carrier, Marianne Andre, Ted Jenaway's, Caitlin Ash,
Carrie Gracie, Kevin Connolly, and Lena Ferguson. If you'd like
to see my photographs from Sangin and from our road trip,
please visit Third squad dot com. You can find me
on Instagram and Twitter at Elliott Woods. Before we go.
(56:47):
If you're having thoughts about suicide or self harm, please
don't wait to get help. Call the National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline to talk to someone now one hundred to seven three,
eight to five five
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