Audible has the best selection ofaudiobooks, handsdown.
You'll always find the latest bestsellers, along with binge-worthy podcasts and exclusiveoriginals.
No matter what you'reinto, steamyromance, a listmemoirs, fantasticsci-fi, inspiringmotivation, andmore.
It's all there in the Audibleapp.
There are also thousands of included titles with more added everyweek, so you've always got something new totry.
There's more to imagine when you listen onAudible.
Find out foryourself. Sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slashcereal.
First plan was go from point A to pointB.
That wasit.Previously, notcereal.
OPMAST. It's probably the worst place humanlyimaginable.
That placesucks. Then you had the little bucket everyone shit inthen.
He was in the town asking if people spokeEnglish.
I'd rather be sitting in Leavenworth and standing over the body of NazimEndor.
Pro or somebody likethat.
Far notice in a Guccitent.
Picking indoors oneminute.
Freaking cow has ababy.
This is ourmission. He's one of ourguys.
We gotta findhim. We're gonna doit.
If we were to foundhim, I think a lot of us would have shothim.
Yeah.Yeah, Istill... I think I'm so angry aboutit.
Before Mark started asking Bo whathappened, why'd he walk away from hisplatoon?
Bo had already talked about it to General KennethDoll.
Doll was in charge of investigating what Bo did and writing up a report for thearmy.
His inquiry was confined to the period that led up to Bo's decision toleave, not Bo's time with the Taliban oranything.
Just why'd hewalk? Mark asked Bo about the statement he gave GeneralDoll.
How long is yourstatement?
Um, 300 in somepages. Shutup.
It's 300pages?Uh, 300plus,like,like, 380 somepages.
Are you fuckingserious,dude?
I'm fuckingserious. Your statement is 380pages?
Yeah.Why? What did you do to tell him every fucking meal you had when you weredeployed?
No, I just told him to keep playingsome...
I don'tknow. That was thestory.
Like, I need 12 minutes to tell thestory.
I told the story and 300 pageslater, and I came to the point where it's out and picked meup.
At a militaryhearing, Doll said he and Bo spoke over the course of a day and ahalf.
Quote, andfrankly, at the end ofthat, I had no more questions to ask him and he had no more story to tellme.
So we exhausted eachother, and we weredone,unquote.
Hewanted... It wasn't justlike, you're giving me your statement of what happened that night orwhatever.
He wanted to understand who Iwas.
As aperson, youknow, nobody knew who I was because I was soquiet.
Oh,okay. Allright, why didn't understandthat?
I thought it was just about thedeployment.
No,no, youwere...Like,basically, in the verybeginning, hesaid, allright, this is your chance to tell astory.
So, Isaid,well,sir, in order for me to explain to you whathappened, I need to go back and explain to you where itbegan.
From this American life in WBZChicago, it'sserial.
One story told week byweek.
I'm SarahCaney. And fearnot, I am not going to take you through every one of those 387pages.
But in the next twoepisodes, we are going to zoom back in so you can understand what doll and mark and eye came to understand aboutBo.
Whether he told the truth about what he did and whether there's truth in what he told because those are two differentquestions.
One of the things that's interesting to me about Bo is that he broke this cardinal rule of themilitary.
He left hisunit, walked away from hispost.
But at the sametime, he was completely devoted to being a goodsoldier.
And up until the day heleft, he was a goodsoldier.
At the militaryhearing, his former weapons squadleader, a guy named GregLeatherman, said the leadership used to do this thing sort of like fantasyfootball, like a mockdraft.
If you could form a squad from anyone in the company who would youchoose.
Quote, and firstpick, youknow, Sergeant Bergdahl was going to be the first pick for everyone almost everytime, hesaid.
He was a greatsoldier. He did things like study the RangerHandbook, which is something we were all supposed todo, but none of us actuallydid.
Youknow, you look throughit, you get some notes andsay,yeah, I looked atit.
That's JasonFry. He was inBose,Platoon.
They werefriends. The Ranger Handbook is a pocket guide for soldiers on tactics andtechniques.
And hewould, youknow, he'd comeback, he'd highlightit, he'd look at it and studyit.
And the leadership saw that and they werelike,wow, youknow, this guy'strying.
He cares about hisjob, he cares about what he'sdoing.
And I thinkthat's, that's significant as far asunderstanding, but he is an up person who carelessly doessomething.
Backthen, Bose goal was specialforces.
He joined the army in 2008 and was assigned to the first battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment BlackfootCompany.
As an infantrysoldier, you are so far from specialforces.
You're aworkhorse. You're the guys who get sent out to guard a traffic control point in the middle ofnowhere,Afghanistan.
But Bose intended to be a faultless example of aninfantryman.
He volunteered for extraduty, took impeccable care of hisweapon, helped other people with their jobs once he was done withhis, shoved extra snacks in hispockets.
In case the other guys gothungry.
He wasfit. One of his former platoon mates told me he was a PTstud.
PT is the often dreaded physical training soldiers have todo.
He was what military people call square toway, rightplace, righttime, rightuniform.
Everybody agrees aboutthat.
The other thing people will say about Bose back then is that he was not your typicalgrunt.
They can all describeBose, but not one of them would say they totally got him or understood what made himtick.
Shane Cross was friends with Bosealso.
They were in the sameplatoon.
He said Bose wasn't isolated from thegroup.
He just wasn't into the usualstuff.
These guys played videogames.
Bosedidn't. They talked about sex andwomen.
Bosedidn't. He'dsay, I'm not into that kind ofthing.
He didn't live theaverage.
The barrack soldier lifestyle of drinking allnight, all weekends andeverything.
He would always listen to classicalmusic.
He would read alot. Would he ever jokearound?
Did he have a sense ofhumor?
Yeah, he has sense ofhumor.
Joining him in the community ofteasing, jokingaround, not the extent that most of the soldierswill, playing the grab assuringstuff.
He keptjournals, he tried to studythings,pasto, forinstance.
And thequietness, it's just how Boseis.
He's anintrovert. But it was alsointentional.
The best way to create police amount of friction is notbe, youknow, isone, don't run yourmouth, enact like adumbass.
Don't get in people's personalspace.
Don't go out of your waylike,no, atall.
Youknow, if you'requiet, if you're off to theside, if youlisten, and if youwatch, and if you helppeople, because then you're able to helpthem, because you're watchingthem, you're seeing you're seeing me or when somebody needshelp, youknow, that paysoff, often with you as far as the team isconcerned.
He doesn't want to annoy anyone or create aproblem.
He's thinking about the best way he can contribute to thecollective, how he can be mostuseful.
He's like the perfectguest.
Except that this strong philosopher-nured component hehas, people might find it interesting orirritating.
Example, Bo took upsmoking, sortof.
A lot of private smokedcigarettes, but he smoked apipe.
If the other guys were hunkered up in the window smokingcigarettes, he'd bring hispipe.
So, youknow, even though I don't smokethere, youknow, I'm going out with theguys,because, youknow, if you lookat, youknow,cigarette, ritualthing, it's kindof, youknow, it's a bondingritual, you're more orless.
Like he wasparticipating, but with an anthropologicalbent.
Bo would probably be the first to admit that he had a bit of a tin ear for social interactionsometimes, not witheveryone, but withsome.
Onetime, Zach Barrow was talking about wanting to travel aroundEurope, go toAmsterdam, for all the reasons a young man would want to go toAmsterdam.
Bo'scontribution, he talked about Amsterdam's major exports and the financial stability of theNetherlands.
Yeah,yeah. He was that kind ofdude.
Imean, it wasweird.Like, you would tell stories like that or talk about women and he was like a fact drivendude.
Bo was a fact drivendude.
The problem was he wasn't always great in the moment at sorting out what was fact and whatwasn't.
Bo's time in the army started outokay.
He had specific ideas aboutleadership, about how you practiceit.
And in basic training at FortBenning,Georgia, Bo found what he was lookingfor.
A senior drill sergeant who was everything he felt like a military leader shouldbe.
My senior drill sergeant was an amazingsergeant.
I would have followedhim.
Yeah. I'd have been able to follow them in thebattle.
I would have had a problem with it because he was somebody that you couldtrust.
You could certainly take pride in backing him because you was just that type of aleader.
But unfortunately when I got out ofbasic, everything just went downhill fromthere.
Bo sized up everyone he came into contact with in thearmy.
And while he has some nice things to say about the confidence of some of his platoon maids or a couple of hissergeants, as far as Bo'sconcerned, not oneleader, especially the guys up thechain, held a candle to this senior drillsergeant.
Like I told GeneralGal, my disillusionment wasn'tlike, they didn't start inAfghanistan.
It basically had snowballed from the moment I got to my unit and all these little things just started ticking off and just started being logged back in mymemory.
A worrisome catalog began tocompile.
Atfirst, just a comment here orthere.
When he got to his unit in Alaska where the first of the 501st isbased, someone suggested Bo lock up his stuff because otherwise it might getswiped.
A bit of advice to anewcomer.
But Bothought, how am I supposed to go on to a battlefield if I can't even trust these guyshere?
All those yearslater, he remembered it and he told it to GeneralGal.
Then there was a comment by the command sergeantmajor, KenWolff.
Prior todeployment, Wolff did a full formal inspection of thebattalion.
While he was atit, he explained to them what the mission would be in Afghanistan or at least what it wouldn'tbe.
And I'm basically gave the same speech or the same spill to all 14platoons, whichwas,hey, we're not going here to rape kill pillage andburn.
Yeah, we're doing just the opposite ofthat.
Mm-hmm. And Isaid, I know lots of you guys joined the army to dothat.
And everybody in theorganization, youknow, found the humor inthat.
NotBo. He did not find the humor inthat.
Wolff had joked that he joined back in 83 to rape kill pillage and burnalso.
ButBo, even if he understood it was intended as ajoke, he did not think it wasfunny.
He found itdistressing.
He told doll he was takenaback.
In early2009, Bo sent an email from Alaska to his family andfriends.
Quote, my deployment dates to Afghanistan have been set to the 9th or 10th ofMarch, so the countdown hasstarted, hewrote.
I'm looking forward to the next year of learning andchallenges.
Infact, Bo didn't end up deploying with the rest of hisunit.
He'd road marched in a pair of new boots trying to break them in and got in a blister on his left foot that turned into a serious staffinfection.
He had to go to thehospital.
So he stayed back on what's called rear-de-rheirdetachment.
But almost everyone else shipped off to Pacticaprovince, EasternAfghanistan.
And when theylanded, spring of2009, was a turning point for US forcesthere.
The Taliban and other anti-Afghan government groups had pushed back into the country in a bigway.
There were Taliban shadow governors in 33 out of the country's 34provinces.
Casualties among US and coalition forces hadspiked.
By almost every measure we werelosing.
President Obama had ordered a review of the war when he came into office thatyear.
And by the end of March in aspeech, he declared thesituation,quote, increasinglyperilous,unquote.
We'd been focused as a country and as a military onIraq.
Now he said we'd be turning our attention back toAfghanistan.
In the nextyear, we'd more than double our troop numbersthere.
To meet thesurge, the army was scrambling forrecruits, issuing waivers to people who might not have qualified a few yearsearlier.
And units like the first of the 501st Bose Battalion that had just done a 15-month tour in Iraq were cominghome, absorbing new recruits and turning around and heading back intowar, this time toAfghanistan.
The day after Obama made his increasingly perilousspeech, Bose Battalion officially began its mission inAfghanistan.
And that mission wascounterinsurgency, coin forshort.
General David Petreus had embraced thedoctrine.
In2006, he co-wrote a new counterinsurgency manual for thearmy.
Heexplained, coin means you're not just going to befighting.
Quote, soldiers and Marines are expected to be nationbuilders, as well aswarriors, hewrote.
The idea of coin in Afghanistan was to beat back the enemy and at the same time train the Afghan security forces to take over the fightthemselves.
And veryimportant, to build support among the people for the Afghangovernment.
Try to win themover, shore up theeconomy, theinfrastructure, so that they'll turn away from theinsurgents.
The mantra becameclear,hold,build,transfer.
In Petreus'smanual, there's a graphic of something that looks sort of like a AAbattery.
At one end are the people who are for thecause, at the other are the people who are against thecause.
Everything in between wasthe,quote, uncommittedmiddle.
Those were the people we wanted to pull over to ourside.
Basically, the first few months all we were doing was making sure direct routes to other fobs were secure and kind of showingforce, Iguess, orwill.
Making it ourselfknown, Iguess, to the townspeople for the first fewmonths.
That's ZachBarrow. And the uncertainty in his voice about what exactly they weredoing, a lot of the soldiers felt thatway.
I got in contact with a lot of these guys through Mark'scompany, PageOne, by theway, which was superhelpful.
Some of the coin stuff made sense to thesoldiers.
They might back up Afghan police in some mission where they'd help rebuild ahospital.
But other stuff seemedfuzzier.
They were doing a lot of handingout.
Bags ofsalt, things ofghee, bags ofrice.
We would hand out crayons for thekids.
I distinctly remember the map puzzles of Afghanistan with watercolor paintset.
We handed it out quite a bit ofthose.
That's JohnThurman. There was a lot ofconfusion.
Becauseinfantrymen, I think bydefinition, we're not supposed to be doing humanitarianthings.
And we'd been trained from the get-go and basictraining.
Your mission is to close with and destroy theenemy.
And then we're out there handing out watercolor maps ofAfghanistan,wondering, how is this going towork?
How do we beat the Taliban thisway?
Here's Mark McCurray and ShaneCross.
And I think a lot of guys were a little bit weirded out by going out and shakinghands.
And I figured there'd be a little bit more shootinginvolved.
You want to go meet theenemy.
There's a bagthere. You go find them and you killthem.
Not go give his mother-in-law some flour to keep it sort of join yourside, youknow?
About two months after Bo's platoondeployed, on May13th,2009, Bo finally joined up with them at FobShorana.
Shane Cross brought him to thebarracks.
I could definitely pick up on his disappointment when he realized what we weredoing, where we were living kind ofthing.
Why? What was he disappointedabout?
He wantedhardships, Ithink.
Oh, like Shorana was toocushy.
Yeah, wehad, we were in hard standrooms.
Everyone slept in the bomb bunk and you put all your stuff on the topbunk.
I think that was a littledisappointed.
He wantedhardship. He wantedmore, which he was seeing in themovies.
Imean, he wouldn't sleep on hismatch.
He flipped his mattress off his bed and he slept on the springs that were underneathit.
It wasn't like a boxspring.
It was just these metal coils going across the wooden frame of thebed.
Sure. And he would just lay onthat.
He was really intoknives.
He's big and a big knifeguy.
Heslept, he had a tomahawk that he sleptwith.
When where's thetomahawk?
In his chest holdingit.
I wanted to be asoldier.
I wanted to be a security contractorafterward.
I wanted people to take thecase.
I wanted to go into specialforces.
Bo-Tal Markthat,yeah, he did want that movie version of themilitary.
I wanted thatadventure.
I wanted thataction. I wanted that moment ofadrenaline.
I wanted that momentof, youknow, youknow,contact, youknow, getting gun fights and be the soldierthat, youknow, getting firefight to getto, youknow, go to our own othertrucks.
Yeah. Less than a week after Bo arrived at hisbase, his platoon did seeaction.
On their mountain plateau called homenow.
And this incident and its aftermath became the first solid building block in Bo's argument for triggering a dustone.
They went on a mission toOmna, a district center up in themountains.
I spoke to a bunch of the soldiers who werethere, and they all said it was the scariest thing that happened during theirdeployment.
They'd been called up in the middle of the night to help out another convoy that had hit anID.
That first convoy had been trying to help Afghan security forces up atOmna, who'd recently come underfire.
But they hit an ID upthere.
And so now Bo's platoon was going to recover the disabledvehicle.
This was like our firstmission.
Like we're goingsomewhere.
We're doingsomething.
That's JoshQuarter. It was a mission that was supposed to take maybe eighthours.
To get up toOmna, they have to drive up to theplateau.
And just the drive itself isharrowing.
The road isn't much bigger than a goatpath.
There's a steep drop off theside.
There's no room forerror.
And they're driving in these hugetrucks, brandnew, mine resistanttrucks.
Just a gianttank. That's just like the best description I couldgive.
But it was a really nicetank.
It had leather seats and aconditioning.
And all the newstuff, because we just literally gotthem.
How does it feel on a goatpath,though?
Well,honestly, to be honest withyou, a little bit better than you mightexpect.
But we didn'tknow. Because we were just brand new tothem.
Because we were driving around inHumvees.
We were poorthat. We're driving up thismountain.
And the truck right in front ofme, so on thelast, this is the second to lastvehicle, justexplodes.
Austin Landford was in the same truck asJosh.
And then it just disappeared in thedust.
I didn't see itanymore.
I waslike, did the truck just fall off thecliff?
Is itgone? We started trying to call them and belike,hey, are youOK?
Are youthere? What's goingon?
And then pieces of the truck fell on ourtruck.
But they wereOK. That's the beauty of thesemassive, ungainlyvehicles.
The generic name isMRAP.
Mineresistant, ambushprotected.
You can survive these IED explosions if you'reinside.
But now this MRAP is severelydamaged.
An axle isbroken. And so they have to drag it the rest of the way up themountain.
Because you can't just ditchit.
You never leave army equipment in the battlefield if you can helpit, even if it'sbroken.
An MRAP has sophisticated systems init.
You don't want the enemy to getthose, or to use the truck forpropaganda.
Austin's driving the MRAP behind the one that got blownup.
They make everyone but him get out of hisvehicle.
And they tell him be ready to jump out in case your MRAP goes over thecliff.
Or if the disabled MRAP falls back onyou.
He'sterrified. But they manageit.
They haul the disabled MRAP the rest of the way up to the Omnid DistrictCenter, which is a kind of fort up on the plateau where some Afghan security forces arestationed.
They've been attacked by Taliban a couple of daysearlier.
JoshCordor. This was like the first time that I saw something that I waslike, this place is fuckedup.
Likebad. There's just bullet holes all through thewalls.
There's holes from where RPGshit.
And rockets were hittingthem.
Their towers were worn down because they'd been firing so many machine gun rounds that the concrete was chippingaway.
And you're justlike, oh mygod, this isserious.
They came to rescue anothervehicle, and now they needrescuing.
They spend the night in theirtrucks.
They don't trust the Afghan securityguys, first ofall.
Andsecond, if a firefightstarts, they don't want to be trapped in abuilding.
They want to be able to driveaway.
So they're nervous that firstnight.
Zach Barrow said when they finally walkaround, they realize pretty quickly that the people up there at Omnid don't want anything to do withthem.
Have no interest ininteracting.
It'stense. So they're pulling guard shifts and spending a ton of time crammed in theirtrucks.
I can leave it to yourimagination.
Imagine guys with all full battle battle on sitting in an extremely close truck and trying to scramble from guardshift, whatever spot they can find to sleepin.
They're trying to sleep in contortedpositions.
All your gear made it so you couldn't really fit in your seat if you were lucky enough to get aseat.
During theday, they're so hot andbored.
Sobored, they used an MRE box and caps from water bottles to playcheckers.
They're under supplied in everyway.
It was just the most miserable placeever.
We hadnothing. And Ismoked.
So we ran out ofcigarettes.
We had no chewingtobacco.
We hadnothing. They actually had to drop food and water with airplanes because they couldn't get tous.
We didn't bringrazors.
Nobody had any changes ofclothes.
So the first thing he said was we had norazors.
Which to me would be the last thing you would think about is like shaving when you're in a situation likethat.
But is that athing?Yeah, it is a thingactually.
It's not OK for the army people to be growing abeard.
You're aware all thetime.
I've got ashave. I've got ashave.
I've got ashave.Yep. And it's in your brainlike, oh mygod, what are they going tosay?
Are they going to say I'mstupid?
Because they didn't bring arazor.
They can get pissed atus.
Are they going to what's going tohappen?
Days are goingby. But it feels like nothing'shappening.
The wholetime, they're trying to communicate with theircommanders, trying to figure out what they're supposed to do with these brokenvehicles.
Emiraps in particular were valuable until they camealong.
US soldiers were getting killed and maimed by the hundreds because of IEDs in Iraq andAfghanistan.
The emiraps were thesolution.
They kept you so much safer than ahumvee.
By the time Bo got toAfghanistan, if soldiers were moving around onland, they were pretty much in anemirap.
But there weren't all that many of themyet.
And they got blown up alot.
You could Frankenstein them back together if you had the rightparts.
But because they'd been rushed into production by the DOD and suppliers had scrambled to get them tomarket, you had something like four different models in circulation at any onetime, all of which needed their ownparts.
You couldn't necessarily mix andmatch.
So even a couple of blown up ones on top of a plateau hadvalue.
Both Platoon likely didn't know all the ins and outs of why they couldn't just explode the things on site and gohome.
All they knew was that they were waiting what seemed a preposterously long time for someone higher up to come up with aplan.
Were they going to send a record upthere?
Or was the Platoon going to have to drag these disabled monsters back down themountain?
They had a mechanic up there withthem, but he wasstumped.
They're trying to communicate the situation back to theircommanders.
It's not goingwell. So we had the mechanic there and theysaid, send us a list of the parts that you need to fixit.
Andyeah, and so the mechanic gets on there and hesays, it's not going to getfixed.
The mechanics and the surgeons are callingdown.
They're radioing downsaying, the truck is blownup.
We can't fixit. And then commands is whynot?
And then we all look at each otherlike,what?
We literally had to jack the thing up to try and change out atire.
The mechanic sitting there with a muse look on thespace,going, we're not driving this thing off themountain.
It's been blownup. We all felt like why are we uphere?
What is goingon? Like all the combatveterans, the ones that had been there for a lot longer in thearmy, were all scratching theirheads.
Nobody understood why we were doingthis.
Eventually, on about dayfive, they're told to headhome.
Another team will come and deal with theemirats.
They're also instructed to take a different route back down themountain.
They pass through avillage.
It'sbad. Shancross said it was military-agedmen, nokids, who all just stop and stare at theconvoy.
We passed some cattle by themselves and aburning, like it was a smoldering campfire byitself.
At thetime, that's a sign alsoof,well, there's unintendedcattle, unintended fire that wasgoing, as if people booked it and got out ofthere.
I had this terrible feeling that we were about to get blown up or shotup.
That's AustinLantford.
Suddenly, there's an IEDexplosion.
Another truck hit anddisabled.
Well, onceagain, that truck gets blown up right in front ofme.
We arelike, allright,well, we've got to go assess thesituation.
So we getout. An EOD guy getsout,too.
EOD is explosive ordinancedisposal.
They're the bombexperts.
Here'sJosh. And so the EOD guy was out there sweeping with his little mindsweeper, and he comes across something and he picks itup.
And then he starts pulling onit.
And it's like awire, like a buriedwire.
And so he's picking it up and sees it's like stringing kind of into thewoods.
And then he just kind of drops it andgoes,oh,shit.
My first reaction was that I cocked my machinegun.
And I said outloud. And Isaid, let's dothis.
It's verycliche. I understandthat.
But that was exactly what Idid.
That was exactly what Idid.
I'mlike, this is goingdown.
There's not any way that we're not about to getattacked.
It was soobvious. So I cocked my weapon and I waslike,OK, let's dothis.
And RPG came flying by us and hit on the ground in front ofus.
And rightthen, it scared the crap out ofme, because then gun startedfiring.
Immediately I getup. I freaking started sprinting towards the truck trying to findcover.
This is what's called a complexattack.
They've been waiting for the convoy to pass by thisway.
Now it's a mess of gunfire andexplosions.
Josh is agunner, so he's up in the turret of histruck.
People below are calling outtargets,saying, oneo'clock, threeo'clock, twoo'clock, eighto'clock, sixo'clock.
The attack is coming fromeverywhere.
My platoon sergeant gets in the truck and he literally starts punching me on my ass and telling me to keepfiring.
So I went through like 400 rounds initially and I keepfiring, keepfiring, keepfiring.
And I don't letup. Bo was also agunner, but he wasn't in the turret of histruck.
Zach Barrow was upthere.
Butimmediately, Zach's gunjammed, so Bo hands his weaponup, called asaw.
Zach startsfiring. I think close to50, 60rounds, Ithink, out of mysaw.
Unfortunately, then itjammed.
Another guy now hands up hissaw.
The third weaponworks.
The convoy needs to get out of this ravine they're trappedin.
But now they've got this disabledtruck, which they need to towout.
So the platoonleader, JPBillings, jumps out of his truck to hook up acable.
Shane was the gunner in thattruck.
Heis, he always out cover me and he always adorned jumps out and runsoff.
Max pros were weak and they're really big atall.
So I can't see which way heran.
And he had run off to the truck behindus, grabbed acable, hooked itup, hooked up ourtruck, and thenran, climbed backinside.
I could seehim, he had mud all overhim, splatters the mud from like enemyrounds, hitting the dirt and flinging mud ontohim.
Oh myGod. He's coveredin, he getsinside, heyells, he'syelling,go, go for a start and start adrive.
He yells at all of us in thetruck.
Hesays, don't you ever let me do something like thatagain.
It's hard to start a floor is it and the cable snaps and 10 Billings callsout, cover me and he just dies right back out of the vehicleagain.
So twice Billings goes outthere.
Second time the cableholds, they moveout, air support movesin.
Incredibly no one from their unit got hurt during thefirefight.
One soldier who was there said that by the end he heard that up to 10 Taliban had beenkilled.
Bose Platoon eventually limps home back to thefob.
Their emirats are all bangedup, flat tires and bulletholes.
Here's what Bo remembers about what happened when they pulled back into the wire afterOmna.
We get to the wireentrance, the Taliban commanders standing there waiting forus.
So our platoon sergeant gets out of thetruck.
Now when he hits theground, ourplatoon, the Taliban commander sayssomething, but now what does hesay?
Does hesay,hey, congratulations youguys, you did a good job outthere.
I'm glad to see youback.
Hey,congratulations, youknow, you didn't lose anyone out there and proud ofyou.
Hey, how's the mandoing?
How are youfeeling? How's everythinggoing?
I don'tknow, I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I don'tknow. I don'tknow.
I'm not surewhich...Yeah.
Andit's... It's the blanketthing.
It's the coat you're so muchfor.
I don'tknow. Youhave...
The most obvious complaint a soldier might have about Omnah would be exactly what Mark is gettingat.
That it sounds like awrong-headed, dangerousmission, and it's just luck that no one from his platoon got hurt orkilled.
But what makes both furious about this Omnah incident wasn't so much the crappy communication between the mechanics and thecommanders, or the being stranded fordays, or their unfortunate roothome, which clearly the enemy had had ample time to planfor.
More than allthat, it was the shavingthing.
Bosays,yes, Omnah wasscary.
But when they comehome, the Batine commander doesn't acknowledge thescaryness.
Moreover, toBo, atleast, he seems unconcerned about the welfare of hismen.
And toBo, that's what starts to feelscary, that maybe they're not in safehands.
Andinterestingly,confusingly, Bo was also complaining at the time that they were playing it toosafe.
Omnah wasmiserable, but it was alsoexciting, especially for the new guys in the platoon who hadn't been in Iraqbefore.
Something hadhappened, and they'd survived and bonded overit.
Bo didn't seem to share inthat.
He hadn't fired hisweapon.
In an email to a friend he sent the day they got back fromOmnah, hewrote,quote, I sat there andwatched.
There was nothing else I was allowed todo,unquote.
Headded, but Afghanistan mountains are reallybeautiful.
Josh Corters says he noticed something shift in Bo after they got back fromOmnah.
His tonechanged. I was in the truck with him a few of the missions afterthat, and he was talking to one of the guys down below in thetruck.
And they were talking everybody's talking about the firefight and everything likethat, because that's the most significant thing thathappened.
And I hold thedeployment, so of course everybody talks about it over and overagain.
Andhe, during the conversationsaid, all that stuff is justbullshit.
And we'relike,what? What's bullshit aboutit?
And he'slike, we should have gone out there and we should have killed every single one of thoseguys.
Weshouldn't, we shouldn'thave, like he thought we were being cowards because we hid in our trucks and we didn't go out there and dothat.
And he'slike,well, we go to these villages and we hand out these blankets and all thisstuff.
We shouldn't be doingthat.
We should be out there just killing these people who are shooting atus, killing these people who are just don't care about Afghanpeople, killing the badguys.
And he says at thatpoint, he'slike, our wholeentire, the whole entire army is justpussies.
Everyone's a pussy because we don't go out there and we don't kill the enemy like we're supposedto.
I don't know if Josh's quotes are preciselyaccurate, but other guys have told me both said versions of thissentiment.
And it's true and understandable that Botox to Mark about a bunch of different feelings he had about thewar, wanting moreaction, but also feeling that they should be doing coinbetter, should be working harder to engage with localAfghans, taking every opportunity to talk tothem.
And he says he felt like and that a lot of guys felt like whatever it is we're doing overhere, it's not helping regularAfghans.
Everybody was saying this isbullshit.
This whole thing isstupid.
Youknow, the guys arelike, what'sit?
Well, youknow, we look at each other when we're sitting here in the trucks and just shake our heads because we're like this isbullshit.
Youknow, what we're doinghere.
Allright. So I want to take him in here just to stare at thatnotion.
Was itbullshit? My best parameter for that is JasonDempsey,PhD, the guy you heard a few episodesago.
He was an officer at the battalion and the brigade level and he did tours in both Iraq andAfghanistan.
He was there when Boetmissing.
He went back in 2012 as a combat advisor to the Afghans and then again in 2014 to see how that wasgoing.
So he's got a lot ofperspective.
I askedJason, was the missionbullshit?
The problem he said is that the army said it was doingcoin.
It planned its mission in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as if it were doingcoin.
But it never fully committed tocoin.
Because for coin towork, you've got to commit to a place for decadesprobably.
We're talking30, 40years.
If you want to drive politicalchange, you have to have people out there long enough to understand the politics of the place they'rein.
Jason said you can't rotate units in and out in seven or 12 month increments and expectsuccess.
Everybody in the military tell you you're really effective from month three to monthnine.
Because you're just figuring itout.
You figured itout, you're rocking androlling.
You're really doing great things for sixmonths.
And then you're transitioning out for those last threemonths.
And then whether or not the lessons and the momentum you learned in those six months get carriedon, you might as well roll thedice.
Really? That's a roll ofdice.
Because another unit's comingin.
They may or may not share yourvision, even if they do share yourvision.
They spend the first three months confusedthemselves.
The army didn't really train units like Bose for coin inAfghanistan.
Jason said theycouldn't, not in the timeallowed.
He said he and other soldiers were basicallytold, if you make their livesbetter, they'll supportyou.
And so a unit gets toAfghanistan, but it doesn't really understand the societythere.
Who'swho, what the power dynamicsare, thetribes, thefamilies, thealliances, the ethnicgroups, the whole root system of a country that's pretty much been at war on and off for 30years.
And so you plunk down and try to convey your message of goodwill on theground.
It doesn't translate verywell.
If you're a youngAmerican,say, company commander or a platoonleader, and you walk into your typical Afghan village circa2009, and an elderapproaches, and he'slike,hey, what'sup?
What are you guys doinghere?
Your averageyoung, the ten-intercaptains, you're gonnasay,well, we're here to make your lifebetter.
We want to build someroads, we want to connect you to centralgovernment, wewant, youknow, we just want to improve yourlife, make sure your kids can go toschool, holdit.
So immediately what's that Afghanthinking?
The back of his mind islike, ohshit, this dude's lying through histeeth.
Who the fuck comes to Afghanistan to make my lifebetter?
Right? It's an absurd notion in the mind of thisAfghan, that the United States of America would send people around the world just to build roads for localAfghans.
So the Afghanssays,okay, that'scool.
Thanksguys, good to meetyou.
The walks away goes back to the village andsay, you should have heard what this American toldme.
And you lastground,well, what do you think why are theyhere?
And there can be a young Taliban sitting there and the kids cansay,oh, they're here because they hateIslam.
Among those two messages for your averageAfghan, the idea that we're there because we hate Islam is much morerational.
Right? Forthem, it's just they're more prone to believeit.
But wouldn't we say we'rehere, Imean, were we saying tothem, was that young Lieutenant going tosay, we want to we want to get you on our side so that we together can get rid of Taliban and foreign fighters and the Arabs that are comingin.
Or are they justsaying,no,no, we just want to give you rice and buildroads.
Now there's there is some ofthat.
Imean, because they can explainit.
And Imean, you cansay,look, it's in our interests for you guys to be supporting ourmission.
It's a validpoint. And a lot of times that would get lost though at the puttunelevel.
Lost at the puttune level because if the soldiers don't know who's supportingthem, who's supporting the Taliban andwhy, then of course the messaging is prettycrude.
Much as we never really understood all these overlapping power structures and incentives and relationships that pre-existedus, we never wanted to understand what the Afghans were actuallydoing.
We just wanted to build a walk in andsay, here's a template for how you should run anarmy.
Go for it because we don't want to get your handsdirty.
Right. We'll just show youhow.
Yeah, we're going to show youhow.
Just watch what wedo.Right.
Exactly. It's a great way to putit.
We'll show youhow, watch what wedo.
And then if you don't end up doingthat, it must not be because of any structural issuesunderneath.
It must be because you just don'tcare.
And that's probably the most infuriating thing about all of this is we have an entire generation of armyfolks,Marines, etcetera, who've gonethrough.
And at the end of adeployment, I'vesaid,well, the Afghans just don't care about this fight as much as wedo.
Which is quite possibly the most preposterous thing you could say about the war inAfghanistan, that they don't care about it as much as wedo.
The realityis, they're fighting theirstruggle.
We're fightingours. And we never botheredus.
Okay. Do these two things actuallyoverlap?
In November of2009, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a memo to the sameeffect.
It's inside an email recently released by the StateDepartment.
It's notes from a conversation an advisor of Clinton's had with a guy named BillMurray, who'd had a long and distinguished career at theCIA.
Had been station chief in Pakistan in the90s.
And all that apparently after starring in the movieStripes.
Anyway, CIA Bill Murray said the same thing Jason is saying that there's a giant protracted misunderstanding goingon.
It seems Murray did not mincewords.
The memo reads almost like an urgent overseastelegram.
Quote, we are literally fighting thepeople.
They think we are fightingIslam.
The problem is not the number oftroops.
It's a failedmission. The Afghans believe we are there tostay.
This is the thing they will neveraccept.
They will allow armies to go through and even stay for a few years but not stayforever.
I don't see how to make thiswork.
Murray's overalladvice.
Abandoncoin. Don't try to build the Afghan nation or restructuresociety.
Stop talking aboutdemocracy.
They don'tcare. Tell them you want to get bin Laden and then getout.
Inside the army leadershipthough, the message was verydifferent.
Itwas, we can dothis. If we keeptrying, we just need moretime, moremoney, moremen.
Ofcourse, bone has platoon mates didn't have all thisperspective.
They might wonder whether what they were doing wasworthwhile.
But mostly they were just doing theirjobs, doing what they weretold.
Knowing it was sometimes or oftensucky.
Right afterAmna, Bo was sent with his platoon toMest, the little outposts 20 miles south of FabShurana.
Mest would deliver the rest of Bo'scomplaints.
The Mest mission fit in exactly toPatreus' coinidea, to get soldiers off the fobs out intoother, more remote parts ofAfghanistan, to work with and train local securityforces.
When Bo first got to Mest in late May of2009, there wasn't much of anything on top of the hillthere.
There was a cemetery and a tiny little bunker fortified withsandbags.
So we're on this observation post and they put six of us up there the firstnight.
Well, the first night that foxhole was big enough for two guys to beundercover.
So that's four guys sleeping out on a bare hill with a town that is probably maybe 75 yards away at the bottom of this littlehill.
Anybody could have let that hill up within our pk in more than likely what have gottenus.
And this wasn't considered a securityrisk.
This wasn't considered a safetyrisk.
Youknow, by the guys who put us upthere.
The sergeants that were up there made a call to start digging a bigger hole so that we could fortify theposition.
Here we are digging this hole in the middle of the blast of the heat wave of thesummer.
And they hauled down to ask for guidance onuniform.
In otherwords, are we allowed to take off some of ourstuff, bests andhelmets, while we dig this hole in the punishingheat?
But remember some getting a vague answer that amounted toyes.
GregLeatherman, who was in charge up there on thehill, told Dal that he did remember calling for instruction onuniform.
Quote, we could see down below and they didn't have their gearon.
I asked the commander when we were digging if we can take our gearoff.
He replied that as long as we were working on digging it should befine.
It's not all that uncommon for soldiers to do this by theway, bend the uniform rules alittle.
Austin Lanford wasn't messedtoo.
He wasn't up above where Bo was but he was doing similar work down below where the truckswere.
Darryl Hansen was there aswell.
It washot. It wasextremely, extremelyhot.
And we're digging into a mountain full ofrock.
So you can either be in longsleeves, pants and like the full kit and die or you can drop load and do it how you have to do it to get it done as fast as you can because time is of theessence.
And so you decide to put your sleevesup.
You decide to take your helmet off and maybe put a bandana on to keep your sweat out of yourface.
And maybe you unblows your boots because you'rehot.
So here we are trying to fortify this thing because the first night we slept outon, youknow,open.
And so here comes this BC BC is battalion commander ClintBaker, he of the shavingremark.
And of course Baker sees them out of uniform and he comes running up the hill by himself with Afghan governor and hisentourage.
He gets up to thehill. He doesn't stop to talk toanybody.
He doesn't stop to ask what's goingon.
All he does is he gets in the face of the sergeant there doesn't give him a chance to explain fully what's goingon.
You see nothing butaggression.
And he literally went up chestslow.
He pressed this chest plate up against the other sergeant like trying to get into thestate.
And you could see nothing but aggression coming fromhim.
And then he turns around and he throws this little shakingpantrum.
Clint Baker told General doll he remembered the incident and said he was quote putting on a bit of an act to drive a point homeunquote.
So that reprimand might have been the end of it except there was a photographer hanging around the platoon at thattime, Sean Smith of the Guardiannewspaper.
And he published a bunch of photos online of bow and the others not in their properuniform.
And that sent the commanders through theroof.
All the sergeants in our platoon get called into the Italian commander'soffice.
The Italian commander goes on awent.
Hecalls. Hecalls. He basically is calling us all the names that he cancause.
And he'ssaying, well youguys, you're youraction.
You guys are bad aschild.
Right. Your actions are bad as if you murdered the entire village inVietnam.
And he's going on andon.
Why would you saythat? That'sridiculous.
Yeah. Because we were a stain to his littleidea.
His little fascistshow.
This is what he was concerned about was how helooked.
When I first heard Boseaccount, whichagain, he was hearing second hand since he wasn't in theroom.
I didn't quite believeit.
Imean, I believe they got chewedout, but not to thatdegree.
I figured he wasexaggerating.
Colonel Baker didn't respond to my request for aninterview, which I'm not surprised by since he'll likely be involved in Bose court martialproceeding.
But I asked Ken Wolf aboutit.
He was Colonel Baker's numbertwo.
And it seems Ken yelled at them about the photostoo.
He explained thatyes,indeed, this was a very bigdeal.
Ken had dropped the Guardian photographer at MEST and then kept driving farthersouth.
He was at another command center down there when someone showed him thephotos.
I interviewed Ken over thephone.
If we could ever find those photos and pull them backup, you can seeme.
I'm looking athim.Actually, I just see like guys standingaround.
Right. But you see theweapons.
You see theweapons. Completelydifferent.
Well, I'm looking atone.
Do you see anybody with body armoron?
What does body armor look likeexactly?
Bodyarmor, youknow, the like if you see the video games like a bigvest.
Like a bigvest. Is theresomething?
No, I seeguys. You see guys with helmetson?
No, but you have a helmeton.
You see a bunch of guys waiting to get fuckingkilled.
That's what yousee. The other thing that made Ken crazy was the way the weapons looked in thephotos.
Machine guns pointing up in theair, not on tripods like they shouldbe.
I had to look very hard at the photos to even find the offendingguns.
But Ken took it all in rightaway.
The scarves on people'sheads.
Oh. And then there's Burk doll standing off to the rightand...
With thepipe. With thepipe.
Oh,yeah, that's aclassic.
I loveit. And this is the one where Isaid, and I don't want to see more of this fucking Lawrence of Arabiashit.
Bow points out to Mark that pipes actually have alonger, richer place in military history thancigarettes.
See GeneralPatton.Anyway, toKen, the whole scene screamed lack ofdiscipline.
A alarm bells wentoff. If these guys aren't following the basicrules, how can they be trusted when a bigger problem comesalong?
Prior todeployment, he and his sergeants had come up with uniform rules they all agreed toenforce.
And now they weresaying,well, I know it's against therules,but...
But, you knowwhat? I think I knowbetter.
And I don'tcare. So do whatever the fuck youwant.
Isee. And that's the breakdown indiscipline, infact.
Yes. Do whatever the fuck youwant.
Right. You want to shoot 15 people in mylocker?
Goahead.Oh, like you go rightthere.
You go there in yourhead.
Likethat.Yeah, because this is how thingsstart.
Now,dude, I think these guys were ever going to put 15 Afghans in a room and shootthem.
No, not atall. But I surely didn't want to let itstart.
And this is early in thedeployment.
Imean, this isMay.Yeah,right.
Right. Soearly, we've decided we're just going to do whatever wewant.
So I'd wager bow heard what heheard, melie.
And that Wolf's point of view wasn'tsingular.
That leadership genuinely considered this worthy ofpunishment.
After the photothing, three people got in bigtrouble.
Greg Leatherman wasdemoted, and two other sergeants were moved sideways out of theplatoon.
Both hot Baker had turned againstthem.
He was going out of his way to make everything as miserable as possible in an unnecessaryway.
Youknow, that's what Isaw.
And I saw the effect they had oneverybody.
Dude, I guess you weren't the only guy that felt thatway,obviously.
No. I wasn't the onlyguy.
I was the one of many who thought they were the completejoke.
I was one of many who were shaking their heads and rolling theireyes.
I was the one of many who were justgoing.
I can't believe this ishappening.
Imean, I was mad aboutit.
I was told that was the stupidest thing I've everheard.
Like, we're out here doing what you tell us todo.
Like, I didn't understandwhy.
That'sAustin. He and the other guys didn't like that they never got to explain why they were out ofuniform.
They felt like maybe the commander's reaction had less to do with the actual infractions and more to do with the fact that photographic evidence of them was on a website making the Army lookbad, making leadership lookbad.
Gerald Hansen said it felt like they were being judgedunfairly.
Off of just apicture. Youknow, they had no idea what we'reabout.
And I was so worried about the way we look in our own professionalism not knowing what the atmosphere islike.
What the actual OP is likeflies, certainly constantly 110degrees, no hotfood, no hotshower, getting shotat, kind of ruinedit.
Ruined the feeling Gerald had that they were a really goodplatoon.
They were doing a goodjob.
The punishments messed withmorale.
This is when Bose level of discontent boilsover.
Bowden see the commander's actions ascorrective.
He saw them as punitive andworse,irrational.
Basically, after that things started fallingapart.
He'd been carrying around these worries formonths, hesaid.
Theomnimission, ofcourse, Bose also talked to Mark and to Dal about a couple of incidents where he felt like privates were being ganged upon, NCOs rousing them about their personallives.
He was offended bythat.
But the uniformed abacol and the photographs and bakers freakout.
ForBose, that was the laststraw.
That's why I ended up doing what Idid, because he was out of control from what I couldsee.
He was unfit for what he wasdoing.
And, youknow, I wouldn't put it past him to be the type of guy to purposely put me in my platoon mates in harm's way just because he has a personal grudge againstit.
Because we soiled in reputation or whateverbullshit.
I do a yet and adead. He said hisfear,essentially, was that Clint Baker would try to get rid ofthem, maybe by sending them on a suicidemission.
That they might get killed simply because he didn't likethem.
Bose told GeneralDal,quote, what could happen is this battalion commander could seeus, myplatoon, as this stain on hisreputation.
Now, sending us on a suicide mission wouldn't be the first in militaryhistory.
Somebodydoing, somebody giving out an order on personal agendas or off of personalgrievances, it is not going to be a first in militaryhistory.
So, worst casescenario, whathappens?
Unquote. Bose saw athreat, hesays.
Quote, and I saw that somebody needed to do something aboutit.
Somebody had to do something that called the situation intocheck.
Unquote. Bose decided he was the somebody who should dosomething.
He had to savethem. On June7th, Bose wrote to a close friend backhome, Kim Harrison'sdaughter.
He tellsher, in case you guys get word of anything weird about me from the Red Cross or themilitary, please keep Kimcalm.
Hewrote,quote, no redflags, I'mgood, but plans have begun toform.
No timelineyet. She writesback, exactly what kind of plans are you thinkingof?
About three weekslater, was when he walked off the OP atMest, hoping he says to cause a dustone, hoping to show up back at FobSharana, hoping to tell his fears to ageneral, hoping to be listenedto.
If you'rethinking,what?
Those are his reasons forleaving, because he decided his battalion commander was an incompetentasshole.
That's why he makes thisnutty,radical, dangerousmove.
What am Imissing? You are notalone.
For onething, Mark is withyou.
We've talked about this a bunch oftimes,actually.
The first time he kind of laid it out forme, I don't think I said this on thetape, but I wasthinking,like, get the fuck out ofhere.
You'relike, it can't be what you'resaying.
I'm justlike,what?Okay.
There was no point in hearing that story that Ithought,oh,great, I have theanswers.
Cool.Thanks. My reaction was more justlike, you've got to be kiddingme.
All theseyears, so many people around Bo tried to figureout, is he selfish orselfless?
Is he even telling thetruth?
He was looking at the same set of circumstances as the other soldiers in hisunit.
Why do you react sodifferently?
Takes such drasticsteps.
How do you make sense of thisguy?
Well, you have to godeeper.
The story that he told didn't really everchange, but my understanding of the person telling that storychanged.
Next time onCereal. Cereal is produced by JulieSnyder, Dana Chivas and me in partnership with MarkBowle, MeganEllison, HugoLindgren, JessicaWeisberg, PageOne, and Anna PernaPictures.
Ira Glass is our editorialadvisor, editing help this week from BrianReed, NancyUpdike, and JoelLovell.
Whitney Dangerfield is our digitaleditor, research by KevinGarnett, fact checking by MichelleHarris, copy editing by AnnaHeelani.
Emily Condon is our lineproducer, our music is composed by NickThorburn, FritzMyers, and MarkPhillips.
The show is mixed by KateBalinsky.
Kristen Taylor is our communityeditor, other Cerealstaff, SethLind, EliseBergerson, and KimberlyHenderson.
Special thanks this week to Kristen Loose and WillJermann.
Our website isCerealPodcast.org, where this week you can find a link to those guardian photos that got posed with tune andtrouble.
And also for anyone nerding out on the military rightnow,Dana, we've posted our own beautiful army orgchart, showing how Bose Regiment wasstructured.
Next week we'll also have audio extras andmore.
Again, that'sCerealPodcast.org.
Stay tuned for a preview of our nextepisode.
Butfirst, listening on Audible brings youmore, with the best selection of audiobooksanywhere.
Expect moreromance, moremystery, more inspiringmotivation, and revealingmemoirs, more businessinsights, and calmingmeditations.
Listening can transform your day and even your life by changing your mood and yourroutine.
With podcasts and exclusive originalstoo, Audible gives you the power to choose where you want togo.
There's more to imagine when youlisten.
Find out for yourself when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slashCereal.
Cereal is a production of this American life and WBEZChicago.
So you just grew up like fucking around in thewoods?
Prettymuch. Imean, I grew up followingcats.
Coming up on the next episode ofCereal.
Here's this cute kid from Idaho withblonde,heron, blueeyes.
Definitelyquiet. Atfirst, he's veryquiet.
You have a 19-year-old kid sleeping on yourroof.
He should probably do something aboutthat.
You're probably going to hear this alot, and I'll show you a logicalperson.
You wore a lot of spandex on thosedays.
And then all of asudden, he shows up in hisuniform.
He always had that kind of wanting to serve and wanting toprotect.
Were you trying to pass thetime, or did you literally lose your mind and now you just got itback?
Even when they hear the truestory, it's going tobe...
They're in a thing that'scrazy.
But will those people already feel with hate and filled withjudgment?
