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Download the Amazon Music app today. One of my former teammates from back when I was in Navy SEAL has easily one of the most insane personal stories you will ever hear.
And he gave me permission to tell his story, so today, that's what I'm going to share with you.
But before we get into his story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
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In June of 2011, I had just failed a very stressful and anxiety-inducing underwater test as part of Navy SEAL training.
And after I failed this test, my instructor told me to get out of the pool and go over to the corner with the other failures.
And so I made my way to the edge of the pool.
I climbed out and I sulked my way to the corner where I saw my other classmates who had met a similar fate on this test.
They were all sitting in the corner with their backs to the pool in neat rows.
And so I was totally gassed from this test.
And so when I sat down, I start dramatically breathing really loud and heaving my chest up and down to show off just how hard my test had been.
And about two seconds into this ridiculous performance of mine, one of my other classmates who had been sitting in the corner when I showed up, a big 18 year old kid from Wisconsin named Ephraim Matos, he immediately turned around and made eye contact with me and through gritted teeth, he just goes, shut up.
Everybody here is in pain. And then he turned back around.
And immediately, I was actually really mad at him because he just totally publicly dimed me out in front of my other classmates.
But then it dawned on me he was right. The job we were trying out for, Navy SEAL, they're not looking for people who just feel bad for themselves all the time.
And so I never forgot the lesson Ephraim Matos taught me on the pool deck that day.
And I, along with everybody else in the SEAL teams, never forgot the totally insane thing that Ephraim Matos did five years later that was picked up by virtually every major news network at the time.
Back in 2012, so about a year after our exchange on the pool deck, Ephraim and I graduated and became Navy SEALs.
I was assigned to an East Coast SEAL team and he was assigned to a West Coast one.
And over the next five years, I never saw the guy until I saw him on TV.
It was mid-June 2017 and I was on base in Virginia in an office full of other Navy SEALs and we were wrapping up for the day.
I was closing my email and powering down my computer and I noticed my phone that was sitting on the table suddenly started lighting up with all these text messages from current and former teammates.
So I grabbed my phone and all the messages said the same thing, turn on the news.
And so in this office we were in, there was always a TV that was turned to the news sitting in the corner that was on mute.
And so I turned to look at this TV and on the TV from a distance, all I can see is breaking news and Middle East.
And so given our profession, news like that tended to have a direct impact on our day to day lives.
And so I assumed all these text messages must be about whatever happened in the Middle East.
And so I get up, I walk over, I grab the remote, and on my walk back to my seat, I'm turning the volume up, and everybody else in the room is turning around to watch the TV as well.
And we start hearing the TV reporters talking about this group of American civilians that had gone to Iraq and taken up arms against the terrorist organization ISIS.
And so as they're talking about this group of American civilians, they put on the screen an image of one of these Americans.
It was this big bearded guy in his mid-20s carrying an AK-47 rifle standing behind a tank somewhere in the Middle East.
And as soon as I saw that picture, I knew right away why I had gotten that flurry of text messages from current and former teammates.
It's because we all know this guy. The guy on TV was Ephraim Matos.
Five years earlier, after our graduation, Ephraim checked into his first SEAL team out on the West Coast, and very quickly after he showed up, they deployed to Afghanistan.
During one of their missions, Ephraim was in the back of his patrol as they walked across this huge open field as they left this village they had just been in.
And so Ephraim, in virtue of being in the back of the patrol, was in charge of looking behind the unit and make sure no one was coming after them. so Ephraim periodically would turn around and he would look and make sure no one was following them and then at some point when he turned around he saw two little girls that couldn't have been more than five and seven years old running out of the village and start running down the road towards them now earlier in the day when Ephraim and his team had been in that village they had found a children's backpack lying in the middle of the road and when they went up to inspect it it turned out to be rigged with explosives Now, no one had gotten hurt.
They had defused the explosives, but they were very weary for children's backpacks.
And so as Ephraim sees these two girls running up to him, he can see they're both wearing similar style backpacks to the one they found in the road.
They were suicide bombers. Ephraim began screaming at these girls to stop, go back, don't come any closer, or I'll have to shoot at you.
But he could tell they weren't stopping.
They were just running up the road. He could see there were tears coming down their face.
They were totally upset. They were obviously innocent.
They were young kids. They'd been put up to this by the Taliban.
But Ephraim, because he was in the rear security of his patrol, he had to deal with them like they were threats.
And so at some point when they wouldn't stop, he raised his rifle up, he flipped the gun off safe and he put his reticle right on one of the girls and he began applying pressure to his trigger.
But right as he was about to squeeze and fire a shot, the girls just abruptly stopped.
It's like they knew they were about to be shot and they turned around and they ran back towards the village.
And so Ephraim put his finger off the trigger, he flipped it back on safe, he lowered his rifle and he breathed a huge sigh of relief.
But even though he didn't have to engage these poor girls, that experience totally haunted Ephraim.
In fact, of all the combat he got in on that deployment, that experience with those innocent girls had the most impact on him.
How could anybody force a child to be a suicide bomber?
How could anyone be that cruel? And so by the time Ephraim came back to the United States after that deployment, he had changed.
That experience specifically had changed him.
Even though he believed in the US government's mission over in Afghanistan and in the Middle East, he felt like he could be doing more for these poor innocent people that were just trapped inside of conflict zones like these two little girls.
And so over the next few years, he began looking at different conflict zones all over the world where civilians were in the most danger.
And he discovered there was one place that was killing and exploiting civilians at an unprecedented rate.
That place was Iraq, where a new terrorist organization had taken power called ISIS.
So in early 2017, when Ephraim's Navy contract ran out and it was time for him to decide if he wanted to stay in the SEAL teams or get out and become a civilian, he opted to not re-enlist, so he left the military, and instead he got on social media and he contacted a foreign volunteer group in Iraq that was providing humanitarian aid to civilians.
And he reached out to them and he said, hey, can I join you?
And of course they said, yes, we'd love to have a Navy SEAL come out and support us.
And so just a couple of days later, Ephraim sold his house.
He packed up a bag of clothes and a backpack.
He grabbed his passport and he hopped in a plane and he flew to Northern Iraq all by himself.
Now, before we continue the rest of the story, you need to understand just how bold this move was by Ephraim.
Now, when he was a Navy SEAL, and so a member of the United States military on active duty, when he went to Afghanistan to a war zone, he had lots of support.
If his team got pinned down by the enemy, they could call in an airstrike or they could call in backup.
If Ephraim got hurt on the battlefield or his teammates got hurt on the battlefield, they could call in special medical teams that would fly in in virtually any condition to come save them.
And if Ephraim got captured by the enemy, you better believe America is coming for him.
But in this case, Ephraim went to a war zone as a civilian.
He was not in the US military, so he didn't have any of that support.
If he or his team got pinned down out in Iraq, they would either have to fight their way out or get killed or captured.
If he or one of his new teammates from this volunteer group got hurt, they would have to either save themselves or get killed or captured.
And if Ephraim got captured as a civilian, nobody's coming for him.
Nobody even knows he's been captured. He is completely on his own.
But Ephraim knew these risks. In fact, he knew them better than most people because he had already deployed to a war zone and saw how important it was to have a support infrastructure.
So when he flew to Iraq as a civilian, he knew he was hanging it out there, but he just didn't care.
He felt like he had a mission to go help these innocent people because nobody else was.
When he arrived in Iraq in March of 2017, he was met at the airport by one of the guys from this volunteer group Ephraim was going out to join.
He was a very muscular, tattooed American in his mid-30s who introduced himself as Sky, and he said he had been a Marine, and while he was in the Marines, he had deployed to Iraq, so he was familiar with the area.
The pair hopped in a vehicle and Sky drove them to the volunteer group safe house in the city where Ephraim got a chance to meet the leader of this group.
It was a tough as nails former army special forces guy in his mid fifties named Dave.
And Dave for the past several decades had been going out to conflict zones all over the world.
And he would tell Ephraim that the worst atrocities he had seen committed against civilians in any of these places was where they were right now in Iraq at the hands of ISIS.
A few days later, Ephraim, Skye, Dave, and a few other American volunteers loaded up into this convoy made up of armored ambulances, and they left the city and they headed west into the countryside towards a huge city called Mosul that three years earlier had been captured by ISIS.
On their journey towards the city, Ephraim and the others had to pass through a number of military checkpoints.
Now, most of these checkpoints were stood up by their ally, the Iraqi army.
But Ephraim and the others knew that they might stumble upon an ISIS checkpoint, and in virtue of all of them being pale-skinned Americans, they would instantly be recognized as the enemy and fired upon.
So every time they slowed down for one of these checkpoints, Ephraim and the others would clutch their guns closely and mentally prepare themselves for a potential vicious close quarters fight to the death.
But luckily, they managed to go the entire distance all the way to the outskirts of Mosul without any checkpoint drama.
And once they got there, they linked up with an Iraqi army unit that the leader of this volunteer group, Dave, had a relationship with.
Over the first month that Ephraim was in-country, he worked with this Iraqi army unit to help distribute food and provide medical care to civilians in and around Mosul.
Then, in month two of his stay in Iraq, everything changed.
Iraqi decision-makers decided it was finally time to retake Mosul from ISIS.
This was a huge military movement that required several units to work together and would take several weeks.
The main Iraqi army was going to push inside of the city limits of Mosul and inch by inch reclaim territory from ISIS, while the army unit that Ephraim and his volunteer group had embedded with would be responsible for reclaiming some of the villages around Mosul that ISIS had occupied.
And so suddenly, Ephraim and the rest of his volunteer group went from being humanitarian aid workers to having a direct frontline combat role with the Iraqi army.
And in his first civilian combat experience, Ephraim ran across an active minefield towards this village that was occupied by ISIS.
And after nearly being blown up at least two times, Ephraim finally made it to this village and he began going house to house with the other volunteers, clearing them of ISIS fighters.
And in one instance that he has on camera, he entered into this structure and he saw there were guns in the ground and they looked around and they couldn't find any ISIS fighters inside.
But they noticed on the ground there was a piece of plywood.
They moved it aside and it revealed this huge hole that led down into the ground.
And this hole connected to a huge underground tunnel system that ISIS used to escape gunfights just like this one.
And so Ephraim and Dave, who was with him, just hopped right down into the tunnel.
They didn't have night vision. They didn't have backup.
Just the two of them start running down this totally pitch black tunnel, periodically throwing grenades ahead of them in case there are ISIS fighters ahead of them.
And at some point after running for quite a while, just getting ready to come in contact with their adversaries, they reach this big high ceiling cavern that's a dead end.
And they're looking around thinking, okay, I guess no one ran in here.
But before they turned around and left the tunnel system, they looked up with their lights and they saw high up on the wall, dug into the wall, was another entrance to another tunnel.
It looked like there needed to be a ladder to get up to this additional tunnel entrance.
And so Ephraim and Dave look at each other and they're thinking, I bet ISIS fighters ran down here.
There was a ladder. They climbed up and went in that entrance and then pulled the ladder up so we can't follow them.
And so Ephraim and Dave couldn't do anything about it.
They decide, OK, well, you know, we'll just go out and we'll tell the Iraqi army and see what they want to do.
So Ephraim and Dave, they leave this tunnel system.
They go back outside. They tell the Iraqi army and the Iraqi army brings in a bulldozer and they fill in that entrance they had found inside of the house, completely seal it up so nobody could go in or get out.
And then later that night, after that village had been cleared of all ISIS fighters, they began hearing muffled explosions underground near where this entrance to this tunnel was.
And what it turned out to be was ISIS fighters that realized they had been buried alive.
They had snuck down there. They had used a ladder to get up into that crawl space.
But when they realized they were doomed, they blew themselves up.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now.
Or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey listeners, big news for true crime lovers.
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Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
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For the next month, Efrem and the Iraqi army unit that he and his volunteers were working with continued to periodically get into small skirmishes with ISIS in these villages outside of Mosul, but the majority of their time was spent providing humanitarian aid and medical care to civilians in the area.
Then in May, their mission changed again.
The other Iraqi army units that had been sent directly into Mosul a month earlier to inch by inch eradicate the area of ISIS fighters, they had done a relatively good job, but the last few ISIS fighters had been pushed up into this northern section of the city where they had bunkered down inside of these blown-out concrete structures, and they were putting up an unbelievably fierce fight.
So fierce, in fact, that these Iraqi army units in the city were not able to go any farther forward.
They needed armored vehicles and tanks if they were going to be successful.
And it just so happened the army unit that Ephraim and his volunteer group had embedded with, that had been outside of Mosul this whole time, they were an armored unit.
They had armored vehicles and tanks. And they were ordered to head right into the heart of Mosul and liberate it once and for all.
And so on May 4th, Ephraim and the other volunteers loaded up in their armored vehicles and they joined this huge line of dozens and dozens of tanks and other armored vehicles looking at the western side of Mosul.
There was just a field between them and the city walls.
And as soon as this massive convoy began moving forward towards the city, the city just opened up on them.
Heavy machine gun fire, rocket fire, mortars, it was just absolute chaos.
ISIS knew they were coming and so they were unleashing everything they had on them.
And Ephraim would say, after his vehicle actually got inside of the city limits of Mosul and was on one of their roads, all these booby-trapped cars began detonating all around them, and the machine gun fire and rocket fire and mortar fire only intensified.
At the same time this was happening, Iraqi civilians inside of Mosul saw this unbelievable wave of violence happening and they began trying to flee the city.
Now ISIS had effectively kept them hostage inside of Mosul because they needed lots of civilians in and around the area because it prevented Iraq and America and other forces that were fighting ISIS from indiscriminately bombing Mosul to get rid of the ISIS presence there.
And so when Isis saw these civilians running away, they began shooting them to deter other civilians from trying to escape.
And so right in front of Ephraim as he's driving into the city, men, women, children are just being gunned down all over the place.
Naturally, Ephraim and the other volunteers hopped out and tried to return fire at these ISIS shooters, but they were so well fortified in different structures, they couldn't even see them, let alone hit them.
So they did the next best thing. Ephraim and the others began putting themselves out in the open to draw fire on themselves so that other nearby civilians could run to safety.
And for the next three days, that's what they did, constantly exposing themselves and dodging bullets.
And then also when they weren't doing that, they were treating these civilians that had been wounded and other Iraqi soldiers that had been wounded.
Now, to this point, Ephraim had seen combat when he was in the United States Navy as a Navy SEAL, and he'd seen combat as a volunteer with this group.
But it wasn't until he got inside of Mosul that he saw just how barbaric humans can be to one another.
He said he saw so much death and dying all around him that it was like his brain couldn't compute that level of barbarism.
He would later write a book called The City of Death, and it was about his experience in Mosul.
And he said the reason he named the book The City of Death is because that's what it felt like.
Everywhere around him was just death. For the next several weeks, Ephraim and the other volunteers took up a position in the south section of Mosul inside of this bombed out building.
They created a sort of aid station and there they focused all of their attention on trying to treat as many wounded civilians and wounded Iraqi soldiers as they possibly could.
At the same time, the rest of the Iraqi army had pushed north and was slowly chipping away at the last few ISIS fighters.
On June 1st, so roughly one month after Ephraim and the others have entered into the city of Mosul, they noticed a significant uptick in the number of wounded civilians that were coming to them for help.
And so all day and all night, they're treating all these people that are horribly wounded with gunshot wounds and other wounds.
And so at some point, Ephraim and the others begin asking these people, you know, what happened to you?
This seems unusual that so many people would show up with these wounds.
And they all just seemed to be in shock.
No one was able to really talk about what happened, but a few people mentioned there had been a massacre somewhere nearby.
But when they pried for more information, there was a language barrier issue and there was just the fact that they were overwhelmed with patients and they needed to make sure their focus was on treating them, not talking to them.
The following morning though, Ephraim and the others got up and decided they wanted to push farther north into ISIS-held territory to see if there was evidence of a massacre to try to figure out what happened to all these people that were showing up wounded.
And so Ephraim and the other volunteers, they left their aid station building and they moved north about one block to this huge intersection.
And there they tucked up against this huge concrete wall that protected them from ISIS.
ISIS was down the other road that ran through the intersection.
They were holed up in this huge bombed out hospital that overlooked this intersection.
And so from where they were, ISIS couldn't see them and they couldn't shoot them.
At some point, Ephraim poked his head around this wall, looking down the road towards this burned-out hospital, and what he saw along the road shocked him.
There were dozens and dozens of civilians that had been killed laying all over the place.
It would turn out the day before a huge group of civilians had attempted to flee the city and they ran in front of that burned out hospital where ISIS was and they gunned them down.
And they killed over 200 civilians, men, women, children, they didn't care, and they wounded at least 100 others.
And so that was why there was that huge uptick in wounded civilians the day before.
And so as Ephraim is scanning this carnage, being careful not to stay exposed for too long, he notices one particularly large pile of bodies.
There's about 20 or 30 bodies. He sees in this pile, there's clearly movement.
And he can see there is a little girl who's attempting to hide herself under her dead mother's clothing.
And then next to this girl were two other adult men that clearly were wounded, but were alive.
Ephraim immediately starts yelling to them to run to him, run to him, you're going to get killed out there.
But the three of them were completely shell-shocked.
For the past 24 hours, they had been laying inside of this pile of bodies, and so they were not going to be able to move on their own.
And so Ephraim realized, unless they did something to get them out of there, they were going to die.
So Ephraim and the others ran back to their Iraqi army counterparts, and they got them to sign off on a rescue mission.
And their plan was they would have one of the Iraqi tanks drive down that road straight towards that hospital where all the ISIS fighters were, and right behind the tank would be an Iraqi Humvee, inside of which would be Ephraim and the other volunteers.
And so they would go straight down the road, the tank would serve as a sort of shield for the Humvee, and after the tank passed the pile of dead bodies, the Humvee would be lined up right next to it, Ephraim and the others would hop out, they'd grab the girl and the two other men, pull them back in the Humvees, and then the two vehicles would back up to safety.
Once this plan was in place, Ephraim and Dave and the other volunteers contacted the American military in the area and they got them to authorize a smoke screen.
They would fire artillery shells with airburst smoke grenades that would obscure the view of the ISIS fighters in the hospital.
They wouldn't actually be able to see the tank or the Humvee or this rescue operation taking place right in front of them.
And so shortly after these plans are totally finalized and Ephraim and the others are loading up in the Humvee and they're getting in position to turn that corner and begin this operation, the driver of the Humvee says, you know what?
I don't want to do this anymore. It's not safe.
I'm not willing to do it. Ephraim and the other volunteers tried to convince him to still do the operation because they didn't have time to get a replacement Humvee, and they had already coordinated with the American artillery units that were going to be firing these shells at a certain time, and so they really didn't have an opportunity to do this operation again if this guy backed out.
Not to mention, if they didn't get out there quickly, these three people were going to die anyways.
And so finally, when Ephraim realized this driver was not going to budge, he was not going to go in this operation, Ephraim and the others got out of the Humvee and they walked up to the tank driver and they asked him, you know, are you still prepared to go on this rescue operation?
And he said he was. And so even though if they went through with this mission, it would mean Ephraim and the others would be on foot behind the tank, completely exposed, they were still totally down for doing it.
In fact, Ephraim would say at no point did they consider canceling the mission.
They were so focused on saving these three people that they were prepared to sacrifice themselves to do it.
And so the tank driver closed his hatch.
Ephraim and the others got behind the tank.
They turned that corner so they're facing the hospital.
And then a couple minutes later, as planned, American artillery launched these airburst smoke grenades that totally obscured ISIS's view.
And as soon as those smoke clouds were in the air, ISIS came out and just started firing randomly straight down in the general direction of where this tank was.
They couldn't really see the tank. They had no way of knowing what they were doing out there.
They just knew something was going on. And so meanwhile, Ephraim and the others are tucked up behind this tank as it's slow rolling in, as rounds are impacting all around them, mortars start landing all around them.
And it turns out there were other ISIS fighters not just directly ahead of them in the hospital, but also off to their side in other buildings.
So they were getting hit from two directions.
Ephraim remembers as he was behind this tank trying to stay as small as he could, he began dry heaving because he was so terrified.
He was completely convinced he was going to die that day.
Eventually, the tank made its way just past this pile of bodies.
At that point, Ephraim actually stepped out and fired back towards Isis in the hospital and over towards the berm to provide some cover fire while Dave and another volunteer ran over and pulled the girl and the other two men out of the pile and behind the tank.
The girl and one of the men were okay, they were not badly physically hurt, but the other man was badly hurt and he couldn't walk.
And so thinking quickly, Ephraim and his team found a piece of sheet metal on the ground behind this tank and they rolled him onto it and used it like a stretcher and began dragging him as the tank began moving in reverse.
And so as bullets are still flying all around them, rockets are landing next to them.
They're moving, they're making good progress when the wounded man slips off of the sled and he lands right in the tracks of where this tank is going to go.
And for a variety of reasons, Ephraim and the others had no way of communicating with the tank driver.
So the tank driver is just going to keep on moving and he's going to run over this injured man who can't go anywhere.
And so thinking quickly, Ephraim leaps down, he grabs the injured guy, and he rolls with him out of the way of the tracks right as it goes past him.
But now Ephraim and this wounded man are outside the protection of the tank, and rounds start impacting all around them.
The smoke screen at this point is pretty much cleared, and so Isis sees them.
And Ephraim at this point makes a heartbreaking decision.
He looks at this guy who he knows cannot move himself.
He's badly wounded. He makes eye contact with him.
He holds his hand and Ephraim just shakes his head and says, I'm sorry, because he knew he couldn't move him fast enough behind the tank before both of them got shot.
And he couldn't throw him on his back in time before both of them got shot.
And so he had to leave him. And so Ephraim jumped up, he leapt behind the tank right as a volley of fire hit right where he had been standing, and then Ephraim and the others continued moving back.
That wounded man would go on to be killed by Isis.
Only a few moments after Ephraim was back behind the relative safety of the tank, he suddenly fell to the ground and felt a pain in his right leg.
He had been shot through the leg. but where he fell was right in line with where one of these tank treads were coming.
But again, they can't talk to this tank, so they can't stop the tank from running him over.
And so a surge of adrenaline came over Ephraim and he leapt up onto his feet and just continued hobbling behind the tank, despite this gaping hole in his leg.
Eventually, they made it all the way back to that intersection where they had started, but the only way they could get back down the alleyway to safety with the Iraqi army was to run across a small segment of the street.
Basically, you needed to be exposed for just a second running across.
But at this point, the smoke screen was gone.
ISIS knew exactly where they were, and they were waiting for them to pop out from behind that tank.
And so Ephraim and the other volunteers are screaming across this gap in the road towards the Iraqi army to get them to send an armored vehicle across this road, pick us up, and bring us back across.
We can't run across this gap without getting shot.
But because of the chaos and the noise, the tank is firing, there's mortars, there's rockets, there's gunfire, it's crazy.
The message was just not received. And so in a sudden fit of madness and frustration and fear and all sorts of things, Ephraim just runs across the street.
And he gets to the other side miraculously without being hit again.
And there he tells the Iraqi army, send an armored Humvee across this gap, get the girl, get the guy, get the rest of the volunteers, save them.
Seconds later, an armored Humvee crossed that gap.
They picked them up and brought them back.
And at this point, Ephraim is now lying on the ground behind that concrete wall.
So he's relatively safe and he's getting his leg bitched up.
And he remembers when the girl and the guy were brought out and they were safe and alive, the Iraqi army erupted in cheers.
It was this unbelievably happy moment in an absolutely tragic, horrible time.
The Iraqis would transport Ephraim in an armored ambulance to an aid station south of where this intersection was.
And there they would put him on a cot and a doctor would re-bandage his leg and then he would walk away.
And so Ephraim has left inside of this room to kind of think about what had just happened.
And he looked over to his left and just two beds over from him was the girl he had just nearly died saving.
And she was sitting on her cot. She wasn't looking at him.
She was looking straight ahead. Her dark hair was matted down.
And she was just kind of staring into nothingness.
It was clear she was still in shock. But she did look relatively unhurt.
And then at some point, another Iraqi doctor came over and gave her some food and water.
And she ate and drank ferociously. Ephraim just stared at her in awe.
At that moment, she was the most important thing in his life.
And as he's staring at this miracle child, the doctor that had given her food and water noticed him staring.
And he came over to Ephraim and he just said, her name is Demoah.
She's four years old and she's going to be just fine.
After the doctor had walked away, Ephraim pulled his hat down over his face and he just wept.
Ephraim never had a chance to actually speak to Demoa because she was so scared of everyone around her that he decided to just give her her space.
But he would later find out that she was reunited with her living family members and today she is alive and well.
After his injury, Ephraim was sent back to the United States and it was then that he learned their rescue operation had been filmed by a guy who was there that day documenting war crimes by ISIS.
He saw this rescue operation happening and he just started filming it.
After this man posted the footage online, it went viral, and before long, major news outlets all over the world were reaching out to Ephraim and the other volunteers for interviews.
This was the story that me and my teammates in Virginia in that office saw in 2017, and that image we saw of Ephraim standing behind the tank with the AK-47, that was moments before he rushed out behind the tank and provided cover fire for Dave and the other to run over and grab the girl and the other two men.
The gunshot wound that Ephraim sustained in his leg wound up being relatively minor, if you consider gunshot wounds to be minor.
It did not hit an artery and it did not shatter his bone.
And so after only a few months, he was more or less back to strength.
And instead of just taking it easy, he was in another conflict zone in Burma, this time working with a new volunteer organization, one that he founded called Stronghold Rescue and Relief. and their mission is to protect and care for families in conflict zones.
Their motto is, "...the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Despite being a very small organization, they are having enormous impacts all over the world, but they need our help.
They rely on a small army of people who pitch in small donations every month to keep operations flowing.
So if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, please consider joining their army by supporting them on a monthly basis just like I am.
Also, if you just click on that link, it will bring you to their website and you can see the full unedited footage of their rescue mission.
A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts.
Not just this one, but also Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Run Fool, and Wartime Stories.
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Iman is always on call to her kids and her patients.
One day, she got the best ping ever. It was the Expedia app.
Flight prices to Cozumel had just dropped, so it was a great time to book.
On the beach, Iman finally felt on call to herself.
Almost. You were made to use your Do Not Disturb mode.
We were made to track flight prices to out of office.
Expedia. Made to travel. Available as a member benefit.
