It was under the advice of my father, when I tried to sign up at 17, he told me I couldn’t, because there might come a day when I have to go and do what things this country needs in a position and a place that no man should have to experience.

When I joined in ’99, we really didn’t have a whole lot going on. And most importantly, it’s the story of those eight men, their story, which they will never get to share, that hopefully people will understand what those Gold Star families gave up for this nation.

Their voice is captured and they get the credit that’s due to them, because if it wasn’t for those great men, I wouldn’t be here. I also hope that people walk away from this hearing the voices of these guys that don’t get to sit here and talk to Task & Purpose and Army Times. To get the civilians to wrap their heads around that: this is what these guys are giving up when they go away and do their time in service for the military. We had our reason to be there, even though at times it wasn’t 100% clear, but we knew we had to go and do what was asked upon us to accomplish that mission. Everybody knew that this wasn’t the most sound spot to be, yet higher command - there were choices above us that we could not affect on the ground. So when these men and women raise that right hand and say, “I’m going to go and do and serve,” they give up the freedom when they’re put in less than ideal situations like we were, at the bottom of a valley. We’re not getting drafted like they did in Vietnam. Memories fade and certain memories get clearer and crisper. But, yeah, that was interesting thing of not really anyone being too dramatically different on their original narrative, but you could tell by reading the sworn statements that were done with them within the first week of the action happening, and then hearing them recount stuff years down the road. I’ll never say we got a perfect on that, even with the amount of research and time we spent trying to. It’s still difficult to say we got it right. That came from those face-to-face conversations and consolidating the sworn statements. Or what we thought took six hours to do only took 15 minutes. Every one of us had moments where it seemed like certain things only took a fraction of a second, but as we started structuring the timeline, we realized that, no, what we thought took five minutes actually took an hour to develop. The thing that was truly trick - and it was a tough thing to navigate through - was the timeline.

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