My name's Mike and I'm a former Special Forces Engineer Sergeant. I medically retired from the Army in 2014, at 80% disabled. I’m the father of 3 kids ranging in age from 10 to 15 years old, and I'm usually just an all-around happy guy that cracks corny jokes, leaving my kids shaking their heads. Oh...and I look at child pornography. Wait...what?! I'll explain.
What followed next was being taken away from my team, and being told that I couldn't do what I loved to do anymore. I was forced to medically retire. What would I do for a career? I was approached with a few opportunities making big money doing various things.
One opportunity stuck out, though. And how much money was involved, you ask? It was an unpaid internship, so...no money. It was an opportunity to help sexually exploited children and put away the monsters that exploit them. To me, that is more valuable than money.
The Taliban had fled the center of town as we inserted, however as time passed on target they began to regroup in several compounds on the outskirts of town and started to engage us with harassing fire. As extraction approached the fire intensified and by the time the last helicopter of our extraction package landed we were engaged in a decent gunfight. Unfortunately, the final extraction bird overflew the designated, and relatively protected, landing zone and landed in an exposed area approximately 200m from a cemetery in which several Talibs had taken up fire positions. The following video is of our chalk running to meet the extraction helicopter as it sits exposed in open ground. The operator who sustains the gunshot wound is the one who I kneel immediately next to. As luck would have it he chose the split second before he was shot to stand and turn to board the helicopter, causing the bullet to rip through his buttock and exit the front of his thigh, whereas it would have likely struck his head if he had remained kneeling.
