Video summary
In this harrowing account, former Navy SEAL MrBallen recounts his brief but intense deployment to Afghanistan in 2014, where he served a minimum seven-year contract before completing just one combat tour. Upon arriving at Forward Operating Base Shank via an eight-hour military flight from Germany, the reality of war struck immediately upon entering Afghan airspace, marked by strict safety protocols like red cockpit lights and rapid descents due to proximity threats. The environment was starkly beautiful yet dangerous, characterized by rugged mountains and mud huts in provinces like Logar. MrBallen describes the psychological shift experienced during combat operations, noting that while initial fear is natural after extensive training, once gunfights begin, the highly choreographed movements of SEAL teams create a sense of invincibility born from millions of dollars worth of specialized training working in perfect tandem with teammates. The narrative intensifies as MrBallen details an engagement on April 19, 2014, just before Easter, near Route Utah where his unit was hunting suicide bombers destined for Kabul. During a firefight in the village of Zargar, which offered narrow alleyways and dead ends filled with IEDs, his team encountered Military Age Males (MAM) crouching against a wall less than ten feet away after walking down an unanticipated path. The situation escalated rapidly when two combatants threw grenades over the wall; one landed directly on MrBallen's shoulder while he was standing behind another shooter under the glare of a flashing infrared spotlight from a drone overhead. In that split-second moment, his mind processed the event with cold rationality rather than panic, thinking only about minimizing damage to ensure his family could recognize him if killed, hoping for an impact below his head or legs. Following the detonation, MrBallen felt no immediate pain despite severe injuries caused by hundreds of razor-sharp shrapnel fragments from the grenade's metal casing and a direct hit that knocked parts off his rifle. He lay in sewage-filled alleyways with tourniquets applied to his bleeding legs while chaos erupted around him; friendly Afghan fighters began arbitrarily firing weapons into the engagement, creating further confusion amidst the gunfire. His medic remained calm despite having another teammate suffering collapsed lungs from grenade blasts, and eventually, a "danger close" air strike was authorized by command after receiving specific approval initials, resulting in a Hellfire missile being fired 15 to 20 feet away from their position to neutralize the remaining threat without hitting them. The aftermath of the incident revealed significant discrepancies between MrBallen's initial recollection and the actual events that transpired. He initially believed he had survived solely due to luck, but four years later, after overcoming his trauma-induced avoidance of speaking with him, he learned from a conversation with the medic who saved his life that he had actually fallen into sewage immediately upon detonation and suffered grievous leg injuries before being dragged back against a wall for treatment. The video footage captured by the drone confirmed there were only two grenades involved in the incident, contradicting some of MrBallen's earlier assumptions about the scale of the explosion. This delayed understanding highlighted how shock can distort memory during life-threatening events, as he felt no pain at all until days later when recovering from what appeared to be a simple rock-throw impact but was actually catastrophic shrapnel damage. Ultimately, MrBallen reflects on the psychological toll of such experiences and his reluctance to discuss them for four years after returning home via Germany. He notes that out of a platoon of roughly 25 SEALs during this deployment, eight or nine received Purple Hearts, an award strictly reserved for those wounded by enemy fire who bled from combat wounds rather than minor injuries like bruises. His journey illustrates the complex reality of special operations where confidence can breed complacency, yet rigorous training allows units to function effectively even in chaotic scenarios involving suicide bombers and urban warfare tactics. The story serves as a testament to both the resilience required to survive such encounters and the long-term emotional processing needed before one is ready to share these traumatic memories with others or frame them for posterity.
Read the full video transcript
what's it feel like to get hit by a
grenade it feels like rocks being thrown
at you at least that was my experience I
uh yeah so I I I was medically evacuated
from Afghanistan so I I um I did two
deployments which in in the world of
Navy SEALs I did the shortest tour you
could do meaning my my time in service
was seven years and for seals you have
to sign a contract that's longer than
the traditional four most people when
they enlist it's a four-year deal for
the seals because the training takes so
long you basically add these three years
on top I think mine was a little bit
longer so I served the minimum and I say
this because there invariably are going
to be very senior Navy Seals that listen
to this and are going to judge what I
say here um but I I deployed the minimum
I did one combat tour and that was the
first tour I did and that was to
Afghanistan uh and you know I we we
definitely got into gunfights it was in
many ways it was it was actually what I
thought it would be like a lot of it was
you know we you go through so much
training so much prep and you get
overseas and it's like you're terrified
it it looks like War you know and I I'm
half smiling here because it's like the
it's so weird when you first get there
it's so different from from your normal
life does this make you feel like you're
kind of back there you know this
actually looks similar to fob shank
which is so we landed at this this Base
called forward operating base shank
right in the middle of I think logar
province in Afghanistan and it's it's
this I mean it's just this obvious
military stuff everywhere planes and
vehicles and all around little buds
everything's moving the stuff happening
it's crazy like when we came actually my
my entry to Afghanistan when I knew like
oh oh it's getting real is we flew
from Virginia to Germany and then we
stayed there for a couple of days and
then we flew from Germany to Afghanistan
and it's this eight- hour flight and for
the majority of it you're in a military
transport so you're not this is not a
civilian craft valy of the Beast with a
little bench seat and it's so loud and
there's all this equipment in the middle
of of the floor um but it's it's relaxed
we've taken military flights dozens
times you just hang out with your
buddies you can walk around but when we
got into Afghanistan airspace the pilot
had to put on uh red light on the on the
aircraft even though we're way above
Small Arms range and frankly even RPG
range or rocket Lun uh it's harder to
see at a distance uh you know white
light stands
out but he was like the pilot came on
and okay we're in Afghan airspace so you
know don't go near the windows although
the idea that if if they're shooting up
at the plane we're in a bad spot no
matter where it hits but like stay away
from the windows the red light came on
and then we did this really intense very
quick descent because you don't want to
linger too too long at a medium altitude
yeah and it's like I noticed how intense
The Landing was and then we get out and
it's it's winter time and I'm so green
I've never done anything I've only
trained and I'm looking around it really
looked like this but just mountains
everywhere it was actually so beautiful
uh which is weird because it's this
really kind of dangerous place for for
people like for me um but yeah no it so
I was there and it was was in many ways
what I expected I I um when shooting
starts you know the thing that stood out
to me because I I when you get hurt you
have to debrief how it went and I told
my commander that the debrief point that
stood out the most to me about my entire
experience in Afghanistan was when the
rounds started flying uh meaning when
people began shooting at us it was so
incredible to see your teammates just do
their job because the thing about SE
SEAL Teams and and operating in a
special operations unit
so much of what you're doing is is
choreographed with everybody else you
don't have just like random things
happening everything is just you're
working in tandem all the time
everything is done with a buddy or with
small teams and just seeing in this like
crazy moment where like gun fires coming
in and you're looking at your teammates
and your teammates are so well trained
that you just see this look of not calm
it isn't like they're like superheroes I
mean it'sa it's chaos but you're seeing
what millions and millions and millions
of dollars in very specialized training
looks like in real time and for a second
especially when you know we get into a
gunfight you you'd see that in motion
and it's for lack of a better
description it's beautiful we are
unstoppable on the battlefield it's it's
the idea that there are people that are
walking around in sandals in AK-47s up
against this team it just seemed
unbelievably W it's it's like no wonder
the seals have the reputation they do
and I'm not talking from like how cool I
am it's the other seals I saw that was
like holy like this is an intense
level of
training so uh the confidence level is
really high especially as the deployment
went on you know we were just we were
going out a fair amount you know what
that means you feel Invincible with the
guys around you in some way and and
that's actually something you need to
keep in in the back of your mind that
you're not I am not Invincible yeah that
the complacency kills uh and I actually
yeah there's definitely an element of
that that invincibility thing and also
most of us are in our early 20s you know
we're in the pr of Our Lives you can see
how that would happen um but anyway so
the the grenade about 5 months into the
deployment we we were going into this uh
this Village called zargar uh it's the
the general Mission set that we had in
Afghanistan was our our unit was we were
tapped with trying to find suicide
bombers who were destined for Kabul the
big city in Afghanistan and stopping
them or limiting you know their
effectiveness before they got there
because we were actually positioned on
like the one paved Road in Afghanistan
called route Utah kind of splits the
whole country in half and it went right
to Kabul and and we were deployed to
this little out station that was right
up alongside route Utah and this is not
a base it didn't look like this it was a
couple Hesco barriers and some tents
like a very miniature version of this
and it was our job to stem the tide of
these suicide bombers and across the
street from Route Utah was this city if
you will called zargar and so in
Afghanistan it's you know mud Huts it's
not sophisticated architecture at all I
mean some places there is but where we
were it's like you're out in the sticks
and it's mud huts and very simple but
zargar it was mud Huts but they were
built on top of each other I mean it's
it's like the closest thing to an urban
environment as you're going to get
outside of like a Kabul I mean this is
urban Afghanistan and what that meant
was when you went into zargar it was
just there was so many opportunities to
get stuck on dead ends to have corners
where you can't see around and it was
covered in IEDs it was covered or there
was Fighters everywhere I mean this is a
highly contested place because it's
actually where a lot of these suicide
bombers would be kept before carrying on
to uh
Kabul and the thing about zargar is you
would literally look into this town from
you know thousand meters away we'd drive
around it and look in and in other parts
of Afghanistan Fighters do not want to
be recognized as Fighters they'll be
targeted and killed by NATO m these
fighters in zargar are openly carrying
their AK-47s and patrolling the streets
they they they know that that this is a
target this place and their job is yeah
I'm a fighter and I'm protecting the
people in the in the city from NATO and
so we would go in and it was like an
obvious gunfight is going to occur
that's why we're going in and so on just
before uh Easter on uh in 2014 I think
it was was April 19th I think that's
right before Easter April 19th 2014 we
went into zargar we got into what would
amount to be a pretty long drawn out but
not the whole time like sporadic gunfire
for like 6
hours we uh our partner Force so the
Afghans that we worked with that went
out the door with us a couple of them
got wounded they got shot our dog got
shot but everybody lived but there was
like you casualties along the way and
you know we're deep into our deployment
it's a six-month long deployment this is
5 months in it's it was the fighting
season so it's the springtime there's
much more action if you will and you
know we were pretty experienced I would
guess for this deployment we were hungry
and it was just very frustrating this
particular day that we kept getting shot
up and then they disappear it was like
just over because they had these tunnels
you know that ran underneath the city
that they could escape and again it's
like imagine being in a city that you
don't know there's loads of places that
people can can escape and so by the end
of the night when basically we had
gotten shot up a whole bunch and didn't
do a whole lot of shooting back you know
we did but not
effectively we were just kind of angry I
guess I would say like frustrated like
we're kind of getting our asses kicked
what's going on there's obviously
Fighters still here because we're still
getting pot shots and um at some point a
a drone overhead one of ours an unmanned
uh aerial vehicle spotted a group of
what we call Ms so military age males
that were crouched down by this wall
kind of near where we would eventually
exfill when we left sarar and so there
was some consideration that they could
be setting up an IED or they could be
getting ready to shoot at us when we
leave so there's some threat with these
these people but given the Rules of
Engagement you can't just okay I'm G to
go over there and just start shooting
you can't do that you need to go see
what's going on you have to identify a
weapon and realistically at the time you
need to get shot at first so our fire
team that I was a part of which is a
group of Seven Seals or six seals and a
couple partner force uh we happened to
be physically closest at the time when
this Intel came came out that hey
there's these Ms over here and so our I
was not in charge I'm just a typical new
guy Gunner our our leader uh said let's
just go and see what's going on like
just get eyes on these Ms and see see
what they're doing it wasn't let's go
over there and get into something it was
let's just go see and so it's gnarly
what ends up happening because it didn't
go the way we expected we um we end up
walking down this Alleyway where we were
anticipating that we would walk down
this alleyway this narrow little
Alleyway with walls on other side of us
and we would get to this wall like right
ahead of you almost like a te
intersection and so you walk down this
this wall or this this hallway and you
reach this te and our expectation was
this wall right here that we're walking
towards is like 6 feet high 7t high so
not that tall you can kind of look over
it that we would be able to look over
this wall and there's a whole field that
extended Beyond it and on the other side
of the field where there is another wall
like you know 100 meters away they were
kind of crouched up against that wall so
all you need to know is we're expecting
we're going to go to a wall we're going
to look over it and about 100 meters
away on the other side of the field is
going to be these
M we walk down the alleyway we get to
the wall we look over the wall and
they're not on that side of the field
they're right here they're literally
less than a foot away from us they're
Crouch town and they didn't hear us
because you know we were quiet making
our way down the the the
alleyway and it's one of those things
where it's our team lead had to do
something we had to be effectively
ProActive at this point because the risk
that we all intuitively understood here
is best case frankly would have been to
get out of there like this is not the
way we want to engage with these people
it's way too close way too much risk
here back out like it's silly to engage
them but if we turn around and begin
going the way we came in our back is to
them and who what's to say they haven't
hurt us maybe they'll stand up and start
shooting at us so it was kind of like an
in the- moment decision to we got to
engage and so our team lead you know he
got down and tapped his leg signaling to
somebody else start to engage he stepped
on to our team League's leg to get his
head up over the wall and he called out
they have weapons so we knew that yes
these are these are combatants and a
Close Quarters gunfight ensued but the
at least two people I I've heard as many
as seven but I think it was two people
on the other side of the wall there was
between two and seven at least two of
them were holding grenades that they had
already pulled the pins on they were
just holding the spoon down so as soon
as they let go it would detonate a
couple seconds later but they were
holding them for this exact reason in
case they were discovered it functions
as like a suicide bomb yes and so when
we began engaging them they threw the
grenades over the wall and I was not one
of the guys shooting I was standing
behind the guy who was shooting I'm just
in this this Alleyway and it's the
middle of the night run night vision and
there the the Drone overhead had an
infrared Spotlight that was cast down on
where we were to Mark where we were and
it was a flashing strobe so with
infrared you can only see it on night
vision so to the naked eye you it would
look like Darkness but to me on night
vision you know I have this blue
grayscale pretty highspeed night vision
and it was a very bright flash it felt
like you're in a spotlight that's
periodically flashing is there a reason
that it's not constant I think it had to
do with the fact that we were actively
in an engagement and I think that this
is I don't really know why cuz it's not
supposed to that actually has more to do
with targeting it's a little bit comp
it's a little bit complicated why you
would use a Flash versus steady but for
whatever reason we're in a flashing
strob I don't think it was protocol put
it that way but imagine there's like a
flashlight from God straight down to the
Earth that's what it looks like it's
this amazing really bright IR light
anyway so it's flashing and because it
was so bright when those grenades came
over the wall one of them came over the
wall and time slowed down because
immediately my brain is like there it is
your death is coming here comes this
grenade and it would flash the IR the r
strobe would flash on and this is just a
fraction of a second and I would see the
grenade coming right towards me and then
it would flash off and it would
disappear because it's now no longer
illuminated the light would come on
again now the grenades even closer I
mean it really felt that slow even
though this happened in the fraction of
a second grenade comes over it hits my
shoulder and it lands on the it hits
your shoulder it hit my shoulder hit my
shoulder and it fell to the ground and I
remember when I saw it flashing and
coming over the wall I actually was
thinking not oh boy I can't believe I'm
going to die it was more like I hope
this at least Ates below my head it'll
still kill me but at least my family
will be able to recognize me because it
will not blow my head off and so in this
like time standstill moment the grenade
that fear what is that that sounds like
an odly sort of rational it was rational
there was no emotion it was just facts
why I don't know I've never been in an
absolute near-death experience before
but what I tell people is in a weird way
you're the way we are able to live so
seamlessly our heart pumps you know we
breathe our lungs work we walk we talk
we do all these different things don't
think about it that's that our our
experience is being alive it happens
basically
automatically but you know what else
happens automatically is death we just
you only experience it once and your
your body your your brain your mind at
least in my personal experience is ready
for that moment you just don't think
that and so when it was time and I'm
like a grenade is coming over the wall
that's going to hit me it's going to
kill me it was just like boy I hope my
family can at least see my head and so I
remember when it hit my shoulder I was
thinking pleasee don't blow up please
don't blow up please don't blow please
don't blow up and I was like oh few it's
going to blow me away relief yeah I was
like thank God and then when it made it
all the way down to my legs I was
thinking oh it might just blow my
legs off and I might be able to live and
then when it hit the ground and I was
able to slightly turn I was like oh
this is pretty good and then uh it
detonated and it it felt like someone
took a handful of rocks and just like a
light throw uh that hit me in the back
and the back of my legs but really what
it was was probably like a 100 pieces of
shrapnel so the way a grenade works is
there's a fuse inside of a a piece of
metal and the fuse it detonates and the
metal is designed to Splinter and create
little razor blades that get fired off
in every direction Y and um so those
Blades of metal were sent into all of us
and uh you know I I I just told the
story actually kind of recently there's
the what I remember which wound up not
being true and then there's what
actually happened and the only reason I
know what actually happened is I ended
up speaking to the guy who saved my life
4 years after I got hurt and because I I
wasn't able to talk to him it was so
traumatic I avoided him and frankly he
avoided me I'll tell you what what
actually happened but we didn't talk to
each other it's like I get medact and I
never talked to him and then four years
later we finally have our talk and we we
debrief what happened and it and it the
story was not what I recalled what did
you think happened what I thought
happened is I survived the grenade but I
also as soon as the grenade detonated I
was on the ground on my on my face and
we were in the alleyway was also where
sewage came through so there was like
liquid and sewage and I fell into the
sewage and I'm laying there and I
couldn't stand up and I'm like obviously
aware that you know something's hit my
legs it's grenade uh I I thought I had
my legs you know was pretty confident
but I knew that clearly there's been a a
grievous injury to my legs and so I
couldn't stand up and then as I'm kind
of positioning myself like this and some
of this did happen by the way it was
more like the timing of things I
remember looking up and you know here's
this te right so we had walked down this
way and then the guys were on this side
they're shooting this way but at the
left and right side of the tea the top
of the te if you will was an opening
that you could walk out to the field
where these guys were and I was thinking
as I'm like trying to stand and there's
at the time all this gunfire happening
feet away from me I mean it's chaos I'm
thinking someone's going to come around
the wall the combatants and they're
going to start shooting down the
alleyway and I'm looking at it and I
can't go anywhere and so I'm like well I
survived the grenade but it's only a
matter of time before we're overrun and
somebody comes in here and finishes me
off or worse I get taken hostage or
something like what can I do I can't
even my my my gun I remember uh I think
it was the the top of the gun it got
blown off by the grenade or it was it
didn't work like parts of the gun had
come off I never saw it again I was told
that it was not working um and then and
then my memory is somebody picked me up
and dragged me not to cover because
there really wasn't anywhere to go they
just kind of took us down the base of
the tea if you will to the side of this
wall and my medic put tourniquets on my
legs and and our jtac who calls in air
strikes they called in what's called a I
think it was a danger close air strike
which sounds like nothing but what that
really means is if you call in a danger
close air strike what that really means
is you're calling an air strike on your
position it means you're being over run
and when you do it you have to get the
initials from your commander basically
saying I I approve you calling an air
strike on yourself now you're not
literally doing it it's often when you
have no other choice like hey they're 5T
away from us on the other side of this
wall and we can't do anything try to hit
them don't try to hit us so they called
in a Hellfire missile when we're 15 20
ft away from where they're actually
targeting and so that did hit and it and
it neutralized the threat and but but
also at the same time there's all these
fighters in in the town that had been
fighting with us all day and when all
this chaos erupts it had been quiet to
that point there was a lull and as soon
as the shooting started people from all
around the city just began arbitrarily
shooting generally in that direction
shooting pgs in our Direction like they
could be hitting their own people they
don't care they're just shooting at us
and so there was just this chaotic you
know trying to suppress the threat
trying to call in a metab back and you
know after my medic had put the
tourniquets on me he was so calm he's
like hey it's okay you know it's all
good everybody's been hurt by the way
you know we have another guy whose lungs
have collapsed is that mostly from
grenades just from the grenades right
and there was only two grenades as far
as we know there was two there's there's
video of it and it it does kind of look
like there was two the video of it the
Drone was filming it yeah and have you
seen this yeah it's it's it's grainy
you're not like oh there I am it's more
like but you can probably pick out yeah
yes how does that feel to watch your own
mortal danger I will say that uh I was
glad that there was a record of it in a
way uh you know for for posterity or
something frame it put it on the wall I
think that's true uh you know what
initially because I didn't have my
debrief I'm going to tell you the
debrief here in a minute which changes
the story a little bit um I I felt like
you know I narrowly escaped and all of
the people that I was with that were
part of this this kind of horrible
situation we all lived there there was
out of a platoon of I think we had 25
people in the platoon seals in the
platoon and I think there was eight or
nine purple hearts on this deployment
and for reference you get a purple heart
if you're wounded in combat that's the
gist and I think the stipulation is you
actually have to bleed from an enemy
combatant's weapon like it's you it's
not just oh I bruised myself it's like
being punched isn't enough you you have
to get wounded for real and are you in
pain just at this point like what's
kicked in not really uh I have oh oh
like in the story are you yeah are you
feeling pain from the grenade because it
seems like someone just threw rocks at
the back of you it didn't there was no
pain nothing yeah it had to have just
been shock there was there was
absolutely nothing I felt pressure where
there was definite big serious holes in
my leg but it didn't hurt at all the
pain came you know days later as I'm
recovering but um so yeah we I end up
getting we we run out of the this place
we are under the hail of gunfire to this
helicopter that took us to a I went to a
a medical tent actually at fob shank
where I first landed in Afghanistan
looks very similar to this and then from
there I went to Germany and I was there
for a week and then I was sent home I
was like pushing a cart in Home Depot
hobbling around seven days after being
on the battlefield but the thing that
really screwed with me was actually um
you know I came home and I I I frankly
was not prepared to to really talk about
the specifics of what happened but I
didn't know why I wasn't like oh boy I'm
so screwed up from that it was more like
I just don't really want to talk about
that but four years later I end up
talking to my medic who is the guy who
put tourniquets on my legs because I
would have bled to death Ian he also
didn't want to talk about it in we both
without saying anything completely
avoided each other we worked at the same
Seal Team like we weren't on after when
I came home from this injury I was out
of my platoon the platoon was over and I
was put into a new group a whole new
group of guys you know so we weren't
working together directly we actually I
came back home and we didn't see each
other but we went to the same building
every day for work and we definitely
waved at each other but it was like
we're just not going to talk about this
really big thing that we both went
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