Today was a first for me.  I saw my own DVD collection on the shelf at Barnes & Noble .





It is a bargain box set, all five of my Iraq War documentaries on one disc .

Also available at Target and of course, Amazon .

In 2005 when I quit my job in the Kansas Attorney General's office, bought a TV camera and ran off to Fallujah, Iraq with my old Marine Corps unit, I never thought it would turn out like this.

I knew there was more to the story than was being told in the Mainstream Media.  If I didn't tell that story, I doubted anyone else would.  I also spotted a gap in the market.  Local TV affiliates didn't have coverage of local service members fighting the war.  My first trip to Iraq was as a one-man TV news syndicator and blogger.

At the time I thought it was probably a one shot deal.  I produced my first documentary, Outside The Wire:  Call Sign Vengeance, from those months with the Marines operating around Fallujah.

Then in 2007 I got an offer to go shoot video for CBS Productions for TV shows it was producing.  When their exclusivity window on the video license expired, I released a trilogy of documentaries.  Danger Close, about Al Qaida's attempt to overrun a small outpost of paratroopers; Anbar Awakens, the story of how the tribes of Anbar joined the Marines to rout Al Qaida; and Baghdad Surge which follows an Army infantry company commander through a non-stop day on the streets.

In 2008 I released Baghdad Happens, the story of a wild, crazy and successful daytime raid to capture a Jaish al Mahdi cell leader.

With the success of the Surge and interest in Iraq waning, I shifted focus to Afghanistan.  My focus also shifted from making movies to doing in-depth studies and observation work for the McCormick Foundation and the Cantigny Museum, reporting for TIME and National Review and lower profile work for other clients.

The Iraq War was winding down and the movies seemed to have run their course until I got an email from a company that stocks DVD collections in big box stores.  The retailers were looking for straight down the middle documentaries.  I was the only person with five, straight, a-political enough Iraq documentaries available for licensing.  Early on my business partner and co-producer David Chavarria and I decided that the movies would be pro-soldier, but show the war exactly as I saw it through a camera lens.  We didn't know it at the time, but this would be what retailers and documentary DVD buyers would be looking for at the end of the war.

Andrew Breitbart frequently says, be the media.  I set out to be the media, but would not have amounted to much without all the bloggers who linked to me and everyone who who bought DVDs over the years.  Thank you to everyone who over the years bought a DVD, hit the tip jar or posted a link.

With the end of the US presence in Iraq, I hope these documentaries show viewers what it was like to be a Marine in Anbar province in 2005, a Soldier in Baghdad during the Surge, a paratrooper just rocked by a thousand pound suicide truck bomb.

I also anticipate they will stand the test of time.  The understanding of the Iraq War's place in History is years, if not decades away, but these documentaries capture the reality of what it was like for Soldiers and Marines on the ground as it happened, preserving their stories forever.

What comes next?  I've teamed up with a Russian production company to produce a documentary on Afghanistan with the most unique point of view, I have a library of footage and probably 300 pages worth of stories to tell.

In a few days I will be taking off for Afghanistan again, my ninth trip to the wars.  A tenth trip is already scheduled on the calendar.  As a production team we now operate under a simple motto:  History.  Capture the History while it is happening.

That is what I will do for as long as I can.

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"Hi, my name is Brad," he said shaking my hand.

His smile and eyes were warm and friendly, more president of a small city Rotary Club than the highly trained, extremely experienced and very lethal man I knew he was.  He was a Navy SEAL team leader.

Unlike the guy who wrote the New Yorker piece a week ago, I actually went on a mission in Afghanistan with the gentlemen I'm writing about.

I bumped into Brad and his two companions the night before in the tactical operations center.  They had just arrived and were wearing some seriously high end combat apparel.

"We're all way over dressed," the company commander said before he noticed me.  "PTs are just fine for the walk through."

After inquiring about the time of the mission brief and walk through, I quickly exited the TOC.  The next morning as I met up with the platoon I was going to embed with for the mission, the company commander said the SEALs wanted to introduce themselves and make sure I understood the OpSec.

It was not the first time I had bumped into SEALs, they were pretty common in Al Anbar province, Iraq.  The rules are simple:  keep the camera off them, don't be a tool.

Brad introduced me to two other SEALs, Andy and Peter.  They were all in their mid or late thirties, probably team leaders with a rank of Sr. Chief or Master Chief.  In their civilian gym shorts and t-shirts the trio looked more like they had showed up for the workout of the day at CrossFit gym than the briefing for major combat operation.

"You have been around so you know the rules right?" Brad asked, with the same friendly demeanor.

"Yeah, just keep the lens off you guys.  I shoot on tape so if I get you by accident we can go back, look at it and record some black over it."

Brad looked at the other two as if to say, 'that was easy.'

"Great to meet you, JD, we'll see you out there.  It will be a good time."

I headed back to my platoon and made sure to keep my camera pointed in the opposite direction of them.

The next day when the grunts staged up to head out on the mission the SEALs were the source of a lot speculation.  What were three SEALs doing going along with a bunch of grunts?  What kind of weapon is that?  Where can you buy those pants?  The weapon was an H&K 416.  They told us the website where to buy the pants, but I'm keeping that secret.  5.11 Tactical pants used to be cool, then they became a part of the work uniform for the Defense Contract Management Agency.  When the auditors start wearing something, you know the coolness factor is gone.  No one ever did figure out what they were doing going on this mission with a bunch of grunts.

I strapped on my body armor and jumped up and down a few times, making sure everything fit well, was strapped on tight and didn't jangle.

"Nice kit, but that D ring will be target for the Chechen sniper," Peter said.

"I've been hearing about that guy for years," I said dryly, "he has a great marketing campaign."

Peter gave me a sly grin.  THE Chechen sniper, emphasis on THE is something of a running gag among jaded multi-deployment vets.  "No, no, no, that was some other sniper, not THE Chechen sniper."  I took the D ring off when Peter wasn't looking.

For most of the mission I was with my platoon doing our thing.  My first interaction with them was during a low-key tactical situation.

"Hey, me and the guys are gonna be up here," Brad said, leaning over my shoulder.  "Try to keep the camera off us."

"No problem.  But if you and Andy get positioned in the enemy's blind spot and start dropping dudes, I'm gonna get right behind you and film the whole thing."

Brad hit me with the smile again, "just as long as we can get copies of it."

Brad's first move after that was not to take overt control of the situation.  He complimented the platoon sergeant on the smart decisions he made so far, then by way of asking a few questions, guided the sergeant into making some even better decisions.

In all the writing about the SEALs recently, that is something I think many people miss.  Yes, SEALs are incredibly athletic and physically fit.  They are some of the best gunfighters and tacticians in the business, but they are also very intelligent, articulate and polished.  Their interpersonal communications skills could be highlighted by the Harvard Business Review.

On the surface they projected an image of deadly efficiency.  They wore full beards and weapons ranging from brass knuckles to a hatchet.  Yes, a hatchet.  Chad and Andy were muscular enough to make me feel like a pipsqueak.  Andy, in particular became the subject of a series of Chuck Norris two liners.  "Andy was a SEAL...back when he first joined the Navy.  Andy told me about his leave time...he thought Ranger school was kinda gay."  But during the lag time Andy would pull out his Kindle and would flash a megawatt smile with own dry one liners.  "Way to supress that rock."

Peter for his part had SEAL depricating quips like how he didn't let his guys handle power tools.  They have a lot of practice and trigger time with their weapons, not so much with the trigger on a skil saw.

At one point I shot the breeze with Brad and explained how a mid-life crisis led me to become a combat cameraman.

"What does a guy like you do for a mid-life crisis?" I asked him.

"Get married, start a family, work at a bank."

That low key life is not far off from how they roll around on FOBs.  Whenever I have spotted a real Budweiser Badge SEAL on base he blends in to the background wearing jeans and t-shirt, looking like he could be a guy who manages bottled water and MRE distribution at the supply yard.  Albeit one who looks like he spends a lot of his off time in the gym.

They know they are that pinnacle of the warrior food chain, don't gloat about it and have a fondness for old fashioned grunts who do the grinding work of war.  When we were in a secured area they would drift from one group of soldiers to another talking shop and patiently answering questions.  They knew how to work a temporary patrol base like a politician works a room full of donors.  Like I said, polished, but not a just a surface gleam, a type of shine that only comes from pure mettle.

The SEALs I met were not the one dimensional caricatures so often potrayed.    One of them described to me how he wept when he learned Osama bin Laden had been killed.  Another gave the shoulder hugging comfort of wise fellow warrior to a soldier describing the carnage of a previous tour.  They are human beings.  Men who have families, wives, children, mortages.  They laugh, cry and bleed the same color as the private on his first deployment. 

Deep down, I believe they are driven by love.  Anger, aggression, hatred and revenge cannot sustain men who do what they do.

If he had wanted to, Brad could have had me moved to another unit where I would have sat on a mountain top observation post.  But he took my measure and for some reason, trusted me.

  After that mission I would see them off and on.  Brad would give me big wave, Andy's hard set jaw would change to movie star smile and Peter would make the work seem mundane.

I don't think they were on the helicopter that went down, but my stomache sank when I read the first news flash.  I don't know their real names, or where they are from just their faces and a glimpse their character.  Thankfully I haven't seen their faces yet.

Brad, if you are reading this, I have a copy of that video clip you wanted.

(Note:  I have always assumed the names I know them by to be pseudonyms, but changed them again just to be sure.  I intenionally left out a ton of information and if you doubt I was actually there, I have officers and NCOs to back me up.)

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"We determined we were not going back, we were just gonna live in the village."  That decision made late in the night inside a mud-walled house compound by CPT Dennis Call and LTC Kenneth Mintz changed the battle against the Taliban in the Argendahb river valley west Khandahar city.

The Zahray District of Khandahar province and specifically the town of Sangasar north of the Argendahb river near where CPT Call's Soldiers operate is the spiritual homeland of the Taliban.  Mullah Omar had his first Mosque here and in 1994, after Omar and a few local madrassa students hanged a local strongman who raped two girls from the barrel of an old Soviet tank, formed the Taliban in his Sangasar mosque.  After the hanging other residents of the district and Khandahar city began requesting Omar and his band to dispense rough Islamic justice.

1-32 Infantry's area of operations is near the village of Nalgham where the area between the river and Highway 1 is the widest.  Open source map from the University of Texas.

In less than two years the Taliban grew from a few conservative mullahs and students to a military force backed by Pakistani intelligence and funded by the major opium drug lords and the trucking mafia.  The turning point for the Taliban came by a simple business deal.  After the Soviets left, the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan regime fell and the Mujahedeen Commanders took over.  In many places local tribal based warlords and strongmen took over their areas pushing out what remained of the traditional Khan and Malik tribal leadership.  The warlords along Highway 1 which runs from Chamen on the Pakistan border all the way through Herat and then north into the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan charged extortionate tolls on cargo trucks or just plain hijacked the trucks.  This made sanctions busting into Iran, opium trafficking and all other forms of smuggling less profitable and terribly unpredictable.  The Taliban offered an alternative--security and a flat rate toll on Highway 1.  The Pakistani Interservices Intelligence Agency bought into the idea as did the drug lords and the trucking mafia.

It was the Taliban's first step down a slippery slope from a group of religious leaders dispensing harsh Islamic justice to a criminal enterprise with a thin Islamic veneer.  Maintaining that veneer is part of the reason the Taliban is fighting the US and Afghan government forces so hard in Zahray.

Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Mintz made a series crucial decisions in late April and early May that flipped the Taliban's tactics upside down and is establishing the infrastructure needed to deliver what could be a devastating series of knock-down punches in what used to be Mullah Omar's backyard.

For the last four months I have been traveling Afghanistan looking for a place where the surge here may equal the effects of the 2007 Iraq Surge.  If there is anywhere in Afghanistan where a movement similar to the Anbar Awakening that sprang up in Iraq's Al Anbar province along the the Euphrates river in 2007 can be built, it is the Argendahb river valley west of Khandahar.

The physical terrain is remarkably similar to that of the Euphrates river valley.  There is a key highway, irrigated farmland, clusters of villages and a river.  Granted the Argendahb is a mere stream compared to the Euphrates which is key difference because it does not create a physical barrier, but it is a terrain feature that can be used tactically.  Most interesting is how much the insurgent's view of the Argendahb matches Al Qaida's view of Al Anbar.  For the Capital T hard core Taliban the river valley west of Khandahar is an almost spiritual homeland.  For Al Qaida in Iraq, the pure Sunni Islam of Al Anbar was their base of support.

This open source map comes from the University of Texas.  TF Spartan, 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain operates west of Khandahar mostly in the area between Highway 1 on the north and the river to the south.

The way LTC Mintz, commander of 1-32 Infantry, has arrayed his forces is also remarkably similar to the way Marines and Soldiers were stacked up on the Euphrates river valley in 2007 as the Anbar Awakening spread down stream from Ramadi to Baghdad .

Instead of living on Company sized combat outposts of about 125 men and patrolling through the farm land that is strewn with mines to the villages then returning to the outpost, Mintz's men live in platoon and squad sized patrol bases and strong points in the villages with their Afghan Army brothers.  An average patrol base has about 25 men in it.  The water is warm, the food is MREs and the living is dirty--a lot of Soldiers love it.

Throughout Afghanistan Army units go on patrol through the fields only to be shot at from behind the walls of the villages.  The game plan of the Taliban is to shoot at Soldiers from two sides in hopes of baiting the Soldiers into crossing a mine field.  By buying or renting a house in the village, building a few shooting postions on the roof and staying in the village 24/7 the tables are turned.  The Taliban now has to cross their own mine fields and try to attack the US Soldiers who are in covered positions behind the walls.  The US Soldiers patrol in the villages, the fields and roads between the villages and in a bubble of the fields around the villages.

Mintz, who is to combat tactics what Chuck Knoll, the legendary coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, is to football fundamentals, has executed a plan that is truly full spectrum Counter Insurgency.

Counter Insurgency is a competition for the people, not farm fields.  The goal is to separate the Taliban from the people.  By living in the villages, the soldiers have not just weekly or daily contact with the population, but hourly contact.  The Taliban, to have influence over the people, have to fight their way through a platoon of US Soldiers and Afghan soldiers.  If the Talibs don't die in the process, they usually give up under the precision fire of US soldiers.

Mintz' soldiers are killing Taliban, having constant contact with the people, and protecting the people from the Taliban who shoot into the village.  A complete 180 from the usual scenario in Afghanistan, but the exact scenario that I saw first hand in Iraq's Euphrates river valley as local villagers stood up and joined with the Marines in taking on Al Qaida.

Completing the local villager's piece of the puzzle is the Weapons Shura--occasionally referred to as 'Nalgham Force'--a small band of eccentric leaders with mixed motives who at personal risk have joined with Mintz' soldiers to provide security for the villages.

Members of the Weapons Shura and Afghan Police meet with LTC Mintz (blocked by his interpreter) and CPT Dennis Call, commander of Charlie Company.  They hold their meetings under a canopy of grape vines.

The Argendahb is grape country.

To be sure, a couple small outposts in the villages and few dudes with AKs do not an awakening make, but I saw beginnings of the Anbar Awakening and the situation is similar.  The physical infrastructure of small patrol bases and strong points in the villages is the first step.  The next is to drill down deep into the political structure of the village, find the key leaders, gain their confidence and convince them to join with the US and thier Afghan Army brothers to fight the Taliban.  CPT Call plans on developing an ID Card program for the villagers, which is text book counter insurgency and creates a semi-gated community.  No ID card, no access to the area and no more hiding in plain sight.  The step beyond that is to find the power-players with the Zoor who are on the Taliban's side but can be tilted to the side of the Afghan/US coalition.

There is a lot more for me to drill down into, so more will be coming in a couple days.  This thing could fall flat on its face, but LTC Mintz and his boss, COL Patrick Frank the commander of Task Force Spartan, are veterans of the 2007 Iraq surge and know what success looks like in counter insurgency.  Their success this time may be an Arghendahb Awakening right in the area where Mullah Omar used to have his Mosque.

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Standing in front of the building the Taliban used to use as thier tactical operations center in Nalgham.  From left to right:  Maj Shaki Jan, CPT Dennis Call, JD Johannes, LTC Kenneth Mintz.

A fighting position in one of the Afghan Army's strong points.

War Buddies.  MAJ Brian Ducote and JD Johannes.  I met Ducote when he was a Captain commanding Battle Company in Baghdad in 2007 during the Iraq surge.  I embedded with Battle Company for a few weeks and made a documentary about them.  Ducote is now the Operations Officer of 1-32 Infantry.