In 2011, veteran and journalist Elliott Woods embedded with the twelve Marines of Third Squad in one of the most violent parts of Afghanistan at the height of the war against the Taliban. Only eleven of the twelve would make it home. A decade later—with America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan looming—Elliott goes on a cross-country road trip to track down the Third Squad survivors, to talk about the war and coming home, and to ask: What was it all for? And where do we go from here?

Third Squad is a 12-part documentary podcast hosted by Woods and produced by Airloom Media. New episodes every Thursday starting October 21, 2021.

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Sangin, Afghanistan, 2011: Michael Dutcher and the rest of Third Squad lived in a sweltering mudbrick compound called Patrol Base Fires, surrounded by lush farmland, irrigation canals, and a minefield of IEDs. In Elliott’s original audio from Sangin, the Third Squad Marines describe life in Sangin during the Afghanistan “surge” and the horrific events of June 2011, when half the PB Fires Marines got wounded or killed.

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Camp Pendleton, CA: The journey begins on the hallowed ground of First Sergeant’s Hill, which looks down on the headquarters of the 5th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, California, where Third Squad lived before they deployed. Ten years after meeting in Sangin, Third Squad’s Michael Minor takes Elliott on a hike up to a memorial to dead Marines and guides him through his rough passage back to civilian life.

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