![]() ![]() 1st Class Jeremiah Johnson’s helmet camera. At one point in the video, according to the ABC News, Wright is heard asking, “where is everybody?” Johnson can later be heard telling Wright that he’s been “shot seven times.” Staff Sgt. While Wright and Johnson attempt to get to safety, they are pinned down by overwhelming enemy fire. When Black is shot and killed, Wright and Johnson expose themselves to the enemy to pull him behind their truck. The footage shows the three separated soldiers fighting through a chaotic situation after being separated from the rest of the team. LaDavid made it another 900 meters to a tree where he attempted to take cover, firing back at the ISIS fighters, before he was killed.įootage from a helmet camera worn by Jeremiah Johnson, which was taken by ISIS fighters after the battle and later retrieved by French Special Forces last year during an operation in which they killed the head of ISIS in the Greater Sahara, helps piece together the rest of the firefight. LaDavid Johnson “dropped to the ground under fire and ran south with two Nigerien soldiers,” both of whom were killed, according to ABC News. Before they could turn back, they were pinned down by enemy fire. While Perozeni, LaDavid Johnson, and other soldiers were able to get out of the immediate line of fire, they quickly realized that Jeremiah Johnson, Black, and Wright hadn’t been able to follow them. A screenshot from AFRICOM’s investigation. ABC News reported it was actually 10 to one. In the May 2018 press briefing, Cloutier said the team was outnumbered three to one by the enemy. The convoy halted and reported enemy contact while returning fire, but the special operations soldiers and their Nigerien partners were seriously outnumbered. “After all, according to the AFRICOM report, they had just set out on a rogue mission to do exactly that.”Īs the patrol left the village and made their way back to base, they started taking small arms fire. “Now, you might think the team would be thrilled to be the main reigning force,” James Gordon Meek, the ABC News investigative reporter who conducted the investigation into the ambush, says in the documentary. They returned to their base elsewhere in Niger, which meant that ODA 3212 would be responsible for completing the mission, alone. However, just hours later, the plan changed once more: ODA 3216 reported that they were unable to get to the campsite at the Niger-Mali border due to bad weather. Flintlock 2018, hosted by Niger, with key outstations at Burkina Faso and Senegal, is designed to strengthen the ability of key partner nations in the region to counter violent extremist organizations, protect their borders and provide security for their people. Nigerien Armed Forces provide overwatch security with a heavy machine gun with 20th Special Forces Group during Flintlock 2018 in Niger, Africa April 16, 2018. The family of four sings happy birthday as she picks up the little girl and tells her to blow the candle out. LaDavid Johnson, is shown lighting a candle on her daughter’s birthday cake. In one particularly heartbreaking moment, Myeshia Johnson, the wife of Sgt. The documentary highlights the excruciating and raw pain of each of the families of the fallen. ![]() A story about senior military officials who sought to cover their tracks and allowed more junior leaders to take the fall for the mission’s outcome - including an Army officer who was back in the United States with his wife while his baby daughter was being born. A story about families who say they were deeply misled by Army officials and lied to on a number of occasions. A story of soldiers who followed orders from senior officers who were continents away, after concerns about the mission’s safety voiced by the commander on the ground were overruled. “3212: UN-REDACTED,” the culmination of years of investigative reporting by ABC News’ James Gordon Meek, pieces together a story that’s entirely at odds with the Pentagon’s version of events of what happened that day in Tongo Tongo. Instead, the blame was laid at the feet of the special operators themselves. ![]() The problems weren’t with AFRICOM, officials claimed, or even with the chain of command that oversaw an operation that placed American soldiers in a situation where they had little to no support and were vastly outnumbered by enemy militants. Roger Cloutier - laid out a list of problems the investigation had found. But that sense of ownership quickly dissipated as the official who carried out the investigation - Waldhauser’s own chief of staff, Maj. Africa Command, stated in his opening remarks that he took “ownership for all the events connected to the ambush.” The “responsibility is mine,” he said. While speaking to the press at the Pentagon on May 10, 2018, Marine Corps Gen. LaDavid Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Fla. ![]()
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