In Fallujah, We Destroyed Parts of Ourselves
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been 20 years since the Battle of Fallujah, a bloody campaign in a destructive Iraq War that we now know was based on a lie.
But back then, in the wake of 9/11, the battlefield was filled with troops who believed in serving and defending the country against terrorism.
“Going to Fallujah was the most horrific experience of our lives,” said Mike Ergo, a team leader for the US Marines Alpha Company, 1st Battalion. “And it was also, for myself, the most alive I've ever felt.”
This week on Reveal, we’re partnering with the nonprofit newsroom The War Horse to join Ergo’s unit as they reunite and try to make sense of what they did and what was done to them. Together, they remember Bradley Faircloth, the 20-year-old lance corporal from their unit who lost his life, and unpack the mental and emotional battles that continue for them today.
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Transcript
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| 1:04.4 | Thank you. |
| 1:10.3 | From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. |
| 1:15.3 | I'm Out Letton. |
| 1:17.4 | Kathleen Faircloth became a mom unexpectedly. |
| 1:21.0 | I was 19 when I found out that I was pregnant. |
| 1:24.3 | 19 and uneducated and poor was not a recipe for success. |
| 1:30.3 | She was in and out of relationships. I was. I married a lot. And her son Bradley became her life. |
| 1:37.3 | He was the reason I lived. I had no, why do you go to work? Take care of you. Period. You don't stay at home sick. |
| 1:45.1 | It's nobody else's responsibility. |
... |
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