The Sunday Story presents: Taking Cover, an NPR investigation

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4.5 • 52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

The worst Marine-on-Marine friendly fire incident in modern history happened during the war in Iraq. In Spring 2004, an explosion rocked a schoolhouse in the city of Fallujah. It left three dead and a dozen wounded. But you won't read about it in the history books. In fact, the event seems to have been scrubbed from the official record. So, why were the families of the deceased lied to? Why did the reports mysteriously disappear? And why do survivors still have to wonder about what happened that day? Today, we begin to uncover the truth. We bring you the first episode of Taking Cover, an investigative series from NPR's Embedded podcast. It's a story of betrayal, brotherhood and what's owed to families, the wounded, and the American public.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The best war reporting often comes from journalists who are embedded with the troops.
0:05.7	They eat, sleep, and go out on patrol with service members.
0:08.9	They can see and feel for themselves what's going on on the ground.
0:13.6	I'm Rachel Martin and this is up for Sunday.
0:15.9	As we mark 20 years since the U.S. invaded Iraq, we're bringing you an extraordinary story
0:22.0	from two of my colleagues, Tom Bowman and Graham Smith.
0:25.8	Tom and Graham have spent a lot of time covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they've
0:31.2	often been embedded with the troops.
0:33.3	Their story is an investigation about something that's been hidden from the American public.
0:38.4	It centers on one very bad day in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, but as you'll hear, it's
0:44.7	about much more than that.
0:46.2	The series is called Taking Cover from NPR's Embedded Podcast.
0:50.6	I'm going to leave it to Graham and Tom.
0:52.4	Before we get started, you should know that this podcast contains graphic depictions
0:56.3	of war, and we're talking to Marines, so there's a lot of cursing.
1:04.4	Camp Pendleton in Southern California is the West Coast home of the United States Marine
1:08.9	Corps.
1:09.9	200 square miles of hills and wetlands and long stretches of beach just outside San Diego.
1:16.6	On its edge, there's a sharp hill covered with scrub trees and bushes that overlooks the
1:21.4	Pacific Ocean.
1:22.4	It's called Hornow Ridge, and over the last 20 years, it's become a place of pilgrimage,
1:29.6	where Marines sweat and suffer to honor their dead.
	...

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