When he returned to Fort Carson, Colo., in September, he created the channel and started to upload the file, intending to set the channel to private as soon as the footage was finished loading. The best way to preserve the footage, he decided, would be to upload it to a private YouTube channel. I think he was scared for me.”ĭaniels imagined that some day he would sit with his two boys and play the video for them, just as he had done for his father. When the video was over, he rose from the kitchen table and left the room without speaking. His father watched in silence, his eyes growing red. The menacing snap of gunfire and Daniels’s calls for help filled the small kitchen. Sitting with his father, Daniels clicked play. Daniels was the oldest enlistee in his basic-training company. With his career a mess and his second marriage coming apart, he joined the Army. Daniels was suspended for 60 days without pay. His last job was as the deputy police chief for Minersville, Pa., where he and other officers clashed with the chief. “This is the video where I got hurt,” he said.īefore he joined the Army, Daniels had spent 15 years as a police officer in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The boys were asleep when Daniels pulled out his laptop computer and invited his father to join him at the kitchen table. As soon as he reached the United States, he picked up his two boys - one from each of his broken marriages - and drove them to his father’s house in northern Pennsylvania. In August 2012, Daniels was sent home because the firefight had aggravated a foot injury. In Afghanistan, soldiers have recorded untold hours of video with small cameras mounted on the front of their helmets. Previous generations snatched war trophies or snapped photos that they stored away in shoe boxes. The room was hushed as they watched.įor as long as there has been war, soldiers have sought to capture the unexplainable terror and thrill of combat. A small group of soldiers pressed in close to see. His hands and forearms were still bandaged and oozing blood. The next day, in the safety of his base, Daniels downloaded the footage to his laptop computer. “I’m hit! I’m hit” He screams the phrase six more times and falls silent. Another burst of enemy fire bounces off the rock, peppering his arms with slivers of razor-sharp shrapnel. He glances at his hand, checking quickly to make sure he has all of his fingers. Then louder and more desperate: “I’m hit!” “I’m hit,” he screams in pain and disbelief. He is kneeling behind a small rock when an enemy round slams into his rifle, knocking it from his hands. The camera careens from side to side as he looks for cover. (Mathew Staver/For The Washington Post)ĭaniels scrambles across the steep hill, breathing heavily. Ted Daniels strapped a camera to his helmet and recorded as he was caught in a firefight in Afghanistan.
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