GRAHAM SMITH, HOST:
On April 12, 2004, the Marines of Echo Company hunkered down at their combat outpost - an abandoned schoolhouse in Fallujah, Iraq. And then...
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I saw flames everywhere for a few seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Big-a** shockwaves - shrapnel's ripping through everyone.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: And then everything went black.
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TOM BOWMAN, HOST:
They were hit. Many were wounded. Some didn't make it home.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: See the hole in that...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: ...The building? It's like a square. And when they launched that mortar, it hit - boom - I mean, one-out-of-a-million shot.
BOWMAN: A one-in-a-million shot that wasn't luck, but a terrible mistake.
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BOWMAN: I'm Tom Bowman.
SMITH: And I'm Graham Smith. We're the hosts of TAKING COVER, a new investigative podcast from NPR. It's been two decades since the U.S. invaded Iraq. At first, it seemed like a quick victory.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Remember President Bush said, as of - what? - May of '03?
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GEORGE W BUSH: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: The war is over.
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BUSH: In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: So OK, yea - so we're not...
BOWMAN: Mission accomplished.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Yeah.
BOWMAN: Three years ago, a good source gave me a tip - a deadly friendly fire incident in Fallujah had been covered up for political reasons.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: I mean, I'm not looking to be a part of a smear campaign - like, meant to make the Marines look bad. If your goal is truth, I'm down for the truth to come out.
SMITH: A formal investigation was buried - so deeply, The Marine Corps told us even they didn't have a copy.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: We do not lie to our Marines. I mean, it's in our motto. It's in our motto - semper fidelis - always faithful. And faithful means we tell the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: There's something that hasn't been disclosed yet. Why are they keeping it such - why did they keep it a secret to begin with?
SMITH: We've been piecing together how it happened - why?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: The fact that nobody has said anything - no paperwork, nothing - and I'm just now finding out there was even an investigation - that's kind of unsettling.
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BOWMAN: Our investigation took us across the U.S.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: They said he died. I never knew his name. I can't find any document. Somebody took him out. That's a sin.
SMITH: And back to Baghdad.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #12: So why he didn't tell us? Why he lie to us? That's - I want to know.
BOWMAN: This is our effort to find out why these Marines still struggle to understand what happened to them on the worst day of their lives.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #13: I think that was the first time I've ever had what they call a real flashback 'cause I could smell the smoke. I could smell the dust. I was there for a few seconds. Then a few seconds felt like a lifetime, but it - I was there. I was actually there.
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SMITH: TAKING COVER - a new podcast from NPR. Subscribe to Embedded Plus for early, ad-free access.
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