This brutally graphic video is a necessary reminder of what our combat arms troops endure and what war is really like when our society is bombarded with cheesy blockbuster war movies and crap rock music videos that like to romanticize what is actually Hell-on-Earth.

This ANA soldier doesn’t have some dramatic dying words, “Tell my wife….” He can’t speak because his face is destroyed, and the only sounds he can make are terrible sucking and wheezing sounds as he fights for breath through the newly opened hole on the front of his head. Any politician, voter, or civilian tough guy preaching how we need to annihilate ISIS or whoever the bad guy of the month is… needs to watch this video to hopefully understand the horrific sacrifice we make of our young people to reach that goal.

This is the real deal. There is no political narration by some cartoon character “news” anchor who has an agenda. What you see is what you get, and it is the truth in these videos that drew me to combat footage in the first place.

Excellent job to the dudes treating this man. Brushing off the fact that they were almost killed themselves, they instantly put tourniquets on the rapidly bleeding maimed limbs and continue to stabilize the casualty on the filthy, useless Afghan ground as they wait for the bird to carry this ally off to an uncertain fate. When the evacuation is complete, they go right back to the suck and soldier on.