I Survived 3 IED Blasts — But This Is What Still Haunts Me

About this video

A former Marine recounts his experiences during two deployments to Kajaki, Afghanistan, where he received two Purple Hearts from IED blasts and worked as an intelligence operative. He describes surviving three IED explosions, the harrowing story of an Afghan child who was tortured by the Taliban for providing intel about an IED location, and his near-misses with a Taliban sniper. The guest reflects on moral conflicts he faced, including continuing to ask children for intel despite knowing the risks, and his frustration with resource allocation decisions that denied medevac to an injured Afghan child but provided it to a Taliban fighter.

Key takeaways

• The guest survived three separate IED blasts during his deployment, with two resulting in Purple Hearts, and describes the Taliban bomb-maker’s tactics of using pressure plates with homemade explosives in cooking oil jugs
• The guest recounts finding a 9-10 year old Afghan boy who had been kidnapped, chained, and tortured by the Taliban for revealing an IED location, an incident that deeply affected him and that he kept a piece of the chain to remember
• The guest describes his moral conflict when he continued asking Afghan children for intelligence despite knowing the potential consequences, stating he prioritized Marine lives over the children’s safety, a decision he says he will ‘stand in particular judgment for’
• The guest expresses frustration over a medevac being denied for a critically injured Afghan child due to resource constraints, while days later a medevac was provided for a Taliban fighter who injured himself planting an IED

Episode details: published December 15, 2025 · 6K views · 22:23 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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