He won't grow old like us. He who fell in battle.
Age will not tire him Years will not wear him down.
Every morning the sun rises and every evening the sun sets
we remember them...
This is how we pay our respects.
1-0, they're opening up on them from 4.
I want to see the effect.
Fire! Fire!
We're all still fresh guys here.
Our first APC driver.
Pent took the photo.
The squads took pictures in front of these rose bushes,
or I don't know what bushes they were exactly.
It was a fine squad.
Not much left now.
I'll let you know when he comes for coffee, we could take a little break.
They were all fine strong soldiers.
Full of spirit.
We had long days of training on the field.
Sometimes we'd come back to the barracks completely soaked,
didn't feel our legs.
But no one lost their appetite,
they were ready to be back out there in the snow at the crack of dawn.
They were tough guys.
One time, our platoon sergeant Teder...
Was it Pettai or even you he said it to?
Teder had been to quite a few missions.
He'd seen a lot, but the men of Coy 8 stuck with him somehow.
He kept in touch later.
Of course he had people in other units he talked to,
but he said Coy 8 was the main one.
Of course, with everything that happened,
that crap puts things in perspective.
That unit was special somehow. Many have said it.
I was in the same squad, I remember.
Of the guys that went, only two remained at the end.
Pettai and Nõgu. - The rest were killed or wounded.
Statistics said 14 wounded out of 10 men.
New guys joined up and got their knocks right away.
Kitty!
It's for your own good.
After training we would sit in the rec room.
Our squad wasn't just a unit during work,
we also got along very well in our free time.
We had a blue bus.
That blue bus made a round at the end of the week.
Our half-squad leader Aare, sometimes his brother,
me and Artur, we were driving.
We went by Pärnu, dropped the Pärnu guys off
and continued on. There were others from the second squad.
We went on to Türi,
where I lived at the time.
I went to military service as a volunteer.
I had an alien's passport, I wasn't a citizen.
I took the Estonian language exam and got an Estonian passport.
I was 19 when I decided to go to military service.
At the end of my service I already felt
that wouldn't be the last time I wear a uniform.
Our squad leader was from Kuperjanov battalion.
At some point we started having problems with him.
Our squad leader was going to his first mission, if I'm not mistaken.
He lacked experience
and wasn't the best at leading the squad.
The squad didn't know what to do, the guys were getting worried
that we'd have a hard time on the mission
because the squad leader couldn't handle the exercises.
Before training
our squad leader was sorting socks in the warehouse.
He sorted socks.
I won't say he wasn't good at it,
but leading a scout battalion squad in a war scenario
has nothing to do with socks.
It's not a question of whether you're fit for a post,
at least seemingly. It was the Kosovo mission.
A wartime mission.
The question was whether he could give his all
to lead his unit effectively.
That was the question.
It's part of training.
You're working together for half a year.
If the squad feels someone doesn't fit, we can change them out.
That's what that time is for.
If we'd have to go after a month, it would be much harder.
People are different. Some are good at leading,
some are good at other things.
The training is there to show you who's who.
It was time to take the next step,
find a new squad leader.
And who could lead a squad better than Allain Tikko?
He was working a desk job, I don't exactly know where.
He wasn't happy with it, wanted to be on the field more.
He is not a desk jockey. He's a combat leader.
I could see it immediately.
From the first day he showed up...
...you could see he didn't need to prove himself.
We understood from day one
we had a real squad leader.
I knew him from 2002, when I joined the service.
He was a good friend, we got along great.
It was a pity he left for a while, worked in headquarters somewhere.
But he came back and I was like, "Oh, Allain, it's you."
I was happy he would be our squad leader.
Headquarters told him he'd already gone as a squad sergeant,
that he could be company staff sergeant on the next mission.
But he said: "Will you send the squad out without a leader?"
"You can't do that."
I was glad to have such a battle-hardened wolf.
We always called him Wolf.
We weren't used to the new last name.
He was Wolf to us.
Things changed overnight.
It was night and day, how he made the squad function.
We were the worst squad in the battalion the day before,
but now we were getting commended here and there.
The leadership made a huge difference.
I was the APC driver. The squad leader sat next to me.
We had been in some exercise
and we were driving back. Tikko fell asleep.
Then he suddenly woke up. "Hey, guys, let's change it up."
"You'll go there, and you..."
Even in his sleep, he was thinking how to improve our performance.
May 2009
The Estonian infantry company Estcoy-8 flies to Afghanistan.
Their new home will be the patrol base Pimon, still under construction
on the border between desert and greenery.
We had to drive tens of kilometers through the desert
to reach the base.
The base was quite empty.
Our mouths fell open. We thought we were going to a PB, a patrol base.
Pimon was an unfinished patrol camp.
It was a British patrol base.
They were just sitting there,
couldn't even patrol for lack of resources.
They couldn't do much with the numbers they had.
Maybe some small patrols in the vicinity.
The Taliban kept them...
Every morning at 9 and every evening at 17, sometimes during the day,
shots were fired on the base.
They kept the British in their base.
There wasn't any opportunity to go on patrol.
Once we got there, we quickly got the hang of the situation.
It wasn't the best.
Their zone wasn't under control.
Our first day there, we were told
that in about 40 minutes we had to be ready,
there would be action. - And there was, on the dot.
A bit lower.
Exactly. A bit higher.
Planes? - Yes, planes.
It was talked about in the media. Already during our first night
the soldiers wanted to go on patrol, out of curiosity or adrenaline.
We went the next day.
Second platoon moved out.
I don't remember how long it was, but then we heard
small arms fire.
It came over the radio: "Contact! Contact!"
As soon as you crossed into the green, you were fired upon.
We got as far as a few hundred meters
and there was fire from the wall on the right.
They called for a medic.
"Medic! Medic!" That means someone was hit.
The camp routine stopped immediately.
It was my friend.
He took a burst from a machine gun.
Four to six hits.
Half of his ear was gone. Injuries in the neck, arms and legs.
We heard over the radio
about the first wounded and that got us thinking:
this is serious business, not just walking around.
I remember from that moment...
It wasn't fear,
but the whole camp felt it was real.
The buzz we had in the morning was gone.
The laughter died.
The first wounded soldier showed us where we really were.
Some parts of the base were built.
Some fortifications were up, the base was secured and guarded.
About half the base was up. There were tons of huge rocks
that got in the way of base building.
The watchtowers weren't very well fortified.
We needed to shore them up, stack sandbags.
They gave us pickaxes
and we got to breaking apart the rocks
to make room for tents.
It was incomplete, not exactly ready.
We had to secure it with sandbags ourselves.
We used anything we had.
We had to work hard to build decent living conditions.
There wasn't much at all.
We had bowls for washing.
A 3 in 1 solution.
You could use them for cooking, laundry and personal hygiene.
There was a wooden frame
and 3-4 bags hanging from it.
Pallets below. Before washing, you would fill the bag with water.
There was no privacy.
Kilk took calendar photos of the boys for laughs.
There was really no washroom.
But we cooked there.
Made scrambled eggs in the .50 ammo box.
I think there was some kind of gas stove.
I remember that later
the second platoon built a grill out of mine boxes
to warm their food over a campfire.
We mostly cleaned up the field in one day.
We had two tents up.
The field beds were set out, squads divided between tents.
It worked. - We had to prepare and build everything ourselves.
Had to manage somehow.
The landscape was like that.
Where the greenery began, it was difficult terrain.
You couldn't see people running or hiding in the treeline.
You just can't see anything.
You would think you'd see something moving...
...but you often won't see anyone,
although someone somewhere is shooting at you.
The enemy is right in front of us!
A few times on patrol
we did find some IED-s.
A double detonator, well-made.
These are store-bought.
A battery block. Looks like five batteries.
Japanese batteries, bought at a discount from Japanese shops.
A pressure plate.
A double-edged saw blade wrapped in rubber.
Single-edged. - No, double.
A spring on both ends.
A metal plate below, pierced with nails.
One end of the wire is soldered here,
the other runs along the spring.
There was a yellow canister, about 7 litres,
probably around 10 kg. - Something like that.
We were constantly being watched on patrol.
Our movements, our formations, our activity.
We never saw anyone observe us
but we had this feeling that someone was always spying on us,
taking notes.
They always seemed to know where we went and what we were doing.
One day we were on patrol, as usual.
Got into a long-distance firefight, nothing direct.
The other platoon got more action.
We were on our way back to patrol base.
We were getting pretty close.
Went into a compound with Aare, to take up positions.
High ground on a rooftop, to provide cover fire with the machine gun.
When you're in a hurry, you only check in front of you.
The next man comes in your footsteps.
There was a loose pile of grain leftovers or husks.
They formed a pile like that.
The IED was cunningly hidden inside it.
We probably got mixed up,
one guy went around the hole on one side, the next on the other.
Aare veered to the middle of the path.
Suddenly, a loud explosion.
Aare stepped on the IED right in front of me.
I just remember the shockwave knocking me on my stomach.
I didn't immediately understand what had happened.
A loud whistling, a hum in my head.
I don't want to say it was like in the movies,
but I didn't understand anything.
I got up in slow motion, looked around to see what's happening.
A huge cloud of dust all around me.
Screams, movement, shots fired.
I got up somehow. One leg failed to carry me.
My strength was gone, I didn't understand anything.
Then I suddenly recalled: Aare...
One leg was ripped off up to the crotch,
gone in the explosion.
The other leg, maybe to the knee, I don't remember exactly.
Or to the shin bone.
Shrapnel in his arms and elsewhere.
I only had time to pull a tourniquet around Aare's leg.
Didn't manage to tighten it yet.
Venski came to help. We snapped the first tourniquet in half.
You have to apply a lot of force to stop the bleeding.
The pain Aare must have felt as we tightened the tourniquet...
I remember he was reaching for his pistol.
Wanted to shoot himself.
Probably because of the shock.
This image still haunts me.
He couldn't pull the pistol out and got angry.
You never know how someone will react while in shock.
It was painful to see.
When I reached him, his first words were: "Please shoot me."
Words like that you'll remember for the rest of your life.
At some point we managed to calm him down.
We took his hand, stuck it between his legs
and said: "That part's okay, life goes on."
The chopper came after a while.
They took Aare, our squad's first serious injury.
We cleaned Aare's MG with one of the guys.
Picked out pieces of meat from the belt.
After a while, I discovered I had eye trouble.
Took a pebble in the eye.
Didn't notice any other physical issues.
A bit later, I also got on the medical chopper.
The evening that Aare got his big bang,
the fields lit up. There are videos of that.
A proper firefight.
After an experience like that, part of you dies inside.
It's inevitable.
A piece of you is left behind.
Not just blood. A part of who you are stays on that field.
They take me away, but what happened stays here.
A large part of him stayed over there.
And part of me as well.
A nurse came to get me. I was in a wheelchair,
had some trouble with balance. Actually quite a lot.
I rolled up to the nurse in my wheelchair
and asked what's up.
The nurse said: "I know you were his partner."
I hadn't seen Aare since the bang.
"You were his combat partner. Someone should talk to him."
"He's in an induced coma but he can hear you."
I didn't understand at first.
What could I do for him now?
Can I do anything?
"No, just talk." So I went.
I talked to him.
What did I talk about?
I told him:
"Aare, you may have lost your legs,"
"but we both survived."
And that...
I just told him we both survived.
We survived Afghanistan.
Was that our Browning?
My Browning didn't fire, only small arms. - Fire on the upper ridge.
Fire!
Don't be startled.
Nice!
Man, that went hard.
Our artillery fire over.
They'll take you to America. - Take him to America.
As fast as possible.
Look, we're in the video. - They'll cut off your beard.
Give it to me. - He won't give you anything.
Don't raise the scarf up.
That soldier is very polite. He laughs at everything we say.
Our worlds are completely different.
It was interesting to see how people live in a compound.
We're used to things here.
A bed, a TV, a fridge.
It's completely different over there.
They live in clay buildings.
You have something there, right? - Wrapped in rags.
But that won't feed you?
That won't be enough? No?
Look how small you are.
You're so small, that's enough for you.
Yeah, it is.
I never considered the local Afghans my enemies.
Standing guard, you could see them getting up in the morning,
praying, fetching water, kids running around.
We were passing by a compound.
The wall around it was about that high.
I could see over it.
There were kids running around.
What else?
A woman in a hijab, totally covered.
You could only see the eyes.
Her man was there too. The woman glanced in our direction.
She turned to our APCs to see what's passing by her house.
She wasn't looking at us. Her husband saw her look.
He took a slipper off his foot
and started beating the woman on the head.
Just for looking. That's normal for them.
That's how it is. Women are nobodies there.
Hey! - Yeah?
Throw me that food bag. - Right away.
Give me a smoke! - Look at that guy!
Where is he?
It would be a better video if he filmed himself.
Why is he filming us? - Give me one, just one!
One pack. That's just one.
Don't film us! He'll show it in America.
Yeah, America. - YouTube!
YouTube.
The locals weren't very fond of us.
I encountered that very rarely.
Only the kids who ran after the APCs.
We threw them cookies and candy from our food rations.
We did it gladly.
Go on! Salaam aleikum!
Salaam aleikum! - Salaam aleikum!
We had the support of local...
Local militia fighters.
Three or four guys from Nepal were sent to support us on patrol.
We heard they were some kind of special forces, self-sufficient.
While Allain Tikko was with us, he gave them names.
They were total strangers sent along with the squad.
We had to communicate with them somehow.
The squad leader came up with a clever plan
so our squad could immediately understand who's who.
We called them Kaspar, Jasper and Joonatan.
You couldn't really trust them.
There were some colourful characters among them.
When we were in a firefight and expected them to cover us,
they were just standing there,
Kalashnikov loosely in one hand, barrel leaning on the ground.
They were born in this war.
It was just another day at the office for them.
Concerning the Taliban,
they are a tough enemy.
They fight for years
and no one can beat them.
They look like they haven't seen
any progress for thousands of years, emerging from caves,
but they're smart. They learn our tactics
and that of our allies.
I respect them.
They're a hard enemy.
I'll be honest, our company was in trouble over there.
It's evident from all our losses.
No matter what we tried to do.
We used all our cunning and experience
but things still happened.
Rock'n'roll, damnit!
I gave him a lift there, Polonski will go and get him.
But Polonski kept stalling. They're not communicating.
So Polonski will get him.
You're going on the ladders? - We're finishing up. The turn.
And the connection. - You can smash a bit.
It would be better to do something at the connection.
We can start with the turn as well.
For me it started in the morning.
I've been told I pull these stupid hunches out of my ass.
That morning was different somehow.
As we were leaving for patrol...
I had a strange feeling.
Not really anxiety,
but it felt like something was wrong.
I can't really explain it.
I felt hollow inside.
We were securing a village.
I was by the side of the road, covering with my Negev.
I was the last man in my squad.
First squad of the first platoon.
Tikko came to me and said: "Go on, we'll cover you."
Our line often collapsed too much in the corners, a tactical mistake.
I saw I was getting too close to them.
I slowed down, my steps got very short.
Then the next guys ran into me from behind.
I told them the others are up at the corner, let's not crowd them.
Once they saw movement, that was that.
I picked myself up. Tikko stood and looked at me.
He opened his mouth but didn't have time to say anything.
But I knew we would get moving.
Then there was a loud bang.
The soldier in front of me
was thrown down by the shockwave.
It was complete pandemonium ahead.
The situation was out of control.
A bad situation.
The RPG hit a lot of us.
One was killed.
It was just rotten luck.
I can still see the pieces of wall,
what they looked like flying at us.
I remember saying on the radio
that the squad leader is down and I'll take over.
One down, I'm taking over. - Tikko is down.
Tikko? - Let's bring the wounded into the compound.
The other squads and the platoon leader across the road
got our report of what happened.
I relayed the first information
and we called a transport for the wounded.
A large flesh wound in the right leg, over.
They have a casualty. Ours or not?
Yes, he's still conscious.
We'll put him on the APC and bring him to you.
Koosa, 1:1 Charlie.
Fucking listen! - 7.0, this is 1.0 Romeo. Two wounded, over.
1:1 medic, send a few more men.
There were some high plants and I had fallen under them.
I remember I managed to raise my head.
I saw there was shooting.
Then everything went black.
Did you get them?
I think it was Pettai who came to shake me.
I came to. He said: "Go on."
"There are more serious injuries ahead."
I just saw my pants were filling up with blood,
but my legs and toes were working.
Fire in the hole!
I had to find some guys to help me
carry away the fallen squad leader.
I went into the compound to call for help
and get a few men to assist.
Maybe they didn't hear me at first.
When I screamed at them for the second time,
the second platoon came to help.
Come help! - Fucking hell!
What is it? - That's how it is.
Our mortar firing! - Fire!
That okay? - Yes, very good.
Wounded? - Two over there!
It all seemed to happen in slow motion.
Everything moved so slowly,
although the pace was actually very quick.
We had wounded,
we had to quickly arrange transport to Pimon.
He's fucking squatting there. - Where did he shoot from?
You see that row of trees? - To the right?
To the right, by the ditch.
The tall trees.
On the corner there. He came from the house, hunched over.
Took cover by the trees. - Wanted to shoot the RPG from there.
Maybe, yes.
I saw a bright flash and took cover.
Didn't see where it flew.
We'll give them a big bang south of Blue 5.
He had some clothes here at home, some in Tallinn.
Here they were, yes.
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
The superiors at the time. Jaak Aaviksoo.
Kiddo grew up here, went to school here,
at grandmother's place in Kõpu for the first grade.
Kiddo was born at home. That house is still here.
He wasn't born at the hospital.
They opened a class for 6-year-olds here in Kõpu.
There wasn't one in Mustla.
For his first year he went to school here.
All his best friends are here.
They all call him Kiddo, even now.
Then he went to school in Mustla.
They called him Kiddo there too.
They also wrote "Kiddo" in this book.
In our family he is Kiddo to everyone.
No one calls him by his name.
He was Kiddo from birth till death.
Our boy.
That's the best name I could give him.
The men of Estcoy-8 meet every year
to visit the graves and families of their fallen comrades.
We will not lose hope We will fight together, as always
When we went to the bastion to see him off...
Before they put him on the plane...
They didn't open the coffin then. We said goodbye in our thoughts.
There in the bastion airport
we carried the coffin to the plane.
We sat down and talked about it
to be clear about what happened
and how to go on from there.
It wasn't easy for anybody.
Even for me, though I'd been to a mission before and experienced it.
To go through it again... It was hard on us all.
After Aare's loss I got a sleep disorder,
but it passed in time.
I pulled myself together again.
Then the next blow came.
I got that for his mom. His dad didn't want to see anything.
I gathered these for his mom.
Here's the big meeting with Obama.
The Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves
met with the US president Barack Obama in Washington.
Obama expressed his condoleances
for the death of staff sergeant Alain Tikko, fallen in Afghanistan.
See you next year!
You're going too? See you! Thanks for coming.
All the worst things seemed to happen to our squad.
I don't know how to explain it.
Just bad luck.
Our APC driver at the time...
He didn't come back from leave.
We took our leave in July
and he didn't come back. Decided to stay home.
He probably had his fill.
He saw what could happen over there in a fraction of a second.
It was his decision.
I can't criticize him. That doesn't make him any less of a man.
Everyone must decide for themselves whether to return from leave.
Our whole life at Pimon
was still routine, even though people got wounded and died.
We still needed to cook and to stand guard.
And we talked to other people. That probably helped.
You still need the routine. There's no escaping it.
You won't believe it, but today in the Islamic Republic...
No, in the Islamic State of Afghanistan, it's raining!
I heard the rain pattering against the roof and the tents
and I was thinking: what are these drops on my face?
Mystical.
But nice. The men who toil on the fields for us today
can enjoy a little cool.
He should come too.
No, he took off.
Hang on, hang on. - They're out of balance.
There's a shitload by the shore.
You need to wash them.
Quitting never occurred to me.
No inferiority complex. I never blamed myself.
You have to accept certain things in life.
No choice really.
Check that... - That hole over there?
No, behind Bravo.
The left side of that damn treeline.
Where the taller trees end.
Let's see what food is being served.
Where are the peas?
I hear thunder.
Happy restroration of independence!
Isn't it today?
Yes, it is.
How's the holiday going?
Damn, Viki is violent. - It's not Viki, it's Kurve.
Got a smoke?
Coming or not?
They're coming from Hesco, from that damn corner.
Cover your ears!
Where's he shooting from?
The upper corner, from Hesco.
Shoot a flare, I can't aim.
Need more light.
Two frags!
Fire in a hole! - Carl Gustaf firing!
One more! - One more!
Carl Gustaf firing! - Carl Gustaf firing!
Damn, that was great.
Very good. That's all for now.
You can go back to sleep.
This is where I relax.
I have a lot of work, like everyone else.
When I come here, I just do things and take it easy.
Time flies and I enjoy it a lot.
Bending some metal, cutting, sanding.
I never feel tired here.
Give me an old toy,
a table or a chair. I like to give them a new life.
Look around, there's lots of restored toys.
I give them a new life.
There's a point to this.
It's not just a crane, not just something I can do.
I was thinking: no matter what color you are,
white, black or green,
it makes no difference.
When you're hanging on the panel, it doesn't matter who you are.
Let the horn stay as it is.
Let it be. This is my place.
I don't want anyone else to see or ask about it.
Don't want visitors to ask about the horn. Let it sit in the corner.
It has a connection to me and many others.
I don't want anyone touching it.
I served with Raivis in Charlie.
We slept side-by-side. Our beds were next to each other.
Raivis is just like his last name: Kang, an iron bar.
He was truly made of iron.
Kang chose carefully who to talk to.
He wasn't very talkative.
We were old friends.
It's not allowed to talk while on watch, you're supposed to observe,
but we had some discussions there at night.
I was the only one he talked to like this.
No one wanted to share a watch with him,
he would be totally quiet for two hours.
When I told the others that I talked to Kang the whole two hours,
they didn't understand how.
He chose who to talk to.
Oh shit.
Everyone okay?
Erik was also a super nice guy.
He always knew what was needed and minded what he said.
Let the dust settle, then we'll see where it came from.
He didn't allow any carelessness, not in himself, not in others.
Salmus and Kang liked to work with our squad.
We did great together. They always wanted to come out with us,
be with our squad.
We got along very well.
They were often with our squad.
Kept ending up in our APC since training.
On the mission as well,
they were often close to our squad leader.
They somehow became like part-time squad members.
It just happened.
It was a strange feeling.
Already the previous day I felt something was wrong.
There are some photos... I didn't take a lot on the mission,
but that day I kept snapping photos of the engineers
in the more dangerous spots.
Don't know why. I felt something.
Had a strange feeling.
There was a sandstorm that day when we had to move out.
I usually didn't take a lot of photos.
Had my phone with me, took some shots.
The weather got worse.
A sandstorm blew in, wind picked up.
We were waiting for orders,
but it was pretty clear by that point.
Rows of pebbles across the road.
Along our route.
The rows of pebbles are warnings from the locals
for the coalition forces,
indicating where the bad guys have buried explosives.
I set the maching gun down by the APC
and opened the door.
Salmus was sitting in my spot, Kang behind him.
They were often sitting in our seats while the APC was moving
and they weren't needed, when the squad was on foot.
I thought: okay, there's no room for me, they can stay there,
I'll take my machine gun and secure the area up here.
The APC turned around and drove back.
Shortly after that
there was a loud boom accompanied by a cloud of dust.
I saw the APC lift off the ground, trailing smoke.
What the hell? Completely unexpected.
No one expects that.
We missed an explosive on our way.
The APC took heavy damage.
Both the engineers were killed.
We also had four wounded, if I remember correctly.
When the smoke cleared,
I saw the whole picture. The front of the APC was destroyed.
I tried to find the button to stop the engine,
but all the buttons were gone.
I couldn't turn it off.
I stayed behind for a moment.
Don't know what happened. I told the others to go on,
told them I'd watch that sector and stay there.
It was hard to make that call.
I kept thinking I wanted to climb into the APC a second ago.
I don't know exactly what I felt at that moment,
but it was very oppressive.
How could it happen to our squad again?
Our APC ran over it.
The smoke from the explosion triggered the extinguishing system.
There was no air in the APC where I was sitting.
I was just sitting on the seat
and felt myself collapse.
In the movies, they show people sinking below the surface,
drifting deeper. It felt about the same.
Luckily the force of the explosion blew out the door
and air started flowing.
When the smoke cleared, I woke up.
The rear guard said he felt a strange pain in his back.
I jumped off.
Saw blood under the body armor.
I pushed up the armor and the shirt.
He was bleeding. I just wrapped him in compression bandage.
Then I felt my right leg grow weaker.
My pants were peppered with dark spots.
Some slight bleeding. We were waiting for the chopper.
I stood further away as they took care of the seriously wounded.
At some point we got word
that one of the wounded had died.
We were waiting for the chopper and it arrived.
Picked me up from Pimon.
We took off.
We circled for a while for some reason.
My English is what it is.
It was the Americans with their Black Hawk.
We kept circling and then landed suddenly.
They took a black bag on board.
And I found out
it was one of us... The Americans said "Too bad".
We took off.
I felt woozy.
Didn't have any straps on yet.
Luckily one of the Americans got hold of me.
The chopper turned suddenly and I almost fell out.
I would certainly have died.
Eeriku farm
Broke the bed last year, didn't even show this time.
Who? - Ljuba was sleeping there alone like a king.
No one wants to admit it. - It was me.
I heard some loud gunfire and thought: what's going on?
Treial would always report. I realized their comms weren't working,
they couldn't tell us that something was wrong.
They weren't shooting at random, but towards the vehicle,
like "you're going the wrong way". But all the Estonians were up ahead.
And as we went along: bang! Bang! What's going on?
One guy motions from above: come on! But the guy in the turret won't go.
Smell that. Have you ever seen such whiskey? - I already tried.
Smells just like my grandfather burning pig hair.
Later I've been thinking to myself
why it had to happen like that.
Haven't found any answers.
I just have to accept it.
I helped take down the squad's equipment
and decide what to write off.
A couple of other guys were helping us.
There weren't many of us working on the APC.
It was set aside
and unauthorized people were forbidden from touching it.
It was an inviolable thing.
No point messing with it.
In the hospital after the operation
I had a hard time calling my mom.
The relatives of the deceased hadn't been notified yet.
I wasn't allowed to call.
I went to sleep and when I called mom in the morning,
she already knew.
It was harder than if I had called earlier.
She had the whole night to think about it.
We all became such good friends on the mission.
We were like one man, thanks to the training and everything.
The wounded and the dead may have even helped with that.
We were like a family.
I really enjoyed it.
Our orders got better at the end, we started going to the desert more.
We built checkpoints.
Lookout posts by the side of the road.
The end was more seamless.
We all had this thought at the back of our minds:
not long now, nothing must go wrong.
During the last week
I was counting the hours.
The last part of the mission is always like that.
You're waiting for it to end.
At the same time you can't drop your guard.
What band produced the 2005 record "Ingel ja suli"?
What about it? - I didn't hear the question.
"Ingel ja suli". - What band produced the 2005 record "Ingel ja suli"?
Terminaator. - Sulo or some shit like that.
Ultima Thule. - Close, but no cigar.
Forgive me, please.
No big deal.
What's the lowest recorded temperature in Estonia?
41,5, 42,5 or 43,5? - 42,5.
43. - I see these guys aren't the smartest.
Where's your bro?
Come here.
Leaving Pimon in our APCs, finding our way through the desert,
I felt pretty good already.
Leaving Pimon for the last time.
There was a reception at Tallinn airport, in the old terminal.
A ceremonial line-up.
I still remember the 7th floor in Mustamäe hospital.
The system for the seriously wounded wasn't working that well yet.
He was alone in one of the back rooms.
Whereas in England
the patients were watched all the time,
in Estonia, they gave him a back room in the Mustamäe hospital.
When I met him again,
he was alone there.
They pushed him out of the way. The system wasn't working so well.
And I thought: "What should I do?"
I had just eaten a hamburger somewhere in Mustamäe.
I decided: "What the fuck? Let's improve his mood."
Got him half a bottle of rum. He really liked that.
I had two cups of Coca-Cola.
My partner at the time dropped me off at the hospital,
two cups of Coca-Cola in hand,
about half-finished. I poured rum on top.
Went to visit him with some Cola.
They didn't allow him outside yet,
but I said we'll take a little walk with the patient.
We sped around in the park next to the hospital, with rum and Coke.
Had a wild time.
We kept in touch.
I also had to integrate back into civilian life.
Him too.
It was like... We survived.
We lived through it.
That thought was important for us.
We both had family issues. All of us did.
We didn't see or notice them.
We were busy sharing our own problems,
trying to solve them.
And at the end, Aare went...
One morning I was smoking on the balcony
and a squadmate called me. He said: "Aare is gone."
"He shot himself."
Vokk knocked on my door in the morning.
I think I was still sleeping. The doorbell woke me up.
We sat for a long time on the stairs.
It was a real shock.
I was starting to get over what happened in Afghanistan
and it all came back instantly.
It was all over but there was no end in sight.
We all respected his decision.
It didn't matter to us
whether he died over there or in Estonia.
He died as a soldier.
That was his war. Our war.
We were all there as Aare was laid to rest under the flag.
Came on the same blue bus I mentioned that used to take us all home.
I was used to seeing us all in the rear view mirror,
going home through Pärnu after an exercise.
I was driving that day and turned the mirror to see them.
That picture was gone.
There was a coffin with the Estonian flag and a service cap.
I couldn't drive any more.
I told the guy next to me to please take over.
We had a deal. We promised to help each other if something happened.
But none of us really believed it would come to that.
Look down, look down! Here, I'm free.
What's your score? 11? - 12.
It was 9:9, then a two-pointer. It's 11.
Yeah, it was tied. It's 11. - Just take the shot.
I'm thinking of home already.
This is a serious game. I can't shoot, there's...
Stop complaining, this isn't kindergarten. - Time's up.
I didn't want to tell my brother, my wife or anyone else
about the explosions and everything.
I want to move on with my life.
Once you start talking, sifting through the memories,
everything comes back again.
It fills me with a kind of sadness.
I can feel how Ranno devours life.
He treasures every moment with his family.
He wants to do something all the time.
I can see it in his eyes,
that zest for life.
He knows what life is worth.
We have it pretty good here in Estonia.
We have allies who support us.
But it didn't happen by itself.
The Commander-in-Chief can't just write to the Americans:
"Come help us." That's not how it works.
Someone has paid for all of that.
There was no anger.
Just that so far I had been thinking we were on the side of the victors,
but the truth turned out different.
Let's be honest, the United States lost that war.
They're pulling out, just like in Vietnam.
I sat down and realized I had been mistaken.
But it doesn't really bother me. The past is the past.
It all feels distant now. Time has passed.
Regional officer Jaan Vokk and deputy officer Tõnis Viidas
responding to a Charlie-level distress call in Keila.
I have a team again.
I have a mission.
I have a plan to fulfill it.
Maybe we're being challenged.
It helps us move on with life.
Knowing my past
helps me handle my future.
At least to some extent.
Children are screaming inside.
Hello. What apartement is this?
Number three? Okay.
None of us is really lost.
We've just moved on with our lives.
During its six-month tour, Estcoy-8 suffered the heaviest losses
in the history of Estonian foreign missions.
14 soldiers were wounded in battle.
Three were killed.
On the 29th of August 2010, Aare Viirmaa took his own life.
After years of struggling with PTSD,
Rivo Ekbaum committed suicide in 2015.
Tõlkinud Martin Kirotar Interlex Media & Translations