moment, because what it meant was that the operation that we had thought we were going to do, suddenly turned into this very dire situation. >> i remember as soon as we heard that bang, we knew something was wrong. then we heard the most disturbing thing. we could hear the soldiers crying out for help, crying out in pain, and it was a horrible thing. >> there was nothing we could do other than watch and film. >> the mission changes to a rescue as apache helicopters are called in to retrieve the wounded. >> everything was incredibly dangerous at that stage because you're trying to extract wounded men. your cover is blown. the troops who were injured had to release red smoke to alert the people who were coming to save them of their exact location. >> in addition to worrying about his wounded men, the commander also needs to get everyone else out of there, including the nbc news crew. >> there was only one way out, we had to get back to the vehicle.