IN 2011, veteran and journalist Elliott Woods went on a military embed in one of the most dangerous places in the world: Sangin, Afghanistan. that’s where he met the 12 marines of third squad. only 11 would make it home alive.
Ten years later—on the eve of America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan—Elliott embarks on a cross-country road trip to find the surviving members of Third Squad. Weaving together original audio from Sangin and new conversations with the Marine veterans, Third Squad moves from the horrors of battle to the living rooms of America, telling the story of how the “forever war” endures back home.
Third Squad is also the story of Corporal Michael Joseph Dutcher, who was killed just two weeks before the squad was supposed to return to the States. Dutcher, who was 22 when he died, had plans to get out of the Marine Corps and go to college to become a teacher like his mother. The final stop on Elliott’s journey is Asheville, North Carolina, where he visits Dutcher’s family—to learn about his life, and about how losing him has upended the lives of the people who loved him.
ELLIOTT WOODS is a journalist, photographer and veteran
In 2004 he served as an Army combat engineer in northern Iraq before returning home and attending the University of Virginia. After graduating, Elliott decided to go back to war, this time as a journalist. Woods covered the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in 2009, the American withdrawal from Iraq, the Arab Spring and counterinsurgency fighting in Afghanistan. Back in the United States, Elliott has continued to cover veterans’ issues and the increasingly violent overtones of American politics and culture. He is a contributing editor to VQR and a correspondent at Outside, and his work has also appeared in Wired, The New Republic, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek and The Best American Travel Writing. He is a former Knight-Wallace journalism fellow and is the recipient of a National Magazine Award, an Overseas Press Club Award and a Chairman’s Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Montana.
tHE PRODUCERS
Tommy Andres and Maria Byrne are the founders of Airloom Media, a production company specializing in long-form documentary podcasts. Before founding Airloom, Tommy hosted CNN’s first podcast and was the Senior Producer at Marketplace. Maria was a field producer and podcast producer at The BBC for nearly 15 years.