#1266 - Ben Anderson

Ben Anderson (0:01)

You remember the last time you had Shane on?

Joe Rogan (0:02)

It's been a while It's been a while.

Working, live, we're live. Do you want to talk about that, or no? The Shane thing, did you have something to say?

Ben Anderson (0:17)

Everyone sent me the clip, and I think you said something about taking a knee in the middle of a gunfight, and he said, yeah, that was Ben, he's a fucking savage.

Joe Rogan (0:25)

What did you do? What happened? Refresh my memory?

Ben Anderson (0:28)

We're in Afghanistan, and the guys I'm with, the Afghan soldiers I'm with, get ambushed by the Taliban. And I just went down on one knee and carried on talking.

And Shane said, yeah, he's a fucking savage. And apparently, that's a compliment. I wasn't sure.

Joe Rogan (0:43)

War journalists are very fascinating people to me, because oftentimes, you guys move towards the gunfire with the camera to get the shot. And I've talked to folks before who have worked as a war journalist, and they say you almost don't think you're, you're so concentrated on getting a shot, you don't think about the fact that you might get shot.

Ben Anderson (1:09)

It's a safety mechanism, yeah. You think you're protected by looking at it on a screen rather than realizing it's actually happening in real life right now. That is so stupid.

Joe Rogan (1:17)

It's so strange. Try to keep this like a fist from your face. Perfect, there we go.

Ben Anderson (1:22)

I was with the US. Marines for Operation Musterak, like the biggest operation of the Afghan war. And there was a town called Marja that was controlled by the Taliban. And I met up with this one group of Marines. I used to love going out to the Marines, because if you were willing to run the same risk as them, they'd let you film everything.

And their mission was to get dropped by helicopter in the middle of this town at 3 a.m. on day one, and then just fight their way out from the middle of the town. And as soon as the sun came up, all of the speakers on the mosques were saying, the infidels are here, the infidels are here, get your weapons, get your weapons.

And General McChrystal had introduced this rule of courageous restraint, saying, you're not allowed to shoot unless you're shot at, or unless you see someone preparing a hostile act. And the Taliban had figured out how to use this. So I'm sitting in this field with about 28 Marines, watching the Taliban drop off guys in buildings all around us with their weapons wrapped in blankets, knowing the Marines can't shoot them. So they're setting up the perfect ambush.

And as soon as we started walking across the field, it started and it's like nothing I've ever heard or experienced before. We ran and dived into a ditch. The guys either side of me got hit, one of them badly. A guy was killed on the other side of the field, almost straight away.

And I was there alone, filming it myself. And because I was watching the whole thing through this tiny little screen on my camera, it felt like I wasn't in as much danger as they were. And I was so afraid. And the adrenaline runs out after a while and you just become numb. I mean, then I'd resign myself. I thought we were all gonna get killed. We were completely surrounded and outnumbered and there were RPGs and snipers.

And I watched it back and the footage is pretty good. I'm changing shots, I'm zooming in, I'm focusing. And I think focusing on that helps me, you know. How did you get out of it? I mean, to this day, I'm not even sure. I think the Marines just started identifying Taliban targets and picking them off. And then the Taliban ran out of ammunition and the actual ambush lasted like six, seven hours of nonstop fighting.

Yeah, and then we ran into an old building, which became their base for six months, just an abandoned building. And they shelled that all night and the fighting carried on the whole next day. But that first day in the ditch, I remember saying to myself, you're an idiot. You never say no to anything. You always just join up and sign up for these insane trips. And if you survive today, and you're probably not gonna survive, if you do survive today, don't ever go out with these idiots ever again. And the next day, they said, oh, we're gonna launch this operation, take this mask. And I went out with them all over again.