Of everyone in this story, Ethan McCord is the one who has talked the most and had the least reason to. He was not in the helicopter, he made none of the decisions, and nothing obliged him to say a word. He has spent years describing what he saw anyway.

Who he was that morning

McCord was a specialist with the infantry company operating in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah in July 2007. He was in his early thirties, older than most of the soldiers around him, on a deployment that had already been brutal for the unit.

When the Apaches engaged, his squad was nearby. They moved towards the scene on foot.

What he found

He reached the wrecked van a few minutes after it had been fired on. Looking into the front, he saw a girl of about five, wounded and alive. He picked her up and carried her to an armoured vehicle so she could be evacuated. Then he went back and found the boy, around ten, also alive, and carried him out too.

Their father, the man who had stopped the van to help a wounded stranger, was dead in the driver's seat. Both children survived.

McCord has described the state of the vehicle and the children in interviews many times since. He has been consistent about the details across more than a decade, which is one reason his account carries weight.

The only widely reported ground witness

The recording shows a vehicle being hit from above. McCord is the one person who then opened its doors. Colours, faces, the fact of two living children — all of it enters the record through him.

What happened to him afterwards

He went back to work. The patrol continued, the deployment continued, and the images did not go away. He has said that when he asked for mental health support he was told, in effect, to get over it and stop being weak, and that seeking help of that kind was treated as a career problem rather than a medical one.

That detail is about the Army of 2007 as much as about him. It is also, for a lot of veterans who have watched him speak, the most recognisable part of the whole story.

  • Reaches the van, finds two children alive, carries them out.
  • Returns to the patrol. The deployment continues.
  • Asks for mental health support and is discouraged from taking it.
  • Recognises the scene when the footage is published, and comes forward.

Why he spoke in 2010

When WikiLeaks released the footage in April 2010, McCord recognised the scene immediately. He came forward and started giving interviews, describing what the camera does not show: the ground, the smell, the inside of the van, the weight of a child.

Shortly afterwards he and Josh Stieber, who had served in the same company, wrote a joint open letter to the Iraqi people apologising for what their unit had done and taking responsibility for their own part in it. Neither man had any authority to apologise on behalf of anyone. That is what makes the letter unusual: it is the only apology in this entire record, and it came from two soldiers in their twenties and thirties acting on their own.

  • Consistent for more than a decade on the details of what he found.
  • Careful about what he does not claim — he has never said the crew knew there were children.
  • Never called it murder in his own voice.

What his account adds that the footage cannot

Ground truth

The recording shows a vehicle being hit from above. McCord is the only widely reported witness who then opened its doors. Everything the sight could not resolve, the colours, the faces, the fact of two living children, comes into the record through him.

He has also been careful about what he does not claim. He has not asserted that the crew knew there were children, and he has not called the shooting murder in his own voice. He describes what he saw and lets the rest stand, which is a more useful kind of witness than the case usually attracts.

What it cost Ethan McCord to keep talking

A good deal. Speaking publicly about your own unit's worst day earns hostility from people who were there and suspicion from people who were not. He has been accused of exaggerating, of seeking attention, and of being used by people with a political agenda.

He has kept going anyway, at events, in interviews and in classrooms, mostly saying a simple thing: this is what it actually looked like from the ground, and this is what it does to the person who has to pick up the pieces.

In a story where the aircrew have never spoken, the investigation cleared everyone, and the only people punished were the ones who published the video, the willingness of one infantryman to describe his worst morning over and over is close to the only voluntary accountability anywhere in it. The rest of that argument is here.

The engagement he walked into is set out in the day itself, the phase he arrived after in the strike on the van, and the wider record in the main account.

Questions people ask about this

Was Ethan McCord in the helicopter?

No. He was an infantryman on the ground who reached the van minutes after it was fired on.

Did he rescue the children?

Yes. He found both children alive in the front of the van and carried them out one at a time to be evacuated. Both survived.

Did he face consequences for speaking out?

He had left the Army by then, so there was no disciplinary action, but he has described significant personal hostility for talking publicly about his unit.

Where this comes from

  1. July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike — Wikipedia
  2. The Good Soldiers — David Finkel, Sarah Crichton Books (2009)

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