John: I had done three previous deployments, two in Iraq, but 2010 was my first time in Afghanistan. Iraqi insurgents were more just thugs with guns, they were pretty easy to dominate, at least around Ramadi and Habbaniyah where I was. The Taliban were much better fighters, much more dangerous. They were there to fight. They did a lot of support by fire with machine guns, just like we do. As the sniper team, we took advantage of that. We’d hunt in places where we thought they might set up; opportunistic-type stuff. An infantry squad would go out on a pre-planned patrol route and we’d have already been there all night. When the Taliban engaged the squad we were there to shoot them.

Chris: When Matt got to Afghanistan, he finally had gotten into the free-fire zone of a highly kinetic area. Sangin was the canvass, and he was the artist. We knew him as a junior Marine, up and coming, but making dumb boot mistakes and those kinds of things. By the time he made it to Afghanistan - a sergeant, a sniper team leader, on his third deployment - he was highly developed. He’d mastered the art.

Jake: Our sniper team arrived to Afghanistan at the end of September 2010. We were forward staged in Sangin, operating out of Patrol Base Fires. Matt and John got there before the rest of us and were doing left-seat-right-seat patrols with the sniper team we were relieving. They got into a TIC [Troops in Contact] and killed some guys before we even got there. From that point forward, Matt was absolutely relentless. He wanted to do nothing but go out, find Taliban, and shoot them. Once we all got there and started operating, he was personally going out two or three times a day, to the point where John would have to be like, “dude, you need to take a break.” Matt just didn’t want to ever slow down. It was almost like he took it as a personal challenge that he had to keep people safe. It’s like he just knew that he was better that anybody else and he needed to be out there.

At that point in the deployment, we were extremely active. We were going out, either on our own as snipers or in small teams with the squads, 2 or 3 times a day. It was just so much combat. Those first couple months, it felt like you didn’t go outside the wire without getting into a firefight or somebody hitting an IED, or both. The days really ran together. It just felt like one continuous firefight and mass casualty incident.

Very early on, Matt wanted to go out super early one day. He got us all up probably at 3 or 4 in the morning, we do our pre-combat checks and leave the wire under night vision. Matt wanted to set up near an area where the squads had been getting hit from when they left the patrol base. We made it a couple hundred meters outside the wire. Matt was running point behind the engineer with the metal detector. We hit an IED, but it low-order detonated, so a small portion of the homemade explosives inside detonates, but most if it just kind of gets thrown out. I was 4 or 5 people behind Matt. When we hit this thing, it scared the shit out of me. I thought Matt was gone, thought the engineer was gone; what the hell are we going to do now? All the sudden, I just see Matt pop up and ask if everybody was alright. We made our way back to the patrol base and I was just terrified like, ‘fuck! that was close!’ We get back and realize that Matt and the engineer are coated head to toe in the explosive material. They looked like they were covered in glitter from the aluminum powder in the explosives. 

Britt: Matt just laughed it off and told us it looked like he was at a rave. He went right back out on patrol when the sun came up.

Jake: Later that day, the EOD techs went out to investigate and dismantle the IED. Well, they found it was a daisy-chained IED, and the secondary explosive on the daisy chain was so big that, had it gone off, it would have killed our entire team. I want to say that was unique, but it wasn’t for Sangin. It was just like that everywhere; the IEDs and the level of danger. To be honest, it was scary realizing how vulnerable we really were and how little we could mitigate that. I remember telling Matt, ‘dude, I don’t know how we are gonna do this?’ He was just like, ‘bro, it’s our job.’ That’s when it really clicked for me that Matt was just a different breed.

Britt: Matt was always so willing to go out where there was 100% probability there was going to be a gunfight. He would put himself there and he would aggressively maneuver. He got his first patrol and first kill in before the rest of us touched down. For most people, when there’s machine guns and rockets going off, it’s intuitive to seek cover. But Abbate would just maneuver. He’d trudge off through the mud with his tree trunk quads in the direction of where he thought he could smoke people, like a Belgian Malinois unaware of what bullets are. Honestly, Matt doing something like action-movie heroic was just a day to day occurrence. When we heard about what he did on October 14th, it was really just more of Matt continually doing his thing; more of Matt just being Matt. To us, the real significance of that day was that we took a lot of casualties.

The Hero

Jake: On the morning of Oct. 14, 2010, we had gone out and done our own thing and the patrol had been uneventful. We were just kind of kicked back relaxing when we heard a firefight start, and it sounded pretty heavy. After a while without breaking contact, the squad requested QRF. Matt jumped up and threw his gear on and was like, ‘come on, let’s go!’ So four of us kitted up and jumped in with a squad getting ready to push outside the wire. The idea was that we were going to set up a blocking position and either draw the contact away from the other squad or at least provide them some covering fire as they withdrew back to the patrol base. At some point, the Taliban realized we were out there and broke contact, so the other squad was able to start making their way back to the base. The squad leader we were with decided to head back as well.

There was a huge open farming field that we bounded across from one irrigation canal to another on the opposite side. Generally, in recently-planted fields like that we weren’t too worried about IEDs, so me and another guy just sprinted across and got to the canal. Some of the Marines in the squad made it right after us and the SAW gunner immediately detonated an IED along the canal. I was probably 15 feet away and my bell was rung. After that, all hell broke loose. It felt like the sky opened up and we were under fire. By that point, then entire squad was moving. The squad leader got shot in the leg as he reached the canal and fell down right next to me. A bunch of the rest of the guys tried to take shelter in this mud hut that was just to our left. We knew better, but that machine gun fire was just so intense that I think it just pushed them in there, like an involuntary reaction to seek cover. They moved in and one of the guys immediately hits an IED inside. The corpsman from the squad knew the Marine was down inside the compound so he went inside and stepped on another IED. All the while, we’re taking heavy machine gun fire.

By this time, Matt was in the canal with me. I was trying to pull the SAW gunner out of the water. I was so disoriented. One of the guys helped me get him up on the bank and that’s when I realized that he was gone. I assessed the squad leader and was trying to get a tourniquet on his leg. Meanwhile, Matt is realizing, “oh shit, I’m it. I’m the only one here who can do this.”

Matt jumped up with the minesweeper and made his way into the mud hut. Funny thing is, Matt didn’t even know how to use the thing. So looking back, you realize he was just doing that to make other people feel better. In reality, he was clearing that compound with his feet. He cleared it and one of the other snipers started treating the casualties inside.

I was on the radio calling for a medevac. The whole time, Matt was super composed getting people on task. Calm is contagious, and that is what he was; he was the calm. We finally started to make some headway and the machine gun fire died off a little bit. I was shook up. This was the first mass casualty I’ve been in. The first dead Marine I’ve dealt with. It was pretty overwhelming. Had Matt not been Matt, I don’t know that I would have composed myself.

We got told the Brits were coming in for medevac, so I popped smoke to mark our location. The bird came in out of nowhere, flying low to avoid RPGs. It circled the LZ then hit the deck so hard I could feel it through the ground. Some dudes ran out the back with guns and started laying down rounds, while some others ran out with stretchers. I was trying to get the SAW gunner to the bank of the canal and onto a stretcher. He was bigger than me and I was just struggling. I grabbed ahold of his hand to pull him up, and I felt his hand come apart inside his glove. It was the most surreal thing, and I just froze, standing there in the open. Matt came up and put his hand on my shoulder and just said, “I got this.” And he did it. He got the kid up on the stretcher.

The bird lifted off with the casualties and we bounded back all the way until we made it inside the wire. All of us were absolutely smoked; just that huge adrenaline dump and a rush of emotion. I was crying. Matt came up and put his arm around me and said, “You feel that?” I said, “Yeah, yeah I feel that.” He said, “That’s why we’re gonna kill more.” That was his mentality. He wasn’t going to let them get away with hurting the Marines. Within the hour, I went back to hooch and I fell asleep. It was early, probably like 5 or 6 in the afternoon. I didn’t wake up until like 9 the next morning. Matt was already back out on another patrol. He let me and the other snipers sleep. It was just his way of looking out for us. He knew we needed a break, but he wasn’t going to take a break.

Author’s Note: According to other sources and eyewitness accounts of Abbate’s actions on Oct. 14, Abbate ordered the remaining Marines to freeze following the three IED blasts that decimated the patrol. Ignoring his own order, Abbate swept the ground for IEDs all the way to the structure where multiple bombs had already exploded, then arranged the remaining Marines in a defensive posture. When the sounds of medevac choppers echoed overhead, Taliban fighters resumed machine gun fire from the opposite side of the open field that would serve as the landing zone. Abbate charged across the open, unswept field, initially on his own, driving the Taliban away in a hail of gunfire. He then single-handedly swept the entire landing zone with his feet for IEDs to ensure it was safe for the helicopters to land.