Taking Cover

April 6, 2023·50 min·4 clips

Ben Leota walked away from Brad Shooter to retrieve a promised pack of Pop-Tarts, took two steps, and the explosion hit — he woke up against the wall with ears ringing and men screaming.

Andy Grace begins with a handoff. White Lies has finished its second season, and Grace points listeners to Taking Cover, a new NPR series tied to the show through Graham Smith, who produced the first season of White Lies. The thread starts with a tip. Longtime NPR correspondent Tom Bowman had heard about an alleged cover-up after a friendly fire incident in Iraq in spring 2004. The warning comes first and lands plainly: graphic depictions of war and rough Marine language are ahead. Then the episode goes to Camp Pendleton. The base is set in Southern California, outside San Diego, with hills, wetlands, beach, and the rise of Horno Ridge. Horno Ridge gives the story a real place to stand before the reporting turns toward memory. The voices arrive slowly. Ben Leota says even waiting for the call put him back in the zone for a week, and the hosts give that reaction room before the formal questions start. The setting matters. Leota is introduced as a retired Sergeant Major, originally from around New York, and the interview begins in his Virginia house south of Washington. There is a Marine room, with weapons replicas, whiskey, and a leather recliner around the conversation before the account shifts toward Echo Company and Fallujah. Bill Skiles was there. His account helps rebuild what happened on the ground, because the cover-up allegation only works if the Marines' movements are understood first. The geography tightens again. Skiles remembers Company Commander Doug Zembeck pointing to a map at Camp Horno and naming Fallujah as the place they were headed. They returned to Iraq in March. The Marines renamed the compound Camp Bahariya after it had been called Camp Volturno, and the dry aside about the miserable conditions keeps the scene human without sanding it down. Official language sits uneasily beside the memory. Skiles recalls President Bush saying major combat operations in Iraq had ended, while the Marines were heading into a place that did not match that reassurance. The credits widen the record, thanking journalists Eric Kneeler and Rick Loomis for sharing recordings from Fallujah, along with KPBS, CNN, and several Marines whose stories will continue.

As heard by us

A steady, source-led war investigation that builds its power from interviews, field recordings, and careful reconstruction.

Taking Cover follows a tip about a possible cover-up tied to a friendly-fire incident in Iraq in spring 2004. It works best when it stays close to the reporting: Camp Pendleton, Horno Ridge, the Marines who were there, and the memorial culture around the loss.

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Why you'd press play

A White Lies tip opens into a friendly-fire cover-up investigation that follows Marines into the field.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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