The harrowing first-person video of a U.S. soldier under fire in Afghanistan

U.S. soldier and YouTube user Funker530 gives viewers a first hand perspective into a shootout in the hills of Afghanistan.

(Image credit: YouTube)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: A stunning first-person video from the helmet camera of an unnamed U.S. soldier in Afghanistan has captured an intense exchange of gunfire between the soldier, his squad, and Taliban insurgents. (Watch the clip below.) Shot in the notoriously dangerous Kunar Province, the clip is part of a series of footage that YouTube user Funker 530 uploads daily to his channel to document the war in Afghanistan. The video shows the unnamed soldier shooting and yelling for help as he steps out into the open to draw gunfire away from the rest of his squad. "I got hit a total of four times," YouTube user Funker530 says in the video's description. "My helmet cam died and I made it down the mountain on my own." Thankfully, none of the shots managed to penetrate the soldier's body armor.

The reaction: "This is real war as you've never seen it before," says Simon Crerar at Australia's Herald Sun. The footage is "reminiscent of the first-person viewpoint popularized by computer games such as Call of Duty and Halo," making the video simultaneously entertaining and sobering. It's no surprise, then, says the New York Post, that the video has "brought the war home to computers around the world." Take a look:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.