DATELINE NBC -- A Father's Mission -- Pictured: Richard Engel -- NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent and award-winning chronicler of America's War on Terror, Richard Engel reports from Afghanistan on one of the deadliest battles in the Afghan War, the Battle of Wanat - in a special edition of "Dateline: A Father's Mission" -- Photo by: NBC

Dateline is presenting a disturbing report tonight on an outpost in Afghanistan entitled A Father’s Mission.

Two years ago, while the soldiers were actually building the outpost, several hundred Taliban compromised the area and attacked. At the end of the siege, nine Americans were killed and more than 20 injured. The soldiers had only two weeks left on their tour of duty. So, what happened? Well, that is the same question the loved ones back home were wondering.

“Familes were asking, ‘How could this happen? How could they overrun at least part of this outpost?’ Engle begins. “In the course of that questioning there were serious shortcomings. They didn’t have enough supplies, one part of the base was protected by a single strand of barbed wire, they didn’t have the building materials to construct proper defenses.”

The answer is, according to Engle, mistakes were made, which is an understatement, but one of the parents asking was an ex-military soldier, who had the connections to get more info.

The mistakes have been acknowledged, but who exactly is at fault has not been. What we’ll see in the Dateline report is footage shot by the soldiers stationed at the outpost, their thoughts prior, during and after the fight.

“They had video cameras, helmet cameras, the Taliban had cameras, there were cameras in the rescue helicopter, so we have lots of footage,” Engle states adding, “which is also an amazing part of the story that a battle could have happened in a remote valley in the middle of no place, yet we have pictures from three different angles. We have the soldiers on tape saying, ‘We’re all going to die out here.’ ”

Dateline: A Father’s Mission, begins tonight, 7:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

Click onto media bars for:

Details on what happened.

What mistakes were made.

How NBC got all the access to video during the attack.