Former U.S. Marine Nathaniel Travers testified on Tuesday on an incident that took place last March in Afghanistan, where his special operations unit convoy was involved in a suicide car bomb attack. According to the 30-year-old intelligence sergeant, some of the marines fired at civilians, even though they did not appeared to have been armed.

Consequently, 19 civilians were killed in the incident: “There were a lot of people who died that day who really didn’t need to. They were just driving in their cars,” Travers said to the court of inquiry in the first day of testimony. An Army Special Operations Commander publicly apologized to the victim’s families in Afghanistan.

The Marine Corps court of inquiry is currently investigating the two officers who were in charge of the elite unit at the time, Maj. Fred C. Galvin, company commander, and Capt. Vincent J. Noble, platoon leader. The unit belonged to Company F, Second Battalion, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command and was ordered to leave Afghanistan after the incident occurred.

This was the first day of the two week inquiry, at the end of which Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, commander of the U.S. Marine Forces Central Command will decide whether the two officers in command will be charged with crime.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission conducted an investigation according to which the Marines fired at civilians and cars along the road without any consideration, but the lawyers for the two officers deny the allegations, saying the fire was justifiable.

Nathaniel Travers was among the first to testify in the first day of the inquiry. During the questioning, he admitted to not having seen quite everything that had happened, as he was in the rear seat of the Humvee, but couldn’t help but wondering “What are we fighting this war for?”