Jocko Podcast 181 w/ John Stryker Meyer: On The Ground in Vietnam. Mayem and Bravery.

2019-06-12T18:18:07Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening.  0:05:05 - John "Tilt" Stryker Meyer: "On the Ground" 2:37:57 - Aftermath and Lessons learned. 2:50:47 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:53:07 - Support: How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO STORE Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com/collections/men All Supplements: https://originmaine.com/nutrition/jocko-fuel/ Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Origin Gis: https://originmaine.com/bjj-mma-fit/ Onnit Stuff: http://www.onnit.com/jocko Jocko White Tea: http://www.jockotea.com 3:31:17 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

So yeah, take out the warrior kid podcast and also if you want to support a Actual warrior kid go to Irish Oaks Branch dot com where young Aiden is making soap that allows you to stay clean Check also we have a YouTube channel jockel podcast YouTube channel if you're interested in the video Version you can see with what John striker my her looks like tilt aka tilt or If you want to see what jockel looks like if you don't already know more if you don't have a shirt with his face Ari on it and you want to see what he looks like on you know YouTube and also there's some excerpts on there Yes, but you know, okay, you know how some people can catch various levels of How should I say flourishing flourishes of activity you know where they'll catch the wave of consistency Meaning like everything they're doing in their life is like I'm being disciplined and I'm in the zone where it's like just second nature Now boom boom boom everything and I was like man You know I'll down in TJ like they'll knock off like Louis Vuitton versus and stuff at least it looks like the Louis Vuitton logo You know you know Well, I've been doing like a lot of kettlebells like heavier for as many reps You know, it's like that kind of how this difference, you know, you can do a light kettlebell for a long nest It's gonna sell out Sydney, Australia December 4th and 5th the Denver one is September 19th and 20th go to extreme ownership dot com If you want to come to these events because they are going to sell out So go there early and EF over watch where Wait when you're looking at hire someone If you don't think oh, I got to find the person that has the specific skills that I want Know what you want is to hire the right person with the right kind of character and The most important skill that they can have is leadership skills and then you can teach them the technical skills that they need to know for the job We have people with character and with leadership capability From special operations and combat aviation and we can put them into your organization It's our company EF overwatch. EF overwatch.com if you need Leadership in your business or team and if you want to hear more from myself and echo Charles We're on the inner webs Or on Twitter we're on Instagram and we are on that Facebook Echo is an echo Charles and I am at jocca willing and once again Thanks to all the veterans out there Men like John Stryker Meyer who fought for the American ideal and who himself represents that ideal True American hero humbled us sit here and talk to him and to those of you that are out there on the front lines right now Thank you for fighting for our ideals as well And also thanks to police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service First responders thanks to you for living a life of service and sacrifice so that we can live our lives in safety and security into everyone else out there remember John Stryker Meyer has written about and told us stories that he lived through and some of them are just hard to believe But also Remember that for every story of bravery and heroism that he tells There are an infinite number of stories that never got told stories from the men who did not come home Soldiers sailors airmen and marines who gave away all their stories past present and future They sacrificed all those stories the stories of their lives for us Never forget them Until next time this is echo and jocco out And you know I understand because I've done that before and this is what I thought it was a danger The thing is you there's no guilt in that, but here's the thing the concept kind of made me feel a little bit guilty when I was doing that Because you know how the kind where you're just like at home board and you see the cookies and you're like it was an easy path and you took it Well, it's dot code that you it UK still You gotta be like Anyway, cuz you know cuz shipping certain parts in like the kid is shipping is crazy from here is what I'm saying So boom you want to you want to side step the shipping little bit you can do that might take a little bit longer so it's like a hit and then a point on the right that's what you did they hit in your version was a high five Sure enough I see my son's little head watching the whole time just in the corner he didn't do any I see was watching the whole thing go revisit my son daughters version same exact thing boom incident right steps on the wrist Instead of high five he does a hit to her shoulder or whatever in a high five Fashion and goes mean the exact same tone is you your children are always learning Yes, so if you want your children to learn properly The right stuff read a mic in the dragons. We were up on an area where there was minimal escape routes or the jungle because everything was so steep on several different sides of that little, like a little bit of a plateau to him and like a trail that came down and then John and Chao had gone down further, another little finger and that's where they had to fire for and he came back up, we put a perimeter out and luckily we made radio contact right away. the lapsing quality But this one was like flaggeringly wrong design, you know whoever Mean while they're like selling it like their thing. and I read it to him again that little section I said what do you think that means and you know some little kid little little belly up front Is it mean like he said something really smart? so you're like going up from kid to kid high five Saying ah, I mean it was trying to do it harder than the last kid or whatever Me and one when other kids if you notice when other kids are giving you high five the ones that are not giving you high five Or just watching full attention just waiting waiting for the next thing now the point of this story that made significant to me Was because To not even two weeks later, let me be like And if she liked you, then you know, it was like, you know, and if you were neutral, then what, you know, she, you're going to do what she's going to do. Like it wasn't like, you know, I guess in my mind, I didn't think I was special, but in my mind, I thought, you know, I really wanted to go. So it's this new like lack of tiredness you know how there's like different tiredness is in Juditsu Where you like okay? And like, if I missed as you were not on air, but many years later, my dad came up to me and said, you know, I've finally read across the fence and it says, now I know why this guy came by and took our trash. Yeah, sure, so just be where the mindset essentially there's other flavors to if you don't like strawberry Which some people don't who is it Jason Gardner Jason's like don't like strawberry good job So with with with the kids when you're getting them all fired up Here's what you did you didn't necessarily get them You there's a difference between being loud and fired up and being At attention so you got like The trouble from what I understand that teachers and babysitters are way if you're looking after Big grunk coaches and stuff like this looking after big group of kids is they don't You know if you want to listen to or revisit specific ideas or or concepts lessons you know individually and share them with your friends You know I like the hood of them watching it. a week later right my son who's two my daughter who's six my daughter accidentally and my wife has this on video Two because they're playing into in little dances whatever on accident My daughter steps on my son's wrist Just on accident when they're kind of you know in the in the scramble so my son gets up he's like he goes ah And hits my daughter right and goes mean What the heck that was kind of weird I'm going to tell you right now like when we were going to field most of the time when I would go in the field, especially in Ramadi, I would be exhausted by the time I went the field. It's life Babin J. P. to know Dave Burke Flynn Cochran, Mike's really Mike Bima and Jason Garner if you need to help in your Organization with leadership go to echelon front dot com and Also, we have EF online Because leadership training is not in an Occulation it's just like due to it so you can't just show up one day now You know due to you can't just show up read one book and or go to one seminar and now you're a good leader It sounds like that was hitting you mid-deployment of, hey, look, when you were home when you're back in America, you got money problems, you got girl problems, you got law problems, you got all those problems and they can all go away. That's a bugger That is a no support no support and you know I get it you know support isn't the primary reason when you think of true Like you got to go out there. She's videoing you and you're it cuts in where you're going like this you're going hook go hook go with your hands side to side And the kids are trying to keep up they're like oh, what are we doing okay So I'm like good morning children and like they're like Yep, you can get jeans you can get t-shirts you can get Supplements we have supplements we got we got joint warfare which you should take we got kill Kerala oil we got discipline to discipline go discipline go is like get your cognitive wheels spinning turning moving quickly sharp It seems like, and this is something that I was like, obviously, you know, you went through some, just completely insane and tense stuff. I read it boom silence and total attention For 18 minutes while I read the book so that Book and I was to explain to the kids that I put I put words nice and listen There's words in this book that you when you read them people are saying that that words too big of a word For a little kid I said these people want to make you stupid I want to make you smart when you see this word and I open up poise there's a thing And as soon as 9-11 happened, I called him and said, hey, you know, I was going to college at the time, I said, sir, please give me a college sent me back to, so he backed her team right now. I had this like special signal mirror that when you pointed it at the thing, it got like a little shade. I don't really say that word that much just said it and you said it in a real Kind of You know why because my daughter watches you two videos which I had to block her I though not block her, but you know how you gotta put the block on YouTube So only they can only see certain things anyway. Like this, the humility that you show here, the willingness to subordinate your own ego is like the best sign of a great leader when you check into a situation, oh you know what? That's whatever mean Brian share text and paint by the way how like oh We're the last we're the only ones that we literally know that don't have jeans You know that's uh Welly, but nonetheless I didn't after doing all these workouts I don't feel the like body tired, you know like a don't feel it There's the kind of kindness where you're breathing real hard, but you know You can still generate kind of force with your muscles, you know your muscles aren't like noodly You're hearing people are saying, like, hey, what do you, you know, wasn't even, wasn't even, there's guys that are actively avoiding going to Vietnam. But I've been doing it for like long time now kettlebells like these awkward thing and Injuditsu I feel this it's not weird because it's new It'll make a mock-up of the shirt like you know the cheap shirts You know the buy-bombolk maybe second-hand You after this after our team Maryland disappears, going back to the book, the next morning Hobbes asked me if I would career a pack of sensitive information to Mac Resog headquarters and SIGON, you end up going to SIGON, you end up doing a little bit of Thailand as a time in Thailand as well because you had a little pass. You know, I guess when I'm older now, like you know, when I was a kid, I worked at fast food restaurants. No anyways if you want to help your kids or any kids that you know get on the path these are these are books that Everyone tells me and I will tell you I wish I had these books when I was Seven years old eight years old nine years old ten years old hundred percent Way the warrior kid marks mission and where there's a will check them out Yeah, this, no, this, well, and like I said, this woman was always super nice, but she, she wielded a lot of power, you know, inside inside the seal officer community. But they know, they just know it's not like it's this magic thing. It's like not even nearly as well like I really got to get pushed to feel a bit I got nuts I told all the kids because I know it's like they're trying to they're goal of a teachers to keep the kids calm

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocco Podcast number 181.
[00:00:03] With echo Charles and me, Jocco Willing.
[00:00:06] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:07] Good evening.
[00:00:09] Gidey Mal.
[00:00:11] We were in Cambodia alone with no fixed wing aircraft.
[00:00:15] Sal's eyes were as big as saucers.
[00:00:17] I told Bubba to give me a claymore mine with a five second fuse.
[00:00:20] I gave Bubba and fuck the move quick signal.
[00:00:24] As we move back to the LZ, I stated the rear of the formation with sal and hastily
[00:00:29] covering our tracks.
[00:00:31] We'd only gone a short distance when sal hissed, Bo-Ku-V-C, Bo-Ku-V-C.
[00:00:37] I could see the pit helmets in the distance coming from the south.
[00:00:42] I radioed the green Hornets, CNC helicopter, and told them to return with their gunships
[00:00:47] and to pick us up at the primary LZ-ASAP.
[00:00:51] CNC said they'd have assets on-site in 10 minutes or less.
[00:00:56] Now even 10 minutes seem like a long time.
[00:01:00] Tuan and I fired our M79 as two high bursts which slowed the NVA down for a few seconds.
[00:01:07] Sal opened fire, shooting single-shot and moving backwards no longer bothering to cover
[00:01:13] our tracks.
[00:01:14] I yelled to Bubba to move out at double time.
[00:01:18] The race for life was on.
[00:01:21] Sal and sal hissed to hip and pointed north.
[00:01:24] Damn.
[00:01:26] They were pith helmets and NVA uniforms coming at us from the north too.
[00:01:32] And at a dead run.
[00:01:36] Sal and I placed a clay more behind a tree, pulled the fuse lighter and ran.
[00:01:40] The NVA were now running and shooting wildly.
[00:01:44] We sprinted to catch up to the team as the clay more exploded.
[00:01:47] The NVA kept on charging.
[00:01:51] How quickly placed it's clay more in front of a tree and ran while Tuan and I provided
[00:01:57] covering fire.
[00:01:59] We sprinted toward our team as the second clay more detonated.
[00:02:04] We felt the blast on our backs as we ran.
[00:02:07] As folk and Bubba pushed toward the LZ-Hip Tuan, sal and I fired back using the immediate
[00:02:14] action drills the entire team had practiced for hours on end.
[00:02:19] Ons M79 rounds were deadly effective.
[00:02:22] Those combined with my M79 rounds and the car 15 fire from hip and sal temporarily
[00:02:28] started stalled the hard charging NVA troops.
[00:02:33] We reached the LZ quickly and compares into how cautiously we had exited it.
[00:02:38] As the team set up a hasty perimeter, hit placed another clay more in the path of the NVA
[00:02:44] that were charging us from the south.
[00:02:47] To the north, Bubba rigged to clay more with a contact detonator on a trip wire.
[00:02:52] As the tide of Pith helmets flowed toward us, Bubba and I opened fire with our M79s and
[00:02:59] sal and hip opened up on full auto with their car 15s.
[00:03:04] More NVA emerged from the smoke of the M79 high explosive rounds and tripped Bubba's clay
[00:03:10] more.
[00:03:12] That's when the first green Hornet gunship arrived.
[00:03:15] I popped a smoke canister and directed a gun run to the west of our perimeter.
[00:03:21] Within seconds the gunship roared in front of our perimeter, shredding the NVA ranks, slowing
[00:03:27] them down for a few seconds.
[00:03:30] The green Hornet's fire power was incredible.
[00:03:33] Finally, the green Hornet slick that inserted us into the target area arrived on the
[00:03:38] LZ as close to our position as possible with his left door facing us, the nose pointing
[00:03:43] north or north west.
[00:03:46] Fortunately the Air Force had made it to us in less than 10 minutes.
[00:03:50] The relentless NVA kept coming after us.
[00:03:53] As Tuan and I each unleashed one more M79 high explosive round at the NVA, Bubba led the
[00:03:58] team toward the Air Force Huey.
[00:04:01] We always had an American lead the team's approach to an American helicopter to avoid any
[00:04:05] confusion in regard to South Vietnamese team members on STIDO.
[00:04:10] I fired the last claymore as the wave of NVA troops got in front of it.
[00:04:16] The last claymore blast gave me a few precious seconds to make it to the Huey.
[00:04:26] And that right there is another glimpse into the insanity that John Strykermeyer,
[00:04:36] known as Tilt, lived through as a special forces soldier in Vietnam, a recon team leader
[00:04:43] from Mac Vsog, studies and observation group command and control.
[00:04:48] And if you have not listened to podcast 180 yet, then go listen to it.
[00:04:53] Tilt was on that podcast and as he walked out of the studio, I knew that I needed him
[00:05:00] to come back as quickly as possible.
[00:05:03] But I asked him and he graciously agreed and here he is, once again, John Strykermeyer,
[00:05:10] Tilt, good evening sir, good evening.
[00:05:14] Yeah, you know, you kind of mentioned that that one operation right there when you
[00:05:20] were out there facing three divisions.
[00:05:24] After you got fat dumb and happy on Thanksgiving day with a big meal, then you guys rolled
[00:05:28] out of the field, right?
[00:05:29] Indeed.
[00:05:30] And then, so how did that operation go now?
[00:05:34] You guys got inserted?
[00:05:35] How did you end up in that situation where you're running away, putting five second
[00:05:40] fused claymores facing the enemy?
[00:05:42] What was, how did what led up to that?
[00:05:44] Well, we had a briefing in the night before and they were hyper concerned because of three
[00:05:52] NVA divisions, 30,000 men were MIA, Lily.
[00:05:56] And the CIA, DIA, whoever else is out there had lost contact.
[00:06:00] So that night, myself and the CO and S3 went over the maps, Liz reports, all the intel reports.
[00:06:08] We were up until after midnight.
[00:06:10] So they came to you and said, hey, we're missing 30,000 men, three divisions of NVA.
[00:06:16] The first, the third, and the other side of the CIA, look in, we've got the DIA, we've got
[00:06:20] spy planes and all that stuff.
[00:06:22] We can't find them, so then they come to you.
[00:06:23] Yeah.
[00:06:24] Okay, and you're like, oh, we got this.
[00:06:28] Well, yeah, and at the time, I was still a spec 4 and E4.
[00:06:32] And I hadn't met the CO yet.
[00:06:34] So the first thing was, he looks at me, he says, you're an E4.
[00:06:38] This is an E80 9 billet, what WTF?
[00:06:40] I go look sir, long story short, I said, look, I've run a bunch of missions up north, we're
[00:06:45] here at TDY, how can I help you?
[00:06:47] And he settled down.
[00:06:48] We looked, then we were up all night looking at those intel reports.
[00:06:51] And then they also had pictures that were from 70,000 feet, we had never seen anything
[00:06:55] like them.
[00:06:56] My mom was the piano teacher and one of her students, dad, worked on lenses for aircraft
[00:07:05] to shoot from 70,000 feet.
[00:07:07] He talked to me about Mazi, young kid.
[00:07:09] I go, that's really cool.
[00:07:11] Well, now I knew what it was working on and why he couldn't really talk about it much.
[00:07:15] But that was the first time the SRS 71s were used over flights.
[00:07:19] Got it.
[00:07:20] I said, where did he come from?
[00:07:21] Because I was like, this is mind-bottom, and you used to see little pictures close by
[00:07:27] people smiling, but from 70,000 feet, we had a good estimate as to where did he have
[00:07:32] to be?
[00:07:33] And they said, we can't tell you this stuff shut up, you don't have to have them seen
[00:07:36] it.
[00:07:37] And so we put it all together, just try this area.
[00:07:40] I mean, we're only only going to ground this short while maybe an hour or so.
[00:07:44] And then, oh, help, bro clues.
[00:07:46] And did you, did you, you stumbled upon their camp or like a camp that they had recently
[00:07:50] left?
[00:07:51] Yeah, well, they had, they would have waste stations a long way.
[00:07:55] And so we walked into them before we found some, but never would fire as burning.
[00:08:00] The ones still had a poth on it.
[00:08:02] And so, when we got back, sound, the guys estimated that one division had just left,
[00:08:10] and their point there, their tail on was what came back at us.
[00:08:14] And the other, from the north was just moving into the base camp, a little sandwich.
[00:08:19] Yeah.
[00:08:20] Little NVA sandwich.
[00:08:21] There we go.
[00:08:22] We were to, we were to belong.
[00:08:23] You're a basic balloon.
[00:08:25] Yeah.
[00:08:26] Did you go into that one real heavy in terms of, is that, because I, if I remember correctly
[00:08:33] from the book, how common was it that you carried the five second fuses on the claim
[00:08:38] wars?
[00:08:39] Well, we started doing that at month earlier, earlier part of November, I mean, because
[00:08:44] we had a couple of targets where the numbers were just incredible when they came out.
[00:08:49] So I always wanted to have those just in case.
[00:08:52] So here we took a few extra fuses, you know, John had his fuses and, uh, sal and fuck,
[00:08:59] they all knew how to work those.
[00:09:01] And so, um, here I said, because we saw how open the area was, we were used to triple
[00:09:07] canopy up north. So now we're in Cambodia. You could see three or four hundred yards away,
[00:09:13] maybe five hundred yards, WTF times two, and then you see the fifth-ounce run, and that
[00:09:17] you, it's like, how did that feel when you see the NVA in an open run towards your position?
[00:09:23] That poured arms.
[00:09:24] Yeah.
[00:09:25] Good Lord.
[00:09:26] It was, it was an experience that I'll take it to the grave with me.
[00:09:28] That's a nightmare.
[00:09:30] Is your worst one.
[00:09:31] How, how, how did you, did you, did you, did you in a situation like that?
[00:09:35] You're, you've got, I mean, thousands of potentially thousands of enemy soldiers.
[00:09:41] Some of them are booze blatantly running towards your position.
[00:09:45] What are you thinking in the back of your mind?
[00:09:46] Are you thinking, hey, we're not going to get out of this?
[00:09:50] Or are you just, I know for me, in my, my experiences, which are nothing, close to that.
[00:09:55] But I was always just thinking about getting my job done.
[00:09:57] Like, okay, this is, well, this is the best thing I can do right now.
[00:09:59] Hey, we need to put some people over here.
[00:10:00] Let's get some machine gunners up on the roof.
[00:10:02] I would never get to a point where I was, well, maybe I didn't have enough time or I wasn't
[00:10:06] smart enough to think about what big consequences were coming.
[00:10:09] But when you see, when you see those helmets running towards you at poor garms, you got
[00:10:15] to be thinking, this isn't looking real good for, this isn't looking real good for a tilt
[00:10:18] in the boy.
[00:10:19] Well, no, I had my first Jacob moment, which was the good news is we found these fuckers.
[00:10:24] The bad news is they're coming to kill my ass.
[00:10:27] Oh, really?
[00:10:29] Really, it's like, well, I've played with did our homework last night.
[00:10:32] This really worked out well.
[00:10:34] Maybe a little bit too well.
[00:10:35] And just thank God for the green hornets.
[00:10:37] May I, they didn't get back there.
[00:10:39] They're just only a question of time.
[00:10:40] And they could, you would keep them on station, generally, like, for, like, 10 or 15 minutes.
[00:10:46] Well, this is Cambodian.
[00:10:47] Everything was different there.
[00:10:48] First we had no, no fix wings.
[00:10:52] All we had was the helicopters.
[00:10:54] But they were green horns, air force.
[00:10:57] At that point in time, November 68, they were, they had to stay to the art, Huey,
[00:11:04] stay with the fastest.
[00:11:05] They could carry more loads and their miniguns.
[00:11:08] I think they had mounted miniguns that they could handle manually.
[00:11:13] Some of the early ones we saw were mounted.
[00:11:15] And so the helicopter would have limited maneuverability.
[00:11:19] But the one the air force was just really on top of the game.
[00:11:23] Well, that's what came in.
[00:11:24] And when they came in with their minigun runs, I really bought us a couple of
[00:11:27] available seconds.
[00:11:29] Seconds.
[00:11:31] They were common.
[00:11:32] And you could see them.
[00:11:33] It's just like, and I was looking at some pictures of you yesterday.
[00:11:37] And you guys still had 20 round mags.
[00:11:40] Oh, yeah.
[00:11:41] Which you'd load out to 18 rounds because you didn't want to compress this spring too much
[00:11:44] and cause a jam.
[00:11:45] Right.
[00:11:46] And we would have run over your mother to get one of those 30 round jobs.
[00:11:49] Yeah.
[00:11:50] Man.
[00:11:51] Oh, yeah.
[00:11:53] It was different.
[00:11:55] So we always had at least 600 plus rounds all in the magazines that a couple
[00:11:59] of extra band all year as just in case.
[00:12:03] And you guys did make it out that time obviously.
[00:12:06] Well, yeah.
[00:12:08] And then you know, here too, when we left the chopper pulls out and has been
[00:12:12] lifting off, the NVA come out of the jungle, the thin jungle, and it was muddy.
[00:12:16] He had rained a day before.
[00:12:18] And these guys are coming out there at Port Arms and they're trying to stop.
[00:12:23] And the mud comes up from their boots as they're trying to stop, come down to Port Arms.
[00:12:28] So me and the door gun are just, and I forget if it's sour, fuck, we're just getting
[00:12:32] these guys and they just stop like a cartoon and they go back.
[00:12:37] This is what happened.
[00:12:38] And just blue these guys back into mud from their boots is going up into the props
[00:12:42] as they're trying to stop.
[00:12:43] And they hit them and they just go back into the jungle and then we got the hell out of
[00:12:46] there.
[00:12:47] It strikes me as strange because as I keep reading about the NVA, well, I mean, we know
[00:12:52] that these, you know, this is an insurgency.
[00:12:55] These guys are looking to not fight when they don't have to, right?
[00:12:58] That's why it always surprises me in your stories how determined they were.
[00:13:03] Like those guys, hey, look, okay, the Americans, they're getting on the helicopter, we'll
[00:13:06] let them go, whatever.
[00:13:08] We'll come back next time.
[00:13:10] You know, we don't want to die right today because we don't have to.
[00:13:11] We can wait.
[00:13:12] We can wait 10 years.
[00:13:13] We can wait 20 years.
[00:13:14] We're going to be here forever.
[00:13:16] For them to have that kind of determination where they were just common and common
[00:13:19] and like you said on the last podcast, literally stacking up bodies so they could get you.
[00:13:24] That would have been just a crown jewel to capture a little special forces team.
[00:13:29] Oh, yeah.
[00:13:30] I mean, they had to kill American award.
[00:13:32] So if they, if they confirmed that they killed one of us or got the body of a dead body,
[00:13:37] they would get their killed in American award and they would get a bonus of some sort
[00:13:41] and maybe world heroes up north for the rest of their lives.
[00:13:48] Awesome.
[00:13:49] Okay, so that book and we talked about it on the last podcast and I said it last time.
[00:13:54] We touched less than 10% of the book.
[00:13:57] The stories are completely insane and you can get that book on Amazon.
[00:14:03] But you've written, that's not the only book you've written.
[00:14:05] You've written another one.
[00:14:06] Another book is called On the Ground and this book, again, it's just the same level
[00:14:14] of insanity, the feel strange for me to be sitting here talking to you because every time
[00:14:19] I read one of your stories, I'm like, how's this guy making it out of this?
[00:14:23] There's, you kick this one off with an interesting story.
[00:14:27] These guys, one of the, it's, you're not with them, but it's a recon team on the ground,
[00:14:31] a guy named Watkins is in charge.
[00:14:33] Pat Watkins.
[00:14:35] And they're set up on a road and they're doing a recon and I think they set up an ambush
[00:14:41] too, like a judge, an ambush to take out some troops.
[00:14:44] But they end up with this massive NVA convoy.
[00:14:48] And when I say massive, I mean massive, it takes hours to get by and there's people and
[00:14:53] there's trucks and there's bulldozers and there's tanks.
[00:14:57] Yeah.
[00:14:59] And again, I got to point this out.
[00:15:00] So we're probably talking, you know, a thousand enemy soldiers at least that are patrolling
[00:15:05] by you for now for three hours.
[00:15:07] They're walking by you.
[00:15:09] And meanwhile, you got a team of six guys, eight guys, something like that.
[00:15:12] I think we knew it was seven or eight.
[00:15:14] I forget, but yeah, and their, and their marntonness and pat was familiar with all the
[00:15:19] Russian tanks.
[00:15:21] So he knew what the Russian tanks were and he had it all the intel together.
[00:15:25] And just one of those, another night in Saga, another night in Saga.
[00:15:29] So they're sitting there waiting and they, eventually, they go by and, and eventually,
[00:15:35] now, one of the, one of the indaged soldiers that was working alongside Watkins, one
[00:15:40] of members of the team was named Ron, R-O-N-G.
[00:15:44] And he comes up after this convoy goes by, he comes up and this is what happens.
[00:15:48] I'm going to the book here.
[00:15:50] Ron said he'd been watching the road traffic just like Watkins.
[00:15:53] And it had been taken, taken, had been taken as taken with it as he was.
[00:15:58] I mean, he was like lost and like, oh my god, they can't believe this is all stuff.
[00:16:01] While he was staring at all the vehicles passing by, a hand had reached out and given
[00:16:05] his arm a shake.
[00:16:07] A montnyard soldier, one of those, the NVA, had pressed into unwilling service, said,
[00:16:13] it's your time for guard duty.
[00:16:14] Is that close to the enemy or what?
[00:16:20] That's nuts.
[00:16:22] Oh yeah.
[00:16:23] Completely nuts.
[00:16:25] The montnyards, which you guys called yards, the nungs, the south Vietnamese, even
[00:16:31] sometimes former NVA soldiers.
[00:16:35] What was it like?
[00:16:36] Who did you mainly work with?
[00:16:37] What were the differences between the different groups, their different ethnic personalities?
[00:16:41] And I know we didn't talk about a lot of the last time you talked about in the book, but
[00:16:44] those different ethnicities didn't always get along.
[00:16:47] Oh no.
[00:16:48] Especially when it came to playing poker apparently.
[00:16:50] Oh yeah, that's the first few days at Fubai.
[00:16:55] They had a poker game.
[00:16:56] They went to Rai.
[00:16:57] And the Cambodian lost.
[00:16:59] He goes to his room, gets a fry grenade, comes back and dumps it on the montnyards.
[00:17:03] So we had an instant fire flight in the compound.
[00:17:06] And you know, you always going through the training, you'd turn about the different groups.
[00:17:10] Well, that case we had the Cambodians, montnyards, nungs, and my team was south Vietnamese.
[00:17:16] Which included at least four guys that came south in 54 when there was 18-month
[00:17:22] truce where anybody at the North could go south.
[00:17:25] And thousands did, the Navy had a special operation where he had ships going up to the
[00:17:30] Nui and shipping thousands of people south.
[00:17:33] Nobody went north.
[00:17:34] Nobody wanted to be up with the Commies.
[00:17:37] But we had four of them on my team.
[00:17:39] They were just outstanding groups.
[00:17:41] And so that was Fubai.
[00:17:44] And his team was the brew, which was the lowest of the montnyards, truce.
[00:17:49] Cute.
[00:17:50] They couldn't throw a hand grenade where the shit.
[00:17:52] But fearless.
[00:17:53] And they hated the North Vietnamese.
[00:17:56] That's one of the key points.
[00:17:57] And you talk about it in the book is how much, what the North Vietnamese had done to the
[00:18:02] montnyards and how much they fiercely hated them and how fiercely loyal they were to you
[00:18:09] guys.
[00:18:10] Oh yeah.
[00:18:11] Amazing truce.
[00:18:12] And they would just fight to the end.
[00:18:15] And there's more than one guy who like one zero who had a, we call them effectively,
[00:18:21] our little people.
[00:18:23] The little people said, I'll take a bullet for you.
[00:18:25] That's how dedicated they were.
[00:18:27] And they proved that over and over again.
[00:18:29] Over and over again.
[00:18:30] Now, some teams had troubles, but we never had it like a my team or with the, the Frenchman,
[00:18:35] most majority of teams, the little people took care of vetting their own.
[00:18:41] So like when Idaho was wiped out, sal and hept went out and recruited and there were young
[00:18:46] kids, 15 years old, we brought on the team.
[00:18:49] But they vetted him and we never worried about him.
[00:18:51] So we didn't have to worry about the friendly fire or what they call today with the blue fire.
[00:18:56] Yeah, they call it, they call it friendly fire.
[00:19:02] Yeah, this is cool.
[00:19:03] They have another, they have another word for it too.
[00:19:05] I think what it is.
[00:19:06] Because friendly fire is like a mistake, right?
[00:19:08] What we're talking about is when you know, you're on, yeah, one of your Taliban forces or
[00:19:13] one of your local forces is actually a Taliban person in terms of yours.
[00:19:18] But actually a, a, a, a moddy militia guy in terms on you.
[00:19:21] So those things, those things are scary.
[00:19:24] Very, because he build up trust and all the sudden the guy turns on you.
[00:19:27] Yeah, because early on, somewhere eight camps had trouble with that with their, the
[00:19:32] mountaineers that turned, who had been more loyal to the communist for some reason.
[00:19:39] But then there's other had issues because they, they like special forces, but they were
[00:19:43] pissed off working with the South Vietnamese.
[00:19:46] And they, they were just, they don't kill.
[00:19:47] They would have to kill South Vietnamese or allies or the communist up north.
[00:19:52] And sometimes you had like guys don't, don't kill our allies.
[00:19:56] Not today, please.
[00:19:57] But I never had that.
[00:19:59] My team was all South Vietnamese.
[00:20:00] Oh, man.
[00:20:02] So one of the, one of the other crazy parts of this book that you open with or you start
[00:20:10] one of the early chapters is this, this attack on F O B 4, which was just sound completely,
[00:20:18] completely horrible.
[00:20:20] And here, here's a quote from the book, the entire compound, this is after this attack
[00:20:25] happens.
[00:20:26] The entire compound was now a swirling battleground with dozens of small, but ready, deadly
[00:20:31] dire, fire flights in progress.
[00:20:33] It was difficult to tell the scantily clad Americans and indigenous personnel from the
[00:20:37] enemy.
[00:20:38] And there was no command coordination, just a lot of individuals struggling against uncertain
[00:20:43] overwhelming odds.
[00:20:45] The air was filled with enough chaos to overload the census.
[00:20:48] Screams, shouts, bullets, dust, smoke, the smell of cordi burning wood, rubber and fuel
[00:20:53] and lastly, the smell of seared flesh.
[00:20:58] And this, this attack resulted in 17 special forces soldiers were killed.
[00:21:05] And I don't know the number of indigenous forces that were killed, but this sounded like
[00:21:10] just a complete, I mean, it was obviously a big win for the enemy.
[00:21:16] And what was your perspective on all that?
[00:21:18] Where were you when that happened?
[00:21:20] I was safely in Scotland, F O B 1, because F O B 4 had opened at the end of 67.
[00:21:28] And if I had the base of a mountain, and there's a whole lot of political reasons why
[00:21:33] they're at the base of a mountain.
[00:21:34] But anyways, they were there.
[00:21:36] They had a test attack by the VIA Kong, a great amount of Christmas time of 67.
[00:21:43] And on August 23rd, after the dust settled, the men who were there like Pat Walkens estimated
[00:21:49] that that attack in December was a test to see what.
[00:21:53] Could they had minimal defense to stop minimal wire?
[00:21:56] The internal security force was riddled with VIA Kong.
[00:22:01] And they planned to attack for over a year, the Sapper attack with the NVA Sappers, as well
[00:22:06] as VIA Kong, Holly Train Sappers, and the conventional troops that went in just
[00:22:11] putting a loincloth and a car in a weapon or a satchel charge and hand grenades.
[00:22:17] And so I was at Fou by the hit after midnight.
[00:22:22] There's always discussed about what time they hit.
[00:22:26] And since then, we've had a military intelligence officer who came back and one of the
[00:22:31] people that we said was 17, it's actually 16.
[00:22:34] But still, the highest number of green berets killed in one battle in our special forces
[00:22:39] history.
[00:22:41] And fortunately, we had a recon team up on the hill on Marl-Mountain at night that took
[00:22:46] out the mortars.
[00:22:49] Because the enemy were just dropping the mortars off the mountain until they camp on top
[00:22:52] everything else.
[00:22:53] Because they don't care about friendly fire.
[00:22:55] Speaking to friendly fire, the enemy doesn't care.
[00:22:57] No.
[00:22:58] They're dropping mortars on their own people as long as they're killing some of their
[00:23:01] enemy as well.
[00:23:02] And some of them had their bandanas and said, we came here to die and they did.
[00:23:09] What did that?
[00:23:10] What were the repercussions that went through your community after that happened?
[00:23:16] Everybody, you know, it's one thing to talk about being hit by an enemy force at night.
[00:23:24] They fight when they want to fight.
[00:23:25] That's a classic example of them doing it.
[00:23:27] They planned it for over a year.
[00:23:29] They even came in and took over the Indigenous Messe Hall for a final briefing in the
[00:23:33] base that night before they launched the attack.
[00:23:38] And so that's how well planned it was.
[00:23:40] So they went in to the Indigenous camp, the friendly camp, and gave their final briefing
[00:23:47] for the attack inside of the friendly camp.
[00:23:49] Yep.
[00:23:50] And they had two of our loyal Indigenous troops that saw something suspicious when they
[00:23:55] went up the NBA killed them right away and left their bodies liner.
[00:24:01] And so it was really well planned.
[00:24:02] They knew the camp.
[00:24:04] We had a promotion board.
[00:24:06] So all of the, at that time there was six FOBs, one through six.
[00:24:12] This was FOB 4 in Denang.
[00:24:14] And so all of the people up for promotions came in that day.
[00:24:19] Most of them stayed at night.
[00:24:20] On top of that, we had, they had monthly command and control briefing.
[00:24:25] So every CO, as well as the ZS3 or the EXO from each of the FOBs was all that FOB4.
[00:24:33] And then we had a command and control element that was based at the Denang Air Base.
[00:24:39] And they had just moved on to base.
[00:24:41] So had increased population and they knew it.
[00:24:44] And that's the way they planned it.
[00:24:46] And they planned it on a night when there's no moon.
[00:24:51] But to always respect your enemy.
[00:24:56] Always.
[00:24:57] And then we always carried a weapon, no matter where we went.
[00:24:59] There's one thing to be like F would be one.
[00:25:01] We had a good security there.
[00:25:02] But even then, you don't know because they, via combat, come and we found mortar markers
[00:25:08] on the roof of the clubhouse.
[00:25:10] And they had come in and walked it out.
[00:25:12] And there's part of their, via combat, come in and help do whatever it was in base.
[00:25:17] But they were also there marking targets for future mortar attacks on our, on our compound.
[00:25:22] Yeah.
[00:25:23] That would happen that my first deployment to Iraq, I was in Baghdad.
[00:25:26] And we would, they would occasionally roll up guys that had their GPS's, you know, the
[00:25:31] little contractors, guys that did everything from empty out the port of Potties.
[00:25:36] There was guys that cut hair.
[00:25:37] These were just, you know, there was civilians.
[00:25:39] Iraqi civilians that worked on the base.
[00:25:42] And occasionally they'd get rolled up.
[00:25:43] They'd look at their phone or look at their white.
[00:25:45] What are they carrying that have a GPS with them and sure enough they're out there trying
[00:25:47] to figure out where, where's a good place to drop a mortar.
[00:25:51] I actually, like, kicked all the contractors out of our compound completely.
[00:25:57] And that's something that I had heard from the Vietnam vets was like, nope, you don't,
[00:26:02] you don't know who's who, you just don't let them in.
[00:26:04] Yeah.
[00:26:05] So when I showed up, we actually moved the port of Potties outside of our compound.
[00:26:08] We had to go outside if we wanted to, they were still in American area.
[00:26:14] But they were not inside of our compound.
[00:26:17] So they, so there was no locals inside our compound at all, zero.
[00:26:21] That's what we did when I showed up.
[00:26:22] And that's why I did it because I was, I heard, hey, look, there's going to be people
[00:26:26] that will be gathering intelligence on you.
[00:26:28] And if they're in the compound, you can't, you can't vet every single civilian that's
[00:26:31] going to come out there.
[00:26:32] The contractors, scary.
[00:26:34] It is.
[00:26:35] Yeah, I was, that's, that is the chapter that you, you actually covered in two chapters
[00:26:41] because it's such a horrible incident, but that's incredible read to see what those guys
[00:26:47] went through.
[00:26:48] Oh, yeah.
[00:26:49] How many did you just go interview people?
[00:26:50] How did you get all that information?
[00:26:52] Well, um, several of our guys, Melville, be one with there at night.
[00:26:57] So on the 24th, after, by noon time, everything is settled down.
[00:27:02] They, you know, they failed in their attack.
[00:27:05] We had control to camp.
[00:27:06] A relief forest from F will be one went down, led by Colonel Barr, Lieutenant Colonel
[00:27:10] Barr, and they went through and cleaned up any of the left, last pockets of enemy soldiers.
[00:27:18] And there was a, a POW camp right next to us.
[00:27:21] And, initially, there was an effort to free the 500, so POWs that were going to break
[00:27:26] loose to come in to further help overrun our base.
[00:27:30] But a couple of, uh, people made a key effort, uh, on that line to the north to stop the, uh,
[00:27:38] pending escape of the NVA there.
[00:27:41] She's the ultimate tipping point in the direction.
[00:27:45] There's a good, there's a good, there's a good one to miss.
[00:27:48] So anyway, I, and answer your question.
[00:27:50] We have a lot of things in my mind.
[00:27:53] And then we closed that for B1 in January and went south.
[00:27:56] And so shoveled a guy's that had performed that night or survived it were all there.
[00:28:00] I talked to him, said mental notes.
[00:28:04] And then, uh, when I worked on the book, we came back.
[00:28:06] And I did a piece for soldier of fortune.
[00:28:08] I used to wrote under a nomadate plume.
[00:28:11] And we did a first story written about that back in the day.
[00:28:15] And the soldier of fortune printed back in the 80s sometime or early 90s.
[00:28:20] So I used that and then build on it.
[00:28:22] And then John Peters, the co-author on that book, uh, on the ground.
[00:28:26] He was there at night.
[00:28:27] And he was in the hooch.
[00:28:29] He and the, the god shawl sf, the two drunk from that night.
[00:28:34] Like many of the people that were there.
[00:28:37] And, uh, but the young, uh, Bill Brick charged out a hooch.
[00:28:41] And it was gunned down immediately because they had machine gun, uh, positions set up.
[00:28:45] So anybody came out, they would gun them down.
[00:28:49] And that one element that was up on top of the mountain there.
[00:28:52] Yeah.
[00:28:53] And there was, there was one American with multiple, uh, is that right?
[00:28:56] There was one American.
[00:28:57] There was two, uh, Ed Aims was up there.
[00:28:59] He was the one zero.
[00:29:00] And the Larry Trimble was actually one doing a lot of the operational stuff.
[00:29:03] Because, uh, Aims was monitoring the radio.
[00:29:07] And it was he Larry and his people to took out the mortars that night, or the, the
[00:29:12] Cassi rate would have been much higher.
[00:29:14] And then their indigest said, hey, we're going back down the next day.
[00:29:18] The next day.
[00:29:19] Cause Ed Aims went out.
[00:29:20] The, the king became in, lifted him out.
[00:29:22] They put it in replacement.
[00:29:23] Who sprayed his ankle or something, getting off the helicopter.
[00:29:26] So he could not move.
[00:29:28] But he, so he worked the radio.
[00:29:29] But Larry was the guy taking care of everything on top.
[00:29:33] And, uh, yeah, so the indigest said they wanted to go down the day and Larry said, well,
[00:29:36] you might run into ambushes going down marble mountain.
[00:29:40] Because what we didn't know was underneath marble mountain.
[00:29:43] There was layers of, of, uh, stories.
[00:29:47] They had hospitals down there via con training grounds, everything else, which we learned
[00:29:51] about years later.
[00:29:53] Right along with the Buddhist monks that were all down there.
[00:29:55] They, they co-asict the peacefully.
[00:29:58] And so, uh, yeah, they went down and Larry's for a while was by himself up there.
[00:30:02] Yeah, they got to.
[00:30:03] That's our great.
[00:30:04] Yeah, those guys get a firefight.
[00:30:05] They come back.
[00:30:06] Yeah.
[00:30:07] But when they left, he's up there by himself.
[00:30:09] He's just, uh, hey, I got this, he's the loon Ranger.
[00:30:12] He's the loon Ranger.
[00:30:13] Your own Ranger going to defend this thing until he's dead.
[00:30:14] That was his attitude.
[00:30:15] That was, that's Larry.
[00:30:16] Reak an unbelievable.
[00:30:17] Oh, yeah.
[00:30:18] Absolutely.
[00:30:19] You got to get this book and read these, these parts.
[00:30:21] They're, uh, they're epic.
[00:30:26] Epic heroism.
[00:30:27] I mean, and, and crazy, and incredible lessons learned as well.
[00:30:31] And I know you're not, we're just talking about lessons learned at how easily lessons
[00:30:35] get forgotten in the military.
[00:30:37] And it happens in any organization, but in the military for sure, you know, because guys
[00:30:40] are going there in a command for two or three years or maybe four years.
[00:30:43] And then there are somewhere else.
[00:30:44] And then someone else comes in and different experiences and no one agrees on what's
[00:30:47] right and what's wrong.
[00:30:48] And the next thing, you know, you, the lessons are gone.
[00:30:50] You forget them.
[00:30:51] So these books right here capture some incredibly important lessons for anyone on the battlefield,
[00:30:59] or even close to it.
[00:31:01] Um, I want to get down to kind of the end of your first tour here.
[00:31:07] And I'm going to the book when I, when one April, 1969 arrived, I was a conflicted man.
[00:31:15] The end of my tour was slated for 27 April.
[00:31:18] So far, I had avoided the short timers attitude because, after all, it was Vietnam and
[00:31:23] we were engaged in guerrilla warfare across the fence.
[00:31:27] Nonetheless, I couldn't believe I was still alive.
[00:31:31] I looked forward to going back to the world.
[00:31:34] And yet I felt incredibly guilty about leaving Sau, hepp, and fuck.
[00:31:40] And the other men at CCN behind, which is CCN is what they renamed FF4.
[00:31:47] I believed in the SF mission, but how long could RT Idaho go on without a casualty?
[00:31:55] We hadn't lost a man to hostile fire since May, 1968 when the previous incarnation lost
[00:32:01] six men in Louss.
[00:32:04] RT Idaho had run a lot of missions, been in a lot of firefights.
[00:32:08] It wasn't a stay behind team that's schemes to remain in camp.
[00:32:13] I was alive, thanks, in large part, to the skills and courage of Sau, hip, torn, and the
[00:32:19] other Vietnamese team members, as well as to the courage and flying skills of the Vietnamese
[00:32:25] King B pilots and the American pilots.
[00:32:28] The Marines in Scarface, the judge and the executioner, as well as attack air pilots who
[00:32:33] always responded to our calls for help.
[00:32:36] We were alive because the recon gods had smiled on the reassembled RT Idaho.
[00:32:42] Somehow the magical elixir of trust, training, instinct, guts, timing, and gods' good
[00:32:48] grace had fallen into place.
[00:32:52] There were other things that were collectively wearing on me toward the end of my first
[00:32:56] tour duty.
[00:32:57] By April 1969, both Lynn Black and I were frustrated with having enemy soldiers shooting
[00:33:02] us out of so many targets as the helicopters approached LZs for landing.
[00:33:07] And when we weren't in the field, we found RT Idaho getting frequently assigned to guard
[00:33:13] duty atop marble mountain because Black and I had continually butted heads with the ramps.
[00:33:19] To add insult to injury, there conveniently were never any choppers available to airlift
[00:33:24] us to the top.
[00:33:26] We had to hump all our supplies ourselves, which was still a dicey business in the
[00:33:30] light of all the VC activity in the village to the south of the mountain and that in
[00:33:35] the cave deep inside it.
[00:33:37] We always moved up marble mountain on full alert.
[00:33:40] On one such trip, Sau was training hung to run point.
[00:33:44] Long earned his pay that day as he found and deactivated more than a dozen booby traps, including
[00:33:50] a claymore mine that had a pressure released firing device on it.
[00:33:56] So you're sort of down time, like hey we're back in camp, we're just going to pull a
[00:34:02] little easy duty here, just stand some guard duty.
[00:34:04] Oh, we got to go up to marble mountain.
[00:34:06] Oh, there's no one to take us up there.
[00:34:08] So we're going to have to patrol up there and you're going up there and you find on your
[00:34:11] way up there more than a dozen booby traps.
[00:34:13] Oh yeah, that's trying to get to your guard duty.
[00:34:17] Yeah, I guess that could wear on you a little bit.
[00:34:20] That was significant day.
[00:34:23] We didn't sleep well that night.
[00:34:24] Oh, right.
[00:34:25] So this marble mountain, how long was the patrol to get there from base?
[00:34:28] Well, it was close by and we would use you walk around to the south side of the mountain
[00:34:35] and there were stairs that you'd go up before you get to the trails because it was so steep
[00:34:41] to get to the top that there's only a certain number of ways you could walk up.
[00:34:46] And you always try to alter how you go, but there's only so many times you can alter it.
[00:34:52] And so that day the way we went, so a sal on home really earned their pay.
[00:34:57] I mean, they they fell out of these damn things.
[00:34:59] But that had been me.
[00:35:01] Now Lynn's Lynn was a little bit more sharp and keen on me, but that had been me.
[00:35:05] I would have been a hamburger meal on that first claim more.
[00:35:11] And so that stuff, like I said, it's wearing on you.
[00:35:13] Obviously, it would wear on anyone.
[00:35:15] But that's the end of your tour.
[00:35:16] You get done with that tour and we touched on this a little bit on the last time.
[00:35:22] But I wanted to go a little bit deeper on it.
[00:35:24] You're coming back to America after your first to want to Vietnam.
[00:35:29] How old are you?
[00:35:30] It's a 69 23.
[00:35:32] 23 years old.
[00:35:34] And when you get back again, you touched on this a little bit, but they assigned you to
[00:35:40] a signal company, meaning you're not an operational guy.
[00:35:47] And you're in with some, and you're just coming out of Vietnam.
[00:35:51] You're hearing people are saying, like, hey, what do you, you know, wasn't even, wasn't even,
[00:35:57] there's guys that are actively avoiding going to Vietnam.
[00:36:00] Oh, yeah, this is the 10 special forces group.
[00:36:03] And they had been in Germany since 52.
[00:36:07] And they had, they were actively involved in a cold war.
[00:36:10] And those guys earned their pay there.
[00:36:12] In fact, one of the first books just came out on Dead A, which was there in the cold war.
[00:36:19] But this is a special forces unit.
[00:36:22] So companies A through D were active.
[00:36:26] E because of my MLS, Kamal.
[00:36:29] Oh, because you were a radio man.
[00:36:30] I threw a radio man.
[00:36:31] They stuck me there.
[00:36:33] And we had four or five Patoons and they're new officers.
[00:36:38] They're butter bars, like right out of OCS.
[00:36:41] They're young.
[00:36:42] And they treated everybody like was basic training.
[00:36:46] And my first thing was, excuse me, this is an SF unit, even though it's signal.
[00:36:50] So the signal, the officers inside that Patoon, they're not, they're not SF guys.
[00:36:57] They're like communications officers.
[00:36:59] You know what?
[00:37:00] I'm not even sure I just knew they were young and dumb.
[00:37:03] And not respected.
[00:37:04] And then we had the Patoon, other Patoon swords.
[00:37:06] Each one was fat and out of shape and had avoided going to Vietnam and was proud of it.
[00:37:12] And made fun of me and a couple of guys from D company because we weren't smart enough
[00:37:17] to figure how to get out of going to Vietnam.
[00:37:19] I'm going to like, wait a minute, what do you wear on your head?
[00:37:22] And so we had some difficult moments dealing with those guys.
[00:37:27] And so we had routine training, a signal company with trucks and all this stuff to go and
[00:37:32] do these things.
[00:37:33] I said, whenever we do one of these little practice runs for a weekend or a mission,
[00:37:38] we will win.
[00:37:39] Could we're going to get out of here?
[00:37:41] Everybody else do the KP and stuff.
[00:37:43] And that just pissed everybody off all the more.
[00:37:45] I pushed our young guys and pushed them hard.
[00:37:48] And based, we do these training missions.
[00:37:51] You're out there three or four days.
[00:37:52] It's just com-o.
[00:37:54] And the way we did it, I can't even tell you details now because I just hated it.
[00:38:00] But we won. We were the first ones back to the base.
[00:38:03] We had the most signal contact, all the criterion we met and we beat the fat ramps.
[00:38:10] Now, and so you're back, where were you stationed at that point?
[00:38:16] Four devs, Massachusetts.
[00:38:17] So then you've got to, I mean, some people that weren't ever in the military don't realize
[00:38:21] this, but even when you're in the military, when you're back in America, you go in
[00:38:23] Iraq with normal.
[00:38:24] So, really, you go to restaurants, you go to bars.
[00:38:27] You live a normal life except for your job, you know, whatever the hours you've got to
[00:38:30] work your job.
[00:38:31] Then you're living-
[00:38:34] How was that transition?
[00:38:36] Like now you're just going out for a pizza on a Thursday night.
[00:38:40] Now you're going out to have some beers on a Friday night or Saturday night.
[00:38:43] How was that transition?
[00:38:46] It was difficult because actually we didn't transition.
[00:38:50] Basically, hang out mostly with the SF guys up there because there's Massachusetts.
[00:38:54] I didn't know much about the small towns and I bought a 442W30, had to get a job just
[00:39:01] to pump gas on a weekend, just to get actually a cast.
[00:39:04] I hope you'd be able to pay for any insurance.
[00:39:06] Did you buy a brand new?
[00:39:07] No, used.
[00:39:08] Even used.
[00:39:09] Oh yeah.
[00:39:10] I think it was expensive, huh?
[00:39:11] Oh, it could go.
[00:39:12] I blew it up on the turn plate at 130 miles an hour, but it was a great car in between.
[00:39:20] And so I'm working.
[00:39:21] And you know what was your, what was your side job?
[00:39:23] Oh, pump and gas.
[00:39:24] I had a local shelf station at one of the little towns outside of Fort Devons.
[00:39:30] And the guy was a, he was a World War II vet and he had put up a sign.
[00:39:35] I bought gas and there's a sign to help one.
[00:39:37] I said, hey, I need a cast.
[00:39:39] Can I work for you on weekends or if I get a day off?
[00:39:42] He said, yeah, come on in.
[00:39:43] So I was highly trained.
[00:39:44] I could do oil changes.
[00:39:45] I could grease them up.
[00:39:48] And it was fun.
[00:39:50] And so here you were Greenbrae special forces, Vietnam.
[00:39:55] Just got down with your first tour and your pumping gas on the weekends.
[00:40:01] That had to be a little bit of a, of like a tough thing to swallow.
[00:40:06] It was, but you know, we swallowed it.
[00:40:08] Yeah.
[00:40:09] Because this like I got us survive.
[00:40:11] And at the time, I was just, I still had a sweet thing down south.
[00:40:15] Okay.
[00:40:16] And so she was dealing some issues.
[00:40:18] I'm up there, this whole thing's fallen apart.
[00:40:21] And Boston Boston was so anti military.
[00:40:24] I mean, it just piece freaks, galore.
[00:40:27] I went to town twice.
[00:40:28] And that I never went back because it was they could tell that we were in the military
[00:40:32] because our heroes still shorter than the average ship, be in Boston.
[00:40:36] Not a good time.
[00:40:37] So we just stayed with our guys, der bars.
[00:40:41] We had a few engagements in the bars.
[00:40:43] But yeah, I was glad to get out of there.
[00:40:46] And we ended up getting in trouble for some of those engagements.
[00:40:48] Yes, we did.
[00:40:49] Told that the MPs came by cleared base the day before they got there.
[00:40:53] And I, I can, so I know taking the fifth amendment on that one.
[00:40:57] This is the stock operation that will remain secret indeed.
[00:41:02] So you were a little bit on the land.
[00:41:03] You were a little bit on the run.
[00:41:04] Yes.
[00:41:05] And so you run to your, to this woman in DC, is that where she was?
[00:41:12] Oh yeah, the Pentagon, there was a woman in charge of SF orders for Southeast Asia.
[00:41:16] Her name is Billy Alexander.
[00:41:18] She's one of our saints, patron saints.
[00:41:21] There was, there was a woman that ran the officers that detailed the officers in this
[00:41:26] healtimes for a long, long time.
[00:41:28] I want to see if she did it for 40 something years.
[00:41:30] Really?
[00:41:31] And yeah, I mean, it's the exact same thing.
[00:41:33] Like if, if you, if you knew her and she was always great to me.
[00:41:37] And I mean, she was very nice to me and she took great care of me.
[00:41:40] Probably because I was just lucky enough to have some senior people that knew me and
[00:41:44] you know, put a good word, but she was always very nice to me.
[00:41:47] But I saw what happened to some guys that maybe she didn't like so much.
[00:41:50] And it was rough.
[00:41:52] So it sounds like you know, you showed up with some flowers or a bottle of wine.
[00:41:56] She was like, and you went, this is independent in the puzzle palace, it's a Pentagon.
[00:42:00] Yeah, yeah, same thing.
[00:42:02] Same thing.
[00:42:03] Yeah, this, no, this, well, and like I said, this woman was always super nice, but she,
[00:42:08] she wielded a lot of power, you know, inside inside the seal officer community.
[00:42:13] Wow.
[00:42:14] Because if she didn't like you, well, she was right in your orders.
[00:42:17] Oh, yeah.
[00:42:18] And if she liked you, then you know, it was like, you know, and if you were neutral, then what,
[00:42:20] you know, she, you're going to do what she's going to do.
[00:42:22] But yeah, it sounded like Mrs. Billy Alexander was the same type of thing.
[00:42:26] Oh, yeah, I drove down all night.
[00:42:28] Got there right in the morning, Pentagon opened, walked in.
[00:42:30] This is before any metal detectors, walked in, asked the guy where she was went down, gave
[00:42:35] it a wine to flowers.
[00:42:36] Please give me orders, came back at the end of the day, drove back all night.
[00:42:40] How many people were just going all the way to the Pentagon to try and get orders back
[00:42:43] to Vietnam?
[00:42:44] Not many.
[00:42:45] I'm told not many.
[00:42:48] But there were some.
[00:42:49] There were other SF guys that really felt more comfortable.
[00:42:51] And they wanted to be there.
[00:42:52] And there's, I wish I could line up the stories, but there's like Billy Wall and others
[00:42:56] that have gone to her over the years.
[00:42:59] And gotten her assignments, they wanted.
[00:43:01] She, care of SF.
[00:43:02] Yeah, that's, I, I told the story of the day.
[00:43:04] It was kind of, there's, so there's that woman who's the civilian that handles the detailing.
[00:43:11] But then there's a, there's a seal officer that would kind of work with her side by side.
[00:43:16] And he would get rotated out every couple years.
[00:43:18] Well, when 9-11 happened, I knew that guy.
[00:43:21] And he was a guy that I had worked for.
[00:43:24] He was an officer and he was a great guy.
[00:43:25] And I had a lot of respect for him.
[00:43:26] And we got along very well.
[00:43:27] And as soon as 9-11 happened, I called him and said, hey, you know, I was going to college
[00:43:31] at the time, I said, sir, please give me a college sent me back to, so he backed her team
[00:43:34] right now.
[00:43:35] I don't need to college.
[00:43:36] I'll finish it online or whatever.
[00:43:38] As it just, please give me back to your team.
[00:43:40] And, you know, he said, listen, this war's going to last long time.
[00:43:43] But I was having a conversation with him a few months ago with him and his wife actually.
[00:43:48] And I was saying, oh, yeah, and remember when I called you and I asked you, please send
[00:43:50] me.
[00:43:51] And he said, he said, everyone called him.
[00:43:55] And it made me feel like that's pretty awesome.
[00:43:57] Like it wasn't like, you know, I guess in my mind, I didn't think I was special, but in
[00:44:01] my mind, I thought, you know, I really wanted to go.
[00:44:02] So did everybody else.
[00:44:04] Every other seal that that wasn't in an out of seal team, everyone wanted to go.
[00:44:10] When the war happened, everyone wanted to go, do their part, you know.
[00:44:12] It's pretty cool.
[00:44:13] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:44:14] And he was right.
[00:44:16] The war lasted a lot longer than any of us thought it would.
[00:44:19] So you get your orders back to Vietnam.
[00:44:23] What'd you do with the car?
[00:44:25] Well, but I had a year, really, four, four, two.
[00:44:27] Trade it didn't got a little F-85, three speed on the column.
[00:44:31] This is survival vehicle.
[00:44:33] And so I just parked that and that took care of it when I was gone.
[00:44:39] And so I went back, I just went home and said, hey, I'm going back to normal.
[00:44:44] I had no leave time.
[00:44:46] I could have burned it all up previously.
[00:44:48] And so I went home and broke my mom's heart and told that I'm going back to my sister
[00:44:54] rammy to the airport the next day.
[00:44:56] And then I went back to heading back to Vietnam.
[00:44:59] Yeah, your mom must have been.
[00:45:02] What did your dad think?
[00:45:04] Well, dad was, I'll support you son.
[00:45:07] And he was, to his credit.
[00:45:09] He never had an opinion.
[00:45:11] Never asked an foreign opinion because he had the firm at the war.
[00:45:15] Family deferment because he had to run the family business.
[00:45:19] And then my uncle flew over the hump.
[00:45:20] So we had family service.
[00:45:23] And he said, good luck.
[00:45:26] If you need anything, let us know.
[00:45:28] And my mom was just like, she's a little bit more emotional, but tough old farm growth
[00:45:32] from Central Jersey, that's farm growing now.
[00:45:34] And even then did they know anything about what your last deployment was like?
[00:45:39] No.
[00:45:40] No, we never talked about it.
[00:45:42] Just glad you're home.
[00:45:43] Yep, glad to be home.
[00:45:44] Was it that no idea what kind of situation you'd been in?
[00:45:49] No, we really couldn't talk about it.
[00:45:51] And like, if I missed as you were not on air, but many years later, my dad
[00:45:58] came up to me and said, you know, I've finally read across the fence and it says, now I
[00:46:01] know why this guy came by and took our trash.
[00:46:06] So he said, yeah, so they got to those guys with tall black guy who come by and pick
[00:46:10] up our trash.
[00:46:12] So he had to be from the FBI because they were checking my trash to see if I wrote anything.
[00:46:17] That was a violation of the agreement that we signed in the name.
[00:46:21] The 20-year agreement.
[00:46:23] You won't talk about it.
[00:46:24] It won't write about it.
[00:46:25] They checked you on your ears.
[00:46:26] So dad and he just got picked up to transport and once could dad recognize her, he saw
[00:46:31] him down at the post office, wasn't nearly FBI officer.
[00:46:34] He figured, oh, that FBI guy's checking on my Johnny.
[00:46:39] That's sidebar.
[00:46:42] Yeah, that's kind of crazy that they're putting all that effort to do that.
[00:46:47] And yet you're out pump and gas.
[00:46:53] But that crazy to me.
[00:46:55] Yeah.
[00:46:56] But I gave a great new job, though, buddy.
[00:46:58] You could have your job, your grease you need.
[00:47:00] That's awesome.
[00:47:02] Yeah, that's crazy.
[00:47:04] You know, I guess when I'm older now, like you know, when I was a kid, I worked at
[00:47:11] fast food restaurants.
[00:47:12] You know what I mean?
[00:47:13] And now I think, man, I would not want to do that right now.
[00:47:16] No, it's the funny thing was I had a little 25, like the little brownie 25, always
[00:47:20] carrying my pocket.
[00:47:21] This was Boston.
[00:47:22] There's still some people that were like less than friendly up there.
[00:47:25] I said, I hope I get robbed.
[00:47:27] I just want to kill me or rob her.
[00:47:29] But that didn't happen, so.
[00:47:32] Well, what did happen?
[00:47:33] We got you back of Vietnam.
[00:47:35] Indeed.
[00:47:36] So you get back to Vietnam.
[00:47:39] Go back to the book.
[00:47:40] You're the casualty rates for saw-greecon teams, with a highest for any unit in Vietnam.
[00:47:46] We all had our close calls.
[00:47:48] And thus, each of us was given ample opportunity for the truth of this observation to be
[00:47:52] incised on his soul.
[00:47:56] None perhaps so, more so than the young, hard-charging one-zero of RT Michigan, Sergeant
[00:48:04] Elden Bargewell, no one who ever met him doubted his professionalism or determination.
[00:48:10] He was not only meticulous when preparing his team for a mission, and a fearless leader
[00:48:14] went on the ground.
[00:48:16] But he also possessed a biting wit and an absolute intolerance when it came to fools and
[00:48:22] ramps, fools and ramps being a redundancy to his way of thinking.
[00:48:28] So this was interesting because you talk about Bargewell and in the story that you tell,
[00:48:39] they're out on an op and he finds a vest in AK-47 vest and he wants it.
[00:48:43] He wants the AK, he just found them laying around and a bunker or something.
[00:48:46] So he puts on the vest and he gives the AK to one of his in-dage guys and then he ends
[00:48:52] up getting shot in the chest and that vest actually saved his life because it hit one
[00:48:58] of the magazines that was in the vest.
[00:49:00] Correct.
[00:49:01] Crazy story.
[00:49:02] And what was interesting, so when I was in Germany in 1998, I was stationed at Naval Special
[00:49:09] Warfare Unit 2 just outside of Stuttgart and my boss, who is the commander of Naval Special
[00:49:17] Warfare Unit 2, he obviously directed to the guy that was in charge of Special Operations
[00:49:22] Command Europe.
[00:49:24] And my boss, who I had a ton of respect for who's a incredible guy, a great guy, and taught
[00:49:29] me a ton, he would tell me, hey, the uses of command are this guy, he's awesome, his
[00:49:36] name is Bargewell.
[00:49:37] You would tell me stories about he just absolutely loved Bargewell and talked about him
[00:49:43] with the highest respect possible.
[00:49:46] And it was awesome and I knew about Bargewell.
[00:49:50] I mean, I basically learned about him initially from him, but then later on, yeah, I
[00:49:56] would read about him, small world and what a great guy was and what an epic soldier
[00:50:01] he was and what a great example.
[00:50:03] You know, so many people say he's the one of the foremost examples of how you'd want
[00:50:07] to be as a soldier, just a great guy and I was lucky enough to have a degree of connection
[00:50:12] to have my boss work for him and he must have been, he must have been a two star at
[00:50:17] the time.
[00:50:18] I think it was a two star at the time.
[00:50:19] At the time, so there he was and I think he did 40 something years, almost 40,
[00:50:24] yeah, a couple months shy.
[00:50:26] Yeah.
[00:50:28] So that's pretty awesome to read about Bargewell.
[00:50:32] Oh, yeah.
[00:50:35] You get to this point here where you're talking about how crazy.
[00:50:39] And I often try and explain how and combat unexpected things happen.
[00:50:44] Things that you can't make it up, things happen are so crazy.
[00:50:48] And you've got a section in here where you're talking about Lynn Black, who's your run
[00:50:53] and mate for a long time.
[00:50:54] Yeah, then when I left, he took over the team.
[00:50:57] When I came back, I went on a team then he probably went up to speed about the A.O. had
[00:51:03] changed in five months.
[00:51:04] Yeah.
[00:51:05] And then we took turns and then they said, hey, you guys got too much experience.
[00:51:08] So Lynn went to the Dismore Snooping and pooping and then I took over right to Hogan.
[00:51:13] And this is when he's solo on the ground.
[00:51:15] Or he's you're not there.
[00:51:16] He's not solo, but he's with his team.
[00:51:18] He's in Louss and they're on patrol.
[00:51:21] They're deep in enemy territory, which is just like just the way you guys rolled.
[00:51:26] And the team starts to hear people following them.
[00:51:30] And now they start stepping up their pace, they're trying to move, they're trying to do things
[00:51:34] to disguise their trail and all that.
[00:51:38] And finally, they really like, OK, we're definitely getting followed.
[00:51:41] If the two days, after two days of being followed.
[00:51:44] And so here we go, go back to the book.
[00:51:45] However, before Black could give the word to change course, the noise is suddenly returned.
[00:51:50] Only now it sounded as though a large number of enemy soldiers was headed straight for them
[00:51:55] and the troops were not in the least trying to hide their movement.
[00:51:58] This is it.
[00:51:59] Fault Black, the trackers have linked with reinforcements and they're about to try and overrun
[00:52:03] us.
[00:52:04] He immediately told the team to head for the ridge, form a line, and get ready for a fight.
[00:52:10] Claymore mines were putting quickly into place and Black dug out the radio handset in anticipation
[00:52:16] of calling Covey.
[00:52:18] Black was totally convinced he would soon be declaring a prairie fire emergency.
[00:52:23] Black when Black was with RT Alabama.
[00:52:26] He had faced a massive frontal assault waves by determined NVA, so he knew what to expect
[00:52:32] and he knew what needed to be done.
[00:52:35] Having moved the team up onto the ridge line, he knew he had the tactical advantage.
[00:52:40] If the enemy wanted a bloody fight and it certainly sounded as though they did, the NVA
[00:52:44] could charge uphill and RT Idaho would give it to them.
[00:52:49] Everyone in place that weapons on full automatic and begun and unbending the metal pins
[00:52:53] on their hand grenades.
[00:52:55] The ends were bent in order to keep the pins from accidentally being pulled to the ring
[00:52:59] and hang up on a branch or something else.
[00:53:01] High explosive rounds in the M79 were replaced with rounds containing large buckshot, capable
[00:53:07] of blasting a devastating hole in the enemy's ranks.
[00:53:11] With everything in place and ready, RT Idaho faced the jungle and waited for whatever
[00:53:16] was coming.
[00:53:18] The Frenchman caught sight of something approaching, but the vegetation was such that he
[00:53:22] couldn't get a clean shot at it.
[00:53:24] He figured it was someone moving in a crouch because it only stood about four feet off
[00:53:28] the ground.
[00:53:29] He could see other similarly poised figures behind it, all moving noiseily toward
[00:53:34] the team.
[00:53:35] And if you more feet, they would reach a point where the jungle fined out and he'd
[00:53:39] figured he'd have a good shot at them.
[00:53:41] Like any recon man, the torno had fought about such a moment, the moment when an outnumbered
[00:53:48] team was forced to make a stand.
[00:53:51] Plus, like all the other RT Idaho members, he was very tense but ready for anything.
[00:53:58] Anything that is, but what stepped into the clearing.
[00:54:02] He couldn't believe his eyes.
[00:54:04] He found himself staring not an oriental gentleman in Pith Helmets armed with AK-47s,
[00:54:11] but long-armed, hairy, reddish-oranged creatures with a decidedly human features.
[00:54:17] It was a small band of orangutans, probably a family of them.
[00:54:20] They had been tracking the team out of natural curiosity trying to figure out what these
[00:54:24] hairless apes were up to in their territory.
[00:54:27] Yeah.
[00:54:28] Oh yeah.
[00:54:29] That's probably the happiest monkeys they ever saw.
[00:54:35] Oh yeah, can you imagine?
[00:54:37] Yeah.
[00:54:38] For sure.
[00:54:41] I was in Sri Lanka and we got to see that.
[00:54:45] They would hear them coming and they would be moving through the trees and it was really
[00:54:49] cool.
[00:54:50] Yeah, just out.
[00:54:51] But yeah, you'd hear all this noise and it would be a bunch of monkeys coming through
[00:54:54] the trees.
[00:54:55] And we had that right on the floor.
[00:54:57] Yeah.
[00:54:58] We got online.
[00:54:59] We were ready for the assault and it's like we got overrun by monkeys.
[00:55:02] All right.
[00:55:04] Now we're getting to the point where you, so that was, that was Lynn Blackwork and on
[00:55:09] his own and now we're getting when you returned.
[00:55:11] When I returned to CCN at the end of October 1969, I immediately reported to Sergeant
[00:55:16] Major John Hobbs and asked if I could rejoin RT Idaho.
[00:55:20] He said that, let's turn know, had just completed his torn return, state side.
[00:55:25] There was an opening for an American and I could fill it.
[00:55:28] But Lynn M. Blackt Jr. is still the one zero and you two are both experienced to one
[00:55:34] zero.
[00:55:35] I reminded him that I'd been away for five months and needed some time to get back
[00:55:38] in the flow of things.
[00:55:39] I added I'd be happy to serve as Blacks one one for a while because I respected his
[00:55:43] judgment.
[00:55:45] As I put now you go and meet with the team as I approach, I saw Black and Salle leading
[00:55:50] the team away from the range.
[00:55:51] Once they caught sight of me, their faces lit up and there was a rush of feelings of
[00:55:55] greetings.
[00:55:56] As I shook Blacks hands, hand the teams surrounded us dancing about almost like children
[00:56:02] and the good nature taunts instantly began flowing hot and heavy.
[00:56:06] The gross insult being one of the most accepted ways a recon man can show affection.
[00:56:12] I was subjected to a whole litany of them aimed at everything from my intelligence to my
[00:56:17] sexual orientation.
[00:56:19] In the midst of it all, Black totally cool as usual asked if I was back on the team.
[00:56:23] Yes, Sergeant, I replied, I'm reporting for duty.
[00:56:26] I'm a new one one.
[00:56:29] I know more about the team, the AO and the bullshit in camp.
[00:56:33] Oh, it's our you know more about the team, the AO and the bullshit here in camp than I do.
[00:56:39] I want I want to black to understand I was willingly putting myself under his command and
[00:56:44] that my goal was not to challenge him but to learn from him a recon man who thinks he
[00:56:49] knows it all is a recon man headed for trouble.
[00:56:52] And if I could capture those, that attitude right there and distill it among every person
[00:56:59] that's moving into a leadership position.
[00:57:01] Like this, the humility that you show here, the willingness to subordinate your own ego
[00:57:06] is like the best sign of a great leader when you check into a situation, oh you know what?
[00:57:12] I don't know everything.
[00:57:13] And by the way, if I think I know everything I'm wrong and oh there's someone that's
[00:57:16] been here for a while, guess what?
[00:57:18] Cool, I got no problem working for you.
[00:57:20] I'm here to support, I'm here to look out for the team, I'm here to help the team win,
[00:57:24] not here to look out for my own little agenda.
[00:57:28] So that was awesome.
[00:57:29] And that was been black, he's just an amazing man.
[00:57:32] And so I totally respected him and it was glad that it worked out thanks to Bill L. Alexander
[00:57:38] or his or cut, get over there pretty quick.
[00:57:41] And with Lynn, he had done a tour duty with the 173 and he lost a brother there and he
[00:57:48] still came back because he wanted to get fair share of an V.A. dead just to take some personal
[00:57:54] revenge.
[00:57:56] And you know, we had that mission where he came up against the 10,000 and survived
[00:58:01] the Mason's, one of our amazing heroes.
[00:58:04] And so yeah, I respected him and then later on we began, there's no SOP, the Sergeant
[00:58:10] Major Hobbes, he has this to do in SOP.
[00:58:13] Yeah, that sounds like that's something that we need to start doing the seal teams too.
[00:58:20] There's another section in here where you start talking about, well it appeared to me and
[00:58:24] we were actually talking about this before we started recording.
[00:58:27] That's when you go to meet the new commander and here we go back to the book because
[00:58:30] I hadn't met the C.C.N commander.
[00:58:32] I polished my jump boots to spit shine, hoping they might make a positive impression when
[00:58:36] I met him later that afternoon, the call came down to meet him.
[00:58:39] I put on the last pair of starched fatigues I had in my possession, put on my new green
[00:58:43] beret and the spit shine boots.
[00:58:46] So there you go, you're getting squared away.
[00:58:48] And again, this is one of those things where you're in your second tour of Vietnam, you
[00:58:52] know, your NSF guy, you've been in all kinds of really tough situations, but you're going
[00:58:57] to meet the commander.
[00:58:58] So be humble, get squared away uniform on, try and make a good impression.
[00:59:03] The commander of C.C.N made it a point to say that he ordered recon teams to break contact
[00:59:08] with enemy forces and continue the mission.
[00:59:11] I knew that several other recon teams had been unsuccessful in getting the tanker.
[00:59:15] So this guy's a tanker.
[00:59:16] This guy was a tanker.
[00:59:17] I don't know, what do you want to give us a little briefing on what the new commander was
[00:59:21] like?
[00:59:22] Yeah, he was a sign there and he was a friend of General Crate Nebons, who was the overall
[00:59:28] commander.
[00:59:29] Averyns had seceded Westmoreland as the top commanding officer for all of Vietnam.
[00:59:36] And he was one of his buddies.
[00:59:38] And so in order to build up his career, Averyns sent into NSF unit so he could build up his
[00:59:45] medals, get to time.
[00:59:47] And at that time in the army, if you serve the special forces, but long in six months,
[00:59:52] that has an officer your career was done.
[00:59:54] You would not get to promote the West Pointers and the other guys that we get, your career
[00:59:59] was a finnist.
[01:00:00] But if you had a certain amount of time and he came up there, which we learned later, was
[01:00:05] to build his medal portfolio.
[01:00:08] And we had some other stories that go on later on.
[01:00:10] So he never really adjusted nor did he apparently understand NSF and the way we worked, particularly
[01:00:18] on the recon teams.
[01:00:19] And the whole thing about break contact, and team mission, will serve, if you're with
[01:00:25] me on the ground, you want to say that, that's cool.
[01:00:29] But if you're up there, 5,000 feet and telling me to break contact, and team mission
[01:00:32] with a six-man recon team, we got 10,000 guys and one of the party.
[01:00:36] No, but I won't, you can't quite say it that way.
[01:00:39] So you're going to extreme PC mode.
[01:00:41] Yeah.
[01:00:42] And we're just meeting each other too.
[01:00:44] Yeah, I heard he was lacking compared to this previous commander we had here.
[01:00:50] Yeah.
[01:00:51] And the idea, I think it's patents said the commander in the field is always right, which
[01:00:55] is a great thing to lean towards from your perspective when you're up at 5,000 feet
[01:01:00] or back in its act of cooperation center, you've got to assume that your guy in the field
[01:01:03] is making a right call and trying to support him.
[01:01:06] And there's so many times where I read the stories that you write or stories of the other
[01:01:11] guys that you're writing about.
[01:01:13] The difference between the team being overrun and killed is a minute.
[01:01:20] It's two minutes.
[01:01:21] Sometimes it's seconds.
[01:01:22] It's like these other time when you got when the fire, as you're taking off, the fire
[01:01:27] consumes the area we're just, and that's followed by the NVA.
[01:01:30] So often these situations as soon as they started to go bad even in the slightest way, it's
[01:01:36] like, okay, we got to start figuring out how we're going to be out of here.
[01:01:39] Because if we try and fight by the time we make the decision, so if you try to do this
[01:01:43] idea of his, which is break contact and then continue the mission, I mean, you, is it really
[01:01:50] possible for you to break, so you lose a bunch of your ammo?
[01:01:53] What do you figure?
[01:01:54] A third of your ammo, half of your ammo in a quick gunfight.
[01:01:57] And now you think the enemy is just going to walk away.
[01:01:59] And the fundamental flaw here is this is a secret mission.
[01:02:04] It's a planned test on operation.
[01:02:06] If you may contact with the enemy, quote, you've been compromised, but somehow that didn't
[01:02:10] compute with the tanker.
[01:02:12] Yeah.
[01:02:13] So you're in there, you're talking to him, and here we go back to the book.
[01:02:17] I knew that several other recon team members had been unsuccessful in getting the tanker
[01:02:21] to change his mind on that topic, so I approached it from a different angle.
[01:02:24] I asked him to place himself in the one zeros position in the field because most of the
[01:02:28] one zeros I knew would do anything within their power to successfully complete a mission.
[01:02:32] If the tactical situation was conducive to it.
[01:02:35] But once compromised, it was often militarily difficult to do so with a six man recon team
[01:02:40] against large numbers of NVA soldiers.
[01:02:43] He promised me to think more on the topic.
[01:02:46] I saluted and returned to the team room, Leary of the New CEO.
[01:02:50] So you did even at a young age, you had the kind of understanding, maybe I'm not going
[01:02:57] to approach things head on.
[01:02:59] Hey, you're not trying to answer your dome.
[01:03:02] That's a bad idea.
[01:03:03] I was like, hey, you know, sir, from my perspective as a one zeros, what we see, it's
[01:03:07] a little bit different.
[01:03:08] I just was impressed with the fact that you were playing the game a little bit, trying
[01:03:12] to build a relationship with this guy, trying to fight on his own.
[01:03:14] I was fighting with Spiderman Park, some Pat Walkers, that that would be one.
[01:03:17] We had a couple officers there that really dickheads in the beginning.
[01:03:21] When they took over command, they would be making bad decisions and didn't understand
[01:03:26] a situation, but at least majority of the senior officers, meaning a major or a lieutenant
[01:03:32] or a criminal or a case.
[01:03:34] Majority, once they've been there and saw what we were up against in the field, it just
[01:03:38] took a while.
[01:03:39] It's that little time gap from when they land, they want to prove they're a hard ass, they
[01:03:42] want to be a good CEO, and they've got to worry about their career too.
[01:03:46] And between that reality and what we're dealing with on the ground, and usually most of
[01:03:51] them came around, this guy was not one of those that was, it didn't have that capability.
[01:03:56] You're just seeing it in his own perspective.
[01:03:59] Yeah, I learned from the pros, you know, Spiderman, Pat Walkers, John McGarvern, these are
[01:04:04] all senior NCOs, and I watched them in situations dealing with sergeant majors and S3,
[01:04:10] particularly on mission stuff, before the mission, and afterwards, how they would talk.
[01:04:15] And I picked up a lot of, I like to think I endured some of their PC skills because I had none.
[01:04:23] And what would you say that goal was from a leadership perspective as you're talking
[01:04:26] to these guys?
[01:04:27] I always say, look, if I got a boss, my goal is to try and form a relationship with
[01:04:32] me so that he listens to what I'm saying.
[01:04:34] Because if I go on and butt heads out of the gate, they're not going to listen to me.
[01:04:37] If I tell this boss, this tanker, hey, you don't know what you're talking about.
[01:04:41] Well, he's not going to listen to another word, I say.
[01:04:43] But if I say, hey, sir, Roger that, I want to give you some perspective on this that
[01:04:47] I've, you know, whatever, just trying to talk to them with respectfully trying to build a
[01:04:51] relationship.
[01:04:52] That's what I try to do.
[01:04:53] Yeah, with the CO, just try to stay away from deal the sergeant major, because
[01:04:57] they've been all been on the ground, they had experience and they appreciate what we're
[01:05:01] doing.
[01:05:02] Any new what we're doing day by day, our sergeant majors were squared away with a
[01:05:07] exceptional one, but most of them was I dulled.
[01:05:10] And we're just really lucky.
[01:05:11] So I try to deal with them, keep the CO site, stay away from us a best way.
[01:05:17] Officer avoidance.
[01:05:18] Officer avoidance.
[01:05:19] That's a good one.
[01:05:22] Uh, moving forward a little bit.
[01:05:25] And the late afternoon as Black and I went over the final mission preparations,
[01:05:28] Jenkins came running into our hooch with bad news.
[01:05:31] RT Maryland has been hit, Walton Browner down.
[01:05:35] Jesus H Christ, I can't believe it.
[01:05:37] Walton told me they, that they told him it was a dry hole.
[01:05:41] Give me your PRC 25.
[01:05:42] Someone said they heard Brown on the radio as I screwed the long antenna into the PRC 25.
[01:05:48] Black asked Jenkins, and he worked on the bright light team.
[01:05:52] He turned to me with the frown on his face, no word yet, replied Jenkins, but I want
[01:05:57] to go if there is one.
[01:05:59] We all moved outside to get better radio reception on our FM radios.
[01:06:03] The news got worse.
[01:06:05] Jenkins said he could hear Kavie talking to Brown.
[01:06:08] All the Americans were down and being overrun.
[01:06:13] Jenkins said he heard Kavie's last conversation with Brown when a wounded Brown told
[01:06:17] Kavie they were being overrun.
[01:06:21] He said he heard AK 47 firing, and then there was radio silence.
[01:06:27] All communications with RT Maryland were lost.
[01:06:32] The weather over the target closed in, precluding any bright light missions for 10 days.
[01:06:37] When a bright light finally went in, team members found only American web gear near the
[01:06:42] last loan location of RT Maryland.
[01:06:45] No further evidence of the team was ever located.
[01:06:50] All Brown and Sergeant Donald Monroe shoe, the newly appointed team member, who listed as
[01:06:57] presumptive killed in action.
[01:07:01] The loss of walled Brown and shoe was a reminder of just how deadly the AO continued to
[01:07:06] be in sag.
[01:07:08] As always, the recon men talked to each other afterward to see if there were any lessons
[01:07:13] to be learned from their loss.
[01:07:16] The weather was bad, Sergeant Major John Hobb suggested to black myself in a few others
[01:07:21] in recon that perhaps a recon book should be written containing and documenting the team's
[01:07:26] standard operating procedures.
[01:07:29] So there you go.
[01:07:31] That's when you got started on that.
[01:07:32] Yeah, I was caught by those.
[01:07:34] Lim was a phenomenal.
[01:07:35] He is a phenomenal artist.
[01:07:37] So he would do a lot of sketches and then we worked on every SOP from everything from just
[01:07:42] getting pre-mission.
[01:07:44] And what you would carry, break it down between the Americans, the adage, batteries,
[01:07:49] claim orders, five second fuses, and then adapting to the AO you're going in.
[01:07:56] Some of the areas in the layoffs, they had a lot of water.
[01:07:58] So you only carry one canteen of water and purification pills.
[01:08:02] Other times, if it was dry, you had to carry more water, which is more weight.
[01:08:06] So always try to stay low as a possible on that as one of the fluctuation weight factors
[01:08:12] that we can have some control over.
[01:08:15] How much were you usually carrying?
[01:08:17] At least 80 to 90 pounds back then.
[01:08:21] And we were waiting for your body weight.
[01:08:23] I think it was about 170, so can we weigh?
[01:08:27] Maybe 175, but the most after all on our.
[01:08:31] And you're carrying 80 pounds, 90 pounds?
[01:08:37] Yeah.
[01:08:38] I carried the radio plus the 600 plus rounds for the car.
[01:08:43] I'm sitting on the rounds and the flag grenades.
[01:08:46] And you guys know, we're nobody armor.
[01:08:48] Oh no, no helmet.
[01:08:50] The body armor back then was this clunky stuff.
[01:08:52] Yeah.
[01:08:53] And the helmet was just made too much noise.
[01:08:55] And it was weight.
[01:08:57] And in the jungle, we just get caught up with stuff where I just would have crevat all
[01:09:01] time and then try to cover my blonde hair.
[01:09:09] Again, this is every time I read one of the stories that you write about, you made
[01:09:16] it out.
[01:09:17] You had that extra clay more that gave you enough time to get on the bird.
[01:09:21] You laid down that extra fire.
[01:09:23] The airships showed up in time to put down cover fire and hear with these guys with
[01:09:28] our T-marinland, like those seconds didn't happen.
[01:09:31] Those aircraft didn't show whatever the case may be.
[01:09:35] And that's what was at stake every single time you went out there.
[01:09:38] Right.
[01:09:39] And just like we said in across the fence, all the Americans were killed.
[01:09:41] The endage were left alive.
[01:09:43] So they were hit by we assume sappers.
[01:09:46] And with the endage, it's a psychological thing on all the troops in camp.
[01:09:51] You had to deal with that again.
[01:09:53] But like with my team, we just pulled the team together and said, hey, tell us what you
[01:09:56] heard, we don't have a problem with you guys.
[01:09:59] But what just happens, just be advised, keep linen eye, appraised of anything you hear
[01:10:05] that could be negative or troublesome.
[01:10:07] And we'll squalch it right away or deal with it.
[01:10:12] In this case, did the endage make it out?
[01:10:15] Or did it never heard from again?
[01:10:16] No, two out of three made it out.
[01:10:18] One was killed as they came out of the forest.
[01:10:22] They were near a marine compound as some sort and because they were in ditch, when they came
[01:10:27] out arm, the marine took them out.
[01:10:30] And they are two were able to surround a surrender and make it gestures as some sort that
[01:10:35] they were able to get picked up, came back and they took them down the side gone for the full
[01:10:39] debrief and everything.
[01:10:41] And did you guys ever get word on that debrief?
[01:10:44] Wally.
[01:10:45] Really?
[01:10:46] The only thing we heard was from Kavi.
[01:10:47] Kavi said that the team had set up for his rest over night spot too early and he thought
[01:10:53] it was a dangerous spot.
[01:10:55] But the one zero didn't listen to him.
[01:10:58] And so everybody was surprised that he did it because Walt had been a one zero for a few
[01:11:04] months.
[01:11:05] He had been in Marine Corps first, came to SF and then he ran a few missions out of FB1.
[01:11:11] And FB1 shut down, he came down to SF before CCN.
[01:11:18] Would you guys always know who the Kavi was, who the Kavi rider was going to be?
[01:11:23] No.
[01:11:24] No.
[01:11:25] Sometimes it fluctuated, particularly at the we went down at SF before.
[01:11:30] Because the Air Force changed their pilots and all the Kavi riders we had at SF would be
[01:11:35] one, got reassigned somewhere else.
[01:11:38] So none of them carried on as Kavi riders.
[01:11:40] Now Pat Walken's came home, he did roast out.
[01:11:44] Spiderman, CCN, but he had another assignment and I saw a spider very little.
[01:11:49] I couldn't even tell you where it was assignment was.
[01:11:51] He just saw each other so little there.
[01:11:53] Because then I would busy running.
[01:11:55] Would the Kavi rider do all the mission planning with you?
[01:11:58] No.
[01:11:59] The Kavi rider and the pilot would be in for the final briefing at base or at the launch site.
[01:12:06] And it was just talk about LZs, anti aircraft, because they continued to bring down more
[01:12:14] anti aircraft.
[01:12:15] Everything from the 37 mic mics to the heavier anti aircraft artillery came in later.
[01:12:24] Did they ever get the Kavi's ever get shot at and shot down?
[01:12:29] Always.
[01:12:30] We had several went down.
[01:12:32] And there is what altitude would they fly at?
[01:12:38] Well, they would do everything from way up high when they're just doing a general recon.
[01:12:43] To when the team would be on the ground, they would have to spot the team either through smoke
[01:12:48] or mirror or from a location.
[01:12:51] You'd be on a problem point that they could pick us out.
[01:12:53] Well, most of the times would be signal mirror that we flashed she up to them.
[01:12:57] They'd lock in on us that way.
[01:12:59] But once they got to doing actual coverage, they would come down really low and sometimes
[01:13:05] nap and he or his stuff.
[01:13:06] And there would be O2 to slow movers and the little push pool.
[01:13:11] We lost several copies.
[01:13:13] It seems like those, I mean, I can't imagine being the Kavi rider in this one for our
[01:13:18] team, Maryland and you're there and you're basically watching your guys get overrun.
[01:13:25] And I mean, it is that you maybe made suggestions that they move somewhere else.
[01:13:29] But you know, well, they don't, but you're still supporting them.
[01:13:31] I mean, what a helpless feeling that's got to be rough.
[01:13:35] And most of the Kavi riders were guys that could not operate for whatever reason.
[01:13:41] No, they were well, they were former SF.
[01:13:43] So sometimes would be SF men that'd been in country for eight and a nine months.
[01:13:49] And then they'd be assigned to Kavi ride.
[01:13:50] So they had experience on the ground.
[01:13:52] They were short timers.
[01:13:53] So viewed as a job that was not quite as dangerous as being on the ground, but it had
[01:14:00] its own hidden dangers.
[01:14:02] Yeah.
[01:14:03] And it seems like you just want like someone that you really knew and trusted as your
[01:14:11] Kavi rider.
[01:14:12] Right.
[01:14:13] And so like in my case, we had a bunch of new ones.
[01:14:14] So this Kavi rider was great.
[01:14:17] He just picked everybody up, ran as well.
[01:14:20] We had a couple of others that we dealt with.
[01:14:22] And then some of these guys like Spiderman Park.
[01:14:23] So there's a couple of times when there's no air available.
[01:14:28] So you say, how low did they get?
[01:14:29] They would make a gun around with a car 15.
[01:14:32] Spiderman would hang out the window.
[01:14:33] Farron is car 15 at the NVA.
[01:14:35] I don't even know what to say to that.
[01:14:39] Yeah.
[01:14:40] And he wasn't the only Kavi rider did that.
[01:14:42] I mean, other guys have dropped around for an MCD-9.
[01:14:46] That's why they tried to do to give a support while we're waiting for the air force and
[01:14:51] the other air force had to get to.
[01:14:53] You know, I always thought, so when I went to see your school, you know, they taught us
[01:14:57] how to signal with the mirror.
[01:14:59] And in my mind, because I'm dumb, I would think like, I think like, how well does this
[01:15:03] really get to work?
[01:15:05] And I can't believe every, that's like your primary signal device.
[01:15:08] Absolutely.
[01:15:09] Was the signal mirror?
[01:15:10] Yeah, every time that we had been on a ground for a period of time, had to reconnect
[01:15:15] everything was all signal through the mirror.
[01:15:18] And we had to get the flash, you get the Kavi on the right side so he could see us, you know,
[01:15:24] everything, y'all, yeah.
[01:15:25] How big is that mirror?
[01:15:26] That was just a bigger signal mirror, like a, maybe five by three, three by five.
[01:15:33] Like a cell phone.
[01:15:35] Did you have, I had this, even though I didn't really believe in signal mirrors, I guess.
[01:15:40] I had this like special signal mirror that when you pointed it at the thing, it got like
[01:15:44] a little shade.
[01:15:45] There's a little circle in the middle that got a little shade on it when you'd be in the
[01:15:49] right spot.
[01:15:50] You know what I'm talking about?
[01:15:51] Yeah.
[01:15:52] I don't know.
[01:15:53] I never figured out how that quite worked.
[01:15:54] I want to get the flashy up so they could see it.
[01:15:56] Did you like the technique where you're aiming at your hand and pointing at the thing
[01:16:00] at the aircraft?
[01:16:01] No, I was just making sure we had the flashy and just pointed it in general.
[01:16:04] I didn't get that high level training you had.
[01:16:06] You do.
[01:16:07] You do.
[01:16:08] Well, thank God, I didn't ever have to do it.
[01:16:11] Because I probably wouldn't have been able to pull it off.
[01:16:13] Well, triple cannon is a little different than a desert.
[01:16:16] Yeah.
[01:16:17] And so in the triple cannon, that had to be a challenge, too.
[01:16:20] But yeah, you had to find a hole in the jungle to get through with the flashy in
[01:16:23] the first place.
[01:16:24] Then you had to get the cubby lined up with your hole and then with the mirror flash.
[01:16:29] You would look at us nowadays and think we were weak with all the aircraft that we've got.
[01:16:34] We got laser pointers.
[01:16:35] We got little signaling devices, transponders.
[01:16:39] We can't be your equipment.
[01:16:40] There's no question about that.
[01:16:42] Not the messenger.
[01:16:43] We would have run over both of our mothers for the last time.
[01:16:45] Oh, yeah.
[01:16:46] Yeah.
[01:16:47] For sure.
[01:16:48] Oh, yeah.
[01:16:49] And you guys had some starlight scope.
[01:16:50] Do you guys have some starlight thing?
[01:16:52] They're a big and heavy.
[01:16:53] We never carried it.
[01:16:54] They feel.
[01:16:55] No, we only used them for a couple of teams that I couldn't even tell which ones I never
[01:16:59] heard about it much, at least with that will be one or our time at CCN.
[01:17:03] But we used them for ambushes.
[01:17:06] And they were so bright.
[01:17:07] And they ruined your night visits.
[01:17:08] So one eye would be blown out from the green sensors that they used to amplify the light.
[01:17:15] And then your other eye was for night vision.
[01:17:18] Okay.
[01:17:20] Awesome stuff.
[01:17:24] You after this after our team Maryland disappears, going back to the book, the next morning
[01:17:32] Hobbes asked me if I would career a pack of sensitive information to Mac Resog headquarters
[01:17:37] and SIGON, you end up going to SIGON, you end up doing a little bit of Thailand as a time
[01:17:41] in Thailand as well because you had a little pass.
[01:17:45] Sounds like you had a good time there of which you don't remember a lot.
[01:17:48] True.
[01:17:51] You get back to SIGON and you're waiting for a return flight to Denang.
[01:17:56] You'd spend all of your poker money, which remind me never to play poker with you.
[01:18:02] And here we go back to the book.
[01:18:03] For some reason, I couldn't fall asleep that night in SIGON.
[01:18:05] I lay there on my bed looking at the ceiling, watching the ceiling turning, still not believing
[01:18:09] that I'd return to Vietnam and to SIGON.
[01:18:13] At some point I remember thinking when I was in NAMD through my first tour of duty, I dreamed
[01:18:17] of returning to the states.
[01:18:19] When I finally got home, I found myself drawn back to NAMON.
[01:18:24] Of course, there were pressing legal matters at 4-devens that contributed to my leaving
[01:18:32] the US of A.
[01:18:34] As I lay there, I found myself asking myself, what the hell are you doing here?
[01:18:39] You could die.
[01:18:42] It's like realization.
[01:18:44] Yes, that's a medical scene from Apocalypse Down.
[01:18:46] It is.
[01:18:47] It is.
[01:18:48] The Martin Scheme.
[01:18:49] Yeah.
[01:18:50] That mental tape replayed many times in my mind, that night in many different forms.
[01:18:55] But the essence of the issue was when I was in NAMM, I wanted to go home.
[01:19:01] When I was home, I wanted to go to NAMM.
[01:19:05] Once again, I thought of home where other than my family, there was no compelling reason
[01:19:09] to return.
[01:19:10] I had no job waiting.
[01:19:11] I had no career to speak of.
[01:19:14] I imagined going to one of those county employment centers and saying, hi, I was a
[01:19:19] one zero in a secret war that I can't talk about.
[01:19:21] I can fire my car 15 from the hip real good and I can hit a target at 400 meters with
[01:19:27] my salt off M79 and I could bring Napom so close that it will suck the air out of your lungs.
[01:19:35] Thus at the age of 23, I had my midlife crisis.
[01:19:41] There's a picture that one of my platoon chiefs told me about he had this mentor, Vietnam
[01:19:52] seal, who was a male man in Imperial Beach, California.
[01:19:58] He came home from Vietnam and became a male man.
[01:20:02] My platoon chief said that that guy had a picture on his wall and it was taken from the
[01:20:10] behind of a guy in fatigue with his web gear on and his weapon's slung and he's looking
[01:20:17] at a corporate guy in a desk.
[01:20:21] The corporate guy is looking up at him and the caption underneath it says, I'm sorry sir,
[01:20:24] we don't have a job here for appointment.
[01:20:27] He just sounds like how you are feeling.
[01:20:30] It's perfect.
[01:20:31] On point.
[01:20:32] Yeah.
[01:20:34] And you got this and this is interesting.
[01:20:39] I was just talking to one of my buddies and he was saying, look, sometimes I hear people
[01:20:46] say, I loved being in combat and when they say that I kind of get pissed at him.
[01:20:52] I think if you loved it so much, he says, I don't love it so much.
[01:20:57] I had a hard time with it.
[01:20:58] It was hard.
[01:21:00] I would do it again if I had to but I'm not dreaming about it.
[01:21:04] We had this little conversation.
[01:21:05] What I ended up saying to him was, I said, well, when I was on my last appointment to Iraq,
[01:21:12] then we had one guy killed at this point and there starts to be like, you start seeing
[01:21:22] those negative feelings start to grow a little bit.
[01:21:26] Guy started questioning stuff.
[01:21:28] Guy started, hey, what are we doing this?
[01:21:30] I'll pray, who's why are we doing this mission?
[01:21:34] You start to feel that.
[01:21:36] Then guys start to become negative.
[01:21:39] Then one of my two commanders came to me and said, hey, man, this is going to be rough.
[01:21:45] We get home.
[01:21:46] These guys are going to be mad about that.
[01:21:51] They're going to be mad about something else.
[01:21:52] I said, let me tell you what's going to happen.
[01:21:55] I said, when we get home, when you talk to them three days after we get home, they will
[01:22:01] have forgotten 10% of the bad stuff.
[01:22:05] In a week, they'll forget 30% and in a month, they'll forget 50%.
[01:22:10] I said in a year, the only thing they'll remember about this deployment is the fun cool
[01:22:13] stuff.
[01:22:15] That's kind of what I think makes guys like me say, man, I would love to go back.
[01:22:22] Of course, because we block out some of the hard memories.
[01:22:27] For me, I also always say the absolute best time of my life was being a task and a commander
[01:22:32] in the battle of Ramani and the worst time of my life was being a task and a commander in
[01:22:37] the battle of Ramani because there's nothing worse than losing your guys.
[01:22:42] It sounds like that was hitting you mid-deployment of, hey, look, when you were home
[01:22:49] when you're back in America, you got money problems, you got girl problems, you got
[01:22:55] law problems, you got all those problems and they can all go away.
[01:23:00] And all become insignificant as you get on that C130 in flyback overseas.
[01:23:06] And I thought about Hep-Sau, home, to one in the team.
[01:23:10] I genuinely had that guilt feeling of them there and me not being there with them.
[01:23:16] I felt as a greenbrake, I should have been there with them all along.
[01:23:21] But we had a tour duty as you know.
[01:23:25] So I was in a way, I was really glad to be back on the team.
[01:23:28] But yes, a little bit more mature now and thinking a little bit maybe too much.
[01:23:32] But that night in that hotel and then 20 years later when a apocalypse now comes out, I go like,
[01:23:37] how to help they get in my head for that scene?
[01:23:40] You obviously you get through that apocalypse now, see.
[01:23:49] Of staring at the ceiling and thinking, you know, every minute that I'm in the bush, every
[01:23:53] minute I'm in the so-called Charlie Good Stronger because he's out in the bush.
[01:23:58] You get back and you're all another mission and I'm jumping into it right now.
[01:24:03] As I snapped out of my snooze, you're asleep and I look up at us.
[01:24:05] As I snapped out of my snooze, I looked it out the starboard door just as we flew over
[01:24:10] the two star-to-lay ocean farmers, a woman and two water buffalo.
[01:24:16] The big chopper then hopped over the hedge row and landed in an adjacent field as angles
[01:24:21] and I frantically awakened the rest of RT Idaho.
[01:24:25] I was mad as hell.
[01:24:26] It wasn't bad enough they hadn't bothered to alert us as we approached the target area,
[01:24:30] but now they were compounding that faux paw by flying too close to indigenous farmers
[01:24:35] and then depositing us in the middle of an open field far from our primary LZ and farther
[01:24:42] yet from the bridge that was the primary objective of our mission.
[01:24:47] That this particular mission was a pretty simple one at least on paper, which I take
[01:24:52] it with a serious grain of salt when you say a mission is a pretty simple one.
[01:24:55] Yeah.
[01:24:57] By early 1970, the brass had become aware of something new and rather creative on the part
[01:25:02] of the NVA underwater bridges.
[01:25:05] These were being put in place at strategic spots along the Ho Chi Min Trail where it ran
[01:25:10] through louss.
[01:25:12] From the air it would appear as though the trails were interrupted by water in some places
[01:25:17] several feet deep, yet it was apparent that the trucks heading south were crossing these
[01:25:21] streams with ease, a closer review of aerial photographs, however, had revealed that the
[01:25:27] ever-inventive NVA had come up with an underwater structure that could support heavy trucking
[01:25:33] while remaining virtually unabsorbable from the air.
[01:25:37] It was a devishly clever idea and well executed to boot.
[01:25:40] That's pretty.
[01:25:42] They just built these like maybe like six inches underwater, the bridge?
[01:25:45] Yeah.
[01:25:46] And we, and look at the pictures you could tell.
[01:25:49] They had really done it well.
[01:25:52] So that was the mission.
[01:25:53] It's simple going to find out what they are.
[01:25:55] Take pictures and blow them to hell up.
[01:25:58] Simple mission.
[01:25:59] Yeah.
[01:26:00] If it'd be more fun to blow them up with the truck on it.
[01:26:04] And you were, you guys were sleeping the helicopters heading there, known woke you up.
[01:26:08] And the reason why we lost from Thailand, the weather had been soaked in a Vietnam.
[01:26:13] So it was a bad weather spell which was February 1970 and they flew us by Blackbirds,
[01:26:19] which were the plant-destined service airlin' it for us.
[01:26:25] Fuse the Thailand.
[01:26:26] We land in Thailand which is neutral at the Air Force Base and the Black truck comes up.
[01:26:31] We get in, has curtains, they can't see us, we go back to the base.
[01:26:35] And I'll command her from FB1 was the CO that launch site, which was the 46 Special Forces
[01:26:42] Group.
[01:26:43] And they were there just to be in country but they had their side to the Seek of War.
[01:26:47] Spads that came out of there, they had cubbies out of there.
[01:26:50] And so we launched, and the Air Force had the HHH3s, the bigger helicopters, like the
[01:26:56] Jolligme giant, but a scaled down version without the armor plating.
[01:27:00] So we launched from there and we flew for two or three hours because the long flight from
[01:27:05] Thailand across Western Leos.
[01:27:08] And then we launched, we landed at a fuel dump in the middle of the Lals.
[01:27:14] Yeah, it was run by the agency.
[01:27:16] Oh, okay.
[01:27:17] So we land.
[01:27:18] So we refueled.
[01:27:19] Yes, we refueled but you get off, you go like, hey man, who are you?
[01:27:22] I'm not here.
[01:27:23] I go, I'm not here either.
[01:27:25] He says, have a good day while you're not here.
[01:27:28] And we continue to go in and then the Air Force put us down on that canyon.
[01:27:32] And that's one thing that's always interesting when you're using helicopters.
[01:27:36] The helicopter, when you're supposed to insert at one spot, for them, they miss that spot
[01:27:42] by a minute or whatever.
[01:27:45] For them, it's no big deal.
[01:27:46] Like, hey, they just flew a minute a little bit long for you on the ground.
[01:27:49] That minute is a long time.
[01:27:51] I mean, that can be a kilometer.
[01:27:53] It could be like a really massive amount of space that you just missed.
[01:27:56] Oh, yeah.
[01:27:57] And this is like the dip between the valley and the peak that we wanted to go in on.
[01:28:01] So we could run at night a little bit because there's some open areas that we could cover
[01:28:05] and then get down maybe at the middle of the night to check this thing out in the morning
[01:28:09] and first light, that's where our plan was.
[01:28:12] Just didn't have a window valley.
[01:28:13] And it's like, okay, we're flowing out here.
[01:28:16] I certainly don't want to just fly back.
[01:28:18] This is everybody off.
[01:28:19] Let's give the shot.
[01:28:20] We're here.
[01:28:21] We're on the ground to scow.
[01:28:22] So we had to get out of what our gear on first.
[01:28:24] We didn't even have our routine and the dirt where everybody goes out on full alert.
[01:28:28] We get out and put the dam equipment on.
[01:28:31] And then we're like, okay, we're in the valley and the mountain we want to be on
[01:28:34] because several thousand feet above us and we're in this valley.
[01:28:39] Are you carrying a regular topographic map?
[01:28:42] Is that your primary means of navigation?
[01:28:44] Yes.
[01:28:45] And they would have a big map and then our target where we would plan to go, they would
[01:28:50] cut out 10 by 10, cut it out.
[01:28:52] And that's also all we carried.
[01:28:54] So if we got caught, there would be nothing else besides just that grid that we were in.
[01:28:59] And did you ever use any imagery as well to complement that?
[01:29:04] Most strictly map the cubby pile, if they did it VR, visual reconnaissance prior to the mission.
[01:29:11] But here it wasn't.
[01:29:13] The cubby had told them, here's the target area.
[01:29:16] And for some reason, the airfewish just went down to the valley and dropped us there.
[01:29:20] All right, continuing on, given the rather undistinguished nature of our arrival, or
[01:29:28] sorry, undisguised nature of our arrival, we knew it was only a matter of time before
[01:29:32] hundreds of NVA troops, trackers and dogs who would be perring down on us on that road looking
[01:29:37] for us.
[01:29:38] So we get to work with dogs.
[01:29:44] So like I can't imagine knowing going in that I'm going to be facing dogs that are
[01:29:48] going to come in after us.
[01:29:50] And obviously you guys work as you guys carried mace and pepper and all this other stuff
[01:29:52] to throw them off.
[01:29:53] But what a nightmare that is.
[01:29:55] I still hate dogs.
[01:29:57] Yeah.
[01:29:58] My wife loves them, but in the kids love them.
[01:30:00] Do you have any dogs?
[01:30:01] Yeah, we got a flee bag running around.
[01:30:03] I just named his gunny buttocks.
[01:30:09] We got him from a gunny.
[01:30:11] So okay.
[01:30:14] Arz was no tourist giant.
[01:30:16] Furthermore, it's very unsettling to be moving through this beautiful valley and broad daylight
[01:30:20] at what for a recon team passed at breakneck speed.
[01:30:23] It was not comfortable way to proceed.
[01:30:25] We took no breaks and I wanted to spend a moment longer than necessary in such an exposed
[01:30:29] position.
[01:30:30] I was calling us.
[01:30:31] Oh yeah, trying to get out of this valley.
[01:30:34] His fastest as you can.
[01:30:36] And you end up going up a hill, a big hill.
[01:30:40] And we just put the team to for a while.
[01:30:42] I put the angles on one side to valley and me on the other.
[01:30:45] Wasn't that big in terms of width but wide enough that I could see him.
[01:30:49] He could see me.
[01:30:51] Just a one divide and the tail gunners took care of our foot footprints.
[01:30:55] And what was your reason for that call?
[01:30:59] I just wanted to split the team up to see what was on the other side of valley.
[01:31:03] We couldn't tell either side what was there.
[01:31:05] So I figured we could just any enemy.
[01:31:07] We wanted to find out on both sides at once and try to get to a point where we could
[01:31:11] begin to find a spot to get up the mountain.
[01:31:14] Could we were going to run out of daylight?
[01:31:16] Got it.
[01:31:17] So it was a little bit of a panic.
[01:31:20] Now panic.
[01:31:21] It was a hit.
[01:31:22] We're in a tough situation.
[01:31:23] One of the best ways we can get out of this is we put teams on both sides of valley.
[01:31:25] We're looking for a way to get to the top of this thing.
[01:31:28] I knew you talked about this earlier and I used to warn guys all the time about splitting
[01:31:31] forces.
[01:31:32] Oh yeah.
[01:31:33] And it's like really risky.
[01:31:34] Really really risky.
[01:31:35] It's a one rule you never do.
[01:31:37] I did it twice.
[01:31:38] Okay.
[01:31:39] So I just wanted to confirm that.
[01:31:41] Oh yeah, no.
[01:31:42] Absolutely.
[01:31:43] And the situation was such that we couldn't tell what was on either side.
[01:31:47] So I figured we're going to have a firefight.
[01:31:49] At least now there'll be minimal forces.
[01:31:52] Our four we went in and ate mantim at times.
[01:31:55] That's four and four.
[01:31:56] And John had been on the ground with me previously.
[01:31:59] So he wasn't worried about John.
[01:32:02] And so we're going to have a firefight.
[01:32:03] Let's do with minimal forces.
[01:32:05] We can survive and then get the parry fired and we're about getting out of here.
[01:32:08] Otherwise it's proceed and the car was much ground because that mission where we set
[01:32:13] up the ambush.
[01:32:14] We had a great success by not stopping.
[01:32:17] Because the NVA knew that we would go 10 and stop 10.
[01:32:20] So they would anticipate how far we traveled here.
[01:32:22] It's like we covered maximum ground.
[01:32:25] We're going to go in and out.
[01:32:26] Yeah.
[01:32:27] All right.
[01:32:28] Now you end up finding a place to go up this hill.
[01:32:32] And here we go back to the book.
[01:32:33] By now we are out of breath.
[01:32:35] The grueling climb with all our convicts here was started to wear on us.
[01:32:38] And each additional step seemed to bring an increase in the steepness of the incline.
[01:32:43] It was growing painfully clear that those periodic volleyball games we had played back
[01:32:48] at camp weren't sufficient physical training.
[01:32:53] What did you guys do for PT back then?
[01:32:55] Not enough.
[01:32:56] Volleyball.
[01:32:57] Get some.
[01:32:58] Yeah, that was it.
[01:33:02] Yeah.
[01:33:03] We're so busy.
[01:33:04] Between the mission and mission prep.
[01:33:06] And then they started to stickness in isolation.
[01:33:07] That's going to ask you.
[01:33:08] Would you be tired when you're going into the field or would you be well rested?
[01:33:12] Because on this one you fell asleep.
[01:33:14] You guys were all asleep.
[01:33:15] Oh yeah.
[01:33:16] I'm going to tell you right now like when we were going to field most of the time when I
[01:33:17] would go in the field, especially in Ramadi, I would be exhausted by the time I went
[01:33:20] the field.
[01:33:21] Because we spent all this time planning and decomposing and briefing and doing all this stuff
[01:33:24] at the time I went into the field.
[01:33:25] It was like the time for me to go, okay, hey, someone, someone's staying watch, I'm going
[01:33:28] to sleep for an hour or two hours.
[01:33:30] You know, that happened a lot.
[01:33:32] Yeah, we used to get a nice rest prior.
[01:33:33] Yeah, that's nice.
[01:33:34] Oh yeah, absolutely.
[01:33:35] Yeah, it's a luxury.
[01:33:36] Very nice.
[01:33:39] Going back to the book, however, any thoughts of letting personal pain slow us down were not
[01:33:44] so subtly overwritten by noises we could hear from the north of us.
[01:33:49] The menacing sounds made us forget our dry throats, keeping lungs, pain needs and knees
[01:33:53] and aching backs.
[01:33:55] The enemy was out there and the game as they say was on.
[01:33:59] The forces might not yet be joined, but the fight was in the office.
[01:34:02] So you knew it was coming.
[01:34:05] And then you guys go into like a series.
[01:34:06] The sow leads you guys into like a serious thinking of vine thorns undergrowth.
[01:34:14] We went in and then we went in deeper and then he pushed us to third time.
[01:34:18] I was pissed because tore my fatigues.
[01:34:20] I'm going to sell, you know, dinky, dalle, like you're crazy.
[01:34:25] You're pushed it.
[01:34:26] He was right.
[01:34:27] I was wrong.
[01:34:28] I mean, went in the third level.
[01:34:30] Yeah.
[01:34:31] And then you get in so deep eventually settled down and tried to get us comfortable
[01:34:36] possible on a 40 degree slope.
[01:34:39] Around 2,200 we heard numerous trucks on the main road in just a few minutes.
[01:34:44] Several had driven slowly past our remain overnight position.
[01:34:48] Unfortunately, the happy times were spoiled when we soon heard the barking of tracking
[01:34:54] dogs around 0100.
[01:34:58] We heard the enemy troops move north on the road while on the east side someone opened
[01:35:01] fire with a few AK47 bursts.
[01:35:04] The distinctive bark of the Russian-made weapon jar dust into full alert.
[01:35:09] How long could they keep it up in which direction would they move?
[01:35:13] We sat in the inky darkness.
[01:35:15] A darkness so complete I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.
[01:35:19] It sounded as though they were making their way north.
[01:35:22] That's how dark it is.
[01:35:24] And you have no night vision.
[01:35:26] It's just pitch black.
[01:35:28] Again.
[01:35:33] It didn't take long before we had enemy troops on both sides of us.
[01:35:38] As dense as our cover was, we could see the flickering light from the lamps the NVA carried.
[01:35:44] As the enemy soldiers began probing the bottom tip of the finger we were on, the
[01:35:48] Eccal activity on the road picked up noticeably.
[01:35:51] This gave us a very uneasy feeling.
[01:35:53] Had sound not driven us on the NVA might well have spotted us.
[01:35:57] But as it was, we were as cons to so deep in that got awful thick that the one enemy
[01:36:03] soldier who approached our position hesitated and then gave up defeated by the phony
[01:36:09] vegetation.
[01:36:11] We could almost feel him thinking better of it and deciding to return to his comrades
[01:36:15] little did he appreciate how close to death he'd come with five car 15s and an M79 aimed
[01:36:22] in his direction.
[01:36:24] Slowed the NVA troops tired of their frustrating and uncomfortable search and called
[01:36:29] it off.
[01:36:30] Our TI to ho could finally release the collective breath and it had been holding.
[01:36:34] The danger was not gone.
[01:36:36] Now by a long shot but just briefly retired from the field of play.
[01:36:42] So thank God you were deep in that bush.
[01:36:45] Oh yeah.
[01:36:46] I don't know, I forgave myself.
[01:36:49] I was like this is, we don't need to go that far.
[01:36:52] It's like look at my fatis, I'm bleeding here.
[01:36:55] He's right.
[01:36:57] Sal was always right.
[01:36:58] Always listen to him.
[01:37:00] So the night goes by at first light, our options were severely limited.
[01:37:06] We couldn't move north south or east.
[01:37:09] Which left us one choice, not wanting to spend another day and night tied to trees on the
[01:37:12] side of a hill.
[01:37:14] We opted for the obvious and moved out in a western lead direction.
[01:37:17] For the rest of the day we climbed the side of the steep mountain.
[01:37:20] Did you guys ever move at night?
[01:37:23] Or did you guys try pretty much to remain in one position at night?
[01:37:28] Try to stay in one position.
[01:37:29] Particularly in the triple canopy because just too much noise.
[01:37:34] In Cambodia, when we were on flat territory, we could have moved.
[01:37:37] We thought about it.
[01:37:39] But no, not in lousy.
[01:37:44] Several times the rock face was so steep, we had to tie together six foot strands of rope
[01:37:48] we used for Swiss seats to make rope long enough to advance up to the next level of rocks.
[01:37:52] So we're talking serious terrain.
[01:37:54] Oh, horrible.
[01:37:57] This is last light was fading in a darkness we reached the top of the mountain.
[01:38:00] I was physically beat.
[01:38:01] My pants were torn in my hands, knees and legs were covered with cuts, scrapes and bruises.
[01:38:05] We were a mess.
[01:38:06] We set up our our our awan quickly in turn, to eat in rascans before settling into the
[01:38:11] night, watch rotations.
[01:38:13] After the previous night, nights our awan, this mountain type, mountain top site was paradise.
[01:38:18] We could see enemy trucks moving south but did nothing about it.
[01:38:22] We were almost too tired to think and extremely dangerous condition to be in went on the
[01:38:27] ground.
[01:38:28] Rast was what we needed, not confrontation.
[01:38:33] Yes, it exhausted.
[01:38:34] Beat.
[01:38:35] When we climbed to take a web gear off, rock sacks, we timed all the Swiss seats together
[01:38:44] because we're going straight up.
[01:38:46] So we want to go up and then you shipped up the backpack, then the web gear, put it back
[01:38:52] on, go through the next level.
[01:38:54] We had to take that, just shut it several times and just to get up because it was so steep
[01:38:59] but it was covered with enough vegetation that they couldn't see us in the valley.
[01:39:04] So they weren't quite sure where we were and we had put out the mace and stuff.
[01:39:08] Another location is which found some of the dogs' noses.
[01:39:11] So it was an all day climb and we only a couple, when we broke for lunch and whatever but
[01:39:17] that was a nasty, nasty climb.
[01:39:21] And morning came we awoke to a beautiful sunrise and found that we were top an unbelievably
[01:39:26] gorgeous, lay-ocean mountain range.
[01:39:29] The next few hours were the most spectacular ones I ever had spent on the ground in any
[01:39:33] A.O.
[01:39:34] Moving north along the ridge line, we began gradually descending, often encouraging one
[01:39:39] beautiful new encountering one beautiful new vista after another.
[01:39:44] On 12, 100, we found an area overrun with thousands of wild orchids in full spectacular
[01:39:51] bloom.
[01:39:52] Back home, each plant would be worth five to fifty dollars.
[01:39:57] We decided to take a break in the field and soon everyone with the exception of sal was
[01:40:02] in the middle of them and acting like a delighted child, picking the flowers and sticking
[01:40:06] them in their hair, teeth and behind their ears, and the buttonholes of their fatigues.
[01:40:11] It was like a spontaneous outburst of happiness.
[01:40:14] And while it was somewhat foolish, it was also refreshing.
[01:40:17] I think we all felt better for it.
[01:40:20] Did you take any pictures?
[01:40:22] No.
[01:40:23] Oh man, I might have seen those.
[01:40:25] Yeah, yeah.
[01:40:26] You had the camera for the underwater bridge, you didn't get the orchids.
[01:40:30] But sal was all business.
[01:40:31] Oh always.
[01:40:32] He's the only one who would come on.
[01:40:35] What did you think?
[01:40:36] What was your nickname?
[01:40:37] Did they call you tilt as well?
[01:40:38] No, they call me my because the Vietnamese couldn't handle ours, so instead of my or was
[01:40:44] my got it.
[01:40:45] I could see him looking at you thinking, my what are you doing with that damn flower
[01:40:51] on your hair?
[01:40:54] Their phrase was Bukhudinky D'Al, very, very stupid.
[01:40:58] Very stupid, very crazy.
[01:40:59] Yeah.
[01:41:00] How good did you meet in the Mieskit?
[01:41:02] It sucked.
[01:41:03] I had hepped.
[01:41:04] And that was why we didn't have language training because they knew that with SF, but
[01:41:10] for four years, like from 64 to 68, they were interpreters in place.
[01:41:15] And we just locked out what happened.
[01:41:16] He was the best one.
[01:41:17] He spoke good English and he corrected my English.
[01:41:21] And he spoke French.
[01:41:22] What was his background that he had all that good language skill?
[01:41:25] His dad sent him a school in Paris.
[01:41:28] So he has some education in France.
[01:41:29] He says, book four languages.
[01:41:31] And now he's an interpreter, nom.
[01:41:33] Yeah.
[01:41:34] Wow.
[01:41:35] Going back to the book, we came to a narrow strip of land that headed down from the hill.
[01:41:42] I singled angles and chow to set out to scout ahead while the rest of us were made in place.
[01:41:46] Chow was 16 years old.
[01:41:49] He'd been on the team nearly two years.
[01:41:51] So these kids have been on the team since he was 14 years old?
[01:41:53] Yeah, one of the team got wiped out, chow, cow, and so on.
[01:41:56] We're three, we'd hired and brought on.
[01:41:58] We'd let a couple of us go.
[01:42:02] He'd been on the team nearly two years ever since spider parks and helped build,
[01:42:04] rebuilt the team in 68.
[01:42:06] Chow's sensitive ears heard the NVA moving up the mountain.
[01:42:09] He warned angles with hand signals and the two of them abruptly stopped moving with the enemy
[01:42:14] less than 10 meters away.
[01:42:16] Engles quietly broke squelching as URC 10 emergency radio several times, alerting
[01:42:22] me to the danger.
[01:42:24] The rest of us were about 50 meters away.
[01:42:27] The ship was about to hit the fan.
[01:42:30] Because we were so far removed from all our support.
[01:42:32] There was no time to waste, none at all.
[01:42:34] We needed the jump.
[01:42:36] We needed all the jump.
[01:42:37] We could get on things.
[01:42:38] So I quickly contacted a nearby OV10 Bronco and declared a prayer-refire emergency setting
[01:42:45] in motion the string of responses that could save our lives and get us out.
[01:42:53] Does everybody, did everyone know was that like a pro-word prayer-refire emergency?
[01:42:57] Did everyone know exactly what that meant?
[01:42:59] Back here in New York, and then we also had the airborne command control, but they weren't
[01:43:05] always over our A, they couldn't pick up the Fox mic FM.
[01:43:10] In this case, we looked out that OV10 was, I think there were one of the Ravens who had
[01:43:18] their support, another CIA operation that was further west than to lay off.
[01:43:23] He had been up, heard the call, and came over.
[01:43:26] That was the first time we worked with OV10's.
[01:43:30] Man, lucky.
[01:43:32] Barry.
[01:43:35] While I was talking to pilot, Chow-Sau and Ingles spring a hastily-arranged ambush that
[01:43:40] startled enemy troops.
[01:43:42] When their point men was less than a meter away, Chow had him with a full automatic burst
[01:43:47] from his car 15 blowing him backward.
[01:43:50] Chow-Sau and Ingles then hit the remaining enemy soldiers so hard and fast that they didn't
[01:43:55] have time to fire a single return shot.
[01:43:59] Ingles threw down a hand grenade down the hill to discourage anyone who might be around.
[01:44:06] This is all done, it's happening.
[01:44:08] A meter away.
[01:44:10] There is really close.
[01:44:13] He came up the hill, he was white.
[01:44:15] That was the first really real firefight that Chow had been in.
[01:44:21] He had earned his spot on the team.
[01:44:25] This was his mission, and that was down at Wajan.
[01:44:29] He was ahead of John.
[01:44:32] As the fight began to unfold, I took stock of the situation.
[01:44:36] There weren't too many places for us to go within minutes of the Broncos arrival, the pilot
[01:44:39] had spotted us.
[01:44:40] He said he could see more enemy activity north of us along the hill, Ingles, and Sau were
[01:44:46] on.
[01:44:47] He made a run on the enemy concentrations, firing his rockets into their position.
[01:44:52] Then he said somewhat leconically, I got two bits of bad news for you.
[01:44:56] First, Nama's socked in.
[01:44:59] No assets can launch from there to extract you, which means Thailand assets, which means
[01:45:04] at least three hours before the birds arrive on station.
[01:45:08] Second, to your south, there are approximately a dozen troops about 800 meters out and
[01:45:13] moving towards you.
[01:45:15] I think you better sit tight until we get some help.
[01:45:19] By 1430, a Kavir Graff replaced the Broncos and repeated this sit tight suggestion.
[01:45:25] He agreed the eastern and western face of the mountain were too steep to descend.
[01:45:28] He also confirmed the NVA were coming at us from the south and north.
[01:45:34] They were clearly visible as they moved cautiously through the sparse vegetation.
[01:45:39] For the next half hour of the enemy troops tried to locate us.
[01:45:43] To discourage them, I directed several AE, A1E, Skyrader Gunruns, south of our
[01:45:49] position.
[01:45:51] This is another one of these things where I got to, when you get the NVA moving to your position
[01:45:57] and you get told, hey, the closest extract that early as we're going to be able to get
[01:46:01] you out of here is three hours from now.
[01:46:04] We were up on an area where there was minimal escape routes or the jungle because everything
[01:46:09] was so steep on several different sides of that little, like a little bit of a plateau
[01:46:15] to him and like a trail that came down and then John and Chao had gone down further, another
[01:46:21] little finger and that's where they had to fire for and he came back up, we put a
[01:46:25] perimeter out and luckily we made radio contact right away.
[01:46:28] So the OV10, when in with his rockets, just to say it was 2.75 and then that's when he
[01:46:36] gave us the good news.
[01:46:37] Yeah, good news, that it's going to be three hours at a minimum before they can get you
[01:46:41] help.
[01:46:42] Yeah, that's why we carried a lot of bullets.
[01:46:44] Yeah, that's a lot of that.
[01:46:46] It could be a long day.
[01:46:47] I don't know if you can carry enough bullets for three hours, firefighters.
[01:46:50] That's from Nightmare.
[01:46:52] Back to the book, a 12.7 millimeter enemy gun in the valley opened up on the A1
[01:47:01] ease.
[01:47:02] I was sitting on the east side looking down at the valley floor after making another gun
[01:47:07] run that A1e pilot told me he was pissed because the enemy gun was coming too close
[01:47:11] to him and his wingman.
[01:47:13] He wanted to nail him ASAP.
[01:47:15] I gave the pilot what I thought was clear, what I thought were clear verbal directions
[01:47:19] to where the enemy gun was located but he couldn't find them.
[01:47:23] So I told him simply to watch the ground from my and follow my tracers.
[01:47:27] At that I fired a short burst toward a clump of trees in the valley that were maybe 500
[01:47:31] meters away.
[01:47:33] The pilot had no trouble seeing where my tracers hit.
[01:47:36] Thanks partner.
[01:47:37] He said in the low southern draw and then rolled in for the kill.
[01:47:40] It was the most beautiful napalm dive I've ever seen.
[01:47:43] The pilot came out of the sky pointing straight down his engine screaming.
[01:47:47] It reminded me of dive bombers I'd seen on the television series of victory at sea.
[01:47:52] I really thought I was watching a World War II movie because I was so high up in the
[01:47:56] mountain.
[01:47:57] I was looking down on the sky radar when at the absolute last second he released a napalm
[01:48:01] canister and pulled out of his gutsy dive.
[01:48:05] It was a perfect strike.
[01:48:07] The impact generated a secondary explosion, which was probably the gunner's spare ammo going
[01:48:12] off around him.
[01:48:14] Black oily smoke billed up.
[01:48:16] There was not a whisper of sound from the former gun in placement.
[01:48:20] For the next three hours I directed air strike after air strike around our position and
[01:48:24] in the valley.
[01:48:28] At 1730 hours we heard the very welcome sound of the HH3's coming our way.
[01:48:36] As they approached in the distance the NVA pushed up from the north and hit sounds claim
[01:48:40] more.
[01:48:41] Further south of us another machine gun opened up from the valley.
[01:48:44] As I gave Kavie the compass heading to its position I caught sight of an enemy soldier
[01:48:48] climbing a tree about 100 meters away.
[01:48:51] He had handed his RPG launcher to a nearby comrade while he got into that position.
[01:48:56] It was clear he was looking for RTI to ho or hoping to nail an air force chopper.
[01:49:01] I was too far away to shout and alert to the other team members.
[01:49:04] For the first time in my 16 months of running missions I extended the collapsible stock
[01:49:08] of my car 15.
[01:49:11] Normally it remained compressed to minimize the length of the weapon but now I wanted
[01:49:14] it extended to help stabilize my aim.
[01:49:19] Once I was ready I carefully put the NVA soldier in my gun sight.
[01:49:24] In that fleeting moment I felt like God.
[01:49:28] I had the power of life and death concentrated in my finger tip.
[01:49:33] As I grounded my elbow to steady my arm I found myself silently hoping the NVA
[01:49:38] troop would be unable to find the team and simply climb back down the tree.
[01:49:45] He didn't see either me or my car 15 in a troubling way it seemed unfair or unsportsman
[01:49:51] like.
[01:49:52] But war is not designed to be a sporting contest.
[01:49:56] If the situation were reversed I had little doubt what he would opt to do.
[01:50:01] Although these reflections took less than a moment to form they caused deep soul surging
[01:50:06] on my part.
[01:50:08] I found myself recalling my third grade Sunday school teacher Mrs. Murdoch Reichert and her
[01:50:17] treatment of the ten commandments especially the one that proclaims thou shout not kill.
[01:50:23] Halified met this tree soldier on the streets of Hanoi without guns and beyond the rhetoric
[01:50:28] of politicians we'd probably be able to find lots of common ground between us and dozens
[01:50:33] of purely human things to talk about.
[01:50:37] But that could not be not now not at this given moment.
[01:50:41] Also in my mind was the knowledge he would receive a medal if he ever managed to kill
[01:50:46] me or one of my team members.
[01:50:49] As I watched and reflected his comrade reached up and handed him to the rocket launcher.
[01:50:55] I could tell it was unloaded.
[01:50:58] What I had come to think of my personal NVA moved a little farther up the tree craning
[01:51:06] is neck to find us.
[01:51:08] From the corner of my eye I could see sun moved towards south.
[01:51:13] And at that very moment someone passed up around for the RPG I still refused to yield
[01:51:17] to the inevitable.
[01:51:19] I continued to hold on to the stubborn hope that he would abandon his cause climbed
[01:51:23] down the damn tree and walk away.
[01:51:26] Instead he fitted the round into the end of the launcher.
[01:51:30] I still watched, still I waited even after he'd put the weapon to his shoulder.
[01:51:35] As he nestled his neck against it and began to take careful aim toward us, I leveled my
[01:51:40] sight on his head, I pulled the trigger.
[01:51:43] A single yet timeless shot.
[01:51:47] He dropped from the tree out of sight, but not out of my mind.
[01:51:57] One of those moments.
[01:52:00] How far was he away?
[01:52:05] Was it range?
[01:52:06] He was well over, maybe a football field and a half two fields.
[01:52:11] I was like on the cusp of the hill and he was around on the side and I could see
[01:52:17] that there was like a tree that he climbed up.
[01:52:19] That was above the regular vegetation.
[01:52:22] So I'm not sure how high he went, but I could see him at the beginning.
[01:52:25] I just waited because then when he got that damn RPG.
[01:52:31] Yeah, then it's time to do what you got to do.
[01:52:36] Once again, I want to make this claim.
[01:52:41] I'm not reading this whole book.
[01:52:44] I'm just jumping around and you should read this whole book if you're listening to this.
[01:52:49] Because I'm getting 10% of what's going on in here.
[01:52:55] This part continues on.
[01:52:56] Seconds later, one of the approaching HH3 pilots broke into my reverie by commenting somewhat
[01:53:04] frantically on the heavy ground fire he was taking from the mountain south of our position.
[01:53:09] There was a moment's hesitation before he sat down.
[01:53:12] I think we have some mechanical problems.
[01:53:15] We're going home.
[01:53:17] We could see the helicopters and they looked fine to us.
[01:53:19] They were less than two kilometers out when they turned and disappeared into the fading
[01:53:22] sun.
[01:53:23] And I'll sink as they vanished after cursing our lack of, after cursing our lack of look
[01:53:29] and the pilot I told the team to take an app is going to be a long night.
[01:53:35] So there goes your ride out.
[01:53:37] You've been there for freaking ever.
[01:53:40] And you see those guys say we got some mechanical problems throughout here.
[01:53:44] Yeah, that's a very unhappy moment.
[01:53:52] So you guys, you tell the guys to take a nap, you take a little map.
[01:53:57] And back to the book around 1930, Ingles roused me, wake up.
[01:54:00] You're not going to believe this shit.
[01:54:02] As I came around, he was pointing south up the mountain side from about 30 meters from
[01:54:08] our perimeter.
[01:54:10] And as far as we could see, there were dozens and dozens of lanterns bouncing and swinging
[01:54:16] along.
[01:54:17] Each lantern was carried by an enemy soldier and between each lantern were many more soldiers.
[01:54:23] The same scene was unfolding to the north of us.
[01:54:26] The NVA were coming up the hill on mass.
[01:54:30] We could see at least a dozen trucks unloading hundreds of NVA troops in the valley.
[01:54:34] Also across the valley and up on the plateau to the east, there were hundreds of lights
[01:54:39] moving everywhere, like swarming fireflies, flitting around in the night.
[01:54:45] And a smaller valley west of us still more lights, more NVA, more trouble, just more, more
[01:54:52] and more of everything we did not want to see.
[01:54:56] I felt the tremendous weight of just how small RT Idaho was, how terribly isolated and
[01:55:02] alone we were, how incredibly vulnerable.
[01:55:07] All of a sudden I found myself praying.
[01:55:11] For reasons only he understands my prayer was answered.
[01:55:16] As a few minutes later, the first specter C130 gunship arrived on target with its 220
[01:55:23] millimeter cannons and 4.7.62 millimeter mini guns ready for action.
[01:55:32] That had to be the most horrifying thing that you could ever think of.
[01:55:39] You wake up and you see these enemy lights surrounding you, hundreds of them.
[01:55:46] And you know that they're looking.
[01:55:47] Those hundreds, maybe thousands of enemy personnel are looking for you and your six-man
[01:55:52] team.
[01:55:53] Oh yeah, they're coming for us.
[01:55:54] And it was just like, yeah, I've never forget when John woke me up.
[01:56:00] I mean, it's just one of those moments.
[01:56:02] He's just like, oh my God, fuck me to tears.
[01:56:08] Help me, Lord.
[01:56:09] Yeah, please wake up.
[01:56:10] You're not going to be happy.
[01:56:11] I'm all keeping praying right about now.
[01:56:13] If you're not praying back to New Jersey, please start praying now.
[01:56:17] And then what do you have any idea did you ever find out what where the C130 came from,
[01:56:21] where the specter came from?
[01:56:22] How to be an Italian.
[01:56:25] And so it just randomly showed up.
[01:56:26] Oh, no, somebody, the cubby that we had talked to earlier, who brought the hill at
[01:56:31] cop just out.
[01:56:33] Because the cubby was still trying to work with us for other ARS assets.
[01:56:36] And when it got dark, we lost everything, conventional.
[01:56:39] So all the A1's, Phantom Jets were gone.
[01:56:44] And they didn't have helicopter gunships out of Thailand, just transport vehicle of aircraft.
[01:56:51] So we had that quiet spell.
[01:56:53] And so they had notified specter.
[01:56:56] And they had told me that they were going to try to get a specter out.
[01:57:01] And had you worked with a specter before?
[01:57:03] Yes, we used before, but nothing like this night.
[01:57:09] So for anyone that does know the C130 specter gunship is it's a, it's a C130, which is
[01:57:15] a big transport aircraft.
[01:57:17] But they put some big weapon tree in this case, 220 millimeter cannons.
[01:57:21] And four, 7.6 to many guns, which fire 6000 rounds a minute.
[01:57:26] Correct.
[01:57:27] Something crazy.
[01:57:28] Oh, yeah.
[01:57:29] Yeah, it's like a laser beam when the tracer's come out of these things.
[01:57:32] Or dog piss it from the sky or that.
[01:57:35] And so these guys show up.
[01:57:40] And here we go back to the book.
[01:57:42] This was this awesome wave, a ray of weapon tree could be made to form a magic link with
[01:57:47] my emergency strobe light.
[01:57:49] Once that link was established, the gunner could dance the incredible fire power of his
[01:57:52] four mini guns, just 24,000 rounds per minute total within five feet of us.
[01:57:59] It was wondrous.
[01:58:00] It was miraculous.
[01:58:01] It could save us.
[01:58:03] On this particular night, however, we were faced with a highly unusual, if not unique
[01:58:08] problem, the pilot circling over us reported he couldn't pick out the teams.
[01:58:14] Strobe light because there were so many other lights surrounding us.
[01:58:18] The myriad of lanterns must have made the dark earth look like a pin cushion illuminated
[01:58:22] from within.
[01:58:23] No problem, I said, I'll turn off mine.
[01:58:27] You get the rest.
[01:58:28] Get the ridge line west of the valley, give me a minute to put my team on the safe side
[01:58:33] of the mountain.
[01:58:35] The specter commenced to putting on an amazing display of fire power.
[01:58:38] Once again, we gave thanks for being on the right side of the fight, the one that had
[01:58:42] Uncle Sam's Air Force and Specter on its team.
[01:58:45] After ripping up scores of body and carving out large patches of empty darkness on the
[01:58:49] ridge line, the specter directed his deadly fire into the valley.
[01:58:53] More lanterns were snuffed out.
[01:58:55] The darkness spread like a stain as lights and lives were extinguished.
[01:59:01] The specter crew finally expanded all of its ordinance and the pilot apologized for running
[01:59:05] out of ammo.
[01:59:06] The next specter arrived seconds later.
[01:59:09] So they knew you were in a bad way and they were in a common.
[01:59:13] Oh yeah, we were so happy that the second one showed up because now the lights were out
[01:59:18] so we could turn a strobe light on and have direct calm.
[01:59:21] Did they have night vision back then in the specters?
[01:59:24] Oh yeah.
[01:59:25] They had everything.
[01:59:26] See your force.
[01:59:27] Yeah.
[01:59:28] Yes it is.
[01:59:30] Yeah.
[01:59:31] I mean the specter gun chip is just the most awesome asset to have overhead for ground
[01:59:35] support because the capability, the visual capability that it has and then the accuracy
[01:59:40] of fire.
[01:59:41] Yeah, this is 1977 you think all I could do was.
[01:59:43] Oh.
[01:59:44] That's what they can do now.
[01:59:45] Oh yeah.
[01:59:46] Yeah.
[01:59:48] The next specter arrived seconds later.
[01:59:51] He quickly locked onto our strobe and worked the southern slope with a vengeance marching
[01:59:55] his guns right up to the trail.
[01:59:57] Right up the trail to the top of the ridge beyond our line of sight.
[02:00:01] He worked then he worked the valley and the southeast and mountain ridge.
[02:00:04] A third specter arrived and worked our southern perimeter again systematically walking its
[02:00:09] fiery lead up the mountain around us.
[02:00:11] There was no longer any light above us, no moon.
[02:00:14] No stars.
[02:00:15] The only sound was the roar of the C130 overhead.
[02:00:18] And the absolute darkness he could not be seen until his guns opened up.
[02:00:23] Then tongues of fire seemed to erupt out of nowhere like spontaneously generated bolts of
[02:00:28] lightning and the outlines of specter's fuselage would appear in brief flashes as a pale
[02:00:34] and ghostly silhouette and airborne grim reaper.
[02:00:39] When specter moved to other targets we could hear the enemy dragging away his dead.
[02:00:45] The 0-0-45, saw said some NVA were in the grass about 20 meters south of us.
[02:00:52] A few minutes later he blew the claymores.
[02:00:55] We all instinctively flinched for some reason claymores always sounded more thunderous at
[02:00:59] night and caught you by surprise.
[02:01:01] After the dust settled we again heard NVA troops dragging away their bodies.
[02:01:06] They never spoke.
[02:01:08] We heard no cries of pain.
[02:01:11] Their silent execution of grim duty was at once eerie and admirable.
[02:01:17] Jesus they were tough.
[02:01:19] They fought hard and died hard.
[02:01:25] So you wouldn't even hear these guys getting wounded getting blown up and they wouldn't
[02:01:29] even scream they wouldn't cry.
[02:01:31] We just silenced.
[02:01:32] It was amazing.
[02:01:34] It's my mind boggling.
[02:01:37] I think that all those guys were just dead.
[02:01:41] They had to be wounded.
[02:01:43] Of course not a sound.
[02:01:45] But you can hear them dragging the bodies.
[02:01:49] I don't know how many we killed that night.
[02:01:55] Back to the book shortly before the next specter arrived I moved my team away from the edge
[02:02:00] of the slope and into the high grass as sound placed one more claymore down on the northern
[02:02:04] slope and short order specter locked onto our strobe light.
[02:02:08] He reported that cloud cover was beginning to roll in the AO.
[02:02:12] When specter dropped, when specter then dropped illumination flares over a south-high
[02:02:16] sown as big as pizza tins.
[02:02:19] NVA troops were within five meters of us all of about 15 feet.
[02:02:25] Blinded by intense white light they could not immediately make us out as we nestled into
[02:02:30] the high grass.
[02:02:32] But this was a little real consolation.
[02:02:35] They would spot us soon enough.
[02:02:38] I whispered into the radio asking specter just how close he could bring the ordinance
[02:02:42] to my strobe light.
[02:02:44] As close as you want it.
[02:02:48] He first replied, I want it five feet in front of my southern perimeter.
[02:02:52] I responded, well he hesitated.
[02:02:55] I can't bring it in any closer than 25 meters from your perimeter unless you're willing
[02:02:58] to accept responsibility for any casualties.
[02:03:01] We may accidentally inflict.
[02:03:04] We have to record you saying it.
[02:03:06] I wanted to scream you dumb fucking idiot.
[02:03:10] They're five meters away and you're going to quote and you're quoting regulations to
[02:03:13] me.
[02:03:14] Just kill the fuckers before they kill us.
[02:03:17] Instead and feeling like a complete fool, I whispered that I was fully willing to accept
[02:03:21] responsibility for any and all casualties that may or may not result from his efforts to
[02:03:25] save our lives.
[02:03:27] I followed up by saying now, bringing it in as tight as you can to the light.
[02:03:32] I'm holding it up now.
[02:03:33] Move south from my light.
[02:03:35] I'll take my chances with you.
[02:03:38] The gun crew finally opened fire and there in the fuselage cracked over our heads.
[02:03:43] The ground in front of us erupted as thousands of rounds ripped into it kicking up stones
[02:03:48] and dirt and tossing NVA soldiers around like rag dolls.
[02:03:52] The inspector solely marched his stuff southward from our strobe light moving up the
[02:03:57] ridge.
[02:04:00] Danger close.
[02:04:02] Oh yeah.
[02:04:04] So the flare goes off and south sees that the enemy are five meters from where you're
[02:04:10] at.
[02:04:11] I didn't really tell that close.
[02:04:14] They were that quiet.
[02:04:15] They kept coming all night.
[02:04:20] Because it was pitch black and they were just so quiet and they just probably moved
[02:04:25] during the wind or moving when rounds were hit and whatever and they made it to
[02:04:28] fully in five meters.
[02:04:32] I mean that's when you're making this radio call.
[02:04:35] It's a miracle they couldn't hear you and they just didn't start shooting towards
[02:04:38] your direction when you make the radio call.
[02:04:40] That's what I was waiting for.
[02:04:41] I was waiting for that next AK to open up on my voice.
[02:04:46] Especially when they're asking you for the.
[02:04:48] Oh yeah.
[02:04:50] Oh.
[02:04:52] You talk about moments.
[02:04:55] That's insane.
[02:05:01] Totally.
[02:05:02] I want to what the I mean that's.
[02:05:04] I'm actually surprised that they could pull off five meters.
[02:05:07] It was just for anyone that's listening.
[02:05:09] It doesn't understand this.
[02:05:10] This aircraft.
[02:05:11] I don't know what what altitude were they at.
[02:05:13] Do you have any idea?
[02:05:14] They had to be at least two three thousand feet above us.
[02:05:17] So I don't know what the height of the mountain range or that.
[02:05:22] A little plateau that we were on here.
[02:05:25] But several thousand feet above us.
[02:05:27] They locked in and put rounds within five meters of you.
[02:05:31] Oh yeah.
[02:05:32] Yeah.
[02:05:33] I mean I could see they do it now because now they've got computers and they've got all these.
[02:05:37] I mean just incredible systems up there.
[02:05:40] I mean I've been in the modern AC 130.
[02:05:42] They're ridiculous.
[02:05:44] Oh, that's right.
[02:05:45] You've been in it.
[02:05:46] It's crazy like they're the capability that they have is just completely ridiculous.
[02:05:52] But I can't know.
[02:05:54] I mean I know there's no way they had that same technology back in 1970.
[02:05:59] It's impossible.
[02:06:00] You know there's more technology in my phone than is in 1970.
[02:06:05] Oh those Air Force guys were good.
[02:06:07] And now we just kept a strobe light right pointing at the aircraft.
[02:06:11] So when it circled.
[02:06:13] I mean whoever had the MCD and I did it for a while then we take turns with it.
[02:06:17] But we always followed the aircraft.
[02:06:19] So it would be directly linked into that strobe light.
[02:06:22] That's right because you had your you put the strobe into the MCD nine right?
[02:06:25] Yeah.
[02:06:26] So it was only directional.
[02:06:27] Right.
[02:06:28] So we go straight up there.
[02:06:29] So anybody in the ground wouldn't see it.
[02:06:32] So that's what's happening as these guys are five meters from you.
[02:06:36] Oh yeah.
[02:06:38] This is ridiculous.
[02:06:48] That's what I thought that night also.
[02:06:51] Yeah.
[02:06:52] Send me a king be please.
[02:06:54] Yeah.
[02:06:57] Back to the book between verse and fire he dropped more fliers.
[02:07:00] This time the illumination revealed no movement south of us.
[02:07:03] Instead, jowgli flee reported that there were Bo-ku dead VC.
[02:07:07] With the south quiet specter started on the northern flank and marshes fire down.
[02:07:12] The finger of land when I reported hearing more trucks and the valley the gun crews pounded them in
[02:07:17] Des Islands.
[02:07:18] Another specter circle us and laid down its deadly ring of fire again.
[02:07:21] Bring it to within five feet of our strobe light.
[02:07:24] Somewhere around 0 400 some early morning fog and Hayes moved in as the last specter moved out.
[02:07:31] Once the specter was gone, the NVA started moving toward us.
[02:07:34] Once more from the south only this time with real vengeance.
[02:07:39] Spectered killed a lot of their comrades and they were in no move to back off.
[02:07:45] But we managed to hold them off by employing what we called our guess whether I'm throwing a grenade or not tactic.
[02:07:52] Which had a wave making almost enemy.
[02:07:55] Almost any enemy think twice.
[02:07:57] What was that all about?
[02:07:58] I think covered in the book but you wrote about it.
[02:08:00] Well, it's another version of Hayden goes seek with the...
[02:08:04] ...cure we only held them to Mount O'Grenates.
[02:08:06] We had used some already.
[02:08:08] And so we knew that when we threw the grenade when the land that you'd hear them run.
[02:08:13] That you'd hear.
[02:08:15] So we knew we'd get low so Sal went out and got stones.
[02:08:20] And the team went out and got stones somehow.
[02:08:24] They came back.
[02:08:26] So we'd wait until he would tell us somehow he...
[02:08:31] ...sacchar just tell where they were.
[02:08:33] I didn't have that kind of defense or skill set.
[02:08:37] So his signal he would let us know or he would just throw the rock.
[02:08:41] He threw the rock in here and scurry away like rats.
[02:08:44] Because they thought the grenade was coming.
[02:08:46] So we threw another rock.
[02:08:47] So it'd be less scuring.
[02:08:49] So then we'd wait.
[02:08:51] So another rock would be less scuring.
[02:08:53] We'd throw another hang grenade.
[02:08:56] So when that... this went on for quite a while.
[02:08:59] We always carried...
[02:09:00] ...at least ten hang grenades.
[02:09:01] I always carried these ten...
[02:09:02] ...are in ditch out.
[02:09:03] I carry ten yourself.
[02:09:05] Oh yeah.
[02:09:06] Sure I had a couple on a strap and always in the rock sack.
[02:09:12] And that's why you just put that mission.
[02:09:15] Yeah, apparently.
[02:09:16] A little bit I realized you needed thirty.
[02:09:18] Yeah.
[02:09:19] We've stayed from firing our weapons because the muzzle flashes would have marked our position too clearly for the RPG gunners who had fired several inaccurate rounds at us during the night.
[02:09:30] Fortunately they hadn't come very close.
[02:09:32] We played these deadly games with the enemy until sunrise.
[02:09:35] At one point we broke a major thrust by tossing a white phosphorus grenade.
[02:09:39] One of the most fearsome things I know of.
[02:09:42] We couldn't see them but we could smell burning flesh.
[02:09:46] At around 0630 we heard an NVA officer or senior NCO calling roll in the distance.
[02:09:54] It appeared few people answered him.
[02:09:58] As the sun finally burned off the fog, we worked tactical air strikes with fandoms and sky raders.
[02:10:05] A couple of machine gun positions to open fire and hit one of the A1E's.
[02:10:09] A fandom blew one of the gun crews to hell with a 500 pound bomb.
[02:10:13] The A1E knocked out the second one minutes after it opened fire.
[02:10:18] Because there were no more specter aircraft to call on, I continued to working with a pair of A1E's, having them make run after run.
[02:10:27] I could talk directly to the lead pilot and he and his wingman executed my every request or direction flawlessly.
[02:10:36] Damn you had to love those A1E pilots.
[02:10:39] Finally we could hear in the distance the sweet sweet sound of approaching helicopters.
[02:10:44] Big HH3's churning their way are way.
[02:10:48] It was time to pull out all the stops.
[02:10:50] I used every available support aircraft, F4's and A1E's to raise hell and suppress enemy fire.
[02:10:56] As they roared in with guns blazing, we could see the HH3's tagging along in their wake.
[02:11:02] I told Kovie to have the HH3 gun crews focus their fire on our southern perimeter and we'd handle the northern side.
[02:11:08] I also requested they land as close as possible to the north slope and not pay any attention to the claimors' explosions we'd be setting off.
[02:11:16] I didn't want to spook these guys off.
[02:11:20] So the helos land.
[02:11:23] Every one of the team once aboard immediately went to the starboard window or faced out the tailgate and began firing on full automatic as the HH3's revved up to full power.
[02:11:33] I was the last to leave and before heading for the LZI set off the last claimor we'd put on the northern perimeter.
[02:11:38] Then I ran like hell, bent over like a cripple and cursing the prop wash that was trying hard to push me backward.
[02:11:44] As I made my dash I remember being surprised and not seeing a single dead body, although I passed a slew of blood trails and saw a lot of dark wet stains on the ground.
[02:11:55] The second I was through the door, the HH3 lifted off the ground.
[02:11:59] There was nothing but sporadic small arms fire coming at us and in the end the extraction was relatively calm one.
[02:12:08] It seemed as if the enemy was disperated and just going through the motions.
[02:12:14] I had a feeling they wanted us out of the AO as badly as we wanted to leave.
[02:12:18] Nonetheless we all continued firing on full automatic.
[02:12:21] We also launched at least one M79 round as we gained altitude.
[02:12:26] I dropped my last hand grenade into the underbush.
[02:12:29] A little something for someone I hoped.
[02:12:32] Then just to suddenly and miraculously all gunfire ceased.
[02:12:36] The only sound was that of the churning Sikorski HH3 engines and the increasingly cold air rushing through the aircraft.
[02:12:45] I looked over my shoulder towards Sal, who was retrieving warm air force blankets for the long ride.
[02:12:52] When I made contact with him, he gave me that quick nod of his and a slight smile.
[02:12:59] We made it again.
[02:13:04] That's just...
[02:13:07] This is just an insane mission.
[02:13:10] Oh yeah.
[02:13:11] And I'm sure you know why don't you just break contact and continue mission.
[02:13:15] So yeah, crazy.
[02:13:22] They need to...
[02:13:23] Yeah.
[02:13:24] I know that you're putting some of these books on audio book.
[02:13:27] But we're in the process of doing that and these are going to be great when you release those.
[02:13:33] I know you talk about it in the little book you were putting for...
[02:13:37] You requested one of your guys be putting it for a silver star for this operation.
[02:13:41] It had John Engel and then you got put in for a silver star as well and actually...
[02:13:48] The CEO said he was going to upgrade that.
[02:13:52] Yeah, he said he's going to upgrade.
[02:13:54] What's I didn't agree with but not going to argue either.
[02:13:57] Yeah.
[02:13:58] He did distinguish service cross which if you don't know what that is.
[02:14:01] That's the...
[02:14:02] The second highest military award for...
[02:14:06] Valor.
[02:14:08] And so... but at the same time and again this is...
[02:14:13] I kind of have to just tie this back into the book a little bit.
[02:14:15] But you would have been going through this kind of hassle with the commanding officer about carrying the...
[02:14:20] ...care in a new encryption device.
[02:14:22] We didn't have it for that mission and you didn't have it for this one.
[02:14:25] Correct.
[02:14:26] But you had... but then it... he started turning up the heat like hey you got to carry this thing.
[02:14:29] And this thing is no joke.
[02:14:31] I mean I was looking at...
[02:14:32] I used... even when I got to the sealed teams we used a PRC 77.
[02:14:36] Were those around for you?
[02:14:37] Yeah.
[02:14:38] We started with it.
[02:14:39] Okay.
[02:14:40] For that encrypted transmission.
[02:14:42] So there you go.
[02:14:43] So the PRC 77 is an old radio.
[02:14:45] It's an FM radio.
[02:14:46] And it's... how big would I say it is?
[02:14:48] What's something else?
[02:14:49] It's similar to a trick 25.
[02:14:51] Yeah.
[02:14:52] But I'm trying to think of something that a civilian would know.
[02:14:55] Can I have a... so I can describe it.
[02:14:56] It's like a big... it's like two lunch boxes maybe?
[02:14:58] Like yeah.
[02:14:59] Maybe like a briefcase that's a little bit more square a little bit thicker.
[02:15:02] So it's like that.
[02:15:03] Maybe two shoe boxes.
[02:15:04] Something like that.
[02:15:05] Something like that.
[02:15:06] That's how big a PRC 77 is.
[02:15:08] The KY38, which is the encryption device, is basically the same size as that.
[02:15:13] Right?
[02:15:14] It's like again.
[02:15:15] And it doubles the weight.
[02:15:16] You've got to carry double the batteries.
[02:15:19] It cuts down your range because it takes away from the penetration of the radio waves coming out.
[02:15:26] And you had to carry the encryption punch.
[02:15:30] Ugh.
[02:15:31] So that's what you're getting told to carry.
[02:15:34] And you keep coming back and saying, hey, this isn't that great.
[02:15:37] Hey, we've been trying it.
[02:15:39] It's not working.
[02:15:44] You keep getting told.
[02:15:46] No, carry it, carry it.
[02:15:47] Finally, you say to your boss, you say the commanding officer, hey, look, I'll carry it.
[02:15:51] But if we get in one of these bad situations, I'm going to destroy this thing.
[02:15:55] If it doesn't work, I'm going to destroy this thing.
[02:15:58] Yeah.
[02:15:59] And he kind of says, okay, whatever, you know, but you carry it.
[02:16:02] Yeah.
[02:16:03] So you go on an operation.
[02:16:06] And you actually, we're going to leave it in the hellows.
[02:16:09] You ask the hellows to take it.
[02:16:11] You ask him to come back and get it because it didn't work.
[02:16:14] He said hellows come back and take this thing because it's 50 pounds.
[02:16:17] Yes, the weight.
[02:16:18] And we had, I wanted to try it.
[02:16:20] The target was the ashore.
[02:16:22] And there was, there was something specifically in the ashore.
[02:16:25] They wanted us to confirm.
[02:16:27] So I went in with a four man team.
[02:16:29] The theory being, we're going light.
[02:16:31] We can move quicker because the ashore valley didn't have triple canopy.
[02:16:35] At least the part that we were looking at.
[02:16:37] So they single or double canopy.
[02:16:39] And a lot of open areas because it's been so many bombs.
[02:16:42] There have been eight camps that had been overrun, deserted.
[02:16:45] And I've been in the ashore.
[02:16:46] We put the senses in and plus we fly over to every time.
[02:16:49] So, generally from here where we were gone.
[02:16:52] So I said, I want to do a four man team.
[02:16:55] Please don't force me to carry it.
[02:16:57] Well, we've had to carry it.
[02:16:58] And that's when I said if it doesn't work, we went in and tried it.
[02:17:01] Didn't work.
[02:17:02] It's tried it a few times.
[02:17:04] Yeah, and they wouldn't come back.
[02:17:05] And you've been trying it on other operations as well.
[02:17:07] We tried it on one and it's just a complete failure.
[02:17:10] But I brought it back.
[02:17:12] And so this time you start getting tracked.
[02:17:14] Yeah.
[02:17:15] And you say, okay, I'm not carrying this thing anymore.
[02:17:17] So you put a thermo grenade.
[02:17:18] You put a thermo grenade on it.
[02:17:19] Yeah.
[02:17:20] So you put a thermo grenade on it.
[02:17:21] You destroy it.
[02:17:23] And then you again, by the skin of your teeth,
[02:17:27] you get you, you get you and your guys out of there.
[02:17:30] And when you are coming back to your flying back to base.
[02:17:35] And just so you know how close they were.
[02:17:37] At one point, I'm looking to the north.
[02:17:40] And I see a young face come through the jungle at me within two or three feet or so.
[02:17:46] So I can see his outline.
[02:17:48] I can see his AK is down.
[02:17:50] He sees me.
[02:17:52] And we just stop a look at each other.
[02:17:55] And it's all through the jungle.
[02:17:57] The grass.
[02:17:58] He backed out.
[02:17:59] I just kept my car at him.
[02:18:01] But he didn't open fire.
[02:18:03] And he was young.
[02:18:04] I mean, a young kid with a gun.
[02:18:06] He backed up.
[02:18:07] And he went away.
[02:18:08] So I knew that just, okay, this mission is now compromised.
[02:18:11] And we hit the thermo.
[02:18:13] Yeah.
[02:18:14] Like I said, you get this is another mission where you are getting out of there by the skin of your teeth.
[02:18:19] It's a damn miracle that you, you bring all your troops back.
[02:18:22] That you don't get overrun that no one gets killed.
[02:18:25] It's crazy.
[02:18:26] And the CEO was flying in the helicopter close by.
[02:18:29] We asked for a tactical.
[02:18:30] The draw.
[02:18:31] He goes.
[02:18:32] Break contact.
[02:18:33] The team is our favorite words.
[02:18:35] So we destroyed the the the the the the encryption device.
[02:18:39] Roger that.
[02:18:40] Yeah.
[02:18:41] Yeah.
[02:18:42] And we had more contact.
[02:18:43] Well, his he finally ran a fuel went back.
[02:18:45] We're on the ground for a few more hours.
[02:18:47] We get tamed to move.
[02:18:48] But we hear more activity.
[02:18:50] And we're going to be particularly at the third night at the damn radio.
[02:18:53] I thought we'd be getting extracted.
[02:18:54] He did.
[02:18:55] So now they know where we are because anybody within 10 miles can tell.
[02:18:59] There's the thermo grenade and he knows as those guys and they're coming for us.
[02:19:03] But they want a lot.
[02:19:04] But we had a new cubby rotted came out Dallas, Long Street.
[02:19:09] And we started running A1s across me.
[02:19:12] Could we hear the enemy to the west?
[02:19:15] And so the A1s made a couple of gun runs.
[02:19:18] And the last gun run.
[02:19:20] The pilot came in and then he flipped his aircraft.
[02:19:23] So like I'm looking at the A1 making a gun run.
[02:19:27] And earlier you could hear him when they go buy you how the aircraft makes these noises.
[02:19:32] These crack noises when the wings change and he whatever the structure is in the planar.
[02:19:37] So I'd heard him go buy before this one.
[02:19:39] He came by he want to make sure where we were.
[02:19:42] He came by so close.
[02:19:43] I could tell you he was smoking a filly suroute.
[02:19:46] He looked over and nodded.
[02:19:49] I saluted.
[02:19:50] And he did a couple more gun runs and they brought in this and they they
[02:19:53] It's a good land.
[02:19:54] So they dropped the ropes and pulled us out on ropes.
[02:19:57] And of course, maybe we got a ropes to shoot matches like target practice for them.
[02:20:01] I don't know if we could shine on the ropes.
[02:20:03] I mean, I don't know if we had a lot of guys in this show.
[02:20:05] Never got shine on the ropes.
[02:20:06] Not go with just just luck.
[02:20:08] Oh, sure luck.
[02:20:09] I mean, always felt like they're just coming through your legs to get your balls.
[02:20:13] Or Mr. Happy.
[02:20:16] Brain time somewhere about brain time.
[02:20:19] So you go through all that.
[02:20:25] And again, people need to buy this book so they can read that full story because even what you just said is a portion of it.
[02:20:33] You get back.
[02:20:34] You get taken out on strings, which again, that's something we didn't talk about a lot.
[02:20:38] But a lot of times when helicopters couldn't land, they dropped down the ropes with the sandbags on the end.
[02:20:42] And that's what they got to clip in and they drag you out through the jungle and get you up the altitude and get you out of there.
[02:20:46] And that's what happens here.
[02:20:48] Finally, you get back and here we're going back to the book.
[02:20:52] When we landed on the helicopter pad at CC and the CO's biggest ramp, a rude, arrogant,
[02:20:57] a rude, ignorant sergeant major told me to report to the CO, ASAP with the KY38 and all attachments for it.
[02:21:05] When I walked into the CO's office, the ramp sergeant major ordered me to stand at attention, which I did.
[02:21:11] Then the CO asked the $64,000 question, where is the KY38?
[02:21:16] I explained to him that, per or earlier conversation, when we had made contact with the NVA since it didn't work, I destroyed it.
[02:21:24] He flew into a rage telling me that I had violated a direct order from him not to destroy it under any circumstances.
[02:21:32] I stated once again what I had said prior to the mission.
[02:21:35] Because this was a foreman team, he simply said he didn't remember it that way.
[02:21:40] It was just me, him, and the ramp sergeant major who knew that the CO was, of course, telling the truth.
[02:21:48] So the sergeant major support and the skipper, of course.
[02:21:52] Oh yeah.
[02:21:53] He's telling the truth.
[02:21:55] I didn't like the way this was going.
[02:21:57] So, as I had in the past with the CO, I tried to explain my actions from the position of the man on the ground,
[02:22:03] which was different from a man singing a command to control helicopter as he had earlier in the day while ordering me to break
[02:22:09] contact and continue mission.
[02:22:12] Then he got really pissed and told me that he was going to write me up from an article 32 criminal allegation
[02:22:18] under the military code of conduct for willfully destroying US government property in direct opposition to his order,
[02:22:26] not to destroy the KY38 under any circumstances.
[02:22:30] The ramp sergeant major then whispered something to the CO.
[02:22:34] As they whispered back and forth to each other, I found myself growing extremely calm, unbelievably calm.
[02:22:42] Finally, the CO step from behind his desk, leaving the ramp sergeant major behind it.
[02:22:47] I'm going to ruin your special forces career.
[02:22:50] I want you out of CCN at first light tomorrow.
[02:22:54] He went on to tell me to report to fifth special forces group headquarters in not trying where he'd have me drummed out of SF within the next month.
[02:23:03] privately, I smiled because the CO hadn't done his homework.
[02:23:09] He failed to realize that my service in the Army ended in two weeks due to the fact that I had extended my time in service to return to CCN.
[02:23:21] The CO only knew the date when I had arrived at CCN and at assumed I had a traditional one year tour of duty that would end in October, not April 1970.
[02:23:32] My song days ended right there.
[02:23:37] I knew that when I went to Nautreng, I could get any assignment in Vietnam where there was an opening for an experienced SF soldier.
[02:23:47] But as I stood there, I believe that God had sent this asshole into my life for a reason.
[02:23:53] Granite, it wasn't a reason. I didn't completely understand.
[02:23:56] Granite, it was a reason I didn't completely understand at this precise moment in time,
[02:24:01] but maybe it was time for me to get out of Uncle Sam's Army altogether while my body, if not my mind, was relatively intact.
[02:24:09] Who knew what the future held for SF in Vietnam?
[02:24:13] Finally, he finished and asked me if I had anything to say.
[02:24:18] Year of disgrace to West Point, fuck you, sir.
[02:24:22] I turned an exited without saluting. The Remp Sergeant Major caught up to me as I exited the door and told me to return and salute the CO.
[02:24:30] I bent toward his ear and quietly said, fuck you to Sergeant Major.
[02:24:37] Before leaving the CCN headquarters area, I stopped by the awards and decoration desk to see if the CO had begun paperwork for flying that day east of our team.
[02:24:47] Embarrassed that clerk simply nodded his head in the affirmative, meaning that the CO was in the process of getting himself written up for an award for telling us to break contact and continue.
[02:24:59] While he was flying out of harm's way, safely in South Vietnam.
[02:25:07] That was him.
[02:25:12] Wow.
[02:25:14] Oh yeah. Just don't believe it.
[02:25:17] But you knew it. I just felt it.
[02:25:21] And Pussy had a reputation already, but at that time, and we had talked to the A&D people previously about some other things he put himself in for.
[02:25:28] And for a had somebody put him in for.
[02:25:31] And yeah, so just a total of the scrapes.
[02:25:34] And it's just the luck of the timing. Was the fact that you knew that you could get out of the army?
[02:25:39] Yeah, because at that point I was juggling the thought of real listing, a friend of mine who was a captain who we had run one mission together.
[02:25:50] He was going to use a process of putting me in for a direct commission to Lieutenant.
[02:25:55] And sort of paperwork had been placed.
[02:25:59] And I don't know if it ever got the site on or not.
[02:26:01] But I know that he had a separate office.
[02:26:03] The paperwork was done. We completed everything. We had letters of recommendation on that stuff.
[02:26:09] And so in fact, he and I talked about what we're going to do.
[02:26:13] I was going to stand for a few months to see if the direct commission, even though the reductions in force were coming.
[02:26:19] You know, because they had already started the Vietnameseization process. The maximum amount power we had at Vietnam was at the end of 69.
[02:26:27] I believe it was we had 543,000 Americans in Vietnam.
[02:26:32] So by April 70, when this all happened, we had reduced the numbers.
[02:26:37] You could do more, more was coming even within SF.
[02:26:41] And so all those things were being juggled.
[02:26:44] So if I got the direct commission, I thought about that two years of college.
[02:26:48] I knew I had to get two more years of college going to try for a career.
[02:26:52] And I didn't want to go back to four devins.
[02:26:56] So those were the things I was jumping at the time.
[02:27:00] And when this all happened, I just like I said, I was really conscious.
[02:27:04] I thought God gave me an answer here.
[02:27:06] Yep.
[02:27:08] Going back to the book, I continued down to the team room where I gave $500 to buy food and drink for the biggest party RT Idaho had during my tenure on the team.
[02:27:22] We partyed late into the night.
[02:27:24] One by one, each team member passed out until it was just hept and me standing outside RT Idaho's Vietnamese team room.
[02:27:32] Hept asked me if I needed him for any more interpreting. When I said no, he passed out in the sand.
[02:27:40] I picked him up, dust him off, as best I could, and carried him into the team room where I gently placed him in bed.
[02:27:48] Before I turned the lights out, I stood in the doorway for a moment longer, reflecting on my 18 months with these men,
[02:27:55] with a special affection and admiration for Sal, Hept, Falc, Kwang, and Hong.
[02:28:01] Then the guilt pangs washed over me, what did the future hold for them?
[02:28:09] And that had to be the hardest part of this departure.
[02:28:13] Brutal, really was.
[02:28:16] And these guys were just doing this continually for years.
[02:28:22] They didn't rotate out.
[02:28:24] No, that was their job.
[02:28:25] Well, Hept had rotated up to headquarters.
[02:28:27] He asked for permission to go there for a better paying job.
[02:28:31] And at the 3.5 years of run, the recon said, sure.
[02:28:35] And we had the guy who was interpreter of Virginia came over.
[02:28:38] Not as good as he had, but he was a good interpreter.
[02:28:41] And by that time, we had worked on two other South Vietnamese in the D'Hung,
[02:28:45] and a child, we're speaking good enough English, where if I got shot,
[02:28:50] they could pick up the radio and take over.
[02:28:53] Because we cross-trained them on radio procedures, SOPs, how to run everything.
[02:28:59] So, he had to do it that hung and then child later.
[02:29:03] And they must, from their perspective, this must have seemed completely insane.
[02:29:07] Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[02:29:08] And they were like, really?
[02:29:10] But they knew the way, but this is 70.
[02:29:13] So, SF had been there in 4 years, for 6 years by then.
[02:29:16] And they had knew enough and talking to each other,
[02:29:19] being in the secret war, how things were operated,
[02:29:23] and that we all reported to a commander somewhere.
[02:29:27] And it was still one of the points that's a sticking point,
[02:29:32] it was like, oh, God, I'm alive.
[02:29:34] Thanks to you and now I'm leaving you guys here.
[02:29:37] And so this is April 70, without everything,
[02:29:41] about what April 30, 1975 would be like,
[02:29:45] the day it's so I got on film, just horrible.
[02:29:50] So, you finished with that, you pack up,
[02:29:55] you reported to not train during the next two weeks,
[02:30:00] the most traumatic event was having the ice cream stance,
[02:30:03] a really damaged bite, enemy mortifier.
[02:30:05] That was serious.
[02:30:06] That's really messing with your head, destroyed ice cream stance.
[02:30:10] The rumps we had to go got they got PTSD from that one.
[02:30:16] Oh, you had a good day on town for the ice cream.
[02:30:18] On April 25th, that was April 1st,
[02:30:25] and now it's April 25th.
[02:30:26] Yeah.
[02:30:27] I'm mustard out of the army at Fort Lewis, Washington.
[02:30:30] Again, with mixed emotions, I flew to Denver,
[02:30:32] Colorado, to spend a few days with my sister, Linda,
[02:30:35] and to enjoy some spring skiing in the Rockies.
[02:30:38] At the end of April, she got a rental car from me
[02:30:40] to return to New York City.
[02:30:41] I drove from Denver to Southern Lindo,
[02:30:44] hired a visit, my cousin, Dung, Conrad,
[02:30:46] and his wife, Sandra, before heading home to Trenton.
[02:30:49] The drive was about 1,300 miles,
[02:30:52] including pit stops and a long wait, no hire for food and few phone calls.
[02:30:56] I made it home in less than 15 hours.
[02:30:58] See, your average in over 100 miles an hour, basically.
[02:31:03] That's all I could do though, it's just a rental.
[02:31:06] When I arrived at 20 West Paul Ave, that's your house.
[02:31:12] Where you grew up, it was around 3am.
[02:31:15] Times had changed in my absence.
[02:31:17] My parents now walked the front and back doors of the house.
[02:31:20] So, when I jumped boots and class aged,
[02:31:22] uniform, I went around to the back of the house,
[02:31:25] where I climbed up to the window.
[02:31:27] Grab the metal roof of the shed,
[02:31:31] and step on the metal closed line hook
[02:31:34] to push myself up to the red metal roof dampened
[02:31:38] by the morning moisture.
[02:31:40] After I climbed through the back window,
[02:31:43] I went over to my little brother,
[02:31:45] David, and gave him a big hug.
[02:31:47] Hell, he was taller than me.
[02:31:49] Then I went down to my parents' bedroom,
[02:31:52] moving first to my mother's side of the bed.
[02:31:54] I touched her face, but didn't say a word.
[02:31:57] Grogi, she murmured,
[02:32:00] David, is that you?
[02:32:02] Then she reached up to my face and felt my beard.
[02:32:06] John, she said,
[02:32:08] as she stirred from her sleep,
[02:32:10] John, is that you?
[02:32:11] John, your home?
[02:32:13] Henry, it's John, he's home.
[02:32:16] She reached around my neck,
[02:32:18] with the urgency and pain only mothers know.
[02:32:22] And said,
[02:32:23] Johnny's home.
[02:32:25] Oh, yeah.
[02:32:32] So, you made it home?
[02:32:35] Oh, my body grace, God.
[02:32:38] And what came next?
[02:32:40] What did you do after that?
[02:32:43] So, you made it home?
[02:32:47] Oh, my body grace, God.
[02:32:50] And what came next?
[02:32:52] What did you do after that?
[02:32:55] Well, went back to school,
[02:33:00] because it took me two years to flunk out.
[02:33:02] So, that summer,
[02:33:05] I took classes,
[02:33:07] and then my dad got me a job right away,
[02:33:09] drive to school buses.
[02:33:11] And so, within the first two, three days
[02:33:13] of me getting a driver's license,
[02:33:15] this is Trenton, New Jersey.
[02:33:16] There are still some race rides that we're going on.
[02:33:19] So, things they had, curfews,
[02:33:22] which is like, this is like mind-boggling,
[02:33:24] in Trenton, in ball places.
[02:33:26] And so, they said,
[02:33:28] we got to run for you.
[02:33:29] You're going to go to Chambersburg,
[02:33:31] which was the Italian section of Trenton,
[02:33:34] and they were just starting new integration program.
[02:33:37] So, I picked up a busload of young black kids
[02:33:41] that were mostly elementary school.
[02:33:44] Pick them up,
[02:33:46] take them in the Chambersburg, on the way in, there's protests,
[02:33:49] and I'm getting rocked and stoned.
[02:33:51] And I don't have my car 15.
[02:33:54] Because those Italians are whoever they were,
[02:33:56] they were hitting us with those rocks.
[02:33:58] It was really, make me very unhappy.
[02:34:00] But here it was like,
[02:34:02] this is Trenton, I go for one more zone to this,
[02:34:04] and they're doing this in a great-n-stall.
[02:34:07] And so, the curfews,
[02:34:09] so we had all that going on,
[02:34:10] and within a couple weeks,
[02:34:11] the church sawpball team was reactivated,
[02:34:13] sawpball season was there.
[02:34:15] So did that school,
[02:34:17] disinteriving?
[02:34:19] And that's the gut involved in the school newspaper,
[02:34:22] became editor.
[02:34:24] We had a period of time where the student government
[02:34:27] voted itself out of office.
[02:34:29] We had the SDS on campus, the communist,
[02:34:31] we're doing a thing behind the scenes.
[02:34:33] They burnt down a couple buildings,
[02:34:35] just for good luck.
[02:34:36] Played Domino's in a library,
[02:34:38] knocked over all the books there.
[02:34:40] Stupid stuff.
[02:34:42] And you had to just be thinking yourself.
[02:34:45] Are you serious?
[02:34:46] Yeah.
[02:34:47] This is what I just,
[02:34:49] you know, sawed my friends get killed,
[02:34:51] took risk my own life,
[02:34:53] saw what the Vietnamese people were actually fighting for,
[02:34:56] what they wanted.
[02:34:57] Yeah.
[02:34:58] And you had these people back here in America,
[02:34:59] do it acting like this.
[02:35:01] And the student,
[02:35:02] we knew the SDS were back with the communist,
[02:35:05] and they had their older propaganda,
[02:35:07] but it was never reported.
[02:35:09] They were just like,
[02:35:10] another group protesting in the streets,
[02:35:12] without any kind of active deafness,
[02:35:16] the hoodies people really wore,
[02:35:18] what they really hated America.
[02:35:20] And so,
[02:35:22] we're involved with school trying to get going,
[02:35:25] and during this time,
[02:35:28] we got very active with the paper.
[02:35:31] I was editor for two years.
[02:35:32] I worked on the paper for every day,
[02:35:34] for two straight years.
[02:35:36] And we had our moments,
[02:35:38] you know,
[02:35:39] they had the first faculty strike in the state.
[02:35:42] So before that,
[02:35:43] I was really excited.
[02:35:44] Could me and two other SF buddies,
[02:35:46] we're going to shut the campus down.
[02:35:48] Could the faculty there,
[02:35:50] and the teacher, you know,
[02:35:51] told us,
[02:35:52] we will support you students,
[02:35:54] and we're going to get things for you,
[02:35:56] and they meet other promises,
[02:35:57] which,
[02:35:58] okay,
[02:35:59] I'm all for it.
[02:36:00] And it'd be the first strike in history in New Jersey.
[02:36:04] And so,
[02:36:05] me and the guys put together a plan,
[02:36:06] because there's basically three major entrances,
[02:36:08] and one couple of planned-est-time routes.
[02:36:11] So,
[02:36:12] we had everything planned.
[02:36:13] We're going to overturn an empty fuel tank,
[02:36:15] or at one gate,
[02:36:16] the other gate.
[02:36:17] We were going to just close it down with cars,
[02:36:19] and things.
[02:36:20] So we take them,
[02:36:21] at least a day or two,
[02:36:22] to clean it up and clear it out.
[02:36:24] We shut that school down.
[02:36:26] So,
[02:36:27] we're part of our plans together, right?
[02:36:29] So now here comes Mr. Editor.
[02:36:31] I get a copy of
[02:36:33] the state.
[02:36:34] I go to the state, the part of a higher education,
[02:36:37] and the chancellor gives me what the state is proposing.
[02:36:41] So, look at this.
[02:36:42] Read this.
[02:36:43] It says,
[02:36:44] have the union give you their proposals,
[02:36:46] but they wouldn't give it to me.
[02:36:47] Nor would the chancellor,
[02:36:48] he felt it was a violation of their fiduciary,
[02:36:51] whatever the hell it was that they're dealing with these
[02:36:54] union people.
[02:36:55] So,
[02:36:56] the union guy had his Volkswagen in the parking lot.
[02:36:59] Long story short,
[02:37:00] I borrowed his contract.
[02:37:02] I got it photocopied.
[02:37:04] I want photocopied me downstairs at the administration building.
[02:37:07] He walked by,
[02:37:08] I salute, say hi,
[02:37:10] continue to photocopied his negotiating paper,
[02:37:14] which is many pages long.
[02:37:16] I went back in print,
[02:37:18] and was side by side.
[02:37:19] There's two mentions of what the union was going to do
[02:37:22] and over 20 or 30 pages of documents.
[02:37:24] One was to give them more time off
[02:37:27] and the other was for class size.
[02:37:30] That's all they had in those pages.
[02:37:32] We printed it,
[02:37:33] dead in editorial,
[02:37:35] and said screw the union.
[02:37:37] And I posted it,
[02:37:38] and we went to war with the union editor,
[02:37:40] and it's a finaire.
[02:37:42] And they went on strike,
[02:37:44] but they didn't close the campus down.
[02:37:46] I pulled our true eyes broken heart,
[02:37:48] man.
[02:37:48] I really wanted to get some
[02:37:50] good-a-ville of warfare here at Trenton State College,
[02:37:53] you know.
[02:37:54] But they lied to us.
[02:37:56] What were you studying at the time?
[02:37:58] Well, you know,
[02:38:00] I was at Barbrao's at Freshman in 64,
[02:38:02] and I finally graduated in 74 with a political science degree,
[02:38:05] and he was a minor in English.
[02:38:07] The thing was,
[02:38:08] I was still in my foreign language at the time.
[02:38:10] And did you,
[02:38:11] I know you were working at the paper,
[02:38:12] again,
[02:38:13] that's what you ended up doing for your career.
[02:38:15] You're a career.
[02:38:16] You're a career.
[02:38:16] You must have my amazement.
[02:38:18] Because at the signal,
[02:38:20] that was our school paper.
[02:38:21] I did everything,
[02:38:22] photography,
[02:38:23] edit tutorials,
[02:38:24] news stories,
[02:38:25] and went down to the Trenton Times,
[02:38:27] a local paper.
[02:38:28] They were owned by the Washington Post.
[02:38:30] Dick Harwood was the editor,
[02:38:32] and during the Watergate stuff,
[02:38:34] he was the voice that was skeptical of Woodward and Bernstein.
[02:38:37] But he was my editor.
[02:38:39] So I go down,
[02:38:40] and I went in for an interview.
[02:38:42] I said,
[02:38:43] my hair is on my shoulders.
[02:38:44] Now I hadn't had a haircut for a couple of years.
[02:38:46] Blue Jean jacket,
[02:38:48] T-shirt,
[02:38:49] jungle boots,
[02:38:50] old blue jeans,
[02:38:51] going for the first interview.
[02:38:52] He's interested.
[02:38:53] It's just come back for a second.
[02:38:54] I went back for a second interview,
[02:38:56] and he said,
[02:38:57] I went to the studio,
[02:38:58] had a clean t-shirt this time.
[02:38:59] Step it up.
[02:39:00] Yeah.
[02:39:01] I even thought about passing the jungle boots,
[02:39:04] but I said,
[02:39:05] nah.
[02:39:06] So I got hired.
[02:39:07] Went to work to Trenton Times.
[02:39:08] I was there for 10 years.
[02:39:10] And then went to San Diego for 10,
[02:39:13] 10 years.
[02:39:14] Woodard, San Diego,
[02:39:16] you know,
[02:39:16] which is about eight years.
[02:39:17] Moodyite,
[02:39:18] California,
[02:39:18] 1985.
[02:39:20] What major decided to move on to California?
[02:39:21] The Washington Post sold to Trenton Times,
[02:39:23] and it,
[02:39:24] the quality of the newspaper,
[02:39:25] just diminished incredibly.
[02:39:27] I was fighting more with the editors
[02:39:29] to get stories into the paper.
[02:39:31] I got a couple of courts.
[02:39:33] And I was doing investigative stuff.
[02:39:35] We did a story about the,
[02:39:36] we broke the story about the FBI
[02:39:39] investigating Philadelphia police department
[02:39:42] corruption that went to the top.
[02:39:44] Why it interviewed a marine who was a Vietnam vet,
[02:39:48] who was the undercover guy working with the fan-belt inspectors
[02:39:52] for 18 months.
[02:39:54] I see this guy at Nays.
[02:39:56] We did this today.
[02:39:57] We did this.
[02:39:58] He made fun of the FBI.
[02:40:00] And so he told me when they're getting ready to,
[02:40:02] to go out,
[02:40:03] get the search warrant and do the rates.
[02:40:05] I called up the fan-belt inspectors and said,
[02:40:07] hey,
[02:40:07] I heard you got a little case going on.
[02:40:09] I don't want to jeopardize your investigation,
[02:40:12] but I'm going to write about it before you guys do it.
[02:40:15] Let's talk.
[02:40:16] Turns out the chief FBI guy was a,
[02:40:19] a,
[02:40:20] a,
[02:40:20] a specter pilot.
[02:40:21] Oh, Jesus.
[02:40:22] He had flown in layoffs.
[02:40:23] Now we couldn't determine if he was my savior that night.
[02:40:26] On February,
[02:40:28] in 1970 or not,
[02:40:29] but we had an interesting exchange.
[02:40:31] So I gave him two days.
[02:40:34] And they put all the paperwork together.
[02:40:36] And they put up wire taps on the key suspects.
[02:40:39] And the Philadelphia Police Department,
[02:40:41] Monday morning,
[02:40:42] I broke the story.
[02:40:43] Scoop the Philadelphia inquiry every major paper in the world.
[02:40:46] This is before the communist news network
[02:40:48] and Fox News notice.
[02:40:50] Did the story?
[02:40:52] And it was amazing.
[02:40:55] And they did the whole thing on the follow-up.
[02:40:57] So I was my one of my major crews.
[02:41:00] We had the other story about the Philadelphia
[02:41:02] Phillies that were under investigation.
[02:41:04] And so I had law enforcement.
[02:41:06] It was my,
[02:41:07] was my main source that I did the courts and in between.
[02:41:09] We do these investigative pieces for fun.
[02:41:11] Can't see any ego was there for eight years.
[02:41:13] Doing law enforcement.
[02:41:15] Covered our beloved board of patrol.
[02:41:17] And then from near and went to North County.
[02:41:20] And I always lived in North San Diego County.
[02:41:24] And they had a paper called the the O'San side blade citizen.
[02:41:28] So I went to work there.
[02:41:30] The editor's job paid $10 a week more than a report is job.
[02:41:34] So I was like, became an editor.
[02:41:36] Assistant City editor.
[02:41:37] Up in O'San side, which eventually became the North County Times.
[02:41:40] And so I went to work there in October.
[02:41:42] My future bride in December.
[02:41:45] She had two boys.
[02:41:47] I had two girls.
[02:41:48] Ten months later, remarried.
[02:41:51] And so we'll be celebrating our 25th anniversary.
[02:41:54] This, this talk to over.
[02:41:56] And we went to the tiebreaker.
[02:41:58] So the tiebreaker she's 22 now.
[02:42:00] And I worked at the paper until 2008 that I've worked at a couple of non-profit
[02:42:05] Selpening veterans over the last 11 years.
[02:42:08] In between that couple books were good luck.
[02:42:10] Yeah, well, no awesome books.
[02:42:12] It seems like, and this is something that I was like,
[02:42:14] obviously, you know, you went through some, just completely insane and
[02:42:20] tense stuff.
[02:42:21] You come back.
[02:42:22] It seems like you got back into society fairly well,
[02:42:27] fairly quickly.
[02:42:28] And what I always say to guys is like, you need a new mission.
[02:42:31] Like, because what happens when I think guys fall apart is when they come back from
[02:42:35] wherever they're deployed to.
[02:42:36] And they don't, when they come back, they don't know what to do.
[02:42:39] They don't, they don't, they don't go on to the next mission.
[02:42:42] Because you're like, okay, I'm going to go to college.
[02:42:44] I'm going to work at the newspaper.
[02:42:45] I'm going to organize these, you know, we're going to fight this fight.
[02:42:48] And it seems like you got focused on what your next mission was.
[02:42:51] Where I think that's going to a lot of guys don't do well.
[02:42:55] And I was wondering if you saw anything with your friends,
[02:42:58] other Vietnam guys that you served with,
[02:43:00] the guys that seem to get back on track and carry on with their life,
[02:43:05] as opposed to guys that don't.
[02:43:07] Yeah, majority of our guys, I like to think came back.
[02:43:10] And they adjusted one way or the other.
[02:43:12] We had a couple of tragic cases that didn't.
[02:43:14] I mean, when I went back from my second tour,
[02:43:16] I went back with Jeffrey Junkins who was going back for his fifth tour,
[02:43:20] duty, second or third with SF.
[02:43:23] And so we halved on the plane going across, went back.
[02:43:26] We landed in the camera on bay.
[02:43:29] And instead of going through the process, we got our Delfa bag,
[02:43:32] went out, stole Jeep, drove to the train.
[02:43:35] But then go to headquarters, went downtown,
[02:43:38] and party for a little bit, then reported to the train.
[02:43:41] And then went up to CCN there because we were both returning.
[02:43:44] So it was no in country training, none has the.
[02:43:47] And my orders specifically said,
[02:43:50] CCN and I got back to the team right away,
[02:43:54] which you covered earlier.
[02:43:55] Yeah.
[02:43:56] And the other side bar, which really helped was
[02:43:59] at Trenton State College, I was a point man for the POWMIA Concern Center.
[02:44:05] They came out with the bracelets.
[02:44:07] And the whole thing was that effort.
[02:44:10] They had American citizens that were,
[02:44:12] and the family members.
[02:44:13] So first time American family members petitioned,
[02:44:16] an enemy to treat our prisoners better.
[02:44:19] And so our prisons weren't related,
[02:44:22] released until February of 1973,
[02:44:25] way at two years.
[02:44:26] I worked at the POWMIA Concern Center.
[02:44:29] We had a POW and Air Force POW from Trenton.
[02:44:32] We supported him, his, well, his family.
[02:44:35] Relators, everything we could do for,
[02:44:38] in our spare time between classes,
[02:44:40] putting out newspapers and things like that.
[02:44:43] So it was like a really a sub-rosal mission.
[02:44:46] And when the prisoners came home,
[02:44:49] that was just a great moment.
[02:44:50] Mm-hmm.
[02:44:51] And so, but it really was helpful, like they said.
[02:44:53] Another mission that we went into,
[02:44:55] the newspaper going into it.
[02:44:58] And there's a period of time to student government
[02:45:01] voter south of, south of office.
[02:45:04] So the paper was the only student voice.
[02:45:07] So we took a, what does that mean?
[02:45:09] What does that mean?
[02:45:10] The student government voted themselves out of office.
[02:45:12] What does that even mean?
[02:45:14] Hey, this is 1971.
[02:45:16] We had people that were just too busy.
[02:45:21] They didn't think the student government was,
[02:45:23] was, could address issues that were apropos
[02:45:26] to two needs of students or whatever it held that meant.
[02:45:29] Mm-hmm.
[02:45:30] I forget their real reasons,
[02:45:31] but they just, just banned themselves.
[02:45:33] The signal was the only voice on campus.
[02:45:35] And so we became much more active.
[02:45:38] And of course we had a firm of action that was starting then.
[02:45:41] And the teacher strike, we had an outbreak of meningitis.
[02:45:46] We're killed three students.
[02:45:48] Had to cover that.
[02:45:49] And of course, deep in my mind,
[02:45:52] I wanted them to strike.
[02:45:54] I wanted to go out, shut the campus down.
[02:45:58] But it didn't work out.
[02:46:00] How about the, you know,
[02:46:02] how was the treatment, you know?
[02:46:05] You know, as a modern day veteran myself,
[02:46:09] like we get treated just unbelievably ridiculously good.
[02:46:13] Well, that's the benefit from Vietnam.
[02:46:14] We weren't treated well.
[02:46:16] But today, our citizen tree treats our soldiers, sailors,
[02:46:20] appropriately, regardless of the politics.
[02:46:23] Yeah.
[02:46:24] They thank you for the service mostly.
[02:46:25] Yeah, we had cases.
[02:46:27] I mean, I, I wore my fatigue jacket for years,
[02:46:29] just to say, fuck you.
[02:46:30] I'm wearing a few, I don't like it.
[02:46:32] Talk to me about it.
[02:46:33] Mm-hmm.
[02:46:34] And we had a few parties with the newspaper.
[02:46:37] And so everybody,
[02:46:39] almost everybody, set for one or two people,
[02:46:41] were very liberal, of course.
[02:46:42] This is the college, 1971 too.
[02:46:45] And we had this one freak.
[02:46:48] It's like, six, three had as long here.
[02:46:50] And he came up to me and said, you know,
[02:46:52] you guys, I know about you green braids.
[02:46:54] You're fucking baby killers.
[02:46:56] You know, you're going on.
[02:46:57] The whole party comes to a stop.
[02:46:59] So it's mean as creep.
[02:47:01] And so he set a few more things.
[02:47:03] And then, finally, says,
[02:47:04] are you really a baby killer?
[02:47:06] And I said, look,
[02:47:07] the only time we kill babies when we ran out of rations.
[02:47:10] Whoa.
[02:47:11] He just, if he's never, he, that kid was never the same.
[02:47:15] And every boy was kind of like laughing,
[02:47:17] realize how ridiculous this asshole was.
[02:47:19] Yeah.
[02:47:20] So it's like, why get your hands dirty?
[02:47:22] Yeah.
[02:47:23] Yeah.
[02:47:24] So yeah, we had someone that.
[02:47:25] Like, limb black when he came back,
[02:47:27] he was trying to get out of your poor quick
[02:47:30] and took the door, got outside
[02:47:32] and wound up in a long quarter.
[02:47:35] Well, three of four guys came up to him and say,
[02:47:37] hey, man, you're back.
[02:47:38] You got cast.
[02:47:39] We're going to believe you that burden.
[02:47:41] So limb pulled out his 25 caliber browning.
[02:47:44] The little ones you know,
[02:47:45] you put it in your palm.
[02:47:46] Yeah.
[02:47:47] And then goes,
[02:47:48] no, you're not.
[02:47:49] I'm not giving it to you.
[02:47:50] Yeah.
[02:47:51] And the guy, I recognize a cigarette later when I see one.
[02:47:54] Limp put a round between his legs.
[02:47:55] Right there at the airport.
[02:47:56] Day, day, day left.
[02:47:58] But again, it's no respect, you know.
[02:48:01] You just limb just didn't want to get his uniform.
[02:48:03] Where was that? Where was Limp?
[02:48:04] See up and Seattle.
[02:48:06] Yeah.
[02:48:07] Yeah.
[02:48:08] And then,
[02:48:10] how did you start getting re-involved
[02:48:13] with like the special operations group that you're with now?
[02:48:17] I got a phone call from, well, this, too.
[02:48:19] I got a phone call from Spiderman Parks
[02:48:21] in 1983.
[02:48:22] I'm living in Trenton.
[02:48:24] My first wife, first daughter.
[02:48:27] And he said, we got this group special operations association.
[02:48:31] It's our guy.
[02:48:32] So it was formed by Green Braise,
[02:48:34] that ran Recon.
[02:48:35] And we had some hatchet force guys that were the patoon company size operation.
[02:48:39] Like mad dog, Jerry Shriver.
[02:48:42] And they had formed up a few years earlier.
[02:48:47] So I signed up,
[02:48:48] probably in the Trenton and there were unions where different places.
[02:48:51] So I didn't bother to go for a sub-wee year.
[02:48:53] But Spiderman I talked, paid my dues,
[02:48:56] and finally went to, and they started having them in Vegas.
[02:48:59] Me and Jeff Junkers would drive,
[02:49:02] go to Vegas, get into the hotel,
[02:49:04] wait to security guard left and sneak into the reunion,
[02:49:08] hang out with the guys for a day, pick one of our guys,
[02:49:11] crash in their room for the night,
[02:49:13] and then drive home next day.
[02:49:14] But we get to see the guys and no money.
[02:49:16] We get to free food, free drinks, little gas, right?
[02:49:19] So we did that for a couple of years.
[02:49:21] There was a lot of fun.
[02:49:23] And then when I finally met Anna,
[02:49:25] my current wife and my sweetheart forever,
[02:49:28] that kind of came to a close.
[02:49:30] I took Anna one time,
[02:49:32] and the first time was not really completely good experience.
[02:49:35] Some of our guys are still pretty wild,
[02:49:37] and then the hotel wasn't that cool.
[02:49:39] But now, that's more of our guys are snowing now,
[02:49:42] a little bit.
[02:49:43] We've lost some along the way.
[02:49:44] So we happen to be our 43rd reunion.
[02:49:47] But I'm also involved in Special Forces Association,
[02:49:50] Chapter 38 Up and Orange.
[02:49:52] And with our rest room two years ago, a Christmas time,
[02:49:55] I came back.
[02:49:56] I was president.
[02:49:57] So I'm wrapping up my second year
[02:50:00] duty with those gentlemen.
[02:50:02] And what's the nonprofit group that you have?
[02:50:06] We have the Veterans, Veterans of Fortal Housing Program,
[02:50:11] that's out of Orange.
[02:50:12] And then we have a separate nonprofit called
[02:50:16] the American Veterans Assistance Group,
[02:50:19] where we work with programs within our communities.
[02:50:21] We have 45 communities in the five Western states
[02:50:24] that are owned by our company and by our nonprofit.
[02:50:29] And so we encourage the help veterans that have
[02:50:32] fixed income to get them into a affordable housing.
[02:50:35] The manufacturer homes will have expensive
[02:50:38] and stick houses.
[02:50:39] And then we have programs with through our day-back program.
[02:50:43] That programs for meals, meetings, having a guest speakers,
[02:50:47] and things like that.
[02:50:48] And we're doing that in about nine of our communities now.
[02:50:51] So that's what my other job is to do the newsletter.
[02:50:54] Busy.
[02:50:55] Always.
[02:50:56] Always busy.
[02:50:57] Can't like, Clint Eastwood say,
[02:50:59] can't let the old man in.
[02:51:01] Well, I'll tell you what.
[02:51:04] We just hit three hours or something close to that.
[02:51:07] I know I need to let you get out of here.
[02:51:10] Obviously.
[02:51:11] Anything else any other closing thoughts?
[02:51:15] No, just as I said the first time,
[02:51:18] I couldn't have done any of the books without my sweetheart.
[02:51:21] My dear bride, you know, we had 14 ages in
[02:51:25] and a relatively newborn in the house that go right
[02:51:29] and the God bless her without our couldn't have done it.
[02:51:32] So, and that found me today.
[02:51:34] We just learned we got two or three girls
[02:51:37] or pregnant, so we're getting excited about being
[02:51:39] a grandparent or practicing.
[02:51:42] And we're still work with her and I'm profit.
[02:51:44] So moving forward.
[02:51:45] Anything people don't need to that nonprofit.
[02:51:48] Do you have that kind of thing?
[02:51:49] Is there a website or anything like that?
[02:51:50] Or is you guys just run it locally?
[02:51:52] No, they, I'll have to check the website.
[02:51:55] But they could, um,
[02:51:57] I've got my email, my website,
[02:51:59] sawcronicles.com and they could punch in here
[02:52:02] and my emails there and I'll play it to for them.
[02:52:05] We're going through some changes with our website.
[02:52:08] Right, guys.
[02:52:09] You know how that goes.
[02:52:10] But sogcronicles.com is how people can talk to you
[02:52:13] and reach out to you through that.
[02:52:14] Gladly.
[02:52:15] And yeah, come on in and we'll say hi and take it from there.
[02:52:20] Awesome.
[02:52:21] Awesome.
[02:52:22] Well, thank you for this opportunity and your books.
[02:52:24] You really love it.
[02:52:25] Thank you.
[02:52:26] Absolutely.
[02:52:27] This is the honor as a 100% and completely all mine
[02:52:30] to hear the stories which are completely insane
[02:52:34] to learn from your experiences.
[02:52:37] But obviously, or maybe it's not obvious,
[02:52:40] anytime you want to come on the podcast,
[02:52:42] you shoot me a text, you let me know and it will open the door.
[02:52:45] You come in.
[02:52:46] I don't need to say anything.
[02:52:47] You can just talk.
[02:52:48] It's fine with me.
[02:52:48] I'll just listen.
[02:52:49] Like a bad dream.
[02:52:50] I'll be back.
[02:52:51] I look forward to your every second of it.
[02:52:53] Likewise.
[02:52:54] And you know, so thanks for coming on and, and, you know,
[02:52:56] more important.
[02:52:57] And of course, thank you for what you and what your teammates did
[02:53:01] for the service of our great country.
[02:53:04] Likewise, sir.
[02:53:05] Thank you.
[02:53:06] Always indebted to you and men like you.
[02:53:09] So thank you for what you've done.
[02:53:11] Appreciate it.
[02:53:12] Airborne.
[02:53:13] All the way.
[02:53:14] Until next time.
[02:53:15] And once again,
[02:53:19] John Stryker, Meyer,
[02:53:22] Tilt, has left the building.
[02:53:25] What?
[02:53:26] And incredible human being.
[02:53:30] And it's a complete honor.
[02:53:34] And just lucky to be able to sit here and talk to them.
[02:53:38] And here is stories and here and reflect on stuff.
[02:53:42] And it's been a while.
[02:53:44] It's been three hours.
[02:53:45] So anyways, if you liked this conversation,
[02:53:48] this podcast that we just did,
[02:53:51] if you got something out of it,
[02:53:54] which I know I did,
[02:53:56] if you want to support the podcast.
[02:53:59] While you actually support your own self.
[02:54:02] Yes.
[02:54:04] I think Echo can give you some help in making that happen.
[02:54:08] Yep.
[02:54:09] Yes. So, let's go into it.
[02:54:11] Do you just, obviously?
[02:54:12] Do you just, if you're not doing you just, too?
[02:54:14] I would say,
[02:54:15] Jockel and I strongly recommend you.
[02:54:19] I think we're going to say we were disappointed.
[02:54:21] No, see.
[02:54:22] Yeah, maybe.
[02:54:24] Maybe part, but not really.
[02:54:26] At the end of the day,
[02:54:27] there's some understanding to be exercised here.
[02:54:30] Because not every, okay, you ever rolled, you're different.
[02:54:33] But sometimes people roll into Jockel gym or see it on TV
[02:54:36] or even think about it.
[02:54:38] Two people wrestling all hard or whatever.
[02:54:40] Some people just don't automatically want to go do that.
[02:54:42] Mm.
[02:54:43] You know, just automatically.
[02:54:44] On its surface, you might think,
[02:54:46] oh well, that's not really for me.
[02:54:48] I don't really want to grab a grapple with some other dude.
[02:54:52] Oh yeah.
[02:54:53] What you don't see is what's beneath the surface.
[02:54:56] Yeah.
[02:54:57] Because what's beneath the surface is fitness.
[02:54:59] Flexibility, mobility, mental, stamina.
[02:55:04] Yeah.
[02:55:05] Physical, stamina.
[02:55:07] Yeah.
[02:55:07] Cardiovascular improvement, strength improvement.
[02:55:10] On top of all that, you guess what you get?
[02:55:13] A legitimate skill that you can actually choke another person.
[02:55:17] That's bigger than you.
[02:55:18] Yeah.
[02:55:19] That's stronger than you.
[02:55:20] Yeah.
[02:55:20] You can take them.
[02:55:21] Yes.
[02:55:22] So.
[02:55:23] And, you know, if I speak for myself,
[02:55:25] the reason I started and continued with Jockels
[02:55:28] with Jockels, because it's the skill that you're talking about,
[02:55:31] that you learn.
[02:55:33] Mm.
[02:55:34] That skill is this.
[02:55:36] If someone, if someone insist on fighting you,
[02:55:39] Mm.
[02:55:40] You can win the fight.
[02:55:41] Yeah.
[02:55:42] You win the fight.
[02:55:42] And before you learn how to fight,
[02:55:44] and I'm speaking generally speaking,
[02:55:46] um, before you learn to fight,
[02:55:48] you think, ah, you know,
[02:55:50] I'm, I'll just do this.
[02:55:51] Oh yeah.
[02:55:52] You know, I'm stronger than that guy or,
[02:55:54] I'm bigger than that guy.
[02:55:55] That would ever.
[02:55:56] Yeah, you know.
[02:55:57] And you don't realize how, how untrue,
[02:55:59] how un, you know how I've said we lie to ourselves.
[02:56:01] Yes.
[02:56:02] Like we lie to ourselves.
[02:56:03] This is a whole other category of lying to yourself.
[02:56:05] Yeah.
[02:56:06] Because the one category is like we lie to ourselves.
[02:56:07] Like, oh, it's just one doughnut.
[02:56:09] It's not that big of a thing.
[02:56:10] That's just a lie.
[02:56:11] You're lying to yourself.
[02:56:12] Or, well, I don't,
[02:56:13] I can't make it to the gym today,
[02:56:15] because, you know, my, you know,
[02:56:16] it's, it's getting a little late.
[02:56:17] That's a lie.
[02:56:18] You know, it's a lie.
[02:56:19] But an even bigger lie is,
[02:56:21] I'm more capable.
[02:56:23] I'm capable.
[02:56:24] Yeah.
[02:56:25] In certain situations.
[02:56:26] And you're not in your thing.
[02:56:27] And you still talk to people like this.
[02:56:29] Oh, I like, oh, you know,
[02:56:30] we'll feel really came down to it.
[02:56:32] Yeah.
[02:56:32] Yeah.
[02:56:33] I, you know,
[02:56:34] and I lift to,
[02:56:36] Yeah.
[02:56:36] And I got strong cardio.
[02:56:38] Who's going to be able to take me?
[02:56:40] I'll tell you who.
[02:56:41] A,
[02:56:42] a,
[02:56:42] 14 year old girl.
[02:56:43] Yeah.
[02:56:44] That knows how to, you know,
[02:56:46] choke you.
[02:56:47] Yeah.
[02:56:48] That's who.
[02:56:49] Yeah.
[02:56:49] Just like in pool,
[02:56:51] right?
[02:56:52] You're like pool.
[02:56:53] Yeah.
[02:56:53] You get billiards.
[02:56:54] Billiards.
[02:56:55] Yeah.
[02:56:56] Snooker.
[02:56:57] Sure.
[02:56:58] And it's like, yeah,
[02:56:59] I know, I see what's going on.
[02:57:01] I do hit this ball to hit that ball.
[02:57:03] I'm going the thing.
[02:57:04] Yeah.
[02:57:05] That's no problem.
[02:57:06] I'm pretty smart.
[02:57:07] I'm pretty coordinated.
[02:57:08] You know,
[02:57:09] I'm just like,
[02:57:10] that's just how my mind how hard can it be.
[02:57:12] Exactly.
[02:57:13] Right.
[02:57:14] And you go play against the guy who really who knows how to play pool.
[02:57:16] You'd be like,
[02:57:16] how do you even do that?
[02:57:17] Like,
[02:57:18] How did you even like figure that?
[02:57:19] But they know,
[02:57:20] they just know it's not like it's this magic thing.
[02:57:22] They just sort of know same thing with you.
[02:57:24] And in fact,
[02:57:25] it's such a mystery when you actually do it.
[02:57:28] How easily they beat you.
[02:57:29] It's such a weird magic mystery that you don't even comprehend it.
[02:57:33] Yeah,
[02:57:33] At first you're like,
[02:57:34] oh,
[02:57:35] I just slipped.
[02:57:36] No,
[02:57:36] but you didn't slip.
[02:57:37] People either put you there.
[02:57:38] Yeah.
[02:57:39] Yeah.
[02:57:39] Yeah.
[02:57:40] And you think,
[02:57:40] Well,
[02:57:40] next time I'll just stop him from putting his arm there.
[02:57:42] Yeah.
[02:57:42] Yeah.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No.
[02:57:43] No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
[02:57:56] This is what you're doing.
[02:57:58] Yeah.
[02:57:59] Because you're doing it.
[02:57:59] You're doing it.
[02:58:00] You're going to do it.
[02:58:00] You should get a gig because you don't.
[02:58:03] You want to get a nogie.
[02:58:04] So, the kind of give that you get is an origin
[02:58:07] geek.
[02:58:07] best getting the world virtually and made in America, which is a huge deal.
[02:58:09] By the way.
[02:58:11] Also,
[02:58:12] Origin the brand that makes these keys they make jeans American denim
[02:58:16] You didn't get yours yet did you know I didn't
[02:58:20] I taught to be little all the time. Yeah, be a little just got his yeah, we sure to you know why we take care of the customer first
[02:58:27] Well, you're not really the customer mine were T and E
[02:58:32] You know what that is a
[02:58:34] Research and develop test and evaluation
[02:58:36] So I'm testing the value
[02:58:39] Yeah, and I just got another test evaluation for the next phase
[02:58:43] Yeah, because I'm making another phase
[02:58:46] We lie to ourselves as always men once said anyway. No. I don't have jeans, but I from what I imagine from what I see in gather
[02:58:54] You know from the field. They're good jeans
[02:58:57] You know this is this is a good psychological good
[02:59:00] Flanking maneuvering you just did right now
[02:59:02] Because Pete Ryan will hear this nobody like oh, it doesn't even have jeans
[02:59:06] No, no, I will get 100% better get them to them. Nope. Did you do you text them and say hey can I get a pair of jeans?
[02:59:12] That's whatever mean Brian share text and paint by the way how like oh
[02:59:17] We're the last we're the only ones that we literally know that don't have jeans
[02:59:21] You know and then so he text me the other day or even worse
[02:59:28] About his jeans and you know me I'm over here. Well, then again
[02:59:31] I'm where the the shark fin sure you know what are you going to show it so they make that's all right
[02:59:35] Where so whatever
[02:59:37] He presenting he present in big time, but they happen to be the best show you wear jeans very often me
[02:59:42] Maybe that's why not not why you're too vocal about it
[02:59:45] But you would be if you had them on
[02:59:48] I knew he like yeah, maybe I'm just sorry grapes like I don't even want any cool all right
[02:59:53] Well, I do have them
[02:59:56] How are they? They are totally good to go there the next level
[02:59:59] Square the way awesome. Yep, you can get jeans you can get t-shirts you can get
[03:00:05] Supplements we have supplements we got we got joint warfare which you should take we got kill Kerala oil we got discipline to discipline go
[03:00:12] discipline go is like get your
[03:00:17] cognitive wheels spinning turning moving quickly sharp
[03:00:23] So we have discipline going to can come in out. I think it's actually out right now
[03:00:27] Yeah, the little yeah, yeah, see that those are good. Is it the same formula the one the test one that they're
[03:00:33] Yes, okay good. Yeah, that's that one's good. Yeah, here's the thing what all of these right?
[03:00:38] So you have joint warfare krill oil right the combo. That's the best way to go for you
[03:00:42] Join since stuff and then you know
[03:00:43] discipline and then the milk and and everything
[03:00:47] Okay, consider this right as you get older and you still want a fight because man I got it. I got to be honest with you
[03:00:52] You know you know you catch the wave of just consistency. I know you're a consistent person and discipline
[03:00:58] I bet on that wave. Okay, it's a tsunami right so you're the poster child of us
[03:01:03] I do have the dingy knee right now. Yes, which is
[03:01:08] We're almost there. Yes, but you know, okay, you know how some people can catch
[03:01:14] various levels of
[03:01:16] How should I say flourishing flourishes of activity you know where they'll catch the wave of consistency
[03:01:24] Meaning like everything they're doing in their life is like I'm being disciplined and I'm in the zone where it's like just second nature
[03:01:31] Now boom boom boom everything right so if you take all of these supplements that's gonna keep you on there
[03:01:37] Yeah, especially as you get older. Oh, I don't know about the older parks. I'm just kind of the same as I was
[03:01:42] That's just how for you, but take it from someone who's getting older
[03:01:48] Actually getting older. Uh, these I think I as far as my workouts like they're hard they're harder than most of the workouts
[03:01:54] I did when I was young and I'm just maintaining big time
[03:01:58] As far as like staying in the game. Sure. I'm sure anyway you get the consistent combo. That's that's in my opinion
[03:02:04] How you do it also I mentioned milk
[03:02:07] Additional protein in the form of a dessert
[03:02:09] In the form of a delicious like drink that's so tasty. You know
[03:02:14] It was it was telling me like the they were saying oh it was Dave
[03:02:19] Good deal. Yeah. Yeah good deal. Dave was was saying he's at a point now
[03:02:23] Where he's drinking strawberry milk he goes listen. It's one thing to be okay
[03:02:30] It's time for dessert or I am a little bit hungry
[03:02:33] It's another thing to just be sitting around or walking through your awesome beat is just think for no reason other than
[03:02:41] I want to taste the goodness yeah, I'm just gonna go have a strawberry milk. Yeah strawberry slayer right now
[03:02:48] And you know I understand because I've done that before and this is what I thought it was a danger
[03:02:52] The thing is you there's no guilt in that, but here's the thing the concept kind of made me feel a little bit guilty when I was doing that
[03:02:59] Because you know how the kind where you're just like at home board and you see the cookies and you're like it was an easy path and you took it
[03:03:05] It was a desire that you succumb to yes, so that might and be a bad pattern to go down
[03:03:11] Yes, so you gotta be careful. Don't get don't allow the goodness of milk to start to train your brain to accept things that you just want
[03:03:20] Yes
[03:03:20] With you can make an exception with milk. You can be like, hey, I really want this right now just for just for the sake of wanting it
[03:03:27] Yes, but don't think hey, don't know yeah, there's a slippery slope, bro. It is it's bad good
[03:03:35] Yeah, sure, so just be where the mindset essentially there's other flavors to if you don't like strawberry
[03:03:41] Which some people don't who is it Jason Gardner Jason's like don't like strawberry good job Jason
[03:03:48] He's over there, but he he takes that little
[03:03:50] Hitter with his coffee in the morning. He's got his little ritual scenario. He's got going on
[03:03:59] That makes sense though. Strawberry coffee. I can't
[03:04:04] Oneyalia there
[03:04:06] Then you got mint
[03:04:07] Peanut butter the peanut butter is also off-puck so it's the mint. That's the OG
[03:04:12] Do we just say OG we did big time and then don't forget about the warrior kid milk
[03:04:17] Which is the warrior kid milk for your kid either that you can give them poison
[03:04:23] You can give them poison which oh you got a bunch of corn syrup in this drink. I'm gonna give it to my child
[03:04:27] So that's that I give them type two diabetes or you can get him something that makes them stronger smarter faster
[03:04:32] Better yes, warrior kid where your kid milk strawberry and chocolate gets them also joccal weight
[03:04:38] Certified organic but they're good
[03:04:41] My crew how we can call it micro doses the caffeine there's like many many doses
[03:04:45] Yes, what it is yeah, there's it's 60 milligrams per can
[03:04:49] Sortle like a cup of coffee. It also has the antioxidants and they're also days good
[03:04:54] Refresh very free so there you go and
[03:04:58] Well obviously obviously yeah if you want to deadlift 8000 pounds obviously yes the chocolate
[03:05:05] That's the one also certified
[03:05:09] Also we have a store
[03:05:11] Jocco as a store. I say we have so we all have a store if you want to get your merchandise
[03:05:16] I haven't said that word merch. I don't really say that word that much just said it and you said it in a real
[03:05:23] Kind of
[03:05:25] You know why because my daughter watches you two videos which I had to block her
[03:05:29] I though not block her, but you know how you gotta put the block on YouTube
[03:05:33] So only they can only see certain things anyway. I had to do that. She's like you're like okay
[03:05:37] The only thing she's a lot to watch is two two videos jockel podcast for your kid podcast
[03:05:42] I don't know man. She can take it to any way the reason I did that was because she was following some girl on there
[03:05:48] Who's really she was just real sassy. She wasn't it was like the rocketry
[03:05:51] She just had a sassy way of talking maybe 15 maybe 16 years old. Yeah, that's my estimate and my daughter six
[03:05:58] So this girl's talking about this and then it's my daughter starting to say this stuff
[03:06:04] Which is cute at first in my opinion, but after while you're like hey, you can't talk like that
[03:06:09] Not yet. Yeah, what we're doing over here. We're doing exactly right so she
[03:06:14] Anyway, so recently within life past like two days we had to block her anyway
[03:06:19] One of the things she kept saying was like merch and she'd say it all sassy like I'm not gonna do it again
[03:06:24] I'm not gonna say it again, but that's how she was saying it so it just slipped into your head
[03:06:28] Flip right out of your mouth right out of talking about the moon
[03:06:32] So that's why okay, so what can you get at yeah
[03:06:36] Oh, I just turned out. I'm sure. Yeah, so jocco store.com is where you can get this clinical freedom shirts
[03:06:43] Lightweighthood is which are really nice man
[03:06:45] I had it on the other day and everyone's along all flashing do it and be like hey, this is yeah
[03:06:50] You know what's interesting about jocquistort.com
[03:06:54] What's that is we sell t shirts for one thing we sell disciplining goes freedom t shirt
[03:06:59] We sell good t shirt we sell t shirts. There's also people that come up to me and say oh
[03:07:06] I just got an awesome t shirt. I got one of your t shirts and I'm like a sweet man
[03:07:10] And I just had a guy say to me hey, I just got one of your t shirts
[03:07:15] I wish I was wearing it right now and I was like cool and he was it's the
[03:07:21] Don't talk just get after it shirt. Okay, and I go
[03:07:25] Co-man
[03:07:29] We don't have that shirt. Yeah, so there are what do we call?
[03:07:34] Knock off knock off. Yeah, they're what do you call like?
[03:07:39] Yeah, there's like a word for a disapprentint chunk. Yeah, they're disapproved, but they're kind of worth
[03:07:44] Cool and approved they're like worse. This is why because
[03:07:48] People will they don't know the layers. You know how like
[03:07:51] Remember the layers you
[03:07:52] Just pause shirt and you would aid
[03:07:55] $1 for it and it has no layers came with no layers no layers man, and that's bad
[03:08:01] And it's a piece of crap shirt. Yes, so it's kind of like when you buy something for the kid
[03:08:07] For you you have a reason to buy something, right? And this is generally speaking
[03:08:11] I know different reasons vary from just person to person but you have a reason you buy something, right?
[03:08:15] Let's say there's two reasons to buy a shirt one of these shirts. No, let's say there's one reason straight up one reason
[03:08:21] The main reason is the layers you can't you know and literally you can spray paint this link was free to mind
[03:08:26] Sure if you're on display you can have that on yeah, you can do that totally can
[03:08:31] You can have one pre-nade you can go to a website and whatever font you want you can make it look
[03:08:36] However you want literally
[03:08:38] So why won't you do that right?
[03:08:40] Because you want more than just that there's something else whatever that reason is you're in the game
[03:08:44] Whatever reason is we'll call it x reason x
[03:08:47] If you go buy stop talking get after it shirt you literally bought something else you didn't buy
[03:08:55] an x check you out
[03:08:57] Think about this one you know
[03:09:01] I
[03:09:02] Isn't but but nonetheless
[03:09:05] No because I
[03:09:06] some shirt kind of creator you feel like
[03:09:08] people are kind of
[03:09:10] No maybe but defending you in this way though because there is a there's a shirt thing called like it's
[03:09:18] T red spring or I don't know something where basically you can go online
[03:09:23] Take a jpeg of a picture and get anyone picture of you online
[03:09:29] Submit it to this website. It'll make a mock-up of the shirt like you know the cheap shirts
[03:09:34] You know the buy-bombolk maybe second-hand
[03:09:37] Whatever shirts
[03:09:39] Make a mock-up and be like hey guys, buy my shirt right and I saw your face on it and it was like kind of a
[03:09:46] Literally the wrong design right they were trying to copy exactly, but they're already seen this. Yes
[03:09:51] So this is a while yeah, and I saw it and I was like man
[03:09:54] You know I'll down in TJ like they'll knock off like Louis Vuitton versus and stuff at least it looks like the Louis Vuitton logo
[03:10:01] You know and you got to look close to see the you know the the quality the lapsing quality
[03:10:06] But this one was like flaggeringly wrong design, you know whoever
[03:10:10] Mean while they're like selling it like their thing. Yeah, it was offensive for sure
[03:10:14] And it's offensive on two levels because offensive kind of to us is like hey, that's not our stuff don't miss represent
[03:10:19] That's A B the person who doesn't quite you know
[03:10:23] They're just new and fired up. They can be the hey
[03:10:25] There's one here's the first one that popped up on Google and they're gonna get the junk one
[03:10:28] They're gonna go out try to represent in the wild and but that's just not gonna work man. That's a bugger
[03:10:33] That is a no support no support and you know
[03:10:36] I get it you know support isn't the primary reason when you think of true
[03:10:39] Like you got to go out there. It's someone buys a shirt
[03:10:41] They want to know what there's there no, but that being said there are some people that they don't really need another shirt
[03:10:47] They're literally just to support. Yes, sir plenty of people just said or just hey we appreciate
[03:10:53] The time the effort to whatever
[03:10:56] Appreciate it there's a little thank you little support. Yeah, that's not wrong with that that's appreciated
[03:11:01] That's you know that allows us to that allows us
[03:11:04] To have echo make all these videos
[03:11:10] Very all right, then the last the jockel store doc by the way
[03:11:15] Who's listening to this right now? No one with three hours three plus hours
[03:11:19] It's just you only dogging. Yeah, all right. Well, whatever you're gonna say you might as well say it
[03:11:23] Don't care. It's all still true. How about that and yes, the myth the stuff that you really want to represent the
[03:11:30] Authentic certified this is not the certification process, but proved it proved. Yeah is all on jockel store.com
[03:11:38] I
[03:11:39] W a
[03:11:41] Active dot CO dot UK that if you're in the UK that's where you get it. Yeah, so I and here's the thing
[03:11:47] I'm somebody's by another URL for that. Well, it's dot code that you it
[03:11:52] UK still
[03:11:54] You gotta be like
[03:11:56] Anyway, cuz you know cuz shipping certain parts in like the kid is shipping is crazy from here is what I'm saying
[03:12:01] So boom you want to you want to side step the shipping little bit you can do that might take a little bit longer
[03:12:05] I think maybe I'm not sure I don't live in the UK
[03:12:07] But nonetheless some people ask me about that
[03:12:10] Yeah, anyway, who doesn't stuff all the legitimate
[03:12:13] Approved stuff check it out if you like something get something also or
[03:12:19] Subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on iTunes stitch or Google play where we listen to pop
[03:12:23] I iTunes or whatever you listen to podcasts. That's what I meant to say and the warrior kid podcast which is not dead
[03:12:30] It's not dead. Yeah, which is more episodes are brewing the brewing in my mind
[03:12:36] Should I you know I make for the warrior kid podcast? I do at the last I don't know six episodes
[03:12:42] Perhaps I've done the story from Uncle Jake. Yeah, that takes
[03:12:47] Not just time cuz it takes a little bit of time to prep
[03:12:50] But it also takes the spark of inspiration, right? Okay here is the deal right and you can't manufacture in Sparoto
[03:12:57] We know so sometimes I'm like well, I could just do a Q and A for the kids
[03:13:01] Which is what it started out as
[03:13:03] Which is fine, which I I get it so but sometimes I feel like I'm letting everyone down
[03:13:09] If I don't do the story from Uncle Jake's childhood. Yes, because I really like doing the story of some Uncle Jake childhood
[03:13:15] now
[03:13:17] I will like I said we'll we're back on it. Maybe I'll release some with no story from Uncle Jake's childhood
[03:13:23] Just because I get so many good questions from young warrior kids around the world and I mean that
[03:13:29] Think about that the world little warrior kids all over the place getting ready to get up and get after
[03:13:34] Do some pull-ups. So yeah, take out the warrior kid podcast and also if you want to support a
[03:13:39] Actual warrior kid go to Irish Oaks Branch dot com where young Aiden is making soap that allows you to stay clean
[03:13:50] Check also we have a YouTube channel jockel podcast YouTube channel if you're interested in the video
[03:13:56] Version you can see with what John striker my her looks like tilt aka tilt or
[03:14:02] If you want to see what jockel looks like if you don't already know more if you don't have a shirt with his face
[03:14:07] Ari on it and you want to see what he looks like on you know YouTube and also there's some excerpts on there
[03:14:12] You know if you want to listen to or revisit
[03:14:16] specific ideas or or concepts lessons you know individually and share them with your friends
[03:14:24] You know I like the hood of them watching it. That's where you get them on our YouTube channel
[03:14:30] So yeah echo thinks his videos are good. You can leave a comment on his videos
[03:14:33] He does read them. I read them
[03:14:35] And I like to say that echo the fact so check that out psychological warfare
[03:14:41] That's now with tracks where if you got a little moment of weakness you might be approaching and you want to get out of bed
[03:14:48] Or you want to get your workout donor you want to say no to a donut
[03:14:54] Press play psychological warfare iTunes Google play MP3
[03:15:00] Don't forget about the visual version of psychological warfare warfare from
[03:15:05] Dakota Meyer flip side canvas Dakota Meyer is making
[03:15:09] art
[03:15:11] That you can hang on the wall that says all your excuses are lies
[03:15:15] Makes all kinds of cool stuff
[03:15:17] He's stepping up his game with that. It's really cool stuff and if you haven't listened to podcast
[03:15:23] 115 with the codemires check it out and then go get some of his gear
[03:15:27] From good old flip side canvas dot com
[03:15:31] It's a very good one. I was talking with both John Bowzeck
[03:15:36] Elist a K.A. illustrator of work kid book series and
[03:15:40] My kid dragons
[03:15:41] Yeah, Mike in the jersey sand no word. He was talking about yeah, I got some good stuff that you know
[03:15:46] I'm going back and forth with the codemires. So he's gonna be designing some of those. Yes, you know
[03:15:49] We have some of that clear kid posters canvases wall hanging stuff from Mikey in the dragons
[03:15:56] Which Mikey in the dragons artwork. Let's face it this stuff is legit you you consider yourself kind of an artist right?
[03:16:03] Yes, I do yes, you do the repeat robbers
[03:16:05] They're just over there create color palettes
[03:16:08] Right, yes, you are I see you later
[03:16:11] Yeah, you're color palettes. Anyway your points sir your my point is that we have to admit that Mikey in the dragons artwork is
[03:16:17] Awesome, there well we're taking it we're putting on to some legit size canvases
[03:16:23] And you can hang it up in your kids room so your kid learns to overcome his or her fear
[03:16:31] Check agree also on it so on it dot com slash jocco
[03:16:37] So this is where you can get any kind of fitting like additional fitness gear awesome fitness gear including kettlebells which I recommend
[03:16:45] Battle ropes maces clubs
[03:16:47] So I've been talking to some of the guys there. He was telling me about the use
[03:16:54] Mace or club you're both right, which one is one with the longer is mace
[03:16:59] Okay, yes club is short. Yes, the mace
[03:17:02] So I was like, yeah, I don't I don't really do that workout, but I looked into it and I might be beneficial
[03:17:09] The maces definitely when I'm official yeah, the while the mace and
[03:17:13] They're both beneficial the things beneficial about them. They're awkward. Yes, they're hard to handle yeah, you know
[03:17:20] Well, I've been doing like a lot of kettlebells like heavier for as many reps
[03:17:25] You know, it's like that kind of how this difference, you know, you can do a light kettlebell for a long nest
[03:17:29] Anyway
[03:17:30] The more awkward kind of the thing and you've been doing those sandbags too
[03:17:34] Yeah, you were sad I was sad yeah, man those awkward things here's a good exercise with the sandbag
[03:17:40] You just take your sandbag just heav it over your head turn around heav it over your head turn around heav it over your head
[03:17:44] That's actually tiring. Oh, you're gonna find that to be more tiring than you expect
[03:17:49] Especially because the first one you're like oh
[03:17:51] Joc was said this was gonna be tiring. It's not then you do number three and you're like
[03:17:55] Joc was not right you number five and you're like why am I breathing hard
[03:18:00] And then you do it like seven times you like why might you been doing this because it's too painful. Yes, that's my experience
[03:18:05] Nonetheless, I get I've been doing it and consistently kind of for the first time in life or I'll be like, oh, yeah, I try the work
[03:18:10] It's cool for a week or two and I say it's cool workouts good workout. I get it
[03:18:13] But I've been doing it for like long time now kettlebells like these awkward thing and
[03:18:19] Injuditsu I feel this it's not weird because it's new
[03:18:23] So it's this new like lack of tiredness you know how there's like different tiredness is in Juditsu
[03:18:28] Where you like okay? We're wrong with you know various people, you know, yeah
[03:18:32] Not you you need's out I get it and you know when you come back we can roll it whatever and maybe I can really put my non-tiredness to the test
[03:18:39] But yeah, like I'm saying you get a few different types of tiredness
[03:18:42] Yeah, the kind where they're breathing like a disco bow that has nine like a hundred and fifty minutes different names for snow
[03:18:48] You know
[03:18:49] They're not styles of tired
[03:18:51] Native no because there's oh think about it
[03:18:54] There's the kind of kindness where you're breathing real hard, but you know
[03:18:57] You can still generate kind of force with your muscles, you know your muscles aren't like noodly and yeah
[03:19:01] Like you're like you're not in muscle failure, yes, which is different different and they already call that type of tired
[03:19:08] muscle failure
[03:19:10] You need to make a bascoma words for all these different things all your different forms of fatigue
[03:19:14] Anyway, or you can be like dang I'm not breathing hard, but I just I'm just so weak my butt
[03:19:19] I can't live my heart you've trained with me. You know that kind. How much of you trained with me?
[03:19:22] I don't know
[03:19:23] Infinity times what what how do you describe my tired?
[03:19:27] I'm trying to think have you ever seen me get tired?
[03:19:33] I have with me no, no, I've been tired. I'll tell you there's a couple times I totally remember getting tired
[03:19:41] I was we did
[03:19:42] G-no-gu holiday training here one time we started with no-gu
[03:19:47] We went to ghee we did six I think it was six ten minute rounds no
[03:19:53] It was six six minute rounds no-gu six six minute rounds ghee
[03:19:59] And I was tired at the end of that everyone's you know like everyone does the leg
[03:20:02] I'll take a rest round to the number of go get jocco
[03:20:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's uh
[03:20:07] Welly, but nonetheless I didn't after doing all these workouts
[03:20:11] I don't feel the like body tired, you know like a don't feel it
[03:20:16] It's like not even nearly as well like I really got to get pushed to feel a bit so anyway
[03:20:21] Point is yeah go to on it dot com slash jockel look at all the cool stuff on there
[03:20:25] Grab something from there that don't really help you. I'll keep you in the game big time
[03:20:30] Books jockel what are we got got a bunch of books will the where there's a will
[03:20:37] That's the latest way the where your kid book where there's a will
[03:20:40] Getting some really good reviews from people. I don't want to have you finished yet? No, you're still working through it
[03:20:47] No anyways if you want to help your kids or any kids that you know get on the path these are these are books that
[03:20:53] Everyone tells me and I will tell you I wish I had these books when I was
[03:20:57] Seven years old eight years old nine years old ten years old hundred percent
[03:21:00] Way the warrior kid marks mission and where there's a will check them out
[03:21:04] They're in multiple different languages to check that out if you speak a different language or your children speak a different language
[03:21:09] You can get that also about Mikey in the dragons
[03:21:12] Mike in the dragons is the book that should be read to every kid at
[03:21:18] least once a day from the ages of one until six
[03:21:24] Okay, I just read it in a
[03:21:27] First grade class
[03:21:29] You went in the lead to a first grade class and read it
[03:21:34] I went in there. I got nuts
[03:21:36] I told all the kids because I know it's like they're trying to they're goal of a teachers to keep the kids calm right
[03:21:42] I come in there. No, it's not happening. So I'm like good morning children and like they're like good morning
[03:21:46] And I'm like what good morning what I can't hear you what I'm not sure what you're saying
[03:21:51] Can you please be louder?
[03:21:54] So they're amped and as I was getting them all amped up I started getting nervous
[03:21:58] Because I said wait a second. I'm getting these kids completely
[03:22:01] Just jacked up and getting crazy and hyper and then I'm gonna expect them to sit and listen to me read this book which is a 15
[03:22:09] Maybe an 18 minute read
[03:22:11] It's not it's not short
[03:22:13] It's not short and so I was like, oh, I might have overset my balance. I might have done I'm gonna made a wrong tactical call
[03:22:21] So then I crack open the book and this after you know I'm answering a couple questions
[03:22:25] I crack open the book. I read it boom silence and total attention
[03:22:29] For 18 minutes while I read the book so that
[03:22:34] Book and I was to explain to the kids that I put I put words nice and listen
[03:22:38] There's words in this book that you when you read them people are saying that that words too big of a word
[03:22:45] For a little kid I said these people want to make you stupid
[03:22:48] I want to make you smart when you see this word and I open up poise there's a thing right
[03:22:52] We use the word poise. I rhyme it with noise
[03:22:55] And I said these people don't want you to know what the word poises and I read it to him again that little section
[03:23:02] I said what do you think that means and you know some little kid little little belly up front
[03:23:08] Is it mean like he said something really smart? He says does it mean you keep your feelings inside?
[03:23:14] And I said yes, Billy
[03:23:17] That's what it means
[03:23:19] Don't let the man keep you down
[03:23:21] They want to see they want to give you the dumbest book you can read this book's got a couple words
[03:23:25] You're gonna you're gonna have to you have to try and figure out what they mean but you will poise
[03:23:29] You just figured it out Billy you said an example for everyone in this room
[03:23:32] Salute
[03:23:34] William
[03:23:36] Yeah, that's the best man so that's Mike in the dragons get that for the library
[03:23:42] This is what you did there
[03:23:44] What it was my theory hypothesis you know, okay, so you're you're in I made you turn it on the next belt level up
[03:23:51] Yeah, wait, okay, we're gonna say no
[03:23:53] So with with with the kids when you're getting them all fired up
[03:23:57] Here's what you did you didn't necessarily get them
[03:24:01] You there's a difference between being loud and fired up and being
[03:24:05] At attention so you got like
[03:24:08] The trouble from what I understand that teachers and babysitters are way if you're looking after
[03:24:13] Big grunk coaches and stuff like this looking after big group of kids is they don't they're they don't you don't have their attention
[03:24:19] Yeah, they're fired up and a lot of the time with kids they're so fired up
[03:24:23] That they can't give you their attention. Yeah, they're just going somewhere
[03:24:25] But yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right so what you did is you just basically
[03:24:29] Wrangled like a big horse Wrangler yeah, wrangled all of that fired up in this that these kids
[03:24:34] Right, you have anyway, but you got their attention so they you didn't have to like go against the grain with them at all
[03:24:40] All you did was sort of funnel it funnel it towards you so all that fire. I was towards you so when it was time
[03:24:45] They'll do anything you say now. Yeah, you're telling you actually you've actually seen we did super first hand and the effects lasted like weeks
[03:24:52] After which is weird. I'm gonna show you both videos
[03:24:55] Could the side yeah, that's right. Yeah, okay, so I'll tell the people if I haven't already I don't know
[03:25:00] I'm excited okay, so red
[03:25:03] Dave Burke's house good deal life good deal
[03:25:06] Good for success exactly right and
[03:25:09] We're leaving it's time to leave so it's like my kids my two kids
[03:25:13] Your kids were not there one of my kids my youngest yes your younger youngest was there
[03:25:19] Dave Burke's kids
[03:25:21] Jamie and Flynn Cochran's kids and
[03:25:25] Well, it was a lot. This is a lot of kids yes and
[03:25:29] Jocquos there you did the exact same thing did the exact same thing with them as you did with the kids in the past
[03:25:35] Yes, you would you're doing it now. They're which is good by the way
[03:25:37] So you're going detached. I like it. You don't attach your given your assessment and I have the video to revisit to I have one and my wife has one
[03:25:44] So my wife's one
[03:25:45] She's videoing you and you're it cuts in where you're going like this you're going hook go hook go with your hands side to side
[03:25:53] And the kids are trying to keep up they're like oh, what are we doing okay and slowly they start doing you're like and then you start yelling at them
[03:25:59] Yeah, you're not doing it loud enough
[03:26:01] Yeah, and then same thing who go hook and they all start doing they fall in light they're doing it louder or whatever
[03:26:06] And you're like louder and of course they want to be louder
[03:26:09] So they kids so they can they and they fall in light and they do it you're like good and then you give them high five
[03:26:14] Right good job give one high five mirror like harder
[03:26:18] Give one high five just to whichever random kid
[03:26:21] So you say harder than they hit you with a harder high five then you go
[03:26:24] Real loud and you go mean
[03:26:27] Of course that gets everyone else fired up like they want to do the same thing so you're like going up from kid to kid high five
[03:26:32] Saying ah, I mean it was trying to do it harder than the last kid or whatever
[03:26:35] Me and one when other kids if you notice when other kids are giving you high five the ones that are not giving you high five
[03:26:41] Or just watching full attention just waiting waiting for the next thing now the point of this story that made significant to me
[03:26:50] Was because
[03:26:52] To not even two weeks later, let me be like a week later right my son who's two my daughter who's six my daughter accidentally and my wife has this on video
[03:26:59] Two because they're playing into in little dances whatever on accident
[03:27:03] My daughter steps on my son's wrist
[03:27:05] Just on accident when they're kind of you know in the in the scramble so my son gets up he's like he goes ah
[03:27:12] And hits my daughter right and goes mean
[03:27:18] What the heck that was kind of weird you know that was a weird outburst right there
[03:27:22] So Michael and then but my wife clever she kind of remembered something about it
[03:27:27] Right so she revisits the video that she took of you going
[03:27:31] I mean so it's like a hit and then a point on the right that's what you did they hit in your version was a high five
[03:27:37] Sure enough I see my son's little head watching the whole time just in the corner he didn't do any
[03:27:41] I see was watching the whole thing go revisit my son daughters version same exact thing boom incident right steps on the wrist
[03:27:51] Instead of high five he does a hit to her shoulder or whatever in a high five
[03:27:55] Fashion and goes mean the exact same tone is you your children are always learning
[03:28:00] Yes, so if you want your children to learn properly
[03:28:04] The right stuff read a mic in the dragons. Yeah, but see what you did there
[03:28:09] With the attention right thing it's it's totally effective. That's a good note man
[03:28:14] I'm gonna that's a good little
[03:28:16] Anic technique I'm gonna use it. Yeah, I'm gonna use it. Check don't do it before bedtime
[03:28:21] Why don't forget about the discipline it goes freedom field manual
[03:28:25] This is the graduation gift right get it for your kids
[03:28:29] What do they 15 17 19 22 the 24 getting done with their masters get into this one
[03:28:37] It goes freedom field manual they got to work to do we all do
[03:28:40] If you want an audio it's on iTunes it's on Amazon music Google play and all that they got extreme ownership
[03:28:47] And then I caught a me leadership written both by me and my brother, Dave Babin they are books
[03:28:53] About leadership and they will give you some principles that you can apply
[03:28:58] to every single situation you are in in business in life
[03:29:03] That caught a me leadership and extreme ownership
[03:29:07] Speaking of life we have a
[03:29:09] Leadership consultancy and what we do is solve problems inside of organizations and we solve them through leadership
[03:29:16] Because that's where the problem is so it's me. It's life Babin J. P. to know Dave Burke Flynn Cochran, Mike's really Mike Bima and Jason Garner if you need to help in your
[03:29:27] Organization with leadership go to echelon front dot com and
[03:29:32] Also, we have EF online
[03:29:35] Because leadership training is not in an
[03:29:38] Occulation it's just like due to it so you can't just show up one day now
[03:29:41] You know due to you can't just show up read one book and or go to one seminar and now you're a good leader
[03:29:47] No, you have to continually
[03:29:50] train and that's what EF online is interactive leadership training
[03:29:54] New modules coming out monthly
[03:29:58] It's got me and the rest of the echelon front team working with you to give you pragmatic skills
[03:30:05] Go to EF online for that
[03:30:09] Also the master Chicago done it was sold out next up Denver. It's gonna sell out Sydney, Australia
[03:30:17] December 4th and 5th the Denver one is September 19th and 20th go to extreme ownership dot com
[03:30:23] If you want to come to these events because they are going to sell out
[03:30:28] So go there early and EF over watch
[03:30:31] where
[03:30:32] Wait when you're looking at hire someone
[03:30:35] If you don't think oh, I got to find the person that has the specific skills that I want
[03:30:40] Know what you want is to hire the right person with the right kind of character and
[03:30:44] The most important skill that they can have is leadership skills and then you can teach them the technical skills that they need to know for the job
[03:30:51] We have people with character and with leadership capability
[03:30:56] From special operations and combat aviation and we can put them into your organization
[03:31:03] It's our company EF overwatch. EF overwatch.com if you need
[03:31:09] Leadership in your business or team and if you want to hear more from
[03:31:15] myself and echo Charles
[03:31:17] We're on the inner webs
[03:31:19] Or on Twitter we're on Instagram and we are on that
[03:31:26] Facebook
[03:31:28] Echo is an echo Charles and I am at jocca willing and once again
[03:31:32] Thanks to all the veterans out there
[03:31:37] Men like
[03:31:38] John Stryker Meyer who fought for the American ideal and who himself represents that ideal
[03:31:45] True American hero humbled us sit here and talk to him and to those of you that are out there on the front lines right now
[03:31:56] Thank you
[03:31:57] for fighting for our ideals as well
[03:32:02] And also thanks to police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service
[03:32:11] First responders thanks to you for living a life of service and sacrifice so that we can live our lives in safety and security
[03:32:23] into everyone else out there
[03:32:26] remember
[03:32:28] John Stryker Meyer has written about and told us stories that he lived through and some of them are just hard to believe
[03:32:41] But also
[03:32:43] Remember that for every story of bravery and heroism that he tells
[03:32:50] There are an infinite number of
[03:32:54] stories that never got told
[03:32:56] stories from the men who did not come home
[03:33:04] Soldiers sailors airmen and marines who gave away all their stories
[03:33:12] past present and future
[03:33:16] They sacrificed all those stories the stories of their lives
[03:33:20] for us
[03:33:27] Never forget them
[03:33:29] Until next time this is echo and jocco out