Jocko Podcast 182 w/ John "TILT" Stryker Meyer: The Claustrophobic Reality of The Vietnam Jungle

2019-06-20T09:22:55Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @johnstrykermeyer @echocharles 0:00:00 – Opening 0:05:48 – John "Tilt" Stryker Meyer 1:08:27 – What it was like Operating in Vietnam 2:11:46 – Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:16:52 – Support: How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO STORE Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com/collection... All Supplements: https://originmaine.com/nutrition/joc... 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 2:46:50 – Closing gratitude.

AI summary of episode

But this is like, it's like, especially if you roll with like guys who are like, good. Like if I was all motivational like, you know what you should That like button, you got to smash that thing. Like, hey, if she starts like putting on weight that she doesn't like or something like that, it's kind of my fault. So cotton is like a, it's like almost like a pod that turns inside out like a popcorn almost. And I was like, I still don't want to train, but it was because there was only like, three people there and they were like really brand new at the time. You know, but just, and I'm not talking where someone is shot, but like, you know, just all of a sudden you're taking rounds and you're like, where are those coming from? We'll bring you back on and we'll get, and I know you and I are talking about other guys that we're going to come on and all those stories of those heroes will we'll get them out there because People want to know I want to hear them. What the way if you're writing, it's like, It's like, right into the share, like, subscribe. I mean, there was areas where there was areas where they were taken, IED strikes on vehicles, and like, you know, when in a big IED hits a Humvee, everyone dies or three out of five people die or something like that, I mean, it's very catastrophic. Right now share like and subscribe share like and subscribe share like and subscribe. Well, yeah, you, but you're like, you're like one, two levels like beyond. And, you know, he reflects on how that was just way too many of us like, hey man, you know, tilt, go out and the field will less than 10. It's like 70 burpees and like 40 pushups or something like that. So we had jundies, like you guys had little people, like you had in-ditch force. I guess, you know, we would have Mark 48, which is 762 and then the Mark 46, which is 556, you know, that's basically like a little stoner and a and a and 60. But I've been training with Andy for like the last like three months, you know, more than it. So no one would know that we were in there, that we were taking pictures, you know, like just logistics air, just an aircraft flying somewhere, they'd go in a straight line. Did you, it sounds like you recognize this when you were doing these operations, you kind of knew that this was, I don't know, I guess I'm going to use this word. And that, you know, this is one of the reasons I highlighted this section is, you know, just this is something that, you know, what we talk about complacency all the time. Because if you're afraid, you're going to prepare more, you're going to train harbor, you're going to, you're not going to cut any corners, you're not going to get complacent. Like, I was more worried about guys that were hesitant or I felt like if they were hesitant on the battlefield, that would work out bad for them. So like, and you know, this is, you know, probably within three to 500 meters of view. You know, like you get, you know, when you buy cotton balls? Well, especially when you have training partners that you like and you trust and you, you know, you enjoy what you get from the training where every garnish you got beat down or not. The guys that I always felt like, okay, if someone's aggressive, not not unaffraid and suicidal like that, but So I don't know if you know this, but now it's like a school you go to. Yeah, for the other reason, they don't know it's like a big metal, yeah, jungle penetrator. But then you get like, you know, you're if you're doing jiu-jitsu, then you're starting to get a little infection exposures going on. Like, if you ever said, man, I really don't feel like training. Oh, yeah, it felt good, but you know, it's like quiet professionals, just don't talk about that much. Either way, so I'm thinking, you know, of all the things and then I arrive at the concept of man, in any other situation, you take that kind of like just physical turmoil. Well, I, you know, I'm one of those guys who kind of like cool socks. And he's talking about how much stuff he cared, all this stuff for one of the thing he cared is, you know, eight grenades or something like that. Usually, if you don't feel like training, it's not that you don't feel like training. I'm not looking forward to the next time, you know, like, come on, let's face it. But either way, I'm like, that was it's kind of like a feeling that's very hard to to describe. You know, people some people like to say things. But this idea of, and you know, I also talk to young military guys, young seals, that, you know, they're, they're scared of this, they're scared of that. If you guys ever think about using some kind of pre-rigged like sit harness or something, they were developing those at the time. But something like this, just so people understand, something like this, you're on patrol. I also used to get the feeling that if you were scared like that, if you were scared, and you were going to be hesitant, that was going to be bad. So she'll be like, hey, I don't really feel like doing the workout today. Like, oh, you like to watch street fight videos. They're kind of like that, but more like there's not, they're not in a ball. So now instead of like, you just read it, that's a quick, it is bam bam, you're saying, but now, and then you're drowning, it feels like it's slowed down. And then it went all like pop, being like that. That's like, I always tell them, good, you know, you should, you should be afraid. And actually that kind of is important to note, because you know, if they're like, hey, So a hundred bucks was like a hundred bucks was like a month to pay basically.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 182.
[00:00:04] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:07] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:09] Good evening.
[00:00:10] The insertion was flawless.
[00:00:13] We were in the wood line and on our way for a general area reconnaissance.
[00:00:18] This time we played it by the book, moving 10 minutes, then waiting 10 minutes.
[00:00:23] As we moved, I swear that I'd never run an eight-man team again.
[00:00:28] It was too cumbersome.
[00:00:31] In this target, the vegetation still made me a tad on edge as it had a second canopy in some
[00:00:37] areas, but still gave us long lines of sight, something we weren't used to.
[00:00:43] As darkness approached, we looked for a good spot to R-O-N.
[00:00:48] With the flat terrain, finding a good R-O-N became really dicey.
[00:00:52] Alternatively, we'd look for high ground, dense vegetation, or an area far from any trail.
[00:00:58] Finally we found one, and saw a set up perimeter, set up the watch rotation, and oversaw
[00:01:03] the placement of extra clay more minds.
[00:01:07] In one area where the vegetation was thin, bubble placed a couple of toe poppers in the
[00:01:11] ground.
[00:01:13] I couldn't sleep.
[00:01:15] The flat terrain played on my mind.
[00:01:18] Our first light, the entire team, was awake, alert, retrieving the clay more minds and preparing
[00:01:22] for our move out of the R-O-N.
[00:01:26] After night on the jungle floor, I wanted an R-N-R anywhere with firm beds, clean sheets,
[00:01:33] and cold drinks.
[00:01:35] Because I insisted on carrying the PRC-25, there was little room in my backpack, except
[00:01:41] for essentials.
[00:01:43] At night, when I slept on the ground, I did so without an air mattress or hammock.
[00:01:49] The sole item of comfort was an Army-issue pullover sweater that buttoned up to the neck.
[00:01:55] Whenever I put it on at night, I was always worried about Charlie hitting us when I was pulling
[00:02:01] the sweater over my head.
[00:02:02] It was one of the few creature comforts I allowed myself or had room for in my Rucksack.
[00:02:09] Shortly after first light, the green Hornets CNC aircraft flew into the edge of our
[00:02:13] AO for a routine commo check.
[00:02:16] I gave him a quick team, OK, and prepared to move the team out of the R-O-N.
[00:02:22] However the CNC crew told me to wrap up the mission.
[00:02:25] There was another problem that he couldn't discuss on an open frequency.
[00:02:28] We knew the NVA monitored Saga FM radio transmissions and had radio direction finding
[00:02:32] equipment.
[00:02:34] The CNC pilot told us to find an LZ and let him know when we'd be ready for extra
[00:02:39] action.
[00:02:40] A few minutes later, the green Hornets roared into the new LZ picked us up and returned
[00:02:45] us to base.
[00:02:47] The reason we were yanked from the field this time stemmed from a tragedy in the Prairie
[00:02:51] Fryer area of operations on 30 November.
[00:02:56] An H-34 King B was shot out of the sky during an eldest son operation.
[00:03:01] Seven green berets from FOB-1 and FOB-4 were killed when an anti-aircraft round struck
[00:03:07] the Sakuarski chopper and ignited the ammunition on the aircraft killing everyone on board.
[00:03:16] One of the men killed and that ill-fated King B was staff sergeant Arthur E. Bader.
[00:03:23] I liked Bader.
[00:03:25] On my last night at FOB-1 before shipping out to FOB-6, I played in a poker game where
[00:03:31] he won a lot of money.
[00:03:34] Along with we played the more money Bader, the more money Bader, the more merouse he became.
[00:03:43] At one point, I asked him what was wrong.
[00:03:46] He was winning and he was a head several hundred dollars but kept complaining that he'd
[00:03:51] never spend the money.
[00:03:54] His response was that he had a premonition that he was going to die and that men about
[00:04:00] to die often went a lot of money that they would never spend.
[00:04:06] We all tried to josh him out of his dark mood but failed.
[00:04:10] Bader was a unique special forces green beret.
[00:04:15] He had earned and lost three separate fortunes in between three terms in the service.
[00:04:20] He was in his 30s but still enjoyed SF, spoke fluid German and a few other languages
[00:04:26] and merely wanted to accomplish any mission assigned to him.
[00:04:31] On the long flight back to Fubai, I kept hearing him talk to us at the poker table that
[00:04:37] last night.
[00:04:40] Now he was gone.
[00:04:49] And that is the reality of war captured in the best selling book across the fence.
[00:05:02] And back with us again to talk about war as the author of that book and of another book
[00:05:08] called On the Ground and of a series of books called the Sog Chronicles of Man who has
[00:05:12] seen more than most and who has had more close calls than any man should have John Stryker
[00:05:22] Meyer.
[00:05:23] And if you haven't listened to podcast 180 and 180 one yet go back and listen to them first
[00:05:30] to hear the background of this hero, this warrior special forces soldier and leader of
[00:05:37] RT Idaho, a recon team for Mac Vsog working missions across the border from Vietnam
[00:05:45] into Laos and Cambodia.
[00:05:47] John, good evening sir.
[00:05:49] Good evening.
[00:05:50] Thanks for coming back again.
[00:05:51] Glad to be back every time you walk out of the studio about 10 minutes later.
[00:05:54] I said if you were in tech say hey can you come back again next week?
[00:05:58] We said so much fun.
[00:05:59] I can't say no.
[00:06:00] That's happened.
[00:06:01] That's that happened.
[00:06:02] That's how you ended up here again every time you walk out of here I go.
[00:06:05] I want to hear you talk more.
[00:06:08] Hear more about what you've done.
[00:06:10] And yeah, no it's been awesome and there are spots where people have been hit me up.
[00:06:14] They've been just just in fraught with what you've been talking about and here in
[00:06:22] Utah these stories has been interesting.
[00:06:26] You haven't seen this.
[00:06:27] Have you heard of a movie character named Jason Born?
[00:06:31] Have you heard of this guy?
[00:06:33] Yeah.
[00:06:34] So I posted a picture of you when you were 21 or 21 or 22.
[00:06:37] Right.
[00:06:38] He's my illegitimate son.
[00:06:40] Yeah.
[00:06:41] You got some definite comments about that.
[00:06:44] Interesting.
[00:06:45] Interesting.
[00:06:46] So yeah, we got the real guy back again.
[00:06:50] So I know we that first excerpt that I just read was from across the fence and I wanted
[00:06:58] to go back to your other book for a little bit, the book on the ground and then I just
[00:07:05] want to kind of bunch of things I want to just ask you about and talk to you about.
[00:07:08] But I wanted to cover one more section of this book on the ground.
[00:07:11] I was reading through it again yesterday and it's just again one of these situations
[00:07:16] where I don't know how you're here right now to be honest with you.
[00:07:22] Only buddy Grace and guys indeed to be con guys to smother our team and you guys had more
[00:07:30] than 100% casualties right.
[00:07:33] Correct.
[00:07:34] You had guys that you had some guys that had 789 purple hearts.
[00:07:39] Bob Howard was putting for 11.
[00:07:41] He only received 8.
[00:07:43] In my case I've been putting for two more.
[00:07:45] But it's just straplish.
[00:07:46] Now you look at guys that get to a legs blown off on arms plump.
[00:07:49] It's like almost embarrassed to take it.
[00:07:52] And anybody got a purple heart in our day, you got really ragged for it.
[00:07:58] Because you dumbass, you just couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
[00:08:01] You got a purple tart.
[00:08:03] I think we had one of my old Vietnam seal buddies.
[00:08:06] I think he called it the Viet Cong Achievement Medal.
[00:08:10] That's a good one.
[00:08:11] I like that.
[00:08:15] So you're putting for two more?
[00:08:17] How many did you get already?
[00:08:18] That was ten one.
[00:08:19] Okay.
[00:08:20] And again, spider parks and Pat Walkins, my you know, my gurus, my recon gurus.
[00:08:26] We had one that had been put in for it.
[00:08:28] Just minor straplish the paperwork disappeared.
[00:08:32] Another one had more straplish.
[00:08:34] And this time with a little bit, a lot more serious bleeding and scratching and stuff.
[00:08:38] A little blood.
[00:08:39] But I think serious compared to what guys for sure.
[00:08:41] They really get hammered.
[00:08:42] They said no, put in for it.
[00:08:44] Some day you may have to go to the VA.
[00:08:47] Right.
[00:08:48] Even though the benefits, it's there.
[00:08:51] You get home loans.
[00:08:52] Oh, okay.
[00:08:53] It might be a future.
[00:08:54] If we get through this, it might be a future.
[00:08:56] Something that still gets a huge 20.
[00:08:58] Did it go to Vietnam after three purple hearts?
[00:09:00] Was that a rule?
[00:09:01] No.
[00:09:02] That's not a not a sock.
[00:09:03] That might be a normal.
[00:09:04] What about a normal soldier?
[00:09:06] I wouldn't know.
[00:09:07] I never spent any time in a regular unit.
[00:09:09] Yeah, no.
[00:09:10] I mean Bob Howard, he took his eight.
[00:09:13] And he sort of had eleven.
[00:09:15] All the clusters.
[00:09:16] They guess they've read out a clusters for those.
[00:09:18] Yeah, and you talk about in saw Chronicles while you're one, what was it?
[00:09:22] 16 guys went out, 16 special forces soldiers went out, and they got 33 purple hearts
[00:09:27] in four days.
[00:09:28] Oh, yeah.
[00:09:29] And probably go to gotten more.
[00:09:31] Sure.
[00:09:32] Ridiculous.
[00:09:33] Absolutely.
[00:09:34] It's crazy.
[00:09:35] Yeah.
[00:09:36] All right.
[00:09:37] We're going back to on the ground.
[00:09:40] Here we go.
[00:09:41] The Huey's lifted off made a general lazy turn and pointed their noses northwest.
[00:09:45] Once everyone was settled, I allowed my mind to wander as I looked out in Marford, and
[00:09:49] how beautiful the landscape was from several thousand feet up in the air, up where it was
[00:09:54] open and cool rather than closed in muggy.
[00:09:58] There was also a sense of inner peace and pride.
[00:10:01] This is what I had volunteered and trained so hard for.
[00:10:04] This chance to run top-secret missions behind enemy lines, dangerous missions that made
[00:10:08] a difference.
[00:10:10] Like most special forces types, I couldn't stomach the monotonous routines of camp life.
[00:10:15] The ash and trash detail stuff, the petty rules, regulations, formations, and egos.
[00:10:25] More amazing yet.
[00:10:26] Here I was at the ripe old age of 22, sporting the exalted rank of E4 and the one zero
[00:10:32] of a sog recon team.
[00:10:36] 22 years old.
[00:10:38] Young and dumb.
[00:10:42] Yeah.
[00:10:43] 22 years old.
[00:10:44] You've been busted.
[00:10:45] If you hadn't been budged, you got busted down once or twice.
[00:10:48] Only once.
[00:10:49] So you would have been an E5 you think at this point?
[00:10:51] I would have been up most of the power for yes, at least an E5.
[00:10:57] That must have been crazy.
[00:10:59] Because usually you got promoted based on, if you run a missions, whenever the appropriate
[00:11:04] time frame was, to be in one grade before you be considered for the next, sagging was really
[00:11:09] good about getting the promotions, at least our people were.
[00:11:11] So as soon as you'd accomplish your time in rank, you get out of me, do you?
[00:11:15] Do you get out of me, do you?
[00:11:16] For a really quick.
[00:11:20] So when you, this idea of being an SF and just being on camp and on base and having the
[00:11:30] normal kind of routines, you just couldn't stand that.
[00:11:34] No.
[00:11:35] Yes, would rather be out in the field.
[00:11:36] Oh, yeah, it's just trash and nuts.
[00:11:41] Okay.
[00:11:42] All right.
[00:11:43] Here we go back to the book.
[00:11:44] I had been with RTI to hope for seven months now.
[00:11:47] By the end of hard work, lots of mission experience and simply having survived, I was
[00:11:51] now a team leader.
[00:11:52] At a moment's notice, I could have millions of millions of dollars worth of air support
[00:11:56] assets, some of the man by majors and lieutenant kernels, all doing my bidding, all giving
[00:12:02] their courageous best to save my bacon.
[00:12:04] I'd come a long way since flunking out a college and doing a stint as a garbage collector
[00:12:08] in the Ocembary National Park.
[00:12:12] My egotistical reveries were cut short when the door gunner on my side of the Huey decided
[00:12:16] to cut loose with a long burst of M60 machine gun fire right next to my ear.
[00:12:21] Fortunately, he was simply test firing it.
[00:12:25] You know, we would get, I guess, kind of similar is we'd be driving to a target, right,
[00:12:30] being in a home V. You know, sometimes the targets are an hour, sometimes two hours.
[00:12:34] You know, we did some long, long transit.
[00:12:37] But you would get time to sit there and think about stuff because, well, you're sitting
[00:12:44] there being transport, there's not too much you can do.
[00:12:47] You know, you're scanned and you're looking for, but you're in a helicopter, there's
[00:12:51] nothing to do, but think really.
[00:12:52] It was always amazing because it's just so beautiful.
[00:12:56] I mean, southeast Asia from the air, even when you went over a combat zone, you see
[00:13:00] the bomb creators and you, but the jungle was just, just beautiful country.
[00:13:07] And then you get to under it and get into the underbell of the jungle that's like, you
[00:13:11] know, it's another whole world.
[00:13:13] The Starling contrast, you know?
[00:13:15] And like if you're in the desert, it has this own beauty.
[00:13:19] And it can be spell binding if you just watch it with a while, look at this, without realizing
[00:13:24] the somewhere, there's a little hole, some guy can pop out up and hit you with an RPG or
[00:13:29] detonate in your case.
[00:13:31] Does it smoke controls?
[00:13:32] Yeah.
[00:13:33] When you roll over.
[00:13:35] Did you, it sounds like you recognize this when you were doing these operations, you
[00:13:41] kind of knew that this was, I don't know, I guess I'm going to use this word.
[00:13:49] You were lucky to be there.
[00:13:50] Oh, clearly, because I won 100% when I was in Iraq and I only did two to pull on this
[00:13:57] to Iraq, I won 100% new every day that I was there.
[00:14:02] I knew that this was like my time, this is what I'd been, this is what I would lived
[00:14:10] for.
[00:14:11] And I knew that.
[00:14:12] It wasn't like I looked back and say, I wouldn't really wish I would have appreciated
[00:14:14] those days.
[00:14:15] No, when I was in them, I completely knew it and appreciated being there, like every
[00:14:20] single day.
[00:14:21] Yeah.
[00:14:22] And I, it was a nice feeling personally to think that, here we are, we're the best
[00:14:30] and we're running the missions and that's what we live for.
[00:14:34] Okay, now we're here, let's go do this and just hope to get the mission done and just
[00:14:42] wish the Dan track, or so leave your lungs, you get the mission done.
[00:14:44] Good do to our tapers, naturopio, W. Something like that.
[00:14:48] Oh, yeah, it felt good, but you know, it's like quiet professionals, just don't talk
[00:14:52] about that much.
[00:14:53] Yeah.
[00:14:54] Going back to the book as we approached the LZ, the team crowded the two doors of
[00:15:00] the helicopter.
[00:15:01] I was on the right half standing on the skid.
[00:15:03] Sau was kneeling behind me as hand on my shoulder ready to follow me out the door.
[00:15:07] Next to him was, hip, my one-one, John Bubba, sure, along with fuck our point man and
[00:15:13] Tuan are Grenadier, got ready to exit out the left side door.
[00:15:17] We all kept her eyes riveted on the looming jungle, scanning for any signs of movement
[00:15:21] in the tree lines surrounding our LZ.
[00:15:24] The top of the triple canopy growth of trees, vines and other vegetation was at least
[00:15:29] 100 feet off the jungle floor and the opening into which we were descending reminded me of
[00:15:33] the mouth of a long dark tunnel at the bottom of which resided things, Alice never dreamed
[00:15:39] of when she tumbled into that rabbit hole of hers.
[00:15:42] As we were swallowed up and the darkness increased, a cold chill ran down my spine.
[00:15:53] When you're going into these spots, so you had pre-identified this LZ prior to.
[00:15:58] Is that correct?
[00:15:59] At that point, we were working with Kavi at Dornner Briefing.
[00:16:04] We would give out the official LZs, the primary secondary alternate and that would go to
[00:16:12] Saigon.
[00:16:13] Then we whispered as you're finding something else because we knew that there was a little
[00:16:18] scrubbed.
[00:16:19] And then, so by finding something else, you're basically just looking for a clearing of
[00:16:23] some kind of general within that target and usually to be somewhere as else they go.
[00:16:28] And somewhere as we were Saigon, the leak there wouldn't get the word back because we had
[00:16:33] that one target.
[00:16:34] We went in with the bomb.
[00:16:36] The LZ was little, he wired.
[00:16:38] And the top security had wire already with a 500 pounder.
[00:16:42] So we were beginning to do that much more often than.
[00:16:45] Could we had great cubbies?
[00:16:47] They knew what we did.
[00:16:48] The cubbies fly the area of operations before you inserted.
[00:16:52] Like the AB4 or anything like that?
[00:16:54] Well, Dornner Day up, they would just fly over it.
[00:16:56] Sure.
[00:16:57] Is this picture or anything?
[00:16:59] No.
[00:17:00] No.
[00:17:01] Usually they would just do a VR visual reconnaissance and they would try to be subtle about
[00:17:06] like in early 68, we always flew a visual reconnaissance prior to the mission.
[00:17:11] And the NVA is not stupid.
[00:17:14] If they see a bird dog flying over a target, they figure well, pretty soon we're going
[00:17:17] to get visitors and sure enough.
[00:17:20] So like gave them time to get ready.
[00:17:22] So we basically cut out the VRs on our part.
[00:17:27] And then when cubbie go out, you know, a lot of guys have been flying.
[00:17:31] They're more familiar with the VR with the helicopter.
[00:17:35] Oh no, no.
[00:17:36] Usually with South Vietnamese Air Force, they have a little 01 just like from World War
[00:17:42] 2.
[00:17:43] The one from the battle from the bulls were heavy fondant's up there in the right seat.
[00:17:47] And the power's cut, this little cub, the piper cup is going 88 miles an hour.
[00:17:51] Top speed downhill.
[00:17:53] Yeah.
[00:17:54] And that's what, and so that would be most of our VRs.
[00:17:58] But then by Christmas, we pretty much cut that out.
[00:18:03] And that just because they were, that was given away.
[00:18:06] We used to ride on logistics air and kind of move the logistics air a little bit to
[00:18:11] over an air that we were going over.
[00:18:13] So no one would know that we were in there, that we were taking pictures, you know, like
[00:18:19] just logistics air, just an aircraft flying somewhere, they'd go in a straight line.
[00:18:23] They wouldn't, they'd just veer off a little bit so we could see what we wanted to see.
[00:18:27] Sure.
[00:18:28] And then also the fake ill fake inserts.
[00:18:32] Sometimes they didn't have the fuel to do a lot fake inserts.
[00:18:35] But they had the device called the nightingale where they would go in to a nightingale
[00:18:41] often pull the detonator on it.
[00:18:44] And it was sound like a firefight.
[00:18:47] So that would have a lot of commotion.
[00:18:49] And then they would jump up, go to a second LZ and put a send.
[00:18:53] And down south, we were with the green hornets.
[00:18:56] They really had it cold, because it was flat, down, up, down, up.
[00:19:01] So if the NV, we're trying to guess which of the three of four touchdowns where we were,
[00:19:05] they were really busy.
[00:19:07] Got it.
[00:19:08] Going back to the book as the chopper near the jungle floor, Bubba and I executed our first
[00:19:13] and standard operating procedure, which was checking the LZ for trip wires or booby traps while
[00:19:17] the rest of the team searched the surrounding jungle for any signs of trouble.
[00:19:21] After giving the all clear, the team was out the doors and all in the ground before the
[00:19:24] skids firmly touched down.
[00:19:26] How long would you hover there and look at the LZ for?
[00:19:29] Oh, not long.
[00:19:30] Like a matter of ten seconds.
[00:19:31] Just like you got to go in, touch down, get out.
[00:19:34] Sure.
[00:19:35] Yeah, we used to just jump out, lay down.
[00:19:37] Like the helicopter would just touch and take off.
[00:19:40] It would just jump out, lay down right there.
[00:19:42] We wouldn't move away from it.
[00:19:43] Just jump out, lay down.
[00:19:44] Modern day version of touching gun.
[00:19:46] Yeah.
[00:19:47] Yeah.
[00:19:48] We quickly headed into the wood line and set up a provisional perimeter where we could wait and
[00:19:51] listen.
[00:19:53] When again, we saw and heard nothing suspicious.
[00:19:55] We burrow deeper into the jungle where it was both dancer and darker.
[00:19:58] Like some furative predatory animal, we were looking to hide ourselves.
[00:20:03] After ten minutes of no threatening sounds or movements, I radioed Covey and gave him the
[00:20:07] message he had been waiting to hear.
[00:20:09] Team OK.
[00:20:11] He and others could take up breathing again, at least for the time being.
[00:20:16] The deeper we moved in, the deeper we moved the darker and more claustrophobic things
[00:20:21] became.
[00:20:22] Moving through the foliage was an excruciatingly slow and painful process with sweat stinging
[00:20:27] one's eyes, bugs crawling and feasting upon exposed skin and visibility cut to mere feet.
[00:20:35] It could be also be disorienting, especially when the maps we were given were so useless.
[00:20:41] And here was RT Idaho looking for fuel lines, some bright eyed Covey rider had spotted
[00:20:46] and directed aerostracks against.
[00:20:49] Intelligence reports said there was a second pipeline in this A.O. as well, regardless
[00:20:54] of how many any pipeline we found we were going to destroy.
[00:20:59] What were the maps?
[00:21:00] Were you one to 50 maps?
[00:21:01] Is that what you had?
[00:21:02] Yeah.
[00:21:03] One to 50,000?
[00:21:04] Right.
[00:21:05] But they would cut out from the big map.
[00:21:07] They would cut out like a 10 by 10 or 12 by 12 square so that if we were killed, they came
[00:21:13] across the map to be no other intel on a separate at one target area that we were on
[00:21:17] the ground.
[00:21:18] Now, I've gone into triple canopy jungle before with what he ever had as you know,
[00:21:23] one to 24 map.
[00:21:25] They're basically more detailed.
[00:21:27] Yes.
[00:21:28] Their twice as detailed and they're pretty good, but one to 50s are not that accurate.
[00:21:32] No.
[00:21:33] We had that one target where they had forgotten a mountain.
[00:21:37] You know, we're on a mountain.
[00:21:38] We're getting ready to go down the go over and we look at it.
[00:21:41] It's like, hey, they forgot one.
[00:21:43] It's not really good.
[00:21:44] Stretch your mission out when you're in triple canopy.
[00:21:48] Cluster phobic.
[00:21:49] You use that word cluster phobic quite a bit in this section.
[00:21:53] Is this jungle just tight?
[00:21:56] Very.
[00:21:57] Yeah, because again, sometimes you had to keep sight on the guy in front of you as you
[00:22:01] moved because he just becomes separated so easily.
[00:22:06] Because of the dense vegetation, of course, a lot of times our Vietnamese were shorter.
[00:22:12] They could get through a quick.
[00:22:13] Well, we would be down on our knees.
[00:22:15] I wore out more pants crawling through the jungle.
[00:22:18] I know, I saw a picture.
[00:22:20] I was looking at the pictures in the books.
[00:22:21] I saw a picture.
[00:22:22] One of the images is that some of those guys were really small.
[00:22:24] Oh, yeah.
[00:22:25] Really small.
[00:22:26] 98 pounds, so can wet.
[00:22:27] But 50 pounds are hard.
[00:22:29] That's awesome.
[00:22:32] All right, I go back to the book.
[00:22:34] But I had more immediate and pressing concerns.
[00:22:36] The adrenaline rush that always accompanied an insertion had pretty much worn off.
[00:22:40] And another characteristic sensation had begun to take its place.
[00:22:44] It was a feeling of familiarity and comfort combined with an e-resensitive for boating.
[00:22:49] Both were a product of experience.
[00:22:52] I was comfortable because I was surrounded by extraordinary, well-trained and fiercely
[00:22:56] devoted team that knew what it was doing.
[00:23:00] Yet we also had stepped in enough accidental shit and had encountered so many hostile
[00:23:06] enemy units that it was impossible to not feel serious anxiety.
[00:23:11] In fact, I figured that when I stopped being scared, shitless, I would be on my way to
[00:23:16] buying the farm.
[00:23:19] Cochines had cost more than one life.
[00:23:24] But you still get that little mixed feeling of comfort, but fear and anxiety at the same
[00:23:30] time.
[00:23:31] Yes.
[00:23:32] You know, the whole adrenaline of the e-mail is, you get a certain, you're just pumped.
[00:23:37] And at some point you get off and get on the ground.
[00:23:40] It's just because you guys would hit so many times you would insert immediately get contacted.
[00:23:44] A lot of times, yeah.
[00:23:46] So once you be amped up going in and then when there's nothing there, that starts to fade.
[00:23:52] Yeah, then you finally get on the ground, it's like, oh, at last, we're on the ground.
[00:23:56] Now, let's get on with the mission.
[00:23:59] We're about to trackers.
[00:24:00] Let's get moving.
[00:24:01] But let's also stay cognizant.
[00:24:03] Could it keep our situational awareness tight?
[00:24:07] And that, you know, this is one of the reasons I highlighted this section is, you know,
[00:24:13] just this is something that, you know, what we talk about complacency all the time.
[00:24:16] I know there was a board of Marine Corps units we were with the three eight and
[00:24:21] a body, they had a, that aside, that signs around their compound complacency kills.
[00:24:25] Yeah.
[00:24:26] For sure.
[00:24:27] But this idea of, and you know, I also talk to young military guys, young seals, that,
[00:24:35] you know, they're, they're scared of this, they're scared of that.
[00:24:37] That's like, I always tell them, good, you know, you should, you should be afraid.
[00:24:40] Because if you're afraid, you're going to prepare more, you're going to train harbor, you're
[00:24:43] going to, you're not going to cut any corners, you're not going to get complacent.
[00:24:47] And that's the same thing that you're saying here is you'd seen cockiness, cost people
[00:24:52] their lives because they think, oh, we can just get away with whatever.
[00:24:55] Yeah, if you're not scared, I'm scared of you.
[00:24:57] Really?
[00:24:58] Yeah.
[00:24:59] Yeah.
[00:25:00] And then you have to overcome that though, because you can't let that get, get control.
[00:25:06] And you were talking before we started recording, we were talking about a guy that was in
[00:25:09] a firefight and there was one guy that didn't fire a shot, stayed curled up in a ball,
[00:25:13] praying.
[00:25:14] Yeah.
[00:25:15] That's when that's when fear is not, not your friend.
[00:25:19] Yeah, our guys wanted to shoot him.
[00:25:26] So you got a balance that, you got to have the fear, you got to feel it, but you got
[00:25:29] to deal with it.
[00:25:30] Correct.
[00:25:34] We had compasses.
[00:25:36] So we knew the general direction we were headed, which was to the northwest away from
[00:25:39] the LZ.
[00:25:40] We had been working our way slowly through the underbrush for about an hour when suddenly
[00:25:43] we heard an explosion behind us.
[00:25:46] It had to have been the Claymore bubble rig to go off if anyone tried to follow us off
[00:25:50] the LZ.
[00:25:51] It's detonation, singled, signaled a profound change in the situation.
[00:25:56] The hunters were about to become the hunted.
[00:26:00] In the jungle, there are almost always animal noises of some kind and these suddenly
[00:26:05] fell silent.
[00:26:07] In the quiet, we could hear some distressing sounds to the west, sounds that were not
[00:26:12] of a jungle kind, but those of men on the move we were not alone.
[00:26:22] Welcome to the jungle, baby.
[00:26:26] Yes indeed.
[00:26:28] How do you know that the Claymore's that you rigged weren't set off by some kind of monkey
[00:26:34] or whatever, some kind of animal?
[00:26:36] Would you guys rig a certain way that that was unlikely?
[00:26:41] The way bubble and the Frenchman later would do it in Lin.
[00:26:45] They would put it in an area where it would be easiest for the trackers to follow.
[00:26:50] So you'd just based on human nature.
[00:26:52] You're going to go through this.
[00:26:53] Take part, you're going to go where it's easier to travel.
[00:26:56] And it could have been an animal.
[00:26:58] But basically it's an NVA animal.
[00:27:02] Yeah.
[00:27:04] The coincidence would be too much and the chances are it's just NVA.
[00:27:08] And if it is a monkey as opposed to an NVA, we'll find that out within the next couple
[00:27:13] hours.
[00:27:14] On the other hand, let's get ready.
[00:27:17] And there was an enemy moving in the jungle.
[00:27:21] The animals would stop making noises.
[00:27:24] It all depends how close they were.
[00:27:26] But yes, lots of, that's why the most important thing in the jungle was listening.
[00:27:30] Yeah.
[00:27:31] I mean, 10 and 10 sounds pretty extreme.
[00:27:33] But it really gives you time to hear what's going on.
[00:27:38] Because you're a lot of time, you can't see it.
[00:27:40] That's the best sense in the jungle.
[00:27:42] Like I said, I've been in Triple Canopy and we've done Patrol and in Triple Canopy.
[00:27:45] And you could hit by monkeys too, right?
[00:27:47] Yeah.
[00:27:48] We had monkeys freak us out.
[00:27:51] But that the sense just so people can understand, you can only see it in that thick jungle.
[00:27:57] Sometimes you can only see five feet.
[00:27:59] Sure.
[00:28:00] Five or ten feet at the most.
[00:28:01] So you patrol for 10 minutes and then you just stop everyone is quiet and you listen
[00:28:07] to see if anyone's following you to see if there's any other movement out there.
[00:28:10] That's what you're doing.
[00:28:11] Sure.
[00:28:12] I mean, and it's so thick that if I'm behind a point man or sometimes it would be a point
[00:28:18] man was sal and myself.
[00:28:21] Why would never see a point man?
[00:28:22] I would just keep an eye on sal and the guy behind me would just be on my backpack.
[00:28:27] I wouldn't, I couldn't tell you where the point man was.
[00:28:30] I just follow sal and the vegetation was that thick a lot of times.
[00:28:34] And again, I'm depending on the Vietnamese because they know they didn't have a jungle
[00:28:43] better to make.
[00:28:44] How come the animals would stop making noise?
[00:28:46] Would the animal stop making noise when you would patrol?
[00:28:48] I would assume.
[00:28:50] But once we settle down, things would come back normal.
[00:28:53] So when you stop moving, then the sounds would escalate.
[00:28:56] And if they didn't have to 10 minutes ago, the puck of faker tightens up to a little
[00:29:01] little bit more.
[00:29:06] I immediately signaled Falk, who is on point to head north.
[00:29:13] This would take us up a hill that dominated our right flank.
[00:29:15] The climb was pretty severe, which was good and bad news.
[00:29:19] Well, it made the going rough at all so meant we were gaining some genuine high ground
[00:29:23] and high ground is the preferred position when it comes to defense.
[00:29:26] The steepness also meant the enemy would have to work as hard as we were.
[00:29:30] I couldn't tell how close the NVA trackers were or how many of them were headed our way.
[00:29:35] But I knew if push came to shove, I wanted to be looking down on them.
[00:29:40] Always take the high ground.
[00:29:42] Always.
[00:29:43] That's just military maximum.
[00:29:46] And you know, I actually say you take the moral high ground as well.
[00:29:50] Take the high ground to take you.
[00:29:52] Amen.
[00:29:54] When we reach the hilltop, just as dark clouds unleashed the torrent of rain.
[00:30:00] While Bubba and Sau began setting out a perimeter of claymores, I contacted Covey and
[00:30:05] appraised him of the situation, namely that it didn't look good and that we might be calling
[00:30:08] for an immediate extraction before nightfall.
[00:30:11] Did you guys speak at all?
[00:30:13] Only minimal, because most of it would be hand-saint-looking.
[00:30:16] Just everything, as you can see.
[00:30:18] Estrogationally, you'd have to whisper near.
[00:30:21] But if we just void it as much as we could.
[00:30:24] But something like this, just so people understand, something like this, you're on patrol.
[00:30:28] You're not saying anything.
[00:30:30] You head up the hill, you don't say anything.
[00:30:32] You get to perimeter, you give the perimeter signal, you don't say anything.
[00:30:35] Everyone knows what to do when you're in there.
[00:30:36] You could go days out in the field without talking.
[00:30:39] Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:30:40] Because with the training, as a pushe, you got the visual with the person that you're
[00:30:45] signaling.
[00:30:46] Like, in my case, if I'm behind fuck the point, man, I'm telling him what to do and I'll
[00:30:50] turn around, tell the guy behind me, same signals, and then we go.
[00:30:54] Yeah.
[00:30:54] While I was talking to Covey, SAU who had moved north to set out as Claymore suddenly opened
[00:31:03] fire on full automatic, a sure sign we had visitors.
[00:31:07] This was immediately confirmed when heavy AK-47 fire ripped out of the jungle in response.
[00:31:12] In less than five seconds, the well-practiced SAU had fired off all 18 rounds in his car
[00:31:18] 15, set off the claymores and reloaded his weapon while falling back to join the rest
[00:31:23] of the team.
[00:31:24] That's legit right there.
[00:31:26] SAU was making things happen.
[00:31:28] He was the man.
[00:31:30] Would you guys be trained in these immediate action drills, mag changes?
[00:31:34] I mean, everything that we do, right?
[00:31:35] You guys drill that stuff.
[00:31:36] Every drill in drill in drill.
[00:31:37] If we're in camp, we go down often.
[00:31:42] Just particularly in the beginning, through June, my first couple of months, whenever
[00:31:46] every day, hundreds of rounds.
[00:31:48] And when this happens, these guys are called.
[00:31:51] The enemy is very close to you because you can at least know that they're there.
[00:31:56] They've got to be what?
[00:31:57] 15, 20, maybe 30 meters away.
[00:32:00] In that case here, I forget how close they weren't that far for SAU to blow his claymore
[00:32:05] and the car 15 and reload and do it one more time.
[00:32:11] Back to the book.
[00:32:12] Bird the background shots and explosions, so he was not overly surprised when I stated
[00:32:16] the obvious.
[00:32:18] We had a prairie fire emergency in progress and we wanted out ASAP.
[00:32:22] The mission was over.
[00:32:23] The fuel lines would have to wait until another day.
[00:32:25] The focus now became saving our asses.
[00:32:28] To this end, every air sat with air sat with in striking distance would immediately be
[00:32:34] vector to our target area.
[00:32:36] The odds would soon turn.
[00:32:38] If not necessarily in our favor, very decidedly against the enemy.
[00:32:42] RTI to ho might not make it out alive, but neither would the NVA.
[00:32:53] Guys had some serious confidence in that air power.
[00:32:56] Yeah, that was our lifeline.
[00:32:59] I mean, a major edge that we had and whenever we could use it, we'd use it because it was
[00:33:06] only matter time before they would get more bodies there and we had teams ahead been over
[00:33:11] run and 67, 68.
[00:33:15] So we knew the potential for things to go really wrong.
[00:33:18] That was one of the things that could neutralize the manpower.
[00:33:23] When they had the enemy had so many troops.
[00:33:25] Did teams ever get overrun while they had air power?
[00:33:28] Oh sure.
[00:33:30] Sadly, yes, we were.
[00:33:32] Yeah, they would just keep coming and is self-admetal honors recipients, Fred Zebattowski,
[00:33:39] Robert Howard, SF on admissions and they were directing air power.
[00:33:46] Still just got overrun.
[00:33:48] That's all part of the horror of being on the ground.
[00:33:51] We guess they really determined, Phil.
[00:33:53] So even though you have confidence in your air power, you know there's limitations.
[00:33:58] Yeah, if things really go bad, that air power is not going to be able to save you.
[00:34:04] Correct.
[00:34:05] And again, it's time, weather and where are you in the jungle?
[00:34:10] And a triple canopy, if you're in triple canopy, all you could do is maybe gun runs and
[00:34:14] you're not even sure how effective it'll be, but at least you get your attention.
[00:34:21] Going back to the book, call King Beast, call King Beast, Boku Vc, Boku Vc.
[00:34:26] It was clear, sound, and I shared similar praise of our situation and the same thoughts
[00:34:30] about what needed to be done.
[00:34:33] The only hitch was how to pull it off, what with darkness approaching a storm raging and
[00:34:37] no helicopters anywhere near us.
[00:34:40] I didn't want to add to either sounds or the team's angst, so I didn't share my misgivings.
[00:34:46] Instead, I gave Kovie the direction and probable distance we'd moved from the LZ and
[00:34:51] told him I was about to throw two yellow smoke grenades to mark a location.
[00:34:55] I threw two hoping some of the smoke would somehow travel up through the thick vegetation
[00:35:00] and into the clear where Kovie could see it.
[00:35:04] Kovie had good and bad news.
[00:35:07] He thought he had our location, but he doubted seriously if he could get extraction helicopters
[00:35:12] to us before nightfall.
[00:35:14] Not good, not good at all.
[00:35:17] We now had confirmed enemy north and south of us and they were closing in.
[00:35:23] South frantically signaled Bubba to set off the south facing Klamors when Bubba hesitated
[00:35:28] for a second.
[00:35:29] I could hear South his coat of Kovie-Dow-VC.
[00:35:32] How do you say that?
[00:35:34] Kovie-Dow-VC.
[00:35:35] Do you mean the misrecill?
[00:35:38] Duma, which is Vietnamese for mother, mother fuckers.
[00:35:47] As the Klamors erupted, South pulled the pin on the fragmentation grenade and lobbed it
[00:35:51] into the boiling dust and smoke even more enemy troops came up the slope.
[00:35:57] With my ears ringing from the blast, I thought I heard additional movement to the east,
[00:36:02] but I couldn't be sure.
[00:36:03] Because the NVA had abandoned any pretense of stealth, I soon verified they were coming
[00:36:09] from that flank as well.
[00:36:11] And there were lots of them.
[00:36:13] As these unseen forces maneuvered in for the kill, the jungle took on its most terrifying
[00:36:18] and claustrophobic reality.
[00:36:20] But a friendly place in the very best of circumstances, it was now about the worst place
[00:36:26] in the world to be.
[00:36:29] Again, that claustrophobic sense.
[00:36:33] Can you see the sky in the stripple canopy?
[00:36:38] Depends, sometimes you can see it glimpses of it or it would be a little opening.
[00:36:43] So he was able to see the smoke, sometimes you pop a yellow smoke, which is bright, and
[00:36:48] wouldn't even be able to get through.
[00:36:53] Everyone was cutting loose as fast as he could and effort to suppress the enemy's fire
[00:36:57] and drive him back.
[00:36:58] Twanted managed to find some narrow openings in the vegetation that were shooting rounds
[00:37:02] with his M79 grenade launcher.
[00:37:06] And suddenly the jungle went silent.
[00:37:07] As if someone had thrown a switch or hit the mute button, the only sounds were the metallic
[00:37:13] clicks as both RT Idaho and the NVA locked fresh magazines into their weapons.
[00:37:20] The fight was far from over.
[00:37:22] In fact, the party was just getting started and we were simply changing records for the
[00:37:27] next dance with death.
[00:37:29] The jungle again erupted with deafening roar of gunfire.
[00:37:37] So that's sketchy.
[00:37:38] That's got to be a horrifying feeling.
[00:37:40] Boom.
[00:37:41] That's why everyone dumps their mags.
[00:37:43] There's that moment of silence and then that silence, all you hear is reload happening.
[00:37:46] And you know too, when that happens, how when your adrenaline is pumping, when you're
[00:37:51] here, your time frame has expanded.
[00:37:55] So now instead of like, you just read it, that's a quick, it is bam bam, you're saying,
[00:37:59] but now, and then you're drowning, it feels like it's slowed down.
[00:38:02] You can feel the magazine coming out.
[00:38:04] You hear it click, click, everybody else is ramming them in.
[00:38:07] Come on, boys.
[00:38:08] Come down on this first and our guys won.
[00:38:12] With all the noise, I had to shove the radio handset, damn near, inside my ear to hear what
[00:38:18] Kofi was trying to tell me.
[00:38:20] The good news bad news routine continued.
[00:38:23] The good news was that some of the yellow smoke had finally made it, it's way to where
[00:38:26] Kofi could see it.
[00:38:28] But the bad news was we were nowhere near the NLZ.
[00:38:32] He wanted to know if we could fight our way back to where we had been inserted.
[00:38:36] Negative, I yelled as fuck, Bubba, and Hap all opened up on some NVA who had managed to sneak
[00:38:42] up from the south.
[00:38:43] There were green tracers whizzing all around me.
[00:38:47] Kofi would have to wait.
[00:38:48] And that's another good point because in this war, the enemy almost always had green
[00:38:54] tracers.
[00:38:55] Always.
[00:38:56] Okay.
[00:38:57] Yeah, for us, the enemy didn't always have green.
[00:38:58] They've had red.
[00:38:59] In fact, most of the time, well, a lot of times I had red.
[00:39:02] Because they had.
[00:39:03] Well, no kidding.
[00:39:04] Yeah.
[00:39:05] So it was, you know, they just got their ammo from all different sources.
[00:39:09] And so it wasn't just this, there wasn't just, hey, they're green and we're red.
[00:39:13] It was mostly red.
[00:39:15] Some green occasionally, but.
[00:39:17] Wow.
[00:39:18] Yeah.
[00:39:19] Yeah.
[00:39:20] Um.
[00:39:24] After helping repel the attack, I got back on the radio to impress upon Kofi, the direness of our
[00:39:30] straits.
[00:39:31] But of course, he already knew that.
[00:39:32] So in his convoyce, which could drive a one zero to a merger, he said, we don't have
[00:39:37] a lot of time.
[00:39:38] No shit.
[00:39:40] The only chance we have is about a hundred meters north by northeast from your location.
[00:39:43] There's a small hole in the roof, and we might be able to get strings down to you.
[00:39:47] He inquired if we had much activity to our north.
[00:39:50] It depended, I thought, on what you meant by much.
[00:39:53] And activity.
[00:39:55] I reminded him that north was where the whole shooting match got started and while the
[00:40:00] bullet, while I thought we had pretty much taken that group of NVA out of action, I couldn't
[00:40:05] be sure.
[00:40:06] When I finished, he said, don't worry.
[00:40:08] I have a pair of A1E's on station, and I'll have the leader make a gun run, and then
[00:40:13] give, and then have his wingmen follow with 500 pounders.
[00:40:18] Before I could say, Roger that the first guy radar roared across our northern perimeter,
[00:40:22] his 20 millimeter cannons blazing away.
[00:40:24] His wood chips dust and debris filled the air, the members of RTI Idaho did not need to
[00:40:30] be told what to do.
[00:40:32] We kissed mother earth and pressed against her body for all we were worth.
[00:40:37] In the brief quiet that followed, I told Bubba to pair some explosives.
[00:40:41] Just in case we needed to cut down trees at the extraction point.
[00:40:45] I told Sau, we needed to head north as that was our only chance for escape.
[00:40:49] No one looked happy with this news, particularly not Sau, who had seen first hand
[00:40:54] what was waiting in that direction.
[00:40:57] About this time, the second sky radar appeared and released its load of 500 pound bombs.
[00:41:03] They were so close that the concussions bounced us like jumping beans.
[00:41:11] And this is all based on the yellow smoke that you'd thrown five minutes ago or eight
[00:41:16] minutes ago.
[00:41:17] Right.
[00:41:18] They're looking at a massive, this is another thing that's hard to understand.
[00:41:22] I was a radio man when I was in New Guy and we were out in the desert and we were trying
[00:41:27] to call in helicopters to come pick us up.
[00:41:30] It's me calling him in.
[00:41:31] It's not weed.
[00:41:32] I'm sitting there on the radio trying to call in these helicopters.
[00:41:36] I got my air pan and we're in the desert.
[00:41:39] This isn't true because this is the desert and these helicopters can't see me.
[00:41:43] They're not far.
[00:41:44] They're not out to do.
[00:41:45] They're probably 500 to 500 meters away.
[00:41:48] They're doing an apathy earth or they're looking for us.
[00:41:52] They know we're in the general area and they're looking for us and I'm sitting there with
[00:41:54] a signal panel like trying to get their attention.
[00:41:58] And what you don't realize is that you're seeing this helicopter.
[00:42:03] It's so obvious.
[00:42:04] I mean, you'd think there's no possible way that they can't see you.
[00:42:07] You'd think there's no pop where you've got a 16 man seal puttune out there.
[00:42:12] I'm waving around a piece of fluorescent orange where the only human beings in this desert
[00:42:16] and they can't see us.
[00:42:18] And now you're in the reason they can't see us is because they're looking everywhere.
[00:42:22] They're looking at whatever.
[00:42:23] What however many square miles they're looking into and ocean.
[00:42:26] They're looking at the desert.
[00:42:27] They can see all this space.
[00:42:30] And so it takes them a while.
[00:42:31] You don't find that.
[00:42:32] I think I popped a smoke and they didn't see the smoke and then I popped another smoke.
[00:42:37] And so I can't imagine these guys are coming in hot, dropping bombs based on where the
[00:42:45] not even the him but where the covey saw smoke five minutes ago.
[00:42:51] Yeah.
[00:42:52] We may have popped another smoke in here somewhere and also I know that I had talked
[00:42:57] to covey.
[00:42:58] Okay, here's our smoke north of us and he knew they had we had a lot of I take north
[00:43:03] in south and if we got about maybe we'll be we're getting from the east but if we're
[00:43:08] talking about trying to get to the north that's why he came across the northern.
[00:43:12] So he knew basically where we were and he came in and it cost a 500 pounds of
[00:43:16] able to get through the jungle and impact on the ground.
[00:43:20] And those things rocked you guys.
[00:43:22] Oh yeah.
[00:43:23] That's one of those happy pains.
[00:43:29] Yeah.
[00:43:30] Good times I guess.
[00:43:33] Tilt.
[00:43:34] All right.
[00:43:36] With the A1E activity to occupy us we had momentarily taken our attention away from our
[00:43:42] southern flank and now a wave of NVA hit us from that direction.
[00:43:47] Everyone responded with automatic fire and Bubba and I lob some grenades down the slope.
[00:43:53] I informed covey of the attack and told him that when I gave the word and the team moved
[00:43:58] to the north I wanted more A1E runs to our south.
[00:44:02] In my heart of hearts I also wanted more runs to the north but we didn't have time for
[00:44:07] that.
[00:44:08] We had to get out while the getting was good.
[00:44:10] The next NVA wave could be the one to overrun us.
[00:44:20] As Bubba finished preparing explosives, Hep and I continued rolling grenades downhill
[00:44:25] toward the enemy.
[00:44:26] Saoen folk covered Tuan with car 15 fire as he set up a clay more facing south and covered
[00:44:32] it with leaves.
[00:44:33] A little parting gift for our friends.
[00:44:38] The race was on.
[00:44:39] I gave covey the word and behind us the A1E.
[00:44:42] The A1E is began bombing the shit out of whoever was back there.
[00:44:46] Folk angled back to the north.
[00:44:47] We passed the, we passed bodies of dead NVA soldiers but we didn't have time to stop and
[00:44:51] search them for papers or anything of an intelligence value.
[00:44:55] We had only one fought mind.
[00:44:58] Get out.
[00:44:59] It was something of a miracle that fawking Sao actually located the spot covey had found
[00:45:04] for us.
[00:45:05] When we finally looked up toward the whole itself however, it appeared a long, long ways
[00:45:10] away.
[00:45:11] It was at least a hundred feet or more and the green tunnel leading to it was narrow and
[00:45:15] dangerous.
[00:45:16] As we were approaching, I'd seen the tops of trees being whipped around by the gusting
[00:45:20] wind and knew this would complicate matters even more.
[00:45:24] This was not going to be an easy exit.
[00:45:26] So you guys are moving to this thing.
[00:45:27] You're looking up at the tree tops and you see there's like heavy wind.
[00:45:30] Because that's just a weather wind.
[00:45:32] Like it's wet.
[00:45:33] It's windy out.
[00:45:34] We had weather forecast and it might be some problems with the weather.
[00:45:39] So here we are as dark and I didn't tell the guys.
[00:45:43] I knew that seeing those trees like that, this was a little bit.
[00:45:48] And I was getting late dark.
[00:45:50] I needed your nugs.
[00:45:52] Yeah, you did.
[00:45:53] I wish you could have had them bro.
[00:45:55] And we're going to totally change this whole scenario.
[00:45:57] Because the helicopter, because the aircraft too.
[00:46:00] Sure.
[00:46:01] Because the aircraft would be, oh yeah, we got you.
[00:46:02] We got you locked and we'll just, you guys can just pitch a ten.
[00:46:06] Pick the first one.
[00:46:07] Pick the first one.
[00:46:12] And the NVA, this still, you know, the big motto of the insurgents, right, is that they
[00:46:18] only fight when they want to and they don't have to fight if they don't need to.
[00:46:20] And you don't imagine troops that don't have to fight, just keep coming after you.
[00:46:29] Just keep, you're laying waste on, but they keep coming.
[00:46:34] That must to be the value of capturing you all cross border would be so high that they
[00:46:40] just must have had serious intent to try and capture.
[00:46:45] Well yeah, and then too, you know, you had that propaganda they've been fed for all those
[00:46:49] years.
[00:46:50] They really believed that like the French, we were there to occupy.
[00:46:55] So we're just there was combatting communism, but they never hurt any of that stuff.
[00:47:01] And they were dedicated.
[00:47:02] That's absolutely, yes, sir.
[00:47:06] Back to the book, the NVA had not given up.
[00:47:09] Its troops were hot on our tail, even though we had heard Tuan's claim or go off and
[00:47:14] had listened to the A1E's work them over.
[00:47:17] You had to hand it to the NVA soldiers.
[00:47:20] They were very tough and determined.
[00:47:22] I again contacted Kovie and asked for some tactical air command air support to our rear.
[00:47:31] And in a matter of minutes, bombs were falling and cannons were blasting away.
[00:47:35] I'm sure I was impressed with the service as the NVA were surprised by how quickly the
[00:47:40] ordinance had been delivered.
[00:47:42] They were learning less in the hard way.
[00:47:44] If a recon team wasn't wiped out in the first few minutes of the fight, the NVA would
[00:47:49] pay dearly for the mistake, but more than one NVA unit had experienced this firsthand.
[00:47:57] So that's kind of a critical few minutes as long as it's long to take for air to get
[00:48:02] on station usually.
[00:48:03] Well, it depends every time.
[00:48:05] Several hours to, in this case, we were fortunate to make contact really early on with
[00:48:11] Kovie, who fortunately had A1E's that were within a few minutes away.
[00:48:17] So there were some lock involved.
[00:48:19] Very much.
[00:48:20] I mean, we solved them, had that kind of response and lay us.
[00:48:23] Did you ever pre-plan to have coverage at certain times?
[00:48:27] It would be a special mission.
[00:48:28] Like the ones we put in the sensors, you put them in and you're going to be an account
[00:48:33] for two or three hours.
[00:48:35] He booked the times, had the asset set.
[00:48:38] So we have to go or something happens in between being you think come in.
[00:48:42] But most of the time, were these aircraft necessarily briefed on the mission?
[00:48:48] That's self.
[00:48:49] So do they know coming in?
[00:48:51] Hey, this is the a.o.
[00:48:52] That they're working.
[00:48:53] Oh, these guys just coming in.
[00:48:54] They were just random pilots.
[00:48:56] It would be both.
[00:48:58] They had specific A1 units in the Air Force in that timeframe that were specifically
[00:49:05] their for sog missions and SAR, search and rescue up north for any down pilots.
[00:49:11] So they were very much attuned to our people, working with contune and with us up north.
[00:49:18] So they knew everything was in the Prairie Fire A.
[00:49:23] Sometimes when we were in Echo 4, our first contact was with a fighter jet that heard the
[00:49:30] Erkten beeper and responded to that.
[00:49:34] So another mission is another aircraft would hear it.
[00:49:39] And if they had an ordinance, then we had to get the myriad, get them locate and find
[00:49:46] us and bring in the ordinance while he put the call out to get the cover or the Hillsboro
[00:49:51] or Moonbeam, to let the node head a tactical emergency going on here.
[00:49:58] And you're doing all that on the radio while you're still fighting.
[00:50:01] Yeah, we had to spend a few rounds there.
[00:50:07] Lighten the load.
[00:50:09] All right, Bubba, Sout and Falk had been busy placing explosive charges on trees while
[00:50:15] hepp and Tuan set out claim worse facing south.
[00:50:17] I couldn't help but shake my head in wonder at hepp in a dark jungle with night approaching.
[00:50:25] He still had his ever present sunglasses.
[00:50:28] We blew the charges around the trees and they were cut clean, but the dense jungle refused
[00:50:31] to let them fall.
[00:50:33] We had not succeeded in making the whole any bigger.
[00:50:35] So we just have to hope the rescue ships could manage to drop the ropes down to us and
[00:50:40] then pray the ropes were long enough.
[00:50:42] So you're trying to make that hole in the jungle a little bit bigger.
[00:50:46] Like what diameter is this hole that you're looking at?
[00:50:49] Oh, this is like 10 meters is it not that.
[00:50:52] You know, it's a good question.
[00:50:54] Maybe 20, 30 meters.
[00:50:55] Okay.
[00:50:56] At the most, but there's trees in it.
[00:50:58] Yeah.
[00:50:59] No, it's, this is a little bit more open as opposed to just triple canopy enclosed where
[00:51:04] you're just completely, we could see skylight.
[00:51:06] You could literally see the sky.
[00:51:08] But and then you try and blow some of the trees.
[00:51:10] They don't even fall down because there's too much jungle.
[00:51:12] Two lines.
[00:51:13] Yeah, two.
[00:51:14] Two trees.
[00:51:15] It doesn't even help.
[00:51:16] Good.
[00:51:17] Dimes.
[00:51:18] And to the frustration.
[00:51:22] We tried to blow up some palm trees or actually was leaf, leafs, puttune, tried to blow
[00:51:27] up some palm trees that were obstructing their view in a Overwatch position.
[00:51:32] Right.
[00:51:33] And they blew up.
[00:51:37] They said they sit so many charges on these palm trees.
[00:51:40] It was embarrassing.
[00:51:41] I got rung.
[00:51:42] I got rung.
[00:51:43] No, they weren't.
[00:51:44] They didn't budge.
[00:51:45] No, I got embarrassed.
[00:51:46] I'm sitting there telling the batiling commander.
[00:51:48] He's saying, well, I'm saying, Heather, sir, there's going to be another controlled
[00:51:51] debt and boom.
[00:51:52] And then something's going to be another controlled debt and then boom.
[00:51:54] And then something's going to be another controlled debt and then boom.
[00:51:57] He said, what are they doing?
[00:51:58] I said, it's a good word.
[00:51:59] It's a palm tree.
[00:52:00] He's don't worry about it.
[00:52:01] You know, what's there?
[00:52:02] We're just going to leave those palm trees.
[00:52:03] Yeah, the score right now is palm trees three seals.
[00:52:06] Yeah, that's what happened.
[00:52:08] Oh, no, those palm trees are hard.
[00:52:11] Resilient.
[00:52:12] Thick.
[00:52:13] All right.
[00:52:14] Back to the book.
[00:52:15] With the helicopters on their final approach, I threw out another smoke grenade
[00:52:18] to mark our location and the rest of the team began firing at the NVA who had again
[00:52:22] pressed in on us.
[00:52:23] We could barely make out their shadows, but they were definitely out there as evidence
[00:52:28] by the green trace around flying towards us.
[00:52:31] Covey hadn't been able to see my smoke.
[00:52:34] So he asked for a pen flare.
[00:52:36] And I tried to fire it up through the trees.
[00:52:38] It struck a limb and bounced back.
[00:52:40] Being desperate, I told Covey I was going to shoot three trace around, red trace around
[00:52:45] up through the hole.
[00:52:47] And before he could scream, no, I had pulled the trigger on my car 15.
[00:52:50] I immediately realized what a dangerous move it was as I saw him pass overhead.
[00:52:55] In case there was any doubt in my mind, Covey took the time to let me know in no unsuit
[00:53:00] in terms how stupid I was.
[00:53:02] I believe the expressions dumb asked and shit for brains came into play.
[00:53:06] Well, me.
[00:53:09] So you're in this situation.
[00:53:10] He still took the time to call you shit for brains.
[00:53:13] You're about to die.
[00:53:15] Pry, oh man.
[00:53:18] Yeah.
[00:53:19] And you know what's thinking?
[00:53:20] I never fought in Afghanistan.
[00:53:21] I don't know what they had.
[00:53:22] I don't know if they saw a lot of more green traceers over there.
[00:53:24] I'll have to ask some of them and buddies and never really thought about that.
[00:53:29] So that's a, was that just like the normal little pencil flare?
[00:53:32] Yes.
[00:53:33] A little trigger thing.
[00:53:34] You put crink.
[00:53:35] It's always like a 22 round that fires up its tracer.
[00:53:37] Yes.
[00:53:38] I didn't penetrate through.
[00:53:40] So you decide you're just going to fire the car.
[00:53:44] But all my tracers.
[00:53:45] But they saw him, right?
[00:53:46] They did.
[00:53:47] Yeah.
[00:53:48] So, hey, one for till.
[00:53:53] Just before the rescue choppers attempted to hover and drop the ropes, I told Covey I wanted
[00:53:56] the gunships that accompanied them to work over the area around us, particularly to the south.
[00:54:01] I wanted the NVA to be either dead wounded or with their heads buried in the ground, who
[00:54:05] we tried to make our escape.
[00:54:06] The muskets, the men from the 176 assault helicopter company immediately went to work
[00:54:12] with their 2.75 inch rockets and their gattling like mini guns, multi-barled weapons that
[00:54:19] could pump 6,000 rounds of 7,6 to a minute.
[00:54:23] As the last rocket hit and exploded behind us, the first 100 first airborne division
[00:54:28] slick appeared over the hole in the jungle roof and dropped sandbags with ropes attached
[00:54:32] to them.
[00:54:33] The helicopter was so high up that looked like a toy and even its powerful rotor wash
[00:54:38] couldn't reach us.
[00:54:39] I could tell he wasn't being buffeted by the wind, but he had somehow managed to hold
[00:54:43] steady over the opening.
[00:54:45] One of the sandbags attached to the rope had a strobe light attached to it and we watched
[00:54:49] it bounce off the limbs as it fell toward us.
[00:54:53] You guys I guess they had invented the jungle penetrator yet.
[00:54:59] They have but not on UEs.
[00:55:02] They had them on the HH3s and the job means giant.
[00:55:05] Yeah, for the other reason, they don't know it's like a big metal, yeah, jungle penetrator.
[00:55:10] It's a big metal kind of spear almost.
[00:55:13] And they've still able to talk to a crane and it just drops down and that weight and
[00:55:19] it's well shaped.
[00:55:20] As opposed to just a random sandbag bouncing in here.
[00:55:26] And so this thing was hot, this thing must have been like 150 feet up.
[00:55:30] Yeah, they had the longest ropes in there.
[00:55:33] Surprise even got down to us.
[00:55:39] Back to the book while we kept an eye on the ropes descending through the trees, the NVA mounted
[00:55:42] a desperate last charge towards us.
[00:55:44] We walked along and hept, triggered their claymores and the rest of us opened up with all we had.
[00:55:50] Somehow in the midst of all the tumultuous activity, the four in-ditch had managed to rig
[00:55:55] themselves a Swiss seat using the six foot long pieces of rope we carried just for that
[00:56:00] purpose.
[00:56:01] Bubba and I now tried to do the same but it wasn't easy to wrap a rope around my waist,
[00:56:05] pass it between my legs and then finish tying it off on the right hip while under fire.
[00:56:09] We managed to do it while the inditch held off the enemy and began to hook up for the left
[00:56:15] out.
[00:56:16] If you guys ever think about using some kind of pre-rigged like sit harness or something,
[00:56:23] they were developing those at the time.
[00:56:27] They upgraded the head like the McGuire rig, which is just basically a thick material
[00:56:32] that you could sit in and hook in and then later it came out with the rig.
[00:56:37] I can't think of name but it was an outfit where you had your harness built in.
[00:56:42] You had to web gear with the harness so when it came down you just hook in.
[00:56:47] Click in you ready?
[00:56:48] I'd be thinking about that in a single while.
[00:56:50] It's a lot.
[00:56:51] When I found this you tried to tie a Swiss seat.
[00:56:55] Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:57:00] We were getting low on ammunition, grenades and claymores.
[00:57:03] If we didn't make it out, it was going to be a very long night.
[00:57:06] In fact, I wasn't sure if we could survive the night no matter what kind of air support
[00:57:11] man is to reach us.
[00:57:13] It was now or never.
[00:57:15] Sound fork located three of the four ropes and it attached themselves to one of them using
[00:57:21] snap links.
[00:57:22] When I asked a cubby if the chopper could lift us all out of once, he replied, no way, it's
[00:57:26] going to take two lifts.
[00:57:28] No way is exactly what I thought in return.
[00:57:31] There was no way we had enough time for two attempts.
[00:57:33] There was no way I was going to split the team.
[00:57:36] Either all six of us were going out together on four ropes.
[00:57:39] Oh, we were going to die together trying.
[00:57:42] Call it camaraderie or fear, but I was not going to leave anyone.
[00:57:46] Myself included on the ground for a minute longer than necessary.
[00:57:50] I'd heard all the horror stories I needed to about what could result in and I didn't want
[00:57:55] to be the subject of some gruesome tale around the bar at F.O.B.1.
[00:58:00] I suddenly had a bright idea and asked Bubba if he still had the claim or with the white
[00:58:05] phosphorus grenade taped to its front.
[00:58:07] When he nodded, yes, I told him to strap it as high as he could as high as he could reach
[00:58:12] on a nearby tree facing south.
[00:58:14] He gave me his best, are you out of your fucking mind?
[00:58:17] Look, because he knew at that proximity, the back blast would kill us all when we set it off.
[00:58:25] So he hesitated and I had to order him to do it.
[00:58:28] As he finished the remaining two little people paired up and hooked themselves onto into
[00:58:32] one of the ropes while Bubba and I each took one of the remaining two.
[00:58:36] I wanted to balance out the weight distribution by having me on one side of the helicopter
[00:58:40] and Bubba on the other, but it was impossible to tell for sure which ropes went where.
[00:58:45] So I took a wild guess and hoped for the best.
[00:58:48] Best.
[00:58:49] Using the barrel of my M79 to shield the flash from the NVA, I used a strobe like to signal
[00:58:54] the chopper to begin lifting us out.
[00:58:58] Did the chopper have enough power?
[00:59:01] Would we be dragged through the trees?
[00:59:03] Would the NVA manage to shoot one or all of us out of our saddles?
[00:59:08] We were about to find out.
[00:59:11] As the ropes became taught, fire, gunfire erupted from the west, south, fucking, I returned,
[00:59:17] fire, but our bodies blocked the others line of sight so they watched in frustration.
[00:59:23] Because my rope was longer than the other three, I was the last to leave the ground.
[00:59:27] This also gave me the additional seconds I needed to reload my empty car 15 twice.
[00:59:33] Things were happening very fast almost too fast and my bright idea demanded perfect timing
[00:59:38] as we started up, Bubba reached out and ignited the delay flues on the delay fuse on the
[00:59:44] last claim or the one he'd fastened to the tree.
[00:59:48] With my feet dangling in the air, I fired around for my M79.
[00:59:53] Still gaining altitude, I then pulled the pins on two hand grenades and tossed them down
[00:59:58] onto the ground at about the same time that claim more went off.
[01:00:03] The back blast blew under us, but we could still feel it's power and heat.
[01:00:09] The phosphorus was like a giant flash bulb going off, and that frozen instant of illumination
[01:00:15] I could finally see the faces of my enemy.
[01:00:18] They were hurting.
[01:00:20] But still advancing.
[01:00:23] The engine screaming, the Huey somehow came up with the power it needed.
[01:00:28] It was agonizingly slow going and we had to push our way through some branches, but we
[01:00:33] were not being dragged through them.
[01:00:35] We were being lifted straight up.
[01:00:37] The NVA continued to fire at us and I had the unsettling impression that trace around
[01:00:43] for passing between my legs and sensation that will give any man pause for thought.
[01:00:50] The team fired back on full automatic and we threw the last of our grenades.
[01:00:55] Like two fiercely-demented and determined beasts, the NVA and RT Idaho remain locked in battle
[01:01:02] to the bitter end.
[01:01:05] As we finally cleared the trees, I immediately called Kovie and confessed our little
[01:01:09] deception.
[01:01:10] The team is out.
[01:01:12] The whole team is out, I screamed into the handset.
[01:01:14] We came out together, do not send in a second helicopter.
[01:01:18] I repeat, no second chopper.
[01:01:21] The muskets rolled in and pulverize the ground.
[01:01:24] We had just left.
[01:01:25] The A1Es were right behind them and as the muffled explosion and light flashes reached
[01:01:31] me, I found myself feeling a little sorry for the NVA troops down there.
[01:01:36] They were valiant and dedicated soldiers.
[01:01:39] They would have to be a credit to any army.
[01:01:43] Those left alive would no doubt have some stories to tell.
[01:01:47] And I doubted that they would ever admit that a six-man team had held them at bay for so
[01:01:52] long and then escaped their most determined efforts to wipe them out.
[01:01:58] As for RT Idaho, we were simply happy to be alive.
[01:02:04] Not something I would have bet on a short while earlier.
[01:02:09] Oh yeah.
[01:02:17] We were lucky too because of the...
[01:02:19] It was more or more lucky than that.
[01:02:23] We used to hold a lot of luck on that one.
[01:02:26] But we were still relatively high and not like the big peaks and deeper into layoffs.
[01:02:34] So the helicopter was able to pull us out.
[01:02:37] If that had been in the middle of the day and with jungle heat and heat of the day, he never
[01:02:44] would have been able to live six of us out.
[01:02:47] But we weighed all that and I did not listen to the cub.
[01:02:50] We just rolled the dice because it was so dark at that point.
[01:02:55] So oh yeah, the recon guide's smoth on us one more time.
[01:03:00] So when you...
[01:03:01] Once you got pulled out, would they just look for a clearing somewhere to set down, get
[01:03:05] you guys in the helicopter for real?
[01:03:07] No that's the part that they just froze your balls all the way home.
[01:03:12] Because with the Swiss season out, it was just everything goes numb.
[01:03:16] And so because it was dark, particularly they wanted to make sure they were ready to
[01:03:21] put us down.
[01:03:22] It was going to be somewhere in South Vietnam.
[01:03:23] So we were in the air.
[01:03:24] I just figured how long and they finally set us down.
[01:03:27] But you can't walk.
[01:03:28] You lie to like a triple for a few minutes.
[01:03:31] Yeah.
[01:03:32] On clip, you can't flip.
[01:03:33] So they didn't really care about your comfort.
[01:03:37] No.
[01:03:38] And we didn't clean too much.
[01:03:40] But you go, you're all sweaty.
[01:03:42] And you held it.
[01:03:43] Five minutes later, you're a 5000 feet, which is cold.
[01:03:46] People get how cold it is at 5000 feet.
[01:03:49] Yeah, you're freezing.
[01:03:50] Yeah, especially because you're soaking wet.
[01:03:52] And you're going 80 miles an hour.
[01:03:55] So you go 80 mile an hour a wind.
[01:03:57] All that too.
[01:04:01] And this is just, I mean, this is crazy.
[01:04:06] It's absolutely crazy.
[01:04:09] And this was just over and over again.
[01:04:12] Now, you know, I spent a lot of time on the books on the last couple podcasts.
[01:04:20] I wanted to kind of just ask you a couple questions.
[01:04:25] Get your thoughts on some stuff.
[01:04:28] And I also, and I don't know, we might have to come back again.
[01:04:30] And I got sawed chronicles here.
[01:04:32] I read that outstanding book.
[01:04:34] And this is sawed chronicles real quick.
[01:04:38] Talks about a big operation that took place, that you weren't on.
[01:04:43] But you got really good descriptions and talked to people.
[01:04:46] Operation tailwind.
[01:04:48] That's another one where helicopters are getting shot down.
[01:04:51] I mean, it's completely insane.
[01:04:55] Yeah, and no ordinary.
[01:04:57] He looked these are the CH53s.
[01:04:59] They're not the models.
[01:05:00] Yeah.
[01:05:01] The biggest Marine Corps had.
[01:05:03] And they took out two of those.
[01:05:04] I think left one really banged up.
[01:05:07] And when they inserted, they still, they had three WAs on their assertion.
[01:05:12] But they had to get in for that to take the pressure off of the CIA operation.
[01:05:17] That was the mission, September 1970.
[01:05:19] Yeah.
[01:05:20] So that's Operation tailwind.
[01:05:22] Operation tailwind.
[01:05:23] And that book saw chronicles volume one.
[01:05:26] And I hope there's going to be about 30 more volumes of sawed.
[01:05:30] We're going to be working on the model that Anne and I came up with is that we're going
[01:05:33] to write till we die.
[01:05:35] I like it.
[01:05:36] Because there's so many saws stories that there have been told could we couldn't tell.
[01:05:39] And so many of our guys.
[01:05:40] I mean, even when I, a fellow recon guy, talked to him.
[01:05:44] It's like pulling information on him.
[01:05:46] I'm sure you've run into that with your people.
[01:05:48] They're not, they're not inclined to talk.
[01:05:51] Well, yeah.
[01:05:52] They're modest.
[01:05:53] That's an interesting thing because people do not want to be at the bar.
[01:05:56] Yeah.
[01:05:57] I'm a green beret or a machine.
[01:05:58] And most of the guys, when people say, well, you should have more guys from to you
[01:06:03] bruiser on there.
[01:06:04] You have to have more guys more seals on.
[01:06:06] The seals that I know that I would want to have on a lot of them.
[01:06:08] They're still in.
[01:06:09] Or they don't want to come on.
[01:06:10] That's it.
[01:06:11] They won't say it.
[01:06:12] Yeah.
[01:06:13] They're like, hey, I'm good.
[01:06:15] And then obviously, I got a lot of my friends that do come on.
[01:06:19] And it's great when they come on.
[01:06:21] But yeah, a lot of guys are still doing it.
[01:06:25] And so, hey, that's the way it is.
[01:06:27] Once those guys retire, and I do have some friends that are retired soon, and they're
[01:06:30] become what I'm on.
[01:06:31] So that's pretty awesome.
[01:06:32] Oh, yeah.
[01:06:33] But yeah.
[01:06:34] So the song Chronicles, you've, like I said, hopefully there's 30 volumes that right
[01:06:39] now there's just one.
[01:06:40] We're going to try to turn across the fence and on a ground into audio books.
[01:06:45] That's awesome.
[01:06:46] That's our project right now.
[01:06:47] And then as soon as we're done with that, it commenced with volume two.
[01:06:53] And we got a couple of stories there.
[01:06:55] What a one that we talked about in on the ground, the August 23 attack.
[01:07:01] We've had a lot more research.
[01:07:03] We had the scale who's a, as she was in M.I. and she has pulled out more information.
[01:07:08] She's going to pull the whole thing together for the, hopefully the most detailed story
[01:07:12] in the night because we're such a tragic, yet heroic night for the people that were there
[01:07:17] on the ground in night.
[01:07:18] And Larry Trimble up on Marble Mountain.
[01:07:20] Yeah.
[01:07:21] And that couple of the stories, many other stories.
[01:07:24] But there's the other one.
[01:07:27] One of our guys went in for a bright light and they got shot out at a, at four
[01:07:33] crass.
[01:07:35] As it was crashing, you hit three separate hill tops coming to rest on a third one.
[01:07:40] They got to the second hill and got shot out.
[01:07:45] He went back 25 years later.
[01:07:47] He became a doctor on his own money spent $70,000 to go back to Cambodia to try to find
[01:07:55] that effort just nodded his conscience.
[01:07:58] They got in, got to the site and we're run off by bandits.
[01:08:03] He went back now, would be two years ago, with DPA.
[01:08:07] And DPA was working on the second hill where the jet was on the third hill.
[01:08:13] So he's able to go in to give them direct sighting as to where the dig.
[01:08:18] So there's still work and he was on the ground digging things out with these guys.
[01:08:22] That's going to be a netbook.
[01:08:23] Yeah.
[01:08:24] So check out that book too.
[01:08:28] Saw Chronicles.
[01:08:30] You're training.
[01:08:33] How ready do you think you were when you got to Vietnam?
[01:08:36] How ready for you for what you were about to encounter?
[01:08:41] Well, a lot better than the guys that went through just basic training and advanced infantry
[01:08:45] training.
[01:08:46] And I'm sure that commencement units had in country training.
[01:08:50] Our in country training was good.
[01:08:53] He worked.
[01:08:54] We practiced calling in spooky, worked with the helicopters, told about the dangers and working
[01:09:00] with the little people, the history as well as some of the do's and don'ts about working
[01:09:06] with South Vietnamese.
[01:09:09] I thought that was good, but then to just no aid camp duty, I think all that was geared
[01:09:15] for the aid camps.
[01:09:17] Sog was just at another level.
[01:09:19] And that's why we always talked.
[01:09:20] So people like Pat Watkins by the parks, John McGovern, Dick Gross, they were the senior
[01:09:26] e7s or e6s in camp.
[01:09:28] All of whom had run at night.
[01:09:31] A screen guys would talk to them, particularly after mission.
[01:09:35] And then we talked to each other.
[01:09:36] You know, John Watten came back from a target and where Tom Cunney-Hemp's leg was blown
[01:09:43] off.
[01:09:44] One of those little people who got shot four times and captain 10 who saved us and knocked
[01:09:48] over, pulled them out and August.
[01:09:51] And we talked right away.
[01:09:52] That night, well, what did you learn?
[01:09:55] And it always be just back and forth to try to get any sense of what happened to anything
[01:10:01] you could do to give us anything for another edge in the field.
[01:10:05] And meanwhile, we're getting the intel reports.
[01:10:07] We knew about all the teams that had been wiped out.
[01:10:09] And the intel reports about the sappers.
[01:10:12] So you all bounced it out and just keep things with us.
[01:10:15] So an answer to your question.
[01:10:17] Sog was so different, a lot of with innovative.
[01:10:20] The things we were doing there were the strings.
[01:10:23] That was all things that used today really advanced.
[01:10:26] You know, no fast ropes.
[01:10:28] That was another dimension of when, another war.
[01:10:31] So we're working that firepower, working with the air assets and new weapons.
[01:10:39] But it was all like to experiment with things.
[01:10:41] The learns you go, try to take was best.
[01:10:42] And like, limb black blow yourself up in the, and the ambushes were good luck to make
[01:10:46] sure it really works.
[01:10:49] Did you, when you were calling for fires?
[01:10:51] So I don't know if you know this, but now it's like a school you go to.
[01:10:55] You go to a joint tattoo leader controller school and that's sort of your specialty is calling
[01:10:59] for fire call or bombs.
[01:11:02] But you just, you trained in country to learn how to do it.
[01:11:08] Yes.
[01:11:09] And again, we talked to, that's what we talked to spider and pat walk as specifically.
[01:11:14] And so that was, that was more important than actually going out pop in the smoke and
[01:11:19] having the gun run.
[01:11:20] It was learning how to do it the right way.
[01:11:23] Now you're in a box and you never have a gun run go across you.
[01:11:27] It'd be in front, you know, you're front to left southeast and you direct it that way.
[01:11:32] And how many inches, I mean, how many feet of yards from your perimeter, how many meters.
[01:11:37] And that applied when we got to the field because once we were up at Fubai, we didn't
[01:11:44] practice air strikes.
[01:11:45] Once we were on the ground, we did it.
[01:11:48] But it did it with confidence.
[01:11:50] Thanks to spider or walkins and John McGovern particularly.
[01:11:54] They sat with us, our green guys at night and made us understand that.
[01:11:59] And we had a couple cases where people made mistakes and teams got hit and lost people.
[01:12:04] They had their brain and some people.
[01:12:07] We were our body count was so low that they were bringing in people from other units.
[01:12:11] And they would come in cocky.
[01:12:14] And once they got on the ground, they were just maybe a little too cocky and had to listen
[01:12:17] to all lessons.
[01:12:19] And some of the teams will let the other people carry their rest.
[01:12:22] Why carry their radio.
[01:12:23] And we had one team, young guy came in and called the air strike on its own team.
[01:12:29] They came with a gun and we're right across the teams.
[01:12:32] R.O.N. and it's like that.
[01:12:35] So that does not surprise me at all.
[01:12:38] I mean, when I'm listening to a reading your books, the fact that you guys were doing that,
[01:12:45] you obviously had a massive amount of skill to not have that happen.
[01:12:50] Because like I said, these guys are looking at a jungle canopy.
[01:12:53] They look at some random bit of smoke that came out and yet you're directing fire based
[01:12:58] on that.
[01:12:59] It's awesome.
[01:13:00] But I could see where somebody could easily make a mistake.
[01:13:05] You give the wrong direction.
[01:13:07] Look at your compass is spinning the wrong way.
[01:13:09] It's good close to your weapon.
[01:13:10] You've got your carmel directions.
[01:13:12] I mean, there's so many things that could go wrong.
[01:13:14] And yet you're just doing.
[01:13:16] I mean, there's times we're out there doing gun runs for 12 hours straight.
[01:13:21] And like your case, where you had the unit that you wanted to attack the building and
[01:13:29] you challenged the three times and the last time you called it up because it was another
[01:13:33] unit, another seal team.
[01:13:35] Well, we had that common sense thing on the ground, too, where we would direct it.
[01:13:39] But if there was something that wasn't quite right, you put everything on hold until
[01:13:43] you got it right.
[01:13:45] Yeah, that's weird.
[01:13:46] Because late for my road extreme ownership and we didn't really coordinate stories that
[01:13:53] we were talking about.
[01:13:54] And yet there's multiple stories in there about either blue on blues or a potential blue
[01:13:59] on blues because man in a city like that with all these different units running around
[01:14:04] all on different radio frequencies and a bunch of enemy, Mujah, Dean fighters running
[01:14:09] around in there, too.
[01:14:10] It was blue on blue was a very real thing.
[01:14:13] And there would be probably one case of blue on blue a day that would happen and maybe
[01:14:20] one a week that would get reported.
[01:14:22] You know, but just, and I'm not talking where someone is shot, but like, you know, just
[01:14:27] all of a sudden you're taking rounds and you're like, where are those coming from?
[01:14:29] Oh, that's another unit down there.
[01:14:32] And maybe before, and for a one opening up moment, exactly exactly.
[01:14:36] So that it would happen all the time.
[01:14:39] And that's one thing that was nice about, well, for you, if not nice, but it's
[01:14:43] less complicated, you're the only friendly guys out there to watch out.
[01:14:46] Oh, there was no friendly fire happening.
[01:14:48] You guys, you're a versus them.
[01:14:50] Yeah, all of them.
[01:14:51] Yeah.
[01:14:51] When you got mission taskings, where did they come from?
[01:14:59] Where did they come from up above?
[01:15:00] Where you guys developing targets yourself?
[01:15:03] Where did that process?
[01:15:04] That's what happened, mix of both.
[01:15:07] The Channing Command for Saw, went to Sawcheadquarters right to the White House.
[01:15:11] They had somebody from DOD that was there.
[01:15:14] I don't know, some general, somebody.
[01:15:16] But that was their mission was keeping on on Sawc.
[01:15:19] So they was sent missions from there that would come to Headquarters to each F.O.B.
[01:15:25] And then our immediate action reports that I'll go back after action reports to go back
[01:15:31] through the Channing Command.
[01:15:33] So they knew what was going on at the White House.
[01:15:35] There was somebody at the White House.
[01:15:36] That's where we were told.
[01:15:38] And on occasions, if we had a target that we wanted to do B.52 strike, that would go back
[01:15:44] through the Channing Command and then get approval on it.
[01:15:47] But from what the public knew, the public knew we were bombing.
[01:15:53] Not even know anything about that.
[01:15:54] They didn't even know we were bombing Louson Combo to get.
[01:15:59] Nothing.
[01:16:00] There was no reporters in there.
[01:16:01] There's no communist news network back then.
[01:16:05] So the communist would not talk about it because they agreed to the agreement.
[01:16:12] Not having their people there.
[01:16:13] Cadillac said, hey, Louson Combo, they're neutral.
[01:16:16] We respect them.
[01:16:17] Line dogs.
[01:16:19] And we said the same thing.
[01:16:20] But ours, we just went in with our recon teams.
[01:16:23] I suppose that them just going down and slaving all the people to work there.
[01:16:28] Work with us, help us open the roads.
[01:16:30] And if we saw in Disney's people, we would not open fire on.
[01:16:33] I mean, it's like not going to go at local people.
[01:16:35] They don't know any better, just caught in the middle.
[01:16:39] But the NVA, they were talking.
[01:16:43] You work with us so you die.
[01:16:45] Well, you know, in one of the books you're talking about how the NVA treated the
[01:16:50] in-dedge people there, so horribly that the in-dedge troops that you worked with, but
[01:16:55] hated the NVA.
[01:16:56] Oh, they hated them.
[01:16:57] That these NVA had raped their women, beat their wives and just unharable things.
[01:17:02] Absolutely.
[01:17:03] They were there for, they were there to fight.
[01:17:06] Yep.
[01:17:07] And they cut nobody else like them.
[01:17:10] I mean, America today, particularly our snowflakes, don't know what the soldiers of
[01:17:17] Communists were really like in the field.
[01:17:20] And it's just nasty people.
[01:17:22] And that's what we were fighting.
[01:17:25] And they were really dedicated.
[01:17:27] And they're just, that's a purpose because they've been so thoroughly indoctrinated.
[01:17:32] And they really believe what they were doing, even though they were working off a propaganda.
[01:17:40] Yeah.
[01:17:41] When you, so you would come up with some of the missions, some of the missions would come
[01:17:44] down to you.
[01:17:45] Majority came.
[01:17:46] Majority came down to you.
[01:17:47] And of course, you know, they would have, sometimes I think there would be, we
[01:17:52] got a team on a ground.
[01:17:53] That's why we were going in primary secondary all think it's shot out, eat lunch, go
[01:17:58] back and try again.
[01:17:59] And they just wanted to get somebody on the ground.
[01:18:02] And that would just be your, that's an automatic area of reconnaissance.
[01:18:06] And that's because they had something they wanted to see there, something like that.
[01:18:09] Sometimes her S3 people would just want to get a team on the ground so they could
[01:18:12] report a headquarters at night.
[01:18:14] We had one or two teams on the ground.
[01:18:17] Wait, do you mean that they're just wanting to, hey, look what we're doing?
[01:18:21] Yeah.
[01:18:22] Now, I'll show you guys that on S3 would deny that in fanitly.
[01:18:26] But it felt like that.
[01:18:28] Yeah.
[01:18:29] I came back and said, here's the new target.
[01:18:31] And they'll pick an LZ for you while you're flying back to the next target.
[01:18:36] Did you ever, what if you, what if there was a mission that you looked at and you said, hey,
[01:18:40] this is dumb.
[01:18:42] This doesn't make sense.
[01:18:43] What is only one that I declined to remember about Christmas time of 68.
[01:18:47] I just had a feeling.
[01:18:48] And a team went in.
[01:18:49] I was worried.
[01:18:50] But they were on the ground for five days and it was a dry hole.
[01:18:53] And they came out without any shots fired or anything.
[01:18:56] So that's the one time I officially turned something down.
[01:18:59] Maybe that's why you had a bad feeling.
[01:19:00] Tell it, you knew nothing was going to happen.
[01:19:02] It wasn't your kind of target.
[01:19:04] Yeah.
[01:19:05] I don't want a boring target.
[01:19:08] So how did it go when you said no?
[01:19:11] Would you say, hey, look, my guys need rest.
[01:19:12] Sorry.
[01:19:13] Yeah, not this time.
[01:19:14] We had to write to say no.
[01:19:16] It was frowned on.
[01:19:17] But at that time, we had a couple of new teams in camp.
[01:19:22] And Rodney had came in and he was a good one zero.
[01:19:25] So he went out and he came back to, hey, that target was pretty cool.
[01:19:28] We stopped a lot.
[01:19:30] Dry hole.
[01:19:31] Dry hole.
[01:19:32] I said, really?
[01:19:33] So how are these feelings, man?
[01:19:34] I was hyperventilating to that figure.
[01:19:35] We were going to run into Ho Chi Minh and a couple of divisions again for good luck.
[01:19:40] I hadn't seen a division in a month.
[01:19:42] No, it's like, okay.
[01:19:45] But no.
[01:19:46] So that kind of showed me how your mental state of mind too.
[01:19:50] Because that's why I believed.
[01:19:53] And the system was such that you could turn it down.
[01:19:56] And we took it from there.
[01:19:58] When you say that's where you believed, you believed that it was a bad target.
[01:20:02] I just thought we had been so lucky and going through the Christmas Thanksgiving and everything
[01:20:07] else that our, I just thought our number was going to be, we didn't know how.
[01:20:12] And I just said, this could be the target.
[01:20:14] It's an M.A.
[01:20:14] Target.
[01:20:15] And those are particularly, the ones are on long to DMZ River west of Vietnam that went deeper
[01:20:22] into chaos.
[01:20:24] And there were nasty, we lost several teams up there.
[01:20:27] I figured this could be our turn.
[01:20:29] So, buzz wrong?
[01:20:31] No, did you ever get that feeling again?
[01:20:35] Not, not not strong enough to act on it.
[01:20:38] I mean, the carried it back in my tiny mind.
[01:20:40] It was like, that's the best time you thought you were going to die.
[01:20:44] You didn't.
[01:20:45] I had some guys that thought they were going to die every time we left the wire.
[01:20:49] You know what I mean?
[01:20:54] God bless them, but he's no man, this could die could be the night man.
[01:20:56] No, I'm not feeling good about this one.
[01:20:57] And they'd always get their gear on, but I'd say, I mean, I always looked at as a good sign.
[01:20:59] If certain people were scared, if they wouldn't have been scared, I would have been nervous
[01:21:04] because they were so scared all the time.
[01:21:05] I think, man, this must be really stressful for them.
[01:21:10] I never wrote the letter.
[01:21:11] We're like, dear mom and dad, I'm dead now.
[01:21:13] If you read this letter, I'm dead.
[01:21:15] Yeah.
[01:21:16] I felt, and hope that we somehow get through it.
[01:21:21] And you're right about the scare thing.
[01:21:23] You want that emotional edge, a little fear can go along.
[01:21:26] It's a great motivator.
[01:21:28] But I wouldn't go out with a guy if somebody was saying, hey, man, I'm not afraid.
[01:21:34] I'm afraid of you, do you go somebody else?
[01:21:36] I also used to get the feeling that if you were scared like that, if you were scared,
[01:21:44] and you were going to be hesitant, that was going to be bad.
[01:21:48] Sure.
[01:21:49] Like, I was more worried about guys that were hesitant or I felt like if they were hesitant
[01:21:57] on the battlefield, that would work out bad for them.
[01:22:03] The guys that I always felt like, okay, if someone's aggressive, not not unaffraid
[01:22:08] and suicidal like that, but just, hey, oh yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to go,
[01:22:13] I'm going to go out with a guy right now.
[01:22:14] I always felt that was the attitude to have.
[01:22:16] It was to be aggressive.
[01:22:17] It was to be like, okay, yeah, well, oh, you want an opt for us?
[01:22:21] Cool, we'll go do it.
[01:22:22] Now we turned down opts too.
[01:22:24] There was opts where we looked at and said, man, this is not good.
[01:22:28] And this is a massive amount of risk.
[01:22:30] I mean, there was areas where there was areas where they were taken,
[01:22:36] IED strikes on vehicles, and like, you know,
[01:22:40] when in a big IED hits a Humvee, everyone dies or three out of five people die or something like that,
[01:22:45] I mean, it's very catastrophic.
[01:22:47] And it was one target they were looking at for us.
[01:22:50] They asked us to do.
[01:22:52] And there was like one road going in and that had multiple big IED strikes.
[01:22:57] And then they wanted us to, they were asking if we could take out more,
[01:23:03] it was either a mortar team or an IED in place or but we were looking at it and where
[01:23:07] the mortar has been launched from, we're all over the place.
[01:23:09] So it was just, it was one of the, one of the types of missions where we looked at it and said,
[01:23:14] hey, there's got to be a better way to do this because us going up there is not going to be worse than it.
[01:23:18] A lot of your missions were point missions, right?
[01:23:20] What do you mean by that?
[01:23:21] They gave you a target, get to this point and wipe it out.
[01:23:25] I would say my first deployment, it was go capture kill back guys.
[01:23:31] That was my first deployment to Iraq, we were in Baghdad,
[01:23:33] that's mostly what we were doing.
[01:23:34] Middle the night, we'd find out where a bad guy was, we'd go get him.
[01:23:38] And that's what my second deployment in Ramadi, mostly what guys were doing was
[01:23:44] Overwatch, sniper Overwatch positions set up and building.
[01:23:47] So that when the bad guys would either maneuver on friendly forces or they'd be out doing what they
[01:23:52] shouldn't be doing, right?
[01:23:53] The guys would take them out.
[01:23:54] So that's pretty much the, then there's all kinds of crap in between that everything from,
[01:24:00] you know, everything from doing just reconnaissance of areas.
[01:24:03] To counter mortar types, it's just, you know, a lot of other things would happen.
[01:24:10] But primarily it was direct action missions going out, take out a target or these sniper
[01:24:15] Overwatch types, but you know, we'd be doing big clearances to big conventional clearances.
[01:24:20] You know, we had our, we called them jundies, which is,
[01:24:23] the jundie means, it means soldier in, in Arabic.
[01:24:26] Right.
[01:24:27] And so we call them jundies, that's what they call themselves jundies.
[01:24:30] So we had jundies, like you guys had little people, like you had in-ditch force.
[01:24:34] We had in-ditch forces, they were jundies.
[01:24:36] And so we would do very conventional missions with the jundies of them.
[01:24:41] And us, you know, we'd be overseeing them as they cleared big sections of the city.
[01:24:44] And we'd be working in conjunction with the army.
[01:24:47] So yeah, we did a little bit of everything.
[01:24:50] But, um, we see that brings us back to our side of it,
[01:24:54] where you can give yourself a mental delusion,
[01:24:57] which is our mission is to go look in an area recon.
[01:25:02] So theoretically, you're going to get inserted quietly and go back to your job.
[01:25:06] And that's different from you with your point of mission.
[01:25:09] So hold different frame of mind.
[01:25:11] So, theoretically, okay, we're hoping to get in to our mission to come back and report,
[01:25:15] or find a fuel line, blow it up, or get the POW,
[01:25:20] get the wire taps, give them a mental, where you're going out and doing your IED pick-up,
[01:25:26] and mortars, that's totally different.
[01:25:29] So at least in my mind, I think that's part of my self-confered factor.
[01:25:34] We're going to get inserted and cover nice quiet mission for five or six days.
[01:25:38] Takes some pictures.
[01:25:40] That sounds great.
[01:25:41] And come on back, it's really cool.
[01:25:43] Yeah.
[01:25:43] We're behind any mean line.
[01:25:44] What percentage of operations would you guys get contacted on?
[01:25:48] We left, always left under fire.
[01:25:50] The only question was how much?
[01:25:52] Never had, well, one.
[01:25:55] They won, where we got, you opened up our discussion tonight, where we got pulled out.
[01:26:01] There's no fire there because they came in and got us.
[01:26:03] We had a great RON, and we were going to get some POWs, but they pulled us out right away.
[01:26:09] So it's no gunfire in that mission, but other than that, every time we left under gunfire,
[01:26:13] it's only a question of how much.
[01:26:15] Some titles like the whole John Lowe light enough.
[01:26:18] Sometimes it'll only be two or three hundred.
[01:26:20] And yet you still fooled yourself with the thinking,
[01:26:22] hey, this recon is going to be different.
[01:26:26] But yeah, so I guess my point was I looked at it, and I still look at it.
[01:26:32] If you are nervous about getting hurt, if you're nervous about something going wrong,
[01:26:37] to me, that's when something goes wrong.
[01:26:39] Yeah.
[01:26:40] When you're nervous about it, now I'm not saying you should be arrogant about it and think,
[01:26:43] oh, we're going to get away with whatever.
[01:26:45] But I'm saying, like when you're doing a sport, you know,
[01:26:50] when you're doing some physical activity, if you're afraid, you might get injured.
[01:26:54] To me, that's when you get injured.
[01:26:56] It's when you're, when you're afraid, I think fear can hurt you.
[01:27:01] And that being said, the other side of the coin is, if you have no fear,
[01:27:05] well, you're definitely at risk.
[01:27:07] He who has a taste is lost.
[01:27:09] There you go.
[01:27:10] So there's a dichotomy there.
[01:27:11] That's not a good balance.
[01:27:12] Yeah, and that's where we're so lucky.
[01:27:14] You know, heept a sale that a great job of vetting our indigenous troops,
[01:27:18] and to go from spider parks to walk in to Baba,
[01:27:22] and then back to Limbac, and then when I left the team,
[01:27:26] it was in Lens Hands.
[01:27:28] And then I came back, Lens the ones, you know,
[01:27:31] what more could you ask for?
[01:27:33] So that was just a very fortunate.
[01:27:36] What was your mission planning like?
[01:27:39] So you guys get a tasking?
[01:27:41] How long did you guys plan for?
[01:27:44] For just an area mission, area reconcest, very little.
[01:27:48] With the wire tabs, obviously we did hours and hours of training on that.
[01:27:52] And then as time went on, you know, first it was just sale,
[01:27:56] who could do it, and then sale trained,
[01:27:58] have and fuck the guys are as strong to do it all.
[01:28:02] And as well, every aspect of it,
[01:28:05] and then we cross trained each other.
[01:28:07] And we even had so that,
[01:28:09] we had to begin to teach a couple of young guys basic English.
[01:28:14] So if any of us got killed,
[01:28:16] had to take over to radio, or the end did to take over.
[01:28:20] So a couple of guys that like,
[01:28:22] chow and hung, as it went,
[01:28:24] hung came on the team.
[01:28:25] They picked up being was pretty quick.
[01:28:27] So we worked with them.
[01:28:28] And we practiced calling in, working on the radio,
[01:28:31] the problems with the batteries, and things like that.
[01:28:33] So we crossed trained everything back and forth.
[01:28:36] And the wire tab was one of the particular ones where we had several guys in the team
[01:28:40] trained up to do it all.
[01:28:41] Everything from known about the batteries, watching it,
[01:28:44] keeping the battery indicator to get to put the wire up the tree
[01:28:49] or a telephone pole.
[01:28:51] And when you came down to your cover,
[01:28:52] that was from that area.
[01:28:55] So it looked like it was part of that area, trying to cover the wire.
[01:28:58] But as far as the actual mission planning of,
[01:29:01] okay, here's where we're going in tonight.
[01:29:04] They didn't take you much because you were running repetitive type missions.
[01:29:09] It's a high degree of similarity.
[01:29:11] The most important thing was the training.
[01:29:13] So when you may contact, you could take care of yourself and
[01:29:17] how to react, try to continue the mission.
[01:29:20] But these were like reconnaissance.
[01:29:22] So once you've been seen or compromised, the mission's compromised.
[01:29:27] Would you be flying in?
[01:29:31] What was your degree of certainty on where you were inserted?
[01:29:35] Oh, we knew very clear where we were gone.
[01:29:38] So like in the case, we talked to Kavi.
[01:29:41] We sent the three LZs down to Saigon.
[01:29:44] And Kavi would go pick a site.
[01:29:46] And then he would tell me on the radio, okay, this is where we're gone.
[01:29:50] And would you be looking at your map as you started?
[01:29:53] And he knew what the frame was.
[01:29:55] So it would be in that map.
[01:29:57] Yeah.
[01:29:58] That we would have sexed them out that we could.
[01:30:01] I remember when we first, you know, as a radioman, believe it or not,
[01:30:05] when GPS's first came out, the radioman kind of got saddled with the GPS
[01:30:10] because it was a piece of electronic equipment.
[01:30:12] No one else could work with electronic equipment.
[01:30:15] So I would be usually a lot of times be carrying the GPS as opposed to the
[01:30:19] point meant.
[01:30:20] And the point man, you know, was still using mapping compasses that early
[01:30:23] in the early 90s. But the GPS wouldn't always work well in a helicopter.
[01:30:28] And so sometimes they took me, you know, this is some training operations where I learned
[01:30:34] oh, so I'm not what I think I am.
[01:30:36] And you get out and that GPS finally finds itself and you realize your three
[01:30:40] clicks away from where you're supposed to be or whatever and it's bad.
[01:30:43] And that's why we'd go, I went back to, hey, when I'm in the helicopter, I'm on a map.
[01:30:47] So that way when my boss looks at me and says, hey, we're we're we're we're
[01:30:50] supposed to be either yes or no, like don't get out of the bird or okay, we're good.
[01:30:55] But but that. So I was thinking about that for you guys. You'd be doing the same thing
[01:31:00] as you approach to okay, yep, there's that train feature. There's this other train
[01:31:03] feature, cool where we're we're we're supposed to be.
[01:31:06] Yeah, and then last also we wanted to know what a water was because some of the
[01:31:10] targets they had more more streams of things. So we carry less water. I will
[01:31:14] literally just carry one canteen with the purification pills so that we're in for
[01:31:18] several days like with Echo 4. But at the first day, we had gone through some water
[01:31:23] and took we all took a turn going into the little stream put the purification
[01:31:28] pills in hit the water and let it sit for a couple of hours before you
[01:31:32] drank it. Did you get acclimated where you needed less water? Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[01:31:36] Less water and I can truly say I never defecate and lay us.
[01:31:42] Somehow the body just tightened up and they had no ship pills that guys would
[01:31:49] take so they literally would not go to the bathroom. I worried about those.
[01:31:55] Yeah, that wouldn't help me there. Oh, yeah. I was like, anyway, for numerous reasons
[01:32:00] that the creative mind can think about. But so I didn't but my body never had
[01:32:05] and then we never did it. And the you guys didn't.
[01:32:09] Did you guys have you guys did you guys use imagery at all? Like overhead imagery?
[01:32:16] Nothing. No, some of the, uh, uh, the cobras. No, no, some of the first
[01:32:24] calf pillow copters had some, uh, a trying to think what I are. They would have, uh,
[01:32:34] the ability to see through the clouds and stuff. Okay. And it was just a very
[01:32:40] primitive boat beginning, uh, whereas the cobras gunsters didn't have it.
[01:32:44] But the first calf could get low into the jungle and navigate and fog and
[01:32:49] stuff to get down to our guys. But no, you guys wouldn't see photographs of
[01:32:54] the areas where you were going into it all. No, the only time was down in
[01:32:58] the camp, but for that misnare where that was, um, that base was really close to
[01:33:04] Saigon close to Mac Veehead quarters. And, um, we may have had overviews.
[01:33:09] I just forget for up north that one down there. I stuck stuck on my mind.
[01:33:14] And then what was your, what was your optempo like? In other words,
[01:33:18] how often were you going in the field? Well, through an November, December,
[01:33:23] we, if we weren't on the, if we weren't on the ground, we were getting ready to go back
[01:33:28] to next day. That's why it was such a push, push, push, and I rotate our
[01:33:33] little people out because they were just getting beat. And we had trained them up
[01:33:37] so by November, December, all the cross training we had done in those months.
[01:33:41] You know, South could take a day off, uh, even have to take a day off.
[01:33:46] We had a couple of guys that could speak enough English. If anything happened to me
[01:33:50] or Baba, they could take care of the radio due to comms. And, um, so we
[01:33:55] rotate them through. But it was every day. And then, if the weather came,
[01:34:00] we get a break. And, um, so there was no, and the rule that was, if you ran
[01:34:06] on Mission for Five Days, you came back, you got five days off. So you could
[01:34:10] clean up and get back and shape, get the team ready. But for that period of
[01:34:14] time, we had minimal teams. The teams at F will be one had become so
[01:34:19] between disease, um, health, guys getting wiped out, teams getting blown away.
[01:34:26] Um, we were one of the few teams in campus fully operational. So that's why
[01:34:31] that was the other pressure we had. I remember the S3 just saying, hey,
[01:34:35] you're the only guys we got, you're going to see up the noon. Here's your target.
[01:34:39] Go eat. Okay. So we did it. And then we got shot out and come back
[01:34:45] the next day. And so there was no, there's the uptampal was supposed to be
[01:34:51] rather than Mission for Five to Ten Days if you're lucky. Well, it never happened.
[01:34:55] Some guys did. So they'll give me wrong. We had some guys that were able to
[01:34:58] stay on the ground. Amazing. But in our case, we didn't. So it would be
[01:35:03] very flexible. Then you really take less than less than six guys. A few
[01:35:09] guys ran with four. And, uh, at the end of my tour duty, uh, second tour
[01:35:14] I tried to format team, but we had this whole issue with the radio stuff.
[01:35:18] Just so we could move faster. Just wanted to try anything. Something different
[01:35:22] because when we had moved fast, we had success getting away from the LZ
[01:35:26] and that caused them confusion. So if we broke what our SOPs were, it worked.
[01:35:32] But the eight man was too much, too much. I felt more comfortable with six.
[01:35:36] There was a lot of firepower. We had the M79 here. And then all the
[01:35:40] Americans at the M79 too. And then how often would you get legitimate
[01:35:45] R&R? You had one a year at one for a tour duty. You get five days
[01:35:51] anywhere you want it. So I went to Hong Kong bought my stereo
[01:35:55] by a time. It's a book of money set up. But a nice stereo,
[01:35:59] stadium art, set a home to mom and dad. My little brother put it
[01:36:04] together. He was good at that stuff. Yeah. And that's it. Other than that,
[01:36:08] there's no one R&R. If we got net PllaW.
[01:36:12] Then you would have gotten more. Yeah, we would have.
[01:36:16] What was the offer for catching a bad guy?
[01:36:18] An R&R anywhere is nowhere old. And you got a little hundred
[01:36:20] dollars bonus. How many days?
[01:36:22] Five. Like a regular R&R.
[01:36:24] Oh yeah, it was. Oh yeah. That's why we lost it for that man.
[01:36:28] I cried when it's about to say no.
[01:36:31] A hundred bucks. How much was a hundred bucks? How much was your normal paycheck?
[01:36:34] How much you make a month back then?
[01:36:36] Oh, I don't know. When we went through jump school, now I'm only a private
[01:36:41] E1 right. I got a hundred percent pay raise with my jump pay.
[01:36:45] That's getting paid $50 a month. The jump pay was 55.
[01:36:49] So 55 was a constant. Then later maybe E2 was like 75.
[01:36:54] I never paid. It was never enough. So a hundred bucks was like a hundred bucks
[01:36:58] was like a month to pay basically. Yeah, that was a lot of money.
[01:37:01] Even then a scene that was a big deal.
[01:37:04] Absolutely. And then when you guys would come back, you're talking about this.
[01:37:10] How you would sit there in debrief. Would you debrief your team?
[01:37:13] Would you guys sit down in debrief? What happened? What went wrong? What went right?
[01:37:16] We always talk to a little people.
[01:37:18] Maybe not right away because S2 would want to know what happened.
[01:37:22] So we would go in for immediate debrief.
[01:37:25] Go back to team, make sure they had food for the night and stuff.
[01:37:28] And then go back for a final after action report,
[01:37:32] which would go through talking about everything from the vegetation,
[01:37:36] the type of hills, animals you encountered.
[01:37:39] All that kind of just crazy stuff. The fauna.
[01:37:42] Oh my god. The questions to you as it was just,
[01:37:45] if the wild was like always the same.
[01:37:47] It was the layoffs. Yeah, triple canopy.
[01:37:49] It's pretty dangerous. The NBA are pretty dedicated.
[01:37:52] And then anything specific solved the target from that
[01:37:56] to take a learn from. How long are you going to take you to become the one zero?
[01:38:01] Well, in my case, a gotten country in May.
[01:38:06] Despite putting on a team at the end of May, we trained Juniors L.I.
[01:38:10] had a couple in country like L'Oyem, Bush's locally.
[01:38:14] And then we had a practice mission in August.
[01:38:19] And then we did it. First wiretap.
[01:38:21] And not a wiretap, but the Air Force sensors.
[01:38:23] We did two of those missions in September.
[01:38:25] We had them on soon, too.
[01:38:27] So a lot of those little between the rain. We had like weeks.
[01:38:30] We were just rain. It seemed like a rain every day.
[01:38:33] You ever see who horizontal rain?
[01:38:37] Yeah.
[01:38:39] I've seen this much.
[01:38:40] You guys would not run missions during the monsters.
[01:38:42] No.
[01:38:43] You're too much.
[01:38:44] Too much.
[01:38:45] You're going to be too bad.
[01:38:46] You're socked.
[01:38:47] You're socked.
[01:38:48] You couldn't get out of the base.
[01:38:49] The king, he couldn't get to the base.
[01:38:51] So how long, so how long was that?
[01:38:53] Like four months before you were?
[01:38:55] Yeah.
[01:38:56] Four months.
[01:38:57] And how many missions did you run before you were a one zero?
[01:39:02] I had five missions out of my belt.
[01:39:04] We had a two practice, two wiretaps,
[01:39:08] and a dawn, walkin, echo four.
[01:39:11] And by that time, when he came to me, he said,
[01:39:15] you know, walkin got promoted to a cubby rider.
[01:39:18] And because Pat Walkas was leaving,
[01:39:21] there's an opening.
[01:39:22] So he went there and they gave me the option.
[01:39:25] Are you ready?
[01:39:26] Well, we see what happened with Alabama with Lynn Black,
[01:39:29] in October when they put a guy on a team that didn't had no experience.
[01:39:34] So I talked it over with happened south.
[01:39:37] I saw a look just a situation.
[01:39:39] I don't know who they're going to give us.
[01:39:41] So what about I'll be the ones here on spider.
[01:39:44] I thought that was okay to do it.
[01:39:47] Talk to Walkins.
[01:39:48] And they all said, well, you're ready.
[01:39:51] If you want to try it.
[01:39:53] And we didn't know who could they had to do people coming in the camp.
[01:39:57] And some of these guys were the older ones who had no experience in the layoffs.
[01:40:01] But they didn't want to think to do with them.
[01:40:03] And it had some of the younger guys who were coming in.
[01:40:05] Like Jim Robison, who was on the team.
[01:40:09] For one mission.
[01:40:11] And we didn't know how to withstand up.
[01:40:14] So our guys were happy.
[01:40:16] And the bubbly came in.
[01:40:17] Bubba and the guy named Defranceman Doug Leterna,
[01:40:21] the Frenchman came in together.
[01:40:23] And the Frenchman got picked for Virginia.
[01:40:25] And I got Bubba.
[01:40:27] They were buddies. They got me training group together.
[01:40:29] Yeah, that's, yeah.
[01:40:31] So you'd been in the army for like a couple years.
[01:40:35] And you were in charge of a re-conte.
[01:40:39] Yeah, got in the army.
[01:40:40] December 66 became a one-to-year-old October 68.
[01:40:43] So you figure...
[01:40:45] Three years.
[01:40:45] Almost two years, yeah.
[01:40:47] Because the whole SF training, between that and going through basic jump school.
[01:40:52] And then we had that training before Vietnam,
[01:40:55] the RTT training, which was different.
[01:40:58] But that's just because we're common geeks.
[01:41:01] Mm-hmm.
[01:41:02] Oh, the RTT training was just radio.
[01:41:04] Radio tall type. Got it.
[01:41:06] They want a top secret clearance men on those machines.
[01:41:09] How much did you see the tactics that you guys were using?
[01:41:15] Change over time.
[01:41:18] Um, I think by the time, like when you read, we few by Nick Brockhausen.
[01:41:24] Some of those guys were all carrying either RPDs or an M60.
[01:41:30] Mm-hmm.
[01:41:31] So they were just going in heavier.
[01:41:33] And, um, they were going to bigger team.
[01:41:36] Mm-hmm.
[01:41:37] And, um, they were just anticipating the contact more.
[01:41:41] Whereas we thought we were trying to go in and try to escape and evade.
[01:41:45] Mm-hmm.
[01:41:46] To a point where you hope that you can get these some in the mission done.
[01:41:48] Or to get some intel reports about troop movements, trucks, stuff like that.
[01:41:52] Or get a good wiretap.
[01:41:54] So the biggest thing that changed was the guy started going in heavier and actually bringing
[01:41:59] automatic weapons or belt-fed machine guns.
[01:42:03] Sure.
[01:42:04] That makes sense.
[01:42:05] Every single time I read any of your operations,
[01:42:07] I want nothing more than a belt-fed machine gun.
[01:42:11] So the weaves, if we didn't know who's going to carry it.
[01:42:13] Yeah, the seals had the stoner.
[01:42:15] Oh, yeah.
[01:42:16] Did you guys ever think about using that?
[01:42:18] We thought about it a lot.
[01:42:19] But, and it was a great system.
[01:42:21] We heard many great reports about it.
[01:42:24] But again, the stoner system, you need the audio ammo.
[01:42:27] You had to get the supply system set up.
[01:42:30] And we just weren't sure if we were going to be able to get the guarantee.
[01:42:33] If we convert it, who would it be just the Americans?
[01:42:36] We want everybody with common weapons.
[01:42:39] So that somebody who's blown up, they're weapon,
[01:42:41] because they know how to use the other guy's weapon.
[01:42:44] And you have the same magazine saying that.
[01:42:46] Everything.
[01:42:47] Sure.
[01:42:48] And what about the mission set itself?
[01:42:53] Did you guys, did you notice that change over time while you were there?
[01:42:59] Later we began to get more point targets like in on a ground.
[01:43:03] One of my favorite stories was the Frenchman.
[01:43:06] He goes into a seal-type mission.
[01:43:10] The CIA comes and says, we know about the NVA.
[01:43:13] They're floating 55 gallon drums down the river
[01:43:17] and to a storage area.
[01:43:19] Deep and lay us.
[01:43:21] So we want you guys to go in.
[01:43:23] But we don't trust you with the device.
[01:43:25] They had a device that they screwed into a 55 gallon drum.
[01:43:29] So what we're going to do is,
[01:43:31] and that would be like a tracking device?
[01:43:33] No, no, explosive in nature.
[01:43:35] Oh, that's right. That's right.
[01:43:36] Yeah, that's okay.
[01:43:37] So here's what says, we're going to meet you on this hilltop in Lay Us.
[01:43:42] So Doug was the one-one on our TV Junior.
[01:43:46] Got their wall was the one-zero.
[01:43:48] They'd go in and hump three days.
[01:43:50] Get to the mountaintop.
[01:43:51] There's the CIA.
[01:43:53] With a couple guys.
[01:43:54] Okay, here's your device.
[01:43:56] Go and stall it.
[01:43:58] Now, come to the wall with the Marine. So you think that he'd be the guy doing a swimming, right?
[01:44:02] He goes, omınise six.
[01:44:04] Frenchman, you're an E4.
[01:44:06] Hit the work.
[01:44:08] So the CIA gave the Disclosive device,
[01:44:10] humped down the mount and get to the river
[01:44:12] and then now they're on a river with all the stuff going by the drums.
[01:44:16] And some have NVA troops riding the drums
[01:44:20] or being present with a boat or something.
[01:44:22] So in between all this, Doug strips down,
[01:44:25] goes in, gets a drum, brings it back, puts in the explosive device.
[01:44:29] Swims it back out and comes back, soaking wet and not happy.
[01:44:35] He's for something California.
[01:44:38] So he's really not happy.
[01:44:40] But two days later, they're getting extracted now.
[01:44:44] The King Beast come extracted and they're getting
[01:44:47] the extracted as his use explosion.
[01:44:50] And it had sonic boom that Lily moved the aircraft
[01:44:54] and the guys running the strings swinging from the sonic boom
[01:44:57] look back there goes a fuel dump.
[01:45:00] Wow.
[01:45:01] Beautiful mission.
[01:45:02] Yeah, that's true.
[01:45:03] So those are kind.
[01:45:04] So the point mission, the wire taps, you can
[01:45:06] pipe lines, we have more reports of pipe lines.
[01:45:09] And then also there are doing some trail work trying to figure out
[01:45:12] how to look like a beer stream.
[01:45:15] But they had things, that's one of our missions of what the work
[01:45:18] of the mission.
[01:45:19] Yeah.
[01:45:20] To get in there to see how to go into the food,
[01:45:22] putter and could you go in and while you're there,
[01:45:24] blow it up, maybe with a chuck on it.
[01:45:26] Sure.
[01:45:27] Let's talk a little bit about gear.
[01:45:31] And you put, you actually have a section in saw
[01:45:34] Chronicles and it's in across defense too, where you talk about
[01:45:36] stuff you carry and stuff that you didn't carry.
[01:45:39] And some of the stuff that you didn't carry.
[01:45:42] No underwear.
[01:45:44] Never.
[01:45:45] No socks.
[01:45:46] Never.
[01:45:47] And that's because you just want to stay dry as much as
[01:45:51] possible.
[01:45:52] Yeah.
[01:45:53] And both those things just hold water and keep moisture in.
[01:45:56] Yeah.
[01:45:57] And then black when he came,
[01:46:00] or had a maid that was stealing all my underwear.
[01:46:03] Because I went over with eight or ten pair of the
[01:46:05] jockey shorts, right?
[01:46:07] And so I was down on my last pair.
[01:46:10] And the maid was literally stealing, could they
[01:46:12] sell one of black market, they're relatively clean,
[01:46:14] relatively new.
[01:46:15] Mom bought me a whole bunch of stuff with socks and everything.
[01:46:18] So we had our army socks.
[01:46:20] So anyways, I talked to the men.
[01:46:22] I said, I can't believe my maid's been stealing my underwear.
[01:46:25] Because we pulled down in a little eye down.
[01:46:27] There's my underwear.
[01:46:28] So I said, here, take the last one, have a good day.
[01:46:31] And lingo, don't wear that stuff because you get
[01:46:33] jungle rotten, crotch rot.
[01:46:35] And he says same thing, put away your socks.
[01:46:39] Well, you know, it first couple weeks, the jungle boots were
[01:46:42] really tough on my feet, but he was right.
[01:46:44] Yeah, once you get a bunch of your feet broken in and
[01:46:46] you jungle boots broken in.
[01:46:47] Yeah.
[01:46:48] And then say, you go through the water, we did some very
[01:46:51] in country stuff.
[01:46:52] We were in the rice patties.
[01:46:53] Oh my God.
[01:46:54] But they would dry out quicker.
[01:46:56] You'd have to worry about the socks.
[01:46:58] So no helmet.
[01:47:00] Never.
[01:47:01] No body armor.
[01:47:02] No, and your body armor sucked back.
[01:47:04] It sucked back.
[01:47:05] That was big.
[01:47:06] You just have you a different level.
[01:47:07] It didn't work.
[01:47:08] No entrenching tool.
[01:47:12] Never.
[01:47:13] No bay in that.
[01:47:16] No sleeping bag.
[01:47:18] No hammock.
[01:47:19] No poncho.
[01:47:20] No poncho.
[01:47:21] No ground bat.
[01:47:22] Correct.
[01:47:23] You were not traveling for comfort.
[01:47:24] Never.
[01:47:25] We had to carry it.
[01:47:27] Did you know that feeling?
[01:47:29] Yeah.
[01:47:30] What you're taking to the field, your carrying.
[01:47:32] You don't have your maverick.
[01:47:33] Yeah.
[01:47:34] That that rucksack gets heavy too.
[01:47:36] So quick.
[01:47:37] Yeah.
[01:47:38] And ours is like small.
[01:47:40] We had the indigenous rucksacks.
[01:47:42] Uh huh.
[01:47:43] And so you want you put the radio and put the sweater on the
[01:47:45] needle radio.
[01:47:46] So it protect your back.
[01:47:48] And they throw some rations.
[01:47:49] Extra couple of extra amma magazines in there.
[01:47:53] And then extra hand grenades.
[01:47:55] I'm setting on rounds.
[01:47:57] And a battery for good luck.
[01:47:59] Man.
[01:48:00] Yeah.
[01:48:01] You guys.
[01:48:03] No dog tags.
[01:48:04] No military idea of any kind.
[01:48:06] No rank.
[01:48:07] No name tags.
[01:48:08] No jump.
[01:48:09] No C.I.B.
[01:48:10] No patches.
[01:48:11] No unit identified.
[01:48:12] No pictures.
[01:48:13] No mama.
[01:48:14] Right.
[01:48:15] Totally select.
[01:48:16] So those are the things you didn't carry.
[01:48:18] Things you didn't carry.
[01:48:19] Car 15.
[01:48:20] Uh love it.
[01:48:21] You love the car 15.
[01:48:22] Oh yeah.
[01:48:23] So back my second tour.
[01:48:25] Rock Myers was in S4.
[01:48:26] He's he been wounded.
[01:48:29] I came back.
[01:48:30] He says you're back.
[01:48:31] I got a present for you.
[01:48:32] He gave me a brand new car 15.
[01:48:34] I was stolen the box.
[01:48:35] Take it out.
[01:48:36] It's stolen it all the 10 foil and all the oils and grease isn't stuff.
[01:48:39] And you take it out.
[01:48:40] Took it down through range.
[01:48:41] It was perfectly zero.
[01:48:42] Never touched that one.
[01:48:43] It was crazy.
[01:48:44] Just put a little claw strap on it and went to work.
[01:48:48] And you never had problems with that weapon.
[01:48:51] Never.
[01:48:52] Yeah.
[01:48:53] Did you have a four to six on it?
[01:48:56] Yep.
[01:48:57] Six four to six.
[01:48:58] Yeah.
[01:48:59] So that was a car 15.
[01:49:01] Wow.
[01:49:02] So the M16 with it with a classable stock.
[01:49:04] Yeah.
[01:49:05] And a shortened barrel.
[01:49:06] Yeah.
[01:49:07] So it's weird so many people and myself being one of them complain about the car.
[01:49:11] The car 15 or the M4 frame.
[01:49:14] Now the M4 is our lot nicer.
[01:49:15] I mean, the M4.
[01:49:16] Well, a lot heavier too.
[01:49:17] You got to reels and everything.
[01:49:18] Oh yeah.
[01:49:19] We put the light note thing.
[01:49:20] Those are the same.
[01:49:21] You got everything but a cigarette lighter on here.
[01:49:23] Some guys I would've resized it and then that on there too.
[01:49:27] So that's awesome.
[01:49:28] You used the Kravat for your sling.
[01:49:30] Yes.
[01:49:31] So I thought, well, yeah.
[01:49:32] I did that door my second door.
[01:49:34] They had the Kravat's quiet.
[01:49:36] And then God forbid if you ever needed a Kravat.
[01:49:40] Mm-hmm.
[01:49:41] Because I was carried out.
[01:49:42] I always wore a run around my neck.
[01:49:43] I had one on my head.
[01:49:45] And then one on the car 15.
[01:49:46] And of course you carried bandages.
[01:49:48] Yeah.
[01:49:49] We had Kravats in case it.
[01:49:50] As at the very bottom of the rock sack.
[01:49:51] We would get a sort of one of those things.
[01:49:55] They'd never wear a sling.
[01:49:57] Some guys would say that.
[01:49:58] Get caught up.
[01:49:59] And that's just man, especially when you're in a leadership position.
[01:50:03] You need a sling.
[01:50:04] Because you got to look at your map.
[01:50:05] You got to pull out.
[01:50:06] You know.
[01:50:07] Yeah.
[01:50:08] You got to do stuff.
[01:50:09] You don't have a sling and you get blown up.
[01:50:11] Yeah.
[01:50:12] Where's your weapon?
[01:50:13] You have no idea when you wake up.
[01:50:15] No.
[01:50:16] Yeah.
[01:50:17] But then there's some, you know, some people just they wouldn't carry a sling.
[01:50:21] Mark leaves one of my shing on her sheep.
[01:50:23] Just no sling.
[01:50:24] No.
[01:50:25] That was like a man thing to do was no sling.
[01:50:26] Yeah.
[01:50:27] On her 1060.
[01:50:28] Or these days of Mark 48.
[01:50:30] Really?
[01:50:31] Yeah.
[01:50:32] How strong is this guy?
[01:50:33] Strong.
[01:50:34] Yeah.
[01:50:35] Strong.
[01:50:36] M-79.
[01:50:37] You carried.
[01:50:38] Sawdolph.
[01:50:39] Oh, yes.
[01:50:40] I cannot believe that me and my guy is the not-thinker sawdolph for him.
[01:50:44] Yeah.
[01:50:45] It's like guaranteed guys with the sawdolph.
[01:50:46] Yeah.
[01:50:47] My first self-inflicted room was from a sawdolph M79.
[01:50:50] What'd you do?
[01:50:51] Well, we're in a process.
[01:50:53] We're cutting them down.
[01:50:54] Uh-huh.
[01:50:55] So the question was how far he cut the barrel down.
[01:50:57] So we finally cut it right down to the last hinge.
[01:51:00] Mm-hmm.
[01:51:01] We're.
[01:51:02] It's the last one.
[01:51:03] That's, yeah.
[01:51:04] That's to the bottom of the frame.
[01:51:06] Got it.
[01:51:07] Yeah.
[01:51:08] So we, we kept bringing it back.
[01:51:10] So we're down to range.
[01:51:11] We're there.
[01:51:12] And the question was because you cut the barrel off.
[01:51:15] It needs the number of rotations.
[01:51:17] Yeah.
[01:51:18] Now our, our weapons guys knew that.
[01:51:20] But I was mean, Rick Howard, we're common guys.
[01:51:22] And I didn't really ask.
[01:51:23] It's just the question was fire and sea.
[01:51:25] So on this day, I fired, fairly close.
[01:51:29] It goes being, you know,
[01:51:32] I know he's inside of the night makes.
[01:51:34] And then it went all like pop,
[01:51:35] being like that.
[01:51:37] And I go, oh, damn.
[01:51:39] So I go to Rick Howard.
[01:51:40] I think a bead just hit me.
[01:51:42] Pull my strip.
[01:51:43] He dumbass.
[01:51:44] He just shot yourself.
[01:51:45] My first self inflicted moon.
[01:51:47] But the good news was that I'm sitting on work.
[01:51:49] And they caused you to cut the handle down to just have enough
[01:51:52] to you could hold on to.
[01:51:54] Because that way is less less weapon.
[01:51:56] Yeah.
[01:51:57] He's to how long the firepower.
[01:51:58] Oh, yeah.
[01:51:59] I caught that weapon down by half.
[01:52:01] Oh, yeah.
[01:52:02] I was looking at the pictures you have.
[01:52:03] It's, that thing is tiny.
[01:52:05] Tiny but effective.
[01:52:07] Charlie hated those things.
[01:52:09] And at one point you had a, you had a holster for that thing.
[01:52:12] Yeah.
[01:52:13] That's John Wayne.
[01:52:14] That's the, that's the one layoffs with my,
[01:52:16] a dog knife.
[01:52:17] And I had somebody had crafted it.
[01:52:20] And I put it on.
[01:52:21] Yeah, that was perfect.
[01:52:23] Yeah.
[01:52:24] But never had a double.
[01:52:25] For that point, I just like everybody else.
[01:52:27] We just carried it on the deering.
[01:52:30] We taped it so it would be quiet though.
[01:52:32] You carried 34 20 round mags.
[01:52:36] Each pat, each with 18 rounds each.
[01:52:38] So that's 612 rounds for good luck.
[01:52:41] Yeah.
[01:52:42] That's not the only character or like a pouts with a couple extra clips.
[01:52:47] And in case we needed to reload the 34 magazines.
[01:52:50] And you went on.
[01:52:52] You mentioned you had few missions where you were down to your last one or two.
[01:52:56] At least twice that I remember echo four was the first time.
[01:52:59] Did you always hang onto your magazines when you were out?
[01:53:04] At dependent on the degree of intensity of the firefight.
[01:53:08] If I had time, we keep us for a happy.
[01:53:11] I'll bring back my damn magazines.
[01:53:13] Did you stuff from your shirt?
[01:53:14] Yeah.
[01:53:15] Yeah.
[01:53:16] Because the web gear would be tight.
[01:53:18] So our jungle fatigue were out.
[01:53:22] Yeah.
[01:53:23] So you had the pants, but then the harness from the web gear.
[01:53:27] Yeah.
[01:53:28] And the web gear would be the only thing in.
[01:53:29] When I came in, we'd stuff mags in our shirt.
[01:53:32] And then, but with body armor, you can't do that.
[01:53:35] So now that's carry like pouches or just dropping their leg cargo pockets or whatever.
[01:53:39] Yeah.
[01:53:40] Our preferred thing would be AR belts because you could put four magazines in and one
[01:53:44] across the top.
[01:53:45] And it was a nice pouch.
[01:53:46] The AR belts that they have from World War II.
[01:53:49] Perfect for the 20 round magazines.
[01:53:53] That's a lot of, just, you know, we would normally carry.
[01:53:56] Seven to ten, 30 round mags.
[01:54:00] So we carry like, I mean, sometimes I guess more than that, but not no 600 rounds.
[01:54:06] But you weren't just being alone for a while.
[01:54:08] No, we weren't fighting divisions worth the people either.
[01:54:11] So I mean, yeah.
[01:54:14] You know, and I guess we did what we did have is we always had heavy machine guns.
[01:54:18] You know, so that makes a big difference too.
[01:54:20] I guess, you know, we would have Mark 48, which is 762 and then the Mark 46, which is
[01:54:25] 556, you know, that's basically like a little stoner and a and a and 60.
[01:54:31] The modern versions of those two things.
[01:54:33] But yeah, you know, so we had a sol 2, right?
[01:54:35] Yeah, well, that's the Mark 46 is a saw.
[01:54:38] Yeah.
[01:54:39] Okay.
[01:54:39] Yeah.
[01:54:40] Yes.
[01:54:41] So we had those and those guys would carry a lot of rounds, a lot of rounds, like 800
[01:54:46] 2000, sometimes more on the outside.
[01:54:48] Yeah, what's tough on the character like that over a thousand.
[01:54:51] Yeah.
[01:54:52] And I had guys go winchester, go run out of bullets.
[01:54:56] Really?
[01:54:57] Yeah.
[01:54:57] With that many.
[01:54:58] So yeah, I guess maybe that was the the differentiator.
[01:55:02] You carry 10 to 12 fragments.
[01:55:07] That's a lot of fragments.
[01:55:09] I guess when you're going taking fights with divisions, you got to carry a lot of
[01:55:12] Frag grenades.
[01:55:13] Oh, yeah.
[01:55:14] And it always kept the last one.
[01:55:16] That was one up here.
[01:55:18] Just in case.
[01:55:19] I must be a POW.
[01:55:20] Oh, yeah.
[01:55:22] Absolutely.
[01:55:24] We would carry, I don't know.
[01:55:27] Well, I would carry like one or two.
[01:55:30] Well, how often would you be?
[01:55:31] I just got left at that.
[01:55:32] It's official.
[01:55:33] Sure.
[01:55:34] I don't laugh that.
[01:55:35] How often would you, how often would you be more than two of them?
[01:55:38] Hopefully never.
[01:55:39] Yeah.
[01:55:40] You know, and especially I'm going to leadership position.
[01:55:42] I'm hopefully not the hucking grenades.
[01:55:45] But, uh, yeah.
[01:55:47] Yeah.
[01:55:51] No, you know, the big difference, especially in Romadi.
[01:55:53] I mean, in Romadi, I remember explaining to the guys that relieved us.
[01:55:56] You know, we had a big overhead imagery.
[01:55:59] Yeah.
[01:56:00] And I put my hand on the map.
[01:56:01] And I said, no matter where you put your hand on this map, you'll be touching
[01:56:04] up front of the unit.
[01:56:06] So like, and you know, this is, you know, probably within three to 500 meters of view.
[01:56:09] Anywhere you were in Romadi, yours are from the unit.
[01:56:12] Really.
[01:56:13] So that's why, you know, you were going to get reinforcements.
[01:56:15] You were going to get tanks.
[01:56:16] Yeah, but in between that time, you earned your pay.
[01:56:18] Yeah.
[01:56:19] After earn your pay.
[01:56:20] Yeah.
[01:56:22] Yeah.
[01:56:23] I was talking to late, late, late, late.
[01:56:24] Well, late, that's another thing.
[01:56:25] So it's late.
[01:56:26] Late, it's got a chapter in dichotomy and leadership.
[01:56:28] Where he's talking about preparing, over preparing for too many contingencies.
[01:56:33] He talks about, it was his first patrol out on, out going out with a Marine Corps
[01:56:38] in a daytime patrol.
[01:56:39] And he's talking about how much stuff he cared,
[01:56:41] all this stuff for one of the thing he cared is, you know, eight grenades or something like that.
[01:56:45] And, you know, he reflects on how that was just way too many of us like, hey man,
[01:56:52] you know, tilt, go out and the field will less than 10.
[01:56:55] So the different AO, different AO, different AO.
[01:57:00] We probably would have adjusted our grenades.
[01:57:02] I wonder how much you would have changed if you had to wear body armor.
[01:57:05] Or if you would have decided not to or whatever.
[01:57:08] You know, it's interesting.
[01:57:09] That's an interesting development.
[01:57:10] I'll tell you, if we even had today's stadium art,
[01:57:13] a never would have worn it.
[01:57:15] It's just too much weight.
[01:57:16] And you had to be able to move, I mean, you know,
[01:57:19] you have to mention, you're so damn lucky, you know, bullets are gonna hit you.
[01:57:22] Yeah.
[01:57:23] That's why I crawled a lot, try to keep the low profile.
[01:57:28] But now I probably would have declined it because of the weight as it was.
[01:57:34] In our AO, maybe another AO with different situations,
[01:57:39] more flexibility with assets.
[01:57:42] And the thing that's interesting is, one of the reasons why you wear a helmet now
[01:57:47] isn't just to protect your head, it's because that's where your nads mount onto.
[01:57:50] Your night vision.
[01:57:51] Oh, yeah.
[01:57:52] Your night vision mount onto your.
[01:57:53] So you, they do have a contraption that's like a headband looking thing.
[01:57:57] I don't think they make it anymore.
[01:57:58] But, but where you could wear that, but, you know, your nads mount on your.
[01:58:02] Your night vision mounts on your helmet.
[01:58:04] That's just the way it is.
[01:58:05] I've seen no silo.
[01:58:06] Yeah, that's what it got.
[01:58:07] It's a cool.
[01:58:08] I want one.
[01:58:09] Yeah.
[01:58:10] That's good time when those dots flip down.
[01:58:12] All right.
[01:58:13] But instead of wearing a helmet, you wore a crevat.
[01:58:16] The green crevat on your head, one around your neck.
[01:58:20] You had you wore regular army for teagues.
[01:58:23] Yeah, there is sterile for teagues that had two pucks at the top of the angle.
[01:58:29] And two pockets down here to hang out.
[01:58:32] And then we customized them.
[01:58:34] And we had the the tailor put in pockets here.
[01:58:38] And so for mirrors, maps, morphine, serbets,
[01:58:41] it's all close right here.
[01:58:43] And then we had a pockets on each arm.
[01:58:46] To put other things up there were pinflares.
[01:58:49] Other things are good.
[01:58:51] And that's something that we did too.
[01:58:53] So we did even before even in the 90s before the everyone.
[01:58:56] Because now the fatigue's come issued with pockets on the arms.
[01:59:00] I think, but we used to take them off and so on.
[01:59:03] And that's where you keep your your pants and your notebooks and your pen flares.
[01:59:07] And you're, and you're signal mirror.
[01:59:09] Yeah.
[01:59:10] And then on the ones on your chest, you had maps and morphine,
[01:59:12] you had extra notebook.
[01:59:13] Your URC 10 emergency radio.
[01:59:16] And then you had a, you wore a watch of sake.
[01:59:20] Yeah.
[01:59:21] Illuminus watch.
[01:59:23] You wore gloves.
[01:59:25] Always.
[01:59:26] Just cut out the thumb index finger,
[01:59:29] then the middle finger just cut it to the tip.
[01:59:32] So you grabbed tape on the magazine sort of firefights.
[01:59:35] Same thing, same thing we would do.
[01:59:36] But you always work gloves otherwise your hands are just getting destroyed.
[01:59:39] Oh, the jungle.
[01:59:40] Forget about it.
[01:59:41] Yeah.
[01:59:41] Because a lot of times we wind up, you have to get a new pair of gloves.
[01:59:45] We just get torn up so much on the genre and fatigues.
[01:59:49] Man, it was a weight of weight of an event and a thorns.
[01:59:53] Because you know, they're a weight of a minute.
[01:59:55] You get caught into it.
[01:59:57] You walk into it.
[01:59:58] Your leg goes into the pins that's coming together.
[02:00:01] So you had to stop and then get the pin to get your leg.
[02:00:04] Otherwise it goes to the pin.
[02:00:05] Otherwise it goes deeper into your leg.
[02:00:08] What about did you carry any kind of mosquito net for your head?
[02:00:11] No.
[02:00:12] How come?
[02:00:13] Never thought about it.
[02:00:15] Mosquito net for the head.
[02:00:16] Yeah.
[02:00:17] Well, I used to, this was like the most brilliant thing.
[02:00:20] I think it was an Australian guy.
[02:00:21] So I told me this.
[02:00:22] You, I would have like a little square of mosquito netting.
[02:00:25] Hmm.
[02:00:26] And when we would stop patrolling,
[02:00:29] I would take out that little square, put it over my head.
[02:00:32] Right over my right over my floppy hat.
[02:00:34] And talk it in and all of a sudden you knocking chewed apart by mosquitoes.
[02:00:38] Oh yeah, one night, one time we did a practice mission.
[02:00:42] East of the actual.
[02:00:43] And the morning I couldn't, I couldn't open my eyes.
[02:00:46] I had been bitten so much by mosquitoes.
[02:00:48] My face was puffed out.
[02:00:50] You need that mosquito net.
[02:00:51] I needed to help.
[02:00:52] Had I only known.
[02:00:54] I just got a fall of that.
[02:00:55] I just got a thought about that one.
[02:00:57] I had a guy we were doing some training.
[02:00:59] And none of us had mosquito netting except for the officer.
[02:01:03] And so the officer was sleeping hardly.
[02:01:05] Like just fully.
[02:01:06] And one of the other young listed guys was catching mosquitoes.
[02:01:11] And putting them inside this guy's body was asleep.
[02:01:15] He woke up coming.
[02:01:18] But not like those mosquitoes were trapped in there with them.
[02:01:21] They were trapped in there.
[02:01:22] And they couldn't get out.
[02:01:23] They were just having a feast.
[02:01:24] Trapped hungry mosquitoes.
[02:01:25] Trapped hungry mosquitoes.
[02:01:26] Yeah.
[02:01:27] Yeah.
[02:01:28] So, but note not for you.
[02:01:29] No mosquito net.
[02:01:30] No.
[02:01:31] I hadn't thought about that one.
[02:01:34] Leachers.
[02:01:35] Oh.
[02:01:36] You guys ran into a lot of leaches.
[02:01:39] Always.
[02:01:40] Yeah, we had a bug repellent for that.
[02:01:43] It's even really the bug repellent on them once you got sucked on by a leach.
[02:01:46] Yeah.
[02:01:47] They would instantly fall off.
[02:01:48] But you always try to wait.
[02:01:49] Try to just see if you could jiggle them off because you knew the bug repellent could be smelt.
[02:01:55] Hmm.
[02:01:56] By the bad guys.
[02:01:57] So.
[02:01:58] Hmm.
[02:01:59] Then you had your on your web gear, which was the old World War II web gear.
[02:02:04] You had on your left harness.
[02:02:05] You had your K bar.
[02:02:06] Handled down.
[02:02:07] Or a sock knife.
[02:02:08] Or a sock knife until you lost it.
[02:02:10] Tue love.
[02:02:11] That's what we need to do.
[02:02:14] A recovery mission for get the sock knife back.
[02:02:17] Yes.
[02:02:18] Handled down.
[02:02:21] Sure.
[02:02:22] That's how you rolled.
[02:02:23] Yeah, because this way you pulled out your ready.
[02:02:25] Hmm.
[02:02:26] It's a period to pull out the jungle. You might cut up in the vines.
[02:02:29] Got it. Got it.
[02:02:32] You had hand grenades there because you were basically covered in hand grenades.
[02:02:36] Oh yeah.
[02:02:38] Smoke.
[02:02:39] You had there. You had some some, you know, bandages there.
[02:02:43] On your right harness. You had your strobe light.
[02:02:45] You had more hand grenades.
[02:02:47] You had your D-ring.
[02:02:49] And you had more smoke grenades.
[02:02:52] Then on your belt.
[02:02:54] You had one canteen usually.
[02:02:57] It depends on the target. Sometimes it'd be maybe two.
[02:03:01] But usually one and then one I had a second one in my backpack.
[02:03:05] Rocksack.
[02:03:06] You normally wouldn't get, would you get thirsty?
[02:03:08] Was there normally enough water?
[02:03:10] Uh, and the jungle wasn't as bad as Cambodia.
[02:03:13] So, but yeah, you get thirsty because you're hopping up and down.
[02:03:17] Um, there's a couple times we particularly in that day.
[02:03:20] We went straight up with the orchards.
[02:03:22] That was a day we got, we were all out of water.
[02:03:25] Not fun.
[02:03:27] No.
[02:03:28] So you had one canteen. You had a Willie Pete grenade.
[02:03:30] We had your survival axe.
[02:03:32] Which was the Frankenwarren survival axe type two.
[02:03:36] Indeed.
[02:03:37] That's what I wanted.
[02:03:38] I wanted to type two.
[02:03:40] I looked him up and had like a hook at the top.
[02:03:44] Yeah.
[02:03:45] Another play you went through.
[02:03:46] When you came back on the, on the back pool,
[02:03:48] you could try to make it effective to cut a, particularly cutting vines.
[02:03:53] That thing came with you all the time.
[02:03:55] Every mission.
[02:03:57] I got a home under my desk right now.
[02:03:59] In case any true comes in, I'm ready.
[02:04:01] I like it.
[02:04:02] Ha ha ha ha.
[02:04:04] So if you're in true there's feeling lucky.
[02:04:06] Yeah, luck.
[02:04:07] Meet Mr. Till.
[02:04:09] I compass around your neck.
[02:04:11] You used to carve out for your belt.
[02:04:14] Yes.
[02:04:15] So the belt I was talking about before is that we're built of your web gear.
[02:04:17] But just the part of your pants was just a, was a cravat.
[02:04:20] You cared to swiss army knife.
[02:04:22] You cared a gas mask.
[02:04:24] Always.
[02:04:25] You always cared a gas mask.
[02:04:27] How we had teams that got hit and the A camps that have been hit by the enemy used to.
[02:04:32] Yes.
[02:04:33] Sure.
[02:04:34] And they used.
[02:04:35] I forget what the, the instance were, but there were a couple times that the enemy had used gas on our people in
[02:04:42] the US as well as with the CIA operation. We weren't told that.
[02:04:47] But we had cold evidence that they had done it.
[02:04:51] And that they could hit one of our recontinues.
[02:04:53] So we had to carry that bulky, yes thing at all times.
[02:04:56] I was going to say, but and this is this was the, the, the concern was tear gas.
[02:05:01] Well tear gas or who else knows what they had.
[02:05:04] I mean, these are common.
[02:05:05] It's done to play by rules of engagement.
[02:05:07] I mean, they're not in the lails.
[02:05:09] Because yeah, that's your opinion.
[02:05:10] I was thinking with all this crap that you're carrying.
[02:05:12] And a gas mask or just huge and bulky.
[02:05:15] Yeah, left hip.
[02:05:17] I don't know if that all the time.
[02:05:18] Had to.
[02:05:19] And we used them twice.
[02:05:21] And we, in fact, we had designed a mission.
[02:05:25] One of our missions was to.
[02:05:28] When we got a stractive from a target an M.A. target,
[02:05:32] we saw a road to had.
[02:05:35] A little guard station, a guard station.
[02:05:39] But it was north of the DMC river.
[02:05:42] So the quest for getting.
[02:05:45] A live POW.
[02:05:47] We found out that we had one of our guys that did a VR and flew a couple of rules.
[02:05:52] And they saw these little waste stations along the way.
[02:05:54] So our thought was, we'll get gas.
[02:05:57] Gas.
[02:05:58] And they said they had a knockout gas at the time, right?
[02:06:01] So we practiced for a couple of days with tear gas.
[02:06:05] And we had to get the helicopter piles and the gun crews.
[02:06:08] Everybody would their masks and then have masks that they could talk to each other.
[02:06:11] And then talk to us.
[02:06:13] And so we practiced for several days training with the helicopters coming in.
[02:06:18] And the mission plan was go up.
[02:06:21] In the middle of the day.
[02:06:23] Go to one of those camps.
[02:06:24] Hit it.
[02:06:25] Gas it.
[02:06:26] Go in and scarf.
[02:06:27] And go home.
[02:06:28] Get a five day pass.
[02:06:29] 100 bucks.
[02:06:30] Yeah.
[02:06:31] But they had a special knockout gas that was supposed to use.
[02:06:34] And at the end they wouldn't let us.
[02:06:36] They wouldn't give us the gas.
[02:06:38] I don't know if they had it.
[02:06:39] But they wouldn't give us the knockout gas.
[02:06:42] So another mission came up.
[02:06:44] We had a bright light around and we never got back to the concept of doing it.
[02:06:48] And you carried.
[02:06:49] You usually carried one grenade for your 40 mic mic.
[02:06:52] That was tear gas.
[02:06:53] Always.
[02:06:54] Sure.
[02:06:55] Kiss me needed it.
[02:06:56] And that was what would your what would your tactic be on using that?
[02:06:59] And usually it would be to.
[02:07:02] You know, to create this order.
[02:07:05] Because he hit somebody with tear gas.
[02:07:07] If it's far away.
[02:07:09] That would distract him for a second.
[02:07:12] Take their mind off a business.
[02:07:13] Or at least make them have a hard time to kill us.
[02:07:16] And we also carried a grass a gas grenade local.
[02:07:20] Okay.
[02:07:21] So we had in our SOP.
[02:07:23] A procedure that the word or I figured that was.
[02:07:26] But we had a signal or a sign for CS gas.
[02:07:30] So if we're getting so overrun to where the pop of CS to break the charg with some of our teams did.
[02:07:37] They used it in an operation tailwind quite effectively saved your bacon.
[02:07:42] So the idea would be hey, this is going to.
[02:07:45] Linger whereas a frag grenade goes off.
[02:07:48] You either wound guys or you don't.
[02:07:49] You either kill guys or you don't.
[02:07:50] But that's it.
[02:07:51] It's over.
[02:07:52] Yeah.
[02:07:52] Whereas gas.
[02:07:53] You can really disrupt them because now you got guys coughing and you can.
[02:07:57] Yeah.
[02:07:58] Puking and whatever.
[02:07:59] And it's and it hangs to the ground and then it hangs around as long as the wind's.
[02:08:02] It's going to let it hang around.
[02:08:04] Got it.
[02:08:05] Left pant pocket.
[02:08:07] You had a marking panel large and small.
[02:08:09] Right pant pocket.
[02:08:11] Pen flares.
[02:08:12] Dehydrated lyrp ration.
[02:08:15] Bug repellent for leeches.
[02:08:17] An extra covat.
[02:08:18] An extra bandage.
[02:08:19] Did anybody carry IV?
[02:08:21] A silver or a guy's did.
[02:08:24] Okay.
[02:08:25] Lim black did and.
[02:08:27] We had.
[02:08:29] I think South carry one of our in ditch carry one we had an IV and the.
[02:08:34] St.line solution that came in a canister.
[02:08:37] So it always had one in case we needed.
[02:08:39] Mm-hmm.
[02:08:40] In your rock sack.
[02:08:42] You got your you got your PRC 25.
[02:08:45] Which you guys called the prick 25.
[02:08:47] Yeah.
[02:08:48] I think I was I think I was outlawed from calling it a prick.
[02:08:50] That that PRC 25.
[02:08:52] So the PRC 25 was replaced by the PR77 the.
[02:08:57] Pro 77 and I was let us say it was 1969 or something like that when I got the
[02:09:02] Seal team one that's what I used was a few is one of the radios that we had in our story
[02:09:06] It was a PRC 7.
[02:09:07] Yeah.
[02:09:08] Which came directly from the PRC 25.
[02:09:10] So you'd carry that you had the big whip antenna but you wouldn't you have the little
[02:09:14] tape antenna on there so you don't right identified as the radio guy because otherwise you could
[02:09:18] it.
[02:09:21] Yeah.
[02:09:22] Yeah.
[02:09:23] Because you just hold it over.
[02:09:25] And in our case the antenna we just get it and bend it down.
[02:09:28] Come and eat your arm and stick it into the fatigue.
[02:09:31] So be low profile on it.
[02:09:33] Then you had your your one C rat of fruit.
[02:09:35] That was like your that was your your go to indeed.
[02:09:39] And you carry one of those two with us.
[02:09:41] I'm like that.
[02:09:42] You just one could after while you know we kept getting shot out so often.
[02:09:47] It's like okay I'm not too much weight.
[02:09:50] Yeah.
[02:09:51] Yeah.
[02:09:52] Yeah.
[02:09:53] You had your extra mags and there you got an extra M79 rounds.
[02:09:57] You had your army long sleeve sweater.
[02:10:00] You had a plastic rain jacket.
[02:10:02] Toilet paper even though you apparently never used it.
[02:10:05] Correct.
[02:10:06] But you've also used it the pack wounds.
[02:10:08] There you go.
[02:10:09] Extra battery.
[02:10:11] For the for the prick 25 and the URC 10.
[02:10:16] Extra smoke grenades.
[02:10:19] Extra cantina water.
[02:10:21] Extra ration.
[02:10:22] And then you had your clay more or clay more with five and ten second fuses.
[02:10:28] And on top of that that's 22 caliber hush puppy on some operations sometimes.
[02:10:33] Yeah.
[02:10:34] And all this when you'd weighed yourself you'd be about 90 pounds heavy.
[02:10:37] Right around there.
[02:10:38] Yeah.
[02:10:39] And it was it was an old Rick the S scale.
[02:10:41] So I just jumped on it carrying everything just to see what it was.
[02:10:44] Well that's a heavy load out.
[02:10:46] I'll tell you right now that's a heavy load out.
[02:10:48] That is absolutely all of 90 pounds.
[02:10:51] When you start talking about 600 rounds of ammunition.
[02:10:53] We start talking about 10 to 12 hand grenades smoke smoke grenades are heavy as hell.
[02:10:59] They got all that material in them.
[02:11:01] That's folks.
[02:11:02] Yeah.
[02:11:03] They're big giant beasts.
[02:11:04] And the Willie Peters.
[02:11:05] The Willie Peters.
[02:11:06] Have you do?
[02:11:07] Uh.
[02:11:09] Crazy mouth.
[02:11:12] Um.
[02:11:13] And I guess like I said and like you said you're carrying all that firepower.
[02:11:18] Because the operations you're carrying a crazy amount of firepower because you're doing crazy operations.
[02:11:23] Yeah.
[02:11:24] And again, I'm talking to the other ones.
[02:11:26] You're a Pat Walkins and Montgomery.
[02:11:28] Because initially I don't know what the loads were.
[02:11:30] But they kept increasing.
[02:11:32] And because there was shovel time and they ran out of ammo.
[02:11:35] Already got close to running out.
[02:11:37] And that's the last thing in the world you want.
[02:11:39] You know.
[02:11:40] Yeah.
[02:11:41] Awesome.
[02:11:44] Well, you know, that's a little over two hours right now.
[02:11:49] And it's been a quick night.
[02:11:51] Yeah.
[02:11:52] Indeed.
[02:11:53] But you got any closing thoughts?
[02:11:58] No.
[02:11:59] Just to thank you for having me in three times.
[02:12:03] We've gained some extra depth.
[02:12:05] Like I said before, we were just chatting and said these stories always felt worse
[02:12:10] and more significant in terms of the stories about what Sog did in the men, more importantly men.
[02:12:16] And also like I said to you earlier, my stuff is hairy.
[02:12:20] But if you had a hairy scale on one to ten, I mean, I feel I put myself at a five or six compared to the guys.
[02:12:28] I got the metal boner to guys that didn't come home that went down fighting, getting over run by the NBA.
[02:12:34] And we could just talk about metal boner missions of guys standing there just fighting.
[02:12:39] And they're just fighting off and dying on the LZ, putting their people on the helicopter first.
[02:12:45] John Caddenberg, Johnny Gallon, time and again, RSF guys would take care of the little people we even get them on the chopper, get them out.
[02:12:54] And so those stories I felt was great valor.
[02:12:58] And so I thank you for the little extra pleasure to your audience.
[02:13:02] Well, we appreciate that.
[02:13:03] We'll bring you back on and we'll get, and I know you and I are talking about
[02:13:08] other guys that we're going to come on and all those stories of those heroes will we'll get them out there because
[02:13:15] People want to know I want to hear them.
[02:13:18] I want to know as much as I can about them and and and you know, we'll get you back.
[02:13:24] I'm ready to roll.
[02:13:25] So thank you and I thank you for the time and also you're on a, you're like Mr. social media now.
[02:13:30] I didn't realize that.
[02:13:31] You got to give me a full briefing where it's done.
[02:13:33] So you're on Twitter.
[02:13:35] You're on Twitter.
[02:13:38] You're on Twitter.
[02:13:39] We haven't quite figured out Twitter yet.
[02:13:41] Apparently you're, and makes two of us.
[02:13:43] Your old, your old Twitter handle was at Saga Chronicles.
[02:13:48] Your new Twitter handle is at John Striker Meyer.
[02:13:53] That's, that's where it's at right now.
[02:13:55] Yes, sir.
[02:13:56] That's right.
[02:13:56] All right.
[02:13:57] So people will start trying to communicate with you on that.
[02:14:00] Good luck.
[02:14:02] I'm going to call it a presence. Hey, President Trump. Could you help me out on my Twitter?
[02:14:05] President Trump tweets all the time decaying a Twitter.
[02:14:08] Yeah, yes, yes.
[02:14:10] Hey, I'm sorry.
[02:14:12] You'll be able to, you'll be able to, you'll, you'll, you'll, when you, that's the incredible thing about Twitter.
[02:14:17] Yes.
[02:14:18] Everybody has a platform.
[02:14:19] It's incredibly good.
[02:14:20] Sometimes it's incredibly bad, but everybody has a platform.
[02:14:24] So no, the cool thing about it is people have been, you know,
[02:14:28] talking to me and hitting me up and just thanking you for your service.
[02:14:32] Thank you for coming on.
[02:14:33] Thank you for sharing the story.
[02:14:35] So it'll be cool that they'll be able to actually thank you.
[02:14:37] Instead of just telling me to tell you things.
[02:14:38] I just go to our website.
[02:14:39] They got the link in there for email for the old fast and root.
[02:14:42] Saga Chronicles.com.
[02:14:43] Saga Chronicles.com.
[02:14:44] Have one.
[02:14:45] Yeah, people on there.
[02:14:46] I wanted to close out reading one last thing.
[02:14:49] And this is your, your dedication for the book,
[02:14:52] Saga Chronicles.
[02:14:53] One.
[02:14:54] And it said it says this book is dedicated to the
[02:14:57] Saga Men and their courageous indigenous team members who went across the fence and the
[02:15:01] Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam during the eight year secret war.
[02:15:06] And to the end to the brave aviators and crew members of the army,
[02:15:09] Air Force Marine Corps and our fearless allies from the
[02:15:13] 219th South Vietnamese Air Force's special operation squadron,
[02:15:17] Blegendary Kingbees who supported, who supported,
[02:15:21] Saga teams on the ground.
[02:15:24] This book is also for every man in Saga and the aviators who made the ultimate sacrifice
[02:15:30] far outside the boundaries of conventional Vietnam war that America saw reported on the nightly news.
[02:15:39] I'll give the closing note.
[02:15:41] Today, 1,598 Americans that are MIA and South these days are from the Vietnam war.
[02:15:49] 50 green berets alone in Laos are still MIA, including 140 plus aviators that died
[02:15:57] strictly supporting our mission.
[02:15:59] And this week, the National League of POWMIA found is having a 50th annual meeting in
[02:16:05] Arlington on this topic.
[02:16:08] They've been diligent and the M. Mills Griffiths is the CEO.
[02:16:13] She's putting it all together.
[02:16:14] They work with the Pentagon.
[02:16:16] She'd been on this mission for day one.
[02:16:18] And our prayers are with them to continue because they're pushing to bring our people home.
[02:16:23] Absolutely.
[02:16:24] And if you want to put that out either on Saga Chronicles, put a link to how people can support that cause.
[02:16:30] People will absolutely support that cause.
[02:16:33] Okay.
[02:16:34] We'll do that.
[02:16:35] Absolutely.
[02:16:36] They deserve it.
[02:16:36] Yes, absolutely.
[02:16:37] We can make that happen.
[02:16:38] Wow.
[02:16:39] Thank you.
[02:16:39] Airborne.
[02:16:40] All right. Well, like I said, you haven't opened in invite on here.
[02:16:43] Anytime you want, you let us know.
[02:16:45] We're here. And we'll get some of your friends on.
[02:16:48] And thanks for coming on yourself.
[02:16:50] Thanks for sharing your stories and most of all.
[02:16:53] More than anything else.
[02:16:54] Thanks for your service and sacrifice.
[02:16:56] Likewise, brother, you've been there.
[02:16:57] You've seen the elephant.
[02:16:58] Appreciate it.
[02:17:01] And once again, John Stryker Meyer has left the building.
[02:17:07] Tilt.
[02:17:08] Tilt.
[02:17:09] Has left the building.
[02:17:11] Finishing up three podcasts with John Stryker Meyer.
[02:17:18] Yeah.
[02:17:19] Sappers.
[02:17:21] Sappers.
[02:17:22] I asked him what Sappers was.
[02:17:24] Workers.
[02:17:25] There's various references.
[02:17:27] First, second, and this past one to Sappers.
[02:17:30] And more notably, one, if you remember, then we'd be preded to the first one.
[02:17:36] He says, Sappers, still Sappers been on a sense.
[02:17:39] I love all of all, whatever that's interesting.
[02:17:41] And I always wondered, what's a Sapper?
[02:17:44] Special group, Vietnam, North Vietnamese group of anti-American fighters.
[02:17:51] Train specifically, right?
[02:17:54] Right?
[02:17:55] I got that right.
[02:17:56] Did I remember that correctly?
[02:17:57] Yeah, that's the definition that John Stryker Meyer just gave you.
[02:18:02] Yeah.
[02:18:03] All right.
[02:18:05] Cool.
[02:18:06] What else?
[02:18:07] Well, I would say, no, awesome.
[02:18:11] Awesome to have John Stryker Meyer on here.
[02:18:15] And just to hear him talk about what human beings can do.
[02:18:24] Right?
[02:18:25] What people, human beings, can do.
[02:18:28] And it's interesting, because you ever look at dogs and you think, oh, there's a little
[02:18:31] tiny chihuahua.
[02:18:32] And then there's like a German Shepherd.
[02:18:35] Yeah.
[02:18:36] And you think those are the same animal?
[02:18:38] Right?
[02:18:39] Yes.
[02:18:40] They are.
[02:18:41] Technically.
[02:18:42] Yeah.
[02:18:43] Human beings.
[02:18:44] Think, you know.
[02:18:45] Like you look at John Stryker Meyer.
[02:18:47] He's like a German Shepherd.
[02:18:49] Yeah.
[02:18:50] And then you got people running around their chihuahua.
[02:18:52] No, it depends against the chihuahua, but your chihuahua is not going to...
[02:18:55] Yes.
[02:18:56] Fend off hordes.
[02:18:57] No.
[02:18:58] No.
[02:18:59] Chihuahua is not calling an Airstrikes danger close.
[02:19:01] No.
[02:19:02] I guess my point is that human beings do have capabilities.
[02:19:06] And I think that when you listen to tilt, you realize that I can probably do better.
[02:19:15] I know that's what I realize.
[02:19:17] I think I can do better than I'm doing right now.
[02:19:20] Yeah.
[02:19:21] I think I can push the envelope a little bit.
[02:19:24] Yeah.
[02:19:27] Move further toward the potential.
[02:19:31] The part that kind of, well, probably will stick with me is how he didn't carry
[02:19:38] Panture, like the sleepings, no comps.
[02:19:40] No comps.
[02:19:41] No comps.
[02:19:42] If we have to go sleep, I'm just going to sleep right here in the kitchen.
[02:19:45] Yeah.
[02:19:46] In the kitchen.
[02:19:47] On the aunt hill.
[02:19:48] Yeah.
[02:19:49] That part.
[02:19:51] When I was a kid, I was a kid.
[02:19:56] But now you need comfort.
[02:19:59] Yeah.
[02:20:01] So that part, maybe I have to mentally, maybe work on that.
[02:20:05] All right.
[02:20:06] It's facing it.
[02:20:07] There are ways to get better.
[02:20:09] Yes or there is.
[02:20:10] Maybe sleeping without a ground pad is one of them.
[02:20:13] Yeah.
[02:20:14] Maybe another one is train, Gigiatu.
[02:20:16] Oh yeah.
[02:20:17] Big time.
[02:20:18] That's a, I mean, so I was training the other day with Noah Oliver, right?
[02:20:23] And Noah's been training and he's kind of sorting out, you know how you go in phases of training partners.
[02:20:28] You know how you go.
[02:20:29] But I've been training with Andy for like the last like three months, you know, more than it.
[02:20:33] So man, but he's been like beat me down the other day yesterday.
[02:20:38] Yes or whatever.
[02:20:39] And yeah, he beat me down.
[02:20:42] But at the same time, I didn't leave thinking like, oh my gosh, you're just socks.
[02:20:48] You know, when you get beat down, you think of, okay, what do I need to do to that's the correct data?
[02:20:53] Yeah.
[02:20:54] Well, especially when you have training partners that you like and you trust and you, you know, you
[02:20:58] enjoy what you get from the training where every garnish you got beat down or not.
[02:21:02] I think your mind ought to, well, start automatically go to that.
[02:21:05] I think most of the time it's usually when, I don't know, it's other circumstances then you'll be all salty.
[02:21:11] Make excuses or something like that.
[02:21:13] Either way, so I'm thinking, you know, of all the things and then I arrive at the concept of man,
[02:21:19] in any other situation, you take that kind of like just physical turmoil.
[02:21:25] That only did get beat, but it was that kind of heart, you know.
[02:21:30] Usually I don't feel this good about it.
[02:21:33] I'm not looking forward to the next time, you know, like, come on, let's face it.
[02:21:36] You do a hard and met con, you're like boom, I'm glad that's over with it.
[02:21:39] But in this case, you are looking forward to the next one.
[02:21:41] Yeah, you're looking forward to the next one, you're looking forward to just training more in general.
[02:21:46] There's a short term and long term pay off for this.
[02:21:50] Judzitsuit thing.
[02:21:51] Interesting.
[02:21:52] Oh yeah.
[02:21:53] Very true.
[02:21:54] I've got to mention the capability that you wind up with.
[02:21:57] So we're pro-Juget series, what we're dedicated to.
[02:21:59] We are 100,000 percent short term and long term.
[02:22:02] There's no, there's no dichotomy.
[02:22:04] There's just short term gain, long term gain.
[02:22:06] Yes, in my opinion.
[02:22:08] But it could be argued that, oh, it's hard.
[02:22:11] What about the days?
[02:22:12] What about sometimes when people don't want to train?
[02:22:14] They let the jigset to window close.
[02:22:16] Like, we confirmed is a thing.
[02:22:18] It is a thing, but that's, you know what I kind of arrived at as well.
[02:22:21] The days that you actually don't want to train are way more rare than you might think.
[02:22:26] Like, if you ever said, man, I really don't feel like training.
[02:22:29] And then you make the drive to the gym, you get to the gym, you train in part and you show up.
[02:22:33] You write when you go to shake hands and you still feel like,
[02:22:36] Oh, I really don't want to train in our business.
[02:22:38] Do you have those?
[02:22:39] Never have.
[02:22:40] Never, right?
[02:22:41] Hardly ever.
[02:22:42] I can't think of one single time.
[02:22:43] I thought I came to the gym one time and I got there.
[02:22:46] And I was like, I still don't want to train, but it was because there was only like,
[02:22:50] three people there and they were like really brand new at the time.
[02:22:53] And then I was like, and I just went home one time and my whole life.
[02:22:57] But I did, I legitimately did not feel like training anyway.
[02:23:01] Legitement.
[02:23:02] Usually, if you don't feel like training, it's not that you don't feel like training.
[02:23:06] It's not that you don't feel like training.
[02:23:10] It's, you don't feel like getting off the couch, getting into your car, getting your gear, getting,
[02:23:17] doing that.
[02:23:20] That's what you don't feel like doing.
[02:23:21] Oh, you feel like training because when it's time to train, it's good fun.
[02:23:24] Every single time.
[02:23:25] That's what I think.
[02:23:26] It's a weird aspect that GG2 is fun.
[02:23:29] It's fun.
[02:23:30] Yeah.
[02:23:31] I have a feeling sometimes when I train GG2 where I'm literally like kind of beside myself with how
[02:23:38] fun that just.
[02:23:39] Oh, yeah.
[02:23:40] Yeah.
[02:23:41] And that's sometimes I'm getting beat down and I'm thinking that sometimes I'm winning
[02:23:45] something.
[02:23:46] But either way, I'm like, that was it's kind of like a feeling that's very hard to to describe.
[02:23:55] Even.
[02:23:56] Yeah.
[02:23:57] I would agree with that.
[02:23:58] Yeah.
[02:23:59] Because you have that obviously the physical part of it.
[02:24:01] Right.
[02:24:02] Yeah.
[02:24:03] Yeah.
[02:24:04] That's always good.
[02:24:05] You know that.
[02:24:06] But this is like, it's like, especially if you roll with like guys who are like, good.
[02:24:09] They're not good because they're so athletic, even though they might be athletic.
[02:24:13] They're good because they know what to do.
[02:24:14] Like a Dean, Mr. like Greg McIntyre.
[02:24:16] These guys who like Greg.
[02:24:17] Greg, Greg.
[02:24:18] Greg, Greg, if you don't think you're way into or out of your situation you want, man, you're
[02:24:25] you're just not going to do it.
[02:24:26] You know, so it's that problem solving task that's just intertwined in the whole thing.
[02:24:32] I think that's what makes it fun.
[02:24:33] That's what I think.
[02:24:34] Agreed.
[02:24:35] Anyway, GG, no GG streets, whatever.
[02:24:39] If you want to do GG, you're going to need a GG.
[02:24:42] You get a GG from origin, origin made up of us.
[02:24:46] We can get the GG very selections on there.
[02:24:49] The best.
[02:24:50] Made in America, by the way.
[02:24:51] Made in America.
[02:24:52] Yeah.
[02:24:52] And just kind of massive shipment of cotton.
[02:24:56] I'm talking not talking woven.
[02:24:58] I'm talking unwoven little strands of cotton.
[02:25:01] Check out the Instagram.
[02:25:04] There's palettes and palettes that are there.
[02:25:07] And it's just, you think, okay, this cotton is going to get woven.
[02:25:11] And then turned into geese that I'm going to wear.
[02:25:14] What does cotton look like when it comes to palettes?
[02:25:16] Because we want to use this little spools of, and it's not even, it's not just cotton,
[02:25:21] by the way, it's a blended material.
[02:25:23] So it's like, modern.
[02:25:24] Yeah.
[02:25:25] It's like a spool, but it's thick, a little bit thicker.
[02:25:28] Good.
[02:25:29] And that all gets woven together.
[02:25:30] We used to grow cotton when I was young.
[02:25:32] And the yard.
[02:25:33] I'm quite.
[02:25:34] Really.
[02:25:35] For what purpose?
[02:25:36] Just, that's just how I guess.
[02:25:38] I don't know.
[02:25:39] Did you do something with?
[02:25:41] I don't know.
[02:25:42] Random.
[02:25:43] It was a row of cotton trees.
[02:25:46] So cotton is like a, it's like almost like a pod that turns inside out like a popcorn almost.
[02:25:52] Yeah.
[02:25:53] If I remember correctly.
[02:25:54] And so that cotton would be balls of cotton.
[02:25:57] You know, like you get, you know, when you buy cotton balls?
[02:25:59] Yeah.
[02:26:00] Or, I'm sure you always buy cotton balls.
[02:26:02] But when you buy cotton balls, they're in balls.
[02:26:04] They're kind of like that, but more like there's not, they're not in a ball.
[02:26:07] They're in a big clump.
[02:26:08] Okay.
[02:26:09] But there's seeds all in there.
[02:26:10] You got to pick out the seeds and the seeds are all stuck to the cotton.
[02:26:13] I thought that's how they came.
[02:26:15] But they're, they're twined in order.
[02:26:17] Yes.
[02:26:18] Spongebob.
[02:26:19] Yeah.
[02:26:20] Into string.
[02:26:21] All right.
[02:26:22] So we got cotton.
[02:26:23] We got geese.
[02:26:24] We got jeans.
[02:26:25] Also.
[02:26:26] I got jeans.
[02:26:27] By the way.
[02:26:27] Oh, so you're in the game now.
[02:26:28] I am totally in the game.
[02:26:29] And I'm surprised how good, how good.
[02:26:31] Okay.
[02:26:32] Good.
[02:26:33] American denim.
[02:26:33] Sure.
[02:26:34] The buttons.
[02:26:35] Brass.
[02:26:36] When I see them, sure, I'm impressed.
[02:26:38] But I'm, maybe I'm more surprised on top of the impress of how they fit.
[02:26:43] Next level.
[02:26:44] I thought they were going to be like the kind of older, just generic feeding worker jeans.
[02:26:48] Which is fine.
[02:26:49] I get it.
[02:26:50] But that's not really what I was like deep down hoping for.
[02:26:54] I was hoping for the kind that, you know, I can put on.
[02:26:56] I can wear to, you know, if I go somewhere special with my life or something like that.
[02:27:00] Use putting on those origin jeans.
[02:27:02] No.
[02:27:03] You can't.
[02:27:04] Yes. They're very good. They fit good.
[02:27:06] Hand it to Pete.
[02:27:07] Yeah.
[02:27:08] That stylish fashion dude.
[02:27:09] They even fit a bit.
[02:27:11] They even fit skinny knees.
[02:27:14] All right.
[02:27:16] T-shirts.
[02:27:17] Jeans.
[02:27:17] Gies.
[02:27:18] Rascar's joggers.
[02:27:19] Supplements.
[02:27:21] Yes.
[02:27:22] Supplements.
[02:27:22] Get your joint warfare.
[02:27:24] Get your krill oil.
[02:27:27] Get your discipline.
[02:27:29] Get your discipline.
[02:27:30] Go.
[02:27:31] Get these things.
[02:27:32] They will.
[02:27:33] They will make your life better.
[02:27:36] That's crazy.
[02:27:37] That sounds.
[02:27:38] They will make your life better as will.
[02:27:41] Mulk.
[02:27:42] Yes.
[02:27:43] And some people say what is mulk.
[02:27:45] And the answer is very clear.
[02:27:47] Mulk is.
[02:27:48] Mulk is mulk.
[02:27:49] That's right.
[02:27:50] Mulk is mulk.
[02:27:51] You can't just call it something.
[02:27:52] You can't call.
[02:27:54] You can't call a knife by some other name.
[02:27:57] Right.
[02:27:58] Right.
[02:27:58] It's a knife.
[02:27:59] Yeah.
[02:28:00] So you can't call mulk.
[02:28:01] You can't say mulk is something else.
[02:28:04] No.
[02:28:05] Mulk is mulk.
[02:28:06] Then again I'm in heaven.
[02:28:07] Don't fall that.
[02:28:08] You can't call the knife a chunk.
[02:28:10] Okay.
[02:28:11] A blade.
[02:28:12] Yeah.
[02:28:13] You're right.
[02:28:14] Cold steel.
[02:28:15] There's a lot of words for a knife.
[02:28:17] So there's other words for mulk.
[02:28:18] That is where you're saying.
[02:28:19] No.
[02:28:20] I'm not saying that.
[02:28:21] Just say mulk is mulk.
[02:28:22] Yes.
[02:28:23] It is a dessert in the shape of a protein powder.
[02:28:27] That's healthy.
[02:28:28] Okay.
[02:28:29] So you can either call that or you can call a mulk.
[02:28:32] It tastes like dessert.
[02:28:33] And yet it's good for you and gives you protein.
[02:28:36] Strawberry is delicious.
[02:28:38] Mint chocolate chip.
[02:28:39] I had so much strawberry.
[02:28:42] I had to go back to mint and I was like,
[02:28:44] Good.
[02:28:45] It's crazy.
[02:28:46] Mint is delicious.
[02:28:47] What do you want?
[02:28:49] Mint chocolate chip ice cream milkshake or do you want to mint mulk?
[02:28:51] Oh, I'll take the mint mulk all day long.
[02:28:53] Oh yeah.
[02:28:54] Short and long term bail.
[02:28:55] Short and long term bail off.
[02:28:56] Peanut butter, Reese's cup.
[02:28:58] I don't know if you're allowed to say Reese's cup,
[02:29:00] but that's basically what you're saying.
[02:29:02] Peanut butter Reese's cup, but it's peanut butter
[02:29:04] and chocolate mulk tasty.
[02:29:07] What am I missing?
[02:29:08] Vanilla.
[02:29:09] I'm not a vanilla guy.
[02:29:10] I don't like the vanilla yogurt.
[02:29:12] I don't like vanilla.
[02:29:13] Vanilla.
[02:29:14] Vanilla mulk is.
[02:29:15] It's if you like vanilla, you're good.
[02:29:17] Right.
[02:29:18] If you don't like vanilla, you don't don't get it.
[02:29:20] There's a whole hoard of vanilla like this.
[02:29:23] Yeah, for sure.
[02:29:24] But the thing that's cool about vanilla,
[02:29:25] I guess is that you can do other things with it.
[02:29:27] Yeah.
[02:29:28] Jason Gardner put it in your morning coffee.
[02:29:30] Head it with the, he likes to say,
[02:29:32] hit it with the blender stick.
[02:29:35] Right?
[02:29:36] You know, people some people like to say things.
[02:29:38] Yes, they do.
[02:29:39] He's like, I hate it.
[02:29:40] He gets all fired up through.
[02:29:41] I hate it with that blender stick.
[02:29:43] He calls it a blender stick.
[02:29:45] So they're Jason Gardner.
[02:29:47] So in Jason Gardner's,
[02:29:50] he's a great shape getting after it.
[02:29:54] So maybe it maybe is a positive thing.
[02:29:57] And no forget that there's a warrior kid moke.
[02:30:00] Because do you want to feed your child poison?
[02:30:04] No.
[02:30:05] Do you?
[02:30:06] I do not.
[02:30:07] Okay.
[02:30:08] Cool.
[02:30:09] Then you get a moke.
[02:30:10] Do you want your kid to be miserable when they eat
[02:30:12] because what you're feeding them tastes disgusting?
[02:30:14] Let me think.
[02:30:15] No.
[02:30:16] Okay.
[02:30:17] Cool.
[02:30:18] So you give a moke.
[02:30:19] And you're being healthy.
[02:30:20] And you're taking care of your kid.
[02:30:21] And you're actually being a good parent.
[02:30:22] Oh yeah.
[02:30:23] Otherwise you're neglecting your child's welfare.
[02:30:26] Don't do it.
[02:30:27] Yeah.
[02:30:28] Moke, strawberry moke, chocolate moke gets on.
[02:30:31] Let's true.
[02:30:32] My daughter's in this phase.
[02:30:33] Hopefully short where she's comparing her body
[02:30:36] with other people's body.
[02:30:38] Oh yeah.
[02:30:39] That'll be a short phase.
[02:30:40] It only lasts like 500 years.
[02:30:42] So man, it kind of makes you think like,
[02:30:46] Oh shoot.
[02:30:47] She's paying attention now.
[02:30:48] She's going to get in your gut.
[02:30:49] And it's going to.
[02:30:50] Oh yeah.
[02:30:51] Whatever.
[02:30:52] Anyway.
[02:30:53] So.
[02:30:54] What is your when they're going to do curls?
[02:30:57] Yeah.
[02:30:58] Pushups.
[02:30:59] Actually she does burp.
[02:31:00] You know what I tell her?
[02:31:01] It's kind of a trick.
[02:31:02] I don't know.
[02:31:03] Tell me if you think this is a lie.
[02:31:04] So she'll be like, hey, I don't really feel like doing the workout today.
[02:31:08] So I say, okay, you don't have to do the workout.
[02:31:12] If.
[02:31:13] And only if you do burpees and pushups.
[02:31:16] Kind of like burpees and pushups are not the workout.
[02:31:19] Even though that is the workout.
[02:31:20] Oh yeah.
[02:31:21] It's like 70 burpees and like 40 pushups or something like that.
[02:31:26] That's the whole workout.
[02:31:27] I'm going to make a six year old do a full on met Connor and nothing like that.
[02:31:30] But I say, you don't have to do the workout.
[02:31:32] You only have to do the pushups.
[02:31:33] The burps.
[02:31:34] She's like, okay.
[02:31:35] You know, kind of like she has to work out even though that is where is that lying?
[02:31:38] That's flanking, right?
[02:31:39] Yeah.
[02:31:40] It's a flake.
[02:31:41] Hell yeah.
[02:31:42] And the last step.
[02:31:43] You're good.
[02:31:44] I'd say.
[02:31:45] Yeah.
[02:31:46] I mean, you know, when when you know, she's still a girl.
[02:31:49] She's just a power body looks in all this stuff and being a sex man.
[02:31:53] And I kind of feel this overwhelming responsibility.
[02:31:57] Like, hey, if she starts like putting on weight that she doesn't like or something like that,
[02:32:02] it's kind of my fault.
[02:32:03] You know, at this point it is.
[02:32:05] For sure.
[02:32:06] So the more you can feel real good about it, especially that she likes it.
[02:32:10] You know, and that's job very one is, I don't know how they did that.
[02:32:14] But keep doing it.
[02:32:15] That's what I know.
[02:32:16] Anyway, also, juggle white tea.
[02:32:18] Yes.
[02:32:19] Can you get addicted to juggle white tea?
[02:32:22] The answer is yes.
[02:32:24] Yes.
[02:32:25] It's psychological.
[02:32:26] J.P. to know.
[02:32:27] J.P. to know is my brother.
[02:32:30] Currently addicted to juggle white tea.
[02:32:32] I'm talking about him.
[02:32:33] I'm saying the boys got a little bit of an addiction problem with juggle white tea.
[02:32:36] All right.
[02:32:37] Well, there you go.
[02:32:38] And I mean, I'm sure I haven't thought about that much, but I'm sure there is some drawbacks.
[02:32:42] Being addicted to juggle white tea.
[02:32:43] I don't know.
[02:32:44] But from here, I mean, the intuitive thought is that man.
[02:32:47] That's all upside addicted to good stuff.
[02:32:50] Yeah.
[02:32:51] You know, it's like, I am addicted to juggle white tea.
[02:32:52] And I have an 8,000 pound dead left.
[02:32:53] How's it going?
[02:32:54] Yeah.
[02:32:55] Probably way more now.
[02:32:56] Yeah.
[02:32:56] Probably like 1200 or something.
[02:32:58] Sure.
[02:32:59] Anyway, you're juggle white tea is available.
[02:33:01] Kansas well, tea bags as well.
[02:33:04] On the stores and the stores on Amazon everywhere.
[02:33:07] Mm-hmm.
[02:33:08] Get it.
[02:33:09] But it's out there.
[02:33:10] Yeah.
[02:33:10] For sure.
[02:33:11] Get your addiction on something good.
[02:33:12] Also, we have our own store speaking of the stores called juggle store.
[02:33:15] This is where you can get this clinical stream of shirts.
[02:33:18] Like I said, juggle white tea is on the store.
[02:33:20] It's on the store.
[02:33:22] Tins refills all that stuff.
[02:33:24] Hoodies, lightweight, and heavyweight hats.
[02:33:26] Rashcards.
[02:33:27] Rashcards.
[02:33:28] Rashcards.
[02:33:29] A big time.
[02:33:30] Yeah.
[02:33:31] Oh, yeah.
[02:33:32] If you want to represent the path while you're on the spot.
[02:33:33] And a rashcard today when I was doing a ring workout.
[02:33:36] Go on.
[02:33:37] Ring.
[02:33:38] So I was using the rings.
[02:33:39] And if you don't wear a rashcard when you're doing rings, if you do high reps,
[02:33:42] you'll start to shave your arms a bunch.
[02:33:44] Which is no big deal.
[02:33:45] But then you get like, you know, you're if you're doing jiu-jitsu, then you're starting to get a little
[02:33:49] infection exposures going on.
[02:33:51] So just wear a rashcard.
[02:33:52] Yeah.
[02:33:53] Also, you know, if you work at the bank or somewhere where people sort of have to have at least a little bit of trust in you.
[02:34:01] If you're rolling around with shaved hands and arms and stuff, they're like, oh, proud.
[02:34:04] What's up with this guy, you know?
[02:34:05] They don't know that you're doing a rashcard.
[02:34:06] I actually just feel like that more.
[02:34:07] Well, yeah, you, but you're like, you're like one, two levels like beyond.
[02:34:11] You know, like in fight club.
[02:34:12] When, you know, well, this movie fight club where like, no, I've said that movie.
[02:34:15] Yeah, you know, when he's at the restaurant, he sees that the two black eyes are broken nose and he trusts some more.
[02:34:20] He's like, he gives him the nod, but an on-pours sense.
[02:34:22] Like, probably this guy with two black eyes broken nose, shaved arms, all this stuff.
[02:34:26] Who is this guy?
[02:34:27] Is a weirdo.
[02:34:28] He's doing weirdo stuff.
[02:34:29] He's doing deviant stuff.
[02:34:30] That's for sure.
[02:34:31] So you don't want that.
[02:34:32] You don't want that on the surface is what I'm saying.
[02:34:35] Even though you like it.
[02:34:37] So basically what you're saying is get a get a rashcard from the jockel store.
[02:34:41] So you're not weird to other people.
[02:34:43] That's what I just heard.
[02:34:44] Just to break it down.
[02:34:45] Simple fi, which is it.
[02:34:47] Also, subscribe to the podcast.
[02:34:50] As I was, my kids, my children.
[02:34:54] They were, they were going off about some social media thing.
[02:34:59] And they were like, smash the like button.
[02:35:04] I laugh because my daughter says the same thing.
[02:35:07] Yeah, so I'm going to tell you right now, if you're a little younger profile,
[02:35:11] what I'm trying to say is smash the subscribe button.
[02:35:15] Don't say that.
[02:35:17] Don't try to say that.
[02:35:18] Don't.
[02:35:19] I don't say that.
[02:35:20] I don't think you should go into that.
[02:35:23] What the way if you're writing, it's like,
[02:35:25] It's like, right into the share, like, subscribe.
[02:35:31] Yeah.
[02:35:32] If you want, it's more, you know what, I'm going to embrace that.
[02:35:36] Right now share like and subscribe share like and subscribe share like and subscribe.
[02:35:39] So when it be, but we shouldn't be acceptable that I'm like smash the like button.
[02:35:44] Yeah, it's good.
[02:35:46] Oh, no.
[02:35:48] No.
[02:35:48] Because it's like, why, wait, why?
[02:35:50] I'm not going to do it just because you said it's,
[02:35:52] It should be more of like a reminder, right?
[02:35:54] Like if I was all motivational like, you know what you should
[02:35:57] That like button, you got to smash that thing.
[02:35:59] All right.
[02:36:01] They don't worry about it.
[02:36:02] We're just kidding.
[02:36:03] Whatever.
[02:36:04] If you want to subscribe to and subscribe.
[02:36:05] If the subscription is available, we'll say that.
[02:36:07] Just let's leave it a bit.
[02:36:08] Don't worry about smashing.
[02:36:09] If you're going to smash something, smash your next workout.
[02:36:12] Don't worry about the like button.
[02:36:13] Don't worry about the subscribe button.
[02:36:15] Smash a matcon.
[02:36:17] Yeah.
[02:36:18] How's that?
[02:36:19] Paying that was good.
[02:36:20] That was actually really good.
[02:36:22] Anyway, also yes, where your kid podcast two,
[02:36:26] Let's not forget about that.
[02:36:27] Let's never forget it.
[02:36:28] Never.
[02:36:29] It's, it's hibernating a little bit.
[02:36:32] Sure.
[02:36:32] Some people have been commenting now.
[02:36:34] Yeah.
[02:36:35] Did somebody post a picture of like someone that was like,
[02:36:37] Undead.
[02:36:38] Sure.
[02:36:39] Yeah.
[02:36:40] Like the warrior kid podcast is by no means dead,
[02:36:43] It lives on.
[02:36:44] Yeah.
[02:36:44] And since I have just wrapped up a major project,
[02:36:47] I will have some time, hopefully before.
[02:36:50] Certain people are not available to record to record.
[02:36:54] Yeah.
[02:36:55] Well, so there'll be some more coming.
[02:36:57] Yeah.
[02:36:57] Good.
[02:36:58] And actually that kind of is important to note,
[02:37:00] because you know, if they're like, hey,
[02:37:02] Yeah, it's done, and then they won't even, it won't be on their mind.
[02:37:05] No, even on the lookout for it.
[02:37:06] Then it could go and notice when it does come back.
[02:37:08] And the last, it's going to come back.
[02:37:09] It doesn't have to come back.
[02:37:10] It's there right now.
[02:37:11] Right.
[02:37:12] You're going to listen to an episode.
[02:37:13] It's not.
[02:37:14] That's there.
[02:37:15] All right.
[02:37:16] Some people are just discovering that warrior kid podcast.
[02:37:18] I dig it.
[02:37:19] Anyway, where is we going to wear kids,
[02:37:21] eight in making soap.
[02:37:23] That's right.
[02:37:24] A goat milk, various other ingredients in America by the way.
[02:37:28] Irish Oaks Ranch.com.
[02:37:30] This where you can get it.
[02:37:31] Troopers soap and jocco soap.
[02:37:33] Wait, does this still have the troopers soap?
[02:37:34] Or was that just a special thing?
[02:37:36] Yeah, man.
[02:37:37] And that's legit.
[02:37:38] That one's on a rope.
[02:37:39] But yeah.
[02:37:40] And what's the slogan?
[02:37:41] I'd say the slogan, but you say it, but we better make go ahead.
[02:37:43] This slogan is simply stay clean.
[02:37:46] There you go.
[02:37:47] I'll stand there.
[02:37:48] We have a YouTube channel.
[02:37:51] And what we would like is for you to smash this.
[02:37:55] Hey, we got a YouTube channel.
[02:37:57] If you want to watch YouTube videos,
[02:37:58] if you're not getting inundated with enough YouTube videos,
[02:38:01] wasting your time watching videos of street fights,
[02:38:07] watching videos of car crashes,
[02:38:12] watching videos of acrobatic people climbing around in the city.
[02:38:18] Oh, the park where we're.
[02:38:19] Yeah.
[02:38:20] You know what's fun is, like you're just totally putting yourself
[02:38:23] on report about all the videos.
[02:38:25] Yeah, you're for sure.
[02:38:26] These are the things.
[02:38:27] Like, oh, you like to watch street fight videos.
[02:38:29] The thing is YouTube knows what you like to watch.
[02:38:31] So just puts up, you know, three on one.
[02:38:35] Do you just who involved?
[02:38:36] I'm like, oh, somebody made that video for me.
[02:38:40] So what I'm saying is subscribe to the YouTube channel,
[02:38:45] if you want to see the videos that we put out.
[02:38:47] Otherwise, go watch some more junk profiles.
[02:38:51] I don't really watch that one.
[02:38:53] But I will watch like fast tactical reloads.
[02:38:57] Yeah.
[02:38:58] Yeah.
[02:38:59] So anyways, there you go.
[02:39:01] Boom. There it is. Yeah.
[02:39:02] YouTube.
[02:39:03] Also, psychological warfare.
[02:39:04] If you don't know what that is, it's an album with tracks of
[02:39:07] Jockelton, you had to get past moments of weakness.
[02:39:09] If they may arise.
[02:39:10] If they may arise.
[02:39:12] I went to a, I didn't go to the donut shop.
[02:39:15] I passed it.
[02:39:16] There's a bank and there's a donut shop right by where it is.
[02:39:19] Isn't it weird that donut shops exist?
[02:39:21] Oh, they don't anymore. That was going to be my point.
[02:39:24] Zero people in there.
[02:39:25] The lady in there.
[02:39:26] So we're winning.
[02:39:27] You know what?
[02:39:27] We're winning.
[02:39:28] We're going to win.
[02:39:29] I even heard what you call crispy creams is like, either out of business or
[02:39:33] going out of business.
[02:39:34] I don't know.
[02:39:35] Record rate or something like this.
[02:39:37] But man, the lady in the donut shop was on her laptop in one of the
[02:39:43] customer like tables on the seat.
[02:39:45] You know, it was she wasn't behind the counter.
[02:39:47] She was straight up.
[02:39:48] She was coming in here.
[02:39:49] Yeah.
[02:39:50] I was like, dang.
[02:39:51] Anyway, what should they replace all donut shops with?
[02:39:54] Stake houses.
[02:39:56] Yeah.
[02:39:57] Well, yeah.
[02:39:58] I guess there's lots of houses.
[02:40:00] Do you have this?
[02:40:01] Do you have two?
[02:40:02] Yeah.
[02:40:03] Just like a vacant, you know what they should do.
[02:40:06] A vacant building.
[02:40:07] They clear out all the donut material and machines.
[02:40:11] I don't know how you make donuts.
[02:40:13] But clear out all that stuff.
[02:40:14] And you just put one like mat space.
[02:40:17] One mat space.
[02:40:18] That's it.
[02:40:19] And a paper and a pencil.
[02:40:21] You just sign in a book.
[02:40:22] I came in.
[02:40:23] Use this mat.
[02:40:24] Me, my partner.
[02:40:25] Come in, leave.
[02:40:26] I like it.
[02:40:27] I didn't really get through.
[02:40:28] But nonetheless, psychological warfare, what I was saying is the
[02:40:31] Album tracks about Jocco, can you through your moments?
[02:40:33] So what I've, what the report says that that psychological warfare, the album has
[02:40:39] done massive damage to the donut industry apparently is what's going on.
[02:40:42] That's what I'm here.
[02:40:43] Yeah.
[02:40:44] Big time.
[02:40:45] Evidently, yes.
[02:40:46] If you don't want the audio version of that, but you want to have a visual
[02:40:48] version, you can check out flip side canvas dot com run by my brother Dakota
[02:40:55] Meyer.
[02:40:56] And he makes things for you to hang on your wall.
[02:40:59] High quality things for you to hang on your wall to remind you of what it is that you're doing here.
[02:41:06] So check it out.
[02:41:07] If you have any suggestions, you can hit up the code on social media and tell them what you want to say.
[02:41:15] So there you go.
[02:41:16] Flipside Canvas.com.
[02:41:17] Yeah.
[02:41:18] Let's do good.
[02:41:19] Also, on it is a good one.
[02:41:20] On it dot com slash joccos where you can get your kettlebells, your battle ropes, various fitness
[02:41:25] equipment is good.
[02:41:26] You know, it's also get socks in the same like it I know and I've said it before he gets socks.
[02:41:30] So it's socks are a thing, I guess.
[02:41:32] Well, I, you know, I'm one of those guys who kind of like cool socks.
[02:41:36] I don't buy them all the time, but I don't know.
[02:41:38] What kind of guy likes cool socks?
[02:41:40] I don't know.
[02:41:41] It's just, but there's a whole industry out there used to be.
[02:41:44] And for me, it still is socks means one thing.
[02:41:47] Parallite socks.
[02:41:48] That socks.
[02:41:49] Yeah.
[02:41:50] Well, yeah.
[02:41:51] Well, you're you and I get Darth Vader socks like you do or whatever.
[02:41:55] No, I've Darth Vader kettlebells.
[02:41:57] Okay.
[02:41:58] But no, no, no, no, no.
[02:41:59] And where did you get the Darth Vader kettlebells from on it?
[02:42:01] Of course, they got Darth Vader.
[02:42:03] They got Iron Man.
[02:42:04] They got some good ones on there.
[02:42:05] Also, they have like the things called that elk bars.
[02:42:08] Same thing as a warrior bar, but it's kind of that elk high in protein.
[02:42:11] Really good.
[02:42:12] Like, almost like a big beef jerky stick.
[02:42:15] It's good.
[02:42:16] You know, get that.
[02:42:17] A lot of good stuff on there.
[02:42:18] On it.
[02:42:19] Now comes.
[02:42:20] Flash.
[02:42:20] Jocco.
[02:42:21] Like something.
[02:42:22] Also, we got some books that the books that were written by John Stracker Meyer,
[02:42:26] the books by written by tilt.
[02:42:28] You can get those on Amazon across the fence, the secret war in Vietnam.
[02:42:33] On the ground, the secret war in Vietnam.
[02:42:36] And sog chronicles volume one.
[02:42:39] Check those books out there.
[02:42:41] They're really amazing to read, especially.
[02:42:44] And there are kind of books that when you read them, you have to actually slow down
[02:42:49] and think about what the hell is actually going on.
[02:42:52] Because when you think about what's actually going on, you'll realize that what these guys
[02:42:57] were doing was just absolutely, completely insane.
[02:43:00] So check out those books.
[02:43:02] Also, check out where the warrior kid three, where there's a will.
[02:43:06] That book is live and ready for you to read or for ready for your kids.
[02:43:10] Read also, got way the warrior kid won.
[02:43:12] And way the warrior kid two marks mission.
[02:43:14] These are good books to get kids on the path.
[02:43:17] All those little things that you want kids to know, but they don't really listen to you
[02:43:21] because you're their parent.
[02:43:23] This is the ultimate flank.
[02:43:25] And if you listen to JP to now, he says that these warrior kid books are a flank on the parent too.
[02:43:31] Thank you.
[02:43:32] It is there.
[02:43:33] 100%.
[02:43:34] Yeah, as is Mikey in the Dragons, which is a book for kids to learn how to overcome.
[02:43:39] Fear.
[02:43:40] So check those out.
[02:43:41] Then we've got the discipline.
[02:43:42] It goes for you to them.
[02:43:43] Field manual.
[02:43:45] Which will tell you how to get after it.
[02:43:47] You don't need to ask.
[02:43:49] You can just get them manual.
[02:43:51] Wouldn't that be nice?
[02:43:52] Yeah.
[02:43:53] Oh, it's true.
[02:43:54] It is nice.
[02:43:55] Yes.
[02:43:56] You get that field manual and you're good to go.
[02:43:57] If you want the audio version that it's on iTunes, Amazon, music, Google play and other MP3 platforms.
[02:44:04] And then, of course, you got extreme ownership.
[02:44:06] And then I caught a meal of leadership, the two books that I wrote with my brother, Dave Babin,
[02:44:11] talking about everything that we've learned in combat and how you can take those lessons.
[02:44:16] And you can utilize them with your business, with your team, with your life.
[02:44:23] So check those out.
[02:44:24] Also, we got echelon front.
[02:44:25] That's my leadership consultancy and what we do is solve problems through leadership.
[02:44:32] If you problem that exists in your organization, it's a leadership problem.
[02:44:37] So if you need help fixing that leadership problem and thereby fixing the problems that you have inside your organization,
[02:44:43] go to echelon front.com.
[02:44:47] If you need further instruction, if you want something beyond this podcast, if you want to come to the
[02:44:56] Master, the Master is a leadership training seminar, I guess.
[02:45:03] I'd call it.
[02:45:04] It's a leadership convention.
[02:45:06] And what we do is go deep dive, get granular on leadership.
[02:45:12] The next one is September 19th and 20th in Denver.
[02:45:15] And then after that, it's December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia.
[02:45:19] Every single, we've done seven.
[02:45:21] They've also told out these are going to sell out too.
[02:45:23] So if you want to come, go to treemonership.com and sign up.
[02:45:26] And if you can't come to that, you can go to efonline.com.
[02:45:31] And that's our leadership training interactive online platform where you can get the skills.
[02:45:41] You can reinforce the skills.
[02:45:44] The skills that I talk about on this podcast, the skills that we wrote about in the books,
[02:45:48] those skills need further training all the time.
[02:45:53] Never master these things.
[02:45:54] So go to efonline.com and check that out.
[02:45:56] And then there's, of course, a geof Overwatch where we've been taking proven leaders, tested
[02:46:03] leaders from special operations and from combat aviation and putting them into companies
[02:46:09] in the civilian sector that need leadership.
[02:46:13] So if you're looking to hire, don't always hire just because someone has experience.
[02:46:17] Higher, four character, higher, four leadership capability.
[02:46:22] And then you teach them the industry specifics because that's easier than trying to teach someone
[02:46:27] character or trying to teach someone leadership.
[02:46:29] You have full Overwatch.com if you need leadership.
[02:46:33] And if you want to converse with us further, then we are on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram,
[02:46:44] and on that shhh, face you blush.
[02:46:49] Echo is at Echo Charles.
[02:46:51] I am at Jockel, William and John Striker, Meyer is at John Striker, Meyer.
[02:46:59] And once again, thanks to John Striker, Meyer.
[02:47:04] 22 years old, putting his life on the line over and over and over again for our freedom and to those of you in
[02:47:13] uniform right now putting your lives on the line for our freedom.
[02:47:17] Thank you for being there for us.
[02:47:20] And the same thing goes for our police and law enforcement and firefighters and
[02:47:25] paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers in Border Patrol and
[02:47:30] Secret Service and all first responders out there, you put your lives on the line to keep us safe.
[02:47:38] And we thank you for it. And to everyone else out there, you might be scared and you might be tired.
[02:47:48] And you might be surrounded by the enemy who is preparing to attack, but you know what?
[02:47:56] You're still alive.
[02:48:00] So get the high ground, set up your perimeter, lock and load your weapons, and go get after it.
[02:48:07] And until next time, this is echo and jocco out.