Jocko Podcast 186 w/ The Frenchman Doug Letourneau. Taking a Secret War to The Enemy

2019-07-19T04:41:11Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles @jstrykermeyer 0:00:00 - Opening. 0:06:32 - The Frenchman, Doug Letourneau 2:05:05 - Closing thoughts and take-aways. 2:10:15 - 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 2:19:59 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

so if you got anything to tell you got anything else first no these stories you know it's funny because even we're in base we never knew a lot of the details and so when I put the books together talk to other people like the oil drums story we learned about 40 years later that Lynn Black had done the similar thing with RTI the how after I left right in between these guys and it's just like a lot of history that comes out slowly like Doug has said was anyone tracking was anyone right down the history as it was happening was anyone taking the operational summaries and compiling them somewhere they were all destroyed that was when I left food by one of my jobs was to go through and make sure that all the drums had been no the ashes they'd burnt all the a lot of reports after action reports were all burnt and then as we pulled out of every FOB and closed down CCN and CCS and CCC we closed all the everything was destroyed there's very few after action reports so with there are is just miniscule reports people try to put them out on eBay but they're fake they're just isn't any and there are out there we haven't there reports of archives that were even now beginning to look into but at a recent reunion the guy came up to me and said hey you know if you've done your books I got to like to talk to you because my job when we closed contone was to destroy all the records as the first time I ever had like a direct intel report do not go to the northeast this is the Christmas day mission we were on top of that no and midnight talked about that was the one quiet area probably there's a problem but we're talking about it spider goes do not go to the northeast we have an intel report do not go there I'm going to like intel report that never happened before or after on a live mission we're on the ground and we didn't know what to help us but they were right we didn't you know the story we could extract is we're back in base a few days later him and public connect and it's going like well well you want to ground a Christmas and we found out that he had that intel report that was confirmed the one place we could have gone we shouldn't have our instincts are right it's me talking about how to overcome little interruptions in your game that you're trying to win so you can check that out we also have flipside canvas dot com my brother Dakota Meyer has that company and he's making visual artwork for your walls that you can hang up we also have on it dot com slash jocker you can get all kinds of cool stuff on there kettlebells, jump ropes, sandbags things that you can get stronger with I've also written a bunch of books if you want to support you can get some of the books way the Warrior Kid is a series of books I wrote there's three of them the most recent one is called where's where there's a will and that book is available right now and so is where it way the Warrior Kid one and way the Warrior Kid two which is subtitled marks mission Mikey in the Dragons the book for younger kids that I wrote so your kids can learn how to overcome fear the discipline goes for freedom field manual which is a manual about how to get after it a little questions that you have are answered if you want the audio version that it's on iTunes Amazon music Google Play other MP3 platforms and of course there's extreme ownership which is the first book I wrote with my brother Dave Babin and then we have a follow on book to that called the dichotomy of leadership and those books are both about leadership and how to lead people I have a leadership consultancy called echelon front and what we do is solve problems through leadership if you have problems in your company it is because you have problems with your leadership to go to echelon front dot com if you want us to come and help you solve those problems EF online this is leadership training online Lynn and I were down in the Nang already so we were running business he went down with with with RT Virginia with Guntherwald and so they went down and ran their business including the famous oil drum one and Lynn and I were doing our thing and then by April my time in country was getting close so Lynn had agreed to be to come to one zero we had a special mission we were supposed to go up to the Mughi up past we brought Doug in Max Forron and Barry and an officer to go with us on that mission we trained for the mission trained right up to it went to the launch site on the choppers took off and they called us back and because two aircraft were shot down over the target area that day and so I was about four or five days from D-Rosing we went back to the camp they prism up the marble mountain We we talk almost every day and because we can we're alive and we try now to spread the story since we've been declassified like you're helping tremendously to spread this story to let people know that we actually there was a secret war going on and we were actually taking the war to the enemy because our country had signed a treaty saying that we would not go into North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia or the DMZ which we operated in every day right we weren't stationed here we just flew in by helicopters people always ask me well how long did you fight in South Vietnam and you know try to tell me try to give me quotes when he'd come back from a meeting with Bardswell he said bar old man said this no man said that you know he he was just at my house not too long before that and and my train room I've got trains Lionel and he was there had a great time but there were roommates for a few months and so the side note to the whole mission is I don't know how many we killed but it was not a good day for them but that age in orange was the only time I was ever near it and right now I've got stage four cancer from age in orange with a limited amount of time left so that's why I'm glad I'm here to tell a few stories glad you're here too they're born the um so how many tours did you do was that one tour I signed up for what I volunteered to go in special forces when I was regular I mean I volunteered regular so I appreciate you know that because as you know I don't have any like regular whatever they're called advertisements on here because I'm not gonna interrupt someone like tilt or someone like the Frenchmen or someone like BTF Tony or someone like Dakota Meyer and I always say that leadership is not an an inauguration you can't get one shot of it and then you know everything it's like going to one you just too class and thinking you know how to choke people out now no you have to train continually that's where EF online is for it's online interactive training EF online dot com we got the muster events these are leadership conferences, musters, gatherings where we deep dive and get granular on the pragmatic tools we have for leading people the next one we're doing is in September September 19th Like your first mission, you got the dog tracking you, you got the NVA encampment down below, you got the women's voices, you got the tracker coming up behind the dog. I think right now they've all sold out that one will sell out as well and then December 4th and 5th in Sydney Australia who knows when we're going back to Sydney but we're going this time so if you want to come to the muster check out extremownership dot com and then EF over watch EF over watch dot com what we're doing there is taking proven spec ops leaders proven combat aviation leaders and placing them into companies in the civilian sector that need leadership so if you need leadership in your organization go to efoverwatch dot com and if you want to give me some feedback on this podcast or you have a question or you have an answer or whatever for me I want Twitter Instagram and Facebook at jacqua willink but we just thought that we didn't know anybody way I didn't know anybody went to and then all of a sudden the internet came about I typed in SF one time and a couple emails came up old ones I typed in and a mclusky got he was working as a metavac pilot and he was the same Elden that we met in 68 as the same Elden went to the reunion with last year he was there in his respect and glory and you know that's the way we respected him like my son got wounded and in Iraq he went and saw this care at the hospital picked up for him right away they couldn't believe a two-star general one can do something but just that it saved the team was walking into an L shape ambush that they've been slaughtered and they were pushing them that way with trackers gunfire and everything else and so they just just like you say the gods were always with us sometimes but at that very next day I'm still on the trail where we were assigned that was the trail for my very first mission we got into North Vietnam into it called nickel steel and I'm been laying there for four days through this process and Gunther was I you know and I got to say this right after we got done of course we did some more talking and the Frenchmen was was explaining the fact that when he would go out on a mission every mission he would go out on he would square away his footwalker make sure everything was ready to be shipped home because every time he went out he figured he would not be coming back so real heroes so if you do want to help out which like I said that's that's what allows us to be able to do this that's what allows me to able to fly the Frenchmen out here to sit down and and talk and tell his story and so it's because of you all out there supporting supporting my companies or my books or whatever so it's appreciated so if you want to if you do want to help out you want to support the podcast then you can check out originmain.com where we have geese for jiu jitsu we have rashguards we have clothing of all whatever sorts including jeans and we got supplements up there people used to ask me what supplements I take I take the supplements that I make so join warfare criminal discipline discipline go and I drink milk because it's awesome and delicious and of course jockel white tea but we finally got extraction orders and they came and got us and strung us out and when we were on strings it went off and the cubby writer was there and it was like an atom bomb it was a miniature mushroom and the shockwave even though we were miles away came through us on strings and the choppers and just like this well you got home how long did it take to kind of adapt to the civilian life it took about a year that because I slept with my car 15 and then when I was in training group I always had all the weapons around me I felt safe but you know fourth of July it was always a hard one with stuff going on you don't know So the mission of 68 is where I got the skip from the blow-up radio that let him know he was walking into an act letting tilting know that he was walking into an ambush and I'm laying on a trail with the radio on and heard this my interpreter comes up and interprets what's going on. what's he doing now he's up at doing heavy equipment training up in the long beach him and Bruno his faithful companions are there doing it and just kicking ass taken there so pretty soon hub on the licenses in place and if you need any heavy equipment work give him a call right on and the freshman will build a house for you and what about so you got you got married when you got done and I'll tell you the amount of feedback I've gotten from you came on till that mean it's been overwhelming the number of people that just you know thank you for your service they're gonna pass the same thing on to you you know you guys should know that America loves you guys for what you did for this country so I can say you know hey buy this or buy that or whatever you know I'm not gonna stop reading colder than hell or I'm not gonna stop reading the forgotten highlander I'm not gonna stop reading one soldiers war so that I can you know mention a product or something like that so to me that's not what this podcast is about the information and he was crazy because he had salty went and went forward and did from RT Idaho and that team and Lynn was like, man, I don't even know how we got out of there.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jacob podcast number one 86 with me, Jocca Willink.
[00:00:08] Among the newly minted special forces soldiers were Douglas L. L. L. L.
[00:00:14] L. L. L. S. Skinny, 135 pound California Cowboy, John Shore, a blonde haired, slightly
[00:00:21] overweight baby faced kid from Georgia and Frank McClowski, a tough combat hardened veteran
[00:00:28] of the 101st Airborne Division. McClowski arrived sporting seat-pitch from a wound in the
[00:00:34] back of his head. This trio of green braids had completed their special forces in country training
[00:00:40] program in Not Train, the fifth special forces group headquarters. When a sergeant
[00:00:45] not train asked for special forces soldiers to volunteer for a secret project, they raised
[00:00:51] their hands. In short order, they were flown to FOB 4 in the northern sector of
[00:00:58] South Vietnam, I. Core. Upon reporting in, they were told that Camp Commander Colonel Jack
[00:01:06] Warren would brief them in the morning on the CNC mission in Southeast Asia. Finally,
[00:01:13] after more than a year of training for attorney, the game was on. How much better could
[00:01:20] this get? It seems all his life he'd been preparing for this moment. From riding,
[00:01:25] Brody O'Bronks and breaking nearly every bone in his body to wrangling animals for television shows
[00:01:31] like Dactari and Cowboy in Africa starring Chuck Connors.
[00:01:36] Let's turn on a little bit about taking a calculated risk.
[00:01:41] And after he had gotten his hands on Robin Moore's book of the Green Berets, he knew this
[00:01:47] was for him.
[00:01:48] Gorilla Warfare, Czech.
[00:01:50] Counter-insurgency training, Czech.
[00:01:52] Unconventional warfare, Czech.
[00:01:55] The Chernobyl couldn't wait to write his own story that he could someday share with his dad,
[00:02:00] a World War II B-17 pilot and former POW.
[00:02:07] Nothing however could have prepared him for the sight that greeted him as he entered
[00:02:11] the transient barracks.
[00:02:13] There, etched onto the concrete floor and forever in his memory was the charred outline
[00:02:18] of a man's body, a grizzly reminder of the 23 August 1968 attack on FOB IV.
[00:02:26] That faithful evening, North Vietnamese sappers in Viet Cong operated skilled 18 green
[00:02:30] berets in a carefully executed snake attack.
[00:02:35] The deadly side of Gorilla Warfare was brought home to him right there.
[00:02:40] He was in a war zone.
[00:02:42] The enemy didn't play by any set rules.
[00:02:45] It was an unsettling event.
[00:02:48] In the next morning, after breakfast, the trio walked over to S3 and chose their code
[00:02:52] names.
[00:02:53] The Chernobyl claskey and sure now became the Frenchman, Namu, and Bubba, names that would
[00:02:59] stick with them far beyond their tours of duty and Vietnam.
[00:03:04] Because S3 was temporarily located in the headquarters section of FOB IV since the attack,
[00:03:09] it was a quick shuffle into the briefing room with everyone else.
[00:03:13] An intense short, an intense, short, black-haired man wearing pajamas, slippers and
[00:03:18] a bathrobe walked in smoking a cigarette.
[00:03:22] Before a word was spoken, Colonel Warren abruptly pulled a white sheet off a large map with
[00:03:27] a flourish and tossed it aside.
[00:03:29] An announced welcome to C&C, man.
[00:03:33] Turning to the large map that had black tape, boxed target that it designators on it
[00:03:39] in Louss, the DMZ, and North Vietnam, he continued, this is what you volunteered for.
[00:03:45] This is why this is a top secret project.
[00:03:48] If anybody asks, the president can say we have no men stationed in the A.O.
[00:03:53] That is why you'll wear sterile fatigues and carry no form of identification of any kind
[00:03:58] on your missions.
[00:04:00] That's why you agreed not to talk to anyone about this operation for at least 20 years.
[00:04:07] Our intel reports land in the White House.
[00:04:11] Any questions?
[00:04:13] Not waiting for response, Warren continued to explain the difference between spiked teams
[00:04:17] and hatched four settlements where the different F.O.Bs were located.
[00:04:21] How F.O.B. 3 at K-Son was closed after the siege earlier in the year and how major
[00:04:27] Clyde sincere junior had opened a site at my lock now designated F.O.B. 3.
[00:04:34] Following an update on intelligence reports in the respective areas of operations, Colonel
[00:04:39] Warren asked if anyone had any questions.
[00:04:42] Colonel raised his hand, where do you need help, sir?
[00:04:48] We need men at F.O.B. 1.
[00:04:50] We lost a 10 on October 5 and some of the first special forces T.D. Y troops from Okinawa
[00:04:56] are returning back to the island.
[00:04:58] The Chernows' shirt turned to short and McCloskey and asked, how about it?
[00:05:02] F.O.B. 1.
[00:05:04] Sure not it in the affirmative.
[00:05:06] McCloskey said, no, I think I'll stay here.
[00:05:09] The Chernows turned back to Warren and said, will go not in toward shore, surprised at McCloskey's
[00:05:14] response.
[00:05:16] Without missing a beat, Warren told the remainder of the SF troops in the room that he'd
[00:05:20] be right back.
[00:05:21] He turned to let Chernows and said, follow me as he headed out of the briefing room and into
[00:05:25] the S.3 Operation Center.
[00:05:27] He told the center staff to get a king B.O.B.4 in an hour to transport the Chernows and
[00:05:33] make sure to F.O.B. 1. ASAP.
[00:05:41] He headed to S.1 and told the clerk that the new bees were to be processed and clear to go to
[00:05:43] F.O.B.
[00:05:44] And now we're later, PFC, Laterno and spec 4.
[00:05:48] Sure, we're in a king B heading north to F.O.B.1.
[00:05:55] And that right there is an excerpt from the book across the fence, which was written by
[00:06:00] John Stryker Meyer, nicknamed Tilt, who's a special forces soldier and S.O.G. Recon
[00:06:07] leader in Vietnam.
[00:06:09] And we went deep with Tilt on podcast 181 and 182.
[00:06:15] And if you haven't listened to those podcasts, then stop this one right now and go back
[00:06:18] and listen to those first.
[00:06:20] But if you have already listened to those podcasts, then you heard a little bit about Doug
[00:06:26] Laterno code name, the Frenchman, and you know that he was also a special forces soldier
[00:06:32] Green Bore, and was also a sog team member in Vietnam.
[00:06:37] And it is an absolute honor to have not only Tilt back again on this podcast, but he
[00:06:43] brought with him the Frenchman himself, Doug Laterno.
[00:06:47] The one in the on the gentleman.
[00:06:49] Thank you for coming on.
[00:06:51] Good to see you again.
[00:06:52] Good evening, sir.
[00:06:53] Good evening.
[00:06:54] Thank you for having us.
[00:06:55] I'd great to be here.
[00:06:56] Great to have you both here.
[00:06:58] And yeah, let's talk a little bit about how you ended up that I mean, you glaze over
[00:07:03] the book, we're riding rodeo, Broncos, we're working in Hollywood, Taming Ant, animals, what
[00:07:08] was your upbringing that got you there?
[00:07:11] Believe it or not, I was born East LA in the barrio.
[00:07:15] Well, that makes sense.
[00:07:17] Not.
[00:07:18] Yeah.
[00:07:19] I know.
[00:07:20] So living in the city, I got fortunate enough.
[00:07:25] And I got into high school that I got into a program called the Future Farmers of America.
[00:07:30] And it gave me a whole different way of looking at life.
[00:07:35] And I ended up becoming a president of the chapter.
[00:07:38] But I had several Spanish speaking and Spanish people in our chapter, one of the largest
[00:07:45] in all of Southern California as it turned out.
[00:07:49] Well with these people, I could became such good friends and their way of life in
[00:07:55] still working the fields of the San Fernando Valley, which was still open.
[00:08:01] I tended to lean towards the country way of life, even though I was born and raised in the
[00:08:07] city.
[00:08:08] And I do nothing about anything at all, but city life.
[00:08:13] But I tried to break away from that through the organization and the Western end of the
[00:08:19] San Fernando Valley.
[00:08:21] Well, one thing led to another, and I learned about you could go rodeo.
[00:08:28] And there was a place that I could go ride and practice where you could do boom riding
[00:08:33] and bronch riding and bearback riding and all the three were in San Fernando Valley.
[00:08:40] This was actually out in thousand oaks at the Paramount Studios.
[00:08:44] Okay.
[00:08:45] Yeah, they had a ranch right there.
[00:08:47] And the decouper is what it was called, in those days.
[00:08:52] And we could go out on the Wednesday night and Saturday and Sunday and ride and have jack
[00:08:57] pots and I got into it.
[00:08:59] And then one thing led to another, I got into college and I got on the college intercollegiate
[00:09:05] team and we traveled and rodeoed.
[00:09:08] And as I went through college, I became a dep to it and I got into rope and with rope
[00:09:15] and horses and owned my own rope horse and it just the way a life changed from being a
[00:09:20] city slicker to a cowboy.
[00:09:23] Where did you go to college?
[00:09:25] I started out at Pierce Junior College in Woodland Hills.
[00:09:29] Okay.
[00:09:30] The shaft for not a valley.
[00:09:32] And then ended up with Cal Poly.
[00:09:34] Okay.
[00:09:35] San Louis Abyssable, Mustanger.
[00:09:37] Yeah.
[00:09:38] So, through courses there.
[00:09:40] And but basically, we just just kept on going and then with the TV series, we're popular,
[00:09:53] we're a lot of animals.
[00:09:54] There was an opening to be a wild animal trainer at Africa, USA and San Canyon, New
[00:10:00] Hall.
[00:10:01] So, I jumped up there.
[00:10:02] How old are you at this point?
[00:10:04] I'm 20.
[00:10:05] Yeah.
[00:10:06] Okay.
[00:10:07] Wild animal trainer sounds like, you know, yeah.
[00:10:09] That's another day of college.
[00:10:10] There you go.
[00:10:11] So, I jumped up there and before I knew it, I was handling Clarence, the cross-sided line,
[00:10:16] and Judy the Chimp.
[00:10:18] And then they had a rope horse there that they used and they wanted me to call Dakota Duke
[00:10:24] and they wanted me to go out and capture all these animals by rope and them.
[00:10:28] And they knew I could rope.
[00:10:30] There's actual picture of me on the front of the pig and string that was produced
[00:10:35] out of landcaster and low valley.
[00:10:38] Of me on the front cover, rope and a tiger.
[00:10:40] Off of this horse.
[00:10:41] Off of this horse.
[00:10:42] Off of this horse.
[00:10:43] And that's what I did.
[00:10:44] And I rope the elephants and I rope, you know, healed them and I healed giraffes and I
[00:10:52] headed up.
[00:10:53] White Rhino form.
[00:10:54] There was a common attest and I turned them back and you know, they would do all
[00:10:59] these, what they call a veil, a veil would be open land.
[00:11:03] It's an African term.
[00:11:05] And we just would turn these animals loose but somebody had to go get them.
[00:11:11] So I actually got to work on the TV series that was very popular called Doc Tari.
[00:11:18] And people would see the trucks, they were zebra trucks.
[00:11:22] I went on YouTube and checked out some Doc Tari old footage.
[00:11:26] Oh, yeah.
[00:11:27] Classic show.
[00:11:28] Really.
[00:11:29] And but it was shot in like Africa but actually it was all done right there new all the
[00:11:33] soldiers, you know, at the compound.
[00:11:36] And so from there, we ran into a series called Cowboy in Africa and we brought Chuck
[00:11:44] Conner's in it and he was the star and he will Brian had actually done the original movie.
[00:11:51] There's of Cowboy in Africa and they shot it in Africa but here they're going to shoot
[00:11:56] it here in the United States.
[00:11:58] And so I got to work with ostriches and all kinds of different animals that they had
[00:12:02] to have around the compound of the house that he was working out of in the series.
[00:12:09] But one thing left to another but as it turned out, one night somebody handed me an old
[00:12:16] ragged book.
[00:12:17] It's called the Green Brava, Robin Moore and I looked out it and I read it and I couldn't
[00:12:23] put it down.
[00:12:25] And I said, this has got to be something that this Vietnam war has been going on for quite
[00:12:31] a while.
[00:12:32] I grew up almost listening to it every day.
[00:12:35] This got to be something going on that I need to contribute.
[00:12:39] And I think this is what I want to do.
[00:12:41] I went down the next day, very next day and signed up.
[00:12:45] What's the year was that now old?
[00:12:47] Where you?
[00:12:48] I was 20 and this was like September just before.
[00:12:53] It was like, I let's say because I went in September first so it was the day before.
[00:13:01] So August 30th of what year though?
[00:13:06] 1968.
[00:13:07] 1967.
[00:13:08] 1967.
[00:13:09] 1967.
[00:13:10] Yes.
[00:13:11] And I actually entered the service in September first 1967.
[00:13:17] But at that time he had obtained a college degree by attending classes at night.
[00:13:22] So instead of going through the four year program, the college was three years.
[00:13:26] Well, I graduated when I was 17.
[00:13:28] From high school, I was early.
[00:13:31] It was the classes at night.
[00:13:32] Yeah.
[00:13:33] That's fair time.
[00:13:34] And like the attitude towards the Vietnam war in 1967, you know, from the, I mean,
[00:13:42] when we think of Hollywood now, we think of people that just are, you know, just detest
[00:13:48] everything it has to do with the military most of the time.
[00:13:51] And you were kind of in that Hollywood scene hanging around with all these people, but
[00:13:54] that didn't rub off on you at all.
[00:13:56] It didn't happen that way.
[00:13:58] In 1967, 1968, it wasn't like that back then.
[00:14:02] I was shocked when I got back.
[00:14:05] And I actually visited Bubba on, on Peach Street in Atlanta, Georgia.
[00:14:13] And there was an anti-Rally Vietnam rally going down the street.
[00:14:20] And I looked out the window and I said, Bubba, what in the world is that?
[00:14:24] He says, those are, and I wore protesters.
[00:14:27] I'd never seen it, never heard of it.
[00:14:30] But in 67, everybody was still pretty patriotic.
[00:14:33] God.
[00:14:34] And didn't have that situation.
[00:14:36] And now, what about your old man?
[00:14:40] Who was, you know, he was, you were raised as the son of a guy that was a B-17 pilot?
[00:14:45] Yes.
[00:14:46] A war hero in itself.
[00:14:50] He ran 13 missions.
[00:14:51] He was actually a first two missions in, were over Berlin.
[00:14:58] He was on the first two missions, the bomb Berlin itself.
[00:15:01] But he flew 13 missions on his 13th mission.
[00:15:07] They gave him a brand new airplane because his airplane had been shot up so bad with his
[00:15:11] crew that he brought from the United States and flew it over to England that they had
[00:15:16] to give him a brand new airplane that morning.
[00:15:19] He took off and he had 999 planes behind him.
[00:15:23] He was a point that day.
[00:15:26] And he went over a target called Shwainford.
[00:15:29] As it turned out, Shwainford had lost 56 airplanes.
[00:15:37] And this day, his entire squadron of 22 out of 23 were to be shot down that day.
[00:15:45] And he was the first one down and they were using new tactics, the Nazis were.
[00:15:52] They were line up of mission smiths and 109s.
[00:15:58] And in a row, in go right through them.
[00:16:01] Instead of coming around or going on top, they just go right through them.
[00:16:06] They didn't care if they lost the planes or not.
[00:16:09] And then they had, um, folk with 190s behind them.
[00:16:14] And they took out all these planes in the very lead just to start the battle.
[00:16:21] But nobody could ever figure out why Shwainford was so protected.
[00:16:24] And so many losses every time that was tried to be bombed.
[00:16:29] And Gary, during the Nuremberg trials, he admitted that it was the only ball bearing factory
[00:16:35] that Germans owned without ball bearings or war would have been over with in a matter
[00:16:40] of a few months.
[00:16:42] And this whole war went on and on and on because neither the British or the US could figure
[00:16:48] figure that out.
[00:16:49] And they should have bobbed it every day as what he said.
[00:16:52] And if they would, the war would have been over with, they would have had the surrender.
[00:16:56] But just the quirk in the whole situation.
[00:16:59] But my dad ended up being my first airborne person in our family.
[00:17:05] He involved in the military and we're involved in it.
[00:17:08] And Halo.
[00:17:09] And he taught himself.
[00:17:10] What else did you really find out?
[00:17:12] 10,000 feet when he jumped because his plane caught on fire.
[00:17:16] And they couldn't extinguish it.
[00:17:17] His engines were on fire.
[00:17:19] And he couldn't open the bomb bay doors.
[00:17:21] The hydraulic system had been shot up.
[00:17:23] He had a radio operator had a 20 millimeter right through his stomach and they had to put
[00:17:29] a parachute on him and just shoving him out the bottom door.
[00:17:34] And it was pretty hectic.
[00:17:37] The plane blew up in mid-air but those that could got out and made the free fall to the
[00:17:44] ground and pulled their shoots.
[00:17:48] And anyway, my dad was attacked by farmers with pitchforks and thank God the Kostapo and
[00:17:56] the SS were there to retrieve him and push the farmers back.
[00:18:02] He thought he was going to die right there in the hole.
[00:18:04] He sprained his ankle and he was kind of out of it.
[00:18:08] But anyway, they haul him off and strung him up and tried to make him talk and the usual
[00:18:14] serial number name and rank.
[00:18:17] And then they put him in Stahlog 1 which was an officer camp.
[00:18:23] It had 15,000 officers that had been shot down in that camp.
[00:18:28] All the enlisted men went to enlisted Stahlogs.
[00:18:31] And he served 13 months in the POW camp and then one morning they woke up and the Russians
[00:18:37] were there.
[00:18:39] The Russians liberated him and he was taken home and that's the story and he became well
[00:18:50] known for in our town or what he did.
[00:18:56] And I see how two brothers and my uncle Larmon was given a silver star of our patent, General
[00:19:01] Patton himself and friends pinned on his chest.
[00:19:05] And my uncle Eddie flew course errors.
[00:19:09] So the literal brothers were quite active.
[00:19:11] Okay, that's what they were.
[00:19:12] So I had a lot to follow.
[00:19:14] Yeah, he did.
[00:19:15] Jesus.
[00:19:16] So I ran there.
[00:19:17] I ran 13 missions.
[00:19:19] How ironic, right?
[00:19:21] That is.
[00:19:22] The ran 13 missions in one bright light.
[00:19:27] When your dad came home, what did he do?
[00:19:29] Did he get out of the army?
[00:19:30] Did he?
[00:19:31] Well, it was a Army Air Corps.
[00:19:32] And those days it wasn't the Air Force.
[00:19:35] And so he tried doing a little bartending and a little this, a little that.
[00:19:42] But he had been in construction.
[00:19:44] He actually was partnered up with his, my grandfather, my grandfather, my grandparents.
[00:19:49] And it was Laterno and Laterno construction company.
[00:19:52] And he filtered back into the construction and started building because they needed homes.
[00:19:59] Every all these soldiers coming home.
[00:20:02] And he built most of Burbank, Glendale at the time.
[00:20:05] And that did always did quite well and got into commercial buildings.
[00:20:11] And I sort of followed into those footsteps eventually after I got back from the service.
[00:20:18] After when you, when you enlisted, what did your dad feel about that?
[00:20:22] Well, he was not happy about it because he only gave him a day's notice.
[00:20:28] And I said, I'm going, I'm going into the service.
[00:20:32] I'm going to go to Vietnam and I'm going to be a green beret.
[00:20:35] But of course, when we, and I enlisted, they couldn't give me that.
[00:20:38] It was the only MLS that they could not give because it wasn't guaranteed.
[00:20:45] They could guarantee me anything else.
[00:20:46] They wanted me to be an officer because I had a degree.
[00:20:49] And I said, no, I'm not going to go to OCS.
[00:20:52] I want to go and be whatever it takes to be in special forces.
[00:20:57] As it turned out in the long run, whether you really want to hear the whole story, it's
[00:21:03] up to you.
[00:21:04] But I did end up being a green beret and going through all the processes and going through
[00:21:12] all the volunteer and being accepted and going into it.
[00:21:16] And I passed it.
[00:21:18] But during that time, I'm, you have to realize, I'm just an E2.
[00:21:23] I went in as an E1.
[00:21:24] I'm an E2.
[00:21:27] I'm the lowest ranking there is.
[00:21:30] And the MLS that I actually graduated with was a prized MLS that only a few would maintain.
[00:21:40] And that was heavy weapons.
[00:21:42] You can't be heavy weapons unless you're an E5 or a bov.
[00:21:47] But when my turn came up to go in front of the panel, my name being an L, that's made
[00:21:53] it documented.
[00:21:54] That's why I can say this.
[00:21:56] I was the first E2 ever to be accepted for weapons MLS training.
[00:22:04] Because I told them exactly what I had in mind.
[00:22:06] I said, come Monday morning, we've already gone through our phase one.
[00:22:09] And I've got my green beret.
[00:22:13] And I said, we need to go into MLS.
[00:22:16] And this is what Monday I can start.
[00:22:18] I said, when that MLS is done, it so happens phase two of graduation exercise.
[00:22:24] The one here go out in the field for two weeks in survival mode.
[00:22:28] I said, it will start immediately the following Monday.
[00:22:32] And I said, and I can be in Vietnam in the next three months.
[00:22:38] And they looked at me and said, you got it.
[00:22:42] So if you look at the orders, everything from L to Z, there was E2 E3 E4 was in my weapons
[00:22:50] class.
[00:22:52] Because I started something that couldn't be turned back, the tide had been turned.
[00:22:57] So what I got to Vietnam and my first assignment to FOB1, I'm now a PFC E3.
[00:23:06] And Pat Watkins, who has the DSC, the Stingray Service Cross from his time on August 23,
[00:23:17] when FOB4 was attacked, he told everybody, there must be one bad son of a bitch coming
[00:23:24] up here because he's a PFC, he's 11 Charlie S, SF.
[00:23:29] He's been busted down so far.
[00:23:31] He's got to be about a soldier working on the land.
[00:23:34] I don't know what I showed up and he looked at me, he goes, you are a PFC.
[00:23:41] This is how it's green, his grass and the new nut leaf.
[00:23:46] Just been trained hard.
[00:23:47] That's a good way to kick it off, man.
[00:23:51] Yeah, up on FOB1.
[00:23:52] Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:53] What is you going through the how long was the block of training that you, so you go through
[00:23:58] boot camp, how long was the SF training?
[00:24:00] Was that total?
[00:24:01] Well, I had to go through boot camp and that's where I had to volunteer to even be
[00:24:06] go through the acceptance of trying to be a sign to SF training.
[00:24:12] Then I went into advanced AIT, which is advanced infantry training, you had to go through
[00:24:18] that.
[00:24:19] And you also had to sign up for airborne training.
[00:24:22] So you had to go through all the basics and come out as an 11B, which was a small infantry
[00:24:30] arms.
[00:24:31] So anyway, then jumpschool.
[00:24:37] Yeah, jumpschool.
[00:24:38] But I went through the nomination part of it taking tests and physical tests and swimming,
[00:24:44] everything.
[00:24:45] And then interviews with the SF guys that were there that were in charge of selecting who
[00:24:51] was going to go.
[00:24:52] We started out with 350 men volunteering to go through this acceptance.
[00:24:57] They only took 35, and the end of the deal, I was one of the 35.
[00:25:01] I went on to airborne school the next day and went through jump school at Fort Benning,
[00:25:08] Georgia.
[00:25:09] They put us after our last jump, which was out of the old Boscar, 119s.
[00:25:15] And then they came in with the new jets.
[00:25:19] So I kind of proud of that.
[00:25:22] And we went on a bus that night all the way to Fort Bragg and got there in the early
[00:25:28] morning hours of Saturday, Saturday, a morning.
[00:25:32] And then Monday morning, we were information for our very first day of training and special
[00:25:38] forces.
[00:25:40] And that block there was two weeks out in survival phase one, then eight weeks of training
[00:25:49] after that, and then another two weeks of our graduation exercises where we're trained
[00:25:55] to overtake a government.
[00:25:56] That's what some of the forces does is actually overtake over governments and trained
[00:26:01] guerrillas to do so.
[00:26:03] And so then 30 days later, I was in Vietnam.
[00:26:08] Was the, I'm sure the focus must have been like a hundred percent on the, hey, you're going
[00:26:12] to Vietnam.
[00:26:13] We know you're going to Vietnam.
[00:26:14] This is what it's going to be like.
[00:26:15] This is what you're dealing with.
[00:26:16] And I graduated the Colonel, stood in front of us, the head of all of trading group and
[00:26:23] said, I don't want, I want to view to volunteer for fifth group, but Vietnam, we spent too
[00:26:28] much money on you.
[00:26:30] You're just going to go there and die.
[00:26:32] You stay here, pick any other group.
[00:26:34] I'm going to go down the line with the command sergeant major and he's going to tell
[00:26:38] me what group you want to go to.
[00:26:41] I had 23 graduates in my class, all but three volunteer Vietnam.
[00:26:50] He was not happy.
[00:26:52] What?
[00:26:53] I thought, yeah, you think like, why does why is someone during the Vietnam War going
[00:26:58] to join special forces or must they want to go to Vietnam?
[00:27:01] I mean, exactly.
[00:27:03] But in my mind, there was something wrong.
[00:27:06] It had been going on for years.
[00:27:09] And special forces had been there before it was a war, advising.
[00:27:16] And I just could not figure that out.
[00:27:19] And I said, I've got to go.
[00:27:20] I've got to see why is taking so long.
[00:27:23] It's taking longer than the World War II.
[00:27:25] Now it's five years.
[00:27:27] So why is it taking so long?
[00:27:30] So I said, I've got to get there and do something about it.
[00:27:33] That's how I, my attitude was.
[00:27:36] Friends, friends, come on, he's going to handle this thing.
[00:27:40] You see, oh, I see.
[00:27:42] Yeah.
[00:27:43] I'm going to go to the book here.
[00:27:45] This is going back to across the fence.
[00:27:46] And obviously, I told everyone to buy this because I've been reading chunks of it.
[00:27:51] And if you haven't bought it yet, just buy it right now.
[00:27:56] Written by John Streccharmire.
[00:27:57] So this is a section where he's writing about the Frenchman.
[00:28:01] So here we go.
[00:28:02] Within 24 hours, the turnover and store were on recon teams at F.O.B.1.
[00:28:05] And they immediately began training.
[00:28:07] Immediately reaction drills, weapons and explosive training, reviewing team S.O.P.'s, practicing
[00:28:12] helicopter extractions on strings and practicing wire taps.
[00:28:16] As October yielded to November, many of the members of the two recon teams began to build
[00:28:21] a rapport because they were doing so much training together on the food buy range.
[00:28:26] In addition, the turnover and store also quickly learned that the veteran indigenous
[00:28:30] personnel on their teams were highly skilled and fearless warriors.
[00:28:35] One night, while the turnover was recording a verbal message for his parents on his portable
[00:28:39] cassette player, LAP, the young point man on ST Virginia, came into his room and spoke
[00:28:45] into the recorder.
[00:28:46] I want to tell you parents of private literno, not to worry about him.
[00:28:50] We respect him and I'll keep an eye out for him.
[00:28:52] And don't worry.
[00:28:53] If in any of me shoots at him, I'll catch the bullets with my body.
[00:28:56] I'll protect your son.
[00:28:58] Thank you for sending you to him to Vietnam.
[00:29:00] He's a good soldier.
[00:29:01] That was, the kid was like 16 years old and he was our point man.
[00:29:10] Who knows how many kills he had.
[00:29:14] He was fearless.
[00:29:15] His parents had been both killed.
[00:29:17] He was an adoptee in the song.
[00:29:19] He was raised and lived in Foughton, sock.
[00:29:24] And he prided himself on trying to learn how to speak English because he wanted to be number
[00:29:31] one interpreter.
[00:29:36] Yeah, how do your parents like that?
[00:29:38] Did they ever get the tape?
[00:29:39] They got the tape.
[00:29:40] Yeah, I wish I knew where they were.
[00:29:43] They passed away and we couldn't find them.
[00:29:46] But yeah, it was amazing.
[00:29:50] And my dad knew right then and there I wasn't coming home.
[00:29:55] He knew I wasn't coming home.
[00:29:57] And he didn't, he had to try to keep my mother from figuring that out.
[00:30:02] But he knew that I would not be let come home because of the secret missions.
[00:30:08] He figured they would, the government would take me out before they would let me come home
[00:30:13] with what I knew.
[00:30:15] And lap was the kind of view that me, South Vietnamese ally that you never heard about,
[00:30:19] that we worked with every day and we're alive today thanks to them.
[00:30:23] We are alive, too.
[00:30:25] Oh yeah.
[00:30:26] We do.
[00:30:28] And a couple of canybee pilots.
[00:30:29] Yeah.
[00:30:30] It's true.
[00:30:31] Extractions.
[00:30:34] I have 13 string extractions.
[00:30:38] 13 for 13?
[00:30:39] Yes.
[00:30:41] Lucky 13 right now.
[00:30:44] So my dad said, he had 1,300 bombing hours, flight hours.
[00:30:50] But he also had 13 months in a POW.
[00:30:52] And it was a little shot down on Friday the 13th.
[00:30:56] April 13th.
[00:30:57] April 14th.
[00:30:59] No superstition here, huh?
[00:31:02] No.
[00:31:03] Yes.
[00:31:04] All right.
[00:31:06] Continuing on.
[00:31:08] A few days before Thanksgiving, ST Virginia's 10 children announced that an operation
[00:31:13] ordered come down from the S3.
[00:31:16] The team had a mission in the western section of the DMZ.
[00:31:21] And then I'm going to fast forward a little bit here to a guy named MacGovern.
[00:31:25] Quiet spoken, MacGovern gave him a riot half smile and said, we can't have that.
[00:31:30] You need to have a car 15 for your first mission.
[00:31:33] Follow me.
[00:31:34] The duo walked over the MacGovern's room.
[00:31:36] He opened his locker and pulled out a clean car 15 and handed it to the turno.
[00:31:40] This is a special car 15 he said.
[00:31:42] According to official army records, this car 15 was written off as a combat loss at
[00:31:47] FOB3 in case on, meaning as far as the army is concerned, this weapon does
[00:31:51] and exists.
[00:31:52] Some day after successful tour of duty and Vietnam, if you're so inclined, you can take
[00:31:56] this baby home with you because it doesn't exist.
[00:31:59] But as you can see, it does and it's a sweet weapon.
[00:32:03] It never failed me.
[00:32:04] And I know that since your weapons man, you'll take good care of it.
[00:32:08] Up to this point, let's turno and use an M16 for all of this training now with his car
[00:32:12] 15.
[00:32:13] He was ready to take on the world.
[00:32:16] True.
[00:32:17] It was a mean weapon.
[00:32:21] You see it in that picture.
[00:32:23] Yeah.
[00:32:24] The book has the picture of it.
[00:32:26] Yeah.
[00:32:28] And just rocking those 20 round mags.
[00:32:32] Every time I see those pictures of you guys with those 20 round mags, I just, I just, I
[00:32:35] just, I carry 25 of them.
[00:32:38] Stuffed into the canteen covers.
[00:32:41] We didn't carry food per se.
[00:32:45] All my food, I had zippers, sewed into my sleeves, up all my shoulders, left and right.
[00:32:54] And I would roll up, dry, dehydrated rice with electrical tape.
[00:33:00] Instead of one full ration, I took one full ration of food and cut it into five different
[00:33:06] days from maximum output.
[00:33:10] And we only ate once a day and we just put, we only had four courts of water because
[00:33:15] we didn't want to carry any more weight or anything else.
[00:33:18] But ammunition, we carried all ammunition grenades, M79 shells because we carried sawdough,
[00:33:25] M79s.
[00:33:27] And so that's all we carried was ammunition because when we go in, that's our supply.
[00:33:34] There's no resupply.
[00:33:36] It's all up to us.
[00:33:38] And many of the time we came back with nothing and had to resupply ourselves because we
[00:33:42] got down to the last bullet many times.
[00:33:48] 25, what was your load?
[00:33:50] Do you know how much you load out weight?
[00:33:52] Yes.
[00:33:53] My web gear with all the clips and everything in it and the water all that weighed 75 pounds.
[00:34:01] My Rutsack because I carried the radio, the PRC25, C4, Claymore, blasting caps, all everything
[00:34:12] that you needed and extra antenna, all that stuff inside was another 75 pounds.
[00:34:18] I weighed 135.
[00:34:19] I carried 150 pounds in the field.
[00:34:23] Yeah, that's crazy.
[00:34:27] That's crazy.
[00:34:30] But that was everybody's load.
[00:34:32] The endage are mercenaries.
[00:34:34] They carried probably 130 pounds.
[00:34:37] They probably didn't weigh more than 120, 115.
[00:34:42] Please.
[00:34:47] Continuant on.
[00:34:48] The opportunity arrived on Thanksgiving Day, 1968.
[00:34:53] After the weather cleared at the Qua Tri, Montesite, Quang Tri.
[00:34:58] Is that right?
[00:34:59] Quang Tri.
[00:35:00] Quang Tri, Montesite, S.D. Virginia, board of the King Bees and headed west to the target area
[00:35:04] with three American and four South Vietnamese team members.
[00:35:08] LAP, the 17-year-old hardcore point man who had run many missions.
[00:35:14] Home?
[00:35:15] Is that right?
[00:35:16] Yes.
[00:35:17] Home, the interpreter, Chau, the M79 operator, and Khan Cowboy Donn, who had fought valiantly
[00:35:23] besides Lynn and Black Jr with ST Alabama.
[00:35:28] As the second Secourse Keychurned Westward, 135 pound paterno went through a mental checklist
[00:35:33] of everything he was carrying.
[00:35:35] Montgomery's car 15, the PRC-25 FM radio, an extra battery for it, a saw off M79 grenade
[00:35:43] launcher, a 22 caliber high standard pistol with a silencer, ammunition for all weapons,
[00:35:49] hand grenades, gas masks, smoke grenades, a camera, and five special bags of dehydrated
[00:35:55] rice.
[00:35:56] He quickly realized he was carrying more than 100 pounds a gear.
[00:36:01] His inner thoughts were jarred when the door gun or test fired is 30 caliber machine gun
[00:36:05] without announcing his intention to anyone.
[00:36:08] Within a matter of seconds the King Bees cut power and began to tight downward spiral into
[00:36:12] the LZ where children's, the lieutenant, hone and lap were already waiting.
[00:36:18] The dizzying downward spiral ended as the pilot rev the engine and landed on the LZ.
[00:36:22] Chau exited the H34 with the Cerno and Cowboy following him into the woodbine connecting
[00:36:28] with the remaining members of the team.
[00:36:30] The King Bees lifted off and the LZ quickly cleared the target area and then there was
[00:36:36] absolute silence.
[00:36:38] So there's your first mission insert right there.
[00:36:41] My first answer, you talked about having a pressure time.
[00:36:49] I'm not knowing what to have for doing but we just dropped out of the sky nowhere.
[00:36:55] I mean it was adrenaline rush but you know I've been rope and tigers and rhinos and
[00:37:04] I've been riding bulls and Bronx and you know it just it just came to me you know but
[00:37:10] but it was I mean I'm here all my training all that time over a year and I'm here.
[00:37:18] This is it.
[00:37:20] This is the day.
[00:37:21] Now you question whether you're going to stand up to it because you know the enemies
[00:37:27] there.
[00:37:28] We didn't go there because it wasn't.
[00:37:30] We went there because there was a trail that needed to be followed and find out who
[00:37:34] we've earned in that trail.
[00:37:38] The door gunner test fire in that 30 cal just is a good wake up call the last bit.
[00:37:45] I'm sitting in the door this right over my head and not only that our kingbees were so
[00:37:52] stripped that they were so light compared to that regular H34 marineships they could out
[00:37:59] fly them in height and we could get up and over into those mountains and those high ranges
[00:38:04] and stuff and but they dripped oil and they had oil going down your neck all the time
[00:38:09] you know and then when you shot that 30 cal over the top of the hot brass it hit me
[00:38:14] in the neck I'm going all the gravity you know scared to crap out of the almost jumped
[00:38:20] out and I landed.
[00:38:26] Back to the book the audio contrast was startling as the turnover sense is adjusted
[00:38:31] the quiet he scope out the LZ which was in a deep valley between three junkled covered
[00:38:36] mountains gradually sounds of the jungle resurfaced birds chirping bugs humming after
[00:38:41] ten minutes children signal the churno to radio cubby with the team okay the insertion
[00:38:47] was successful no enemy activity evident.
[00:38:51] Children's move the team toward the first mountain movement was slowed by tall elephant
[00:38:55] grass and the only communication between the team members was hand signals the team moved
[00:39:00] in ten minute intervals stopping every ten minutes to listen to what was going on around
[00:39:03] it.
[00:39:05] After more than an hour the team finally emerged from the elephant grass as it continued
[00:39:08] to climb the first mountain.
[00:39:11] Bruno was on hyper alert his heart pounding hard whether sitting in a long rest period
[00:39:15] or moving up the mountain near the top of the mountain lap pointed out an observation
[00:39:20] platform that had been cut to the jungle high off the ground from that platform anyone
[00:39:25] could observe the LZ and the valley where the team was inserted as well as the other
[00:39:30] open areas that could be used for landing helicopters.
[00:39:33] Had a trail watcher been sitting on the platform when S.T. Virginia flew into the LZ if so
[00:39:39] where was he headed and when with the NVA hit the team.
[00:39:44] Late in the day the team finally reached the top of the mountain and found a wide will
[00:39:48] use trail.
[00:39:49] Leterna's first thought was how could anyone be out here in the middle of this in the
[00:39:54] middle of nowhere in this thick jungle.
[00:39:57] Regardless the team set up its night perimeter far above the trail where it could see
[00:40:01] anyone moving while remaining camouflage and out of sight.
[00:40:04] At last light, children's made the final commo check with Kavi as the team settled in for
[00:40:09] its first night in the jungle.
[00:40:11] It was an unadventful night.
[00:40:12] Children's did a midnight commo check with Hillsboro the night command aircraft that flew
[00:40:16] high above the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the DMZ and checked in with Kavi in the early morning.
[00:40:22] After the team ate breakfast and shifts, children's directed lap to move parallel
[00:40:26] to the trail with cowboy as the tail gunner in the line of margin and Leterna walking
[00:40:31] in front of cowboy.
[00:40:33] The team moved slowly in less than 10 minute intervals before taking breaks to listen to
[00:40:37] the surrounding sounds.
[00:40:38] They did this because moving next to the trail was fraught within her at risks.
[00:40:45] So there's your first night out in the jungle.
[00:40:48] Yeah.
[00:40:49] Relatively mellow.
[00:40:51] It was.
[00:40:52] But the mosquitoes were huge and we wore crevats around our heads.
[00:41:00] We actually use those fraternicates as more as we could pull them down over our ears
[00:41:06] and face and pick the mosquitoes out the next day because they were like cranes.
[00:41:13] And I mean, then you have to realize too, that's the first meal for an entire day with
[00:41:22] 100 degree weather and only one quart of water, a sip in the morning, a sip at noon,
[00:41:32] a little bit for the dehydrated rice at night and a sip to wash it down with and there's
[00:41:39] one quart gone for the day.
[00:41:42] It couldn't allow yourself to drink ever except on those intervals.
[00:41:47] And you didn't, did you guys plan to receply water?
[00:41:51] Did you guys look the maps and see rivers or anything?
[00:41:54] No.
[00:41:55] No.
[00:41:56] Nothing.
[00:41:57] So you plan to one quart a day?
[00:41:58] One quart a day.
[00:41:59] We think that is not healthy.
[00:42:03] I know you're a trainer but that's what we had to allow ourselves because of the weight,
[00:42:10] you know, a gallon of water is 7.5.
[00:42:13] So we had to judge our weight versus ammunition and that's what we trained ourselves to do.
[00:42:24] And not only that, we also took pills so that we wouldn't go to the bathroom either because
[00:42:31] they could smell you.
[00:42:32] I'm smelling American.
[00:42:33] That's why we had to eat rice and eat everything they ate.
[00:42:37] Otherwise they'd smell you.
[00:42:38] They might have to smell them or I can't see rations all that stuff, they could smell that for
[00:42:43] miles and they had trackers out there and you had to watch for those which I think you'll
[00:42:48] get to.
[00:42:50] But just that water ration is what you had.
[00:42:54] I trained myself for a year to do that.
[00:42:57] I did that all the time because we figured we'd be out in the sixth day.
[00:43:01] We'd come out in the sixth day so we'd have no water on the last day but we could survive
[00:43:05] the five days.
[00:43:07] Do you ever take any heat casualties guys that went down from lack of water?
[00:43:12] Actually never did.
[00:43:13] That's amazing.
[00:43:14] Never did.
[00:43:15] In the desert, we would even train in guys.
[00:43:17] We'd have guys go down like on a two-day operation.
[00:43:20] I'd have guys go down from lack of water.
[00:43:23] I've had guys go down in training in the state side but I never had any.
[00:43:29] Our guys were, we were, I'm just gonna say we were talking.
[00:43:32] Well, I jumped as little different than the desert too.
[00:43:35] Yeah.
[00:43:36] Because you're got shade.
[00:43:38] Yeah.
[00:43:39] Your triple canopy.
[00:43:40] So you actually are got shade over the top of you.
[00:43:44] You're not in open areas.
[00:43:45] You never go in an open area.
[00:43:46] You always follow the canopy but you have to move slowly because it's so darn thick.
[00:43:52] So it takes time and you have the tail gunners job is to cover the trail.
[00:43:58] Try to put.
[00:43:59] Everybody walks in everybody's footprint if you try.
[00:44:03] That's what you're supposed to do.
[00:44:05] Everybody has an area to cover.
[00:44:08] One guy turns to the right and the other guy turns to the left.
[00:44:11] The point man covers the 180 in front.
[00:44:14] The tail gunner cuts it to 180 in back and we train like that.
[00:44:18] We don't turn our backs and look at what the other guys doing.
[00:44:21] We only concentrate on our area and keep that area clean unless we have to move in that direction
[00:44:27] and we all turn that way and move.
[00:44:31] It's a precision movement that we practice.
[00:44:35] We train like that.
[00:44:37] Every time we were back in camp we train how to move.
[00:44:42] That's why arti Virginia and arti Idaho were survivalable teams besides having the luck
[00:44:50] of the gods with us.
[00:44:53] Sometimes you have to make your own luck a little bit through.
[00:44:56] We talked about that all the time.
[00:44:57] We would train all the time.
[00:44:59] We'd patrol around in the compound rehears, rehearse.
[00:45:02] We'd rehearse.
[00:45:03] We would rehearse in and out of the trucks.
[00:45:07] We'd have a big giant truck to transport troops.
[00:45:11] We do raids with those things.
[00:45:13] We'd practice getting out.
[00:45:16] If this takes you seven seconds, if you're in a firefight, that means seven seconds.
[00:45:21] It's all long time to be trying to get out of a truck that people are launching grenades
[00:45:25] at.
[00:45:26] We'd practice so we could do it quickly.
[00:45:28] Do it at night.
[00:45:29] Do it in the dark.
[00:45:30] We'd rehearse.
[00:45:31] Reverse order.
[00:45:32] That's what we do so that we'd be ready.
[00:45:35] We did the same thing.
[00:45:37] We actually working out of F.O.B.4.
[00:45:40] We had a island called Monkey Mountain and we go over there and we set up a course to walk
[00:45:48] from one side to the other.
[00:45:50] That's how we would train so that we could continually upgrade how we walked.
[00:45:58] You guys didn't talk to tell about this. You guys didn't bring mosquito nets in the field
[00:46:04] to wear over your head.
[00:46:05] Never.
[00:46:06] That would be what we had was what they called.
[00:46:09] Believe it or not, they had mosquito repellent that was US Army issue.
[00:46:15] But we also had Max Factor that did the makeup.
[00:46:19] Okay, what's that all about?
[00:46:22] The grease paint.
[00:46:23] Camouflage paint.
[00:46:24] Oh, camouflage paint.
[00:46:25] Yeah, yeah.
[00:46:26] Yeah.
[00:46:27] What we would do is take the repellent and mix it in our palms, squirt into our palms
[00:46:35] and put the grease paint in our palms and then put the paint over our face or cover
[00:46:40] our highlights so there's no reflections.
[00:46:43] Besides that, I used electrical tape and wrapped up my trousers at the bottom around my
[00:46:52] boots.
[00:46:53] So to keep the leeches out, but also that closed off.
[00:46:58] And then I also did that around the wrists of my arms.
[00:47:02] And then we wore, our car 15s were so hot that we had to wear gloves with a few fingers
[00:47:07] cut out of them.
[00:47:08] We looked like Michael Jackson.
[00:47:10] Way before his time.
[00:47:13] And was she a toy and about that grease paint idea like that?
[00:47:17] Do you didn't know that?
[00:47:18] No, no, no.
[00:47:19] See, I'll turn something to another.
[00:47:20] There you go.
[00:47:21] Yeah.
[00:47:22] So the mosquito, the repellent and the grease paint mixed together made a very gooey
[00:47:28] mess, but it would keep them off of your face.
[00:47:33] And when you were at night, when they were at their worst, you could pull that crevette
[00:47:36] down and then keep them out of your ears and they would stay off your face because they
[00:47:43] didn't want anything to do with it.
[00:47:44] And we always carry just a little extra with us to keep it going because being out there
[00:47:49] for five days.
[00:47:52] And most of the time we get shot out in the day two days, three days.
[00:47:58] But I had the luck of having several five and seven day missions.
[00:48:04] I was able to stay out a long time as our teams progressed further and deeper.
[00:48:09] They didn't think we'd go that far.
[00:48:12] But we went deeper than anybody could ever go.
[00:48:15] We got down to some of our missions and the layoffs with one minute on time with the kingby.
[00:48:22] There was no bring-in to sound once they dropped us on the ground.
[00:48:25] It was over with.
[00:48:26] They had to go back and get fuel.
[00:48:28] So no ten minute station time.
[00:48:30] There's just dropped you left.
[00:48:31] I had to.
[00:48:32] I had to.
[00:48:33] But they weren't expecting us that far.
[00:48:36] We could get right into them.
[00:48:38] Catch them off guard.
[00:48:39] All right, going back to the book as S.T. Virginia moved up the second mountain, cowboy
[00:48:48] and L'Eternaux began to hear women's voices off the trail.
[00:48:53] Cowboy orge, the turnote to go explore the sound.
[00:48:55] Let's turnaux shook his head.
[00:48:56] No, indicating they had to stay with the team.
[00:48:58] Cowboy who spoke broken English repeated the suggestion.
[00:49:02] Adding it could be a small NVA village.
[00:49:04] We could kill everyone and make the NVA bow-coo angry.
[00:49:09] We want to let them know we can hurt them the same way they attack our camps and villages.
[00:49:15] Let's turnaux again declined and gave him the handsignal to plant some M14 antipers and
[00:49:20] now mines on the trail behind them.
[00:49:23] In case the NVA soldiers were trailing them.
[00:49:25] As the team moved on, L'Eternaux planted a few more tow poppers and marked their locations
[00:49:29] on his map for after covering them expertly.
[00:49:33] He laid down some powdered mustard gas on the ground for any tracker dogs that might
[00:49:37] follow their trail.
[00:49:38] The mustard gas was left over from World War I.
[00:49:41] How it landed at Fouby remained a mystery to L'Eternaux.
[00:49:44] The good news it was that it still worked.
[00:49:47] The fact that it was confirmed during the next break when the team heard a dog howling
[00:49:52] anguish after snorting some of the old mustard gas.
[00:49:57] Maybe it didn't work that well because a few minutes later, the dog was back on the
[00:50:02] team's trail.
[00:50:03] Cowboy told the turnote to use his pistol to kill the dog.
[00:50:06] The turnote's mind flashback to special forces training group were instructors had said
[00:50:10] the same thing.
[00:50:11] The turnote pulled out the 22 quietly moved back down the trail, took off his rucksack and moved
[00:50:17] a few more feet before lying down on the ground facing the trail.
[00:50:21] The dog never realized the turnote was there.
[00:50:24] When the dog was about 10 feet away, the turnote fired one shot.
[00:50:28] It struck the dog between the eyes killing him instantly.
[00:50:31] The canine dropped in his tracks out of the turnote's view.
[00:50:35] On a wear of what had happened, the dog's hand, but removed up the trail.
[00:50:38] He got near the dead dog.
[00:50:40] When he got near the dead dog, he stepped on a tow-popper.
[00:50:42] The turnote and Cowboy heard the NVA screaming in pain and anguish.
[00:50:46] They left him behind figuring he would die shortly.
[00:50:49] The team moved further up the mountain with the turnote and Cowboy providing rear security.
[00:50:53] Again, the turnote and Cowboy heard women's voices below them.
[00:50:56] Again, Cowboy urged the turnote to go downhill in attacking the encampment and again,
[00:51:01] the turnote declined.
[00:51:04] That's so these guys are on you.
[00:51:06] Obviously at this point, when you guys are still heading up the mountain because you think
[00:51:13] you can get away from them and what is your point?
[00:51:17] What is your, what are you trying to accomplish at this point?
[00:51:20] At this point, we're trying to get away from the tracker.
[00:51:22] I've managed to take care of the tractor, but we don't know how many people are there.
[00:51:28] We keep hearing the voices of women's voices below us.
[00:51:33] Cowboy keeps wanting me to go down there with him, trying to confuse the whole situation
[00:51:37] because he wants to kill him because he says, it'll make him mad and they'll come after
[00:51:40] us and we can really get into it.
[00:51:43] Well, Cowboy just got off a mission on October 5th which is in the book where they decimated
[00:51:49] a 10,000 man division of all things.
[00:51:54] Eight and a half hours, they took down 85% of them with an eight-man team.
[00:52:00] Incredible.
[00:52:01] But it's true.
[00:52:02] They stack bodies up for sandbags.
[00:52:07] That's how many they were killing so fast.
[00:52:10] But he was insistent, but I totally can't do that because I can't split the team.
[00:52:15] I have to do it my one-zero says.
[00:52:18] I'm just a one-two.
[00:52:20] I'm low man on the tonal pole here, you know?
[00:52:23] There's even a lieutenant with us, but he's the one-one.
[00:52:27] He's actually below my sergeant because there's no rank in Song.
[00:52:32] That was one of the things that always took me back was there was no rank in Song.
[00:52:38] We didn't carry rank, we didn't wear rank.
[00:52:40] It was whoever was there, the longest that lived the longest was the 10th man.
[00:52:45] He's the one-zero.
[00:52:46] Whoever lived the longest was the one-zero.
[00:52:49] That's how it went down.
[00:52:51] That one-zero was killed, the one-one took over.
[00:52:55] You should take over the team from there on until he was killed.
[00:52:59] In the next one, the one-two would take over.
[00:53:02] He would cause he'd stepped up to the one-one position.
[00:53:05] That's how we progressed with our teams because everybody was killed as we went along.
[00:53:13] We were just lucky.
[00:53:15] But I did lose my one-zero, Guntherwald.
[00:53:18] And of course, children's went home and he was lost to an automobile accident.
[00:53:26] And so it's just, you know, but that's how it progressed.
[00:53:30] At this point, this is your first mission.
[00:53:33] It's like, I'm trying to do everything right.
[00:53:38] Yeah, and you're getting the full benefit.
[00:53:39] Like your first mission, you got the dog tracking you, you got the NVA encampment down below,
[00:53:45] you got the women's voices, you got the tracker coming up behind the dog.
[00:53:48] I mean, he's hitting the toe popper, this is like, and we know everything you were
[00:53:53] hoping for, here it is, here it is.
[00:53:57] And we know the NVA's there, because the jungle is there.
[00:54:00] Because the families are there.
[00:54:02] So we know, of course we're thinking too, maybe they're the tracker's families too, you know,
[00:54:08] because they would hire trackers, they tell the trackers you either track for us will kill
[00:54:12] you.
[00:54:13] And so they have no choices, because they're just, and it ended out there, living, trying
[00:54:18] to survive.
[00:54:20] So you're trying to get up the mountain, get away from the tracker.
[00:54:23] Was it possible to shake the trackers?
[00:54:24] Was it possible to like actually lose them?
[00:54:28] Sometimes.
[00:54:29] Sometimes.
[00:54:30] Or did you feel like once the trackers were on you, you were pretty much heading to your
[00:54:34] extract.
[00:54:35] Exactly.
[00:54:36] Exactly, because they were communicating in some way a fashion and let the NVA know,
[00:54:42] we fought regular Jews.
[00:54:43] We never fought the Viet Cong that they called the VC.
[00:54:47] We actually fought uniformed NVA and the regular Army that North Vietnamese had.
[00:54:57] But we needed to get off of the keep off the trail and keep going, because we needed
[00:55:02] to find out where this trail was going.
[00:55:04] This was our mission to try to figure out where this trail went.
[00:55:08] We did accomplish it in the end because I went on a second mission, which is later in
[00:55:14] the book.
[00:55:16] And I found actually went into North Vietnam and was inserted on the Christmas of 68 in
[00:55:24] North Vietnam on the same trail, but higher up.
[00:55:28] And that's a whole different story there.
[00:55:31] But we're going back to this story.
[00:55:37] Here we go.
[00:55:38] By the time the Terno completed his last radio called a cubby, the team was enveloped
[00:55:42] and darkness and team members began to set up a perimeter for the night.
[00:55:46] On broke without any enemy activity.
[00:55:48] When Covey flew over the team in the morning, he warned children that a team was being
[00:55:51] extrapted, extracted under heavy fire and another was being inserted into a top priority
[00:55:56] target.
[00:55:57] Sit tight was the last instruction from Covey.
[00:56:00] S.T. Virginia didn't move from its quiet spot alongside the mountain.
[00:56:04] During lunch hour, the member each member ate in shifts and L'Acherno went out to inspect
[00:56:08] the claim more minds.
[00:56:09] The team had deployed to ensure the NVA hadn't turned the deadly explosive devices around
[00:56:16] to face toward them.
[00:56:17] When he completed his inspection, L'Acherno found a log to sit behind.
[00:56:21] The NVA would actually do that.
[00:56:23] They'd crawl up to your perimeter and turn your claim to him.
[00:56:25] Triple canopy.
[00:56:26] You could pass them up within two feet of you.
[00:56:30] They could be two feet away from you.
[00:56:31] You wouldn't know it.
[00:56:32] That's how thick the jungle is.
[00:56:35] And you would see a foot.
[00:56:38] You'd say, come back.
[00:56:40] You might see a foot and you shoot the foot.
[00:56:42] If long as you shot the foot, you know he was down.
[00:56:45] He wouldn't go to supply dead in the hospitals.
[00:56:48] You know, you could count that as a kill.
[00:56:51] But you couldn't see.
[00:56:54] You just had to mow down the jungle.
[00:56:56] Open it up.
[00:56:57] Guess where they are at.
[00:56:59] The green trace is coming out.
[00:57:02] Give you a clue.
[00:57:03] Yeah.
[00:57:04] Yeah, it's just shocking to me that they would crawl up and turn around your claim more minds
[00:57:11] so that when you attack you, then you clock off your claim orders and boom, you're actually
[00:57:15] claim warning yourself.
[00:57:16] Later on, the CIA gave us a piece of equipment that I carried that had a little thread
[00:57:25] out of a box.
[00:57:27] You could wrap that whole thread around your encampment where you were A.O.A. is right at the
[00:57:33] moment and put it in your ear.
[00:57:38] If that thread was broke, it would sound a buzzing noise in your ear and you knew somebody
[00:57:45] came through.
[00:57:46] It could have been an animal but you knew somebody came through your perimeter and you
[00:57:49] just had to put it in front of all your claim orders.
[00:57:52] Then to stop it, you just let a batch and burnt it and you used the next day, the next
[00:57:59] type.
[00:58:00] But once I had that, my primators were always covered after that.
[00:58:08] Go back to the book later in the afternoon, children singled the team to pull in their
[00:58:12] claim or minds prepared to move out.
[00:58:14] Due to the combined weight of his rucksack and web gear, the terminal moved to his knees
[00:58:19] and slung his rucksack on his back.
[00:58:22] Just as it landed on his back, A.K. 47's open fire.
[00:58:27] Returnal was slammed to the ground, face first.
[00:58:29] The impact so severe he thought he had broken his nose, startled the terminal jumped up
[00:58:33] with his car 15 pointing toward the A.K. 47 gunfire that was near the front of the team.
[00:58:38] Surprised that there was no NVA near him, the terminal removed the rucksack to discover
[00:58:43] that 4 A.K. 47 rounds had ripped through the 23-pound PRC-25.
[00:58:50] He reached into an especially tailored pocket on his fatigue shirt, which was sewn with
[00:58:55] vertical zippers, one on the left side of the shirt and one on the right side between
[00:59:00] the top and bottom of the pockets of the shirt.
[00:59:02] He pulled out his URC-10 emergency radio and broadcast a general alert for any aircraft
[00:59:09] in the area.
[00:59:10] S.T. Virginia was declaring a Prairie Fire Emergency.
[00:59:15] This is your first fire from the enemy.
[00:59:18] He could shop in the radio for 4 rounds in the radio, knock you down.
[00:59:21] Yeah, I didn't know nothing.
[00:59:24] All I knew in my butt nose was busted.
[00:59:26] I thought it was anyway.
[00:59:29] Then I'm having to think what am I supposed to do and I was my first reaction.
[00:59:35] Meanwhile, my one zero-chilterist was mad as hell at me because he says, bring me that
[00:59:39] damn radio.
[00:59:40] He said, that hurt Tinnon could do crap for us.
[00:59:44] He said, I said, any work and I think it's shot up and I said, don't work.
[00:59:48] There's no signal.
[00:59:50] So I brought it to him.
[00:59:52] Well, needless to say, I was standing up what I brought it to him and he's laying on the ground
[00:59:59] and he grabs me and he says, can't you just get down?
[01:00:01] Well, the AK-40 set of rounds are hitting all over us.
[01:00:04] We're in the middle of a firefight.
[01:00:06] Our work returned in fire.
[01:00:08] Me, I'm still standing there in shock and he pulls me to the ground, saves my life.
[01:00:14] And he says, he looks at the radio real quick and he goes, the antenna has been shot off.
[01:00:20] That was the fifth round that went through it.
[01:00:22] A breach between my Rutsack and my web gear and pulled out my spare antenna and screwed
[01:00:30] it on and we had Kamo.
[01:00:31] That made you a good to go.
[01:00:33] That's fair condition.
[01:00:36] And we were just then Pat Watkins's flying over our company writer and he says, what was
[01:00:47] going on and he could see it from where his location was in the air.
[01:00:51] And he could see we were taking massive amounts of fire and he called for an extraction
[01:00:57] from Kwong Tree and they brought the Kingby's in the Gittos.
[01:01:01] We had to, you know, you can read the...
[01:01:03] Yeah, yeah, the once he got that, once he got the radio back for you to start working,
[01:01:09] children screams into the radio, we need an ex-filled now, I'm declaring Perry Fire Emergency
[01:01:13] is anyone out there.
[01:01:14] Within a second or two, there was a response, calm down, children's, I realized you're
[01:01:18] under fire set a COVID writer.
[01:01:21] Just at that moment, several AK47s opened up from the woodline near the log where LaTorno
[01:01:25] had been unsehermoneously slammed onto his face, lap and cowboy returned fire.
[01:01:30] Kovie writer continued, we heard your team declare a Prairie Fire Emergency on the
[01:01:34] Guard frequency and I've rallied the cavalry.
[01:01:37] What's your mark?
[01:01:38] Do you have an LZ inside?
[01:01:39] Before children set a word in the radio, he turned to LaTorno and said, see, it works.
[01:01:44] Suppose we have left it for the NVA.
[01:01:46] Never.
[01:01:47] I say never, ever, leave a radio behind.
[01:01:50] Because if to emphasize that point, the NVA opened fire again as a lap took, as that began
[01:01:55] looking for an LZ while moving the team down the hill away from the most concentrated
[01:01:58] NVA gunfire.
[01:02:00] Cutting LaTorno no slack, children's road, tell Kovie will give him a fix in five minutes.
[01:02:05] We'll probably need strings to get out of here.
[01:02:06] I doubt we can make it into the valley where a king be, king be, can pick us up.
[01:02:11] Without missing a beat, LaTorno who for the first time felt four burning stings in his
[01:02:15] back, repeated those words to Kovie while he and Kovie began providing cover fire as the
[01:02:22] tail element of the team.
[01:02:24] Then, LaTorno nodded to Kovie who ignited several clay more mines at the team and set
[01:02:28] out on his perimeter.
[01:02:29] Those mines only sold the NVA for a few seconds.
[01:02:33] Before the dust and debris from the blast settled, the NVA soldiers were moving through
[01:02:37] it toward Kovie and LaTorno.
[01:02:39] Without saying a word, the two men took turns firing at the enemy while moving down
[01:02:43] the hill.
[01:02:44] They were waiting around each other.
[01:02:46] Cowboy would fire several bursts from his car 15 and then reload.
[01:02:49] As he reloaded, LaTorno would open fire, providing cover, covering fire for the team.
[01:02:55] The classic cover and move scenario.
[01:02:57] Yes.
[01:02:58] Just the way we drill it.
[01:02:59] That's right.
[01:03:00] Oh yeah.
[01:03:01] And it just came natural.
[01:03:05] Believe it or not, it just came natural.
[01:03:08] What part of it just came natural?
[01:03:10] Just load and fire.
[01:03:11] Load and fire.
[01:03:12] And move, load and fire, move, load and fire.
[01:03:16] We had to get the team came together.
[01:03:20] Our fire power, you can only imagine what a full team of fire power with all car 15s and
[01:03:27] M79s and clay more mines going off.
[01:03:30] They knew they had a battle.
[01:03:32] But they were overpowering us.
[01:03:34] Yeah.
[01:03:35] I talked about this with tilt as well, like the determination of them where you think of
[01:03:41] the insurgents, insurgent army, you know, their rule is like, hey, we don't need to fight.
[01:03:46] We don't need to win this fire fight.
[01:03:48] We don't need to win this battle because we're going to be here for a long time.
[01:03:50] We can wait.
[01:03:51] We will fight when we want to fight.
[01:03:53] And it's the way that they attacked you guys and LaT took so many losses but continued
[01:03:57] to press and continue to press like their fighting spirit was high.
[01:04:01] Well, let me give you a backdrop on that.
[01:04:06] Maybe tilt hasn't even got to that.
[01:04:09] Most of the wars over with in history starts evolving in the books and people start asking
[01:04:15] questions.
[01:04:16] We find out that they've got 40,000 troops hunting us down, hunting sagers down.
[01:04:23] And there's a huge bounty on us.
[01:04:26] We heard 100,000, $200,000 to kill an American on a song team.
[01:04:32] And they had a kill an American award.
[01:04:35] They killed somebody.
[01:04:36] They got the award and the bonus and they were instant heroes and Hanoi forever.
[01:04:42] It meant everything to them to kill us.
[01:04:45] And they put 40,000 troops designated that we had tied up because they wanted to kill
[01:04:53] us because we did so much damage to go ahead.
[01:04:58] Yeah.
[01:05:01] Be kind of damaged during one short long cowboy again planned to claim more mine in the
[01:05:06] direction of the advancing NVA in Laterno dug out another claim or from his rucksack in place
[01:05:10] to 10 second delay fusing it.
[01:05:12] When the NVA again advanced cowboy ignited his clayborn mind, claim more mind.
[01:05:17] When the NVA moved again toward the team, Laterno ignited his fusing ran down the hill with
[01:05:22] cowboy to catch up to their team before they reach the team.
[01:05:26] To be 40 anti-personnel rockets slammed into the trees above them, showering them with
[01:05:30] a trap.
[01:05:31] A few more exploded as Laterno and cowboy moved down the hill.
[01:05:36] The 10 second, then the 10 second fusing ignited another claim more.
[01:05:40] It brought precious time for the gun and run team of Laterno and cowboy to cover ground
[01:05:45] and catch up with a remainder of ST Virginia.
[01:05:49] What you guys drill, pull and out those claymores with the 10 second fusing, hook them up
[01:05:53] and set them up.
[01:05:54] I mean, it takes like a little bit of time to do that.
[01:05:57] Did you guys have a pre-wrigged where you could just stick them in the ground?
[01:06:00] How did you guys do that?
[01:06:02] We did.
[01:06:03] We had a pre-wrigged.
[01:06:06] Everybody says, we can't have your blasting caps with you.
[01:06:08] You're just, they've hit the blast casters.
[01:06:10] You're going to blow you to smithereens.
[01:06:12] Yeah, but those precious seconds would mean.
[01:06:14] I had mine in my red sack pre-wrigged.
[01:06:18] There you go.
[01:06:19] Yeah, and with us with Baba had his pre-cut, so we had to fire second, 10 second, and
[01:06:23] then longer.
[01:06:24] And then you had to actually clock her itself with the full standard cord that you could blow
[01:06:29] it, it would give you more distance.
[01:06:30] How long was that cord?
[01:06:31] 50 feet.
[01:06:32] 50 feet.
[01:06:33] So you could put this claymore down on the tree and pull back and then you hit it,
[01:06:37] the handheld.
[01:06:38] Yeah.
[01:06:39] The portalized we did, and that one mission we were using the five seconds to
[01:06:42] Bubba put in.
[01:06:43] Yeah.
[01:06:44] But they were pre-cut and had them ready to go.
[01:06:45] So you just put the fusing pull it and stick it in the ground.
[01:06:48] Yeah, the little stakes, the standard, the black for things.
[01:06:51] Yeah, boom, jamming in the ground and you're good.
[01:06:54] Yeah.
[01:06:55] So you're setting those things up in like 10 seconds.
[01:06:56] Of course you always had to make sure they were pulling it the right way.
[01:06:59] That's indeed.
[01:07:01] Point towards the enemy.
[01:07:02] Front towards enemy.
[01:07:03] Yeah.
[01:07:05] Weed the back.
[01:07:09] Continue on us.
[01:07:10] She'll just call the an air strikes.
[01:07:11] Let's turn over, flagged it on how surreal this firefight had been.
[01:07:14] It wasn't like anything he'd witnessed on television or in any movie.
[01:07:18] Instead of men charging each other and killing each other in plain sight,
[01:07:21] here in triple canopy jungle, he observed green tracers from AK 47's first
[01:07:26] or at the most an enemy hand or foot.
[01:07:28] And somehow the NVA found firing lanes where they could launch shoulder held
[01:07:33] B40 anti-personnel rockets that slammed above and around them as they
[01:07:37] raised down the hill for their lives.
[01:07:40] Again, the voices of the special forces and structures echoed in his mind.
[01:07:44] They had told the young aspiring green berets at Fort Bragg that the NVA was a
[01:07:49] tough resilient opponent.
[01:07:51] Many had fought against the Japanese during World War II and against the French
[01:07:55] driving them from Vietnam in 1954 after the Battle of Dan B. N.Q. in North Vietnam.
[01:08:01] The sounds of King Bees in the distance and the crashing thunder of B40 rocket
[01:08:05] slamming into trees above his head shook L'Aterno out of his moment of introspection
[01:08:09] and turned his undivided attention to a crescendo of AK 47 fire from the enemy.
[01:08:14] S.T. Virginia responded with volley after volley of full and semi-automatic gunfire
[01:08:19] while the Terno and Chau fired several M79 rounds toward the dense section of the jungle where the AK 47
[01:08:26] gunfire was emanating.
[01:08:30] Through the gunfire someone popped a smoke grenade which brought the King Bees closer to
[01:08:33] our T. Virginia's location in the jungle.
[01:08:36] Over the Dan of Gunfire, children's encalboy told everyone to put their Swiss seats on
[01:08:40] and prepare for an extraction.
[01:08:42] In short order, a King Bees was hovering over S.T. Virginia more than 125 feet above the
[01:08:47] jungle floor.
[01:08:48] L'Aterno cowboy Chau in home hulked their de-rings into the old Maguire rigged that hung
[01:08:54] from the end of the ropes and shortly were being lifted out of the jungle.
[01:09:00] As the quartet of recon men was being lifted into the air, the NV only envied at least
[01:09:05] another salvo of AK 47 gunfire and several B40 rockets.
[01:09:10] Shrapnel from the rockets hit them with varying degrees of size and velocity all of
[01:09:15] them were wounded.
[01:09:17] During those explosions that L'Aterno realized as Car 15 and somehow caught in a rope above
[01:09:21] him, just far enough a way that he couldn't reach it.
[01:09:24] He pulled out his M79 and launched a 40 millimeter grenade toward the NVA positions.
[01:09:28] Now all he could see of the enemy were hundreds of muzzle blasts from AK 47's and green
[01:09:34] tracers.
[01:09:36] Green tracer rounds eerily climbing toward the quartet of S.T. Virginia men.
[01:09:41] Before he could reload his M79, the King Bees began to move away from the target area,
[01:09:46] surprising him because the men had not yet cleared the jungle.
[01:09:49] Instead of continuing to climb out of the target, moving straight up until the men
[01:09:53] cleared the jungle's triple canopy of trees and vegetation, the King Bees was moving away
[01:09:57] from the target area due to heavy enemy ground fire.
[01:10:00] In recent months at least two King Bees were shot down during string extractions from
[01:10:04] hot targets, but these facts were unknown to L'Aterno at the time.
[01:10:08] Shrapnel from the B40 rockets exploded around S.T. Virginia men, stinging them with
[01:10:13] bits of hot metal, further spooking the King Bees crew.
[01:10:16] L'Aterno began to violently collide with tall jungle trees, feeling like a metal ball
[01:10:21] in a pinball machine.
[01:10:23] L'Aterno caroomed off several more trees as at least one more B40 exploded in the
[01:10:29] treetops, again shouring him with trappin'al.
[01:10:32] A tree branch hit L'Aterno from the side and turned him upside down in his rope Swiss
[01:10:36] seat.
[01:10:37] As the rope began to slip down from his hips, L'Aterno remembered spider telling him how
[01:10:42] one zero from another team had recently been shot out of his Swiss seat during a rope extraction.
[01:10:47] Another tree struck L'Aterno before he was able to muster a surge of strength and momentum
[01:10:52] to reach up and grab the rope above him as his body finally cleared the treetop.
[01:10:58] The only thing between him and certain death below on the jungle floor 200 feet down
[01:11:03] was the single piece of rope tied into the King Bees.
[01:11:11] Just another day in salt.
[01:11:14] Just another day in salt, huh?
[01:11:16] And I had 13 of those like that.
[01:11:23] How did you guys when you're getting hit with all that and you're shooting back hanging
[01:11:30] from a string?
[01:11:31] I mean, that's just like completely insane that no one died on that rope on that extraction.
[01:11:38] And you're also spinning.
[01:11:42] Just the rotation of the mountain top, you get knocked around.
[01:11:44] The strings just spinning and the air is flowing past you and you're having, you know,
[01:11:49] you're just trying everything you do to stick with it.
[01:11:54] But that was my first mission.
[01:11:57] Later on, I've finally realized that I didn't have an extra deering on my webgare to strap
[01:12:06] in.
[01:12:07] I was falling over backwards.
[01:12:09] I did that twice.
[01:12:11] Then I finally found out from my good buddy here until I was doing it wrong.
[01:12:19] Because after my second mission, children said left, but he had not given me that information
[01:12:27] out of all of our training.
[01:12:29] Had not thought about it.
[01:12:31] He was extracted on another jumper.
[01:12:38] It's unbelievable.
[01:12:41] When I read these things, I just can't.
[01:12:44] It's just hard to even fathom the mayhem when you're talking about just all these B40 rockets,
[01:12:50] which is basically like an RPG.
[01:12:52] Exactly.
[01:12:53] An older RPG.
[01:12:57] It's crazy.
[01:12:59] So I'm back to the book with one final urgent poll that Turner was able to move himself
[01:13:03] upright in the Swiss seat as the king be continued to climb higher into the sky.
[01:13:07] Distancing itself from the fear of exploding B40 and AK-47 gunfire while gaining air
[01:13:12] speed.
[01:13:13] As the king be ascended, the heavily sweating, L'Ecturnal clung to the rope as another
[01:13:17] sensation overwhelmed his body, chattering teeth.
[01:13:22] Within a matter of minutes, the king be had climbed to an altitude of more than 5,000 feet
[01:13:26] with the air is thinner and much colder than on the jungle floor.
[01:13:30] So much colder that LaTernos body began shaking violently from the dipping temperatures
[01:13:35] as the king be continued to climb into the safety of higher altitude.
[01:13:39] In ordinary circumstances, few people would ever think about freezing to death over Southeast
[01:13:43] Asia, but for the men in CNC was just another hurdle they had to clear.
[01:13:48] As the king be headed east, the final looked down on the spots in the jungle that appeared
[01:13:51] to be good LZs thinking, why don't you lay in there?
[01:13:55] What ST Virginia's collective agony continued until the king be finally landed in South Vietnam.
[01:14:00] By that time, every member of ST Virginia had their circulation cut off to their legs.
[01:14:05] They couldn't stand or walk.
[01:14:07] All they could do is unhook from their Swiss seat, grab their stuff, and try and get the circulation
[01:14:11] going again in their legs while the door gunner helped them to get back to the king be.
[01:14:17] When the team returned to Quang Tree, Quang Tree.
[01:14:22] The launch site before heading south to Foo Bay, children's pulled the Ternos side and told
[01:14:27] them, take good care of that radio.
[01:14:29] You're going to take it on the next mission, whether you like it or not.
[01:14:32] We're going to make you bring this shot up radio?
[01:14:34] Yeah, we did.
[01:14:36] We did.
[01:14:37] It saved his life till it's life in the end.
[01:14:40] How's that?
[01:14:41] That Christmas day mission?
[01:14:42] Okay, we had the Intel Report.
[01:14:44] Was that the same radio?
[01:14:45] You brought a shot up radio in the field?
[01:14:47] He did.
[01:14:48] Not me.
[01:14:49] I got a hundred miles skip out of it.
[01:14:53] That's ridiculous.
[01:14:57] As darkness fell, the king be lifted off from Quang Tree for Foo Bay.
[01:15:02] When the old warboards landed on FoB1 landing zone, S.T. Virginia was greeted by one man,
[01:15:09] former S.T. Virginia, 10 John McGovern.
[01:15:13] He greeted each of the team members as they exited the kingbees, asking each one, are
[01:15:17] you okay?
[01:15:18] After the kingbees departed, bathing them in sand, dust, and LZ debris kicked up by the prop
[01:15:25] wash, McGovern asked children, did you hear about beta?
[01:15:29] A tall.
[01:15:30] Children's Shirk has had no what happened.
[01:15:33] November 13th, we lost a kingbee with seven SF troops on it.
[01:15:37] We lost the entire kingbee crew.
[01:15:39] They were a bunch of strap hangers who volunteered to pull an elder son mission on the trail,
[01:15:44] but an anti-aircraft round hit the kingbee and route to the target.
[01:15:48] They exploded in midair, they never had a chance.
[01:15:52] In silence, McGovern drove the tired dirty and hungry team back to the team room.
[01:15:57] As the Viet to Meese team members climbed off the truck, McGovern turned to L'Aternal
[01:16:00] and said, you know what was really scary about that mission?
[01:16:04] The day before they got shot down, me, limb black, Rick Howard, John Peters, Tim Schaff,
[01:16:09] and a few others had volunteered and were actually on the kingbees suited up ready to go,
[01:16:15] only to be canceled last minute by Bad Whiskey Xray, which is a weather in the AO that was
[01:16:21] too close for comfort.
[01:16:23] After a long pause, pause, he asked the Terno, how did it go out there?
[01:16:27] I heard you were good on the radio, you didn't get rattled, you ain't a cheery no more,
[01:16:32] you've joined a small unique club of SF men, CNC recon men who went across the fence.
[01:16:39] It was nothing like I ever could have imagined the Terno responded, looking toward the
[01:16:44] Viet to Meese team members he added, let me get some child for the endage, you will
[01:16:48] write about them, they have ice in their veins, I'm beat, I'll see you in the morning.
[01:16:54] L'Aternal walked through the white sand to the mess hall, picked up some fresh sandwiches
[01:16:58] and cold sodas for the team.
[01:17:00] After lingering with the Viet to Meese team members, L'Aternal returned to his room, finally
[01:17:04] taking off his rucksack and web gear.
[01:17:06] As he started to undress, L'Aternal became aware of pain and his back, where from where
[01:17:12] the 4 AK-47 rounds had slammed him face first into the ground, first he peeled off his jungle
[01:17:17] fatigue shirt and was amazed to find four bullet holes in it.
[01:17:21] Then he took off his undershirt, dido, four bullet holes run it.
[01:17:25] L'Aternal picked up his rucksack, four bullet holes run it, both in the front and the back.
[01:17:31] Something he hadn't realized during the firefight, then he looked in the mirror and saw
[01:17:35] four large welts and broken skin up his spine where the AK-47 rounds had hit his body
[01:17:41] after punching through his rucksack and the PRC-25.
[01:17:45] Only then dido, L'Aternal began to comprehend just how lucky he had been hours earlier
[01:17:50] in the day when the NVA shot him in the back four times.
[01:17:55] L'Aternal began to cut away the black electrical tape around his socks which he pulled
[01:18:00] up over his pant legs to keep about leeches and bugs.
[01:18:03] Then he made a startling discovery.
[01:18:05] When he pulled his pant leg from the sock and pulled off his right boot, four AK-47 bullets
[01:18:10] fell on the ground.
[01:18:12] In the heat of the battle, the Frenchman didn't realize that after he was shot in the
[01:18:16] back the four 7.62 millimeter NVA rounds had fallen through his pants and his socks into
[01:18:25] his right boot.
[01:18:26] He stood in utter amazement staring at the four rounds on the floor before picking them
[01:18:30] up and throwing them in the sand outside his room.
[01:18:34] Exhausted, L'Aternal walked over to the shower room, the water stung, the wounds in his
[01:18:39] back, amazingly the four bullets had enough energy to penetrate his skin, wounding him, but
[01:18:45] not enough to get under his skin.
[01:18:48] Two tired to treat the four bullet wounds in his back and trap the wounds in his arm.
[01:18:52] L'Aternal finished his shower and went to bed.
[01:19:00] So that was mission number one.
[01:19:05] There's a saying that we came to realize later on that everybody just looked at you and
[01:19:14] say, well that's just another day and so on.
[01:19:19] My first mission, I had to run 12 more before it was done.
[01:19:25] And when you got done with it, I mean, you talked to the other guys and they were telling
[01:19:29] you, hey, yeah, that's how it is.
[01:19:31] Yes, that's how it is. He couldn't go into the bar and go, yeah, this is what I did.
[01:19:37] He just said, yeah, I got back.
[01:19:40] Well, and don't forget the footnote on that.
[01:19:42] Could like about what four or five days later, the medics?
[01:19:46] Yeah, tongue-butt the wounds from the strapple.
[01:19:49] Of course, I had to ignore everything because otherwise they don't think I was, you know,
[01:19:56] just a wipper.
[01:19:58] So I just had to suck it up, not saying nothing.
[01:20:04] But all of a sudden, I started getting these boils on me.
[01:20:08] They were huge.
[01:20:09] So I went to the medic and what's his name again?
[01:20:15] Magio, the medio says, well, you got strapple in your body.
[01:20:21] That's all, that's all swollen.
[01:20:23] It's infecting you.
[01:20:24] He says, you're going to have that for quite a while to wait and get every piece out of you.
[01:20:28] He says, I don't know how many holes you got, but this one here needs attention right now
[01:20:32] and it's huge.
[01:20:34] And it was my arm and forearm, actually.
[01:20:38] And he looked at the other medic, shipping and said, holding down and he looked at me and
[01:20:45] said, don't you look at what I'm doing?
[01:20:48] Don't you turn your head?
[01:20:50] He said, because otherwise you're going to pass out on me.
[01:20:52] When you see what I'm going to do, he said, so don't you look?
[01:20:56] And you're going to hold the management.
[01:20:58] You hold them down and don't look or you're going to pass out.
[01:21:01] Well, what he was doing was taking a big stick swab in hydrogen peroxide and burning a
[01:21:07] hole right through the boil and then he took four steps and he pulled the strings out
[01:21:13] with the shrattin' along the end from the B40 rockets because they're all made in China.
[01:21:17] They're chycombs, you know?
[01:21:20] And so they had a lot of string, that's how they wrapped them.
[01:21:23] They didn't mold them in the metal like we did.
[01:21:26] And so anyway, I kept having to go.
[01:21:29] And then another day I had to go any, I'd do the back of my head and I had a couple of
[01:21:34] my head and then I had a couple of my back and another under my arm and I walked around
[01:21:39] with bandages until I went out of my next mission.
[01:21:41] I got to tell you, I witnessed one of those get pulled out and it was gross.
[01:21:48] What were you doing, just wanted to get, you know, stuck?
[01:21:50] He had pulled several hours.
[01:21:51] We kept hearing about these things.
[01:21:52] Let me show you.
[01:21:53] Oh, thanks.
[01:21:54] Talk about TMI.
[01:21:55] Talk about pus.
[01:21:56] You're gonna go back in the field anyways.
[01:22:02] Yeah.
[01:22:03] It was like, hey, it doesn't matter.
[01:22:04] We'll do what we can right now.
[01:22:06] Yeah.
[01:22:07] Exactly.
[01:22:08] Exactly.
[01:22:09] Because we had another mission lined out for Christmas of 68.
[01:22:13] So what was the optempo like meeting how often would you, when you did you did your
[01:22:18] 13 missions, how long did that take?
[01:22:21] What time span was that over when the one year or two?
[01:22:23] One year tour.
[01:22:24] I had 13 missions and one bright light.
[01:22:28] And someday we'll talk about the bright light, I guess.
[01:22:32] Why not today?
[01:22:33] Well, that is a, it's not written in the books because of what it ended up being.
[01:22:43] But a bright light in the song is a volunteer situation where a team of volunteers to go
[01:22:49] in and get another team out that can't get out.
[01:22:53] And we had a lot of those or to try to find a team that disappeared.
[01:22:57] We had a lot of teams disappear.
[01:22:59] I, our TI-to-ho, Lane and Owens completely disappeared.
[01:23:02] They've never been found to this day.
[01:23:04] No trace.
[01:23:06] Just completely off the bat.
[01:23:08] People have gone into this day and hunt.
[01:23:10] The government hunts today and can't find them.
[01:23:13] And they're under good circumstances.
[01:23:15] Are these the guys that you took over for?
[01:23:17] Yes.
[01:23:18] Yes.
[01:23:19] And so when I got on the Idahoans transferred from Virginia to Idaho because
[01:23:25] till it went home and I became Lynne Blacks-1-1.
[01:23:31] One day he had been gone for a while up at headquarters and I always protected him because
[01:23:36] I'm the one one.
[01:23:37] I protected my one zeros.
[01:23:40] I had to know where they were doing all the time because you just never knew because we had
[01:23:46] we had nung's, we had cambo's, we had mountain yards, we had Vietnamese in our camp.
[01:23:53] They all fought amongst themselves.
[01:23:55] They're alone wondering if they're the enemy.
[01:23:58] And we also had an entire team of NVA, two hoys, two hoys being they gave up.
[01:24:05] And that was Team Cobra and they were there for a very special mission that they went
[01:24:10] on and to get US prisoners out of a camp that was located.
[01:24:17] But we got a call, Lynne went up to their headquarters and had been a little while.
[01:24:23] So I went up there to see what was going on.
[01:24:24] He's walking back down and says, can we go on a bright light?
[01:24:30] I said, we're ready, we're packed.
[01:24:33] Because that's just what you did.
[01:24:34] You were asked, you went.
[01:24:35] He said, we got two pilots down and we think they're alive.
[01:24:43] We got to go in.
[01:24:45] They brought a jolly green giant in for us, which is very unusual air force.
[01:24:51] I don't know where they really took us.
[01:24:54] At this point in time in my life, we still don't know.
[01:24:59] They have all kinds of records, but it's very confusing of where we went.
[01:25:03] The week came in and that jolly, when we circled over the top of the plane, it was all
[01:25:10] intact.
[01:25:11] It was just sitting there in elephant grass.
[01:25:15] No one could figure out why.
[01:25:18] So they brought us down and I jumped out.
[01:25:22] But when I jumped out, there was a slight lift in the plane and the jolly green and it just
[01:25:31] came down, back down on me, about crushed me and then it came back up and then ling jumped
[01:25:36] out and my guys jumped out.
[01:25:38] In each of it, it was an old two.
[01:25:40] It was a push pull, seshna, engine in the front and engine in the back.
[01:25:44] That's where it had been shot down.
[01:25:46] We think it was shot down.
[01:25:47] We don't.
[01:25:48] Or crashed, how ever?
[01:25:49] We just don't know how it happened.
[01:25:51] But what the real deal was is the plane, whatever happened to it was making an emergency
[01:25:59] landing and it saw this opening like an LZ and thought this would be a good place to at
[01:26:06] least start the landing even if it went into the jungle.
[01:26:10] It would slow it down.
[01:26:12] Problem was, as soon as they hit the ground, there was a bowl and they hit the front of
[01:26:17] the bowl with the front engine and stopped dead.
[01:26:20] Like a bird?
[01:26:21] It was a bird.
[01:26:23] It stopped dead but it bent the engine around to the right and the right seat was sucked
[01:26:30] up into the carburetors into the Lycoe engine and he was in the fins and he just had his
[01:26:37] head and his arms sticking out.
[01:26:39] When I got there on that side, it said 10 minutes after 10 in the morning.
[01:26:45] His Rolex watch was cracked.
[01:26:47] The bezel was cracked and it stopped the watch at 10 after 10.
[01:26:51] And we didn't get there till about 230.
[01:26:55] And don't forget when the chopper's going down, you're out of fire.
[01:26:58] Yeah, and we're getting some small arms fire.
[01:27:02] And Lin goes to the pilot side on the left side and he looked fine but we realized the
[01:27:10] Yoke had crushed his chest and killed him in place but it also had him trapped and we
[01:27:15] couldn't get either one out.
[01:27:18] But at that point in time, that was a trap.
[01:27:21] They had set the Johnny Green back off and we started taking tremendous amount of fire.
[01:27:31] And I looked across the inside of the cabin at Lin and then looked back at me and I said
[01:27:37] I love your brother or not getting out of this and he said no we're not.
[01:27:43] This is it.
[01:27:44] And I looked up and radioed the Jolly Green to come back in and he shook his head.
[01:27:54] I could see him playing his day.
[01:27:56] He shook his head.
[01:27:57] I don't think I can come back.
[01:27:59] I said you better because I got an M79 point in it at you.
[01:28:04] I'll take you down with us.
[01:28:06] He moved up forward.
[01:28:09] By that time there was 200 NBA surrounding us.
[01:28:12] We're giving it everything they got and we managed crawling into that chopper because
[01:28:17] if we got up on the wings and he scooped us up and I had already called in tech here because
[01:28:24] they already had tech here ready.
[01:28:26] And as we lifted off and got up about 50 feet and A1 sped flew right underneath us between
[01:28:35] the plane and the chopper.
[01:28:39] Like he looked up at me like this and was smiling and he dropped the WP right on top of
[01:28:46] them and there was crispy critters running everywhere and we got out of there and got back
[01:28:55] and we walked down landed us back at FB4 and we walked down the road back to our hooch
[01:29:05] and we just looked at each other and said another day and so on.
[01:29:10] And all the time they were on the ground.
[01:29:11] They were under fire going in.
[01:29:14] They put a perimeter around the aircraft while Lynn and Doug went in to try to establish
[01:29:19] what the status of the pilots wore and the firefight was intense.
[01:29:25] I remember when I got back, Doug had just left and I came back to know at the end of October
[01:29:31] 69 that I bright laid was fresh on Lynn's mind and we talked about it and I talked
[01:29:37] to him later about that bright laid and he was crazy because he had salty went and
[01:29:43] went forward and did from RT Idaho and that team and Lynn was like, man, I don't even
[01:29:49] know how we got out of there.
[01:29:51] So I was one of those real, just a really tight one but like Doug says in a way when you
[01:29:56] know, and retrospect like, I just another day in the sag but that wouldn't really stuck.
[01:30:03] Yeah, I just thought that out of all my missions and if you read the book and were tilt
[01:30:12] honors me with a few missions in his books between across the fence and on the ground,
[01:30:19] that when there was, as his tenses had gotten, we thought it was over physically and mentally,
[01:30:25] we gave up, we thought it was over.
[01:30:28] That we weren't going to get up out of that mess and get into that chopper.
[01:30:31] Then before he rockets were hitting that plate underneath that jolly green, we were going
[01:30:36] up in the air faster than the chopper could get us up in the air from the pounding we
[01:30:40] were taking.
[01:30:41] They had been for that spad, we might not have.
[01:30:44] To this day we can't find the spad pilot.
[01:30:47] We have reunions we go to, the spad and reunions but we still can't be able to find that
[01:30:51] spad pilot that did that day.
[01:30:53] Because what he says is like when the jolly green is pulling out the beef 40 pounded underneath
[01:30:57] and the armor playing could sustain it.
[01:31:00] But it would give the chopper a jolt like Liv Blackhead on October 5th and this would
[01:31:04] they were experiencing again one October, year later, same thing.
[01:31:09] Yeah, exactly.
[01:31:10] I'm surprised that they take those beef 40 strikes like that.
[01:31:15] I mean, one lucky shot that hits the tail rotor or something and it's just game over.
[01:31:20] Sure.
[01:31:21] When we get back on missions we would walk around our Kingbees and count how many bullet
[01:31:25] holes and how many were in the blades.
[01:31:29] We could there's clean shots through the blades and then we we'd caught 40, 50, 80 rounds
[01:31:35] in our Kingbees when we come back and pieces of metal gone that they had to put tin over.
[01:31:43] They used beer cans.
[01:31:44] Yeah.
[01:31:45] A loona beer cans.
[01:31:46] Yeah.
[01:31:47] And what about the, what about that operation where you, we had to go and get the 55 gallon
[01:31:56] drum of and pull that one over?
[01:32:00] Yeah.
[01:32:01] Okay.
[01:32:02] We'll go through that.
[01:32:05] Somebody would probably like to read it in the book but we'll kind of go through that.
[01:32:09] We were trained.
[01:32:11] We had a CIA agent come in and trainers.
[01:32:15] For a brand new explosive detonator that was a time device that was shaped on the top
[01:32:22] in of a bung of a 55 gallon drum.
[01:32:27] As curls you put a wrench on it and unscrew it.
[01:32:31] You've seen them.
[01:32:34] And we said, this is by way.
[01:32:35] This is a seal type mission so you really appreciate this.
[01:32:37] So this is absolutely yeah.
[01:32:39] When I read about it, it's, I was like, hmm.
[01:32:41] It's a good seal mission.
[01:32:43] But a well.
[01:32:45] Well, they didn't let the seals do that in those days.
[01:32:49] No, they're busy on the coast.
[01:32:52] Yeah, they're busy on the coast.
[01:32:53] They really were.
[01:32:54] We, I mean, everything up to that is in a jungle.
[01:32:57] I'll see you get to the riverboat.
[01:32:58] Exactly.
[01:32:59] But we actually went into secret lockup, couldn't talk to anybody.
[01:33:07] Nobody could come in and talk to us and we went through these exercises and training.
[01:33:12] We actually loaded up for it and they took us out to the, and took us to a concrete
[01:33:22] and we launched out of there and went into layoffs into this huge river that they had.
[01:33:28] But we had to stay away from it.
[01:33:30] We had to actually hike in for two days to get to it.
[01:33:35] And when we got there and down the hill and to the river, it was night on the second
[01:33:42] end of the second day.
[01:33:44] And then Gunther was my one zero and I was as one one.
[01:33:49] There was no one one two.
[01:33:51] And he was an X Marine.
[01:33:56] And he was an E6.
[01:33:58] And he was my one zero.
[01:34:00] He'd been around a while.
[01:34:02] And he says, okay, go in and get that drum.
[01:34:06] And I said, well, you're the Marine.
[01:34:08] You're Navy.
[01:34:09] Why should I go in again?
[01:34:11] I'm just going to do the one.
[01:34:14] You're the one one.
[01:34:16] You're a PFC.
[01:34:18] And I'm an E6.
[01:34:20] So that's how it's going down.
[01:34:21] And don't forget before you get there, they hike through jungle for two days and two nights.
[01:34:28] To meet the CIA.
[01:34:29] I forgot that.
[01:34:31] Who gave them specialized charters.
[01:34:34] He come from.
[01:34:36] He had Chinese with him.
[01:34:39] And he said, I will meet you out there to give you this device because I can't trust anybody
[01:34:44] to have this device in case you're caught between now and then.
[01:34:48] And I said, there's no way we're going to find you out there.
[01:34:51] This impossible.
[01:34:53] He says, don't you worry about it.
[01:34:55] You get to this coordinate.
[01:34:56] And I will find you.
[01:34:59] That's impressive.
[01:35:00] And he did.
[01:35:01] We got to that coordinate.
[01:35:02] We waited.
[01:35:03] And we waited.
[01:35:04] And next thing we know, he come right out of the jungle.
[01:35:06] And there he was.
[01:35:08] We were going to kill him with our ZNBA.
[01:35:10] Yeah, of course.
[01:35:11] Chinese with him.
[01:35:12] Oh.
[01:35:13] So Zola Nockless was his name.
[01:35:17] If you're a pronounce it right, I probably can't pronounce it right.
[01:35:21] Commerce spelling.
[01:35:22] It was.
[01:35:25] He actually was a renegade CIA agent.
[01:35:28] He was a desktoyaki that wanted to prove that he could be an infield agent as the story
[01:35:35] finally went that we didn't learn about this until what about 12 years ago.
[01:35:40] Yeah.
[01:35:41] And we did you meet him later?
[01:35:44] No, no, no.
[01:35:45] No, no.
[01:35:46] We don't want to know where he went.
[01:35:47] What happened to him?
[01:35:48] We met another CIA guy.
[01:35:50] We needed that was actually a counterpart to a Russian KGB agent that when they
[01:35:59] were in the Russian, finally admitted and declassified the Vietnam War.
[01:36:05] And admitted they had 3,000 Russians helping the NVA.
[01:36:11] And they had a reunion.
[01:36:13] And they did an actual video of the reunion admitting that they had worked with the NVA
[01:36:19] and the Chinese in helping the NVA go up and down the whole chain of betrayal.
[01:36:27] Well, this Zolunakus had figured this out and got a halt of this device.
[01:36:36] And how we learned about it was this CIA agent had gone there and helped declassify
[01:36:46] all the records of special ops stuff that was they were they had located.
[01:36:53] They hold here they found my name in the KGB at Files in Moscow twice, my code name
[01:37:00] and my real name and the missions that I ran.
[01:37:06] They did that twice and they found Lin because we bumped into what we thought was a Mexican,
[01:37:15] Spanish speaking person, speaking broken English and I'm from California, right?
[01:37:20] And I go back to my old days and I told Lin I said this guy's Mexican got to be.
[01:37:29] What the hell's he doing out here?
[01:37:31] And he's talking to us on the radio.
[01:37:33] He's got our frequency and Lin says, give me that phone.
[01:37:37] So he goes back and forth with him and he says, you got to move out of the area.
[01:37:42] He says, I'm not going to move out of the area.
[01:37:44] I'm here to stay.
[01:37:45] Here's my coordinate.
[01:37:46] He said, get in a five digit coordinate.
[01:37:47] But no, what do you get to do? He says, well, not there, but you need to move out of
[01:37:51] the right.
[01:37:52] He was trying to save our butts because he was from Angola.
[01:37:55] He was a Cuban, stationed in Angola and had been shipped to Los Leos and then turned
[01:38:01] around and he hated the Vietnamese so much.
[01:38:04] He was trying to help us.
[01:38:07] But we could see him on the other side of the river that where we were at on this particular
[01:38:11] mission.
[01:38:13] And so that mission was in the KGB files that we had spoke to him and he had art and
[01:38:18] they knew it was RTI to go and that knew it was Lin and me.
[01:38:22] And so they had as much because we had spies and sigh on giving all this information out.
[01:38:28] We had to spy that they finally caught an American.
[01:38:33] It was giving all this information out.
[01:38:35] But for two missions, I'm in the KGB files.
[01:38:38] So on this oil drum mission, we get down there after we've been given the device
[01:38:44] at night and I go in and I grab a hold of a drum and of course they have those little
[01:38:51] lips on there.
[01:38:52] I can pull that drum and they're full of about three quarters because they got to
[01:38:56] be buoyant.
[01:38:58] And I bring that fuel drum right to the side and I'm holding it there and dunk
[01:39:05] there, unscrews it, the bug off and puts the new one in, screws it up tight.
[01:39:11] Now I've got to get that drum back out into the flow.
[01:39:15] While the flow is NVA walking it down with bamboo poles pushing them around.
[01:39:23] So I get it out there but I can't get back because here they come.
[01:39:28] So I had to go under and hold my breath but I can't hold my breath that long.
[01:39:32] This water is ice cold right?
[01:39:35] But fortunately I was a great swimmer in my youth and I could handle this but I could
[01:39:43] get my nose just above the surface blow out and take a breath and go back under.
[01:39:50] But because it's dark and they went on by me, finally, but I thought for sure they'd
[01:39:56] stick me with one of the poles but they pushed that drum on down and the few drums
[01:40:01] that were around me and I came back to the edge and crawled out but I was so cold I could
[01:40:07] hardly move.
[01:40:08] I'm so open wet of course and Gunther says come on we got to go and I finally put my gear
[01:40:16] back on my rutsack and the radio and my web gear and everything else back on and up the
[01:40:21] hill we go but I'm still just barely making it just barely making it I'm so stiff.
[01:40:27] Now we crawled out of there took two days to get out but that device was set for two
[01:40:32] days but they hadn't gone off yet but we finally got extraction orders and they came and
[01:40:39] got us and strung us out and when we were on strings it went off and the cubby writer
[01:40:44] was there and it was like an atom bomb it was a miniature mushroom and the shockwave even
[01:40:53] though we were miles away came through us on strings and the choppers and just like this
[01:41:00] and we're going like this back and forth and the cubby plane is shaking like this and
[01:41:10] I mean it was like an atomic bomb just went through us what you picture when you see and
[01:41:15] then everything became calm and mission completed.
[01:41:20] That's a good one. That's a real good one.
[01:41:25] And they never knew. Never knew. Well they didn't know until the Russians knew. Yeah
[01:41:29] other than that. They never knew who and we weren't allowed to talk or tell anybody in
[01:41:33] camp when we got back. They just what were you doing? I just another day in song and that
[01:41:39] was what we said because we weren't even allowed to tell anybody what we did because of
[01:41:44] the CIA mission that we ran but everybody had certain things that they did like that.
[01:41:51] But it was the first time it had ever been accomplished.
[01:41:54] What did you notice about the one zeros that you had from a leadership perspective that
[01:42:01] you remember as like yeah this is the quality some of the qualities that they had from
[01:42:06] a leadership perspective that you would follow.
[01:42:11] I was most fortunate I think I had great one zeros some of them not as great as others
[01:42:20] but when you my first one he was my idol because my first two missions and thanksgiving
[01:42:33] of 68 and Christmas of 68 and you can't ever forget those you know. So the mission
[01:42:44] of 68 is where I got the skip from the blow-up radio that let him know he was walking
[01:42:51] into an act letting tilting know that he was walking into an ambush and I'm laying on a trail
[01:43:00] with the radio on and heard this my interpreter comes up and interprets what's going on.
[01:43:07] I managed to get a whole to spider parks he just happened to be going by for a radio
[01:43:11] check and I told him what's going on he radios to to tilt to turn around and go back
[01:43:16] that he had intel and tilt's going what yeah as the first time I ever had like a direct
[01:43:23] intel report do not go to the northeast this is the Christmas day mission we were on top
[01:43:27] of that no and midnight talked about that was the one quiet area probably there's a problem
[01:43:34] but we're talking about it spider goes do not go to the northeast we have an intel report
[01:43:39] do not go there I'm going to like intel report that never happened before or after on a
[01:43:44] live mission we're on the ground and we didn't know what to help us but they were right
[01:43:51] we didn't you know the story we could extract is we're back in base a few days later
[01:43:55] him and public connect and it's going like well well you want to ground a Christmas
[01:44:00] and we found out that he had that intel report that was confirmed the one place we could
[01:44:07] have gone we shouldn't have our instincts are right but we had a confirmation from
[01:44:10] the intel report and it was just amazing you know it's just like to this day they got
[01:44:18] out of it and due to other factors they got out of it but just that it saved the team was
[01:44:24] walking into an L shape ambush that they've been slaughtered and they were pushing them
[01:44:29] that way with trackers gunfire and everything else and so they just just like you say
[01:44:36] the gods were always with us sometimes but at that very next day I'm still on the trail
[01:44:44] where we were assigned that was the trail for my very first mission we got into North
[01:44:48] Vietnam into it called nickel steel and I'm been laying there for four days
[01:44:53] through this process and Gunther was I you know I mean Chotters was my one zero
[01:44:59] and we were taking turns and it had been defolated with Agent Orange and so we
[01:45:07] had a pretty good view and all of a sudden I saw six point men coming up MBA I'm
[01:45:18] up there at the trail behind a log they're down below I give him the signal I give
[01:45:24] him the signal I got six and I can see him and Chotters right away knows what's going
[01:45:29] on so he's preparing the team to fight and X-Fill out of the situation but he can't
[01:45:37] with me above but here comes one of the NVA it comes right up to the log and steps
[01:45:44] over and steps right on me I put my car 15 into his belly and I pull the
[01:45:49] trigger all 20 rounds made a gaping hole all the way through him through him over
[01:45:55] the log and I'm on the run and I've got the radio and down the hill we go
[01:46:03] and here comes 200 NVA and their point Jasonus and we're we're bringing I'm
[01:46:12] trying to get tacky around the line I finally do we're putting tacky
[01:46:16] here between them and us and I'm throwing smoke over my shoulder yeah
[01:46:20] anything anything in the smoke and finally they bring the some slicks in and
[01:46:27] pull us out and and get us out of there on strings yeah on strings again and
[01:46:34] on the run and so the side note to the whole mission is I don't know how many we
[01:46:42] killed but it was not a good day for them but that age in orange was the only
[01:46:48] time I was ever near it and right now I've got stage four cancer from age in
[01:46:53] orange with a limited amount of time left so that's why I'm glad I'm here to
[01:47:00] tell a few stories glad you're here too they're born the um so how many tours did
[01:47:09] you do was that one tour I signed up for what I volunteered to go in
[01:47:16] special forces when I was regular I mean I volunteered regular I mean went
[01:47:20] through got special forces volunteer Vietnam volunteer for CCN and Sagan and I
[01:47:27] did one tour and I went back home and became a weapons instructor for
[01:47:32] special forces training group and got out so how many years was the total three
[01:47:38] three years three years that was it and then what you do when you when you got
[01:47:44] out I kind of went back to rodeo and training horses and things like that and
[01:47:53] then I sort of got calm got your past license yeah I got my pilot's license
[01:48:03] fixed wing and rotary well you got home how long did it take to kind of adapt
[01:48:08] to the civilian life it took about a year that because I slept with my car
[01:48:14] 15 and then when I was in training group I always had all the weapons around me
[01:48:19] I felt safe but you know fourth of July it was always a hard one with stuff
[01:48:25] going on you don't know and it took me a while to to calm down and not because
[01:48:31] I had a lot of kills and you just have to work through all that all the time and
[01:48:38] I was pretty good because not after that period of time you know we'd never
[01:48:45] talked to each other we weren't allowed to talk about it for 20 years as
[01:48:49] what I was told so I never ever talked to anybody I never met anybody until
[01:48:55] 2000 did you guys I mean when you when you you guys didn't keep in touch you
[01:49:00] guys didn't write each other or tell tonight wrote each other but he his
[01:49:05] family moved I only had his mother and father's address and I lost contact
[01:49:10] for 25 years I moved he moved my parents moved and so the comma dropped but we were
[01:49:18] down there was no books no yeah no nobody could say anything what about other
[01:49:24] team members other guys was there anyone that you kept in touch with over the next
[01:49:27] 20 years no so when you were done you were done you were done you didn't you
[01:49:32] it was over yeah because I couldn't find anybody I didn't know anybody to talk to
[01:49:36] you so I was just done and I just let then my life just I never thought about
[01:49:41] it anymore you know I knew I did stuff but I couldn't talk about it and I had
[01:49:48] gotten married and I told my wife about it but we just thought that we didn't
[01:49:54] know anybody way I didn't know anybody went to and then all of a sudden the
[01:49:58] internet came about I typed in SF one time and a couple emails came up old
[01:50:05] ones I typed in and a mclusky got he was working as a metavac pilot and
[01:50:14] he called me and he see we was on shift and he saw it and he called me and
[01:50:18] gave me tilt's phone number I called tilt the next day was Easter Sunday what
[01:50:21] year was half 2000 yeah we're going to get ready to go to church I have I
[01:50:27] hadn't seen him since 1968 our 69 and where were you living at the time I
[01:50:32] lived up by you 70 National Park in the town called Mariposa beautiful and
[01:50:38] you were just down in ocean sign yeah working at the paper the fish rapper so I
[01:50:45] said well shoot you know I so I got the phone number and I called him on Easter
[01:50:52] Sunday he was going out the door to go to church and I said you better sit down
[01:50:57] this is the Frenchman I did and then we've been we talk every day though
[01:51:05] because we can what did you what did you do for a job so you you had to kind of
[01:51:10] continue to kind of get it out of your system where breaking horses or whatever
[01:51:15] rodeo for another year after you got out breaking more bones and then you
[01:51:20] went into construction business I went into construction business that my father
[01:51:24] had gone into a private construction for a particular person and so at left the
[01:51:31] license open so I just continued the license and he handed it over to me and I
[01:51:38] built for almost 45 years now retired now what where did you guys overlap was
[01:51:45] that did you guys overlap in RT Idaho is that when you guys overlap well we are at
[01:51:50] food by when he came in he came with Bubba okay and so my government got him
[01:51:55] first before I were talking to him and I got Bubba so we were in camp we're
[01:52:00] training together at the firing range then Bubba and I were doing our targets
[01:52:04] they're doing theirs and then when we moved he was that he closed out that will
[01:52:11] be one he's the last SF troop there his recon team closed it locked the gate
[01:52:15] by that time Lynn and I were down in the Nang already so we were running
[01:52:21] business he went down with with with RT Virginia with Guntherwald and so they
[01:52:27] went down and ran their business including the famous oil drum one and Lynn and
[01:52:32] I were doing our thing and then by April my time in country was getting close
[01:52:37] so Lynn had agreed to be to come to one zero we had a special mission we were
[01:52:42] supposed to go up to the Mughi up past we brought Doug in Max Forron and Barry
[01:52:47] and an officer to go with us on that mission we trained for the mission
[01:52:52] trained right up to it went to the launch site on the choppers took off and they
[01:52:58] called us back and because two aircraft were shot down over the target area
[01:53:01] that day and so I was about four or five days from D-Rosing we went back to
[01:53:08] the camp they prism up the marble mountain so we're up there we have some
[01:53:12] pictures from that time there and then I walked off the marble mountain
[01:53:17] back up my gear and went home so Doug stayed with Idaho so from April at
[01:53:23] the end of April all the way through Dr. over 69 he's with Idaho with Lynn and
[01:53:28] they ran a load of missions and I come back he had just left base but Lynn's
[01:53:34] there so the Lynn was the one zero so he and I took turns and then finally
[01:53:39] so our gym major goes as too much experience here black you're out of here and
[01:53:43] then I went back to being a one zero for another five months and then but at
[01:53:48] time he had come home but he's in training group so technically he got out of
[01:53:53] the army after I did like I got out in April you got out in June and July
[01:53:57] September first September first yeah and so I went my I went back to the
[01:54:02] Garden State and then he went back to California and separate ways and we did
[01:54:07] we had the cards and some notes I don't think my phone calls and it just
[01:54:12] let us back if we had a couple of guys I had other people I stayed in contact
[01:54:15] with and then I just figured he got a job with a CIA or just something
[01:54:20] somewhere else you know and then finally got the phone call on 2000 and the
[01:54:25] rest of his story and how often do you guys the link up now?
[01:54:29] Every day it's all in the phone it's like you and the Eccletrails now.
[01:54:35] We we talk almost every day and because we can we're alive and we try now
[01:54:43] to spread the story since we've been declassified like you're helping
[01:54:50] tremendously to spread this story to let people know that we actually
[01:54:55] there was a secret war going on and we were actually taking the war to the
[01:54:59] enemy because our country had signed a treaty saying that we would not go into
[01:55:04] North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia or the DMZ which we operated in every day
[01:55:10] right we weren't stationed here we just flew in by helicopters people always ask
[01:55:16] me well how long did you fight in South Vietnam I said I never fought a day in
[01:55:20] South Vietnam they all you didn't do anything no that's true you're right
[01:55:26] it's what was your reaction as stuff started to kind of come to the surface and
[01:55:32] people started talking about it it was a slow it's been a slow process I've
[01:55:40] got a hold of tilt and then we saw each other for the very first time after
[01:55:44] all those years I was standing on a corner when I drove by and picked
[01:55:47] the most yeah and we went to an air show and we started talking we had our
[01:55:54] photo albums that we weren't supposed to have because no pictures were supposed
[01:55:59] to be taken look at all the pictures that are out good recon man always do
[01:56:04] whatever they want right so but it's been a slowy says well we have a reunion
[01:56:11] now I really we'd have it in Vegas every October now and it's been going on
[01:56:18] what 45 years they're 43 or 44 years worth I've been there about 18 years now
[01:56:25] it's best of operations association yeah and so we go there and see each
[01:56:30] other and sit around and drink and of course I don't drink but you know we
[01:56:36] everybody drinks and it's a free bar and and tell old war stories each other
[01:56:41] and just be a couple of lies and the stories get more exaggerated and but we
[01:56:46] have a we we have the up but problem is we're dying faster than then you
[01:56:52] can we we were losing about 10 or 12 tops six seven in the very beginning
[01:56:58] now we're losing over 50 a year there weren't that many of us to start with
[01:57:02] but this is a combined all the support troops actual recon troops there's
[01:57:08] probably not but 45 or 50 there at all because we only had what 450 reconers
[01:57:14] as you talk to yeah you know and so we have this great reunion every year
[01:57:22] and I just never miss it because I don't know who's gonna die just like yesterday
[01:57:27] was our interpreter perhaps two year anniversary of his death and most
[01:57:34] everybody's going down with age orange of some kind of cancer and stuff
[01:57:38] Elden Bardswell just went down from an accident he was our two star general
[01:57:45] very proud of him but at the time he was we were both
[01:57:49] Choco had time in the journey wasn't well I didn't I my boss worked
[01:57:53] directly from Charles I was under his command but my my boss at the time
[01:57:56] just you know just absolutely loved them and you know try to tell me try to
[01:58:01] give me quotes when he'd come back from a meeting with Bardswell he said
[01:58:04] bar old man said this no man said that you know he he was just at my house not too
[01:58:09] long before that and and my train room I've got trains Lionel and he was there
[01:58:18] had a great time but there were roommates for a few months okay we were on our
[01:58:22] and our together I met his first son when he was two months old
[01:58:26] yeah well right could you know remember story Elden getting shot in the chest
[01:58:30] yeah so two days later Elden and Doug went to Hawaii with their
[01:58:36] respective wives for R&R there were there for five days in the Elden met his
[01:58:42] son for the first time is Eldest son brand yeah brand was there so you guys
[01:58:47] must have watched him because he was you know a general in the army even he
[01:58:52] was in the limelight for sure for a military guy oh yeah and you guys knew
[01:58:56] the whole time you're looking at him thinking hey he was called
[01:58:59] Spess was fourth class yeah that's the way we knew I could never call him
[01:59:03] general I could never call him Bardswell I called him Elden and he was the
[01:59:12] same Elden that we met in 68 as the same Elden went to the reunion with
[01:59:17] last year he was there in his respect and glory and you know that's the way
[01:59:22] we respected him like my son got wounded and in Iraq he went and saw this
[01:59:28] care at the hospital picked up for him right away they couldn't believe a
[01:59:32] two-star general one can do something a little grunt yeah some those
[01:59:36] best he's a scout and he got banged up for the home of he really bad but the
[01:59:41] Elden what year was that August 20th 2005 a couple weeks later you were in
[01:59:47] country then no it's I didn't I was in there at 0304 and no six yeah where do you
[01:59:53] know where it was not right yeah he was southeast of the green zone okay yeah
[01:59:56] small world what's he doing now he's up at doing heavy equipment training
[02:00:03] up in the long beach him and Bruno his faithful companions are there doing it
[02:00:09] and just kicking ass taken there so pretty soon hub on the licenses in place and
[02:00:13] if you need any heavy equipment work give him a call right on
[02:00:17] and the freshman will build a house for you
[02:00:21] and what about so you got you got married when you got done is that or along
[02:00:27] the way along the way yeah into javity kids I have a son and I have a daughter
[02:00:32] I got a grandson and two grand daughters very proud of him I'm really proud of
[02:00:38] my son he is his own company in the oil business doing really well he
[02:00:43] repairs all the big fracking machines okay yeah I'm right now I'm in Texas I
[02:00:49] wasn't Tennessee but I'm in Texas now now that I've found out what my medical
[02:00:53] health is I want to try to get my grandson to know me before I go well
[02:01:01] that's that's awesome he's gonna be as proud he's gonna be as proud of you
[02:01:05] as you are of him that's for damn sure well they made an action figure of me
[02:01:09] so I've left that action figure for him and that's the famous picture
[02:01:15] yes the famous sag the Frenchman yes I've seen it there's a good review of it on
[02:01:21] on YouTube I watch yeah you can go to YouTube and look up Frenchman action
[02:01:27] figure and it's done really well by Ryan Peters yeah he did a really excellent
[02:01:34] job even made the box and everything for yeah no it works it's pretty awesome
[02:01:40] well definitely I'll definitely post that that picture when when this goes up
[02:01:46] when this goes out onto the under the inner web says they say and you got
[02:01:50] your Frenchman challenge coin I got my Frenchman challenge coin yeah it's right
[02:01:54] here the lowest ranking challenge coming out makes the general's on beat
[02:02:00] there's a p of c challenge code it doesn't give much better than that
[02:02:07] for sure you got anything else I think it's a good place to be and if you
[02:02:15] listen to this and you think a more things you want to say but you know I think
[02:02:18] this is a good good spot to wrap up this one so if you got anything to tell
[02:02:22] you got anything else first no these stories you know it's funny because
[02:02:29] even we're in base we never knew a lot of the details and so when I put the
[02:02:34] books together talk to other people like the oil drums story we learned
[02:02:39] about 40 years later that Lynn Black had done the similar thing with RTI
[02:02:43] the how after I left right in between these guys and it's just like a lot of
[02:02:49] history that comes out slowly like Doug has said was anyone tracking was anyone
[02:02:55] right down the history as it was happening was anyone taking the operational
[02:02:59] summaries and compiling them somewhere they were all destroyed that was
[02:03:04] when I left food by one of my jobs was to go through and make sure that all
[02:03:09] the drums had been no the ashes they'd burnt all the a lot of reports after
[02:03:15] action reports were all burnt and then as we pulled out of every FOB and
[02:03:22] closed down CCN and CCS and CCC we closed all the everything was destroyed there's
[02:03:29] very few after action reports so with there are is just miniscule reports people
[02:03:35] try to put them out on eBay but they're fake they're just isn't any
[02:03:39] and there are out there we haven't there reports of archives that were even now
[02:03:44] beginning to look into but at a recent reunion the guy came up to me and said hey
[02:03:49] you know if you've done your books I got to like to talk to you because my job
[02:03:54] when we closed contone was to destroy all the records yeah a lot of valor yeah
[02:04:03] we that's that's why I didn't even receive my purple heart for that first
[02:04:09] mission until 11 11 11 11 really yeah had to go back to the paperwork on it
[02:04:15] and we had to take six years and a lot of people and a lot of affidavids and a
[02:04:22] lot of this and a lot of that and it took six years until Diane black my
[02:04:28] congresswoman called me one day I was coming back from Arlington from Barry
[02:04:35] and Guntherwald and and my Virginia team Donnie shoe and and Bill Brown
[02:04:43] William Brown and she calls me on the phone on I don't even know who she is
[02:04:48] she says are you Doug maternal the Frenchman I said yes and she says I'm
[02:04:58] Diane black congressman for Tennessee for your district for your district and I'm
[02:05:05] in my limousine right now and I'm holding a purple heart in my hand how do you
[02:05:09] want it presented I said I want you to pin it on in front of our memorial in
[02:05:14] Galanton Tennessee and she did on 11 11 11 and my guys came and watched I had
[02:05:25] seven of my saggers come to that and watch till came everybody flew there we
[02:05:32] were there for witness and even here we found one to many to had pulled
[02:05:38] that this just string up from the shrapnel as an eyewitness that's that was a
[02:05:43] key thing we got the CEO to do a letter but took a while to track it down
[02:05:47] put it together but we did all the records have been destroyed you know so
[02:05:53] well this record won't be destroyed right here in the home of that podcast
[02:05:58] 186 what eight six there you go but I would like to say as a closing thing my
[02:06:06] mom and dad are both gone my dad was a hero he gave me everything he had to
[02:06:12] give he was the best father ever my mother was the best mother I'm proud of my
[02:06:17] kids my daughter and my son what they accomplished in their lives I'm proud of
[02:06:21] my grandkids and what they do and I'm glad that I have something to leave
[02:06:26] behind yeah his mom was when she learned my mother died I got a phone call
[02:06:32] next day till your mom's dead but I'm your mom yep my mom loved every one of
[02:06:41] Bubba Bubba came to LA and said I need a bunk up for a couple days six and
[02:06:51] half months later he'd gone through the LAPD and six and half months later he
[02:06:59] even got married brought his wife into the house by mom and dad finally said
[02:07:04] enough enough Bubba for your wedding present we're giving you an apartment
[02:07:10] but any saga was welcome to my mom and dad's house yeah well that is
[02:07:20] awesome and as you both should know any saga is welcome to come here at any
[02:07:26] time and share their story this this door to this podcast is open this could
[02:07:31] just become the saga podcast as far as I'm concerned at this point so work on
[02:07:35] thank you yeah you've opened up a lot of doors to people that will hear
[02:07:43] this history absolutely and they're I'm sure they're I'm sure you're here
[02:07:48] and from them till I know you've been transferring some of the messages to me
[02:07:52] what's your what's the Twitter that you're actually looking at right now
[02:07:56] because you have a couple you have non-saga of sog chronicles you know which
[02:08:03] one it is my daughter set there's one is Jay strike or my initial Jay and
[02:08:07] this strike or mine I haven't I've fallen out of the Twitter thing you've
[02:08:12] bonded me to this is so Instagram Instagram is what you're doing a little
[02:08:16] bit of social media over here I'm trying to catch up to you I might be
[02:08:21] slow when I'm slow who's been so busy last few weeks between work and yes
[02:08:27] responding to a lot of the feedback from folks off of the last podcast people
[02:08:34] want to reach out to you should they go through through John Frenchman yeah they
[02:08:38] can go they go right out through with John or they could catch me on train one
[02:08:43] fifty three the word train one the numbers five three at hotmail.com that's my
[02:08:49] email that's his email and then my website is sawcronicles.com and my email is
[02:08:56] here and I'll connect anybody with Doug that's the old fashioned way and
[02:09:00] instant grams were still working on that yeah but my daughter's got to give me
[02:09:04] another she went to tenancy so with she's out of ten I'm struggling but maybe
[02:09:09] you can be a briefing we hang up here yeah I don't know I thought about that but
[02:09:13] all good it's such an honor to talk to you guys Frenchman it's an honor to meet
[02:09:18] you and you're welcome back anytime I was glad that I could come and meet you
[02:09:22] and I told you what happened on the airplane I'm sitting next to somebody
[02:09:27] because what are you doing I'm gonna go doing a podcast with a guy named
[02:09:31] jockel oh my god I got him on my feet whips out his phone and there you are
[02:09:37] he says I got Twitter with him I got everything with his my buddy yeah I
[02:09:43] mean why would I even expect that somebody would have it's such a small world
[02:09:49] it really is well we go out of service while part that one percent or less of
[02:09:53] our country that's served the country yeah and I'll tell you the amount of
[02:10:00] feedback I've gotten from you came on till that mean it's been overwhelming the
[02:10:04] number of people that just you know thank you for your service they're gonna pass
[02:10:08] the same thing on to you you know you guys should know that America loves you
[02:10:13] guys for what you did for this country oh thank you thank you you too
[02:10:17] airborne airborne all the way all the way and with that song has left the
[02:10:30] building the Frenchmen and tilt have departed awesome what an one honor
[02:10:36] have those guys on and I got to say this right after we got done of course
[02:10:42] we did some more talking and the Frenchmen was was explaining the fact that
[02:10:50] when he would go out on a mission every mission he would go out on he would
[02:10:55] square away his footwalker make sure everything was ready to be shipped home
[02:11:01] because every time he went out he figured he would not be coming back
[02:11:07] so real heroes and it's awesome to be able to sit here and talk to those guys and
[02:11:21] what a what an honor that is and anyways you know actually one of the
[02:11:33] reasons that I can sit here and talk to guys like tilt and the Frenchmen is
[02:11:38] because of all the support that comes in from all of you so I appreciate you
[02:11:47] know that because as you know I don't have any like regular whatever they're
[02:11:55] called advertisements on here because I'm not gonna interrupt someone like tilt or
[02:12:02] someone like the Frenchmen or someone like BTF Tony or someone like Dakota
[02:12:06] Meyer I'm not gonna interrupt them so I can say you know hey buy this or buy
[02:12:13] that or whatever you know I'm not gonna stop reading colder than hell or I'm
[02:12:23] not gonna stop reading the forgotten highlander I'm not gonna stop reading
[02:12:27] one soldiers war so that I can you know mention a product or something like that so
[02:12:35] to me that's not what this podcast is about the information and yeah the
[02:12:44] information in this podcast is what is it paramount to me and getting it to all of
[02:12:49] you uninterrupted is what matters because I will tell you that I wish that I could
[02:13:00] have listened to this podcast when I was growing up or even when I was a kid
[02:13:03] when I was in the teams just to just to have this information would have been
[02:13:10] really helpful to me so I'm not keeping it from anyone so that's what we're
[02:13:19] doing here so if you do want to help out which like I said that's that's what
[02:13:25] allows us to be able to do this that's what allows me to able to fly the
[02:13:28] Frenchmen out here to sit down and and talk and tell his story and so it's
[02:13:34] because of you all out there supporting supporting my companies or my books
[02:13:40] or whatever so it's appreciated so if you want to if you do want to help out you
[02:13:47] want to support the podcast then you can check out originmain.com where we have
[02:13:55] geese for jiu jitsu we have rashguards we have clothing of all whatever sorts
[02:14:01] including jeans and we got supplements up there people used to ask me what
[02:14:07] supplements I take I take the supplements that I make so join warfare
[02:14:11] criminal discipline discipline go and I drink milk because it's awesome and
[02:14:17] delicious and of course jockel white tea so you can get some of that that's all
[02:14:21] that originmain.com we also have jocquistor.com where you can get rashguards,
[02:14:28] t-shirts, hats, goodies all that stuff if you like the podcast subscribe to it and
[02:14:38] don't forget that I also have a kids podcast called the Warrior Kid podcast so
[02:14:43] your kids can get in the game too that's called the Warrior Kid podcast. Check out
[02:14:50] Warrior Kid soap from young aiden who's making soap on his farm up in Central
[02:14:56] California that's an Irish oak branch dot com there's a YouTube channel that's
[02:15:04] called jockel podcast and that's where we have the videos of this so if you want to
[02:15:08] see what the Frenchman looks like or you want to see what tilt looks like you can
[02:15:13] check out the YouTube channel there's also little shortened excerpts of this
[02:15:18] podcast. We got an album called Psychological Warfare that's on iTunes Google
[02:15:24] Play other MP3 platforms it's me talking about how to overcome little interruptions
[02:15:33] in your game that you're trying to win so you can check that out we also have
[02:15:39] flipside canvas dot com my brother Dakota Meyer has that company and he's
[02:15:44] making visual artwork for your walls that you can hang up we also have on it
[02:15:55] dot com slash jocker you can get all kinds of cool stuff on there kettlebells, jump
[02:16:02] ropes, sandbags things that you can get stronger with I've also written a bunch
[02:16:08] of books if you want to support you can get some of the books way the Warrior
[02:16:14] Kid is a series of books I wrote there's three of them the most recent one is
[02:16:20] called where's where there's a will and that book is available right now and
[02:16:25] so is where it way the Warrior Kid one and way the Warrior Kid two which is
[02:16:28] subtitled marks mission Mikey in the Dragons the book for younger kids that I
[02:16:33] wrote so your kids can learn how to overcome fear the discipline goes for
[02:16:37] freedom field manual which is a manual about how to get after it a little
[02:16:43] questions that you have are answered if you want the audio version that it's
[02:16:47] on iTunes Amazon music Google Play other MP3 platforms and of course there's
[02:16:53] extreme ownership which is the first book I wrote with my brother Dave Babin and
[02:16:56] then we have a follow on book to that called the dichotomy of leadership and
[02:17:00] those books are both about leadership and how to lead people I have a
[02:17:04] leadership consultancy called echelon front and what we do is solve problems
[02:17:08] through leadership if you have problems in your company it is because you have
[02:17:13] problems with your leadership to go to echelon front dot com if you want us to
[02:17:17] come and help you solve those problems EF online this is leadership training
[02:17:22] online it's interactive and I always say that leadership is not an
[02:17:27] an inauguration you can't get one shot of it and then you know everything it's
[02:17:30] like going to one you just too class and thinking you know how to choke people
[02:17:34] out now no you have to train continually that's where EF online is for it's
[02:17:38] online interactive training EF online dot com we got the muster events these
[02:17:45] are leadership conferences, musters, gatherings where we deep dive and get
[02:17:52] granular on the pragmatic tools we have for leading people the next one we're
[02:18:00] doing is in September September 19th and 20th it is in Denver it is going to
[02:18:07] sell out in fact it's getting close I think right now they've all sold out
[02:18:11] that one will sell out as well and then December 4th and 5th in Sydney
[02:18:14] Australia who knows when we're going back to Sydney but we're going this
[02:18:17] time so if you want to come to the muster check out extremownership dot com and
[02:18:23] then EF over watch EF over watch dot com what we're doing there is taking
[02:18:28] proven spec ops leaders proven combat aviation leaders and placing them into
[02:18:35] companies in the civilian sector that need leadership so if you need leadership
[02:18:40] in your organization go to efoverwatch dot com and if you want to give me some
[02:18:47] feedback on this podcast or you have a question or you have an answer or whatever
[02:18:52] for me I want Twitter Instagram and Facebook at jacqua willink and then once
[02:19:00] again just the deepest things I can give to John striker Meyer tilt and
[02:19:08] Doug Laterno the Frenchman for doing everything that they did to fight against
[02:19:17] the dark tyranny of communism as it tried to spread through the world they
[02:19:25] they held the line and it's incredible the operations that they did and it's
[02:19:33] incredible the sacrifices that those operators made in that time especially and
[02:19:40] obviously the ones that did not come home and to the rest of you that have
[02:19:50] served or you are serving thank you for keeping us safe from today's threats
[02:19:57] which are vast and equally evil it is you that keeps us secure and keeps our
[02:20:11] way of life secure and to our police and law enforcement to the firefighters
[02:20:15] out there to the paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers boarder
[02:20:21] patrol secret service and all other first responders you are on call every day
[02:20:30] you are waiting when we need help you are there so thank you for keeping us safe
[02:20:39] and to everyone else out there remember what the Frenchman
[02:20:49] said after his kernel god done explaining the treacherous situation that they
[02:20:56] were set to go into when that kernel asks if anyone had any questions the
[02:21:02] Frenchman replied where do you need help where do you need help
[02:21:12] it's a simple question but it's a powerful one there's people around you that need
[02:21:19] help ask them what it is they need ask them where it is that they need help
[02:21:30] and then get up and lock and load your sawed off M79 or whatever tool it is
[02:21:36] that you need to unleash to give them the help that they need and until next time
[02:21:44] this is jaco out