Jocko Podcast 29 with Echo Charles - “PLATOON LEADER: A MEMOIR OF COMMAND IN COMBAT”

2016-06-29T21:52:24Z

BOOK REVIEW. “PLATOON LEADER: A MEMOIR OF COMMAND IN COMBAT”, JAMES R. MCDONOUGH

AI summary of episode

Guys at time, for them to go home, so you're constantly, he's constantly getting new troopers, new soldiers, new non-commission officers that are going to be the senior guys inside the platoon. These guys, you know, guys, you know, I'm really well, you know everything they're going to do. There's guys trickling in and out all the time throughout the entire chain of command, all the way up from the frontline guys, all the way up to the commander of the Platoon. And yeah, I mean, this McDonald ended up in a little bit better situation in the fact that he kept his legs, but Jodi, the way Jodi describes that in his books, very similar, you know, just boom and horrible situation. Platoon Sergeant Palaman got out in front of the platoon and a firefight and took an enemy rocket-propelled grenade in the right leg. That's also one of those things where you know, sometimes I get asked, you know, my boss is not doing this or we're not getting, we're getting a, we're not getting clear direction or I don't agree with this thing. He's not going to take charge of the squad, he's going to let them do what they do, and he's going to be more of an observer. Talking about some of the guys here, he's got guy named Jim Barnes from Asheville, North Carolina who is good solid operator, got a really bad stutter. Back to the book, if a patrol made contact with the enemy, and it lasted for any length of time, a second squad would be sent to react. You got people torturing and murdering old women and then you get this situation where there's a woman who's rushing the perimeter and this guy says she's don't shoot her and then crawls out. So it starts off there that was him going to this small little perimeter, but Platoon perimeter. Now, if you don't know security perimeter, it's basically 360 degree security perimeter of where you're, you have guns pointed to the outside and you have usually the leadership will be in the center of the perimeter. Because he isn't want to die, he's going to get killed by a criminal or getting a car accident, but you don't think about 10,000 people dying to be an ob just from other than combat. If I was going to die, and I began to grieve for myself, for my wife, for the little boy who would never really know his father, sweat poured from my forehead, my back, my every joint. The guys that graded them, the guys that were really good, really good leaders and really stepped up and really doing a great job, they'd give themselves a grade. War is the suffering and death of people you know set against a background of the suffering and death of people you do not. And this book right here is called Platoon Leader, a memoir of command in combat by James R. McDonough. And we got examples of leadership like McDonald uh, like the people that we talk about. Now, there's starting to get some intelligence report that there's ominous forecast that there's going to be some big attacks, some big enemy thrusts, and he's taking some time to prepare for that. And from the example of men like Jim McDonough and Hackworth and Bob Hoffman can't all those other those warriors and leaders that have taken point and led the way. And here you are, getting thrown into a combat environment on a very dangerous patrol into enemy territory that you don't know very well. So they get Killigan out of that situation, they get back to their base, they go back again to do the ambush, they're hit again on the ambush, they evacuated guy, they move again and now they're in the final moment where they are going to do this big ambush as part of the company. I'm in charge, do what I say to you know what, these guys know better than I do in many cases. So, the reason he's talking about that is when he goes out with the squads, there's a guy that's jueyered to him, a sergeant that's running the squads, running the patrol, and he's not going to go out there and be the boss. You're looking at every little thing in the road, every little piece of trash, every little wire, everything could be a pressure plate.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocco podcast number 29 with echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink.
[00:00:12] Into the midst of this war torn land, we're inserted 22 able body to American soldiers and a platoon leader.
[00:00:22] As I made my way to the Patoon Command post, CP, the Sun had already dropped from the sky,
[00:00:29] night in the tropics comes fast, and even as I approach the outgoing platoon leader,
[00:00:34] the shadows have begun to obscure his facial features. I found him lying on his stomach in
[00:00:41] a depression situated roughly in the center of the platoon. As I bent over to introduce myself,
[00:00:48] he motioned for me to get down. Assuming that perhaps I was dangerously exposed, I laid down next to him.
[00:00:55] Hello, I'm Jim McDonough. I said, feeling somewhat awkward being so formal while lying on my stomach.
[00:01:07] Tom Rolf, he said, are you here to take my place? He was unable to conceal his eagerness.
[00:01:16] Yes, I replied. Can you tell me what's going on here?
[00:01:19] As he began briefing me, it became apparent that the platoon was not the object of his thoughts.
[00:01:28] I asked questions about the disposition of the squads, the personalities of the men,
[00:01:32] the tactics of the enemy, the attitude of the villagers. He responded by telling me about how difficult
[00:01:39] the job was, how much his family needed him, how he never asked to be an infantry lieutenant,
[00:01:44] how dangerous and uncomfortable his life had been of late, and how he did not deserve to be wounded or killed.
[00:01:53] He was overcome by fear that on his last night in the field, the enemy would somehow
[00:01:58] snatch survival away from him. As the hours passed, we did not move from our position in the midst of
[00:02:06] the platoon. I became a cutely conscious of our protected posture. All about us, I could hear movement.
[00:02:16] I saw silhouettes of soldiers as they moved about, setting up their positions for the night.
[00:02:21] I noted that at least one patrol departed from the perimeter, but that the orders for the
[00:02:26] patrol did not come from the lieutenant. Rolf lay there, chattering aimlessly into the night,
[00:02:33] describing again and again for me the wife and two children he had left behind.
[00:02:40] Gradually, he honed in on his point. You've got to understand. I did this for them. They need me.
[00:02:48] They need me in one piece. Nervous silence followed as I tried to find his eyes in the darkness.
[00:02:56] What was he talking about? The question arose even as the answer was forming all around me
[00:03:03] they know what to do. They're good soldiers. Silence again. He was shocked by his own confession.
[00:03:13] But at the same time, he was urged on by the bearing of his soul.
[00:03:20] I could have been a hero. Sometimes I even wanted to be, but I had to think of my family. You see,
[00:03:26] don't you? Most of these men don't have any family. They're just boys.
[00:03:30] This shamefulness of his words hit me like a club. He was not the leader of this
[00:03:37] platoon. He felt no responsibility for the mission. He felt no compassion for his men.
[00:03:42] In his mind, the other members of the platoon existed for only one reason to protect him,
[00:03:49] to keep him alive. They were expendable. He was not. He had reason to live.
[00:03:56] They did not. I wanted to crawl away, but it was dark and I had no idea where to go. We stopped talking.
[00:04:07] I had nothing more to ask. He wanted to say more about his personal concerns. He knew he had gone too
[00:04:14] far, but he didn't care. His only concern in the world was to leave that noll as soon as possible.
[00:04:19] The platoon and I could be damned. If he survived, justice would have been done.
[00:04:27] That night, nothing else mattered for him. His soul lay naked, stripped of pride, guilt, and shame.
[00:04:37] They were affections of the civilized world out here, only living mattered.
[00:04:46] Unable to sleep, unable to move, I lay there wondering which I would turn out to be.
[00:04:53] The crazed killer I had met in Qnon, or the blatant coward beside me in the dark.
[00:05:00] Which one was more devoid of humanity? I did not know.
[00:05:05] Later, after almost three months in the field, I saw Role again.
[00:05:09] At the battalion, secure behind the battalion perimeter of L. Z. North English,
[00:05:17] he had adopted an air of bravado. In the safety of the officers club, he told me of his brave deeds.
[00:05:25] He talked as one who had seen it all. In his own words, he became the dashing, fearless leader of combat infantrymen.
[00:05:33] He even had a few combat awards for valor, the procurement of which fell among his duties.
[00:05:44] But the most amazing thing of all was his belief in every one of his own words.
[00:05:51] As far as he consciously knew, he was all he claimed to be.
[00:05:56] He had forgotten how he lay quivering in the dark praying for the enemy, not to come.
[00:06:05] From that point on, I began to watch myself carefully.
[00:06:10] Was I really what I thought I was, or had I diluted myself as effectively as Role had?
[00:06:20] Then the morning the helicopter came to take Role away.
[00:06:23] He brought himself to his knees, which was as high as I had seen him rise since my arrival the night before,
[00:06:30] and without a word of farewell to me or any of the soldiers he made a desperate dash for the helicopter.
[00:06:37] In an instant he was gone, and I recognized with a feeling of awe that I was now in command.
[00:06:46] Good evening echo. Good evening.
[00:06:56] Back in Vietnam the night.
[00:06:59] And this book right here is called Platoon Leader, a memoir of command in combat by James R. McDonough.
[00:07:12] He served. He went to West Point.
[00:07:18] So four years at West Point, and then he got assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam.
[00:07:27] And one thing about this book, and this is a fantastic book.
[00:07:33] And I'll tell you there's a quote on the back of the book here.
[00:07:36] It's the Marine Corps Gazette wrote this.
[00:07:39] Stands alone is the finest statement of what it means to be the commander of a small unit.
[00:07:46] I hope that every Platoon leader reads, ponderes, and truly absorbs the words of Lieutenant Colonel McDonough.
[00:07:58] So it starts off there that was him going to this small little perimeter,
[00:08:07] but Platoon perimeter. Outside of a village in Vietnam, he's taking over from the outgoing Platoon commander.
[00:08:16] And again, this is something very different than we do in the SEAL teams where you just have a random new
[00:08:20] guy show up. It's going to take charge. We're lucky. The way we're set up, we do like an entire
[00:08:25] work up and prepare for deployment with the same guys. We're going to be on deployment with.
[00:08:30] And then we all go on deployment together. We work together and win the deployments over. We go home.
[00:08:34] It's a very solid way of running that system. This is different. There's guys trickling in and out
[00:08:40] all the time throughout the entire chain of command, all the way up from the frontline guys,
[00:08:45] all the way up to the commander of the Platoon. Fresh out of West Point,
[00:08:54] fresh out of college. Yeah, it's a military college, but shows up in Vietnam and here he is in the bush.
[00:09:04] Back to the book. I was alone. That was my first sensation as a leader. I gathered up my belongings,
[00:09:14] my weapon web gear and rucksack and moved toward the command post. I needed a few minutes to
[00:09:19] gather my thoughts before I made my debut as Platoon leader. I knew it was going to be a tricky
[00:09:24] business. I had assumed that I would have a company commander nearby to give me orders,
[00:09:31] but I had not even met him yet. I would not meet him for weeks. So that's the guy who's above
[00:09:36] the Platoon commanders, the company commander. You know, in his mind, he thinks he's going to have
[00:09:40] this company commander somewhere nearby and mentoring him and telling what to do, not happening.
[00:09:44] Doesn't have an even hasn't even met him. He's taken over the Platoon. He hasn't even met the
[00:09:47] company commander yet. I would not meet him for weeks. The fact was I was totally on my own.
[00:09:55] What should I do? Who's advice could I ask? The Platoon sergeants, the squad leaders.
[00:10:00] In time I would listen to their ideas and cooperate them with my own, but I could hardly begin
[00:10:05] with, well, what do you think we ought to do, men? No, I knew that the basic decisions were mine to make.
[00:10:13] Now, I might go in that situation a little bit different and I wouldn't have any
[00:10:16] problem. Ask in Platoon sergeants. Then ask in squad leaders. Hey, guys, what's going on?
[00:10:21] Getting some feedback from them? What's been working? What's not? I don't think there's any,
[00:10:26] I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. He took a little different tact. He didn't
[00:10:32] feel comfortable doing that. And you know, one of the reasons why he didn't feel comfortable doing that
[00:10:37] because he's young. He's fresh out of college and he's a little nervous step in this combat role.
[00:10:42] Obviously, back to the book. The first few moments would be crucial. Obviously, I was the
[00:10:51] object of interest that morning. Everyone was wondering what the new Lieutenant would be like
[00:10:57] and I would be telling them with my first words, my gestures, my demeanor, my eyes.
[00:11:04] So he knows that everything he does, they're watching him and they're judging him.
[00:11:07] I would have no grace period in which to learn my way around. This was a life and death environment.
[00:11:16] If I began with a blunder, my credibility as a leader would be shot and so might some of the men.
[00:11:24] I decided to begin by giving my attention to tactics in a military environment.
[00:11:31] Everything is determined by tactical considerations, where you sleep, when you sleep, where you go,
[00:11:36] what you do and in those company, you do it. All are dictated by underlying tactical necessities.
[00:11:46] I would communicate my style of leadership through my tactical instructions.
[00:11:51] Pretty good call. Pretty good call. Let's just talk tactics. Something that we're all familiar with.
[00:11:58] The first thing that occurred to me was the necessity of sending out patrols.
[00:12:07] If our actions were strictly defensive, the enemy would be free to pick their tactics. The
[00:12:13] initiative would be theirs and this would eventually disprove the illusion of security that the
[00:12:17] perimeter wire offered. By training told me that a completely defensive unit is a prime target
[00:12:25] for an overwhelming attack. Boom. He knows that out of the gate. Again, they've got this nice little
[00:12:31] perimeter set up. They've got 30 or so guys there. They've got to defend this perimeter from attack.
[00:12:38] But instead of just staying in a defensive position, he's like we got to go out on patrol.
[00:12:42] We got to get out there. We got to disrupt what the enemy's doing.
[00:12:48] In combat leadership, as in real estate, location is everything. I was the platoon leader,
[00:12:55] and the patroling would be done by squad size elements. Normally, there were 10 men in the squad
[00:13:01] and four squads in a rifle platoon. But personnel strengthed being what they were. My squads were
[00:13:08] down to only six or seven of men apiece. And there were only three squads. I would be risking
[00:13:14] over supervision of the patroling squad. Whose direction was better left to the squad leader if I
[00:13:21] went with it? I would also be away from the majority of my platoon back at the perimeter. On the
[00:13:27] other hand, to stay with the two squads in the perimeter would deny me the knowledge of the terrain
[00:13:33] in which the my platoon operated, and the opportunity to evaluate the quality of the patrols,
[00:13:39] the major offensive activity of my tactical position. Moreover, I would not be sharing the highest
[00:13:46] risk operations of my men and would therefore might lose their respect. I also might miss my best
[00:13:52] chance to appreciate their perceptions, needs, and attitudes. Finally, I might slip into a defensive
[00:14:00] attitude myself, and that attitude would eventually overtake the entire platoon.
[00:14:08] So, basically, there aren't their inside that perimeter. He's got three squads, and he's sending
[00:14:13] the one squad out on patrol on a fairly regular basis. And he's the question, is, you know,
[00:14:19] where should I go? What should I do? And he decides that the best thing for him to do is rotate through
[00:14:26] and go on patrol with them sometimes. And I love the point of more over, I would not be sharing
[00:14:33] in the highest risk operations of my men. So, he knows he's got to take some of the risk that
[00:14:37] they're taking, that will also give him a chance to appreciate their perceptions, needs, and attitudes.
[00:14:43] So, if you're in a leadership position, and you never get down to the frontline troops and see what
[00:14:47] they're doing, see what they're doing on the job site, see what they're doing in the field,
[00:14:52] see what's going on out there, you can't understand it. And then he says this, finally,
[00:14:58] I might slip into a defensive attitude myself, and that attitude would eventually overtake
[00:15:03] the entire platoon, because they're all going to turn into what he's turned into. Or what he is.
[00:15:11] Back to the book, if a patrol made contact with the enemy, and it lasted for any length of time,
[00:15:16] a second squad would be sent to react. If I were inside the perimeter at such a time,
[00:15:21] I would move out with the reaction squad. I firmly believed it was the duty of the combat leader to
[00:15:27] move to the sound of the guns, especially when a majority of the unit was engaged.
[00:15:37] So, he's going to be there when things go sideways. He's going to move.
[00:15:43] Now, back to his feelings on what this is like, even more on spiring than the scenery was the realization
[00:15:51] that whatever took place in this part of the world, whatever these men did, or whatever
[00:15:57] happened to them, was my responsibility. I might describe myself as a long for the ride,
[00:16:04] but whatever happened here, or back at the perimeter, I would have to account for,
[00:16:09] to my superiors, to my men, and to myself. I felt I was living a lie. I was trying desperately to
[00:16:18] learn what I was already supposed to know. So, the reason he's talking about that is when he goes
[00:16:25] out with the squads, there's a guy that's jueyered to him, a sergeant that's running the squads,
[00:16:31] running the patrol, and he's not going to go out there and be the boss. He's going to go out there
[00:16:35] sort of along for the ride. He's not going to take charge of the squad, he's going to let them do
[00:16:40] what they do, and he's going to be more of an observer. But he's, but that doesn't relinquish any
[00:16:45] responsibility from him. He still owns it. He's still taking ownership of the whole thing.
[00:16:49] And this statement about I felt I was living a lie. I was trying to desperately to learn what I was
[00:16:54] already supposed to know. That's very common. For anybody stepping up into a new leadership position,
[00:16:59] you don't think you're ready for it. I mean, often, sometimes you feel confident. But a lot of
[00:17:03] times people, people who hit me up with questions, they say, you know, I'm taking, I've been promoted.
[00:17:07] I don't think I'm ready to do that job. There's very common to feel like that. And my statement
[00:17:12] I've said it before, it's okay. Yeah, you know, there's a cognitive bias that
[00:17:17] when you're a real smart person, you don't think you're that smart. But when you're not that
[00:17:25] smart, you think you're smart. Oh, yeah, 100% of the country. We had these, we had these
[00:17:32] forms that we used to make the leaders in the seal platoons fill out. And they would rank themselves.
[00:17:36] One, you know, one being the lowest score, five being the highest score. And they'd grade themselves
[00:17:41] on whatever 10, 15 different items, tactical knowledge, ability to lead, understanding of the troops,
[00:17:51] understanding of the tactics, and they had to grade themselves on everything. And 100% of the time,
[00:17:57] 100% of the time, I don't make that claim very often. 100% of the time. The guys that
[00:18:04] graded them, the guys that were really good, really good leaders and really stepped up and really
[00:18:08] doing a great job, they'd give themselves a grade. Their grade average would be like a solid
[00:18:14] 2.7. Okay. Oh, you know, I could get better at this and I could do better here. The guys that were
[00:18:22] not good, they were not good leaders. And their latines were struggling. Literally, their grade average
[00:18:29] would be 5.0. They would give themselves a 5 and everything. Their self, that's, you know,
[00:18:36] arrogance just completely crushes your ability to do a self assessment. Yeah. Unbelievable. Interesting.
[00:18:45] Back to the book, back at the platoon base, I busied myself learning more about the tactical position
[00:18:51] and the personality of the men. There was a distance between us in those first hours. I was not sure
[00:18:59] of their soldierliness and they were not sure of my leadership. Fair enough, little, little, mutual
[00:19:05] assessment going on right there. Now they're out on a patrol and there's one of the, one of
[00:19:16] the guys spots a guy named Dunn. He spots somebody and he sort of gets ready to do engage. And
[00:19:26] McDonald says, what are you doing? And the sergeants reply was short VC. Me and these are V.
[00:19:36] A. Kong. He says, I felt it was time for me to assert myself. I would not allow the squad to fire.
[00:19:44] I did not see any weapons and regardless of the political leanings of the older man,
[00:19:49] the boy to my way of thinking deserved a little more consideration. Hold off. I said to
[00:19:54] Dunn. His looks spoke a thousand words. He wasn't accustomed to being second guest. Not only
[00:20:00] he had, he'd been a squad leader. He'd been leading the entire platoon. And the reason he says that
[00:20:05] is because in the, the, the old platoon commander who was weak and was hiding. This guy Dunn was out there
[00:20:12] making stuff happen. And now I was challenging him. My decision was made and I couldn't back away.
[00:20:18] If I relinquish my command, the squad would open fire both of the man and the boy was good as dead.
[00:20:23] Maybe Dunn was right. What did I know? I was a newcomer. If I let him give orders the consequences
[00:20:29] were his. If I gave orders, they were mine. No, I decided. Either way, the consequences were mine.
[00:20:38] I was the senior man. Even if I looked the other way, I would have sanctioned the killing.
[00:20:44] I stared back at Dunn. So, he's taking ownership. One might even say he's taking extreme ownership
[00:20:52] of the situation. And despite even if the other guy makes a decision, he owns it because he's the
[00:20:57] senior guy out there. Now they're continuing. So, they let those guys live. And now they're continuing
[00:21:07] the patrol and back to the book. I sensed a slight pull on my right foot and pivoting to my left.
[00:21:16] I took a broad step. The roaring in my ear was tremendous. As if in a dream, I began floating
[00:21:25] in the direction of my last step. It was still a warm, beautiful, clear day. Yet somehow,
[00:21:31] I didn't seem to be there anymore. I was going off into a deep sleep, although my eyes were wide
[00:21:37] open. And I could see the soldiers in front of me exactly as they had been a moment ago.
[00:21:42] I continued to float. How graceful I felt. Sensing everything in slow motion, I saw the ground rising
[00:21:49] to meet my chest. What a perfect landing it was. The ground sliding up underneath me.
[00:21:56] Then I heard, then I rose again, rebounding from the impact and the billows of soft,
[00:22:01] fine dust particles. Again, I eased down into the dirt, sending a second thicker cloud of
[00:22:08] brown debris rising around my face and outstretched hands. A abruptly, the pace of my thoughts
[00:22:15] quickened as the surrealistic effects left. My God, we've been hit. Then the pace increased to normal.
[00:22:24] Oh no, it's me. I felt sick to my stomach. I thought I would vomit. And I made my first deliberate
[00:22:30] movement since the explosion had gone off in my ear. From my prone position, I jerked my head to the
[00:22:36] left and gaped at my legs. Oh be there. Please be there. They were there bleeding in torn, but they were there.
[00:22:47] I was so happy I wanted to shout with joy. I was euphoric. So he's walking and hits a booby drop.
[00:22:57] That description is eerily similar to Jodi Middix's description of getting blown up.
[00:23:08] And yeah, I mean, this McDonald ended up in a little bit better situation in the fact that he
[00:23:14] kept his legs, but Jodi, the way Jodi describes that in his books, very similar, you know, just boom
[00:23:21] and horrible situation. Back to the book, a wounded leader is still a leader. Unless so incapacitated,
[00:23:33] he can't make decisions. I wasn't that bad off and I found it somewhat consoling to assert myself
[00:23:38] as the man in charge. At the very least, it staved off the shock that would come later.
[00:23:44] So they get them out of there and he's on a stretcher anyways, lying naked on a
[00:23:51] stretcher suspended between two chairs. I began to suffer the first sensations of shock.
[00:23:56] I began to shake so severely and I thought once again, I was going to vomit. I was also afraid
[00:24:04] of defecating where I lay. I was so overcome with self-pity that for a second, I caught myself
[00:24:11] starting to shed a tear. The morphine was having its effect and I was not in full control of my emotions.
[00:24:17] More than anything I was scared. I was no longer afraid I would die. I was afraid because I could have
[00:24:24] died. My heart was racing. My body trembling. The ringing in my ear confused. My drug thinking
[00:24:32] even more. And I couldn't focus my thoughts. I only knew I had completely failed in my first attempt
[00:24:40] to lead a combat action. The West pointer, the paratrooper, the Ranger. He had lasted less than 48 hours,
[00:24:49] blown up by his own blundering footwork and ill-considered decisions. How in glorious it all seemed,
[00:24:57] lying there in my nakedness. To use on the ground for 48 hours and this happens, go in, take over the
[00:25:05] platoon, call in the other guy, a coward basically goes out on his, I think this was his third patrol.
[00:25:12] He had done two other patrols, nothing happened on those other patrols and then boom, gets blown up.
[00:25:21] Now he's in the hospital. Four other wounded soldiers came aboard. One was gut shot and about four
[00:25:29] inches of his stomach or poking out of his middle. He shielded his wounds with his hands as he walked
[00:25:35] out to the chopper. One American armored cavalry platoon had just been ambushed in the 506 valley,
[00:25:44] south of Bondson. And nine bloated and charred, but still alive soldiers were brought in and placed next
[00:25:52] to me. They smelled awful and their pain was excruciating. Mercifully, some were unconscious,
[00:25:59] but those awake were screaming. The violent shaking I had experienced at the LZ English was rampant
[00:26:06] among the group. I was grateful to be an infantryman. I wouldn't want to travel in gasoline,
[00:26:14] fed machines that invariably exploded and burned when hit. A Vietnamese soldier had been brought in
[00:26:23] and placed ahead of me, signifying the greater severity of his wounds. He too had been gut shot,
[00:26:30] and apparently his stomach and intestines had completely spilled out. His stomach lay quite exposed,
[00:26:37] but his intestines still attached had been dumped into a sandbag which was tied securely to his
[00:26:44] thigh. When he was brought in, he was unconscious, but after a while he came to, I saw him lift his head
[00:26:52] and stare at the sandbag. What he saw made him pass out again. The cycle of coming to,
[00:26:59] looking at his intestines and passing out was repeated three times. On the last go around,
[00:27:05] he must have died for he was abruptly removed from line and taken away from the operating room.
[00:27:15] He doesn't matter what war it is. He goes into that hospital with a bringing in those wounded soldiers
[00:27:20] and it's groovy. He gets luckily his wounds weren't that bad. He gets healed up a few weeks
[00:27:36] and goes back, right back into it, right back into it, right back into it.
[00:27:43] And here they're going out on patrol and I mean, think about that. He got blown up. He's there for
[00:27:53] 48 hours. He gets blown up. He gets sent to the hospital for three weeks. He heals up. I mean,
[00:27:59] you might as well have died when you step on an ID. Just this matters and how big it was.
[00:28:04] And this one obviously wasn't big enough to kill him, but if it would have been a little bit bigger,
[00:28:08] he'd be dead. Or if a strap and a went in the wrong spot, he'd be dead. Or if he's standing a
[00:28:12] little bit closer to you, he'd be dead. Or if whatever, they didn't get him out in time,
[00:28:17] he'd be dead. If it had a vein, he'd be dead. If it had an artery, he'd be dead. So he knows that.
[00:28:22] And guess what? Doesn't matter. Giddy up, go back out there. You're back in the game. And here we go.
[00:28:29] They're going out on patrol. I placed myself fourth in the order of marches. We slid out the wire.
[00:28:36] The first 50 yards were tolerable. But as we left the relative security of the perimeter,
[00:28:42] further and further behind, I began to dread that each footstep would land me on another booby trap.
[00:28:49] I tried not to think about my wounds and the mayhem and gore I'd seen during the past few weeks,
[00:28:55] but the more I tried to forget the more clearly I remembered. If I was going to die,
[00:29:01] and I began to grieve for myself, for my wife, for the little boy who would never really know his father,
[00:29:09] sweat poured from my forehead, my back, my every joint. My stomach was as tight as a knot.
[00:29:17] Each step felt as if it might paralyze me. I tried hard to feel my leg, so I would remember them
[00:29:27] long after they were blown off. I was torturing myself. Then I realized that the other men must be
[00:29:36] afraid too, yet they kept moving. I was their leader. I had been trained for my job in the best
[00:29:44] installations in the US Army had to offer West Point Airborne School Ranger School Jungle War Fair
[00:29:52] School. How could I be deficient after such an investment? While my men wrenched from unmilitary
[00:30:00] backgrounds into the Army and quickly processed in an impersonal training facilities continued
[00:30:05] to do their duty. Somehow I kept moving. I could not allow myself to appear cowardly in the
[00:30:12] eyes of those men besides there was no place else to go. That IED Booby trap threat is just horrifying.
[00:30:33] And it's scary enough for just being over there when you see the destruction that it causes,
[00:30:38] but getting blown up and actually personally stepping on ID and then you're back in the field
[00:30:44] three weeks later. In the same area patrolling the same ground. That's courage.
[00:30:55] Now is there moving into position on an ambush site. He's getting some stuff from his gear
[00:31:04] and here we go back to the book. As I struggled through the undergrowth, the lace called on a branch
[00:31:09] and pulled the compass loose from its birth, causing it to fall in the ground where it struck a rock.
[00:31:17] The metallic case made a loud ping as it bounced. Without hesitation, I yelled Booby trap.
[00:31:24] Lurch to the right through myself to the ground, covered my head with my arms and tried to pull
[00:31:33] my legs up to my button, bracefully explosion that was about to rip me apart.
[00:31:41] And all the other guys are doing the same thing, diving for cover.
[00:31:45] So if you didn't catch that, he was just moving through the brush and something caught on his
[00:31:51] compass and pulled it out of its pocket and it fell to the ground and he heard that metallic noise
[00:31:56] and he yelled out. I mean, they're on patrol. They're setting up an ambush. So this will be quiet and
[00:32:00] tactical and silent and all of a sudden he's yelling out. Booby trap and diving to the ground.
[00:32:04] It makes everyone take cover. So they come back from that and he says, I took the time to debrief
[00:32:14] the patoon upon reentry to the perimeter, pointing out the strong points and the weak points of the
[00:32:19] night's actions. I did not spare myself in the critique. I simply stated what had happened.
[00:32:27] I had made a mistake but an honest one. There were a few subdued comments by the patrol members,
[00:32:33] all of whom clearly recognized the danger of my action. It didn't matter. I had overcome my fear.
[00:32:40] I was once again in control of my patoon and more importantly, myself. So when you make a
[00:32:45] mistake on it, that's what you got to do when you make a mistake on it. Back to the book. My indoctrination
[00:32:55] period was over. I had been bludded but survived. I had been embarrassed but would recover.
[00:33:02] The early shocks had been merciful in that they were over quickly. I could now turn my attention away
[00:33:08] from the self-conscious concerns of how I would fit into this alien environment and how I might
[00:33:14] be perceived by the soldiers I led. I could concentrate instead upon improving my style of leadership
[00:33:21] and fighting the enemy. There was much to do. For too long, the patoon had done only those things
[00:33:29] necessary to minimize casualties and approach that in the long run would surely lead to maximum
[00:33:37] casualties. So you want to sit back, you want to hide, you're letting the enemy get a drop on you.
[00:33:47] And he knows that. You got to take some risk upfront to prevent the long-term extreme risk.
[00:33:57] Back to the book. An old army added claims that soldiers only do well that which their commander checks
[00:34:04] and combat everything must be done well. Yet I realized I couldn't possibly check everything.
[00:34:12] But I could create the illusion that everything was being checked especially if I use the
[00:34:18] squad leaders and the patoon sergeants as extensions of my own will. So a little bit of decentralized
[00:34:27] commander. He knows he can't inspect everything. He can't be everywhere all the time. But if he uses
[00:34:34] proper decentralized command, he can make it happen. Because his leaders, his subordinate leaders,
[00:34:39] will make it happen. Back to the book, not only tactics, but all matters relevant to our life
[00:34:47] in the field had to be supervised. For instance, health habits had to be inspected as diligently
[00:34:53] as weapons were. Soldiers have to be kept clean. They have to shave and watch, wash, and the
[00:34:59] squad leader has to see that they do. Soldiers need a place to relieve themselves, a place secure from
[00:35:05] both enemy and the disease. Messic women has to be kept clean and soldiers need a balanced diet.
[00:35:12] Feet must be cared for. A squad leader is accountable for the changing of socks as he is for the
[00:35:18] cleaning of weapons. Men on alert must stay awake no matter how exhausting the preceding hours
[00:35:25] have been. Radios have to be monitored, kept dried, and supplied with fresh batteries.
[00:35:30] Proper communication procedures must be maintained. Coads must not be compromised.
[00:35:36] Positions must be constantly improved. The claymore minds have to be checked,
[00:35:40] camouflage, and recamouflaged. Trenches have to be deepened. Firing positions must be made
[00:35:45] more lethal to the enemy. Artillery fires must be registered and re-registered.
[00:35:50] Grasadiation to the wire must be kept cut. The ammunition bunker has to be kept dry.
[00:35:54] Soldiers must rehearse in all combat situations that may be expected of them.
[00:36:00] The functioning of the chain of command must be clearly understood by all the men.
[00:36:04] In combat, leaders are quickly attrided, and every man in his turn must be prepared to take over the
[00:36:10] mission. Lot of stuff to handle. That's why he's saying he can't do all that himself.
[00:36:17] You have to use decentralized command in these situations.
[00:36:23] Back to the book, I checked positions at night. Every night. I lay behind the machine guns
[00:36:29] of the men in the strong points. I checked the frequency of the radio carried by the RTO.
[00:36:34] I ate my e-mails at irregular hours, sometimes alone, sometimes with a group of soldiers.
[00:36:40] I sat and listened to the men. I studied their manner of speech, their gate. The fact that they
[00:36:46] were left or right handed. How soundly they slept. How well they saw in the dark.
[00:36:53] I listened to their stories, their hopes, their gripes. I tried not to speak about myself.
[00:37:00] They're concerned about me. Was whether or not I could get them through their tour.
[00:37:06] They might want to tell me about their homes and their families, but they wanted me to listen,
[00:37:11] not talk. They did not want to know about my life away from Vietnam.
[00:37:16] I was an officer, and their eyes that made me different. I was a part of this war.
[00:37:24] I was one of the they. They drafted the soldier. They trained him. They ordered him to this
[00:37:35] god for sake in place, and they sent him out on terrifying missions to be maimed and killed.
[00:37:42] They did not have a life other than the army. They were the army.
[00:37:49] So I listened and I watched. These men were the prime resource of the platoon.
[00:38:01] They would fulfill its missions. They would do their countries bidding.
[00:38:05] But they were men first. They were not so many boots on parade. They were human.
[00:38:13] They had loves, fears, futures that they hoped to see. They made me wonder.
[00:38:22] Was I coming to know them too well to make them do what they had to do?
[00:38:28] Or did I not know them well enough to ask them to do it?
[00:38:32] I say that all the time. That's one of the misconceptions about the military.
[00:38:42] Is that the people that are in the military are people, they're humans.
[00:38:50] Not so many boots on parade.
[00:38:53] Now he talks a little bit about the enemy. The enemy were also young, also adherents of a
[00:39:04] humanistic faith in which killing was not the essence of life. Yet now we face each other.
[00:39:13] Obsessed with the idea of killing each other. There was no respite from it.
[00:39:19] Once a day I wrote a letter to my wife. It was a moment of sanity snatched from the madness of war.
[00:39:28] If anything, my thoughts of home reinforced my desire to stay alive and my determination to keep the
[00:39:33] enemy from killing me. They would not kill me. They would not kill my men. We would kill them first.
[00:39:41] War is the management of violence claimed the contemporary social scientists and military
[00:39:50] strategists as we hacked our way through the struggle of Vietnam. For us, violence was killing.
[00:39:58] There was no management involved. People were either dead or they were not.
[00:40:04] I could not manage my platoon up a hill. I had to lead them up there. I had a mission to accomplish
[00:40:15] and I had men to keep alive as many as I could. I had to do more than keep them alive. I had to
[00:40:23] preserve their human dignity. I was making them kill. Forcing them to commit the most uncivilized
[00:40:31] of acts. But at the same time, I had to keep them civilized. That was my duty as their leader.
[00:40:40] They were good men, but they were facing death. And men facing death can forgive themselves
[00:40:47] many things. War gives the appearance of condoning almost everything, but men must live with their
[00:40:55] actions for a long time afterward. A leader has to help them understand that. There are lines.
[00:41:04] They must not cross. He is their linked normalcy to order to humanity.
[00:41:12] If the leader loses his own sense of propriety or shrink from his duty, anything will be allowed,
[00:41:20] and anything can happen. Some men in combat will commit war crimes. Just as some men in combat
[00:41:27] will fail to take care of themselves. They will experiment with drugs, steel property, abuse,
[00:41:33] women. When this happens, it destroys the discipline of a unit making it easier for others to follow suit.
[00:41:42] War is at its very core, the absence of order. And the absence of order leads to very easily
[00:41:50] to the absence of morality, unless the leader can preserve each of them in its place.
[00:41:56] The leader has to set the standards from morality as clearly as he sets the standards for
[00:42:01] personal hygiene or weapons maintenance. He must allow no cutting of corners.
[00:42:08] A bottle of soda stolen from an old peasant woman leads gradually but directly to the rape of her
[00:42:14] daughter if the line is not drawn in the beginning. There's a lot of dichotomy in there.
[00:42:26] And this is what I've talked about before. I was making them kill, forcing them to commit the most
[00:42:32] in civil-uncivilized of acts, but at the same time, I had to keep them civilized.
[00:42:37] And you know another one that I talk about all the time is the fact that you care about your men
[00:42:52] more than anything. And yet you have to send them out on missions where they can be
[00:43:00] gravely wounded or killed. And so this is what a combat leader is struggling with. This is the
[00:43:07] dichotomy of leadership. This was war. This Vietnam involvement and in war, things tend to happen.
[00:43:21] But the commander was the link to order and civility and he had to be humane.
[00:43:26] At the same time, he had to be uncompromising to protect the lives of all. The job was not easy.
[00:43:40] The job was not easy. No sir, it was not.
[00:43:44] Now he goes into a chapter that's called a cast of characters where he's describing some of the people
[00:43:58] in the Paltoon. Who were the sons that America sent to war? In vain, I looked for the
[00:44:08] article Platoon of Romantic fiction. The kid from Brooklyn wasn't there. The Incipant Poet never
[00:44:21] made it. The rich mama's boy out to prove his manhood stayed home. As a cross section of America's
[00:44:29] youth, the Platoon was a complete failure. So all these typical characters that you see in the movies
[00:44:36] and this idea that it's a cross section of America, no, it wasn't. The military draft was never
[00:44:44] concerned with equity. Its sole purpose was to obtain the required numbers of men with sufficient
[00:44:49] mental and physical qualities to do the job. Since the pool of men from which to draw was much greater
[00:44:56] than the numbers needed, a natural selection process allowed the educated and the privilege to
[00:45:01] avoid the draft altogether. The selection process continued for the unfortunate drafted so that
[00:45:09] those with some education or particular skills would be devoted from combat service.
[00:45:17] Even among those who made it to Vietnam, the vast majority never saw combat.
[00:45:23] Only those without skill, without schooling, and without friends, or whose or who were
[00:45:29] obstinate in the face of ceaseless, proselytizing against their obligation to serve, made it to the
[00:45:36] field. And they knew it. Talking about some of the guys here, he's got
[00:45:48] guy named Jim Barnes from Asheville, North Carolina who is
[00:45:52] good solid operator, got a really bad stutter. Guy named Corp. John Killigan from Baker's field,
[00:46:04] California, and he sort of is the throughout the book. He's a guy that is sort of the
[00:46:11] model soldier. And he's 22 years old already on his third tour of duty in Vietnam. And by the way,
[00:46:20] a tour in Vietnam was a year long. So this guy's so killigan's on his third tour in Vietnam,
[00:46:25] most combat experience soldier in the book, too, and everyone respected him. But no one considered
[00:46:32] him a friend. The reason was simple why he was so well respected, he was the best soldier among us.
[00:46:40] He had the reflexes of a cat. He was a deadly shot and ferocious in a fight. And he never showed
[00:46:46] the slightest bit of concern for his own safety. Awesome. There were so many ways to avoid
[00:46:59] ending up as a combat infantryman. There were so many of their countrymen who would never
[00:47:05] see an all-of-drab uniform or a drill sergeant or the green hell of Vietnam. But each of these
[00:47:12] men seemed destined to end up there as if it had been written in granite on the day of his birth.
[00:47:22] They did not complain. This is what those guys live with a little bit.
[00:47:31] I noticed one day that specialist Barnes turned away when one particularly beautiful girl
[00:47:36] walked close to biome as he was clearing a thicket of underbrush away from the wire. The girl's
[00:47:43] left arm was missing. Her empty sleeve folded neatly and pinned to her shoulder.
[00:47:50] What's the matter Barnes I asked? In his painstakingly slow stutter, Barnes explained that the girl in
[00:47:57] her lover were among a group of armed vehicles who walked through one of our ambushes one night.
[00:48:02] The ambush was sprung. The boyfriend was killed and the girl's arm was mangled by a bullet.
[00:48:11] The girl was evacuated by the Americans but her arm could not be saved.
[00:48:16] Eventually she returned to work her fields. What do you say to a girl whose arm you shot off?
[00:48:25] Barnes asked me, his stutter clearing for a minute. I could think of no reply.
[00:48:35] Now, there's starting to get some intelligence report that there's
[00:48:40] ominous forecast that there's going to be some big attacks, some big enemy thrusts,
[00:48:45] and he's taking some time to prepare for that.
[00:48:48] My targets for improvement were discipline and tactics. The two are closely related. In the heat of
[00:48:58] battle there is no time for second guessing the per commander and is necessary for a soldier to
[00:49:03] develop an automatic response to an order. Such instantaneous obedience will overcome all fears,
[00:49:09] all confusion, all inclinations towards self preservation. It is the result of unmedicated daily
[00:49:16] discipline in all things, from taking the daily malaria pill to shaving each day to attacking in the
[00:49:24] face of an automatic weapon. I'm adding this to my life, the statement of unmedicated daily discipline
[00:49:37] in all things. They're heading out on a patrol and as McDonald heads up the line to inspect some
[00:49:50] of the soldiers, here we go to the book. Suddenly there was a hollow sounding explosion in a whistling
[00:49:56] past my ear followed by another explosion a second later about 150 meters out in the bushes.
[00:50:02] I spun around to see King, one of the guys, King with a sneer on his face. Sorry, L.T.
[00:50:10] the words his from his mouth. I dropped my weapon. The grenade launcher dangled from his right hand,
[00:50:18] a waft of smoke curling up from the barrel. It was clear that he had fired his 40 millimeter round at
[00:50:26] me. At that range, he could not have missed, so he must have meant it as a warning. He was telling
[00:50:33] me he did not like my attitude. So he got McDonald who's been imposing discipline and trying
[00:50:38] to keep the guy squared away and this guy doesn't like it. And so he sends him a warning shot with
[00:50:44] his with his M79 grenade launcher. I was scared, but I was angry too. King had not only threatened
[00:50:53] my life, but my authority as well. A few weeks earlier, I might have been overcome by the situation,
[00:50:58] but since then I had developed a thick skin necessary for survival in Vietnam. With murder in my eyes,
[00:51:05] I looked into King's face. Slowly, deliberately, I walked up to him saying nothing until I was
[00:51:11] close enough to touch him. I had made no threatening gesture. Suddenly, when I was close enough
[00:51:17] to smell his breath, I flicked my M16 in fire position and placed the muzzle of the weapon
[00:51:23] in the cavity of the underside of his chin. He went up on his toes as I increased the pressure of the
[00:51:29] rifle barrel, lifting him up against the bottom of his head. The sneer was now on my face,
[00:51:36] as I raised my voice, so everyone could hear you son of a bitch. The eyes of everyone in the
[00:51:43] pitoon were riveted on us. Drop your weapon again and you better pray to God, it hits me square in
[00:51:49] the back because if it doesn't, you bastard, I'll blow your brains to kingdom come.
[00:51:57] Not a man stirred, putting down a little rebellion. But again, this is something we...
[00:52:07] Well, you knew you think about that. I mean, from my perspective, nothing like that ever came close
[00:52:11] to happening me at any time. Was there any time where I ever thought any of my guys would do
[00:52:18] anything in any way to hurt me in any situation? In fact, those guys would do anything to save me.
[00:52:24] They would never let anything happen to me. And here you have one of your guys that just decides
[00:52:28] it's going to give you a warning shot with a 40 millimeter grenade launcher. Because he doesn't like
[00:52:32] here added to whatever. They're probably not allowed to do with a lot of those guys didn't want to be there.
[00:52:40] Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:52:42] Now they are moving forward on the patrol. They had a little incident happen.
[00:52:56] And they find a corpse from the book now. I was becoming fairly accustomed of viewing the
[00:53:04] dead, but this cadavir was particularly grotesque. It was the old woman who had cared for the children.
[00:53:10] Both her breasts had been half severed from her body, a deliberate cut made on the underside of each.
[00:53:18] Each palm in the soul of each foot had been shot through with a small caliber round.
[00:53:23] The killing wound, which no doubt had followed the earlier torturous wounds was a blast from a
[00:53:29] weapon evidently placed inside her mouth and directed out the back of her head.
[00:53:34] Her eyes were open, transfixed and terror. Jabbed into her belly on the end of a straight and
[00:53:42] safety pin was a note. Nand the kit Carson scout translated it for me.
[00:53:51] To one cow key has been found guilty by the people's court of aiding the American
[00:53:56] imperialists and their suppression of the Vietnamese people. As an enemy of the people,
[00:54:02] she has been made to pay for her crimes. This is the justice that will be brought to all who
[00:54:07] consort with the Americans and aid them in the villainous suppression of our land.
[00:54:15] War is hell.
[00:54:21] Now, they start to get
[00:54:25] attacked inside their perimeter. Then here we go. At that moment, the first rush was made by the enemy.
[00:54:36] 20 to 30 V at Kong appeared coming at the South Wired Dead Run. I shouted for my men to
[00:54:43] shift fire on them. There was no need for my words. My men were responding well. We were getting off
[00:54:49] a handheld flare every 30 seconds which illuminated the rushing enemy very clearly. The two machine
[00:54:56] guns on that portion of our perimeter barked out of welcome and neat six round bursts. Several of
[00:55:02] the enemy fell. Their first rush was stopped in its tracks. It was becoming increasingly clear
[00:55:11] that the machine gun was going to be the key weapon in the initial stoppage of the fight.
[00:55:15] And I just highlighted that because I know I get a I hear from military guys all the time.
[00:55:22] Guys that are overseas and I just wanted to reiterate that. In the fire fight, the machine gun
[00:55:29] is the key weapon. Now they're continuing to being attacked and from the southeast of
[00:55:39] woman came running toward the break in the wire. She was carrying a bulky object in her arms
[00:55:44] but in the flickering light of the flares it was impossible to identify it. Don't fire Lawrence
[00:55:49] barked. I was not sure I agreed. If it was a satchel charge that the woman was carrying
[00:55:55] she would be able to fling it in and us in another few steps. The explosion would rip apart that
[00:56:00] perimeter wide open allowing the enemy to rush through unimpeded. On the other hand if the woman
[00:56:07] was seeking help it would be a tragedy to cut her down. As I hesitated the heavy beat of enemy
[00:56:14] rounds forced her down. Lawrence made a dash for the wire. Got 10 steps and then went into a low
[00:56:20] crawl. Inching is way along. He made it to a break in the wire and came up to the woman.
[00:56:25] In her arms was her seven-year-old daughter. The little girl had taken around clean through the
[00:56:29] chest along was collapsed and she was bleeding heavily. Her mother was trying to make it to us to save
[00:56:37] the child. Again this is the dichotomy of war. You got people torturing and murdering
[00:56:48] old women and then you get this situation where there's a woman who's rushing the perimeter
[00:56:53] and this guy says she's don't shoot her and then crawls out. Rises life to go and try and find out
[00:57:00] what the situation is and help her. There's darkness and there's light. They beat back that attack
[00:57:16] and the next morning they go out on patrol. Killigan was the point man on the first patrol
[00:57:22] out the morning after the fight. All night he'd worked the machine gun from the southern tip of
[00:57:26] the platoon triangle. His steady hand holding the enemy rushes at bay. Early in the fight the
[00:57:33] attackers had recognized Killigan's prowess and tried their best to put him out of action.
[00:57:38] The sound, the sandbags surrounding his position were torn and poked from the bullets and
[00:57:43] shrapnel aimed at his early retirement. He had not flinched throughout the night.
[00:57:49] Now he took up the point with the alertness of a well-rested cat. The man seemed indestructible.
[00:58:05] Now he starts talking a little bit about the situation that they were in and some moves that he
[00:58:11] made and one of the things he did was he kept his forces together at this point when they'd been
[00:58:15] attacked or he reunited his forces and he talks about that here. Had the enemy struck while my
[00:58:20] meager forces were split, they might have overwhelmed one or both elements piecemeal.
[00:58:27] Controlling the separated elements would also have been almost impossible and the subsequent
[00:58:33] coordination of outside support such as air strike and armor platoon would have been too hazardous
[00:58:39] had we even survived long enough to receive help. So he's talking about again this is just going
[00:58:43] out to people that are in the military in the field. Avoid splitting your forces up. Just avoid
[00:58:50] something you obviously have to do it but always think about it. Think about the ramifications of it.
[00:58:56] When you're split up, number one, you're two elements are weak. That's why when you do split up,
[00:59:00] you should stay as often as you can stay within position of mutual support. Where your weapons
[00:59:04] can support the other group and you can bring them back to your perimeter or you can attack or
[00:59:08] you can flank or you can support them. The other thing that's very difficult when you're split up
[00:59:12] is it's very difficult to control what's happening. Because you likely out of verbal range,
[00:59:18] you know, could possibly be out of radio range and now now how you can control what's going to
[00:59:22] happen. So if you do have to split up, make sure you have very good loss of communication plans
[00:59:27] to react to. If something happens, we're going to go to this master point. Here's going to be
[00:59:31] the signaling when you come in there. So you've got to think about that. And finally, when you split
[00:59:35] your forces up on the battlefield and you lose control of them. Now you can't call for air support.
[00:59:40] You can't, it's very difficult to get help and bring the funder that you would want to because you
[00:59:46] don't know where everybody is. So when you do have to split for, so what you do absolutely have to
[00:59:50] do sometimes avoid it as much you can. And then when you have to plan for the worst case scenario.
[00:59:55] So that you're ready for it. Now they're back to kind of sorting things out after this
[01:00:04] hardcore battle when they, when the VC attacked. My eyes returned to the bodies laying so lying
[01:00:11] so neatly in line. Why did we line them up anyways? Was it a pension for neatness and attempt to
[01:00:19] bring some orderlyness to the disorder of death? It was so absurd. I remembered reading somewhere
[01:00:27] that in World War II the Germans had lined up the bodies of American prisoners they'd massacred.
[01:00:32] Disorder and order, barbarity and civility. Civility. Ironic juxtapositions in the affairs of
[01:00:42] men, again, we're just talking about dichotomy of war. Myelation was reduced to a sense of
[01:00:49] insignificance by the cold, brown look of the corpses sprawled in the bright sunlight. A few hours
[01:00:57] ago each one had been a dynamo of a human spirit, hope, and ambition. Now they were still their
[01:01:04] motion frozen at least in that last instant of life as if making a mockery of the final effort.
[01:01:15] They had become meaningless clumps of earth forever in an animate, no more significant than the
[01:01:21] rocks lying to their left and right. How fickle those human ambitions now seemed, how pointless
[01:01:28] those concerns. And just as the bodies had become part of the earth on which they rested,
[01:01:35] so I had passed during the battle from being in the war to being part of the war.
[01:01:53] Continuing on, the fog of war is pervasive. As vigilant as I tried to be, I knew it was only a
[01:02:00] matter of time before a mistake was made. There were six squads to control as well as the armored
[01:02:06] cavalry puttune and the still dischointed RF gaggle. Moreover, Vietnamese regular army units were
[01:02:13] infringing on my area. As puttune leader, I had the problems of the rich. Too many resources to
[01:02:21] coordinate in a limited area of operations. The ingredients for a tragedy were brewing, and so he had
[01:02:28] been augmented with some cavalry guys, with more potuctions, or sorry, more squads to help
[01:02:33] mounts. And now he's got a bunch of people there. He had 30 before. Now he's got a lot more.
[01:02:40] And there's patrols or happening. Things are going on. And we start getting a call of potential
[01:02:49] enemy out and outside the wire. And he's checking his map. And he's going back and forth on the
[01:02:58] radio. Hey, is that we have any friendlies in that location. Nope. No friendlies there. Check with
[01:03:01] the other guys. Nope. We had no friendlies there. So no one's in that area. No. There's no
[01:03:05] friendlies in that area. Okay. God, he's checking his map. He's going back and forth. And now we go
[01:03:09] back to the book. All checks had been made. The squads still had the moving element in sight. The
[01:03:16] decision was now mine. Take them under fire with the sniper. Then open up, shoot to kill.
[01:03:23] The last statement seemed pointless. We always shot to kill, but it reflected my troubled
[01:03:29] thoughts over the risk I was taking. The enemy just did not go that way. But no friendlies were
[01:03:36] reported anywhere near us. It had to be the enemy. So here's the one shot. The sniper go out.
[01:03:42] Then he hears massive gunfire go out. You can probably tell where this is heading.
[01:03:48] And then a phranic voice scream from my radio ceasefire. Sees fire. My God, you're killing us.
[01:03:56] I was horrified as I grabbed the handset and barked my order 2121. This is 26 ceasefire. Over.
[01:04:03] They had heard the original plea. And even as I spoke, the melee quieted.
[01:04:08] Again, the radio spoke. You sons of bitches. They're dead. They're dead.
[01:04:12] So in the confusion in the fog of war, they'd seen some guys. And obviously they turned out
[01:04:23] to be friendly. And they engaged them. Over the next 30 minutes, they get the debrief of what's
[01:04:29] happening. It was American advisor was out there with a Vietnamese platoon. One of his guys were dead
[01:04:35] and two were badly wounded. Then here's how he felt about that. I had ordered the execution
[01:04:45] of those men because the lieutenant advisor had made a mistake. By the way, they were 2,500
[01:04:50] meters off course. So they should not have been in that area. And when they were hearing,
[01:04:54] they were hearing on the radio. Hey, is there any friendlies out there? And they thought there's
[01:04:56] no way that anyone could be talking to us right now. But it happens. And a man should not be
[01:05:04] condemned to death for it. In war, however, the price from mistakes is deer and terribly final.
[01:05:13] Military leaders must weigh effects of their decisions carefully before because usually
[01:05:20] there is no turning back.
[01:05:21] That that blue on blue, that fratricide thing. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. I've lived
[01:05:34] through it myself. I've been in charge when it's happening. It's awful. And it's real.
[01:05:42] And so everybody that's out there that soldiers, Marines, special ops guys, train for that.
[01:05:51] Get that make yourselves, make your leadership. Make everyone as keen few as you can as what's
[01:05:56] happening so that you force yourselves to think and understand and over communicate where people are,
[01:06:04] what positions they're going to, what positions they're leaving, who's where on the battlefield.
[01:06:09] The fog of war is no joke.
[01:06:11] Now there's another attack that they that they pushed back and they kind of forward it early on by
[01:06:25] by catching someone that was going to, that was inside. There was going to try and get inside their
[01:06:32] compound. They catch that person. And here we go to the book. Their plan must have been to
[01:06:37] rupture our defense with a tremendous blast from the ammunition bunker and then rush it us from the
[01:06:41] eastern flank with the five sappers while we were still daysed. The sappers were armed only with
[01:06:49] fragmentation grenades. But they had plenty of them. Later we took 49 grenades from their bodies.
[01:06:56] One of the sappers, a young muscular man who in life would have epitomized the propaganda stereotypical
[01:07:02] revolutionary, but who in death appeared like so much wasted clay, was dressed only in a loincloth.
[01:07:12] Folded within that single article of clothing was a small piece of paper upon which was drawn
[01:07:17] or rough but accurate sketch of our perimeter defense. The first link in their plan had been
[01:07:24] destroyed by the capture of the infiltrator and was further deteriorated by the annihilation of the
[01:07:30] sapper force. But the vehicle were never noted for their flexibility and they continued to press
[01:07:37] forward according to their original plan. However, instead of meeting daysed, dying and demoralized
[01:07:43] defenders, the enemy rushed right into the protective fires of already enabled platoon.
[01:07:49] Because of a slight twist of fortune over which the vehicle had no influence, the attackers went to
[01:07:54] their death rather than the victory that night. This is the second time we've heard that,
[01:08:00] is just the the Viet Kong not being very flexible, not being very adaptable with their plan.
[01:08:08] So once again, if you're in a leadership position, you've got to maintain flexibility with
[01:08:14] your plan, whether you're in a combat operation or whether you're in a business world,
[01:08:18] it doesn't matter. Maintaining flexibility is absolutely paramount in from a leadership perspective,
[01:08:24] and from a team perspective. Now, after that attack, they move out to go for a counter attack,
[01:08:38] which is just, let's think about this. You're in your perimeter, you get attacked. They had a person
[01:08:45] that infiltrated and almost made it into the main ammo bunker that you have. They almost blew that up.
[01:08:52] And then their second thing was to have these the sappers, these soldiers crawling through the
[01:08:57] wire with 40 something grenades with them to go and jack stuff up. You push back, you repel this
[01:09:04] attack, and then guess what? The time for a counter attack. So here he is, as the back of the book,
[01:09:11] as the squad lined up for the exit through the wire, I looked at their young faces, tightened to
[01:09:15] stifle the fear building up inside their bodies. They were barely men, yet called upon by their
[01:09:22] country and abandoned by their more well-to-do peers, about to face a ruthless enemy who meant to
[01:09:28] put them in their early grave. No words of complaint from any of them. They were American infantry
[01:09:36] men, and would do the job they were asked to do. No matter what, no matter that it would not be
[01:09:43] appreciated. No matter that they would be condemned by their countrymen or at least the
[01:09:46] countrymen with the ability to wear with all to mold public opinion. Tonight they would do their duty.
[01:09:55] Though they were little more than boys, though they were frightened, though they were most
[01:10:00] not ready to die, they would do their duty. Most of them were labeled as coming from the lower social
[01:10:08] strata of American society, as if that were something in noble. I felt proud to be with them
[01:10:16] and glad to share their company. Their qualities of moral and physical courage of unselfice
[01:10:23] dedication to each other amid the difficult jobs they were called upon to do mark them in my mind
[01:10:30] as among the noblest of human beings. So they're out on this counterattack. I mean, what a great
[01:10:43] tribute to the American soldier. Unbelievable, unbelievable dedication and pride, unbelievable men.
[01:10:56] Now they, they're patrolling out in front of them. They hear some whispers and whispers out in
[01:11:07] front of them. We're either patrolling towards and they're trying to figure out what to do and it sounds
[01:11:13] like McDonald's Sorosant. Hey, let's just kill these guys. There's bad guys up ahead. We're
[01:11:20] out there whispering and kill again. Tugs of the Zarm and says, stay here. Like, I'm going to go
[01:11:27] check this out. He basically says, you know, we shouldn't, we shouldn't kill these people. And
[01:11:35] he McDonald gets kind of pissed because he's taking a look. This isn't the time for us to debate
[01:11:42] right now. I want to make a decision. And he says, kill again in one of his real moments of speech,
[01:11:52] he has to let me check it out first. So kill again doesn't talk much. He gets it done.
[01:11:59] So he creeps forward, you know, and he was basically saying, look, I'm going to go on alone.
[01:12:04] Like, are you just let me take my chances? I'm not putting anybody else at risk. Just me.
[01:12:09] And so he decides, okay, go ahead. You want to take you on a risk your life.
[01:12:14] And so he kill again disappears into the darkness and then a little while later he comes back.
[01:12:19] It's cool. And we'll go to the book here. Then it's quite easy. Crup to away.
[01:12:23] Kill again reappeared from the darkness. He crawled up to my face and said, it's okay. Let's move on.
[01:12:30] What were the voices? I asked. Family was his one more response.
[01:12:35] I passed the word to hold fire and the file began moving. We moved out of position and through
[01:12:41] the brush to our front. There huddled in a hole that must have been used as a household garbage dump.
[01:12:48] We're two aged women and old man, one young woman, and four tiny children.
[01:12:54] The elderly people had shy and bearous smiles on their faces. The children stared in sheer terror.
[01:13:01] Well, they might. I had nearly killed them all. The sight of the family was haunting.
[01:13:11] I and others like me are trained in commission to lead men into actions that determine life and death.
[01:13:19] Our authority, particularly on the field of battle, is virtually unquestioned.
[01:13:24] We were tasked to lead men like Kill again to tell them what should be done and what they must do.
[01:13:33] We have no obligation to listen to their point of view. Indeed, to do so,
[01:13:38] might be in itself or cause to occur a failure of leadership.
[01:13:45] And yet, the American soldier is often much more prepared than his leader to make a sound
[01:13:51] determination of what should be done. Kill again's approach had been wiser than mine.
[01:13:56] I was too preoccupied with my own safety and the safety of my men to consider that there might have
[01:14:01] been a non-combatant in the area. I had come to the most basic of battle field strategies.
[01:14:07] Shoot now and ask questions later. A thousand times I might have been able to rationalize that
[01:14:13] course of action after the fact. But I had gone, but had I gone ahead this time that people huddled
[01:14:20] now whole would have been dead, nothing but rotting corpses by the heat of the next day.
[01:14:25] That they were alive was no thanks to me. It was to kill again's credit.
[01:14:32] And he was just a quote, lowly American infantrymen.
[01:14:41] So once again, just credit to the trooper, to the soldier. And you can see there's this is
[01:14:48] some of the things that he talked about that we have no obligation to listen to that
[01:14:53] point of view. That's something that you can see he's maturing out of.
[01:14:58] And this paragraph is a visible evidence of him transitioning from, hey, look, I'm the boss.
[01:15:05] I'm in charge, do what I say to you know what, these guys know better than I do in many cases.
[01:15:10] And that's from a leadership perspective. That's a very important lesson to learn.
[01:15:14] And the soon you learn it the better off you're going to be. The people that you're leading
[01:15:18] oftentimes know the situation, the job, the technicalities better than you do.
[01:15:24] So rely on them, count on them, ask their opinion. And the fact of the matter is when you
[01:15:31] don't ask their opinion, it's only because you're insecure about your leadership, ability and your
[01:15:37] position. And by not asking, you actually, you actually develop less respect than if you say,
[01:15:50] hey, you know what, kill again? You've been here. This is your third-torn Vietnam. What do you
[01:15:55] think we should do here? You will not lose respect, leaders, you will not lose respect if you
[01:16:01] ask that question. In fact, you lose respect when you don't respect your frontline trooper,
[01:16:07] when you don't use their talent, when you don't take advantage of their expertise, that's when you go
[01:16:12] backwards. Listen to your troopers. So he gets, he gets pulled back to command. They assign
[01:16:30] him to like a mixed match unit of a bunch of random squads because they have a certain mission that
[01:16:37] they want him to do. And they've gone out and they've set up a perimeter. Now, if you don't know
[01:16:43] security perimeter, it's basically 360 degree security perimeter of where you're, you have guns pointed
[01:16:49] to the outside and you have usually the leadership will be in the center of the perimeter. And then
[01:16:54] we small teams kind of out in the perimeter making up the perimeter. So that's the position that
[01:16:58] they're in. He's got these random squads that he's never worked with before and he's in charge of them.
[01:17:04] Again, this is something where we did have to work with Iraq, he's on my last appointment, but oftentimes
[01:17:10] you're working with other seals. These guys, you know, guys, you know, I'm really well,
[01:17:14] you know everything they're going to do. And here you are, getting thrown into a combat environment
[01:17:17] on a very dangerous patrol into enemy territory that you don't know very well. And you've got a bunch
[01:17:21] of guys that you never worked with before. So as he's in that perimeter, he's given the guys some
[01:17:30] instructions about something called challenge and replies. So it's a way of confirming,
[01:17:36] because this is pitch black. These guys don't have night vision. It's pitch black. He says, hey,
[01:17:40] if you hear someone coming, you can issue the challenge for a number sum of 10, which is like,
[01:17:46] if I say echo, or if I hear you coming and I say seven, you would respond three. If I say four,
[01:17:52] you would respond six. So they've they've passed that word. If you hear noise, you need to challenge,
[01:17:57] do that challenge or reply. So he's out there and he's crawling towards one of the little
[01:18:02] elements on the outside of the perimeter so he can find out, you know, checking with them,
[01:18:06] see if they've seen anything, see if they heard anything. And here we go, back to the book.
[01:18:11] Shhh, was his only warning to the others. I came to a complete rest waiting for someone to issue
[01:18:19] the challenge. The seconds ticked on, but I heard no sound. I began to sense there was a problem.
[01:18:27] The next sound was the bolt and firing pin of a rifle sliding forward in response to a pulled
[01:18:33] trigger. Both fell forward on an empty chamber. Terrified, I realized that I should be dead,
[01:18:40] that the rifleman meant to nail me no questions asked. Only as earlier error and not having
[01:18:47] chambered around saved me. Don't shoot, I shouted in hard. It's the lieutenant.
[01:18:53] But I was too late to stop the momentum of events. I heard a panicky remark from the midst of the
[01:18:59] group, get the bastards, then around was chambered. As I flung myself at the sound, 15 feet
[01:19:06] is not far to sprint, but the journey seemed endless. I threw myself parallel to the ground
[01:19:12] and lunged in the dark figure appearing before my eyes. As I launched through the ear,
[01:19:17] I felt round switched by my outstretched body. Nine or ten bullets burning out of the barrel
[01:19:23] of the automatic weapon. My arms circled the knees of the fire or bringing him down in a heap.
[01:19:29] I pushed the hop barrel skyward as the last of the rounds exited the weapon.
[01:19:33] Although I had pinned the fire, I had also to think about the two other men with him. I yelled
[01:19:39] out, don't shoot, you son of a bitch, it's the platoon leader. There was no further firing.
[01:19:45] Fighting my rage, I tried to focus my thoughts. We were in deep trouble. Don't shoot, don't shoot.
[01:19:53] I hold your fire. I shouted across a perimeter. I could hear nervous chatter from all around,
[01:19:59] so he barely escaped. He gets the guys to stop. He doesn't even really, he's mad, but he's
[01:20:09] basically taking responsibility in being in this situation in the first place.
[01:20:15] So he says to the guys that were there. He says, I had modest all three men to challenge correctly,
[01:20:21] speaking to them as if I were giving a classroom instructions to a bunch of eager if not very
[01:20:26] bright students. I surprised myself with my calmness. It was when I moved back to my position that
[01:20:32] the greatest struggle within me began. Perhaps it was triggered by the decision I had to make
[01:20:38] by the book I shifted, I had shifted our positions. By the book I should have shifted our positions.
[01:20:46] We were reconnaissance patrol. We were badly outnumbered by the enemy and it compromised our position
[01:20:52] with all the shooting and shouting. There were good reasons for moving. On the other hand,
[01:20:58] it was pitch black night. If the enemy was close enough to get an immediate fix on us,
[01:21:04] he was close enough to hit us before we could move. Even if he wasn't close, further stumbling
[01:21:09] around in the darkness might worsen our predicament. Moreover, to affect the movement,
[01:21:16] I would have to move around to regroup the dispersed men. This was the point that weighed most
[01:21:21] heavily on my mind. I no longer had the heart for it. I had come within an inch of being killed,
[01:21:28] shot by one of my own men on the side of an ink black mountain in the middle of nowhere.
[01:21:33] I knew the men were ready to shoot anything that moved and I didn't want to give them a target.
[01:21:40] I should have been ashamed of myself. I was too afraid to move to implement rules,
[01:21:44] probably the best course of action for my men and my mission. I couldn't do it.
[01:21:48] Naked fear strips. Me of all shame or guilt. Fear was all I knew.
[01:21:56] And I didn't want to move. A few moments earlier, I had been an effective
[01:22:00] patoon leader doing his job. Now I could actually feel my chest throbbing against the dirt where I lay.
[01:22:07] I wanted to bury my face in my hands. I wanted to be like the little boy I used to be hiding
[01:22:11] from the darkness by putting his head under the covers. I could not think. My body began to tremble.
[01:22:18] Then shiver. Then shake uncontrollably. My God, I was going to die. I could not possibly live
[01:22:24] through the night. If anyone heard my breathing, I was sure you'd kill me. Death was everywhere.
[01:22:29] I sensed it. I felt that lying down beside me. I didn't want to die, but death was there.
[01:22:36] Cold and clammy, reaching for me with his icy touch. My pulse pounded in my ears and I felt nauseous.
[01:22:44] I almost threw up. The passing minutes, hours, whatever units of time exist in a nightmare brought
[01:22:52] no relief. The fear only worsened. I would not live through the night. I was sure of it.
[01:23:01] With the dying hurt, I wondered what I disappeared into nothingness.
[01:23:07] When I first went prone, trying to press myself into the ground, I fell close to an ant hill.
[01:23:12] A few of the ants scouts immediately began a reconnaissance of my body, but it was not until
[01:23:17] the ants' legions were called forward that I noticed them. As I lay, shaking on the ground,
[01:23:24] thousands of ants began trupping over me, adding to the crawling feeling on my flesh.
[01:23:31] Still, I did not move. For the move, I knew, would put me in the embrace of death. So I lay there
[01:23:37] where I was, heart pounding, skin sweating, ears throbbing, while an army of ants probed and
[01:23:43] pricked at my will.
[01:23:48] Sometime later, that night the rains came in a torrential downpour that sent a stream
[01:23:53] gushing down the mountainside at us. I still didn't move. My night of terror was not over yet,
[01:23:59] and when the rain stopped after a few hours, I still lay in the ooze and slime.
[01:24:04] The first light brought a sense of recovery. Darkness was ending, and I was still alive.
[01:24:13] Only then did the beating of my heart slow. I loosened my belt, reached down into the
[01:24:19] soggy elastic of my undershorts, and wiped out a streak of drowned ants.
[01:24:26] The rains had swept them over my body, where they had become trapped, and they had drowned.
[01:24:30] As I removed their dead bodies, thousands of them, I seemed to rid myself of my fixation with death.
[01:24:40] I had lived through the night, vulnerable as I was. The ants had died,
[01:24:46] eminently adaptable as they were. Somehow, the irony of it reassured me.
[01:24:52] One died when it was time to die. Apparently, it was not my time. As Dawn broke, I pulled
[01:25:04] myself together, gathered up my makeshift patrol, and moved back toward the Ranger camp.
[01:25:10] That night on the mountain, instead of engaging the enemy, I'd come to grips with my own mortality.
[01:25:17] That night, I had been a terrible, platoon leader. But perhaps I would be a better one thereafter
[01:25:26] because of it. A little bit of an intense evening, for Lieutenant McNona.
[01:25:37] Unbelievable. Now, he gets some, and throughout this book,
[01:25:45] there's, and I talked about this in the beginning, that there's rotations of guys.
[01:25:50] And guys are getting wounded. Guys at time, for them to go home, so you're constantly, he's constantly
[01:25:55] getting new troopers, new soldiers, new non-commission officers that are going to be the senior
[01:26:02] guys inside the platoon. And it's just a constant stream of incoming new guys, which again,
[01:26:09] is very foreign to me because in the sealed teams, we do very little of that. We do do it sometimes,
[01:26:14] for guy-graduates sealed training, and they happen to be assigned a team that's on deployment.
[01:26:20] They, they might come over and join us on deployment. It can't happen, but it's not, it's not the norm.
[01:26:28] So he's got a new guy that shows up who's a staff sergeant, an empallamman,
[01:26:34] and, and, pallamman's like almost 40 years old, he'd cross the Canadian board,
[01:26:39] the Canadian border, to join the Canadian army. And he'd spent time in the British army in
[01:26:50] Cyprus. He'd been chasing war, basically. And it's slightly under six feet tall, not an ounce of
[01:26:57] fat on his lean frame, determined look. And this is quite contrary to the guys he had been working with.
[01:27:04] And here he talks about that a little bit. With Hernandez and Robinson, I had to push to get them
[01:27:09] patrolling. With Pallaman, I had to hold him back. He believed firmly that the only good defense
[01:27:17] was a good offense. And he was ready to set the example every day. Not only did he take himself out on
[01:27:24] as many patrols as I would permit, he invariably pushed seated to the front of the column,
[01:27:28] eventually threatening to displace the point man. He exhibited such enthusiasm when he and I went
[01:27:36] on longer patrols that I had to order him back to the back of the column,
[01:27:40] less I find myself trailing him. He never meant disrespect. He just wanted to be upfront where the
[01:27:46] action might be. Pallaman was the perfect between sergeant.
[01:27:56] You're definitely blessed when you get it, when you get a leader like that in your command.
[01:28:04] And I was definitely lucky enough to serve with many guys with that kind of attitude that I had
[01:28:10] to hold back. Here's an interesting thing. He says during the war, we lost approximately 10,000 men
[01:28:21] to other than enemy fire. The anomalous so full of treachery danger and outright bad luck
[01:28:27] that he's on this administrative mission and he just like playing it safe. Because he isn't
[01:28:34] want to die, he's going to get killed by a criminal or getting a car accident, but you don't think
[01:28:40] about 10,000 people dying to be an ob just from other than combat.
[01:28:47] The heavy rain to discourage the enemy from moving against us.
[01:28:50] That was some comfort. Obviously they were human after all. Too often they seemed to
[01:28:57] above the constraints of normal men too hardened to the rigors that wore down the rest of us.
[01:29:03] Although it was tempting to rest on our haunches, taking advantage of the
[01:29:07] respite offered by the weather, I knew that in the long run it would be safer to push more on
[01:29:12] the offensive. To lie back would only allow the enemy to build their strength as I was building
[01:29:19] mine and allow them to choose the time and place of the next strike. I decided to go after them
[01:29:27] in their lair. One of the personnel changes I made was to take Killigan out of his squad leader
[01:29:34] physician. A sergeant arrived to take over the squad. I passed word to him to keep Killigan off
[01:29:40] point. Killigan did not like it and was close to the point of rebellion, but I refused to put him back
[01:29:46] on point. His luck was about to run out. No matter how good he might be, the odds are heavily
[01:29:52] stacked against the point man. My order, however, meant little. In variably, Killigan would move
[01:29:59] up to the front always out there a little advance of the moving element. It was a role he defined
[01:30:06] for himself. So obviously we're going to continue one of the themes of this book is be aggressive
[01:30:14] and stay on the offense. That's absolutely true. The reason I highlighted that thing with Killigan
[01:30:20] is because here you got a guy that's all about good order and discipline. But guess what? He's
[01:30:24] telling Killigan don't walk point, don't walk point, don't walk point. Killigan goes, okay,
[01:30:29] yeah, I won't walk point. Goes out on patrol goes up to point. That's also one of those things where
[01:30:34] you know, sometimes I get asked, you know, my boss is not doing this or we're not getting,
[01:30:38] we're getting a, we're not getting clear direction or I don't agree with this thing. Sometimes
[01:30:42] you got to make some stuff happen. You know, especially if it's the right thing to do,
[01:30:47] you got to make some stuff happen sometimes. Now they do some some operations and
[01:30:56] they're starting to take some toll on the enemy and here's what the enemy does. The enemy
[01:31:02] retaliated with more booby traps and other regular attacks. One morning the village chief was caught
[01:31:10] at the well as he bathed his ever present 45 caliber pistol left a few feet away with his pile of
[01:31:17] clothes. A small nine year old boy, no doubt acting on orders from a relative walked up,
[01:31:24] smiled and shot the chief twice with a 22 caliber pistol. Once again, however, the chief survived
[01:31:32] returning a few weeks later to resume his post. Specialist Barnes back from six days in Australia
[01:31:38] stepped on a booby trap and lost his right leg at the hip. Rob's in the nervous baby face
[01:31:43] kid from Illinois who had arrived at Palman got wedged head first in a Vietcong tunnel as he was
[01:31:49] clearing it. He panicked, vomited and drowned in his own puke before he could be pulled back out.
[01:31:57] Another man recently arrived sat down beside a trail to take a break and trip the Chinese
[01:32:02] claymore with his butt. I hope his mother would not ask to open his coffin. The gruesome
[01:32:10] toll of the booby traps wore on our nerves. No matter how many we found we knew there were others
[01:32:16] out there waiting for a missed step. The terror built is one thing to rush an enemy in battle and
[01:32:22] take your chances in the face of his firepower. The experience is frightening but the momentum of the
[01:32:27] act compels you forward, sparing you the agony of considering your predicament. Thinking your way
[01:32:33] through a booby trap there is completely different experience and much more harrowing.
[01:32:40] Moving along you suddenly notice a freshly smooth spot of dirt to your front. You look hard and see
[01:32:46] the three deadly prongs of the anti-personnel mind come into focus and unholy trinity extending
[01:32:52] from beneath the surface of the earth to greet your footfall and rip you apart. You look to your
[01:32:58] right and see a pile of rocks or intertwined twigs the vehicle on warning to their own that this is a
[01:33:04] killing ground. You order everyone to freeze as you strain your eyes to pick out more booby trap
[01:33:09] clues, your nerves have turned to steel coils. Your eyes dart over the ground for tethail signs
[01:33:16] of human tampering smooth dirt and unnaturally placed vine attached to a pole pin safety. A thin
[01:33:23] wire across your path, a broken brush, time stand still. You're afraid to move at the same time you
[01:33:30] want to duck your head and dash to safety. Maybe you can make it before the detonation catches you.
[01:33:36] But one of the others you have to get them all out. Keep cool. That's it. Bring the others slowly
[01:33:44] into a straight file. Careful. Watch where you step. Now work your way up to the front.
[01:33:50] Look carefully before each footfall. Watch for nearly invisible wires. One slight tug could
[01:33:56] bring metal tearing through your flesh like a frenzyed power saw. Okay, let's move. Stay in line.
[01:34:04] Don't bend chup. Can't let one booby trap get more than one of us but which one? Me, him, concentrate.
[01:34:11] Don't think about the explosion. Look, look, you can see them if you look carefully enough. Take
[01:34:18] another step. We're almost out of it. Christ don't ambush us. Now we can't move. Concerns and
[01:34:24] trait. Think of where you would plant them. Look for the telltale signs. And so it went.
[01:34:32] Tremendous pressure followed by Tremendous relief as the booby trap area was cleared.
[01:34:38] Then the journey continued only to bring the patrol to another threatening area.
[01:34:45] It played on your nerves. Somehow the men put on a show of bravado.
[01:34:53] I thought that section. Talking about getting ID. I mean that's like what it's like. It was just a
[01:35:00] perfect, perfect writing and being on out of patrols where you think and there's going to be
[01:35:06] ID's. That's what your mind is thinking. That's what you're thinking. You're looking at every little
[01:35:10] thing in the road, every little piece of trash, every little wire, everything could be a pressure
[01:35:14] plate. It could be a crush wire. It could be an ID. Could just be anything. And so you're just
[01:35:19] constantly in that mode of assessing and looking and trying to figure it out. And I thought that
[01:35:25] that was an incredible job, especially by a guy that actually triggered an ID on himself and got blown
[01:35:31] up. And so he's probably feeling that that pressure 10 fold. A leader who arbitrates when the
[01:35:39] laws of land warfare are overtaken by pragmatic concern is trading on dangerous ground.
[01:35:46] The laws exist for practical and humane reasons and I knew that well. But the consequences of
[01:35:53] my decisions were immediate and I could not afford the comfort of a philosophical debate on issues.
[01:35:58] I tried to behave in a humane manner and did not intimidate. But I persist until I was reasonably
[01:36:05] assured that I had the truth or that my interviewie truly did not know. I owed my men that much.
[01:36:15] One day a stay behind ambush element got into a sudden firefight in the exchange. One American
[01:36:21] had been hit in the leg and was bleeding profusely. As I approached the action with the rest of the
[01:36:26] troll and tending to flank the enemy, I noticed that the base of the hill we are about to send was
[01:36:32] heavily mined. A frightened farmer crouching the grass nearby. Come here, Papa Sonna called
[01:36:38] non, ask him how to get through this stuff. The farmer shook his head and dismay. A call came
[01:36:43] on the radio. Damn it if we don't get archable about it, here fast, he's going to bleed to death.
[01:36:48] Asm again, damn, I ordered again the farmer refused. His eyes widening in fear. I took out my knife.
[01:36:59] Man, tell him I'll kill him right now if he doesn't tell us. I had crossed the line.
[01:37:06] I wouldn't have killed him but he didn't know that. And the threat itself was criminal.
[01:37:12] But I weighed that against the bleeding soldier and the others who might bleed if we didn't get
[01:37:17] through to them quickly. A leader has no one to look to for advice on such decisions. He must
[01:37:24] do what he thinks is best but he must not fool himself as to the consequences of his choice.
[01:37:31] War is not a series of case studies that can be scrutinized with the objectivity.
[01:37:36] It is a series of stark confrontations that must be faced under the most emotion-wrenching conditions.
[01:37:42] War is the suffering and death of people you know set against a background of the suffering and death
[01:37:50] of people you do not. That reality tends to prejudice the already tough choices between morality and
[01:37:59] pragmatism. The farmer let us through. We force the enemy away and extract it our soldier in time
[01:38:07] to save his life. We let the farmer go but not before I thank him. He looked at me as if I were crazy.
[01:38:21] Very enough to just say again this is another great description of what you're dealing with in
[01:38:28] war and the decisions that you have to make in these horrible situations. Back to the book, Fricker was nervous.
[01:38:38] For the past few days he felt his number was coming up. I don't know what's wrong with me lieutenant.
[01:38:44] He had told me shyly I don't feel right. What do you mean? Are you feeling sick? I asked,
[01:38:50] no it's not that I just feel down like something bad is going to happen.
[01:38:56] Maybe you've been on point too often. I'll tell Staff Sergeant Robinson to take you off. No,
[01:39:03] no don't do that. I'm the best man for that my squad. I don't want any of the guys thinking I'm yellow.
[01:39:12] Fricker wasn't yellow. He was scared but he was more scared of letting his friends down than
[01:39:18] of getting hurt. I urged him to take a break but he had insisted on staying on point. I told Robinson
[01:39:27] to take him off anyway. Fricker heard of it and pleaded with me to put him back. I yielded.
[01:39:34] So on a lovely evening Fricker was cautiously leading the squad up a hill and the machine gun
[01:39:40] stitched him across the chest. Robinson turned and dashed down the slope making it 20 meters before
[01:39:47] he stumbled and broke his ankle. Ten meters behind Fricket, nail and a Wilson do for cover.
[01:39:55] Fricker went down on one knee and spun around to face his friends.
[01:40:02] Blood and air bubbled from the holes in his chest. He dropped his weapon and tried to
[01:40:08] rise his arms out stretched as if reaching for help. His eyes open wide and tear his mouth
[01:40:15] a gap as blood spilled over his loose lower lip. As the machine gun bullets tore into his back,
[01:40:22] he tumbled face down arm still reaching out for help. That would come too late.
[01:40:30] Wilson took in the scene with horror. Fricker's dead, my god, Fricker's dead. His voice rose above
[01:40:36] the clatter. A freight that no one understood Wilson repeated his announcement to him. No, he's dead.
[01:40:41] He's dead. He yelled with all his might. Nail silence them with a Kurt shut up. He's dead.
[01:40:49] And that's all there is to it. Somehow nails words cut through the hideousness of the moment
[01:40:55] more graphically than Fricker's death. Wilson was stunned into silence. There was a cursory exchange
[01:41:02] of rounds. The enemy fled down the reverse slope and Fricker's corpse became the
[01:41:06] war and the lame robins were evacuated. Nail became the squad leader. That was all there was
[01:41:16] to it. Another American had fallen. One of more than 58,000 to die in Vietnam.
[01:41:29] The action took a few minutes. There was nothing unique about it. A messy business to be sure.
[01:41:34] But one that could be cleaned up by shipping off the body and making a few personnel changes.
[01:41:40] But Fricker was dead. A few moments earlier. He had been a young man with a lifetime of
[01:41:47] experience as a head of him. Now he was just a memory to his family and to us. A few moments earlier
[01:41:54] he was afraid some of his friends would think of him as a coward. Soon, almost no one would think
[01:42:02] of him at all. His mother would get a telegram and then a purple heart. Maybe I could write him up
[01:42:11] for a medal. But what should I say? That he was brave because he was afraid to be afraid.
[01:42:22] That he saved a squad by walking up to the machine gun first and what did he save them for?
[01:42:29] So that they might live a few more weeks before following in his footsteps.
[01:42:37] It was all too much to consider. His nail had said he was dead.
[01:42:45] And that's all that was to it. Here he talks a little bit about the morality of war. It was not
[01:42:55] a simple matter of killer be killed. I had to think of my men. I could not let them be killed
[01:43:02] because of a rigid morality on my part. But if I compromised with that morality too often,
[01:43:10] I would become little more than a war criminal unfit to lead those men's. I had to struggle to
[01:43:18] keep a sense of balance. That's the crazy thing about the dichotomy of leadership. Is that these
[01:43:27] opposing forces that are pulling you in two different directions? They're both correct. It's
[01:43:33] correct. They're both correct and the balance is where you need to stay. I shouldn't say that
[01:43:37] they're both correct, but they're both viable options. You can rationalize either one of them.
[01:43:44] You can rationalize, hey, we shouldn't do anything at all. Let's just stay inside the
[01:43:46] wire. Let me protect my guys. You can rationalize that. You can rationalize, hey, let's go out
[01:43:51] and kill everybody before they kill us. And what you have to do is a leader in a combat situation.
[01:43:56] You have to balance those dichotomies. And you know, you could translate that into businesses.
[01:44:01] Because in a business, you've got to take care of your people, but you've got to make money.
[01:44:07] So there's all these, when you're in a leadership position, there's opposing forces that are
[01:44:11] pulling it you and you have to balance them. And you have to pay attention because what happens is
[01:44:16] suddenly you start going too far in one direction or the other and you start to re- start to lose control.
[01:44:21] Where you start to see things go sideways. That's when you do say yourself, wait a second.
[01:44:24] Am I going too far in one direction right now? That's probably what is happening.
[01:44:31] Now, here we go. This is just a quick little interlude they had. They had acquired a
[01:44:38] 60 millimeter mortar. And they were training with it. And one of the guys was wanting to train
[01:44:44] it. They didn't really let them use it too much even though he was excited to try it out.
[01:44:48] And they end up getting attacked and the only guy that's in for the vicinity of the mortar to use it
[01:44:53] is this guy, Spangler. And so he attempts to fire the mortar and he screws it up
[01:44:59] a bunch of times and the VC end up getting away.
[01:45:05] And McDonald says, dejectively, I scout, I scout at Spangler.
[01:45:10] Who felt absolutely terrible about the whole of the fair? I knew it wasn't his fault. It was mine.
[01:45:18] I had failed to train him even though he was eager to learn more ownership right there from
[01:45:24] McDonald. Now, this is just a shocker in the book and it's one of those situations
[01:45:36] which is going to really this, how does this even happen? McDonald decides that they're actually
[01:45:43] by the ocean. There are a couple miles from the ocean. And they all have their skin. They have
[01:45:50] jungle rot, their skin. They get little infections. They got bug bites and they're just all jacked up
[01:45:54] from this, from just living in this environment. And he knows, he says, you know, if we get these
[01:46:00] guys to patrol down to the ocean, they can take us from the ocean and get out in the sun,
[01:46:03] dry some of their wounds off or what have you. So they go down there, he puts together the plan.
[01:46:10] He actually has to ask the guys to go. Because they're saying, you know what,
[01:46:16] I'd rather sit here and just have bad skin than go out and have to do another patrol just to go
[01:46:24] swimming. And he kind of convinces a couple guys, hey, there's a couple guys that want to go. There's
[01:46:28] a couple guys that say, you know, I'd rather not go. He convinces the guys to go. He puts together a
[01:46:35] plan. He wants to send some strong squimmers with the group. He's actually pretty aware of the
[01:46:39] danger of the ocean. He sends the guys down there. They get down there. And two of the guys
[01:46:47] drown and die. And again, we're going to hear some ownership here. James was the guy that was
[01:46:57] running the patrol. And McDonald says, I could not criticize James. He had not followed my instructions,
[01:47:05] but the fault was mine, not his. I had built the idea into a plan and then ordered its execution.
[01:47:12] And in so doing, I had executed Spangler and Evans. I felt a hundred years old. No tragedy in that
[01:47:22] God forsaken country had hit me so hard. It was my fault. I was the cause of two deaths in the
[01:47:29] name of good intentions. I had talked those men into dying. I staggered under the thought, the cost
[01:47:37] of leadership and finally been too high. And I couldn't bear it. I didn't consider myself fit to
[01:47:43] lead. But the job was mine. And I couldn't quit for better or worse. I had to do it.
[01:47:55] They get back to camp and Wilson, who is good friends with Evans. One of the guys that had
[01:48:02] drowned, he says Wilson was crying. The loss of Evans's close friend had deeply affected him.
[01:48:10] Asshamed of his tears, he hunkered down behind his machine gun at the strong point on the south side
[01:48:15] of the perimeter. I spoke of Evans' goodness and tried to draw from that a benevolent interpretation
[01:48:25] of his death. Evans was a piece now I told Wilson. He was no longer part of this nightmarish war.
[01:48:32] Although I couldn't follow the logic of my own words, they seemed to lighten Wilson's load.
[01:48:39] He began to talk. Together we groped for meaning and a man's death.
[01:48:45] I did my best to conceal my own skepticism and agreed with everything he said.
[01:48:50] Somehow we came to the conclusion that Evans' death was a good thing. It must be good if God
[01:48:58] willed it. By then I wasn't sure who is consoling whom. Sometimes words aren't important for
[01:49:05] their content, but only for there being said. And whatever we said that night seemed to be good enough
[01:49:11] for both of us. Although I couldn't excuse myself for the drownings, I realized that I owed it
[01:49:17] not only to Wilson, but the whole of the town to put the incident behind me.
[01:49:25] Now the next situation that they're in, they're doing an assault.
[01:49:31] And as they get through these, they're assaulting all mine through a target area.
[01:49:34] And as they assault all mine through this target area, there's a vehicle
[01:49:41] and his weapon had been smashed by around and he wasn't able to fight and so he just surrendered.
[01:49:45] And this guy, NAN, who I mentioned this guy, NAN before this NAN is a Vietnamese guy. That's a
[01:49:50] word. That's a translator interpreted. They call him Kit Carson Scouts. They know that they know
[01:49:54] the area. They speak the language. And so he says, ask him if he's got any buddies on flank security.
[01:50:01] I instructed NAN. A rush of Vietnamese words and sued only to be answered by no-beck
[01:50:08] and American Vietnamese slang version of, I don't understand.
[01:50:12] God damn it. He's speaking Vietnamese to you, answer him. I shouted in the prisoner's face.
[01:50:18] NAN asked him again, the man's face, the man turned his face away defiantly.
[01:50:24] My anger was rising after my worries of the night before about finding a way to the target
[01:50:29] and the successful attack that followed everything could be overturned by an arrogant,
[01:50:34] by the arrogance of one prisoner. Killigan, seeing the way my face was flushed, made the quiet
[01:50:43] comment. Don't be mad, Lieutenant. He's just a soldier. Same as you and me. Damn him. He was right.
[01:50:54] I would hope to do the same if I were in the shoes of a captive of the captive. Killigan,
[01:51:00] the quiet man who dissed out all pretence of leadership once again made me aware of the fragile
[01:51:06] superiority of my own leadership. And then as they proceed on, they take these captured guys
[01:51:20] and they bring them back to the company command post and we'll go back to the book.
[01:51:25] At the end of the morning's fight, we linked up with the rest of the company,
[01:51:28] essentially a reinforced platoon that had comprised the blocking force. I turned over our prisoners
[01:51:34] to the platoon leader, a young journalist first action, who I later found out did not last another
[01:51:40] two weeks. Predictedably, the company commander had stayed back at the base.
[01:51:47] Bring the go, bring the gooks over to the CP,
[01:51:50] Lieutenant pastor to my sergeant. They aren't gooks, I said quietly. They're soldiers just like you and me.
[01:52:02] For a moment, I thought I saw Killigan's eyes flash. Then we started our journey home.
[01:52:09] They're going to go on up company sized operation, which means they're taking multiple
[01:52:13] platoons of which McDonald's is one of the platoon commanders. And the company commander
[01:52:18] was named Moray and Moray calls them all together to do brief and Moray. I haven't talked about
[01:52:26] this much, but Moray is kind of a guy that's, he's not real proactive in getting out in the field.
[01:52:31] So he's sort of staying back on base, he's a little nervous about the situation.
[01:52:38] And this is just a great example. And then he's got the other platoon commanders who you
[01:52:42] kind of hear his judgment on them. But this is a great display of leadership of taking
[01:52:49] ownership up and down the chain of command and two his peers. So, here we go from the book.
[01:52:58] The plan would put Moray, who's the company commander, 2,000 meters away from our present location
[01:53:02] and 4,000 meters away from the objective. I tried to conceal my disdain.
[01:53:08] Sir, request permission to control the operational movement of the new resources in the initial phase
[01:53:14] of the operation. I spoke with one. I hope with a totally expressionless face. So he's saying
[01:53:20] listen, boss, you're going to be way over there. Why don't I just go ahead and control this?
[01:53:26] The boss says, sure, Jim, I guess that makes sense. You're the senior lieutenant among the platoons.
[01:53:31] Did you have a plan in mind? Moray was easy and I was going to take advantage of it. Boom.
[01:53:38] I briefed him on my concept, my concept routes of movement where we would set up,
[01:53:43] time of anticipated contact with the enemy and types of weaponry, wooden carry.
[01:53:48] The captain concurred with the plans, then excused himself. I've got to get back to the CP and
[01:53:54] report to Battalion. Seeing an opportunity for complete freedom of action, I continued. Sir,
[01:54:01] I need to flesh out the details with the other platoon leaders. May I brief them in your absence?
[01:54:06] Yes, certainly. Carry on. He left as we stood up to salute. So, you see what just happened. How
[01:54:12] beautiful that was? He took total control. And not only did he take control up the chain of
[01:54:18] command, but he's going to get some control over the pierves as well. And he's judging and passing
[01:54:25] judgment on the way the other platoons are running there. The way the other platoon commanders
[01:54:30] are running their platoons. And he says, observing all this, I silently wrote Lieutenant Smalley
[01:54:37] out of the plan. If he could not exercise minimum control in the defense, he would surely fall
[01:54:43] apart in the attack. Lieutenant Evans, first platoon's leader was anxious. He had been on the job
[01:54:49] only a week and this was his first operation. He was a tall, good-looking boy from the Midwest,
[01:54:54] but I felt he was too eager. He was disappointed to be standing pat for the night as the reserve
[01:55:01] unit. But the call had been marae's not mine. Perhaps who's unfair of me to make snap
[01:55:07] judgments of others and then plan my actions on the bases of those judgments. The thought bothered
[01:55:13] me, but not enough to deter me. I was in the business of evaluating people and the traits of
[01:55:18] other men would determine my own fate and that of my soldiers. Presumptuous though my role may have
[01:55:24] been, I had to make judgments and act accordingly. Marae was timid, Smalley was weak, Evans was
[01:55:31] eager. I did not condemn them for that. I noted it and adjusted. We were in a war, not a community
[01:55:40] social. Just great leadership example of how you lead up and down the chain of command.
[01:55:50] So now, I'll actually about to head out on this on this operation. About 50 meters short of the
[01:55:56] forward of the stream, Killigan Dog Leg to the West and brought us up on the trail. The heavy
[01:56:02] labor and the bush brought beads and swept to my forehead and concentrated on our present movement,
[01:56:08] leaving thoughts of the night operation for later. We were soon in the treacherous position of
[01:56:12] doubling back on a previously-used route, always dangerous tactic. For a second, I considered yelling
[01:56:18] at Killigan to get off the trail, but we were so close to the Ford that by the time we maneuvered
[01:56:23] off the trail, we would have been at the crossing site. As Killigan moved ahead and his stealthy
[01:56:28] glide, I saw him freeze momentarily and then glanced to his left directly into a bush overlooking
[01:56:34] the trail. I knew in an instant that we were an eminent danger for Killigan never made a
[01:56:40] abrupt moves except at the movement of conflict, except at the moment of conflict. Killigan turned
[01:56:46] back to us, his face contorting as if to shout a warning. I yelled ambush and dove to my left.
[01:56:53] Killigan took a grenade blast in the face at point blank range. At the same time, sergeant james
[01:57:00] went down with his bullet in his shoulder. The enemy was spraying us from a position across the
[01:57:05] rice patty, Killigan and I had hit a Killigan, had hit a command detonated booby trap.
[01:57:13] I pressed my face into the dirt as bullets wind over my outstretched body. I calculated that
[01:57:18] the best at best, they were only four of us were left. I peaked out from under my helmet to see
[01:57:24] james struggling to get off the trail, the red blotch widening in his dark green fatigue. He was
[01:57:30] moving not into the bushes but toward Killigan, who is lying face down in the patty with a blast
[01:57:35] at knocked him, his blood turning the yellowish water red. Within minutes if he was still alive,
[01:57:42] Killigan would drown. So they get Killigan out of that situation, they get back to their base,
[01:57:54] they go back again to do the ambush, they're hit again on the ambush, they evacuated guy,
[01:58:02] they move again and now they're in the final moment where they are going to do this big
[01:58:14] ambush as part of the company. So this is kind of what this last section of the book is leading to.
[01:58:20] It is morning, and so there are actually the through in the final movement into the ambush position.
[01:58:27] It is morning and there is a grime agrimnus in the drizzling air. Silent figures move to the
[01:58:34] west, shoulders bent under equipment loads, buckles taped for silence, camouflage paint smeared on
[01:58:41] top faces. Gools in the night, young boys really, from places like Valdoista, San Diego,
[01:58:51] Bolther, Madison, Portland, out to kill Asian boys who are out to kill them. The gears of war
[01:59:01] grind together unrelentingly, mechanisms in motion that will catch up human flesh as they mesh.
[01:59:09] Society's clash, politicians deal, diplomats debate, young men struggle to the death.
[01:59:17] Tomorrow or the next day, mothers will receive the news and cry, but nothing will stop the
[01:59:25] morning's killings. They finally get to their ambush site and now the ambush is about to happen.
[01:59:38] Simultaneously, another group of enemy walks into the third ambush site. It is tripped in all the
[01:59:43] enemy are killed. The first group of three hears the melee and panics. One darts back.
[01:59:49] Nan, the old scout catches him with a round on the side. He falls in the old man finishes him
[01:59:57] with two rounds in the head. Two of the enemy scramble through Sergeant Don's position and are hit.
[02:00:04] One falls dead. The other scampers into the brush. Don pursues.
[02:00:10] The wounded enemy ducks into a hole in the ground. Obviously he is familiar with the territory.
[02:00:17] In Vietnamese, Don yells from to come out. There is no reply. Don yells again.
[02:00:24] Bullets spray out of the hole. Don lubs a grenade. Dirt leaves and flesh fly out of the opening
[02:00:31] in front of the blast. Don throws a second grenade. A death rattle rass from the hole.
[02:00:40] Sergeant Don looks around for the newest soldier. Spodding an 18 year old, he sends him in. A safe
[02:00:46] way to harden the youngster toward the events and store for him during the year to come.
[02:00:53] The youth emerges dragging the Viet Kong behind him. It's a gruesome site.
[02:00:58] The man's face knows mouth eyes are gone. Air is sucked into the hole where the nostrils
[02:01:10] used to connect. The jelly-like mass rising and falling in bubbles. Woundscape everywhere on his body.
[02:01:19] There is nothing we can do for him. It would be inhumane to prolong his agony.
[02:01:26] They accomplished that ambush and they are continuing to press the enemy.
[02:01:34] But something that McDonald didn't count on. Something that he couldn't have predicted
[02:01:42] or that he failed to predict. Back to the book, but I underestimated the ruthlessness of our enemy.
[02:01:50] I failed to realize the extent to which political ideology can displace human morality.
[02:01:58] It was a major oversight and it cost us the village of Trong Lamb. Trong Lamb is the village
[02:02:06] that they were actually their permanent was next to this whole time. I should have gone over
[02:02:10] that right in the beginning. But Trong Lamb is the village that they were there to protect. They were
[02:02:15] there to protect these villagers and keep them safe and keep the veot Kong and the communist out of the
[02:02:21] area. They are sitting in their perimeter one night. They are literally just meters from the village.
[02:02:33] That's where this whole story is taking place. As they are sitting there, we will go to the book.
[02:02:39] The first explosion ripped one of the hot support in a blaze of brilliant orange and yellow flame.
[02:02:44] Another deafening explosion than another rip through the air, punctuated by the staccato
[02:02:49] clatter of automatic weapons. We braced trying to print pinpoint the direction of the attack.
[02:02:57] My god, I explained, I exclaimed to no one in particular. They're hitting the village.
[02:03:06] It would be a butchery. The veot Kong had penetrated the eastern end of the village
[02:03:13] and were moving from that hut to thatch hut, throwing satchel charges inside and shooting down anything
[02:03:19] that moved. Sergeant Palamine. Leave back third squad and come with me. We're counter attacking
[02:03:27] into the village in two minutes. They dashed for the village. We dashed for the village as the
[02:03:34] flames burst upward. The scene revealed before us was ghastly. A mother ran by me with her decapitated
[02:03:41] baby, her own left arm hanging by a strip of flesh. Two veot Kong stood behind her trying to shoot
[02:03:47] them down, and cold rage, I fired into their faces. Their heads collapsing into a pulpy mush.
[02:03:56] Two young girls came running at me tears of pain streaming from their eyes at a glance I could
[02:04:01] see that both had been disfigured by shrapnel. The veot Kong had their mission. Kill as many
[02:04:07] villagers as quickly as possible and they were doing it well, but they didn't expect our
[02:04:12] sudden rush upon the midpoint blank range. From somewhere in the smoke and fire a woman emerged
[02:04:19] with her young son. She thrust a little boy at me begging for help and veot and amise. The boy
[02:04:25] was folded completely in half at the stomach a deep wound across the small of his back allowing
[02:04:30] his fat little body to be creased as neatly as a piece of cardboard. Surely he was dead. I looked
[02:04:38] into the mother's eyes and patented her on the head. Later, I said, I'll help you later. We pressed
[02:04:44] the attack back to the edge of the village almost a fourth of it was now burning. One more
[02:04:49] American fell with a chest wound and collapsed as long. We broke the back of the attack. Vc
[02:04:56] bodies laid sprawled on the wire through which they could not withdraw. The dead and dying
[02:05:03] lay everywhere a bit amid the burning huts. From the glare of the roaring flames I could see dead
[02:05:10] and wounded Vietnamese laying in twisted piles. Already the older women had begun their pitiful
[02:05:16] whales of mourning, shrieking and tearing at their hair and faces. Smoke filled the air,
[02:05:23] but it could not cover the accurate smell of death that filled my nostrils. Children search for
[02:05:29] their missing elders or huddled in groups, groping at each other for comfort. Their eyes wide and terror.
[02:05:37] A mother rocked her one-legged baby to her breast, his lifeless eyes undisturbed by the bright
[02:05:42] flame, silireting them both. The worst had happened. The enemy had struck directly against the village
[02:05:52] and had most assuredly killed and wounded many of their own families. It was unbelievable,
[02:05:59] but it had been done. I knew that true-long lamb had been a defeat.
[02:06:07] Like the entire American system in Vietnam we had fought a limited military war with constrained
[02:06:12] objectives. The enemy had fought a total political war with no pre-ordained restrictions.
[02:06:19] We were doomed from the outset. We were the focus of the vehicle on attacks because we kept
[02:06:30] the village alive. If we died so with the village, but even at that we were the indirect objective.
[02:06:39] The village was the direct objective. If the villages were destroyed, then there would be no village.
[02:06:45] But only now did I understand that kind of logic. It had not occurred to me that the enemy
[02:06:52] could take such a step to hit the village would ensure the wounding and killing of their own kin.
[02:07:00] In a battle within the confines of the village itself there could be no discrimination among
[02:07:05] family, communist sympathizers and government loyalists.
[02:07:08] Every day I saw the children of the village, they were like all children, queue and deering,
[02:07:16] growing with the emotional and physical needs of children the world over.
[02:07:22] I couldn't hurt them. It was unthinkable. The possibility was so barbaric that it was alien to my mind.
[02:07:31] But my mind was not the mind of the enemy.
[02:07:33] Though I had tried to understand them even to think like them, if only to defeat them,
[02:07:41] I had fallen short. For a few more days, we continued to patrol the area.
[02:07:50] It was a bureaucratic gesture, a mere continuance of what we had been doing for so long.
[02:07:56] I kept to myself my own recognition of the emptiness of our work. It was essential for the
[02:08:04] men to be convinced of the importance of their mission.
[02:08:09] Chuang Lam was no more, but leadership must always be positive.
[02:08:17] So he wasn't really expecting that that the VC would come in and just slaughter everyone in
[02:08:30] the village or as many people as they could. Unbelievable savagery.
[02:08:37] Now as we wrap this up, he gets his relief. Just like he had come in the beginning of the book
[02:08:50] and he takes over for somebody. Somebody comes to take his place and he leaves.
[02:08:54] And he tries to keep track of what happened to them or how they fought and things that occurred.
[02:09:07] And we'll go to the book here as scheduled, the platoon moved on and continued to fight.
[02:09:11] As long as I could, I kept the watch on the fate of the men. Specialist Nail was wounded yet again.
[02:09:18] Platoon Sergeant Palaman got out in front of the platoon and a firefight and took an enemy
[02:09:23] rocket-propelled grenade in the right leg. I learned that Corporal Killigan survived his wounds,
[02:09:30] although he lost a long and a stretch of intestines. Sergeant Don made it home on touch to
[02:09:36] one of the few. Sergeant James and Specialist King were killed, although the circumstances surrounding
[02:09:43] their deaths were never made clear to me. And so it went. An infantry men's days were numbered and the
[02:09:53] law of attrition applied to the platoon as it always did. In the summer of 1971, I flew out of
[02:10:05] Camerand Bay to return to my wife and infant son. I had just made captain. It had been a long 12 months
[02:10:15] and I had changed in more ways than rank. A National Airport in Washington, D.C., a pretty young woman
[02:10:26] stood waiting in the terminal as I walked up the ramp. By her knee stood a 15-month-old child with
[02:10:34] curly blonde hair barely able to keep his balance on his chubby little legs. I kissed them both
[02:10:41] hello. The woman was happy. The boy was confused. I was both. I was also sad. I mourned for the men
[02:10:58] I had left behind. I grieved that their country would never know what fine men they were.
[02:11:09] I was proud to have served with them. And no doubt, I absolutely feel the same way.
[02:11:20] The amazing men and women who I saw cut down at the height of their lives.
[02:11:34] Our country will never really know what fine people they were, what fine human beings they were.
[02:11:52] I hope that from that, from their sacrifice we can take and we can learn from what they
[02:11:59] learned. And we can be inspired by them and driven by them and become better leaders and better
[02:12:07] people from their example. And from the example of men like Jim McDonough and Hackworth and Bob Hoffman
[02:12:18] can't all those other those warriors and leaders that have taken point and led the way.
[02:12:34] And we try to follow them down that path. As we remember those who gave their lives
[02:12:54] to clear that path for us, just so much to be taken away from this experience.
[02:13:10] And it's almost like let's just read the whole book.
[02:13:15] But there's so much more that I didn't cover that I wanted to. And you know the fact of the
[02:13:24] matter is you can get this book on Amazon. You buy the book, you learn. That's what you do.
[02:13:31] You don't have to live through this stuff to be able to take away some of the lessons from it.
[02:13:37] And because that was such a such a good book and there's so much information in it. Obviously
[02:13:44] I went long. So we're gonna hold off until next time to do a little Q&A.
[02:13:55] But if you do want to support the podcast, there's a couple of ways you can do that.
[02:14:04] Number one, you can go to the website. Jocquistore.com. You can click on the Amazon link and you can
[02:14:16] buy this book right here. The book is called the two-meter a memoir of command and combat by James
[02:14:22] Armick Duna. And you should do that. You should do yourself that favor.
[02:14:28] Yeah, and also another way it could be simpler is just go to the website, jocquist.com and go
[02:14:36] into the books section or list all the books that you cover. That'll be on there. You just click on the
[02:14:40] book, boom it'll take you right to the to the Amazon link even easier. Yeah that way you don't have
[02:14:46] to search if you're, you know, if you're in a time crunch. I like that. What else, what else can we do
[02:14:52] to support the podcast? Just if you're going to buy anything from Amazon go to the jocquistore.com
[02:14:58] or jocquist.com click on the Amazon link before you do your shopping. It'll take you to Amazon just
[02:15:03] like you would have gone anyway. And then you know, do your shopping. There you go you can support that
[02:15:09] way passively. And then also on jocquistore if you like, you know, the shirts we got,
[02:15:17] some coffee mugs on there, some stickers or whatever. You know, if you like any of that stuff,
[02:15:21] just get some, get some. And of course, if you're into supplements or you're running low on
[02:15:30] supplements, go to or go back to on it.com slash jocco and and get some those are the good ones.
[02:15:40] Pick up some acrylic oil for yourself. Yeah. Pick up some strong bone. Pick up where your bars.
[02:15:47] Some warrior bars. Somebody got a little low. I've got a little shipment of warrior bars in today. And I
[02:15:51] must say thank you. Yeah. It's just a game. It's just it saves the day. Yeah. It saves the day. Let's
[02:15:58] snack snacks. Someone asked, uh, are warrior bars postwork out or are they a meal replacement? Like what
[02:16:06] are they all the above? It's all of that. And it's just a snack. It's a snack. But then you eat
[02:16:13] two that's a little meal. You eat three that's like a full meal more or less. Maybe with a salad or something.
[02:16:20] But it's yeah, it's it's good. As always, if you want to kind of kick it with echo and I,
[02:16:31] you can do that right on the olden webs. And I am at jocco-willing echo Charles is at echo Charles.
[02:16:40] That's on the Twitter. That's on the Facebook. Uh, that's also on the Instagram. Oh,
[02:16:47] quick thing about the Instagram. I just found this out not yesterday, but like the day before
[02:16:52] that there's like direct messages on Instagram. You probably didn't even know that. Yeah. I
[02:16:59] I did not know that because they have it on Twitter and people send me direct messages. Okay. So
[02:17:03] you can show me how to check that. Well, yeah. Okay. So you're using people send me some messages.
[02:17:08] Yeah. A lot of people send me some and it's been I've had Instagram for a long time. Yeah. So there's a lot
[02:17:14] of them. I'm like, oh, man, I got a respond, but basically if if I don't respond, it's not because I'm
[02:17:20] ignoring it. It's because straight up I didn't know it was going off. You're supposed to be the
[02:17:26] the tech guy here. Oh, man. I know. Hey, I'm learning. Hey, look, I learned, right? Yes, you did. Good.
[02:17:32] Did learn with that. You can join us there and you can join us as we continue to try and get a
[02:17:42] little bit better. Trying to do a little bit better. And we got examples of leadership like McDonald
[02:17:50] uh, like the people that we talk about. The people that I admire and the people that I look to and
[02:17:57] say, yes, that person stepped up and led. That's the example that I try and follow. People that
[02:18:08] stepped up and led through hard situations who dealt with the dichotomy of leadership and yet
[02:18:15] dealt with the almost unwinnable situations dealt with the rules of engagement dealt with
[02:18:21] challenges dealt with their own platoonly members threatening them to kill them dealt with all
[02:18:29] of those things and yet they still led. And so us we got it easy. We got it easy. So there's no excuse
[02:18:45] none to stop any of us from getting up and getting after it. So until next time
[02:18:59] this is Echo and Jockel out.