Jocko Podcast 294: The Mayhem and Critical Lessons of Lam Son 719 w/ Huey Pilot, Major Jay Tate.

2021-08-12T10:16:20Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:07:16 - Major Jay Tate. Army Pilot. Vietnam. 2:32:11 - Final thoughts. 2:43:40 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jocko Store Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com Jocko Fuel: https://jockofuel.com Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Echelon Front: https://www.echelonfront.com 3:06:33 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

the the one quote I got was 94 there's a helicopter resupply to FSB 30 and 94 south Vietnamese soldiers forced their way onto the helicopters to get out of there including the commander that's on March 2nd by the way uh we get to March 3rd which which you've discussed a few times and and well actually let me jump into this small small portion of the book here that that talks about some of what you guys were doing I'm gonna go to the book here one officer Doug Walmack Wratler 28 and chalk 3 considered aborting his approach watching Arnie being shot down and hearing flight lead calling for mission abort not hearing anything else about aborting the mission he decided he needed to insert his load of arv and soldiers unbeknownst to him was the fact that no arv and had survived in the first two aircraft approaching the landing zone he was subjected to the same intense fire as the chalks perform upon landing an RPG rocker was fired but slammed into a stump and exploded showering the aircraft with shrapnel when it did time stood still for Mr. Walmack as it seemed he could count the main rotor passing in front of the aircraft several rounds ripped across the aircraft from three bursts of AK 47 fire the broder blades cabin lower fuselage and skids all received the damage as the aircraft lifted out of the landing zone hammer blows were felt by the pilot look and the pilot looked back not only were there holes in the floor of the cargo area but strange sounds told him that the main rotor might have taken some hits as well chalk 4 followed chalk 3 into the landing zone where it received intense small arms fire crashed and burned chalk 4 crew scrambled back to chalk 5 and rode out this kept up as each chalk came into the landing zone to drop off the arv and soldiers on board chalk 16 comment Kevin Chero 304 by Bob Morris entered the culture of fire and landed like everyone before him he could feel and hear the hits on his aircraft we're on fire someone said over the road radio but didn't identify themselves Morris pulled in power and initiated his takeoff very calmly he heard his crew chief say over the intercom Mr. Morris you do know we're on fire don't you Mr. Morris quickly returned to the landing zone and exited the aircraft chalk 18 approached the landing zone at 90 knots air speed instead of the usual 40 knots when so close he picked out his landing point just as a mortar round exploded at that spot suddenly his tail dropped low and the nose went high as captain Tate went into a hard deceleration with numerous hammer taps on the aircraft three feet from his touchdown point there was a loud explosion explosion a gaping hole appeared in the window frame and there was the smell of hot metal engine oil pressure was no longer steady but fluctuating arvon soldiers had no desire to wait for him to land and go out of the aircraft to safety of a prone position on the ground pulling in an armpit of collective Tate's aircraft tail number 049 raised out of the landing zone with the hail of small arms bullets chief chasing after him his aircraft had flown its last mission within an hour only 19 of the 40 year craft were able to enter the landing zone 19 out of 40 year craft were able to enter the landing zone Mars crashed in the landing zone came back in crash with another aircraft when in bird flumbaburke he crashed in the LZ they were on the ground one of the copolits kept in Jerry Cruz comment show been a second to him Vietnam first terror to his Ranger Jerry was on the ground with a prick 25 radio calling in air strikes and actually conducting the ground warfare in the LZ because the arvon officer major just Jerry knew what he was doing Jerry was the one that eventually said we got we got to halt this because there's too much crap going on in here and Kirk Latter obviously took it and we stopped the insertion for a while back and picked it back up again later on the afternoon that morning I we got hit by rocket propeller grenade as you've described the gaping hole in the windshield hit the windshield struck it was shot at about a 45 degree angle so when it hit the windshield exploded out instead of exploding in crout cheese said sir sir sir get ass out of here get ass out of here sir sir the nuts the inter panel which is our control warning lights look like a Christmas tree you look up and we took off it within within several seconds we started feeling harshness in the controls the hydraulic system warning light was blinking and within within another short amount of time we lost all hydraulics took both of us on the controls to select going down a highway at 85 miles narrow to Paris during goes out and you're coming up on some major curves it took us both on the controls we're finally able to get it back in called emergency case on we were like number two or three emergency at that time guys ahead of us who had gotten blown up on low low but I'm not it's kind of hard to because I flew so much I mean I flew over 1200 hours and I'm 950 of which were actual combat missions so I have to think that I did I never recall flying any what the call convoy support a lot of that would have been done by Charlie Marl and in Cobra gunships to take action no doubt in my mind that I fly supporting operations for duicane into but I never quite tagged it as as duicane into hell I had so much going on anyhow I've tried to keep my one armorses enlisted man and ten helicopters fly but the point of operation duicane into was to push up into case on which and get control of it and then that was going to then be used as a logistics hub and an air hub to conduct this big operation um Lamson 719 that's what the purpose was but in addition to that too was to put the south of it in these army in a position to where they could readily launch across the border so pre-staging all these folks all these soldiers out there and get them ready the the the area that you were going into had some serious enemy troops in there you know the you know some of the estimates I read 7,000 combat troops on the ground in that area of Lousy 10,000 support personnel another another 5,000 path of Lousy fighters so it was this was you were going into tough country 33,000 total is the estimate that's pretty much kicked around of all of all the categories you you just described so when did you win did you actually find out that that this mission was going down we got the briefing on at the mission actually started on 8 February of 71 by that time hunter first command post was in operation at case on general berry was up there Matt Jackson features a lot of berry in the book and I have some stories about that that I'll share with you later on off-loose several missions in support of that taking troops into hill 30 hill 31 range of arv and ranges were in 31 we flew so we have pick-up zones pz if you will at various stage of wetland and then take them to the to the LZ around there but that was just in prep 4 and really the big action for me the thing that I guess made me realize that my god there's a real war going on was in LZ Lollo which is on the third of March so I'll let to go back to the states a week after a week after Christmas and went back spent a wonderful time with my family New Year's Eve there with Fred Dickens by the time his wife Moe CEO for a kept friend and I left about a week after after that to fly back to Vietnam got into Tonsonoot and tried to get a what to fly up racer said I need to get up to Fuba and the guy said sir there's there's a major major operation a big thing going on he said I don't know when I can get you out of here I said I got to get out here quick if there's a major thing going I said he said we'll serve just stick around here and along behold within an hour they had a say say 123 flying that's 130 and one there's a big difference between those two R&Rs but you'd rather fly on a 130 anyhow say 120 there's only two engines so when you were flying those when you food sog missions I fought up skies we're monitoring everything on our company frequency and they had heard all the chaos and the horror that was being dealt to us and so of the 10 crew we all came back on those four ships because 11 ships if you count girlfriend and her ship they were all outside waiting for us to come in waiting their hats and we all landed and they all ran up and everybody was getting a hug and everybody was cold beer was on the on the flatline and and it was just a big celebration and especially because we brought help Morrison is crew of Bergen his crew Jerry crews we got them off of there and they were sitting on the floor to pull up down and listen to something that's the camaraderie and as I told Matt Jackson I said aviation crews are different rank is superfluous everybody is has a specific mission crew chief door gunner co-poly aircraft commander everybody has a specific mission but nobody can do that one mission by themselves it takes all of us working together as a team and I don't care if I'm a captain and you're a spec for crew chief I'm no better than you are and if it wasn't for you I can be flying as airplane same with the door gun that's a lesson you learn at it you learn a lot about team you learn about personal courage you learn about personal responsibility you learn a certain sense of tenacity you can't be lazy you you the dedication's got to be there and that's what I experienced with these guys and being not everyone of them there was no lacquered everyone of them even the guys in the maintenance hanger that didn't fly those missions with us and many of them would jump into fly mission just to get out there and do it but even to the clerk that wrote the awards there was such a sense of dedication and camaraderie that I have never experienced in my entire life since then never in my 20 years in uniform and the 13 years that I was fortunate to serve as a civilian with the with the office of the secretary defense nothing nothing will ever compare to what I experienced especially in the Lamson 719 even the Commander Control North missions though they were hairy though they had some twist in terms I would have never expected and and and what we lost to crew on Commander Control North missions that's horrible but nothing compares with Lamson 719 and I think that's that's where the what we now see as air salt that's where it was born it was born there we had to think on our feet we did things that were written down we had to think on our feet and you're gonna know uh that you hesitated at the moment at truth don't let that be you that's all I'm saying leadership strategy and tax field manual code valuation protocols discipline you can free them feed field manual way the warrior kit one two three and four Mikey in the dragons about face by hack worth and the OG of my books that are wrote with my brother Dave Faban extreme ownership anti-cautomary leadership late for now also have a leadership consultancy it's called echelon front go to echelon front dot com if you want details on that we have an online training academy go to extreme ownership dot com if you want to get training if you want to ask me questions I'm on there one two three times a week we have a bunch of of courses that you can take about these leadership principles so check that out we have a live event called the master the next one is August 17th and 18th and we're almost sold out we're getting there Las Vegas October 28th and 29th so go to echelon front dot com and check events for that stuff and if you want to help service members active and retired their families a gold star families check out Mark Lee's mom momily she's got a charity organization where she helps out people from the military if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to americazmightywariers dot org and if you want more of my protracted pronouncements or you need more of echoes random room in nations you can find us on the interwebs on twitter on the gram as echo goes and on that facebook echoes at echelchrals i'm at joklin and thanks once again to major jate for coming on today sharing his experiences with us would of course and more important thanks to jate for his courage and bravery in the service of our great nation and to the rest of the military out there right now currently serving with courage thank you for protecting our way of life and the same goes for a police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics emt's dispatchers correctional officers boarder patrol secret service and all first responders thank you for protecting us here at home and everyone else out there our lives that we're living right now are a gift and our way of life that we enjoy it is also a gift it's a blessing and it's a luxury it's a luxury that we get to be here in this world with freedom and free will and the opportunities that we have which were given to us through the bravery and sacrifice of others do not squander this gift and don't waste these opportunities instead go out there every day and then get after it until next time the zeco and jaco out and we got her back on the ground we'll come to the hover we put it down at case on and the main rotor locked seized turned the chopper almost two hundred seventy degrees around from our landing head there were actually bailed tech reps up at case on looking at damage and what because they were riding their reports for hey this and this what we need to improve on on the newer models of the hui they were riding their reports they got told me he said sure you're very lucky he said you could have had that transmission could have seized in the air he said you guys wouldn't be here and it seized on the ground for an enter came over fifty holes that had wrapped and a locked seized through the misdeceased transmission that that that helicopter obviously didn't fly again that day that's two of them one day we uh I say we'd lost a lot of aircraft that day and it was getting night time um we had this guy that liked to fix this stuff called common trails stew and uh there were on case on there was actually wild onions jica pulled out of the ground and uh he had a bunch of guys collected that yeah look up for that also psychological warfare okay to know what that is it's an album with tracks of jockel each track is jockel telling you how to get through a specific and general moment of weakness so if you're in real real life if you have been a moment of weakness which we all do sometimes put in this album boom jockel will tell you why you should you know not succumb to the weakness if you want a visual representation of this stuff go to flipsidegames.com my brother Dakota Meyer selling all kinds of cool looking stuff that you can hang on your wall we also have some books and hey the books I talked about today undone to encourage is the series there's three volumes out right now covered one covered volume number one which is an assault unit as an assault helicopter unit in Vietnam 1969 1970 that's episode 275 of this podcast covered book three today lambson seven one nine book two is called metal of honor I'm sure we'll get to that book it at some point um you can pick up the series of books there just an incredible account that you have to read to really to really understand the kind of chaos that was going on we have a new book final spin I have a new book final spin it is a we don't really know what to call it literature it is literature of some kind and they were old kind of like when you think of a bomber right now like a world war two bomber you think of this old you know those were the most modern beasts of their time that was like getting those noise that was like yeah to a noise right straight up so well listen obviously like I said at the end there guys like major J.T. so I flew into Tucson and he had a couple don't at dollars there who were in the hundred and first they were there in fact stand married one of the don't at dollars barber and Terry Digan was a friend of mine she was there and plus one guy from bravo company the Kingsman and and another pilot but we partied hearty that night and stand parents just did a wonderful job of making us feel at home and so on and might have been there two nights I stayed because I had to have time to get my uniform cleaned up for a warm home I wanted to make sure it was strapped when my parents saw me and so I got my uniform got my shoes all spit shot everything caught the plane out of Phoenix and Terry was with me and Terry and I had a really nice relationship I mean it wasn't a sexual thing it was just a nice relationship we understood each other and she had left none two months before I did and she would write me letters telling me about how the world back in the States was not the world it was not the real world world world her what she experienced in Vietnam with the soldier and that was the real world you know we we would write back a fourth about that and uh I flew my flight took us to Shivas from Downers Grove Illinois so we flew to Chicago and then obviously catch a plane for Chicago to Charlotte and she wanted me to meet her parents and and I wanted to meet her parents too and now I could have probably had a relationship with Terry that would have gone beyond she ended up marrying an army ranger a several years later that she had known and not but uh kept waiting for her parents to come and my flight was coming up to go in a parent's handshot up and then I left out the the next day my parents stayed down all for a while but the next day was the landing on the move and we washed it after my girlfriend I washed that we got back into Hickory from driving from Panama City Florida and I wanted the things that when I first covered um Colonel Jackson's first book you know one of the statistics that he brings up in the book is there was 5000 Huey sent to Vietnam in 3200 of him were lost in combat did your parents know these kind of statistics were they nervous as hell were they talking to you about you know what was going to happen how did you feel about it um my parents I never expressed any worry whatsoever about being in fact I wanted to go to NAMM right after flight school there were too many infantry officers serving infantry aviators in Vietnam there were not enough slots for all the infantry aviators there were infantry aviators who were like I'm third in line to be a battoon leader as a captain and we had a briefing tent for the we were in the briefing tent Kirk Latter all were Kirk Latter's commander 223 aviation battalion and told us about the afternoon mission we got to get back in there we got more troops to insert and alone and and Colonel Fernando looked at me and he said I'm sure you want to go in there fly to your to your crews are on the ground and they're just so I don't know how to have an aircraft he said we take mine I said sorry said take mine but the only thing you got to take my crew chief with you but it just makes this feel like we're due for more explosions so you bring up a good point unless if there are explosions that's where they're gonna be she make a video or everything explodes I'm about to because of how much trash you guys talking about like I'll make a regular video and people will be like I'm I'm gutted literally gutted by the lack of explosions I know it was hard to disagree at the time I mean you know our explosions appropriate at every single situation maybe maybe not unless if they if the explosions are gonna be present you're gonna find them on this youtube channel along with everything out they also America didn't want to put any troops any American troops on the ground inside allows because they didn't like the way that looked politically so they decided well we'll run the operation using South Vietnamese soldiers but in order to actually execute the operation they were going to need to have American aviation because America was the only one really capable of doing that job of air lifting all these South Vietnamese soldiers in the louse and then on top of that if you're going to use the helicopters then we're going to use the air support to in the air assets so that that's sort of the premise of the operation and it's a big operation to go like I said the goal is to kind of put it put a halt on on the the portion of Ho Chi Mintrell that ran through louse and and and and and and and and and the head waters of that was in the town of Simone I guess the wars over I never saw that attitude our soldiers remain very professional soldiers that's amazing cause many on were just nineteen years old some bomber eighteen I had worn off sort of a twenty one I'm out with an old dude I was twenty five I never never once questioned our our ability as an aviation unit to do the job the mission that we were assigned to do even after even up until the day I left when I became the operations officer my last four months in country I got a chance to look at at the battle space in a different way because I would go to batayan and batayan ops and look at that then come back and put that into company ops and and work our portion of the mission our company's portion of the batayan mission and I'd bring the guys into the briefing room the guys are gonna be flying that mission and I'd say okay this is our objective right here now how do we get there we're here this is our objective our mission is this we got to put so many troops in there how do we get I'll tell you one thing that's interesting when you read this book and when you hear about this this operation you know most of the time when you think of oh what the what the Vietnamese are doing it's sort of like what the North Vietnamese doing what the Vietnamese are doing it's sort of like a hit and run it doesn't seem like these big conventional operations and if they did do a big assault on a base you know they kind of do it

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockelpontcast number 294 with echo Charles and me,
[00:00:04] Jockel Willink. Good evening, echo. Good evening.
[00:00:09] Flight, this is Blue Star 6, RP, major bunting analysis across the release point on the ground indicating
[00:00:16] two minutes flight time to the landing zone. Without announcement, Charlie gunships from
[00:00:21] Crossbows began a slow dive toward the landing zone prepared to release some of the 14,
[00:00:27] 2.75 inch rockets that each aircraft carried along with their machine guns if it became necessary.
[00:00:35] Flight, lead is taking fire. Blue Star 6 announced over the UHF frequency, which was obvious
[00:00:41] to everyone behind him as the green tracers were coming from all around him.
[00:00:47] Choc2 is taking fire, we're hit, came the next announcement. Suddenly the radio was alive with every
[00:00:53] aircraft reporting taking fire as they crossed the RP and the woods around the landing zone
[00:00:59] were highlighted by red and white flashes and green tracers streaming upward.
[00:01:04] As each aircraft flew into the cone of fire attempting to reach the landing zone and discharge
[00:01:09] their load, the air waves became garbled as pilots stepped on each other's transmission
[00:01:14] or in panic, depress their transmit switch to the entire flight. So they could everyone could hear
[00:01:21] the conversation between a pilot and his crew. Choc6 is taking shit, get on your guns,
[00:01:26] Choc5, where's the damn guns? Break, break, choc10 is. There was so much confusion that no one could
[00:01:33] get a complete sentence transmitted until. Mayday, mayday, Dutch master 4-1 is going down.
[00:01:41] Said captain Fox and almost a calm voice. Who the hell is Dutch master 4-1? Someone asked
[00:01:47] over the radio, looking skyward and searching, everyone had their answer. Dutch master 4-1 was
[00:01:53] the command and control aircraft for the cab screen and was entering an auto rotation from 4,000 feet.
[00:02:01] What really held everyone's attention was the flames coming out of the bottom of the aircraft.
[00:02:06] Oh shit, it was obvious that he'd taken a hit with an explosive round in the fuel cell, but at 4,000 feet,
[00:02:13] every aircraft had at least one set of eyes tracking this crippled aircraft. An aircraft
[00:02:20] in flight on fire was somehow something few had ever seen before and it was horrifying and mesmerizing.
[00:02:30] Mayday, Dutch master 4-1 is on fire. Was the next call from captain Fox, his voice a bit elevated.
[00:02:36] Fire was every aviators' worst nightmare. Shoot me, but don't let me burn.
[00:02:44] It was a fear that had been with aviators since Orville and Wilbur had first flown.
[00:02:51] Before parachutes, World War I pilots were known to use their pistols rather than burn in an aircraft.
[00:02:58] As everyone watched, the radio is went silent. Slowly, Dutch master 4-1 began a slow roll.
[00:03:05] And as it hit the trees, it was inverted. The cab screen began to converge on the crash site.
[00:03:14] As major bunting entered the coltron of enemy fire, he turned to Mr. Grossman.
[00:03:20] Get on the controls with me in case I'm hit. Grossman immediately did so that with a very light touch,
[00:03:26] ready to take command of the aircraft. Suddenly, sour and Thomas opened fire.
[00:03:31] Taking fire, they both screamed together. Though there was no need since the sound of a hammer tapping
[00:03:37] on the side of the aircraft could clearly be heard. As blue star 6 continued to press toward the landing zone,
[00:03:43] decelerating and coming to a hover.
[00:03:47] The Arvins soldiers didn't wait for the aircraft to land. They started jumping out as the aircraft
[00:03:52] came to a slow walk. Before a major bunting could land, the aircraft was empty.
[00:03:57] Sir, go, go, where empty, sour yelled as he continued to fire as weapon at the tree line.
[00:04:04] Talk one on the go, major bunting transmitted, LZ is hot. His next transmission followed almost immediately.
[00:04:12] Made a made a, blue star 6 is going in. He had just cleared the landing zone
[00:04:18] when the aircraft engine quit. And that right there is an excerpt from book three from a series
[00:04:32] of books called Undontered Valor, which were written by Colonel Matt Jackson. And this is the third
[00:04:38] book of the series, which is subtitled Lamson 719. And the first book that he wrote in this series
[00:04:48] was subtitled and a salt helicopter squadron of Vietnam 1969 to 1970. And we had the honor of
[00:04:54] covering that book with Colonel Jackson on this podcast. It was podcast number 275. And that first
[00:05:02] book is based on Colonel Jackson's experiences himself as in Vietnam as a Huey pilot. The Huey,
[00:05:12] the iconic helicopter of the Vietnam War. And that first book, it's written as a novel or a story
[00:05:23] with the main character. The main character is named Dan Corrie, but that character is based on Colonel
[00:05:28] Jackson and the events that are in the book took place. And this third book is written in a similar
[00:05:34] way. It's written from the perspective or focused on an individual named Dan Corrie. But the
[00:05:43] events that are written about in this third book, they took place. And it continues to recount some
[00:05:51] of these incredible heroics from these helicopter pilots and helicopter crews in Vietnam. And this
[00:05:59] third book in the series tells the story of a massive operation, which included the largest
[00:06:07] helicopter assault of the Vietnam War. This is an operation that lasted 45 days. He was conducted
[00:06:12] in Louss. And it was an attempt to shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. And this book, Undonged
[00:06:19] Valor, Lamson, 719, is filled with incredible details that Colonel Jackson got by interviewing
[00:06:29] and doing intense research to accurately describe what happened. And the books, incredible read,
[00:06:37] but we're actually not going to read the book much today. We're going to touch on it a little bit
[00:06:42] because we have the honor of having one of the pilots who also flew Huey's in Vietnam and who flew
[00:06:53] missions in support of Operation Lamson 719. His name is J. T. He's a retired major, US Army.
[00:07:04] He is the recipient of two distinguished flying crosses, 38 air metals, recognizing
[00:07:10] 950 hours of combat flying, the Bronze Star, the Vietnamese Cross of Galantry, and the Silver Star
[00:07:20] for his heroic actions under fire. He's an honor to have him here with us tonight.
[00:07:28] J. Thank you for joining us. Well, well that introduction was put me right back on the cockpit.
[00:07:35] And that book is filled with those either coming into landing zones or coming out of landing zones.
[00:07:44] It's just incredible to read and incredible to learn about the history of that operation.
[00:07:51] As a matter of fact, I was talking to a friend of mine that was in that was in in Sagan, Vietnam.
[00:07:56] And I mentioned that you were coming on the podcast and I told him that you flew in Lamson 719.
[00:08:03] And the look on his faces, that was a rough one. You know, we supported
[00:08:10] Commander-Cotrone North, which was the northern segment of SOG and Vietnam.
[00:08:17] And I remember several missions that we flew prior to the kickoff of Lamson 719 on
[00:08:26] the 8 February prior to that. We were flying out of the Quantry Dong Ha area with a group of
[00:08:33] Commander-Cotrone North Gossum up there flying west towards K-Son when all of a sudden
[00:08:42] on our flood of four, we saw these orange fireballs coming up at us. And we immediately took
[00:08:51] a invasive action 23 millimeter an aircraft fire coming up at us. We took action to get out of there.
[00:09:01] Obviously, the mission at that moment was called off and we made it back to Dong Ha.
[00:09:07] One of the guys over torqued his aircraft in the invasive action.
[00:09:13] And it had to be grounded for inspection and for tail rotor to make sure that nothing had happened
[00:09:20] that would cause him further damage or even crashing. But that was in January of 71 before
[00:09:28] the kickoff of 8 February 71.
[00:09:32] Well, before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about the beginning of J. T.
[00:09:38] Where did you grow up? Where did you come from?
[00:09:41] A group in a little town called Hickory North Carolina. I was born in Pensacola. My father was
[00:09:47] flying chief in the Navy, flew PBYs. He was in charge of a hangar at Pensacola that repaired
[00:09:54] the scan on PBYs that were shot up. And Dad would take him up and fly up. Because the idiot
[00:10:01] circle around the airfield and land it and check to make sure the rivets were holding a
[00:10:07] K on the aircraft. So he was an enlisted chief in the Navy? Yep. That's pretty good.
[00:10:12] He had a background in aviation, or not in aviation metal smith, but it was a metal smith himself
[00:10:20] and did a lot of work with sheep metal and stuff like that. So obviously it was a skill that the
[00:10:26] Navy needed and Dad was a real smart guy and picked up on it and loved flying and got his wings.
[00:10:34] I remember his wings were had a goal center with the silver wings, which was different than the
[00:10:40] Air-regler, aviation, or as all several wings of the Navy. Or goal wings of the Navy. Yeah. So he was
[00:10:47] kind of a disappointed at and going the Navy, but when I went into Army aviation, that's sort of
[00:10:53] smoothed it over for him. How long did he do in the Navy? He was just a guy that went in in
[00:10:58] in 1942 after Pearl Harbor and got out in 45 and served the rest of his time in the reserves.
[00:11:07] Got out of the reserves right after the Korean War. Was he his own business man? He was going to
[00:11:13] say what was he for a living? Yeah, he was a full-time firefighter for the city of Hickory North
[00:11:19] Carolina and he also owned his own business. He had a shell service station. It was called
[00:11:23] Tate-Shale Service Station and I remember he had Tate-Shale and it was in great big letters,
[00:11:32] limited letters on top of the service station and the S letter burned out and had Tate-Hale
[00:11:39] up there. So dad would do a few commercials and on the radio and he said,
[00:11:47] business has been really good. We have sold the S out of Hell. It's so what about mom?
[00:11:56] See what was he doing? Mom was a typical housewife. Brought me up the stay at home.
[00:12:06] A group in her neighborhood where nobody locked her doors. We could go with vacation for two weeks.
[00:12:10] Doors to stay open. Remember one time we had a fire in our home burned up all it was in the
[00:12:19] clause that burned up all the others closed and they had no way of getting in touch with us because
[00:12:26] we didn't have sales service back then. But I remember all the ladies on a neighborhood came down
[00:12:30] and had the house completely cleaned up when we arrived home except for the fact that mother's
[00:12:35] closed were all burned up. But she got the insurance and got to buy home your wardrobe.
[00:12:41] That's not a bad deal. That's a kind of neighborhood. That grew up and nice.
[00:12:44] What about you? What were you interested in? What were you doing when you were a kid?
[00:12:48] Okay. It's quite ironic. In our neighborhood we had a field that was vacant and we called it
[00:12:59] the battlefield. And you have to understand this was in the early 50s and all of our parents had
[00:13:06] served in some form of military service. We had some Marines. We had Navy. We had Army.
[00:13:13] Then we had a Air Force. But we did have Navy pilot that was there. So we would all put on the
[00:13:21] gear that our fathers brought home and would play Army up in our battlefield. And from we would
[00:13:30] dig foxholes and we would make our own hand grenades but we couldn't pronounce hand grenades
[00:13:36] so we called him hand grenades. And the hand grenade was we would dig up red clay and North
[00:13:45] Kiela's watch it and would put water on it and fasten the balls and let it sit out in the sun.
[00:13:52] And then we would throw those at the enemy. In our marijuana time Eric Schufra got a black eye
[00:13:58] and his mother was not real happy that we were playing battlefield and throwing hand grenades.
[00:14:03] And then what about as you got older? As I got older I really wanted to go to a military school.
[00:14:12] And my parents were not quite, I was an older kid so my parents were not quite ready to
[00:14:18] let me go. I got into the scouts, got to wear the uniform. Say that was very important to me
[00:14:25] then wearing the uniform wearing it correctly. In high school I got into the band. I was a drummer.
[00:14:34] But the uniforms were all shaped like the tailored after the West Point uniforms with the
[00:14:42] high collars and to me that was just added to the the desired who want to do something in uniform.
[00:14:52] Then want to be a firefighter my father was but then cared to be a firefighter my uncle
[00:14:57] was a police officer didn't care about being a police officer. But there was something about the military
[00:15:02] that that was like a magnet to me. I would watch every as a child, I would watch every movie,
[00:15:10] a military movie on TV that would come on. Randolph Scott you know played those being he man
[00:15:17] Marine you know kind of like you know except you were in the Navy. But those things I gravitated
[00:15:25] toward that my good friend Don Murphy who I grew up with he did the same thing he went to the Marine
[00:15:32] Corps and it was really he went to the NCO route obviously officer out so at the times when we
[00:15:40] would be on leave and come home at the same time I had to go through this whole rigourment of
[00:15:45] about being an officer and and then listen man really knew what was going on and we were just there
[00:15:50] for showmanship. So what year did you graduate from high school? I graduated in 63
[00:16:00] quite interestingly I had tried out for the United States of America high school band
[00:16:07] as a drummer and was offered a trip so we this is these are two to four students from every state
[00:16:15] in the Indian and we met at University of Southern Mississippi to practice and then we toured
[00:16:21] all down through the south across over in the Mexico doing concert tours all the way to Hollywood
[00:16:29] we did a we did a big concert in the Hollywood Bowl and I mean have a bit of a saying you know
[00:16:36] and again in those outstanding uniforms that were similar to the ones that I wore at
[00:16:41] Banyon uniforms at a war in high school and so it just added to the and I was proud of that
[00:16:49] I was very proud to wear that uniform and I wore it right and I spit shined my shoes I did that
[00:16:54] all away from junior high school and I was in the band all away through high school so I
[00:16:58] knew how to spit shined but then I was offered a full scholarship to University of Southern Mississippi
[00:17:06] and also to University of West Virginia I didn't like West Virginia because it's everything was
[00:17:14] heels it seemed like everywhere you went you had to go up a hill and I know you navy guys you
[00:17:19] liked that stuff but you know I was quite into that so I took the scholarship to Southern Mississippi
[00:17:25] there ROTC was mandatory for freshmen and sophomores and so there again here I was in uniform
[00:17:32] not only and I was at the scholarship I was in University of Southern Mississippi was a full full
[00:17:38] rod music scholarship and I was a drummer in the University of Southern Mississippi band
[00:17:45] after my first year I decided I didn't want to be a music major so I thought well you know
[00:17:51] I think I'll go into art design because I like to be creative in this so I transferred out of Southern
[00:17:58] Mississippi to my father's just made because it was all paid for and I enrolled in East Tennessee State
[00:18:05] University in Johnson City Tennessee and there again sophomore year I was in my sophomore year
[00:18:14] ROTC mandatory but the more I got into it the the more I just really gravitated towards that
[00:18:20] and I took my oath of office as an advanced core cadet as a junior and from there on it's just
[00:18:32] I cared more about getting that commission than I did about getting my degree I had transferred majors
[00:18:40] from music to art design so and that time we were all in the quarter system so I had to go
[00:18:46] in extra quarter to take up all the courses that I needed to take and I graduated December
[00:18:52] at 67 first went down the island capping gown and then after I got my diploma then all of the
[00:19:01] cadets go out take off the capping gown and we put on our uniform coats where I had the pants and
[00:19:08] stuff on for that so under the gowns so I came down and we were all commissioned in an
[00:19:14] I remember my mom and dad pinnacles gold bars on my shoulder and boy I tell you what I
[00:19:18] yeah I felt like I had really accomplished at least the first phase of my life so that was
[00:19:24] 1967. Night December of 67 I went on active duty in March of 68 as an infantry officer
[00:19:35] brand new what we call butter bar wearing the gold bars the second lieutenant I went to
[00:19:43] the infantry schools called the infantry officers basic course at Fort Benning just on the other
[00:19:50] side of the hill for most for all the OCS guys they called OCS the Benning School for Boys
[00:19:58] and I'll never forget we were so here we were commissioned officers and there they were
[00:20:04] hoping to be commissioned officers and many times we would march by their their area and I
[00:20:11] recall a big telephone pole and on top of the telephone pole in the officer candidate school
[00:20:17] area was this black helmet shiny black helmet with a gold bar in the center of the helmet
[00:20:26] it was actually a helmet liner and what they would try to OCS guys the house competition who could
[00:20:35] get up there and get the helmet first course the pole was always greased and I don't know if anybody
[00:20:41] ever got up there got that helmet without putting cleats on their shoes but at any rate but yeah that's
[00:20:50] that was my first taste at Benning of being a real army officer. So this is 1967 so you must have
[00:20:57] pretty much known as an infantry officer you were gonna end up going to Vietnam. Oh yeah I was
[00:21:01] I was ready I was prepared I was mentally prepared while at East Tennessee State I was
[00:21:10] a member of the Sigma Phi Upsilon fraternity practically every one of the advanced
[00:21:16] corkidats juniors and seniors were advanced corps army ROTC cadets and everyone this
[00:21:25] my fraternity was a big military fraternity and we we took great pride in that and
[00:21:33] I remember we would inspect each other and the fraternity asked before we would leave to go to
[00:21:37] drill on Thursdays just to make sure everybody was dressed right dressed ready for it and
[00:21:43] and it was it was an it was an honor to be an advanced corkidat and you had all of these
[00:21:51] underclassmen that this was that you were leading this was our first time is really being a leader
[00:21:57] giving commands moving orders for a platoon and company drill and and and this kind of stuff and so
[00:22:07] they were instilling on us they being the cadre was instilling us the correct way of
[00:22:15] of of being an officer of showing authority without disrespecting people and you can correct
[00:22:24] people without disrespecting people and and I learned that through ROTC and that's kind of
[00:22:33] kind of interesting because I know that ROTC cadets coming up being commissioned
[00:22:39] then have the greatest reputation amongst a lot of the NCOs in the army at that time
[00:22:43] so when it's 1967 and you mentioned that everyone freshman and sophomore had to be in ROTC
[00:22:52] it was mandatory at at University of Southern Mississippi and it was mandatory at East Tennessee State
[00:22:57] University I can't speak for the other colleges and universities but I would think that
[00:23:03] perhaps that was the manner in which every university at least of us federally funded university
[00:23:10] had to operate wow that's pretty so what about what about like as far as kind of the social
[00:23:19] aspects of America at the time where you started in 1967 you were you really seeing much of that
[00:23:25] anti-war attitude or anything like that no not we were not subjected to that I don't recall that
[00:23:33] I recall that on campus there was no snickering when in uniform every Thursday was drill day
[00:23:43] and so everyone had to show up for drill day had to be in proper uniform
[00:23:51] if you were a sophomore or a freshman or sophomore you were carrying the M1 Grand Raffle
[00:23:57] and every week as a freshman sophomore you had to go to the arms room and clean your weapon
[00:24:02] and I had to be and you see you were taking ROTC for credit so for the two years of
[00:24:09] Jefferson sophomore you were taking ROTC for credit so yeah you best clean your weapon because
[00:24:14] if you did and you get a demerit and X number of demerits means you got a dropping grade so
[00:24:20] we would actually go through and do inspection before
[00:24:24] every drill mate which was on Thursdays and that's how I learned how to inspect an M1 Go-Anne
[00:24:32] Rife and I don't know if you ever fired one of those but I think I actually have fired one
[00:24:40] I think I actually have I fired a bunch of different weapons you know we do like these familiarization
[00:24:45] shoots and they brought a lot of bunch of old weapons and new weapons and I can't but I'm pretty sure
[00:24:50] I have fired one but they used to have this when you would clean your raffle when you pull the bolt back
[00:24:59] and you would have to clean down through the board and everything and then what you would do is you would
[00:25:04] take the little quite cloth that you used to stick on the on the board rod to clean the
[00:25:12] clean the board out but you'd stick it down there and you'd look through and the light from
[00:25:16] that would shine up through and you could tell whether or not you had any any materials in the board
[00:25:20] it shouldn't be there and but then you had to you had to pull back on the charging in yes
[00:25:33] and then let it go right quick so it would go forward what if you didn't let it go right quick
[00:25:38] you would get what's called ill one thumb because it would get stuck right and many times I had him one thumb on that yeah
[00:25:49] so so you go to the infantry course the wood you call the basic infantry course
[00:25:54] after off-sourced basic course I OBC so when when you're in that I mean you must be these guys are
[00:26:01] preparing you to go be a platoon leader and be around correct correct yeah 1542 platoon leader and
[00:26:08] and this is now is it 1968 1968 now so there's a lot of experience guys that are teaching you a lot
[00:26:15] a lot how long was that course of instruction non weeks if I think correctly was it non weeks or 16 weeks
[00:26:23] I think it was might have been 12 weeks I'd have to think about that because I took my first command
[00:26:34] at brag I was there in in March not took my first command at brag and in round August so when you're
[00:26:46] going through that course or you get forming up platoons and you're going out and doing training
[00:26:49] this is that kind of thing yeah that's exactly right forming in platoon and companies and then they
[00:26:55] rotated who was going to put the platoon leader maybe we're all second-lead tenants well not all of us
[00:27:01] we had some direct commission guys in there I had a sergeant major who was direct commission to a captain
[00:27:06] and special forces guy and snake eater and he he was always the company commander
[00:27:16] and great guy wonderful guy but we was switch rolls around we participated in all different
[00:27:24] consummenevers whether it be an armored column with infantry or whether it be squad tactics
[00:27:35] whether it be platoon tactics or where that was in a company crossing over what then they called the
[00:27:43] line of departure the L.D. we don't have that in warfare and every there is no L.D. it's a
[00:27:52] blocked perimeter defense and we're going to that but we practiced all of that not everybody went
[00:27:58] airborne but we all did the the almost a 47 foot tower that dropped you out and so you get a
[00:28:06] feel for what falling with a shoot on his like and but we were on a night combat compass course
[00:28:15] in an ever four office we were not teams of four pouring down rain in four menning Georgia
[00:28:24] Columbia Columbus George and it was in the early spring and it was cold as hell and we were sitting
[00:28:35] or chattering and it was a night combat compass course we were dropped off at a point on a road
[00:28:42] in a doos on a half and all right team alpha out so we would get out and we knew where we were
[00:28:50] had a postmark with a number on it and we had our maps so we knew where we were and then we had
[00:28:57] our directions okay you're you're you're a 4A you got to be a point bay and you had to shoot your
[00:29:03] asthma looking at your maps see what shoot your asthma with that and then go to point bay and then
[00:29:09] you go to point bay to point c but pouring down rain cold tea chattering only one guy in our four
[00:29:17] smoke so we would have him light a cigarette and put it in his mouth and he would go out following
[00:29:26] the asthma and till we were telling the stop and light it so that we could make correct okay go
[00:29:32] two feet to your right two feet to your left so that he was directly on asthma and then he would stand
[00:29:38] there with his cigarette lit so we can puffing on it so we could see the light and then we would go to
[00:29:43] him then we'd shoot the next asthma with the exact same way send him out and guess what we made it
[00:29:50] we made it we were one of the first teams to make it through that night combat compass course
[00:29:56] of course along the way there were little surprises like an explosion would happen over maybe
[00:30:05] 20 meters to our right so we'd have to go down well it was all planned as to where this stuff was
[00:30:11] going and we didn't realize it but in our there were season troops out there taking care of us they
[00:30:17] weren't going to let us get hurt we didn't know that at the time but but during that night compass
[00:30:26] course pouring down rain I heard in the background what what what what what what what what
[00:30:35] it got louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and it finally what what what
[00:30:39] about the straight over our heads to Huey aircraft and I said to myself those guys are dry
[00:30:49] they have it better than I do a couple days later in our company area they had a
[00:30:56] sauna anyone interested in army aviation we're going to be given the flight after two
[00:31:00] tests on a certain date I was the first in order to run the sauna for that thing
[00:31:05] and then that was it you got picked up for it graduated from a bending took my first command
[00:31:12] at Fort Bragg I was in interesting here I am an infantry officer and my command was a military
[00:31:18] and was with a military intelligence battalion M. Avita in here I am an infantry officer
[00:31:23] I'll never forget my first sergeant first sergeant Chuck Holly I don't think anybody ever
[00:31:29] forgets the name of their first first sergeant not officers and he brought me in he treated me
[00:31:36] I was kind of embarrassed because he had all these metals and here I am brand new
[00:31:40] second lieutenant no combat experience and he treated me like with great respect and
[00:31:50] welcome me aboard I mean I never forget the first time I walked in that early room he calls
[00:31:55] you all your room to attention I'll sort of baffled you know here I have secondly tenets you looking
[00:31:59] over your shoulder for a criminal yeah what in the world is going but yeah and I learned a lot from
[00:32:07] I started Holly my first first sergeant never forget going out on just a maneuver and here I am
[00:32:17] we have our military intelligence and my bars military intelligence battalion air reconnaissance
[00:32:24] my actual unit and I was command of Alfa the test but we had our law of mission we would take
[00:32:30] photographs that were uh talking about the air force sent back to Fort Bragg for a photographs
[00:32:36] over Vietnam sent back to Fort Bragg and my guys and Alfa the testman and there was
[00:32:42] bravada testman Charlie the testman but the missions given our guys we were actually
[00:32:47] taking uh the photographs and pulling intelligence out of the photographs using
[00:32:53] stereoscopes which you can measure the height of various objects from so on so forth
[00:32:58] then we would put all that together and we would get in a bird dog at Fort Bragg and
[00:33:07] fly that to DC and that and it was a real live mission I mean how many people can say that
[00:33:14] you know they were we were actually doing a real live mission in support of Vietnam at that time
[00:33:20] here I was a little secondly tenant you know barely drive behind the ears and my first sergeant
[00:33:26] kept me straight how did a bunch of warm officers worked for me too and they really did all the work
[00:33:31] I was there just to sign my name and and thank my first sergeant for keeping me straight
[00:33:37] how long did you do that job for? Four months, the orders came down sending me to
[00:33:42] flight school at Fort Walter's Texas so you showed the flight school when we were talking
[00:33:48] when I was talking to Colonel Jackson it sounded crazy the number of helicopter pilots that
[00:33:54] would be in train at that time it was amazing totally amazing you see Matt Jackson started off as
[00:34:01] warm officer so he had a whole different experience than I did that was for warm officer
[00:34:09] Candace school we called them walks and people said well what's a walk and we'd say well
[00:34:15] that's something you throw out a web it I think it's funny because it would he's talking
[00:34:21] about you guys the commission officers they called them RLO's real life officers
[00:34:28] so we had the real life officers and the walks yeah the real live officers
[00:34:34] yeah and and we were all each class had a designated color and the my class at the
[00:34:42] be the yellow hat class and you tell different classes about the color of baseball cap that you wore
[00:34:48] and you had these funny wings that you sewed on the on the front of your hat they weren't
[00:34:55] aviator wings but like student aviator wings and so we had the yellow hat so the walk class going
[00:35:03] through they were yellow hat class but we never never got together and that was the primary flight
[00:35:10] training and that's where we just learned to fly my first helicopter that I climbed into was a
[00:35:17] training helicopter 55 it's a huge 300 aircraft but it was small I mean you could probably get the
[00:35:25] whole aircraft into this room would have to probably knock out part of your walls so the
[00:35:30] tail road would get through but that's how small it was I mean it was smaller than the OH13 and most
[00:35:36] people remember that by when they watched mash or the H23 which was back in that era as well
[00:35:45] but that's what I learned to fly on it was so tiny and being tiny wasn't easy to fly it was very
[00:35:51] squirrely so I remember people I said might I wish I was in that 13 or that 23 and they said
[00:35:58] well you know you're getting some great pilot skills in in that TH55 because you're learning how
[00:36:04] to adjust for a wind it's so and so forth and they said when you get to when you get to a
[00:36:08] rucker that Huey is going to be like you're climbing out a little fiat into a Rolls Royce
[00:36:16] and I remember our first cross country after we had solo I so load at my 14th hour you had to
[00:36:24] solo within 16 hours or you got sent back to another class so I also load at my 14th hour and that's
[00:36:32] amazing getting you know the instructor pilot gets on says okay you've got the aircraft and
[00:36:40] you fly the idiot circle and you call take off you call turning into the wind you call based
[00:36:48] and you call final you had to do all the correct call signs and everything and we were at little
[00:36:52] staging areas all around Fort Walters Texas which was in mineral wells Texas so we probably had
[00:37:00] staging areas as much as 50 miles out because you had all these classes and all these very staging
[00:37:05] areas and I'll never forget it was a little anxious when he climbed out of that cockpit and I knew
[00:37:14] that I was in control and but then after you flew your first solo coming back in the bus didn't
[00:37:24] stop it Fort Walters at the at the fort it stopped at the holiday end tradition is everyone
[00:37:34] who's so load the bus would stop there and those are how to solo get stayed on the bus those
[00:37:40] who had already solo got off the bus with the new solo guys and they carried you and threw you
[00:37:46] in the pool at the holiday end and interestingly at the holiday end in in in at mineral wells
[00:37:55] they had crossed Huey rotor blades that you walked under to go to the swimming pool and to have
[00:38:03] that honor of being thrown in the pool was just incredibly amazing and fulfilling.
[00:38:11] Did you have any did you have any trouble when you're going through aviation school
[00:38:14] did it come pretty naturally to you were you you know did did did you did you figured out pretty
[00:38:19] quicker when you said 14 hours was that well no I mean we have some guys that that solo
[00:38:26] at 10 hours I mean they were I mean just incredible but you have to understand a lot of the
[00:38:32] guys I went through with or I had their private ticket most of those fixed wing I don't know
[00:38:37] of anyone in my class that had a rotary wing private ticket and had they done that they could
[00:38:43] have probably sold load in five hours you know it just all depends but leaving there
[00:38:50] here's the other interesting thing all the polish we're getting this flight pay plus we're getting
[00:38:55] our normal cyclotinip pay which I think was like 247 dollars a month how much was flight pay
[00:39:02] oh flat pay was god i i i i i know when i quit getting flat pay it the end it was like 400
[00:39:07] something dollars a month but so that's kind of crazy right like you're almost doubling your pay oh yeah
[00:39:12] oh yeah and but but interesting about it is you got all these single guys here so what are we
[00:39:16] do we get to the to the car dealer so everybody I remember a good buddy of mine was my roommate
[00:39:25] he and i actually lived in a motel right up side the gate of Fort Walters and he had a
[00:39:32] Camero Z-28 whatever it was Z-carb V28 I had the Osmo Bill 442 and I mean that just goes on all the
[00:39:45] hot cars you know the single polish you know we thought our Sierra didn't stay we had that stuff you know
[00:39:52] we you know we were just there there was something about that it just started the camaraderie
[00:40:02] just started building and I remember when we left Fort Walters to go to Fort Rucorale
[00:40:08] Alabama for our advanced training over for office that convoyed all the way to and we we made
[00:40:18] our first pit stop in Montgomery Alabama but we convoyed all the way down through there and we all
[00:40:24] had CBs in our cars so you know it was like we were flying and we were talking yesterday
[00:40:29] other and and and on the back of the car we everybody had uninestates army aviation
[00:40:37] and a little sticker in your back of your window you know and you know like I say we thought our
[00:40:42] Sierra didn't just think and we got to we got to Montgomery we all checked in that night
[00:40:49] and I got a call from the desk it said I've got you listed as owning a 1968 Osmo Bill 442
[00:41:02] it's black vinyl top with blue bottom I said yeah yeah that's that's mine
[00:41:09] you said sorry you need to come to the desk like go the desk and there's a truck driver there
[00:41:14] he had pulled his 18 wheeler into the parking lot of the motels where the four of us were all staying
[00:41:22] didn't cut sharp enough and hit the left rear quarter panel of my car and toward all the pieces
[00:41:33] I mean Schneider trucking I'll never forget you see there trucks on the road all the time
[00:41:38] and I'll forget to snuck oh and he was so apologetic and so on and called his
[00:41:44] dispatcher and everything was fine but anyhow we had a couple days before he had to report into
[00:41:54] Fort Rucker so my plan was I was going to drive the car up the North Carolina
[00:42:00] given to my dad they get it fixed up he'd give me his car I drive it down to to Rucker
[00:42:05] well we get up the next morning and I get a call from my roommate to the BIMA roommate
[00:42:10] in the primary training and he said hey goomba his name is John Vagniti hey goomba
[00:42:21] okay now the joke said what are you talking about John where's my car
[00:42:27] that's the that John I don't have your car oh come on come somebody had stolen his car that night
[00:42:34] now my car gets hit somebody still is John's car that night my government police does all the
[00:42:41] investigation and so the next so after that was done I said okay throw your Garamark car we're
[00:42:47] driving at North Carolina so we drove to North Carolina picked up my dad's car in the meantime John
[00:42:55] calls his dad who owned a company called Superior plastics and in water I'll think of
[00:43:04] a minute but in New Jersey and any John has a new car waiting for him just like that from that but
[00:43:12] yeah that was that was the beginning of our our advanced course in flying helicopters for the
[00:43:20] United States Army so when you get to Rucker for Rucker is that when you start flying the Huey
[00:43:24] yeah yep it was and it was like everybody said the Huey came natural to me it was just I mean it was
[00:43:32] amazing to crank that thing up and and then to hold the cycle again pull up on that collective
[00:43:43] and I mean it was just it's like everybody said it's like going from a fiance onto a Rolls
[00:43:47] Royce and it was so easy I mean it was you know even though had a law crosswind it wasn't shifting
[00:43:54] like the TH fit 5 in the TH fit 5 would shift if you had a 3 night crosswind so
[00:44:00] but it was an incredible incredible aircraft and of course while we were flying that we were also
[00:44:09] getting our instrument training down there it's the first time we'd been on instruments so the
[00:44:13] instrument training was not in the Huey it was in an OH13 and that's where we were under the hood and
[00:44:22] and flying on instruments and and got what we called a tac ticket tactical ticket it wasn't the
[00:44:30] regular standard instrument ticket that the woman normally get it was a tac ticket and what was
[00:44:36] interesting about that and this will come up later in our conversation is I learned how to shoot
[00:44:42] ground control approaches very well GCA approaches very well we'll talk about that later on in our
[00:44:48] conversation is that where you learned originally to shoot it that's where I learned to shoot it yep
[00:44:54] and it came in very handy and then so how much longer was it until you how long was that
[00:45:00] training um that training we got there and so that had to have been about I must have been about
[00:45:08] three three or so months because I think in July yeah it was in July that that I got my
[00:45:15] silver wings pinned on me and my mom and dad drove down it was a wonderful experience my
[00:45:23] girlfriend at the time came down with my parents and I was so proud of those wings I mean
[00:45:28] I was so proud of being a butter bar in December 67 and so proud of getting those wings
[00:45:38] later on that would have been in 69 because you know 68 I took over the command and went to
[00:45:46] flight school went through Christmas graduated in July 69 very proud of that I remember every weekend
[00:45:53] of while we were at Fort Rucker a bunch of us would go to Panama City Florida and there was a
[00:46:00] young couple and there are two children on a motel there so we went down to go shaded with them that
[00:46:07] we would like to come down every weekend and stay in the same suite of rooms and and they knew
[00:46:15] that we were everybody in flight school wasn't orders to go to Vietnam right out of flight school
[00:46:19] and they were certainly aware of that and so they took us up on our offer that we would arrive
[00:46:25] on front and night and leave on Sunday and she had a closet in the suite and she said you just
[00:46:33] keep all your beach closures everything down here I'll wash them I'll clean them up for you
[00:46:37] and I'll hang them back up in the suite and she did that every night every front and night we got
[00:46:42] down there she and her family had dinner prepared for the four of us and we all ate together as a family now
[00:46:49] that's that's people who cared and I took my parents there and right after we drove down to
[00:47:00] Panama City after I got the silver wings and we stayed in that hotel that night and with them and
[00:47:07] we all congregated the family that owned it we all congregated together and then I left out the
[00:47:14] the next day my parents stayed down all for a while but the next day was the landing on the move
[00:47:22] and we washed it after my girlfriend I washed that we got back into Hickory from driving from
[00:47:29] Panama City Florida and I wanted the things that when I first covered um
[00:47:34] Colonel Jackson's first book you know one of the statistics that he brings up in the book is
[00:47:41] there was 5000 Huey sent to Vietnam in 3200 of him were lost in combat
[00:47:47] did your parents know these kind of statistics were they nervous as hell were they talking to you
[00:47:53] about you know what was going to happen how did you feel about it um my parents
[00:48:00] I never expressed any worry whatsoever about being in fact I wanted to go to NAMM
[00:48:09] right after flight school there were too many infantry officers serving infantry aviators in Vietnam
[00:48:15] there were not enough slots for all the infantry aviators there were infantry aviators who were like
[00:48:21] I'm third in line to be a battoon leader as a captain so what happened was all the infantry officers
[00:48:31] and my flight class at a rucker there were orders for change from Vietnam to state side of
[00:48:36] Samus so I went to Fort Bragg and flew with Alpha Company 82nd Aviation Battalion
[00:48:43] there I flew with seasoned aviators who had come back from Vietnam I was the battoon next
[00:48:49] home up a tunnel leader was captain Fred Dickens who had flown with the little bears the
[00:48:54] 25th infantry division he had flown over in a Cambodia during adding courage and a lot of
[00:48:59] that's written Cambodia is written up in Matt's first book there but I learned a lot from Fred I
[00:49:05] learned a lot from the other a lot of the war officers that were there who just uh Jim Foster for
[00:49:15] example he had flown with the 48th blue stars and learned a lot about him because we did a lot
[00:49:24] of tactical maneuvers with the 82nd during that time and he sort of gave me a feel for what I
[00:49:30] would be doing when I got to Vietnam Jim ended up being a roommate with myself and Fred Dickens
[00:49:38] captain Dickens. Jim and I stayed friends until this day he was going to get out of the army and I
[00:49:44] talked him into staying in the army and encouraged him to extend his enlistment as a war officer
[00:49:50] which he did and finally retired out of the army I hope sometime Jim can hear this podcast and
[00:49:57] can smile a little bit about that. What's very interesting is that after I put him my orders to go
[00:50:05] to Vietnam again requested none orders came down sending me to the seventh after division in Korea.
[00:50:14] Commanding the seventh after division was a god by the name of how more who was
[00:50:19] lieutenant Colonel how more in the I-Drain Valley with the first calf and we all know about
[00:50:25] we were soldiers once and young general more at that time was two star general and uh I was the
[00:50:31] seventh aviation battalion maintenance officer and when in general more was a rated aviation had to
[00:50:37] fly four months or four hours every month to maintain proficiency you draw a flight pay I don't know if
[00:50:43] you tell a general officer you can't draw a flight pay but it ain't right my job was to fly copal it
[00:50:48] with him and I got to know him and so this is this in Korea this is in Korea now so I've put
[00:50:55] in orders I put in requests to go to Vietnam towards come down send me to Korea okay so I was not that
[00:51:04] much aware of general more I didn't know about the I-Drain Valley back then I mean this was in 71
[00:51:11] I didn't know much about the I-Drain Valley not 71 I'm sorry this was in uh 70 when I got to
[00:51:18] Korea from Brag and so he asked me one day while we were flying how I liked my summit with the
[00:51:27] seventh and I told him it was fine but I said if I don't get to Vietnam sir I can kiss my career
[00:51:32] good bye because I mean you know I want to be a career army officer and if I don't have Vietnam
[00:51:37] time and have performed well and I'll never be a career army officer and he talked a little bit
[00:51:44] he said would have a particular unit you want to go to and I said yes or I'd like to go to the
[00:51:48] 25th effort division fly with the aviation attorney and he says any particular company I said
[00:51:55] Alpha Company sir they're known as a little bear she said I know the little bears I've heard
[00:51:59] the little bears are great in it um oh that was on Saturday oh Monday I got to call from the
[00:52:06] general's aide and it said general wants to make sure you're ready to get an arm I said yes I am
[00:52:12] okay you want to go to Alpha Company 25th aviation battalion oh the general wanted to know if
[00:52:18] you want to take any leave in the States I mean he can only authorize 20 days but I said what should
[00:52:25] I find get there within three or four days orders came down not been in Korea now
[00:52:33] maybe four or five months by that time orders came down and on usually orders and it probably
[00:52:41] is the same thing in the Navy you have you have regulations that authorize system such
[00:52:46] there were no regulations authorizing anything on my orders it was all Voco which means voice command
[00:52:54] VOCO between commander-sector division commander 25th infantry division Voco and it went all the way
[00:53:02] down to even commander-a-arleeft out of Oakland and my leave my 20 days leave started and so anyhow
[00:53:12] I go to Kimpo Airport I get on airplane okay I fly home my 20 days didn't start until I reached my home
[00:53:18] of record and the 20 days was up the day that I left my home of record so I'm not on leave until I reach
[00:53:26] my point left there after 20 days flew to Oakland then Oakland to nom I get to nom and this is
[00:53:38] in the fall of 70 I get to nom we're all getting off the airplane you know everybody here is
[00:53:45] about the humidity how it just sucks the air out of you when you get off the airplane landing
[00:53:51] and you get tons of new so get off the airplane okay there's a think of Lieutenant Colonel
[00:53:58] out there at a bunch of inlisted men and they say okay all the officers over to my right okay
[00:54:05] and then it started to make it okay all the NCOs in front of me and there's another E7
[00:54:09] that says okay all the list of men down here in this side so well get over there okay they're
[00:54:14] calling out names so the Colonel is a Colonel major is calling out all the officers names says
[00:54:21] there any name they have an air-based regional handset and they might have a call down I said here
[00:54:25] I mean you must be captain T I said what yes or I am he said well your truck will be here in 20 minutes
[00:54:32] and a trucker flew in from the 25th from Alpha Company 25th aviation battalion to pick me up
[00:54:39] oh yeah macro so pick me up take me to Koo Chi where the 25th air course yeah we get out of
[00:54:47] G must admit a hell of an infra-good impression 10 more on my good name a cheap pick some
[00:54:53] me up dross me to the orderly room and I yeah I go in and sleep to the company come on
[00:54:59] who's a major major's command accompanies and and and the major said I don't know who they are
[00:55:08] but welcome aboard check my check my hand and that was my introduction to the Alpha Company 25th
[00:55:19] aviation that's amazing you know you you made a joke about how to know if you can
[00:55:27] if you need to take the flight pay away from a general officer but apparently those general officers
[00:55:34] had some power that's incredible general how more and I've read the book I've watched the movie
[00:55:41] quite a few times even general more before he passed away thought that male Gibson did a good job
[00:55:48] but representing him and in the sergeant major but you know that was he was a hell of a man
[00:55:56] a great leader he was he was not one of these general officers that said himself up on a
[00:56:03] plateau he was down with his troops and and and I saw that quality in him and I was in great
[00:56:12] admiration for that so you show up so you show up what's the first thing that happens when
[00:56:21] you show up and Vietnam now they what they they must have thought you were the best pilot or something
[00:56:25] that's how you were somebody the company exo company commander says exo get captain Tate
[00:56:34] place to stay the echo exo said well sir where would you like to stay and I said well my buddy
[00:56:42] Fred Dickens captain Dickens he he stayed in a hooch called a holiday in he said is that still
[00:56:48] or any so yes or a holiday answer out of here he said let me say oh yeah there's the bunk available
[00:56:53] so I stayed in the same hoots that captain Dickens stayed in and after I got everything squared away
[00:57:02] the exo said now there're going to be cocktails up here at captain so-and-so's place and
[00:57:08] he showed me where there was he said he said so come on up and meet the guys
[00:57:13] with this captain was great at fixing martinis so heck yeah I went up there and had a martini they
[00:57:21] had some order herbs out there and I thought wow this is it so this is really crazy so I was with them
[00:57:29] I'm right at two months into the first of November and orders came down for the 25th to draw
[00:57:41] down and prepared a head back to Hawaii and I thought to myself man this is really great I've been
[00:57:48] here too much now I'm going Hawaii and I'd already been laying out on top of a bunker in a lounge
[00:57:54] chair I had a nice sun tan and of course my dermatologist doesn't think it's a nice sun tan today but
[00:58:02] at any rate I thought wow this is going to be awesome I get Hawaii you know all are having
[00:58:08] a tan everything look good well no everyone who had less than six months in country got reassigned
[00:58:16] so I found my younger era on a C1 30 several about a week or so later headed to a core there was
[00:58:26] no everything was pacified in three core where the 25th was I never flew into one hot LZ
[00:58:33] in fact I never flew into an LZ in three core that had all been pacified so I mean I had I never even
[00:58:41] heard the door gunners work out with the 25th because there was there was no enemy threat we
[00:58:48] thought at least at a time it wasn't apparent get on the C1 30 flami up to food by food by international
[00:58:58] I core very close to the north south of it in these border get off the aircraft
[00:59:07] got my parachute pack and bag with me full of my stuff pouring down rain and
[00:59:18] they'll load us into building and say we're going to go to screaming equals
[00:59:23] orientation training and we did that for about a week and then it got reassigned to my regular unit
[00:59:32] now interested I was with alpha company 82nd aviation battalion when I got to the seventh
[00:59:41] I was actually assigned as a staff maintenance officer but I was located in alpha company
[00:59:47] seventh aviation battalion 25th I go to alpha company 25th where I get a sign with 101st aviation
[00:59:54] battalion alpha company 101st aviation battalion known as the comment chair of light
[00:59:59] that was the week after I had become a 101st air assault trooper
[01:00:10] then how long was it before you started flying missions with them took my checkeride the next day
[01:00:16] I was a Peter Pollett the following day when it had a hot LZ first time I'd ever heard
[01:00:22] the M60 machine gun door gunner and crew chief working out the ship literally danced when they
[01:00:29] pull that trigger you could fill the shake going in and going out hot LZ I heard ding ding
[01:00:38] three things on the aircraft came back and I I experienced what they call you got your cherry
[01:00:44] busted with took three rounds in the aircraft going out LZ came back that night
[01:00:51] once you got your cherry busted in the unit a lot of spread of core I mean the spread of
[01:00:57] core like you would what you would cause you've experienced that jockey but but I hadn't
[01:01:03] experienced anything like that and so what do we did yeah to get initiated before you could
[01:01:09] wear the unit patch and we had to drink the strength called a flame and hooker
[01:01:12] sounds tasty it was southern comfort and you take a matching a light so you got the blue flames coming
[01:01:28] up and that goes laughing here like he knows and had to drink it down all the way down
[01:01:39] set the glass down while the blue flame is still burning inside of it down turn it upside down
[01:01:45] and if more than two flaming drops came out of that glass you had to drink another until you
[01:01:52] got it down now keep in mind I was an RLO a real live officer all of the war officers
[01:02:01] they had a spread of core like you you've heard the war officer protective association
[01:02:06] wapa they took care of each other well they all most of them had mustaches what he could
[01:02:13] imagine drinking that flame hooker and you've got a mustache and that blue flame is coming up
[01:02:18] and there there were quite a few times that the the mustache has had to be put out and
[01:02:24] of course the bartender was there with a glass water he could throw over in our little
[01:02:30] washers club I was I was on a little assignment overseas and and we were in a bar and they had
[01:02:37] like a executive happy hour from you know four till six so we'd show up there at 359
[01:02:46] and it was free drink it was free drinks for two hours and I had like half a platoon with me
[01:02:53] so we're in there and this one I was a young and listed guy I was crazy and so we drink for the
[01:02:58] two hours and then we get done and now obviously everyone's primed but I remember telling the bartender
[01:03:05] we actually yeah we we we had run up quite the tab and I looked at the bartender I said we don't
[01:03:10] want to drink anything else unless it's a fire so every drink we're sparing light and everything
[01:03:16] off I was told you told me you know we all got a we all couldn't wait to a new guy came
[01:03:25] to the outfit and and that was in the oak club then listing guys got knows what was going on
[01:03:31] for the mistake but but we couldn't wait to you guy came in you know one of the things
[01:03:38] that Colonel Jackson talked about and wrote about was you know some of the flying that you
[01:03:42] doing when you're when you're formation flying and how it's so much closer than it was back
[01:03:48] in the states and then the the whole thing with the hover holes and getting down in there
[01:03:53] and having to listen to your crews like a hundred percent you can't see actually what they're
[01:03:57] telling you just have to trust them did you will you up to speed on that stuff or did you have
[01:04:01] to just get the steep learning curve learn formation flying a foot rucker four four
[01:04:06] rucker one olive foot rucker I was confident I could fly that airplane I knew I could fly that thing
[01:04:13] and and we right where the Jesus nut is on on a hilly with which which holds the main
[01:04:21] rotor and there's like a red rubber gasket so what you would do is you would for the helicopter
[01:04:28] let's say we're flying an echelon left all the helicopters from the leader going to the left
[01:04:34] to fly formation and that you would come up and you would have you would put the red rubber
[01:04:42] grommet rod on rod about just below the windshield just at the lower end of it so that would keep
[01:04:49] your height above it so you wouldn't get caught up in a rotor wash from the helicopter but you
[01:04:54] would keep it up and then a staggered echelon left you've got the lead but every other helicopter
[01:05:01] is a little bit harder than the ones in in front of them and we flew a lot of formation flying
[01:05:07] at rucker so I felt very comfortable with that and then I was very fortunate to go to the
[01:05:13] 82nd after after flight school instead of going straight to non because I became even more
[01:05:21] proficient that and more proficient in in formation flying but there's one thing you learn
[01:05:30] in formation flying and non as you don't want to get too damn close because one round could take
[01:05:38] out too especially if it's 23 mic mic or 37 and you don't want to be flying through debris
[01:05:50] so you did and we'll get talking about lambson 719 we did 22nd separations in that
[01:05:59] how long were you then with 101st before lambson went down okay
[01:06:05] so I got the 101st got into my unit a week before Thanksgiving of 70
[01:06:17] quick side story my cousin Charlie Finger was with the five of first signal battalion
[01:06:23] listed guy owned his second tour volunteered for his second tour
[01:06:27] I got a hold of Charlie brought him over to our unit took on the officers club
[01:06:34] we had Thanksgiving dinner together and I think about that you're with your family
[01:06:38] having Thanksgiving dinner together November 1970 and it was just a wonderful day to see Charlie
[01:06:48] I never saw Charlie after that he derosed went home I said I told him I said
[01:06:55] Charlie I'll come over when not grab in you can be my guest at the artillery battalion
[01:07:05] they're because they always had the good shows the USO shows and the Korean shows with all the
[01:07:10] all-girl Korean bands I'll come over and get you one night he's and he said sir
[01:07:14] I said Charlie I'm your cousin he said sir wouldn't be safe for you as an officer to be around our barracks at night
[01:07:26] and you know frigging was a thing over there and it was so I took him to that and all right so
[01:07:35] make a long story short I'm flying combat missions I flew my first commandic
[01:07:41] control SOG missions probably by in December because they just didn't let anybody fly
[01:07:49] the commandic control north missions you had a chance to have three R&Rs or you have two R&Rs
[01:07:57] if one of your R&Rs you want to go back to the states so I'll let to go back to the states
[01:08:02] a week after a week after Christmas and went back spent a wonderful time with my family
[01:08:11] New Year's Eve there with Fred Dickens by the time his wife Moe CEO for a kept friend
[01:08:20] and I left about a week after after that to fly back to Vietnam
[01:08:26] got into Tonsonoot and tried to get a what to fly up racer said I need to get up to
[01:08:38] Fuba and the guy said sir there's there's a major major operation a big thing going on
[01:08:42] he said I don't know when I can get you out of here I said I got to get out here quick if there's
[01:08:46] a major thing going I said he said we'll serve just stick around here and along behold within an hour
[01:08:51] they had a say say 123 flying that's 130 and one there's a big difference between those two
[01:09:01] R&Rs but you'd rather fly on a 130 anyhow say 120 there's only two engines
[01:09:06] so when you were flying those when you food sog missions I mean I look at the profile those
[01:09:12] sog missions that those guys were doing and it just it's it seems just completely crazy
[01:09:18] were you thinking that were you thinking okay here's whatever two Americans and four
[01:09:23] Vietnamese soldiers and gonna drop them off in the middle of Cambodia or Louson and we'll see what
[01:09:28] happens did that seem crazy to you you know it didn't it right off and I'll tell you what man
[01:09:37] we would fly down to a denying we flew out of three low with sock denying was the major base
[01:09:44] that was our headquarters there was one at food buy and there was one at country don't ha
[01:09:48] great the ones we flew out of denying were crazy I mean it was I mean that's like they got the
[01:09:56] music going everything and and it would flight follow with Kuvvi therefore fixed wing it would
[01:10:03] be up above us and and vector us and to where we're supposed to go I don't know how much of this
[01:10:11] I can I guess it's pretty declassified by now yeah well I mean it's pretty declassified it's been
[01:10:16] 20 years was the okay so here's a mission we go in a we fly team man yeah we put them in an
[01:10:26] area where Kuvvi has either told us or shot white white phosphorus down and landed and then
[01:10:33] we we spiraling go down into the landing zone spiraling go into the landing zone we drop them off
[01:10:40] then if they get into contact then we got to go back in there and pull them out which
[01:10:47] that did happen quite a few times a lot of times it didn't happen it didn't happen at all
[01:10:52] there were times we went in and they were in contact we had to pull them out with ropes
[01:10:56] McGuire rigs 120 foot ropes stretch 10 feet 130 foot they had to strap them on we had to pull
[01:11:02] them out of the had the jungle sometimes it was ladders that we would drop down and they'd
[01:11:07] climb up on the ladders and get out what and that was extractions whenever did we had
[01:11:17] we did some insertions with ropes too because they were going on on the side of a mountain
[01:11:21] there were no way with foliage and there was no way we could land so we would we would put
[01:11:28] it down but I remember times that I pulled the guys out on ladders and never to be there were three
[01:11:34] guys on my ladders now you gotta think about that the density out to you didn't what that
[01:11:39] does to lift the helicopter so we got them out and got them back in to Vietnam
[01:11:46] that's when you said oh my god we're back in Vietnam you know that's when you that's when you
[01:11:50] start to realize it and we came in and we had to land in a like a rice paddy so these
[01:11:56] guys could get off the ladders and get back in our our choppers and you just didn't and any
[01:12:03] moment you just felt like this is it I'm gonna I'm a bite and a couple of our guys did and
[01:12:13] combinatorial north missions and died and a lot of the saw guys went with them so that's you
[01:12:22] know that's the bad part of all 14 guys the year I was in but here's one mission we flew in we we
[01:12:31] were gonna insert a team landed in the LZ big elephant grass probably eight feet high
[01:12:39] runner wash lays the grass down and when it did the whole LZ was ring with the V8 and our door
[01:12:46] gonna start to working out and firing everybody's firing and everybody's in surrogate tell
[01:12:49] I get to hell out here and we were firing firing we were taking rounds two but nobody nobody
[01:12:54] nobody aboard our aircraft was injured I mean that's just one thing we would do personal raids
[01:13:02] Intel would tell us where there was a big NBA battalion headquarters we had we had all the
[01:13:10] all the intel on it we knew the comings and goings had been watching the Washington watch
[01:13:16] and we've afli out flot of four the the third aircraft was always had the medical on the
[01:13:23] fourth aircraft was the aircraft that would pull your ass out if you guys shot down first two
[01:13:29] aircraft would go in I happened to be on the second aircraft on one of these personal raids where we
[01:13:36] went in a land at right in the down middle of a battalion in the abatai and headquarters the
[01:13:41] Gazon board jump out I bet you we weren't on the ground 20 seconds and they're coming back in they've
[01:13:47] got captives they've got all sorts of documents in our hand we get back on that ship and
[01:13:53] were our asses out of there going to the nine I mean that's the and it was exciting I mean I'm
[01:14:01] not gonna tell you the anxiety one there but I was scared that was exciting and it would come
[01:14:10] back in the half coal bears I mean that's so cheap yeah another day at sag so I guess you did
[01:14:19] think those missions were a little bit crazy but but it was fun crazy you know we were young we didn't
[01:14:26] know any better I guess to fly on today I probably couldn't see the damn instruments
[01:14:36] so you're flying you fly in a bunch of those missions and now you're I mean sounds like you're
[01:14:41] racking up some pretty good hours and some pretty good experience at doing it and and then so
[01:14:47] so lamson when did you so you got back from your your Christmas and New Year's leave so that's
[01:14:52] January whatever yes it's a lip part of January you come back and now it's um it's you get told immediately
[01:14:59] hey there's some kind of big operation we don't really know what it does but you got to get up there
[01:15:04] no they just said there's a big operation going on an awkward and and they and I said I got to get
[01:15:10] up there I told them I'm a ton commander up there I've got to get up there yeah my guys maybe up there
[01:15:17] this up so anyhow I get up there it's very well that it's kept quiet so when I got into my unit
[01:15:28] and said what the hell's going on people kind of looked at me like what are you talking about and
[01:15:33] I told them all about that and my company commander knew about it major cool Bob Kloel he's in the
[01:15:39] book you know Bob knew about it but anyway that's why I told you that prior and this was in January
[01:15:47] we take a a sock mission out of uh CC a mission out of a Dong Ha and we're flying towards
[01:15:56] Leo Shumboar crossing in the vicinity a case on when those red balls of orange balls of far
[01:16:05] start coming up at us and we have to take a base of action or get shot down by 23 Mike Mike
[01:16:11] or 37 up no so we knew and and see as far as as far as I'm concerned that was reconnaissance
[01:16:21] M prep four and that wasn't just one reconnaissance that was just one of many reconnaissance
[01:16:27] M prep four Lamson 719 so the the premise of Lamson 719 and again the the book
[01:16:33] undunited values it's volume three Lamson the subtitles Lamson 719 the premise of the
[01:16:40] operation is that America wanted to go into louse and shut down the Ho Chi Mintrell they also
[01:16:50] America didn't want to put any troops any American troops on the ground inside allows
[01:16:57] because they didn't like the way that looked politically so they decided well we'll run the
[01:17:02] operation using South Vietnamese soldiers but in order to actually execute the operation they were
[01:17:10] going to need to have American aviation because America was the only one really capable of
[01:17:16] doing that job of air lifting all these South Vietnamese soldiers in the louse and then on top of
[01:17:22] that if you're going to use the helicopters then we're going to use the air support to in the
[01:17:25] air assets so that that's sort of the premise of the operation and it's a big operation to go like
[01:17:32] I said the goal is to kind of put it put a halt on on the the portion of Ho Chi Mintrell that ran
[01:17:38] through louse and and and and and and and and and the head waters of that was in the town of
[01:17:44] Simone so that was the final objective was to capture Simone it's failed to TCEP O and it's got a weird
[01:17:56] spell yeah it's got a weird spell yeah that that was the goal and that was kind of that
[01:18:01] Simone was the furthest away the fur the deepest in the louse that we get to there would be
[01:18:06] correct the furthest north of the Ho Chi Mintrell called it the head waters of the Ho Chi Mintrell
[01:18:12] I would say there's also and and reading about it there was also the underlying goal was
[01:18:21] to sort of prove that the South Vietnamese military could conduct these operations that they were
[01:18:27] capable that they were capable of doing these kind of things that was part of Nixon's
[01:18:32] victimization policy the more that the South Vietnamese could prove that they could
[01:18:38] take care of themselves and defend their homeland than the less there was need of US forces
[01:18:45] especially ground forces so you're saying that you're your company commander kind of new about it
[01:18:53] when you showed up there I have to think he did because major clothing did not seem
[01:18:59] a really surprised in fact if I recall and I hope I'm not making this up but if I recall he seems to
[01:19:08] prize that I made it up in a quick autonomous I did from from Saigon now prior to the actual
[01:19:16] execution of Lamson 719 there was another operation that was to push up to to the case on combat base
[01:19:26] there off of route 9 it's called duicane into that now did you participate in duicane into
[01:19:32] you know I have to think I did but I'm not it's kind of hard to
[01:19:39] because I flew so much I mean I flew over 1200 hours and I'm 950 of which were actual combat missions
[01:19:47] so I have to think that I did I never recall flying any what the call convoy support
[01:19:56] a lot of that would have been done by Charlie Marl and in Cobra gunships to take action
[01:20:05] no doubt in my mind that I fly supporting operations for duicane into
[01:20:12] but I never quite tagged it as as duicane into
[01:20:20] hell I had so much going on anyhow I've tried to keep my one armorses enlisted man
[01:20:25] and ten helicopters fly but the point of operation duicane into was to push up into
[01:20:32] case on which and get control of it and then that was going to then be used as a logistics hub
[01:20:39] and an air hub to conduct this big operation um Lamson 719 that's what the purpose was
[01:20:46] but in addition to that too was to put the south of it in these army in a position
[01:20:53] to where they could readily launch across the border so pre-staging all these folks all these soldiers
[01:21:02] out there and get them ready the the the area that you were going into
[01:21:11] had some serious enemy troops in there you know the you know some of the estimates I read
[01:21:16] 7,000 combat troops on the ground in that area of Lousy 10,000 support personnel
[01:21:25] another another 5,000 path of Lousy fighters so it was this was you were going into tough
[01:21:32] country 33,000 total is the estimate that's pretty much kicked around
[01:21:38] of all of all the categories you you just described so when did you win did you actually find out
[01:21:45] that that this mission was going down we got the briefing on at the mission actually
[01:21:52] started on 8 February of 71 by that time hunter first command post was in operation at case on
[01:22:06] general berry was up there Matt Jackson features a lot of berry in the book
[01:22:12] and I have some stories about that that I'll share with you later on
[01:22:19] off-loose several missions in support of that taking troops into
[01:22:28] hill 30 hill 31 range of arv and ranges were in 31
[01:22:32] we flew so we have pick-up zones pz if you will at various stage of wetland and then
[01:22:44] take them to the to the LZ around there but that was just in prep 4 and really
[01:22:55] the big action for me the thing that I guess made me realize that my god there's a real war going
[01:23:09] on was in LZ Lollo which is on the third of March yeah I'll tell you one thing that's interesting
[01:23:16] when you read this book and when you hear about this this operation you know most of the time
[01:23:24] when you think of oh what the what the Vietnamese are doing it's sort of like what the North Vietnamese
[01:23:28] doing what the Vietnamese are doing it's sort of like a hit and run it doesn't seem like these big
[01:23:33] conventional operations and if they did do a big assault on a base you know they kind of do it
[01:23:38] they they'd mess some things up and then they'd leave they were doing big coordinated attacks
[01:23:46] against the south Vietnamese forces it this was almost like bordering in fact this was like conventional
[01:23:52] warfare correct and but you didn't see that rod on eight fabulous that came later on
[01:24:02] and it was devastating to to witness some of what I witnessed after the third of March what I
[01:24:13] witnessed on the ground with the south of it and the me's army especially when we would go into
[01:24:20] a resupply around hill 30 and hill 31 I saw some heroism but I saw so many are the arvin army of the
[01:24:34] south of it me's army saw so many of the soldiers throw the weapons on the ground and run to
[01:24:39] grab onto our skids so that when we lifted off we'd pull them out of the battle space that was
[01:24:46] disheartening it was horrible yeah I remember reading one part where it's exactly what you said
[01:24:52] a resupply comes in and the the helicopters as they leave they're overloaded with arvin soldiers that
[01:25:01] are just trying to get out of there throw the weapons on the ground and run and grab onto a skid
[01:25:06] I mean I witnessed soldiers losing their grip and falling 1500 2000 feet to the ground below
[01:25:17] and and if sank to you feel sorry for them or do you say you coward you got what's coming to you
[01:25:26] and you know it got to the point Jocca where we would I remember landing it in
[01:25:33] and I can't remember I think it was 31 that I landed in but we were landing where motors were
[01:25:42] blowing up right in front of us and we would have to maneuver over eminent and motors were flying
[01:25:47] we're hitting everywhere in the LSE and we would literally come to about a 10 foot hover kick off the
[01:25:55] supplies can't come into the law because they would jump on your ship and even at a 10 foot hover
[01:26:00] they would run jump on people's back and they would hoof them up onto the skid I mean a 10 foot hover
[01:26:08] and and you start to wonder well when's it gonna be my day you know and I remember having this
[01:26:17] thing to can't see my mind is you know I know I'm gonna die so I'm not gonna worry about dying
[01:26:25] I'm not gonna die just don't let me get shot up subab I mother can't
[01:26:31] recognize me but I knew I was I was gonna get it I just and then I didn't didn't bother me anymore
[01:26:39] it did not bother me anymore I about dying I accepted the fact that was gonna happen and you
[01:26:48] got to take care of me and a mother would recognize me I haven't that feel no and then see in the
[01:26:57] South Vietnamese just you're doing all you can to help them out risking your lives and they're
[01:27:04] just wanting to get out of there we picked up body bags of the South Vietnamese body bags for U.S.
[01:27:11] forces and you've seen them they're sturdy they're zippered the body bags for the South Vietnamese
[01:27:16] forces were like one hour martin ice and bags little thin plastic bags had bodies in them they had
[01:27:22] laid out in the sun for for several days they were all bloated in body fluids filling up inside the
[01:27:31] body bags and and that's the one time where we really put skids on the ground so they could load up
[01:27:38] bodies and of course the Vietnamese didn't run in jump on air crack cause they didn't want to run
[01:27:42] and jump on all those bodies that were bloated and it got to the point where we had to where we had
[01:27:50] to wear gas map one of us in the cockpit had a gas mask because of the smell was just nauseating
[01:27:57] and we would bring them back into case on or Elsie Brown wherever where a pickup zone was
[01:28:06] and the South Vietnamese troops had unloaded the bodies and I remember I remember one it just
[01:28:10] it just the guy grabbed the arm of a body and what he tried to pull the body out the whole arm
[01:28:16] came out of the out of the body it was just sickening it was beyond it was beyond anything that
[01:28:27] most humans would ever experience and you know you you you you go through that and you say well
[01:28:35] what's the purpose why are we why are we here why are we doing this I had a warm officer who I asked
[01:28:43] of during lamps on to ask I said I need more people to fly this mission he said I'm not going to
[01:28:49] fly the mission I said I need you I'm not going to fly I said why not he said because nobody cares
[01:28:55] Congress doesn't care whether I live or die and what's the use look what they're doing up there
[01:28:59] and I said well mister and I will say his name but you got to do what you got to do he had too many
[01:29:06] hours you know he had over 140 hours flying at months so he was he was way within his legal rights
[01:29:12] to sound like not flying anymore but guess what most always had that as well most always were flying
[01:29:19] I mean dead tired and we did it and but you know that's starting to be thinking who cares who really cares
[01:29:27] whether we do whether we do or not whether we die or whether we come over alive I mean look
[01:29:33] what the south fit needs to do in vitmization yeah tell me about it Richard next I won't
[01:29:38] you over here at lamps on seven one nine looking at this and then you tell me vitmization
[01:29:47] it made me a change person and we hadn't even talked about LZ Lola
[01:29:54] yeah I mean LZ Lola came a little into the operation I mean I just kind of want to run through
[01:30:02] a little bit of the timeline of so this this operation starts on February 8th but there's
[01:30:09] 4,000 arv and that are going in on on route 9 the 39th Ranger battalion is he load into LZ
[01:30:18] Ranger the first infantry divisions going into LZ blue and Don white and brown and FSB's hotel
[01:30:26] delta delta one and again the the book gives such good detail on all sides the planning what
[01:30:32] the how the decisions were being made it's just it's a fantastic recounting of what happened
[01:30:42] and meanwhile still Vietnam you still got bad weather you still got low clouds you got heavy
[01:30:46] anti aircraft fire the there's a lot of air strikes are happening so you know the B52s
[01:30:55] are dropping bombs arc lights yeah the but look there's a lot of a lot of NVA up there and they're
[01:31:05] they're ready to fight then they start actually attacking like I said like like by
[01:31:12] I don't know February 16th 17th the the NVA starts doing organized attacks and
[01:31:24] really bringing it to to the to the people to the to the south Vietnamese soldiers that are now on the ground
[01:31:31] um and here's the here's another thing that I was reading about by February 24th
[01:31:43] there were reports coming back that the that the North Vietnamese had completed a new route
[01:31:49] and they were just going around that area of the Ho Chi Minh Trail they were just you know okay
[01:31:54] well you guys want to block that cool we'll just we had another alternate route
[01:31:57] so February 25th just a massive North Vietnamese assault and it's combined arms they got armor
[01:32:07] they got artillery they got infantry assault they're doing combined arms assaults again this is
[01:32:13] not what we typically think of in Vietnam I know it happened from time to time but it's not what you
[01:32:18] generally think of in Vietnam you don't think of pitched conventional warfare like we're doing with here
[01:32:24] um there's just yeah yeah the the one quote I got was 94 there's a helicopter
[01:32:34] resupply to FSB 30 and 94 south Vietnamese soldiers forced their way onto the helicopters
[01:32:42] to get out of there including the commander that's on March 2nd by the way
[01:32:49] uh we get to March 3rd which which you've discussed a few times and and
[01:33:00] well actually let me jump into this small small portion of the book here that that talks about
[01:33:08] some of what you guys were doing I'm gonna go to the book here one officer Doug Walmack
[01:33:14] Wratler 28 and chalk 3 considered aborting his approach watching Arnie being shot down and hearing
[01:33:21] flight lead calling for mission abort not hearing anything else about aborting the mission he decided
[01:33:27] he needed to insert his load of arv and soldiers unbeknownst to him was the fact that no arv and
[01:33:33] had survived in the first two aircraft
[01:33:37] approaching the landing zone he was subjected to the same intense fire as the chalks perform
[01:33:42] upon landing an RPG rocker was fired but slammed into a stump and exploded
[01:33:46] showering the aircraft with shrapnel when it did time stood still for Mr. Walmack
[01:33:52] as it seemed he could count the main rotor passing in front of the aircraft
[01:33:56] several rounds ripped across the aircraft from three bursts of AK 47 fire
[01:34:01] the broder blades cabin lower fuselage and skids all received the damage
[01:34:06] as the aircraft lifted out of the landing zone hammer blows were felt by the pilot look
[01:34:13] and the pilot looked back not only were there holes in the floor of the cargo area but strange
[01:34:19] sounds told him that the main rotor might have taken some hits as well chalk 4 followed chalk
[01:34:25] 3 into the landing zone where it received intense small arms fire crashed and burned
[01:34:31] chalk 4 crew scrambled back to chalk 5 and rode out
[01:34:36] this kept up as each chalk came into the landing zone to drop off the arv and soldiers on board
[01:34:43] chalk 16 comment Kevin Chero
[01:34:47] 304 by Bob Morris entered the culture of fire and landed
[01:34:53] like everyone before him he could feel and hear the hits on his aircraft
[01:34:56] we're on fire someone said over the road radio but didn't identify themselves Morris pulled
[01:35:03] in power and initiated his takeoff very calmly he heard his crew chief say over the intercom
[01:35:09] Mr. Morris you do know we're on fire don't you Mr. Morris quickly returned to the landing zone
[01:35:15] and exited the aircraft chalk 18 approached the landing zone at 90 knots air speed instead of the usual
[01:35:21] 40 knots when so close he picked out his landing point just as a mortar round exploded at that spot
[01:35:28] suddenly his tail dropped low and the nose went high as captain Tate went into a hard
[01:35:33] deceleration with numerous hammer taps on the aircraft three feet from his touchdown point
[01:35:38] there was a loud explosion explosion a gaping hole appeared in the window frame and there was
[01:35:44] the smell of hot metal engine oil pressure was no longer steady but fluctuating
[01:35:50] arvon soldiers had no desire to wait for him to land and go out of the aircraft to safety
[01:35:54] of a prone position on the ground pulling in an armpit of collective Tate's aircraft
[01:36:00] tail number 049 raised out of the landing zone with the hail of small arms bullets
[01:36:05] chief chasing after him his aircraft had flown its last mission within an hour only 19 of the
[01:36:12] 40 year craft were able to enter the landing zone 19 out of 40 year craft were able to enter the landing zone
[01:36:32] Mars crashed in the landing zone came back in crash with another aircraft when in bird
[01:36:40] flumbaburke he crashed in the LZ they were on the ground one of the copolits kept in
[01:36:48] Jerry Cruz comment show been a second to him Vietnam first terror to his Ranger
[01:36:56] Jerry was on the ground with a prick 25 radio calling in air strikes and actually conducting the
[01:37:01] ground warfare in the LZ because the arvon officer major just Jerry knew what he was doing
[01:37:12] Jerry was the one that eventually said we got we got to halt this because there's too much crap
[01:37:17] going on in here and Kirk Latter obviously took it and we stopped the insertion for a while
[01:37:26] back and picked it back up again later on the afternoon that morning I we got hit by rocket
[01:37:34] propeller grenade as you've described the gaping hole in the windshield hit the windshield struck
[01:37:40] it was shot at about a 45 degree angle so when it hit the windshield exploded out instead of
[01:37:46] exploding in crout cheese said sir sir sir get ass out of here get ass out of here sir sir
[01:37:53] the nuts the inter panel which is our control warning lights look like a Christmas tree you
[01:37:57] look up and we took off it within within several seconds we started feeling harshness in the
[01:38:06] controls the hydraulic system warning light was blinking and within within another short amount of
[01:38:14] time we lost all hydraulics took both of us on the controls to select going down a highway at
[01:38:20] 85 miles narrow to Paris during goes out and you're coming up on some major curves it took us
[01:38:27] both on the controls we're finally able to get it back in called emergency case on
[01:38:36] we were like number two or three emergency at that time guys ahead of us who had
[01:38:42] gotten blown up on low low and we got it down we we had to make a low slow and we thought
[01:38:52] we're gonna get shot out of the sky just trying to get in the land at on the pierced steel
[01:38:57] plinking or under way at case on but my god it was a textbook landing and we were able to
[01:39:06] get her down and no sooner than we got it down a nasty aircraft to do some half of the chain pull
[01:39:13] pull the aircraft right off the wrong way getting ready for another another person calling emergency
[01:39:21] I remember Colonel Fernando Bobby Fennander he was our retired commander
[01:39:28] hunter first aviation battalion which was part of the hundred first aviation group
[01:39:31] commander about Colonel Davis you'll see Davis's name in that book Fennander is also mentioned in that
[01:39:36] book but for an honor comes out and sort of those his arms around us like God I'm so glad you
[01:39:42] got me it and he said come on there's another briefing going on in the tent so we all
[01:39:49] round over to the big briefing tent and your your aircraft was is it the correct word total
[01:39:55] yeah couldn't be flown again couldn't be flown again yeah now whether they hooked it out of there
[01:40:01] and got it repaired or what but it shot out hydraulics we had 47 holes on that aircraft that morning
[01:40:06] we counted the holes in the aircraft 47 holes and lost hydraulics and the any of you guys any
[01:40:14] of your guys get wounded in the aircraft not amazing isn't that amazing I mean just it just blows my mind
[01:40:23] but for an honor came out I thought it was interesting here's Lieutenant Colonel coming out
[01:40:29] and it's like welcome this home and all right we got to get in the briefing tent we got this thing
[01:40:34] and we had a briefing tent for the we were in the briefing tent Kirk Latter all were
[01:40:39] Kirk Latter's commander 223 aviation battalion and told us about the afternoon mission we
[01:40:47] got to get back in there we got more troops to insert and alone and and Colonel Fernando looked
[01:40:53] at me and he said I'm sure you want to go in there fly to your to your crews are on the ground
[01:40:57] and they're just so I don't know how to have an aircraft he said we take mine I said sorry said take
[01:41:03] mine but the only thing you got to take my crew chief with you and and then he put me aside he said
[01:41:09] now listen that's a brand new aircraft don't you bring that thing back to where you brought
[01:41:13] first back the sporting acid yes sir well you didn't know bay that order very well did you
[01:41:19] know because I fifty eight holes in his aircraft when we got back that afternoon we were able
[01:41:25] to rescue the guys off the ground so talk us through that so sir you launch again to go back into
[01:41:31] this is by the way this is LZ low low you call it Lulu low low low yeah it's not your
[01:41:35] defra- low uh low little Brigida they were all named after Liza's after Elizabeth Taylor
[01:41:42] what was the other one but I can't think of a name right now but they were all named after a Hollywood
[01:41:48] star that's but uh so you get the briefing of okay we got guys on the ground we got to go back in there
[01:41:57] and you just have forty seven holes in your aircraft when you saw a bunch of your friends get
[01:42:01] shot down you saw a bunch of other aircraft get shot down that are sitting in the LZ now you get
[01:42:05] brought in the briefing room hey you got to go again you said don't have an aircraft aircraft
[01:42:11] the boss says you can take mine bratt didn't even have twenty five hours on brand new here we
[01:42:18] and the only one cave out you got to take my crew chief okay so we get to start we get to say no okay
[01:42:28] let's crank them oh and by the way there was no unit integrity anymore I mean we were just all
[01:42:36] kind of all big you know like all of us who ever could be in a bird whoever could go and so
[01:42:44] we take off we have troops on board we take off we put put those troops on the ground
[01:42:54] and I'm hovering around for a few sex to make sure the our guys have gotten off they were picked
[01:42:58] up by commentaries in front of me but I wanted to make sure that we had our bioth ground
[01:43:02] and by that time where as you described the hammer taps on the screen never I mean it was just
[01:43:08] all over and and it's like I said earlier somebody was like I said take your bare hand and grab a
[01:43:15] wasp and that's what it was like and so again the same scenario taking all these heads thank god
[01:43:25] didn't get hit by an RPG but the nonsia panel listening all the circuit if a major system
[01:43:34] goes down or is damaged you have a little light that flashes on and on that light it says for
[01:43:38] example hydraulics so you know something's happened to your hydraulic system tell rotor
[01:43:43] knows something's happened to your teller so but the one that got me that started flashing was
[01:43:49] main rotor transmission what does that mean? transmission the transmission rotor yeah okay so it
[01:43:59] means what it says yeah yeah and we got her back on the ground we'll come to the hover
[01:44:08] we put it down at case on and the main rotor locked seized turned the chopper almost
[01:44:17] two hundred seventy degrees around from our landing head there were actually bailed tech reps
[01:44:24] up at case on looking at damage and what because they were riding their reports for
[01:44:32] hey this and this what we need to improve on on the newer models of the hui they were riding
[01:44:37] their reports they got told me he said sure you're very lucky he said you could have had
[01:44:42] that transmission could have seized in the air he said you guys wouldn't be here and it
[01:44:48] seized on the ground for an enter came over fifty holes that had wrapped and a locked seized
[01:45:00] through the misdeceased transmission that that that helicopter obviously didn't fly again that day that's two of them one day
[01:45:13] we uh I say we'd lost a lot of aircraft that day and it was getting night time
[01:45:21] um we had this guy that liked to fix this stuff called common trails stew and uh there were
[01:45:32] on case on there was actually wild onions jica pulled out of the ground and uh he had a bunch
[01:45:39] of guys collected that and they always kept this potton where it can't water in this potton
[01:45:45] throw those things they put a bunch of sea rashes in there and stir all that stuff up and you know
[01:45:50] anything takes go with Texas pedaling and so we were all here and all that stuff done and
[01:45:58] and we were by the source sit around I think he had some paper plates or something with him and
[01:46:04] you know you eat with your fingers and all that stuff and we were all kind of sort of
[01:46:08] together around there waiting for major claw to come over and tell us what our you know next missions were
[01:46:14] with lost uh we took 10 aircraft up that morning and uh we lost well we lost if if you count
[01:46:26] 11 aircraft Colonel Fannanders bird we lost seven um we did have one one gunner hit
[01:46:36] uh but you know purple heart loom but superficial but still he got hit you know that's bad stuff
[01:46:46] but um we're sitting there sort of gathering around and uh all of a sudden we see
[01:46:52] coming toward us figure just tall and laying and and just and I got the glint of the stars on his
[01:47:02] helmet and he got closer to us he just he was the epitome of spit shun boots and it was journal
[01:47:11] Sidbury and he came over and he said uh I just want to tell you comment you're just
[01:47:19] what a great job he did today and uh he said uh I don't want to disturb you child and we said
[01:47:28] well sir come on have some childish and know that at your child I grab something to eat up here but
[01:47:33] I just wanted you all to know what a great job he did today and uh with that he said uh girlfriend
[01:47:40] and I'm gonna release you all for the night so we all jumped on the forward-maning aircraft and
[01:47:47] came back to camp eagle there's a section in here in the in the book where um that gets described a
[01:47:56] little bit you're on this flight back to camp eagle and I'm going to the book here it says
[01:48:01] sitting mesmerized on the floor of one of the hewis was captain J. Tate, common chariot two six
[01:48:08] Tate the second flight platoon leader was deep in thought having lost two aircraft this day to end me fire
[01:48:16] the flight was at 6,000 feet flying over a uh flying over a cloud overcast with the sun projecting the
[01:48:23] aircraft shadow on the cloud below them in addition a halo appeared around the shadow he was
[01:48:29] sitting in the doorway behind the right seat pilot with the set of headphones that the crew
[01:48:34] chief had given him wondering to himself why he and his crew had survived this horrendous day
[01:48:40] he heard a voice say to him don't worry J you're gonna be okay he looked up to see who was talking to him
[01:48:48] no one was each passenger was lost in their own thoughts he heard the voice again don't worry J
[01:48:56] you're gonna be okay just then amazing grace played on the armed forces via the non-radio network
[01:49:05] and there's a footnote here that says one week later J received a letter from his mother
[01:49:11] she related a dream she'd have the night before in which J's father had told her don't worry J
[01:49:18] you are going to be okay the letter was dated four March
[01:49:23] J still has the letter touching yeah that's uh that's an amazing amazing story
[01:49:46] emotional uh I watched that shadow where we were actually flying between two layers of clouds
[01:50:00] the sun broke through the upper layer and cast the shadow and of course the heat of the chopper
[01:50:07] the coolness of that altitude for sort of a rainbow effect around that shadow and uh hit the the
[01:50:19] crew chief actually didn't lend me a set of earphones I had my flat helmet on and had it plugged in
[01:50:26] listening to AFVN and because I had been talking about he said there's a major action or major
[01:50:33] war going on up in hot core and he said he said there's been a lot of uh a lot of helicopters
[01:50:42] destroyed and so I want to play this next song for these guys it's one of the
[01:50:49] pretty amazing grace and uh I can tell you as I sit here right now I heard that voice and to get that letter
[01:51:07] and to hear my mom and to hear her read her words that she thought
[01:51:13] dad was telling her don't worry J is going to be okay and she walked my dad up and
[01:51:21] that said oh honey you're dreaming you go back to sleep she said no you said did you tell
[01:51:26] my J is going to be okay you said honey don't worry you don't tell him but there's not a god
[01:51:34] I mean if I pretended to be a Christian at one time but I'll tell you what
[01:51:38] that afternoon I became a Christian that's the only way I can say was from off and I
[01:51:48] thought to say those who died weren't because I had prayed God I know I'm going to die just
[01:51:54] don't let me get shot up so bad but my mother won't recognize me and uh I came home
[01:52:01] change person
[01:52:11] well my mother died the she had the same pastor she passed away in 2010 she had relayed that story
[01:52:22] about the dream to her pastor and he had made notes about that that was in his file
[01:52:28] and during her celebration of life service he talked about that
[01:52:39] when you got done when you guys flew back to Camp Eagle did you what did you stand
[01:52:48] down for tonight and then you went back into it
[01:52:50] I fought up skies we're monitoring everything on our company frequency and they had heard all the chaos
[01:53:01] and the horror that was being dealt to us and so of the 10 crew
[01:53:13] we all came back on those four ships because 11 ships if you count
[01:53:21] girlfriend and her ship
[01:53:27] they were all outside waiting for us to come in waiting their hats
[01:53:34] and we all landed and they all ran up and everybody was getting a hug and everybody was
[01:53:43] cold beer was on the on the flatline and and it was just a big celebration and especially because we
[01:53:52] brought help Morrison is crew of Bergen his crew Jerry crews we got them off of there
[01:53:59] and they were sitting on the floor to pull up down and listen to something
[01:54:09] that's the camaraderie and as I told Matt Jackson I said aviation crews are different
[01:54:18] rank is superfluous everybody is has a specific mission crew chief door gunner co-poly
[01:54:29] aircraft commander everybody has a specific mission but nobody can do that one mission by themselves
[01:54:37] it takes all of us working together as a team and I don't care if I'm a captain and you're a
[01:54:44] spec for crew chief I'm no better than you are and if it wasn't for you I can be flying as airplane
[01:54:53] same with the door gun that's a lesson you learn at it you learn a lot about team
[01:55:02] you learn about personal courage you learn about personal responsibility
[01:55:08] you learn a certain sense of tenacity you can't be lazy you you the dedication's got to be there
[01:55:26] and that's what I experienced with these guys and being not
[01:55:28] everyone of them there was no lacquered everyone of them even the guys in the maintenance
[01:55:39] hanger that didn't fly those missions with us and many of them would jump into fly
[01:55:44] mission just to get out there and do it but even to the clerk that wrote the awards
[01:55:52] there was such a sense of dedication and camaraderie that I have never experienced in my
[01:55:58] entire life since then never in my 20 years in uniform and the 13 years that I was fortunate
[01:56:10] to serve as a civilian with the with the office of the secretary defense nothing nothing will ever
[01:56:18] compare to what I experienced especially in the Lamson 719 even the Commander
[01:56:28] Control North missions though they were hairy though they had some twist in terms I would have
[01:56:35] never expected and and and what we lost to crew on Commander Control North missions that's horrible
[01:56:46] but nothing compares with Lamson 719 and I think that's that's where the
[01:56:54] what we now see as air salt that's where it was born it was born there we had to think on
[01:57:05] our feet we did things that were written down we had to think on our feet and I mean like coming
[01:57:12] to the ten foot hover versus putting your skids in the ground how do you learn that you learn it
[01:57:16] from experience just just things I guess they're being learned today and more as they teach our
[01:57:32] assault at Fort Campbell today but my god that was I went to reunion at Fort Campbell several years
[01:57:42] back and the guys are all flying black hoax now then they looked at us like we were a war
[01:57:52] or two pilots found between nine with the low tech all this and they were captivated by the
[01:58:00] stories that we could tell you know if it wasn't for GPS I couldn't drive my car from point
[01:58:12] to point B but up in the air I could shoot a vector and I could say pop smoke and identify the smoke
[01:58:18] and you exactly where I was going just things you learn probably one of the words I'm most
[01:58:26] proud of as an army combination metal and I got that from a tank commander we inserted his soldiers
[01:58:34] into the ashaw valley this was after after 719 and it had been a long day for them and
[01:58:46] it was starting to start starting to sit and I get a call from and I something six I
[01:58:52] and I asked the phone he says could you take a one more mission I said we yes our shirts
[01:59:00] sure we can and did call ops because they're expectants he said well I want to treat my troops to ice
[01:59:09] cream and they've got ice cream and Burmaite cans on our long pad back at Eagle I said not a
[01:59:18] problem sir and we flew an ice cream mission in there and he awarded his troops for their hard work
[01:59:28] and I got an article for that I bet you that ice cream tastes good yeah yeah and
[01:59:41] after that I went with landing in LZ many times I'd get out of the cockpit
[01:59:50] always wore spit shum boots I always dress right dressed ready front the whole time always
[01:59:55] wore spit shum boots but I'm later to my goal I was going to get out of that damn cockpit
[02:00:02] and I say okay Peter Polly you got it copilot and I'd help the troops unload supplies off the
[02:00:09] ship and I I want to thank they appreciate that here's a aviation captain getting out of the
[02:00:19] cockpit and he's doing sweatwork that's what I learned in Vietnam we had a of and just an
[02:00:31] unbelievable relationship with the hundred first in the battle of Ramadi the the first the 506 was
[02:00:36] there and I could never say enough good things about their leadership and the soldiers on the ground
[02:00:46] the fighting that they did it was just amazing amazing courage and one of my guys making on
[02:01:00] so we were was killed doing a mission supporting them and when we got home we were now and
[02:01:08] on their wall where they have the list of the soldiers that they lost in the battle of
[02:01:13] Ramadi they have my keys name up there with them I think we're fortunate Jacke we're fortunate
[02:01:28] that when you people like that and there will be people who will go to their graves
[02:01:34] that never experience that kind of heros and that kind of commitment that kind of courage
[02:01:42] that kind of teamwork the camaraderie will never ever experience it and I think you're an
[02:01:49] irv- fortunate that we've had that opportunity indeed wouldn't trade it for the world
[02:02:02] what going back to to to Lamson once you had that would did they give you a night of
[02:02:09] rest and then you started flying missions again I had two days down and then started flying
[02:02:17] again it was after that that during the race applause when I think the arv-in knew that
[02:02:27] the NVA had a hell a lot more confidence in her ability than the arv-in did
[02:02:34] it was after that during doing those race supply missions in there that that I actually experienced
[02:02:42] them abandoning the battle space I didn't experience that before Lamson 719
[02:02:51] always thought it was interesting when we would we're going to a PZ
[02:02:57] early morning put put the chopper down waiting for them to load up the arv-in the
[02:03:03] self it means load up but I'd see them sitting there and they had water in their still pots and they were
[02:03:10] brushing their teeth and it was like this is extremely important that I brushed my teeth and
[02:03:16] all I saw well that's kind of interesting that they're doing that personal hygiene
[02:03:23] and they're going pour the water out put their helmet liners back in put their helmets
[02:03:29] under going clamol board this aircraft and god knows what faces them when they hit the OZ
[02:03:34] but they made sure that their teeth were clean as this goes on like you said the tide started to turn
[02:03:46] and I think the goal became just to get to how'd you say chippony is that how they said
[02:03:55] chippony the goal is to get there they kind of got there like almost like playing tag touched it yeah
[02:04:04] we made it and then said let's get out of here and by the way there was hardly anything there about this
[02:04:11] then and then as the arv-in started to retreat then the NVA stepped up the attacks even more
[02:04:23] and it just slaughtered yeah and that's where I picked up the body bags with the dead arv and soldiers in him
[02:04:41] turns into a bit of a route as the as the arv-in are now leaving you know there's
[02:04:48] again I mean I'm just a couple days here March 21st the NVA the North Vietnamese attack
[02:04:59] their division attacks a second and third battians US Air support during the day included 788
[02:05:06] helo gunships or these 157 tag clear strikes and 11b 52 strikes fast forward another day
[02:05:15] March 23rd 756 helo gunships or these 238 tag clear strikes 11b 52 strikes
[02:05:28] this is as they're kind of getting back to the border into south Vietnam right
[02:05:35] March 25 finally 45 days after the start of the operation all the south Vietnamese forces are out of
[02:05:43] louss and well so to speak yeah yeah strikers yeah I guess the ones that they are accounting for
[02:05:52] our back April 6th the basic case on is under attack and it gets abandoned
[02:06:06] and to your point earlier on April 7th so that's April 6th the operation is over
[02:06:12] the case on is abandoned April 7th President Nixon declares tonight I can report that
[02:06:18] Vietnam's realization has succeeded and announces the further withdraw 100,000 more troops
[02:06:28] friendly losses during this operation 7 fixed wing planes 108 helocopters lost
[02:06:36] 618 helocopters damaged 20% beyond repair 32 artillery pieces captured and these are south
[02:06:44] Vietnamese artillery pieces south Vietnamese tank 71 of them south Vietnamese armored vehicles 163 of them 37
[02:06:53] half trucks 278 trucks destroyed south Vietnamese loss and I couldn't really come up with a great
[02:07:02] number on this but it's between 5,000 and 15,000 men killed wounded or missing depending on the
[02:07:09] source that you go to Americans 149 wounded 38 missing an action 215 killed an action
[02:07:30] you know that's the second time we left case on we left it in 68 after the Marines got over run
[02:07:48] and here we go again and you often hear combat soldiers say we fault hard we lost
[02:07:54] guys in our unit to take that hill and next we took it we left it now we have to go back and take it
[02:07:59] again there it is when so now this operations over I mean did did attitude start to change
[02:08:15] you're here in Nixon saying that Vietnamization is working and you see the you see the south
[02:08:20] Vietnamese fleeing the battlefield what was the what was the attitude of you all in my unit and
[02:08:28] that's all I can speak for the a spread of core never never ceased we were still flying
[02:08:39] command and control north supporting those guys and their mission grew even more critical
[02:08:50] because they were there judging okay now the lamb sombs over what what's the
[02:08:56] pavement the north fit in the knees army doing now where are they you know it was during that time
[02:09:05] shortly after I left they over ran quantry dung ha heavens certainly within their site camp
[02:09:13] heavens which was north of campy go the hunt and furt head quarters but I never saw any sense of
[02:09:27] behavior they said okay well seven seven one nine's over I guess the wars over I never saw that
[02:09:34] attitude our soldiers remain very professional soldiers that's amazing cause many
[02:09:43] on were just nineteen years old some bomber eighteen I had worn off sort of a twenty one
[02:09:51] I'm out with an old dude I was twenty five I never never once questioned our our ability
[02:10:06] as an aviation unit to do the job the mission that we were assigned to do even after even
[02:10:13] up until the day I left when I became the operations officer my last four months in country
[02:10:18] I got a chance to look at at the battle space in a different way because I would go to
[02:10:23] batayan and batayan ops and look at that then come back and put that into company ops and and
[02:10:30] work our portion of the mission our company's portion of the batayan mission and
[02:10:40] I'd bring the guys into the briefing room the guys are gonna be flying that mission
[02:10:45] and I'd say okay this is our objective right here now how do we get there we're here
[02:10:53] this is our objective our mission is this we got to put so many troops in there how do we get
[02:11:00] and usually it was it just one place it was if it was a company plus it would be maybe three different
[02:11:06] places we'd have to go and I never would say okay this is how we're going to do it you're
[02:11:12] gonna do I say how do we get there what what's the best approach to make this happen and I was
[02:11:19] the operational and I'd have these young one officers oh let's do this to do it and somebody's
[02:11:24] not an advocate that we're gonna do this so I said well let's do it this way well okay well
[02:11:29] let's take a piece of that next thing you know they had planned the operation all I did was
[02:11:36] approve it but that that's a leadership skill that I learned from people like Colonel Bobby
[02:11:49] Fernando who never said you're gonna do it this way he always sort of facilitated if you
[02:11:57] will facilitated leadership and that's what you're seeing now in business facilitated
[02:12:02] leadership getting people involved and if the more you involve the more you take ownership
[02:12:09] and that's what I saw in our guys that's what I saw in our guys
[02:12:15] during the lambson that's what I saw in our guys after lambson
[02:12:20] now we were a fine commander to troll north we did what they told us to
[02:12:25] they had a very specific way of doing things and that's the way we're gonna do it
[02:12:32] and that's fine and that's fine but this is the way we did it and I mirrored my
[02:12:42] leadership style after people that I had great respect for
[02:12:46] to include General Hellmore became Lieutenant General Hellmore and the way that the
[02:12:55] Comerada the the sub not Comerada I don't want to say I was buddy buddy but General
[02:13:00] Moore because I was not but we had a we had a relationship in the cockpit and I think he
[02:13:05] respected my desires what I wanted to obviously did because I went to go to nom had an odd
[02:13:11] man for that yeah I don't know if you didn't have a relationship with Hal Moore but
[02:13:16] Jesus if you were friends with him who knows what he would have done for you
[02:13:20] what a great man he was but but I left I left vet nom filling very good about
[02:13:27] my unit and about what we did I did change my views a bit to think that
[02:13:36] my tour and nom will be successful if I can do things to support my US troops
[02:13:47] so that change from supporting the whole concept of vitanization
[02:13:53] for example if I can bring ice cream out to those troops after they busted their butt all day
[02:13:58] inserting then I've done something that I can be proud of and that's where my
[02:14:09] mind sort of changed after being in country for about eight months to support my
[02:14:15] soldiers and to do what I could to bring them home yeah the leadership stuff
[02:14:24] you're talking about that's exactly the the best leaders I had was they would tell us
[02:14:29] what the mission was what the goal was and then say come up with a plan and that's what I always
[02:14:33] tried to do myself that's certainly is the the best way to get the people on board with the
[02:14:39] plan is just let them come up with it that's right don't have to convince them of anything
[02:14:43] that it's their idea it's their plan let them argue it out yeah yep so when you did uh
[02:14:50] so what what when when did you leave you now it was in October of 71 and uh
[02:15:05] and nom there was four officers that lived in the same hooch um well I had our little private
[02:15:12] rooms at the corner of this rectangle or hooch then the center was a common area and we had a
[02:15:18] little stove in the common area and so on but um right across for me was an officer a stand dodge
[02:15:27] he was coming to her one eight and so when we would fly when I knew he was flying a go
[02:15:35] being an air then hot he and I would choose a frequency that we would come up on just and
[02:15:42] would fly follow with each other near so let's sort of look in after each other you know in the air
[02:15:47] so I came back from from nom it's very interesting story uh there was me as a common chair
[02:15:56] and then there were three other pilots who were kings my neighbor and bravo company
[02:16:00] 101st aviation which was our sister company and uh we all knew each other and we all came back we were
[02:16:07] in our cackies where in our flight jackets and you know we thought our Sierra didn't stink
[02:16:12] and we get back into Seattle Tacoma and uh got walt through the airport nobody's
[02:16:21] spitting on us nobody yelling at us nobody called us baby killers and we got a taxi we come into
[02:16:29] and we say hey uh is there a holiday any says yeah there's one downtown so he takes us to the holiday
[02:16:34] and we all check in our rooms we clean up we come down to the bar to meet before we go
[02:16:42] have some dinner we get to the bar of course we're all you know we're all got flight pay they
[02:16:47] paid us before we leave nom you know we're all loaded with money more than we should have had
[02:16:53] and we get into the bar and bartenders are what big guys and go to wherever flight jackets on
[02:16:58] you know and they were feeling kind of smuggled and we all ordered drinks and
[02:17:04] one of them said hey everybody else is drink their next drink it's own all of it's own us
[02:17:13] so we all threw in money we bought everybody in the bar that was sitting there their next drink
[02:17:18] and there was a couple he was playing piano and she was singing and uh they were like the
[02:17:27] what's that the carpenters okay that's and she was singing they were doing all the
[02:17:32] carpenters on and so she dedicated a special song she says he says exclamation gentlemen
[02:17:39] but the next drink that all of y'all will get tonight are from these four guys standing at the
[02:17:45] bar in uniform they all just returned from Vietnam and let's give them around to applause now
[02:17:52] stood up give us a round of applause and then she said I'm going to dedicate this next song
[02:17:58] to these guys and it was very special and we didn't buy another drink that night
[02:18:08] we all had stakes they were all paid for and it they quit playing at one o'clock
[02:18:16] and this guy came up to us and said hey we're a bunch of us are here on an insurance convention
[02:18:22] we'd like to take y'all out for breakfast so they took us out to breakfast and we all got to bed
[02:18:28] about five o'clock in the morning and then we all flew out our separate ways the next day
[02:18:35] but it was telling you about stand dodge standing parents lived in Arizona to sign and
[02:18:46] he said and he had left country about a month before I did so he said I want to have a little
[02:18:51] together in my house if you don't mind staying over one day before you make it back so I flew into
[02:18:58] Tucson and he had a couple don't at dollars there who were in the hundred and first
[02:19:07] they were there in fact stand married one of the don't at dollars barber
[02:19:13] and Terry Digan was a friend of mine she was there and plus one guy from bravo company
[02:19:21] the Kingsman and and another pilot but we partied hearty that night and stand
[02:19:27] parents just did a wonderful job of making us feel at home and so on and might have been there
[02:19:35] two nights I stayed because I had to have time to get my uniform cleaned up for a
[02:19:39] warm home I wanted to make sure it was strapped when my parents saw me and so I got my uniform
[02:19:46] got my shoes all spit shot everything caught the plane out of Phoenix and Terry was with me and
[02:19:54] Terry and I had a really nice relationship I mean it wasn't a sexual thing it was just a nice
[02:20:00] relationship we understood each other and she had left none two months before I did and she
[02:20:06] would write me letters telling me about how the world back in the States was not the world it
[02:20:11] was not the real world world world her what she experienced in Vietnam with the soldier
[02:20:19] and that was the real world you know we we would write back a fourth about that and uh
[02:20:25] I flew my flight took us to Shivas from Downers Grove Illinois so we flew to Chicago and then
[02:20:34] obviously catch a plane for Chicago to Charlotte and she wanted me to meet her parents and
[02:20:42] and I wanted to meet her parents too and now I could have probably had a relationship with Terry
[02:20:48] that would have gone beyond she ended up marrying an army ranger a several years later that she
[02:20:54] had known and not but uh kept waiting for her parents to come and my flight was coming up to go
[02:21:00] in a parent's handshot up yet and I never did get to be to parents we finally gave a hug and
[02:21:05] kiss goodbye and I got on the plane and flew to Charlotte and that's where my parents met me
[02:21:12] but I think having those couple days to it's a decompress before I got home
[02:21:19] it's probably psychologically good for me yeah that's uh one thing they always point out world
[02:21:26] were two the guys when the world was over they got on ships and sailed home together for four
[02:21:31] weeks or six weeks and they got to decompress and tell stories and get stuff off their chest and
[02:21:35] whatever and in Vietnam it was like oh you're in Vietnam today and then the next day you're home
[02:21:40] and you don't have your friends with you and you're in random you know main town USA or mainstream
[02:21:45] USA and that that can be a challenge so let's fast forward uh I was home 30 days reassigned
[02:21:53] to Fort Dickson, New Jersey um not an aviation uh I was actually working for a facility that
[02:22:03] processed a wall and disorder soldiers that were brought back into the army but every Friday night
[02:22:10] all the aviators they go home take off their fatigues put on their flat suits
[02:22:15] but all gathered around in one little portion of the offshore club bar and would sit there and
[02:22:22] we had reminisce and tell war stories and and it got emotional at times it which
[02:22:30] might come on to buy alcohol by another beer you know but that's a part of the decompression
[02:22:35] and that those were very special times to sit there and talk about that and people have often asked
[02:22:43] me what what kind of problems did you have and I said well really didn't have any problems
[02:22:48] when I came back and and they you know well you must have been tough I said what I wasn't tough
[02:22:54] I said I think it's just the process of what how we all would get together and talk about our
[02:22:59] experiences and I said these guys that came back from nom after being in combat especially
[02:23:05] infantry guys grunts as we call them uh they would come back they go to Fort Lewis their
[02:23:11] process of the army then they'd go home and they didn't have an opportunity to sit around and
[02:23:15] many of those were subjected to some very harsh treatments when they when they arrived home and I never
[02:23:22] had fortunately never had that experience so I think the army's learning a lot of that all the
[02:23:29] services are learning a lot about that about how do we take care of our veterans after they've been
[02:23:34] I mean you were in hell of a lot of horrific situations that that could have mentally
[02:23:45] had a horrible impact on you but you've worked through that yourself Joke.
[02:23:52] Yeah I mean I think I always talk about the fact that I've talked about it,
[02:23:57] written about it, talk to my friends about it and I think that's like you said it's what you're
[02:24:02] kind of got to do and you know the I look back now in the first the from my last deployment for
[02:24:07] to Ramadi we got home and we were pretty yeah what's a good word here we were pretty wild when we
[02:24:18] got back we were pretty wild when we got back and but you know we kept it under you know we kept we
[02:24:24] looked out for each other make sure that we were wild without you know doing anything that's going
[02:24:29] to cause a reprobable damage or cause some kind of major significant problem but we were definitely
[02:24:35] wild I mean they're no doubt about it and then you know I don't know if it was maybe six months maybe
[02:24:40] a year or something like that you know we started getting back to kind of just doing what we were
[02:24:44] doing a little bit more normal but yeah we were we're pretty wild when we got back.
[02:24:48] Well you know if my excuse was I was you got pretty drunk last night so well I'm an
[02:24:57] heavier yeah yeah we had some you know we all kind a bunch of us lived in the kind of the same area
[02:25:04] too same little neighborhood and so yeah we would go out we'd meet up and we'd go we'd go pretty hard.
[02:25:12] I think I think for me I'm still it's amazing the older I get now and I'll be 76 and all
[02:25:19] this the memories become more vivid now I dream about this more I'm hearing from people we have a
[02:25:36] we have our own common chiro website and you can tell by the comments that Lampson 719
[02:25:46] had a major major psychological impact on our guys and there were some guys that measured
[02:25:55] their time in service oh I was I came after 719 or I left just before 719 so they say that
[02:26:02] some of them came an anchor to describe where one was at one's time flying with the common cherries
[02:26:17] and when when Matt called me up and asked me what I do some collaboration on this book
[02:26:26] in some ways I was pleased in some ways I was a little frightened to bring up
[02:26:38] the experiences and I'll be perfectly honest I had a lot of anxiety coming here today
[02:26:43] though I read this book and a number of times read undolented valor 719 quite a few times I've
[02:26:55] air marked it I've read after action reports on it that hopefully Matt had any did yet some
[02:27:06] of these after action reports that he took his data from but still sitting here now and talking
[02:27:16] about it with you and you weren't there I can talk about it with somebody it was there and but
[02:27:25] and not have anxiety but you weren't there and often wonder I'm telling you this
[02:27:33] but what are you actually hearing because you weren't there and you can tell me about what you did
[02:27:42] and I can listen to it but I wasn't there and so there's a difference yeah there's there's always
[02:27:51] going to be a little gap or a big gap depending on you know the person's experiences and
[02:27:57] you know one thing I think is interesting about you know we start talking about coming home
[02:28:02] and what you're going through I think the one thing that's good is if people actually understand
[02:28:09] what they're feeling a little bit and I remember like you get a new guy that's overseas
[02:28:15] and I look at a new guy that's overseas and you could tell the nervous right and you know
[02:28:20] to say something like hey man you know you that feeling you get in your stomach and maybe like
[02:28:25] you know trying not to tell you but then they admit to it and I go yeah you're just an
[02:28:29] nervous it's your that your body getting ready to go fight it's totally normal that's where you
[02:28:34] should feel like and they'd be okay oh you oh by the way you won't be able to sleep tonight because
[02:28:39] we got a operation tomorrow you're not going to be able to sleep tonight so that's just the way
[02:28:42] it is don't worry about it and I think the same thing coming home you know it's like oh oh you're
[02:28:47] going to get you're going to get sad sometimes it doesn't mean your week it doesn't mean your
[02:28:52] trapped in the past it just means you miss your friends and that's okay and so if you are thinking
[02:28:57] about something and it makes you cry hey yeah that's what that's what happens you know that's the
[02:29:02] way it is and I think if people understand that that's that's that's normal then they're okay well
[02:29:10] that's that's just what's gonna happen it's okay and I think when people don't think it's normal
[02:29:15] and all of a sudden they think I can't control my emotions or I'm scared or I'm sad and I shouldn't
[02:29:20] be sad and I shouldn't be scared it's like no it's it's time no big deal that's the way it is you
[02:29:24] you do your job you you know you're going to be scared you got the you got the crazy stomach you
[02:29:29] can't sleep at night okay cool yeah guess what there's a bunch of other guys that's not sleeping
[02:29:34] tonight either no big deal no big deal oh you get home you you're going to feel sad you're going to
[02:29:39] miss your friends yeah we all miss them that that's the way it is that that's okay and I think that
[02:29:45] helps people out a lot to be able to just say okay what I'm feeling is not an isolated thing
[02:29:52] it's just the way human beings process the the tough experiences that they go through
[02:29:59] but you know we we both served in the kind of service that at one time you didn't show that
[02:30:07] emotion yeah and you weren't expected to I think the service and I hope I've read that they have
[02:30:16] I've seen interviews that they have that now that's been taking consideration it's okay to express
[02:30:24] what you're feeling right now it's okay to go seek counseling because it's not going to end
[02:30:29] up on your Austria-Festival report or your annual report or whatever reports you're going to get
[02:30:37] and so I think that has been a great improvement with the way we receive
[02:30:44] our war fighting men and women especially those who have come back and been engaged in combat
[02:30:54] one thing I'll say about the getting excited and nervous about the upcoming mission
[02:31:03] and I would do the same thing of Vietnam I mean people said were you scared said well how
[02:31:07] yeah I'm scared but hey you know this is what we signed up to do and this is what we're going
[02:31:13] to do and a lot of times I mean I'd said that trying to convince myself but see I was a
[02:31:21] Paton commander I can sit there and tell my trips oh my god I'm scared death are good
[02:31:25] ah I had to put on the show I had to do that but the interesting thing about it is once we
[02:31:33] strapped on that helicopter and we took off in flight all of that right it all right I mean
[02:31:42] it never amazed me got a job to do well yeah I mean you were busy you were monitoring
[02:31:48] through your adios you were you know talking to the crew there I mean it all drained I mean
[02:31:54] even going into even going into the lowlands that that morning when we were doing non-in-offs
[02:31:59] approach and we should have been done 60 or 40 and we were coming in there and but you
[02:32:05] soccer that thing back in that damn nose pigeon's up and you're saying oh hell I hope my
[02:32:08] tail rotor done hit the ground and then you put that sucker down and you're taking fire all the
[02:32:13] place you don't have time to be scared you you you react by the training that you've had
[02:32:23] and by God that training was good yeah yeah exactly and that's I think the same way everybody
[02:32:29] feels I mean if you're going to be nervous it's usually before an operation and for me I was
[02:32:34] always just more nervous about my my friends my guys that's what I was always worried about
[02:32:38] hey I hope nothing happens to the guys you know but then once for us it's once the breach goes you
[02:32:44] know what once the breach goes now it's on everybody knows we're here we're doing what we're doing
[02:32:48] you know once we leave the magate front gate you're you're doing your job and there's
[02:32:53] no time to think about that you can't you can't waste any mental capacity thinking about what
[02:32:59] could happen or what might go happen because you got to do your job and you don't want to
[02:33:02] have anything else in your head besides hey what do I need to do right now how can I do my best
[02:33:07] job right now that's what I'm thinking about but again I seen some nervous new guys and just
[02:33:15] hey man it's all right no big deal and and I think that helps people a lot just like anything anytime
[02:33:21] you can give somebody a heads up about what's about to happen or what I've had this feeling with
[02:33:25] the training MMA fighters mix martial arts fighters to go and fight and I saw the exact same thing
[02:33:31] this is kind of where I started putting it together oh I tell them hey oh you're stomach a little
[02:33:35] crazy yeah I'm super nervous yeah you're supposed to be you're getting ready going to a fight
[02:33:38] yeah it's okay and that would put them at ease because they'd realize oh this is just normal
[02:33:43] this is just me getting ready going to you know that form of sporting combat
[02:33:49] I think but but but add to that I think it's good to be a little nervous for sure
[02:33:54] because you're more own your game for sure and and that's one thing that's one thing general
[02:34:03] John Amar's told me he was a mentor of mine and later on in my service and he was one that
[02:34:11] actually encouraged me to take the civilian position with the sick death because I was doing a
[02:34:18] strategic planning work for him after I had retired from the uniform service and we had this
[02:34:25] we had this big strategic planning conference coming up and I said sir I'd like to bring
[02:34:32] doctor so and so we're in from George Washington University he's been he's been a big critical
[02:34:39] thinker he sort of plans okay this is where we have to be how do we get there kind of a thing
[02:34:46] because we were doing strategic planning yeah the vision is where you want to be now how do we
[02:34:51] go for where we are today to make it vision or reality and he said I don't even work for me
[02:34:59] I said but two years sir he said do you have a PhD I said no sir's master's degree
[02:35:09] he said well I trust you I don't know this guy and that's that's a leadership style that
[02:35:21] that breeds confidence and your soldiers and your employees I got confidence in you I don't know
[02:35:30] this guy so doctor what's his name I never heard him come in to do some work for us but that may be
[02:35:40] feel great yeah so how much longer did you do in the honor me before you retired? I was last
[02:35:47] but 20 years in uniform 68 88 then I immediately before that general Mars it was talking to me about
[02:35:58] he said you're never going to make Colonel God Branch transferred from infantry to the
[02:36:03] armies as an general corps which is a administrative corps you are me and he said I want you to take
[02:36:11] this job the second half has been impressed with work he been doing and said your office will be
[02:36:19] here with me but you'll be working out of the office of the second half and at that time
[02:36:23] us with the defense communications agency which became now the defense information assistance
[02:36:28] agency but my office was there I had clients all military clients all over it was just
[02:36:33] communications guys underseek death was one of my clients the sink US Atlantic command general
[02:36:43] jack she-hand I don't know if you bet general she-head or general she-head or outstanding outstanding
[02:36:50] warrior great leader general Mike Stale who commanded US Army Pacific just to tremendous
[02:36:58] guy the underseeker the offensive logistics I got a chest to do strategic planning work for him
[02:37:03] quite a few organizations in NATO two organizations at shape and that's that's all because
[02:37:10] of a guy my name is John Mars that supported me and paid the way for me and he believed in me
[02:37:18] and though I had a didn't have a PhD he trusted me is that that what leaders are for me
[02:37:26] indeed and then how long did you how long did you do that for 13 years and then you
[02:37:34] went on full retirement not quite well then I was offered a position in the in civilian career
[02:37:41] in the steel business and I was executive vice president of a steel center
[02:37:49] stayed there from O1 to O9 thought I'd retire went into the insurance business for a
[02:37:57] little bit was it exciting then I decided to retire and now my fiance is still working she represents
[02:38:12] a company called Hancock and Moore it's all custom made furniture some of the most
[02:38:17] high quality furniture you will ever find it's all custom made to to your specifications
[02:38:24] leather upholstery nails finish frames you pick out the whole thing yourself and they build
[02:38:31] it to your specifications she also represents a long called Jessica Charles and a long called
[02:38:38] matelence Smith and our territory is in North Carolina so we never go out of North Carolina
[02:38:44] but yeah I say I'm retired but now I run with Jan and I take my orders from her
[02:38:52] and so we we man her territory that's outstanding and she's enjoying staying here today because she
[02:39:00] has nothing to share to do that's beautiful thing a little vacation day for a little vacation day
[02:39:07] they before we stop I know there's a couple things that just to mention here what can you give us the
[02:39:12] update I know that I know that Colonel Jackson's been working day to sort of turn this into a movie
[02:39:19] turn at least some of these books into a movie I know there's a go fund me page out there what
[02:39:25] what's the update on on on these opportunities okay well yes as people should probably know
[02:39:34] that takes a lot of money to produce a movie however a undone to the valor lamisson 719 is going to
[02:39:43] be the movie and it's our story of those of us who flew in it who supported it we need to have
[02:39:52] this on the big screen and as Colonel Jackson's desire as well as as mine that this not become
[02:40:00] Hollywood flash in the pan maybe this is going to be an action film movie because lamisson 719 was
[02:40:07] action and he wants the movie to depict what actually happened and if anyone reads the book they
[02:40:14] will know that if the movie depicts a quarter of what's in that book it is going to be on the
[02:40:19] edge of your seat kind of a movie so the events and everything that he's put into the saying
[02:40:25] we're not Hollywood made up events these are true events he's changed some names but these are true events
[02:40:33] he does have several actors who have indicated that they have liked to play major roles in the
[02:40:40] movie there's already a producer on board and the screen rotters are busy writing this but it
[02:40:47] takes money to do this and the go fund me undone to the valor is the place where people who here
[02:40:54] this and feel that they won't this story told whether it's them themselves or their relatives who
[02:41:00] are involved in this or they are just very supportive of what our military has done in the past
[02:41:08] especially what we did in Vietnam which a lot of those stories were not very favorable stories
[02:41:14] this is a very favorable story what we did the nine courage them to do the go fund me undone to valor
[02:41:22] all this money is going to being accepted by a 501c3 group at Fort Campbell Kentucky
[02:41:35] and so Matt gets another this money Matt Jackson gets another this money it's all going towards
[02:41:41] this movie every last set off it's going towards this movie so the quicker we can get this
[02:41:49] and the more we can faster we can proceed with development this movie and obviously encourage
[02:41:56] people to take this into consideration 501c3 so your go nation is tax deductible
[02:42:01] that's outstanding and and I look forward to I look forward to seeing this thing for sure when it
[02:42:06] comes out reading these books sitting here talking to you guys this is just unbelievable part of history
[02:42:11] and a true look at the heroism that you all and American soldiers displayed in Vietnam
[02:42:20] echo Charles do you have any questions I do not no questions from echo Charles if he doesn't ask
[02:42:27] any questions that means he's going to talk a lot later so I have to put up with that but that's just
[02:42:32] the way it is that's part of the punishment I guess for me no and I just just shows the depth that we
[02:42:37] went into you know I'll fill that I'm at the end okay to dump to the detail right I want to thank you
[02:42:43] for ask him to be here and I want to thank Matt Jackson for putting it all together and I'm
[02:42:49] finally glad to meet the man I saw on the damn bun genusia right on anything else Jay no sure
[02:43:01] well again like you said thanks to Colonel Matt Jackson for introducing us and for his
[02:43:06] efforts and writing these books and preserving these these heroic deeds of our combat aviators and
[02:43:14] soldiers in Vietnam war and of course thank you for joining us and sharing your experiences your
[02:43:20] lessons learned and most important thank you thank you for your service and sacrifice to our great
[02:43:28] nation the bravery of you of your fellow pilots of the of the air crews the bravery that you all showed
[02:43:37] can never be questioned and we are grateful for your heroism and the example that you set for all of
[02:43:47] us today thank you thanks for coming on and with that major J. T. has left the building not even much
[02:44:00] to say to follow that up just just mayhem I have a lot to say actually but I won't go into as deep as
[02:44:07] maybe I could but I will say this I was talking to Nick I'll say and whatever we were talking about
[02:44:16] it reminded me of this where like nowadays okay not nowadays but in the Vietnam war there are so many
[02:44:24] people who did so many crazy things but they don't have necessarily a big spotlight on them they're
[02:44:31] just like just kind of cruising now where you don't you know they're not in the spotlight in any
[02:44:38] way they're just like essentially now they're just sort of just living normal people well it's always
[02:44:43] interesting to me that like major J. T. retired in 1988 I came in in 1998 1990 right so there's almost
[02:44:52] overlap there and there's been plenty of old Vietnam guys in the seal teams some but you know I'd
[02:44:59] be meeting some random army dude you know and he could have easily been this guy you know there are
[02:45:06] people in Vietnam that did the craziest stuff and no one knows about it literally things that are
[02:45:12] going to be in a movie literally did those things that are going to be in a movie and people be like
[02:45:17] oh I wonder why they wrote it just made it so crazy yeah where they got us to spend their
[02:45:23] disbelief or what is that suspension yeah they kind of got to do that about something that really
[02:45:27] happened in real life yeah that kind of meanwhile he's just cruising I mean even though I was talking
[02:45:31] to tilt yesterday hell yeah we're actually Saturday we're talking tilt on Saturday and and he was you
[02:45:37] know they amount of times that those guys did crazy things it's unbelievable it's unbelievable and
[02:45:46] no one really knew too much about sag I'm a look if you are if you're deeply into the military
[02:45:51] history and all that but a normal everyday person barely knows anything about sock yeah I didn't
[02:45:58] for sure there's one thing he mentioned that was pretty dark and then he just moved right on
[02:46:02] when he's like you just you don't want to get burned up oh yeah as a pilot he was in the book that was
[02:46:09] in the book lamb song 719 yeah he said how like in world war two like some man we're known yeah
[02:46:16] one more one before parachutes yeah you carry a pistol kill with you catch fire just going to kill
[02:46:20] yourself that's how bad it was yeah that was interesting and it was also interesting and in the first
[02:46:26] book by Matt Jackson he's explaining you know basically that a helicopter doesn't want to fly
[02:46:31] yeah this thing does this is a bunch of metal the gear and oil gears and oil and gas that doesn't
[02:46:39] want to fly if you just let it go it's just going to crash an airplane even if you let go the controls
[02:46:44] it's kind of kind of cruise you know you kind of feel like I'm not a pilot I don't know if you
[02:46:49] do that but it feels like on an in their plane something goes wrong or whatever as long as you got wings
[02:46:55] in the in the tail you can kind of just glide that way in yeah it feels like that so I had a car this
[02:47:00] is how my first deployment to go on parking the do when we get over there all the all the seals
[02:47:08] we'd buy go on bombs we call them just like a piece of junk car whatever you know that you're
[02:47:13] just going to drive around go on for a few for six months and then sell it to the next set so we bought
[02:47:18] our go on bomb from some other team guys that were leaving we had this it was uh I think it was a
[02:47:24] 1977 Velare was beige but here's the thing cars are kind of you'd think cars would be like oh
[02:47:35] you don't really you know if you if you don't touch controls it's just kind of going to go until
[02:47:39] it's just going to go straight to it by stops right yeah this car I don't know what was wrong
[02:47:45] if you let your hands off the wheels it would go into a full hard right turn as hard as you could
[02:47:49] pop you couldn't turn a car to the right as fast as this car would turn for it's own
[02:47:56] go on bomb that was our bomb the full already but also for whatever reason had hot
[02:48:04] scorching air you know you know you know you know the little like area underneath the back window
[02:48:11] on the old school cars there's a little area yeah it's like a back dash yeah you could throw like
[02:48:16] a a a a pair of slippers up there so it may be a t-shirt or sweatshirt right this little area like that
[02:48:22] and there can sometimes be aftermarket speakers be put in there right but there was no there was no
[02:48:29] aftermarket speakers but there was just scorching hot air that came to the side no it's like
[02:48:35] unknown source of massive it would fire through that thing so that car was kind of like a helicopter
[02:48:42] if you'd script your fingers off the controls for a second you were hitting the right guardrail
[02:48:46] in point two seconds oh yeah so yeah when do you get the impression and maybe you probably
[02:48:52] know this even firsthand where just in Vietnam rain wartime just in general like just things are just
[02:48:59] loud the things are so loud and there's so much louder in real life than they are in the movies
[02:49:05] yes I know that's your reference for instance in a helicopter you can't hear anything yes
[02:49:10] so freaking loud it's ridiculous it's punishing on your ears it's so loud and a helicopter
[02:49:17] yeah everything is louder I mean a humv is freaking loud tanks are loud everything's loud
[02:49:25] and everything's just vibrating just your whole world is that yeah it's cool now we got those new
[02:49:31] ear like headsets right that block out loud noises yeah the Kent noise can't slink
[02:49:38] that he said something about one the first I think it was like the first time where he
[02:49:43] heard the M60 when when he was and how we'd like vibrate the the thing and that's what I was
[02:49:51] like the whole thing is just loud no your whole world is just loud up there because you got the
[02:49:55] helicopter then you got the guns and everything is vibrating loud just the hostile the other
[02:50:01] interesting thing is I think of hewis I think of hewis as being old right in my mind they're old
[02:50:08] because I flew around on hewis and they were old kind of like when you think of a bomber right
[02:50:13] now like a world war two bomber you think of this old you know those were the most modern
[02:50:19] beasts of their time that was like getting those noise that was like yeah to a noise right
[02:50:23] straight up so well listen obviously like I said at the end there guys like major J.T.
[02:50:33] they said a great example for us on many levels courage we you know like for sure
[02:50:42] capability a hundred percent I'm not sure what we're doing to improve our courage what can we
[02:50:50] do to improve our capabilities. Equitrals there's a softball for you knock it out of the park
[02:50:56] do me a favor capability hey okay we're working out we're on the path
[02:51:01] that's it hundred percent I say on the program by the way you know like when the
[02:51:07] we're different now your wife comes home and it's like oh yeah like do you want some extra
[02:51:12] cheese on the lasagna you know I said no no no I'm on the program so it's kind of okay understand you know
[02:51:18] now you're on the path but here's the thing the path is more broad more encompassing oh yeah
[02:51:23] the program seems like you can easily be off the program in like three four weeks or whatever you know
[02:51:27] it's like that kind of feeling it's not they're not hard and fast rules but I'm just saying the
[02:51:32] feeling is there let's put it this way if you're on the path it's a life yeah it's like life yeah
[02:51:39] you're right programs of temporary yes somewhat yeah they're like a temporary improvement deviation
[02:51:44] whatever either way we're on the path the good thing about the path is sure we have supplementation
[02:51:49] but these are everyday supplementation their life supplementation elements seem saying
[02:51:55] so some of us back in the day we said drink energy drinks junk energy drinks junk
[02:52:03] it's a new um it's a new era of energy drink does a new era of energy drinks now healthy
[02:52:09] energy drinks to kind of when you drink it you get everything front end you get everything you
[02:52:13] wanted energy then on the back end you get everything that you didn't expect but want
[02:52:20] to help and you don't get things that you didn't want jitters no diabetes chemical
[02:52:27] disturbance inside your system some weird addiction inflammation you know this weird stuff
[02:52:33] yeah exactly if we don't want yep none of that none absolutely none so okay so
[02:52:38] jacco discipline go this is the energy drink you've been in no already some new flavors out
[02:52:43] which just adds to the choices you have hey look we all like orange we all like orange it's a staple
[02:52:50] right you hard pressed to find someone who doesn't like orange flavor true yeah cool but
[02:52:56] do we love orange maybe maybe maybe maybe that's okay I don't know if it does I don't just wait good
[02:53:00] do they do they yeah yeah that makes sense totally makes sense but not all of us do some of us like
[02:53:04] more exotic flavors like mango mango has the capability to be like love I love mango oranges
[02:53:12] more like yeah of course I like mango orange seems same what about the other end of the
[02:53:17] spectrum are people more like well mango is not really my thing I'll drink orange but mango is not
[02:53:22] my thing it's possible just saying take one extreme you gotta probably end up with the other one
[02:53:28] as well it's very possible nonetheless we're we're adding to the the spectrum of desirable flavors
[02:53:34] in discipline go so now you got a win win win win situation for everybody three wins three wins
[02:53:39] okay all day maybe even four later just saying it's always improving this good it's good you're
[02:53:44] better off after you drink one of these what about water on what about new water about what
[02:53:48] but what but what but what but salt watermelon yeah same same I think that's closer to orange in terms
[02:53:54] of people it being a more broadly accepted flavor yeah you know anyone that does not like
[02:54:01] watermelon I don't know anyone who does not like what you know and it does not like mango
[02:54:07] yes see psychos but it's like you know some either way I get it I get it into each
[02:54:14] their own I can honestly say that with with the gender you kind of rolled the dice then with the
[02:54:18] mango you know hey yeah actually no because when we chose the mango I chose that because I
[02:54:26] personally like it and that would be little kind of said he said hey if it's you if you like it
[02:54:30] that's it so it's like cool I like it right on well it seems like drinks energy drinks is what you
[02:54:35] were saying you can get them yes sir it's a new air like I said they're good for you the
[02:54:38] thing is that's a big deal though like come on you'd be hard for us to find a good tasting energy
[02:54:44] drink that after you drink it you're better off it's good for you you don't have to do a
[02:54:49] bunch of like health freaking recovery things after you drink energy you don't go to go
[02:54:53] to go on a 14 day detox yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm super low in calories to buy the way also
[02:55:01] what else we got extra protein in the form of a dessert best tasting protein in the world pretty much
[02:55:07] you'd be hard to press to find a better tasting protein with that the health nutrient profile
[02:55:11] that we have the only thing that could possibly taste better as a protein is just steak itself
[02:55:16] it's possible very hard comparison that as we know you can have a gorgeous
[02:55:22] of gorgeous rib eye steak well marble tasty cooked to a tea season to perform season to perfection
[02:55:30] and you can still get that would be like I want something to eat some milk yeah you want to
[02:55:33] cook some milk bread that has been me actually for the last four three out of the last four days
[02:55:38] hundred percent that's interesting either way these are all good things that will keep you on the
[02:55:42] path and front end end back end benefit hundred percent there's nothing better than more
[02:55:46] honestly there's nothing better than milk when you get that little
[02:55:52] you get that that how's this so desire here's a okay so mostly every night
[02:55:58] the little routine mostly every night like a salad yeah as a meal like a big robust chicken it's
[02:56:05] a formula I'd give the recipe some other time but it's legit a bit it's talking about salad
[02:56:09] it's a horrible I see you're a senior is either way but but I'll mix up a milk in there
[02:56:19] in the salad without a salad with the salad give you drink water whatever you drink with salad
[02:56:24] whatever for some reason the milk with the salad is the perfect combo right before
[02:56:27] that that's in my experience check anyway are also we have other stuff too for immunity for
[02:56:34] your joints these are these are things we don't want to worry about on the on this path
[02:56:38] we don't want to worry about how strong our immune system is we don't want to worry about
[02:56:41] our joints working or not working we want to just be sure and be usher it that's the things
[02:56:46] are all the fire and forget missile exactly push the button boom you're good hey
[02:56:51] enjoy warfare super cruel vitamin D3 cold war you just they're firing forget don't
[02:56:57] after you want to be thinking about your immunity system you don't want to be thinking about your
[02:57:01] joints if you're firing forget exactly right if you're on these types of supplementation elements
[02:57:08] there's only two times you're going to be thinking about this stuff is one when you get on them
[02:57:13] and they start working or potentially if you accidentally get off that's the only two times
[02:57:19] you don't really think about this stuff that's why subscribe yes subscribe if you subscribe to these
[02:57:24] things you won't go off of them you won't have that miserable feeling and you'll you we we you get
[02:57:30] shipping for free yeah so that's cool also you can get this stuff at wall wall you can get the
[02:57:34] drinks you can get that the you you don't want and you're like I need a little energy right now
[02:57:40] but I don't want to crash and feel like crap in three hours cool we got you covered go to wall
[02:57:45] you can get the you can also get all this stuff at vitamin shop as well also in the energy
[02:57:50] drinks something I forgot to say which I always know when I drink them is there's
[02:57:54] electrolyte in it get a little elevated the pre-locked element in in that is yeah it's critical
[02:58:04] so yeah also you can get them at jockelfuel.com as you can get everything
[02:58:08] which is part of origin or a new essay so origin USA what do they got there American made jeans boots
[02:58:18] jiu jitsu stuff I want to say American made I don't mean just American
[02:58:24] finished no you know you have grass fed and then whatever it's not the whole thing grass fed
[02:58:30] corn finished or grain finished yes whatever the deal is no origin's not like that
[02:58:35] it's from the beginning all the way to the end American finished American started and
[02:58:41] started yes exactly right so boom yes so you got some good stuff pizza always making some
[02:58:47] new innovative thing we got all this work pants and what a pants are common I have a pair
[02:58:53] I have two pairs actually that's cool because I don't even have a Delta trick in 68 jeans
[02:58:57] are you serious I am very serious yeah you got issues I got the regular ones which have been
[02:59:03] doing the job 100% but you might want to try out those Delta's it's like you know what I hate
[02:59:07] to admit this it's like the equivalent of a lightweight hoodie boom yeah it's time for that place for
[02:59:11] those Delta's 68's oh yeah so you're gonna lightweight hoodie we have lightweight hoodies I'm
[02:59:17] come on with another one I think with the next three weeks um where you can get these things okay so
[02:59:23] jockels store is called jockel store we have lightweight hoodies if you want to represent or we are on
[02:59:28] this path you can get t-shirts like I said hoodies light and heavy by the way we've got some board
[02:59:33] shirts on there got some tank tops you know hats cool stuff on there representative of the path
[02:59:40] discipline equals freedom good all these attitudes that we hope that we can run through the path
[02:59:47] with okay you know represent jockels store dot com we have a short subscription situation new design
[02:59:54] every month called the shirt locker that was been interesting people who see move part of the
[02:59:58] shirt even today even today we'll say hey I like that that last design I really liked it one guy
[03:00:05] said he worked too church and everyone was talking to him about it literally I'm not designed
[03:00:11] was that the latest one what is the latest one just as check oh the period has the flag on the sleet
[03:00:20] it's good looks good but it's like you know there's some layers on there nonetheless yes
[03:00:25] so subscribe to that if you want one every month new different types of designs um then the regular
[03:00:31] stuff but but good nonetheless and you can subscribe to this podcast and don't forget we also have
[03:00:36] jockel unraveling we have the grounded podcast we have the warrior kid podcast we also have the
[03:00:41] the jockel underground where we're doing some alternative podcast talking about stuff in the same
[03:00:50] vein but maybe a little bit tributary to the scenario that we're usually talking about we're
[03:00:57] doing a bunch of Q&A there's a place you can send Q&A and we're getting through those uh so go to
[03:01:02] jockel underground dot com if you want to subscribe to that cost $8 and $18 a month and we're using
[03:01:07] that to create our own area where if we get booted off of the big platforms for whatever reason
[03:01:18] or they just start interjecting ads is that cool what does it seem cool to me you take this podcast let's
[03:01:24] say they took this podcast today and you're in the middle of hearing about lamb's Psalm 719 all
[03:01:31] of something there's an advertisement on there for a mattress yeah that's not cool it's not cool no so
[03:01:37] if you don't want that cool we got you $8 and $18 a month if you can't afford it we still look
[03:01:43] if you can't afford that cool we got you as well go to assistance email assistance at jockel underground.com
[03:01:49] we got you yeah also wherever you to channel if you're wondering about the video version of this podcast
[03:01:55] we do have youtube channel official got some excerpts on there and the whole episodes got some
[03:02:00] other enhanced episodes as well lots of explosions kind of minimize the explosions lately but it just
[03:02:07] makes this feel like we're due for more explosions so you bring up a good point unless if there are
[03:02:13] explosions that's where they're gonna be she make a video or everything explodes I'm about to because
[03:02:17] of how much trash you guys talking about like I'll make a regular video and people will be like
[03:02:22] I'm I'm gutted literally gutted by the lack of explosions I know it was hard to disagree at the
[03:02:31] time I mean you know our explosions appropriate at every single situation maybe maybe not unless if they
[03:02:37] if the explosions are gonna be present you're gonna find them on this youtube channel along with everything
[03:02:44] out so yeah look up for that also psychological warfare okay to know what that is it's an album
[03:02:51] with tracks of jockel each track is jockel telling you how to get through a specific
[03:02:55] and general moment of weakness so if you're in real real life if you have been a moment of weakness
[03:03:03] which we all do sometimes put in this album boom jockel will tell you why you should you know
[03:03:10] not succumb to the weakness if you want a visual representation of this stuff go to flipsidegames.com
[03:03:18] my brother Dakota Meyer selling all kinds of cool looking stuff that you can hang on your wall
[03:03:23] we also have some books and hey the books I talked about today undone to encourage is the series there's
[03:03:28] three volumes out right now covered one covered volume number one which is an assault unit as an assault
[03:03:35] helicopter unit in Vietnam 1969 1970 that's episode 275 of this podcast covered book three today
[03:03:42] lambson seven one nine book two is called metal of honor I'm sure we'll get to that book it at some point
[03:03:49] um you can pick up the series of books there just an incredible account that you have to read to
[03:03:54] really to really understand the kind of chaos that was going on we have a new book final spin I have a new book final
[03:04:02] spin it is a we don't really know what to call it literature it is literature of some kind yeah
[03:04:09] it could be a poem it could be prose oh it's prose I don't know there's some very poetic
[03:04:16] looking things in there the way it's the way it's written it's prose elements I guess yeah uh you can
[03:04:23] check that out you you it's it's available for pre order right now I'm gonna say the publisher likely
[03:04:32] won't print enough because they're always looking to minimize any loss they're looking to maximize
[03:04:39] profit okay that's cool the running company I get it they don't want to print too many copies
[03:04:45] now some copies sitting around so they're gonna minimize they're they're low-balling it
[03:04:51] so that what does that mean to you it means you end up with second edition against the will
[03:04:56] and it's cool but at some point you're gonna meet me
[03:05:00] gotta come I'm not gonna say I'll sign your second edition but I'm gonna know and you're gonna know
[03:05:04] uh that you hesitated at the moment at truth don't let that be you that's all I'm saying
[03:05:08] leadership strategy and tax field manual code valuation protocols discipline you can free them
[03:05:12] feed field manual way the warrior kit one two three and four Mikey in the dragons about
[03:05:17] face by hack worth and the OG of my books that are wrote with my brother Dave Faban
[03:05:22] extreme ownership anti-cautomary leadership
[03:05:26] late for now also have a leadership consultancy it's called echelon front go to echelon front
[03:05:31] dot com if you want details on that we have an online training academy go to extreme ownership dot
[03:05:38] com if you want to get training if you want to ask me questions I'm on there one two three times
[03:05:44] a week we have a bunch of of courses that you can take about these leadership principles so check
[03:05:49] that out we have a live event called the master the next one is August 17th and 18th
[03:05:54] and we're almost sold out we're getting there Las Vegas October 28th and 29th so go to echelon front
[03:06:03] dot com and check events for that stuff and if you want to help service members active and
[03:06:08] retired their families a gold star families check out Mark Lee's mom momily she's got a charity
[03:06:13] organization where she helps out people from the military if you want to donate or you want to
[03:06:20] get involved go to americazmightywariers dot org and if you want more of my protracted pronouncements
[03:06:30] or you need more of echoes random room in nations you can find us on the interwebs
[03:06:35] on twitter on the gram as echo goes and on that facebook echoes at echelchrals i'm at joklin
[03:06:44] and thanks once again to major jate for coming on today sharing his experiences with us
[03:06:53] would of course and more important thanks to jate for his courage and bravery
[03:06:59] in the service of our great nation and to the rest of the military out there right now currently
[03:07:05] serving with courage thank you for protecting our way of life and the same goes for a police
[03:07:11] and law enforcement firefighters paramedics emt's dispatchers correctional officers boarder patrol
[03:07:16] secret service and all first responders thank you for protecting us here at home and everyone
[03:07:24] else out there our lives that we're living right now are a gift and our way of life that we enjoy
[03:07:38] it is also a gift it's a blessing and it's a luxury it's a luxury that we get to be here
[03:07:45] in this world with freedom and free will and the opportunities that we have which were given
[03:07:52] to us through the bravery and sacrifice of others do not squander this gift
[03:08:05] and don't waste these opportunities instead go out there every day
[03:08:11] and then get after it until next time the zeco and jaco out