Jocko Podcast 342: The Incredible Events and Lessons From The Defense Of Charlie Hill, Vietnam.

2022-07-15T03:42:27Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles Col Bill Reeder. Pow in Vietnam. "Extraordinary Valor", the defense of Charlie Hill. 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

AI summary of episode

You know, I mean, we were talking a little bit when we weren't recording and you know, you were, you know, your back's a little bit sore or your knees a little bit sore. I, a lot of times, even when you talk about it, you know, when you hear anytime I think of grenades or artillery in this case or whatever, like, you know, you imagine like the concussion, right? You know when a lot of times when people think of fragmentation they think of these little tiny things that are size of a BB or the size of you know like a little quarter inch piece of frag. Doesn't seem and this is me coming from a perspective of not very much understanding and knowing the magnitude of these things, especially, you know, I know what I know what a 50 caliber handgun sounds like. You know those cheesy action movies where there's like the hero is barely getting away as you know as the explosion happens like. And when you've got a map in here that kind of lays it out, it's it's sort of like a classic sort of military operation where you can see exactly this beautiful high ground, the low ground that it gives access to the way it sets up sort of being able to cut across Vietnam and split the country into control supplies and all this. And on that podcast, we discussed Colonel Reeder's first book which is called Through the Valley, which follows Colonel Reeder's combat experiences from flying a OV-1 Mohawk in support of secret missions in North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, eventually switching to pilot the AH-1G Cobra gunship from the 361st Aerial Weapons Company, call sign Pink Panther, and it was in that duty that Colonel Reeder was shot down, evaded the enemy for three days, was eventually captured, imprisoned in a jungle prison camp, tortured, mock executed, and finally forced to march north to the Hanoi Hilton. And then of course the enemy struck rat a tat crack crack boom boom ambush machine gun and rifle fire snapped around that mortars exploded everywhere enemy soldiers attacked from the trees men drop wounded and dead many of the younger green paratroopers out of ammunition and at their wits and broken ran mowed down in their tracks. All right going back to the book fast forward a little airstrikes continued other teams of Cobras worked VN AF A1 Sky Raiders and US jet fighters drop more napalm and high explosive bombs on the advancing enemy as well. We were seeing more action, we're seeing more enemy activity, and so we shifted from support for the McVease SOG guys out of FOB 2 to just kind of a general fire brigade in the Central Highlands, and so it was turning into every day we'd launch in the morning, really not knowing exactly what was happening, but we get calls for support and we go provide gun support, rearm, refuel, go back out and spend the days doing that. Fast forward a little bit the artillery stopped and what that only means one thing the artillery stopped the NBA company rose from the steep gully less than 100 yards to the west of Charlie won trench line scores of enemy soldiers raced forward the fight was on. So, you know, whatever mental mindset got me through those combat operations on that second tour also got me through first tour. And by the way, if you haven't gotten through the Valley, that was kind of a, for this podcast, that was sort of like a turning point in my mind and the podcast is how powerful it was for me to be able to sit here and talk with you and the feedback that I got about that podcast because it's hard for a normal person to comprehend the level of suffering that a person can go through and a survive, but then go on and thrive and carry on with life and, and, and, and have an amazing attitude. yeah the long answer the question I can fully understand your situation a Fallon where you say hey guys we're down here we see you and we're up you know I don't know what altitude they were but anywhere from several hundred feet up to maybe a thousand or two thousand feet. You know, of course, we're going to make fun of him and, you know, tell me he's a wimp, but we were kind of jealous at the same time. You know, you've got a section in the end of the book that you talk about where these airborne units, these Vietnamese airborne units, the history of them, where they came from. So I went out and it got ahead of me like for like second set of time. If you recall in my first book, by the time we got there, now this is going to be three weeks after the Charlie battle, boy, it was all day. We knew it was a bad situation at the time and we did all we could to help but we had no real full appreciation of everything that was going on down there until I've got all this information together to write the book. He gets home, you know, like oftentimes happens, he gets home, his family reunion, getting back together with his family wasn't exactly what it should have been, ends up getting divorced. And, you know, that would come all the way to how I've adjusted since I got back from Vietnam and I go into a lot of that in my first book of the trials and tribulations that I faced and what today would be called PTSD. And you know, you usually know why you wear a surf shorts or something like this, right? And she gets that letter and she gets it right or right after she got it, the news, the available public information of what's going on in the Highlands gets very dire and disturbing. He leaned close to me and spoken Vietnamese gotta get this gotta get the battalion off this fucking hill before the enemy comes again. Or you go like, you know how your mind kind of goes in two directions where it's either get to you, do it or it gets like over one. So it was really, really nice and harkened back to that old time memory, which is just a little further detail on his dance prowess that he got by stepping into an Arthur Murray studio, knowing nothing about dancing and saying, I just like that job. So as this is going on, I'm going to fast forward in the book a little bit to a brigade briefing situation. And, you know, like he starts having a relationship, but when he goes to work in the morning, he's going into combat. I know he wrote a couple articles early for like Soldier of Fortune magazine or something and started getting the word out about the insane and heroic operations that the guys at SOG did. In reading your book, you start to realize the way that this unit was held up, and this battle was held up almost like the Battle of Thermopylae, with the 300 Spartans that died to a man trying to protect the city. And you know how like, oh, you talk about mortars and stuff where it's like. I realized that things were happening, that things were building up, that people were getting hurt, and aircraft were getting going down, but I never for a minute thought that any of that would happen to me because there's something in our mind, in our psyche, particularly for combat guys, that bad stuff happens but it's happening to someone else. And I know they did that a lot with company and battalion leadership where a leader would come in and serve three, four, maybe five months as a battalion commander, as a company commander. I've probably got 18 interviews with Duffy, half a dozen interviews with High, who we'll talk about in a little bit, but he ended up being the operations officer of the 11th Battalion. When you start talking about having 70 130 millimeter artillery rounds land on your position on a little no on a hilltop or you start talking about having 10 51 caliber machine guns shooting at you when you're flying in a helicopter. Fast forward a little bit April 12 1972 exploding artillery shells took the 11th Battalion shook the 11th Battalion paratroopers awake. In time, by the time we get to the Dien Bien Phu battle, which is going to be the undoing of the French in Vietnam and Indochina in 1954, there are Vietnamese airborne battalions by that time fighting. Yeah we got there that second run was night it was dark and clearly you guys don't have night vision at the time. Cause I, you know, you hear like artillery year old heavy artillery or the just ordinance is just the rounds. I mean just the concussion alone from that right and by the way I was sitting in a concrete building by the way you know I'm not sitting in a foxhole with a with a poncho over my head right that they dug and those figures. so I've got all the call signs of the facts the type of aircraft number of aircraft location of aircraft that were brought in and the counts that they made at the time of the artillery strikes.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocko podcast number 342 with Echo Charles and me,
[00:00:05] Jocko Willink.
[00:00:06] Good evening Echo.
[00:00:07] Good evening.
[00:00:09] The explosion rocked them,
[00:00:11] the blast deafening in the night.
[00:00:13] For an instant it let their,
[00:00:15] lit their dirty blood smeared faces,
[00:00:18] their hollow eyes set in hopeless determination.
[00:00:22] A few more shells crashed around them,
[00:00:25] none as close as the first.
[00:00:27] Each blinding flash shown upon the corpses,
[00:00:30] lying across the battlefield,
[00:00:32] gruesome evidence of the fight
[00:00:34] that had raged over the past days.
[00:00:37] Hundreds lay dead over the hilltop outpost.
[00:00:41] The bodies of South Vietnamese paratroopers
[00:00:43] mixed with those of their determined North Vietnamese enemy.
[00:00:47] The hellacious battle had allowed the paratroopers
[00:00:50] to recover only some of their fallen comrades.
[00:00:54] They'd wrapped the number in their plastic ponchos
[00:00:56] and placed them in trenches.
[00:00:58] That was a while ago, earlier in the fight,
[00:01:01] when there'd been time to render a modicum of respect.
[00:01:05] Later, they'd stacked bodies and rows as they were able.
[00:01:09] Most of the dead though were strewn
[00:01:11] where they'd been cut down in the last hours of combat.
[00:01:15] Punctured, torn, dismembered and shredded,
[00:01:19] grotesque reflections of their final violent seconds of life.
[00:01:23] The explosion stopped, the dark returned.
[00:01:29] Only the moans of the wounded pierced
[00:01:31] the silence of the night.
[00:01:33] The stench of death filled the nostrils
[00:01:35] of the last two men fighting.
[00:01:40] Smoke choked their lungs.
[00:01:42] They waited in anticipation.
[00:01:45] They heard orders shouted from across the field.
[00:01:48] They sensed movement as another attack wave swept toward them.
[00:01:55] The American advisor leaned close
[00:01:57] to his Vietnamese counterpart and exclaimed,
[00:02:00] shit, here they come again.
[00:02:04] The reply in broken but well-practiced English
[00:02:07] was resolute, I know, we fight, we fight more.
[00:02:14] The enemy once again rose from the darkness,
[00:02:17] tearing through the night, coming at them
[00:02:19] as vague shapes, screaming and shooting,
[00:02:22] throwing grenades as they advanced closer and closer still.
[00:02:26] Both US Army advisor, Special Forces Major John Joseph Duffy
[00:02:31] and South Vietnamese Major Lee Van May,
[00:02:35] the senior surviving battalion officer knew
[00:02:38] this was the final assault.
[00:02:40] Bullets whizzed by them.
[00:02:42] A grenade exploded, ripping a hole in Major May's chest.
[00:02:47] He gasped for air.
[00:02:50] John Duffy, already wounded several times himself,
[00:02:54] looked over his left shoulder.
[00:02:56] He nodded, satisfied, seeing the decimated force,
[00:03:00] all that was left of the once mighty 11th Airborne Battalion
[00:03:04] escaping down the hillside.
[00:03:07] John and May, the rear guard, were all that stood
[00:03:10] between the remnants of the battalion and their annihilation.
[00:03:15] They'd been out of food for days,
[00:03:18] they had no water left in their canteens,
[00:03:21] their ammunition was nearly gone.
[00:03:23] But still the American and his South Vietnamese comrade
[00:03:27] fought and still the enemy came.
[00:03:31] There was no talk of surrender, no thought but to kill
[00:03:35] as many as they could before they were themselves
[00:03:38] cut down where they squatted on the edge
[00:03:41] of their abandoned positions.
[00:03:43] Lee Van May, strained to speak, fight Duffy, fight.
[00:03:50] They battled with everything that remained
[00:03:51] in their hearts and souls,
[00:03:53] but the end of their road was only minutes away.
[00:03:57] They knew they were about to die.
[00:04:06] And that right there is the opening
[00:04:08] of an incredible book which is called Extraordinary Valor,
[00:04:14] which is about the defense of Charlie Hill in Vietnam.
[00:04:20] And this book is written by retired Colonel William Reeder
[00:04:26] who was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam
[00:04:29] who has been on this podcast before, podcast number 63.
[00:04:33] And on that podcast, we discussed
[00:04:35] Colonel Reeder's first book which is called Through the Valley,
[00:04:40] which follows Colonel Reeder's combat experiences
[00:04:44] from flying a OV-1 Mohawk in support of secret missions
[00:04:48] in North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia,
[00:04:50] eventually switching to pilot the AH-1G Cobra gunship
[00:04:57] from the 361st Aerial Weapons Company,
[00:05:01] call sign Pink Panther, and it was in that duty
[00:05:06] that Colonel Reeder was shot down,
[00:05:08] evaded the enemy for three days, was eventually captured,
[00:05:12] imprisoned in a jungle prison camp, tortured,
[00:05:15] mock executed, and finally forced to march north
[00:05:21] to the Hanoi Hilton.
[00:05:23] And in that grueling march,
[00:05:26] where seven of the two men were killed,
[00:05:29] where seven of the 26 POWs in his group were killed,
[00:05:36] and upon arriving at the Hanoi Hilton,
[00:05:39] where he suffered the rest of his,
[00:05:41] with the rest of his American POWs
[00:05:43] until he was finally released after 320 days of captivity.
[00:05:51] So to hear that story, go listen to that podcast
[00:05:55] and to get the actual full story,
[00:05:58] get the book through the valley.
[00:06:00] There are, it's a harrowing story
[00:06:03] and so many lessons to be learned.
[00:06:06] But prior to that ordeal,
[00:06:08] then Captain Reeder flew in direct support
[00:06:12] of Major Duffy and the defense of Charlie Hill.
[00:06:20] And he knew that that was a story of courage
[00:06:23] and valor that needed to be shared.
[00:06:25] So he spent years compiling data
[00:06:30] and reviewing records and interviewing participants
[00:06:33] and giving his own personal account.
[00:06:35] In this book, Extraordinary Valor,
[00:06:38] and it is an honor to have Colonel Reeder here with us again
[00:06:44] to discuss this new book and his experiences from this battle
[00:06:50] and how this battle unfolded.
[00:06:52] Colonel Reeder, thank you for joining us again.
[00:06:56] It's an honor to have you.
[00:06:57] Thank you, Jaco.
[00:06:59] So what made you decide to write this book?
[00:07:05] There's a little bit of a story involved,
[00:07:07] so we'll go ahead and share it.
[00:07:09] When I wrote my first book on my captivity,
[00:07:12] that book wasn't published until 2016, as I remember.
[00:07:17] So that was decades after that experience in Vietnam.
[00:07:21] But it was a book that I had wanted to write.
[00:07:23] I just never found the time staying on active duty,
[00:07:26] commanding units.
[00:07:27] It was just always too busy.
[00:07:29] Finally, I found the time,
[00:07:31] sat down and started to put pen to paper.
[00:07:33] And all of these memories and recollections
[00:07:36] that I thought were right there,
[00:07:37] because I had lived that experience,
[00:07:39] well, when I started writing,
[00:07:41] yes, some of those recollections were right there.
[00:07:43] I remember things crystal clear.
[00:07:45] Other things after all those years were a little bit fuzzy.
[00:07:49] So I wanted to be sure that I had all of my information correct,
[00:07:52] all of my facts correct,
[00:07:53] particularly in the war that led up to my getting shot down and captured.
[00:07:58] So I would talk to guys from my unit that I could get a hold of,
[00:08:01] talk to return prisoners that I had been with,
[00:08:04] to be sure I had everything as right as could be.
[00:08:07] One of the battles that I mentioned,
[00:08:09] and I think it only gets a few paragraphs in my first book,
[00:08:12] was this battle at Fire Base Charlie.
[00:08:14] And I talked to the other crew member, Dan Jones,
[00:08:17] actually led our mission there.
[00:08:19] I was flying his wing.
[00:08:20] He shared what he recalled.
[00:08:22] Another one of our pilots, Forrest Snyder, shared what he recalled.
[00:08:25] But to get full detail,
[00:08:27] and I think it was Forrest recommended to me,
[00:08:29] he says, hey, you need to get a hold of the American advisor
[00:08:31] who was on the ground with that airborne battalion
[00:08:34] and get some information from him.
[00:08:36] So I tracked down the advisor, John Duffy.
[00:08:40] I got a hold of John.
[00:08:41] I hadn't spoken to him since the war,
[00:08:43] and now this is however many decades later,
[00:08:45] and I said essentially, you know,
[00:08:47] John, great to make contact with you.
[00:08:50] And he was enthused that we made contact with him.
[00:08:52] And as you see, we may bring out in the discussion later.
[00:08:55] Our mission that night that he was overrun,
[00:08:58] you read that part, we showed up in the nick of time
[00:09:01] to save the day.
[00:09:02] So he credits myself and Dan Jones who was flying lead
[00:09:06] with saving his life, as does Levan May.
[00:09:09] So he shared the information that I needed
[00:09:11] to get that battle correct for the few paragraphs
[00:09:13] I had in the first book.
[00:09:15] But as I talked to him over, I must have talked to him
[00:09:18] a half a dozen times getting that material
[00:09:20] over different days, he started dropping a hint that,
[00:09:24] you know, that was just a really intense battle.
[00:09:27] It was probably one of the most intense battles
[00:09:29] in the Vietnam War.
[00:09:30] And I had no idea that only 37 guys had survived
[00:09:34] out of a 471-man battalion,
[00:09:37] plus a few other stragglers which later showed up later on.
[00:09:42] So he started dropping these hints.
[00:09:44] Hey, somebody ought to write the history of that battle.
[00:09:47] And then he found and knew that I had a PhD
[00:09:49] and then retired colonel and had written that book.
[00:09:52] So finally I said, John, okay, I'll write it up.
[00:09:57] What I was thinking at the time is, you know,
[00:10:01] I'll take care of John and I'll write this,
[00:10:03] maybe a 20-page monograph.
[00:10:04] I'll get the facts down and I'll be done with it.
[00:10:07] But as I started talking to him in more detail
[00:10:10] and got to meet Le Van May and talk to him,
[00:10:13] others involved in the battle,
[00:10:14] I soon saw that there was really a substantial story there
[00:10:18] that needed to be told.
[00:10:19] And rather than a 20-page monograph that I would crank out
[00:10:22] in two to three weeks, I spent four years researching
[00:10:27] and writing this book to get it done.
[00:10:30] And I'm very glad that I did.
[00:10:32] I know that it is a story that needed to be shared.
[00:10:36] And also it shines a new light on Vietnamese forces.
[00:10:43] Vietnamese forces during the war and since the war
[00:10:46] have gotten generally bad press on how they performed in combat.
[00:10:51] Most of that was well-deserved.
[00:10:53] A lot of Vietnamese units, though they had some well-intended soldiers,
[00:10:57] they did not have good leadership, corrupt leadership
[00:11:00] and competent leadership.
[00:11:01] And there are story after story of Vietnamese units
[00:11:04] not fighting well, retreating in the face of the enemy.
[00:11:08] But what I found in researching this book,
[00:11:11] Extraordinary Valor, is that was not at all the case
[00:11:14] with their elite forces.
[00:11:15] Their Marines, their Rangers,
[00:11:17] and most especially their paratroopers.
[00:11:20] Their airborne units were the top-notch units
[00:11:26] that fought well, fought with courage.
[00:11:28] And as I did my research, I confirmed that.
[00:11:32] And that is the story that I tell in this book.
[00:11:35] The book follows the life of the American advisor.
[00:11:38] It follows the life of Le Van May,
[00:11:40] who ends up assuming command of the unit after the commander is killed.
[00:11:44] And they're the two big heroes.
[00:11:45] So the book is their story leading up to the battle.
[00:11:49] And that was how I came to write the book
[00:11:52] and why I wrote the book.
[00:11:54] And I think the important message that comes out of the book
[00:11:56] is the Vietnamese airborne.
[00:11:58] They called themselves, were known in Vietnam as the Mudo.
[00:12:01] The Red Hats, the Angels from the Sky, fought very, very, very well.
[00:12:06] And just about every single combat they were involved in,
[00:12:10] and most especially the 11th Arvin Airborne Battalion on Charlie Hill
[00:12:14] was extraordinarily valorous.
[00:12:17] In reading your book, you start to realize the way that this unit was held up,
[00:12:25] and this battle was held up almost like the Battle of Thermopylae,
[00:12:29] with the 300 Spartans that died to a man trying to protect the city.
[00:12:33] It's like the same thing happened here.
[00:12:35] They were trying to hold this hill, and there's songs about it.
[00:12:39] In the lore of the Vietnamese at the time, this unit was like the 300 Spartans.
[00:12:45] Is that a safe assessment?
[00:12:47] Yeah, it is.
[00:12:48] That battle became a landmark in Vietnamese history.
[00:12:52] The commander, as I said, was killed.
[00:12:54] He became a national hero, was promoted posthumously to colonel.
[00:12:58] They had banners to him all over Saigon and parades in his honor.
[00:13:02] There is a book written about the battle.
[00:13:06] I think it's something like The Red Flames of Summer.
[00:13:09] And then there was a song that was written about the battle
[00:13:12] that is still played at some Vietnamese gatherings that get together,
[00:13:17] and we'll play that song about Charlie Hill.
[00:13:20] The other interesting thing I found is there's recordings of you guys in the air.
[00:13:27] I listened to at least probably 40 minutes of these call for fires,
[00:13:32] and just like I was a radio man, so I wasn't surprised when this happened.
[00:13:36] But you can hear the aircraft really well, and you can barely hear Duffy.
[00:13:39] He's all broken.
[00:13:41] But man, it's amazing to listen to this stuff happening.
[00:13:46] These recordings are incredible.
[00:13:48] They are, and that recording in particular was part of the additional evidence.
[00:13:54] And we may get into Duffy's award situation here later, and I'll have more comment on that.
[00:13:59] But that recording surfaced late, just several years ago.
[00:14:04] Two of my principal sources, to be sure that my information was correct,
[00:14:08] were hard copy or hard vocal sources that couldn't be disputed.
[00:14:14] One was that recording.
[00:14:15] That recording was made by one of the helicopter crew members
[00:14:19] that went in and picked up the survivors of that battle the next morning
[00:14:22] after they were overrun on the hill that night.
[00:14:25] And so yes, we have audio, word for word conversations between all those helicopters,
[00:14:30] and Duffy talking on, he had his Prick 77 radio shot off his back.
[00:14:36] He had two aircraft survival radios with him as well.
[00:14:41] So he's talking on one of those survival radios on the emergency push to those helicopter crews.
[00:14:46] So we had that recording.
[00:14:48] Also, John Duffy during the battle kept a log of a journal of everything that happened every day
[00:14:55] and call signs and coordinates and all that.
[00:14:58] So those two things together helped give me the factual information
[00:15:02] or confirmed factual information for the book, as well as, and I'll add this comment now,
[00:15:08] if you want to get an emotional feel for John Duffy and an emotional feel for this book,
[00:15:13] because Duffy turned out to be a poet after the war and he has a website,
[00:15:18] epoetryworld.com, John Duffy, if you Google that, you'll get to it.
[00:15:22] But yeah, all of this is captured the emotion of it in poems that he has written over the years since.
[00:15:27] Yeah, and the title of one of those books is The Battle for Charlie,
[00:15:32] and it's a book of poems, and it's chronological accounting of what happened.
[00:15:36] Really cool to read.
[00:15:38] And I mean, I've got some of that that we'll read during this that I highlighted,
[00:15:43] but yeah, definitely an interesting guy that had a cool viewpoint on the world.
[00:15:48] He's a fascinating guy.
[00:15:50] With that, let's get into the book a little bit.
[00:15:53] And the book, like you already said, it staged around the two main leaders in this event,
[00:15:58] or who ended up being the main surviving leaders in this event,
[00:16:01] Leigh Van May and Major John Duffy.
[00:16:04] So you start off and again, look, go buy the book because the details that you've got in there are incredible to read.
[00:16:11] I'm going to kind of give some highlights so people know what we're dealing with.
[00:16:14] So Leigh Van May was born in 1942.
[00:16:17] He's the second of nine children.
[00:16:20] His father was a farmer, but I guess they raised buffalo.
[00:16:25] That's what they did for a living.
[00:16:27] They had, but they raised crops, but they had the two buffalo to,
[00:16:31] yeah, whatever you do, plow the fields and, yeah.
[00:16:35] Okay, got it.
[00:16:36] So the buffalo were more like the tractors.
[00:16:38] Yes, exactly.
[00:16:39] So they were regular farmers.
[00:16:41] He was a studious kid, hardworking, and he ends up getting accepted into the Vietnamese National Military Academy.
[00:16:48] Interestingly, he graduates the same day that Kennedy was assassinated November 22, 1963.
[00:16:54] And he had, you know, he kind of talked about the fact that he looked at Kennedy as this great man and this was, you know,
[00:17:02] somebody that he saw as a beacon of freedom and all this.
[00:17:06] He gets commissioned as a second lieutenant and he asks for immediate combat assignment.
[00:17:15] Right.
[00:17:16] And with that, well, when you're in Vietnam, I guess it doesn't take that long if you want to go to combat to get in it.
[00:17:25] I'm going to go to the book here real quick.
[00:17:27] He's a platoon leader at this point.
[00:17:30] Contact.
[00:17:31] Heavy enemy fire stopped their advance.
[00:17:34] The radio cracked with a call from the adjacent platoon.
[00:17:37] One, two, one, two, this is one, three over may grab the handset from his radio operator.
[00:17:42] One, three, this is one, two over.
[00:17:44] One, two, we are pinned down here.
[00:17:47] Heavy fire, lots of VC, maybe a company.
[00:17:49] Roger one, three, I'll try and advance and relieve pressure on you.
[00:17:52] May soldiers stopped in their tracks.
[00:17:54] He needed them to advance across an open expanse.
[00:17:57] His greatest anxiety in pondering his role in combat was not fear for his life, but rather whether his soldiers would follow his orders.
[00:18:06] He knew what was expected of him.
[00:18:08] He worried he might not be able to deliver.
[00:18:11] He spied two soldiers nearby whom he felt could be key to his budding plan.
[00:18:17] One carried a 30 caliber Browning automatic rifle known affectionately as the BAR.
[00:18:23] The other held a 45 caliber Thompson submachine gun, both designs dated to World War One.
[00:18:29] May boasted a more modern weapon, an M1 grand carbine that had seen service in World War Two.
[00:18:36] Come with me, he called to the pair.
[00:18:38] Stay close.
[00:18:39] May turned to the platoon, raised his arm and shouted, follow me.
[00:18:44] They moved forward, arching to the left, circling the enemy's right side.
[00:18:48] May stayed in the lead, firing his carbine.
[00:18:51] His two man assault force made good use of their automatic weapons.
[00:18:55] The rest of the platoon moved to keep up, placing effective fire as they advanced.
[00:18:59] They took casualties, individuals fell, wounded, some crying in pain.
[00:19:04] Still, his soldiers fired and maneuvered behind his lead until he got them into a position to attack directly into the enemy's flank.
[00:19:13] May led the onslaught.
[00:19:15] Insurgents fell, dead, dying and wounded.
[00:19:19] They broke.
[00:19:20] They ran.
[00:19:21] The second platoon pursued until May called them back to consolidate on the position they'd just overrun.
[00:19:28] He congratulated them on their victory.
[00:19:30] They looked at him with the respect and admiration he had earned.
[00:19:35] May exhibited extraordinary leadership on that first mission.
[00:19:39] Within days, the army promoted him to first lieutenant and placed him in command of the first company, and he routinely led company in battalion operations.
[00:19:50] The actions set his reputation as a respected combat leader.
[00:19:58] He's earning that rank.
[00:20:01] Yeah, he is.
[00:20:02] This reminds me of something to keep in mind too that we lose sight of.
[00:20:05] Americans went to Vietnam for one year deployments and came home.
[00:20:10] Infantry guys and aviators got to go two times, some three times.
[00:20:15] John Duffy ends up going four times.
[00:20:17] But those Vietnamese, we mentioned his commission date, so we're going back to the early and mid-60s.
[00:20:24] And those Vietnamese were fighting day after day, year after year throughout that whole war as we would do our rotations.
[00:20:34] I can only guess, I've not even asked May, I should.
[00:20:37] What was your attitude looking at these American advisors that would come in for a year or less at a time and rotate in, rotate out, and see if they've got all the answers for you telling you what to do and how to fight a war?
[00:20:49] Well, that's, I think, one of the complaints about that rotational system is guys come in by the time they feel comfortable with what they're doing.
[00:20:57] It's almost time for them to leave again.
[00:20:59] And I know they did that a lot with company and battalion leadership where a leader would come in and serve three, four, maybe five months as a battalion commander, as a company commander.
[00:21:10] And then they'd rotate them out.
[00:21:12] Just when you start to get comfortable with what's going on, you're out of there.
[00:21:15] And then soon after that, you're going back to the States.
[00:21:18] Whereas World War II, you were going to deploy until we won, which is definitely a different way to do it.
[00:21:25] Now, that being said, it's at least a little bit nice when you go to maybe run some combat operations in the morning and then that afternoon you go home and have dinner with your wife, right?
[00:21:37] And that's exactly what happened with May.
[00:21:40] He ended up, he met this woman.
[00:21:44] Her name was Sen.
[00:21:46] And, you know, like he starts having a relationship, but when he goes to work in the morning, he's going into combat.
[00:21:53] So that's a little different, too.
[00:21:55] Yeah, yeah, it is.
[00:21:56] And as I mentioned in the book, the Vietnamese Airborne was the strategic reserve for Vietnam forces controlled by the general staff.
[00:22:04] Their locations were all around Saigon with one of the units down at Vung Tau, which was not that far from Saigon.
[00:22:11] So when they weren't deployed off on an operation, yeah, May was going home every night and being with his family.
[00:22:18] And then they'd usually deploy the air.
[00:22:20] The airborne would get deployed if there was some horrible situation.
[00:22:24] They'd go up and save the day, spend usually just a few days or the most couple, two or three weeks, and then back to Saigon, back with his family.
[00:22:34] You know, you've got a section in the end of the book that you talk about where these airborne units, these Vietnamese airborne units, the history of them, where they came from.
[00:22:43] Can you talk us through that really quick?
[00:22:45] Because it's pretty interesting the way they were originally formed and where they're rooted.
[00:22:49] Yeah, I wanted to include that in the book.
[00:22:51] Because, again, I was really impressed when I did my research and found out the courage and valor of the Vietnamese airborne consistently throughout their history.
[00:23:01] Yeah, without giving you, you're talking to a PhD historian here, so I don't want to go off on an hour and a half lecture on the Vietnamese airborne.
[00:23:08] But the concise version is it all began with the French.
[00:23:13] Vietnam was a colony of France's since the late 1800s.
[00:23:18] During World War II, the Japanese invaded and took over Vietnam.
[00:23:25] We, the Americans, worked with the Vietnamese insurgents fighting against the Japanese during the war.
[00:23:31] There's a whole another story there that I won't get into.
[00:23:34] But anyway, after the war, the French came back trying to re-establish their colony in Vietnam.
[00:23:40] The Vietnamese, a portion of the Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh had a militant arm called the Vietnam.
[00:23:48] And they very much saw themselves as an independent country and weren't going to stand for the French coming in to take them over.
[00:23:54] So we have a conflict between the French and the Vietnamese after the war.
[00:23:58] The French had Vietnamese that didn't want anything to do with the communists.
[00:24:02] That ends up becoming South Vietnam.
[00:24:04] But as the French tried to reassert themselves, looking to the, I want to say friendly Vietnamese, but those who are aligned with the French,
[00:24:12] they, the French had airborne units came to Vietnam.
[00:24:17] They saw some advantage to getting Vietnamese military to be part of that airborne.
[00:24:21] And that's where the whole thing started. They started training indigenous Vietnamese to become paratroopers.
[00:24:27] Those Vietnamese were trained and molded on the French model.
[00:24:31] In time, there were Vietnamese airborne companies that would fight as a part of French battalions.
[00:24:38] In time, by the time we get to the Dien Bien Phu battle, which is going to be the undoing of the French in Vietnam and Indochina in 1954,
[00:24:48] there are Vietnamese airborne battalions by that time fighting.
[00:24:52] So that was the start of the Vietnamese airborne.
[00:24:54] It started on the French model.
[00:24:56] There, and so they still to the U.S. involvement in the war,
[00:25:01] track their origins to the French and kept that same proud model.
[00:25:06] The red berets that they wore came from the French.
[00:25:09] And that's what, that's what May ends up volunteering for.
[00:25:14] After he spent some time in the infantry, he then volunteers for this elite Vietnamese airborne division.
[00:25:24] And you've got a bunch of good combat stories in there.
[00:25:29] Did you spend a lot of time talking to May retracing this stuff, huh?
[00:25:33] Yeah, over a period of four years, I talked to May, I don't know, I should look at my notes.
[00:25:38] I've got about 10 interviews with May.
[00:25:40] I've probably got 18 interviews with Duffy, half a dozen interviews with High,
[00:25:47] who we'll talk about in a little bit, but he ended up being the operations officer of the 11th Battalion.
[00:25:51] May is the executive officer.
[00:25:53] Colonel Bow is the commander.
[00:25:55] He gets killed in the battle.
[00:25:57] So I spent a lot of time talking to those guys, principally May, High and Duffy.
[00:26:02] At one time, I even flew down to San Jose, went to Santa Cruz, where Duffy lives.
[00:26:07] And May and High came down, we spent an entire day sitting around Duffy's dining room table.
[00:26:14] I had blown up some maps.
[00:26:16] I forget, I think I had one to, I don't know, 25,000 or something that I blew up into huge maps we laid on the table.
[00:26:23] We went over that battle in great detail.
[00:26:26] So yes, I've spent a lot of time with all of those guys to get this right.
[00:26:31] Next time you do that, can you tell me so I can come and watch and maybe even bring Echo so he can press record?
[00:26:38] That's phenomenal.
[00:26:40] I know we talked about maybe getting some of these guys on in the future.
[00:26:42] That'd be awesome.
[00:26:44] He ends up getting married.
[00:26:46] Did you record, did you record these interactions that you had before you go?
[00:26:50] I did.
[00:26:51] Well, every single interview I did on the phone, I recorded and I have those recordings.
[00:26:54] And that entire session we spent that day, I recorded the whole day.
[00:26:59] Yes.
[00:27:00] Oh, there's going to be some requests for that.
[00:27:02] Yeah, I don't, I think when I did those recordings, it was with their understanding that we were doing those in confidence that that would not be released to the world.
[00:27:11] He, so he gets married to Sen, this woman that he had met.
[00:27:17] Yes.
[00:27:18] He is enjoying life.
[00:27:20] He's got his comrades.
[00:27:22] You've got a section there.
[00:27:24] They drink this, this Martel cognac, which is very superior old pale.
[00:27:31] That's what's written on the bottle V Sop.
[00:27:33] Yeah, VSOP.
[00:27:34] VSOP is on the bottle and the paratroopers, they say that it doesn't stand for very superior old pale.
[00:27:41] It stands for very sexy old paratroopers.
[00:27:43] That's a fact.
[00:27:45] So there's some good, some good camaraderie with these guys.
[00:27:50] And, and again, it's just wild to think that these guys are working, they're living at home, they're with their family, and then they go on deployment for two or three weeks and do heroic stuff and then go back and get back with their family.
[00:28:05] It's a whole, it's a whole different kind of war fighting then.
[00:28:08] I mean, quote, yeah, I guess you could say the civil war, we did that in America.
[00:28:13] But I mean, other than that, we've been fighting in other countries.
[00:28:18] Had that just go home to your family at the end of a day of combat.
[00:28:22] Well, in most Vietnamese units didn't.
[00:28:24] This was the luxury of the airborne, but they, you know, they did more risk than anybody else.
[00:28:29] And you mentioned them getting married.
[00:28:31] They got married during the Ted or just at the end of the Ted offensive.
[00:28:35] And may had gotten deployed up to Way City during the, during the Ted offensive and fought and his, I think he was commanding a company then.
[00:28:45] And they got that down to 25% combat strength were no longer combat effective.
[00:28:49] So got sent back to Saigon to re outfit and refit and get ready for the next deployment.
[00:28:54] And it was on that break and after losing so much of your, of your unit and all those casualties,
[00:28:59] Sen and may decided, Hey, if we can't wait any longer, we need to get married.
[00:29:04] So that's when they got married.
[00:29:07] Yeah, you've got a bunch of those details in here.
[00:29:09] Obviously we're not reading the whole book. Go buy the book and get the rest of that story.
[00:29:14] Let's look at John Duffy. The other major character here.
[00:29:17] I'm going to go to the book because I like this intro.
[00:29:20] There is no question where John Duffy is from.
[00:29:23] He was born in Manhattan, moved to Queens at a young age and then Brooklyn.
[00:29:26] He never lost his accent or the peppering of profanities he picked up in the public schools and on the streets of the city.
[00:29:34] World War II rage during his early years. He was seven years old when it ended.
[00:29:38] He remembered it well.
[00:29:40] And then you kind of, you go through some of these. This is so much this just like a, should be a movie.
[00:29:45] This whole section about him growing up in and around the boroughs in New York.
[00:29:50] You know, he's like a smart kid, but he thinks school is boring.
[00:29:54] He's really good at math, but he skip in school, the whole nine yards, cutting class, just a rebellious kid.
[00:30:01] Sounds familiar actually in some forms.
[00:30:04] And then going back to the book when he was 16 a neighbor, a paratrooper in the hundred and seven hundred and eighty seventh airborne regimental
[00:30:11] combat team visited the family. He just returned from the Korean war.
[00:30:15] The war ended some months earlier, but the soldier was just now being sent home.
[00:30:19] He stood in the family's living room, his uniform sharp, his pants tucked into his tall, shine leather boots.
[00:30:25] John was impressed. The stories of war impressed him.
[00:30:28] The immaculate uniform with its badges and medals impressed him.
[00:30:32] But the shiny boots impressed John the most, the boots that only paratroopers could wear with their class A service uniform.
[00:30:40] Those highly polished brown jump boots caught his eye and his imagination.
[00:30:45] In that instant, John was hooked.
[00:30:48] Yes, paratrooper. That's what I want to be.
[00:30:51] As soon as he turned 17, he got his parents permission to enlist.
[00:30:55] He entered the army as a private two days after his birthday before finishing his junior year of high school. Get some.
[00:31:02] He breathed through basic and infantry training.
[00:31:05] Airborne school at Fort Campbell, Kentucky proved more of a challenge.
[00:31:08] John endured the verbal abuse and the physical pain, gutting it out until he earned his coveted jump wings at 17 and a half.
[00:31:15] The army assigned him immediately to the 11th Airborne Division in Germany.
[00:31:21] So that's John Duffy.
[00:31:27] That's a pretty cool way to kick things off.
[00:31:31] But what's interesting, and you go into this in the book, his first tour is not that big of a deal.
[00:31:35] It's in between the Korean War and the Vietnam War. There's not a lot going on.
[00:31:39] He does his tour. He decides he's going to get out.
[00:31:43] He comes home. He tries a couple of different things. One of them was dancing.
[00:31:47] He's not a dancing instructor?
[00:31:51] He did not know anything about dancing. He was home. He was out of the army. He was driving around.
[00:31:55] There's all kinds of stories of what he was doing driving around.
[00:31:58] He passes this Arthur Murray dance studio and it says, dance instructor wanted, I think, the window hiring.
[00:32:02] So he walks in and applies for the job and has to scamper around and learn how to dance.
[00:32:07] So he can be a dance instructor. He turned into a very good dance instructor.
[00:32:11] He still maintains some of that suave nature.
[00:32:15] If I can tell a little side story, we had many years ago in San Diego, a Vietnam helicopter pilot's reunion.
[00:32:23] I forget how it was a long, long time ago.
[00:32:26] John Duffy showed up just because he was in town visiting his brother and he heard about the reunion.
[00:32:31] And he showed up. And that's the first time I ever met him face to face and saw him.
[00:32:36] I had my young daughter with me. I think she was, I don't know, 13 years old, if that, and my wife.
[00:32:42] One of the events for the reunion was a social thing on the midway up on the deck.
[00:32:47] And they had a band up there with dancing.
[00:32:49] So he gets my young daughter and starts dancing with her on the deck of the midway,
[00:32:54] harkening back to his Arthur Murray dance instructor.
[00:32:58] And it was beautiful and she loved it.
[00:33:01] Okay, fast forward. And I don't want to get too far forward because we'll come to this, I'm sure.
[00:33:06] But we were at the White House just a week ago.
[00:33:09] And he had just gotten his medal pinned around his neck.
[00:33:14] And we were in a social in the, I don't know, the ceremonies in the East Room, one of the other rooms there.
[00:33:19] And he got Chelsea and twirled her around like dancing moves up there.
[00:33:22] So it was really, really nice and harkened back to that old time memory,
[00:33:26] which is just a little further detail on his dance prowess that he got by stepping into an Arthur Murray studio,
[00:33:34] knowing nothing about dancing and saying, I just like that job.
[00:33:37] And there he goes.
[00:33:39] What year was the reunion here in San Diego?
[00:33:41] Oh, I'd have to look. I don't know. It was, I mean, if your daughter was 13, then it was like 13 years.
[00:33:46] She's 27 now.
[00:33:48] So 14 years ago.
[00:33:51] And he still got the moves.
[00:33:53] Still have the moves and he still has his Brooklyn accent to this day.
[00:33:58] Well, following his story where it goes from there after his dance.
[00:34:04] I guess he didn't love it too much because he decided he was going to go make his fortune as a gambler.
[00:34:09] Now he played cards as a kid. That's early in the book too.
[00:34:12] So he really thought he had the stuff he needed to be a winner at card games in Las Vegas.
[00:34:16] So he packs up his car and goes to Vegas to go and, you know, I mean, clearly just make a fortune in Vegas.
[00:34:22] You know, this is pretty common idea, you know, there's people are giving away money out there.
[00:34:27] Well, what two or three months into it, he's completely broke and he has to sell his car.
[00:34:32] He's on foot.
[00:34:35] Next stop army recruiter.
[00:34:38] So he goes back into the army.
[00:34:41] And when he goes back in the army still, you know, there's no war going on or anything.
[00:34:47] Becomes a finance clerk gets sent to Munich, meets a German woman.
[00:34:53] You know, and then he got orders to 10th Special Forces Group and he's assigned to an 18.
[00:35:00] Now, when he did that, I tried to figure out was there any school that he was required to go to or how did that work?
[00:35:07] No, there was, you know, like today to get into Special Forces and certainly Navy Seals.
[00:35:11] I mean, you got to go, yeah, you got to pass buds for the SEALs.
[00:35:14] Right.
[00:35:15] And in Army Special Forces, you have to go through a school and a lot of guys get weeded out.
[00:35:20] No, then he was parachute qualified and had some jumps.
[00:35:24] His first tour in Europe was with the Airborne Division.
[00:35:26] So he's in Munich, as I remember, doing some clerical nothing job, wanted to get out of there.
[00:35:33] And so he volunteered to go down to Bad Tolz with the Special Forces down there.
[00:35:38] And he had before he could wear a beret, he had to go through qualification in a whole bunch of just local schools.
[00:35:45] But it was nothing like what they have today.
[00:35:47] And once he gained certain qualifications and he was able to get his badge and wear his beret.
[00:35:55] Yeah, that's that was pretty awesome to read through that.
[00:36:00] So he's becomes a demolition guy at an A team.
[00:36:05] He gets recommended for OCS.
[00:36:07] And then he breaks his arm three, what is it, two, three times?
[00:36:11] Three times.
[00:36:12] Same arm.
[00:36:13] He keeps breaking his arm.
[00:36:16] Eventually, he heals up his arm.
[00:36:20] He goes to OCS.
[00:36:21] He graduates September 11th, 1963.
[00:36:24] He's now got two kids.
[00:36:26] Once he graduates from OCS, he gets assigned to the 800 first military intelligence detachment in Fort Bragg.
[00:36:35] He's not loving this.
[00:36:37] No.
[00:36:38] And this is back when if you were in Special Forces, or in like any special operations, that wasn't a good career move.
[00:36:47] You know, it's not like now where it can be very good for your career.
[00:36:50] If you're in the Army or if you're in the Navy, if you're in special operations, it can be back in these days.
[00:36:55] It was not good for your career.
[00:36:57] And the officers that were looking out for you would actually say, hey, you don't want to keep doing this special operation stuff.
[00:37:02] That's not that's not going to get you anywhere.
[00:37:04] So they give him this other assignment.
[00:37:06] He can't stand it.
[00:37:08] Right.
[00:37:09] And eventually he's he's wants to go to Vietnam and he gets orders back to Special Forces and he gets assigned to fifth Special Forces.
[00:37:19] Fifth Special Forces in Vietnam.
[00:37:21] He sent a case on and then he sent to to what is it?
[00:37:27] Long way.
[00:37:28] Long way gets sent to Long Bay where he's going to be working with the Montiards, the the the brew tribesmen.
[00:37:36] And this is where he gets his first combat.
[00:37:38] So he's actually been in the Army for a long time.
[00:37:40] Yes.
[00:37:41] And he but this is where he gets his first combat.
[00:37:44] And since we covered May's first combat, let's jump on let's jump on Duffy's first combat going back to the book.
[00:37:51] The choppers hovered a few feet above the ground.
[00:37:55] The brew fighters and their special forces advisors jumped off.
[00:37:58] The helicopters climbed quickly departing to the east.
[00:38:01] The rotor noise faded.
[00:38:03] All stood in silence.
[00:38:04] Duffy stayed close to the brew commander.
[00:38:07] They moved off the landing zone and set out.
[00:38:10] They scoured the immediate area before beginning a three day sweep northward back to their camp at Lang Vey.
[00:38:18] They had no encounters the first day but the next morning they walked into a Viet Cong ambush.
[00:38:23] Ratatat and enemy fire.
[00:38:25] The brew militia leaders shouted orders.
[00:38:28] The commander turned to Duffy pointing to his left front.
[00:38:31] VC, 10 o'clock.
[00:38:32] Maybe platoon.
[00:38:33] Maybe more.
[00:38:34] The indige force spread out and returned fire.
[00:38:37] The noise of the firefight intensified.
[00:38:39] Bullets zipped past John.
[00:38:41] Men dropped.
[00:38:42] Wounded.
[00:38:43] Others fell dead.
[00:38:44] A hand grenade landed nearby shrapnel tearing into Duffy's left knee.
[00:38:48] A wound that would reward him his first purple heart.
[00:38:51] Another grenade rolled between his feet.
[00:38:53] He held his breath.
[00:38:55] Oh Christ I'm dead.
[00:38:57] It didn't detonate.
[00:38:59] His heart pounded.
[00:39:00] He took a moment to bandage his wounded knee.
[00:39:02] Then a calm settled over him.
[00:39:05] He began to methodically appraise the situation to try and make sense of what the enemy was doing
[00:39:10] to consider the tactics of his fighters to assess the progress of the battle.
[00:39:15] He turned to the brew commander and firmly directed counterattack.
[00:39:19] Counterattack now.
[00:39:21] In the face of the brew advance the Viet Cong withdrew dragging their wounded with them.
[00:39:27] Duffy's voice followed the blood trail for a while.
[00:39:33] But their foe had escaped.
[00:39:35] They resumed the sweep northward.
[00:39:37] No further enemy contact.
[00:39:39] John Duffy had seen his first combat.
[00:39:42] He'd reacted as he hoped he would.
[00:39:45] Done what he was trained to do.
[00:39:47] Kept his wits about him.
[00:39:49] He reflected.
[00:39:50] Scary.
[00:39:51] But better than expected.
[00:39:53] This is my destiny.
[00:39:57] So there's his first combat situation that he goes into.
[00:40:01] Gets wounded.
[00:40:03] Gets hit with a grenade.
[00:40:05] Has a grenade done.
[00:40:07] Lamp between his legs which is a nightmare.
[00:40:09] And he knows that he is a lucky man.
[00:40:12] That was his first purple heart.
[00:40:14] He has eight purple hearts.
[00:40:17] All the way up through fire base Charlie.
[00:40:20] This was another situation that you talk about in the book that definitely needs to be covered here.
[00:40:31] It says on March 2, 1967, a clear day two silver jets screamed down Route 9 flying low from the east.
[00:40:40] Many in the special forces camp waved.
[00:40:43] The jets popped up, turned and dropped bombs on Langvay Village.
[00:40:49] With some hitting the special forces camp.
[00:40:51] Radio calls went out in vain.
[00:40:53] No contact with the jets.
[00:40:55] They returned for another pass.
[00:40:57] This time with 20 millimeter cannons blazing.
[00:41:00] The camp opened fire thinking the jets are hostile.
[00:41:03] They weren't.
[00:41:04] They were American.
[00:41:05] They'd made a mistake.
[00:41:07] It was possibly the worst friendly fire incident of the war.
[00:41:11] Killing 112 brew villagers and wounding 213.
[00:41:16] Duffy's green berets entered the village.
[00:41:20] The devastation appalled them.
[00:41:22] They dashed through flame flames and still exploding ordinance to pull injured families from burning structures.
[00:41:29] Risking his life time and time again.
[00:41:31] Duffy rescued survivors.
[00:41:33] Many still hid in underground bunkers.
[00:41:35] John and his men crawled into several begging the occupants to leave.
[00:41:39] Some did.
[00:41:40] Others didn't.
[00:41:41] They were so terrorized that they were frozen in place.
[00:41:44] John went for the village chief.
[00:41:46] When they returned to the first bunker.
[00:41:48] It was too late.
[00:41:49] Everyone had died.
[00:41:50] The flames and smoke had made the air unbreathable.
[00:41:54] The Americans treated the wounded while the villagers retrieved their dead team members soon used up most of their medical supplies.
[00:42:03] When proper sutures ran out, they turned to safety pins.
[00:42:08] The team helped bury the dead and arranged for medical evacuation of the wounded.
[00:42:13] Duffy requested help through channels to make amends as much as that might be possible.
[00:42:18] Emergency flights brought food, medicine, clothing and building materials.
[00:42:23] U.S. Navy Seabees construction engineers showed up with a backhoe.
[00:42:27] Together the tribesmen Green Berets and Seabees built a new Langvay village a short distance from the old one.
[00:42:35] The brood chief demanded the old village site be abandoned.
[00:42:39] He claimed his people saw it as infested with evil spirits because of the terrible fate that had befallen it.
[00:42:47] Duffy leveraged circumstances to also have an airstrip built adjacent to the Special Forces camp.
[00:42:55] John had commanded A-101 at Langvay for a little over three months when he received orders to be the executive office for A-113.
[00:43:05] The much larger Special Forces Mobile Strike Force for all of I-Core, the northernmost tactical region of South Vietnam.
[00:43:13] They called it Mike Force, Mike being short in term for Mobile Strike.
[00:43:18] So that was a horrible scenario.
[00:43:23] It was and that remains a nightmare in John's mind to this day.
[00:43:27] He did what he could do.
[00:43:29] The jets, and I honestly don't remember now if they were Air Force, Navy or Marine, but the jets thought that that was an enemy village.
[00:43:37] And I think they thought it was just across the Laotian border, but it wasn't.
[00:43:41] It was Langvay camp and yeah, it was terrible.
[00:43:46] John was the commander of that Special Forces Detachment A-101.
[00:43:50] Langvay would later get and you may get into one of them, but got overrun twice.
[00:43:55] The second time was, gosh, when 1967, I think, and there was a book written about that called Night of the Silver Stars.
[00:44:05] And so many of those guys got killed, captured, a few were rescued.
[00:44:10] I ended up in prison camp with two, three guys, I think, from the Langvay camp that were captured that second time.
[00:44:18] It was overrun.
[00:44:20] You go into some of the stuff in the book of what took place during the rest of that deployment, and then his tour of duty ends, that first tour of duty ends January 17th, 1968, just before the 1968 Ted Offensive.
[00:44:42] He gets home, you know, like oftentimes happens, he gets home, his family reunion, getting back together with his family wasn't exactly what it should have been, ends up getting divorced.
[00:45:00] And he is ready to go back to Vietnam.
[00:45:07] And he ends up going back to Vietnam.
[00:45:10] He gets assigned to the Phoenix program.
[00:45:12] Yes.
[00:45:13] And we've had people from the Phoenix program on this podcast before.
[00:45:19] The Phoenix program was essentially an assassination program to kill senior Viet Cong leadership and just assassinate them.
[00:45:30] It didn't seem like John liked that idea very much.
[00:45:33] He did not like it at all.
[00:45:36] He claimed two things.
[00:45:38] One, he said his Vietnamese language capability wasn't good enough.
[00:45:42] But that was just an excuse, I think.
[00:45:44] He didn't want anything to do with Phoenix.
[00:45:47] He set his sights other places.
[00:45:50] And so he pretty much just had heard.
[00:45:54] Had he heard about SOG at this point?
[00:45:57] Yeah, he had heard about SOG in large.
[00:46:00] I mean, he commanded A-101, so Special Forces Experience and SOG missions going into Laos from Vietnam.
[00:46:08] He was aware of it.
[00:46:09] So he just grabbed his records and headed to SOG headquarters in Saigon to make his case.
[00:46:19] Shows up there.
[00:46:20] Shows up at the SOG headquarters.
[00:46:23] And SOG, I might say, as they, the special operations were running SOG,
[00:46:31] thought they had a little covert deal here because SOG stood for in the sign on the street out in front of the building
[00:46:38] was Studies and Observations Group.
[00:46:40] It was kind of an innocuous means nothing deal and who would know and who would care what went on there.
[00:46:46] But in short order, their exploits became, excuse me, somewhat known.
[00:46:51] At least that they were doing sneaky, strained stuff probably across the border.
[00:46:56] So most everybody when they'd hear SOG would think it's just Special Operations Group.
[00:47:00] That's what it was.
[00:47:01] So their Studies and Observations Group didn't care it too well.
[00:47:05] But yeah, so John found his way to their headquarters building,
[00:47:08] which was just a building on a street in Saigon.
[00:47:11] It wasn't on a military base at all.
[00:47:13] And yeah, went in to make his case that he didn't want to have anything to do with Phoenix and could they help him.
[00:47:19] Colonel Eiler, who's one of the SOG commanders,
[00:47:24] he says, sat down behind his desk and read through John's military records.
[00:47:28] They chatted for a while.
[00:47:29] The Colonel made a phone call.
[00:47:31] He leaned back in his chair and said, you're no longer assigned to the Phoenix program.
[00:47:34] You're now a member of SOG.
[00:47:36] Welcome aboard.
[00:47:37] I want you to cut off all the insignia from your uniforms and report back here at 0700 tomorrow morning with all your stuff.
[00:47:45] Duffy responded with a loud yes, sir.
[00:47:48] He gets an in brief.
[00:47:53] We run MacV Sog missions onto the trail.
[00:47:56] Same as the launch sites in South Vietnam, but we are weather backup.
[00:48:00] When things are too scoched on that side, we insert and recover teams from here.
[00:48:05] SOG teams out of Vietnam are normally three U.S. and eight to 10 indigenous.
[00:48:10] Most of that we work with our two U.S. and four indige because the helicopter limitations.
[00:48:16] John asked, what exactly do we do?
[00:48:18] Mostly reconnaissance behind enemy lines, watching the trail, gathering intel and sometimes directing airstrikes on enemy convoys or fuel and supply depots.
[00:48:28] They'll tap into communications lines when they find them.
[00:48:32] They also conduct ground raids to destroy supplies and equipment.
[00:48:35] They'll mine roads on occasion and snatch prisoners too.
[00:48:39] He looked right at John, all highly classified.
[00:48:42] We don't exist.
[00:48:43] We're not here.
[00:48:44] His expression tightened.
[00:48:46] It's dicey.
[00:48:47] We've lost a number of teams.
[00:48:51] He turned and motion to John.
[00:48:53] Let's go meet the commander and get you settled in.
[00:48:55] Major Bill Shetland, the MLT-3 commander made Captain Duffy his executive officer overseeing operations and intelligence activities.
[00:49:03] At the same time, Duffy functioned as a launch officer responsible for coordinating individual SOG team missions.
[00:49:09] He also routinely flew in the OV-10 Broncos as a backseat SOG observer.
[00:49:14] The front seat US Air Force pilots were all qualified forward air controllers or fax.
[00:49:20] The aircraft provided an immediate available overhead capability to synchronize support in real time as a team conducted its assigned mission deep in enemy held territory.
[00:49:34] So, yeah, we've had quite a few SOG guys on here.
[00:49:40] So he's up basically flying Covey, right?
[00:49:43] Yeah, they called the guys that flew in the aircraft Covey riders.
[00:49:47] They were SOG qualified guys, special forces guys could really appreciate and relate to the mission.
[00:49:53] And from the air, they would coordinate all support.
[00:49:57] As that said, the front seat Air Force pilot of the OV-10 was qualified as a fax forward air controller.
[00:50:04] But in time, the backseat Covey riders could do as much adjustment of air as that front seat.
[00:50:11] I might comment, there was a time a few years ago where I couldn't have put those sentences in that book.
[00:50:16] It was still sensitive, highly classified information.
[00:50:20] And it goes to another former SOG guy who wrote some books and the first book I think that really got this information out in the open.
[00:50:28] His name is John Plaster, and he wrote a book called SOG America's Secret Commandos.
[00:50:33] And he coordinated and cleared to get that information out.
[00:50:37] But until then, even the involvement I had in my mission before I was shot down and captured supporting SOG,
[00:50:42] I couldn't people say, what'd you do in the great Vietnam war as well?
[00:50:45] And I was in gunships, and that's about all I can talk about. So John Plaster got this all out in the open,
[00:50:50] so we could give that level of detail of what John Duffy was doing.
[00:50:55] And I don't know if we mentioned Mobile Launch Team 3 was out of Nong Khong Phnom, Thailand.
[00:51:00] So this part of SOG was on the west side of Laos.
[00:51:05] Most of their operations ran from forward operating bases or FOBS inside of Vietnam.
[00:51:09] There were three of them that would launch the teams into Laos and recover back into Vietnam.
[00:51:14] But if the weather was ghost, then all the weight went on Mobile Launch Team 3 and Nong Khong Phnom to come in from the Thailand side.
[00:51:21] Yeah, it's crazy. I think it was a 20-year waiting period that they had on the SOG mission,
[00:51:29] so nothing was said about it until like 1995 or 1994 before anyone even broached the subject.
[00:51:38] We've had John Striker Myron here a few times. I know he wrote a couple articles early for like Soldier of Fortune magazine
[00:51:45] or something and started getting the word out about the insane and heroic operations that the guys at SOG did.
[00:51:54] Yeah, just crazy.
[00:51:57] So John Duffy was flying Covey Rider on that second tour of duty,
[00:52:00] in addition to being the launch officer and all the other admin responsibilities in the unit,
[00:52:04] but he spent a lot of time in OB-10s out over the trail, supporting those guys on the ground.
[00:52:11] Yeah, and he clearly, which we'll see, he got extremely good at understanding how to utilize air support.
[00:52:18] No doubt about it. He received five air medals for Valor during the missions.
[00:52:23] He flew there following a year of challenging and rewarding services.
[00:52:26] Second combat tour ended. He got orders back to the United States.
[00:52:29] So that ends John Duffy's tour. Meanwhile, May, Levant May, is also continuing to get more and more combat experience,
[00:52:41] especially now where after Tet of 1968, he fought in Quezon, he fought in the A'shaw Valley.
[00:52:49] He was in the field fighting when he got radio traffic that he was, that he had a son.
[00:52:58] He was part of Lamsan 719, the largest helicopter assault the war, which we covered on podcasts 294 with a Huey pilot JTate.
[00:53:11] And what Van May did on that, he was held in reserve.
[00:53:18] So there was a bunch of Vietnamese troops that went in into Cambodia and he was in reserve.
[00:53:26] So that unit was in reserve. So they didn't go in.
[00:53:29] And into Laos. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 719.
[00:53:32] And yeah, he was part of the second brigade and they were supposed to be the final,
[00:53:38] and they were going to do an airborne or air mobile assault at the town of Chapon,
[00:53:42] which was the end of this attack into Laos.
[00:53:46] But for some reason, his mission got changed and he never did that.
[00:53:51] I think the president of Vietnam got a little bit cold feet and decided to withdraw earlier than anticipated.
[00:53:57] Of course, that withdrawal turned into a route.
[00:53:59] They had some ground forces in there, some Rangers trying to hold some outposts on either side of the advance,
[00:54:05] and that turned into a mess.
[00:54:07] But yeah, May's unit never got deployed across the border on Lamsan 719, was held in reserve.
[00:54:13] The only action they saw was when the Vietnamese forces were coming back across the border, they facilitated that crossing.
[00:54:20] And meanwhile, while that's happening, John Duffy, he wants to get back to Vietnam, of course, again.
[00:54:28] He can't get orders. He's trying to get orders.
[00:54:32] And finally, he volunteers to go back to Sog.
[00:54:35] And he's thinking, hey, you know what? Great. I'll go back to Sog.
[00:54:39] I'll get some more combat experience.
[00:54:41] Well, when he gets back to Sog, he gets told you're too senior for anything in the field.
[00:54:46] So you're basically going to be riding a desk.
[00:54:49] He doesn't like that. He didn't like being in a combat zone with no combat.
[00:54:53] That's how you put it in the book.
[00:54:57] He spends four months there at Sog headquarters, and then he asks to get reassigned to MACV's Team 162,
[00:55:07] which was a team that worked directly with the Vietnamese airborne units.
[00:55:11] And the colonel that's he's asking to go and get this transfer from tells him you'll be killed.
[00:55:19] You ignorant son of a bitch. And Duffy replies, so be it.
[00:55:23] John Duffy wanted to get back into combat badly.
[00:55:29] He drives to Red Hat Hill. What's the deal with Red Hat Hill?
[00:55:34] Red Hat Hill is an army of the Republic of Vietnam airborne base on the edge of Saigon,
[00:55:41] northeast of the downtown city of Saigon.
[00:55:45] And that was a it was the base for the 11th Airborne Battalion and a small advisory group.
[00:55:53] And they trained there. Their barracks were there.
[00:55:56] And it was from there that they would deploy to their combat operations.
[00:55:59] And again, close enough May's family was in Saigon, so it was close enough that he could again drive home every night and spend time at home and then go back to work in the morning.
[00:56:10] He gets up there where he's going to become an advisor and the battalion commanders having a weekly meeting.
[00:56:16] And I'm going to go to the book for when he shows up.
[00:56:19] This weekly meeting is happening as business wrapped up the six foot three strapping Americans strode through the door.
[00:56:25] His look intense his movement deliberate.
[00:56:28] He wore a brand new camouflage pattern airborne uniform and the red Vietnamese beret.
[00:56:34] He scanned the room and spotted the ranking officer Colonel bow.
[00:56:39] He walked over to him. The two spoke bow looked over before turning to the group.
[00:56:44] This is our new senior advisor Major John Duffy. He is an American Special Forces officer.
[00:56:50] All eyes were on John.
[00:56:52] After a somewhat awkward pause, bow commented or bow continued. Why don't you tell us about yourself Major Duffy?
[00:56:58] John briefly recounted his previous tours in Vietnam highlighting his combat experience.
[00:57:03] On concluding, he said, I'm very glad to be here.
[00:57:06] His sincerity impressed everyone.
[00:57:09] They all greeted him individually and in small groups may just stared for a time.
[00:57:14] He was taken with the fact that John was a special that John was special forces.
[00:57:18] He knew their work along the border and it heard stories of their covert operations.
[00:57:23] He'd seen the John Wayne movie at the Saigon Theater.
[00:57:27] The soundtrack tune Barry Sadler's Bawl of the Green Berets played in his head.
[00:57:31] Finally, he stepped forward in his very best English.
[00:57:34] He said, Hello, I'm Major May the XL.
[00:57:38] John looked at him smiled and said in his best Vietnamese. I'm Major John Duffy.
[00:57:44] I look forward to working with you.
[00:57:46] May smiled broadly. He wanted to learn all he could from this American.
[00:57:50] As senior advisor protocol dictated that John would work principally with the commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bough.
[00:57:57] Normally, his contact with the executive officer may would be minimal.
[00:58:02] The XO was to pair with an assistant advisor, but from the outset, this was no normal relationship.
[00:58:08] There was no assistant advisor. John was it.
[00:58:11] Personnel shortages dictated filling the three man team with only one person.
[00:58:16] From the outset, the strapping American intrigued May and John Duffy saw something in May that immediately impressed him.
[00:58:24] Thereafter, May took every opportunity to talk to John during breaks and training and after unit meetings.
[00:58:31] May drew from John's Green Beret experience while John learned all he could about arvin procedures
[00:58:38] and, most importantly, getting a better understanding of Vietnamese culture.
[00:58:45] Pretty cool introduction. Those guys, they kind of hit it off out of the gate.
[00:58:49] Yep, right. Immediately.
[00:58:52] Not long after that, they start operating. They start doing missions.
[00:58:57] Going to the book here. At dawn on October 5, 1971, the North Vietnamese attacked in earnest.
[00:59:02] A force of over a thousand soldiers hit the battalion hard. Enemy mortars and rockets pounded them.
[00:59:08] John woke with a start. Officers and sergeants shouted command, bringing a disciplined response to the madness around them.
[00:59:15] John made his way to Bao. Hai was already there. Who's Hai? The operations officer?
[00:59:20] Hai is the operations officer, the battalion S3.
[00:59:22] So Bao is the commander. Hai is the operations officer.
[00:59:25] May ran up in an instant. Bao calmly passed orders through the radio operator.
[00:59:30] Seeing his team assembled, he said, Ground Attack, come for sure. Hai, get us VNAF, Vietnamese Air Force.
[00:59:38] VNAF, yeah, any one Sky Raiders?
[00:59:40] Put artillery all around perimeter. May, go to companies. Coordinate counterattack. Duffy, how about air strikes?
[00:59:46] Quick and real close. Bao went on in Vietnamese for a moment, providing more detail to his operations officer and ex-o.
[00:59:54] The sound of bugles and whistles and screams filled the air. Small arms fire intensified. The ground attack had begun.
[01:00:03] Go, Bao commanded. They each set about their tasks. John moved a short distance away to a protected spot and got on his radio,
[01:00:10] attempting to contact American forward air controller, who was airborne in a small propeller-driven spotter plane.
[01:00:16] Any FAC, any FAC, this is Dusty Cyanide, advisor with Vietnamese Airborne Battalion, under attack. Need air badly.
[01:00:24] Any FAC, any FAC, station calling for FAC, this is Chico 1-2. Roger 1-2, this is Dusty Cyanide,
[01:00:31] been receiving heavy incoming ground attack underway, multiple enemy battalions, holding as best we can, but need air.
[01:00:38] Understood, Dusty, we'll have fighters for you shortly. What are the friendly locations and where are the enemy targets?
[01:00:45] John passed the details for the strike to the forward air controller. Bao approached. As they discussed options for the battle,
[01:00:51] a rocket blast hit them with the full fury of a shrapnel. Fragments peppered the left side of John's face and tore into Bao's right eye.
[01:00:59] It looked bad, blackened and bloody. They wiped their wounds and continued the fight. Bao headed toward the sound of the most intense fighting.
[01:01:07] Duffy looked around and saw several critically wounded nearby. Dismissing his own injuries, he left his protected position,
[01:01:14] exposing himself to enemy fire so he could render first aid. He saw the battalion surgeon, Dr. Liu.
[01:01:21] Is that right, Liu?
[01:01:23] Dr. Liu.
[01:01:24] Dr. Liu doing the same. His uniform torn and dirty. His body bloodied from his own wounds. Once the jet fighters arrived,
[01:01:31] John moved about wherever necessary to best direct air strikes, remaining calm and focused, oblivious to the bullets flying around him.
[01:01:38] That day, John Duffy put in more than 40 flights of fighter aircraft. Those air strikes on top of the courageous fighting of the paratroopers
[01:01:46] saved the battalion from being overrun. May led a successful counterattack with one 14 company in the lead.
[01:01:54] In the midst of the fray, Duffy found time to supervise cutting a landing zone so that VNAF Medevac helicopters could get in to pick up the wounded.
[01:02:04] The NVA killed 10 11th battalion paratroopers and wounded 74. When it was all over, Duffy, Bao, May, and Hai stood facing each other,
[01:02:16] their uniforms soiled with dirt and blood, their faces smudged with filth, their eyes red from exhaustion.
[01:02:22] Bao studied his team, smiled, and nodded in appreciation. May looked at the intensity on John Duffy's face.
[01:02:29] John returned his glance, softened his expression, and gave his friend a knowing wink.
[01:02:36] These guys are in it.
[01:02:42] Yeah, that was the end of one hellacious battle for those guys. And Bao's eye injury, he lost his eye in that battle.
[01:02:52] Would not be Medevac continued to fight with those guys. It was quite something.
[01:02:58] Yeah, look, I apologize. I kind of jumped towards the end of that battle. There's a whole scene running up to that.
[01:03:04] We can't read the whole book.
[01:03:07] Exactly. When you want the rest of those details, get the book.
[01:03:12] You go over more operations, you detail them, the bonds between these guys strengthen. They really become real true comrades.
[01:03:24] And then my fast forward a little bit. The 11th Airborne Battalion headed to Khantum on March 31, 1972.
[01:03:32] Conditions there grew more intense each day. For months, intelligence reports had warned of North Vietnamese preparations for a major attack.
[01:03:41] Two Cobra gunships from the US Army's 361st Aerial Weapons Company spotted enemy tanks in late January.
[01:03:49] Subsequent sightings by other American helicopters and the Vietnamese Air Force followed.
[01:03:54] Arvin ground patrols encountered even larger NVA units as the weeks progressed.
[01:03:59] Prisoners and documents seized in February confirmed the presence of 10 to 20,000 NVA soldiers along with tanks, artillery,
[01:04:09] and large numbers of anti-aircraft weapons all poised in the tri-border area of western Khantum province.
[01:04:20] Something bad is about to happen.
[01:04:23] You know, it's interesting. This is going to turn into or turn out to be the 1972 Easter offensive.
[01:04:31] This is March 31st of 1972. Nobody had a clue.
[01:04:40] I mean, we knew that the enemy was up to something and in our support of the SOG guys out there, they had seen stuff going on.
[01:04:46] But it is all about to come to a crescendo here in the Central Highlands as well as, well, the Easter offensive began.
[01:04:55] And I think we'll get to that with an invasion across the demilitarized zone in the north and I-Corps, the northern area of South Vietnam,
[01:05:02] out of Cambodia towards Saigon, trying to thrust a Saigon, and then out of Laos and Cambodia into Khantum province into the Central Highlands.
[01:05:12] And we're going to soon find ourselves right in the middle of the largest enemy offensive of the war while Americans were still there.
[01:05:21] Now most, well, most people don't know anything about the Vietnam War anyway, but most who know something about the Vietnam War will tell you that the largest offensive was Tet of 68.
[01:05:30] That certainly gets the most notoriety. In the spring of 1972, most American ground forces were gone. We were withdrawing from the war.
[01:05:39] So the Easter offensive doesn't get quite the notoriety, but it was a significantly larger enemy operation than the Tet offensive of 68.
[01:05:48] And this marked a watershed change. The war was no longer a guerrilla war with the Easter offensive of 72.
[01:05:56] It was a conventional war. North Vietnam sent every division they had save one that they kept in the north.
[01:06:02] Every other division came south and it was regular infantry, armor, tanks, air defense all over the place. And it was something.
[01:06:13] What did this seem like from your perspective at the time on the ground?
[01:06:19] You're what? How old are you at this point 25 something like 20 by the Easter offensive? I was 26.
[01:06:26] I went to Vietnam on my second tour at 25 had a birthday in late December. So I was a young 26 year old army captain.
[01:06:34] So obviously now you know you look back and you see this big strategic picture.
[01:06:39] What did it look like for you on the ground when you're 26 years old and you're a friggin helicopter gunslinger?
[01:06:46] Yeah, well, we were just flying missions, you know, and the missions up until then we're supporting the Macbysauk operations.
[01:06:53] And those were just full of excitement too, because with the enemy buildup that we were just beginning to have an appreciation for those teams most often.
[01:07:05] I don't want to overstate it, but I think I can say most often after we put them in their extractions were a tacky, tactile emergency,
[01:07:12] because they had made contact with the enemy and the enemy had discovered them and was in hot pursuit.
[01:07:18] And they were very exciting extractions with us firing Cobra weapons very, very close for their extraction.
[01:07:25] And even their missions inside of South Vietnam now, which as I said earlier was primarily what they were doing.
[01:07:31] Still, the enemy was in growing strength, so every one of their missions was pretty dicey.
[01:07:37] Yeah, so what was it? I don't know, what is it for a 26 year old? I mean, you've been there too as a young guy off in combat.
[01:07:44] Yeah, you're getting shot at, aircraft are taking hits. It's exciting for the guys on the ground trying to get them out of there.
[01:07:53] There's some fear on the missions. I mean, you'd be crazy if you're not afraid when you're in the middle of combat,
[01:07:59] but you're doing what you're trained to do, so you focus on that and you get through it.
[01:08:04] And for aviators, luckily at the end of the day, we get to fly back to the air base and get out of our helicopter and go to our little officers club
[01:08:11] and start throwing down some drinks to get ready to do the same thing the next day.
[01:08:16] We didn't really appreciate what this buildup signified.
[01:08:21] We were seeing more action, we're seeing more enemy activity, and so we shifted from support for the McVease SOG guys out of FOB 2
[01:08:30] to just kind of a general fire brigade in the Central Highlands, and so it was turning into every day we'd launch in the morning,
[01:08:37] really not knowing exactly what was happening, but we get calls for support and we go provide gun support, rearm, refuel, go back out and spend the days doing that.
[01:08:48] I guess there was some level of worry even for a 26-year-old that started to mount because then we started to have an aircraft shot down.
[01:08:56] We had an OH-58 shot down and the pilot was missing in action, assumed captured, and so there was all that to be concerned about,
[01:09:06] but that comes back to the attitude that young people have.
[01:09:10] I realized that things were happening, that things were building up, that people were getting hurt, and aircraft were getting going down,
[01:09:17] but I never for a minute thought that any of that would happen to me because there's something in our mind, in our psyche, particularly for combat guys,
[01:09:27] that bad stuff happens but it's happening to someone else. It's not going to happen to me, and that's how you strap into the helicopter every day and go back out and do the same thing again.
[01:09:38] Now you got shot down in your first deployment to Vietnam.
[01:09:41] I did.
[01:09:42] And you survived obviously and you evaded the enemy and you got picked up. Do you think that bolstered your confidence?
[01:09:50] Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to talk too much about my own psychology because after I got back to being a prisoner, we had to have psychological evaluations and stuff,
[01:10:01] and the psychiatrists say, well, you know, what are some of the things you enjoy?
[01:10:04] Well, you know, I was a forest firefighter and I enjoyed that and I did a little college, rode some rodeo, and I like to ride motorcycles, and the guy, oh, okay, would you have a death?
[01:10:15] No, I don't have a death wish.
[01:10:16] So yeah, I don't know. There's something about psychological makeup of some people that they do okay in that type of situation.
[01:10:26] And, you know, that would come all the way to how I've adjusted since I got back from Vietnam and I go into a lot of that in my first book of the trials and tribulations that I faced and what today would be called PTSD.
[01:10:39] But, you know, I got through all of that and I tell some of the ways that I did that and I think I'm semi-finding today.
[01:10:46] So, you know, whatever mental mindset got me through those combat operations on that second tour also got me through first tour.
[01:10:55] I was shot down over the middle of Laos. I had injuries to my neck. I rode an ejection seat out a very short parachute ride down.
[01:11:02] We were crashing through the trees by the time I punched out. So I got a partial suit deployment and I hit the ground.
[01:11:09] But as soon as I got picked up and taken to hospital in Thailand, I was in the hospital for a while and then back to the unit.
[01:11:14] And as soon as I got back to the unit, I was up reporting to the flight service and said, hey, I got to get back on flight status. I got to go fly.
[01:11:21] So, yeah, who knows what's there. But I was enthusiastic to fly my missions on the first tour.
[01:11:29] And after a break back to the States and back to Vietnam, I had to fight because the U.S. was drawing so rapidly.
[01:11:36] I had to fight at every level to get assigned to a unit still in combat.
[01:11:41] Yeah, so maybe there's a little duffie inside of me. I don't know. I wanted to get back into the fight.
[01:11:47] Now, as you're seeing this massive buildup, I mean, you're seeing tanks on the ground.
[01:11:52] Right.
[01:11:53] This has got to change your viewpoint a little bit. It seems like everyone would say, oh, something massive is coming.
[01:11:59] Yeah, the massive wasn't there for some reason. Something's coming. I think somewhere in the back of my mind was, well, whatever it is, we'll handle it.
[01:12:07] You know, if the enemy comes out of the woods, we got B-52s and all these airstrikes and we'll just annihilate them in place,
[01:12:13] similar to what was done up at K-SAN in 1968 when they put K-SAN under siege.
[01:12:20] We just bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb and really cause the enemy a lot of damage.
[01:12:24] So I think that thought was there. Yeah, there must have been some concern because some of the attacks, the enemy attacked Route 19,
[01:12:33] which was between our base at Plague Coup and the coast, and the closed Route 19.
[01:12:36] We got involved in a bunch of operations down there.
[01:12:38] So we were cut off in the highlands. There was no road transport coming to our base at Camp Holloway near Plague Coup.
[01:12:45] All our supplies had to come in and see one-thirties on the runway.
[01:12:48] Engineer crews came in there to improve the PSP runway and make it better.
[01:12:55] There was some talk that that was done because of the situation.
[01:12:58] Got bad enough they'd have to get in and extract us and get us out of there.
[01:13:02] I don't know, somehow we still had our routine of daily go-fly combat missions and come home at night
[01:13:09] and get drunk and get up the next morning and go do it all again.
[01:13:12] How long would you fly for in a day?
[01:13:14] Oh, gosh. I don't know, four or five, six hours.
[01:13:21] But the day was longer because we would take off in the morning
[01:13:25] and if we didn't have a mission right away, we'd go stand by somewhere at Docto or at the FOB pad, the SOG pad.
[01:13:37] So there was a lot of downtime waiting.
[01:13:39] Just waiting? Would you wait in your bird?
[01:13:41] Well, we'd wait next to, not sitting in the bird, but next to the bird.
[01:13:45] Sometimes we'd play a little cards, but we'd be right there so we could launch within two minutes.
[01:13:51] That was our routine when we put the SOG teams in too. We'd put the team in, we'd go back to usually Docto
[01:13:57] and we'd just sit there and wait because if the team got in trouble, we had to be immediately available for them.
[01:14:02] So yeah, on any given day there was some downtime just sitting waiting for launch.
[01:14:07] Once the activity started picking up in the Easter offensive though, it was a lot of flying, refueling, flying, refueling.
[01:14:13] If you recall in my first book, by the time we got there, now this is going to be three weeks after the Charlie battle,
[01:14:20] boy, it was all day. I mean, I did three rotations into combat before noon.
[01:14:25] It was on my third rotation into combat that I got shot down and that was before we got to noon.
[01:14:32] Man, yeah, that's wild how it all looks in retrospect, right?
[01:14:41] What this looks like now, as you're looking back, you think, man, they had all these tanks, they're moving in,
[01:14:47] there's thousands and thousands of troops massing.
[01:14:51] It looks crazy now. I mean, I think about it, here I am a 76-year-old man and who would do that? That's nuts.
[01:14:58] And you also wonder, like, are you hearing anything from the strategic leadership?
[01:15:04] Like, hey, this is going to be a big event. Was there any kind of adjustment to the grand strategy or anything?
[01:15:12] Well, there was, as I found out, doing great. But no, at the time on the ground, no, we didn't know anything about strategic leadership.
[01:15:19] We're just a bunch of young guys flying cobras going where we were needed and shooting up a storm.
[01:15:25] All right. So as this is going on, I'm going to fast forward in the book a little bit to a brigade briefing situation.
[01:15:34] It says the brigade staff briefed the situation. It was not good.
[01:15:38] Each delivered remarks in English, and this is the Vietnamese Airborne Brigade.
[01:15:42] Each delivered remarks in English followed by detailed explanation of Vietnamese to ensure full understanding by all.
[01:15:47] The presentations emphasized that enemy numbers increased daily, flowing in from sanctuaries across the border in Laos and Cambodia.
[01:15:54] The tempo of NVA operations inside South Vietnam had picked up.
[01:15:58] They shelled military outposts and even major installations.
[01:16:02] That included the vital airfield in Can Thuong City.
[01:16:06] The North Vietnamese brought large numbers of anti-aircraft machine guns with them and shot at every aircraft in range.
[01:16:13] They appeared to be on the cusp of something big.
[01:16:17] Colonel Leak, Leak, uh, Leak, Colonel Leak, Colonel Leak stood up to give his personal appraisal in English.
[01:16:25] The enemy will come from Laos on Route 512 and move east to Thanh Can.
[01:16:32] They come from Cambodia on New Road. They build along old French route.
[01:16:38] That set up attack on Can Thuong City, both from west and north.
[01:16:42] Once take Can Thuong, they move to Playa Kho, then turn east and attack through An Khe to coast.
[01:16:50] They cut our country in half just like they do to beat French in 1954.
[01:16:56] John looked questioningly at May. I'll tell you more about that later, May whispered.
[01:17:01] He looks squarely up. He looks squarely at those who stood before him, his face firm.
[01:17:08] Situation tense. Big US cargo helicopter CH-47 Chinook.
[01:17:13] Shoot down yesterday at Delta. Helicopter crash.
[01:17:17] Crew survive and get inside fire base. Another helicopter come for pickup crew.
[01:17:22] Cannot. Too many VC. No aircraft can get close to Delta. Too many machine gun.
[01:17:28] Finally he gave their orders. You, the 11th Airborne Battalion, go on to fire base Charlie just north of Delta tomorrow.
[01:17:36] Bow. You are strongest battalion. I know you only 56% strength.
[01:17:42] You should be 836 paratroopers, officer and enlisted. You have only 471. Still, you my strongest.
[01:17:50] I put you in most critical place. Your mission. Occupy positions on old fire base and defend it at all costs.
[01:17:59] Peter comma turned to John and Peter commas the senior overall senior advisor at the brigade level. He is.
[01:18:07] He turns to John Duffy and says that string of hilltop fire bases. It's known as rocket Ridge.
[01:18:12] It is the key to the defense of Contum and therefore all of central Vietnam.
[01:18:21] After the briefing comma and Duffy talked outside. John asked why do they call it rocket rocket rocket Ridge.
[01:18:28] Peter explained the Americans named it rocket Ridge years ago. The enemy used to used to fire 122 millimeter rockets from its heights down onto the highway and villages below.
[01:18:38] The US Army built a series of fire bases to control the ridge line denying it to the NBA. Now the communists want it back.
[01:18:44] They need it for their invasions plan. Their invasion plans. He went on. It's April Fool's Day, but this is no joke.
[01:18:50] A rocket Ridge is vulnerable. Hell, the whole region is vulnerable. We're facing the better part of two NBA divisions plus reinforcements.
[01:18:56] Friendly forces are grossly outnumbered 17 kilometers north of South Vietnamese 22nd Division is not well regarded.
[01:19:03] Their new commander Colonel Dat doesn't have a good reputation. He's not an effective leader 17 common kilometers southwest.
[01:19:11] Who knows how long the Arvin Rangers can hold out against a major attack in between is over 20 kilometers of rocket Ridge.
[01:19:19] And I know the bad guys want it. Arvin artillery along that ridge line impedes their maneuver against Ton Con and will disrupt any movement south along Highway 14 toward Contum.
[01:19:30] The fire bases also block his direct path eastward. Should he choose to advance over those hills, the direction of such attack would likely go right over top of Charlie.
[01:19:41] Understood. Duffy said, comma, continued, NBA divisions pushed across the DMZ two days ago. Looks like they're planning something just as big here.
[01:19:52] Intel warns that a thrust out of Cambodia towards Saigon is possible. We're looking at an all out invasion of the south by vote by North Vietnam.
[01:20:03] And we've got no American troops in the highlands. We've pulled most of our units out of Vietnam here in two core.
[01:20:10] There are no American ground forces left at all. They're all gone.
[01:20:16] We've got only a few US Army helicopter companies and some US Air Force tack of tack air available and the B 52s out of Guam or Thailand.
[01:20:25] When we get them, that's it. Winning the fight on the ground is now up to the Arvin.
[01:20:30] Peters brow lowered this brigade was a strategic reserve for the nation. It's now been committed.
[01:20:38] The 11th Airborne Battalion was our reserve within the brigade. Now you're being committed.
[01:20:44] That leaves nothing. There's nobody else. No one to come in behind you. No reinforcements. You're it.
[01:20:51] You've got to hold at Charlie and stop the NBA from crossing Rocket Ridge.
[01:20:56] They cannot take that high ground and gain access along Highway 14 straight into Contum.
[01:21:06] It's quite a responsibility.
[01:21:09] Yeah. And when you've got a map in here that kind of lays it out, it's it's sort of like a classic sort of military operation where you can see exactly this beautiful high ground, the low ground that it gives access to the way it sets up sort of being able to cut across Vietnam and split the country into control supplies and all this.
[01:21:35] It's like a classic military critical decisive engagement or decisive ground.
[01:21:45] Peter, comma, studied John and noted you're the lone advisor with this battalion. That's usually a team of three two officers and an NCO.
[01:21:52] You'll need a backup in case you get wounded. Only an American can call in US air strikes and helicopters. That includes Medevac.
[01:21:59] I've got a special forces lieutenant. I'll give you he's away on mid tour leave right now, but he'll be back in a few days. He can join you then.
[01:22:06] John thought a moment. No, thanks. I've got it. I don't plan on getting wounded.
[01:22:10] And I've been working alone with these guys for a while now. Not a problem.
[01:22:14] Okay, but if you change your mind, let me know.
[01:22:17] Comma's assessment of Duffy. He thought he was nuts, but he took him to be confident and brave very much up to the task at hand. Peter would do all he could to get him the support he knew he'd need to defend Charlie.
[01:22:30] As an afterthought comma added tomorrow's Easter Sunday. God be with you. Duffy smiled. Thanks. Happy Easter.
[01:22:41] Did you talk to Peter comma?
[01:22:42] I did at length and Peter regrettably passed away this past year. So it's a shame and Peter is the one that submitted Duffy for the Medal of Honor because of this action.
[01:22:54] That Medal of Honor got downgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross at the time with new evidence and some of that was the voice recording that I talked about.
[01:23:02] Peter resubmitted the award in 2012 and pushed. He got centered on no way involved. Other senators, congressmen, but that whole bureaucracy took years to finally get accomplished.
[01:23:17] And it's just, it's too bad that Peter didn't live to see all this come to fruition or live long enough to see the book in its final form.
[01:23:27] I had to read this section here because we do have a lot of military folks that listen to this and this is a pretty cool gear list.
[01:23:34] Each paratrooper carried, this is getting ready for this operation. Secure this hill. Each paratrooper carried an M16 rifle, seven magazines of ammunition, hand grenades, a small and trenching tool, a canteen and combat rations, both Vietnamese and American sea rations.
[01:23:47] The officers also carried 45 caliber pistols. Each company took two M60 machine guns, nine M70 grenade launchers and a number of light anti-tank weapons, claymore mines and 60 millimeter mortars.
[01:24:00] The headquarters company weapons platoon brought the heavier 81 millimeter mortars and 90 millimeter recoilless rifles, piles of ammo, water cans, medical supplies along with food provisions,
[01:24:12] and sat ready to be hauled to Charlie on later lifts after the paratroopers were in place. Duffy brought what many thought was overkill, but he knew it was not.
[01:24:22] He had a carbine and the standard Army backpack radio known affectionately as the Prick 25, the PRC 25 FM radio.
[01:24:30] His assigned radio telephone operator, RTO, carried that. In Duffy's rucksack, he had a long folding whip antenna for the radio, three extra batteries,
[01:24:39] and a commercial long range AM FM radio to monitor armed forces Vietnam network news broadcasts.
[01:24:46] He filled the remainder of the space in the pack with Lerp rations, a few cans of sea ration fruit, extra socks, a poncho liner, four fragmentary grenades and four smoke grenades.
[01:24:56] He stuffed his uniform pockets as well.
[01:24:59] He filled the four large shirt pockets and cargo pant pockets with two signal panels, compass, signal mirror, strobe light, small flashlight, knife, P38 can opener,
[01:25:09] map, notebooks wrapped in plastic, pens for writing, plus markers for his map. On his web belt and harness, he'd fastened 28 20 round ammo magazines,
[01:25:19] four smoke grenades, two fragmentary grenades, flares, snap links, a sharp killing knife, two water canteens and a medical kit that included compress bandages, band aids, tourniquets, morphine,
[01:25:29] and a self injection blood volume expander. He also clipped on two emergency aircrew survival radios. Pretty good loadout.
[01:25:39] It is and very few other advisors ever carried those aircrew survival radios. John was very insightful because in the end, one of those survival radios is what's going to save his life and the life of those who survived that battle.
[01:25:55] Yeah, having a backup radio and then having another backup radio to that backup radio. The radio that came after the 110 was the 112. So when I got in, in the SEAL teams, we would get issued the 112, which is the same concept.
[01:26:07] But I had to use that 112 a couple of times just in admin situations, but you know, your main primary radio floods out. And one thing that was nice about those PRC 112s, they were relatively waterproof compared to every other radio we had.
[01:26:21] So sometimes they would come in handy and apparently Duffy knew that.
[01:26:25] Yeah, yeah, well, it certainly did. Yeah, and his backpack radio was a Prick 25, I think earlier I might have said Prick 77, which was a later radio. Yeah, Prick 25.
[01:26:35] Again, you've got a map in the book here as these guys, they get inserted into this ridgeline. It's a ridgeline. That's what it is.
[01:26:46] And this one battalion gets assigned this one section of the ridgeline. This section of the ridgeline is called Charlie.
[01:26:54] We'll refer to some of the stuff and again, get the book so you can you can see this stuff visually. But Charlie one is a section of this ridgeline. That's sort of a saddle.
[01:27:04] And then there's Charlie two, which is a null to the south. And Charlie three is a little null to the north. Right.
[01:27:14] And there's four companies that make up the battalion. And each one of these companies at this juncture has about 100 guys, maybe just over 100 guys each.
[01:27:23] The companies are 111, 112, 113, 114. Right. And headquarters company in addition to that.
[01:27:33] And the headquarters company is 110. Right.
[01:27:38] There and so they spread out kind of on this ridgeline with 113 on the on the north null.
[01:27:45] 111 in the saddle 112 on the south null. And then 114 has the far kind of south flank. And I guess the 110 is sort of on top of Charlie two.
[01:27:58] Right. Yeah. Charlie two has got the headquarters 110 and then it's got those two other companies as a one defending principally the southwest and the other the or the southeast and the other no southwest and the other the northeast.
[01:28:10] And again, just to simplify this if you're only listening, it's a ridgeline. Right. And there's several nolls and some saddles on the red line and these guys get inserted to lock down this whole thing.
[01:28:21] And I think it's important to mention that Ridgeline is rising to the north and and some of it there's there's high terrain overlooking the the nolls that you just discussed from the northwest.
[01:28:34] So bow is going to become concerned that he doesn't like this terrain because yes he's on a ridge but the ridge is getting higher to the north.
[01:28:42] There is overlooking higher terrain to the northwest that he's below and then and you may get to it. There's a very threatening finger of nolls pointing at his position from the south.
[01:28:55] Yeah, it is a tenuous position to say the least.
[01:29:01] These guys get in position. It relatively smooth. But you say here follow on helicopter list brought shovels, sandbags, additional ammunition, water, food as well as medical supplies, headquarters equipment and a few personal items.
[01:29:13] I had to I had to bring this up. Duffy quickly retrieved his folding aluminum lawn chair from the landing zone. It was a small extravagance in which he took pride in having along paratroopers duly harassed him as he carried it up back up the hill.
[01:29:27] And then there was the air mattress is stuffed into his rucksack and might turn into a hell of a fight. But John Duffy intended to make it as comfortable of a fight as possible.
[01:29:36] I can't imagine that I can't imagine actually that aluminum chair. I remember guys occasionally bring like not not in a combat but go into a range or something.
[01:29:46] Right. You know, you'd be out on a range all day sitin and weapons or whatever and someone would show up and these days, you know, the aluminum chairs are pretty nice.
[01:29:52] I remember one guy had one that was like an aluminum recliner and it had a self contained umbrella on it. So we're all out in the in getting beat down in the sun.
[01:30:02] This is a seal. Yeah. Yeah. And he's of course like got his feet up with a with a freaking hell of umbrella, a son umbrella over him.
[01:30:12] And he kind of won. We're all jealous. You know, of course, we're going to make fun of him and, you know, tell me he's a wimp, but we were kind of jealous at the same time.
[01:30:19] So Duffy Duffy's got his aluminum chair. John was comfortable only for a short time. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get to. Yeah.
[01:30:28] Fast forward a little bit. And again, you put it incredible about a research in detail of this. So get the book to understand the full picture.
[01:30:37] I'm going to fast forward a little bit to here we go. The radios came alive at dawn. The tense chatter woke May.
[01:30:43] He grabbed his gear and headed to the command post bunker. He found bow already there and tentatively listening to radios with high.
[01:30:50] Duffy soon bent his tall frame through the sandbag entrance and joined them firebath firebase delta only two miles to the south of Charlie was under attack.
[01:30:59] It was Monday, April 3rd, the day after Easter.
[01:31:04] Bow turned to May. Form an assault force of 112 and 114 companies leave the headquarters 110 company here to defend Charlie to lead task force may along that finger like Ridge to the southeast.
[01:31:18] If the enemy is there push him off and kill him. The Ridge has three nolls like knuckles of a finger advance all the way to the third knuckle and secure it.
[01:31:26] We need to control that high ground. It should also take some pressure off second battalion may acknowledged with his usual positive tone. Yes, sir.
[01:31:35] He added a quest. Can I take major Duffy with me? No, we've only got one advisor. I have to have him with me. You can call in VNA air strikes and artillery is immediately available.
[01:31:47] Duffy can coordinate us air power from here.
[01:31:53] So it's on and may gets again. These are like classic infantry assault maneuvers that are happening.
[01:32:01] Fast forward a little bit may ordered a coordinated attack by his two companies. They moved up the hill shooting and maneuvering to gain an advantage against their foe.
[01:32:09] They got close enough to see hastily constructed enemy fortifications with overhead cover may called in a strike of VNA F a one sky raiders.
[01:32:19] The airplanes carried an awesome load of ordinance including rockets, bombs, napalm and machine guns.
[01:32:25] Before the dust settled may ordered 114 114 company to renew the attack.
[01:32:33] Cho led with a reinforced platoon. They overran the bunkers with the loss of one paratrooper killed and another wounded for North Vietnamese soldiers lay dead.
[01:32:42] The mangled remains of a 51 caliber machine gun sat nearby may consolidated his task force around the site and prepared to continue the attack to the top of the hill.
[01:32:52] The NVA didn't give him time. They shot 75 millimeter recoilless rifle rounds. They swept down from the heights firing and screaming.
[01:33:01] More paratroopers fell, but they held their ground may organized a counterattack of his own and soon pushed the enemy back up the hill only to run out of steam as the force encountered stiff resistance.
[01:33:11] The morning turned afternoon as the battle waxed and waned.
[01:33:17] So this this had to be at least a little bit different that these that the NVA is they're ready to fight.
[01:33:25] They're ready to just engage when for most the war it was when they get contacted. They'll do some damage and run away.
[01:33:32] As I said, the war had changed this complexion. This was a conventional NVA assault. And they're going to find out they're up against multiple NVA battalions.
[01:33:42] The elements of the 64th NVA regiment is what they're facing. And then they can end up before it's over and done facing a battalion from another regiment.
[01:33:51] So they're outnumbered somewhere in the neighborhood of eight or 10 to one on that hilltop.
[01:33:58] I'm going to fast forward a little bit just before sunset. The enemy threw a fresh infantry company into the fight.
[01:34:04] They slammed down the western flank of the paratroopers causing them not causing them to bend but not break. Task Force may held but would advance no further that day.
[01:34:15] The progress they'd made had cost a dozen casualties killed and wounded. Colonel bow faced the decision.
[01:34:21] Leave the task force in place with hopes of at least securing the first null the next day or bring them back to Charlie too.
[01:34:28] The short handed battalion spread its limited manpower thinly across fire base Charlie. Bow had three separate locations to defend along the ridge stretching over half a mile to end to end.
[01:34:40] He had further deployed a huge chunk of his force almost a mile to the southeast attempting to gain yet more real estate in an increasingly costly fight.
[01:34:50] The sunset and all he had left to defend Charlie to was one 10 company consisting of the headquarters personnel and weapons platoon bow issued his order after dark dark.
[01:35:02] Task Force may disengage recover your dead and wounded and return to Charlie to with as much stealth as possible may brought his force off the Null and across the wide saddle.
[01:35:14] He led his exhausted men back onto Charlie to a little after 9pm. 112 and 114 companies returned to their previous positions on the perimeter.
[01:35:29] That night may scratched out a letter to his wife, Sen by the light of a small flickering candle.
[01:35:36] He hoped he'd get it out on one of the resupply helicopters. It read.
[01:35:42] This may be my last letter for a while. The situation is approaching critical. The colonel is doing all that is possible.
[01:35:50] The NVA will surely push forward and we will do battle. I may soon fight in a ferocious fight. The commanders and paratroopers are ready.
[01:36:01] Perhaps all will not return from this fight. That is the fate of soldiers serving their country.
[01:36:09] My thoughts will always be with you. My heart will always belong to you. My strength is a tribute to your love.
[01:36:18] Our children are a testament to our love. Do not worry when you hear reports of the battle. I am ready and I know how to survive in combat.
[01:36:29] I will come back home to you, my precious love. I will fight the dragons and return to your arms.
[01:36:41] And I included his letter in there and that took some discussion with him and his wife to see if we wanted to put that in there.
[01:36:48] But in the end we decided to. And it just really, I wanted this story to be as much a human interest story as just a combat account.
[01:36:57] And that really shows the humanity of May and his family.
[01:37:02] Yeah, no, that's did they have like a copy of the letter?
[01:37:06] It was a recollection I think. I don't know if they have the actual copy but I was able to get the words.
[01:37:12] Yeah, and again, I mean I fast forwarded you go through the courtship and the children, like all that stuff.
[01:37:18] And it is very obviously a very human story. And here's this guy. What's interesting about that as I was reading that.
[01:37:25] You know, I've read plenty of sort of, I guess they call them death letters, you know, in case I don't make it type type letters.
[01:37:36] And here's May who's writing, hey look, it's coming, but I'm going to be okay. I know how to survive and I'm ready.
[01:37:44] That's a very positive attitude for him to have going into this situation for sure.
[01:37:51] And she gets that letter and she gets it right or right after she got it, the news, the available public information of what's going on in the Highlands gets very dire and disturbing.
[01:38:05] All right, I'm going to fast forward a little bit to where the team has now been on the ground for three days.
[01:38:12] It's been three days since the arrival. So here we go Thursday, April 6th arrived with Charlie once again shrouded in fog.
[01:38:19] Earriness settled over the hilltop. All wondered what the enemy was up to behind the mist. They could only imagine.
[01:38:26] Annam, which is, which means big brother, which is what they called Lieutenant Colonel Bowell, one of the nicknames they gave him.
[01:38:33] Right.
[01:38:34] Assembled his officers and staff, save Big Hung because of 113's distance from the rest of the Italian.
[01:38:40] He summarized their situation and issued an order that he'd relay to Hong by radio.
[01:38:45] The NVA have us surrounded. They hold the mountain tops. They've positioned their guns to shoot down the helicopters.
[01:38:53] It is here we must do battle. It is here we must bleed them. Do not let them take our positions.
[01:39:00] This battle is to the end. Tell the paratroopers to fight bravely. Tell them to aim all their bullets well, for we may lose the ability to resupply.
[01:39:11] Dig in deep and prepare for combat. Any trooper not ready to fight, I want him off the mountain. I'll not have him die with us.
[01:39:21] I'll not have him share in our glory. So that's a dire situation.
[01:39:28] These anti-aircraft glances, 51 caliber, it seems like this is an extreme amount of enemy anti-aircraft weaponry that they have in this situation.
[01:39:46] It was more than we had seen inside of South Vietnam at any point up to that battle. They had numerous 51 calibers.
[01:39:54] That's a deadly weapon against helicopters.
[01:39:58] That's the impression I got as I read that the way this battle unfolds. It seemed like most of the time there was enough confidence in helicopters.
[01:40:13] I'm not sure there were some landing zones that would be so bad, but it wouldn't last for very long or they could put down fire and eventually get in there. This one is the NVA is definitely looking to deny access from the air.
[01:40:28] Yep, they were.
[01:40:32] Fast forward a little bit. The fog lifted shortly before noon. Duffy went back to work running airstrikes. He teamed with May and High to integrate all available fire support onto the most lucrative targets.
[01:40:45] With the priority of air support going against NVA offensives far to the north and south, little could be allocated to Charlie. So there's other battles that are taking place that are soaking up a lot of the air support.
[01:41:00] Yes, and the biggest one was that thrust across the demilitarized zone in the north. That was the, and the south started losing Quang Chi Province. The enemy was just moving rapidly to the south.
[01:41:11] And then once they came out of Cambodia towards Saigon, they got as far as An Locke before they were stopped. But yeah, there was a worry on all fronts.
[01:41:19] The loss of Quang Chi Province to the north and possibly Way City, which was the old Imperial capital, and then that threat against Saigon to the south.
[01:41:28] So the central highland, though it was critically important for not getting Vietnam cut in half at the waist, as the Viet Minh had done against the French.
[01:41:37] I mean, we hear about Dien Bien Phu being the decisive battle, but really the thrust across the south and the destruction of French group Mobile 100 contributed to the end of that war against the French as much as any.
[01:41:50] So yeah, all those worries, but yeah, there's demands for air everywhere. And though the U.S. is there to provide air support and in the north some naval gunfire, it's stretched thin.
[01:42:01] You say this. John developed a technique of constantly badgering forward air controllers to divert their airstrikes that were not available to hit their primary targets because of weather or situational changes.
[01:42:15] He got a number of much needed missions that way. So he would just stay on the radio. Hey, what do you got? You got any extra ammo? Is there anybody that can't drop? Is anybody that needs to get rid of some ammo?
[01:42:23] And again, that's John Duffy. If you know John, you can see him doing that.
[01:42:27] He's just like a Brooklyn guy out there trying to make it happen.
[01:42:30] Yep, he won't let go.
[01:42:32] For the rest of the day, Duffy worked with Ford air controllers Covey 507 531 and 546 putting in Air Force F4 Phantoms and Navy a seven course airs on the finger.
[01:42:45] May and high added VN AF a one Sky Raiders and a 37 Dragon flies to the mix along with a number of artillery barrages.
[01:42:55] The effort produced good effects with the destruction of bunkers and mortars and two dozen secondary explosions. They'd inflicted pain on their enemy.
[01:43:05] Fast forward a little bit. The day's good weather ended. Clouds billowed around Charlie and the airstrike ceased for the day.
[01:43:12] The paratroopers faced the evening with an ominous feeling that conditions were developing for a big fight on Charlie.
[01:43:19] Disturbing radio calls at eight o'clock that night confirmed those suspicions. John received the message in English over his advisor channel at the same time the second brigade transmitted it on the Arvin network in Vietnamese intelligence indicates the NBA plan to overrun Charlie.
[01:43:36] Repeat. Intelligence believes the NBA intend to overrun your positions.
[01:43:41] Bow grabbed the handset from highs radio operator. This is great tiger request to maneuver on offensive operations to take the fight to the enemy.
[01:43:50] I don't want to sit in place on Charlie and wait to absorb the attack. The enemy has designed airborne doesn't sit and wait. It attacks.
[01:44:00] I'll consolidate leave one company on Charlie to and launch an attack with the rest of the battalion.
[01:44:07] The reply came back immediately from the brigade commander Colonel Lee Colonel lick himself negative defend in place block any potential crossing of the ridge.
[01:44:19] Fight to the death on Charlie. Those are your orders.
[01:44:23] Fight to the death.
[01:44:30] So bow being an airborne commander wants to go on the attack. He does. Yeah. Light highly mobile forces just sitting there defending waiting for the enemy to mass his force and to send upon you.
[01:44:42] But they get the message loud and clear that was their mission to stay there to the bitter end and defend that that hilltop.
[01:44:54] Which they do in fine form and the only reason there's going to be any survivors at all is they are out of the ability to damage the enemy.
[01:45:03] So the few people left are withdrawn off off the hill.
[01:45:11] Fast forward a little bit Sunday marked a week since the 11th airborne battalions assault on to Charlie.
[01:45:17] They also marked a new conviction among the paratroopers the line had been drawn in the sand. They would fight until victory or until death.
[01:45:26] The weather cleared by noon helicopters arrived with more ammunition water and rations including some live chickens for roasting.
[01:45:32] They had also brought mail to the delight of the beleaguered paratroopers Peter comma even put some candy bars on the aircraft for John.
[01:45:38] He shared them with the others.
[01:45:43] The first day of April 11th. Fast forward April 11th 1972. This day. Hell unleashed its fury at a place called Charlie.
[01:45:52] At midnight. John Duffy's radio came to life. Dusty side and I this is Kovie 555.
[01:45:59] Following message relayed from blue chip through carbon outlaw.
[01:46:04] Arc light inbound to target location per year request. Estimated drop in 30 minutes.
[01:46:12] The air was high in the operations bunker may join them there high radio the companies commanders alerted their paratroopers.
[01:46:20] As the drop time approach each crouched down in a foxhole trench or bunker held his helmet on his head and open his mouth hoping to equalize the pressure of the coming blasts that he had been told would be very close.
[01:46:34] Terror rain from the sky hundreds of 500 and 750 pound bombs fell from the high flying B 52s the closest hit only 300 yards from one 14 company blasting the nearest null of the finger ridge exploding its shoulders and smashing a swath of obliteration along the
[01:46:55] ridge line to the southeast the earth shook the destruction was horrific and lethal debris rained down even on nearby friendlies.
[01:47:06] The NBA answered the blow with barrages of artillery mortars and recoilless rifle fire while they licked their wounds and rethought their attack plans.
[01:47:16] Their shells blasted the hill but they did little to paratroopers still lying low in their trenches after the B 52 strike the shelling continued sporadically through the night.
[01:47:26] Even so those not standing watch were able to fall back asleep for some moments of rest fitful as it might have been.
[01:47:37] Those B 52 strikes John wanted them badly of course priority was going a lot of other areas. One thing that I do point out in the book Peter comma before he became the brigade advisor was working with the commander of all forces in Vietnam.
[01:47:57] The deputy commander at the time general way and so he had a connection to the top levels of the command in Vietnam and was able to leverage that on a couple of occasions to get some B 52 strikes diverted.
[01:48:12] But yeah John wanted those B 52s badly and he got that that first one that night just after midnight.
[01:48:19] What's the closest you ever were when one of those arc light strikes.
[01:48:23] Oh it was a good ways away.
[01:48:25] It sounds like they were just insane.
[01:48:29] Yeah before the John thinks that he was the first one and I have not been able to confirm it John thinks he was the first one to work B 52 strikes and that close of proximity to friendly forces that before that they were always tried to keep them 500 meters away.
[01:48:43] He brought that down to 300 meters.
[01:48:45] I think in one case I don't remember was this one or the next one but they said hey you got to be at least 500 meters away and John said yeah we are close but no no one he wasn't nearly that far away.
[01:48:54] Yeah it just turns.
[01:48:56] I think you said three football fields in length just total destruction just destroys everything in that area.
[01:49:04] It is a normal arc light would be three B 52s flying and formation and letting all their bombs go.
[01:49:10] That's quite quite a massive path of destruction.
[01:49:15] Fast forward a little bit reports come in of more NBA soldiers only a few hundred yards to the southwest.
[01:49:25] More kilos came in to resupply the beleaguered 11th battalion both VN AF and American the 51 caliber machine guns fired relentlessly.
[01:49:34] The few choppers that braved an approach took debilitating hits before turning away.
[01:49:39] None were able to get through the deadly wall of bullets and V a machine guns blazed away at any helicopter that came in range at least 1051 caliber positions now ringed Charlie.
[01:49:53] That's a nightmare.
[01:49:55] Duffy turned to me those machine guns are out there to kill they're doing their job.
[01:50:00] They're good.
[01:50:01] Yes big problem for us problem for resupply and evacuate wounded.
[01:50:05] John nodded.
[01:50:06] I'm worried the fire is too intense they can't get in all we're going to do is get more helicopters shot down.
[01:50:12] I'm closing the LZ.
[01:50:14] Tell me if you or Colonel bow have a problem with that.
[01:50:17] Duffy took the radio handset from his RTO seller five one.
[01:50:20] This is dusty cyanide.
[01:50:22] I'm closing to the I'm closing the LZ to Huey resupply and Medevac helicopters.
[01:50:27] They will not survive the gunfire from the ridges of ridge lines above.
[01:50:31] I repeat the LZ is closed.
[01:50:33] There is no reason attempting the impossible.
[01:50:36] I've got to get rid of some of those 51 cows before we get any more heroes in here.
[01:50:42] He put in more sets of F fours on the surrounding machine gun positions and asked Covey to hit the suspected 130 millimeter gun positions with anything else he had available.
[01:50:52] John Duffy had two problems he must resolve if the 11th Airborne Battalion was to survive kill the anti aircraft machine guns and eliminate the 130 millimeter guns.
[01:51:02] I haven't really mentioned 130 millimeter guns yet.
[01:51:05] They're in the book but there was some heavy artillery that the NVA had that was punishing the guys up on Charlie.
[01:51:15] It was just pounded and pounded and pounded that hilltop and John did his best.
[01:51:19] I mean that's a long range artillery weapon and he tried to get air strikes in on him.
[01:51:23] He will eventually get another B 52 strike out there on him and never throughout the battle was able to completely eliminate those 130 millimeter guns.
[01:51:31] It sounds like he suspected they were dug in like maybe on tracks getting wheeled into caves and pushed back out to shoot.
[01:51:37] Exactly.
[01:51:38] They bring him out to fire and then put him in the protection of the cave.
[01:51:42] Fast forward a little bit April 12 1972 exploding artillery shells took the 11th Battalion shook the 11th Battalion paratroopers awake.
[01:51:51] The 11 company took the brunt heavy artillery mortar rocket and recoilless rifle rain down on hill nine 60 Charlie one.
[01:52:00] 75 big 130 millimeter shells slammed onto the hilltop.
[01:52:06] Oh, so let me give you some perspective here.
[01:52:12] I was in a in a combat outpost in Ramadi and we got hit with three hundred and 20 millimeter mortars and it was a shocking nightmare.
[01:52:25] And here they are taking 75 130's.
[01:52:31] That is just I can't even I can't imagine what that what that's like on top of one company and I don't know if we'll get to it.
[01:52:39] But it's either I think it's later.
[01:52:42] Charlie to took 300 rounds and just a couple of hours one day.
[01:52:49] Yeah, I remember seeing from that from that mortar strike I was talking about there's 120 millimeter.
[01:52:56] We found pieces of frag the pieces of frag are there.
[01:53:01] You know when a lot of times when people think of fragmentation they think of these little tiny things that are size of a BB or the size of you know like a little quarter inch piece of frag.
[01:53:11] There's no chunks.
[01:53:13] There was chunks we found frag that was nine inches long and weighed like a pound and a half just gnarly metal shards flying through the air.
[01:53:25] That's how you see that's why you see guys sometimes they lose their entire leg or they lose an arm.
[01:53:30] If they get hit with a piece that just not some little little tiny fragmentation it is a massive chunk of steel flying through the air.
[01:53:37] So and that's I'm talking about two or three mortars hitting a combat outpost you're talking about 75 even bigger shells.
[01:53:48] It's it's it's hard to it's hard to comprehend what that does to you.
[01:53:52] I mean just the concussion alone from that right and by the way I was sitting in a concrete building by the way you know I'm not sitting in a foxhole with a with a poncho over my head right that they dug and those figures.
[01:54:05] You know luckily John as I mentioned earlier he kept a log a journal every day so I've got all the call signs of the facts the type of aircraft number of aircraft location of aircraft that were brought in and the counts that they made at the time of the artillery strikes.
[01:54:20] Charlie won received 70 rounds of 130 millimeter fire.
[01:54:26] What a nightmare.
[01:54:29] Fast forward a little bit the artillery stopped and what that only means one thing the artillery stopped the NBA company rose from the steep gully less than 100 yards to the west of Charlie won trench line scores of enemy soldiers raced forward the fight was on.
[01:54:44] The 111 paratroopers reacted in well practice battle drill.
[01:54:49] Lieutenant thin the company commander quickly assessed the situation Claymore minds had bloodied the lead elements of the attack his soldiers thin the advancing enemy ranks with disciplined well aimed rifle flyer they threw hand grenades in close combat.
[01:55:04] This is just.
[01:55:06] It's on.
[01:55:10] Here's another one fast forward past that skirmish.
[01:55:14] A heavy artillery barrage hit Charlie to 1130 the 130 millimeter shells pummeled the hill.
[01:55:21] One slammed into bows bunker with a deafening explosion.
[01:55:26] It turned the place to rubble broken timbers and shredded sandbags covered the commander.
[01:55:32] High got there first he'd only been several yards away may joined in seconds.
[01:55:39] They began pulling debris off on nom their big brother.
[01:55:44] They summoned doc Lou who came running with Duffy close behind with the help of the nearby paratroopers they pulled bow clear doc Lou went to work but immediately looked up and shook his head their beloved commander was dead.
[01:56:00] He took the the loss hardest of all may didn't have time to grieve he was now the commander all responsibility rested on his shoulders.
[01:56:09] John Duffy looked at the lifeless body sad that bow had not been able to utter his final words in death.
[01:56:17] A feeling overcame John he sensed what Colonel bow's last thoughts must have been.
[01:56:23] He shared his notion with the others I know what Colonel bow wanted to say before he died I hear his voice in my heart.
[01:56:32] Tell my wife I loved her true tell my children to remember me tell my paratroopers to never surrender to you my officers one final salute.
[01:56:47] That's John Duffy the poet but he felt that in his heart and he noted those words down at the time and those are on his website of poetry I think probably in his book as well.
[01:56:59] So now they've lost this their leader their beloved leader their beloved leader big brother Colonel bow killed in one of these insane barrages of artillery.
[01:57:15] Things don't get much better fast forward a little bit Covey brought in a flight of a seven course there's often a v carrier the Coral Sea.
[01:57:21] Their first pass on the South perimeter went terribly wrong they dropped short of the target.
[01:57:27] Their bombs hit the one 14 company trenches killing three and wounded seven frustrated and angry John moved the strike well to the Southwest where he could expend their remaining ordinance before heading back to the ship.
[01:57:41] He targeted 75 millimeter recorrelous rifle and anti aircraft gun positions Duffy had also forward Duffy also had forward air controllers continue to play strikes on the 130 millimeter gun positions in the hills far to the Southwest.
[01:57:56] He firmly believed those big guns were on rails that backed them into tunnels after they had fired.
[01:58:01] He figured that's how they had survived all the air strikes that made them tough targets but they had to be killed.
[01:58:10] At 4pm 130 millimeter round hit the entrance to Duffy's bunker knocking him unconscious.
[01:58:18] He regained his senses but felt warm wet blood covering his head and chest his back hurt to where more shrapnel had torn into him.
[01:58:28] His ears rang he couldn't hear his head throb from a horrendous concussion rubble and body surrounded him.
[01:58:36] John shoved the closest guy and said come on let's go.
[01:58:42] The guy lay still he didn't move he was dead.
[01:58:46] John couldn't believe it all of them dead save his RTO yet John had lived how could that be how in the same space and time could five men die and he live.
[01:58:59] He stared at the carnage in shock.
[01:59:02] Finally he grabbed his car 15 and dragged himself from the rubble not at all appreciating the seriousness of his own injuries.
[01:59:10] His radio operator followed stunned without the radio he was severely wounded and badly dazed.
[01:59:17] He wandered off stumbling and babbling incoherently John called after him he started to run after him hobble after him actually.
[01:59:27] He had only taken a few steps when an artillery round exploded nearby shredding the young man who'd served John so faithfully.
[01:59:36] With no time to grieve major Duffy returned to his crumpled bunker to retrieve his radios.
[01:59:48] So he about gets killed on that one.
[01:59:53] He ends up being he was wounded five different five separate times during the battle.
[01:59:59] This is probably a good time to talk about some of these books some of these poems that that major Duffy wrote.
[02:00:06] He ended up writing he's written six books of poetry and one of the books as I mentioned earlier is called the battle for Charlie.
[02:00:14] And and it's a chronological book of poems about what he experienced and I got one of the here's one of those poems that relates exactly to what happened.
[02:00:24] The poem is called direct hit and it says the dust is choking the others are dead the radio still talks I must be alive.
[02:00:39] The loud ringing noise will it ever stop.
[02:00:44] I am half buried in someone else's grave.
[02:00:48] My bunker is destroyed.
[02:00:50] I crawl over the bodies all are dead or dying.
[02:00:56] I must kill that gun.
[02:01:05] That's probably his biggest frustration out of that battle is he could not silence those 130 millimeter guns.
[02:01:12] They kept they kept firing.
[02:01:14] Yeah.
[02:01:15] And when you're talking about again these barrages that are 30 40 50 60 70 80 shells.
[02:01:23] That's incomprehensible to me.
[02:01:25] It really is.
[02:01:26] It's just I can't even fathom what that must be like sitting in a foxhole with 30 or 40 or 50 of these explosions with the metal.
[02:01:37] It's just it's insane to even think about.
[02:01:44] So now we're going to April 13.
[02:01:49] I'm going to fast forward a little bit.
[02:01:51] And by the way you I'm fast forwarding past just about every page is filled with heroic insane combat.
[02:02:00] Fast forward a little bit though.
[02:02:02] Hi shook John Duffy awake in the middle of the night.
[02:02:05] V.C. surround one one 13 they attack big hung need help.
[02:02:11] And there's two there's two characters called hung skinny hung and big hung right.
[02:02:17] They're both leaders in the companies.
[02:02:20] John raised up on an elbow his head still pounded from his concussion.
[02:02:23] He felt groggy and disoriented.
[02:02:25] His thoughts not yet totally clear.
[02:02:28] He ached in every inch of his being need to focus.
[02:02:31] I went on hung here many hundred soldier move in the dark then attack.
[02:02:37] He think big attack maybe hold battalion.
[02:02:40] Duffy asked what time is it 0100 Christ one o'clock in the fucking morning.
[02:02:45] Do you really think they're coming at him with a major attack in the middle of the night.
[02:02:49] We hurt them in daytime yesterday.
[02:02:51] Maybe try different tonight maybe so.
[02:02:55] Okay let me see what I can do.
[02:02:57] Can you request artillery flares be ready to go in case I'm able to get some tack air.
[02:03:01] John got on his radio any Covey any Covey this is dusty cyanide need some help any Covey any Covey.
[02:03:08] He was surprised by an immediate reply.
[02:03:10] Hello dusty cyanide.
[02:03:12] This is Covey 521.
[02:03:15] And eventually that night he gets a specter on station AC 130.
[02:03:22] God bless him gets them on and is able to prevent that attack from being overwhelming.
[02:03:30] Fast forward a little bit Duffy moved about the hilltop with what many saw as reckless abandon the long radio antenna swaying over his head marked him as a target for major John Duffy though he was a man on a mission.
[02:03:44] He had one purpose in life and that was to direct air strikes trying to save this battalion his battalion.
[02:03:50] That was his task his duty nothing else mattered.
[02:03:54] He jump in a trench work a target watch the fighters roll in and release their wardens then pick up and run to another trench for a better view of his next target.
[02:04:02] Enemy gunners caught on to his strategy and open up on him as he ran shells bursting all around him.
[02:04:12] So this is one of the things that you see throughout this battles.
[02:04:16] He just he's doing whatever he needs to do to get in position where you can actually see and call him direct this fire in the most effective way.
[02:04:23] Exactly.
[02:04:24] And every time he does it he's putting his life at risk and seeing a big ass antenna on a guy that has no more primary target especially in this group then American with a radio on his back.
[02:04:35] He's over what was he six foot three three.
[02:04:38] Yeah.
[02:04:39] Yeah. This guy had to be the most targeted human imaginable at this point.
[02:04:48] They only see one American.
[02:04:49] He's obviously the ones calling an airstrikes and he's running around like a maniac.
[02:04:53] Well that's where I came up with the title for this book because we look at Duffy.
[02:04:58] I mean he's the biggest hero of the battle but also may and high and these other guys and there's a lieutenant lap that's going to turn up in this too and Doc Lou and all of them.
[02:05:07] It just is as I got into researching and writing the most extraordinary valor that I had seen and anything that I've that I've looked at that just really one hell of a fight.
[02:05:21] Yeah. No it's like I said every page.
[02:05:24] I mean I guess maybe this battle starts maybe page one 10 or one 15 or one 20 in the book but like every page after that.
[02:05:33] There's there's a heroic scene.
[02:05:39] Speaking of which Captain Skinny Hong had a hard fight in the saddle.
[02:05:43] He pushed two platoons onto the LZ through stiff resistance.
[02:05:46] A larger enemy force came out of the gully to meet him.
[02:05:49] The 112 company struggled to hold but slowly gave ground a little after 2 p.m.
[02:05:54] The NBA moved around their flank forcing hung to withdraw back inside Charlie to the LZ could not be retaken may grab the radio handset and put it back in.
[02:06:02] Two flights of sky raiders on the saddle.
[02:06:06] Major Leigh Van May had one last idea for salvation.
[02:06:10] He summoned Lieutenant Thin.
[02:06:12] Brother Thin I need you to take your company 111 to the East.
[02:06:17] Those who can still fight.
[02:06:18] I know your numbers are small but we have to do this.
[02:06:21] Find a good spot.
[02:06:22] Secure it.
[02:06:23] Establish a new LZ.
[02:06:24] We are running out of ammunition.
[02:06:26] We need water.
[02:06:27] We need food.
[02:06:28] We need medical supplies.
[02:06:29] We've got to get our wounded out.
[02:06:31] Thin displayed his normal paratroop Brazil.
[02:06:35] Yes sir.
[02:06:36] We will get it done.
[02:06:41] They're trying to establish another LZ because these LZ's that they've been trying to secure are just getting overwhelmed.
[02:06:48] The the the NBA know that if they establish an LZ then they'll be able to get resupplied.
[02:06:53] Right.
[02:06:54] There's a you know a small battle that I hate to even say a small battle but they try and secure.
[02:07:00] They try and secure it.
[02:07:01] Get pushed back and finally may decides hey let's find an alternate landing zone somewhere.
[02:07:08] Yeah maybe a little wider out to the east out there so move movies to get one and I would mention that Lieutenant Thin is one of May's favorite lieutenants favorite favorite commanders.
[02:07:19] They're they're close.
[02:07:20] Yeah and you go into their relationship in the book.
[02:07:29] So they go out and I'm going to fast forward a little bit at dusk.
[02:07:34] I saw the band of paratroopers returning from the east.
[02:07:38] He rushed to the far side of the trench line waiting as the small group move closer.
[02:07:42] He saw one 14 company soldiers mixed with the small band of one 11 company survivors.
[02:07:50] All appeared wary but in good order carrying the wounded and dead may joined high.
[02:07:56] They looked for Lieutenant Khan.
[02:07:59] They didn't see him.
[02:08:00] They didn't see any officers or sergeants from one 11 company may scan the bodies looking down at one.
[02:08:09] He shuttered.
[02:08:10] It was Lieutenant Thin his beloved Lieutenant Thin with emotion filling his voice.
[02:08:16] One of the paratroopers reported to May lots of NVA.
[02:08:20] We fought through and got to a good LZ site.
[02:08:23] Then they hit us in force machine guns, mortars and recoil us rifles more than a hundred enemy.
[02:08:31] We fought hard but couldn't hold them.
[02:08:34] The NVA shot Lieutenant Thin in the head.
[02:08:37] He's dead.
[02:08:38] They killed Mr. Baugh and Lieutenant Khan and Sergeant Lung.
[02:08:42] Others are dead too.
[02:08:44] Many wounded.
[02:08:47] The one 11 company was gone destroyed in battle between yesterday's fight on Hillman.
[02:08:52] The day after day's fight on Hillman and the excursion to secure a new landing zone.
[02:08:57] The enemy had killed all the officers and sergeants and whittled the unit down to a handful of effective fighters.
[02:09:05] May placed those few still walking into the perimeter sector manned by headquarters company.
[02:09:12] Soldiers stacked the dead on the growing rows of corpses and carried this severely wounded to the medical aid station where Doc Liu tended them as best he could.
[02:09:21] Most medical supplies had run out.
[02:09:24] The badly wounded lay there helpless and frustrated dealing with the agony of their pain and the guilt of not being further worth in the battle.
[02:09:34] High in May found Duffy still working air strikes.
[02:09:38] May told him there will be no new LZ.
[02:09:42] NVA hit one 11 company hard.
[02:09:44] Many casualties.
[02:09:46] Tin is dead.
[02:09:48] All officers and sergeants dead.
[02:09:50] The news shocked Duffy but he remained resolute.
[02:09:55] OK.
[02:09:56] Then we fight with what we've got.
[02:09:58] I'm going to rain air strikes down on the bastards.
[02:10:01] Hi.
[02:10:02] You will you do the same with VNF and already.
[02:10:05] Yes, Duffy.
[02:10:06] Good.
[02:10:07] Let's get to it.
[02:10:08] We've got some fighting to do.
[02:10:10] Desperate.
[02:10:12] It's a desperate situation.
[02:10:14] Yeah, but they do.
[02:10:16] You know, is it.
[02:10:18] Duffy and May too may had a moment of.
[02:10:24] I won't say despair.
[02:10:25] That's too much.
[02:10:26] But a moment where he was just doubting what was going on.
[02:10:29] Duffy helped rally him and he came right back and stood as the rock of the battalion and Duffy is raining air strikes down.
[02:10:37] And that's all that they could do.
[02:10:39] I mean, that's their situation.
[02:10:40] They've got their orders.
[02:10:41] They've got the situation that they're in and they'll make the very best of it that they can.
[02:10:47] And.
[02:10:49] April 14, 1972.
[02:10:54] Fighting continued through the night from time to time.
[02:10:57] Friendly artillery flares drifted across the dark skies, swaying beneath tiny parachutes, lighting sections of the battlefield beneath them.
[02:11:06] Shapes moved on the ground.
[02:11:08] Paratroopers took care.
[02:11:09] They only fired when they had sure targets well within range.
[02:11:12] Each man cited carefully, breathed out and pulled the trigger with an oh so steady squeeze ammunition had become frighteningly scarce.
[02:11:22] The North Vietnamese fired with much more abandoned.
[02:11:24] They had ammo.
[02:11:25] They were being resupplied.
[02:11:27] The paratroopers were not.
[02:11:36] The attacks come through the night.
[02:11:39] A heavy barrage of enemy shelling shattered the morning calm.
[02:11:42] Artillery, mortars, rockets and recoil-less rifles.
[02:11:46] The rain of explosions didn't stop.
[02:11:48] The battle for Charlie raged into its 12th day.
[02:11:53] As he'd done so many times during the battle, John Duffy got up out of the trenches and braved exploding artillery to get a view of the enemy gun positions.
[02:12:00] He moved to the edge of the perimeter, radio on his back with its recognizable antenna high over his head.
[02:12:06] Enemy fire hit close by.
[02:12:08] He moved.
[02:12:09] More fire.
[02:12:10] He moved again.
[02:12:11] A North Vietnamese recoil-less rifle shell exploded in the ground beside him.
[02:12:15] Fragments ripped into his left arm.
[02:12:17] He put pressure on his wound to slow the bleeding and then grabbed his radio handset as a flight of US Army H1 Cobra attack helicopters checked in.
[02:12:26] Dusty Sionide, this is Cougar 38.
[02:12:29] Cougar 38, glad to have you on station.
[02:12:32] I've got enemy troop movement along the finger to the south, southeast of Charlie.
[02:12:35] Give me some runs there.
[02:12:37] 51 cow fire in the area.
[02:12:39] If you see any, please engage.
[02:12:41] The team of three Cobra gunships made several passes over the finger, expending all their ordnance.
[02:12:47] They headed to Comtume for more fuel and ammunition.
[02:12:52] Duffy watched them go.
[02:12:53] What an awesome killing machine, he thought.
[02:12:55] Cobra's carried 52 rockets on their stubby wings with 4,000 rounds of machine gun and 300 rounds of grenades and their movable nose turrets.
[02:13:07] A few mounted a deadly 20 millimeter Vulcan Gatling gun with 950 high explosive rounds.
[02:13:14] The Cougar flight called as they departed.
[02:13:16] We'll be back, Dusty.
[02:13:18] Another Covey, 534, came on station and worked more strikes against the several machine guns.
[02:13:24] John identified trouble was when the fast jets dropped their bombs close to the gun positions, they only quieted them for a time.
[02:13:31] Once the jets departed, the guns were soon back in operation.
[02:13:35] Only a direct, direct hit really did the job.
[02:13:38] John concluded that Cobra helicopters were the best in putting ordnance right into the gun pits and silencing the weapons for good.
[02:13:52] Cobra's coming in hot.
[02:13:55] Yeah, that's a heck of a duel.
[02:13:57] Any Cobra pilot will tell you going against a 51 caliber is not a lot of fun at all.
[02:14:03] They were deadly against helicopters and even Cobras.
[02:14:07] And well, as you say, there's more in the book to be read, but I've got one account in there of one of our Cobras taking a 51 hit and the damage that it did.
[02:14:16] Talk us through it.
[02:14:19] Well, they were up, I think it was the day before, if I remember where I have it in there, but it was one of our Cobras up there and there was a 51.
[02:14:29] They were going against a 51 and took a round through the front seat.
[02:14:33] The front seater, Dave Mesa, was leaning over working his turret and the round came in just over his shoulder and would have hit him in the head or the chest if he'd been sitting up straight and not working his turret.
[02:14:46] He went through the armor plate behind his seat and wounded the pilot in the back seat.
[02:14:52] So they got the thing back over by the highway by the base where the second brigade was and landed.
[02:14:57] The pilot was pulled out in medivac and Dave got to spend the night with the Vietnamese Airborne Brigade headquarters before he could get back to Placo the next day.
[02:15:07] And there's a picture in the book of Dave standing there with the armor plate that they'd removed out of the seat. You can see the hole that the 51 caliber made in the aircraft.
[02:15:16] It's a bad weapon for helicopters.
[02:15:20] Yeah, the armor is not doing a ton of good against the 51 caliber.
[02:15:24] No, small arms, it helps.
[02:15:26] Of course, the Cobras in those days, the canopy was just plexiglass, so you got no protection from that.
[02:15:32] But it did have armored seat and armor plate behind the seat that would give some protection from small arms.
[02:15:38] Of course, the Apaches today are well suited to take all kinds of hits.
[02:15:43] I flew Apaches the last six years of my Army career, but yeah, the Cobra could be damaged by 51 caliber.
[02:15:51] Fast forward a little bit. The second Airborne Brigade hatched a plan for an emergency resupply. A Huey approached Charlie from altitude.
[02:16:02] It flew high to minimize the risk from anti aircraft machine guns.
[02:16:06] The paratroopers fixed their hopeful eyes on the drama above.
[02:16:10] Once over, Charlie, streams of tracers stretched toward the chopper.
[02:16:14] The crew kicked out well packed bundles of food, ammunition and medical supplies.
[02:16:20] They missed the mark landing outside the perimeter. The enemy got to them in a flash.
[02:16:25] They were desperate by this point. They bought out of ammo, no water for days, out of medical supplies. Very frustrating.
[02:16:38] Fast forward a little bit more. Early afternoon, another flight of Cobras checked in.
[02:16:44] Chief Warrant Officer Dan Jones flew lead. I piloted the second Cobra flying on his wing.
[02:16:50] Fire Base Charlie, this is Panther 13. Panther lead, this is Dusty Sinai.
[02:16:55] I have multiple targets for you. All 51 caliber machine guns.
[02:16:59] So what are you thinking when you hear that?
[02:17:02] Yeah, we've got our work cut out for us. Yeah, there's some trepidation.
[02:17:08] Oh, shit. But then again, you get right back focused. We got to do what we can to help these guys.
[02:17:14] John Duffey and I, as I said, we've talked a number of times since.
[02:17:17] And I have always, as I do to all the special forces guys that are down there that were supporting,
[02:17:22] I said, oh, you guys are just hanging it all out down there on the ground.
[02:17:25] I'm sure glad I'm in a helicopter.
[02:17:27] Don, John has said every single time, I'm glad I wasn't in that helicopter and I'm glad I was on the ground.
[02:17:34] You guys have no you're up there with this little tinfoil around you taking all these rounds getting shot right at you.
[02:17:40] There's no way I would want to do that.
[02:17:42] Okay, John, I understand that I still have tremendous respect for you on the ground and I would not would not want to be there.
[02:17:52] The crews knew the risk 51 caliber machine guns seem designed specifically to shoot down helicopters.
[02:17:57] They done plenty of damage over the past weeks.
[02:18:00] Panther one three calmly acknowledged rather Roger Dusty cyanide.
[02:18:04] We're inbound give us a position to get there.
[02:18:06] The Cobras made several attacks on enemy guns bullets streamed past their cockpits as the NBA gunners tried to bring them down.
[02:18:13] Attack helicopter pilots knew that rolling in on a 51 position was always dicey.
[02:18:18] Tracers came at them and missed by a few feet.
[02:18:21] Pilots tried to get rockets onto the machine guns before the enemy got lucky and blasted them out of the sky.
[02:18:26] The pilots held steady focusing on controlling their helicopters lining up the gun sites and shooting.
[02:18:32] Panther one three fire team took small arms hits but kept running at their targets again and again and again.
[02:18:39] John Duffy observed throughout the shootout taking it all in commenting to himself.
[02:18:44] They're coming in out of the sun going in going for the high gun first.
[02:18:49] That's good shit green and red tracers crossing in front of them.
[02:18:53] They're taking fire from everywhere. There they punched off a salvo of rockets right on target.
[02:18:58] The gunners were surely blown up in that explosion wingman rolling in on the second gun.
[02:19:03] They're keeping at it. It's a dance of death. I love those guys.
[02:19:07] Bad ass Cobra pilots so steady under such heavy fire.
[02:19:11] God I'm glad I'm on the ground.
[02:19:15] The Panther lead radioed Dusty cyanide Panther one three be advised running low on fuel out of ammo.
[02:19:21] We're breaking station for rearm refuel.
[02:19:24] Roger one three four gun crews destroyed four guns taken out good work.
[02:19:30] Hurry back.
[02:19:34] How long are you on station for in that scenario is that like five minutes.
[02:19:38] Oh it's more than it is probably 15 minutes or so.
[02:19:43] Number of runs.
[02:19:45] How can you tell when you're getting shot at it's because you're seeing tracers.
[02:19:48] Yeah you can you see trace sometimes you see tracers sometimes you don't.
[02:19:52] That first tour when I got shot down the Mohawk by a 37 millimeter anti aircraft I didn't see anything until my whole right wing exploded so I didn't even see any tracers.
[02:20:01] But yeah we'd 51s you routinely see tracers.
[02:20:05] Now we in the SEAL teams we would say tracers work both ways so you can tell where you're shooting but people can also tell you where you're shooting from.
[02:20:12] Is it when you see tracers can you start to track them back to where the gun is.
[02:20:16] Yeah in fact that's how we'd see where the gun position is where the tracers are coming from.
[02:20:21] Is it better to be lead burger wingman.
[02:20:24] I don't know that it much matters.
[02:20:26] I mean on the first run it's probably better to be lead because they may not see or know you're coming until you're rolling and start shooting and then they're ready for number two.
[02:20:34] But once you make more than one run and we've made several runs that day on different positions and they know well that you're there and they're trying to get you.
[02:20:43] So what's your speed that makes you safe.
[02:20:46] Like what are you doing to increase your survivability.
[02:20:51] Shooting.
[02:20:53] Yeah I don't think it's speed in a helicopter it's just luck.
[02:20:57] I mean they can't get right at you that first time.
[02:21:00] Most of the time they can't.
[02:21:02] Now when I was shot down and captured those were 51 calibers too and maybe a couple things larger and there were several weapons positions engaged me at the same time.
[02:21:09] And I saw tracers all around the cockpit and then we started taking hits.
[02:21:13] So it's just I think it's difficult for them to get that first round right on you.
[02:21:18] And so hopefully you can get some rockets on him before he gets his aim close enough where he can bring out of the sky.
[02:21:25] It's not a desired target a cobra against a 51 is not desired.
[02:21:29] It has to be we wouldn't just go out looking for 51 positions to engage.
[02:21:33] In fact if we were just out on a mission we saw some 51s probably turn it over to a fact or whatever.
[02:21:37] And we just get out of the area.
[02:21:40] But in this case you know there were lives on the line and we had to do what we could do to help.
[02:21:45] Luckily we got through it OK and not taking any 51 hits as I pointed out that other Panther flight did take 51 hits.
[02:22:00] What does it look like because I had the experience where I was up in Fallon Nevada and we were doing training with the helicopter squadrons.
[02:22:10] And it was I was in my first to seal to it so I wasn't didn't know what I was doing.
[02:22:15] And I was calling in a helicopter to pick us up my squad.
[02:22:19] We were on a training mission and I was calling them in to pick us up and it's the desert.
[02:22:24] And I'm standing there kind of standing up and I'm calling this aircraft and this helicopters.
[02:22:29] I think there's I think it's so obvious where we are.
[02:22:33] And I said hey you know I'm right here you know go ahead and put it down to our West and he's I got on see you.
[02:22:38] And I mean if you if I would have had to bet money I would have bet months paycheck that this guy easily saw.
[02:22:45] He couldn't see us at all because what I didn't realize at the time as a young seals he's looking at you know many many many square miles of stuff.
[02:22:53] And I'm just looking up at the sky at one or two helicopters so it's real obvious.
[02:22:57] When you're overhead in the in the in this situation can you see the friendly forces.
[02:23:04] Can you can you get an idea where John Duffy is are you close enough to the ground to see the guy's expressions like what's it like from that perspective.
[02:23:11] You can see guys on the ground.
[02:23:13] Can you tell who's who can you tell no friendly from no not usually I mean if you get low enough and close enough and can pay enough attention and you can because the NBA are mostly wearing either green or tan uniforms a little bit.
[02:23:26] Different and a lot of them have pith helmets on and some regular be you can.
[02:23:32] But as you said it's difficult to focus your view exactly where you need to focus your view.
[02:23:38] And so when John was working with us as guns he's not so much at least in that situation going against the guns he's not so much describing where he is exactly.
[02:23:48] He's describing where the weapons positions are so he's keying that off of various pieces of training you see that ridges he that knuckle that that direction and and there and then you know eventually we get the tracers coming up so we can see it.
[02:24:02] Now later when we come back he is trying to describe his position to us of course it was dark then and we couldn't see him.
[02:24:08] We could see fires and adjust.
[02:24:12] Routinely to take that back a little bit when we're extracting special forces teams out of the jungle they would describe to us where they were and all and we could generally see them on the ground unless they were hidden by the jungle canopy so we could we could pick them out.
[02:24:28] So yeah the long answer the question I can fully understand your situation a Fallon where you say hey guys we're down here we see you and we're up you know I don't know what altitude they were but anywhere from several hundred feet up to maybe a thousand or two thousand feet.
[02:24:40] They're looking out and especially Fallon over an expanse of desert as far as they can see.
[02:24:46] And OK where are you so that you need some focus and I had the aircraft panel so it inside my floppy hat and I thought oh I'm such a pro I'll just break out my fly you know this little orange whatever six inch square.
[02:25:01] Can you see me now the guys like you're an idiot.
[02:25:05] Now what does work and is helpful is is flashy.
[02:25:10] We can see the mirror you can see exactly OK that's where that guy is I see his mirror.
[02:25:14] And we do that with the teams we pick up use mirrors or if the jungle is too thick for mirror they'd get us close by describing where their position was and then they just pop smoke.
[02:25:23] And then you say OK I see orange smoke or whatever yeah that's us and you have their position exactly.
[02:25:28] Yeah and Duffy ends up using a mirror in this.
[02:25:32] All right going back to the book fast forward a little airstrikes continued other teams of Cobras worked VN AF A1 Sky Raiders and US jet fighters drop more napalm and high explosive bombs on the advancing enemy as well.
[02:25:45] Even so the NBA attack intensified pressuring the South Vietnamese defenders the enemy overran security outpost they pushed into the perimeter of Charlie to itself.
[02:25:55] Human waves of NVA came forward shouting surrender you'll live fight back you'll die but the paratroopers fought vigorously picking up the closest targets aiming and shooting.
[02:26:06] Hold the trenches don't fall back fire shoot those guys over there chaos ruled the front it became an inferno of smoke dust flame and noise the world convulsed in a crescendo of crackling cracking gunfire and deafening explosions of artillery.
[02:26:24] The wine of attacking aircraft the thunderous boom of their bombs and the sucking roar of the napalm they dropped paratroopers fought with all they had they fought with grit and determination they fought for their buddies in the pride of the 11th airborne.
[02:26:37] They fought inspired by those Vietnamese paratroopers who had gone before those who had sacrificed so much in historic battles of old they fought until their bullets were gone after that they turned to grenades and knives.
[02:26:50] Many died swinging their empty rifles as clubs.
[02:26:56] The brave paratroopers withstood the onslaught with fierce determination still their enemy pushed taking patches of earth inch by inch paying dearly for every small gain.
[02:27:09] Finally the NVA overran Charlie's Southwest perimeter they occupied much of one one 14 companies defensive position and pause to catch their breath among the mingle dead of both sides.
[02:27:24] Duffy got on the radio to major Peter comma at second brigade.
[02:27:29] Seller five one seller five one this is dusty cyanide prairie fire prairie fire prairie fire I am declaring a prairie fire emergency we are being overrun.
[02:27:40] John defaulted to a phrase familiar to him from his earlier special forces work behind enemy lines in Laos prairie fire meant a special operations team was about to be overrun and all available assets were brought to bear.
[02:27:54] Peter comma knew what John needed and translated the statement into his into words more commonly understood by conventional military forces he declared a tactical emergency or tacky across all of to core.
[02:28:07] This required every available asset to be redirected to support the paratroopers on fire base Charlie John Duffy would now get everything flying in the skies over central South Vietnam.
[02:28:18] John may and high got busier than they ever had been working flight after flight of supporting aircraft.
[02:28:29] Prairie fire emergency.
[02:28:31] Yep.
[02:28:32] And this is the end is coming and it is pretty amazing with all the firepower that they had at their disposal how determined the NVA were to carry this attack to its to fruition.
[02:28:46] As they just kept pouring battalion after battalion in there until they carried the day but they suffered horrendous casualties which we talk about the impact of that as we get at the at the end of the book.
[02:29:02] Fast forward a little bit.
[02:29:05] The enemy delayed only a short while before getting back up and continuing their assault.
[02:29:10] They were about to overrun the 11th battalion.
[02:29:13] Dusty cyanide this is Cougar 38 inbound.
[02:29:15] Welcome back 38 enemy advancing rapidly from the West and Southwest battalion strength heaviest from the Southwest expand on that formation.
[02:29:23] Roger Dusty will give them hell.
[02:29:26] And again it's incredible you can hear some of these calls.
[02:29:29] I listened to these calls Cougar 38 and and and Duffy just sounds calm cool and collected.
[02:29:38] It's hard to hear him sometimes but when you do hear him it's like they're talking about you know past me the catch up.
[02:29:45] Yeah.
[02:29:46] Well because he knows to survive he has to be you can't you can't get in the panic and start screaming and hollering on the radio and nobody's going to understand what you're saying or what you need so to survive he has to stay calm and measured.
[02:30:00] Cougar 38 heavy fire team of three Cobras came in from the Northeast they drew intense enemy aircraft fire.
[02:30:06] Enemy anti aircraft fire dropping to just above the trees to minimize their exposure they flew past Duffy in May then continued right into the face of the attack.
[02:30:14] Duffy commented what guts those guys have never seen anything like it right on the deck those crazy bastards are going to kill themselves to save us God damn heroes.
[02:30:23] Each aircraft fired its entire ammunition load on one pass pilots launching pairs of rockets as fast as their fingers could press the firing button.
[02:30:32] Front seat gunners working their turret weapon incessantly reigning death and destruction.
[02:30:37] They annihilated the breadth of the attacking formation the enemy staggered he stumbled he fell he pulled back.
[02:30:44] Needing to regroup once again the courage of those three Cobra crews stalled the NBA attack for now there was no doubt the resolute enemy would come again.
[02:30:54] May needed his other company he ordered them to consolidate hours ago where were they he called 113 company again.
[02:31:03] 403 what's your progress big hung responded we're trying lots of enemy around us may sternly order to break through and get down here do it now we need the battalion together.
[02:31:14] Roger.
[02:31:16] May frowned and frustration.
[02:31:18] High used the temporary lull to move about and assess the situation he ran quickly among the defenders by then compressed into a much smaller circle.
[02:31:28] They had something over 100 effective fighters left of the 471 man battalion.
[02:31:34] High moved from position to position utilizing trenches as much as possible but at times dashing into the open from Foxhole to Foxhole.
[02:31:42] He spent a few minutes talking to each leader and spoke with paratroopers along the way bolstering their will to fight by whatever means remained.
[02:31:49] High finished his circuit and rejoined May in the command post trench dusk settled in may called Duffy who joined them there blood seeped from a gash and John's right shoulder.
[02:32:01] He'd been hit yet another yet again by another shell fragment.
[02:32:06] High shook his head and began his report we in bad shape many dead more wounded.
[02:32:12] I count only a little over 100 still can fight most them hurt not much ammunition some have no ammo even after take from dead.
[02:32:22] No way to stop next attack next attack and 11th battalion.
[02:32:29] May look straight and highs I for eyes for a time studying him digesting what he just said he turned to Duffy ready to speak but paused both minds turned through options.
[02:32:40] High spoke again casualty high ammo run thin cannot stop VC most of battalion dead we stay longer all die should leave.
[02:32:53] He leaned close to me and spoken Vietnamese gotta get this gotta get the battalion off this fucking hill before the enemy comes again.
[02:33:02] May not it and responded in English yes we order withdraw.
[02:33:07] Duffy had a plan.
[02:33:10] He'd risk his life to try and save what was left of the battalion.
[02:33:14] It seemed insane but it made perfect sense to him.
[02:33:18] I will stay and try to delay the NVA maybe we'll get some more air and time to make a difference.
[02:33:25] May insisted I stay with you we team American and Vietnamese we fight together.
[02:33:33] John not it full of determined grit.
[02:33:37] John Duffy and lay van may would form a two man rear guard to allow what was left of the battalion to break contact and escape.
[02:33:47] Two men against two enemy battalions may face his operations officer with a look of resignation.
[02:33:55] You lead the battalion off Charlie high major Duffy and I will delay as long as we can.
[02:34:01] We're your rear guard go about 800 meters northeast and wait for 113 company.
[02:34:08] I'll tell big hung to move east until he finds you 113 is in good shape they have ammo and only a few casualties you'll be okay.
[02:34:16] High saluted high saluted responding smartly yes sir we go.
[02:34:24] He rallied the surviving paratroopers those who could walk helped others who couldn't.
[02:34:30] High led the way off the hilltop toward the sanctuary of the jungle below.
[02:34:39] Excuse me slow emotional listening to read all that.
[02:34:47] Yeah so that is the most heroic part of the whole and there's heroism throughout the book.
[02:34:53] But that is the most extraordinary act of the whole story is John Duffy and lay van may deciding to be a rear guard.
[02:35:03] You know not knowing what their chances of survival would be and it looked pretty bleak but to do that to allow the rest of the battalion to try to withdraw and get off the hill and survive.
[02:35:19] So yeah I don't know what they thought their chances were of survival.
[02:35:24] I mean they're here they are getting crushed for 11 days at this point 12 days at this point couple weeks the end the NBA has is fighting like they've never seen him fight before.
[02:35:36] They keep coming wave after wave after wave the NBA has ammo the NBA has resupply.
[02:35:42] And has that artillery pounding and yeah the aircraft and you know some some would say hey guys you had the order to fight to the death what the hell you doing with drawing off the hill.
[02:35:52] They had no further means to resist they were just down to a few bullets left and guys swinging their weapons to fight the enemy.
[02:36:01] So I think I was exactly right the next wave of attack from the NBA would have just killed killed all of them and not accomplish anything.
[02:36:09] So the decision was made to withdraw the survivors that they had which at that point were just over a hundred people out of a 471 man battalion to go ahead and try and get those guys off off the hill.
[02:36:22] So there's two of them left.
[02:36:27] As dust turned to darkness a strange silence brought a chill.
[02:36:33] It was as if May and Duffy were in the eye of a storm.
[02:36:39] The enemy had fallen back for the moment the artillery and mortars fell still their battalion had gone.
[02:36:45] There was no chatter on the radio not a sound on the hilltop save the whimpers of the dying.
[02:36:51] They sat alone on the edge of what had been fire based Charlie waiting warily for their enemies next move not doubting for a moment he would attack.
[02:37:02] It was dark.
[02:37:04] Suddenly the silence broke whistling projectiles hurled through the air incoming enemy artillery erupted across the hilltop one shell burst not far to their front.
[02:37:16] The explosion rocked them the blast deafening the night for an instant it lit their dirty blood smeared faces their hollow eyes set in hopeless determination.
[02:37:26] A few more shells crashed around them none as close as the first each blinding flash shown upon the corpses lying across the battlefield gruesome evidence of the fight that had raged over the past days.
[02:37:38] Hundreds lay dead over the hilltop outpost the bodies of South Vietnamese paratroopers mixed with those of their determined North Vietnamese enemy.
[02:37:50] The explosion stopped the dark returned only the moans of the wounded pierced the silence of the night the stench of death filled the nostrils of the last two men fighting.
[02:38:01] Smoke choked their lungs they waited in anticipation.
[02:38:05] They heard orders shouted from across the field they sensed movement as another attack wave swept toward them.
[02:38:14] The American advisor leaned close to his Vietnamese counterpart and exclaimed shit here they come again.
[02:38:22] The reply in broken but well practiced English was resolute I know we fight we fight more.
[02:38:32] The enemy once again rose from the darkness tearing through the night coming at them as vague shapes screaming and shooting throwing grenades as they advanced closer and closer still both John Duffy and
[02:38:43] Le Van May knew this was the final assault bullets whizzed by them a grenade exploded ripping a hole in May's chest he gasped for air.
[02:38:55] Duffy already wounded several times himself looked over his left shoulder he nodded satisfied seeing the decimated force all that was left of the once mighty 11th Airborne Battalion escaping down the hillside.
[02:39:09] John and May were all that stood between the remnants of the battalion and their annihilation.
[02:39:17] They've been out of food for days they had no water left in their canteens their ammunition was nearly gone but still the Americans and the American in his south Vietnamese comrade fought and still the enemy came there was no talk of surrender
[02:39:30] no thought but to kill as many as they could before they were themselves cut down where they squatted on the edge of the air of their abandoned positions.
[02:39:39] Le Van May strained to speak fight Duffy fight.
[02:39:44] They battled with everything that remained in their hearts and souls but the end of their road was only minutes away.
[02:39:51] They knew they were about to die.
[02:39:54] John Duffy sensed his mortality as words of welled in his soul deaths moment is near I can feel its flame soon it will be here it seems strange no more.
[02:40:09] Duffy's radio crackled dusty cyanide this is Panther one three back with you Duffy looked at May hot damn.
[02:40:17] He grabbed his radio handset Roger Panther welcome back dusty where inbound with rockets 40 Mike Mike and minigun thought you might need a little more help.
[02:40:27] Through the blackness the Cobra crews saw fires and chaos on Charlie they could only imagine the desperate situation on the ground.
[02:40:40] Duffy radio the Cobras enemy broken broken through on the Southwest Charlie overrun.
[02:40:46] There are three prominent fires on the hilltop one big and two small the large one is on the Southwest part of the base you see one small fire short distance north and another 100 meters east of that.
[02:40:57] We are on the North edge of that Eastern small fire need you to shoot right in front of us just to our west but real close Roger dusty we got him.
[02:41:07] The Cobras rolled in firing Duffy adjusted their good runs closer.
[02:41:12] The attacking enemy was about on top of them he cut down several with his car 15 made the same with his M16 but that didn't slow them down a bit the enemy was still charging just feet away.
[02:41:23] As the pink Panthers began another gun run the head of the closest soldier exploded hit by a 40 millimeter grenade from one of the Cobras his reflexes kept his legs moving for a step or two before he crumbled to the ground so close that blood and tissue splattered on Duffy and May.
[02:41:40] Right there Panther keep it up.
[02:41:43] The Cobras kept it up Duffy delighted in the hot shell cases raining down from above after a number of attack runs Duffy called Panther Panther lead this is dusty cyanide you have broken the enemy attack for now hundreds of bodies on the field maybe 1000 but we cannot hold.
[02:42:01] After a short break he continued we are leaving fire base Charlie now stop them from following us whatever it takes put your stuff all over the hilltop now.
[02:42:14] The two ran for their lives may first followed by Duffy US Army Special Forces Major John Joseph Duffy was the last to leave fire base Charlie.
[02:42:25] Another Cobra flight joined the team with Lieutenant Forrest Snyder in one of the front seats that gave Panther one three a heavy team of four aircraft.
[02:42:34] Forrest was the best gunner the Panthers had the team fired everything they had at the hill that had been fire based Charlie they turned toward home.
[02:42:43] The flight picked its way through the mountains and valleys below a worsening layer of scud clouds and a pitch black of night what was left of the 11th Airborne Battalion move toward the refuge of the valley below.
[02:42:59] That was the end of the fight on fire base Charlie.
[02:43:05] Yeah and I you know I flew that I was Panther one three was Dan Jones and lead and I was Panther three six flying his wing.
[02:43:13] We knew it was a bad situation at the time and we did all we could to help but we had no real full appreciation of everything that was going on down there until I've got all this information together to write the book.
[02:43:27] John Duffy. Well he credits his life to several things including Cougar three eight that came in there that day but he said that that night he is and Le Van May the same thing they are alive today because of what we were able to do for them which was just doing what we could to help.
[02:43:48] So you're flying and this was this was in pure darkness.
[02:43:52] Yeah we got there that second run was night it was dark and clearly you guys don't have night vision at the time.
[02:43:58] So it is you're looking at blackness.
[02:44:01] Yeah it was it was awfully dark the weather was not good and getting worse and we could see the fires on the hilltop.
[02:44:07] And yeah we're out there doing what we can do in that situation and it was Duffy's description of those fires and where he was in relation to those fires.
[02:44:16] And we just put our rounds down and as Dan Jones recently commented to me he said hey we weren't exactly sure of how close we were shooting to him we couldn't see him we could see the fire and he was just off the edge of one of the fires.
[02:44:31] So it was just by the grace of God we were able to get those rounds right where they needed to be and then move them a little bit as he would give us adjustments and that as close as we were firing to him.
[02:44:42] Particularly the Rockets Rockets is not those 2.75 Rockets are not a point fire weapons not like the hellfire and tow missiles that we've had since.
[02:44:51] So lucky that we could get them close enough to be doing the good that needed to get done and not inadvertently do damage to those guys and we could have blown Duffy and may off the map if we'd have been just a few feet off of where we were putting our putting our rounds.
[02:45:06] And John Duffy says this day one of the most glorious feelings he's had in his life is feeling hot brass rain down on top of him.
[02:45:16] Can you can you see the targets at all. Are you shooting this based on hey 50 meters in front of the fire to the east.
[02:45:25] No we couldn't see any people at all just the fires and where our rounds were hitting and exploding.
[02:45:32] And because there's no there's no like overhead artillery putting a loom up or anything it's just dark just dark.
[02:45:39] How long were you on station for.
[02:45:43] After the other flight came in that I don't you know it's hard to say.
[02:45:47] I don't know I guess to be the best answer but I would imagine like 10 15 minutes 20 minutes at the most 15 20 yeah 20 at the most 10 to 15 probably.
[02:45:57] Because we got there we made multiple runs the other fire team showed up and joined with us and they were fresh on ordinance everything so they had a lot more to put down on the hilltop.
[02:46:08] Maybe 20 minutes probably closer to 15.
[02:46:15] You know those cheesy action movies where there's like the hero is barely getting away as you know as the explosion happens like.
[02:46:25] But it doesn't actually happen in real life except for it happens here.
[02:46:31] After this insane moment of hot damn the Cobras are here to bail us out.
[02:46:39] John and may stumbled and fell through the darkness moving.
[02:46:43] Quickly in spite of their painful injuries once the North Vietnamese had taken the hill the enemy advanced halted for the moment the attackers to devastated to continue the Cobras and save the day.
[02:46:57] Amazingly Duffy and may were still alive.
[02:47:00] They started out again Duffy making an urgent call to move any Covey any Covey this is dusty cyanide we are withdrawing off Charlie to NVA battalion in the open on the hilltop.
[02:47:11] Request immediate diversion of a B 52 arc light strike to Charlie.
[02:47:17] This is Covey 531 standby dusty only a few minutes later Covey transmitted dusty affirmative carbon outlaw diverted arc light for your target ETA 20 minutes you need to be 500 meters distance being deflate open your mouth and keep your heads down.
[02:47:35] Duffy knew he was only a couple hundred yards off the hilltop but he needed his enemy bloodied so they couldn't regroup and pursue Roger Covey will we will be over 500 meters clear let the bombs fall.
[02:47:48] They moved quickly soon rejoining their battalion high and doc Lou were shocked they were alive.
[02:47:55] Tired exhausted and dragging their wounded the battalion gained little ground moving maybe another hundred yards before they heard the whistling bombs of death.
[02:48:03] Hundreds of 500 and 750 pound bombs demolished the NVA forces on Charlie.
[02:48:10] The paratroopers hugged the earth Duffy in May lay prone under a tree that shook like a wet dog showering them with leaves as the ground shuttered violently beneath them.
[02:48:19] A dark cloud of smoke rose from the carnage of Charlie.
[02:48:23] John lamented nothing could have survived two weeks of battle and an NVA funeral pyre.
[02:48:30] Corpses corpses sit as the victors atop their prize.
[02:48:39] I mean what do you think the battle damage assessment was of that.
[02:48:43] Yeah well it was it inflicted tremendous damage on the enemy and I think I mentioned later the impact it had on the whole battle in the Central Highlands.
[02:48:52] It thwarted their plans to quickly sweep down to take Contum city and then cut South Vietnam in half because of the damage that was done by all those strikes and what it cost them to take Charlie Hill.
[02:49:05] That delayed their attack plans by a couple of weeks which gave the South Vietnamese an opportunity to get another division up there and to get all prepared to take on this attack against the city of Contum.
[02:49:19] And in the end the South Vietnamese prevailed with a lot of American air support but they prevailed and the enemy did not take Contum city.
[02:49:27] Their attack went no further than that and they ended up withdrawing to isolated positions really until the peace agreement was signed.
[02:49:37] The line was held.
[02:49:39] These guys aren't out of it yet though. April 15th 1972 in darkness the paratroopers followed Major Duffy down the mountainside.
[02:49:49] They carried those who couldn't walk. They struggled through the tangled jungle. Exhaustion numbed their senses.
[02:49:54] Even so they still felt the pain that racked their bodies. Infected wounds screamed with every step.
[02:50:00] In spite of their misery hopes welled in their hearts as they had left the carnage of Charlie Hill even farther behind.
[02:50:09] And then of course incoming there's a there's a friendly fire incident takes place which is awful.
[02:50:18] Now they've got more dead. They've got more wounded to carry. They have to leave some dead.
[02:50:25] High makes a radio call to his headquarters Red River this is 006 we are off the mountain in the northeast direction from our old home at the base of the ridge.
[02:50:35] I have about 100 150 many wounded request helicopter extraction over 006 this is Red River negative there are no Helos available walk out over.
[02:50:48] This is 006 Roger out. Duffy saw highs discuss what's up no helicopter we walk.
[02:50:57] This is making me mad right now. And they're not they're not out of the yeah not figuratively literally they're not out of the woods yet.
[02:51:11] Yeah. And then of course the enemy struck rat a tat crack crack boom boom ambush machine gun and rifle fire snapped around that mortars exploded everywhere enemy soldiers
[02:51:20] attacked from the trees men drop wounded and dead many of the younger green paratroopers out of ammunition and at their wits and broken ran mowed down in their tracks.
[02:51:29] The NBA 320th Division Commander positioned a fresh force east of Charlie to cut off any withdrawal. The second battalion from the 48th regiment was waiting in concealed positions.
[02:51:40] They hit the paratroopers hard. John Duffy raised his weapon and shouted mail in. We need to break out of this gather all the men you can.
[02:51:48] I'll lead you cover me and follow. OK Duffy we know surrender we fight to death.
[02:51:55] John Cox is a R 15 and firing a few well placed rounds led a desperate counterattack amazingly they broke through the enemy and found a refuge a couple hundred yards north in the trees along the stream.
[02:52:06] Duffy puffed we made it how many do we have may counted 36 plus you 37 total we have Captain High and Doc Lou and others.
[02:52:19] May directed high set a perimeter redistribute redistribute ammunition to be sure every soldier has at least some this is where we'll make our stand.
[02:52:28] Duffy's immediate thought was we need air we need it now. He grabbed his handset to make a call nothing shit.
[02:52:34] May caught sight of his back Duffy you took a hit in the radio big hole it finished you OK.
[02:52:40] Duffy several times wounded bloody filthy tired head throbbing body rife with pain answered yeah I'm fine.
[02:52:46] He took the radio off his back and dropped it to the ground. He grabbed one of the two small aircrew survival radios he had clipped to his web gear turned it on and transmitted on the emergency frequency that all aircraft monitored any aircraft any aircraft.
[02:53:00] This is Dusty cyanide tactical emergency US Air Force Captain Jim Higgins a forward air controller on his way back to play coup from supporting a special operation near the Cambodian border heard the call his few as low but he responded Dusty cyanide.
[02:53:18] This is Covey five five five Covey Dusty cyanide we withdrew off Charlie last night on northeast of the hill in a small valley just ambush many killed.
[02:53:26] We broke out need helicopter extraction I have thirty seven thirty seven packs several wounded need for Helos Roger Dusty standby.
[02:53:35] I'll see what we can rustle up as you guys are out there on these operations like over.
[02:53:40] Does everybody kind of know who Dusty cyanide is at this point is everybody tracking it by this time well we all did because the Panthers had been supporting him now the unit that's going to end up coming in to now save the day yet once again is three five
[02:53:53] or three five they've not been involved in the operation up there at all to this point so I don't think that they knew Dusty cyanide at that point but they're soon going to find out who Dusty cyanide is.
[02:54:06] And once we get into that part of the operation that goes to that audio recording that I had that was recorded by one of the air crews so the dialogue in there is word for word off that audio recording.
[02:54:18] I mean, it's a technique that I use for a narrative nonfiction, but the dialogue obviously
[02:54:24] is recreated.
[02:54:26] Nobody remembers exactly what they said, but I took great care to talk to each of the participants,
[02:54:32] and they saw all this dialogue as I developed it, and so they agree that this is very close
[02:54:38] to the conversations that actually took place, so I use it to tell their story.
[02:54:43] But as we get into the pickup here at the end, that's word for word off that audio tape
[02:54:49] of what was being said in the aircraft.
[02:54:52] Is Dusty Sinai an issued call sign?
[02:54:54] Yeah, it was just randomly generated.
[02:54:57] It was just randomly generated.
[02:54:58] Issued, I remember I used to get those.
[02:55:00] And for some reason we started just generating our own.
[02:55:03] I don't know if that was legal or not, but that's what we did.
[02:55:08] I'm going to fast forward a little bit.
[02:55:14] This is really cool dialogue that you quote in here between Undertaker and EmBomber.
[02:55:21] These are some good call signs.
[02:55:22] That's their actual call signs.
[02:55:23] It's good to go.
[02:55:25] Undertaker 22.
[02:55:26] Now, those aren't generated.
[02:55:28] The air crew call signs, we had them for our whole tour.
[02:55:31] Right, that's like Pink Panther.
[02:55:32] We were the pick-and-thers, and their gladiator was the company's call sign.
[02:55:37] For the unit that worked SOG with us.
[02:55:41] These guys, the Cav, yeah, that EmBomber Undertaker was their guns, and Bomber was their lifships.
[02:55:49] So these guys show up.
[02:55:51] Duffy, Radio Cobra, Cobra, they're 25 meters away.
[02:55:54] They're in that wood line.
[02:55:55] Go get them.
[02:55:56] Roger, Dusty, we're inbound.
[02:55:57] Keep your heads down.
[02:55:58] The Cobra's laid waste.
[02:55:59] EmBomber 6 called short final.
[02:56:01] The enemy opened up with small arms and machine gun fire.
[02:56:03] A B-40 rocket streaked past.
[02:56:06] The Huey pulled up and turned sharply to the left, climbing.
[02:56:09] The right door gunner reported a jam in his machine gun.
[02:56:12] He was out of action.
[02:56:13] No more protective fire on the right side.
[02:56:15] More enemy pressed in on Duffy and May.
[02:56:17] They moved their group as fast as they could go.
[02:56:20] Undertaker 22 kept track of them.
[02:56:22] Dusty, you still on the LZ or moving away from it?
[02:56:25] We're moving to the November.
[02:56:26] Roger, I'll be in there with 20 millimeter.
[02:56:29] Still got small arms.
[02:56:31] We moved another 100 meters.
[02:56:34] We're going to stop here.
[02:56:35] We got five people left.
[02:56:36] So over this period, which I skipped, they're picking up as many guys as they can.
[02:56:41] And then they'd get shot out of an LZ and then they'd keep moving.
[02:56:45] So they're down to five guys left.
[02:56:46] Right, this is the last lift.
[02:56:48] The last crew.
[02:56:49] The fourth lift.
[02:56:50] And Bomber 6 began another approach.
[02:56:52] Duffy popped his last smoke.
[02:56:55] Gibbs transmitted.
[02:56:56] I got yellow smoke.
[02:56:57] Duffy warned.
[02:56:58] Still got small arms fire.
[02:56:59] Still got small arms fire.
[02:57:01] Automatic rifles.
[02:57:02] Undertaker added.
[02:57:03] Still drawing small arms fire from the tree line down there across the trees at year 12
[02:57:07] where the friendlies and the bad guys are in the trees.
[02:57:10] And Bomber 6 continued his approach.
[02:57:12] Duffy guided him down to the ground.
[02:57:14] The last five members of the 11th Airborne Battalion scrambled aboard.
[02:57:17] Go, go Duffy shouted.
[02:57:20] He stood on the landing strut, his firing his car 15 and helping the others in.
[02:57:25] An NBA soldier ran toward the helicopter.
[02:57:27] His arm cocked, ready to throw a grenade.
[02:57:30] Duffy cut him down.
[02:57:32] Long client climbed in followed by Corporal Long, Captain High and Major May crack around
[02:57:40] blasted through the cockpit crack another past just behind Dennis Watson's head.
[02:57:45] It hit Dallas Nicen.
[02:57:46] I say that name right.
[02:57:48] Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, it hit Dallas, Nathan in the back as he fired his door gun
[02:57:53] protecting the crew.
[02:57:55] He pushed his his intercom button.
[02:57:57] Hey, hit.
[02:57:59] Watson looked back.
[02:58:01] Your eyes held for a moment then Nicen's closed.
[02:58:04] With everyone on board, Duffy gave the other door gunner a thumbs up and the young man
[02:58:08] hollered on the intercom.
[02:58:09] Go, go, go, go, get out of here.
[02:58:13] Bullets riddled the chopper as it lifted at 100 feet once smashed into High's right
[02:58:17] foot.
[02:58:18] He fell backward out of the helicopter.
[02:58:21] John Duffy still standing on the landing skid grabbed hold of his webgear just as he slid
[02:58:25] by stopping his fall and certain death.
[02:58:29] With help from May, he pulled high back in May rendered aid.
[02:58:33] Duffy looked across the helicopter and saw Dallas Nicen hanging out the other side held
[02:58:37] by his safety tether.
[02:58:40] John climbed in and moved over to Dallas pulling him back inside.
[02:58:43] He patched the wounded Nicen's back with a plastic sealer and a bandage.
[02:58:47] He turned him over.
[02:58:49] Dallas had a much larger hole where the bullet exited his chest.
[02:58:52] It was bad.
[02:58:54] The wound bubbled.
[02:58:55] The bullet at his lung.
[02:58:57] It started patching and sealing the hole when the bubbles quit.
[02:59:01] Dallas stopped breathing.
[02:59:03] John tried mouth to mouth.
[02:59:05] Nothing.
[02:59:06] Dallas Nicen died in John Duffy's arms.
[02:59:10] It had been five days since the enemy began their final all out assault against Charlie.
[02:59:19] Five days of some of the most intense combat ever fought.
[02:59:23] Five days in hell consigned to death but committed to fighting with valor to the end.
[02:59:29] Indeed, it had been less than two weeks since the 11th Battalion fresh from its duty in
[02:59:34] Saigon had occupied fire base Charlie on Easter Sunday.
[02:59:40] But that was a lifetime ago.
[02:59:42] Their world had changed.
[02:59:44] It was different from how it had been and it would never be the same for any of them
[02:59:50] ever again.
[03:00:00] And thus ends the battle for fire base Charlie.
[03:00:04] Yeah, and as you mentioned, 37 out of 471 paratroopers made it out and you did also mention that
[03:00:13] there were some stragglers that came in.
[03:00:14] Right.
[03:00:15] There was another group of about, I think, 20 that the artillery FO Lieutenant Lap rallies.
[03:00:22] It took them several days though to get back to friendly lines and recovered.
[03:00:26] And that's pretty well out.
[03:00:27] A few other stragglers but out of that 471 man battalion most killed or captured or missing
[03:00:35] and never knew their status.
[03:00:41] John Duffy wrote a poem.
[03:00:45] He ended up at the funeral of of Colonel bow posthumously promoted Colonel bow and
[03:00:53] he wrote a poem about that funeral.
[03:00:57] And again, this is from his book, which is called the battle for Charlie.
[03:01:02] It's called the commander's family.
[03:01:06] Can you picture the scene in sense burning banners hung casket draped.
[03:01:13] The moans and the weeping blend.
[03:01:17] Sorrow hangs in the atmosphere.
[03:01:20] The commander's comrades gathered to offer their last salute.
[03:01:26] The young widow strong at first.
[03:01:31] But soon sorrow overcomes her.
[03:01:36] It's not the smoke which tears my eyes, although I have lit seven Joss sticks.
[03:01:45] The words are spoken for all to hear.
[03:01:49] Now it is I who must say the last.
[03:01:53] I will say the truth.
[03:01:56] And how he died.
[03:01:59] He died leading the paratroopers he loved.
[03:02:04] He died fighting for the freedom he cherished.
[03:02:09] He died a hero of his country.
[03:02:19] And that is certainly the truth.
[03:02:24] And I am certainly glad that you, sir, have captured these heroics for for all of us to
[03:02:33] hear and understand.
[03:02:36] And you mentioned this earlier.
[03:02:41] We can be proud to report that Major John Duffy has been properly recognized for his
[03:02:48] heroics.
[03:02:50] He was awarded the Medal of Honor on July 5th, 2022.
[03:02:57] So just a few weeks ago, few days ago, few days ago, really.
[03:03:01] So you went out there for that ceremony?
[03:03:03] I did.
[03:03:04] I was there in the White House with him, with my wife and daughter, the daughter who he
[03:03:09] danced with on the deck of the Midway to be present.
[03:03:14] And it was it was quite a ceremony, long, long time coming.
[03:03:18] I think I'd mentioned he was put in for the Medal of Honor at the time Peter Kama submitted
[03:03:22] him.
[03:03:23] It was downgraded to a distinguished service cross.
[03:03:27] Largely John feels because all the eyewitness statements that he had at the time when Kama
[03:03:31] submitted it were Vietnamese statements.
[03:03:35] And so it was not supported.
[03:03:37] Years later, Peter Kama resubmitted with the additional information, had the audio recording
[03:03:42] now, had some eyewitness statements by others, some of the air crews.
[03:03:47] But it took forever to wind its way through the bureaucracy and finally got approval and
[03:03:56] was presented on July 5th last week to him.
[03:04:02] Quite an emotional event to be at.
[03:04:05] Le Van May was there as well.
[03:04:08] There are some, you can find it if you just do a Google search for John Duffy Medal of
[03:04:12] Honor.
[03:04:13] They've got some video from the White House ceremony.
[03:04:16] And as the President was making remarks just before hanging the Medal of Honor on John,
[03:04:22] he said then we're honored to have also here his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Van May, Colonel
[03:04:28] Le Van May.
[03:04:30] And May stood up.
[03:04:31] I had a suit on, but his red Vietnamese paratrooper, Berre, saluted the President.
[03:04:37] It was quite a moving experience.
[03:04:43] Yeah.
[03:04:45] Well, that's just amazing that they did get it done and that he was awarded properly.
[03:04:56] So deserved.
[03:04:57] I mean, you've read Medal of Honor citations before and this is so deserving of the Medal
[03:05:01] of Honor.
[03:05:02] Yeah, I can't imagine the person that downgraded this thing.
[03:05:07] I get frustrated sometimes when I think about the people that sit around and downgrade awards.
[03:05:12] It tells me they probably shouldn't be in the positions where they're doing that.
[03:05:20] Another unbelievable part of this book that I found to be fascinating and inspiring was
[03:05:30] going into the aftermath and what happened everybody after the war.
[03:05:32] And really for me, especially the Vietnamese soldiers that, I mean, what, 19 wasn't very
[03:05:41] much after this that South Vietnam fell.
[03:05:45] Yeah, 1975.
[03:05:47] And so these individuals that had fought so heroically, they all had to either get out
[03:05:53] of there or try and get out of there.
[03:05:58] Some of them served in prison camps and they all had the goal of making it to America.
[03:06:06] And it's also incredible what they all did when they got here.
[03:06:10] I think it was May.
[03:06:12] Is it May that ends up he's working as a janitor somewhere?
[03:06:15] Was that May?
[03:06:16] He was, yeah, for a while and we're already end up he was in Missouri for a time.
[03:06:22] Yeah, I think that was it.
[03:06:23] And again, get the book.
[03:06:25] And going to school.
[03:06:26] He was working, yeah, doing janitorial work, going to school to get, increase his education.
[03:06:29] He ends up a highly successful guy out here in Silicon Valley by the time it's all over
[03:06:34] and done.
[03:06:35] Yeah, but it kicks off with him being a, I mean, highly decorated, highly experienced
[03:06:39] to say the least, war hero.
[03:06:43] And he shows up here.
[03:06:45] Hey, well, you can, you can, you know, sweep up and work as a janitor.
[03:06:48] Okay, that's what I'm doing then.
[03:06:50] And then talks about that and how he made it through that and how all of their, you know,
[03:06:55] all the Vietnamese came in, all their kids do wonderful.
[03:06:57] Huge, all hugely successful.
[03:07:00] It's amazing to hear that part of the story of how it all turns out for these, for these
[03:07:06] folks and of course, never forgetting the incredible sacrifices of, of the ones that
[03:07:11] didn't make it, right?
[03:07:12] The ones that didn't survive or the ones that didn't make it out of, out of Vietnam.
[03:07:17] And what a horror, what a horror that is.
[03:07:22] But man, the book is amazing.
[03:07:25] Like I said, I read a small portion of it today, less than 10% of the book today.
[03:07:30] Get the book so you can learn about it and get the full story.
[03:07:38] And by the way, if you haven't gotten through the Valley, that was kind of a, for this podcast,
[03:07:44] that was sort of like a turning point in my mind and the podcast is how powerful it was
[03:07:51] for me to be able to sit here and talk with you and the feedback that I got about that
[03:07:56] podcast because it's hard for a normal person to comprehend the level of suffering that
[03:08:07] a person can go through and a survive, but then go on and thrive and carry on with life
[03:08:17] and, and, and, and have an amazing attitude.
[03:08:22] You know, I mean, we were talking a little bit when we weren't recording and you know,
[03:08:27] you were, you know, your back's a little bit sore or your knees a little bit sore.
[03:08:32] And you're very thankful to have a sore back and very thankful to have a sore knee.
[03:08:37] Because if it wasn't for a sore back and a sore knee, the only way for you to not have
[03:08:41] a sore back and a sore knee would be you wouldn't be here right now.
[03:08:44] That's right.
[03:08:45] I'd be laying dead in a cobra wreck, wreckage in the jungles of Vietnam.
[03:08:49] I'm very grateful for every day that I've had since that.
[03:08:53] I guess when you go through something like that, I know I've talked to John Duffy and
[03:08:58] Le Van May.
[03:08:59] They, they just have pure joy for every day that they've had since then.
[03:09:03] Every day since Charlie is a gift to each one of them.
[03:09:07] Well, probably a good place to stop for now.
[03:09:12] Echo Charles, do you have any questions?
[03:09:15] No questions today.
[03:09:17] It's hard to have any questions after this.
[03:09:20] Sir, any, any closing thoughts?
[03:09:22] No, it's just, you know, this is an important story.
[03:09:26] So I'm glad that we had a chance to discuss it at the podcast.
[03:09:28] I hope the story gets read far and wide for, for John Duffy, for Le Van May, for Hyde Dwan,
[03:09:34] those three central figures of the, of the book.
[03:09:38] And just for the Vietnamese paratroopers, because they did exhibit extraordinary valor
[03:09:44] really throughout the, throughout the war, and they need to be put in a category separate
[03:09:48] from the arvin that are dismissed as, as not being heroic soldiers on the battlefield.
[03:09:53] These guys certainly, certainly were.
[03:09:56] Well, you've, you've certainly brought that to light and everyone that hears this and
[03:10:02] read your book will no doubt understand the, the bravery that they had.
[03:10:08] And thank you once again for, for coming, thanks for your service and sacrifice.
[03:10:15] Thanks for your support to the troops on the ground now that I have a bunch of friends
[03:10:20] that were SOG.
[03:10:23] They love you guys so much for what you did for them.
[03:10:26] So thank you for, for supporting those troops on the ground and, and thank you for your,
[03:10:34] for your sacrifice as a, as a prisoner of war and the rest of your service in the army.
[03:10:39] I know that, that wasn't even the end of your career.
[03:10:42] You know, you went on for how many years did you end up serving?
[03:10:45] Thirty.
[03:10:46] Thirty years.
[03:10:47] So that was just the beginning.
[03:10:49] So thank you for all your service and thank you for taking the time and making the effort
[03:10:54] to share these incredible stories with us, both the, your own personal experiences and
[03:10:59] the experiences of these other heroes so that we all can learn and we can all be inspired
[03:11:05] by you and by your comrades and we can all live better lives knowing and understanding
[03:11:16] that true heroes exist.
[03:11:19] Thank you, sir.
[03:11:20] Thank you, Jocco.
[03:11:23] And with that, Colonel Reader has left the building so awesome to be able to speak with
[03:11:30] him again.
[03:11:31] And man, those stories are crazy.
[03:11:38] When you start talking about having 70 130 millimeter artillery rounds land on your position
[03:11:47] on a little no on a hilltop or you start talking about having 10 51 caliber machine guns shooting
[03:11:56] at you when you're flying in a helicopter.
[03:11:59] Those are those are those are not possible to explain to a human.
[03:12:06] I don't think you can do it.
[03:12:08] I don't think there's words to explain yet.
[03:12:11] Doesn't seem and this is me coming from a perspective of not very much understanding
[03:12:17] and knowing the magnitude of these things, especially, you know, I know what I know what
[03:12:23] a 50 caliber handgun sounds like.
[03:12:29] Feels like 51 times 10.
[03:12:33] Yeah, shot at you.
[03:12:34] Those are way bigger than obviously.
[03:12:39] And then okay, actually, this is a question I did have while I'm listening to the stuff.
[03:12:43] I just dismissed it as something I'll never understand.
[03:12:47] I won't comprehend it.
[03:12:48] I don't know the feeling.
[03:12:49] I can imagine it or I can try to imagine it.
[03:12:53] That's it.
[03:12:54] I'm not going to imagine it.
[03:12:56] Understand that.
[03:12:57] But these terms artillery, what is that?
[03:13:03] Artillery.
[03:13:04] Yep.
[03:13:05] Artillery is a form of what's called indirect fire and what indirect fire is.
[03:13:10] So direct fires, I aim a gun at you.
[03:13:12] I can see you and I shoot at you.
[03:13:14] That's direct fire.
[03:13:16] Indirect fires, I don't have to be able to see you because it's going to launch at a
[03:13:20] high angle up and it's going to rain down from the sky.
[03:13:24] And that's what this is.
[03:13:26] These 130 millimeter cannons are, you know, a kilometer or two kilometers away.
[03:13:32] They can be really far away.
[03:13:33] You can't even see them.
[03:13:35] And they're just dropping big, giant bombs on you from the sky.
[03:13:41] That's artillery.
[03:13:42] And it's really horrifying because you don't know where it's coming from.
[03:13:46] And there's nothing you can do to stop it.
[03:13:49] The round got fired, you know, a few seconds ago.
[03:13:52] Maybe like even multiple, like 10 seconds ago.
[03:13:55] Like that's how long their flight can be.
[03:13:57] Their flight can be a really long time.
[03:14:00] So it's just coming and there's nothing you can do about it.
[03:14:02] Now if you're in an urban environment, you can get overhead cover.
[03:14:05] That's cool.
[03:14:06] You can survive if you have overhead cover.
[03:14:08] That's great.
[03:14:09] But it's just a matter of luck.
[03:14:12] Yeah.
[03:14:13] And because it kind of seems like in that way where it's like a matter of luck even
[03:14:17] for the guy shooting it, right?
[03:14:19] Some level of luck for the guy shooting it as well, except for the fact that when I want
[03:14:24] to hit you, I'm not going to fire one.
[03:14:27] I'm going to fire 70.
[03:14:29] And then my chances, right?
[03:14:31] Because that's exactly what they were doing.
[03:14:32] Yeah.
[03:14:33] Like, hey, we're going to hit this whole hilltop.
[03:14:34] Yeah.
[03:14:35] And you know how like, oh, you talk about mortars and stuff where it's like.
[03:14:37] And mortars are also usually in direct fire.
[03:14:40] Yeah.
[03:14:41] So it's kind of like it's bad.
[03:14:42] Okay.
[03:14:43] So direct fire, right?
[03:14:44] Let's say I don't know someone's shooting and they're getting closer or something like
[03:14:46] that.
[03:14:47] Or let's say you see, oh, I see a guy pointing a gun at me or whatever.
[03:14:51] I'm going to shoot back.
[03:14:53] I can move.
[03:14:54] I can take cover kind of a thing.
[03:14:56] We can relocate.
[03:14:57] Let's just go over there out of the way.
[03:15:00] Kind of a thing.
[03:15:01] This is my tactical genius coming out right now.
[03:15:04] Tactical echo.
[03:15:05] Yeah.
[03:15:06] Hell yeah.
[03:15:07] And then you know what?
[03:15:08] Artillery is kind of like, boom, you know, you hear a mortar or whatever.
[03:15:10] Where are you going to go?
[03:15:12] You could go into the, to the, in the line of fire or whatever.
[03:15:15] It's like just how you could like avoid it.
[03:15:18] Oh yeah.
[03:15:19] You could go right into it as well.
[03:15:20] It's like you don't even know.
[03:15:21] Yeah.
[03:15:22] It's just a horrible, horrible.
[03:15:23] This is what, you know, World War I when they would just receive these barrages.
[03:15:27] That's why they got crazy shell shock.
[03:15:30] That's why you see those guys that are absolutely horrified because they just got used to this
[03:15:34] extreme level of horror and this level of, it's like, you might think, oh, well it's
[03:15:40] just random.
[03:15:41] There's nothing you can do about it, but it's not even when you, when you're receiving 70
[03:15:45] rounds, it starts to not be so random anymore.
[03:15:48] They're eventually the odds are they're going to get me.
[03:15:50] That's what's going to happen.
[03:15:53] So then what is ordinance then?
[03:15:55] Cause I, you know, you hear like artillery year old heavy artillery or the just ordinance
[03:16:00] is just the rounds.
[03:16:01] Anything.
[03:16:02] Yeah.
[03:16:03] Like a general turn.
[03:16:04] Yeah.
[03:16:05] So, yeah.
[03:16:06] I mean, even a bullet for a, for a handgun could be considered ordinance, but so could
[03:16:12] the round from a tank or from howitzer can also be considered or ordinance dropped from
[03:16:17] an aircraft.
[03:16:18] Yeah.
[03:16:19] Is a tank round?
[03:16:20] That's like what?
[03:16:21] 120.
[03:16:22] 120.
[03:16:23] 120.
[03:16:24] Is that artillery?
[03:16:25] No.
[03:16:26] I mean, no, it's not technically it's a tank round and a lot of times that'll be direct
[03:16:30] fire.
[03:16:31] Yeah.
[03:16:32] There you go.
[03:16:33] Yeah.
[03:16:34] That's crazy, man.
[03:16:35] I, a lot of times, even when you talk about it, you know, when you hear anytime I think
[03:16:42] of grenades or artillery in this case or whatever, like, you know, you imagine like the concussion,
[03:16:48] right?
[03:16:49] Cause even shooting a gun is more of a concussion than maybe the average person might think if
[03:16:52] they haven't been around.
[03:16:53] What's the most scared you've ever been in your whole life?
[03:16:56] I don't know.
[03:16:58] I mean, I'm sure as a kid I've been scared, but scared, scared.
[03:17:02] Did you ever think you were going to die?
[03:17:05] Yeah.
[03:17:06] Like in the water, I was at Waimea one time, like North Shore on Oahu and it was big.
[03:17:13] This was in the height of my cockiness in the water.
[03:17:17] And I went out on a day they, there was actually the surf contest wasn't going on in Waimea,
[03:17:22] but it was going on at some type of land, I think.
[03:17:24] Pipeline.
[03:17:25] Yeah.
[03:17:26] So, but the waves are huge.
[03:17:28] It was the kind of when the waves hit, like it vibrated the whole beach and I was like,
[03:17:31] oh yeah, I'll go out there.
[03:17:33] Lifeguards all just, lifeguards just around Robin just saving guys.
[03:17:37] Yeah.
[03:17:38] Were you on a boogie board?
[03:17:39] No.
[03:17:40] Body surfing.
[03:17:41] Body surfing.
[03:17:42] So I went out and it got ahead of me like for like second set of time.
[03:17:47] I didn't have to get saved, but I was pretty.
[03:17:50] How long did you stay out for?
[03:17:53] Like 10 minutes, I would say.
[03:17:55] Yeah.
[03:17:56] Imagine this.
[03:17:57] Imagine all that 10 minutes.
[03:17:58] How long were you really scared for in that 10 minutes?
[03:18:01] Like two minutes.
[03:18:02] Two minutes.
[03:18:03] Okay.
[03:18:04] Now picture that two minutes compressed into five seconds and then multiply it times seven
[03:18:09] hours.
[03:18:10] Like it's horror, bro.
[03:18:12] Oh yeah.
[03:18:13] These guys are in horror.
[03:18:14] Yeah.
[03:18:15] And you just don't know what, I mean, and eventually it's like, okay, well, eventually you have
[03:18:19] to have the attitude of, well, if it hits, it hits.
[03:18:22] Yeah.
[03:18:23] Otherwise I'm going to keep running around with my radio on John Duffy style and just
[03:18:26] keep calling for fire.
[03:18:28] Or you go like, you know how your mind kind of goes in two directions where it's either
[03:18:31] get to you, do it or it gets like over one.
[03:18:34] Yeah.
[03:18:35] Like, yeah, your mind gets overcome.
[03:18:37] So like you go nuts, you go crazy kind of thing.
[03:18:40] Holy cow.
[03:18:41] Yeah.
[03:18:42] And then, and then here's something I can't really relate to, but flying in a helicopter
[03:18:48] while there's 51 caliber machine guns trying to shoot you out of the sky.
[03:18:53] Yeah.
[03:18:54] That's beautiful.
[03:18:56] Like, and you don't even know where they are until they're shooting at you.
[03:18:59] That's how you get them is they start shooting.
[03:19:01] You see their tracers.
[03:19:02] Yeah.
[03:19:03] You cross your fingers that they don't, the tracers don't hit you and then you engage
[03:19:07] them back.
[03:19:09] Yeah.
[03:19:11] Silver star citation for Captain Reader for gallantry in action against North Vietnamese
[03:19:17] Army forces 14 April 1972 while serving as a helicopter pilot supporting the combat actions
[03:19:22] of friendly Vietnamese forces in Can Thu province, Republic of Vietnam.
[03:19:26] The outnumbered ground forces were under heavy artillery fires surrounded by anti-aircraft
[03:19:31] weapons and under attack by enemy forces.
[03:19:33] Captain Reader took out a number of lethal guns all while under intense fire from multiple
[03:19:37] anti-aircraft positions and small caliber weapons.
[03:19:40] After rearming and refueling Captain Reader's team voluntarily returned once again to engage
[03:19:44] the enemy in extraordinarily poor conditions of low clouds, haze, smoke and deepening darkness.
[03:19:50] His team prevented the friendly force from being overrun.
[03:19:53] Captain Reader's actions contributed to the escape of dozens of friendly forces and one
[03:19:57] American soldier.
[03:19:59] His extraordinary heroism and selfless sacrifice reflect great credit upon himself.
[03:20:05] The 361st aviation company and the United States Army.
[03:20:11] And what's wild, that doesn't do this any justice at all.
[03:20:16] You'd have to go and set up some sort of live simulation where they're shooting 50 caliber
[03:20:23] rounds near you to understand what this is.
[03:20:26] But then it's also interesting that he obviously received this award and then goes back and
[03:20:31] just digs out and finds all this more even information about what he didn't even know
[03:20:36] how bad it was.
[03:20:37] He said it.
[03:20:38] He's like, I didn't know how bad it was.
[03:20:39] He just sees darkness and he's shooting.
[03:20:42] He doesn't even know that he's killing hundreds of enemy attackers.
[03:20:48] So just awesome to be able to have a person like that here to share stories with us.
[03:20:54] If you haven't listened to podcast 63 yet, go listen to it.
[03:20:58] That was that's what he went through is crazy.
[03:21:03] It's crazy.
[03:21:04] I was I was reading through that book again.
[03:21:08] He thought he was going on, they told him is going to be an 11 day march to get from
[03:21:12] the prison camp he was in and in the South to get to the North.
[03:21:15] They told him is 11 days and it being he didn't know if he was going to be able to make 11
[03:21:19] days.
[03:21:20] He's like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this.
[03:21:21] He was wounded.
[03:21:22] He had dysentery.
[03:21:23] He was famished.
[03:21:24] He had infections all over his body.
[03:21:27] His ankle was like destroyed from his plane crash or from his helicopter crash.
[03:21:32] So he doesn't think he's going to make it for 11 days.
[03:21:36] It ends up being four months of walking forced road march and all that started just a couple
[03:21:43] weeks after this happened.
[03:21:47] So all right.
[03:21:50] Thanks for listening to podcasts.
[03:21:52] If you want to support the podcast and you want to support yourself, get yourself some
[03:21:57] chocolate fuel.
[03:21:59] By the way, the drinks taste good now.
[03:22:02] You know what I'm saying?
[03:22:05] I know what you're saying.
[03:22:07] We reformulated all.
[03:22:11] Jaco Displingo.
[03:22:12] We reformulated all the taste.
[03:22:14] Noticeably too.
[03:22:15] That's a thing to extreme.
[03:22:16] It's not the kind of where, oh, okay.
[03:22:18] You know, you what?
[03:22:19] You added some more.
[03:22:20] Whatever you guys add.
[03:22:22] We reformulated the flavors.
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[03:22:25] It's a whole new deal.
[03:22:26] And it used to be, hey, you may or may not like this flavor.
[03:22:29] You may or may not like you might actually not like this.
[03:22:32] Now it's like you're going to like them all.
[03:22:34] They'll all be a nine and then one of them is going to be an 11 and that'll be your go-to.
[03:22:38] Yep.
[03:22:39] And we all know which one that is.
[03:22:41] And but here's the thing though, too.
[03:22:42] I like the mango now.
[03:22:44] I didn't like the mango at all before.
[03:22:47] That was kind of your jam.
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[03:22:52] The sleeper is going to be dax-avaged to go to Meyer.
[03:22:54] That one is just a whole other level.
[03:22:58] It's still, to me anyway, the ones that actually I didn't taste them all.
[03:23:01] I tasted the mango and one other one.
[03:23:06] And they taste, to me, the same flavor just harder in that direction where it's like a
[03:23:11] good, like more robust.
[03:23:14] Just to be straight up, just to cut through whatever it is you're trying to say.
[03:23:17] They're all sweeter now.
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[03:23:23] So yeah, thejockofuel.com, if you want to get some good tasting stuff.
[03:23:28] Mulk, by the way, don't ever forget about mulk.
[03:23:32] You can't forget about the mulk.
[03:23:35] Because when you think and I need that sweetness, the dessert style, what is it called?
[03:23:41] It's kind of savory and sweet at the same time.
[03:23:45] You're getting both.
[03:23:47] Jockofuel.com, you can get mulk, you can get joint warfare, super krill.
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[03:23:55] But what I'm going to stand by, we don't cut any corners.
[03:24:00] There's so many corners to cut when it comes to making supplements.
[03:24:05] There's so many corners that you can cut.
[03:24:07] We're not cutting any of them on the drinks.
[03:24:10] We're not cutting any of them on.
[03:24:11] Jock of Discipline Go, there's no corners been cut.
[03:24:13] We can easily squeeze another six cents out of this or four cents.
[03:24:17] No, we're not doing that.
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[03:24:23] So there you go, jockofuel.com, good vitamin shop, you can get the drinks at Wawa.
[03:24:28] You know we have a ready to drink protein coming too.
[03:24:31] Do you know that?
[03:24:32] Yes.
[03:24:33] A perfect mix.
[03:24:34] Well then in, is there such thing?
[03:24:37] In my household recently, I got just cut back from a trip.
[03:24:42] Mulk is heavy in the rotation now.
[03:24:45] You get back on the program, you understand.
[03:24:48] For those of us who may or may not have fallen off the program for a week or two, whatever,
[03:24:54] nonetheless, mulk is back in.
[03:24:56] But the point is there is no perfect mix though.
[03:24:59] Can there be a perfect mix?
[03:25:01] If there is, it's in the RTD, the right to drink that you can roll in and just get one.
[03:25:05] That would make sense.
[03:25:06] Like the most, what do you say, the most accepted, the most desirable mix.
[03:25:10] The peak of the bell curve flavor.
[03:25:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[03:25:13] Because sometimes you want to add a little bit of something in there.
[03:25:16] You want to add a banana.
[03:25:17] You want to add, you know, depends on your mood, is what I'm saying.
[03:25:20] But it'll be accepted widely.
[03:25:22] We'll say that.
[03:25:23] We're rolling also, HEB down in Texas.
[03:25:26] Yeah.
[03:25:27] We're wearing there.
[03:25:28] We're starting to hit the major retailers across the country, convenience stores across
[03:25:32] the country.
[03:25:33] We're starting to get in there.
[03:25:34] So appreciate the support there.
[03:25:36] OriginUSA.com.
[03:25:37] We're making Jujitsu Gis in America.
[03:25:41] We're making Boots in America.
[03:25:43] We're making Jeans in America.
[03:25:45] And we're making Hunt Gear in America.
[03:25:47] Come and check some of that out.
[03:25:49] Support America.
[03:25:51] So I was wearing Delta.
[03:25:53] Okay.
[03:25:54] So my last day in Hawaii, we were flying out.
[03:25:56] We had an afternoon flight.
[03:25:57] So we go, we go, you know, my kids want to get shave ice and we'll go shopping, but
[03:26:01] I'm wearing the, you know, so I'm wearing Delta 68 jean.
[03:26:04] You know how they're like, they look real nice.
[03:26:08] And you know, you usually know why you wear a surf shorts or something like this, right?
[03:26:12] But I'm wearing the like the jeans and like shoes because I'm going to the airport.
[03:26:15] You know, it's a whole thing.
[03:26:17] So my brother's mother-in-law and the cousin, his wife's cousin was, we ran into them at
[03:26:26] the mall.
[03:26:27] They're like, Oh, what are you all dressed up?
[03:26:29] All I had was the Delta 68.
[03:26:32] That's the way my kids aren't so much anymore.
[03:26:34] But if my kids saw me wearing jeans, they would be like, Oh, daddy, why are you so dressed
[03:26:39] up?
[03:26:40] Cause they'd never see me in anything else but surf shorts, flip flops, t-shirt.
[03:26:46] Origin USA.
[03:26:47] Check it out.
[03:26:48] Origin USA.com.
[03:26:49] Don't forget about any of that.
[03:26:50] Get yourself some jockelstore.com stuff too.
[03:26:52] Rashgard.
[03:26:53] What else you got out there?
[03:26:54] Got a lot of stuff.
[03:26:55] Discipline equals freedom.
[03:26:57] We got three versions now.
[03:26:59] Got an updated version.
[03:27:00] It's called standard issue.
[03:27:02] A standard ish.
[03:27:03] Standard issue.
[03:27:04] Yeah.
[03:27:05] It's like, this is the kind.
[03:27:06] This is the one that.
[03:27:07] Wait, the standard issue is new.
[03:27:08] Is new.
[03:27:09] Yeah.
[03:27:10] Then you see the concept is new.
[03:27:11] I will put it this way.
[03:27:12] The concept I feel like should have always been there and we never had it.
[03:27:16] That's what I felt.
[03:27:17] I felt like it was lacking.
[03:27:18] So it's a standard issue.
[03:27:20] I don't think I've seen this one yet.
[03:27:22] No, brand new.
[03:27:23] Okay.
[03:27:24] So there's some, some color schemes in there you may or may not recognize.
[03:27:28] Hey in the industry, don't they say color ways?
[03:27:34] That sounds familiar.
[03:27:35] You got some color ways.
[03:27:37] Oh, don't do it.
[03:27:39] Don't do it to me.
[03:27:41] Don't do it to me.
[03:27:42] I thought it up.
[03:27:43] Not even rethrowing it out there.
[03:27:44] I'm gonna.
[03:27:45] I got to sell more official something.
[03:27:47] But you might recognize them.
[03:27:48] So whichever one resonates with you, that's the one you're going to want to get.
[03:27:53] If not, you know, multiple, whatever.
[03:27:54] Either way, we got some shirts, hats hoodies, they say good, you know, you just want to
[03:28:00] represent.
[03:28:01] If you want to represent the path.
[03:28:02] Do you have a hat?
[03:28:03] A hat that says good?
[03:28:05] No.
[03:28:06] It might be a thing to get.
[03:28:07] It's possible.
[03:28:08] Going.
[03:28:09] Yeah.
[03:28:10] Okay.
[03:28:11] So the shirt locker, the subscription, the one shirt every month.
[03:28:14] So these are different, little bit different designs, a little bit different.
[03:28:17] People like these designs.
[03:28:18] Even people who don't know about it, they ask in my experience, people have asked, where
[03:28:24] did you get that shirt?
[03:28:25] For real?
[03:28:26] I'm not joking.
[03:28:27] But yeah, you get a new design every month.
[03:28:29] That one's a good one.
[03:28:30] So check that out too if you like that one.
[03:28:31] All right.
[03:28:32] Awesome.
[03:28:33] Don't forget about the underground Chaco Underground.com.
[03:28:36] We owe some of those right now.
[03:28:38] Yeah.
[03:28:39] So if you're on Chaco Underground.com, that means we're going to dig through, answer your
[03:28:42] questions.
[03:28:43] We got a bunch of questions that if you're on Chaco Underground.com, you can submit the
[03:28:47] questions.
[03:28:48] We answer them.
[03:28:49] So we'll get those out to you soon.
[03:28:51] We've got a YouTube channel.
[03:28:53] I'm the assistant director.
[03:28:55] Echo.
[03:28:56] Just post some, I guess.
[03:28:58] Yeah.
[03:28:59] He hits upload.
[03:29:00] Is that what it's called?
[03:29:03] Got a bunch of books.
[03:29:04] Hey, books here through the Valley by William Reader.
[03:29:08] Extraordinary Valor by William Reader.
[03:29:10] You heard me cover one of them today.
[03:29:12] You heard me cover the other one in the past.
[03:29:13] These are just unbelievable books.
[03:29:15] Only Cry for the Living by Holly McKay.
[03:29:18] Check that out.
[03:29:20] Final spin.
[03:29:21] You might want to get that book soon before the movie comes out.
[03:29:26] So you kind of can get that vibe on it, which is cool.
[03:29:30] I've written a bunch of other books on leadership.
[03:29:33] Check them out.
[03:29:34] Speaking of leadership, echelonfront.com.
[03:29:35] If you need help inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com.
[03:29:39] We solve problems through leadership.
[03:29:42] We also have an online training academy.
[03:29:46] Extreme ownership.com.
[03:29:47] You got a question for me?
[03:29:49] Get go on to extremeownership.com.
[03:29:50] You can ask me that question.
[03:29:52] If you want to help service members active and retired their families, Gold Star families.
[03:29:57] Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.
[03:29:58] He's got an awesome charity organization, provides veterans with help that they need.
[03:30:06] Go to americasmightywarriors.org if you want to help out.
[03:30:10] Also you got heroesandhorses.org.
[03:30:14] Taken veterans out into the field.
[03:30:16] Micah.
[03:30:17] He's up there taking veterans out of the field, getting their brain body reset.
[03:30:23] That's what he's got going on and it's awesome.
[03:30:24] If you want to follow Colonel Reader, he's on Facebook, at William Reader Jr.
[03:30:32] And then also on the Twitter, on the grand and on Facebook.
[03:30:36] Echo is at Aqua Charles.
[03:30:37] I am at Jocko'Wilinck.
[03:30:39] Of course, be advised.
[03:30:42] The algorithm's there and it's looking to grab you.
[03:30:44] Once again, thanks to Colonel William Reader.
[03:30:47] Such an amazing human being, such an amazing man, such an incredible attitude.
[03:30:52] And thanks of course to the brave Major John Duffy, Major Le Van May, and the rest of our
[03:30:59] allies, our brave allies in the 11th Airborne Battalion who fought so valiantly and to all
[03:31:06] the veterans of that war in Vietnam who did their best to protect freedom in the world.
[03:31:11] And thanks to all the military personnel around the world right now fighting to do the same.
[03:31:17] And the same goes to our police law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,
[03:31:21] correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all first responders.
[03:31:26] Thanks for what you do to keep us safe here at home.
[03:31:31] And everyone else, I want to leave you with part of Colonel William Reader's witness
[03:31:35] statement concerning John Duffy's heroic behavior on Charlie Hill.
[03:31:41] He says, quote, by the time our fire team of Cobra gunships returned to Charlie, the
[03:31:48] situation had deteriorated dramatically.
[03:31:51] When we arrived, it was dusk.
[03:31:53] Major Duffy had directed other attack helicopters in our absence and employed a one sky raiders
[03:31:59] and jet fighters around the fire base as well.
[03:32:02] Nonetheless, the enemy continued their attack in the situation for Major deaf Duffy and his
[03:32:08] airborne battalion was deteriorating.
[03:32:10] The South Vietnamese defenders were being killed and their positions being overrun.
[03:32:15] Major Duffy told us he was wounded, but would continue to work us.
[03:32:20] His focus on the radio was entirely on doing what he could for his South Vietnamese comrades.
[03:32:27] At times, while he had his microphone keyed directing us, I could hear him giving orders
[03:32:33] to his counterparts who were fighting for their lives.
[03:32:37] I could also hear him dealing with casualties that were occurring all around him.
[03:32:43] I never heard him express any concern for himself.
[03:32:48] He would not ask for his own extraction.
[03:32:52] He seemed committed to fighting to the death with his battalion.
[03:32:57] As the situation deteriorated further, he began asking for us to place our fire within
[03:33:03] three meters of his position.
[03:33:08] I have never seen greater bravery displayed in combat.
[03:33:14] End quote.
[03:33:17] So there you go.
[03:33:20] There's the standard.
[03:33:23] Now go live better.
[03:33:27] Until next time, Zeko and Jaco, out.