Jocko Podcast 53 w/ Echo Charles - "Colder Than Hell." WILL CONQUERS ALL.

2016-12-14T08:23:32Z

Join the conversation on Twitter: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:40 - "Colder Than Hell", by Joseph R. Owen 2:48:08 - Lessons learned, and other thoughts. 2:52:34 - Helpful perspective. Comparing our lives to REAL adversity. 2:57:35 - Onnit stuff, Support using Amazon, Jocko Store stuff, Jocko White Tea, Mugs, Extreme Ownership Book and Muster, PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE on iTunes, other support.

AI summary of episode

I mean, and I think I think there's a pretty I mean, maybe that happens in, you know, in a school setting, you know, or I guess in a business setting it could happen, but if you've got a, if you've got a good team that works a lot together, people know what you're serious. Like, like right now, if you know when feels the way I do, I feel like, oh, I feel pretty much rejuvenated when I kind of flash back to my life for a second. So now I feel like, or it seems like, you know, that when we're faced or when I'm faced with, like, oh, this is too hard or dang, I got all this ahead of me. And on top of that, not just the work, you know, and usually, like, with food and stuff, like, donuts and I joke around that, I eat, like, whole things of Oreos, because I kind of, that's just a joke. Yeah, when, uh, frustration, like all this, so if you go into a situation where you're scared, you know, so a lot of times, especially if you're like an alpha type person or a powerful person, you go and you feel that fear, it's basically the fear kind of is this feeling of weakness. You know, so maybe I've, maybe that's happening to me a dozen times in my career where somebody said something to, you know, everyone just said, okay, we're, you know, enough at everybody feels it. And oh, by the way, Lieutenant Lee, who I talked about earlier, the real by the book guy, he actually got wounded and when he got wounded taken in hospital, he went on, he went on, he went absent without leave A wall. Like, that's not a problem with, but some people don't, some like, yeah, that workout thing that you just said could apply to, like, all these other things. So these guys were, you know, perimeter like I said in sort of an open area and the Chinese just come down and they're, you know, full on attack on them, full on. And I figured it, it would have, you know, like a lot of stuff that you cannot, we say, like, you know, we have this luxury and all this stuff. So once again, we're even in a situation where hey, I'm in a uniform and an office all day from six o'clock in the morning till 7 o'clock at night every day, day on day, you know, in the military and in the civilian world, when you come back from a trip from somewhere, they're like, oh, you, oh, you, we're on trip. But if you're into like, you know, sometimes you go on the website and you get like caught up reading all the cool stuff and all the stuff like this. You ever run into a situation where you are serious and then someone's like trying to make jokes, you know, and it does get annoying or in the way of, I don't know that people, when when I'm serious, I don't get a lot of jokes, you're in the game. You know, we just said funny, uh, the way our relationship was was we were just two guys that like to give each other a hard time about stuff and set each other up for stuff and just just, Then you start thinking, you know, a lot of people have been saying, hey, what about, like, a ringtone, you should have ringtones, you know, for my alarm and all this stuff. I talked all the time about, oh you got to explain to everybody why, you got to explain to why, you want everyone to be happy, you want people to form the plan with you and you want to be there, plan you want them to take ownership and they say, what, you know, Owen says, hey, what happened out there and they said, Sergeant Loney, just, you know, basically said every man for himself. I'm going to find out what's going on and I'm going to get, I'm going to find out, I'm going to assess the situation before my boss calls me. So anyway, this one is like a healthy one is like non-stimulate and it's like, oh, I got it. That's where you can get like cool shirts, disciplining cool freedom, you know, all these things, you know, some women stuff on there, some hoodies on there, some rash guards on there for, for, yeah, some activity. And this is exactly what it's like even in the 90s, you know, 40 years after after the Korean War, when I would watch the the mortarman set up a mortar to shoot, it was just like that. Like you, like me, human beings that decide they are going to fight on despite being surrounded by the enemy despite the hunger and the danger and the thirst and the bitter cold. I can go, you know, if I got to work out, I'm going to crush that workout because I got all my limbs right now. I might like, you know, shoot him a look across the room and roll my eyes at him like you didn't see this come and did you tough guy No, you know, what we're going to have a good time even in this, you know, fairly miserable administrative scenario that we're living in. Hey, you know, don't come into my morning, you know, you're coming in a little late because you got back at midnight. You know you're going to war and you get to listen to guys on the ground and the fierce fire fighting here, the shouts and screams of the wounded. He was a wounded and trapped on his face and I'm talking to him, you know about it and he said, you know, when you're in a war, it was it's pretty easy to take care of yourself. I'm like, all right, but let me, so I asked you and what you told me, I was like, okay, that, oh, that was good. So you got the Marines are saying, hey, look, looks like we're starting to get surrounded here and talks a little bit about this in the book. The walking wounded, so now you got to picture this column, like almost like a mad max looking column. You know, same like in like this guy and I, we would be even in the really stressful situation when no one else was joking. When he was ready to leave, weapon and gear all square it away like a proud, like a parade ground Marine, Sergeant Wright approached me. But if you're more like echo and you want to spend time on the website reading and researching, it's good place to do is on it.com for a slash jockel on there if you want to get a little bunny saved. It would take a long time, but there's so much stuff that I absolutely had to skip and say, you know, I was struggling with myself going, I used up most of a highlighter and a half highlighting this book. Yeah, yeah, that'll involve more the will to read or if you're not fun to read some good points that you like or don't like. The fire teams went forward in bounds, covering each other as they progressed and our machine gun and mortar fire stayed ahead of the advance and kept the enemy heads down. So, you know, okay, we're talking about luxury and like, okay, I, I only got six hours sleep. At this point, oh when he kind of wants to pick up a platoon instead of being the mortar section he kind of feels like mortar section.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 53 with echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening,
[00:00:08] I go. Good evening. At one point, do you quit? At what point do you give in? At what point
[00:00:27] do you surrender? And what is it that makes you surrender? The enemy fatigue hunger.
[00:00:38] First, bitter cold. Who are these men that decide that they will not surrender no matter what?
[00:01:01] What will, what human will do they have? That they decide they are going to fight on no matter
[00:01:14] what they face? Well, I will tell you, these men are men. They're human beings. Like you,
[00:01:33] like me, human beings that decide they are going to fight on despite being surrounded by the
[00:01:39] enemy despite the hunger and the danger and the thirst and the bitter cold. They decide they will not surrender.
[00:01:53] We can find examples of these men throughout history. But one of the four most examples comes from the
[00:02:05] Korean War. In late November and into mid December of 1950, when 30,000 UN troops, mostly American,
[00:02:18] were surrounded by 120,000 communist Chinese forces. And these Americans were attacked,
[00:02:28] by the enemy, and attacked by the bitter freezing cold, and attacked by hunger and fear, and yet they
[00:02:36] would not, and they did not surrender. And tonight we're going to hear from Lieutenant
[00:02:49] in the United States Marine Corps, Joseph R. Owen, who served as a mortar section commander for
[00:02:57] Baker Company, first battalion, seventh Marine Regiment, first Marine Division.
[00:03:04] In his book, we just called colder than hell. And the book starts off with one of the best
[00:03:14] short overviews of the Korean War I've ever read, likely, because it's written by a man who is there.
[00:03:21] A man named General Raymond Davis Ray Davis, who, first of all, he was a battalion commander in
[00:03:31] World War II at the Battle of Pelaloo, awarded the Navy Cross there for leading his men against
[00:03:39] overwhelming Japanese fire in Korea. He was awarded the Medal of Honor,
[00:03:47] as well as two silver stars, a legion of merit, and a bronze star,
[00:03:57] as the commander of first battalion, seventh Marines. And beyond that, he also served
[00:04:06] as the third Marine Division commander in Vietnam in 1969, where he was awarded the Navy
[00:04:12] Distinguished Service Medal and three Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Crosses. So when he speaks,
[00:04:20] I think maybe we should listen. And I'm going to start with that forward
[00:04:27] by General Davis in the book, colder than hell, by Joe Owen. Twice in 1950.
[00:04:46] During the first month of the Korean War of the United States faced military catastrophe,
[00:04:52] both situations occurred because of American errors of diplomacy and faulty intelligence,
[00:04:57] and because our military was not prepared to meet a determined enemy on the battlefield.
[00:05:04] North Korea and China were the enemies that exploited our failings.
[00:05:10] On two occasions, that year they called us by surprise, launching massive attacks first
[00:05:16] against our ally South Korea and then against our own inadequate forces.
[00:05:20] Both times the consequences were devastating. There were tragic numbers of casualties in the ranks
[00:05:28] of our soldiers and Marines, and American prestige worldwide was severely impaired.
[00:05:36] The surprise invasion of South Korea by North Korea with the support of communist China and the
[00:05:41] Soviet Union was virtually invited by the United States and the South Koreans. South Korea was vulnerable.
[00:05:49] Its soldiers were ill-equipped, poorly trained, and improperly deployed.
[00:05:55] The American forces at that time victims of Washington politics and false economies were nearly as bad
[00:06:02] off, following the end of World War II drowned, drawdown. They were in skeletonized formation,
[00:06:11] sadly, untrained and inadequately equipped.
[00:06:14] So there's a little warning for us today.
[00:06:21] Somebody asked me that question. What's your foreign policy? Can you say it in 140 characters?
[00:06:27] Somebody asked me that on Twitter. I answered it in one word. My foreign policy is strength.
[00:06:33] This is why. Back to the book. Moreover, our Secretary of State had proclaimed to the world
[00:06:39] that the Korean Peninsula was outside the area of American vital interests. North Korea, China,
[00:06:46] the Soviet Union, read that message to me that the United States would not defend South Korea
[00:06:50] against outside aggression. South Korea would be theirs for the taking.
[00:06:58] We now know of messages exchanged between Joseph Stalin and the North Korean President
[00:07:04] Kim Il-sung that explored our weakness and concluded that South Korea could be captured in five days.
[00:07:13] Subsequently, the North Koreans launched a sudden and massive invasion.
[00:07:18] Solve the North Korean capital, it's quickly taken, and soon all that country was overrun,
[00:07:23] except for one small pocket around the port of Busan.
[00:07:28] That pocket was formed by American troops.
[00:07:31] On ready as they were, that President Harry Truman hurried into Korean response to the crisis.
[00:07:39] At great sacrifice, these American soldiers with a follow-on brigade of Marines held the
[00:07:44] Busan perimeter long enough to allow forces to assemble for an amphibious assault on In-Chop
[00:07:50] behind the North Korean lines. We recaptured Seoul and the North Koreans were put on the run.
[00:07:57] Fearing in trapmen, they fled back across their border to the North.
[00:08:03] American and South Korean troops were joined by soldiers from other United Nations countries
[00:08:08] and pursued the aggressors deep into North Korea. Our mission was too fold to punish the North Koreans
[00:08:16] and to block the Chinese people's liberation army if it threatened to enter the war.
[00:08:21] Because of a failure of intelligence, however, we were far too late to deter the Chinese.
[00:08:29] They had already positioned vast numbers of been well-trained soldiers in the mountains of North Korea.
[00:08:35] We were soon under heavy attack fighting a numerically superior enemy in unfavorable terrain
[00:08:41] and brutally cold weather. The UN forces predominantly American were chased out of North Korea.
[00:08:48] At the chosen reservoir, where we were outnumbered 10 to 1, the Chinese generals prematurely
[00:08:56] boasted of the destruction of the first Marine division. Yet the opposite happened there.
[00:09:04] Although the Marines were forced to withdraw, we destroyed several Chinese divisions as we
[00:09:09] fought our way to the sea and to escape. Our withdrawal was a successful one but we paid a terrible
[00:09:16] price. Casualties reduced the division to nearly half its strength. The three rifle companies of
[00:09:25] first battalion, seventh Marine regimen, which I was privileged to command and dirt losses of even
[00:09:31] greater proportions. My battalion had been hastily activated in response to President Truman's
[00:09:38] urgent call to action. It was a thrown together rifle company, a collection of
[00:09:44] regulars gathered from Marine Corps posts and stations all over the world and reservists,
[00:09:49] mostly untrained, who were suddenly called from their homes, jobs, schools with only a few days of
[00:09:56] training. They were embarked aboard a ship heading across the Pacific and thrown into combat.
[00:10:05] They had to learn to fight while under fire. Their saving grace was that they were led
[00:10:12] by disciplined officers and NCOs who showed them by upfront example how to fight like Marines.
[00:10:22] Although they suffered casualties that proper preparation would have avoided, they learned
[00:10:27] well and they hardened into fine rifle company. No North Korean or Chinese force ever stop
[00:10:35] them from taking it objective or overcame their position. Let us do all we can to assure that no
[00:10:44] future generation of young Americans need to go to war unprepared as were those heroes who went
[00:10:54] to Korea in 1950. And again that is the forward of the book which was written by General Raymond Davis
[00:11:07] Medal of Honor winner. And like I said, the book is written by Joe Owen Joseph Owen who was
[00:11:17] Marine Corps officer. And let's continue on and now we start here in from Joe Owen.
[00:11:30] They're at Camp Lijoon North Carolina. Nobody at Camp Lijoon had expected a shooting war.
[00:11:36] We know we were ready for one. So they're they're they're just kind of peacetime
[00:11:41] Marines, you know, kind of doing their thing and all of a sudden the North Koreans attack.
[00:11:49] And here we go. They're all sitting around listening to the radio a bunch of Marines.
[00:11:55] The announcer continued more than 2000 Americans military advisors and civilian workers and their
[00:12:00] families are said to be in the path of North Koreans surprise aggression. Their fate is unknown at this
[00:12:06] time. American involvement in the New War is not clear. War yeah! The possibility of American
[00:12:15] Marines in a combat role excited us. So these guys are young. Not all of them. There's there's
[00:12:21] definitely we're going to run into many World War II veterans but the young kids they don't know
[00:12:27] they want to get after it. They're they're fired up. They're so fired up back to the book.
[00:12:31] One story alleged that a commando force of volunteers was forming up for an immediate
[00:12:37] commitment to battle. That one tied up phone lines on the base as we tried to track down the
[00:12:43] commando headquarters in order to volunteer. They're all ready to rock and roll.
[00:12:49] Now then they start seeing what what's beginning to occur.
[00:12:54] They see that we're surrounded. They see that we're kind of getting the North Koreans are getting
[00:12:58] the best if not routing. Back to the book Americans at home were stunned by reports that their
[00:13:04] army, the conqueror of the mighty Germany and Japan only five years before was outnumbered,
[00:13:10] outgunned and out fought by the upstart North Koreans. General MacArthur called for a full
[00:13:17] division of Marines to help him turn back the North Koreans. The Marine Corps welcomed the call
[00:13:24] but we did not have a full division to put in the field. Like all the services the Corps had
[00:13:31] been stripped of men and weapons in order to reduce itself to the level of the 1930s.
[00:13:38] Both the first and second Marine divisions were less than half strength.
[00:13:43] The Corps would need to draw men from guard detachments, ships, companies, and posts and
[00:13:48] stations throughout the world. But it still wouldn't find enough troops to fill a division.
[00:13:55] President Truman thus authorized the common honor of the Marine Corps to call up the reserves.
[00:14:02] So it was again this is a warning. As a nation and as an individual human,
[00:14:11] don't let down your guard. Peace time will not last. And the weaker you look, the sooner
[00:14:21] the peace time will end. Now they get the orders stand by to ship out.
[00:14:30] On the Saturday evening before we left Camp Lijoon, Dorothy. So that's Joe's wife, Dorothy hired a
[00:14:35] babysitter and we went to the officers club for dinner. There were candles out of our table
[00:14:40] which was covered in white linen and set with heavy silverware. The food was delicious and
[00:14:46] plentiful and I would think about it often in Korea when my men and I were hungry and cold.
[00:14:54] That night Dorothy's hair glissoned like gold in the candlelight and her eyes smiled bright and blue
[00:15:01] and warm. We danced and laughed with the other latinants and their wives.
[00:15:07] For some of the couples, our closest friends, it was the last night they would ever have together.
[00:15:19] So they depart Lijoon and they show up at Camp Pendleton California and they get to camp
[00:15:28] Pendleton. We'll talk more about this but Camp Pendleton is a belief in an aunt's on the coast of
[00:15:37] California and there's some pretty aggressive hills in Camp Pendleton which I've spent many
[00:15:44] nights on because we would work up there and they can turn some soft men into some hard men
[00:15:52] pretty quickly or break men if they're too weak. So back to the book our ranks were filled
[00:15:58] by 215 men and seven officers who had never before served together.
[00:16:04] Half of our enlisted men were infantry trained regulars. The other half were a service, most of
[00:16:09] whom were youngsters who knew new little of marine infantry and its method methods.
[00:16:15] Five weeks after we first formed up a camp Pendleton we went into the attack against North Korean
[00:16:22] soldiers who were dug into a hill north of Seoul and we had spent half of that time on board ship
[00:16:30] on the way to war. So let me break that down to you. They have five weeks or five weeks from when they
[00:16:35] form up. Five weeks later they're attacking North Korean troops. So just FYI for a seal platoon that's
[00:16:43] going to Iraq we used to work up for a full year. This is after we went through seal training and
[00:16:49] after we went through seal qualification training and after all the guys show up the team and go
[00:16:53] to special schools and then you get formed up into a platoon and you have an unbelievable work
[00:16:57] up to prepare and the Marine Corps does this too. I mean the army everyone does this now.
[00:17:02] That's the amount of preparation that it takes to prepare for combat. And here are these guys
[00:17:06] five weeks of which what was it. Half that time is spent on a ship just sailing over there.
[00:17:12] Hmm unbelievable. Back to the book the sun scorched hills of Camp Pendleton had over the years
[00:17:24] toughened the legs and tested the spirits of thousands of America's best fighting men.
[00:17:30] One of those towering hills loomed across the road from our training site. So again you want to get
[00:17:36] tough. Get on some hills with a rock sack on your back. That will do it to you. And I guess I kind
[00:17:44] of included those little sections about Camp Pendleton hills for my own pleasure thinking about
[00:17:51] those hills. Back to the book they're going through the training and they're getting ready to
[00:18:00] deploy and we'll go back to the book now Dorothy took 75 dollars of our scant resources and bought
[00:18:07] an airline ticket from Syracuse to San Diego. Each night after we had dismissed the troops,
[00:18:14] Bill and I this is Bill Graber he's another one of the officers. Bill and I caught a ride to the hotel.
[00:18:22] Restaurants in the little village of San Clemente were closed that late but Dorothy would have
[00:18:26] a cold supper waiting for me. Then we would stroll to the beach and listen to the waves crash
[00:18:31] across the sand. During those walks we talked about the babies and we made plans for my return from
[00:18:39] Korea. My next assignment I assure her would give us at least two years at a good duty station.
[00:18:45] Maybe I would be seeing your enough for us to rate decent quarters. In the mornings,
[00:18:51] early and still dark Bill Graber and I would grab a ride back to Camp with the other officers.
[00:18:58] Everyone except the drivers slept all the way crowded against each other and the tight seats of the
[00:19:03] car. We were very tired but we were young men and we did dearly love our beautiful wives.
[00:19:13] And you're going to see throughout this book that even though his wife was not with him,
[00:19:19] she was with him the whole time. Like many spouses are when guys are deployed overseas and now
[00:19:28] they are on board the ship. The ship is getting ready to pull out the San Diego bay.
[00:19:37] Back to the book the wives remained on the dock long after we had gone aboard.
[00:19:41] The squirrel of bagpipe sounded as we wave to them. PFC Timmy Kaleen, Abel Company stood on the
[00:19:49] fan tail of the Oken Augen and his bagpipes filled the fading afternoon with the marines him.
[00:20:00] Hanker chips fluttered from the dock and the ship's horn blasted. We were underway.
[00:20:05] There were tears but marines and marines wives aren't ashamed of tears when their him plays.
[00:20:19] So now they're heading over to Korea. They're in cramped quarters. I've done a couple
[00:20:27] deployments on board ships and there's amphibious ships is what they're called and these ships
[00:20:32] were meant to take people overseas. The ones that I deployed on were what drove us,
[00:20:38] what drove soldiers to Vietnam. We used to deploy on those ships for six months but it's just
[00:20:43] really cramped. They're basically basically like a cattle car, a giant cattle car, a cattle ship.
[00:20:47] Then they just pack everyone on there. It's really tight and there's not much to do on there.
[00:20:54] But you know you take a bunch of marines you put them on a ship and they figure something out
[00:20:58] back to the book. Staff Sergeant Richard revealed himself to be an all-purpose NCO and an acquisition
[00:21:03] specialist. One day he produced a set of boxing gloves and the men of Baker 17 immediately
[00:21:10] became avid pugilists. For three exuberant rounds to the delight of the company, the little bull
[00:21:18] bifolk and the little gorilla, Lupachini, engaged in mutual annihilation. When Sergeant Richard
[00:21:28] claimed his mask gear to end the brawl, the troops and much of the ships crew were an
[00:21:32] cheering frenzy and it had been a grand fight. Both men were covered in blood and bruises and at
[00:21:39] the final claim, they wrapped arms and leaned against each other exhausted. My mortar men swarmed
[00:21:45] into the square, pummeling bifolk with congratulations, perkins who had been holding bifolks
[00:21:51] glasses, placed them carefully over his swollen eyes. I saw Burris then gently guide bifolk out of
[00:21:58] the ring, Gino Brian, Lupachini's platoon sergeant followed with his man and Baker 17 was still
[00:22:05] whistling and cheering when the two fighters and their handlers went through the hatch and down the
[00:22:09] ladder to sick bay. Joe Kersaba stood next to me, so Joe Kersaba is one of the platoon commanders
[00:22:20] stood next to me. This outfit is coming together. He said Joe rarely smiled but there was a big grin on
[00:22:26] his face after that fight. So there's, you notice that in these stories about combat wrestling,
[00:22:35] fighting boxing, there is something to it. There is something to it that bonds men together.
[00:22:44] Fact. Back to the book. When we weren't on deck with the troops, the officers spent the waking
[00:22:52] hours around the wardrobe table. So the wardrobe on a ship is where the officers eat. Captain
[00:22:57] Wilcox, now the introduction to Captain Wilcox, he's the company commander and he's a vet from
[00:23:04] Ewo Jima. Captain Wilcox, let us in review of the principles and lessons of the rifle company combat.
[00:23:11] He and Joe Kersaba use their own battle experience as experiences as illustration. They focused on the
[00:23:18] chaos of combat and how the best laid plans always disintegrated under enemy fire.
[00:23:27] That's why we got to keep our plans simple. War is hell, Captain Wilcox, who had
[00:23:34] much experience at it would tell us, but you never know what particular kind of hell it is going to be.
[00:23:44] We studied the after-actions report that had come from the fifth Marines, the North Koreans,
[00:23:48] they had faced were tough, skilled fighters, every bit as tenacious in battle as the Japanese had
[00:23:53] been in the bitter Pacific Island fighting of the last war. The red soldiers, fifth Marines called
[00:24:00] them Gooks were well trained in the Russian style of combat with effective use of supporting armor,
[00:24:06] mortars and artillery. They were men who also were adept at night fighting. Fighting at night was
[00:24:14] a combat skill we had yet to learn. We would do so under fire and at a terrible cost.
[00:24:21] Joe Owen is actually not a platoon commander. He's the mortar section commander. In a company
[00:24:31] of call it 200, 200 Marines, there's multiple rifle platoons, maybe 40 guys, 50 guys,
[00:24:39] and each one of those rifle platoons. Then there's a little section of mortar guys and mortars
[00:24:44] aren't in direct fire weapons. For those of you that don't know anything about mortars, mortars,
[00:24:48] shoot rounds, you see them in movies, they're a tube. They're basically a tube and they're at a
[00:24:53] really high angle and you drop rounds into it and they fire at a very high altitude and high angle
[00:24:59] and then they drop down from straight above and hit targets. Joe Owen in this company is in
[00:25:05] charge of the mortar section. Back to the book, when Baker 17 was still on the way to war,
[00:25:14] the first and fifth Marines forced a landing across the title flats at Inchon Harbor.
[00:25:21] The radio in the ship's wardrobe was tuned to the tactical net and we listened to commanders
[00:25:27] on the beach as they reported the action to their senior echelons and made call for air and artillery
[00:25:34] support and ammunition resupply. Over the static and crackling transmission we could hear
[00:25:41] shells exploding, small arms fire, battlefield curses and the screams of wounded men.
[00:25:49] The transmissions were piped out onto the deck where the troops also listened to the grim sounds.
[00:25:56] I left the wardrobe and went out to be with my mortar men. They sat in a tight cluster staring
[00:26:03] intently at a loudspeaker as they heard the war that was about to swallow us. That's a real introduction
[00:26:16] right there. You know you're going to war and you get to listen to guys on the ground and
[00:26:20] the fierce fire fighting here, the shouts and screams of the wounded. That's a reality. That's a reality
[00:26:27] check right there for those guys. At this point, oh when he kind of wants to pick up a platoon instead
[00:26:37] of being the mortar section he kind of feels like mortar section. There's a little bit in the rear
[00:26:41] and he wants to be a rifle tuned commander. If you remember what Mack Allen said,
[00:26:46] the last book we did about the Korean War and rifle tuned commander rifle tuned commander,
[00:26:51] rifle tuned commander. That's what if you're gung-ho, that's what you want to do.
[00:26:55] And so Joe Owen he feels kind of like, you know, I wish I was a platoon commander. That's what I want
[00:27:00] to do. But he's a mortar section commander. Okay. That's fine. Well he tries to get that job.
[00:27:07] And he says, he's kind of pressing to get that job up the chain of command. I should have
[00:27:12] backed off. I plowed on. Sir, the word is that the first and fifth Marines are running short
[00:27:16] on Nutenits. I'd like to request transfer as a replacement. The captain turned to Cainy first sergeant.
[00:27:23] If you'll excuse us, I'd like a war to loan with Nutenit Owen. Yes, sir, responded Cainy. So kind of
[00:27:30] gets rid of the senior listed guy. He knew I was about to get reamed and he smirked it me as he
[00:27:35] disappeared behind the pile of crates. Captain Wilcox gave me that glare once again. You want to
[00:27:42] transfer out a baker one seven? Sir, it's the, it's only that I want to put my training
[00:27:47] as some use before the fighting ends. And to hell with your men. To hell with the company. Is that right,
[00:27:53] Nutenit? No, sir, Captain. It's just that it's just that you want to jump ship on us. The skippers face
[00:27:59] glistened with press perspiration and he turned into a steaming red. He'd been angry with me before,
[00:28:06] but never like this. Sir, I, okay, Nutenit. Here's what you do. You put your request for transfer
[00:28:11] and writing and I'll forward it. Approved. No sense holding back a gung-ho hot shot. The second
[00:28:16] lieutenant. Sir, it's not that I want to leave the outfit. It's just that I, I thought that put
[00:28:20] your request in writing. That's all lieutenant dismissed. Sir, I dismissed. So this is your typical,
[00:28:29] typical meatball that thinks he's going to, you know, he's just being gung-ho, trying to make
[00:28:33] something happen. Yeah, it's not a, not a good way to be. And you can see that. So that's another
[00:28:39] thing. You got to think about other people's perspective, right? You got to think about your
[00:28:42] boss's perspective. Your boss is sitting here trying to get this company together and then
[00:28:46] one of his section leaders go, hello, what goes in the world? Right, right. Kind of for him,
[00:28:50] so what is meatball? Meatball. Oh, sorry, that's just an expression for, it's an expression for a
[00:28:55] new guy in the sea old teams. Oh, no. Meatball or meat stick or FNG. Anyone of those can be utilized
[00:29:01] to defend. So I guess I threw it on on the, the new guy here. It kind of slipped out. Yeah, okay.
[00:29:07] Okay. Now they get on shore and back to the book, we passed a company of third
[00:29:17] battalion that had been pulled off the line. It's men were sprawled along the road, unshaven
[00:29:23] and ragged, we read by days of fighting. So there's another, another little wake-up call
[00:29:30] seeing the guys that are coming off the line. Now they get into a position, this is Baker 6,
[00:29:38] move forward out, Captain Will Cox ordered when we all reported ready. As we started across
[00:29:43] the bean field, we were greeted by a few salot of flacking sounds, North Korean bullets
[00:29:48] tearing through the bean plants. Flock, fack, fack, all around us. I kept an eye on my men.
[00:29:54] They crouch low, but they stayed together and moved ahead. Then the cry,
[00:29:58] I call him and God, I'm hit. A few feet from me. A marine from Kaiser's platoon
[00:30:03] arrived on the ground. His hands clutching his belly. Grayish red and testins pushed through
[00:30:09] his fingers and blood, staying the ground as he thrashed about screaming in his pain and terror.
[00:30:15] For the first time, I felt the shivers of dread, the awful fear that comes with combat.
[00:30:20] I froze a second. How many seconds? Until I once again became aware of the flacking sounds
[00:30:30] in the bean plants and I yelled at the men, move it, you people keep moving. They bent lower
[00:30:36] to the ground as we went forward. The North Korean mortars came. Spouts of earth and black smoke
[00:30:43] leaped about us, laced with flame and screaming shrapnel. Believes from being plants spawned
[00:30:50] in fluries and the ground shook. I was suddenly in the midst of a frenzy storm of noise.
[00:30:56] Mortars whistled and crashed, bullets wind and leaves, thwacked, men shouted prayers and blasts
[00:31:01] from me. The far end of the bean field was the deck of a rice patty. We headed for its cover.
[00:31:08] A string of mortar shells exploded around us and a man threw himself to the ground, kicking and
[00:31:13] screaming, can't take this, I can't take this! Screech the fear-stricken marine,
[00:31:18] then he curled up himself into a fetal ball. I ran to him and prodded him with a button my
[00:31:24] car bean. On your feet, his head was buried in his arms. Can't take this, he wailed.
[00:31:30] Get up or I'll shoot you. The sound of the words coming from my mouth was unreal to me.
[00:31:37] Jesus, don't shoot me the man wind. Tears cut pale streaks through the dust on his cheeks as he
[00:31:43] stared and horror at my car bean, which was inches from his face. I grabbed a man by his collar
[00:31:49] and pulled him up to his feet. Move, I yelled. Sergeant Dale from the first patoon ran toward us.
[00:31:55] I got him, lieutenant. He's from my patoon. Dale said. So there's fear.
[00:32:02] Then you can see Joho in his feeling fear and he's dealing with it. And this other young
[00:32:08] marine is feeling fear and he's not dealing with it. Then they they finally get to that
[00:32:14] dieker cross the field. Back to the book, I crawled up the diek to peer over the top.
[00:32:18] Smoke obscured my view, but far ahead and across the road I detected some movement.
[00:32:23] The enemy positions were difficult to locate. No flash came from their weapons when they
[00:32:27] fired. I raised my binoculars. Before I could focus on the target, however, a flurry of bullets
[00:32:33] melted the diek and spurts of pebbles and dirt stung my face. I jerked my head back down and
[00:32:39] to cover. Besides me, a rifleman tumbled away from the diek. He made a choking sound and his helmet
[00:32:46] bounced to the ground. Blood gushed from his head, which suddenly became a wet crimson pulp.
[00:32:53] Another wave of fear shuddered through me, a massive paralyzing force. Again, I froze,
[00:33:00] aware only of that blood drenched face and head. Captain Wilcox voiced cracking,
[00:33:07] crackled out of my walkie-talkie. Baker five, this is six, come in.
[00:33:11] The voice snapped me from my paralysis. Baker six, this is five, come in six.
[00:33:17] I was scrambling back up the diek. I knew the skipper wanted the 60s, the 60s are his mortar,
[00:33:22] 60mm mortars, to bear on the North Koreans who had us under fire. Get those guns cranked up,
[00:33:28] five over. Roger that six, I said to the radio on the double. Surged at wingets, gun was a
[00:33:34] few yards away behind the diek and I crawled over to get in front of it. Stand by for H.E. Fire
[00:33:38] Mission, I called the winget. Number one gun standing by H.E. Fire Mission, the staunch winget
[00:33:43] called back. With all the will I could muster, I forced my head above the diek by noculers at the
[00:33:49] ready. The terror of having my head blown off to a pulp was diminished by fear of losing the
[00:33:55] respect of my men. So there's a couple things there. You've heard me say, you train how you fight.
[00:34:05] What they go back to is the fundamentals that they practice and trained and we didn't
[00:34:11] dive too much in the training. But if you ever, if you've ever seen Marines in the field with
[00:34:16] a 60mm mortar, I haven't seen Army guys, I'm sure they're outstanding too, but when you see the
[00:34:20] Marines setting up a mortar for a fire mission, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. And this is
[00:34:25] exactly what it's like even in the 90s, you know, 40 years after after the Korean War, when I
[00:34:32] would watch the the mortarman set up a mortar to shoot, it was just like that. They'd be stand by
[00:34:37] for fire mission and then, you know, one of the sergeant would call out. Number one gun standing by
[00:34:41] H.E. Fire Mission, you go back to your training and those fundamental basics that you learn,
[00:34:48] the simple commands, that's what you go back to. That's why you train. That's why you use repetition.
[00:34:55] So when that fear comes up, you go back to what you know. Your instinct becomes instead of
[00:35:01] cowering, your instinct becomes to do what you've trained out of do. Back to the book,
[00:35:09] all along the Dykes, our Marines were sprawled heads below the edge. The corpsmen had moved
[00:35:14] their wounded alongside the road waiting for the ambulance jeeps, the meat wagons to come up.
[00:35:20] There were two bodies face covered by ponchos. They were Baker one sevens first killed an action,
[00:35:26] the KIA's, Baker's the company at the right. That's why they keep referring to Baker one seven,
[00:35:35] first battalion, Baker company. Back to the book, someone said,
[00:35:40] it won't be nothing left up there by the time the artillery gets it. So what's going on here is
[00:35:47] they call in some some big guns, some big so a 60 millimeter more small and when you start calling in,
[00:35:52] how it serves big giant bombs are coming from the sky. That's what they call some of those in.
[00:36:00] And you know, you're sitting there watching the mountain where these, where these North Koreans are,
[00:36:04] they're seeing massive explosions. And so now back to the book, someone said, won't be nothing left
[00:36:10] of them up there by the time that artillery lets up. Staff Sergeant Richard the company armor
[00:36:16] was crouched near us. Don't fool yourself. He said artillery never wipes out the gooks,
[00:36:21] softens them up and keeps their head down. But they'll be there waiting when the guns let up.
[00:36:28] There's another lesson we learned a lot about. You know, you think you think that's no
[00:36:34] one could survive something and they do survive it. When we were running training, we had
[00:36:41] the humvies were shooting blanks. It's training. So the humvies would be big 50 caliber
[00:36:45] machine guns and they'd shoot blanks into a building and then the guys in the building would
[00:36:50] come and shoot back at them. And the guys going through the training, the seals,
[00:36:53] they'll, you know, we shot a bunch of 50 cowl in there. Those guys wouldn't be alive. And you know,
[00:36:58] I would say no, actually they will be alive. They will be alive because I've seen it. And those 50
[00:37:05] cows, they're on awesome weapon. But there's a guy, two rooms deep inside that building. You can
[00:37:10] shoot all those rounds in there. He's going to be okay. And as soon as you let up, he's going to be
[00:37:13] there shooting back at units. The same thing with obviously with the big artillery and the North
[00:37:17] Koreans are dug in. I scrambled to my feet. Keep moving. The men were all up and they ran after me
[00:37:26] bent under the weight of their guns and ammo. Get us the hell out of here. Someone cried.
[00:37:31] And so what do they do? They attack. So when you're pinned down, it's just another example.
[00:37:35] When you're pinned down attack. And here's what it looks like. Back to the book. Two of Kaiser
[00:37:40] Squads moved up and short bounds while a third laid a base of fire.
[00:37:47] Covered move. You're going to see cover move all throughout this book. And every time we bring it
[00:37:51] up, I'm going to mention it. Because I want to make sure everyone that's listening, those those
[00:37:55] folks that are in the military, you hear it every single time. This is the first one of many.
[00:38:00] Two of Kaiser Squads moved up and short bounds while a third laid a base of fire. The first 50 yards
[00:38:05] went easily. Then the North Koreans popped out of cover and took us under fire. Suddenly the ground
[00:38:11] before us was scared with torrents of bullets. Mortar shells whistled in and exploded along
[00:38:16] Koyzer's line. Carmen. Carmen. So if you don't know, Carmen is a medic in the army, it's a
[00:38:23] medic in the Navy. It's called a corpsman and navy corpsmen are the ones that go and deploy
[00:38:30] with the Marine Corps as medics. So that's when you hear those corpsmen calls, that's what it is.
[00:38:35] Carmen. Carmen came a despairing whale. Ad topple, lurched up from prone position and ran
[00:38:41] toward the wounded man as enemy bullets spurred it around him. Besides me, another man went down
[00:38:46] with a grunt and did not move. Fear slammed my gut once more and I was flat on the deck.
[00:38:54] Nichols was down there with me. What do you want to do, Lieutenant? Nichols plump young
[00:39:01] face, streaked with dirt and sweat, showed the same fear that had me in its terrible grip.
[00:39:07] Jesus, the boy depends on me. I forced my head up. That's a classic. What do you want to do,
[00:39:19] Lieutenant? I was, I think I might have talked about this, but I was in, when I was in Sri Lanka
[00:39:28] and I was a young kid and there was all those guys that were hardcore combat veterans.
[00:39:32] And one of the captains, Army captains, again Sri Lankan Army captain who had been in tons of combat.
[00:39:40] And I was talking to him, I was trying to like, gunner information about war because I hadn't been
[00:39:45] in any and he'd been in a ton. He was a wounded and trapped on his face and I'm talking to him,
[00:39:53] you know about it and he said, you know, when you're in a war, it was it's pretty easy
[00:40:00] to take care of yourself. Take care of yourself. Like, he said, if I was in a war,
[00:40:05] if I, when we were in a fire fight, if I just had to take care of myself, I'd be okay.
[00:40:09] But when you're in charge of everyone, it's totally different. Then now, the sudden,
[00:40:14] you got people saying, what do you want us to do, Lieutenant? And that's the pressure, which I will never
[00:40:21] forget him, tell me that story. And that's a great example of it right there. Sure, he's scared.
[00:40:26] He's scared, but he's got a mortar section waiting for him to wait for him to tell him what to do,
[00:40:32] to save them. Now we get introduced to a guy named Lieutenant Lee, who's a Chinese American guy,
[00:40:43] very by the book and very hardcore. You're gonna hear play about Lieutenant Lee here. Lieutenant Lee
[00:40:49] came upon Baldwin's gun. Sir, I think we should move this gun Baldwin said to his Lieutenant.
[00:40:53] It's kicking up dust. You have a good position here Baldwin, responded Lieutenant Lee.
[00:40:57] I'll show you how to handle the dust problem. Lee opened up his canteen and walked around the
[00:41:01] machine gun sprinkling precious water as he went. Now fire off a burst orderedly. The machine gun
[00:41:07] fired, but Ray's no dust. Lieutenant Lee walked on up the hill, ignoring enemy bullets that hit
[00:41:14] around him. Moving forward a little bit. Hey, Lee, called by folk. Get down. We're getting shot at.
[00:41:24] By folk had Lieutenant Lee's attention. Lieutenant dashed to where by folk was hugging the ground.
[00:41:29] You addressed me as Lee. He asked, standing over the astonished young marine.
[00:41:35] Jesus, yeah, get down. You're drawing fire. You on your feet,
[00:41:38] demanded Lee. Bullets sit through the air, punctuating the bizarre scene of a lieutenant bracing a
[00:41:44] PFC to attention in the midst of a fire fight. You call me Lieutenant Lee or Sir. You understand
[00:41:51] that marine? Yes, yes, sir. Stamored by folk, wishing that he were in a very deep foxhole.
[00:42:00] And you never forget that. Understand? Now carry on. Said the Lieutenant and he proceeded to walk
[00:42:05] further up the hill, seemingly oblivious to the enemy fire. What the hell? I thought by folk.
[00:42:13] And he got up to walk behind Lee. The rest of the mortar squad arose and followed. So like I said,
[00:42:20] Lee is by the book. And that's an extreme example. I don't think I necessarily agree with that
[00:42:27] example either. But Lee's gonna hold the line. And maybe there was much danger as he thought. But
[00:42:35] instilling that discipline, he's given no slack. Back to the book, while the mortar is
[00:42:43] obscured the enemy's view, Van Winkle moved his people up. So you got the mortar's dropping fire
[00:42:50] and that allows Van Winkle to move his people. That's called cover and moved by the way.
[00:42:54] Nearing the top of the ravine, Hank Kaiser positioned his assault squad to follow a barrage of
[00:42:59] grenades into the enemy positions as soon as the mortar's lifted. So you got three situations. You
[00:43:04] got the mortar's are going in. That's the first cover. Then once the mortar's lifted, they're going to
[00:43:08] throw grenades. That's your second cover. Bam, carriers for the marine machine guns,
[00:43:14] filled in with riflemen on the line of assault, ready to charge up the last few yards of ground.
[00:43:19] Lee was with them, Van at fix to the top of his car bean. The mortar's fired a final barrage.
[00:43:26] Their explosions were followed by the sharper impact of grenades thrown at enemy holes.
[00:43:31] Shouts and war cries swelled from charging Marines who leaped Van at's pointed into the enemy
[00:43:36] positions that were dug in along the face of the ridge. Some of the North Koreans stood to fight.
[00:43:41] Their Van at's also fixed, but they were cut down. Others scurried over the hill,
[00:43:46] many were shot from behind as they tried to escape. We all knew had been a far from perfect
[00:43:53] exercise. Some of the men had been slow to respond to direction. Not all of our orders were clear enough
[00:44:01] for quick and effective fire and movement. We were fortunate that the enemy had not chosen
[00:44:08] a fight to the death defense of this hill as they would have advanced as they would when we
[00:44:13] advanced further north. Think about this point, not all of our orders were clear enough
[00:44:21] for quick and effective fire and movement. He's not even blaming the guys. He knows that the mistake
[00:44:26] was that they weren't being simple clear concise with their orders and that makes everything lag.
[00:44:34] Back to the book and we had nearly reached the top captain Wilcox pushed wevers,
[00:44:38] platoon through Kaiser's for the final assault. Platoon Sergeant King led the charge and we could
[00:44:44] hear his piercing rebel yells all over the hill. Once again, it was a ragged performance. Ors
[00:44:52] confused in the hellish noise, men who bunched close together and some who hesitated to risk
[00:44:58] the move against enemy fire. However, clumsy we were, though, we had the fundamentals right.
[00:45:05] The NCOs directed their sectors of fire. The fire teams went forward in bounds, covering each
[00:45:12] other as they progressed and our machine gun and mortar fire stayed ahead of the advance
[00:45:18] and kept the enemy heads down. That's what that's what small unit tactics are.
[00:45:24] It's cover move, cover move, cover move.
[00:45:27] Now, they're digging in some some night defenses and because they're these peaks, I mean,
[00:45:38] this huge mountainous terrain steep cliffs, they end up disaggregated across the battlefield.
[00:45:44] So they're not, they're not right next to each other because there's valleys between them.
[00:45:49] Back to the book, we had to set our own isolated perimeter and we couldn't tie our
[00:45:54] flanks to the other companies for mutual support. The same hell true for attack,
[00:45:59] almost always the battalion was channeled, channeled into attacking some with one company,
[00:46:04] one hill at a time. This sort of isolated fighting made it difficult to communicate with
[00:46:11] battalion and other companies. That problem was not solved. Much of the time, we company-level
[00:46:19] officers were on our own initiative decentralized command. Just decentralized command. So,
[00:46:26] imagine this, you can't talk to battalion. There's a hill that cuts your radio signal. You have
[00:46:30] to be, you have to know what the intent is of the operation and you have to be out there ready to
[00:46:34] execute on your own to the best of your ability underneath the commanders intent.
[00:46:41] Back to the book, I learned how to deflect the fear.
[00:46:44] After the first jolt of it, which came with the initial shock of coming under fire,
[00:46:52] I would force myself upright and attempt to read the situation before the skippers' boys came
[00:46:58] crackling out of the walkie-talkie. Once I had rammed myself into action,
[00:47:04] the fear subsided. It never completely went away though. So, people asked this all the time how
[00:47:10] we get overcome fear. And what did he do to overcome fear? He forced himself into action.
[00:47:17] Didn't wait! You start feeling that fear? Go! Go get up, take a look at that situation,
[00:47:23] try and analyze it, and his own clock, what he made for himself, the timer that he made for himself,
[00:47:28] was I'm going to, I'm going to assess the situation before the boss calls me. So, that's the time
[00:47:33] we put on himself. That forced him into action. So, we say this over and over again. Your afraid
[00:47:39] is something, step into it. Take action. Don't wait! Back to the book, there was no deflecting the
[00:47:48] confusion that became with every firefight. The will during patterns of noise and grotesque scenes
[00:47:55] exploded all around. Men screamed in rage and pain and fear. Swarms of bullets, wind and splattered
[00:48:05] close by, the mortars blasted, hurled flames and slices of steel and raised clouds of greasy black smoke.
[00:48:15] The sparing voice is yelled, corpsmen and someone would surely call what do we do, lieutenant?
[00:48:23] In the turmoil, the officers and sergeants made themselves visible and we shouted orders.
[00:48:28] Watch your sector or move up or bear on me or go to machine gun 10 o'clock 300 yards.
[00:48:36] We subdued the fear and showed the men that we were in command. And I've talked about this one before
[00:48:44] too. I talked all the time about, oh you got to explain to everybody why, you got to explain to
[00:48:47] why, you want everyone to be happy, you want people to form the plan with you and you want
[00:48:51] to be there, plan you want them to take ownership and then I also say that when you have a critical
[00:48:55] situation you have to lead and that's what he's talking about right here, you have to lead and
[00:49:01] that's what they do. They would give these to orders, simple, clear, direct orders of what to do in
[00:49:07] this situation and show the men that they were in command. Back to the book, we could have
[00:49:17] alleviated some of the confusion if our walkie talkies had worked in that as advertised. The
[00:49:22] handheld two-way radios were supposed to transmit and receive up to a mile in distance.
[00:49:28] We found that they rarely functioned over a hundred yards, never over uneven terrain.
[00:49:34] We carried them because they were all we had, but we had little faith in them.
[00:49:38] Instead, just like frontline military leadership throughout history, we relied on
[00:49:44] line-of-site communications, arm-and-hand signals, and we sent runners back and forth. In those first
[00:49:53] five days of combat, I learned to stay visible and I learned the value of a good runner.
[00:49:59] The North Koreans used a whistles and bugles for battlefield command, more effective by far
[00:50:07] than our walkie talkies. I'm a huge proponent of verbal commands. I think life told this story
[00:50:16] a bunch of times where I was telling you, you're used, he's trying to tell us guys what to do over
[00:50:20] the radio and I said, hey, life, give them verbal commands. When you're working,
[00:50:26] there's this everyone's talking on the radio and it turns into white noise. They're not responding.
[00:50:32] When you give a verbal command in the Seal Teams and the Military, you get trained
[00:50:38] that if I tell Echo, Peel right, you're good at when you hear that, you're instinct and you're
[00:50:43] training tells you to repeat that command. So you're in repeat at the next person when they hear,
[00:50:46] they're going to repeat it. So everyone repeats the verbal command.
[00:50:50] So when you say verbal command, that's like, it's the radio. Yeah, it's yelling,
[00:50:54] you have to yell and you're talking, but in all actuality, it's yelling. Yeah, it's yelling.
[00:50:59] And so the radios just sometimes, you know, and our radios are infinitely better than these
[00:51:06] radios and even while I was in, the radio has made vast improvements and by the end, by the time I
[00:51:11] retired, the radios were pretty damn good. But there are times if the radio is not working,
[00:51:17] you've got to go with the verbal commands. And that's why you've got to train. You've got to train
[00:51:21] for the verbal train without radios a bunch. I always tell guys, yeah, take the radios off.
[00:51:24] Make sure you can do without radios. How's it going to go if their communication net goes down?
[00:51:28] You've got to have that backup communication plan all the time. Hmm.
[00:51:37] Now here we are in another, another firefight. This is basically a massive bulk of fire
[00:51:43] fights back to the book. The North Koreans disappeared into the deep ditch that ran along the
[00:51:48] other side of the road. They were moving in our direction and we dove for the our own ditch.
[00:51:53] Grenades flew toward us but landed wide. There was a machine gun up ahead. However, I couldn't
[00:51:58] locate it and it started and it started to fire down on us. I tossed two grenades in the ditch where
[00:52:05] the North Koreans were concealed and told Burst to have his men crawl up, crawl over a clump of
[00:52:10] boulders 20 paces away. When the squad and its mortar were in, I told Nicholas to go for it.
[00:52:18] We were crouched together, but Nicholas turned to crawl away a bullet spear
[00:52:23] just through him backward against him against me. His blood spattered my dung threes.
[00:52:30] The boy made a terrible rattling sound and then was still his teenage face.
[00:52:37] Expressionless. Burst watched horrified and I waved him back when he began to crawl towards us.
[00:52:46] Then I took a deep breath, pressed myself flat to the ground and crept rapidly away from the ditch.
[00:52:51] I left Nicholas behind me where he had died. Harsh firefights and they wrap up this. They keep
[00:53:09] taking their objectives. They're taking a lot of casualties and this section here is after the
[00:53:14] fight is over back to the book. We grew silent thinking of our families. I took the snap shots from
[00:53:21] the webbing inside my helmet and remembered their images one by one. Then I thought about the
[00:53:28] days next mission and reviewed the fighting we had done that day. I tried to blank out the blood
[00:53:34] screams, men killing each other and dying, the ground exploding, bursts of flame and stabbing
[00:53:40] tracers, a hot smell of weapons at full automatic, the stench of guts and feces oozing from a dead
[00:53:48] marine and the shuddering fear. They continue pushing, they're pushing north and they're on
[00:54:11] one of these patrols heading north and we'll go back to the book through my binoculars. I saw
[00:54:17] bearded old Korean emerge from one of the huts. Papa's on we called these grandpa's who wore
[00:54:22] traditional garb of high black top hat and flowing white robes. The old fellow stood before his
[00:54:29] doorway watching the wilderness as weapons laden marines passed through his village.
[00:54:35] Crack went brain-ex-carbine, only a few inches from me and the old man felled the ground.
[00:54:42] The tall black hat fell beside him. Got the bastard, exclaimed brainic. His carbine was still
[00:54:51] up searching for another target. God damn fool, I yelled astonished at the murderous act.
[00:54:59] Without fought I slammed the butt of my own carbine into brain-ex-rids. Brain-ex-creamed with pain
[00:55:04] and went down to the ground writhing. I stood over him, poised to deliver another butt stroke.
[00:55:09] Got damn fool, I screamed again as right came from behind me and held my arms, wing it,
[00:55:15] was with right and pulled my carbine away. Hold it, lieutenant. Right shouted in my ear, hold it.
[00:55:21] What the hell happened? You see what he did, I screamed. I'll kill the
[00:55:26] dictorsky. The corpsman was already kneeling beside Brainic. He snapped a thread of morphine
[00:55:32] and jabed Brainic's arm. I endeavored to control myself, deep breaths. Okay, sergeant, I said,
[00:55:40] and right released his hold, the men were circling looking for me to Brainic. They were silent.
[00:55:47] Got damn it. He shot that old man for nothing, I yelled. Through the pain, Brainic,
[00:55:52] grown. I thought he was a goddamn gook. I thought he had a weapon. Any of you seen what happened?
[00:55:58] Wing it asked the men, no one responded. No witnesses right said softly to me.
[00:56:04] Whatever happened, nobody saw anything. The realization hit me. No one except me had witnessed
[00:56:10] Brainic shooting that old man. But if someone had seen me hit Brainic, I could be subject to
[00:56:16] a court martial for striking and elisted man. No witnesses right said again, no one saw anything.
[00:56:22] This stays in the mortars. I heard someone say, meaning we're just going to keep this amongst
[00:56:29] ourselves. Yeah, someone else responded. This stays with us. There was a murmur of a scent.
[00:56:36] Shall I move them out? Lieutenant, right asked? Yes, sergeant. I answered,
[00:56:41] numbly. Move them out. The morphine had not yet taken his effect on Brainic. He ground his
[00:56:48] teeth together to hold back cries of pain and he was scared. I bent over him and said,
[00:56:53] you know, you and I know what happened, Brainic. And you're going to have to live with it.
[00:56:59] Brainic nodded his head. He said nothing but blinked his tear-filled eyes and nodded his head.
[00:57:05] Take care of him, doc. Then I went to catch up with the mortarman. When I walked past the old man's
[00:57:11] hut, a circle of women and children surrounded the body crying their sorrow. And old woman caught my eye.
[00:57:19] I'm sorry. I said, although she wouldn't understand my words, we're all very sorry.
[00:57:33] It's madness. And again, you young military leaders out there. You've got to watch your
[00:57:40] people and you've got to give them good commanders intent. They've got to understand. They've got to
[00:57:45] understand what's right and what's wrong and that's going to come from you.
[00:57:53] Now, at this point in the book, and again, obviously, I'm not reading the entire book,
[00:58:00] but you all should. So you can capture everything that's in between, but I'm jumping forward a
[00:58:05] little bit here. They get relieved by the army. They move to the rear and they start getting
[00:58:12] word on what they're going to be doing. Back to the book, under the glare of the lantern,
[00:58:18] Captain Wilcox spread a map on the hood and we jostled for a view. Maps to this part of the world
[00:58:24] were scarce. This is the first one we had seen of the country beyond Hamhung. It was a topographic
[00:58:31] chart made by the Japanese during their occupation of Korea. The characters language on the
[00:58:36] map were Japanese, place names and legends had no meaning for us, but we could read the physical
[00:58:42] features and the contour lines. The terrain they showed was a military nightmare, roadblock and
[00:58:49] ambush territory. It was a country of high steep hills, deep valleys, and sharp ridge lines.
[00:58:56] The lower elevations were largely forested. Settlements were sparse, and the few roads
[00:59:03] twisted snake-like through tight passes and along riverbeds. At the northern extremity, the map,
[00:59:11] at the end of 70 miles of a narrow, corkscrew roadway was a meandering blue dot.
[00:59:18] That was the chosen reservoir. The Chinese have committed themselves to this war,
[00:59:24] began Captain Wilcox. They are in force. They are slicing through the Republic of North Korea's
[00:59:31] Army up north like a hot knife through butter. Up here, he used his bandet as a pointer to indicate
[00:59:39] the Chinese advance. The people will, we will fight, are the 124th division of the regular
[00:59:45] Chinese Army. Definite and confirmed no matter what Tokyo wants to believe. So the military command
[00:59:52] was in Japan. They weren't in Korea. The military command, the generals were over in Tokyo.
[00:59:57] So he said no matter what Tokyo wants to believe. This is who we're fighting. Back to the
[01:00:02] book, their tough, well-trained soldiers, 10,000 of them. And all of their officers are combat
[01:00:08] experienced. They're very best. After the briefing, I request a word alone with Captain Wilcox
[01:00:15] to ask him if we could leave Sergeant Wright. So Sergeant Wright, you've heard his name
[01:00:20] mentioned a few times. He was the senior and listed guy work and directly for Captain O and
[01:00:27] and it's actually time for him to go home. I request a word alone with Captain Wilcox to ask him
[01:00:34] if we could leave Sergeant Wright behind with the company moved out. Sergeant White has done a
[01:00:39] good job for us, but he's a short time or just waiting for paperwork I offered. Further more sir,
[01:00:44] it's not good for the troops to see him with his morale down. I'd like to replace him with
[01:00:48] Sergeant Winget before we hit anything serious up ahead. Good idea the captain said,
[01:00:54] except it's too late. Battalion says we mount out as we are. I'm not about to snarl up with them
[01:01:01] on a transfer detail right now. You tell Sergeant Wright that I'm sorry we can't do anything for him.
[01:01:07] I, I, sir. So that was a little opportunity for Sergeant Wright to get out of there,
[01:01:14] but it didn't work out. And now, just talking about kind of the morale, the troops back to the
[01:01:26] book, there was a great energy in the ranks, strong, healthy young men on the way to adventure.
[01:01:32] We cleaned and reclaimed weapons and earnestly sharpened our bayonets and fighting knives.
[01:01:38] The old salt's retold stories of Japanese ferocity on the Pacific Islands. Others remembered
[01:01:44] pitch battle with the Chinese bandits along with the pleasures of the North China occupation.
[01:01:50] The newly blooded veterans of last month's fight boasted to the replacements about their
[01:01:56] triumphs over the stubborn North Koreans. All hands speculated about whether the quality of the
[01:02:01] Chinese army would be equal to that of the North Koreans we had beaten down south. The fear that
[01:02:07] settles in the gut before combat had not yet surfaced. On that crisp morning with our clean,
[01:02:14] even faces, clean dungries, square-to-way gear, full canteens, full bellies, and full issue of ammunition,
[01:02:23] the Marines of Baker 17 feared no one. They started heading up north and one of the
[01:02:30] kernels is out. Colonel Litsenberg was there. He stood beside the road as we passed nodding and smiling
[01:02:35] at his fighters. You're looking good, Marine. You're looking good, Marine. He kept saying,
[01:02:40] and all the men waved and smiled back at him. The veterans from down south were recognized,
[01:02:45] all recognized old Homer. They had seen him frequently up on the line. Good hunting, Owen. Good hunting,
[01:02:52] young man. He called them me as I passed by.
[01:02:54] Now he has that opportunity now to maybe figure out a way out for right, who had the opportunity
[01:03:10] go away. While the men were loading up on ammo, I talked to Sergeant Wright. No sense for you
[01:03:17] to go up, I told him. Your orders could come down from battalion any time now. Stay here with the
[01:03:21] gunning. I appreciate that lieutenant responded Sergeant Wright, but I do want to stay with the
[01:03:28] mortars. If it's okay with you, that's what I'll do. I nodded. It's okay with me, Sergeant.
[01:03:35] I just don't want you wasting time getting back to your kids. He said, Stifley, I'll stay with
[01:03:41] the sections, sir. He didn't like my favoring him. He went back to the mortarmen and told
[01:03:47] them to get ready to move out. I'm telling you, there's a certain bond. There's a certain bond.
[01:03:57] And obviously in this case, it's a bond that's even stronger than the bond he has with his kids.
[01:04:02] It is the bond that he knows his brothers and arms are going into harm's way, and he's going with
[01:04:07] him no matter what. So now we get Baker one seven. They're dug into some positions. They've moved,
[01:04:18] and now they're dug into some positions back to the book. In the brush below Kaiser's
[01:04:21] Patoon, Chinese assault squads were waited in disciplined silence for the rockets and bugles
[01:04:27] that would signal them to attack. They're quilted uniforms kept them from shivering in the chill
[01:04:33] night. They already knew in detail how Kaiser's defenses were set up and the location of each forward
[01:04:41] hole and our weapons. During the later afternoon, their officers had watched Baker one seven
[01:04:47] dig in and they knew our line as well as we did. Under cover of darkness, the assault teams had
[01:04:54] crept soundlessly into their jump-off positions within grenade range of the marine mine.
[01:04:59] These soldiers were honored that they would be the first Chinese to attack American Marines.
[01:05:09] So these guys are staged and ready, and here we go. The sound of a rocket ripping through the air
[01:05:15] close above us jolted me away can brought me upright in our hole. Kelly was with me, a streak of
[01:05:21] fluorescent green crossed our line, followed by a red rocket from the other direction. Bugles
[01:05:26] blared and whistle shrild down the Sudan valley. The luminous hands of my watch said zero, zero,
[01:05:33] three, zero, Baker one seven was under attack. A sudden clamor erupted from Hank Kaiser's side of the hill,
[01:05:41] the eerie chant, malin die, malin die issuing from a chorus of Chinese voices, then the crash of
[01:05:48] mortars, the boom, and concussion of grenades in the sharp sputter of burp guns.
[01:05:53] Seconds later, there was the deeper sound of answering marine rifles and bars joined by the
[01:06:00] pounding of arm-machine guns and the explosion of marine grenades. The screams of wounded men
[01:06:07] soon added to the malage of sounds, along with profanities of rage in both languages.
[01:06:15] Fast forward a little bit, Chinese grenades exploded into the line and their burp guns blazed.
[01:06:27] The first wave of enemy soldiers rushed in and forward holes were buried in mounds of
[01:06:32] quilted uniforms, clubbing and stabbing that Chinese surged up the third battoons hill.
[01:06:39] Behind them were left dead marines and wounded men who cried for the help of their corpsmen.
[01:06:46] One of the things that they talk about in here is one of the tactics that the Chinese used
[01:06:51] is not everyone who would even carry a weapon when they would attack. If you were a guy that wasn't
[01:06:57] carrying a weapon, you would go attack and soon as someone got shot, you would take the weapon and carry on.
[01:07:02] That's how many people they had, number one. They also didn't have a weapon for every guy.
[01:07:10] They would have given them. But they also said, here's the plan. But then think about how
[01:07:14] now light you are. You're not even carrying a weapon. You're not even carrying any ammunition or anything.
[01:07:18] You're just able to travel and it's hard for people that
[01:07:22] we're never put on gear. It burns you down so much it just makes you so and you get used to it.
[01:07:29] Sure. But when you can get as used to it as you want, when you take it off, you feel like Superman.
[01:07:34] These Koreans are the Chinese are feeling like Superman sneaking up into these positions.
[01:07:40] They also had real legit winter gear at least this group. We're going to run in some groups that
[01:07:44] didn't have it. But they got these nice quilted uniforms and jackets. That's they're just bringing it.
[01:07:52] They're bringing it back to the book. Van Winkle ready the Marines near him for the next
[01:07:59] Chinese attack putting his people into recaptured fighting holes. The men stacked Chinese bodies in
[01:08:06] front of their holes for greater protection. Somebody yelled, the Van Winkle, that his own shoulder
[01:08:11] was bleeding. The big sergeant felt his arm and found a Chinese bullet had indeed passed through his
[01:08:16] shoulder. He didn't care. Nobody, sorry, nearby a man on the ground sobbing and shaking.
[01:08:26] My buddy, my buddy, Gooks shot his head clean off. The orange glare of a Chinese grenade illuminated
[01:08:34] the sobbing Marine. Van Winkle crawled over to the man, grasspeas are him saying, come on kid, come
[01:08:40] with me. You'll be alright. He rose from the ground and pulled the kid up with him.
[01:08:48] Leadership. Going forward a little bit, Archie Van Winkle now found himself on the lower
[01:08:56] fringes of the Chinese attack. He ignored his wounded shoulder and fired his carbine one handed.
[01:09:01] He called for nearby remains Marines to follow and launched his own attack into the flank of the
[01:09:07] Chinese who were moving up towards Kaiser. So you got to guys wounded, just picking up young Marines
[01:09:12] to get them back in the game, firing his rifle with one hand and leading it, leading it,
[01:09:17] attack on the flank of the Chinese, that are attacking his buddy.
[01:09:23] Higher up the hill, Gunny Foster brought Sherman Richter's two machine guns from first
[01:09:28] platoon and they commenced pounding down Kaiser's slope, withering fire and exploding grenades.
[01:09:33] Now from both flanks and above stymied the Chinese attack, there was a series of whistle signals
[01:09:41] and the attackers fell back. They crawled over their dead but pulled their wounded with them
[01:09:46] as they backed down to the bottom of the hill and into the woods. They were supported by
[01:09:52] well-directed covering fire and they held good order as they withdrew. When the Chinese were
[01:09:57] finding off the hill, the Marines ceased their fire and both Marines went silent. So the Chinese
[01:10:04] are also doing cover move as they even as they leave as they withdraw.
[01:10:15] They, they're, they're in another little firefight and oh, when's trying to quickly get his
[01:10:24] mortar up and they drop a, they drop a mortar around the way a mortar works. You drop the mortar
[01:10:31] into the, the round into the tube and it fires. If there's a misfire to really, it's a scary situation
[01:10:37] because so if you drop the mortar into the tube and it doesn't come out, it doesn't shoot.
[01:10:42] Well now you've got a live round inside the mortar tube. So you have to literally pick up the tube
[01:10:47] and let gravity pull, like let the mortar round slide out and you put your hands there to catch it.
[01:10:54] Yeah. Well, why does it explode? It's not like a timer or nothing. No, it's like, yeah, it's got a little
[01:10:59] detonator that makes it shoot and you got a little propellant around the fin that makes no
[01:11:05] different ranges. But essentially you drop this thing in there and it's supposed to shoot out.
[01:11:10] And when it doesn't, it's a scary situation. It's now you've got a live round inside your mortar tube
[01:11:15] and in order to get it out, you, you, you just lift the mortar tube up and you kind of pull
[01:11:21] around into your hands. Yeah. So they get a dug round and there's a bunch of things that can
[01:11:26] call it, cause a dug round. Some of it can be, you know, a bad batch of ammunition.
[01:11:31] But that's what's going on here. They get a dug round, dug round, try another one. I told
[01:11:35] we again, they're trying to get some mortar's down range. So they're on a panic situation and
[01:11:38] they're getting shot at by the way, too. Dug round, try another one. I told we get Kelly yelled for us to
[01:11:43] hurry up. Wing it asked me to wait while he checked the tube for an obstruction. He grabbed a
[01:11:48] long stick, which he shoved into the tube. He pulled out a cleaning rag. The cause of our misfire.
[01:11:55] It was careless that we had not checked the tube for an obstruction before we fired.
[01:12:01] Wing it said, I won't tell anybody about this if you don't. And he said,
[01:12:06] shout out damn it. I yelled at him. And this is the reason I highlighted this because he said, my fear showed
[01:12:13] itself in anger. And I think that's an important thing to think about. We all know, we all know
[01:12:21] when someone's getting mad, that they're probably afraid, right? They're afraid of something.
[01:12:26] That's, so we all see that. So if you're in a leadership position and you start losing your
[01:12:31] temper, it's, it's very visible to everybody that you're just scared. Yeah, you might be also
[01:12:37] frustrated, but it's showing you what it's showing is that you're losing control of your emotions.
[01:12:41] And that's why we can't do that in leadership positions. You can't do that. That's why it's so
[01:12:46] much infinitely better to remain calm. Yeah, when, uh, frustration, like all this, so if you go into a
[01:12:56] situation where you're scared, you know, so a lot of times, especially if you're like an alpha type
[01:13:01] person or a powerful person, you go and you feel that fear, it's basically the fear kind of is this
[01:13:07] feeling of weakness. So a natural tendency goes for pretty much everybody. And that's right.
[01:13:13] Yeah, it's the bounce back. So, so you, your natural way to invoke power is a girl like this
[01:13:20] anger aggression type attitude. So when, you know, leaders or what I want, they feel that fear. It's like,
[01:13:26] oh my powerless, it's like a subconscious thing. I'm powerless right now. So I got it. I got a fight back.
[01:13:32] So comes anger in this point. And the thing is what you just said, we all humans know that
[01:13:40] instinctively. So when you see a leader start to act like that, it becomes very clear that there's
[01:13:46] some emotion there, some fears, some frustration, some anxiety. Yeah. And that's gonna spread by the way,
[01:13:52] if I start panicking and start getting crazy, echo, you gotta get this done. You know, I'm scared.
[01:13:56] So now you're saying, wait, if Jockel's scared, I'm almost scared too. And now we start having issues.
[01:14:04] So try and remain calm is the, is the basic principle. So, they get done with that particular
[01:14:15] firefight. And we got a little debrief here on it. Back to the book, Baker 17 lost more men that night
[01:14:22] than we had in the first five days of our campaign against the North Koreans.
[01:14:27] Captain Wilcox raised hell. When he heard Sergeant Dale and his men had been killed and they're
[01:14:32] sleeping bags. I didn't cover this section, but one of the, one of the small elements they were in
[01:14:36] their sleeping bags got overrun and killed. So Captain Wilcox raised hell. When he heard that Sergeant
[01:14:41] Dale and his men had been killed and they're sleeping bags, he made it standard operating procedure
[01:14:46] that the company stayed out of sleeping bags at night and when we were on the line.
[01:14:51] Tell your people that they can put their feet in the bags and loosen their boom dockers. That's
[01:14:57] as far as they go, he told us. From then on, no matter how cold it became, we slept outside of our
[01:15:03] bags and our boots only came off to change socks. Now, I didn't cover this part where this happens,
[01:15:16] but one of these guys, Sergeant Loney, he had taken a patrol to another area in one of the mortars
[01:15:24] and when he went, they got lost. And then when they got lost, they got overrun and instead of fighting
[01:15:30] or doing anything, they just all ran. They just all ran in different directions. Now actually all
[01:15:34] of them lived, miracle, all of them lived. I shouldn't say they got no overrun, but fighting broke
[01:15:40] out and instead of doing something organized, they just all took off. And so, so Sergeant Loney,
[01:15:48] he's, they come back and they say, what, you know, Owen says, hey, what happened out there and
[01:15:53] they said, Sergeant Loney, just, you know, basically said every man for himself.
[01:15:56] And so he's about to get relieved of his command, which means you got fired in the military.
[01:16:04] Back to the book, Sergeant Loney, I'm relieving you your squad. He looks straight ahead,
[01:16:10] but his eyes moistened. You let your men down last night, you abandoned your responsibilities.
[01:16:15] It's only good luck that the squad wasn't wiped out. They could all be dead or taken prisoner.
[01:16:21] Loney's voice trembled. Lieutenant, it was pitch black down there. We were lost. I used my best
[01:16:27] judgment. I can understand getting lost, I said, but you said no security when the Chinese came through,
[01:16:34] you forgot to take, you forgot your men to take care of yourself. Lieutenant, I panicked.
[01:16:43] I admit that, but if you give me another chance, tears streamed down his cheeks and he looked to the ground.
[01:16:48] I can't give you another chance, your men don't respect you. You report to the CP. They'll give
[01:16:57] you orders from there. His head bowed. Sergeant Loney said, I'm sorry sir. I'm very sorry.
[01:17:04] I'm sorry to Sergeant dismissed. Sergeant Loney walked back to the section perimeter.
[01:17:11] Gathered his gear, then charged up hill to the CP. No one said goodbye to him. I felt sorry for the
[01:17:20] man, and I couldn't forget the times that fear had taken me close to the edge of panic too.
[01:17:30] That's why I included that, because Owen was going through all kinds of
[01:17:34] fearful situations. He knows that he's been close to that edge, but he doesn't cross the line.
[01:17:43] He holds the line, and that's the difference.
[01:17:52] Now, they're pressing forward again. This entire book is them either pressing forward or you're
[01:17:59] going to see quickly that it becomes them trying to leave. Once they're surrounded, back to the
[01:18:06] book, Baker 17 took point and marched for more than an hour without any sign of the Chinese.
[01:18:12] A single file of each of us on the side of the road, the men moving easily, so they're pushing
[01:18:18] forward enough, and it's happening all the sudden. Don't like this one damn bit, Lieutenant Owen.
[01:18:24] Oh Brian said to me, he was a reserved combat experienced from the Pacific War.
[01:18:31] It is a natural for the gooks to let us move up this easy. We're walking into their trap.
[01:18:38] All I know is that MacArthur says the first Marine division is going to go for the Yaloo River.
[01:18:46] I said the Yaloo River was North Korea's border with China. So, they've been ordered. Hey,
[01:18:52] you're going to the Yaloo River and pretty much they're all saying at this point they all kind of
[01:18:57] feel like it's a trap. But they're walking, they're not getting any resistance. Back to the book,
[01:19:03] the troops were in good humor. They joked and laughed as we marched and made them seen comments about
[01:19:08] the things that were central to their lives, the chow, the terrain, the enemy, the lack of women.
[01:19:15] Second thing I'm going to do when I see my wife again is take off my pack.
[01:19:19] I said one of the married reserves in the column.
[01:19:23] Oh yeah, came the answer by the time you see her again, you'll forget what the first thing was.
[01:19:30] Hell, it'll be so long before we get backstakes side. You'll be too old for that stuff.
[01:19:35] Someone else joked to the married man who is nearly 30 years old.
[01:19:43] I'm telling you guys keep up the good spirits and that is that is it's impossible. You know, I got
[01:19:48] to include this because I always had fun on the points. I was saying this the other day,
[01:19:54] we laughed out loud like once a day in Iraq, laughed out loud, hysterically at something.
[01:20:03] So for those of you that are civilians or don't have any comprehension of this kind of thing,
[01:20:10] guys that are in the military, they have a good time. Even in the worst situations,
[01:20:14] they're having we have fun. You have to. And you know, you can apply that to your job,
[01:20:21] to your job, when things get stressful, when things start getting hard. As a leader, if you're just
[01:20:27] bearing more stress on everybody, it's not going to help. One of the best ways to alleviate stress
[01:20:31] is to have some fun. And that's exactly what's going on here. The guys are on patrol. Okay,
[01:20:34] we're not getting shot at. So guess what? Let's bust this guy's ass about messing his wife.
[01:20:39] No problem. At alleviate some of that stress, you don't need to just bear down and create more
[01:20:46] stress on your people. Not been asked that a couple of people have asked me that on social media.
[01:20:50] Can you tell us about, you know, humor in, as a leader, when do you use humor?
[01:20:58] Absolutely. We always have fun. And you know, there's obviously a time to be serious, but there's
[01:21:04] plenty of time when you're going to joke around and have fun and poke funny each other all the time.
[01:21:10] Yeah, do you ever run into situations where, you know, some people they just joke more than
[01:21:17] other people. And then there's a, you know, the opposite guys, joke less. You ever run into a
[01:21:21] situation where you are serious and then someone's like trying to make jokes, you know, and it does
[01:21:26] get annoying or in the way of, I don't know that people, when when I'm serious, I don't get a lot of
[01:21:32] jokes, you're in the game. I'm just, I'm saying mostly. I mean, and I think I think there's a pretty
[01:21:42] I mean, maybe that happens in, you know, in a school setting, you know, or I guess in a business
[01:21:48] setting it could happen, but if you've got a, if you've got a good team that works a lot together,
[01:21:52] people know what you're serious. Yeah. And once you tell a joke or you crack a wise crack and nobody
[01:22:00] laughs and you just get a look from people going, hey man, shut up, that's it. You know, so maybe
[01:22:03] I've, maybe that's happening to me a dozen times in my career where somebody said something to, you know,
[01:22:07] everyone just said, okay, we're, you know, enough at everybody feels it. Yeah. Yeah, I would imagine
[01:22:14] to working that close with important tasks. Like that important, people are pretty going to be pretty
[01:22:18] much in tune with the comedy dynamic. Exactly. Now, I had a guy that I worked with when I was the
[01:22:25] admiral's aide and he, he and I, he was older than me, he was actually retired captain. He's one of
[01:22:32] my favorite guys, but I was the admiral's aide so as a young, you know, young lieutenant and he was a
[01:22:37] retired captain and we would go back and forth all day long regardless of what the situation was.
[01:22:44] We would never say a serious thing to each other. The entire day for months on end. Nothing,
[01:22:50] everything was a sarcastic kind of comment through each other and it made a pretty, a pretty
[01:22:56] miserable job of being the admiral's aide. It's not a fun job. It made it like we just had a good time.
[01:23:00] So once again, we're even in a situation where hey, I'm in a uniform and an office all day from
[01:23:05] six o'clock in the morning till 7 o'clock at night every day, day on day, you know, in the military
[01:23:11] and in the civilian world, when you come back from a trip from somewhere, they're like, oh,
[01:23:15] you, oh, you, we're on trip. Hey, you know, don't come into my morning, you know, you're coming
[01:23:18] in a little late because you got back at midnight. You're coming in at six. That's the way it is.
[01:23:23] There's no, there's no, oh, you haven't seen your family in two weeks. That's cool. We'll see
[01:23:27] it six o'clock in the morning tomorrow. Oh, you want to take your daughter to school? No, not
[01:23:30] happy. So it's like that. And yet, what I had this one guy that I worked with who we just, we
[01:23:36] just never said anything serious to each other and it always kept it light and fun. And that's,
[01:23:41] that was pretty awesome. Was that, do you, I mean, thinking back, do you think that that was on purpose
[01:23:47] or did it just kind of shake itself out like that? It just should itself out. You know, we just said
[01:23:51] funny, uh, the way our relationship was was we were just two guys that like to give each other a
[01:23:58] hard time about stuff and set each other up for stuff and just just, yeah, we both knew. I mean,
[01:24:03] he was under a stressful job as well. You know, he's got, he's got a lot of pressure on him. And so
[01:24:07] what are we going to do? Set there and be miserable all day? No, you know, what we're going to have a
[01:24:10] good time even in this, you know, fairly miserable administrative scenario that we're living in.
[01:24:16] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good time with it. Because some people do it on purpose where it's like,
[01:24:21] all dang things are getting real tense here. Yeah. I work with it. And so they'll throw in jokes.
[01:24:26] They're going to be on that fine line between, okay, you're right now things are tense. Why
[01:24:30] do you say that joke? That's inappropriate. And the other thing is just like it helps. You know,
[01:24:34] same like in like this guy and I, we would be even in the really stressful situation when no one
[01:24:40] else was joking. I might like, you know, shoot him a look across the room and roll my eyes at him like
[01:24:45] you didn't see this come and did you tough guy and we would just be laughing. So yeah, even then
[01:24:49] really stressful stuff, we would we would lighten it up. Yeah. That's because, you know, that's the first
[01:24:54] time that we had. Yeah. Yeah. All right, speaking of not no joke whatsoever back to the book,
[01:25:02] made your tie, the operations officer told us that there were increasing reports of heavy
[01:25:07] enemy concentrations on all sides of the battalion. However, General MacArthur himself was expressing
[01:25:15] impatience with a slow pace made by the first Marine Division and its progress toward the Chinese
[01:25:20] border. The army was trying to light a fire under General Smith, the Division commander. So
[01:25:26] you got the Marines are saying, hey, look, looks like we're starting to get surrounded here and
[01:25:32] talks a little bit about this in the book. The Marines were kind of slow rolling. They weren't,
[01:25:36] they weren't making any great effort to go as fast as they could because they felt like they were
[01:25:39] going to be trapped. So they weren't trying to move as fast as they could in MacArthur's general
[01:25:44] McCarthy in Tokyo, by the way, saying, hey, come on, Marines, you know, army's pushing up
[01:25:49] the real quick. What's wrong with you guys? But they're starting to get into our reports that they're
[01:25:53] being surrounded. And oh, by the way, Lieutenant Lee, who I talked about earlier, the real
[01:26:00] by the book guy, he actually got wounded and when he got wounded taken in hospital, he went on,
[01:26:06] he went on, he went absent without leave A wall. He went A wall from hospital to get back to the
[01:26:12] line. Oh, yeah, he's, oh, no, I'm fine. My arm can't move it. It's in a sling, doesn't matter. I'm going to fight.
[01:26:21] And speaking of Lee, talking about Lee's, Lee's platoon here, when they weren't on patrol,
[01:26:27] Lee put his men through a rigorous training program of small unit tactics. They maneuvered all
[01:26:33] over the nearby hills and they bitched at some extra work. Lee paid little heed to the grumbling.
[01:26:41] Soon we will meet the enemy. He predicted to his men. We will be ready. So Lee is a hard ass and his
[01:26:46] guys. Everyone else is doing, you know, they're, they're moving up north and it was an easy day of patrol
[01:26:51] because remember the Chinese, they're pushing hard against them right now. So what does he do at night?
[01:26:54] Oh, you guys, we're going to go do some work. We're going to go get some tactical drills.
[01:27:00] Back to the book. It was an article of faith with Lee that combat leadership came from the front
[01:27:06] in the attack. He positioned himself with the most advanced squad just behind the point.
[01:27:13] He wore a bright fluorescent pink vest, fashion of cloth panels that he obtained from the tactical
[01:27:19] air team. The intended purpose of the brilliantly colored panels was to mark the four extent of
[01:27:24] our lines for supporting aircraft. Lee wore his vessel and his men could locate him quickly during
[01:27:29] a firefight. He still had a sling on his wounded right arm and he carried his carbine in his left hand.
[01:27:37] He fired from the hip using it to shoot tracers that marked sectors. So Lee is just, I mean, a whole
[01:27:46] northern level, whole northern level, two in Lee. That's his full name, two in Lee. Now we get into a situation.
[01:27:59] The Chinese were dug in above Lee. They had a machine gun and a line of rifles more
[01:28:04] vulnerable than their usual defensive formations. They were expertly deployed below the crest
[01:28:10] and their automatic weapons fired short discipline bursts. Tracers street and bullets and
[01:28:15] shrapnel swept down the stroke. Slope. It took Lee some time to locate the machine gun that was
[01:28:22] giving the most trouble. When he found it, he fired one hand to put a tracer on it. His squad
[01:28:27] moved into skirmish lines and the NCO sent their own tracers to mark for their sectors. The bar
[01:28:33] and rifles followed, sending a great volume of fire up the slope at the Chinese.
[01:28:38] Wing it wave to me to let me know the mortar was ready. I aimed a tracer toward the machine gun
[01:28:43] and pumped my arm four times. The signal for 400 yards. I saw around leave the tube and follow
[01:28:50] its path that disappeared over the ridge line. Wing it realized that he was too long and without
[01:28:55] need for my correction, he came up a turn. So he's adjusting the where the mortar rounds hitting
[01:29:00] on his own. His second round was close and I waved him to fire for effect. We seldom wasted ammo
[01:29:07] bracketing a target. ammo carried up the hills was too valuable to be wasted on the niceties.
[01:29:13] The enemy gun slackened as winged as winged pounded them. Lee squad moved upward, responding to the
[01:29:20] NCO signals with short bounds. Fire team by fire team. 5 10 yards at a dash. Then the ground,
[01:29:27] bearing their enemy on the bearing fire on the enemy as the next fire team went in closer.
[01:29:32] Cover move. It's happening again. The mortar is covering form and then each individual
[01:29:36] fire team is covering for each other. It was the classic Marine rifle tactic that Lee had drilled
[01:29:43] into his platoon during his extra training sessions. A Marine went down and rioted on the ground.
[01:29:49] The platoon's corpsman built Davis dashed low across the slope and crashed at the wounded man's
[01:29:53] side. Another Marine fell and didn't move again. His buddy stabbed the dead man's rifle into the
[01:29:59] earth by its bayonet then continued forward. The Chinese found it difficult to defend against
[01:30:05] Lee's energetic tactics. Our coordinated mortar and machine gun fire kept them pinned to the ground.
[01:30:12] They were no longer able to apply aimed fire and their effectiveness to then diminished as our
[01:30:17] rifleman pushed closer in on them. Cover move. By the way, there's a reason why when I wrote down
[01:30:24] the four laws of combat, the number one rule is cover move. This is why.
[01:30:30] Lee sent a squad crawling forward into grenade range. I signal the winged to see
[01:30:35] his fire and the mortar stopped exploding along the forward crest of the hill. The Chinese soldiers
[01:30:41] heaved the broads of their potato masher concussion grenades down the slope. The Marines
[01:30:45] threw a responding volley, Argrinades were more powerful, filling the air with bits of hot flying
[01:30:50] steel. Both sides dove for holes, another volley was thrown. Lee ran forward, waving the
[01:30:57] carbine over his head and calling for his Marines to follow. They searched for the top,
[01:31:03] screaming their gun, hoe, and rebel yells. The Chinese withdrew. They pulled their wounded away,
[01:31:09] but left their dead on the slope. Lee pushed his men over the ridge line where they prepared
[01:31:14] to defend against a counter attack. Lupuccini stood beside Lee, his bar at the ready. Lupuccini
[01:31:20] had appointed himself Lee's bodyguard. Sergeant Bondaron, the Paltoon guide, rifle through the
[01:31:27] pockets of the dead Chinese gathering material for our intelligence people. I sent Kelly for a
[01:31:33] detail of the ammo carriers to bear the casualties. Bill Davis had two wounded men doped up with
[01:31:40] more feen and out of pain. And there was one Marine dead already covered by his poncho.
[01:31:47] When he was certain that the Chinese would not counter attack, Lee ordered us off the hill,
[01:31:53] end of patrol. On the return march to the company perimeter, no one complained about Lieutenant
[01:32:00] Lee's excessive training methods. He walked along the column and thanked the men for their good work.
[01:32:09] I wondered to myself how many fire flights Lee would survive standing at the front of his troops
[01:32:14] clad in that brilliant pink vest. So the excessive training, everyone's complaining when they're
[01:32:24] training and then you get to a firefight and everyone's thankful that they had good discipline
[01:32:28] leadership. A little bit more of Lee now, this point again, they're continuing to get pressed
[01:32:40] by the Chinese back to the book more Chinese fired broken out far to our right in front of Lee's
[01:32:46] in front of Lee's line. They fired from a sharp short hill that rose from the meadow. Lee
[01:32:52] wields one of his rifle squads to face the rise and maneuvered them forward. Burrace's gun was
[01:32:57] with Lee and he traversed the face of the hill with eight cheese before the squad moved up. So
[01:33:02] eight cheese is high explosive mortars and burrace is one of the mortarmen and he's covering
[01:33:07] for the movement of Lee as they're pushing up. The Chinese ceased firing with Drew quickly
[01:33:12] a familiar tactic. Lee stayed with the main body of his platoon and sent a fire team up to
[01:33:17] re-con order the top. When they reached the top of the rise, the four men walked along the
[01:33:22] ridge and search of the vanished enemy. Looking up Lee saw his men silhouette against the
[01:33:28] skyline and yelled for them to get down. They were perfectly outlined targets. The Chinese saw them
[01:33:34] too and already had the ridge line registered for their mortars. Their first rounds blew a marine
[01:33:41] to pieces. The next barrage claimed two more. The fourth man dove from the ridge and leaped
[01:33:47] rolled and stumbled down the hill. He came to a halt at the feet of Lieutenant Lee.
[01:33:53] Lee had seen three of his men needlessly killed and he stood in silent fury. His good hand
[01:33:59] gripped his car being so tight that his knuckles went white. Stupid. He hissed through his
[01:34:04] clenched teeth. Stupid. Stupid. Over and over again. Stupid. He turned to Jean O'Brien his platoon
[01:34:12] sergeant. See to it that this never happens again, sergeant. You tell the men if you, if I see
[01:34:18] another marine on the skyline, I will shoot him myself. Lieutenant Lee strode off to be by himself
[01:34:26] until his fury and frustration subsided. So you got guys making big mistakes and for those
[01:34:38] of you don't understand what happened when you stand up on the ridge line you're completely obvious.
[01:34:43] It's very clear and Lee's watching this happen and sees that his guys were a ripe target.
[01:34:48] He's yelling at him but it's too late and the mortar's hit. Now we get the company here,
[01:34:56] moving a little bit forward. Now the company is actually pinned down. The company's pinned down.
[01:35:04] Back to the book when the skipper had artillery's fire control on the radio. He called in the
[01:35:09] coordinates coordinates for a registration round. The battery of 105 mm howitzer that supported was
[01:35:18] dug in a mile and a half away. So in a mile and a half away you got these 105 mm howitzers.
[01:35:24] Big giant cannons. Less than a minute later and you got the company commander that's calling in
[01:35:32] calling in to tell them where to shoot these. Because in my office you can't see. There's no
[01:35:37] satellite back then. You can't see. So you're just going off of bearing in distance.
[01:35:43] Back to the book less than a minute later we heard the heavy ripping sound of the first round
[01:35:47] cutting the air over our heads. Atlanta to 100 yards of front in front of where Lee the
[01:35:52] captain and I stood. Stabs of flame, flame like lightning from a black cloud, leaped off the ground
[01:35:59] and we felt the earth tremble from the explosion. Close got damn it too close shout at the skipper.
[01:36:05] Then into the mic he said, add 3-0-0, repeat, add 3-0-0. So he's telling them that means add,
[01:36:12] it means shoot 300 meters further. The next round landed further away and we barely saw the
[01:36:20] stabs of flame. It was where the skipper wanted it. The enemy machine gun fire had stopped.
[01:36:26] The Chinese knew what would be coming at them. Repeat range. Give me concentration fire.
[01:36:33] Three valleys on my command. The concentration fire would saturate the area where the Chinese were
[01:36:40] concealed. The captain waited to give the order to fire until Sergeant King had positioned
[01:36:45] the covering squad in front of us. Fire! 22nds later the first rounds of the barrage landed
[01:36:52] less than 50 yards away. Short rounds. Meaning that the rounds didn't go as far as they were supposed
[01:37:00] to. We dove for the deck all of us, even Lee. The following rounds dropped among the front
[01:37:06] of the squad that first put to an had position to cover the company withdrawal. Screams from
[01:37:12] our own men, mud and flame and crashing thunder. The skipper yelled into the radio cease fire, cease fire,
[01:37:20] short rounds, short rounds. Friendly fire. The worst thing that can happen in combat are
[01:37:30] dismal day turned to horror. Crys and moans and agonized screams pierced the black smoke that
[01:37:38] drifted over the broken ground. Doc Mickens and Joe King were already working among the wounded
[01:37:45] and mangled dead marines. Bill Davis and Ed Topple, the other puttune corpsman sprinted across the
[01:37:52] field to help. Captain Wilcox yelled into the radio as the next line of shell was exploded.
[01:37:59] Now away from us farther to our front. They had been in the air before the gunners could comply
[01:38:05] with the order to cease fire. They did us no further damage but their noise added to the hellish
[01:38:10] scene. I arose shaken and not sure what to do. I saw Sergeant Wright at the edge of the field
[01:38:18] and called for him to bring the ammo carriers forward. We would use them to carry the casualties
[01:38:23] away. Joe Kersaba had already brought the company headquarters people to lend a hand with the
[01:38:29] grizzly work. We had four more dead and three wounded. Kersaba went to the skipper and said that we
[01:38:38] should get the company out of this place and back down the road. Captain shook his head a few times
[01:38:43] to clear it and thought about Joe's suggestion for several seconds. Then he got Kaiser and Lee
[01:38:50] on the walkie talkies and told them to prepare their puttunes to move back. He told me to walk a
[01:38:55] screen of H.E.'s 200 yards out to discourage any Chinese from following us. When I reported to him
[01:39:02] that the mortars were ready to do for the fire mission, I thought I saw tears coming down his face.
[01:39:07] Although it could have been the drizzling rain. Eight dead marines for the day, more wounded,
[01:39:13] and nothing accomplished. The rain and sleet turned to snow. Wet sticky stuff that coated the
[01:39:22] ponchos covering the dead men. The troops struggled down a wet slippery trail to the road,
[01:39:29] bearing the dead and wounded. They were soaked through and spoke no words except to blast
[01:39:36] them. The goddamn fool who sent us into this miserable wet cold country. Friendly fire, blue on blue.
[01:39:56] Think about it. Try and keep it in the front of your head. When you're in combat situations,
[01:40:03] try and keep it in the front of your head. Try and keep it as a real possibility. It's not impossible
[01:40:09] to have it happen. It's kind of like in fighting. When they say it's the punch that you didn't see,
[01:40:19] that's the one that's going to knock you out. It's the same thing in this situation.
[01:40:25] If you could see that a blue on blue is going to take place, you would stop it. You can't see it.
[01:40:32] It's not something that's going to be unexpected. That's why it happens. It happens because it's unexpected.
[01:40:39] And there's a lot of things that can happen when you start bringing artillery in. There's a bunch
[01:40:45] of variables there that are really hard to control. But it is, obviously, it's a nightmare. It's a
[01:40:56] nightmare. I was having this conversation with one of my silver buddies the other day. That's why
[01:41:04] you train hard. That's why you prepare for it. That's why you create chaos and confusion inside
[01:41:11] of your training. That you actually force blue on blue. You force blue on blue to happen.
[01:41:16] You force these fratricides situations to happen so that they happen in training so that they
[01:41:21] don't happen on the battlefield. It's the same thing with the police front. The police
[01:41:27] front, sometimes has blue on blue. Train hard, set up the crazy scenarios. Make people do
[01:41:34] unexpected things. They come down from that scenario and they get a day arrest. You might think,
[01:41:45] hey, you know, you took eight killed and multiple more wounded. I will give you some time off. They got
[01:41:50] time off one day, one day arrest and then they're back on the march. Back to the book, the column
[01:41:55] march north in a cold swirling wind that swept the road clear of snow. We put on the pond
[01:42:02] just again to help award off the wind. They soon froze stiff and crackled as we walked. And if you
[01:42:08] notice as they left that other situation, the rain turned to sleep in the snow. So that's like
[01:42:14] in one hour winter was here. And so now you're going to, now you're going to start hearing about
[01:42:18] the cold big time. The men were in a foul temper. What kind of stupid bastards we got running this
[01:42:26] goddamn war came from the column. Don't worry about them. Guys running this goddamn war. They're
[01:42:31] sitting by a stove someplace, sticking pins in their maps. Yeah. And they'll get their pick of
[01:42:38] cold weather gear before they send us, send it up to us, pour suckers. Guy in the battalion
[01:42:43] mess lines said them rear echelon bastards are already wearing big fur coats and winter issue
[01:42:48] boat boots. That's okay. We'll get the stuff next spring. Sure, what's left of it. By the time
[01:42:55] it gets to us, we'll be needing jungle gear. So these guys are just letting out their frustration
[01:43:01] and anger. The worst suffering that day came from our feet. We only had thin cotton socks
[01:43:10] under the boom dockers, little protection from the cold, especially as they were still damp
[01:43:16] under our leggings. We stomped away the freezing toes, the pain of the freezing toes, and kept
[01:43:22] the blood circulating. There were complaints of numbness. Some men felt as if they had
[01:43:28] pebbles in their socks. We didn't know about frostbite yet. If you don't know what boom
[01:43:37] dockers are, they're your basic, like the most basic form of a boot leather rubber sole. That's it.
[01:43:46] That's one of the boom dockers. They got cotton socks. Now they get some new gear.
[01:43:53] And one of the pieces that they get is called shoe packs. Going to the book, shoe packs
[01:43:58] would change the way we walked and bring us the crippling scourge of frostbite. They were big
[01:44:05] and cumbersome twice the weight of our boom dockers. They had thick molded rubber bottoms with
[01:44:10] heavily-created souls. The tops from the ankle up to the shin were made of stiff leather that
[01:44:17] lace tightly. shoe packs were clumsy for climbing, climbing and slippery on the ice. The worst
[01:44:24] thing about them, however, was that they were laced up when they were laced up no air could circulate.
[01:44:31] On a steep climb, on a long marsh, our feet would sweat no matter how cold it was. When we
[01:44:38] stopped moving and the cold said in, the sweat soaked felt inserts and socks would freeze.
[01:44:46] Long stretches of wet, frozen feet, spelled frostbite. I don't know if you remember this
[01:44:54] from the last one we did but I didn't include it. But one of the videos that they showed later
[01:45:00] to the soldiers and marines that were going over to Korea was to warn them of frostbite
[01:45:07] and it was the doctors with the frostbitten feet and they weren't surgically removing the toes.
[01:45:14] They would just break them off because they were frozen dead toes and they would just break
[01:45:19] and that's the video they showed them. Hey, keep your feet dry. But it was these poorly designed
[01:45:25] shoes was one of the problems that they tried. Oh, we'll make these guys these super warm boots.
[01:45:30] Doesn't it's not that easy? It's not that easy. You make them so warm and so waterproof
[01:45:34] no aeroscapes from them. Now you've got sweaty feet. Now your feet are going to freeze.
[01:45:41] Now we get this one of the replacements that comes in is a guy named Woody Taylor. You're going to
[01:45:46] hear a little bit about him and there's a little fireflank that takes place and Captain Wilcox,
[01:45:52] who's the company commander, maneuvers, some Woody Taylor's guys. He says, hey, you guys go check that
[01:45:57] out over there. Woody Taylor doesn't like it. Those are my men says Woody Taylor. So here we go.
[01:46:03] Captain Wilcox, Taylor called Louty Louty to the skipper. If you don't, I've used the word
[01:46:09] skipper a bunch. I should have explained what it is. Skipper means the commanding officer of the
[01:46:14] company just just like the skipper of a ship. Captain Wilcox, Taylor called Louty to the skipper.
[01:46:21] He was red face and out of breath from the run up the column. That's a squad from my
[01:46:26] platoon. You sent over there on the flank. Yeah, Louten it. I saw a few bandits over there.
[01:46:30] Captain, those are my men. Taylor interrupted. My platoon moves on my orders.
[01:46:37] Captain Wilcox glared at Louten it Taylor. I'd seen that cold look many times before
[01:46:43] when it had been leveled on me. I figured that Woody Taylor would not be long with Baker
[01:46:48] one seven. Our new lieutenant and the captain stared at each other. Woody calmed down a notch.
[01:46:54] Sir, he said, I'd much appreciate it. If you put any orders to my men through me. Colonel Davis
[01:47:01] set me up here to run this platoon. That's what I reckon to do. Taylor and the skipper were eyeballed
[01:47:08] to eyeball and the skipper realized that he had, indeed, violated the chain of command.
[01:47:14] Yeah, Louten it. He said, you're right. That's your platoon. And I guess we understand each other.
[01:47:25] I guess we do captain said Woody Taylor. All right, then carry on. The skipper dismissed his
[01:47:31] new platoon leader. We figured Woody Taylor was going to have what's going to be one hell of a fighter.
[01:47:37] He was the last replacement officer to come to Baker one seven and he was with us to stay.
[01:47:42] So a little standoff. But there's a lot of little things that go on there. Right. Number one,
[01:47:50] Taylor was too aggressive out of the gate. You know, hey, those were my guys. That was too aggressive.
[01:47:56] He was able to catch himself and back off and say, hey, sir, I really appreciate it.
[01:47:59] If he had come with that attitude from the beginning, he would have had a better chance of
[01:48:05] making what he wanted to have happen with no risk. There was a risk here. There was a risk here
[01:48:10] that Captain Louten called me to get shut up. It might be your platoon. It's my company.
[01:48:15] Don't talk to me about this again. He could have said that. But also, he's a good leader.
[01:48:21] That when got pressed on this, he said, let me touch. He said, getting mad. He was getting mad.
[01:48:27] He detached. He said, okay, wait a second. What's going on here? This young Louten,
[01:48:31] that's in charge of the platoon. I just ordered his guys around without telling him. Now he's mad about it.
[01:48:35] Does that make sense? Yes, it does. He's calm down. He's he's talking to me in a better
[01:48:40] tone now. He's just asking me that he's appreciated. I can accept that. I was a little outlined.
[01:48:45] Cool. Yep. You got it. And they were able to solve that problem. So it's a little dynamics.
[01:48:51] Some dynamics out on the battlefield going on.
[01:48:57] More firefighter happens. More madness going on. They get through the next situation. And now we
[01:49:05] have Colonel Davis again. This is the metal of honor winner who's who's in charge here.
[01:49:09] Back to the book. Colonel Davis came up to make her one seven to inform us that we were moving out again.
[01:49:15] Tomorrow morning we would advance up the west side of the chosen reservoir. Our objective was the
[01:49:21] town of Yudam Nee 14 miles away. This was not a patrol. Our battalion commander told us it was an attack
[01:49:31] and we should expect the fighting to get serious. So they haven't had any serious fighting, right?
[01:49:35] Oh, no. Yes, they have. But expected to get more serious. When he finished briefing the officers
[01:49:40] Colonel Davis asked me to bring Sergeant Wright to him. The hardship transfer order had finally
[01:49:46] come through and our Colonel wanted to say goodbye personally to a good Marine NCO.
[01:49:52] There was a great moment for Sergeant Wright. All the company officers were there.
[01:49:56] And the Colonel expressed his appreciation and best wishes to my departing Sergeant.
[01:50:00] Captain Wilcox and Lieutenant's added their own well-done Sergeant Wright had done a good job
[01:50:05] of whipping the mortar section into shape and keeping them square it away. The mortar has had a
[01:50:10] four farewell party for their Sergeant who had been up with them since the first day at Camp Pendleton.
[01:50:15] The rifle between Corman came by, makins and Davis and Toppo each bringing a canteen of sick
[01:50:21] bay alcohol. The skipper and Joe Kursaba joined us in for a few days. Tos. When he was ready to leave,
[01:50:29] weapon and gear all square it away like a proud, like a parade ground Marine,
[01:50:33] Sergeant Wright approached me. His eyes glistened, probably mine did too.
[01:50:39] Sir, I think we did some good with these people. I want to thank you for giving me a chance to
[01:50:44] serve in your outfit. Thank you, Sergeant Wright. You're a fine Marine NCO, God bless you and your family.
[01:50:52] Sergeant Wright snapped the salute at me and strode off. I would never seem again
[01:50:57] and I would miss him very much. Sergeant Wright had an home. I guess it was his time and he'd
[01:51:09] pushed on when we could have gone home a lot earlier but he pushed on and now they're getting
[01:51:14] ready to make this next move and he has his orders now in hand and orders are orders. So he
[01:51:19] heads up back to the book, the weather turned ugly again as we formed up to Resurm,
[01:51:25] resumed the attack to the north. A bitter cold wind greeted us filled with a stinging gritty snow.
[01:51:32] It was my birthday. After the troops were square it away, I crouched in the ditch alongside
[01:51:38] the road and took some time to go through my snapshots. I thought a Dorothy teaching the happy
[01:51:44] birthday song to the babies and how they would try and sing it. I saw their little pink cheeks
[01:51:52] and blue eyes and Dorothy's golden hair. Rough away from Spent his birthday and as you sit here
[01:52:06] today wherever you're listening to this, know that somewhere in the world there's an American
[01:52:11] serviceman that's out there celebrating their birthday in a similar manner. I guarantee it away
[01:52:17] from his family and his loved ones. What else does he get out for his birthday? He gets some enemy
[01:52:26] activity back to the book. The enemy fire became heavy about 50 Chinese were dug in against us
[01:52:32] and they were serious about defending this place. Lee took his platoon off the road to extend
[01:52:38] our firing line. Captain Wilcox came forward with Garcia and the big radio and set up in the ditch
[01:52:44] just behind Kaiser. I marveled at his easy, ambling gate during firefights. He always stood up straight.
[01:52:52] He's like JP. The static of the SCR 300 radio outed added to the pounding of our own
[01:52:59] machine guns and bars. Rifles cracked. Johnson's mortar bumped out HEs and enemy bullets
[01:53:07] zing through the air and spun off chips of boulders. Soon came the urgent cries. Corman, oh God,
[01:53:15] Corman! And the fear came. As it did to me on the onset of every fight, the Corman cries,
[01:53:22] the booming explosions and the wine of bullets blood-trenched parkas pierced God, not this time. Please.
[01:53:30] Platoon Sergeant King from Taylor's Platoon Crouch amongst some large boulders above me.
[01:53:35] He shouted down that there was a machine gun near the spike of rocks that marked the Chinese main
[01:53:39] position. I wield myself to climb up and get a better look. The fears submerged and the cold was
[01:53:48] forgotten. Overcome that fear take action. Now they continue in this little firefight and then finally
[01:53:59] we get enough talked about them before we get some air support some raincoirers,
[01:54:03] but we get some marines on the ground that are pilots. What we now call Anglico, the marines are on
[01:54:09] the ground, these are fighter pilots that go out and do infantry work and call for fire and so here
[01:54:15] we go back to the book Bob Wilson brought in the course airs that were on station to cover our
[01:54:20] advance. I called down to Burst to lay down a round of white phosphorus to mark the Chinese guns
[01:54:25] and the flyers came in on the calm of white smoke. They flew in low barely above us. They're
[01:54:31] great racketing noise overpowered all other sounds as they flashed by. On the first passes they
[01:54:37] fired the machine guns and cannons. These had a little effect the Chinese were dug into well.
[01:54:43] They followed with a napalm run, a spectacle of awesome and terrible beauty. The pods slid
[01:54:51] from the planes tumbled across the ground that exploded. Black smoke billowed and red flames
[01:54:58] leaped against the white snow and seconds later we felt the blast of heat that consumed the ground
[01:55:03] 200 yards away. Chinese soldiers were a flame running about in frenzied circles. They threw
[01:55:11] themselves flailing into the snow. There was sudden silence. The Chinese ceased fire and her own weapons
[01:55:19] were quiet. We were stunned by the power of that close end flaming strike.
[01:55:24] 200 yards away. That's not a big distance. I might seem like a big distance. That is not a
[01:55:32] big distance when you're in an airplane and you're coming down to drop Napalm and kill a bunch of
[01:55:37] people. That's a tiny distance. Marine Corps pilots is getting after it. It's called danger close
[01:55:44] by the way. So if you're going to call in an air strike that's close to your positions. You have
[01:55:49] to say on the radio. You say danger close. Meaning look, I know it's close by. You've got to do it.
[01:55:59] Go in. So they snifled out that one but guess what? The Chinese are far from done.
[01:56:05] Back to the book, the Chinese showed that they would not hibernate from the war because of the
[01:56:09] cold weather. The farther we advanced, the stiffer was their resistance. The hills continued to
[01:56:14] grow steeper and each climb we made and combed with the heavy clothing became its own ordeal.
[01:56:21] Most of our fights were put to insized, Kaiser or Lee or Taylor maneuvering up a slippy slippery
[01:56:28] snow-covered slope to dislodge a force of Chinese who fired at us down the road.
[01:56:33] So as they're moving down this road, they're just having to go into the high ground all the time and
[01:56:37] take out the Chinese. Here's a cool little anecdotal story. They get pinned down and Colonel Davis is
[01:56:48] there and they're trying to figure out what to do. I'm going to the book. Colonel Davis was at the
[01:56:53] head of our column with Captain Wilcox. When the Chinese opened up from across the chasm 300 yards
[01:56:59] away, the skipper called me up front. Can you knock out those guns? Captain Wilcox asked?
[01:57:04] He and the Colonel crouched their acknowledgement of machine gun slugs that tore into the slope above
[01:57:10] our heads. Yes, sir. I answered crouching alongside my two commanders. So there's a machine gun up on the
[01:57:17] hill and they can't get it with their guns but they wanted to get his mortar tubes up there
[01:57:21] and then drop mortar rounds on the machine gun position. So he yells out to his runner. So his runners
[01:57:27] is the guy that spreads word. He runs out to his runner. Kelly, bring up Johnson's gun. I commanded
[01:57:33] Hugo was with Kaiser's platoon leading the column that day. They were just behind the bend.
[01:57:40] I sir snapped my runner in a way to impress the Colonel. Colonel Davis and Captain Wilcox
[01:57:46] continued to scan the opposite slope. 11 o'clock said the Colonel indicating slight movement
[01:57:51] in an outcrapping of boulders. Yes, sir. I haven't. I told my Colonel as I located the enemy
[01:57:56] machine gun through my own binoculars. And another one at 10 o'clock 50 yards higher. Sir,
[01:58:00] good eyes Lieutenant said Colonel Davis. There was a sudden commotion behind us. The sound of
[01:58:07] marine singing as they double timed up the road. Kelly was leading the mortar men forward.
[01:58:14] And he had them sounding cadence with his parody of an army marking song, song, marching song,
[01:58:20] sound off. How can a mortar man survive following a man who's six foot five sound off?
[01:58:27] Put your rifles and machine guns away. The 60 mortars are all in the way. Sound off. Sound off.
[01:58:33] So they're in a firefight. They're pinned down. And these guys come running up the road singing
[01:58:38] cadence. And by the way, I forgot to mention this that Owen is six foot five. So that's where
[01:58:42] they're talking about. There was no ditch. So Hugo could not take cover from enemy fire while
[01:58:49] setting up his gun. He and Dean Westburg spread the bipod on the rear of on the rear edge of
[01:58:54] the flat open road surface. I stood behind the gun as they work quickly. The volume of bullets
[01:59:01] increased. 11 o'clock Hugo I said, give me three five zero. I fired a tracer from my shoulder.
[01:59:08] Westburg had a mortar round ready. Hugo with his sharp shooters eye spotted the target and said
[01:59:15] three five oh plus a hair. He laid the tube in the direction of the machine gun and cranked his elevation.
[01:59:21] Fire, he said to Westburg, the round fumped out and we followed its arc ignoring the Chinese bullets
[01:59:26] that were bouncing off the frozen surface of the road and the slope behind us. The first round
[01:59:31] was a direct hit. God bless you Hugo Johnson. Captain Wilcox called out for the platoon to continue
[01:59:39] the march. Colonel David approached the gun. He had a big smile. You tell your men they're shooting
[01:59:44] it right on lieutenant. He said, he glanced at our choir director Kelly and added, but tell him
[01:59:50] that their sing is way off key. Like I said, even having a good time in madness of fire flights.
[01:59:59] The cold is getting brutal. Back to the book, we seldom removed our knitted gloves that we
[02:00:05] wore under the canvas mittens. Bear fingers we found froze to metal. They froze to weapons,
[02:00:10] bayonets, buckles, whatever we touched. The cold forced the corpsmen to change their way of
[02:00:16] doing business. With the first sounds of a firefight they would take several serets of moraphone
[02:00:22] and put them into their mouths. This kept the moraphone liquid until the serets were jabbed into
[02:00:27] the wounded man's flesh to relieve his pain. The corpsmen were the only ones who worked with
[02:00:34] bare hands in the severe cold and they found a way to keep their fingers nimble while attending
[02:00:39] two wounded man. The heat of the man's blood did the trick or his guts as they were stuffed
[02:00:46] back into his belly. Freezing cold. Back to the book, despite our efforts to keep the men in clean
[02:01:03] dry socks we were losing the fight against frostbite which resulted from damp cold feet.
[02:01:08] The men would complain of pains or numbness in their feet and when they limped badly we sent
[02:01:14] them to batallion aid station. Many never returned. Some had waited too long to turn themselves in
[02:01:21] and by the time the doctors saw them their toes had become purplish black and had to be amputated.
[02:01:29] Because the ground was frozen hard digging good fighting holes was nearly impossible.
[02:01:34] Digging in became a matter of chipping a shallow pit in the unyielding earth beneath the snow
[02:01:42] then barricading it with rocks or tree branches. If any dead Chinese were found on the hill
[02:01:48] we added their stiff corpses to the barricades. To make level places for their guns the
[02:01:55] mortament took turns at the concrete like dirt within trenching tools and combat knives.
[02:02:06] And they're continuing in this freezing cold. They get to a point where they're
[02:02:18] in sort of an open area and we'll go to the book. The Chinese maneuvered down from the red
[02:02:23] giants all around us. They ran across the snow in squad columns then formed firing lines among
[02:02:29] the boulders or prone in the snow. Chinese mortars began to fall on us in the CP which was 50 yards
[02:02:38] or us and the CP which was 50 yards behind us. Around exploded close by and lifted me off the ground.
[02:02:45] I was days for a while and when full awareness returned Kelly had me by the arm leading me
[02:02:51] toward the CP. Where we'd go and Kelly I didn't understand why we were heading away from the line.
[02:02:57] Get a corpsman to look at you. I thought you were a goner back there. He pointed to my
[02:03:01] park of flapping around my knees. It had strapped in the holes in it. They don't get closer than
[02:03:07] that deterring your balls off. It's a good thing you got me around Lieutenant. The corpsman at the
[02:03:12] CP was far too busy with the seriously wounded to tend to my mild concussion. The casualties
[02:03:18] lay in blanket covered rose. Dr. Skis Davis and Toppil, those of the corpsman went from one to the
[02:03:26] other. They jabbed Moraphine, slowed bleeding, cleaned out holes, blasts and flashed, patched them
[02:03:31] and wrapped them as best they could. The corpsman had their mouth filled with mouths filled with
[02:03:37] serets of Moraphine and their bare hands were bloody. When they worked with enemy mores exploding,
[02:03:44] bullets stabbing the air too feet above them. Week frightened voices called for their help.
[02:03:51] Doc Mickons from 1st Patoon took some shrapnel then a 25 and then a slug.
[02:03:57] In the leg where he was patching the wounded in action on Woody Taylor's line. The stretcher bearer's
[02:04:03] drag Mickons to the CP and lay them in the line of casualties. Next to him, damming the Chinese
[02:04:08] and his Arkansas draw was Sergeant King who had been blasted by grenades and hit by a burp gun.
[02:04:15] Paul Rendon, a machine gunner with the Patoon lay there too, a leg shot up.
[02:04:21] The first Patoon's, the first Patoon was being rapidly depleted and was having a hell of a fight
[02:04:28] holding their end to their perimeter. So these guys were, you know, perimeter like I said in
[02:04:36] sort of an open area and the Chinese just come down and they're, you know, full on attack on them,
[02:04:41] full on. Back to the book, the afternoon light faded and we were worried about whether the ammo
[02:04:47] would run out. The Chinese had fully encircled us. Their volume of fire was just enough to keep us
[02:04:54] pinned down. They would wait for dark than swarm over our lines. They had plenty of people to do the
[02:05:01] job. Our bandettes were fixed and our grenades ready. Every man had a target sector and we kept
[02:05:09] fire discipline to conserve ammo. We began to settle in and wait for dark. As bullets zinged,
[02:05:18] grenades exploded and Marines cried for help. Someone yelled out that cop captain Wilcox had
[02:05:24] been hit. He had taken a bullet to the face and a piece of shrapnel and shattered his arm.
[02:05:29] Joe Kersaba took over as our skipper. As soon as we heard about the captain we ran to the
[02:05:35] CP, we found him there as head wrapped in a big white ball of a bandage unable to speak. His blood
[02:05:42] soaks sleeve dangled beside him. He kept struggling to get on his feet when the docks put him down
[02:05:49] on his spread out poncho. After a while the morphine kicked in and the skipper nodded off
[02:05:55] groaning softly. Before they stabilized the line around us, the Chinese pushed the first
[02:06:02] platoon back almost to the CP. So you got the platoon. The CP is the kind of like the brains of the
[02:06:10] unit. They got the different pltunes or out in a perimeter in 360 degrees and in the center of that
[02:06:15] you got the command post, the CP and you have the radio men in there. You have the people that are
[02:06:20] going to do fire support, maybe the mortar sections in there and then you have the leadership
[02:06:25] is in that CP. But now we start to see that the pltunes are getting pushed back towards the CP.
[02:06:32] They're losing their perimeter. Just as Joe Kersaba came in to take over command to the company,
[02:06:38] Roti Taylor stormed in demanding that we get the hell out of here. The gooks have all the
[02:06:43] high ground. They got us surrounded. He boomed. They're going to pick us to pieces tonight.
[02:06:48] Joe Kersaba answered him quietly. We need air support to run at your fairs for us. Then we might
[02:06:55] be able to make a break for the road. They better get to work mighty fast said, Woody, we only have
[02:07:00] a few minutes of daylight left. So there's Joe Kersaba's keeping it cool. Again, World War II vet
[02:07:06] now just out here getting after it. And that's what they need. So what they need is they need
[02:07:14] the coarserers to come in, which if you don't know the coarserers on awesome aircraft, World War II
[02:07:19] vintage and you can tell them because they have very distinctive wings that have a distinctive
[02:07:25] bend in them and they're very, very distinctive looking aircraft and obviously very good at
[02:07:32] close air support. Back to the book, all afternoon, Joe Hedrick, the air controller, had attempted
[02:07:38] to get a piece of the air support dedicated to the fifth marine. So there was air craft working on
[02:07:43] another group of Marines, working for another group of Marines. Now in the remaining minutes of
[02:07:48] daylight, he called a flight of four-care coarsers in search of action. Then he calls those things
[02:07:56] and gets them on the horn, calls them in and here we go. The four coarsers streaked in a little
[02:08:02] bubble us pointing themselves at the Chinese positions less than 100 yards away. They drop
[02:08:08] their big earth shaking bombs and they skate the long deep valley with rockets and heavy
[02:08:14] caliber slugs. The Chinese took cover and we moved out. So that's cover move once again.
[02:08:23] All they needed to do to get out of the situation was they needed someone to cover for their
[02:08:27] movement. That's what they needed and they couldn't supply it themselves. They're shooting uphill.
[02:08:30] Didn't have the firepower. Income the coarsers to get after it and give them cover to move.
[02:08:36] Back to the book, I lost ground in that day. The lad who had tried hard to be a good combat
[02:08:43] marine. He was running toward me carrying a helmet filled with grenades taken from the wounded
[02:08:48] when a bullet tore through his throat. The shot didn't knock him down at first, just through his
[02:08:54] head back and I saw a fountain of blood spurt from his neck. He staggered a few steps, then fell
[02:09:01] face forward in the snow which quickly turned red. When I got to him, he was already dead.
[02:09:10] It took hours more for a baker one seven to make its way the mile down the road.
[02:09:16] Colonel Davis brought elements of Charlie Company out to meet us. We loaded our dead and wounded
[02:09:22] on waiting trucks and sent them back to you down knee. The Chinese had cut off the MSR that's a
[02:09:29] main supply route between you Domny and Haga Ruiri, the Colonel and Ford Bus. So now they are
[02:09:36] truly trapped. On the march back into the you Domny perimeter, past midnight, the men were silent,
[02:09:44] spent from this cold brutal day. And Captain Wilcox had been a good skipper.
[02:09:52] When they get there, Lee was waiting for us when we staggered into you Domny perimeter.
[02:10:00] Many of the men limped with the first stages of frostbite and there were some walking wounded
[02:10:05] who had elected this day with the company. Undisguised tears ran down Lee's face when he saw
[02:10:12] the column make its way in. And that was the reason that Lee wasn't with them was because he
[02:10:21] literally got ordered to that he couldn't go because his arm was becoming infected. And he was
[02:10:27] he could not. They would not let him go. And so he's there and undisguised tears ran down his
[02:10:33] face as he saw the column make its way in. Joe Kersobber formed us up at first light while the
[02:10:39] course airs were blazing at enemy hills. He told us that we were going to aid going to the
[02:10:45] aid of Charlie Company which had been posted on Turkey Hill to guard the MSR. Last night after
[02:10:51] we marched away from that area that Chinese had poured out of the hills and surrounded Charlie.
[02:10:57] Charlie was fighting for its life when we went to pull them out. So there's a
[02:11:01] small company of Marines, Charlie Company, and they are surrounded.
[02:11:08] They go up and one of the, one of the Abel Company, so you got Abel Baker and Charlie,
[02:11:18] Abel Company sets up on the flank and then Baker also patrols up and kind of sets up to
[02:11:25] to come to their aid back to the book. Through my binoculars I had a good view of Charlie's perimeter.
[02:11:30] 400 yards away. They were in a tight circle, not more than 75 yards across halfway up the slope
[02:11:37] of Turkey Hill. Chinese machine guns and rifles infested the hill around them firing at any
[02:11:43] Marine who moved. Charlie's people were thoroughly pinned down. So picture this a little circle.
[02:11:49] See, all your whole company, maybe there's a hundred, maybe there could be a hundred,
[02:11:52] fifty but I think they've taken a bunch of wounded at this point. They got a hundred guys in a
[02:11:55] little, seventy, five meter circle. And you're all pinned down and no matter every time you move,
[02:12:00] every time it gets stuck up you're getting shot at. Back to the book, Lee put his machine guns
[02:12:06] on the Chinese who were firing into Charlie's perimeter from the lower slope. My three mortars
[02:12:11] had the same target. Abel's machine gun and mortars rake the hill above the perimeter. Soon our
[02:12:16] tracer's lying the sky and puffs of black smoke from the mortars dotted the rocky hill.
[02:12:22] Then the big shells from artillery and the battalions 81 started to fall and the hill rocked
[02:12:27] with their explosions. Chinese soldier's scurried for cover. My classmate pay attention to this.
[02:12:35] My classmate Jin Stemple led Abel's assault down the ridge line and into the Chinese.
[02:12:42] The enemy soldiers had their heads down from the heavy covering fire once again covering fire
[02:12:48] and Stemple's platoon tore into them. Through the binoculars I observed one squad of
[02:12:54] Temples Marines led by a giant of a man in a flapping parka who swung a huge double-headed axe.
[02:13:02] The Chinese soldiers seeing this great maniacal devil charged at them branding,
[02:13:10] brandishing a bloody axe abandoned their positions in terror.
[02:13:16] So there you have it. I never, I never, I don't even know where you get a battle axe in the
[02:13:23] Missed the Korean War but this Marine right here attacks the Chinese, not with grenades, not with a
[02:13:31] bar, not with a machine gun, he attacks with a freaking battle axe.
[02:13:40] Back to the book the Chinese quickly lifted their siege of Charlie Company and made a rapid retreat
[02:13:44] from Turkey hill. As they fled Abel companies down hill assault they had to cross baker's line of fire.
[02:13:51] Woody Taylor's platoon had come up to extend our line and every weapon we had was trained on the
[02:13:57] Chinese as they ran to the protecting slopes on the other side of the valley. Turkey shoot at
[02:14:02] Turkey hill are people called it. We were at rapid fire with the mortars and machine gun,
[02:14:07] and machine guns the bars, and the rifles even co-vars rocket launcher.
[02:14:14] A few Chinese made it all the way across the gauntlet of exploding flame and steel.
[02:14:19] They dropped and heaps even before the Australian planes came down on them. We hadn't worked with
[02:14:24] the Australians before and they were out to prove that they were gun-ho is our own Marine core pilots.
[02:14:30] They came roaring low along the valley from behind us and when they passed above these glowing
[02:14:36] pink vest they dropped even closer to the ground. They're they're low enough to cut off the
[02:14:41] Qing's pig tails, Kelly quipped. The planes had their blood, their guns blazing and the
[02:14:47] Chinese went down in bunches. The Australians made two passes at the end of their second
[02:14:53] low level assault. There were no Chinese soldiers left to shoot at. It took almost every able body
[02:15:01] man that Charlie Company had to bring down their dead and wounded. Their overnight defense of
[02:15:07] Turkey hill had cost dearly. And they got one more rescue mission basically to do. There was a
[02:15:19] Fox company is now in another situation in a horrible scenario and first Baker 17 needs to get to them.
[02:15:33] And it is a treacherous, treacherous movement and they decide, you remember early in the book,
[02:15:41] you said, you know, we weren't used to night fighting. They'd mostly worked during the day.
[02:15:46] Well, they decide that they need to do this at night. So they go on this patrol at night.
[02:15:52] Going back to the book. Under the heavy parkours our bodies
[02:15:56] swedded with the strain but our hands and feet were frozen numb. The wind borne cold attacked
[02:16:02] with terrible fury. When we stopped for bearings we stood silent and motionless.
[02:16:08] Because we needed to maintain silence we could not slap our hands against our sides or
[02:16:13] stomp our feet for circulation. The cold nodded our toes and fingers and ate into our bodies.
[02:16:20] The sweat we generated while climbing froze against our skin. We shivered violently,
[02:16:26] men muttered through their clenched teeth. We somehow got dimmed or freezing a death here.
[02:16:32] And they pushed on. I returned to the side of the column. Many men had collapsed in the snow
[02:16:37] curled into balls like Eskimo dogs. NCOs moved along the fallen, prodding and kicking, urging
[02:16:44] them to their feet. I collided with another Marine, churning forward through the snow. Both of us
[02:16:49] fell and as we weirdly recovered I realized that I had knocked down Colonel Davis.
[02:16:55] What's the hold-up lieutenant? Was all my battalion commander said that he continued breaking
[02:16:59] through the snow to the head of the column. Time had no meaning. We labored through infinite
[02:17:06] darkness and ghostly clouds of snow over an icy path that rose in fell but seemed to lead nowhere.
[02:17:15] We saw only the back of a man's head, a hunched figure in a long, shapeless parka whose every
[02:17:21] tortured step was an act of will. We carried on with the only strength that was left to us.
[02:17:32] Marine Corps discipline. They finally get within range after this brutal freezing march.
[02:17:49] And here we go the night exploded with the flash and sound of the fight.
[02:17:54] The Marines had the advantage of surprise and momentum. They fought with fierce energy
[02:17:59] now released from hours of cold and misery. The Chinese could do little more than try to escape.
[02:18:06] Many of them were unarmed and most ran off to the south so the the Chinese run.
[02:18:13] There's some firing, there's some shooting but it's pretty much a route because they had gone
[02:18:19] at night and they had pushed hard and they had that surprise and violence of action.
[02:18:23] Back to the book, Dawn arrived, Gray and cold and we jumped off the second phase of the
[02:18:30] breakthrough, able and Baker attacked online headed out for Fox Hill a thousand yards away.
[02:18:37] Minutes after we moved out, Kaiser's puttune on the left walked into heavy small arms
[02:18:42] machine gun fire from a ridge on his flank. The 60s responded with HE on the ridge and Kaiser's
[02:18:49] people broke through the deep snow to mount the hill. When they near the ridge line we lifted
[02:18:54] mortar fire and the platoon drove through the enemy's position on its own firepower,
[02:18:58] cover and move added again. We were astonished by our first view of Fox Hill.
[02:19:03] The snow field that led up to the embattled company's position was covered with hundreds of dead
[02:19:09] Chinese soldiers. Many of them seemed to sleep under blankets of drifted snow but their bodies were
[02:19:15] frozen in spasms of pain. There were jumbles of corpses in padded green uniforms. A white
[02:19:24] clad column had fallen in the formation that had attracted the attention of Fox companies'
[02:19:29] machine gunners. Creators of dirt and snow made by the big guns were rimmed with bodies and parts
[02:19:36] of men. Thick bands of dead Chinese lay at the base of Fox Company's perimeter.
[02:19:43] We stood in wonder. Men bowed their heads in prayer, some felt to their knees,
[02:19:50] other breath quiet oaths of disbelief. Tears came to the eyes of raggedy marines who had
[02:19:59] endured bitter cold and savage battle to reach this place of suffering and courage.
[02:20:05] Some one let loose a wild cheer and broke forward in a jubilant run. Across the snow covered
[02:20:15] and corpse-filled battlefield, the marines of Fox Company waved brightly colored banners.
[02:20:20] The blue yellow and red remnants of the parachute drops that had sustained them for nearly a week.
[02:20:27] Around their perimeter, Fox Company had constructed barricades of frozen Chinese bodies.
[02:20:32] From behind these walls of the, from behind these walls of dead, the marines had mounted their
[02:20:41] weapons and maintained a fight against an enemy whose numbers never ceased.
[02:20:47] Now the men of Fox Company arose from behind these gruesome piles to join us.
[02:20:51] Arms slings and bloods soaked compresses were common among them. Men hobbled about with
[02:20:58] makeshift leg splints, all hands were haggard and dirty as were we. We exchanged profane
[02:21:06] greetings that did not conceal the love that we marines felt for each other.
[02:21:12] Some came out and marines appeared along the skylines to the north.
[02:21:18] Then we saw marines marching down the MSR towards us. There were columns of riflemen at first,
[02:21:24] followed by a long trail of vehicle and vehicles and artillery pieces. Our corsairs swooped in
[02:21:30] close, their crooked wings wagging and salute. The fifth and seventh marines had broken out of
[02:21:37] you down knee. Now they broke out. They have a path but they still have to go 14 miles to get out of there.
[02:21:49] Back to the book, all the platoon sergeants had been hit. As were most of the squad leaders,
[02:21:56] we had corpoles and private stepping into leadership billets but they were combat experience marines
[02:22:02] and they knew the work. The marine column that came out of the besieged, you down knee,
[02:22:08] had hundreds of jeeps, ambulances and trucks as well as the big guns of the artillery regiment.
[02:22:14] Many of the trucks were filled with wounded men and some were stacked with the corpses of our own
[02:22:19] killed in action. The walking wounded, so now you got to picture this column, like almost like a mad
[02:22:24] max looking column. The walking wounded who could carry a weapon were turned to as riflemen to protect
[02:22:31] the column. Every man who could walk, hobble or limp was ordered off the trucks. The only riders were
[02:22:38] those serious cases, the gut wounds and blinded men along with severe leg wounds and men with
[02:22:45] frostbite so bad that they would need amputation. Many of the wounded died in the trucks,
[02:22:52] some froze to death and some were shot by the infiltrators. The 14 mile ride was three days
[02:23:00] and nights of grim survival. The rifle companies of the 5th and 7th marine stayed in the hills
[02:23:10] guarding the MSR as the column pulled in to Haggarooi. The garrison town came out to meet the
[02:23:19] bedrackled marines who had run the 14 mile gauntlet of fire and ice. As the walking wounded
[02:23:28] came within sight of the town, someone commanded them to fall into ranks. Maybe it was the
[02:23:35] limping sergeant who gave the command the old salt who had set the defenses along bob fishers
[02:23:40] stretch the column. It could have been fathered griffin or sergeant winged or corpora burr us,
[02:23:46] or corporal Johnson. The wounded men and some who were unharmed but who staggered from exhaustion
[02:23:55] formed up into three files, showed their weapons and marched in ragged step.
[02:24:01] Slowly the tread of their thick rubber sold patch shoe packs on the icy road became a steady
[02:24:08] sure cadence and the haggard and hurt marines put their heads high. Captain Wilcox who couldn't
[02:24:18] carry a weapon was in the forward ranks. His arm was in a huge cast and splinted so it was horizontal
[02:24:25] to the deck. His head and face were a cocoon of bandages but holding himself erect he picked up
[02:24:32] the cadence and marched standing straight into hogaroo rea. A battalion sergeant of the time
[02:24:41] sergeant took time away from the hundreds of wounded men he tended in the aid station to witness
[02:24:48] the columns arrival those bastards. Those magnificent bastards were the words the doctor used
[02:24:57] to describe the worn and torn marines from you down name.
[02:25:07] And I want you to I want you to picture that image that image of these hundreds of men just
[02:25:16] battered wounded barely even able to walk frostbitten and they're meandering into camp and when
[02:25:24] they get close someone says hey fall in and they fall into ranks and they begin to march.
[02:25:37] Will that's human will and its human will under the power of leadership and he doesn't even
[02:25:44] know who gave that order. Somebody said fall in the ranks it's the right thing to do and they do it.
[02:25:52] They find more they find they dig deeper to fall into ranks and hold their heads high as they walk
[02:26:01] back into town back to the book. Except for the road we had opened, Hagaroo rea was
[02:26:11] under siege surrounded by many thousands of Chinese soldiers they had been held off by a battalion
[02:26:16] of the first marines and hundreds of rear echelon people who had reverted to riflemen.
[02:26:23] For three days and nights the cooks and bakers truck drivers and artillerymen
[02:26:28] office, pinkies and technicians dug in alongside infantry marines.
[02:26:34] They threw back every thrust the Chinese made against the Hagaroo rea perimeter.
[02:26:39] American soldiers were there too army technical support people who picked up rifles and
[02:26:46] bars and went up the hills and filled in the marine lines. Wherever there were gaps the artillery
[02:26:52] threw in massive bombardments. During daylight hours the corsairs flew in low with bombs
[02:26:59] rockets and napoms to help hold the attackers at bay. The three divisions of Chinese who tried to
[02:27:06] isolate the fifth and seventh marines plus those had been at Fox Hill followed us south.
[02:27:14] And now they added their numbers to the encirclement of Hagaroo rea. The single road the MSR
[02:27:21] to Koto rea and our only way out was cut off. The hills that flanked that road were high and steep
[02:27:30] and there were as many Chinese embedded in them as their head been at Udomni so they're still
[02:27:36] completely surrounded. All this stuff is happening there's still surrounded.
[02:27:45] The engineers with their heavy earth moving equipment had dynamited the frozen ground and
[02:27:50] leveled an airfield large enough for cargo planes to fly in and out of Hagaroo rea. Air force
[02:27:55] pilots flew in the big clumsy planes loaded with replacements, rations and ammunition.
[02:28:02] For the return trip they filled the planes with the most seriously wounded. When they landed and
[02:28:10] took off they had to fly low between the hills that lined the valley the planes became slow
[02:28:15] moving targets for the Chinese guns and the hills and everyone that left Hagaroo rea was
[02:28:22] perforated with bullet holes. The man on the ground marveled at the courage of the Air Force
[02:28:28] pilots who kept flying in and out of there. So you got just cargo pilots flying into this place
[02:28:35] insanity. Now, they're in a position on a perimeter because just because they survived all that they
[02:28:50] still going to go back out in the whole perimeter. They get out to hold perimeter and here we go
[02:28:54] back to the book through my glasses. I saw a calm of 15 riflemen marching toward us out of Hagaroo rea.
[02:29:00] There were two files of them moving at a brisk pace alongside the road. But alongside both sides
[02:29:05] of the road, they wore crisp white parkas and swung their arms smartly. Because they were clean
[02:29:11] shape and an energetic way assumed they were fresh replacements flown in from the air strip.
[02:29:16] We found out later that these clean and junky troops were royal British marines
[02:29:20] who had fought their way into Hagaroo rea from the south. They too had found the MSR blocked
[02:29:27] and they had punched through the Chinese forces far superior to them in number.
[02:29:33] They were the 41st commando a unit that roughly compared in size to one of our own rifle
[02:29:38] companies. Like us, these marines had suffered heavy casualties. The Royal Marine calm
[02:29:44] halted and spread into ditches along the road near our CP. A freshly groomed young officer
[02:29:51] strode toward Kelly, topple and me. With the young officer was a grizzled sergeant whose proper
[02:29:57] military bearing could have come straight from the pages of kippling. The sergeant had a meticulously
[02:30:03] trimmed broad mustache that would have stirred guinea bucklies out envy. Like the lieutenant,
[02:30:10] the sergeant was dazzling clean and square to away. By binoculars hung around my neck which is
[02:30:16] how the lieutenant distinguished me as an officer. Certainly there was little other difference
[02:30:21] among Kelly and topple and me. Our partners were all stained with blood, food, gun oil, dirt.
[02:30:30] Our filthy faces were matted with bristly beards that bore icicles of mucus and spittle.
[02:30:36] The lieutenant concealed his disdain for our appearance, braced himself and delivered a broad
[02:30:43] hand salute. I say sir, we've ordered to extend up a troll beyond your lines.
[02:30:50] I'm to get up the covering machine guns and I would be most grateful for your suggestions.
[02:30:55] I appreciated the British lieutenant's courtesy and if I possessed a rager, I would have
[02:31:01] shaved on the spot to make myself more presentable. One of the reasons I included this because
[02:31:07] people always ask me, you know, you ever worked with any other militarys and I've worked with
[02:31:11] the British and people say you know how worthy. Well this is how the British are. The British
[02:31:17] are outstanding. The British are so professional. It's so impressive. They're like impeccable.
[02:31:25] Just the way they're described. That's the way the British are. That's the way the British
[02:31:28] military is. They're outstanding. Back to the book, the Royal Marine Lieutenant in his sergeant
[02:31:34] followed me to our machine gun positions and they checked out the fields of fire for their
[02:31:38] own mission. As we walk the line together, we exchanged observations about fighting the Chinese.
[02:31:44] The British lieutenant knew what he was talking about. Cock a little bit about the army units.
[02:31:51] The army outfits that went east to the reservoir were hurriedly patched together and poorly
[02:31:57] equipped for their mission. The artillery and tanks that were to support their advance were not
[02:32:03] organized in time to accompany them when they moved north of how out of Hago Ruiri. The heavy
[02:32:09] weapons that aided the Marine break out west of the reservoir were not there for the army.
[02:32:15] And many of the soldiers in that fight had not yet received cold weather gear, scores of them
[02:32:20] froze to death. It was the army's bad fortune too that a large number of its officers and
[02:32:27] experienced NCOs had been knocked out of the battle at the onset. The two senior commanders
[02:32:34] are Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel were killed at the front of their troops. Most of the
[02:32:40] company commanders and platoon leaders went down in a short time the casualties of all ranks
[02:32:45] outnumbered the able-bodied and some of the wounded had to be left behind. Platoons and squads
[02:32:52] do enthalled to a few men and coalesced into small bands that fought until their ammunition was gone.
[02:33:00] Those who could walk or crawl then made their way back across the frozen reservoir to the marine
[02:33:06] lines at Hago Ruiri. For the soldiers it was a disastrous fight but it had one good effect.
[02:33:13] The Chinese division that mold them was aimed at the attack on Hago Ruiri.
[02:33:19] The fight the soldiers put up on the east side of the reservoir had slowed their advance
[02:33:25] and that bought valuable time for the Marines. When the army survivors made their way into
[02:33:31] Hago Ruiri, those who could still carry on were re-equipped and formed into a professional
[02:33:37] battalion that became part of the first Marine division. They fought alongside us for the
[02:33:43] remainder of the campaign. Now like I said at this point, they're still surrounded and they need to
[02:33:57] now break out to get south to a town called Hung Nam where there's a port where they're going to be
[02:34:03] extracted. They're going to be pulled out. Back to the book, one seven, Arbatalion and two seven
[02:34:08] were to lead the break out from Coto Rhee. One seven was to take the high ground east of the road,
[02:34:16] two seven the west, four miles on the MSR, the Chinese had blown out a bridge over a deep chasm.
[02:34:23] The battalion of first Marines coming from the south would take the ground that commanded the other
[02:34:29] side of that gap. Then the engineers were put in a new bridge beyond that was a full army division.
[02:34:37] The third waiting to give us cover. After we cross the bridge, the army would take over the fighting.
[02:34:45] All we needed to do was get a few more divisions, get through a few more divisions of Chinese soldiers.
[02:34:52] So even on the division level, 10,000 were talking cover move, even on the division level. So it's
[02:34:57] an individual thing. It's a squad thing. It's a platoon thing. It goes all the way up to the division
[02:35:02] level because they need to have the cover of the army to get out of there. Here we go.
[02:35:08] Able company went out in front. The Chinese, the waiting Chinese immediately put down a sheet of fire,
[02:35:15] mortars, machine guns, burp guns, rifles. Able's casualties soon started to return.
[02:35:22] We huddled against the blowing clouds of snow and prayed to God that Able wouldn't get so badly
[02:35:28] mold that we would have to take their place. Our prayers were not answered.
[02:35:36] Battalion ordered us to pass through Able and continue the attack. Although it was daylight,
[02:35:41] we could barely see where we were going. The Chinese did not need to see us. There was only one
[02:35:48] way for us to get at them straight along the road. They had our broach well marked and covered
[02:35:56] with their weapons. As soon as we went past Able, the Chinese mortars began to drop and their
[02:36:01] machine guns opened. The tracers were weird streaks of orange that flew out of the blinding snow clouds.
[02:36:09] Our new corpsmen was quickly put to work. The Chinese were shooting down from a hill that flanked
[02:36:17] woody as well as from straight ahead. Jody didn't want to send anyone up that hill,
[02:36:22] fearing he would lose them in the heavy snow. You're just getting shot at them. There's clouds
[02:36:27] up there at altitude and so you're just getting shot from snow. It's like a cloud that's shooting
[02:36:31] machine gun fire at you. It's a nightmare. Back to the book we were getting nowhere. Joke or
[02:36:37] Saba was standing alongside the road behind Lee's platoon. He called me over to him. Bullet
[02:36:43] zingden's shrapnel wind around us but Joe stood straight and I stood with him. He had decided
[02:36:49] to risk a move up the hill on a left flank. Move your platoon up there Joe. By the way,
[02:36:54] at this point Joe had taken over a platoon. He was no longer in just in charge of the mortars. Now one
[02:36:58] of the sergeants was in charge of the mortars. So he's now in charge of a rifle platoon.
[02:37:03] Move your platoon up there. Joe he instructed me. See if you can take those guns out. They're
[02:37:07] killing us. He spread out his mat and trace the route. Spread out his map and trace the route that I
[02:37:13] was to follow. He fell silent. A Chinese bullet had found its target. Just below the rim of his
[02:37:22] helmet in the center of his forehead. A small black hole appeared there. Joe Kersobba's dead eyes
[02:37:29] stared at me for several seconds before he slump slowly to the ground. I caught him in my arms as
[02:37:36] he fell and held him for a moment. Then I lowered him gently into the snow. Jesus God.
[02:37:43] Joe Kersobba, my friend Joe who would help me so much, show me so much who had gone to bat for me
[02:37:50] with Captain Wilcox who had been my big brother. Joe Kersobba, whom I loved.
[02:38:00] Taking the mat from his mitten hands, I went forward to give it to Lee and informed him that
[02:38:06] he was the new company commander. On the way over, I got on my walkie talkie to tell Betelian that Kersobba
[02:38:13] was KIA. Their CP was close behind and the walkie talkie worked. Through the murk, I spotted Lee's
[02:38:21] vest. He was walking the line behind his men who were prone in the snow covering 50 yards of front.
[02:38:28] Luke Machini with the bar was with him. I felt alone without Kelly. The Chinese fire was passing
[02:38:36] overhead high. The enemy couldn't see us either. Kersobba's dead. I told Lee, caught one in the head.
[02:38:43] Damn. Was all Lee said in response. You're the new skipper I added. Giving him the map.
[02:38:51] Joe told me to go up the hill on Woody's flank. See if I can get around those guns and take them
[02:38:56] out. You still want me to do that. We must do something Lee said. They're killing us up from up there.
[02:39:02] That's what Joe said. Yes, see what you can do. Is your radio working? Yeah, I just talked to Betelian
[02:39:08] on it. Okay, let me know the situation when you make it and when you're ready to attack. If we can
[02:39:11] get our artillery, I don't want you to run into friendly fire. I, I skipper, I said,
[02:39:18] first Lieutenant Lee gave me a ironic little smile at that.
[02:39:22] So they're going to go up this hill and try and take out that machine gun and as they're going
[02:39:29] up the hill, he starts hearing something. Someone called from behind us. Sir, Lieutenant owned Owen.
[02:39:36] It was Woody Taylor's runner. He was breathing hard from the effort. He had made to catch up with us.
[02:39:41] Sir, Lieutenant Taylor wants you back down with the company. Lieutenant Lee's been hit.
[02:39:45] And Lieutenant Taylor wants you. On the double, he says, damn it to hell. I might have been able
[02:39:50] to roll the Chinese from the flank and take out the guns that were holding back the company.
[02:39:54] I tried to get Woody on my walkie-talkie. I got more static. I waved for Morrison to rejoin us
[02:40:03] and the tiny platoon slipped and slid back down the hill. As they came behind me, the men
[02:40:09] cursed and complained about the second Lieutenant's making up their mind. Woody Taylor waited
[02:40:15] for us at the base of the slope. He was senior to me in rankin with Lee down. He was our new company
[02:40:20] commander. He said that battalion had sent up a pair of tanks and their firepower would cover
[02:40:26] a frontal assault up the hill. So here we go. Finally, we get tanks and anyone that doesn't know.
[02:40:32] I am a huge fan of tanks. I love tanks and all you tankers out there. Thank you for being out there
[02:40:41] for these ground pounders. So he gained the old school tanks that little phone on the back of the
[02:40:47] tank to talk to the guys that were inside the tank. He picks up that tank as they get prepared to do
[02:40:53] this assault. And he says, put your 30s up below the ridge. Goak machine gun to 10 o'clock. Then
[02:40:57] I might command hit them with the cannons. We'll jump off on that. A tiny voice came from within the tank.
[02:41:04] Here you loud and clear the 30 caliber twin machine guns of both tanks. Begin their jack hammer
[02:41:11] pounding. I watch red tracer stabbing up the snow covered hill toward the dug in Chinese gun
[02:41:18] that we could now see dimly. Now they under that firepower they start to attack. Our line
[02:41:25] moved up the hill. 25 yards above me. Two Chinese soldiers appeared from behind a large boulder.
[02:41:32] One had a rifle, the other a burp gun. As I swung my car being toward them, I heard a grunt from
[02:41:38] Lu Pechini. He fired his bar straight into the air and he fell forward in the snow. He did not move
[02:41:45] and I knew he was dead. The best bar man we had got damn it. You've lost Lu Pechini.
[02:41:52] I couldn't get my weapon on the two Chinese above me fast enough. The one with a rifle put
[02:41:57] around in my left shoulder that spun me around. It's impact generated a shock like a powerful
[02:42:03] jolt of electricity that went through my entire body. Damn, how could I be hit? After all this,
[02:42:09] how could I get hit? I saw the burp gun trigger burst at me. The snout of his weapon flashed
[02:42:16] and I could not lift my feet above my knee above the knee deep snow to get out of the path of his bullets.
[02:42:23] Two slugs tore into my right arm. Two more of the electric jolt's and my car being flung
[02:42:28] itself away from my grasp. I saw it rising to the air as I fell into the snow. This cannot be happening.
[02:42:37] I tried to raise my head and reach to retrieve my car being get the bastards. My arms wouldn't move.
[02:42:45] I could not raise myself. Joe's down, someone shouted. Bill Fox voice, get the bastards. I heard
[02:42:53] myself yelling, get the bastards. I screamed in pain and overwhelming anger and my Marines rushed
[02:42:59] past me and up the hill leaving Lupa, Cheyenne and me in the snow. Get the bastards. I yelled again
[02:43:06] and again. It was all I can think to do. The young corpsmen who had been assigned to us for the
[02:43:16] days battle cry for the days battle heard my screams. Although the enemy fire still flayed the hill,
[02:43:23] he ran clumsily through the snow to reach my side. I was flat on my back and he crouch beside me.
[02:43:28] Okay Lieutenant, he gasped for air with the exertion of the run laden with his
[02:43:33] aid kit and cold weather gear. His breath made puffs of white steam. Then his smooth,
[02:43:39] shaving face was red with 25 below zero cold. With bullets zinging all around of the new
[02:43:46] corner caught away my parka. The bullet through the shoulder had nicked my lung and blood was
[02:43:51] gushed and blood gushed from my mouth and down the front of my parka covering his bare hands.
[02:43:57] Give me some more feet. I told the kid the pain was terrible. I can't sir. I'm sorry.
[02:44:03] He shook with the cold and with his own fear. Bullet stung the air and raised little
[02:44:11] fountains of snow a few feet away. Give me some goddamn morphine. I yelled spraying my blood on him.
[02:44:18] Sir, the morphine is frozen. I can't give it to you. What the hell is wrong with you?
[02:44:23] Here are the goddamn stuff in your mouth. Don't you boots no? Yes sir. I'm sorry sir.
[02:44:29] He put the serret in his mouth and continued to cut away at my clothing. Just just trying to be still
[02:44:34] sir. Even with the pain and the rage I realized that no one had told the new doc how to take
[02:44:40] care of casualties in below zero weather. I greeted my teeth and tried to shut up.
[02:44:49] I didn't feel the jab when he shoved the serret into my flesh but I soon felt the wave of
[02:44:55] warmth come over me. The pain flowed away and the noise of the fighting above us receded.
[02:45:02] You're a good lad. I told the corpsman. I felt his hands doing something. You'll be a good
[02:45:07] marine. Yes sir. He sounded far away. Before I drift it off, I remembered the photos in my helmet.
[02:45:16] Those are the photos of his wife and his two kids. My pictures I said. That's my wife and kids.
[02:45:22] Don't let the gooks get them. I won't sir. I said the corpsman who had wrist his life to save
[02:45:29] mine and whose name I never knew. Would he tailor was the only officer left with the company?
[02:45:40] He led the troops to the crest of the hill fighting as a rifleman himself.
[02:45:45] The Chinese were on the run and battalion ordered bacon one seven to keep after them.
[02:45:53] The troops were frozen and exhausted but would he push them on.
[02:45:59] Later in the day they reached their objective. With their small number they said a type
[02:46:04] perimeter on the high ground overlooking the gap in the road that the engineers would bridge the next day.
[02:46:11] They get that target secure. They get that hill top and now they're overlooking the gap
[02:46:20] where the engineers are going to build that bridge and they set into a security perimeter.
[02:46:28] Woody Taylor put the weary company on 50% watch against the enemy assault. He knew would come in the
[02:46:34] dark. It was the coldest night that the man had yet endured. A reported 30 degrees below zero.
[02:46:43] The wind howled at them in every direction. All through the unbearably cold hours until
[02:46:48] dawn Taylor and Sergeant Richard moved from man to man to assure that no one froze to death.
[02:46:56] A detail of Korean soldiers who had been attached to the army arrived to bolster the perimeter
[02:47:01] but most of them filtered away during the night. Several times Marines heard the enemy moving
[02:47:08] around their lines in the darkness but no attack came. Woody put out patrols early in the morning
[02:47:16] before light. Within a hundred yards of a line they found frozen dozens of frozen
[02:47:24] Chinese soldiers whose feet and hands were frozen to ice. The extreme cold had been on our side
[02:47:34] holding back the attack.
[02:47:40] And the next day Woody Taylor brought the remnants of the company down from the hills.
[02:47:45] Marched them across the bridge and into the shelter of the town of Chin Hong Ni.
[02:47:56] Their battle ended there.
[02:47:58] Sergeant Richard took a roll call. His final count was 27 men.
[02:48:11] 27 men. And that is that's out of the original 200 plus men of the company.
[02:48:32] And then on top of that another hundred replacements that filled their ranks in this battle.
[02:48:41] So that's 300 men and only 27 remained. 27.
[02:48:50] Now, few of us will ever face those kind of odds. In few of us are ever going to face those
[02:49:14] hellish demands. Few of us will ever stare at hell like these men did.
[02:49:35] But I want you to think about something I want you to imagine.
[02:49:40] Imagine what we can accomplish. If we apply even a fraction of the will that these men displayed,
[02:49:54] the iron will. A will that is stronger than their bodies, a will that is stronger than their minds.
[02:50:07] Because clearly, let's face it. Their bodies, their bodies were broken and their minds in many cases were broken.
[02:50:23] And they didn't want to go on, but their will, their will prevailed.
[02:50:35] Will will will conquer us all. And our will is delivered through discipline.
[02:50:55] And as Joe Owen stated many times in the book, sometimes the only thing that pressed them on was
[02:51:06] discipline. The discipline to push yourself. And you know, we are all capable of more eye
[02:51:27] and capable of more you are capable of more. You can overcome the obstacles and the challenges and the
[02:51:37] enemy and you can overcome your own weaknesses. And you can overcome your own desire to quit.
[02:51:47] Let's, let's, let these men be our examples of how to fight
[02:52:05] and how to use your will and how to drive on and let these men be our examples of how to live.
[02:52:17] And don't. Don't let these men down. And I think that's all I've got for tonight.
[02:52:44] Right, echo. If you want to give me a second here to recover and talk about some stuff over there,
[02:52:55] I'd be much obliged.
[02:53:04] Could be one of the rougher of transitions.
[02:53:06] Yeah, you know, it's, you gotta remind yourself, this is a book. This happened. This happened.
[02:53:23] And the fact that these guys couldn't do this and fight on if that doesn't give you
[02:53:29] the inspiration that you need to step past whatever pathetic little challenges in front of you,
[02:53:37] you're wrong. Don't listen to this podcast anymore. Go somewhere else.
[02:53:45] Yeah, it's easy to forget it because of the kind of the contrast of your, like your problem or
[02:53:54] or whatever you want to call it, you're challenged your task, your issue that you're trying to overcome.
[02:53:59] And then contrast with basically the luxury that you live in and that luxury is kind of
[02:54:06] put on you this kind of way of feeling on a habitual level. So, now you're faced with this task,
[02:54:15] comparatively, a big one habitual comfort. Yeah, what we experience. Yes, habitual comfort. Exactly.
[02:54:21] There is one thing. It's cool. I woke up early in the morning. Yeah.
[02:54:26] You know what I mean? Hey, I worked out real hard and sweated a lot. Like, okay. Really? Is that all I got?
[02:54:32] I need to step it up. Yeah, I need to step it up. Yeah. And then, you know, I woke up early in the morning
[02:54:37] or, you know, I didn't get that much sleep. So my day is hard. Cool. Yeah, your foot's not freezing
[02:54:45] off of your body. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And what's a, what's in crowbob? This is
[02:54:50] every single time you go damn, you know? I'm glad they made it out of that. Didn't make it out.
[02:54:55] I mean, they're still just surrounded. Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting is when you do remind
[02:55:04] yourself of this kind of stuff. Like, like right now, if you know when feels the way I do,
[02:55:09] I feel like, oh, I feel pretty much rejuvenated when I kind of flash back to my life for a second.
[02:55:15] Oh, man. Oh, God. This goes. Yeah. I can go, you know, if I got to work out, I'm going to
[02:55:20] crush that workout because I got all my limbs right now. They didn't freeze off all this stuff.
[02:55:25] So the point there is when you are reminded of real adversity, whether you remind yourself
[02:55:33] or the book or something you see or hear about, um, like, it gives you that, like that added
[02:55:39] will to to overcome. Yeah. Maybe you, you actually can take some of their will. You can learn it.
[02:55:47] Yeah. You can learn it. You can say, oh, you know what, oh, I'm cold right now. You're not cold.
[02:55:51] Yeah. You're, you're, you're, you are not cold. You're tired right now. No, you are not tired.
[02:55:57] You're not. You're afraid right now. No. You are not afraid.
[02:56:01] Learn. Yeah. Learn. You just increase your will through knowledge. It's a real thing.
[02:56:07] Yeah. It's true. And when you do with my point being when you do remind yourself of this kind of
[02:56:13] stuff, man, it helps. It'll help you do whatever it is or over come the fact. Yeah, because you realize
[02:56:20] that that human beings are capable of more. Wait, what you, then what you know, more than I know.
[02:56:27] I'm capable of more than what I've done. I'm going to do more. You know, I'm going to get after
[02:56:32] it. Hargur. That's what I take away from this, these kind of books. Obviously, besides there's
[02:56:37] incredible tactical lessons in there. There's incredible leadership. There's incredible, but the, the
[02:56:43] testament of human will is incredible is unbelievable. Unbelievable testament to human will.
[02:56:49] Yeah. So now I feel like, or it seems like, you know, that when we're faced or when I'm faced with,
[02:56:57] like, oh, this is too hard or dang, I got all this ahead of me. I got to do all, really all
[02:57:03] that is. Now, looking at it, it seems like all it is is a deviation from my habitual comfort.
[02:57:11] Yeah. That's all that is. And I'll tell you what was awesome the way that he reinforced
[02:57:15] it reinforced several times because people talked about fear. I've talked about fear on this podcast
[02:57:18] before, but you know, I kind of say, hey, take action if you're afraid, you got to step into it.
[02:57:22] He said that over and over again. He actually had a methodology. Okay, if I'm afraid, I'm going to
[02:57:26] I'm going to, I'm going to stand up. I'm going to get a rectum. I'm going to find out what's
[02:57:30] going on and I'm going to get, I'm going to find out, I'm going to assess the situation before my
[02:57:36] boss calls me. That's my timeline that I'm working on. Yeah. And that's the same to take action.
[02:57:42] So many, so many great lessons learned in there. Yeah. Well, yeah, I feel like, yeah, we can transition
[02:57:49] over to ways to support. Well, yeah, if you want people with people do want to support the podcast
[02:57:54] out there, I guess you could, if you're in the mood, how to do that? Oh, yeah. So the first way and this is
[02:58:00] kind of a two-way street, you know, okay, on its supplements, right? Supplements, all kinds of cool
[02:58:07] stuff. In fact, my friend from Kuwait, Cameron, he hit me up and was like, hey, what's on it has this,
[02:58:15] it's a new pre-workout, you know, but it's non-stimulate, usually pre-workout. It's like, crush
[02:58:21] a popo-punch, a fedger, and they feed it to you. They don't actually do that, but it seems like they do.
[02:58:27] I'm not saying that's all the bad thing, but it's not like healthy, you know? So anyway, this one is like
[02:58:30] a healthy one is like non-stimulate and it's like, oh, I got it. I just got it. I'm going to try it yet.
[02:58:36] I'm going to get that out. I'm going to get that out. Yeah. But if you're into like, you know,
[02:58:42] sometimes you go on the website and you get like caught up reading all the cool stuff and all the
[02:58:46] stuff like this. It's on there so you can look at it. You know, you mentioned that a lot.
[02:58:49] You actually mentioned that a lot. How you go to the on it website. You know, I maybe I just don't
[02:58:55] do as thorough research as you when it comes to checking out where my acrylic oil comes from,
[02:59:00] but I know what I'm looking for and I go do it. But if you're more like echo and you want to spend
[02:59:05] time on the website reading and researching, it's good place to do is on it.com for a slash
[02:59:10] jockel on there if you want to get a little bunny saved. Yeah, if you want to send save 10% 10% off
[02:59:15] slash jockel. So it's on it dot com slash jockel. Anyway, they got some good stuff. You can
[02:59:19] pretty much rest. It's not pretty much. You can rest assured that it's all good stuff. It's not a bunch
[02:59:25] of Fedra crushed in to powder form. You know, and they're selling it as a, I don't know, it's
[02:59:31] crores. Vazodilator or something like this. It's not that big or a echo. I read no. So anyway,
[02:59:38] yeah, 10% off on it's on it dot com slash jockel. The shrimp tech is dope to alpha brain. These are all
[02:59:44] part of the what do you call EDC. Every day carry every day. Every day consumption. Every day
[02:59:51] consumption. I like that. Right. EDC. Yeah, croo oil. That's it. All ready. Alpha brain. That's like every
[02:59:58] other day. It depends on some. Yeah. Get on it. Yeah. Get on Alpha brain. Yeah. And every day. Some people
[03:00:06] they get every day. Yeah. Some people they show them tech every day. Yeah. I take from tech when needed.
[03:00:11] Yeah. When anticipated needed. Yeah. Crill oil every day. Crill oil every day. For sure. Without
[03:00:16] question. Strong bone every day. Yeah. I got this peanut butter or your bar. When needed. Well,
[03:00:23] yeah, when I've been having one every day for the past like three, four days. Yeah, because it's so
[03:00:29] easy. Yeah. Oh, I want to eat something healthy and that tastes good. And I'm kind of hungry. And I want to get
[03:00:34] it really quickly without having to do anything but peel open a wrapper bone more rebars in the house.
[03:00:38] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Guaranteed. But yeah, this is cool stuff. I got this peanut butter. It's
[03:00:44] not peanut butter's cashew almond and I don't know something else. It's really good. I've got
[03:00:50] it's real corn may too. MCT oil. It's all up in there. Anyway, good stuff. I don't know. I do have an
[03:00:56] MCT oil too by the way. Yeah. I take the coconut MCT oil from on it and I mix it with heavy whipping
[03:01:03] cream. I don't know. I don't do that until it's whipped cream. Right. I just poured in a little bit
[03:01:08] in there. I stirred up and I drink heavy whipping cream, which is just all fat, which is awesome with
[03:01:14] MCT, which is more fat than I drink all that. Yeah. And it's good fat. Yeah, it's good fat. But it also
[03:01:21] it's very, very fulfilling. Very, very nice. And I'm talking, I almost, it's a little bit
[03:01:27] big when I have little glasses that I mix it in. They're bigger than a shot glass, but they're
[03:01:32] smaller than a cocktail glass. Right. It's called the Rocks Glass. Mm, perhaps. In the bar
[03:01:37] in the shoe. It's okay. You know more about that stuff. Yeah. It's bigger than yeah. Yeah. MCT,
[03:01:43] I mean, not to go into all the fats and good fats for us, but it's more fulfilling fat has nine
[03:01:48] calories per gram. Yeah. Carbide rates and protein. Have four, four. Yeah. Alcohol. 7.
[03:01:56] That was a good idea. I was not aware of that. Yeah. It's all good. Alcohol is not. I don't think
[03:02:01] they saw alcohol on it. So if you're all good there. But that's a good way. I feel like I'm repeating
[03:02:06] it on it.com slash jacco. But if you do want the 10% off, you've got to add the slash jacco.
[03:02:10] If you want to put pay the full price, which is cool too, by the way. Just go on it.com.
[03:02:16] Anyway, another way to support if you're in the mood to support the Amazon link
[03:02:21] click through. It's Christmas. Christmas coming up. What is today? What are the
[03:02:26] data today? Christmas coming up. We then, we then went three weeks, two weeks, whatever.
[03:02:31] Anyway, when you do your shopping, if you're like, hey, I'm going to shop for Christmas
[03:02:35] for my friends, family, whatever. And it's in your mind that you want to support podcast. Just go
[03:02:42] to our website, jaccostore.com or jacco.com, jacco.podcast.com. A lot of people ask me,
[03:02:49] hey, where are your favorite books that you've read? Can you send us a list of those?
[03:02:53] And I say, yeah, go to www.jaccopodcast.com. All the books that we've talked about on the podcast,
[03:02:59] the book that I read today, go and buy it, go and buy it, holder than hell. A marine rifle company
[03:03:06] at Choes and Reservoir by Joseph R. Owen. Buy it, read it. I could have just read the entire book
[03:03:13] on air. Obviously, I'm not going to do that, but it would take a long time. It would take a
[03:03:18] long time, but there's so much stuff that I absolutely had to skip and say, you know, I was
[03:03:24] struggling with myself going, I used up most of a highlighter and a half highlighting this book.
[03:03:31] So, but order this book, you'll have it on the website. Yeah, it's the whole page. All of
[03:03:37] them are on air. Yeah, on the paper, you go on top menu, you know, books from the podcast,
[03:03:42] this thing is called click on it. There's links directly to Amazon. Yeah, yeah, boom, there's another
[03:03:46] way to support, but it's all Amazon. You click through, if you're just doing regular shopping,
[03:03:50] there's a banner on the right side. You click through there, do you shopping? And it supports
[03:03:54] the podcast. Two birds, one stone. You know, I also you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
[03:04:04] We, Jockel, probably, well, no, you already mentioned this. Oh, we got on the top podcast of 2016 list.
[03:04:13] I tuned. I tuned. It's big deal. Anyway, subscribe to there. You too, uh, not YouTube, but I
[03:04:18] tuned. We were on the top podcast of 2016 list from iTunes. Is your iTunes? Correct. Yeah, that just
[03:04:26] popped in my head because when you subscribe, you subscribe on iTunes. Leave a review if you're in the
[03:04:32] mood. Actually, leave a review and make sure it's awesome. Not awesome in terms of good, but just
[03:04:40] make sure that it's fun for me to read. Yeah, yeah, that'll involve more the will to read or if you're
[03:04:47] not fun to read some good points that you like or don't like. And yeah, I like reading those reviews.
[03:04:54] I do, I've read everything I'll review. So I'm reading them. It's good. And I'm busy to check.
[03:05:00] Yeah, yeah, make sure we're delivering. Yeah, you got to do it very good.
[03:05:04] Um, subscribe to the YouTube channel. So we've been slowly putting more videos on there.
[03:05:11] You know, excerpts and whatnot. Jocomic nuggets where you can sub or share, you know, with your friends
[03:05:17] or whatever quickly. I'm putting more and put more today. And then yeah, some good at excerpts, I think.
[03:05:25] Subscribe to that. Stay informed video wise. Also, we have a store.
[03:05:32] Jocomic is a store. It's called jocostor.com. So if every week we all wear clothes, t-shirts, right? Why not
[03:05:40] make it a jocot t-shirt? That's kind of the thing, you know? It's a thing. You know, Brad, how's this so
[03:05:48] Chris? I don't know if I showed you this. So Chris Ruiz are a friend. Um, fellow back. He's that. I want to say
[03:05:55] I don't even know the whole story. I was trying to call him. He was like, Charlie, but there's no,
[03:05:59] I totally know this story. Yeah. So yeah, he's one of the, one of the cadets. Yeah, I could edit at
[03:06:07] West Point. Yeah. So he's, I don't know how, do you know how he's all? How we saw him or whatever,
[03:06:14] but a cadet at West Point and I don't have, I don't have his name right now. In uniform. Yeah,
[03:06:19] yeah, he's in uniform, but the uniform that they were, it's cold up there. So where these basically
[03:06:22] it's like a giant cape. And underneath the cape, he had a jocopock ashtirt on. He had actually,
[03:06:30] they actually had the straight-up jockel face on that thing. And it was, he posted an awesome picture
[03:06:35] on social media of him, of him pulling up his cape and he had that, that, that t-shirt on. Yeah.
[03:06:42] Jockel's face. Maybe that was the secret weapon that led the army to the first victory,
[03:06:47] in 14 years over Navy and football. Tom Neill. Tom Neill, yes. He's the, he was the cadet.
[03:06:53] Doing it. Yeah. He was the, in the wild. Really in the wild, double in the wild. Yeah. Well,
[03:06:58] that's he gave me all in the wild. That's, I mean, I don't know what the regulations are,
[03:07:02] but I'm fairly certain that the, the, the t-shirt, the jocopock has t-shirt is not part of our
[03:07:07] army regulations unless it is now. Who know, I'm just saying there were no perhaps. But yeah,
[03:07:11] he's been, he's been actually in touch before he went to West Point. He was, when he was getting ready
[03:07:19] to go, he was like reaching out and he was getting after it. Yeah. Go crush it.
[03:07:24] Don't spoil it. So good. Yeah. Into some nogie, jujutsu. Yeah. True. True. True.
[03:07:29] Anyway, yeah. So jockels stored calm. That's where you can get like cool shirts,
[03:07:33] disciplining cool freedom, you know, all these things, you know, some women stuff on there,
[03:07:37] some hoodies on there, some rash guards on there for, for, yeah, some activity. You know what I'm talking about?
[03:07:43] And some patches on there, the re-regulation one with the, you know, the, I want the, the velcro that's
[03:07:50] some, that's on there, some other stuff. So yeah, go on there, look at it. You don't have to buy nothing.
[03:07:54] Just look at it. If you like something, go ahead. Get it. Good way to support and boom, you got to
[03:07:59] sure. Um, also, okay. So here's the, here's the thing, let's start a while ago. Okay. So I'll tell
[03:08:09] this story. I'll keep it true. But so I was like, I don't have echo went rogue again. That's it. Yeah.
[03:08:17] So, and it started with kind of nothing. So, you know, okay, we're talking about luxury and like,
[03:08:22] okay, I, I only got six hours sleep. I'm usually used to eight and a half or something like that,
[03:08:28] right. So, but I know I can do a workout. And I know you don't get that much sleep or if you're
[03:08:33] tired and not tired of what you still push through the workout. So, but I'm thinking, yeah, yeah,
[03:08:36] you're hard, your money, whatever, but you got it. There has to be times where you got to
[03:08:41] basically talk yourself into it. Basically. So I'm like, all right, like, what do you say? You
[03:08:49] got it, you know, be honest, like, what do you say? You know, to yourself. And I figured it, it would
[03:08:55] have, you know, like a lot of stuff that you cannot, we say, like, you know, we have this luxury and
[03:09:00] all this stuff. I'm like, all right, but let me, so I asked you and what you told me, I was like, okay,
[03:09:08] that, oh, that was good. So, it was legit right there. So, and it worked. It totally worked.
[03:09:16] So, what I did, you know, one thing like to another kind of in my head. So, I was like, all right,
[03:09:21] you know, what we're gonna do, we're gonna record that. You're gonna say that, I'm gonna record it.
[03:09:25] And on top of that, not just the work, you know, and usually, like, with food and stuff, like,
[03:09:30] donuts and I joke around that, I eat, like, whole things of Oreos, because I kind of, that's just a joke.
[03:09:35] Like, sometimes I do, but you do. Yeah, but I have will-pile. Like, that's not a problem with, but
[03:09:42] some people don't, some like, yeah, that workout thing that you just said could apply to, like,
[03:09:49] all these other things. We're gonna record that, too.
[03:09:51] Then you start thinking, you know, a lot of people have been saying, hey, what about, like,
[03:09:56] a ringtone, you should have ringtones, you know, for my alarm and all this stuff. So, like, all right,
[03:10:01] well, basically, one thing led to another, we recorded them, and I put them on iTunes.
[03:10:08] Called it psychological warfare. It's good move, I think, on my part.
[03:10:14] It's on iTunes. Yes, on iTunes. It's like, yeah, so we're charging, and here's the night,
[03:10:19] so this kind of ties it back to how you can support the podcast. Look, so we hit about eight to
[03:10:24] ten birds with one stone with this. It's nine nine cents for a track, or you can buy, like,
[03:10:29] the whole thing, there's, like, 13, 14 tracks on there for nine bucks. I think that's kind of standard,
[03:10:33] but so that's so much, I put it, or I listed it as, and you just download it, you put it as your ringtone.
[03:10:40] There's one for a waking up. Actually, there's two for a waking up, right? So, you can put three for waking up.
[03:10:44] Maybe, yeah, but there's a few. Because in my mind, I pictured people, like, oh, you want to wake up?
[03:10:50] Cool, we can come on that. I go through that every day waking up. Well, so yeah, we'll do that.
[03:10:55] It's sort of like a song that you could buy, it's like a song that you could buy on iTunes.
[03:11:00] Yeah, same process. Or an album. Yeah, same process. You just, yeah, you just download. You can buy one
[03:11:05] track two tracks, or the whole thing, or what, you know, it's 99 cents. So it's not like,
[03:11:10] you're supporting the podcast. Yeah, exactly right. Here's here's a little tip. I was thinking about
[03:11:14] though. So you know, you're wake up. There's like, oh, a few wake up ones, right? I mentioned that.
[03:11:21] If you put that as your alarm, clear it with your wife or whoever you're sleeping with. I'll tell you
[03:11:27] right now if that thing, but if she don't know about it, and that comes on, it'll freak her out then.
[03:11:32] So, do that. That's a little pro tip right there if he's in it. But I will, I will say it's 100%
[03:11:40] guaranteed. If you felt like, how I felt with workouts, like, I'm really not in the mood to go
[03:11:44] do a workout. And you listen to the workout one, I will say with 100% certainty, you will not skip the
[03:11:51] work. I'll say that right now. That's legit. Anyway, psychological warfare. Who's the artist?
[03:11:59] I think it's just a willink. Okay. I think, because that's how they list them by artist, right?
[03:12:04] Yeah, I think so. That I just, that I just become an artist with there. That's scary. Let's call it something
[03:12:09] else. You kind of got to do something else. You kind of have to find this and push into it though.
[03:12:14] So, you know, artist author, podcaster, technically. Is that the thing? You have to,
[03:12:21] you know what, give your wife the heads up if you're a fighter. These guys are flaked in the
[03:12:24] worn career, I'm over here being an artist. What happened? But it's all you know wrong. Not going to
[03:12:30] happen. Not, it's all for because though, I'm telling you because if anyone's like, I am which
[03:12:36] I'm straight up. It's more than assumption. I'm, I am of the belief that some people are like me
[03:12:41] in that way where you just don't feel like it. I know we just read this and now we all feel like
[03:12:47] it. I understand that. But you don't have that feeling every single day.
[03:12:51] Then tell me right now, this helps. This helps to get after it. Help me, for sure.
[03:12:56] You know, psychological warfare. You know, all right, also, hey, on iTunes or sorry,
[03:13:03] not on iTunes, but on Amazon, you can get some white tea. It's like I said, we're working through
[03:13:10] the supply chain issues. But it's been popping up every couple days. They refill. You can order it.
[03:13:15] It tastes good and it makes you feel good and it will increase your deadlift capabilities
[03:13:23] to a minimum of 7,000 pounds. Many are getting up to 8,000 pounds. From drinking chocolate,
[03:13:30] you can get up and get after it mug by the way, too. So those are bigger than normal. I'll say that.
[03:13:37] They're bigger than a normal mug. A normal mug is not as big as it get after it mug.
[03:13:42] So it's like with every sip, you're doing bicep curls. You're getting, actually, that's not my joke.
[03:13:49] I could still have from Twitter. So that's that. Also, when Amazon, you can pick up colder than hell.
[03:13:56] The book I read today, do it. Put it in your collection of badass books. You can pick up
[03:14:02] another book that's called Extreme Ownership. That's written by me and my brother, Dave Babin.
[03:14:08] It is also a book that's about combat, but it's also more of a book about leadership.
[03:14:14] And if you want to give some, speaking of the holiday season,
[03:14:20] if you want to give someone a gift, that's going to, you know, some gifts that you get,
[03:14:24] they go in the drawer that doesn't get opened anymore. Right? And then it takes you a couple
[03:14:30] years and you finally throw it away. Don't give that gift. Give the gift that someone's going to say,
[03:14:37] give me that book. It's legit. I read it. Oh, I implemented this. Hey, what did you think about the
[03:14:42] gift? Give my gift that's going to have long-term value, long-term value. Give them a little book called
[03:14:48] Extreme Ownership. You can know Amazon.com. Hey, speaking of extreme ownership. Also, we got the
[03:14:55] master number two, 002 May 4th and 5th at the Marriott Markey in New York City. Now, the last one
[03:15:02] that we had, we had people from 42 different states. We had people from five foreign countries.
[03:15:09] And we had leaders at every level of the chain of command in every size business that you could
[03:15:16] imagine. So it was a super diverse group of people that are all together with, they had one similarity
[03:15:23] and that is they want to get better and crush it in leadership in their business and in their life.
[03:15:30] So that's what we do with the master, life and I who are there. Obviously, when I say we're there,
[03:15:38] I don't mean we're there, meaning we're in the same building, but we're hiding somewhere.
[03:15:41] No, no, we're there. We are actually with you. We are sitting down with you. We are talking. We are
[03:15:47] we're not hiding behind the curtain. We don't even have a backstage. They said, well,
[03:15:51] where do you want your backstage? We don't need one. We're not going backstage. People want to come
[03:15:57] and talk and learn. We want to learn from them. So come and get it. I've said this every time.
[03:16:02] This is going to sell out. It's going to sell out and then you won't be able to go. And also,
[03:16:06] the prices are going up. So as you get closer to the event, the prices go up. The reason we do that
[03:16:14] is so we incentivize you to buy the tickets now so that we can plan better. We like to be
[03:16:19] planned, we plan and we prepare things. If all of you sign up, April 22nd, we got some logistics
[03:16:29] problems. I don't want to be in the same boat. I'm in with Jockel White Tea, where I've failed
[03:16:32] logistically. And it takes me a while to get it back on track. So sign up early, save yourself some
[03:16:39] money and let us be better prepared for that. If you got questions, you can email,
[03:16:43] muster at echelonfront.com or you can check out the website www.extremownership.com.
[03:16:54] We will see you there and you will see me. You'll see, Lave, you'll see Echo Charles.
[03:17:00] And you'll see everybody else. We'll all be there getting after it. While you're waiting
[03:17:08] to hang out with us at the muster, if you want to hang out with us virtually,
[03:17:14] well Echo and I are both kind of cruising the interwebs. Twitter, yep, where they're
[03:17:23] Instagram, where they're and you even gonna see us. You're even gonna see us on that Facebook
[03:17:32] you boy. Echo is at echelonchiles and I am at Jockel Willink. And finally, we appreciate
[03:17:46] you listening and supporting the podcast and of course spread in the word. But don't just listen.
[03:17:56] Do. Execute. Take a look at your life and see where you can apply the kind of human
[03:18:08] will we heard about tonight. The kind of human will that overcomes challenges and obstacles,
[03:18:18] whether you're fighting a war or you're fighting a fire or you're fighting crime or you're building
[03:18:25] a bridge or you're building a piece of software or whether you're doing HVAC work or retail work
[03:18:35] or whether you're healing kids or you're teaching kids. No matter what you are doing,
[03:18:47] what can you do to do it better? What can you do to make you better?
[03:18:55] Ask yourself that question. Apply that will and get after it.
[03:19:12] So until next time, this is Echo and Jockel.
[03:19:17] Out.