Jocko Podcast 63 w/ Colonel Bill Reeder: "My Captivity in Vietnam"

2017-02-22T16:58:28Z

Join the Conversation on Twitter and Facebook: @jockowillink facebook.com/WilliamReederJr @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:46 - Intro to Bill Reeder "Through The Valley: My Captivity in Vietnam" 0:09:35 - First Tour in Vietnam 0:15:23 - Second Tour in Vietnam 0:35:23 - The Crash 0:49:55 - The Capture 2:10:10 - Freedom from Capture 2:19:04 - Aftermath and the Take-Away 2:33:14 - Support, Cool Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book) and The Muster002 2:39:09 - Closing Gratitude

AI summary of episode

And you know, certainly, you know, when you say that other people, you know, will be able to find absolutely, I mean, just me reading this, I found all kinds of not just inspiration, but practical guidance, which, you know, one of the things you just said is practical guidance on, you know, someone that's been through what you've been through, there's so much that everybody else can take away and learn from. Well sir that's I don't even know how to respond to that thanks again to Ryan Summers for linking this up it has been an absolute honor thank you for coming on thank you for writing this book thank you for talking to us today but more important thank you for your service to this great nation thank you for stepping up and going forward into the fray over and over again. Thank you for your incredible determination and discipline and your unrelenting will not only to survive but to do so with honor and with dignity and with humility and finally thank you for giving all of us all of us an example to follow and for reaffirming to us that despite the darkness and the evil in the world and despite the discomforts and the hardships we face and the challenges that all people must confront despite all that thank you for making sure that we remember without question that it doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing windy or calm sunny or overcast every day is a gift every day is beautiful and we will remember that and so until next time this is Colonel William Reader and Echo Jeffeted Some jacomic nuggets little excerpts of the podcast that you know little lessons if they don't want to listen to the whole thing you know two hours or whatever they can listen to short short little nuggets if you will. But doing that mission, controlling that aircraft, dealing with that emergency situation is best I could and going through the whole process, I don't even think there was a thought of life or death or am I going to make it or not make it. and I think that's important too, because I'm thinking now as we're talking, and I don't know if we're going to get to that specific part in the book or not. So you saw the North Vietnamese Air Force pilot get shot down and you call back to base to say I'm going to go cover for this guy when they try and rescue him and they tell you know. This is three-six taking fire from four o'clock, taking fire everywhere, taking fire, taking hits, going down, panther going down. But you know, who had really good decentralized command was the tanks and the tanks that we worked with, they would come and they had pretty good control over what, you know, I'm talking the tank commander. Yeah, that's one of the one of the most interesting things for me about doing this podcast and we're again, another thing we're talking about is there's so many, you know, I didn't know about that battle and I'm a pretty decent student of military history. At this point, when I got right to the border, just before we got into the trucks, I was married up with a second group of South Vietnamese prisoners, senior officer, South Vietnamese prisoners. So he's got, you know, bullets, probably bullets, water and food, maybe at this point, just bullets and they need to get that gear down to the guys on the ground. And you know, kind of what I told my guys and the way I felt myself was, okay, I know they're out there. When we got back, you know, there was several who would have strangled some of those peace committee guys, especially some of our special forces guys were captured with us. By the way, a lot of guys that listen to this are in the military, a lot of law enforcement, but there's a lot of civilians that don't know everything that I'm talking about or that you're talking about. Yeah, we were really, even though we didn't consciously know it or talk about it, we didn't have the feeling that we were home free until that moment when the pilot came on it said because yeah, the missiles couldn't shoot us down. Now once again, you had some time on station, you did a bunch of shooting and running and gunning, you had to go back to reload, refuel, and I'm going back to the book now on our way back to Benheat. This day it had been head, of course, this is going to turn into the day, the day that we're getting to here. Yeah, he got touched when I got a contact me and said, I think it was a letter. I got all this sour belts as going on and then we got that air strike. And going back to the book, we continued after day after miserable day. He was going to trade it for something for his own benefit when he got to wherever he was going to get to. And as a matter of fact, you call this chapter chapter 12 in the company of heroes with all these other Americans that you know, you told me on the way over here and you talk about it in the book. One time going back to book, the guards start screaming, be num, hey, be num, hey. And when he finishes telling you the story of how what he'd been through up to that point, I'm going back to book, I looked into his eyes and saw a troubled soul. I also grabbed a whole to the 23rd Psalm and when stuff got really close to being blown to smithereens a few times later on in my captivity, that 23rd Psalm was going over and over again in my mind too. I knew that this horrible trip of walking every single day and not knowing how I was going to survive through that day. and then I got so angry and aggravated with this son of a bitch that ended up being my interrogator from his initial soft cell as you said but his first words he showed up he's only got spoken anglicence. And now the whole time I was captured down in the jungle, we got a ball of great, a great fruit-sized ball of rice in the morning, a great fruit-sized ball of rice in the evening for our food. If this would have continued over time I'm sure that he could have got me to do something with his brutality probably nothing that would have given him any useful intelligence but he might have got me to do something. When I got to Hanoi, got into the prison of plantation gardens, I met these other guys and they had the truly incredible heroic stories to share. So at this point, I'm jumping ahead a little bit to a situation where you've got and I'll go to the book, tanks in the wire at Poli Kling. And, you know, one day was, hey, hey sir, why are you, you know, why are you run barefoot? This is interesting going through this and all this detail again, because when I wrote the book, I had to revisit everything in detail, like I had not done since it happened to me.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 63.
[00:00:04] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:07] Good evening echo.
[00:00:08] Good evening.
[00:00:13] I am an American fighting man.
[00:00:16] I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life.
[00:00:21] I am prepared to give my life in their defense.
[00:00:26] I will never surrender of my own free will.
[00:00:31] If in command I will never surrender my men while they still have the means to resist.
[00:00:39] If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available.
[00:00:45] I will make every effort to escape.
[00:00:48] I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.
[00:00:55] If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners.
[00:01:01] I will give no information or take part in any actions which might be harmful to my comrades.
[00:01:07] If I am senior, I will take command.
[00:01:11] If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them
[00:01:17] up in every way.
[00:01:21] One question should I become a prisoner of war.
[00:01:25] I am bound to give only name, rank, service number and date of birth.
[00:01:32] I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability.
[00:01:37] I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful
[00:01:44] to their cause.
[00:01:48] I will never forget that I am an American fighting man responsible for my actions and dedicated
[00:01:54] to the principles which made my country free.
[00:01:59] I will trust in God and in the United States of America.
[00:02:09] And that is the 1955 version of the Code of Conduct for the Armed Forces of the United
[00:02:19] States.
[00:02:22] And it was written in response to the brutal treatment of the 7,190 Americans captured
[00:02:32] by the enemy during the Korean War.
[00:02:35] prisoners who are subjected to torture, indoctrination, brainwashing and forced confessions.
[00:02:45] And that version of the Code that I just read is almost exactly the same as the one that
[00:02:50] I learned in the military when I joined in 1990.
[00:02:55] They did make some changes to it.
[00:02:58] They changed it to include men and women and they changed two words to give some flexibility
[00:03:05] to increase survivability and psychological recovery from torture.
[00:03:13] And so the little changes that were made it change from the prisoner being bound to give
[00:03:18] only name rank and service number and data birth to the prisoner being required to give
[00:03:25] name rank, service number and data birth.
[00:03:30] But the spirit of the Code didn't change at all.
[00:03:37] And that code is what we as military fighting men and women were and are expected to uphold.
[00:03:51] Should we ever be captured and held as prisoners by the enemy?
[00:03:58] What the Code of Conduct is simple and clear and straightforward.
[00:04:08] But the Code of Conduct gets tested unlike any other document in the world.
[00:04:17] When our American servicemen and women are somehow captured and as prisoners of war face
[00:04:25] absolutely ruthless levels of torture, pain, suffering, disease, starvation, humiliation
[00:04:35] and perhaps the most devastating hopelessness.
[00:04:44] And tonight it is my absolute honor to have one of these men here, one who during almost
[00:04:59] a full year of horror upon horror at the hands of his captors in Vietnam, man who persevered
[00:05:08] and fought with every ounce of his soul to survive against the worst possible conditions
[00:05:16] imaginable.
[00:05:20] A man that not only learned the code of conduct but lived it retired Army Colonel William
[00:05:33] Bill Reader.
[00:05:35] Sir, thank you so much for being here tonight.
[00:05:40] Thank you, Jacko.
[00:05:41] It's my honor and need to be here and participate in this podcast as well.
[00:05:46] Thank you.
[00:05:48] I want to just before we jump into the book, if you could just talk a little bit about
[00:05:54] you growing up what you did, what you were like, where you were.
[00:05:59] Oh boy.
[00:06:00] Okay, I didn't know this was coming.
[00:06:03] Yeah, I was essentially a kid off the streets of Los Angeles as born in the Lendale grew
[00:06:07] up for a time in the San Fernando Valley, which is in the opening prologue to the book.
[00:06:13] Yeah, I had a tough childhood, I guess.
[00:06:16] I would say, God into some trouble is a young guy.
[00:06:22] Sports helped me at least survive to graduate from high school.
[00:06:26] Left college and I went off to college in a race of Idaho to study forestry.
[00:06:31] Left college and less than a steamed academic terms after only one year worked for time
[00:06:37] as a work to all the time as a kid with various small jobs, newspaper routes and selling
[00:06:43] magazines to door to door.
[00:06:47] Then did some construction work in my early teens, roofing work?
[00:06:51] But yeah, after I left college, I worked gallerances for a while, worked for the U.S.
[00:06:55] Forest Service for a time.
[00:06:57] Ultimately, as a firefighter, I got laid off in the end of fire season, went back home
[00:07:01] to Los Angeles and found a job with Southern California Edison in Santa Monica, climbing
[00:07:06] power lines as a apprentice lineman.
[00:07:09] And did that until the outbreak of the Vietnam War and then found my real niche in life
[00:07:14] when I walked into the Army recruiter in Santa Monica, California, and signed on the dotted
[00:07:18] line.
[00:07:19] What year was that?
[00:07:20] 1965.
[00:07:21] So, you know, the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred.
[00:07:24] That's where the U.S. destroyers were attacked in 1964.
[00:07:29] We put Marines ashore in Denang in March of 1965.
[00:07:31] That's when I started talking to recruiters.
[00:07:34] First I was going to the Marine Corps, but somehow ended up in listing in the Army in August
[00:07:39] of 1965.
[00:07:40] And then was the transition to becoming a pilot?
[00:07:43] Yeah, so I started out in listed, I went to Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training
[00:07:49] at I.T. I was a T, I can't can't can't can't can't can't can't can't can't can't can't can't can't
[00:07:56] here.
[00:07:57] Member of a can and crew in an artillery unit and then applied for Officer Candidate School.
[00:07:57] And they took those with the highest test scores, you had to pass the series of interviews,
[00:08:01] but they were looking for officers and especially artillery, latinants.
[00:08:05] And so I went to artillery officer candidate school, six months of training, with some degree
[00:08:10] of harassment, and then got commissioned in August of 1966 as a second lieutenant in artillery.
[00:08:17] And then how long did you artillery before before he became a pilot?
[00:08:20] Yeah, that was about a year.
[00:08:21] I didn't think I was going to be able to fly.
[00:08:23] That's really why I didn't go in the Marine Corps.
[00:08:24] I wanted to be a pilot throwing two services.
[00:08:26] You could fly without a college degree.
[00:08:28] So this college dropout had hopes any of them Marine Corps or the Army when I went and saw
[00:08:33] the Marine recruiter, he gave me a battery of tests.
[00:08:36] And he said, yeah, you qualify for a flight and we can guarantee you a flight training.
[00:08:41] I said, okay, so what I have to do is as you go in as long as you pass a flight physical,
[00:08:45] you're good to go.
[00:08:46] So I could sense there was something a foot here.
[00:08:49] So before I went in, I went to a FAA flight service in Santa Monica, and he gave me the
[00:08:54] same flight physical the military does and tell me if I could pass it.
[00:08:58] So he gave me the physical and said, no, you wouldn't pass it.
[00:09:01] You said your right eye is about 20, 25 to 20, 30.
[00:09:04] You have an astigmatism.
[00:09:06] They require a perfect 20, 20 vision.
[00:09:07] You couldn't pass the flight physical.
[00:09:10] So I wrote off the Marine Corps.
[00:09:12] I wasn't going to do that.
[00:09:13] And I went into the Army instead thinking I would never fly.
[00:09:17] After I went to Officer Kennedy School, I commissioned, I was working in an Artillery Assignment
[00:09:21] at Fort Carson, Colorado, and went in for an annual physical.
[00:09:26] And when I got the physical, it came back 2020 both eyes.
[00:09:29] So I was in like Flynn took that down to the flight service and put my application in and
[00:09:34] went off to flight school.
[00:09:35] Awesome.
[00:09:36] Awesome.
[00:09:37] So I'm going to jump into the book here.
[00:09:43] You spent your first torn Vietnam.
[00:09:45] I think it was your first torn Vietnam.
[00:09:46] You were flying the Mohawk.
[00:09:47] Right.
[00:09:48] So first torn Vietnam.
[00:09:50] And by the way, we were talking about the podcast about how much risk you guys took in
[00:09:58] Vietnam as pilots.
[00:10:00] It's actually crazy.
[00:10:01] We'll get into more of that.
[00:10:02] But one of the things that struck me is I'm in the beginning of your book and you're
[00:10:05] talking about how you got shot down on your first deployment.
[00:10:07] It's Vietnam as a pilot.
[00:10:09] So here's you telling that story to your crew.
[00:10:13] When you're going your second deployment that you said, yeah, the first couple operations
[00:10:16] we've done here, they've been pretty exciting.
[00:10:18] But you know, I had some good ones on my last deployment too.
[00:10:20] By the way, I got shot down.
[00:10:22] So here, I'm going to go to the book here.
[00:10:24] This is what happened when you got shot down for the first time.
[00:10:27] Took a 37 millimeter, millimeter, millimeter, anti-aircraft hit in the right wing attacking a
[00:10:31] fuel, depo hitting under the trees.
[00:10:35] Last five mission in Louss over the Ho Chi Mintrail.
[00:10:37] I pulled up from a rocket run, wham the whole right side of the aircraft seemed to explode.
[00:10:41] We tumbled out of control.
[00:10:43] The right wing shattered and was on fire, worked at hard.
[00:10:46] Got back some ability to fly.
[00:10:49] Got the fire out.
[00:10:50] But we were descending fast.
[00:10:52] Could not hold altitude.
[00:10:53] Gave the command to eject.
[00:10:55] The observer went out.
[00:10:57] I pulled my seat handle right after.
[00:10:59] I had a very short parachute ride.
[00:11:02] I got partial shoot deployment before hitting the ground with a foot.
[00:11:06] We were crashing through the tree tops by the time I punched out.
[00:11:10] So for those people that don't know what all that means right there.
[00:11:14] That means when you pull an ejection handle on a, on a, on a, on a, on your in a plane,
[00:11:18] eject you out.
[00:11:20] But you're supposed to do it with some level of altitude, not when you're hitting the
[00:11:23] tree tops.
[00:11:24] So you're hitting the tree tops and that in the canopy, not opening all the way.
[00:11:29] That means that the full usage of the parachute isn't there.
[00:11:33] It's just sort of getting open and boom.
[00:11:35] It's the ground.
[00:11:36] My way man took a picture of my shoot down site and you can see the, the parachute is just
[00:11:41] all strong out and I'm laying there at the end of the parachute.
[00:11:44] I've never got a single oscillation.
[00:11:46] I got a partial shoot deployment hit the ground.
[00:11:49] I'm glad we considered laughing.
[00:11:51] And I am defending you by laughing at this.
[00:11:54] I don't know.
[00:11:55] No, you're not because you made a comment about, you know, taking the hits and the intensity
[00:11:58] come in, it was.
[00:11:59] It really was.
[00:12:01] But there's something crazy about young men and, and at that point in my life, I was a kid
[00:12:07] living a dream and I got blown out of the sky on my first tour.
[00:12:10] Yes, I survived it and somehow in my crazy twisted mind, I couldn't wait to get back
[00:12:16] over on a second tour flying covert tack helicopters.
[00:12:20] By the way, so this is what happens once you get on the ground, here we go back to the
[00:12:23] book that I was nearly captured.
[00:12:25] I ran through the jungle 45 minutes while my wingman put down suppressive fire.
[00:12:30] That earned me the nickname light foot.
[00:12:33] Got plucked out of the jungle by an air force helicopter from the 20th special operations
[00:12:37] squadron out of Thailand called the call sign pony express.
[00:12:41] Spent some time in the hospital there, eventually I returned to the unit back to flight
[00:12:44] duties.
[00:12:45] This incredible.
[00:12:46] We lost 15 airplanes at that point out of 18.
[00:12:51] 30 crew members shot down not many of them ever recovered.
[00:12:54] I was one of the few lousy odds.
[00:12:57] I was scared then I'll tell you if you don't get scared and combat your liar or nuts.
[00:13:04] Only after a tense mission is over.
[00:13:07] Does the real fright come?
[00:13:09] When there's time to sit and think you watched all play out in your mind and wonder how
[00:13:13] the hell you live through something like that.
[00:13:18] So again we were talking before before we pressed record about how protective of
[00:13:24] America is of its aircraft right now.
[00:13:26] I can't even imagine you guys had 15 out of 18 airplanes that were shot down.
[00:13:34] That's insane.
[00:13:36] That was a sophisticated expensive aircraft for the army at the time.
[00:13:39] The Mohawk was pretty much top of the line technology.
[00:13:43] The Army aircraft.
[00:13:56] That was a special unit.
[00:13:58] We had five Mohawk companies in Vietnam at that time.
[00:14:03] Four of them were for each of the four core tactical zones inside of South Vietnam.
[00:14:07] They flew missions and support of those areas.
[00:14:10] We were the fifth company, the bastard company.
[00:14:12] We flew out of Waifu Bay.
[00:14:14] The only time we saw South Vietnam was to take off some landings.
[00:14:17] All of our missions were in the Low, so we're up off the coast of North Vietnam.
[00:14:20] And then I had one highly classified one.
[00:14:22] I had to deploy down to Tonsonud at Saigon to go into Cambodia.
[00:14:26] I didn't know what that was all about.
[00:14:28] It was really high shots at the time.
[00:14:30] That was in the advance of the big Cambodian curves in the took place.
[00:14:33] Did they develop the Mohawk's four-vegetnome?
[00:14:37] Because it's an interesting aircraft.
[00:14:38] It's a side-by-side, right?
[00:14:40] And it's a prop plane.
[00:14:41] Yeah, twin-turbo prop was built purely for reconnaissance and surveillance, grumminer
[00:14:46] aircraft.
[00:14:47] But if you guys went ahead and put missiles on them, it rocked.
[00:14:49] We put rockets there.
[00:14:50] There were zoonie missiles, firebearing.
[00:14:51] We had rockets and pod-bounded machine guns.
[00:14:54] That led to my covert experience.
[00:14:57] Because I really, that was my favorite mission where the gun missions in the Mohawk, not all
[00:15:01] of Morar.
[00:15:02] But I liked the gun missions.
[00:15:04] When I came back my first tour, there was a spat between the Army and the Air Force and
[00:15:07] the result of the spat was we had to take all the armament off the Mohawks.
[00:15:10] So when I went back on second tour, I wanted to go on a gun ship, not something without
[00:15:14] gun, so that got me into cobras.
[00:15:17] Yeah, that's weird.
[00:15:19] Those bureaucratic spats happen and decisions like it, that get made, that's really disturbing.
[00:15:26] So let's get into your second tour, right?
[00:15:28] And I'm going to jump into this piece here.
[00:15:31] Back to the book.
[00:15:32] On April 14th, we received a radio call that fire base Charlie was under attack by two
[00:15:36] regiments, 3,000 soldiers of the 320th NVA infantry division and 130 millimeter artillery
[00:15:44] shells were pounding the position.
[00:15:45] So you guys get this call, this friendly base is being overrun basically.
[00:15:52] And you show up on the scene.
[00:15:55] Now you're fine, a cobra, which for those of you that don't know, a gun ship, as you
[00:15:59] just said, it's still in service today.
[00:16:02] The Marine Corps.
[00:16:03] So it was a very narrow skinny space on a hewie, right?
[00:16:08] Yeah, it was, you know, the hewie was designed and went to Vietnam and most of us,
[00:16:13] more or the hewie, the hewie took on a gun mission though, that Vietnam, we saw the utility
[00:16:17] of guns on an aircraft.
[00:16:19] So the cobra then was designed specifically and only as a gun ship.
[00:16:23] And they took the hewie designed, narrowed it down to 36 inches pilot in the backseat,
[00:16:27] a high pilot gun on the front seat, 2.75 rockets on the wing stores, many gun and 40
[00:16:34] millimeter grenade launcher and a movable nose turret and that was one killing machine.
[00:16:40] And it still apparently brings a giant smile to your face when you talk about that, which
[00:16:44] is lovely.
[00:16:45] Yeah, and I don't want to seem twisted.
[00:16:46] I mean, I said at the time, I was a kid living a dream and I was, but I don't want
[00:16:50] to take away from the horror of combat and it was scary as crap.
[00:16:55] On every single mission, but there's still something about a young guy going to war,
[00:17:00] at least a certain type of young guy.
[00:17:03] And those that were in the two units I served in, that yeah, we were dedicated what we
[00:17:08] did and I think we did it well and I'm still smiling about it.
[00:17:11] Well, like so far, every guy I've brought into this podcast has the exact same attitude.
[00:17:17] So you're among friends here.
[00:17:19] So I'm going now, you guys are there.
[00:17:21] You show up with your with your cobras back to the book.
[00:17:24] We made several passes on enemy guns.
[00:17:27] Bullet stream past our cockpit says the NVA gunners tried to bring us down, rolling in on
[00:17:32] a 51 position as always, DIC.
[00:17:35] So this is a 51 caliber.
[00:17:37] It's a Dishka.
[00:17:38] It's an anti-aircraft machine gun and they actually had those when we were in a Romadi.
[00:17:42] They still had Dishkas and they used them against us.
[00:17:47] Tracers come at you and miss by a few feet.
[00:17:49] We try to get rockets onto him before he gets lucky and blast you out of the sky.
[00:17:53] We took small arms hits.
[00:17:55] My knees vibrated like a sewing machine, but I focused on controlling the helicopter, lining
[00:18:00] up the gun sights and shooting.
[00:18:02] I was scared but had no time for it.
[00:18:05] Dan Radeode, Dusty, Sinai Panther 1, 3, Panther 1, 3, B advice, running low on fuel out
[00:18:12] of ammo, we're breaking station for rearm refuel.
[00:18:17] Roger 13, 4 gun crews taking out good work, hurry back.
[00:18:22] So you're rating to the guy on the ground.
[00:18:26] Who's there?
[00:18:27] So there's an American advisor on the ground with a bunch of selfie-intemies soldiers.
[00:18:31] They're being overrun.
[00:18:33] You come in.
[00:18:34] You're taking heavy fire, but you're giving back fire.
[00:18:37] You tell him, hey, we got to go and get some more ammunition.
[00:18:40] He's saying good job.
[00:18:42] Hurry back.
[00:18:45] When you do show up back, the NVA attack is now more intense.
[00:18:51] And here's the call that you get when you show back up Panther.
[00:18:55] That's you by the way, Panther.
[00:18:56] Pink Panther is your, is your call.
[00:18:57] So as you're call sign is Panther.
[00:19:00] Here's the call you get Panther.
[00:19:01] The Battalion Commander is dead.
[00:19:03] Acting Commander wounded.
[00:19:05] Enemy broken through on the southwest.
[00:19:08] Put it there first.
[00:19:10] Then all around us.
[00:19:12] But real close.
[00:19:13] So for those people that don't understand what this means.
[00:19:19] When you're on the ground calling for fire, it's, and I've talked about a lot of
[00:19:25] Fratur side and blue on blue situations.
[00:19:28] I had them on my deployment.
[00:19:30] And it's a very scary thing.
[00:19:32] And it's even scarier from the air to the ground.
[00:19:36] It's hard for people to understand this.
[00:19:38] When you're in an aircraft, it's very hard to see what's happening on the ground.
[00:19:42] It can be very easy to get confused.
[00:19:45] And so it's hard to bring fire very close to your position unless you are just in a
[00:19:52] terrible situation.
[00:19:54] And so when you get a call that's saying, put the fire all around us as close as you
[00:20:00] can.
[00:20:01] You know this is a desperate scenario.
[00:20:04] And so I'll go back to the book, Roger Dusty.
[00:20:08] We've got them after a number of cobra attack runs.
[00:20:12] Duffy called Panther Lee.
[00:20:13] This is Dusty cyanide.
[00:20:14] So that's the guy on the ground.
[00:20:15] That's his call.
[00:20:16] Synt dusty cyanide.
[00:20:17] You've broken the enemy attack for now.
[00:20:19] Hundreds of bodies in the wire may be a thousand.
[00:20:22] But we cannot hold.
[00:20:24] After a short break, he continued.
[00:20:26] We are leaving fire base Charlie now.
[00:20:28] Stop them from following us.
[00:20:30] Whatever it takes.
[00:20:31] Put your stuff right on top of the fire base now.
[00:20:37] And again, this is something that it just to explain what that means.
[00:20:45] If you don't understand what you've never in the military to explain, you're calling for
[00:20:49] people to drop fire onto your own position so that you can get away.
[00:20:55] It doesn't get any, there's nothing.
[00:20:57] It doesn't get any more intense.
[00:20:59] It doesn't get any more dramatic.
[00:21:00] It doesn't get any more sketchy than that right there.
[00:21:04] That was one hell of a fight.
[00:21:06] And John Joseph Duffy was the advisor, the American advisor on the ground.
[00:21:10] And he is a true American hero, Army Special Forces Officer had those advisor duties.
[00:21:16] That battle, the battle lasted for about two weeks.
[00:21:18] The climax of it was a couple days with that last night that has described in the book.
[00:21:23] Out of a 470 man, South Vietnamese airborne, peritrupt, batayan.
[00:21:29] At the end of that fight the next morning, the American advisor, John Joseph Duffy, and
[00:21:34] 36 of the South Vietnamese were all that survived to be picked up when they got off of that
[00:21:39] fire base.
[00:21:41] And John was wounded five times in the battle.
[00:21:44] So yeah, 470 man, batayan, 36 survivors and they're wounded American advisor.
[00:21:50] Absolutely unbelievable.
[00:21:51] And I know you wrote in here that Major Duffy was recommended for the Medal of Honor
[00:21:56] and he got the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions.
[00:22:02] Which if you don't know what that is, it's the second highest award underneath the Medal
[00:22:06] of Honor.
[00:22:07] Yeah.
[00:22:08] And you actually talk about possibly writing about that battle.
[00:22:12] Did you?
[00:22:13] That's my next project.
[00:22:14] In doing this book, and there's a statement at the beginning of the book that I wrote
[00:22:19] this some 40 years after I experienced these actions.
[00:22:23] And some things were still perfectly clear in my mind.
[00:22:26] Other things were a little bit hazier than I thought they would be when I put pen
[00:22:29] to paper.
[00:22:30] So in the process of writing, I not only just dug down a mine mind and relived every
[00:22:35] experience as detailed as I could to get everything correct.
[00:22:38] I contacted those who were also involved in the actions to get their versions, their
[00:22:43] view, their recollections to be sure I had this as right as I could.
[00:22:48] John Joseph Duffy was one that I got a hold of, Major Duffy.
[00:22:51] I had never met him and never talked to him since that battle until I was able to track
[00:22:55] him down with the wonders of modern communication and internet.
[00:22:59] And in sharing the details about that fight, he dropped a couple of hints.
[00:23:03] He said, you know, somebody really ought to write the history of the Battle of Firebase
[00:23:07] Charlie.
[00:23:08] This is one of the most extraordinary fights in the entire Vietnam War.
[00:23:11] So I think it was after about the half a dozen times he said, I said, okay, John, I'll do
[00:23:15] it.
[00:23:16] I'll write it.
[00:23:17] So yes, right now I'm working on doing my research and getting everything in order
[00:23:20] to write the story of that battle in more detail than I give on my what couple of pages
[00:23:24] of my book.
[00:23:25] Yeah, that's one of the one of the most interesting things for me about doing this podcast
[00:23:29] and we're again, another thing we're talking about is there's so many, you know, I didn't
[00:23:35] know about that battle and I'm a pretty decent student of military history.
[00:23:39] I didn't know about that battle and didn't know about Major John Duffy.
[00:23:43] I absolutely should and we all should and what you realize is that battle, that man will
[00:23:53] never be able to account for all these heroes.
[00:23:56] You just can't do it.
[00:24:01] So again, this is fast forwarding a little bit through the book and by the way, I didn't
[00:24:10] mention the name of the book yet.
[00:24:11] Oh, yeah, thank you.
[00:24:12] The name of the book is through the valley, my captivity in Vietnam by William Reader and
[00:24:21] hit this book.
[00:24:23] So at this point, I'm jumping ahead a little bit to a situation where you've got and
[00:24:33] I'll go to the book, tanks in the wire at Poli Kling.
[00:24:37] Launch now and call me En route for their radio freak.
[00:24:40] Hawks claw will get up later.
[00:24:43] You'll be covering him to you have tail number 053 and 682 go.
[00:24:49] So that right there is something bad is happening and you've got to go now and what's
[00:24:57] interesting, I'll point this out for again, people that aren't in the military.
[00:25:02] By the way, a lot of guys that listen to this are in the military, a lot of law enforcement,
[00:25:06] but there's a lot of civilians that don't know everything that I'm talking about or
[00:25:10] that you're talking about.
[00:25:12] So what I like about this is that what they're telling, what they're telling, the kernel
[00:25:17] to do is launch your aircraft, just go get an aircraft and launch and start heading
[00:25:21] in that direction.
[00:25:22] We'll give you a frequency when you get up there.
[00:25:25] We'll tell you what's going to happen once you get up there but go.
[00:25:28] So again, this is an in-extremement situation.
[00:25:31] What we would do that would be similar to this in the SEAL teams is we would go on QRF
[00:25:35] missions, quick and reaction forces where they would call, they'd happen to me where they
[00:25:39] call and say, hey, something's going on here at this location, go.
[00:25:44] And I'd say, who's the unit?
[00:25:45] We don't know yet.
[00:25:46] Any frequency, what radio frequency on?
[00:25:48] We don't know yet.
[00:25:49] We'll get it to you.
[00:25:50] Launch.
[00:25:51] We get in our vehicles and launch.
[00:25:52] You develop the situation and route and then when you lay eyes on, when you get there and
[00:25:56] start talking to the folks.
[00:25:57] Yeah.
[00:25:58] Exactly.
[00:25:59] Back to the book.
[00:26:00] I stuffed a small emergency radio into one of the pockets of my survival vest.
[00:26:04] No time to perform the normal check on the radio.
[00:26:08] I had to include that.
[00:26:09] There's a lesson learned there.
[00:26:12] I had to include that.
[00:26:13] You know, the radio will always work if you test it in the one time you don't test it.
[00:26:21] Is the one time to talk about that?
[00:26:22] That's the lesson.
[00:26:23] Check all your survival gear.
[00:26:24] Be sure it's in order to be regardless of how hot that mission is.
[00:26:29] Now, you're heading to a place called the Ben Hat and we're going to the book.
[00:26:35] We headed to Ben Hat as we crossed the last ridge line, the entire valley before us was
[00:26:40] filled with smoke. Tracer streamed outward from defensive positions inside the camp.
[00:26:46] Enemy Tracer's replied from outside.
[00:26:49] Two jet fighters bombed next to the camp.
[00:26:53] NVA rockets artillery and mortars exploded in the camp.
[00:26:57] Enemy tanks breached the perimeter.
[00:27:00] One inside and part way up the hill looked like it had been killed already.
[00:27:03] I couldn't be sure.
[00:27:05] An AC 130.
[00:27:06] An Air Force AC 130.
[00:27:08] Spectre Gunship was leaving.
[00:27:10] He'd worked the area over with 20mm of Volk and Gatling Guns and 40mm cannon's probably
[00:27:15] hitting the tank.
[00:27:17] Enemy infantry move through openings in the jungle canopy.
[00:27:20] I could see groups assembling to join the attack.
[00:27:26] Yeah, it was one heck of a heck of a battle.
[00:27:29] This whole situation we're getting to in the book occurred during the Easter offensive of
[00:27:34] 1972.
[00:27:36] When I arrived back in Vietnam at the end of 1971, it seemed like the war was over.
[00:27:39] In fact, I was afraid that maybe I'd missed my chance for combat in a cobra because things
[00:27:43] were so quiet.
[00:27:46] Many American, in fact, most American forces have been withdrawn in the central part of
[00:27:50] Vietnam, the central Highlands where I was operating, there were no American ground forces
[00:27:53] left at all.
[00:27:54] It's just some special forces guys, Army aviation units and some Air Force units.
[00:27:59] That was it.
[00:28:01] How that changed is we got into the spring of 1972 because the enemy had been building
[00:28:06] up their divisions across the border and to allow some Cambodia.
[00:28:10] In the spring of 1972, the Alonso attack from the Demolatrizone and attack from Cambodia
[00:28:15] towards Saigon and then finally in April attacks across the central Highlands where we were.
[00:28:20] There were a lot of enemy.
[00:28:22] This day it had been head, of course, this is going to turn into the day, the day that
[00:28:26] we're getting to here.
[00:28:28] Yeah, elements of two North Vietnamese divisions with artillery, with anti-aircraft weapons
[00:28:32] galore and with armor going into the camp and there we showed up with our two cobras
[00:28:39] to do what we could do.
[00:28:40] Was that your first time seeing armor, enemy armor?
[00:28:43] No.
[00:28:46] But that period was on the 24th because this is a night the May.
[00:28:50] On the 24th of April, the enemy attacked the 22nd Arvin, that's Army of Vietnam, division
[00:28:55] headquarters at Tancan, which is a little bit further to the east from Benheat.
[00:28:59] So in the 24th of April, the attack Tancan and defeated and overran that NVA division with
[00:29:05] a number of tanks.
[00:29:06] So that was the first time I saw tanks in battle, then we come out of the night the May and
[00:29:10] I'm seeing tanks again.
[00:29:12] Hold the different ballgame for the guys on the ground.
[00:29:15] Yes.
[00:29:16] Yeah, this guerrilla war suddenly turned into a very conventional war fighting regular
[00:29:21] North Vietnamese divisions.
[00:29:24] Now once again, you had some time on station, you did a bunch of shooting and running and
[00:29:29] gunning, you had to go back to reload, refuel, and I'm going back to the book now on our
[00:29:36] way back to Benheat.
[00:29:37] We could see the battle continuing at Policlo and Coli Clang.
[00:29:42] Vietnamese Air Force A1 Skyraders do dropping bombs.
[00:29:47] We passed close enough to see one as it trailed smoke and flame and went into the ground
[00:29:51] in an awful explosion.
[00:29:53] I saw a parachute and a May day call came over the radio emergency radio frequency.
[00:29:58] I called headquarters to tell them I was diverting for a few minutes to help cover the
[00:30:02] downed VNAAF.
[00:30:04] So the Vietnamese Air Force pilot, negative Panther 36 permission denied, proceed direct
[00:30:12] to Benheat out.
[00:30:14] You try to again, same results.
[00:30:16] So you saw the North Vietnamese Air Force pilot get shot down and you call back to base
[00:30:23] to say I'm going to go cover for this guy when they try and rescue him and they tell
[00:30:26] you know.
[00:30:27] Right.
[00:30:31] Now, so you do what you're told here.
[00:30:34] Yeah, decisions and combat.
[00:30:35] I mean, there's pluses and minuses to that.
[00:30:37] There were guys on the ground at Benheat and serious trouble.
[00:30:40] Benheat, there were two Vietnamese Ranger battions.
[00:30:44] So probably four or 500 people at the most, probably 400 people on the ground at Benheat
[00:30:51] with two American advisors.
[00:30:53] There's two Americans on the ground.
[00:30:54] They're under attack by elements of two North Vietnamese divisions.
[00:30:57] Which means thousands of infantry with the tanks, artillery, everything attacking.
[00:31:01] So yeah, they weren't in dire straits.
[00:31:03] Though I really had hope we could briefly stop over and help get this Vietnam Vietnamese
[00:31:08] Air Force pilot to pick up.
[00:31:09] Yeah, no, that's a tough decision for command to make.
[00:31:13] But from my position, I look at it like, okay, the command has a better overall view of
[00:31:17] the battlefield right now.
[00:31:19] And if they're telling me to proceed on to Benheat, God, even though you obviously is a pilot,
[00:31:24] you have a little good.
[00:31:25] I'm glad you have that perspective.
[00:31:26] I think now that at the time it all, well it's easy for me right now to send the air
[00:31:31] condition space with my heads at on.
[00:31:34] So much in Vietnam, and warfare is different today.
[00:31:38] And I think things are probably much more planned out and you go to a certain rules
[00:31:44] and procedures more than we did.
[00:31:46] So many of these combat missions with cobras in Vietnam and that day and age, we would get
[00:31:50] launched out of our base and we'd go out and make contact with people and it was pretty
[00:31:55] much up to the pilot and commander, the air mission commander, to decide where he would
[00:31:59] go and how he would support and what was the hottest fire in town that needed help.
[00:32:04] So we always, in some of it was just like, yes, our pompous attitude too.
[00:32:08] We always felt we had a better handle on what was happening than the guys in the headquarters
[00:32:12] that made some of those decisions.
[00:32:14] In fact, when we first saw tanks in the area before that battle at Tankan on the 24th of April,
[00:32:20] we saw tanks and reported them back through headquarters and there was a great deal of reluctance
[00:32:26] on the part of anybody and that Corps staff to believe that there were tanks.
[00:32:30] There was a guy that, in fact, this is another interesting situation at Vietnam, and that time,
[00:32:34] the senior commander in two Corps, that area that I was operating on, was not a military
[00:32:39] guy.
[00:32:40] So civilian named John Paul Van and Mr. Van made all the decisions.
[00:32:44] Now to keep things legal, he had a two-star army general officer working for him.
[00:32:49] So all military orders came through the army general, but Mr. Van was making the decisions.
[00:32:54] And when we reported we had seen tanks and mid-April, Van said, no, there's not tanks
[00:33:00] that I fly out there all the time if there are tanks I just seen him.
[00:33:03] He said, what you guys saw are probably elephants in the jungle.
[00:33:06] So that's what we dealt with with our headquarters.
[00:33:10] And that's interesting.
[00:33:11] There definitely was, when I was an Iraq, there was a very tight control over air
[00:33:16] to ground support, especially in the cities in Ramadi.
[00:33:19] It was very difficult to get bombs dropped.
[00:33:22] But you know, who had really good decentralized command was the tanks and the tanks that we
[00:33:28] worked with, they would come and they had pretty good control over what, you know, I'm
[00:33:33] talking the tank commander.
[00:33:35] Right.
[00:33:36] And at the company command level, we had some company commanders that would just get
[00:33:40] after it and they would make stuff happen.
[00:33:43] So we felt really comfortable working with the tankers and they supported us over and over
[00:33:49] and over again, really like I said, with a lot of decentralized command.
[00:33:53] You know, they couldn't, they had to use some, they obviously used discretion, but they had
[00:33:57] a lot of authority out there, which was great.
[00:33:59] Yeah, which we did as well, which was really good.
[00:34:02] So at any time, you left me, I'm going back from where we are and refueled a
[00:34:06] con team, we're heading back up.
[00:34:07] We're denied permission to deviate over to Polyclang and we're getting back into it
[00:34:12] and been at one more time.
[00:34:14] And now what you're doing, when I'm going to pick the story back up here, there's a Huey
[00:34:19] that's got recifying.
[00:34:21] So he's got, you know, bullets, probably bullets, water and food, maybe at this point,
[00:34:25] just bullets and they need to get that gear down to the guys on the ground.
[00:34:30] Right.
[00:34:31] The guys on the ground, the base had been pretty much completely overrun.
[00:34:33] The friendly said consolidated at a command bunker complex, or defensive dug-in positions
[00:34:38] at the top of the hill, which was their fire base.
[00:34:41] They were, when we got the call to cover that Huey, we were told that the guys on the ground
[00:34:45] were completely out of anti-tank ammo and were almost out of small arms ammunition and
[00:34:50] could we cover this Huey in for the receply.
[00:34:52] So here we go, back to the book.
[00:34:54] The Huey came in to a low hover near the command bunker.
[00:34:57] The crew kicked out the ammo boxes.
[00:34:59] The helicopter did a hovering turn and took off.
[00:35:03] I began a sharp left turn so I continued shooting suppressive fire for him.
[00:35:07] The enemy opened up on our two cobras with everything they had.
[00:35:12] My view left right and above and below was filled with tracers.
[00:35:17] Tim fired continuously and Tim was here.
[00:35:20] Tim was my front seat or my copilot gunner and the front seat working that nose turret
[00:35:25] while I was firing rockets.
[00:35:26] Tim fired continuously on those firing at us.
[00:35:29] We took large caliber hits all over the aircraft.
[00:35:32] Fifty ones like I talked about and 14.5mm rounds came through the cockpit.
[00:35:38] Hits from small arms always felt something like jiffy popcorn popping against its tinfoil
[00:35:44] cover.
[00:35:45] These seemed like jack hammer slamming into the aircraft.
[00:35:49] Beginning in the rear, working up the side and then into the cockpit.
[00:35:53] The tail rotor was shot off and the engine was shot up.
[00:35:57] Every system on the helicopter was damaged in some way.
[00:36:00] Throughout the tail rotor, the aircraft began to spin.
[00:36:03] Fuel lines were upshared and we were burning.
[00:36:05] I keyed the microphone.
[00:36:07] This is three-six taking fire from four o'clock, taking fire everywhere, taking fire, taking
[00:36:12] hits, going down, panther going down.
[00:36:15] The engine quit.
[00:36:16] The rotor RPM caution light flashed.
[00:36:19] The audio warning sounded announcing that my rotor blades were turning dangerously slow.
[00:36:24] I slammed the collective down hard to auto rotate.
[00:36:27] Under optimal conditions, this is a controlled emergency descent.
[00:36:31] Under these conditions, I could only hope to lessen the severity of the crash.
[00:36:36] We corkscrewed down flames.
[00:36:39] As I wrestled the aircraft, I radiowed my wingman flame.
[00:36:43] You better get in here and get us out quick.
[00:36:47] There was no answer.
[00:36:49] They were fighting for their lives.
[00:36:51] I learned years later that when I called, taking hits, flame had banked his co-brand fired
[00:36:56] rockets onto the position shooting at me.
[00:36:59] As he did so, a big ugly 51 round came through the cockpit and torrent to his chest, high
[00:37:05] on the left side.
[00:37:06] Bob took the controls and headed for help, flying from the front seat.
[00:37:10] My cobra came down spinning and burning.
[00:37:13] It hit the ground hard, nose low on the left side.
[00:37:17] It bounced back into the air, spun another turn and a half, and crashed.
[00:37:22] It settled nearly up right firing Gulf the cockpit.
[00:37:36] So pilots are known for maintaining their composure, right?
[00:37:43] I've heard pilots do it.
[00:37:45] And clearly, you know, you're saying we're taking hits, we're taking fire from everywhere.
[00:37:50] We're going down, Panther going down.
[00:37:53] Are you so tracking on control on the aircraft that you're just completely focused on
[00:37:59] that, that the rest of what's happening is a little bit blocked out or what are you
[00:38:07] think of yourself?
[00:38:08] I got to survive this crash.
[00:38:09] Are you not worried about the fact that when you get on the ground, hey, now I'm
[00:38:13] going to be surrounded by enemy?
[00:38:15] Yeah, none of those thoughts are taking place.
[00:38:19] As I said in an earlier thing that you read, everyone who's not totally insane is scared
[00:38:25] in combat.
[00:38:27] Oftentimes that fear comes about after the missions are over at the end of the day when
[00:38:30] you think back on what you'd been through that day.
[00:38:32] I think goodness, we got to drink alcohol and Vietnam.
[00:38:35] I don't know how people survive in war today.
[00:38:37] I really don't.
[00:38:38] We got drunk every single night and then went back out the next day and then did it again.
[00:38:41] So there's fear at the end of the day.
[00:38:43] There's also fear and trepidation to a degree when you first go and like when I describe
[00:38:49] coming across the hell and seeing what that battle of ban hat looked like, tracer stuff
[00:38:52] all over the place.
[00:38:53] You get butterflies in your stomach and your anxious.
[00:38:57] Once you go in on that mission and start those gun runs, there's no time, there's no mental
[00:39:04] space for any of that other thought.
[00:39:06] There's no mental space for that fear.
[00:39:09] You just focus on what you have to do and you do it and the whole thing we just read
[00:39:14] it and shot down, though still, I mean all these years later, I'm sitting here with a red
[00:39:18] emotional flush in my face, reliving this yet one more time.
[00:39:22] But no, I don't recall thinking of anything in those moments.
[00:39:26] But doing that mission, controlling that aircraft, dealing with that emergency situation
[00:39:31] is best I could and going through the whole process, I don't even think there was a thought
[00:39:34] of life or death or am I going to make it or not make it.
[00:39:37] None of that was even there.
[00:39:39] You do what you have to do and get it done and then when it all settled in and hit
[00:39:46] spun, settled in, crashed, smoke and flames everywhere, the thing begins exploding, then
[00:39:52] even then there's not time for that fear factor then because then you start dealing with,
[00:39:57] okay, what do I have to do now to survive this and get out of here?
[00:40:00] And so your aircrafts on fire and I guess you're not sitting around pondering much when
[00:40:04] your aircrafts on fire and you're stuck and they're trying to get out, you get hung up
[00:40:08] while you're getting out by the way.
[00:40:13] So you, you do get out, you make it away from the bird a little bit and you end up getting
[00:40:26] some distance away.
[00:40:27] You lost your wingman, right?
[00:40:29] Or you started, you lost your, you know, my wingman took the 51.
[00:40:32] But Tim, he got out of the aircraft too and took off in another direction.
[00:40:38] Now my front seat, Tim Connery, in a cobra there's two canopies, one for the front
[00:40:42] seat, one for the back.
[00:40:43] The front seat canopy opens to the left, the back seat canopy opens to the right.
[00:40:48] So we hit, we had an inner calm conversation, I said, I said, let's get out of this thing.
[00:40:55] That's good enough for that.
[00:40:57] And he robs at that call and then he got out his way I get out my way.
[00:41:02] I don't know if you had that little vignette of what happened when I was hanging upside
[00:41:05] down out the aircraft.
[00:41:06] Yeah, I did.
[00:41:07] I was doing one, two.
[00:41:09] Mark true hand, the idea of the visor on the ground there.
[00:41:12] I'll go ahead and if you want.
[00:41:14] Yeah, inside Ben hat, one of the American advisors Mark true hand, watch us get shot down
[00:41:18] in crash.
[00:41:19] He saw Tim exit the aircraft.
[00:41:21] He saw me hanging out of the side of the cobra, head down with my feet stuck in the
[00:41:25] cockpit, the helicopter burning.
[00:41:27] He'd seen a truck driver die in agony in a blazing semi-reck years before and it sworn
[00:41:33] he would not let that happen again.
[00:41:36] He raised the sight of his M16 rifle to my body.
[00:41:40] As he began to squeeze the trigger to put me out of my misery, a cloud of smoke billed
[00:41:45] from the exploding aircraft.
[00:41:47] It obscured me from his view.
[00:41:50] When the smoke cleared, I was gone.
[00:41:54] And that's something that you found out years later.
[00:41:56] Yeah, he got touched when I got a contact me and said, I think it was a letter.
[00:42:02] And said, I was one of the advisors on the ground at Ben hat when he got shot down.
[00:42:05] I can give you some information about what happened if you'd like to hear it.
[00:42:08] If you don't, I understand if you just don't want to even go there.
[00:42:11] I said, I'll tell me what you know.
[00:42:12] So he shared that story with me.
[00:42:14] Unbelievable.
[00:42:17] So I'm going back to the book.
[00:42:19] Your, your, this is the state you're in.
[00:42:21] The pain in my back was intense.
[00:42:23] It was broken.
[00:42:25] The fire had burned the back of my neck.
[00:42:26] I had lesser burns on my face.
[00:42:28] My hair was cinched.
[00:42:30] I had pulled a shell fragment out of my ankle.
[00:42:33] Superfistle.
[00:42:34] Last of the racians covered my face and forehead.
[00:42:36] But bleeding badly.
[00:42:39] I was a mess.
[00:42:40] But I was motivated.
[00:42:42] I wanted to get away.
[00:42:43] I staggered from the crash site and headed southeast towards quantum.
[00:42:47] Quantum.
[00:42:48] Quantum.
[00:42:49] As it was getting dark.
[00:42:50] I had not gone far when I heard helicopters approaching.
[00:42:54] The helicopters came in low shooting.
[00:42:57] And you had your little, uh, strobe.
[00:42:59] And so here we go.
[00:43:00] I held the light over my head pointed toward the aircraft.
[00:43:03] It flashed a few times.
[00:43:05] The gunner and the lead cobra opened up on me with his minigun.
[00:43:08] A stream of tracers came right at me, which is, this is something we learned in Iraq as
[00:43:14] well.
[00:43:15] When you fire off a strobe, if someone isn't expecting or isn't looking for it, it just
[00:43:19] looks like muscle flash and anybody that sees it will shoot at it.
[00:43:24] We had blue covers that we put on and it supposedly changed the color of it.
[00:43:28] So it wouldn't look like enemy fire.
[00:43:29] But no.
[00:43:30] In fact, I ran into that front seat or they're open up on me years later, Bentley Hill.
[00:43:34] And yeah, he's sure he said, yeah, we were out there flying that mission.
[00:43:37] It sure looked like enemy fire.
[00:43:38] Sorry about that.
[00:43:39] So here we go back to the book.
[00:43:46] This is a little bit about your attitude.
[00:43:47] I was coxer.
[00:43:48] If anyone could survive this, it was me.
[00:43:50] I'd been a boy scout.
[00:43:52] Though I was one of the trouble makers in my troop, I'd learned a lot.
[00:43:56] I'd backpack 65 miles through the mountains in five days in practice survival skills.
[00:44:01] My troubled youth got me suspended from school a number of times, but it also taught me
[00:44:05] lessons.
[00:44:06] I learned a street fight.
[00:44:08] Take care of myself.
[00:44:09] I had boxed, played football, and run track.
[00:44:12] I majored in forestry, worked cattle ranches, road Bronx, in small rodeos, fought forest
[00:44:19] fires, worked construction, and was an electrical lineman for Southern California Edison.
[00:44:26] I remembered a little, diddy my mother had taught me.
[00:44:29] The Lord helps those who help themselves.
[00:44:33] I knew I could depend on its absolute truth to get me through this.
[00:44:37] The Lord helps those who help themselves.
[00:44:40] God, I'll do that.
[00:44:41] Do all I can.
[00:44:43] Mustard every bit of what's inside me.
[00:44:45] I'll do my part.
[00:44:47] I'll do all I can to help myself.
[00:44:50] So please, please do yours.
[00:44:53] I need your help.
[00:44:55] I set it again to myself, drawing comfort and strength.
[00:44:59] The Lord helps those who help themselves.
[00:45:02] I would repeat it often, as I set my mind to doing all I must to survive.
[00:45:12] This is interesting going through this and all this detail again, because when I wrote
[00:45:22] the book, I had to revisit everything in detail, like I had not done since it happened to
[00:45:27] me.
[00:45:28] I had never gone to this depth of reliving those experiences.
[00:45:32] It's tough to think back on that.
[00:45:37] Indeed when I was writing this, I'd share some of the writing with my wife on account
[00:45:41] to bed late at night and after I got a few chapters into this, I told her, when I said,
[00:45:45] I'm only what am I doing?
[00:45:46] This whole thing is a series of unfortunate events who's going to want to read something
[00:45:50] like this.
[00:45:51] And she told me, I know the whole story.
[00:45:53] She said, stick with it, finish this book because I think that in it there is inspiration,
[00:45:59] there's motivation for people.
[00:46:00] It's not just your story.
[00:46:02] It can help others.
[00:46:05] And so in that vein, I say that because it is getting a little emotional as we read through
[00:46:10] this and that's fine.
[00:46:11] But I do hope that some of this is useful and helpful for others.
[00:46:16] And I grew up going to church as a kid, but I wasn't overly religious guy and somewhere
[00:46:23] around college, I quit going to church altogether.
[00:46:26] And in the army, the only time I can remember that I'd been going to church was from Memorial
[00:46:29] Services for guys and that was about it.
[00:46:32] But if you end up in a situation like this, or I would say any, really, if you think the
[00:46:38] situation in your life is stressful and is about to overwhelm you, you need some help
[00:46:42] beyond yourself.
[00:46:44] And no matter what you're not selling any religion, but I would say whatever your religious
[00:46:49] beliefs are, you can find a lot of strength in your God and get close to God and he'll
[00:46:56] help you through it.
[00:46:57] And certainly I couldn't have done this by myself.
[00:47:00] I grabbed a whole of that ditty that my mom gave me.
[00:47:02] I also grabbed a whole to the 23rd Psalm and when stuff got really close to being blown
[00:47:07] to smithereens a few times later on in my captivity, that 23rd Psalm was going over and
[00:47:11] over again in my mind too.
[00:47:13] So yeah, again, not selling any religion, but whatever your spirituality is, you'd best
[00:47:17] get comfortable with it if you're going to be in dire straits like this.
[00:47:21] And it's interesting that you're saying, look, I'm going to do everything I can, but
[00:47:28] I'm needs help.
[00:47:29] Yep.
[00:47:30] Yep.
[00:47:31] And you know, certainly, you know, when you say that other people, you know, will
[00:47:36] be able to find absolutely, I mean, just me reading this, I found all kinds of not just
[00:47:41] inspiration, but practical guidance, which, you know, one of the things you just said is
[00:47:46] practical guidance on, you know, someone that's been through what you've been through, there's
[00:47:50] so much that everybody else can take away and learn from.
[00:47:54] And yeah, that's, that's one of them right there.
[00:47:59] Do what you can, do everything that you can, and then have some faith on the things that
[00:48:05] you can't control are going to work out your way.
[00:48:07] Yeah, and I think that's important too, because I'm thinking now as we're talking, and I don't
[00:48:10] know if we're going to get to that specific part in the book or not.
[00:48:14] But early on, I think it was the first night, I get B52 strikes almost landing on top
[00:48:18] of me.
[00:48:19] And I'm beginning to feel that am I going to survive this or not?
[00:48:23] And I think the answer is, I don't know, but in that answer is, I don't know.
[00:48:29] And so what?
[00:48:30] I mean, that doesn't matter.
[00:48:31] That's not important.
[00:48:32] I may survive.
[00:48:33] If I'm going to do all I can to survive.
[00:48:35] So I got to the point where this fear of being blown to smithereens kind of went away.
[00:48:42] And I just settled into, I'll either survive or I won't survive.
[00:48:46] But I can't worry about that.
[00:48:47] All I can worry about is what can I do to try and set the best conditions to make that
[00:48:52] survival possible?
[00:48:53] And if I either will or I won't.
[00:48:56] You know, one of the similar things that I always felt was, you know, when I rack
[00:49:00] one of the biggest threats to us was IEDs and they're random.
[00:49:08] They're going to hit you or they're not going to hit you.
[00:49:11] And when you every time you go outside the wire, there's a chance that it's your day.
[00:49:17] And you know, kind of what I told my guys and the way I felt myself was, okay, I know
[00:49:23] they're out there.
[00:49:24] We've done everything we can to mitigate the risk.
[00:49:26] We've done our planning.
[00:49:27] We've done our drills. We've gathered our intelligence. There's nothing else we can do
[00:49:32] to control it. So I'm not going to worry about it.
[00:49:34] Right. And I've done everything I can.
[00:49:36] But like you said, I've helped myself as much as I can.
[00:49:40] And then after that, it's out of my hands.
[00:49:42] And in the more you worry about it, like you said, well, does it really matter?
[00:49:47] I continue to worry about it.
[00:49:48] But doesn't matter.
[00:49:50] Got it.
[00:49:50] Got to move forward.
[00:49:51] Exactly.
[00:49:52] Here's, you do a couple days, three days worth of a vision of the enemy.
[00:50:01] And now you're out hiding.
[00:50:05] You hear some voices.
[00:50:07] You crouch down.
[00:50:07] You're hiding.
[00:50:08] You know there are people.
[00:50:10] And here we go back to the book.
[00:50:11] A lot of crashing around came from the direction of the voices.
[00:50:14] I looked up and saw uniformed NVA soldiers pointing AK47 rifles at my head.
[00:50:20] They shriek something in motion for me to stand up.
[00:50:23] I did.
[00:50:24] I was captured.
[00:50:26] I felt indescribably sick in the pit of my stomach as the world fell away.
[00:50:32] I'd been struggling for three days to stay alive.
[00:50:35] I was in miserable shape.
[00:50:37] But I had been free.
[00:50:39] And I had options.
[00:50:41] No more.
[00:50:42] My soul was awashed with anguish.
[00:50:45] I was no longer a free man.
[00:50:47] In that instant, I'd become a captive of the communist North Vietnamese Army, a prisoner
[00:50:52] of war, another American POW, and the long Vietnam conflict.
[00:50:58] I had no idea how long they might let me live.
[00:51:02] Or, if I was about to die.
[00:51:09] A couple of them were shaking.
[00:51:11] We stood in utter silence for a moment.
[00:51:13] They glared at me.
[00:51:14] I glared at them.
[00:51:15] So that tense instant, I didn't know if I'd be riddled with bullets or be allowed
[00:51:20] to live.
[00:51:21] One barked something at me I could not understand.
[00:51:23] Another joined in, then a third, I looked right into their eyes.
[00:51:28] I was an American.
[00:51:29] I would show them the best American fighting man that I could.
[00:51:39] In the pit of full state that I was in, you know, that's the best I could do on
[00:51:44] describing capture.
[00:51:46] It's impossible to really convey the full feeling of losing your freedom and being
[00:51:52] a captive.
[00:51:53] It's just indescribable.
[00:51:55] But I did the best that I could.
[00:51:58] I was in miserable shape.
[00:51:59] I mean, you read about the wounds that I had.
[00:52:01] In addition to those, I'd picked up some leeches that I'd been plucking off on my body.
[00:52:08] My face was covered with blood.
[00:52:10] My three-day growth, the heavy beard was sticking through.
[00:52:13] This is my back injuries that I didn't even know that I got released and I had badly broken
[00:52:17] my back.
[00:52:18] I had no control of my bowels or bladder for those three days.
[00:52:21] I smelled, I was just an awful mess when those guys captured me and took me up that hill.
[00:52:31] They finally get you to sort of like a camp, sort of the first interrogation camp.
[00:52:37] Yeah, well, they captured me the jungle.
[00:52:40] So thick, they were only a few yards away when I stumbled upon them and they had been
[00:52:45] down to the stream, filling canteens.
[00:52:47] These five young guys captured me.
[00:52:49] They took me almost an equal distance up a hill opposite and I came into an open area.
[00:52:54] Still had the canopy of the triple canopy jungle.
[00:52:57] But the bottom was all open.
[00:52:58] There are hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers, supplies, defensive positions.
[00:53:02] This was a major staging area for this battle.
[00:53:04] It was taking place.
[00:53:05] As I was trying to get away from the battle and get towards cont too, my stumbled right
[00:53:10] into their staging area.
[00:53:13] And you start getting your, you know, start getting the soft interrogation is what I put
[00:53:19] down here.
[00:53:20] A guy says, you know, we found pictures of a pretty lady with your children in your wallet,
[00:53:25] obviously your family.
[00:53:28] And you say, yeah, I know you miss them and are very worried and they're very worried
[00:53:33] about you, you follow the rules and you will be home soon.
[00:53:36] You'll receive humane and lenient treatment.
[00:53:40] You will be allowed to go home.
[00:53:43] And I put that in there because that's a refrain that we hear quite a bit humane and lenient
[00:53:48] that was a refrain.
[00:53:50] They would say it all the time and during my whole captivity, you do what you're supposed
[00:53:54] to do and cooperate.
[00:53:55] You get the humane and lenient treatment.
[00:53:57] Of course, you weren't fully cooperative at all with them and what they were asking you.
[00:54:04] So they went from that idea.
[00:54:07] So they started stepping it up on you and you know, here's an example of the things that
[00:54:10] they said, you are a war criminal and the Geneva agreements do not apply to you.
[00:54:15] You have no rights, but we will still give you the deserved humane and lenient treatment.
[00:54:21] All you have to do is cooperate with us and acknowledge your crimes.
[00:54:25] Yep.
[00:54:26] You know, I think it was back to your reading of the Code of Conduct that started this
[00:54:30] off to our Code of Conduct was different.
[00:54:33] Right.
[00:54:34] It said we were bound to give only our name rank service number and data birth and the way
[00:54:40] that was taught and the way we understood it.
[00:54:41] That was all we could give was name rank service number, data birth and if we gave anything
[00:54:46] else we had we had caved in and we're cooperating with the enemy.
[00:54:51] So that was my stance that was all I was going to give them was my name rank service
[00:54:55] number, data birth.
[00:54:56] You may get into some of the things that took place.
[00:54:59] I would just like to comment that there was nothing heroic going on at all.
[00:55:03] I guess a couple of things that were going on.
[00:55:05] I was trying to abide by the Code of Conduct and I was in a state where I had been near
[00:55:10] death for days, was very near death at that moment and was numb and just almost didn't
[00:55:17] care.
[00:55:18] I was hard to understand and believe but almost didn't care at that point and then I got
[00:55:21] so angry and aggravated with this son of a bitch that ended up being my interrogator from
[00:55:26] his initial soft cell as you said but his first words he showed up he's only got
[00:55:31] spoken anglicence.
[00:55:32] I was captured so I asked myself myself, my condition if I was hurt and so I opened up
[00:55:37] with him about some of that but then when he got into what was clearly an interrogation
[00:55:41] then I clamped up.
[00:55:43] I would close these comments now with the fact that he didn't break me and that interrogation
[00:55:50] speaks nothing to my heroism or ability to resist interrogation anyone can be broken.
[00:55:57] If this would have continued over time I'm sure that he could have got me to do something
[00:56:03] with his brutality probably nothing that would have given him any useful intelligence but
[00:56:07] he might have got me to do something.
[00:56:10] So for that for those moments on those days of that initial interrogation I was able
[00:56:15] to stick with my name rank service number data worth.
[00:56:19] Here's an example of that is back the book here please sign this.
[00:56:27] He handed me one of the sheets of paper in a pen.
[00:56:29] I looked at the paper it was typed in English as I began to read the words my interrogator
[00:56:33] interrupted this is simply a form that acknowledges your status we need it so we can
[00:56:38] begin to process you for release so we can send word to your family of your status please
[00:56:43] just sign.
[00:56:44] I read the words I could not believe what I was reading.
[00:56:47] There was a blank face place for me to fill in my name.
[00:56:51] The text said that I was an American war criminal who had been conducting illegal
[00:56:55] acts against the Vietnamese people including bioside genocide and eco-side.
[00:57:01] I had dropped fire bombs and chemical bombs.
[00:57:03] I had killed old men, pregnant women and babies.
[00:57:07] Bioside genocide, eco-side, what a bunch of crap.
[00:57:12] I raised my head and looked into his eyes.
[00:57:14] And no, I will not sign this.
[00:57:18] There I had spoken, you must.
[00:57:20] I will not.
[00:57:22] His agitation returned now, you must.
[00:57:24] I glared at him.
[00:57:26] He got up and came at me.
[00:57:27] He smacked me across the face.
[00:57:29] You must.
[00:57:30] He turned to his sidekick and spoke quietly and the man got up.
[00:57:35] At his direction two guards dragged me up against a tree, a broad trunk of a tree.
[00:57:40] I've been bent over since the crash unable to stand erect.
[00:57:44] He forced me up and to a straight sitting position and tied me to the tree.
[00:57:48] It hurt like hell.
[00:57:49] I couldn't keep my face from contorting in anguish.
[00:57:52] Now you sign.
[00:57:54] No.
[00:57:56] More orders.
[00:57:57] They pulled on the ropes to bring my arms closer together behind me.
[00:58:00] The pain in my back increased.
[00:58:03] New pain was introduced in my shoulder joints.
[00:58:06] More demands to sign.
[00:58:07] More refusals.
[00:58:09] The ropes tightened further.
[00:58:11] They moved my elbows closer together.
[00:58:13] More demands.
[00:58:14] More refusals.
[00:58:15] ropes ever tighter.
[00:58:16] More pain.
[00:58:18] I was uncontrollably grimacing and cursing.
[00:58:22] I would not sign.
[00:58:24] I could never consider signing anything like that.
[00:58:28] The brutality made me angrier and more firmly set against giving in.
[00:58:33] I could have been broken and made to sign eventually.
[00:58:36] There's no doubt.
[00:58:37] No man can resist forever.
[00:58:39] But this interrogator would not bring me to breaking point on that day.
[00:58:45] His demands continued and so did my refusals.
[00:58:49] The ropes tightened more and more.
[00:58:51] Pain screamed through me.
[00:58:52] My anger swelled against this asshole.
[00:58:55] I began grunting and audible attack against the agony.
[00:58:59] The guards gave the ropes one huge last pull which brought my elbows together behind me.
[00:59:05] I felt the pop as each shoulder dislocated.
[00:59:08] I leaned my knee and shot through my torso up my neck into my head and down my back through
[00:59:14] my groin and into my thighs.
[00:59:17] I've never felt such pain.
[00:59:19] My vision narrowed and I nearly passed out.
[00:59:23] Sign.
[00:59:25] I could only groan and shake my head.
[00:59:28] The interrogator scald angrily turned and left.
[00:59:39] I'm going to continue on.
[00:59:45] This is a little bit further on.
[00:59:49] He's given you one last chance to sign this paper.
[00:59:57] One last chance to cooperate.
[00:59:59] Will you?
[01:00:00] I'm going back to the book now.
[01:00:02] My head hung down partly in exhaustion and partly in an intentional rudeness, not paying
[01:00:06] in him any attention.
[01:00:08] I looked up when he finished.
[01:00:09] I saw his sadistic minion standing a few yards in front of me holding an AK-47 at the
[01:00:14] ready.
[01:00:15] Your last chance.
[01:00:19] The assistant raised the rifle and pointed at me.
[01:00:22] I stared ahead and said nothing.
[01:00:25] No heroism was involved.
[01:00:28] I was wrung out at the end of everything I had to give.
[01:00:32] I'd been so close to death for so long, was so angry and so absolutely drained.
[01:00:39] A faint spark was all I had left.
[01:00:42] I felt numb, detached from what was happening.
[01:00:46] I was not resisting.
[01:00:47] I was just giving into the flow of whatever was destined to be.
[01:00:52] That might be death.
[01:00:54] It might not.
[01:00:56] I'd seen army training film and army training film years before showing the mock execution
[01:01:01] of a Korean war, POW.
[01:01:04] I remembered that scene.
[01:01:05] The action of the trigger being pulled when over and over in my mind.
[01:01:08] Click, click, click.
[01:01:11] BAN!
[01:01:12] I flinched as a soldier jerked the trigger back, but nothing happened.
[01:01:17] No shot.
[01:01:18] No loud bang.
[01:01:20] No bullet ripping my skull or chest.
[01:01:23] Nothing.
[01:01:25] The soldier laughed.
[01:01:27] My interrogator smiled.
[01:01:30] I am done with you.
[01:01:32] You will be taken away from here.
[01:01:35] That was three days of this three horrible days.
[01:01:42] Losing my freedom, going through that interrogation, being thrown down into a pit at
[01:01:49] night where I stayed, it was one of the old abandoned bunkers who had about six inches of mud
[01:01:54] and goo in the bottom.
[01:01:58] That caused me a big psychological issue.
[01:02:00] First night closed in that darkness that night I really had to fight to just keep my
[01:02:05] cool down there.
[01:02:06] I went to a bunch of there.
[01:02:08] There were sent upheats and spiders and rats.
[01:02:11] It was a mess.
[01:02:12] I'd spend the night down there and come up in the daytime for interrogation back down
[01:02:15] in that hole.
[01:02:16] Night back up for interrogation.
[01:02:18] What we read covered a period of three days before we finally gave up on me.
[01:02:23] I had no idea what was going to happen.
[01:02:26] I just had even thinking back on it.
[01:02:27] It was just going through all that pretty much in just a numb state with that treatment.
[01:02:36] My shoulders today still caused me problems.
[01:02:38] I had a son that ended up playing football for University of Washington many years ago.
[01:02:41] He's going to turn 50 years in April.
[01:02:44] This was a number of years ago.
[01:02:46] I used to go like I'd throw about two passes and that was it for my shoulders.
[01:02:49] Can't play horses or anything.
[01:02:53] Yeah.
[01:02:54] It's something that definitely I've experienced doing these readings.
[01:03:03] I've talked about it before that when I read something in my head and it kind of
[01:03:08] I go all the way, that's powerful.
[01:03:11] Then when you read it aloud and you hear it, it's just, it's a
[01:03:15] even more.
[01:03:16] It's the same thing with I know I sent you Jody Middix, the podcast with Jody Middix.
[01:03:21] He said the same thing.
[01:03:23] He said to me, when you're reading it, it's like I'm hearing my own thoughts or something.
[01:03:31] It just brought him back.
[01:03:35] There's something about that.
[01:03:37] It's okay.
[01:03:38] When you're reading it, it's detached from reality.
[01:03:43] It's one step further detached from reality and obviously sitting with Jody sitting
[01:03:48] here with you and knowing that this is you.
[01:03:52] One point that I make all the time when I cover these historical books, I always remind
[01:03:57] people that because people in this day and age were used to seeing movies.
[01:04:01] We're used to seeing watching TV.
[01:04:03] And I always say that this guy that I'm talking about, this is a person.
[01:04:06] This guy in World War II, this is a person.
[01:04:08] This guy in World War I, this is a man.
[01:04:12] So to have you sitting here knowing that this is you.
[01:04:17] It's, I don't even know what that's stated describe it.
[01:04:22] Well, thanks, Jocco.
[01:04:23] And this has become an emotional experience for me, but it's important.
[01:04:28] And I think this is going to be an important podcast.
[01:04:31] I wrote that book.
[01:04:32] I finished it.
[01:04:33] It was published last April.
[01:04:36] I'm not read that book since it was published.
[01:04:39] I mean, it was something to go through and we live all that to get it written.
[01:04:44] And so it's been almost a year.
[01:04:46] I haven't read the book.
[01:04:47] So we're going into, into, into detail.
[01:04:50] But this is, this is good.
[01:04:56] So you get turned over to some other, some other guards.
[01:05:02] Right.
[01:05:03] And they start taking you, don't walk.
[01:05:05] Yeah, you're walking.
[01:05:07] It's just somewhere else.
[01:05:10] You talked about the conditioning.
[01:05:11] By the way, you have a broken cross vertebra at this point, right?
[01:05:14] Yeah, it's a badly broken back.
[01:05:16] One vertebra is about completely gross damage to two other vertebra.
[01:05:19] Your legs swollen.
[01:05:20] You got all kinds of you.
[01:05:21] And now you're now you got to walk.
[01:05:23] And so I'm going to go with, yeah, they gave me my boots back after those three days
[01:05:27] of interrogation.
[01:05:28] No socks, no laces, boots, bare feet.
[01:05:31] Okay, go ahead.
[01:05:33] We had an old Vietnam seal when I got to see old T-1 in 1990 and he would run barefoot all
[01:05:39] the time.
[01:05:41] And, you know, one day was, hey, hey sir, why are you, you know, why are you run barefoot?
[01:05:47] And he says, the first thing that it goes to, take your shoes, got to have hard feet.
[01:05:51] I was like, okay, okay, so I'm running barefoot now.
[01:05:53] I was thinking, because when I showed up at C-1, I always joke about this, I thought
[01:05:59] I was going to the Vietnam War in 1991 when I got there.
[01:06:01] I thought, I'm going to Vietnam now.
[01:06:03] You know, I was that, how you were, but I was a little off, you know, historically.
[01:06:09] So that's the situation you're going back to the book.
[01:06:12] They've been saying a phrase, so as you're marching with these guys, they've been saying
[01:06:14] a phrase for the past two days that I couldn't understand.
[01:06:16] I thought it was Vietnamese.
[01:06:19] Gokkukadai.
[01:06:21] As we pushed up the road, they walked behind me poking the rifle barrels into my kidneys,
[01:06:27] my ribs, shouting with increasing urgency.
[01:06:30] Gokkukadai.
[01:06:31] Gokkukadai.
[01:06:33] Then after a while, for the first time, I understood what they were saying.
[01:06:37] Gokkuk or Dai.
[01:06:39] They had been taught one short phrase in English.
[01:06:42] It was all they knew, and they had pronounced it so poorly that it took me two days to
[01:06:46] figure it out.
[01:06:48] I moved as fast as I could, but I was at the end of everything I had.
[01:06:52] I struggled on.
[01:06:53] And you know, I'm just noticing this.
[01:06:58] You're going to reach the end of everything you had.
[01:07:00] You already were there.
[01:07:02] Many times.
[01:07:03] Reach the end.
[01:07:04] You just reached it.
[01:07:05] It's incredible.
[01:07:07] That's an amazing thing about human beings.
[01:07:10] We have inside that we can dig down and grab a hold of when we have to, that we don't
[01:07:15] think we ever could have done it.
[01:07:17] It's there.
[01:07:18] Can hear something that helped you.
[01:07:21] Back to the book, I found myself mentally reciting what I could recall of the 23rd
[01:07:26] Psalm.
[01:07:27] I repeated one line over and over in my head.
[01:07:31] Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for
[01:07:37] that I won't with me.
[01:07:40] That wasn't the only time during my captivity that the 23rd Psalm came to my lips.
[01:07:46] Nope.
[01:07:54] And please forgive me for like I already covered three days of misery.
[01:08:02] Now we're talking about, and I'm doing it in three minutes.
[01:08:07] Now you've walked for multiple days, suffering the whole time, and I'm going to fast forward
[01:08:12] through it.
[01:08:13] And I'm sorry.
[01:08:15] And that's why people didn't agree with us.
[01:08:18] But I didn't agree with you.
[01:08:20] That's all there.
[01:08:21] So you arrive at a camp now.
[01:08:23] You arrived back to the book.
[01:08:25] We stopped in front of one cage in the door opened.
[01:08:27] A guard pushed me in and I stumbled over someone lying inside and fell, tumbling into
[01:08:31] the ground, pain shot through me.
[01:08:34] The cage was about 12 feet wide and 20 feet or so long.
[01:08:40] It could not have been more than four feet high.
[01:08:42] 26 prisoners were stuffed inside all South Vietnamese soldiers.
[01:08:48] Heat hung in the cage, heavy and stale.
[01:08:50] The air smelled of filth and putrid wounds.
[01:08:53] People moaned in a constant dull rumble.
[01:08:56] The occasion of whale was met with sharp, shushes, and guard, guarded whispers.
[01:09:02] The doorway was shut and secured.
[01:09:04] I lay there.
[01:09:06] Thankful I'd survive the journey of the past three days.
[01:09:09] What would become of me now?
[01:09:12] Yeah, that was my first prison camp.
[01:09:18] The jungle camp was in the jungle.
[01:09:21] I figured somewhere northern Cambodia where the US was not pretty anymore.
[01:09:25] It was a camp of many cages, about 300 prisoners in that camp.
[01:09:30] All South Vietnamese, bit of encapsulated in this offensive.
[01:09:33] One other American who I would meet later and put one of those cages.
[01:09:40] Back to the book.
[01:09:41] My broken back screamed every time I tried to lay down.
[01:09:44] I tried to lie down with my feet in the stocks.
[01:09:47] So they'd put your feet into stocks, wooden bamboo stocks.
[01:09:51] There was no way I could lay on my side.
[01:09:54] I couldn't lay straight back so I sat upright in the dark in agony.
[01:09:59] I thought of my family, thought of my day of where I'd been, where I was now, and what
[01:10:04] my lie ahead.
[01:10:06] I heard badly.
[01:10:08] Still, I had hope.
[01:10:11] I can live this way.
[01:10:12] I can do this.
[01:10:13] I can survive.
[01:10:15] I will survive.
[01:10:16] I sat there, thoughts drifting across the landscape of my life, shaped by these extraordinary
[01:10:23] circumstances.
[01:10:25] Eventually, I fell asleep, sitting upright that night, dreaming of what might become
[01:10:30] of me.
[01:10:32] I jolted awake, something scampered across my legs, something was on my feet, something
[01:10:37] small, cool, and wet, touched my arches and soles.
[01:10:42] The rat knows his poke and sniffed at my feet, tiny teeth noded my pulverized raw flesh.
[01:10:50] My arms swung without command as I batted, a large rat off my lap.
[01:10:56] Others scurried away, I screamed inside, lips pressed tightly shut, a muffled shriek of
[01:11:01] terror.
[01:11:03] I thrashed, my legs flailed, but went nowhere.
[01:11:06] I wiggled my feet as well as I could in the socks and got the rats off.
[01:11:11] They fled into the night only to return when I fell back asleep.
[01:11:15] They would return to torment me nearly every night in that jungle prison.
[01:11:23] I don't like rats this day.
[01:11:27] Some of my kids just mess with me and just bring up rats.
[01:11:29] I hate rats from that experience and that's not the beginning or the end of the rat
[01:11:35] experiences and prison.
[01:11:39] One thing that you did mention though that I liked it to highlight is hope.
[01:11:44] There was a phrase in there that I wasn't going to give up hope.
[01:11:47] Hope is such a powerful thing.
[01:11:50] It's there for all of us.
[01:11:52] We just need to grab a hold of it and hold it tightly.
[01:11:57] Hope was all I had for much of my time and captivity.
[01:12:02] Hope of surviving and in that survival of getting back to my two young kids, those two
[01:12:09] kids really played such a role in having me survive.
[01:12:14] My son when I went over there was four and a half years old, a little over four.
[01:12:18] My daughter was newborn, but when things get really really tough, I think of those kids
[01:12:23] and how about it was, I had to endure it to do my best to survive and get home to those
[01:12:29] kids.
[01:12:30] Yeah, I definitely, that's one of the things that I specifically highlighted.
[01:12:38] You know, I can live this way.
[01:12:39] I can do this.
[01:12:41] I can survive.
[01:12:42] I will survive.
[01:12:45] I still, I had hope and I read it just the way you just explained it hit me that hard.
[01:12:56] Back to the book.
[01:12:57] We sat for a few more hours.
[01:13:02] A pair of rag tag crew, almost everyone had been wounded, some gravely.
[01:13:07] Fulf covered their tattered uniforms.
[01:13:09] The whole place, stunk of sweat, blood, infection, feces and urine.
[01:13:14] We were all hurting and some would die.
[01:13:16] Some consciously whispered to their neighbor, most like me, just sat and stared.
[01:13:22] That's what I did.
[01:13:23] I sat and stared at them, sitting and staring at nothing.
[01:13:27] I wondered if I would go crazy here, would I die here?
[01:13:30] What would happen first?
[01:13:32] Insanity or death?
[01:13:34] I snapped back to what little grass I had on reality, hold it together.
[01:13:40] Focus.
[01:13:41] Spence and Vicki.
[01:13:43] We'll hike.
[01:13:44] We'll play.
[01:13:45] Get back home for those kids.
[01:13:46] You can do it.
[01:13:47] You can endure.
[01:13:50] I couldn't allow my thoughts to drift in dark directions.
[01:13:53] I forced myself into logical, structured thinking.
[01:13:59] I began planning a hiking trip with my family, a backtrip, backing trip into the woods.
[01:14:04] I planned the route.
[01:14:05] The equipment loads for each.
[01:14:07] They'd be feather light for Vicki, a little more for Spence and Amy.
[01:14:11] I'd carry most of it.
[01:14:12] We'd eat dehydrated food, cooked around a small campfire.
[01:14:17] Delicious.
[01:14:20] I'll tell you, dehydrated food then sounded awfully, awfully.
[01:14:24] That was a gourmet meal.
[01:14:28] I did that.
[01:14:30] I got back from my captivity.
[01:14:31] I spent some men maybe going to this later.
[01:14:33] I won't get all the details of hospitalization and medical on all that.
[01:14:36] But when I got released from the hospital, finally took my family on vacation and he guesses
[01:14:43] on what the first thing I did on that vacation.
[01:14:45] Tell me.
[01:14:47] I drove to the Olympic Peninsula and took my family backpacking.
[01:14:51] You're a hard man.
[01:14:52] You're the Olympic Peninsula.
[01:14:54] I love.
[01:14:55] I'm glad that I did.
[01:14:56] I always enjoyed the wilderness in the woods.
[01:14:59] I would have been a much worse shape and captivity if I hadn't.
[01:15:03] But since then, I've loved the wilderness and the woods even more.
[01:15:06] I love every day, every beautiful day on God's screen, Earth.
[01:15:10] I love the wilderness and the woods.
[01:15:11] We were signed a Panama for a time on it.
[01:15:13] I've been dancing for Jumelsville.
[01:15:15] One thing my older son, the little four and a half year old boy, was an adult by then.
[01:15:21] We backpacked.
[01:15:22] We did a three-day journey across the Espezapana.
[01:15:25] Somewhere where nobody ever did.
[01:15:26] We just picked some place from the Atlantic side or the Pacific side.
[01:15:30] We did mountain bikes first.
[01:15:31] Then we backpacked, staying in the jungle.
[01:15:33] Until we got to the Rio Indio.
[01:15:35] It was dry season.
[01:15:36] We didn't plan it very well because we had to hike way down the Rio Indio before there
[01:15:40] was enough water to hire a guy at a Cayuga canoe to take us out to the ocean.
[01:15:44] That was just before my retirement.
[01:15:47] I've always loved the wilderness, loved the jungle.
[01:15:50] I don't know how we got on that thing.
[01:15:51] Back to the book.
[01:15:52] That's awesome.
[01:15:53] One of the things that I, again, I specifically highlighted was the fact that you would be
[01:16:01] drifting in these dark directions and you would force yourself.
[01:16:05] I talk about that too.
[01:16:07] I say mind control.
[01:16:08] Not mind control like, hey, we're going to control your mind.
[01:16:10] Control your own mind.
[01:16:12] Put your own thoughts in there.
[01:16:13] You can do that.
[01:16:14] People just need to learn how to do it and said, well, you start drifting off in the wrong
[01:16:17] direction.
[01:16:18] Control your thoughts.
[01:16:20] Get mind control.
[01:16:21] I love the fact that you did that.
[01:16:23] We such with such authority and power over what your brain was thinking.
[01:16:29] Yeah, I think that's an important message.
[01:16:31] I was a much overused phrase.
[01:16:33] You have glass half empty or glass half full kind of guy.
[01:16:38] I really would advocate for you have to be a glass half full kind of guy to survive.
[01:16:45] And I think I might carry the argument further.
[01:16:47] If you want to have a happy full enjoyable life, you'd damn well better be a half glass
[01:16:50] full kind of person.
[01:16:52] If you're, I mean, there's enough problems and difficulties in life.
[01:16:55] If you want to go for the dark side, it's there.
[01:16:58] You can go to it.
[01:17:00] But there's enough positive, wonderful things.
[01:17:03] The, yeah, grab that beat of hope and go for it.
[01:17:06] Absolutely.
[01:17:07] Back into the camp, back into the book, the camp provided a miserable existence on the edge
[01:17:13] of madness.
[01:17:15] All was filth and disease and suffering.
[01:17:19] Moans and whales of pain and anguish cried from the enclosures as we walked by.
[01:17:23] I caught glimpses of sick and wounded men inside cage after cage.
[01:17:27] Their eyes, white orbs of desperation, peering from grimy faces through the den of the
[01:17:33] gray world inside.
[01:17:35] And now you're back in the stocks sitting there wounded in stocks in a bamboo cage and an
[01:17:44] unknown jungle prison camp with death all around me.
[01:17:47] I began to wonder how long can I endure this?
[01:17:51] Then my voice said out loud as long as it takes.
[01:17:56] Incredible.
[01:18:00] And here you meet in this prison camp, you meet Wayne Wayne.
[01:18:08] Wayne Finch.
[01:18:09] Yeah, the other American who was ill-prosemite, he had been captured.
[01:18:13] March April, a couple months before me.
[01:18:17] And you, Wayne, the crew, now you're going to get put on a long march.
[01:18:23] They say we're going to move you out of this prison camp.
[01:18:25] Do you know you're going to hendoy at this moment?
[01:18:27] No, no.
[01:18:28] They pulled me out of my cage and I found myself in the center of the camp with a group
[01:18:32] of 25 South Vietnamese prisoners.
[01:18:36] I think they were all officers myself and Wayne.
[01:18:40] And they told us they were going to move us to a new camp.
[01:18:43] And the communist camp came in, it was running at the mouth and one of the South Vietnamese
[01:18:46] officers was translating for us.
[01:18:48] But they're going to move us to a new camp where conditions would be better.
[01:18:52] I mean, in this camp, people were dying almost every day.
[01:18:56] The conditions would be better.
[01:18:57] We'd get medical care, we'd get letters from home.
[01:19:00] But then we had very difficult journey.
[01:19:02] It could last for as long as 11 days.
[01:19:05] And we should try very hard to make it.
[01:19:08] That's what we were told.
[01:19:09] Now the private day is, I guess, was registering my mind.
[01:19:12] The private day hard to make it really didn't fully register until we actually set out marching.
[01:19:17] By this time, my ankle wound was very infected.
[01:19:20] My leg was very swollen.
[01:19:21] It was so painful just to take a step.
[01:19:24] And I was having to take step after step after step.
[01:19:27] And as I got into that march, I was wondering how I was going to get through the first
[01:19:31] day.
[01:19:32] I didn't think I could do it.
[01:19:33] I didn't know how I could possibly walk for a day through the jungle.
[01:19:37] They had us tied loosely together.
[01:19:39] Had our arms tied loose behind our backs.
[01:19:42] No shoes this time.
[01:19:43] This was barefoot.
[01:19:44] And off we went.
[01:19:46] Somehow I made it through that first day.
[01:19:48] And the day after that.
[01:19:50] And the day after that.
[01:19:52] The trip turned out to be not 11 days to a new camp somewhere in Cambodia or even louser
[01:19:57] back into Vietnam.
[01:19:59] That trip took over three months.
[01:20:02] And I did end up in Hanoi at the end of that trip.
[01:20:05] That journey cost the lives of six of the South Vietnamese prisoners in Wayne, the other
[01:20:13] American died before we got to Hanoi.
[01:20:16] And I damn near died a number of times.
[01:20:19] That's all in the book.
[01:20:21] The great Scott, I survived and made it and got all the way to Hanoi.
[01:20:28] He also got to know some of the Vietnamese soldiers.
[01:20:34] Some of them, one of them, lieutenant, Wayne, Dean, Zan.
[01:20:39] Is that right?
[01:20:40] That's very good.
[01:20:41] Zan, Zan, Zan.
[01:20:43] Zan.
[01:20:44] And he was, you know, obviously, you formed a really good relationship with him.
[01:20:49] Yes.
[01:20:50] Here we go back to the book.
[01:20:51] We tried to, let me interject one.
[01:20:53] Let me interject one thing because this is fascinating to me.
[01:20:57] It's always been.
[01:20:58] Well, I'll come back to it.
[01:21:00] Let me see where you're going to go with the conversation.
[01:21:02] You're going to get to my relationship with him and yeah.
[01:21:04] Okay.
[01:21:05] Yeah, absolutely.
[01:21:08] We tried it out of the valley up onto a rising ridge line.
[01:21:12] There wasn't much talking when we began to climb up the steep long trail.
[01:21:16] I was already exhausted.
[01:21:17] I had to push hard to make every step. my swollen infected ankle, fraught with pain.
[01:21:22] I wondered, is anyone else having this much trouble?
[01:21:25] How long am I be able to keep going?
[01:21:27] Only then did the words of the lead guard really hit me as long as 11 days try very hard
[01:21:34] to make it.
[01:21:36] My being revolted.
[01:21:38] My being revolted.
[01:21:40] 11 days of this, how the hell am I going to be able to do that?
[01:21:43] In two seconds, I answered.
[01:21:46] I walked to as long as it takes, reached down deep, got to go, keep going.
[01:21:53] God helped me.
[01:21:55] Wayne was stoic.
[01:21:56] He was in better shape than I was, but still it had to be tough for him.
[01:22:00] He just board down and put out what was needed to keep on going.
[01:22:04] Some of the other prisoners did as well.
[01:22:07] Many like me had trouble.
[01:22:08] A number complained and a few cried.
[01:22:11] Other prisoners berated them.
[01:22:13] A couple of them fell down and whimpered and the guards yelled at them slapping kicking and
[01:22:17] hitting them with rifle butts until they got up.
[01:22:21] I thought this is going to be a long 11 days.
[01:22:27] And this is just continuing way past 11 days.
[01:22:31] You're now just beyond that.
[01:22:34] Continuing with the story as the days continued, I became weaker and lost weight.
[01:22:39] Others followed waves of shivering chills might be malaria, I suffered from diarrhea,
[01:22:46] probably dysentery.
[01:22:47] My festering ankle wound hurt more, the swelling grew worse aggravated by the journey.
[01:22:53] Leachas plagued me, sucking my blood and adding infections of their own.
[01:22:57] My right leg became a heavy painful mass that I dragged along the trail.
[01:23:02] I must have been a sight.
[01:23:04] Though my wounds placed me in a worse situation, Wayne was sick and deteriorating too.
[01:23:09] He had some sort of jungle fever and lost his appetite.
[01:23:13] He quit eating regular rice, preferred only the crispy layer that formed right next to
[01:23:17] the surface of the cooking pot, what the Vietnamese called calm chae or fire rice.
[01:23:23] Zon was having troubles too.
[01:23:25] Injuries from his shoot down declined from months in captivity, poor diet disease,
[01:23:30] then the daily toll of this horrendous martial north.
[01:23:34] He stepped away, our personal demons threatened our physical ability and meant to willingness
[01:23:40] to press on.
[01:23:42] Everyone suffered.
[01:23:44] We looked like the walking dead, struggling to survive each agonizing mile of that march.
[01:23:50] Most of us stoically face the challenges that beset us.
[01:23:55] Sometimes selfishness and self-pity erupted and tempers flaired, pain and suffering took
[01:24:00] its toll.
[01:24:03] The senior ranking prisoner in our group was fam van Than.
[01:24:07] A major in the South Vietnamese Army.
[01:24:09] He tried his best to be a leader for the 25 South Vietnamese officers and two American
[01:24:14] helicopter pilots under the most trying conditions.
[01:24:17] The enemy gave him no authority to lead.
[01:24:20] I had a lot of respect for what Than tried to do.
[01:24:23] I felt the frustration he had to endure.
[01:24:26] Moral sunk lower and lower, bickering grew rampant.
[01:24:30] The prisoners died, Than was senior, but most dismissed his efforts as they struggled
[01:24:35] to survive.
[01:24:38] And now there's a prisoner that goes down on the trail.
[01:24:42] The guards yelled back and forth to each other.
[01:24:44] They ranted at the prisoner lying on the ground.
[01:24:46] They barked orders to the rest of us.
[01:24:48] I didn't understand any of it.
[01:24:50] Zan said softly, but earnestly to wane in me.
[01:24:53] Keep walking, no stop.
[01:24:55] We continued.
[01:24:57] One guard stayed with the prostate prisoner where he lay.
[01:25:00] We walked on.
[01:25:02] After a short while, bang.
[01:25:07] One shot.
[01:25:09] Sometime later the guard caught up.
[01:25:12] A dull sense of disbelief and shock overcame me.
[01:25:16] I had no doubt what had just happened.
[01:25:20] I kept walking.
[01:25:21] As I cried, it was clear.
[01:25:26] If you could not march, you would die.
[01:25:34] That message really settled into my mind at that point.
[01:25:36] I knew if I ever got to the point where I couldn't march anymore, that would probably
[01:25:40] happen to me as well.
[01:25:44] The aside that I wanted to say about Son was, and it was mentioned Son was a Vietnamese
[01:25:50] Air Force pilot. He was young and strong and in my mind, he was a lot bigger than he
[01:25:57] was, because he still has short-statured Vietnamese.
[01:26:01] He was the A1 pilot that I saw shot down on my way to Ben Hett, that I asked for permission
[01:26:08] to go help rescue.
[01:26:10] We put that together shortly after we started that March north of what he was flying
[01:26:14] where he was when he was shot down.
[01:26:16] That's my God. We were shot down the same day.
[01:26:21] That's one of the reasons I included that piece, because it was such a coincidence or
[01:26:27] fate that you guys were.
[01:26:29] That was him.
[01:26:30] There you were.
[01:26:31] He turned out to be such a good friend.
[01:26:33] I owe my life to several people, Wayne Finch, and Son, especially for what he did for me.
[01:26:44] Back to the book, the journey was a nightmare, a horrid soul-wrenching nightmare.
[01:26:49] It grew worse.
[01:26:50] Others fell out and died.
[01:26:51] Each step every day racked my body with pain.
[01:26:54] My infections became worse, disease was taking me.
[01:26:59] I knew I was sliding closer to death, but I kept fighting as hard as I could.
[01:27:04] To keep my spirits up, I continually thought, continuously thought of my family.
[01:27:08] Of things I would do with Spencer and Vicki when I got home.
[01:27:11] Making of those two kids gave me strength, always bolstered my hope.
[01:27:17] My leg was now swollen to twice its normal size.
[01:27:21] Dark colored filled with pus.
[01:27:23] Long splits formed in the skin.
[01:27:26] Puss and bloody stinking fluid oozed from the cracks.
[01:27:30] I dragged it along like a sodden club.
[01:27:33] Every movement last me with searing pain that kept my face contorted.
[01:27:38] I shrieked a silent cry within.
[01:27:41] And burdened a black and scar deep in the center of my soul.
[01:27:46] Gang green said in, my bloody dysentery worsened.
[01:27:51] I had chills and fevers.
[01:27:53] I would find out later that I had three different kinds of malaria.
[01:27:58] Each morning I fought a battle to stand.
[01:28:03] And with all that going on, I tried to maintain a sense of humor.
[01:28:10] It was hard, but it was necessary.
[01:28:13] Spirit is the most important factor in survival, a sense of human, humor, even under the
[01:28:18] worst conditions helps maintain spirit and in spirit lives hope.
[01:28:24] I was determined to survive.
[01:28:27] Still I owed so much to Wayne and Zahn.
[01:28:30] They helped me during the through the worst and were always concerned about me.
[01:28:34] They did all they could to help me.
[01:28:36] Zahn especially helped me remain positive to be hopeful.
[01:28:39] As bad as things ever got, I never gave up hope.
[01:28:44] I mustered all my will each day just to wake, stand and take a step.
[01:28:51] Then I fought hard for the remainder of the day to keep going, moving along the trail.
[01:28:56] I could barely walk, but somehow I did.
[01:28:59] I survived each day to open my eyes in the morning to the gift of one more dawn.
[01:29:04] Realities of my miserable world or clear, death are constant companion stalked us waiting
[01:29:11] for us to give into its relentless temptation.
[01:29:16] That would be the easy thing to do.
[01:29:19] In normal life, you have to take some over action to die.
[01:29:24] You have to kill yourself.
[01:29:26] As a prisoner of war under these circumstances, that is reversed.
[01:29:32] You have to reach deep within yourself and struggle each day to stay alive.
[01:29:39] Dying is easy.
[01:29:42] Just relax.
[01:29:43] Do nothing.
[01:29:45] Give up.
[01:29:46] Then peacefully surrender.
[01:29:49] Stop gagging down food, stop struggling to walk, stop fighting.
[01:29:54] And you will die.
[01:29:58] They did.
[01:30:04] That is an incredible paradox that you point out there.
[01:30:09] It is something that I saw because it is.
[01:30:13] If you give up, you just die.
[01:30:17] Stop eating and you die.
[01:30:19] It is hard to stay alive.
[01:30:21] You need something to motivate you to stay alive.
[01:30:24] I can't talk enough about those two kids.
[01:30:28] When they listen to this, it is hard to keep them from getting emotional.
[01:30:34] Those two little kids are probably the single most important reason that I survived along
[01:30:43] with a lot of other things that helped.
[01:30:46] That little four years, four and a half year old boy will celebrate his 50th birthday in
[01:30:53] April.
[01:30:54] And you will be there with him.
[01:30:58] Beautiful.
[01:31:02] I think we are getting to the low point here.
[01:31:04] The worst day of my life came a few weeks into this trip.
[01:31:07] I fought hard to continue the march, but I faltered.
[01:31:10] I dug deep inside myself for strength.
[01:31:13] There was nothing there.
[01:31:15] I dug deeper.
[01:31:16] I staggered on and faltered again.
[01:31:19] I struggled more.
[01:31:21] I reached deeper yet.
[01:31:22] I prayed for more strength.
[01:31:25] There was none.
[01:31:28] I collapsed.
[01:31:29] I got up and stumbled along.
[01:31:31] I collapsed again and again.
[01:31:33] And I got up again and again.
[01:31:35] I fought with all I had in my body, heart and soul.
[01:31:41] I collapsed and couldn't get up.
[01:31:44] I could not will myself up.
[01:31:46] I was at the end of my life.
[01:31:50] The guard looked down on me.
[01:31:51] He ordered me up.
[01:31:52] He yelled at me.
[01:31:53] I could not.
[01:31:56] It was done.
[01:31:58] I knew my life was ended.
[01:32:00] Here on this miserable muddy jungle trail, it was over.
[01:32:08] Would my family ever know what had happened to me?
[01:32:13] Then Zon was there looking worried bending over me, the guard yelled at him to stop.
[01:32:18] Undeterred Zon reached down to help me.
[01:32:21] The guard yelled louder but Zon's face was set with determination.
[01:32:26] In spite of whatever threats the guard was screaming, Zon raised me up, turned and pulled
[01:32:31] me onto his frail weak back.
[01:32:34] He wrapped my arms around his neck and clasped my wrists together in front of him.
[01:32:39] The rest of the day he pulled me along, my feet dragging on the ground behind.
[01:32:45] Part of the time he was helped by Lieutenant Hong.
[01:32:48] Longly a big, impish brute helped briefly but it was Zon who carried the burden that day.
[01:32:56] It was Zon who risked his own life to lift me from death.
[01:33:00] It was Zon who carried me and cared for me until we completed that long day struggle
[01:33:08] at another wayside camp.
[01:33:11] I definitely owe him my life absolutely.
[01:33:22] You end up falling into a river as well.
[01:33:25] Yeah, that's the next day when we tried to set out and I couldn't get back up.
[01:33:29] I mean my ankle bone was so infected I could barely move that leg and three kinds of malaria
[01:33:35] and dysentery and three kinds of intestinal parasites, smell absorption syndrome I was just
[01:33:42] a bad bad way.
[01:33:45] You fall into this river, backed the books Zon and Wayne came off the log and down the
[01:33:49] high steep bank to my rescue.
[01:33:52] They waited into the turn and pulled me back onto the bank.
[01:33:55] With Wayne shouting and English and Zon and Vietnamese, they pleaded for the group to stay
[01:33:58] at the camp until I was able to travel again.
[01:34:01] They were ordered away.
[01:34:03] They wouldn't leave me, guards dragged them away and forced them across to the log bridge
[01:34:07] at gunpoint.
[01:34:09] They marched off with the rest of our prisoner group.
[01:34:12] Everyone believed I was left at that camp to die.
[01:34:17] So you get left by that group.
[01:34:19] I do.
[01:34:20] And you go to another camp where they kind of let you recover a little bit.
[01:34:25] Yeah, well I actually stayed in that camp and for some reason the decision was because I
[01:34:29] had any medical treatment to that point at all for months.
[01:34:34] And that camp would me lay it up there.
[01:34:37] They got the camp medic and came over and I got some shots of penicillin.
[01:34:43] I guess the only reason for this decision was we were along the trail and had north and
[01:34:48] they wanted to give me an oil.
[01:34:49] If it all possible, so they did give me penicillin shots for about five days running.
[01:34:55] And as soon as I could stand up again and put any weight on my leg at all, then off we went
[01:35:00] back on the trail.
[01:35:02] And now you're on the trail.
[01:35:03] You were one guard at this point.
[01:35:05] I was one man, one guard, and you don't go north.
[01:35:08] Yeah, too.
[01:35:09] Do these.
[01:35:10] Do you?
[01:35:11] And you're again, you're hiking again, challenging terrain.
[01:35:17] And going back to the book, we continued after day after miserable day.
[01:35:22] The journey was taking its toll, stretching my will to press on again.
[01:35:27] It's like you just keep getting to the bottom and finding more unbelievable.
[01:35:32] Each day is tracked and demanded more than I thought I had to give.
[01:35:36] I was able to go on only by scraping up the few remaining bits of grit that remained in
[01:35:41] the most obscure recesses of my heart and soul.
[01:35:44] I prayed, I commanded, I willed myself to take step after impossible step.
[01:35:50] But effort itself fed an agony festering within me which swelled and nod at my core as
[01:35:56] a weak, followed, wretched weak.
[01:35:59] Malaria, tax and bouts of bloody disentery tortured me.
[01:36:03] The pain of my broken back pierced me every day, the souls of my feet were mosaics of
[01:36:08] raised well, it's an open bleeding gashes and punctures, previously broken toes,
[01:36:13] thrown up as I broke them again.
[01:36:15] And as always, there was the pesky leeches.
[01:36:20] But I was still alive.
[01:36:22] And for that, I thanked God.
[01:36:30] And not only did you thank God, you also still tried to escape in that state.
[01:36:39] That was one of the stupidest things I did in my entire cap to, but yes, I had that in the
[01:36:44] code of conduct, escape, escape, escape.
[01:36:46] And we had planned, even in that first jungle camp, had planned and escaped from there
[01:36:50] with Wayne, but it was because of my poor condition, Wayne said, let's, we're going to
[01:36:56] wait till you get some strength through this and I'm going to work.
[01:36:58] And then, of course, they took us off on the trip that Wayne didn't survive.
[01:37:02] But yes, so the day that I finally did, I mean, had an opportunity.
[01:37:05] You mentioned I was with one guard.
[01:37:07] We'd often travel with groups of other groups of North Vietnamese going up and down the trail.
[01:37:11] And we were traveling with one such group this day.
[01:37:14] And I don't know where you're going to pick up the stories.
[01:37:16] So you can just tell, tell, tell, part of it.
[01:37:18] So my guard zoo is talking to some other North Vietnamese guy and they, and I, we're
[01:37:24] all in a big group.
[01:37:25] And so they fall behind and I'm still with the many group.
[01:37:28] But I'm kind of slowing down and the group is moving away from me.
[01:37:31] And it came around one turn in the trail, one corner, no zoo behind me, no group in front
[01:37:36] of me.
[01:37:37] So just in that instant, I said, this is my chance.
[01:37:40] And plus I knew about where we were, near the Demelitrizone, we were only several miles
[01:37:45] from the coast.
[01:37:46] So that's in the back of my mind.
[01:37:47] I think I could make it.
[01:37:49] So I just took off the trail and headed up the side of a hill with my great escape, which
[01:37:53] is only lasted for a very few, well, I don't even know, lasted two minutes.
[01:37:58] But a very few moments before I was recaptured, were you going to read some of that?
[01:38:03] Yeah, this is what happened.
[01:38:04] You knew get recaptured.
[01:38:05] Here's your thoughts.
[01:38:06] I'm dead.
[01:38:07] It's all over.
[01:38:08] Zoo hovered over me.
[01:38:09] His AK-47, Mujel shifting from the center of my face to the middle of my chest.
[01:38:13] He treats you.
[01:38:14] Why you?
[01:38:15] His face burned red as eyes wild and rage.
[01:38:18] Spit sprayed as he screamed at me.
[01:38:21] This is it.
[01:38:22] His fingers on the trigger.
[01:38:23] He's going to kill me.
[01:38:26] And then you.
[01:38:27] I missed the trail.
[01:38:28] I got lost.
[01:38:29] He didn't shoot.
[01:38:30] He pointed his rifle away in a solemn voice.
[01:38:33] He commanded, get up.
[01:38:34] You do very bad.
[01:38:35] You have big problem now.
[01:38:36] He was shaking and raged.
[01:38:38] He motioned down the hill and said, go.
[01:38:42] I think more that was ever done to me never heard about the incident again.
[01:38:48] My psychological assessment is he was so embarrassed and would have been so much trouble
[01:38:52] to worry.
[01:38:53] Yeah, well, how'd you lose your personal eyes?
[01:38:55] Talk to yourself guy.
[01:38:56] I wasn't.
[01:38:57] He's just like, you know what?
[01:38:58] We're just going to come for that one.
[01:39:00] Yeah, he was out of all the guards that I encountered.
[01:39:04] He was about the worst, the meanest despise me, the most I think of almost anyone that
[01:39:09] I encountered.
[01:39:10] And lucky me, I get stuck with him being my one single
[01:39:12] guard that was moving me after I get stuck with him.
[01:39:15] Was he with you with that original group and that he stayed with him?
[01:39:17] Yeah, in fact, when I've got to that first jungle camp living in the cages, he was
[01:39:22] our interrogator there.
[01:39:24] I almost actually felt sorry for the guy.
[01:39:26] His English was so bad.
[01:39:27] It was as bad as my high school level Spanish was.
[01:39:30] I mean, he just could barely speak English and he's trying to interrogate us and
[01:39:33] propaganda hisists and all this.
[01:39:35] But yeah, so he was the only guard that was spoken English at all.
[01:39:38] So when I had to be separated from the group, they assigned him to be the one to stay
[01:39:42] back with me and move me north.
[01:39:46] And now, again, fast forward, you're now in a truck.
[01:39:52] You're now moving in vehicles.
[01:39:55] Okay, we got in the north.
[01:39:56] Walked all the way up across the north or two the north three enemies border on foot.
[01:40:01] So we're all the way just north of the demelitarized zone at this point.
[01:40:05] And then they put us on trucks to move us in the north Vietnam and inside North Vietnam,
[01:40:09] we'd some nights move and trucks.
[01:40:12] Some days and nights would, would march depending on the threat from American air strikes.
[01:40:15] And of course, the trucks of these old, you know, Soviet air things with no shocks.
[01:40:19] And by the way, you've a broken back at this point and it's not like the roads in North
[01:40:23] Vietnam or in any kind of condition.
[01:40:26] So it's, no, we first got on the trucks.
[01:40:27] I mean, after all this death march north, my my attitude was, oh, trucks.
[01:40:32] This is wonderful.
[01:40:33] God.
[01:40:34] And God, on the bed of that truck, it took about a minute and a half,
[01:40:37] we're driving down the road and that truck with no shocks, no springs, slam, slam, slam,
[01:40:42] to, yeah, you literally had a broken back at this point.
[01:40:45] I literally had a broken back.
[01:40:47] And, and of course, as you said, I think you described this to your wife as a series
[01:40:53] of unfortunate events.
[01:40:55] So now you're out there and you see a flare in the sky.
[01:41:01] You recognize immediately.
[01:41:02] You know what's coming.
[01:41:03] But first to or fly mohawk, up off the coast, we would pick up targets on radar at
[01:41:08] night of the convoys moving along Highway 1 inside North Vietnam and we turn it over to
[01:41:13] F4 fighter jets from the 490, second 97th fighter wing out of Thailand.
[01:41:19] And they were called the night fighters and they dropped flares and then strike the target.
[01:41:22] So yes, I knew exactly what was taking place.
[01:41:25] So you yell out air strike.
[01:41:28] And then here we go back to the book.
[01:41:29] F1st F4 screamed down from altitude and bombs exploded nearby, NVA and to NVA, anti-aircraft
[01:41:35] fire responded.
[01:41:36] The next F4 screeched toward us, more bombs, more anti-aircraft.
[01:41:41] I began repeating, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
[01:41:45] Yay, though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for
[01:41:50] thou art with me, for thou art with me, good God.
[01:41:54] The earth shook.
[01:41:55] Our truck banged about as if in an earthquake.
[01:41:59] Older's yelled from other trucks as some were hit.
[01:42:02] The world shuddered in explosions and flames.
[01:42:06] Then it was done.
[01:42:11] That was our first, yeah, first or second night on trucks after we got into North Vietnam.
[01:42:18] Yes, so not only did I have the unpleasant bouncing around that was extremely painful.
[01:42:21] I also, I think I mentioned the book got a horrible case of heartburn at night, too.
[01:42:25] I got all this sour belts as going on and then we got that air strike.
[01:42:31] Again, that wasn't the first or last air strike that I experienced, but that was pretty horrific.
[01:42:37] They hit some of the vehicles that were there.
[01:42:38] They did.
[01:42:39] Some of the Vietnamese so-called.
[01:42:41] At this point, when I got right to the border, just before we got into the trucks,
[01:42:45] I was married up with a second group of South Vietnamese prisoners, senior officer, South Vietnamese
[01:42:50] prisoners.
[01:42:51] Our group of prisoners was on one truck, but yeah, other trucks in the convoy got hit
[01:42:55] and people killed and luckily we didn't.
[01:43:00] Now you get into another camp and I'm going back to the book.
[01:43:05] The guards took us to a small hut with posts and enough to tie our hammocks.
[01:43:11] They fastened the door shut and placed local militia guards outside.
[01:43:14] We settled in getting comfortable and resting.
[01:43:17] The door opened.
[01:43:18] A guard came in and said something.
[01:43:20] A South Vietnamese prisoner entered behind him, lieutenant hung.
[01:43:24] My God.
[01:43:25] I knew.
[01:43:27] It was Wayne who had died in this camp.
[01:43:29] Captain Wayne Finch.
[01:43:31] Wayne was dead.
[01:43:32] My God.
[01:43:34] hung stared as if at a ghost, astounded to see me alive.
[01:43:38] He cried.
[01:43:39] I sat slump, devastated at the realization that Wayne Finch was dead.
[01:43:44] My friend Wayne who had helped me cared for me.
[01:43:47] My friend Wayne who I owed so much.
[01:43:50] He was dead.
[01:43:54] Shocked.
[01:43:55] Disbelieving.
[01:43:56] I introduced hung to the others.
[01:43:58] He told us how everyone thought I was dead.
[01:44:01] How the group suffered on the march north after they left me.
[01:44:05] How to tall American pilots join them.
[01:44:07] How Wayne continued to get sicker, lost hope, and grew weak.
[01:44:12] I fell into sadness, twisting it into melancholy self-pity, sinking to the lowest point.
[01:44:19] I had known.
[01:44:25] And I had to be to be devastating.
[01:44:27] It was.
[01:44:28] We had been separated and what I got to this camp with the new group of South Vietnamese.
[01:44:33] When we arrived at the camp, the camp commander gave a speech.
[01:44:37] I could hear him say, Finch and the South Vietnamese officers transform.
[01:44:42] We said, do you know of Finch?
[01:44:43] There was an American Finch that died in this camp.
[01:44:45] I said, no one even knew what I should have put together with the bad pronunciation was
[01:44:52] Finch.
[01:44:53] And hung had been one of the guys who helped drag me through the jungle with the sun.
[01:44:58] And as soon as I saw hung, I knew that it was Finch.
[01:45:02] They took me to see the grave where he was buried.
[01:45:06] At least that rough idea of where we were helped me when I came back to my debriefs to
[01:45:11] get that location to the Americans.
[01:45:13] And eventually took a few years for several years.
[01:45:15] Wayne's body was recovered and brought back.
[01:45:18] That was a low morale point for me on the trip.
[01:45:22] That was devastating.
[01:45:23] You're going to go to the potato story?
[01:45:25] No, tell the potato story.
[01:45:26] Okay, I'll tell the potatoes.
[01:45:27] Because this is another guy.
[01:45:28] There are two Vietnamese.
[01:45:29] A lot of people helped me to follow you.
[01:45:32] I survived.
[01:45:33] Tell the potato story and then I'll wrap it up for you.
[01:45:36] Because it's, yeah, tell the potato story.
[01:45:37] Okay.
[01:45:38] How would you do that time?
[01:45:39] Where did this go in on and on?
[01:45:40] We're good.
[01:45:41] All right.
[01:45:42] So, son, it helped me as we already described.
[01:45:45] But in the second group of prisoners, I came to know one Lieutenant Colonel Kayn Yim, who
[01:45:52] today lives in San Jose, California.
[01:45:53] I'm still a dear friend.
[01:45:55] But Kay when he was captured, had a gold cross pen.
[01:45:59] I mean, real gold.
[01:46:00] It was a very valuable pen.
[01:46:01] When he was captured, he hid it in the lining of his uniform.
[01:46:04] He was going to trade it for something for his own benefit when he got to wherever
[01:46:08] he was going to get to.
[01:46:10] So I'm in the state that you've described.
[01:46:12] I'm just physically erect now emotionally mentally in a low.
[01:46:16] We're being held in a hut.
[01:46:18] There's a local militia guy guarding it outside.
[01:46:20] Kay goes to the wall.
[01:46:22] That's wall and talks to the guy.
[01:46:24] And I see him hand his pen out to the guy.
[01:46:27] And the guy disappears.
[01:46:28] A couple hours later, the guy returns with a small bag and passes it in.
[01:46:32] And the bag were six potatoes.
[01:46:34] So Kay had traded his valuable, crock gold cross pen for six potatoes.
[01:46:40] Had a potato cooked each day for the next six days for me.
[01:46:45] And I ate it.
[01:46:46] Kay wouldn't take any potatoes.
[01:46:47] None of the other Vietnamese senior officers would take any of the potatoes.
[01:46:51] They were from me.
[01:46:52] And just, I mean, both the physical strength the potatoes gave me.
[01:46:57] But even more importantly, just the mental lift that his sacrifice gave from me.
[01:47:03] I really brought me out of my, out of my doldrums, and gave me the spirit to go on.
[01:47:08] Unbelievable.
[01:47:09] The one more thing that happens with Kay, you're getting ready to leave the camp to go to a new camp.
[01:47:17] Right.
[01:47:18] And Kay tapped my arm.
[01:47:19] Look, he said, the curious militia guard who'd been so interested in learning about
[01:47:23] South Vietnam and America, who'd fetched my potatoes, stood there looking like a kid with
[01:47:29] a new puppy.
[01:47:30] He came close to the truck and I lean against the state side.
[01:47:35] Goodbye, he said, grinning.
[01:47:38] His simple humanity made me smile and I said, goodbye.
[01:47:43] Kay saw my astonishment.
[01:47:44] He wanted to learn to say goodbye to you when you leave.
[01:47:48] I teach him.
[01:47:49] He good man.
[01:47:51] Yes, I fought.
[01:47:53] No doubt he is.
[01:47:54] There are good men everywhere.
[01:47:57] That's the governments, the systems, the leaders that are bad.
[01:48:00] It's communism that sucks, not the people of North Vietnam.
[01:48:05] They are not so different from the South, not so different from me.
[01:48:15] I learned a lot of lessons on this trip.
[01:48:19] I learned a lot of lessons about humanity and people.
[01:48:24] I do, honestly, believe we are all God's children.
[01:48:30] You and I had the good fortune to be born where we were born in this wonderful country
[01:48:34] of ours.
[01:48:36] Others have had the not so good fortune.
[01:48:40] I came across good people in Vietnam and he, though he was my enemy, was one.
[01:48:48] Sometimes people ask me if I have any hatred for those guys in the treatment that I got
[01:48:52] and I don't.
[01:48:54] I think they were human beings, not so different than you and me.
[01:49:00] They had their news controlled by their government.
[01:49:03] They were suffering, their strikes, and everything else.
[01:49:06] They behaved the way that they behaved.
[01:49:08] I guess the one guy still don't care much for was it's Sue, but we'd probably get over
[01:49:12] to fight if I ever met the guy.
[01:49:14] I don't have any hatred.
[01:49:17] There's people like you and I.
[01:49:19] There was even times, I mean, we're walking through a village and now you're North Vietnam
[01:49:24] not know where what you're just talking about, they've been bombed, they lost their sons
[01:49:28] and they're trying to basically attack you.
[01:49:30] They're throwing rocks at you.
[01:49:32] And the guys that are guarding you actually, I don't think they shot at them, but they
[01:49:36] fired over their heads to protect you.
[01:49:40] Which I'd found to be in my South Vietnamese friends.
[01:49:43] I mean, you'll talk to people who have the experience in the Vietnam war and you get all
[01:49:45] kinds of different opinions of the South Vietnamese and good worthless whatever.
[01:49:52] They have all varieties like we are.
[01:49:54] There are some that, violently and bravely, like the guys at Firebase Charlie, the people
[01:49:58] that I was with as a prisoner of war were great human beings.
[01:50:02] When we'd get attacked, yeah, the first thing they put me and they, the Communist Guards,
[01:50:07] it's took me in the middle, but then the South Vietnamese willingly would form perimeter
[01:50:10] around me and then the guards are on the outside firing as necessary all to protect me.
[01:50:19] One time going back to book, the guards start screaming, be num, hey, be num, hey.
[01:50:24] Bonham, bonham, hi.
[01:50:26] Bonham, hi.
[01:50:27] Which means, bb, num, five, hi, too.
[01:50:32] And for those of you that don't translate that real quick, that's b 52.
[01:50:36] The bombs drop, hundreds of bombs fell, all around us, big bombs, nearly on top of us.
[01:50:43] I knew there was little chance of living through a B 52 strike, but by the grace of God
[01:50:47] no bombs fell in our crater.
[01:50:49] The earth trembled at shook, it ruptured and heaved, waves of crushing pressure blasted
[01:50:54] through a squeezing, hurting my head in the ears, the suffocating pressure was painful, awful,
[01:51:00] frightening.
[01:51:01] It stopped.
[01:51:03] I was crying, I was dead, I knew it.
[01:51:07] I felt ringing in my ears, froping in my head.
[01:51:10] I must be alive.
[01:51:12] Next to me, the officer sat up and holstered his pistol, by the way, you had the guy drawn
[01:51:16] his pistol and held it to your head to make sure he was going to escape during the B 52 strike.
[01:51:22] K was moving, others began setting up days, but alive, no one could hear.
[01:51:28] No one spoke.
[01:51:29] We crawled out of the hole and started walking in direction we'd been traveling.
[01:51:33] This was in North Vietnam.
[01:51:35] We'd come upon an area of a lot of bomb craters, they'd been bomb frequently.
[01:51:39] The enemy shot two anti-aircraft rounds.
[01:51:42] That seemed to be their signal.
[01:51:43] Two rounds was an air strike.
[01:51:45] The other started shouting, bottom high and all hell broke loose upon us.
[01:51:51] Now you get to Hanoi, right?
[01:51:55] And you get a bed, a board, okay, a board.
[01:52:00] There's a blanket though.
[01:52:01] There was a blanket, it gets cold and a French bread.
[01:52:06] That's how you call it, French bread.
[01:52:09] I was in New York.
[01:52:10] It's like a small piece of French bread is what it looked like.
[01:52:13] But it was just, I mean, it was kind of half rotten and pieces of rock and stick and
[01:52:18] junk and it was just...
[01:52:19] It's what he even did the book.
[01:52:21] Because when you first talk about the French bread, you French bread, and then it cl-
[01:52:24] It's a real grunt here.
[01:52:25] It's a couple of parrots, or maybe a couple pages later you're saying there was bugs.
[01:52:29] And he sticks.
[01:52:30] But when you first got that French bread, the first I was putting solitary confinement
[01:52:33] my first prison and I was brought a meal.
[01:52:35] And now the whole time I was captured down in the jungle, we got a ball of great, a great
[01:52:39] fruit-sized ball of rice in the morning, a great fruit-sized ball of rice in the evening
[01:52:42] for our food.
[01:52:43] That's what we got hiking up the Hoachman Trail.
[01:52:46] We would, in the evenings, they would cook rice that the communist would and we would get
[01:52:50] about that same equivalent of our ball size of rice and then we would roll up a ball to eat
[01:52:55] during the journey on the next morning.
[01:52:58] So it was the same thing, two great-sized balls of rice a day.
[01:53:01] That's all that I had with an occasional piece of man-yuck and maybe some, oh, what
[01:53:09] they had to do, they call it.
[01:53:11] Bamboo shoot.
[01:53:12] A case of almost ages of rice.
[01:53:13] So I get to Henoie.
[01:53:14] I'm in solitary confinement.
[01:53:16] They bring me a meal.
[01:53:21] They're played at being spraised with this piece of French bread on the side.
[01:53:24] And I'm sitting there for a lot of reasons.
[01:53:26] I mean, I knew that I was in Henoie.
[01:53:27] I knew that this horrible trip of walking every single day and not knowing how I was going
[01:53:33] to survive through that day.
[01:53:34] All that was over.
[01:53:35] I'm here.
[01:53:36] I'm in Henoie.
[01:53:37] Oh, plus they'd give me a bath and gave me a prison uniform and shave me.
[01:53:41] I mean, I had not shaved the whole time.
[01:53:43] So I've been a prisoner for months.
[01:53:47] And I sat there and they brought that food.
[01:53:49] And I did.
[01:53:50] I cried.
[01:53:51] Tears rolled down my cheeks.
[01:53:52] I knew for the first time, since I was shot down, there was no doubt in my mind.
[01:53:57] I was going to survive.
[01:53:59] That was no longer a question.
[01:54:00] All I had to do was gut out those last.
[01:54:01] However long it was going to be in Henoie.
[01:54:04] They had given me this wonderful food of bean sprouts and this piece of crappy French bread.
[01:54:09] But it was wonderful.
[01:54:11] That's beautiful.
[01:54:15] And here's, as this continues here in Henoie, I'm going back to the book.
[01:54:21] I stood in a cell about 12 feet wide and 25 feet long.
[01:54:25] Six bunks lined up to my right.
[01:54:27] Head and against the wall.
[01:54:29] Two others lay lengthwise against the wall to my left.
[01:54:31] The bunks were three by six foot pieces of wood resting on saw horses of the same width.
[01:54:37] He chose covered with a bamboo mat.
[01:54:38] A blanket neatly folded on one end.
[01:54:41] When we in the bunk or my left I saw two buckets just like the one in my, one's in my solitary
[01:54:45] cells.
[01:54:46] A row of three small window slits six by 18 inches opened high at the back at the top of
[01:54:53] the back wall.
[01:54:55] Seven sets of eyes fixed on me.
[01:54:58] One approached and put out his hand.
[01:55:01] I'm John Murphy, captain, Air Force.
[01:55:05] How you doing?
[01:55:07] Americans.
[01:55:09] They're a room full of Americans.
[01:55:12] Oh God bless you.
[01:55:15] And that's your, your with these other prisoners.
[01:55:19] And I hadn't seen another American since I split up from that group all that time ago
[01:55:24] on the trail.
[01:55:25] It was a glorious moment to come out of solitary confinement.
[01:55:28] We put in a room with seven other guys.
[01:55:31] And you know this is one of the things that I talked about you as we were getting ready
[01:55:34] to record.
[01:55:37] I said, look.
[01:55:38] I want to read your entire book on this podcast because it's so good.
[01:55:43] And nobody's going to want to go buy the book.
[01:55:45] I just heard the whole book read and one of the decisions that I made was one of the
[01:55:50] things that you do in here is this is a book about you.
[01:55:54] But you do a wonderful and a beautiful job of describing and telling the stories of all
[01:56:01] these other heroes that you're with.
[01:56:05] And as a matter of fact, you call this chapter chapter 12 in the company of heroes with
[01:56:09] all these other Americans that you know, you told me on the way over here and you talk
[01:56:12] about it in the book.
[01:56:13] You'd been in you were there for at this point.
[01:56:16] What six months were you there at this point seven months?
[01:56:19] Yeah, something like that.
[01:56:21] Some of these guys had been in captivity for three years five years seven years.
[01:56:28] Seven years.
[01:56:29] And then the one guy I talked about in their gym tops and have been a prisoner for nine
[01:56:32] years.
[01:56:33] I felt I needed to do that in this book.
[01:56:35] I had some real mixed feelings about writing this book.
[01:56:38] I didn't want to do a book focused, you know, this happened to me story and I did all
[01:56:43] this great stuff.
[01:56:44] I know I suffered.
[01:56:45] But there were so many other prisoners from this Southern experience.
[01:56:49] That's a story I wanted to tell this different Southern experience.
[01:56:52] It's different than the prisoners who were shot down in capture in the north.
[01:56:55] So many of these guys, many many of these guys suffered so much more than I did.
[01:57:00] So much more time and captivity than I did.
[01:57:02] So I do share those stories of those guys in the company of heroes.
[01:57:06] When I got to Hanoi, got into the prison of plantation gardens, I met these other guys
[01:57:11] and they had the truly incredible heroic stories to share.
[01:57:16] And you do a phenomenal job in the book of describing them who they were, what they've
[01:57:24] been through.
[01:57:26] Bill Gont, Al Krabov.
[01:57:28] John Parcell's Bill Thomas Bill Henderson Dave Mott.
[01:57:33] Just you go through the guys.
[01:57:35] Now those are the guys of my cell and I don't know if you got any of them.
[01:57:38] I don't know if you got any of them.
[01:57:39] They're out of the eight guys in the cell.
[01:57:40] Four of us were named Bill.
[01:57:41] That's just crazy.
[01:57:42] Eight Americans in a cell and four of us named Bill.
[01:57:46] So I became new Bill.
[01:57:49] There was a Bill Gant was an Air Force pilot, about 6465.
[01:57:53] He was big Bill.
[01:57:55] There was a Marine War officer who was some prehistoric elderly gentleman.
[01:57:58] The poor guy was 36 years old.
[01:58:01] We couldn't believe he'd survived, but he was old Bill and then we had an Air Force OV10
[01:58:07] pilot who became young Bill.
[01:58:08] So we had four Bills out of the eight guys.
[01:58:11] But yeah, then the others.
[01:58:13] And those guys had all suffered too, but then there were other guys in the camp.
[01:58:19] Shoot Dennis Thompson and Harvey Brand, two special forces guys, Captain Longway.
[01:58:26] There are experiences, so many others.
[01:58:29] Five guys, but TV station in a way, who are capturing a tent.
[01:58:33] I mean, who would think that a TV radio station, TV station crew would get capture,
[01:58:38] but they had all of their trials and tribulations.
[01:58:41] And then the most was Jim Thompson in his nine years of suffering as a prisoner of
[01:58:47] one.
[01:58:48] One of the guys I do want to highlight is Colonel Ted Guy.
[01:58:52] Some would go to the book.
[01:58:53] Yeah, our senior ranking officer.
[01:58:55] And someone's briefing you kind of telling you what's going on.
[01:58:59] And here's what Dave says, Dave Maup.
[01:59:02] He says, the SRO, that's the senior ranking officer for the camp is Colonel Ted Guy.
[01:59:09] He's in the shed up on top of the camp.
[01:59:11] That's where they've segregated the senior officers and NCOs from the rest of us.
[01:59:16] He's an Air Force lieutenant colonel who must have been promoted to Fulberg by now.
[01:59:20] He went down over Laos in an F4 in 1968.
[01:59:23] He's a good leader and a real hard ass.
[01:59:26] He runs a tight ship.
[01:59:27] Doesn't allow making any propaganda statements.
[01:59:31] No one can accept early release.
[01:59:33] We live by the code of conduct.
[01:59:36] He's taken a lot of beatings and torture for us.
[01:59:39] We call him the Hawk.
[01:59:41] Alcraboth jumped in immediately.
[01:59:44] Yeah, and we're Hawk's heroes.
[01:59:47] Just like Hogan's heroes on the TV show, only we don't have as much fun.
[01:59:51] He had a shitty eating grin on his face.
[01:59:54] He also looked like crap.
[01:59:57] So that's, I thought it was, that's one of the, you know, you, again, you go through all
[02:00:03] these guys and what they've done.
[02:00:06] And you also talk about, you talk about some of those heroes that held the line and
[02:00:10] you also talk about another group who I'll go to here.
[02:00:15] Sometimes I could hear a lot of noise from the other side of the wall separating our
[02:00:18] road sales from those on the further end of our building.
[02:00:23] I could see the top of a basketball hoop, an occasional volleyball arched high over
[02:00:28] an out of sight net.
[02:00:31] What's up with that?
[02:00:32] I asked, that's the peace committee.
[02:00:34] Came the answer.
[02:00:35] What's the peace committee?
[02:00:37] Eight guys who collaborate with the enemy.
[02:00:40] They've been ordered to stop, but they won't.
[02:00:43] They study communism, do propaganda, make radio broadcasts, even rat on the
[02:00:48] other Americans.
[02:00:50] For that, they get packages, get to write letters, and can go outside whenever they
[02:00:55] won and play games.
[02:00:57] We call them the ducks because the way they followed, followed the guards around and
[02:01:02] do their bidding.
[02:01:04] They'll rotten hell, I said, that they will.
[02:01:08] The collaborators were, but a small but significant minority among us.
[02:01:12] There were 107 prisoners at plantation gardens and except for the eight in the peace committee,
[02:01:18] all were patriotic loyal Americans who resisted enemy interrogations, propaganda, and pressure
[02:01:24] to sign statements and make radio broadcasts.
[02:01:27] We resisted with everything we had.
[02:01:32] And then, you know, you got time.
[02:01:35] Time those guys back to Colonel Guy.
[02:01:37] I can't say enough about Colonel Guy.
[02:01:38] He's passed away several years ago now.
[02:01:41] So what a strong leader.
[02:01:44] And we talk about military discipline in the requirement for it in officers' instances
[02:01:49] at what in prison camp, that discipline was so essential and so sought after by everyone.
[02:01:57] We were lucky to have Colonel Guy as our senior ranking officer.
[02:02:02] He was so tough and by the rules and the code and thank goodness because that's what we all
[02:02:08] needed to hear and to have that standard to live by.
[02:02:13] Just a great and wonderful human being.
[02:02:16] When we got back, you know, there was several who would have strangled some of those peace
[02:02:20] committee guys, especially some of our special forces guys were captured with us.
[02:02:24] But Colonel Guy put out an order and he said, this is a direct order.
[02:02:29] Everyone stay away from the peace committee.
[02:02:31] I'm going to take care of this.
[02:02:32] I got it.
[02:02:33] Don't you do anything.
[02:02:36] Colonel Guy pressed charges against the peace committee again and again was overridden.
[02:02:40] Charges were never brought against them.
[02:02:42] But what did happen is Colonel Guy's career was was curtailed far before it should have been.
[02:02:47] But I have the deepest respect for him as our senior officer.
[02:02:52] Yeah.
[02:02:53] And again, I'm going to say this again.
[02:02:56] You go through these stories of some of the other heroes.
[02:03:01] You just mentioned Dennis Thomas.
[02:03:03] Absolutely.
[02:03:06] Bill Murray.
[02:03:07] I mean, you just you go through these stories and then they're just all phenomenal and you
[02:03:12] do them such such an honor telling their stories.
[02:03:17] So by this book so that you can read these stories because I don't have time to go through
[02:03:23] them all here.
[02:03:25] The one thing I want to point out though is going back to the book.
[02:03:29] We also try to keep our humor going within the cell and Alan me as the central culprit's
[02:03:34] telling, disgustingly bad jokes back and forth.
[02:03:37] Al was getting a lot better.
[02:03:40] His nausea was subsiding because he was really sick.
[02:03:42] His naughty were subsiding in his boils healing.
[02:03:45] Some of the guys exercised to fight the deterioration of their bodies.
[02:03:49] I couldn't even lie on my back, let alone trying to do sit-ups.
[02:03:53] What I could do was try to get into a position to try push-ups.
[02:03:58] I tried once in the jungle and failed.
[02:04:01] I couldn't raise myself up off the ground.
[02:04:03] Now I was able to push all the way up once and halfway through a second.
[02:04:07] Pretty sad for a guy who could do a hundred push-ups before.
[02:04:10] I kept at for at it for weeks until I was able to do several as part of my daily routine.
[02:04:17] And the reason I point that out is because I always say, you know, because people get injured,
[02:04:22] people come with sickness, do what you can.
[02:04:24] Yes.
[02:04:25] And do what you can.
[02:04:26] And that's exactly what you are doing.
[02:04:30] So, so important.
[02:04:35] December 18th, 1972 after many weeks of quiet, we got bombed like none of us had ever
[02:04:40] been bombed before.
[02:04:42] Air raid sirens, wailed, barrages of Sam's fire and bombs poured down.
[02:04:46] American B-52s had arrived in force over and away.
[02:04:50] Bombs fell close and plantation garden shook.
[02:04:53] We lay on our bunk, hoping our bombers knew where our camp was.
[02:04:57] Still, we fell back into a mindset we'd all developed in captivity.
[02:05:03] What will be will be?
[02:05:05] No sense of worrying about something.
[02:05:07] You absolutely have no control over which is.
[02:05:09] Yeah, of course we're not going to stop a bomb from landing on our head.
[02:05:14] That was the Christmas bombing in 1972 that Nixon ordered to finally bring the communist
[02:05:19] to the bargaining table.
[02:05:21] And I had to put this part in here, I had to read it.
[02:05:28] So after those, after that massive bombing, repercussion.
[02:05:32] So there's a guard that you, that you had nicknamed repercussion.
[02:05:35] Repregution, a guard so named because of his violent outbursts and threats against prisoners
[02:05:40] stood against the wall as we milled around the water trough.
[02:05:44] He spoke something, Lish.
[02:05:46] Old Bill Thomas walked over to him and said, you think those air strikes were bad?
[02:05:51] What the guard asked?
[02:05:53] You think those air strikes were bad last night, Bill said again, yes, bad bombing.
[02:05:58] Well, you ain't seen nothing yet.
[02:06:01] Way to lay drop an A-bomb on your fucking ass.
[02:06:06] I gasped and smiled, old Bill Proud Marine.
[02:06:09] He'd been pretty quiet guy, but not me more.
[02:06:11] We all glowed inside after the bombing.
[02:06:14] It was a huge morale boost.
[02:06:16] The bombings went all night after night, not without impunity.
[02:06:19] The B-52s got shot down, their ghastly giant carcasses burning, falling.
[02:06:23] We wondered sadly about the fate of the crews.
[02:06:26] We lost their craft yet they kept coming.
[02:06:29] Quietly, we cheered them on.
[02:06:31] Yeah, that was a huge morale boost.
[02:06:34] And Bill Thomas, boy, bless us hard, because he was always kind of a quiet guy, but he just
[02:06:38] let it all out that morning.
[02:06:40] That's so awesome.
[02:06:43] Okay, now we're in the, in the Hanoi, the infamous.
[02:06:47] Yeah, they moved us into middle of all that bombing attacks.
[02:06:50] They loaded us up one night on trucks at the plantation garden, drove around.
[02:06:53] I don't know, it seemed like for a couple hours.
[02:06:55] I think they were just trying to disorient us.
[02:06:56] We thought their tickets out in the country because of the bombings.
[02:06:59] And then they came to a stop and we got out of the trucks.
[02:07:01] And finally, we're only a few blower several blocks where we started at the Hanoi Hill.
[02:07:08] And now they set up like a little movie night for you guys.
[02:07:11] Oh, yeah.
[02:07:12] So, I've heard for the at the Hanoi Hill, my little movie night, and they set you down
[02:07:17] for the movie night.
[02:07:20] You guys are making fun of the projector operator.
[02:07:22] And finally, they tell you quiet, no talk.
[02:07:25] And then the movie starts back to the book.
[02:07:26] The film was of Jane Fonda visiting North Vietnam.
[02:07:30] We saw an American converting among the enemy leadership supporting their cause.
[02:07:37] Jane's appeared of her climbing into the Gunner seat on an NVA anti-aircraft gun wearing
[02:07:43] a clean white blouse, smiling broadly, laughing, donning a North Vietnamese army helmet with
[02:07:50] live ammunition at her feet that would later shoot down American planes.
[02:07:57] In the film, she sent a message to American servicemen calling us war criminals.
[02:08:03] She said we were following the orders of other war criminals that were like the leaders
[02:08:08] of Germany and Japan and World War II who were executed for their crimes.
[02:08:15] I was stunned.
[02:08:16] We didn't dare speak out loud, but we had plenty to say to each other when we got back
[02:08:21] inside our cell.
[02:08:23] Days later, they showed us some news clippings from American newspapers and magazines.
[02:08:27] They all had news of war protests.
[02:08:31] One was former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark demanding that American stop bombing North
[02:08:38] Vietnamese sit dikes.
[02:08:41] He had been Attorney General under President Johnson during the buildup of American forces
[02:08:45] in Vietnam.
[02:08:46] Now he was making statements from a noise that was inhumane to bomb dikes and that we
[02:08:50] should never do it again.
[02:08:52] A photo showed him standing beside a dike with a single bomb crater.
[02:08:57] I knew he did not have an air campaign to destroy the dikes.
[02:09:01] This was an airant bomb.
[02:09:04] The war protesters at home never bothered me.
[02:09:07] In fact, I took pride in fighting communism in this far corner of the earth so Americans
[02:09:13] could have the right to protest in the streets.
[02:09:17] It was a sacred honor to defend the right of other Americans to disagree with me or anything
[02:09:24] within our American system of government.
[02:09:29] I do believe that so strongly.
[02:09:34] The core of our democracy is not that we all get in line and march forth.
[02:09:40] Take us to 1984.
[02:09:42] The strength of our American democracy is that we can have different views and people disagree
[02:09:46] in the health of the democracy.
[02:09:48] When those disagreements can be argued and discussed and then you reach a solution,
[02:09:53] they are a democratic solution and you go forward.
[02:09:57] That's the beauty of our system.
[02:09:58] Never mind even during the war.
[02:10:00] People say, oh, isn't this horrible?
[02:10:02] These guys, no, exactly what I said there.
[02:10:05] The riot fighting is an American soldier to defend the American way of life which is democratic
[02:10:11] disagreement and arguments.
[02:10:13] They have had it guys.
[02:10:14] You want to protest.
[02:10:15] Go protest.
[02:10:17] Beautiful.
[02:10:18] Now you, I'm going to go to the book.
[02:10:26] We join the rest of our cellmates and press close to Jose.
[02:10:33] And Zaldua.
[02:10:34] And Zaldua.
[02:10:35] A Tom Marine, a Tom Marine Corporal captured a couple years before.
[02:10:39] He quietly related what he'd gathered from the broadcast.
[02:10:43] So he was a translator.
[02:10:44] He was e-stropping.
[02:10:45] Listen, they're very translated.
[02:10:46] One of the guards was out in the courtyard playing a radio.
[02:10:48] It's never did.
[02:10:49] I never heard them.
[02:10:50] But obviously there was some important news coming.
[02:10:52] So his guard had a radio out in the courtyard listening and Jose heard what was said on
[02:10:56] the radio.
[02:10:57] And he says it sounded like a piece of agreement was signed and the war is ended.
[02:11:01] And you kind of get that confirmed.
[02:11:05] Back to the book.
[02:11:06] That afternoon, we were taken into the courtyard with our fellow plantation garden prisoners
[02:11:09] from the cell next door.
[02:11:11] Film crews stood behind a couple of big old funky cameras set up on tripods.
[02:11:16] We stood and rose as instructed waiting for whatever might come.
[02:11:20] And order passed through the ranks.
[02:11:22] Hawke says if it's good news, no reaction, no smiles, no shouting, nothing for propaganda.
[02:11:29] Nope.
[02:11:30] I love that.
[02:11:31] He's just hard to the end.
[02:11:34] And then Doc who's the camp commander.
[02:11:37] He says he looks up and says the piece of agreement is signed.
[02:11:43] You all go home.
[02:11:45] He waited for us to cheer, nothing.
[02:11:47] He looked up apologetically at the film director.
[02:11:50] Then back to us with a hint of the scowl.
[02:11:52] And he goes through the whole points of what the piece of accord has in it.
[02:11:59] And as you read the remaining highlights all faded into a dull drone, I'd heard the most
[02:12:05] important one to me.
[02:12:06] The war's over.
[02:12:07] We're going home within 60 days.
[02:12:09] I made it.
[02:12:11] Thank you, God.
[02:12:13] We went back to ourselves.
[02:12:15] Yeah, that was, that was the major why I was going to do it getting the heads up.
[02:12:22] And then we confronted the guards in the next morning and they denied, no, no, no, no.
[02:12:26] And put the other in that afternoon.
[02:12:27] We got let out in the courtyard and got the agreements read to us.
[02:12:30] What a tremendous feeling.
[02:12:33] But it was a tremendous feeling and then stop just short there because we weren't home yet.
[02:12:39] We weren't going to believe it until it happened.
[02:12:41] Still at 60 days, 60 days.
[02:12:45] And they actually consolidate other prisoners now.
[02:12:47] Right.
[02:12:48] They started doing releases earlier on.
[02:12:49] It was supposed to be the longest held and most seriously injured that got out first.
[02:12:53] And then the releases were going to be spaced out in several groups over a period of 60
[02:12:57] days.
[02:12:58] Back to the book here.
[02:13:00] After the new group joined us, we'd hear God awful shrieks in the middle of the
[02:13:04] night.
[02:13:05] I thought it might be Ted Gostos, an intelligence officer captured in at way in 1968.
[02:13:11] He'd been hung from ropes, denied water, severely beaten for extended periods, bashed
[02:13:17] in the head with an AK-47 and kicked in the stomach in an effort to gain valuable intelligence
[02:13:21] he never revealed.
[02:13:23] Gostos was now a physical wreck who'd been driven to the precipice of insanity, sometimes
[02:13:28] dangling dangerously over its edge.
[02:13:32] But it wasn't Ted who was screaming in the night.
[02:13:36] It was Jim Thompson.
[02:13:39] Jim kept to himself.
[02:13:41] He was hard to get to know, but in time he began to open up to me and share some things
[02:13:46] about himself.
[02:13:48] He was only 39 years old and God he looked like hell.
[02:13:51] He'd been through more shit for a longer time than any other American soldier in history.
[02:14:02] And nine years, and you do a beautiful job of recounting the story that he told you.
[02:14:13] So this is the first person, the first person report of what happened.
[02:14:21] And again, it's an incredible, incredibly horrifying and heroic story that everybody needs
[02:14:31] to read about.
[02:14:34] And when he finishes telling you the story of how what he'd been through up to that point,
[02:14:40] I'm going back to book, I looked into his eyes and saw a troubled soul.
[02:14:45] He survived captivity for nearly nine years longer than any other American soldier in history.
[02:14:53] He did take in a lot from him.
[02:14:56] My God, Jim, that's incredible, I said.
[02:15:00] He smiled weekly and looked down.
[02:15:03] Prisoner releases began a few days later.
[02:15:08] Jim is truly an unsung American hero.
[02:15:10] Most Americans don't even know of him.
[02:15:14] The longest held American prisoner, military prisoner of war in history.
[02:15:21] I mean, most people don't know much about the Vietnam War anyway.
[02:15:24] There's not very much taught in our history books or classes, but those who do know
[02:15:28] something about the Vietnam War, if you ask them who the longest held prisoner was, they
[02:15:32] will respond Navy Lieutenant Ev Alvarez.
[02:15:37] Lieutenant Alvarez was the longest held prisoner shot down over North Vietnam.
[02:15:42] He was not the longest held prisoner from the Vietnam War.
[02:15:46] Jim Thompson has several months more time and captivity than Ev Alvarez.
[02:15:52] So I don't want to take anything away from Alvarez, but Jim never got the recognition
[02:15:59] really.
[02:16:00] I mean, it's been mentioned here and there, but as far as people realizing and giving
[02:16:02] him the honor that he deserved, never received that as being the longest held American
[02:16:08] military prisoner in history.
[02:16:11] And he's passed away now, a regrettable.
[02:16:13] Well, we will do our best to spread that word on here.
[02:16:16] I've actually ordered a book about him and I will make sure I spread the word to the best
[02:16:24] of my ability about his service in sacrifice and heroism.
[02:16:30] And the way you do it in here is an incredible tribute to what he went through as well.
[02:16:37] Now the days go by.
[02:16:41] They finally get you to pack up your gear.
[02:16:44] Give you some new clothes, put you on a bus, and take you out.
[02:16:49] And here we go.
[02:16:52] Back to the book.
[02:16:53] We milled around for half an hour talking to one of ourselves and getting no information
[02:16:56] from the guards.
[02:16:57] The staff car returned and we were soon back on the bus.
[02:17:01] Afraid we were heading back to the Hilton.
[02:17:04] But when we came to a row of derelict hangers, we knew we must be on Hanoi's
[02:17:09] Gai Lam, Gilaam Airport, used by enemy megfighters jets throughout the war.
[02:17:17] The bus turned at a shabby hanger with a rickety control tower at its side.
[02:17:23] I beheld one of the most wondrous sights I'd ever seen.
[02:17:27] Before us was a big, shiny, beautiful C141 met a backplane parked on the ramp.
[02:17:34] The American flag and a red cross were painted high on its tail.
[02:17:39] The words, US Air Force were printed boldly on the fuselage just behind the cockpit.
[02:17:46] I cannot describe the emotion that filled me.
[02:17:50] I can't even imagine.
[02:17:55] And you guys load up.
[02:17:58] Take off.
[02:17:59] And here we go back to the book.
[02:18:01] I was happy at anxious as the big jet rolled down the runway.
[02:18:06] Once airborne, we remained silent, absorbed in our thoughts.
[02:18:10] We seemed to be waiting for something.
[02:18:12] But none of us knew quite what it was until the pilot came on the intercom.
[02:18:19] Thought you would all like to know that we have just passed beyond Sam missile range.
[02:18:25] We erupted in a spontaneous cheer.
[02:18:28] I was overwhelmed with joy.
[02:18:31] It was real.
[02:18:32] We were free.
[02:18:34] We were going home.
[02:18:38] Nothing could stop that now.
[02:18:40] Yeah, we were really, even though we didn't consciously know it or talk about it, we
[02:18:46] didn't have the feeling that we were home free until that moment when the pilot came on
[02:18:53] it said because yeah, the missiles couldn't shoot us down.
[02:18:56] We were on our way ahead of the Philippines.
[02:19:02] I'm going to again skip through.
[02:19:05] We're running a little long on time.
[02:19:09] But one of the things I wanted to point out in here is that you got back.
[02:19:13] You're going through your in the hospital.
[02:19:14] You're going through somewhere you're recovery.
[02:19:18] You get asked to talk about taking you to talk to this group.
[02:19:21] Talk to that group and you're saying no, I don't want to talk to you.
[02:19:23] Don't want to talk to anybody.
[02:19:24] Don't want to talk to anybody.
[02:19:25] And finally, you get asked one more time and I'll go to the book.
[02:19:29] I just want to ask you please to consider one last time.
[02:19:33] This group is the Baton Corrigan or Survivors Association and they really want one of the
[02:19:38] returned Vietnam POWs to talk to them at their gathering tonight.
[02:19:44] You're the only one still here.
[02:19:46] I was blown away.
[02:19:47] Wait a minute.
[02:19:48] These are POWs who survived the Baton Death March and World War II and they want to hear
[02:19:52] about me after what they've been through.
[02:19:55] And of course, you agree to do it and this is the part that I wanted especially the
[02:20:00] Vets because a lot of Vets listen to this.
[02:20:04] By giving me an opportunity I couldn't refuse, they made me come out of my shell and speak
[02:20:09] publicly about what I'd been through.
[02:20:12] They opened the door to what would become the greatest therapy possible to help me deal with
[02:20:17] all that had happened to me.
[02:20:19] Many of my friends who have not been able to talk about what had happened to them have not
[02:20:25] re-adjusted well.
[02:20:26] Several still have major psychological issues haunting them.
[02:20:31] A couple of days later I got an invitation to speak to a high school assembly which I accepted.
[02:20:36] In the weeks and months ahead I'd be asked to talk to various groups and I'd agreed
[02:20:41] to do as many as I could.
[02:20:43] I strongly believe that the opportunity to share my experience has been one of the principal
[02:20:48] reasons I've been able to readjust and deal with life as well as I have.
[02:20:53] That coupled with my faith in God, love of family and my inherently optimistic nature.
[02:21:00] Yes, yes, yes.
[02:21:04] I can't.
[02:21:06] That is probably the greatest bit of advice that comes out of this book.
[02:21:12] I mean I came back.
[02:21:13] I didn't want to talk to anybody.
[02:21:14] I didn't think anybody could understand what I had to say and I think many vets have the
[02:21:20] same feeling.
[02:21:21] Just leave me alone.
[02:21:23] I will get through this and plus you don't know what I would have experienced and you
[02:21:28] can't understand if I try to tell you about it.
[02:21:32] First of all they can understand to a degree.
[02:21:34] No one will ever be able to understand everything that you've been through but they can
[02:21:37] understand to a degree and they do want to listen.
[02:21:39] Okay, that's the receiving end.
[02:21:41] For you to be able to share your experience.
[02:21:45] And for me over the years to share my experience again and again and again and even to write
[02:21:52] this book as painful as that process was is a therapeutic process.
[02:21:57] It's a healing process to be able to talk about what you've experienced.
[02:22:01] And if you think you have demons in your mind share those demons too.
[02:22:05] Talk about it.
[02:22:06] It certainly has helped me.
[02:22:07] And I'm doing well. I've been through a lot. I'm doing well and I think a huge part of
[02:22:13] that reason is thank you survivors of botanic rigotor because I couldn't say no to you.
[02:22:20] And by doing that it got me started talking about my experience.
[02:22:25] It's totally agree.
[02:22:26] I totally agree.
[02:22:27] It's a beautiful advice.
[02:22:31] And to close out the story here, you say in the book that you greet your children at
[02:22:39] the time, you greet your children every day with good morning.
[02:22:43] It's a beautiful day.
[02:22:46] And you explain why you do that in the book.
[02:22:52] And I quote, I truly believe that every day God has given me on this earth since I came
[02:22:59] home from captivity is a beautiful day.
[02:23:04] It doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing, windy or calm, hot or cold, sunny or
[02:23:11] overcast.
[02:23:14] Every day is a gift.
[02:23:18] Every day is beautiful.
[02:23:24] And that is certainly something that I learned in war.
[02:23:29] Not as vividly as you did by any stretch.
[02:23:33] But definitely something that I know to be true and something that I talk about all the
[02:23:38] time here.
[02:23:40] That when you see that darkness, the light is much more beautiful.
[02:23:54] And you put together in this book, the eight steps to survival in a few days.
[02:24:04] And those I wrote right after I got back, the book was written just in the last several
[02:24:10] years with those eight steps for survival.
[02:24:11] I put those to paper shortly after I returned.
[02:24:14] And what I love about these is as I read through them here, they're not just for survival
[02:24:20] in a POW camp.
[02:24:22] They're for life.
[02:24:23] They're for life.
[02:24:24] They've been tested in the absolute harshest of conditions in a POW camp, but they
[02:24:30] can be applied to life.
[02:24:32] And it's actually things I talk about all the time.
[02:24:36] And it's amazing that they are so much alignment.
[02:24:41] Number one, e.
[02:24:44] Sound simple, doesn't it?
[02:24:46] But when you've got a forestown, nothing but plain boiled rice day after day, month after
[02:24:50] month, EDD comes a difficult chore.
[02:24:53] And I'm found death easier.
[02:24:57] Now how does that apply to life for me?
[02:25:00] Eat the right food, eat healthy foods, boom, done.
[02:25:06] You want to stay healthy.
[02:25:10] Next one, practice personal hygiene.
[02:25:13] When you are sick and starving, it's hard to motivate yourself to keep your body and
[02:25:16] surroundings clean.
[02:25:18] Do the best you can with what you have.
[02:25:22] No fleets to disease and disease leads to death.
[02:25:28] And again, for me to apply this to life, this is about discipline and this is about routine.
[02:25:36] And this is about pride and maintaining those things.
[02:25:42] And even, you know, we've talked about one of those stories I talk about on here is the
[02:25:46] Russians fighting the chasions and one of the things that in the debriefs and the post-operational
[02:25:51] debriefs when they lost that first push down there.
[02:25:55] They said, you know, once the guy stopped shaving, right?
[02:25:58] Then they stopped taking care of the weapons and everything goes downhill.
[02:26:01] So what, to me, one of the things that this applies to, I mean, you're talking about it
[02:26:04] from also from a pure health perspective.
[02:26:08] Obviously.
[02:26:09] But it's also psychological factors.
[02:26:10] Yes.
[02:26:11] Yes.
[02:26:13] Number three exercise.
[02:26:17] Set up a daily exercise period.
[02:26:19] Do something.
[02:26:21] And if you are in stocks and chains, you can at least flex a few muscles and do some
[02:26:27] deep breathing.
[02:26:28] Okay.
[02:26:29] There is no more excuses ever, ever for not working out, for not doing something physical.
[02:26:38] Even if you're in stock, AIDS and chains.
[02:26:43] Yeah, not in a recliner with a TV.
[02:26:49] Believeable.
[02:26:52] Do not give up the fight to stay alive.
[02:26:54] This is number four.
[02:26:55] Do not give up this fight to stay alive.
[02:26:57] No matter how sick you are, how serious you wounds or how hopeless the situation is, there's
[02:27:02] always a chance you can make it.
[02:27:04] Take that chance with your deepest courage, fight for it.
[02:27:09] Then again, you'll apply this every day.
[02:27:12] Look at the opportunities you have.
[02:27:14] I mean, the opportunities that a normal person has.
[02:27:18] We don't even take advantage of those opportunities that we have.
[02:27:21] We don't even fight for those.
[02:27:22] Fight for those.
[02:27:27] Number five, establish communications with other prisoners.
[02:27:30] Use your initiative and imagination to make contact with others and then develop a chain
[02:27:35] of command.
[02:27:38] Build relationships with people.
[02:27:40] No.
[02:27:41] Build relationships with people.
[02:27:45] Number six, follow the code of conduct.
[02:27:49] You must know the code before you find yourself in a prison camp.
[02:27:53] Then you should adhere to the articles as strictly as possible.
[02:27:59] That doesn't mean it here perfectly.
[02:28:01] Because no one can adhere perfectly.
[02:28:03] But adhere as close as possible.
[02:28:05] If you waiver, come back to it.
[02:28:07] Don't waiver and think that you've failed and then just cave in and give in.
[02:28:13] That's one of the things again we were talking on the way over here.
[02:28:17] That was one of the changes after the experiences that you all had is what initiated those
[02:28:21] changes in the code of conduct to give it some flexibility.
[02:28:26] So that people could bounce back from and say, oh, you know, yesterday didn't make it.
[02:28:31] Today is a new day.
[02:28:33] I think that attitude is perfect for everyday life.
[02:28:37] You fall off the wagon on something.
[02:28:38] Okay.
[02:28:39] That doesn't get back on it.
[02:28:41] Number seven, keep the faith.
[02:28:47] Faith in your family, your religion and your country may be all that keeps you alive and
[02:28:53] sane.
[02:28:54] Hang in there.
[02:28:56] You are not forgotten.
[02:29:02] That needs no explanation.
[02:29:04] And number eight, maintain a sense of humor.
[02:29:12] This is difficult, but both possible and necessary.
[02:29:17] A bit of humor helps keep away fits of total depression.
[02:29:23] And remember, depression can kill.
[02:29:28] So yes.
[02:29:29] And I'd practice what I've preached by my poor family and close friends.
[02:29:34] Oh, my very crazy six cents a year.
[02:29:36] But I do have one.
[02:29:38] And I did, throughout, and I give a couple examples in the book where it's a very
[02:29:41] dire times, I would come up with a stupidest humor.
[02:29:44] But I'd like to tell you.
[02:29:47] Well, I've talked about that as well.
[02:29:49] And we would be in the worst situations possible.
[02:29:52] And always someone would be laughing about something.
[02:29:55] And that's what, like you said, that's what keeps the spirit going and keeps you on
[02:30:00] the same side of things as to have fun with it.
[02:30:04] Is there anything that any points that I missed?
[02:30:07] I mean, again, I know I missed a lot of points.
[02:30:10] Anything else that you would recommend or you wanted to bring up?
[02:30:15] I don't think you missed anything, Jack.
[02:30:17] You covered the book very thoroughly.
[02:30:21] The title is Through the Valley, My Captivity and Vietnam.
[02:30:24] And I'm saying that because I hope that this book will be of benefit and value to others.
[02:30:33] And that's really what drove me to finish the book.
[02:30:35] I started it.
[02:30:36] And I was wondering why I was writing it.
[02:30:37] But I think when the whole thing is put together, it's a story of hope and the power of hope
[02:30:43] and how anyone can face very adverse conditions, challenges in life.
[02:30:49] Be they guys coming back with PTSD from combat, be it just a single mother somewhere with
[02:30:56] problems, others with difficulties.
[02:30:58] I think in reading this book, you can come out of it with hope.
[02:31:03] And hopefully with motivation to overcome those difficulties and have a full, wonderful and
[02:31:12] beautiful life because it is a beautiful thing.
[02:31:15] If we'll just grab a hold of that beauty and go for it and not dwell on whatever negative
[02:31:20] aspects there might be.
[02:31:23] There's no doubt.
[02:31:24] And even though I did a may have done a thorough job, I read less than 10%, much less than
[02:31:31] 10%.
[02:31:32] There's so much more that you went through that you experienced and the other people that
[02:31:37] you talk about who went through what they went through.
[02:31:42] It's a phenomenal book.
[02:31:44] It's a phenomenal book through the Valley, my captivity and Vietnam.
[02:31:47] There'll be a link for it.
[02:31:49] Yes.
[02:31:50] So you can go to the website and get right and get it ordered.
[02:31:55] You guys know the deal.
[02:31:56] Do it quick.
[02:31:57] So you made a copy.
[02:31:58] Yes, I should add one thing because we talked about a lot of the negative stuff in the
[02:32:01] book.
[02:32:02] It does have a happy ending.
[02:32:03] The happy ending at the end of this book is Melanie Ross Reader, my wife.
[02:32:09] And that the love story is in there and how we came together.
[02:32:13] But she and then the two younger kids we talked about Spencer and Vicki, but also Chad and
[02:32:19] Chelsea have brought such a joy to my life and brought this whole journey to a conclusion.
[02:32:25] So there's the power of hope and there's also the power of love that comes out at the end
[02:32:30] of this.
[02:32:31] It's absolutely, it's beautiful.
[02:32:34] It's a great book.
[02:32:37] And I can't even begin to express how appreciative that we are for you coming here and sharing
[02:32:45] the story with us, your determination, and your heroism.
[02:32:50] I could literally sit here and listen to you indefinitely.
[02:32:56] And so thank you.
[02:32:58] I know you have worked to attend to and I dragged you out here when you're already working
[02:33:04] hard.
[02:33:06] Thanks to you, thanks to your cousin Ryan Summers who actually contacted us through the
[02:33:13] interwebs and linked us up together.
[02:33:15] So thanks to Ryan for doing that, appreciate it and actually echo speaking of the interwebs.
[02:33:22] If anybody wants to support this podcast, is there any way that they could do that?
[02:33:27] Yes.
[02:33:28] A little bit, actually one question.
[02:33:29] We're going to go back with broken.
[02:33:31] Thank you.
[02:33:32] Lower back.
[02:33:33] Yeah, TL1, T12, L2 all in there.
[02:33:38] I'm few as I was, well we didn't get it all my surgeries after him back, but I'm all
[02:33:42] fused together and wired together in my back.
[02:33:45] I was going to ask what did you eat the whole time, but just rice on the whole time?
[02:33:49] Well, I'll tell you I got to hand over and then I said the bean sprouts was ready.
[02:33:52] What I found is they keep that diet for about three weeks running.
[02:33:56] So I had nothing of a bean sprouts both times away for three weeks, then we get pumpkin soup,
[02:34:00] cabbage soup, Corabi and Corabi is the only thing I don't really care for.
[02:34:06] Since I came to love rice actually, but that was partly psychological because I had to eat
[02:34:09] it.
[02:34:10] So I do truly love rice today.
[02:34:12] That's kind of vegetarian diet.
[02:34:15] More or less.
[02:34:16] Yeah, yeah.
[02:34:17] My cholesterol was very low on the diet.
[02:34:19] Yeah, yeah.
[02:34:20] Yeah, yeah.
[02:34:21] Okay.
[02:34:22] Yes, interwebs.
[02:34:25] So let me talk about on its supplementation real quick.
[02:34:31] Best supplements in the world on it, you want 10% off on it.com's less jacco.
[02:34:37] If your joints are killing you or if they're degenerating, whatever, cruel oil I recommend
[02:34:43] also a bunch of performance stuff which is like I said before supplements a lot of the
[02:34:49] time can be junk.
[02:34:51] These ones you know 100% they're the good ones.
[02:34:54] Okay, on it.com's less jacco get 10% off.
[02:34:57] Another good way to support is the Amazon click through that we always talk about.
[02:35:01] It's basically before you do your Amazon shopping.
[02:35:04] Click through the website, this little Amazon shop banner.
[02:35:07] Click through there then to your shopping and then you know that it supports that way.
[02:35:11] Real good on.
[02:35:12] Subscribe on iTunes if you haven't already.
[02:35:15] I think most people have, but in the event of you not having subscribed already do that
[02:35:20] and leave a review if you're in the mood.
[02:35:23] And we have a YouTube channel if you didn't know that I post some we post some videos.
[02:35:31] Some jacomic nuggets little excerpts of the podcast that you know little lessons if they
[02:35:36] don't want to listen to the whole thing you know two hours or whatever they can listen to
[02:35:40] short short little nuggets if you will.
[02:35:43] Anyway, other inspirational videos put some music to you know you know people seem to
[02:35:48] enjoy.
[02:35:49] And without YouTube jacobot guess YouTube channel subscribe if you haven't already.
[02:35:53] We do have a store if you're into t-shirts, rash guards, other stuff anyway.
[02:36:01] Check out that stuff it's jacobotstore.com.
[02:36:04] A little bit more efficient of a process now with that.
[02:36:07] So basically you get something now it gets you way quicker long story but it's solid
[02:36:14] now.
[02:36:15] So yeah it'll be a good experience.
[02:36:18] Not that it wasn't a good experience before but it'll be a better experience.
[02:36:22] We'll say quicker about that maybe not necessarily better or worse the quicker.
[02:36:26] Anyway jacobotstore.com see if you like any of the shirts or whatever you don't get one of those
[02:36:30] you can support that way.
[02:36:31] There's some women stuff on there.
[02:36:33] Some patches, rash guards, hoodies you know cool stuff discipline equals freedom that's
[02:36:37] the thing.
[02:36:38] Anyway psychological warfare if you're a running into trouble if you're getting you know
[02:36:43] you're trying to work out and you know you feel weakness like oh I'm gonna skip today
[02:36:47] or I'm having trouble waking up in the morning or just maintaining discipline one day
[02:36:51] two days whatever much you do is you go search iTunes right psychological warfare by
[02:36:56] jacobot willink.
[02:36:59] Get one of the get the album.
[02:37:00] It'll have any weakness you have right there jacobot help you through it every single
[02:37:05] time squash.
[02:37:06] Yeah every single time 100% effective this.
[02:37:10] Yeah yeah yeah those are the ways to support.
[02:37:17] While you're clicking through Amazon again pick up this book right here there you go pick
[02:37:22] up this book through the valley my captivity in Vietnam by William Reader.
[02:37:32] It's unbelievable book cover to cover it's an unbelievable book so get it.
[02:37:39] Get yourself a copy of extreme ownership if you don't have it by it if you do have it
[02:37:45] if you do have it by one for all your subordinates your boss and your boss's boss do it
[02:37:52] immediately.
[02:37:55] And jacobot you can get on Amazon you can also pre-order if you want way of the warrior
[02:38:01] kid order it now order it now so you can get a copy of it when it comes out of the
[02:38:06] war.
[02:38:10] If you haven't signed up for the master New York City May 4th and 5th do it this week
[02:38:15] price is going up Friday so so get after it come to the master.
[02:38:23] And if you want to give us feedback or comments or continue this conversation you can
[02:38:29] find us on the inner web's Twitter, Instagram, Beth Facebookie we are there.
[02:38:38] Are you on social media also?
[02:38:40] Hi I'm there's a I think is William Reader Jr is the Facebook page nice.
[02:38:47] So friend or follow William Reader Jr and you'll connect with the kernel here.
[02:38:59] Echo is ad echo Charles I am at jacobo will link echo do you have anything else to add?
[02:39:04] Is it thank you so much honor sir anything else you you want to add?
[02:39:11] No thank you both for what you do with this wonderful podcast and indeed it was it was my honor
[02:39:16] to be here and be a part of this.
[02:39:20] Well sir that's I don't even know how to respond to that thanks again to Ryan Summers
[02:39:26] for linking this up it has been an absolute honor thank you for coming on thank you for writing
[02:39:35] this book thank you for talking to us today but more important thank you for your service
[02:39:43] to this great nation thank you for stepping up and going forward into the fray over and over again.
[02:39:56] Thank you for your incredible determination and discipline and your unrelenting will not only
[02:40:07] to survive but to do so with honor and with dignity and with humility and finally thank you
[02:40:20] for giving all of us all of us an example to follow and for reaffirming to us that
[02:40:34] despite the darkness and the evil in the world and despite the discomforts and the hardships
[02:40:44] we face and the challenges that all people must confront despite all that thank you for making
[02:40:56] sure that we remember without question that it doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing
[02:41:07] windy or calm sunny or overcast every day is a gift every day is beautiful
[02:41:22] and we will remember that and so until next time this is Colonel William Reader and Echo
[02:41:48] Jeffeted