ASG-TV Episode 1 with Tu Lam from Ronin Tactics

welcome to American Survival Guide television with your host Amber Hargrove hi guys and welcome right now I have the one and only tool am brother thank you so much for joining us here at American Survival Guide how are you absolutely good morning thank you for inviting me definitely we are incredibly excited you are on the cover of the April magazine that is in stores right now for people to purchase which is a phenomenal shot I got to experience new firsthand in your training it was one of the greatest experience I've had I got to say thank you yeah thank you I'm glad you enjoy and I had a great time teaching you and then training in that was definitely fun so when we talk about you we got to know the real to limb which was really inspiring to many people as they read the article in about your journey and you're an amazing person not just you as a human being but what you give to the world itself so when we talk about ronin tactics can you just give a brief synopsis of it so that we can talk about that yeah Ronin tactics well actually it was my Johnny after you know my time and service and war it was my you know kind of getting over and putting that the war to to peace and doing so I started reaching out to the public I started going teaching law enforcement you know during my time as Special Forces you know I saw you know have seen what happens to two untrain you know in these third-world countries and I just want to give back you know I want to get back my philosophies my experience my life and hopefully they can take these tools and better themselves as a human being I definitely appreciate that and especially when I first met you I wanted to know you as a person and greet the storyline but it was more than just a story it was a huge adventure for you I mean you started out so little as a refugee are you okay if we talked about that yeah absolutely can you tell us this story about you coming over in a boat yeah absolutely so I was born in December 17 in 1974 the Americans pretty much withdrew at that time due north enemies the Communists regime's started surrounding Saigon that's the city I was born in my mother told me the morning I was born we were taking Hotel refire in to around that in the city of Saigon she she showed in my body the morning I was born so pretty much I was born in war from from the get-go the North Vietnamese eventually took over Saigon and started influence their communist ideologies upon the South Vietnamese people and unfortunately my uncles that served in the Vietnamese Army that war a coalition force with the Americans on when the Americans withdrew they're the enemies so my my uncle's were some of them were executed and the rest were imprisoned and that what they call reeducation camps so basically they're there reading you on the communist ideologies you my mother said there's no way in hell that her two sons are ever going to grow up to be communists so my my grandfather took his life savings and basically smugglers out of country so under cover of darkness one night we went into a wooden fishing boat imagine what a fishing boat looks like you know a small kitchen where it's not a it's not like a luxury fishing boat it was a wooden bowl of fishing boat stuff with hundreds of refugees and I'm I was basically in the bottom of the boat and the first the first thing we had to do was escape the the pie tree that was going on so you you have to think like the North enemies took over South Vietnam there are fleeing refugees so with the fleeing refugees we took everything we had basically my mother layer this would close so I think I had three outfits layered on me because that's the only thing we had that's the only clothing that we had to sustain us on this trip that many died it was thousands of people died during this gave a bit nom but my mother was willing to bet her life Annalise you know on the escape I think what was unique about this whole story was you know like I said the Pyatt Rita came in so you have to think that Thailand you know Indonesia and all these all these bandits are coming in to rape pillage and kill the escaping refugees well when we escaped that night my mother told me the pie tree was going on there trying to look for the ships the fishermen that ran our bow cut off our lights and we we basically skip sail through the pine tree so that was our first adventure our second adventure was we went into Malaysia where you have to think there's thousands of refugees escaping Vietnam so these other countries don't want to deal with housing refugees and you know think about Syria right I don't think about the modern-day Syria where people are scaping they're getting killed so we finally made to Malaysia my mother told me that they stopped us on the beach and kept us in a group we didn't come from money you know we barely escaped and my mother said that is separated to rich people from the poor unfortunately we're part at the poor group and they load us back on boats and and they they basically said that we America accepted us and it drugged us back out into the ocean they shot her engine cut the lines and left us there to die right so basically we were floating on this wooden fishing boats with no engine in Israel in the middle of Pacific Ocean you know so my mother told me that people started dying from starvation dehydration they started throwing the dead bodies over to bows and my mother said that we got caught up in a storm it was a huge storm right and here in her story amber it was amazing because you you're survivalists you know and the the amount of things that she had to go through like she drank her own urine you know that's survival right so we drifted further further on the Oh should I ask my mother how long it would refer she said she lost kappa at least two weeks at least Renee so you think about that right um during that time there was a Russian supply boat that was leaving Vietnam now a Russian supply below alright communist regime that's what we escaped from they were leaving Vietnam and they saw us kind of floating around in the middle of the ocean so they stopped and then they they got a hold of our basically the de captain and said hey if we were going into Vietnam we would have grabbed you and put you back in the Vietnam but since we're leaving we're going to take you guys and take you out of it not all right so you know I think back amber on that story you know and it really played out in my life because this this is a pivoting point you know they always said you know two to four is what shapes a person's character you know so two to four I was escaping Vietnam and what I want to go with this is this this calmness regime that took us out of our country that killed my uncle was they in prison was the same people the same you see that is insane so that's that's my first lesson on humanity and that's stuck with me you know I know I was only two and I don't remember a lot of it but that energy stuck with me so they took us into Indonesia right and they threw us in a refugee camp now when I say refugee camp amber it's a plot of land in the jungle in a grass hut and you live off that land they don't give you food they don't give you water right so a lot of thousands of people die you know on these ridden these refugee camps because they will get rape murder you know robbed so it's all about survival you know my mother she's the strong spirited lady is she's the survivalist you know so she lived off the land you know she she found food she willed and deal you know with the rich people she she was able to my mother tell me she was able to take jewelry from the rich people and go to these bandits who would kill her in a heartbeat and resell the jewelry collection and get the the royalties off of do now because the rich people are too scared of to deal with the bandits you see that's my mother is is a really strong individual and um I asked her I said mom how long did we stay in different refugee camp she said to your Hannah so I want you to hear that a year and a half we lived off the land I understand there's a really long time that's a long time to live in the grass hut in the land surviving around people that are willing to murder and kill you and I asked my mom why so long she said that you know when we escaped Vietnam she said you know the first the first country to accept it was Australia they say hey you're welcome in our country and then she kept on talking and she said then Canada came and say hey we accept you in our country as a refugee and and then I said why didn't you go and she said you know I promised your grandfather then I'll reunite with my sister in America oh and you know what I want to say this because my my odds right my aunt married a Special Forces Green Beret lieutenant he was in America he fought the war there gee base got over and by the vidcon's he was stabbed by a bayonet in ribs he was evacuated out Vietnam and he was this badass Green Beret and my mother said he expedited the paperwork he wrote a letter to the sponsor to get us into America so it took a year and a half right and then we came to Fayetteville North Carolina which is right outside of the biggest military base especially Special Operations in all of America right so I landed there that's that was my that was my home outside of the Special Forces biggest Special Forces military base so my mother eventually remarried they you know my biological father and my mother didn't work out you know so my mother eventually remarried to American Special Forces Green Beret he was a sergeant at 8 years old I was indoctrinated into Special Forces and when I say that was he were literally my training starting today I was I would wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning I would run through the backwoods of Fort Bragg I would learn weapons would speak different languages I would raise the American flag in the morning you know and and just and understand the culture in the history so my my upbringing where you have to think like Vietnam was in the popular war it was the first war that the media was able to get into a war zone and they threw their spin on it so very unpopular war right so think about a lot of veterans that came back how they were treated now I want to say this I'll bet amis they don't know North enemies or South enemies they just see me as this person right there that looks different well eternities it's very racist times you know and I dealt with racism at the extreme level I was beaten daily I was bullied I was called all sorts of names you know I didn't have any friends growing up but you know I I didn't have time for friends because my father would work us we we had a company it was a family company that my grandfather my step-grandfather started after the Korean War so after a Korean War he seek to seek peace in him and he started this this welding country my father was in the Special Forces and he designed in assault ladders for Tier one units and I was at at 12 years old I'm in his shop the Burling assault ladders you know I couldn't know what I was doing but you know what was interesting was I told my father and I say that my picture when I was fighting our Iraq war I was carrying these assault ladders on me yeah right so growing up was very hard we wake up to 5 o'clock in the morning to the national anthem I would raise the flag I knew - ballade - Green Beret at 8 years old I learned navigation you know all this so I didn't have friends my friends were two Green Berets so all these like legendary macd saw sautée Raiders and he would come into her house and I would hear these stories at 8 years old you know about what they did and did not so I grew up to that life and I would say 13 was the age I knew I was going to be a green beret I would never tell my mother that you know and the reason why was I I knew that that was my ticket to go back right now told her that I said that I can go back in and I could help and she never wanted for me you know she said I escaped you from Vietnam you know you're just perfect child you're smart school why now down a midol I dunno you know it was that energy he was 2 years old Wendy when the Russians look past look past race look past the war and looked at at us as a human being you know so I knew that the green Bernice was smart to take it back in and I trained from 13 years old I started trying because I knew my path you know so uh academically we're doing my brother and I we we had a very strict upbringing education and work that was it right so that's what we did my brother became a doctor and I became a commando at 18 years old I went in join the army there was no direct hire into the Green Berets back down you have to be a sergeant 85 and you have to have at least five years an army they want a little bit of maturity to go to the team so I went to 282nd and I did roughly a year there with the scouts and then I went a long-range reconnaissance unit where I was assigned to a gibbous reconnaissance team I did that for two years and as soon as I met the minimum requirement for the Green Berets I dropped my package I went to Special Forces suspect selection I went into the weapons course and that took about roughly eight months and I went through you know did the more advanced training like sere training and everything else and and now my first duty station was Okinawa Japan well I I wanted to leave home I wanted to get away you know I needed to get away from that environment and I knew that so I volunteered for Okinawa Japan and I went out there to Okinawa and that's where I started understanding that Bushido code I was always a martial artist the Bushido code is a samurai code of ethics that arrived from the war same pairs of Japan so you think about Japan under the who appears war peers of Japan they fought civil war for over 200 years and along with that came a ethics for a lawyer a code living and I read that as a child but when I was in Japan I felt an energy you know so I started studying more into the green berets unconventional warfare as in my 20s I deployed eight to ten months out of here all through Asia and I lived with people you know I went in to come when Indonesia and it's in Malaysia I went in all of these countries Thailand and you know what SCOE amberle is I'll tell you my first mission right my first mission was a demining mission out in Laos so during the war we Americans dropped thousands thousands of landlords through the rice paddies you know jungles jumbo floors so what was happening was these children now what play around in these rice paddies and they were getting on up right and I remember them sitting us in I was CD's amputees these children and I came over the helicopter I was walking with my linguist my turtle and this little girl came running up to me and she said something I didn't understand our language so I had I was ready I had bags of tendons right candy I threw at her and then she shook her head and I asked the Terp I'm like what is she saying he says she wants a pencil so I looked I grabbed a pencil I gave it to her she kissed me on the cheek and ran off they don't have pens or pencils they don't have paper so I thought about that and that night I constructed a jungle antenna and I drafted an email asking for school supplies to be dropped into this fuzzy and we rebuild that village we gave him running water gave him education as I was teaching the village how to demining dslam how to find his land mines and how did he mine it so these kids can have an opportunity to grow now that's the Special Forces you see it's not it's yes we go to war and we respond our enemies but that's the difference you know we we are embedded with the people you know and I knew that at a very young age my time in Special Forces in first group eventually I want to work when I served in a classified assignment and then fought a war there during a hideout of war Iraq war and I started pushing out into the global pursuit on the enemies and then I retired out with 10th Special Forces Group and I started my journey so this is where bronan came to be you know people always ask me you know - you know what a Ronin is it's a master samurai that's shameful you know and I know samurai history 2dt and I know what his status of a ronin is you see turn during my dark years you know I thought fourteen and a half years of war I did 23 years of service to my country and you know there there is emotional ties to certain regions and I have lost friends you know so I face my dark times and during that dark time I picked up a book it was called the book of line rings by Miyamoto Musashi and it was this Ronin who wrote this literature back in the year 1645 you see he was born in late 1500s and he was a master listen he walked his own path and he was so lethal that he he started a style called Ichirou which is dual swords he's famous throughout history and he he meditated for three years umbrella Kapooka fire rings in this Buddhist cave ten days after he finished his work he died that was horrible that was his life's work you say ten days after writing it ten days but he was he was older he was older during that time he meditated for during the book when I was reading about him he knew that he was coming down with a sickness and he meditated for three years found his peace and wrote the book now this book was a literature I picked it up in the year 2013 and now that literature his words is was allowed me the strength to to move past war and that's why I caught myself because now I need to find my internal strength right and through my my individual strength of my path of things I am masters I'm free to do whatever I want right and what I want to do is I want to travel around America and I want to help those you know just like I help those oppressed around the world you know as a green beret I want to give my life lessons I want to share my experiences and maybe in this process I can help them find their way because miyamoto musashi wrote this book in 1645 his words allow me to come a modern-day ronin so I feel that I can like him help others by giving him my struggles my life right because you know through the struggles we define ourselves right that's right so that's that's really the Ronan path I did design some gear and equipment when I was overseas fighting the world as a green beret were not happy with our gear I don't think we're ever be happy with regardless of what we do it's always something we find we're like we wish we have this better or whatever the case may be so I get that yeah yeah so in oh six we were climbing over walls doing direct action operations and our belts are gun belts with telling us when I say filling us it would move on us it was shift on us a lot of did the gun dose at that time was designed on the flat range we know in combat a flat range of two different animals so on a small War Journal I drafted a blueprint of what became the Ronin delt you know and during my time when when I started getting over to war and I became Ronin my father asked me to write down my thoughts about war in journals I have cases of journals where I wrote down the hard days during a war losses good times you know places not being I drew pictures of palaces jungles I mean you name it right I have on and I was during my recovery process of the war I started breaking out these channels and I remember reading my thoughts and emotions during you know losses for my friends and then I opened up a page and there was that blue print of this belt hole perfect right and I'm like wow there it is still my father you know he runs a company so I was able to manufacture it and then now all majority of the Tier one and socom special operations are running my gear look at the room using your gear by the way because every time I try to even get any of your gear they sell out so quickly gosh you know because the Army Navy picked us up and you know it's just trying to supply those guys but you know amber what really what really makes me feel good about running is that I'm still giving back man like I you know to gear is saving their lives overseas I had messages from Rangers and say hey look dude your belt is on point you know you know and uh and it's it's helping us out on the battlefield so I feel like to a certain extent I'm still helping my military I'm also traveling around America to to do fundraisers to to try to get more money for our combat veterans so they can receive better medical treatment I do go to the green beret a Navy SEAL foundations to help the families of the Fallen because I mean after the husband's gone what we're gonna do so we donate money and we try to get celebrities for fundraisers to try to give back in down arena I'm also filming in Hollywood and there's other projects that we're gonna do later on this year but the training venues has picked up you know so it's it's been a really great journey you know - after after my time and serve and I feel like this evolution of my life you know how dedicated towards peace you know and and that's that's the person I want to live and die us you know I I was really I was born in more it my whole life is war my daddy came my life to that so now at this stage in my life is about peace and is about trying to give people that energy to allow them to protect themselves rights right that knowledge so that's kind of like a snapshot of who I am in my turn well you covered so much and there's so much more I learned about you I think every time I get a chance to speak with you and you are so inspirational so many people out there as well as the military and veterans out there in general a lot of people have so much respect for you because of what you do you are I just read this book called the go giver and you you remind me of it so much so I have so much respect for you and what you bring to the table just in the training in general gives like to so many I mean there was so many different ages that came to your training from single women to older men and their 50s or 60s and I was like wow I was just watching these people train with you and they got motivated they were like I can protect myself and you're instilling that in them which was how you were born into war you were told you have to survive and your mother big shout out to her much love what an amazing woman she should be given mother of the Year award just throwing that out there you know it's funny but my mother is you know she she never wanted me to join the military in fact Special Forces was something she said absolutely not join the military but we'd be some technical guy or or be work in the medical field and I knew that wasn't me you know I love my mother I respect her but I know my path you know you can that's what I want to say to the viewers is that you have to understand your path you have to listen to yourself don't listen to their I know parents love them but you can't live your life right underneath the opinions and judgement honors you have to listen to yourself long as it's an oval path you have to listen to yourself you know and and that's why I try to tell students it's not about all this combat and all this physical fitness and all that is about life is about living you know and it's about achieving to become the person you wish to be in definitely and the one thing that I took away from the training which I appreciated most was at the very end of it we did the graduate and you sat each individual down and you gave them counseling's and it for me it was like a guidance counselor I got a chance to talk to you about my career and about what you view me as and how you interpreted me and you were on point everything that you said you're like I watched this this and that's not like oh my gosh this guy just read me in three days just for my combat training I was so impressed and everybody who graduated that class was said they everybody has to attend your training do they recommend it I mean your classes fill up all the time it makes them feel like they're part of a family so thank you for bringing that to just giving back in general to get people that peace that they need so but you are on fire you're on TV you have an amazing military career your upbringing you have a beautiful wife by the way who enjoy giving a shot under heard absolutely she's the driving force behind the supporting force but she's also the business side of Ronan's you know she handles a lot of administrative stuff to to allow me time to do what I need to do with the audience with the fans with the students whatever you know I mean so she allows me that I'm very thankful for that we're so grateful to have you and if anybody's watching this interview you definitely got to pick up the magazine American Survival Guide you can get it in tons of different stories out there with a picture of this guy's face on it right here and inside of it we go behind the scenes with your training and what a blast thank you so much for allowing us into your life in your world so thank you you have anything you want to say to your fans no I just want to say you know hey thank you for always you know supporting me and being there it's it's a mutual thing you know it's it's not me just giving you guys giving back to me and and I really appreciate a really feeling the support and the love and I want to say thank you I also want to you know dedicate this article to my parents you know the one that gave me opportunity in life and raised me right and you know one thank my mother for her bravery you know her strength and also my wife that always supports me has always been there to to get it done and also you know now in business you know so I want to thank that thank you for her or allowed me the training to you and I thought it was a great experience and I want to every moment it I loved all that even the Bruce is walking away go scream kidding it was wonderful thank you brother so much for everything and we will definitely stay in touch with you and watch you throughout your career and you were just a rock star so thank you no thank you I forgot the designers

Channel: Americansurvival Guide

Views: 11,269

Rating: 4.9221411 out of 5

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Id: GYCJ9aFcHrA

Length: 31min 44sec (1904 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 11 2020