Ed Kugler Marine Scout-Sniper, Ep. 57

okay we are live uh i am here with our special guest ed coogler on the team house i'm jack murphy i just recently read ed's book dead center uh it is about his time his two years as a marine scout sniper in vietnam 1966 and 67 up on the uh demilitarized zone and um there's a lot to unpack on this book i finished reading it this week i was really impressed with uh ed's book his combat experiences and really just the the rawness of uh of his memoir that is really written as he experienced it it's not a glamorized or glorified account of war by any stretch of the imagination it kind of tells it is and how he lived it as a young man um so ed thank you so much for uh joining us today thank you i'm i'm looking forward to it appreciate it um could you start by uh just telling us a little bit about like where you grew up how you came into the marine corps um where you came out of yeah i grew up in a little town in ohio it was called lock 17 it was the 17th lock they say on the old erie canal and we had about 75 people there and uh but i was surrounded in that little town by veterans from world war ii you know so i grew up with a lot of people that you know impressed me and impacted me and i actually there's no kidding i actually did a book report in the fifth grade called the story of the u.s marines and from that time forward i wanted to be a marine so two weeks after high school graduation i was in paris island and that was quite a shock yeah i i thought that whole part of the the book was really interesting and you were talking about how you sort of went to vietnam chasing the marines that you read about in fifth grade i did i actually did i i got uh my first combat was down in santa domingo in april 1965 they had a little uprising there and we were on a caribbean cruise headed to panama for uh jungle training and so we did a landing there and went in the city and so i got wounded there along with uh 36 other marine we had four killed in about it all happened in about four hours it was over after that primarily and when i was laying on the hospital ship i thought maybe i made a mistake you know you you get hurt doing this stuff hey you you know it that was a very interesting part of the book for me because the uprising of the dominican republic at the time is something that you sort of read about in passing in other books or articles uh but reading you you were the first first-hand account that i had ever read of what happened that day and like you were really in the [ __ ] like you came in there and they dropped ramp and like they're you were under heavy machine gun fire in the middle of the capital city like there was some serious stuff that you were in yeah it was real intense like i said for you know probably the most intense for a couple of hours you know and uh yeah i mean they put us in well we got pinned down crossing a into old san domingo and then uh they brought amtrak in and picked us up and turned around and went right dropped the gates right in front of that dirty cow on the roof and i followed one of my fire team leaders i was a grunt grunt at the time and i followed him through a playglass window he put his rifle out crashed crashed through because we had to get out of the street you know and there was a guy and his wife and uh two little kids in there and uh we kind of dusted ourselves off and left you know i mean it was it was you know first time it was just chaos you know it's always chaos but you learned to live with it but this was a shock because there was live bullets flying but how come that experience didn't deter you and you continued on i mean you uh you actually volunteered for vietnam i did i uh i came home from santa domingo and and uh was in the hospital short time and and uh i don't know the guys from vietnam started returning to lejeune which didn't really supply people for vietnam you know legend was kind of for europe and uh they started coming home talking about you know helicopter or a jet setting fields on fire and you know just all the glory of war you know that's not real but you hear it and uh uh something in me just said i gotta go and so uh i volunteered and was uh was gone um pretty quick after that took about six weeks i was on the west coast and went through jungle training in the desert you know they didn't have a jungle in california and uh it was real fast and uh and then i went over on a ship and then we went into da nang and then we were supposed to be replacements our ship was 900 marines and they were supposed to be replacements for people rotating home or killed and that's when my the staff sergeant gunny started that was starting the scout snipers that's when they came around that morning looking for uh volunteers and then how did you as a grunt you know arriving you know fresh in vietnam how did you find your way into scout snipers because it was one of those things where um it was one of those specialty positions that the military both army marines i think you know that we we did away with after every single war yeah and they the marines had done that as well and they were just uh when i arrived they were just starting to start to scout snipers up again and so i was um these uh gunny and the staff sergeant um came around to each we you know we were organized in platoons the 900 of us you know we were laid out on the beach to be get our name called to go which grunt outfit we were going to and to each group these guys came around making a pitch that they were starting a scout sniper school and and you had to have already been an expert on the rifle range you know you had to already be qualified as an expert which i was and then you had to pass an interview with these two and so uh i i honestly got made a calculated decision that i didn't know what that was exactly but i knew it was probably better than charging machine and i thought i don't know what this is but give me a little more control and uh that was my honest to god that was my motivation and uh and so uh there was that that may have been the difference between you being already a combat veteran and a lot of the other guys standing in the formation that day is kind of like you had already charged into machine gun fire kind of like yeah i don't know i don't know about all that yes and and out of all those marines there was only um there was uh about two dozen volunteered is awful and then they chose 11 of us and uh and one of the reasons i know that because i'm still friends with the staff sergeant again he's retired marina but but one of the reasons i was chosen was that i had combat experience so we that afternoon we were put on a helicopter and flown up to fubai which is just outside away and that's where the fourth marines were and so it was a regime at that point the sniper platoon was regimental level uh reported under the kernel and the design was that we would be divvied out to the three battalions of fourth marines the way it worked out we'd be divvied out to whoever needed this you know so we ended up sometimes with south vietnamese sometimes i never worked with the us army i only worked but i worked with a lot of different marine units you know but our training we got there and our training was really simple we were the first group ever trained in a combat zone snipers and so we had a range set up in a little draw outside of uh you could see our base at fu by but we'd go out there and and all our targets were was they had engineers go out and put tent stakes those metal tent stakes in and they'd put a 105 canister shell canister of a artillery shell on each state and it started at 300 and went 400 500 all the way out to a thousand and the way we worked we'd go out at those 600 every morning and we lay there with a partner and i'd shoot for 30 minutes each shoot for 30 minutes then eat shoot then i shift it we did that until 1600 every day for a month and uh that was that was sniper's group and it was only the second course run in vietnam right yes yeah there was one at chulai before us which is south of da nang and then we were the second and um and we we were supposed to have 30 i think it was 30 or 32 snipers in the platoon but we honestly never have more than 18 or 19 the whole two years and uh go ahead i i was just going to ask um if you could talk a little bit about the the weapons platforms that you had at that time because it was quite early on in the program yeah we the choice of rifles at that time was either a winchester model 70 30 odd six and it had a four inch extended barrel on it and it had um a uh floating barrel it had it and it had a real heavy stock and they called it a bowl barrel it was real heavy and uh weighed about it weighed about 17 or 18 pounds it was not like and the other rifle was an m1 that was it that was our two choices and then scopes uh you you had a choice of a uh nine power unital uh it's a real long narrow school and they it just said marine on it it was a three by nine variable and it just said marine i don't know who made that i took the three bind i took the model 70 and uh and the uh the three by nine and my partner took a model 70 when we first started in a unital a lot of guys like the neural i like three by nine myself but and that was that was the platform i mean that's all there was the choices now the ammo was all match ammunitions you know sent in from the states you know but beyond that the only other training we got it was kind of funny they sent us to uh land mine warfare and demolition school for four hours and uh and they and they authorized us to uh go out and take movie traps you know where what not and so and and we had uh i think it was a day it wasn't more than that a few hours of forward observer school and we were permitted i got pretty good at it we were permitted to call in you know artillery mainly artillery but i i called in the new jersey battleship one time uh air strikes you know it was it was a wild west quite frankly it was it was the wild your take on it of course but i mean 1966 was this is sort of the period where like big army and marine corps are starting to get in there but it's not super built up yet no it was building up you know and and in early i want to say it was well in the summer of 66 was the in june i think late june or early july was uh i know that i don't know the army's thing down below but in the marines the first battle with the north vietnamese happened in june or it was either it was operation hastings which was a meat grinder that i've been surprised no one ever wrote about you know with uh they uh my one of my drill instructors actually i saw him in vietnam after operation hastings and uh he ended up getting the medal of honor in operation pastries uh wow and uh and i i saw you this is kind of a funny aside but i saw him uh i was with forced reconnaissance in the mountains for operation so i saw it more as an air thing than i did you know i wasn't in that battle but what had happened was they had i had actually talked to sergeant mcginty is his name john mcginty and i talked to him years later but they they had went in recon had went in to the lz and scoped it out and they said four choppers could land at a time and uh between the time they scoped it out and the time the battle went in the marine corps had shifted from the old uh-34 you know the gas job with the high engine and everything in the front to the twin blade uh c9 which is like a chinook and uh they were bigger and so when the four chinooks are you know the c knights went into the lz they all hit blades and they went down in the lz and so they were they were all cut off you know and that's with the battle that uh mcginty won the medal of honor as did his lieutenant colonel because he was there with him and uh they were pinned there for three days and uh and so in my book now this is years later you know in my book i mentioned that after that battle we were all back at dongha and here comes mcginty was walking along you know and i described him in the book as ash and face you know because he was it was a hideous experience you know and so i was traveling i used to travel a lot for business and i was traveling i was watching history channel one night and they they were featuring different medal of honor so here's john mcginty you know talking about that so i called the medal of honor society and said is there a way i can send my book and they said yes send it here so fast forward about three months i forgot all about it and i'm home one friday and the phone rings at like eight o'clock in the morning i answer it and i hear this just like boot camp i hear this googler and i said yeah and he says mcginty here and i i said for real and he goes for effin real and so so we had a really fun conversation but the first thing he said to me is what the f is this action base bs so we gotta laugh about it but uh it was it was uh an adventure to say the least that's unreal and uh it's uh well i mean i'm sure we'll get into it but i mean it was cool to hear about how uh so many of you guys stayed in touch after the war do you know a lot a lot of the guys after vietnam they were just kind of like there's no closure for anything they were just out there on their own you know and it sounded like you guys stayed pretty tight after the war we did we still uh get together with those of us that are left you know still uh get together uh once a year you know at least and and talk on the phone and stay in touch we had one one of our guys committed suicide uh probably two years after he came home you know and uh and he he only lived a short distance from me and so you know i was able to be there but uh you know he just had some demons that he was trying to kill without alcohol and drugs and just never did ed uh i was wondering if you could tell us about your first patrol um which i thought was very interesting that you you know early on in your sniper career you were supporting force recon and going out with them yeah that that was uh when we gre you know quote graduated sniper school you know there wasn't anything formal or anything but we were now officially uh put up for grabs you know the unit could uh and our gunny and staff sergeant they would try and sell us you know other places and uh because it was all new you know and they didn't there wasn't really doctrine you know and uh so my partner and i um he came from the grunts and he had actually been in uh operation hastings uh not a hasting too one before that but he had been already so i picked him as a partner because he was really just the thousand-yard stare thing you know is real but he was kind of uh you know they say a guy's a functioning alcoholic you know well hutch was kind of a functioning thousand-yard stare he just didn't care yeah that's honestly so we held their hand up when they said they wanted two force recon snipers um and all i knew about forced recons at the time was you know they're kind of our badasses you know that's about all i knew and uh so we went over to sign up with them and stuff and they uh they are very professional people you know very professional and their patrols were intricately planned and even back then they had aerial photographs of the lz we would go into and you run to this tree and so uh we go out that day and uh we got inserted about 1600 hours probably and the plan was you always for about an hour you you book it you know from the lz and when we went in when i read about some of the things going on in iraq and afghanistan stuff on the pole because when we were inserted as force recon we had a spotter plane with us we had our insertion chopper we had two gunships and we had two phantoms you know that that good bombs and you know every so they were on station every time we were inserted you know and so if you got in trouble it was right above you so uh we get out of the chopper and start booking it and and they assigned this there was five recon two of us and they always sign off in pairs or threes if you get hit real bad you split up and come back together and so i was assigned at the back end with tail and charlie and so i was next to him he was last now i'm packing a 30 out six five round you know bolt action and nothing else because the marine corps wouldn't get we asked for 45s you know to carry with our sniper rifles and that wasn't in the manual you know so we couldn't we we never got them you know and uh anyway we took off for uh and we were on the ground probably five minutes along this stream just like we were told and pretty soon a strafing runs goes right over our head and these 20 millimeter shells are falling off you know now he was shooting in front of us but they uh they had spotted a group patrol out in front of us and so uh we all hit the deck you know when that happened and and honestly i'm thinking well you know we've been exposed you know they're going to pull us out you know and the the point man on recon simply pulled out a machete and made a left turn straight up this mountain and hacked his way up this mountain and we i was dying because it was my first patrol you know and the heat and my legs and uh we went to the top of this thing and it then it leveled out and uh we took our first break and it was literally an hour and uh just took our break and had sentries out there and everything and uh and we got hit from behind they had been following us the whole time and uh i was uh pumping that uh bang bang you know with my 30 odd six and uh two recon guys got hit pretty bad it happened real fast and it was over real fast and uh and i took a round through my pack and ruined some sea rats but other than that and so that was that was the first uh patrol that we we went on and then that that night because that was very was getting dark and we were in you know deep in the jungle and the canopy and everything so uh what they did was uh we crawled into this it was a recon kind of thing we crawled inside this thicket and uh laid shoulder to shoulder opposites you know one facing one way one the other and every other person was to stay up all night uh you know guarding because we couldn't get our wounded out and uh and so uh i'll never forget that i ended up next to my partner yeah hutch you know which i said he was he was a wonderful guy in combat and uh and so i stayed up you know in my hour and and i hit him you know next to me and said okay it's your turn it's supposed to be our own hour often and uh he says okay i got it or he whispered you know okay i got it and uh so i uh he didn't get up and so i touched and he finally said to me think about it coog we crawled in this ticket it don't wake us up coming in don't worry about it i stayed up all freaking night and he slept away this was uh zulu in your book yes yes yeah yeah yeah that's who it was and uh and that's just how he was it was but he was there when it counted you know he was he was a different guy but he uh he just died about a year ago but so then the next morning you know they came and they they uh we had to winch these guys out you know because the canopy was 60 feet or something and the rest of the patrol was somewhat uneventful you know but what happened was when they winched these guys out they took our sniper rifles with them and gave us their m14s you know which we felt better about quite frankly you know but and so when we got back because you never talked out there you had little pads and you wrote notes and showed people you know you did not talk because we were 30 40 miles from friendlies you know and it would take about an hour for help to get to you and so um when we got back we uh the recon guys were happy with us you know they told us hey you know we trust you you know this and that and so we said well how about we make a deal we'll go out with you next time but give us m14s you know or give us something and we'll leave our sniper rifles here we just didn't tell our sergeants you know and uh and it was the best thing we ever did because those three months i i worked with them for three months we'd have patrols and then you'd have a couple days off and then go back out for eight to ten days a couple days off and back up and uh just incredibly professional guys who i learned so much from that i applied when i got my own sniper patrols later but a funny another funny one they had an art you know they had an armory that they had all the good fancy stuff at the time you know and so they took us down the armory about two hours before our next patrol and they said you can leave your sniper rifles here we'll take care of them and uh you got your pick you know so hutch and i picked thompson submachine guns yeah you know the 45 caliber shark like like world war ii thompson's yeah yeah that's what they were and they had the big 30 round mag you know and oh the drum bag no not the drum they had the the stacked mag it wasn't a drum it was this giant you know this magazine well that sucker's heavy you know and uh well then you know they always try to carry enough ammo you know you wouldn't know but but the theory was carry enough for an hour firefight you know because it takes an hour for help you know so they may just carry all these magazines of these freaking this thompson you know i'm not kidding i was in good shape i jumped out of that chopper the choppers never landed you know they'd get close you know and you'd jump three or four feet i buckled my knees all that weight and so we only carried those one patrol it was fun to have at one time get a picture as a uh as a sniper in vietnam i mean i i'm interested to hear your perspective because you know sniper engagements are not necessarily possible in the jungle um so i was just curious you know how did this work out what was the employment of snipers in vietnam how were you guys able to operate like you were talking about how you were happy to set aside the bolt gun and use an m14 um how did that pan out in the long run well uh in the early going most of my first year well the first three months was with recon and you know what we realized you know recon is out there to recall you know so they don't want a shot fired you know because then they know where they are so that's why we negotiated this deal and and had fun for three months and then our compatriots back at the platoon you know we're all getting kills you know and we weren't because we were recalling and so we decided to go back so the early deployment was all you would do it was it was not a good use you know you had a you and a partner and you would be assigned to an infantry unit for a operation you know and then you're just out there and they would yell snipers up if they saw somebody and you know you do your your deed you know the problem with infantry as you would know is they aren't quiet you know you know i mean they're not you know yeah after you know you got your hardpoint like you guys as snipers you were like what six-man patrols the the previous guest we had on was a work who also six man patrols mostly once you get above that the noise you know you talk about a platoon of infantry 40 50 guys forget it yes and so uh we did that for several months you know and you and you have limited success with that because uh for us it was probably a little safer because we were in numbers you know versus two of us or something we ran a few two man patrols but they were pretty short outside of bases and stuff like that and um but then we got this idea why can't we do similar to recon you know and so we had a colonel at the time and this was uh my you know i had re-up for six months and uh and so it was in uh may of uh 67 we proposed to the regimental commander this colonel that we run our own patrols just like recon and whatnot and he he approved it you know so um so we started with a four well a five-man team sometimes four and then it would range from four to six over that and and that's what in the book our radio call time was the rose and um and so today they probably wouldn't like i'd like to have that but uh let me uh share some another some of the pictures that you were nice enough to share with me i just want to put them up so people can see you guys that's how we look and so tell me about the rogues who who were these guys well we there were different ones over my time there you know because we we uh we on it we didn't have any we had snipers killed but the ropes we had several wounded but none killed but um i'm on the right in that picture the guy next to me is uh he called him red he was a redheaded red beard and all that and uh the guy next to him was from mulberry florida a poor gas station placed uh the first time i called him uh after vietnam and talked to his mother i couldn't understand her it was so deep south i mean i'm serious and then the one on the left was with us a shorter time but he was he was one of the roads and uh he was from a little town in pennsylvania and uh and then the guy taking the picture in that one was probably um he just passed away last year he we called him boo for water boo he was a big iowa farmer and uh but i tell you we were all just middle america you know it was uh uh no special training we had one guy that was my point man toward the end uh who had had an mba and was drafted so he chose the marines and they wouldn't even go to office or school and he said no and so he ended up volunteering to be a sniper and so was that a debt cord well no that was uh dead court is a member of mensa and uh he's not in this picture but he spent a lot of time with us and he was fascinated with explosives and so we let him be our demo man you know and we'd make him walk a little far from us because if he took a sniper round he was growing up you know he carried so much demi lo demolition and stuff but and uh and it's funny you know he's been talking now for 50 years about the coming revolution and i think it might be clear but he's still alive he's an indianapolis but uh he has a couple of degrees and and last time i talked to him he was driving a peaches pizza truck to stay in shape but uh he's smarter than you can imagine taught himself vietnamese actually right right he was your translator he was my interpreter yeah he was my he was my interpreter yeah but uh boy you couldn't uh couldn't trust him too much with those explosives but he was fun to have around yeah it was like uh you know definitely a motley crew uh that you rooted in the yeah the rogues i mean very like interesting personalities to say the least yeah now this this is the one on the left is the one that uh they wanted to be a marine officer and uh he was from dubuque iowa he now lives down nashville north carolina but uh he was a tough young guy and a wonderful point man and the one in the middle is the one in the book called tomo and okay we really called it the reason though the names got screwed up was 48 hours before my manuscript was due some lawyer from yeah random house calls me and said you have authorization from all these guys you know and i knowing what i know now i would have just lied and said i did but but uh so i they made me change the even the nicknames you know wow so so really his name was we called him moto because when he arrived he's five seven weighed 210 he's a bad motor scooter you know and uh he uh he's in the middle he but he died of brain cancer i think three years ago got to be with him at the end but and that's me on the right but uh uh yeah it was a motley crew it was uh we we had a spell where you know we were authorized quote to disarm booby traps you know so the scout part of our job was sometimes to walk point for grunts and stuff and uh so we uh you know we'd go walk point and if we found a booby trap you know you know the protocol you're supposed to set it you know fire in a hole you know that crap you know and so we got sick of that and so we would simply go we'd take turns and we would simply go up with a crag grenade and lay it by the booby trap and run like hell you know and uh that saved a lot of time that way and the grunts really kept their distance quite frankly yeah you guys were pretty ballsy about some of those booby traps and like you related in the book some incidents where like guys would get the tripwire like hung up in their boot races and stuff like oh my god yeah i i was uh the one guy there from florida that i mentioned his his actual name was last name was hood and that's what we called him but he was he was a cat in the jungle he was unbelievable appointment and he going down a slick morning uh just a little position we were trying to go down to getting position we always tried to position ourselves before daylight because you got most of your shots the first hour of daylight you know and uh and he slipped and you know you couldn't talk out there or anything you know and i was i always walked second he always walked first and uh so i had to slide myself down and he whispers to me that i got a tripwire on my boot and and he had a drip wire on his boot and i was right above him and of course he's below it would have got us both and there's only three guys behind me and so we had to have them just kind of set up a small perimeter and we had to wait till daylight you know to get his boot off of there you know and i mean it was about an hour but uh and i tell you he never flinched you know he uh he just in fact when i was getting his leg and you know lifting it up so i could pull it back off of the trip wire he said oh that feels good whenever i had a hole that was that was when we in hindsight i think we started being there a little too long because we just were sure we were invincible you know and i mean for in a lot of ways it seemed like you were like you guys were able to go out and rack up quite a few kills out in this area out by the the demilitarized zone between north and south vietnam i mean uh i mean you really saw a lot of action out there we did ours was not you know ours was uh i mean we at times i was in a few of the set piece kind of battle you know with the grunts but most of ours was uh small you know small unit fights you know and stuff and that and so uh but we i got to the point the shot wasn't my thing the thing was pulling off the patrol and pulling off you know like sneaking into this place that no one would dream i could get into you know and uh and so that kind of became my my thing you know i just i just could we really do this you know and uh and these guys it was a it honestly was our patrol was a democracy i let them be we uh argued about things and we we either agreed or we didn't go you know if everybody didn't agree we didn't do it and and uh almost every case they they agreed one too many you know we we had a situation in this valley we there was a lot of infiltration prior to the tet offense and so we went we lived out there for six months we'd come into grunts and get supplies and stuff but we had beards and long hair and kind of looked like caliban at times you know and uh and so we just loved it because we were out of the by then by the second year into 67 the marine corps started getting petty again you know they got organized they got you know started having rules and you know just nonsense stuff for a combat zone so we loved it because we could just stay out of that you know we were we were on our own and the colonel supported us because we got results you know and uh so we had these gooks moving around about 1200 meters out and we couldn't reach it you know we could we could pretty consistently hit a thousand but i think they figured it out you know and so they changed their route a little bit and so um just pissed me off and and so i i'd call artillery on them and stuff you know but you don't know what results you got and uh and it was flat out there which was not our turf you know we like to stay in the hills and shoot out in the flywheel and so uh i convinced five of my five guys to uh let's go out because i know they got bunkers you know we we had aerial photographs and stuff and they would be out at night you know the goats would be out at night because they they were mostly cadres who were there to supply the troops coming down from the north you know so there wasn't a lot of them out there you know at the time so i came up with this brainstorm to go out there and get in the bunkers of theirs when they were gone and call artillery you know when they came back and uh bet on the come that it wouldn't hit my bunker and uh and so i convinced i convinced these guys to go and uh fortunately about a halfway out hood was walking point and uh there was an ambush waiting for us and he foiled the ambush so we had to exchange a little gunfire and ran like heck you know and got out of there and we never did it again but but uh they even agreed with me to do that so yeah that was probably one of the more like insane schemes that you would come up with do you want to talk about that uh that one shot that you made at 300 meters out at the arvin camp yeah that was pretty interesting yeah that was uh we got sent out uh with the arvinds to kantian before uh before the this was in 66 so it was before all the i mean it was dangerous out there but it got really ugly in the garage that's there's a real history in a book about it and everything uh so i was there with the arvinds when it was a small camp but it was a french cement bunkers and stuff you know from the french days and um so the arva there was one guy spoke english out there it was all and uh he was an urban lieutenant and so he uh he wouldn't let us shoot you know because what we realized i was out there for three weeks with him and at night you could actually watch troops infiltrating from the north because they had flashlights okay they about every fifth one had a flashlight and the arbyns had to deal with them that the north vietnamese wouldn't attack khan tien if they didn't attack them right right we would see these streams going by tonight you know and they wouldn't and so it was kind of a bizarre place out there well one day we see this guy and it was a demilitarized zone nobody's supposed to be there and so he was by this hut and the only reason i knew it was 1300 meters because on the map you know there was this little hooch he was in and it was on the map it was the only one in that grid square and it was 1300 meters so i called the urban lieutenant over gave him the binoculars and said can i shoot and he laughed and said yes you know so well cool so we laid on top of this bunker it was a grass roof and uh my partner and made us a little stand with sandbags and uh so my first shot the guy didn't even look up you know i mean and now i got five shots you know and so my my partner's spotting and uh he picked up the second shot but it was probably 200 yards short guys still didn't look around and uh the third shot i i could see it it hit the dirt you know so it was just in front of him the fourth shot was just behind him and then he went in and so we waited he disappeared for about an hour and then he came back out and so my fifth shot he ducked i mean he fell to the ground and took off you know and went back in so i had to reload you know and by the time i honestly i got him on the sixth shot and uh it was like my rifle was almost like an artillery piece you know i had his head was in the bottom of the scope you know and uh i dropped him in his tracks on the sixth shot and he was stupid enough to keep coming out there and so the the uh arvind lieutenant was not happy but he was not happy so like the whole uh you know the this trope or whatever the stereotype like one shot one kill like is that real life like is that the reality of sniper operations well it it it is up to about 600 yards you know um beyond that it's you know it's um i wouldn't say i don't know if it's luck but if you got him on the first shot um back then you know because we didn't have anything they just taught us that if you happen to see a flag you know out there or you know well if it's partially up it's about 15 miles an hour and if it's all the way up it's 30 to 35 miles an hour well you rarely had a flag so you'd have to watch trees and stuff like that and then the heat would make the bullet take off also you know you had to you know kind of learn that you know but um it gets you one child one tail if you're close you know if you're i would say within 600 yards but you get out beyond that it's not common you know i i just point out that the uh the current record holder longest sniper shot is a canadian in missoula iraq and it's like crazy it's like over two miles like crazy shot with a 50 caliber rifle with all of our today's modern technology and one of my sources told me that was about the 150th shot from that sniper position from that sniper hide that had been fired i would believe that you know because i i hear some things and see some things and and at two miles it would be hard to even see right right i mean i guess you have better things all we had was 750 binoculars you know and and through the scope all you have is in my case nine power at the best but uh yeah i hear some of those things and i would believe that because it's uh it's it's an art not a science you have a you have a lot of data you know like like at that that that shot that you made you were gathering data with each shot and increasing your accuracy yeah yeah because i had the the left and right down you know it was the distance that you had to get you know like you know you can aim right at him but you got to get the distance right you know and had he not keep coming out i would have never got him i don't know one of the other interesting uh neil missions actually you're out there for a while what it seemed like was a rock pile i think it was called when you're up on top of a mountain yeah yeah that was we were the rock pile is a famous kind of place there the japanese were the last ones on it when we went i went up with forest reconnaissance and nobody climbed it you know it was it was craggy granite peak just sticking out of the jungle just just slightly south of the dmz on highway nine running from donghae over to k-stone and it was but it was a major observation post you know because it was and so the top of it was all just just sharp granite you know and so uh i went up with five recon guys and me and my partner and uh zulu in the book and uh and they just had to hover the helicopter there and we had to jump onto this thing and um the only thing up there at the time was us and some rockets you know they were about four feet high you know and we apparently unseated them you know because there was a sister peak that was about 50 meters away that you know there was kind of not a trail but there was a rock formation that went over to and we would see him over there in the daytime you know these little rockets and uh but we stayed up there for three weeks and recon was calling in airstrikes and stuff and we got a few shots but we were so high up that it was 8 900 meter shot you know down to where these p you know where the dukes were but but it was it was really interesting up there uh because you had to just sleep in a part of the rock you just had to find a place where you tear your clothes it was just it was a interesting place and uh and we just sat up there you couldn't go more than 20 feet in either direction you know and uh and so one night one of the recon guys was screaming and in a rocket he had started beating on him you know he wasn't biting him or anything he just he just came over and started slapping the crap but it was interesting because none of us shot any we didn't really have a desire to shoot him you know but that's all it was up there and then they shoo they shot i don't know if they still use recoil do they still use recoilless rifles oh they're definitely out there oh yeah yeah and uh the gooks used to shoot those at us and uh so when they would shoot him we would kind of climb down over the other side of the rock pile and they never hit the top of the rock pile but they got close enough that you heard the whoosh go by and so they'd hit below us and then they'd try and hit us and they always went over us but and so uh it was it was interesting and i i think the the other thing that comes out in your book too um that we i have to mention is that as these missions went on um some of the guys i think zulu was one of them maybe crude was another like you can see that the longer you guys are in country doing these operations like some of their minds started to come apart like there was a there was a psychological um effect on them as time drew on throughout the war oh there was like mine mine i now i know this in hindsight i didn't know at the time mine uh just became this zone that i was in that i liked and i it was a camaraderie you know and all that but i did have one guy he passed away uh two years ago with cancer but he weiner in the book okay and um he he had an unfortunate experience he was out with the grounds and another of our two we had a team you know two-man team with one set of grunge two main teams another set of runs they were in the dmz on different ridges and it was the monsoon so you know it's cloudy it's you know everything and it's difficult at 600 yards even with 750 binoculars to tell whether that's an american or a you know vietnamese and so his lieutenant called in they saw a movement it was about 600 yards and they had movement across the way and on another thing so they called coc combat operation center for a check you know and with a lieutenant with the other group reported that he was somewhere else so he they got the green light so they had the false report yeah and out of you know 100 grunts or 50 grunts or whatever it was the guy that gary happened to shoot uh and kill was one of our snipers there were two of them out of that group and then he did he got a head shot and and killed him and uh and after that he really uh and he was cleared of any you know problems doing what he was told you know he and uh but it really worked on him and he uh after that it kind of snowballed and he uh he got uh he got into you i told you we used to lay grenades on you know booby traps and run and stuff well he got into what he called blowing minds let's go blow some grunt minds you know and stuff and so one time he uh after that he uh i actually think honestly gosh i think my book would make a good match series because of the characters and stuff but gary after that one time we're waiting on our 519s known uh we were around the grunts of the arab you know air thing and we're waiting on a chopper to take us out and and he saw a supply guy that had some yellow paint you know how they stay stencil stuff and so he takes that paint and sprays his boots yellow his jungle boots just sprayed him yellow and then sat down we're waiting and this lieutenant comes walking by marine why are your boots yellow gary you stood up and said sir my boots aren't yellow and argued with you and then grunt lieutenant finally walked away you know and one time gary lit he took lighter fluid and just soaked the front toes of his boots and lit them when he saw an officer coming and went through the same dialogue you know that my boots aren't on fire and uh and then he he was very very very very quick tempered and you know somebody took his seat at a i don't know meeting we were i don't know back at one of the bases and he just leveled the guy he just stand up and just leveled and so he he and i uh spent a lot of time together in the last 20 years you know and and he he passed away two years ago but he had been married 48 years you know uh wow and and he had a lot of problems through there that she saw him through you know and uh but the wonderful lady that he was married to and uh and the funny thing with that when my book came out i was uh in spokane doing a book signing you know and that's where he carries from and so he said well stay at my house so i did he says well i'll take you down in the newspaper because they were they were gonna interview me you know and so on the way down and stuff he he tells me he was a teacher high school teacher for 29 years and uh no one knew he was a veteran wow he had a ponytail no one he had never told anybody and so we're riding down there and he he says he told me that and i said well gary you know this story is more about you than me you lived here you know and you were there 18 months you know no no i don't want anybody no no i finally said when we got ready to walk in the studio i said well gary today's you're coming out for me and so so they it worked out in the end great because he the story was more about him than me it was about the book but it featured him and then everybody knew you know at work but his wife said that it was the last part of his life there after all that was the best because he he came to grips with it all you know he had in his head that he was in trouble for you know for shooting this guy and stuff and and i was able to sit down with him and go you never got in trouble for that you know so i'm sure it's guilt and you know what yeah the shame and that that he held on to that for 29 years and wanted to talk about wouldn't talk wouldn't even say he was a marine no nobody nobody knew you know he uh and he was a real marine you go to his house and he had a marine room you know and everything and but after uh after that we were able during the iraq war especially in afghanistan the current marine snipers would have us out to um at that time the best sniper school was out in in my opinion it was out in hawaii and so they would host us and we would go out for graduation and they just treated us like you know royalty and and so gary got to do that and it really really helped you know i'm so happy to hear that yeah yeah he because there was just a lot of incidents through the years that his wife endured that were hard yeah yeah of course yeah unbelievable um and there were you know things got kind of like uh you know apocalypse now at times though there's that one dude on your on uh on the team who had like an ear collection uh that you write about in the book yeah he was actually the nba guy oh jesus christ really yeah he was and uh he would you know kind of well he would he wore a piece of calm wire you know around his neck and and he had this collection of ears and he'd dry them like potato chips and god damned wear them and uh and that was at least you know not so much now but through the years you know people say well you know what what movie best depicts you know vietnam well there isn't one because everybody's experience was a little different i'm sure it's like your war you know but for me personally it was apocalypse now up until the end you know the end got weird you know brando and all that stuff but but you know where the the choppers came in you know with music and that you know blair and music they did that you know i mean and uh you know we would as snipers we would literally just when we worked up north dongha our our platoon was still 60 70 miles south of fuba you know and so when we wanted to get mail or anything we had to go back there so when we were working with recon they were up north and so hutch and i my zulu in the book would have to fly down for like tonight and fly back tomorrow morning to be with rico and we would literally marine pilots wouldn't help us out because they were protocol but the air force pilots they loved us and so these c-130s would come in multiple times a day from da nang and they would fly all the way to dunham and back you know ferrying uh ammunition and whatnot you know supplies and we this is that it was bizarre you know because hutch and i would just go out they'd see our sniper rifles you know and they like to talk to us and stuff and so we'd say hey would you drop us a foobot and they'd go well yeah you know and they'd stop that big four engine plane we'd run out go over our bait they'd go be back here at 0-600 we'd be back out there then they'd stop because they'll take us up to downga you know and if it had it went down nobody knew where the heck we were you know it was it was it was bizarre speaking of which i wanted to ask you also about that incident a really insane interesting incident that happened where you guys had smoked up some nva some legit bad guys but there was a civilian wounded in the process and like some real heat came down on you um when you were you're really legitimately trying to do the right thing there yeah it it uh we had they had the colonel or above over there as my understood it would could declare any area of free fire zone meaning the grunts would go through and literally move everybody and they'd take them down to the you know the uh kind of the beach area and the seabees would build them a new village and they were told they can't talk about it oh it's a strategic hamletting and that would be where there's massive infiltration just problems and everything and so and so what uh happened on this they the bad guys would learn from the arbyns where the edge of that free fire zone was it was on a map you know there wasn't any signs or anything and what was happening we were effective out in this valley we were knocking off in a lot of people and so they they would come up with these berry pickers usually women and they would you know the rice paddy daddy hats and they would be right at the edge of the free fire zone and they would lob mortars at us you know so i thought you know we need to end that crap you know so we snuck in at night in these berry patches and were sitting right at the edge of the free fire zone but they weren't in it and there were the bad guys you know mixed in them we could we knew them we could see them and so we shot them you know we took them out i mean we were 50 meters you know i mean it was close and a young probably 16 year old or something took a graze you know in the leg you know uh from the shooting and uh so you know we went down and uh and they you know the ones that were there were upset you know and everything and and so uh i called a medevac for her um and i knew if i called and it wasn't a marine i'd wait three hours you know so i called and said we took a casual well well here they came you know i i mean two gunships are buzzing the place and this medevac comes in and when he saw who we were taking out he was talking to me on the radio and i finally just had to squelch him you know because he was just pissed yeah like click we're done here i think yeah yeah i did i turned my back and walked away and uh it was not 30 minutes i i get a call on the radio that says the colonel's shoppers come in to pick you up just me not anybody else and uh and so uh you know i i had two kind of new guys out with me that time they're freaking out and everything you know so i i just said look i'm i'll take the heat you know i mean i'm and see we had a lieutenant in charge of our snipers like between us and the colonel but this guy was totally badmind you know he never went to the bush he wasn't a sniper he was just in charge and so he and i had gotten into it he and he was a turned out he was a good guy but when he came to the platoon he thought we needed discipline you know and so he ordered us to shave you know and uh so we just went to the bush you know and stayed away from him for six weeks and when he saw me the next time he ordered me i'm giving you a direct order well i had memorized the marine corps order i forget it now but it's that sergeant uh starting about your mustache yeah can have a mustache you know because i shave but i luck on busting and uh he said uh and he came back with one that you have to obey your commander or something so he finally said to me um i requested mass which in the naval service anyway i wanted to see the one above him or the one above him is the colonel well the colonel had made his wife stuff when i went on our it's okay oh 6 30 tomorrow we have a meeting with the mustache shave i am going to court martial you know so i smoked that for a while and in shape you know and so i go into the request mask and uh and the colonel honestly god said to him why are you effing with this guy and he said to the lieutenant lieutenant says one just trying to have some he said you don't know what these guys do leave them alone he goes grow your mustache and so i've had it ever since you know i when i when i went to work with fredo light uh after dom about ten years after now i went to work for frito lane was a manager and stuff and my boss when i moved to headquarters in dallas told me i had to shave my mustache because they wanted and i said so i told him that story and said it ain't happening and uh so he left me alone and uh but what happened is so so that lieutenant and i you know i had kind of beating with the colonel there well i get back and who do i have to see but he am and he sits down and i thought i'm toast and so uh he sits down with me and said okay this is where we're at you know they came back and said you shot him off water buffalo and uh honest to god i the the true the just blatant truth has never failed i i mean and i looked at him and said sir there were no water and and uh he looked at me and said i'm gonna talk to the colonel and i'll let you know and he came back to me about an hour later and said the chopper will take you back out you're good that was cool that he backed you up in the end yeah he did you know he was a mustang you know he had come up through the ranks he was a lieutenant but he's been in you know he's been a gunny and so and uh and i i got i got to know him after that i think he was just frustrated that he was an admin you know role and and then i think he grew to respect what we were doing as opposed to this you know speaking of which ed there's a point in your book where you take a guy out uh and a guy who's not necessarily a sniper because he wants to get a kill in oh yeah the way your book is is written like i mean people really got to read your your memoir dead center because it's written you have a very sarcastic sense of humor and i'm just looking at the book i want to read a few passages what a place vietnam was it was sick enough to go around and shoot people but to want to kill so you could beg the dudes on the marine rifle so you could brag to the dudes on the marine rifle team well let's lock and load sarge and then he shoots the guy and i want to hear the story from you he he shoots the guy and but wounds him and you wrote in the book this really jumped out at me you say our eyes met i couldn't i could tell he didn't like me any more than i liked him [ __ ] it's just a game man nothing personal well what happened there well we were we were we kind of owned this valley you know i mean we knew every nook and cranny we'd been there for months you know and uh we knew the infiltration route you know we knew everything and so when this this guy was a career marine nice guy he was the hawaiian guy we call him pineapple and uh and he was our armorer you know he took care of our weapons that was his specialty and he was a member of the marine rifle and uh so we just knew him as a good guy you know back to rear that took care of our stuff and and you know we we had shots every time we went out anytime we wanted to and so he he did he came to me and said i'm going home at the end of the month you know and i i i'm on a marine rifle team i don't want to say i was with fourth marine snipers and didn't shoot anybody he says could you take me out of patrol yeah so we took him out to a favor spot of ours where we knew you know there was infiltration and uh we would we tried to be somewhere that no one would dream you'd be you know and so we sat in this grass it was about four feet high and camouflaged ourselves and we did it at night so morning comes and normally our shots there were about three to four hundred meters and uh you know they're kind of chip shots and so um there was a little mole in front of us probably a hundred feet it wasn't far you know that it's grassy and stuff and so we're sitting there that morning hadn't seen anything it was probably nine ten o'clock in the morning and up pops an nba soldier on this knoll literally 7 500 feet from us looking all around obviously didn't know we were there and uh so the sergeant sitting next to me you know pineapple use the steps or i just hit his leg and kind of put my hand out and said there he is you know and so he got up you know got his rifle and everything and he cranks off around but he is he was shaking you know it's probably like they say deer fever or something you know and uh so the guy goes down but he starts yelling you know and being to me well i can't have you know i had six guys this time because i had him but uh i can't have 20 guys running up over that hill you know so i just jumped up grabbed my m14 and nothing else i had my my stuff off you know and i ran to the guy you know and uh and two of my guys just took off on either side you know to give me cover and uh i got down to the guy he was younger than me you know i might have been 20 and he had his ak laying right next to him and he was bleeding at the leg he took a good ground in the thigh and uh our eyes ours did meet and and i knew he was younger than me he was dressed in the nba stuff and and nobody ever came up over the thing but i know he wasn't alone because he was yelling you know for help and uh anyway i got right to his feet and i have to drop on him with my 14 and i think i had been there too long because i just thought uh you know maybe give him a hush you know and uh so i i stepped around i was gonna kick his 14 or his ak away from me you know and so when i reached down he grabbed that sucker and pulled it right pulled the trigger right in my stomach and uh and it misfired i i still have the bullet our lieutenant took the friggin a ak but um i still had the bullet with the broken primer in it i used to wear it around my neck but but uh well then i took care of him you know you know and did you like i mean it it was almost like you had this like supernatural type of walk like there's that one point where you stumbled and you fell your foot fell inside a booby trap and it was a howitzer round and it didn't go off there's the incident that you just described there were booby traps there were guys to your left and right who got killed and somehow for two years and nam like you came through it like was there any point that you started starting to feel like you know either i'm uh a one in a million or like i'm the next to buy it like what's going through your head uh i i never thought i would get killed uh i don't know i mean that's probably a mental thing you know maybe survival thing i don't know but i just never thought i would and and uh and i at the time i was uh i was raised no religion you know and and tomo had atheists on his dog tag so you know how he paid for that in boot camp you know i mean he paid you know and uh i don't know if either one of us were he ended up being a catholic and i ended up finding christ but but uh but we were both pretty amoral you know at the time and and uh so my thought was always i'm lucky i'm just lucky i i never thought of it from a religious you know what i mean like right right anything like that it means something to me now more you know that i found christ but uh at the time i i just said damn i'm lucky yeah [ __ ] it yeah yeah that's exactly what it felt it is that's exactly because i just have this thing if i'm going to go i want to go in a blaze of glory i you know i want to go fighting i don't want to step on a booby trap you know and you have no control over that but that's what i hoped and i i think it was also interesting that you know you really do a good job of describing being a young man in combat and also bouncing between going on r r going to hong kong going to thailand going back home and kind of juxtaposing those experiences um especially when you went home and it was like you're like i have nothing to relate to here and by the end of the war i think you wrote in the book like going home was more terrifying than anything i faced during vietnam yeah going home uh the second time you know i went home between my years you know and i you know i remember stepping off the plane in cleveland airport and uh and my mom was wonderful because she supplied our platoon with socks so you know i mean she she was yeah yeah she put up with you yeah yeah she's sent us booze and baby bottles so post office couldn't figure it out you know and uh and uh then she um but she she was a great gossip you know i mean she just she would help anybody but just had story after you know and i remember getting off the plane in cleveland getting in the car and she starts telling me all this gossip and stuff and i you know all i could think of put me back on the plane man i can't no it's just it was a different world you know it was you know it was and i remember you know when i uh when i left growing up my my dad worked hard he was he was in trucking you know and he drove and then he got one and two and all that so i never saw him you know uh much but um and so he was a good provider and everything but uh like not around the house he just he would hire somebody he would which is fine but but i remember one of the incidents i came home and went to get a shower and the same streak of hot water that was there when i left you know one streak it had never been repaired you know and stuff and i remember it just set me off so much i took off and went to a motel and rented a room to take a shower you know just things like that and when i told my mom i wasn't staying i was going back you know for another tour and she said i really think you should see someone you know she wanted me to go see shrink or somebody you know and uh but it's and i'm sure you guys experienced the word from what i see it's um like you're in this world with a totally new new different set of rules you know over in wherever you are you know and you come home and you realize that nobody gives a [ __ ] you know right i mean there's a few people that genuinely do but they're far and few between there's a lot of lip service you know and that to me didn't you know i didn't get too hung up in the 60s coming back because i never had i personally never had anybody spit on me or any of that and i talking to vets through the years i think that happened more in cities than it did smaller towns where i was from you know and so but i had a lady come up to me because my dad when i came home the second time my dad picked me up at the airport and we used to be really involved in go-kart racing and and so he had to build a track and you know he was president of the association so family was really into it i got i never got really back into it from after vietnam it was different then and so uh but i remember coming home and it was a sunday and he picked me up and took me straight to the racetrack and then he went my mom was running the concession stand my dad was running the races and i was left sitting there you know and uh it just didn't connect you know i mean just like you know your dad had a real hard time relating to you i felt like reading your book yeah he did and i and me him you know he was now that i'm older and can reflect and stuff you know he was a product uh he had to quit school and go to work at 14 because his dad died on a railroad accident and so to him the world was money you know like security was money so he grew up in the depression yes he did and uh and so you know i can't relate to that i mean i can now more but you know as a kid you can't you just know your dad's not there you know and uh and so uh but i remember i was sitting there and this woman who i really didn't know uh came over to me and her husband was the bigwig of the cardinaling association and stuff from out of town and she sits down and says oh i understand you just got home from vietnam and i said i did she says aren't you glad to be home from that awful place and all those awful people you're around i said no ma'am i would love to go back there right now and be with them rather than you you know and it it just you know you're just a different world and uh and i think that the one one of the things i think i've learned over the years and i did i wrote a book about oh i don't know maybe eight years ago um um firefights of the mind and it's about my feet you know the experience coming home and and since then you know and how it sticks with you and uh but i think one of the things that gets people is the uh injustice of okay i went and did these things you know for my country and then you see the deceit and everything that goes on in war from washington and hanoi and whatnot you know that is what sets me off today you know it's i've never had a nightmare about vietnam but i i i my wife and i finally i finally was able to articulate about 15 years ago what happens in my head and i call it the bees you know like when something sets me off it's like these beasts came out of the hive in my head and i have to get them back in you know and so my wife bought little bumblebees they sit them all around the house and so when i when i when i slept she just points to the bubble and it actually works you know it's uh uh but uh so you know mine has never been one of regretting what i did but i'll give you a really good example of with what's going on in the country today with the riots and wanting to tear down the statues and all that stuff i have a friend around here who is was a navy pilot in vietnam and i met him a few years ago a high school used to have a vietnam symposium down here and that's where i met him and now he moved up here near me again he's a pilot still and uh but he's the proverbial fighter pilot he's short he's all attitude wonderful guy but he he's he's picture perfect and and he um his wife and daughter got a hold of me just not long ago you know probably six weeks ago and said can you help and and so and i had no idea because he has the same humor we do you know the dark human because he flew three three different uh mission here you know six months stints over there so he did close airsport hanoi you know everything and and so he had gotten so upset that his wife left you know and so i went down and spent about four hours with him one night three or four hours and uh what it boiled down to what what set him off was when all the minneapolis riots the portland [ __ ] you know and what set him off was he said to me he says do you remember the end of the war he says i was flying close air support for the arvins when the north vietnamese stormed across the border you know i said like 73 or four or some times and he said normally from my vantage point when i'm flying you can't see people you know because he said i'm starting in at 5 000 feet you know he said the north vietnamese were so there was so many of them they looked like ants on the ground and he said and i was dropping i think they call them daisy cutters where they go down and blow up they the bomb goes out splits into 100 bombs or something and then three feet those are club cluster munitions yeah okay and uh and he said i don't know how many i killed but i i'm sure i killed hundreds if not thousands and he said and i'm okay with that because i i did that with a clear conscience for my country because there was a war going on but now i look at these punks who are destroying my country for my grandkids and i see people doing nothing about it and now i doubt myself and that was insightful to me because um i didn't expect it coming from him you know i mean he he's not a guy if you if he met him you know he's got the military dark humor and you know he's been there done that and all that but but it deeply bothered him what he did and he said it's never bothered me once in my life but i see how our kids have just been dumbed out you know that they don't know history no and they don't and so i think part of the problem with you guys coming off from iraq is is you come home and it's the injustice of i just did this and i saw my friends died and you guys are playing games in washington you know yeah yeah but and every every year it gets a little bit harder to explain why we're in afghanistan or why we're in the middle east yeah yeah in in vietnam i wouldn't i mean it's not double digits or anything but i know many times we would just lose 100 marines fighting for hill and then leave the hill you know and and at 19 you're still sitting there even at 19 you're sitting there going what the hell is going on you know and so you know i i have been a student of the war since i left you know i i had my mother send me books when i was there and she sent me ho chi minh revolution now on girl of warfare i wanted to understand my enemy you know and so i spent a lot of a lot of time and i still have all those books and now i probably have 500 vietnam books and and i've read it from protesters point of views you know everything else um and i honestly think it it could have been a just war because vietnam is now communist and cambodia's communists leos is coming but we didn't fight it to win you know and and uh we didn't lose battles you know we lost paris you know and stuff and that's the injustice that probably the thing that sets me off most anything is injustice yeah well yeah the the injustice is that we threw away 50 000 you know plus american lives in vietnam and we all have to ask ourselves you know what what did they die for yeah yeah you do and and the problem that i found is that old people um get us into war but young people fight it right and one of the challenges with that and i know you from reading your book i know you know this uh one of the challenges with that is is for many it was me probably you it's a um it's a the adventure of a lifetime yeah yeah right i mean yes you hate to say that but it is and and so that's that's kind of a conundrum there you know yeah yeah no it it absolutely is um that you know we go into these things as young guys and it is an adventure and it is very exciting and and were as you experienced as well and it's intoxicating it's a it's a it's a lifestyle um and then coming home from all of it is uh can be quite difficult and painful you know oh it is i you know my wife and i laugh now but but uh we i couldn't stand crowds you know i still don't like them but i can't i couldn't stand them when i came home and so when we decided to get married uh it was what we got to invite this person and this person pretty soon you know we we went down to winchester virginia you got married by justice of the peace you know and on the way home we stopped to get some things for the apartment and she turned to me and had two towels and she said do you think we should buy thick or thin and i said i'll see you i'll see you in the car i couldn't get my mind around that i i could not get my mind around that you know it was uh it was just and and but you're right it's intoxicating in the uh my dad would get frustrated with me i raised the really fast go-karts and stuff it was very competitive and very good when you know in high school before i went to marine well i come home to vietnam and thought i still i i actually thought i wanted to try and get into racing cars and uh and i love the speed but i could be competing at 20th place or first place mattered not to me you know i didn't care and uh it would frustrate my dad you know because well you've got to win and i'd go all about the adrenaline you know you know wheel to wheel you know that was that was the thing you know i i went out and skydived you know thought maybe that was it and i learned to fly a plane and uh you know all those things rock climbing and then you finally realize that you're chasing the adrenaline yeah yeah and uh i was fortunate enough i don't have a college degree i dropped out i i unfortunately i wasn't going to kent state campus but i was going to a kent state branch nearby when when the shootings happened oh yeah i did not want to go to college my wife wanted me to go to college you know so i got about two years in but but when that happened uh it was always liberal but but when that happened i remember a sociology class and this woman was would just turn it in every every day she would turn it into i was working full-time going to school full-time and uh she would turn it into a big bad government problem you know and everybody would agree you know on this and her and i had to do one day and i walked out where i'd never go back and i didn't and uh but i made it to vice president a compact computer without a college degree so and i did want to ask you about that because you were like the literal atheist in the foxhole um in vietnam and you talk about how you know you got married after the war and your wife brought you to jesus and i'm not really a religious person at all but i'm very interested to hear your experience and and how you came and like you accepted jesus into your life like this became an important thing for you well uh when we were getting married uh my wife was going with the time we met she was going with a guy that's now an anesthesiologist and stuff and so she came from a very poor background stuff but she always wanted to be better and yeah and so she was probably thinking she was going to marry him anyway um we went out and i convinced her he'd make more money and i'd have more fun you know and uh so uh i i convinced her to get married we got married about nine months after we started dating and i didn't intend on getting married i i honestly didn't uh i when i came back you know they didn't have contractors like they do now you can go you know get your adrenaline but i had designs on becoming a mercenary you know at the time and i had worked one time with a british marine captain over a nom and he um told me a bar to go to in brussels where they recruited for the belgian and so that was my plan to party this summer and then head off to brussels i don't know if i would have ever done it but i met my wife anyway something told me if i was ever going to really do anything good i needed to marry her so i convinced her but she had two conditions one was you have to work i didn't have any attention going to work i also got to and number two you have to go to church sometime you know and so uh i would you know i went to work and and kind of put my adrenaline into that you know i went free to lay and spread over five times in six years you know and stuff and and was blessed with a company that recognized they wanted results you know and so i knew how to get results military people do you know and so uh and then as my son was born he was our first that was about four or five years after we got married i was very uncomfortable with myself you know i i was drinking i i had a serious drinking problem and i don't blame that on vietnam because i started when i was 14 you know when i was a kid you know and it probably vietnam might have exacerbated it right right you know because i would i had a one of them basket chairs in my basement and i would sit down and just drink and trip out about vietnam yeah and uh and so when i when i drank i i was not a violent drunk or anything i just didn't talk i just kind of went into my shell and and wanted to relive it you know and uh so um i i was uncomfortable so i i always from vietnam a reader and so i just i've read a book a week probably i don't know how many years you know and uh so i read this book called the i never once considered religion you know i started reading loud too and i started meeting daddy ching you know i started reading all these things trying trying to find something but i never considered religion and so i um i ended up uh picking this book up for for adventure reasons thor hired all it's called well his first book which was published after he became famous you know for contiki in the raw expeditions his first book was fought to eva which is an island in the south pacific and when he was a getting out of college him and his wife they wanted to live the way adam and eve did so they found an island called platoon that happened to be fought to be and they went there with a machete and an iron pot and they committed he was a biologist so he got a university to pay their passage so he spent a year there and without the labor net uh he was raised by an atheist mother and a roman catholic father and and he described the balance and nature he found there and you know the lemmings and you know all this stuff and he said something that made me realize god was real for the first time and i wasn't seeking he said i don't know about organized religion but i know there's a god when i look at the balance of nature and how the cycles work and you know he went through that detail and my light bulb went off you know i'm like i think there is you know and i remember my brother worked for my dad you know and uh he had a [ __ ] company and so i remember walking in there and telling my brother i know the truth and he goes you're drinking again [Laughter] and i said no i haven't started drinking but the truth is there is a god you know and uh and so from that i uh i was on a business trip with my wife's one of my wife's best friends her husband went with me on the business trip about four hours away and on the way back i'm i'm telling him about my frustration with myself you know that i'm not who i should be and i'm not living my life you know because i was kind of haunted by it i mean i think i was a good father but and uh and he knew me during my drinking days so you know it took a lot of courage for him and that night he uh like it was like near it was midnight or later we lived in akron ohio we're driving back in and he says um he bore his testimony to me of christ and i my light bulb went off i it was like boom and and i got involved and and i uh for for the next 10 years i read nothing but the bible and uh related books i didn't read a business book i didn't read anything because i felt like i was behind the power curve you know and uh so since then i've served as a lay minister twice and so it was a dramatic change you know that uh just happened you know i mean i i wasn't seeking it and so once it did happen i i uh all those experiences in numb kind of mean a lot to me right right yeah you feel like jc and his boys were like looking after you uh you know when your foot went into the booby trap and all that kind of stuff uh i do now you know i do now uh i because when you look at the odds of that happening because i had i'd have to look at my list but it was like a dozen maybe 13 14 times you know i actually walked i actually walked across the bungee pit one time and it fell slow like the guy digging it must not have dug it straight the edge straight down and it had a little bow in it and so it it hesitated just a second before it went down and i was able to jump forward on with my elbows and catch myself so my feet went down where the stakes were and so uh my friend greek who's in the book uh he's the one who lost the leg over there and uh he was he was a catholic from brooklyn new york you know an italian and that's why we call him greek because he was italian but but we uh i ended up with him um he would volunteer to go with me every patrol because he said if i'm next to you nothing's gonna happen to me you know and i used to laugh at him and stuff and he used to say to me god's saving you for something and i would laugh and say yeah you know and uh the first patrol he went on without me after that he lost his life and so he was more convinced after that yeah yeah it was really incredible it's like every time that you went on r and r or you went somewhere else and the guys went out on patrol without you like something bad happened yeah it did it really did oh it was the reason i called my book an odyssey a two-year odyssey because that's what it was it was yeah it was uh it was just bizarre you know and i don't know if it was our i think odyssey's a better world it would work you know it was uh it really was the wild west it got more organized than you probably experienced that the more the formal military gets involved you know it it just uh it it's it's not the things they want you to do in a combat zone if it's okay with you i'm going to ask you to stay just like another 10 minutes i have a couple of questions to ask you for a bonus segment if that's cool um i really appreciate you um taking a few hours out of your evening to spend with us tonight like this has been like an incredible conversation i really want to encourage people to go and read uh your book dead center and what is the the title again of your book about um ptsd and you know coming home uh it is fire fights of the mind that's right it's available on amazon yeah they're both available on amazon i read a dead center on kindle it was uh it was great i mean it's a brutal read it's it's not uh glamorized it's not glorified it's like ed kind of telling it how it is how it was when he was in vietnam and it's not pretty at all but it's real and i appreciate that you wrote it from that perspective because there's always um you know 20 years 30 years 40 years after the war you can write it kind of like as if you're 30 000 feet above the war writing it like you you're you know like this god-like being with all of this knowledge that you have but when you were 18 19 20 years old down in the battlefield you didn't know all that you were just responding to what was in front of you and i think you captured that very well in the book that's what i set out to do i didn't i don't like uh i just like to tell it like it is you know with all the awards and everything else that you know that's why i told my boot camp story you know i i just you know i oh right yeah yeah there are uh way more stories like in this interview like we barely scratched the surface because ed and his uh ed and his teammates saw a lot of action out there um in vietnam so like we're just barely scratching the surface so we'll do the bonus segment with ed i got just a couple other things to ask um but in the meantime go check out his books um please like this video share it uh give some give us some comments down below let us know what you think of uh of the show and how it's developing how we're doing um there's also going to be a link to our patreon down in the description if you want to support the channel and i'll put a link to ed's books down there also on amazon i'll do that right after we wrap up here so again ed thank you so much and thank you for you know the 100 some odd people who showed up to watch tonight well it's my pleasure to do it and i would say that if anybody has other questions they want to ask me personally i'm on i'm on facebook just friend me uh it's ed coogler that's all outstanding okay so thank you and we'll see you again next week oh i should tease out who we're having on next week um so next week uh september uh the fourth chuck woodson uh chuck served in special forces he was down in danang uh worked with the australians and uh he's also done a lot of work on special forces history he actually got to interview uh aaron bank a number of times so we're going to have an interesting uh interview with him next week so thank you guys and we'll see

Channel: The Team House

Views: 17,375

Rating: 4.8850574 out of 5

Keywords: Marine Corps, Scout-Sniper, Marine Scout-Sniper, Vietnam war, Sniper, Ed Kugler, Dead Center

Id: FkPY1m1iNwI

Length: 109min 14sec (6554 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020