Jocko Podcast 181 w/ John Stryker Meyer: On The Ground in Vietnam. Mayem and Bravery.

this is Jocko podcast number 181 with echo Charles and me Jocko Willing good evening echo good evening get him out we were in Cambodia alone with no fixed-wing aircraft Sal's eyes were as big as saucers I told Bubba to give me a claymore mine with a five-second fuse I gave Bubba and fuck the move quick signal as we move back to the LZ I stayed at the rear of the formation with Sal and hastily with sow hastily covering our tracks we had only gone a short distance when Sal hissed beaucoup VC beaucoup VC I could see the pith helmets in the distance coming from the south i radioed the Green Hornet's CNC helicopter and told them to the return with their gunships and to pick us up at the primary LZ ASAP CNC said they'd have assets on site in ten minutes or less now even ten minutes seemed like a long time Tuan and I fired our m79 as two high bursts which slowed the NVA down for a few seconds sau opened fire shooting shingle single shots and moving backwards no longer bothering to cover our tracks I yelled to Bubba to move out at double-time the race for life was on sau sau hissed a hip and pointed north damn there were pith helmets and NVA uniforms coming at us from the north - and at a dead run sound I placed a claymore behind a tree pulled the fuse lighter and ran the NVA were now running and shooting wildly we sprinted to catch up to the team as the Claymore exploded the NVA kept on charging South quickly placed his claim more in front of a tree and ran while Tuan and I provided covering fire we sprinted toward our team as the second Claymore detonated we felt the blast on our backs as we ran as fuck and Bubba pushed toward the LZ hip Tuan sau and I fired back using the immediate action drills the entire team had practiced for hours on end Tuan's m79 rounds were deadly effective those combined with my m79 rounds and the car 15 fire from hip and sau temporarily starred stalled the hard charging NVA troops we reach the LZ quickly in comparison to how cautiously we had exited it as the team set up a hasty perimeter hip replaced another claymore in the path of the NVA that were charging us from the south to the north bubba rigged a claymore with a contact detonator on a tripwire as the tide of pith helmets flowed toward us Bubba and I opened fire with our m79 s and sau and hip opened up on full auto with their car 15s more NVA emerged from the smoke of the m79 high-explosive rounds and tripped Bubba's claymore that's when the first Green Hornet gunship arrived I popped a smoke canister and directed a gun run to the west of our perimeter within seconds the gunship roar gunship roared in front of our perimeter shredding the NVA ranks slowing them down for a few seconds the Green Hornet's firepower was incredible finally the Green Hornet slick that inserted us into the target area arrived on the LZ as close to our position as possible with his left door facing us the nose pointing north or northwest fortunately the air force had made it to us in less than 10 minutes the relentless NVA kept coming after us as Tuan and I each Unleashed one more m79 high-explosive round at the NVA bubba led the team toward the air force Huey we always had an American lead the team's approach to an American helicopter to avoid any confusion in regard to South Vietnamese team members on st idaho i fired the last claymore as the wave of NVA troops got in front of it the last claymore blast gave me a few precious seconds to make it to the Huey and that right there is another glimpse into the insanity that John striker Meyer known as tilt lived through as a Special Forces soldier in Vietnam a recon team leader for Mack V SOG studies an observation group command and control and if you have not listened to podcast 180 yet then go listen to it tilt was on that podcast and as human as he walked out of the studio I knew that I needed him to come back as quickly as possible and I asked him and he graciously agreed and here he is once again John Stryker Meyer tilt good evening sir good evening yeah you know you kind of mentioned that that one operation right there when you were out there facing three divisions after you got fat dumb and happy on Thanksgiving Day with a big meal then you guys rolled out into the field right indeed they've been and then so how did that how did that operation go now you guys got inserted how did you end up in that situation where you're running away putting 5 second fused claymores facing the enemy what was how what led up to that well we had a briefing the night before and they were hyper concerned because the three NVA divisions 30,000 men were mi a lily and the CIA dia whoever else is out there had lost contact so that night myself and the CEO and s3 went over the maps Lia's reports all the Intel reports we were up until after midnight so they they came to you and said hey we're missing 30,000 men any divisions of NVA the first the third and the CIA loved in we've got the DIA we've got spy planes and all that stuff we can't find him so then they come to you yeah okay and you're like cool we got this oh yeah and at the time I was still a spec for an e4 so and I hadn't met the CEO yet so the first thing was he looks at me says you're an e4 89 Billa what WTF I go look sir long story short I said look I've run a bunch of missions up north we're here TDY how can I help you and he settled down we looked then we were up all night looking at those Intel reports and then they also had pictures that were from 70,000 feet we'd never seen anything like them my mom was the piano teacher and one of her students dad worked on lenses for aircraft to shoot from 70,000 feet he talked to me about him as a young kid I go that's really cool well now I knew what he was working on and why he couldn't really talk about it much but they that was the first time the sr-71 we used overflights got it I mean and I said where the hell these come from because like this is mind body and used to seeing no little pictures close by people smile but for 70,000 feet we had a good estimate as to where they might be and they said we can't tell you this Dutch shut up you haven't seen it and so we put it all together just try this area I mean when in really on the ground sure while maybe an hour or so and then all hell broke loose and did you didn't you you stumbled upon their camp or like a camp that they had recently left yeah well they have they would have waystations a long way and so we walked into him before we found something but never what fires burning the one still had a pot on it and so and when we got back sound of guys estimated then one division had just left and their point dirt element was what came back at us and the other from the north was just moving into the base camp Oh little sandwich yeah little NVA sandwich there we go we were - we were two below your basic baloney yeah hey did you go into that one real heavy in terms of you is that because I if I remember correctly from the book how common was it that you carried the five second fuses on the claymores we started doing that a month earlier earlier part of November I mean because we had a couple targets where the numbers was just incredible when they came out so I always wanted to have just in case so here we took a few extra fuses you know John had his fuses and Sal and fuck they all knew how to work those and so here I said because we saw how open the area was we were used at Triple Canopy up north so now we're in Cambodia you could see three or four hundred yards away maybe five hundred yards WTF times two and then you see the fifth almost run match it's like whoa how does it feel when you see the NVA in an open run towards your position port arms yeah good lord that was it was an experience y'all take it to the grave with me that's a nightmare you're worse one how did you did you did you in a situation like that you're you're you've got I mean thousands of potentially thousands of enemy soldiers some of them are booths blatantly running towards your position what are you thinking in the back your mind are you thinking hey we're not gonna get out of this or you just I know for me in my experiences which are nothing come close to that but I was always just think about getting my job done like ok this is well this the best thing I could do right now hey we need to put some people over here let's get some machine gunners up on the roof I would never get to a point where I was or maybe I didn't have enough time or I wasn't smart enough to think about what big consequences were coming but when you see when you see those helmets running towards you at poor garms you got to be thinking this isn't looking real good for this isn't looking real good for a boy no I I had my first chocolate moment which was the good news is we found these fuckers the bad news is they're coming to kill my ass Lily it's like well I'm glad we did our homework last night this really worked out well maybe a little bit too well yeah and just thank God for the Green Hornet's math they didn't get back there it's just only a question of time and they could you would you would keep them on station Jennifer generally like for like 10 or 15 minutes well this is cambodia everything was different there first we had no no fixed wings all we had was the helicopters but there were two greenhorns Air Force at that state at that point in time November 68 they were they had stated are huge they were the fastest they could carry more loads and their many guns I think they had mounted many cuts that they could handle manually some of the early ones we saw were mounted and so the helicopters would have limited maneuverability but the one the year the Air Force was just really on top of the game well that's what came in and when they came in with their minigun runs I really bought us a couple of valuable seconds seconds they were coming and you can see him it's just like and I was looking at some pictures of you yesterday and you guys still had 20 round mags oh yeah which you went which you'd load out to 18 rounds because you don't want to compress the spring too much and cause a jam right and we would have run over your mother to get one of those 30 mile jobs oh yeah it was it was different so we always had at least 600 plus rounds all in the magazines did a couple extra bandoliers just in case and you guys did make it out that time obviously well yeah and then you know here - when we left the chopper pulls out and as we're lifting off the NVA come out of the jungle the thin jungle and was muddy had it rained a day before and these guys are coming out there they're at port arms and they're trying to stop and the mud comes up from their boots as they're trying to stop come down to port arms so me and a door gunner just and I forget it force our fuck we're just getting these guys and they just stopped like a cartoon and they go back this is what happened just blew these guys back in the mud from their boots was going up into the props as they're trying to stop and they're hit him and they just go back into the jungle and we got the hell out of there he strikes me as strange because as I keep reading about the NVA well I mean we know that these you know this is an insurgency these guys are looking to not fight when they don't have to right that's why it always surprises me in your in your stories how determined they were like those guys hey look ok the Americans they're getting on the helicopter we'll let them go whatever we'll come back next time you know we don't want to die right today because we don't have to we can wait we can wait ten years we can wait twenty years you know we go we're gonna be here forever for them to have that kind of determination where they were just common in common and comments and like you said on the last podcast literally stacking up bodies so they could get to you that would have been just a crown jewel to capture a little little Special Forces team oh yeah I mean I they had to kill American award so if they if they confirmed that they killed one of us or got the body of a dead body they would get their killed an American award and they would get a bonus of some sort maybe world heroes up north for the rest of their lives awesome okay so that book and we talked about on the last pot last podcast and I said it last time and we we touched less than 10% of the book the stories are completely insane and you can get that book on Amazon you won't but you've written that's not the only book you've written you've written another one another book is called on the ground and this book again you're it's it's just the same level of insanity you feel strange for me to be sitting here talking to you because every time I read us through one of your stories I'm like how's this guy making it out of this there's you kick this one off with an interesting story these guys one of the it's you're not with them but it's a recon team on the ground a guy named Watkins is in charge Pat Watkins and they're set up on a road and they're doing a recon and I think they set up an ambush to like an ambush to take out some troops but they end up with this massive NVA convoy and when I say massive I mean massive it takes hours to get by and there's people and there's trucks and there's bulldozers and there's tanks yeah and again I got to point this out so we're probably talking you know a thousand enemy soldiers at least that are patrolling by you for now for three hours they're walking by you and meanwhile you've got a team of six guys eight guys something like it was seven or eight I forget but yeah and they're under montanus and Pat was familiar with all the Russian tanks so he knew what the Russian tanks word he had it all the Intel together and just one of those another night and saag another night in socks so they're sitting there waiting and they eventually they go by and and eventually now one of the one of the ended soldiers that was working alongside walkins one of the members of the team was named wrong ro ng and he comes up after this convoy goes by and he comes up and this this is what happens I'm going to the book here wrong said he'd been watching the road traffic just like Watkins and it had been taken taken had been taken as taken with it as he was I mean he was like lost and like oh my god I can't believe all your stuff while he was staring at all the vehicles passing by a hand had reached out and given his armor shake a Mountain yard soldier one of those the NVA had pressed into unwilling service said it's your time for guard duty is that close to the enemy or what that's nuts oh yeah completely nuts the mountain yards which you guys called yards the nuns the South Vietnamese even sometimes former NVA soldiers what was it like who did you mainly work with what were the differences between the different groups they're different ethnic personalities and I know we didn't talk about a last time you talked about in the book but those those different ethnicities didn't always get along well now especially when it came to playing poker apparently oh yeah cuz I first like the first few days at Phu Bai they had a poker game that went awry and and the Cambodian lost he goes to his room gets a frag grenade comes back and dumps it on the Monty yards so we had an instant fire flight into compound and you know you is going through the training turn about the different groups well that case we had the Cambodians Montini Aras nuns and a my team was South Vietnamese which included at least four guys that came south and 54 when there was an 18-month truce where anybody the north could go south when thousands did the Navy had a special operation what has ships going up to Noi and shipping thousands of people south nobody went north nobody wanted to be up with the commies mm-hmm but we had those had for the mom I team they were just outstanding troops and so that was Phu Bai and his team was that Bru which was the lowest of the Amonte our tribes cute they couldn't throw a hand grenade where the shed but the fearless and they hate they hated the North Vietnamese that's that's one of the key points and you talk about in the book is how much you know what what the North Vietnamese had done to the mount yards and how much they fiercely hated them and how fiercely loyal they were to you guys oh yeah mazie troops and they would just fight to the end and as Morden there's more than one guy who like a-10 who had we called him affectionately our little people mm-hmm the little people said I'll take a bullet for you that's how dedicated they were and they proved that over and over again over and over again now some teams had troubles but we never had it like a my team or with the defenseman most majority teams the little people took care of vetting their own so like when Idaho was wiped out Sal and HAP went out and recruited and they were young kids 15 years old we brought on the team but they vetted him and we never worried about him so we didn't have to worry about the friendly fire or what they call today with a blue fire yeah they call it they call it friendly fire yeah this is this close they have another they have another word for it too I can't think of what it is because friendly fire is like a mistake right right what we're talking about is when you know one of your own yeah one of your Taliban forces or one of your your local forces is actually a Taliban person in turns on yours actually a Mahdi militia guy turns on use of those things those things are scary very because he build up trust and all of a sudden a guy turns on you yeah because early on some of our eight camps had trouble with that with their the mantra that turned who had been more loyal to the calmness for some reason but then there's others had issues because they they like Special Forces but they were pissed off working with the South Vietnamese and they they were just they don't kill they would have to kill South Vietnamese our allies or to he's up north and sometimes you had like guys don't don't kill our allies if not today please yeah but I've never had that my team was all South Vietnamese man so one of the one of the other crazy parts of of this book that you open with or you start one of the early chapters is this this attack on fo b4 which was just sound completely completely horrible and here's a quote from the book the entire compound this is after this attack happens the entire compound was now a swirling battleground with dozens of small but ready deadly dire firefights in progress it was difficult to tell the scantily-clad Americans and indigenous personnel from the enemy and there was no command coordination just a lot of individuals struggling against uncertain overwhelming odds the air was filled with enough chaos to overload the senses screams shouts bullets dust smoke the smell of cordite burning wood rubber and fuel and lastly the smell of seared flesh and this this attack resulted in 17 Special Forces soldiers were killed and I I don't know the number of indigenous forces that were killed but this sounded like just a complete I mean it obviously was a big win for the enemy and what was your perspective on all that where were you when that happened I was safely ensconced in fo b1 because fo before had opened at the end of 67 and event at the base of a mountain and there's a whole lot of political reasons why they're at the base of a mountain but anyways they're there they had a test attack body via Kong grant around Christmas time of 67 and on August 23rd after the dust settled the men who were there like Pat Watkins estimated that that test attack in December was a test to see what could they had minimal defenses up minimum wire the Internal Security Force was riddled with Viacom and they planned this attack for over a year the sapper attack with the NVA purrs as well as Vietcong highly trained sappers and the conventional troops that went in just for an annoying cloth and carrying a weapon or a satchel charge and hand grenades and so I was a food buy they hit after midnight there's always discussing about what time they hit and since then we've had a military intelligence officer came back and one of the people that we said was 17 SS he's 16 but still the highest number of Green Berets killed in one battle in our Special Forces history and fortunately we had a recon team up on a hill on Marble Mountain and I took out the the mortars could the enemy were just dropping mortars off the mountain into a camp on top of everything else because they don't care about friendly fire speaking of friendly fire the enemy doesn't care no they don't care if they're dropping mortars on their own people as long as they're killing some of their enemy as well and some of them had their bandanas and said we came here to die and they did what did that with the repercussions that went through your community after that happened everybody you know you it's one thing to talk about being hit by an enemy force at night they fight when they want to fight that's a classic example of them doing it they planned it for over a year they even came in and took over the indigenous mess hall for final briefing in the base that night before they lost the attack and so that's how well-planned it was so they went in to the indigenous camp the friendly camp and gave their final briefing for the attack inside of the friendly camp yep and they had two of our loyal indigenous troops that saw something suspicious when he went up the NVA killed him right away and left their bodies liner and so it was really well-planned they knew to camp we had a promotion board so all of the at that time there was 6f Obi's one through six this was fo before in Danang and so all the people up for promotion came in that day most of them stayed that night on top of that we had they had monthly command and control briefings so every CEO as well as his s3 or the XO from each of the fo B's was all at fo before and then the we had a command and control element that was based at the Danang airbase and they had just moved on to base so had increased population and they knew it and that's the way they planned and they planned that on a night when there's no moon got to always respect your enemy always and then we always carried a weapon no matter where we went there's one thing to be like F would be one we had a good security there but even then you don't know because they vehicon would come and we found mortar markers on the roof of the clubhouse and they come in and walked it out there's part of their vehicon would come in and help do whatever was in base but they were also there marking targets for future mortar attacks on our compound yeah that would happen at my first deployment to Iraq I was in Baghdad and we would they would occasionally roll up guys that had their gps's you know the little contractors guys that did everything from empty out the porta-potties there was guys that cut hair these were just you know there was civilians Iraqi civilians that worked on the base and occasionally they'd get rolled up they'd look at their phone or look at their what are they carrying they'd have a GPS with them and sure enough they're out there trying to figure out where you went where is a good place to draw from order I actually like kicked all the contractors out of our compound completely and that's something that I had heard from the Vietnam vets was like nope you don't you don't know who's who you just don't let him in yeah so when I showed up we actually moved the porta-potties outside of our content we had to go outside if we want to you they were still in Americans area but they were not inside of our compound so they so there was no locals inside our compound at all zero that's what we that's what we did when I showed up and that's why I did it because I was I had heard hey look there's gonna be people that will be gathering intelligence on you if they're in the compound you can't you can't vet every single civilian that's gonna come out there the contractors scary it is yeah I was that that is a the chapter that you actually cover in two chapters because it's such a horrible incident but that's incredible read to see what those guys went through oh yeah how many did you just go in review people how did you get all that information well several of our guys mouth will be one were there that night so on the 24th after by noontime everything is settled down they had you know they have failed in their attack we had control to Camp relief for us from F will be one went down led by Colonel bar Lieutenant Colonel bar and they went through and cleaned up any of the left pot last pockets of enemy soldiers and there was a peel W camp right next to us and Knisley there was an effort to free that 500 so POWs that we're gonna break news to come in to further help overrun our base but a couple of people made the key effort along that line to the north to stop the the pending escape of the NVA there don't him in a tipping point oh yeah erection there's a bit as good as a good one to miss so anyways I answer your question we had a lot of things in my mind and then we closed that would be one in January went south so shovel the guys that had performed that night or survived that we're all there so I talked to him it's had mental notes and then when I worked on the book we came back and I did a piece for soldier fortunate I usually wrote under a nom de plume and we did a first story written about that back in a day and the soldier fortune print and I have back in the eighties sometime or early 90s so I used that and then build on it and then John Peters the co-author on that book on the ground he was there at night and he was in the hooch he and Doug got Shaw SF were too drunk from that night like many of the people that were there and but the young bill brick charged out of hooch gunned down immediately because they had machine gun positions set up so anybody came out they would gun them down and that one element that was up on top of the mountain there yeah and there was there was one American with multiple is that right there was one of those two Ed Ames was up there he was the one zero and the Larry Trimble was actually the one doing a lot of the operational stuff because Ames was monitoring the radio and there was he Larry and his people that took out the mortars that night or the castor baby would have been much higher and then there ended just said hey we're going back down the next day the next day Eddings went out the King became and lifted him out they put it in replacement who sprained his ankle or something getting off two helicopters he could not move but he so he worked the rate of Al I was the guy taking care of everything on top and yeah so the indid said they wanted to go down that day and I said well you may run into ambushes going down Marble Mountain because what we didn't know was underneath Marble Mountain there was layers of of stories they had hospitals down there Vietcong training grounds everything else which we learned about years later right along with the Buddhist monks they were all down there they coexisted peacefully and so yeah they went down and Larry's for awhile was by herself up there yeah they got to I agree yeah those guys get a firefight they come back yeah but when they left he's up there by himself he's just hey I got this and he's the Lone Ranger own Ranger gonna defend this thing until he's dead that was his attitude that was that's Larry freaking unbelievable tell yeah absolutely you got to get this book and read these these parts they're they're epic epic heroism I mean and crazy and incredible lessons learned as well and I know you're now we're just talking about lessons learned how easily lessons get forgotten in the military it happens in any organization but in the military for sure you know because guys are going there at a command for two or three years or maybe for years and then they're somewhere else and then someone else comes in and different experiences and no one agrees and what's right and what's wrong and next thing you know you the lessons are gone you forget them so these books aren't here capture some incredibly important lessons for anyone on the battlefield or even close to it I want to get down to kind of the end of your first tour here and I'm going to the book when I win one April 1969 arrived I was a conflicted man the end of my tour was slated for 27 April so far I had avoided the short-timers attitude because after all it was Vietnam and we were engaged in guerrilla warfare across the fence nonetheless I couldn't believe I was still alive I looked forward to going back to the world and yet I felt incredibly guilty about leaving sow hep and fuck and the other men at CCN behind which is CCN is what they renamed ff14 I believed in the SF mission but how long could RT Idaho go on without a casualty we hadn't lost a man to hostile fire since May 1968 when the previous incarnation lost six men in Laos RT Idaho had run a lot of missions been in a lot of firefights it wasn't a stay behind team that schemed to remain in camp I was alive thanks in large part to the skills and courage of Hsiao hip Tuan and the other Vietnamese team members as well as to the courage and flying skills of the Vietnamese king bee pilots and the American pilots the Marines and Scarface the judge in the executioner as well as tak air pilots who always responded to our calls for help we were alive because the Recon gods had smiled on the reassembled RT Idaho somehow the magic elixir of trust training instinct guts timing and God's good grace had fallen into place there were other things that were collectively wearing on me toward the end of my first tour of duty by April 1969 both Lin black and I were frustrated with having enemy soldiers shooting us out of so many targets as the helicopters approached LZ s for landing and when we weren't in the field we found Artie Idaho getting frequently assigned to guard duty atop Marble Mountain because black and I had continually butted heads with the reps to add insult to injury they're conveniently were never any choppers available to airlift us to the top we had to hump all of our supplies ourselves which was still a dicey business in the light of all the VC activity in the village to the south of the mountain and then in the caves deep inside it we always moved up marble mountain on full alert one on one such trip Sal was training hyung to run point hyung earned his pay that day as he found and deactivated more than a dozen booby traps including a claymore mine that had a pressure released firing device on it so you're sort of downtime like hey we're back in camp we're just gonna pull a little easy Duty here just stand some guard duty oh we got to go up to Marble Mountain oh there's no one to take us up there so we're gonna have to patrol up there and you're going up there and you find on your way up there more than a dozen booby traps oh yeah that's trying to get to your guard duty yeah I guess that could wear on you a little bit that would that was a significant day we didn't sleep well that night and so this marble mountain how long was the Patrol to get there from base well it's close by and we would usually walk around to the south side of the mountain and there were stairs that you go up before you get to the trails because it was so steep to get to the top that there's only a certain number of ways you could walk up mm-hmm and we you know you always try to alter how you go but there's only so many times you can alter it and so that data way we went so Sal and hyung really earned their pay I mean he and they fell all these damn things but that'd been me now Linds Lyn was a little bit more sharp in keen-eyed to me but that'd be me I would have been hamburger meat on our first Claymore and so that stuff I like I said it's wearing on you obviously would wear on anyone but that's the end of your tour you get done with that tour and we touched on this a little bit on the last time but I wanted to go a little bit deeper on it you you're coming back to America after your first tour in Vietnam how old do you say 69 23 23 years old and when you get back again you touched on this a little bit but they assign you they assign you to like a signal a signal company meaning you're not an operational guy and you're in with some and you're just coming out of Vietnam and you're you're hearing people are saying like hey what do you you know was it even wasn't even there's guys that are of actively avoiding vigo in Vietnam oh yeah this is the 10th Special Forces Group and they've been in Germany since 52 and they had they were actively involved in a cold war and those guys earned their pay there in fact one of the first books just came out on dead a which was there in a cold war but this is a special forces unit so companies a through D were active II because of my MOS comma Oh cuz you're a radio man I've to read a man they stuck me there and we had four or five per tuned's and there are new officers there butter bars like right out of OCS they're young and they treated everybody like was basic training and my first thing was excuse me this is an SM unit even though it's signal so we had the signal the officers inside that platoon they're not they're not SF guys there are like communications officers you know what I'm not even sure eyes know they're young and dumb and not respected and then we had the two other for two starts each one was fat and out of shape and had avoided going to Vietnam and was proud of it and made fun of me and a couple of guys from D company because we weren't smart enough to figure how to get out of going numb I'm going like wait a minute what are you wearing on your head and so we had some difficult moments dealing with those guys and am i and so we had routine training it's a little company with trucks and all this stuff to go and do these things I said whenever we do one of these little practice runs for a weekend or a mission we will win because we're gonna get out of here and let everybody else do the KP and stuff and that just pissed everybody off autumn or I pushed our young guys and pushed them hard and bass could we you know they do these training missions you're out there three or four days all is just calm oh mm-hmm and but the way we did it III can't even tell you the details now because I just hated it but we won we were the first ones back to the base we had the most signal contact all the criterion we met and we beat the fat ramps now and and so you're back where where were you stationed at that Fort Devens Massachusetts so then you got it I mean as some people that weren't ever in the military don't realize this but even when you're in the military when you're back in America you go and interact with normal civilian you know you go to restaurants you go to bars you live a normal life except for your job you know whatever the hours you got to work your job then you're living how was that transition like now you're just going out for a pizza on a Thursday night now you're going out to have some beers on a Friday night or Saturday night how was that transition it was difficult because actually we didn't transition basically I hung out mostly with the SF guys up there because this Massachusetts didn't know much about the small towns and I bought a 4-4-2 w-30 had to get a job just to pump gas on the weekends just to get extra cash and hopefully be able to pay for the insurance did you buy a brand-new no used even used oh yeah that thing was expensive huh oh it could go I blew it up on the Turnpike at 130 miles an hour but it was a great car in between and so I'm working and you know what was your what was your side job Oh pumping gas okay they had a local Shell station and one of the little towns outside of Fort Devens and the guy was a he was a world war two vet and he had up a sign I bought gas and there's a sign help wanna say hey I need cash can I work for you in weekends or if I get a day off he said yeah come on in so I was highly trained I could do oil changes I could grease him up and it was fun and here you were Green Beret Special Forces Vietnam just got done with your first tour and you're pumping gas on the weekends that had to be a little bit of a of like a tough thing to swallow it was but you know we swallowed it yeah that's like I got to survive and at the time I was just I still had a sweet thang down south okay so she was dealing some issues I'm up there this whole things falling apart and Boston Boston was so anti military I mean it was just peace freaks galore I went to town twice and I never went back because it was they could tell that we were in the military because our hair was still shorter than the average hippie in Boston not a good time so we just stayed with our guys dira bars we had a few engagements in the bars but yeah it's good to get out of there and we ended up getting in trouble for some of those engagements yes we did I'm told that the MPS came by cleared base the day before they got there and I can so I know taking the Fifth Amendment on that one this is the SOG operation that will remain secret indeed so you were a little bit on the lam you're a little bit on the run yes and so you run to two-year to this woman in DC is that where she was oh yeah at the Pentagon there was a woman in charge of SF orders for Southeast Asia her name is Billie Alexander she's one of our Saints you know patron saints there was there was a woman that that ran the officers that detailed the officers and the SEAL Teams for a long long time honestly she did it for 40 something years really and yeah I mean is the exact same thing like if you if you knew her and she was always great to me and I mean she was very nice to me and she took great care of me probably because but I was just lucky enough to have some senior people that knew me and you know put in a good word but she was always very nice to me but I saw what happened some guys that maybe she didn't like so much it was rough so it sounds like you know you showed up with some flowers and a bottle one she liked and you went this is independent in the puzzle palace at the pennant yeah yeah same thing yes I think yeah this know this woman like I said this woman was always super nice but she she willed it a lot of power you know in inside inside the seal officer community Wow cuz if she didn't like you well she was right in your orders oh yeah and if she liked you then you know it was like you know when if you were neutral then what you know she you're gonna do what she's gonna do but yeah it sounded like mrs. Billy Alexander was the same type of thing oh yeah I drove down all night got there right in the morning at Pentagon open and walked in this is before any metal detectors mm-hmm walked in ask the guy where she was went down gave it a wine two flowers please give me orders came back at the end of the day drove back all night you're just going all the way to the Pentagon to try and get orders back to Vietnam not many I'm told not many but there were some their self guys it really felt more comfortable and they wanted to be there and there's there's I wish I could line up the stories but they're like Billy wall and others that have gone to her over the years and gotten her song as they wanted yes she took care of SF yeah that's all I told the story the other day I was kind of I there's an there's these so there's that woman who's the civilian that handles the detailing but then there's a there's a seal officer that would kind of work with her side-by-side he would get rotated out every couple years well when 9/11 happened I knew that guy and he was he was a guy that I had worked for he's an officer and he was a great guy and I had a lot of respect for him and we got along very well and as soon as 9/11 happened I called him and said hey you know I was going to college at the time I said sir please get me outta college and be back to go back to the team right now I don't need to college I'll finish it online or whatever I said just please get me back to a team and you know he said listen this Wars gonna last long time but I was having a conversation with him a few months ago with him and his wife actually and I was saying oh yeah and remember when I called you and I asked you to please send me and he said he said everyone called and it made me feel like that's pretty awesome like he doesn't like you know I guess in my mind I didn't think I was special but in my mind you know I really wanted to go yeah oh did everybody else every other seal that that that wasn't in an out of seal team everyone wanted to go when the war happened everyone to go do their part you know yes Bree decor yeah yeah absolutely and he was right the war lasted a lot longer than any of us thought it would so you get your orders back to Vietnam you're what you do with the car well but I had to get rid of four four two traded and got a little f-85 three-speed on the column it's a survival vehicle yeah and so so I just parked that and dad took care of it while I was gone and some went back there just went home and said hey I'm going back to Nam I had no leave time cut burned it all up previously and so I went home and broke my mom's heart and told Dad going back to my sister ran me to the airport the next day and then we're back to heading back to Vietnam yeah your mom must have been would you dad think well you know dad was a I'll support your son mm-hmm and as to his credit he never he never had an opinion never asked a foreign opinion because he had a he had deferment throwing a war family de firma because he had to run the family business and then my uncle flew over to hump so we had family service and but he says good luck if you need anything let us know and I mom was just like she's a little bit more emotional but tough old farm girl from Central Jersey Dutch farm girl you know any and even even then did they know anything about what your last deployment was like no no we never talked about it just glad you're home yep glad to be home where they had no idea what kind of what kind of situations you had been in no we really couldn't talk about it and like I missed that you were not on air but you know many years later my dad came up to me and said you know I finally read across the fence and it says now I know why this guy came by and took our trash so he said yeah so they got there those guys a tall black guy he come by and pick up our trash so he had to be from the FBI because their check my trash to see if I wrote anything that is a violation of the the agreement that we signed in Danang the 20-year agreement you won't talk about it won't write about it and they checked you on yours so dad and they this guy picked up the transporter once could dad recognize her he saw him down at the post office once near the FBI office so he figured the FBI guys check it on my Johnny that's a sidebar yeah no that's that's that's kind of crazy that they're putting all that effort to do that and and yet you you there you're out pumping gas well that crazy yeah yeah like baby I gave a great new job though buddy you came and you guys drop agree she needed yes yeah it's awesome yeah that's crazy I like Indy that's uh I guess when I'm older now like you know when I was a kid I worked at fast food restaurants you know what I mean I can and now I think man I would not want to do that right now know what the funny thing was I had a little 25 like a little brownie 25 boys caramel pop this is Boston there's still some people that were like less than friendly up there I said I hope I get robbed I just want to kill me a robber but no it didn't happen so what did happen we got you back to Vietnam indeed so you get back to Vietnam going back to the book here the casualty rates for SOG Recon teams were the highest for any unit in Vietnam we all had our close calls and thus each of us was given ample opportunity for the truth of this observation to be incised on his sole none perhaps so more so than the young hard-charging 1-0 of our team Michigan Sergeant Eldon bars well no one who ever met him doubted his professionalism or determination he was not only meticulous when preparing his team for a mission and a fearless leader went on the ground but he also possessed a biting wit and an absolute intolerance when it came to fools and ramps fools and ramps being a redundancy his way of thinking so this was interesting because you you talk about bars well and in the story that you tell he they're they're out running up and he finds a vest an ak-47 vest and he wants it and he wants the aka just found him laying around in a bunker or something so he puts on the vest and he gives the a que to one of his one of his ended and then he ends up getting shot in the chest and that that vest actually saved his life because it hit one of the magazines that was in the vest correct crazy story and what was interesting so when I was in I was in Germany in 1998 I was stationed at Naval Special Warfare unit two just outside of Stuttgart and my boss who is the commander of Naval Special Warfare unit 2 he obviously directed to the guy that was in charge of Special Operations Command Europe and my boss who I had a ton of respect for who's an incredible guy a great guy and taught me a ton he would tell me hey the the the you saw commander this guy he's awesome his name is bars well he would tell me stories about he just absolutely loved bars well and talked about him with the highest respect possible and and he use it was awesome and I mean I knew about bars well I mean I basically learned about him initially from him less amazing and then later on yeah you know I would read about him small world and what a what a you know a great guy he was and what an epic soldier he was and what a great example and you know so many people say he's the like one of the foremost examples of how you'd want to be as a soldier just a great guy and I was lucky enough to have a degree of connection to to have my boss work for him when and he must have been he must have been a two-star at the time I think it was a two-star yelling at the time so there he was and I think he did 40 something years almost 40 yeah couple months shy yeah so that's pretty awesome to to to read about bar as well oh yeah you get to this point here where you're talking about how crazy and I often try and explain how in combat unexpected things happen things that you can't make it up things happen are so crazy and you've got a section in here where you're talking about Lin black who's your running mate for a while for a long time yeah then when I left he took over the team he ran it and when I came back I went on a team and then he brought me up to speed but Dao had changed in five months yeah and then we took turns and then they said hey you guys got too much experience the Lin went to did some more snooping and pooping and I took over Idaho again and and this is when he's so low on the ground you're not there he's not so low but he's with his team he's in Laos and they're on patrol they're deep in enemy territory which is just like just the way you guys rolled and he you know the team starts to hear people following them and now they start you know stepping up their pace they're trying to move they're trying to do things to disguise their trail and all that and finally they really like okay we're definitely getting followed if the two days yeah after two days of being followed yeah and so here we go going back to the book however before black could give the word to change course that the noises suddenly returned only now it sounded as though a large number of enemy soldiers was headed straight for them and the troops were not in the least trying to hide their movement this is it fought black the trackers have linked with reinforcements and they're about to try and overrun us he immediately told the team to head for the ridge form a line and get ready for a fight claymore mines were putting up quickly into place and black dug out the radio handset in intact into anticipation of calling Covey black was totally convinced he would soon be declaring a prairie fire emergency back when black was with RT Alabama he had faced a map he faced massive frontal assault waves by determined NVA so he knew what to expect and he knew what needed to be done having moved the team up on to the ridge line he knew he had the tactical advantage if the enemy wanted a bloody fight and it certainly sounded as though they did the NVA could charge up Hill and arty Idaho would give it to them everyone had placed their weapons on full-automatic and begun and unbending the metal pins on their hand grenades the ends were bent in order to keep the pins from accidentally being pulled so the ring and hang up on a branch or something else high explosive rounds in the m79 were replaced with rounds containing large buckshot capable of blasting a devastating hole in any in the enemy's ranks with everything in place and ready RT idaho faced the jungle and waited for whatever was coming the frenchman caught sight of something approaching but the vegetation was such that he couldn't get a clean shot at it he figured it was someone moving in a crouch because it only stood about four feet off the ground he could see other similarily poised figures behind it all moving noisily toward the team in a few more feet they would reach a point where the jungle thinned out and he'd figured he'd have a good shot at them like any recon man Letourneau had fought about such a moment the moment when an outnumbered team was forced to make a stand thus like all the other arty idaho members he was very tense but ready for anything anything that is but what stepped into the clearing he couldn't believe his eyes he found himself staring not an oriental gentleman in pith helmets armed with ak-47s but long armed hairy reddish orange creatures with the decidedly human features it was a small band of orangutangs probably a family of them they had been tracking the team out of natural curiosity trying to figure out what these hairless apes were up to in their territory yeah that's probably the happiest monkeys they ever saw oh yeah yeah for sure III was in Sri Lanka and we got to see that they would there you would hear him coming and they would be moving through the trees and it was really cool just just how but there yeah you'd hear all this noise and it would be a bunch of monkeys coming through the trees and when we had that surround war yeah we got online we were ready for the assault in this like we got overrun by monkey all right now we're getting to the point where you so that was that was Lin black working on his own and now we're getting when you return when I returned to CCN at the end of October 1969 I immediately reported to sergeant major John Hobbs and asked if I could rejoin Artie Idaho he said that Letourneau had just completed his torn returned stateside there was an opening for an American and I could fill it but linen black jr. is still the one zero and you two are both experienced one zeroes I reminded him that I've been away for five months and needed some time to get back in the flow of things I added I'd be happy to serve as blacks 1/1 for a while because I respected his judgment as I have put now you go and meet with the team as I approached I saw black and Sal leading the team away from the range once they caught sight of me their faces lit up and there was a rush of feelings of greetings as I shook blacks hands hand the team surrounded us dancing about almost like children and the good-natured taunts instantly began flowing hot and heavy the gross insult being one of the most accepted ways a recon man can show affection I was subjected to a whole litany of them aimed at everything from my intelligence to my sexual orientation in the midst of it all black totally cool as usual asked if I was back on the team yes sergeant I replied I'm reporting for duty I am a new one one I know more about the team the AO and the bullshit in camp oh sorry you know more about the team the AO and the bullshit here in camp than I do I want I wanted black to understand I was willingly putting myself under his command and that my goal was not to challenge him but to learn from him a recon man who thinks he knows it all as a recon man headed for trouble and if I could capture those that attitude right there and distill it among every person that's moving into a leadership position like this the the humility that you show here the willingness to subordinate your own ego is like the best sign of a great leader when you check in situation you go you know what I don't know everything and by the way if I think I know everything I'm wrong and oh there's someone that's been here for a while guess what cool I got no problem working for you I'm here to support I'm here to I'm here to look out for the team I'm here to help the team win not here to look out for my own little agenda so that was awesome and I was livin black he's just an amazing man and so I totally respect to him and was glad that it worked out thanks to Billy Alexander order cut get over there pretty quick and with Lynn you know he had done a tour duty with the 173rd and his lost a brother there and he still came back because he wanted to get his fair share of NVA dead just to take some personal revenge and you know we had that mission where he came up against a 10,000 and survived Mason's mother one of our amazing heroes and so yeah I respected them and then later on we began there's no SOP the sergeant major Xavier asked us to do an SOP yeah that sounds like a that's something that we need to start doing the SEAL Teams to you there's another here's another section in here where you start talking about well it appeared to me and we were actually talking about this before we start recording and that's when you go to meet the new commander and here we go back to the buff because I hadn't met the sea cien commander I polished my jump boots de spit-shine hoping they might make a positive impression when I met him later that afternoon the call came down to meet him I put on the last pair of starched fatigues I had in my possession put on my new green beret and the spit-shined boots so there you go you're getting squared away and again this is one of those things where you're in your second tour in Vietnam you know you're an SF guy you've been in all kinds of really tough situations but you're gonna meet the commander okay cool be humble get the squared away uniform on try and make a good impression the commander of CCN made it a point to say that he ordered Recon teams to break contact with enemy forces and continue the mission I knew that several other Recon teams had been unsuccessful in getting the tanker so this guy's a tanker this guy was a tanker he I don't know what he want you want to give us a little briefing on what the new commander was like yeah he was sign there and he was a friend of general crate neighbors who was the overall commander Abrams had seceded Westmoreland as the top commanding officer for all of Vietnam and he was one of his buddies and so in order to build up his career back Abrams sent him to an SF unit so he get his build up his medals get the time and at that time in the army if you served as Special Forces much longer than six months as an officer your career was done you would not get to promote as the West pointers and the other guys that would get your career was just finished but if you had a certain amount of time and he came up there which we learned later was to build his metal portfolio and we had some other stories that go on later on so he never really adjusted nor did he apparently understand SF and the way we worked but tippy on a recon team and the whole thing about break contact and team mission well sir if you're with me on the ground and you want to say that that's cool but if you're up there 5,000 feet and telling me to break contact a team missing with a six-man recon team we got 10,000 guys wanna party know well you can't quite say it that way yeah to go into extreme PC mode yeah and you know we're just meeting each other - it's like I heard he was a it was lacking compared to this previous commander we had there yeah and the idea you know I think it's Patton said the commander in the field is always right which is a great thing to lean towards from your perspective when you're up at 5,000 feet or back in its act cooperation Center you kind of assume that your guy in the field is making the right call and try and support them and there's so many times where I read the stories that you write or the stories of the other guys that you're writing about the the difference between the team being overrun and killed is a minute it's two minutes sometimes it's seconds you know it's like these of the time when you got when the fire as you're taking off the fire consumes the area we're just and that's followed by the NVA so often these situations as soon as they started to go bad even in the slightest way it's like okay we got a story start figuring how we're gonna be out of here because if we try and fight by the time we make the decision so if you try to do this idea of his which is break contact and then continue the mission I mean you is it really possible for you to break so you lose a bunch of your ammo what do you figure a fetter do your mo half of your ammo in a quick gunfight and now you think the enemy is just gonna walk away and the fundamental flaw here is this is a secret mission it's a clandestine operation if you make contact with the enemy quote you've been compromised but somehow that didn't compute with the tanker yeah yeah so you're in there you're talking to him and and here we go back to the book I knew that several other recon team members had been unsuccessful in getting the tanker to change his mind on that topic so I approached it from a different angle I asked him to place himself in the 1 zeros position in the field because most of the one zeros I knew would do anything within their power to successfully complete a mission if the tactical situation was conducive to it but once compromised it was often militarily difficult to do so with a six-man recon team against large numbers of NVA soldiers he promised me to think more on the topic I saluted and returned to the team room leery of the new CEO so you did you even had a even at a young age you had the had the kind of understanding maybe I'm not going to approach things head-on hey you know you're not trying to stir your dumb that's a bad idea no it's like hey you know sir from my perspective as a one zeroes what we see it's a little bit different I just was impressed with the fact that you were playing the game a little bit to try and build a relationship with this guy trying you know spider parks and Pat walkers that F would be one we a couple officers are there they're real dickheads in the beginning and when they took over command if they would be making bad decisions and didn't understand a situation but at least majority of the senior officers meaning a major or a lieutenant-colonel our case majority once they've been there saw what we were up against in the field it just took a while little time gap for when they land they want to prove they're a hard-ass they want to be a good CEO and they got to worry about their career too and between that reality and what we're dealing with on the ground and usually most of them came around this guy was not one of those that was didn't have that capability he was just seen it in his his own perspective yeah yeah I had learned from the pros you know Spyder Pat Walker's John McGovern these are all senior NCOs and I watched them in situations dealing with sergeant majors and s3 particularly on mission stuff before the mission and afterwards how they would talk and I picked up a lot of I like to think I sort some of their PC skills because I had none and there and what would you say the goal was from a leadership perspective as you're talking to these guys I mean I always say look I'm if I got a boss my goal is to try and form a relationship with me so that he listens to what I'm saying because if I go to iron bud heads out of the gate they're not gonna listen to me if I tell this boss this tanker hey you don't know what you're talking about well he's not gonna listen to another word I say but if I say hey sir Roger that I want to give you some perspective on this that I've said you know whatever you're just trying to talk to him with respectfully try to build relationship that's what I try to do yeah and with the CEO they just tried to stay a hell away from Gilda sergeant major because they'd been all been on the ground they had experience and they appreciate what we were doing they knew what we're doing day by day our sergeant majors were squared away with a sectional one but most of them was I dealt with and we're just really lucky so I try to deal with them keep the co site stay away from was the best way officer avoidance sir officer avoidance that's a good one moving forward a little bit in the late afternoon as black and I went over the final mission preparations Junkins came running into our hoots with bad news our team Maryland has been hit Walton Brown door down jesus H Christ I can't believe it wall told me they that they told him it was a dry hole give me your PRC 25 someone said they heard Brown on the radio as I screwed the long antenna into the PRC 25 black ass Junkins any word on a bright light team he turned to me with the frown on his face no word yet replied Junkins but I want to go if there is one we all moved outside to get better radio reception on our FM radios the news got worse Junkin said he could hear covey talking to brown all the Americans were down and being overrun Junkin said he heard Covey's last conversation with brown when a wounded Brown told Covey they were being overrun he said he heard ak-47 firing and then there was radio silence all communications with RT Maryland were lost the weather over the target closed in precluding any bright light missions for 10 days when a bright light finally went in team members found on the American web gear near the last lone location of RT Maryland no further evidence of the team was ever located wolde brown and sergeant Donald Monroe Shu the newly appointed team member were listed as presumptive killed in action the loss of wold brown and Shu was a reminder of just how deadly the AO continued to be in SOG as always the Recon men talked to each other afterward to see if there were any lessons to be learned from their loss while the weather was bad sergeant major John Hobbs suggested to black myself and a few others in recon that perhaps a recon book should be written containing and documenting the team's standard operating procedures so there you go that's when you got started on that - close your limbs it's a phenomenal he is a phenomenal artist and so he would do a lot of sketches and then we worked on every SOP from everything from just getting pre-mission what what you would carry would break it down between Americans in a ditch batteries claymores five-second fuses and then adapting to the AO you're going in some of the areas and layoffs they had a lot of words that you only carry one tent canteen of water and purification pills and other times it was dry you had to carry more water which is more weight it's always tried to stay low as possible and that as one of the fluctuation weight factors that we had some control over how much were used the carrion at least 80 to 90 pounds back then and we women it was your body weight ah I think it's about 170 soaking wet maybe 175 but the most after R&R and you were carrying 80 pounds 90 pounds yeah because I carried the radio plus the 600 plus rounds for the car am sitting iron rails and the frag grenades and you guys no war no body armor oh no no helmet the body armor back then was this clunky stuff yeah and it was just you know and the helmets just made too much noise and his weight and in the jungle would just get caught up with stuff where is that I just wore to crave at all the time and then try to cover my blonde hair again this is uh you know every time I read one of your wanted one of the stories that you write about you know you made it out you know you you you you had that extra Claymore that gave you enough time to get on the bird you laid down that extra fire the the the airships showed up in time to put down cover fire and and here with these guys with Artie Maryland like those seconds didn't happen those aircraft didn't show whatever the case may be and that's what was at stake every single time you guys went out there right and just like we said in across the fence all the Americans were killed the in digital effed alive so they were hit by we assume sappers and with the indigenous it's a psychological thing on all the troops in camp you have to deal with that again but like over my team we just pulled the team together said hey tell us what you heard we know we don't have a problem with you guys but what this happens just be advised keep Lynn and I and appraised of anything you hear that could be negative or troublesome then we'll squelch it right away or deal with it in this case did the ended the ended make it out so they never heard from again or no two out of three made it out one was killed as they came out of the forest they were near marine compound of some sort and because they were in ditch when he came out armed the marine took him out and the other two were able to surround surrender and make his gestures of some sort that they were able to get picked up came back they took him down to Saigon for the full debrief and everything and did you guys ever get word on that debrief way late were they only thing we heard was from Covey and cobby said that they had the team is set up for his rest overnight spot too early and he thought was a dangerous spot but the one-zero didn't listen to him and so everybody was surprised that we he did it because Walt had been a10 for a few months he'd been in Marine Corps first came to SF and then he ran a few missions out of F would be one that would be one shutdown he came down to fo before CCN would you guys always know who the Covey was who the Covey rider was going to be no no sometimes it fluctuated particularly after we went down that food before because the Air Force changed their pilots and all the cubby riders we had an F would be one got reassigned somewheres else so none of them carried on it's cubby riders no Pat walkins came home he D rose down spider parks came to see CMB hit another assignment and I saw a spider very little because I couldn't tell you what his assignment was he just saw each other so little there because Lynn and I were busy running with the cubby rider do all the mission planning with you know though he the cubby Rider and the pilot would be in for the final briefing at base or at the launch site and we just talked about L Z's any anti-aircraft because they continued to bring down more anti-aircraft everything from the 37 mic mics to the heavier anti-aircraft artillery that came in later did it did they ever get did the Covey's ever get shot at and shot down always we have someone went down and there's a what altitude would they fly at well they would do everything from way up high when they're just doing a general recon - when the team would be on the ground they would have to spot the team either through smoke or mirror or from a location you have you'd be on a prominent point that they could pick us out well most of the times would be signal mirror mm that we'd flashy up to him they'd lock in on us that way but once they got to doing actual coverage they would come down really low and sometimes Nappanee earth stuff and there would be OH - there's slow movers and a little push pool yeah you know we lost several coffees it seems like those I mean I can't imagine being the coffee rider in this one for our team Maryland and you're you're there and you're you're basically watching your guys get overrun and I mean it is even after you maybe made suggestions that they move somewhere else but you know well they don't but you're still supporting them I mean what a helpless feeling that's got to be rough and most of the covey riders were guys that couldn't operate for whatever reason no they were well they were former SF so sometimes would be SF men have been in country for eight or nine months and then they would be signed to cubby rise so they had experience on the ground there were short timers so the viewed as as a job that was not quite as dangerous as being on the ground but it had its own hidden dangers yeah yeah and it seems like you you just want like someone that you really knew and trusted oh you're copywriter right and so like in my case we had a bunch of new ones so this cubby rider was great he just picked everybody up ran as well we had a couple others that we dealt with and some of these guys like spider parks there's a couple times when there's no air available so you say what hell load they get they would make a gun round with a car 15 spider would hang out the window fires car 15 at the NVA I don't even know what to say to that yeah yeah and he wasn't the only cubby rider did that I mean other guys who drop around for an AM City nine doesn't really try to do to give us support while we're waiting for the air force and the other arrow sets to get there you know I was thought so when I went to sere school no they don't they taught us how to signal with the mirror but then in my mind cuz I'm dumb I would think like I think like how well this is really gonna work hey I can't believe every that's like your primary signal device absolute was the signal mirror yeah every time that we had been on the ground for a period of time had to reconnect everything was all signal through the mirror and we had to get the flash you get the copy on the right side so he could see us giving it you know everything oh yeah big is that mirror so it's just a regular signal mirror like a maybe 5 by 3 3 by 5 yeah like a cellphone did you have I had this even though I didn't really believe in signal mirrors I guess I had this like special signal mirror that when you pointed it at the thing it got like a little shade there's a little circle in the middle that got a little shade on it when you be in the right spot you know what I'm talking about yeah I don't know I never figured out how that quite work guys want to get the flashy up so they could see it did you like the technique where you're aiming at your hand and pointing at the thing at the aircraft no I would just make sure we had too flashy and just point it in general I didn't get that high level training you had sir well thank God I did never have to do it because I probably would have been able to pull it off well triple canopy is a little different than a desert yeah yeah and so in the Triple Canopy that had to be a challenge too oh yeah it has we find a hole in the jungle to get through with the flashing in the first place then you had to get the cubby lined up with your hole and then with the mirror flash you would you would look at us nowadays and think we were we were weak with all the crap that we've got we got laser pointers we got little signalling devices transponders on your equipment there's no question about man not to mention your knob we would have run over both of our mothers photos not oh yeah yeah for sure oh yeah and you guys had some starlight scope did you guys have some starlight think they're big and heavy we never carried a feeling no we only used them for what couple teams did I couldn't even tell you which ones I never heard about it much at least with Ethel b1 or our time of CCN but we used it for ambushes and they were so bright then you know they ruined your night vision so one be blown out for them from the green sensors that they use to amplify the light and then your other eye was for night vision okay awesome stuff you after this after Artie Maryland disappears going back to the book next morning Hobbes asked me if I would courier a packet of sensitive information to Mac V SOG headquarters in Saigon you end up going to Saigon you end up doing a little bit of Thailand as a time in Thailand as well she had a little pass it sounds like you had a good time there of which you don't remember a lot true you get back to Saigon and you're waiting for a return flight to Danang you'd spent all of your poker money which remind me never to play poker with you and here we go back to look for some reason I couldn't fall asleep that night in Saigon I lay there on my bed looking at the ceiling watching the ceiling turning still not believing that I had returned to Vietnam and a SOG at some point I remember thinking when I was in Nam during my first tour of duty I dreamed of returning to the States when I finally got home I found myself drawn back to Nam of course there were pressing legal matters at Fort Devens that contributed to my leaving the US of A and as I lay there I found myself asking myself what the hell are you doing here you could die it's like realization yeah that's the dental scene from Apocalypse yeah it is it is a Martin Sheen yeah that mental tape replayed many times in my mind that night in many different forms but the essence of the issue was when I was in Nam I wanted to go home when I was home I wanted to go to Nam once again I thought of home where other than my family there was no compelling reason to return I had no job waiting I had no job no career to speak of I imagined going to one of those County employment centers and saying hi I was a 1:0 in a secret war that I can't talk about I can fire my car 15 from the hip real good and I can hit it target at 400 meters with my sawed-off m79 and I could bring napalm so close that it'll suck the air out of your lungs thus at the age of 23 I had my midlife crisis there's a picture that one of my platoon chiefs told me about he had this mentor Vietnam SEAL who was a mailman in Imperial Beach California oho and you know he could come home from Vietnam and become you know what am I gonna do he became a middle man and he had and my platoon chief said that that guy had a picture on his wall and it was a it was a taken from the behind of a guy in fatigues with his web gear on and his weapon slung and and you're and he's looking at a like a corporate guy in the desk and the corporate guy is looking up at him and the caption underneath it says I'm sorry sir we don't have a job here for pointman exactly which it sounds like how you were feeling this is perfect on point yeah yeah and you're you've got this and this is you know it's interesting I was just talking to one of my buddies and he was saying look you know sometimes I hear people say oh I loved being in combat and when they say that I kind of get pissed at him and I think you know if you loved it so much are you saying he says I don't I don't love it so much you know I had a hard time with you know it was hard and I'll do I would do it again if I had to but I'm not dreaming about it and so we had this little conversation when I ended up saying to him was I said well when I was on my last deployment to Iraq any others you know we had some guys wounded we had some we had had that one guy killed at this point and there starts to be like you start seeing those negative feelings start to start to grow a little bit you know guys start questioning stuff guys start hey you know what what do we do in this operate whoo-hoo what why are we doing this mission and then you start to feel that and then guys start can be start to become negative and one of my platoon commanders came to me and said you know hey man you know this is gonna be rough and we get home these guys are gonna be you know we might not they're gonna be mad about this there could be mad about that they can be mad about something else and I said let me tell you what's gonna happen I said when we get home when you talk to them three days after we get home they will have forgotten 10% of the bad stuff and in a week they'll forget 30% and in a month they'll forget 50% I said in a year the only thing they'll remember about this deployment is the fun cool stuff that's and that's kind of what I think makes guys like me say man I I had a is awesome I would love to go back of course because we block out you know some of the hard memories and for me I also always say the absolute best time of my life was being a tasking of commander in the battle Ramadi and the worst time in my life was being a tasking of commander into battle or Mahdi because there's nothing worse than losing your guys and so it sounds like you that was hitting you sort of mid deployment of hey look oh you wouldn't you were home when you're back in America you got you got money problems you got girl problems you got law problems you got what all those problems and they can all go away yes they can all become insignificant as soon as you get on that c-130 and fly back overseas and I thought about hepps I'll hung that too on and the team I genuinely had that guilt feeling of them there of me not being there with him I felt as as a green beret I should have been there with him all along but we had the tour duty as you know and so I was in a way I was really glad to be back on the team but yes a little bit more mature now and thinking a little bit maybe two months but that night in that hotel and then 20 years later when Apocalypse Now comes out I go like how the hell they get in my head for that scene you obviously--you you you get through that that apocalypse now see of staring at the ceiling and thinking you know every minute that I'm in the bush every minute I'm in this hotel Charlie gets stronger cuz he's out in the bush you get back and you're on another mission and I'm jumping into it right now as I snapped out of my snooze you're asleep in a helicopter I snapped out of my snooze I looked at out the starboard door just as we flew over the to startle a Laotian farmers a woman and two water buffalo the big chopper then hopped over the hedgerow and landed in an adjacent field as Engels and I frantically awakened the rest of our tea Idaho I was mad as hell it wasn't bad enough they hadn't bothered to alert us as we approached the target area but now they were compounding that faux pas by flying too close to indigenous farmers and then depositing us in the middle of an open field far from our primary LZ and further yet from the bridge that was the primary objective of our mission that this particular mission was a pretty simple one at least on paper which I take it with a serious grain of salt when you say a mission is a pretty simple one yeah by early 1970 the brass had become aware of something new and rather creative on the part of the NVA underwater bridges these were being put in in place at strategic spots along the Ho Chi Minh Trail where it ran through Laos from the error would appear as though the trails were interrupted by water in some places several feet deep yet it was apparent that the trucks had himself were crossing these streams with ease a closer review of aerial photographs however had revealed that the ever inventive NVA had come up with an underwater structure that could support heavy trucking while remaining virtually unobservable from the air it was a devilishly clever idea and well executed to boot so that's pretty they just built these leg weather like maybe like six inches underwater the bridge yeah and we looked at the pictures you couldn't tell they really done it well and so that was the mission simple going find out what they are take pictures and blow them the hell up simple mission yeah if you'd be more fun to blow them up with a truck on it and you were you guys were asleep in the helicopters head in there no one woke you up and the reason why we launched from Thailand the weather had been socked in in Vietnam so it was a bad weather spell which was February of 1970 and they flew us by black birds which were the clandestine service airlift for us foods to Thailand we land in Thailand which is neutral at the Air Force Base the black truck comes up we get in has curtains they can't see us we go back to the base and my old commander from fo b1 was the CEO at down launch site which was the 46th Special Forces Group and they were there just to be in-country but they had their site of the sequel war spatzle came out of there they had cubbies out of there and so we launched and the air force at the h2 h3 is the bigger helicopters like the Jolly Green Giant but a scaled-down version without the armor plating so we launched from there and we flew for two or three hours because the long flight from Thailand across western lay offs and we launched as we landed at a fuel dump in the middle of Laos yeah it was run by the agency okay so we manual yes we refuel but you get off you go hey man who are you because I'm not here I go welcome I'm not here either he says have a good day while you're not here and we get to go in and then the Air Force put us down on that thick canyon and that's one thing that's always interesting when you're using helicopters the helicopter when you're supposed to insert at one spot for them they they miss that spot by a minute or whatever for them it's no big deal like they they just flew a minute a little bit long for you on the ground that minute is a long time I mean that can be a kilometer it could be like a really massive amount of space that you just missed oh yeah and this is like the dip between the valley and the peak that we want to go in on so we could run at night a little bit cuz there's some open areas that we could cover and then get down maybe at the middle of the night to check this thing out in the morning at first light that's what our plan was just didn't happen we're in the valley and it's like okay we've flown out here I so you don't want to just fly back isn't everybody off let's give it a shot we're here we're on the ground scope so we had to get out put our gear on first we didn't even have our routine insert where everybody goes out on full alert we get out put the damn equipment on and then we're like okay we're in the valley and the mountain we want to be honest several thousand feet above us and we're in this valley are you carrying a regular topographic map is that your primary means of navigation yes and they would have the big map and then our target where we plan to go they would cut out a ten by ten cut it out and that's what I saw we carried so we got caught there would be nothing else besides just that that grid that we were in and did you ever use any imagery as well to to know compliment that nope strictly map the Covey pile if they did it via our visual reconnaissance prior to the mission but here it wasn't we the cubby had told them here's the target area for some reason the Air Forces went down to the valley job just there alright continuing on given the rather undistinguished nature of our arrival I'm sorry undisguised nature of our arrival we knew is only a matter of time before hundreds of NVA troops trackers and dogs would be purring down on us on that road looking for us so you know sweet to work with dogs so like I can't imagine knowing going in that I'm gonna be facing dogs that are coming after us and obviously you guys were cuz you guys carried mace and pepper and all this other stuff to throw them off but what a nightmare that is I still hate dogs you have wife loves him but and the kids love him do you have any dogs yeah we got a fleabag running around the house his name is Gunny butter weights it's like we got it from a from a Gunny okay yeah ours was no tourists John furthermore is very unsettling to be moving through this beautiful Valley in broad daylight at what for a recon team past at breakneck speed it was not comfortable way to proceed we took no breaks not wanting to spend a moment longer than necessary in such an exposed position so you're just hauling ass oh yeah trying to get out of this valley as fast as you can and you end up with going up a hill a big hill and we just put the team to for a while I put the ankles on one side the valley and me on the other it wasn't that big in terms of width but wide enough that I could see him he could see me just I want divided and then the tail Gunners took care of our foot footprints and what was your reason for that call I just wanted to split the team up to see what was on the other side the valley we couldn't tell what you decide what was there so I figured we could any enemy we wanted to find out on both sides at once and try to get to a point where we could begin to find a spot to get up the mountain cook we were gonna run out of daylight got it so it was a little bit of a panic now panic move it was it was a hey we're in a tough situation one of the best ways we can get out of this is we put teams on both sides of valley we're looking for a way to get it to the top of this thing I knew you talked about this earlier now I used to warn guys all the time about splitting forces oh yeah and it's like really risky really really risk is the one rule you never do I did it twice okay so I just wanted to confirm that oh yeah no absolutely and the the situation was such that we couldn't tell what was on either side so I figured we're gonna have a firefight at least now they'll be minimal forces are four we went in an eight-man team that I start falling for four and four and John had been on the ground with me previously so he I wasn't worried about John and so if we're gonna have a firefight let's do with minimal forces we could survive and then get the prairie fire and I'm worried about getting out of here otherwise this proceed be and covers much ground because that mission where we set up the ambush we had we had a great success by not stopping because the NVA knew that we would go ten stop ten and so they would anticipate how far we traveled here it's like we covered maximum ground hauling ass yeah all right now you end up finding a place to go up this hill and here we go back to the book by now we are out of breath the grueling climb with all our combat gear was starting to wear on us and each additional step seemed to bring an increase in the steepness of the incline it was growing painfully clear that those periodic volleyball games we had played back at camp weren't sufficient physical training did you guys what you guys do for PT back then not enough volleyball get some yeah that was it yeah because we're so busy yeah between a mission mission prep and then they started thickness in isolation that's gonna ask you would you would you be tired when you're going into the field or would you be well-rested because like on this one you fell asleep you guys were all asleep oh yeah I'm gonna tell you right now like when we would go in the field most of the time when I would go in the field especially in Ramadi I would be exhausted by the time I went the field because we'd spend all this time planning and D conflicting and briefing and doing all this stuff by the time we'll in the field it was like the time for me to go okay hey someone someone stay and watch I'm going to sleep for an hour or two hours you know that happened a lot yeah we usually had a nice rest prior yeah it's nice oh yeah absolutely very nice going back to the book however any thoughts of letting personal pain slow us down or not so subtly overwritten by noise noises we could hear from the north of us the menacing sounds made us forget our dry throats heaving lungs pain means and knees and aching backs the enemy was out there and the game as they say was on the forces might not yet be joined but the fight was in the offing so he knew it was coming and then you guys go into like a series the sau leads you guys into like a serious of vines thorns undergrowth and we went in and then we went in deeper and he pushed us the third time I was pissed but God tore my fatigues I'm going you know did the dinky dal like you're crazy you're pushing it he was right I was wrong I mean when in the third level yeah and and and then you get in so deep eventually settled down and tried to get as comfortable possible on a 40-degree slope around 2200 we heard numerous trucks on the main road in just a few minutes several had driven slowly past our remain overnight position unfortunately the happy times were spoiled when we soon heard the barking of tracking dogs around 0 100 we heard enemy troops moved north on the road while on the east side someone opened fire with a few ak-47 bursts the distinctive bark of the Russian made weapon jar dust into full alert how long could they keep it up in which direction would they move we sat in the inky darkness a darkness so complete I couldn't see my hand in front of my face it sounded as though they were making their way north that's how dark it is and you have no night vision is just pitch black again it didn't take long before we had enemy troops on both sides of us as dense as our cover was we could see the flickering light from the lamps the NVA carried as the enemy soldiers began probing the bottom tip of the finger we were on vehicle activity on the road picked up noticeably this game is a very uneasy feeling had sound not driven us on the NVA might well have spotted us but as it was we responsed so deep in that god-awful thicket that one that the one enemy soldier who approached our position hesitated and then gave up defeated by the phony vegetation we could almost feel him thinking better of it and deciding to return to his comrades little did he appreciate how close to death he'd come with 5 car 15s and an m79 aimed in his direction slowly the NVA troops tired of their frustrating and uncomfortable search and called it off our tea Idaho could finally release the collective breath it had been holding the danger was not gone not by a longshot but just briefly retired from the field of play so thank God you were deep in that bush oh yeah and I you know I forgave Sal because it's like this is we don't need to go that far it's like look at my fatigues I'm bleeding here he's right Sal was always right I always listened to him so the night goes by at first light our options were severely limited we couldn't move north south or east which left us one choice not wanting to spend another day and night tied to trees on the side of a hill we opted for the obvious and moved out in a westerly direction for the rest of the day we climbed the side of the steep mountain did you guys ever move at night or do you guys try pretty much to remain in one position at night try to stay in one position whoo we only particularly in a triple canopy it's just too much noise in Cambodia when we were on flat territory we could have moved and we thought about it but no not in Laos several times the rock face was so steep we had to tie together six foot strands of rope we used for Swiss seeds to make rope long enough to advance up to the next level of rocks so we're talking serious terrain Oh Harlan just as last light was fading into darkness we reached the top of the mountain I was physically beat my pants were torn in my hands knees and legs were covered with cuts scrapes and bruises we were a mess we set up our ro Ann quickly and took turns eating rations before settling into the night watch rotations after the previous night nights ro n this Mountain tight mountain top site was paradise we could see enemy trucks moving south but did nothing about it we were almost too tired to think an extremely dangerous condition to be in went on the ground rest was what we needed not confrontation you guys are exhausted beat when we climb to take our web gear off rucksacks oh really we tie into all the squished seats together because we're going straight up so one guy would go up and then you shift up the backpack then the web gear put it back on go to the next level so we had to take that straight to shuck it several times and just to get up because it was so steep but it was covered but enough vegetation they couldn't see us in the valley so they weren't quite sure where we were and we had put out the mace and stuff another little cases was found some of the dogs noses so it's an all-day climb and with only a couple when we broke for lunch and whatever but yeah that was a nasty nasty climb when morning came we awoke to a beautiful sunrise and found that we were atop an unbelievably gorgeous Laotian mountain range the next few hours were the most spectacular ones I ever had spent on the ground in any AO moving north along the ridge line we began gradually descending often encouraging one beautiful new encountering one beautiful new Vista after another around 1200 we found an area overrun with thousands of wild orchids in full spectacular bloom back home each plant will be worth five to fifty dollars we decided to take a break in the field and soon everyone with the exception of Sal was in the middle of them and acting like a delighted child picking the flowers and sticking them in their hair teeth and behind their ears or in the buttonholes of their fatigues it was like a spontaneous outburst of happiness and while it was somewhat foolish it was also refreshing I think we all felt better for you to take any pictures and no oh man I'm sure yeah oh yeah you had the camera for the underwater bridge you can get the orchids misawa's all business Oh always he's living on the railroad come on whether it was your nickname did they call you tilt as well no these you called me my because the Vietnamese couldn't handle ours so instead of Meyer it was my got it I could see him looking at you thinking my what are you doing with that damn flower your hair their phrase was buku dinky down very very very stupid very crazy yeah how good your did your Vietnamese get it sucked I had happen and that was why we didn't have language training because they knew that with SF but for years for 64 to 68 they were interpreters in place mm-hmm and we just lucked out with happy it was his best one East Book good English and he corrected my English he spoke French what was his background that he had all that good language skill his dad is sent to school in Paris so he has some education in France they spoke four languages and now he's an interpreter Nam yeah going back to the book we came to a narrow strip of land that headed down from the hill I single Dingles and child to set out to scout ahead while the rest of us remained in place Chau was 16 years old he'd been on the team nearly two years so these kids have been on the team since he was 14 years old yeah when the team got wiped out Chau Cal and sown where the three did we'd hired and brought on and we let a couple of those go he'd been on the team nearly two years ever since Spyder parks and help field rebuilt the team in 68 Chau sensitive ears heard the NVA moving up the mountain he warned ingles with hand signals and the two of them abruptly stopped moving with the enemy less than ten meters away ingles quietly broke squelch on his URC ten emergency radio several times alerting me to the danger the rest of us were about fifty meters away the shit was about to hit the fan because we were so far removed from all air support there was no time to waste none at all we needed to jump on we needed all the jump we could get on things so I quickly contacted a nearby ov-10 Bronco and declared a prairie fire emergency setting in motion the string of responses that could save our lives and get us out does everybody did everyone know is that like a pro word prairie fire emergency did everyone know exactly what that meant a Karen knew it right and then we also had the airborne command control but they weren't always over aria they couldn't pick up the Fox mic FM mmm-hmm so in this case we lucked out that OB 10 was I think they were one of the Ravens who had they were surprised supporting another CIA operation it was further west into layoffs and he had been up heard the call and came over and I was the first time he worked with ob tens man lucky berry while I was talking to pilot chaozhou and Ingalls to spring a hastily arranged ambush that startled on the startled enemy troops when their point man was less than a meter away tchau hit him with a full automatic burst from his car 15 blowing him backward chow silent ingles then hit the remaining enemy soldiers so hard and fast that they didn't have time to fire a single return shot Ingalls threw down a hand grenade down the hill to discourage anyone who might be around so this is all son that's happening a meter away there is really close and he came up the hill he was white because I was the first really real firefight that child been in and because he had trained up and like here the earnest spotted team so this was his mission and that was he was down in with John and he was ahead of John as the fight began to unfold I took stock of the situation there weren't too many places for us to go within minutes of the broncos arrival the pilot had spotted us he said he could see more enemy activity north of us along the hill angles and Sal were on he made a run on the enemy concentrations firing his rockets into their position then he said somewhat laconically I've got two bits of bad news for you first nam is socked in no assets can launch from there to extract you which means thailand assets which means at least three hours before the birds arrive on station second to yourself that are approximately a dozen troops about 800 meters out and moving towards you I think you better sit tight until we get some help by 1430 a covey aircraft replaced the Bronco and repeated this sit tight suggestion he agreed the eastern and western face of the mountain were too steep to descend he also confirmed the NVA were coming at us from the south and north they were clearly visible as they moved cautiously through the sparse vegetation for the next half hour the enemy troops tried to locate us to discourage them I directed several AE a1 e Skyraider gun runs south of our position so this is another one of these things where I got a like when you get you got the NVA moving to your position and you get told hey the closest extract the earliest we're gonna be able to get you out of here is three hours from now yeah we're up on an area where there's minimal escape routes or a jungle because everything was so steep on several different sides that had little work a little bit of a plateau door had been like a trail that came down and then John and Chou had gone down further another little finger and that's where they had the firefight they came back up we put a perimeter out and luckily we made radio contact right away so the ov-10 went in with his rockets just to say it was 2.75 and then that's when he gave us the good news yeah good news that's gonna be three hours at a minimum before they get you help yes why we carried a lot of bullets yeah a lot of that it could be a long day I don't know if you can carry enough bullets for a three-hour fired fired that's a nightmare back to the book of 12.7 millimeter enemy gun in the valley opened up on the a1 'yes i was sitting on the east side looking down at the valley floor after making another gun run that a1 e pilot told me he was pissed because the enemy gunner was coming too close to him and his wingman he wanted to nail him ASAP i gave the pilot what I thought was clear what I thought clear verbal directions to where the enemy gunner was located but he couldn't find them so I told him simply to watch the ground for my and follow my tracers at that I fired a short burst toward a clump of trees in the valley that were maybe 500 metres away the pilot had no trouble seeing where my tracers hit thanks partner he said in a low southern draw and then rolled in for the kill it was the most beautiful napalm dive I've ever seen the pilot came out of the sky pointing straight down his engine screaming it reminded me of dive bombers I had seen on the television series of victory at sea I really thought I was watching a World War 2 movie because I was so high up in the mountain I was looking down on the sky Raider when at the absolute last second he released a napalm canister and pulled out of his gutsy dive it was a perfect strike the impact generated a secondary explosion which was probably the Gunners spare ammo going off around him black oily smoke billowed up there was not a whisper of sound from the former gun emplacement for the next three hours I directed air strike after air strike around our position and in the valley at 1730 hours we heard the very welcome sound of the HH 3s coming our way as they approached in the distance the NVA pushed up from the north and hit Sal's claymore further south of us another machine gun opened up from the valley as I gave Covey the compass heading to its position I caught sight of an enemy soldier climbing a tree about a hundred metres away he had handed his RPG launcher to a nearby comrade while he got into that position it was clear he was looking for arty Idaho or hoping to nail an Air Force chopper I was too far away to shout and alert to the other team members for the first time in my 16 months of running missions I extended the collapsible stock of my car 15 normally it remained compressed to minimize the length of the weapon but now I wanted it extended to help stabilize my aim once I was ready I carefully put the NVA soldier in my gun sight in that fleeting moment I felt like God I had the power of life and death concentrated in my finger tip as I grounded my elbow to steady my arm I found myself silently hoping the NVA troop would be unable to find the team and simply climb back down the tree he didn't see either me or my car 15 in a troubling way it seemed unfair or unsportsmanlike but war is not designed to be a sporting contest if the situation were reversed I had little doubt what he would opt to do although these reflections took less than a moment to form they caused deep soul-searching on my part I found myself recalling my third grade Sunday school teacher mrs. Myrtle Richard and her treatment of the ten commandments especially the one that proclaims thou shalt not kill hell if I had met this treed soldier on the streets of Hanoi without guns and beyond the rhetoric of politicians we'd probably be able to find lots of common ground between us and dozens of purely human things to talk about but that could not be not now not at this given moment also in my mind was the knowledge he would receive a medal if he ever managed to kill me or one of my team members as I watched and reflected his comrade reached up and handed him a rocket launcher I could tell it was unloaded what I had what I had come to think of my personnel my personal NVA moved a little farther up the tree craning his neck to find us from the corner of my eye I could see Sun move towards Sal and at that very moment someone passed up around for the RPG I still refused to yield to the inevitable I continued to hold on to the stubborn hope that he would abandon his cause climb down the damn tree and walk away instead he fitted the round into the end of the launcher I still watched still I waited even after he'd put the weapon to his shoulder as he nestled his neck against it and began to take careful aim toward us I leveled my sight on his head I pulled the trigger a single yet timeless he dropped from the tree out of sight but not out of my mind one of those moments hmm how far was he away it was arranged he's well over maybe a foot football field in half two fields because I was like on a cuspid as' of the hill and he was around on the side and I could see there was like a tree he climbed up that was above the regular vegetation so I'm not sure how high he went but I could see him the beginning and then I just waited because then when he got that damn RPG mm-hmm yeah then it's time to do what you got to do oh yeah and once again I'm gonna make this claim I'm not reading this whole book I'm jumping around and you should read this whole book if you're listening to this because I'm getting 10% of what's going on in here this part continues on seconds later one of the approaching h/h three pilots broke broke into my reverie by commenting somewhat frantically on the heavy ground fire he was taking from the mountains south of our position there was a moment's hesitation before he sadly announced I think we have some mechanical problems we're going home we could see the helicopters and they looked fine to us they were less than two kilometres out when they turned and disappeared into the fading Sun our morale sank as they vanished after cursing our lack of after cursing our lack of look and the pilot I told the team to take a nap there's gonna be a long night so there goes your ride out in there for freaking ever and you see those guys hey we got some mechanical problems we're out of here yeah it's a very unhappy moment so you guys you tell the guys to take a nap you take a little nap yeah and back to the book around 1930 Engels roused me wake up you're not gonna believe this shit as I came around he was pointing south up the mountainside from about 30 meters from our perimeter and as far as we could see there were dozens and dozens of lanterns bouncing and swinging along each Lantern was carried by an enemy soldier and between each Lantern were many more soldiers the same scene was unfolding to the north of us the NVA were coming up the hill on mass we could see at least a dozen trucks unloading hundreds of NVA troops in the valley also across the valley and up on the plateau to the east there were hundreds of lights moving everywhere like swarming fireflies flitting around in the night in a smaller valley west of us still more lights more NVA more trouble just more more and more of everything we did not want to see I felt the tremendous weight of just how small RT Idaho was how terribly isolated and alone we were how incredibly vulnerable all of a sudden I found myself praying for reasons only he understands my prayer was answered as a few minutes later the first Spectre c-130 gunship arrived on target with its - 20 millimeter cannons and four 7.62 millimeter mini guns ready for action that had to be the most horrifying thing that you could ever think of you wake up and you see these enemy lights surrounding you hundreds of them and you know that they're looking those hundreds maybe thousands of enemy personnel are looking for you and your six-man team oh yeah no comment for us and it was just like yeah I'll never forget when Jon woke me up I mean it's just one of those moments he's just like my god fuck me to tears and help me Lord yeah please wake up you're not mom keep praying right about now if you fit not praying back in New Jersey please start praying now and then what what do you have any idea did you ever find out what where the c-130 came from where the spectre came from it had to be out of Thailand and so it just randomly showed up Oh No then somebody with the cubby that we had talked to earlier who brought the hill and copped us out because the cubby was still trying to work with us for other air SS and when it got dark we lost everything conventional so all to a ones phantom jets were gone and they didn't have helicopter gunships out Thailand just transport vehicle of aircraft so we had that quiet spell and so they had notified Spectre and they had told me that they're gonna try to get a Spectre out and had you work with the Spectre before yes we used before but nothing like this night so for anyone that doesn't know to a c-130 Spectre gunship is it's a it's a c-130 which is like a big transport aircraft but they put some big weapon tree in this case - 20 millimeter cannons and four 7.62 minigun which fires six thousand rounds a minute correct or something crazy oh yeah yeah it's like a little I can lay xur beam when the tracers come out of these things or a dog piss it from the sky yeah or that and so these guys show up and here we go back to the book this was this awesome a way of array of weapon tree could be made to form a magic link with my emergency strobe light once that link was established the gunner could dance the incredible firepower of his four mini guns just twenty four thousand rounds per minute total within five feet of us it was wonderous it was miraculous it could save us on this particular night however we were faced with a highly unusual if not unique problem the pilots circling over us reported he couldn't pick out the teens strobe light because there were so many other lights surrounding us the myriad of lanterns must have made the dark earth look like a pin cushion illuminated from within no problem I said I'll turn off mine you get the rest hit the ridgeline west of the valley give me a minute to put my team on the safe side of the mountain the specter commenced to putting on an amazing display of firepower once again we gave thanks for being on the right side of the fight the one that had Uncle Sam's Air Force and Spectre on its team after ripping up scores of body and carving out large patches of empty darkness on the ridge line The Spectre directed his deadly fire into the valley more lanterns were snuffed out and the darkness spread like a stain as lights and lives were extinguished The Spectre crew finally expended all of its ordnance and the pilot apologized for running out of ammo the next Spectre arrived seconds later see they've they were just they knew you were in a bad way and they were common oh yeah we were so happy that the second one showed up because now the lights are out so we could turn the strobe light on and have direct , did they have night vision back then in the spectres oh yeah okay at everything yeah see Air Force yeah yes it is yeah I mean this the Spectre gunship is just the most awesome asset to have overhead for ground support because the capability the visual capability that it has and then the accuracy of fire yeah this is 1970 you think how accurate that was oh this is what they can do now oh yeah yeah the next Spectre arrived seconds later he quickly locked on to our strobe and worked the southern slope with a vengeance marching his guns right up to the trail right up the trail to the top of the ridge beyond our line of sight he worked then he worked a valley in the southeastern mountain ridge a third Spectre arrived and worked our southern perimeter again systematically walking its fiery lead up the mountain around us there was no longer any light above us no moon no stars the only sound was the roar of the c-130 overhead in the absolute darkness he could not be seen until his guns opened up then tongues of fire seemed to erupt out of nowhere like spontaneously generated bolts of and the outlines of Spector's fuselage would appear in brief flashes as a pale and ghostly silhouette an airborne Grim Reaper when Spectre moved to other targets we could hear the enemy dragging away his dead at 0-0 forty-five sow said some NVA were in the grass about 20 meters south of us a few minutes later he blew the claymores we all instinctively flinched for some reason claymores always sounded more thunderous at night and caught you by surprise after the dust settled we again heard NVA troops dragging away their bodies they never spoke we heard no cries of pain their silent execution of grim duty was at once eerie and admirable Jesus they were tough they fought hard and died hard so you wouldn't even need hear these guys getting wounded getting blown up and they wouldn't even scream they wouldn't cry we just silence it was amazing today it was mind-boggling think that all those guys were wounded or just dead ok the dead we know but there had to be some wounded of course not a sound but you hear them dragging the bodies and we I don't know how many we killed that night back to the book shortly before the next Spectre arrived I moved my team away from the edge of the slope and into the high grasses Sal placed one more Claymore down on the northern slope in short order Spector locked on to our strobe light he reported that cloud cover was beginning to roll in the AO when Spectre dropped when Spectre then dropped illumination flares over a Sal's eyes turned as big as pizza tins NVA troops were then 5 metres of us all of about 15 feet blinded by intense white light they could not immediately make us out as we nestled into the high grass but this was of little real consolation they would spot us soon enough I whispered into the radio asking Spectre just how close he could bring the ordinance to my strobe-light as close as you want it he first replied I want it five feet in front of my southern perimeter I responded well he hesitated I can't bring it in any closer than 25 meters from your perimeter unless you're willing to accept responsibility for any casualties we may accidentally inflict we have to record you saying it I wanted to scream you dumb fucking idiot they're five meters away and you're going to quote and you're quoting regulations to me just kill the fuckers before they kill us instead and feeling like a complete fool I whispered that I was fully willing to accept responsibility for any and all casualties that may or may not result from his efforts to save our lives I followed up by saying now bringing it in as tight as you can to the light I'm holding it up now move south from my light I'll take my chances with you the gun crew finally opened fire in there and the fuselage cracked over our heads the ground in front of us erupted as thousands of rounds ripped into it kicking up stones and dirt and tossing NVA soldiers around like ragdolls against Spectre slowly marched his stuff southward from our strobe light moving up the ridge danger-close oh yeah so the flare goes off and South sees that the enemy are 5 meters from where you're at yeah I didn't realize they're that close they were that quiet I mean they kept coming all night and because it was pitch black and they were just so quiet and they just probably moved during the wind or moved during when rounds were hitting or whatever and they made it to within 5 meters I mean that's when you're making this radio call it's a miracle they couldn't hear you and they just didn't start shooting towards your direction when you make the radio call that's why I was waiting for I was waiting for that next a.k to open up all my voice especially when they're asking you for the oh yeah oh ho you talk about moments that's insane totally I wonder what - I mean that's I'm actually surprised that they could pull off five meters maybe just for anyone that's listening that doesn't understand this this aircraft I don't know what what altitude were they at do you have any idea there had to be at least three to three thousand feet above us so and I don't know what the height of the mountain range or that that little plateau that we were on there but several thousand feet above us they locked in neurontin input rounds within five meters of you oh yeah yeah I mean I could see they do it now because now they've got computers and they've got all these I mean just incredible systems up there I mean I've been in the modern ac-130 they're ridiculous well is that right yeah yeah they're crazy like they're the the the capability that they have is just completely ridiculous but I can't no I mean I mean I know there's no way they had that same technology back in 1970 it's impossible you know there's more technology and in my phone than is in of 1970 bird those Air Force guys were good and you know we just kept a strobe light right pointed at the aircraft so when it's circled the whoever had the M sitting on I did it for a while then we take turns with it but we always followed the aircraft so it would be directly linked into that strobe light that's right because you had your you put the strobe into the m79 right yeah so it was only directional right so we go straight up there so anybody in the ground wouldn't see it so that's what's happening as these guys are five meters from you oh yeah this is ridiculous that's what I thought that night also hey yeah send me a king bee please yeah back to the book between bursa fire he dropped more flares this time the illumination revealed no movement south of us instead ciao gleefully reported that there were beaucoup dead VC with a South quiet Spectre started on the northern flank and marshes fired down the finger of land when I reported hearing more trucks in the valley the gun crews pounded them into silence another Spectre circled us and laid down its deadly Ring of Fire again bringing it to within 5 feet of our strobe light somewhere around 0 400 summer early morning fog and haze moved in as the last Spectre moved out once the spectre was gone the NVA started moving toward us once more from the south only this time with real vengeance Spectre killed a lot of their comrades and they were in no mood to back off but we managed to hold them off by employing what we called our guess whether I'm throwing a grenade or not tactic which had a way of making almost enemy almost any enemy think twice what was that all about I didn't covered in the book but you wrote about it but what lost another version of hide-and-go-seek with could we only had a limited amount of grenades we had used some already and so we knew that when we threw the grenade when the land that you'd hear them rot that you would hear so we knew were getting low so Sal went out and got stones and chow and had the team went out in Gus stones somehow they came back so we wait until he would tell us somehow he shall could just tell where they were I could I didn't have that kind of definitive skillset so his signal he would let us know or he would just throw the rock he thought of rocky here and scurry away like rats could they thought the grenade was coming so we throw another rock so it'd be less scurrying so then we wait throw another rock and be less scurrying then we throw it another hang grenade so in then this went on for quite a while you know we always carried at least 10 hand grenades I always carry these 10 our ditch every 10 yourself oh yeah sure I had a couple on a strap and always in the rucksack and that's why just for that mission yeah apparently little did I realize you needed 30 yeah we abstained from firing our weapons because the muzzle flashes would have marked our position too clearly for the RPG Gunners who had fired several inaccurate rounds at us during the night fortunately they hadn't come very close we played these deadly games with the enemy until sunrise at one point we broke a major thrust by tossing a white phosphorus grade grenade then one of the most fearsome things I know of we couldn't see them but we could smell burning flesh at around zero 6:30 we heard an NVA officer or senior NCO calling roll in the distance it appeared few people answered him as the Sun finally burned off the fog we worked tactical air strikes with phantoms and Skyraiders a couple of machine gun position to open fire and hit one of the a1 E's a phantom blew one of the gun crews to hell with a 500-pound bomb that a1 e knocked out the second one minutes after it opened fire because there were no more Spectre aircraft to call on I continued to working with a pair of a1 E's having them make run after run I could talk directly to the lead pilot and he and his wingman executed my every request or Direction flawlessly damn you had to love those a1 e pilots finally we could hear in the distance the sweet sweet sound of approaching helicopters big HH threes churning their way our way it was time to pull out all the stops I used every available support aircraft F Force and a1 ease to raise hell and suppress enemy fire as they roared in with guns blazing we could see the 8h threes tagging along in their wake I told Covey to have the H h3 gun crews focused their fire on our southern prim and we'd handle the northern side I also requested a land as close as possible to the North Slope and not pay any attention to the claymores explosions we'd be setting off I didn't want to spook these guys off so the the helos land every one of the team once aboard immediately went to the starboard window or faced out the tailgate and began firing on full automatic as the h h threes revved up to full power I was the last to leave and before heading for the LZ I set off the last Claymore we had put on the northern perimeter then I ran like hell bent over like a cripple and cursing the propwash that was trying hard to push me backward as I made my - I remember being surprised and not seeing a single dead body although I passed a slew of blood trails and saw a lot of dark wet stains on the ground the second I was through the door the H h3 lifted off the ground there was nothing but sporadic small arms fire coming at us and in the end the extraction was relatively calm one it seemed as if the enemy was dispirited and just going through the motions I had a feeling they wanted us out of the AO as badly as we wanted to leave nonetheless we all continued firing on full automatic we also launched at least one m79 round as we gained altitude I dropped my last hand grenade into the under bush a little something for someone I hoped then just as suddenly and miraculously all gunfire ceased the only sound was that of the churning sikorsky hh-60 mare force blankets for the long ride when I made contact with him he gave me that quick nod of his and a slight smile we made it again that's just just this is just an insane mission oh yeah and I'm sure you you know what why don't you just break contact and continue mission so yeah crazy they need to yeah I know that you're putting some of these books on audiobook we're working on in the process of doing that and these are gonna be great when you when you release those I know you talked about in the little in the book you were putting for you you requested one of your guys be putting it for a Silver Star for this operation it John angle and then you got put in for a Silver Star as well and actually you're the the CEO said he was gonna upgrade that yeah he said he got on an upgrade which I didn't agree with but not gonna argue either yeah to a Distinguished Service Cross which if you don't know that what that is that's the the second highest military award for for valor and so but but at the same time and and again this is I kind of have to just tie this back into the book a little bit but you had been going through this kind of hassle with the commanding officer about carrying the carrying a new encryption device out we didn't have it for that mission and you didn't have it for this one correct but you had but then it he started turning up the heat like hey you got to carry this thing and this thing is no joke I mean I was looking at I used even when I got to the SEAL Teams we used a PRC 77 were those around for you yes what we started with okay for that for that encrypted transmissions so there you go so yeah the PRC 77 is an old radio it's an FM radio and it's how big would I say it is wasn't what something is similar to expect 25 yeah but I'm trying to think of something that a civilian would know correct so I can describe it's like a big it's like two lunchboxes maybe like yeah maybe like a briefcase that's a little bit more square a little bit thicker so it's like that maybe two shoeboxes something like that's better something like that that's what that's how big a PRC 77 is the KY 38 which is the encryption device is basically the same size as that right it's like again and it doubles the weight you got to carry double the batteries it cuts down your range because it takes away from the penetration of the of the radio waves coming out and you had to carry the encryption punch so that's what you're getting told to carry and you keep coming back and saying hey this isn't that great hey we've been trying and it's not working you you you keep getting told no carry it carry carry finally you you you say to your boss you say the commanding officer Hey look I'll carry it but if we get in one of these bad situations I'm gonna destroy this thing if it doesn't work if it doesn't work I'm gonna destroy this thing yeah and he kind of says okay whatever you know but you carry it yeah so you go on an operation you you and you actually we're gonna leave it in the helos you ask the helos to take it you and you ask him to come back and get it because it didn't work he said helos come back and take this thing because it's 50 pounds yes the weight and we had I want to try we were the target was the asshole and there was there was something specifically in the asshole they wanted us to confirm so I went in with a four-man team the theory being would go in light we can move quicker because the A Shau Valley didn't have triple K at least a part that we were looking at so like single or double canopy and a lot of open areas because if there's so many bombs during an eight camps to have been overrun deserted and I've been in the a saw we put the senses in and plus we fly over it every time so generally familiar where we were gone so I said I want to do a four-man team please don't force me a carry well we've had to carry it and that's when I said if it doesn't work we went in tried it didn't work it started a few times yeah and they wouldn't come back and you've been trying it on other operations as well where we tried on one and it's just a complete failure but I brought it back and so this time you start getting tracked yeah and and you say okay you know I'm not carrying this thing anymore so you put it through my grades you put a thermite grenade on yeah so you put a front of my grenade on it you destroy it and then you again by the skin of your teeth you got you get you and your guys out of there and when you are coming back to you you're flying back to base and just so you know how close they were at one point I'm looking to the north and I see a young face come through the jungle at me within 2 or 3 feet or so so I can see his outline I could see his a kay is down he sees me and we just stopped a look at each other and it's all through the jungle the grass he backed out I just kept my car at him but he didn't open fire mmm and he was young I mean a young kid with a gun he backed up and he went away so I knew that this okay this missus now compromised and we hit the thermite yeah like I said you get this is another mission where you are getting out of there by the skin of your teeth it's a damn miracle that you you bring all your troops back that you don't get overrun that no one gets killed it's crazy and they the CEO was flying in a helicopter close by we asked for a tactical with rods right he goes break contact the team is our favorite word's so we destroyed the the encryption device Roger that yeah yeah and we've had more contact well his he finally ran our fuel went back we're on the ground for a few more hours we continued to move but we hear more activity particularly yet-to-be thermite it's the damn radio I thought we'd be getting extracted he didn't so now they know where we are cuz anybody within 10 miles can tell there's the thermite grenade and any are as it's those guys and they're coming for us mm-hmm but there weren't a lot but we had a new copywriter came out Dallas Longstreet and we started running a once across because we could hear the enemy to the west and so the a one's made a couple gun runs and the last gun run the pilot came in and then he flipped his aircraft so like I'm looking at the a1 making a gun run and earlier you could hear when they go by and how the aircraft makes these noises these crack noises when the wings change and the whatever the structures in the plane are so I'd heard him goodbye before this one he came by he want to make sure where we were he came by so close I could tell you he was smoking to Felicia root he looked over he nodded I saluted and he did a couple more gun runs and they brought in this and they they split skull and they dropped the ropes and pulled us out on ropes and of course whenever you go out of ropes to shooting at you it's like target practice for them you I don't no one ever gets shot on the ropes I mean oh no we had a lot of guys never got shot on the ropes not go would just just luck oh sure luck I mean I always felt like they're just coming through your legs get your balls or mr. happy worse brain damn you so I'm worried about brain death this year so you go through all that and again people need to buy this book so they can read that full story because even what you just said is a portion of it you get back you get taken out on strings which again there's something we didn't talk about a lot but a lot of times when helicopters could land they drop down the ropes with the sandbags on the end and you guys were clipping and they dragged you out through the jungle and gets you up the altitude and get you out of there yeah and that's what happens here finally you get back and here we're going back to the book when we landed on the helicopter pad at CC and the seals biggest ramp a rude arrogant a rude ignorant sergeant major told me to report the co ASAP with the KY 38 and all attachments for it when I walked into the CEOs office the REM sergeant major ordered me to stand at attention which I did then the CEO asked the $64,000 question where is the KY 38 I explained to him that per our earlier conversation when we had made contact with the NBA since didn't work I destroyed it he flew into a rage telling me that I had violated a direct order from him not to destroy it under any circumstances I stated once again what I had said prior to the mission because this was a four-man team he simply said he didn't remember it that way it was just me him and the REM sergeant major who knew that the CEO was of course telling the truth so the the the sergeant-major support and skipper of course oh yeah he's telling the truth I didn't like the way this was going so as I had in the past with the CEO I tried to explain my actions from the position of the man on the ground which was different from a man singing a command-and-control helicopter as he had earlier in the day while ordering me to break contact and continue mission then he got really pissed and told me that he was going to write me up from the article 32 criminal allegation under the military military code of conduct for willfully destroying US government property in direct opposition to his order not to destroy the KY 38 under any circumstances the REM sergeant major then whispered something to the co as they whispered back and forth to each other I found myself growing extremely calm unbelievably calm finally the co stepped from behind his desk leaving the REM sergeant major behind it I'm going to ruin your Special Forces career I want you out of CCN at first light tomorrow he went on to tell me to report to 5th Special Forces Group headquarters in NHA trang where he'd have me drummed out of SF within the next month privately I smiled because the co hadn't done his homework he failed to realize that my service in the Army ended in two weeks due to the fact that I had extended my time and service to return to CCM the co only knew the date when I had arrived at CCN and it had assumed I had a traditional one-year tour of duty that would end in October not April 1970 my SOG days ended right there I knew that when I went to NHA trang I could get any assignment in Vietnam where there was an opening for an experienced SF soldier but as I stood there I believed that God had sent this asshole into my life for a reason granted it wasn't a reason I didn't completely understand granted it was a reason I didn't completely understand at this precise moment in time but it was time for me to get out of Uncle Sam's army altogether while my body if not my mind was relatively intact who knew what the future held for SF in Vietnam finally he finished and asked me if I had anything to say you're a disgrace to West Point fuck you sir I turned and exited without saluting the rim sergeant major caught up to me as I exited the door and told me to return and salute the co I bent toward his ear and quietly said fuck you too sergeant major before leaving the CCN headquarters area I stopped by the awards and decorations desk to see if the co had begun paperwork for flying that day east of our team embarrassed that clerk was simply nodded his head in the affirmative meaning that the CEO was in the process of getting himself written up for an award for telling us to break contact and continue the mission while he was flying out of harm's way safely in South Vietnam that was him yeah Wow oh yeah just don't believable but you know it's just like you knew it I just felt it and plus he had a reputation already by that time and we had talked to the ad people previously about some other things he put himself in for her had somebody put him in for and yes it's just a total disgrace and it's just that the luck of the timing was the fact that you knew that you could get out of the army yeah at that point us I was juggling the thought of relisting a friend of mine who was a captain who we had run one mission together he was going to he was in the process of putting me in for a direct Commission to lieutenant and so the paperwork had been placed and I don't know if it ever got the saikhan or not but I know that he had a separate office the paperwork was done we had completed everything we had letters of recommendation all that stuff and so in fact he and I talked about where we're going to do is going to stand for a few months to see if the direct Commission even though the reductions in force were coming mm-hmm you know because they had already started the Vietnamization process the maximum manpower we had at Vietnam was at the end of 69 I believe it was we had five hundred forty three thousand Americans in Vietnam so by April 70 when this all happened we had reduced the nevers you could do more more of it was coming even within SF and so that all those things were being juggled so if I got the direct Commission I thought about that two years of college I knew it to get two more years if I was gonna try it for a career and and I didn't want to go back to Fort Devens so those were the things I was jumping at the time and when this all happened I just like I said I was really comma just thought God gave me an answer here you know going back to the book I continued down to the team room where I gave Sal five hundred dollars to buy food and drink for the biggest party arty Idaho had during my tenure on the team we partied late into the night one by one each team member passed out until it was just hep and me standing outside Artie Idaho's Vietnamese team room HAP asked me if I needed him for any more interpreting when I said no he passed out in the sand I picked him up dust him off as best I could and carried him into the team room where I gently placed him in bed before I turned the lights out I stood in the doorway for a moment longer reflecting on my 18 months with these men with a special affection and admiration for Sal HAP Faulk clang and hung then the guilt pangs washed over me what did the future hold for them and that had to be the hardest part of this departure brutal really was and these guys we're just doing this continually for years they didn't rotate out no that was their job well HAP had rotated up to headquarters he asked for permission to go there for a better paying job and at the three-and-a-half years running recon says sure and we had a the guy was interpreter of Virginia came over not as good as HAP but he was a good interpreter and by that time we had worked on two other South Vietnamese hyung and a Chow were speaking good enough English where if I got shot they could pick up the radio take over because we cross train them on radio procedures SOPs how to run everything so help knew how to do it then hung and then Chow later and they must from their perspective this must have seemed completely insane oh yeah absolutely and they're like really but they knew the way but this is 70 so SF had been there in force for six years by then and they knew enough and talking to each other plus being in a secret war how things were operated and that you know we all report it to a commander somewhere and it was still one of the points that it's a sticking point with like oh god I'm alive thanks to you and now I'm leaving you guys here and so this is April 70 without everything about what April 30th 1975 would be like the day of Saigon film just horrible so you you finished with that you know you you pack up you report it to NHA trang during during the next two weeks the most traumatic event was having the ice cream stand severely damaged by a enemy mortar fire that was serious that's really messing with your head too destroyed the ice cream stand the reps had to go got they got PTSD from that one oh yeah daddy go downtown for the ice cream on April 25th that was April 1st so now it's April 25th yeah I mustered out of the army at Fort Lewis Washington again with mixed emotions I flew to Denver Colorado to spend a few days with my sister Linda and to enjoy some spring skiing in the Rockies at the end of April she got a rental car for me to return to New York City I drove from Denver to Sutherland Ohio to visit my cousin dunk Conrad and his wife Sandra before heading home to Trenton the drive was about 1,300 miles including pit stops and a long wait in Ohio for food and few phone calls I made it home in less than 15 hours see you're averaging over a hundred miles an hour basis that's all I could do though it's just a rental when I arrived at 20 West Paul I have that's your house where you grew up it was around 3:00 a.m. times had changed in my absence my parents now locked the front and back doors of the house so wearing my jump boots in class a uniform I went around to the back of the house where I climbed up to the window grab the metal roof of the shed and stepped on the metal clothesline hook to push myself up to the red metal roof dampened by the morning moisture after I climbed through the back window I went over to my little brother David and gave him a big hug hell he was taller than me then I went down to my parents bedroom moving first to my mother's side of the bed I touched her face but didn't say a word groggy Shemer she murmured David is that you then she reached up to my face and felt my beard John she said as she stirred from her sleep John is that you John you're home Henry it's John he's home she reached around my neck with the urgency and pain only mother's know and said Johnny's home Johnny's home oh yeah so you made it home hey buddy grace God and what came next what I mean what did you do after that well went to went back to school because it took me two years to flunk out so that summer I took classes and then my dad got me a job right away driving school buses and so to like within the first two or three days of me getting a driver's license this is Trenton New Jersey there's still some race riots that were gone on so things were they had curfews which there's like this is like mind-boggling in Trenton of all places and so they said we got a run for you you're gonna go to Chambersburg which was the Italian section of Trenton and they were just starting new integration program so I picked up a busload of young black kids that were mostly elementary school pick him up take him into Chambersburg on the way in there's protests and I'm getting rocked and stoned and I don't have my car 15 because those Italians are whoever they were they were hitting us with those rocks it was really making me very unhappy but here it was like this is Trenton I go for one more zone to this and they're doing this integration stuff so the curfew so we had all that going on and within a couple weeks the church softball team was reactivated softball season was there that did that school did some driving and actually got involved in the school newspaper became editor we had a period of time where the student government voted his self out of office we had the SDS on campus that Kondos were in there doing her thing behind the scenes they burnt down a couple buildings just for good luck played Domino's in a library knocked over all the books there stupid stuff there her and then was it you you had to just be thinking yourself are you serious yeah and this is what I just you know assault my friends get killed took risk my own life saw what the Vietnamese people were actually fighting for what they wanted yeah and you had these people back here in America do it acting like this and this to you know we knew the SDS was or backed with the calmness and they had their auteur propaganda but it was never reported they were just like well here's like another group protesting in the streets without any kind of active definition as to who these people really were what they really hated America and so you know we're involved with school trying to get going and you know during this time we got very active with the paper that has editor for two years I worked on a paper for every day for two straight years and we had our moments you know they had the first faculty strike in the state so before that I was really excited could me and two other SF buddies were going to shut the campus down because the the faculty there and the teacher unions told us we will support you students and we're gonna get things for you and they made other promises which okay I'm all for it and there would be the first strike in history in New Jersey and so me and a guys put together a plan because there's basically three major entrances and one couple clandestine routes so we had everything planned we're gonna overturn an empty fuel tanker at one gate the other gate we were to just close it down with cars and things so would take them at least a day or two to clean it up and clear it out we shut that school down so we're putting our plans together right so now here comes mr. editor I get a copy of the state I go to the State Department of Higher Education and the Chancellor gives me what the state is proposing says look at this read this it says have the Union give you their proposal but they wouldn't give it to me nor would the chance he felt was a violation of their fiduciary whatever the hell was that they're dealing with these union people so the union guy had his Volkswagen in the parking lot long story short I borrowed his contract I got it photocopied it when I'm photo cop and get downstairs at the administration building he walked by I salute say I continue to photocopy his is a negotiating paper which at many pages longer her I went back in printing side by side there's two mentions that what the union was going to do it over twenty or thirty pages of documents one was to give them more time off and the other was for a class size that's all they had in those pages we printed it dead in editorial and said screw the Union and opposed it and then we went to war with the Union editorially another fair and they went on strike but they didn't close the campus down I pull I pulled our true eyes brokenhearted because I really wanted to get some some feel of real warfare here Trenton state college you know but they lied to us where were you studying at the time well you know I was a member as a freshman is 64 and I finally graduated in 74 with a political science degree with a minor in English the English was still my foreign language at the time and did you did you I know you were working at the paper that's what you ended up doing for your career your young career must of my amazement because at the signal that was our school paper I did everything photography editorials news stories and went down to the Trenton Times the local paper they were owned by the Washington Post dick Harwood was the editor and during the Watergate stuff he was the voice that was skeptical of Woodward and Bernstein but he was my editor it's not good down and I went in for an interview I said I had my hairs on my shoulders now I hadn't had a haircut for a couple years blue jean jacket t-shirt jungle boots old blue jeans going for the first interview he's interested just come back for a second I went back for a second interview had a clean t-shirt at this time stepped it up yes I haven't thought about polishing the jungle boots less than that so I got hired went to work the trend times I was there for 10 years and then went to San Diego for 10 10 years with the San Diego Union which is about eight years moved out to California 1985 what made you decided to move out to California The Washington Post sold the Trenton Times and it the quality of the newspaper just diminished incredibly I was fighting more with the editors to get stories into the paper I covered the courts and I was doing investigative stuff we did a story about that we broke the story about the FBI investigating Philadelphia Police Department corruption that went to the top why it interviewed a marine who was a Vietnam vet who was the undercover guy working with the fan belt inspectors for 18 months I see this guy at nights we did this today we did this he made fun of the FBI and so he told me when they were getting ready to go out get the search warrants and do the raid so I called up the fan belt inspectors and said hey heard you got a little case going on I don't want to jeopardize your investigation but I'm gonna write about it before you guys do it let's talk turns out the chief FBI guy was a as a Specter pilot oh geez he had flown in layoffs now we couldn't determine if he was my Savior that night on February a 1970 or not but we had an interesting exchange so I gave him two days and they put all the paper together and they put up wiretaps on the key suspects and the Philadelphia Police Department Monday morning I broke the story scooped the Philadelphia Inquirer every major paper in the world does it before the Communists News Network and and Fox News and all this stuff did the story and it was amazing and they and they did the whole thing when the follows my one of my major coos we had the other story about the Philadelphia Phillies that were under investigation and so we had law enforcement with my was my main source that did the courts and in between we do these investigative pieces were fun Kane of San Diego was there for eight year doing law enforcement covered our beloved border patrol and then from there I went to North County and I I always lived in North San Diego County and they had a paper called the the OSA side blade citizen so I went to work there the editors job paid $10 a week more than a reporter's job so I was like became an editor's assistant city editor up in Oceanside which eventually became the North County Times and so I went to work there in October met my future bride in December she had two boys I had two girls ten months later were married and so we'll be celebrating our 25th anniversary this this October and we went for the tiebreaker so the tiebreaker she's 22 now and I worked at the paper until 2008 that I've worked at a couple of nonprofits helping veterans over the last 11 years in between a couple books for good luck yeah well no awesome books it seems like and this is something I always did like obviously you know you you went through some just completely insane intense stuff you come back it seems like you got back into society fairly well fairly quickly being you and and what I always say guys is like you need a new mission like because what happens when I think guys fall apart is when they come back from wherever they're deployed to and they don't want to come back they don't know what to do they don't they don't they don't go on to the next mission whereas you're like okay I'm gonna go to college I'm gonna work at the newspaper or I'm gonna organize these you know we're gonna fight this fight and it seems like you got focused on what your next mission was where I think that's when a lot of guys don't do well and I was wondering if you saw anything with your friends other Vietnam guys that you served with the guys that seemed to get back on track and carry on with her life as well those the guys that don't yeah majority of our guys I like to think came back and they just that one way or the other we had a couple tragic cases that didn't I mean when I went back from my second tour I went back with Jeffery Junkins who was going back for his fifth tour of duty second or third with SF and so we held on the plane going across when back wheel and in the camera on Bay and instead of going through the process we got our duffel bag went out stole Jeep drove to the Trang but didn't go to headquarters went downtown and partied for a little bit then reported to the track and then went up to CCN there because we were both be turning so there's no in-country training not as tough and and my order specifically said si si si n and I got back to the team right away which you covered earlier here and the other sidebar which really helped was at trench State College I point I was a point man for the Pele wmia concern center they came out with the bracelets and the whole thing went there was that effort they had American citizens that were and the family members it's the first time American family members petitioned an enemy to treat our prisoners better and so our prison swarm related released until February of 1973 way at two years that I worked at the PIO WMI a concern center we had a POWs Air Force POWs from Trenton we supported him his well his family wrote letters everything we could do for now in our spare time between classes putting on newspapers and things like that so it was like a really a Subrosa mission and when the prisoners came home that was just a great moment mm-hmm and so but it really was helpful like they said another mission that we went into the newspaper going into it and there's a period of time the student government voted herself out of office so the paper was the only student voice so we took one zero what does that mean the student government voted themselves out of office was that even me hey this is 1971 we had people that were just too busy they didn't think the student government was was a good address issues that were apropos to to needs and students or whatever the hell that meant and I forget the real reasons but they just disbanded themselves so the signal was the only voice on campus and so we became much more active and of course we had affirmative action that was starting then and the teachers strike we had a outbreak of meningitis which killed three students had to cover that and of course deep in my mind I wanted them to strike I wanted to go out stop the campus down but it didn't work out how about the you know how was it the treatment you know you know as a modern day veteran myself like we get treated just unbelievably ridiculously good whereas the benefit from Vietnam we weren't treated well but today our citizen tree treats our soldiers sailors appropriately regardless of the politics they thank you for the service mostly yeah we had we had cases I mean I wore my fatigue jacket for years just to say fuck you I'm wearing if you don't like it talk to me about it and we had a few parties with the newspaper and so everybody almost everybody except for one or two people were very liberal of course this is the college 1971 too and we had this one freak he's like six three had his long hair and he came up to me said you know you guys I know about you Green Berets your fucking baby killers you know he's gone on the whole party comes to a stop so it's mean is creep and so he said a few more things than fine says aren't you really a baby killer and I said look the only time he killed babies when we ran out of rations he was never saved and every boss was kinda like laughs and realized how ridiculous this asshole was yeah so it's like why get your hands dirty yeah yeah so yeah we had someone that I'm in black when he came back he was trying to get out a year poor quick and took a took the door got outside and wound up in a long corridor well three or four guys came up to him I say hey man you're back you got cast we're gonna believe you that burden so then pulled out was 25 caliber browning the little ones you know you your palm yeah the mingoes no you're not I'm not giving it to you and the guy I recognized a cigarette lighter when I see one limb put her round between his legs right there at the airport they they left but again there's no respect you know Lynne just didn't want to get his uniform where was that where I was live see up in Seattle yeah yeah and then how did you start getting reans group that you're with now I got a phone call first but well just - I got a phone call from Spyder parks in 1983 I lived in Trenton my first wife first order and he said we got this group special operations association it's our guy so it was formed by Green Berets that ran recon and we had some hatchet force guys that were the platoon company size operations like Mad Dog Jerry Shriver and they had formed up a few years earlier so I signed up probably to Trenton and their reunions were at different places so I'd never I didn't bother to go for several years but spire and I talked paid my dues and finally went to they started having them in Vegas me and Jeff Junkers we drive go to Vegas get into the hotel went to the security guard left and sneak into the reunion hang out with the guys for a day pick one of our guys crashed in their room for the night and then drive home next day but we get to see the guys and no money we get to free food free drinks a little gas right so we did that for a couple years there's a lot of fun and then when I finally met Anna my current wife and my sweetheart forever that kind of came to a close I took out on one time and the first time was not a really completely good experience some of our guys are still pretty wild and then the hotel wasn't that cool but now that's more of a our guys are slowing down a little bit we've lost some along the way so we happen to be you know it'll be our 43rd reunion that I'm also involved the Special Forces Association chapter 38 up an orange and I went to the restroom two years ago at Christmastime I came back I was president rapido my second year duty with those gentlemen and what's the what's the nonprofit group that you have we have the veterans veterans affordable housing program that's out of orange and then we have a separate nonprofit called the American veterans assistance group where we work with programs within our communities we have 45 communities in the five western states that are owned by our company and by our nonprofit and so we encourage to help veterans that have fixed income to get them into affordable housing you know the manufacturer homes are less expensive the stick houses and then we have programs but through our the evac program we have programs for meals meetings have been a guest speakers and things like that and we're doing at about nine of our two communities now so that's what my other job is to do the newsletter busy always always busy can't like Clint Eastwood say can't let the old man in well I'll tell you what we just hit three hours or something close to that so I know I need to let you get out of here obviously anything else any other closing thoughts no just as I said the first time is I could have done any of the books without my sweetheart my dear bride you know we had you know four teenagers and a relatively new born in the house they go right and the god bless her without her I couldn't have done it so and their family today we just learned we got to to grow two or three girls are pregnant so we're getting excited about being a grandparent or practicing her and we're still working with our nonprofits so moving forward anything can people donate to that nonprofit do you have that kind of thing is there a website or anything like that or is you guys just run it locally no they I'll have to check the website but they could I've got my email my website saw Chronicles calm and they could punch a near my emails there and I'll plan to Ford and the we're going through some changes with our website where I sign you know let's SOG Chronicles is how people can talk to you reach out to you through that gladly and yeah come on in and we'll say hi and take it from there awesome awesome well well thank you for this opportunity and your books me love thank me at all Lewis's this is the honors 100% and completely all mine to hear the stories which are completely insane to learn from your experiences obviously or maybe it's not obvious anytime you want to come on the podcast you shoot me a text you let me know and we'll just open the door you come in I don't need to say anything you can just talk that's fine with me I'll just listen like a bad dream I'll be back I look forward through every second of it likewise and you know so thanks for coming on and and you know more important and of course thank you for what you and what your teammates did for the service of our great country likewise sir thank you we're always indebted to you and men like you so thank you for what you've done appreciate it airborne all the way until next time and a once again John Stryker mire tilt tilt has left the building what an incredible human being and it's a complete honor and just lucky to be able to sit here and talk to him and hear his stories and hear and reflect on stuff and it's been a while it's been three hours so anyways if you liked this conversation this podcast that we just did mm-hmm if you got something out of it which I know I did if you want to support the podcast while you actually support your own self yes I think Eko can give you some help in making that happen yep yes so it's going to it gg2 obviously I'm doing jujitsu if you're not doing jujitsu I I would say chuckle and I strongly recommend I thought you said we were disappointed no see yeah maybe maybe part but not really at the end of the day there is some understanding to be exercised here because not ever okay you were rolled well you're different but sometimes people roll into jiu-jitsu gym or see it on TV or I mean think about it two people wrestling a hard or whatever some people just don't automatically want to go do that you know just automatically on its surface you might think oh well that's not really for me I don't really want to gravel grapple with some other dude oh yeah what you don't see is what's beneath the surface yeah because what's beneath the surface is fitness flexibility mobility mental stamina yeah physical stamina yeah cardiovascular improvement strength improvement on top of all that you guess what you get a legitimate skill that you can actually choke another person that's bigger than you that is stronger than you yeah you can take them yes so and you know if I speak for myself the reason I started and continued with jujitsu is because it's the skill that you're talking about you that you learn that skill is this if someone if someone insists on fighting you mmm you can win the fight yeah you won the fight and before you learn how to fight and I'm speaking generally speaking um before you learn to fight you think ah you know um I'll just do this oh yeah you know I'm stronger than that guy or I'm bigger than that guy whatever yeah you know and you don't realize how how untrue how you know how I've said we lie to ourselves yes like we lie to ourselves this is a whole nother category of lying to yourself yeah because one category is like we lie to ourselves like oh it's just one donut it's not that's just a lie you lying to yourself or well I don't like can't make it to the gym today cuz you know my you know it's getting a little late that's a lie you know it's a lie but an even bigger lie is I'm more capable I'm capable you know in certain situations and you're not and you're thinking and you still talk to people like this you're like oh you know we'll feel really came down to it yeah yeah you know and I lift - yeah and I got strong cardio who's gonna be able to take me I'll tell you a most fourteen-year-old girl yeah that knows how to you know choke you yeah that's who yeah just like in pool right you play pool billiards billiards snooker sure and it's like yeah I know I see what's going on I just hit this ball to hit that ball and go on the thing yeah that's no problem with money on me I'm pretty smart I'm pretty coordinated yeah you know I'm just like that's just something I'm not how hard can it be exactly right and you go play against a guy who really who knows how to play pool you'd be like brow how do you even do that like how did you even let you figure it out but they know they just know it's not like it's this magic thing they just sort of know same thing with jiu-jitsu it's like been in fact it's such a mystery when you actually do it how easily they beat you it's such a weird magic mystery that they you don't even comprehend it yeah at first you're like oh oh I just slipped nobody you did slip people either but yeah yeah yes and you think oh well next time I'll just stop him from putting his arm there yeah 1 billion other things that's gonna do yeah exactly you don't know nothing about same thing with basketball by the way yeah something with all sport basketball right oh yeah yeah it's it goes deep anyway when you do jiu-jitsu when you did you get to because you're doing that we're doing it and you're gonna do it you should get Aggie because you don't you want to gain okey so the pedigree that you get is an origin G best ski in the world factually and made in America which is a huge deal by the way also origin the brand that makes these keys they make jeans American denim you didn't get yours yet did you no I did I thought to be little all the time yes sure these little just got his yeah we sure do you know why we take care of the customer first well you're not really because the mine were T&E you know what that is research and develop test and evaluation yes to devalue care yes and I just got another test evaluation for the next phase yeah because I'm making another face we lie to ourselves as a wise man once said anyway no I don't have genes but I from what I imagine from what I see and gather you know from the field they're good genes see now this is this is a good psychological good flanking maneuver you just did right now Pete Ryan here that's Nell be like Oh echo doesn't even have genes no no I will get 100% better get them - did you did you text them and say hey can I get a pair of jeans size or whatever me and Brian share text and pain by the way how like oh we're the last were the only ones that we literally know that don't have even worse story a lot of genes and you know me I'm over here well then again I wear the the the shark fins sure you know what are you sure that they maybe that's all I wear so whatever representing everything in big time but they happen and be the best sure you wear jeans very often me know maybe that's right not not while you're too vocal about it yeah me but you would be if you had them on if I knew like yeah maybe I'm just sour grapes like I don't even want any cool all right that's what I do have them how are you good they are totally good to go there the next level squared away awesome yep you can get genes you can get t-shirts you can get supplements we have supplements we got we got joint warfare which you should take we got krill oil we have discipline to discipline go this one go is like get your cognitive wheels spinning turning moving quickly sharp so can we have discipline go in a can of coming out I think he's actually out right now yeah the little yeah yeah those are the same formula the one the test one that they yes okay good yeah that sounds good yeah here's the thing about all of these right so you have joint where for krill oil right the combo that's the best way to go fleet joints and then you know discipline and then the mole can in everything okay consider this right as you get older and you still want to fight because man I got it I gotta be honest with you I'm you know you know you catch the wave of just consistency I know you're consistent person and I've been on that wave okay it's a tsunami right so you go you're the poster child of one although I do have that I do have the ding knee right now yes which is we're almost there yes but you know how okay you know how some people can catch various levels of politics a flourishing flourishes of activity you know where they'll catch the wave of consistency meaning like everything they're doing in their life is like I'm being disciplined and I'm in the zone where it's like just second nature now boom boom boom everything right so if you take all of these supplements that's gonna keep you on there yeah especially as you get older oh I don't know about the older part cuz I'm just kind of the same as I was just as how for you but take it from someone who's getting older actually getting older oh these I think I as far as my workouts like they're hard they're harder than most of the workouts I did when I was young and I'm just maintaining big-time as far as like staying in the game yes thank you anyway you get the consistent combo that's that's in my opinion how you do it also I mentioned Moke additional protein in the form of a dessert delicious drink that's just so tasty you know telling me like the they were saying oh it was Dave good deal yeah yeah good deal day was was saying he's at a point now where he's drinking strawberry milk he goes listen it's one thing to be okay it's time for dessert or hey I'm a little bit hungry it's another thing to just be sitting around or walk with you're off some beauties just think for no reason other than I want to taste the goodness yeah I'm just gonna go have a strawberry mocha yeah strawberry Slayer right now and you know why I understand because I've done that before and this is what I thought the thing is you there's no guilt in that but here's the thing the concept kind of made me feel a little bit guilty when I was doing that because you know how the kind were you just like at home bored and you see the cookies and you're like it was an easy path and you took it it was a desire that you should come to yes so that's my hand be a bad pattern to go down yes so you got to be careful don't get don't allow the goodness of milk to start to train your brain to accept things that you just want yes with it you can make an exception with milk you can be like hey I really want this right now just for what just for the sake of wanting it yes you don't lay our mind but I think hey donut yeah there's a slippery slope bro it is very good beware the mind said essentially there's other flavors too if you don't like strawberry which some people don't who is it Jason Gardner like Jason Garvey since they don't like strawberry good job Jason he's over there but he takes that little hitter with his coffee in the morning he's got a little he's got his little ritual scenario he's got going on that makes sense though strawberry and coffee I guess no not like the one Elia there yeah then you got mint peanut butter the peanut butter is also all folks so is the mint that's that's the og you know did we just say og is we did we did big-time it is and then don't forget about the warrior kid milk which the word can vote for your kid either that you can give them poison you can give them poison which oh you got a bunch of corn syrup in this drink I'm gonna give it to my child so that so that I give them type-2 diabetes or you can get them something that makes them stronger smarter or faster or better yes or your kid or your kid milk strawberry and chocolate get some also chocolatey mmm certified organic by the way mmmm very good micro I would even call it micro doses of caffeine there's like mini mini doses yeah yeah there's 60 milligrams per can yes sort of like a cup of coffee it also has the antioxidants in there it also tastes good refreshing very so there you go and well obviously yeah if you want to deadlift 8,000 pounds obviously yes a chocolaty that's thorn also certified also we have a store Jocko has a store I said we have so we all have a store if you want to get your merchandise haven't said that word mer I don't really say that word that much just said it and you said it in a real kind of illicit kind of way you know why cuz my daughter watches YouTube videos which I had to block her oh not blocker but you know you know how you got to put the Block on YouTube so only they can only see certain things anyway I had to do that she's like you're like okay good the only thing she's allowed to watch this jujitsu videos chuckle podcast or your kid podcast oh no and she can take it to anyway the reason I did that was because she was following some girl on there who's really she was just real sassy she wasn't it wasn't like the wrong reason she just had a sassy way it was talking maybe 15 maybe 16 years old young man that's my estimate and my daughter six so this girl is talking about this and then it's starting to say this stuff which is cute at first on my opinion but after a while you're like hey you can't talk like this is not yes not what we're doing over know what we're doing exactly right so she anyway so recently we didn't left past like two days we had to block her anyway one of the things she kept saying was like merch and she'd say it all sassy like I'm not gonna do it again I'm not gonna say it again but that's how she was saying it and so I just slipped into your head slippery and slipped right out of your mouth about the move that's why okay so what can you get at yeah Oh a door yes so choco store.com is where you can get discipline equals freedom shirts lightweight hoodies which are really nice man I had it on the other day and it everyone to all flash into it and be like hey this is yeah you know what's interesting about Jaco store calm what's that is we sell t-shirts for one thing we sell discipline equals freedom t-shirt we sell good teacher we sell t-shirts there's also people that come up to me and say ah I just got an awesome t-shirt I got one of your t-shirts and I'm like a sweet man mm-hmm and I just had a guy say to me hey I just got one of your t-shirts I wish I was wearing it right now and I was like cool inglis it's the don't talk just get after it shirt oh okay and I go cool man we don't have that I don't have that shirt yeah so there are what are we calling knockoff knockoffs yeah what do you call like yeah there's like a word for it it's a kind of junk yeah they're disapproved but they're kind of worth call unapproved they're like worse this is why because people will they don't know the layers you know how like remember the layers shirt and you evade $90 for it and has no language came with no layers no layers man and that's that that's really and it's a piece of crap sure yes so it's kind of like when you buy something for the kids you have a reason to buy something right and this is generally speaking I know different reasons vary from just person to person but you have a reason you buy something right let's say there's two reasons to buy a shirt one of these shirts hmm no let's say there's one reason straight up one reason the main reason is the layers you can't even literally you can spray paint this will equals freedom on your shirt if you're on display you can have that on yeah you can do that totally can you can have one printed you can go to a website and whatever font you want you can make it look however you want literally so why won't you do that right because you want more than just that there's something in whatever that reason is you're in the game what does that reason is we'll call it X reason X if you go buy stop talking get after it shirt you literally bought something else you didn't buy an x check you out st. been thinking about this one you know because I there's a whole reason about it but but nonetheless here's the thing no because I saw some should kind of creator you feel like people are kind of know maybe but offending you in this way though because there is it there's a shirt thing called like it's T red spring or I don't know something where basically you can go online take a JPEG of a picture I can get any one picture of you online submit it to this website it'll make a mock-up of the shirt like that you know the cheap shirts and you know the buy in bulk maybe secondhand whatever shirts make a mock up and be like hey guys buy my shirt right and I saw your face on it like kind of a literally the wrong design right they were trying to copy exactly but there you've already seen this yes and I saw it and I was like man you know done in TJ like they'll knock off like Louis Vuitton purses and stuff at least it looks like the Louis Vuitton logo you know and you got to look close to seating you know the the the quality the lapsing quality but this one was like flagrantly wrong design you know whoever meanwhile they're like selling it like their thing yeah it was offensive for sure and it's offensive on two levels because of offensive kind of to us is like hey that's not our stuff don't misrepresent that's a be the person who doesn't quite you know they're just new and fired up they can be like hey there's one here's the first one that popped up on Google they're gonna get the junk one they're gonna go out try to represent in the wild and that's just not gonna work then that's a bummer that is in there's no support no support and you know I get it you know support isn't the primary reason when you think of like you got to go out there and someone buys the shirt they there was no but there's there no but that being said there are some people that they don't really need another shirt they're literally just to support yes sir plenty of people just hey we appreciate the time the effort the whatever appreciate it here's a little thank you little support yeah nothing wrong with that that's appreciated that's you know that allows us to that allows us to have echo make all these videos nonetheless the Chuckle story dot bio you knows listening to this right now no one with three hours three hours yeah alright well whatever you're gonna say you might as well say it that cares but it's all still true how about that and yes the mid the stuff that you really want to represent the authentic certified there's no certification process but approved approved is all on Jaco stored calm IWA active dot co dot uk' that's if you're in the UK that's where you get it yeah so I and here's the thing I'm gonna say by another URL for that what code uh you at UK still yeah that's it gotta be like that okay anyway cuz you know cuz shipping in certain parts in like the shipping is crazy from here is what I'm saying so boom you wanna you want to sidestep the shipping a little bit you can do that might take a little bit longer I think maybe I'm not sure I don't live in the UK but nonetheless some people were asking me about that oh yeah anyway hoodies and stuff all the legitimate approved stuff check it out if you like something get something also or subscribe to the podcast I mean haven't already on iTunes stitcher or Google Play where every listen to pop tunes or whatever you listen to podcasts that's what I meant estate and the warrior kid podcast which is not dead it's not dead you know which is more episodes are brewing the brewing in my mind should I you know I make for the warrior kid podcast I do a blast I don't know six episodes perhaps I've done the story from Uncle Jake yeah that takes not just time because it takes a little bit of time to prep but it also takes the spark of inspiration right okay here's the deal right and you can't manufacture inspiron oh no we know yeah so sometimes I'm like well I could just do a QA for the kids which is what it started out as which is fine which I I get it so but sometimes I feel like I'm letting everyone down if I don't do the story from uncle Jake's childhood yes because I really like doing the story uncle Jacob childhood so do I now I will like I said well we're back on it maybe I'll release some with no story from uncle Jake's childhood just to because I get so many good questions from young warrior kids around the world and I mean that I think about that the world little warrior kids all over the place getting ready to do some pull-ups so yeah check out the warrior kid podcast and also if you want to support a actual warrior kid Kota Irish Oaks branch comm we're young Aiden is making soap that allows you to stay clean check yeah also we have a youtube channel chuckle podcast YouTube channel if you're interested in the video version you see with just what Jon striker Meyer looks like tilt aka tilt or if you want see what Jocko looks like if you don't already know more if you don't have a shirt with his face Ari on it and you wanna see what he looks like on you know YouTube and also there's some excerpts on there you know if you want to listen to or revisit specific ideas or concepts lessons you know individually and share them with your friends you know my higher likelihood of them watching it that's really the money on our YouTube channel so yeah EKKO thinks his videos are good you can leave a comment on his videos he does read them I read them allegedly everyone likes to say that goes so check that out psychological warfare that's an album with tracks where if you got a little moment of weakness you might be approaching and you want to get out of bed or you want to get your workout daughter you want to say no to a doughnut doughnut press play psychological warfare iTunes Google Play mp3 don't forget about the visual version of psychological warfare warfare from Dakota Meyer flipside canvas Dakota Meyer is making art you know that you can hang on the wall that says all your excuses are lies makes all kinds of cool stuff he's stepping up his game with that it's really cool stuff and if you haven't listened to a podcast 115 with Dakota Meyers check it out and then go get some of his gear from good old flip side canvas dot-com it's a very good one I was talking with both John Bozak mhm the list aka illustrator up word kid book series and like you know dragons yeah was he saying no word he was talking about yeah I got some good stuff that you know I'm going back and forth with Dakota Meyer so he's gonna be designing some of those yes so we have some of that later kid posters canvases wall hanging stuff from Mikey and the Dragons you Mike in the Dragons artwork let's face it this doesn't look G it you know you you consider yourself kind of an artist right yes I do yes you do no doubt about Pete Roberts are just over there creating color palettes yes you are I see you over there yeah a little palette anyway your point sir your my point is that we have to admit that Mike and the Dragons artwork is awesome well we're taking it we're putting on two legit sized canvases and you can hang it up in your kid's room so your kid learns to overcome his or her fear check agree also on it so on it calm slash Jocko so this is where you can get any kind of fit like additional fitness gear awesome fitness gear including kettlebells which I recommend battle ropes maces clubs so I've been talking to some of the guys there he was telling me about the mace or a club in both right yes this one is the one with the longer is mace okay yes Club is shortened yes the mace so I was like yeah no I don't I don't really do that workout but I looked into it and that one might be beneficial the mace is that even one official yeah the well the mace and they're both beneficial the thing that's beneficial about them they're awkward yes they're hard to handle yeah you know but I've been doing like a lot of kettlebells like heavier for as many reps it you know it's like that kind you know there's different you know you can do like kettlebell for longest anyway the more awkward kind of the thing and you've been doing those sandbags to him yeah I was yeah man those awkward thing here's a good exercise with the sandbag you just take your sandbag just heave it over your head turn around heave it over your head around heave it over your head that's actually tiring oh and you're gonna find that to be more tiring than you expect especially because the first one you're like oh gee aqua said this was gonna be tiring it's not then you do the number three and you're like Jacques was not right number five you're like why am i breathing hard and then you do it like seven times you're like why might been doing this yeah it's too painful yes that's my experience nonetheless okay I've been doing it and consistently kind of for the first time in life or a be like wait I try the work cut school for a week or two and say get school work out it's a good workout I get it but I've been doing them for like long time now kettlebells like these awkwardly and in jiu-jitsu I feel this it's not weird it's weird because it's new so it's this new like lack of tiredness you know how there's like different tiredness is in jiu-jitsu where you like okay I'm enrolling with you know various people you know yeah not you you Nisa I get it and you know when you come back we can roll or whatever and maybe I can really put mine on tiredness to the test by this like I'm saying you get few different types of tiredness you're looking really breathing eskimo that has nine like 150 different names for snow you know different styles of tired negative no because there's Oh think about it there's the pent airiness where your breathing or hard but you know you can still generate kind of force with your muscles you know your muscles aren't like noodley and oh yeah so you're like you're not a muscle failure yes which is he different it's different and they already call that type of tired muscle failing lots of fatigue eskimo words for all these different things all your different forms of fatigue anyway or you can be like dang I'm not breathing hard but I just I'm just so weak my back I'm trained with me you know that how much of you train with me I don't know infinity times what what how do you describe my tired all right here's the I'm trying to think have you ever seen me get tired I have with me no no I've been tired I'll tell you that there's a there's a couple times I totally remember getting tired I was we did he know ghee holiday training here one time we started with no ghee we went to ghee we had six I think it was six 10 minute rounds no it was six six minute rounds nogi six six minute rounds ghee I was tired at the end of that everyone seola everyone does the leg I'll take a rest round and then I'm gonna go get choco by nonetheless I did it after doing all these workouts I don't feel the like body tired you know like a dog don't feel it it's like not even nearly as well like I really got to get pushed to feel a bit so anyway anyway the point is yeah go to on it calms last chocolate look at all the cool stuff on there grab something from there that I don't really help you I'll keep you in the game big-time books choco what do we got I've got a bunch of books will the where there's a will that's the latest way the warrior kid book where there's a will getting some really good reviews from people don't have you finished it yet no oh you're still working through it huh anyways if you to help your kids or any kids that you know get on the path these are these are books that everyone tells me and I will tell you I wish I had these books when I was 7 years old 8 years old 9 years old 10 years old 100% way the warrior kid marks mission and where there's a will check them out they're in multiple different languages to check that out if you speak a different language or your children speak a different language you can get that I also got Mikey and the Dragons miking the Dragons is the book that should be read to every kid at least once a day from the ages of one until six okay I just read it in a first grade class you went in other words your fresh cream sauce and read it how'd that happen I went in there I got nuts I told all the kids because I know it's like they're trying to did their goal of a teachers to keep the kids calm right I come in there no that's not happening so I'm like good morning children and like they're like good morning and I'm like what good morning what I can't hear you what I'm not sure what you're saying can you please be louder so they're amped and as I was getting them all amped up I started getting nervous because said wait a second I'm getting these kids completely just jacked up and getting crazy and hyper yeah and then I'm gonna expect them to sit and listen to me read this book which is a 15 maybe an 18 minute read it's not it's not short it's not short and so I was I was like oh I might have overstepped my balance I might add I'm gonna made up long the tactical call so then I crack open the book and this after you know answer a couple questions I crack open the book I read it boom silence and total attention first 18 minutes while I read the book so that book and I was to explaining to the kids that I put I put words and I said listen there's words in this books that keep when you read them people are saying time that that words too big of a word for a little kid I said these people want to make you stupid I want to make you smart when you see this word and I opened up poised there's a thing right we use the word poised yeah I rhyme it with noise and I said these people don't want you know what the word boys this and I read it to him again that little section as if we think that means and you know some little kid little little Billy up front is it mean like he said something really smart he says does it mean you keep your feelings inside and I said yes Billy that's what it means don't let the man keep you down they want to I want to give you the dumbest book you can read his books got a couple words you're gonna you're gonna have to you have to try and figure out what they mean but you will poise you just figured it out Billy you set an example for everyone in this room yeah salute dancing William I know yeah that's it man so that's Mike in the dragons get that for the library this is what you did there whatever was my theory hypothesis you know okay so your your I made you train a little next belt level up yeah we okay we're gonna say no sorry if with with the kids when you're getting them all fired up here's what you did you didn't necessarily get them you there's a difference between being loud and fired up and being at attention so you got like the the trouble from what I understand that teachers and babysitters away if you're looking after the bigger and coaches and stuff like that's looking after a big group of kids is they don't they're they don't you don't have their attention yeah or fired up and a lot of the time with kids they're so fired up that they can't give you their attention so what you did is you just basically wrangled like a big horse wrangler wrangled all of that fired up in this that these kids actually had anyway but you got their attention so maybe you didn't have to like go against the grain with them at all all you did was sort of funnel it funnel it towards you so all that fire done was towards you so when it was time they'll do anything you say now yeah you told me you actually you've actually seen weed is this your first hand and the effects lasted like weeks is weird I'm going to show you both videos cuz I said yeah that's right yeah okay so I'm gonna tell the people if I haven't already I don't know I'm gonna set in thinking of okay so we're Dave Burke's house good deal if good deal Burke's house exactly right and we're leaving it's time to leave so it's like my kids my two kids your kids were not there one of my kids youngest yes your younger youngest was there Dave Burke's kids Jamie and Flynn Cochran's kids and well twos anymore it was a lot this is a lot of candidates yes and jock was there so you did these actually did the exact same thing with them as you did with the kids in the class yes which is good by the way so you're going attached I like it you don't catch you're giving your assessment and I have the video to revisit - I have one and my wife has one so my wife's one she's videoing you and your it cutscene where you're going like this you're going go go go with your hands side to side and the kids are trying to keep up they're like Oh what are we doing okay and slowly they start doing you're like and then you start yelling at them yes you're not doing it loud enough yeah the same thing huka huka and they all start doing they fall in light they're doing it louder or whatever in your like louder of course they want to be louder huh so they kids so they can and they fall in light and they do it you're like good and then you give them high-fives right good job give one half I'm your like harder you've won hi fight just to whichever random kid so you say harder then they hit you with the harder high-five then you go ah real loud and you mean of course that gets everyone else fired up like they want to do the same thing so you're like going from kid to kid highfive saying ah I mean it I was trying to do it harder than the last kid or whatever meanwhile when other kids if you notice when other kids are giving you high-five the ones that are not giving you high fives are just watching full attention just waiting waiting for the next thing now the point of this story that made significant to me was because - not even two weeks I let me be like a week later right my son who's - my daughter who's six my daughter accidentally and my wife has this on video - because they're playing and doing little dances or whatever on accident my daughter steps on my son's wrist just on accident when their pennant you know in the in the Scramble so my son gets up he's like Eagles ah and hits my daughter right and goes mean what the heck that's kind of weird you know that was a weird outbursts Oh Michael and then but my wife Clara she kind of remembered something about it right so she revisits the video that she took of you going I mean so it was like a hit and then a point ah yeah right that's what you did they hit in your version was a high-five sure enough I see my son's little head watching the whole time just in the corner he didn't do any ice he was watching the whole thing go revisit my son daughters virgins same exact thing boom incident right steps on the wrist instead of high-five he does a hit to her shoulder or whatever in a high-five fashion it goes mean the exact same tone is you your children are always learning yes so if you want your children to learn properly the right stuff read them like game the dragons yeah but see what you did there with the attention right hailing it's it's totally effective that's a good note man I mean that's a good little Dannic technique I'm gonna use it you know I'm gonna use it Jack don't do it before a bit time don't forget about the discipline equals freedom Field Manual this is the graduation gift right get it for your kids what are they 15 17 19 22 24 getting done with their masters get them to discipline equals freedom field medal they got work to do we all do if you want it on audio it's on iTunes it's on Amazon music Google Play and all that then you got extreme ownership and the dichotomy leadership written both by me and my brother Leif Babbitt they are books about leadership and they will give you some principles that you can apply to every single situation you are in in business in life dichotomy leadership and extreme ownership speaking of life we have a leadership consultancy and what we do is solve problems inside organizations and we solve them through leadership because that's where the problem is so it's me it's late fab and JP Danelle Dave Burke Flynn Cochran Mike Cirelli Mike bimah and Jason Gardner if you need help in your organization with leadership go - alone front calm and also we have EF online because leadership training is not an inoculation it's just like jiu-jitsu you can't just show up one day now you know jiu-jitsu you can't just show up read one book and or go to one seminar and now you're a good leader no you have to continually train and that's what EF online is interactive leadership training new modules coming out monthly it's got me and the rest of the echelon from team working with you to give you pragmatic skills go to EF online for that also the muster Chicago done it was sold out next up Denver it's gonna sell out Sydney Australia December 4th and 5th the Denver one is September 19th and 20th go to extreme ownership calm if you want to come to these events because they are going to sell out so go there early and EF overwatch where when you're looking to hire someone don't think oh I got to find the person that has the specific skills that I want no what you want is to hire the right person with the right kind of character and the most important skill that they can have is leadership skills and then you can teach them the technical skills that they need to know for the job we have people with character and with leadership capability from Special Operations in combat aviation and we can put them into your organization it's our company EF overwatch its EF overwatch comm if you need leadership in your business or team and if you want to hear more from myself and echo Charles we're on the interwebs or on Twitter we're on Instagram and we are on Echo's Antico Charlson I am at Jocko willing and once again thanks to all the veterans out there men like John Stryker Meyer who fought for the American ideal and who himself represents that ideal true American Hero humbled to sit here and talk to him and to those of you that are out there on the front lines right now thank you for fighting for our ideals as well and also thanks to police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers Border Patrol Secret Service first responders thanks to you for living a life of service and sacrifice so that we can live our lives in safety and security in to everyone else out there remember John Stryker Myer is written about and told us stories that he lived through and some of them are just hard to believe but also remember that for every story of bravery and heroism that he tells there are an infinite number of stories that never got told stories from the men who did not come home soldiers sailors airmen and Marines who gave away all their stories past present and future they sacrificed all those stories the stories of their lives for us never forget them and until next time this is echo and Jocko out

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 651,657

Keywords: Discipline, freedom, military, extreme ownership, leadership, advice, jocko willink, echelon front, navy seal, jocko podcast, excerpt, echo charles, leader, lead, win, jocko store, discipline equals freedom, defcor, vietnam, stryker, sog, book, guest, baby boomer

Id: 5CnmUAneAxA

Length: 213min 40sec (12820 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/jeffp301]

Enjoyed this one.

[u/Azmorium]

SOOOO GOOD!