Jocko Podcast 258 w S.Vietnamese SOG Warrior, Khanh Doan: Impossible Missions w/ John Stryker Meyer

this is jocko podcast number 258 with me jocko willink several ak-47s opened fire before the king bees wheels touched down nonetheless black and the remaining three vietnamese st alabama team members exited the h-34 as the king bee lifted off the nva gunfire increased significantly and moments later the laboring sikorsky h-34 crashed although this was black's first sog mission into prairie fire he knew the odds were stacked against st alabama he and cowboy argued vigorously for an immediate extraction the team had been compromised the element of surprise was gone the other american who had not gone through special forces qualification course at fort bragg remained silent no said the new one zero i'm an american no slant-eyed son of a [ __ ] is going to run me off watkins offered the 1-0 a chance to extract the offer was declined the team was to continue the team leader ordered the point man to walk down a well-traveled trail away from the lz into the jungle black cowboy and the point man hoa argued against heading down the trail the first rule of recon was to never use trails especially well-traveled ones the 1-0 pulled rank and ordered the team to move down the trail with hoa leading the way and the elder green beret following a short distance behind him the trail wound into the jungle and curved to the left st alabama moved cautiously as the team went down the trail it moved parallel to a small rise on its right that was about 10 to 20 feet above the team on it the nva colonel had quickly assembled the force of 50 nva soldiers who set up a classic l-shaped ambush the quiet of the early morning jungle was shattered when the nva troops opened fire with their ak-47s and sks rifles the ak rounds ripped into the point man's chest and face the fatal impact of those rounds lifted the canteen covers around his waist appearing to keep his body suspended in here in air what had been a human body milliseconds earlier was being chewed into an amorphous form that hit the ground with a sickening thud arterial blood spurted high into the air three rounds slammed into the one zero's head blowing off the right side of his face killing him instantly nothing could prepare st alabama for the grisly horror unfolding at that moment the one one buried his face in the dirt and started praying black and the remaining st alabama team members returned fire the green beret stood there firing us on single shot picking off nva soldiers on top of the rise he loaded his car 15 and went down the line shooting them one after another sometimes they spun and he shot them a second or third time as the nva continued to fire on the team black and cowboy formed the team into a circle and directed a barrage of m-79 grenade rounds and car 15 fire into the surrounding jungle then startling eerie silence black thought he was in his grave st alabama was lo in a low spot with the ground rising 10 to 20 feet on both left and right both the nva and st alabama tended to their wounded while the living combatants slammed loaded magazines into their hot weapons there was moaning and groaning human suffering on both sides black got on the prc 25 to tell covey about st alabama's tragic turn of events black and tho scavenged weapons and ammo from the dead st alabama team members fortunately covey was still airborne black reported that he had two kias and two wias and was surrounded by nva troops covey responded you're not a doctor nor for that fact a medic you can't determine who's dead or alive bring out all bodies for verification of death then more than 100 nva regulars opened fire on st alabama as enemy troops had reinforced the initial ambush unit by now the nva were two rows deep the front row fired ak-47s the second row threw grenades or fired rpgs now that is a story from the book across the fence by john striker meyer also known as tilt it's a story of october 5th 1968 a special forces sog mission over the border into laos the story is also covered in the book whiskey tango foxtrot which is by lynn black code named black jack and for a variety of reasons lin was not able to join us on the show but through tilt and his friends in the special operations community we are absolutely honored to have with us tonight khan cowboy doane a vietnamese soldier that fought for freedom alongside american special forces soldiers from sog khan thank you for joining us it's an honor to have you here my places and also joining us once again is john striker meyer the man himself tilt a special forces soldier member of sog who has been on the podcast before 180 181 182 186 247 and 248. good to be back sir good to be here with cowboy thank you con it's uh it's it's awesome to have you here and um so your nickname is cowboy how do we get the nickname cowboy okay one mission i have a code name for radio contact they put me named cowboy and then a lot of guys going i still survival so my man and my american man call me cowboy from them it's a good name we always called him that in camp nobody called him connor was like hey cowboy we knew who cowboy was they can't they're a little bit diff difficult to pronunciation or by american so it's easy or you know like the for friendly say hey cowboy at all the time even my uh commanding officer bill cellon or major snail right because when we got information every single morning call me cowboy everybody know who who i was and well that's awesome before you became cowboy what let's go back to your uh you know where you're from where you grew up what that what that was like a lot of a lot of americans we don't know what that's like growing up in in vietnam so what what year were you born i was born from north vietnam they need been providing and then i was very young i don't know anything but 1954 my family moved to the south in order the communists took over north vietnam we immigrated to the south and we living in saigon for two years my family moved up to dallas city you know that acted uh high central they're very nice city beautiful beautiful and the weather it like it the just normal and you can see the you can see it a lot like the young lady like 19 or 20 years old you like it so we're living there what was it like when before you left what was it like when the communists came and took over yeah oh with the knob yeah what was that like for your family what did it what did they do what did that seem like what happened i don't know because i was young but i understand after that that the communists want to kill everybody and they want to collect you know property from their citizens to build you know look at the communist party and that's why my farm my family moved from north to the south what was your father's job what did he do uh actually i still now i still don't understand what he did he only divided man but he was in the business of business vision of man yes and he moved down to the show he visioned it but inside you you know the uh the back rice the gun in there but i don't know who who he was okay and sometimes he be the taxi driver okay and motorcycle driver to take care of the people but i understand now i understand like a huge spike now he worked under on the cover anywhere anytime and 1963 no president northern jim you know him he was assassinated before kennedy before kennedy yes and i i i strongly believe that he worked with him and after revolution revolution from the from the vietnamese army they put my father in jail because he worked for the old government he worked for the president jim that time i went like at the 12 years old or 13 years old i still don't understand it but when i visit him the time he was in jail i learned something i learned something about him and i'm thinking about you know what i'm trying to do to pay back the people you know did to my father [Music] and then in jail but he very smart man he told me american gallant go to vietnam when i was young i studied french and then when he in jail he said hey i better learn english because you understand americans gotta come to vietnam and study i i'm studying english at the time lucky for me it my family very close to you know the music i mean vietnamese american association so i study from them and then my father's still in jail [Music] and my family you know the economic it going down a lot so i try to survive by myself and for my family and i'm very lucky when i study english my teacher he's american he understand my situation and my family and he advised me to join to the army and i but i be i i don't know about him too but he's very nice guy uh-huh meaning you don't know what his actual job was he only teacher just a teacher you're the teacher but i talk in my mind he wants to do extra work for the government sometimes yeah yeah yes he gotta go you know to pick up the who's the bad guy or who's the good guy because in the class he had he already all the time asked where where your family what husband you know our situation my family about the money but you know how do we survive he he learned from us a lot from the student and i believe you know after that he picked up the student to become you know the the employee for the us government that's what i talked right now uh so he was a recruiter looking for good people that will do a good job fighting for people and good man or do something or smack man that way i'm talking about my teacher so when you when he told you to join the army how did you feel about that idea oh he showed me the uh the movie pt 109 yeah about jfk yes yes okay and in the class you know he saw the movie he said you want to be john f kennedy i said why not and and not only one time he asked me he asked me a lot and he know something going on to the to my family and he can read what are gonna do it say just join to the army but i say i don't know anything about it that's what he told and he called my friend another friend say take him to the joint with the special force i said what they have to special for the people crazy because the vietnam war we understand situation like you know now the marine or you know coast guard you know like infantry you like it airborne so you know who's the one which one the hero and i don't know anything about it say try it try it and they written letter to saigon to pasta to uh to shock headquarters yeah yes and i say yeah i i i go so how old were you at this time at 17 17 yeah and what year was it uh 1966. so 1966 you're 17 years old and you send or they send a letter to sag telling that they've got a good recruit he speaks english and as a hot commodity we need a good english speakers interpreters did you have any idea what you were getting into no no no i don't know but you know when we were young we're going to be hero we're going to be you know like it stronger more than another one like so i just enjoy it like jfk yeah john f kennedy can do everything you see during at the time you know from this one he swim oh you're another iceland i love you save this man yeah took his man in saved him handsome guy yes he i like him very much so that's why i'm joined so what was your view of america at that time you must have had a pretty positive view of america you knew you were going to join the army and you were going to support the american efforts there i don't pay attention anything i just want to join and join do it whatever they need to me to do it and he's you know the my man actually you know my on behalf of my father you know most of known like a ton right everybody in my village i mean the county these are we're talking about the nungs the chinese so they know who i was they know who am i so they work together we work together at all the time in the camp so that's why i can go with the frenchman team right on virginia i go with the rose island team i will go with the mississippi team i'll ask it before it becomes alaska i go anywhere because they say hey cabo you're good man we need to learn from him so that's why you know i like to go with it with them because unbehaved you know the attitude my farm my family and my father to their family so we work together a lot of time even one day i get you know vacation i went on vacation you say hey cowboy tomorrow i gotta go you gotta go with me i said yes i do and then i quit my vacation i go with the team so to training each other to learning from each other i'm not saying you know i'm good man but my experience when i was young i'm in younger with my family we work farmer so i'm you know strong looks skinny but strong right and sometimes sometimes you know i'm i'm thought we got to do it we got to do it you can see it my hand here scar it i can cut the bullet [Music] in my body but i still survival and i'll tell you you're lucky you were skinny because if you were any bigger those bullets would it would have hit worse spots you were hard to shoot at yeah you're right not big like a human when i saw him the first i saw down to him he said hey this guy's too big and he footed it longer that's what sal said yeah and normally american the big guy like you and like him but you know when we're there we're very skinny and a small one like 120 pound or 100 tap pow you know look look at hey there's a baby shine right right that american call my people that baby little people yeah little people yeah affectionate term yeah yeah and but you grew up in the jungle so for you being in the jungle was just just normal that's just yes yes you're used to you're just that's the way you lived that's the way you grew up so that's a real advantage yes online he spoke english unlike the round eye over here you're not the city slicker i can i can honor to tell you we can smell this this smell because when we go land down the jungle mm-hmm they got a flower right they gotta plant the rice or they gotta plant unkind thing in the jungle we know we can imagine say what they gonna do where the they live and where their postcard where the hospital and we we can smell it and then my citizen can understand how communist activity there they can grow up they can do anything become greek with local people right that's why the green berets love our indigenous people yeah the nungs like he said he could smell they had the extra sense that we never had particularly somebody like me a city slicker that's why people like him are number one and they kept us alive mm-hmm in the jungle we we yielded to them they always ran point not us and they got because we local local local people there and we can smell different look at the bird white white or chicken we we can comparation right away inside the jungle if you see it quiet that means nobody moved right that's a problem is that a problem trouble is close we understand exactly all right i always say hey keep your [ __ ] hand down i'm sorry yeah sometimes people need to keep their [ __ ] heads down that's the [ __ ] truth but it true i'm not telling you a liar you know yes and then what was the training like that you went through to get you ready to work with the special forces team did you go into the regular army did they process you into the regular army or did they just take you up to one of the one of this one of the ccn or something cam duck which was you first that was the first uh sog training base was up by core and cam duck was open had bad weather but that's where they did the natural training very close to the border how long did they train you for long time even now when they send you there you're free to do it mean not in the law not in the morning wake up six o'clock whatever they needed to train it they could call you one or two p a.m or one 1 82 p.m and they let you free and then tomorrow we got to go range arrange many times and then what what do you think when we you got young the first time that you carry a gun we got a like a tan you know boxed off the bullet right we go there we shoot it free mm-hmm only my friends say hey how to where to work weapon how to work the weapon and then next day we got to go ranger to fire how to clean the weapon and yes would you were you carrying an ak or you carrying a car 15. okay the first thing when i joined what uh enjoy it enjoying that only carbine okay and then later carbine m1 and m2 and then after that they change to uh squid and k swedish swedish k right squid and k and then stan oh the stand stand gonna have both standard xilan you know yeah the magazine on the side yes okay and later on we moved to the fubai we used m16 ar-15 and then the car 15. and then m16 and then car 15. because they're hard to come by but we we're training every weapon like a motor 82 60 put on you know right here in the leg yeah to punch to the enemy sure we take home kind of weapon or b40 m72 and and with these special forces american special forces soldiers that you guys were in charge or some group was in charge of training yes that was the com at cam duck it was the first camp so so many early saw guys were there and that was part of the recruitment that came through saigon and that's why cowboy ended up there and it was training and plus the camp was so close to the border you had self-defense at night yes there would be there would be pods and the nva attacked the camp several times prior to may 68 when the camp got overrun and it was a there's a whole book about that called bait and uh after that they closed camp dock he and by that time alabama was already at fob1 when they closed we i get there in may of 68 late in may mcintyre and these guys came in with his team and of course you want to tell them about alaska ah that's great yeah what happened with uh st alaska they blow out everybody was killed separated one zero john allen who escaped and he came he need for two days and he caught and he won the helicopter palace brought him back and he said we want to change the name of the team they changed it from alaska to alabama and then tim schaaf was the one zero when they were training john allen first davis dave i forgot about david john allen and then uh team shop and then and then we went close everyone closed yeah later we we got to go fob no ccn but that was you have to be closed for b1 but this is like may with a very incremental month so is that was that where you first checked in you went to you went to alaska or had alaska just become alabama yes the first the first the only reason why you didn't go on the mission he had just turned and missed a mission or he would have been on that mission with alaska right no i i'm from the h hatcher fox oh that's right i forgot i'm sorry okay so you started with the hatchet force yeah headshot we worked you know like at the platoon or a company to go with after he even got a contact to the enemy and the people from the uh from the recon go down to the hearts of looking who's the bad who's the good and they say hey cowboy you want to be uh recon team i say why not i try my best yeah and the first thing i came to the uh to the team recon team i scanned everybody looking you know bad guy look because he the nuns are taller than the other vietnamese on the team and people say hell okay try try your best and then i joined the team at the time at the time of that our last guy is burnt out they didn't blow out and when i joined it they gotta rebuild the team and they say hey alaska is no good too many goals because too many people die so we need to change the name and change to alabama and then we work with the alabama until after we went close we came to the now in sicien said in sicily and they got an alabama team there too so my name was chang to indiana that was early after they closed f4b1 and uh tilt was telling me about one time when you were getting taken out on strings and somehow you ended up upside down or something like that yeah that's normal thing but ah i remember we had a contact with the enemy but we cannot move out here to the to the to the our lg we inside the jungle and then the chopper came in throw down the rope one of each we got a drop different rope but tariko for for shape for the team four guys come up pick up the uh the drop to hang it up and another four guys still you know keep them accepted right security keep shooting security and then after the chopper lap pull out the fall guy we came over and then another fought up but throw it down we tried to hook it up but i john allen another two vietnamese guy hooked up the rope when i turn over you know i try to hook hook myself into my route but i look it up you know the tree here the rope would turn over oh the tree so what happened what are you gonna do i saw i said hey helen look it up and then you know we we got a stable wreck we don't have a stable recognition that's a swiss c yeah we have a three row two one four seat and one for here and another two for sid right and john allen saw it he gave me one from him oh if i hook it up there and at the top we're gonna cut it out and i drop it back to the to the plan i gotta die and then they they put up i only one string in here wow you know the d with the d ring holding you in yeah in here and when they're going up like at the thousand feet or two thousand fish something and then i got a roof shop here i got a gun i got us you know the uh my weapon here yes and then it going down turn over to here to my knee you're upside down there upside down i know that feeling and then john evelyn wanted to warp it but but the wind cannot be together at the time so when i rub it it's going down to to my mind to your feet down here yeah yes but luckily we got a jungle boat you know the uh to form the jungle boat yes it's still tight here and i all the way down so you were hanging on the rope by just your ankle and your jungle boot his jungle boot yeah and then john allen stood up because we got a flag and right we would shoot flagon yes and you know the the chop would still flow and we here we understand that we we we we thought you know they might not might not know something uh you know you're upside down yes yes so so john allen was shooting the flare gun to try and get the helicopter pilots to realize what was happening to looking down but the communist underground so how do we do you know it flows still flow through flow and then my my body is up and down and until we glow to the fubar and the chopper drop out now when when i lie down on the ground i still understand i'm looking down there in my gun that magazine did empty i chain the magazine lock and low again and do it and then the pilot coming down to pick me up to the uh put inside the chopper right and i don't know anything anymore you're unconscious from there to the uh to the full body johnson you know bruce johnson right yes the medic at that time he was unconscious and the medic was bruce johnson on that mission or in the helicopter no he inside the cam okay he he died and bruce how do you do his elbow in your chest the weight yeah is your heart going but i still i still know everything even i died wow then bro johnson shoot the gun hey medic and the car coming in pick me up to the uh to the adv hospital right and on the way uh he he tried to you know wake me up you use your elbow when i lie down here punch in here you can see the bone coming out right here yeah bruce was a medic and so he died three times and bruce told us about that years later that's how he brought him back to life and they thought he was dead they took him down to the field hospital right there at fubai say hey i beat you up you you don't wake up you rather die buddy you say i love you very much he loved me very much but i don't know anything but i remember i what he thought i remember who got it i don't get the thing but i cannot do anything they mean i die for something and then they brought me to the hospital doctor said hey can't do anything to me anymore but i remember do you remember hearing the doctor say that they can't help you anymore yes i still alive even i don't do anything i can't do anything the people thought i'm i'm dead but myself i still alive wow i hear what you say i know something going on knocked something i live in there you feel bruised on your chest yeah even he beat my in my chest right here okay you can see the bone here there it is the special forces medics men they're relentless they'll do anything to keep you alive yes yes everything yeah the first thing you put in here wake up quiet but he almost cry i know that but i can't do anything upside down a long time and then after he he tried to wake me up by this one and then i will see how big the bruise right yeah yeah but he was in shape then after that about two hour three hour i think three hours i forget three hours my team came back club alcohol and say hey cowboy good good good man we gotta bring him back drunk uh john allen yeah john helen uh ken crowley took of the ship right drew up to the hospital pointed a gun to the doctor saying you better take care of him or are you gonna you die so so john allen went to the doctor and brought a gun and said you either take care of our boy cowboy sometimes the doctors the american doctors there were reluctant john walton did that had the same problem after his mission in august and with cowboy they heard they weren't getting the right treatment the 1-0 went right down there and they addressed the doctor and because they had a policy no indigenous people at the hospital oh okay and that's what they were up against and our team leaders had to get a little aggressive how did it solve that problem well in this case it was a car 15. yeah we got yeah who got the king yeah with john wall he just threatened to beat him okay you mp right now right in the front of my chest clean my mind carl 15 and ganette yeah what do you think what will you do yeah i'm gonna do whatever you want me to do actually they they come up to you they are saying you better take care of cowboys and my friend you know the people drunk crying miss me i knew i hear that but i can't do anything and mario give me a coffee you give me smoke and i don't know maybe they put the hot water in into my mouth and i feel something go through here and then i wake up say hey what the hell going on here where's the party and later our we come back to camp this is all before october 5th yeah yeah did you now did you did i hear right that you had a relative that was also uh yeah well his wife's brother was on st idaho when idaho got wiped out in may of 68. that was your wife's brother's brother brother yes i have a tube rounder one of the uh got the bioreplica at the language and another one with the idaho team elaine bay was the a camp that got overrun on tet when he had the nva tank and they captured some of our people as well some of the indigenous people that took him back to pows family paid a high price jeez jeez how often so now it's 19 how long were you in the job for the total line that from 66 to 72 i mean 66 to middle up to 67 the timer is for training in 67 i'm joined to the alabama team due to august 72 i lost my leg wow and so these so these guys you're going out the whole time you're just going out on mission mission mission mission yes no i mean other way maybe you go back to town get a little break for a week or something a month but most of the time it's just work yes sometimes you know like the yes i just call it a button for one mission total time sometime only 10 days sometimes one month three times so that's why we receive the money get paid for two time or three times okay for example on the first day of the month we take a money we go downtown for two three days and after through three days we have no more money left mission many mission mission i say okay we go and we stand by there for a week because the weather or whatever you know some reason we we can not go and then we went there but you know the you know the shock glow right it when we come up to the lc the community stood up we we came back we're not jumping down and then after a few day one zero we gotta pass go past he say okay for one day and you know i tried to do it he understand it no money he took to the s1 to get the money and then we on uh we on pass for today or whatever we can we came back because the reason we stand by for that target we cannot go you know the long trip like you go saigon or a lot just go away yes and then come back for the mission again we come up there because the weather or what whatever for after a week we cannot go at the weekend i say that's why it's october 5th beginning of the month they got through the pay day and the weather broke because we'd had rains and months some at the end of the monsoon season we stand by for for the target for like two weeks three weeks or one month a lot of reason we cannot go there weather or the accommodate activity on the ground i i bet you know like at the when we went out the mission everybody know even the pentagon or even you know that the headquarter asia headquarters in saigon then the white house or whatever we have attached to the warehouse we work together i think so so that's why but we can't i cannot remember how many mission i gotta go i cannot remember too many because you're busy yes you didn't write a diary you couldn't write a diary no no we can't do anything we can we we can say hey i go there i go there i go there but when we received the mission like the 1-0 say hey we gotta go outside we understand ourselves we gotta go dmv we know the dmv we gotta go uh lao we know we gotta go cambodia thailand and vietnam the border we know situation from them because we learn from from training from the north move to the south they got so many secret joan from the from the communists and we know when they move from the north to from the north to the south how they working on it how people wear it too heavy like a root shock like a web gear who got it like a hundred pound or more another towel right some of this yes close to it yes but the communists they don't wear anything yes ak-47 and akfest because they live in there they don't need food they don't need carrying water they don't need kind of food with them because they live in there like in my house we came down there we carried in the heavy then we learn from them we know how their activity but our job it protect this guy he he told big and you know we we're easy to move and we easy to understand them but he from here he came to vietnam into younger he can't do anything young and dumb but you know they're good good morning else so uh they smile more than else we learn from the vietnamese so on this mission on october 5th the the helicopter puts you guys on the ground you're getting shot at before you land one of the helicopters then gets shot up and crashes and and the 1-0 says we're still going correct uh yes okay when when we came down the first chopper we made me james strong and another two even another two vietnamese we got to go night guy we came down the communist way we dropped out the ground they shoot it up and we're not surprised about it because we understand situations did you see the flag that was flying yeah the nba flag nba flag oh there's an nva flag yeah that has to be a little bit of a warning sign that's why lynn argued with the one zero saying that flag is just at least three thousand people here and we're nine like yeah look at the uh the flag according from the flag we can make it out like the not division like it regime like a three thousand guy in the on the ground we understand that in three thousand puku we understand boku yeah then lynn black tried to get down they got shot then king b lip up and another king bait they got a tactical from the chopper they land this way down this way land this way down this way and shoot another place to make it difficult to for communist adjustment where we're going down right and then another chopper that means it's dirty for it burnt out drop it out crash that's crushed but you know we have on the ground help up the chopper what you gonna do we gotta go and the lim black drop down when we dropped out you know that the plan lg we gotta move to the jungle right way to hide and and we got a very quick briefing say what you got to do next according from the pack working of the uh walkers was flying covey okay when they did the insertion and we got a briefing with them the pack what can you say if the team was and wanna attraction you have a right to do it but james try the big guy the one zero said no he said no he thought you know well we're very strong but he he forgot to understand that not in there three thousand guys there and not our homeland that a communist land right there then layoffs yes and then they say she continued march yeah that's what he said and then lynne black told me let's go we should go back and he said and then we go yeah that was the last wrong decision he made in his life yes and we move about like like 15 feet we saw you know the postcard from the communists then black forget to tell you we found the ak-47 magazine really yeah and then we found you know the rain course was that right yeah from the uh from the uh from the uh from the communists yes and the tree they let they see that you know very clean so i understand you know they're sitting there watching yet they sit there for the photograph from the communist there's an lz watch stand stan they had a lot of those set up with different lz's that were because there's only so many in layouts at that point so they had lz watchers and they had some they were beginning to get platforms and that's one of the first ones i forgot about yes but they had the platform that's what he's talking about they saw so in addition they knew that they were compromised by the gunfire they saw the platform so he had to go back and yet the one zero said go down the trail with a helmet uh communist uh hat this helmet yes so what was the one zeros background right now like in this operation he had come from germany so he's been assigned to germany he has state side duty but he never been to vietnam so he was not familiar with working with our vietnamese counterparts listening to people like cowboy and listen to lynn lynn had a whole year experience of combat and so he was one of these old school guys i'm the i'm the leader we're going to do this and that was the last bad decision he made in his life took the team into it and i still tell him and then we're not you know going out the trail we we go by indus jungle so when you're down a trail that's a big mistake yes that never happened would you guys ever have situations where the team would look at the 1-0 and say no we're not doing that well that's what they had there and the 1-0 overruled them and most of the times our we would listen to our our indigenous people our little people if they said don't go to the reason and uh that's just the mutual respect we had for him yeah um particularly once you're on the ground so it's just a matter of the rapport between this was a new team that come together and they've just taken the experience one zero off who had combat experience he had many missions that tim schaaf was the one zero prior because the other person jim stride was more rank they appointed him the team and uh they told tim to give him another team yeah this is why when you're in a leadership position you listen to people as if you listen to your team i mean correct this is why there's nothing you if you let your ego get in the way and you say i'm gonna let these people tell me what to do it's like okay it doesn't work out well you gotta stay humble as a leader yeah any leadership class if you want to show what you shouldn't do this is the classic example but uh we don't have a training with him no no oh and you never even trained with him no no yeah we're training yeah the the uh the other uh ivan pass right and then you're on the island with tim shaw they had that pre-training mission where they're training for the mission but the teachers with another this is bad all the way across the board and this is the one where the navy saved yeah saved st alabama because they were on this training mission and they had a lot of it's an area where you had viet cong and nva but thailand before thailand yeah nva and so they they got into a world of trouble their world of [ __ ] with them on the training mission and they drove and the nba drove them down to the south china sea from their high ground because they had higher ground drove them down and lynn fortunately had a frequency for the navy and one of the navy not a pt boat but a boat that had two two or three fifty calibers on and they came in and picked the team up otherwise they would have been wiped out right on a training mission it's a rough training mission it was cowboy wasn't happy about that either no i like it because it's free you know it can go yeah now fishing let me uh let me pick this back up from the book on this mission on on october 4th so where we left off they're sorry on on october 5th where this left off was the nva are two rows deep the front row firing ak-47s the second row throwing grenades and and firing rpgs and then i'm gonna pick this back up says another vietnamese st alabama team member was wounded the team had to get out of the hole or die in it the bold nva told the st alabama members to chu hoy or surrender speaking first in french english and finally vietnamese st alabama's weapons drowned out further chu hoy requests the 1-1 so they asked you to surrender and you shot at him and the chu hoy was a whole program right it was a whole program to get people to switch sides right right we had a chuhoy and then they knew the program so they used the same word surrender and st alabama and it answered it in fine style with the car one hand grenade one magazine that answered to them yes uh then it says the one one continued to pray so the one one got he he kind of lost it a little bit totally and he was curled up in a ball he was putting his face in the sand and he was trying to pray i can't tell got it because he on my team got it he was on my team i need to protect him he need to protect me yeah he owned my team well it says here black couldn't believe it then black says this is no time to pray do unto others before they do unto you he yelled whether or not the nva soldiers were praying they continued to move around st alabama some climbing into trees cowboy and black crawled 15 feet toward them close enough so that cowboy heard the nva commander tell his troops to prepare to charge st alabama's position so you actually heard their commander give the order prepare to charge yes sir the commander also told his troops on the long side of the l ambush not to fire black quickly rigged a claymore mine in the direction of the pending charge the fearless nva mounted a charge toward st alabama with ak-47s on full automatic black detonated the claymore mine it blew a huge hole in the nva ranks before the smoke cleared st alabama ran through the human carnage firing car 15s on full automatic and throwing m26 frag grenades while dragging their three wounded team members miraculously st alabama made it through the nva wave of attackers and moved back towards the lz leaving their dead behind we tried to bring them up with us but we could i tried to move up to wrap the hand the dead man ak-47 i gotta move back i'm planned by going up you know the strike hit the big guy too big you're the best guy boom up and i kind of climb over and when they shoot it hit to the dry body and i can feeling his body shake when he hit the bullet wow so you're trying to drag his body and his body is getting shot yeah i understand exactly when i told them my last but they never listen he he never listened to me even there i heard hey come in and say ambush don't kill them doesn't mean don't kill us oh because they wanted to capture you they wanted caps and then i do it a lot so for those of you that are just listening to this uh cowboy keeps giving the hand signal for hey we need to circle up and get out of here get get the helicopters and get out of here that's what you're giving the handshake the get the king bees up and then he never listened to me i know he said go he uh deployment the vietnamese team leader here and uh jim strike um back up him and then then black right another m79 here he said go you know you know you know the rule from the team the first man get up first step second step duck step another man stand up okay and step two to the boot where where the first man stepped and he stand up i saw i saw him because i hate him i said he said no a lot of time but he never listened to me and first step he going down second step dog step i hear the bullet and he down turn around i'm not stay there for for save my life i gotta turn around and then the victory i lay there and it come and it shoot again because we're very close like here to here what 10 feet i don't know more than 10 feet wow no more than 10 feet the bush he live in there and then when i try to move into gathered like at the soa map and then the the thing for survivor right in his pocket survivor radio and the radio director again soi soi right yes radio frequency i tried to count hold everything in his body given to lean even to black and tried to take him out i said hey struck straight strike if nothing happened what will you do i try to climb up and they should be again i'm lucky i'm very lucky because you know his body is very big when i try to move it especially the deployment need too so what what are we gonna do we can't do anything but when later on the team letter in here the gun you know point like it to to his head but he that he didn't see it look here his head here the the ak-47 gun right here and the carmen is upright when he shooted we're gonna we're gonna find out where he has and then observe this and then say hey ak 47 pointed a log here anything and hit hit you know the low right that appointment hit now going down here and he shoots a comment it dropped out the ak-47 here so you never know it from here to here how do we survival and open in my mind we got it training in it in in cam we say one hanker net one magazine doesn't mean you have a hand ganette and you have a magazine when we throw down hanging egg we cannot throw it too far we throw it down it means clear communists around us one hang on it one magazine when we told the grenade to close we upgrade the communist pick up the grenade throw it back so that's why we got it one hanging it one magazine and we tried to get it and we got a single shot be sure to comment this keep that hat down they don't have a timer to looking to pick up the grenade you don't want to play catch with a hand grenade i said one hang in it one [ __ ] hang in it one [ __ ] magazine and when because we hey i drill in in home right right and we talk in it so that helped to get you guys out of that hole then that's what he was talking about at that point we don't have we the communists we have they don't have a time or two thinking what we gonna do and then after my my get my magazine is empty he shoot it up ding ding ding how the communists doing nothing can't do anything and then what we we clear around us and another another wave one negative one magazine and then like a d we got a big company because everybody want to throw the one one hanger neck what do what do you think what did you hear so they scared us how we how we're fighting so that's why you know we try to clear around us and then we be shaped at the time meanwhile going back to the book uh covey says the king bees had to return to fubai to refuel no extraction was possible for at least two to three hours meanwhile the relentless and the relentless and bloodied nva ran after the spike team black planted a claymore mine with a five second time delay fuse it wreaked havoc on the hard charging nva at as the smoke cleared and the body parts settled back to the earth st alabama split in half again and charged through the battered torn ranks the nva warriors killing any standing enemy they counted at least 50 nva dead again eerie silence engulfed the team and st alabama regrouped just as suddenly a new wave of nva soldiers rushed the beleaguered team st alabama had been pushed near the cliff it was a thousand feet to the ground if they went over the edge now online st alabama charged through the weakest nva flank killing more enemy soldiers so you guys are there's thousand foot cliffs there's a thousand foot cliffs that you guys are up against yeah jump off the cliff or go charge you or not but it's happened yeah and then so you guys this is this is an important lesson for people is every time you guys are put into a tough situation you go on the attack you attack through the flank you attack through the ambush and right here st alabama charge through the weakest nva flank and that was they did that several times and that's what the nva they're not used to recon teams charging yeah and that's what saved their lives at that point yeah that's even though the vietnam guys that taught us when i was a young seal they would say if you get caught in an ambush you have to attack them you if you stay there you're just going to die so you have to attack exactly exactly quickly if we not attack them they're gonna run over us so we're gonna attack them and that they're scanning we can run over to them exactly about i'm continuing on here something hit black on the side of the head knocking him to his knees he was scrambling to get up when the grenade went off the last thing he remembered was being slammed into a tree face first and the car 15 handled digging into his chest so somebody hit him in that head with a grenade yeah we don't know where is that where they're from but lucky for him from the china there's a chinese handkerchief they're poorly made yes they met by their mission by themselves in the jungle was that right oh okay it was like a homemade grenade wow he thought he was drowning but he but then he felt feet kicking him and hands slapping him all over it was the team they were beating black back into consciousness and pouring water on his face he tried to get up but his legs didn't work from the knees down there were no fatigue pants just surface bleeding one of the guys started smearing gelatinized rice on the one two's legs arms and chest black's web gear and what was left of his fatigue jacket were lying shredded bloody on the ground the car 15 was bent where the barrel meets the receiver and the bolt couldn't be pulled back one of the team buried it by zero 900 word of st alabama's precarious position had spread through fob one through fob one like wildfowler wildfire requests were made for an extra assets it was now an official prairie fire emergency all aircraft were pulled from their missions and sorties to support st alabama any gunships attached to sag were summoned to their aid the first gunships to arrive were marine hueys known as scarface with them was a ch-46 with a ladder attached for jungle extraction when the twin rotor helicopter entered the ao it was hammered by heavy enemy ground fire as were the marine gun ships green tracers were seen going toward the ch-46 the ground fire became too intense and the marine chopper had to withdraw and make an emergency landing at camp eagle in the 101st airborne compound despite this despite the hit scarface gunships made several passes expanding all ordinance before returning to base to reload king b officers regrouped and prepared to fly back to laos to extract what was left of st alabama the s3 asked for volunteers for a bright light mission and every recon men in fob1 volunteered st idaho was scheduled to insert into the prairie fire ao the next day 6 october because the team was ready to go there was some initial discussion about idaho being the bright light team as the day dragged on however and the perilous nature of st alabama's situation worsened the bright light option faded because the original lz was now too deadly for any helicopter to attempt an extraction so you were you were you and s were you though one one yeah we were either one zero and one at that point yeah don walker was the ones here so you guys are going like we'll go we'll go now yeah we're getting ready for our mission on october 6th and then we're all ready i said you guys are ready so we're going to do the bright light and then they change their mind later because of all the intense fire another helicopter got shot down in the process unbelievable day so watkins watkins was the covey right they took they rotated watkins then when the cubby got low on fuel and spider parks was there and he got low on fuel pat went back back so they were both the two uh cubby guys were there because they were really familiar with that target by that time so here we go when watkins who's the covey returned at the fob for the cessna to refuel he told the others that it didn't look good he wasn't sure if they'd be able to get them out he explained the low sunken area in the lz the spotty weather and how smoke from the expended ordinance hung over the lz making it more difficult to spot the team and to deliver air strikes accurately a resupply of ammo grenades claymore mines m79 rounds water bandages and morphines and morphine was placed on a king bee and launched towards st alabama in laos cowboy worked on black's legs he told black that the last wave of nva had continued on to the lz cowboy and black heard more u.s marine qe gunships arrive overhead and witnessed the nva on the lz open fire hammering the lead aircraft again the one one panicked cried and shouted skyward the vietnamese team members speaking through cowboy told black that they were going to kill the 1-1 if you didn't shut up black agreed i'll pull the trigger myself god forgive you the one one responded tearfully you and your god have no place here black retorted cowboy grabbed the startle black by the throat and lifted a catholic crucifix from his neck and shoved his lips to it it's the gods who have allowed us to get this far round eye [Laughter] so this is just a nightmare of a situation what are you guys doing on the ground while all this uh close air support is coming in i can tell you the first thing in here that you know when when when the black down you know the water in the jungle we cannot you know wave right right but we still pour whole kind of water to him to make him wake up i mean we don't know our situation we don't know the water how weird and how the water in in his anger but we still do it because we love him very much and the thing you know we i don't know how to tell you i don't know how to tell you but we gotta protect by god i don't know time divine intervention yes maybe all that praying helped you know we only pray only or liberally at the end of the the way we go on at the end of the the thing in my mind we shoot them they should and then if the god not protect me not protect our team member could not stay here that hundred percent for true that's what i told you i can tell you it i came amazing the time he lied out i'm crying i said hey black black black the only one you know we can believe one one i cannot tell anything how he can do anything to him even you know we respect him a lot but at the time what should we do in my mind god protect us please become we have a new chain we haven't know where to go we can do anything they got a thousand thousand we have only figure only seven guys because we did 200 and three wounded i got a wounded myself m79 wounded black black gwyneth m 79 right now the uh the ammo the bullet and almost we use a knife but lucky for us i mean we can pick up the ak-47 and the weather from the communists and we still protect we can protect us out on the ground so i can tell you because when that's all my heart and only my heart even you know james strikes still back still back there two three vietnamese bodies still back there we can't do anything when greeting up that make me feel you know that depressed i can honor to tell you about so i don't know why maya and me still alive in here i don't know that magic by the way this isn't even over yet that's not even close yeah going back to the book the sound of the approaching king bees ended the religious debate as the realities of a surviving a shell hell became center focus the able-bodied picked up the wounded and moved toward the lz spider the kovi rider at the time told black that the first kingby was enroute to the lz but they planned to work the area surrounding st alabama with tactical air support first in this case an f4 phantom jet pilot told black to key your handset for 10 seconds and put your head in the dirt black acknowledges his radio transmission and told his teammates to put their heads down as he looked into the sun he observed the slowest moving full flapped phantom he had ever seen the glide path ratio was critical seconds later he saw the tree line across the lz explode into sheets of white yellow and orange flames setting the jungle on fire with napalm the ship banked sharply appearing to stand its wing tips on the ground the pilot cranked the burners dropped down into the valley below and then began a vertical climb nva small arms opened up on all sides of the valley the the f4 took numerous hits on its armor-plated underbelly among those shooting at the fast mover were several nva troops about 20 feet from st alabama's perimeter as the napalm torched the jungle dozens of nva soldiers scurried into the open field to escape the instant inferno that engulfed their comrades as a second gent rolled in for a gun run the nva initiated what they called getting close to the belt in this case the nva soldiers moved toward or outright charged st alabama to get as close to the team members as possible to avoid being hammered or burnt by the air force marines or army air ordinance firing on single shot st alabama picked off each of them as they came out of the burning jungle the phantoms returned before returned with two cannon and minigun runs along the team's perimeter before the dust settled the vietnamese team later foe team leader though and cowboy crawled out and recovered several ak-47s and precious ammunition from the dead enemy soldiers as their car 15 ammo was dwindling to a few precious rounds so you're crawling out and actually grabbing the enemy weapons and grabbing enemy ammunition from the dead soldiers that soldier they land out there i pick it up deliver to another member because in order to survive we gotta do it we're gonna do it we can't eat the body enemy put up make the chain back to protect our people too using enemy bodies as sandbags to protect yourselves yes you go it goes on here two of the nine cylinder king bees came chugging up the valley toward st alabama black popped a green smoke marker the nva popped an identical smoke marker confusing the pilots with devastating results the first can be kingby followed the nva smoke marker and took a direct hit from a rocket which toppled it on its side smashing each rotor blade into the ground the approaching st alabama team members narrowly missed getting hit with shrapnel from the crash black cowboy and another team member charged the rocket position killing the three nva before a hail of nva fire drove them back into the team perimeter the second h-34 hit an outcropping of rock on the western side of the knoll after taking heavy enemy gunfire it exploded and fell thousand feet to the valley floor below taking with it st alabama's resupply covey barked nice going blackjack [ __ ] you covey he replied cowboy told the one one to pray for everyone except black because he was going on the devil's side black broke into laughter as he assessed st alabama's predicament ammo was desperately low the blood trails looked like slug slime the f4 phantoms had expended their ordinance and covey was belligerent his nerves were shot training and a man's basic survival instinct had completely taken over then the nva bugles sounded so at this point this scene you guys are running out of ammo ammunition you got three wounded you got two dead no more than two dead you're you're you're taking enemy weapons off the ground you're building a bunker with enemy bodies the helicopters finally show up to get you out of there and they both get shot out of the sky yes what do you think your chances are for survival at this point this only can i can say that god protect us no one can no one can even not only to to chop it down we got a lot of support up the air like a phantom like a skyrider look at the ch 53 charlie green giant we can see the bird you know it's over the air oh the other time not only to a lot so you can actually see your air support they're flying around they're dropping bombs they're dropping napalm but it doesn't really help i mean the fact that you guys are on the ground even though you can see them yes i can see it and then any enemy very and then we on the ground we can point sky rider bomb is in there and then they're very scary that's why we survive another reason that in this day god came in the form of close air support yes absolutely a1 skyraiders were next on you can see that keep your [ __ ] head down yeah bomb next to me yeah bomb negative yeah because they ups the air they know what's going where we are you know in the hat we got a panel yep we turn over yep so the airplane can see where we were right we used to do the same thing yes was that right yep that's another thing the vietnam guys taught us inside of our floppy hat we would sew an air panel in there so we could flip it over and let let the helicopters or gunships know where i should have worn a floppy hat what were you wearing my little bandana oh you're too cool for the floppy hat huh i forgot about that yeah we we we have a hat yes inside the head we got a sure the the panel the communists they don't they don't know anything about and then exactly bombed to the to the enemy and that's lynn black was on the radio running all the auto gun runs and all their weapons like it right there they say hey nine o'clock but 200 feet bomb it there right away and i want to hit you i say 12 o'clock five feet and next to me you see it peace yeah we we can control the airplane because the pack and pet walking and then spider now for the covey yes and they're able to give them the control together we control everything but the people outside saying how do we survive it's easy to survive because we there we saw the bomb because like you said you read earlier in the story they declared a prairie fire emergency so when the first ones out of marines scarface when they expended then the the f1s came in then the a1 skybraiders and then later we had army yeah you know judging executioner they came out yeah we understand exactly coming is you know very upright airplane even they get a big gun or they got a tank they're very scanning yeah they're the 275 rockets many guns we underground they want to kill us it's very difficult and they want to kill us because they are afraid about you know their their area gets destroyed by the bomb we there we're not authorized to shoot the people but we can call airplane even at night or a day we gotta you know like communication with the uh with the air right basically at night we got a moon beam moon beam at night and then greenberg the airborne night from the airborne command show okay for all southeast asia so they would fly over and they would do common checks at night which is during the day would be hillsboro sort of um and they stayed close and support they were way above all the activity with the covey and the fast movers so that that's one other level of communication so if anything dropped off like the coveys were in between they could still talk to hillsborough and then still direct the gun ships for that talk directly to the gun ships or helicopter crew now and lynn did all that yeah great job when he was yeah with shock we got it you know the [ __ ] we understand exactly so we're not afraid we're only small group they cannot find us but they got big group hey you there you got a big time thank you hello how are you doing goodbye yes well i'll tell you speaking of communications i can't imagine a more horrific sound to hear than the sound of the bugles from the communists getting ready to attack that's got to be a nightmare well we we come there there their house they're afraid to detroit their house so we want to they want to kill us it's not not easy not going to be easy yet not easy because we learn a lot we're training a lot we know when when we came down there we got a briefing right how many enemy underground where we can hide them where we can put the top i mean m14 my top purpose yeah top up where we can put it play mo mai we can put it there c4 and we know situation on the ground we know every everywhere especially we get experience in the jungle and you american you know situation you know how knowledge with the american i'm vietnamese or whatever i'm know i'm better than the people from the north so we i understand exactly when they're moving i look in the jungle i look in the mountain and i can see it how where are they and that way you could help lynn black direct the airstrikes or you saw the most enemy activity yeah right here by the way day by day we get experience i'm not too good but with my experience i can look it up this year the mountain here mountain here i can say hey i'm right here say hey black we down here i read the location for him and then that way it is but then after the bugle blew then things got ugly again yeah here by then you had your your walls built yeah let me pick it up so the nva bugle sounded waves of nva troops carrying sks's with fixed bayonets advanced on st alabama when they were 15 feet away st alabama opened fire the semi-automatic sks were no match for the fully automatic firepower of the spike team after the first burst of full automatic fire the team went to single shot it was another turkey shoot without a word a look or a plan acting solely on instinct all of them except the one one scurried forward and dragged back dead nva placing the bodies in a circle around them and stacking them high the deadly skirmishing continued for several hours before covey told black that more gunships and five jolly green giants with heavily armored sikorsky hh3es were end enroute blackjack covey what you're up against is the regiment you are sent to find over and blackjack replies is that all only three thousand of the bastards well i think we made a dent in them who's winning they are covey responded as black finished his como he saw a site he would never forget the nva formed a front line of nva troops who were firing their ak-47s behind them were several nva soldiers swinging thongs made of leather and cloth which held three to five hand grenades each with a jerk of their collective wrists the nva hurlers launched more than two dozen communist manufactured grenades at st alabama the sky was full of grenades fortunately they weren't us grenades they hit the ground and threw dirt smoke and dust all over the place st alabama looked up just as the aks started again and behind them the thongs whirling overhead like helicopter blades when the aks stopped the grenades were released st alabama fired more grenades were released alabama threw some back st alabama was caught in a deadly version of the kid game pop goes the weasel the ak-47s continued to roar alabama ducked the grenades were launched alabama rocked catch duck throw duck catch throw the nva advanced grenade shrapnel several severed the antenna of the prc 25 radio he quickly black quickly rigged an impromptu antenna from wire the relentless nva continued to advance inch by bloody inch cowboy took two vietnamese team members over the cadaver walled perimeter seeking to get another line of fire to direct at the advancing nva the advance continued despite firing from black and the remaining vietnamese team members the nva were now merely feet away from the perimeter sheesh do you believe it i can't believe you're sitting here talking to me really even now yeah jeez throwing bunches of grenades that's just a horror show that's crazy that's the first time we ever saw that right yes yeah a new tactic we live in here stay here here the village and down here the first thing we we're at the top so there's a re so there's a little ridge line yes and they're on one side of the ridge line yeah you're on the other side of the ridge line and then they shoot up we're going down here we move to you know we got a high in here the cover earth and ganette troll here oh so they're throwing grenades over the red joint at you and then as you i say that combination not training well so if you know that you're gonna have to put it out come in here one two three four they throw it we're gonna die everybody but they just pulled the pin and they just pulled the pin they didn't cook them at all yes and we have a time you have a timer to pick it up and throw it back because because they are not well training but with us hanging at it put it out tum it one two three control it when they pick it up it's gonna blow it out that's why we can suggest it communist it's not well training or whatever they're not training at all they just know put it out and throw it that's why we're lucky for you yeah we still survival the people they understand they say hey the guy is liar no it's not a liar but they're trending it not not not not well not good so that's why we we're here meyer that's why we're here going back to the book at the last moment with the nva a few body lengths away from the perimeter two huey gunships from the american division the 176th aviation company the minutemen muskets of the 36 charlie arrived the uh-1b pilots were code named the judge and the executioner they roared into battle first with a mini gun blast followed seconds later with several 2.75 millimeter rockets placed in the nva ranks alabama was saved if only for a little while the nva backed off for a few moments briefly licking their collective wounds although they were far from whipped new assault lines of the nva troops formed before the nva opened fire on st alabama however the executioner confronted the nva head on with both door gunners blazing away with their handheld m60 machine guns he hovered inches off the ground between the team in the front of the nva and skipped several 2.75 millimeter rockets off the ground into the nva before the bleeding startled nva could respond the pilot lifted the old uh-1b model gunship over the tree line and ducked down into the canyon regaining enough airspeed to return for another pass at the st alabama perimeter before st alabama could celebrate the nva charged again three more dead nva were added to the cadaver wall silence dominated the battlefield no bird chirps no speaking no noise of any type even the aircraft over the scene had flown far enough away that their absence amplified the empty air the one one who hadn't fired a single shot continued to pray black patched up a bleeding cowboy he gave him some morphine before bandaging a wound on the right side on his right side from an ak-47 round where's john wayne when you need him cowboy asked the others laughed chew hoy dumas give up [ __ ] an enemy soldier yelled another nva told black to chew hoy in english black flipped him the bird as a sniper sniper shot alabama's tail gunner quang is that right quan clong in the crotch hitting an artery as though a pried direct pleasure pressure to kwon's wound an a1e skyraider lumbered into the ao flown by pilot codenamed snoopy he roared in from black's left brushing the treetops full flaps working his throttle the aircraft was so close to the team that black could hear the distinctive metallic click click of the napalm canisters being released from the old korean war era plane the skyraider appeared to be falling but it actually slipped down into the valley to escape nva gunfire as the american uh-1b gunships and fast movers had maneuvered earlier in the day his wing man appeared as he flew and he as he flew over the team they could hear the nuts and bolts of god knows what creaking and groaning as he saw the salvo the rockets the nva were pissed again the hot shell casings from the airborne warships rained down on st alabama where's john wayne when you need him the great line that's right cowboy yeah oh and where where did you go you got shot with ak yes do you want to you want to see scar i'll take your word for it sir he's got so many scores and that is garb um yeah it's crazy to think you're so close to these guys that you're talking to them yelling out chu hoy choo hoi du ma oh yeah god they all the way cold they what the enemy all the way chi uh then three small mortars opened fire black knew there was no way in hell any of the teams could catch the mortars and throw them back he and the vietnamese team leader though rolled over the cadaver wall toward the mortars cautiously picking their way through the charred nva bodies and carnage from the previous airborne assaults they moved into the jungle within 20 feet of them first mortar tube though drew a plan in the ground he would hit tube one black would hit tube three and they'd compine on tube two after the mortarman launched three salvos though opened on his target while black attacked his target tube and several nva several nearby nva soldiers the survivors chased black in the confusion the nva opened fire on each other as black headed toward tube one with nva soldiers still chasing him where tho was pinned down black threw a hand grenade and killed at least three nva with a blast of gunfire to free throw they turned on the nva chasing black and dealt with them then he and tho wiped out the nva at the second tube before they quickly returned to the team all while picking up ammo and loaded ak-47 magazines from dead or wounded nva soldiers by now watkins had returned to flying covey rider above st alabama spider had called the u.s air force 37th air rescue and recovery group in da nang to attempt to rescue s the rest of sqst alabama during the vietnam war when pilots were shot down in the north in north vietnam or laos and all else failed the jolly greed giants were called the sikorsky hh-3e weighed 22 000 pounds loaded and had two general electric t-58 ge5 turbo shaft 1500 horsepower engines extra armament and firepower and they were manned by remarkable air force pilots and crews the first heavily armored jolly green giant code named jg28 started its descent to the lz from 4 000 feet as it approached the jg crew was looking for an orange panel on the south east side of the lz however as the aircraft was about to touch down crew members noticed a second panel the nva had an identical panel the momentary pause was nearly fatal for jg28 as the nva opened fire on it from several sides the heavy gun fire severed the main fuel line causing a massive fuel leak inside the helicopter jg28 had to withdraw from the lz in a matter of seconds there were two or three inches of aviation fuel on the aircraft's cabin floor the fumes temporarily blinded the crew members the pilot was able to stabilize and return to da nang as jg10 hovered a safe distance away from the lz watkins directed a few more airstrikes around st alabama with the hope that the communist soldiers would put their heads down long enough for the team to get out after a few ear air strikes jg 10 piloted by air force major vernon sam grineer was called to attempt the extraction for grineer this was his first assignment in the prairie fire ao as a jolly green giant pilot hey welcome to welcome to prairie fire oh yeah when the call from covey came grineer knew that there were two u.s green berets on the ground with their vietnamese team members and that the majority of the team was wounded he didn't hesitate grineer piloted the jolly green giant toward the lz unlike jg28 grineer knew which side of the lz st alabama was on as he approached the lz nva gunfire again reached a deafening roar despite st alabama directing firepower at the communist soldiers as grineer began to hover over the lz jg10 was hammered by enemy gunfire his crew chief reported that one nva round had tore a six inch hole through the floor the round apparently slammed into one of the engines both engine warning lights went on both engines were on fire grineer did a 180 degree turn and moved to damaged aircraft away from the deadly enemy fire and away from the team struggling to keep it airborne calling upon all the training he had received to continue flying both crew members continued firing their machine guns as grineer battled to keep the ship in the air time ran out for jg10 after traveling several hundred yards grineer warned his crew to brace themselves for a crash landing both crew members continued firing their weapons until the burning hh-3e slammed into the jungle st alabama was stunned covey and all the men flying over the target area viewed the horror in grim silence what's that four helicopters have gone down now five including the first the first one on insert four four the men back at fob1 monitored the radio transmissions on their prc-25s as covey talked to black spike team alabama's radio signal was too weak to hear any response the word spread through camp that the latest horrific turn of events surrounding st alabama the usual hustle bustle of a saturday at fob1 was replaced by quiet hushed tones as the entire compound feared the worst but continued to pray for the men of st alabama word of a proposed arclight mission reinforced the gravity of sd alabama's situation an arc light was a strike by a b-52 bomber from more than 25 000 feet back in laos the stunned members of st alabama returned to their cadaver perimeter once again nearly out of ammo one one was facing down muttering the lord is my shepherd one of the vietnamese went about collecting ak-47s and ammo from the dead nva as spyder and watkins directed more airstrikes around the team within 10 to 15 minutes after grineer's burning hh3 crashed into the jungle covey learned that there were two survivors from the jolly green giant and asked st alabama if they could locate the remaining crew members grineer had broken his back but somehow pulled himself from the burning helicopter the other jolly green giant survivor sergeant ernest dean casbier had been thrown clear of the crash neither knew the location of the other watkins told black where the air force survivors were and that they'd run a daisy chain between his position and the men hopefully to clear the area enough for the team to get to both of the survivors the nva threw one more curve at st alabama when black tried to talk to covey he found the primary secondary and alternate fm frequencies jammed by the nva frustrated black smashed the prc 25 and pulled out his urc 10 high frequency survival radio he was told an arc light strike was being planned for this area as soon as possible by now all air assets navy marine and air force which had been scheduled to fly sorties into north vietnam were diverted to the prairie fire emergency surrounding st alabama covey directed numerous airstrikes including more gun and rocket runs from helicopter gunships scarface and huey's from the marine light helicopter squadron 367 returned to make several runs after refueling and reloading and fubai the minute minutemen muskets returned to wreak havoc on the persistent nva troops they pounded the jungle area between sd alabama and air force survivors around 1800 a jolly green pilot air force major don olson called over the radio blackjack jg32 over i'm parked down in the drought draw in the trees from you you have 20 minutes of fuel before i leave the first person we must see is an american hurry we're taking heavy ground fire sheesh so now it's six o'clock at night you've been there all day on the ground four helicopters down you got two survivors that you're gonna try and link up with and then jolly green just came down to the jungle and hovered in the jungle just to just waiting lower his profile and to wait yeah it's a counterintuitive thing that when you're in an aircraft and you're in a helicopter or a plane when you're up higher it makes you an easier target it's better to get low where the enemy can't see you so i know it might not make sense people might think oh it'd be better to go up but it's actually in a lot of cases better to go down and that's what this guy's doing anything that couldn't be carried was thrown over the side of the cliff as quickly as the wounded could move they headed toward the jolly green giant could you guys hear the helicopter did you know where it was yes so you could hear it and you're like okay we gotta go for it yes the chopper had literally cut away the treetops and branches to nestle into the thick dark green foliage thus reducing its profile to enemy gunners olsen had to keep the aircraft stable as there were large trees on all sides of the aircraft the trees were large enough that they could severely damage the five rotor blades and cause the trapper tropper to crash if any of them got hit covey directed more airstrikes in a daisy chain fashion in the portion of jungle between st alabama and the hovering jolly green giant watkins hoped this would drive out or kill nva in the zone even that task became more difficult as smoke from all the ordinance continued to hang over the trees decreasing the visibility for pilots and helicopter gunners as they move toward the hovering helicopter sd alabama entered a cool ravine before climbing a final hill to the chopper there they encountered a village with hooches built on 10-foot stilts complete with large pots cooking rice and vegetables instead of nva troops black found an american taking food from one of the pots he was the flight engineer sergeant ernest dean caspier one of the two air force survivors from the crashed helicopter soon they found grineer who assisted in directing the hovering jolly green to this area in the jungle despite his broken back you want to talk about miracles yeah randomly running into these guys in the village in the village jeez but we know we need two guys to survive yeah you knew that you were looking for them well lg is here the jolly green tennis dropped down here it crashed we run from here all the way down here you know the communist house around here we got a difficult time to join with them so that's why we take you know very crazy decision we go or we go fast or we go slowly or we go you know the by another way to get in to join with them this from from from the hill here to the castle it's a very difficult time for us but we got to do it you know like at 18 o'clock right it's a little bit dark so it's starting to get dark and black and angle keys want to say hey we stay here for overnight but i thought in my mind if i stay overnight i gotta die because my bleeding in the back every thing in my body i say hey let me let me join first and i run through but we had a tactical to escape from the uh from here to the grass side i said go fight and coin and you got a two gun this fight ding and then i run so you just kind of went for it yes and then they stayed and were you were you trying to get to where the helicopter was yes and you were just going to go by yourself yes because otherwise you were going to bleed out yes at what point did the rest of the team decide to go with you they stay there i'm the point to open the negative broadway to let if i'm die if the team get it to be deceptive if i run to and then when i get there i gotta shoot my ding ding and a team run okay so you're gonna they were covering for you yes and then when you got there you covered for them yes and then when i run there i say hey i saw the job there and i stayed there i say go when we don't have a radio but when i started the people understand i'm safety and then quang they gotta run through my my way we rejoin in there with the helicopter side we understand if i'm staying overnight i'm gonna die because they're bleeding sure and then anyway i gotta i die let's try let's try to looking for the way for survival right so you you didn't you were either going to die trying to run there or you're going to die staying there overnight yes so you might as well either way you don't eat the thing i gotta die if i'm stay there and you already had died what three times four times at this point your career but you know how do we hear we still you know understand we training well we're training good and then we work together really good if i'm running if quang and black or whatever can protect me they give you cover yeah cover fire i gotta die in my way and the nva wasn't used to you guys running yes they didn't expect it no again they just before they charge through the ranks several times and then this one here he's running and then the others follow another one ding ding ding ding you know right there and you're firing with ak-47s by now so that way um the nva maybe wouldn't be so alert if they heard car 15 they would come quickly for the car 15s but hearing aka maybe they weren't sure that may have helped those we still have one or two car 15. really you know we you know the way car 15 the the front yes we put we take it in the front of the m16 yes we put in a car 15 different shower for a different one okay different shower so when i started like it there like like a michigan right but the car 15 that the long one in here yes it's very small but when we shoot it by the uh i don't know how to call it but you know the front of it is the it's the flash on the end yes yes so the difference this is about two inches yeah right here they had the early m16 oh okay the three prong ones yes yes very early m16 with that three prong and they they changed the flash which i've never heard before different shapes are a different sound very different sound they're very difficult oh yeah yeah you know the kind of one more thing that saved you yeah one more team you're running you're bleeding and you're firing car 15s but different sound along with the aks and they knew that and then they followed me and then at the time they followed me i got ping ping your just single shots yeah if you put full automatic you don't have a good enough you know the ammo so the ping we count maybe we can play game with them one two three ping one two three ping ping sometime and if they scan it if you fools you know the automatic they say hey that's got it no experience in the world he's an amateur yes and easy to run out the emma yeah ping and not bing bing bing different different way different style so they know the uh you know the people with the anime they understand exactly those guys how how they're learning so according from the from the training we're doing well we're doing good very good so any situation anywhere and any time training counts yes so just you know just let the people understand that in the army now you better learn you better train don't be don't say hey i'm hero i'm hero i'm the big guy no no we need to training always trade trending all the way learn from each other if james dry he listened to me he said hey how do we get out and that's easy right call the chopper i need attraction and then we shape the everybody but anyways get back to here where you are now yes sir yeah well where we are right now is back to the book the nva focused heavily on the chopper easing the pressure on st alabama as they neared the jolly green black thought it felt like they were moving closer to the gates of hell itself the nva were pouring small arms firing rpgs at the hovering ship all the door gunners and pilots intermittently fired the mini-gun m-79s and m-60s and the helicopter gun ships and skyraker skyraiders made gun runs around it time was against them the weather was beginning to close in the smoke from previous airstrikes hung over the area for longer and longer periods of time before clearing enough for the next attack from the air on the ground the men of st alabama heard an nva running through the bushes around them fortunately the nva failed to spot the spike team or the air force crewman desperate black had to move his team onto a trail so it could move to the hovering helicopter more quickly as the team moved up the trail the tail gunner was shaking violently and had turned a pasty white team members set quang down and proceeded to the aircraft at the crest of the hill they saw the helicopter taking hits and dealing out its own the m-60 was red-hot black saw someone firing an m16 out of one of the windows as black moved to the chopper the intensity of gunfire seemed to multiply the air was so full of lead he could see it fuel and bits of metal skin fell from the aircraft as they reached its underside the jungle penetrator smashed to the ground next to him and raised three feet before he could put three team members on the first load grineer the the air force flight engineer and the wounded st alabama team member were second were on the second hoist lift the wounded vietnamese became entangled in jungle vines and while was while he was being hoisted upward the air force hoist operator had to stop the hoist lower it and give him enough time to untangle himself when the hoist moved up toward the aircraft the vietnamese was not sitting in the seat but hanging on with assistance from air force sergeant kazbeer despite the nva gunfire black ran back to the bamboo thicket where he had left the remainder of the team cuong the dying tail gunner pointed his 45 caliber pistol at the advancing nva and said toy quiet i die he motioned black to return to the helicopter before shooting himself black was running back to the ship when two nva stepped onto the trail and pointed their ak-47s at him chu hoy one of the soldiers shouted black stretched out his arms and continued walking towards them when he was only a few feet away he said chew hoi the young nva soldiers appeared surprised before they could react black grabbed the ak-47s by their searing barrels and stripped them from their soldiers he backhanded the soldier on his right and smashed the other soldier in the face with one of the weapons he left the stunned soldiers lying there as he sprinted to the chopper where he found the praying one-one the rest of the team was on board firing any weapon they could get their hands on as the jungle penetrator lift black and the 1-1 upward they were showered with hot spent casings from the m60 and other weapons being fired from inside the aircraft the entire team fired out the windows and from the back door as the overloaded helicopter began to lift out of the jungle major olson told covey he was at maximum power as the jolly green giant slowly rose black felt the ship making upward surges from b-40 rockets slamming into the armor-plated underside of the aircraft it felt like it was a giant it felt like a giant slugging the ship in the stomach boosting it upward with each rocket blast from his view abrupt the fray watkins couldn't believe the bird kept flying somehow the pilot got the jolly green giant out of there once clear of the jungle hole the ship began its ascent out of the valley and the shadow of death the door gunner removed his helmet and placed it on black's head the pilot told him we're on our way home not quite from above watkins saw the crippled ship catch fire and try to make and try to make it out of the killing zone it crossed two ridgelines before descending into a clearing where it crash landed olson had gotten them out of the killing zone but jg32 had flown its last rescue mission everyone except black in the 1-1 were transferred to another jolly green giant piloted by a coast guard exchange pilot lieutenant commander lonnie mixon mixon took over 30 hits picking up st alabama and others after everyone after everyone knew that black the remaining personnel from st alabama and the air force survivors from jg10 were cleared from the original target area they hammered it with everything they had including more napalm bombs and gun runs captain hartness the pilot of watkins fak plane was so mad at that he flew the o2 down into small arms range and fired his 2.7 millimeter rockets into the area where the nva had knocked down jg10 he and watkins took a hit to the front and the engine died hartness somehow got the skymaster o2 up out of the area and back to fubai there was no engine pressure when he landed a cobra gunship landed and opened the armament compartment doors which had seat belts attached to them black and the 1-1 buckled up and were soon airborne alongside the jolly green giant returning to da nang they were flying so fast that black had to turn his blood-stained face away in order to breathe within minutes he was so cold he was shivering uncontrollably the cobra landed at a marine medevac site where the americans were wrapped in poncho liners and helicopter to da nang at the danang infirmary everyone was getting patched up when foe saw black he raised his right hand and a fist above his head chu hoy du ma he yelled surrender [ __ ] man that's a crazy mission what do you think just another day in sog absolutely yeah maybe just a little bit today and that was i mean that's one mission but that was your life that was your life that's what you did every day or or multiple times a month over and over and over and over again [Music] over again i mean the the casualty rate for sog was was uh over 100 correct so if you were going to sag you are going to get wounded probably more than once you may be killed obviously i can't imagine that the survival rate for the vietnamese that aren't going back to america you're just staying in that job for years i mean their kid their survival rate must have been minuscule for you to be standing here is crazy absolutely it's a miracle actually in our situation that we have no choice we have no choice we have to go forward okay the vietnam vietnamese situation that vietnam war country if i'm not joined to the army i get back home i cannot survive i must go with the another unit like infantry or local local army why not we stay with the shop we got a lot of offering we got a lot of money better pay yeah we got it you know the uh a lot of power when we on go back to town mm-hmm we got we we wetted uh envy this mva uniform nobody can touch it because we have it all right you know the the car employee of the os government so nobody can toast whatever they cut they want to toast it we got a mp military police there to protect us and we got a gun in the front we got a gun pistol in the back come on whatever 10 guy or 20 guy have you watched it in a rambo movie or something we did like 100 like him we gotta claim our mind here we gotta go somewhere we pull over here nobody now anything else walk around with a claymore mine on your chest right here you wanna play go ahead come on please even you know the police station whatever they want to do with us we join together with one team three american and now vietnamese we went together nobody can stop us like the time that quang was in jail you had to go get him out of jail yeah he had to break him out of jail yeah kwang got in jail did they was it was there resistance from the jail or did they just let you guys take him when they realized who you guys were no we we went there for free nobody can't stop we we went there up in the here claymores on your chest come on here please and they also had a couple of guys with them 60s 15 years old kind of thing they're looking top 15 they say hey what the hell the girl need this right yeah nobody knows and we got an ak-47 if they shoot up grey mama i gotta blow out yeah so they let us do it quan got out of jail quan got out of jail he got the get out of jail claymore so he could go on a mission on october 5th and that's where he died yeah it's that quan oh so that that's when you had to break them out was before this mission before this mission they broke him out of jail geez so basically you were in that job because you guys were the baddest [ __ ] in vietnam and you did whatever you wanted to yes sure even you know the strong guy hey claymore beats a strong guy all day long all day you know i can count the piece up the the inside 555 piece ball bearings i can't count sometimes we play just play the game right put it down with c4 inside we took out the uh we took out the c4 yeah sometimes they take it out and cook their coffee and stuff oh yeah and then we put it in here nobody knows that the real world is effective this is still psyops yeah it's good good psychological operations when did you uh because i know you ended up getting wounded badly in your leg when when did that happen it happened august 30th 1971. and then what what happened did you get shot i guess so and how did you get out of the how did you escape the situation he uh we don't know underground but the water in there swam in there and then we get out there we're looking for with the people experience like me we're looking for the high the place and under the tree to stay there and they wanted they wanted me to be build up live i mean they want to catch the team they the posting it they want the first thing like it they want a shot like it to here you're out there to get a pow they want to yes they want me to do it they want me to they want they want to catch me but we we we want to not let them do it and but after that they want what they want to catch the team they don't they don't want to kill the team okay they say surrender like a chillhoe and then we entered the uh by the cop15 he had a kachiohoi but they very close to us they got a bunker around there and they shoot the guy with the radio before they want to catch the team they got to kill the radio man first okay like the frenchman he wear the radio they want to come make the contact with the team they're going to kill the radio man first and then my legget next to the radio i pull i kick the radio out but they shoot the reddit radio including my leg and maybe two three rounds into my leg they they should buy rpd the idea the child i know that i'm sure he did and then i pulled out my leg that time we just get out there for 10 minutes and team i just report to uh the bingham bring him just report to the uh kobe say team septic team okay and they can go home bingo was the team leader yes yeah they can go home and say and bing him yes and then later on they got a hit right away and my friend they carry me out the uh they call back they go back they go back to the chopper just drop book come back but you know i got it uh prc uh 68 oh later on they know prc68 radio mm-hmm emergency radio emergency radio yeah the prc68 that was still around when i came in until really yeah it was it was getting phased out getting replaced by the prc 125 but there was like one or two of them that you could go look at the radio show small one yeah that's a small one we got it now the yorkton uh oakton right yes we got a 10 oh 10 we cannot talk but prc 68 we can change the frequency to talk oh okay that they got to develop the the new thing and then when i turn it on you know when i pull out the they gotta try to be pull out me to the lg and then i put it on and the uh jumper coming back and shoot up to the enemy and i turned over my leg it really hurt really pain i told my phd 68 away i'm dropped somewhere and then they they thought i'm i'm dead because after 10 minutes i cannot end you know turn off turn up the brc 28 that mean i am the one dead and they want to kill they want to blow out the plc68 they don't want brc68 to the hand the animation and that's why i survived and they shoot around us by the rocket by the missile unkind of thing and the mva thought you know like at the the job will know where they are they move out oh they they they were scared they scanned it they moved it out and i am free i'm not free but you know i had it i got a safety difficult situation and the chopper laid down picked me up and the first chopper went down i smelled the gas because the enemy shoot up the chopper to the guest tank i say get out of the way i i cannot shoot because i shoot it the uh the chopper you gotta burn it out yes and i wait my hand i said go go go go go go and they talk to hold the team i say don't shoot anything don't shoot anything and after that you know the the pilot they knew you know the guests spread out and they left i don't know what happened what happened with the chopper but the second one lay down pick me up they take me to the 995th hospital and then later on today i got an inspection and then the doctor cut up my leg only 20 minutes on the ground only 20 20 minutes when we land out but i'm okay now he's back so then what was it like as the war was over and america was leaving and the communists are taking over i mean you had to be kind of a marked man being this former you know special operations guy that was working alongside the americans they must have wanted to find you that's why i told you that we needed training up to i got wounded i was then to work with the american embassy okay so after you got wounded you went to work at the american embassy yes got it my station in danang at 52 back down u.s consulate general one in danang until to 1975. today we lost da nang at uh the end of the march 1975 with my experience with the shock we understand enemy situation they fight from uh not to the south but i work in the lana at the time you know the the they want to take it along i move up to the south i hit a lot of enemy i can't talk a lot of you know like the security or police what do you think they moved they attacked from the north to the south but i'm from the south move up to the north they thought i'm i'm there their friend that's why i'm telling you we need to train so you did the opposite of what they thought you would do yes you went from the south to the north to they're not then being i'm the people from the north they not pay attention about the people from the south to the north but if you move from this north to the south they got a checkpoint where you go what is your name where do you work everything to ask the question but i'm from the north from the south to the north the reason that my father-in-law of the way of the fuguai fubai camp and then we stayed there until to they took over the saigon and we almost crazy we don't know where to go we don't want to understand situation but my family in the saigon and a lot and even ben [ __ ] after take over to the south vietnam you know i use it enemy paperwork that means nfp id card and an enemy certificate i mean from from the north by the way my relief my uncle my something relief my nephew up the north going to the south to see me that mean when when the first thing we 1954 we still have the people living in in the north and when they came down they're looking for us because between saigon and north vietnam it's very difficult very difficult and saigon it tricks people and you know knowledge people but in north vietnam they only you know knowledge by the combination you they limit limited with education so when i when they came down outside when they came down to the south to see our family they don't have nothing but they still say hey we got a tv over the town we got all kinds of things but they have nothing but at the time they asked for the money they asked for the gold they've asked for the drink that's why i learned from them too so i'm not stay only one place today i'm in san jose tomorrow i'm lucky i gotta go to tennessee and then i gotta go washington dc i gotta go you gotta keep moving keep moving keep the communists guessing and then i buy something everything in in the communist situation government everything it not free like it i want to uh i want to fish i got to go down to see some daenerys or somewhere i buy the fish i took from there back to saigon to sell the super black market so i found out the way by the way i'm looking for the way to escape from vietnam they give me sometime a freak because they know they knew i was from the short man so soc for free they invite us because they got a gun but they don't know how to do oh so they actually invited you the communists invited you out the the people in the vietnam oh south vietnam they invited you to start training them no to just do security for them to do what to if we see anything happen in overseas i got to shoot these guys yes got it let us protect them and then until to 1986 october i successful to come to malaysia and how did you do that my small boat small boat yes and you had tried 14 times before that the last time at the 15th time i got a paperwork right there and what is that you tried to escape so you tried to escape 14 times you were successful on your 15th time yes what were the other methods that you tried do you was it always by boat by boat yes always by boat i'm going back i i i thought i got i gotta go i can go buy a kitchen or whatever the uh laos with my leg cannot walk because i know where the way to go right i know where the way to go but you know my leg go west but you couldn't walk tonight yes and then what happened once you got to malaysia i'd be there for uh wait for the uh uh i mean uh i stay there i see the uh american delegation and they come to interview me so they say and then they take me to the uh to come to the united states how do they go how do they confirm who you are i have nothing but you know they got a special interview from the people from from the u.s i mean gva them enjoy volunteer agents agency when i came there i have nothing but they ask me and i talk my history they mm-hmm back here they call back step to check up right and after one month they say hey you come who has so they did that pretty fast yes because they asked me they got it you know group like they're looking for the uh for the pw or whatever m.i.a they asked me the question do i know any american mission in action or i said yes i did i talked uh poking uh can't cry james strike these are all people on our teams who got killed and the two other americans on alaska when it got wiped out when when allen survived the two americans were crying and king i only i only remember with three but they asked me do you know where the location i said yes i did sure and they tried to bring me back to the vietnam to tell them but they could because the time i stayed there for sigmund for waiting to come back to vietnam but i don't know why they sent me to the philippines for education training and what kind of education training learning learning you know like for orientation for how the uh american life and in there for sigmund i came over here in san francisco and then what was it like when you landed in san francisco 1998 something 1988 yes what'd you do when you landed did you have any family here yes i got it uh my sister in in san jose and had she escaped from vietnam yes already yes 1975 and how did she escape by uh because some she had a husband like the uh the vietnamese pilot and they out of vietnam by the way you know the uh her husband wow so what did you do when you st when you landed just have to start get a job and i mean you couldn't strap a claymore to your chest anymore and walk around town taking what you wanted my sister she be here like at the uh 75 and then she got like a few air station fire gas station and then i got when i came i worked for her like a family shop until i got you know like a uh i got stroke 15 years ago yeah 15 years 17 years ago i got stroked and then at no more no more job no more yeah that happened we all thought cowboy finney will never see cowboy gang we all heard that i don't know i don't think anything that can kill cowboy at this point cowboy's gonna live forever so he has a struggle with a bad stroke but yet he's back my mouse you know over here and i cannot move but now i'm still gay but another problem that eight inch or agent orange agent orange i got a kidney problem i got dialysis now at home and you manage somehow to have kids during all this you have children yes i do and how many children do you have totally 10. do you believe it i don't i don't i believe anything that you tell me three dead in the vietnam okay so you lost three kids in vietnam because when the newborn they don't have you know any food they don't have any uh like energy to to stay live tree dead and then when i escaped with the two of my son came over here with me my wife at the time it's still bike in the vietnam and then i do my paperwork all my family here right now i got faison into her in here with me in the united states with me oh beautiful one up the uh dixit one of the north carolina and three in here with me and two of my guru went in here with me and another one that the yeah i i believe in louisiana yeah and then i have a 16 no 11 wrong child 11 grandchildren wow eleven little cowboys out there little eleven little cowboys so you are gonna live forever no doubt no doubt i try my best i try my best i cannot tell whatever you know like it when i got shocked my uh my uh my wife would say go now and when i say hey don't do it and then my son say call 911 and i cannot see it i cannot lie down this is when you had your stroke yes you said don't call 9-1-1 yeah no you didn't want to call a prairie fire emergency on that situation no i call chopper [Laughter] you know because i have a training when when i watch out i have a trending kung fu i got a training training yoga and i keep you know i keep my body you know free i keep my mind going and later about hour i'm back to normal not normal that time you know we cannot we can we can use it you know medication i say okay now call 9-1-1 take me to the doctor with the time for emergency i learned from my father he crying when i lost my leg he said he told me why i'm not using the hope you know hope right hope i hope medication hope is the medication yes not you know use it by the american way medication they could take pill or get shot they're no good so that's why i'm say don't call 9-1-1 wow and then i survival right now you see it i got a lot of trouble i know it affect by the war you know sometime it make me depressed i got a lot of medication and you know they spread everything in the vietnam agent orange we came down there you know that we're very shocked with the water but we pull out the rock the water in there we take an hour drink that's why i got a drama with my ace right now because the agent orange yes well i'll tell you what i don't know uh we've been going for two and a half hours no till we did what did we miss did i miss anything well the only thing we missed would be if we if you want to talk about the day he was with the frenchman that historic day when the frenchman got shot in the back four times yeah if you remember that okay so one month later you guys are on another mission and i'm going i'm going back into across the fence here we go later in the afternoon children signaled to the team to pull their claymore mines and prepare to move out due to the combined weight of the rucksack and web gear letourneau as the frenchman moved to his knees and slung his rucksack on his back just as it landed on his back ak-47s opened fire letourneau was slammed to the ground face-first face-first the impact so severe he had thought he had broken his nose startled letourneau jumped up with his car 15 pointing it toward the ak-47 gunfire that was near the front of the team surprised that there were no nva near him laterno removed the rucksack to discover that four ak-47 rounds had ripped through the 23-pound prc 25. he reached into an especially tailored pocket on his fatigue shirt which was sewn with vertical zippers one on the left of his shirt one on the right side between the top and bottom of the pockets on a shirt and pulled out his urc 10 emergency radio and broadcast a general alert for any aircraft in the area st virginia was declaring a prairie fire emergency then there was a sudden complete silence eerie silent amazed at the quietude letourneau walked to childress who asked him what he had done with the prc25 letourneau explained that four rounds had ripped through the radio and that it was probably useless get the [ __ ] radio children's yelled what if it's working we leave it behind for those [ __ ] to use stunned laterno went back picked up the rucksack and walked to childress who grabbed the handset as nva troops began firing at st virginia and yelled into the radio we have a [ __ ] prairie fire emergency get us the [ __ ] out of here or i promise we'll i'll kick your ass all the way back to saigon as the firefight raged on the remainder of the team was lying down on the ground the firing at the nva y chill while childress and letourneau continued to argue while standing up oblivious to the ak-47 rounds cracking over their heads later yelled back at childress it won't work while pointing the prc 25 radio where the antenna had been shot off no antenna no combo letrono grabbed a spare whip antenna and handed it to childress who screwed into the radio this time children screamed in the radio we needed an ex-film now i'm declaring a prairie fire emergency is anyone out there within a second or two there was a response calm down childress i realize you're under fire said a covey rider just at that moment several ak-47 ak-47s opened fire from the wood line near the log where letourneau had been unceremoniously slammed onto his face lap and cowboy returned fire covey rider continued we heard your team declare a prairie prairie fire emergency on guard frequency and i've rallied the cavalry what's your mark do you have an lz in sight before children said a word into the radio he turned to liturnu and said see it works suppose we had left it for the nva never i say again never ever leave behind a radio as if to emphasize that point the nva opened fire again as lap began looking for an lz while moving the team down the hill away from the most concentrated nva gunfire cutting later no no slack childress roared tell covey we'll give him five we'll give him a fix in five minutes we'll probably need strings to get out of here i doubt we can make it down to the valley where kingby can pick us up without missing a beat letourneau who for the first time felt four burning stings in his back repeated those words to covey while he and cowboy began providing cover fire as the tail element of the team letourneau then laterno nodded to cowboy who ignited several claymore mines that the team had set out on its perimeter those mines only slowed the nva for a few seconds before the dust and debris from the blast had settled nva soldiers were moving through it toward cowboy and lieterno without saying a word the two men took turns firing at the enemy while moving downhill rotating around each other cowboy would fire several bursts from his car 15 and then reload as he reloaded letourneau would open fire providing covering fire for the team during one short lull cowboy even planted a claymore mine in the direction of the advancing nva and letourneau dug out another claymore from his rucksack and placed a 10 second delayed fuse on it when the nva advanced again cowboy ignited his claymore mine the nva moved towards the team again luterno ignited his fuse and ran down the hill with cowboy to catch up to their team before they reached the team two b-40 anti-personnel rockets slammed into the trees above them showering them with shrapnel a few more exploded as laterno and cowboy moved down the hill then the 10-second fuse ignited another claymore it brought pet precious time for the gun and run team of letourneau and cowboy to turn to cover ground and catch up to the remainder of st virginia as childress called in air strikes laterno reflected on how surreal the firefight had been it wasn't anything like he had witnessed on television or in any movie instead of men charging each other and killing each other in plain sight here in triple canopy jungle he observed green tracers from ak-47s first or at the most an enemy hand or foot and somehow the nva found firing lanes where they could launch shoulder-held b-40 anti-personnel rockets that slammed above them and around them as they raced down the hill again the voices of his special forces instructors echoed in his mind they had told the young aspiring green berets at fort bragg that the nva was a tough resilient opponent many had fought against the japanese during world war ii and against the french driving them from vietnam in 1954. the sounds of king bees in the distance and the crashing thunder of b-40 rockets slamming into trees above his head shook letourneau out of his moment of introspection and turned his undivided attention to the crescendo of ak-47 fire from the enemy st virginia responded with a volley with volley after volley of full and semi-automatic gunfire while eternal and cho fired several m-79 rocket rounds toward the densest section of jungle where the ak-47 gunfire was emanating through the gunfire someone popped the smoke grenade which brought the king bees closer to rt virginia's location in the jungle over the din of gunfire childress and cowboy told everyone to put on their swiss seats and prepare for string extraction in short order a kingby was hovering over st virginia more than 125 feet above the jungle floor letourneau cowboy cho and haun hooked their d-rings into the old maguire rig that hung from the end of the ropes and shortly were being lifted out of the jungle as the quartet of recon men was being lifted in the air the nva released another salvo of ak-47 and b-40 rockets shrapnel from the rockets hit them with varying degrees of size and velocity all of them were wounded it was during these explosions that laterno realized his car 15 and somehow become caught in the rope above him just far enough away that he couldn't reach it he pulled out his m79 and launched a grenade toward the nva positions now all he could see of the enemy were hundreds of muzzle blasts from ak-47s and green tracer rounds climbing upward toward the quartet of st virginia men before he could reload his m-79 the king b began to move away from the target area surprising him because the men had not cleared the jungle yet instead of continuing to climb out of the target moving straight up until the men cleared the jungles triple canopy of trees and vegetation the king bee was moving away from the target area due to the heavy enemy ground fire in recent months at least two bees were shot down during the string extractions from hot targets but these facts were unknown to luterno at the time shrapnel from b40 rockets exploded around the st virginia men stringing them with pieces of hot metal stinging them with pieces of hot metal further spooking the king b crew luterno began to violently collide with the tall jungle trees feeling like a metal ball and a pinball machine letourneau corooned off several more trees at least one more b40 exploded in the treetops again showering in with shrapnel a tree branch hit literal from one side and turned him upside down in his swiss seat in his swiss seat as the rope seat began to slip down his hips letourneau remembered spider telling how a 1-0 from another team had recently shot out of been shot out of his swiss seat during a rope extraction another tree struck letourneau before he was able to muster the surge of strength and momentum to reach up and grab the rope above him as his body finally cleared the treetops the only thing between him and certain death below was the jungle floor 200 feet below was the single piece of rope tied into the king b with one final urgent pull letourneau was able to move himself upright in the swiss seat as the king b continued to climb higher into the sky distancing itself from the fury of exploding b-40s and ak-47 gunfire while gaining air speed well there you go in and cowboy was there for that and had he was still recovering from the wounds from october 5th here he is around thanksgiving yeah so a month and a half later after your october 5th insanity you're out there again almost healed almost big out the tree up uh damn juan yeah uh gnome and another one that sent my village and they wanted me to go with them oh is that what it was they were from your village and they wanted you to go and help them go to virginia yeah and then uh by the way the new man lap uh no the uh frenchman oh no because was this the frenchman's first mission is this cherry mission default mission we don't just we don't trust how he's learning right so that's why we got to go strong enough to protect him sure and by the child childhood it is very good perfect he he perfect man but he only won and then frenchman hit the new guy we don't know about him but you know you know one zero had run several missions yes yes children they got an experience either one you know the frenchman like james strong jim strike the first mission mm-hmm the first mission is easy to go that's why you know i'm volunteered to go with the virginia to take care of my my three friends send my village and by the way that the frenchman hit a very new man baby son yes baby we call him baby [Laughter] but he did okay but he's perfect yeah but he good you're training good did you train him how to kill the dogs i don't know i don't know i don't know but you know we we very like the machine yes when i shoot something he knew i ran out of ammo he covered me and when he run out the machine the ammo i cover him so i i judge that he like at the number two yes he number two because the first time later on you know i i know he runs a lot of mission 13 yes i know about it i know he runs a lot of mission but for sure that's why he's so you know he's still survival but that makes you all the more amazing yeah i mean within the third a month and a half only by that yeah you go from october 5th to this mission as part of your six years inside my scar hill not not really hill almost you well you got new shrapnel too yeah this new shrapnel wounds from that but in order you know to become like you and me right now i cannot you know leave you alone but i gotta go with you sure because we close friend very close friend well that's that's what it's all about and it's uh it's amazing to be able to sit here and talk to you i can't believe that i'm sitting here and talking to you uh i can't believe that you survived one of those missions never mind six years six years of those missions i thought yes normal no no that's not just normal like somebody else no that's no one else we got pay yeah right and then we got the bonus if we do it the good thing like if we have a uh pow do you remember how much you got paid one picture that 500 dollars i don't know how much is a piastre worth it depends on what time of day it is maybe a dollar so you go and do these missions for a dollar you're a cheap date it's like a five dollar five thousand five dollar for a picture yeah okay and then for a reason was their vietnamese currency we can learn a lot from the song like you remember sometimes we got a radio small radio right we get in the jungle we draw it and then some special camera and we throw in the jungle and we learned a lot we put in the sensors too yes and then cameras and sensors come around shenzhen and radio you you you gotta ask me why you throw the radio into the jungle right right i never knew about that so this is all top secret so top secret even i didn't even tell didn't know then you know it's top secret i know the system from the from the uh from the department but we don't know or whatever do i have authority to speak in that the radio we show in the jungle this mean you gotta have a question if the communists pick up the radio who's the one that use it that squad leader a platoon leader or a company later and then blow up no they not blow up inside the radio they got us something when they order anything airplane no what's going on there you go wow now we learn from them a lot okay we talking to them we learn from we learn we learn from them a lot that's it or like at the flashlight yes we told the jungle nobody know and when we're training to throw the flashlight in the jungle the first question that they asked me if you see the flashlight in the do you pick it up i'm going to say no you say no it you know pasta tests you should you should pick it up but the nva might pick it up yeah nva you got to pick it up oh they're going to pick it up but i'm saying i wouldn't get him no because you'd have that thing booby trapped or something because you you thought you thought it it important thing just normal thing okay the first question they asked you you see the flashlight in the genre do you pick it up you say no that means something wrong with you i say yes why not and i pick it up and the second question what what do you do with the flashlight when you pick it up turn it on turn it on you fail the test because it might in there how do you know when you turn it on it blows up so many so many learning from i i don't know how to tell you but you know you did a pretty good job yeah i gotta learn a lot i got to learning a lot okay team moving three nva they follow you enemy phony you the first question that you want a three enemy debt or you want a three three enemy wounded if i answered three m m that you go home you cannot run recon anymore you want pows i want a three guy at this one guy that would it why because the team's still on the mission they wanted another another nva got to take care of them right so that delay the time that they followed the team and if you get a pow you get a bonus yeah we bought a p asterisk for uh yes for a pow yeah i don't know how many pfw a lot yeah yeah yeah we only got a hundred dollars so i don't know what you would get i didn't hear about that side of it the reason that we got a bonus but now i found that bonus before that i don't know anything i don't know just exactly just empty i don't know anything about it but we learn we learn from him we learn from you we learn from him we learn a lot every every different guy and we learn from you we talk back and forth i learned from him he learned from me so we we sitted down we show our experience like i told you if i saw the enemy in the jungle i kill him it easy but in order to complete my duty i gotta stay on the ground by friday that's why i'm not qut i'm an enemy i just stay there and they they test you how smart to handle the the thing happen that's why i want to become you know the recon team it's very difficult but especially the first thing protect this guy protect american guy to first support joint protect american right but we understand that we was recruited to refuel the american came to the vietnam that's why i can't tell you that i'm so lucky i'm not good but you know just normal just bring everything get normal better better than for me well you're definitely uh you're definitely lucky and i can tell from everything i've seen you're damn good too that's perfect perfect yeah amazing it's just an amazing uh story to sit here and and talk to you and and get this information and um you know get other people to be able to hear this story is just it's awesome indeed do you got anything else tilt no this is it it's been a great ride and thank you for bringing us together this is really a special day it's awesome you got anything else khan thank you to invite me to be here today but our country situation right now i am very sad i can tell you my dad gotta die by the sociology my father did become unity he the capitalist he not very rich man but he middle guy he made her in the vietnam but the communism it know who that oh please send a message to the people don't trust the communism that's all i can say that we're here we shaped it but after the uh the vote for president situation right now i'm sad to let the at my knowledge i don't know it true or not but another hand from the communist room touched to the united states of america i've been here for ada for 32 years i never never get back to country i never visit the vietnam even i want to go back there but for the funerals yeah for the uh from our friend is still back in the vietnam but the vietnamese government would let me get in if you don't trust me i got a paperwork in here we trust you we do i work with the uh general smith who is the uh m.i.a accounting his can he he came in the hawaii smith camp smith this is several years ago right now it i like it the uh 15 20 years ago okay i work with him regarding about what powwows and mris yes ken cry robinson and honkaidy you know like the helicopter destroyed yes stride but they won't let me get get there i ever met family with the uh our friend poking i'm i'm pick pick up the name the king right now become a paul king yeah poking yes come on behave the poking it was king and crying there were kia on alaska when john allen escaped he you need well i i can tell you i think one of the reasons that you start seeing um these things in america's people don't understand communism and they don't realize how evil it is and so you coming on here and and sharing your story and explaining what you went through what your father went through what your family went through at the hands of the communists i can assure you that there are look there might be some americans that don't understand but there are plenty of americans that do understand and we will never let that evil form of government control take over this country it will never happen never i believe so i believe child but in my shy i hear you know the communists when they took over the uh the u.s because they mess up you know the water they messed up the computer vote for the president he turned over to mr joe biden i heard a lot of information so i scan it i want to buy both another boat now if i got it in order to happen you know i escaped from the united states you're not going to need another boat to escape from united states we will make sure that doesn't happen america is stronger than one person and and our roots are deep and we will stay a free country and because of men like you we're we're able to be here today absolutely how would they mess up the country right now the department of defense metro expert the fire and a lot of men get fired they're under capable cover to another country why you said very strong but we got to take care we got to be careful with it remember communism control the people buy food you don't have a food you can't do anything that's what they control the people in china they can control the north korea you outside the con damn their country you see hey hey look good the good the good but inside the country no good eat no good they say you wanted food you got to do it they wanted water you do it they want to fish one month for two or three fish you gotta do it i give you the paperwork to go buy from the store it's not free like here united states people do you want anything you have everything you can work for in there do you want anything you gotta listen and obey me what to do trust me about the the way it is you say very strong country no you see it it's no copy how the government say you need to take a match thinking about listen why you know mr expert he commander with the united states army he got fired and another tree got fired too okay i'm looking back i i asked you the question american don't lose anything right but why we still get out of vietnam why we lose vietnam politics politics because now it's politic but with my experience the opponent they can control you know the hero guy like a jew like a man and then we trust them we're gonna die like at the the time it you know mr obama you see the do you see the picture marine in the board surrender with the what do you think oh that was not a good situation at all but why why we still have a picture because the people back in washington like midterm they can't do anything with a soldier we gotta do and we gotta follow with the order but they order us to come to die so i'm not a politic guy i'm you know retired man 72 years old i can't do anything i can make any money but i afraid of my children my grandchild grow up living under combination well that's a good point and i appreciate that point you know i'm sitting here sitting here saying oh america's strong but your point is we can't get arrogant and think that it can't happen to us we have to remain vigilant all the time trust but verify indeed for sure well once again thank you for coming on thank you for sharing your stories you're always welcome here uh both you guys obviously are always welcome here khan thanks for coming and sharing your story and and thank you more importantly for your service to your country to this country to defend freedom and democracy in the world and thank you for taking care of your big american brothers on the battlefield and your vietnamese brothers as well and and thank you for you and your family's sacrifice on the altar of freedom amen thank you amen and with that tilt and cowboy khan have left the building leaving nothing but respect and admiration for incredible service incredible men and everything that they've gone to everything they've gone through echo charles you were sitting in the corner yes we didn't have room for you at the table that's okay pretty pretty insane right yes very much so yeah it's a it's a little bit different when i'm like x not excluded but x not in on the table or detached detached yeah i'm detaching even more so yeah it is interesting you can sort of see and imagine really kind of what's going on and what like everyone went through and how it was being like in a different culture you know and with military and stuff and then you kind of compare it to all the people that have come on and shared their story yeah very interesting the crazy thing is though all those back to back to back to back to back years of doing these missions i mean the sock guys could barely get out of there alive yeah and here's there's no getting out okay so there's this part this might seem kind of random but there's a part of that i remembered where he said that he could smell they could smell he kind of opened up with that yeah yeah so and i was thinking about it where it's like yeah i i see how that could be really when you're so used to a certain environment you can tell just a little differences like 100 percent man so uh ever here's an exam like when you're at home right and if someone just came over and just left you come in i don't even know if you can smell them but it's probably has something to do with smell oh you can definitely smell you know how you put it this way that's what i thought to you that you could smell them but i can't smell something specific i know it just smells different you know that feeling so it it almost does feel like a little bit of a sense you know so imagine that like or like you know how like your your furniture will be moved just a little bit yeah and you walk in like like you know i have a little home office whatever and there's this couch and when i put it in there it is it's the perfect like i painstakingly put it a certain distance from the there's a tv in there too and so so when you're in your home office you have a couch and a tv yes just some other stuff that's cool hey man i make videos got it you know good good point anyway so one time i was fixing something underneath the couch and i just you know i had to apparently move it just a little bit and just didn't think about it and then when i walked in like later that night or whatever i was like immediately felt it it was it was off by like literally one inch literally and i could feel it i looked at it it was like threw me off you know so that's kind of the kind of stuff he was thinking yeah and those guys growing up in the jungle they grow up in the jungle yeah and so they're just a hundred percent in tune with it and then you got the big gringos coming in you know and until he kept calling himself a city slicker amazing amazing guys well when i hear stories like that it certainly makes me feel like like we can step up our game like i can definitely step up my game like i can do better do better always training like cowboys oh man cowboys and you know what i don't know if we captured it because we were talking before we pressed record but he started getting really into training you know just like how how well they trained yeah and he did mention it a bunch you know he did mention a bunch but he he gave kind of the foundational part about training before we pressed record you know like the foundational how much it meant so he kept saying it and he reiterated it especially at the end you know he was reiterating it but yeah it's no doubt you always gotta train always gotta be prepared you never know you never know what's going to happen you train harder yeah kind of applies to everything too even if you don't necessarily want to think of it in terms of like oh there's an enemy out there you know literally or even figuratively if you if you don't necessarily want to think about that part of it all the time it's it has to do with capability because the enemy that can mean anything if you want to go metaphoric i'm i'm you're you're preaching the wrong guy here i'm down with [Music] well let's face it if you have a let's say you're bringing home a you know those big water jugs five gallon water jugs yeah you put in a water cooler or whatever let's say you bring some of those home okay and let's say you don't have a lift gate on your truck or you you just have a car you have a car you put it's in the back seat and now you got to reach in there and you got to grab it at this awkward angle see him saying that in and of itself could be an enemy yeah never mind the nva storming your position yeah more important it could be the water bottle this is the scenario the chance of an nva storming your position today a little bit lower than you grabbing a water jug maybe i don't know i don't know everyone's different i get it nonetheless point still remains look we're trying to keep ourselves capable we're trying to train we want to keep training regardless of how often you are what's performing perform we'll call it a performance well you are actually are performing all the time it's another way of thinking of things and performing and training all the time because you gotta learn from your performance right it's insane it's like yeah those deals yeah anyway all right we're doing it um through training comes beatings comes breakdowns more or less most of the time actually all the time sometimes i just gotta leave you to figure it out like those statements right there i can tell you're maybe you threw it out there as if you'd get some support no but it didn't come i do do that sometimes but this is not one of those times anyway when we build ourselves back up the benefits of training sometimes we get little nagging things in our joints or other places whatever we don't ever worry about that kind of stuff so jaco has joint warfare super krill oil these things these are supplements supplementation for your joints okay so the whole line is called jackal fuel so with that geofeel for your joints has like i said joint warfare super crude oil we also have for your brain and body by the way is a i don't want to call it a product even though it is a product okay i'm going to call it a product we have a product don't call it a product all right see you okay you feel me then uh what yeah we have a thing called substance discipline right so it's disciplined you can take this form of supplementation in actually in a few forms so you got the powdered version mix it with water that's what i had to do today yes sir pill don't mix it with water just swallow it swallow it maybe with some water or whatever quick hitter or in the cans kind of like an energy drink if you will except for one that's literally good for you actually healthy actually healthy yeah so yes real energy yes not fit you know what else gives you energy cocaine apparently right uh that's what i heard from cocaine gives you energy makes you feel like hey i'm gonna go and work hard right now energetic or crystal methamphetamine apparently that gives you energy too a little bit different but yeah no you don't go around saying hey you should oh you need some energy do some cocaine right we're not doing that it's unhealthy it's bad for you we'll say it's unhealthy yeah sure there's other the category that you just used quote energy drinks which are in the same realm potentially not quite but okay maybe not quite i understand what you're saying no philly yes so yeah a lot of times when energy drink you're like hey let's let's drink all like two three four five energy drinks you're gonna be like i don't know about all that shouldn't we not be drinking energy drinks it's kind of you have that feeling a lot of yes i'm saying but the splint go in the can may even actually might even kind of look like an energy drink it doesn't it's just not like that yeah it's this is actual healthy things real energy because that's what i was going to say because cocaine that's not real energy well it depends on when you what you mean by real and it depends on what you mean by energy okay i mean in the spirit we'll have to get some uh some somebody with some expertise and cocaine in here to discuss and energy and energy nonetheless you know what i'm saying healthy energy don't do cocaine yes instead correct try discipline go in a can all the sick none of the negative benefits no dude do you remember what i was no not all those things check it out i brought i was on theo vaughn's podcast sure hell yeah and he was drinking uh discipline go and he said something really funny he's and he just kind of slid under the radar comment but he said something comparing it to cocaine and he said actually i think i'm going back on a cocaine i think that's what's in my brain right now yeah that's weird because i don't like i don't pound well i have i won't like drink the whole thing super fast but then actually that's not true i have but when you drink it super fast then yeah i think you'll get like a little jolt yeah well super fast meaning how long when you down it like in three four or less hits oh that's a that's definitely you down you know that one for yeah oh yeah for sure but no if i do if i drink like two over the course of a podcast like i will not feel like what i imagine cocaine feels like yeah i've never done cocaine yeah me neither nonetheless it's not cocaine it's good for you yeah it's a crystal methamphetamine and cocaine are not good for you you're unhealthy yes jacqueline go is good for you okay i think that's what we're trying to say over here all right yes it's true also speaking of good for you uh vitamin d3 fuel very good for you keep you healthy immune system strong also immune system strong stuff cold war it's another one so boom you got the whole gambit yeah what gambit right that's correct that's good good usage approved yeah yeah um of stuff you know for that kind of stuff you don't want to worry about see i'm saying yeah plus we got mulk we got warrior kid milk which is protein that tastes good plus we got jocko white tea and plus all the stuff that we're talking about you can get it at origenmaine.com or you can get it at the vitamin shop or you can get it in florida right now and it looks like very soon wawa all over the east coast it looks like we're heading in that direction yeah so everyone that's been oh by the way everyone that in florida has been going out and basically getting after it clearing shelves thank you thank you we're heading in the right direction beach hat the beach head is under the process of being secured at this time which we feel good about yes yeah um also yes so you mentioned orange main.com at or back to our gmail.com this is what you where you can get american-made stuff including but not limited to jiu-jitsu rash guards some hoodies on there some joggers on there some shorts on there which i don't haven't been talking about but they're aside from board shorts they're the only shorts i wear but you normally wear board shorts very often oh yes i do oh in the on the mats of justice mass of justice uh workout um uh every single day in hawaii okay yeah it's either church or that straight up got it check i jumped the proverbial gun on that one oh good hey we're all here training learning also because i only see you in the origin shorts the shark fin short that's the only shorts i see you in because unless we're on the maps right yeah of justice yep that's true also at origin main still in our gemaine jeans american-made denim from the from the cotton grown to make the fabric to make the denim to make the jeans all made in america yep by the way um also boots on there delta jeans are back in the game yeah delta c i'm wearing them right now yeah i saw that yeah i saw that that's right and i saw you you kind of like gave me a you grabbed the material and kind of pulled it right what was your assessment yeah yeah well my assessment was that they have some give some legitimate give to them and it i just reflected on the fact that i don't have any i'm really sorry but the new delta genes are freaking and they are a little bit new so we had the original delta genes and then during kovid we re-engineered some stuff we got some denim that we liked even more what is it the cup the cut hell yeah yeah they're just they're just freaking awesome now so um were they always dark like that dark you probably see i my og pair of deltas that i just wore i wear them all the time and so they they're like jeans because they fade a little bit they fade as time goes on so the pair that you're seeing right now are basically brand new gotcha no i i like the dark denim yeah well they're good it will fade over time right on cool yeah so what do you mean calm also boots i forgot that don't forget about booze same deal yeah works of art art for you from work for your feet free feet made in america all good also chocolate stores called jacko store this is where you can get discipline equals freedom shirts hats hoodies lightweight and heavyweight by the way um some women's stuff on there some beanies some rash guards some soap some soap some water your kids soap where you could soak jack of soap trooper soap yeah killer soap by the way all the stuff that we're talking about it if you want to support the podcast you want to provide some level of support this stuff helps us out you know that way that way we don't have to get sponsors yeah yeah there's that because look this might be annoying which i'm sure it is oh this whole thing right no but okay maybe not for you but for a lot of people this might be super annoying but the cool thing is you don't have to listen to it we didn't put it in the middle of you know cut off cowboy and just start hey here's a word from uh whatever we're not doing that yeah that is so we appreciate it when you get if you you look we need stuff and i'm not a big what's the what's the minute i will look we all want to be a minimalist right we want to be a minimalist don't want to buy a bunch of stuff but there's stuff that you do need for instance do you need a ghee yes you do do you need a pair of jeans yes you do do you need a t-shirt yes you do do you need food yes you do do you need supplementation yes you like all these we're just making stuff that you need so if you need it you can get it from us it helps out the podcast it provides a little bit of that support so yeah it's like a win-win it helps everything yeah you could go to like a local store and buy right yeah you could a pair of jeans that were made in china you could do that i mean you you are allowed to yeah but it's not really it's not really let's face it it's not really what you want to do no it's very questionable for sure questionable behavior anyways speaking of this podcast you can oh wait wait wait wait wait no no okay speaking of subscribing actually back to the job okay so we have a t-shirt club we'll call it a subscription scenario where you get a like a how should i say like a unique unique i guess yeah i guess that's a given anyway you get a shirt every month that's kind of more like it's different but it's still in the game on the path etcetera anyway go to jackalstore.com and you can check them out see if you like that one but yeah that's a cool little thing people been doing that we offer it's pretty cool and then if you get a t-shirt from this thing you can't get it anywhere else no you can't even really get it on the store really if they're only for like you'll see like when you see kind of the examples of someone you'll be like okay this kind of makes sense they're fun and they're you know so yeah we have there's always all kinds of cool ideas that come in for shirts for this for that but we can't just execute them all no they will they're varying level scale yeah so you know we're doing a lot of those on an exclusive scale kind of yeah not what i mean kind of i don't know i don't know what you meant by scale that's why on an exclusive scale meaning we're not doing it on a mass scale hey everyone that wants one of these no it's on a more exclusive scale like oh we don't have to make whatever however me whatever the number of t-shirts is yes because we don't know what someone's going to order yeah yeah you're correct if they're in the game then we know it and you get a shirt that looks cool that has more layers there are many layers all infused in that situation nonetheless yes draculastore.com also like jocko indicated you can subscribe to this podcast on wherever you subscribe to the podcast there you go boom and don't forget about the unraveling podcast that that i i also record and don't forget about the grounded podcast which we are supposed to record but we haven't recorded a lot of don't forget about the warrior kid podcast which hopefully during thanksgiving when some people don't have to work i'll be able to slip in there and record some warrior kid podcasts so we're gonna work on that one don't forget about we have a youtube channel a youtube channel and this is where the creative mind of echo trolls manifests itself via explosions tanks airplanes and if you want to watch a video that's 30 seconds long that has a lot of stuff blown up go there if you also want to watch a video that's four hours long with nothing blowing up also go there yeah boom yes that is true youtube channel all good official by the way also psychological warfare if you don't know what that is it's an album audio album with tracks of jocko telling you explaining to you how to get past your moments of weakness in the event of them arising which they do from time to time let's face it but yeah have draco there just tell you hey you shouldn't do this you should do this see this thing you're thinking about doing that you won't want to have done don't do that don't do that thing jocko version of that it's actually really helpful my opinion uh we also have a visual version of that flipsidecanvas.com dakota meyer making all kinds of cool stuff there's a bunch of books what books did we cover today well we're talking about sog so if you're going to jump in a sog you can get across the fence on the ground and saga chronicles by john striker meyer and then you can also get whiskey tango foxtrot by lynn black you need about face by david hackworth there's a new version now a re-release that i wrote the forward to there's leadership strategy and tactics field manual there's the code the protocols and the evaluations there's this freedom field manual there's a brand new version of that out that's that's a good go-to for that christmas scenario yes it is the holiday scenario check that one out way the warrior kid 4 field manual is also i think it's live right now yeah it's live way the warrior could four field minutes here's the thing on all these from what i understand intel there's gonna be a shortage of aircraft trucks and laborers drivers pilots during christmas because everything is going to be shipped so if you want to get any of this stuff even though i know you we're all trying to be minimalist but kids need a freaking book to read so get them away the warrior kid four field mail way to work kid one two and three mikey and the dragons and then extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership i have a leadership consultancy called echelon front where we solve problems through leadership you can go to salonfront.com for that we have ef online which is where we do leadership training online interactive so you can go check that out efonline.com we got the muster in dallas texas you can come check that out in extremeownership.com we have ef overwatch which is executive leadership for your company that understands the principles that we talk about if you want to help service members active and retired their families gold star families if you want to help out veterans and if you want to help out american service men and women then check out mark lee's mom mama lee she has a charity organization you can go and donate or get involved at america's mightywarriors.org and if you like to torment yourself well you can do so with more of my protracted pronouncements or maybe some more of echo's hyped up hypotheses you can find us on the interweb on twitter on instagram and just so echo knows because he only refers to instagram as the gram and also on facebook echo's addict with charles and i'm at jocko willing and it should more importantly be known that john striker meyer is on instagram at j striker meyer and once again thanks to tilt and cowboy for their incredibly heroic we need a new word beyond heroic for their service to america and freedom we will not forget the sacrifice or the legacy of these warriors and thanks to all the warriors all over the world in the army navy air force marines coast guard and also to those foreign nationals that we fight alongside thank you for defending freedom and the same to police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics emts dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and all first responders thanks for keeping us safe here at home and to everyone else out there i've got one thing to say until next time this is echo and jocko out

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 324,403

Keywords: jocko willink, podcast, discipline, defcor, fredom, leadership, extreme ownership, author, navy seal, usa, military, echelon front, dichotomy of leadership, jiu jitsu, bjj, mma, jocko, victory, echo charles, flixpoint, vietnam, sog, tilt, nva

Id: 1Ca73ynwzTs

Length: 205min 17sec (12317 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/undercovahlurker]

Ooh. This is rare. Props to Jocko for having him in this podcast.

[u/WolfbirdHomestead]

Jocko Willink interviews Khanh "Cowboy" Doan, a south Vietnamese special operations soldier, and recounts stories of his work with American forces and action in Vietnam.