Return to Vietnam, 45 Years Later: The Complete Documentary Series

fifty years later I'm back to do what I always swore I do and that is to stand on the high ground and plant the American flag in North Vietnam I'm doing it for all the guys that didn't come back that's what this whole trip is all about it really wasn't about me this trip was about honoring those that served and that continue to serve on this hallowed ground [Music] I haven't been back to Vietnam in 40 some years I was here in 1969 initially and I watched a lot of things occur over the the next few years during that period of time and so now I'm back what's interesting when when I looked out the window of the aircraft and and saw the first of what I would call Vietnam best way I know to explain it as a great melancholy kind of came over me of all as I thought about all the events that occurred to me in Vietnam in a general sense and in particular I thought about those who came with me and didn't return I remember there was 36 of us that went through training together at Port Craig and at the end of the first year that I was here there were 20 of us left and when I left at the end of the second year there were eight of us left and let me let me mention something that I need to point out here while some of my fellow soldiers on with you training with gave their lives for this cause a lot more Vietnamese and Mountain yard people gave their lungs [Music] the life of the city doesn't appear to have changed really that much it's the same Saigon Ho Chi Minh City that I knew before the people are the same people the friendly folks that I knew are still here when I explained to one of the ladies flying in tonight that I had been here in 1969 and 1970 and 71 through the through some of the war years and she said welcome back she I was born in 1973 and she said I hope you have a pleasant trip I hope you have a pleasant journey back in time and I thought that was really kind of cool of her to say and the other lady kind of echoed and addressed specifically she said I don't like the name Ho Chi Minh I like Saigon this city will always be Saigon to me and probably for me personally it will always be Saigon also [Music] while it's totally different that the landscape has changed the culture has not changed the people are still here and I look forward to every aspect of it [Music] the caravel I mean that that was kind of the touchstone that was the cool touchstone it was the classy place to be in Saigon in 1969 and 1970 it was home to a lot of expats and and there were journalists here there were diplomats here and there's a young e5 I thought it'd be really cool to go hang out with some of those bastards and it was I even went bought some clothes down I don't know where it was I bought them so that I could come here because you didn't come here and t-shirts and stuff you came here in nice clothes what would be considered a dress in this area and you know you never knew who you were gonna see here I don't remember seeing anybody in particular but I saw people that I thought gee that must be a pretty important person because everybody was sucking up to him they either had lots of money or they had class I don't know and it was a it was a touchstone place with everybody that came here said oh yeah I've been to the caravel to sportif bar and and hung out on the rooftop that's cool the one thing that keeps hitting me here was the the time that I came down here my old commander from Bambi tuit was working here at Mac be SOG at that time and I came down to get debrief and and and gene asked me he said he said hey SID are you doing anything tonight and I'm like dude I just came from pammi to it this is Saigon what do you think I just got here you know I'm not doing anything tonight he said I've been dating this girl and I said okay he said she has a sister oh really and you know come on Saigon what what is this all about and he said no no no he said she's there they're very classy and they were there two classy ladies they showed up in there you know because the bar girls here were wearing you know short skirts and all that stuff and go-go boots and you know the standard 1960 stuff that was going on in the States these two girls showed up in their their their normal out eyes the the local costume very pretty very will we very slim and I remember the girl I was with had on his white pants and kind of a light blue top he's very pretty and so we went to dinner and we had a great time we came to the caravel for drinks after the dinner so we got we got ready to leave and jean took the girl back to his place and then this girls said well you know where are you going and I said well I'm staying at house Tim which was a safe house that we have here in town and she said it's almost curfew we need to get off the streets you can come to my parents house because that's where we I live with my parents okay sure and so we go to her parents house very nice people very welcoming as most Vietnamese are you can tell real quick if they're sincere or not and these people were very sincere and so I spent the night out on this this patio that that was screened in it was a balcony two or three closed up and in the middle of the night all of a sudden I hear this these people these footsteps running across the room and I'm holy cows I told a full epistle I got a pistol and I'm I'm getting ready god I didn't know what it was and the girl slides in and she said it's okay and I said what is that she said it's be a calm be it calm running across the roofs and she said they won't hurt us that they're okay they're just going from one place to another swell yeah the rooftop freeway you know and that's how they moved they moved across roofs then because the roofs weren't as noticeable as they are now everything was much more level so they can run blocks on roofs and then run across cables and then keep going and so it was like damn it and that was almost a surreal moment but I keep thinking about that that happened right here in Saigon and there I was with a 45 these guys are running around with ak-47s or whatever it might be and I'm like yeah like I'm not gonna go to war with these guys yeah this ain't gonna happen so I think about that I think about a lot of memories but that one kind of keeps coming back to me it was it was a good memory because that's the key as you get older the good memories come out and the bad memories go back in that locks and that's how I deal with [Music] [Music] we're in Saigon and we're giving it one more shot to see if we can find house 10 Houston was a house that was originally procured by the Central Intelligence Agency in the late 50s or early 60s and was used by Mac V SOG headquarters for people moving in and out of the city that came in from the various locations an example was I came from Bambi tuit several times to be debriefed specifically by people at the headquarters so we're gonna go try to see if we can find the location and see if it still exists in in any form whatsoever and go back to a little piece of history for me and where where I came from the house was a was a large Villa style house with a compound there were buildings out back that housed equipment and in the early days they supplied a lot of the special teams that were operating with sanitized equipment because of where we were going they didn't want anybody to to pick up immediately on who we were or what we were doing and so we're going to look for it one more time it had had some great bedrooms had its own bar had its own a little grill you could get a hamburger or or for whatever you wanted for the data to start your day off right or in the evening and then there were that contacts throughout the city for restaurants and things like that so it was it while it wasn't a fun place necessarily what we wasn't procured to be a fun place it could almost be a little in country R&R or rest and relaxation site if you were coming in from one of the the command-and-control detachments are one of the special organizations that operated throughout Vietnam it was kind of a sea of tranquillity at that time because that you can see the streets here are the old French style streets with all the the trees and the greenery and and the area out around Houston was uh was a very calm area and so you could really let down your guard chill have a few beers and not worry about anything happening get some good food French food whatever and so it just it worked really good it was a great place to come said it looks like it [Music] yeah [Applause] it's like I say throughout your life you have to reinvent yourself so Houston has probably reinvented itself a hundred times since the war but it this is it they've thrown down some of the walls of the old compound and of course they've added new car maintenance facilities and whatever or converted but it's it's interesting to see and I I believe we have finally found it this is this is pretty cool the the tree-lined Street in front auda matically as as soon as we started driving down the street and looking at the the trees that they were much smaller than but they were still green and pretty and it's just uh it was a very calm area at the time and actually stand in here right now even with all that's going on outside that compound it feels very calm inside - there's just uh there's an air about it kind of a funny feeling inside to be here pretty emotional I guess when you when you go back and find a piece of your history as little as it was for me here it's still pretty moving I'll treasure this the backbone and core of an SF team on your noncommissioned officer and some really great ones past you here some of them didn't make it good people another circle closed well Wow it's amazing I really didn't think we were gonna find this that is so cool [Music] pretty cool I'll be damned [Music] when we leave Saigon two days ago today's date number three my ass is permanently attached to the seat of this car out of Saigon which is now Ho Chi Minh City and up QL 14 through Jia Nia and then into band me to it it was kind of a journey back for me because while I had driven the roads before I was seeing the sights and the sounds of the smells and the feelings that I knew 48 years ago when we came here I can't hear the first time when it really hit me and things became real if you will was yesterday between Bambi tuit and a lot that as we move through the mountains and I saw the clouds swirling through the valleys of the jungle that that really took me back to to where I had been what I've been through and it really brought into focus that yeah I'm in Vietnam this is the central highlands that that I remember and you can see the clouds down in the valley there a little bit and maybe some more up there kind of a spooky thing yeah the the the cloud spooked me the clouds to this day spook me and you couldn't get me to walk through those clouds down there in that little Valley a little Swale that that's down there about the third mission that I was on we were moving around the edge of a hill and we walked out of a cloud and the the Viet Cong walked out of the cloud and then we're sitting there looking at each other and it was just an instant and it became an instant contact we started shooting each other and we broke contact and moved away after we we inflicted some casualties but it was like it was just a very spooky situation with the clouds swirling around and then and then gunfire and grenades going off and and the smoke and the the fog of battle if you will gets to you and to this day that's still kind of spooky to me a little unsettling because it just happened so quickly and it happened out of a what I would term a beautiful setting initially to start with because actually the jungle and all is very pretty and then it just turns to something else immediately I get this tightness I get this tension I get you know I can feel it running up my neck and it's just it's spooky best way I know to explain it great technical words it's [ __ ] spooky yeah okay but it's spooky I had always thought and still think that the jungle is very very pretty that it's a great place to visit and a great thing to see and a great thing to enjoy but it is a terrible place to buy the war we're in the southern part of the central highlands we're just outside gia Nia we're about two hours south of Bambi tuit that's where I was stationed I did conduct some operations that gia Nia to reinforce a Special Forces camp there at one point and as you look out over the the area and you see the the jungle and how beautiful the jungle looks or at least I think the jungle is beautiful and how peaceful it is and then you start into the jungle and it is it's it's really interesting you get more smells of the rotting foliage that has fallen off the trees and new new growth has already started it's very quiet and very calm but you do start to get this this feeling in your gut that at any minute somebody's going to start shooting or throwing grenades or doing something and nine times out of ten it did and so it was just you you you brought yourself up on edge and stayed there the entire time all of those smells coming together the rotting foliage the new newly disturbed soil the fires that are burning and the moistness of the the climate they just kind of created a the feeling and the smell that I have right now it's really strange that all of a sudden I'm back but I know I'm here I'm kind of pushing it down I know that we're not in a war zone here I know that nobody's going to attack us at least I hope but but it's it's like I want to go back to that it's like a conditioned response almost that oh my gosh you know here it is we're going out we're walking up the trail when's the [ __ ] going to happen then you just learn to push that down and say no it's not going to happen and try to enjoy it and and I do enjoy it but it's it's a little that adds to the surrealism because I'm waiting for something to happen that I know is not going to happen I mean it did for two years while I was here it happened all the time and I'm kind of waiting for that now I'm waiting for somebody to jump out in the road as we're driving along with an A k and I'm thinking okay what are you gonna do when that happens and it's like no you know this is 2017 it's 48 years or so since since I first came to Vietnam and that's not gonna happen and my my my intellectual side understands that my emotional side says get ready the shit's going to happen and it's it's juxtaposing those two together and creating that calmness that says okay just push it down you're okay I can't believe that I'm back here that we're doing this that we're making this trip this adventure and this damn it sounds kind of stupid for this pilgrimage back to someplace I had been before kind of like the Crusaders going to Jerusalem or something well I'm I'm back here to to see what what's changed and there's been tremendous change and yet at the same time it's still Vietnam it's the Vietnam that I remember okay so I've been out on an operation probably I'd been out for 12 14 days and I came back to our camp and Bamie to it and whenever you came back off of an operation or a mission you got a free beer at the club which was a cool thing so I went in I was still can load up or somewhat camoed up because the camo rubs off and stuff and I walked in and ordered a beer and I'm sitting there drinking a beer and all of a sudden this person walks up to me and grabs my head and sticks her tongue down my ear and says you sweet [ __ ] and it was Martha Raye who was a well-known comedian at the time in the in the 40s 50s and 60s and she had she was actually a nurse in the Army Reserve she was a lieutenant colonel and so she sat down with me and she would drink it straight vodka and so I drank a beer and she drank the vodka and and and she told me she said hey look you know I've got a house and a housekeeper in Beverly Hills she that I've told everybody else that I've run into and and and you're one of my boys if you ever need a place to stay you can stay at my team house in Beverly Hills or wherever it was burnt wood it was she lived and she said you can have all the food you want you can have all the drink you want you can stay as long as you want and if I run into any good-looking starlets I'll try to hook you up and I [ __ ] what more could I ask for that's pretty cool and a day or two later she was still in our camp she was staying in our camp with us everybody started passing the word that they lost Maggie Martha Raye everybody called him Maggie I said they'd lost her and they started checking around and gee ania the a camp that was here in this vicinity was under siege and they were taking some pretty heavy casualties and so Martha rage has jumped on a helicopter that was coming down here to bring supplies medical supplies and she came down to help and this is where she was and of course everybody got all upset about that because she was kind of a celebrity type person even though she was really in and she was doing a hell of a job down here at GNN so at that time they loaded up my team and another team and a platoon from the export one of the exploitation companies that Pammy to it and flew us in to reinforce the camp for a short period of time and by the time we got here most everything was already over with but we rescued Martha Raye I guess you know we like to tell everybody we were rescued Martha Raye but she was just fine and she was being one hell of a professional nurse and one hell of a person so that was pretty cool that was pretty cool unfortunately not too many years later I went to her funeral at Fort Bragg she asked to be buried at the post Cemetery at Fort Bragg with all of her boys and she was she was somebody that really meant a lot to all of us yeah she was a very neat lady and even though she was a woman she was part of the Brotherhood because she was an honorary Green Beret we gave her a Green Beret officially and all that stuff and she wore it tell us the day she died and it went on top of her casket well didn't know what hit me that hard [Laughter] she was a great person there was a she had an interesting life and I mean she knew all the stars of Hollywood at that time which was cool I never saw her again after that in life but it's strange where you run into people and and the the attachments you make in such a small world as special operations [Music] [Music] I don't have the words I wish I was a hell of a lot smarter and could really really explain it better because all I can say is I feel like I'm back where I should be I came to Bambi tuit in April of 1969 on my first tour in Vietnam and when I arrived in in Cameron Bay they transloaded us and sent us up to fifth special group headquarters at night train which is again still on the coast and at that point they asked for volunteers for a special project and we really didn't know what it was but not all of my class chose to but but many did and so we chose to volunteer again that you're always cautioned don't volunteer for anything in the army but I'd already volunteered for the airborne I volunteered for Special Forces that what the hell in for a penny in for a pound last volunteer for all this [ __ ] so I volunteered for that and they sent me up here so I got here in probably early April 69 something like that and at that time that the compound was as best I can tell at this point probably a thousand maybe fifteen hundred meters to my right is where the actual compound was because we were off the end of the runway and the runway stretches behind us here and it was called CCS or B 50 B being a designation for a a lieutenant-colonel type command and special operations or they call it command and control detachment South in con tomb which is north of here with command and control detachment central and in Danang was command and control detachment North's ECM it certainly looks different than it did when I was here because when I was here all it was was a galvanized shed and and some some boards stuck up and that was east field and the only thing that landed here were c-123 c-130s and dc-3s for vietnam airlines because that's all they had at a time and the dc-3s would be loaded with Vietnamese people goats chickens whatever else they wanted to carry with him from one part of the country to another so it was it was a it was a very primitive airfield at that time now it's it's kind of a like a Regional Airport I'd see in Fayetteville North Carolina the the hill that in the off distance there is where we had a radio relay site and I was on top of it that one night and it was a very nice calm quiet cool night and I was looking down at camp which would be to my rear right now and all of a sudden along the eastern border it was just all lit up with these little orange puffs that were really pretty and I thought it was really kind of cool looking like fourth of July ship except it was mortar rounds that were impacting the campus as a Viet Cong North Vietnamese whoever it was decided to probe the camp and see what they could do I could look down and I could see them firing their mortars and then I could watch and then see the mortars impacting along the edge of the camp and so I called our gun section on in camp the the the big mortars and they fired back at them and then the helicopter showed up and they started their firing and we just had a wonderful time okay so I had a guy I won't say the unit or the guy but but he was a new SF guy brand new here and when the helicopters got up we had to of course shut off the gun section down in town because we didn't want the the you can't have gunships and mortars or artillery fallin in the same area because they might run into each other you don't want that to happen and so we called a guy called a gun section turned him off and while I did the helicopters called and they were talking to this other American that was up there with me and they said can you mark your position so he said yeah so he took a flare and fired off a flare and now all of a sudden the top of the mountain is nothing but bright brilliant light and we're right in the middle of this [ __ ] and I'm like holy [ __ ] dude what did you just do and the helicopter guys called back and they said that isn't exactly what we meant so I grabbed a helmet real quick and put a helmet over the flare and shut that down and then turned on an IR strobe and then they picked up that IR or infrared strobe and and brought their their guns into bear and and they fired up they fired pretty darn close to us but they knew exactly where we were at that point I mean how can you help it we lit the [ __ ] world up so the helicopters said okay we got you we know where you are and we'll make our runs and we won't hit you but it worked out just fine and we drove them off into the night and I threw a few rounds down at him with an m79 so just we wanted to say we fought back all of our operations were conducted across the fence we called it in Cambodia and most of ours were in Cambodia and Laos and then we did a couple of missions up in North Vietnam for for CC and when they started running out because there was a large loss of teams through all the CC CNC detachments command and control detachments south central to north there was it was a high rate I think everybody that left here in one piece and and left those behind it didn't maybe feels a little bit guilty and yet we did our job so it's it's it's kind of the yin and the yang of things it's the it's the good and the bad it's it's both sides of the coin so I'm glad I made it out but I'm sorry I left folks behind this is pretty amazing I eat day has become more and more real and I think today's the most real of all because it's it's back and you know I'm I'm touching this earth and I'm I I give thanks that that I'm here and in one piece I'm sorry that some of the other guys aren't but it was something that we all chose to do and we all knew the the risks and the opportunities and I was afforded a lot of opportunities and and other guys gave their lives for me to have those opportunities and they're my brothers and my hats off to him [Music] so this this was the b-team headquarters b23 that controlled all the a teams that were west of here along the Cambodian Vietnamese border we would interact with them from our camp which was out at Eastfield which is to my left a considerable distance but not too awfully far but we'd interact with them because they had supplies they had a advanced medical equipment and personnel that we didn't have and they had the little px in the liquor store where we could buy cigarettes and booze and so that was very important to be able to resupply ourselves with with those kinds of things and they did some administrative stuff for us but not very much because b23 was not a part of Naqvi SOG but since we were all SF Special Forces we tended to work together anyway I've always been a fan of history and and Teddy Roosevelt came here I'm not sure quad I would say probably in the 20s or 30s perhaps to hunt Tigers because there are Tigers or there were Tigers in the forest here and so he came here to hunt Tigers and I've heard that I read about it and I've heard people talk about it and at that time this building was a a large if you will we're visiting dignitaries would stay and of course Teddy Roosevelt being Teddy Roosevelt this is where he stayed and then he went out from here into the jungles to hunt Tigers when I was here from time to time we would go out in the local area around family to it just for a two or three day training mission just to kind of pump ourselves up and keep our skills in certain areas and and to support our own camp defense because we had to defend ourselves and so one one night I got sent out on an Opie lpe ambush and he went out and set up on a trail and then nothing happened it was just it was quiet and then all of a sudden the next morning we started rolling up and getting ready to walk back into camp probably four or five kilometers out of camp we got up and and my interpreter came back and I was talking to him I got everybody he said yeah yeah he said said we ctt great nice but and he said he can t get it and we're talking very quietly because we're a small group and when you're in the woods with a small group you don't talk loud getting a little frustrated with it and then I said Tigre I said look took his name was he took me I said took I see we pay you seven thousand piastres extra a month to speak English what are you saying he said Tegan ain't he great ah oh you mean tiger yeah in essence yeah that's what I'm saying you stupid American he gave it's not okay so we quietly moved down to the end of the site because I'd been up at the head of the ambush the position we had I went down to the end of the site and I could look along this large trail or Road if you want to call it that and there was a on the far side there was a meadow and I remember the grass was probably two feet high something like that and there was dude you could see the droplets of dew on the grass and sitting in the middle of that with a shaft of light on it was a mother tiger and her cub just in there in their natural habitat and it struck me having remembered about Teddy Roosevelt and hunting Tigers and I thought the last thing in the world that I want to do is kill that tiger I just want to look at her and enjoy it and it was it was one of the most beautiful sights I remember seeing when I was in Vietnam those peoples are much like I equate them to the American Indian or perhaps to the Aborigines of Australia there are there are people that are under themselves their own society their own mores and they live life the way they choose to live it's different than us it doesn't mean it's any better or any worse it's just different and so they formed these tribes that moved into the central highlands of Vietnam and they had the raw days which were the aristocrats Society they had the juries that were the warrior they had the menon's that were the farmers and the tradespeople and so they had their own society that developed and they they operated totally separate from the Vietnamese and they had serious clashes with the Vietnamese at one point they had gotten with outside help to the point that they built a university just for mountain yards here in Bambi tuit and the Vietnamese army came in and destroyed that University and burned all the books and much was lost to the world about the history of the mountain yards when that happened because there had been people here doing work on that over a period of time and so as we came in the American military and particularly special operations or special forces we began to work with the Mounted yards because they were the ones that knew the terrain the best of the areas that we were most concerned with the the border areas of Vietnam and we began to support them we found out that they had a secret army of their own called full row and full row was mein matin manned and maintained strictly by the mountain yards the the Vietnamese were very against it so it was a very secret and quiet society and so we began to support them and we provided them with arms and ammunition and claymore mines to protect their villages basically for self-defense of the mountain yard people and because of that we formed a lasting and trusting friendship and a working relationship with them where they supported us in the efforts that we were trying to to do here to support the military efforts of American in Southeast Asia because we didn't judge them and I think that was the key the the Vietnamese be they north south or wherever they would judge them they call them children and as a mountain yard to be called a child they love children but for a man to be called a child it is great disrespect we came in in an accepting mode because that's what we do we come in and we work with people and we understand that they're not gonna be just like us they're gonna be different they're gonna have their own religion they're going to have their own Society and we accept that and learn to work with it as opposed to trying to destroy it or change it the our mission was to to conduct cross-border reconnaissance operations in Cambodia Laos and North Vietnam so that the Americans would know what was coming towards them because the the Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through those areas and so they would move large quantities of people and equipment down those trails and if we were there watching the trails and watching the unit movements we could then tell the commanders Vietnam and they could position forces to counter those enemy that were coming down the trail and so for us to get to those locations and to get there efficiently quietly and effectively we got the mountain yards to work with us on the small reconnaissance operation of two Americans and four Mountain yards six-man teams to go into those areas and there they're the ones that we were inserted by helicopter but then they got us to the actual point of the mission one of the things that always struck me was when I came here on my first tour I knew I was here for 12 months a tour here was 12 months these guys tour was a lifetime tour and so I knew that I could learn a lot from them but at the same time I had some skills and some knowledge that I could teach them and so I think we came to a very quick mutual understanding them having understood and worked with other Americans in the Special Operations community they understood that they could they could learn things from us but they also understood that they could teach us things and so it was kind of a synergistic relationship that we had with those guys or that I had with them because they would teach me things about the jungle about the terrain about the peoples about the language about cooking in the jungle and having been working with all the various things they taught me how to live in the jungle and I taught them some military things that that were very helpful tactically and so on the whole point behind Special Forces going to war or going into an area and working with indigenous forces that's what it's all about learning how to live with the local so you go in and you figure out who's who in the area who's the best and the ones the brightest that you can work with when we came to Vietnam for the most part it was the mountain yards particularly in the central highlands they were the they were the were the king of the walk they they owned the place because they knew it so well it was their world just as when we went in and worked with people from the Northern Alliance when we went into Peru and and worked with folks there trying to counter the the Sendero Luminoso when we went into Central America and worked of people there and tried to to support some of the anti-narcotics activities that went on we learned who the locals were that knew the area that knew the folks and we went to work with them and it's all about moving in and being partners with whoever you're working with as opposed to moving in and taking over their society or being some Serbian to them it's an equal partnership on equal footing and it's a partnership based on mutual respect and and understanding that that we each have our own strengths we each have our own weaknesses and we will work together to make sure that we can get that job done and that's what Special Forces is all about to me [Music] [Music] [Applause] you can see that the lot is a city that sets in a bowl inside the the mountains of the central highlands of Vietnam and it was chosen initially by the French colonists because it was a cool area literally temperature-wise for them to have summer homes in when it got so hot down on the Delta or the plains of Vietnam and it's a gorgeous area a lot of people look at it and say it looks almost European well that probably comes from a lot of the French and perhaps German architecture that that has been used throughout this area it's a beautiful city it's very comfortable it's ten o'clock in the morning now short-sleeved weather in April when it's starting to get pretty warm around the rest of Vietnam and pretty humid it's very comfortable here I was I was on an airplane flying from a helicopter flying from the Train to ban me to it with I don't even remember what I went for probably financed because I was about the only thing I ever went to to the training the fifth group to Special Forces Group headquarters and they had a red light come on whatever and so they landed at the airfield here and there was about I think there was five of us that were just passengers on board the airplane and so we jumped the wire at the airfield because again this there was a small contingent of Air Force and Army Air controllers and guys that kind of ran the airfield here and then there was some military police but there were no actual combat units stationed anywhere near the law and so we we jumped the wire and we came downtown because it seemed like a good idea to find some beer and maybe some girls to talk to and that sounded like a fine idea to us and so we came downtown and we found some beer and we found some girls to talk to and that's where the MPS found us and so they they politely arrested us and took us back out to the airfield and turned us back in to the airfield and said okay you know go back to bed guys oh we weren't through yet we were we needed more beer and we needed more girls so we found a different place to jump the wire and we came back downtown and we found the beer and we found the girls and the MPS found us again and so they arrested US for the second time and they were a little more irate this time it was like you [ __ ] need to go back there and just stay because the Status of Forces Agreement the the sope only allows X number of military personnel in this town at any one time and we're full up because all the Colonel's in there their horse holders are here and so you you can't be well that didn't that didn't set too well so we found a laundry truck that was taking laundry out of the camp and we got in a laundry truck in and concealed ourselves inside the laundry and came back downtown and this time when the MPS found us they were just downright impolite they arrested us put handcuffs on us which they hadn't done the previous two times took us back to the airfield and and gave us the edict that if they if they caught us one more time in downtown a lot they were gonna give us to the Vietnamese and let us spend the night and probably the next several weeks in a Vietnamese jail that probably got our attention pretty well and so we decided we just spend the night so we did and got up the next morning and miraculously the helicopter had been repaired probably the probably the pilot fixed a little switch that he'd flipped so he could park here for the night and we flew onto bamboo to it and went back to business as normal you know you tend to remember the fun and the happy times and and put the bad times out of your mind that's just a human trait psychological trait but it's it's so great to be back here now to see how far it's come that's just that's what's amazing to me to see how far this whole country has come [Music] of all the boosts that I've ever owned I'd have to give these the five-star rating there they're comfortable they're lightweight they're versatile and you can drink we're here in Highlands of northern Vietnam we have our final sample of the GORUCK footwear so pick them up and the important thing is that you confirm tests you confirm prototype so this isn't just something that we tried them in the conference room and then we said yeah they're good we've put a lot of lot of miles on earlier versions but we also made some tweaks and some changes along the way so it's important to confirm that those changes are good and we're up here in the highlands of northern Vietnam to do that we're in the middle of our are rockin no Vietnam and we only have one more target beer so we have to beeline back home soon and know we moving out what on just over ten hours now or so lotta up yeah got it down yeah a lot of around a lot of mud a lot of water a lot of mud and dirt this is not our first go-around in these boots but this is the latest boot version that we got about 48 hours ago in Ho Chi Minh City in Saigon at our factory right nine or ten or eleven hours into this thing we got another with two or three right to get home first impressions rich their lights are slick and they're functional mm-hmm they just work [Music] I see the infants are now sure [Music] we're in front of the Hanoi Hilton which was a French prison built to hold Vietnamese and then during the war after the French had left during the American war with Vietnam it was turned into again a prison and our guys dubbed it the Hanoi Hilton sometimes they thought that was a positive thing our guys were simply being sarcastic and more power to him for that and for all they did to resist what was done here feeling pretty humble and very emotional thinking of the what went on behind those walls and what the guys suffered through that were held there the years of captivity I truly wish there was something that we could have done to alleviate that and there was talk and planning and all kinds of stuff that went on but there was just no way to do it it was too hard a nut to crack probably one of the toughest things I can imagine well I volunteered to do it Elias but it it was just too hard to do the the distances of flying in because you'd have to come in by aircraft in some way where to land how to get on the ground how to get up to the wall how to get over the wall or to go inside from the very start and there was lots of defensive mechanisms around the prison from anti-aircraft to anti-personnel and so there was just there was no way that you could do something like that [Music] those guys had to come home in their own good time but come home they did the majority of them some of them never came home and to all who did or didn't my hats off to him very emotional here's to all of them Oh did you know anyone personally that he did up here yep an SF medic Jimmy Jackson and they put him through some shitty seriously good guy he's an 18 Delta or at the time it wasn't 18 Delta 91 whatever special forces qualified and he did and he made Jane Fonda [Music] and every time Jane Fonda came to Fayetteville they went and locked Jimmy up [Music] with everything that's gone on here it's amazing that now with all the dark things that happen here they got a ticket booth and they're selling tickets so you can go inside and look at it fricking tickets [Music] that was pretty cool I mean here's that here's a a family Vietnamese family from Hanoi they just came up at the same time we did they're doing the same thing we are they're sightseeing and being tourists and it just goes to show you that that people people go together they brought their kid along who had this great t-shirt gone that said if I was if I was a bird I know who I'd [ __ ] on if I was a bird I know who had [ __ ] on and mom and the kid got in and then dad got in and and I mean it was just it was a surreal moment but it was so cool it was the meeting of two different cultures that at one time had been mortal enemies and now we're here on the planet sharing it together that's cool that is damn cool [Music] any time in life that you do something you tend to forget the bad and remember the good I remember the good I wasn't sure I wanted to remember the past for a long time I talked to a bunch of my peers in the SF community that have made the trip back to Vietnam they've wanted to go back and see what it was like for whatever reasons everybody has a personal reason that they want to do it I never found a reason because I've always had this whole thing in my mind when I have a traumatic situation that I've got a box I put it in my head that did I just put it away and I decided that it was probably time to take some of those back out and so I said yes to going back to the it Nam surprisingly to me it provided closure to a circle that I didn't know was open it was an interesting experience it was a cathartic experience it was an experience that that closed that loop for me it had been open because I chose not to close it before I didn't know that I needed to do that I've been back to Vietnam [Music] I would recommend that anyone who has ever been there in a combat role go back and look at it don't be afraid of your pad address it and deal with make your experience count you

Channel: GORUCK

Views: 71,428

Rating: 4.7916665 out of 5

Keywords: Vietnam, Vietnam War, Special Forces, Green Beret, Saigon, Hanoi, Travel, GORUCK, Rucking

Id: qTdk1lchqZ4

Length: 57min 38sec (3458 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019