Jocko Podcast - 205: DEAD MAN WALKING. Pt.2 with SOG Warrior, Dick Thompson

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:22 - SOG Warrior Dick Thompson. 2:36:50 - Final Thoughts and take-aways. 2:38:45 - How to Stay on THE PATH. 3:10:12 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 205 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And with us once again is a SOG warrior, Dick Thompson. And we started on podcast 203, so if you haven't listened to that one yet, go back and listen to 203. And we talked for about three hours. And now we got to a point where we were going to cover an operation that took place. And Dick actually gave me a document based on this operation called Rest and Recuperation, R&R.

So, Dick, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you. Glad to be here. And like I said, if you haven't listened to 203 yet, you want to get the background for Dick Thompson. Sog warrior and We're gonna jump into this mission once again The title is document that Dick gave me is rest and recuperation and I'll jump right into it as my eyes opened and I became conscious of the world around me

I could hear the buzzing of a large fly Some muffled Vietnamese voices outside of my hooch and a radio playing Buy me a ticket on an air airplane. This song quickly generated memories of my best friend Bob who had been killed on a mission a few weeks earlier. He and I had done everything together, basic training, officer candidate school, Airborne, Ranger, Special Forces, and volunteered for SOG. We'd been together for over two years. This song would forever bring back strong memories of the good times we had together. We'd often discussed the low probability of either of us returning to the world. Bob's death had been a significant

emotional event in my life and one thing I was still trying to deal with. So here you are, how long you've been in Vietnam for at this point? You and Bob got to Vietnam together. How long you've been there for? Six months. So you've been there for six months after everything that you've been through with Bob and Bob gets good. How did you find out who people? told you. Actually, I got a letter from a girl that I had been dating and Bob was dating her best friend, you know, so we were double dating a lot. And she found out from Bob's friend who found out from Bob's parents. And then she wrote me, so I opened his letter up and, you know, there it was.

And, you know, she said, I'm sure you've heard by now. And, you know, I hadn't. So this is snail mail. This is, this is. Yeah, yeah. So the family had been notified. Then the girlfriend had been notified. And then the girlfriend writes you, we're talking, you didn't find out for a month.

Yeah. At least. Crazy? I mean, that's crazy. Yeah, things were slow back to. Well, not only that, and this is something that Tilton I talked about was, you guys didn't always get the best turnover of information because everything was so secret.

So this is an example of everything so secret that your best friend gets killed and you don't even find out about it. You find out about it from your girlfriend's friend, which is his girlfriend. Yeah. So, I mean, he was down at C.C. So, I mean, we didn't really know what their missions were

or what they were doing. So being on a team, I didn't know what they were doing down there. And, you know, we didn't have, you know, communication back and forth, so I didn't know what he was doing. So it was tough. Plus, mail that you got didn't go directly to you. All mail, if you were sending me up, like my mother sent me a letter, it didn't go to me.

It went to me through another mail. center in Vietnam that then sent the mail to CCN because it had to be screened because they didn't want anything about classified operations mail going out had to be screened you know so any letter I sent would you know start at CCN it would go down to the sidegun it would be screened and then eventually you know it would be mail to her so now is this just confirming like you know we talked about on the last podcast that you're thinking you're not going to, you're 22 now, you didn't think you were going to make it to 22.

Is this got to be confirming that you're not going to see 23? Yeah, it kind of got my attention. And the other thing is there's no, I mean, there's no ceremony. There's no. Well, not, there wasn't where we were. Okay. I mean, we had ceremonies on a regular basis at CCN for the guys there who were being killed. I mean, you know, every, I mean, people were being killed almost every week.

But, you know, in every two or three weeks we'd have, you know, like a memorial service. All right. So back to this story. As I looked up, I could see my car 15 hanging just above my head. I had on my normal sleeping attire, shirt, fatigue pants, and jungle boots. Our compound was hit with rockets, mortars, and ground attacks on a regular enough basis that you had to be prepared to react quickly. Although it was only a little after 9 o'clock in the morning, the temperature inside my room was already in the 90s and I was soaked with sweat.

My mind began to travel back through the past two weeks and recall how my team had barely escaped the NVA during the last mission. We had made it back to our compound in Denang and spent the last two days undergoing a very intense debriefing session conducted by our intelligence team in an effort to collect all the information they could about our mission. The next two days were mine for our. and our rest and recuperation before we began preparing for another mission my plan was to sleep late each morning eat real food take several showers and rest we had a saying that denang is all right

and it had a lot of meaning right now of course everything is relative so there you go you finally got a couple days downtime you're going to eat some steak and enjoy yourself this was a sunday morning in the mess hall served as served breakfast until lunch soon i was eating and looking forward to the evening meal. Our mess sergeant always managed to have plenty of T-bone steaks every Sunday evening. No one asked where he got them because it was certainly not standard rations for a combat unit. Everyone would grill his steak to his own perfection. This was something we all looked forward to.

When you've been on mission for several days or weeks, eating one meal a day, usually rice and fishheads, this was a feast. So you're living large. Oh, yeah. This is great. After I finished breakfast, experience told me that I better go make myself invisible until it was time to go back to work. If you could be seen, you could be given work to do while you were on R&R. I decided to go off-limit section of the Nang where we had a safe house. The safe house was a secret location CCN, our unit owned and protected.

It was heavily guarded by mercenaries and only accessible by our people. My get out of jail free card, which was a special card that authorized us to travel and civilian. in clothes, carry concealed weapons, enter classified in restricted areas, etc. Would allow me to travel into this area of the Nang even during curfew. This would be my best chance of enjoying the next two days. Everything was looking good and I was beginning to relax. So you get the little get out of jail free card, huh? Yeah.

I'm not sure everyone had them, but I know some of us did. And it basically said, don't mess over this guy. I mean, you couldn't just walk around through the cities and, you know, particularly after curfews and things like that, or you would get picked up. You'd be in trouble. But with that card, when I flashed that, they either let me go or they would call the phone number on there and be told, let him go. Don't ask him what he's doing. Just leave him along. Legit.

Continuing on. the sky had become overcast and it looked like it would probably rain by afternoon the temperature was steadily climbing and the humidity was approaching 100%. This type of heat and humidity had a debilitating effect on everyone. As I was walking toward the compound's gate,

I heard the familiar whoop-whoop-wop sound of a helicopter. I could see that it was approaching our helipad. There seemed to be a flurry of activity in that area. I was only about 100 meters from it as the chopper landed. The strong smell of JP4 was mixed with the wind and sand that hit my face.

The men running around had placed some bags in the cargo compartment of the chopper and were now talking to the crew chief. One of them spotted me and began yelling something of me. The sound of the helicopter prevented me from understanding what he was saying. It was obvious that he was very excited about something. He began to run toward me still shouting. As he got closer, I heard him yell, LT. Do you know how to hook up a Maguire rig?

A McGuire rig is 120 to 150 foot nylon rope with a large loop made out of heavy padded strap attached to the end of it. A bag of sand is tied to the loop to give it the momentum to penetrate the jungle canopy. The other end of the rope is attached to the floor of the helicopter. The rope is stowed inside a sandbag in a manner that allows it to feed without tangling. It is used when team members have to be extracted from the jungle where the helicopter cannot land. The team member sits inside the strap and fastens his left wrist to the strap through a small loop. This prevents him from falling completely out of the rig if he is shot or when he is drug

through tree tops during extraction. It would be very uncomfortable and painful to hang by one arm, but at least you would get out. As we ran to the helicopter, he told me that we had a team in trouble with casualties. One of our CH34 helicopters had gone to the area to attempt an extraction. During the attempt, it had been shot down and apparently exploded and burned on impact. There appeared to be two or three survivors. Another helicopter had left a few minutes ago to try and help. There were no LZs in the area, just a very high and thick jungle canopy.

The McQuire Rigs would be needed for extraction. So this is all spinning up, and you're hearing about what's happening. You were, what, 10 minutes from walking out the gate and being on R&R for a couple days? Or less. Or less. And I thought, I know how to do this. I do it all the time. I'm usually on the other end of that rope.

But, you know, when you walked over there, were you thinking you were you thinking you were just going to rig it? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's why he was asking. You know how to put them in there. I'm saying, yeah. So he's just saying, hey, we got to get the McGuire rig. Rigged.

Do you know how to do it? Yes, you know how to do it. Cool. Come on over to the helicopter. And you're thinking, I'll, yeah, I'll help you guys rig. There's troops on the ground in contact. They need help. Okay, got it.

So here we go. I took one look at the gate, about 150 meters away as we continued to run. The plans I had for my day were quickly being put on hold as my adrenaline level climbed. In my mind, I could see the smoldering remains of a burned helicopter, dead and wounded crew members, and the bad guys moving in for the final kill. Time was of the essence. I had to quickly rig the helicopter so they could go to the area and get the survivors out.

As I approached the helicopter, I leaned my car 15 and ammunition bandolier against the ConEx container. I climbed into the cargo compartment of the helicopter and began working feverously to attach the McGuire rigs. After a few minutes, the crew chief leaned over to me and said, the team is in heavy contact. We have to go. At that point, I realized I had been concentrating so much on what I was doing. I had not noticed the pilot had turned up the engine RPMs, and the aircraft was beginning to vibrate. In fact, we were lifting off the ground. I pulled the crew chief over to me and said, I'm not supposed to be on here.

He looked back at me and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, sorry about that. That was one of those common sayings in Vietnam. Sorry about that. I mean, it was just, I mean, you saw it all over the place. You heard people saying it. I mean, anytime something was happening like that, it was, sorry about that. Yeah, anytime something was happening like you're getting, you don't have your weapon. So that's a key point.

You had set down, you know, you're going to rig this thing. And for anyone that doesn't know you're on your knees, when you're rigging something like that, you're on your knees and you've got to use both your hands. So you just thought to yourself, oh, cool. Well, my mission right now is just to rig this thing. What's going to expediate that the most is or expedite that the most is for me just to put my weapon down over here. I'll get on there. I'll get it rigged and then I'll get out. That's the fastest way for me to get this done.

Right. Next thing you know, the helicopter's taken off. Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. As I looked down and saw the compound's gate as I looked down I saw the compound's gate passed under me I sat back against the firewall fastened a seatbelt around my waist and resigned myself to the fact that my R&R would be delayed a couple of hours as we flew and I began to realize that I did not know where I was going what I was going to do and was naked I'd left my weapon and ammunition leaning against the conaxe I was flying into combat without a weapon the only thing I had was my fatigues and boots and a pounding

heart. What a Sunday afternoon of R&R this was turning into. About 15 minutes into the flight, my mind began to play out different scenarios of what might happen when we arrived on the battle site. One began to stick in my mind. What if the aircraft ahead of us is shot down? What if the only way to save them is for someone to go down there using the McGuire rig? What if I have to climb down one of the ropes? I don't even have a weapon. About this time, the crew chief pulled me toward him and said the aircraft in front of us has been shot down. The team is still in heavy contact and cannot go to the crash site. We'll be there in about 10 minutes.

The pucker factor just increased significantly. My premonition was becoming a reality. As I was thinking, I saw this play out. It was like watching a video. I mean, I could see the whole thing just taking place. It's premonition. This is what's going to happen. And when he told me, hey, that aircraft is down, I told him, because I had said something

him already, I said, it is happening. It's starting now. Yeah, this is a crazy thought that you say to yourself, what if the aircraft ahead of us gets shot down? And then seconds later, he looks at you and says the aircraft in front of us is shot down. That's a nightmare Going on the crew chief and the other door gunner Test fired their machine guns to make sure they were working properly

This brought about a sudden increase in my excitement level Test firing the door guns always seemed to insert a sense of Morality into what I was about to do In a few minutes the crew chief pulled me over again and said it's just over this ridgeline I unfastened my seatbelt and crawled over to the edge of the edge of the edge of the the cargo compartment so I could see better. As we came over the ridgeline, we were welcomed by bad guys. A stream of automatic weapons fire with some green tracers mixed in, passed by.

The loud crack of each bullet could easily be heard over the noise of the helicopter. Both door gunners opened up and began sending a hail of bullets through the jungle canopy. The most fearful part of combat for me had always been getting shot at while in a helicopter. There is no protection. The floor and the sides of a helicopter just don't stop bullets. my arousal level was continuing to climb. The pilot made a quick turn and banked the helicopter on its side. I was looking straight down at the jungle canopy and hanging on for my life.

Smoke was coming up through a hole in the canopy where the first helicopter had gone down and burned. As we circled around the steep side of the mountain, we saw another hole in the canopy about 200 meters from the first. When we approached this hole and slowed down, the ground fire coming up at us increased. Shell casings from the door guns were piling up on the floor. Some were following out.

As we passed directly over the hole, I could see the second helicopter lying on its side in the steep ravine. The tail section was broken off and I thought I saw a crew member still in the aircraft. We circled around and came in for a closer look. This time I could see the air crew was trapped inside the aircraft and fuel was spilling out on them. Any spark from inside the craft or a trace around would ignite the fuel and burn them alive. The doorgunners were continuing to place suppressive fire in the position shooting at us. It wasn't really having much effect on them. Bullets were coming up at us from all directions.

We also detected some movement that indicated that bad guys were working their way up the mountain to the crash site. Something had to be done and fast. I'm trying to think of myself if anything could be worse right now, but I actually can't think of anything worse than this right now. Well, I knew what was coming. So, I mean, I had already seen it play out. I mean, at this point, there's only one thing you can do. You've got to go down there.

Mm-hmm. And these helicopter pilots, these guys are badass. I mean, these guys, just to be thinking with all this enemy fire coming, they're not going anywhere. They're going to get this done. Yeah, because they've got. That's their friends. Yeah, their friends are down there now. Yeah.

Back to the book here. I told the crew chief to tell the pilot to go back to the crash site and I would drop him a McGuire rig down into the canopy. climb down to it, then climb down a tree to the ground. So I'm going to say that one more time. Your plan was to throw this rope out of the aircraft, climb down into the canopy somewhere. Once you were getting in the trees, then you would just climb down the trees until you got to the ground.

That was your plan. My stress level was a little high, so I probably wasn't making the best plans that I could, but at the time, that was the only way I could see to get down to them. When he told him, this is the crew chief talking to the pilot, when the crew chief told the pilot, both the pilot and the co-pilot looked around over their shoulders as if to say to me, are you crazy?

The crew chief leaned over and said, the pilot says you're crazy. I told him to tell the pilot that I might be crazy, but his buddies were going to die a horrible death in a few minutes if we didn't do something. He quickly turned the aircraft around and flew back to the crash site. I pushed out one of the McGuire rinds,

and the bag of sand quickly took it into the canopy. We were still receiving heavy ground fire. At this point, we were approximately 50 feet above the canopy. I happened to see that the crew chief had an M16 strapped the wall behind him. I told him to give it to me. He was a little hesitant at first, probably because he thought he would never see it again. He handed it to me along with a bandelier of four magazines. I chambered around and checked the safety and thought, great.

I'm going into the middle of the battle myself, by myself, with a hundred rounds of it. with 100 rounds of ammunition. Yeah. And it gets worse. I mean, this is not a good scenario for, in terms of survivability.

No. At all. At all. Are you thinking about that? Are you just trying to think of you're just doing the best you can? Doing what I got to work with. We've got to get those guys out.

I step out onto the skid of the helicopter, confident that I had a workable plan. As I grabbed the rope with my bare hands, I realized it was brand new white nylon rope. New nylon ropes are very slick. I knew I was going to be, it was going to be tough to hold on, but I figured I could wrap my feet around it and make it work. The crew chief leaned over and said, the pilot says we're receiving too much ground fire.

We're going to have to leave. I knew it was now or never. I stepped off the skid and quickly began to discover some flaws in my plan. It's an interesting decision point right there, because you got it out. You've got an out right there of, hey, it's too much ground. fire sorry I couldn't get down there and instead of you saying hey sorry we had to leave and I'm sorry I couldn't go You said it's now or never you stepped off the skid and and Descended into hell I could not hold the slick rope tight enough

It began to slide through my hands at a faster and faster rate after about 30 feet the white rope began to turn red It had burned the skin off the inside of my hands and I was bleeding badly and could not slow down to make matters worse The rope no longer reached the canopy The aircraft was beginning to move because of the ground fire and it lifted the end of the rope about 10 to 15 feet above the treetops. My rate of descent was increasing rapidly and the only thing that could prevent my death was to be able to hold onto the McGuire rig at the end of the rope.

So now the end of the rope is 15 feet above the canopy. Which means if you fall off of it, you're going to go 10 to 15 feet of airborne and then you're going to hit the trees. Unknown to me at this time, our tactical operation center in the compound was monitoring the helicopter's radio frequency. I found out later that about this time,

a fourth aircraft had arrived in the area and was observing my descent. He radioed my aircraft and asked who the hell is that. The reply was, some crazy special forces guy. At the time, that probably would have been my reply too. When I hit the McGuire rig, I closed down with every ounce of strength I had left, and I stopped.

The pain in my mind. hands was unreal blood was running down my arms it seemed as if the bad guys had stopped shooting at the helicopter and were shooting at me as I looked up I could see the red streams of tracers coming down from the door gunners and the green tracers going up the loud cracking sounds of bullets were all around me I was now also now swinging on the end of a large pendulum about 10 feet above the canopy I knew the canopy was about 150 feet above the jungle floor my strength was gone it was decision time. I decided that as I swung over the center of the next tree top, I would let go and try to

grab hold of something as I crashed through the canopy. Once again, this is ridiculous. This is when I watch a stupid action movie and they show some guy jumping out of a helicopter or jumping off of a cliff and landing in the trees and I was going, that's, that's a, that's BS, you know, that would never work. Apparently, I'd need to spend more time. hanging out with you to figure out what's going to work and what's not. So that's your plan. Your plan is you're 10 feet above the 150 foot tall jungle canopy. When you see a good target to jump into, you're going to go. Back to this book. I looked down and as I centered a treetop, I let go. The fall brought my stomach up in my throat. The sensation was quickly overcome

by the impact with the jungle canopy. I grabbed wildly as I crashed through the limbs but just couldn't seem to hold on to anything. I was moving too fast and was just bouncing off limbs, leaving blood and skin on each one. Finally, I hit a limb with my stomach and wrapped around it and knocked the breath out of me, but I had stopped falling. After a few minutes, I was able to begin my descent. There was only about 50 feet to go, which means you had tumbled through a hundred feet of jungle canopy. This is, again, you might have been thinking the same thing that I'd like, oh, I can pull this off until you're falling through that thing. You go, I This isn't working the way I thought it was going to work.

I didn't have much. I felt I didn't have much choice. I knew I couldn't hold on to the McGuire rig. I knew he was fixing to fly away, and all of a sudden I was going to be much higher, and when I fell off, you know, that would be it. At least now I was 10 feet above something, and I might have a chance if I let it go and dropped into it.

But trying to hold onto that thing, I wouldn't have lasted with a couple more minutes, and then that would have been out. Nothing heroic about there. It was, I don't even choice. Well, maybe in your opinion, I'm giving you about Max Hero credit on each and every decision that's being made,

whether it was voluntary. When you said, hey, I'm going, that's all, it's all I need to hear. When I finally reached the ground, I had to lie behind the tree for a few minutes to rest. At this point, I had very little skin on the palms. My hands are insides of my fingers. Dirt and tree bark were all in my hands.

There were numerous other, cuts and bruises caused by the fall through the tree. Fortunately, I still had my, I still had the M-16 and Bandolier, but I had lost the magazine that was in the rifle during the fall. I was now down to 81 rounds. There was one in the chamber. I could hear the firefight. The team was involved in about two to 300 meters from me.

More bad guys were probably moving around the jungle. A feeling of loneliness crept over me as I realized that not only would the bad guys be shooting at me, but so would the team because they probably did not know. I was on the ground. I moved out rapidly in the direction of the crash site. There was no time to waste. I'd only moved about 50 meters when I heard a twig break to my left. As I looked in that direction, I saw two soldiers with AK-47s about 30 meters away

moving parallel to me. Just as I turned my weapon toward them, they both saw me and began to turn their weapons toward me. In the next fraction of a second, I had to decide if they were really bad guys or two of the team members dressed like bad guys. I had practiced an immediate action drill for just such an occasion, hundreds of times on our flying range and used it in previous encounters. My decision was to take them out.

As I dove for the ground, I emptied a 20-round magazine on them. It was a tight shock group, and I saw both of them get hit several times. As I quickly changed magazines, I watched and listened for any signs of life from their position. They had gone down in the undergrowth where I could not see them. My attack had been so sudden and violent that they had not been able to return fire. After a few minutes, I decided that those two were not going to. going to cause me any more trouble. So I crawled up the hill a ways and then continued to move toward the crash site.

That's that immediate action drill that you talked about earlier. Take the shots as you're going down. You got to do it quick. And you shoot full auto. Yeah. Well, yeah. In that situation, you dumped full, you shot full auto with these guys. You know, because I'm, you know, I'm moving.

And if I shoot, if I can spray a relatively tight shot group, I'm going to, I'm going to get them. and I know I've got to hit them more than once I can't just pop off a couple of rounds because if I shoot at one that gives the other one a chance to shoot at me so I go for both hold on at the same time as I'm going to.

Was the team that you were going to rescue? Was that another saw team? They were doing an in-country thing. So you know that they're on the ground out there too. Yeah, and you know, I could, I knew when I saw these two guys with the AK-47s, I could hear the M-60. scenes firing. So I knew it was not a team that was carrying AK-47s. These had to be bad guys.

Yeah, because going in this, you had no, any, if you had spent 10 minutes getting a brief on what was happening, you would have found out how big the team was, what kind of weapons they had, just some, just some little kind of nice to know information, which you had none of. Your brief was there's good guys down. Yeah. And sorry about that. Yeah, and sorry about that. After moving about 150 meters a shot was fired at me. I thought it sounded strange as I dove for cover. It wasn't a rifle. It was a pistol probably a 38 caliber. AK-47s made a different and very distinguishable sound. The helicopter crew was shooting at me. The pilot had managed to crawl out of the wreckage and this is from the downed helicopter helicopter. The pilot had managed to crawl out of the wreckage seen my movement and begun firing at me with his 38. I yelled at him and told him I was a good guy. He did not believe me and continued to shoot. My experience had been that helicopter pilots were very cool, calm, and in control when they were in the air.

The jungle was a different matter. He continued to fire at me until he had to reload. At that point, I rushed him and got the drop on him. He was battered, wounded, bloody, and exhausted, and kept asking me where my other men were. He found it hard to believe that I was alone. I eventually convinced him that it was just me and that we had to get his men out of the aircraft as quickly as possible. I moved him to a very dense location in the jungle, a short distance away, and continue to go back and retrieve the crew one at a time. Most of the crew had lost a lot of blood and required immediate first aid.

They were all injured as a result of the crash. The pilot had broken ribs or broken arm, cuts and bruises. The co-pilot had a compound fracture of the femur. The bone was sticking out of his thigh. Cuts and bruises. The crew chief had been shot in the leg and the door gunner in the arm. All four were soaked in JP4. A spark would have made torches of them all.

I told the pilot that I was going to get help for him and to keep everyone hidden quiet and not to shoot anyone unless they physically stepped on them. Yeah, I began to move out toward the other crash site by this time that firefight had stopped and I was not sure where the team or the enemy were. My movement was very cautious because if the team saw my movement, they would open fire and they would not miss. As I neared the other crash site, I heard some movement up front and some muffled voices. I moved very slowly and deliberately. I heard an American voice. At this point, I could only assume that the enemy had captured one of the survivors from the first crash. My plan was to move in as closely as possible and look for an opportunity to attack and free the American.

As I crept closer and closer to the group, I eventually got close enough to see an American sergeant that I recognized. He was the team leader of the team that was on the ground, was still. still armed and obviously not a prisoner. So this is about the first good situation that's unfolded. You got you got some brothers now that are going to be able to work with you in some way. I got down behind a tree and yelled at him that I was coming in and for him to have his people hold their fire. After he told me it was okay, I stood up slowly with my M-16 in the air and walked toward the group. Once inside their perimeter, I discovered that the loud American was, the loud American voice was that of the American lieutenant colonel who had been the pilot of the first aircraft to be shot.

He was not very happy about what was going on and was giving the sergeant a hard time. Speaking of stress, right? Some of the things that you describe in the stress effect is, you know, anger and not making good decisions and being loud and being confrontational. So this lieutenant colonel is doing all those things. He's being confrontational with a sod team. You don't want to do that. You did not want to do that. I informed the lieutenant colonel that I was the senior ground commander and was now in charge of the operation.

The fact that a lieutenant colonel outranked a lieutenant did not matter because he was Air Force and we were on the ground. He became very upset and began to threaten me about what was going to happen to me when we got to safety. About that time, the mercenaries on the team had heard enough. Several of them turned their weapons toward the lieutenant colonel and made some very cold and serious remarks. The interpreter told the lieutenant colonel that the lieutenant was in charge and that everyone would do what I said. The lieutenant colonel realized they were ready to kill him if he did not submit. that ended the discussion. So that's what happens when you try and get confrontational

with the SOG team on the ground. Yeah. I mean, you don't, SOG teams get very closely bonded. They're very closely bonded to the 101, to their Americans. You don't mess with them anywhere. I mean,

they will defend that team. They'll defend those Americans. I mean, even inside the compound, you don't want to mess with them. I mean, the compound is, It's kind of like the old west. Everybody there is carrying a gun and is locked and loads.

It's not like the regular military units around that can't have a magazine in the gun. We were locked and loaded all the time. You had fragnade. You had all that stuff. And you've got these little pods moving around. And they're autonomous. Don't mess with my guy. you know, because they'll lock and load on you in a heartbeat.

But now we're out in the jungle. Yeah. And they see this guy as a threat. Yeah, a threat to their survival too. You know, a threat to you as the leader, a threat to their team and a threat to the survival. Because if this guy is going to start acting like an idiot, this is going to be a real problem. Yeah. So they put an end of that.

Our next step was to move back down to the first crash site and recover the bodies. During this time, I discovered that there had been three survivors of the original crash. The lieutenant colonel, which was the pilot, a Vietnamese lieutenant colonel, co-pilot, and an American sergeant. The Vietnamese and the sergeant had been badly injured and burned in the crash. The second helicopter to arrive on the site had lowered a jungle penetrator, and lieutenant colonel had strapped them into it. Unfortunately, as they were being hoisted up through the jungle canopy, the second helicopter was also shot down. as it went forward the jungle penetrator hung up on a large tree and the steel cable broke the two men still strapped to the penetrator fell approximately a hundred feet and landed headfirst on a large rock killing them instantly we found the bodies and unhooked them from the jungle penetrator when i got when i picked up the american and put him over my shoulder the air rushed out of his lungs as we worked our way back up the hill it began to rain so The second one had actually started to extract the team.

Right. And that's when they got shot down. Yeah, they were extracting, you know, the wounded from the first aircraft. Once inside the main perimeter, we laid the bodies down alongside each other. The heads were a bloody mess. And since we did not wear names on our uniforms, I did not know who I had carried up the hill. At this point, I asked the lieutenant colonel who the young sergeant was. The already sickening feeling in my stomach increased tremendously when I heard his name.

He was a friend of mine who I had joked with days before. I felt no remorse for the two NVA had killed an hour ago, but the sight of a dead American, especially a friend, created a range of emotions from deep sadness to extreme anger toward the enemy. One of the first rules you are taught when you arrive in country is not to get close to anyone. But there's no way you can prevent it. We covered them with ponchos and wandered to where and wondered where the bad guys were. My next problem was the pilots.

They were still out there alone. I took the four team members and moved cautiously to their location and established a security force around them. To get everyone out, I would have to blow down some trees and bring in some helicopter gunships to suppress enemy fire while everyone was hoisted up into helicopters. I'd been able to contact the rear using the team's radio and had the necessary demolitions on the way. Yeah, you went in this not only with some other person's gun and four magazines, you also didn't even have a radio. Nothing. I was naked.

By the time the helicopter arrived with the demolitions, the weather was closing in. Man, this is just Murphy's law. The weather was closing in. The rain was coming down harder in the car. clouds were moving down the mountain. We would have to work fast just to beat the weather. The enemy had been quiet until the arrival of a helicopter.

Now we could hear them all around us shooting up at the helicopter. About the time the demolitions came crashing to the ground, the gunships arrived. We signaled our location and I had the sergeant begin to work working airstrikes all around us. While the gunships were keeping the enemy busy, I carried 50 pounds of C4, blasting caps, time, fuse, and debt cord to a location near the pilots. I placed enough of them, I placed enough of the demolitions on trees and drop them. This opened up a large enough hole in the canopy to give us a better chance of not having a repeat of the last jungle penetrator incident. So you, you, I mean, this is taking time. This is a, I mean, to sit there and rig 50 pounds of demo on a bunch of trees and then put the blasting caps in, this is like, this is taking what, a half an hour to get this done?

Yeah, probably. But, you know, I didn't use all 50 pounds. So it's just enough to cut the trees and get them down. But, yeah, they all had to be rigged. You had to tape the things under the trees, put the blasting caps in, and set them off, had to make sure they're not going to fall the wrong way. But, you know, that's why they called me dynamite. I like to blow things up.

The CH47 that had dropped the demolitions returned and hovered over the hole, as it began to lower the jungle penetrator, the enemy ground fire increased dramatically, and both door gunners opened fire with their 50-calibre machine guns. Not only could we hear the very loud, slow, distinctive sound, but the 50-caliber casings began to rain down on us.

After falling 150 feet, they had enough velocity to do a lot of damage. We could see large red tracers penetrating deep into the jungle. The two gunships were now raining bullets down through the trees with their mini-guns, up to 4,000 rounds a minute per gun, firing 40 millimeter grenades and 2.75-inch rockets with 17-pound high-explosive warheads.

The popping and cracking sound of the bullets and explosions of the grenades and rockets were exacerbated by falling tree limbs and shrapnel flying in every direction. The darkening sky made the tracers appear very bright. The hot, wet, jungle air was becoming smoky and filled with the smell of burned cordite and gunpowder. That's enough firepower going down range. You can't simulate that. You watch the craziest Hollywood movie and they don't make it look like

what you just described right there. By the time the jungle penetrator reached the ground, we had drug the co-pilot and crew chief over to where it landed. We strapped them on as quickly as possible and signaled to pull them up. There was no way to support the broken leg

and we could hear the co-pilot screams over the battle sounds as he was going up. They say that a compound fracture of the femur is one of the most painful wounds you can have. After seeing the pain he was in, I believe it. The trip up took about two minutes. We sent the other two crew members up next, followed by the wounded team members, the lieutenant colonel and the two dead. The CH-47 left to take them to the hospital. So now you just jump into the CH-47 return.

about an hour. During that hour, what's happening? Are you guys, is the enemy pressuring you? The gunships are having an impact now. Got it. And when they saw the C.H.47 leave, you know, that took some of the pressure off. They really wanted to knock it down. Got it. But the, but the massive air support that you're getting is definitely putting a hurting on the enemy. I mean, that is, that's, that's a lot of gunfire coming their way. Rockets, the whole nine yards. The CH-47 returned in about an hour with a set of fresh gunships to help begin extracting us. I began putting the team members on as fast as I could while the sergeant continued to work the airstrikes. The jungle floor had become mud and was making the job of hooking people up much more difficult.

Eventually, there were just the sergeant and myself left on the ground. Unfortunately, some of the bad guys had moved up close to our position and were beginning to fire at the helicopter. We knew we'd be exposed to their fire as we ascended. thought we had two options go find them and take them out or chance being hoisted up with them shooting at us the pilot narrowed our options by saying the clouds were beginning to cover the hole up and it was now or never we strapped ourselves on and fired behind each other's backs as we slowly moved skyward spinning slowly and swinging back and forth and watching the tracers coming by it seemed like it

took an hour to make the trip up although it was probably only about two minutes Once inside and unstrapped from the jungle penetrator, I rolled over on my back, closed my eyes, and said a prayer of thanks. There was an atmosphere of elation as you were flying away from an encounter such as this. The team members were exchanging war stories. Personally, I was too tired to say much. My mind turned to rest in recuperation and how I was going to make sure that I got rest tomorrow. The team leader was also particularly quiet. upon arrival at the compound, we were greeted by a small crowd who welcomed us back.

It was a really good feeling to be back and to pick up my weapon and ammunition that we're leaning against the Conax container. We had been taught in Ranger School to never get more than an arm's length from your weapon. I would not make that mistake again. Lesson learned to every trooper out there. Don't ever do it, not even for a second. I moved directly to the dispensary to have my injuries treated. They treated my hands and other cuts and bruises and told me to return the next day. As I left the dispensary, I was told that the colonel wanted to see me in the mess hall.

Maybe he was going to give me an extra day of R&R to make up for this one. So you're pretty much smoked at this point. And I actually had two broken ribs that we discovered. Well, you know, when you drop 150 feet through the jungle canopy, man, the colonel was sitting at his table with another full corner, Colonel, non-special forces, and seemed to be having a heated conversation. When they looked up at me, they saw a wet, muddy, and bloody person standing in front of them. The expression on their faces indicated that they had lost their appetites.

He congratulated me on doing a good job, and then he told me what he and the other Colonel had been arguing about. We had left a crew member from the first crash on the ground. Apparently there had been a crew chief in the aircraft who had been killed and burned in the wreckage. The lieutenant colonel had told us that he was missing a person. The colonel told me to get my team together and be prepared to launch at first light to go in and recover the crew chief's body and destroy the second helicopter. There was a concern that the helicopter had its communication equipment and codes intact. These needed to be destroyed before the enemy could make you. use of them.

The news that I had to go back out there the next morning was not what I wanted to hear. I was tired, injured, and not sure if I could find enough of my team to do the job. At any rate, it would be a long night. On the way to the shower, I found one of my guys and told him to assemble as many team members as he could while I showered. The shower was great, even though I found three fat leeches that had crawled under my shirt and attached themselves to my body. They were having a feast at my expense, a squirt of,

insect repellent made them turn loose. So was your team all on R&R at this point? Fortunately, the majority of them were still, they were in the compound. Fortunately, I guess. Maybe not fortunately for them. Fortunately for the team. Later that night, we moved the team members who were going into the mission into the isolation area and made our plan for first light launch.

When I woke, it was raining cats and dogs. outside and the wind was blowing hard the weather continued like this for the next two days the delay gave me time to rest and heal before we inserted the drawback to the delay was that it gave the enemy more time to discover the body they knew we would make an effort to recover it they typically booby-trap the body placed others in the area and liked to plan an ambush to get us on the way out I had been on several body recovery missions in the past and knew what to expect the morning of the third day the weather had lifted and it was time for the

We loaded up our helicopters and departed for the launch site while it was still dark. At the launch site, we attended the mission briefing with the gunship pilots, forward air control, our pilots, and the launch site personnel. It was a very detailed briefing with everything from angles of attack, suspected enemy ground forces and fire locations, code words, and the team's route to the helicopter objective discussed in detail. Shortly after that, we were given the word to load up. At this point in the operation, the adrenaline begins to flow. You've just made three trips to the latrine and now you have to and now you have all your equipment on. You need to go once again. You can hear the slow, high pitched wind of the helicopter engine starting to get up and get faster and faster.

You smell the camouflage paint and insect repellent on your face and JP4 in the air and you know it's time. I gave the team the signal to lock and load, put the safety on and climb into the helicopters. their engines were now turning at full RPM as were our hearts and they were ready to lift off as we began to lift up and move forward we received the thumbs up from the launch team personnel on the ground

I was sitting in the door with my feet hanging outside so I could get a clear view of the landing zone on the way in and be the first to hit the ground when we arrived adrenaline flowing at this point huh yes and you're considering this is pretty much guaranteed to be a hot insert that they might not hit us

to LZ, but they definitely would once we got down to where the wreckage was. Was your plan to insert right on the crash sites, or were you going to insert somewhere offset? We went in on top of the ridge and then worked our way down. Okay, so it was an offset. How was the distance? Two or three hundred meters. Oh, okay, but it's so close. It wasn't far, but yeah.

Yeah. In my day, an offset insert would be a couple kilometers away. 200 meters, we consider that on the X. I mean, pretty damn close. 200 meters. I'll go in the jungle. It's couldn't it take you some time to get two or 300 meters.

How long would it take you? How long would you plan for it to take you to get 200 or 300 meters? Well, I mean, right from the beginning we're expecting an ambush any second. So, you know, you're back down to the 100 yards of an hour kind of thing. So you're going very slowly down through there.

You know, plus it's very wet, it's muddy, it's slippery. You're going downhill. to get down to it. And you're just expecting them to be anywhere. And the first light, would you guys be taking off the helicopters in the dark and first light is when the extraction goes, or when the insertion goes,

or are you not taking off until there's a little bit of light out? There's a little bit of light on this particular mission. Here we go. After about 20 minutes of flight, two cobra gunships came by us, one on each side. They were going to the LZ ahead of us and make a low, slow pass to try and try and do. draw fire from the enemy if they were there on the LZ.

There were two other cobras trailing just behind us, ready to open fire on enemy positions if we made a mistake, if we made the mistake of firing on the first two. We had not anticipated the LZ to be hot, so we were not going to prep it, meaning that the gunships would shoot them up. We wanted to get in as unobtrusively as possible, to the degree you can with two helicopters, four gunships,

and a forward air controller flying around over the LZ. So the enemy's going to know that you're there. They know where you're coming back. Soon the crew chief gave me a thumbs up indicating the LZ was cold and we were going in. We began to lose altitude very quickly as we made our way toward the small clearing on the ridge line. As we descended, the air became warmer and humid.

When we turned on to the final approach and began our descent, I could feel the helicopter began to vibrate and my heart rate increase. We all scanned the tree line vigorously for signs of the enemy. All of a sudden we were only two or three feet off the ground and the crew chief was motioning for us to get off. I jumped into the waist-high grass

and went down into a prone position. The team members quickly followed and the helicopters all flew off to a rendezvous point. The sound of them disappearing in the distance created a very lonely feeling. We moved quickly into the tree line and set up a small security perimeter

to let our eyes, ears, and nose adjust to the environment. This is an extremely important part of survival in the jungle. the sounds or lack of sounds of bugs, birds, and animals, as well as the smells tell you what's going on. You must read these signs correctly if you are to survive. After about 15 minutes, we radioed Team OK moving yeast. This meant we had not detected any signs of the enemy and it was okay to release the helicopters and gunships to return to base. We were really on our own now.

Standard policy in our unit was that teams would always have at least two Americans with them when they were on the ground. This was a team I had been training to operate on special missions without any Americans. They were still in training and I was the only American on the team. This added to the isolation effect.

Did they have any English speakers that were good enough to call for fire? The interpreter. The other's good. Did you guys cross-trained with those guys so they knew how to call for fire with the interpreter? Some, but not enough.

Yeah, I think when you say this is a lonely isolating thing, I think that's the understatement of this entry. But sometimes my thoughts were if it's just me, I'm the one I have to worry about. If you're with me, now I have to make sure that I protect you. I have to make sure that I get you out if you're hit. But I mean, I pick up these additional responsibilities, you know, when I have other Americans with me. But if it's just me and the team and I go down, you know, I go down. So, you know, even the one, you know, the previous one where I went in alone, it was, it was an unique feeling to know, you know, I was the bright light team. a one-person bright-like team.

There were other times where I suggested that I might either go in a loan on a mission or go in with one or two other people because I don't have a problem being a lawn out there. So it didn't do that. The burden of responsibility of the other person is so heavy.

And it's hard to get them out. I mean, that's why you have, have so many missing in action from the SOG teams. You can't get them. They get hit and you're being overrun. You can't get back to get them. And they might still be alive. And, you know, everybody says no man left behind.

But you got to decide you come to that decision point where do I leave Jock and save the team or do I get us all kill trying to get your body? out. And, you know, my position was I'm not going to get everybody killed. If I can get you out reasonably, I will, but if I can't. Yeah. And what would I want you to do? Yeah. Because I don't want you to get anybody killed trying to get my body out. I know. You know, I'm gone. Leave me. Yeah, leave me. Whatever. It doesn't matter anymore. That's right. Take care of the rest of the team. Back to this document. From here, our plan called for us to work our way down. on the side of the mountains, find the crash site,

recover the body, destroy the second helicopter, and move to an alternate landing zone for extraction. Altogether, it should be a very simple mission that should take about five to six hours. Then I could get started on my R&R. We moved very cautiously down the steep, wet mountain side, with every step you expected to hit a booby trap or have an ambush open up on you.

When on the ground, no one talked. Hand and armed signals were all the team communications we used. was critical. Every foot placement was deliberate so as to avoid any noise. A broken twig would signal the enemy of your approach. After about an hour we stopped for a break. We formed a small perimeter and some very thick brush and put out Claymore mines aimed in four directions. I laid back on my rucksack and tried to relax while constantly looking for any movement and listening for out of place sounds all of a sudden I heard what seemed to be a very loud pop and pss everyone hugged the ground everyone except huang am i saying that right everyone except huang he had brought a coke with him

against my very strict orders if looks could kill he would have been dead he may have just compromised the safety of the entire team and mission i took the coke buried it and then we moved out about 30 minutes later we knew we were close to the crash light the smell of a decaying was very strong you could see the change in the expressions on everyone's faces if the bad guys were going to get us it would be around the crash site we began to move more slowly and cautiously finally I could see the sunlight coming up through the hole in the jungle canopy we stopped just short of it and set out a two-man recon team they returned without seeing any signs of the enemy I knew they were out there I just

didn't know where I set up security around the crash site and stepped into the opening. There was no doubt in my mind that there would be minds and or booby traps in the wreckage. Not only would I have to watch for these, but I would be standing in the open as I recovered the body, a perfect target for a sniper. I could see large concentrations of flies toward the center of the wreckage. Upon careful observation, I saw what looked to be a bone sticking up. I cautiously made my way to the location of the bone while trying to maintain a low profile. another part of our mission was to photograph everything. I did this quickly and began to slowly uncover the remains of the body.

Did you have someone assigned to look for booby chaps or was it just every man was constantly on guard and on look out? Everybody was looking for it as we moved along. But, you know, as I went out there, it was me. Watch where you put your feet. Watch for wires. Watch for anything that, you know, look abnormal. because one thing that helped is it had rained hard. So all the powder and materials like that from the fire

had kind of washed away. So you had mostly pieces of metal, you know, bigger pieces of metal things that you could see, you know, easier than you could when it was all covered with the, you know, the powder and stuff. The crew chief had died face down in the middle of the wreckage and the intense heat of the burning aircraft had burned him into a small charred piece of meat.

His legs were completely gone from the knees down. His arms were gone from the elbows out, and something aluminum had melted and burned through his head. When I touched what was left of his skull, it disintegrated into white powder. As I was trying to retrieve his torso from the wreckage, it broke in half at the lower back. When it did, some of the liquid decay flew into my face,

some of it on my lips. I almost lost it at this point. It was almost impossible to breathe and just as hard not to throw up. After a few minutes, I was able to get it on a poncho and move back into the woodland. Woodbine. I had seen people burn to death before, but never to this extent. Now that the body had been recovered, we had to find the jungle penetrator and photograph it.

The aviation unit did not believe the cable had broken where I'd said it had. They wanted photographic evidence. Before we could do this, however, someone had to be assigned to carry the body. No one wanted to in fact they wanted to leave it behind I became somewhat forceful and directed Huang to carry it This was part of his punishment for the coke It took only a few minutes to find and photograph the jungle penetrator now it was time to move to the other helicopter Blowing this one up was going to be the highlight of the mission for me I always enjoyed missions where I got to use demolitions my only concern was where were the bad guys

We recovered the demolitions left over from three days ago and and carried them to the other crash site. I was really beginning to get the sixth sense feeling that you have just before everything breaks loose. Everything was too quiet. The helicopter was down in a small ravine, a very undefendable place. Just as I communicated the decision

to move the five team members to the top of the ravine, bursts of AK-47 fire from about three to four NVA began to hit all around us. The team returned fire as quickly as they moved. to the top of the ravine since there were only a few of them I decided to stay with the helicopter and plant the demolition charges the bad guys shooting in us turned out to be the point team for a much larger group as I worked feverously to pack 40 pounds of C4 into the appropriate places the helicopter the intensity of fire

increased my hands were beginning to bleed and blood was dripping out of the ends of my fingers of my gloves bullets were now ripping through the floor side of the aircraft. Some were even hitting the C4 as I packed it against the instrument panel. Fortunately, C4 requires a detonation device like a blasting cap to set it off. I felt like Houdini inside a chest, except instead of swords coming through the sides, I had bullets. As the battle intensified, I radioed for help. The fight was turning into a war and we needed gunships now. So there you are. Stand in the middle of this crashed helicopter trying to pack C4. and to get that thing completely destroyed.

Did you ever think when, like, something like that, hey, I got a good idea. Why don't you guys just drop a bomb on this thing? And by the way, and also when somebody tells me, hey, go search around for this jungle penetrator with a cut cable and take a picture of it, I would have had some issues with that. I had a lot of issues with the whole thing.

They should have told me the guy was there to start with. The pilot of that aircraft should have said, one of my guys is missing. you know he should never have been left there to start with he never said there was another person he said he had everybody he didn't that guy was was out there we could have got him out the same time we got everybody else out so you know the the controversy is is brewing around a lot of things between us and the aviation you know commander over what's going on but now I'm packing You know, 40 pounds of C4 in there, and I've got a few hundred feet of debt cord, too, that was left over.

So I've got that big roll of debt cord in there with the C4. They're shooting, hitting it. You know, the thing that bothers me about that is, you know, that means it's coming close to me. Yeah. I don't like that. That would bother me too. Yeah. And, you know, I've got the blasting caps.

I'm thinking, once I stick the blasting count, in the C4, if a bullet hits one of those, it's over. But at some point, you've got to do that. So I had to make the decision, stick them in, ignite the fuses, and try to get out. How long were the fuses? No, about three or four minutes, not long at all. Were the other guys up on the ridge line still? Yeah, yeah.

And so you're just on another damn dynamite solo mission. Yeah. I needed them up there because they had a better angle of fire down on the bad guys to keep them back. And, you know, my plan was to go up there with them. And that having it in the gully and having us back up on the high ground like that provided some shielding for us from the blast that was going to happen. I mean, 40 pounds of C4 and a couple hundred feet of debt cord, it makes a pretty good discipline. when it goes off. They're not going to be anything

left to the helicopter. No. No. Once you pull that time fuse, by the way, there better not be anything that delays your exit from the scene.

No, I had to get out. Decision was made. Once you pop those fuse igniters, decisions made, you've got to get out. You cover that here back to this document. After a few minutes, another decision point

it arrived. It was time to insert the blasting caps and light the time fuse. The questions going through my mind were, would a bullet hit one of the caps and detonate the C4

before I could get out and move to a safe distance? Could I get out without being hit? I would be completely exposed while climbing out. If I got out, could I fully run exposed to the bank,

climb it 15 feet and get to the team? That's another horrible thing. Because once you pull these time fuse, If you get wounded anywhere in that vicinity, you're done. It became obvious that they knew I was in the helicopter and were moving in on me. It was now or never. I inserted two blasting caps into the C4, ignited the two-time fuses,

climbed out of the side of the helicopter, rolled to the ground, low crawled to the base of the bank and began to climb like a madman. I'm sure it looked like a contest between me and the enemy's bullets to see which could dig into the ground the most. It only took a matter of seconds, but it seemed like an eternity. My team had really increased their volume of fire to help cover me. As I rolled up on top of the bank, I looked back to see three to five NVA run up behind the helicopter. If I had waited a few more seconds, they would have had me. Several of the team members looked quickly at me with the same expression of disbelief that I had.

Could they really be hiding behind a helicopter that had 40 pounds of C4 and 200 feet of debt cord in it with time fuse burning? Were they going to try and pull the fuses out and save the helicopter? It quickly came apparent that they did not realize I had been setting charges. I could see the smoke from the time fuses coming out of the helicopter, but the enemy were so engrossed in the heat of battle that they did not realize that they were about to become history. I signaled to the team that it was about time for the explosion. What happened next was beyond words.

There was a tremendous explosion, producing a giant black fireball, followed by a shock wave. You can actually see the compressed air. moving out in a circular pattern that literally dazed all of us. There was a momentary lull on the fire as it began to rain pieces of metal, rock, dirt, and tree limbs, and the remains of the NVA who'd been hiding behind the helicopter. The jungle was filled with black smoke. I'd wanted a good explosion, and it was a good one,

but I had intended for it to be much further away when it had happened. But I had intended to be much further away when it happened. the enemy picked up quickly with a new twist the enemy fire picked up quickly with a new twist so yeah that's pretty much you can't you can't plan that one any better the enemy you

leave that helicopter with 40 pounds of or 40 pounds of C4 and a bunch of deck cord which for those of you that don't know deck cord is just explosives in a string and so when it blows up it blows up and it's actually pretty powerful it's actually very powerful deck cord is

so these guys were blown away by this by this explosion and all they had to do was see what was going on walk over and cut the time fuse and they would have been all right i don't know if they still had time to get inside they had to crawl somebody had to crawl inside to pull it out okay they could have pull it out and tossed it aside um but you know when you're when you're watching time fuse burn it's not like it all burns up to wherever it's burning everything to fall. It's going down through the middle.

Through the tube. And you don't know exactly where it is. So, yeah, they might grab it just as it, you know, hits the cap. But we didn't have to worry about that. Worked out. The enemy fire picked up quickly and with the new twist. They had moved a machine gun position on the other side of us so that we were now in a crossfire.

We were pinned down and couldn't move. We had to get rid of the machine gun or we were all dead. There was a small group of rocks about 20 meters from our position. If I could get to those rocks, I would be able to call back directions to our M79 gunner, and we might knock out the machine gun. The problem was getting across the 20 meters of open terrain with fire coming from both sides without getting hit. They had also brought an RPG, and it fired a couple of those at us. Time was running out.

I told the team to cover me as I went across the ground like a mole watching the mud being dug up all around me The only way I could explain not being hit was that God had put a force field around me The enemy had begun to shift their fire off of me as I neared the rocks This seemed strange, but I was glad that it Glad that I made it I didn't think much about it The rocks did not provide as much cover as I had anticipated they would the machine gun had to be dealt with quickly I pulled myself over to the edge of the bank and looked over and discovered why the enemy shifted most of their fire off me.

Less than three feet from me was an NVA crawling up the bank to get me. I didn't know which of one of us had the biggest look of shock on their face. Probably me. Time began to move in slow motion, and in what reality was two to three seconds seemed like minutes. In the next fraction of a second, he squeezed the trigger on his AK-47. The first round just missed my head by what must have been an inch or two.

Powder coming out of the barrel was hitting me in the face as the bullets streamed out. AK-47s have a tendency to rise up when they are on automatic so that the other bullets were going over my head. I squeezed off a burst of six to eight rounds from a distance of less than three feet. They all hit him in the face in the top of his head, causing it to explode, sending debris all over me. As his body tumbled down the bank, I could taste the blood that it hit me in the mouth. the fire immediately shifted back on me and I was hugging the ground so close

that I must have looked like an empty pair of fatigues lying on the ground nevertheless I felt an occasional bullet hit my rucksack fortunately the radio was not damaged a green tracer ricocheted off a rock and landed right in front of my face I watched it lie there and burn as I continued to fire at the enemy

the handguard on my car 15 became so hot I could no longer hold it. I was having to shoot one-handed. I shouted back directions to the M79 gunner. His first shot was high and off to the left. I continued to direct his fire until he had hit a tree beside the machine gun, sending shrapnel into the position. The two NVA were wounded and momentarily stunned.

This gave me a chance to put 10 to 12 round burst on them and silence the machine gun for good. Oh, man. It was an exciting afternoon. Yeah, that's completely crazy. I can't imagine sitting there as all this machine gun fire is happening, and the tracer settles itself in front of your face, and you sit there and watch it burn.

About this time, two helicopter gunships arrived. I marked our position initially with a flare gun and then with purple smoke grenade. After they had identified our location, I directed their mini-gun 40-millimeter grenade and rocket fire into the enemy. The gunships were literally ripping the trees, ground, an enemy apart. Even though we had already killed a lot of enemy, there were still 20 more shooting at us. The gunship spotted more enemy further down the ridge, moving toward us, and fired rockets on them to slow their progress. I worked the airstrikes in as close as I could to our position

and eventually was able to suppress the enemy fire enough to crawl back to the team. So far, only one team member had any serious wounds. Shrapnel from one of the B-40 rockets had hit him in the back. It was not life-threatening at the moment, but he was in a lot of pain and bleeding. We were beginning to run low on ammunition, and the enemy force was increasing. The time had come to break contact with the enemy or die in place. Yeah, you were going, in order for your car 15 to get that hot that you could, you put, you were shooting a lot. Yeah. How many rounds did you go in with?

On a normal, on a sog mission, I usually carry around 50 magazines. Did you say 50? Five, zero. Five-zero magazines. Of course, we had the little ones. Yeah, those are 20 rounds. Yeah. But, yeah.

Because I, even though I was a leader, I still tended to engage the bad guys. So you're in there. And what about for this one where you know you're kind of high potential for contact? I don't think we had that many. I don't remember exactly how many I had, you know, maybe 30 or so. But, you know, a little less than I wanted to. How did you even load out 30 magazines? or 50 magazines.

I mean, you can only fit so many on your web gear. With a canteen pouch, you can put five, 20-round magazines in it. So I would carry two of those, at least, on the belt. And then, you know, I'd put the others in the rucksack. So, like, on the left side, I'd have, you know, 10 magazines, you know, because you're going to put the magazine in when you left hand.

The right side, I'd have. have one or two bags of grenades because I could put usually five of those in a canteen pouch and you can't throw right-handed. You didn't want to have to be rolling and turn. I tried not to put anything, you know, besides, you know, the med kit, which was pretty flat, the gauze pads and things like that, my compass on the front so I could get closer to the ground. And then in the rucksack, I'd load it up. I'm wondering that everything was so heavy and then you know you had to have a couple

quarts of water on the belt and sometimes more in the rucksack you had the claymore mines in the rucksack how many claymores would you usually carry I usually carried two and depending on the size of the team everybody else might have two

but you know claymore is heavy yeah yeah would those be rigged the ones rigged with like five second or ten second time We had diffuses, depending on what we wanted to do with them. And then you also had a rig for perimeter security that you can clack off. Yeah. We carried a lot of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, it's to be in these kind of fire fights, to shoot your weapon enough that it's hot, and to be sitting there under that fire directing, I mean, this is just, these are crazy things. You can't barely even capture how, how, how. Well, what your chances of survival in a situation like this were? The chances are not good. Let me put it to you that way. With the original M-16, the handguard would get hot, but the regular troops rarely fired them that much.

They would get warm. But with a car 15, it had a different type of handguard up front. And with the amount of firing that we were doing, And, you know, the thing was 110 degrees to start with. And then you start, you know, putting those, you know, rounds through there as fast as you can. Very quickly, it would get hot. Most Americans wore gloves. You know, and I particularly had them on this time because I didn't have any skin on the inside of my hands.

A lot of the muscle and meat was gone. So, and we cut the fingertips out, you know, so we had some dexterity to do things. And I would put a piece of cam. around the handguard and that would just give me a little extra protection until it got hot and then you know just the one-handed thing having The rope small rope go through the little sight bracket up there and hooked into the snap link on your shoulder You could put pressure down on that it made it easier to shoot one-handed and be able to hold it down you know because it's gonna try to come up on auto but you could do that. It was a little uncomfortable on that mission because of my hands.

But the good thing about your hands is all of that skin will grow right back. It doesn't take it long. It'll come back. Other places on the body, it doesn't come back that fast. All right, so you guys are running low on ammo, and here we go back to this document. I signal the team to get ready to move out

and radioed to the gunship, gunship's what we were going to do. As they made their next run, firing mini guns, 40-millimeter grenades, and rockets, myself and two team members exposed ourselves long enough to throw white phosphorus grenades as far toward the enemy as we could. When they exploded, each produced a very dense 30-meter radius of white smoke and streams of burning phosphorus. The smoke didn't stop the bullets, but it did prevent them from seeing our direction of escape.

We quickly drug the body and the wounded team member into the thick jungle and began slipping and sliding up the mountain. I radioed the gunships that we were clear to make their next pass directly over our old position, marked with a red smoke grenade, estimating that the bad guys would be there by then. It was a good move resulting in the gunships,

killing several of them where we had been. The gunships continued to pound the area for another 20 minutes, sending thousands of bullets, hundreds of 40-millimeter grenades, and dozens of rockets through the jungle canopy onto them. Once again, the weather moved in on us very quickly,

and the rain began to come down hard. Before we were halfway up the mountain, the clouds had already covered, the clouds had already covered the ridge line. We would not be distracted that day. Tired and somewhat demoralized, we continued to climb toward the top of the mountain. We had at least temporarily broken contact with the enemy.

Eventually, we found a very dense, rocky, and steep peak. We thought we could defend. The rain continued the rest of the day and throughout the night. that's a morale crusher you're low on ammunition you think you're making your final

movement and then you're going to get extracted and then the weather comes in and you're shut down yeah it didn't go over well with the team it had it had a significant impact on the morale because they really

thought I really thought that once we got up here we would get extracted but not once the weather rolled in then I knew man we're going to be here at least until tomorrow and you know things just don't work out as a leader in that position

what is it important for you to do as a leader as that morale starts to slip part of what I was doing with them was congratulating them because this was one of our first heavy fire fights as a team so pumping them up how well they did how we destroyed all those guys we've got the body

that we went down after you know so just trying to tell them you really do a good job so Wang don't ever think about bringing a soft drink on a mission again that uh that still okay so you give them like a pep talk hey you did great but they got to be looking at you

hey hey thanks a lot boss and now we're here and the enemy that we just killed a bunch of enemy what are they going to do they're going to come after us we've got to keep the guard up pay attention you can't dwell on what what's happened you know the weather will clear when it clears in the meantime we got to stay sharp and you know we're in a good position if they try to come up we'll take them out. This is like the ultimate form of when people get in competition of some kind and they think they win and then it turns out they don't. Yeah. You know, I got a buddy named Tim Kennedy who's actually a special force guy, great guy, and he was actually a UFC fighter, a mixed martial arts fighter, incredible fighter, but he had a match against a guy and the guy he was

going against was an Olympic champion guy, a really tough guy, and Tim was beating him. And I think it was between the second and third round, the opponent didn't answer the bell. So he didn't come out to fight. And then the corner man, there were some shenanigans going on. And all of a sudden, with an extra 30 seconds of rest or whatever, the guy stood up and ready to fight. And now Tim Kennedy, who had just thought he had won because the guy didn't answer the bell, they go, no, no, no, it's not over. You got to fight. And hearing him tell that story to me, you know, he said it was this situation, right?

All of a sudden, he thought he had won, thought the day was done, raised his hands in victory, and then all of a sudden, no, you got to fight again. And he didn't, you know, he told me, he's like, I didn't get back in the game. And he ended up losing that fight. And that, unfortunately, that fight would have put him in the slot to be the UFC champion, which he absolutely should have been. But it reminds me of this, and you as a leader have to take these people in that moment where they could let down their guard, they could get demoralized, they could give up and instead say, nope, guess what? Okay, hey, good job. We got to make it through tonight.

We're not done yet. Yeah, and that happens all the time. I mean, Cunningham, the first guy to be an ace pilot in Vietnam when they shot down the fifth aircraft. And then the mission was over. They shot down that, that mig, and they turned and go home. and he and, you know, the copilot, they're patting each other on the back. Man, we're aces now, we've done this, that was great, and then just going back and forth, they didn't hear the missile alarm go off.

Fortunately, they were almost back to the coast when the missile hit him. They had to punch out. They landed in the water and, you know, got picked up out there. But they were celebrating so hard, yeah. They let their guard down. They thought it was over. It ain't over till it's over. That's right.

And in this particular case, it ain't over yet. Here we go. Back to this document. Even though the mission was supposed to have been a five-hour mission, I had made everyone bring two meals just in case. The team members had grumbled about the extra weight, but no one was grumbling now, nor did they during the next day as the rain continued.

We spent almost 48 hours on that little peak, constantly watching, listening, and feeling for the enemy before the weather cleared and we were extracted. Needless to say, everyone was very excited to climb on board the helicopter and head for home, even though the smell was terrible. I was really looking forward to some time off to let my body and mind heal. When we arrived at the compound, however, I discovered my team was scheduled to begin preparing for a new mission the next day. Arnar would have to wait. Three months later, I was awarded the Air Medal with the V-Device.

Second Award for Heroism during Aerial Combat for my actions on May 4th, 1969. The first trip, I was also awarded the Bronze Star Medal with V-Device for Heroism in Ground Combat for my actions on May 7, 1969, the second trip. And it was worse when I got it. Please tell me what was worse than that, because... And whoever wrote up you for a bronze star for that, no disrespect, but I'd like to slap that person right in the face because that is ridiculous. That entire thing is ridiculous. So when I got back, we had the aviation guy there with our colonel again. And he's saying, you blew up my helicopter?

I'm saying that's what you told me to do. Destroy the helicopter. He said, I didn't tell you that. You were not supposed to destroy it. You know, just put a thermite of something on the radios, but not destroy the helicopter. I don't know what he thought he was going to do with it. But I said, well, that Joker's in a million pieces out there.

It's gone. Yeah, next time do it yourself. I didn't quite go that far. been thinking that. I was not happy when I heard that. I wanted to hear, hey, man, you did a great job. Yeah. Why'd you blow one helicopter?

Wow. That's a disconnected. That's a very disconnected person, a very disconnected leader. Unbelievable. So that's just completely crazy. Did you get wounded during that mission? No, just banged up a little bit. Just banged up a little bit.

I mean, you know, it wasn't uncommon to get hit with shrapnel or something. But, you know, I got the broken ribs and burned hands and all of that, you know, with the first part of it. But, you know, the second part, I just got skin up and stuff. So then, so now what's the next, let's see, that was in, that was in, that was in 2 to 7 May. And then the next thing we got is a King B down. So one of the King B helicopters goes down. That wasn't a good day. So I take RT, Virginia, and we go on a mission.

And I think that's the one where it was the NVA division or regiment. heading for Hamburger Hill. We were supposed to go find them and then bring air strikes and things on, try to stop them. Because Hamburger Hill was a very political battle that happened. The 101st was trying to fight their way up to the top of this mountain, taking all kinds of casualties. and everybody was questioning at the time, why do they need to go up there? Why has you got to take the high ground? It'll be a political victory as well as military

as we take it. They were taking all kind of casualties. The North Vietnamese had this large unit that was coming that was going to crush that battalion. And so our mission was to go out, find it, stop it, don't let them get there. they had moved a lot further along than we thought. So we do our little circling around thing,

and as we're coming in on short final, they opened fire, hit the aircraft, we lost power. And, you know, I'm sitting in the door, and I'm watching the ground come up and thinking, you know, this is not good. Man, we're going to really smack in. And we did. So hit the ground.

Everything went black, and then my eyes come open, and I'm laying there thinking, hmm, am I alive or dead? And then I hear the bullets cracking by, and I'm thinking, I must be alive. Somebody's trying to shoot me. So I look around, see what's going on. I get my guys who are scattered out on the ground too. I drag them over into a bomb crater that's there, So we had some protection.

They eventually got the helicopter flying again, even though it had taken a lot of hits, but he got it back in the air somehow. Was your, the King B pilots, these were South Vietnamese pilots? South Vietnamese, but yeah, they flew for us. They were our guys. Yeah. So, you know, we're in the crater fighting.

They can't get back in. The ground fire is way too heavy. We're working the airstrikes. We're working them. A1E's We're hitting the whole ridge line We're hitting the top of the hill Getting secondary explosions up there

You know, because they'd already Moved a lot of ammunition and stuff up on the hill So we're smoking it pretty hard But I mean they can shoot right across the top The bomb crater so it was kind of hard to stick you head out Everybody's busted up I'm experiencing you know a tremendous amount of pain and I'm not quite sure where's this coming from I mean

I'm hurting it's hard to breathe all that kind of stuff but you know we're getting a lot of kills they're trying to crawl out there to us and then eventually we suppressed the fire enough that one helicopter is able to come in and took everybody on the team except for myself and one guy. So two of us stayed there in the bond. Now, is that because the crowd of the too many people? Is that because there a tactical reason to do that? In this case, I wanted somebody else with me.

And we were loading the aircraft down. We were really putting too much weight on it. So the fear was if you, if you both, if everyone got on that, the king be it wouldn't be able to take off. Right. It would go down. So two you were going to stay. Yeah.

Okay. So, you know, it's a question kind of like we talked about before. Sometimes you have to, the way to the good of the many against the one. And, you know, for us, the best solution was for us not to get on the helicopter. We would stay there if we got out, we got out. We didn't. We didn't. But the rest of the team, you know, would survive.

So they went away. We're still, you know, doing a lot of shooting, working gunships and stuff. and then I just got a little irritated and I thought I need to go get one of them I think what I'm going to do is just crawl out there because I know they're crawling around out there in the grass I'm going to crawl out there and get one of these delivers meaning meaning you're going to go and capture a live enemy so you know I told cut it because because you're right in now you got two people two of you you're injured somehow you don't really know what it is you're in a bomb crater

You're surrounded by an NVA division, and you think now's a good time to go and capture someone. If I'm going to get somebody, I mean, this may be my last chance. Check. I want to snatch one of those jokers up, because if we can take him back, I mean, he can give a lot of intel about where they are, what they're doing, and everything. So I start crawling out there in the grass. The grass is about that high, about two and a half, three feet high. And I'm crawling around out there, and I can hear them. because they're shooting, still shooting down at the bomb crater.

They haven't realized that I've crawled out there with them. And I can hear this one up in front of me, and I'm crawling up here. And if I can get the timing right so that he doesn't see me, you know, immediately, then, you know, I can probably wound him, drag him back in, and, you know, he'll be ours. it just didn't go well when we had the encounter so I more than wounded him and yeah so I didn't have a prisoner

did you shoot at him or did you stab him yeah I shot him yeah I mean there are times to use a knife but sometimes you need to do it quick and you know if he's got buddies you can only reach so far with a knife but with that car 15 you reach way out there and tap somebody.

Yeah. So I decided to go back in because I just, I didn't have any strength. And I wasn't sure what, what was going on. So I got back in. Eventually, we suppressed the fire enough that they were able to come back in and get the two of us. And went back to the launch site and they said, you know, that was good. But there's still a ton of them out there. And I need you to go back in tomorrow morning.

So take the team back. So I replaced some team members. And why did you have to replace team members? Because some of them were injured when the helicopter crashed in. And what about you, your back and whatever injuries? I got with the medics and they drugged me up. And they said, you know, with an impact that hard, you know, you're bound to have some, you know, some bruises and whatever.

And I said, man, this is not a bruise. I mean, it's hard to breathe when I move. But anyway, they said, we really need you back out here tomorrow morning. I mean, this is critical. Okay, we'll go do it. So we go back in. Same insertion point? No, we moved over to different location, you know, a few clicks away from that first one.

And went in. And right after we got on the ground. when we started into the jungle, we made contact. So all of a sudden, we were in heavy contact there. And trying to suppress that fire, working the gunships and things that we had with us, got it suppressed enough that we were able to get, again, all but me and one of the guys out on strings and lifted them out. So the two hours were still there, still working the air strikes.

And we were in a better position at this point to really hit the main body of the force. And, you know, we had that big stick with us, and we were hammering those guys. I mean, literally thousands of them were killed, you know, that morning. I mean, we pretty much decimated, you know, that force. They did not go. What was your, were you in an elevated position? Yeah. Yeah.

So we were up pretty close to the top of a mountain, and we could see them in the valley. we could see them on the ridge line coming up to where we were. We could see them on the ridge line where we did. Did they know where you were? Yeah, I mean, from the fire that was going on, they knew we were up there, but they couldn't get up there to us, except for the ones that were already there. Because, you know, now we had a big enough air support team with us out there to just smoke them.

We had the spads. I mean, you know, the A1E's, we had the L4s and gunships, and just rotating those things in. I mean, they were stacked out here waiting on their turn to come in and go after them. But from where we were, you know, I could see them. And we had, you know, pretty significant contact right there and where we were directly on us. And for some reason, it just seemed like a good idea to take one of them back with us. Oh, so you got the notion again that you're going to try and capture.

So I thought, you know, it's a different terrain. I need to get one of them So I I crawled out here You know with covering fire from my little guy Encountered a guy And you know I didn't have the strength to manhandle

I wounded him But I was hurting so bad I just didn't have the strength I mean I Under normal conditions I could have brought him back But I was in too much pain So you know I had to you know let him go to happy hunting ground wherever you know and crawl back

and later on that day myself and the other guy were able to come out on strings and and then they really hammered the place there how long were you on the ground for on that one most of the day so it was a long time and you know when we got back these I said you know yeah I think there's something wrong with you. I said, yeah, I think so. By the way, the NVA, that element of NVA of thousands and thousands of NVA, did they ever make the Hamburger Hill? No.

So that's why the... That's why the 101st was not wiped out. They did finally make it to the top. And once they got up there and said, you know, we're the king of the hill. They were told, okay, come on back down. When that kind of stuff was going on, what did you? you guys, was that, you know, we look back, armchair quarterback and say, oh, you know, what, what were they thinking? What were you guys thinking? When you guys hear that, here, would hear about

that, would you think, what the hell is the leadership doing? What are we doing? I mean, why would you do that? Why would you sacrifice that many lives? And I forgot now the exact number, but it was a lot of Americans kill trying to get to top of that hill just to turn around and walk back down. And I know it wasn't just that. It was a big political move and everything, but it's just my opinion that I don't think it was worth losing people like that. If you're going to turn around and go back down. Right. Now did you guys think about that? Did you talk about that? Did you guys look at each other and say, what the hell are we doing? Why would we make this choice? Sometimes, sometimes when we would get back, you know, the team member setting not, you know, the American

members sitting around, sometimes we would say, man, did you see what, hear what happened? And questioning, you know, some of the political things that were going on. Because now it's 1969. Yeah. So this is like the height of the American anti-war movement right now. This is like woodstocks coming and all that stuff. Yeah. Are you guys hearing any of that?

We are hearing some about the protests, but, you know, we didn't get to see. I mean, we didn't have TVs and stuff like that. We didn't see what was going on. If you got a hold of an Army Times, you might see something in there, but a lot of stuff was held back because they didn't want us being exposed to it. But you knew, you had heard from people who were coming in more recently, things that they had seen. You knew that you were likely to be spit on in the airport.

or on the street if you were in uniform. And it was... What are you thinking about that? I mean, are you just, can you even fathom that? Well, I wasn't happy about it. And, well, there were a lot of hijackings of planes going on at that time, too. So, not by protesters, but by different people hijacking them to fly to different countries. and one of my thoughts was this browning high power 9mm that I took off of a NVA

I'm carrying that with me on the plane my plane is not going to be hijacked it would be the hijackers worst nightmare to try to stop my plane so I carried it with me and I had it when I went through the airport, I did get spit at. I got called Baby Killer, you know, all kinds of things like that, you know, from various groups in the airport. So it was not the welcome home kind of thing that you see today. Although we don't, I don't think we do a very good job today. We do a lot better than we did.

So I wasn't happy about what was going on. So you were about to say before I cut you off, You're about to say that you get back and now you're saying, hey, there's something actually, I think there's actually something wrong with me. Yeah. They decided that I, they decided at the time that I had severely bruised my back and maybe some vertebrae. And I think I broke another couple of ribs. I don't remember right now, but I think it was a couple of ribs broken too and, you know,

beat up, cut up. But then it was determined later that I had fractured my spine and a couple of, you know, vertebrae and they just couldn't believe that I actually went on a mission like that and was able to do you know what we did so but so would they give you a couple days downtime and some motoring oh they promised that and then they said no yeah I got a few days downtime after that but yeah it ate motron like it was candy and then it was okay you got eventually you know about a time the next mission came around, you know, ready to go. And was, you, you have a note in here about the, the POW mission.

Is that, is that after you got home? No, this is still, I'm still over there. Okay. So we got Intel, excuse me, we got Intel all of a sudden that said there was a small group, you know, 10 to 15 American POWs that were being moved north. And the Intel said, we know where they are. So they said, we need to get them.

So that became the mission, but it was going to be an intense combat kind of mission. So what we did was we created a spike team. So a buddy of mine, Bruce Lombard and I would do that. Sometimes we would put our two teams together, so we'd have about 20 or so people to take out there. We took a medic with us this time. We were loaded for bear, two machine guns, all those extra ammo and everything. And our mission was to go out and find them and get them back.

So we went to the launch site. We were supposed to launch in the next day. There was a hatchet force that was there too that had a mission to go, I don't know what their mission was, but they were going somewhere. And we had a team, Dennis Neal, and Michael Brown's team was on the ground. They had finished their mission. They moved back to an extraction LZ. They had called for extraction.

And then all of a sudden they called a prayer fire emergency, that they were being overrun. and then we lost contact with a radio contact with a team. One of the aircraft out in the area heard a transmission on the little URT radio that just operated on the guard frequency. They picked up what they thought was an American voice saying, you know, somebody helped me, help me, for God's sake. somebody help me. They heard that voice and that was all we heard. And so every everything the launch site stopped because now it's a prairie fire and we've got to go get Dennis's team. And you know and that was a situation where I didn't have a

two-day R&R coming up but I'm looking at the aircraft that's about to go out to try to bring them back and I'm thinking I probably should get on that aircraft. I think I should go with them. And then I'm thinking, geez, I've got to lead my own mission to get POWs in a couple of hours. I've got to go do that. I can't jump on, you know, this aircraft and fly out there. I mean, that's not going to work. So I didn't go.

They went out into the area. they saw some movement. They saw what they thought were good guys. They dropped the McGuire rigs down. And as they were lifting off, three of them pulled tight, and then one of them shot loose. And they came on up. They had two indigenous personnel on the McGuire rigs.

And, you know, the crew chief said he thought he saw an American on that third one that pop loose that he thought an American had gotten in there and fell out as they were, you know, pulling the tension up. But they were receiving so much fire, you know, they couldn't go back in there. So they brought the two survivors from the team back to the launch site, did a quick debriefing from them. They said everybody else who's dead. They launched the hatchet force to go in as a bright light team. They changed their mission to bright light and decided to put them out there because there were so many bad guys in the area. But they inserted them a couple thousand meters away from where the extraction site was. They were pinned down on the LZ. They never moved

anywhere. They just got into the tree line and that was as far as they could go. So once that started happening and they saw they couldn't go anywhere. Then they came to me and said, you know, your mission's changed. You were now the bright light team. So got all my guys together and said, okay, we're going bright light. The other mission we'll do later.

So then, you know, we planned a mission right quick and they inserted us, you know, the whole spike team. So, I mean, that's five aircraft going in. He said, you know, it's a really hot area. So we'll prep the LZ, but we have to be careful because we don't know where the other team members are that might be out there.

So we can't just hammer the whole area. We can only prep it right around the LZ. So they went out, you know, the gunships ahead of us. They prep the LZ. And, you know, I'm listening on the headset, and it's not sounded good. And, you know, I knew we were going to get hammered because they were going to open up on us as soon as we got close. And I was in the lead ship, and as we started in, you know, bullets had coming everywhere.

The aircraft's taking hits. The ones behind me have taken hits. But we went on in, got on the ground, got my first load into tree line, brought in the rest of the guys, one ship of the time, working air strikes, you know, right around us. suppress the fire as much as we could. So we spent until the next afternoon, mostly fighting, looking for Dennis' team, trying to find any survivors that we could. So it was a long night, and they were firing mortars over at the hatchet force. We could hear them from back up behind us.

I mean, I would call them and say, you know, rounds on our. away because I hear him drop it into tube and douche you know and I just tell them you know you got incoming and get everybody down but we couldn't get to where the mortars were because there had too many people around us and when it got daylight we're still looking for more looking for Dennis more I was discovered we were in the middle of a bunker complex bunkers were all around us and that's why one reason that the LZ prep didn't have much of effect They were in their bunkers. And so anyway, we brought in a lot of air support, eventually got out.

Dennis' team was never found. And the two survivors, there's no doubt in my mind that they gave us the wrong location of where the team was when it was overrun. I don't think they did it intentionally. I think it was distressed. I think it was being chased, trying to survive. I think they lost track with how far they moved to get to where they were picked up from. Because otherwise you would have found something. We would have found something.

You can go out there and you can find people who've written all kinds of things about Dennis's mission and that no evidence was found and things like that. I was there. I was the guy on the ground. you know, I searched that area. I know what was there. You know, Dennis was my roommate. So we were, you know, we were already very close. You know, so I had that personal stake in finding his team.

And, no, we just didn't make it. So we came back. So our mission for the PWs was where it was postpone. And we went back down and started replanting that mission again, you know, because according the Intel, they had moved more. So we had to pick a new site to go into and kind of think through it a little differently. And it turned out to be one, probably one of the most interesting missions that I had, maybe one of the most unique in

and sob because of a couple of things that happened. Well, like what? You know, it's really interesting that if anyone listen to this podcast, I had on a, one of the guys that have had on the podcast was a guy named Colonel William Reeder, and he was a helicopter pilot that was shot down two times,

and the second time he was shot down, he was captured, and he was one of those folks that was being moved from South Vietnam to the North, which was actually the worst possible thing to have happening. And guys died on those tracks. And, you know, this was them, the stereotypical image that you get of the Vietnam prisoner of war in the jungle. That's what these guys were going through. So the guys in the Hanoi Hilton that were, at least they were identified, people knew that they were there, et cetera. These guys in the jungle, they were just getting, you know, every horrible thing that could possibly happen, happen to those guys.

So when you talk about the fact that you knew, you know, you had Intel, this is the type of person that I'm thinking that you're going to save. You know, someone like Colonel William Reeder who, you know, the stories that he told about being captured. And, you know, at one point he was in a two-foot tall bamboo cage. His legs are shackled. he's in the middle of the jungle he hasn't eaten and he's trying to get some sleep but he can't sleep

because the rats are gnawing at the wounds in his legs so that's the when you say hey you got an opportunity to go capture these these guys that's what I'm thinking about and you're doing all this just on top of you know losing your friend

your brother Dennis Neal who completely you know disappears so what changed about what changed about the mission when what did it start What made it so unique? We were going into a different location, different route. But other than that, the beginning was basically the way it was supposed to go when we got counseled before.

We go in relatively uneventful, and we get on the LZ. And, you know, it's the big team. So Bruce and I have our teams together, and it's a big one. and we start moving up the ridges line. It was kind of a late insertion, not last light, but kind of late. We start up the ridge line. We get a few hundred meters up there, and then we stop for the night. You know, because you've got a big group now.

It takes longer. Get everybody in position. Get set up. Get all the claymores out. Get everything the way you need it. So now we have a larger program. I am in the center of it. Bruce is close to me, but I know where he is.

And what was interesting was, you know, it got dark, and the weather is starting to get bad, but it's dark. And you can't see your hand in front of your face. And I'm leaning against the tree, my rucksack behind me, behind me. You know, my car 15 across my lap like I normally do. And I'm just about asleep and I hear a twig break. And my eyes open and I'm thinking, wow, did I just hear a twig break? And then I hear another one and I'm saying to myself, that's directly in front of me. there's somebody in front of me

that's moving in this direction so now I'm listening and I'm saying yeah somebody is coming directly at me and I'm thinking how did he get through the perimeter? I mean we're not space very far apart at all

how in the world could this guy have walked through our perimeter and he's on the inside now and he's coming straight at me and so I'm playing all those thoughts in my mind and he He's getting closer. And now I've got my adrenaline going.

I've got my supersenses working. And even though it's so dark, I can't see anything, I can visualize him in front of me. I can literally see a black silhouette in my mind because I'm tracking the sound. I can hear him breathing, and he's coming right at me, and I'm thinking, this is not going to be good. this guy is going to walk right into me.

So I've got to make a decision. You know, if I just shoot him right now, it's going to light me up, you know, like a neon sign, and all these buddies are going to open up. I've got to do something. He's about to step on me. So I've got to select the switch on full auto.

I've got my weapon in the hand, and I'm tracking mentally this silhouette. And when it gets in my mind where he's within reach, my plan was I'm going to reach out and grab a hold of him. I'm going to cram the barrel of the car 15 into his head, and I'm going to pull him. He'll be off balance. I'll pull him and bring him down to the ground. If he fires his weapon, if he yells, if he makes any kind of sound, I'm just going to put a three or four. four round burst into his head.

And, of course, that'll light me up, and everybody will, you know, start shooting at me. You know, but I can't let him be in there. So when he got within range, I reached up. I grabbed him at this same instant. The gun hit him inside the head, cut a big gash in his head. I pulled him down. He hasn't said a word. I jerked him right down to the ground, and the gun is there.

And I'm saying, now what? What am I going to do? I mean, I've got him, but what am I going to do with him? And all of a sudden, I hear him whisper, trangui, trang we, trang we. He said, lieutenant, light, lights, lights. And I'm thinking, what? Lights, lights. And I realized we had a Vietnamese captain with us, Vietnamese army captain.

and he had seen something and he was coming to tell me because he wasn't used to going out with us and he was coming to tell me and I've got him down on the ground now with a gun stuck halfway through his head and he's saying lights and lights and I look up

and I'm looking up the ridge up toward the top of the mountain and all the way from the top of the mountain about halfway down the ridge are just lights I thought there might be flashlights but I think there was some kind of a lantern

and there was just a stream of people coming down the mountains so I let him up I looked back down the ridge and there's a stream of lights as far as I can see down the ridge coming up the guy

that's monitoring radio right then says sir you need to hear this he hands me the handset and I respond and what I hear is you are now a prairie fire emergency this is coming from Saughead gourd down in and Saigon being relayed to tell us that we are a prairie fire emergency and I'm thinking I didn't know that but I mean you know I'm looking now and seeing all these lights and I'm thinking yeah I think we're we probably are and we're carrying

a KY38 All right we have the most secure tactical radio that there is the kind that you have to set that gun with about 20 manual settings on it

to punch in the crypto code you have to have all the frequencies you have to have all the settings and then the guy monitored and radio says sir you need to hear this nothing

Now what? These guys are coming from everywhere, and he's got something else he wants me to listen to. And I pick up the handset, and I'm thinking, what do I hear? It's music. I'm hearing music coming over the handset. And then I hear this female NVA, whatever, start talking. And it dawns on me all of the sudden, this is funeral music. This is the obituary music. This is what I used to hear when I was little on my grandmother's radio every day, you know, at lunch, they'd do the news, but then they would do the obituaries for the people, you know, in that county or whatever that had died. And they'd read off your name and all the stuff and they'd have this music in the background. And this female is reading off

our obituary that we were killed in action that day and she reads my name off as Dick Thompson and I'm thinking there's only one person on this side of the world

who knows me as Dick that has any clue that that's my name and that was bargewell and I knew you know bargewell was someplace nobody had him

and she reads my name off as Dick Thompson reads off the name of every member that we had on the team all of us is being killed in action that day on the secure encrypted radio Saigon's listening

to this and thinking what is going on and I'm thinking what is going This isn't making me a little nervous. How did you know my name? How did they get on this frequency? And, you know, and then that goes away. So it's kind of got my attention now.

The bad guys are coming. So you start, you know, talking back and forth, you know, they've got a cubby out in the area now. So we start talking about, you know, what are options for getting us out of here because the weather's not that good. There are tons of North Vietnamese all around us. I've got this one woman who had just told us all that we were killed today.

I read our obituary. How did she get our names? Everyone is in shock and confused about, you know, what's going on? How did they know exactly where we were and they're coming at us? The weather's starting to roll in. And, you know, the clouds are slowly starting to come down the mountains so now I'm thinking I mean we're not going to be able to get air support they can't get aircraft in to extract us and I'm having this conversation now with

Covey about I need some options because these these guys are going to be here pretty soon and you know it's not going to be pleasant I mean we're loaded for bear but not for that many people not to be trapped in between them so finally they said you know one option might be combat sky spots. Well, that's F4 is coming out with 500-pound bombs, and, you know, you give them a coordinate, two or three thousand meters away from you.

They're flying by radar and being vectored by radar toward those coordinates. And then when the radar says you're at the right place to release the bomb, you release, you know, a bomb, and you see where it hits. So this is because it's a nighttime scenario. It's night. Well, it's night plus now the clouds are down on the mountain.

So he can't even see the mountain that we're on or the riddline. So, I mean, he's told. What was that technique called? Combat sky spot. Combat sky spot. So it's a, you know, it's a technique that's not used very often because it's not very accurate. Right. And, you know, only because this was a.

emergency situation, did they even approve it? And, you know, they said, you need to give us a set of coordinates that's, you know, two or three thousand meters away to start with. Let him put one bomb out there and let's see where it hits. And then we'll start to adjust. So I said, you know, that's all we got.

Let's do it. So it didn't take long until there's an L4 out in the area. And I actually, you know, using my emergency radio, I was able to talk directly to the L4, which you know you can't normally do.

And, you know, he told me that bombs away. It's going to be impact in about 20 seconds. You got to get your head down. I'm not sure what's going to hit. I'm thinking that's nice to know. So it goes off and, you know, it's a lot closer

than, you know, 3,000 meters. So I'm thinking I'm really glad I pushed it on out the airways. And it really wasn't on the, it wasn't on line with the ridge anyway. It kind of went over the ridge and down into the valley. But at least I knew approximately where it hit so I could start to adjust him some now.

So we started messing with that. That irritated the North Vietnamese. They were not happy that somebody was out there trying to draw the bomb on it. So we overheard radio transmissions saying, shoot them in the legs, take all the Americans prisoner. And we got a message coming out from Saigon. They were intercepting North Vietnamese transmissions

and said they plan to capture you. And they're going to try to wound you and take you. Okay, then we got to get these scuba. eye spots working for us here, get them in closer. And the bad guys are getting closer and closer. And so I start working them down. And, you know, I'm kind of behind a tree, and one of the bombs goes off. And a piece of shrapnel, you know, two and a half inches of a diameter,

comes out across the top of my head, goes into the tree, right in front of me and just cuts, you know, a line across the top of my head as it's going into the tree. And I'm thinking, that was close. I mean, that was pretty close. So, you know, I was behind the tree for a little while. Once it cooled down a little bit, I popped it out and I put it in my pocket. I still have it at home somewhere.

I wanted to bring it just a short to you. But, you know, so that creased the top of my head. Got my attention now. You know, they're serious about doing something. Eventually, we do some gun battles and stuff, and that's going on. Is it light yet? No, but it's getting close. When it finally did get light, there was a marine squadron that came out, a helicopter squadron

that came out with gunships. And I guess the leader came over close to where the ridgeline was and received so much ground fire and stuff from it. He told the rest of these guys back off. We're not going in there. There's too much ground fire. And then all of a sudden I get a call from

one of the gunship pilots. And he says, hey, I'm coming. No, don't come in here. If you try to fly up that ridge, you're going to have to go so low. You're going to fly wrong on the treetops and barely moving. You're going to have to almost be hovering, they're going to knock you down.

Don't come in here. We'll find a way. Don't come up here. He said, I'm coming. So. This was a helo? Yeah. A helicopter gunship? Marine Corps helicopter gunship?

So it wasn't but a few minutes. I could hear him coming, and it wasn't but a few minutes. And then I heard him, you know, I forgot his name now, Eagle Claw, something. Mayday, Mayday, we're hit. And, you know, we're going down. and, you know, so I talked to him a little more, and then he said, he sent out another May Day and said, you know, we're on fire, going down.

I'm going to try to make it to the river. So I think, this is not good. So, and he actually, he made it to the river, and it was kind of a deep, swift, flowing river, went in sideways. The pilot got out, the door gunner on that side, got out and the two of them got out. The crew chief on the side that went in first and the co-pilot didn't get out.

And one of the, I mean the guy, the door gunner got out was a good swimmer and stuff. So he jumped in the water and swam over there and went down to try to get him. the other gunner got out but the pilot couldn't get out and never saw the door gunner again he never came back up so they lost those those two guys too many bad guys in that area they couldn't go in to try to you know extract the two guys that didn't come up but they did get the the pilot and his door gunner out and so that wasn't a good scene so how far away we're was that from you, from your location? And they, their impact with the river was probably 3,000 meters.

Okay. So this is all in the vicinity of you. Yeah, it's all right around me. So they go in. And then, you know, we have a, we have a battle. And it's not looking good. There's too many of them. And we have no place to go.

So it eventually gets to the warrant where I'm talking back to Covey, talking to the L4s. And I asked him, do you have any cluster bomb units? Got any CDU on board? And he said they did. I said, put it on my position. And, you know, I don't know if you've seen cluster bomb units, but it's a big container and it's full small bomblets that are about the size of a grapefruit are a little bigger.

So it drops out about the count. The minister comes open and, you know, it just rains about 200 of those things down on you. So I just tell him. So how close? So the enemy was all around you at this point. I mean, I'm already at the point. I mean, for you to be called onto your position, that means you're about to be overrun. I'm looking around saying, oh, man, is this the last thing I want to see?

What time of day is it now? It's mid-morning. So it's mid-morning. So you guys had been in heavy contact the entire morning. the enemy's closing in on your position. They're making progress, obviously, because now you're getting to a point where you... Because we can't go up or down.

I mean, and the sides of the ridge are very steep, so we can't go down the ridge on the sides. And they're coming in, and I'm thinking, how long will I be able to keep pulling the trigger? I mean, once I start getting hit. Did you guys already blow your claymores, your perimeter claymores? Claymore's.

Claymore's are gone. I mean, they're coming, and I'm thinking. And you had 20 guys in this element about? Yeah. So the perimeter we're in, I mean, it's bigger than this, a little bigger than this room. So we're talking like 15 by 15 feet. Yeah, it's a fairly small perimeter.

And you guys are surrounded by, you know, in the thousands. In the thousands of hardened NVA regulars. Yeah. and they're coming. And, you know, I tell the pilot, make your first run, put it on us. If you don't hear me come back on a radio, then make your next pass and just level everything on this ridge because that means we're not here. So he told us, heads down, has coming in, and it rains all these things down,

and we had seven of them land. either inside the perimeter or right on the edge of the perimeter, none of them went off. None of them exploded. But they were exploding all around us. You know, and you could hear the screams and all this stuff because some of them were going off into trees, shrapnel was going everywhere,

and it broke their attack. Yeah, so I told them, they don't put another one on us. Yeah, that's working. You can back off a little bit now. So that's just divine intervention. Yeah. For there to be seven of those cluster bombs that land inside your perimeter and none of them go off. I mean, that just doesn't happen.

You might have one or two of them not go off somewhere, but not all the ones that are right there. And all the other ones do go off. And the others do go off. I mean, I don't know that there were some out there that it appears that they all went off. So they backed off. Things calmed down a little bit. So I had Bruce send some of his people. to look for a way down the ridge, could we go down somehow?

So a team went out and I got a call back saying, we just found the remains of another SOG team down on the side of the ridge here. And there's, you know, there's one body here, indigenous body. What do you want me to do? I said, well, we need to identify who the person is. So without going into detail, I just told him to take their appropriate action so he could be identified and bring that back with him to the team. So then we finally get some gunships working now because the weather's starting to lift up. We've got, I mean, we've been bombing, you know, quite a bit during the night.

So we start working down toward the LZ that we can't come in on. So we're going to try to get an extraction there. Ran into a small ambush, but, you know, that didn't last long. So we were able to keep going. Got down to the LZ and we're looking around, you know, looking for bad guys. But what I see is the tail fin sticking up out of the ground a couple of feet. It's a 500-pound bomb. sticking in the LZ

unexploded so now we're thinking are we going to bring a helicopter in here without bomb setting there unexploded? So, excuse me, so we told Covey this is what's going on.

We'd really like to get out of here because they're coming back. So we have some dialogue and they decided, okay, we're going to do their extraction because this is going to take five aircrafts. to get us out. So we started rotating them in, and

my team was going to be the last team out, so we've got the machine guns, placing fire out, trying to suppress the fire, the gun ships are suppressing fire, rotating those ships in, and we had so many gun ships and A1E's

on standby out there and just waiting on their turn to come in. It was unreal. But eventually, I think it was around 17,000, 1800, you know, we got out. So started at 2,100 the day before. And, you know, 1700, we finally got extracted and headed back. But we didn't, you know, get to go after the prisoners. So then the questions start. How could they know who was on the team? How could they have the frequencies? They had to have a K.Y.38. Where did they get that? So it was, I mean, to my knowledge, those questions were never answered. If they were answered, you know, we never found out how they managed to do that. You know, there was about a two-week delay between the time that we did the bright light mission for Dennis's team and us coming back.

Right. So, I mean, the mission had already been planned, and that had taken a couple of weeks. And then we get delayed a couple of weeks. So there was a leak somewhere. It had to be a leak in our compound. So the information got out. And I think when you were talking to Tilt, he was saying, you know, in late 69 and going into 70, whole teams are just disappearing.

And information was getting out somehow. I mean, they were getting smarter, but information was getting out and we were losing. teams. So that was a little unique because he didn't normally get your obituary. I mean, and there was one point. No, you don't normally get that. One point there we found out, actually we got back, we found that there was a point during the mission there where they had actually listed us as MIA. Because all the radio traffic they were picking up from the North Vietnamese, so they had us that we really wasn't there now. And all this body,

and stuff that it was going on. We wasn't there. And did anyone get wounded during that? Yeah, shrapnel. Shrapnel and stuff. No one was killed. But, you know, we trapped no one. I got the top of my head and cut.

And you got that qualification of calling a cluster bomb in on your position, which is a pretty rare one to walk away from. Yeah, and, you know, so I guess today, you know, and this day when I hear people saying let's ban cluster bombs we don't want to use cluster bombs I'm thinking man I'm glad that thing was around

at least one time yeah that's sort of the you know that's like the I don't always say the ultimate horrible situation it doesn't get any worse than when you are calling for airstrikes on your position that's that's the

absolute that that's the last thing you do right that's when you say we're going to be overrun, we're probably going to die. This is our last ditch effort. This is the ultimate of all Hail Marys. This is it. Call for fire on our position. And that's what you did.

And by the grace of God, those browns that hit inside your perimeter. That's the only way you can explain it. I'm telling you. Oh, and I'll give you one other. So I'm trying to get the last helicopter loaded and get my guys on it. And this one's going to sound strange too. But I'm standing right next to the helicopter. people on and I hear a voice that says drop, a loud voice that says drop. Without hesitation,

I just collapsed to my knees and as I did about a 10 round burst of machine gun rounds hit the side of the chopper right where my head was. I mean, a fraction of a second later, you know, I would have been decapitated. I mean, there were things like that happening, you know, throughout. And you think, where did this come from? Why? How's all this happening? It's beyond coincidence.

Yeah, it is. And, you know, it was definitely an interesting mission. I just, you know, very upset that, you know, we didn't get to go after the POWs. What's a prairie fire? What is it called? Prairie fire? Prairie fire, so the area of operations is, they would call it prairie. And then the prairie fire emergency was when there was a bad situation

to where these guys needed to get extracted. That's the prairie fire emergency. They couldn't afford for us to be captured or discovered. So whatever it took to make sure that we were not. and if you read the sog material you'll read about hear about that you know sometimes a team it's rumored at least that sometimes a b 52 strike was put on teams that disappeared to make sure there were no survivors I've been I've done bomb assessment damages after B 52 strikes I never had one put on me and you know this would have been

been a good time for them to put one out there if they were going to do that. But I don't know that that's true. But you know that you had volunteered to go on a mission where you can't, under any circumstances, be taken alive. So. You have another mission highlighted where it just says a prisoner snatch, 22 caliber pistol with a silencer. Did you ever get your prisoner? I never got one alive. At what point did your nickname or your codename turned to Terminator? Because I'm thinking it might have had something to do with this.

Yeah, it was actually after SOG on some other things I was doing. Oh, okay. You know, I had commanders, you know, starting with Dick Meadows that started this thing about, you know, you're the most

relentless person I've ever seen. You're the last person. person in the world I would want to have coming after me because you just want to stop. And, you know, I had other commanders, you know, after that saying the same thing. And after, you know, Terminator movie came out. Oh, they named that movie after you. Yeah. Got it.

But then, you know, the name all of a sudden was prominent. And, you know, so, you know, they said, your name's really, you know, Terminator. So I kind of hung on to that one. I use it as a race name when I do Iron Man competitions and stuff. And I had a good conversation when I was talking to Till, and he went through a lot of the scenarios that he described was he was talking about the dogs that would be coming after him. And, you know, I asked Till that said, do you like dogs? He says, I hate dogs.

I mean, he said it without a moment of hesitation. I said, what do you think of dogs now? He said, I hate dogs. and of course he also said his wife likes dogs and therefore they have dogs but are you are you scarred from from dogs as well no um even though i do have a robotic dog uh i've had a lot of dogs you know across the years but um you can deal with dogs i mean they tend to give you position away sometimes but um you know the 22 pistol with a silencer, it's still going to make some noise. But if the dog gets far enough away from the group, you know, you can take him out,

you know, with one of those. You can put out CS powder, you know, on the trail, and that really screws their smell up when they sniff that. So there are ways to deal with dogs, but, yeah, it scares you a little bit when you realize they're coming after you with dogs. I prefer trackers because I know how to get them. I don't miss trackers. They will step on one of my minds.

So the hardest trackers to get rid of or when they put three of them out there at different locations with a couple pieces of bamboo and they'll clack the bamboo over here and you'll hear that and you say, well, we're not going that way. So we start to turn this way. and if you go too far, you'll hear her clacking over on this side.

So they're actually channelizing. They're channeling you right into an ambush. You know that's going to happen. So it's hard to put out tow poppers or something for those guys because they're so far away from you. And you don't know where they're going to walk. You can't get to them. So that makes it more interesting how you're going to get away

because you know they're herding you right toward that ambush. What was the deal with the note you have in here about the 22, the hush puppy, 22 with the hush puppy, 22 with the silencer and the prisoner snatch. Was that just another failed prisoner snatch? Well, it was another technique. Yeah, I had trouble keeping them alive. But with the 22, I used a similar scenario as the ambush we were talking about,

where I had a, I shot the 22. I would shoot the guy in the thigh, and it would sting enough. it would cause them to drop their hands from their weapon, and then thumper, you know, would take him down. I'd hit the morphine in him, and, you know, that was the plan. You know, I hit the female artery one time with the 22. I mean, the whole leg there, and I hit the saved artery, you know, so the guy bled to death.

I mean, just little accidents like that that got in a way. And I didn't have, but one of the other teams, they had one, and he was alive. They were coming out on strings, and one of the little guys was holding the guy, and even though he'd been drugged up a little, he was just holding him, and they were at about 3,000 feet, and this guy started coming to and decided he was not going to be a prisoner. So he started kicking and squirming and biting the guy in the face, and the old guy said, okay.

I guess you wanted that option. Option two. Yeah. And he just turned him loose and watched him disappear into the canopy. So that was somebody else's bad luck on it. That wasn't mine. But, yeah. And at this point, you've got to be close to your one-year run over there.

And are you starting to feel any of the short-time mentality? Or you starting to think, oh, this is the last mission, when's the last one? Are you starting to feel that at all? I started to feel not so much of the last mission, but I started to feel like, I mean, they hit this compound from time to time. So I'd been over there, you know, a year. So I go to the supply room and I say, I'd like to sign out a flack jacket and a steel pot. And they're saying, what? I said, next time the siren goes off and we head for the bunkers, I'm going to have one with a flack jacket and steel pot.

There you go. So I don't have long left, and I don't want to, you know, somebody's lucky shot to take me out. How many, what was that? Like last month you were there? Yeah, the last few weeks. You're thinking, I've made it this far. I'm not going to get hit by a piece of frag in the compound. Because you would see people.

I had another friend of mine that had been with for a long time before Sogg. He only had a couple weeks left before he was going home. And they had a mission come up. and he volunteered to go on it. And I said, Pete, what are you doing? He got two weeks, man. He said they need a platoon leader to go out with his company. So I'm going to do it, and then I'm out of here.

That was his last mission. You know, so you see people like that. So I try not to think of anything as this is my last one. This is what I'm going to do this week of whatever. it's not my last one but I did think about yeah when I'm running to that bunker maybe a still pot in the flat deck it would be okay you know it's night it's relatively cool so I'll be all right so how did it how did the deployment end so I finished up and left there went back down to in the train you know to process out they

told me, no, you're going to be stuck here for a couple weeks or so before we can get you on a plane home. So I went over to the SF headquarters and I said, I need help. So there was an NCO there, said, what can I do for you? I said, I need to get on the plane tonight. He said, let me see what I can do. So I go out and party with some other guys that I know and, you know, about 2 o'clock in the morning. Somebody's knocking on my door and this guy's there saying, I need you to get over.

I forgot what they call the place you had to go through, but you need to get over there right away so they can process you through and get you on the plane. So are you a captain now at this point? No. No, first lieutenant. You're still a first lieutenant. At this point, are you thinking you're staying in the Army? I'm thinking I may stick around for a while. I mean, because you, you know, I had thought it was going to be three years, but when you get into an organization, that has the latest, greatest gadgets and missions and Espri de corps. I mean, you can't just walk away from there. I mean, that's hard to do.

We're way going to walk to. Yeah. It's all downhill from there. There's nothing else. It's like the guys that come back from walking on the moon. Now what are you going to do? Yeah. So, I mean, we had everything from the little tiny grenades,

much bigger than a jawbreaker that they gave us, a test. I had a rocket pistol. Rocket this was a little expand. It was like a little tin gun that you probably played with when you were a kid

that you stick a cork in the end of it and you squeeze the little trigger and it pops the cork out on a little string. This thing popped out a 50 caliber round with a rocket in the back of it. And I mean

they gave us this and you know I thought, well, this is cool. He doesn't make much noise. It sounds like shooting a bottle rocket. Just a whoosh. And this, I mean, this thing is big as your thumb. And it's solid steel.

I mean, on the outside, still case. What did they build it for? What was the purpose of it? To be something really quiet that had a tremendous penetrating power. So like you would take a vehicle out with it or something? Not a vehicle, but, you know, it'd go right through a vest. I mean, unless I was right here. If I shot you with it right here, it would bounce off of you.

Because it wouldn't have reached the speed yet. It takes about 10, 15 feet to build up the speed. But beyond that, I mean, I shot it through two by fours. I mean, you just couldn't stop it. But, you know, again, I tried to use it. And I figured I'll take this guy out because it's going to be really quiet. And so I get it up. And, you know, it's night.

And I go, click. And you can hear the click. no rocket you know so one of the other guys had to take him out because this thing didn't work so they got rid of those because they had you know such a malfunction rate with them i mean go google it go rocket pistol rocket pistol i mean their videos out there of people shooting them and you know trying to make them work sometimes they work sometimes they don't so you're around your is this around your three year mark you must be around the three or had you already re-enlisted or were you was realistment coming up?

Well, because I went to OCS, then I incurred, you know, extra time. Okay. So I had to stick around. And if I was going to accept captain, you know, I had to go indefinite. So. So the weird thing is you're in Vietnam, you're in SOG, you're conducting these crazy operations. You barely live through this. And then you all of a sudden, 2 o'clock in the morning, you're still drunk,

probably you get, and somebody knocks on your door and says, hey, you're going home. Yeah. So then I get on, I go down and get on the plane. You know, you're going through a little security thing, and the guy says, what's that in your pants? Yeah. And I said, you mean this? And he said, yes. And I said, it's a war troughy.

And he says, okay, I put it back down in my pants, and I got on that civilian aircraft, and off I go. and thinking nobody's going to hijack this thing. Yeah, that ain't going to happen. You know, got off the plane with it in San Francisco or, I think it was San Francisco, or LA, one of the two, and went right on through there. Of course, you didn't have the security checks and things like you have now. So now you're in either San Francisco, you're somewhere in California, you're whatever, you're 48 hours or 72 hours or something,

less than a couple days, few days out of the bush. How's that transition? It's tough. I mean, it's a different world back here. Aside from the protest and all that, it's just a totally different environment, different world. I've come from the wild west. I've come from a world where I didn't have all these rules,

of engagement that you have now. The rule of engagement was if I see you, I kill you. You know, if I run across somebody out in the area of operations, I terminate them. That's it. You're a bad guy. You don't have to have a weapon. You don't have to be doing anything, you know, aggressive toward me. I just have to see you because you're not supposed to see me.

So if I let you see me, then, you know, I basically signed your death one. And now I'm in a world where you can't, there were rules, there are laws, there are all kinds of things. You can't do that. And what did the Army, I guess this is a loaded, what did the Army do to help you reintroduce, reintegrate to being back in America? At that point, the reintegration was, here's your next assignment, you're going to be a ranger instructor in a ranger department. Okay. And I'm saying, okay, I can do that. I mean, I wanted to be a ranger instructor.

So I got that particular job, and I thought, you know, I've got maybe eight months at the most before I'm going to be back. So what better place to put me than as a ranger instructor going out and evaluating ranger students on, you know, small patrols, tactics, all that kind of stuff. and having a journal saying, here's how I can prove this technique that I used in SOG. Here's how I can practice slipping up on people more. I can improve all the techniques that I've been using there. I can go improve them. I can spend more time at a range shooting,

improve my marksmanship skills, my listening skills, my night movement skills. I can go out and work on this stuff for eight months, journal it, and when I get back to SOG, I'm going to be a better SOG guy than I was when I was there before. Well, I'll tell you what, we've been going for another two hours and 40 minutes. We're going to pick up with your Ranger instructor period of your life on the next podcast. Okay, good. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you for having. And yeah, I think that's not just thanks for coming on. It's thanks for everything. We'll talk to you on the next podcast. Thank you. Thank you, Ech. Well, once again, Colonel Henry Dick Thompson has left the building and has once again left me in a complete sense of awe

because we're talking about just absolute insanity. And the fact that the men of SOG did what the men of SOG did and the fact that the fact that we get to sit here and talk to some of them is just unbelievable. Because who survives what he did? Who survives what Tilt did? Who survives what the Frenchman did? Not many. And that's something that we need to remember as awesome as it is to sit here and hear these. stories remember that they're not just stories that these were people's lives and

these were people's deaths and so many of these men did not return and they gave their lives so that we can live ours and here we are forever indebted to them to their sacrifice oh I know that that we cannot ever ever repay them we can't it's just it's impossible but what we do know is that the best we can do to attempt to repay them is to live our lives every day in a way that venerates their sacrifices so don't just live just instead be everything that you are capable. So,

echo, I guess that being everything we are capable of being, starts out with us just, you like that word capable. Yes. You went through a whole, like, you went through a whole,

capable thing. A whole, yeah, a whole kind of thing, yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things that you, You kind of like... You latched on to something that I said. Yes. But then you kind of... You kind of adjusted it.

So it made sense to you. Yeah. In a clear way. Yeah. And I would say even more accurately put... Like where I latched onto it, exactly good way putting it. I latched onto it.

And then just sort of like... You know how you go down that wormhole more and more and more and more. So you're just... You ran with it. Yeah. And that and... Playing the long game versus the short game. That's another.

And those are the two for sure. because that's really what it kind of is. It's almost like every decision you make, most decisions that you make are going to land on like one of those things. Like, okay. And a lot of times both of them. So you're like, okay, am I going to play the long game here or the short game? And that's everything pretty much.

And then the other one, do I want to be capable or comfortable? Right. That's the other two. Like, okay. And if you can kind of keep that in your mind, your decision making would be a lot better for yourself, you know. It's interesting, though, this little play on words a little bit. That's a little bit of a play on words I just said, right?

If you want to be everything you're capable of being, well, it starts with just being capable in the first place. Yes. Where do we need to be capable? And how can we improve our capabilities? Physically, mentally and emotionally. Spiritualally? And spiritually, I think yes.

Because some people will tell you, no, not spiritually. Really? Well, then again, what is depends on what you mean? Let me tell you. Jiu Jitsu will definitely help you in all. all aspects. Let's think about this, pragmatically, confidence. If you know Jiu-Jitsu, you will be more confident. Now, you'll start off by taking a little bit step back in confidence. Because when you very first start training, you're going to be overwhelmed by the fact that you're

going to be scared of everyone looking at him going, wait, this guy might know Jiu-Jitsu and then they can beat me. But then after a little while, you go, oh, okay, no, cool. Even if this person knows Jiu-Zitsu, I at least know what to do a little bit. Yes, exactly. So confidence. is definitely to help you. Stress relief. We talked about that last time. It's definitely going to help you. Capability is definitely to help you.

Yeah. So it's going to help you across the board. Social aspect is going to help you. Okay, go ahead. Sorry. Back to Dr. Thompson. And, you know, all the sod guys where, well, actually a lot of guys that we've talked to or whatever,

I kind of trip out like when I go home in this, in a lot of ways, but in this particular way where, you know how like in the movies, where you got the guy and he's almost about to get killed. Yeah. Right? But in the back of your mind, you're like,

unless this movie is going to kill this character, which they're not, if it's the main character. Right. Unless it's way at the end and that's a different story. But, you know, it's in the middle of the movie or whatever, and he's about to get found out by the bad guys.

Can you get found and killed or whatever? You're like, okay, this is good the way they presented and everything, and it's suspenseful, but the back of my mind, like they're not going to kill this guy, you know?

So you kind of get that feeling, when they're telling this story, but it's like a real story. Yeah, and that's why, that's why, you know, when I was thinking about this, like, it's cool, it's so awesome to sit here and talk to these guys that lived. Yeah. But you have to remember that there's countless guys that the exact scenario that these guys went through where, oh, the bullet went two inches to the left instead of two inch to the right, and that guy is dead.

The helicopter got hit with this, the helicopter crashed. It's like it's just it's that's why it's such a miracle that these guys are sitting here talking to us. Yeah. And that's what I mean. Then that's why I'm actually tripping out because sure, we know the guy live because he's sitting right here. We know that part of it. But when he takes you back to the moment, bro, we really don't know if this guy is going to live or not. Yeah.

I mean as far as to himself, you know. And then I trip out even more. I kind of go down a little wormhole like, man, this is just how impossible this is. Not impossible. Maybe that's not the right word, but it kind of feels like the right word. but just how weird this is where let's say you went back in time and visited you know tilt or whoever and said hey this is what you're going to do and these very specific things are going to happen and you're going to live even him himself would be like I don't know if that's possible you know yeah for sure meanwhile it's factually happened yeah man yeah it kind of puts a lot of things in perspective yeah yeah it's it's crazy the those guys are just unbelievable and that story from from dick thompson that I read today just going in to rescue with no plan with no somebody else's

weapon it's just like completely just dropping 15 feet into 150 foot of jungle canopy falling through the trees until you luckily hit a branch. By the way, if you hit the ground without hitting anything, you just die. Straight up, just die. Yeah. And so, yeah, these guys are just, they're just awesome. They're awesome human beings. Yep, yeah.

And then you kind of, you sort of see them sitting across you and you're like, and just there he is. Yeah. This is the guy who did that for real stuff, you know? Yeah. What about those old pictures? tilt when tilt's like 20 22 years old you just look at those ago that's like the coolest guy ever and you see pictures of all these guys the Frenchman with his with his legs all taped up

and you see Dick Thompson Dick Thompson was like y'all was he a first lieutenant I thought it was cool on the first podcast when I was asking about how like when you volunteered was there any resistance he's like no he's volunteering to be an officer in vietnam the life of expectancy was a couple weeks. They're like, oh, you want to be an officer? Cool. Step right over here into this line. Oh, you want to be, go to Ranger's schools.

Cool, step into this line. Oh, you want to be special forces? Cool. Step into this line. Oh, you want to go to SOG? Cool, no problem. Step over here. There's zero resistance.

Zero resistance for him to go and do what he wanted to do because the life expectancy of every one of those. It's just like volunteer to volunteer to, to be dead. Yeah. And there's no resistance. It's good. So. Man, it's, yeah.

It's crazy, man. Well, very capable people we're talking about here. Yeah. Mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. 100%. The last, back to Jiu-Jitsu, yes. Covers all those things, and we should be doing this in my opinion. So we need Gis when we do Jiu-Jitsu because that's part of the uniform.

We get an origin geese. Don't even have to ask that. question. No longer a question. No longer a question. Origin gee. Go to origin main.com. Boom. Pick whatever ghee you want. Easy money. Also, we also have rash guards on there. Other clothing items. Yeah. Because you want to represent, you know, being in an American-made clothing. But you can't wear your ghee to the store. Unfortunately. I mean, you could technically. You could technically. But usually the cutoff for that or is around 11 years old. Yes.

My little 10 year old daughter, she's walking around in the key, no factor. No one's going to say nothing. Yeah, no one says anything to her. She's not like, she's not like walking around trying to be proved that she's a jiu jitsu player. I mean, it's kind of evident that she's a jitsu player because she is wearing a ghee. But, you know, it's no

factor. She'll go to dinner with a gea on. You know what I mean? Well, you know, okay. I guess it depends. Circumstantially. She's 10 years old. I think her cut off is 11. Yes. When she turns 11, she'll probably be like, oh, I'm going to take off my ghee right now. Yeah, well, if you come straight from Jiu-Jitin, you're like, hey, let's pick up some dinner and you're hanging out. She's not going, hey, we're going out for dinner from the house.

Let me put my gear on. No, she's not doing that. I wouldn't be bothered if she did. You know what I mean? My son wore a dang, a dang Superman uniform for like two straight years when he was, you know, five years old, five and six. Just wearing a dang Captain America outfit just walking around. go to school with that. It had the muscles in it. You know what I mean? Oh, dang, the actual costume.

Yeah, yeah, straight costume. He's just walking around, you know, whatever. Cool, man. I dig it. And my other daughter wore a dang tutu. You know what that is? It's like a ballerina outfit, a ballerina uniform. When she wore that thing all the time. Whatever. Yeah. She's just no factor.

So, what I'm saying is, a little bit different. When you get past age 10, maybe 11, you don't want to wear your ghee to the store, to the restaurant. But you still in your heart you want to represent. You're good because we got origin genes. Yes, sir.

You've got the origin genes. You can get the regular weight genes or you can get the Delta 68 genes, which are, I guess they're the Jocko signature model. Yeah, maybe, but if they're thinner, right? They're thinner, yeah. Well, technically isn't that a fashion thing? I'm not saying this particular thing is the fashion thing.

I'm saying being thinner. Fashion jeans tend to be thinner. Okay, well, I don't know about that. What I do know is this. I live in California. It's warmer here. We don't always need to wear thicker jeans. So we get jeans that are lightweight,

just like when you're in the military, which you weren't, so you wouldn't know anything about field camis, about how they used to have woodland camis, they had lightweight and they had a heavyweight. You don't know about that. So I do. So guess what we have?

Lightweight jeans. And I'll say the other ones are medium. normal, the other genes are just normal genes. Yeah. The, the Delta 68, named after my forefathers in the SEAL teams that wore genes in the May Kong Delta. Is it 68 for the year? Yeah.

That's a good name. Yeah, I know. Delta 68. Yeah. So get the Delta 68 genes if you need something that's a little bit lighter weight. Not for fashion. I guess if you're Echo Charles, you can do it for fashion. But if you're a normal human.

Fashion too. Potentially, we'll just say, look, you know Pete sprinkled some fashion in there. You know that already. Factually. You got to watch him like a hawk. Yes. No, but there's no fashion on the Delta 68 genes. Are you sure about that?

Yeah, I'm positive. All right. Well, I'm going to, when I get my Delta 68 genes, if that ever happens, I'm going to make an evaluation and I'll report back. But my hypothesis is that if Pete has anything to do with it, which incidentally he does, He sprinkled some fashion Believe me I got to watch that guy like a sniper

Because he will constantly try and throw some Here's the benefits You know Who's the benefit? I'm surprised they're not bell bottoms Okay So you You're bringing them back

Yeah I dig it And you're correct You're not wrong You're right But you're like you know You eat steak right What do you put on your steak? Steak

Like what do you put on there You put salt and pepper On there Or what? Okay okay So pretty basic salt and pepper Right. So you know people they'll put like a special seasoning. They got their special rub, right? Are you with that? Or are you just like, whatever? Or you're just like, hey, don't do that. I'm not anti. I'm not hating them, but I'm not, it seems unnecessary to me. Okay. So here's the comparison that what Pete does with fashion, what people could do with steak. Let's say you're the kind of person who's like salt and pepper. That's my jam. Don't touch my steak otherwise. Medium or me or whatever, however you like to cook, salt and pepper, that's all. You put your stupid rub, your seasoning on it. it, you're messing up my whole steak.

You know, people are like that. Yeah, yeah. And I dig it, man. That's, you know, that's your thing. Pete is the kind guy who will be like, hey, no problem. I got you. Salt and pepper, that's it. But he knows confidently that if he put some of that special rub on there, you'll

like it. Yeah. As far as you're concerned, you're like, nope, don't touch it. And then he'll be like, okay, I got you. He does. You're 100% accurate. Yes. He will do that.

Yeah. And there's been times for I've been like, bro. He put too much seasoning on there. Stop. Stop what you're doing. But I think, I think he sneaks it in there. He does a good job. And then when you taste the steak, you're like, dang, Pete makes a great steak, not even realize he snuck in the rub.

Yeah. That's what he does with the fashion with you. I hope he doesn't hear this, which I know he will. He's going to get excited about it and think he can sneak in more. You can't, Pete. I'm watching you like a sniper. Yes. I got eyes on, bro. So the jeans.

I say, Pete, do what you do, bro. Do it. just don't take it too far. Yeah, the jeans are good. And this is how I know about the jeans, too, because when I put them on, it's like, okay, my wife is kind of critical. She's from the Pacific Northwest, my wife.

So she knows about just functional genes for work and like all that stuff. She's just, but she's, you know, she's not. Lumberjacket. Yeah, you know, she's done. And she gets it. I'm speaking for her, by the way. But she doesn't like it.

She doesn't like the look. He reminds her, you know, those are dad jeans and, you know, my dad's a worker or whatever. She doesn't like the look is what I'm saying So I put on the origin jeans If she didn't like them she would tell me 100%. She probably wouldn't even let me be seen with her

Which I can respect on a certain level And she even said those jeans look good. Interesting. So Matt approved. In my household, approved. Looks like Pete, line the spice right for Echo's jeans. Yeah, perfect. Also, what else does origin have?

They have supplements, obviously. Keep us off. track in the game even when you get older if you're old school and you ask am I too old to join Jiu-suitz? Nope I was working with a tech company yesterday and they were talking about age and everyone there was young and they were like saying like no no there's some older people here like late 40s and I'm like hey how's it going that's pretty funny but yes uh here's the thing One thing that can help you is these supplements, joint warfare curloyal. Discipline, discipline go.

They're definitely beneficial. If you think you might forget, first of all, take more discipline. But second of all, subscribe. You can do the subscription thing on origin, main.com, and then you just get, it just shows up. Just make it a standard operating procedure. Done. Then you don't fall off. You know how long I've gone without joint warfare for?

Never. I take it every day. Dang that's good thing. Same with krill oil. You mentioned forgetting. So you know how like you, when I forget to take it, like you kind of look at me crazy. Like, bro, how do you forget? Standard operating.

Yeah, it's not hard to forget. It's by the toothpaste. Or one might argue, oh, it's not important to you. Right. But it's not really true because if you're in a certain routine and this goes to your point where if you don't roll that into your routine, you will forget, even if it's important Because there's certain times of the day or certain times of moments in life or whatever that you do like bro, you know when you're driving When you're driving home, bro, you'll forget the whole experience of driving home because you're thinking all the stuff like routinely or whatever and you're like oh shoot I don't remember one single moment of driving home really

You just did it automatically. And yet you lived you lived. Yes, what? Living's not important. Well, no driving home's not important. Yeah, it's very important, but it's just so routine. See what I'm saying? So like I said, if taking the krill oil joint joint warfare is not rolled in. into your routine, you can potentially forget it. So, roll it into your routine. Subscribe. And you actually save money if you subscribe too. So do that. Don't forget about the ready to drink cans. You don't need to drink these hyped up energy drinks anymore that are literally not good

for you. You can now drink something that is good for you. Yeah. Taste delicious. Gives you a little, you need that little head. It's a milder taste, too, than the energy drink scenario. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it kind of allows you, I mean, I'm assuming this is why it allows you to drink like more of them.

Be careful with it, I'm saying, but you know the kind where you drink two of the, we'll say, for lack of better term, traditional energy drinks? You drink two of those, you don't feel good afterwards. No, you feel like crap. Even if you're into energy drinks, typically. Yeah, you kind of feel junk. Those are just like, man, you can kind of have one going. Yep. Like kind of old.

Gosh, so good. Yeah, and don't forget about milk, all different kinds of protein desserts. Just straight desserts for you, for your, wore your kid milk, for your kids, get some of that. And then we got the white tea. Going to get you through the winter months with the warm white tea and get the canned white tea. And, of course, the benefit is 8,000 pound dead left. But we already know that. Yep.

Also, speaking of benefits, kind of, jocco's store. It's called jocco store. That's where you can get shirts. Why is that beneficial? Because it's speaking of benefits. Now, I thought what you were going to say is there's a guy that said, his wife said to him, what do you want for your birthday? And he said, there's a store.

It's called Jocco store. And she was like, check. In my mind, she said check. She probably didn't. She probably said, okay, what's that? Yeah, let me go look into it. Anyway, she looked into it. Yeah, good.

And this is where, yeah, you can get shirts. It is benefit. Because especially nowadays, like you can get, bro, you can, I think nowadays, I don't say the word fashion necessarily, but I'm saying, but what you wear has, you know, what you wear. We're going to shut down the store. What you wear, it's not, it's not a fashion store. But what you wear is like, you have many options, right? Like in life, I'm saying, you can wear just a blank shirt if you want. You know, so you kind of look for a little bit more than just the, well, I guess you kind of look for a lot of things.

Anyway, one of the things that this, as far as this stuff that you can get, it kind of is representative of a certain, how should I say? Not message, but a certain discourse. Okay. Yeah. So anyways, what you can get is T-shirts, rash guards, hats, sweatshirts, hoodies. But not just any T-shirt, though, is what I'm saying. Good quality ones. Good quality.

You're 100%. Yes, given. But, you know, there's a little added layer to what you're wearing. Is there a placebo effect when you wear a shirt that says discipline equals freedom? Yes. Does it affect your mentality? Technically, yes, it is, I guess, technically a placebo effect, but that's how, right? Or is it just a real effect?

It's a real effect. Well, placebo effect is a real effect. Yeah, that's true. I'm saying. It's kind of like hypnosis or something like this. Yeah. Right. That's a real effect too.

Most of the time, sometimes it's just a show. But the effect, the result is real. That's where we get the 19% increased strength and performance. And mental acuity. Yes. With the rash card with the t-shirts. Yeah. Actually, we're up to 22% now.

Okay. Yeah, that happened last year, late last year. And yeah, up 22% improved everything mental. physical and spiritual and social, by the way. Okay. With all these items. Anyway, chocolate store.com shirts, t-shirts, rash cards, uh, hoodies, hats, beanies.

I said all this stuff, bro. Well, there's your reminder. Boom, jococor.com. Also, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. If you want. There you go. Stitcher. iTunes and whatnot.

Also. If there's not enough of this podcast to listen to, which really means you have a long commute, you can also check up the grounded podcast, which is a different podcast that we do. It's called Grounded. Yes. We talk about Jiu-Jitsu, life, experience, humor, and other things. And other things. And here's a good element. I like you to back me up on other things.

It's true. It's true. because there are some elements of that that I did notice that, you know how there's like issues, not necessarily controversial. You're super hype on the grounded podcast. Yes, because. I think it's because you kind of like feel like you're a little bit of the star of the ground. No, I don't feel like I'm a star at all.

Actually, I feel like that you will allow me, maybe not anymore, but you will allow me to introduce elements to it that kind of have two sides to it, you know? And then you can, you can kind of see, okay, where do people, where do people fall on this issue? Not important issues, by the way. But so yes, I am, what did you say, hyped? You're hyped. You're hyped. Yeah, you're hyped.

You sit around and listen to the grounded podcast and like rewind and replay your parts again? No, bro. No. Anyway, how about this? Let's just say I highly recommend that one. Okay. Good. Don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast.

We've got some new episodes coming your way. We'll say in the near future. And don't forget to get some warrior kid soap. You can support an actual warrior kid out there running a business, young Aden, making soap so that you can stay clean, Irish Osh Ranch.com. Also, YouTube, you're interested in the video version of this podcast. Do you want to see what Dick Thompson looks like? Well, yeah. Yes, or anyone, you know, anyone on the podcast that we interview or each other, if you didn't know,

Jock looks like. Yeah. And then we have psychological warfare, which is a little mental support, psychological support. If you find yourself in a moment of weakness, you can just press play on your,

on your phone. And you'll get to listen to a little guidance from me. That's available on Google Play, iTunes, mp3 platforms of all kinds. If you need a visual reminder to stay on the path,

check out flipside canvas. from my brother Dakota Meyer podcast 115 by the way He makes these things here in America you go to flipside canvas.com to get one books got some books First of all stress effect again we haven't hit it yet But the next podcast with Colonel Dick Thompson we will be covering the stress effect So you can get that book it's on the website It's also on Amazon, but you can click through our website, joccopodcast.com, and then you can get the book, The Stress Effect.

And then there's Leadership Strategy and Tactics. This is my new book I have coming out, which is actually very granular. Here's a little section from it. Part two. This is just from the contents, part two. Leadership tactics. One, becoming a leader. How to succeed is a new leader.

How to be chosen to lead. when you're not chosen. Imposter syndrome. Insecurity as a leader. Transitioning from follower or peer to leader. Overcoming a grudge. New sheriff in town. Don't go overboard.

Rambo. So there's some topics that are in the new leadership strategy and tactics book. If you want to get a copy of it, try and get a first edition. You need to order it right now. Because otherwise, when it comes out, January 14th, Amazon's going to send you a note that says, You go, oh, cool, Jocko's book came out today. I'm going to order it. You'll go on there.

It'll say, it's shipping in three to eight weeks. And you're going to go, what is wrong with the logistics train? Jocco's horrible. And I'll say, yeah, I know. I didn't do a good job of convincing you when you needed to order the book. So I failed. So let me not fail by getting on there and helping me to help you. And then, of course, we got the Warrior Kid books.

one, two, and three, these are books with that, I wish I had when I was a kid. And I promise you, when you read it, you say, I wish I would have had this book when I was like, you might even be in a full-on adult and say, I wish I learned these lessons. Way the Warrior Kid 1, Way the Warrior Kid 2, Mark's Mission,

and Way the Warrior Kid, 3, where there's a will. So check those out. If you've got a little kid in your life somewhere, a little bit younger, maybe six years old, five years old, seven years old, years old, get a Mikey and the Dragons. They're actually going to learn a pragmatic technique to overcome fear, which if you remember being a little kid, life is filled with fear. So how do you overcome that? You get Mikey and the Dragons. That's what you do. Discipline equals freedom

field manual. There's the Christmas present. There's the Christmas present you want to get for someone that maybe drifted off the path. Maybe they're having a hard time. Maybe life isn't going good. maybe they could do better. Maybe you know that discipline would help them in their life. Get them the discipline equals freedom field manual. Simple as that. And then for leadership, we got extreme ownership. We got dichotomy of leadership.

I wrote those with my brother Lafabbat. It's about what we learned on the battlefield and how you can apply it to your life to win, to your business, to win, to your company, to win. I also have a leadership consultancy. It's called the echelon front. and what we do is we solve problems through leadership. That is what we do. So go to echelonfront.com for details. If you want to have someone from the team come and speak at your company,

don't go to a speaker's bureau. No, you go to echelonfront.com. You cut out the middleman and you go right to the company. That's what we do. You don't need to Google Jocco speaker because you're going to get some, you'll see Eschlonfront. You won't know what it is maybe and you go click on someone else.

And then they charge you a big chunk of money on top of what I'm going to charge you. Don't do that. Go to echelonfront.com. We also have online training because leadership training is not an inoculation. You don't get one shot and now you're good to go. No. It takes time. It takes reps.

Get the reps in. See it again. See it from a different angle. EFonline.com. And then we got muster dates coming for 2020. go to extreme ownership.com. This is our leadership seminar, our leadership conference. Come and check that out.

And of course, EF Overwatch and EF Legion. These are our placement platforms where we are taking military personnel and putting them into civilian organizations so that they can help those organizations lead at every level and win. Go to EFoverwatch.com or EFlegion.com. That is what you need. is leadership.

And if you need more of us, or you have questions for us, or you have answers for us, you can find all of us on the interwebs. Dick Thompson is on Twitter at HPS underscore CEO and at HPSYS.com, high-performance systems.

That's his company. And of course, we are also on Twitter, Instagram, and deep phrasing box echo is at echoed charles and i am at jocco willink and once again sincere thanks and appreciation to dick thompson for coming on this program and sharing his lessons with us and of course we thank him for his incredible service and sacrifice to our great nation and that goes to all the rest of our servicemen and women who stand the watch against evil and against tyranny

so that we can be here living in freedom into our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service and all the first responders all of you that are out there risking your lives for us thank you for standing the watch over us here at home so we can sleep safely at night. And everyone else out there, ask yourself that question.

What are you capable of being? What are you capable of being? And are you doing everything in your power to be the most capable human being you can be? I know when I asked myself that question. I know the answer. I know I can do more. I know I can't. We can all do more. And that starts each and every day. By getting up, going on the attack, and getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.