Jocko Podcast - 248: If You Think You're Hot Sh*t, You Don't Know Sh*t. SOG Chronicles with TILT, John Stryker Meyer

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening 0:07:10 - John Stryker Meyer. SOG Chronicles. 2:18:57 - Final Thoughts and take-aways. 2:34:59 - How to Stay on THE PATH 2:54:51 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 248 with Echo Charles and me, Jocker Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. As the summer of 1970 evolved, the deadly secret war in Laos raged into its sixth year. The communist NVA and its secret advisors from Russia, China, and Cuba continued supplying growing numbers of light and heavy weapons, state-of-the-art anti-aircraft artillery, missiles, and vehicles. The communist campaign against Saag reconnaissance teams resulted in the green berets exceeding a 100% casualty rate. Meaning of the special forces soldiers who went across the fence into Laos and Cambodia, all were either killed in action, wounded more than once in combat with enemy forces, or they simply disappeared. As of July 4th, 2017, there are 50 green berets listed as missing in action in Laos alone from the Secret War,

along with 105 aviators who died supporting SOG missions. Sog hatchet force operations of platoon or company-sized missions didn't fare much better. In an effort to bring a temporary halt to shipping supplies flowing down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, three separate hatchet force slam operations were conducted in Laos, west of South Vietnam, between March 1969 and February 1970. The area of operations was codenamed Prairie Fire. Again, due to the severe political constraints placed on SOG operations, the Prairie Fire Area of Operations extended west of South Vietnam about 30 miles.

No SOG teams went beyond that area of operations. The three slam operations were titled Nightcap, Spin Down, and Halfback. Each of those operations had a hatchet force company helicoptered to a hilltop on the main segment of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The trips would dig in, set up ambushes, and target NVA trucking. After the lead trucks were hit, there would be a traffic backup. Along the jungle trail Oftentimes large portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail were not visible from air due to clever camouflage efforts by the NVA and their conscripted forced labor of local indigenous tribe people

Thus when the first trucks were hit hatchet force radio operators would call in tactical air support to destroy as many enemy trucks and soldiers as possible Eventually after After a few days, the NVA masked hundreds of soldiers to hammer the hatchet force positions, inflicting serious casualties upon the entrenched troops, forcing their extraction from the area of operations. During the last mission, Operation Halfback, an H-34 South Vietnamese Air Force helicopter from the 219th Special Operations Squadron was shot down, killing all passengers aboard the old warbird, including Special Forces medic, Sergeant First Class Bill Doyle.

Those operations were viewed as successes due to the amount of enemy trucks, supplies, and troops destroyed during the intense battles. The three slam operations were launched from the top secret SOG base in Contum, command and control central. The last slam operation was run by B Company in Hatchet Force Command.

By the end of August 1970, Greenbrae Captain Gene McCarley became the commander of B Company. McCarley was a SOG veteran, having run missions during the last few months of 1967 and into 1968, when he was assigned to RT, Florida, out of Contum in 1968. RT Florida ran a series of successful missions, including a trail watch, wiretap, of NVA phone lines and planning Air Force sensors alongside a trail. At the end of August, McCarley heard through the grapevine that a major hatchet force operation was coming through the chain of command and he volunteered B Company for it. Assuming it might be another slam operation, McCarley researched the after-actions reports from the previous missions. He talked to team members in camp about those operations.

their successes, their shortcomings. In the first days of September 1970, the operations order came down and was assigned to B Company under the command of McCarley. It was dubbed Operation Tailwind. And much to McCarley's surprise, Operation Tailwind was targeted for the deepest insertion into Laos

ever by a SOG team, 25 to 30 miles beyond the normal area of operations. The operation was designed to take pressure off a CIA operation further southwest bordering Cambodia. Because of the unique nature of this mission, McCarley drew upon his years of operational experience in Laos for a daring new tactic. Instead of remaining in a static position like the earlier slam missions, once the full element B Company, 15 Green Berets, and 120 highly trained Montengarde tribesmen were on the ground

in the deepest penetration of enemy territory during the secret war, he would move day and night, supported by air assets from the Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps. It would be an epic mission. In hindsight, 47 years later, although no one said so at the time, most agreed. It was a suicide mission. And that right there is from the prologue of a book called Sog Chronicles, Volume 1, written by John Stryker Meyer, otherwise known by his nickname and codename and call sign, Tilt. And it is once again an honor to have Tilt here with us, as he has been here before for podcasts. 180, 181, 182, 186, 247, and now 248.

And if you haven't listened to those yet, go listen to them to understand what SOG was and what heroes these men were, including this man, my hero. John Stryker Meyer, Tilt, thanks for coming back on. Good evening, sir. Good evening. Welcome. Thanks for coming back. It's my honor. So this is just a story that you and I had talked about some of the different stories that we've covered.

And, you know, you've kind of, I guess you kind of somehow ended up being a little bit of the Sogg historian, capturing a bunch of these stories from different operations, even when you weren't there, but interviewing guys, talking to them, gathering all this information, and then captured and put into these books. But it has the, I mean, since you. were in SOG and you operated in these areas of operations that these guys were in, the way you're able to tell the story is powerful. Well, thank you.

But this book here is the first one that doesn't have my stories, and that's what I like, because that's what my goal is going to be. For Sog Chronicles is my little humble company, and we're going to write these stories until we die, because there's so many that have never been told. And this mission, Operation T.L. when it was a classic. I'd heard little tidbits about it over the years, but until, and we'll get into details later how 98,

there were some facts that came out twisted on that due to the Communist News Network. But factually, this is just an amazing mission. And there's so many levels. And it was a classic example of a saga operation with men on the ground, doing a mission, got it accomplished, and they worked with Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps air assets.

Everything from fast moves to gunships. And Gene McAarly was just an outstanding soldier, a soldier's soldier. And he started out as enlisted, became an officer, so he never lost that grounding, but it's just one hell of a commander. And here he just, that was his concept. And they ran with it. And as we get into the story, just amazing. stuff. Yeah, the air superiority that we had was really powerful. But you have to remember that

it wasn't total air superiority. It wasn't like, look, we have air superiority in Iraq and Afghanistan. We very rarely will lose an aircraft. Then usually it's because there's some kind of an accident or a crash or something like that. But even though it's pretty easy to say, oh, yeah, we had full air superiority in in Vietnam, we had a certain level of confidence. But at the same time, we didn't have totally superiority because there were still aircraft getting shot down by either Miggs or getting shot down by surface-to-air missiles.

Yeah, because you had two separate air wars. You had the air war over North Vietnam. That's the Air Force and the Navy, just pounding away, losing hundreds of men. And it had the whole POW where many were returned. I forget the exact number. And they came back in February of 73 through April 73. They came back.

So that is more of a traditional yet. There's migs that were trained by the Russians, et cetera. And some even said the Russians flew, I don't know. We were more concerned with down south and the Prairie Fire A.O. in Cambodia. Over time, as the war progressed, particularly after Lyndon Johnson had the bombing halt in 78 men, the anti-aircraft stuff, the 12.7s, the 23-millimeter, 37-mic mic, and heavier stuff. And one of the stories later here is one of our medics. He remembers it's flying out, and we'll have some, cover that a little bit of his story later.

But on the way out, there was ACAC in the air, just like World War II. When you see, you know, 12 o'clock high and all those, you see all the ACAC that shot down all of our airplanes in World War II. There it was, courtesy of the Russians. And they were shooting at our helicopters. Yeah. And so Doc Padgett was like, oh, my God, this is like watching a World War II movie, but it's right here. And so that is our war. This is like watching a World War II movie, except I think I might get killed.

Yeah. And in World War II, they didn't have any helicopters that we know about. And so that is the aspect where, like in your introduction, we talked about the MIAs to this day, missing in action. the Americans that were shot down supporting Zog. That's everything from fast movers down to the smallest helicopters, the loach. And of course, your Vietnamese Air Force, like with the story we talked about on Tuesday

with Lynn Black on the visual reconnaissance. It's just a little dinky observation aircraft. The co-pilot gets his head blown off, literally, and his head in the helmet lands in Lynn's lap. So those are the casualties that went into our war. That's our side of the air war. So we dominated the air war. but that air was full of anti-aircraft weaponry, deadly.

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I guess we should get into this story because this tailwind is just kind of crazy. Just another day of Sog. Another day in Sog. All right, so here we go. Going to the book, Sog Chronicles, Volume 1.

And for everyone that's hopeful out there, there's going to be volume 2, 3, 4, 5. The Lord Willing. I know there's more stories than you got time to write. I mean, there's so many stories. Every one of these operations is its own book. Oh, yeah. You know, every time I read one of your books and I read one operation,

I think there's a whole story, a whole book, a three or 400-page book about every single operation. If you start going into the granular detail in the backstory, it's crazy. So get to work. Tilt keep writing. Yes, sir. All right, so here we go.

Routinely under protocols established in an early SOG secret war, most Laotian SOG operators were limited to 20 kilometers west of Vietnam's borders. Operation Tailwind was booked to go approximately 40 kilometers further west beyond that limitation. To go that deep into Laos required formal approval from the Laotian ambassador and from the U.S. commander of all forces in Vietnam, General Creighton at Abrams. McCarley, the B Company commanding officer at the top secret SOG compound in Khantum. Am I saying that right, Kontum? Contum.

Commanding Control Central got the word from S3 on September 4th, 1970. And he says, I remember getting called by S3 and they told me that we had a special mission, a mission that was deep into Laos, a mission deeper into Laos than ever before, and a mission bigger than any before in the Prairie Fire, A.O., said McCarley. They told me to go heavy on ammo and demo. I knew that such a mission would take special clearance up to the ambassador, who is no friend of Sog, and from Abrams, that's General Abrams, who is no big fan of special forces.

In short order, he learned that all of the approvals had been received and signed off. So this is a massive mission, any mission deeper and allows than ever before. And that means you got to get, you got to get approval from the ambassador. And generally, if you don't know this, ambassadors usually aren't fond of military actions inside their, inside their arenas, right?

And that one ambassador just made life so difficult for SOG from every day that we're open there. Yeah. I mean, ambassadors, if you think about it just from a philosophical level, you know, they want to solve things through diplomacy. and so generally they have a little bit of a friction with the military elements, generally, not always. And then you have Abrams, who's not a fan of special forces, which I believe we've done a good job of moving this in a better direction, but there certainly has been tension from time to time between conventional forces and special forces and special operations guys,

generally because special operations guys, well, they don't follow the same rules all the time that the conventional guys follow and they might have a little bit of an attitude and that can rub them the wrong way. Maybe. And a little bit. So, you know, you got a guy like General Abrams

that doesn't like special forces. Except when he needs him. Except when he needs him. Well, there you go. And he needed him here. So continuing on, later that day, S3 provided more specific. details go heavy create havoc for the NVA and keep them busy as long as possible

McCarley a former team leader of SOG recon team Florida where he ran seven seven successful missions transferred to the hatchet force where Green Berets ran platoon and company sized operations across the fence in Laosan Cambodia so just so everyone gets a grip on this these hatchet forces now you have instead of having 12 guys on the ground or six or six guys on the ground like you would with one of your recon teams yeah now you're talking about a group of special forces guys maybe 10 12 15 special forces American special forces guys and then 120 or 150 indig forces locals yeah and so in this case they're mountain yards and

that means you can conduct these bigger operations and that's really the the fundamental mission of special forces of the Green Berets is to work with Indige forces, train up these guerrilla forces so that they can become a strong fighting unit. The SEALs have a different primary mission. The SEALs primary mission was always generally considered to be direct action and special reconnaissance.

Find the enemy, kill them. Yep, that's the SEALs. And the special forces was more, hey, find the enemy and then train some of the local populace to go kill them. That's the goal. and it's more of a long-term solution. You know, you'll hear the Green Berets say, teach them how to fish instead of just giving them a fish.

Sealed teams, we just kill the fish generally. Now, we both cross over, and we both do each one, you know, we do their operations. When I was in Ramadi, that's what we did. We trained a bunch of the Indage forces, a bunch of Iraqi soldiers. And, you know, of course, there were special forces units

that were doing all kinds of direct action missions there as well. So we do cross over, but if you look at the kind of bread and butter, This is just bread and butter, green beret operation, a massive indig force going into to do, to harass the enemy. Oh, yeah. This is what it is what it is. Take the pressure off of the CIA, which was getting his ass kicked. Explain that background a little bit about what's going on with the CIA there.

Well, at that time, Premier Sinoch had been ousted, and this is 1970. I forget the exact month, but like May or June, right around there. So he leaves country. There's a political vacuum. And so the communists want to head south in mass to get as many troops in Cambodia just to take it. Because the NVA knew there was a Khmer Rouge element that was on a sideline and growing in strength in Cambodia.

So the CIA put this operation together, which was further, deeper into the layoffs near the border, and the NVA came at them hard. Now, they had 5,000 CIA troops, and they were getting their ass kicked. And they said, help. So they came up with this concept, have the team go in, and then Gene McRaleigh put his little unique spin to it. And after talking, because by 1970, particularly out of Khantoon,

those hatchet forces were good. They really knew how to work with the air assets, which includes Spector at night. And so Gene knew all about that stuff. And so he put that idea together, and it worked in terms of drawing away NVA from the CIA, which in the end, mission accomplished. Not only did they draw them away, the CIA could hold, but they also had some major enemy cachets in the command post.

And that's one of my favorite picture on the front page. There's a picture of our guys from Khantun standard with a picture of Ho Chi Men, which was taken from one of the tapes. in the command center there. It was the NVA command center. When I was going through what they call seal, it was called SEAL tactical training. Before that it was called SEAL Basic Indoc.

And then it became SEAL qualification training. It's like what you do when you get done with the basic training, we did a raid on a target. And this is up in Fort Lewis, Washington. And so we do a raid on a target, and they're flying a flight on this little compound, right? And they're flying this flag.

And sure enough, the officer in charge of our class, which was now the platoon commander of our platoon going to do this hit, he sees that flag, walks over to it, undoes the figure eight, starts pulling it down. And sure enough, the instructors have booby-trap that thing, and it blows up. You're a casualty. So when I see that picture on the cover,

I always think, man, I was always scared to touch anything that look good. Absolutely. Oh yeah, if the first day of it looks good, maybe it's too good. Yeah. But, you know, those, a lot of guys, a lot of guys, I know a lot of guys from the war in Iraq. A lot of guys went home with paintings of Saddam Hussein. Because those things were pretty easy to find. They were everywhere.

Yes, indeed. Yeah. All right, going back to the book. With the hatchet force, with the hatchet force, we were used to going across the fence and getting our ass kicked and then getting saved by attack air. On Operation Halfback in Laos earlier in the year, we lost two South Vietnamese Air Force H-34s, which included SF medic Bill Boyle who died in one of those choppers. We got hit hard because we were dug in and the NVA pounded our position.

With Operation Tailwood, tailwind, once on the ground, we were going to keep moving day and night to keep the NVA off balance and keep them from massing a large force against our position. It's fundamental. What we're talking about is maneuver warfare, right? Instead of saying, hey, we'll do attrition warfare. We'll sit on this mountain top and you attack us. Hey, we're going to move around and you won't know where we are. But that's tricky too, moving 150 guys around in the J.

In the jungle, indeed, in the J, as they say. Although no one said so at the time, at least not outright, the mission that McCarley and the CCC hatchet force were gearing up for to execute could be called a suicide mission. As McCarley briefed the B Company platoon leaders, squad leaders, MEDIC, Gary Mike Rose, and Company First Sergeant Morris Adair in the CCC compound, Operation orders were going out to critical support elements

that would play crucial roles in Operation Tailwind. First, there was the long distance to the target in Laos. Because it was so far away, neither the older piston-driven H-34, Sikorsky Helicopter, of the South Vietnamese Army or South Vietnamese Air Force 219 Special Operations Squadron, nor regular Army Huey Slicks could be used to insert and extract the 136 man attachment. So you got just a straight up fuel limitation.

Absolutely. These aircraft, they're not going to be able to fly that deep into Laos. So what does that mean? Back to the book. Thus, Sog brass turned to the Marine Corps aviation wing that flew the largest troop carriers in Vietnam, the powerful CH53D, Sikorsky twin-engine helicopters in HMH-463 based at the Corps Marble Mountain Air Facility. Using the bigger, stronger, heavier, lift helicopters made sense because three C stallions

with the design capacity to hold 55 troops could take the entire hatchet force of 136 men, all their equipment, and extra supplies, such as explosives. an ammunition and insert them into the target area. So there you go. The, uh, the, uh, C.H.53 helicopter is a massive freaking helicopter. Oh, yeah. It holds 50 something troops. With all their gear.

With their gear. And all their rounds for their weapons. Yeah. That's a, that's an awesome aircraft. And those were the only two engines in them. This is before they came out with a three engine model like you used. Oh, see. I got that.

I got it easy. in previous years Marine Corps aviators from HMH 463 had performed fearlessly in key SOG operations across the fence and Marine brass knew that flying combat troops and supplies into Laos always resulted in the helicopters getting hit by enemy fire in the first day said McCarley it was funny the Marine brass were a little reluctant to go that deep to Laos because they knew the SOG missions presented extra challenges and dangers to marine air crews. But once they heard about the unique aspects of Operation Tailwind, they wanted in. Marine Sergeant Larry Grow, am I saying that right, Grow? Correct.

Was a door gunner and structural mechanic in HMH-463 when the operations order came into the command shed in Denang. The most dangerous, and he says the most dangerous and most interesting missions we flew were mission 72, and that was SOG support. We called it going over the fence. For me personally, this is why I joined the Marine Corps to run special missions against the enemy. I was looking for adventure and wanted to be where the action was. The Marine aviators were told to prepare for a mission 72 insertion deep into Laos. grow replaced the 50 caliber machine gun with the M60 because it gave him more maneuverability and if we got shot down he says and quote if we got shot down I could carry it and take

the fight to the enemy the 50 was too heavy to carry that a great marina what yeah yeah so just so everyone understands what we're talking about a 50 caliber machine gun is it is a big gun and it's you can't shoot it you can't you cannot do it you can't you can't carry that thing and shoot it from your shoulder or from your hip. It's meant to be mounted on a vehicle or mounted in an aircraft. But in M60, you can shoot by yourself. You can carry it and you can fire it from the hip or from the shoulder. And so this Marine's thinking, well, we're going out with these freaking sog guys.

Probably a pretty decent chance we're going to get shot down. I'll go ahead and switch it out. That way, if we get shot down, I'll be able to, you know, unhook that thing and go and fight. Larry's a thinking Marine boy. He's something. He's one of my all-time heroes for this mission. Dang. Yeah.

Not far away from HMH-463 at Marble Mountain Air Facility, Marine Aviators from HML 367, Scarface, got the op order for Operation Tailwind in a more dramatic fashion, according to Cobra gunship pilot Joe Driscoll, who was a first lieutenant at the time. And he says, the duty driver came by our room at two or three o'clock in the morning and told us to pack our gear as we'd be gone for five to ten days on an operation to be ready at five a.m. My first thought was maybe we're finally going into North Vietnam. Driscoll and fellow pilots flew the early model H-1G cobra gun ships with one man sitting in front seat and a pilot sitting behind him. A relative of the more familiar Huey helicopter, the cobra gunship had a more narrow profile designed strict. as a weapons platform.

Driscoll's cobra had 2.19 shot 2.75 rocket launchers, 2 7-7-shot rocket pods, 1-762 mini-gun that fired 6,000 rounds a minute and a grenade launcher that fired 40-millimeter high-explosive rounds. That's why they call it a gunship. That's firepower.

When the early versions of those cobras were fully armed and loaded with aviation fuel, the helicopter skids would drag on the runway for a shirt distance until the pilots gained enough lift to get the bird airborne. However, once in the air, they brought the fight to the enemy with precise gun runs and rocket runs. Scarface and several other marine helicopter units have been involved in the secret war in Vietnam for several years, usually supporting recon teams and hatchet forces from FOB1 at Foubi and Fob3 at Kaysan or Fob4 at Danang.

in the northern, and this section of the book is laying out, and I'm skipping through it. I always have to skip through some stuff. Get the book so you can get the rest of the details. But, you know, you mentioned that this was a massive joint operation through all these different forces. And in this section, you're laying out the various air platforms that are going to be brought to bear to execute this mission. You go on here in the northern side of Danang at the Joint Military Civilian Airfield Air Force Spad pilots, who flew the single wing A-1 Sky Raiders received their initial op order for Operation Tailwind.

So the A-1 Sky-Rater is this old-school World War II era. Right, invented and put together at the end of World War II, used throughout Korean War, and then the Air Force brass put them all away. And then Jack Singlob and other commanders said, We want those aircraft back in service. They had this big battle behind the scenes to get the SkyVar here because they were just phenomenal support for Saug.

The nickname Spad. World War I looked it up. It's an old World War I airplane. And this thing was such an ancient beast that they called it the Spad, the World War I airplane. Awesome looking bird. Going on here. The single engine warplane was loved by American Ground Pound.

This is kind of like the A10. Oh, yeah. You know, the A10 is the same thing. People try and get rid of it, and all the ground pounders say, we love that thing. Absolutely. We love that war hawk.

The only thing the A10 was missing was napalm. Yeah, that would have been nice. Oh, yeah. Krispy Krieta time. The single-engine warplane was loved by American ground pounders and feared by communist troops because of the havoc and death they rained down on enemy troops. Additionally,

through the unique design by Ed Heineman at Douglas Aircraft Company during World War II, the Sky Rader could stay on station over a target longer than any aircraft. And it brought bombs, cluster bombs, 2.7-5 rockets, 20-millimeter cannons, and two mini-guns to the battlefield. Once again, that's a lot of firepower. Plus bombs and napalm. Over the years, several SOG Recon and Hatchet Forest Green Berets were called getting showered

with shell casings from the A1 SkyRators as they flew danger close to the teams they were supporting. Some later reported receiving burns on the back of their necks from hot shell casings that fell from the warbird and landed on the soldiers' necks, burning their skin once they lodged in the collar. However, no one ever complained about those burns, burns that were often life-saving. Lieutenant Colonel Melvin Swanson was the group commander when Operation Tailwind Op Order landed on his desk. And here's what he had to say. To tell the truth, we didn't do anything special when the op order came down. I had no idea where we were going. We operated like any other SOG mission that we'd supported over the years.

We had two A1s armed and cocked, ready to go for SOG missions and search and rescue missions. We prided ourselves on saving SOG teams. Sog missions were our primary assignment with SAR as the other priority. When they called, we answered. Always. Back at CCC and Contum, McCarley restated the mission. to his platoon leaders and squad leaders. Go heavy on ammo,

grenades, and C4 plastic explosives, and light on food and water. And he says, I had every team member, including our indig troops, carry at least one pound of C4 because we were going to blow up any enemy caches and structures we found,

and C4 was always good for clearing LZs. Green Beret medic, Gary Mike Rose, went through his mental checklist, preparing to carry enough medical supplies and bandages for a company-sized operation. He would make sure that each Green Beret team member carried at least one Morphine seret in a specific pocket. He also made sure that each packed several sizes of bandages and at least one IV. He packed about 15 serrets of morphine, five serets of atropine.

He always carried five for insert and snake bites, even in camp, as well as extra bandages. medical tape, rubber tubing, and several NATO surgical kits. Rose worked with his Monon Yard, Koch. Is that right? Cock, Koch. Koch? Koch. Koch, who he described as a loyal, brave soldier and medic who carried a similar amount of medical supplies that I carried.

And, like many young soldiers, Rose never thought for a minute that he would be wounded during combat. Thus, the stage was set for launching Operation Tailwind on September 11th, 1970, after several weather delays and rocket attacks to the launch site north of CCC. It would be a mission where the 16 Green Berets would receive a total of 33 purple hearts for wounds received during the heavy combat that was about to unfold in Laos. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and the fun thing here is this is the first time we were able to interview all the aviators, like Mel Swanson, what a character. And then Joe Driscoll and his cohorts from Scarface and then met Larry and a couple of other, some of the pilots over time. Yeah, and we'll get to it because you mentioned in the book and you talk through that.

But a lot of times you never even see these guys. Never. I mean, they're stationed a different place. They're up in the air. You're on the ground. and you never, you just never, you never meet them. Never. And look, I mean, you've, you've heard all the stories,

Mayan, Lynn Black, the Frenchman, Elton Bargewell. We all have SkyReader stories that love and saved our bacon. I couldn't tell you one pilot's name, not until we had this story. And that was even there, 40, 45 years later. Dang. Yes. So here we go.

Let's get to it. After seven days of weather delays, fall starts, and enemy rocket attacks. At the top secret military assistance command base in Vietnam, Eugene McCarly, that's the guy in charge, Eugene McCarley gave the order to move out, 15 berets, 15 green berets, and 120 Monty Yards mercenaries. On the morning of September 11th,

four of the powerful Marine Corps, CH 53D, Sikorsky twin engine helicopters, in HMH 463 based at the Marine Corps Marble Mountain Air facility, landed outside the CCC compound and loaded up the 136 man unit. Sog brass had turned to the Marine Corps aviation wing that flew the largest troop carriers to reach into Laos, 25 kilometers beyond the normal SOG area of operations. Escorted by six Marine Corps Cobras, the helicopters headed north to refuel at DAC2 before heading into the target area.

After refueling, they flew north parallel to the border for a while before taking a left turn, heading due west into the target area. Could the cobras make it all the way in? Yes. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, they had extra fuel capacity. Got it.

And here's speaking of the pilots that you got to interview. It was a hot zone from the moment we arrived. Scarface Cobra pilot Joe Driscoll said, we took several hits on the first gun run. During the insertion of the team, Scarface pilot, Sid Baker, and I were surprised by the volume of fire. In fact, we took hits in our rocket pods. We had bullet holes in our tail boom, and they shot out our radio. When the Cobras made their final gun run, we followed our SOP, which was to stay in formation and keep an eye out for enemy soldiers firing at us.

End quote. Because they had no radio contact, Driscoll and Baker simply flew through the pattern to cover the ship in front of them. without firing. Quote, the enemy didn't know we had no radios. I'll tell you one thing. That was a hot target, Driscoll said. We were moving targets. The CH53s were static targets,

but they went in, dropped off the troops, and got out of their post-haste. Man. Yeah. On insert. Oh, yeah, see, ordinarily, we're done. We get shot at going in, unless you're Lynn Black and his one's your own.

But ordinarily, you're done. You just turn around and go home. We're compromised. The idea is to get inserted, do a mission without being compromised. By our old standards, we're compromised. Operation T.L. Wind, we're going in. Come hell or high water. It gets better.

Oh, yeah. Continuing, the CH53s were big targets. McCarly said all of the CH53s were hit by enemy ground firewall and route to the target. I'd never received so much ground fire while flying to a target, he said. It sounded like a BB gun shooting a tin can, but it wasn't BBs that the troops heard. It was enemy rounds. By the time that B Company exited the helicopters, four mountain yards had been wounded from enemy gunfire. One died while flying back to base with his three wounded comrade in arms.

Green Beret medic Sergeant Michael Rose added, it was strange exiting the chopper, stepping over wounded in action to get to the ground. Yeah. So they haven't even started the mission yet. They got one killed and three wounded. We haven't started the mission yet, but we got three wounded and one killed. Continuing, under ordinary SOG mission SOPs,

any recon team or hatchet force that received enemy ground fire and men wounded in action prior to getting to the ground would cancel the mission. This was no ordinary mission. Company B moved off the helicopters and was on the ground in Laos shortly after noon time. One fundamental truism of the Vietnam War, as well as the eight years secret surfaced, the communist forces fought when they wanted to fight. Thus, when McCarley and the remaining 131 members of B Company settled into the woodline, they found complete and utter silence.

He said, it was so strange. The aircraft pulled back. We were on the ground. and there were no enemy soldiers, no noise, no birds, nothing. So once again, you get that weird quietness. Oh, yeah. What do you think make the NBA think we're going to shoot when they're inserting, but once they land, we're not going to do anything.

What do they think of it? What's the enemy thinking at that point? Who knows? Their tactics always varied. And I think a little bit of it was just a complete element of surprise. They saw the birds, and so the people shooting at it would be anti-aircraft crews along the way. And probably some ground troops were their A-Ks. I don't know, I wasn't there.

But once they land, let's see what the boys are up to. That's what the NVA could be thinking just to see what. And then they knew with those three helicopters coming in, there's a lot of people, and they wanted to maybe do their own assessment, see who they are and what they're up to. Because sometimes the NVA just didn't react as quickly, particularly that far west. They had never had.

Totally surprised. At several levels. Surprised that we were there, or SOG was there, and then surprised at the number of aircraft and that they actually got in. And so there's all three different elements, but you know they were checking it out.

Continuing on. McCarley, who was serving his second tour of duty in Saug, wasted no time. The company moved out in the Northwest direction, and then the men of B Company had another surprise. Surprise. After moving less than 400 meters from the LZ, the point element of the company reported seeing huts. The first platoon deployed two squads to search the area. They found an enemy ammo dump, 20 bunkers spread out over 500 meters, hidden in the, under the jungle canopy with vegetation and dark covers. After setting up perimeter security, the B Company troops pulled together a quick inventory of what they had found, picked up samples, while demolitions experts.

S. Sergeant First Class Bernard Bright and specialist fifth class Craig Schmidt photographed identified the weapons and ammo and began setting up explosive charges with 13 and a half minute delay fuses in the two larger structures with white phosphorus grenades attached to each charge to better mark the exact location for Covey who had then direct airstrikes on that position. So here we go. Already on the ground already found bad guy area, but there was no bad guys there for whatever. reason, but a bunch of ammo and whatnot. They found the cash. So they're going to blow it up. And then this happens. While the B Company team worked on this cash,

McCarley had one of the most unique moments in his 28 years of military service. As he and a few of the SF soldiers were looking at a map, a telephone rang. Quote, I couldn't believe it. A phone rang in the middle of Laos, McCarley said. Quote, so being SF, one of our guys picked up the phone and answered it. Hello, fifth special forces group, may we help you? Can you imagine the reaction of the communist on the other end of that phone? To this day, just thinking about it makes me laugh.

So there you go. Yeah. As the SF men chuckled at the phone call, others were compiling an impressive list of enemy weapons contained in the bunkers. Massive cache of weapons. Not resting on its laurels, B Company moved north with the platoon, with the first platoon breaking point. In a short distance, the first platoon found a trail, crossed it, and were proceeding north, when Adair and second platoon squad leader Mike Hagen observed several NVA soldiers on the trail and opened fire on them. An NVA 762 round went through Hagen's gas mask, which he had on his leg, and slammed into his leg.

So they're carrying gas mask on this operation. Bernie Bright was slightly wounded. The round actually parted his hair, said McCarley. You can't get much closer than that. The NVA fled the area and B Company continued to head north after medic Gary Mike Rose patched up Hagen's wound. As they marched, they heard two large explosions back at the NVA bunkers. White phosphorus grenades that Brighton Schmidt attached to the demo charges emitted large plumes of white smoke, smoke that Covey readily picked up and proceeded to direct precise follow-up airstrikes.

secondary explosions would continue for more than five hours. Can you imagine that? Secondary explosions? Crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy amount of, I mean, this is their supply. This is how they're fighting the war. Right there, you go home and say, look what we just did.

They'd be a great mission. That's the first, what, hour on the ground? B Company then made contact with an NVA company, which lasted for close to an hour, McCarley said. The hatchet force men used close airstrikes from Scarface Cobra's and Spad's, and skillful squad tactics against the surprised NVA to drive them off. As Darkness approached McCarley and the point element began looking for a location to remain overnight for the night.

We stopped for a commo check when they fired one B-40 rocket into our command post. Rose added, We were fortunate in one small way. The rocket flew past all of us before striking a bamboo thicket. Thus, when the shrapnel exploded, those of us injured didn't get the full head-on blunt force of the metal shards as the forward momentum of the rocket exploded into the bamboo. 45 years later, after that rocket explosion,

Rose had one lasting mental image of it. He says, quote, It's funny. I can't remember much about it, except that all of a sudden I was flying through the air. At some point while airborne, I looked up and saw a blue sky. It was beautiful. And then I landed.

And here's McCarley. Rose showed us what he was made of that day. He immediately started to go to work on the wounded because everyone in the CP at that time had varying degrees of wounds. In fact, Rose had a serious foot injury. Somehow the shrapnel had sliced open his jungle boot and cut into his foot. What did he do? He pulled out an ace bandage, wrapped it around,

his foot and used his car 15 as a crutch and began treating our wounded." The most serious wounded was a South Vietnamese lieutenant. Shrapnel sliced into his right thigh to the bone in addition to other shrapnel wounds. We stopped and licked our wounds as Rose passed patched up our people, McCarley said. McCarley's plan was to continue to move at night and if B Company made contact with the enemy, the special forces men would determine whether to attack them or maneuver around them or simply pull back and call in fixed wing gunships that could bring down. deadly fire from the sky upon the enemy troops on the ground.

Fast forward a little bit. Finally, Rose rigged two stretchers from rubber ponchos supported by thick bamboo poles and tied them down with six foot sections of rope. They would now be able to carry the most seriously wounded indigenous troops. When Rose gave McCarley the okay, B Company took the bold step of moving out at night. Quote, I wasn't going to let them tie us down in one position and then hammer us. By us moving, they didn't know exactly where we were. There were little skirmishes and a few times we ran into a few NVA.

After contact, we'd move on. If there was a larger element, we could pull back and call in the gunship strike. We had flare ships over us every night. End quote. Bee Company continued to march west deeper into Laos. The deeper B Company, Green Beret and their mountain yards headed west, the more they enhanced their primary goal of being a diversion to the NVA forces attacking the CIA's Operation Catapult.

This wasn't going to be easy. By dawn, nine of the Americans, nine of the 16 Americans had been wounded. So these guys have been on the ground for, what is it? They got inserted around noon. So we're talking a very short period of time. 18 hours?

Yeah, 18 hours or something like that. And they already have nine of the 16 Americans wounded. Rose and his indigenous medic Koch worked tirelessly on the wounded all night even as they moved throughout the dark jungle. So they got nine wounded, just Americans, and they're still moving. And the two seriously wounded Montanyards. Yeah, in stretchers. In stretchers. Improvised.

Yeah. Man. Carrying stretchers is no joke. You need to have like a team to carry. If you think, if you think, oh, you just get two guys, one on each side of the stretcher. That works for a little while, but you end up having to either rotate those guys out or you put four guys on the stretcher so much harder than it looks. Luckily, the yards are smaller, though, right?

Yeah. They're not like the big amount. Man, when we were going through training and I was be a down man, the guys would be like, hey, bro. Well, I love you, but. Could you go on a diet, please? Here, take this grenade. We'll see you later. Good luck.

We'll mark you with a chem light. Continuing on, Captain Gene McArley had the men of B Company hatchet force moving north well before the sun rose on day two of Operation Tailwind. We zigzagged a lot during that mission because we didn't want the NVA to get a good fix on our position as we knew they tried to pin us down and attack us in force if that happened, said McCarley. Within an hour, NVA soldiers hit the first platoon with automatic weapons, B-40 rockets and mortars. two squads maneuvered against the enemy while McCarley directed airstrikes against the enemy positions that tactics worked because of thick jungle they weren't able to get an accurate body count

as McCarley continued to march north however SF medic Gary Mike Rose knew the casualties were climbing among both SF and Indage troops of B Company we had two yards killed and yards is the short the short name for mountain yards we had two yards killed when Captain McCarley and I got hit with shrapnel from the B-40

after confirming confirming they were dead, I wrapped them up and we carried them with us as best we could, Rose said. However, after trying to carry them while tending to the two most seriously injured men, I quote, I had to make a decision to leave the two dead men behind because I could see that carrying them as we moved, we were causing too much fatigue for the living. So we made a decision that has bothered me for nearly half a century. By day two, it seemed as though every day, every hour I can't. kept getting more and more wounded. So the SF medic rose, he's looking at the situation,

and we were just joking about how hard it is to carry guys. And clearly he was dealing with that. It's incredibly hard. And you think, like I said, it takes, you have to have guys to rotate through. It's taken out a whole lot of your combat power when you're moving wounded. So they probably have, you know,

probably takes 10 guys to move these two, wounded guys, maybe even more. So that's 10 guys out of the fight, and you're moving slower. And so he has to make this agonizing decision that we're going to leave these guys. Nick, when I talked to Mike for that part of the story, his eyes welled up. It was just like yesterday. It really still hurt him now 50 years later. Rough.

Continues on here. At one point during an attack on B Company, an NVA force of more than 40 enemy soldiers, two of the most seriously wounded men that Rose was treating had both of their IV fluid bags shattered and destroyed during a hail of enemy gunfire. I learned a lesson right then and there, said Rose. We kept the IVs flowing from low positions, allowing gravity to work,

but not high enough for the enemy gunfire to destroy them. Were you guys using an IV bag? Were your IVs glass? That's a good question, I forget. Okay. That's for the medics. I'm just the comma guy. Yeah, we, well, the weird thing,

well, we all carried IVs. Right. And we ended up getting smaller IVs, but I don't know if you, he said the IVs shattered. So that makes me think maybe they were made of glass. What, the bags? The IV bags, yeah. Just like big jars or what? Oh, no, they were, we, for our medics, they had plastic. Oh, okay.

So maybe because of there, I'm not sure what the hatchet for us. Yeah. He took what he had. Yep. That'd be my assumption. So you're treating you're wounded, you're giving him IV in the freaking bags or the jar gets shot at. Yeah. Continuing on, as the hatchet force moved north, it was obvious to McCarley that Rose had his hands full as he continually, as he had to continually monitor two most seriously wounded men, men who were being carried by him and other team members and stretchers made of bamboo sticks and ponchos.

Because there were so many wounded, McCarley directed B Company to find or make an LZ for a men. Evac to land and take out the wounded. They found a large bomb crater and began preparing the LZ when the enemy initiated two successive contacts with them, firing small arms, B-40 rockets, and throwing Chikam grenades. As they worked on establishing a clearing, B Company dealt with the two separate attacks from the NVA using squad tactics and tack air. Both attacks were neutralized only to have Covey report that the weather had turned bad, prohibiting any rescue attempts for the day. Without hesitation, B Company moved out again, going west for a while, then north, keeping its pattern of movement unpredictable.

What I remember most about day two of Operation Tailwind was the disappointment of having the weather turned bad, preventing a much-needed medevac, McCarley said. So these guys have the goal, like, okay, we got some wounded guys. We need to get these guys out of here. They fight to get an LZ. once they get this LZ established under attack, they push the attack back, and then the weather rolls in, and the guys can't fly.

Southeast Asia weather. Is there, what's your confidence on the weather predictions? Like the weather predictions in Iraq are pretty easy. It's going to be hot. Every once in a while, you would get a storm, and we had some sandstorms. Oh, I saw it. The sandstorms, they're like biblical sandstorms.

Oh, yeah. They blacken the sky. It's pretty cool to see, but you can't run ops in them at all. Like, you can't make communications because the sand blocks radio waves. So basically, if there's that kind of biblical sandstorm coming, everyone just kind of stands down. Now, you could go out and try and get into a good position, but you can't see anything. You can see You know, maybe

20 yards or something like that I mean your visibility is just gone Oh yeah But we could kind of know that they were coming I never got let me put it this way I never got surprised by the weather In Iraq It was it was sunny and hot

99% of the time Every once in a while There'd be some kind of cloud Maybe a little bit of precipitation Because we were by the Euphrates River where it was, it was human. People don't know that. By the Euphrates River, it's freaking human.

And I'm going to show you pictures sometime of this area to the northeast of the city of Ramadi. It was still in our A-O. Right. And it was called the MC-1 or the one-MC. But what we called it was Viet Ram. Because it looked like Vietnam. Yeah.

It looked exactly like Vietnam. Palm trees, rice paddies, dikes. My stepson told me about it. He was in the green zone. Yep, yep. And he's like, I thought I was back in Vietnam with you. Oh, was he in the green zone in Afghanistan? No, in Iraq.

Oh, in Iraq. Yeah. And by green zone, he means areas where there was... We always call it the green zone, which is the biggest, most secure area in Iraq. Okay, so you're talking about the green zone in Baghdad. In Baghdad. Okay, yeah.

And he was operating southeast and different locations for near, some of which they came into... Iraqi jungle. Yep. In Afghanistan, they called a green zone. Yeah. Like areas where there's areas where they're like heavily, there's a lot of foliage. Right.

Okay. So in Iraq, the green zone is the green zone. It's the thing right there in Baghdad, which is big and secure. It's where they had good food and all that stuff. Yeah, we never had any sandstorms in the jungle. So maybe a typhoon or two. So my question was, when you would get a weather prediction, you're going to go, like, these guys, let's say you were going on a four-day mission.

and they're telling you, all right, looks like the weather's good. How good did you feel about that? Like, did you give it 50-50? You just figured whatever. Because it could change so quickly. But the positive thing is that if it gets cloudy, how long are you thinking that lasts for? Oh, you know, every time was different. Because the clouds, a lot of times there would be clouds in the morning.

Sometimes they'd burn off. Sometimes they wouldn't. and there's just so much moisture around. And we were always juggling with the weather. I mean, that was just one of the factors that there's just no control. We get predictions, but we got socked in a couple times. And again, they want to get us into a hole. And so, okay, we just go up and try to get into a target, get in,

and then Mother Nature closes the hole. So I like, ah. We just had to lie low. And weighed it out. Waited out. Because if you move and make contact, there's no support. And the NVA know that. So they're really come at you hard if there's no air.

So they love it when there's bad weather. Oh, sure. Oh, yes. Bad weather was the NVA's ally. Fighting the NVA, fighting the weather. Mother nature. Fight mother nature. It's another day at SOG.

Back to the book. Night 2 in Laos was similar to night 1. B Company kept on the move with continued support from Moonbeam, linking the team with Shadow Stinger and Specter gunships throughout the night. During that night, we heard tracked vehicles. We heard trucks, McCarley said. Night 2 sounded like a lot of trucks heading south, bringing troops and supplies south and some to deal with us.

We had skirmishes that night, and we directed air assets to assist us directly and to the area where we heard motor vehicle activity. So now you've got the specter gunships common at night, which is a beautiful thing. Well, they had all three variations. Because, you know, when I first get there in 68, Spooky was the first one. And then they came out with Shadow,

which was a C-119, whereas Spooky was the old C-47, and they could have maybe two mini guns. and when they came out with the shadow, we had one of our recon teams, they said they came back, they lived through the night, and they went through a couple of shadows,

and they had more ordnance, and they could stay on station longer, and then another team, a couple months later, or maybe I forget the time frame, then it was the Stingers. Again, C-119s with the weapons, the computers to lock in on the strobe light, and then Specter.

And 50 years later, or still dominate the night. Yeah, that thing is a beautiful piece of machinery. The NVA also inflicted some more casualties in the company. By the time McCarley moved out at 4 a.m. for day 3, September 13th, 1970, Rose was tending to more than 30 wounded men. Two with deadly serious wounds that required almost constant attention, fluid rejuvenation, and pain management.

By that time, Rose was also running low on bandages, IVs, and more. serene sorettes quote we were so low on morphine that I reused morphine serrets which is a no-no under normal circumstances but there was nothing normal about this operation so I would give two or three of the wounded morphine from the same sirret I only gave them enough to dull the pain but allowed them to be somewhat alert and quote as Rose focused on the wounded the first platoon engaged the enemy as they moved toward a potential LZ for a much needed medevac while the third platoon deployed one squad to maintain contact with another squad of NVA attacking the company's rear.

After several gun runs by Scarface and A1 Sky Raiders from Danang in Thailand, the rear action force rejoined the company as it pushed into a good LZ site and began clearing trees with Claymore mines and C4 plastic explosives. At noon, after Scarface and the Spads performed gun runs on enemy positions near a small LZ, the first. Marine Corps 53D approached the LZ. As the large helicopter descended into the LZ, the pilot Bill Beardall was concerned that the LZ might not be large enough to land in. As he maneuvered the chopper slowly downward, Rose moved toward the rear tailgate of the CH 53 with his most seriously injured soldier, the South Vietnamese lieutenant with the horrific thigh and hip injury.

Inside the chopper, SF Medics, Staff Sergeant John Doc Padgett and Sergeant John John Brown moved onto the back tailgate as it lowered with Brown supporting Padgett by holding his belt. Quote, I was trying to reach the patient that Mike was lifting towards us. And just at that moment in time, the pilot pulled pitch and lifted to the left. And quote, Rose said, quote, the tail rotor struck a tree as I was lifting the patient up towards dock. The chopper lifted upward suddenly.

As it was lifting up, it took enemy small arms. and a B-40 rocket hit. End quote. Padgett said, quote, when that B-40 hit us, it went through the fuel cell but didn't explode. There was aviation fuel everywhere. How it didn't ignite, I'll never know, but surely God was riding with us. End quote. Bear Dahl, pilot of the CH 53 radioed Mayday, Mayday, we're going in as the CH-53.

began losing fuel and its hydraulic fuels fluids. YH 14, that's the number of this particular CH53, crashed without any injuries to the medics or crew members who immediately exited the wounded bird and set up a defensive perimeter, with Padgett overseeing the impromptu team on the ground. As the NCOIC for SOG's CCC dispensary at Contum, Pagent could have pulled rank and stayed behind. and he said, quote, but that wasn't how I did things.

I usually took my turn riding on the chase medic ship. So here you have a guy that's a senior guy that could have been, you know, sitting back in the hooch. Air conditioned. In the air conditioned hooch back on base. But he's not that kind of leader. No, not at all. Steps up and gets in there. And now these guys are getting shot down.

Maybe he's questioning that decision right now. I'm sure he was. He may not say that for the record, but Doc's a smart guy. He didn't figure all the angles. As they set up their perimeter, Scarface Lieutenant H.E. Newton called CH53 aircraft number YH20 piloted by Mark McKenzie, met them at a rally point, and led them to the crash site where Scarface and Spads made gun runs in preparation for the Chase Medic

aircraft called SAR by the Marines to arrive for the downed crew and SF medics. While en route to rescue the crew of YH 14, said YH door gunner, Larry Groh. I was admiring the beautiful countryside, and I couldn't help thinking of all the bad guys down there waiting for us. My M60 was locked, loaded, and ready for action. As we got closer to the pickup site, I could see that it was surrounded by smoke that was laid down by the Scarface Cobras, along with their rockets and 40 millimeters to protect the crew of the downed chopper, end quote. As YH20 was about to settle into a hover over the downed crew, an NVA 51 caliber anti-aircraft heavy machine gun opened fire on the aircraft's left side.

Gro's left side window was only about 25 yards away from it, and the muzzle flashes from the gun were huge, and the rounds seemed to be the size of basketballs. Groh pulled the trigger on his M60 and held it until the 51 cow was silenced. The CH 53 started to bounce around, and I knew, quote, and I knew we had taken some hits. Sergeant Whitmer was working his gun on the right side as Captain Coppola and Sergeant Spalding were at the rear ramp throwing out the 120-foot aluminum extraction ladder, end quote. Meanwhile, Scarface Cobras were making gun runs. Spads following suit, hitting and. enemy sights. Quote,

everything seemed to slow down as the action heated up, Groh said. Everything was in slow motion. When the ladder landed on the ground, Padgett told everyone to climb it, climb it and hook onto it. There was so much confusion and noise

that no one moved to the ladder, he said. Finally, I said, follow me. And up I went. They followed suit. Man, this is just mayhem. Grow said the lift-off from the LZ wasn't easy.

Quote, we had no idea just how bad the battle damage was, but we were bouncing all over the sky and we had a huge beat, meaning that there was something terribly wrong with our main rotor blades, end quote. Now the crew of YH20 was concerned about the safety of the aircraft and the men below riding on the extraction ladder. So you have the helicopter gets shot down, and then this other helicopter comes into rescue. They get lit up with a dish gun machine gun, 12.7 millimeter 51 cow, which is a freaking massive machine gun. They get shot up with that. They throw the extraction ladder out the back. A bunch of the guys don't know what to do. Finally, someone on the ground starts climbing the ladder.

They all start climbing the ladder, but they don't get up the ladder. So they're all just hanging on to this ladder. And then this thing starts to try and get out of there. and it's like a car with a, you know, with like a piston that's not firing. Exactly. Quote, in hindsight, there was really no way that we or anyone else could know, could know how bad the damage was, said Grow. Quote, only when we finally made it back do we learn just how bad our damage was. Numerous rounds had cut the hydraulic lines to the tail rotor.

One round from the 50-calid almost cut the main rotor. tail drive shaft in half that round had hit next to the thomas coupling which connects the tail rotor drive shaft sections together we were extremely lucky to have made it back to base god was with us that day padgett said man those helicopters are beasts to take that kind of damage oh yeah yeah salute salute the 53s amen For the rest of the men on the ground during the night of day three, there was no rest. Yeah, by the way, while all that's happening, we still got, we still got, what, a hundred-something guys left on the ground. The NVN intensified its attacks against the men of B Company throwing an estimated 600 plus hand grenades into the defense positions of the hatchet force, even as it moved a few times during the night.

So now we're taking 600 hand grenades. By now, the B company men had gained an important tactical advantage over the NVA. I like this. This is a good attitude to have right here. We got a freaking down helicopter. We got all these wounded guy. We received 600 grenades. And you know what?

Here we go. By now, the B company men had gained an important tactical advantage over the NVA. They learned the NBA combat signals during the close-in fighting. The NVA would hit two bamboo sticks together or use. a whistle for signals. The hatchet force men learned that one click or one whistle signaled the NVA to move. Two meant throw hand grenades and three meant withdraw. Hatchet force men would then radio what signal, what the signal was to the other team

members so that they could adjust accordingly. More than once when the NVA signaled to withdraw, the hatchet force men would then attack when they were more vulnerable. It was one more tactical advantage that they used to their advantage against an enemy force that continued to grow on the battlefield despite losing hundreds of men to airstrikes, bombing runs, and team ground fire. Meanwhile, back in Danang at their air base, the Marines returned to repair their aircrafts as the warning order came down for day four. The weather and NVA hordes were closing in on B Company. Yeah, because with those hand grenades, one of the things that Lynn Black discovered was that the NVA had hand grenade vest, where they would have four or five hand grenades in one vest. They could get it and throw it forward and hold it, and then all five grenades would launch at one time with the pins pulled, so you'd have four or five hand grenades coming at you at one time.

they were all like tied together or something yeah and so when they when they got the vest and then through it but held it the hand grenades attached would then go forward oh got it and so with this thing that was going on with the 600 plus I'm sure that was one of the tactics the NBA were pulled because they had the hand grenade vests that's a lot of grenades you have only half go off because they're Chinese the chikoms yeah if only half go off that's still if only half go off that's still 300 grenades. Yeah. And that also tells you something else.

It tells you how close the enemy was. Yeah. Because that means they're throwing those grenades. So this is close fighting. And not to mention, you want to know how close it was? It's so close that we can hear their signaling when they're banging two bamboo sticks together. Primitive but effective. Primitive but effective, but also so close that we can hear it.

And we hear it so much that we actually deciphered their freaking code. Yeah. God. All right. Going back to the book. The morning of Operation Tail, when day four dawned upon B Company Hatchet Force of Mac V.Sog, moving toward an LZ to lift out the more seriously wounded

among the remaining 127 men who could still walk. All 16 Green Berets had been wounded at least once, and about 40 Montoyard troops were wounded during the first three days of this secret foray deep into Laos. So there you go. That's at least 40, probably more. Could nobody, nobody count. Everybody's just too busy fighting.

B Company commanding officer, Captain G. McCarley, had the point element moving toward an apparent clearing with one thought in mind. Get one Marine Corps heavy lift, C.H. 53 helicopter into pickup the wounded and then continue to march to destroy any NVA fortifications, supplies, or troops they encountered. By now, the entire second platoon was being used to help care for and transport the wounded under the, the tireless leadership of medic Gary Mike Rose, including three wounded who were carried on impromptu stretchers. So there you go. You have an entire platoon of what, 40 guys? Yeah. You have an entire platoon of 40 guys that are just being used to for the wounded, help the wounded. So that's how hard it is to deal with wounded and move wounded. And his morphine serets are low.

Fast forward a little bit. The men on the ground didn't know about two startling developments. The weather was closing in with a storm front that would prevent tack air from supporting B Company and Operation Tailwind had rocked the NVA brass

into rallying hordes of North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops that were moving toward the Highway 165 area near the tiny hamlet of Chavain. So these guys don't know it, but there's massive enemy coming and bad weather. Now, when this bad weather hits, just to be clear, if I didn't make this clear enough, the only thing that really keeps you guys alive on the ground at a certain point is just the fact that we have air superiority and you can drop bombs.

Absolutely. Hundreds, if not thousands of troops going against you. So if you lose air support, it's a matter of time. Because, look, the NVA, they don't care. They'll keep coming. They'll come in waves until they finally just overwhelm you with just attrition. So if you lose tack air, at some point you're going to be overrun and everyone's dead. Our edge is gone.

Yeah. Indeed. Here's McCarley quote. When we started day four, we hadn't thought about an extraction except for getting the wounded out. We took our mission seriously, meaning he's saying, look, we're not even thinking about leaving yet. Not at all. We're thinking about getting our wounded out, but we're ready to go. We're going to stay.

We took our mission seriously, relieved the pressure on the CIA's operation. Thanks to attack air, we had hurt the enemy, no question, and by continuously moving, we had kept the NVA off balance. We were tired, but our morale was good. We'd been on the move about an hour when we heard dogs. These weren't dogs that sounded like tracker dogs. The NVA used on us. They sounded like pet dogs. so we moved toward their sound

and the first platoon followed them. The dogs led B Company to what would become one of the greatest military intelligence coup of the eight-year Sog Secret War in Laos. Here dogs, they're not tracking dogs, but they're just like pet dogs

and the guys follow them back to this camp. That's me. I'm going the other way. I don't like dogs anywhere, particularly in the AO. Sorry. Yeah, no, the first time, I think it was the first time you were on and we were talking about those tracking dogs about halfway through the conversation after you were talking about these dogs, they're smelling you and they're closing on you. And I was like, tilt, do you still like, do you not like dogs? And you said, I hate dogs.

Yeah. Totally understood. Before long, the enemy troops fired several B-40 rockets at the point element of B-C-Compson. and then fell back. It looked like they had gone back to some sort of bunker complex, McCarley said. After a brief skirmish and a brilliantly executed spad gun runs, where they had used cluster bomb units on enemy positions,

the first platoon led the assault on those bunkers with a well-coordinated attack while second platoon covered our flank and provided rear security. So these guys run up against an enemy position with bunkers, and what do they do? Attack it. Yeah. Call in for close.

Air Support and then attack it on day four. I mean, these guys probably haven't eaten. They're short on water. They're wounded. Third platoon protected our right flank. We caught them napping. We hit the outpost when they were cooking breakfast. There were open fires, fires with cooking pots on them.

Hell, they never had anyone mess with them before this deep into Laos. A few NBA, a few NBA hidden a couple of the bunkers, whom the mountain yards quickly eliminated with him. Those bunkers were nothing but gory blood and guts after the grenade attacks, McCarley said. Again, A1 Sky Raiders delivered CBOs precisely along two key enemy lines, instantly silencing enemy gunfire, hand grenades, and rocket attacks. Within a short period of time, more than 70 NVA were killed as B Company swept through the base. As B Company drove the remaining NVA out of the outpost, they discovered a bunker in the base of camp that, quote, appeared to be like a basement in a regular house, said McCarley.

It was at least 10 feet long and 10 feet wide with maps on the walls and a foot locker loaded with documents. I emptied my rucksack of everything except for extra car 15 ammo. By that time, I had used the extra battery, radio battery, and C4 that I was carrying, and I started packing it with enemy documents, papers, codebooks, transportation logs, end quote. Within 15 minutes, the base camp was over. The area was searched for intelligence and photographs were taken as medic Mike Rose continued to treat the wounded men of the company So this is a score

It's a coup and a half. Oh yeah rich By now it was clear to be company intelligence men that they had stumbled into an NVA Battalion base camp that was a major logistical command center and probably the headquarters that controlled the nearby Laotian Highway 165 Remaining true to his original operation order, McCarley had all the intelligence documents packed and ordered B Company and all of its walking wounded to march out of the battalion base camp, while demolitions experts wired 120 millimeter mortar, four enemy trucks, and more than nine tons of rice for destruction.

As usual, after the Special Forces charges exploded, A1 Sky Raiders followed up with gun, napalm, and bombing runs to completely destroy all enemy structures and supplies. Boom. Nine tons of rice. Feeding a lot of people. Oh, yeah. Meanwhile, back at Khantoum, fast forward a little bit. Meanwhile, back at Khantoum, while all that's happening, all the air assets, the A1 Sky Raiders of the Danang-based operating location Alpha Alpha, Scarface pilots, and CH-53 pilots, or getting a detailed briefing.

on the weather and a sighting by Covey of hundreds, if not more than a thousand NVA and path that loud troops moving east towards B Company. Quote, during that final briefing, it was very clear. Today, it was due or die. End quote, from Scarface Pilot Joe Driscoll. Quote, the big thing was the stark seriousness of the moment. Everyone knew they had suffered heavy casualties, and now the weather was closing in on them. A1 Sky Rader pilot Tom Stump added, quote,

The weather was dog shit when we took off. I wasn't optimistic about getting them out of their end quote. On the ground in Laos, McCarley pressed forward until he received a disturbing radio call from Covey sometime in the early afternoon of September 14th, day four of Operation Tailwind. quote I believe it was Covey writer Jimmy War Daddy Hart Radio down and told us

the NVA were massing and that if we didn't get out of there today we weren't going to get out period that got my attention frankly he mentioned the weather issue too which up to that point in time I wasn't aware of because we were in the jungle

end quote yeah that got your attention huh oh yeah and have you brought it back at base, they know they're getting hammered and they know it's bad and they're getting ready to go. They don't know how bad it is. It's like you're in the jungle. Like you've heard it before, you don't know how bad the weather is or you're on the ground. And you can't tell a lot of times.

It's a difference between sun and no sun. It's just dark in the jungle. And they break loose every once in a while. Get an opening if they could see. Gene had no idea. No idea. That's when Cubby told it. Because when I interview Gene on that, he was like stunned when the cubby told him that.

Because he really thought, we were going to kick their ass. We just hit the cash. You say cash or cashet? You're the English major. I'm only an English minor. So I had a, it's cash. Cash. Oh, thank you, sir.

It's cash. I'll be more correct now. I got corrected that. I got corrected on that when I was a, I think I was like an E5 or something at E4. And, you know, I was briefing something. And I said, well, there's a cachet over there. Yeah. My officer said, actually, Jocko, it's cash.

And I said, no, it's not. I didn't believe him. You had to go to the dictionary. And back then you actually had to get a dictionary. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, you're the man. If you want to call it Cash A, we can change it right now. We will follow suit.

I've always preferred Cashay. Me too. I think it's cooler sounding. It could be Cash and Stass, but Cashet's got a little bit more umph to a little bit pazzazz. Yeah. So these guys are in a bad way, and now McCarley kind of realizes we got the enemy coming, we got weather moving in, back to the book, realizing they needed a large LZ, a large LZ,

large enough to handle a CH53, because CH53s are massive birds. In the light of, and by the way, there's no opportunity, you're not going to get 50 guys out on strings, so this thing's going to have to land. Yeah. and you got wounded on top of that. In light of losing one of the 53's heavy lift helicopters on a tight LZ the previous day, yeah, by the way, we already lost one of these things. McCarley moved down a road towards a clearing that was large enough for NLZ.

However, the open area was seated too deeply in a valley, which had hills on two sides of it where the NVA gunners would be able to have clear fields of fire on the Marine rescue helicopters, as well as the supporting tack air assets, Scarface, cobra gunships. To facilitate the continued movement of B Company, A1, Spads, and Scarface Cobra's quote,

gave us fire protection to the front and to the rear, McCarley said. The NVA kept hitting us with automatic fire in B-40s. The airstrikes kept them back far enough so they couldn't do any real damage. At some point, Covey ran dangerously low on fuel, returned to base

and connected Spad pilot Tom Stump directly with McCarley about future airstrikes shortly before the first CH 53 arrived in the area of operations. Quote, I'll never forget it. When I spoke to Gene, that's McCarley, when I spoke to Gene, his voice was as calm as a man at Sunday church picnic, Stump said. He had that slow southern draw and calmly said he was getting his ass kicked down there. And all the while I could hear gunfire, gunfire explosions.

and hand grenades. He said he needed some separation between the company and the NVA. We were on station for two hours doing just that, providing close air support. With all the SF wounded and the large number of casualties they had, I couldn't see how we'd get them out.

There you go. Tom Stump. Man. McCarley and his men were grateful for the close air support of Stump, his fellow Spad pilot, Scarface, and Tack Air. But Stump stood out in his mind.

McCarley said, quote, Tom Stump flew so close to us during some of those gun runs, I could tell if he had shaved or not. That's just how close those A1 Sky Raiders flew in support of us. We were extremely grateful for all the air support. Believe me, but seeing Stump was something that stuck with me. I also think it's safe to say that because this was a SOG mission deep into Laos, none of the air assets got the credit they should have received

for the remarkable coverage they provided to us over four days, from the fast movers right down to Scarface and the Coveys. Continuing on, B Company found a heavily traveled dirt road only wide enough for foot traffic and headed to a second LZ, one that provided better cover and less exposure to enemy ground fire for the helicopters and for the men of B Company. As they moved, Covey rider Jimmy Wardaddy Hart told McCarley he had spotted another, quote,

hoard of NVA, end quote, moving toward B Company. This time Hart told B Company to put on their gas masks and directed A1 sorties flown by Hobo 20 and Firefly 44 based in Thailand to deliver CBU 30 tier gas ordinance on the next hoard of NVA while B Company found and secured a second LZ

for the Marine CH 53 to land. This drastic tactic worked. It slowed down another NVA horde, but many of the men and B company, including McCarley, Rose and others, were hit by the gas, which had a lot of our guys crying and choking on that CS. McCarly said, but it also bought them some time. So they called in some cluster bomb units with gas. With some coughing gas in it, some irritant. Indeed. Which is a lot different.

This is where it gets a little trick. and it comes up later, but that is a chemical, right? Sure. And people say, well, this is a chemical weapon. And it is technically a chemical weapon, but it's a freaking non-lethal chemical weapon. It doesn't kill you. Right.

Just you cry a lot and feel bad. Continuing on, the Scarface Cobras led the CH53s into the LZ with deadly gun runs as an Air Force F4 Phantom Jets pounded two enemy mortar pits that were marching 82, millimeter rounds toward the LZ that was large enough for only one CH 53 to land at a time. Quote, we escorted the CH53s into the LZ. The first run wasn't as bad as the previous day when I could see dozens of enemy soldiers out in the open firing at us with and the choppers, said Scarface pilot Joe Driscoll. When McCarley lost radio contact with Covey, Scarface commanding officer, lieutenant

Colonel Harry Sexton and his co-pilot Pat Owen quickly picked up cordial. the air assets with McCarley the first heavy lift helicopter landed on the LZ picking up a majority of the wounded B company men including the three most seriously wounded who were carried in stretchers since being wounded on night one of the operation since platoon second platoon placed the wounded on the first marine helicopter before it lifted off successfully and headed back to calm tomb Scarface again led the second Marine Corps, CH53, into the LZ, this time taking an increased volume of enemy gunfire, as aviators pointed out to McCarley, another large contingent of NVA moving toward the LZ. Now it appeared that the NVA brass realized that B Company had hit the 559th Transportation's base camp and taken all of its maps, reports, records, and money, and had directed masses of enemy troops towards B Company. Quote, they told me they could see hundreds of them coming for us, said McCarley. The second Marine Corps, CH53, picked up the remaining wounded men and several other members of B Company and lifted off the LZ successfully, drawing more enemy fire than the first heavy lift helicopter. Scarface then led the third CH50.

So we got two helicopters have come in. We've gotten most of the wounded on, the first one. A bunch of guys leave on the second one. That's all successful. And now we go. Scarface led the third C.H.53 into the L.Z taking even more enemy fire than the two previous choppers had encountered. However, for McCarley Rose, First Sergeant Morris Adair, and the remaining men of B Company, the drama wasn't over. CH 53 C stallion pilot

Don First Lieutenant Don Persky and his co-pilot First Lieutenant Bill Batty or Beatty Were concerned about the amount of rounds hitting the heavy lift chopper I like the way they explained that Yeah I'm a little concerned I'm concerned about this Quote on our final approach we took heavy enemy fire Persky said we knew that this was the last element on the ground and we had to get them out

Sergeant First Sergeant or SF Sergeant Mike Hagan said quote I can tell you that big bird was a welcome sight to us We were all beat we were all wounded and we were all ready to go home believe me and quote B company commander captain jean mccarley Hagen medic sergeant rose and first sergeant morris adair held a tight defensive perimeter with a few mountain yards as others beat a hasty but orderly path into the large Marine warbird as dozens of NVA soldiers surged out of the CS gas clouds towards the LZ. Macaulay was on the radio with Covey. He said, you have to get out of there now.

This is so this is a McCarley saying that Covey said, you have to get out of there now. There's hundreds and hundreds of them coming after you now. Now. Now. That's what McCarley's getting told. You have to get out of there now. And I don't know how many are left

the ground but it's probably what 15 or 20 or something like that yeah they had the worst wounded yeah in the second bird they got a lot of the indigia out as mccarly spoke into the prc 25 handset a montan yard team member standing between mccarly and the radio operator was killed by enemy gunfire as he fired his weapon at them he got shot in the heads mccarly said there was blood all over the place another yard looked at him turned to me with a sad look and simply said he's dead. A1 Sky Rader pilot Tom Stump vividly remembers those long moments before the men of B Company boarded CH53.

Quote, it was a wild scene down there. As we provided close cover to the team on the ground, Air Force F-4s attacked anti-aircraft guns that the NVA had moved into the area. They, meaning the NVA, had really wanted them. They were masked to get them. They wanted to get back what the team had taken from the base camp. Covey riders told us that NVA 12.7 millimeter and 37 millimeter anti-aircraft weapons were opening up on us. Meanwhile, the Scarface cobra gunships reacted to enemy gunfire on their aircraft while Gene directed us to enemy troops,

moving toward them. Keep in mind, we knew all the SF men were wounded and low on ammo. There was a moment in time when I couldn't see how we'd get them out. It was that intense. Coming out of the gas fumes. Not everyone was low on ammo. As he was severely wounded in the foot, hand and arm on day one, Rose had tightly wrapped a torn jungle boot and bleeding foot with an ace bandage to keep it shut

and had used his car 15 more as a cane to support his weight than as a weapon because he was so busy treating and tending to more than 60 wounded men. His left hand had suffered a shrapnel wound also, which he quickly wrapped before returning to caring for the wounded team. Now as he, Adair, and Hagen moved up the ramp, the semi-mobile medic opened fire on the rapidly approaching NVA after they placed their dead Monton Yard soldier on the, the helicopter. McCarley was the last man to leave the LZ. Quote, as we were backing up the ramp, they were coming toward us. They were coming at us hard, he said. I'm guessing the CS gas had them confused because they were getting close to us as me, Mike, and

Morris stood, but none of them threw a grenade into the chopper. I never understood why they didn't. They were that close, and they kept coming even as we lifted off. from the LZ while mowing down NVA soldiers. So they go through all that, and it looks like we're going to be in a pretty good spot possibly. But it ain't over till it's over. Indeed.

As the CH53 lifted off from the LZ pilot Persky said he and co-pilot Batty, what do you think that's Batty or Beatty? Batty. Batty. Batty. could feel enemy rounds continuing to hit the aircraft. Adair, McCarley, and Rose had just sat down next to Sergeant First Class Bernie Bright when someone tap Rose on the shoulder and pointed to the left door gunner,

Marine Sergeant Stevens, who was bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound in the neck. Rose said, quote, he got hit in the neck. There was blood everywhere. I was coated in blood by then from him and other wounded. He was very lucky. The round had missed to the carotid artery and trachea. yet he was going into shock. I rolled him over, got him on all fours,

and remember telling him, listen, you lucky son of a bitch, if you're going to die, you'd be dead by now. After that, he started to bounce back. Sometimes as a medic, you have to be harsh with people to break them out of shock. Then I found something to wrap around his neck to get the bleeding to stop. As Rose struggled with Stephen's bleeding neck injury,

neither realized that the Marine, door gunner's helmet helmet's open microphone was live. So explain this a little bit when you're on a aircraft. The people in the aircraft have what they call interior communications, which is basically a, you know, if you're the pilot, you can talk to the co-pilot, and then you can both talk to the air crew and everyone's got these little helmets on with microphones. And the crew's in the back and they can't see each other, so they have to have verbal combo.

Right. And if you, I know it looks like in a movie, everyone's talking in an aircraft, in a helicopter, you can't hear anything in a helicopter. You have to scream directly into someone's ear to hear someone, especially in a CH 53. Those things are freaking loud. And so the air crew has these headsets with these microphones that are built a special way so that they don't pick up the, they don't pick up the external noise. They just pick up the voice. Well, when you key that handset, you're transmitting, you're filling up that interior communications network with whatever noise you're putting into it. And so I'll go back to the book here. Communications were almost

impossible as he was on a hot mic. A hot mic is when you're keying up your microphone when you shouldn't be. And all I could hear was gasping and gurgling, said Persky, who was having a potentially deadly loss of power issue with the severely damaged CH53 C stallion. As the heavily laden helicopter lifted off from the LZ and went from a hover mode into a transitional lift where the helicopter begins to gain both altitude and speed, engine failure emergency lights and warning systems screamed alerts of a pending engine failure. Within seconds, one engine died. Persky had only one remaining engine to continue lifting away from the hordes of NVA gathering on and around the LZ shooting at the sea stallion and at least one anti-aircraft weapon that was

firing at the struggling Sikorsky. In addition, he and Badi had another challenge on their How to avoid the mountains that they were approaching with only one engine. That ridgeline was sheer granite, Persky said. By now, in the back of the chopper, Rose had pulled off Stevens' helmet, giving Persky and Badi improved communications between them and other air assets, as the granite mountain loomed larger by the second. Quote, we were worried as we had to use extra energy from the last engine to get over that ridge line, Persky said.

after narrowly getting over it, a second granite ridge line came into view. It too had to be flown over. Now the big warboard warbird was struggling. Quote, there were hydraulic fluids and blood everywhere inside the helicopter, Rose said. And the tail was lower than it should be. We could tell something was wrong. Really wrong. We just didn't know how wrong.

Can you imagine? No. No, no, it's total mayhem. And then you have these pilots that are getting shot at. Their aircraft's filled up with a bunch of wounded guys. They're taking rounds. They can feel the rounds hitting. And they still have to fly this thing.

And now they've got to fly it under conditions that they've never flown under before, which is having one engine and damaged controls and not being able to communicate with each other. This is just mayhem. Back to the book, seconds after barely getting over the second ridge line, the second CH53D turbo shaft engine failed. At that moment, quote, I can remember First Lieutenant Persky's exact words to this day, said McCarley. He said, May day, May day, we've lost all hydraulics, we're going down. I looked out of the back and all I saw were the granite cliffs. they loomed large.

To this day, I don't know how we missed them. And quote, Rose echoed the same sentiment. Quote, all I saw were those huge granite cliffs with no engines. I fully expected to crash and burn at any moment. And quote, Persky hollered into the radio one more time. We've lost our second engine. We're going down.

The fate of the 23,628-pound 88-foot-long helicopter designed to carry 38-combat troops, but now loaded with 40-plus combat troops and weapons, including all the intelligence papers, maps, Foot Locker, and North Vietnamese currency seized from the NVA's base camp, hinged on Persky's piloting skills, and the 6 72-foot-long rotors that were keeping the 15-foot-wide helicopter aloft, biting into the air, descending at a rapid rate, but at a rate, but at a rate, better than dropping from the sky like a dead quail. After he got out a second May Day alert, Persky said he was hoping a pilot or Covey pilot would say something. After a second engine went out, there was nowhere to go. All we could see was jungle and granite ridgelines. Quote, I really expected someone, Covey, Scarface, the Spads, or Army Cobra's to say, hey, go left, go right, something.

But the radio was dead. silent. For Persky and Batty, the silence was deafening. Now descending in full auto rotation with both engines dead, Persky began following jungle-covered canyons. I followed one gap, he said, then I followed a second gap. It led to a ravine. My biggest concern at that moment was being able to find a place just to auto-rotate into. Marine Corps door gunner, Larry Groh, who was in the first CH 53 that pulled out many of the wounded men from B Company earlier, said, quote, at that time, no one had ever done a full auto rotation with a fully loaded CH 53 with no power. Swanson watched the large warbird descend into a canyon.

Quote, it was like a depression he headed towards. It was trailing smoke. It was ugly, real ugly. I worried that it might explode in mid-air or worse get hit by one of the or worse hit one of those granite mountains or the jungle from my seat up in the old trusty Sky Rader I couldn't see any LZ or any area that was open or large enough for those Marines to land that bird without crashing by now I had heard that they were auto-rotating with a chopper full of troops it didn't look good so auto-rotating Yeah. So basically when a helicopter, if a helicopter loses power, you know, if an airplane loses power, you can glide somewhat. You're not going to gain altitude. I mean, I guess you could technically if you get an updraft or current or whatever, but you're generally going to come down.

When a helicopter loses all of its power, what the pilot has to do is let the blades, the rotor blades of the helicopter keep spinning. As fast as they can while you're falling and then basically when you get close to the ground You slam those things into the position. It tilts those rotors so they grab as much air as possible in the moment before you hit the ground and you hope that it absorbs enough energy that you don't all die Echo you look puzzled does that make sense not really I think there's a lot about a helicopter I don't know about yeah because you're like it seems like a helicopter loses power that The propellers just stop. But there's momentum. So just picture of spinning. Just like a spinning top.

Keeps the blades going. Oh, right. Like a... Because you're descending and the air hits them. It keeps them... They have their angles that make them spin. Not at the rate with the engine, so it slows down, but it's better than like,

he said, just falling out of the sky. Right. Like, you know, remember those windmills he used to buy when you're a kid and you... Yep. You see what I'm saying? The wind. Yep.

If you went into a room with no wind and you just spun that thing... Yeah, it would spin a little bit. But yeah, as you move it, it can spin. Yeah, so that's keeping those things spinning. And then do you know. The blades are long. Yeah. Yeah.

And do you know that the blades can tilt? You control the tilt of the blades. You can make them kind of flat or you can make them like at a bigger angle so they're grabbing more air. So what you do is you kind of make them flat. So they're not getting much resistance, but they're spinning. And this is just like I've never done this before. The jocco version. Yeah.

This is how I simplify stuff. with the rocks up in my head. Cool. And then when you get close to the ground, you slam that thing. So it grabs a bunch of air right before you hit and it slows you down a little bit. That's the plan. Yeah, that's the plan. And in history, no one had ever done this before with a CH53.

Okay. Filled with troops. Because as you can imagine, you're adding thousands of pounds to it with all these troops in there. So no one's ever done this before. So we'll just say that the odds were stacked against us at this point. It ain't looking good. Okay. Okay.

Gotcha. Continuing on. And then divine intervention. Persky and Badi saw a body of water with a little patch of beach. It was just blind luck. We didn't know what was there. Or we didn't know what was there or God was with us. Persky said.

With the blood, hydraulic fluid and aviation fuel leaking and pooling in the passenger compartment, Persky headed in that direction. At first he thought about landing in the water to buffer some of the impact of the landing. Then I remembered, Persky said, we had wounded in the back. I didn't want to take the chance of anyone drowning. So he headed the wounded chopper

toward what appeared to be a sandy beach next to the water, even though it was slanted to the right. All of this happened in a matter of seconds. We were going down at about 6,000 feet a minute. At that point, we needed high airspeed to use the energy to keep the rotors going. So the auto rotation factor would keep the aircraft moving forward instead of dropping from the sky. The plan was to flare a procedure where the rotor's angle pitch has changed to slow down the rate of descent and minimize the severity of impact upon landing on terra firma.

So I was right. The rocks worked. The rocks worked. Dave Burke's got nothing on me. Good deal, Dave Burke's got nothing on me. Quote, I started to flare thinking we had a. enough time to decrease our speed more. I pulled the collective hard. I had it pulled up to my armpit, end quote. In a helicopter, the collective lever is on the left side of the pilot's seat, and it changed the pitch angle on the helicopter's main rotors. In this case, Persky was decreasing the

sea stallion speed, hoping to minimize the final impact of landing in full auto rotation. Persky added, it didn't slow our air speed as much as I had hoped it would. It was supposed to cushion us. It didn't. What's more, that Beach had a huge boulder on it that slanted to the right. The helicopter violently landed on the angled slope, hitting the slope surface and instantly slamming to the right into the ground, ejecting several of the green berets and their Montoyard tribesmen team members, while six rotors shattered upon impact with the ground. B Company commanding officer, Captain Gene McCarley, was violently slammed into the roof of

the helicopter before B. ejected from it I remember hitting the roof the helicopter I remember hitting so hard I felt my teeth crumble into sand The next thing I knew I was outside on a rock. We were all dazed amazed we were still alive Rose said quote when you pancake in like we did on a helicopter and when it hits violently upside down Everybody had their bell rung trust me we were all hurting Jean was bleeding from the mouth but he could move I remember getting thrown out of the blit throating thrown out and the blades were upside down. I was bleary-eyed, still not getting all my senses back, and for a moment I thought the chopper was coming toward me." End quote.

McCarley said, quote, Mike was standing beside us. I was wiping the blood and my crushed teeth from my mouth. Then Mike said, we've got people in there. We have to get them out. I could smell the aviation fuel. There was blood everywhere. There was hydraulic fluids. The helicopter was broken by the severity of the crash and it was smoking how it didn't explode i'll never know how that young marine pilot landed albeit a hard landing i'll never know end quote then mccarly had one of those unique inexplicable moments in wartime in the middle of all the rubble the smoke the dazed confusion at the crash site he looked to his right and observed first sergeant morris adair standing in the water with a smile on his face holding his car 15.

In the middle of the jungle. That scene was unreal beyond description, McCarley said. Of all the times that I've been in Laos, I'd never seen a scene like this. A body of water, a nice white sandy beach. It looked just like Hawaii. And there's Adair standing in the water as though there wasn't a care in the world.

Adair says, to this day, I can't explain exactly what happened that day. I came out on my own, but I've been trying to figure out how ever since. When I came to my senses, I was standing in water. Gene told me later, I was standing there smiling. Can't tell you why I was smiling. Maybe I was just happy to still be alive after getting my bell wrong. We were batted around like BBs in that chopper when it crashed.

At the time, I didn't realize how much damage it had been done to my nerves on my less side of my body, my head, neck, shoulder, arms, and hip. The brief reverie ended when Rose and McCarley headed back into the smoking. helicopter because it ain't over yet because they got guys in there and it's get fuel leaking everywhere burning but what do they do they go help rose helped to carry out sf lieutenant Pete Landon who had only been in country one week when Operation Tailwind launched welcome to Sog McCarley said Landon the platoon leader had a bad Madgash on his head that Rose had to tend to as there was a lot of blood flowing from the head wound. McCarley gathered the intelligence materials B Company had collected.

That was the first thing I did. Recovered the Intel documents, maps, currency that we had seized from the NVA base camp. No way we were going back to Contoon without them. After setting up a hasty perimeter at the rear of the broken Sikorsky helicopter, McCarley returned to help Sergeant First Class Bernie Bright get untangled from the wires and debris inside the aircraft. Then they exited the helicopter to strengthen the perimeter around the backside of it.

In the pilot's compartment, Persky unstrapped Badi, who had pulled a bad back compression stemming from the crash. I kind of pulled Bill from the helicopter. He was mobile, but still stunned. When Persky and he set Badi down on the ground in front of the helicopter,

he didn't see any S-F men on that side of the bird. My infantry tactics kicked in. We circled the wagon, set up a rough perimeter, he said. Persky said. In the back of the helicopter, Rose, McCarley, and Mike Hagen helped the stunned troops exit the helicopter. Quote, before I'd let any of the injured get off the helicopter, I draped their weapons or any weapon near them around their neck so that when they set up in the perimeter, they'd be able to defend themselves, said Rose. By this point in time, we were strictly working on adrenaline. added.

So even those guys, these guys have been through all this freaking mayhem and they still go back and rescue their guys and then they're still thinking tactically about how to get through this. Yeah, Mike Rose is on top of his game for that whole thing. Just amazing. Continuing on once again, time was working against the men on the ground. I forget how long it took from the time we crashed until I received radio contact from either Lieutenant Colonel.

Sexton or Covey, said McCarley. They told him that the backup helicopters fuel levels were getting low and that when he came into the LZ, we'd only have five minutes or less to get the hell out or we might not have enough aviation fuel to make it back. After dodging Russian assisted NVA attack aircraft weapons, including Russian manufactured Ackack weapons that exploded in midair in the fashion of anti-aircraft weapons in World War II and hundreds of enemy ground forces firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at them. Pilots in the first Scarface Cobras that led the rescue helicopter toward the LZ were surprised to receive no enemy ground fire.

The heavy lift Marine Sea stallion followed closely behind the Scarface gunships. Due to the heavy enemy ground fire throughout Operation Tailwind to provide extra defensive fire power for the big helicopter, Captain H. Coppola? What do you think? Capola. Captain H. Coppola was on the rear ramp with an M-60 machine gun in addition to right-door gunner, Sergeant T. McBride on the left, door gunner, Sergeant T. Winicki, and crew chief Sergeant Smith.

even though we had our bell rung, when that chase ship backup helicopter landed, we didn't waste any time getting aboard it, said Mike Rose. I remember Hagen, Gene, first sergeant, helping people up the ramp. Marine pilot Persky knew that he had bitten through his lip upon the crash impact, but he didn't realize how severely damaged it was

until he moved up the ramp of the CH 53, and one of the doorgunners pointed out that his lower lip was merely hanging on by a thin piece of skin. Quote, he told me that I better hold on to my lip or I'd lose it. I do remember they changed my call sign afterwards to lip. As the sea stallion lifted off with the wounded and extremely fatigued men of B company, Rose made another surprising discovery. Maggots had helped to treat the two most seriously wounded team members who had been carried since the day, since the command post was struck by an RPG round during day one.

When that RPG hit, Rose had suffered serious wounds in two places. McCarley in several places and two Indig team members had been seriously incapacitated. The one thing I never thought about or planned for, said Rose, was for the use of maggots, which in the end proved to be the most likely lifesaver for the two most critically wounded team members. During those four days on the ground, Rose and the Montoyard medic trainee Koch were kept busy caring for them, giving them extra fluid, morphine, shots, and IVs. But during those days, quote, flies laid their eggs in the wounds of the most seriously injured

and a few other yards and the eggs hatched. According to the doctors at the evacuation hospital, the maggots got to the necrotic flesh before infection could set in and in fact did a better job of debriding the wounds than a surgeon could do. Who would have thought of it? We covered a book where that happened with the prisoner war camps in World War II. The medics would actually utilize maggots. They would get them to plant their maggots there, get the flies to plant their seeds there.

So it would eat away the dying skin. Oh, yeah. The CH53 returned to DAC 2 to refuel while the A1 pilot Swanson and Stump destroyed the crashed CH 53. The rescue C-Stallion then returned B Company to the LZ outside the top secret SOG compound in Khantum. An S2 officer approached McCarley and took his rucksack, which contained the enemy currency and some of the intelligence documents collected from the NVA command post in Louth. command post in Laos. I never saw that rucksack again, nor the NVA currency again, McCarley lamented. He continued. Regardless, the mission was dubbed a success by the folks in Saigon and at Saug headquarters.

We were told that thanks to our efforts, the CIA's operation was able to regain control of the strong point atop the plateau 10 days after we were extracted on the final helicopter. We had tied down an estimated regiment of NVA and Pathet Laos forces while destroying one major enemy ammo dump and an enemy base camp after we removed the enemy documents and maps. A subsequent DOD report confirmed McCarley's final analysis that Operation Tailwind was Sog's deepest penetration into Laos during the eight-year secret war. The final count. Three mountain yards were killed in action. 33 were listed as wounded in action. A total of 33 purple hearts were awarded to the 16 Green Berets who served in Operation

Tailwind for wounds they received during the four-day mission. McCarley required nine months of dental repair and surgery due to crushing his teeth when the CH 53 crashed. Two days after the Green Berets returned to CCC, completed their reports, and got patched up by special forces medics on base, a huge party was held in contum base with food, soda, and alcohol for all the participants in Operation Tailwind, including the aviators from the HMH 5th 463 unit, Scarface Cobra Gunship crews, Army Cobra Gunship crews, and some Air Force Covey pilots. Somehow, the word did not get delivered to the A1 Spad pilots and ground crews from

the Danang base. 47 years later, Swanson mused, quote, It's just as good that we didn't get the word because we were busy supporting other SOG and SAR missions. You know just another day in the prairie fire area of operations for our Sky Raiders. End quote. To this day, Rose can't touch the thumb on his left hand with his little finger due to the serious nerve and muscle damage he received when wounded on day one.

On day one. Yeah. So all that medical treatment he provided with no thumb in action. For more than two years, his wife pulled pus-coated shrapnel and bamboo shards from his body, stemming from the many times he was hit with shrapnel while on the ground. Adair still suffers from nerve damage to his neck, left shoulder, and arm from Operation Tailwind. But what's crazy is no Green Beret has killed in action.

That's amazing. The recon died smiled on them. Oh, yeah. That's just a, it's an incredible, I mean, it's a beyond incredible operation. It is so successful with so many levels and the fact that the hordes were coming by day four, they finally reacted. When they reacted, it was enough to take the pressure off the CIA operation. So they were missing accomplice with the bonuses of hitting.

the command center and then the other cache where they blew up with tons of rice weapons, trucks, etc. Yeah, the fireworks went on for quite a while. And wipe out a base camp in a spare time.

Oh, amazing. And I mean just the mission focus from McCarley just to look, we get shot at while we're on insert. Yeah.

We're still going. We get contacted. We're still going. We get wounded. We're still going. We get more wounded. We're still going. We find an enemy base camp.

Are we going to back away? No, we're going to attack it. Yeah. We're going to keep going. He's relentless. Totally relentless. Classic example of a guy learned from the AO, applied in the field,

and to do it at such a level. Now, always change the direction, so the NVA wouldn't be sure where they're gone. And moving at night? At night. You guys didn't move much at night normally. We never did. A couple guys may have gotten away with that, but not us. No, when we were at night, we hunkered down. And they had good enough weather that they could click in with, you know, specter, shadow, stinger, and it made a difference. And we may have downplayed it because Gene everybody couldn't even remember how many gunships they went through a night but every night

they went through them they used some yeah seals moved at night during vietnam that was that was like one of the things that they did that was like outside the box you know was they that's what that's one of the things that they did was they moved at night i don't know how they did it but they did it yeah um now you kind of you kind of referred to this earlier um these guys guys do this beyond heroic operation. Of course, no one ever hears about it because it's SOG and you guys all signed a 20-year oath of silence on this stuff. And all the air crews were told before they went in, everybody.

You know, of course, the A-1 Sky Rader people, it was an SOP with them. But there's a lot of new troops coming in on it. But the helicopter crews, the cobra gunships, even though they, you know, Scarface had been doing cross-offence missions for a long time, they were all briefs. When we're done here, you don't talk about it. Yeah, and we kind of breezed through it, but also you heard McCarley say that, I think it was McCarley say that because it was so secretive,

a lot of these pilots, they didn't get any recognition at all. I mean, you're freaking flying a helicopter into an LZ where there's, massive machine gun fire to extract guys. I mean, that's just insane bravery. Right. And, you know, again, the beauty of talking to people after you write the book, when I talked to Tom Stump and Gene

on that one point, when they were together, we had a reunion, a tailwind reunion a few years ago in Tennessee. And there, Gene McAarley said, had you not done that, we would have been done, right then. And because they were really up again. against the wave attacks by that point.

And they're low in ammo. And Tom Stump, he said, you literally saved our ass right there. And he came through the clouds. Somehow, these A-1 pilots, and Tom Stump, those guys, how they get through the clouds to get down to be critical mass,

danger close, and to save their ass. I mean, and they're just wonderful. We just love them. That's why we feel like the Sky Rader pilots were saints. Yeah, the seals had a relationship like that with the sea wolves, the Navy helicopter pilots. And we've had a couple of sea wolves on here.

Of legend. Freaking badass. Same thing. They were going. Like if they got the call, they were going. That's all there was to it. Scramble the sea wolves. All right, cool.

What do you got? We're going to get you out. And the seawulf history is they were kind of like treated like stepchildren. Oh, for sure. They had to go out scrow and stuff all the time. And yet when it came time, those guys flew. and they were good. Yeah.

They were another legend. Absolutely, man. Fucking heroic. Oh, yes. So these guys do this heroic operation, and you mentioned this earlier, and I'm going to go to the book, 28 years after one of the most successful operations

run in the 1970, run in 1970 during the eight-year secret war, Operation Tailwind, CNN, that's the cable news network, broadcast a disgraceful, erroneous story that stained the reputation of the men who participated in that mission portraying them as war criminals. Instead of reporting the facts of the successful mission,

CNN accused the Green Berets and airmen of gassing American POWs held captive in Laos with deadly sarin gas. CNN used that error-laden work of fiction in an effort to compete with CBS's popular 60-minute program when it launched a new program on June 7, 1998, called Newsstand. The title of the bogus, slanderous story entitled Valley of Death. It alleged that 16 Green Berets and 120 Indage troops from Operation Tailwind had destroyed a village and killed innocent women and children while directing U.S. aircraft to drop lethal sarin nerve gas on U.S. war defectors, they said were POWs of the communists.

To compound the egregious attack against America's finest soldiers and airmen, the next day, Time magazine repeated the hideous allegations in the news story written by CNN staff members headlined, did the U.S. drop nerve gas? It was written by CNN producer April Oliver and CNN international correspondent Peter Arnett, who produced the CNN story that aired June 7th. The broadcast and time article smeared the men of Operation Tailwind, which was conducted during the eight-year secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War and run under the ages of

military assistance command, Vietnam, studies and observation group, or simply SOG. There was an additional political ramification stemming from the CNN Time Magazine report in 1998. At a July 21st, 1998 press conference repudiating the CNN Time report, then Secretary of Defense William Cohen said, quote,

the charge would be used to discredit the United States attempt to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In fact, Iraq immediately incorporated CNN's charges into its anti-U.S. propaganda effort to try and deflect attention from its own outlawed chemical and biological weapons programs, end quote. Cohen ordered a full scale across-the-board investigation of the CNN Times story from all military branches involved in Operation Tijuana, tailwind while requesting at the same time from the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staffs. Of course, these guys found up, you know, reported what had really happened. And then there's some retractions and some apologies.

Secretary Cohen said, I think all Americans should know that the 16 men who conducted this mission were heroes, but that they have been hurt by this report. I can assure you that you and your colleagues and your families, you did nothing wrong. And he's obviously, he's addressing the men. Quite to the contrary, you did everything right. Sixteen Americans fought steadily for four days. All of them were injured. All got out alive.

The documents that they captured provided intelligence bonanza. General Abrams, the commander of our troops in Vietnam, said Tailwind was a valuable operation executed with great skill and tremendous courage. Cohen told reporters that after rigorous review of thousands of pages of document statements and afteraction reports, the military ordinance and web. and storage records, quote, we found no evidence to support CNN time assertions. We have found absolutely no evidence to support these charges. CNN and Time retracted their reports, noting that they could not support either charge.

On July 2nd, 1998, in a CNN retraction, CNN News Group chairman, president, and CEO, Tom Johnson said an independent investigation concluded that the report, quote, cannot be supported. There was insufficient evidence that Sarin or any other deadly gas was used, and CNN could not confirm that American defectors were targeted at the camp as newsstand reported. We apologize to our viewers and to our colleagues at time for this mistake. CNN owes a special apology to the personnel involved in Operation Tailwind, both the soldiers on the ground and the U.S. Air Force pilots and U.S. Marine Corps helicopter pilots who were involved in the action.

On July 13th, Time magazine printed an apology to its readers headlined, tailwind, an apology. They noted that the allegations reported on June 7th and 8th, 1998 could not, quote, be supported by the evidence, end quote. In July 14th, 1998, Ted Turner wrote a letter to McCarley. Quote, I hope you will accept my personal apology for the CNN newsstand's recent erroneous reporting on Operation Tailwind. This entire episode has been very painful for me as the founder of Starrley. CNN. However, my greatest distress comes from knowing that our coverage upset those on the front line of Operation Tailwind, the soldiers on the ground, and the U.S. Air Force, and Marine Corps pilots engaged in the axon, end quote. McCarley said in a 2015 interview, quote, I

personally spoke to Ted Turner, and he reiterated that he wrote what he wrote in the letter. He also told me he was going to call the other members of our team and write them letters of apology to the best of my knowledge that did not happen. end quote. Larry Grow, a Marine Corps helicopter door gunner who survived Operation Tailwind, added, I felt really betrayed by CNN for allowing those reporters to publish all those lies and twisting the statements from those who were interviewed. CNN showed me how the news media can twist a story to fit its needs and have never really

trusted any of the other media 100% in their reporting since then. interviewed in 2016 retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mel Swanson who is the commanding officer of the daring A-1 Skyrater pilots remained brutally bitter about CNN's false story Quote Operation Tailwind was the classic example

of inter-service cooperation in that area of operations think about it America's finest the green berets and their loyal troops kicked ass and took numbers on the ground deep in enemy territory The tactical air support from the Air Force fast-movers, C-130 gunships, our beloved A-1-H spads, in combination with Marine Corps Scarface Cobra gunships, Army Cobra's and Marine Corps dimmers raised hell in the enemy's backyard. We killed hundreds of these commie bastards, and thanks to that Green Beret medic, all were kept alive until the final extraction when one Montoyard soldier was killed. until 1998.

I occasionally watched the Communist News Network, but after they ruined our reputations, I never watched it again. It was a crime against our warriors, what they did. It was a travesty of justice. Amen. Yeah, I mean, obviously right now we're living in a,

you know, this is 1998, and the media is even more partisan. And they take stories all the time and run with these stories. And a lot of times it's happened so much that it's, we forget what it does to the actual people that are victims of the stories, these false stories that come out.

And so, you know, you get a situation like this, these guys. And, you know, I was thinking about, you know, Mike Rose, who had to make that decision out in the jungle that he's going to leave, you know, his indig troops out there that were dead, he's leaving the bodies, and he's tore up over that. for his whole life since then. Oh, absolutely.

And then you get a story like this comes out. It's, yeah, it's a travesty. And they knew it was coming. So, I mean, they knew there was a story coming, but they didn't know it's going to have that negative edge to it and the distorted inaccuracies. So some of these guys lined up their families, sit down in front of the TV.

Mike Hagan and Mike Rose were two of those that come to mind right away because they had their families. hey, we're going to be on CNN tonight. And then halfway through the broadcast, when that true tone comes out and the family looks out like you're war criminals. And then Mike had to explain to his daughter. Mike Rose.

And he was just devastated. And you had to sit there and try to explain it. And these kids see things on TV. TV's never wrong. And look at Dad with a little bit of cross-eyed, but horrible impact. on a personal level nobody ever hears about.

You alluded to this earlier because of the secrecy of SOG and what you guys were doing, there's a bunch of reasons because the secrecy of SOG, because the number of guys that were doing turnover, so you've got guys coming in

and leaving, and then the number of guys that are wounded, the number of guys that are killed, the number of guys that are missing, there's a lot of SOG operators that, as we mentioned earlier, never met the pilots that were supporting them. And so you'd get these guys, they'd never see them.

Yeah. But then, and again, you alluded to this earlier in 2016, going to the book, the first Operation Tailwind reunion was held at the Tennessee Museum of Aviation, bringing together for the first time in more than 45 years, some of the men from all of the aviation units and some of the Special Forces soldiers from that unique mission. Featuring B Company commander Gene McArley, the commanding officer of the A-1 Sky Raiders, Mel Swanson, and the pilots who flew Marine Corps

Cobra gunships from Scarface, the CH53 pilots, and a few forward air controllers. With tears in his eyes, Swanson said, I hope this is the first of more reunions like it, to see how grateful the men of SOG were for our support during those hairy prairie fire missions touches me through and through. As well as the other pilots here today, we always wondered, who those crazy fuckers on the ground were. And now, thanks to the reunions and this reunion, we get to meet them. And I can't tell you how much this means to me on a personal level as the commander

who sent our A1 pilots into harm's way every day to learn how much they appreciated us and the AO. It's gratifying beyond words. Scarface Pilot Barry Pensick. Am I saying that right? Yes. Pensick. Pensick? Pansick.

Scarface pilot Barry Pencic told the audience, that when the Marines went across the fence into Laos, quote, they made us change our call sign for some reason. They called them Mission 72 when we went across the fence. Whenever we ran a Mission 72, for some reason they had us take off our dog tags, leave our wallet at home so you couldn't be identified. As if you go down in an American-made helicopter and you're a white, right guy, round-eye in an Asian country and no one's going to know you're American. I never understood the logic of that. Then, in a closing note, Penn Sik turned to the audience and apologized to the ladies in advance for contaminating the spoken word with profanities to summarize the time he spent during that operation. I can't think of another way to say this, he said apologetically.

For example, if someone is really good, he's a hot shit. if something was good it was shit hot if you get into a bad situation it was a shit sandwich don perski mentioned the sandwich we got into earlier if you had your act together you had your shit together and i would like to say that i was honored to have a week or so to spend with all these people here and a bunch of others and that they were a bunch of hot shit guys on a shit hot mission and we got into a shit sandwich but we had our shit together in the end no shit airborne is that a great line or that is a great line that is a great line um so you know one one thing i want to mention um is that mike rose on october 23rd 2017 received the the medal of honor oh yeah

At the White House from President Trump. At the White House from President Trump. And it shows you that, you know, even though it wasn't known about at the time, the heroism of these guys was just, well, that's the highest honor that person can be, can receive. So, salute to those guys. And, man, what a mission. Now, I'm going to jump ahead. And look, we're not covering all of SOG Chronicles.

By the way, that was one mission to cover in this volume one of SOG Chronicles. But one of the things that when I started reading, I read a quote that said, you know, as of June 13, 2017, there were still 50 Green Berets listed as MIA in Laos alone, along with at least 105 aviators who died supporting SOG missions. They are among the total of approximately 260 aviators missing in Laos as of this printing. Now, there's a, there's a story in here, and I don't, I don't want to go through the whole thing, because people should get the book and read through it. But on a high level, because it ties into the, you know, the, the MIAs that are still out there. Can you tell us a little bit about RT intruder and, and what happened on that, on that operation? Oh, sure. Um, They went into the target and made enemy contact,

and they had to get pulled out on strings. So the first helicopter came in, pulled out the first half of the team, RT intruder. The second helicopter came in, again, with strings to pull them out, and they had two Americans, three Americans are on the strings, and maybe one in the ditch, I forget about the indig. And as they're lifting off, one of the ropes got tangled into trees, and Sammy Hernandez fell to the ground, was knocked on conscious.

So he's unconscious, helicopter continues up, gets hammered, turns around, spins out of control, and then crassed into a granite wall or to a mountain, killing the entire air crew, everybody on the ropes. So the next day,

the bright light goes in. And maybe a day or two days later, the bright light goes in they get to the crash site and they're able to recover all the bodies Samuel Hernandez during the night woke up, played hide

and go seek with the NBA. He found a cave or some kind of area where he could get out away and before he went into the cave his shoulder was dislocated so he pounded his shoulder back into place on a tree then he hid

for the night. In the morning morning at first light, uh, Covey came by, and he had his panel, and they were able to distract him out. They came in with the bright light, got all the bodies, put them in the body bags, moved them to a location. I forget they got to the top of the mountain or not, but Cliff Newman was on that mission. And, um, they went in, put together all the bodies, but it was too dark. They couldn't come in and get him out that night. The plan was in the morning, they'll come in early.

well in the morning before any aircraft could get there any air cover the NBA hit that team hard and bottom line they couldn't get the bodies out they literally left them there 35 40 years later cliff Newman goes back in an effort to work with our uh what's now dpaa department plow w mIA accounting agency and it was the predecessor but cliff went in try to find it the cooperation with the indigenous people, forgive the Laotians or the Vietnamese, they put them in too far away from the mountain. So Cliff went back four or five years ago, again, the second time.

And again, they're too far away. So Cliff is waiting for the third call to go back and try to help him. And this is the dedication of Cliff, and Sammy Hernandez is still alive. and of course Cliff Newman was and Sammy were on the first team that did the first halo jump in the Laos. Well, that's one of the other reasons

why I don't want to go too much deep detail right now because hopefully we get them on here to tell the story. Oh, he'll come back. Yeah, you know, when you think about that, you know, I just was looking through some of this information. Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia right now, total of 1,587.

And post-January 1973, they've repatriated 1,059 from Vietnam, China, Laos, and Cambodia. So, we still have work to do there to get these guys back home.

Yeah, and even on that missionary, the morning that they went in to get to pull the recon team out after the recon teams hit, we had a cubby that went in and got shot down. And they lost all of, everybody's killed, and they couldn't get them out right away. But eventually, I think now it would be maybe 10 years ago, they got the pilot out, they recovered his body. And so today, yeah, there's 1,586.

remaining MIAs in Southeast Asia, which includes Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and China. And there were a few up there, pilots, mostly, I assume. And September 18th will be the national P.OWMIA Recognition Day when there will be events held across the country. And, of course, you have the iconic POWMAA flag. that's now been authorized by President Trump to be flown all federal buildings throughout the year now, every day, trying to keep attention focused to that level.

Anything that we can do to help out on that stuff? Well, there's a lot of issues attached to it, but the most important thing is to keep people writing their congressmen and say, please, keep the efforts going forward on this for the for the Americans from Southeast Asia because what's working against us in addition mother nature again is the most acidic soil in the world eventually eats up bones and maybe teeth and so um who knows how much longer the remains will be and um you know for my case like spider pat walkins Lynn black the MIAs the people we knew who are teammates that are now

part of that and we still hope to someday at least get the remains back someday. Maybe not. I think there's going to have to be somebody somewhere. It's going to have to say we have to end it. But until they do, what's really amazing, the young teams that they get out there for DPA, they're dedicated. These kids go out, their Army, Marine Corps. They usually take an SF medic with them now.

And these kids are dedicated. They really do a great job. We like to see a little bit more coming from mid-management at DPAA. It turns with a commitment to really push this thing, keep it in the public's eye, and that President Trump's been supportive of it, and that's all we can do. We're at the mercy of time here and the efforts. Yeah, I know they would send guys.

I know guys in the SEAL teams, friends of mine, that would go to Vietnam to support those. operations looking. Oh yeah. It's like there's no inter-service rival here. Oh. Or all Americans, no matter what service, and there's been teams that have gone in for over 40 years now. You know, I forget the exact date, but I think it's June, you know, they always stopped to talk about the aircraft that was a J-PAC aircraft loaded with people going for a mission at crashed, and we lost several Americans as well as indigenous people. working with us on that so it's a deadly mission it's been a long battle and do you

have the the National P-OWMIA family League of Families National League of P-O-MIA families have been fighting this war the effort to bring home identify bring home the remains of many Americans we can and did they were the first people in any war we fought that demanded that the enemy treat our prisoners better during the Vietnam War. And then they had another name, I forget what it was, but then they eventually became, eventually became, the National League of P.O.MIA families.

The director, CEO, is Anne Mills Griffith. She and her father started when her brother went down in September of 66 as a Navy backseater in an F4. And that family's been involved ever since. And she's been involved when the League was formerly found, the 1970, 50 years of this effort, dedicated. It's a nonprofit, and they're down. She fights our government.

She knows is respected by all our prior enemies, Laos, Cambodia, Northfield. They all know her. They know the League. And they work with DIA very closely. And who do we look up? Where do we go to try and give them support? The National League of P.O.W. MIA families,

just Google, and it pops right up. Anne Mills Griffith is the director of CEO, just an amazing, tough, strong, relentless woman. She's been through three husbands, but the mission never stopped. She just continues to go. Seven days a week she works on this stuff. It's just an amazing story.

Well, salute to her, and obviously a salute to all these, all these that lost, all these that are mission in action. And, man, these stories, are unbelievable. Well, I know you and I have some plans of trying to get as many of these things captured as we can. I know you're traveling and you might start, you know, might get some training from Echo Charles and how to press record on one of these things. Absolutely.

And get these things, you know, everyone wants to hear as much of these stories as we can. So hopefully we can get that going. We left some space on these last couple podcasts. If Blackjack wants to come on, if Sammy wants to come on, it's always open. The door's always open here. This is the most friendly A.O. That Saug has ever known right here in this podcast space. Again, the trouble is like with you and your fellow seals.

These guys are so damn humble. I mean, Eve and I had to pull quotes out of. And work at it. But I promise you, I'll go back to Cliff and those guys and Sammy. He's just an amazing guy. He lives down in Texas and just goes on. He came back and did his time in the service. Career soldier.

Just a remarkable man. And we got one King Bee pilot. We're working on. We got targeted. Yes, indeed. We're talking to Captain on, and he hasn't responded yet. Okay. But when he responds, I hope that we can get him in because he's in both of the books.

Yep. Yep. And so, and his stories are. Well, every King Bee podcast. Any of that are still alive. And, you know, sadly in June, I attended the funeral for Captain Tuong, who saved my ass and our team bacon so many times. I couldn't even count that many, particularly on Christmas Day of all.

Yeah, those guys, yeah, I was reading through one of these where these guys were just, was that Captain Tuong who would go in, or was it Captain On who went in by himself? By himself. Hey, it's too dangerous. Co-pilot, get out. Air crew, get out. Yeah. I'm going by myself to go and rescue these guys.

So we get shot down. Yeah. Getting overrun. Yeah. What? That's just freaking awesome and heroic. So hopefully it'd be an honor to have him on here and talk to him and hear about his life story. So we will do that.

And those king be pauls. Well, even our Americans, I mean, these young kids that were flying these helicopters so fearlessly and amazingly. I mean, how do they get ice cubes in their blood to be so calm and cool? Because that wouldn't be me. From up there, I'd be shit in my pants and go. Let's get the fuck out of here. And they're just sitting like, okay, anytime you want to go, guys, we're ready. And you know how to cycle it is.

You just touch those little controls and that helicopter is going to crash and burn. It's not like an airplane. I was going to mention when I said one of that, when I said, you know, first lieutenant so-and-so is finally. this thing. I should have mentioned, hey, by the way, what that means is this guy is 23. Yeah. You know, this guy is not an old experienced pilot with thousands of flight hours. He's 23, but like you said, he might not have time, but he's got ice in his blood to sit there and hold station with a freaking helicopter while you're taking Dishka 12.7 millimeter rounds into the side of your aircraft. Yeah, and like with the Lynn Blackster, the judging the Xxie.

Executioner all year they came to our rescue time and time again and then with Lynn they came in front of the team and mowed down a wave attack by the NBA They couldn't land took off and came continue to fight You know you you you talk with such reverence for all the other service branches and it's the same you know When we were in the battle Ramadi There was just no rivalry whatsoever And I've never had I didn't really have some big rivalry going into it I never really cared I was thought we were on the same team, but some people, some people take that stuff pretty seriously. But man, on the ground, in the Battle of Ramadi, it was just brothers and across the board.

And sisters as well, because there's females they're fighting and females that were killed in action. And, and, but just nothing but reverence for the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, Marines that we work with, salute to all of them. And, and certainly, I know you feel the same way. Absolutely. as you talk. But hey, once again, thanks for coming back. We got to get the SOG cast going. We will do it.

Maybe I'll take the post-graduate course in how to record. I'm telling you. Echo might be able to take you. Thanks for coming on. And more important, thanks for everything you did to protect our way of life here. And thanks for what you continue to do to support very. veterans here talking about the MIAs, what you've done with your veteran organizations. It's awesome.

And it's just an honor to know you and it's honor to call you a brother. Likewise, brother. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. Like a bad dream, we'll be back. And with that, tilt has left the building. Unbelievable.

Opportunity to sit here and talk to these guys and learn these stories. So many stories You know after we after we turned off the mics I started getting kind of crazy Talking to tilt I was saying hey When you're talking about 600 hand grenades Getting thrown Each one of those hand grenades that gets thrown by the enemy

Into your position is a whole story There's a whole story behind it Hey grenade I where to go I'm from I got him over there Start putting down fire I'm like that's a whole story Each one oh god Jimmy's wounded Each one of these

events 600 grenades each one of those events is a is a micro story yeah each one of these hey in in two lines in this book that we just read in two lines it's like um hey there was enemy bunkers who were cleared by the mountain yards yeah wait wait a second that's a freaking chapter or two chapters or three chapters or a whole book in itself clearing up enemy bunker filled with the car or with NBA fighters What's happening? What are we talking about? So to be able to sit here and talk to these guys and and and tilt wasn't on that particular mission, but he has you know, he has first hand experience in the AO

He lived through it and it's just awesome. So Appreciate the opportunity to do this and one of the reasons we have the opportunity this is because y'all give us support support support as we like to call it echo somebody wants to support this podcast here and while they're supporting this podcast they actually want to provide themselves with some support yep is it close air support not really but it could be considered on some level it is well let's just say this it might not be close air support but it is definitely support it is support for sure and for you know for one's self, you know, to support others, you do have to support

yourself, right? Like I said, I said it before, I'll say it again. It's like, you know, when you're in the airplane and the oxygen mass comes down, what do they instruct you to do? Put it on yourself. Then you help your small infant child or whatever the case you may be. So kind of the same situation.

All right, so we're all working out. We're keeping ourselves on the path. On the path isn't just such an esoteric thing, by the way. It's keeping your shit together. Dang. I like it. It is 100%. In every way you can, by the way, mental, physical, social,

social meaning like just your relationships with people in and outside of your family. Anyway, you understand. You're going to know if you're doing something off the path versus something on the path, you're going to know. Pretty clear. So anyway, so when working out, we could benefit from supplementation. We could use some air support. Some air support.

Some level of support. Yes. There you go. Support is way better than no support. Yes, it is. 100%. So, Jocco has you covered. We have you covered.

We all have ourselves covered as well. Jocco fuel. Supplementation for your joints. Important. Very important. Okay. So I'm not one of these guys who have these crazy joint problems, but from time to time, I'll get jammed up. You know, the kind of when you wake up, you walk downstairs.

If you walk downstairs too quick, you're like, you can feel it. You see what I'm saying? You don't know what I'm talking about. You don't feel that. That's what you're saying? I certainly don't admit it. I thought we were all friends here, you know. But I will say, and the point to this quasi-story is that when you think back to those times

when you're like all stiff or whatever, just general stiffness, and now you don't have it, It's like it's a godsend is what it is. You don't miss those days. We don't want to feel it if we don't have to. Yeah. And it's not a big deal when you forget it, when you don't realize it. You see what I'm saying? But anyway, I realize it a lot.

So that's why it is important to keep taking your joint warfare and krill oil. Those are for your joints. Discipline, discipline go. This is the brain body supplement. Keep you mentally in the game. Keep you sharp. You have a groggy day. Boom.

Helps you out. That's what that is. Also, RTD cans. It's like an energy drink in the form of, you know, I got that backwards. Well, it's like this. It's like an energy drink is something that you drink that makes you feel good for 45 minutes until you crash and burn and you have a freaking insulin level spike. Yeah.

And you feel like crap. Because it's filled with sugar and a bunch of chemicals. What's going on here? no sugar no sugar well how does it taste good because it's sweetened with something else called monk fruit which is actually good for you

does it have 700 milligrams of caffeine no it's got 95 milligrams of caffeine yes good for you get that little afternoon hitter yes so to sum it up

I guess it's a brain health drink in the form of an energy drink loosely we'll say it We haven't figured out what exactly we've made. It's a new category. Potentially, yeah. Okay, I'm going with it.

It's good, nonetheless. Got some good flavors on there. Some flavors coming up as well. Very exciting. Guess who's all excited about their new flavor? I'm not saying it's my new flavor. I'm not saying it's not my new flavor. I'm just saying we have some various flavors coming up.

Anyway, yes, that's discipline and discipline go. There's also the capsules. You know, if you're in a rush or what have you. Yeah, there's that. Also, vitamin D. And Cold War, this is for immunity. So keeping your immune system is keeping it up, keeping it strong. That's important.

Definitely. As opposed to unimportant. Especially right now. Yes. Well, I don't want to get into a whole debate, but I think that immune system is important at all times. Okay. That's what I think? I'm going with it.

All right. I'm concurring with you. Also, what do we got? Mok. Jock. Moke. Protein, in the form of dessert, all different kind of good flavors.

Or dessert in the form of protein. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes, I do. Yeah. Same deal. And we got some new flavors coming out. And I'll tell you what, bro.

I'll tell you what. We got some flavors coming out. Oh, for real? Yes. Oh, okay. Yes. And they are legit. Okay.

Legit. You want to know what one of them is? Yeah. Smashing pumpkin. All right. It's like a, I didn't even know what this was. Yes. Yeah, I didn't even know what this was.

I didn't even know it was a thing. Yeah. B. Little sends it to me. He goes, he goes, dude, you got to try this. And I'm like, send it. Yeah. So he sends it out. And I wasn't even, I didn't even know I liked this flavor.

Yeah. Smashing pumpkins. Yeah. But, mm. Well, dang. Smashing pumpkins is a band. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. You already need that. Your fan. You're a smashed pumpkin. Absolutely. Yeah. Me too, actually. Anyway, that's a ban.

Pumpkin spice. The flavor is like a thing. Yeah, and I didn't know that. Yeah, and that makes sense because, I mean, I knew of it, but just in the past, like, few years or whatever, it's been getting a lot of, like, teasing and stuff. Like, ooh, pumpkin spice, I don't, you know, that kind of teasing. I know, yeah, it makes sense. I have to pull this flavor down because it's weak. No, I think, like, since it's been in the, what do you call, like, spotlight or whatever, and people will be like, oh, I don't know, it's like they've been teasing it for some reason.

Like you're some preppy or some yuppie. Okay. Well, you can tease pumpkin spice, but trust me, you're not going to tease smashing pumpkin. Well, here's the thing.

And by the way, you also said smashing pumpkins. That's plural. That's a band. That's not the name. Yes. Smashing pumpkin. We're going singular.

Yeah. Yeah, I dig it. Because, you know, we won't want to infringe. No, no, no. You don't want to infringe.

Um, but no, the pumpkin spice, though, that's the thing where it's almost like part of the reason or part of the whole teasing culture of it, for lack of a better way of putting it, was that everyone likes pumpkin spice

but you know like it's like if you're like tough you don't want to like admit it like everyone Pumpin spice is freaking delicious in your cafe latte or whatever like whatever it's always del everyone knows that you know that's like kind of the thing that's why I'm gonna be honest I'm a little bit excited for pumpkin spice

you see what I'm saying for smashing pumpkin we're not doing pumpkin we're not doing smashing pumpkin because I'm starting to see the connection here that you're making and I don't think I like it so we're doing something called smashing pumpkin and it tastes good but it's filled with Protein that will make you strong turn you into a destroyer

There you go. Yeah, there you go. We got mulk. We got it going out there. Yeah, protein for me dessert. Also, what we got? Jocka white tea? Can you can you do? Are you into deadlift? Doesn't even matter because once you should be you That's true. It's highly recommended. Yeah. To deadlift and if you're gonna deadlift. You might as well deadlift eight thousand pounds and one of the quickest ways to do that everyone's looking for a hack. I got a hack for you. You don't want to worry about what your periodization is going to be for your deadlifting. That's kind of a pain. What you do is you drink jocca white tea and your deadlifting 8,000 pounds. By the way, guaranteed.

Yep. And if you can't, well, that's kind of on you, really? But, I mean, and that is good. I kind of painted myself into a corner on that one. I had no way out. You saved me. I appreciate it.

Well, hey, look, if you're not into deadlifting, and I get it. I'm not going to, you can't judge. Or you can a little bit. overtly, can't overtly judge about that. You can't. It is certified organic and it's very nice. All right.

So you can get all this stuff at origin, mane.com. You can also get it at the vitamin shop. And pretty soon you're going to be able to get the RTD drink, the jaco discipline go drink at, well, you're going to be able to get it at Wawa in Florida and Virginia very soon. So be on the lookout for that. We're going to have a little operation. Go.

get some. Yeah, that's going to be good. Also, at origin, mane.com, they got some good jiu jitzu stuff, American-made jiu-jitsu stuff. Where do you just throw the word good out there? Like, it's, uh, yeah, good. Yeah. When, actually, it's the premier jiu-jitsu stuff in the world. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess it's like one of those things. Little understatement, you made. Don't worry, I'm here. I got your back. I got your sex. Cover and move. Thank you. Anyway, they got jeans as well.

Good jeans. I say good as opposed to not good. Okay. Like, what are they not good? as in the best things you can put on your legs ever yes in the history of America pretty much jeans boots t-shirts hoodies what else I think we're covered it anyways a bunch of good stuff and it's all made in America shorts that's right sure yeah they got some good stuff on the how about this go origin main dot com look at everything they got over there all-American made

And you might be thinking like, well, you know, that sounds good. You know, I could use some stuff or that stuff or the other thing. But, you know, I like to do things that are beneficial to the world. You know, I don't want to just consume. Right. Well, guess what? Go to Origin Maine. You get some of that gear.

You are contributing to the world. You are bringing manufacturing back to America. We've got a bunch of hardworking American people. up there making it happen and when you support the cause you are doing good

for humanity that's true that might seem like a big step it is it's true yeah yeah and it's interesting we talked about this before you don't care that much about it

how well the fit of the genes are Delta 68 and the factory factory jeans yes or jameen.com also jaco has a store

it's called jaco store and this is where you can get your apparel as it were if you want to represent while you're on the path as we say so you know

discipline discipline equals freedom t-shirts hats do you know what bona fides are yes I do you taught me yeah yeah so there's a good bona fides

when you're just out in the wild and maybe you want to you know if you run run into someone else that's kind of on the path, maybe a trooper, but you don't want to walk around, hey, hey, how's going? Hey, are you in the game? No, no.

Just put the flag on, man. Yep. Put the flag on. Put the deaf core flag on. Yep. And someone, you know what you get? You're not going to get bothered, but somebody will give you a look, you a little head nod. Yep.

Like, what's up? Yep. Maybe a little, maybe a little. Yeah, what do you call it? A little heart hitter. Heart hitter, yeah. Oh, yeah. But yes, that's where you can get it.

Jocco store. Docklstore.com. We've got some board shorts on there. Summer, we're wrapping up summer. Are we wrapping up summer? Well, I mean, no, we are definitely wrapping up summer. But, you know, I know some of us operate more on a Hawaiian-type schedule. So summer might be kind of passed, but some people may still be wanting some board shorts if they're actually in Hawaii.

Well, how about this? The board shorts that we currently have, they're multipurpose board shorts. You can swim with them, surf with them, do jiu-jitsu in them, or just wear them wherever. Wear them while you're podcasting like I'm doing right now. Yeah, that's your new uniform right there. It is. It did make, they do make the cut. Yeah, they're good.

But yeah, a lot of good stuff on there. Yeah, if you like something, get something. Don't forget about that warrior kid's soap. Yes. From Irish Oaks Ranch. You can get it on on jocco store.com. But it's a kid, a warrior kid, with a company who's making soap. Because his vision to help humanity is to help people of the world.

Stay clean. Also for the month of September, Irish Oaks Ranch is donating $1 per bar of soap to cancer research. Check. So, yeah, it's cancer awareness month. So boom, that's what we're doing. Subscribe to this podcast. Check out some of the other podcasts that we have, Jocko unraveling, used to be called the thread, but we changed the name.

So Jocko unraveling, soon to be on its own feed. We have grounded, which we really haven't recorded in a long time. We need to get that done. And Warrior Kid also not recorded in a long time, but you can listen to those podcasts. You can subscribe to those podcasts and this one. We also have a YouTube channel. I think the main value of the YouTube channel, and this is me being kind of serious, is for those of us who like to watch the podcast,

Two reasons. To watch the podcast as it goes on. Like if you have a flat screen or, you know, one of these smart TVs in your office or your gym or whatever, you want to play it, boom, you want some visual, what do you call it? Like association. You can see what John Stryker-Meyer looks like. Sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah, there's that for sure.

But, you know, when you have it playing in the background, it seems like you're more in the conversation. Anyway, it's for that. And also the excerpts we have on there. So, you know, like you can get little, little, as you and Theo Vaughn would call them little. little or big hitters. Were you trying to get me to say hitters? No, I wanted you didn't. You understand what I'm saying.

Anyway, in my opinion, that's the value. So yeah, subscribe to that. Also, psychological warfare is an album with tracks, Jocko tracks of Jocko, helping you get past your moments of weakness if they come, if they come. Let's face it, they come. They come.

Oh, yeah, for sure. And yes, this will help you. So yeah, you can get it on Amazon or wherever you get MP. three's from all good yep flipside canvas.com my brother dakota myers company and yeah guess what guess what if you want a little visual representation to kind of keep you on track check out flipside canvas dot com and get something to hang on your wall graphic representation of the path also got some books obviously these books here by john striker meyer across the fence on the ground sod chronicles also don't forget about whiskey tango fox trinko fox trinked

by Blackjacklin Black. We got the code, the evaluation, the protocols. We got leadership strategy and tactics field manual. We got Wayo Warrior Kid 1, 2, and 3. We got Mikey and the Dragons. We got Discipline Equal Freedom Field Manual. And by the way, there's a new version of that. Extended versions.

Be advised. A little bit. Some additional information for your knowledge. And also, extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership also have a consulting company called Ashlawn Front where we teach leadership principles and we solve problems through leadership. We also have EF online. If you have a question that you want to ask me, sure, you could send it into the interwebs,

Facebooky, Twitter, the gram, you could try and ask me a question. Look, sometimes I get to them. or you can come on to eFonline.com and come to a live webinar where I am sitting there in front of my computer answering questions. Go to eFonline.com. Come and hang out. Basically, come and hang out. We have something called the muster where you come and physically hang out and learn about leadership. We've had to cancel a few of them because of the COVID virus, but we have one coming in Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th.

Go to extreme ownership.com if you want to come to that. We have EF Overwatch where we take people from the military that have the understanding of the principles that we talk about and we place those people into the civilian sector, into companies in the leadership position. Go to EFoverwatch.com if you're a company that needs leaders. We have America's Mighty Warriors.org. Mama Lee, Mark Lee's mom.

Her mission, since she lost Mark, since we lost Mark, has been to help service members around the world in all kinds of different aspects. If you want to get on board and you want to help out, go to America's mighty warriors.org and you can donate or you can get involved. And if you want to hear more from us, you can contact us. If you have questions, if you have answers, if you can fill in the blanks of some of the blanks that we get to, you can find us on the interwebs.

For Tilt, for John Stryker-Meyer, he's on Twitter at Sog John. Instagram is at J-Stryker-Meyer, and Facebook is at John Stryker-Meyer. On the interwebs, he's got Sog-chronicles.com. And if you're looking for either one of us to knuckleheads, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jock-Wilink. And thanks to Tilt, of course, for coming back on to share. the stories of Sog, the Sog Chronicles, and more important thanks to Tilt and all his brothers in arms for their service and their sacrifice, especially those who are still missing in action.

We will not forget, and we thank you and all of our military for keeping us free. And to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol, Secret Service, all other firsts. responders out there holding the line thank you for your service and sacrifice to keep us safe here at home and to everyone else out there don't go around thinking that you're hot shit and that your shit doesn't stink because you're bullshitting yourself and if you do think that you are the shit then things will likely shit the bed and then they'll go to shit and you'll end up in a shit sandwich and likely shit a brick when you realize that you're up

shits creek without a paddle and that right there is some deep shit so instead focus on getting your shit together and then keeping your shit in line and look we all have a shit ton of work to do and not just chicken shit either but the real shit that can make us tougher than shit and that is no shit Sherlock so until next time. This is Echo and Jocko. Out.