Jocko Podcast - 401: Am I as Committed As I Should Be? "SOG Codename, Dynamite", with Dick Thompson.

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

>Join Jocko Underground<CEO, HPS, Inc., Speaker, Author, Psychologist, Mensa | Special Forces Operator, Airborne, Ranger, MACV-SOG 1-0 | Ironman, Army Veteran, LTC (Retired)Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 401 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The Military Advisory Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group, Mac V. Sog. Don't be misled by the name. We are not an academic group studying the war in Vietnam. We were not advising anyone. Mac V. Sog was a top secret group of the most elite special operations warriors

in the world. Every time I led my team on a mission, it was kill or be killed. Every time hundreds, sometimes thousands of people would die. It was not about rules of engagement. Was this person an enemy? Does this person have a weapon? Is this person about to kill me or the other questions and rules today's special operators may have to deal with?

Sog rules were very different and simple. Everyone was the enemy The enemy had to be terminated Or you would be And if the enemy caught you The United States government would deny any involvement with you or what you were doing You had no protection under the Geneva Convention You were a spy

You were on your own It has been documented that SOG teams had the highest kill ratio of any unit during the Vietnam era SOG teams also had the highest casualty rate over 200%. This means each SOG member was either killed or wounded multiple times. For example, Staff Sergeant Robert Howard, later Colonel Howard, was wounded on at least 11 occasions, was awarded eight Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Medal of Honor. 22 men received the Distinguished Service Cross and 13 received the Medal of Honor on SOG operations. There has never been a war where such small teams of young warriors were set against such overwhelming numbers of enemy forces on every mission. But the SOG missions were not fought alone.

You were always part of a team. Internal battles, however, were and still are being fought alone. by what has been burned into each SOG operator's brain. Once seen, you cannot unsee. Once you do, you cannot undo. There are experiences on the battlefield that you can never unsee, unhear, unsmell, un-feel, or untaste. Once you pull the trigger or detonate an explosive,

the lives you've just terminated cannot be unkilled. The enemy soldiers spouse kids, grandkids, great grandkids, future relatives and potential roles they all play in the history of the world are immediately and permanently erased. You can never forget the look on the person's face when you pull the trigger or penetrate him with your knife. These are part of you for the rest of your life. You can never remove the experience from your brain. It is part of you until you die. And that right there is an excerpt from the intro of a book that is called SOG code name dynamite, a MAC v. SOG 1-0's personal journal, which is written by Henry Dick Thompson. And on the cover of the book, there's a quote from Major General Eldon Barswell, a legend from SOG and from United States Special Operations.

and the quote from him says, I thought I was crazy until I saw what Thompson did when he became my SOG team leader in 1969. Now, Dick Thompson has been on this podcast before. He was on episodes 204, 205, 206 back in late 2019. And on those episodes, we covered some of his experiences and some of his lessons learned from the Vietnam War. We also covered his book,

which is a book that he had written called The Stress. effect which is a book about leadership and decision-making written about his knowledge from his time as a military officer as a SOG operator leadership consultant and PhD in psychology by the way so go listen to those podcasts for some background but in this new book code named dynamite he gives us details about some of his SOG missions in Vietnam the book is an incredible read and I've read a lot of military books and it gives us some insight into the missions and the mindset of these amazing saga warriors and it's an absolute honor to have dick thompson with us

here again to talk through this book his experiences and some of his lessons learned sir thank you for joining us again thank you for having me back I'm glad you could make it out me too It's been almost, I guess, three or four years since the last time you're on. It was 2019. So it's been a while. And the last time you were on, you know, we talked through some of the stuff in the beginning is just about how you grew up. And you cover that in this book as well about you growing up in the woods, about you being

a general. At a young age, you were actually a general in charge of your own Rangers, a group of a group of Rangers, a regiment of Rangers that was made up of your cousins and your friends. You played football, you ran track. You had an interest in chemistry, which included the interest in blowing things up

and shooting rockets into the sky. So you graduated high school in 1965. You start college at the University of South Carolina. Again, we covered this on podcast 204. And you do cover some of that with a little more detail in the book, but you know, you're, you went to college for a year and the Vietnam War at this time is escalating.

And you wanted to get into it. So you enlisted in the army. Um, you volunteer for airborne school. You volunteer to become an officer and get selected to become an officer. You volunteer for special forces. You go to the Q course. You actually had orders that were not going to send you to Vietnam. So you volunteered for Vietnam. and you are rewarded with going to Vietnam. And I remember asking you the last time you were on, you volunteered for all these things. You got selected.

And I said, was it hard to get selected? And you said, hey, it was the Vietnam War. Like, oh, you want to be a special force? Yep, come on over here. Oh, you want to be airborne? Come on over here. You want to be an officer? Come on over here.

The life expectancy of officers was so short at that time. They were filling those gaps up as quick as they could. But, like I said, you cover that. in the beginning of this book and and with a little more detail I mean with a lot more detail than I just said but that was the path you were on from being a little kid until the point you you get shipped off to Vietnam you're done with the Q course you've been to Ranger school been to Special Forces training and it's time to go to Vietnam and I was gonna skip right ahead you know get to some of the missions but

I I just had to cover this part when you get to Vietnam. I'm going to go to the book here again. The book is called codename dynamite and we'll get to that as well. So you arrive in Vietnam. It says we went quickly through the customs arrival procedures. Then we were transported to reception center for in processing. A special forces sergeant gathered up

those of us who were going to a special forces assignment and took us on a short ride to Natrang. There we were temporarily, we were assigned temporary quarters given instructions for the next day and fed Bob and Bob is your buddy who you'd gone through all this training with you became friends in in AIT I think Bob and I made contact with Captain John Smith a friend of ours from Fort Bragg he got to Vietnam a few weeks ahead of us and was already working in a mic force another good friends of ours first lieutenant Ray Stax from Fort Bragg had left four weeks ahead of us

but we had no idea where he had been assigned John updated us on things that we're going on in country especially with the TED offensive special forces and the types of sF assignments we might want to ask for the next day he said tomorrow toward the end of the day one of the last things they are going to do is ask you if you want to volunteer for SOG do not do it regardless of how cool they make it sound do not volunteer for SOG just tell them no if you volunteer you will die almost all of them die the ones who don't die get the crap shot out of them from several times and they return to the states a nut case don't do it just say no they'll say thank you and you'll move on to your special forces assignment we'll meet back tomorrow evening

and you can tell me about your assignments i might know some people where you're going we spent the evening talking about old times in various aspects of the culture his parting words were remember what I said do not volunteer for SOG so you weren't a very good listener at this point I take it obviously not

I'm going to fast forward a little bit this is the next day and you meet a guy with a guy named Colonel Jones and he says I see that you volunteered for the Army OCS Airborne Special Forces Rangers and Vietnam

and now you have the opportunity to volunteer for the most important job that you will ever have. Based on what I see in your file, you are perfect for the job. This is a job that is so elite that only the people who do it know what it is. If you take this job, no one will ever know that you did it, where you did it, or what you did. It will not be in your records. You cannot tell anyone. And you will have to sign papers agreeing not to tell anyone. It is very rare that I offer this opportunity to anyone, but I'm offering you. What do you think? I said it would help if I knew what the job was.

He said, I understand. All I can say is that you will be volunteering to go anywhere and do anything. No questions asked. I asked, are you asking me if I want to join SOG? He said, is that what you want to do? I looked him in the eyes and said, yes. He said, are you sure, Lieutenant? it I replied yes to fast forward a little bit I went to the bar that evening to meet John

when he saw me walking up to the bar he said you did it I can see it on your face you're a freaking dead man walking I told you not to do it crap I thought you were smarter than that bartender give this stupid son of a bitch a double jack and coke when John saw Bob walking up to the bar he said you did it too I can see it in your face you are both dead men walking I told you two not to do it. Crap, Bobba. I thought you were smarter than Thompson. Bartender, give this stupid son of a bit to double jack and coke.

John repeated his remarks about what we had done several times during the evening. So there you go. You're in SOG. How much did you know about it? Very little. You know, I had heard the word, kicked around some at brag. No one really knew what it was. what people did. They would just say things like, you know, these guys are crazy. They do really

cool things and nobody knows what. Don't look at that guy. Don't make eye contact when he's rumored to have been in sock. Those guys are nutcases. You make eye contact with him. You may disappear tonight and your body will never be found. They're crazy. Okay. What's weird about this is, look, there's all kinds of room. You know, when I joined the Navy and I was trying to go to seal training, you know, you'd hear these kind of same things.

With SOG, it's true. Like all this stuff that you're hearing is true. With the SEAL teams and with the regular special operations guys, this is the only case I can think of where it is just absolutely freaking

true. What you guys were doing what you were getting into. You know, if I would have gotten told that when I was a 21 year old or 20 years old or 19 years old when I joined up, of course, yeah, I'll go. But you don't think it's going to be what it's advertised as. You hope it's going to be what it's advertised as. But boy, did you guys get what it was advertised as, didn't you? Did you ever talk to somebody that was SOG?

Beforehand. Yep. No. Not that I knew about. No, so they did a legit job of keeping it secret and not letting anybody know what's going on. And you think, what about a 34-year-old Dick Thompson? You think you would have volunteered for it then when you were 34? Or do you think this is a young man's game?

It's mostly a young man's game, but I did some wacky stuff as it got older to you. I mean, once I had been in SAG, you know, everything else looked relative. tame. You know, whether it was making a halo jump in the dark trying to go into a small LZ in the mountain someplace, you know, if you just keep getting smaller

and smaller LZs to run the adrenaline level up, just whatever. One of the biggest issues to deal with was trying to show enough restraint because like you mentioned before

and in SOG the rules were different and you had so much freedom in terms of what you could do or had to do that when you came back to the real world it was a matter of I don't like what that person said I would really like to rip his face off

but I'm not going to do that I'd like to make this person disappear, but I'm not going to do that. And it was just constantly, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to restrain myself. And, you know, I had been taught that to some degree, you know, in martial arts before I went in the military. No, you can do it. No, you have the capability to take the guy down, but back away. You don't have to do it because you can. Show restraint, This was a much more violent type of restraint. And just for people listening, how long had you been in the Army for at this point?

Like maybe approaching two years? About two years. And you're 21 years old? 21. 21 years old. In case you can't tell, just order the book right now. I'm obviously not going to read the whole thing. But it's just an epic book.

So just order it Just go order it So you can read this stuff I'm gonna fast forward a little bit Now you're heading up to you sir now you're in SOG You volunteered and now you head up to FobB 4 And it says when the FOB4

CCN commander walked in we all stood at a detention He said at ease take your seats I'm Lieutenant Colonel Warren Let me tell you what SOG is about And what you have volunteered to do That you can never tell anyone about You have volunteered to serve in the military Military Advisory Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group, Mac V. Sogg.

This is your official assignment. And if you believe you are here to do studies and observations on what happens in Vietnam, then you are dumber than an effing board and you need to leave now. If you stay, you can never leave. Not alive anyways. You have just become a member of the most elite fighting force in the world. You have volunteered to go anywhere and do anything. You can never tell anyone about it.

If that's not what you're here for, leave now. Once I start the briefing, you are all in. Am I clear? We responded, yes, sir. Lieutenant Colonel Warren explained that Mac V-Sog was a top secret multi-service U.S. Special Operations Force Unit established 24 January, 1964, to conduct unconventional warfare operations in Southeast Asia associated with the Vietnam War.

Operations took place in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian areas as required. Mac V. Sog had participated in the most significant campaigns of the Vietnam War. In short, he said, we are North Vietnam's worst nightmare. He goes on to tell you about the missions. Types of missions. Recovery imprisoned and missing Americans, training agents for insertion into North Vietnam,

black psychological operations, raids and ambushes, prisoner snatches, assassinations, doctored ammunition, document retrieval, wiretaps, pipeline destruction, B-52, bomb damage assessment, search and destroy, and other missions as assigned. And you mentioned in the book, like when you saw those missions or you heard about those missions, there was nothing that really surprised you. These were kind of all, mostly the type of operations that you'd been prepared for

through SF training and Rangers as well. Yeah, I mean, all of those topics, except for maybe the doctored ammunition, you know, we had trained for, but to do in Vietnam, to deal against whatever enemy. So the list didn't shock. It was just we're going to go do it because, you know, I had volunteered to go to Vietnam because I thought Vietnam's where it's where it is. I mean, that's where we're fighting a war. That's what's going on. And then when I got into Zog, all of a sudden I realized my mail is going to be sent to Saigon in Vietnam. And everybody, my family, everybody's going to think I'm in Vietnam and I'm fighting a war in Vietnam.

Really, that's just where I store my gear. That's where I go to train. That's where I go to get my mission. But when I go to war, I'm going to have a combat deployment into other Southeast Asian countries. So, you know, I've been in like six different countries to go fight in. Everybody thought I was fighting in Vietnam. If you look at the tombstones of the guys who were killed in Saug, all of them say Vietnam. That's not where they were killed.

them were killed there. You know, you were killed in other countries. Your family, everyone was told you were killed in Vietnam. When my family sent mail to me, it went to a post office box in Saigon. It was opened. It was read and scanned. And then sent to me to whatever FOB I was in, you know, and I would get it and read it. when I responded back to my family or anyone that I wrote to, it went to Saigon, it was opened, it was read, to make sure there was nothing in there classified. If it was, that letter, you know, it was just lost. So Vietnam was just, you know, kind of like a TDY station.

I was there to get ready to go fight someplace. I mean, we did some operations, in Vietnam. Yeah, I was going to say in North Vietnam. But even in South Vietnam, we did a lot of fighting there just training. Yeah. Let's go find some guys that were here. Because what we wanted in the training that I think is missing a lot today,

and I won't get on that soapbox. But you just can't imagine the effectiveness of having live fire shoot back targets. You know, you can go out and shoot a silhouette all day. And it doesn't shoot back at you. And you can take your time, you can get good side alignments, you can aim, you can shoot at it, you hit it, it falls over and it pops back up. But when it comes back up, it doesn't shoot at you. And, you know, in the first mission in the book there, I discovered when those targets

start shooting back, and there's a whole bunch of them shooting back, your stress level was up and everything changes. Your vision change. You can't focus on your site. So you can't aim like you were trained to aim. You can't load your, you know, your magazine and the weapon. You can't even get it out of your pouch with all those bullets coming at you because you've never been like that before. Yeah. Yeah, one thing that we were, I don't know if you ever got to use any of this stuff, but by the late 90s, we had simunition. So, and we were using it. It would go in your real gun.

You know, you had an adaptive barrel, and you'd put simunition in there. And the, you know, my, my thought was, like you said, you go and fight paper targets. Paper targets don't do the two things that the enemy does, which is shoot back and maneuver on you. So as soon as you had simunition, you're getting shot, your guys are getting shot, and the enemy is now maneuvering on you and it becomes a much more realistic simulation of combat and it was really good for working with leaders you know the the military the young seal leaders that were going to have to make decisions to make things happen because they had to observe they had to run that ooteloup in their

head and observe what was happening or in themselves decide what to do and then act on it and get the platoon to act on it so that was a huge step up for us when we started to to being able to use and we ended up with a we also ended up with a with a really high speed laser tag system that we would use in the in the outdoors so the the paintball's good and in closer terrain like you know in a city environment because you can you know you can you can shoot 30 or 40 meters and it'll be okay but the the the laser simulators that we had you know you could shoot someone at like 400 400 meters so it was It was pretty good.

And they had machine guns. And they had a little speaker on your shoulder when you were getting shot at. It would make snaps going over your head. If you got wounded, it would tell you you're wounded. If you got killed, it would tell you're killed. Do you lay down? It was a really good training system. But still falling short of what you guys had over on Marble Mountain where you'd go out

and find enemy to go fight for your training operations. So we'll get to some of that. Going back to the book here, you say we also got to pick out our official code names. I wanted Ranger, but Bob spoke up before me and asked for Ranger. Then I saw dynamite. And I thought it was fitting for me, seeing as I always liked to blow things up and I was relatively small, dynamite would work for me. I had blown up my neighbor's windows out when I was a teenager with a rocket that exploded on its launch pad. I didn't intend for that to happen, but I was always blowing things up.

I figured out probably blowing things up in Southeast Asia. And I did get to blow up a lot of things. Bridges, helicopters, bad guys, munitions, dumps, etc. I always carried a lot of C4 and other explosives with me. It would be my code name to identify myself if I were wounded or something bad happened to me. So that's where dynamite came. So they just had a list of names up on the wall? I mean, different code call signs that you could take?

Yeah. They had a list and, you know, it was important that you had a name that would identify you. If you were captured, if you were killed, to have a name that if it was used, We knew who it was without telling anything else about you. If you needed to send some kind of message if you were captured and still alive, then by working that word into whatever you were sending, then, you know, it was sending a message out. And ironically, you didn't just have the code name.

You also had some other questions about you. the name of your dog. You know, what was your first car? And when you think about it, that's the same thing you do now. That's like the Internet security questions, right? Yes, that's all those questions. That's where they came from, was back then. You still had to have those.

Because the likelihood of you being captured, you know, was pretty high. You'd probably die most of the time they'd just kill you. but you could be captured and they wanted all these different methods. So you had a code name and then the code name also allowed you to do other things. You could be cool. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah.

You know, Echo walks in and says going down the mind. Hell yeah. Good man. But and then you would get familiar with the Covey Pallens. who were flying and directing airstrikes, all kinds of things for you. But you knew who they were. They knew the one zeros,

because they're up there talking to you on a regular basis. And sometimes, you know, whatever call sign you had for the mission would just go away. And all of a sudden, they'd be calling me dynamite. And, you know, we'd just drop the call sign

it's a lot easier. You know, I mean, We had so many assets coming in that I used my left hand and my right pants leg as my information control center. I was constantly writing call signs down of the next aircraft, the next set of gunships coming in, the next set of F-4s coming in. I'd write it on there so I could remember it. And Covey's talking to all this stuff. I'm talking. I didn't get to talk to the Air Force guys very much.

our radios, you know, didn't match up, except for our survival radio. But I was talking to the gunships and telling them, you know, where I wanted it. So, and, you know, the pilots all had names. So, you know, we did too. They all have cool names too, so. Yeah. You had to get yours. Oh, yeah.

I haven't confirmed where Tilt got his name. And I asked him about it, but he kind of snuck around a little bit. I didn't get a solid answer. You know, I think some of the names kind of came about like fighter pilot names. You've done something and everybody starts to call you that or, you know, maybe a name that you had before you got there. And I think the best I can determine, Tilt had the name Tilt before he got there. Yep.

And it had something to do. I did get this out of them. It had something to do with pinball. So like when you're playing pinball, you tilt the machine. So it's usually because you're doing something nefarious as you're trying to win. So that's what we're thinking from tilt. He was doing something trying to win, trying to beat the game. He's going to win.

One thing that's really cool about this book is you break out at the end of each section. out some of the lessons learned or some of the highlights and this this for this section here I thought it was really interesting some of these highlights that you put together I boarded a plane in a world I had known all my life and got off a plane in a strange dangerous Wild West world on steroids with a very different set of rules it was like entering another dimension all of my senses were confused nothing made sense my circadian rhythm was 12 hours off Death was in the air. You could smell it. You could feel it.

Bob and I made a decision a lot of people questioned. We volunteered for SOG. We had approached the event horizon of a black hole and were being pulled inside where nothing escapes. We were at the elite of the elite level, the best of the best or the craziest of the crazy. Probably the last one there. In the new world, I was given a new name, Dynamite, and sent North on a quest to hunt down and terminate the enemy. So you show up, then it's off to Fubai, right? F-O-B-1. Yes. And I call it F-O-B now out of reverence for you and Tilt because we, young guys call them Fobbs.

Right. And you guys call them F-O-B, so I'm not trying to keep it. We're deferring to the experts here. Fast forward a little bit. Sergeant Major McIntosh gave us a briefing on the F-O-B-1 compound security safety rules and general area of operations. Then he said everyone would be going to one-zero school. So if you don't know, one-zero is the people that are going to lead the teams.

That's what they're called. Everyone would be going to one-zero school, a week-long course to teach us how to lead a SOG team on top-secret missions across Southeast Asia. Actually, he said everyone was going, except me. When I asked why I wasn't going, the sergeant major said, Lieutenant, you're a special Forces and Ranger qualified, there are a few things they might teach you that you haven't done already, but not much. You can learn those things from your team, which you will be assigned to tomorrow afternoon. We are putting you to work.

Straight off the bench into the game. I know you. Go ahead. If I could just say one thing about the book, I made it like a journal because what I was trying to do with the book is to, to, give people an opportunity to kind of see sog through the eyes of a one zero. Experience to some degree what I was experiencing describing it, the screw-ups, the fear, the whatever, you know, that was going on. And what I did with my teams was we did our own after-action review after every mission. We get together.

team and we're going to talk about what we did well, what we didn't do so well, what happened, what we need to do some extra training on. So I set up post-mission training for my teams. In one case, it was being able to throw a hang grenade from the prong, laying on you belly, throw a hangar grenade, and get it far enough away from us, you know, that it's not going to hit us, not hit a tree and have it bounce back after. because with that team, I always said they didn't seem to be good at that. And what they wanted to do was raise up. If you raise up, you're going to get hit.

I want you to stay alive, but you've got to use the grenades. So I put in there things that I saw, I learned, and we started to practice, and as you go through the book, you can see how it progresses across time. There were things I were doing in the beginning that I discovered that's not the best way to do that. They're better ways and we're going to do it differently. We're going to, I change the load out. I changed the amount of ammunition that people were carrying. Most SOG teams would have one claymore per individual,

and some individuals might not have any claymores. On my teams, I went to an SOP of you carried three claymores per person. that's a lot of extra weight but if you use those things right you just shred the bad guys I used to set them up I'd like to have seven daisy chains

on the most likely avenue of approach coming into us at night I could set them all off simultaneously and when you set off 10 and a half pounds of C4 the concussion from that the explosion from that that. If you're anywhere close to it, it's going to at least knock you out. But when you put 4,900 steel balls in there coming at you at 4,000 feet a second, if you're anywhere

in that zone, it's going to shred you. So what happens is the Big Bang, people shredded, and the NVA would look at that and say, this is different. This is different. This is a big bang. People shredded. And the NVA would look at that and say, this is different. This is not what we're used to with the SOG teams. This guy's a nutcase. But, you know, they gather the survivors, then they would start again, and I'd have another role of either five or three claymores the same way. And then they would say, he is crazy, for sure. And then, you know, like other SOG teams, we would have some individual Claymore's that we'd have time fuses on and they were randomly going off and you never knew. I changed the load out of frag grenades from five to ten. If you have a seven-man team,

you have 70 frag grenades and you can chunk those things all night. They can't see where they're coming from and they're just going off all around you. Anyway, actually a few of the things that I started doing and putting together an S-O-P for my teams in terms of what I wanted to carry, where it was going to be, which pocket you had the map in,

which, you know, everything. If it's, you know, the middle of the night and it's raining and it's dark and he can't see anything and I need to get ammunition or grenades or whatever off of your body, I know where to reach to get it. If you need to get it off of my body,

you know where it is. So we did a lot of things like that, and I wanted to show that how we learned and eventually you get into where we were learning about the enemy and how they react. What do they do? And there's really interesting things,

I'm going into you now, but really interesting things in there that I learned about the enemy. You know, I kind of approached it with a scientific mind because that's what I was, you know, training to be before I got there. So I watched, I observed. I was, what if we do this? What if we do that?

And why are they reacting that way? What are the chemical reactions that's going on that's causing them to do different things? And then we would talk about it and we'd put that into the training. So anyway. Yeah, the lessons learned. I mean, we could probably do a podcast. about each chapter and just cover the lessons learned from each chapter. But then on top of that, like you said, you write this like a journal and you get to, when

you're reading it, experience what you're going through, what your thoughts are, how it's impacting you. And I think a great example of that is here. Again, you're just checking in. You've been there at FOB1 for a day. You wake up and I'm going to go to the book here. It says, the next morning I went to the supply. room after breakfast when I got their staff sergeant Jones the supply sergeant told me that

several SOG team members were killed a few days earlier and their personal effects had to be inventoried by an officer before they could be sent to their families he took me to a room with seven duffel bags on the floor and said dump the bags out one at a time and go through the contents look for anything that might be classified maps operational pictures or anything like that if there's any correspondence read it to see if it says anything about any of the missions if there are pictures take them out. I was to sterilize their gear. It sounded simple enough. I picked up the first olive drab canvas duffel bag and read the name stenciled in big white letters on the outside. First Lieutenant Raymond C. Stacks. I felt like I'd been kicked in the groin. Sog just got real. Ray was

Bob's and my friend at Fort Bragg. He left for Vietnam about a month before we did. Ray had been in Sog for a month and I was already inventorying his personal effects to send home to his family. Ray was a good guy totally dedicated to special forces in the United States. I had no idea he had volunteered for SOG and now he was dead. Killed in action on a SOG mission in Southeast Asian country. Actually, it was worse than that. He and his six teammates and four-man air crew were missing in action. Their remains could not be recovered.

Their helicopter was hit with anti-aircraft fire. an altitude of 3,000 feet and after falling like a rock into the jungle canopy below it exploded and burned I quickly looked at the names on the other duffel bags to see if I knew anyone else Gary L. Mattson Arthur E. Bader Gary R. Labon Michael H. mine Klaus D. Schultz Samuel K. Tumie and Richard A. Fitz before I went, before continuing, I went back to Staff Sergeant Jones and asked him what these men were doing when they were killed. He said no one there knew. It was classified top secret, not even the F.O.B. 1 commander knew. Going through the personal effects in each bag became a very personal and emotional task that caused a bond to form between me and each hero and to some degree their families.

As I laid the contents of a bag out on the table, I put together a mosaic. of each American hero's personal life. His wife, kids, parents, plans for the future, dogs, family pictures of missed birthday parties, holidays, first steps, first words, pictures and kids, pictures the kids had drawn, how much time he had left before going home and small talk with his wife and parents. All the time hiding the extreme danger of his missions. when I was going through Staff Sergeant Richard Fitz

effects, I was struck by a picture of his small two-year-old son and the conversations about him and how much Staff Sergeant Fitz missed him. So that's a welcome to SOG situation. Yep. And, you know, you mentioned in the book, but you end up actually making contact

20 plus years later. or sorry, 50 years later, you end up making contact with Richard Fitz Jr., his son, who was two years old when his dad was killed. How did that connection come about? He was trying to find out more about his father, so he had put a post on a Maxog Facebook site. Does anyone know anything about my father? so I saw it and responded to it and you know so that kind of connected us and we decided we would we would meet at the next special operations reunion not knowing that it was going to be counseled because of COVID so anyway we put it off but you know this summer we'll meet or October we'll meet face to face.

Outstanding. So, I mean, we had some phone calls and, you know, a lot of emails and stuff back and forth, but we haven't had a chance to meet face-to-face. And he made a documentary. It's called 21 years and a folded flag. I tried, I did a cursory search for it to see if I could watch it. I haven't found it yet,

but I'm sure I just need to get to the right streaming platform or whatever and I'll be able to find it. But I'm definitely interested in checking that out. But yeah, I can't imagine a more serious introduction to your second day at SOG and you have got to go through all these guys that were killed. I mean, if that doesn't hit you, I don't know what is. It definitely makes it real. I mean, all of a sudden I'm thinking, what did John say?

Don't volunteer for SOG. Maybe there's something to you that. You get put into R.T. Alabama. And so this is now where you're going to start your SOG career. And you say here, again, I'm fast forwarding. I'm only going to read 5% of this book, but there's so much detail in here. The lessons learned, we're going to hit some of it. But just get the book.

I'm going to fast forward here. You say, my first mission with RT Alabama was to conduct a wiretee. tap on a communication line running along a road being used as a supply route for North Vietnamese supplies through Laos and Cambodia or sorry through Laos into South Vietnam and you give you a roster here the one zero is a guy named deck you're the one one so you're the second in charge Davis is the one two and then you have your interpreter cowboy who is actually on this podcast in number 258 so he's your interpreter and then you have Hoa point man do

your M-79 gunner, and Quang is the tail gunner rear security. So this is your team that you're going to be going out with for the first time. How was it meeting that team for the first time? It was interesting. You know, in the beginning of the book, you see, when I first encountered a SOG team as I was traveling up to FOB4, and it was it was kind of a surreal experience you know we're on the bus I we're on the bus it's a school bus it was a SOG bus not just because it was painted black but because

all the all the windows are shot out the seats are ripped apart where bullets have hit it there's probably 200 or more bullet hole you know, in the bus. And, you know, the Bob and I are looking at each other. I'm like, man, are we even going to get there? But, and while we're talking, we were also supposed to pick up a team. And these guys just, it was like they just materialized. And there they are.

And they're coming toward us. And the last guy was looking backwards the whole time. He's walking backwards and constantly looking for what's going on. And they came up to the bus, and they had all this stuff on. We just never seen before. I mean, they've got grenades hanging all over them, all types of grenades hanging on them. They've got grenades in pouches, you know, in their hip. They've got magazines on their hip.

They've got some kind of weapon that we hadn't seen before. They had what looked like M79. Grenade launchers saw it off, so it was just big, fat pistols. and they had those hanging on them. I mean, it's just amazing. And everything was sterile. There was no name tags, no insignias, no dog tags, no vest, no helmets, nothing. And they were scary.

These were some scary dudes coming up there. Yeah, you go over that in the book. They basically tell you, hey, if we get contacted, because there was some little ambush choke point that you had to drive through in this school bus to get. to the FOB and so they said, hey, if we get hit, you guys just get down and do what we tell you to do. Yeah, just go on the floor and do what we tell you to do if you want to live.

Yes, sir. But when they got on the bus, as they are coming on the bus, they're going to defensive position. Everybody had a position on the bus, windows that they were focused on. Anyway, they were scared. They made the hair stand up on the back of your neck. And when we got the FOLBOR,

before they walked off the bus and you blinked and they were gone. Where did they go? How did they do that? So I had seen, you know, Bob and I had seen a team before and we thought, man, a couple days were going to be on one of those. So I go meet my new team and, you know, it was interesting. A team is supposed to have nine indigenous members and three Americans. Most teams didn't have quite that many of either type of person, you know, just because they get shot up all the time or killed or whatever. But normally you would go out with two or three Americans on the team and every how many of the indigge that you wanted to carry, you know, based on what the mission was. So you get linked up with these guys and just real quick, you explain a sog mission.

You say a SOG mission was not just hop on in a helicopter, fly 30 minutes to a site, shoot some bad guys and fly back. It's very complicated with a lot of moving parts. All these assets were totally focused on getting the team inserted into the area of operations, supporting a while it accomplished this mission, and getting the team back out safely as possible. I was quite impressed. We were using what I found to be our standard F-O-B-1 mission package for our insertion and traction. So what you're pointing out here is that, yeah, there's going to be. going to be what seven eight nine guys on the ground with a lot of firepower for a team that big

but the package that's supporting you is huge it's a huge package so you have and you go through it here i'll go through it briefly but you have an airborne battlefield command and control center so that's you know a big electronic host electric a uh uh a EC 130 basically it's an aircraft with a bunch electronics and they can communicate well then you have the Covey aircraft, which is a forward air controller into Covey, usually in those. The Covey riders are saw guys that have now moved up into the aircraft to support from the sky.

Those guys do an incredible amount of work. They're like that. It's the opposite of what the Marine Corps has. The Marine Corps takes a fighter pilot and puts them on the ground for their Anglico units, like Dave Berg. That's what he did. Good deal, Dave. This is the opposite.

Yeah, good deal, Dave. This is the opposite. They take a saw guy and put him in the same. sky so it's pretty unique um then you have the f4 phanoms then you have the a1 sky raiders then you have the cobras and then you have the lift ships which are which are king be so you have this massive package that's going out that's going to be able to support you guys from the sky pretty incredible it's also pretty incredible that they were able to keep sog so compartmentalized even though there's all these aircraft that are going out and flying these

missions. That's pretty impressive. I don't know how they did that because these pilots are going back hitting the bar, having some beers. I mean, how could you not come back if you're a Sky Rader pilot or a Cobra pilot or, you know, one of these Hueys that's going in and distracting guys? And how can you not go back and say, I just got back from Cambodia and my freaking aircrafts full of bullet holes right now? Yeah. Well, they, you know, usually they came from the same unit. So they were going back to their little group who were flying these particular missions. They were being pulled out on a regular basis

to go out and fly these missions. So they could talk to each other when they went back. Got it. But they'd get a new door gunner or something every once in a while, and he's sitting there. He didn't know where they're going. I just go where the chopper goes, and he's sitting there, and then he sees this river,

and he's saying, hmm, I think that's the border. I think we're headed straight for Laos or Cambodia or whatever And you know their faces kind of light up and they get brief when they get back Don't you dare tell anybody we want across that river So fast forward a little bit here the flight out As the UE started to wind up I could also hear the high-pitched wind of the cobras revving up about 200 meters from us The launch site became very noisy and the smell of JP4 Was strong this excitement was building

the excitement was building as the noise kept increasing my heart rate was steadily increasing my mouth was getting dry this was exhilarating we had gone over this part of the mission many times but it's different when you're sitting in the middle of the multi-dimensional event with all the sights sounds smells taste adrenaline cortisol butterflies in the stomach a vibrating aircraft starting to lift off the ground for your first SOG mission and I was thinking about this yesterday this wasn't just your first SOG mission this was your first mission mission right Yeah.

That's ridiculous. That's crazy. I had the, I had like a very nice, gentle glide slope going into combat operations. As a matter of fact, when I got to Iraq, there was one of my buddies who was my,

who was going to be my task unit senior enlisted guy. He'd been there for a while. He'd been there for like a month. And when we got there, he like spun up some little. mission. We were going to go outside the wire and we were going to go to some vehicle interdiction. And it was, I'm not saying he made it up, but he kind of made it up. Just to kind of get me, my platoon, get us outside the wire, drive around, get some of the nerves out. So that was sort

of our intro. And then, you know, we just started doing a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. But, and you do. You know, you get more used to it. You're like, okay, you shake off some of those nerves. But you're going on your, first mission and it's a freaking SOG mission. That's kind of crazy. It was crazy. It would have been even crazier if I had had any idea about what was going to happen. I mean, I really thought, you know, we're going to go out here, get on the ground, we're going

to run around, do this wiretap. We'll probably shoot a couple of guys before we come back. and you know we once we're in contact we'll get shot at some but you know we'll come back not a big deal so it didn't quite go like that

no I'm gonna go to the book here we were slowly approaching the insertion hole flying with the skids dragging across the jungle canopy the whole looked small the aircraft vibrated as we literally dropped straight down to the bomb crater the pilot was trying not to clip the trees as we were setting down it was just getting dark

Davis and I were on the skid we wrap I rapidly scanned the jungle around the crater, but it was too dark and the vegetation was too thick to see into the jungle. Our descent stopped. We were still about six feet above the crater, and we were going to have to jump into the bomb crater. I thought it was a long jump carrying 95 pounds of weight. I knew I just had to suck it up and jump. Davis and I bent our knees to jump, and as we did, I saw an NVA soldier pop up on my right, about 10 feet off the side with an AK-47 pointed at me. instantly instead of jumping I pushed up and back to the edge of the helicopter floor just as I jumped up the soldier opened fire with his AK-47 the bullets came right across where my legs had been half a second before and hit Davis in the legs he screamed and yelled I'm hit I'm hit help as his legs collapsed and started to fall the fire ball coming out of the AK-47 barrel was blinding and the sound was deafening simultaneously the whole jungle lit up around us and made an unbelievably loud roar as 20 to 30 NVA opened fire on Atomatic

at once. I grabbed the back of Davis's LBE harness with my left hand and used my right hand to put a half a magazine on full auto into the NBA soldier who was less than 10 feet away. The impact of the rounds ripped him apart and blood splattered on me as he went down. Aided by adrenaline and cortisol, I managed to jerk Davis up onto the floor of the helicopter. Blood was going everywhere. Then I saw the muzzle flashes right in front of me. There was nothing but air between me and the NBA who's shooting at me from 20 to 30 feet away. I was totally exposed. I could be seen. I could be hit. I could be killed. Everyone in the aircraft was returning fire, the two door gunners with their M60 machine guns, and the team members, two of whom were using me as cover and one firing on each side of my head.

Their car 15 muzzles were so close I was getting powder burns from the muzzle flashes. My ears began to go numb, and I knew I was going to lose my bearing, my hearing. Hot brass was going all over me in the floor of the helicopter, and the floor on my side was covered with blood that was getting deeper. Hundreds of bullets were coming at us traveling faster than the speed of sound. I heard them crack as they passed through the cargo compartment or by the helicopter. Some were green tracers. I could actually see them coming out of the dark jungle vegetation and trees.

I tried to lean back to present a smaller target. I heard the metallic clangs of bullets hitting the helicopter. Crap, we're going down. Davis was in pain, rolling on the floor and screaming. Blood continued to run on the floor. I put the other half of the magazine into the muzzle flashes coming from the treeline directly in front of me and saw the NVA soldier fallout hit the ground. I heard myself say that's two now my magazine was empty we were in a full-fledged ambush now all the way around us

Our two gob cobra gunships had opened fire with their mini guns each firing four thousand rounds a minute It looked like two hoses were being were spraying red water all around us every fifth bullet was a tracer But when they were coming that fast all you could see was red the bullets were ricocheting off trees rocks in the ground Friendly bullets were going in all directions the helicopter vibrated violently as the pilot tried to lift us out of the bomb crater. He had not planned to lift off with all of us still on board. Some of the bullets were still were hitting trees and limbs and flying off and some of the trees were falling.

Rocks were being hit, sending fragments flying. Everything was so loud. The second set of Cobra's followed right behind the first two, firing mini guns and 40-millimeter grenades. Explosions went off all around us. The air was full of shrapnel, smoke, and the smell of gunpowder and burn JP4. The team was shooting. Doorgunners were shooting.

The Cobra's were shooting. The NVA were shooting. determined to take our helicopter down. I was having trouble getting the magazine out of my pouch. It appeared to be stuck, and my fingers were slick with all the blood on them. I finally got out of magazine, then had trouble getting it in the magazine well of my car, 15. I could see hundreds and hundreds of bullets and green NVA tracers coming at the aircraft. I realized the stress level had caused me to lose most of my fine motor skills,

and bullets were coming at me still. I got the magazine in and re-engaged the enemy. I had a conversation going in the back of my head while I kept shooting. I'm not happy with this first mission. I'm going to die in the first 15 seconds. I spent two years training for this. What kind of deal is this? I came over here to do something.

This is crazy. I got another magazine out of the pouch and sent it into my car 15. I shot at the muzzle flashes in front of me. They would go out after I put four or five round burst on them. And I saw NVA fall from trees. My magazines were coming out of the pouched into my car 15 much easier now. And I racked up some more kills. I saw tracers and heard screams coming out.

of the jungle from wounded and dying NVA then suddenly a blast wave followed by a loud boom came across and almost knocked the helicopter into the trees it was followed by several more with less intensity all of us in the helicopter were temporarily stunned from the concussions and deafened by the loud explosions the hooches I had seen on the other side of the ridge line turned out to be tanks camouflaged with straw and the A1 Sky Raiders were dropping 250 pound bombs on them this added significantly to the noise and chaos the A1s were also receiving anti-aircraft fire and they engage those positions too our helicopter started to vibrate violently because the pilot was trying to climb out of that little hole in the canopy jungle in the jungle canopy at least we were trying to start up but the helicopter was taking hits and the cobras were making more runs finally we actually lifted out of the bomb crater as we did the NBA shifted their fire following us up as we went I was learning that the NBA were an incredibly determined enemy they would not quit I saw smoke grenade and the crater spewing red smoke the red smoke meant there were no good guys left on the LZ all aircraft were cleared hot for the LZ as we pulled away from the opening and into the canopy the NVA

Fire stopped because the Cobras blasted the whole ambush site with rockets The A-1s came in with the big stuff and the Cobras finished their last run it was an amazing fireworks show They destroyed the whole area to include six tanks as we started to fly away I looked across at Staff Sergeant Deck, who was sitting on the other side. He looked across at me with a big grin on his face and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. I thought to myself, look at this guy. He's so excited.

He thought this was the coolest thing. But man, they almost got us all. It was my time, it was my first time to experience a level of fear that I didn't know existed. Many times I tried to imagine what it would be like when people started shooting at me. Of course, I knew it would be a little anxious, but I had no clue.

until I experienced it, there was no way I could even imagine the level of fear like that. Fortunately, I was able to manage the fear so I could still shoot. I did not let fear stop me from returning fire and doing what I had to do, but it scared me. Welcome to Sog. Yeah. Again, I mean, I'm hitting the highlights of that, which that's obviously, it's a short mission. I mean, that whole thing probably took three minutes or something. You go and hear some firsts.

This is your first mission. First time in combat. First time being ambushed. First enemy kills. Unbelievable fear. Adrenaline cordis in so high I couldn't breathe, but I could shoot. In the back of my head, I thought I was going to die on my first mission. Not happy about that.

To have so many bullets coming at me from every direction and not get hit. First time saving American teammates' life. Blood and hot brass everywhere. high frequency hearing loss, a lot temporary and some permanent powder burns on my face, earned my combat infantryman's badge, discovered firsthand what stress does to my fine motor coordination. A lot going on.

You learned a lot even in those three minutes. Yeah, there was a lot happening, a lot, you know, to process. But I mean, it was a good experience because I, survived lift but you know going back and processing that you know on my own you know to start with it was good for me to realize when the target sheet back everything changes and a lot of what what I was doing it doesn't didn't work in that situation I couldn't get the magazine out of the pouch because, you know, the rule was you take a canteen pouch and you cram six 20 round magazines in there.

So you had one pouch there with six magazines. The problem is there and they're tight. If your hands are like this, you can reach in there and grab it and pull it out. But when you have blood on your hands, your hand's slick. You couldn't get a hold of it. So the next day, after thinking, through that, excuse me, after thinking through that, I'll put a cord on it, a piece of parachute cord, tape, duct tape it on to the center one with a little loop I can hook my finger

in because once the first one comes out, the rest of them is easy to get the rest of them out. So just little things, little techniques that make all the difference in the world that you don't think about when you're out training and rehearsing and practicing because you I have any blood on you. It's just like when the target shoot back, it changes everything. Blood changes everything. So I'm writing all this stuff down so that I can make changes. You know, when I get my team, I can say, here's how we're going to do things.

You have your additional lessons learned, and I put a star by a bunch of these. Whatever I plan, I will have to adapt. War is not predictable. The only predictability was that the plan will have to be adapted and I have to be able to adapt on the fly The enemy does not normally get a seat at the mission planning table thus they don't know how they're supposed to act during the mission They tend to mess things up They do every time I must control and manage my fear

Luck always plays a role in combat Don't stop shooting a very high volume of return of fire is your body? I'm not you're gonna be able to be able to be able to be your brain best chance of survival. Focus on the immediate situation too late to ask who is supposed to drain the swamp when you're up to your armpits and alligators. Must be able to do everything in the dark and under fire. Speed of execution and accuracy are critical. Know your people, their weapons, and their actions under fire when you select them, how to distribute them. Know how the enemy will react to your presence and actions. Mindset is critical to success. Timing is everything. You are part of a team practice practice and practice more I must get better every time I do

something and I need to fix my magazine so they're easy to retrieve even under the stress with a bloody hand attach a cord loop on the middle one so there you go then you had a list of leadership lessons never underestimate luck good or bad that always that always will send up a warning sign to me when I'd be looking at a mission a plan for a mission and you could see that that there were some things that we're going to have to go in the way of the platoon. Like, well, you know, we're hoping for this and it'll probably be that. And as soon as you stack a couple of those things up, like, it ain't going to work.

It ain't going to work. Leadership lesson. I'm not as good as I think I am. I can get injured a lot of ways besides getting hit with a bullet. Nothing will go as planned. You can see you learn that lesson pretty hard. Stress changes everything. Never forget that I did it as part of a team.

I can always do more than I think I can, which is weird too. You got, not as good as I think I am, but I can always do more than I think I can. If I'm doing my job as a leader, I am going to get hit. Communication is my lifeline. Know my people, know my enemy.

Timing is everything down to the fraction of a second. Everyone must know the one zero's commander's intent. sometimes everyone must perform on their own. Combat is very loud. I'm not out of danger until we get back to the FOB. Hence the saying, Fubai is all right. Exposure and experience,

prepare me for more complex learning. It's difficult to learn calculus before learning basic math. Knowledge and learning occur in layers. And then you have a, I have to throw this one in here. Never talk to Jack Daniels before giving your boss feedback about how he's been.

Because you went in for a debrief. You had a few beverages in. You probably didn't do the most politically correct debrief with your boss. You know, honestly, I was thinking about this, though. This is your first mission, right? And you got to get in, get out, get to shoot, get to get shot at. And it all happened in three minutes. It's not a bad first SOG mission.

Could have been worse. Yes. And I don't know. Sergeant Deck had a lot. recommendation for me I asked him when we got got back to the launch site and said you know while we were in there how many magazines did you empty you know during that couple of minutes or so that we were down the hole and and he said you know I emptied five I was almost through with my sixth one I threw two frag grenades

and a smoke grenade I'm thinking, wow. And then he said, I'm going to tell you something a little time. If you don't learn to change magazines faster when people are shooting at you, you're going to die. I said, yeah, I think you're right. I thought I were pretty fast, but obviously I got to get faster. You know, you can't have those brakes, you know, and shooting, not when you're that close. and that many of them.

You know, what I had seen, what you saw on cowboy movies, and you saw in some Army movies, police movies, you know, you shoot at me, I get down behind the rock, and then you stop shooting, and you get behind the rock, and I get up and I shoot. And that's not the way it is. I mean, you know, you might get down to reload or something, but Echo's still shooting at me. That's the way it's supposed to be.

You know, a dozen other guys over here are still shooting. They can't even see me. They just hear, you know, my gun firing, so they know about where I am and they're shooting at me, and they can't even see me. So there's no break. I mean, someone's always shooting at you. There's never just one enemy. That's the way it's supposed to be.

All right. Fast forward. And again, just get the book. There's so much in here. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. This is mission number two. T Alabama mission number two. RT Alabama's next mission was to find and destroy a battalion-sized NVA element

moving through northern Laos to south Vietnam. Our eight-man RT would be looking for 500 NVA soldiers. So this is, you know, this is SOG, right? You're going to take eight guys and you're going to find a battalion of 500 plus guys. And I, you know, I figured, I mean, it should be pretty easy to find them. I mean, if there's five, 100 of them, it can't be that hard to do. Now, surviving is a different story. But I was pretty excited because I thought, I'm going to learn how to do this.

I mean, this is what SOG does. And this is a relatively small group that we've been tasked to go out and find and destroy. Are you getting mission guidance or debriefs from the other SOG teams that are with you guys at this FOB? We get some. Most of it takes place in the club. In the bar.

Yeah. And, you know, it was like a training center. So you go in there and that's when you get a chance to talk to some of the other one, zero, some of the other operators. You know, because we're just passing each other in the dark.

I mean, Tilt and I, we're at FOB1 together. We'd wave everyone and while if we'd pass each other in the dark. we we both went to uh denang together and ran missions out of there together we knew each other but and we'd see each other in the club every once in a while but we didn't have time for a relationship because you know we were always on the move going out to the field practicing whatever so yeah you'd think that uh just being able to communicate with the guys i mean this is

now going to be your second mission the lesson learned that they could pass on to you but of course you got deck and he's more experienced. And I had, there was an NCO in the club that I met. And he kind of took me under his wing and he would tell me things like, all right, you listen to what I'm going to tell you, Lieutenant. Never, ever shoot an NBA one time. always three or four times and if he twitches three or four more times

because you can't believe how many SIG guys have been killed by dead NVA. You have to take them out. The person that shoots first, it's got the highest chance of survival. I mean, he had a list of things like that you know that he would share to me. with me when we would see each other in there and just, you know, I could ask them, you know,

about different techniques, different things. Yeah, that's kind of feedback you want. And that's obviously some good information for you to have. So for this mission, you know, again, in the book, you cover the plan, you cover the preparation, you know, your thought process, and then you get to the insertion. And then, of course, we get to the point where, you all are contacted and now it's on

I'm going to fast forward here to the book the fighting was fierce and we were carrying Quang so Quang had already been wounded I also got to see Cowboy in action he was a real warrior no fear he worked with me

fighting a delaying action at the rear of the team slowing down the NBA he had experience using Claymore's with time fuses and a great instinct for the way the NBA moved against us Cowboys experience and courage made our Claymores and C-Feroyers

and C-Fu-A-Mors and C-Fu-E-Fus charges more effective when we you guys are trying to get out of here I fast forward past that part but when we got about a hundred meters from the LZ all hell broke loose from our front there were 30 to 40 NVA waiting on us now we were between two groups so you're getting chased by a group and now you got a group in front of us the group from from the LZ open fire with a heavy barrage from AK 47s machine guns and RPGs they assaulted and began trying to maneuver around our flanks.

There were several loud booms, one of them hitting me with concussion, mud and other debris, some of which went in my eyes. I was having trouble seeing. My ruck and radio were hit with shrapnel from one of the B40 rockets. The radio looked bad, but still worked. The small wooden box of blasting caps was hit, but not penetrated. Some of the C4 was hit, but that was not a big deal. Deck called me to his position.

He wanted the A-1s to put their 20-millimeter fire on the, the NVA to our front. We were about to be crushed. The first A1 gun run got the NVA's attention and stopped their assault. They did not expect the devastation of the 20 millimeter. The second A1 gun run made them start to scatter. The Cobra's arrived on site and worked above and below us with rockets, mini guns, and 40mm. We continued to fight our way to the edge of the LZ and saw 20 to 30 NVA bodies scattered around. Some of them were still alive and had to be terminated. We were not in a position to take prisoners. Covey said the extraction ship was a UE and wanted smoke.

Jones threw a purple smoke grenade on the edge of the LZ. The Huey identified purple. Deck got everyone ready to dash to the chopper on his command. We also turned our bush hats inside out, so the bright orange VS17 panel sewn to the inside would make us identifiable to the doorkunners. We didn't want to be mistaken for an NVA trying to get to the chopper, which the NVA sometimes tried.

Deck went to the left side of the chopper with Hoa, Dew, and the wounded quang. Jones, Cowboy, and I took the wounded Kwan to the right side. I climbed on just before Deck as the chopper was lifting off. The door gunners and all team members not wounded return fire from the chopper. As we got to 20 feet in the air, Deck and I both threw a red smoke grenade to signal that the LZ and surrounding areas were cleared hot, meaning anyone on the ground was a bad guy. Covey was freed to destroy everything there.

We continued to receive fire as we climbed out. I heard a few metallic clangs as the chopper took hits. I looked over at deck. He gave me his characteristic, big smile and a thumbs up. As I began to give medical attention to Quang and Kwan, I thought, wow, what an adrenaline rush. I now had a better understanding of the emotions Deck was experiencing when he would give me a big smile and thumbs up. As we flew away, I saw and heard our air assets pounding the crap out of the bad guys. We had found the NVA battalion and rained death and destruction down on them.

Our team had also taken out a large number of them on the ground. I continued to be amazed at how tough and deadly our little guys were in a firefight. After a short prayer, I settled back down for the ride. Yeah, you mentioned earlier that you had cowboy. on one of the podcast. And I was watching that, and he said, y'all were talking about a contact, and he said, yeah, I catch bullet.

And I could see your face and his, and you were kind of looking at him like, what? And he said, I catch bullet right here. And then you could see, you know, his hand was just a big scar on the inside. And then he said, and I catch one here. and I catch him on here. He was a hard dude.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, so that's your second mission. And it's total ma'am. I mean, I read a small portion of it. It's total mahem. How did you feel as far as your internal processor on that one compared to the first one? I had, I felt that I knew a lot more about what was going on.

I knew what to expect, you know, fear-wise. I knew it was going to mess some things up. But I was also learning, watching what they were doing, watching what Cowboy was doing. There were some conversations with Deck, you know, where Portman told Deck, no, go, too many VC. And Deck said, go. No VC.

And, you know, I'm hearing this conversation. So, you know, the portman might know what he's talking about. So, and Deck said no. So we stood up and we started to go. And, you know, it's kind of like one of those horror movies where you expect a leather face to jump out from behind a tree with a chainsaw and start sawing arms off and stuff because the portman was right.

But Deck said, no, we're going to go. And it made me wonder, I mean, what did it? what does Deck know that no one else knew? We all heard the same sounds. Why did Deck decide it wasn't VC? They call them VC the NBA. And then later in that mission, it happened again, and Dex said, okay.

Not this time. That's NBA this time. But, you know, so spending some time with him when I got back and said, Help me understand. What did you hear that was different? You know, how did you know that it wasn't right or it was right or whatever? So trying to learn, trying to pick his brain every time we went out, see what I could learn.

And, you know, one thing I was getting to do is I was carrying the radio. So I was having most of the conversations with Covey and starting to have conversations with the gunships. and you can see how it progresses in the book to somebody who, you know, I knew I had to call artillery. I'd done all that stuff, you know, in training. But I never talked to a cubby before. I didn't know about working gunships.

I didn't know all this stuff. But I was starting to learn. Each mission we went out, I would, you know, doing that more and more and learning what the NBA were doing, what they expected from us and how they reacted. So I'm starting to lay this stuff out and put it together. And in the first time, well, this, well, first time, part of the intel debriefing

as soon as we got back, you know, that wasn't all that pleasant either. Yeah, you put that in the book and they're asking you questions. You don't go right back. Yeah. Well, how many weapons did you see you? I got a freaking lot of them. So how many times that they shoot at you? There's 30 of them, firing on automatic.

I was too busy shooting back at them. Anyway, I was told that I needed to change my attitude. But that was part of the learning experience for me because I discovered later that if I looked, Listen, I might not know how many bullets were coming, but I could easily distinguish the difference between an AK-47 and an RPD. And if I hear that RPD, that's telling me if they've got a machine gun with them, that's a bigger group. This is not four or five guys who are just out there stumbling through the woods. Now we've got a larger group.

Were there two of them? Do they have RPGs? You know, so as I start to hear these other sounds and listen to how they move, it tells me what size force we're up against, what we need to do. And, you know, you can see how all that stuff worked into, you know, strategy, you know, adapt. Yeah. Like we were talking before. I got to the point where I knew when my foot stepped off the skid, I would have to start adapting whatever plan we had. You know, because it wasn't going to be exactly like we had.

plan. Yeah. There's a couple of things I was thinking is I think free fall parachuting is such a good example because everyone that you talk to experiences this. Your first free fall, like my first free fall, what did you see on your first free fall? You see like the sky the altimeter, sky altimeter, sky altimeter, sky altimeter, and put parachute worked. Like that's all you see.

You don't know, you know. And then even the next jump, you see a little bit. more and then 10 jumps in you're like oh I can see the ocean I can see the mountains like you're kind of you adapt to it and your your field of vision opens up so much more and that's what you can see in the book this this idea that you're talking about with the air assets by the end of the book you're like a conductor of a or of a symphony of destruction and you're calling in the aircraft they're coming in from different places you're setting them up this one first this one second this one third come back and hit him again a little

further over there like you you're you can tell you've gotten really good at it which is you can see it again you know this is just experience and then um yeah what you say about the being adaptable i got asked a little while ago you know if we were if you were the commander you were going into the war and uh they were saying oh china divided Taiwan what would you do what would your attitude be if you were going on the ground and i said my my the most important thing to me would be keeping an open mind and everyone kind of looked at me like what kind of answer is that I said because I don't know what the enemy is going to do I don't know we sure we're going to predict some things but I don't know what they're going to do I don't actually know what all my guys are

going to do I have a pretty good idea I'm going to land maybe I can guess 80 90% what my guys are going to do maybe I can guess 50% of what the enemy's going to do but that means there's a whole lot of margin for things are going to change so my attitude was always keep an open mind What's going on? Don't get stuck in the plan. Don't get stuck in believing anything that you see right in front of you right now because things are going to change and That's clearly clearly what you had to do as soon as you stepped off that helicopter skid every time. All right. Where are we at? How's this going to go? Very good lessons learned for anybody in any in anything Fast forward a little bit RT Alabama Mission 3 and this is an operation

After a day of rest, we were assigned another mission with a short prep time. Our mission was to locate and contaminate an NVA ammunition cache near a major supply route in the eastern part of the demilitarized zone between South and North Vietnam using eldest sun, also called exploding ammunition, Italian green and bold teen, pole bean. So this is a sort of a Psiops operation. that was happening where the U.S. military would take mortar rounds and they would rig those mortar rounds so that when you dropped it into the mortar tube, they'd blow up and they'd do it with bullets. They'd do it with everything. And it's just a little psychological operation that actually also interferes with whatever operations happened at the time. And so they would take these manipulated ammunition, this exploding ammunition, and go and plant it. So that was your tasking on this mission. And then you say this.

I'm going to go to the book. Unfortunately, two weeks prior on 30 November, 1968, an eldest son, Teams helicopter was hit with 37 millimeter anti-aircraft fire and fell like a rock to the jungle canopy 3,000 feet below, exploded and burned. The air crew and seven SOG team members died that day. A bright light mission, mission to recover a missing team or missing members. was not attempted because of the location

and the number of NVA in the area. I was shocked when he shared this information. I realized that I had inventoried the personal effects of these SOG heroes, including my friend Ray Stacks, on my second day at FOB1. This small piece of SOG had come full circle. In a week, I would be inserted

as part of a team to complete their mission. That can't feel real comfortable. Right? I mean, that just, that can't feel real comfortable. The last group that went in to do this mission that you're going on, they all died. You happen to be, and this was only three weeks prior, four weeks prior, something like that, maybe a little over a month. Fast forward a little bit.

I'm going to take you into the mission here. Basically, going through the insert real quick, you guys, as you insert, you guys get gassed with CS gas. And you guys didn't have your masks with you. and the NVA opens fire on you. You know, you bring in the Cobra's, they go in, they put down the, they kill a bunch of them. You decide to continue mission, and that's what you do. You continue the mission.

You head to the storage area. You find the cash that you're supposed to mix in these rounds, and that's what you do. you make it to the LZ and you say I gave Covey a Roger that Chopper comes in the team boarded quickly

and we were off no shots fired I saw Deck turn his head to the side quickly gave him a thumbs up and a smile and he laughed so it was a pretty smooth operation probably the rare smooth operation but what really upsets people

in general about that mission was there was a dog at the cashier. And you killed the dog, yeah. I had to shoot the dog. Yeah. People don't like that.

You killed several hundred. They don't care. They don't care about the NBA. They don't care about the NBA, but when you shoot a dog, you know. Yeah. It's not easy shooting dogs. Yeah. They can take more hits than you think they can.

And then they make a bunch of noise. Yeah. So this big clandestine idea. that you have oh we're just going to shoot this dog with the suppressed MP5 then the things and then what happens all the other dogs they want to know what's going on

yeah the dogs dogs are great for defense you know they just any kind of dog that bark they're going to bark they're going to go crazy it's hard to silence them yeah so I didn't realize that we hit a touchy subject there

on the killing of the dog You had some cool lessons learned though. The first group of NVA that ran from us, we were very aggressive, hunted them down, and terminated them. They were guards, they were not normal NBA warriors we fought. So you hit some like rear echelon. Yeah, their mission was to help with the transportation, kind of place a little security around the cachets, help rebuild the roads, do things. they were not the hardcore North Vietnamese SOG hunter killer teams

So yeah it was like chasing rabbits You know they just chase them down Terminate them And that's when you know When Decc and I taught us We got time I mean it didn't matter if they knew the plan or not Or what they were supposed to do they're gone

We still have time to get down there And plant this stuff and do a night extraction You detail so much stuff in the book. One of the things that you, I'm going to mention here, which you mentioned on the other ones too, but this one, post-mission training, continue fitness training. For the most part, the team did not like or want to do it. I began to camouflage it into the mission pre-training by having the team carry their load-out weight for most of our training.

I found it to be very, I found them to be very strong for their size. They had been carrying a similar weight for a long time. We continued to work. So that was interesting, like just realizing, because you were what? You weighed a buck 40? Yeah. And sometimes your gear was approaching 100 pounds? Yeah, I mean, even, I mean, the first time I actually started doing something carrying the full load out.

I mean, it was cutting my shoulders. Yeah. I mean, I had to strength. I was very strong coming in because I had done all kind of stuff before I got there. But my shoulders were not prepared to have all the weight pulling down on them. Yeah. But I watched them, and I thought, you know, I'm going to up the claymores, fried grenades, and things like that. So they're going to have to carry more weight than what they've been carrying.

We need to build some strength up. But the concept and idea of we're going to exercise, that did not go over. That did not go over at all. Well, you did a good job camouflaging it, right? Hey, just wear your gear, wear your full load up, that type of thing. We continue to working on all iads and standard operating procedures. The team members were not happy about the eating and hydration procedures, but did it anyways. What was that about?

I wanted to make sure that they didn't get dehydrated out on emissions. We would start like three days before. they had to drink a lot more water. They had to do more electrolytes, things like that, before we went out. I gradually, across time, started changing what they were allowed to eat because even though North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese were similar, ate similar kinds of things that spices were a little different and how they ate it was a little different.

So I could smell the North Vietnamese. I could smell the South ones too, but I could tell the difference because they had different spices. But that meant they could do the same thing to us. If the wind was coming from behind us, they would get a wharf of spices that they didn't normally eat. And eventually it's like, where did that come from? There's somebody out there, probably South Vietnamese.

So we started doing things like that. Eventually we got to the borant where no one was allowed to use soap when they took a shower the last three days. So no shaving cream, no soap, no anything that was going to create an odor. So I mean, even got to the barn where I just talked, I said, I want your poop to smell like North Vietnamese poop. So we're going to change what. we eat. You know, we want to smell like them. We want to do, there's a lot of things we want to do.

And over in the book more, we get into where I started teaching them how to be invisible. And invisibility, I won't go into it here, but invisibility is a lot more than I camouflage or I be careful, higher move. Invisibility takes in all the senses. You have to hide all of the, you know, smell, taste, sound, everything. How you move. Got into, you know, people tended to want to take their weapon and turn the weapon and sweep back and forth like that. When you go deer hunting, how do you see that buck when he's coming?

In the hardest direction to see someone coming at you is when they come in directly at you. but even though the buck might be walking directly out of you, what they tend to do is turn their head and look, and when they do with the coloration and everything, it makes it easier to see them

when coming at you. The same with you. You start turning your head, I'll see the movement, even if you're coming straight at me, and particularly if you're moving a weapon, and we started training with porn shooting. I mean and I was on a

podcast with a guy a tier one operator from Canada a few days ago and I was talking about this and I said I don't aim you know if I'm looking at it that's where the bullet's going to go

and he just oh geez that's exactly it he said I don't even think about the gun I'm looking right where I want that bullet to hit and I pull the trigger and that's where it goes because I've done it so much you know in training and just shoot and shoot and shoot it's going to be where I'm looking and I'm not swerving the gun around except at the last second so I'm teaching the portman look straight ahead with his with his head move your eyes they're not going to see your eyes

they'll see your face or head if you start turning so it's just a lot of things like that we started to put in with the teams. Yeah, you also say you spent time talking about and training to be more aggressive. And is that based on the fact that these NBA ran from you and you felt like if you get more aggressive, you might feel like to get the upper hand? Yeah, and I heard some other teams talking about that they were in contact and they didn't realize how many they were up against and they went after them and heard them say, they started to run from us.

And then they realized, you know, just a handful of us. And they stopped and came back at us and they had their buddies that came with them. So I said, you know, okay, they're human. They don't want to die. But if we generate fire superiority, you know, you always talk fire superiority.

You gain fire superiority and you're coming after them in an aggressive manner. And if I use the other thing that we talked about listening. What am I hearing over there? How many people were returning fire and what kind of weapons are they using? Is this a small enough group that we can go after and terminate and create a lot of damage or do we need to stop and, you know, start thinking about getting away? You know, plus I'm going to do that anyway. I taught all the guys, if you were

hit. I want to hear you say in English, hit, hit, hit. They let me know you're still alive and you're hit and I have some idea of where you are and we're going to, we're going to stop going backwards now. We're going to come forward to the degree that we can and get you. So, you know, doing that kind of training and they would back off from us and there is a place where we actually crawled up and listened to an NVA training class where they were teaching this is how you go after SOG teams

when you encounter a SOG team they're immediately going to return fire and break contact they're going to run so you can assault and go after them because they're running trying to get away from you and you come after us Watch all what happens. Yeah, you've got whole sections in here too about, you know, as you started to

adapt to the jungle and and you know, you go through a whole section and I forget where it is, but you go through a whole section where you were talking about what you're actually doing, the protocol that you had when you would sit down after you got off the helicopter, how you would lit the protocol you used to listen. And, you know, some of the nights it's pitch, black, the only thing you have, the only sense that that matters is your hearing. And you break the world around you into quadrants and you'd pay attention to the sounds coming out of each particular. I mean, it's pretty fascinating. And it shows me, and it shows anyone how

completely focused you guys were on taking advantage of everything you could, even making a, a sense that we all kind of take for granted, but we don't really hone in on when that's your only sense it's all you got you're gonna figure out to use it even better then fast forward a little bit here I'm gonna go to mission for Christmas road interdiction this one you you were set to launch on the 23rd of December plan to stay at least through the 27th this meant we would be deep inside Laos and near large concentrations of enemy on Christmas Day I learned that the ceasefire did not country outside the two Vietnam's no Christmas turkey dinner this year our mission

was to make sure that the NVA in our area of operation did not get a free day we were to move to an observation point where we could observe and interdict supply traffic on a major shipping route from Laos into South Vietnam so that's what you're gonna do for Christmas Merry Christmas and you know for each one of these you would go through and you go through it in the book you know you go through the training cycle that you're going to do how you prep for it you do a visual reconnaissance which means you're going to get in an aircraft like a small little observation aircraft like an ov10 you're going to go and you're going to fly around in that area obviously not going to burn it but you'll go fly around seven different

areas one of them's going to be the target area you'll you'll observe it from there take a look at it kind of get eyes on um and then you roll out you roll out you roll on this operations you have a good a good section here this is where you get get out on a there's a snake out there that one of your one of your little people rolled up on and gave the signal for a snake so this got everyone a little bit paranoid I'm gonna fast forward a little bit through the day two of this operation as daylight dawned on Christmas Eve all team members were alert and listening for the enemy we'd fast forward we'd been moving about

20 minutes when we heard the clack of two bamboo sticks hit together approximately 200 meters down the ridge and off to the east 40 seconds later we heard a response clack that seemed to be the same distance but on the west side of the ridge we had two trackers leading an NVA group up the ridge looking for us and attempting to flush us out of hiding so they could find us this was not a good sign to make it worse we heard a couple of dog barks I scattered some CS powder around the path we took as we move toward the new observation point, this would definitely slow the dog down once it got CS powder up its nose.

So this is a nightmare. Like you hear these, that's the way they signal to each other. They have these bamboo things that they're clacking together and you know what it is. It means there's trackers. How horrifying is that? It gets your attention when you hear it because, you know, they're back there. They have a good idea of where we are and they've got trackers who can follow, you know, the trail. And if you hear a dog bark, now you know they've got dogs coming with them.

So, yeah, that kind of runs the stress level off a little bit because you know they're going to find it. It's just a matter of time. Yeah, you can't cover the tracks of a seven-man patrol. I mean... And the dog's going to smell it. Even if you cover it, the dog's going to smell it because they were there covering it. Fast forward a little bit.

It did not take due for very long to start sending back information that we relayed to Covey. By 1130, the first airstrike started hitting the area. I'm fast forward, but you guys get into a location. You can now see what the NVA is doing and you start dropping bombs on them. This increased the NVA effort to find our location.

The clackers were coming closer. Fast forward. Soon we heard the trackers handler and a small group of NVA go by us and continue up the ridge. That was close. We decided to stay where we were for our remain overnight. So this is horrifying to me.

These guys out there looking for us, tracking us. That's just like a nightmare. Like you said, you know they're going to find you. It's just a matter of time. Because they don't care. They can move as fast as they want. They can pull out machetes and hack their way through there. Fast forward to day three.

This section is called We're Busted. It was day 3, 25 December, 1968 Christmas Day. We moved from our R-O-N site back to the third and most distant cliff to set up our observation. It had rained during the night and the terrain was slippery. We had to be careful. We observed a lot of traffic just after we got in position and reported to Covey. In less than 20 minutes, we had F-4s pounding them. We were able to provide targeting data for about two hours before everything appeared to have been destroyed.

Fast forward. Two minutes later, we heard. a toe popper explode, a loud scream and almost simultaneously a second toe popper explosion, followed immediately by a barrage of AK-47 fire. So this is because when you guys would get in your static positions, you would set up your Claymore is what you talked about, but you'd also set up these little toe popper landmines as indicators that someone was coming and also an immediate defensive scenario. Yeah.

So you're moving on. We use what we call the fish hook technique a lot. You're moving along, and this is where you want your R-O-N. So we move past it, go up, turn, and come back to it. So if you're tracking us, you're going to go by us. And when you get up the airways to where we turn, I'm going to leave a little surprise for you. So I'll put, you know, I learned when I was a little kid,

how people, animals and things walk through the wood. When they come to this log, you just instinctly step over or right on the other side of that log is where the top opera is going to be and just for fun I'd put two of them over there so sometimes you'd step over I'd take that leg off and you'd start to fall

you'd land on the other one I'd get that one too you step on one of those out in the jungle you're going to die because you can't get you back to the hospital or anything like that but that lets us know that you were tracking us

We know where you are. And most of the time, when they would step on one, they assume we're out in front of them. And that's where they initially fire. They'll open fire out that way. We're back over here a little way. So we know you're there. We've got some idea of how many people are there. And from there, we've got our claymores out on the avenues of approach that you might use to come down to get us.

We've got an evacuation plan on how we're going to go. So then we take whatever action, you know, seems to be right at that time. Well, we learned the fish hook method for patrolling. And when we're going to set up our perimeters, we also learned when you get to a log, they're going to put a booby trap on the other side. Yeah. Well, those lessons got passed down direct. So they hit a tow popper.

And then another tow popper. And now they start shooting machine gun fire. And I'm going to go back to the book. Some of it was in our direction. Some of it was in other directions. They didn't know exactly where we were. But in that first barrage, three AK rounds came through the root on my left side and tore my shirt as they went across my chest. And through the root on my right side, you were sitting in between these trees that look like big rockets and like the fins of the rockets is what you're sitting between.

I had just exhaled. If I had just inhaled, the bullets would have taken the top of my chest off when they came across me. They grazed just enough to draw blood. It was obvious that the roots were providing just concealment, not cover. I had to get behind the tree. I jumped behind the tree with my ruck, which was 75 pounds in my left hand. I heard another tow popper go off, followed by a loud scream. Then the grenade I had left in the area with the trip wire.

All the AK fire shifted toward our position now. They were trying to flank us with a group of about 20 NVA maneuvering around to our right to push our backs against. the cliff. The grenade I had put on my side exploded and showed their flanking movement. We had a full-fledged firefight going on with more NVA coming down the ridge. Deck gave me the command to detonate the first layer of Claymores. It was a tremendous explosion as seven Claymores exploded simultaneously. It was raining debris, dirt, pieces of trees, rocks and body parts. A bloody arm landed right in front of where I'd been lying between the roots.

a thick smoke and smell covered the jungle. It temporarily stopped their assault, but the automatic weapons fire picked up again. It was easy to tell that the group was a lot smaller because the lower volume of fire, but more NVA were coming. As soon as the team got near my position and below me, I was getting ready to set off the other layer of Claymores when a B-40 rocket hit the tree in front of the one I was behind. Fortunately, my ruck was still setting on the edge of the bank and provided some protection. It was riddled with small shrapnel. I ducked behind the tree and set off the last layer of claymores. This group had only five claymores, but it ripped the hole in the NVA assault.

They were stunned physically and psychologically. I don't think the NVA believed we had more claymores to set off. I also got another taste of the impact of adrenaline. When I came out from behind the tree, I had to grab my rucksack with my left hand. It weighed probably 75 pounds, and I'm not a big guy. but I tossed that rucksack around like it was a pillow. I took it with me as we fought our way down the ridge and toward the LZ. I paid for it later on.

After we got extracted, I realized I'd pulled muscles in my shoulder because they just weren't designed to handle that much weight. But I had so much adrenaline pumping through my system I didn't notice at a time. Cowboy had dropped off with me and was providing Overwatch fires. I scampered down to him. Decc and Jones were leading the team down the ridge towards the LZ. The rocky terrain was providing some kind of. cover, but the NVA were able to take advantage of it, too. As soon as the first toe popper exploded, I had notified Covey that we had heavy contact and a prairie fire. Usually Covey could assess,

could have assets on site in 30 to 45 minutes, but it was Christmas Day, a holiday, and not a lot of assets were just hanging out nearby. It was a good thing that we had notified Covey right away. We needed close air support gunships immediately. We knew it would be a while before things would calm down, to get extraction ship in the NVA were not stopping Cowboy and I went into a delaying technique with Claymore's on time fuses that were becoming pretty effective at using the NVA appeared to have run right up on the first delayed Claymore based on the screams and yelling we heard Cowboy said VC angry my response was good that means we're really hurting them we left another one as we ran up to catch up with the

rest of the team we were shooting a lot of them but it seemed like it was taking two to three hits to put them down. Cowboy said VC take drugs. He must have been correct because they were hard to stop. I noticed that three hits on automatic had a lot more knockdown power than three fast individual shots. When I hit them on auto, they dropped immediately. I made a mental note to remember this for later. Covey told me that he had a couple of spads with 20 millimeter and napalm 20 minutes out. I updated our situation. We were still receiving a lot of fire into our area. as we caught up with deck. I updated deck on what Covey said

and about the problem putting NVA down. We had a steep grade to go down to the LZ and got no protection once we got there. We decided to stay where we were in the rocks. Suddenly things got quiet, too quiet. They were up to something. We decided to put our four claimors on the most likely avenues of attack.

We redistributed ammunition and moved our extra frag and Willie Pete grenades out of our rucks. We were expecting a heavy, assault to begin any minute you could hear a pin drop then at a very low volume I heard Bravo six this is Covey six go spads a ones are here mark your position with smoke and tell me where you want the 20 mic mic I threw a smoke grenade and said Roger smoke out sandy lead identifies yellow six Roger make the first run north to southeast

northwest to southeast 100 meters northwest of the smoke danger close Roger keep your heads down. The gun runs effectively triggered the NVA assault on our position. We thought there were 20 to 30 of them left. It was closer to 200. One thing I had learned is that if you are not moving, you are dying because the NVA are maneuvering into position to cut off your escape. The NVA had managed to move so that they had flanked us on three sides. The only way we could escape was to run into the open LZ. They were assaulting. We set off our four remaining,

we set off four of our remaining seven Claymores to slow their assault. Covey, this is six. Have one spad, put napalm where it is. First gun run and the second to drop is napalm flying northeast to southwest, 100 meters north of smoke. This is danger close.

Do it now and come back around with guns in the same place. Covey, Roger. You guys take cover and take a deep breath. It's going to get very hot. The gates of hell are. about to open six copy that meanwhile we were being hit with a hail of AK 47 RPD fire and B40 rockets we returned to fire and lob frag grenades from behind rocks it was so smoky you could barely

see when he heard the planes getting close we each threw a grenade took cover and took a deep breath the air was about to be so hot it would fry the inside of your lungs the fireball heat and smoke were tremendous and the napalm sucked all the oxygen out of the air air was available but it was hot, smoky, and choking, and had no oxygen. We could see the NVA running around like human torches covered in fire and screaming. We were still receiving a lot of fire from the south. Covey, this is six. That was fantastic. We are still receiving fire from the south. Make one more Napalm run 100 meters south of the smoke flying northwest to southwest. Danger close. This is Covey. Roger, we have four gunships, five mics out. This is Covey, Napalm, 30 seconds out.

Take cover. The napalm was one. again surreal the screams the choking the superheated air the smoke the smell of burning and charred flesh we took out the human torches we could see a couple of our guys could not take the smell and could not hold back the vomit once we had suppressed most of the enemy fire we were able to bring in an extraction ship as we were lifting off still under fire decon I both through a red smoke grenade meaning the LZ was cleared hot take out all living creatures. Covey worked the area over and pulled away as we pulled away. Covey, this is dynamite.

Really appreciate your help. We could not have made it without you. Thank you. Thank all of your assets for us. See you back at the ranch. Roger that dynamite. You guys did a great job today. As soon as we got far enough away from the LZ and most of the NVA fire shifted away from us, I looked over at deck to see his big smile and thumbs up. He wasn't smiling and there was no thumbs up. I thought crap, he must have been hit. I crawled across the guys to get to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and asked, deck, you okay? He slowly looked up at me and said, Lieutenant, I'm done. This was my last mission. Then he looked away. I went back to my position in the helicopter. A lot of questions popped into my mind. I would talk to him more about this when we got

to the launch site. When we got to the launch site, I immediately went to him. What's going on? I asked. He said, I've completed my mission requirement, and I'm going to move to a different job when we get to CN. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't say anything about it. I'll tell the team when the time is right. We did a quick debrief and flew back to what was left of F-O-B-1. We got there after dark to find the mess sergeant had saved our Christmas meal for us. Steak, if I remember correctly. It tasted really good.

But the best part of was that F-O-B-1, even almost totally closed, did not forget about us. Fubai was all right. But this was the end of Fubai, Fob1. It was being closed as an Fob and the teams distributed around the other Fobes. We would be the last team out. R.T. Idaho with John Stryker Meyer, Tilt, and Lynn Black, Blackjack, had barely managed to escape from Laos that day two and had already been transported to CCN. R.T. Alabama would rest that night and fly to CN the following morning. Yeah. This is insane, right?

I mean, these stories are insane. They're totally insane. Getting pressed that hard blasting these Claymore's. You know, we used to set up Claymore ambushes in training. And, you know, when you crack off seven. seven Claymore's in the jungle, that is a serious, serious blast. That must have rocked those NVA that rocked their world. I mean, if rocked are your world.

Yeah, you have to make sure you're far enough back. Yeah, because it'll stun you. You know, in those days, we didn't have a term for it and talk about TBI. You know, I look at you and you're dazed and you can't tell me your name and I say, jog, rub a little dirt on you, just rub a little dirt on you. You'll be all right, you know, let's keep going. You know, we got things to do. You can't fumble around like this.

Just rubble a little dirt on you, you'll be aren't. And, you know, we didn't realize what the concussion was doing to us. Yeah. But, I mean, you were getting hit with it on a regular basis. And then you had Lynn Black, and he was getting ready to go on a mission. He goes out and trying to figure out how big of a piece of C4 do we need to use to knock somebody out? Well, I'm going to chop up these different sizes that I'm out here on the ground, back up a little waist and set it off and see if it knocks me down.

So he kept doing it until, you know, he didn't know who he was. And he said, okay, that's how much we need right there. Oh, my God. But anyway. We used to do Claymore's also, and I know they don't do this anymore, but I detonated Claymores that were like on the other side of my rucksack and I was maybe in a little depression. Like you can be so close to them. I mean, you get rattled. But we used to do that just to kind of explore the parameters because the, you know, the bearings are going in the other direction.

but you get a little days from that. We tried whenever we could to put them in front of trees. So you got a big tree and on the other side, and it's the Claymore, and then you're back hereaways. But you still got, if you're going to do seven at one time, you still got to get back away. It's going, holy cow. But yeah, one of the things that was happening was, you know,

we were closing F-O-B-1. and most of the teams and I don't know all the answers here but most of the teams left there and went to CCN or Central or South as the intact team but for some reason Alabama got split up so when we moved down there

you know the team for a while wasn't a team anymore. So, DEC went to a different type of job, a non-operator job down there. C-C-N was a, it was a big place,

a lot going on. Did you talk to DEC about what? Yeah, I talked to him and he got back and he said, I'm done. He said, you know, I finished my mission requirements, I've been on all these things,

they're going to split the team up, and they're going to move me to an admin job. They're going to take me to CCM, but they're going to put me in a non-operator job down there, and I'm okay with that. And the team was split up, and he told me he had already given me the clearance to be a 1-0.

He had vetted me, and I was good. So I would get my own team when I got down there. Yeah, because I don't know if you mentioned this on the podcast, It's in the book, but what they wanted out of you guys was six months or six missions. Right. That's what they wanted out of you guys. Six months or six missions. So if you got to six months and you didn't want to do it anymore, you could move on.

Or if you did six missions, you could move on. Or if the one zero said, Jock can't do this. Got it. He's going to get somebody to kill maybe after your first mission, second mission. And if the one to zero said, no. Thumbs down. He's not an operator taking him out. Then, you know, you could be moved somewhere else.

But normally if you got six missions and you want it. And part of the thought was that that's a lot of missions. And if we keep you longer in that, then, you know, you might not be okay upstairs. you know we need to we're going to try to protect you by getting you out after six or at least giving you an out if you want it but in reality you know it could be the first mission that did you in I mean there are people who went on one mission and came back and said that ain't happening again I can't do this because it was so different when you went across the border you would say just against so many people every time. You all, and it reminds me of judicious. I mean, it seems like every time I see you guys on Instagram or something, you're doing some stuff.

One person gets down on the mat, the other person gets on top and gets some kind of hold on him or something, and then that's when you start. and that's kind of what Saag was like we're going to put the team out there we're going to surround you with all these NBA and then we're going to say go

because you always started out surrounded every mission yeah it's like we you know people talk about the different selection courses that there are for for Rangers and seals and for special forces, I don't think there's a harder selection than SOG.

You're going to go out on a mission over the fence and we'll see if you hack it or not. See if we can find you again. Yeah. I mean, it's not funny, but it's amazing how many teams went out. They got off to helicopter. They moved into the jungle and that was it. You didn't hear for them again. Or maybe you find one or two of them at some point.

You had some lessons learned from this one. If you can be heard, you can be found. If you can be found, you can be killed. If you're not moving, you are losing the battle. You are in the process of dying. When you stop and you get distracted, you get sucked in by here's a group of rocks. They're coming after. Here's a group of rocks.

you know, rocks are not just concealment but cover. So if we get down in these rocks, you know, now we can stand our ground or we can get some hip, no. All that does is fixate you in one little spot in the NVA. It's just like a big amoeba coming down, and they just go around you. Now you're not going anywhere. I used to have the young seals out in the field doing land warfare

and they'd be in an enemy contact. So this is like lasers are getting shot at. And all of a sudden, you know, the lasers would kind of slow down. Then they'd come to a stop. And you'd see the young leader would be like, oh, you know, they're not shooting at us anymore. Former perimeter and, you know, start doing counts and ammo redistribution. And I'd say, hey, man, what's going on? You'd be like, well, they stop shooting at us.

That's because they're maneuvering. Like, they're moving on you right now. And now you don't know. You knew where they were, at least when they were shooting at you. Now you don't know. So you need to, now's not the time to stop. Now's not the time to get stationary. Now's not the time to get static.

Unless you have some prominent high ground or something like that, a piece of terrain feature, okay. But if you're still, if you're, if you maneuver down a ravine and now you're in some low ground and you think it's going to be a good time to stop and redistribute ammo? No. Now's not the time.

So I definitely related to that one. Claymore's on time fuses stunned the assault. insulting NVA, made the survivors stop and think they are human, they don't want to get shredded. And Napalm was a very scary and powerful weapon. The NVA hated it. So that was a big insight for me, using napalm and just seeing the awesome power of that stuff. and what it did and realizing

they don't want it I mean if you get in real trouble you bring some napalm out there and you know they'll change how they react to you because once you see your buddy as a human torch

or people just charred all over the place you don't want any of it and it you know I've had it on me it won't go out, you know, and it doesn't just rub off. It just sets your other hand on fire when you start trying to put it out. I mean, it's going to get you, and it's just really, really brutal. The other thing that you run into, or we ran into, I ran into,

was I worked mostly north, and as you went north, the jungle guys. a lot thicker. So all of a sudden you had double and triple canopy jungle. When you see all of these YouTube videos and things of napalm being dropped, it's out and open. And man, it forms this beautiful pattern on the ground and everything. And that's cool. When you drop it into a double canopy jungle or triple canopy,

it goes off up there and it goes everywhere. It starts raining down. And it used to just scare me, but I knew I had to have it. But I said, you know, I hope I'm picking the right distance. I hope that pilot that's coming in is going to put it in the right spot. And I hope I didn't make a mistake or he didn't make a mistake in our calculations or it's going to be on us. And you just kind of hold your breath and say, oh, geez, well, see what happens, you know, when it comes down.

but the NV8, what they started trying to do in 69, was try to get close. Get close. Try to get close enough to us that we couldn't call it in. So you couldn't wait too late before you used it. But it was a powerful weapon. I'm going to fast forward here to Command and Control North, F-O-B-4. And now you're with RT Michigan.

RT Michigan had a reputation as a solid team, and it lost its last two one-zeros. Unlike RT Alabama, RT Michigan was a Montagnard team. So this has always got to be a little bit discomforting when you're going to take a job that the last two guys have been killed. Well, it almost didn't matter which team you went to. Probably the reason you were going to that team is a constant one-zero. I mean, if when you made contact, if you could survive the first 90 seconds, you might have a chance.

It was just amazing how many one zeroes and Americans were killed in the first 90 seconds. Because everybody, you're all standing up. So, I mean, your whole body now is exposed. and when that many people open up with that many AKs on automatic, there's such a barrage coming at you. If you're standing up, you're going to get hit. If you can get below waist level, you know, by the time the shooting starts, you've got a chance.

I mean, that's one reason I didn't want any more than I had to on the front. I wanted, to the degree I could, to look like an empty pair of fatigues laying out there, on the ground that I was so close to the ground that I wasn't going to get my rucksack used to get shot all the pieces you know because it was it was sticking up but you know my rucksack saved me on a lot of occasions of radio saved me I got hit so many times in that radio but you got to get close you got to get down you know and I I still harassed tilt you know And I think Tilt said on the podcast, the first thing his team said to him when he went to his new team, the interpreter said, you're going to die.

Too tall? Yeah. It wasn't just too tall. You're too tall and you're too ugly. You're going to die. And I, you know, I harassed him. I said, you know, I used to look at you and say, how can a guy, six to survive out here? I mean, I can just cite time after time where if I had been a quarter of an inch taller, I'd have died.

You know, and I'm nowhere near 60. So I don't know. I mean, I've had my head crease with a chunk of shrapnel and stuff like that. Just, you know, I used to want to be tall, you know, because my little brother's 6'4. How tall are you? five seven so five eight you wouldn't be here no I wouldn't be here

no not at all so Michigan you say in my experience so this is a mountain yard a mountain yard team and you say in my experience with them the yards did not like the Vietnamese I would need to adapt from the Vietnamese culture and superstitions to that of the mountain yards

so you've got a different crew now and you've got to get used to these guys what was different about the mountain yards most of them had lived in the jungle and they came from the jungle so they had a lot of experience and knowledge about the jungle the creatures the terrain everything out there so you know when when they moved through the jungle they could they'd point out a lot of times snake you know they knew where to look to find the snakes where they were going to be, things like that. They were really good at moving through the woods or the jungle

and not making noise. Just a different mindset than the Vietnamese. What kind of superstitions did they have? Don't step over one of them. Somebody, if you were to step over me, I was going to die. Okay. So, you know, don't step over them. They get hostile.

You start to do that. And then like it says in a book, I mean that first day, Bargewell and I and one of the yards are walking across the company area, you know, kind of three abreast and we walk along. And the yard just reaches over and he takes me by the hand. He's holding my hand. And we're kind of walking along and we're swinging our hands and, you know, I'm looking down and thinking, what are we doing here? We don't do this in South Carolina.

Yeah, we don't do this in South Carolina. And Bargewell looks and he says, don't turn it loose. He said, it's not what you think. He's showing you respect and honor. If you turn his hand loose, you're going to insult him. And you don't want to do that. But, you know, it's just different things. It's different culture.

The food was a little different different. that they ate. They really didn't like the Vietnamese. They didn't care if they were north or south. They didn't care. They just, you know. Yeah, I mean, they killed each other sometimes. In the compounds.

Oh, yeah, in the compound. Yeah. I mean, you couldn't let them eat at the same time. We had, you know, Cambodians and the mountain yards and the Vietnamese. They all ate in the same mess hall, but they had to have a different feeding schedule. You couldn't put them in there together

because somebody would get shot. Because it was, It was like living in the old west. Unlike the US compounds, in the saw compounds, you know, you walked around fully armed. I mean, you could carry grenades around your pocket. You could carry your car 15 around in the compound, you know, fully loaded, ready to go.

And you said to get shot. And one thing you didn't want to do, I mean, I didn't want to walk up, you know, to echo and say something that appeared to be aggressive or derogatory to him when his team was with him. I mean I'd be looking down the barrel of his car 15s all of a sudden. Nobody's got to mess with the you know with the 1-0 on a team. You know so you you had to be careful even Americans you know we all carried weapons too so you had to be careful with them.

Some of them are wacko. You mentioned barswell you say this about barswell. I was impressed with Bargewell right from the beginning. He was very knowledgeable and a great operator. He'd been at Kaysan with a team during the siege of Kaysan. They were hammered for 77 days by a massive NVA force. Bargewell had recruited some of the RT Michigan team members. This was a yard team and they all liked him and had a lot of respect for him. He was a smart guy. Everything about him said a warrior. I figured if he didn't get killed, he was going to be a legend in special ops at some point. Sure enough, Bargewell remained in special operations, SOG, Rangers, Delta, and Socom throughout his career and retired as a major general and special ops legend.

We remained friends until his death, April 29, 2019. And yeah, I mean, Bargewell was in charge of sock year special operations command Europe when I was over there and you know it was pretty awesome my boss had a really good relationship with him and you know it was pretty awesome to be working with a legend like that

but that's when he was a general you were working with him when he was what a spec four yeah he's a hard dude you know but even I mean there's not a another general

who as a general instead of walking around with his little pistol, walked around with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. And telling, you know, his security team, if anything happens, guys, you take care of yourself, I'll take care of me. I'll be all right. You know, don't get yourself killed trying to take care of me.

Yeah. And, oh, my cow. But, I mean, he was hard. I mean, just an unbelievable warrior. smart and you know he was a spec 4 and we come back to the States and I see him and he was a lieutenant and I thought how did you do that I don't know you know I came back I went to OCS okay then I see him again he's a captain and I'm you know I'm just a major and he's already a captain I thought man you're doing good

And then the next time I see him, you know, he was a major, and I was about to get promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. I mean, he'd already caught me and just, you know, he just kept going. And, you know, that was cool. And, you know, I'd see him in different places and we'd talk. And, you know, when he was in Delta, we were talking and stuff. And it was, you know, it was pretty cool just to watch him. He was fascinating. But on these teams.

I mean, he was a hard dude. He didn't want to irritate him. I mean, and I think that's part of how he got a DSC was his team, after I left, the team was hit, a B40 came right into the middle of him. Everybody was wounded. Bargewell took a big piece of shrapnel through the side of his face and lodged behind the aisle on the other side. and it really irritated him. And then they had the gall about 20 of them to stand up

and try to assault the team, you know, and they're wounded and all the stuff. And Barge was got to be a piece of shraping on his head. And he's pissed. And he was. And he was carrying the RPD by then. He holds the whole group down. I mean, he just took out their whole assault by himself.

And he modified an RPD, right? Like, cut it down or something like that. There's a mission where he got so excited. I mean, the bad guys were using it against us. And he just kept talking about, man, that thing's awesome. It fires so fast. It's got that big hundred round belt on it. And he does all this stuff.

And he kept talking. So I said, well, we're going over on his training mission over to the Monkey Mountain. Carry one over there. And just see what you think about it. you know, going through the jungle. And he came back and said, no, no. It hangs on everything. It's heavy.

It's, you know, that bipod hangs on all this stuff. Then the next thing I know, he tells me, this guy's down at CCC, saw the barrel off of one of these things, and he did some modifications to it. It's a lot shorter. And he got one of them, and he started carrying it.

Yeah. Yeah, the seals were, You know, they used M60s and the Stoner, Stoner 63s. And they love, like you talk to any of the Vietnam seals, and they were just all about that automatic weapon, all about that Bell Fet machine gun, 100%. Yeah, I carried an M60 one time. Holy cow.

I got back. I will never do that again. It hangs on everything, it's heavy. And when the bad guys hear that machine, It sounds so different, just like an RPD. It sounds so different than everything else. They know what it is, and everybody just, you know, all the rounds start coming at that weapon. Because they know they've got to take it out.

You didn't like that done too much. No. So now you're with this team and you're, you know, practice, practice, practice. This is your mantra now. You're practicing everything. Where to put a tourniquet on. you start enforcing the meals things and you know this was a detail I wanted to bring up

just because it's an example of what you guys were how focused you were the snaps on a canteen the canteen cover the little snaps you replace those with wooden buttons so if you're getting a drink no one's going to hear or snapping any snaps that's where you guys were at

you're practicing with the claymores um this is where you get into the point where you had an eight-man team you got approximately 24 claymores you were a big fan of the claymores and the grenade same thing. You know, eight-man team, you got guys carrying 10 frag grenades,

which is pretty epic. Well, you know, and I told them, it said the good thing, one of the good things about carrying all that ammunition is, the bad news is it's heavy. The good news is that when we make contact, it gets lighter and lighter, you know, but then it turns into the bad news,

after a while because it's gone. But, yeah. So I tried to pump them up a little bit about the stuff. But they saw. I mean, they were shocked when they realized the power that we had with those claymores and all those frag grenades, particularly when you made contact at night. Because at night you can lob that grenade out there and they don't know where it came from. I can't imagine the horror of your walking.

You think you're assault. this little sock and as you're on assault all of sudden seven claymore's get clacked off half your guys are dead or wounded so you go well that must be all they have you charge again and they'll see hit four like that's that's devastating uh fast forward a little bit here to your first mission you say my first mission as one zero so now you're the guy in charge of r t michigan was to provide assistance to a hatchet force platoon led by my friend captain Glenn Jordan that would be interdicting a resupply route. And this is a pretty cool mission because actually is similar to what my guys would do over in Ramadi,

which is you dressed up like members of 101st and went down with them, made it look like you were replacements for some of their soldiers. And then when their water supply team went down to the river to resupply their water, you guys took off your 101st uniforms, got on your sod. man so he'd on. Put on your sock outfits and then boom, rolled out. That's,

you know, my guys would do stuff like that, roll out with the army, you know, in their convoys and they'd pull up, they'd stop for whatever reason, out, guys would slip out the back and go,

start occupying buildings or foot patrol in or whatever. We did a bunch of different, that type of thing. So, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. You're on this mission now, and some, Someone has your day three of this mission.

Someone has a genius idea. At 1410, we heard bad news from Covey. X-ray 5, this is Covey. The launch site is sending a helicopter to resupply your water, food, and batteries. Your mission has been extended. The chopper is 10 minutes out. You'll need to identify your location. Over.

This is X-ray 5. Not going to happen. I say again, no way. We have bad guys all over us. We cannot mark our location to receive supplies. Send it away. This is Covey. I sent your response to Quebec Tango 6.

He said it's coming. Get ready to receive it. Sorry about that. This is 5. I'm not marking my location. This is Covey. The chopper's been ordered to drop the supplies at your last known location. This is five.

You know this is going to create a prairie fire. You better start lining up assets. This is going to be, they're going to be on us like chicken on a June bug. I got Barswell, Nash, and Cantua together. and told them what was about to happen it was not a pleasant conversation and probably too loud in the end I told them we would not stop in the end I told them we could not stop our position from being compromised and we needed to at least try and hide the supplies from the NBA so they would not find them when they came looking for us we would not have much time so of course this happens I mean this is just a nightmare freaking tell these idiots not to send these resupplies they send them you're hidden you're totally clandestine at this point they drop supplies fast forward enemy contact covey this is five moving south fast we can hear them coming we need air support here now calling artillery and this is something you went into you had laid out an awesome pre-fires plan all the locations you named all the

locations all the pre-fire locations and dialed those in with 100 because this was your first time where you're going to be close enough to yeah american forces to actually use artillery so you are pumped yeah um covey this is five moving south fast we can hear them coming in we need air support here now calling artillery covey roger gunships 20 mics out working on spads are you calling a prairie fire this is five soon x-ray 26 x-ray 5 fire mission over so here you are calling in the the artillery um eagle 26 shot over eagle 26 splashed over this is five outstanding Mordacom, we were moving fast toward an area that we could use for an extraction LZ. Suddenly, Kamba signaled halt, enemy.

Just as we stopped a barrage of AK fire came at us hitting Kamba. He went down in the vegetation. Cantua yelled Kamba hit. I yelled assault front. We needed to get online and assault beyond where Kamba went down so we could get him. As we got near Kamba, we found RPGs were coming at us. We had to get Kamba and start moving down. backwards. There are at least 20 more

NVA. As we were fighting and trying to withdraw, I worked my way over to Canba. He was bleeding badly. Barswell was trying to stop the bleeding. Barswell personally recruited Canba when he was at Ksson. He knew Canva's family. Covey, this is five. We're in heavy contact with 20 more MVA.

Need help. We have at least one redhead. Code word for wounded. I'm declaring Prairie Fire Emergency. Over. I shouted over the background, heavy volume of gunfire and yelling. Roger Can you send up a flare? We don't know exactly where you are. Roger, stand by. This is five. Flare up. Identify. This is Covee. Identify Blue. This is five. Negative. Negative. That's not us. Hammer it. Sending up another one. This is Covey. Identify red. Roger that standing by. Artillery coming in. Equal 26.

X-ray 5 fire mission over. Roger send it from Target Friday. Direction 270 add 250. Adjust fire over. Eagle 26. Roger shot over. So this is you know for people that don't know what's going on here This I mark you identify thing is something that you do when you're trying to mark your position. So you try and mark your position for the aircraft that are overhead. And you throw out a, you know, what did you throw out? You threw out a smoke or a flare. A flare. And you say identify.

And they are supposed to say what color flare you sent up. So they say, yep, you sent up a blue flare. Well, you didn't send up a blue flare. So you're saying, hey, wherever that flare came from, they're not friendly. So hammer that thing. But that's how good the enemy was. Like they would know if they would send up random signaling devices. They might be able to get confusion going on.

Fast forward a little bit. The NVA had cut off our route to the possible LZ and their numbers were increasing. We made it into some rocks. They were trying to flow around us. Barswell had Canva's bleeding under control and gave him ringer solution to get some of the volume back in his blood. Covey, this is five. This is as far as we can go. Run the guns again.

Same place. We need a string extraction if you can get here fast enough. These jokers look like a giant amoeba flowing around their dinner. I want to give them indigestion. I really appreciate Quebec tango's resupply of food. He should be with us here to enjoy it. Over. And you, you listen.

Yeah, I was sure Quebec Tango 6 could hear what I was saying, even with the heavy volume of gunfire explosions and men yelling in the background. Covey, Roger, guns coming back around, working on strings. Spads here in five mics. Roger, getting ready. This is thick canopy, not sure they can get the strings through. Roger, I'll notify Casper 5. Extraction on strings through double canopy jungle was rough.

We would be dragged through the limbs of trees and tree tops. The aircraft would always start to go forward before we were above the canopy and then we would be being dragged through it. This is Casper 5. We are here to do some fishing. Ready to put four lines in the water. The McGuire rigs have been removed. Watch for sandbags. X-ray 5, Roger, move 12 o'clock 40 meters and 3 o'clock 20 meters.

So this is just chaos going on. We're over your fish bed. You're over our fish bed. Drop the lines. We were receiving heavy fire and the extraction aircraft did not want to stay over us long. The strings would be 120-foot nylon ropes. with a sandbag on the end of each to get them through the canopy. If they left the McGuire rigs on, the ropes, they would hang up in the canopy.

This meant we had to use our nylon utility ropes measuring 12 feet to make Swiss seats while laying down and getting shot at and then hook onto the ropes while we were lying on the ground. While this was going on, four people would not be returning the NVA fire at the NVA. Barswell's first group to be extracted were tossing some of their loaded magazines in a pile for my group to use. We were quickly running out of survival time the hourglass had only had almost run out of sound of sand. I really didn't think there was much of a chance that my group would get out. So you're freaking surrounded. You got eight guys on the ground that need to get out. They're going to be dropping sandbags on the end of ropes from a helicopter through the double canopy jungle that are going to hopefully land close enough to you guys where while you're feeling, freaking laying down, you can put a piece of rope around your waist in a Swiss seat and then carabiner yourselves into these ropes. That's the plan. And you're going to have to do that twice, by the way. And you're running out of ammunition. Yeah. It was a stressful day. Oh, yeah, that's right.

You got wounded as well. Here we go. I put Bariswell, Nash, Kamba, and A.K.K.K.K. cat on the first aircraft strings. I wanted the two Americans, Kamba and Akat out. I couldn't help the group get hooked up because the NVA were starting to charge our position. I was shooting some of them within 10 feet or less of our perimeter and some even inside our perimeter. My magazine ran out just before one of them jumped over my rock and landed on me. I terminated him with my K-bar to his neck, hitting his carotid artery as he landed on me.

We were receiving a heavy volume of fire. The NVA realized what we were trying to do and were really trying hard to kill us and shoot our helicopter down. It wasn't every day they got a chance to shoot down a helicopter 100 feet in the air and not moving. We had to be careful not to use our grenades up too quickly.

We were going to be fighting for a while. Casper 5, you have our fish. Go, go, straight up, fast. Have your door gunners flood the Willie Pete. You are about to see. I shouted over the gun, fire explosions. and yelling, Roger. I threw a white phosphorus grenade as far as I could

toward the main body of the NVA. Willie Pete grenades were big and heavy and had a large bursting radius. I had to get it far enough away before it exploded, which was not easy while receiving a heavy volume of fire and idiots diving on me. The Willie Pete grenade created a dense white smoke with small chunks of Willie Pete landing on

and burning through the NVA. The dense white smoke provided some concealment for Barswell's group and acted as a choking. point as a choking agent in the NVA's lungs. Casper 5, this is X-ray 5. Take him straight up, over? This is Casper 5. We're taking hits. We have to get out of here. This is X-ray 5. Have your doorkunners move their fire 25 meters north of where they're

currently firing over. Casper, Roger. The doorgunners returned, continued to return fire. I could see the red tracers coming down to the ground and I was on the radio trying to adjust the doorgunners fire because I could see where the NVA were on the ground. I was trying to get Ketuna and hang or hine. How do I say his name? Hang. Ready to hook on the next set of ropes if there was a next set. I returned fire at the NVA as I talked to Covey to tell him where I needed the gunships to make their gun runs while I was dodging bullets.

I saw that Canba, Nash, A-Cat, and Bargewell were getting beat up through the tree limbs. I couldn't help them now. They would have to survive the ride to Firebase. Two of the fun things that Sogg-1-0's got to do would be the first person, off the aircraft into the firefight and the last one off the ground during extraction. But that's what SOG-10s did. First in, last out. I had only a couple frag grenades left and the NVA were getting ready to assault again.

I got out my two-pound blocks of C-4 and inserted the blasting caps that had been crimped on the time fuses with fuse igniters. I had only one Claymore left. I set up the Claymore facing the direction of the most NBA unrolled the wire and put the Clacker under the rope on my hip so it would be fastened to me and I could reach it to detonate the Claymore My plan was to set it off just before I got to the end of the wire a hundred feet as I was lifted up The gunships were keeping most of the NVA back from us but a few were moving closer to us They wanted to literally hit us and maybe the helicopter as we were being lifted up I had always told my guys if you were not moving you're dying and here we were we couldn't move because we had to wait to be lifted up on strings through the canopy

Our death sentence seemed to be rapidly approaching. We had only three courses of action at this point. One, try to survive getting lifted out on strings if the pilot was willing to try and receive so much fire. Two, try to break contact and disappear into the jungle and hope to be found alive in a few days. Or three, make a stand here until we ran out of ammo, then throw a red smoke grenade indicating that the gunships and A1 Sky Raiders were cleared hot to totally destroy our current location and take out as many NVA as they could. I didn't like the third option. I decided to have the gun chips make two more passes, but much closer to our position and have the extraction chip follow right behind them. We would fasten the ropes as fast as possible and give us clearance to lift out. I would provide covering fire while assisting Katoona and hang and hooking up. If I had time and was able, I would fasten on. If I couldn't for some reason, wounded, dead, or too much fire, I would send Katoona and hang out and stay behind and implement. course of action two or three. So that's what your decision is.

I'm going to try and at least get these other two guys out of here. If you get the chance you're going to hook onto that rope. And if you can't, you're just going to send them off and you're just going to go down fighting and call in fire on your own position. X-ray 5, Casper 4, we are dropping ropes. Now, Roger, one is hung up in the canopy. Fortunately, we only needed three.

Catoon and Hang hooked onto their ropes while lying on the ground behind the rocks. The gun runs were just about on top of us and they took out a few of the guys who crept in on us. I didn't have to help Katoon and hang very much. So I just provided cover fire. Caspar 4 X-ray, take us up now, straight up. We were taking a lot of fire. I felt two really hard hits in the back, one in the radio and one in the upper left chest and knocked the breath out of me.

It literally hurt. It really hurt, but I did not think the bullets penetrated me. I was still alive and that was good. As I neared the end of the Claymore cord, I detonated it. I was almost directly above it. It was very loud and actually took out some of the NVA and stunned me a little. So that's just freaking ridiculous. Let me explain that to people. So you you're all this shit is going on and as all this shit is going on you rig up a claymore pointed in the direction of the where the biggest concentration of of NVA was and then you detonate the the claimor with something called a clacker. It's just a little, it's a big button actually that you squeeze and it sends the Piso electric shock wave down this wire, which is 100 feet long. And then when it gets there, detonates the electric blasting cap and blows up. So what you did was take that clacker stuck it in your rope.

And then as you're being hoisted up out of this hole in through the canopy, when you got to the end of that wire, you clacked off the claymore. That's some serious freaking presence of mind You say I was having difficulty shooting accurately Or even in the right place because I was being twisted and turning and hitting limbs I dropped two blocks a C4 with 15 second time fuse They made a lot of noise now the NBA were behind me and it was difficult to shoot in that direction I could tell both Ketuna and Hang were hit because blood was dripping down on me I had no idea how bad they were wounded both seemed to be alive I tried to radio Casper and

Covey but the prick 25 radio which had been hit by two AK 47 rounds would not work I tried to use my URC 10 survival radio but it had been hit with a large piece of shrapnel was not working it was covering my heart I was very fortunate that it stopped the shrapnel at least that part worked but this left me with no way to communicate with the helicopter or Covey it was a long ride back to the first safe place to land the helicopter and to add to the fun. We flew over several anti-aircraft positions, but it felt good to be off the ground. And there's actually a photograph in the book, which is freaking ridiculous. And you tell the story about how you got this, but it's a picture of you and, uh, who's hanging and, um, and cantoon.

And you guys are getting lowered into a different firebase after you've been in this gunfight. Look at this. Echo Charles. Look at it. Yeah, that's nice. So a guy happened to snap the picture on an old type of Polaroid camera. I didn't know they had Polaroid cameras in 1969, but this guy had one, and he snapped the picture of you guys as you were getting dragged back into this firebase, and then before you took off, once you were loaded back in the helicopter, you ran over to you and gave it to you. Yeah, he saw, you know, he saw Bargewell's group come in.

I mean, everybody there was just, they were in shock. I mean, you don't see, they didn't see people hanging under helicopters on ropes. And they never saw anybody coming from that direction on the other side of the border. So this was a big deal. So this guy ran back and got his little camera and came back out, you know, because they could tell another helicopter is coming. So as I came in, he took the picture of us as they were lowering us down. and, you know, it takes about 60 seconds

for it to process and everything. And they put me in the helicopter and the other two in the helicopter. And we were just starting to lift off and he came running with his hand stuck out. And I thought, what is he doing? And, you know, he got there just in time and I took what he had in his hand out.

And I looked at it. And I said, oh, look out. This is a little picture. And I have no clue who this guy was or anything but you know he gave me an actual

photo of us coming in and in the book it talks about the ropes were not excuse me even and it ended up the rope that I had was about 10 feet longer

than what the other two had and then in the picture you can see it I'm hanging down below and I mean it it was a it was total chaos and You know, they were lifting up, and then it pulled me off balance,

and I fell and bounced and went into the, you know, the thicket and all that stuff and drug up through it. And then, you know, I'm hanging it. We're at 7,000 feet above ground level. Freezing. Yeah. You know, 100 miles an hour. Soaking wet from the sweat and heat that you just left.

And oscillating back and forth, and I'm looking up. And I can see my rope rubbing on the edge of the helicopter floor and it's starting to fray. You know, I'm at 7,000 feet. So I'm thinking, that's a 30-second delay or a little more before I hit the ground. I mean, if I'm going to go down, I mean, you know, I can do some back loop, some turns and, you know, a little thing before I splat. Holy cow. You know, just trying to distract myself a little bit. Yeah, it would be interesting to try and recreate that scene somehow, like in computer graphics or like a movie or something.

Because it would look totally insane. Like you can't, what you did, what your guys did is not. It's, I mean, the fact that you're alive is crazy. I mean, the helicopter's up there. How that thing's not getting shot down, I have no idea. I mean, it only takes one bullet to dock down a helicopter if it hits the right spot. Yeah. One thing that helps the helicopter is, if you're under double or triple canopy jungle,

I mean, they were not standing, you know, right under it, shooting up at it. They're shooting at an angle, so they're going to. through the trees and the tree limbs and, you know, can't see it unless they're really close to it. Because, you know, we didn't blow a hole or anything. They just dropped it right down through the vegetation. So they can hear it up there. They just can't see it.

And, you know, one thing that trees do is they deflect, in some cases, stop bullets. and I've had conversations with gunship pilots and stuff and one guy, Barry Pinchak, he and I did a little video and it was a video kind of like let me share with you from his part I'll tell you what it looked like to me when I was placing a fire support down there for you and I get to say

well let me tell you what it looked like. when it came through or what came through. Most of the stuff you were shooting down, it never hit the ground because it's hitting trees and ricocheting, all kinds of things. It's a very different perspective from the air versus, you know, being on the ground.

So that, I mean, that was fun just kind of going back and forth about, you know, what it looked like. The other thing that's crazy to try and imagine is how they could find you in all that. I mean, sure, you throw out smoke, but the smoke gets dissipated through the canopy. Yeah, when you're under canopy like that, you've got to use the flares. They can see.

You might have to shoot two or three, but eventually you want to penetrate the canopy and come out, and they'll see it. So here's a bright, bright blue, you know, flare up there. And for them, them to come over and be able to get on that spot. Yeah. Well, I'm giving them a little guidance. I mean, they got in the area. Oh, so you're talking about a bit. Yeah.

So I'm guiding the right left, whatever. And meanwhile, you're rigging of Claymore, rigging up 15-second time views on C4 blocks, hooking up your Swiss seat, shooting enemy. The Swiss seat was, that was a pain. Because you had to lay down, had to lie on the ground, keep getting shot, try to put that, and you've got a rucksack on, you got all this stuff on, and you're trying to fit that thing around you and people are shooting at you

and the longer you don't shoot back you know the more they're assaulting and coming at you and when it got down to just the three of us you know you didn't have a lot of firepower to start with and then I knew what

I knew what Kintua and Heng were thinking because they had asked me one day and I'm not sure whose idea it was to ask if it was the interpreter, Cantua, or Heng, the M-79 guy. And Cantua says, it says, Hang wants to know why we have to always come out last with you. And I said, well, because I need you guys. You're important.

You're the interpreter. You and I can talk. He's the M-79 guy. We need the firepower, and that's just the way we're going to do it. You two come out last with me every time because we're a team and we can work together. I was going to say they love that, didn't they? Fast forward a little bit here. So you get out of this as a miracle that you guys get out of here.

You say, I was not happy about the resupply. Captain Welch, the recon company commander, had flown to the launch site to be part of getting R.T. Michigan out to talk to me before I talked to Major Sims and to attend the debriefing to make sure things, me, did not get out of hand. He told me before we went inside to stay calm, remember I would be talking to a major and not to hit or shoot anyone. And I had to make sure that the team did not do that either. So that's your pre-brief for the debrief. Hey, don't hit or shoot anybody. I was not happy. not happy at all.

Did he have any reason at all? Like what was his freaking thinking? They needed us to stay longer, and that was fine. We could stay longer. And they were determined they were doing us a favor. If they gave us more, you know, water and batteries and stuff like that, we could stay there. Because we were across the highway and providing protection. and support for the hatchet force that was down there.

So we were kind of covering this whole area over here. The NVA were coming down from up above, and they would stop and fire mortars over the platoon. Well, we could hear them. And, you know, I would call the artillery because I had marked targets all around there and tell them, you know, where to shoot. And we were close enough to them.

I mean, we'd hear them every time they'd drop around, Yeah. So they needed us over there to keep the bad guys away from them, but we could have done it differently. And at a different time. That was not a good time to do that. So lucky to get out of there for sure. Definitely. Learned a lot. A lot of things we were going to do different the next time. I was just going to say that one of the things that happens is all of this stuff starts to collapse down into SOG imperatives that when we get into book 2

it kind of comes together and here it is do these things you know if you want to go out on the SOG mission and have a successful mission here are some things you need to do But, you know, if you want to run a company, if you want to run your life, if you want to do things, these apply. Every day. When you get up, you think you know what you're going to do that day. But, you know, there are people out there who didn't sit in on the planning session and they're going to mess you up. And you've got to be able to adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt as you go along.

You've got to practice. You've got to do these things that we're talking about here to be successful in everyday life or in your business or military or whatever it is that you're going to do. Yeah. So all of this stuff coming. Yeah. You know, as I was saying, oh, you were lucky to get out of there. It's a miracle you got out of there, which, look, you already gave luck. It's fair share, right?

We all understand that luck matters. At the same time, you guys. planned. You guys prepared. You guys rehearsed. You knew like how to put that Swiss seat on. You knew how to do it in the dark. You know how to do it in the light. You know how to do it in the light. You know how to do it. You know how to rig that claymore. You knew how to get those 15 second time fuse. You know where that C4 was on your gear. You could do it with your eyes closed, with your eyes open, with the bloody hands with whatever. You and your team knew that. And so even though look, we say miracle, we say luck, which certainly you're going to have some. but if you didn't have the rehearsals, the practice, the mindset, the attention to detail, the planning, you wouldn't have been able to do anything. You would have died 15 minutes into this operation. So, yes, we give luck and miracles they're due for sure. But the planning, the fact that you had all those pre-scheduled fire positions for the artillery,

you were able to just calm up immediately. the interaction that you had with the aircraft overhead, like everything that was going on was because you had planned and prepared for it. So you practice what you preach, and in the book you preach, practice, practice, practice. And that's exactly what you did

and that's how you were able to survive this situation, which is practically unsurvivable. I mean, it's practically unsurvivable. You wouldn't, if you wouldn't be sitting here talking me right now, I wouldn't think that anyone would survive that. How can you survive that? Practice, preparation, skill, honing, getting better every time you do it. Like, that's what you guys did. And that's what kept you alive. I'm going to fast forward a little bit here. Mission two with RT Michigan. And this is, you guys are out looking for a prisoner. prisoner snatch

which yeah this is going to be a good one this is our specialty yeah my my special not the teams you know I can't put it on them I just there are things that happen

our new mission was to conduct a prisoner snatch from area Oscar 8 we had an insertion date of 12 January 1969 that would not give us much time to prepare and again in the book get the book you get to read all these all these

preparation that you do you get to see the training that you're doing the specialized training that you're doing you can hear about the the visual reconnaissance I'll tell you a little bit about it so the visual reconnaissance once again this is when you're flying over the the area of operations to get a look at it barswell and I left out of denang airfield at daylight in an air force oh two skymaster observation aircraft to fly a visual reconnaissance of the Oscar 8 area of operations. We plan to make one pass over the target area taking photos

as we flew over en route to a fake area that we would pretend to check out. It was a somewhat cloudy day and the air was very rough. As we approached the AO, the NVA welcomed us with fire from a couple 51 caliber machine guns. A round hit the right wing flap and another came through the floor hitting the pilot in the leg. The pilot was bleeding badly in a great deal of pain and struggle. to control the plane. We were all over the sky, which actually made us more difficult to hit.

Meanwhile, the rounds were still coming up at us. Another round came through the cargo compartment just behind Barswell and out through the top of the plane causing the rear engine to shut down. I said to Barswell, I think I've seen enough for today. He agreed. So you had to go and tourniquet the pilot's leg. I mean, this is freaking chaos.

Just on the VR. Yeah, I hated those things. you didn't like going on the visual reconnaissance no I knew it could provide me a lot of intelligence but it just seemed like every time I went out there something like this happened and I just think oh geez what are they going to do today to screw my plan up

are we going to shoot the pilot oh that's great and Oscar 8 was a bad bad oh yeah bad place reputation is a really bad yeah now in the book you start talking about now you got the visual reconnaissance done you start planning you start the preparation and that the idea is and it's what you talked about earlier with being able to disable someone an enemy in an ambush and basically you make a hole in the kill zone of an ambush so you set up an ambush on 50 yards of road or 30 yards

of road or whatever you put a bunch of Claymore's out and you You're going to set up this ambush in such a way so that when an enemy patrol, four, five, six guys comes walking through this thing, you know that at the right moment, you can initiate this ambush, cause an explosion, and it's going to kill most of the people, but there's a little area, a little safe zone in the middle of the ambush where someone's going to get a concussion, knocked out, but they're going to survive, and then you can go grab them and bring them home. That's the plan. You go on the insert. Fast forward, you go on the insert, you conduct the, on day two, you get into a good ambush position. You've been on a couple ambush positions. And I'm going to go to the book here. Suddenly I heard a group of NVA open fire at ambush site one.

Something scared them and they had opened fire randomly spraying bullets to both sides of the trail. Some bullets were coming our way. The sounds were all AK-47 except one light machine gun. They had a machine gun. The sound of the NVA ambush in Ambush Site 1, firing spook the NVA and our ambush site. It was decision time. I had no way to warn our team to close their eyes because they were about to get hit with a blast wave and debris. It was too late.

I simultaneously detonated the Claymore's in Site 1 and the main ambush site. The detonation was massive. Seven claymores, five frag grenades, four pounds of C4, and automatic weapons fire from the team. I was stunned by the blast wave from the explosives. Debris, branches, rocks, dirt, smoke, a blast wave and sound hit me in the face and blinded me. The smell of gunpowder and smoke was choking. I couldn't hear. I jerked a leech off my face because you had leeches crawling all over you.

So that's what happens. Boom. Seven claymores, five frag grenades, four pounds of C-4. How far back off the ambush trail were you? How far do you think you were from the... Maybe 15 meters or something. That's going to ring your bell. Oh, yeah.

But we had trees, so we had the claymores in front of the trees. So that helped some, but some of the blast is still going to come around it. back to the book wait the team wasn't firing why weren't they firing were they knocked out temporarily stunned the six to ten and again look I'm I'm skipping ahead you got to read the book to get the if some of this sounds like oh what's that just because there was different ambush sites you had them all set it at the same time the details are in the book at the book the six to ten NVA not in the kill zone were firing in random directions then some of the team began firing now the surviving

NVA knew where we were and directed their fire on us. They were gaining fire superiority and we couldn't let that happen. I emptied two 20 round magazines and tossed a frag grenade. I had to get everyone out and returning fire quickly. I yelled Nash, take them out. Nash, Puwa and Rappoon focused their fire on the NVA and threw two frag grenades and a Willie Pete grenade at them. Bullets were flying in all directions.

The Willie Pete grenade produced a shower of white phosphorus chunks that fell on the live NVA, burning them severely and creating a very dense white choking smoke. It looked like some of the chunks were going to hit us, but they didn't. The smoke provided temporary concealment of the kill zone and in some incapacitation of the NVA. Nash, Pua, and Rupoon fired into the dense smoke and into the kill zone. Most of the team dashed onto the trail to make sure all the NVA except the prisoners were dead and searched. Two of the three NVA that had been in or near the hole were on their hands and knees. The third was trying to stand up.

Barswell got there first and quickly body slammed the one trying to get up. Then pounced on the other. I took the third. Chung and Ketua jumped on the prisoner as soon as they hit the ground, got the cuffs on them, drugged, gagged, and headbagged them while the other guys were finishing on. off the NVA in the kill zone and searching them. ATA, is that right? Ata.

Ata was standing in the kill zone providing security. So the explosion goes off. There's a little hesitation while you guys are getting your bearings back. Now you start shooting. Sure enough, the plan worked because in the middle of this kill zone, there was an area where there was three prisoners that were dazed but alive. And it sounds like they were. weren't wounded either which is good the clock was ticking we had to get out of the

kill zone suddenly the first group of NVA that had gone through the ambush came running back down the trail and open fire on us now we were the ones now we were the ones in the kill zone ata was hit immediately in the abdomen and went down I was on the ground wrestling with the prisoner and was splattered with Ada's blood he began yelling hit hit I turned and shot one of the three one of the three with a four round burst can'tua quickly terminated the other two then sat on the prisoner on prisoner three while I dragged a to out of the kill zone he was bleeding badly and his intestines were hanging out he was in tremendous pain and screaming I slowed a to his bleeding and got his

intestines contained in his abdomen I injected him with morphine got on the radio can'tua maintained control of prisoner three Covey charlie five alpha india which meant ambush initiated one brunette, which is wounded, three popa whiskeys prisoners. Heavy contact, moving to Lima Zulu, which is the LZ over. Roger Charlie 5, Charlie 5, 2 Cobra's, 5 mics out. Echo Hotel extraction helicopters standing by. So at this point, you've got these guys, some of the NVA ran up from the trail. They put out a heavy volume of fire.

you have another guy get wounded, Chung gets wounded, he gets hit. This is freaking getting gnarly quick. Well, it was, you know, we wouldn't have ambushed that group if the ones coming behind them hadn't reacted

down that first ambush site and spooked these guys. So we had to set it all. So everybody wasn't into kill zone. Right. You know, and there were more people than we had planned to do but sometimes you don't have that option to not do something. So we had to go ahead and set it off and do the best that we could.

And then that first little group that went through, went up a button. They turned and came running back down. And by that time, we were out into kill zone, searching, bagging, all that stuff. So, yeah, it got a little gnarly there. Fast forward a little bit. We had three prisoners, handcuffed behind their backs, gagged, headbagged, drugged, and secured with ankle ropes. This was an eight-foot rope. We tied to one ankle so we could jerk their foot and cause them to face plan if they tried to run.

A fourth group of approximately 25 to 30 NVA came up the trail and engaged Nash and Pua. Pua was rapidly firing 40-millimeter high-explosive rounds at the NVA, causing them to take cover. This fourth group seemed to be increasing in number. We tried to escape down the slope toward the LZ, but they were gaining on us. We couldn't move fast with the prisoners fighting us every step of the way to slow us down. They kept throwing themselves on the ground and fighting to prevent us from getting them up and moving. Barswell carried a Tia or Ada. Nash assisted Chung and returned fire.

I yelled to Nash to help Pua and put out some Claymores with time fuse to slow down our pursuers. I took control of prisoner three from Pua. He put out a Claymore with a time fuse, a group of envy. A ran in front of the Claymore kill zone just as it detonated. It ripped a hole through their assault line and shredded them while we were trying to regroup another Claymore detonated, hitting a few more of them. The second blast really increased their fear of chasing us, but they did it anyways. They move slower, however, and we're hesitant to get too close to us. Pua foot put several 40mmel rounds in and around them in rapid succession and slowed them down.

Covee, Charlie Five, where are the snakes? We need them now. They're just coming on station, and the snakes is the, uh, Cobra's. Roger Covey, 30 seconds out. Get your heads down. I yelled to my team. Cobra's coming in.

Everyone get down. Protect your head. Some of the bullets were stopped high up in the trees with some of the 40 millimeter, but most were getting through and hitting some of the NVA. It was difficult for the bullets

to get through the triple canopy. This is five. Good run. Good run. Do it again. There was a loud boom and a flash that Covey saw from the air. Nash made his way to Rappoon and Prisoner 2

to see how badly they were injured. He yelled Prisoner 2 is dead. Rapun has strapped on his leg and arm bleeding can't walk I've got him Nash make sure a prisoner two is dead and leave him we gotta go I yelled back this is five crap they just took out prisoner two with an RPG and we've got another brunette that can't walk wait out this is five marking position again ID color I've got a white flare Roger that make it make the run 50 meters south of my position flying east to west danger close do it now and again this is the kind of stuff that you're doing

right now because you're a lot better at it than you were when you're on your first mission. The NVA had massed about 20 meters out from us and were assaulting. Take cover. They are assaulting us. Throw some grenades. Switch to auto. Pua. Put some 40 millimeter on them. I shouted. They were dropping like flies, but more were coming. I was firing from behind a tree.

And just as I finished a magazine, I saw an NVA five feet from Kantua whose weapon was empty. And prisoner three, I drew my Colt 45 and shot at the NBA soldier twice. The impact of the bullets literally picked him up off the ground and threw him backwards. Wow, 45 hits hard. Don't let them get away. Keep firing.

I reloaded and got a couple more of them as they were retreating. So did Cantua. Cantua, lead us to the LZ. I'm a little busy, Covey. I yelled back over the heavy volume of gunfire explosions and me yelling something about NVA's ancestors in the background. This is five. A group of NBA just made the final assault of their lives.

Put the first napalm 150 meters south of my position flying east to west danger close don't miss we are moving towards the lz I shouted Michigan get down napalm 20 seconds out The napalm hit the trees but a lot of it came to the ground right on the NVA If it gets on you it won't come off it just sticks and burns the smoke was so thick under the canopy our eyes were burning it we couldn't see and we're having trouble breathing The smell was sickening Pua and Prisoner 1 were both throwing up I accidentally press the push-to-talk button before I finish talking to the team check ammo and redistribute sorry Covey it's a little chaotic down here put the second

napalm 100 east of my position flying north south to north Roger second napal 30 seconds out get on the ground with something between you and the napalm ASAP I yelled Michigan on the ground napalm 20 seconds out cover your head most of this one came to the ground it was on the NBA but almost hit us this stuff scared me take out the torches I shouted the napalm had burned away a lot of the vegetation making it easier to see the NVA and shoot them i kept saying to myself this is the humane thing to do five get down third napalm 30 seconds out roger that it's barbecue time michigan get down napalm 20 seconds out another good drop right on the nvaa the smell of overcooked human flesh smoke and low oxygen air makes you want

to vomit i watched as cantua and chung began throwing up. The napalm stopped the NVA advancement toward us. We grabbed the prisoners. Barswell picked up Ada Nash, picked up Rappoon, and made a run for the LZ before the NVA regrouped and came after us. We were only about 200 meters from the LZ. I'd put the last napalm between us and the LZ to clear a path. It definitely did that. Quite a few of the charred bodies were still burning as we moved through the area. The smell was gross. There was little oxygen in the air, making it difficult to breathe and it was very smoky and burned our eyes. We were sweating so much it was running into our eyes and making it even more difficult to see.

We moved as fast as we could with the two prisoners fighting every step and three wounded team members, two of whom were being carried. We were all soaking wet from the heat, humidity, running, fighting, and dragging prisoners. We were dehydrated, thirsty, exhausted, running on pure adrenaline, but getting closer to the extraction LZ. Two prisoners, three wounded. And they, you know, the prisoners, they had rather die than be a prisoner. They'd been indoctrinated so much and told what all horrible things we were going to do to them if we caught him. So they would do anything to prevent us from getting them, you know, to the helicopter, they'd throw themselves on the ground.

I mean, they would take your weapon. They would do anything that they could to try to stop it. And at the same time, their guys are trying to shoot them. Because they didn't want them to go out either. So, I mean, they're between a rock and a hard place. They think we're going to, you know, carve them up and mutilate them. Their guys are trying to shoot them. They're the only people in the world in the worst spot than you guys were.

Yeah. What drugs did you put in them? Morphine. Just morphine them up. Yeah. Going back to the book, and we were about 100 meters from the LZ, we hit a wall of withering, AK RPG and RPD fire. Boom, boom.

The heat and blast wave from the RPGs temporarily blinded us. Michigan, get down. Use single shots. Covey, we are in heavy contact on the south side of the LZ. Got any more napalm? This is Covey.

Yes, where you want it. I want the center mass of the, I want the center mass to be 30 meters north of the tree line on the south edge of the LZ. Fly east to west. Danger close. Actually, very close. Don't miss. Roger that. Stand by. This is Covey.

the gates of hell will open in 30 seconds get down roger michigan get down napalm 20 seconds out danger close during those 20 seconds the nva fired an r pg close to prisoner three and hit him with shrapnel and peppered me with shrapnel i could feel the heat and blast from the r pg can'tua was with prisoner three prisoner three was bleeding badly i couldn't do anything for him until after the napalm strike the napalm hit very close resulting in most of the team receiving small burns the stuff was really scary to use one miscalculation and the entire team would be crispy critters i scrambled to prisoner three and began trying to stop some of the bleeding i looked up and saw a torch coming toward me can to a take over but not just any torch this one was dragging an rpd by the barrel i hit him in the chest with a three round burst for my car

15 and the torch and machine gun were gone all future generations that could come from him were instantly erased. My pant leg was on fire. I tried to pat that out, but it would just spread and got on my glove. Now my glove was burning too, and it was hot. I grabbed a handful of mud,

and my glove went out. I rubbed the mud on my pant legs and put the flame out. It lit up again. I put more mud on and realized my shirt sleeve was burning. Again, I rub mud on it to put it out. Napalm was hard to extinguish.

It's like that old Jody call about napalm, napalm sticks like glue. I mean, you can't get it off of it. This is five. That was a little closer than I expected. It fried the bad guys,

but we have gotten some burns and sun tan through our clothes. We might even, we are ready to go home. Can you get us out of here? Roger that. We have two birds on final approach escorted by COVID. Stand by for extraction. Roger, we'll be wearing orange hats.

Expect a lot of ground fire. Standing by. Michigan, turn your hats orange. I yelled to my team. First load will be Barzwell, Nash. Prisoner 1, Ata, and Pua. There'll be a lot of ground fire. We have to load faster.

They'll leave it, or they will leave us. Keep the prisoner secured. Prisoner one resisted getting on the helicopter until Barzwell punched him in the jaw. He staggered and dropped through his knees. Barzwell grabbed him and threw him in the helicopter. It seemed like it took a long time to load the wounded. My job was to provide supporting fire.

Barzwell and Nash were doing a great job loading the wounded without injuring them. They were finally in and lifting them. I could hear the metallic clangs of bullets hitting their chopper. The second aircraft was on short final. I had the wounded prisoner three, Cantua Chung, and Rapoon with me. We were receiving a lot of fire, but our prisoner three was not resisting. Cantua and I helped the others get aboard and we lifted off about two minutes after Barswell's aircraft. The ground fire was still coming at us and the helicopter received several hits as we were leaving.

I dropped the red smoke grenade. The Cobras were ripping the area around the LZ apart with many guns, 40 millimeter and rockets. Spads were working more napalm, 250-pound bombs, and 20-millimeter machine guns higher and lower on the ridge, trying to interdict the flow of troops on the ridge line to suppress the ground fire. As I watched the fireworks show around us, I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and thought we just might make it out of here. Covey, this is five. Thanks. We really appreciate you what you guys did for us today. Outstanding job. We'll take care of you back at the ranch. I sat back to relax. A few minutes later, I was looking at bars. Wells helicopter in front of us and thinking that although the team was banged up pretty

badly it was it was a successful mission we got out with two prisoners then it happened I saw a body fall from barswell's helicopter I had on a headset so I was able to ask our pilot how high we were and would he ask the lead aircraft what happened he told me we were at 2,300 feet AGL and apparently the prison had got loose and dove out of the helicopter, still handcuffed, and head-backed. He was last seen as he disappeared headfirst into the jungle canopy, 2,300 feet below, traveling somewhere between 160 and 180 miles per hour. So you get back with your prisoner, and he dies as well.

Died on the table. Just, you know, if you get hit in the legs or the arms, you know, you can use tourniquets. There's things you can do. You can stop the bleeding. But, you know, if you're hit, you know, in your torso, I mean, you just can't get there easily to stop the bleeding. And eventually you're going to bleed out. You guys were not good with your prisoner.

No. No. That's a tough, freaking mission. I mean, it's hard enough to go and kill them, but to go not kill them and just, you know, and try and bring them back as they're resisting. I mean, there are ways to do it. I mean,

a lot of teens brought prisoners back. Yeah, they did it. I mean, you were close. You got two on the birds. Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure some of it's me because I had opportunities

you'll see in book two that it just didn't work out. But, yeah. Is that where you got your second nickname Terminator? It was beginning to build up. The name really didn't come about until, you know, several years later. Oh, okay. With another group.

But people had known me or knew about me and some things happened. And, you know, I got a different code name. And this is before, this is before the movie Terminator. Just so you know, Echo Charles. Impressive. This is where the Terminator got their name for their movie, right? Oh, yeah. Some of the lessons learned you got here needed more practice securing a violently resisting prisoner loaded with adrenaline.

Another one, trying to communicate during a firefight, especially if we are trying to escape, is very difficult. Need to have Americans in the right places to relay commands. Need more medical training, especially controlling bleeding. You have a psychological lessons learned on this one. We need to stay busy between missions. Inactivity allows fear to creep in. What was that all about? When you have a really tough mission, like a couple of these here,

it spokes to the team as they think about it. If you just give them time off and let them go drink and party, do whatever they want to do, then, you know, those fears can start to come in. So I started trying to keep them busy. And then later on in book two, Lynn Black, you know, had the same thoughts. So he and I got together and found some interesting things to do.

Interesting things to do between missions. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you say what's one of your other lessons? related to it there's a deck there's a direct relation between time between missions and level of fear and then at the same also you say we need time to heal physically and psychologically between missions so you need to be you need time but you need to stay busy during that time yeah yeah we need time between missions to correct problems and train for the next one the physical and psychological

effects of wearing a headset was stunning in addition to providing so I didn't pension this part but you're this is one of the missions where you first wore a headset inside the helicopter which means you could hear communications in the helicopter and you weren't getting your ears people have no idea how loud it is in a freaking helicopter like if you watch a movie people you see people like talking in a helicopter no there's not you can't you have you have to get in someone's ear and yell so uh you say in addition to providing real-time battlefield information also gave me the ability to adapt the insertion plan while we were still in the air have more control of the insertion

manage fear, focus and relax, be fully in the game before arrival at LZ and preserve hearing now and in the future. Yeah, so you know, one of the things like preserve hearing, like you were just talking about, it's so loud in the aircraft that when you get off and run into the jungle and you go do your security halt, your eyes adjust, your smell adjust, all of those things adjust, your ears. take, can take several hours before you get all of your hearing back. Now, did you guys even have like, you know, the little foamy things to stick in your ears or anything like that? Yes.

But we had been programmed. Those were for the range. Protect your hearing on the range. Now, after I left, some smart guys said, why don't we wear those things on that? helicopter. We can take them out when we go off to helicopter. We take them out and put them in our pocket. So, you know,

General Bea Ray, I mean, his group did it all the time. You know, he came about three months after I left. And, you know, some smart guys that said, put them in your ears. Yeah. Take them out when you get there. You refer a lot in the book to the blinding flash of

the obvious. Yeah. That's one of them right there. So, I mean, I was so I was so impressed by what I could do with that headset before I got on the ground, how much adaptation I could do, how much it helped me just to remain focused. Yeah, I mean, that was great.

And then if you look around now, I mean, all the operators have headsets that go with them when they get on the ground. Yeah. You know, so you can hear each other talk and everything. And you have enhanced hearing because it can amplify the sound. There's all kinds of things.

And it cuts off, you know, at 85 decibel of a gun fire. So, I mean, it's just super. But before that, you got out the helicopter and you're deaf. Yeah, I can't imagine what your hearing sounded like that. But, yeah, we'd go in that security hall and sit there for 15 minutes and think, yeah, we've got it.

Now we can hear, man. Thank you. You mentioned this before, but here it is again, napalm. Napalm puts the fear of God or maybe the devil in the NVA. It is the most horrible, cruel, terrifying, physically and psychologically damaging weapon in our arsenal. It creates a lot of human torches. Enemy soldiers covered with burning napalm blindly stumbling around as they are being consumed by fire. The enemy survivors, if there are already,

any never get over the screams smells pain lack of oxygen in the air choking air smoke and visual images they see the experiences literally burned into their brains and minds the the team that delivers the napalm never gets over the experience calling it in scares me because I know the slightest miscalculation by anyone in the process can cause it to hit the good guys all of the team received some burns this time, but sometimes you have to choose to save the team at all costs. What's up with the lack of oxygen in the air? So the napalm burns and it burns all the oxygen. It has to have the oxygen in the air to burn. And so it literally makes it hard to breathe? It just takes it out. So, I mean, you're you're sucking in nitrogen, but you're not getting the oxygen that you need.

to breathe. So, you know, it's choking. You're taking a breath, but you don't feel like you've got any air. You're suffocating. And, you know, if you're right there in the middle of it, those guys don't get any. Yeah. It's all gone. But just around it, you know, it's the air has a lot less oxygen in it.

This one that burned you guys, like the one that's on your sleeve, they hit your sleeve and pant leg. How far were you from that impact? it was supposed to be like 100 150 meters or so but when it hit the canopy it scatters and it goes all over and you know it was just a little too close to us but it's I mean if you if you've ever watched them drop those things

it's you know it's in a canister it's not like a bomb, it's just in a long canister and when they release it and they turn it loose tumbles. It just tumbles. And how they get as accurate weather as they do, I don't know, because it's just tumbling. And then, you know, when it goes into the trees, first through a hard limb, big limb, it hits.

It breaks the canister and it sets it off. If you're dropping it out in a relatively open, area you know it tumbles and it hits pretty close to where it's supposed to be it has a nice burn pattern when it comes out but you know I in fact I saw a discussion on Facebook I think it was last week and people were saying that anybody up north use napalm because of the canopy and most people were saying, I don't know how you could. And I said, I did all the time. But you know, you take a real chance.

You have to put it farther away. It's going to scatter. You have to know that. Yeah. I mean, for something to be, it's a smell so bad that guys are puking while they're in combat. Yeah. I mean, it's just the charred flesh, the burning flesh, it just puts out such a smell that it just invokes that vomit response.

and, you know, people start to bomb it. Another lesson learned you got here. The prisoners fought us the whole time and really slowed our movement, especially under fire. They also made loading the aircraft difficult. Barswell had to knock out his prisoner to get him on the helicopter, and he still managed to jump out.

This was a very mentally and physically fatiguing operations start to finish. We needed more physical training. You also talk about Barswell, which you mentioned already today, that he had seen, that RPD and really wanted to start using that that belt-fed machine gun and uh first lieutenant Ken Bowera Bora Borei Boreh another guy that uh became a major general yeah who also carried that

he carried actually Bardswell gave him his RPD okay so you know I looked back at that and I'd say well gee Barswell carried that thing and he became a major general the lieutenant he gave it to became a major general, I should have said, give it to me. You know, let me try it. Give me the lucky gun. But then I go back and look, yeah, you know, those two guys are good. Yeah, I cause too much trouble. Now, at this juncture in the deployment for you, I don't know if this is considered a break or not, but you guys get put on Marble Mountain Security for 10 days. Is this considered downtime for you guys? Supposed to be a bright.

Supposed to be big. There's two, basically there's a big, outside CCN, there's a, there's a mountain range, Marble Mountain, and you guys put two different combat outposts on top of those so that the enemy couldn't get them and fire down into you. And so you guys would rotate up there. And this is the compound. This is the compound that got overrun, or nearly overrun, 23 August, 1968, 17 SF guys were killed. and one of the reasons it got nearly overrun was because they gave they gave up the high ground

or the enemy took the high ground so you guys put combat outposts up there to prevent that from happening again and you guys get this tasking to go up there so um you get up there and I mean it's here's here's what we're dealing with the sunset was beautiful from the combat outpost but it was the low before the storm around 2030 we came under heavy fire from the small plateau between us and combat outpost two. This gave me an opportunity to play with my M60 machine gun. I engaged the enemy with a heavy barrage of 762 and was joined by the M60 on cop two. It was nice not to have to carry the heavy M60 or the ammo. You guys start doing AARs after each day. During the AAR, we noticed that the sandbags around our position had not

fared well during the attack. Barswell put in a request for 50 full sandbags. along with more ammunition to be delivered by lunch we also discussed the following and you got a bunch of things that we that you put in here that you dealt with and one of them is this kind of claustrophobic feeling that you got I had become so used to shooting and moving that my position felt almost claustrophobic on the peak we could not maneuver so this is a new feeling for you yeah and you don't like it right no uh nowhere to go You say in hindsight I find it difficult to believe we did not wear helmets and flack jackets in this static position Which is definitely you get up there and you don't have to carry him anywhere, but you're not don't have them Um

Fast forward a couple days Day three around 11 o'clock on day three the talk called and said I needed a report to recon company talk a visitor was waiting for me That was all they would say I took cantoona and hang and we made our way down the mountain I was in total shock when and I saw who was waiting for me. It was my cousin Carl from the Thompson's Rangers. This is when you were a kid. I knew he was in country on his third torn Vietnam, but did not expect to see him while I was out at CCN.

I especially did not expect to see him inside a top secret SOG compound that few people outside of SOG knew existed. How did he know I was there and how did he talk his way into a restricted compound? He'd always amazed me with that, with what he could do. He said he had a few days leave from golf company,

75th Rangers and came up to see me. I explained that my team was securing the cop and I had to go back up there but if he didn't mind getting shot at while he was on leave I could show him a good time. He was all in. We ate in the mess hall and then we went to the supply room where he signed for a car 15th of tactical gear, ruck, lurps, ammo and an IV of ringer solution, poncho and a liner.

He declined the helmet and a flack jacket and we headed up the mountain. It was great to see him and serve into combat for a few days together like we did when we were kids. I would have felt better if he had taken the helmet and flackjackjacket because this time the bad guys would be shooting back with AK-47s and RPGs. The enemy did not disappoint us. They attacked several times during the night.

I think they knew we had a new person with us on the mountain and wanted to welcome cousin Carl. So he takes leave and his leave is to go, did he tell you how he found you? How did he find you? He never really divulged his sources. But, I mean, he, you know, once he was out of the service, he became a car salesman.

If you stopped by his car lot to ask him for directions somewhere, he'd sell you a car. You were leaving with a car. Yeah. He could talk anybody into anything. And then somehow he talked his way in to a top secret compound. That may. It was unreal. Day four.

up there you start getting a little bored so what do you do when you're bored to go out and start clearing caves there's caves on these on this mountain um this was interesting you're clearing one of these caves we'd not find anyone in the cave across from us but we did see a lot of dried blood we went into the one of the lower caves we surprised to nva carl put one of them down right away then we started dodging our own bullets because you're shooting around in a rock cave we were educated on what happens when you start shooting in a stone cave ricochase each bullet was bouncing off two or three walls before it stopped after a few minutes we got the of it and took out the other bad guy we searched them and left their bodies outside the

cave and returned to cop one camba thought we should put the two NBA's heads on stakes as a warning to the other NVA I told him to resheap this knife we're not going to do that he and Poo are not happy so they they want to do some psychological operations put them on on steak fast forward a couple more days about 1300 this is day six 1300 hang in Canba ask if they could make a quick run down to the village. No trouble, they said. Hank said they would be back in an hour. Bargewell agreed and said they could go, but they needed to, they had to take

Cantua, Puah, and the radio with them. 20 minutes later, 20 minutes after they left, we heard two car 15 gunshots followed immediately by Cantua on the radio saying, no problem, we come home. Bargewell said they've done something. I can hear it in Cantua's voice. Turns out they went to some kind of, I guess some kind of monastery. Halfway up, there was a monastery. and they shot a monk dog

The monks had a dog They shot him And came back into camp and says Monk dog, they eat Bargewell almost lost it He shared some very heated words With Hane and Canua Cantua to interpret them

Barzwell was not happy with them They had killed the monk's dog And they were going to eat it The evening meal was dog and rice Bargewell Carl and I had LARPS Actual Carl did have a small portion of dog with rice just to maintain the team bond.

Day seven, AAR. We spent time on no heads on sticks and no eating monks' dogs. Those were the debrief points. Well, you know, mountain yards and some Vietnamese, you know, they love the dog. But if you saw a mountain yard squeezing a dog kind of the feeling of it.

That thing's done. It was going to disappear. They were going to eat it. But we briefed them. We can't put any heads on stakes and we can't eat the monks' dogs. A couple days later, just after 2100,

a large group of NVA opened fire on both cops with AK-47s and RPGs from the backside of the plateau. A couple of B-40 rockets went over the cop and down towards CCN compound but hit short of the defensive wire called for flares from the mortar crews at the same time this was happening a marine compound on the other side of the village was attacked we could see a heavy exchange of fire Marines called 155 millimeter artillery to help defend their position with our cops lit up five flares the snipers decided to join the party as then a second group of NVA opened fire from positions much closer to us they had the dark night to slip in closer than normal we were definitely slugging it out with them after about 20 minutes while communicating back and forth with with the SSG with with staff sergeant Saunders on cop two over the radio I slipped in a comment that if we had a case of beer we'd be having a real party up here So then fast forward the end of that gun fight while observing the absence of bodies in the talk the talk called for an update to let me know the CC the CCN commander wanted me to report to his office at 0 800

When I got to Lieutenant Colonel Iisler's office he confronted me about the drinking and partying going on at my cop I assured him that was not the case He said he heard me say if I had another case of beer. I told him that a case of beer was just banter while was pinned down in fighting position, not able to return fire. His final words were no partying on the mountain. I said, yes, sir. Did a quick AAR. Even though we were going back to CCN, I discussed being careful about what was said on the radio.

Cantua inserted colonel like NVA. Always listen. Oh, that was classic. I actually always had a role. No joking on the radio. That was a rule that I had. I had one of my officers, he was, we were on a ship, Navy ship, and on a Navy ship there's something called Navy Red,

which is like what every ship, you know, every Navy ship is listening to. And for some reason, we were in the bridge of the ship, and we were talking to, My lieutenant junior grade was talking to like our commander on another on the mothership. And he was my young lieutenant was pissed about something that we were getting told to do. And so over this, he says, whiskey tango fox trough over. And he got in a, he got in trouble for that one.

And so I, from that time on, I made a rule. It's like, nope, never joke around on the radio. So can't be asking for that extra case of beer. Lessons learned. You say being in a static, defensive fighting position is different. They know exactly where you are than a team fighting and maneuvering. Sandbags got shredded very quickly. Snipers get your attention.

Be careful what you say on the radio. Eating the monks dogs did not make the monks happy. It's a good lesson learned. Mission three search and destroy R.T. Michigan's mission was to search, find and destroy an NVA regimental unit. So now we're going after 2,000 men operating near the Laos and North of Vietnam border. You insert by the king bees. You say this. I could smell decomp in the air.

Soon, Kamba signaled that he smelled it too. We found a day old partially eaten deer. Cantua said, tigers. That got everyone's attention. This was a yard team. They grew up in the jungle and were very familiar with what tigers could do to a human. Kamba became even more vigilant. Within two hours after our insertion, we heard bamboo clackers being used by trackers and a muffled dog bark.

We were not expecting dogs or tigers. A few minutes later, Pua found tiger scat. Around 20 fast forward your you're in your layup position for the night around 2,200 we heard a muffled dog bark and yelp about a hundred meters from us can'tua whispered tiger eat dog This number 10 not good I knew no one would sleep that night This is a little I picked that up from tilt from tilt like the one through 10 This number 10 not good

It's as bad as it's going to get. Freaking tigers out there. And you got a picture of a tiger in the book, and it is, look at this, Echo Charles. That's actually a small one. You can tell it's small, but I'll tell you what, his teeth aren't small. Oh, yeah. That thing looks horrifying. That thing looks horrifying.

A tiger, a full-grown tiger can take your head off with one swipe and just decapitates you. they can reach into a fighting position and there were documented cases where a lot of Marines were in their fighting positions at night and the tiger came by, reached in, grabbed a hold of him, drug him out, and ran off into the jungle with. I was in Sri Lanka when there was a civil war going on over in Sri Lanka

and we were working with their special operations group but they said that the tigers would swim into the like close coastal waters and grab fishermen out of their boats so that's what we're dealing with

here you eventually you start putting in air strikes once you guys once you guys start putting in air strikes because the accuracy of the air strikes the NVA know that you're there and so now they start

stepping up their patrols they really start looking for you fast forward a little bit you guys are trying to get away um and then you're your hold up and going to the book around 3 30 we heard a tiger get a dog and its handler the handler's scream was scary as the nva continued to get closer to finding us we got lucky covey brought in and a c130 specter gunship that could link to our specter transponder and shoot all around us without having to mark our position with flares or stroblights the nva could see technology was continuing to enhance sogs sog r t's mission abilities so you heard a tiger then freaking kill a dog in its handler does the does the tiger make noise or no just hear the dog whimpering and screaming and then you hear a man screaming and whimpering they're very you know they're nocturnal hunter

They're very quiet. It's amazing, as big as they are. They don't make any noise. And I deal with us on a regular basis because a feral cat has decided I'm his new BFF. But anyway, they hunt at night.

But they have excellent night vision because there's a membrane in their eyes that causes the light to reflect around and it gives them this enhanced night vision. And that's why if you shine a light on an animal that has that great night vision, their eyes show up. I mean, they just light up like a deer, a raccoon, a cat.

Their eyes, you know, just like spotlights on us. And they can see. and they have much higher frequency hearing than a dog. So like a house cat, feral cat, I mean, they can hear those little squeaks, little tiny sounds that mice and other animals that they eat make. They can track those things down. I came home from work the other day and walked into the garage, and my cat's all laying back in the garage like he honestly. a place and laying in front of him is a half of a rat.

So he honored me by giving me half of his rat, and they do that. Showing their respect. Yeah. Why was this area a different AO where these tigers were? Yeah. I mean, they hunt in a pretty good size area, but, um, I mean, rarely did my teams ever, you know, encounter them. We would see there was another place.

I don't remember exactly where it was now, but a place where you could see that they had cut down big pieces of bamboo and really sharpen the ends of them and put them in the ground. So they were pointed up like that, just kind of made like a fence around the area to try to keep the tigers from coming in because they'd walk into the bamboo. But we didn't see any actual tigers

or any evidence besides that fence and either. But this one we did. We saw the scat. We saw the carcass. We heard the dog, you know, being eaten the handler. But it's quick. You know, their preferences to grab you by the back of the neck and just and run off with it.

They can drag a huge animal off. Yeah, I've seen the video of them. The light work of anything. Fast forward a little bit. By 0400, we were in heavy contact and had to declare prairie fire emergency and bring in close air support to help us try and get out to our extraction LZ.

It soon became evident we could not survive to get to the LZ. We adapt to the LZ. our plan to be extracted by strings. We had to put on Swiss seats while we were in our remain overnight just in case we could not get to the LZ. At first light, we were extracted by strings while the whole area was pounded by napalm and cluster bomb units from F4s and rockets, mini guns, and 40 millimeter grenades from Cobras.

So we had learned from that other experience. Put your Swiss seat on first. Yeah. If you think you might have to use it, put that thing on. Yeah. You know, later on, the stave over rig was created. So, I mean, that was your harness. You wore the thing.

So you had one on all the time. You didn't have to start tying a rope around you. Next mission. Pipeline destruction and monkey business. R.T. Michigan was assigned the mission of finding a high volume fuel pipeline coming out of North Vietnam and running two fuel points along the Ho Chi Minh Trail Highway and destroying a section of it. We made an early evening insertion.

Security Holt then moved quickly to a predetermined R.O.N. position. Two venomous snakes were discovered during our movement to R.N. We also heard trackers with clackers who picked up our trail. All conditions were right for this to be a long night. Our plan was to find the pipeline before going after the trackers. At approximately 2,300, a 10-man NVA search team walked within eight feet of our perimeter. There were several close calls of the NVA who got closer to the pipeline. Around 1,600 on day two, we found the pipeline.

Everything went great until 0-130. Then we heard movement between us and the cliffs. As they got closer, the size of the group seemed to grow to squad size, then platoon and finally company size, between 120 and 130. I called Moomb Beam and requested support. Moonbeam found a Spectre gunship in the range of our position and diverted it to us. Spector flew several passes between us and the cliffs. We could hear the screams as over 120 millimeter H.E. rounds hit the ground beside us and the side of the cliffs.

You had to see the impact of those rounds to comprehend the firepower. In less than 10 seconds, a Spector gunship could put one 20 millimeter H.E. round in every square yard. of a football field-sized area. There were a few moans and groans for a while, then silence. Spectre had done its job. We got a big surprise as we moved out at daylight. The jungle around us was littered with bodies and body parts of big apes. There had been no definitive proof of rock apes.

People like creatures standing six feet tall, but these were really big apes. When asked for an estimated body count, I replied 40. So it was just a big herd of. Monkeys. Big monkeys, apes. And they will attack. We'd had SOG teams overrun by them before. They come through, they beat you up.

They beat you up as they come through, and they take your stuff. They rob you. Well, these aren't going to get away with it. Yeah, I thought they were in VA. And, you know, it was dark, we couldn't see. I could hear them coming. And, you know, I've got to get a lot. them out of here. So I put

Specter on them and the next day I saw what was out there and I thought, holy cow, I am not telling them. They shot a bunch of monkeys that thing. When we arrived at the pipeline, I notified Covey we were on target

waiting on the security patrol when the patrol arrived, Bargewell and I quickly terminated the NVA using our 22 caliber pistols with integrated silencers. Our designated security team moved into place while the rest set up the charges. We then activated the time fuse with 20 minutes burning time and quickly moved 100 meters to a second spot on the pipeline Placed our second charge and ignited a five-minute time fuse

We then began moving quickly toward the extraction LZ I left tow poppers along our path as we move the 220 Pound C4 charges made tremendous explosions Letting the fuel run out on the ground The Willie Pete grenades made sure the fuel ignited it was an awesome fireworks display We heard one set of tow poppers explode and knew the NVA were were close to us. Then we ran into a group of 20 who seemed to be unhappy. Fortunately, by this time, Covey had F4s on station following our targeting directions, hit the pipeline in more places with a mixture

of H.E and napalm. Their strikes produce secondary explosions at the refueling stations. A1s provided close air support for RT Michigan, which was now in a prairie fire emergency. After about two hours of difficult fighting, we were extracted under heavy fire. The mission was a success. We did not lose anyone there you go RT Michigan mission 5 BDA bomb damage assessment RT Michigan's mission was to follow closely behind a B-52 strike in Laos and assess the bomb damage collect intelligence from bodies and take a prisoner if possible so you guys launch on this mission with the exception of the smoke rough air fires across the target area and what looked like the aftermath of a

level five hurricane, we were able to get into our insertion LZ. It took a little longer than normal to acclimate our senses. As we neared the target box, trees were scattered all around, and there were lots of bomb craters throughout the area. Over 300 bombs, 75 tons of explosives and shrapnel had been dropped in the target box. We took pictures of the damage, body parts and bodies. Everything was surreal as we consciously moved toward the center of the target box. Fast forward to day two, we made heavy contact with an NVA company-sized force.

As the NVA initially withdrew, they left a concussed NVA soldier behind. We were all over him. He was quickly putting a flackjacket and helmet, gagged, headbagged, handcuffed, and lightly sedated with morphine. The NVA realized we were a small group and it captured one of their people. They regrouped and assaulted us. I called Covee and told them we had a prisoner and we were in heavy contact. We're declaring a prairie fire emergency and we're. moving toward the extraction LZ.

It seems strange, but we could already hear the extraction helicopter approaching. I told Covey we were approximately 100 meters from the LZ, but moving very slowly. He might want to have a helicopter circle around and come back. Covey said our helicopter was still 45 minutes out from the LZ. That did not make sense. It began to rain harder as we continued to fight our way toward the LZ. Then we saw a group of NVA running to the LZ in front of us with a tall soldier dressed in a different type of uniform running with them.

I could not get a good camera shot. I told Covey there was another team with us. The tall guy looked Chinese, a strange-looking helicopter, not U.S., not Vietnamese, popped out of the clouds down to the LZ, and a few seconds later was back up into the clouds with people on it. The pictures I took of the men running toward the LZ and the aircraft lifting off were blurred and cloudy. When reviewed later, we weren't able to determine the nationality of the man or origin of the aircraft. We remained in contact with the A1s to pound attackers for an hour before we were extracted. The team was tired and hungry and eager to get back to C.C.

And we boarded the King B and bounced all over the sky in a bad weather on the way home. Our prisoner bled out on the way back. Two AK 47 rounds went through the flackjackjacket and penetrated his lungs. They would not stop bullets. Not an AK. And it sounds like the enemy was most certainly aiming to kill those guys, almost as a priority over killing you guys. And I'll close out the book with this section here. It says it was a relief to get back to CCN.

We had been promised a two-day R&R starting the next day. No new missions for two days, and we needed it. At this point, I had completed nine across-the-fence, SOG missions as well as some in-country missions. We were looking forward to cleaning up, eating, and starting recovery. I knew that within a couple of hours, I would have a full stomach and be sleeping like a baby. Barswell and I would do a quick AAR and lessons learned with the team right after breakfast, then the next morning and then let them go for a couple of days. When we landed, Barswell and I cleaned up and met at the mess hall to eat and do our quick AAR.

We finished eating around 1930 and went back to our rooms. I did a quick clean and reload of my car 15 in web gear and laid down across my bed. Then I heard a loud knock at my door, followed by Lieutenant Thompson. Are you in there? Yes, what do you want? When he told me, I said, you've got to be kidding me. No, sir, 20 hundred hours. That's eight minutes from now.

Careful what you say, sir. He's just on the other side of your plywood wall. Crap. Just another day in SOG. To be continued. Well, give us an indication. What would you be asked for? You get back from a mission.

What are they saying to you? They're saying, we have a new company, recon company commander. A guy named Captain Meadows, and he wants to meet with you at 200. And the way the hoochers are set up, they were divided in the center.

So, you know, you had people living on each side. So on the other end of my hood, it turned out to be now, you know, the new recon company commander. And I was living on this side, and there's a little plywood wall between us. So, you know, my room, maybe the size, not the size of this room. Normally there would be two guys here, two guys over on that side. but right now I didn't I didn't have anybody in there with me I hadn't had it to myself and I forgot who was over there but they went away and now the new company commander is over there and he wanted to see me everybody knew the name and the reputation of this guy

so I thought holy cow you know what does he want I really wanted to go to bed. And now I've got a new boss and he wants to see me. Well, and like I said, the book ends with to be continued. I know a little bit about what happens because, you know, the first time you're on the podcast, but again, the details that you put inside these books is next level. But I know you're about to get promoted, right? That's what's about to happen?

My job's about to change. Yeah. So the next book, is the next book ready already? Is it coming out? When's it coming out? Should be out around October. October. And are you done with the writing of it?

Are you just doing the editing now? Yeah, we're just doing the editing. How has the book writing been for you? Look, you wrote, I know you've written, what, five or six books, but these were the first ones that were dedicated to your combat experience? This one, the stress effect. Went fast, enjoyable. This is the hardest thing I've ever written.

We were talking about it when I was here three years ago. Yeah. And, you know, it's about me. personally, whereas the stress effects has a lot of examples and things in it, but this is about what I saw, what I experienced, the people I knew. And I had to go back 50-plus years to get the information. A lot of the guys were gone, so I couldn't ask them in some cases. some people said could you

give me a different name I don't want to go back there I left it way back then I want it to stay back then I don't want people contacting me and saying I saw your name in the book so there are a lot of different things like that emotional things with the book so it just took a lot longer

and then, you know, SOG was a top secret organization, and when it ended in 72, for the most part, all the records and things were destroyed. So it's difficult to go back and find information. And I realized I had kept some, you know, timelines and stuff, but when I started to do this and went and started looking for things you know like I mentioned before

everybody's tombstone says Vietnam that's not where they died but some of the dates are wrong I mean I got awards for things that the date on the award doesn't match up with the date these guys supposedly died you know during this

particular battle and stuff. So trying to get a timeline that's relatively accurate, you know, was difficult. That took a long time. And I finally got to the point where I'm going to get it as close as I can get it. And if somebody wants to argue over a week or two or something like that on when a particular event happened, you know, that's fine. You know, I'm telling the story.

This is what I saw. And even if the dates are a little off. So it was difficult. And then, you know, I wrote the whole year about it and realized then, you know, I had a book twice that size and was told, you know, it doesn't fit in the $20 range. So you've got to do something. So they recommended I'd make two books out of it. it. You know, so the whole thing was written, but

because I put this one out separately and first, I just have to adjust some things in the second one. You know, rewrite some things like the preface. This is a nice preface for the book, but

since that one's already done and now we're doing something else and the other, I need a different preference to lead into where did this come from? Why are we doing it like this? But, yeah, it'll be out. I think it will get people's attention. Yeah.

I mean, there's some pretty hairy missions coming up. There's some missions that were just one-of-a-kind in terms of things that happen that shocked people when we talked about it on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. And in the greater detail, it's going to shock them, you know, a little bit more. No, I'm definitely looking forward to getting the rest of the detail and hearing some of those. I mean, some of those are just, you know, they're truly unbelievable in about seven different aspects. You know, the decision-making process, the chances, the luck, the skill, the break.

bravery, the outcomes. I mean, you can say this about, you know, just about every mission you went on, you know? One of the, when you're on the podcast, and I didn't read it today, but you're in that helicopter and there's green tracer fire cutting through that thing. And somehow you're not getting shot. Like that's one, that's, you know, one minute of your time in Vietnam

that you shouldn't have survived one minute so yeah some of the and I know some of the missions in the follow-on book are gonna be they're even they're even more insane than the ones in this one when you would you sit down and write for like an hour at a time two hours at a time would you spend eight hours writing how would you how was your methodology it would kind of depend and you know to be honest with you. When I would go back to edit, you know, the different missions and things, I would find myself there, you know, reading it and realize, holy cow, my heart, you know, is pounded. And even though I had read it 10 times, you know, working on it, reading it again,

and all of a sudden I'm thinking about, you know, what was happening and, you know, really get my attention. So take a break, wait a few days, you know, do it again. And so, yeah, I remember those things. But anyway, I think it's, you know, if you look at it as, if you want to know, get some taste of what war is like and what happens on the special ops battlefield. I think anybody from at least SOG forward

can read through here and relate to, well, yeah, you know, these things happen and that's what bullets sound like and this, all the stuff is going on and the chaos of the battlefield and everything. I think they can relate to it. I spent some time just recently with the,

fifth group operators and spent some time with them and they all had questions about things and they look

at SOG guys as this is kind of where our legacy began. Things we were doing now started back with the

SOG guys and you know some of them would ask questions like so

you didn't have night vision, you didn't have thermal imaging, and you'd go through all this list of stuff that they have now, and they'd ask the question, so when you went to a building or to a camp and you had to go in and, you know, accomplish a mission there, how did you do that if you didn't know where they were? If you couldn't see them? And I said, well, you can't. You just don't do it with night vision goggles. There are other senses that you have and you learn how to use those

because on today's battlefield, when that EMP pulse goes out, you're not gonna have night vision goggles, you're not gonna have any of the electronics that you have now. All that stuff is gone, your headsets are coming off because they're not gonna work. And you gotta be able to do it the way we do it.

You know, I can, if you're in the dark and I'm coming up looking for you. I will smell you. I will hear you. You will eventually move. You will get scared. Your sweat smell changes. Your heart rate's going to start to pound.

I will hear it. And you will move a little bit. I'll know where you are. You won't know where I am until you feel that K bar go in. And it's too late then. I'll find you or take you out very quietly and then I'll move to your buddy. And you guys will be doing the same thing without your gear.

You're just not used to having to do that now. And, you know, so we talked a lot about different techniques of how to do things. There's a lot in here. There's a lot more in book two about being invisible. how do you become invisible so that the enemy can't see you and walking up on him how do you walk up on that joker

and find him without him seeing you so some of the techniques have put in there things that that I thought was should be classified I didn't put in there things that I'd rather not

publish and you know give to the bad guys and say here's how you do some of this stuff but when I meet with those guys you know then we can talk about you know some of the real techniques and how to build the skills that's to do some of that well I am definitely looking forward to getting booked to and uh talking through that when it comes out yeah that the what you guys the legacy that you guys left and the the work that you guys did is just It's it's hard to believe and if I wouldn't have sat down and talked to so many of you guys at this point

And it it would be I'm glad I'm I'm honored to be able to have had these conversations and shake your guys hands and And hear the detailed stories, you know this is this is you know what I spent my adult life Trying to hold up the the reputation that you guys set for special operations and it's an honor to be able to talk to you guys about it and and share these stories and I'm I'm so happy that you guys are putting this stuff down and documenting with the detail you know like hey part of me when I started preparing for this podcast it's well I'll just read this whole damn book on the you know just let's spend spend nine hours doing it but get the book if you're out there it's just phenomenal and again it's really broken down. There's lessons learned, the experiences, the planning, the training. It's all in there over and over again. And you hear it for each different mission.

So just phenomenal stuff. And looking forward to book too coming out. And I certainly always, you know, anybody from SOG has an open invite to come on here and talk about whatever you want to talk about. I'm going to listen. And what else you got going on? You still got the high performing systems going. on? Still got high performing systems going on, so we're still doing a lot of work with executive

teams and, you know, consulting training, a lot of leadership training. We do decision-making under high stress. We do a lot of that. We still have the suicide prevention going on using the arsenal assessment that we've created. The navies pick that up now. There's starting to use it. The Army's still looking at it. So there's a lot of things like that going on, working with vets, working with veteran organizations

to try to help get these guys back. I mean, it's like I tell all of them when I work with them. The military spent a lot of time, effort and money to train you in a skill set that we as veterans, once we leave the active duty, we think, well, that was all good for the military,

but now I'm out here in a civilian world and I have to find my way around and what to do. Those skills still work. Everything they taught you, planning, organization, all those things that they taught you, they still work out here in the civilian world. in real life, you can apply them. You just have to change that mindset, you know,

but they still work. And you can have a good life. You can manage the stress. And, you know, it's just like, you know, you'll hear it in book two, but like fear. I mean, we all have things that we fear. But if you realize that one of the things that fear does to you is it energizes you,

It creates a big source of energy. It can cause you to freeze up, not do well, not be able to think. But if you realize that's energy, why don't I take that energy and turn it toward being positive and helping me accomplish what I'm trying to do. You know, when I'm riding in on the scale of the helicopter, being on that insertion, you know, all the, adrenaline, cortisol, and everything's building up, rather than being afraid and now not being able to think about what I have to do when I get on the ground. If I take that and turn it in the energy, now I can focus better.

I can run faster, jump higher, see better, I can do things much better. Or I can let the fear let me be distracted so much about the bullets and being afraid that I'm going to be hit and focusing on that. rather than what I need to do. So I, you know, turn it to positive, using some of the things that we talked about before stress reduction techniques, just on the skid, doing the breathing, doing the box breathing, going in, you know,

and it helps calm you down, help you focus, help you decide where you're going to go, using techniques like, you know, the headset. Wow, I mean, that made such a difference. All of a sudden, I could hear what was going, on and I didn't have to wait until I stepped off the skid to start adapting and trying to figure out what was happening I could get it on the way in you can do that in your everyday life you don't have to wait till the last second to get

information to find out things you can do it and it works so anyway we still do a lot of that so and and does that get us up to speed for right now where we're I think we're a little over four hours right now. So I don't know. I'll stop talking. Well, no. I'll listen. I listen to you guys as long as I possibly can.

But are we up to speed? So you got a HPSYS.com is where your high performance systems is located. You're actually on Instagram. At HPS underscore CEO. Right. You're also on Twitter. Do you ever go on Twitter much? I've started back recently.

And it's the same thing at HPS underscore CEO. You're on Facebook at Dick Thompson. Yeah. And I think that gets us up to speed. Echo Charles. Yes. Any questions? Yes.

A couple of questions here. I've been wondering this whole time. So RPD and RPG rocket, propel, grenade. RPD is like a machine gun or something? A light machine gun. Okay. And just RPG doesn't actually stand for rocket propelled grenade. It stands for some Russian words that mean something like that, but it doesn't actually

stand for that. Oh, for real? But it sounds good. It does sound good. Yeah, right. Now I'm trying to wonder or remember why I didn't think that then. Me, someone told me that. No, no, it's very common.

I'll say that. You know, I will say, oh, we got hit with a rocket propelled grenade, but it's actually some Russian words. Oh. So where did that come from? Because it is a rocket propelled grenade. That's what it is. But it actually stands for this Russian words that I don't know.

Is that kind of like, you know, when they say AR 15, assault rifle 15, kind of like that sounds. But it doesn't really mean that. It doesn't really mean that. Okay. All right. All right, cool. Learn something new every day. What about a Willie Pete grenade?

White Fossar. Okay. So that's just a slang name. Yeah, yeah. You know, because you were hearing as, you know, Willie Pete, Wilson Pickett. I mean, there must be about five different names that the GIs came up with to kind of talk about it, and it's stuck out there. But it's, so it's a grenade, and it's white phosphorus, so it's like a metal that burns at a really high temperature.

What is it, like shards of metal? No, what is it? Like liquid? It's actually a white phosphorus. It's sealed up inside the grenade container, and when it's exposed to air, you know, it starts to burn. So it's got a little detonating device in it, and it explodes,

and it just throws these little pieces of white phosphorus out in all directions. And kind of like napalm, it lands on your arm. It'll burn all the way through, until it burns itself out inside you. And what's interesting is the blast radius is big. Yeah, huge. So, like, if you don't throw it really well,

you could have a problem. And it's heavy. It's a lot heavier than a regular grenade. And it has a much larger bursting radius. So if you don't get it out there, you'll get hit with it. And then that dense white smoke that's produced with it, it really meets the specifications for a chemical agent. If you inhale that stuff, it'll burn the inside of your lungs.

Oh, damn. So, you know, it's not something you want to be in. That willy p. Grenade. Okay, so the white phosphorus versus napalm. Napalm is more of what, like a liquidy plasma type? Elid gasoline. Yeah. Damn.

What's worse, in your opinion? Well, I wouldn't want the napal on me. I mean, it'll just burn you all up. The white fuffers is going to burn some holes in you. It may burn your arm off or something, but napalm can cook you fairly quickly. Raw deal. Good to see you again.

Good to see you again. That is it, Echo Charles. That's it. That's my deep. All right, sir, any final thoughts? I appreciate the opportunity to come back and share some of what's in there. I think if people want to, like I said before, get a taste of what the Special Ops Battlefield is like.

I tried to do that with this. There'll be people, and I say in front of it, if you don't want to know what happens out there, then stop reading. Don't read this book. you're going to get upset. This is about war, this is about killing, it's about special operations, and I tried to make it realistic to some degree. I mean, you've been there, you know what it's like, it's actually worse than what you see in here, but it will give you a taste of what sod people, special operators everywhere, you know, go through out there.

So well Sir thanks once again for joining us Like I said earlier it's an honor to talk to you It's an honor to hear the stories share the stories From you and from the rest of the sog warriors And you know like I said the the example that you all set You guys you guys are my heroes you guys are the people that laid down the path for all special operations and set an example.

I don't think, honestly, anyone will ever be able to match what you guys did. I just don't think it's possible. I just really don't. You guys set a bar that we can aspire to. We will try and uphold, but we won't ever be able to overcome the efforts and the sacrifices that you guys made. and so the honor for me to be here we'll never forget you guys

and never forget the men of SOG and especially the SOG warriors that didn't come home thanks sir okay thank you and with that Dick dynamite Thompson has left the building I don't really I'm not I don't have a big follow-up like you know what I mean does this SOG

Yeah. Nothing else really comes close, and that's the way it is. I agree. I was going to ask him about Rambo, because remember, you told me recently that Rambo's based on, or he's supposed to be a solid guy. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't even catch that. Yeah. But if you watch Rambo again now, you'll see that there's, I've, actually, can we talk about something else?

Because I, like, literally do not want to talk about Rambo right now. Come on, I was going to ask him about Rambo. I'm glad you didn't. Was Rambo representing? That would be right up there with you asking Admiral McQuayor if you have to be an Admiral to be in the Navy. It wouldn't be the same because that's, let's face it. No. But it would be in the ballpark.

Well, I mean that from your perspective, I understand how that could be for sure. Now, unless I didn't. And, you know, I thought Ramble kind of represented, but it's, I don't know how accurate my thoughts would be because. No. Rambo's in a movie. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. But you know how like.

These guys are not in a movie. Yes, I know that, but they didn't even do anything. If you put what they did in a movie, you wouldn't seem unrealistic. Yeah. But it's true. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

And you just, it's good to remember and understand how brave and how tough and how loyal and how smart and how capable and how dedicated human beings can be. And maybe if we could try and be just learn a little bit from that, it'll help us. So Code name Dynamite get the book Stress Effect

I went and re-listen to the stress effect podcast that we did I think it was 206 maybe There was a few of them right Yeah well we did 204, 205, 206

So 206 we took I listened to all of them again They're epic But But yeah Check out Get his books Support Sog

Sog Sog support. That's what we're doing over here. Also, you probably got to support yourself. He talked about physical fitness. You want to be a good physical fitness. Get yourself some jaco fuel. JoccoFuel.com.

Get yourself some of these energy drinks, some protein. I just had a malt cookie, by the way. Do you know that? I understand. Well, I can sense it. Did you sense it? Can you smell it?

No, but you know how like when someone just finishes eating something and they sort of have these little things going on. Yeah, okay. You caught some of that. Sensitive that way. Yeah. Joccofuel.com. Get what you need there from the supplement perspective.

And it will help you. You can get this stuff. Either at joccofuel.com, you go to Wawa, you can go to vitamin shop, you can go to GNC, military commissaries, Afees, Hanford's, dash stores, wake fern, shopwright, H.E.B. down in Tehaz. Meyer out in the Midwest. Harris Teeter.

Lifetime Fitness. Shields. Small gyms everywhere. If you got a small gym. gym jiu jitsu gym crossfit gym email jf sales at jocofuel dot com help your clients be stronger faster and better jacofuel dot com check that out origin usa.com we're making american made stuff these guys were fighting the chinese and the communists in the jungles we're fighting them on the economic battlefield that's what we're doing if you go to origin usa.com you can invest

in the national security of this country. You can invest in freedom by buying a pair of jeans or a ghee or a rash guard or a pair of boots or a t-shirt or a beanie. At some point, beanies became the word. Like, you know, you stop calling it a hat,

right? I guess. Did you even know what a beanie was when you lived in Hawaii? Yeah. How come? It's just like style. It's not, I,

yeah, style, you know, and I watch TV. Okay. Whatever. I mean, it is, it is America still. But yes, no,

Beanie is widely unnecessary in Hawaii for the most part. But I understand where the question came from. But if you were to need one, you get one from OriginUSA.com, Made in America. Best in the world. That's what we're doing. Go to OriginUSA.com.

Get yourself some. What else? It's true. Also, Jocko store called Jocco Store. So Jocco Store. This is where you can give you discipline equals freedom, whether it be a shirt, hat, hoodie. There's beanies on there as well.

If you want a discipline equals, Freedom Beanie. They're on there as well. So yeah, a lot of good stuff. You like something, get something. Also on there is what we call now the shirt locker, which is your subscription, shirt, scenario, different design every month. It's good. People seem to like that one. But yeah, check that one out as well. That's where this stoner 63 made its appearance. Yep. It's true. You've gotten some trouble over that one. Yeah, I did. All good. Jocco store.com. Check that out. Also subscribe to the podcast.

Also check out jaco underground. Jocko underground.com. We got our own platform. Just in case, let's say the communist takeover here and we lose control over the platform. We'll still be there on the underground, keeping it real.

If you can't afford it because it costs $8.8.18 a month. If that's a little bit steep right now, economy's rough, just email, what is it? Assistance at jocco underground.com. We'll get you taken care of. That way you can be in the game with us. Also, we've got YouTube channels.

Subscribe to those, Jocko Podcast, Origin USA, Jocco Fuel. We all got our own little YouTube channels. We're putting out different pieces of information there. We've got psychological warfare. We've got flip-side canvas. We got a bunch of books. Look, primarily today, SOG, code name Dynamite by Henry L. Dick Thompson. He also wrote The Stress Effect.

Go and get these books. They're freaking epic. Also, I've written a bunch of books. You know what they are, final spin, leadership strategy and tactics field manual. Code evaluation protocol, all those things. Disciplineers Freedom Field Manual. The way the warrior kid books. Just get those books for the kids you know.

Just go get them. Let them have a better life. We have Miking the Dragons about face, extreme ownership, dichotomy leadership. Just go, just get those kids books for the kids. Get the books for adults too, but that's in your hands. The kid can't do this for himself possibly. He's seven years old. He doesn't have a freaking Amazon account like you do.

He doesn't know. He's not listening to this podcast right now, this kid. He doesn't know that his life can get better or her life can get better. They don't know that. You do. What are you waiting for? Like, just be generous. Also, we have Eschalon Front.

It's a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to Eschelonfront.com for details. We have live events that you can go to. We also have a consulting agency where you can come into your company and help you square away everything inside your organization through leadership. We also have an online training platform at Extreme Ownership.com where you can learn the skills of leadership for your business and for your entire life on a daily basis. Check that out Extreme Ownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families.

Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to America's mighty warriors.org Also don't forget about Micah Fink. He's taken veterans up into the wilderness so they can learn and reconnect with their soul So check out heroes and horses.org and if you want to connect with us on the interweb on Instagram and Twitter Dick Thompson He's on Instagram. He's on Twitter at H.P. underscore CEO. He's also got a Facebook. He's at

Dick Thompson. And of course, Echo is on social media. He's at Echo Charles. I'm on social media. I'm at Jock-Willink. Listen, just watch out because the damn algorithm will sneak up on you like a freaking tiger

that swat your head off. So just be careful of that. Thanks once again to Dick Thompson for coming out here share his experiences share his lessons learned more important thanks to Dick Thompson for his incredible service to our great nation and obviously salute to all the SOG warriors that fought a secret war and sacrificed so much we'll never forget what you did and the example that you set for us and thanks to the

military people around the world that are listening right now who are currently on the front lines of freedom we thank you for what you do and to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service all first responders thanks to all of you for the sacrifices you make to keep us safe on the home front and to everyone else out there let's do a little assessment do a little assessment of ourselves I'm gonna take a look in the mirror I We'll take a look in the mirror.

I do take a look in the mirror. I compare myself to these men, the bravest, the boldest, the most committed. Think of the commitment these guys had. What am I doing? Am I as committed as I should be? Am I as focused as I should be? Am I testing myself the way I should be?

But I'll tell you what. I think about these men of SOG, and I can tell you this based on their levels, of drive and commitment and focus, I know factually that I can do better. I know I can do better. And I can do that every day by going out there and getting out. This Zeko and Jocko. Out.