The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1362: Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Pt. 5 - The Finale - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

58 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas concludes a series talking about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime. Radio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Buy Me a CoffeeThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas' WebsiteThomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

With election time approaching, political ads will be inserted into the episode along with other ads that, frankly, I'm not going to like and you aren't going to like. So please ignore them, skip by them, whatever you have to do. I don't endorse any of the ads that are inserted, but it is another way for me to generate income. So I appreciate you guys putting up with them. If you don't want to deal with them, go to the Picanuena Show.com. can subscribe through Patreon. You can subscribe through Substack, which is my preferred one. Because with both of those, you get an RSS feed, only Patreon and only Substack give you an RSS feed. There's also a link to my website, Gumroad, and SubscribeStar, where you will get the audio

files that you can download and listen to or you can stream in most cases through those locations as well. So if you want to avoid the ads, consider supporting the show. If not, just know none of these ads get any endorsement from me. Skip by them. Do what you need to do. I appreciate all of you. Head on over to the Piquino Show.com. You can get the show early and ad free over there.

If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignanese show. Thomas is back and good chance. We're going to finish up the talk on the Camer Rouge today. Thomas, how are you doing today? I've done well. Thank you for hosting me. Of course. Something that what really stands out in the public mind about the Battle of Kotang,

like I said, it's misguided that it's just associated as this sort of addendum to the Vietnam War when it was a totally different conflict paradigm. The tragedy of the three men were left behind, that's a truly horrifying incident. That's sort of what people associate first and foremost with the conflict. Secondly, it, like I said, it's become yet another pretext for um, torching Kissinger and Peruvial effigy. If there's a villain here, it really is Rumsfeld,

who proved himself to be a real cretan late in his career, but he was White House chief of staff. They became a controversy after the battle because casualties were severe. There was, um, First of all, a majority of the choppers either went down or were too damaged, to land the infantry element, and then to reinforce some of the surviving men, and one of the choppers that crashed, drowned, and others were killed by small arms fire as they tried to swim to shore.

There was over 40 KIA. The Ford White House and the Pentagon insisted that there was only one KIA, which is preposterous. And Rumsfeld, in his autobiography, decades after the fact, stuck to that story, you know, which is the one I said to me that the man was just a constitutional liar, that that's just what he did. He just lied about everything constantly. But there's a complex confluence of events.

You know, like I indicated, what made the situation very difficult in political and strategic terms not only was the military drawing down, but its force structure was not suited to this kind of operation. There'd been great success in some direct action missions of an unconventional sort. The Sontay rate in 1970, where although the objective was to liberate the Sontay POW camp, the prisoners have been moved, but it was a tactical victim.

because the people's army of Vietnam, they really got massacred. And there was probably Soviet advisors on the ground because the men who were there said that they were engaged by tall Caucasians among the Vietnamese forces, which is kind of fascinating. But any, you can't really train for these kinds of direct action missions. Like Sontay, it was planned for months beforehand and a dedicated special forces element trained for that. purpose. They created a mock-up of the prison based upon, you know, spy plane flyovers and things. And they had good intel onto what the imposing force would constitute and its capabilities and things. If you're talking about a spontaneous crisis, like the seizing of a ship, you can't really train for that. Just you can't really train for rescuing hostages on an

aircraft. I don't like people claim that that something Delta Force does, but it's really not because every situation is different. It's always going to be ad hoc. And I believe that's one of the reasons why these days Special Operations Command, it's become this sort of like kill force where they kick in people's doors and shoot them in the face on their sleeve. I mean, part of that's the Israelization of the U.S. military and it just does grimy stuff. But also, That's something you're going to actually train for. And if you're in the business and make work, you can get it done. You know, when the, when the Mayagos was seized,

the U.S. Marine Corps hadn't done a shipboarding rescue since the war between the States. It's not something that happens, you know. And there's instances sure where, I mean, even to this day, where, you know, Navy SEALs will board some Somali. pirate vessel and blast everybody, but that's totally different. You know, so not only was it not an integrated command structure, it wasn't even clear how this should be done, you know, and the conventional military was drawing down owing to the end of the Vietnam War and detente, but the problem is,

even though this wasn't the true strategic parity wasn't accomplished until probably 976, 77, but it was approximate enough that there was a real stalemate and strategic forces setting in, coupled with detente and, of course, dramatically exacerbated by the fact that the communists were winning on the military front in essentially every relevant battle theater. conventional forces and credibility therein took on a real significance that hadn't been the case probably since the Eisenhower era. So America had to do something. It was just a question of rescuing the Miyagas crew, which in a lot of ways, calism might sound

and broad strategic and political terms, was secondary to the question of sustaining credibility. There's one of the reasons people villainize Kissinger because as I'll get to As was decided Ford was President Ford was by the joint chief of staff and by Brent Skowcroft and by Schlesinger He was basically

presented with five different scenarios and potential assault packages But everyone assumed that every one of those options assumed that the Mayaga's crew some of the hostages

were still on the Mayayas itself and some of them were on the island of Kotang that wasn't true so Kisandrew was in Missouri at the time he double-timed back to the White House and he said and he was he was savagy criticized for this at the time and later he said look he's like if these

men are on Kotang or any other island they're probably dead okay because the Khmer Rouge isn't going to keep them alive because they're savages and they kill people, which was reasonable to assume. He's like, so that said, Kessinger's

like, we've got to assault with everything we have in theater, and we got to start pounding the Cambodian mainland with Arklight, because he's like, otherwise it's going to happen again and again, and he's like, I'm not worried about what the Soviet Union is thinking.

I'm worried about what the Chinese are thinking. You know, because he's like, we've basically just disengaged from the Cold War with the Chinese. And if we appear weak right now, you know, they're going to walk all over us. You know, and on top of that, Ford's rebuttal was the Chinese were refusing to convey messages to the government of Democratic Campuchi. So George Herbert Walker Bush was sent as an unofficial liaison. they read the note that he delivered but refused to take receipt of it. But the point is that they were aware of the situation. And what they conveyed to Bush was that within reason,

they'll tolerate an American response that's proportionate. Ford said, look, if we start bombing Cambodia back to the Stone Age, you're going to outrage the Chinese. And then we're going to be in a general war with Cambodia. And then we're going to find ourselves potentially at war. with the chikoms after we just decoupled after your mission to peking just decoupled them from the so says community and nations in military terms you know and that was a fair point but from her kisinger was sitting what he was saying made sense and um you know he uh he was national security

advisor. So he was basically reliant, though, on the Secretary of Defense and the JCS and the intelligence community for what the situation was on the ground, which was not at all what they were conveying. You know,

so what was underway as these as these cabinet meetings were happening, F-4s and F-11 Ardvarks were buzzing the Mayegas. which was then within proximity to Kotang.

And they started strafing the water in front of the bow and the stern with 30 millimeter Vulcan fire, and terrifying the Cameroos, you were shipboard. And from that point onward, the Camer Rouge were looking for a way out of this. you know and when they tried to disembark at kotang the commander on the ground there who's a hardened commere ruse battalion commander he's only 23 years old but that was pretty common for commir ruse officers he said under in no way shape or form are you going to drop americans on this island you know

and if you try to i'm going to fire on you which was the correct play because he said you had the foresight to realize, look, if they're already deploying aircraft like this, you know, they're, they're going to launch a general assault of the island if they believe that there's American hostages here.

And also his orders, the reason why Kotang was so fortified was because the, it was an anticipation of a Vietnamese assault. You know, so the potential worst-case scenario would be that Kotan comes under general assault

by American combined arms while the Vietnamese also decided to assault it to kill the Khmer Rouge and then to try and prevent the Americans from landing you know and then and then um the Khmer Rouge won a general war with the people's army Vietnam and the United States of America you know

um So, as it were, the Mayaga's crew disembarked on an island in proximity to Hanukville, about 30 miles from the coast. And they were informed by the garrison commander there. You said, Ken, is there any way that you can get your radio to work and in contact either the embassy or, you know, the United States Air Force or Navy or any military element attached to the commander-in-chief of the Pacific. And they said, yeah.

So he's like, okay, you're going to do that. You're going to say that we're, you know, essentially begging them to stop assaulting the Mayegas. And you're going to be released in 24 hours. And, you know, one of the conditions is that please convey that you have not been harmed or in any way mistreated and that the commie ruse do not want war with the United States. You know, so that should have been it. And under normal conditions, I mean, normal conditions for the Cold War, like this probably would have been to wait and see, at least for the next 48 hours. that would have been the posture of the White House. But, you know, again, it was a constellation of elements.

It was the fact that Ford didn't have any mandate to be president. It was the situation vis-à-vis de Tant. It was the fact that, you know, Saigon had just gone down in flames. There was a push by communist elements in you know, in Africa, India had been brought into the Warsaw Pact camp for all practical purposes. It was all those things. And just bad intelligence. I mean, this was really, when I point out to people that the CIA is a joke and has been for a long time,

I mean, this is another example of that. You know, and the church committee hearings got a nail in the coffin, but, you know, the CIA produces bad intel basically 100% of the time. You know, and then, of course, subsequent, there's the Aldrich Ames thing and everything. So it's this sort of a bogeyman of the ignorant that the CIA is this shadow government sinister thing that is pulling strings. Like, that's really preposterous beyond all belief. and this is yet another example of that, you know, and also, of course, if the Camer Rouge are fairly predictable.

And, you know, like I said, I tend to remember something to Kissinger than most people, and I acknowledge that, but he was absolutely right in his assessment, you know, that what did I want to do was that these men are already dead or the Camer Rouge are planning to release them. You know, and we need further accurate intel to determine which way it's going, but, you know, they're not, they're not going to use them as a bargaining ship.

This isn't the Pueblo, although I was on the mind of the civilian authorities. And so it initially, the assault package that was initially being contemplated, this Air Force General said, he wanted to call for volunteers from these Air Force MPs and ground defense elements, which made no sense whatsoever because, like, how are these guys suited, you know, a hostage rescue situation on a ship?

And the idea was that we're going to try and land. First, he said we're going to, like, repel the assault force down. And then a civilian staffer who was in the situation room spoke up. And he's like, if you repel these men down, the Camer Rouge are going to open up on them with Soviet SMGs and turn them into hamburger, what are you talking about? So then he says, well, we're going to land the choppers on the containers, you know, and rapidly disembark and do it that way. and a Navy man who was a liaison to the, you know, admiralty representation on the JCS, said, those containers can't handle the way to a chopper.

They're going to crumble like cardboard. What are you talking about? You know, so even, even back then with some exception, it's like William Odom and honestly, I think like Creighton Abrams, you know, the U.S. officer corps, was not fantastic. You know, it's become catastrophicly

comically bad these days. It's become, you know, Fauci with guns. But even back then, it wasn't stellar. And I know people think I just hate on the military and the police and stuff. I mean, whatever. But I

don't think that can be disputed in this case. but um what uh ultimately uh it was admiral noel gailer and he was uh he was the commander he was the it was the sink pack uh commander you know and uh he reassured the white house that you know a substantial naval force was already on the way um but a carrier couldn't the nearest carrier in brox time he was it was as Coral C. And it couldn't, it would be at least $40

to work to reach the crisis area. And several hours before that, aircraft could be launched, you know, from the deck. But Gailor had the wherewithal to realize that, you know, there had to be some sort of infantry assault element. And if there was going to be a landing on Koteng Island, it had to be substantial. Ultimately,

It was decided a combination, a combined Marine Assault Force, consisting of the 2nd Battalion 9th Marines at Okinawa and another element at Subic Bay was going to be utilized. and when these available force elements were related to the White House, that's when Ford decided. He decided to combine basically two potential assault packages and divide the attack between the Mayagas and Kotang Island, where he became convinced based on faulty intelligence reporting that the the hostages were divided between and uh he refused to abide kissinger's recommendation uh which interestingly vice president rockefeller was very hoggish on this he agreed with kissinger he said that there's there's got to be a a punitive uh assault on on the mainland and um you know it's

there's got to be a display of overwhelming force. But that was kind of Ford's middle of the road compromise. But again, too, in Ford's defense, he was getting bad intelligence. And he was painfully aware of that because the third candidate meeting, he was on record. It's in the minutes of the meeting saying that, you know, every couple of hours were being told different things. And every time the communication includes with a guarantee that

this is in fact an accurate CINRAP. So the whole thing was kind of the whole thing was kind of doomed from inception in my opinion. The three men who were left behind and we'll get into that, they were part of a machine gun.

crew and despite the way things shook out in Nam as I'm sure the military type guys among the subs will um

you know substantiate an M60 was intended to be a crew served weapon um it was supposed to be a three-man machine gun team and

nom you know you had machine gunners humping a the big gun and as many ammo belts that get carried by themselves and usually the tripod you know and other

you had other platoon mates of theirs who would you know hump extra belt of ammo as um needed but uh it was intended to be a crew served weapon

and the men who went missing were and were left behind were a you know a 60 machine gun team the force structure was strange in 1975, both the army and the Marines, because it was between, it was this post-Vietnam drawdown

where at least the army in NATO forces in Europe, and to be clear, this was back when NATO actually had a plausible military mission and a purpose, and it actually made sense the way it was structured. This was when the army first did Dodger came to be known as Air, land battle.

And the Marines were on a different tip, obviously, because they had a different mission orientation, and plus their theater of operations was totally different. But they, too, it was a combination of stuff we'd associate with the Rima era and some holdover stuff from the old army that was. sustained by the draft. So it was, it was odd. But, yeah, the three men who were left behind were

Joseph N. Hargrove, it was a corporal, and he was the machine gun team leader, Gary L. Hall and Danny G. Marshall. Hargrove, tragically, he was this poor kid from the Carolinas, who really came from the dirt. His older brother had been killed. in Vietnam in 1968

you know and then and that devastated the family of course and lo and behold Joseph Hargrove he he goes missing and it's decades before his is surviving mom like even

found out what had happened to him you know just just awful stuff not only were the Marines of a 2-9 you're not you know not you know

They had no reason to believe they'd be imminently going into action. But they'd been on training maneuvers for the preceding 24 hours in the field. You know, I mean, all the inventory does is train. So they were exhausted. You know, and they got orders to deploy to the crisis area. You know, these men were deprived of sleep. Both the riflemen and the machine gunners. they'd had uh i guess i've never fired blanks before and i don't know much about military

small arms but i guess if you're running blanks through a rifle or through a m60 you've got to fit the muzzle um with something you know that that can uh you know allow for those uh you know dud loads to be run through and you're supposed to once you remove those modifications

you're supposed to run live ammo through like at least a magazine so that you can you know battle site your rifle didn't have time to do that you know so this was you had

this exhausted element that hadn't even had time to properly maintain their rifles for going into battle. You know, just really inexcusable stuff that never should have even been an issue. I mean, and this is the idea of the Cold War, you know, it's not, you know, you're not talking about the makework army that is in constant. search of a, you know, a raison d'etre. That's really inexcusable.

I mean, I say nothing in the fact that, you know, you never send people into, into combat without, you know, the stuff they need. And there was only a handful of men in this element, too, who had combat experience. A company commander, a captain James Davis, he'd been in action in Vietnam. A gunnery sergeant had similar experience. There was a couple other officers, one of whom at an Audie Murphy like resume,

a Navy Cross and something like five Purple Hearts and stuff. But, you know, it was only, it was less than 10 men who'd ever heard of shot fire and anger, too. You know, so it's not these guys were, these guys were, um, busting their cherry, as it were, uh, going into, combat against the very season commute room element and that I mean that that's absurd too yeah the uh

the blank adapters I guess is what they used in those days I think later the military switched at some like laser tag like actually was a was a training device used by the army I don't know about the Marines and I know you know they some some innovating

capitalist that worlds of wonder the toy company realized hey you can you know market this to kids

and stuff but I guess in those days like using blanks is what they did for realism or an attempt at realism you know it's um

the the uh the VofnsS and the Vermacht believed live fire was essential, but it's interesting. That hadn't really occurred to me that blanks would be used. That's out of Hollywood, but, you know, apparently that was a thing. But moving on.

And yeah, the, the C-141s that landed to convey the men to Thailand, where they would then, you know, depart by helicopter for the LZ. They hadn't even been purposed for, like the Ford cargo space hadn't been purpose, purpose for passengers. So these guys were sitting on the hard floor, which was freezing,

you know, no seatbelts, using only their combat packs for back support. you know just and again these guys these guys were going on no sleep and it's you know I'm sure you don't get restful sleep on a star lifter anyway

but you know especially not if you're you're just sitting on a cold aluminum floor the Air Force element in attempting to deploy as a contingency to northern Thailand, their helicopter crashed on route

and a bunch of men died. That's another thing that was redacted. And when it came out, the statement from the Pentagon in the White House was that, you know, well, these men weren't part of the operation, I mean, which was another lie. You know, these guys, guys from the 56 security police squadron,

you know, just, which again was just a ridiculous suggestion to begin with. You know, but by this time, by the night of the 14th, the crew of the Mayages was already on, on, um, you know, an island, uh,

north of, Kotang. So it was the nominal reason for the operation was a

that already resolved hours before as it happened on May 15th at 612 a.m. Eight helicopters disembarked.

It was five CH-53s and three H-H-53s, constituting the first wave of the KOTANG assault force. There have been two landing zones designated. Kotang's a tiny island. There were two beaches, identified as the West Beach and the East Beach. That were natural, there were natural landing zones. The rest of the island was a very, very dense jungle.

But the problem is that these were also natural kill zones. And Marine chopper pilots generally, and they learn this in Nam, they generally hover in LZ. with the nose pointed towards the main line of resistance so that the Marines could disembark and use the fuselage for cover. Naval pilots weren't really wise to this. So the side of the chopper was flush to the mainline of resistance. And as they were approaching,

they weren't taking any fire and then immediately when they got within range and began their descent like the entire jungle opened up you know and they started getting hit with heavy automatic weapons fire

the first chopper in which was designated knife 21 it actually landed but when the Marines were disembarking a bunch of them got hit um knife 21 itself uh was severely damaged one of its engines was taken out um but it managed um but it managed to take off uh because uh the second c h 53 doesn't knife 22 was coming in

and uh it was opening up with its mini guns so there was enough suppressive fire that it could get away it ditched about one and a half kilometers offshore um knife 21 did knife 22 was so badly damaged that it had to turn back um

so I mean that meant that the first wave of the assault was was missing a substantial component of its element anyway surviving passengers and knife 21 were picked up but a bunch of men drowned and some were killed by Kalashnikov fire as they tried to stay afloat. At 6.30 on the East Beach, it was the same deal.

The CH 53's were approaching, and they immediately started getting hit by B-40 rockets. Knife 31, as it was called. It was hit by two RPGs, which ignited the fuel tank on the left-hand side and ripped away the nose of the helicopter. So it exploded in a fireball and crashed 50 meters offshore. Killing five Marines, two Navy corpsmen, the co-pilot. Three more Marines were killed. trying to reach the beach.

A couple of Marines burned to death while clinging to the wreckage, which is just awful to think about. Ten men survived and three Air Force crewmen did too. They were floating in the water for two hours. And Henry B. Wilson, which is one of the vessels that, you know, en route from Subic was able to pick them up. So this was a skeleton crew that was landing on the beach in the first wave, both beaches in the first wave.

One of the, thankfully, one of the Marines who survived the crash on the East Beach, he was the battalion's forward air controller and he had his Air Force survival radio in his pack so while he was floating he was able to call in air strikes from some A7s

that were in the region and so they started pounding the main line of resistance to try and you know bring fire support to the Marines that were, you know, now in his desperate fight on both beaches. You know, so this was just a disaster.

Finally, the second wave was able to break through with support from an AC130 gunship, you know, that's spooky, that started, it was able to penetrate Camero's fire after five, five attempts. And ultimately, all told on the West Beach, 81 Marines were landed. And a further

29 Marines from the battalion command post plus a mortar platoon were able to land also. And the 81 millimeter mortar is proved essential in preventing a route. So by 7 a.m. May 15,

there was 109 Marines and five Air Force crewmen on Kotang, but they were in three isolated beach areas. Two of the designated LZs, and then another one where, you know, surviving choppers had to emergency land, you know, and then reinforce those men so that they didn't, you know, get wiped out. the Marines at the West Beach tried to move southward and eastward to try and link up with this isolated element which incidentally was the battalion command element but they were beaten back by

heavy Camero fire and to be clear as this came out later including because the the battalion, the community's battalion commander, this one American, like, lay historian, took his oral history around, between, like, 1996 and 2000. And what he relayed was he said that, he said, we were convinced, we were under general assault, you know,

and that this was, the, the American Marines were going to conquer Kotang and then used it as a staging area to assault the mainland. So he's like, we had orders to fight to the last man. You know, and obviously, you know, there's only two ways home if you're serving in the Camero Rouge as an officer,

you know, it's either victory or death. You know, there's not a third alternative. You know, so he said, we were convinced, you know, this is it. You know, he's like, that's why we, he's like, that's why we resisted so hard. you know, because we

were convinced that you were invading us as part of a general, you know, assault operation. Which was a reasonable conclusion, you know, as it,

the second, the five ultimately some still service of a helicopter were able to pick up the remainder of what was to be the second wave and finally able to stage a landing

at the East Beach to relieve beleaguered forces there but once again one of those helicopters then at night 52 its fuel tanks were ruptured and the pilot had to abort two more choppers had to abandon their landings and assume a holding pattern

owing to impenetrable ground fire finally word got to the CIA station in Thailand in Bangkok proper, the communication from the Niagara's crew that they were going to be released. This was transmitted to the White House. Ford told the JCS, you know,

to the, you know, affect a fighting withdrawal, you know, of these Marines. ASAP, you know, and get the hell out of there. So this chaotic withdrawal ensued. The Marines, to their credit, they said, we're not even going to think about withdrawing these men until we can reinforce them so that they're not massacred and trying to, you know, scrambled to an extraction site.

which was the right call. Some more mortars were landed on the three choppers that were still operational and within range. But there was a constant shifting of orders as to where the Marines should go for extraction. and the machine gun team that was left behind, they were hearing conflicting things. And on both beaches, there was basically like a loose horseshoe perimeter that had been established opposite the Cameroon's mainline of resistance. And on what would have been the furthest flank of the horseshoe

is where these guys were entrenched. and there's a number of KIA who were left behind on the island pending retrieval and owing to a combination of confusing conflicting orders and a miscommunication to the pilots within the extraction element you know, they were told that, you know, there's no living left behind on the island. And when it became clear that there were, you know, it was several hours before they realized that these men were unaccounted for. And the Marines wanted to immediately go back in. This one admiral who was a liaison to Commander-in-Chief Pacific, he came up.

with this absurd idea of well you know we should we should send an unarmed contingent under a white flag with a commere interpreter and explain that we're only there to

retrieve our people living and dead so this marine lieutenant said I'm not going anywhere near that island unarmed fuck you basically and um one of the one of the senior men

at the Thai Air Base he said you know we can get a team of Navy SEALs here probably within you know 12 hours let's put an assault package together with them you know with some of the surviving Marines who know the train of the island

and let's get our people out the Ford White House was adamantly opposed to re-engaging, especially because Kissinger was being shadowed by the national media because he wasn't in Washington when the crisis broke. He was in Missouri. So as he traveled back to Washington, everybody from Time magazine to the big three television networks, you know, and both the Washington major papers were kind of waiting with baited breath to find a way to report a disaster and a you know a totally foobar resolution and

hanging on kissinger and the kind of failing for white house so they wanted they wanted to break with this as much as possible and you know essentially declare victory and when it went over the api wire like you know this lie of oh you know there was that the crew has safely been rescued and we only took, you know, we, you know, we only took one, one fatality, you know, suddenly Ford became the man of the hour, you know, and all this kind of praise was lavished upon him. Especially because there's nothing but bad news have been coming in, you know, from Southeast Asia. So it became very politically untenable to admit that, yeah, you know, we got our asses kicked and we left

people behind. You know, I mean, the guys who fought a Kotang were hard as nails. Like, those guys did great. It wasn't their fault that they got creaned by, you know,

being sent into action with shit intel and not the, you know, without the equipment they needed. And, you know, well, well, being outnumbered. And, um, as it were,

uh, you know, outgunned because, um, a, uh, you know, without, that, I mean, honestly, you don't need to be, you don't need to be some sort of military savant to realize. I mean, that island should have been being pounded with, with airstrikes, you know, beforehand.

They should have been, they should have been leveling it, you know, before any infantry element set foot on it. You know, like those B-502, that arc light should have been hitting, Not the mainland, just some punitive gesture. But, you know, that's what happened. And as it turned out, and this wasn't known for decades, how it resolved until some Cameroos veterans who were witnesses and parties to the events, you know, proffered their testimony as to what happened. after the battle of Kauteng,

the Camir Rouge element remained on alert because they didn't know if there was going to be another assault. But the next day, about 24 hours later, a Cameroge patrol came under fire, and they recognized the report as, you know, coming from an armolite.

So eventually, you know, they close with whoever was shooting at him and it was Joseph Hargrove who'd been wounded in the leg so he couldn't walk and Hargrove had you know he was trading fire with him until he ran out of ammo from his M16

and he was taken prisoner and then about a week later and this was horrible to think about so Hargrove because Hargrove because he was wounded he got separated from the rest of his machine gun team. And then, as this chaotic extraction was underway, Gary Hall and Danny Marshall got separated from him,

you know, and couldn't fight their way back, owing to the fact that, you know, the beach had by that point had been cut in half by the advancing Camero Rouge. But a week, after the fact the Cameroos noticed that rice from their food stores

was missing and the first night had happened they didn't really think anything of it but then as it continued to happen they set in the ambush and as it turned out Gary Hall and Danny Marshall

you know trapped on Co-Tang a week after the withdrawal you know, we're surviving on a food they were stealing in the Khmer Rouge camp. So they were captured too. They were taken to the mainland and imprisoned in this Buddhist temple that had been repurposed as a prison and a death house. They've been locking prisoners and what had been the monks' quarters. and Hargrove Hall and Marshall had been,

they remained there for another five days. And then the order came down from Cameroos command to execute them. And as part of the course, the Camer Rouge didn't waste bullets. They were beat the death with a B-40 rocket launcher, you know, just like pummel to death, which is horrific.

But, you know, that's, that's how it resolved, as it were. You know, and like I said, this wasn't even really spoken of. You know, and after, I mean, in those days, too, I mean, stuff obviously remained in the public mind for longer. There wasn't this news cycle where things just immediately left people's awareness. but, you know, the, no scandal ensued from it. And it was reported as this great victory of the Ford administration and then quickly forgotten about. And the casualties, you know, which, which were many, they're just an afterthought on the Vietnam War Memorial.

Like, oh, this was the last battle of the Vietnam War, which makes no sense whatsoever. And then a couple of very dedicated historians, as well as Kotang veterans, who were pushed for decades to get some recognition for this and what happened. You know, it finally became known and some recognition was afforded. And I guess that the, there's some kind of memorial now on Kotang. And I guess some guys at the Cambodian embassy, which is guarded by Marines, like all embassies are. They, after, uh, relations normalized, you know,

in the, with Vietnam, because Vietnam was occupying in Cambodia until 90, like, they never left after they took out the Camer Rouge, you know. I, I guess there was some sort of memorial, um, erected there, but pretty, pretty grim stuff, but important, not just because, you know, we should honor the dead, especially young guys or basically just kids who were literally abandoned by their government to a horrible, horrible fate. But militarily, it was highly significant. You know, so it's not, I realize I've got some kind of esoteric areas of concentration of my research, but I don't think this is just reducible to that.

it's actually a very important subject matter for the era. But that's all I have on this subject for today. No, I think it's important to people hear that in the context of this series. So, yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, of course. I appreciate you hosting me, as always. Go over to Thomas a substack, realthomas-777.com. Go to his website, Thomas-77.com, the T is a 7.

and you can hook up with Thomas there, support him on the substack, and Thomas will interact with you on the substack. He may even be nice. I think you're always nice. We're just, you know, every once in a while, every once in a while. No, and then sometimes, like lately, there's been like a glut of fools, but I've opted to ignore them. And, you know, I, I'm playing with the idea of at least when I recorded,

kind of like rebranding the Inquisition thing because it seems to be like a magnet for like mental defectives who uh are, uh, are, it's, I don't get it,

man. I don't get why that particular brand just like it tracks like total fucking idiots, but they need to be purged. And, um, that, yeah, I found that profoundly irritating,

but I, I opted to do ignore them. Ah, just ignore them. Best to do. Block and move on. Yeah. All right, Thomas. Talk to you. Thank you very much for this. Appreciate it. Until the next one.

Yeah, man.