The Team House - Combat in Vietnam, Rhodesian Light Infantry, South African 44 Pathfinder Co. | Ken Gaudet | Ep. 124

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Ken Gaudet knows a thing or two about living a life of adventure. He served in the 173rd in Vietnam before traveling to Rhodesia where he participated in cross border combat jumps with the Rhodesian Light Infantry. Then he served with an assortment of foreigners in South Africa's 44 Pathfinder Company. Today's Sponsors: 👇 A-TAC FITNESS (Veteran owned and operated) https://www.ATACFITNESS.com Use the promo code "TEAM10" for 10% off! Selection Starts Here. PAR WEBER WATCHES https://parweber.com/teamhouse Through December 31st, get a free strap with your purchase of The Coefficient. Just go to parweber.com/teamhouse to activate the offer. Thanks for supporting the companies that support the show! Want 2 bonus episodes per month and access to the bonus segments? Subscribe to our Patreon!👇 https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Check out Ryan’s Channel: https://youtube.com/c/CombatStory Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media Links: The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: 👇 [e-mail] #rhodesianlightinfantry #vietnam #theteamhouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit Child and Family Resource Network.org today. Special operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy.

and David Park. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Team House. This is episode 124. I'm Jack Murphy here with co-host, David Park. Today we have a special guest in studio, Ken Gaudet. Ken served in 173rd Alerts, the long-range reconnaissance unit,

predecessors to the Ranger companies in Vietnam, then the 82nd Airborne Division. and then he went over and served in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, and then 44 Pathfinder company of the South African Defense Forces before becoming a private security contractor and working on rescuing children from foreign countries. So we're really honored to have Ken here in studio today joining us on a Friday morning. Thanks so much for coming in today, Ken. My pleasure, Jack, just to, I was with a 173rd Airborne.

I was in a line company. I was not in the Lurp company. I was an alert company in the 87th Airborne when I came back to the States. Thanks for clarifying. My pleasure. So I think the first thing I'd like to start off with, we asked most of our guests to tell us a little bit about their origins and their upbringing and tell us where you grew up and what was sort of that path that took you towards Vietnam.

I born raised in San Francisco, high school in San Francisco, 1968, graduated high school, went to college for a very short time about six weeks or so, and decided that I needed to get to do something else, and I knew the draft is coming, and I joined the Army, went down and joined the Army, and from day one, I wanted to go to an airborne unit, I had seen the Green Berets. I had seen the Devil's Brigade. And, you know, I wanted that to be in an airborne unit from day one. Went to Basic at Fort Lewis.

From Lewis, I went to Fort Gordon, South Carolina. And, yeah, Fort Gordon in Georgia. And I went through Airborne AIT. From there, I went to Fort Benning for Jump School. After Jump School, I was picked and selected four. for NCO school and went through the NCOC course which is a 24 week course 12 weeks of training and then you do 12 weeks OGT I was in the Army nine and a half months and I was a sergeant E5 with rank for E5 and responsibilities in E5 I was then sent to Vietnam when got in Vietnam 1970 and was sent to the 173rd went through jungle school which is like 10-day courts to go through familiarization and then you go get into went to our brava company

first survival third up and out of LZ uplift in the two core area and we were doing pacification with the Vietnamese that consisted of living in a small water site secure area outside the LZ running patrols, hawk patrols, we call hawk patrols in and out of our tactical zone with the Arbans, with the South Vietnamese troops, and small four six-man teams within the, within the platoon. And I did that, and it was, you know, constant booby traps, constant patrols, constant guys coming in, guys getting wounded, guys getting killed in action, leaving. did that for my tour. And how long were you in Vietnam for? I was in Vietnam for 11 months.

And what area was this again? This is LZ uplift, which is above Fumi between Coynion and Bonxon. Okay. The headquarters was up at English, LZ English, North English. That's the LZ English was second bat. fourth bat was up at LZ North English, third bat was at LZ uplift with the brigade. So I got to like, if you take us back in time a little bit to paint the picture, what was it like for you as a young man like going out on your first patrols outside the wire? I was 19 years old. I was at assistant squad leader and had an experienced sergeant that would take you out

tell you the areas, that you would patrol, say, I'd say maybe a total area of 5 to 10Ks, and what you're doing was looking for any signs of the enemy. You might do ambushes at nighttime. It was, you were trained well, but it was scary as hell. Yeah. Because you had a lot of booby traps. Every place you had to work, you had a point man in front, slack man behind him, that would point me I was looking all the way at the ground looking up above

and slack man would be doing his overwatch and close together communications you might have rear security guy stop follow look catch your booby trap call it in you might be so many other things that's going on it was heavily populated with the local Vietnamese and if we knew if there's something was going to happen if your Arvins that were with you were carrying their arms at the ready.

Majority time they just carried them over their shoulder, had a radio on, and they were CIDG forces. They were what we call rough puffs. And we didn't work with super trained troops. They were more of a local popular force. Yeah. So, and you had your squad that had been together with the majority of guys had been off search and destroy and they all knew each other and we as young

NCOs came in and we were given the charge and after maybe four or five patrols and you would have your own team and you would be in charge your team and you would take them out. You would go to a certain area. How did you, I know that you were sort of trained while you were there but being a young NCO I mean getting promoted before you got into theater how did you feel when you were handed over leadership of a team that Probably was a bit more experience in you, right? Very, majority of times they were experienced more.

There was a lot of animosity between the older soldiers, the guys of Staff Sergeant and Sergeant First Class. But because of that time in Vietnam, because so many NCOs were gone, David Hackworth and Colonel Millett developed this NCOC program, non-commissioned officer candidate, course program and that's where we were picked from either aIT or drum school and you show leadership capabilities when you're the little squad leader or whatever that you could you could lead you

could go somebody and you basically prove yourself to your team and to your members and the guys on a platoon that you can read a map that you know what's going on that you're able to take care of and the guys put their faith on you and you either lead follow we get the hell out of the way You know, and some guys didn't make it out in the field, and they stayed back in the rear, and they were great in the rear. But there were other guys that excelled out there, and we have a number of metal-of-wana recipients that are graduates of NCO school. And it was tough, though.

Yeah. My best friend was a draft E guy, was in the Army for a short period of time. He's the NCOC, just like me. He's three weeks behind me. and he would have been our next permanent platoon sergeant had he not got wounded real bad and sent back to the States. That's a really interesting program because you expect the, you know, like the young butter bar to come out of college and, you know, yeah,

and to not really have that kind of experience. Oh, yeah. But it's very different for an NCO, you know, to have that. It's, it's, you learn, it's like, okay, I'm going to make the pay. I get to, you know, I get to do this. until it's down to that point no no this is your team these your four guys you got to make sure they have everything you got to make sure They're well prepared the train they know the radio codes they know this and that and Later on in my and my time as a soldier I learned things that I should have thought about in the American army

That I made sure that they were done later on when I am in Redija in South Africa that immediately Yeah. It was like, okay, why aren't we practicing? You know, why do when we do do that? And so it was a, it was, it was a curve of the period. And I couldn't vote. I was, you know, I was only 19 and 20 years old. Were there any significant firefights that kind of stand out in your mind from that time frame or, or booby traps that you guys ran into? I'd say they, let me put it this way. I got, I was awarded my CIB within two weeks. The first booby trap ran into was my, the sergeant charge was wounded. They say I saved a guy's life with a sucking chest wound. And it was like that we medevac them. I had to make sure I knew where we were going, where the blue line was.

The medevac calling was real. And they lifted off and then we had to get back to the base. and that was just myself and two other guys. I'll always remember, you never forget it. Nighttime, we got ambush one time, things happen. You know, you have to remember, and I learned then, you are in the enemy's backyard. You're just visiting.

You're just going to be there a short time. So you have to learn to adapt and learn to get the guys back safe and protect your team and get the mission done. it's interesting also that you said that your soldiers your indigenous soldiers like normally they would patrol with the rifles over but when they were at the ready like they like they knew from their village or knew from the grapevine that something was coming down did you feel as though you could trust those soldiers did you feel safe working with them no no not at any point because you can't control them we couldn't even raise an american flag in our compound we ate rose we

had the Vietnamese flag. So we, of course, as Americans, what we did is we rose our state, we had our state flags fly. You know, it's like, okay, it's, and we respected the Vietnamese, and we work with them, but to say trust, no. When you're going out and the guys, you know, in their shoulder arms and this, and he's got his radio on, I'm talking a transistor radio to his ear. Oh, like listening to music? Listening to music.

It's a whole different story. then they're switched on or this and that. Right. I've always felt they were infiltrated and you don't know, you can't. And you're just going out for an overnight patrol and just ambush patrol. Right. It's like, wait, I'm not going

with him. And there's pictures of me putting them over here and our guys were over here but you have to do it. That's your part of pacification. Other battalions in the brigade were on search destroy were not on pacification but first battalion at that time within our area was on pacification but it sounds like this was a pretty hot area like you were getting into regular

contact oh yeah you would you would do something you would hit a booby trap you would get fire you would get mortared i can remember playing uh volleyball what they had to me's and the mortars were coming in and we were counting but gee we can make this point before we got to get on to cover because man we got to be them you know it's yeah it was it was uh could be hairy and the 122 would go off and back in the base in lze uplift and we would get the get the log stat and get our compass out and so let's get the hell out of here so we can catch you know get out of the base and get more to our little our larger site we felt very secure in our area that we were as opposed to being back at the base yeah

I mean, yeah, talking about moving with one other guy at night through the jungle to make it back to the base. I had two other guys. Harling experience. It was, well, you knew where you were and you had to get it done. And you have to have a choice in the matter. You have no choice. And between that area where you were hit to where the base was, there might be three or four ambush patrols. So you got to make sure you're in contact.

Gotcha. you're moving, I'm on the trail, I'm gonna get there. And then once you get back to your logger site, you have to defuse the booby trap that's on the gate that you put on. It was always had a grenade on the gate. When the gate opened, the little bamboo gate opened, you always had a grenade there. You had to defuse that, make sure it was safe,

and get back in. Wow. Every day. How was the point man or a point man created? Was it somebody who volunteered for that job? because I imagine it's a high-stress job. High-stress. Many times I walk point.

Really? Because as a sergeant, I could lead my men, and I could do it. A lot of times you wore your pants very tight, so you could feel any drip lines, anything. You strap everything down, so you could feel anything. You had a slack man literally in your back pocket, and he would be overwatching you. He'd be covering long while you were focused on it. He's looking ahead. He's scouting.

he's looking ahead. You're down there, you're listening, you're looking for anything. And you're also looking on the trail. There might be a palm fron that's, and you're making me think now, Jack, make a palm fron in a figure eight, that's something that's not supposed to be there.

And you go, okay, there's something here. Let's take a second. Take a second. You're looking at the bushes. You're looking at here. You're looking at the booby traps that we used to see in training, that that's exactly what they look like

the physical booby traps with punching pits, spikes and all this type of stuff or grenade or you know I did a patrol with a lieutenant one night and I pointed out that it's probably a probably heavy duty shell so what does he do of course he takes his flash lock out shows it in the middle of the rice batty

and we got in a little bit of argument in that time and it was just like no it's It's a booby trap, and then we go round it, and then you would know where it was, and you'd mark it or blow it up the next day. But you just, as a point man, you've got to do it. And, of course, it would say, oh, no, you're not supposed to.

You're the sergeant and stuff like that. No, no, I got to, you know, my guys have to see that I will do it. And then other guys would say, no, no, I'll take, I'll take a point. So was it, so you just did it as volunteer? Because that's what I was wondering. Well, you're saying, as the NCO in charge, I assume, like, why are you walking point? But it's to show your men that you can, you're willing to do it also. It's not something you think about as something you do.

Yeah. It's good. I'm doing point. Okay, Kodak, you're walking slack. Let's go. You're doing security. My rear, I never, ever remember turning around and looking at my rear security guy to see if he was looking behind us, I knew instinctively. that's what his job was, you know.

And when we went out on patrol, we went out to say for a long time, if guys had to carry extra batteries or extra this or stuff in their ruck, we never had, oh, well, let me check your ruck, I wanna make sure. You knew they had two of these, four of these, three of these, we had a basic load, and we knew every guy had their own stuff. What was your basic load like?

Carried 25 magazines, carried four to six grenades, maybe. A white floss and COs had two magazines, 20 RAM bags, two magazines of tracers that you would use for spotting. Right. Certain color grenades, you had your flares and then you, days food, your Lurps or whatever you could, whatever you could have, whatever you carry and your bedroll. The reason I laughed when you said the magazines of tracers is because I had read a lot of Vietnam After Action reports and and had repeated that in Baghdad, and it didn't work out so well for me,

when I could have been using Iovision and I are lasers. Because tracers go two ways, right? Tracers, but the green ones are the ones that are coming back at you. But yeah, yeah, because we use the red tracer. But, yeah, it was, when you're marking for the Cobras or the choppers coming in, you're going to use your tracers. Yeah, but it's also pointing out your location. Oh, yeah, you're going to have to adapt.

Yeah. Yeah, but usually they know where you are anyway. Yeah. So they have the upper hand. Yeah. 11 months in Vietnam, I mean, by the time your tour there kind of came to its conclusion, I mean, how did you feel about the war and about the army at that time? Because you stayed in when a lot of guys got out at that time. I actually took a short in Vietnam, re-enlisted, came back to the States, got married, and went back to Vietnam.

It was, my own personal and feelings, I felt. that we had a job to do and we needed to do as best as we could. And coming from San Francisco, living in San Francisco, we had to get through the demonstrations to be basically inducted into the service. And so it was, yeah, on my mind and I came back and did a little thing at City College of San Francisco and people treated me like crap, but that was just the way it was. It was, and once the first, after I got back to the States, I wanted to go back to Vietnam, you know, because it just, it was better than a stateside, state side of building. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Because I was in the riots and all that other type of stuff. It was just, but I thought the war was a thing that we were just, we needed to, uh, we needed to get the job done as best as we could. but we did it with forehand tied behind her back. You know, we were given, you know, the mission wasn't clear.

We had everything else to do. The problem is, is we had way too many people that are involved as opposed to just ground troops that are doing the actual fighting. Everybody else is involved. You like the Army enough that you stayed in and your next assignment was the 82nd, right? I came back to the 82nd. And the first year, they had a long-range patrol company in the First Brigade, and they sent me to Raider-Record School at Fort Brake, which was four weeks, which is great.

It was fun. I really enjoyed the training, and we were doing special missions, One of our officers had got his direct commission in the CNC South, so he was highly trained Special Forces officer. They were doing command time. We served under some Exxante Raiders, and we were doing cool things. We were walking the Appalachian Trail for a month and a half. We're training ROTC students and West Point students in rappelling and fast helicopter teams. techniques and we did a huge parachute jump in Korea to 1500 people did it did a jump in

Korea and it it was again a lot of good jobs a lot of good training and then everything went on until 72 so the cutbacks and that was it it was all over and then I got on the service yeah yeah so the at the worst conclusion when they downsized the military Yeah. Everybody was sent back, fifth group, come back with the Special Forces and guys that had been in for a good time. NCOs that had got the rank and officers that got the rank, they were getting rifted. And it was like, you went, I went from a Hough team leader to an assistant squad later. And it's like, okay, now what?

Yeah, yeah. You know? Right. And from what you were doing to this is what you're doing. and then my contract was over and I'm done. So I got that. And morale, I imagine, morale in the military was absolutely dismal. We couldn't wear our uniforms off base.

This was in Fort Bragg. We were fined if we were caught in uniform. And it was just all respect was lost. And everything was, it was a very dismal, horrible situation. And now you find yourself on civv. Street and how did that go for you? Luckily, besides, you know, taking cover when they were rebuilding the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco and you hear the loud sounds and you're going through your, of course we didn't have the transition programs, things like that. Did odd jobs. Did construction

work, did everything else. And then went back to work in the shipyard in San Francisco. Well, I went to work in the shipyard in San Francisco was a pipe bearer. Because remember I left when I was 18 years old. So turn 21, I was able to vote, I was able to drink, I was able to do everything kind of legally. And so it was good, but I couldn't get a job. I wanted to be a cop.

I wasn't the right fit for what they say. And but I worked, they gave me, I got a good job in the shipyard and that went well. And for a while, then the job's gone. and then I answer to add I put one of the first ads in Soldier Fortune magazine actually that was like the I think the first issue of Soldier of Fortune right was about the war in Rhodesia correct right

very first one and picked it up on a laundromat for some of our younger audience members that's actually Bob Brown's book is right behind you I am Soldier of Fortune right Robert K. Brown to sort of ski on and founder of Soldier of Fortune magazine. I think the first issue was 1979. No, no, no. First issue was 75.

Seventy-five. Only came out four times a year. Okay. Yeah. And I had the second personal ad in there. I put my parents' address and phone number. And, oh, you put it. So you weren't responding to an ad.

You put an ad. I put an ad in there. Can Goddette have gun will travel. That's right. And I got a. the strangest messages. But then also from Brown, I bought one of the $5

packets for the Redizian Army. Filled it out. And at that time, you had to get copies of your certificates from the Army time, jump school, everything else. And you'd have to take them somewhere and they'd make them up. You couldn't fax things and things like. I sent them to Rhodesia,

and I never got a response. So that was in 70s. six I'd say okay then the magazine came out it was four times a year then I was bi-monthly and then it came out monthly for a while do you remember some of the responses oh got to your ad oh yeah people they wanted to rescue their girlfriend he was 16 years old and his girlfriend was 12 and he wanted to rescue them and they wanted to do this can you come over here we're gonna we need to do that it was just some strange stuff I had a brief encounter with a federal government agency about one of the letters that I answered,

and it was just, okay, gotcha. You know, I ended up in Mexico for about a month and a half, which was fun. Based on the ad that you placed. Yes. Yeah. Doing some bounty hunting? Doing a job on a horse. Which was really strange for me.

But, yeah. I'm from San Francisco. I don't ride horses. Yeah. It was great. It was good. I wish I would have kept them because they would meet great stuff later on.

Yeah. But, you know, it's just a lot of stuff that things. But I look back now, putting my parents' address in there, which was not a smart thing to do. Yeah. Did anybody ever show up at your doorstep? No. No.

Aside from the family. No, no, no. Mostly, you know, you get an envelope. You know, the one that really stuck out was the guy that wanted to get his girlfriend. And he was 16, he was 12. And he wanted to rescue her from what her parents. Brod parents or whatever. Right. Right.

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Whatever. You know, we'll pay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have some newspaper money saved up. Yeah. Yeah.

No, so no bite initially from the Rhodesian Army in 76. I didn't find out until 79. They answered. They accepted me. Really? Yeah. From what I understand,

there was a problem with the U.S. Postal Service on information coming back. Going out, it was fine. Coming back, it would stop it. It would stop. It wasn't getting to us. I was accepted into Rhodesian Army

after I sent the letter. And they were just waiting for me to arrive. And they'll pay my plane ticket and everything. Really? Yeah. But I found this out. After. Yeah.

So, I mean, how did you end up in Rhodesia at the end of the day? We, with the stuff that was going on in the politics of the U.S. at the time, President Carter was in charge. And then I had a nine-month layoff. from the shipyard and because of Navy contracts and stuff and I thought well it'd be great

maybe I could take a trip overseas I got some extra money at work I actually saved a guy's life in a shipyard and I got enough to they gave me a very nice very nice award for saving this guy so the first thing I did is went out and bought a pistol and I decided that I would go to Rhodesia or go to South Africa and Rhodesia. Al Ventor sent me a card and said if you ever come over here, bring some cool stuff because you can finance your whole way while you're here. Gerber knives and other little stuff that guys and farmers need. So I finally took me about four months to get my visa from South Africans and I did and I got in the plane with all my kit and caboodle and ended up in Johannesburg. So you packed up like your L.S.

your web gear from Vietnam and I packed up some of the stuff I wish I would have taken more but I packed up some of the stuff and I actually got my first concealed weapons permit in the airport in Johannesburg really yeah which is really strange yeah it is yeah and said okay spent about a week in South Africa traveling around with Al and Al was one of the better the better journalists at that time and he says well well are you going to reduce you I said man I'd like to you know things are going to change or what he goes well if you do you'll spend night at this person's house and then you get a Salisbury I'll hook up you with a couple of army guys I said man

it sounds great let's do it so I took sent me to buy a bridge I got the convoy and I went to bowl a whale for three days and then took the train to Salisbury and in Salisbury I called the Arlesbury Eli Barracks and they transferred me to Support Commando and two guys came to pick me up. And Support Commando had just come back from an operation and had some real good success. And I went to a huge piss up and it was a great time. And the first election had just happened. Bishop Muzerrae was in charge at that time.

And guys are going, so you get a joint, you get a joint, good a joint, everything's going to last for about a year, year and a half, until the new government. until the new government comes in. And I said, well, I don't know. You know, come on, you go, you get this. And the next day, I went down on the recruiter, and the recruiter goes, where have you been? We've been waiting for you for three years. It was like, okay.

He goes, well, we'll send you out for an interview. You can either go to Great Scouts, S.S. Or to Redisional Light Infantry. Well, I don't ride horses again. S-A-S, no way. I was not in any type of shape, form. I went into the R-L-I, and they had, they basically had my paperwork, and the guy goes, Major Cooper says, well, we have a training group that is,

it's graduating in two weeks, and then they're going to the commandos, we'll put you in there. And I went in, and the next day I walked up, and I was in an Army, Army, Army, They gave me all my uniforms and everything and shine in my boots and I kind of knew how to shine a boot My first class with the class on how to put a claymore up The instructor looked at me and he goes American dank I go yeah goes oh you're probably Whatever I said I was just in an airborne unit. He goes okay, you know what these are? I go it's claymore He goes yeah show me how to set it up so I did and he goes good. Okay class that's how you do it

And it was okay and then these all these guys are talking and I had no idea what they're talking about because they speak in a Rhodesian slang is it's not a different language but you just got to get used to it. It's cool, but you just got to get used to it. What are some of the colloquialisms that the Rhodians use? Let's go grab a graze. Get your grazing irons. What's that mean? Let's go to let's go eat. Go get your dinnerware

You know You're slop shot You're this The flat dogs are this Let's go for a glide We're going here It's steric It's like

The flat dogs is an alligator Right Crocodile Big difference What's a glide? Any ride Any type of Anything it moves

Yeah And then you have Other regiments Where you're putting Sky in your rounds It's putting air in your tires so it's all putting sky and around

spying around pairing your tires I'm using that for now yeah sky and around and you go into bright lights which is Salisbury and it's it's all regional

it's all what did the troopers say the like Owens? Owens you're an Owen African that's just a true Slang you do you're an Owen

like you be X Ranger you be XX it's just like that oh you're Owen and the RL were specifically known all the guys were owned and and the other thing we got to talk about the RLI before we move on a little bit is uh which is the insignia the notorious short shorts that we had talked about earlier the nutcracker shorts yeah yeah they would wear their shorts everywhere it could be any day of the week they'd have a shirt on and they're all your shorts I said no I'm

sorry I don't do sure and they would do combat operations in their shorts. They would do parachute jumps in their shorts and say well can't what about you? I said, I do not jump in my underwear. I'm sorry. I got it. But they were just and they would wear velscoons, bellies. And that's what that's what they were doing. That's where that was their, they would just black up, put their black as beautiful on and they would do their thing. But short shorts aside, like the Rhodesian white infantry was no joke. I mean, how many combat jumps do you think they did during the course of the war we've we've recorded over 5,000 yeah they were going out multiple times a day at one point one commander did three combat jumps in a day

one of my guys we went through parachute school at the same time he was in mortar troop he has nine combat jumps I have three combat jumps Americans we laugh about them you know how in America yeah it's a big mustard stain you got the You need it. I know guys. I know guys. We had guys that when we went to the South African jump school, they had 20 and 30 combat jumps.

At that point, you may as well just like pin a packet of helmonds. Yeah. Or gray pupana. It was live it up. It was an everyday thing. You go on fire force. They'd line stuff up. Everything would be lined up.

Not that it wasn't a big deal. because it was a big deal, but it was just the concept. I did my first Bush trip. I was out six weeks, and luckily my troop officer was an American Vietnam back. And all he said to me, he said, Ken, this is not Vietnam, you will not believe it. And then we did the Bush trip, we did the scene, we did everything else.

And he goes, what do you think? I said, my God, he goes, I know it's great, isn't it? It was a soldier's war. It's a corporal's war. there were no, I wouldn't say restrictions, but all the training that you do and you know, you're putting it into effect. Yeah.

You're able to use it. The skill crafts, this and that, everybody's, you know, the RLI guys were great. The troopers that I, that I was with, they were 18 years old like I was 10 years before. And they're looking at me like, oh man, you're an old topping. You know, you know, it's up.

You see them, you know, it's, oh, what do you think? I go, hey, guys, I'm new here. I've been here four weeks, you know. They're going, oh, no, no, you're, it's, it was, it was an amazing experience. How, how would it look, a standard combat jump operate? Would you exfil by foot? Would helicopters come in to get you? Depend, it, depending on a job.

Usually I'll take a typical fire force situation. Salo scouts have a group. say 10 to 10 to 20 terrorists out they've got them spotted they know where they're at meanwhile that night our head shed is getting everything together okay like this we got our daks are there we say okay your eagle school your eagle eagle squad which is the 24 guys in the dakota there you can line your stuff up you get your call out put your kit on you're in route they would drop you and it was all the airborne development was all so planned you would go ahead be the stop groups maybe be the driving force maybe be the line you would execute you would leave your parachute

there we jump at 500 feet okay if you like so there's no point of having a reserve at that point you'd have a reserve but it was there right you know you jump at 500 feet there were some guys that were dropped lower i think the 150 is the lowest and it was because of the the pilot messed up. You would do your jump and you would do the scene, collect everything up, and then the parachutes would be put on trucks, or you would put them at an assembly point. Helicopters would come in and they evacuate, or trucks would come and reach you and stuff like it. It was an amazing process to see what they were doing. But like one commando, they came back, they had another call out, they did another scene, they did the three jumps.

it sounds like they had it down to a perfected art oh exactly one what death archer one of our rly guys had 73 combat jumps you were pointing out to me earlier that it's not like in the united states army we have like there's this it's this big production right you're going in the morning and you oh my gosh you have your static dry rehearsals and blah blah and it goes it's a full it's a full day event and you were saying it was for you and rodisi in the rle lie. It was like not a big deal. You just kind of walk up there with your rifle and your kit and

grab a parachute. Right. Your kit would all be laid out. And I can remember in the 80 second we were doing a six o'clock in the morning jump. You'd start at three in the morning. Right. Two in the morning. It was like, oh, God, and the jump matth, which is why I went to jump master's goal. So I wouldn't have to do all that waiting. And it was, but no, everything was done. Okay, you, you know your Eagle flights. Who's on the Eagle flight? Who's on Stick one? Who's on Stick two? who's here, who's in charge. So there was, and then you got what position you were going to be in, where you were, and you just put your kit down there

and either kept your weapon with it. I think the weapons was right there and covered up, and then when you go, you kidded everybody up, and then you went. Everybody would chip in, your officers would chip in. Everybody did something. Telling a war story when I did the jump in my pie, and we were the Airborne Reserve for SAS.

I turned around and put my parachute on and here's General Walls, head of reducing security forces. He goes, here you go, Yank, because I used to wear an American flag on my shoulder. There you go, Yank, and I turned around. I said, thank you, sir. And here's a, what?

You know, you step back. Here's a general. The number one man in the service helping with your thing on you. Good hunting. Have a good trip. Good dad. And it was like, okay. And the plane that I jumped out of at that time was a World War II DC3 that had been used at the Battle of Arnhem.

Yeah, you said it had a placard on it for a hollow market garden. Little brass plaque on it. You know, and you're going, this is cool. This is what I'm, this is what I want to do. Yeah. You know, it cost me a case of beer, but that was still, that was still. Yeah, so could you tell us about your first combat jump? What was it, what was that like?

What was the Mozambique? Mozambique jump. We flew. We were in the air for about two out. We left the airfield, and I looked there with a big elephant behind us, which, again, another Kodak moment. And we were there more reserved as the S.S. flew up the bridges. Their bledges were blowing up. And then we went to a forward base where we're going to organize everybody for the raid on my pie the next day. We had learned we've been told in our intel report, don't shoot the Africans with the little colored bands in their,

berets because those are scouts or Mozambique National Residence. Salus scouts. Salus scouts. Yeah, it's good. And they were, so you're trained to shoot anything that's in front of you once you land. You have your kid on it and your weapon, you're holding your weapon anyway. It's underneath your arm. But as soon as you see something, you take them out.

You end your grade, no, no, these guys all have banned. They're gonna come and get you to move in. So we were up. I paid the dispatcher a case of beer so I can. get first in the door. It was the best thing. Finally, you're in this, the bird, we're hot, this and that.

And we finally get to go ahead and we jump. It's nice, twilight, everything's quiet. We're good, and it was great. And I finally link up with my record group. I said, oh, man, it was great jumping. I said, yeah, it's case of beer. We can't get back. I said, okay, another case of beer.

We'll got it. And then we linked up for the raid on MAPI the next day. That's the one that's in the book that people have read where we lost 16 guys. We're shot down and the helicopter next to us. Yeah, it's in a couple. One commander. It was like one of the biggest operations of the war, right? It was the biggest one that I was in.

We had SAS, two commandos, and we had recid commandos, from South Africa came up and we hit my pie and they had, we were told a regiment of tanks. And we practiced infiltrating T55 tanks for a couple weeks before that. And then we went in, but yeah, tragically, we had a helicopter shot down right next to us and we lost 16 RLI engineers and South African pilots.

It was like the biggest loss of the war at that time. And we, Did the attack, SAS gotten a hell of a hell of a punch up, and we realized that we were overpowered and we pulled back and then they rebombed. And if people go looking, there are, Ken is also an author and wrote articles for behind the lines and also Soldier of Fortune. And it might be a little bit hard for you guys to find the article nowadays, but if you're nice, maybe I'll send you one. Maybe Ken would send you one. Maybe we can find one line. Maybe we can find a copy for you.

This was just super fascinating to read about. And what was the result of the operation after you guys pulled back like 10 kilometers for the bombs to come in? Correct. The next day we went back on mining missions and we mined everything with special South African plastic mines. They couldn't be detected by mine detectors. really ingenious minds and we trained on those again for a week whenever you would do something like that you always went out for a training session and for resistance for the to keep for limo and to keep the opposite side of Mugabe's troops from being able

to infiltrate into Rhodesia so we mined for a couple days and then we closed down the admin base and they all came back And this picture you sent me a few years ago, Ken meeting with then Prime Minister Ian Smith. Right. That was in South Lake Tahoe when he came and visited as I was on the Honor Guard. And when the end happened and Prime Minister came and spoke to the RLI, he thanked the foreigners that were there for our participation. And at that time, I'm speaking to him, and I said, sir, I remember when you were there. And again, he thanked us for our participation and what we did. And I'm just to Lance Corporal and talking to him.

He had been a Spitfire pilot during World War II, a lot of, in a POW. A lot of people didn't know that. Wow. Great guy. Half his face was burned on, but was frozen. But just a great politician, great person. And, yeah, people give, you know, Ian Smith a hard time. of course it's a form of governance we don't really have today and understandably.

But, I mean, his policy was for a multiracial integrated government. That's what they were trying to move towards at that time. It was supposed to be, we were told the day before the elections, a day before the results of the elections, we were all brought into an auditorium and representatives from SOUCouts, representatives from SAS representative from BASAP there are all our troopers that the next day their results would be announced and it would be Joshua Nacomo Bishop Muzaveh Prime Minister Ian Smith and of course at 9 o'clock next day

Robert Mugabe was the results were announced we actually drove through the streets of Salisbury the reduction line infantry as a unit now we were fully armed I mean more than fully armed and there was a plan plan didn't happen a sort of counter coup to a different alternative say yeah there was a plan there was intelligence that was made up we had been at that time our troop record troop had been working with Luce Scouts up on the border in Kariba. We'd been in Zambia, well, we helped SAS blow up the bridges

in November, I think it was. We were letting all the terrorists come in. We were not letting any go back into Zambia. And we were on operations there for almost three and a half months. And then we came back and then I went to, I went to medics course for training. which is training I wanted to do because I wanted everybody in our group could give a grip, do field dressings, do basic medicine to keep somebody alive, which was something I wish we would have done in Vietnam. Right, right. Lessons learned, as they say. What were the other two jumps that you did? They were on fire force, regular fire force things. Yeah, call out, boom. So while you were there with a reconnaissance troop, I mean, you had, you. You were getting called out daily? We were on different missions.

We did an advanced marketing trip course. Some of our guys have been trained by snipers. Two of our, three of our NCOs have been trained by snipers. And they came back and trained us. So it's what they call force multipliers. So we were gone for four weeks doing marketmanship courses. They had, I was, from what I was gathering and my, because I'm just a trooper, so I'm not being told anything.

I'd been promised a Lance Corporal, but it didn't happen. That we were going to do in Operation Phoenix in our area, frozen area, and take out the Majibis and take out the intelligence that was being passed to the terrorist forces in the area. So you could stop that communication, they can't get organized. That plan never came, never happened. So we were trained at that. And then we go on Fire Force for four weeks or two weeks,

and then scouts would say we need 12 guys. We'd load up, fly to Kribe, and then we would start missions into Zambia, going 20, 30 miles into Zambia, working our way back. Yeah, that was just normal. I spent a couple new year. For that three years, I was gone every Christmas and New Year's.

in a foreign country. I was in another country. So for three years, how many times did you come back to the states and how long did you stay? The U.S. I was in Africa the whole time. For the entire three years. Yeah. Yeah. It's been 18 months with a reduced light infantry. And then I spent a year's contract with South African Defense Force. South African Defense Force, I spent the majority time in Count in Angola.

We did a short two-day stay on the Mozambique border, helping the Mozambique National Resistance Movement. And then we spent the whole time, rest of time in Angola. Before moving on to South Africa, there are just so many colorful characters we were talking a little bit about before the show that you served with in Rhodesia. Right. That I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on. We talked about Dennis Kru Camp. Dennis Kro-Kamp. Crow Camp, your Sergeant Major.

Yes, he had received a Broncross Reduccia in the early 70s as a trooper or a corporal. Was probably one of the highest rated top five Saloo Scouts in the area. He became an instructor in Guelo. And then he was instructing us at some of our training phases. And then he came back to training to the RLI, and he became our sergeant major. for our troop, which was kind of unheard of that your own troop had its own sergeant major, and he got us a lot of the operations with scouts and other people because he had that pull. And then there's other people that we knew from Bob McKenzie.

Well, Bob McKenzie was the highest rated American captain in SAS. Bob had served with the 101st in Vietnam was wounded very badly 70% disabled and he went as a trooper and became a captain of the SS. I didn't actually meet Bob until afterwards. Again, he was a captain. He didn't talk to me. I didn't talk to him. But you know, you would see somebody and they would ask you who were you with the 82nd. one guy who will remain nameless was in the 82nd went to raider school like I did was an SAS then later on went down south with six SAS did that job and then he was on the Seychelles job he did he was the American who was shot in the Seychelles the Mike Hoare Seychelles thing which I would have gone on but I wasn't there and And you mentioned a guest who was on the show before John Cronin was in the same unit as you were. John Cronin was in three commando.

We had this RLI had first commando, second commando, three commando, and then support commandos. Support commando consisted of recoup, assault pioneers, mortar troop, and anti-tank troop. John had been in three commandos. during scout scout selection became an officer in scouts and was in the group after after that yeah did uh did you ever cross pads with uh john gardner australian no i i i him and i have been i've seen his book i've read his book later on yeah and cross paths yeah he could have been sitting across from me blacked up but i had no idea yeah you know you see guys and they'd be in completely different uniform carrying rpd and you Yeah, sure.

You know, go ahead. Well, I was just going to ask, because, you know, other Americans, we've talked about Australia. How many different types of foreign nationals? Like, how many, how, yeah, we're there. And about what percentage of the force did they create? Of which force? Well, of, I guess.

Okay, you take the ROI. I have heard numbers up to 300. There's guys that would come over and stay for six. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting.

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There's guys that stayed for longer. There's guys that work BASAP. They worked special branch. They were gathering intel. There's guys that like Bob McKenzie, who was there from 72, I think it was. Wow. Yeah, he went over right after he got out of the hospital. And then he was with the South African.

Rackie he he went down took the SAS group down south and then I believe he served with King Thomaslav's brigade right yeah and then he was killed in yeah yeah he was killed in Sierra Leone yeah Bob Bob's a great legend great guy hilarious always carried his arm like this because his arm was all messed up and he had an airborne tattoo yeah we used to get drunk compared tattoos I had heard that that he that he had a sense of humor oh he's hilarious yeah yeah yeah Yeah, but you really didn't talk to him. But we talked, again, about the wings and everything like that.

I'd say we had guys from every country within the free world. It was just, we had guys from Brazil. We had guys that had been in the Spanish Legion. You had legionnaires. You had guys. Over the guy there, an American guy there, that he just had, he had braces on. never been in the military and got his

break took its braces off and he was there with us um so it was it depended and what a lot of times what I noticed with sergeant major crow camp the other ones is if you had a skill and they could tell

whether you'd been in the army or you were going to go in the army or something like that they would okay well you get this class and you give a class on radio techniques or how to do this or how to put up your your Basha or how to do camouflage or how to do what are you looking for and when you're doing with reconnaissance and they just like okay you're gonna pick out different things and then know okay You're gonna instruct the next day you're gonna do this stuff like that and then you had

Afri-Connor guys that when they spoke to you to this day. I have no idea what they're talking about We call it we called it crunchy but yeah you know hell of a soldier but still can't unchalleled it. It's a very practical way of running a military, isn't it? Oh, it's a great way. If I was going to choose? Oh, yeah.

I'd have a guy, well, there's one guy I know right now, a friend of mine last couple of years, we met us something, and he goes, I'm next 32 battalion, and it's when. When did you go with this and that? Stuff like that. Oh, okay. I trust them with my life.

I've done many jobs later on. If they know, oh, were you, were in the regiment or you served in SAS or whatever there's no fact it gets his mission here's your mission here's your mission guide go for it you don't need to do any more interviews right you're done right you know that I sir I've had it in South Africa when we when we get to South Africa start talking about that I'd go in requisition a truck or I needed something and they're looking at me you know I'm from San Francisco I go, well, who are you with?

I go, I'm Colonel Brainbuck guy. Oh, okay, what else you need? I'll take that, that, that. Okay, that's fine. We talked a little bit about the end of the Rhodesian conflict, but what was that transition like from you, like physically, I guess emotionally as well, traveling from Rhodesia to South Africa and joining their armed services? How did that take place?

What happened was the war ended, I mean, literally ended. The next day the South Africans came up and took back all their equipment that they gave the redevelopes. Everything. Everything was gone. Opened up arms room. Took everything. People didn't know what to do. They didn't know what they were going. SAS got it together and they figured, okay, they would raise a contingent going to South Africa. That was six, six-th Rackie. So, Scouts did the same thing. That would be five. Recki, okay, what are we going to do? And then guys, then South African said, well, wait a second, you have all these combat trained people. We'd like to recruit you into 32 battalion. 32 battalion is a group that after the Civil War in Angola, they all ended up on the southern border of Angola, 10,000 troops, and they didn't know what to do with them. Colonel Braydenbach said, well, I'll form them into my own unit.

And he did. That was 32 Battalion. Colonel Braytonbach is the founder of South African Special Ops. Alleged. He is actually the person. If you read the book, Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth of those four South Africans, he is the leader. He is that guy. He is that person.

Colonel told me that at a bribe in person, so we know it's got to be true. But yeah, it's so that's how 32 was started. So a number of R-A-Ly guys, literally we all went down to the embassy and we're sitting there with newspapers, you know, trying to be real cool. And the South Africa is interviewing us. So, okay, what's your rank now and you'll get this rank? And you'll get this amount of money when you arrive and you'll do your,

your contract and you'll be paid this. and then when you leave, when your contract is done, you'll be paid this amount of money and see you whenever you guys can get down there. And literally, in our commando, I'd say 40% of the guys left that weekend. And they were gone. Really? When the 32 battalion had 30th battalion,

got in a huge punch up, and a couple guys got killed. And then we were getting letters back, okay if you come bring bring some more equipment we need no we need more night vision we need more this we need more that we need other stuff and so it's okay so it's like all right i'm gonna go to third two bit time that was my my idea because i got to get money to go to eventually go home and then sergeant major croakam comes up we got a little bit of a piss up going on at the pub each commander had its own pub so and he goes you know ken there's this new unit starting just what you've been looking for. It's an airborne unit. I go, man, he goes, okay. And he

said, but you got to pass selection. I go, I'm 30 years old, man. I want to go see selection. He goes, now you got to grab up. I guess, we'll do. I said, okay. They said, man, you got to get down there within the next couple months. I said, man, they haven't released me out of the army. Now it's like, okay, so I had to write a letter to Bobamagabee, please let me out. I don't want to be here. And I got a response, and by a certain period of time, I could leave. So I was like, oh, okay. And I talked three of my other, two of my other friends in it.

And we got on the bus. I loaded all my bags. I still have my original Bergen, which is a parachute. You can attach it to your D-rings underneath. It's a great burgin that I got. and a bunch of a, I just happened to throw some Redisian camouflage in there, some other stuff, and took a bus, got to the border, and the border guard goes, what's your kit? I go, it's that, that, that, and he goes, puts a chalk line on it.

He goes, okay, thanks, get on the bus, good hunting. I go, fine. We went to Pretoria. Pretoria the next day, we reported in. They said, okay, got to do an interview. Okay. Did the interview, went out, and that's the first time I met Sergeant Major McAlees. Peter McAlees. Pete. Go up. As I said, Sergeant Major McLeese.

Scottish, tough. I have no idea what he said to me. I can barely understand him now. And Colonel Brainbought. Here's this guy, this soldier, Portuguese, toned skin. steel steel blue eyes and I'm going man that he means business it's so interesting too wasn't his brother an anti-war activist and a poet completely different yeah completely different person Colonel Braden this box says I'm making this unit you think you're up to it okay I'm looking at your background hope you make it we'll see

in a month and it was like okay and they put his in they they gave us their uniforms and then they put us at this little house and they said okay you're leaving tomorrow here's your kit make sure it's all clean for tomorrow and they gave me a folding bud fn that was in horrible condition and they gave me a k and i had my own pistol that i brought with me and we had an R4 that was still on its plastic container we had a clean all the Cosmeline autograph it had a brand new 10 magazines and then we got in this truck and we headed back to the South African Zimbabwe border and that's where we trained for eight and a half weeks this was the selection course this no this was

the course before selection really yeah yeah we so I de Maitlis trained as every day and I know what incident you're going to ask about. The Valium? I know. You've been to ask me about that. We had to carry a box of ammunition to the firing range, which is about two K's way. Our accommodations to say the least were sparse, which means there were none. We were on the border.

I actually slept in a sewer pocket. and a large concrete pipe because then I wouldn't have to sleep on the ground and that's what we that's what we did we were in a closed area and we had to carry this ammo box to where we trained or where our shooting was and we did back to action immediate action drills all the way there we stopped back right center contact front contract grant contract grant You had to put the boom boom, carrying your loaded weapons, loaded FN, the fooling butt FNs,

that we had to clean before the night and stuff like that. And then we learned that first day that you shoot up all your ammunition that day so you don't have to carry it back. And so you learn. Right. And sent us like three weeks in, I think we'll take down two cases of ammo per person. So then you figure out between three guys,

you're going to carry this. and kind of figure out ways that you can do it. So you start thinking, okay, corporate gutte, these are your three guys, how are you going to get them there? What are you going to do? What would you think? And then at nighttime we would have classes. Okay, when we're two Ks down at the second bend, what's there? Well, there's a tree over here, over here, this type of thing. And then we did that, and that was when the incident happened, that Sergeant McLeese was ill one day.

because he was such a vigorous sergeant major that he was tough and he needed a break and he wrote in his book and we talked about it when we interviewed him that it was formation one morning and like his knees were quaking couldn't stand up and so they put him on bed rest bed rest for the day and he said the troopers were very diligent in bringing him like coax and tea We always like his tea in the morning. And we had the black tea club and the white tea club. Because I like, I like regular, I don't like tea with condensed milk and all that stuff. So we would all, and we cooked our own food.

So there was nobody else there except us. The 15 guys, I think it was, because three of them we kicked out because they were terrorists from Italy. That's another story. Italian terrorists? Holy shit. Yeah, there were some weird, strange. thing and they found out that they were they were actually terrorists and so they were they were immediately taken by the South African Expressual branch yikes yeah so and

sergeant major was sick that day and how to it had to do a sick day and it was great for us because we got to reclean our weapons asleep in but he overheard some of some of the people talking and I will I will not say who how would happen and Who did it? But he suspects someone was putting Valium in his drinks. To take him out of action. I'm not going to say it was a recouper, but I knew who was. So somebody was...

It wasn't just his suspicion. There may have been some malfeasance going on. I have no idea. I will not confirm and or deny. So there's eight weeks of training under the sergeant major. and then there was an actual selection course after the training. No, then we went to parachute school. Okay.

We went to parachute school, and that's when I made a big mistake. We went to parachute school, and on that afternoon, I decided to get an airborne U.S. airborne haircut, so I buzz cut. Nothing. And Captain Bodas, who was one of our officers that was training us, trying to teach his Afrikaans, took high offense to me getting myself and the other American who was with us an airborne haircut. So he ordered me to get airborne haircut every weekend for six months. But I got him. So we did. So all of a sudden at this parachutes course in Blumpton,

these Americans, these foreigners show up to do the paracour course. And it's just a refresher for us. We've been to at least two jumps goals. And it's in off the cons. So they're doing the course, and they're doing the formation, and we're kind of laughing, and then we got in trouble for that. And then we got to fight in the blimpies. That was normal.

It happened all the time. And then we did the course, and we did nine, nine or ten jumps. from the DC3, which is the pictures that you've seen. And they have these great jumpsuits that you wear. And then they have this thing, they give you what's called a marble. All it is, a concrete block. And you're supposed to hold it over your head and do all. Well, we've been carrying ammo boxes for, you know, eight weeks.

What do we care with this little marble thing? You know, so they, not that they were trying to break us down. Right. With the younger paratroopers, okay, these guys are up. They know it's up. They're in shape. They're doing it. So we did the parachute course. We got our South African parachute wings told to take our boots, get on the plane, get the hell out of the area, which is what we did. And then we started the selection course.

Yeah. Selection course was in the Drakensburg Mountains, and that was going to last as long as Sergeant Major McLeese wanted to make a last. There was no ending date. We had no idea. So what punishment did he exact on you? For the first four days, every three people carried four boxes of ammunition. And there are 35.5Ks, a little over 70-something pounds. You have all your stuff.

First thing we did, break down on weapons, throw them in the burgeon. And you have to get up to the top of that hill, which is way up there. and it's just it's just a constant go go and he will give you a point you have this many hours to get there go that's it and your reason you're near your little group and you start off and then after three days it was he would take the ammo boxes and it was more speed marches until you're spent you're just your mind is gone and that first day we actually had three South Africans and two other guys that were coming down from the RLI, the RLI had just disbanded, and they had come like two days late, two days before the course started, and they couldn't make it the first half kilometer, because they weren't in a physical shape. Right.

So they were going to go on the third selection course. Was this the first selection that he had run for this? We were the second. You were the second. And when you say there was no end date, does that mean he didn't tell you, or does that mean he was just kind of making it up as he went on? No. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He was told by Colonel Brainbach, make it tough. So like you guys did in SAS.

Make it tough. Make it physical. Make it mind. Give them problems. Give them things. Give them this. Give them that. And that's what he,

that's so you think on your own. Because we're from various backgrounds. Engineers, if you were an ex-sluo-S scout or ex-SAS, you didn't have to do selection course. Crow Camp, he goes, well, he didn't have to do it. He goes, no, no, I'm doing it. I'm gonna be there with you.

I'm right next to you dying just like you are. But then at the last, yeah, you didn't have to do it. So on my selection courts, I was the oldest person. I was 30th time, yeah, I was the oldest person. So you don't know, you could go walk down next hill and you're done. Right. And at any time, they can say,

you're finished you're not finished you're this which have happened at the end and to me and two other guys so after seven days going in the Drakensburg on these little mountains and little trails and we're doing it you got to get over here and you got to move back oh you just got there we gave you the wrong direction and it's a lot of miscommunications like SF a lot of miscommunications love this that of that okay So the last, finally gets the last day. We're all, we're just about done. And they got one of the guys from who done the first guy, of course, a Frenchman. And he says, okay, leave your stuff there.

We're going to go on a little run. Well, where are we running to? We're running. Okay, then we'd run. And he said, okay, touch that rock. And we'd come back, run back. And Sergeant Major would say, okay, just touch rock. Yes.

Major? Where? Did you touch it? Boy, touch it on top. No, no, I got touch it on the right side. Okay, run up and do it again. And that's a couple times. Well, meanwhile, I was with two other people, and Captain Bodas would come out and appear, and he would tell me, it's a corporate godette, you got to keep up with those guys. I go, sir, okay, he goes, if you don't, I'm going to drop you right now, and then you're going to, you're going to drive a truck. So I go on, carry on. And he goes, no, corporal got it. Better keep up. You got to keep up with these guys.

So I yelled out to Corporal Griffiths and Corporal Price. Stand fast, mark time, and they got it. We all got in staff and we all marched in. And we had passed. We were given our berets with our insignias on it. And then the second group came down and we're all sitting there going two. You got to make two runs. You're almost done.

It's almost finished. And then we graduated 11 guys. And the next day, they called us for operations. So our feats are bugged. We're bugged. Yeah. Groundman. Ground, right.

And then we went to the Mozambique border and did an operation for two days with the Mozambique National Resistance Movement. Renamo. Renamo. Yeah. And before getting into that, what was Pathfinder Company for people who have ever heard of it before. After 78 and Kasinga, when Colonel Braydenbach did the jump with the paras, they needed a

group that would be able to go in, sit there, working small person teams, two-man teams, collect information, and bring the pathbinders out. Well, they didn't really have a long-term pathfinder service within the South African Army. Well, he's got this whole group of combat people in Rhodesia. And the Rhodesia and South Africans worked together for many, many, many years. But SAS was busy. So he says, well, wait, I can get this other group. I'll make a group.

Form a group, I'll train them, and then that's what we were doing. And then we were training in pathfinder techniques and what to do. And we would be given the mission in case we ever did it to be able to spearhead anything later on. Later on and a month after I left, they did a combat jump that Sergeant Major McLeese led with the Pathfinder group. I wished I would have stayed a month

to get that jump because you change your wings to silver wings instead of the broad swings. So what was the job up on the Mozambique border that you got, a day after selection? A group of Mozambique National Resistance fighters going to infiltrate in. We had to stay with them, make sure their kit, and look at their kit

to make sure nothing on their kit said South Africa. And we take each person and we're looking at all their cool brand new weapons that they had. It was like, man, we're, you know. And of course they're Portuguese and can't speak anywhere with them, but they would have

shoe tins that had made in South Africa, so we'd scratch it off and we checked every person. Of course, they're under a couple of reckey guys, and they're record guys are too cool to check everything so they used that and it was it was good it was great it was there and some of us had already been to Mozambique so we know exactly what was going on there wasn't any need for super secrecy and then we find out that our helicopter had been shot at a couple times as we passed over

where we were where we physically landed I have no idea to this day but so you guys were infiltrating this proxy force we were bringing this group right i know might have been 200 guys yeah and and we were just checking them yeah in the last a couple days yeah the the larger situation that you know south africa found itself in that time they were fighting in nabimbia angola right in the caprivi strip in southwest africa we were fighting swapo and then in december of 1980 uh we were were able to bring a group with Sergeant Major Pro Crime in Charge, and I was with that group, the first group of Pathfinders that went to Southwest Africa.

And we did a deception plan of vehicles being ambushed, and we were doing our own, making them ambush us. Right, counter ambush. Yeah, counter ambush, take them out. And then a month later, the rest of the pathbinders came in, and that's when we did. combat operation in Camacho where you know I was with the lead element we found a base camp and then the rest of the groups came in and that's when Sergeant Major Major Sgtr Major McLeish did the whole thing with the ran across the field and he yeah he had to

like rally the troops you know we found the base camp we assaulted the base camp We were taking heavy fire. I mean, it was intense. They had 14-5s down low, just... Anti-aircraft guns on you. Any aircraft guns on us, and it was just amazing what was happening. And when I first saw them, I looked up,

and I saw them, and I saw two people run across. And again, we're not looking for booby traps because I never ran into booby traps there. So we're going, okay, let's go, let's go, let's go. And when they brought in the other pairs, Sergeant Major runs by me. And I go, welcome back to Angola. He kind of looks at me and he goes, what's going on, Yank?

I go, straight ahead, right ahead. So, and they were moving. And as the paratroopers got into the defense line, the firing became more, and they wanted to capture Chinese 75 or coil-less, and they linked over to get it. And one of the guys got killed, they got shot in face. Lieutenant went to rescue him.

He grabbed him. He got shot in the back. And then somebody yelled to retreat and everybody retreated. And they were haphazardly running. And Sergeant Major got up and said, paratroopers do not run from terrorists. Grabbed the lieutenant, put him on his back, carried him back. Meanwhile, we did Overwatch until he got back and then we moved back.

And we evacuated everybody in an orderly matter. And then they mortared it as two more. guys got killed, I think it was. And then we went in the next day and kicked their ass to go camp. Now with that. I'm trying to remember if it's the same operation that Peter describes in his book. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children.

That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence. in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Where one of your soldiers got his foot blown off, I think, by a landmine. That was later on. Oh, that was later on. That was later on. When I'd actually come back to the training team, I was in our last month, and they did op pro d'ia, and a day bar who had rigged one of our land cruisers with double 50 caliber machine guns they ran over a landmine and he got his

he got legs messed up eventually they were amputated but Colonel Brainbox saved him from burning alive in the vehicle oh yes he he reached in there and grabbed them and the signaler Graham Gilmore the guy that wrote the book he was wounded he got his foot messed up but and the driver one of our one of the American guys with me he remembers no it was it was absolute they were surrounded by fire in the vehicle it was tough yeah yeah any other significant operations that stand out for you uh you went to angola too didn't you yes I was in Angola for almost four months mm-hmm yeah because you would you would just go right

across what's called a cut line it's just a like a fire like a fire break and you would go going to Angola and I thought it was interesting is the they would tell us in the intelligence briefing well don't worry there aren't any tanks there there are any of this and the Cubans only come so far down and I'm going Cubans what do you mean the Cubans and then we found pictures of tanks and I got pictures of T-72 tanks and they said no no they weren't there I go they're in my album they mean they're not there so it was yeah we were in goal a long time we And we work with 32 battalion in Angola.

What year was this in Angola? At this with 1981. Was CIA in there yet by 81? Or is that come a few years later? CIA was there until the 80s, until the late 80s. Yeah, because they had a pretty substantial operation. And we were told not to talk to any Americans. The American ambassador arrived and they kept the American guys completely away

so that they wouldn't hear it. talk as anything like that we could see them over the talking yeah no you guys don't just keep your mouth shut don't say anything you know but no from what I understand later things that I've read they were deeply involved with you needa we work with no you need it was a great organization run by Zimbi it was they're good troops that intersects with the episode we did with Baz yeah yeah agency guy yeah I know he is, yeah. So it was a time, again, quoting Bob McKenzie,

it was time to be a soldier. All this training and everything that I had been doing the last first 10 years of my military. It was like it was all coming to perdition. It was all exactly what I was taught. And it works. Small unit maneuver warfare. Small unit, just give me two guys and I can get it done.

which later paid off and other things that I did. And, yeah, and McKenzie and what Tim Bax, they were working for, what was the two black homelands that were being established in South Africa? Trans Guy. Yeah, because they were working for Rondry Daly. Right, for Colonel Daly.

So a lot going on in that part of the world at that time. It's all, you would get somebody to work with before, and they would start something else and they knew exactly who to pick of exactly the man that you wanted in charge of supply and in charge of this and in charge of that. It was the way to get things done.

How did things wind down for you and with the SADF? My contract was done. When I went down to get my pay, I found I was actually getting extra pay I think it was $10 a day for every day I was overseas. Every day I was in.

Nagoa, which was very good because I told the other guys, man, we're getting more money than we thought. And then I bought a ticket, came home to San Francisco, helped raise my son, and eventually did some other adventures later on with some other ex-military guys that I knew, recovery of children that were overseas. And I did that for a period of time. And now I have my own private investigation company in California, and that's the... That's life. So, yeah, that's great. You came back for, you know, family reasons and also, you know, some of the writing that you did for Bob Brown. Yeah, I'd like to write more.

I'm just waiting for the right time. I know. I was going to ask you, like, have you ever thought about writing like a memoir, writing your story? Because there's a lot there. I have, there are just some people, not that I would name, but just some situations from Vietnam, that I'm going to wait until, those people are no longer with us because they were very things some things that happened that were very will always stay with me and um i think there was some bad leadership so i'm not going to get into it with but those are things that you would want to write about oh definitely definitely you just want to do

the courtesy of courtesy of not naming name right it just because i've seen other people in charge that did it completely different. Right. That could have been done this way. Right. There's so many things we weren't told in Vietnam. Right. I think that we should have been told in Vietnam.

Right. Yeah. How did you get into the child recovery aspect of the private security after your time in the military? A friend of mine who was in that business for a long time, we had known each other way back in the 70s. And he got into a little spot of bother, as they say. He had things that went wrong on one of his missions,

and he was being detained by a law enforcement agency. And he was spending some time in jail, and he needed somebody to help with his company. So he asked me to help him out, and I did. And I ended up going to get. going over and doing a job in Africa and doing a job, a couple jobs in Central America. And I got some successful recoveries for a number of people. And people that still send me Christmas cards and say thanks to me.

That's fantastic. It's good. Yeah. It makes you feel good that, again, you're able to make a plan, do a plan. You can get it done. you don't need all this super duper equipment you can it can't happen yeah i know that because we've talked to a couple other people of bath and then uh jeff and nick and like part of you know like part of that world i guess is you're not just doing it for charity like you can't just fly to

africa on your own dime because it can cost like hundreds of thousands of dollars right it's astronomical yeah yeah you know figure there are times I get a call I'd call my wife and say I'm taking you out to lunch where we live and I'd be gone

I'd be gone for eight weeks you know and you got you got to do the reconnaissance how we got to get them in how we're getting them out and I guarantee you no matter what you plan it's not going to happen Murphy's Law

right right every that's a constant but then you're like Okay, now what? You know, it took his weeks to find a picture. And then I did the video on one job, and I got the kid walking literally behind me right over the wall.

They're right there. Yeah. And I'm being like Arab reading my name, my paper backwards, and make sure everything's going. Yeah, they literally walked on a seawall, right? He picked him up, walked him, put him on the other side. I go, okay, we got them. And usually no equipment, it never works.

You know, I probably throw more walkie-talkies than the Mediterranean than people would ever know. So you just got to. Could you tell us about a few of these rescue missions that you did? It sounds like there's some interesting details in these jobs you did over the years. The last one that I did from the time I picked

we got well when the client was brought across the border my boss my boss's wife forgot to tell me that she was six months

pregnant so my whole escape plan was gone I had to change it to be able to okay I've got to adapt we adapt and I give my

complete credit to that to the mom because she spent hours in a car hiding under a hat so she could ID the daughter to make sure we were looking at the right person right she did we got them we trailed this guy for over a new year's at a party and all types of stuff and come to find out the child had been had been being taken to a day care for a kindergarten kitty care and we were actually whining and dining the

driver of the bad guy. We were so we knew everything that he was going to do and we figured it out and then we did some more surveillance and figured out our time factor of what we did and we all dressed up we all dressed the same we all looked the same wore sunglasses white shirts, state department tie everything and we took the child off the street gave him to her mother and we were out of the country in 28 minutes and I think I hold the record of the fastest recovered and they were from what i understand because i wasn't on the team that stayed there if they were running around with machine guns looking for looking oh they were he was pissed yeah yeah these are like some pretty dangerous people in some

cases these are some heavy duty heavy yeah and we're not armed we have nothing right i used carry a as baton yeah that's it and you're either assuming identities or you're blinding in, you're being a local bad guy, you're dealing with absolute corrupt people. Right. And you know, I'd be in the, might be in the middle of Tangiers one night, just walking around. I used to walk. In Pakistan, I would walk from the Marriott Hotel to the Sheraton Hotel, one up a block, down a block, stay there, make a contact and come back.

Right next to the American Embassy. And after we left, two weeks later, Americans came in, the pooled into the Sally port and they took out six guys right then in there. Jeez. And then they mortared exactly at the table where we used to meet our contact. And it's like, okay, we've got to leave this area for a while. A little too warm. Yeah.

So these were usually two men or like one man, one woman operations? We use female sometimes. If we can, because usually they will, you know, they're used for certain purposes. and we would get female agents, British agents, people. And I had some good people. I had some Brit intelligence guys that had worked with the regiment in different places. And guys that we, guys I knew that if I got in trouble, I could immediately get in my communication. And they would be, they'd be on their way to me.

Yeah. There was no, you know, it might happen, it won't happen, it will happen. They're going to be there. Yeah. and we filmed one for a program called America Tonight of the whole thing how we did it and again hundreds of thousands of dollars what it eventually cost and of course things went wrong but that's that's that's that's all part of the course what was the diceiest one you think he did um the one of central America where they were they were chasing

they're searching for you yeah where they're there according to my guy they were searching for us with machine guns and they were pissed. Yeah. Because generally, or I'm going to ask you, but is it generally true that if these men have the means to take a child from the U.S. to another country or whatever, that they're generally men of means in whatever country they're in? Oh yeah.

And it's the unkustodial parent. And a lot of times if we're able to, we'll check them with the embassy. And just kind of let them know. you know, if we happen to be knocking at your door tomorrow night, are you going to let us in? Oh, sure. No problem. You know, you, the head of the company knew the contacts. He'd worked in the embassy.

He knows who to talk to. You know who to see, who the SRO is, who the SAC is, who the person in charge is. He said, if all of a sudden I come, hey, I'm here, okay, you're set. We've just got to get them there. And maybe it is worth explaining to people out there in the world that if something like this happens to you, your child gets kidnapped and taken overseas, as you know, of course, there aren't a lot of mechanisms for the parents. They have to call a Ken Gladette or a Nick Brockhausen or Jeff Miller or a Michael Taylor to go and recover this kid.

Correct. Because the State Department isn't sending like a strike team to go get them. No. They will be hands-off because they have to be hands-off. So it's going to be the people, the private sources, They're going to be the people that have the skill and the Hutzpah to get out there and get the job done and say, oh, okay. I mean, I've literally sat next to as close as you guys are to the unauthorized person who took their kids. And they have no idea. Well, yeah, I have no idea how it was. I did one job in the Middle East.

and we knew the kids were coming to the airport and I dressed up and my kaffa had my thing and I'm standing right next to him my boss calls me I call him as we didn't have cell phone so I got to call him on the phone

where he at I go they're there they're on the plane they're going in they're set and this FBI goes well who's not I see I got a guy standing next to him right now he goes well he's not an American is he? And he goes Oh, yeah, he's not an American.

Don't worry about it. Like, okay. You know, and then you're on the next flight out. And then you may never see them again, or you might see them at a reunion or now we have Facebook. Right, right. You know, it's good. It's a good feeling.

You know, I say all the crap that I've been through, there are some good times. It's a bad times. Yeah, I mean, what do you think when you reflect back on this life as a sort of professional adventurer, Ken, that, and using all of these skills. that you developed in the military and eventually using them to rescue children. I mean, it's pretty incredible. It's a complete turnaround for me. It was hard to watch what was going on in Afghanistan,

knowing that there are guys, just give us a plane. Yeah. We'll get it done. You guys make it way too difficult. And I know the intel guys, and I know the people that were working on some of these things, good job, good job. just go to this, go to that. But it's also at the point of,

if I go up to you and I say, we're leaving in two minutes, that's it. Do not call, give me your cell phone, give me everything, and all of a sudden I turn around the corner and I'm gone, well, I've got to call somebody. No, it's not happening. Right. We're going now.

Right. And then you go. Because that's the only way you can get done. Right. It's a good part of life. It's good now to just relax and to think about it. You know, you've been trying to get me on here for two years, three years. So eventually things get done.

But, you know, and I'm glad there's still good friends out there to this day. Yeah, yeah, this network of this motley crew that you stay in touch with to this day. To say the least. Yeah. Yeah, we get together at reunions and we reflect and we, you know, we're, thankful for number one we're still here and number two we can still have the gumption to get the job down you know having been in vietnam and dealing with the u.s public during that time and then also you know having done everything you did and really getting no recognition for it over the years

there's no such thing as social media back then things like that how do you feel about i'd say most of the positive attention that veterans are getting out do you think it's a little too much? Do you think that it's well deserved? Do you think that, like, we, our generation, not necessarily Jack and Harry, but our generation, do you, yeah, what do you think that, I guess, is my question. I don't think it's never too much. People, majority of people, and I understand that, do not understand what it's like. You're looking at these soldiers now that have 12, 15 deployments. And it's like, my God, you're gone from your country or from everything

that's that long. I go up to a soldier and I can like I'm the National Guardsman that were at Grand Central. I'll go up and I'll see you at S.F. Pat John. I go, who are you with in group? You know, I said, man, 50 years are you going to look like me, dude. Yeah. And he laughs and I said thank you. I said, thanks a lot. Who are you with? And you know, somebody says, well, something in Iran or something Afghanistan. I say, yeah, I did Overwatch.

over here and it's just you're not it's not forgotten and it's just I don't expect anything at anybody unless you were the guy standing right next to me I know what you did right we were there right I know what this person did as far as trying to explain it I can't but when that I tell them when you get in trouble I know when you be on the phone just tell me when and where if it's possible and now it's at the point I can't do that I don't do these things anymore but I can put you in touch with somebody that can right you know and they'll you know could you imagine organizing something I said well when you get off the plane this person's gonna

meet you and he'll have a vehicle for you he'll have everything you need okay got it on a word it's not contract or it's not this or nope we're good we're got it Guys, thank you for joining us on the show today. I want to give a shout out to our sponsors for this show. The first one today is Par Weber. They make watches. They are American-made and assembled in Switzerland. And they have a continuously on illumination system

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And what's our deal with them? And use Team 10 as your promo code. To get 10% off. And one other thing, the team house, we are announcing our Instagram giveaway. If you, so the post should be up, I believe. And please like the post about our giveaway. Follow us on Instagram at the.team.com. Share the post in your story and tag us in it.

And then if you tag your friend in a comment, each tagged friend in a separate comment represents a giveaway entry. So if you want to enter multiple times, just multiple tags in. different entries. Each tag must be done in a separate comment. And we'll be selecting and announcing the three winners live on next Friday show. And what do you get? Everybody wants to know what you get, right? We'll be giving away a team house hoodie, a team house t-shirt, and a team house coffee mug. And I figure that what we'll do is write all these names down each time, and we'll pull them live here on the show. And we don't have anything to do with this book, but if you've been interested in what we're talking about with Ken here today, Ken, can you

you sent me this book. You signed it for me a few years back. Thank you for that, by the way. My pleasure. And this is a really cool, full-color book about Pathfinder Company by Graham Gilmore. Graham Gilmore, yeah. And you contributed to the book as well, didn't you? Yes.

I have a number of pictures there and the mentions, and we talked about some different stories and things like that in the book. You signed this for me in 2014, Ken. Right? I know. It's still available through, I'd around if I can say it. On the Amazon? Yeah.

Yeah, the Mighty Zon. You can go check it out. Yeah. And what are you working on these days? Where can people find you? Yeah, where can people find your PI service? It's in Napa, California. I do criminal defense work in Napa, California.

And my wife works at one of the larger wineries there. Nice. And that's where I'm there. on base just uh i think if they put something or put me on google they'll come up with me some some ways i lived in napa for a short while i was working up at vacaville oh oh that's way up that's hot pot park north but yeah yeah the old prison oh okay yeah i've been there i've done interviews there yeah so kennas we wrap this up today i mean are any concluding thoughts anything you think people should know about the the wars and some

Southern Africa at the time or in Vietnam or what's going on today? What would you want to pass on to people? That there will always be conflict. Let's go in. Let's get the job done. We saw what a hundred guys could do on horseback. Right. The idea that we've been there, we've been there before, let's forget that.

Let's support the troops, continue the mission. let's let's get the soldiers the air force and the guys that are in the thick of it when you know we've been on the tip of the spear let's get it done don't hold us back you've trained us you've given us your confidence let let's go I mean look what we did with you know Asama and the rest of these people I wish we could wish listen to intelligence more because if I'm bringing you back a piece of intel and then you go okay that's fine and then it goes wrong I told you so let's let's just just support what's going on and that's that's all I can say and shout out to my friends all over the world Bruce Fanner Don Richards other other guys

Jim Burgess in Thailand that I know he's going to give me a bad time. But the pathfinder is that I serve with. I'd like to thank your wife also who's here in the studio with us. It's been very patient with us as we tell all these war stories. So next Friday, we'll be back at our regularly scheduled time of 8 p.m. with James Lawler, who is a former CIA officer, worked in the Counterproliferation Office. He had a big part in taking a part of the AQCon Network.

So we'll be back next Friday with him. And until then, Ken, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for joining us in the studio. This is great. My player? It's been awesome. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I'm so glad it worked out.

Finally got me. Stay in touch. And thank you, everyone. We'll see you next.