The Team House - From Minnesota to Vietnam with MACV-SOG | Dale Hanson | Ep. 208

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Dale Hanson is an accomplished sculptor who has led a life of adventure and enjoyed numerous accomplishments. He is a black belt martial artist, an author, a pilot of fixed wing and glider airplanes, has flown aerobatics and is a Special Forces underwater diver. He is a disabled veteran and a member of MENSA. During the Vietnam War, Dale was a highly decorated Green Beret who served three years as a commando in the famous SOG program, whose mission involved extremely dangerous raids far behind enemy lines. This unit received more decorations and suffered higher rates of casualties than any American unit since the American Civil War. On one of these raids, Dale earned the first of several purple hearts as his right hand was mangled by a burst of machine gun fire. It is ironic that he became a sculptor, a field in which one’s hands are so critical. Grab Dale's book: "Born Twice: Memoir of a Special Forces SOG Warrior" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dale-Hanson/author/B001KD7KE0?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true Today's Sponsors: Express VPN⬇️ https://EXPRESSVPN.com/teamhouse Get the #1 VPN and get an extra 3 months free here: ⬇️ https://EXPRESSVPN.com/teamhouse BetterHelp ⬇️ ● If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there. ● Visit https://BetterHelp.com/TEAMHOUSE today to get 10% off your first month. To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ 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] #macvsog #specialforces #vietnamBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, folks, I just want to take a minute to ask you to go in rate this podcast, let the Teamhouse know how you think we're doing, go and rate us on whatever platform you're listening to this on, whether it's iTunes or Spotify or whatever else. Those ratings really help us out, and we really appreciate the feedback to let us know what you like and what you don't like. And if you do like the Team House and you'd like to support us, go check out our Patreon page and you can actually support the stream and well as get access to our team house. and you'd like to support us, go check out our Patreon page, and you can actually support the stream and well as get access to our bonus segments and bonus episodes. Yeah, if you're going to give us a great review, please do. And if you're going to give us a not-so-good review,

why don't you just send us an email and we'll talk about it. Special Operations, covert ops, espionage, the team house with your hosts, Jack Murphy, and David Park Welcome to episode 2000 and I'm sorry 200 and 8 I believe 208 yeah okay

not quite 2000 maybe one day we'll get there I'm Jack here with Dave our guest on tonight's show is Dale Hansen he is the author of Born Twice Memoir of a Special Forces Sog Warrior I read his book on my Kindle this week I think you guys will really check it out you can go find it on Amazon right now

as well as Dale's other books that he's written. Dale served in MacV. Sogg, and not just on the reconnaissance teams, which we've talked to a few people about on this show before, but he also flew some of the bird dog reconnaissance operations at a small plane with a pilot, exceedingly dangerous stuff. He worked in the intelligence, the S2 shop for MacV. Saug. And he also worked in hatchet force, which is sort of what we would call today the quick reaction force, the response force. If some guys got into trouble

or there's a particularly big target to hit out there. So Dale did a number of things across MacVSog, including participating in some pretty hairy operations, to say the least. So Dale, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Dave, you want to give a quick shout out here. Yeah, so real quick, tonight we'd like to thank ExpressVPN for supporting our show. ExpressVPN creates a secure and crypto tunnel between your device and the internet so that hackers can't steal your data.

secure your online data today at expressvpn.com slash teamhouse and get three extra months free. So, Dale, if you could start off, I'd like to ask you about your origin story. If you could tell us a little bit about your upbringing in rural, mostly Minnesota, as I recall, in the 1950s. And kind of talk to us through that a little bit and talk to us about how that sort of led you towards the military. Right. I was born in 1947. So I was one of the war babies. And my dad actually enlisted just before Pearl Harbor and wound up in all the battles. He was in Iwo Jeevajima, Guadelcanal.

He was in Tinian, a bunch of others, but he was in as an army guy. The Marines say they are the only ones. But these guys were attached. And he almost didn't get in the service. He was one of seven brothers, all of whom went in the military. And four of them went to World War II, two of them in Korea. He almost didn't get in because they found out he was colorblind. And it turned out that that was an asset because he could see through camouflage.

The colors didn't do anything. Blue and green meant nothing. So not only did they have the front lines in the outposts and they had the second scouts, but he was the first scout. It was way, way, way behind enemy lines. and was a commander and probably no one never told him. But he was a crack shot and did the whole war and everything.

Came home to a tiny little farm in Minnesota. I met my mom. And for the first four years of my life, we never had water, electricity, sewer, any of those things. Single story house that he put together himself and tar paper for wall on the walls. and one by two slats to keep the wind from blown off the tar people.

That's what we began. But the whole family were very highly patriotic. If your country was at war, you went to war. And I remember on this porch at my grandma's house, several of the uncles were there, and actually neighbors came by and everything. Everybody was in the war. and that if you did not do your part, you were looked down horribly. So, you know, what's the matter with you?

That kind of thing. So I kind of grew up with this thing of patriotism. I became a Christian when I was five and actually walked the aisle and read the Bible many, many, many times. And I had Christian character, Christian principles, which ultimately made me anti-socialists and anti-communists as well. socialism and communism were horrific. And there was an anecdote I picked up someplace, and I don't remember the source. But it was one of those turning points where you said, I have to get involved in this. I went to college to be a pastor. I was in my last year of college.

And someone made a statistic, how many people in the world, living and dead, if you told them all, heard of a simple gospel story, that the 12 disciples were living and dead, if you told up every human being who heard the basic story, they figured one billion people had heard the basic gospel story. Well, in 1918, there was a big meeting of all the... Sorry, guys, we're having some internet issues. Sorry, you're back, Dale. Got it.

Well, anyway, they said within the 50 years, how many people not only had heard the basic story, of communism, but we're actually turning to communism, reading Mao's red book and all the rest. And the actual answer was 2 billion people were studying communism. Now, there's twice as many people in the last 50 years had turned communist as had turned Christian in 2,000 years. And so the movement, when people said that's not really a threat and it's something way overseas, you know, I understood very clearly in my mind that that was definitely not the case, that communism would take over the world unless people did something. And I was a Christian, I was prepared to die.

So, sure. And so I put an enlisted, and I said, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be the best that there is. I'm going to be a Green Beret. And went through the whole deal. And actually, when I enlisted, I knew I would make the Green Berets. I don't want to talk forever, but mentally I was up there and physically was extremely strong. They had black belt. I spoke two languages and I had my head on straight.

I had my values and all that stuff. And so I was stable. And so I enlisted with the idea to go to Vietnam and fight. And if I, if they. So we throw it in. Yeah. Yeah. We're just going to have to try to work through.

I suppose. Dale is in Alaska, so we're having some hiccups. How did you know about the Green Beret? How did they become part of your awareness about the Army? Like everybody, I think it was Robin Moore's book, which I read and the song, The Ballad of the Green Berets. And the obvious idea out there is they're the best of the work. If you were going to get to the top, that was the very, very, very. very best. And so I enlisted to Troy promoted there and that I was on a graduate out of AIT, Advanced Infantry and I was promoted out there and then to jump school. And out of our AIT, which is was a secret place actually. Congress didn't know that that be a camp existed. You know, we had Fort Gregg and Fort Collins and everything else, you know, but it was called Camp Crocket. And at max it held a battalion.

of people 10 miles in the woods outside Fort Gordon, Georgia. And they were all designed for commandos and airborne and things like that. And the Cadbury were very, very harsh. Other than the fact that the young ones, the E5s and 6s were the graduates and 100 graduates out of NCO school. And so they were assigned. Before I even got through Jump School, every one of them were killed in the 100th third airborne.

Oh, wow. But, yeah, and so they gave the test for Special Forces at Camp Crockett. 600 of us took the test. There were only three of us passed. And so the three of us went with the rest of the people history because the governor of Texas says, my people aren't going to be pencil pushers. They're going to be the real thing.

So he sent the entire Texas National Guard to jump school. And so we had the whole class along with them. And then went to special forces, you know, did this election and went over there. And I don't know if I should keep on going and give you some breaks. So you were trained as a special forces intelligence sergeant. You got this additional specialty. The next stop for you, I mean, pretty shortly afterwards, was Vietnam, correct? Right.

When we finished Phase 1, I think you have different words to cover that now, Robin Sager or whatever. We didn't finish phase 1. MOS school, we only had five categories. You had demolition, weapons, communication, medics, and there was 11F, which was your operations in Intel. You had to be an E7 with at least five years

in special forces to take that. but they wanted people to go into SOG. And apparently our numbers were decimated and so forth. And Levin F is actually the spirit of SOG because it was intelligence, intelligence gathering, spy networks and things like that. We had a major that came before our group and he said, we want some volunteer. He said that you have to have 130 IQ or more. and when you finish the school, he would be sent to a top secret project.

And I recall him saying SOG, but other guys saying, no, it was called something else. But he said 85% of us would be dead in three months. And so I had to think about that one because I said, if it were three months, 85% died.

And it winds up being about 4,000. So one out of 4,000 will last an entire tour. And when you're young and stupid and so forth, then forget the IQ. You figure you're going to survive and you're indomitable and so forth. So we joined up and I remember when I come back from my second or third tour in Khantoon and was met by one of my friends, Mike Buckland, and he says, you and I are the only ones left. You know, that was it.

And it was a fantastic school, an eye-opener. We knew world events and how things were put together and setting out spy networks, everything. You know, codes, fingerprinting with blood, everything you could think of out there. Yeah, that drops an invisible ink. Not things that people normally think, special forces soldiers do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, we would have, even in an A camp, you'd be 12 guys, and you'd hire your own army. And you have to vet them as well.

You know, and sometimes you do have the fingerprints and coordinating and background checks and all the rest. So it was very important to do the intelligence and all those specific things where you capture a dumb pilot or something. Is he really who you said he was? So tell us about landing in Vietnam, getting in country and how you're showing up in this, not in a camp even, but at CCC and how that transpired. Yeah. Well, we knew where we're going. When we finished school, you know, the James Bond movies, they have M and Q and all the rest of them, you know, Special Forces had the same thing. We had B. That was our counterpart to Q. That was Mr. Baker. He used the one who probably invented 90% of the things you've ever touched or used in Special Forces. The one who was a counterpart to Mrs. Moneypenny was Mrs. A, Mrs. Alexander, and she looked after us, and I would call her up and say, we finish our school. I said, we're waiting for our orders, and are you sure you want to go? And I said, yes, we are.

And so she says, well, I'm working on it. Two days later, called her up again. And then the third day, she recognized my voice. Well, Dale, we got their orders, and we're on the plane. We wind up over in Cameron Bay and then from there to that train. And I think we were kind of hands off. They knew we were going to SOG. And I remember the ones who went to CC North, CCN, that saw in the north country.

They were on one of the first planes, and then CCS were gone. And so those of us in CCCC in Central were still there for an extra day or two. And in walks this guy, his name is that. Dave Kirshbaum, and he was the real living sob guy. And he came in there. He had a long mustache and all the stuff, never talked, strolled in there like he had been living in another planet. Just a man who kind of manifested in his character, that was someone who really went through hard times, was barely getting through life and so forth.

And we looked at him and saw that red patch on his shirt pocket that we would be wearing in a couple days. And I thought, man, that's the real deal as someone who actually has been there and lived. And he was kind of the reality check. And we flew into contum. And I signed into personnel. And I think it was the first one of our group. There was one slot left on the recon team. And S-1 sent me over there.

I met Bob Howard and Bob Howard says, I know a team for you. And he introduced me to Norm Dony. And Dony was kind of a legend. And I really didn't know how much of a legend until after the service. But he had his silver stars. I think he had nine bronze stars and so forth,

but never talked about it. But just a seasoned man, not great unconscious and all this stuff. And he says, we called me by my first name. Why do you want to be on my team? What do you want from me in six months? And I says, I want your team. You know, and he says, well, we'll work you through that. And we trained and trained and trained and trained and did all the missions.

And our specialty was prisoner snatches. And we were the one team that everybody wanted prisoners, but we were the one who trained that in particular. My team were all mostly Chinese and a few of Vietnamese. Vietnamese and hardcore people. We were talking a little bit before the show, and I'd just like to take a moment before moving on that some of my favorite parts of your book was actually the conversations about Howard and Doni. You know, Bob Howard, of course, being a bona fide war hero. But, you know, in your book, you talk, you get to see him not just as a legend, which he is, but you get to see him as a man, as a soldier, as a mentor.

And the same with Donie. I really liked how you talk about how he sort of like mentored you and took you in almost as a son and showed you the ropes. Yes. And both of them were that way. And interesting that Bob Howard never had a recon team or a company of his own. From the time he got there, he always wound up strap hanging to every dangerous area ever was. And boy, if there was danger or a team in trouble, he says, I'm going. And he, well, three times he should have had the Medal of Honor.

And I read one of his affidavits where I thought, man, this must be the one where he got the Medal of Honor. And he got a bronze. Yeah. And at that time, you know, Special Forces, we should have had, I think, a sod had, I think it was 11 or 12 medals of honor. And my company in Contum had five. We were the most decorated company in American history and had triple what we did get. But the feeling out there, and I heard the people. that weren't a part of Saab, who happened to visit the camp, they would say, well, that's what they do.

You know, it's nothing special. That's just what they do. And the other thing was, I remember General Singh Law, I read one of his letters where he was chewing out the wards people that were in Saigon and so forth, that you weren't giving special forces to people because they had earned too many medals, and you were going to wait for other units to keep up or catch them. before you gave them any more. Dony was one of those guys that he did. As a matter of fact, he did his time in Delta,

we had Delta Project. Now you have Delta Force. The day I was there, his wife sent him a copy of Men's Magazine. And I'd never seen the magazine before. But anyways, he just added to me, well, hey, what do you think of that? The cover of Men's Magazine had Doni's picture on it.

And it was, the caption was Sergeant Doni's six-man mission impossible team drive out and slay 200, Vietnam. There's Doni, you know, charming, good man, good man. Can you tell us about, you know, being on Doni's team and how you guys started training up. He started teaching you. And you guys got prepared for an in-country in-south Vietnam mission. And it's supposed to be, you know, maybe a bit of a confidence mission to make sure the team is squared away, but it turned out to be a little bit more hairy than that, right? Yeah, it was. We did a lot of local ones.

We did an awful lot of training at the yard range. It's called the right. We're not practice. And we did IA drills, immediate action drills over and over and over again. And one of my big things is practicing magazine drill. Our setup was a little different than an awful lot of the SF guys. We used canteen covers. We had three on each side, and our back was always clear,

so you'd never take off your gear in the field. And one canteen cover held six grenades. One of them carried radios in survival gear. And then the others carried magazines. I put two flat on the bottom, and then the rest would be up. And I got to where I could change magazines in two seconds, and they say you can't do it that fast, but I could. Because the car 15 and the M-16 were designed for right-handed people, I'm left-handed, and I could never had to take it off my shoulder. But the release button for the magazine is on the left sideboard, and I just hit that button while I'm reaching for the next magazine.

and I slam it in with that. Well, the return is also on the left side. So the only time it took me was reaching for the magazine, and I could do it and do it and did all the practicing and so forth. And then local missions, and finally getting ready for this local mission. And, of course, Doni had to caution me because all of our missions over the fence, Laos, Cambodian, North Vietnam were very, very hairy. And we could get overconfident because Doni would have to remind us that 50,000 Americans

had been killed on training missions. What we call the mission you're talking about was pretty close to where the siege of Ben Het was. And we were in there simply looking for the enemy who were besieging Ben Head. And that went for quite a while, Ben Head. Dave, do you want to give a shout out here to our sponsor? Yeah, real quick. First off, our first sponsor of the night is ExpressVPN. And honestly, this is the VPN that I personally use.

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and get three months free. That's ExpressVPN.com slash team house. And you should definitely use a VPN. I've been using ExpressVPN for a couple years now. And I love them. The second sponsor for the show, I have to say, up front, our disclaimer, our obligation to say, this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy.

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So if you go and check out BetterHelp.com slash teamhouse, you'll get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash team house to get 10% off your first month. So, Dale, apologies for the interruption. Please continue. Tell us about your first mission with SOG. Well, the most hairy ones that we had, but we were found out within hours of being on the ground. And they were honest with lots and lots of enemy people. And we kept evading, you know, break contact, evade, all this stuff, changed directions and so forth, or trail or something.

and we would sneak up on it and monitor the traffic and all that kind of a thing. I remember we were, as a part of us, I think it was the first or second day. It was a longer mission. And you could hear the grass being like it was mowed. I don't know if it was a battalion, but it was very, very large units going through. And you could see where the footprints were in the water. It was still running into the footprints. Wow.

And they were right there right after us and put up our, take our pictures and all that kind of thing. But it was one of those things that was day after day. They were after us like that. And we would be in the RON. And you could hear them walking past you in the night. And you could hear them tapping and so forth. Then in the morning when you would wake up, you could hear them do the one gunshot, which meant they're telling the rest of the people were awake.

and then we would move and then they would be a gunshot and if we stopped there would be a gunshot and so we knew they were on us but we still kept on our mission and then finally they were on us big time they were the LZ's covered and we were sneaking place to place changing our positions and stuff and I would lay out my claim or my minds when we got close to an LZ and with a timer on them to blow them and it got to the place that I should say before we made the first Donie ladders those ladders you see with a three metal I think that you'd see them in lots of the pictures

of MacV. Sog, the guys that would snap into the ladders to get out or climbed them hopefully but if not snap into them. Right. Well we made the first ones in Sog and on my Saturday when I should have been doing something else. You know, we made those.

And then we showed the colonel, Colonel, Colonel Lapt, commander of the base, and all the other people. This is how we use them because if you've ever climbed a rope when you're healthy, they're difficult. And on this one, it was like if you got wounded and got only part way up, you could just hit your snap link and they could roll you up. I mean, they knew we were where we were. And so we found a little clearing where it wasn't so bad and get ready to. to blow whatever trees were in the area and called Bob Howard, actually, who said a Rican them, and said, sent, and there's no point in being secretive on the radio because they knew where we were at.

So we said, called the radio people and said, tell Bob we need what we talked about the other day. And it was the Vietnamese came to be pilots who came for us. And if they think the Americans don't won't come, they will because they want to put down the Americans here. But anyway, long and short, when they start coming, the enemy just charging us full time. And we laid out all the explosives and all that. And then the King Big Pilots came. We blew the trees and then in come the dony ladders and stuff.

And we got into that as quick as we could, start climbing. And Doni was only halfway up. And then I got up and I was trying to pull Dony in. And the Kingby pilots weren't used to having those ladders. So they started to take off before we cleared the trees. And I'm looking at the trees just watching them grab the end of the dony ladders, thinking they're going to either pull down the chopper or pull us, you know, cut us off. And I watched it just finally break through.

And we got out. And my Chinese, especially my point man, looking at him. And he always smiled. I don't know what the deal was, but he always smiled. And before this mission, it was interesting because they adopted me. And the Chinese dead was really tough. And so they went to the witch doctor, and they got the name for Hanson, you know, Han son,

the Han Dynasty and Sun. And they came up with just the right words for Hansen. And they wrote, they would write on my back in marker so God could see it. And they would write in Chinese Han Son, Kambaya Chin, which means never die. And so God's looking down and he sees Dale Hansen down there. That's one of my guys. I love the conversations they would have with you sometimes. So they say, Dale, you say Jesus number one.

I think Buddha number one. Yeah, that was, the Chinese were coming after us, and I looked at him, and he had that Buddha. They always had it on the end of a chain. And when they think they're aware of a lot to die, they put that Buddha in their mouth. And if they die with Buddha in their mouth, they're going to be all right. They'll go to wherever Buddhists go. And I looked at him, and he had that Buddha in his mouth. That's when you know things are really good.

being tied. What? Coming back to it, you know, you're just, the Vietnamese tailgun, you know, the, that, that particular helicopter only has one, one

door. You got the helicopter on that side, you know, feet deep of used, you know, rifle, you know, the lift, what am I call it? The brass? Like the

The brass. The brass, thank you. Yeah. I'm getting old. The brass. It's just thick on the ground, just bouncing all over like it's being, I think they used the 60, the 30, there's two kinds of machine guns. They had the one with the, what do you call it, the water filter that goes over so you can keep on shooting it.

Oh, it's a water pooled. That's probably a 30 Cal. 30 Cal versus the 60. Yeah, thank you. The 30 Cal. And, boy, they were just shooting. And I thought this thing is going to be burned, you know, so you can see through the bullets, you know.

And we got home. And Vietnamese pilots, you know, they had this unique deal as no matter how terrifying the mission was, they make it a point to say, oh, this is nothing. And they land that chopper down like a C-1 30 or something. And they land down there and they tried to be the first one out. And they get their Salem cigarette in their mouth and affect, this was nothing. It was everything.

You know, essentially because, you know, we've had guys on from Sogg before and talked to Roger Lachshere, you know, as an American crew member and talking about the hesitancy of some of the American pilots going into these situations. But the Vietnamese, the Kingbees, the Vietnamese pilots, they were always kind of like game on, right? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, please. Go ahead. They love that helicopter. And it was like they are that way on that helicopter. They're just fantastic. And if they have any chance whatsoever to make the rest of us look bad, they will be in the guarantee.

Yeah. Diel, you know, you just said this was your very first combat mission. And you are thrust into like the main action sequence of any modern day movie. Right. Military movie. What were you thinking at that time? Were you just acting? Were you processing?

Or did it take until after the mission when you realized what you had just been through? The adrenaline is there the whole time. You just... Our missions were a seven to ten-day mission. And the adrenaline is the... flight or that kind of a thing. Yeah.

And you've gone on a mission and it would be so tense for all that time that your body wouldn't use food. You wouldn't have to go to the bathroom for the whole time because all the adrenaline and everything is going flight to fight. Yeah. And it wasn't going to the inside. It was going to the outside ready to fight. You come to come back.

It was like the most exciting thing you've ever seen in your life. It seems like when I get the first warning that you're going to go out. And I feel that electricity going into me is like the dread. And you know it's something really business. Yeah. And you get your school. And I've had people that. I'm in many other white guys.

I'm in Alaska, white guys. Some of the guys would say, Dale, you're the most calm of anyone I've ever seen. It's like, man, you don't see my heart. Yeah. I'm scared. But I guess when the time is out there, people ask me very, very often, what is the number one thing that marks a special forces guy? And you think about intelligence and bravery and all this stuff.

being able to make a sound decision under fear. You know, if you can make that sound decision when you're just tense, that's the number one thing you've got to do. And when we do that out in the field and so forth, and then you come back out and you say, you know, I did it and I lived. And I only got one more year to go, you know. And then when you get back, you go with Sergeant Dony with S2 to do debriefing and Intel debriefing. And in your book, there's this great part where, you know, you sit down and Dony, season professional,

well, you know, we walk 100 meters into the jungle. We cross a small stream. Pebble beds on the bottom, a little steep on the west side, cross the stream. There's a wash on the far. Like he remembers every little detail and recites it like, you know, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a seasoned veteran. Yeah. Yeah.

And of course, I wound up working. When I got wounded one time, I was working in intelligence and I was doing the debriefing. But when I'm here, I'm being debriefed and it come in and you think, well, what are the things you going to ask you? And you think this has been so tense and they want to debrief you as quick as they can while it's still useful. And you know, say, what was their hair like? Did they have haircuts?

Did they have long hairs? Was a uniform clean? And I'll have to think, man, they've been shooting at me. I'm shooting back. The last thing I think about is, did they have a haircut? You know, but nonetheless, that's what you are asked. And it's also the thing that, you know, that's why you have 11-5. Those are the things that are so vital as they're making strategic decisions and so forth.

And that's what you went overseas for in the first place. So you've completed your first mission. Do you want to tell us about getting spooled up for your first trip across the fence in Delouse? Yeah. I think one of the biggest ones was when we were, Ben Hett was big time under siege. And it was Norm Doney and I and one other American. And I guess I should even back up a tiny bit first. When you're fighting a war big time, like in Vietnam and so forth,

when you're fighting the communists and we have much more, the only way that they can continue on the war is to do guerrilla warfare and so forth. What Americans want to do more than anything else is we want them to get them all together so that we have many, many people so that we can wipe them out. And of course, some of the things like the French at Tianan Van Fu. The number one thing was that you want them

to attack the N. Van Fu so you can wipe out the enemy rather than do small things. Well, like communists, we're doing the guerrilla warfare to the point where they could go on for year and year, and they could be honest,

you know, wearing us out over and over and over again. So they had KSong, it was the next big one that finally the communist thought, we have enough people that we can beat the Americans and, you know, people of WMontan surrender and things like that. So they had the war there. They wiped out a couple American eight camps and so forth, and they had the war there. Well, ultimately, we won.

And so they thought, well, we're going to do it again. and they were still attacking special forces, eight camps, only 12 Americans, Green Berets, and our people. I thought, well, maybe we can get a victory there. Well, we kept saying, well, the next one was Ben Head, and that was number three in the big attacks. So they had the French, you know, and that one. So now they wanted the big battle.

And so they hadn't surrounded. They had thousands about thousands of people. And it was an imperative that they win this war. And they had thousands and thousands, 40, 50,000, numerous divisions of communists surrounding, looking for the enemy trying to find out where they were coming in, where the artillery and everything was coming from, and so forth. So that was the mission on that one big mission. So we were behind lines, and we were.

found out almost right away within an hour. And we were eliminating, you know, changing direction and the whole thing, trying to stay alive and all that. And they were after us pretty much big time. Well, we were changing direction one time and we were evading. And as we were changing direction, we were trying to get out to a certain area. I was looking down on the ground and I thought there was a long black snake. And I thought, man, that's a big long snake. And I looked at that thing. I said, that's not a snake. And I got closer and I looked at the thing, that's not a snake.

That's a wire, a big listening device and so forth. So I clicked my finger type. And he stopped and he looked at me and I motioned as it come and I looked. And here was this big black a listening device and it was kind of on the edge of a train and stuff and that was the sign of at least a battalion of enemy at least a battalion and I said they're

close, they're close. We are really close to where they're all up there. And I started listening and all of a sudden I can hear in the very far distance they heard the boom, boom, boom. And I says, I hear them firing.

They've got to be shooting from there at Ben Hat. And so we circled up in an area. Doni and I and my Chinese guy, who was dressed like a Chinese Russian, actually. And so Norm and I, and he crawled on our bellies, went across the road and everything,

and worked our way over, and we found where the artillery was. And I could see the trees were were moving and all this stuff. And finally I could see the artillery and their trucks and stuff were coming up there. And I could see and here the artillery just boom, boom. And they were firing on Benhead, big ton. And so I said, that's the spot, you know. And so Norm and I were looking. He said, well, there's a place, a curve in the river there. And there's a cliff there and all this stuff. And we got together. We said, are we, this is the spot. This is exactly

on the map. He said, yeah. So we, we, we, we, uh, worked. our way back and we did a contact to the communications and we said we found the enemy that were hitting a band-head and the plane came and all that kind of a thing and so what the word that came to us was get to the very quickest LZ as fast as you can for an immediate extraction and so as fast as we could go with the enemy chase they sent in an emergency plane to pick us up. I didn't realize it, but they had a whole company of a mic force that was doing the same thing we were, but you know, a couple miles away.

And the word came to them because they can't pick up all at once, that many people. But anyway, they said, get as fast as you can, seven clicks south, three and a half miles south, as fast as you can go. And they sent them south virtually on a run. They picked us up, and at the end of this thing, by the time we got to contune, they said a massive B-52 strike hit the spot that we found. And the word that came afterward was 100. I was talked to one of my friends that was in the company that got as far away as they could.

And I says, what was it like to have the artillery? You know, the 500-pound,000-pound bombs hit the area. And he said they couldn't stand up. It was just immense. But anyway, we got to a contum, and the bombs hit. And that was the end of the siege of Ben Head. They bombed the entire place. It destroyed virtually all the enemy.

And that was the very thing that ended the bombing and the siege of Benhead. So it was interesting. It was a kind of routine mission in some ways, but the ultimate thing of it was, is it ended the siege that was destroying the people. And they were close because the communists had made tunnels underneath all of the areas, and they were just ready to have all the people burst out of the ground in the center of the site. A very effective use of reconnaissance and prevented, you know, another Lang Bay. Yes, yes. And next for you, was the next thing for you in your trip through

Vietnam was at 1-0 school? I think we had one more. Yeah, 1-0 school was one of the next. And it seems like every single thing we wound up with was something really interesting. 1-0 school was, of course, I was already kind of trained to be the 1-0, but they always sent us that anyway.

It's a three-week thing. and at the end of it all, they have a mission, a five-day mission for us to go. And the mission, and it's all green berets on this team. And so they sent us, they had an area of the country that was their specific thing. But it was so secret that the major that was in charge of the thing would take the, take the, if, place. and we were out in a safe area and he said that he believed that there were moles out there

who were explaining everything and kind of ruining what we were doing. But he says what is happening was there was a deal with the site for the rubber the rubber plantations and all that kind of a thing. And he says, the thing is Goodyear, that Goodyear had a deal with the North Vietnamese. Michigan. Yeah, yeah. And he said, we have this site. They're not making a deal with the Viet Cong. And the communists that in exchange for not bombing our site, we won't bomb your site. But the Australians wanted to find them and come into contact. So we went in on that one. And the five of us, you know, we worked away right into the center of the rubber plantation lined up.

And so it was interesting because I was leading that one. And I got so close, it was really thick. And I got so close that I smelled the hidden North Vietnamese that were hidden there. I got so close I could smell his breath. and I just knew there was something going on there and I stopped the people and stuff and I didn't move and then pretty soon he moved

and I could finally see it and smell his breath and I found him so we had to back up and we backed out of our cover and so forth and worked a way out and then finally found our way out and we reported the enemy and all that kind of a thing

and then and then we called for were to be picked up. And then the communists actually overwhelmed us that lose any helicopters. So they said they wouldn't pick us up unless we went all the way around the opening to make sure that we're no enemy in the area.

Well, anyway, when I got to the place, it was shaped like I thought the only way we could make sure there were no enemy in the area. It was big enough. if we went all the way around by that time, they would have been in already. So I went to the narrow part, and I guarded that spot, figuring I could watch both sides and wait for the pickup. So where I was, and they saw that narrow spot. There was an opening area, a danger area. So they decided to cross the narrow spot right on top of us.

And so we ducked in as long as we could. We buried in as deep as we could. And Ray, shoot and in the meantime they went right over the top of them so they went over the top of this and worked the way out and then finally they got us out we got back into our base area and was ready for the next mission i found dale there's an interesting historical parallel you talk about how this was a rubber plantation that supposedly the tire company michigan was supposedly paying off the VC to just keep things cool and we won't you know we won't mess and we get to keep our business going in Syria the LaFrange Cement Factory in North Syria owned by a French company there are huge lawsuits as I recall right now as to whether or not LaFrange Cement Company

was paying off ISIS to not destroy our cement factory and so I just thought there's this interesting parallel there and I believe that that case probably isn't settled and is still working its way through courts but I mean it just shows that the dynamics of war and business kind of stay the same I guess. Yeah. So you arrive back at CCC. Do you want to walk us through this mission? You got into a really tough gunfight where you got wounded.

pretty badly. The Doni took over the job of being the first the head of the recon people and then the one who was there before came back to our

team, recon team and he took over the one-one so I was one too. Ultimately, we went on a mission going over sees uh um all of a sudden i forgot in a mind where we were going here um looking uh for the enemy and um

what we're going to say i've gone through five or six of these missions the uh the the the mission where you got hurt pretty badly and and had to uh yeah um that that was only uh i thought it was two or three days but it was actually one day um uh within an hour after landing on the ground, the communists were all over the place and that they were surrounded us and they were after us shooting at us the whole thing. We were trying to get out of the way and find a way to escape and so forth. And we were breaking our contact and so forth over and over and over. Finally we got into a place where we were into a a place where there was two or three times we met the enemy and we fought them one after the

other and fought several. There was one of them that was right on our tail, come right up to us. Hopefully we get Dale back here. Sorry, you just skip the beat there, Dale. Yeah, we lost you right when you're saying that one was coming up right behind you. Yeah. Oh, no, I see me moving. Yeah, we got you. Yeah, we bumped into a bunch more people, and we eliminated some of them.

But then we bumped into another group, and there were several people who, and then we broke contact, moved a little bit farther. And then there was several people who popped up, and there were three of them that jumped up in front of me, and they were starting to shoot at me. I returned the fire and I knocked out two of them and I ran out of my ammunition. They had the AK-47s with 30-round magazine. I had the car 15 with only a 20-round magazine. Anyway, we were exchanging fire back and forth.

As fast as we could, lots of shells going back and forth, I wiped out the first two, but then I was out of rounds, and then there was one guy left, and he had 10 rounds left. So I'm reaching for another magazine, and as I'm reaching, that third guy emptied his rifle on me, and he had 10 rounds. So a burst of the shells went through my hand and basically blew off my finger. So one blew off one finger was hanging by strings of finger, and that blew the ends off of the remaining fingers. And so anyway, I'm reaching for another magazine, and I'm trying hard to get the next magazine in, except the finger is flopping, getting between my hand and the magazine. And finally, I got the new magazine in, and I fired on the people, and another guy's still. next to me and we got the third guy out.

And then I had fingers kind of laying everywhere. So the next day I ran over and he put a bandage around my hand. And my thumb was sticking out and just the tip of my little finger. And we had more firefights and we broke contact. And we started breaking fire and found a place for the Arrawna. The night we broke contact and got a place. We broke contact from the enemy, found a decent place, and there were seven of us, and we were wrapped up in the little corner. And I had four Claymore mines in front of me for the night, and I laid out the four mines solid.

And I put the four triggers for the M79 grenade launchers, and I had them all set up on something solid, and I had my hands on it all night. And the communists started to make their way through us. And the dogs were barking, the tracking dogs and all stuff. I could hear people working their way through the bushes. And I could hear the doors slamming and so forth, so lots and lots of people out there. And so anyway, I had my hands on it, and I had one guy to the right of me. And boy, he was pretty nervous and kept saying hands on him.

on VCCOM and the guy on the left, same thing, he was VCCOM. And so we were already there, and I had my hands on the plungers, and we were just praying. You know, and it must have been hundreds of them coming up and they were praying. Lord plugged the noses of these dogs, and I kept praying and praying and my two guys on my side were awake. But anyway, the communists swept right. through us. The dogs never smelled us. And they went right through my position, went right through us. And it wound up on the other side. And so we made it through the night. And then the next day,

we came out of the place and we started bumping into more enemy people and so forth. We got into an area, a very, very high-speed trail and there was a lot of enemy on it. And we, saw them coming and we opened fire on the bunch and each flank of us. And then there were two high-ranking people that were laying on the ground. They were very tall. They were obviously Chinese. They weren't just North Vietnamese. They were very, very well-dressed and so forth.

I swept through them and I wiped out the people on the other end, ran back to where the people were on the ground. And there was a huge rucksack full of immense and then a whole bunch of things inside. And we also took all the clothing. We took the shoes. We took the pants, all the clothing and so forth from these people. We addressed them. This is that they had.

And as it turned out, they were. on the way to pay off all the agents in two provinces. So we started to get together and make our way out. Just to clarify, just to clarify Dale, because I think some folks might have missed it, you killed who is probably a Chinese spy paymaster and captured his satchel with all of his documents and money, kind of an intelligence treasure trove. And so now that now you've captured that, you have to make your way. way out. Right, right. And there were two of them, enemy lines, and they're both Chinese. And anyway,

along the short, we tried to make our way out. At that time, definitely trying to get away from the Vietnamese and also about 2,000 enemy made the way toward us. They were encircling us. there were children like we could possibly get out of there. Big time firing. My rifle was fired in half. One of my people had his life, a rifle not work. I gave him my car 15 because I was slow changing magazines

because my hand was messed up. I had knocked out. I killed a couple guys, and one of them had an M2 carbine. And so I used that to replace my car. 15. I went off to one side on a flank where I held off the enemy. And the covey riders said that I had held off three platoons of enemy at that one spot. And so I held them off as long as I could. And it was like it was cutting the grass down. The bullets were so thick that the grass was just being mowed down and explosions all around the place. firing was going like crazy.

My roommate, the 1-0, was killed. One of my Vietnamese came to meet anyway. It was like he said, I want you to make him come alive again. I said, we need to get him out of here. So a chopper came in and threw down the rope. And I said, hook him up in the ropes.

And then I took the the the things with all the money and the lists and all that stuff that were in a folder. I said, I put it in his

clothes. So we stuck it down to his shirt. And you're gone. No, we have you. D.R. producer is, he's just stopping the video to see if the audio tracks more smoothly. So we're with you.

we're just trying to stop the pauses in your story that are coming from the lag. So anyway, the chopper came, dropped down the rope. I had him hook up my roommate into the line, and then two of my people and the intelligence find out we had. And then I sent the choppers out. So they pulled them out. And at that time, I thought it was the only person left. the machine guns that would come down on us and so forth,

they were firing on us within, we said 10 meters, but it was a person left alive on the ground, and that there was nobody else. So anyway, the other American had the radio, and they were out with that radio. And so I thought I was the only one left on the ground, and I had no way to talk to anyone.

So I found every aircraft in Southeast Asia. And, of course, I had no idea who to talk, no passwords or anything. So I just yelled into the radio. I said, is anybody there? And the cover writer, just so calm. He says, I got you, Dale. We're covered for you. And so that was all I need.

needed to know in the chop. And then shortly after that I got shot again. And this time I was shot in the back of the head. And I ran over. And I couldn't tie the knot because my hand was all messed up. So I did a huge overhand nut and stuck it in the snap link. And then the chopper took off. But instead of clearing the the trees before they left the air, drug us through the trees. And so I was dragged through the trees and looked like I was going to pull a helicopter down. And they were about to cut the lines for And drop us behind enemy lines. And at that point, I finally was able to cut the last of the bushes

away from the, and that was the mission. And we had his 5,000 feet, One of the ropes was shot in two by the aircraft. And the choppers were out of fuel. And so they found the closest place that you go, which was, I think, Ben had one of those A camps. And they didn't even have the ability to get higher than 5,000 feet. They just took us straight through a storm.

And it was like we had like, we had like, meeting us. And we went through that and landed in the A camp and finally we landed. And that was it. And I was met by Muram Doni, who was the first sergeant and a couple other people. And that was it. I think I was intelligence fine to the war. And of course my roommate was killed and one of my Vietnamese was wounded and that was it. And Dale, you know, in addition to this intelligence coup, you know, I'd like to ask you, you know, the title of your book again, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I found like there's a bit of a triple entendre there, born twice. So I think part of this maybe is that you're referring to, you were a fan of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels, you only live twice. The villain says, you only live twice, Mr. Bond. There's maybe a reference to your Christian faith. and then this mission that you came out of a lot. Is that where the title of your book came from?

Yeah, the title of the book had to do with that when I became a Christian at age five. And that's when you're born twice, born again. And I used that as the, I thought it was kind of like what you were saying. It kind of fit in with the many times that you just barely survived. arrived a mission and so forth. There were many times like they thought you would never live. And of course, we did. And of course, born twice, it meant so much to me, you know.

And of course, dealing with our CNC guys, the amazing people that were in there. Hey, Dale, let's try something real quick. If you pull up your Zoom, do you see the, just the camera that says stop video, not the end call, just the stop video. Yeah, it's on the left. It's just the camera. Oh, do you say it's on the left? It's just the camera.

Bottom left. It says David. Arc. Oh, okay. I see where you are. Yeah, just a little camera icon. Yeah, we may. I don't know what that is.

All right. We may need to cut this a little short because it's skipping so much. And I would be more than happy to have you back again, Dale. But I think we're not necessarily doing justice to your story when it freezes every couple minutes. Yeah. Yeah. We feel like we're doing you a disservice in the sense that, you know, there are pauses in this story. And, you know, such an incredible.

And there is much more to talk about. We're probably only halfway through, you know, this. experience that you wrote about in your book. So if that's okay with you, Dale, I would probably recommend doing that. And, you know, we would like to have you back again over the summer. Sounds great. Okay. I apologize for it.

It's definitely not the ideal situation. But, I mean, I would rather come back another time and do it the right way. Sounds great. Okay. And folks out there, again, the book is called Born Twice. you want to get ready for part two of this interview. I highly recommend you go to Amazon and

check out his book, his memoir. There's a link down in the description to go check it out. And the only other thing, I just want to tee up next Friday. I'll let you guys know here

in a second who's coming up on the show. Ooh. down here. Next, let's see. Oh, Don Bentley. Apache pilot and author

is going to be on next Friday. And Dale, we'll get you scheduled. It'll probably be July. We'll have you back on. And we'll complete telling the rest of your story about this book and some other fun stuff,

interesting stories from your life. We do have a question. Michelle Ann, thank you very much. much for your very generous donation. And Michelle Ann says, he has children, what do your children think of learning about MacB Sog and you're being part of such an amazing, crazy part of military history. My dad was a lone survivor with recon team Alabama with MacB Sog. Yeah. And the question was... The question is like, what did your, what do your kids think of it? And how did you introduce your kids to your background?

Yeah. You know, I don't think I really talked to them that much about it, but over the years, people would call and so far and talk about it. I don't think very many people realize special forces in the contributions it was. And I don't think my people, my family, I think, are very good. They're appreciative and they're good. It's been great with them. I don't know how else to say it. They were just, they were blessed. I was blessed by their patients and so forth. I guess that's about it. Yeah. You guys. Well, thank you for joining us,

Dale. And we'll get things hashed out. And we'll do this again. And I'm really looking forward to hearing the rest of your story. And thank you for your patience. Yeah, we deeply appreciate your time. We deeply appreciate you and your service. And we just want a time where you can tell your story. And there are no technical difficulties.

Yeah, there was a lot of problems. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, it's Alaska Connections. And things are just coming through. Yeah, we'll work it out. Yeah, this part's coming through. And again, folks, go check out Born Twice. You can buy Dale Hanson.

You can find it on Amazon, wherever you guys go for books. I highly recommend the book. I just finished reading it this week. So go check it out, and you'll be ready for part two. Great. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Dale.

Thank you, Dale. Have a good night, everyone, and we'll see you next.