The Team House - Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) in Vietnam | Kregg Jorgenson | Ep. 312

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to and we really appreciate that so go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house special operations covert ops espionage the team house with your hopes jack murphy and david park hey folks welcome to episode three hundred and twelve of the team house i'm jack here with dave and our guest on tonight's show is Craig Jorgensen. He served as a lurp in Vietnam and is the author of many, many books

Starting point is 00:01:13 that me and many of you probably have been reading for years. Very crazy GI. One of his latest novels is chasing Romeo and Dave over there has MIA rescue, which is a nonfiction story. Well, very crazy GI is also nonfiction. And we're really excited to have Craig on the show tonight

Starting point is 00:01:35 and talk to him about his career. I'm going to give a quick shout out to our sponsor for tonight's show. Friend of the Team House and former CIA officer Dale Bendler empowers young adults to navigate modern day dangers. Earlier this year, the Team House was honored to have in studio retired Marine and 37-year veteran of the CIA Dale Bendler on episode 265. You guys probably recall that Dale served in some of the world's most dangerous environments. And since retiring from the CIA, he has dedicated himself to help

Starting point is 00:02:06 people get home safe. Dale runs one and two day in-person safety courses in Miami covering everything from cyber safety to stalking safety to drink spiking. From his teachings, he found that concerned parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles were specifically asking Dale to provide safety training specifically designed for teenagers and young adults. It is with great pleasure that we are able to announce that Dale has just launched an online course specifically tailored for the safety threats that teenagers and young adults face. Key areas of of Dale's training are cybersecurity, including mobile phone theft, cyberbullying, sextortion, unsafe online dating practices, even emerging threats like AI-driven scams.

Starting point is 00:02:48 But he also covers active shooter scenarios, physical assaults, drinks spiking, fentanyl, demonstrations and crowds, transportation safety, including ride share services, public transportation, carjackings, road rage, and staged accidents, and last but not least, stalking. Dale told the show that I may never know if I've saved someone. one's life, maybe they avoided the wrong ride share or left a party because of a bad feeling, knowing I've made a difference is enough. So this information, the course itself, there is a one-hour young adult safety course. It's available now at www.stayafedigitalacademy.com for $89 after a $10 discount using the coupon code, The Team House. That's one word, the team house. So my daughter is

Starting point is 00:03:35 going to take the course. Got her in the shoot to go in and go through the online safety course. I've spoken to Dale a number of times about what he does, and that's why I'm actually very happy to be able to present it here and try to get other people to go sign up, because Dale's courses are not like surviving the zombie apocalypse or prepping for nuclear war. It's not that kind of thing. It's like very practical stuff. Like if you're kids on a field trip and he gets separated from the class, what should they do? You know, it's very, very practical things to help keep kids safe. So I hope you guys will go and check it out.

Starting point is 00:04:13 Don't delay. Give the gift of safety and peace of mind this holiday season and empower young adults in your life to face modern day dangers with confidence. That's www. StaySafeditialacademy.com and use the code team house at checkout to instantly save $10 and help young people protect themselves. We'll have a link down in the description. for you guys as well to click on. So without further ado, Craig, welcome to the show.

Starting point is 00:04:40 Thank you, guys. Joy being here. Thank you. So Craig, we'd like to start at the beginning with our guests, ask them about their origin story. Tell us a little bit about how you grew up and how that took you towards the military. My father was a career military. He was in the Coast Guard. He served in the Pacific World War II. he was aboard the Spencer and he was also he was a Mustang officer and he was on the LST 793 invasion of Okinawa and so every three years we would move you know if you're military family every three years you pack up your stuff and your move well the Coast Guard is on the East Coast or West Coast or we lived in Japan for three years as well but so you you cross the country many many times so when someone says where are you from I'd say well

Starting point is 00:05:30 what year, you know. But I lived on the Presidio at the Army base because the Coast Guard didn't have a base facilities at the time. My brothers and I, and when I was 10 years old, I got a visit at school from the FBI to look for the grenades that my brothers had and his friends had borrowed from an Army bunker. And they gave them to me to hide. They wouldn't let me throw them at 10. I was too young. But I got to carry them in my backpack.

Starting point is 00:06:05 And as we were down on Baker's Beach, and they would throw them in the ocean, they'd explode, fish would come up. MPs would drive out at the far end of the beach. And they would say, Holt, which to us kids meant run. They said, I said Holt, which means run faster. So we would scramble up these cliffs and we'd hide out. Eventually, I think the guys get caught.

Starting point is 00:06:25 So I'm in school. I think my brothers told me to hide these or go, I buried them in the woods. And next day later, I got a FBI, two FBI agents, you know, I think I was fourth grade or something. And came and got me out of school to go dig them up. My brothers at the time and the colonel's fun ended up going, I think they ended up doing once a week,

Starting point is 00:06:49 they had a report into the FBI to say, yeah, we're not doing anything. I had, because I was 10, they probably looked at me like I was young, young and dumb, which by the way, carried well into my teenager. But yeah, so I mean, I grew up at a, as I said, a military family. On the Presidio right next to us, we lived in a duplex, was a Vietnamese family, and this is 1960. And my parents were godparents to a couple of their children. So I got to know some of the Vietnamese.

Starting point is 00:07:18 So now you go brush forward to 1967, 68. I graduated in 68. And my two older brothers were drafted. my oldest brother became an artillery officer. And my other brother ended up having health issues and he got out. And so I wanted to join because, you know, I mean, you know, when you're 18, you're young and dumb and you weigh like 140 pounds, you know, I want to go fight. So went down a recruiter to join the Marines.

Starting point is 00:07:49 The Marine recruiter was not there. And probably it was a good thing for the Marines. And Army recruiter was there with toothpick in as, mouth. I said, hey kid, what do you want? I'd give you anything. And of course, I sign up for what you sign up. You go do the asfab test. Apparently I did pretty well in the asfab test. And he goes, you ought to be an army intelligence. So I signed up for something called image interpretation. Went through basic training. I did really well in basic. I realized, oh, I like shooting. And I shoot so much better when my eyes were open.

Starting point is 00:08:24 It did really well. I went off to Fort Hollerbird, Maryland to, you know, the tell agent school and I got so bored that I asked to drop out and volunteer for infantry. Now, I was 18. You can make fun of me all you want. But, you know, it's like this is not the army I signed up for. I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to do something. So I thought my platoon sergeant was going to cry. He took me into the lieutenant. And I said, yes, sir, I like to volunteer for infantry. I thought he was going to cry. They took me into the sergeant major. Sergeant Major says, kid, you don't want to do this.

Starting point is 00:08:57 I said, Sergeant Major, I really do. And he goes, okay. And he says, we'll transfer you over. He says, do you want to go to a fort close to your home? I was from Seattle. He said, we'll send you to Fort Lewis. What was during the winter? I don't want to go to Vietnam training in snow.

Starting point is 00:09:14 So I volunteered to go to Fort Polk, Louisiana. And then I think all three, the two and sergeant, and then the Sergeant Major cried. Got down to Fort Polo. and Fort Polk was closer to Vietnam than anything I've ever seen. Went to NCO school. I did okay. I got over to Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:09:33 And when you first arrived at the Repo Depot, you know, you saw this guy come out with a black beret, Ranger Scroll, perfectly starch uniform, spent polished Cochran's. And, you know, they say, yeah, we're looking for volunteers to be Rangers. So about 40 of us,

Starting point is 00:09:53 new guys. I thought, we'll go sit in the bleachers and listen to this guy. And, you know, of course you go and you listen to him and he says, okay, you know, if we go out five days at a time, you come back in, you have a two-day stand down, then you go back for five more days. And we say, well, how long does the infantry go out? He says, oh, they'll go out for weeks at a time. And there's a hundred of them and everybody knows where they are.

Starting point is 00:10:17 And if you go out of five guys, and we said, how many people? They said five. then half the people in the stands or volunteers left. And the remainder of us, we end up volunteering. And then we got helicopter ride up to Fug Venn. Fug Venn, they got to the Ranger Company, put us in a Ranger tent. And RIP didn't exist back then, but harassment and RIP sort of did. We had a two to three week Ranger training course, was a Lurp course.

Starting point is 00:10:50 and, you know, it began in the morning at O-Doc 30. Sometimes some of the Rangers would wake us up with a CS grenade. Toss it in a tent. I mean, a tent was horrible at platoon-sized tent. You had a cot. I don't think we had, I don't believe we had foot lockers. We had nothing but, you know, your duffel bag because from day to day, if you didn't pass a training and you had a test, you didn't pass a test, you were gone.

Starting point is 00:11:17 So we lived in this open tent, sandbags all around it. Pre-O-Dark-30, they would get us out for PT. We would do our calisthenics. And in the rainy season, which it was, they'd have us crawl in the mud out to the road. We'd get a 30-pound rucksack, a rifle, LBE, and then we'd begin a five-mile run around the perimeter of the camp. Sometimes when it was being mortared. You know, you wouldn't. know that until, I mean, until it started happening, which was, to me, it was a funny experience

Starting point is 00:11:52 because I was one of the few guys standing up watching the mortars hit, and one of the, one of the grunts was smart enough to tell me, get the hell down kid, that is, that's, that's a mortar. And, you know, you hear the stuff whizzing by, you don't know what the hell it is. After three weeks of training of everything from medical training, calling an artillery, map reading, navigation, McGuirewig training, ambush, Australian. in Peels, learning how to work in a team formation. And you had a test. You had school test in a classroom and then you had the practical stuff. So if you didn't pass a test, boom, you were gone. And then three weeks later, two weeks, two and a half week, three weeks later. And I think they

Starting point is 00:12:35 made the school, it had to be long enough. You actually got a certificate. And General E.B. Roberts, the division commander, who by the way, jumped in at Normandy. He had had an iPad. she had a one eye and he came down and congratulate us and gave us our ranger berets at our scrolls i'm laughing because my ranger beret was a vietnamese one that uh i looked like the popping fresh doughboy you know i couldn't wear it correctly he was didn't have that right swag angle you know angle so i think you used you use the term in your uh in your book craig he looks like the pilsbury dough boy turned paris pimp was that was that it was that it was Yeah, it was. It was one of those things you look at. It's like, oh, my God. You look at the photos now, we kind of laugh, you know, but we had some really good people in the company. George Pacelli, the company commander, was a former SAG guy. And you had first Sergeant Guerin, who was really good. Passarillo was replaced by, that's the Captain Griffin's, and he, I think he was a SAG helicopter pilot guy. So you had a cadry of people that were phenomenal, special.

Starting point is 00:13:47 forces, Ranger, big brothers that, you know, really just good folks and really looked after us. We had two platoons in the unit. Operationally, I think we probably had six or seven teams at any one time. And that just depended on were people sick, where people wounded, where people on leave. You know, sometimes you'd fill out another team. But, you know, I was lucky to have some really talented team leaders. And that paid off. That paid off later.

Starting point is 00:14:17 to like walk this back just a little bit for folks. As I recall, there were sort of three incarnations of this during the war, right? There was the long-range patrols, long-range reconnaissance patrols, and then ranger companies. Yeah. This is 19, I think, 67, 68. Where in that trajectory were you, what were these units when you arrived? And where were you and what company was this? Sure, you bet.

Starting point is 00:14:45 It was 1969. And it was the hotel company first, hotel company 75th Infantry Ranger attached to the first air cavalry division. And then the headquarters, our company was located at Camp Gorvad at Fook Venn, Vietnam, Free Corps. Down in Free Corps, we were, I think most of our missions were mostly jungle related along the border. And it was one of the main infiltration routes from the Ho Chi Minh Troucheon. if you will. Tell folks a little bit about this what Ranger companies were doing when you arrived. What was this mission?

Starting point is 00:15:25 Because it's fairly unique. It was. You know, they started off as reconnaissance where, you know, the guys, the early guys would go out and they would, you know,

Starting point is 00:15:34 just sneak and peek. They would look for Viet Cong units. They would look for North Vietnamese units. They would gather up as much critical data and information as they could. Then without being seen, they would end up being, you know, exfiltrated maybe five, six days later, and they would pass along that information to command. By 1968, it began to be long-range reconnaissance, patrol, and ambush.

Starting point is 00:16:03 You know, could you ambush smaller units? And then things like snatch missions, tapping into enemy lines that you find out there, planting intelligence material that was detrimental to the North Vietnamese. It could be, you know, most of the time it was ambush. You'd go plant your claim words. You'd wait for a, you know, small unit that wouldn't overrun you. And then you'd either try to capture a POW and you wanted a POW. A POW, there was a company policy that for every prisoner of war that you brought back,

Starting point is 00:16:39 you'd get a two-day in-country R&R. So, I mean, it's like, don't kill them. Let's go capture as many of these guys as we can. Yeah. The trouble is when you're out with five to six people, when you're sneaking and peeking, it's all good when nobody knows you're there. When you're found out, you probably have 15 to 20 minutes. And if you don't get help, a gunship, or something out immediately,

Starting point is 00:17:06 then you're going to start taking your hits. and at times we took some heavy hits. Yeah. Tell us about your first patrol. First patrols are wonderful because you're afraid of everything. You know, the dark scares you. You get out into the jungle and it's so dark at night. You can barely see your hand in front of your face. I had one team leader that says, okay, we found a trail.

Starting point is 00:17:31 It had some good sign on it, sign being footprints, boot prints, bicycle tracks, because they'll use bicycles to haul in mortars, rockets, and God knows whatever. So you set off off the trail, you move off the trail maybe 10 yards. You go plant some claymores and put up at angles because, you know, that 100-yard distance that you're taught in basic training and AIT to blow a claymour doesn't apply in combat in the jungle. You have to be able to see your claymores and you have to be able to make sure they're not going to be turned around on you.

Starting point is 00:18:03 So you plant your claymores and then you'd wait to see who, walk by. And then the team leader would make the judgment, does you blow the claymores? Do you initiate the contact or do you, is this a point element? Right. Is this a 10-man point element for a 200-man unit? Right. Now, saying that, before our first mission, one of my buddies who had graduated with, he was put on a team that very night at graduation. They went in at sunset. And this was prior to, you. I think fire support base buttons getting attacked. And they counted 300 North Vietnamese go by their position. 300, which of course nobody believes.

Starting point is 00:18:50 You know, you say that's nonsense. Now I spoke with my platoon leader, Mike Brennan, and he was at the Ranger 50th anniversary as well. Mike is a wonderful guy. Mike took that information up to command. Command says, well, we don't know what to believe on that. the colonel ended up taken to the general. The general says, well, if my Lerb says it's true, then we're going to plan for it.

Starting point is 00:19:16 So they planned for it. They got, I think they got the artillery pieces down, lowered. They had gunships already. And sure enough, pre-dawn attack, Farspor-based buttons got hit, and hundreds of North Vietnamese were dead in the wire. So that gave you immediate credibility. It also scared the hell out of you to know that. this guy's very first graduation is that night that he had 300 North Vietnamese go by him 10 yards away

Starting point is 00:19:44 and that that incident's fictionalized in your book yeah it's um you know with fiction you can write more truth than you can with with nonfiction um you know I can't remember I thought it was a good friend of mine who told me he says hey if you want to write some truth write fiction I said why he says because if you call somebody a son of a bitch in a nonfiction book you can get sued whereas you can call somebody a son of the bitch in fiction and hey it's just fiction you know but uh and also fiction allows for creativity for you know for correcting all the mistakes that you saw or that you did you know i don't want to pretend of anything other than a lurp ranger at one time and then i was a squad leader and a recon platoon in the first of the ninth as well and by the way the first of the ninth was

Starting point is 00:20:32 the recon element for the first cavalry division the first of the ninth squadron had four troops, A troop, B, C, and D. A, B, and C were aerial rifle, well, not really area rifle. You had one platoon of scout helicopters, the lowbirds, you had one platoon of Louis Liff ships and crew. You had one platoon of gunships, and you had one platoon of infantry. We were called the Blues. And our job was recon, aircrew rescue, and QRF. and that was every day you're out there, you know, for a shot down helicopter, every day you're out there for doing a QRF on a LERP team that may need it,

Starting point is 00:21:12 which came in handy later when we went in for a team for Cambodia. So tell us your first mission? First mission. I was so scared. I think I got stuck as a medic, and you were the medic because you had to carry the extra heavy weight of the medic bag, and you have about 90 pounds on your back. you can't really stand up too straight. You're carrying an extra battery for the radio, your PRC 25, that you'd be lucky if it gets three miles.

Starting point is 00:21:43 You're carrying all your rations, your water ammunition. And so you set up for the night. You set up in a wagon wheel perimeter, five or six guys. I think I was on a six-man team, the first one. You're sitting back to back. And as the sun is going down, the jungle is getting darker and darker. and you hear some weird sounds in the jungle. And team leader set us up in a near a bamboo clump.

Starting point is 00:22:09 And I thought, man, this is great. Nobody could see us from the trail. We're well hidden. And then it suddenly occurred to me. There was bamboo viper snakes in the bamboo. So I pulled out my knife. And I think I weed whack the entire area the entire night. So anytime a leaf would blow and a shadow would move, I'd cut it, cut it.

Starting point is 00:22:29 So the next morning, you know, there was nothing but, you know, probably 25 acres of cut up leaves. And being the new guy, I think I even woke the team up one night because of the gecko lizard, we call the fuck you lizard. I don't know if you ever heard of the lizard, but, oh, it's wonderful. It's called the fuck you lizard. And you'd heard about him and you thought, oh, this is nuts. You know, there's no such thing. And there you are out in the jungle at night. you'd hear,

Starting point is 00:22:59 Mark you. And I thought, well, that could be a girl I used to date or that could be a con. And then how you woke up the person next to you is you squeeze their arm or squeeze their leg. You know, you're pulling, you pull a two-hour guard during the night. So it was my turn to monitor the radio and while the rest of the guy slept. And I woke everybody in the team up, you know, and I'm pointing to my ear and I heard something. And then, of course, the team later, well, the team. team members are sitting up listening.

Starting point is 00:23:30 They got their weapons. You know, their adrenaline is going a mile a minute. And then the lizard, of course, said, fuck you. And I said, yeah, that's it. And they all looked like they were going to gut me. And what a little light there was, moonlight coming through, I thought they were going to gut me.

Starting point is 00:23:49 And that turned out to be the lizard. So that was my first mission. So you're the new guy. You kill every leaf around you. And you wake the entire team up because of a gecko lizard. Nothing happened. That was a first picnic mission.

Starting point is 00:24:03 You came back in. You're filthy, dirty, you're scummy. As a lurp, you take nothing out with you but your rucksack, LBE and weapon. You may have a small piece of towel that you'll put over your face for the millions of mosquito

Starting point is 00:24:18 that you can play, connect the dots on those bites the next morning. But after five or six days in the jungle, you stink, you smell, you come back, in, you get a shower, and you're just, you know, re-up arm, get your backpack, get everything ready, and then wait until you get the next mission. What was that, you know, on average, the duration of these patrols?

Starting point is 00:24:41 Five to six days. Okay. Five to six days. It depends on, you know, what they wanted. You know, sometimes it would be just right outside of Fug Vinn. Other times it would be up near the dog set in Cambodia, or which is surrounded three sides by Cambodia. other times it would be up north near budap up near what i you know the cambodia area special forces camps up there as well um but you know you you just didn't know wherever the intel the g2 decided

Starting point is 00:25:12 they wanted some information you would go to that location uh helicopters would fly in they do i think ken miller was talking about it you'd you know they would do pretend drops you know drop offs So they come down to one, you know, natural clearing in the jungle. By the way, the natural clearings are actually sumps. During the dry season, they're dry. During the rainy season, they will fill up with water. So helicopters would come in low, pretend to land, take off again, make another false insertion, and then drop you off.

Starting point is 00:25:43 You may have 10 seconds to unasked the helicopter. So boom, you're off the helicopter. Team leaders racing you into the jungle, 15, 10 to 15 yards into the jungle. the jungle. He'll do a button, he'll move. He'll come back about 10 yards. And you will cover your own trail that you made and then wait. And you call it laying dog. You would lay there and just wait to see where the Viet Cong there, were they following you? Was anybody on your trail? And if so, you could ambush it because they would be following the trail that five or six of you made. Now, when five or six of you with rucksacks are going through a jungle, you leave a big,

Starting point is 00:26:19 big trail. And if you're doing it at dawn, you also leave a dew drop trail on the grass and the landing zone because the grass will bend over and the dew drops will just dissipate and it's like a big drop green ribbon. So it gives you to your direction of movement. If it's a wet LZ and you're going in and it's mud while you leave a lot of muddy footprints going through. So most of the time you could infiltrate. You get in and then you just, your team leader, you would have over your next four to five days a grid map, and you had to search every part of that four grid area and to make sure that what people thought was there,

Starting point is 00:27:01 either was there or wasn't there. And that was the value of LERP at Ranger teams. The military at the time was using, I think, what they call the pile-on effect. You send in a small LERP team, five guys to see if there's anything there. If they find something, you bring in a platoon. If it's too much for the platoon, you bring in a company. If it's too much for a company, you're bringing in a battalion.

Starting point is 00:27:22 So, but if it's nothing there, you don't have to send in a battalion. You don't have to send in a company. That's, you send in a company. You're taking up a lot of helicopters. You're using, what, 100-something men to, which, by the way, can't be quiet. Right. Yeah. That's the most difficult thing, I think, is, I felt sorry for the grunts because there was some of the grunts that would make so much noise, you know, scream out,

Starting point is 00:27:47 hey, who's got a cigarette or whatever? And you felt sorry for the guys who were really just doing their best to be quiet and run a good operation. And as I said, 100 people, the Viet Cong would know where they were, so they'd start probing them or they start hitting them. With a small team, nobody's really sure where you are, as long as you're quiet. I think that, you know, I've been reading about Lerps and, you know, thankfully interviewing some of you guys as an adult,

Starting point is 00:28:13 but I've been reading about you guys since I was a teenager myself. and it's shocking to me that there hasn't to this day been like a real like a movie or a television series about you guys. I mean, just five or six guys and tiger stripes out by themselves in the jungle doing these patrols. I mean, it's hair-raising stuff. And it's incredible. And you were all very young, too.

Starting point is 00:28:36 We were, yeah, I think I was more afraid of acne than it was a young. You know, but because I wasn't knowledgeable enough yet to be afraid of the people. Vietnamese. We were young. I mean, I was a sergeant at 19. Yeah. So by the way, when you get to a ranger, when you got to range your company, your rank didn't matter. You go through the training when you're assigned to a team. I had one spec 4E4 team leader. And, you know, the first thing they tell you is that you're not the leader. And I went, fine by me. You know, my goal was to learn as much as I can and try to be a good team member. I just wanted to contribute to the team and try to do a good job. And so I had a great team leader later on at a guy named Jim McIntyre.

Starting point is 00:29:22 Jim died, by the way, he passed away. I think he had an aneurysm in 1994 in his 40s. Wonderful, wonderful, brave guy. In fact, I want to tell you a little bit about him if I can, if you'll let me. Yeah, please. Okay, Jim, he was a private on a team when a team got in contact. one of the guys, Rick Arden, who was a ranger who told me this story, said that they were getting ready to toss a grenade out. Well, grenades, throwing grenades in jungle is really difficult because there's so much stuff and they bounce back.

Starting point is 00:29:58 And the grenade fell back within the team. And Jim McIntyre, this PFC, saw it, threw his rucksack on the grenade and jumped on the rucksack or angled it enough that when it exploded, he went up, came back down. He was not, you know, the guys were lightly wounded, but he didn't die. Wow. He got an impact silver store from General Roberts on the spot. He was promoted to Sergeant E5 on the spot. He was a natural woodsman. I mean, the guy was just really good in the field.

Starting point is 00:30:31 He was from upstate New York, and he was just a good woodsman. A lot of the guys weren't. You have to remember, guys from Chicago, inner city, guys from, you know, maybe Boston, inner city, maybe Miami inner city brave guys but they'd ever had any time in the woods or out you know anything you know

Starting point is 00:30:49 that resemble the jungle so these guys would you know wake you up in the middle of the night and say what's that? And say well it's a bird you know but the city boys and I grew up a lot of the countryside

Starting point is 00:31:01 so I had a lot of fun playing in the woods and used to play in the swamps in Florida and I probably made a lot of rafts and never floated too well. And finally actually got one. We would catch snakes. But we would camp out for the weekend.

Starting point is 00:31:17 So the jungle didn't scare me as much as I said, acne did. But now getting back to Jim, his next one of the missions that followed, he was on a team. They were getting pulled out. Exfilt traded out. The helicopter crashed going out of the LZ. And so a couple of the guys were wounded. he went into this fire sport base called Becky. And Becky proves to be an interesting story.

Starting point is 00:31:51 A lot of the team members were air vac, medevacked out. He was going to be pulled out the next day. Well, that night, Becky gets overrun. And fire sport base Becky got overrun. I think they destroyed a lot of the artillery, hand-to-hand fighting. So Jim was involved in that on his next, you know, on one of the follow-up missions. So here's a guy that is in the thick of it and has a sense and smarts enough to really take the fight to the enemy. Then the mission that I was on on Jim's team, we got hit by 45 North Vietnamese.

Starting point is 00:32:25 Two of our guys were killed. Third one was shot up badly. And Mack was taking the fire to the NBA coming in at us. And he was telling us to fire. He didn't know the other guys had got shot and killed and badly wounded. and he turned around and his jaw kind of dropped. He got me to fire at a 180. And you're doing a 180 to keep the North Vietnamese

Starting point is 00:32:49 from coming in from around you. And then he was just taking the fight to the enemy. We were fighting with every weapon we had. We sometimes would carry an M79 grenade launcher besides our M16. We had an M14 automatic that would, you know, sounded like an M60 when it's fired. I think Jim had a car 15 at the time.

Starting point is 00:33:10 So we were tossing grenades and we were firing everything we could. We found out a QRF couldn't come in for us. And this is in Song Bay right outside of Fire Sport Bay's buttons. So the QRF that was supposed to come in for us couldn't. They were off doing something else. And we were told to leave our dead and then E and E off to this clearing where we would get picked up. well jim kind of turned around looked at me and you know he says we're not leaving our dead and i nodded and i thought that was the bravest thing i've ever heard anybody say it was also the most frightening

Starting point is 00:33:49 thing because we were you know you're kind of manning the radio and i was giving the radio to one of the wounded guys horribly wounded um the poor kid had probably i mean his legs both legs were shattered at the thigh and you're trying to fire you're trying to pull the other people back to safety and you never feel more useless where you can't help these wounded guys because you have to set up the perimeter to keep the end you know and we're talking 10 yards away they they kept probing at us coming in at us and firing luckily i mean we i think we were down behind a tree and the other guys weren't um but that was jim and jim by the way the q r f that came for us came from mike brendon staff sergeant ernest Ernest Bostarge, Sergeant Charlie Ochoa, and a whole,

Starting point is 00:34:36 Greenlee and a whole bunch of these guys from our ranger company that got a helicopter to fly way the hell out to Song Bay where we were, they were going to repel in for us. But by that time, the Medivac came in, gunships came all around us and gave us a 360 fire. We sent our wounded guy up first. We sent the two bodies up. Mack sent me up, and then he got pulled up. So that's the type of Rangers we got to work with. who would put their life on the line to help you.

Starting point is 00:35:06 And then the team leader like Jim McIntyre, who was probably, as I said, he was the real John Wayne. He was a genuine hero. Yeah. I was lucky enough to been on the team with him. Yeah. Come back in and I got, it turns out I got malaria on that mission,

Starting point is 00:35:22 so now I'm in the hospital. So my 140 pounds dropped down 135, I think. I spent about two to three weeks in the hospital. and I come back and I think they were concerned about me. You know, I got called up to squadron to be the squadron commander's jeep driver. And I turned them down. And I said, I'll volunteer to go up to Apache troop. And I didn't know how to drive a stick.

Starting point is 00:35:51 I was too embarrassed to say I couldn't drive a stick. So I turned down a safe Jeep driving job. And I went up and volunteered for the recalplet to it up at Apache Troop. where some of our rangers had gone to because you get tired of going out with five guys. And our recont, a recont platoon up there, we had 23. We had four machine guns. Now, a platoon has only authorized one machine gun. But since our job was air crew rescue, every time a helicopter got shot down,

Starting point is 00:36:20 we would borrow an M60. So, and our platoon leader who was a special force is Lieutenant Jack Ugly, he didn't care. You know, the more fire. power we had the better. So our 23-band platoon had four M-60 machine guns. You know, all the gunners look like Poncho Villa. Most of us carried an extra 100 rounds for the 60. And it came in really handy with firefights. And we got into a few. We got into a really bad one on March 19th. And we ran into a battalion.

Starting point is 00:36:54 Craig, I'm sorry to interrupt. I got to let Dave do a shout out to our other sponsor. We'll get right back to that one, okay? Oh, piececake. And actually, before we go there, because I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about sort of about the LRPS or about the recon missions. But real quick, thank you to our sponsor, GhostBed.

Starting point is 00:37:15 If you sleep hot at night, and many of us have, and I still do, I'm a hot sleeper, you know just how disruptive it can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle night or all the above. That's where GhostBed can help. As the makers of the coolest beds in the world, Ghostbed is your go-to for cooling mattresses, cooling pillows, and even cooling bedding.

Starting point is 00:37:37 From their signature ghost ice fabric to patent a technology that adjust with your body temperature, every ghostbed mattress is designed with cooling in mind. So whether you want a plusher mattress that cushions your shoulders and hips or a firmer option with exceptional support, your ghost bed will keep you cool and comfortable all night long. When you purchase a ghost bed mattress, your comfort is guaranteed. You can try out your mattress for 101 nights risk-free and make sure that it's the right fit for you. Plus, they offer free shipping and most items ship within 24 hours. If you're not sure which ghostbed is for you, check out their mattress quiz.

Starting point is 00:38:16 You'll answer a few questions and get your personalized recommendation or reach out to their friendly team of sleep experts for all the help you need. Even better, Team House listeners can now get 50% off. site wide for a limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash house and use code house at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash house with the code house at checkout to saving whopping 50% off site wide. Also, if you're not in the market for a bed, check out their pillows, check out their bedding.

Starting point is 00:38:51 It's all great stuff. So, Craig, I'm curious because, you know, you mentioned when you guys were going out, with Rangers that you'd go and do these block searches or whatever at that time was intelligence driving operations or was operations driving intelligence or was it a mix of the two I believe intelligence was driving operations you know they would send you into an area where they you have to remember the first of the ninth that the first of the ninth squadron owned the LERP company they owned the scout dogs they owned all the recompilito they recont element. First of the ninth was the

Starting point is 00:39:31 recon element for the division. So typically, a pink team, a low bird, a 086, a scout helicopter, and a gunship would go out first light. And they would go searching, looking in the jungle, and the lowbird would be

Starting point is 00:39:47 flying at tree top level, looking for trails, looking for bunker complexes. And if they spotted something, that would give them some intel to pass along to, you know, your S to your G2, who, God knows, but who knows what the finer minds were thinking. Right.

Starting point is 00:40:03 But in theory, all that good intelligence would go back, and then they would designate missions or patrols from that. With a reconnaissance platoon with Apache troop and Tane in, if our low bird spotted something that was active, our platoon would go in. And we went into many occupied bunker complexes. Because we were next to the border, the Northeast would go across the border,

Starting point is 00:40:27 knowing that we couldn't chase them. So we would follow up to the border and then be told, you know, to stop. Sometimes they would get occupied and you'd be in a fight for your life. That we took some hits. And March 19th is the mission that I'll get that a little bit later. But yeah, the intelligence, I believe, dictated the missions. Yeah. Well, and I can't remember my other question now,

Starting point is 00:40:57 But something just came up for me. When you were watching, based on the border issue in Vietnam, because it was a very real issue. Oh, yeah. Based on that, when you were watching the war in Afghanistan unfold and knowing that like a lot of the Taliban was coming across the border, Pakistan, and then going back, what were your feelings about that? I was so angry that I just felt so sorry for the Afghan vets because I knew that, you know, what was Afghan? and the empire of lost armies, you know, that you knew that eventually you're going to be pulled out. And I just viewed it as a desert version of what Vietnam was. And my daughter spent 20 years in the Air Force, and she was in Special Operations Intelligence.

Starting point is 00:41:47 And every time she was in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria, I would go nuts. You know, I mean, I have nothing but immense respect for the veterans of Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, you know, they're places that, you know, they go. Because, you know, I think nobody appreciates the military until the barbarians are at the gate. Right. And I didn't like the pullout of Afghanistan. That made me cry. It just reminded me so much of Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:42:15 Yeah. That we left so many good, great people behind and cut it and run, if you will. Yeah. You know, and I've spoken to some Afghan vets. And, you know, you guys got my. admiration and respect because that's as I said I think that was a desert version of what we went through in Vietnam yeah and it's interesting that it played out so in so many ways it played out the same and that somehow borders tend to be our kryptonite you know like like the enemy is always

Starting point is 00:42:46 you know safe across the border yeah it's like a bad game of tag yeah you know suddenly it's like oh you're out of bounds you know they don't count and you can see them over there when we went into Cambodia in the summer of 1970, we found huge bunker complexes. I mean, there was, that was a Cosvin headquarters. We came back with, you name, I mean, tons of equipment and whatnot. So we knew where they were. And SOG had told us, you know, Saug had had so much information, and they were wonderful about what they passed along. However, you know, politics played a big deal into all of our wars. Yeah. And so the politicians defined where we could go, we couldn't go, the rules of engagement.

Starting point is 00:43:30 You know, it's, you know, wars have to be, I think was it was a Sherman who said the war has to be hell. Otherwise, it'll just keep going on and on, that type of thing. Yeah. You know, that if you don't end, if you don't fight it and end it quickly, then it becomes just a horrible, horrible thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:43:50 And that reminds you of my second question, actually, is, you know, you guys are going out, and like you mentioned, sometimes you were going near other. you know, fire bases or other people's areas. How were you guys managing, like, the battle space deconfliction to ensure that you weren't, that, you know, blue-on-blue engagements weren't happening? Hopefully that the information, like, you had a relay, we had, we called them an x-ray.

Starting point is 00:44:18 The X-ray, the relay station would either be up at Nui Badan Mountain or sometimes they'd be out of a fire support base, and they would let the fire support base know exactly, where your locations were. You had to make your check-ins every hour to let people know where you were. And there were some blue-on-blue. There was those attacks.

Starting point is 00:44:38 I think some teams got hit by gunship, roving gunship patrols. I don't think, I was never part of a patrol that got hit by anything else. More often than not, it was just Viet Cong and, you know, North Vietnamese backyards.

Starting point is 00:44:56 Yeah, I mean, it's all, their playground. It's their bunkers. It's their fighting positions. It's their machine gun pitch. You're finding rise. You're finding dropped equipment. So you know they're there. It's a question of do they know that you're there? With the recombatoon, it became a little bit easier because we had gunship. It's so much easier to sneak into a bunker complex when you have a low bird flying at tree top level making noise. So Ed Beale and I were the point man for the recomb platoon. And Ed, by the way, was another hotel company ranger. And we, we just got, we got treated really well up in Apache troop. Some of the Lurps up there, the former Lurps and Rangers, they said, hey,

Starting point is 00:45:33 come on up, we'll give you a steak. Oh, by the way, here's a glass of whiskey. It's like, you know, we can eat well. And Apache troop, we only went out on during the day. We never went out at night. Selim went out on a night patrol. So you would go out for a day mission. You may go out, two missions at a day. A helicopter may get shot down. You're called in to go in and rescue the crew or bring out the dead and survivors. Then you're called in to check out a bunker complex that a LERP team or one of the lowbirds had found. But when the lowbird is flying at treetop level, your ground, you're 23 people on the ground can make a lot of noise. And the North Vietnamese hiding their bunkers can't hear you.

Starting point is 00:46:15 Yeah. Well, so on these like rescue, on these like downpilot or these down helicopter rescue missions, I imagine sometimes it was a race. It was, yeah, it was a race. Sadly, when a helicopter goes down in the jungle, there's not much left. You know, if they're lucky enough to maybe crash into a, well, not even lucky. I mean, if they can make it to a clearing of some sort. But, you know, helicopters are not made, you know, they're not made for, you know, take tumbles.

Starting point is 00:46:45 and rolls. We found one helicopter, a missing gunship that had went lost for a year that went upside down and crashed through the trees and we found the pilot impaled with a tree. And the front gunner, part of his bones were inside the helicopter and part of his bones had been dragged away by animals. So that helicopter was missing for a year before we actually found it in the jungle. So what we did is we pulled the remains out. And their wallets were still there. Everything was intact. Their pistols were still there.

Starting point is 00:47:21 The ammunition in the Cobra gunship was fresh and clean. So, you know, we pulled out as much of the ammo as we could. And then we would plant C4 on it. We would be given the order to destroy it in place. So Ed Bill and I became some good and bad bomb makers. We once blew up in North Vietnamese. fish farm. And I think if you talk to any of the blues or any of the crew members, helicopter crew afterwards, they'll probably swear when they hear our names. We found a North

Starting point is 00:47:57 Vietnamese bunker. It was a fish farm covered by trees, fed by water, thousands of these little fish. And it was their, you know, it was their 7-Eleven for fish, if you will. And the lieutenant says, we should destroy it or we got the order to destroy it. So Ed Beale and I, he said, Oh, we can make a bomb. So I think we used a pound of C4, two pounds of C4, debt cord. We set the thing off. Picture a mushroom cloud of mud and fish going up in the air. Now picture that mushroom cloud of fish and mud falling all over the platoon and into the trees.

Starting point is 00:48:34 And everybody was covered in fish guts. So all you heard was a collective son of a bitch. Then, of course, when the helicopters come to pull you out, you're stinking of fish guts, they have to wash out and clean their helicopter, so all the crew chief and everybody's mad at you. So sometimes we made some good bombs that destroyed stuff. Sometimes if you just wish you had, you know, YouTube available back then because everybody would have laughed their butts off.

Starting point is 00:49:02 Craig, before I interrupted you, it sounded like you wanted to tell a story about that recon platoon going into a hairy mission. Was there something you wanted to return to there? Yeah, it's That's a day I think all of us believe we should have died That we were sent into a place called the dog said Now if you're not familiar with the dog said You guys are you familiar with fire support base Elling's worth

Starting point is 00:49:28 You know of the story or the book? Honestly, no, not offhand I'm not Okay, I'll preface it. March 19th We got an order I got a briefing to go into the dog's head Dog's Head is upper left corner of the Vietnam map of Tainan Province. It looks like a canine profile. It is surrounded three sides by Cambodia.

Starting point is 00:49:52 Was that the area that was known as Fish Hook? It was right near the fish hook. The fish hook and the dog said, yeah, very close, very close. And it's just the main ramp, off ramp for the Ho Chi Minh Trail, if you will. So as soon as we land in the clearing, three helicopters go in. Our platoon gets off. We have 23 guys. There's a trench line all around the landing zone.

Starting point is 00:50:21 And there are 51 caliber pits. No weapons, but the pits themselves and a trench line. So Ed Bill and I look at each other, we're going, okay, luckily we had a South enemy scout too. It was very good. and our South Vietnamese scout, we're looking around, we're seeing footprints everywhere, fresh boot prints, the North Vietnamese tennis shoe type print, not to mention the Ho Chi Sandel, tire treads.

Starting point is 00:50:47 And, you know, the Vietnamese scout looks at us, he says, they're here. We went, okay, we tried to, Ed tries to convince our lieutenant to leave he and I behind inside the jungle line so that when the platoon starts moving out, we'll ambush the guys we know we're going to come in behind us. And Lieutenant says, no, I don't want to break up the platoon. We need you guys. So we moved back into our squads. I was a squad leader.

Starting point is 00:51:14 Ed and I normally walk point. They had a different guy walking at that time, guy named Dennis Henderson. We started walking. Oh, no, no, this is the 19th. I'm sorry. I'm getting that confused with a week, one week later. Okay.

Starting point is 00:51:30 But we start moving inside. we're finding fighting positions. We're fighting bamboo camps. We're fighting helicopters made out of bamboo. And they would teach their people where to shoot a helicopter. We're finding wooden RPGs. It was a training camp, a training area.

Starting point is 00:51:49 So we move further in the bunker. And you're checking out as many of these bunkers as you can. Now picture dozens and dozens and dozens of bunkers and fighting positions. underground covered with logs with a trail system and it's all in trees by the way so this is all in the jungle so it can't be seen really from the air you got double canopy covering most of it and there's fire pits there's stuff everywhere and we're finding fresh rice dropped equipment that's like okay did they go run across the border like they normally do so we had the gun or the lift or

Starting point is 00:52:25 low bird break away so when the low bird broke away we started to hearing Vietnamese talking. And it was like, this is not a good sign. So it's like, okay, you get all your people, you know, you get all your people ready for something. You're not sure what. We go check out the nearest bunkers. Don't find anything. So it's like, is it our imagination? Did we pretend we heard something? So I walk up to a bunker. My Vietnamese scout says, cover me. I'm going to go check this fighting position. Fighting position is 15 feet away. He walks over towards this fighting and green tracers start coming out. So he's firing at the guy inside there.

Starting point is 00:53:05 The bunker I have my foot on, while you're not near the opening, you never stand near an opening. And next thing I know, an RPG cone starts coming out of the opening. Oh, shit. And I know that the guy can't fire it because the back blast will kill

Starting point is 00:53:17 he and other people in there. So I grabbed the RPG and I tossed it over my shoulder. And as this guy comes out, I shoot him. And then we're down behind these fighting positions. And now we're getting dozens of whack-a-mole Vietnamese climbing out of bunkers. And the worst shot that you had in your platoon couldn't help but shoot five or ten targets. These targets are only 10, 15, 20 feet away.

Starting point is 00:53:48 Anything further than that in the jungle, it's kind of a blur. But you're seeing faces, you're seeing banats, you're seeing AKs, you're seeing RPGs. So to come out of a bunker, you got to put your weapon out first. So you saw a hand and a weapon come out and a head would pop up and you'd shoot this guy. And this guy may be five feet away in a covering bunker, covering the position you're on. So the next thing we know, we have a ground attack coming at us. What saved us besides our gunship and the low bird was the fact that we're inside their bunker complex. their fighting positions are facing out and we're inside.

Starting point is 00:54:28 So they have to climb out of the openings to get to us or run down the trails. Right. They can't mask for a massive human wave attack because of the trees. So you see these guys charging at you and they're dodging trees. And it's like, well, shoot, you know, you can't miss. I mean, we kept firing and firing. We were in a contact probably from, they say an all-day thing.

Starting point is 00:54:53 We got in about 7.7.30. We didn't get out of there to like 6 or 7 o'clock that night. Kickouts of ammunition. We had a QRF come in for us. They kept coming at us. We had four guys wounded. Ed Beal, one of my best friends

Starting point is 00:55:07 at the other Ranger appointment man. He got grazed with a bullet on the side of his head. He's right next to me and he's bleeding. Now head wounds, of course, look horrible. Right. So I'd grab him and he goes, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. Leave me alone.

Starting point is 00:55:20 and it's like, you don't look fine. Now, and he moves off to another bunker with our scout. And the bunker that I'm on, I figure, okay, I know I shot and killed the guy in there. I shot him in the head. I know he's dead. So I start to move and near the firing position, an AK-47 starts coming out. So I'm right next to this thing, and I see this, you know, the wooden stock up top. So I grabbed the AK and I yanked that out.

Starting point is 00:55:48 Then I threw a grenade inside the bunker. the bunker that had the RPGs. So, yeah. Two and two never came out to four. So you have some hearing issues, I take it to this day. The whole bunker went up, came back down. Now you're sitting in a depression. And you can now bleed out the ears.

Starting point is 00:56:08 The medic comes running up to me. I go, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. And we're grabbing AKs. We're using all of our ammunition. You know, we would go out with 25 magazines. We would carry an extra 100 rounds for the M-60 gunner. I tried to get my guys

Starting point is 00:56:22 carry at least three grenades each. You know, they could carry a backup weapon. I carried as a backup weapon an M-3 grease gun. By the way, Jack, that I bought off a special forces guy. You don't say. I'm shocked.

Starting point is 00:56:35 I'm shocked to hear that. Yeah, whatever guys bought a Thompson submachine gun. And we were trying to buy the flamethrower by a little tent. It wouldn't let us. So 25 magazines, I mean, obviously, like, well, maybe not, obviously. Did you carry a lot of that in your ruck then?

Starting point is 00:56:52 I mean, like, how many did you have in your rig and then how many were in your ruck and stuff like that? We didn't carry rucks. With the Apache troop, the recompleton, we only carried ammo. Okay. So we just, we went hunting for beer. So one of the guys from Korea had a bar, Browning Automatic. He only had, I think, four or five magazines because the thing was too damn heavy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:57:11 I think I had three 30-round magazines for my M-3. The springs were kind of worn on it. So, I mean, it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom. But you didn't have to worry about emptying out 30 rounds real quickly because you could knock down a tree after about four, five hits with a 45. But it was heavy. You know, M3s never jam. I mean, it's the most simplest weapon I've ever seen. My M16, I think I fired up all 25 magazines.

Starting point is 00:57:38 We had a Japanese photographer with us that day. We got kickouts of ammunition. I get a tap on my shoulder and I look around and the photographer gives me a loaded magazine. So he's loading magazines. Okay, I was going to ask you when they would do those kickouts, would it just be a speedball of ammo? Or would they be preloaded mags for you guys? No, it would be nothing more than a case of 5.56 or a case of 7.62. And some were dropped over in the North Vietnamese areas because we were that close.

Starting point is 00:58:10 Right. You know, and it's kind of like, well, okay. But they can't use it, thank God. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And then after about three or four hours of contingency, I mean, we had guys come at us.

Starting point is 00:58:22 I killed a guy coming at us with a bandit. And he died, and I'm not kidding you, right where you guys are sitting right that close. Yeah. And when I grabbed his weapon and pulled it in because I thought, well, if I'm going to run low on ammo, maybe I can grab his magazines. He had a rag in the end of the barrel and it was fully loaded. So he could have shot Ed Beale and I, but instead he wanted to ban at us. So his anger, I always tell people his anger and hatred. towards us got him killed.

Starting point is 00:58:51 Yeah. And after about three or four hours of the firefight, you're getting kickouts of ammunition, and then you're beginning to wonder, what have we gotten into? And we have bodies all around us now. Yeah. And they're still coming.

Starting point is 00:59:04 It's like, holy crap, when is it going to end? Our gunships, we were outside of artillery range for any fire sport base. So the gunships were protecting us. Well, maybe I don't know if we were outside because our lieutenant was doing everything to call in. He was called, he kept our platoon really tight and God bless man. He was a brilliant guy. And then our gunships from Apache troop, our own people just started pushing them back and

Starting point is 00:59:32 pushing back to North Vietnamese. So we only had to deal with the ones that were closer to us. Yeah. And at the end of the firefight before we get, well, let's see, we had a a platoon of grunts from fire support base illingsworth come in, supposedly to be a QRQQQRF. Now, before, we got out of that as we were trying to make it way back to NLZ, we got into another firefight. I'm doing slack behind Ed Beale. Ed Beale kills a machine gunner and as a loader on a trail, and I'm shooting at another guy next to them, and we start taking this machine gun fire. So now we're in another firefight for about another 30 minutes, less than 25 yards from the open clearing where we need to be for the helicopters, where the rest of the grunts were.

Starting point is 01:00:16 and so we finally worked our way out to that. I probably had two AKs over my shoulder. I think I might have grabbed it in an RPG because I didn't want those bastards they have that. Yeah. And by the way, they were firing at RPGs at us. Well, you can't fire RPGs in the jungle. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:34 I mean, these things, you know, you're raining shrap now. Yeah. And I can laugh about it now, but I can tell you very much at the time. Yeah, you're pretty much pissing yourself going, well, you know, well, this is probably it. And they just kept coming at us. We were credited with killing 39. We know there was more blood trails.

Starting point is 01:00:54 So we come back in. You're dead butt tired. Our Apache troop commander was a guy named Paul Funk, Captain Paul Funk. Now, Paul Funk retired as Lieutenant General Paul Funk. And let me just tell you, this guy was a wonderful guy as a captain. He was a gunship pilot. And he was the guy that you wanted as your troop commander. We get off to helicopters.

Starting point is 01:01:17 Two of us or three of us, four of us, had to go to the AIDS of the hospital first, the field hospital to be treated. I had a mild concussion, some shrapnel on my back from an explosion in a bunker that I don't know how it happened. It's kind of like, yeah, well, I wasn't thinking very well. One of the guys got shot in the thigh. Ed got grazed. So we come back from the hospital. We have to go back the next day.

Starting point is 01:01:44 but we come back in and Paul Funk has the cook's grilling steaks, and we come back in the company area, he hands us an ice cold beer and shakes our hand. You know, it's like I don't recall anybody ever doing that. You know, it's like, okay, he actually gave a dam about us. Now, six days later, well, not even six, six days later after the 19th on the 25th, we're sent back into the area. So guys in my squad, I couldn't get convinced,

Starting point is 01:02:14 to take more ammunition. Now we're carrying cannons, you know, anything they, nuclear bombs, you know, anything they can find to take with him to kill, you know. We don't want to repeat what happened. Right. So we come into another landing zone, a different clearing, and sure enough, there's machine gun pits all around that.

Starting point is 01:02:34 And there's fresh footprints, and there's dropped equipment. And it's like, okay, we don't believe they're running back across the border. So Dennis Henderson is walking point. at the time. Ed Beale and I primarily walkpoint for the reconnaissance to the platoon. And Jack Eugley always says that we were his A-team. And Ed and I, thanks to our South enemy scout, got to be pretty good at point. And I think it had to do

Starting point is 01:03:00 with being a Lurper Ranger. When you're in a squad or in a platoon, in a company, when firing happens, you don't know what's going on. All you hear is a firefight. But when you're on point, you know exactly what's going on because there shouldn't be anybody in front of you. Right. So Dennis, Dennis, we take a break. Think about 100 degrees. So you're sweating. You're tired.

Starting point is 01:03:23 A CBS news crew was with us, Richard Threllkel and his cameraman. The guy named was Skip Brown and a sound guy. So they took three of our guys. Now we only have 20 guys. And they wanted some, you know, I guess some combat footage of a recon. And Dennis says, hey, I'm missing.

Starting point is 01:03:43 some stuff, I'm missing all the, there's, think of in the jungle, because the CBS report says, and they go back down the trail. Oh, we didn't go back down the trail. We went another trail to go out. You never go back down the same way you came in. But think in terms of when you're in a bunker complex, there are multiple trails. So I could see the trail we came down and Dennis said, hey, would you take over a point? And I said, sure, no problem. So I get in and I have a new slack guy behind me a brand new guy and he's not quite up to the job just yet I nothing against him he just new and I tend to probably you know you know I'd probably move in a little bit faster than I should have I come around this one bend in a trail and look over to our trail and our footprints that are

Starting point is 01:04:30 going this way has a North Vietnamese tennis shoe crossing it and I thought well shit that shouldn't have been there so I went down on one knee and I'm looking at it and then a guy screams and then a guy who's maybe five yards away, he shoots me in the right leg. I shoot him, he goes down, and then I see all these orange flashes coming at me. And the first thing in my mind, and I know you guys are going to trigger in on this, keep that weapon pointed downrange. So I wanted to yell at the North Vietnamese shoulders, you know, damn you, keep that weapon pointed downrange. But I was down in the brush.

Starting point is 01:05:08 They couldn't see me. The guys know my platoon know I was shot. I was down. Now you're in a firefight. And I thought, well, okay, I shot the guy that shot me. I need to put in a new magazine. I went to reach a new magazine and I took some more fire. But I shifted my position.

Starting point is 01:05:24 My front thigh muscle popped out, probably, I don't know, rose up about this high. Wow. And it's ugly. You know, I took off my first aid band, it's too small. it was too small to wrap it up. So I took off my shirt. I wrapped my shirt and used the sleeves to tie it clothes. I thought, okay, I got to do something.

Starting point is 01:05:48 And I started to grab another magazine. And I thought, well, I see a tree. I thought, if I can get to that tree, I know I can be fine because it's back towards where the guys are. So I'm thinking about it. I'm a little bit scared to try again because I don't want to get shot again. And our Vietnamese scout came out and jumped right in front of me. starts firing at those guys, that bought me the time to crawl behind this big ass tree.

Starting point is 01:06:13 And then one of the guys in the squad had a radio, so I called my lieutenant up and said, hey, bounce a medevac and we got one line two, which means wounded. He says, who it is? He says, I said, well, this is blue 4-4 alpha. And he said, well, who's wounded? I said, blue 4-4 alpha. And when you're shot, you guys will probably know the pain doesn't really set in right away. your shock usually can't quite believe it.

Starting point is 01:06:40 I didn't know I got shot in the other thigh until the medic came up. Meta gave me a shot of morphine. Well, with a shot of morphine, nothing hurts after that. I mean, it's kind of like, yeah, okay, guys, you know, shoot me again. Bring me a beer. Is that whiskey? So, you know, Doc Rips open the back, my pan leg, and my left hamstring is cut in half.

Starting point is 01:07:02 So he bandages that thing up. Doc says, hey, I'm going to carry you back to the lieutenant. I said, no, you're not. I said, if you try to pick me up, we're both going to get shot because we're going to be moving too slowly. I said, you go. And he says, I'm the medic. And I say, yeah, and I'm a sergeant. And he took off running.

Starting point is 01:07:21 And then I got up, because I had morphine, I stand up and fell right on my face. I realize my legs don't work. So I'm crawling. Then Dennis Henderson, the guy I was walking point for came up, scooped me up, and carries me back. That's when you see that CBS interview. That's when they start asking some questions. It's possible they cut out some of the swearing I might have had in there when they're asking a few things.

Starting point is 01:07:46 I got lifted out on a Guire rig or not a Guire rig, but a jungle penetrator. Helicopter is getting shot at. The bandages, I get pulled up, I get stuck in a tree and the bandages get pulled off. The medics aboard the Medevac helicopter, wonderful people. Those are balzy people. They have to hover while they're taking fire. to pull you out. So they got me on board. They flew me into the emergency hospital at

Starting point is 01:08:11 a field hospital 45th surgical. The crew comes rushing out to the helicopter. And then they're cutting away everything they got on you, putting in IVs and everything else and getting into pre-surgery. And the pre-surgery is to close off anything arteries, anything that's bleeding, pulling out dirt. Your uniform is dirty, by the way. Any cloth that gets in there gets infected. And Vietnam being so high in heat. which you guys probably found in the desert, even a small cut will get infected. So that night or that afternoon, Paul Funk and the platoon leader and the guys came in and said goodbye to me because we thought, you know, I thought I was going home.

Starting point is 01:08:53 And I have all kinds of morphine in me, so I'm just happy. Yeah, I have a pillow. Now, Jack, tell those people with the ghost beds that sleep not only is essential, but good sleep is wonderful. Yeah, and morphine helps. And morphine helps. I was sleeping on, you know, drinking a mountain dew or something. And I just thought, boy, this is great until the morphine wore off. Then they flew me out the helicopter next morning to Coochee.

Starting point is 01:09:18 Medics came rushing out, took a look at your tag, whatever it had said about your wounds. They sent me down to the 93rd, 94th evacuation hospital, long been. And that's where your surgery takes place. They pull you in and it's a meat house. It's a butcher shop. There's probably 10 to 15 guys waiting to go in. There's this double doors that open up and all kinds of surgeons in there and crews. And they dragged me in there.

Starting point is 01:09:45 You know, your anesthesiologist is real clever. He hooks the crap up and says, you know, count from 100 backwards. I think I got to 98 and I was out. You wake up, I think I was hours and hours later in a dark and very serious injury award. and that frightened me more than anything. Frighted me more than anything I've ever seen in the jungle or outside of the jungle. And it's a bunch of young guys. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:10:12 That's where I have immense respect for the nurses and the doctors and the medics. But yeah, so that was, and I didn't get my one-way ticket out of the Vietnam War, as that CBS News thing says. That was six days after I got my second Purple Heart from the Shropnel. So now I have my third Purple Heart getting shot. And each one seemed to up the ante. And I thought, well, okay. Then I volunteered to get out of the hospital, go back to my unit.

Starting point is 01:10:42 Now I'm a mature 20-year-old. So I still don't know squat. You know, my IQ is probably two. Get back to my unit, my first sergeant. He didn't know what to do with me. He says, oh, my God, I sent your stuff home. We thought you went home. I said, okay.

Starting point is 01:10:59 Go back to your hooch. Go back to my hooch. and there's a new guy in there who took over my hooch. He said he took over from the sergeant who got greased. And I said, well, that's me. Get out. My buddies came back in. And then I ended up going back out for some other missions. Now, before, now you have to remember, March 19th is the day we ran into the battalion.

Starting point is 01:11:21 March 25th is the day we ran into more of the same battalion people where I got shot. Seven, six days after that, fire support base Ellingsworth was overrun. And that's in the dog's head. There's a book about it called Fire Support Base Ellingworth. Patchy Trobe is not mentioned at all in there. You would figure the intelligence would have gotten to the higher hires to know what we ran into on the 19th.

Starting point is 01:11:48 Right. But for some reason, it didn't get mentioned. But now Jack Eugley, our retired Special Forces lieutenant who became a captain, he ended up as friends with one of the guys, one of the lieutenant colonels who were captain who became, the colonel and the captain didn't know anything about our firefight either and they were in a firefight the very next day in our same area so they hadn't received that information but on illingsworth the mortars this was a brand new fire sport base i think i've read where they had maybe one or two

Starting point is 01:12:20 strands of bobwire up and a berm that was it um they had artillery shells and i don't know if this is a case if memory serves me correct usually they would see ship them underneath a bunker so that if incoming came in they wouldn't get hit but because they arrived maybe arrived late or something they it took a direct hit and the ammo exploded they had they had they had people artillery got hit and overrun and blown up Pete lemon a former ranger uh with a division uh I wanted could be the big red one they had gone home he was finishing his tour with a recomplatoon that was on ellingsworth and And he got the Medal of Honor.

Starting point is 01:13:03 So, and if you read his story, it's like, it's one hell of a story. And, but that was all in March within a short period of time. So every time I hear the dog's head, I tend to cringe a little bit. It's kind of like, yeah, I don't have good memories of the dog's head. Do you know why the, was the Intel getting stope piped? Was the dissemination just not fast enough? Like, why didn't these elements know that you had been in contact? You know, I think, I believe you hit the nail right on the head there, Dave.

Starting point is 01:13:35 I think stovepipe and the information, the communication methods, if you will. Nowadays, we have cell phones and we have the Internet. We can find stuff out instantly. Back then, you had a fuel phone. You had a Prick 25 radio. You had stuff that was after-action reports that may have taken a week to write up. Right. And may have been turned over to battalion or squadron.

Starting point is 01:13:59 And squadron got him up to headquarters. that could have been, what, three weeks later? So I've read, one sergeant major was telling me that he thought they had, when they left, he thought they had three metal filing cabinets of information that was never acted upon that they took with them, that they just couldn't go through it enough and get it to send out. Right. They can't process it. And, you know, and to be fair, like things were typed up. and you know things were typed up there were hard copies and then how do you disseminate it

Starting point is 01:14:35 you know it's not they didn't have sipper net or you know the internet and you know i get it it's just especially if they were all in a certain area it's just um you know it's it's odd that they didn't sort of develop you know a sort of a hasty you know like a hasty kind of a flash report a flash report you know to all elements in that area hey this just happened be a You know, maybe I wasn't privy to it or it just seemed to me that, you know, you would have had more Bob wire up on fire support base. Ellingworth if you knew that you had a battalion. Sure. He had over here.

Starting point is 01:15:13 But again, I don't know what the finer minds knew and I don't know what the people know. I just, my respect just goes out to the grunts, the pilots, the people on the ground doing the job. Because they may not have all the information, but guess what? They have to deal with it. and they have to deal with a situation. And so, I mean, we can look back and say, boy, if they had this, if they, you know, after, you know, I'm sure quarterbacking of, of, because I'm good at that,

Starting point is 01:15:40 I can look back and see, boy, if I was only smarter, would have done this and this B would have happened. But, yeah, I think it was stovepiping and I was, I think it was communication at that level at that time. Now, you mentioned something that you said, typed up. does anybody really know what a typewriter is anymore? Yeah, no. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:16:01 Yeah, I type my first book on a typewriter with a five-gallon buck and a whiteout and a paintbrush. So, I mean, when these computers came around and the Internet came around, I'm in hog heaven right now. If I want to research something, I go on Google and research it real quickly. Right. Yeah, you don't have to turn around to your Encyclopedia Britannica or write letters to National Geographic.

Starting point is 01:16:23 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I have to give you a little props for you guys as well because having watched a bunch of these prior to being on this thing, you guys have had some pretty intelligent people on and to learn stuff, I've learned a lot just by listening to them and I thought, oh my God, the things we don't know is amazing. You know, the newspaper, the newspaper media, they may mean well, but, you know, they don't always get the information correctly. you know, I think even your lowest GI will tell you what's going on in a firefight better than maybe, you know, some, some news guy who shows up for half an hour than leaves.

Starting point is 01:17:03 Sure. It doesn't understand. How important to you guys, because obviously, you know, you go through the infantry training and then you show up and then you do the LERP train or the LERP or the Ranger training for three weeks. How important were things like the battle drills, like knowing those? It's like knowing how to respond to a near ambush so that you're not going down on the prone because if you went down the prone in a near, you're probably never getting back up, right? Yep, exactly. You know, we would practice the Australian Peel. So you have your Ranger file as you're going, you know, each person is facing out a different direction. Rear Scout is facing backwards.

Starting point is 01:17:42 And then a team leader, this was in between missions. So a team leader would go, contact left. So he would turn left, fire up, you know, simulate firing up at 20-round magazine. the next person line turns that direction, fires up, and you follow him out. And you're literally taking, making sure you got all your people and you're sending hundreds and hundreds of rounds down where you're taking fire. And you got to be so good at that that, I mean, you know, you drill and drill and drill and drill until it became second nature.

Starting point is 01:18:13 We also did a lot of, you know, just point and shoot firing. You know, it's kind of like it's not, you know, you know, you know, it's not. don't have time to get down behind your, you know, your iron sites. Yeah. So it's like, okay. In fact, when I was going through AIT, we did a thing with a metal disc with BB guns. So they would toss them up in the air. And we thought it was really stupid at the beginning.

Starting point is 01:18:38 And then at the end, we realized we could hit those metal disc with a BB gun. Yeah. And I've told some people about that training. They were saying, oh, bullshit, it never happened. And then I found an article about how. Oh, yeah. I can't remember who the guy who used to do all that training, but you can still find his books on, like, eBay and stuff,

Starting point is 01:18:57 the point shooting. Because he used to work with... That was like Fairbeard or someone like that. I don't think it was fair. It was a guy who was like... Was it Jeff Cooper or was it one of those guys? I think he worked with Daisy, though, right? The BB gun company.

Starting point is 01:19:10 It was definitely a Daisy. It was a Daisy BB gun. Yeah. That really, believe it or not, that really helped. And they're playing and shoot. Yeah. You know, you don't have a baby gun. the time and luxury to go down on the ground. When you're in a high site on a LERP team,

Starting point is 01:19:26 you're down on the ground, you're down behind something. You may be down only behind your rucksack. Sometimes there's brush. And when you're facing a trail, if you go down behind a fallen log, a fallen tree, thinking that you're safe, that trail could turn off to the left in the brush and you you don't even know you're being flanked. Right. So you may take the fire from a different direction. Yeah. And that was the trouble with the jungle, I think. Craig, can we start talking about the operation that you describe an MIA rescue?

Starting point is 01:19:57 Sure. I think that's like pretty unique. And a lot of people don't understand that, you know, actually Lerps did go across the border a few times. Well, and also that was during the Cambodian invasion. Right. Or incursion, if I will. Right.

Starting point is 01:20:11 And so Deverton Cochran and I think was Carl Laker, team leader, assistant team leader. They were leading a team up in that area in Cambodia, five-man team. The team, I was told by one of the guys that they got their night hall position, and he didn't think, Dev didn't think it was safe enough. So he moved the team, decided to move the team a little further. And I'll get to the area and describe it, and you'll understand why that he did what he did. and when he started moving the team, this was getting towards sunset for a night halt position. They were ambushed.

Starting point is 01:20:54 So Cochran was shot, Laker was shot, Ron Andrus, the fourth third guy was shot, Royce Clark, the fourth guy was shot. The fifth guy didn't make it into the kill zone yet. And I think Devereign and Cochran either had the emergency radio, the Urqu 10, had the prick 25 or the or was the reverse but both of those guys went down in the kill zone with both radios so the two wounded guys are trying to crawl back and they're still taking fire still

Starting point is 01:21:30 getting shot that night we get a call now the team is missing in action you know the the radio relay station on on fire support base david in cambodia now david has been operating with ground coming at them. And we're talking dead bodies, even before you're flying there, you're seeing dead MVA soldiers everywhere. So they lost contact with the team. Now they heard the gunshots. So they heard something was going on, but they had no way of knowing. They couldn't contact the team, not a good side. So we got a call that a team was in contact and missing and Tainan. And my lieutenant came knocking on the door saying, hey, we need volunteers to go on the mission to try to locate these missing lurps. Now, having been in a team that got hit,

Starting point is 01:22:21 man, I owed, I owed these guys a whole bunch of stuff. So Ed, Bill and I volunteered. We started going from a hooch to hooch to hooch to find volunteers. We had about 15 of us, Duane Bloor, Tony Cortez, Jim Braun, the radio man, Dr. Valley, the medic. So you have 15 people. We were flying out that night in the rain. Bill McIntosh was one of the helicopter pilots and it's foggy and it's rainy. We land pre-dawn at Fire Sport Base, David, just as the sun's coming up, and it's a mud pit. We get inside the base camp or in the Fire Sport Base and one of the Rangers, Dwight Hancock, who had escaped and evaded, made his way back to the Fire Sport Base, and he's the one that told them what happened. Wow.

Starting point is 01:23:13 And so he said, you know, he knew that two of the guys were out in hiding, but he couldn't say what happened to the team leader or the assistant team leader. So he said, okay, so we got back in our helicopter and we started flying out in the vicinity of where the team was last known. And now it's foggy. The rain had stopped. Now it's foggy. And you're going through clouds of fogs and you come across these hills, rolling hills, that look like a golf course. and then down in the valleys are these stretches of jungle. So there's only so many places that they could have hid.

Starting point is 01:23:48 So now it's a question of, okay, which stretch of jungle is it? So we're flying around and we spot one guy with his hand up and he's waving at us. And our crew chief is about ready to shoot him because you can't tell, you know, here's a guy in Erdl, you know, with the flower pattern on and covered in blood and dirt. So we say, hey, don't shoot. That's one of the guys. we go down there, we pull him in, and poor guy is just badly, badly wounded, doesn't have a weapon and all he has is a knife.

Starting point is 01:24:18 And we said, okay, where are the other guys? And he says, well, one of the guys was crawling off this other direction a few hundred yards away. And we're looking for brush and everything. So we, Ed and I take a squad and we start, we locate the second guy. And we carry him back to the helicopter and we get those two guys out of there.

Starting point is 01:24:38 and we said okay where were you guys ambush and he says down in the brush down in the brush so it's like okay which draw which brush was this so um the platoon sets up on a high ground to a gun position because one of the wounded rangers tells us that they're all around here the NVA around here they were searching for these guys all night with lights these guys wounded guys were crawling and hiding and luckily the rain had saved him in the fog because the NVA were searching for him with flashlights. So those guys get ferried out. Ed and I start going down this one draw.

Starting point is 01:25:18 We move inside this tree area and we find a badly shot up area. Ed finds a knife. And we assume that's, there's no bodies though. We're finding blood, but there's no bodies and there's just a knife. And how many people are still unaccounted for from the team at this point? Two. Two more. Two of the five.

Starting point is 01:25:38 Yeah. Two are badly wounded, the fifth guy isn't. And we can't locate the bodies in. Now we hear the platoon in a firefight. So I was like, Ed and I are about 100 yards and something away. So I was like, okay, let's make our way back up to the, you know, when we have to make our way back up to the draw, we get back up there.

Starting point is 01:25:57 And our machine gunner, Duane Bloor, is covering us. And God bless him for that. Duane is going through some serious health issues right now, but a solid gunner. If you see that CBS news report, you'll see the guy down on one knee with the M60. That's Dwayne Blore. One of the finest M60 mgunners I've ever seen. Ed and I get back.

Starting point is 01:26:19 We were with the platoon. We try to tell the people what we found. But you can't. We got a firefight going on. So now we're taking fire from another line of jungle on a next hill over. And this is maybe, what, 100 yards? So, I mean, it's no big aim and shoot. Our gun ships are firing it up.

Starting point is 01:26:36 It goes quiet. We get a platoon from a QRF from David, fire support base. David comes out. The lieutenant gets these guys online in the open to go across towards the tree line. They make it about halfway across and they're shot up. And so they're trying to fall back. A couple of guys were wounded. Tony Cortez, a guy who was next to me,

Starting point is 01:27:01 the guy who ended up retired as command sergeant major, by the way. Tony was a draftee, so how he retires command sergeant major, you know, that's a funny, I can tell you funny Tony stories, but Tony was just a brave guy. And Tony puts down his rifle, runs out there under fire, grabs the first guy. Wow. Comes back, digs, takes this wounded guy back, and this poor kid, this one kid, you look like he got his jaw shot off. So he's out there just moaning, and it's got off, and you realize you can't do anything because you're taking fire. Tony runs out again, grabs this guy and brings them back.

Starting point is 01:27:37 So now we're up and firing, you know, to protect Tony. So we're in that firefight. We got the two guys out. Hancock had made it back. He's safe. We can't locate the other two. And now we're in a firefight. Firefight winds down, in theory, it winds down.

Starting point is 01:27:54 Ranger Company comes in with some of their people, and they still can't locate them. To this day, Devereton Cochran and Carl Laker both listed as missing in action presumed dead from this from the from the I've spoken to Royce Clark one of the survivors I got a nice letter from Ron Andrus when I was writing the book I was interviewing those guys with letters and phone calls and they those guys went through multiple dozen a dozen or so surgeries they were that badly shot up and wounded yeah so the two survivors

Starting point is 01:28:32 God bless them. Again, it comes back down to what Rangers do and what special operations are doing. Where they're doing patrols and missions that other people aren't doing, they're paying a price. Every time you see a scroll, every time you see a tab,

Starting point is 01:28:47 every time you see one of those berets you got back there, where's your bray? I don't need it up on a shelf. Yeah, I look at that. It just, you know, it broke my heart, by the way, when they gave everybody black berets. Ocean sakey. I couldn't believe.

Starting point is 01:29:02 I was so Sinsetsky, when he did that, man, I tell you. You know, because, yeah, that was such a wonderful thing to earn. When you earned it, you were, you know, you felt like you deserve something and got it. Well, and that was his thing is like the Rangers have, you know, such a degree of professionalism and esprit of core. Well, if we give the berets to the whole army, they'll feel that way too. It's like, that's not quite how it works. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:29:29 I know it works. I think you see it with like the new Army PT test, the ACFT or whatever they call it, that they're trying to like hold the entire army to like special ops physical training standards. Yeah. But as they quickly found out, the entire army is not going to raise to that level. Yeah. Well, when I was at the 50th anniversary of the Rangers at the second bat, boy, I'll tell you, you know, America's in great shape with those guys.

Starting point is 01:29:58 those guys are fire breathers. Those guys can do anything. You know, and I want to say something right now, I think for our LERP and Ranger operations in Vietnam, we were very good in the jungle. We had years to perfect it and learn. We out did the Viet Cong. We learned from their techniques. We've learned from Australians. We've learned from the special forces, guys who were there. I mean, a lot of our cadres were special forces. So we got to be very good at what we did for that specific things. theater and seeing the rangers out there at the battalion it's like holy crap it doesn't matter rain winter snow put them in the desert desert these guys are fire breathers you know and yeah you know you guys were tasked with doing a lot more than we ever had to do on a good day i can spell ranger you know and

Starting point is 01:30:46 um i think there's an end yeah one end but um um now i can make my jokes and all that and i i try to i love comedy so i'm going to keep doing humor by the way i did cartoons for army times Nice, really. Yeah. Remember all those little smart-assisms that they made us do push-ups for? Yeah. Army Times paid me $15 per cartoon. You know, you would be viral on social media now if, like, if that or if that, if social media doing those, you know, doing those, this is the military type cartoons.

Starting point is 01:31:20 Like if that was a thing when you were doing them, you'd be viral. Because a lot of people make their money doing that now. I'm not smart enough. My time has passed. I am 75. I look at the time that I have left. I've got a couple of projects I'm going to work on that aren't military related. One or two are, but they're different.

Starting point is 01:31:41 I love Westerns. Elmore Leonard, if you guys were big justified fans, he started off with Westerns. And people forget that, you know, he wrote, you know, 310 to Yuma. Valdez is coming. You know, he did some of the best westerns ever. And I love a good Western. And I'm going back to doing some comedy and doing some other things. Tell us about, but I want to talk more about your writing career.

Starting point is 01:32:11 Let's wind down your time in Vietnam first and tell us about how that kind of your time in country came to a close and, you know, getting out of the Army. Yeah, my time in country came to a close. I mean, after that LERP mission, I was pretty much done. The first sergeant gave me just to finish off whatever weeks you had left as doing, you know, whatever I wanted to do. He would send me down. He was a great guy, by the way. He would send me down to Bin Wah to price cameras. And the first time he sent me down to Bin Wah.

Starting point is 01:32:45 Well, Bin Wah, I had snack bars. They had go-go bars. They had, you know, a little bit of everything. So I went down there that morning. I priced cameras in the PX and I came back that afternoon. And he says, what the hell are you doing, Jorgensen? I said, well, these are the prices in the camera. He goes, I didn't really want you to price cameras.

Starting point is 01:33:03 So he was giving me some free time off. I could go down there. Yeah. Yeah. So, but he since passed away. But a wonderful guy. And I stayed in touch with a lot of these guys after the war. I'm still involved with a hotel company with a lot of my buddies.

Starting point is 01:33:19 I'm still involved with Apache Troop. And it's, and you know. your military buddies or your military buddies or family. Some are family. Some are like, you know, he says, well, all military guys are brothers. Yeah, well, Cain and Abel were brothers. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. But we, we respect and admire the good ones. Yeah. And, you know, it's funny because we just had this conversation recently, or I just did with some people, is that, like, sometimes the guys who you would absolutely trust to do anything to, they would, they would like run out in a hail of bullets to come grab you.

Starting point is 01:33:59 Aren't really the people you want around your family. I don't. You know. And then sometimes like the nicest guys in the world, the guys who you trust with everything, they're not that guy. They're the guy who might like hide behind a tree while you get shot up. So it's like this weird thing, right? It is.

Starting point is 01:34:20 And in combat, you see that. In firefight, you see that. That the people who talk brave aren't always the ones who are coming up to fight. And I remember this one new guy, he probably weighed, I think if he weighed 110 pounds soaking wet, and he looked a little bit goofy. And yet when the firefight happened, man,

Starting point is 01:34:39 he stepped up to the plate. And that's what you want. You just want people who will do the job with you. And I remember a couple of people that they talked brave after the firefight, but during the firefight, you know, it was, I don't want to, I don't want to disparage too many folks, but yeah, there was one or two that you kind of sit there and you knew who the, the guys that you could count on. I mean, even to this day, you know, they are, they are brothers in arms. Yeah. Ed Beal, Tony Cortez,

Starting point is 01:35:08 Jim Braun, Jack Ugly, my platoon leader, Mike Brennan, Ernst Bowstards, just a combination of Rangers Special Forces buddies that are just wonderful people that just, served with in combat. And those are the people, yeah, that you'll always admire and respect. Yeah. And like, you know, I was, like I said, 19 when I got there, young and dumb. And I tell people I survive Vietnam thanks to the good people I had around me. Right, right.

Starting point is 01:35:36 Who were looking after me when I was too stupid to look after myself. How did you, because, you know, we, I don't know what the World War II vets, like what they experienced in terms of the whole stolen valor thing. but it was a really big thing post-Vietnam and not just right after Vietnam, but well into like the 80s, right? And even 90s that, you know, you'd have guys talking about being Lurp or MacB-Sog or whatever.

Starting point is 01:36:02 Was that something that offended you a lot? Did you ignore those guys? How did you feel about that? You know, it was really funny. When I went to work for the Customs Service, we had a former command sergeant major for Special Forces guy named Ray Garrafalo. If you ever see the book inside the special forces, there was a picture of this short squat, you know, that's Ray.

Starting point is 01:36:23 So Ray went to work for a custom service. And my first day on the job there, you know, Ray says, well, you're in the military, son. I said, that's what's what I was. And they goes, who are you? They do 20 questions. Right, right. And you better answer all the 20 questions correctly. Right.

Starting point is 01:36:43 And I said, I was a Lurp Ranger and I was a recombatoon. Where were you there? Where were you in Vietnam? So it's kind of like, well, I was there, 1969, part of 70, and in Fug Vintan, Tainan in Song Bay. And he goes, I was in Tainan at the time. And he didn't tell me of special forces, but, you know, this guy had three or four combat tours. And he retired as a command sergeant made for the 25th Infraud Division at Tainan. So I said, well, I was lower, he goes, which unit? And I said, hotel company, first Cal out of Fug Venn, and General Roberts.

Starting point is 01:37:16 was the command and our first our CEO was George Passarelli then Griffiths and he goes mm-hmm and what was your M-OS you know and you go through the whole thing yeah and what did you carry and then finally about a couple days later he goes okay you know I just got the okay from him and but we had one guy that came in who claimed to have been something and Ray ripped them apart This guy was making up this story. And Ray says, I don't think that ever happened. I think, I think that I think you're not telling. He wouldn't swear, you're not being truthful.

Starting point is 01:37:54 And it turns out the guy was lying. And, you know, but that's the first time I ever encountered that. And most of the time, people didn't know what Lurps were. If you say you were Lurped, they'd give you a roll aid because they thought you belched. Yeah. you know, they,

Starting point is 01:38:11 you know, people knew what Navy SEALs were, people would tell you special forces. When, Rangers, well, the Rangers came in at 74, 1974.

Starting point is 01:38:20 So people were just beginning to tell you who the Rangers were. And, and when you said Lurp, they just kind of look at you and shake your head, and shake their heads. And he's kind of going,

Starting point is 01:38:29 that's okay. Now, I got a call from, when my book came out, Gary Linderer called me up. And Gary was telling me that he's going to put together this magazine

Starting point is 01:38:37 called behind the lines and would I write for it. So I said, sure, you know, I'm happy to. So I worked with Gary on Behind the Lines for all seven years. Wow. That was in existence. Got to know. Ken Miller is probably the smartest lurp that you'll ever run into.

Starting point is 01:38:54 And we have just a bunch of characters. Ray Martinez, another good guy. Oh, Ray, I would love to interview him. Ray is a wonderful guy. If you get a chance to do that, do that. And you sent me an issue of the, magazine and I loved looking through it. It was like so awesome. And Greg Walker published and stuff. I know Greg real well. Greg's been on this show. Great. I saw I watched his interview as well.

Starting point is 01:39:21 Yeah. And I know Greg was also the editor for Full Contact magazine. Yeah. Martial arts. I was I wrote for the martial arts magazine for about 20 years and I got to know Greg really well and our military shared experiences. And you get to know some wonderful people and you really do. And it's a hoot. But yeah, the stolen valor part, that's something I saw basically after movies like Platoon and the idiots who had come out of the movies going, now I know what the war was really like. Yeah. You know, it's like, okay. Apocalypse now was, you know, people forget that is nothing more than Joseph Conrad's heart of darkness.

Starting point is 01:39:59 Right. Even including the character's names of Colonel Kurtz or the bad guy Kurtz. And when you look at a platoon, Platoon had the right uniforms. They had the right look. They were burning shit in barrels and living out of bunkers. The ages for the guys looked correct. Oliver Stone, you know, I think he might have said all those things did happen.

Starting point is 01:40:24 I'm not sure over nine and a half years. You know, if you write about New York City for everything bad that happened in nine and a half years, you'd never go into the city. Right. So I think Blatoon had a lot of that. But I was happy to see the patches were correct. I was happy to see the weapons were correct. And the fact that Dale Die,

Starting point is 01:40:45 Dale Die was one of the editors I worked with at Soldier of Fortune magazine. And I freelance, by the way. And people go, oh, you work for them? I said, no, I freelanced. You know, I needed to eat and needed to feed the kids, you know, pay the bills. So I would send a magazine article in and they would buy it. I'm like, oh, boy, I'll send another one. And you don't get published on a regular base.

Starting point is 01:41:04 that you get, you know, maybe four months later, you got another article in there. But Dale went on to be the technical advisor for platoon, for saving private Ryan, for band of brothers. And he even had roles in each one of those, you know, those films. So I have a nice letter from Dale when he was leaving Soldier Fortune. And I was going, I was leaving to write my book. And I still have that that I hold on to. And I go, I know Dale die. So what was your first book?

Starting point is 01:41:33 which was your entryway with Gary Linderer. Acceptable loss. Okay. And that's a term that the military uses that you're all familiar with. Like, okay, we've lost enough people now. We'll end this. You know, it's when the public and the Congress gets pissed off. You're right?

Starting point is 01:41:51 And my book, the title was acceptable loss in infantry soldiers perspective. And I just got tired of all the, you had a bunch of phony veterans that, called them tripwire veterans that were you know CBS and all these people guys living in the woods they said they were combat veterans yeah and you know they would go and get some sympathy and then uh in-depth research uh turned out these guys weren't combat veterans and but they were milking that you know that stolen valor part um my wife was with me downtown Seattle one day and there's a there's a guy he says homeless vet and uh or Vietnam vet homeless so i said well hey uh you know, which division where you're with. And he says, oh, it's been so long I can't remember.

Starting point is 01:42:40 So now I get pissed. And I said, look, where were you in country? He goes, oh, I can't remember that. And I said, you know, you can forget your mother-in-law's maiden name. You can forget, you know, where you put your car keys. But if you were in division in a combat unit, you'll never forget that division. Right. And my wife had a yank, he pulled me away from him because I was slobbering at the mouth. But, you know, if it's a legitimate vet, I'll toss in something. Yeah. You know, I mean, everybody has their issues in that. And, but I don't like, you know, we all embellish our careers, you know, I mean, I'm really pissed off at you two right now. And I'll tell you why. You guys are really computer experts with CGI, and this is what you're showing people.

Starting point is 01:43:25 You, you overestimate us. We are just a couple of, like, grunts. who had to hear a a dirty civilian to produce this because we couldn't do it. A couple grunts trying to use all this audio video equipment. We're like monkeys at the monolith. This book is one I would like

Starting point is 01:43:47 to bring up to people, very crazy GI that you wrote. And I think what's unique about this book is a lot of the books and movies about Vietnam are, as you've mentioned a bunch of them, Apocalypse Now, Platoon. And we've also heard your stories as well about being a lurp in Vietnam.

Starting point is 01:44:08 Pretty horrific stuff. Like, it's pretty hair-raising stuff. But this book tells a different perspective of the Vietnam War. This is all the funny stories. It's all the absurd stuff. It's the fun stuff that happens. And you guys, you guys have heard, I guarantee you it, when your podcast is not going, when, you know, prior to starting, you're going to hear some funny stories from incredible

Starting point is 01:44:30 people that you will never air. Right. Right. Right. I was collecting those stories over the years when I was working with Behind the Lines Magazine. And it was just, you know, sometimes vets would say, you can use my name, please don't use my name. I had that Sergeant Major Ray Garofalo gave me one of those stories. He says,

Starting point is 01:44:50 I don't want, please don't use my name. You know, and I said, okay. And then when the book came out, he goes, you can use my name now. You know, he thought it was better. you know, and I got a couple of the stories from a Marine Sergeant Major, who was my K-9 instructor when I went through K-9 school. And he gave me two of the Marine stories.

Starting point is 01:45:12 And just a wonderful guy. And then I started collecting these stories. Now, one of the funny, some of them I couldn't publish, some of the stories I got. One pilot, there's a couple others I wanted to publish. The editors didn't want them. You know, there was one pilot, swears the guy he saw a UFO over there, a helicopter pilot. You know, there was one story in there about the guys who found all the money in the U.S. dollars in a bunker and then shipped it home. I've had two to three different people, you know, to call me up over the last 30 years saying,

Starting point is 01:45:48 I'm glad you didn't use my name. Yeah. Seriously, you know, that many. Yeah. But now the funny part is, Random House didn't want to publish that book. book. When I sent it in, they said, nobody's interested in short story in those things. They're really not interested. And I said, okay. So my wife and I self-published our own book called Buku Dinkidil. And if you'll see the subtitle of that book is Bukudinky-Degedale. It just means, you know,

Starting point is 01:46:18 French and Vietnamese are very crazy, which, by the way, at the time, we didn't know French, we didn't know Vietnamese. You know, we were, we were struggling. Some of us, I could barely litter it with English for God's sakes. But especially me, when they rejected those stories, my wife and I self-published it. And the book got four really good national reviews. And we made all our money back with the first hundred that we sold. And we only printed up like 500 of them. And then I got a call from the editor saying, hey, we'd like to buy that book.

Starting point is 01:46:50 And of course, they only give you an advance, a small advance. And then they gave me half of the advance because they didn't think it would be that good. about four or five months later I got a call from and say hey we want you to do another very crazy GI that's been our best seller for the quarter and I had to turn them down because those stories took me seven years

Starting point is 01:47:12 to gather up to collect yeah I was working a job that didn't allow me to travel and you know gathering up the stories are difficult you guys get finding people to get on your podcast yeah sure coordinating and editing and doing all the stuff that you have to do That takes a lot of work and people don't, behind the scenes don't understand it. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:47:32 You know, we get to watch and we think, oh, everything's smooth, not all the time. So, yeah, I quit. I wanted to write my own stuff for Vietnam. So that's when I started doing my own. That's when I did my Western. And, you know, I had such a fun time. My wife and I drove all down through Apache country down Arizona. And I had a fun time just from doing the research on that one.

Starting point is 01:47:55 What's the title of your Western and what's it about? 1886 the last campaign. And I took a Civil War ranger from Mosby's guys, got him out west working with Al Seber. And Al Seber, by the way, people think that it was just a Indian scout. But Al Seber actually was a wounded veteran with the first Minnesota at Gettysburg. So he got seriously injured at Gettysburg before he went out to become a cowboy. So I did that one and I submitted, I had to submit it to New York. York because they want turned down rights.

Starting point is 01:48:29 They said, well, we're not interested in Western. I said, okay, that's one. And then I did stalking the Dragon, which is the humor story, which is, it's an absurd humor story about a journalist who gets forced to go on a special operations mission to capture Ho Chi Men. You said the inspiration for that story was like an actual stolen valor case that you're like. Yeah. We're at a soldier.

Starting point is 01:48:52 Gary would get a table at Las Vegas for the Special Forces Convention. And we had it for Behind the Lines Magazine. So I had Ken Miller there and you had maybe Ray Martinez, Doc Norton, who wrote a wonderful book on the Marines of Vietnam. Mike Walsh, who was a team leader for, what, Seal Team 2. I was on another side, maybe Larry and a couple of these other guys. This is a group of people you don't want to bullshit. Well, you'd have idiots come up to you. One guy dressed as a French foreign legionaire.

Starting point is 01:49:24 Now we have buddies who went and fought, not with the French Foreign Legion, but who went into, or Rhodesia. They would come back and say, I fought in Rhodesia. Well, one of our guys actually did that, and he ended up with a South African defense force too after Vietnam and after Rhodesia fell. So, I mean, if you can't pass the test of answering his questions, then he's going to call you out in bullshit. So the guy that came up to me, well, the guy with the French Foreign Legion outfit, you know, I said, you know, jeal put, you know, you know, you know, a French, you know, a French, French, and he couldn't speak French. And I thought, there's no way you're going to be in a French Foreign Legion without knowing something. Right, right, you know. And then this, this young guy walks up to us and he's got a half of, you know, BDU on and or at that time as the Erdle, or could have been Tiger. Tiger, by the way, we had to buy those uniforms. We were issued Erdl. The Tigers.

Starting point is 01:50:26 Yeah, the tigers we had to buy. And they were cheaply made. So when you're out in the jungle with the tiger fatigues and you catch your branch, you may rip all the way up to your crotch. Oh, really? Yeah. So it's kind of like if you had a good set of tigers, a legitimate set, man, you held onto those. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:50:44 Just like a good beret as well. We didn't always have the finest. Yeah. Yeah, but this kid came up to us at the convention, and he was telling, you know, I was in Vietnam. It's like, okay, you know, you hear that a lot. And it's like, all right. And of course, you're trying to be polite. Well, who are you with and when?

Starting point is 01:51:01 I was, I did special operation stuff. And it's like, oh, okay. He says, yeah, I was on the mission to capture or to kill Ho Chi Ming. Ho Chi Ming? Who? He said, Ho Chi Ming. I said, M-I-N-G? I said, yeah.

Starting point is 01:51:16 I said, where'd you go to basic? What? What's your M-O-S? And he just started going back into the crowd and disappearing. And I thought, boy, that's, and that just kind of inspired to do that. One of the article, that actually got me inspired to do the book because I wanted to do something where a rural area guy gets pulled into something, not for his own doing, but for another reason that is funnier, funnier in hell.

Starting point is 01:51:40 Yeah. And he ends up going on to special operations. And I won't tell you what he does, but it's funny. It was so much fun writing that book. What's the title of that one? Stalking the Dragon. Stalking the Dragon. So it won a 2010 Best Humor Award from Reader Views.

Starting point is 01:51:56 Oh, that's great. Yeah, I was, you know, and my wife was back in, we had the big square computers. I'd be sitting there typing at night. You know, she'd be sitting down with the kids, and I'd be laughing. She'd go, what's so funny? I said, oh, this one. You know, so that book turned out to be a joy. I like humor.

Starting point is 01:52:16 I love you, military humor. Yeah. It's who we are. It's what we do. And communication, if we can communicate with people and get our points across. I don't, I don't think there's any book that I've written out there that I wouldn't rewrite. I look at it now as being, boy, maybe the next one will be better. Maybe the next one will be better.

Starting point is 01:52:34 But it's a disease because it's who we are. It's like, you know, how do you feel from your first podcast, which I saw, by the way. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that. Yeah, we apologize deeply. That's the way I am with my books. I look at it, you know, I had some, oh, God, it was at a friend of mine, he was a sergeant major in the guard, and he was a federal police officer, and it was at his retirement party.

Starting point is 01:53:00 And so I went down to his retirement party, and he introduces me to this guy who went through special forces and fought in Iraq. And he's a legitimate deal. And the guy goes, yeah, this is my friend. This is Craig Jorgensen. And he goes, oh, wow. Do you know the guy that wrote the book? Oh, I know a guy. The guy wrote the book, Acceptable Loss.

Starting point is 01:53:25 I said, yeah, that was me. He goes, man, that's the reason I joined the Army. I went, oh, shit, I apologize. Yeah. And, you know, I ran into a young ranger down at Fort Lewis who was telling me, I think it was, I want to say one of the hooligans, you know, that a platoon is, the hooligans. Dave, are you, I should, but I should. I actually don't know.

Starting point is 01:53:47 I don't either. Do you remember what company? You know, I was there. I was there. I was there. I can't believe we could. I was, yeah. Oh, you would have seen a whole bunch of us out with walkers and wheelchairs and going from, you know, we'll get to the, we'll get to the gun ship eventually. I'm not sure if, I'm not sure if I would have seen you because I was in an ice bath for so long after standing for some of those.

Starting point is 01:54:10 Like, my back was just like, all right, I'm done. I came home and I did the same thing. I crawled in the bathtub. I grabbed a beer, grabbed two extra strength, et cetera. And my wife said, how was it? I'm going, I'm too old. Yeah, yeah. And watching those guys do their stuff, whether it was a fast repel,

Starting point is 01:54:31 whether they were doing the shooting, the canine thing. I was a canine guy for five years. So I really enjoyed watching the canine. But I thought, I'll be like, I'll be lucky. lucky enough if I can hold the door for these guys. I appreciate what you guys did because you guys are in, you guys now are feeling like Vietnam vets because you look at the younger generation. And they look at you as being old and you're not. You guys are in a perfect, you know, perfect age. Just watching them, I had to take Motrin. Like, you know, it was sympathetic pain I was getting just from watching them do their stuff.

Starting point is 01:55:07 I hated the fact where they said they were born after, you know, after 2004. Yeah. That's hard for me. I'm struggling with that. We had a, well, I had a similar experience that one of the young Rangers was out there. We were up in, you know, their bar area in their, in their coughs, you know. And he was like, man, I used to watch your show all during high school. And I guess we've been going for like five years now.

Starting point is 01:55:34 So the idea that a kid could have been. watching us in high school and be in the military now is like crazy but he's like you think in terms of it inspires him and i'll tell you the good thing that you guys do that we book the guys who do the books can't do is is the fact what the hell i got oh man um is that you guys have the opportunity to speak in depth with your people you're interviewing week after week after week so you're getting all of these people so if a kid is thinking about joining the the military. They need to watch you guys to see what Rangers, with special forces, what SEALs, what CIA, what college is, what value college may have if they want to get a career in, say,

Starting point is 01:56:18 intelligence or whatever. You know, I think to, you know, when, like I was saying earlier, when I was a kid, really the only books available were about Warp Rangers in Vietnam. And so we're talking. Maybe some seal books. When I'm, when I'm, there are some seal books. But yeah, Yeah, yeah. Also Vietnam era. Because I'm talking about like the mid to late 1990s, you know, I'm like 16, 17, 18. The one contemporary book was Black Hawk Down. Everything else was Vietnam. And I mean, I love you guys. But what Rangers were doing in Vietnam was not the same thing that Rangers were doing

Starting point is 01:56:58 when I got to Battalion in 2003. So there was not any sort of. avenue to learn about that job, that profession, really. You can learn about the legacy and the lineage, but not what they do today. And I think with these podcasts, ours and some of the others out there, it gives an opportunity for these young Americans to, like, whatever they are interested in, like, they want to be a combat medic and Ranger Battalion, or they want to be an 18 Bravo in special forces, or do they want to be a trauma surgeon? Like, there is a podcast you can find with a guy who did that entire career.

Starting point is 01:57:36 I'll add on to that, though, that, you know, warfare is so circular and, you know, like what they were doing in World War II, they were doing in the G-Watt, like some of that stuff in terms of like Fallujah and some of the Ramadi and stuff like that. And so there will be a day, though, when you guys coming on and speaking, you know,

Starting point is 01:58:01 talking about jungle warfare. And, you know, It'll come back. Talking about the things that you did and you trained for and what you did and ambushes and these things, those will be relevant again because nobody's looking at fighting in a desert. Look at the trench warfare in Eastern Europe today. Exactly. You know, you look at Ukraine and the trench warfare and wouldn't it be nice if we had World War I vets,

Starting point is 01:58:25 you know, recordings of World War and vets on talking about their experiences so that people weren't re-learning these lessons. Yeah, you know, you're correct, reinventing the wheel. Yeah. You know, it's like I was pissed off at the Army when they got rid of the Lursa groups. You know, it's like you need long-range surveillance somewhere. Yeah. You know, and you need to have eyes in the sky. You need to have eyes on the ground.

Starting point is 01:58:53 You have to have boots on the ground, finding good intel to add to what you think you know. I think the drone warfare is amazing and changing the battlefield now as we see it. I think as Vietnam vets, we're like the last of the Indian fighters, if you will. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah, our helicopters were our horses. We went out looking for stuff and we'd run into the, you know, the Viet Cong or the NVA. And they were fighting with primitive, you know, communications, devices and stuff just like us. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:59:21 So we were mostly, you know, we're fighting each other. We were good for the jungle, I think. The helicopters were the wonderful. I'm glad I was real proud to be in the first cab division. we had helicopters. We sell them if ever. I mean, I think Gary or Ken was telling me about one alert mission where they dropped them off on the back of a deuce and a half.

Starting point is 01:59:45 You know, it's like our helicopters, I mean, my goodness, you know, we'd load on three UIs. We knew the pilots. We knew the crew chiefs. There were our people. That's the other thing. And when we got shot and injured, our guys came in for us. And when we got into a firefight,

Starting point is 01:59:59 and if the pilots didn't like you before they got shot, got down, those pilots loved you when you came into their rescue. You know, I was just going to mention because, you know, you say that you guys were like the last Indian fighters, and at some point, you know, because you think of drones and a lot of technology, well,

Starting point is 02:00:15 if we're ever fighting in a jungle gun, those drones probably will not be as relevant. A lot of them. You know what I mean? And so many of the things, you know, the Army or the Air Force, I guess, or the military in general, you look at the A-10, which they've been trying to scrap.

Starting point is 02:00:32 You look at the AC130. They've been trying to scrap since Vietnam. And, you know, the Blackhawks, like, these airframes have proven themselves time and time and time again. And they have not been able to find anything to replace them. And people say, we don't need this airframe anymore. And then all of a sudden, this airframe is saving people's asses no matter, you know, 30, 40, 50 years later.

Starting point is 02:00:56 Yeah, the ward hog, that 8-10 is, you know, you see them shot up and they're still flying They're still knocking out, you know, and you're absolutely right. You know, I think reinventing the wheel, reinventing the equipment, it's like, okay, what works, what doesn't work. You know, the first M-16, the stoner that had didn't have that forward assist. Yeah. So those things jammed because guess what? The jungle is dirty.

Starting point is 02:01:15 There's sand. And there's also leeches, mosquitoes, tigers, tigers, rhinos, crocodiles. I didn't know Vietnam had crocodiles. Or a Bigfoot, its own version of a big. The Sasquatch story and very crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Craig, tell us about chasing Romeo.

Starting point is 02:01:37 You mailed me this book. I read it this last week and I really loved it. Tell us about this series and what this is about. People don't realize that by 1971, most of the Ranger companies, Lerp companies, were pulled out of Vietnam. So you may have had four or five left, but the war wasn't over. So you still had it, the NBA were still coming down in the thousands. the other people think, oh, there's only 100 Vietnamese or whatever.

Starting point is 02:02:01 There were thousands of those people coming down. The, what, the 67, 68 TED Offensive saw 80,000 Vyakong, North Vietnamese soldiers in coordinated attacks, 80,000. So the numbers. So I was thinking, you know what, I like Lurps. I was real proud to have been a Lurp. Real proud to have been rangers, real proud of the guys I worked with. I got to know a lot of the guys from earlier times,

Starting point is 02:02:30 and I was really proud of their stories. And I thought, you know what, let's see if I can write something that will be interesting to read for a person just picking up a book. What is a LARP? What did they do? So supposedly I invented a company, our company, which is Romeo in the phonetic talk back then, and I attach them to MacV headquarters

Starting point is 02:02:51 because not MacV Saw it, but MacV headquarters. And then I loaned them out to, to a fictitious fire support base or Camp Mackey and to pull alert missions. And then I stuck a Special Forces Company Commander and First Sergeant in there. Then I had some fun with it. I thought, okay, what are the stories that you remember? What are the stories that would get people to see how harrowing the job was? Because it's fiction, but most fiction is based in truth, has some truth somewhere. Did you go out in five and six-man teams? Yes, we did. Did you get in firefights? Yes, you did. Did you, were some of, some of the patrols, did you lose people? Yeah, you did.

Starting point is 02:03:29 Were some of them, what did you find when you're out there, you know? So I wanted to do my own series. So I did the first book and I said, well, it's got to have a follow-up book. So I thought, okay, I came up with the second one's called The Belly of the Beast, which I think the funniest R&R story you'll ever read. Okay. As with the first sergeant in Bangkok. I'm looking forward to it. I'll send it. I'll send you guys. I'll send you the Western as well. Okay. And now I finished the third one. You said you asked me earlier if I wanted to have Adler be the company commander.

Starting point is 02:04:04 Yeah, yeah. Well, the time frame didn't allow because by 1972, all the Lurp companies were gone out of Vietnam. And they were, by 73, there was no, what, no ground forces left, basically. You know, by 75, you had minimal stuff in the big bases, but not more. much. The combat was winding down. Nixon's Vietnameseization, he was pushing it on the Vietnamese to take over the bulk of it. So the third book is called Sweet Sorrow, which you know, the Shakespeare parting is said sweet sorrow. So I wanted to do

Starting point is 02:04:35 the suddenly these guys who were doing a really good job as a LERP company, get informed that the company is being shut down. Right. So I saw the faces. I got invited out to one of the Lursa units when they were being stood down. And watching the heartbreak in the soldiers faces, you know, the, you know, and it's must, yeah, it's, it's, it's to put in a lot of hard work and then to be told by the army, like, we don't need you anymore. Right. Like, it's, goodbye, we don't need you. Not, not a great feeling. Right. Yeah. And it's, it's a thank you, you know, don't let the door hit you on the way, on the butt on the way out. And so I wanted to do

Starting point is 02:05:14 something, but I wanted to own my own series. You know, the big book companies in New York will own the rights of those first books. I'll never see them. With e-books out there, I'll never see. I'll probably never own them again. I had one lady called me up years ago. She wanted to do a treatment on a script on one of the books. I could not give her permission because I didn't own the rights. Right. So I referred her to the editor back New York and New York said that they weren't going to give her a position unless she paid for it. It was a big amount of money. So I thought, well, a treatment is nothing more than an idea to do a, you know, a script that will need to be shopped around. And, and of course, nothing never happened out of that. So I thought, okay, I want to own my own

Starting point is 02:06:01 books. You know, I want to be responsible for, and I self-published these. I work with Book Locker Press. And I get more than I ever got from the big book company, by the way. So I've learned something about business along the way. Why did I do the next book? Because this book paid for the next one. And the belly of the beast paid for the next one. So as long as I can keep those paying for each other, I'm going to keep writing. I did a real funny book. This is this is my first non-war book. It's called In for a Penny, In for a Pounding. And my wife, my wife makes fun of me. She says, you're Western and your Civil War book. She goes, your Western is nothing more than Vietnam with Indians.

Starting point is 02:06:49 Yeah. And so, okay. She goes, your Civil War book is Vietnam again. I went, okay. This one is not. This one is about a adjunct professor who gets laid off and discovers that he has a knack for forging Hemingway signature. So he ends up selling something to the wrong person. And it takes place in New York.

Starting point is 02:07:11 So it's, you know, I just had so much fun writing and research. Now I'm doing the second book on it. I can't tell you what's going on with it. But I'll send you guys. I'll send you a bunch of these books just so you can either read them going. Love them. Yeah, I love to. He's a shitty writer or he's a really good writer.

Starting point is 02:07:27 But I'll tell everybody. You're legit, man. Even back in the day 20 years ago reading your books, I mean, it was clear that you had talent as a writer. Well, thank you. You do, too. I'm enjoying Reflex of Fire, by the way. Oh, thank you. I don't like you guys because you're too smart.

Starting point is 02:07:43 You know, it's like. Jack's the brains of the operation. When I was writing my Civil War book, I had four or five chapters that I gave to a special forces, a medic buddy of mine to read. And he's a gun expert. I hate gun experts, but they're wonderful people. And he read my first four or five chapters and said, boy, this is really good, but none of those guns existed. So I had to go back and he gave me all kinds of information, what I could use,

Starting point is 02:08:14 what how you know if you wanted to use a henry how far it should which actually had bullets at the day which one were cap and ball uh what how far a musket could shoot did they have rifle barrels how far the rifle barrel goes and so talking to the him and i love the guy but he's still a son of a bitch as far as i'm concerned because i had to go back in with a type of writer and change all that but i love writing i would encourage everybody you guys tell your stories because um your your family will have no idea what you did, unless they see something like this, and they still will get a chance in your own words to see what you can put down on paper. I've taught some writing seminars, and when I try to tell people, if you're in for it for the

Starting point is 02:09:00 money, then you're in the wrong business. If you want to make money, become an electrician, become a plumber, you know, but writing, it's such a hit and miss business. I have two friends that are very successful writers, and most of us, the bulk of us or I like to think we're the minor league writers, but we're still in the game. And you love the game and you just love the game. Yeah. I always try to tell veterans because I think we were talking a little bit before the show I mentioned that I get contacted by the children of a lot of Vietnam vets who want to know

Starting point is 02:09:32 what their dad did. And so I really encourage veterans like if you don't want to write a book, you don't want to go on a podcast, totally get it, understand. But write like 10 or 20 pages about your experience for your kids and your grandkids and put it in a shoebox. I think you talk to my kids, my oldest daughter, you know, you'll ask what division he's with. She goes, oh, the one with a horsey.

Starting point is 02:09:55 So, you know, but, you know, he was a ranger. It's like, you know, and then when you have a, like I have a ranger hat up here that one of my team, or Charlie Ochoa, one of the guys, Rangers, really good guy, gave me when he and his wife came up to visit. And, you know, if you wear the hat, people going, you're a ranger? and said, yeah, well, what time does the park close? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:10:18 Yeah, so I was like, yeah, okay. What, what, what, you mentioned that you're working on a sequel to in for a penny, in for a pounding, is it? And there's a third in the Chasing Romeo series coming. Yeah, that's, I'm finishing editing right now in that one. It should be out either late December or first part of January. Oh, cool. Okay, so that's right around the corner.

Starting point is 02:10:36 And it's, it's, I sent it out for some reviews because I wanted to see, you know, non-veterans to see do people like the storyline? Yeah, yeah. And I'm getting some really nice reviews on it. So it's, and I think vets will like it because you're trying to be honest with it. It's like you have some good people,

Starting point is 02:10:59 you've got some lousy people. You've got some CIA people that are pretty good. You got some that, you know. Yeah. And I try to do my best to throw humor in there because, you know, and you guys, know dang well that when it's miserable and to think that nothing's going to get better, you hear some of the funniest lines that come out.

Starting point is 02:11:20 Yeah. I think that this book absolutely, like, somebody who doesn't know what Lerps are or what Lerps did, or unfamiliar with this sort of Vietnam recon experience. Like, this is a book I would give them and recommend and be like, you know, and this is something I would give to an 18-year-old kid for Christmas. Oh, well. Yeah. I appreciate that.

Starting point is 02:11:42 There's, you know, Burford's book, Team Leaders, you got November Rangers from Vietnam, Gary Linderer's book, Eyes of the Eagle, Eyes Behind the Line, Phantom Warriors, Ken Miller's book, Tiger the Lerpe Dog.

Starting point is 02:11:53 Oh, I love that novel so much. I've got it. I have a 10 autograph one for me years ago. It's so good. It, you know, it's all my shelf and it's in my heart. Six Silent Men series. So I'll recommend,

Starting point is 02:12:09 in fact, got one here that is the first have put together a history of the Lurp Rangers from the time they were started and it was in the voices of the individuals that's cool so it's uh it's the history of the Lerp Rangers from the Vietnam the first cavalry division and it's by john lebrun and bill carpenter and my books you know when you're you're trying to write somebody else's story you only see it through these lenses uh-huh and when when they're the void and when you were talking about it earlier, you're correct. When you sit down and write in your own voice, your kids, your family members, your friends can see it, and it's in your voice. That's what I liked about Carpenter's

Starting point is 02:12:51 book and LeBron's book. It's these guys that never get their stories told. And, you know, people say Vietnam vets don't talk. You know, veterans, that's crap. You know, you go to a reunion and you're remembering, you're kicking up stories with some of your buddies that your family, your family may never want to hear. Right. And after a shot of that whiskey there on that table, you may want to talk more freely. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:13:16 But, you know, those veterans do talk. They talk to each other. And veterans, and I've helped a couple of vets work on their books. Jerry Boyle, a gunship pilot, wrote a book called Apache Sunrise. And Jerry called me up one day. And he called me grunt all the time. And I call him rotorhead. And he goes, hey, Grunt, I want you to write my book.

Starting point is 02:13:39 I'll tell you that you just write it. I go, Jerry, that's not how it works. Yeah. And I'd say, I want you to, I sent him a blank calendar and I said, okay, every day I want you to write one page. And every day, put that calendar on your refrigerator or your bathroom mirror so you see it. Every day, you write one page. And then at the end of the year, you have 365 pages.

Starting point is 02:13:59 You can get rid of 100 and you'll have enough for a book. And he goes, well, that's easy. And I said, yes, sir. Yeah, let's see. Yeah. I said, well, you know where you want to start and you know where you want to end. You arrived in Vietnam. You left Vietnam.

Starting point is 02:14:12 Is that what you want to do? It goes, yeah. I said, well, that's the alphabet. Now fill in the rest of the letters. Get yourself index cards and B all the way through Y and not Z because Z is you're leaving. And start writing down notes. So he called me up about a week later. He goes, I wrote 20 pages today, Brunt.

Starting point is 02:14:29 And I said, hey, good for you. He goes, I don't have to write anymore for a while. I said, Jerry, that's great. He called me up, you know, another week. I have to get five more pages. Good for you. You're way ahead schedule. Then about two weeks go by and nothing.

Starting point is 02:14:42 He goes, I haven't written a damn word. You didn't tell me how hard this was. But the fact of the matter is, he got his book done. He got it published by Random House. Good for him. It's called Apache Sunrise, and it's from a gunship pilot's point of view. A lot of people don't get how much work it actually is to write a book. Writing is like self-imposed isolationism.

Starting point is 02:15:04 you know, when you're sitting, and Jack, I'm looking at yours because you did a lot of research on weapons and places and islands I never heard of until I had to Google, you know. I know where no ruin is now. I know what happened to Maurice, by the way. But as you're reading it, you realize all the research, whether it's Kazakhstan or whatever, you have to know, you have to be able to put the people in that position. And you have to write it enough and clearly enough so the non-military people looking at, at it can read it. Right. I did not probably do a great job of that on my first book. We're all guilty of that. It's a learning experience. Do we have questions for Craig?

Starting point is 02:15:46 We do. So let me pull them up real quick. We have a, so this is going out live, Craig. So we have like viewers who are going to have some questions for you. Oh, I apologize to the viewers. But tell your viewers, remember it's Black Friday. So they got, you guys had a discount on a, on a, on a, guess, right? You're 20% off. First off, Wendy Lane, thank you very much for joining our YouTube Tier 1 operator. Blackhawks are on the way to pick you up. All right. Solly, thank you very much. I'll put questions on Patreon if I can to you. Of course, Sully. What do you think of Oliver Stone's film platoon? Does it have a basis in reality? Yeah. You know, Oliver Stone was with the first Cal Lurp Company. You guys know that, right? Yeah, he was a

Starting point is 02:16:34 NAM veteran, yeah. He was with the first Cavalers before he went to the 25th Infantry Division. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. And did you know that we had two people in the platoon named Barnes and Elias in the unit?

Starting point is 02:16:48 Oh, no, really? Yeah. So I don't know if that was memory or whether he just had as a coincidence. But, you know, I walked out of the movie very angry and very upset because it showed murder, it showed rape, it showed,

Starting point is 02:17:04 you know, a fragging and all this other stuff that, granted, it did happen. If that happened to one unit, it never happened in the Ranger Company. It's like all of the terrible things compressed into a two-hour film. Right, right, right. And it's also for Hollywood, you know, you have to remember Hollywood is going to do the sensational. Do you guys remember the movie Midnight Express? Yes, yeah. Okay, and Oliver Stone wrote that.

Starting point is 02:17:30 Yeah. And Oliver Stone, do you remember the ending where he takes the turrets, Turkish jailer and slams his head into the coat hack. Well, that's not how the book ended. He didn't, the real guy didn't kill the guy in his jailer. He found, he was on an island, he found a boat and he rode off the island. But Hollywood is going to do what Hollywood does. I want to sensationalize.

Starting point is 02:17:54 I want to do it. And what I liked about Stone's book was the technical advice from Dale Dye. He made these guys, you know, a bunch of, Hollywood actors quit. They didn't want to be in the movie because it was too tough in the Philippines. Stone and Dale Dye made them live out in the jungle. They cleared his place.

Starting point is 02:18:15 They made him build bunkers. They had to live in the bunkers. They were eating sea rations. They were pulling guard duty. They were pulling patrols. They were burning shit. That and the dirt and the dust and the heat. The only thing I didn't like about is the Viet Cong sneaking in at the night.

Starting point is 02:18:34 you know like ninjas yeah now they did now via conger like any other army in the world when there were times we would watch and walk down a trail at night with flashlights and radios and you know they're going through dark areas well they can't see they're not ninjas they're like anybody else in the world so but hollywood being sensationalized has to do what hollywood does um the actors the actors every one of those actors went on to become big names johnny depp was remember him as a young interpreter. Willem Defoe? Willem Defoe. Beringer. Berringer.

Starting point is 02:19:07 Yeah. Yeah. Francisco Quinn, Lawrence Fishburn. Every one of those guys, you know, Charlie Ashin, every one of those guys had propelled them up to, you know, Hollywood's next adventure. As I was saying earlier, I'm dismayed that there hasn't been a movie about Lerps, a movie about Mack v. Saug. And I think the thing is, The sad thing is I think American society is ready for it. I think our culture is ready for it.

Starting point is 02:19:38 They're ready to see a movie about what their fathers and grandfathers did in Vietnam. But maybe the holdup is in Hollywood. Maybe Hollywood isn't ready for it. You know, we're not well thought of. Vietnam vets aren't well thought of. I mean, you're still, I'll see some of the reviews for my books and people will either hate you because you're Vietnam vet or they'll like you too much.

Starting point is 02:20:01 because you're Vietnam. Right. If someone tells me they enjoy the book, I really like that part, the best part, because what I try to show is that it's humans, is that we're human beings caught up in it, were young, 18, 19, 20-year-olds. You know, you may have a mature 22-year-old,

Starting point is 02:20:19 who's your platoon leader. Salty. Yeah, 22, 25 tops, and he was an old man as a captain. But most of the people we served with were just well-meaning great people, good people. They didn't have to have the finest of educations to be some of the finest soldiers who we'll ever see or the finest people. I had a black platoon sergeant in Germany that I think his highest he went to was eighth grade.

Starting point is 02:20:44 That guy could strip apart a M113 or M114 knew everything about it. A multiple tours of service in Vietnam and a great guy couldn't get promoted because he only had an eighth grade education. So he was a staff sergeant. but you look at that as like, you know, why can't you honor that service? You know, why can't you just, you know, appreciate the person? And, you know, and there were so many, there were so many myths, I think, about,

Starting point is 02:21:13 about, you know, the Vietnam vets. You know, like, we still, I mean, I remember in, like, the late 70s, early, I mean, probably, like, through the 80s, the idea of, the Vietnam vet and their post-traumatic stress and, you know, working a normal job and then all of a sudden having a flashback

Starting point is 02:21:36 and losing control and, you know, that they were a danger to everybody around them. You know, just these ideas, these mistaken things that were attached to, you know, and now through... The veterans, yeah. You know, and now through studies, they know that, like, if you have post-traumatic stress,

Starting point is 02:21:53 you're a bigger threat to yourself. Right. Than you are to anybody around you. That's right. And the stress that you experience in combat is not something that's turned off very easily. Right. That when you hear a gun, when you hear a loud bang and it's an explosion, when you guys are in combat, you know damn well, you're going to react to it. Right. And it's the same thing. I think with us Vietnam vets, we were treated so poorly when we came back. Yeah. That it's a bitterness. Yeah. It took me a long time to get over the bitterness of it.

Starting point is 02:22:23 And the Hollywood didn't help us with a lot of the movies. And you kind of sit there and, you know, and people, you know, I think it's one of those things. I may be in a bit of a bubble, Craig, because of what I do. But I feel like there's a lot more love for you guys today than there was. You know, I know when you guys got back, it was not a very good homecoming. But I think you see like the meteoric rise, really, of all these people are watching interviews about MacV's sod guys and watching these interviews. Oh, man. Those guys were tremendous.

Starting point is 02:22:56 man. Striker. Yeah. Myer's a great guy. John. Yeah. John's an amazing guy. But I mean, that these are getting so many views that there's so much interest in it, I think says that there is a segment of contemporary American society that they're ready to hear your stories.

Starting point is 02:23:15 What the interesting thing is when I came out with Chasing Romeo, I have fans now in Poland, in Ireland and England. And these guys are Vietnam reenactors. Yeah. Really? Oh, that's wild. Interesting. I've got invited to some Vietnam reenacting stuff, and you almost have a flashback because these guys, you know, they're, you know,

Starting point is 02:23:37 they say you want to come out to our event, and they're living in, you know, in bunkers and tents. Some of them is very convincing, too, when you see the pictures. Yeah. And they pay a lot of money for those uniforms and everything to look like it. And now, the funniest thing I saw was a barbecue thing that was made out of a 55-gallel and drum barrel, and it had Agent Orange on the side of the barrel. That's wild. I'll tell you that, you know, like, from the GWAT perspective,

Starting point is 02:24:08 that there was such a, like, cultural backlash against the way, I think almost a national shame that was held in a sense of guilt, the way Vietnamese or Vietnam veterans were treated that even people who disagreed with why we were in Iraq or Afghanistan would go out of their way to say, I hate these wars, but I support the troops, right? Because... Yeah, yeah. And a lot of times when you meet people and are like, oh, thank you for your service. You know they're saying it because they feel like it's obligatory. And I think a lot of it comes from that national shame of how Vietnam veterans... Well, it's also because the Vietnam veterans... were in like positions of power by the time you get to the early 2000s.

Starting point is 02:25:00 Like they had rose up through society. And there was no way that they were ever going to treat us like they were treated. Yeah. There was no way that was ever going to happen. Yeah, you had John McCain and you had a whole bunch of folks that had experienced things that when they came into it, they were looking out maybe for veterans a lot better. I know that, I mean, we, I had heard when I was in college, I dropped out of college a couple times. You get tired of being called a baby killer. You know, you get tired of all that. And you got that.

Starting point is 02:25:27 You got that from the teachers, the instructors, the professors. And, you know, I'd drop out of college and I'd go back or I'd take course. I finally got my degree looks like a patchwork quilt. I finally, you know, which by the way, I went to night school. So I only get smarter after the sun goes down. So, but what I've learned is that over time, their perceptions change. And the people who are against the or anti-war, no longer, I think they view it as failed diplomatic, you know, diplomatic policy as opposed to the GIs themselves. Right. The GIs, the young soldiers, especially the young men and women, which are asking them to do

Starting point is 02:26:09 in Fallujah, in Afghanistan, in Vietnam, and God knows wherever, is these ugly, ugly jobs to satisfy some politician at a decision. who got you into that place. Right. You know, we don't dictate policy, but we have to carry out the policy. Right. And then who the biggest critics are

Starting point is 02:26:31 when it comes to rules of engagement. Yeah, I just want to ask you one more question. Is there any resentment or grumbling or whatever at all from the Vietnam veteran community regarding the way GWAT vets, like we're getting attention about the suicide. We're getting attention about the post-traumatics. You know, where we didn't necessarily get tick or tape parades either.

Starting point is 02:26:57 But there is definitely more of a national focus. Even if it's just for show, right, even if it's just, again, coming from this national guilt, this subliminal guilt for the way Vietnam veterans, is there any, I don't know, do you guys or any of the guys in the community, look at the way the GWAT vets get addressed and treated and go, oh, like those lucky, like. I heard it a little bit, but not much. I think most of my buddies, my immediate friends,

Starting point is 02:27:35 we're proud of you guys. We're proud that they had yellow ribbons out there. We're proud of the fact that you were getting some recognition for the jobs you were doing. Because there was a little bit of that bitterness of, you know, why didn't it happen to us? Right. You know, you got to times moved on.

Starting point is 02:27:52 And I think I was, my daughter, my oldest daughter, spent 20 years in the Air Force and she was in those war zones. I was scared shitless for her. I'll be honest. Yeah, as a father, you know, you're worried about your kids in combat. And but I knew that they were doing good jobs over there. I knew they were doing their best to help people. And as I said, soldiers have to have to carry out failed diplomas.

Starting point is 02:28:19 whatever State Department and whatever the President tosses the people into, you have to deal with it. And they're not getting shot at. Their kids are not getting shot at. You know, it's more often than not your neighbor's kids and somebody else. You look at it right now. You don't have too many people joining the military. I think everybody should join the military. You know, I learn how to make a bed for God's sakes, you know.

Starting point is 02:28:45 Yeah, yeah. I pick up garbage once a week on the beach. so I learned from something about police call or the military. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's one of the things that, like, the military gives you is if you see a piece of trash near a trash can on the street,

Starting point is 02:28:58 you're likely to go pick it up. Like, you're going to police it up. Yeah. But it's the little things you don't even think of. Or the, you know, the inspiration you got from some lieutenants or some captain that said, kid, you ought to go to college when you get out. Or a first sergeant, Sergeant Major saying,

Starting point is 02:29:15 use your GI Bill. Make sure you use your GI Bill. And I know a lot of vets that just don't. Yeah. You know, they won't go to the VA. And we all have issues. I've got, I've had about six leg surgeries after I got shot. Sure.

Starting point is 02:29:29 Over the years. Now because I'm geezerly, it's like, okay, how can I make my life? How can I enjoy my time now that I have left? How can I, you know, how can I keep writing? How can I do some good things with my family for ourselves to enjoy the time we have left? Yeah. And I would tell all veterans now, be nicer to yourself. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:29:47 Don't kill yourself. kill that negative thought. Yeah. You know, kill that negative thought. If you're having a tough time at one location and with some people, maybe you need to change that location and get away from those dark feelings

Starting point is 02:30:00 because, you know, late at night, we'll get them. We all get them. You know, late at night, you know, remember who was lost. Remember how they were lost. Yeah. And then when you see the cut and run things that they do, you know, pulling out of Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever,

Starting point is 02:30:16 you sit there going, you know, did we really help anybody? Were we really there, you know, and you know you did? Right. And, you know, the interesting thing about both Vietnam and Afghanistan in particular is it was the veterans. It was the people who had worked with, you know, the yards or the Nong or whomever, you know, whomever else. And then the veterans who had worked with, you know, the Afghan soldiers.

Starting point is 02:30:43 Yeah. That were like, we have people we need to get out. Because in our government, our government, like, I don't know why any country or, you know, indigenous group ever trust our government because we do not have a good history of taking care of the people who took care of us. That's an excellent point, Dave. We were, I was talking with a few of the other veterans at the reunion. We were talking about that exact thing, is that how do you get people to trust you when

Starting point is 02:31:12 you say, if you look at Afghanistan when we left all these wonderful people who, really put their lives on the line to help us and to help their country become a free country to help their women be able to go to school be able to vote you know and uh what do we do we left in there yeah yeah we know that they were getting executed uh the veterans who've gone back in there what is that that pineapple express whatever they call yeah yeah yeah god god bless those guys god bless them yeah yeah yeah we had scott man on the show yeah yeah yeah i haven't got to that i haven't got to that one yet i'm working my way through all over the way you'll get that's a lot i'm chariot picking So we're nine hundred dollars.

Starting point is 02:31:47 What else do we have for Craig? Soleil, thank you very much. What do you think of people who avoided the draft? And he said Muhammad Ali, but we had Trump, Biden, Clinton. Like, you know, it was a thing, right, during the draft? It was a thing. It was, I enlisted, you know, because I came from a military family, and I just wanted to enlist. I wanted to be a Marine, couldn't be a Marine.

Starting point is 02:32:12 And even after I joined, by the way, and I got down to the, I have to put this in here. You know when you get your physical and you're anywhere, where you're going? Yeah. Yeah. And you're going through 100 guys at a time. We had the Marine guys going by, counting every other fifth guy, pulling him out a line and saying, you're a Marine, you're a Marine. So the guy in front of me was number five. He says, you're a Marine. Guy goes, I don't want to be a Marine.

Starting point is 02:32:32 I said, I do. And I said, I'll go with you. And I started going with him. And then the Army came back. He goes, you had listened to the Army. You're not going anywhere. And, you know, I laugh about it. But, you know, it was the uniform.

Starting point is 02:32:45 had nothing to do with the Marines itself. It was that dressed blue uniform. Yeah. You know, my buddy who was a blackfoot Indian and went to high school with at Chief South High School, he came back after getting wounded at Kaysan. And he had this beautiful dressed blue uniform. And every girl in the school was just eyes focused on him.

Starting point is 02:33:08 You know, it's kind of like, I didn't want to be Marine. I wanted the girls to look at me. So let's be honest. But yeah, I think, yeah, that was an interesting, interesting turn. But, you know, the military, it has its good points and it's done a lot for us. And I think the draft at the time, I remember a lot of people in college when I came back from Vietnam, they were telling me, oh, you were too stupid to get out of going Vietnam. You heard that.

Starting point is 02:33:38 And then I would look at those people and I'd say, I politely say, you know, fuck off. and I'm swearing I apologize to people that I fan out there, but it's not that I came from a military family. My dad was very proud. He grew up in the Depression. They had nothing. And the Coast Guard gave him a job and gave him a career. And so I think every citizen owns, should do service.

Starting point is 02:34:05 You know, if you don't want to be in uniform, go work in the Peace Corps. Right. But go work in something and do something to help, you know, help buy your, stake in being a citizen. Do you have any particular heartburn about people who dodged the draft when the draft was the thing? No.

Starting point is 02:34:22 I have heartburns about their reasoning behind it. You heard a lot of the world was wrong, and that's why I judge it. You know, did you really dodge it because you were wrong or because you didn't want to go? What was your reasoning behind it?

Starting point is 02:34:38 Some people were scared, they didn't want to go. And I understand being scared. All of us were scared. But I still, my respect is for the guys who went to put their hands up. By the way, some of the finest soldiers I ever met, draftees. And some of the guys who ended up with career military start off as draftees. You know, and so, so yeah. I mean, I believe the term, the term Ken Miller used to describe the draft Dodgers

Starting point is 02:35:07 that suddenly started talking tough after the war was. over. I think the term he used was bellicose pussies. Yeah, I would have to say that's correct. I'm trying to be diplomatic. You know, if you don't want to fight, that's fine. But just be honest in your reasoning behind it. You know, if you told me that you studied about Ho Chi men and the Vietnamese and how many wars they were in since, you know, the last 2,000 years and why the French,

Starting point is 02:35:38 the Japanese, blah, blah, blah. If you tell me you something you knew of the history of the time, and that was your reasoning for not going, then I can believe you. You had a crisis of conscience or something like that. I don't know anybody that committed war crimes over there. Right. We fought against, you know, people will say, yeah, you committed a crime just by going there. But we fought against guys who were coming at us with machine guns, with baynets. Right.

Starting point is 02:36:02 And, you know, when someone's coming out with shooting at you with Adishka, but someone is coming at you with an RPD, when someone has hit a, firing an RPG 7 hitting you with mortars and you know 122 could what katusha rockets or with you guys had more i think more iEDs than we ever had but you know the booby traps yeah i never saw i saw one booby trap and i was over there and we were laughing my my vietnamese scout and i were just laughing because they put a grenade in a can and they used the string and they they hired they I tried to hit the ankle-length string with a piece of vine that was green at one time. And then it was a week later.

Starting point is 02:36:42 So it was all bad. And died. Yeah. So you look at it and he's laughing. And, you know, he says, I must be North Vietnamese city boy. You know. But that's the only one I saw over there. I, you know.

Starting point is 02:36:55 So, yeah, each war, each war is different. I would say that for people fighting, if you're fighting for a good cause. And that's the other thing. Never vote for a politician who's going to send your kids to a war zone when they won't send their own. Right. You know, and vote for the person who's actually going to try to do the best for the country and not the one who's going to, you know, I dislike all these politicians who end up millionaires while they're in office. Right.

Starting point is 02:37:27 And then they, or they try to cut veterans benefits afterwards. Yeah. You know, serve your country, serve your family, serve your, you know, serve yourselves as best you can but come on take some pride you got that black beret hanging up on there you knew damn well at one time man you were the stud you knew damn well when you finished the cue course you came from out of cap mccall man you had that green beret when they presented that to you was how did that feel yeah jack how did that feel you feel like you're on top of the world right exactly and you're wearing it it's kind of you're proud of that you get that black beret you're going

Starting point is 02:38:02 i'm a ranger yeah and it means something yeah you know in general rye Roberts gave us our berets and our scrolls, you know. Now that's the other part about, I'll get to the Vietnam part that I disliked about the Army. After we left Vietnam, we couldn't wear our scrolls and we couldn't wear the black berets anymore. So that was a no-no. The Army did not recognize the Rangers until 1974. So that was one of those things. And you're not really a Ranger.

Starting point is 02:38:27 You were just to Lurp in Vietnam. Right. Okay. Right. And it took me a long time to get over that little bit of bitterness because I lost some good team. and I serve with some really good people. Right. And I'll probably, every chance I get, I'm going to praise them as much as I can.

Starting point is 02:38:43 Hell yeah. Well, and the thing is, is like, big army, like, the Ranger Regiment would never say that. The Ranger Regiment would never say that you weren't Rangers, right? I mean, you're part of their legacy. It's the big army that, you know, is all caught up in that kind of stuff. I almost had a tear in my eye out at the Fifth Earth, the Interversary because everybody was going out of their way to make us feel welcome in the second bat. Hotel company Colors went to the second bat.

Starting point is 02:39:13 So they recognized as being as Rangers. And it's like, I never felt more welcome at a place in my life. You know, it's like, oh, my God, these guys are, you know, it's like I told my wife and said, you know, maybe we did some good, you know. Yeah. Solly, thank you very much. XAS, let me read this, okay. Okay. He has two questions here that are kind of this.

Starting point is 02:39:45 I'm going to read them together. The first one is ex-SAS soldier Eddie Stone, set on the show SAS Survival Secrets. If you can soldier in a jungle environment, you can basically soldier anywhere in any environment. And then do you agree, should the U.S. insure troops do more jungle training to produce better soldiers? because we shut down our jungle training program. No, it's, they reopened it in Hawaii. Oh, they did. Okay.

Starting point is 02:40:15 Yeah, the 25th, I think the 25th over there reopened it. Okay. Yes, you should train for every environment because, you know, and I don't know how you guys, I'm not laughing. I'm just sitting, I'm shaking my head. I don't know how you guys could train in the winter. Cold drives me nuts, you know, your desert environment, your whatever environment, you guys,

Starting point is 02:40:37 You guys belong to that error where you actually could do it all. You guys fastrope. It didn't matter where you went. You're going in. We were good in the jungle. The modern army is interesting in the sense that, you know, we're probably the only army that has a truly global mandate. And our soldiers have to be prepared to fight in the snow,

Starting point is 02:41:00 to fight in the desert, to fight in the jungle, to fight in urban areas, right? I have one more funny Vietnam thing about it because I want to say about Rangers. We captured three North Vietnamese soldiers and we were flown into the border area and there was a stack of rifles on top of this bunker. And one of our guys went over and snatched up all the rifles. And then our Vietnamese scout talked these three North Vietnamese soldiers to come out and we took a prisoner. So as I was bringing him out, you know, a prisoner. you know, you're giving them sea rations because you're going to make them walk point out because, you know, you don't want to trip a booby trap or anything else.

Starting point is 02:41:40 So they don't want to trip it. And we've got out there, we're waiting for the helicopters coming in. And of course, you're, you know, you're tying them up and whatnot. And we had the interpreter. So Ed and I, we had our ranger scrolls. We're going, so who are you guys really afraid of? You're afraid of the lurp, the Rangers, special forces? And you're pointing to you.

Starting point is 02:42:01 And you want them to nod. You want to get the enemy to say, yes, we were afraid of you. And through the interpreters, all three of them said, the Marines. And I said, would you ask him why? And he says, they said they're all crazy. So that's all for the Marine audience out there. I mean, there's parts of Asia where people seriously believed that in order to become a Marine, you had to kill a member of your family.

Starting point is 02:42:30 There's all this propaganda. No, that's only in special forces. Yeah. Dave and I don't do. Dave and I don't do that. Exactly, exactly. I just want to say, though, that there is something about the jungle, right? So I think two big tests of people is one, water, water operations.

Starting point is 02:42:56 Like it takes a lot out of you. and the other is jungle operations. Like jungle operations are physically and tactically some of the most challenging environments to work in. And I mean, some elements like the SAS and they still use jungle environments as part of their selection and training process, right? Yeah, training team Brunei does that, yeah.

Starting point is 02:43:24 That there's something very specific about the jungle that it's a very, it's incredibly, and not saying the desert doesn't have its own challenges and there aren't challenges everywhere, but the jungle really is sort of a dividing line and being able to operate tactically a lot of times. It's primordial. I mean, you get out there and everything there wants to eat you or kill you.

Starting point is 02:43:49 You know, it's like fighting a war in a zoo without bars. You know, with Vietnam, we were carrying a dead guy out one night They had to go through a swamp. We're trying to evade this area that's going to get hit the next morning. The Air Force is going to bomb the crap out of it. So we're moving through this swamp and we're carrying this dead guy, dead GI with us. And we're moving, we're getting to the sandbar where we're going to be picked up a little bit later. So the helicopters came in.

Starting point is 02:44:14 And as the helicopters were coming in, the pilots were saying, okay, we're going to come in. Over on the other side, we'll be coming in from this direction to pick you up. And we're going to avoid the crocodiles. and we were going, what did he say? And that shocked the heck out of us because up until that time, I never knew there were crocodiles in the swamp in Vietnam. And we're up to chest level carrying a dead guy, you know, and, you know, you could hear tiger growls at night.

Starting point is 02:44:46 You have leeches. God help you. When you went through a stream, you have to check your armpits, your groin area, your back, because the leeches would attach to you. And sometimes they become your warm little friends because the little skinny leeches, the more blood they take, they warmer they become. So it's like, okay, I'm using it as heat pads. The jungle is very hot in the daytime. And it's like walking.

Starting point is 02:45:10 I always call it like going through a sauna with your uniform on. And then at night it gets cold and wet. So the next, and keep in mind, we never slept. We never had a camp. We never had a fire. Right. So you're just laying out there and you're just, you're kind of shaking and cold in the morning. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:45:26 So the jungle was, I grew up in Florida and Georgia, 11 years as a kid down there. I played in swamps. The swamps didn't scare me. Snakes didn't scare me. I should have been more frightened by the snakes. Yeah. But, you know, we had wild pigs in Georgia, feral hogs that would chase you. So, I mean, the woods didn't scare me as much, as I said, acne, you know, when you're 20 years old.

Starting point is 02:45:51 When I got shot, it was horrible. I lost everything I had. And I lost February, Miss February from 1970, the foldout Playboy magazine. And at 19, I really thought women, you know, came and were folded in thirds and had staples. Yeah. But, you know, it's, you don't have those, the jungle,

Starting point is 02:46:14 and living on fires and bird bases that are mud, you know, it was, you guys came up with a, it was your generation that came up with a phrase embrace the suck. Right. And that, you know, I think that is the most perfect phrase I've ever heard. Because like World War I, I think soldiers everywhere, they're laying in mud, they're moving in mud, and then someone, you know, some major will fly in a helicopter going, why aren't your boots clean?

Starting point is 02:46:41 Yeah. Yeah. And you're living in mud. So, uh, uh, the harsher conditions, I, I, I think we, we took some glee in it. Yeah. You know, you have to, right? Like that's, it's your coping. that you guys you guys take pride in it like you do the mission that other people can oh we hated the rumps

Starting point is 02:47:00 i mean we hated the rips down in the yeah yeah yeah because we desperately wanted to be them yeah yeah yeah we wanted that job at the snack bar yeah yeah so yeah i mean there were times i was regretting my decision go from to volunteer yeah they'll go into infantry but you know what i am so proud that I went infantry and I'm so proud I had a chance to be a lurp and I'm so proud that I had a chance to serve with Apache Troop as well. Some of the finest people I ever met, good, good people. And, you know, have our stories heard now to have people saying they want to hear them. That's something as well. Because back in the day, nobody wanted to hear anything. Yeah. D.B. Cooper, thank you very much to our tier as a tier one operator. Thanks for subscribing to the channel.

Starting point is 02:47:50 And Corbin, why is ice cream important from Raaboo Stakes? And you mentioned the steaks. Why is food simple pleasures like ice cream or steak or whatever? Why is that so important when you're out there like that? It is, you know, as LERP missions, we only had C rations or Lurped D dehydrated rations. And by the way, you didn't always have water. So sometimes you had to get your water out of a stream that was muddy. you threw your purification tablets in there.

Starting point is 02:48:20 And when you're eating your food, it tastes like a swimming pool. Yeah. And so when you got back and someone was barbecuing, because we didn't have a mist hole. We only had mist tents and they would, you know, they'd use grills. They would be out there charcoal grills and cooking stuff.

Starting point is 02:48:37 And you had some cooks that made some amazing things and little things that would just change your whole attitude. Yeah. You had beer at five cents a can. You know, back then, we could drink. I wasn't 21. That's the other thing. I came back from Vietnam. I was a sergeant, Purple Hearts, a couple other medals and stuff and still had shrapnel in me. And I couldn't get a beer in the airport when in fact they treated me like an adult in Vietnam. The Army treated me better

Starting point is 02:49:05 than the civilian world. But at that time. But food, oh my goodness, when you got a cook who could make something, you know, out of nothing, or you had a GI buddy who suddenly came in with, you know, spicy sauce and lemon pepper ingredients, you know, and you're pouring them into your sea rations. And it's kind of like, hell, that's not bad. And then you realize later, you know, the food was crap. But at the time, it was wonderful. Right.

Starting point is 02:49:32 Ice cream. An ice cream machine. But we didn't, you know, if you had a generator, then you could have an ice cream machine. And the one time you would get ice cream, you, it was like, ooh, you know, it's not Christmas, but it is. Yeah. Dee, do we have any Patreon questions?

Starting point is 02:49:53 That's all the ones on YouTube. Yeah. Well, Dee's looking that up. You know, it's funny because I grew up watching the A team. And it was one of the things that made me, like, think about the military. But, you know, you talk about the guy who comes in with the spicy sauce. And, you know, face, right, from the A team, there was always that guy everywhere. Like, you didn't know how he was doing it.

Starting point is 02:50:16 But he was always working these, like, back-out. and would show up with stuff like, how did you get this? He's like, don't worry about it. You know, I told you about that Sergeant Major that was working with with Customs, and he was a command Sergeant Major at Tainian Base Camp. And, you know, he was, one day we're talking. He goes, well, you're worth the cab.

Starting point is 02:50:37 And I said, you know, I was. And he says, oh, we had this rogue unit at the end near the dump. And boy, they were nothing more to pirates and brigands. Yeah. And I said, oh, you talk about what Apache, I think you were Apache Troop the first of the ninth. Oh, man, they stole my Jeep. I said, are you talking about the one with the Lincoln Continental

Starting point is 02:50:56 fiberglass thing on the back? And he goes, how did you know that? I said, because I was in Apache Troop. And my buddy had stolen his Jeep. But you're not stealing. You're borrowing. I'm going to try to get Ray Martinez on the story. But I read a book that has some legend about how he stole a

Starting point is 02:51:19 truck full of Crown Royal. Oh, yeah. I, you know, the GIs we're talking about, you know, that maybe we might not have at our family dinners were some incredible people. I know one pilot that stole a tray warmer for the mess tent and it was hanging out the size of the Ui. But he went down and he somehow, you know, you're borrowing. You're not taking the equipment out of the country. Right. You're not selling it. You're not selling it. You're not. selling it on eBay. You're, yeah, reappropriating. Yeah, reappropriating.

Starting point is 02:51:54 We had a whole bunch of things, jeeps and mules and, and probably a deuce in an, because even in the war zone, they had inspections, you know, general, you know, what was that the, what was that general inspection they did? You know, the bean counters would come around and they check all your stuff to make sure you had. Oh, like accountability and everything. Yes. And one of us would be given the task of driving the deuce and half with all the stolen items in the truck around the camp while the bean counters came in from Saigon checked everything over.

Starting point is 02:52:30 Like, you should have one Jeep. You should have one deuce and a half. You should have one three quarter truck. And it's like, you bet, you bet. Yeah, we got it. Then when they fly out, we bring back in all the stuff that we borrowed, you know. Or it was borrowed from us later. You know, if you scrape under some of those bumpers, you'd find a lot of unit names.

Starting point is 02:52:49 Yeah. What do we got there, Dee? So we have Lewis Vasquez. What was it like serving with Dave Torres? Oh. Oh. Vasquez, thank you for that question. Dave Torres was a wonderful ranger.

Starting point is 02:53:07 He was one of my buddies that died on November 17th, 1969. And I love Dave. Dave was, you have to understand. When you have a teammate, you know, your teammates, You get to know those guys really well. Dave, Dave was one of those just really good people.

Starting point is 02:53:25 He and Julius Zapparozic were the ones that died on that day. And, yeah, it's kind of heartbreaking. There's not a November 17th that doesn't go by where I say a little prayer to, you know, to those guys. Dave probably saved our team at the moment. When one of the NVA started walking in us, Dave actually shot him with the M4, and then he was shot. And it was a very tough time. So Mr. Vasquez, thank you for that question.

Starting point is 02:53:59 Dave Torres was a genuine American hero. Dave Torres was a wonderful ranger. And Dave Torres should always be remembered and respected. Another one from Israel. Very Crazy GI was one of the first Vietnam books I've ever read. Thank you for writing it. Did the Cav Lerps ever utilized novel weapons? like the 101st lirps with the sort of M-14s or shotguns?

Starting point is 02:54:26 Or was there just a strong preference to the XM-17s and M-16s? He never underestimate the minds of a GI. We actually had a crew that took a mini-gun and attached it to a Jeep. And they put it on, we had, you have to pull bunker duty at night. So a guard duty at night. He had four bunkers, or four or five that are, you know, unit was attached to that you had to pull guard duty on at night. And they backed a Jeep up there.

Starting point is 02:54:56 You put a 1500 round can of ammo in it. And they hooked it up so that the gas pedal determined the rate of fire. And so every night they would give you a mad minute. So headquarters would say, you know, it was go, okay, we want you to, you can fire up. You know, you're going to do a mad minute when this flare goes up. Someone would knock a flare and all around their perimeter, people would open up with what they had. And these guys, they went through 1,500 rounds at about 10 seconds, you know, and it was, you know, it was like, what the hell was that? GIs cutting off, M79's cutting off the shoulder

Starting point is 02:55:33 stock to it to make it a pistol grip of a M79 grenade launcher. So it became like a shot, a giant shotgun that you could fire flasheb rounds in it. And in the jungle, that became a great little shotgun. GIs cutting off barrels. Yeah, they cut off barrels. Yeah, they cut off barrels. And what happens when you cut off the barrels, flames come out. And at night, and if you're in firefight at night, that directs all the enemy fire towards you. Barrels, M60s, if you didn't fire in controlled burst, they would melt, they would turn orange.

Starting point is 02:56:05 And in the dark jungles, you could tell an idiot that wasn't using controlled fire and controlled burst. And if that barrel went, you may, hopefully you had a spare barrel that you were supposed to carry. But if that barrel went, you were down one M-3rd. 60 machine gun. All right. One more from Soli.

Starting point is 02:56:24 Would you meet any former enemies in person? Would you travel back to Vietnam? I was just back in Vietnam six months ago, seven months ago. And I was going back, I had a beer with a bunch of

Starting point is 02:56:37 guys and I was trying to find the guy that shot me. I wanted to buy him a beer for being a shitty shot. And the Vietnamese are very welcoming and open to us now. They were been invaded by the Chinese for what, 2,000 years. Ho Chi Minh's famous statement when the French came back in after World War II, Ho Chi Minh said when people are saying we don't want the French in, he said, it's better to eat shit French shit for another 200 years

Starting point is 02:57:08 than Chinese shit for another thousand. And so, I mean, even after the Vietnam War, what, 79, 80, the Vietnamese came across and attacked the northern, or the Chinese came across and attack in northern provinces. So, yeah, I had a good time there. I spoke with a lot of young Vietnamese. They were coming up to take my picture because I'm the only guy in Vietnam who has white hair. Everybody else dies are black.

Starting point is 02:57:36 They're very welcoming. They're very hardworking people. I went up to the Nui Badan Mountain, the Black Virgin Mountain, where I spent a couple of, you know, a couple nights there at one time. And right now it's an amusement park. It's a Buddhist temple.

Starting point is 02:57:57 You go into this giant parking lot. You buy a ticket. It takes you to an escalator. You go up to a finicular, a cable car that takes you to the top of the mountain, to the snack bar atop. And there's gift stores and there's five stories of different temples and everything. Beautiful garden. I had one guy asked me and said,

Starting point is 02:58:18 have you been on the mountain before I said yeah but the gift shop was closed no I like actually I like Vietnam other than the heat the heat is still the same very very hot the Vietnamese people were very welcoming they're very warm they look at our wars being a blip on the map they have a lot of war museums because that's how they make it make some money you pay to go in the war museums but that's what I didn't see Larry Chambers said that. He said that, you know, Vietnam veterans are very much welcome there nowadays. I had some great talks with the local Vietnamese and, you know, if you take a look, I mean, what they have, I mean, if when you go there, you're going to find Starbucks, you're going to find Amazon fresh, you're going to find, you know, pizza shops, kids in jeans, kids listen to music, kids singing rap for God's sakes. you're going to run into everything.

Starting point is 02:59:17 So our culture, what people hated about the war, they didn't necessarily hate about the culture that was there. The French left them with great pastries, by the way. When you look back on it, do you kind of admire the Vietnamese and their struggle for independence in that? They fought the Japanese and the French and they fought us. they stood up to the strongest military in the world. I mean, it seems like they really wanted to be their own country.

Starting point is 02:59:49 I read a good book. What was it, Operation Copperhead or something about, was it Aaron Banks and those guys with the OSS? They worked with Ho Chi Men and World War II fighting against the Japanese. I think so. And one of the OSS guys says that Ho Chi Men had a picture of Abraham Lincoln on his wall and that the North Vietnamese Declaration of Independence is basically a copy of ours. and we did not work with him because he was a socialist and a communist.

Starting point is 03:00:15 We went with the other folks. You know, the South Vietnamese, Kennedy was a Catholic. He had a, what the archbishop or a bishop in Saigon was Catholic. The DM brothers were Catholic. So that had something maybe perhaps to do with us being there. I don't know. I don't know enough of their history. All I do know is from the history that I've read and what I've studied

Starting point is 03:00:39 in the Vietnamese I spoke with. is that they treat us well. There are nice people. They were fighting for the independence of their country. And they have it now, and they seem to be making the most and best with it. They're also good trading partners, by the way. We do a lot of trade with Vietnam now.

Starting point is 03:00:57 Do I agree with all their politics? No. Do I agree with our politics? Heck no. I'm an independent, you know. But there were two sides in Vietnam. I mean, were the South Vietnamese, in your opinion, also fighting for the independence of their country from communism? Yeah, I believe there's many sides.

Starting point is 03:01:20 I mean, you talk about the Nung Chinese, the mountain yards. Yeah. The Maltiniards are the Degra, what the French called the mountain yards, but the indigenous people, they were looked down sometimes as being second-class citizens in their own country. The South Vietnamese are a different family than the North of Trinians. If you look at the Trin and the Nyen, the Wynn family, if you will, the Trin up north and the wind down south. And they've fought each other for hundreds of years. And if you look at the wars over Vietnam over the last 1,500 years, there are always to be a struggle. It was mostly with China, by the way, trying to take them over.

Starting point is 03:01:59 Most people don't realize the Vietnamese actually fought off the Mongol invasion. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, that was, I found that little tidbit. And I thought, ah, you know, this, it tells me a lot about their tenacity. Yeah. So you can like the fight. Respect them. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:02:14 And I'll tell you what I respect about the North Vietnamese was when Cambodia was going on in and Pol Pot was murdering all this, all this people. Mm-hmm. The Vietnamese went in there and stopped that war. So in the 90s, the Vietnamese ended up taking out and forcing those guys to stop. So, I mean, the Cameroos were actually attacking some, southern provinces. So the North Vietnamese said, you know, they've been fighting the war. So they said, like hell you will, and they pushed back in. So while I, while they were adversaries, I would,

Starting point is 03:02:48 I cannot trash the way they fought and I cannot trash their bravery. When those guys were coming at us with bad nets and we were shooting them, you know, they were doing this for their country. We were fighting for our country, but you know what? We were also fighting for our buddies next to us. Yeah. And we were fighting for the damn politicians that got us into that war. Yeah. So that's the thing. I probably have more animosity towards the politicians than I do the Vietnamese. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:03:15 Isn't that the case that, you know, soldiers tend to have more in common with one another than they do with the leaders of their own country? Yeah. What was that soccer game in World War I where the Germans came out and they played with the Brits? It was like on a Christmas day, right? I think it was on a Christmas day. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:03:31 And then the British commander got, all those guys got chewed out for that. But you see the humanity come to, come of place. Our former my South enemy scout, who was really a Daniel Boone and taught me a lot of stuff and taught Ed Beal a lot. We thought we were good as Rangers. This guy had been fighting the war, and he was a former Viet Cong who, they called him Kit Carson Scout.

Starting point is 03:03:54 I don't think I've ever seen a braver man fight in a war. This guy, he taught us a lot. He was very loyal, very brave. Unfortunately, I don't. The Vietnamese took their retribution against the South after. the war. Right. Which the refugees, I've been getting my hair cut by the same Vietnamese later for the last 30-something years. We have some great Vietnamese restaurant. We have some great Vietnamese Americans and maybe if it wasn't for the war, we wouldn't have had those people over here.

Starting point is 03:04:23 I suspect in another 10 years we're probably going to have some phenomenal Afghan and Iraqi people as well is that the people who appreciate what we have here, the freedoms that we have here. You know, I'm not going to, you know, I won't be a rah-rah stand on a boxing. We, you know, we're America. We're the best in the world. But you know what? We're pretty damn good. The flag we have, if someone burns a flag in front of me, I'm going to beat him with a baseball bat. That flag represents what we can be. It brings us all together. You know, I worked with some incredible people in the military. You guys did too. You know, people we would never socialize with otherwise, people from different, you know, economic backgrounds, different relationships,

Starting point is 03:05:05 religions, suddenly now they become your best buddies. Who you're out there looking, who's going to protect you? Who's out there you're drinking with? Who's the one that, you know, suddenly they're good close friends and good people? And would we have gotten that otherwise by not serving? Would we have known that? But we also know who to hate for training us the ways they did at times. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 03:05:30 Craig, where can people go to find you and find your books and find your work if they're interested in reaching out to you? Mostly just in Amazon books. If they like the books, would they please give them reviews? The small books like Chasing Romeo 1886, because they're small books, it's the reviews that triggers their algorithm that keeps them in the warehouses. And just because I'm a minor league writer. And you can find those there.

Starting point is 03:06:01 I'm on Facebook, you know, picking up trash once a week. on the beaches of Puget Sound. I belonged to a couple. I taught tactical tracking. We're for the tactical tracking operation school for 20 plus years. And we still, we probably taught our last search and rescue class last year or so. But, you know, mostly these days you're going to find me upstairs typing, editing, swearing, you know, going, I didn't mean to say it that way, damn it.

Starting point is 03:06:32 You know, come on, you guys are writers. You know what you do. do. You're producers. You guys should know what you do. When you're editing and all this crap, it's kind of like, I just want to be done with it, you know. But yeah, Amazon is probably where they can find the books, especially the small press books. And I have to give it a shameless self-promotion. My book coming out December 9th, which is called We Defy the Lost Chapters of Special Forces History. December 9th. I want to read that. That's next of my order list. I got to I will, Craig, I will send you a copy. We're trading books here. I'll shoot you one.

Starting point is 03:07:09 I think, you know, the lost stuff is like the very crazy GI stories. When you find some of these stories, you know, it's like, how come we never heard of these before? How come we didn't know that? We should have known that. But yeah, it's not a shameless plug. You know what it, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you what it takes to write a book. You're locked behind a computer now these days. you're there for hours, weeks, days, and months, trying to turn out something that is worth reading. And what you can do is go on Amazon, find his books, order his books, then give him a good review.

Starting point is 03:07:41 Well, it's like you said, Craig, when you're a minor league writer, guys like you and me, we've got to be out there hustling. That's just how it is. That's how it is. You know, people, I won't go into how little you make when you sell a book. But it's like the old record companies, remember back in the 50s,

Starting point is 03:07:59 where the people sang the songs and they never got more than a few bucks. Yeah. That's still the way it is. With the small books, we actually can make a little bit of money. You know, the IRS recognizes as being professional writers. So that helps. And, you know, I want to keep writing the sequels and have some fun with it. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:08:20 I want Dave to read my Civil War novel going, I like this book. Shoot it over and I'll give it to Dave. Yeah, for sure. Next, next, coming up on Monday, we're going to be back in the studio with a former Gurkha. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm excited to have him on the show. I've actually, 5 p.m. I've been, I've been to the Gurkah museum in Nepal.

Starting point is 03:08:45 It's pretty cool. It's like five stories. It's, yeah, that unit has an amazing history. Can I add something? Yeah, yeah, please. We had the British Jungle Warfare School come over for two of our tracking events. and they brought a whole bunch of Gurkhas. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 03:09:02 Those little guys have no quit in them at all. Yeah, they're no joke. No, they, yeah. We had it in the high desert and they came over and they said, I say, where are the trees? You know, they were wonderful, wonderful people. And I got my, I've got my Gurkah. I have a actually cookery at, at,

Starting point is 03:09:22 yeah, I have one here in the office that I bought when I was in Kathmandu. You were actually in Kathmandu? Holy crap. Yeah, yeah. There are stories about Gurkhas, like, decapitating Pashtuns in Afghanistan in like the 1800s. Yeah. I read a history of the unit years ago. It's like, holy shit, it's crazy.

Starting point is 03:09:45 What was a famous story about them where the British officer was telling him they have to jump out of planes? And the Gurkhas, half of them were going to quit. and until they found out they were going to wear parachutes. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that. I've heard that. Whether that's true or not, that really talks about to their bravery.

Starting point is 03:10:06 And, you know, the British Army are very lucky to have that regiment. Yeah. Yeah, they are. Craig, any final thoughts, anything that we failed to cover in this interview? No, you guys actually, I'm sorry with all the humor and smart-assisms that I gave, but... No, I love it. I get through life now on humor. If I don't look back and laugh at something,

Starting point is 03:10:28 then I prefer to laugh as opposed to crying. And I prefer to write the books down and let the stories, let the people read them to get, to maybe see a humanistic side to what it's like to be in service in a uniform. Yeah. You know, we weren't Sergeant Rockford. We weren't Rambo's, you know, we weren't the guys from Platoon. We were just, we were a combination of a little bit of everything.

Starting point is 03:10:51 and some good things and some bad things. A lot of crap happened in Vietnam that was evil. And even at Mili, people forget the name of U. Thompson. And U. Thompson should always be remembered. U. Thompson and his three-man crew were actually landed at the far end of Mili 4 as Kali and his people were killing people. He was rescuing the villagers.

Starting point is 03:11:15 He told his machine guner to keep his gun on the GIs and that if they were going to keep coming forward, was going to shoot him. So he actually pulled people out from Milai was saving people. So when you hear about GIs, you know, always doing something evil. And there's, I think there was one kid James Joseph Dursey. I think he was a PFC. And he was given in order to shoot these people and these women and children in a trench. And he refused. And he was just crying. He said he wouldn't do it. I have more respect for that kid than I do for the Lieutenant Callie or any of them. You know, I'll, I will take that kind of bravery and that type of courage and like you Thompson and you Thompson I think got a soldier's

Starting point is 03:11:56 medal for that hell he should have got a metal honor for that we recently talked to a British para in Afghanistan who had a story like that when he was a sniper and he was ordered to take a shot was like no this is wrong and like outright refused to say no I'm not I'm not going to do that yeah we were we would do it we did an operation at this we were pulling a patrol outside of the special forces camp and most of their indigenous people would come out. You had a little kid come out with an M-16. He must have been 12 years old smoking a cigarette. And, you know, a lot of these kids, and they were ragbacks.

Starting point is 03:12:31 They had nothing. These kids had nothing. And they're trying to protect their village because this, you know, everybody and their brother wants to get it. South Vietnamese didn't like him. I think they referred to them as Moy, which is savage. The North Vietnamese didn't quite like him either because they weren't Vietnamese. Was it the kin, the kit, totally different.

Starting point is 03:12:49 existence of people. There were more of the lines of Malaysians, if you will. But guys in my squad dug out all their sea rations, and they were giving them to these kids and his families because they had nothing. So I saw GIs giving away all of their food that they had to these Vietnamese who had nothing. And, you know, that's the type of GIs I remember.

Starting point is 03:13:15 Yeah. You know, and God bless that British soldier for saying no. I'm not going to do that. Yeah. We have to stand up. Sometimes we have to stand up and find our conscience and say, no, we won't do that. Yeah. You know, maybe I'm naive.

Starting point is 03:13:28 I'm sure I was naive when I got to Vietnam because I knew we were going to win. But, you know, getting shot a couple times taught me that maybe I need to slow down a bit, you know. But I would not change those days for anything. I am glad I did it. I'm glad I served with the people. Mr. Vasquez was talking about David Torres. As I said, one of the bravest Rangers

Starting point is 03:13:54 I've ever met and nothing but respect for him. And same thing. You guys know it. You guys know who you respect. You also guys know who you, you know, it's like, yeah, who you're not going to have a drink with, you know? Yeah. If I ever get out to New York, I'll buy you guys a drink. Oh, no, no, no. If you get out to New York,

Starting point is 03:14:11 you drink for free. Yeah, for real. Guys, go check out Craig Jorgensen on Amazon, Chasing Romeo, awesome novel. There's a link down the description. And he's written many other books about Vietnam and a few that are not about Vietnam, but I hope you guys will go and check out. Craig, thanks so much for this interview, man. This has been awesome. Ah, super. I have to thank you guys very much, not just for the interview, but for your service as well.

Starting point is 03:14:42 People don't realize what it takes to get that black beret. People don't realize what it takes to get that green beret. People also don't realize what it takes to do a podcast and to do it and keep doing it and keep doing it. You've got some of the finest minds that I've ever seen from the military, from CIA, from intelligence groups, from a little bit of everybody.

Starting point is 03:15:01 And I'm fascinated, not all of them. Some of them are going, holy hell, this guy's crazy. But a lot of them, you look at it going, there were some very fine people doing some fine things. And those are the ones we have to applaud. And as I said, it's better than a college course because you'll learn a lot. Watch an episode or two and you'll learn some things you thought you knew. And now you know better.

Starting point is 03:15:26 Yeah, that's for sure. That's why I still enjoy doing this all these years later that you're like learning something new all the time. And we're blessed, you know, that people like you and others, you know, will dame to come on here and tell your stories. Can you hold on for a minute? I got to go get my wife from upstairs just so you can tell her that I'm, that you're blessed. She won't believe that. Dee, clip that and we'll send it to him.

Starting point is 03:15:51 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Craig, thank you. And we will see all of you guys on Monday. We'll be back then. And I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. That's about it. Yeah. Thank you as well.

Starting point is 03:16:09 And as I said, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast. Thank you, Craig. Now go get, don't go find a better guest. Go check out his books on Amazon. And we'll see all you guys.

The Team House - Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) in Vietnam | Kregg Jorgenson | Ep. 312

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.