The Team House - Marine Corps Combined Action Program in Vietnam w/ Mike Donovan: Ep. 62

Episode Date: October 3, 2020

Mike Donovan tells us about his time with the Marine Corps Combined Action Program in Vietnam. It was little known Marine Corps program that specialized in counter insurgency operations and has been touted as one of the most effective programs of the Vietnam War. John Meyer's books about SOG can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/John-Stryker-Meyer/e/B002A510S4 Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the team house. This is episode 62. I am Jack Murphy here with co-host Dave. I think he's in this box over here, Dave Park.

we're here with our guest tonight. Dave, if you'd like to introduce Mike real quick. Yeah. So a buddy of mine, Mike Donovan, former Marine Corps combined action platoon combined action program from Vietnam and a man of international intrigue and mystery for most of his life after that. So anyway, Mike, why don't we kind of get started? Do you want to tell us a little bit? Well, first off, tell us your origin story, if you don't mind. Like, who are you and where did you come from?

Right. Mars and pretty much grew up on farm. Everybody in our family had a farm, vegetable, cattle, milk cow, sheep, chicken, all nine yards. And a lot of hunting. not for fun, just to eat. And camping was kind of what we did for recreation. So very outdoorsy. Average schmuck in school, lucky to get seas.

I was there mostly just to play football, wrestling and track, which were the sports I like, and was hoping, because Vietnam was jumping, I was hoping to, in senior year, getting to the Coast Guard and I wanted long term to get into some kind of marine biology degree. I was in high school, a diver for their local volunteer rescue squad and enamored with a Jacques Coast II thing that was big back then. So before graduation, I run down to the to the recruiter and say, hey, here I am. You've been waiting for me. No problem. They duly informed me that

That bill it filled like five years ago because of the draft. All the upper echelon kids got in the Coast Guards and those kind of things. And I pretty much couldn't get in. So everybody I knew was getting draft notices. You know, guys graduated right in front of me that weren't going to college or married. So with the testosterone intelligence of an 18-year-old or almost 18-year-old, I deduced that, well, okay, I'm going to get drafted, which means I'm going to get shot at. So I want to get the best training on how to shoot back.

Yeah. So I joined the Marine Corps. Well, I didn't take it that next logical step. I should have said, well, if I joined a Marine Corps, I'm definitely going to get shot at. Anyway, that's the quick and fast how I ended up in the Corps. Now, you had a history of family service also, right? Like you were not completely unfamiliar with the military. Oh, no, no.

Grandpa was fought in the trenches World War I. His brother was a pilot in World War I. My uncle was under Patton. He was a tank commander. Lord, my stepdad, great guy. He was a master sergeant in the Air Force. see I'm trying to think

we had my cousins beanies Marines I mean everybody in our family pretty much served mail-wise yeah

and then when you went to the Marine Corps I mean did so was it 0311 was it infantry at the time

like how what was that process and then how did how did you get into the combined action program

and then can you give us a little bit of history on what that was. Sure. The movie at that time, because I was a jock, I was very outdoorsy, pretty much trained to be a Marine, really, by my upbringing. I thought it was fun. You know, boot camp kind of suck, but, hey, I had a great time.

You got to shoot things and crawl and, you know, it was fun. So I got 0-3-11. infantry and got asked to go to OCS. I was 18, didn't think I could handle that. You know, I'm a kid scared me to think about leading people and I haven't even finished, you know, the training yet. I blew that off. And by the time I finished before you get your leave, you know, you do your boot camp and basic infantry and an advanced infantry. I forget to name Bits, ITR, whatever.

Then you get a 30-day leave, and then you report back to go to NAM. When I reported back, I got five, nine, sixes. I think those were the ratings. I did really well, just because I liked it. So when it was time to report back to do staging and go to NAM, myself and a couple guys in the training units I'd been with, were asked if we wanted to join this. cap program.

They gave us a dog and pony show for an hour and, you know, we're thinking, oh, grunt, live in a village, grunt, village, grunt. Oh, yes, sounds good. Yeah. They pulled us out. We went to some cheesy little two-week jungle school, I guess

you would call it. Little E&E, a little old mine and booby trap kind of how to spot it and whatever. Just a a real quick cram course to build your confidence, enough to think you know what you're doing. And then went to staging battalion and flew over. Hit, hit, um, opened the door on the jet,

walked out and as I'm sure a lot of guys on this show will tell you, the humidity and the heat and the smell hit you like a frickin sludge hammer. That was a shock to the neuron endings. this isn't TV now. Right. Real. Yeah. So anyway, they had guys there to peel us off and the cap volunteer guys.

They picked us up and they took us to Denang, which is where we flew into, they took us to the CAP combined action, CAF, Combined Action Force headquarters, which is where the CAP schools at, Combined Action Program. and that began the journey into this program for myself. Do you want me give a quick brief of what to capture? Sure, because it's a little known program and rarely talked about, I think. So, yeah, can you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah, there's a couple really good books that you and Jack and guys who probably watch the site would enjoy. Problem is we're moving.

So I've got like 80 boxes of books packed in the back room and Lord knows where it is. But the West, Francis West, the village is a great book for history. And another book you guys may or may not know is Kevin Be Generous, the Secret War. That's the absolute best speck up. I don't know if these terms are so new. We didn't say that, but it's everything you want to know about Vietnam on every unit. And Caps in there, too. Recon, Lurped, a whole nine yards.

Great books. Anyway, I digress. And, all right. So at Caps School, we did about two weeks, I want to say, of Vietnamese customs, the culture, small unit tactics, squad type tactics versus the normal. grunt type tactics we've been trained in. Familiarization with like the SKS and AK-47s and the type of weapons we're going to be collecting, finding, maybe using.

How to work with war dogs. If we get a war dog team sent out to us and how to work RTE, Air Strikes, MetaVACs, the comms, all their call signs, you know, how to use the radio, correctly. It's kind of a good overview of what you're going to need to know for basics and the team. Then they sent us out after you get your little two week again, oh, you're a master now. Get out there. You're in a game. So you get out to the team. And I guess a good way to put it is, it started in 65 that I knew. I learned some stuff getting ready for you guys. I always thought that it had been started by Lieutenant Colonel Corson and Bing West, the guy that wrote the book, the village.

And they're the ones that actually ran with the program from General Walt's orders and turned it into a real live force. But before that, apparently the grunt compounds throughout NOM were obviously having interdiction problems with, you know, guerrillas in the bill right outside. and they would, you know, bribe, threatened, do whatever, the women that would wash the laundry of the guys in the base and get Intel. And they'd set up mortar coordinates and all this kind of crap. So they learned that they needed to expand out into the village, their security system. And eventually, I think it was three, four, fourth Marines, actually wrote down a name. Taylor and Zimmerman, just so history gives them credit. they came up with this combined company concept.

They called it CAC, which is kind of laughable because CAC in Vietnamese means male genitalia. So all the villagers love that when you go, I'm from CACC, CAC 2, 4. Yeah, right, buddy. Anyway, they started putting these companies, dividing the squads up, pairing them up with some indige, give them some guns, teach them, whatever. So everybody's happy. And it kind of was a buffer now for the base. Well, it works so good that, like I said, Corson and West put together the combined action force.

The initial downside concept was great. And it was based on the old Banana Wars, Marine Corps Banana Wars, and a lot of British counterinsurgency tactics that they used in India. But the biggest problem initially was Walt told them you pick the men you want. You get the gravy. You know, this is a brand new unit. This is going to be the security for all the bases. This is going to be our intel, our counterinsurgency program. Well, what grunt commander is going to give you his best guys?

Right. So when West and them are calling up going, hey, we need. 20 of your best men. Well, you can imagine who you got. You got everybody they didn't want and couldn't get rid of any other way. Right. So you had this us and the grunt. I was a grunt.

I was a grunt. I totally get it. And I got no problem with the grunts. But there was a big rift between us and the grunts. The grunts were, you know, grabbing by the wavos and their hearts of minds will follow mentality. And we're like, hey, love the people, not to mention the program mentality. Right.

Our security was them liking us, and the grunts just wanted to slash burn and roll. So there was a lot of problems with that initially, and that was the guys you had to weed out of the teams, because they'd create more problems than solutions to get the mission accomplished. And one of my teams, we had one of these guys show up, and we pretty much had to, send him home because he he did a lot of damage in a short amount of time it got shaken out and I was at the end of the war so the initial teams are 65 the program shut down in 71 with the transition stage for operational motif of you will with 68 tet that's when we all learned a lot you know, as a military unit.

Up to that time, we operated similar to the Beanie's A teams, I guess they're called. And had a compound, top in-endage, ran patrols, ambushes, whatever out of that compound. The problem with that was, and I'm sure they had the same issue, we really had it. we would get overrun all the time because you got a static point. You know, X number of egress points, easy to ambush, easy booby trap, easy to lob mortars, rockets into. So in 68, when the whole country went bananas, a lot of cap teams were wiped out. So they shifted to mobile caps. So when I got there, they were mobile.

they weren't compounds. And a mobile cap, usually it's a squad of Marines with a, with a, with a corpsman, poor corpsman, went in the Navy to do good neons out there with us, but love them to death. The corpsman in us would float, I guess a good way to put it. We had no rear area, no base, no compound. We do our night thing, maybe split up in the two. four or five man teams, maybe a whole team, maybe two teams and a killer team, a couple guys dropping back to catch anybody, you know, snoop and pooping, seeing where we're going, whatever.

So it changed. And then in the morning, we'd all rendezvous to a day haven we'd pick the night before and hang out and clean our weapons, 50% alert, crash, eat, run day. day patrols, do the hearts of minds thing, gather Intel, whatever the mission of the day was. I think we had, if I remember right, seven point mission assignment sticks in my head. It was predominantly kill the enemy. I mean, that was number one. Number two, Intel network, kind of whatever, join ops with whoever showed up,

or sometimes they'd borrow us and we'd go somewhere and join up with somebody else. You know, protect the locals, the teachers, the police, or whatever's in the bill that's an authoritarian figure for the South. Kind of cops with guns, peace corps with guns, kind of a mix there. The thing I found interesting, and a lot of this is retrospective insight. Sure. You know, it's from, as you guys know, when you're there, you're young, you do your job, you come home, and then you figure out what the hell just took place and read and study.

Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help. them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. The bottom line is that we were pretty much modeled after the Green Beret team, A team, in format, that, but we were lucky if we had a sergeant and a team.

It was usually led by corporals. So you got corporals and PFCs predominantly, occasionally a sergeant. We're always under man. We were cruising eight to ten guys. We were supposed to be like 15, 16 guys. We were always under man. We were young. Not a lot of time in a bush.

You got maybe a team leader was on his. second tour kind of thing. We had limited training. I mean, I think I added up. We got like 45 days of counterinsurgency training or something heading in that direction beyond grunt training, which is pretty minimal. We got two weeks of language school. Well, you know, what do you learn in two weeks?

You get the basics down, but you don't really know the language, which is very important in this kind of a unit. So all in all, we had a similar mission, but not as trained and air cover. I got to throw that in. Aaron Arty, we rarely got it. We could get it if we could get the enemy, be it, MBA or VC, out of the bill. If we could either make contact before they got in or get them to chase us out, if we could get them in the open, we would get,

we would get priority Medivac priority R-D priority fast-movers priority, whatever we wanted. We were priority. But it was under the condition that it had to happen out of the bill. Because it was for the hearts and minds program

easier to lose 10, 15 Marines and keep the bill intact for SIOP than to just lob everything on it, wipe a bill out and have another me lie kind of thing going on. We couldn't get loom. Here's a good example. Loom, you know, night.

Yeah. Very, very helpful to us. We ended up carrying our own. We carried out. You guys probably got them too. I don't know what the protocol is now, but you had the little pop-ups that you carry. We had a mortar we carried with a lot of loom so we could provide our own

because we like to silhouette them when we think we find. them and we couldn't we couldn't get it because the canisters like a 105 or one five five you always got that canister inbound after loon pops and they wouldn't allow us to get it if we were in a village area because they didn't want it fall on somebody's head or killing interesting so what was uh you know with so with the concept sort of being based off the 18 is but you guys not having a lot of uh you know training that direction. What was the idea behind the hearts and minds? How would that play out in an average day or over the span of time? Well, the first team I went to, it was already an established

team, so I just fit right in. I think initially teams going cold, usually they call them, they had bill ratings, and I'm assuming you guys nowadays, A lot of this is similar, I'm guessing. You have an A-class bill, that's us. That's like the bill right outside of base, up to a D-class bill, which is enemy control. And usually a team will go into a D-class bill in the beginning. Village is usually 3,000 Hamlet Village combination in your T-A-O-R is usually about 3,000 population base. That seemed to be an average from what I saw.

all. Usually about two, three hundred were always estimated to be a D-class bill. I think two or 300 had to be known VCI or, you know, active VC to classify it as that. That's when a team would get assigned and it would literally just drop us in. It'd be like one day, no Americans, next stay hi we're your new neighbors um we're going to ask you please don't go out at night if you do take these flashlights if you don't have one we have plenty but if we see you at night and you don't have a flashlight we are going to shoot you we're here to help you so don't poop in the dark and then in the daytime we get with the village elders and the south vietnamese uh authority figures police, teachers, whatever,

and start gleaning some intel from them. Very slow process, because nobody wants to talk to you, you know, that drill. But because we never left the bill, we didn't rotate in and out as a unit, we were there until the bill became, I think, at least a B-class bill. And then Marine Corps was very good about that. We never left the bill until it was controlled, never lost a bill in the history the Marine Corps in Vietnam, Cap never lost a bill. This is amazing, Mike.

So you guys actually lived in the village, living off the local economy until that village was, if not quite pacified, you know, 90% of the way there. Yeah, you could walk away and know that they could hold their own. Now, as a kid, you're just there doing your job, but I look back at it and I take a lot of, I don't know, pride's the word, but I'm very happy to have gotten involved in something,

like that, to see another culture, to see the need, and to learn how to, I mean, one bill, good example, and this helped me later in life, I had a Buddhist temple in it. And a lot of the Buddhists in Vietnam were pro-North Vietnam. They were nationalists in nature. So they were always held with high suspicion for aiding the enemy. And this was a declassion. And this was a D-class film. Well, my killer team buddy, I ended up being in the killer team, so we get to that a minute, but my KT buddy and I were really into merging, I guess, with the culture, and they fascinated us. So when we got a chance, we would go to the monastery. And it's kind of like counting coup or that show no fear.

you respect. We got to the point that we would go to the Buddhist temple. You could not go in with shoes on. You could not go in with a weapon. And in a D-Classville, now we didn't do this day one, we got to where we would leave our weapon cleared at the front gate with the Buddhist guy, whoever was the gate guy. And we would go in and sit around and try to understand the philosophy,

and talk to one of the monks and just hang out. And it was a sign of, we're respecting your religion, we're willing to follow your rules, even though it potentially puts us in jeopardy. No one bothered us because we did it by their book. It earned a lot of, a lot of, well, face would be a good way to put it. And long term, we won them over.

They liked us. We weren't the typical American. We wanted to understand them. This is my KT buddy and I. Some of the rest of the team thought we're BS crazy. But anyway, it was a good way to get Intel. And then, I don't know, I digress. No, no, it's interesting because, you know, you talk about sort of the short training timeframe you guys had,

the greenness of the teams in general. And yet the CAP, the combined action program had a really good success rate, both in terms of enemy KIA and village pacification, right? And what I would just like to offer real quick is that I think maybe the program was successful because Mike and his boys were so new that if you had an older, more indoctrinated Marine or soldier or somebody who had been in the military a longer time, they would have had a really hard time doing what you did, I think. And dragged their baggage in with them from previous contacts and experiences.

Yeah, very good point, Jack. We were all great. You know how you are when you're young or you enter something new. Adaptable. You shut up. You pay attention because you want to understand it. And you're not closed off and you're willing to listen and learn. And yeah, that's a very valid point.

I hadn't thought of that. But we were young and wanted to learn. This was an adventure, you know, really for us. But yeah, the ratios, that's what always got me. And I didn't know these until I came home. Went to a supposium, a BA symposium that happened to be on caps. which you never see anything. So myself and a bunch of guys went.

And we saw our stats, which I honestly don't remember. I sent them, I think, to one of you guys. We were something like 2% of ICOR, which was the upper region of the South Vietnam area that America worked in or the Allies worked in. 40, I don't know, 40% KIAs. I've seen the stat, maybe 60% weapons captured kind of a thing. Half of us, I think, have been wounded.

I think half, well, no, negative. Half got killed, I want to say. If you got that stat, Dave, you can read it out. Now, you got to keep in mind that early in the program, the stats would be different than Tet era stats versus towards the end stats. The VC and NBA towards the end tried to calm down a little because they saw we were pulling out. And I think they saw it was better to wait until we pulled out.

Why get killed for no reason when we're pulling out and they can then move in and take over the south with minimal resistance. So the stats are an average of the whole period, 65 to 71. Yeah, I'll dig those up while you guys are talking. I'll find those. I had it somewhere. Oh, yeah, here. I made some notes because I'm an old man.

Who drinks? May I? Yeah. Please. Just, just, I look this. But take the paper down off of your camera. Huh? The paper's over your camera. Sorry.

It's okay. You're better off with it covered. All right. Approximately, this is what I found, approximately 5,000 Marines total went into the program. Less than half survived. Of the survivors, 70% were wounded once. 40% were wounded twice, and 65% received decorations.

We were 3% of all U.S. personnel in I-Corps, and we accounted for 43% of enemy kills. And it said that we were the smallest combat unit in Vietnam. So that gives you an idea, which is why I feel, again, I don't like honored and pride and all that, but I feel very blessed maybe for having been an 18-year-old kid and an 18-year-old outfit with minimal training, always under man and couldn't get air and fast mover support and have those kind of stats. That is amazing.

I mean, how did you guys come by? I guess you said that you always have one guy, you know, at least on the team. team who had, you know, been in country a year or so. But how did you guys come by your, your Jungle Warshard tactics, your counterinsurgency tactics, things like that? Did you work with like South Vietnamese military personnel who had that experience? Or was it just something that in a battle? Yeah. That each team, I didn't, I should have said it, each team, which is roughly a Marine rifle squad, was

paired with some locals. They call them popular forces, neoquines. They're kind of like the National Guard to us, the local guys. You know, on a weekend, they give them some guns and they come out and they march around and play in camp. And so we'd have, most teams had 15 to maybe 20 of these local farmers that you would give them a weapon. We all pair up. We'd each take two or three of them. And teach them the basics of, you know, small unit tactics, how to fire, how to cover each other, kind of, kind of, they're farmers. They don't, they don't know anything else. That, that was the team. That was the team, the combined action platoon, CAP. We got grunt training in a few hours I told you of, you know, jungle training. and most tactics, we just made them up as we went.

Now, the thing that I've always looked back on and been thankful for is I grew up tracking. I mean, this is what we did. My dad raised dogs, professional dogs, you know, water dogs, bird dogs in general, rabbit dogs. So I would watch things like a rabbit, anybody that's ever hunted them. The dog will chase them. First of all, everything runs in a circle.

Some animals small circle, some animals, big circles, but they all run in circles. So if you know the circle, you know where to interdict them, which came in very handy when we're chasing these guys at night. You kind of know the routes and where they have to go.

So you drop back and go boogie and set up an ambush way down the road. They don't even think you would think like that. It was fun being a BC. You actually were the BC. Yeah. What was their tactics put back on themselves? I think us and I'm sure to lurchase and recons,

they had to, you know, we own the night mentality. You know, you're afraid of the boogeyman. Well, we're the boogeyman kind of a machismo thing. But the rabbit, But that was my favorite. The rabbit, you watch it. Don't move, don't shoot it, just watch it.

And it'll run, and then it'll hop backwards on its trail, and then it'll jump on a log or something. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting.

Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and family resource network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. And then from that jump further. So the dogs will come hauling, smell them,

and then the trail will stop. Well, the rabbit's really gone backwards and took off. Well, a good dog, you train it, and it starts smelling in circles until it finds that point. Like finding a guy that jumps in the water and floats downstream, you've got to find where he comes out. So anyway, that background helped me a lot,

which is why I ended up on a killer team. team because I like that cat and mouse hunt approach. Anyway, tell us about the killer team. So this was two guys that might hang back to make sure that you weren't being followed or that when there was pursuit. Like how did that work? When I got my first team, just one of the guys, the newbie, you know, that drill. You get to carry everybody's crap. Here's the mortar.

Here's a base plate. Oh, here's some extra 79 ammo. Oh, here's this. Here's that. Pretty soon you're like, you know what? F you guys. You carry it. Then you're a member of the team.

I was walking one night, like everybody else, were in file, cruising a bill. And I shot a banana plant. You know, let's get it over it. Big old banana leave, move behind a guy in front of me. And I took him down clean and quick, the banana plant, not the team member. So I got ribbed about that like everybody would. But I shot really fast.

And the guy that ran our killer team, called him K, asked me, do I shoot like that all the time? I said, I don't know. I just got an affinity. He's point shooting. Right. And so we had to give a lesson to our, you know, indigenous and we would set up kind of like a quick kill thing with some drums and cans and whatnot and they asked me to do that and I apparently did quite well of course I'm young I'm new

I'm stupid points fun that kind of a thing so he picked me up and made me a KT guy with him and the KT I don't know if you knew this I found out years later you know the kick Carson's Scout program? I think the Marine Corps started that. I was not aware of that. I always thought it was an Army program. Anyway, we had KCS in most teams. That team was a two-hoid or defected NBA regular.

So the killer team was K, the ex-NBA guy and myself. And they all operate same. I'm just telling you our particular team. So mostly what we would do is whatever was going on that night, we would always drop back. You know, we'd be humping out and then we'd just fall off and sit, see if anybody was tracking them. And then we'd go off and do whatever the mission that night was. Sometimes it's nothing just go wrong. Sometimes you hear, oh, there's going to be a meeting over a Kirkado's house, go scope it out, see who shows up, whatever.

and you'd peel off and do the soup du jour. And a lot of times we'd be like a React team. We knew we were making contact. We had like a mortar team. We got Intel was going to be coming through our bill. Divided the team up into two, four or five-man groups along this trail that overlooked kind of the brown, the deserty look area. and then the green's on the other side. We went and floated, the killer team went and floated in the green.

So when the enemy would come in, they'd eventually have to hit the trail to get to the south bill. They'd have to cross the brown. Our team could make contact, and then we could see what they're up to and then interdict them somewhere along their egress route, kind of a thing. That's what a killer team did.

whatever little thing needed to get done, then you would run off and fill the void. And I like that. Yeah. What did you like about that? I mean, was it thrilling? Was it exciting? 18-year-old. Yeah.

Born a hunter, tracker. Yeah. And I just, I really felt for the people. I did not. I, today and even then, I love the Vietnamese. I totally get where the North was coming from. I do not agree with them. Right.

I get it. Right. I just felt a kinship like I can do this. I'm comfortable with doing this. I like doing this. I like the buzz. I like the fact that I can disappear quick. The bigger the unit,

I think the more chance you have of getting hit. I don't like tanks. I don't like choppers. I don't like things that make noise. I don't like large groups. I like me, my jungle hat, a couple claimors, and I just get to go rub myself with mud and just go sit in the woods and disappear. There's comfort in that, which is like the KTs.

There's only three of you. Yeah. So being that you guys were part of this hearts and minds campaign, how would you guys handle getting resupplied? You know, would you mostly eat, you know, indigenous food? Were you mostly using AKs? How were you equipped and how would you get resupplied? All teams are in populated area. That's our mission.

And the populated areas pretty much are in and around Route 1. and Route 1's like the East Coast here. It's the road that runs northern south. Highway 1. Yeah, Highway 1, exactly. Sorry, Route 1. I've been living where I live too long. Everything is down here.

The teams were always within probably, because you had, let me digress, I'm sorry. He had four kegs, four groups. They divided up by corps. Within each keg, you'd have, maybe six to eight cacos. Ha ha ha, we got to laugh. The cacos, and that would be the compound that would then be in charge of supplying and

coordinating maybe six to ten caps. So the tendrils just keep expanding out. So the cac would have the supply come to it, and it's a base, small, but a base. And then from there, they could run out chopper truck, that way had it come out in carts, you know, whatever. It varied on what team. If you had a red line that could get to you and, you know, wasn't booby-trapped all the time to bring it out in a truck. Most of our resupply was ammo.

We ate the food of the villagers, which anybody in their right mind would always eat. the indigenous food over damn sea rations left over from Korea. Things you open up and you go, what the hell is this? You can't even recognize it except the peaches and pound cake. That was good. Whenever we got sea rations, we always just gave them to the Vietnamese. In exchange, every day, we'd park our butt somewhere and, you know, eat good soups. I love Vietnamese food.

Did you get the trick? We got rations too. What's the, is it like rice, wine that they make and you drink with a bamboo straw? Oh, Lord. Quick story, quick story. Newby, the guy that shot the banana tree. All right, they tell me, one thing they tell you in the school is, all right, you're going to get invited to a wedding or a dinner or a funeral. You're going to have to hang out with these people.

If they give you food, don't eat it all. Because if you eat it all, it means you're hungry. and they'll keep giving it to you and they don't have a lot of stuff. They're poor people. So just eat a little, oh, wonderful, and then leave some on a plate and that's polite.

So I'm in the team. They're going to mess with me because I shot the banana plant and I'm the new guy. So they had me go to this big wedding and it was quite a big to do. And I have to represent the team. Mike, we're all busy.

You've got to go represent us. Now make sure you eat everything on a plate. Oh, they didn't tell me that in cap school. They said the option, no, no, those don't shits in the rear. They don't know anything. They got to eat at all. So I'm sitting there, like the knob I am, and they're bringing it, and whatever it is, I'm eating it. A fish head, not kidding. Eyeballs, not kidding. They were deliberately giving me food that they wouldn't eat. I mean, it was set up. It was a wedding, but they were playing with the news. guy. I was the brunt of the joke and getting me drunk on this wine. Socky, it's kind of like

socky. So I'm hammered. I'm eating this crap food and I'm eating at all. So it keeps coming and coming. I got so sick. I ended up, they let a couple guys stay with me at that hooch. Team did its thing that night and we never stay in one place. I was puking, pooping. It was. It was pretty bad. So don't be the new guy. Don't be the dumb new guy. That's funny. Let me,

so, so you talk about the banana killing. What's about H&I fire on KT? Yeah, yeah. That was another stupid maneuver. They're the fun ones to talk about. All right, I'm on that KT I told you about, my first team.

And we got good, or at least we thought we were good. And the enemy, and I'm sure with you guys too, and people who do counterinsurgency, they kind of get to know. Even though you don't have a pattern, that's a pattern. And they know you're roughly your T-A-O-R. They know you're limited to this area. Now, it might be a very large area, but they still know if they just stay outside of that area, They're not going to make contact, make them work around you. So occasionally the killer team, because we could get, now you weren't supposed to, you know, you'd call in your correct coordinates.

Oh, we're going to Charlie Bible 1, you know, well, we're like three miles away. But so there's no record. Anyway, you guys know the drill, I'm sure. We go out into this area that we think we're going to come on some pretty. a pretty large group of some very heavy MBAs. They were up in the mountains. So we go way out of our TAOR, the three of us, Mo Larry and Curley.

And we're out there. We find this knoll to where we got real good visual. We all had starlights, not all. Each team had two. Killer team got priority on the starlight. And we set out some Claymore's and SIDS and all that kind of crap. and we're sitting there with a starlight hoping to catch

some of the big unit moving and get something Intel. All of a sudden now we're a captain. Nobody arties this. I mean, we might get a rocket

or a mortar team but that was harassing and interdick firing from our guys who just happened to pick that night to hit that out of a out of a T-A-O-R, because on the map, they can't shoot here, but we're not here.

We're out there. And I swear to God, I learned what the World War II guys, I just I, you know, that was scary. So American forces were just shooting harassment fire blindly into an area, like a kind of area denial type stuff.

Yeah, you guys are right in the middle of it. Oh, we're right there. Like a bunch of cards, man. And well, the thing was that, And I didn't know this until later. The K-8 Battalion were in the highlands and the mountains. Just would be kind of west of us. Kisans right there, that whole area.

The Green Bray-Kan compound wasn't too far from us. So there was this whole battalion of NBA regulars, not to mention all the VC running around. And the VC were running into our village and other villages. and they're taking the rice, and they're taking the young kids for manpower and recruits. You know, they're doing, they're getting intel, they're doing whatever and taking it back to the NBA.

They were the eyes and years of the NBA. So, obviously, part of the mission is keep them out, but also try to figure out where the NBA is at any given time if you can. So we got a wild hair, my KT leader, got a wild hair that, oh, let's go check this lead out that we just got. Yeah. That put us in. And that's why H and I was in that area because they were always trying to keep a large element from any mass movement by periodically, you know, interdicting fire.

Yeah. Hey, Mike, out of curiosity, you know, you guys were obviously doing counterintelligence in low-level source operations. but did you have any training would anybody from like the agency or any marine intelligence elements ever come out to help you guys with that or teach you how to do it or anything like that? Oh, you just. No. We would get periodic classes that were intel driven, but there was no formal education. There was no, here's what you do by the numbers. again it was more and this is why I like MSF same drill and when you say MSF you're talking about

doctors about borders right we'll get to that in a while so but it's the same same mentality of survival your survival at least in caps is solely predicated on they like you you're 10 15 turds in a 3,000 person that's got 10% or whatever enemy, known enemy running around, if they want you, they got you. You can run all you want, but you're kind of, and you're not going to get R-D, you're not going to get gun shipping, like we said, anything. So the biggest thing working for you is the villagers like you. There's your intel.

That's kind of a one plus one equals two, and an 18-year-old kid can even figure that. out. If you're nice, they give you Intel. If they liked you, it was good Intel. And that's how we would filter it. And then of course, we'd write up our sit reps and whatever, and we'd send it back. And they'd like the PIOCC, provincial intelligence operational command center or whatever,

was right next to our second Kague headquarters, which I was second Kague in my second team. That was, I believe, in Hoyon, that I know, and I don't believe that. It was in Hoyon. That was one of the SEAL teams, one of the early SEAL teams were down there. They had the PBRs or whatever you call, a little boats. Those guys, there was a MACB team down there. That was a provincial intelligence from our command center. We would periodically send one or two, usually the actual, our actual or team leader, would periodically go down there and he'd be part of some briefing that was going on.

One instance was upriver from us. We were on a river flowed by our AO. Most of our teams and two were riverine areas. And every now and then they would take part. of a cap or part of several caps and jump on the boat and go up up west up river and there was a thing called bad man's island and barrier reef they were the two big uh mba staging areas that they were known to be up there and then the you know we we were security we'd ride along and then their guy would do the Sid put the SIDS out and all that kind of stuff.

So there was some joint ops and learn, you know, watching these guys. And then occasionally, our team lead or assists would go in and get a brief on, here's what's coming down. Here's what we know. You might want to handle it like this. But there was no real formal education like I think guys get today from what I hear. Mike, I think it's really interesting and a really important point that you were saying earlier about how your rapport with the locals was your

security. That was what kept you alive. And it reminded me just this week. I read an article that is the extreme opposite of what you guys were accomplishing there. And it was actually some Marines in Okinawa, Japan at the conclusion of World War II. And three Marines were known to go into one of the villages in Okinawa, grab up whatever girls they wanted, and then take him off into the hills and raped them. And this went on a number of nights, apparently. And one night, the villagers had had enough of it, they ambushed these Marines and killed them with rocks and sticks and dumped their bodies into a cave. And they weren't discovered until the 1990s.

That's your sister, you know, to them. You're right. And, yeah. And so, I mean, that's the extreme other side of that. Like, you go burn your bridges is with the neighborhood, it's only a matter of time before they retaliate. And of course, there are all sorts of other grayer areas in between those two extremes, you know, the sliding scale of things. But I think it's such an important point to make. I think to me that is the hearts and minds. You know, you can build wells.

You can rebuild whatever you blew up, whatever. You can bring some food and you can do some medcaps. Medcaps when we used to have the dock, check them out, them if they're wounded or hurt, flying back to one of our mass areas or whatever. But really, to me, the hearts of minds are just eating with them, talking to them, being there to listen to them, never abandoning them, never go, ooh, this is a little scary. I'm not going out tonight. You're just, you're there.

And all of a sudden, you're like the really cool uncle that they're happy. lives next door because they don't have to worry about their kid being yucked up and shang eyed up to the NBA unit to work for them kind of a thing. It's interesting, Mike, because you talk about, you know, that being your security, but when you talking about going into like a D-Class village where potentially 10% of a 3,000, 300 people are, you know, either NBA or I'm not NBA, but VC, but VC, or VC associated, how is it you don't get killed in your first,

before you can even establish that rapport, and then how do you clear those VC out of a village without damaging that relationship with the villagers? I only think that I saw. Sure. I've never really, I've read everything I think I can find on the teams, and I got an idea. First of all, when you get interdicted,

you're on a move non-stop, obviously. You don't even think about anything other than high where your new neighbors need a light because we're going to shoot you if you don't got one. And okay, see you later. So we're always on a move. Right. Secondly, the VC are originally, first of all,

they're complacent by now. Okay. They've been in Advil. it's their bill it's their hood they've got everybody kowtowed and whatever so you know they want to see who you are what are you up to what the hell's going what the hell's this this is a new thing they're also used to seeing americans as big dumb grunts you know yeah we can take them down anytime we want because they're too damn dumb to know what a pungy pit is or uh whatever whatever this is just my thought sure be way off base here but my

observation leads me to say this. So they're going to watch it for a while. I mean, you're bringing in Intel. You're there. They can get Intel watching you. They get access to stuff. If they get someone in theville to love a love of you or, you know, become befriend you, you're going to open up to them. They might, you know, be the one that brings you chow and they see attack map or they see, you know, what you're going to do, night ambush. You know, they're getting intel. So they're in no hurry to go one on one. I mean, eight guys, we could rock and roll big time. I mean, we're like you all can.

We had twin 60s, twin 79s, mortar, shotguns, starlight scopes, SIDS, SIDS. I mean, on and on. We could dump some serious. All we humped was ammo. I mean, we were just there when it was time to look like a fucking company of guys, not a little team. And we were very coordinated in our firepower. And we were into hit and run. We did what they did.

So I think we were worthy enough adversary that they didn't just wipe you out right away. Because, hey, I'm not sure they could have. Right. They got to catch you. and then two, we could dump way more than they could initially. So if they made contact, we would just overwhelm that contact. And a large MBA unit isn't going to support them initially until they know what they're up against.

And they know the Americans once they make, not in our case, but initially they didn't know we get on the net. We could have, you know, 500 guys here in 30 minutes. Right. they didn't know that the Marine Corps or that the philosophy behind the cap was better lose 11 11 Marines than a village we didn't run around saying that right hey you're going to kill us don't worry nobody else show up yeah we're just hanging out here yeah you said love brother um well there are some other things I wanted to ask about

the gunship lights your night? Oh, yeah. It was another one of these stupid nights. We got a lot of these stupid nights. But that's how they're going to give you a live through him. That's the problem. All right. So second KT, that is second team, because I had been in country now for a while,

I became a KT leader in the second team. And really great guy. Another guy, K, we'll call him. worked with me and we had a B.C. Chouhoy, Kit Carson's Scouts and that team, he was a B.C. The team broke up, did whatever they were doing. We went off and run them up and did what we did that night. And it was probably, if memory serves me, two-ish, three. Was it that dead zone at night where bugs are sleeping and everybody's quiet and, you know, everything's. just chilled and silent.

And him and I and the Kit Carson Scout, we're working our way back to the team. We're going to link up. We're going to be near them. So in the morning, when everybody pulls out of the ambush, we'll, hey, man, we're linked up and we'll go to the Dayhaven. We're crossing open ground, the brown. I guess everybody calls it the red, the brown, the blue still.

It was a little deserty area. surrounded by jungle, whatever. But we had to go out in the open. So we're about halfway through this little kind of a dune line. Big light on us. It was a gunship, a cobra. It did the nose down. Oh, shit.

Light on you. We're like, shitting is the only word I can use. I'm sorry if I offend anybody, but any word short of that just won't capture the moment. We are sitting there looking at the nose of this thing blinded. We don't know what to do. What do you do? You know, we're unconventional. Sometimes we wear pajamas.

We're carrying AKs. We're, you know, we're out there to create chaos. and we don't play like the rules. We all know how that works. We didn't know what you do. So first we're doing this. And then we're doing rifles up like, hey, we're not shooting you. Do you get that?

We're not shooting at you. We're wanting it felt like about an hour. It was probably like a minute. Yeah. It was a long time. and I'm waiting for the Vulcans to open up and become hamburger. And then at the same time, I'm waiting for the problem children we'd just been up playing with to go,

look, there's a lit football field. Yeah. And it was, it was exciting. Anyway, apparently the guy, the guy probably,

you know, and he probably saw us on some kind of infrared. Yeah. And then turned a light. on and then because it's probably showed it's a T AOR with a cap team or whatever. Thank God he filed a protocol. That's all. If I meet that guy, I'm going to slap him.

And then I'm buying all the drinks he wants for not pulling that trigger. But that was one of those nights. Was there, even though you guys had to clearly define TOR and everything, were there issues because you worked in small, such small elements? unconventional ways, were there problems with, you know, deconfliction with friendly forces and things like that? A good thing. I think this started after Tet, and it's why we all had the little badge thing.

And any unit that wanted to pass through a CAPAO, like on our road or transitioning, you had to clear it. I don't know you could be a colonel you could be a division you it always was brought to our attention to clear them nobody up high said oh go ahead roll through their cap two four six be advised you got you know 200 deuce and a halfs rolling through in an hour they they had to clear it with the team for that very reason it was very hearts of minds oriented I think the Marine Corps tried to do a really good good job, you know, for what they, for the budget, the manpower, the crazy rules of the war to begin with. I mean, I think they did as bad as good as you could do, and they tried to cover all the bases, but no, you can't just show up in our bill. But we rarely even had a Louis come out.

Once in the blue moon, one of them would feel like, oh, I better go talk to the boys and let them know on behind them. and they'd show up for a couple of hours. And I was like, oh, boys. I brought you some canned peaches. All right. Well, just for the gipper. All right, got to go.

Cheer up, son. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting.

Can you tell us about your night tracking enemy, the radio team? that's another one of these interesting nights not so stupid that was actually a positive event second team again the k t k myself and the bc chouhoi guy we had heard intel and intel is good wherever it was either in our bill our people were telling us straight and p ioccc would get good and tell us straight, a radio team had moved down into our area, a BC radio team. Figured an NBA was the radio operator and a BC was there to, you know, cruise them around the hood. And they were probing. They were seeing what was going on and radio and back.

So we all, again, divide up in smaller teams to cover more area. and then the KT, we floated. And you get to know, just like your farm, you know your dogs. Every hoot, you guys probably same drill. We lived there. We know this dog's bark. Oh, that's Crooked Toes dog. Oh, that's over here.

This dog, this dog. And we knew the dog. We knew the will. And we'd start hearing dogs park because they don't know the dogs. that good. Right. So, oh, that's crooked. Somebody's on a move over there. So then we'd try to figure out from the next dog bark, oh, they must be headed this way on that trail or whatever. And then, like I said, we'd peel off and try to get ahead of them to what we think. Well, early in the night, we saw, with a starlight, we saw, I'd love to have infrared. And that, that's a, that's a toy I would have

loved the hat. We did not have those. But it was a good night for Starlight. We saw above a hedgerow the antenna. I guess they still come apart like a fishing pole and it was a prick 25s. I don't even know what you use nowadays, but back then prick 25s that it was an American radio and you could see it moving above the hedger. You can see them, but you could see the thing cruising and we're like okay and we'll listen for the next dog we spent all night playing cat and mouse being a parent can be really challenging child and family resource network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting

visit child and family resource network.org today with them hoping that they would get to a point that they were in front of our other teammates. They were sitting in. They weren't moving. And the goal was to try to hopefully just keep our team aware of, hey, they're moving down here. Hey, they're headed over here. And hopefully they would trip into our ambush somewhere. So all night, cat and mouse, cat and mouse.

We'd miss them. We'd find them. We'd miss them. We'd find them. Never got on them, but got close. so it's getting dusk or daylight and we're getting ready to break and peel off because in daytime we all got a link back up and you know we'll hunt them tomorrow night or whatever so there's this trail shaped like a T and right at the T is a hooch several hooches and one heads towards where the enemy usually comes from

the Northville and the other heads pretty much back to where our teammates are going to be hanging that. So K and I just, you know, burned out, sun's coming up. We're kind of like, all right, screw it, let's head back. We walk up to the T and we get ready to boogie to the right. On the left is them. They just took a left and they're like 30, 50 feet right there. And they're not paying it down. They're burning out. They're heading back. And I'm sitting. It was like one of those, ugh, jaw dropping, freeze. And both sides, we saw each other,

and we just shot from the hip and dove and shit went flying everywhere. We bugged and they bugged. And that was the end of that. There was like five or six, I don't know. So we just dumped and ran. Did they ever come back? Or was your kind of denied to them at that point?

point. Do they know that they were going to get? We never, I don't, to my knowledge, no. Maybe they wised up and learned how to avoid the dogs, but I don't think we ever had a problem with a radio team again. We had a mortar team another time try to come in and get close to the

PIOCC down the road. We figured that's where they were headed. And it was those guys that told us, hey, see if you can interdict these guys. They're somewhere up in your A.O. So, you'd get a lot of those kind of calls trying to find not only your own VC curtail what they're up to, but then there's their people moving

through to do whatever else they're going to do somewhere else, but they got to come through your A.O. to get into a deeper populated area. Yeah. Now, Mike, you said you were on two teams, and you did two tours, right, because it was 69 to 71. Yeah, I did. It ended up being not quite a tour and a half because they disbanded the teams. But I signed up. for and a lot of guys did. You know, you get a good team. You love the people. Everything's great, but you're always under man.

I don't know anyone that took an R&R. I'm sure some guys did, but you wouldn't leave the team for an R&R. Yeah. It's bad enough if somebody gets shot or whatever and has to leave and you're short for a while. So it was, it really, it really hurt when they broke the teams up. myself and a lot of the guys that I knew that that was um I didn't come home let me tell you this when I rotate it when it was finally time to rotate home you rotate through Okinawa that was the

marine staging area to pick up your state side crap and turn in your jungle crap um when I got to Okinawa I went AWOL for two weeks I didn't want to go home I mean I might be the only knucklehead that ever went AWOL going down and over. But I'd meant some MACB guys. I got to work at MACB for a little while. Not in MACB,

just security. A couple of us CAP guys got to do security down there. Got to know some of those cords, I think they were, a lot of them were cords guys, civil organization for revolutionary development. Then later they changed it to world development. and they work with a different group of Indidge.

But anyway, one of those guys, spook kind of guy, turned me on to a very private upper end kind of a concubine place to where, put a whore house. It was just a good place where they all went. Yeah. To just chill. You know, you just eat, have like a family atmosphere, go out. dance if you want.

So I hit there. I did not want to come home. Those people, we were pulling out. Those people, everyone that I liked, respected in that village in two or three years is going to be murdered.

You know, they were leaving them. Yeah. We supported us and we're leaving. That was a crusher for a long time. So you went AWOL for a couple weeks. I mean, did you, I mean, So how did you resolve that?

And then I know, you know, leaving Vietnam, like some guys went onto the Mark side and, you know, sought conflicts elsewhere. What did you do after you did resolve that? Rhodesia was a big one back then. I knew guys that took off to that. When you rotated to Okinawa, it was a cluster, you know what? it was such, I could have gone AWOL for a year there and they'd have probably never figured it out. There's so many people. It was so chaotic that I just left the base one day and didn't come back.

And then one day I came back and fell in mustard and volunteered as a, you know, chaser kind of guy. Hey, who wants to take this guy and his paperwork and, you know, escort him back to San Diego or wherever we went, L.A. maybe. So I said, because you had to be an NCO. I said, yeah, okay, I'll do it. So they didn't even ask me where I've been or didn't anything. They just gave me the guy to cuff, some chits for the plane. And so I'd be there at 5 o'clock. That's how I got back.

And so you got back to San Diego or wherever. I think it was L.A. Okay. We landed in L.A. In LA, most of us were told we were going to get out. You were going to get orders at that point that you got, I think they called them relat orders, that, you know, war's winding down, we'll let you out early, go home, here's some paperwork, whatever. I didn't get that. I would have liked that, but I didn't get that.

I got orders to report in 30 days to Camp Lejeune. so what was your question now sorry so when you got out like what was next for you because you obviously sort of had you know you and I have talked about this before like um I think was it Mitcher's book on drifters and stuff like that or on the drifters um but like so caravans yeah so like what what did you do then like did you go back home did you I did the short answer is I did go get married to the high school suite art. Go dig ditches because couldn't do anything else. That lasted for a year or two, got a motorcycle, grew the beard,

he-ha, you know, the drill, drink too much, have too much fun. And then kind of flipped and turned in. to Rio Cumbaya, done with the violence. You know, I've seen the error in my ways, go live in the woods kind of thing. The wife actually did it with me. And then we got a farm down in Chattanooga. And long short there is a great farm couldn't keep it. You know, organic tomatoes weren't selling.

People didn't even know what hell organic mint back then. You were a man ahead of your time. Yeah, we did. We had an organic farm like granola's. And I'm going to lose the farm. And my wife was basically a woman that likes to shop at sacks, not where you know. Yeah. She was a rather refined lady. And don't blame her for tired of the green acres. You know that. So we held on about another year, and then she woke up and left me.

At that point in time, it's barking, how out the moon? Oh, no family, no wife. Oh, God, oh, God. All I know how to do is dig a ditch and shoot people. So I called up some friends who had been people that were all out running them up somewhere else. And I got wind of this little security gig. and did that. And then in that gig, I meant this incredible guy who I, he's passed a long time ago,

which is too bad. His story's phenomenal, American, Jewish guy, American, intelligently crazy. And he had gone to Israel when he was young, buggyed Israel, lived in a caboots. and from there gleaned a lot of information about the Middle East because he was a cap guy at heart kind of a guy. Yeah. And the hippie trail,

I don't know if you guys know the hippie trail, that was big in the 60s and 70s. It roughly served in probably Greece, but it really kicked off in Istanbul. And it was just this trail that all the hippies, I mean, tens of thousands over time went all the way to India. And, you know, there was the car running from Germany into Turkey, and there was the hash coming from here to there.

And there was the hippies throwing flowers all along the way, and everybody was having a great dime. And it was unique. So, well, my buddy, Martin, I can use his name because he's gone. and there's no kin. Martin had lived there. He had lived in Afghanistan in the early 70s. He, brilliant.

He spoke at least eight languages fluently, sub-dialects. He was dark with that dark hair and dark eyes. And he could literally pass. And I was with him. I watched him do this. He could pass for an Afghani. He could pass for an Israeli. He could pass for an Indian, as in Hindu.

He could blend. He was impeccable. He had studied all their philosophies. He had lived with the Bedouins traveling with a Bedouin tribe for like a year. Just cruised a alarm on a camel, you know. He was that kind of a guy. Anyway, I meant him in this security trip. And we were like, we got to do something to make some more money.

this, you know, garden rich people sucks. Let's go do something. And he had intel that something was getting ready to jump in Afghanistan, mid-70s. Nothing really formulated, but we thought, if we don't go back over there, we're not going to know what the hell is going on. We don't know what opportunities might exist. Let's have a road trip. And we came up, concocted the idea.

We've talked about it. of becoming professional game hunters. Because that way we could carry some guns and not stand out. So we were going to hunt. We're going to the library and we're reading, what the hell do you hunt over there? Marco Polo, the sheep, a beautiful sheep. But apparently that was like a big game hunter thing.

So then we figured out, all right, we give all these brochures from travel places, you know, oh, hunt a Marco Polo. get a bunch of those. We get this box. It's kind of like something that a polyurethane roll would come in, but it's about four, half, five feet tall, and about that big square.

And we didn't know what to how we're doing, but we took, like, I think there's five rifles total. That could be wrong, could be four. We broke them down, and then we taped them to the side of the box because they're coming up, about half the box, broken half. And then we took cardboard and aligned the box.

So it went from the sidewall out a little, so the buttstocks and stuff were covered. So to the eye, if you look down in the box, quickly. I mean, if you look more than 10 seconds, you saw what we did. But then we felt it with rods and reels and camping gear and crap. And we taped the one in and all this, you know, you would need an axe to open it.

We wanted people, if they're going to look at it, look at this end. And we made that end easier to open. Right. So now we go by Eddie Bauer kind of crap, but they didn't have a Bauer. But you know what I'm saying? We've got to look the part, you know.

Right. A big game thing. And then we end up going to Paris. Well, actually, we flew into Luxembourg. And then I think I told you the story. We're on a train. And we've got to go from Luxembourg to Paris. which was our staging.

We knew some people there. On the train, here comes the Jean-Dame and the customs guy. And we lucked out. Martin and I were in this cubicle on the train with a really pleasant, fairly well-to-do older couple that's French, but they spoke good English. Martin spoke French really well, but didn't. So people would talk and he'd know what's going on and tell me.

I was just the idiot American that barely spoke English. And we're telling them, yeah, we're hunters, and they were intrigued, and we were having a great time or whatever. So they knock on a door, we open it up, the guy comes in, where you know, all of a sudden, what's that? The box, the box, we call it. And we started our Laurel Hartie. routine. I'm like, yeah, I'm from America. You know what? I like to hunt and fish. I grew up. You know, I'm being like the knob American and I'm trying to tell him, you know, I fish. You know what I mean? I fish. Martin's acting like he knows a couple words in French and we like sports, whatever.

So the guys getting tired of the Laurel Hardy show and he's getting ready to have me open this damn box. as well, the couple jump in and say, oh, these guys are ready to go hunting this and that and fish. They're just exploring Europe and having a wonderful, good Americans, the kind we want, not them damn hippies, pop-smoking hippies. So anyway, the guy wants me to open a box. So I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to take me forever to close this. So I open up a little corner of it, and I reach in and pull out the rod that was put there for that

reason and I hold it up and I go, huh? He bought it. Don't ask me why. Maybe we, you know, spent too much time and he had 20 other cars to go to, I don't know. I've always said that the Holy Trinity is what's kept me alive. And that Holy Trinity is God loves drunks, fools, and children. So I'm triple covered. So anyway, we got away. We got to Paris. We're in Paris. In the old days, you used to be able, I don't think he can now, you could go to an airport and you could go to a counter. There was a name for this and say, I want to go to wherever you want to go. And the next available flight, regardless of airline, the next available flight, when they're getting ready to board the flight and they know, oh, we got 10 seats open because there wasn't computers back then, they would announce on the list. thing. You'd have to stay in the airport and they'd announce blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah, 15 minutes to get the gate, whatever. And then you would get on that flight. And they were cheap.

So I think that's how, because I told the other day, I couldn't remember how in the hell we ended up in Moscow. Yeah. I think that was it. I think that's how I got thinking about that. So we get a, we get a flight. It's from Paris to Moscow, to Tashka, to Kabul, to go hunt. sheep. We get on a plane. Now, just to clarify, your intent wasn't 100% to hunt sheep. It was that Martin thought that something was going to kick off in

Afghanistan, but he didn't know what, right? I think he had Israeli kind of buddies. Yeah. Hit that something was happening. Yeah. Nobody knew what. Yeah. But something's going on. And let's go see kind of a thing.

Yeah. Like, you know the drill. I'm tired of opening and closing doors for people and, you know, babysitting. So we thought, well, let's just go do something fun. Right. So anyway, and the guns literally were an intro. You know, you got to show up bearing gifts. Right.

You know, like ingrain yourself and then do the cat thing. Be nice. Start getting Intel. Start figuring out what's out there and then how to work it. You know, what, oh, we can run guns to this place. or we can do this. We're doing this. We're jumping. So we get to Moscow.

We land. No biggie. Get off. Of course, Cold War. They peel us off. Americans. Feel us off. And we're doing a, yeah, we're going to go hunt the sheep, blah, blah, routine.

And they're like, yeah, whatever. They keep us over here. I am four hours to clear, not their customs, but they're, you know, what they have. are you doing what they're you know you don't belong here what are you doing eventually we got out of there into the main airport but in a section for people that can't go and merge with everybody and there's a group of army guys Russian army guys sitting at a bar and we're we're at the table right next to them so I think those are our handlers kind of a thing you know they parked us there

and they're sitting there and some colonel guy walks over, you know, Kamra, what are you from? Whatever, I can't talk Russian. I can barely talk English. Martin in our team, which Martin and I worked together for years, he was kind of the talker and I was the tech. You know, he always maneuvered us around and talked and interfaced. If I had to, I'd cover up and sunglasses,

and you'd just tell them I was a mute idiot. and you know I'm just travel with him I just wouldn't talk and anyway we're sitting there I'm watching these guys drink water I'm like my god they're hydrating big time this is great you well they're drinking vodka like my horse drank water after a long ride and I realized what they're doing and they and I told them I said oh my god how do you guys say you know the American, you can't drink. I'd go. So pretty much, shot for shot.

Shot for shot. I tried to represent America. I let us down. But we got smashed. So after about 12 hours, they tell us it's time for the plane to leave. We're walking down this kind of a hallway, everybody, everybody that's going to be on a plane heading to the gate. Well, wasn't even a gate. You got these swinging doors.

It looked like something out of a 1950s. weird movie. They were so like behind the times. It was amazing. Their main event in the middle of the airport was a glass encased vacuum cleaner that looked like my grandma's. It was like that old. And that was like there, as you come in, look, we have vacuum cleaner. It was a very bizarre place. So we're getting on a plane. Well, there's a conveyor belt that runs kind of parallel to us. You can't get to it, but it's there. And everybody's luggage is on. And it's, you know, moving down the line.

And thank God, there's La Box. They didn't lose it. Oh, no. It's going under this big thing that has a big round international sign for radiation on it. They're going to scan it. And, oh, oh, oh, just. Be cool. Just look. Just don't look. Just what are you going to do? You're in the line.

Well, it didn't work, I guess. Or the guy was in a bathroom when it rolled through on his watch. I don't know. They didn't pick up on it. So we get on a point. We get to Tashkan, which is Godforsaken place. Is you guys probably know way more than me, that neck of the woods. I love Tashkent, but yeah. Maybe back then it was a good.

I don't know. Yeah. I didn't like it. But I'm spoiled. You know what I mean? So we get off the plane and we got to catch now the next little, oh, the plane ride was atrocious for openers. The airflow plane, the hole, it was night, it was storming and the hole, I swear to God, you look down a hole and it was doing this. Pulsating.

Oh, I'm like, I don't know anything about aviation back then. I'm like, this thing's coming apart any minute. And it's got seats that are like my church. They're like fold out aluminum seats. They weren't like our seats or other normal seats. You felt like they could collapse at any second. If you hit something, they were just going to rip off. People puking all over.

All men, no women on this flight. The stewards are all men. in some kind of military-looking thing, they're running around with barf bags laughing. They think this is hilarious, handing out the barf bags, like passing out cards. It was miserable. And we're hungover.

I mean, we're hungover stage by now. So we land, get off, wait for the next flight, getting ready to board again. All of a sudden, here comes this entourage, some Russian officer-looking guy, and what looked like just a couple of grun. come with me please and Martin said

what our flight we got to go no no we must attain you we found weapons you have weapons you have weapons and he starts this whole big to do about oh my God you're Americans in the weapons and I can't do it because it's

not my bag but it was unique so I eventually go American on him I'll tell you what. You know what? Colonel of Anjikov back in Moscow, when we were getting drunk,

I was telling him, I'm going to hunt the great Marco Polo. He didn't have a problem. You're out in his shit backwater hole. What are you? Captain, what are you? You know? He didn't ever call him.

Call him. My God, I'll... Talk, freak out. I don't know what the hell took place. Go. They kept the ammo that we put in there. But we got the weapons. We get on a plane, and of course, we're quite happy to eventually get the cobble.

That's the cobble story. So what happened when you got to cobble, though? Did Martin have contacts there? Did you meet people? He lived there for a while, I think, like a year. So first thing we did is we went to a place where he knew the people. They gave us this mud hut looking thing with a flat roof. We usually slept on a roof just because I think it was safer.

I mean, I think wolves and dogs were on the street at night back then. And then, I don't know, we're like two days, three days, a few days hanging out, getting the runs as you do whenever you hit a new AO and new food, new water, passed through that lovely moment, and then got mobile. and the first couple days we were just snooping and pooping. Now, you got to remember, the hippies are still very active. So there's a place, I guess it's still there at Chicken Street. Yeah, yeah.

That was where all, all, everybody went. All the expats, all the hippies, all the State Department. Everybody hung out because that was the restaurants and whatever, entertainment, I guess. hanging was entertainment in that town. I mean, that was a unique place, but back then, I hadn't been recently. So we start noticing that all the key corners that might be by a bank or an embassy or a European gathering watering hole, all these avenues that you could look down that way, that way, that. There's little clusters of what looked like military.

And they're in the bizarious kind of like a cover-all that was made out of phone, kind of like a real cheap cover-all. I don't know, I don't know how to describe it. And they were the weirdest green I ever seen. And they remind me of goons. In the old 40s, Popeye, they had the goons. They looked like goons. They walk like goons.

green uniform made them look like goons. So we call them the goons. That was like, oh man, check the goons over there. But then they had these banshees, the women with the burkas and which we weren't used to that. And they're all black. They might be progressive now and let them wear a colored one. But back then it was all black. So between the goons and the bansies, and I'm an Am I'm an Asian guy.

This is all new to me. Right. What the hell? This is like had a, you know, some kind of a. Twilight Zone or whatever. So we're starting to take notes. Okay, there's 10 of them here, five of them there. They're carrying this.

But next to them sitting at the coffee tables, a group that looks kind of paramilitary, civilian, but we kind of think they know each other because occasionally they're laughing at each other's jokes or whatever. So we're seeing, yes, there is some validity. Something's going on. Right. For them to be there like this.

every day. We find out that there's two, well, there's three main factions. Of course, there's a dozen factions active over there, but there was a communist back group of Afghans that were pro-Russia, that they were big, powerful, and eventually took over. There's the sheep herders, that crowd, the goat guys, who that's who were there to meet. And then there's the government that's in power, which apparently everybody hated. And it was kind of a game between them to see who took over first. I mean, I think there were several groups active trying to throw this guy out and take over. That's what we deduce.

So we eventually get to meet the goat hergers, the guys that were our contact that we went there to meet. and we go and you correct me there is i cannot find it i've tried to google it it might be gone there was this big freaking scary 1600s looking prison right downtown right in the middle of a piece of town it wasn't that big fort up on the mountain thing it was this antiquated ancient looking prison we had the meeting right across from this place. At that time, I don't know if it was a prison, but it had been in the old days. Yeah, I don't know.

Trying to. He described it to us. Maybe they did that just scared a bejesus out of us. But anyway, we met by this very weird, scary-looking place. When we go into this bill and we go down into this celery area and we're having this cobble and this, you know, Taliban-y-looking guy, which back then we didn't know what any of that was. Right.

This real bizarre, long-bearded, very spoke English quite well, very unique with his entourage was there, wanting to know about the weapons and why were we here? And he had heard that we wanted to meet him and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We, great warrior. Hey, Vietnam. Martin, oh, I rode with a better one. You know, we're doing our little dog and pony show. And they're like the weapons, knuckleheads.

We're here about the weapons. So we told him we want to hunt the sheep. And that you were the guys to hook us up. You run the mountains. You control it. You're the hunters. You're the great warriors of your A.O. We want to pay you and take a sheep hunt.

We want to get to know you guys. This looks fun. So we end up giving them the weapons. We make our introductions, make a gift. And then in a couple days, he's going to hook up with us, and he's going to take us up to his A.O. And either whack us or show us out a hunt sheet and buy more weapons, hopefully. That was kind of the intro.

All right, we go back. We had a good time, drank some tea and did all the Kalabunga crap and hung out. We go back to this mud hut, climb up on a roof. I believe it was the next day. A lot of rum and a lot of age and a lot of other activities since then. So it kind of might be off a little here. But within a day or two, we're sitting up there and, this huge explosion. It's kind of over towards where the chicken street area would be. you can see the debris and smoke and crap. So wherever we go, we always pay kids.

First thing we do is the little shits that are always trying to slit your pocket and get your money. We find the head of them and then give them a little buck sheaths and tell them, hey, you want to keep making some? Sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah. But we pay them to come and give us into. you know, their version.

And knowing that they're usually monitored by somebody, it's a beginning. It's a way to get your foot in the door to start meeting people because they're on a hustle. They're the eyes and ears for them, you know, because kids can get up on you and start getting data. So just do the reverse and send them back and start getting this exchange going and maybe meet people. So anyway, here comes the kids. Oh, my God. they just killed a bomb went off and and turns out i i always thought it was the ambassador but i think it was maybe the bodyguard of the ambassador uh some people on chicken street got blown up

uh westerners and it was the beginning of the takeover by the russian-backed afghanis that group i forget what the commies yeah and and they they were making their moves the beginning But I don't know that until I left and did research at the time as just somebody's killing Western people. Dine a boogie. So the kids fill us in. Martin, who speaks the language, I immediately go to ground. I'm all covered up, got my glasses on. I'm the idiot just following along.

Martin gets us a ride on a chicken bus, one of the buses with critters all over it and people. And we go get a ride down through the Khyber Pass, down to Peshwar. I guess that's how you pronounce it. We just had to get out of country because rumor was they were rounding up any Westerners, specifically Americans. And we just dropped everything and buggyed. So we didn't get to go goat hunting. And that was really the start, pretty much the prelude to the Russian invasion and whatnot, right?

Yeah, that was actually it was right after. that after that want to the people that took over put their puppet guy in and then they said that they needed the help of the russian you know they invited the russians in so for u.n reasons it was quasi legal and then of course the russians came in i want to say about six months later eight months later okay 78 79 it's just so crazy i don't know seven Wait, shit. This is the old guy, I think. Back in those days that, you know, some like 1970s hippies could just get like a Ves

or a Moped or something and ride through Afghanistan smoking doobies. And, you know, I mean, it's just insane to think about that. It's pretty cool. Let me add this because it's okay. I'm all better now. When we hit Peshawar, we got word of some. other work that could be happening over in India. So we had this crappy long, different to Lahore and Lahore and to Anuritz or this train ride from hell, like eight gazillion people packed in.

And we bought big bowl, not bowls, balls of hash. And I wouldn't even a doper. I mean, I wouldn't even a drinker even, really. And all we did, for like two or three days on this damn train was just to eat hash balls and then climb up in the luggage rack and pass out and hope when we woke up it was where we wanted to be yeah probably made the train ride a hell of a lot more bearable it did it's the old days we're all better sure sure and then you got to india i mean and you've done like i don't want to i don't know how long you have because it's almost 10 o'clock now. And, like, I mean, because you had, you know, adventures in India and then

Chiang Mai and all these things. I don't know if you want to cover that or if you would rather just kind of skip ahead to your time with MSF, with doctors, without kind of how you got into that. You use it how you would like. Well, how much time do I have? You can go another. And we can have you on again sometime, Mike, to kind of finish the rest of the story. Yeah, yeah, you can go on another 30, 45 minutes.

I mean, whatever you want, whatever suits you. I just know it's, you know. This is like a first run for me. Yeah. It's like my first big intro. Your christening, yes. Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, I'm not coming home to like buy the farm, get the wife back, get my dog back,

and, you know, that kind of mentality. Yeah. I'm not coming home. And so far, we have my mom. made much money because we just had to run like hell and get out of the country. Right. We're still working on making some more money. Yeah, we made a few bucks, but we're trying to make more money.

So anyway, real quick, just get through it on that. For sure. And there was three total, if I remember right, but that first one was kind of an exploratory intel gathering. What's out there? Who's doing what to who? how do we fit kind of a regroup and then go back with more focus? And what's interesting, I mean, it's hard to imagine, you know, I mean, I grew up pre-internet and whatnot, but it's hard to imagine that this is all before the internet.

And what you're doing is you are going from country to country, like making contacts or getting in touch with, you know, contacts of contacts and drumming up work that, you know, That's someone's asking about the concrete. That's the business card that you saw work. And it was many languages and the word work. We got the job done. Yeah. You just work.

So when you went to India, had you already heard that there was something going on down there? Or were you just, okay. And you didn't know exactly what it was. You just kind of got a whiff that there might be some work or you didn't know what it was. Well, in Peschewar, we got the Intel and Peschewar. Like, here's something that pays. You know, there's people that would like to know what the seats are up to. And at that time, they had a big, you know, they were Gandhi's nemesis at the time.

So that was where we were headed. Now, Martin had lived with the Sikhs. So we had a great end with that. Right. So we get off the train, smiling. and hike across the border. Yay, we made it to the land of color. No black banshees, no green moons.

People wear colorful outfits. You can see women's faces. It's beautiful. So we were happy to get there. We go to Amritser, and we go to the Golden Temple, I guess is what they call. But the temple's inside. But we go to Amhersteader to the Seat Fort.

facility. Martin gets us in because he's lived there and he knows how to cowabunga with everybody. They give us a room. We get to stay in a room. We lived there for a little while and hung out with them and shared, you know, experiences of numb and they're all warriors. You know this. Right. It's a warrior culture from very much, yeah. It's their culture. So we get to hang out in like their inner museum and they're walking us around and showing us all the, you know, ancient oil paintings of, you know, Gurunanac doing this and so-and-so doing that and oh. And then I share stories and, yay, we're the guys, you know, talking cool stuff and hanging out. So eventually they let us offer Prashad that we happened to be there right when Gurunanik's birthday was. Right. That was really big for us to be able to go out

on the island and, you know, give our little gift. Give her a shot to, and Guru, for those of you are watching, and I'm not super familiar with the Sikh culture, Guru Nanak was the founder, you know, was the, he's the patron. Yeah. Yeah. Of the Sikh culture.

Yeah, Sikh military culture. So anyway, we hung out with them. Just see what's jumping, where their heads were at, what they thought, that kind of a thing. and we left after it was time and we heard that peanut press Carter was coming to Delhi and we got when Martin got win that there was a couple bucks to be made if you could hang in low places and just kind of get a feel what do people think of Carter come in you know do you like him do you not like him you like Americans you don't like Americans you know

kind of just smoke a bowl, drink a little, and see what you see. Yeah. It was like the next little gig. And then, I mean, we weren't there when he came. He came right after we left, but we, you know, did what we had to do. And then we got word that Kulumanali.

I read too many Mitchener books. And unfortunately, Martin has no self-control. He'll drag you around the world for infinity of you. He'll let him. So we get word to Kulamani. The Dalai Lama, not in Kulamani, but close. On the Chinese border,

they were putting a refugee camp, him and his people, very close to where we were. We were heading up to the Chinese border in the Himalayas. And the long-term goal was to get to that camp. We wanted to see the Dalai Lama and see, you know, these bad, Chinese or not nice people and what's going on here kind of a thing.

But in Root, we went to Kulam and Ali Valley, which like Knobes, we ended up getting there in the middle of winter, which is kind of akin to like Alaska winter. And we literally, I'm not kidding. We literally meant this guy that dealt in gems. I think rubies and garnets was his big thing if I remember. And we paid him. I had a suit that I would carry when I have to look dignified, you know, get out of the bushcraft and attend something. I had a suit rolled up in a baggie that I gave him the damn suit and he let us crash in this cave that is about the size of three refrigerators.

But you could build a fire in front of it and not freeze. So we ended up hanging out there for a while. And then eventually we got to go up and see the hash fields, which are under snow, but you get to see the harvest, the fruits of the labor, which is an experience. And then from there, we ended up going to Out, A-U-T, a little place called Out, and it had a famous to them, a famous hot springs that it was ancient. and you would go into these walls kind of like a maze, and it had, you know, all the Shiva and, you know, all the gods were carved on it, and they had the bell and you get preshard,

and then you could get in the hot water. And so we prayed a lot because we got to thaw out in the hot water. And we were regulars. And then after that, we, we were motivated, let's say that, to not be there. And we left. And we meant some, which I did not know really what a SADU was, but it didn't register.

We meant this guy, he was about this big around. He was about 6'5. He probably hadn't cut his hair for 70 years. He was gray. I mean, really gray from rubbing ash. for 70 years. He ran around with a trident. He had what looked like a scalp.

I don't think it was, but that's what it looked like. It was the bizarrest thing that I ever seen. Well, he invited us to live in his little kind of a cave. And it was a cave that had a building probably, I don't know, 12 by 50. I'm using this room to get a rough idea. 12 by 15, built on the front of it that went into the cave. And the whole thing was the size of a big living room kitchen combo.

When you went in, it was again a little mazy. And there was carvings that were so old that in the cave, they were still worn away. I mean, this was like a thousand-year-old like stuff. And this guy, the Sadu, lived in the back of this cave, He had a fire, he had a little diast that he sat on, he had a mini trident, whatever reason I was fascinated with these tridents. And these little tridents stuck all over.

He had to chill them about that big around, about that long. And we were snowbound, Blizzard. And we lived with this guy for, I don't know. We smoked so much hash. I honestly don't know how long we were in that cake. And that's all you did is just sit there and smoke ass with this guy and talk about, you know, the Shiva. Right. Everything, he was a Shiva follower, so we got into the Shiva thing.

But that was a unique experience. How did you guys manage to communicate? Was he speaking Hindi or what was he speaking? Martin speaks fluent. I think Sam, what's Sanskrit? What? What Sanctua is ancient, I think, right? Is Sanisbury?

I'm not sure. Maybe in like Tibet. You have to guide me. Martin was the, and again, we're talking 50 years ago or something, 40 years ago. Yeah. With a lot of other activities and rum. So a lot of this is a blur. Now, I lucked out.

I have collected pictures, uniform. fun little memorabilia. Sure. Helps bring it back. But I don't know if I could tell you a language because I didn't speak it. No, I totally get it. And even if I did,

I was like, I don't even, I'm not a doper. I was so freaking I from being in that scene like a week with his guy. He would reach in. He would pack this thing with hash. Does I'm like this big packet? Like, you know, a black pack.

powder gun. And then he would reach in, pick up a glowing red coal with his fingers. Don't hurry. I'd be, he's like, him, oh,

heba, he, it was a that's awesome. That's awesome. When in Rome, that's how you get Intel, play the game.

Yeah. So, and then, so you stay with him through the winter, and then where did you guys go from there? I think we're there. Honestly, pulling in out,

you know what, a week, two weeks. Okay. We wanted to get over to the border. I mean, it was really big to us to find out what was happening with China and Dalai Lama and his people. That seemed like an interesting area to go check out. We never made it there.

We came out. We had motivation. We came out. Hung in Delhi. lived in Charard Deli for a while, went to, where's the place they burn the bodies and thome in the river all the time,

hung out there for a little while, trying to think of the town. Anyway, from there, there was something jumping in Calcutta, and I've tried to remember what it was because I figured we'd hit this tonight. I do not remember. Something was happening in Calcutta.

Whatever, we were there. And then Martin had a chance to do something back where we came from somewhere. I don't know, Israel, somewhere way back. But I got word that stuff was jumping in Thailand and Burma. So we, you know, hey, catch up with you later, brother. And I went, which I'm comfortable in Asia. That's more my. Sure.

I felt, no, I didn't need a babysitter for that one. This banshee goon thing, I was very happy to have a sidekick. Right. So anyway, I went to Bangkok, linked up with some people that they just wanted to know what was going on up on a border. You guys probably know it. Maybe people out there do or don't. Chankai Shek's army booted out of China. Chankai Sheck took off Taiwan, lived.

large his poor army stuck fighting actions back into burma just stay alive kumantan so they're living up there apparently and i'd love any of you guys or your viewers that are beanie types or matteen types you'll know better than i but i heard that um during the vietnam war because we had the bombers out of utorn out of thailand that was our big B-52 base and our strike in Donom. We didn't have the manpower to patrol the China, Burma, Thai border in case China decided to do a, you know, really getting, they were involved in the war, but to be overtly involved, there was always that possibility to come down and, you know, wipe out North Thailand and

wipe out our bases or whatever. So they did the map team all along the border in Burma and Thailand. up north, the Golden Triangle. And arm these guys with state, you know, laws and Cook 25s and 50 cows, it's strapping to elephants and this whole big nine yards.

They were a force to be reckoned with. I think they even might have got red eyes at some point in time. Anyway, apparently when they saw that we were leaving, America's pulling out of Nam, and

please educate me of you know better than I. I think they wax some of our teams. And they, you know, cut off ties with America. You know, they milked the cow and killed it. And now they're on their own, highly armed. About 80% of the world's opium was produced there at that time. I mean, there's other places now.

Back then, that was the golden triangle. It's where the money was. And they pretty much dominated the shans. state and you know the burmese tried to get rid of them the chinese tried to get rid of them the ties tried to get rid of nobody could uproot these guys because you're talking triple canadip forest in kind of sawtooth mountain terrain heavily armed and got all the money god owns to buy more arms so they were forced to be reckoned with so apparently from what i gathered all the all the villagers, Taiai, Musseldame, Musseldam, Mao,

red and blue Mao, I think they were. They were all the little farmers in the region. And the cash crop was obviously opium. That's what made money. And for years they tried to, you know, our USAID guys would go up there and, hey, everybody, don't grow this bad, bad, poppy. Nobody likes you.

Why don't you grow corn? Look, we bought corn seeds. Here, grow corn. Well, you know how that went. They could not brood them. That was their bread and butter. And, you know, I get it. I lived with a people for a while up there.

I smoked a crap. It was a nice buzz. You know, I like vodka. I like rum. The opium was great. I didn't have a problem getting up in the morning and going to work. These guys, they smoked it for 50 generations. They'd be up at the crack of dawn,

humping, you know, 200 pounds on their back working themselves to death. They didn't have a problem with it. Yeah. So, you know, how it appears here is totally different. How it appeared there, it was just like us having a martini after work kind of. Yeah. So anyway, I got some maps and whatever and figured out, okay, how do I go in there and see what's going on? I'm just going to check it out.

We're on a fact-finding mission here. And basically, somebody was hiring people to go do this. Yeah, I'm guessing, B.E.A, I don't really know. You know, I was just like a subcontract kind of guy. you know if I can make a buck what the hell oh yeah that's cat I can do cat right hi and I always humped

uh playing cards sewing needles big packs of sewing needles a lot of playing cards and Gerber mark two knives so whenever I'd hit a bill I'd show up and cow bonga and then find the head knob and you know make a big production out of Gerber mark two

because they all had You've seen them the forged knives. They're nice, but not our steel. Yeah. The head women, I'd always give them packs of sewing needles, which that was big medicine to them. And then playing guards. Everybody played guards.

So it was like a good intro, and it was like to hump. And that got me in long enough to eat some food and chew some beetle nut and sit around at night and smokes a mow with them while they played their instruments. Just kind of see what's going on. Very interesting. And was there, did you feel like there was a risk or a threat there? I mean, from, you know, were you able to determine whether or not there was an active? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Obviously, there was an active threat. But were you basically collecting intelligence on that threat? Well, I was trying to just get a feel. I have to, as an unknown in the workforce. create a resume that will catch people's eye, so hopefully I'll get a job. Right. So I'm out resume building.

This whole trip is resume building. You know, if you go, I'll do this or that. Yeah, right. Okay, pick a number. But if you go, you know, I was living in a cave with this dude in the middle of nowhere, and I happened to blah, blah, blah. Right. Right.

Right. Something on a resume. They'll listen. So this is resume building. Right. And I didn't know you could travel around Central Asia smoking hash and like it was like a couple bullets on your resume. Like, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Back close to the end did. You went where the black shiny shoe guy can't go. Those guys are good at what they do, but they can't get down. You know. Now, there's many, as you know, layers. of a program or of a mission and that was just one I felt comfortable being in

I didn't go to OCS like I right so and I mean do you think that a lot of this was just who you were as a person did a lot of it come from lessons you learned when you were part of CAP like living with Vietnamese living with the indage and like learning how to adapt to somebody else this culture.

The Vietnamese experience for me was life-altering. I mean, literally life-farm. Yeah, I'm a Christian, American farmer. I mean, it didn't get any more cloistered than that. I didn't know anything about anything. My farm in the Bible and, you know, had a home. So getting dropped in a middle of a totally alien culture, at 18 and then having a mother that made you read a book all the time,

Pearl Buck and these kind of things growing up. So she's stimulated the brain with all the readings she made us do. So now you realize you're in the middle of one of these books per se. Enjoy it, experience it, taste it, eat it. So I think that helped me not just be a grunt. It helped me be more of a cultural expert in that particular field. And I've found, I use it here domestically. I use the same things I learn, how to get Intel.

Not that there's a malicious reason to get it or you think there's a threat, but you always got your rabbit ears up. You always pay attention. I mean, you try. I want to learn something. I'll use those skills to get into that group so I can learn whatever it is I want to learn. Right. And it's like a, it's a skill set, I think.

I didn't go to school for it, so I can't name it. Like I took a class on it's just cumulative experience. Sure. and you know you live and learn you touch the hot stove you don't do it again no and if you open up a box and got a reward well you do that one many times and just you know no no science no rocket science it's just life anytime I go anywhere I read the religion of the area you know if I'm going to Somalia I went to Somalia I've read the uh the Oh, Lord, old guy,

Brainfork. Tell me out, Dave. Are you talking about the Quran? Okay, yeah. Like three times. Yeah. Because I didn't get it. So I keep reading it and reading it.

Get the basics time. If I go to East Asia, I yuck up, you know, Buddhism. I've read Suzuki in every book I can get my hands on of that. I go to India. I'm reading everything I can on. on, you know, Shiva and Krishna and, you know, the Panishads and all that. Wherever I got to interdict, before I even go there, I start trying to eat the cuisine. I start getting my guts because you know how it is when you travel.

Get my guts right. You know, start limiting the foods I eat to be adaptive when I hit the ground, so I hit it running. study their culture. I always wear whatever they wear. I don't do the Western thing. I'll show up with a Western facade, but then I'll go native. Now, if you run around Kabul,

dress like a cabalian, you know, you're going to get jeered at, but if you're in the bush, they respect that. Right, right. In Somalia, I always wore my skirt, the Somali tribe skirt. I was with whatever I'm with. I try to mel the best I can to show them,

hey, I want to get to know you guys. You guys are cool. Your culture's cool. This is cool. Be my friend. Yeah. Yeah. And not just be my friend because I'm an American,

but like I'm meeting you where you're at. Like, yeah. I'm here. I'm showing respect. Yeah. Yeah. Face. Yeah.

Anyway, I mean, it's all just a big road trip in the end. Yeah. For me, that's the path I took. Yeah. Well, I would love to do this again sometime, and we can complete the road trip and talk about, you know, coming back home. And, you know, I know Mike has been involved with Doctors Without Borders. He's been involved with a Burning Man. There's a lot more we can discuss.

If you guys want to see Mike on this. show again. I would love to have him back on. If you want to see him again, let us know down in the comments. So we know the amount of demand and how soon we should schedule him back on. I want to know your stories. You guys fascinated. This whole website fascinates me. Well, you know, it's on the internet forever. So all these episodes are out there. You want to check them out. And, you know, we're planning to do some episodes sometime where I'll interview Dave and Dave will interview me. We'll figure that out. That's a 20-21 project. But everyone, thank you for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it. Make sure you'll

like this video, give the thumbs up. Make sure you subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and hit the bell icon and make sure you get notified whenever we go live next time. Yeah, so like, share, subscribe. And there's a link down in the description to our Patreon page if you're interested in supporting the stream and what we do here. And if you do support the stream, you'll get access to all the bonus segments that we do with our guests. They're all on the Patreon page. Other than that, I just want to tease next week's guest a little bit. Caleb Phillips is my friend from Special Forces.

He and I went through the Q-Course together. So we're old school. Actually, we went through SFAS together. That's where I first met him. So me and him go way, way back. He's out of the military now. And I can't wait to have him on the show. We will break his balls a little bit, give him a hard time.

And he has plenty of stories of his own between the 82nd Airborne. He was deployed down to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina with the 82nd. And then he was in fifth group deployed, you know, obviously with special forces as well. So lots of cool stories there. I look forward to talking to Caleb. Rapping up, Dave, Mike. Any final thoughts? Thanks for inviting me.

Mike, thanks so much for coming on. And like, I mean, you know, already people are saying they want you to be on again. And I know you have so many more. I mean, we haven't even gone into like this is just a few years we're talking about right now. So thank you, everybody, for joining us tonight. Thank you, Mike. Please do join our Patreon. Even $1 a month helps us.

It helps us bring, you know, this content like Mike and our other guests. And you get access to all our really cool secret stuff. So thank you, everybody. Thanks, Mike. Hey. All right, guys. See you next time. And we are out.