Unsubscribe Podcast - Vietnam Hall Of Fame Sniper Ed Eaton | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 280

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

SCAVLAND IS OUT NOW! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3373500/Scavland/ We are honored to host vietnam veteran Ed Eaton! Watch this episode ad-free & uncensored on Pepperbox! https://pepperbox.tv/joinunsubscribe WATCH THE AFTERSHOW & BTS ON PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/UnsubscribePodcast 👕 Merch & Shoes https://bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast 🔋 Energy Drinks https://drinkechelon.com P.O BOX: Unsubscribe Podcast 17503 La Cantera Pkwy Ste 104 Box 624 San Antonio TX 78257 ------------------------------ THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! SHOPIFY Free trial at https://shopify.com/unsubpod FUM Head to https://www.tryfum.com/UNSUB and use promo code UNSUB to get your free FÜM Topper with purchase, and start The Good Habit today! GHOSTBED Get an extra 10% off already reduced prices at https://ghostbed.com/unsubscribe with code UNSUBSCRIBE at checkout. HEXCLAD Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at https://hexclad.com/UNSUB! #hexcladpartner PONCHO OUTDOORS Get $10 off your first order at https://ponchooutdoors.com/UNSUB when you enter your email. ------------------------------ FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS! Unsubscribe Podcast https://www.instagram.com/unsubscribepodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@unsubscribepodcast https://x.com/unsubscribecast Eli Doubletap https://www.instagram.com/eli_doubletap/ https://x.com/Eli_Doubletap https://www.youtube.com/c/EliDoubletap Brandon Herrera https://www.youtube.com/@BrandonHerrera https://x.com/TheAKGuy https://www.instagram.com/realbrandonherrera Donut Operator https://www.youtube.com/@DonutOperator https://x.com/DonutOperator https://www.instagram.com/donutoperator The Fat Electrician https://www.youtube.com/@the_fat_electrician https://thefatelectrician.com/ https://www.instagram.com/the_fat_electrician https://www.tiktok.com/@the_fat_electrician ------------------------------ unsubscribe pod podcast episode ep unsub funny comedy military army comedian texas podcasts Chapters: 0:00 Welcome To Unsub! 3:02 Ed’s Military Background & Basic Training 24:54 Ed’s Book 37:40 How Ed Became A Sniper 46:22 Ed’s Helicopter Story 1:14:46 Military Logistics In Vietnam 1:23:45 Funny Vietnam Stories 1:32:54 Ed’s Book Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. They started calling in my kills as our sniper. I didn't tell anybody. I'd flunked her past sniper school.

went back to my outfit. It's the fucking corn sweat and I'm like the what? The colon sweating this time of here. My balls were sweating. Oh good, yeah, I want a circumcision on a boat. Hold still! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I always figured out I'm gonna be fine. I about shi-my pants. Say hi to, he's racially ambiguous. Brandon. His hair is fucking fabulous. Donut, a dog's oak disposition, and there's a fat electrician.

We'll come to unsubscribe. We have hit a million subs. One million subs. Thank you. Show brought this from Ireland. All right. Thank you. Cheers.

We have a lift-off. Oh my God. I know that is not a shooting whiskey, and that was a sin, but dear God, that is delicious. Thank you. Thank you. A million times thank you. We have hit a giant milestone that I had a million years. I would have never thought possible, but it's possible because of all of you.

So thank you guys so, so freaking much. Y'all are amazing humans and I truly, truly appreciate this opportunity. I am fucking stoked. Also, just randomly enough, our video game releases Friday at noon, Scavlance. Go check out on Steam. Codes down below. Leave a review. I cannot tell you officially to leave a good review on Steam.

But if you leave a good one, I'm a love you. We'll all love you. And if you leave a bad one, I'll also love you. And then on top of that, we, all of us, you can go check us out on Twitch and watch a stream. Enjoy the episode. Oh yeah, we gotta pop the cans. Everyone ready? Beautiful.

I'll pop this guy. Okay, on the counter three. One, two. One, two, three. You know, that's good shit. You don't have to lie. No, it really is. White claw, yum, yum.

That's good shit. I never drank it. My wife drinks it, but I ever took a sip till just now. Welcome to the unsubscribe podcast. I am joined today by my co-hosts, Eli Double Tap, the one and only Ed Eaton, Nick, the fat electrician, and myself, Brunut Boperator. Thank you for joining us. You're very welcome. Everyone's changed that seat so much.

It's like, man, the donut has many faces. You're the only one that people will confuse, though. Yeah. What do you mean? I am donut. I know. It's nice to meet you, Donut. He's my Tyler Durden.

One of these days, I'll come to realize that. And now we got Mr. Ed on. Ed, what's up? Brother, Nick set this one up, and I'm... I mean, we're all stoked for this one. Nick was very, very stoked, especially if you read our text messages. That was just a very funny text thread. Well, to be honest with you, I had never heard of you guys.

But I had two guys I served in Vietnam with called me up and emailed me whatever and said, hey, I saw that the fat electrician is talking about you. I'm like, who the fuck is that guy? And he's not even fat. That's what the word thing was. But yeah, anyhow. And then he calls me up months later. And by that time, I'd watched your podcast.

cast and thought hell you guys are my kind of people so yeah perfect and i love texas so this is a piece of cake for me yeah yeah and it sounded like it was uh you're you're our kind of people just from again oh you have bad taste you're a bad taste well you're a fellow grunt you know all of us grunts have bad taste a hundred percent dude well thank you for coming down we're super stoked for this i know we have i mean you have uh if you want to go to uh i mean you want to go to uh i mean I mean, where do we even start? You have like a crazy story, but then just even leading up to that. Well, I mean, I guess, you know, what, Sniper Hall of Fame? Yeah, it was quite the honor, surprised me. It happened a couple years ago.

First time I ever had a general wanting me to sit next to him. So, yeah, the Army named the sniper classroom after me, and then at the same time, did a nice little. In fact, I'll give you guys pictures If you ever did some of that Well, you might Yeah, you probably got on my website Anyhow Yeah, pretty cool

And I think there's a lot People a whole lot more deserving than myself But nevertheless, I was the one So first Hall of Fame Inducte into the Army Sniper Hall of Fame No Yeah Yeah

And then what we got You've been You had a special on History Channel About you? History Channel did a story on me. Unfortunately, they didn't finish the story. But they had to make way for ancient aliens.

Yeah, there you go, right. NRA TV did a, it's actually better than History Channel one, I think. But it did the rest of the story. And it was a very well done film, even though it was done my, my home as opposed to Hollywood was for the, I did the first one. But, well, I mean, like, your, if we were a whined, you started, well, your dad served in World War II. He was a Marine vet. Correct. And Korea, yeah.

Oh, I didn't realize he did both. Yeah. Dang. So you had that leadership and that, uh, how was your pops at that age? Just like, well, you know, I had, I couldn't go to school until my gig line was straight. And, you know, I had to stand inspection for dinner every night. But, no, it was not having. I think rules is not a bad thing, you know.

It makes life easier for you as you get older. I mean, they set you up. This is the time during the draft, and you signed up. Well, I had actually joined a National Guard as a high school half-lunchtime bet. Four of us walked across the street. You said it was a bit. Directly across the street from the high school to the National Guard outfit, even though we all needed our parents' signature,

but my mother was more unhappy to do it. She was afraid I was going to join the Marine Corps or something else kind of stupid. So anyhow, I did that. But, you know, I hadn't really even heard of Vietnam in 65 to speak of, but people are going. Now people are dying that I know. People starting to get divided.

Should we be there? Shouldn't we be there? And I just really felt that I needed to go and see for myself. And so I went active and hoping to be a combat medic. Yeah, how did you end up being 11 Bravo? Well, in order to be a combat medic, I would have had to have re-uped. And I thought, you know, I might.

Nah, I just only have to survive one year of infantry. And then I'll have my GA bill and all served. It'll all be good. That's kind of what went down there. soldiers don't change every time it's always like oh re-ups a big ass. Wars changed the guys that fight them down.

I love those old photos. Soldiers don't. That is one of the most. I mean even with Iraq it's how they would hook you as like oh you'll get a $20,000 sign up bonus and you're in Iraq so it's to note it's non-taxed you get it

all right now five years and like and I watch my buddies they signed up for they did that and then like, I f***ed up. Yeah. Like, yeah. How me,

why did you do that? I really wanted to be a pilot and I passed all my warrant officer stuff and my dad being the ex-marine, he fed the Marine Corps all my info. And I had the scores high enough to get into the Marine Corps Air program. But that's six more years, you know.

And I just, I didn't know if whatever. So I decided I could survive one year. I rather erroneously. We said this on a podcast we filmed previously this week and I brought it up again. It's every time there's an Army guy that with a crazy story that did incredible things, it always starts with. I almost went into the Marine Corps, but then I went Army instead. And then they proceed to just go do a bunch of crazy stuff anyways.

A little of that Sammy said was like, yeah, the line was too long. Yeah. Yeah. That was what Sammy said. He showed up. The line was shorter for the Army, so he went there instead. My dad and I, he didn't even write me for six months. He's pissed off that I joined the Army.

I like his nice. Like my son's going to war. It's like, we go out to the bar and he go, hey, this is my doggy son. I'd go, yeah, this is my short-headed father. Did your father teach you to, like, shoot everything growing up? Absolutely. They were mountain people. So my great grandfather got killed in the battle of the prelim to the Battle of Nashville.

I forget the name of it now. The Battle of Nashville is a wild sentence. But anyway, it was part of the Battle of Nashville, but it was the early part down in Franklin, I think. So. So. You're throwing a flashbang at us. Yeah. You have a history, Nick over here.

So my whole family moved to state of Washington right on the Oregon border. And they were mountain people. That was about the only land that was really left to homestead. It was worth of shit. And so my dad was raised on the mountains. And it raised in a tough manner, 14 miles to school, literally. So you had to do. Well, my grandmother was a school in more.

Many, a long story, all that crap. So my dad and cousin joined the Marine Corps right after Pearl Harbor, and that's kind of how all that went down. But, yeah, shooting was a big part of, we never ate beef, or at least in the house, until, I don't know, maybe senior year or later high school. Is it venison? Yeah, venison and elk. Yeah.

Yeah. So you literally lived out, like true mountain people where it's... Yeah, and back then you could get four or five dear family, you know. I mean, you could get a dough and then you get a buck and so it was all good. But yeah, I can remember him getting me in the backyard with a piece of shit 22 and had buck sights. And the only way to adjust the buck sites was he's a heavy smoker. He'd bring out a little match piece of match and stick it. under there and move it around and so whatever.

So going into... Lost my zero. My matchstick moved. That's a wild statement. I mean, when we said we wanted match grade sites, I don't think that's what we were thinking. Exactly, yeah. So what was going in basic training like for you? Well, a piece of cake, actually, because I played six years football all the way then.

Gotcha. And humped up every goddamn mountain you can imagine. So I was immediately made a squad leader, that kind of crap. Yeah, so that wasn't a big deal. Infantry training surprised me. It was pretty tough. The 26th mile march with two weeks of shit on your back after spending two weeks in the boonies was,

it was almost asking too much because we were humping 7, 10 miles a day anyhow, playing war and now all of a sudden you gotta throw everything on your back and go home for 26 miles. But it's a good question with basic because I think a lot of us, our basic was very different. Even like next year, like, and you get to see every decade it just got softer is what I say. Yours, it's wild to hear. It's like, oh, it wasn't bad. I'm like, how was your childhood if you looked at like Vietnam basic training like, ah. Well, the crazy part is like not only did the standards get

lower because like you know the basically the biggest march I had to do between medic and basic I think was 10 miles oh my it was like it was like eight or 10 but the other part of that is my gear is way better than yours was too like the the rucksack I had is way better than the rucksack you had and I only had to go half as far mine was half full of water being out of port louis so I had an extra whatever pounds added to that oh you do for it oh you you still call four Louis it's it's not called that anymore i was the name no mccourt uh joint base up them it's port lewis 10 4 that's what it was for me it was the year after i got out because i was stationed at fort lewis and then it switched and i was like what the you know i have an interesting story about

what is done then so my old unit is now a basic training unit in fort jackson's south carolina so we go down there for a union and the army is just really really treated us good. They sent buses, took us out, and took us to each and every range, you know, which was really important to me, was my best friend, had a range named after him. And Roniger in my book is where I wrote, anyhow. So here they are like, oh, come on, Jack, come on, come on, Jill, let's get over the hill, you know, like, oh, you don't feel, okay, go ahead and stand out to the side. I'm going like, what the fuck, man, you know. So. So you're heckling the current recruits? So we,

invited the cadre and uh bravo third of the 60th to our dinner and they also brought their colonel the battalion commander and i asked him i says you know how how come basic training so long is it's longer than it was well it takes about two or three weeks for us to get him in shape for basic training i'm going okay so these guys were all infantrymen all the cadres were all head-in-combathing infantry badges and I says so how long's infantry turning I says how come it's so much longer well it takes us a couple weeks to get him in shape for infantry training so I said you got so you're telling me that people of today's era are a month to five six weeks behind for you guys were just 40 years or you know just 20 some years ago and that's that's the truth that's that's how soft we as

Americans got. I spent a lot of time in Fort Benning right now, and trust me, Americans were in good hands. Men still have tetesteroon. And they're a man that want to be men, and they're the ones that want to be infantrymen. They're the ones that want to be Rangers, warfighters. Airborne, special forces, anything they can be other than a regular guy. So, yeah, it's all good. I'm pretty proud of our military right now.

So, I mean, going into that, because I did read your book. And one of the things that was really cool for me to see is that a lot of other war memoirs don't really talk about a lot is you spent quite a bit of the book talking about how just the elements of Vietnam kind of kicked your ass when you first got there of the climate. I mean, you were sound like you were a pretty in-shaped guy and you were still having a miserable time when you first got there. It was the hot season to begin with. So every day's 95 to 105. 100% humidity. It's the Macomb Delta. And you'd wake up in the morning and you'd think it's a fog.

No, it's just, it's just the water and the rice paddies warming up is a little further, you know. Oh, wow. It was really steam more than anything, you know. I found that out last time when we were in Iowa that you guys deal with that. What is it called? The corn sweat. Yeah. Yeah.

The, I had never heard. heard of this before. Yeah. What's a word? It's not evaporation. It's transpiration. Oh, okay.

Transpiration. All the corn in Iowa when it's tall, when it gets hot out, the corn sucks groundwater up into the stock, which causes condensation on the corn because the groundwater is cooler than the atmosphere.

And then it sweats out and turns into humidity. So it's like above 100% humidity. It's like you're getting punched in the face with hot water. It was miserable. It's aggressive. I'm like,

what the fuck's going on? You got to feel it because you were in Iowa. Yeah. They were like, it's the fucking corn sweat. And I'm like, the what? That's a weird statement. I thought Nick was fucking with me. I had never heard of it.

I'm like, what? The colon sweating this time of year. Oh, of course, the corn is sweat. What the fuck is corn sweat? The corn is sweating. I'm not kidding. My balls were sweating. Garner, are you been sitting on a business idea?

Oh, I've got so many business ideas, Eli. My newest one is that I'm going to sell pants to slugs. Well, Brandon, tell him what he can do about that. I'm going to sell salt washed jeans to slugs. You're f***ing with my customer base, man. Well, either way, you can find your customer base and sell to them on Shopify. I don't know how many slugs are on Shopify. More than you'd think.

Are you saying Shopify will make the business easier for Connor to make it happen? As easy as it can be. From the moment the first slugs ready to pay. Shopify also powers millions of businesses worldwide. I do know that because the first customer, couple businesses I started, I actually used Shopify and it made it actually manageable to do. We actually all use Shopify with Bunker and everything we do. All our businesses actually do operate under Shopify. When Snail Trail jeans finally takes off, I will be using Shopify.

With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and making it a real business. Except Slug's ability to use the internet. But go make one. Start your free trial at shopify.com slash unsubpod. Start your trial at Shopify, S-H-O-P-I-F-Y dot com slash unsub-pod. Unsub-P-P-O-D. You know, my first mission might have been my worst mission in that. I had never dealt with that kind of heat and da-da-da-da.

But part of it was because I was a new guy and it wasn't quite in shape. we dusted off I think I forget how many guys but a bunch of them didn't come back they were permanently had brain damage from heat exhaustion

oh they were full on heat stroke and they did yeah the heat stroke and they did not get us water for a couple days we were literally going to the rain all the hoochers had a rain barrel but the rain would come

down off the Well, it's full of mosquitoes is what it's full of. So you'd like spread mosquitoes away and suck up some water, you know. Doing full well, you're probably going to get malaria at some point or not to keep on doing that. But, yeah, from that standpoint, it was brutal. And, of course, your first time actually having somebody shoot at you is. Not as cool as they make it out. That is like a god-fair.

I always figured out, I'm going to be fine. I'll be fine. The rest of these people are going to have a problem. I about shit my pants, man. This is god-faring stuff, you know. I literally had rockets flying over my head that far. The sad thing about it was I actually saw the son of a bitch that set up in front of me. But I never seen the enemy before.

And I'm thinking, well, I need to call somebody to see, make sure it's not somebody from my element. you know. And so I tear the radio. So I tear the radio away from the Pryk 25. I tore the headset away from it. I couldn't call anybody. And then they laid into us. But yeah, it's anyhow, I just,

but as far as element-wise, we literally finally got to the Mito River, which is probably the largest arm of the Mekong. Delta. We're drinking out of it. We're that thirsty. And I literally, honest to God, because everybody shits on the Mekong

all the way from Laos, all the way down to where we were at. Somebody up the river not very far had a nice, fresh turd floating right by me not long after I'd taken a drink. A life straw. Hey, at least it was after. Silver linings.

Anyhow. So that kind of went downhill. from there. Yeah, downstream. So it's like. A great bunch of guys. We looked out after each other. What was, like, if we can go back just to basic for one quick question, it's like,

you're saying, hey, it wasn't that bad. It was easy, especially going through what you went through afterwards. Where the drill sergeants, this is the time period where they could hit you, right? They wouldn't hit you. They would have other people hit you. I, here's, here's how they do. Battle bullies. No.

Now, here's how they did it. Battle bullies, why? Here's how they did. It happened to me. So I'm the squad leader, right? So my drill sergeant comes to me, goes, eating. I want to make sure, I can't remember his name now, but I want to make sure he knows. He knows what?

I want to make sure he's learned his lesson. When he, we show up formation tomorrow, I want to look. at him and know that he has learned his lesson. Going like, what the fuck you're talking about? Didn't take me long and I realized, shit, I got to go fuck the guy's head up, you know. So me and another squad leader pulled a blanket party on the guy and dumped him up a little bit. So that's how they did it. Damn, I just imagine this being like an error of communication.

He shows up, all fucked up the next day. They're like, what the fuck did you do? I just wanted you to talk to him. I wouldn't even just say. It's like, hey, I learned my mind. mistake, Trills aren't? Why is that black and blue right now? We had a real interesting situation in basic training. We had a entire platoon of guys that all came from the Idaho

boys home. All 60 of them. Every friggin one of them they put together, which was probably a mistake because those guys already had their own pecking order, you know. Well, the Army realized that right off the bat, so they doubled up on NCOs at night and during the day. But they had one kid, Peeway, a little red-headed dude. Peewee loved to get his ass kicked. You know, he loved to be this center of attention by just, you know. Crazy pastime. He would do it on purpose? Yeah, I mean, he literally would. And so I happened to be going to the CQ, a charge of quarters late at night. As a squad leader, I could do that. The rest of us,

Nobody else could leave the area of it. Here's this goddamn drill sergeant. He's like, he has pee-wee on the front porch. It's only that wide, and it's concrete. Pee-wee get on that stop at the top of the porch and get in a dying cockroach. And you stay there until I tell you to quit. So he's staring at a dying-cockroarge, which is your arms and legs sticking up in the air is all it is. Yeah, an angle, 45-degree angle, which does get tariff-mantrop.

Anything gets tiresome because in your brain it's like, oh, they made him do it for 30 seconds. It's like, no, drill sergeants will make you hold that for hours. Until I get tired. So the drill sergeant goes to the back of the barracks catches somebody fucking up. And he says, okay, gentlemen, here's the deal. If you're not outside and in formation within 20 seconds, you're all going through. We had these little crawl sand pits next door. 40 yards of sand.

Yeah. You're going to have to crawl through those, which that wasn't so bad, but now you have sand all over you, all over the barrier. You've got to clean it up everywhere you're on. Making sugar cookies. Yeah, so. So he kicks, so. So what happens? It's diabolical.

What happens? You've got 59 guys kicking the door open, charging as hard as they can, and here's pee-wee. You know? Just trampled the shit of that poor guy. Oh. But he realized. right then and there that he needed to straighten up. Did you guys ever have to do Superman's?

Yeah. Superman drills for a punishment? Will you do that? No, no, no, no. You fall into formation and then the drill instructor's like, all right, three minutes. I want you back here in formation wearing the bottoms from your dress uniform, a combat top, your beret, your rubber boots, and your cold weather gloves, go. and you had to everybody had to be wearing the exact same uniform

and you would just do it over and over and over again and if anybody was fucked up you'd just smoke the dog shit out of you while you're wearing like your cold weather gear in July like yeah they call it they call it supermans because you had to change really fast like Superman yeah dude all the it's crazy when you hear all the different stories it's like oh this is what they're going to do to you we had learned one mistake where I was really good at Flutter case

I could I could always max my PT yeah you got these tiny any legs. Dude, exactly. It's moving two inches. Like, and great for that, bad for running.

And road marching. Dros aren't Maynard was like, this, he had me doing it for like three minutes. He's like, how you feel in Quavis? I was like, I'm fine. I was like, you can't smoke a rock.

Dros aren't worst. Oh, horrible idea. I could have ever said was that. And he's like, it was at this moment. I was like, oh, I fucking, Up real hard right now.

How are you doing now, Quavis? Rock's real fucking tired. Speaking of the turd in the river and almost shitting your pants, I think there was a story where you did shiots your pants and you needed a new pair

for a particular reason. You know, the funny thing about that story is, well, let me tell you how I wrote my book first of all. I started hiding things from my mother and my wife. And then I started,

well, I don't want to call this son of a bitch out. So I had a list of things I couldn't say more than anything. So I thought, I can't write that way. I just got to tell the story, tell my, the way it is. I did send it to three of the guys that I served with so they could help me with the timeline and the names. accuracy and so forth and one of them happened to be a uh ex-writer for hearse newspapers uh had a master's degree in writing and happened to be our f o and it was zeke you i read i read about zeke but anyhow

he just demanded that he that i keep in all the horror house the fuck the other shit in there you know the reality of it all so i mean to because i've read your book obviously it's speaking of shitting his pants it is genuinely one of my favorite war memoirs I've ever read and I've read a lot and it reminds I told him in the car it reminds me a lot of I've talked about it before John Lewis Barclay's book Scarlet Fields no hard feelings and it's for the same reason of like he didn't he didn't try to like paint himself as like Superman super tough guy he told he he highlights all the mistakes that he makes and he's like yeah got lucky. I screwed that up and got lucky anyway. So it's, I don't know, it's a very humanizing. Humanizing real perspective of like, nah, I was a kid. You know, their biggest reward I've received writing that book is I've gotten so many emails, letters from Infantrymen, Army and Marine Corps both.

Thanks for just being honest about your fears, you know. But back to what the hell you're at. Oh, well, I will say just up to get. So there's a chapter of my book. I think it's called shit in the pants. What's the chap? What's it about? So I'm a platoon sergeant at this time.

You know, we're set up. We're set up in a canal, and it's actually a coconut grove. And I got to take a dump, which, you know, really, we hardly ever ate or drank out in the fields that you hardly ever, you probably would never pee for days on end. And so anyhow, so I go a couple three dikes away from everybody to take my dump. I'm squatting there. That's a very different unit of measurement in Austin. I'm getting ready to pull my pants up. Here comes these two V-C running along.

I just poof-poof see them between the trees. And they're unloading both their 30-round magazines right at us, you know. So I jump backwards, you know, and grab my pants, put them on, jump back to my, where my rifle was and I get back there and pretty soon my my men are going oh man that's the hell you know so I realized oh I scooped it all up in my pants so so so I went and uh took a mud bath and threw my trousers away and figured I'll just grab a pair of trousers in the morning when we got a resupply dropper. So in the morning I called in for a pair of new trousers.

And about that time I get a radio from my company commander. He says, Eaton, he says, when that resupply ships come in, he says, you need to be here because Colonel Pete's coming in also. And he wants to award you a bronze star in the field, which we had never heard of such a thing. You know, how they just usually gave you one. nobody ever handed it to you, never made a big deal out of it, you know. So are you just winning the pooing it at the moment? Was that? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I had a strange week. I'd killed a lot of people that week just from just by being there and happened chance. I think I attributed to the fact I hunted a lot when I was young, you know. I had good eyes for movement. But so now I'm freaking out. I'm going like. But I mean, you're out in the field in your world.

underwear at this point. No, I don't know, you don't wear underwear. You're winning. You're winning. The literal translation. It looks like a wizard. Ringworm would just double up if you had underwear. But so anyhow, so I said, okay, which one of you guys want to give me your pants? Not one of my men would. Says, you guys are going to make me order you to give me a pants? Yeah, we're going to have to order. So, and about that time, I found, and out because we needed to do a clover leaf to protect the area for the incoming choppers and i just made sure that i uh uh wasn't around you know to uh be there so it'll work that fine

did you just walking around with your like brown top on and boots yeah yeah there's balls of swinging i i was actually in a can't remember where i was restaurant one time and this guy introduces me to this day to his and never meant to go for my life and she says are you sergeant mudcock true story well one of my mid called me sergeant mudcock and that was kind of what you know it's stuck yeah you know if i do a fat electrician video that's going to be the title sergeant or mudcock yeah yeah big sarah little sorry parade rest of those. If you've tried quitting, smoking, or vaping, and you keep going back, well, you'll have to try our new sponsor, Fume.

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He was like, no, you need this. Yeah. Any of it, boiled down there. There's just two of us in the whole damn little, it's only 20-man hospital. And the doctor got bored, I guess. So he announced on the morning, you know, every morning on the ship, he'd go, they'd blow their whistle. Sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms, give the ship a clean sweep for a half. All those wishing a circumcision report to the ship's hospital.

They're talking about it like it's a fucking flu shot. I know. Well, anyhow, a shitload of people showed up. They wanted their circumcision. So we had a lot of fun with that. So made sure playboys were hanging around, you know. We talked about sex after their... So they do the circumcision, and they gave these guys little spray bottles, you know,

was spraying their dick when it tried to get hard you know we had them spraying all night long finally to remember the point that some of them even ran out of spray they're like just just dudes being bros trying to get their guys hard it's like like i thought that was really weird so then i looked into like why why would they even do that and apparently it turned into like a fairly common thing where the army was in marine corps i guess were like offering circumcision to people that were already in the hospital because the hygiene conditions were so bad in the field that they were having so many soldiers get,

I think it's called Balantitis. Basically, you get like an infection on the head of your dick and the head of your dick swells up and it's taking guys out of the field. Weaponized dick cheese. So they were, yeah, exactly.

So they were literally like, if you're already there, they're like, hey, do you want this done? So this isn't an issue later. Kind of like getting your wisdom teeth removed before deployment. By the army, though.

Yeah. The last, The last people I trusted, like, I got to go off. I didn't think about that. This is the Army doing it. That's what I'm like. No, no. It was the Navy doing.

I was on a Navy ship. Oh, good. Yeah, I want a circumcision on a boat. Hold still. It's a wave pattern. Rived for her pleasure now. To be fair, I think most of the guys were in there because they thought they could get a day or two out of the field.

Wait, you didn't get time. Well, you can't go out to the field with a sewing up dick. I know, but how much time did you get off from Dick? Well, a couple, three days. We'd miss a mission. At least you'd at least miss one mission, you know. Three days doesn't seem like enough time to heal from that. Yeah.

I don't know. I didn't keep track of them. That's a... It'd be such a weird call to hear, especially, like, when I was in or anything. It's like, hey. You want circumcision? Come on in. We're going to take care of that for you.

I wonder what percentage of the military was not circumcised at that time? Because Americans, that's like a fairly... A huge percentage. Yeah. Really? My era, there were actually, as I recall, more people that weren't circumcised than there were, you know? And the argument against it was you're restricting your penis from getting larger by trimming

down the skin, you know. if you have extra skin, penis can be extra large. It's like when my mom got me clothes, I'll grow into it. Yeah. Approximately 20 to 30% of American men to this day are still uncircumcised. Yeah.

I didn't know that. Yeah. I would have thought like culturally, I just thought that was. What about back in the day though? How was it in 1960s? Yeah. I'd assume quite a bit more.

Because now America's the one place that does it. Well, I mean, it's worldwide. It's a lot less common to be certain. Well, they used to ask you, do you want your son circumcised? Now they ask you if you don't want them circumcised. In the 1960s, so, well, this would be people born in the 40s, but in the 1960 percent. In the 1960s, newborn male circumcision rates in the United States reached an all-time peak of approximately 83 to 85 percent. This means that roughly 15 to 17 percent of American baby boys born during that decade were uncircised.

What about 1940s? But the 40s is, yeah. Yeah, that's where I'm like, I wonder about that. Yeah. Approximately 20 percent. still. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different.

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at westjet.com slash 30 years. Just getting your pee-pee cut. Again, by the military. last place. For anyone that doesn't know this, you do not have them work on you for anything. The Army does any wisdom teeth pulling. I got lucky with any of my dental.

They're like, do you want us to do or do you want to go off base to a doctor to get any dental? I was like, fuck, and what? That's an option. It's like send me off base. I think one of the funniest things about that,

I just remembered. So they had a little surgery room with portholes and it could be in a Navy ship, right? You just had to stick it through a porthole? So the headman. The worst glory hole ever. The head corpsman there and us. So we would look to.

Corman were doing it? No, the head corman. Yeah, the head corman. At that point he was. Anyhow, so we looked through those little portholes, and of course the patient could see us, and we go, oh my God, like it just cuts. something off and he'd go and he'd act like oh fuck we we screwed with him so it was fun Jesus that is

so uh you're going man I want to get how long were you in before uh your big event because I want to talk I want to talk to talk about that because you already talk we're talking about like injury cycle but I know that people would love to hear especially you were you telling it Nick does a fantastic job the one for lack of better words made me famous if you will the history channel yeah can we before we get there can we can we talk about your experience leading up to it because I think that's the coolest part to me is

a lot of people are probably a lot of people probably don't realize that you technically weren't a sniper when that event unfolded and so I mean just kind of more about your experiences so I was one of the first 30 people trained through fruition of a sniper school.

And that was the first one that flunked. And what they did was they started with 35, 40 of you, and we did open sites for like a week, and then they just took the 10 best shots. So then they had put us through the school.

And I was the top shot in open sites, 300 meters, man. But 900 meters, I had somebody else Colin Wynn for me and I only got two out of five into the soap so I flunked by one shot. They didn't let you bring your matchsticks. So, yeah.

So, Aaron lied in an argument. I mean, the instructors were arguing, well, you know, this guy called that kind of win, that guy called that kind of wind, and maybe that was the issue. There's no rules or rules. So, so anyhow, so I went back to my unit and what I'd love. learned so I started mounting starlight scopes on M-16s and using it at night and this is a brand new thing yeah can you kind of tell the audience what a starlight scope is yeah it's the first nighttime scope really you know it's um there's some bitch was huge

you know it was like that big around it was like by the time i i regress anyhow um so they start calling in my kills as our sniper. They didn't realize I didn't tell anybody I'd flunked their past sniper school. I just went back to my outfit. So every time they'd call in a kill, they're like, oh yeah, our sniper, Ed. So the commoner of the sniper school, he has me on the board. Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed Eat, well, actually, I was black eye, is what I was. Or bad eye, excuse me.

That was your call sign. So he's keeping trying. So the instructors, they know what's going on, so they realize. But I always came by the school every time I was in the base camp just to say hi. So one time I did, the senior insular says, Hey, Ed, we've been thinking about this, and we need to get you a goddamn rifle that's worth of shit.

So they gave me an XM21, the extra that they had. it and and and and and that's what I was carrying as a platoon sergeant and the carrying the night of the helicopter crash so xm 21's just sniper sniper fired yeah m 14 okay yeah yeah so i had went through that's funny because it that it's the m 21 but back in the day it would being the xm 21 oh it's still experimental at the time that's kind of that's a cool note yeah yeah it was it was the cutting edge yeah yeah i mean it was the only automatic weapon that could shoot you inside a minute you know inside a minute is a minute angle so i mean right one inch one inch ever 100 yards you know so yeah so i went in i was a rtl at first which was a good experience i hated it

wasn't able to move very fast you know i want to be able to defend myself and shoot back instead of following i had a crazy ass god damn squad leader rtl radio guy right yeah okay who trying to find uh i cannot if you put me in front of a radio right now. I would not be able to do anything. Yeah. Because people don't realize you had to reset it, flash it to communicate to each other. Yeah. But we had a nice little, we had schooling in the AAT on that. So then I got rid of that. So then I was an art or a granad deer, it was 79, man, which was really nothing more than the learning position to be point man. So then I was point man. And then And so we voted for who is to be the next squad leader and who is to be the next

platoon sergeant. It didn't have anything to do with rank. So I was voted to be the next squad leader and I literally had a sergeant underneath me. That was a C4. He didn't like that. So anyhow, so that's kind of how all that started. That's how I got up to that rank. So I was a platoon sergeant.

the night of April 3rd and company commander came to me one night and said Colonel Pete needs you know we need two choppers full of guys to go check out some radio transmissions in a certain area so

I really didn't to be honest with you didn't want to go. It just got off a mission we're beat up and tired and the only guys that were volunteering with people that really didn't know what they were getting into. But I felt I needed to be there for them, you know. So, so yeah.

So anyhow. You are a sniper at this point. So I know you're saying it's like, hey, they can't. No, I'm still not a sniper. But I have my sniper rifle. No shit. Okay. So like, okay.

He was a non-sniper doing sniper shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

After I get out of the hospital and I get that, that rifle back to them, which was beat up, how the stock was splitting two, and the mount was all askew, and they decided how we, so I was the first guy to be able to take the sniper test over again, so that went out pretty good. Hell yeah.

So from that point on, I was full-time sniper. I have to ask, too, how'd you like the thumper, the M-79? You know, the cool thing, it reminds me of shooting a bow. Yeah. You don't need sights. You just need to shoot often enough so the little computer up here understands the distance. I mean, I can remember dumping rounds and 150 yards inside little one-man.

They like to make bunkers only big enough for Vietnamese, not as Americans. Big enough for a 40. Yeah, yeah. Most amazing shot I actually ever made We're setting on a riverbank Waiting for boats to extract us And here comes this VC Military Age plying down the river

He doesn't see us to the last minute And we went lay day, lay day And he's not coming over So I shoot A parachute Willie Peter round up In the air It lands in his boat.

Oh. Well, he's moving. Bad day. Talk about lucky is what it really amounted to. He was probably... That was the lucky. Like trying to get around it. It's just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's burning a hole in the bottom of that wood sandpan right away. Yeah. Damn. Yeah, no, that's been my experience, too, with the M79. It's just like point shooting is just, It's just easier. The sites, I don't know if the sites are just wrong. I tried the sites.

In fact, I raised hell because I didn't have sites. They found them for me. First wood line I came into, oh, that's about 200 yards. Let me see. Like, man, poop. Oh, I missed. You know, it's just, you just need to be, you need to be able to go, boom. Mine's going to correct immediately.

And there's so much variation on the ammo, too, like the weights and the distances and everything. That's why you saw like a lot of those guys You see pictures and things like that Of guys that just carry the M79 Like on their rig and shit Especially a lot of the Like the special operations guys Where they would just cut the stock off

And they'd cut the barrel off So like they would cut it right before the sights So like a big pistol Yeah it's just a giant It looks like a pirate Literally like a pirate gun It's just a sawn off M79 Don't know to what effectiveness

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And it was actually a fairly long distance from where we're at. We were already the southernmost element in Vietnam in the Mekong Delta, which wasn't a good deal because those guys had come all the way down through Laos, Cambodia, and then they'd use that river to...

So we constantly got into brand-new troops. It wasn't like they walked all the way down from Hanoi to the Mekong, you know. I mean, we literally got... guys that I'm being country a day or two. So anyhow, so we fly in this night. And it's an unusual rice patty in that it's a good foot of water and a shit, a good six inches of absolute peanut buttered mud. You know, you just, you know, immediately your feet are wearing 10 pounds and extra.

And so we're clearing the, I'm clear, my team is we're clearing the hoochers on one side and Camp Perkins, he's clearing them on the underside. And we never do meat. And it's just slow going. And we got a problem in that the helicopters are telling us that they're running flow on fuel and we need to configure. So we go out to the rice paddy, but, along with that, I'm stuck in this hooch has a huge bunker.

You can tell it's more than a personal bunker for the family, you know. I'm trying to get him to come out of the bunker and they're making crying baby sounds and shit. They don't want to kill no babies, so we let them go. I didn't want to, you know, didn't have the time to deal with it any longer.

And so, So we get out into the rice paddy, and I'm talking to Camp Perkins, because now we're hearing voices behind us. And so I don't fly out with my own bird. I don't fly out with my man. It doesn't matter because that's the end of the mission, right? They don't need me. So we fly off, and then we start taking a body count, and we're short a man. So we fly back, and sure enough, here's this dumb son of a...

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You know, just stupid. shit but so anyhow we're running between that chopper and the enemy and oh as we're leaving to begin with they lay into us but we have two cobras and these cobras just blow the shit out of everything but they don't have the kind of rockets needed to blow these bunkers up that we're in there in fact for the very first time we found concrete which is unusual down there That means it's established. It's not these dirt holes. This is like an actual bunker.

Yeah. The compound. Yeah. So anyhow, they pretty well expend most of their shit. We all fly away. So the colonel, he's going home, and the, and the, uh, cobras are going home. And the only people that are in communications are us to Hueys. And so we go back down and, uh, we got our ass shot down.

And so the chopper rolls and most all of our weaponry was thrown out into the rice paddy. You couldn't see it. Like a complete roll? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. We're probably going 60 knots. It's just.

And it's dark at this point in time, too. It's midnight. So, you know. It beat the dog shit out of everyone of us, of course. And a few of us had bullet holes in us. I didn't have one at that point. But anyhow, so I'm stuck underneath the helicopter. I finally get out.

Captain Perkins, he's stuck. And so I realized there's still guys in the helicopter. So I jumped back up in the helicopter, just laying on its side now. And to try to help people out. And I get everybody out of the helicopter And we're still receiving fire These guys are still Wanting our ass is what it amounts to

So I try using the M60 on the side The chopper but it's not working In fact, most of all the ammo Would already been ripped off and thrown out To the rice fatty somewhere While the chopper was running You were

You had the helicopter was pinned you down And you crawl out from under Yeah, when it finally rolled that was underneath. In fact, I actually remember, bared to get my chin above the water. Just, surely, I worked my way out of it. Captain Perkins, he was under there even worse.

In fact, his hips were broken out of that deal. So here I am up there anyhow, and finally, they find two rifles. One's the M-16 and one's my M-14. Which is good. I have ammo for my M14, but I didn't have any ammo for my 16. So I think it was a door gunner. He threw me up the M-16.

I'd rattle it off. And then I'd throw it back at him. He'd put it back up. He'd throw it back up. And this is midnight, sir. Are you just shooting at muzzle flashes, basically? Yeah, yeah. And traitors, you know, they quit reasoned tracers right away.

Well, they really quit reasoned tracers once I figured out where they were at. So I had my rifle and I'm shooting and it's not having any effect at all. And not surprisingly, the scope was a skew. But I did catch one round splash in the water that reflected enough for my starlight scope to pick it up. And I realized it was down to the left so I just started shooting up and to the right. And then I started hitting the little bastards. And so anyhow, that was working out pretty good. And then he's throwing up the M16 still, and so I'm trying to act like I'm more than one person, you know.

That's kind of a lonely deal. I mean, here you are. It's a shitty place to be on top of a helicopter. You don't have any cover, you know. But it's the only place I felt that I could be of effect. You know, I needed to have that fuel of fire. and so that went on for some time. Finally, you can read a whole story about it in my book.

It was 30 on one. Like, that's what they're saying. It's like, yeah, I have no idea. I have no idea what it is. Some of the guys I was with say more, some say less. But it's still enough where you were the individual on. Outnumbered. Yeah.

Easily to say outnumbered. And as an infantry dude, you have like cover or concealment. and you're like, I need this vertical superiority so I can just... Well, I really wanted to be in the wood line behind me because the chopper by that time was smoking and fuel all over hell. So I was kind of worrying about it and burning, catching fire at any minute. Anyhow, so finally they figured out that we weren't going home. And so here came Colonel Pete.

and this guy was great. We called him Pistol Pete, and he deserves, he gets off that helicopter, and he's, pooh, pooh, you know. With a 1911? Yeah, with tracers, 1911 with tracers. Good God. Literally Hong Solo.

I didn't know they had treasures in 1911, yeah. So anyhow, he's a great man. And I end up being his platoon sergeant of the snipers later on. But so we got some guys aboard, and then another helicopter comes in, and we get some guys. And here I am. I'm all by myself still. I'm going like, how in the fuck? I'm never going to get out of here, you know.

Now here comes the Cobras back. They don't really have any ammo. They fired what they did have, which was minimal. And so I got a ride on the outside of a cobra in the middle of the night. That's what I, dude. I just, I, that part of the story, I was like, wait, he was on a cobra. What were you holding on to? I was like, I don't, I'm going to have to ask this question.

Because again, cobras are not passenger. No, they are. What were you holding on to? Well, they have a little ammo door, which is about that wide. And then the struts right there. And then, of course, then you got the rocket pod aiming that in. There's still one rocket in that son of a bitch that he couldn't get to go off. So, in fact, I remember knocking on the canopy and pointing that.

And he goes, yeah, that I'd be right. Anyway. So you were, don't worry about it. You had your back to a dud rocket that theoretically could have gone off at any time. I have no idea what it could have done. Don't fire. It shoots him back on back to the way.

But I had it right out of that hell hole is all I cared about. So we're flying along at Treetop, which is what those guys like to do because that gives the enemy much time to really get, you know, shot at you. I'm sure you appreciated that as well. It's a dark, dark night. And, you know, my chin's skin of my chin's flapping around. I have rigormorice now. I can't even move. How much can you see?

Because it's still dark out and you're sitting on the rail of an assault helicopter going right over the canopy of the jungle? Well, you couldn't see a whole lot because as a pilot, I was looking inside that. I knew the theory of flight on a, on a hilly and any helicopter so I'm watching the gauges I'm just really interested

in what hell these guys are doing you know what are the RPMs and that shit you know so anyhow finally he slows down you can feel it because my chin

quits flapping and settling down but we're hovering and he goes knocks on the canopy get off get off fuck you I ain't getting off

I can't even see the horizon number one little on the ground I don't know if I'm one footer 10 feet up, you know. Apparently, he pops the canopy up and goes, get the fuck off, you know. So, I mean, so there's one other guy in helicopter by then.

Mike, I regress. Pistol Pete had kicked his, ask his Tiger Scout to stay with me. So there was actually two of us. So he was on the other side of the cobra. So anyhow, we're laying in there and going like, what the fuck, man? There's nobody around here. Like, it's dark. You know, pretty soon we hear Vietnamese talking.

I'm going, oh, shit, man. I'm going to, nice not over with. I'm still going to die. But we figured out, they dropped us next to an Arvin compound is what it was. So the next best thing. A what now? Arvin Army of Republic of Vietnam. The good guys.

Good Vietnamese. They're good Vietnamese. With going back to like... But I couldn't walk by then. I mean, I literally had to push myself away from the helicopter. I had no, you know, action or anything to... And you didn't feel that during it, because adrenaline, a lot of people don't realize that level of adrenaline.

It's just... Yeah. You're just going. Like, you don't notice anything at all. You just, oh... Well, they gotten shot in the finger. I had strepinal in my chin. I didn't notice any of it until...

And my back was broken, and I found out later my neck was broken. Yeah. And at that time, it was just... And that was from the crash, the initial crash. Yeah, yeah. And how bad during the engagement your stock on your XM 21, 24? 21. 21 broke.

Yeah. So you had all these little things. Well, imagine the stock having a split all the way from the butt to the pistol grip. Yeah. So instead of being a six-inch stock, it was like an eight-inch stock or something like that. Just hanging there. But that really didn't have any effect. It was the scope being askew that was screwing me up at first.

But once I figured that out, as far as I'm concerned, that saved my day, you know. Through that scope, like even with it being supposedly night vision, how well could you see through it? A whole lot better than you can see with the naked eye. Fair enough. It depends on a night. You needed, quote, a starlight. You need some kind of light in order for things to be reflective, you know. So the darkest of nights, I might be able to see an extra 50 feet at the most, you know.

And they, because of what you're doing, though, they had, you downplay, you are a true infantryman. And it explains how you wrote that book where you don't want, you want the silly stuff you did. You don't want to glorify that side. Because, again, gum battles, movies make it sound awesome until you get in one. And then you're like, this sucks. Well, that's not as cool as it sounded like. Or it looked like on the movies. I don't like that.

And then you're experiencing it. But your action made it seem there was a whole bunch of people, way more U.S. soldiers there than there was. Right? They're meaning at the chopper wreck? Yeah, because the enemy thought there was probably more than just... Oh, I was going to ask about that, too. How did you present yourself as an appearing to be a larger force?

Had two rifles. Well, that doesn't go start. I was appearing to be two guys. That was it. Oh, okay. Yeah. But I never knew what I was going to get from that M-16. It might be fucking magazine-filled tracers, which would have got shit my pants because that just told them right where I was at again, you know.

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Hex-Clad. Hex-Clad. What was your experience with the M-16? Because I know at least for a good chunk of the Vietnam War, it was not seen as a reliable. Well, the early ones. thanks to the United States Navy giving the Marine Corps shit, they were the only problems they had. Army recognized the dirty.

What they did was they slowed down the action from like 750 rounds a minute to 600. And Teflin coated some stuff and chrome coated some other stuff, you know. It was a phenomenal life. It was better than the AK. The AK was. would, I don't know how many AKs we ran into over there that were left on the field.

They have a little cable inside of them. And that cable would rot out so fast down there in the Delta from the humidity and the heat. Like the recoil spring? Yeah. Interesting. So. I know the Chrome, the Cromland barrel came because it was, the M16s were having that issue at that first wave of them. It's like rusting, having pieces.

And that's why, that's why the Marines want, preferred to go back. A lot of them went back to the M-14 and stayed that way as long as they could. I don't blame my damn bit. The ones I had in training sucked. They had the same shit they gave the Marine Corps. You could hardly get through qualifying without a jamming, you know. My great-grandfather was a combat engineer. He operated like a combat dozer in the Pacific in World War II.

Yeah. And then he was in Korea. And to some degree, he was in Vietnam. Yeah. And so man had a bit of a career. But he loved the grease gun. No matter where he was, he would always try to pick up a grease gun. We were an interesting unit.

The third of the 60s was kind of a test unit. So we got test clothing, different kinds of clothing that nobody else got. We got different kinds of boots nobody else got. And stupid little things they'd give us, including weapons, automatic shotguns and grease guns and shit. We'd try them out. If we liked them, we'd keep them. That's kind of cool. The grease guns was, you know, they weren't nothing but 9 millimeters or 45s.

Yeah. They weren't accurate. But, you know, for a jungle situation, not a bad deal. When you or was anybody else in your unit, because I've heard a lot of like guys, especially point guys, would actually have their parents back home mail them like their Mossburg or their Winchester shotgun from back home and they'd carry that on point. over the M-16. We didn't have a problem with that.

We had access to all that we wanted. We had one guy, I remember, he carried a shotgun for a quarter of all. Yeah, you know. I did not know they did that. That is a wild thing to be in combat. And then you're like, hey, can you send me, me bling over in Iraq? And then I'm like, Brandon, can you send me the AK-50, please, just for like two weeks? I get it.

I'm like, cool there. It has check marks on it. The idea. Like this time in our country where like you could just mail a gun to a combat zone like Harry Potter getting the fucking new broom or some shit. It's like here's a shotgun not only across state lines, no transfer, but just like also like into a different fucking country that we're currently in a war. Live stream it. You can raise money to get better. The funny thing is is I got a hunger game style.

The funnier part is like you know for a fact if mom was mailing a shotgun, it came with like cookies or some shit too. You know what I mean? Like it came in a care package. Because that's, I mean, to a lesser degree, not like mailing it from home, but like it's kind of crazy because now everything's so uniform, especially in NATO standards. Yeah. There's like just the shit that you use. This is what you were issued. This is what you will use.

Back in the day, it was just kind of, the further you go back, the more it was just kind of no man's land. Like with Teddy Roosevelt and the rough riders, like buying cult potato diggers, like the machine guns. He's like, no, no, I've got money. My guys are going to have the best shit. my best friend who also was a platoon sergeant right before me, he got killed and so as a result, I was awarded all his goodies

that weren't able to go back home. And one of them was a 357-38 pistol that was sent to him by his parents. That's still wild, like the idea of just getting that in the mail. He'd be like, cool, I get to try a new firearm over during the war. Did you take it home? You know, I did feel comfortable with it. Him and I were really, really close.

I just didn't feel comfortable with it. So I gave it to another platoon sergeant. In your book, you talk about, I don't know if you developed the tactic or if somebody else and you adopted it, but I'd never heard of anybody doing it before. how once you were kind of working that sniper role, you would actually use tracers to tell attack helicopters where the enemies were at. I thought that was really interesting.

Did you develop that or did you learn it from somewhere? Did you pick it up? No, it wasn't me. I think it actually came out of a different battalion, but we called them Hunter Killer teams. What we did was so we'd have a team of snipers and one guy would lay out port door and one guy lay out the starboard door

and that's left and right in army terms you go down the rivers and if you saw first of all anything at night was down the river was free kill because they knew everybody in that whole war

knew you don't move after dark or we're going to shoot at you the United States let put out so goddamn many little flyers and they all knew what the rules are. And then stacked right behind us would be two cobras. And we all didn't run lights. Had a little light on the very top that kind of tell the chopper bugs could tell where you at least. Anyhow, I'd shoot around and treasure around. Then I'd get on

my radio and I would start talking to the cobras. And I'll tell them what I saw and and how far away my round was from the actual target. And so these guys would just fall out of the sky following that tracer. And they, beauty about to cut, mouth on it, he smoked dope. Anyhow, they'd fall in on that tracer. And beauty about to make on Delta was, it's all flat. So these guys could watch their altimeter.

And then they knew when to flare out and when they popped these lights on, they had extra lights on them. And it was like, I think they're called Zeon lights. But it's like lighten up a football field, you know. Zion, that's what they'd be called. Those are like, they're fucking fool. But these are bright, especially in that time

and it's the middle of darkness, you kick those on? That's crazy, yeah. You were in the bathroom, but basically they had a tactic where the snipers would use tracer rounds to tell the attack helicopters where the enemy was at. At night, yeah. At night. On the rivers.

I'm just thinking, like, being VC on the other side, like, he missed. And there again, well, there again was one of my lucky shots. I targeted this lone little dude on a sandpan. And they peeled off on it. And, of course, we kind of peel off to the other side. and you kind of have to turn your head around and watch, see what they're doing. But anyhow, we broke for lunch and refueling, which is midnight.

And I went up to the Cobra pilots. This is, why didn't you guys lay in of that dude? He goes, we didn't need till you shot him. So I went, well, that was best. Yes, the final one around. So we were in a helicopter shooting at a moving sandpan on a moving river. Like, how lucky can you? get you know.

Yeah, task failed successfully. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that was my fun. And as a platoon sergeant of snipers, I chose that. We had a 900-killer team. That was where I was going, you know. Every time. Now, did you have, since you were in that special or that unit that did get

to test stuff for your camouflage, was it still just like basic greens or did you actually get to use tiger stripe or? The only people had camouflage. were allowed to even have camouflage were snipers and the Lurps. That was it. Dude, lurping is also like, but you and, like, those two jobs are absolutely Lurfs, long range reconnaissance patrol. These are the guys that would go hump 15, 20, 30 miles out in enemy territory

doing reconnaissance missions. That's one way. That is one way. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys were crazy. And also you're, I mean, you guys. Yeah.

guys. After. No, years later, excuse me, years later in the Vietnam War, they started issuing camouflage to the infantry.

But I'm talking 68, 69. Yeah, towards the end of it. Yeah. It's like well before, like drones or anything like that, just like, hey,

Timmy. So after the helicopter, obviously you're jacked up. You've got to go to the hospital. You've got to recover. Circumcision thing happens. And then, yeah.

I didn't get a circumcision. Fair. I still have a full-blowing dick. My aunt eater is proud. You recover, and then how does that lead up to you going back to sniper school and actually graduating? You know, I would go back. The sniper school was pretty close to the port where we would, on the ships, if you got close to your area and you had some time off, usually about three or four hours off, but that's all you needed to go get drunk.

So, you know, so we'd go into the base camp. And one of the very few first places we'd hit would be, so I'd stop and stay high. And they had cheap beer. There was dine beer. So I'd pay 20 cents in the NCO club. But anyhow, I rolled in there after that, and they says, hey, you know, we've been talking and we're going to let you take the test over.

So you didn't have to go through the whole program again. No, I just take the test. Yeah, they give me three days to sharpen up. and then a test day. And you had all the kills. Like, as you're saying, that guy had that on that board and you're probably leading it. That was a funny part of it because

was he found out he had to wipe all those numbers off and start all over again. Oh, no, that's kind of funny, like having on the professional scoreboard, some guy who's not even like part of your crew. Yeah. It's like a stock car racer getting smoked by a casual in a Honda Civic.

like, wait a minute. Has I guarantee you weren't on the bottom of that board. Were you at the top? Oh, no, no, no. I mean, those guys have been there longer than I had as snipers, but I by no way or means was a top sniper. I was only a sniper for a few months. That was mostly straight infantry in Vietnam.

Imagine the shit that the guys at the bottom got blown. It's like, you're getting smoked. You're getting blown out of the water by an 11 bravo. He's not even a sniper. He's like, no. Oh, yeah, that guy who's deaf and was like, you just put him through school. We don't have to erase it there. Which, another interesting part of the story.

How did you end up with the XM21? I mean, there's got to be a story there. You were homies with a buddy that hooked you up or? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so the one I had on night of the helicopter crash. Yeah, because, I mean, you weren't a sniper yet, but you had the new experimental sniper rifle. There's a story there. So, yeah, so I'm in, once again,

taking advantage of the 10-set beer at the sniper school. And these guys go, hey, you. You know, we've been talking, and the armor says he has an extra rifle that really has no, you know, so we're thinking we can give it to you. So then they go, let's go see if major pell is, the comment on the sniper's still, major pal. So they had to make sure he wasn't anywhere around when they did that. So, okay, here you go. Don't show up here with that rifle, though.

Dude, your war was so much cooler when it comes to that. It's like coming back and be like, let's get some beef. ears, guys, would have been absolutely insane to me. I cannot wrap my head around that, like, mid-combat or coming back from a gunfight and drinking. He also stole a bunch of ice cream from the Navy at one point. That was a great story. Go for it. Go for it. I want to hear it. Brandon, look what I got you. I got you your own poncho shirt because you don't own one. I've never had one. Editor, play any clip of unsubscribe. You do. boys wear them. Why? That's because poncho makes shirts for guys that actually go the

f*** outside. That's right. You will touch grass when you wear a poncho. You don't have to if that scares you, but if you do like touching grass, these are a great shirt for you. They have an inner mesh to like up with sweat. What? That's why it breathed so well. Like actually like in in West Texas summer, like I'm on the road in West Texas all the time. Ponchos are like the uniform because they look good, you know, the pearl snaps, everything like that, but they also actually breathe. So you can be outside and just kind of roll the sleeves up and like You look good and you feel good. The boys and the pearl snaps.

And ladies love them, for the record. It's probably the best shirt he's ever worn. I'm not even kidding on my daily attire. Poncho is like 75% of it. I think everyone wears ponchos. Yeah, because it's great. Like, it's comfy. If you need to be professional, it can look professional.

But otherwise, just like going around, it breathes well. You could be outside doing sporty shit. Like, it's just all around just good for anything. And they do have a little bit of stretch. But I didn't have to worry about the cost of refilling. my wardrobe with ponchos because we had the code unsub. How much do you save with that code? Well, I'm glad you asked, if you go to poncho outdoors.com slash unsub, you'll get $10 off

your first order. It's a hell of a deal, Brandon. To make it even better, you get free shipping on top of it. By God, I'm gonna start wearing poncho. You'd be crazy not too. So the Navy always was with us. They would feed, first started, they would look at you and say, your army, and they'd give you a hamburger or your Navy I'll give you a kind of a steak you know I'll give you better food then

they finally get that we called them on that so then we all got to eat the same only when we were in the minute we left they they had ice cream they had all kinds of cool shit you know that we didn't get they were saving it for themselves when we weren't aboard ship but see we're only aboard ship one ever four or five days and only for 12 hours at a time anyhow just long enough to get some ringworm off of us and go back out is what it amounted to. It was shit, shower, shave, and then you're back out on mission. So this one day, we all, we have a, we can all go to town. The ship, everybody on the ship's going to town, so are we, you know.

And I can't remember why, but there is a handful of us, I think it's four or five of us. We missed the boat. And so we had to wait for a half hour for the next boat to take us to the base camp. And so we start talking about, you know, those sons of bitches are eating ice cream, but we're not around, you know. So we went up to the gallant. We broke into the freezer, and here's all these big five-gallon cart and paper, you know, how they did in paper, you know? Yeah, brown paper. So we all grabbed five gallons of ice cream each of different flavors.

We took it all the way down to the bottom of the ship where our birthing area was. And we're like eating this ice cream. Pretty soon, you know, you got, shit. We didn't need a gallon, but, you know, maybe at the most. So here's this 20, 25 gallons of ice cream. It's melting as we leave. It's hot down there. The Navy didn't like giving us air conditioning.

So we come back and those cardboard sides had broken and the ice cream was all over hell. We didn't give a shit. We're walking through it. We're going to ruin what we're going. Now we have ice cream all over the ship. And the Navy's, the Navy was never happy with us anyhow, because we were muddy and we didn't know what they were doing starboard and port, you know. I knew you left with just ice cream in Vietnam, which is, man.

It's funny ever since the Pacific, like that story you were telling, like how much the logistics, like the supply train or the supply chain of, the U.S. military, we just flex on our enemies with shit like ice cream. Yeah, the ice cream ships. You know, that's a sad thing about what's happened to our military, and it's all because of fucking congressmen from what I know. Not only did the USMJ have different rules and regs when it came to law, from combat to stateside, for example.

Combat, as an NGO, I was God. I could put you in jail for six months. No questions asked. you know oh no shit no that now no that's as a news to me yeah and uh and the same thing with logistics uh they didn't give a if the form was filled out or not they needed a truckload of this shit or a boatload or what any hell they just got it to the front i swear to god i could have probably got on the radio and said tomorrow mornings i only need some pink underwear this sons of bishops would either die

or found it, you know. It was amazing, but these guys were good at logistics in Vietnam were amazing what they did. So they got it, they got it to us, you know. Well, it's the paperwork, and it was that wave of, I've talked about it about, like, when the peak surge is happening in Iraq. That's what I experienced. That was it. And then my guys went back two years later, and they were like, oh, man, we had to fill out paperwork for the one gunfight we got it. And there was paperwork and all this dumb shows.

Like, wait, what? You had to do that. How many rounds did I shoot all that crap, you know? And it's wild to think to have to do that, especially after a gunfight. Because, again, during the peak, it was they were throwing AT-4s. They were just throwing its gun, ammo, and like, yeah, fuck. Yeah. Have fun.

I didn't realize, though, also NCO is having that level of commanding. Well, I didn't know I did. I didn't know I had that kind of power. I remember I got rid of two guys I just And the way I would do it is I wouldn't even confront him I'd just say hey you're supposed to get on the next jopper

Then I didn't want the confrontation To uh to piggyback what he was saying about being able to order anything This isn't verified with like official documentation But there's this recurring story in the Navy That apparently on a ship a boiler technician ordered a fuel valve And it was like important so it was labeled priority like we We need this shit right now. And there was a typo with the clerk or this technician.

And whatever the part number just happened to line up with like a portion of the top turret of an Abrams tank. So they delivered the top portion of an Abrams tank on accident to a U.S. Navy ship. Like what priority? Okay. Here it comes. Don't know what you're doing with it. But here you go. I would be also very concerned.

Like, what the fuck do they need an Abrams turret for on a boat? Doesn't matter. Priority. Yes, sir. Well, actually, they were using tank tourists in Vietnam on Navy boats. Really? Down where we were at, we didn't have the plastic boats that you see on TV because they would last one day.

I mean, they're plastic. They're not going to last. So the boats we used had like three-foot walls on them. And they still wouldn't keep an anti-tank round from coming through, but at least they kept RPGs and small arms fire. And that was our landing craft, you know, like World War II. But, and then the gunboats literally had Sherman tank turrets on them. Oh, shit.

With sawed off barrels. It was great, man. Right. It was like riverines, right? No, the Navy came up with some cool shit. They had a, they had, we called it the Zippo boat, which had like 25 minutes of nothing but napalm. Why they call it the Zippo bro? I'm sure that's not a racist term.

Like a lighter. No, like a lighter. Oh, okay. Get your head out of the racism, Eli. The funniest one was they came up with this boat that shot water. And it worked out really good because it shut this stream of water about 100 meters. And it would like just level a coconut tree. And if you hit a bunker, it would blow the bunker up, you know.

So they had a regular, what they call a tangle boat with the empty. So they put two big cat engines in there, one squirted to the left, one to the right. So the swabbies would say, a starboard port. And they ran into some mud one day. So those things were sucking up water so hard. One of them started sucking some mud up, killed the engine.

They didn't have a, think about kill switches. So the other one still weren't going to just flip the boat upside down. Oh, shit. So now here you are stuck in this little canal that's so small, you can't even turn around on, you know. So it's kind of interesting what they used then, but yeah, you couldn't. plastic boats weren't and swift boats the john carry type shit they didn't last the day down there

you ever have any experience with like i know the the gun trucks of vietnam are famous the where they were just basically building mad max vehicles no we i mean we had we had a lot our most of our ammo came from sagon down that's pretty fairly secure road down to our major base camp and dong tam was the name of it but south of dong tam is that's that's a very fairly secure road down to our major base camp and dung tam was the name of it but south of dong tam is the whole different story. But, yeah, pretty crazy stuff. On the logistic side of things, it reminds me of that movie. Have you seen it?

I forget the actual name. It's like the world's greatest beer run. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was pretty fucking good. Just the guy who just like wants to go, like, link up with all of his buddies that are deployed. They thought he was a CIA asset. So they let him through. Yeah, he just kept fucking going with it because he's the failing up.

Looks like a CIA dude. And he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt in country with no orders. it's like, oh, fuck, we're going to take him wherever he needs to go. And then his friends are like, what the fuck are you doing here? It's like Donnie or whatever is this. Chips. So I, what happens when your tour comes to an end? Because I think you wind up in Australia for a period of time and have some fun.

You know drinking with the Australians. I wanted to go to Australia. Oh, I ran out. Sorry, drinking with Australians. Yeah, I meant them in Saigon. That was funny and shit. So I run into this LERP medic from my unit. And we both have camouflage fatigues on, which was rare.

And these two Aussies, they wanted our fatigues bad. So I'm going like, fuck you. I don't want you. My buddy. You're like, I just got these pants. Yeah. So the medic, he wanted one of those Aussie hats, you know. They had the nice big old foldover Aussie hat.

and anyhow one thing led to another after mass quantities of alcohol and we all just switched uniforms. So we went around partying in Saigon. They knew Saigon in and out. That's where they're stationed. And so

they all decided we're going to a horror house. So we go to this whorehouse, but the goddamn Aussies are now in American uniforms. And they go through their these guys go crazy. American, gee, I know. You know who can't come?

You know who can't come? And then finally they pull a goddamn pistol on us, so we finally said, okay, I guess we don't come. No one's coming that day. But we know more than God outside of that building. And here is a Jeep for the Koy Chon's, Vietnamese police. Australian police, military police, and American MPs.

We don't get, 50 feet outside that building and were grabbed. So the Americans grab the Australians and the Australians grab me. They're trying to figure, what the hell is going on here, you know? Because they're about to get hanged as spies. So finally this bird colonel, he says, okay, here's the deal. You guys just get the fuck out of here. He says, we don't wonder what's he going to say, and it's like, what's the big deal?

Then he goes, we've been across the street walking. in this place for ages. These guys are printing MPC military payment currency in the basement. But it's off limits to Americans. Probably the president of South Vietnam

was in on it. Who knows? But the Aussies could go in there and have fun, but Americans couldn't. Were you like, I'll go undercover? I'll do my research. The Aussies, the decide that we should go home with them. It means we needed a bed. Our bed was 50 miles away.

So anyhow, so the next thing I remember, I'm hung over like crazy. And I remember somebody kicking me in the bottom of my feet, get these bloody, and Americans out of here. And he goes, who the hell are you, man? Anyhow, so we had to give back to your uniforms. Nick, what was your text about? We can see if we can keep it or not? Okay. It was just cracking me up.

He's like, like, oh, the whorehouse. I was like, oh, Ed had good times all over. Whorehouse is God. We literally had full bird colonels. Well, I shouldn't say that. Lieutenant colonels, the battalion commanders that would send teams of people to go to another battalion's whorehouse and steal their horse. They'd offer more money. Talking about them like cattle.

They needed new talent. It's like a draft. They're just thinking of their troops, man. They needed new talent. Second battalion and second pick of the drafts, Kwan Ling. I made it. You know, Colonel Hackworth, he talks about that in his book. I can't remember which book it was he wrote.

I'm in one of his books, I think, Steele by Soldier's Harts, but he writes about stealing whores from other units. You know, it was such a different war than my life. Anything I experienced. Your horse were livestock in that war. It's crazy to hear just that. Yeah, he'd send him with a goddamn three-quarter ton and a pocket full of money, and they'd come back with a bunch of women, you know.

It's a colonel? A light colonel. Oh, thank God. It's just a lunatic. No, he wouldn't go himself. Dismay. He's like, got a job for you, brother. Nowadays, morale boost looks like a pizza party.

Yeah. It's falling told. They're going to have mandatory fun day. One of the first times they ever went to her house. It was right outside of Dong Tam. It was all off. They were all off limits. But, you know.

So I decided to go down there. And Jesus Christ, I'm not there like one minute. And this drunken son of a bitch in E7 is he's just tearing the place up, raising hell, throwing shit around. You know, it's all bamboo walls and tearing the place. place up any else. I got the hell out of there. It's just nothing but trouble. So I go back the next time and I'll be damn if there isn't an MP rate on the place. So here's like two jeeps of MPs with a three-quarter-ton paddy wagon and they're hauling all of us GIs off. I look and it's that same

son of the the NCO in charge of that raid is the same son of a bitch that was in there tearing the place up drunk on his ass, you know. I was hoping you pull the grandpa's in see you walk. in, you see the MPs, you turn around, like, you put your hat down, you come back in, and go back out. So as they're hauling me off to the paddy wagon, I see him, and I, I grabbed him. Oh, I put that guy in my Jeep, would you? So he put me in his Jeep. So we get inside the base camp, he goes, get the hell out of here.

That's the whisperer. I know. So Spider-Man meme? Yeah. How about we don't talk about it? this. Bygones be bygones. I'm shocked in appalled to find gambling in this establishment.

Here you're winning, sir. The best whorehouses I ran into were in northern part of them. This goddamn outfit had two whorehouses, and one of them you could get a steak dinner in. Mom only lets us have one. You guys were lucky you got to watch a... from shit. It's just wrong how they tweeted you guys.

What's that? You're right in your congressman. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Not enough. That can't be right.

Fuck it. While we're on the topic, one of the funniest parts is I was actually laughing last night reading it is when you were talking about how you given a couple of days of leave after graduating sniper school. He's passing the test. Yeah. But you were out of money.

Yeah. You didn't have enough money for a whorehouse. So you're like, can't take it later? I'm going to get some cash. You tricked it back. Well, it was. Put it on my tab. It wasn't too bad of a deal because you had a place to stay, free food and free beer.

It was an R&R center kind of deal. And right next door, of course, is a horror. house. And I did have enough money for one hour. I just like, it's like, wait until the first. The rest of the three days I had to sit there drinking my beer watching these other guys come and go. I'm going to, I'm like, Jesus, you know.

God. Ed. What it is. Jesus. I, I, I, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on. First off, talk. Explain your book. Where can the people find your book and you?

Oh, it's on Amazon, Kindle, Audible, and paperback. And soon to be another probably 60 days, a hardcover revised edition with some more accurate stuff. But how it actually came to be was that. So I'd already been in like five books and six magazines. And then History Channel did the gig on me. and this Hollywood scriptwriter gets a hold of me, and I fight him off for like a month or so.

And every week he'd call me up, and finally he says, well, you know, I'm just going to get your story from the guys you served with. And I says, well, that's the problem because they all exaggerate shit. And, you know, it's always always end up being wrong. I'll tell you what, I'll actually write my story down for you. So I'm doing that. And at the same time, I thought, I need to make this. accurate. So I sent it the three guys I was in Vietnam with, and one of them happened to be

a forward observer Ed Zeke, and he was a writer for Hearst Newspapers. After Vietnam, he played football for Michigan and got a master's degree in English. So he's helping me along with this, and just not as much as I was hoping. He just, he just, me go at it. Anyhow, so I get through, but I'm just talk, I just talk about the day I got there until the day I left, and he's demanding I talk about who I was, how did I get there, you know, what it was like to come home. So he ragged on me and ragged on me. And finally, I decided, what the hell? So strangely enough, this never happens. So sent the memoirs to one, one publisher, this guy meets me at Shot Show with a $10,000 check.

I mean, how many authors get that happen to him, you know? So we start talking and I said, well, you know, I want the disbursement. It wasn't causing him any more money. It's just that we're going to have to change the way the contract was written. He said, no problem. I'll go back to New York. We'll finish it. I'll send it to you.

sign it and I'll send you the money. Well, I get back to my booth at the shot show. I'm there with American Snipers.org and we are raising funds for active duty snipers because the Army doesn't know how to provide snipers with

what they need. Supply sergeants don't have a clue what they're talking about. So anyhow, we do a better job than the Army does. It's what it knows to. But anyhow, so I go back to my booth and there's this card from this dude and I call him up and yeah, what is he? And he said, well, he says, one of the snipers that you guys supported over in Afghanistan, you personally supported, Sergeant Reese, he says, he tells me you're writing this book and that you're a little bummed out because you're going to have to.

probably signed with somebody and you'd really rather self-publish. And he says, so have you thought about self-publishing? And I said, well, I have, but I really don't want to spend the $8,000 that cost to do it right, you know. This dude writes out a check for $8,000. And then he writes that one out for $10,000 for American snipers. And I can't take this money. I need to know what the hell you want.

I just want a book. That was all he wanted. No shit. So he allowed me to be editor, you know, the whole route. And I think therein lies where that book is so good to, especially my brothers. And, you know, I've even had Marines write me and say, man, thanks for just being honest about your fears and, you know, how things went down and that kind of stuff. That you're not going to have some woke publisher tell you. can't talk about whorehouses.

Yeah. I'm serious. Well, I was worried about my mother more than anybody else. But she already knew I was kind of a whoremonger. I'm telling you, it's one of the best memoirs I've ever read. Really? Oh, I'm excited. I've read a lot.

It's one of the best ones. I get this email from this professor. That's the best goddamn Vietnam memoir I've ever read. And I've read over 150 of me. He says, I've read every goddamn thing I can read on Vietnam. And so I says, well, obviously, you weren't an English professor. He writes back, he goes, I sure as hell I am. He says, it's not about the editing when it comes to punctuation and spelling and this and that.

It's like how it flows, how it gets the point across how it. He says, so that was my biggest academic. kudos. So I'm not going to brag any further in what he had to say. I will. As a great book. As a history professor, Nick vouches for you. It's fantastic.

This is the most text we've got about a book. Really? Yeah. Nick texting us about the book. That and another guy that self-published it. It was Ed and the Pied Piper of Saipan, where the two books. Oh, yeah. You guys like crazy about it, but he also self-published.

So, because you guys get to tell this story as you want to. And it's, and especially individuals like yourself. Well, you know, some of the stuff in the, I mean, like, I was interviewed a little bit for the, uh, by guy in my name of Lannning. He wrote the book inside the crosshairs. And, you know, and I told him, I said, you know, my, my, my kills were all under 100 meters or 6,000 meters, excuse me. And he goes, oh, yeah. Ed's kills were all over 600 meters. Like, he's fucker, you know.

It's not a sniper in a world that would believe that crap, you know? So those things were embarrassing. So that was kind of my will to try to correct things just by telling the friggin' truth. If you'd like it or you don't, don't give a shit, be honest with you. Just wanting to tell the story right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a true soldier that doesn't want. You don't want to glorify anything.

You're just like, hey, this is what actually happened because it is embarrassing. if one of your guys, like if any of my friends seen what I did. Just by telling the truth, I'm glorifying myself, I thought, by just being proud that I went from a stupid ass country boy to a platoon sergeant to one of the first 55 snipers in history of the army. I mean, like, that was enough. Might as well tell the truth while you're at it, you know. Ed, holy shit, has been an absolute pleasure having you on.

Yes, we are. A great podcast. So thankful for you coming out, hanging out. we've been doing this shit so for two plus hours almost two hours yeah we're almost about to creep up to two hours we're cool brandon if you want to close this out absolutely thank you for joining us on this episode of the unsubscribe podcast i am joined today by eli double tap ed eaton nick the fat electrician and myself brunup operator thank you so much we love you goodbye adios amegos