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special operations over ask me an the Team

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House with your hopes. Jack Durphy, David Park, Hey, everybody,

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Welcome to The Team House, Episode
two, one hundred and thirty six.

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I'm Dave Park with my cost Jack
Murphy. Tonight or a guest is William

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doc osgood member of one of the
Hawk recon teams in Vietnam, Actually quite

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a history. Doc has written this
book. Unfortunately, I take the dust

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covers off them when I read them, and I forgot to bring it.

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But he wrote this book, Hawk
Recon, which is a fantastic book.

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I mean it's really kind of the
day by day, not even a day

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by day, but it's vignettes of
what life was like for you and others

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in Vietnam. So, Doc,
thank you very much for joining us tonight.

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We deeply appreciate it. Yeah,
pleasure to be here. Oh let's

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see, yeah, it was,
it was. It was in the Hawk

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Recon, the only Hawk Recons.
There was only one. Uh, there

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was Tiger Force and a lot of
battalions had a Italian Recon and uh,

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yeah, so there's only one.
They were there for the whole war.

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And there were some really tough individuals
in and out, rangers, green berets,

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saw guys, what whatever they had
them all there a bunch of drafty,

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drafted legs. You know, it
was interesting. Crew. So let's

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ask you about your origin story.
What you know, what was it?

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Obviously the draft was on you know, it was nineteen sixty seven, sixty

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eight. Uh, you know Vietnam. We had been there so around nineteen

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sixty five and force. What was
it in your upbringing or what led you

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to the military. Oh, yeah, it was sixty seven. I joined

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in six sixty seven. No,
I wanted to be a soldier all my

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life. That was my thing.
I don't know, we're in Norwegians or

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something. We're biking it or I
don't know. Anyway, Yeah, it

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was when I trained for when I
was I don't know, probably a toddler.

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I worked on it, played it. It was what I was gonna

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do, and I was. And
then I wanted to be a marine.

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And then I saw the Green Berets, and then so you had to join

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to be a Green Bret. And
when I got in base camp, within

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about four days, I knew I
wanted to be a ci age and two

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of all the things that James Bond
was going on, you know, the

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young goofy kid, you know,
in to two or four four days and

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basically I do I wouldn't do any
of that stuff. I didn't want to

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do anything. So I would say
I would continue, I would continue,

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I'd go airborne, I'd go with
special houses. But that, you know,

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that was I'd be. Uh.
I wish I'd been drafted at that

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time, and I just I just
go do my three years. That's fine.

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Yeah. So, you know,
and one of the things you talk

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about in your book is not only
your story, but you tell the story

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of some of other people and you
also give you know, kind of an

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interesting history of the layout of you
know, from nineteen six five, the

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first Brigade of one hundred and first
going into Vietnam, and you know the

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story that follows then and you know, Westmoreland and kind of forming the reconnaissance

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teams and then how that fanned out. Right, Yeah, I've lost complete

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video or here for some reason,
but I can talk away her. Yeah

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we can. We can s Yeah, we can see you. Fine,

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we can see you and hear you. Okay, all right, okay,

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what's the question again of history of
Yeah, so can you give us a

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little background because we don't talk about
this often on the show, but the

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background of conventional forces going into Vietnam, of Westmoreland, of the hundred and

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first being there, things like that
you mentioned in your book. Yeah,

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I don't know anything about that.
I was just I was just there for

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the adventure and the thrilling and all. Yeah, it was the first Brigade

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one hundred or first. Are they
were there for the whole war. Just

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about they were there before the first
cavalry wherever got there at Cowboys. You

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know, they they protected the first
caval when they flew in off the boat.

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So it was the first brigade that
was there was three two other brigades,

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so just the first brigade there in
the early part, and about the

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time I showed up, they all
came over. So there were three brigades

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in there. And we called him
waste more Land. I don't know what.

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I don't know when he was in
and out. I don't know when

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he left exactly. I don't care
he so, but yeah, so we

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were all up there eventually up to
camp at Camp Eagle. But what's funny

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was I was supposed to be in
Green Bray School. In fact, all

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my buddies and we've gone through jump
school from after medic school. We were

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and we were accepted in the Green
Brays. We were jumping there at Brag

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we were training and somehow I knew
it was because I'm almost positive is because

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we had a critical MOS which is
medic combat medic, and we were like

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gold bricks. We were like,
you know, they dealt they dealt us

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like diamonds and ruff or whatever.
We were valuable for some reason, and

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I think it was My commander was
Charlie Beckwith. We talked about special Ops

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as the King's Special Ops Charger.
We called him Charger. I'm pretty sure

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after Tick, a lot of medics
were dead and he needed medics. He

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became an infantry commander, his paratrooper, but a battalion of regular infantry tally

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and the second two two seven,
And I think what he did was he

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needed medics and he's going to get
him. He knew where to get medics,

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and he knew hi about Special Forces
school. I mean he was a

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commander there at one time, and
he knew he I hearad he traded a

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came forty seven's first pick of truth. But he was he was dealing.

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So one day they marched us down
to the dispensary at the center, you

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know, at Brad, and they
say, you can't read the light chart

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up there without your glasses. You're
going to all tomorrow. I'll thanks a

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lot, Thanks a lot. I
tried to put some guys context into my

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eyes, but that didn't that didn't
work, so so we ended up in

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all but the funny thing is,
ah, this just kills me. We

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got the camera on bay and like
good little boy scouts, we turned our

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orders and we had our orders,
or we hand carried him. The next

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morning, I see, oh,
there's a green beret office right in the

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back. So I go in here
by myself. All my buddies are outside.

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I say, hey, we've got
four medics from from the center here.

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Can we get in? Can we
get him? Look up with you?

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And they say, hell, yeah, there's your sugar kid. Yeah,

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where's your order? Well we'll set
you right up. Where's your order?

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Okay? So just then I swear
at that moment I hear the speaker

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was speaker in the background. Oh
it was good. Marie's back one hundred

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first Airborn. So back on the
bust of one hundred first Airborne. They

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put us in the They put us
in third brigade. Miss Charlie's book talent

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we had in the third brigade.
We're rock as sids. All right,

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well yeah whatever, I don't like
this, but we'll do it in third

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brigade. I was put in Company
D third of the one eighty seven,

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just in time to go up to
Hamburger Hill. Company D third one.

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I said. It was the first
one on Hamburger Hill and they took the

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biggest beating up there. This was
the following year, but we still had

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time. We would have been I
would have been there no matter what.

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And so we got out there and
we were getting chopped up with booby traps

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every day. Is horrible, the
most worst thing I've ever seen in the

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whole time. And then about five
days of that, I said, get

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on the chopper, get out on, Get on you lucky. So a

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little bit, get on, You're
going back to the rear. Okay,

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no problem, go back to the
rear, going up to the Charlie Beckman's

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battalion now. And that's that's what
I think happened. So we ended up

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there, spent the time, our
time with him. Let's let's that's what

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I know about third Brigade and second
Brigade and first brigade. What was was

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Charlie running Project Delta at that point, Delda, I think that project that

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was beck was invention, I believe, And that was earlier. Okay,

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gotcha, and you had uh you
mentioned that like there were four sth metics

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right for seth metics that basically got
pulled out of SF training and and sent

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over because there was a critical shortage
of of medics on the ground of combat

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medics. Yeah, that's my theory. Then, that's that was my theory

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that Charlie Beck was doing. It
destroyed my career militaryman more or less,

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and got her shipped up there.
That's the only thing that makes sense to

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me. Now. You know you
talk about booby traps. You mentioned your

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book when you first link up with
uh, the rock assans that when you

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landed, you know they were there
waiting for you. You went out and

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as soon as you guys started moving
out, you almost fell in a pungee

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pit, right right, I said, within within Uh, I just met

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them, the head medic just a
couple of weeks ago in San Antonio.

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The meeting the head guy, I
reported to he almost fainted that somebody had

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actually sent him another medic and I
just met at him. But anyway,

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so he says, yeah, go
over there and do what a medic does.

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There was another medic over there.
You just follow him. And this

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is in four minutes, five minutes, I'm I'm shaking hands with the lieutenant.

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About ten minutes a booby trap goes
off in the hedgerow nearby, and

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the lieutenant says, get your sho
move out. We're moving out. We're

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going through the hedgerow. And there
was a pungee I looked down there.

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The thing was made like aliens had
made. It was perfectly plumb, square

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and appeared to go into the directly
to Hell. I mean it was.

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It was deep. Put it that
way. Oh, that was the tunnel,

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and right next to it was some
pungee sticks. Yeah. So I

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remember in your book, like you
wrote that you almost step in this pungee

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pit and then to avoid that,
like you kind of throw yourself back and

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all of a sudden, like you
almost throw yourself into this like chasm into

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the middle of the earth. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. And

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some of the guys are there.
The first time they called me dark,

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he said. He and Latin I
said, hey, Dark, watch it

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Dark, watch it dark, Hey
Dark, look at this. They were

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helping me. So it was good. So so so was was Charlie Beckwith's

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unit. Was that the third of
the one seventh or three seven? He

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he said, I don't know what
General zais or the other general said,

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well, what battime do you want? Charlie? And he said the worst

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one. So he got you got
the second three to seven, the nose

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Slack battalion, the one that took
the German surrender offer, and bast On

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that one. He got that one. So that was his Yeah, So

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then what was it like integrating with
this unit, Like you're this fresh faced

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young kid, you know, I
mean you're a medic and you you encountered

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a lot of a lot of things, uh in Vietnam that like you're the

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combat medic course didn't necessarily prepare you
for correct, correct? Yeah, Well,

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those first few days of the rockets
on was was pure hell, pure

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hell. You're talking about terror or
war and terror. Yeah, we were

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dishing out terror and we were getting
terrorized. I mean, my my brain

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and soul and are was terrorized walking
through booby traps. I mean their psychological

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weapon. That's a terrorist weapon.
And we were getting blown away by booby

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traps every day. I mean people
would just be split down the middle like

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a trout laying there. Now.
Yeah, so those are the easy ones.

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Yeah, and so can you tell
us a little bit like some of

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the you know, some of your
first experiences with you know, with this

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unit that you're in. Now,
Okay, it was only even the rock

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assigns those few days, and it
was just a lot of booby traps and

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yeah. And then when we were
up up north, they moved us up

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north Beckmilts. But time was up
at Camp Eagle by way. Do you

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want do you want me to uh
jump up there? Yeah? Okay,

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So somehow we got up there.
It seemed like we we went to every

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little airport in the country and we
got up there and they put us in

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this insane mad house battalion. All
right, it was just pure chaos.

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First of all, we had brand
new M sixteens. They took those away

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because you know, he he wanted
he wanted those for inspection for his uh

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his armed room, and gave us
some clokers. Then, uh, we

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had a black first black patos,
aren't He lightened us from our wallets for

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00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:10.079
a slush fear fund that we never
got. And then they said we'll go

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sleep over there. And it's tenant
and we're sleeping intense at that time,

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with some sandbags around to protect us
from the rockets that would come in once

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in a while, and a lot
of the sandbags are falling down. They're

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just choke full of people smoking weed. Listening to rock music, guns hand

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garnaids laying everywhere, naked men,
you know, dirty clothes all over the

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plate. Welcome to the war.
Sounds like burning Man. Sounds like what

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00:17:47.559 --> 00:17:56.720
like burning Man? Like like a
big like just psychedelic festival. Yeah,

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like I clicked. Just see,
I got the camp. I don't want

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any control. Its uh, here
we go. Can you hear me?

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Still? Yeah? You got you? Okay, good, I'm back in.

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Uh yeah, well I'm probably gonna
cut us off here, but please

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don't. Yeah, I can't see
that. It's no fun, can't.

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That's probably down the lower left,
there's the little video will come up.

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00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:41.480
You can see, I know,
but I'm off the screen completely. I'm

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00:18:41.519 --> 00:18:49.240
mm hmmmm. Well let's uh,
let's let's let's try to continue. We

208
00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:52.599
can, we can see you just
fine. I fixed it. I fixed

209
00:18:52.599 --> 00:19:03.279
it. I mean drive me crazy. I mean all these computers drive me

210
00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:08.440
crazy. I need a big,
fat, solid twenty seven inchs all right,

211
00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:17.440
let's okay. So when so you
mentioned Hawk Recon, like the Hawk

212
00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:19.680
Recon, and you know, and
and a lot of these units like you

213
00:19:19.720 --> 00:19:25.079
said you had Tiger Force, you
had Recondos. These these units were starting

214
00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:30.880
to put together. They realize that
they needed these reconnaissance elements, and so

215
00:19:30.039 --> 00:19:37.039
these reconnaissance Can you tell us how
they came on? How Hawk recon or

216
00:19:37.079 --> 00:19:41.759
any of the reconnaissance sort of came
up on your radar initially? Well,

217
00:19:41.799 --> 00:19:45.960
Gary Leonard and all a lot of
stuff. Really good he does. He

218
00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:51.119
talks him up. He talks pretty
good about him, except that the interview

219
00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.839
with you, he made a little
joke I didn't appreciate, but we always

220
00:19:53.960 --> 00:20:00.200
argue about about it. That's funny. Yeah, he explains that that was

221
00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:08.200
probably Hackworth's idea. I think Hackworth
was in one of the He was in

222
00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:11.799
one of the battalions of one hundred
first, one hundred first was there from

223
00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:17.839
a gip go, so he's I
think he might have invented it. He

224
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:22.039
said, we're gonna out recon We
are gonna we're gonna have a griller,

225
00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:26.640
the grillers. So battalions need these, uh need a recon element. So

226
00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:33.079
it started early, I think,
Well, eventually there was ten battalions,

227
00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:40.279
was ten battalions in the division,
and each one had a recon element,

228
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:47.559
and they were there pretty early,
and they were there in the last and

229
00:20:47.640 --> 00:20:52.119
so Hawk recon was that the recon
element that was associated with the battalion that

230
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:56.559
you were in at the time,
right, Yes, it was. That

231
00:20:56.680 --> 00:21:03.279
was like Charlie Beck was baby to
speak. And was that something that because

232
00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:07.799
you were a medic and there was
a critical shortage of medics, did they

233
00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:11.240
assign you to that or did you
choose to go to that? Now,

234
00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:15.279
I couldn't get in it. I
was in a company for a long time

235
00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:22.079
trying to get out of there,
blundering around in a Shaw valley with a

236
00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:27.440
blind company. It was. Now. I tried to get in right away

237
00:21:27.480 --> 00:21:30.279
and it was laughed at me.
But eventually, yeah, I got in.

238
00:21:30.599 --> 00:21:37.920
So that's what happened. Why did
they laugh at you initially? Oh?

239
00:21:37.960 --> 00:21:45.440
Well, one guy at that same
that same Black platoon, sergeant mhmm.

240
00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:49.279
I think I told him I wanted
in the arks and you just and

241
00:21:49.519 --> 00:22:00.319
walked away, and I can remember. Yeah, So anyway, I don't

242
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:03.440
I don't think it had it.
He had a shortage of medics, I

243
00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:07.039
think, right, he didn't care
where they were, right, So he

244
00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:11.240
wasn't in Hawk recon. He wasn't
in the Hawks. He just he basically

245
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:17.720
was one of the line platoon guys
and or the line line company and was

246
00:22:17.799 --> 00:22:19.680
like, no, like we don't
have enough metics. You can't go anywhere.

247
00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:29.000
I can't go anywhere. Oh the
platoons are yeah, the platoon start.

248
00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:33.359
Yeah, he's just lazy. He
didn't want to do to switch of

249
00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:42.039
paperwork or anything or or I'm sure
that's what that's all it was. He

250
00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:45.920
might not have been the right guy
to ass I don't really know if he

251
00:22:45.160 --> 00:22:55.000
was the top dog of the platoon, the medical platoon or not. So

252
00:22:55.119 --> 00:23:00.519
how did you eventually how did you
finally get into a hawk recon Well,

253
00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.480
we've been in the our show Valley
and then we went down in the Lowlands

254
00:23:03.559 --> 00:23:12.079
and we we're down there and I
just went up to the to us the

255
00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:17.839
real Patuons Argins or the new Patuons
are. At least I knew he was

256
00:23:17.880 --> 00:23:19.160
the Patunons sargeant. I said,
well, I didn't in the box.

257
00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:27.640
He said, okay, pack your
stuff and and so then like, how

258
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:30.839
how were you introduced to them?
You show you didn't you just show up

259
00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:34.759
at at there like little sections say
hey, I'm here Now. Did they

260
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:40.599
put you through any kind of selection
or anything like that? Uh? No,

261
00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:45.839
No, And uh I think it
was volunteer. You know, there's

262
00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:49.839
no you didn't have to pacity tests. You didn't have to get two kids

263
00:23:49.880 --> 00:23:56.519
from two guys there, And maybe
it's sometimes you did. I knew a

264
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:02.240
bunch of them because they the platoon
leader and a bunch of them had been

265
00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:07.079
in company, my company, my
first company, and they got in there

266
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:14.160
left me behind, so I knew
them. And my first meeting with them,

267
00:24:14.440 --> 00:24:18.640
we were down a fire based tomahawk. I asked the pat my patunon

268
00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:21.359
leader. I wanted and Arty,
okay, give go go down or they're

269
00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:27.400
right down there in the flat.
So I think they must have driven me

270
00:24:27.400 --> 00:24:32.359
down on a truck. They're sitting
down in the middle of a dry rice

271
00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:37.000
patter in the middle of old and
they open and every anybody in the world

272
00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:41.400
knows where they are and see them. And I just walked in there,

273
00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:45.799
and I remember the medic my guy
was replacing. He turns around it and

274
00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:53.880
walked rapidly to his escort over to
the truck. He was happy to leave.

275
00:24:55.039 --> 00:25:00.440
And yeah, so that's how and
I knew, Oh, I knew

276
00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:02.960
a bunch of the guys. I
didn't know the petuniliar, but I knew

277
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:07.640
him already, so it was cool. And so how was hawk recon set

278
00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:12.839
up? Like how many guys was
the the entire team? Like what size

279
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:18.960
elements did you guys go out in? It? Varied? I mean,

280
00:25:19.079 --> 00:25:22.720
you know, like an infantry company
they've got they'd send a little recon teams

281
00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:27.079
and five guys out sometimes. But
the petun it was a patoon. It

282
00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:33.079
was I would call it a heavy
recons, a heavy team. You know.

283
00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:37.799
We had a couple of him sixties
and it had it had any fluctuator

284
00:25:37.799 --> 00:25:41.039
like twenty, it could have less
than twenty or more than twenty guys.

285
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:51.079
And we usually stayed together like that. And Leander says, you're not you

286
00:25:51.119 --> 00:25:53.960
guys were lerps. You send me
you think your lers. I don't think

287
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:57.799
we were lers. You guys were
sir short range, you know. But

288
00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:07.440
we stayed We stayed closer to a
friendly unit, our own own line companies.

289
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:14.839
We were sort of close to them, but as far as range range

290
00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:19.519
can be in time also we stayed
out. We stayed out on missions,

291
00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:26.119
forty day missions like like beck was
thing was his thing was Merrill's Marauders.

292
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:32.960
Merrill's Marauders. They never stopped.
They you know, went halfway to China

293
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:36.400
and then over you know how they
did it. They went for months and

294
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:41.799
months and months, never went to
the rear. Well, Fox, we

295
00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:45.200
pulled over forty day missions. It
was unheard of. Saw I never did

296
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:51.480
that, Lurps never did that,
nobody did. And there was some hairy

297
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:56.960
missions that way. Yeah, yeah, that that was one of the things

298
00:26:56.079 --> 00:27:00.480
is even if you guys weren't doing
these long range patrol, you were outside

299
00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:07.160
the range of like friendly like friendly
lines, and you were out there for

300
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:15.240
a very long time, right yeah, yeah, And uh, crazy things

301
00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:23.559
happened before before I got there.
The Hawks were out there, their backlists

302
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:30.279
was was charging through the highway.
They were into the into the ash Shaw

303
00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:37.200
at fight four seven and oh the
Hawks hawks somebody they hit a tank,

304
00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:40.400
one of our tanks, and I
think they wanted to kill everybody in the

305
00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:44.599
tank, and so the Hawks launched. I wasn't. I wasn't just that

306
00:27:44.839 --> 00:27:48.240
before I got there, and they
went out and they found a tell phone

307
00:27:48.279 --> 00:27:57.240
work heavy duty one mounted on insulators, personal insulators, the heavy duty thing.

308
00:27:57.279 --> 00:28:03.960
You know, they followed it and
they're out there forty days and hadn't

309
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:07.240
found it at the end of video, and they were pissed. They're highly

310
00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:15.000
pissed. So the last night they
set up and these guys didn't give it.

311
00:28:15.160 --> 00:28:18.119
Damn. They they cooked, you
know, they cooked. They were

312
00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:23.480
suicidal, but they would cook,
make coffee, dinner, and breakfast.

313
00:28:25.240 --> 00:28:32.039
So the next morning they get up, they make their coffee and they get

314
00:28:32.119 --> 00:28:38.920
up and this is from my buddy
Rick explaining it was the head rto.

315
00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:42.799
He gets on the horn and they
clean up allered gear there, they pick

316
00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:47.440
up aller crap, their litter.
He gets on here and he calls back

317
00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:52.319
up to becklass or to the fire
control or somewhere, and he says,

318
00:28:52.640 --> 00:28:59.519
Romeo elements moving. So they move
out in the line line formation. They

319
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:07.079
hadn't go on fifty feet and Rick
Cy's two NBA flow uniform jumping down into

320
00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:12.599
a pit with an a on any
aircraft gun, some some heavy heavy.

321
00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:17.160
My shoot, I don't know what
size gun it was. And he can't

322
00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:22.039
shoot because the every the point and
slack or in front of him, and

323
00:29:22.119 --> 00:29:29.200
the slack appointment is like twenty feet
away. And suddenly suddenly he's ten feet

324
00:29:29.240 --> 00:29:33.920
away from these two NBA and Rick
noticed the shit's gonna hit the fan in

325
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:37.000
any second. He sits down behind
a tree, and before anything happens,

326
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:42.440
he calls Beckman says, Romeos in
contact a point man. I got their

327
00:29:42.519 --> 00:29:48.359
names, it's in the book.
He walks, Appointment, takes on a

328
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:53.000
stance like Frankenstein, starts walking like
Frankenstein, goes right up these two guys

329
00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:57.319
and shoots both of them dead,
and then the ship hits the fans.

330
00:29:57.319 --> 00:30:02.839
So they're fighting like all day.
They run the NBA of seventy or so

331
00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:07.359
in this base camp where they slept
right next to him, right next to

332
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:15.079
him, neither neither bound, neither
heard the other, and they finally ran

333
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:21.319
them out. They called in jets
and artillery and killed one of the hawks

334
00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:27.920
and killed about they got fourteen eleven
bodies NBA bodied, and it was called

335
00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:34.599
a bell at a hawk killed.
That's right in the Alshow that's typical ail

336
00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:41.279
show off. Then now, what
are you drinking there? What are we

337
00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:48.640
drinking? I'm drinking horse horse soldier
and Jack is drinking a few straight rye

338
00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:52.880
whiskey. First, sound like,
oh, that was us too, you

339
00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:56.400
know, by the way, I
wrote a whole chapter about comparing us to

340
00:30:56.519 --> 00:31:02.440
customer. Yeah, it was incredible
because they changed the one hundred and first

341
00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:10.799
two hundred first Airborne air Cavalry that
summer, that that moment when I was

342
00:31:10.839 --> 00:31:12.720
in there, when we first went
into the Ashville. We were at Calvary

343
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:23.519
and we mimic we mimic Custer's battle
exactly exactly except for the wiping out part.

344
00:31:25.079 --> 00:31:27.039
Right. One of the companies,
one of the companies did give what

345
00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:38.519
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346
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347
00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:51.880
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348
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Hope you guys will check them out
Costa Carribo dot com. You like.

349
00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:00.039
One of the things you mentioned was
even though the hundred first was sort of

350
00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:04.799
an airborne unit, you got a
ton of ship for wearing your airborne wings

351
00:32:05.319 --> 00:32:10.000
when you were in this so called
airborne unit. Yeah. Yeah, I

352
00:32:10.039 --> 00:32:15.720
noticed women went through pea training called
Petrain in the first in country and get

353
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:21.920
go to a few classes. You
know, I should have forgot all the

354
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:25.039
class. I should have gone over
to the alerts right then. They had

355
00:32:25.079 --> 00:32:30.880
an office down there, and you
know, we're screwing around. There were

356
00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:34.359
so many legs. What are you
drinking there, William? Is that is

357
00:32:34.359 --> 00:32:43.960
that the belvity? This this is
a green spot single pop still Irish voice,

358
00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:51.960
all right, let's do it and
so serious. I don't drink anymore.

359
00:32:52.359 --> 00:32:54.519
Yeah, I don't drink. I
gave it all. I drinking Christmas

360
00:32:54.519 --> 00:33:04.039
maybe Thanksgiving, maybe Halloween party a
special Canons and friends. Thanks for joining

361
00:33:04.119 --> 00:33:07.759
us. Yeah, we we are
honored that you consider us friends and this

362
00:33:08.279 --> 00:33:13.599
is a special occasion. It's like
Christmas come early. What I do like

363
00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:22.039
about zoom friends like Gary Lender.
Gary Lender's my best friend, my best

364
00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:28.079
friend. I've never met him.
It's a wild man. I've worked with

365
00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:30.920
him for years. We were an
eagle at the same time. Our children

366
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:36.720
are the same times. They're everything
he saw. I was there two I

367
00:33:36.759 --> 00:33:45.680
mean I was within ten twenty miles. Yeah. One of the you you

368
00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:51.000
interviewed are you talked to a lot
of different people, a lot of different

369
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:53.039
guys for this book, didn't you? Because they're like I said, there's

370
00:33:53.079 --> 00:33:57.680
not only your stories, but there
are other people's stories. There are stories

371
00:33:57.720 --> 00:34:00.640
about the unit before you got there
that other guys have passed on to you.

372
00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:06.920
It's it's really an amazing like some
of the chapters are one page,

373
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:10.599
but it's there, and they're almost
like very interesting anecdotes, you know,

374
00:34:10.840 --> 00:34:15.760
and about the simple pleasures of a
soldier, like getting ice, right,

375
00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:21.559
getting ice? Oh god? Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of

376
00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:24.760
work winning This is over nineteen.
It's a fifty year of work. Yeah,

377
00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.159
fifty years I've been you know.
I took time off to be a

378
00:34:29.159 --> 00:34:35.760
bush pub in Alaska, Smogo Electronics
in New Mexico and stuff like that.

379
00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:43.639
But all that time I was still
calling guys, writing letters and collecting photographs.

380
00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:49.719
So I got Yeah, it's a
lot of thought went into a lot

381
00:34:49.719 --> 00:34:55.400
of work. It's it's I've never
seen a book that as you look through

382
00:34:55.480 --> 00:35:01.000
the pictures, you see the maps
where we w in the Ashaw. There's

383
00:35:01.039 --> 00:35:06.559
no landmarks in there. There's no
there's a there's a river, but there's

384
00:35:06.559 --> 00:35:10.840
no landmarks. But you can still
follow us along where we went because I

385
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:15.719
had a secret way of finding out
where we were in the forest mountains.

386
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:21.719
But you can identify the characters,
all the characters, all the names.

387
00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:29.400
You recognize their name, you recognize
their picture, you recognize the landmarks in

388
00:35:29.480 --> 00:35:35.639
the photos. They match the map, the landmarks in the map. Everything

389
00:35:35.719 --> 00:35:39.880
matches I've never seen that in the
look at all. If you look through

390
00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:44.880
there, it ties it all in. Yeah, I mean there are you

391
00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:51.760
know, eight to ten like back
in front pages of just these amazing photos

392
00:35:51.800 --> 00:35:55.119
like this incredible history that, like
you say, hasn't really been captured in

393
00:35:55.119 --> 00:36:00.239
a lot of other places. Yeah, yeah, I don't. So it's

394
00:36:00.280 --> 00:36:04.079
I mean, I mean you look
in the back and one of the back

395
00:36:04.079 --> 00:36:08.000
pictures I call it anatomy of an
ambush. There was an ambush I blew.

396
00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:15.119
Right next to it was the map. You can go there today.

397
00:36:15.159 --> 00:36:17.840
It's right by Highway one. You
can take a bus and take your kids

398
00:36:17.880 --> 00:36:23.000
and if you take a school class
from the local schools. Oh yeah,

399
00:36:23.039 --> 00:36:25.119
that's what we did. No,
you don't want to do that, I

400
00:36:25.159 --> 00:36:30.480
don't think. But you walk over
from Highway one into that spot by using

401
00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:37.280
the map. And there's my picture
the night before in the morning after this

402
00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:42.880
blew this ambush, and there's the
results. There's a picture and it's one

403
00:36:43.079 --> 00:36:46.760
pictures facing north. You see the
south China. See the other pictures facing

404
00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:52.519
south, you see the slow in
the mountains. Are quite evident. They

405
00:36:52.639 --> 00:36:58.159
match the photos, they match the
map. Yeah, can you can you

406
00:36:58.320 --> 00:37:07.840
tell us about that ambush. Sure, And what's funny about that? When

407
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:13.400
I was in company, Hey,
we were in those mountains above the slough

408
00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:16.559
in the South China Sea. We're
up in the mountains. There a whole

409
00:37:16.599 --> 00:37:22.280
company of clumping along like idiots,
you know, that's what I say,

410
00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:28.039
and getting people. And we were
up there. So we get up early

411
00:37:28.119 --> 00:37:30.079
in the morning. And I'm not
a realer even then. I was the

412
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:35.239
last one up. But I get
up and you look at the map.

413
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:37.760
I see I drew the picture where
it was. I looked down on the

414
00:37:37.920 --> 00:37:43.079
on that spit. There's a lot
like a peninsula of sand goes right over

415
00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:49.159
to the mountains. But there's a
there's like a river right there where it

416
00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:53.119
hits the ocean. You'd have to
wait across, maybe swim. I looked

417
00:37:53.159 --> 00:37:59.719
down there, and I see a
whole NVA weapons put too, walking along.

418
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:07.280
We got helmets, rpds eight k's. We're just walking along slowly right

419
00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:12.159
in front of us. It's still
I mean, it's a quarter mile away.

420
00:38:12.199 --> 00:38:16.800
Maybe you know it's a long shot
right there. I run over to

421
00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:22.280
the potentis are the damn But he
runs over to the captain. The captain,

422
00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:28.599
Oh, it was embarrassing because I
don't know if they had an FO

423
00:38:29.079 --> 00:38:31.159
I don't I don't know if they
hadn't. They were they were basically trapped

424
00:38:31.199 --> 00:38:35.880
in front of us, and he's
he yells at the gunner the M sixty

425
00:38:35.960 --> 00:38:40.880
gunners shoot, shoot, keep your
heads down. But both M sixty jam

426
00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:45.159
So they started running, of course, and they ran away. They just

427
00:38:45.320 --> 00:38:49.599
ran up that spit to the north. Embarrassing to say to the least.

428
00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:53.920
You know, I doubt he had
an FO pre plot the gun until we

429
00:38:53.960 --> 00:38:58.320
were right there, only a couple
of miles away. You know, he

430
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:01.599
could have called for any birds and
Eric come, I could he. All

431
00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:06.280
he had to say was on,
get on the radio and say far for

432
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:09.360
effect on the coast, just do
Nora or whatever, and he would have

433
00:39:09.360 --> 00:39:13.800
had him traveled. But anyway,
they got away. So the next year,

434
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:21.840
maybe maybe my eye bought on my
spotting them did some good. Some

435
00:39:22.119 --> 00:39:27.239
clerk noted that and they said,
well, see that looks like a high

436
00:39:27.239 --> 00:39:31.679
speed trail. Let's put the hawks
in there. So we're down there at

437
00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:37.639
the very spot they were. Were
we Hey, I spotted him. We

438
00:39:37.639 --> 00:39:43.519
were there, and guess what you
see in the pictures. The bullets start

439
00:39:43.639 --> 00:39:50.599
flying in. Somebody's shooting at us
now from the same Oh my god,

440
00:39:50.760 --> 00:39:59.440
that's in the afternoon. Unbelievable.
And so we stayed there. The lieutenant

441
00:39:59.480 --> 00:40:01.760
just he he sent out, he
sent out on all the teams. They're

442
00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:07.360
on five man teams, all spread
around, and we were. We stayed

443
00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:10.400
right there, right there, and
the little a few little pine trees.

444
00:40:10.440 --> 00:40:15.599
It for cover. And I'm gonna
spend the night there. So it puts

445
00:40:15.639 --> 00:40:20.199
out a color if somebody puts out
a Claymore and they take particular interest to

446
00:40:20.239 --> 00:40:24.679
where this clay more is for some
reason, and I bring the claqueer the

447
00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:37.519
wire back and ah, so it's
pitch dark now, and yeah, so

448
00:40:37.519 --> 00:40:39.360
it's just like five or six of
us there, the two kid cars in

449
00:40:39.400 --> 00:40:45.480
discots and everybody is asleep. It's
my my, my watch. You know.

450
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:50.639
That's why John Wayne and he always
said, all right, Pilgrims,

451
00:40:51.159 --> 00:40:54.039
I'll take it. I'll take the
first watch. The asshole. I don't

452
00:40:54.079 --> 00:40:58.440
know what you know. To take
the first watch, you can go to

453
00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:00.280
sleep. You don't have to worry
about the rest of the night. Right,

454
00:41:00.440 --> 00:41:05.440
first and last watches are the best. Yeah, me, I had

455
00:41:05.480 --> 00:41:07.519
to get up two in the morning
to do my watch, and then I

456
00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:09.599
had to and then I go to
sleep, and then I got to get

457
00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:15.960
up again on the morning. Okay, so I'm on watch. It's about

458
00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:17.920
my two o'clock watch. I got
the radio. They're hissing away. I

459
00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:22.000
got on my little my forty five, my m sixteen grad ads on my

460
00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:25.639
buck night. So I know it
was a high speed I guess I knew

461
00:41:25.639 --> 00:41:30.960
it was a high speed trail obviously. And I didn't tell anybody. I

462
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:36.079
don't think I tell the lieutenant no. And I didn't wake anybody up.

463
00:41:36.119 --> 00:41:39.960
So I see, I see movement, not a corner of my eyes.

464
00:41:40.079 --> 00:41:45.159
Somebody's coming down the beach. Oh
shit, And I don't I didn't wake

465
00:41:45.199 --> 00:41:51.039
anybody up to kick carsons or nothing. I said, I'm nobody's gonna screw

466
00:41:51.119 --> 00:41:53.400
this up this time. Nobody's gonna
screw it up. So they gotta walks

467
00:41:53.480 --> 00:41:59.280
right in frontally play more or where
I thought the claimer was. I wasn't

468
00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:04.000
sure. Now I had to duck
down behind my bag on the blast and

469
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:09.519
this is he did. He walked
why in front of me? The cloud

470
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:15.320
completely covers the moon instantly like that. It's blocking it's the inside of a

471
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:19.360
dead water buffo. I just I
couldn't see anything. So I detonate on

472
00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:25.119
a on a guess time distance problem
my deadonate and then I see something moved

473
00:42:25.159 --> 00:42:30.480
to the left. I throw a
grenade down there, so and and it

474
00:42:30.480 --> 00:42:37.920
it gets kind of comical. Some
more lieutenant lieutenants over by me. Well,

475
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:42.119
immediately over there, Doc, what's
going on? What happened? I

476
00:42:42.159 --> 00:42:46.679
said, there was a good or
left to right coming down to beat what

477
00:42:47.800 --> 00:42:52.480
kid? Well, he gets up
and he's looking all around. We were

478
00:42:52.559 --> 00:42:55.079
kind of looking around with dark We
didn't want to walk. He takes out

479
00:42:55.119 --> 00:42:59.559
a popular. It's like a little
mortar. You know, it's got a

480
00:42:59.599 --> 00:43:02.039
top. Put the top on the
bottom. You hit it with your palm.

481
00:43:02.679 --> 00:43:09.320
Parachute, rocket comes out. She
goes up five hundred feet and you've

482
00:43:09.360 --> 00:43:15.039
got a flare all or something up
there. Let's the whole world know where

483
00:43:15.079 --> 00:43:20.840
we are. There's I don't think
there was a day we weren't surrounded.

484
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:30.079
I'm on my tour. We're surrounded
somewhere. So here's his popular. Still

485
00:43:30.119 --> 00:43:35.639
can't see anything? I think will
he disintegrated and all hit him with a

486
00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:39.159
claymar so I said, screw it. I'm going back to sleep. Did

487
00:43:39.199 --> 00:43:45.679
you're somebody else's walked buck this shit? I wake up in the morning,

488
00:43:45.800 --> 00:43:58.280
excuse them in front. I don't
use the effort. Sorry the morning again.

489
00:43:58.360 --> 00:44:00.880
Up in the morning and look down
the beach a little ways and there's

490
00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:06.159
a lieutenant standing over an NBA soldier
with a yeah the tenor good he's got

491
00:44:06.199 --> 00:44:10.159
an a K forty seven for me? Well that was not yeah, but

492
00:44:10.199 --> 00:44:14.599
there was uh like that. He
was like a courier, right, he

493
00:44:14.679 --> 00:44:19.159
had some documents. It was it
was kind of a big yeah, yeah,

494
00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:23.039
yeah, a bag o stuff.
He had some other stuff. But

495
00:44:24.960 --> 00:44:32.360
I'm not there's one of my favorite
moments. But uh, you know,

496
00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:40.000
shit happens again. I said,
what's what's great about your book is one

497
00:44:40.079 --> 00:44:44.599
all the different you know people because
you you do you like, there are

498
00:44:44.679 --> 00:44:49.079
so many people mentioned in this book
that you know either aren't with us anymore

499
00:44:49.199 --> 00:44:52.280
or you know, I haven't had
their stories told. And you tell a

500
00:44:52.320 --> 00:44:59.719
lot of people's stories. But also
just like I said, just the daily

501
00:45:00.320 --> 00:45:04.119
like what a soldier, like like
I said, getting ice, or I

502
00:45:04.440 --> 00:45:09.199
want to ask you about the bee
incident? What the bee? The bees?

503
00:45:09.519 --> 00:45:14.159
Oh yeah, see that my books
got stories like like that, and

504
00:45:14.559 --> 00:45:21.639
you never see there's no cliches,
there's no disrespecting civilians. And I never

505
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:25.199
saw that, and I mean there
was a horrible accident. I think it

506
00:45:25.239 --> 00:45:30.519
was an accident. There's no you
know, like Oliver Stone's movie, you

507
00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:34.360
know, shooting shooting at you.
There's none of that. I didn't see

508
00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:38.599
it, and there's no cliches,
you know. And so yeah, I

509
00:45:38.599 --> 00:45:45.159
guess stories like the trees try to
kill us one right, the trees are

510
00:45:45.239 --> 00:45:50.480
defour forrested, defoliated forrests, try
to kill us. Big called the wind

511
00:45:50.599 --> 00:45:54.599
came up and all the branches started
breaking up and we couldn't go anywhere we're

512
00:45:54.639 --> 00:46:00.920
gonna go, and one hundred acres
of trees and you know, hurricane and

513
00:46:00.920 --> 00:46:05.880
they're all deciding to fall apark.
That was bad. And the other stories

514
00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:10.039
of the bees. We ran into
bees twice. I ran into which one

515
00:46:10.079 --> 00:46:14.400
you want to me? Me taking
the dump of the bees or the time

516
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:17.119
they walked our hoop? But the
hawks of and tell us both of them

517
00:46:17.119 --> 00:46:23.519
because they're both great stories. Yeah, okay, the one with I was

518
00:46:23.559 --> 00:46:30.159
still an a company. So we're
sitting up there in the ten as a

519
00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:32.360
Shaw Valley. I gotta tell you
the story about Custers last name, and

520
00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:38.239
it's just incredible. We were subject
to Custers last time we were surrounded.

521
00:46:39.079 --> 00:46:44.119
We were surrounded every day we were
in the air show, and they had

522
00:46:44.159 --> 00:46:50.360
better guns. They had better guns, just like Custer. Custer had the

523
00:46:51.239 --> 00:46:55.079
single shops, civil war antiques.
The Indians, some of them they've traded,

524
00:46:55.159 --> 00:47:04.679
went to town, bought themselves,
Winchesters or Henry Rightle say, Henry's

525
00:47:04.760 --> 00:47:10.039
designed for sixteen rounds. They had
one round. Wow, we put eighteen

526
00:47:10.159 --> 00:47:17.679
rounds in our twenty round clips because
we were told to. Well, Charlie,

527
00:47:19.199 --> 00:47:22.039
Sir Charles, I call him quite
a bit. He had a thirty

528
00:47:22.119 --> 00:47:27.039
round and eight King forty seven.
You know, there's so many similarity as

529
00:47:27.119 --> 00:47:30.639
a Custer, it's just unreal.
Beck With as a Custo clone. Straight

530
00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:39.320
up. Custer like to show off
his his blond hair, and beck With

531
00:47:39.480 --> 00:47:46.679
the like to show off his scar, his abdomen scar, huge scar,

532
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:51.280
you know. Anyway, but when
we were I was with the A company.

533
00:47:51.320 --> 00:47:53.719
They're surrounded and I had to go
take a dump. So I go

534
00:47:53.800 --> 00:47:59.559
down to the I go down a
little ways outside the perimeter and I find

535
00:47:59.599 --> 00:48:02.599
his big were ravene. I said, well, it sounds looks good.

536
00:48:04.920 --> 00:48:10.320
I dropped my drawers and I put
my hand up to hold onto the street

537
00:48:13.159 --> 00:48:16.039
and hang out over the ravine.
And about that time I noticed my hand

538
00:48:16.159 --> 00:48:22.920
was was in the opening of a
murder? Was the murder was? Because

539
00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:27.920
I know now what a murder was. Looks like they're invading Hawaii. But

540
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:37.800
big orange scary and they noticed right
away something was wrong, so they ended

541
00:48:37.880 --> 00:48:42.000
up. You know, I did
the boy scout trick. I froze.

542
00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:49.360
I want to scare him attack her. The yellow jackets in California would,

543
00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:54.480
but these guys were much nicer.
They just flew all around, and eventually

544
00:48:54.519 --> 00:48:59.800
I had up on each cheek and
one of my nose. They're just walking

545
00:49:00.039 --> 00:49:04.960
around. I'm frozen. One watched
down in my mouth and tries to get

546
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:12.000
in my mouth, and then some
are flying around, hovering in my face.

547
00:49:12.079 --> 00:49:15.960
I just freaked out. I didn't
enough of this. I just you,

548
00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:20.280
bastard, just get away from me. I just left the other tree.

549
00:49:20.400 --> 00:49:23.480
I fell back. My mm sixteenth
is going bam bam, big bam

550
00:49:23.599 --> 00:49:30.039
down into the raffine. I falling
about right bard it. I kill every

551
00:49:30.039 --> 00:49:32.239
one of you. I kill everyone, and I kill your eggs, your

552
00:49:32.239 --> 00:49:37.360
pupil or your larger, your adults, your workers, and you're clean.

553
00:49:37.480 --> 00:49:45.679
I'm gonna kill her or last so
many. But they didn't stay in and

554
00:49:45.679 --> 00:49:50.639
then went time. We were in
the hawks. We got hit by little

555
00:49:50.679 --> 00:49:55.679
bees, little little like bumble bees, and they did a job on if.

556
00:49:55.719 --> 00:50:04.880
They stung everyone pick They stung everyone
except the guys who the guys who

557
00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:10.719
ran, I said, don't run, freeze. The old boys got technic.

558
00:50:13.199 --> 00:50:16.320
They I got stung so bad I
was laying down. They were in

559
00:50:16.400 --> 00:50:21.719
my mouth again, in my mouth, stinging my tongue, my lips and

560
00:50:21.800 --> 00:50:25.599
my eyes, and and finally lay
they said, okay, that's enough,

561
00:50:27.400 --> 00:50:35.920
you learn your lesson. They left. I know about well. I felt

562
00:50:35.920 --> 00:50:38.199
really sick. You know. Somebody
had to carry my bruck up the hill,

563
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:42.440
up this hill we're going up,
and I got We got up to

564
00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:45.719
this little hill and I got up
there and went I went blind. I

565
00:50:45.800 --> 00:50:52.519
went start screaming blind. I could
not completely blind. I couldn't see anything.

566
00:50:52.840 --> 00:50:55.679
I told me I had a junior
medic. I had a system medically

567
00:50:55.719 --> 00:51:00.400
man. I said, shoot,
my take that the syringe and sticking right

568
00:51:00.519 --> 00:51:04.039
in my heart. Stick it right
in through my chest, in my heart

569
00:51:04.360 --> 00:51:09.199
inject this uh epieu for go,
I think it was, which I didn't

570
00:51:09.239 --> 00:51:15.760
want to do. And then in
a few minutes, ten minutes, gray

571
00:51:15.880 --> 00:51:20.360
came gray, and then the co
work came back. So you started going

572
00:51:20.400 --> 00:51:24.440
into anaplactic shock and he had to
hit you with the eppie. What's up?

573
00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:28.760
You started like going to anaplactic shock
and he had to hit you with

574
00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:34.280
the eppie. I just wanted to
I didn't want to go determinently blind.

575
00:51:34.440 --> 00:51:37.519
Yeah, I felt I was okay. I just couldn't see. Yeah,

576
00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:43.920
well I figured out what help when
when the first guy started getting hit with

577
00:51:43.960 --> 00:51:45.440
the bees? Did you guys think
it was an ambush? That it was

578
00:51:45.519 --> 00:51:52.039
like a claymore like like that had
to be had been terrifying and those like

579
00:51:52.159 --> 00:51:58.079
jungle conditions. Yeah, it was
the way I just scribed it in the

580
00:51:58.119 --> 00:52:02.880
book. And I got third fourth
parties on this. On this episode,

581
00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:10.239
I believe Tick and Culver were on
point. They were a team. They

582
00:52:10.239 --> 00:52:20.159
were going up the hill and Culver
is the is is slack man, Ticks

583
00:52:20.199 --> 00:52:23.559
and pretty new guy. He's in
front with the with the grenade launcher,

584
00:52:24.119 --> 00:52:28.519
but I think he had a shotgun
around in anyway. Calver turns around,

585
00:52:28.599 --> 00:52:34.800
looks back where they told me,
and tick Tick looks up the trail and

586
00:52:34.840 --> 00:52:38.800
he sees a bunch of of Oriental
dudes with guns coming down the trail and

587
00:52:38.960 --> 00:52:46.000
he goes arms arms, you know, Republicans our ally, I supposed it.

588
00:52:46.880 --> 00:52:57.519
Colver spins around and oh and they
all realize their mistake and take fires

589
00:52:57.559 --> 00:53:04.400
a big explosive and nig was sailing
up right towards one guy is gonna hit

590
00:53:04.440 --> 00:53:07.719
him right in the teeth, but
it just skimmed by, just missed him.

591
00:53:07.840 --> 00:53:12.199
They all turned rand and brawn.
They're all gone. And I know

592
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:17.480
that was it. That was only
the shot fired. And we think maybe

593
00:53:17.760 --> 00:53:22.400
that they had a bag of the
horns and was and they threw it ahead

594
00:53:22.400 --> 00:53:32.199
of him. But I'm a kimp
swear to. So while you were with

595
00:53:32.280 --> 00:53:43.400
Hawk Creek and you also got flight
qualified, right, oh yeah, yeah,

596
00:53:43.159 --> 00:53:47.440
that was funny. I got yeah, I was getting short and you

597
00:53:47.440 --> 00:53:51.639
could extend it was great. Yeah, the army gave you a good deal.

598
00:53:51.719 --> 00:53:53.599
You could do all kinds of things. You could stimm for lurbs.

599
00:53:53.880 --> 00:53:58.480
I was invited in the Gary's Company, by the way, by some of

600
00:53:58.519 --> 00:54:02.840
the old hawks. I went over
there and for a sergeant. I talked

601
00:54:02.840 --> 00:54:09.880
with resurgeon and looked around, and
you could extend for all kinds of things.

602
00:54:09.880 --> 00:54:14.320
Because I was a medic, so
I was qualified to fly on mettervac

603
00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:20.480
and I could have got backing forces
too, like right now. I mean

604
00:54:20.519 --> 00:54:24.199
they were right down there and flew
by control coming on North was right there

605
00:54:24.280 --> 00:54:31.320
and could at supposed we ended up
on so teams. But yeah, I

606
00:54:31.360 --> 00:54:37.639
went for the air ambulance and after
a little finagling, I got on that

607
00:54:37.800 --> 00:54:42.320
and flew quite a few missions.
I flew I don't know, fifteen twenty

608
00:54:42.360 --> 00:54:47.400
missions. Him. Yeah, and
I had to lie. What did you

609
00:54:47.400 --> 00:54:52.920
have to lie about? I had
to lie? Well, it was funny.

610
00:54:52.760 --> 00:54:58.599
I flucked hearing, you know,
I still kept bad here, you

611
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:02.199
know, the clay Wars and law
in training and blew my ears out of

612
00:55:02.199 --> 00:55:07.079
that. I couldn't pass the physical
hearing tests and the flight surgeon some doctors

613
00:55:07.239 --> 00:55:13.559
as well. True, today's your
lucky day. You just flunked your flight.

614
00:55:15.280 --> 00:55:17.239
He said, what you want to
do? This you want to do

615
00:55:17.400 --> 00:55:22.119
They just shot a medic the other
day right through his his chest protector.

616
00:55:24.199 --> 00:55:29.599
I said, yeah. He says, well, if you do. If

617
00:55:29.599 --> 00:55:32.239
you don't care, I guess nobody
does either. Go take it again.

618
00:55:32.400 --> 00:55:37.800
Took it to take the physical again. So I passed it. So I

619
00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:44.000
got in and I flew with him. And what was that process like,

620
00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:50.960
like, you know, being on
metavacs, being on kasovacs. Mhmm,

621
00:55:51.960 --> 00:55:57.119
yeah, that was that was a
serious project. You flew. I flew

622
00:55:57.159 --> 00:56:02.679
with another medic. So there's five
of us in there. Eagles dust off.

623
00:56:02.719 --> 00:56:09.960
They had no M sixties, you
know, just had litters aid bag.

624
00:56:10.639 --> 00:56:17.320
You had a litter hoist and you
had a jungle penetrator and and I

625
00:56:17.480 --> 00:56:24.000
was with worked with the medic.
We went out, We went up big

626
00:56:24.079 --> 00:56:28.880
back let's see Hamburger. It was
over. But we flew around that same

627
00:56:28.920 --> 00:56:36.800
area back in the ash on malacious
missions flying it. We flew into the

628
00:56:36.840 --> 00:56:44.079
trees, flew into trees. The
hoist wouldn't hit the ground, and there

629
00:56:44.119 --> 00:56:47.079
was no place to land. And
you're talking about a thirty forty degrees slope

630
00:56:47.159 --> 00:56:52.199
with one hundred and fifty foot trees
on it, and there's a budget dead

631
00:56:52.239 --> 00:56:58.079
and dying here. What do you
do? So these guys pilots, the

632
00:56:58.119 --> 00:57:04.400
good pilots, would fly into the
trees. They find out an opening in

633
00:57:04.519 --> 00:57:09.800
the under the leaves and branches and
dodge everything. And I see the cook

634
00:57:09.840 --> 00:57:14.519
Clid writing little notes on the right
on the windshow with a grease pencil.

635
00:57:14.960 --> 00:57:22.360
It looked like turn right, big
snag proceeed one hundred feet, turn left

636
00:57:22.400 --> 00:57:30.320
a defoliated area. They could have
turned the right and stuff like to get

637
00:57:30.320 --> 00:57:36.480
out. It was like cave diving. It was kind of spooky. Yeah,

638
00:57:36.519 --> 00:57:40.840
and you guys, like you know, the Kazovacs took a ton of

639
00:57:40.880 --> 00:57:45.519
fire generally when they were because you
it wasn't you guys weren't waiting until the

640
00:57:45.559 --> 00:57:49.440
action was over a lot of times, like you were going in while the

641
00:57:49.480 --> 00:57:58.119
firefight was still going on. Yeah, yeah, sometimes sometimes sometimes the back

642
00:57:58.199 --> 00:58:13.920
off. Yeah, we weren't fools, but yeah, we had a They

643
00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:17.199
had a serious thing with the with
one of the Metabacs got shut down,

644
00:58:19.360 --> 00:58:23.119
you know, in the Hamburger Hill, at the famous incident where they got

645
00:58:23.159 --> 00:58:30.880
shut down. And see, the
gods were funneling me to be in the

646
00:58:30.880 --> 00:58:35.519
Battle of Hamburger Hill. There was
no doubt about it. They wanted me

647
00:58:35.639 --> 00:58:38.119
on that in that battle. First
of all, I was in the d

648
00:58:38.320 --> 00:58:45.199
company, the worst one Well,
guess what D company tries to outflank during

649
00:58:45.239 --> 00:58:50.760
the Battle of Hamburger Hill, tries
to outflank the NBA on top and go

650
00:58:50.880 --> 00:58:52.760
around and then go back up the
hill. Well, they didn't get off.

651
00:58:53.079 --> 00:58:58.039
They didn't get as far as the
bottom. The NBA were smart.

652
00:58:58.119 --> 00:59:00.239
They were on them, and so
they were shooting them up at all kinds

653
00:59:00.280 --> 00:59:05.559
of casual. If they call a
metalvact, well just about that time,

654
00:59:07.239 --> 00:59:09.719
I can't swear it was the same
metal act that I volunteered to be on.

655
00:59:10.119 --> 00:59:14.039
I wasn't. I was just a
ground powder but I was a loose

656
00:59:14.159 --> 00:59:17.280
cannon of the fire business. I't
really didn't have anything to do here.

657
00:59:17.360 --> 00:59:27.599
Comes as metalvac comes in fast,
slams on the ground before wounded and sticks

658
00:59:30.440 --> 00:59:37.480
litters, field expedient litters, and
with leaves and leaves and blood all over

659
00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:40.400
the place. They got all that, cleaned it all up, and I

660
00:59:40.519 --> 00:59:45.119
said, they said, man,
there's some big ship going on there.

661
00:59:45.159 --> 00:59:47.880
So I knew that was Hamburger Hill. He'd just come in from Hamburger Hill.

662
00:59:49.400 --> 00:59:51.519
And I said, let me go
with it. I'm a medic.

663
00:59:51.840 --> 00:59:54.320
I can help him. I go. We did. He said, yeah,

664
00:59:54.360 --> 00:59:57.920
let me ask him so yeah,
ask him. They said, nah,

665
00:59:58.039 --> 01:00:04.760
we could use you, but no, we need to we need to

666
01:00:05.119 --> 01:00:08.920
space more. So they took off
and that could have been the same one.

667
01:00:09.039 --> 01:00:13.920
It goes into myt you know.
There's some connections, like electricity is

668
01:00:13.920 --> 01:00:19.039
connected in that company pea company they
call the medic Sanders as the captain.

669
01:00:19.159 --> 01:00:22.800
He says, don't come in,
it's too hot. The torbo is the

670
01:00:22.840 --> 01:00:29.119
captain the matter of Act. He
says. Now he's thinking, we made

671
01:00:29.159 --> 01:00:32.239
it every time before, so he's
coming in. He drops a hoist.

672
01:00:34.480 --> 01:00:39.400
The jungle penetrator picks up a guy
named Pickle. Pickle. He picks up

673
01:00:39.440 --> 01:00:46.599
Pickle and some I could say it's
a bastard from Hallinois. I call him

674
01:00:46.599 --> 01:00:52.159
a hero from Hanninois. Shoots an
RPG down into the rotor disc from above

675
01:00:52.280 --> 01:00:58.840
into the unarmed matter of Act,
blows it out of the sky and it

676
01:00:58.920 --> 01:01:05.840
comes straight down on Pickle and everyone
else was burned above who killed except Horrible.

677
01:01:07.199 --> 01:01:12.039
They got him out just in time, and he survived, he barely.

678
01:01:13.639 --> 01:01:17.079
They threw him in a pile of
dead people and later noticed he wasn't

679
01:01:17.119 --> 01:01:23.840
some dead. But I kind of
figured out the bird I volunteered for that

680
01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:30.199
was one time. And then you
know, when I was in a cover,

681
01:01:30.400 --> 01:01:34.519
we went, we went, we
were headed right to the Hamburger Hill

682
01:01:34.639 --> 01:01:42.199
in nineteen sixty eight, And there's
other times. I can't think of exactly.

683
01:01:43.519 --> 01:01:49.480
One of the things about your book
is is you don't shy away from

684
01:01:49.960 --> 01:01:52.599
I don't want to say the horrors
of war, but the challenges of war,

685
01:01:54.159 --> 01:02:00.599
and you know, the humor that
guys get during war or on some

686
01:02:00.639 --> 01:02:05.000
of the horrific events that happened during
the war, simply especially in a war

687
01:02:06.039 --> 01:02:14.039
where it's hard to distinguish sometimes the
enemy from the civilians. Do you do

688
01:02:14.079 --> 01:02:19.599
you recall your the Vietcong Princess chapter? Oh? Yeah, can you tell

689
01:02:19.679 --> 01:02:24.599
us, because I think it's I
think it's a really good example of of

690
01:02:24.679 --> 01:02:30.840
how challenging Vietnam was. God yeah, yeah, Well, it's nice to

691
01:02:30.880 --> 01:02:37.599
hear you say these things that they
were very unportant. Yeah. That was

692
01:02:38.559 --> 01:02:42.960
basically, to make a long story
longer, make a long story short,

693
01:02:43.079 --> 01:02:47.519
we shot up a book of a
boatload of civilians, women and children.

694
01:02:49.119 --> 01:02:52.960
They were flying South vietnamme slag,
Now, how can that happen? We're

695
01:02:53.159 --> 01:02:59.360
we're the hundred first airborne, but
we took the surrender of Germany. You

696
01:02:59.440 --> 01:03:02.400
know. Shoot, by god,
I was supposed to be in Gurden Brets.

697
01:03:02.519 --> 01:03:06.480
I didn't. I don't. I'm
not oppressed with the hundred first Airborn.

698
01:03:06.519 --> 01:03:09.159
I just went to their meeting in
San Antonio, you know, and

699
01:03:10.159 --> 01:03:15.800
I had to watch my mouth.
I mean, I love the guys only

700
01:03:15.079 --> 01:03:19.519
I think there's only two other ones
that were in getting on. But anyway,

701
01:03:20.599 --> 01:03:23.159
how could that happen? How could
that happen? The hundred first airborne

702
01:03:23.960 --> 01:03:30.599
shoot up? That's there was another
shoot up, the two the two things

703
01:03:30.639 --> 01:03:35.320
which which you know, don't ask
me to go to war again, bro,

704
01:03:36.639 --> 01:03:39.000
No matter. That's that's the I
hope the concepts of my book.

705
01:03:39.639 --> 01:03:44.880
What about the kids? You think
you gotta think about the kids while you

706
01:03:45.199 --> 01:03:50.559
Navy seals during brets. What you're
gonna go over there, You're gonna you're

707
01:03:50.559 --> 01:03:54.599
gonna heard abouts of kids. It's
inevitable. What about them? And on?

708
01:03:55.599 --> 01:04:00.039
Yeah, so we shut this We
shut this boat up from a house.

709
01:04:00.239 --> 01:04:03.960
They were in a free book.
They were in a free fires Yeah.

710
01:04:04.639 --> 01:04:09.519
Well yeah, well we know it
was a free virus one we made

711
01:04:09.599 --> 01:04:15.559
it. But did every school and
every hamlet put out pamphlets that we printed,

712
01:04:15.960 --> 01:04:19.519
oh this is a free VIRS home. Don't go in you're I don't

713
01:04:19.519 --> 01:04:25.519
pick that happen. A lot of
people didn't get the word right. So

714
01:04:25.719 --> 01:04:31.440
some some bastard the pilot radios induces. We gotta we got these people out

715
01:04:31.440 --> 01:04:38.679
there and free virus on and some
probably some clerkses fire him up, fire

716
01:04:38.719 --> 01:04:42.519
him up. Oh okay, So
we started firing him up and I couldn't

717
01:04:42.519 --> 01:04:45.039
see him very well. So I
got up on one round with my hand.

718
01:04:45.079 --> 01:04:49.719
I had at him seventy nine for
some reason, and I was I

719
01:04:49.760 --> 01:04:56.280
was trying to shoot ducks before when
we were waiting till this bird. Anyway,

720
01:04:56.760 --> 01:05:01.039
Uh yeah, I got round off. The gunners are going crazy,

721
01:05:01.239 --> 01:05:08.599
the copilot shooting at them seventeen nine
out his window. So it's says catch

722
01:05:08.679 --> 01:05:13.320
twenty two. We turned into the
rescuers. We land. The boat lands

723
01:05:13.400 --> 01:05:17.920
right next to us, and it's
beautiful, sixteen year old, gorgeous girl.

724
01:05:18.280 --> 01:05:23.719
The only one that got hit her. Her thigh was split open and

725
01:05:23.760 --> 01:05:27.960
it wasn't bleeding. Thank god,
it wasn't a bad bleeder. And so

726
01:05:28.320 --> 01:05:32.599
I, you know, I fixed
up as best I could, and jeez,

727
01:05:33.519 --> 01:05:38.239
well what a catestrophe. So in
the book. I just got it.

728
01:05:38.280 --> 01:05:41.719
About a month later, we're regarding
a bridge down with my food lock

729
01:05:42.079 --> 01:05:45.239
close to that area, and and
I see this girl sitting on a bunker.

730
01:05:47.239 --> 01:05:50.519
I can't I go over there,
and I can't see her legs.

731
01:05:50.559 --> 01:05:54.719
And I see her leg it's just
a big scar on her inside of her

732
01:05:54.800 --> 01:06:03.119
thigh. And yeah, one hundred
first dierboard a month and I felt I

733
01:06:03.239 --> 01:06:08.639
felt like shit, I've walked away. I couldn't say anything. But four

734
01:06:08.719 --> 01:06:14.440
years ago I went back to Vietnam. I went looking for and I didn't

735
01:06:14.440 --> 01:06:19.480
find her, but I was close. I could have, but I gave

736
01:06:19.559 --> 01:06:25.679
up for a temporarily. And Michael
beat and you're just to be clear for

737
01:06:25.719 --> 01:06:30.639
people listening, it's it's we're not
talking about an event like my life.

738
01:06:30.679 --> 01:06:38.280
We're not talking about intentional harm to
civilians that that you're in this guerrilla war

739
01:06:38.840 --> 01:06:45.480
where a lot of the combatants were
not uniformed. They were using certain routes

740
01:06:45.519 --> 01:06:47.760
and paths, and so when you
guys see a boat, you're in a

741
01:06:47.840 --> 01:06:54.119
helicopter and you see a boat and
command says, it's probably because it could

742
01:06:54.159 --> 01:07:01.760
have just as likely have been like
Vietcong or NVA moving things. Uh Like,

743
01:07:02.840 --> 01:07:10.360
it's the challenge of the situation.
It's not from malintent. If yeah,

744
01:07:10.440 --> 01:07:12.800
it wasn't it wasn't we could have
been more curvel. I mean,

745
01:07:12.840 --> 01:07:15.760
the pilot could have gone down and
hovered right by him seeing them was a

746
01:07:15.119 --> 01:07:21.960
bunch of kids and all men and
women. But you know it didn't happen.

747
01:07:23.039 --> 01:07:29.320
So yeah, right, you're yeah, there was no U. Yeah,

748
01:07:29.480 --> 01:07:33.440
my life is a real source spot
with me. That's that's I won't

749
01:07:33.440 --> 01:07:40.719
say too much about it, get
in trouble, but my life that that's

750
01:07:40.719 --> 01:07:49.679
a disgrace for Americans, all the
armed forces, every human being. It's

751
01:07:49.679 --> 01:07:55.519
a disgrace and it'll always be.
It's great, it'll never go away.

752
01:07:56.719 --> 01:07:58.679
Yeah, I mean you talk about
it, and you work and you and

753
01:07:58.800 --> 01:08:01.400
you talk about you know, like
a lot of your book is very gung

754
01:08:01.440 --> 01:08:08.440
ho, and it's very like what
a soldier like, any any soldier or

755
01:08:08.440 --> 01:08:13.480
marine or airman, anybody who's been
in combat will we'll get the reference,

756
01:08:13.480 --> 01:08:17.439
they'll get a lot of the humor, they'll understand sort of the dark side,

757
01:08:17.520 --> 01:08:24.640
but also just how when war is
your every day, how that just

758
01:08:24.760 --> 01:08:29.279
becomes your personality. So there's very
gung ho sort of moments in this book.

759
01:08:29.640 --> 01:08:35.159
But you're also very, very like
conscientious about calling out things like my

760
01:08:35.319 --> 01:08:42.600
lie and the horrors the war can
inflict upon Americans, upon other people,

761
01:08:42.800 --> 01:08:50.520
things like that. M thanks.
I haven't talked to too many people that

762
01:08:50.600 --> 01:08:59.159
have read the whole books. It's
gratifying me. No, it's like I

763
01:08:59.199 --> 01:09:03.560
said, it's it's a great book
from the from the perspective of Like I

764
01:09:03.600 --> 01:09:10.359
said, I was kind of just
just your that your one or two page

765
01:09:10.439 --> 01:09:15.720
chapter on getting ice, like getting
ice in a combat zone and the simple

766
01:09:15.840 --> 01:09:21.520
pleasure that a soldier gets from this
this thing that most people have. You

767
01:09:21.520 --> 01:09:28.640
can go to your refrigerator and get
it anytime you want. Yeah, yeah,

768
01:09:28.720 --> 01:09:32.560
yeah, I don't even have a
refrigerator here, you know, I

769
01:09:32.680 --> 01:09:38.760
usually neighbors. But yeah, I
mean it was so hot. It was

770
01:09:38.800 --> 01:09:45.359
so easy to write that because I
mean it included all all sense of sites

771
01:09:45.479 --> 01:09:53.000
everything, and it was just so
hot and that they brought actually brought us

772
01:09:53.000 --> 01:10:00.880
a chunk of ice. It was
on bootoo. Yeah. Yeah, you

773
01:10:00.920 --> 01:10:08.359
did mention Delta company, you know, and and their troubles are they are

774
01:10:08.439 --> 01:10:12.800
they're also the company that got hit
by friendly fire. Correct Or am I

775
01:10:12.800 --> 01:10:15.880
getting or did I misread that,
Am I misread? No, No,

776
01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:19.840
that's right, that's that was Arbitalian. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that

777
01:10:19.920 --> 01:10:25.880
up. That was Delta Company.
H they got wiped out, they got

778
01:10:25.920 --> 01:10:31.159
bombire a bomb wire or air force. That's that's my comparison with customers.

779
01:10:31.520 --> 01:10:36.560
It's straight on. Customers laps down. It's straight on. There's so many

780
01:10:36.680 --> 01:10:41.520
similarities. I just love that.
I'm so glad you brought that up.

781
01:10:41.560 --> 01:10:47.960
It's it's yeah, that was a
worldway story. That was First of all,

782
01:10:48.079 --> 01:10:53.880
we were just named Air Cavalry and
some some of the officers and I

783
01:10:53.960 --> 01:10:59.159
had black cowboy ass in the rear, and we had those pinned pinned swallow

784
01:10:59.199 --> 01:11:03.319
tail flat Avery flags. Well,
I think the Army does a period.

785
01:11:03.119 --> 01:11:09.399
We had to we had I mentioned
the coat, the Colts. We had

786
01:11:09.439 --> 01:11:15.760
colts anonymous with the Indian Wars and
in the West West fighting, we had

787
01:11:15.800 --> 01:11:18.159
coats. We were armed with Colts
and they were we had nineteen rounds in

788
01:11:18.279 --> 01:11:21.920
them. They were armed with Ak
forty seven. They had thirty rounds.

789
01:11:21.720 --> 01:11:28.880
It's just like Custer. He was
out gunning horribly those old civil Those carvings

790
01:11:28.960 --> 01:11:33.000
he had were prone to jam too, just like the M sixteens were rumored

791
01:11:33.039 --> 01:11:39.640
to jam, but they didn't even
have ramrods. Oh we at least we

792
01:11:39.680 --> 01:11:44.159
had ramrods and punch of bullet back
out. But anyway, so here we

793
01:11:44.239 --> 01:11:47.439
come. This is August fourth of
this huge combat assault into the Ashow Valley.

794
01:11:48.439 --> 01:11:55.640
H we come in there. We're
surrounded, flying through a fire just

795
01:11:55.720 --> 01:12:01.439
to get in there. We're already
surrounded. And so all the helicopters are

796
01:12:01.520 --> 01:12:11.560
named after Indians. Drops, everyone
of them except the kobral We had American

797
01:12:11.640 --> 01:12:20.439
Indians with us, and so we
dismount our mounts. And let's just how

798
01:12:20.640 --> 01:12:26.800
customer fought. Custom fought. They
get off their horses and make a skirmish

799
01:12:26.880 --> 01:12:30.159
line. One guy would hold horses
and they go kneel down. So they're

800
01:12:30.199 --> 01:12:35.279
on foot. So we're on foot
too. And his his his big as

801
01:12:35.319 --> 01:12:39.880
folly was if you read I've read
a couple of books recently. That's why

802
01:12:39.880 --> 01:12:46.479
I know his biggest fall. He
was dividing, dividing his forces, right,

803
01:12:47.479 --> 01:12:53.199
he divided his furtherest. He had
two sub lieutenants or whatever, he

804
01:12:53.199 --> 01:12:59.319
had Reno and the other Yahoo.
Well he and he goes up a river.

805
01:13:00.079 --> 01:13:02.159
They don't know what the river's call. They you got asking the Indian

806
01:13:02.279 --> 01:13:06.560
because they think it's a little big
horn or the big they called the big

807
01:13:06.680 --> 01:13:11.359
horn. Anyway, we'll call it
the little big horn. He goes up

808
01:13:11.399 --> 01:13:15.720
the right hand side and Rene goles
up the left hand side, looking for

809
01:13:15.880 --> 01:13:21.079
caps. That's what we're doing.
We're looking for caps. We don't know

810
01:13:21.119 --> 01:13:25.720
where they are. Custer didn't know
where they were either. At first.

811
01:13:26.199 --> 01:13:30.560
We're looking for caps. Okay,
we didn't know how many's in the camps

812
01:13:30.680 --> 01:13:34.880
or where they were. You know, it's kind of preposterous. And the

813
01:13:35.720 --> 01:13:41.239
cavalry back then, we're used to
having the Indians run. They run usually,

814
01:13:41.600 --> 01:13:47.039
well, so did we They run
usually? Okay, So we follow

815
01:13:47.079 --> 01:13:50.119
a river too. There's only one
big river there. It's the south of

816
01:13:50.199 --> 01:13:56.159
Hamburg or Hill a couple of miles. It's the Don the Lower. It's

817
01:13:56.199 --> 01:13:58.880
in the map, it's in the
book. I don't the low, so

818
01:13:59.000 --> 01:14:05.079
I'm the right. Is A and
B company. It's like Custer cinem oh,

819
01:14:05.119 --> 01:14:10.159
I was in a company D,
D and C. We're on the

820
01:14:10.239 --> 01:14:15.800
left side. It's like Reno split
up. Reno hit the Indians first.

821
01:14:15.640 --> 01:14:23.920
So the D company they hit,
they hit some NBA and they spent the

822
01:14:23.960 --> 01:14:27.159
whole night there. They didn't move. The next morning he called in the

823
01:14:27.279 --> 01:14:33.159
air air air dropped a bombing running
the blow them away. It just blew

824
01:14:33.199 --> 01:14:38.239
them away, a decimator, just
like Reno. Reno hit the Indians and

825
01:14:38.960 --> 01:14:43.199
they attacked him, and I think
he lost half his men. He retreated,

826
01:14:43.279 --> 01:14:49.039
he ran dog Doc. We just
lost your sound. I can't see

827
01:14:49.119 --> 01:14:55.000
him. Oh I hear him.
Your things it's unplugged. Sorry about that,

828
01:14:55.319 --> 01:15:00.359
Please continue ignore me. It's it's
going here. Yeah, So as

829
01:15:00.399 --> 01:15:04.920
I say, yeah, so Rino
runs runs, he's getting The Indians thought

830
01:15:04.960 --> 01:15:10.720
he was he was charging what he
was at first, but then he was

831
01:15:10.840 --> 01:15:14.199
running and when they realized he was
running, it took after him and murdered

832
01:15:14.279 --> 01:15:18.640
him. So like us, we
lost. Essentially we lost the whole company.

833
01:15:19.760 --> 01:15:25.079
Well we're really split up now.
D Company and C Company were miles

834
01:15:25.159 --> 01:15:30.439
away over on south of the Annalore
River and we're on the north, just

835
01:15:30.680 --> 01:15:36.880
like Custer. And we turned due
north almost directly to Hamburger Hill. It's

836
01:15:36.960 --> 01:15:42.880
directly where we started heading, just
like Custer. And if we'd continued,

837
01:15:44.359 --> 01:15:47.760
and that's when I got I walked
into an ambush. Me and the rto

838
01:15:49.000 --> 01:15:58.760
we walked within twenty feet several NBA
and they let Louise Fanos finally part the

839
01:15:58.960 --> 01:16:06.399
rto let loose on them and h
oh, so anyway, our lieutenant gets

840
01:16:06.520 --> 01:16:10.520
get the squad and they cha.
He starts chasing him for a while and

841
01:16:10.840 --> 01:16:15.520
higher beckwith Orse's. The general is
telling him, we'll give me a BodyCount,

842
01:16:15.600 --> 01:16:20.800
give me a body count. Pursue
get him. And Lieutenant Roney his

843
01:16:20.960 --> 01:16:26.680
words, he said he must have
gone to West Point and studied Custer.

844
01:16:27.600 --> 01:16:30.000
And he says, uh, they
want a bought a count, they can

845
01:16:30.039 --> 01:16:38.479
go get him for themselves. He
tells everybody to sit down, eat and

846
01:16:38.960 --> 01:16:44.880
h well, General zas was might
have studied Custer too. They pulled us

847
01:16:44.920 --> 01:16:51.560
off. They pulls us out before
we got wicked off. You uh,

848
01:16:53.600 --> 01:16:58.319
you know you, like I said, your your book is fantastic, and

849
01:16:58.880 --> 01:17:02.800
there was there was a real you
talk about a couple times, but there

850
01:17:02.880 --> 01:17:10.439
was a real disconnect between officers in
the rear and the soldiers on the front.

851
01:17:11.079 --> 01:17:15.680
And and I think one of the
chapters that really signify that is your

852
01:17:15.800 --> 01:17:21.000
chapter the Last Walk to a Court
martial. Can you can you talk about

853
01:17:21.119 --> 01:17:26.680
that experience because it's fascinating, like
when you get off powered you're coming from

854
01:17:26.720 --> 01:17:31.520
the field. Yeah, yeah,
that was that was comical. Just this

855
01:17:31.760 --> 01:17:34.880
was when I was getting short,
so it was a little cockies son of

856
01:17:34.960 --> 01:17:45.640
a book and somewhat. Let's see, I had I I was wearing my

857
01:17:45.720 --> 01:17:51.880
jump wings on my booty out and
I come down. We just get dropped

858
01:17:51.880 --> 01:17:55.319
off. We were at a fire
base for a few days ever, I

859
01:17:55.359 --> 01:17:59.039
guess, and then we were coming
into the rear cam'p eagle huge, you

860
01:17:59.119 --> 01:18:04.079
know, rear area p x's movie
theater or base or base area. So

861
01:18:04.159 --> 01:18:10.720
I get out the chopper. The
chopper is just dusting off the whole area,

862
01:18:11.439 --> 01:18:17.479
dry dusk everywhere, no trees,
dirty, tired. So it's just

863
01:18:17.680 --> 01:18:21.119
me for some reason, they just
I was getting short. So I'm walking

864
01:18:21.159 --> 01:18:25.720
down the hill to go into the
age station and the company area or to

865
01:18:25.840 --> 01:18:31.840
our bar, and I see this
this captain or a lieutenant standing in the

866
01:18:31.920 --> 01:18:38.000
shade over there. But he comes
up towards me like as it just going

867
01:18:38.039 --> 01:18:41.800
to welcome me back, you know, right, Well I was near to

868
01:18:41.960 --> 01:18:44.840
this and he goes up here,
truth, how's it going? I go,

869
01:18:45.760 --> 01:18:49.920
okay, he says, base you
calling me cereal? Yes, sir,

870
01:18:50.880 --> 01:18:57.399
he says, oh, you know, your jumpings are pretty shiny.

871
01:18:57.479 --> 01:19:02.279
There are you airboard qualifying hid.
I notice he doesn't have any win.

872
01:19:03.119 --> 01:19:09.439
This is the battalion. It's heavy, all the officers, rangers and airborne

873
01:19:09.520 --> 01:19:15.880
qualified beck us and oh and so
they get a lone dog like him,

874
01:19:16.560 --> 01:19:24.279
you're gonna send him out on a
hot day mad mad dogs and cherry lieutenants

875
01:19:24.319 --> 01:19:29.000
to go out in the midday sun. They're the only one. They're stupid

876
01:19:29.119 --> 01:19:30.319
enough to do that. Well,
they send him out there, We'll go

877
01:19:30.640 --> 01:19:35.359
go her house. These guys coming
in and go see what they're He says,

878
01:19:35.560 --> 01:19:38.880
yeah, you got shiny wing.
You can't wear that out of the

879
01:19:38.960 --> 01:19:43.359
field. They go, yeah,
I always do. You call me sirup

880
01:19:43.520 --> 01:19:49.079
by the way, Oh yes,
sirrup. Let me see that weapon.

881
01:19:49.520 --> 01:19:57.840
Grabs my weapon, pulls it out, looks like it's dirty. Yeah,

882
01:19:58.199 --> 01:20:03.159
shoot the shoots true. Oh yeah, he throws it back to me and

883
01:20:04.279 --> 01:20:11.800
they gotta Yeah. So I realized
I just got off of a dust bowl

884
01:20:11.880 --> 01:20:15.039
out of here. You know what
a helicopter you know who woo win win

885
01:20:15.239 --> 01:20:21.760
win does. And so he said, oh yeah, I'm I'm putting you

886
01:20:21.880 --> 01:20:28.640
up for chargers. Okay, I'm
going to get a beer. I forgot

887
01:20:28.720 --> 01:20:32.880
about charges. What are you gonna
donna court martial? Are gonna execute?

888
01:20:32.960 --> 01:20:38.000
Yeah? What are they gonna send
you home? Yeah? What are they

889
01:20:38.039 --> 01:20:43.520
gonna do? Send me to a
bank? God? Yeah? So?

890
01:20:44.239 --> 01:20:49.000
And what the funny part it is
about? I'm really getting short. I

891
01:20:49.159 --> 01:20:54.960
reasonably, I did reusable. I
gotta leave. I leave. I got

892
01:20:55.079 --> 01:20:57.600
a arn arm. You just got
one of R and R. That's it.

893
01:20:58.159 --> 01:21:00.920
I gotta lead to seven dayly for
some reason, I think because I

894
01:21:01.000 --> 01:21:04.279
blew away with an enemy. I
don't know why. But they gave me

895
01:21:04.319 --> 01:21:08.920
a leave. It was great,
but I'm maybe trying to get another leave.

896
01:21:09.680 --> 01:21:12.720
I'm in the clerk's office and he
says, oh, Doc, quite

897
01:21:12.760 --> 01:21:17.560
a way. You know an article
fifteen, don't worry about it. I

898
01:21:17.600 --> 01:21:23.279
said, what's an article fifteen?
He says, it's non judicial punishment.

899
01:21:23.439 --> 01:21:28.199
It's like they don't court martial with
anymore. They take money with one hundred

900
01:21:28.199 --> 01:21:31.840
and one dollars and my friend's kids
or something like that. And I go

901
01:21:32.520 --> 01:21:36.079
and he points to the trash can. It dawned under what he was saying.

902
01:21:36.399 --> 01:21:41.960
All right, he's ramps these ranch
a lot mothers. They're all right,

903
01:21:42.680 --> 01:21:47.960
they're doing their thank you and so
that was that. So so basically

904
01:21:48.039 --> 01:21:54.319
he filed that j JP that that
officer put on you and the special the

905
01:21:54.479 --> 01:22:00.239
circular filing cabinet, which what filt
like cabinet, the circular filing cabinet that

906
01:22:00.800 --> 01:22:09.439
he taught the order. Yeah,
the circular circular Yeah, yeah, he

907
01:22:09.520 --> 01:22:13.880
tossed it in the trash. That's
what they call it. Now. That's

908
01:22:13.920 --> 01:22:18.439
good. Yeah, yeah, So
you know, just to touch on the

909
01:22:18.520 --> 01:22:25.000
epilogue because it was interesting from your
perspective, the epilogue is who lost the

910
01:22:25.079 --> 01:22:31.079
war? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I get a little there's some

911
01:22:31.199 --> 01:22:36.199
controversy, you might say in the
right. You know, I believe in

912
01:22:36.359 --> 01:22:42.840
a lot of conspiracy, theoris and
stuff because I don't want to get into

913
01:22:43.000 --> 01:22:46.279
but yeah, who lost the word? In my opinion, we didn't lose

914
01:22:46.359 --> 01:22:51.880
the war. We just left.
It was kind of maybe you could call

915
01:22:51.920 --> 01:22:55.760
it chicken ship, but I don't
call it that. We just left.

916
01:22:55.800 --> 01:23:01.880
We were invited over there by criminal
government. Our criminal government was invited over

917
01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:09.600
there by their criminal you know,
for money. It's all money. Just

918
01:23:09.640 --> 01:23:16.239
sell hell coops. Check it out. Who LBJ LBJ Lyndon Baines Johnson was

919
01:23:16.359 --> 01:23:24.039
president. He was also a big
stockholder with his wife with Bell helicopters.

920
01:23:24.840 --> 01:23:29.880
Now, what's one with this picture. He's the president and he's making up

921
01:23:30.439 --> 01:23:35.760
millions off of the war gear helicopters. Well, what's wrong with this pictures?

922
01:23:35.800 --> 01:23:42.880
So yeah, So anyway, a
little bit off track here. So

923
01:23:45.479 --> 01:23:48.680
ah, that's my opinion that So, yeah, it was all for money.

924
01:23:49.920 --> 01:23:56.720
And so we're in the war and
it was time to go. We

925
01:23:56.800 --> 01:24:00.239
were advisors, we were supposi to
be advisors, and we gave it.

926
01:24:00.279 --> 01:24:05.039
Hell, we gave it our best
shot. We're there for years and it's

927
01:24:05.079 --> 01:24:08.920
time to go. So we left. I don't think we left. We

928
01:24:09.000 --> 01:24:14.319
didn't lose it. We just loved. Yeah. And so when you got

929
01:24:14.399 --> 01:24:19.680
home, Like, how did you
adjust a post Vietnam life? Well,

930
01:24:19.960 --> 01:24:24.039
I was lucky in a way.
It was not too bad because I still

931
01:24:24.159 --> 01:24:30.680
had had fourteen months left in the
Army, which I was not happy with,

932
01:24:31.960 --> 01:24:38.640
but I was still It left me
down easy, and I'm still in

933
01:24:38.760 --> 01:24:43.159
there. I went to the toy
put me in the Ranger, an actual

934
01:24:43.279 --> 01:24:48.239
lerp. I became an actual lerp
at the States side. And then I

935
01:24:48.359 --> 01:24:51.399
got a wonderful, wonderful trip to
Germany. I still had time to go

936
01:24:51.520 --> 01:24:59.920
to went to Germany to go skiing
and joined the tenth Mountain Special Forces possible

937
01:25:00.159 --> 01:25:08.239
Greenbrigs and Garnisher being a ski team
and stuff, and so it wasn't too

938
01:25:08.279 --> 01:25:13.920
bad about left now. Yeah,
and then after your military service, like

939
01:25:14.039 --> 01:25:15.760
where did you like? What did
you do and where'd you go? You

940
01:25:15.840 --> 01:25:20.279
mentioned being a bush pilot, maybe
a one or two an authorized trips with

941
01:25:20.800 --> 01:25:27.359
electronics to Mexico? Like what route
did your life take after that? We're

942
01:25:27.640 --> 01:25:31.840
left? I was. I got
a discharge in Germany and we were all

943
01:25:31.880 --> 01:25:38.319
smoking hash, everybody smoking. I
didn't like it. I didn't like it.

944
01:25:38.439 --> 01:25:42.159
I just did it because we won
the boys. So yeah, all

945
01:25:42.279 --> 01:25:47.359
right, So I ended up in
Switzerland, you know, party girls,

946
01:25:47.479 --> 01:25:53.000
man night and day skiing every day. I was the best skier if I

947
01:25:53.119 --> 01:25:57.399
was a skier before, I was
best skier in that Swiss American in the

948
01:25:57.560 --> 01:26:02.239
Swiss town. And it was great. So I did not They don't went

949
01:26:02.279 --> 01:26:09.279
back to the stage and the spending
only my blood money on school and rant

950
01:26:11.359 --> 01:26:15.600
that wasn't happening. So I could
take flight lessons to get your private license.

951
01:26:15.680 --> 01:26:20.239
They paid for everything else, all
your commercial licenses and all that stuff.

952
01:26:20.279 --> 01:26:25.920
So I did not ended up in
Alaska, and that was I was

953
01:26:26.000 --> 01:26:32.159
a total adrenaline junky now because you
might imagine and traumatized the medics had.

954
01:26:32.720 --> 01:26:38.319
Medics were taught to kill immediately when
you entered the service, and then they

955
01:26:38.359 --> 01:26:45.079
were trying to save lives. I
mean, little traumat little ying, and

956
01:26:45.159 --> 01:26:49.520
yang a little conflict. So I'm
total, total junkie. If I flying

957
01:26:49.880 --> 01:26:55.359
Bush and Alaska, that was great. It was just what I needed for

958
01:26:55.680 --> 01:27:00.880
for a few years. But then
that war fare and I ended it up.

959
01:27:02.239 --> 01:27:09.720
I'm flying the Caribbean. I knew
every smuggler from Miami to some Barbados,

960
01:27:10.479 --> 01:27:15.159
and I want my friends everybody and
great stories. I've met a bunch

961
01:27:15.199 --> 01:27:19.640
of German kids. They come over
from Germany to get their American pilot license,

962
01:27:19.720 --> 01:27:24.960
and they were flying with me,
flying Legit out of Puerto Rico,

963
01:27:25.960 --> 01:27:29.800
and they hooked me up with a
They said, well we got these Germans,

964
01:27:29.800 --> 01:27:32.199
well German guys down and Bolivia.
Yeah, they will meet them and

965
01:27:32.720 --> 01:27:38.880
you could start a hunting it so
far businessman. That's me. I did

966
01:27:38.960 --> 01:27:43.800
that. I went down there.
Man, there's some wild characters down there.

967
01:27:45.479 --> 01:27:47.680
Yeah, Like where do they come
from? That happen. Yeah,

968
01:27:48.880 --> 01:27:56.880
Uh, how Germans end up?
That's crazy? And uh, I tell

969
01:27:57.000 --> 01:28:02.920
people I met Adolf Hitler. I
met him him is they are in Santa

970
01:28:02.920 --> 01:28:06.239
Cruz, Bolivia. No, I
just kidding. I did not meet Alia

971
01:28:06.279 --> 01:28:10.399
Fidler, but I could have because
it was a long time ago and an

972
01:28:10.399 --> 01:28:17.279
old guy now. And I met
other characters and this is my connection down

973
01:28:17.359 --> 01:28:24.840
There was Hans Steffield. These guys, believe me, had a you could

974
01:28:24.880 --> 01:28:29.720
say a vault the old government.
They had a revolution every year every year.

975
01:28:30.680 --> 01:28:35.760
So these guys, these old German, I don't want to say their

976
01:28:35.880 --> 01:28:43.840
Nazis, but they were a bunch
of German guys and they're gonna take over

977
01:28:43.960 --> 01:28:46.920
the government. They're gonna take go
on me to bring guns down and all

978
01:28:47.000 --> 01:28:50.960
this, and I kind of shied
away from it. But I got involved

979
01:28:51.000 --> 01:28:55.880
in the animal business and I had
the police coming to my hotel. I

980
01:28:55.960 --> 01:29:00.399
had a client right next door.
The first guy I took honey opened the

981
01:29:00.439 --> 01:29:04.399
door and there's a thirty eight pointed
at my nose and they said, oh,

982
01:29:04.920 --> 01:29:09.760
come come with me, come come
on us. And pretty girl too,

983
01:29:09.800 --> 01:29:13.920
and there was like cannibal, just
normal stuff, just normal stuff,

984
01:29:15.039 --> 01:29:17.600
bringing rifles they want. They really
liked the rifles and they just wanted the

985
01:29:17.720 --> 01:29:26.239
rifles. Let me go, But
the German guy ratted me out and fucking

986
01:29:26.319 --> 01:29:32.039
crafts. It isn't the world of
that. And then we got the same

987
01:29:32.119 --> 01:29:39.920
guys wanted to start moving cocaine and
stuff of shocking, shocking, I can't

988
01:29:39.920 --> 01:29:43.199
believe that. Yeah, they wanted
to move it up there to the stage

989
01:29:43.239 --> 01:29:45.239
and they were doing it and suitcases
and all the stupid weathers, and I

990
01:29:45.319 --> 01:29:48.640
told him, and you guys are
going to jail, and uh, but

991
01:29:49.199 --> 01:29:57.319
me, I found out there's this
great book called Over and Back Why wild

992
01:29:57.479 --> 01:30:03.000
Bill Callahan at there was a big
industry in Texas, South Texas, and

993
01:30:03.079 --> 01:30:11.720
they fly, they fly. Contributory
would be TVs and refrigerators and stuff legal.

994
01:30:11.880 --> 01:30:16.479
It's legal in the United States,
highly illegal in Mexico. And we'd

995
01:30:16.520 --> 01:30:21.720
do that and big old World War
two bombers and DC three's himself was the

996
01:30:21.800 --> 01:30:29.439
greatest job ever. I did that. So I'm diffusing, slowly, maturely

997
01:30:29.560 --> 01:30:34.560
from the war. We flew down
there at night, come and shoot us

998
01:30:34.560 --> 01:30:40.680
down. They shoot us down if
we went in daytime, And so we

999
01:30:40.840 --> 01:30:45.000
go at night in these sea forty
sevens and stuff. It's great to get

1000
01:30:45.000 --> 01:30:53.279
a thousand dollars a trip and six
hour trips. It wasn't bad. That's

1001
01:30:53.479 --> 01:30:58.399
uh, it's fantastic. And where
are you now? Like you have HAWKRYCN

1002
01:30:59.479 --> 01:31:03.279
is this you art behind you?
Yeah? Yes I do. I'm gonna

1003
01:31:03.319 --> 01:31:12.239
I'm a combat art questions for I
was? I was an artist before I

1004
01:31:12.319 --> 01:31:17.119
went to Vietnam. So I caught
myself an unofficial so that the Army card

1005
01:31:17.159 --> 01:31:21.880
to teach people how to be painter
artists. They probably did, so what

1006
01:31:26.239 --> 01:31:31.239
I uh? And where can I've
been doing that for years? And where

1007
01:31:31.319 --> 01:31:35.239
can people find your art? Where
can they find you and find your art?

1008
01:31:36.760 --> 01:31:45.600
It's on Vietnam Combat Art, Vietnam
Combat Art one on one dot com.

1009
01:31:46.960 --> 01:31:51.239
O god, it's on them.
That's awesome. It's on the book.

1010
01:31:51.439 --> 01:32:01.279
It's on the book. It's in
the description of this video. What

1011
01:32:02.359 --> 01:32:06.159
well, So for the viewers who
are watching this video, we'll have a

1012
01:32:06.239 --> 01:32:10.119
link down in the description, so
the folks who are watching this can go

1013
01:32:10.239 --> 01:32:14.640
down and they can go and find
your artwork. Yeah. And if you're

1014
01:32:15.000 --> 01:32:20.600
if you're listening on a podcast,
it's really really good artwork. Combat Art

1015
01:32:20.680 --> 01:32:26.479
cool one O one one zero one
dot com. Yeah, it's fantastic.

1016
01:32:26.520 --> 01:32:33.800
It's a lot of really cool stuff. So we have maybe is there a

1017
01:32:33.880 --> 01:32:39.720
lot of surfing and not just worse
though a lot of worse though. I

1018
01:32:39.840 --> 01:32:46.439
mean you can answer the question.
And does Charlie surf? I love this

1019
01:32:46.600 --> 01:32:53.279
man like the flower Power. Yeah, that's that's awesome. He does.

1020
01:32:53.439 --> 01:33:00.359
Now it's just over there four years
ago. And do we have any questions

1021
01:33:00.399 --> 01:33:06.399
for William h We only have the
one like somebody just gave us a sticker

1022
01:33:06.560 --> 01:33:15.680
real quick. Uh oh, doesn't
know how much a draft go sport during

1023
01:33:15.720 --> 01:33:20.239
any draft? And Bolivia, uh, just cat chaser. Oh what were

1024
01:33:20.239 --> 01:33:26.000
we gonna show us? Well,
this is a card with the address.

1025
01:33:26.760 --> 01:33:30.960
Push it, Push it to your
left, I think, up up up,

1026
01:33:30.199 --> 01:33:33.760
I'll pop up up up, hold
it, hold it right by your

1027
01:33:33.840 --> 01:33:39.880
right eye. Hold it right by
your right eye, which yeah yeah,

1028
01:33:40.119 --> 01:33:43.239
and then just kind of push it
up a little bit, pop hopp hop

1029
01:33:43.359 --> 01:33:45.880
up up up up up a little
bit further. There we are there,

1030
01:33:45.920 --> 01:33:48.199
we are there. That's it.
Hold it, hold it, hold it,

1031
01:33:48.279 --> 01:33:53.520
hold it excellent. Perfect. That's
a great business card. Yeah it

1032
01:33:53.640 --> 01:33:59.880
is. That's awesome. That's a
Vietnam Cambat art one. Oh, one

1033
01:34:00.399 --> 01:34:06.880
dot com. You know, everything
is there. I carried an NBA school

1034
01:34:06.920 --> 01:34:15.079
on my rustic Yeah, I was
gonna leave that out, like it's in

1035
01:34:15.159 --> 01:34:17.920
the book. However, me drink
stuff had on this show. I feel

1036
01:34:17.920 --> 01:34:23.399
like I need one. Uh yeah. I mean there's so much in your

1037
01:34:23.439 --> 01:34:29.319
book and so many just like nuanced
things, you know, you know,

1038
01:34:29.439 --> 01:34:34.439
talking about the school and you know, the dude's joking about ears, like

1039
01:34:35.000 --> 01:34:42.960
just stuff like that. Like I
highly recommend everybody if you want, really,

1040
01:34:43.239 --> 01:34:48.439
like I said, a really nuanced
and and and very anecdotal tales about

1041
01:34:49.439 --> 01:34:57.520
life in Vietnam in combat, like
your book captures that perfectly. Thank you,

1042
01:34:57.840 --> 01:35:00.279
thank you. That's that's what I
say. I say, it's a

1043
01:35:00.359 --> 01:35:05.640
microscopic look at jungle fighting. Yeah
yeah, yeah, cook cookie. Yeah.

1044
01:35:06.399 --> 01:35:12.880
Well's how to take a ship in
a hammock in in the hurricane.

1045
01:35:13.399 --> 01:35:17.720
Don't want to go out from a
hammock in a hooge. They take a

1046
01:35:17.800 --> 01:35:23.239
machitty and you did go a deep
hole right underneath you and you hit it

1047
01:35:23.560 --> 01:35:29.199
and cover it up. It's medically
approved. I medically approve it. There

1048
01:35:29.279 --> 01:35:33.880
you go, like, I mean, there there are so many lessons like

1049
01:35:34.079 --> 01:35:38.560
how to take a ship in a
hammock and a hooge during a hurricane.

1050
01:35:39.039 --> 01:35:44.199
Again is stunned to death by bees. Yeah, uh no, it was

1051
01:35:44.279 --> 01:35:47.199
just it was we had a sticker
from cat Chaser. We deeply appreciate you

1052
01:35:47.319 --> 01:35:53.560
guys and Doc, thank you so
much for joining us to night. We

1053
01:35:53.720 --> 01:35:58.760
really appreciate your time and folks out
well. Thank you guys. Folks out

1054
01:35:58.760 --> 01:36:01.560
there. Please check out Hawk Recon
you find it on Amazon and get a

1055
01:36:01.640 --> 01:36:05.199
copy of the book. Please check
us out on Patreon if you want to

1056
01:36:05.239 --> 01:36:10.239
have access in these episodes ad free, there's a linked down the description and

1057
01:36:10.680 --> 01:36:15.159
uh castacarabeo dot com if you want
to have some cigars, awesome cigars from

1058
01:36:15.560 --> 01:36:20.800
one of our friends and otherwise.
Next uh, this coming Friday, we'll

1059
01:36:20.840 --> 01:36:26.159
have Robin Horsfall on the show,
who served in the Special Air Service and

1060
01:36:26.520 --> 01:36:32.119
so we're looking forward to heaven on
the show. All right, So what

1061
01:36:32.319 --> 01:36:40.399
about the sevens and the atomic bomb? Who was into that? Bro?

1062
01:36:40.520 --> 01:36:43.119
We're working well, I'm working on
it. I'm working on it. We'll

1063
01:36:43.159 --> 01:36:45.840
talk after the show. I'm actually
working on a history project, a battle

1064
01:36:45.920 --> 01:36:49.680
of that stuff about the green light
teams. Okay, that's what I thought.

1065
01:36:50.199 --> 01:36:53.640
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm very interested in that

1066
01:36:53.760 --> 01:36:58.680
topic. And uh, I'm happy
to talk about that and I think I'll

1067
01:36:58.720 --> 01:37:00.520
have a lot more to talk about
it in the future. Real quick,

1068
01:37:00.600 --> 01:37:03.920
JK, thank you very much for
the donation. We deeply appreciate. Jake

1069
01:37:04.039 --> 01:37:08.439
says much love to our vets.
Thanks for sharing your story, Doc.

1070
01:37:09.720 --> 01:37:12.960
Yeah, thank you so much for
spending some of your Friday evening with us

1071
01:37:13.079 --> 01:37:20.000
Hot recon head Hunters of the Ashaw
Valley. Check it out. Oh that's

1072
01:37:20.039 --> 01:37:25.159
your art. Oh that's fantastic.
I got it on the cover. I

1073
01:37:25.279 --> 01:37:30.600
had to twist some arms, but
that's awesome. Man. Oh, thank

1074
01:37:30.640 --> 01:37:34.640
you so much. William, Thank
you guys. That was real fun.

1075
01:37:34.920 --> 01:37:38.720
That was really good. I'm glad
you had a good time. Man.

1076
01:37:39.640 --> 01:37:43.399
Thanks everybody, have a good night. We'll see you next time, all right,