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us an email. We'll talk about special operations over ask me an the Team
House with your hopes. Jack Durphy, David Park, Hey, everybody,
Welcome to The Team House, Episode two, one hundred and thirty six.
I'm Dave Park with my cost Jack Murphy. Tonight or a guest is William
doc osgood member of one of the Hawk recon teams in Vietnam, Actually quite
a history. Doc has written this book. Unfortunately, I take the dust
covers off them when I read them, and I forgot to bring it.
But he wrote this book, Hawk Recon, which is a fantastic book.
I mean it's really kind of the day by day, not even a day
by day, but it's vignettes of what life was like for you and others
in Vietnam. So, Doc, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
We deeply appreciate it. Yeah, pleasure to be here. Oh let's
see, yeah, it was, it was. It was in the Hawk
Recon, the only Hawk Recons. There was only one. Uh, there
was Tiger Force and a lot of battalions had a Italian Recon and uh,
yeah, so there's only one. They were there for the whole war.
And there were some really tough individuals in and out, rangers, green berets,
saw guys, what whatever they had them all there a bunch of drafty,
drafted legs. You know, it was interesting. Crew. So let's
ask you about your origin story. What you know, what was it?
Obviously the draft was on you know, it was nineteen sixty seven, sixty
eight. Uh, you know Vietnam. We had been there so around nineteen
sixty five and force. What was it in your upbringing or what led you
to the military. Oh, yeah, it was sixty seven. I joined
in six sixty seven. No, I wanted to be a soldier all my
life. That was my thing. I don't know, we're in Norwegians or
something. We're biking it or I don't know. Anyway, Yeah, it
was when I trained for when I was I don't know, probably a toddler.
I worked on it, played it. It was what I was gonna
do, and I was. And then I wanted to be a marine.
And then I saw the Green Berets, and then so you had to join
to be a Green Bret. And when I got in base camp, within
about four days, I knew I wanted to be a ci age and two
of all the things that James Bond was going on, you know, the
young goofy kid, you know, in to two or four four days and
basically I do I wouldn't do any of that stuff. I didn't want to
do anything. So I would say I would continue, I would continue,
I'd go airborne, I'd go with special houses. But that, you know,
that was I'd be. Uh. I wish I'd been drafted at that
time, and I just I just go do my three years. That's fine.
Yeah. So, you know, and one of the things you talk
about in your book is not only your story, but you tell the story
of some of other people and you also give you know, kind of an
interesting history of the layout of you know, from nineteen six five, the
first Brigade of one hundred and first going into Vietnam, and you know the
story that follows then and you know, Westmoreland and kind of forming the reconnaissance
teams and then how that fanned out. Right, Yeah, I've lost complete
video or here for some reason, but I can talk away her. Yeah
we can. We can s Yeah, we can see you. Fine,
we can see you and hear you. Okay, all right, okay,
what's the question again of history of Yeah, so can you give us a
little background because we don't talk about this often on the show, but the
background of conventional forces going into Vietnam, of Westmoreland, of the hundred and
first being there, things like that you mentioned in your book. Yeah,
I don't know anything about that. I was just I was just there for
the adventure and the thrilling and all. Yeah, it was the first Brigade
one hundred or first. Are they were there for the whole war. Just
about they were there before the first cavalry wherever got there at Cowboys. You
know, they they protected the first caval when they flew in off the boat.
So it was the first brigade that was there was three two other brigades,
so just the first brigade there in the early part, and about the
time I showed up, they all came over. So there were three brigades
in there. And we called him waste more Land. I don't know what.
I don't know when he was in and out. I don't know when
he left exactly. I don't care he so, but yeah, so we
were all up there eventually up to camp at Camp Eagle. But what's funny
was I was supposed to be in Green Bray School. In fact, all
my buddies and we've gone through jump school from after medic school. We were
and we were accepted in the Green Brays. We were jumping there at Brag
we were training and somehow I knew it was because I'm almost positive is because
we had a critical MOS which is medic combat medic, and we were like
gold bricks. We were like, you know, they dealt they dealt us
like diamonds and ruff or whatever. We were valuable for some reason, and
I think it was My commander was Charlie Beckwith. We talked about special Ops
as the King's Special Ops Charger. We called him Charger. I'm pretty sure
after Tick, a lot of medics were dead and he needed medics. He
became an infantry commander, his paratrooper, but a battalion of regular infantry tally
and the second two two seven, And I think what he did was he
needed medics and he's going to get him. He knew where to get medics,
and he knew hi about Special Forces school. I mean he was a
commander there at one time, and he knew he I hearad he traded a
came forty seven's first pick of truth. But he was he was dealing.
So one day they marched us down to the dispensary at the center, you
know, at Brad, and they say, you can't read the light chart
up there without your glasses. You're going to all tomorrow. I'll thanks a
lot, Thanks a lot. I tried to put some guys context into my
eyes, but that didn't that didn't work, so so we ended up in
all but the funny thing is, ah, this just kills me. We
got the camera on bay and like good little boy scouts, we turned our
orders and we had our orders, or we hand carried him. The next
morning, I see, oh, there's a green beret office right in the
back. So I go in here by myself. All my buddies are outside.
I say, hey, we've got four medics from from the center here.
Can we get in? Can we get him? Look up with you?
And they say, hell, yeah, there's your sugar kid. Yeah,
where's your order? Well we'll set you right up. Where's your order?
Okay? So just then I swear at that moment I hear the speaker
was speaker in the background. Oh it was good. Marie's back one hundred
first Airborn. So back on the bust of one hundred first Airborne. They
put us in the They put us in third brigade. Miss Charlie's book talent
we had in the third brigade. We're rock as sids. All right,
well yeah whatever, I don't like this, but we'll do it in third
brigade. I was put in Company D third of the one eighty seven,
just in time to go up to Hamburger Hill. Company D third one.
I said. It was the first one on Hamburger Hill and they took the
biggest beating up there. This was the following year, but we still had
time. We would have been I would have been there no matter what.
And so we got out there and we were getting chopped up with booby traps
every day. Is horrible, the most worst thing I've ever seen in the
whole time. And then about five days of that, I said, get
on the chopper, get out on, Get on you lucky. So a
little bit, get on, You're going back to the rear. Okay,
no problem, go back to the rear, going up to the Charlie Beckman's
battalion now. And that's that's what I think happened. So we ended up
there, spent the time, our time with him. Let's let's that's what
I know about third Brigade and second Brigade and first brigade. What was was
Charlie running Project Delta at that point, Delda, I think that project that
was beck was invention, I believe, And that was earlier. Okay,
gotcha, and you had uh you mentioned that like there were four sth metics
right for seth metics that basically got pulled out of SF training and and sent
over because there was a critical shortage of of medics on the ground of combat
medics. Yeah, that's my theory. Then, that's that was my theory
that Charlie Beck was doing. It destroyed my career militaryman more or less,
and got her shipped up there. That's the only thing that makes sense to
me. Now. You know you talk about booby traps. You mentioned your
book when you first link up with uh, the rock assans that when you
landed, you know they were there waiting for you. You went out and
as soon as you guys started moving out, you almost fell in a pungee
pit, right right, I said, within within Uh, I just met
them, the head medic just a couple of weeks ago in San Antonio.
The meeting the head guy, I reported to he almost fainted that somebody had
actually sent him another medic and I just met at him. But anyway,
so he says, yeah, go over there and do what a medic does.
There was another medic over there. You just follow him. And this
is in four minutes, five minutes, I'm I'm shaking hands with the lieutenant.
About ten minutes a booby trap goes off in the hedgerow nearby, and
the lieutenant says, get your sho move out. We're moving out. We're
going through the hedgerow. And there was a pungee I looked down there.
The thing was made like aliens had made. It was perfectly plumb, square
and appeared to go into the directly to Hell. I mean it was.
It was deep. Put it that way. Oh, that was the tunnel,
and right next to it was some pungee sticks. Yeah. So I
remember in your book, like you wrote that you almost step in this pungee
pit and then to avoid that, like you kind of throw yourself back and
all of a sudden, like you almost throw yourself into this like chasm into
the middle of the earth. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. And
some of the guys are there. The first time they called me dark,
he said. He and Latin I said, hey, Dark, watch it
Dark, watch it dark, Hey Dark, look at this. They were
helping me. So it was good. So so so was was Charlie Beckwith's
unit. Was that the third of the one seventh or three seven? He
he said, I don't know what General zais or the other general said,
well, what battime do you want? Charlie? And he said the worst
one. So he got you got the second three to seven, the nose
Slack battalion, the one that took the German surrender offer, and bast On
that one. He got that one. So that was his Yeah, So
then what was it like integrating with this unit, Like you're this fresh faced
young kid, you know, I mean you're a medic and you you encountered
a lot of a lot of things, uh in Vietnam that like you're the
combat medic course didn't necessarily prepare you for correct, correct? Yeah, Well,
those first few days of the rockets on was was pure hell, pure
hell. You're talking about terror or war and terror. Yeah, we were
dishing out terror and we were getting terrorized. I mean, my my brain
and soul and are was terrorized walking through booby traps. I mean their psychological
weapon. That's a terrorist weapon. And we were getting blown away by booby
traps every day. I mean people would just be split down the middle like
a trout laying there. Now. Yeah, so those are the easy ones.
Yeah, and so can you tell us a little bit like some of
the you know, some of your first experiences with you know, with this
unit that you're in. Now, Okay, it was only even the rock
assigns those few days, and it was just a lot of booby traps and
yeah. And then when we were up up north, they moved us up
north Beckmilts. But time was up at Camp Eagle by way. Do you
want do you want me to uh jump up there? Yeah? Okay,
So somehow we got up there. It seemed like we we went to every
little airport in the country and we got up there and they put us in
this insane mad house battalion. All right, it was just pure chaos.
First of all, we had brand new M sixteens. They took those away
because you know, he he wanted he wanted those for inspection for his uh
his armed room, and gave us some clokers. Then, uh, we
had a black first black patos, aren't He lightened us from our wallets for
a slush fear fund that we never got. And then they said we'll go
sleep over there. And it's tenant and we're sleeping intense at that time,
with some sandbags around to protect us from the rockets that would come in once
in a while, and a lot of the sandbags are falling down. They're
just choke full of people smoking weed. Listening to rock music, guns hand
garnaids laying everywhere, naked men, you know, dirty clothes all over the
plate. Welcome to the war. Sounds like burning Man. Sounds like what
like burning Man? Like like a big like just psychedelic festival. Yeah,
like I clicked. Just see, I got the camp. I don't want
any control. Its uh, here we go. Can you hear me?
Still? Yeah? You got you? Okay, good, I'm back in.
Uh yeah, well I'm probably gonna cut us off here, but please
don't. Yeah, I can't see that. It's no fun, can't.
That's probably down the lower left, there's the little video will come up.
You can see, I know, but I'm off the screen completely. I'm
mm hmmmm. Well let's uh, let's let's let's try to continue. We
can, we can see you just fine. I fixed it. I fixed
it. I mean drive me crazy. I mean all these computers drive me
crazy. I need a big, fat, solid twenty seven inchs all right,
let's okay. So when so you mentioned Hawk Recon, like the Hawk
Recon, and you know, and and a lot of these units like you
said you had Tiger Force, you had Recondos. These these units were starting
to put together. They realize that they needed these reconnaissance elements, and so
these reconnaissance Can you tell us how they came on? How Hawk recon or
any of the reconnaissance sort of came up on your radar initially? Well,
Gary Leonard and all a lot of stuff. Really good he does. He
talks him up. He talks pretty good about him, except that the interview
with you, he made a little joke I didn't appreciate, but we always
argue about about it. That's funny. Yeah, he explains that that was
probably Hackworth's idea. I think Hackworth was in one of the He was in
one of the battalions of one hundred first, one hundred first was there from
a gip go, so he's I think he might have invented it. He
said, we're gonna out recon We are gonna we're gonna have a griller,
the grillers. So battalions need these, uh need a recon element. So
it started early, I think, Well, eventually there was ten battalions,
was ten battalions in the division, and each one had a recon element,
and they were there pretty early, and they were there in the last and
so Hawk recon was that the recon element that was associated with the battalion that
you were in at the time, right, Yes, it was. That
was like Charlie Beck was baby to speak. And was that something that because
you were a medic and there was a critical shortage of medics, did they
assign you to that or did you choose to go to that? Now,
I couldn't get in it. I was in a company for a long time
trying to get out of there, blundering around in a Shaw valley with a
blind company. It was. Now. I tried to get in right away
and it was laughed at me. But eventually, yeah, I got in.
So that's what happened. Why did they laugh at you initially? Oh?
Well, one guy at that same that same Black platoon, sergeant mhmm.
I think I told him I wanted in the arks and you just and
walked away, and I can remember. Yeah, So anyway, I don't
I don't think it had it. He had a shortage of medics, I
think, right, he didn't care where they were, right, So he
wasn't in Hawk recon. He wasn't in the Hawks. He just he basically
was one of the line platoon guys and or the line line company and was
like, no, like we don't have enough metics. You can't go anywhere.
I can't go anywhere. Oh the platoons are yeah, the platoon start.
Yeah, he's just lazy. He didn't want to do to switch of
paperwork or anything or or I'm sure that's what that's all it was. He
might not have been the right guy to ass I don't really know if he
was the top dog of the platoon, the medical platoon or not. So
how did you eventually how did you finally get into a hawk recon Well,
we've been in the our show Valley and then we went down in the Lowlands
and we we're down there and I just went up to the to us the
real Patuons Argins or the new Patuons are. At least I knew he was
the Patunons sargeant. I said, well, I didn't in the box.
He said, okay, pack your stuff and and so then like, how
how were you introduced to them? You show you didn't you just show up
at at there like little sections say hey, I'm here Now. Did they
put you through any kind of selection or anything like that? Uh? No,
No, And uh I think it was volunteer. You know, there's
no you didn't have to pacity tests. You didn't have to get two kids
from two guys there, And maybe it's sometimes you did. I knew a
bunch of them because they the platoon leader and a bunch of them had been
in company, my company, my first company, and they got in there
left me behind, so I knew them. And my first meeting with them,
we were down a fire based tomahawk. I asked the pat my patunon
leader. I wanted and Arty, okay, give go go down or they're
right down there in the flat. So I think they must have driven me
down on a truck. They're sitting down in the middle of a dry rice
patter in the middle of old and they open and every anybody in the world
knows where they are and see them. And I just walked in there,
and I remember the medic my guy was replacing. He turns around it and
walked rapidly to his escort over to the truck. He was happy to leave.
And yeah, so that's how and I knew, Oh, I knew
a bunch of the guys. I didn't know the petuniliar, but I knew
him already, so it was cool. And so how was hawk recon set
up? Like how many guys was the the entire team? Like what size
elements did you guys go out in? It? Varied? I mean,
you know, like an infantry company they've got they'd send a little recon teams
and five guys out sometimes. But the petun it was a patoon. It
was I would call it a heavy recons, a heavy team. You know.
We had a couple of him sixties and it had it had any fluctuator
like twenty, it could have less than twenty or more than twenty guys.
And we usually stayed together like that. And Leander says, you're not you
guys were lerps. You send me you think your lers. I don't think
we were lers. You guys were sir short range, you know. But
we stayed We stayed closer to a friendly unit, our own own line companies.
We were sort of close to them, but as far as range range
can be in time also we stayed out. We stayed out on missions,
forty day missions like like beck was thing was his thing was Merrill's Marauders.
Merrill's Marauders. They never stopped. They you know, went halfway to China
and then over you know how they did it. They went for months and
months and months, never went to the rear. Well, Fox, we
pulled over forty day missions. It was unheard of. Saw I never did
that, Lurps never did that, nobody did. And there was some hairy
missions that way. Yeah, yeah, that that was one of the things
is even if you guys weren't doing these long range patrol, you were outside
the range of like friendly like friendly lines, and you were out there for
a very long time, right yeah, yeah, And uh, crazy things
happened before before I got there. The Hawks were out there, their backlists
was was charging through the highway. They were into the into the ash Shaw
at fight four seven and oh the Hawks hawks somebody they hit a tank,
one of our tanks, and I think they wanted to kill everybody in the
tank, and so the Hawks launched. I wasn't. I wasn't just that
before I got there, and they went out and they found a tell phone
work heavy duty one mounted on insulators, personal insulators, the heavy duty thing.
You know, they followed it and they're out there forty days and hadn't
found it at the end of video, and they were pissed. They're highly
pissed. So the last night they set up and these guys didn't give it.
Damn. They they cooked, you know, they cooked. They were
suicidal, but they would cook, make coffee, dinner, and breakfast.
So the next morning they get up, they make their coffee and they get
up and this is from my buddy Rick explaining it was the head rto.
He gets on the horn and they clean up allered gear there, they pick
up aller crap, their litter. He gets on here and he calls back
up to becklass or to the fire control or somewhere, and he says,
Romeo elements moving. So they move out in the line line formation. They
hadn't go on fifty feet and Rick Cy's two NBA flow uniform jumping down into
a pit with an a on any aircraft gun, some some heavy heavy.
My shoot, I don't know what size gun it was. And he can't
shoot because the every the point and slack or in front of him, and
the slack appointment is like twenty feet away. And suddenly suddenly he's ten feet
away from these two NBA and Rick noticed the shit's gonna hit the fan in
any second. He sits down behind a tree, and before anything happens,
he calls Beckman says, Romeos in contact a point man. I got their
names, it's in the book. He walks, Appointment, takes on a
stance like Frankenstein, starts walking like Frankenstein, goes right up these two guys
and shoots both of them dead, and then the ship hits the fans.
So they're fighting like all day. They run the NBA of seventy or so
in this base camp where they slept right next to him, right next to
him, neither neither bound, neither heard the other, and they finally ran
them out. They called in jets and artillery and killed one of the hawks
and killed about they got fourteen eleven bodies NBA bodied, and it was called
a bell at a hawk killed. That's right in the Alshow that's typical ail
show off. Then now, what are you drinking there? What are we
drinking? I'm drinking horse horse soldier and Jack is drinking a few straight rye
whiskey. First, sound like, oh, that was us too, you
know, by the way, I wrote a whole chapter about comparing us to
customer. Yeah, it was incredible because they changed the one hundred and first
two hundred first Airborne air Cavalry that summer, that that moment when I was
in there, when we first went into the Ashville. We were at Calvary
and we mimic we mimic Custer's battle exactly exactly except for the wiping out part.
Right. One of the companies, one of the companies did give what
Hey, everybody, uh, please join our patron uh patron dot com the
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One of the things you mentioned was even though the hundred first was sort of
an airborne unit, you got a ton of ship for wearing your airborne wings
when you were in this so called airborne unit. Yeah. Yeah, I
noticed women went through pea training called Petrain in the first in country and get
go to a few classes. You know, I should have forgot all the
class. I should have gone over to the alerts right then. They had
an office down there, and you know, we're screwing around. There were
so many legs. What are you drinking there, William? Is that is
that the belvity? This this is a green spot single pop still Irish voice,
all right, let's do it and so serious. I don't drink anymore.
Yeah, I don't drink. I gave it all. I drinking Christmas
maybe Thanksgiving, maybe Halloween party a special Canons and friends. Thanks for joining
us. Yeah, we we are honored that you consider us friends and this
is a special occasion. It's like Christmas come early. What I do like
about zoom friends like Gary Lender. Gary Lender's my best friend, my best
friend. I've never met him. It's a wild man. I've worked with
him for years. We were an eagle at the same time. Our children
are the same times. They're everything he saw. I was there two I
mean I was within ten twenty miles. Yeah. One of the you you
interviewed are you talked to a lot of different people, a lot of different
guys for this book, didn't you? Because they're like I said, there's
not only your stories, but there are other people's stories. There are stories
about the unit before you got there that other guys have passed on to you.
It's it's really an amazing like some of the chapters are one page,
but it's there, and they're almost like very interesting anecdotes, you know,
and about the simple pleasures of a soldier, like getting ice, right,
getting ice? Oh god? Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of
work winning This is over nineteen. It's a fifty year of work. Yeah,
fifty years I've been you know. I took time off to be a
bush pub in Alaska, Smogo Electronics in New Mexico and stuff like that.
But all that time I was still calling guys, writing letters and collecting photographs.
So I got Yeah, it's a lot of thought went into a lot
of work. It's it's I've never seen a book that as you look through
the pictures, you see the maps where we w in the Ashaw. There's
no landmarks in there. There's no there's a there's a river, but there's
no landmarks. But you can still follow us along where we went because I
had a secret way of finding out where we were in the forest mountains.
But you can identify the characters, all the characters, all the names.
You recognize their name, you recognize their picture, you recognize the landmarks in
the photos. They match the map, the landmarks in the map. Everything
matches I've never seen that in the look at all. If you look through
there, it ties it all in. Yeah, I mean there are you
know, eight to ten like back in front pages of just these amazing photos
like this incredible history that, like you say, hasn't really been captured in
a lot of other places. Yeah, yeah, I don't. So it's
I mean, I mean you look in the back and one of the back
pictures I call it anatomy of an ambush. There was an ambush I blew.
Right next to it was the map. You can go there today.
It's right by Highway one. You can take a bus and take your kids
and if you take a school class from the local schools. Oh yeah,
that's what we did. No, you don't want to do that, I
don't think. But you walk over from Highway one into that spot by using
the map. And there's my picture the night before in the morning after this
blew this ambush, and there's the results. There's a picture and it's one
pictures facing north. You see the south China. See the other pictures facing
south, you see the slow in the mountains. Are quite evident. They
match the photos, they match the map. Yeah, can you can you
tell us about that ambush. Sure, And what's funny about that? When
I was in company, Hey, we were in those mountains above the slough
in the South China Sea. We're up in the mountains. There a whole
company of clumping along like idiots, you know, that's what I say,
and getting people. And we were up there. So we get up early
in the morning. And I'm not a realer even then. I was the
last one up. But I get up and you look at the map.
I see I drew the picture where it was. I looked down on the
on that spit. There's a lot like a peninsula of sand goes right over
to the mountains. But there's a there's like a river right there where it
hits the ocean. You'd have to wait across, maybe swim. I looked
down there, and I see a whole NVA weapons put too, walking along.
We got helmets, rpds eight k's. We're just walking along slowly right
in front of us. It's still I mean, it's a quarter mile away.
Maybe you know it's a long shot right there. I run over to
the potentis are the damn But he runs over to the captain. The captain,
Oh, it was embarrassing because I don't know if they had an FO
I don't I don't know if they hadn't. They were they were basically trapped
in front of us, and he's he yells at the gunner the M sixty
gunners shoot, shoot, keep your heads down. But both M sixty jam
So they started running, of course, and they ran away. They just
ran up that spit to the north. Embarrassing to say to the least.
You know, I doubt he had an FO pre plot the gun until we
were right there, only a couple of miles away. You know, he
could have called for any birds and Eric come, I could he. All
he had to say was on, get on the radio and say far for
effect on the coast, just do Nora or whatever, and he would have
had him traveled. But anyway, they got away. So the next year,
maybe maybe my eye bought on my spotting them did some good. Some
clerk noted that and they said, well, see that looks like a high
speed trail. Let's put the hawks in there. So we're down there at
the very spot they were. Were we Hey, I spotted him. We
were there, and guess what you see in the pictures. The bullets start
flying in. Somebody's shooting at us now from the same Oh my god,
that's in the afternoon. Unbelievable. And so we stayed there. The lieutenant
just he he sent out, he sent out on all the teams. They're
on five man teams, all spread around, and we were. We stayed
right there, right there, and the little a few little pine trees.
It for cover. And I'm gonna spend the night there. So it puts
out a color if somebody puts out a Claymore and they take particular interest to
where this clay more is for some reason, and I bring the claqueer the
wire back and ah, so it's pitch dark now, and yeah, so
it's just like five or six of us there, the two kid cars in
discots and everybody is asleep. It's my my, my watch. You know.
That's why John Wayne and he always said, all right, Pilgrims,
I'll take it. I'll take the first watch. The asshole. I don't
know what you know. To take the first watch, you can go to
sleep. You don't have to worry about the rest of the night. Right,
first and last watches are the best. Yeah, me, I had
to get up two in the morning to do my watch, and then I
had to and then I go to sleep, and then I got to get
up again on the morning. Okay, so I'm on watch. It's about
my two o'clock watch. I got the radio. They're hissing away. I
got on my little my forty five, my m sixteen grad ads on my
buck night. So I know it was a high speed I guess I knew
it was a high speed trail obviously. And I didn't tell anybody. I
don't think I tell the lieutenant no. And I didn't wake anybody up.
So I see, I see movement, not a corner of my eyes.
Somebody's coming down the beach. Oh shit, And I don't I didn't wake
anybody up to kick carsons or nothing. I said, I'm nobody's gonna screw
this up this time. Nobody's gonna screw it up. So they gotta walks
right in frontally play more or where I thought the claimer was. I wasn't
sure. Now I had to duck down behind my bag on the blast and
this is he did. He walked why in front of me? The cloud
completely covers the moon instantly like that. It's blocking it's the inside of a
dead water buffo. I just I couldn't see anything. So I detonate on
a on a guess time distance problem my deadonate and then I see something moved
to the left. I throw a grenade down there, so and and it
it gets kind of comical. Some more lieutenant lieutenants over by me. Well,
immediately over there, Doc, what's going on? What happened? I
said, there was a good or left to right coming down to beat what
kid? Well, he gets up and he's looking all around. We were
kind of looking around with dark We didn't want to walk. He takes out
a popular. It's like a little mortar. You know, it's got a
top. Put the top on the bottom. You hit it with your palm.
Parachute, rocket comes out. She goes up five hundred feet and you've
got a flare all or something up there. Let's the whole world know where
we are. There's I don't think there was a day we weren't surrounded.
I'm on my tour. We're surrounded somewhere. So here's his popular. Still
can't see anything? I think will he disintegrated and all hit him with a
claymar so I said, screw it. I'm going back to sleep. Did
you're somebody else's walked buck this shit? I wake up in the morning,
excuse them in front. I don't use the effort. Sorry the morning again.
Up in the morning and look down the beach a little ways and there's
a lieutenant standing over an NBA soldier with a yeah the tenor good he's got
an a K forty seven for me? Well that was not yeah, but
there was uh like that. He was like a courier, right, he
had some documents. It was it was kind of a big yeah, yeah,
yeah, a bag o stuff. He had some other stuff. But
I'm not there's one of my favorite moments. But uh, you know,
shit happens again. I said, what's what's great about your book is one
all the different you know people because you you do you like, there are
so many people mentioned in this book that you know either aren't with us anymore
or you know, I haven't had their stories told. And you tell a
lot of people's stories. But also just like I said, just the daily
like what a soldier, like like I said, getting ice, or I
want to ask you about the bee incident? What the bee? The bees?
Oh yeah, see that my books got stories like like that, and
you never see there's no cliches, there's no disrespecting civilians. And I never
saw that, and I mean there was a horrible accident. I think it
was an accident. There's no you know, like Oliver Stone's movie, you
know, shooting shooting at you. There's none of that. I didn't see
it, and there's no cliches, you know. And so yeah, I
guess stories like the trees try to kill us one right, the trees are
defour forrested, defoliated forrests, try to kill us. Big called the wind
came up and all the branches started breaking up and we couldn't go anywhere we're
gonna go, and one hundred acres of trees and you know, hurricane and
they're all deciding to fall apark. That was bad. And the other stories
of the bees. We ran into bees twice. I ran into which one
you want to me? Me taking the dump of the bees or the time
they walked our hoop? But the hawks of and tell us both of them
because they're both great stories. Yeah, okay, the one with I was
still an a company. So we're sitting up there in the ten as a
Shaw Valley. I gotta tell you the story about Custers last name, and
it's just incredible. We were subject to Custers last time we were surrounded.
We were surrounded every day we were in the air show, and they had
better guns. They had better guns, just like Custer. Custer had the
single shops, civil war antiques. The Indians, some of them they've traded,
went to town, bought themselves, Winchesters or Henry Rightle say, Henry's
designed for sixteen rounds. They had one round. Wow, we put eighteen
rounds in our twenty round clips because we were told to. Well, Charlie,
Sir Charles, I call him quite a bit. He had a thirty
round and eight King forty seven. You know, there's so many similarity as
a Custer, it's just unreal. Beck With as a Custo clone. Straight
up. Custer like to show off his his blond hair, and beck With
the like to show off his scar, his abdomen scar, huge scar,
you know. Anyway, but when we were I was with the A company.
They're surrounded and I had to go take a dump. So I go
down to the I go down a little ways outside the perimeter and I find
his big were ravene. I said, well, it sounds looks good.
I dropped my drawers and I put my hand up to hold onto the street
and hang out over the ravine. And about that time I noticed my hand
was was in the opening of a murder? Was the murder was? Because
I know now what a murder was. Looks like they're invading Hawaii. But
big orange scary and they noticed right away something was wrong, so they ended
up. You know, I did the boy scout trick. I froze.
I want to scare him attack her. The yellow jackets in California would,
but these guys were much nicer. They just flew all around, and eventually
I had up on each cheek and one of my nose. They're just walking
around. I'm frozen. One watched down in my mouth and tries to get
in my mouth, and then some are flying around, hovering in my face.
I just freaked out. I didn't enough of this. I just you,
bastard, just get away from me. I just left the other tree.
I fell back. My mm sixteenth is going bam bam, big bam
down into the raffine. I falling about right bard it. I kill every
one of you. I kill everyone, and I kill your eggs, your
pupil or your larger, your adults, your workers, and you're clean.
I'm gonna kill her or last so many. But they didn't stay in and
then went time. We were in the hawks. We got hit by little
bees, little little like bumble bees, and they did a job on if.
They stung everyone pick They stung everyone except the guys who the guys who
ran, I said, don't run, freeze. The old boys got technic.
They I got stung so bad I was laying down. They were in
my mouth again, in my mouth, stinging my tongue, my lips and
my eyes, and and finally lay they said, okay, that's enough,
you learn your lesson. They left. I know about well. I felt
really sick. You know. Somebody had to carry my bruck up the hill,
up this hill we're going up, and I got We got up to
this little hill and I got up there and went I went blind. I
went start screaming blind. I could not completely blind. I couldn't see anything.
I told me I had a junior medic. I had a system medically
man. I said, shoot, my take that the syringe and sticking right
in my heart. Stick it right in through my chest, in my heart
inject this uh epieu for go, I think it was, which I didn't
want to do. And then in a few minutes, ten minutes, gray
came gray, and then the co work came back. So you started going
into anaplactic shock and he had to hit you with the eppie. What's up?
You started like going to anaplactic shock and he had to hit you with
the eppie. I just wanted to I didn't want to go determinently blind.
Yeah, I felt I was okay. I just couldn't see. Yeah,
well I figured out what help when when the first guy started getting hit with
the bees? Did you guys think it was an ambush? That it was
like a claymore like like that had to be had been terrifying and those like
jungle conditions. Yeah, it was the way I just scribed it in the
book. And I got third fourth parties on this. On this episode,
I believe Tick and Culver were on point. They were a team. They
were going up the hill and Culver is the is is slack man, Ticks
and pretty new guy. He's in front with the with the grenade launcher,
but I think he had a shotgun around in anyway. Calver turns around,
looks back where they told me, and tick Tick looks up the trail and
he sees a bunch of of Oriental dudes with guns coming down the trail and
he goes arms arms, you know, Republicans our ally, I supposed it.
Colver spins around and oh and they all realize their mistake and take fires
a big explosive and nig was sailing up right towards one guy is gonna hit
him right in the teeth, but it just skimmed by, just missed him.
They all turned rand and brawn. They're all gone. And I know
that was it. That was only the shot fired. And we think maybe
that they had a bag of the horns and was and they threw it ahead
of him. But I'm a kimp swear to. So while you were with
Hawk Creek and you also got flight qualified, right, oh yeah, yeah,
that was funny. I got yeah, I was getting short and you
could extend it was great. Yeah, the army gave you a good deal.
You could do all kinds of things. You could stimm for lurbs.
I was invited in the Gary's Company, by the way, by some of
the old hawks. I went over there and for a sergeant. I talked
with resurgeon and looked around, and you could extend for all kinds of things.
Because I was a medic, so I was qualified to fly on mettervac
and I could have got backing forces too, like right now. I mean
they were right down there and flew by control coming on North was right there
and could at supposed we ended up on so teams. But yeah, I
went for the air ambulance and after a little finagling, I got on that
and flew quite a few missions. I flew I don't know, fifteen twenty
missions. Him. Yeah, and I had to lie. What did you
have to lie about? I had to lie? Well, it was funny.
I flucked hearing, you know, I still kept bad here, you
know, the clay Wars and law in training and blew my ears out of
that. I couldn't pass the physical hearing tests and the flight surgeon some doctors
as well. True, today's your lucky day. You just flunked your flight.
He said, what you want to do? This you want to do
They just shot a medic the other day right through his his chest protector.
I said, yeah. He says, well, if you do. If
you don't care, I guess nobody does either. Go take it again.
Took it to take the physical again. So I passed it. So I
got in and I flew with him. And what was that process like,
like, you know, being on metavacs, being on kasovacs. Mhmm,
yeah, that was that was a serious project. You flew. I flew
with another medic. So there's five of us in there. Eagles dust off.
They had no M sixties, you know, just had litters aid bag.
You had a litter hoist and you had a jungle penetrator and and I
was with worked with the medic. We went out, We went up big
back let's see Hamburger. It was over. But we flew around that same
area back in the ash on malacious missions flying it. We flew into the
trees, flew into trees. The hoist wouldn't hit the ground, and there
was no place to land. And you're talking about a thirty forty degrees slope
with one hundred and fifty foot trees on it, and there's a budget dead
and dying here. What do you do? So these guys pilots, the
good pilots, would fly into the trees. They find out an opening in
the under the leaves and branches and dodge everything. And I see the cook
Clid writing little notes on the right on the windshow with a grease pencil.
It looked like turn right, big snag proceeed one hundred feet, turn left
a defoliated area. They could have turned the right and stuff like to get
out. It was like cave diving. It was kind of spooky. Yeah,
and you guys, like you know, the Kazovacs took a ton of
fire generally when they were because you it wasn't you guys weren't waiting until the
action was over a lot of times, like you were going in while the
firefight was still going on. Yeah, yeah, sometimes sometimes sometimes the back
off. Yeah, we weren't fools, but yeah, we had a They
had a serious thing with the with one of the Metabacs got shut down,
you know, in the Hamburger Hill, at the famous incident where they got
shut down. And see, the gods were funneling me to be in the
Battle of Hamburger Hill. There was no doubt about it. They wanted me
on that in that battle. First of all, I was in the d
company, the worst one Well, guess what D company tries to outflank during
the Battle of Hamburger Hill, tries to outflank the NBA on top and go
around and then go back up the hill. Well, they didn't get off.
They didn't get as far as the bottom. The NBA were smart.
They were on them, and so they were shooting them up at all kinds
of casual. If they call a metalvact, well just about that time,
I can't swear it was the same metal act that I volunteered to be on.
I wasn't. I was just a ground powder but I was a loose
cannon of the fire business. I't really didn't have anything to do here.
Comes as metalvac comes in fast, slams on the ground before wounded and sticks
litters, field expedient litters, and with leaves and leaves and blood all over
the place. They got all that, cleaned it all up, and I
said, they said, man, there's some big ship going on there.
So I knew that was Hamburger Hill. He'd just come in from Hamburger Hill.
And I said, let me go with it. I'm a medic.
I can help him. I go. We did. He said, yeah,
let me ask him so yeah, ask him. They said, nah,
we could use you, but no, we need to we need to
space more. So they took off and that could have been the same one.
It goes into myt you know. There's some connections, like electricity is
connected in that company pea company they call the medic Sanders as the captain.
He says, don't come in, it's too hot. The torbo is the
captain the matter of Act. He says. Now he's thinking, we made
it every time before, so he's coming in. He drops a hoist.
The jungle penetrator picks up a guy named Pickle. Pickle. He picks up
Pickle and some I could say it's a bastard from Hallinois. I call him
a hero from Hanninois. Shoots an RPG down into the rotor disc from above
into the unarmed matter of Act, blows it out of the sky and it
comes straight down on Pickle and everyone else was burned above who killed except Horrible.
They got him out just in time, and he survived, he barely.
They threw him in a pile of dead people and later noticed he wasn't
some dead. But I kind of figured out the bird I volunteered for that
was one time. And then you know, when I was in a cover,
we went, we went, we were headed right to the Hamburger Hill
in nineteen sixty eight, And there's other times. I can't think of exactly.
One of the things about your book is is you don't shy away from
I don't want to say the horrors of war, but the challenges of war,
and you know, the humor that guys get during war or on some
of the horrific events that happened during the war, simply especially in a war
where it's hard to distinguish sometimes the enemy from the civilians. Do you do
you recall your the Vietcong Princess chapter? Oh? Yeah, can you tell
us, because I think it's I think it's a really good example of of
how challenging Vietnam was. God yeah, yeah, Well, it's nice to
hear you say these things that they were very unportant. Yeah. That was
basically, to make a long story longer, make a long story short,
we shot up a book of a boatload of civilians, women and children.
They were flying South vietnamme slag, Now, how can that happen? We're
we're the hundred first airborne, but we took the surrender of Germany. You
know. Shoot, by god, I was supposed to be in Gurden Brets.
I didn't. I don't. I'm not oppressed with the hundred first Airborn.
I just went to their meeting in San Antonio, you know, and
I had to watch my mouth. I mean, I love the guys only
I think there's only two other ones that were in getting on. But anyway,
how could that happen? How could that happen? The hundred first airborne
shoot up? That's there was another shoot up, the two the two things
which which you know, don't ask me to go to war again, bro,
No matter. That's that's the I hope the concepts of my book.
What about the kids? You think you gotta think about the kids while you
Navy seals during brets. What you're gonna go over there, You're gonna you're
gonna heard abouts of kids. It's inevitable. What about them? And on?
Yeah, so we shut this We shut this boat up from a house.
They were in a free book. They were in a free fires Yeah.
Well yeah, well we know it was a free virus one we made
it. But did every school and every hamlet put out pamphlets that we printed,
oh this is a free VIRS home. Don't go in you're I don't
pick that happen. A lot of people didn't get the word right. So
some some bastard the pilot radios induces. We gotta we got these people out
there and free virus on and some probably some clerkses fire him up, fire
him up. Oh okay, So we started firing him up and I couldn't
see him very well. So I got up on one round with my hand.
I had at him seventy nine for some reason, and I was I
was trying to shoot ducks before when we were waiting till this bird. Anyway,
Uh yeah, I got round off. The gunners are going crazy,
the copilot shooting at them seventeen nine out his window. So it's says catch
twenty two. We turned into the rescuers. We land. The boat lands
right next to us, and it's beautiful, sixteen year old, gorgeous girl.
The only one that got hit her. Her thigh was split open and
it wasn't bleeding. Thank god, it wasn't a bad bleeder. And so
I, you know, I fixed up as best I could, and jeez,
well what a catestrophe. So in the book. I just got it.
About a month later, we're regarding a bridge down with my food lock
close to that area, and and I see this girl sitting on a bunker.
I can't I go over there, and I can't see her legs.
And I see her leg it's just a big scar on her inside of her
thigh. And yeah, one hundred first dierboard a month and I felt I
felt like shit, I've walked away. I couldn't say anything. But four
years ago I went back to Vietnam. I went looking for and I didn't
find her, but I was close. I could have, but I gave
up for a temporarily. And Michael beat and you're just to be clear for
people listening, it's it's we're not talking about an event like my life.
We're not talking about intentional harm to civilians that that you're in this guerrilla war
where a lot of the combatants were not uniformed. They were using certain routes
and paths, and so when you guys see a boat, you're in a
helicopter and you see a boat and command says, it's probably because it could
have just as likely have been like Vietcong or NVA moving things. Uh Like,
it's the challenge of the situation. It's not from malintent. If yeah,
it wasn't it wasn't we could have been more curvel. I mean,
the pilot could have gone down and hovered right by him seeing them was a
bunch of kids and all men and women. But you know it didn't happen.
So yeah, right, you're yeah, there was no U. Yeah,
my life is a real source spot with me. That's that's I won't
say too much about it, get in trouble, but my life that that's
a disgrace for Americans, all the armed forces, every human being. It's
a disgrace and it'll always be. It's great, it'll never go away.
Yeah, I mean you talk about it, and you work and you and
you talk about you know, like a lot of your book is very gung
ho, and it's very like what a soldier like, any any soldier or
marine or airman, anybody who's been in combat will we'll get the reference,
they'll get a lot of the humor, they'll understand sort of the dark side,
but also just how when war is your every day, how that just
becomes your personality. So there's very gung ho sort of moments in this book.
But you're also very, very like conscientious about calling out things like my
lie and the horrors the war can inflict upon Americans, upon other people,
things like that. M thanks. I haven't talked to too many people that
have read the whole books. It's gratifying me. No, it's like I
said, it's it's a great book from the from the perspective of Like I
said, I was kind of just just your that your one or two page
chapter on getting ice, like getting ice in a combat zone and the simple
pleasure that a soldier gets from this this thing that most people have. You
can go to your refrigerator and get it anytime you want. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I don't even have a refrigerator here, you know, I
usually neighbors. But yeah, I mean it was so hot. It was
so easy to write that because I mean it included all all sense of sites
everything, and it was just so hot and that they brought actually brought us
a chunk of ice. It was on bootoo. Yeah. Yeah, you
did mention Delta company, you know, and and their troubles are they are
they're also the company that got hit by friendly fire. Correct Or am I
getting or did I misread that, Am I misread? No, No,
that's right, that's that was Arbitalian. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that
up. That was Delta Company. H they got wiped out, they got
bombire a bomb wire or air force. That's that's my comparison with customers.
It's straight on. Customers laps down. It's straight on. There's so many
similarities. I just love that. I'm so glad you brought that up.
It's it's yeah, that was a worldway story. That was First of all,
we were just named Air Cavalry and some some of the officers and I
had black cowboy ass in the rear, and we had those pinned pinned swallow
tail flat Avery flags. Well, I think the Army does a period.
We had to we had I mentioned the coat, the Colts. We had
colts anonymous with the Indian Wars and in the West West fighting, we had
coats. We were armed with Colts and they were we had nineteen rounds in
them. They were armed with Ak forty seven. They had thirty rounds.
It's just like Custer. He was out gunning horribly those old civil Those carvings
he had were prone to jam too, just like the M sixteens were rumored
to jam, but they didn't even have ramrods. Oh we at least we
had ramrods and punch of bullet back out. But anyway, so here we
come. This is August fourth of this huge combat assault into the Ashow Valley.
H we come in there. We're surrounded, flying through a fire just
to get in there. We're already surrounded. And so all the helicopters are
named after Indians. Drops, everyone of them except the kobral We had American
Indians with us, and so we dismount our mounts. And let's just how
customer fought. Custom fought. They get off their horses and make a skirmish
line. One guy would hold horses and they go kneel down. So they're
on foot. So we're on foot too. And his his his big as
folly was if you read I've read a couple of books recently. That's why
I know his biggest fall. He was dividing, dividing his forces, right,
he divided his furtherest. He had two sub lieutenants or whatever, he
had Reno and the other Yahoo. Well he and he goes up a river.
They don't know what the river's call. They you got asking the Indian
because they think it's a little big horn or the big they called the big
horn. Anyway, we'll call it the little big horn. He goes up
the right hand side and Rene goles up the left hand side, looking for
caps. That's what we're doing. We're looking for caps. We don't know
where they are. Custer didn't know where they were either. At first.
We're looking for caps. Okay, we didn't know how many's in the camps
or where they were. You know, it's kind of preposterous. And the
cavalry back then, we're used to having the Indians run. They run usually,
well, so did we They run usually? Okay, So we follow
a river too. There's only one big river there. It's the south of
Hamburg or Hill a couple of miles. It's the Don the Lower. It's
in the map, it's in the book. I don't the low, so
I'm the right. Is A and B company. It's like Custer cinem oh,
I was in a company D, D and C. We're on the
left side. It's like Reno split up. Reno hit the Indians first.
So the D company they hit, they hit some NBA and they spent the
whole night there. They didn't move. The next morning he called in the
air air air dropped a bombing running the blow them away. It just blew
them away, a decimator, just like Reno. Reno hit the Indians and
they attacked him, and I think he lost half his men. He retreated,
he ran dog Doc. We just lost your sound. I can't see
him. Oh I hear him. Your things it's unplugged. Sorry about that,
Please continue ignore me. It's it's going here. Yeah, So as
I say, yeah, so Rino runs runs, he's getting The Indians thought
he was he was charging what he was at first, but then he was
running and when they realized he was running, it took after him and murdered
him. So like us, we lost. Essentially we lost the whole company.
Well we're really split up now. D Company and C Company were miles
away over on south of the Annalore River and we're on the north, just
like Custer. And we turned due north almost directly to Hamburger Hill. It's
directly where we started heading, just like Custer. And if we'd continued,
and that's when I got I walked into an ambush. Me and the rto
we walked within twenty feet several NBA and they let Louise Fanos finally part the
rto let loose on them and h oh, so anyway, our lieutenant gets
get the squad and they cha. He starts chasing him for a while and
higher beckwith Orse's. The general is telling him, we'll give me a BodyCount,
give me a body count. Pursue get him. And Lieutenant Roney his
words, he said he must have gone to West Point and studied Custer.
And he says, uh, they want a bought a count, they can
go get him for themselves. He tells everybody to sit down, eat and
h well, General zas was might have studied Custer too. They pulled us
off. They pulls us out before we got wicked off. You uh,
you know you, like I said, your your book is fantastic, and
there was there was a real you talk about a couple times, but there
was a real disconnect between officers in the rear and the soldiers on the front.
And and I think one of the chapters that really signify that is your
chapter the Last Walk to a Court martial. Can you can you talk about
that experience because it's fascinating, like when you get off powered you're coming from
the field. Yeah, yeah, that was that was comical. Just this
was when I was getting short, so it was a little cockies son of
a book and somewhat. Let's see, I had I I was wearing my
jump wings on my booty out and I come down. We just get dropped
off. We were at a fire base for a few days ever, I
guess, and then we were coming into the rear cam'p eagle huge, you
know, rear area p x's movie theater or base or base area. So
I get out the chopper. The chopper is just dusting off the whole area,
dry dusk everywhere, no trees, dirty, tired. So it's just
me for some reason, they just I was getting short. So I'm walking
down the hill to go into the age station and the company area or to
our bar, and I see this this captain or a lieutenant standing in the
shade over there. But he comes up towards me like as it just going
to welcome me back, you know, right, Well I was near to
this and he goes up here, truth, how's it going? I go,
okay, he says, base you calling me cereal? Yes, sir,
he says, oh, you know, your jumpings are pretty shiny.
There are you airboard qualifying hid. I notice he doesn't have any win.
This is the battalion. It's heavy, all the officers, rangers and airborne
qualified beck us and oh and so they get a lone dog like him,
you're gonna send him out on a hot day mad mad dogs and cherry lieutenants
to go out in the midday sun. They're the only one. They're stupid
enough to do that. Well, they send him out there, We'll go
go her house. These guys coming in and go see what they're He says,
yeah, you got shiny wing. You can't wear that out of the
field. They go, yeah, I always do. You call me sirup
by the way, Oh yes, sirrup. Let me see that weapon.
Grabs my weapon, pulls it out, looks like it's dirty. Yeah,
shoot the shoots true. Oh yeah, he throws it back to me and
they gotta Yeah. So I realized I just got off of a dust bowl
out of here. You know what a helicopter you know who woo win win
win does. And so he said, oh yeah, I'm I'm putting you
up for chargers. Okay, I'm going to get a beer. I forgot
about charges. What are you gonna donna court martial? Are gonna execute?
Yeah? What are they gonna send you home? Yeah? What are they
gonna do? Send me to a bank? God? Yeah? So?
And what the funny part it is about? I'm really getting short. I
reasonably, I did reusable. I gotta leave. I leave. I got
a arn arm. You just got one of R and R. That's it.
I gotta lead to seven dayly for some reason, I think because I
blew away with an enemy. I don't know why. But they gave me
a leave. It was great, but I'm maybe trying to get another leave.
I'm in the clerk's office and he says, oh, Doc, quite
a way. You know an article fifteen, don't worry about it. I
said, what's an article fifteen? He says, it's non judicial punishment.
It's like they don't court martial with anymore. They take money with one hundred
and one dollars and my friend's kids or something like that. And I go
and he points to the trash can. It dawned under what he was saying.
All right, he's ramps these ranch a lot mothers. They're all right,
they're doing their thank you and so that was that. So so basically
he filed that j JP that that officer put on you and the special the
circular filing cabinet, which what filt like cabinet, the circular filing cabinet that
he taught the order. Yeah, the circular circular Yeah, yeah, he
tossed it in the trash. That's what they call it. Now. That's
good. Yeah, yeah, So you know, just to touch on the
epilogue because it was interesting from your perspective, the epilogue is who lost the
war? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I get a little there's some
controversy, you might say in the right. You know, I believe in
a lot of conspiracy, theoris and stuff because I don't want to get into
but yeah, who lost the word? In my opinion, we didn't lose
the war. We just left. It was kind of maybe you could call
it chicken ship, but I don't call it that. We just left.
We were invited over there by criminal government. Our criminal government was invited over
there by their criminal you know, for money. It's all money. Just
sell hell coops. Check it out. Who LBJ LBJ Lyndon Baines Johnson was
president. He was also a big stockholder with his wife with Bell helicopters.
Now, what's one with this picture. He's the president and he's making up
millions off of the war gear helicopters. Well, what's wrong with this pictures?
So yeah, So anyway, a little bit off track here. So
ah, that's my opinion that So, yeah, it was all for money.
And so we're in the war and it was time to go. We
were advisors, we were supposi to be advisors, and we gave it.
Hell, we gave it our best shot. We're there for years and it's
time to go. So we left. I don't think we left. We
didn't lose it. We just loved. Yeah. And so when you got
home, Like, how did you adjust a post Vietnam life? Well,
I was lucky in a way. It was not too bad because I still
had had fourteen months left in the Army, which I was not happy with,
but I was still It left me down easy, and I'm still in
there. I went to the toy put me in the Ranger, an actual
lerp. I became an actual lerp at the States side. And then I
got a wonderful, wonderful trip to Germany. I still had time to go
to went to Germany to go skiing and joined the tenth Mountain Special Forces possible
Greenbrigs and Garnisher being a ski team and stuff, and so it wasn't too
bad about left now. Yeah, and then after your military service, like
where did you like? What did you do and where'd you go? You
mentioned being a bush pilot, maybe a one or two an authorized trips with
electronics to Mexico? Like what route did your life take after that? We're
left? I was. I got a discharge in Germany and we were all
smoking hash, everybody smoking. I didn't like it. I didn't like it.
I just did it because we won the boys. So yeah, all
right, So I ended up in Switzerland, you know, party girls,
man night and day skiing every day. I was the best skier if I
was a skier before, I was best skier in that Swiss American in the
Swiss town. And it was great. So I did not They don't went
back to the stage and the spending only my blood money on school and rant
that wasn't happening. So I could take flight lessons to get your private license.
They paid for everything else, all your commercial licenses and all that stuff.
So I did not ended up in Alaska, and that was I was
a total adrenaline junky now because you might imagine and traumatized the medics had.
Medics were taught to kill immediately when you entered the service, and then they
were trying to save lives. I mean, little traumat little ying, and
yang a little conflict. So I'm total, total junkie. If I flying
Bush and Alaska, that was great. It was just what I needed for
for a few years. But then that war fare and I ended it up.
I'm flying the Caribbean. I knew every smuggler from Miami to some Barbados,
and I want my friends everybody and great stories. I've met a bunch
of German kids. They come over from Germany to get their American pilot license,
and they were flying with me, flying Legit out of Puerto Rico,
and they hooked me up with a They said, well we got these Germans,
well German guys down and Bolivia. Yeah, they will meet them and
you could start a hunting it so far businessman. That's me. I did
that. I went down there. Man, there's some wild characters down there.
Yeah, Like where do they come from? That happen. Yeah,
Uh, how Germans end up? That's crazy? And uh, I tell
people I met Adolf Hitler. I met him him is they are in Santa
Cruz, Bolivia. No, I just kidding. I did not meet Alia
Fidler, but I could have because it was a long time ago and an
old guy now. And I met other characters and this is my connection down
There was Hans Steffield. These guys, believe me, had a you could
say a vault the old government. They had a revolution every year every year.
So these guys, these old German, I don't want to say their
Nazis, but they were a bunch of German guys and they're gonna take over
the government. They're gonna take go on me to bring guns down and all
this, and I kind of shied away from it. But I got involved
in the animal business and I had the police coming to my hotel. I
had a client right next door. The first guy I took honey opened the
door and there's a thirty eight pointed at my nose and they said, oh,
come come with me, come come on us. And pretty girl too,
and there was like cannibal, just normal stuff, just normal stuff,
bringing rifles they want. They really liked the rifles and they just wanted the
rifles. Let me go, But the German guy ratted me out and fucking
crafts. It isn't the world of that. And then we got the same
guys wanted to start moving cocaine and stuff of shocking, shocking, I can't
believe that. Yeah, they wanted to move it up there to the stage
and they were doing it and suitcases and all the stupid weathers, and I
told him, and you guys are going to jail, and uh, but
me, I found out there's this great book called Over and Back Why wild
Bill Callahan at there was a big industry in Texas, South Texas, and
they fly, they fly. Contributory would be TVs and refrigerators and stuff legal.
It's legal in the United States, highly illegal in Mexico. And we'd
do that and big old World War two bombers and DC three's himself was the
greatest job ever. I did that. So I'm diffusing, slowly, maturely
from the war. We flew down there at night, come and shoot us
down. They shoot us down if we went in daytime, And so we
go at night in these sea forty sevens and stuff. It's great to get
a thousand dollars a trip and six hour trips. It wasn't bad. That's
uh, it's fantastic. And where are you now? Like you have HAWKRYCN
is this you art behind you? Yeah? Yes I do. I'm gonna
I'm a combat art questions for I was? I was an artist before I
went to Vietnam. So I caught myself an unofficial so that the Army card
to teach people how to be painter artists. They probably did, so what
I uh? And where can I've been doing that for years? And where
can people find your art? Where can they find you and find your art?
It's on Vietnam Combat Art, Vietnam Combat Art one on one dot com.
O god, it's on them. That's awesome. It's on the book.
It's on the book. It's in the description of this video. What
well, So for the viewers who are watching this video, we'll have a
link down in the description, so the folks who are watching this can go
down and they can go and find your artwork. Yeah. And if you're
if you're listening on a podcast, it's really really good artwork. Combat Art
cool one O one one zero one dot com. Yeah, it's fantastic.
It's a lot of really cool stuff. So we have maybe is there a
lot of surfing and not just worse though a lot of worse though. I
mean you can answer the question. And does Charlie surf? I love this
man like the flower Power. Yeah, that's that's awesome. He does.
Now it's just over there four years ago. And do we have any questions
for William h We only have the one like somebody just gave us a sticker
real quick. Uh oh, doesn't know how much a draft go sport during
any draft? And Bolivia, uh, just cat chaser. Oh what were
we gonna show us? Well, this is a card with the address.
Push it, Push it to your left, I think, up up up,
I'll pop up up up, hold it, hold it right by your
right eye. Hold it right by your right eye, which yeah yeah,
and then just kind of push it up a little bit, pop hopp hop
up up up up up a little bit further. There we are there,
we are there. That's it. Hold it, hold it, hold it,
hold it excellent. Perfect. That's a great business card. Yeah it
is. That's awesome. That's a Vietnam Cambat art one. Oh, one
dot com. You know, everything is there. I carried an NBA school
on my rustic Yeah, I was gonna leave that out, like it's in
the book. However, me drink stuff had on this show. I feel
like I need one. Uh yeah. I mean there's so much in your
book and so many just like nuanced things, you know, you know,
talking about the school and you know, the dude's joking about ears, like
just stuff like that. Like I highly recommend everybody if you want, really,
like I said, a really nuanced and and and very anecdotal tales about
life in Vietnam in combat, like your book captures that perfectly. Thank you,
thank you. That's that's what I say. I say, it's a
microscopic look at jungle fighting. Yeah yeah, yeah, cook cookie. Yeah.
Well's how to take a ship in a hammock in in the hurricane.
Don't want to go out from a hammock in a hooge. They take a
machitty and you did go a deep hole right underneath you and you hit it
and cover it up. It's medically approved. I medically approve it. There
you go, like, I mean, there there are so many lessons like
how to take a ship in a hammock and a hooge during a hurricane.
Again is stunned to death by bees. Yeah, uh no, it was
just it was we had a sticker from cat Chaser. We deeply appreciate you
guys and Doc, thank you so much for joining us to night. We
really appreciate your time and folks out well. Thank you guys. Folks out
there. Please check out Hawk Recon you find it on Amazon and get a
copy of the book. Please check us out on Patreon if you want to
have access in these episodes ad free, there's a linked down the description and
uh castacarabeo dot com if you want to have some cigars, awesome cigars from
one of our friends and otherwise. Next uh, this coming Friday, we'll
have Robin Horsfall on the show, who served in the Special Air Service and
so we're looking forward to heaven on the show. All right, So what
about the sevens and the atomic bomb? Who was into that? Bro?
We're working well, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. We'll
talk after the show. I'm actually working on a history project, a battle
of that stuff about the green light teams. Okay, that's what I thought.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm very interested in that
topic. And uh, I'm happy to talk about that and I think I'll
have a lot more to talk about it in the future. Real quick,
JK, thank you very much for the donation. We deeply appreciate. Jake
says much love to our vets. Thanks for sharing your story, Doc.
Yeah, thank you so much for spending some of your Friday evening with us
Hot recon head Hunters of the Ashaw Valley. Check it out. Oh that's
your art. Oh that's fantastic. I got it on the cover. I
had to twist some arms, but that's awesome. Man. Oh, thank
you so much. William, Thank you guys. That was real fun.
That was really good. I'm glad you had a good time. Man.
Thanks everybody, have a good night. We'll see you next time, all right,