Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to episode four hundred and seven of
Speaker 1: The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with today's guest,
Speaker 1: Ed Wolcoff. Ed served in Vietnam with mac V SAG.
Speaker 1: I spent time in Special Forces and then served as
Speaker 1: a nuclear officer. And you were also, was it an
Speaker 1: EOD company commander?
Speaker 2: Ed? I was an EOD detachment commander for quite a while,
Speaker 2: and then you know, for about seven and a half
Speaker 2: years in EOD, but also in ordinance and to include
Speaker 2: special weapons, gotcha, you have yeah.
Speaker 1: And he is also the author of the book Special
Speaker 1: Reconnaissance in Advanced Small Unit Patrolling. I got this book
Speaker 1: and use it as a reference myself. This is I
Speaker 1: think it is the most comprehensive book out there on
Speaker 1: this topic, the most thorough that really goes deep onto
Speaker 1: the subject of tactics and techniques and procedures that are necessary,
Speaker 1: especially in jungle warfare, which we'll talk about I think
Speaker 1: quite a bit later on in this interview. But first, Ed,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: On the show. Thanks glad to be here.
Speaker 1: So, Ed, I'd like to start at the beginning with
Speaker 1: these interviews, if you can tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about sort of your upbringing and how that took you
Speaker 1: towards eventually the military.
Speaker 2: Okay, graduated from high school and went to college, joined
Speaker 2: r OTC. Was a member of the r OTC Ranger
Speaker 2: Company at the University of where I was, and we
Speaker 2: had some Special Forces advisors. They took me under my
Speaker 2: their wing and kind of indoctrinated me in special operations
Speaker 2: and in hush tones talking between themselves, they would talk
Speaker 2: about SOG and I asked, what was SOG And it
Speaker 2: was one of these things where they said, we'd have
Speaker 2: to kill you before we tell you. Uh. And uh.
Speaker 2: But they you know, they they gave some uh, some
Speaker 2: insider information. Uh. They said that SOG recon had seventy
Speaker 2: percent casualty rate. And I said, oh, that's that's the
Speaker 2: place where I want to go. Uh uh and uh.
Speaker 2: I dropped out of college uh and joined the army
Speaker 2: as an enlisted man with the intent of realizing that
Speaker 2: dream going airborne, you know, volunteering all the way, going
Speaker 2: airborne uh and special Forces and ultimately in SOG. And
Speaker 2: I achieved that. And uh. At that point, I had
Speaker 2: no no real intent to become a career soldier, but
Speaker 2: I decided to do that after my experience in UH
Speaker 2: in SOG and Vietnam. What year was this that you
Speaker 2: joined up? Sixty seven?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were hearing from some of your instructors
Speaker 1: who were there early on in the war, probably like
Speaker 1: sixty six or sixty.
Speaker 2: I joined the army in sixty seven and then I
Speaker 2: got to A Vietnam and SAG in March of sixty nine.
Speaker 2: And then it was there for twenty five months and
Speaker 2: ran twenty five missions. Oh wow wow.
Speaker 1: So tell us about kind of how you got into
Speaker 1: special forces and going through the training back in those days.
Speaker 1: I know Camp McCall wasn't quite as built up as
Speaker 1: it is today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's quite true. You were intense and uh it
Speaker 2: was there was a big focus on physical fitness the
Speaker 2: UH and land navigation as it is today. Uh and uh.
Speaker 2: Back then uh uh the training for special forces UH
Speaker 2: was in three parts. First was you know, getting through
Speaker 2: the basic course AH and getting qualified uh. And the
Speaker 2: second part was your MS training UH. And then the
Speaker 2: third part was the unconventional warfare training and you had
Speaker 2: an index uh and UH. Then you were assigned to
Speaker 2: a group and I chose weapons. When I was in
Speaker 2: a I T, I was an eleven Charlie, which was
Speaker 2: Morderman UH and I had an affinity. I wanted to
Speaker 2: get into UH close combat operations, so UH I selected
Speaker 2: UH eleven Bravo MOS, which was you know, infantryman light
Speaker 2: weapons actually and was trained in light and heavy weapons UH.
Speaker 2: Later on, after a return from Vietnam, I went to
Speaker 2: a love and foxtrot course and that became my secondary
Speaker 2: that was operations and intelligence. But at any rate, my
Speaker 2: assignment out of training group was to the sixth Special
Speaker 2: Forces Group. I wasn't there very long. The my team
Speaker 2: sergeant and my sergeant major took a liking to me
Speaker 2: and they sent me to UH Underwater Operations Course scuba school,
Speaker 2: and at that point I was a spec for UH
Speaker 2: and UH. UH. I asked around the more senior n
Speaker 2: CEOs about how I could get to SOG and I
Speaker 2: found a guy who was who was bound for Vietnam,
Speaker 2: and he gave me UH the phone number for the
Speaker 2: woman we referred to as missus A, who was the
Speaker 2: assignments up at the Pentagon. Not at the Pentagon, but
Speaker 2: at first called personnel.
Speaker 1: Comment and you had to send her flowers.
Speaker 2: I didn't have to.
Speaker 1: OH, a lot of guys that called me up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I called her up by somehow I got a
Speaker 2: hold of a phone and without anybody listening, because I
Speaker 2: knew my team sergeant, my sergeant major would be pissed off.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, by volunteering for that after you know, they've
Speaker 2: done me the favor of signing me up for scuba school. Anyway, Uh,
Speaker 2: it was uh, you know, when I was on the
Speaker 2: phone with her, I told her I wanted to I
Speaker 2: wanted to go to SOG And she said, are you sure,
Speaker 2: because she knew what the casualty rate was she had
Speaker 2: to fill all those slots and I said, yes, I'm
Speaker 2: absolutely sure. So she said, okay, I'll get your I'll
Speaker 2: get you your orders. So I was waiting around and
Speaker 2: then the class date for school school started and uh,
Speaker 2: back then and probably still, there is a kind of
Speaker 2: a make or break uh event in the course which
Speaker 2: is called the uh. It was a pool training like
Speaker 2: a shark attack. Yeah, it was an harassment swim uh.
Speaker 2: And I had just finished successfully completing the harassment swim uh.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't very pleasant for me because they had
Speaker 2: paired me up with the captain and they were all
Speaker 2: after the captain and I was just kind of like
Speaker 2: a uh, you know, a coincidental casualty, you might say.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I passed that. UH, and we went back
Speaker 2: to the barracks to get ready for the next class,
Speaker 2: and I was told that the C I C of
Speaker 2: the committee wanted to see me. And I said, oh, Ship,
Speaker 2: I failed, I failed to swim, I failed the harassment swim.
Speaker 2: He brought me and said, you got orders, uh and UH,
Speaker 2: and he he knew what the code was on the
Speaker 2: orders that indicated I was going to SAG UH and UH.
Speaker 2: He said, we'll put you on a on a bus
Speaker 2: back up to Fort Bragg and you'll have to process
Speaker 2: out and then you're on your You're on your way.
Speaker 2: I didn't know at that point as a you know,
Speaker 2: a lowly spec for that, I could have asked for
Speaker 2: a delay until I completed the scubas of course, but
Speaker 2: I didn't know that at the time. So UH back
Speaker 2: up to BRAG, processed out, and UH got to an
Speaker 2: trang where they gave me they they further assigned me
Speaker 2: to the specific part of UH SAG where I was
Speaker 2: to be a signed, which was Command and Control Central
Speaker 2: or also known as FOB two. ED.
Speaker 1: Can I just ask a question real quick. I not
Speaker 1: that I know everything about this era, but I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever heard in the past of someone actually
Speaker 1: getting orders to SOG from the United States. It always
Speaker 1: seems like the guys talk about the arriving count tree
Speaker 1: and they'd give them some kind of brief, like very vague,
Speaker 1: we have this special reconnaissance outfit. You want to volunteer,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how they found their way in.
Speaker 1: It was that like a unique situation that you found
Speaker 1: yourself in.
Speaker 2: Well, apparently it had changed when SOD started, you know,
Speaker 2: got off the ground. Uh they were actually sending uh
Speaker 2: spec fors and Sergeant E fives to O and I
Speaker 2: course to qualify them to go to SOG and then
Speaker 2: they would be directly assigned assigned to side. Well, they
Speaker 2: would have to go to the fifth Group because the
Speaker 2: fifth Group was the administrative service for special Forces there
Speaker 2: and then. But on the orders, there was a three
Speaker 2: letter code on the orders with which indicated uh the
Speaker 2: ultimate unit of assignment. And I didn't know that at
Speaker 2: the time, but it was explained to me by by
Speaker 2: the n c C, the Scuba Committee, and uh so
Speaker 2: I got to a got in to trang uh and
Speaker 2: uh processed in and then found my way on a blackbird,
Speaker 2: uh from the Trang to uh Contomb and that was
Speaker 2: an interesting there were my adventures started, you know.
Speaker 1: So tell us about that kind of first couple of
Speaker 1: days arriving at CCC and what that firebase was like
Speaker 1: and the people you met there.
Speaker 2: Huh so Uh. It was kind of striking flying over Vietnam.
Speaker 2: It was green rainforest everywhere, beautiful, broken up by the
Speaker 2: occasional road and village and town and city French architecture, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, stucco and with red tile roofs and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. Very very attractive from the sky, not so
Speaker 2: attractive on the ground. But I landed at at Kantom Airstrip,
Speaker 2: like I said, on a Blackbird, and there was a
Speaker 2: tractor trailer from the fob waiting to get the cargo
Speaker 2: from the Blackbird to take it to the fob. So
Speaker 2: I and there was about four other folks on board
Speaker 2: the aircraft who were inbound and so we were sitting
Speaker 2: on the pallets as we drove out out the road
Speaker 2: the access road to the airfield, and right there was
Speaker 2: the provincial government building uh for Kantum Province. Took her
Speaker 2: right and in front of the the provincial headquarters was
Speaker 2: this big open field uh and uh overgrown with weeds,
Speaker 2: and right in the middle of it was a French
Speaker 2: penhard armored car that had been destroyed. And it kind
Speaker 2: of resonated with me that the French had been there
Speaker 2: before us and UH and had failed and UH and
Speaker 2: you know, the historical aspect of that kind of rushed
Speaker 2: in on me. Up the road about three miles I
Speaker 2: would say, from Kantum from the airfield, at least, passing
Speaker 2: over a bridge, and we entered the gate. Now the fob,
Speaker 2: for some strange reason, was divided into two by the highway.
Speaker 2: The highway is called q L fourteen and UH. As
Speaker 2: far as a UH defensive setting, I thought it was
Speaker 2: inappropriate to have a highway dividing your your compound. UH.
Speaker 2: You know, not only was it a highway for the Vietnamese,
Speaker 2: it was a highway for an enemy who wanted to,
Speaker 2: you know, to to attack you, uh on a high
Speaker 2: speed route of approach. Bet I digress here, but drove
Speaker 2: in the gate and it was it was child time
Speaker 2: and people were coming out of the mess hall UH,
Speaker 2: and among them was a guy who had gone through
Speaker 2: training group with me. His name was John Saint Martin,
Speaker 2: and John recognized me instantly. UH and UH wanted me
Speaker 2: to h to join his his team. He was not
Speaker 2: the team leader, he was the assistant team leader and
Speaker 2: and but there was a vacancy on the team, so
Speaker 2: UH he took me to see his team leader and
Speaker 2: he basically gave me the nod. And then I went
Speaker 2: over and spoke to the first sergeant over at Recon
Speaker 2: Company headquarters. The following so I knighted over in the
Speaker 2: team room, and the following day we went over to
Speaker 2: see the sergeant major and he gave us the end brief,
Speaker 2: or at least part of it, and gave us the
Speaker 2: opportunity to decline the operation indicating hazardous operation you know
Speaker 2: across border operations, all that good stuff. UH and UH
Speaker 2: so among us was a medic and then there was
Speaker 2: four other guys. One was an n c O UH
Speaker 2: and UH. The NCO decided he would go to the
Speaker 2: Exploitation Force and the rest of us UH opted for
Speaker 2: a recon. From there, we got inbriefed by UH the
Speaker 2: S two shop and gave us the one over the
Speaker 2: world thing. We got to see the big map on
Speaker 2: the wall where the area of operations was, and it
Speaker 2: was all, you know, just what I kind of expected.
Speaker 2: My first sergeant at that point was the guy by
Speaker 2: the name of Bob Howard, and he was a very
Speaker 2: striking in appearance, extremely well built, powerfully built guy, scar
Speaker 2: on his face. And Saint Martin had told me that
Speaker 2: he had been submitted for his third recommendation for a
Speaker 2: Medal of Honor at that point, uh, and that he
Speaker 2: was going to get it this go round. Uh. And
Speaker 2: of course, uh, Saint Martin was in awe of Bob
Speaker 2: Howard and as was most everybody else that I knew
Speaker 2: that I encountered. He's very well thought of for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And uh so that that's kind of was my introduction.
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Speaker 1: What was CCC in Control Central? What kind of was
Speaker 1: their area of operation?
Speaker 2: The area of operations in Laos were divided between CCN
Speaker 2: and CCC roughly fifty to fifty during in the area
Speaker 2: of the Hoist Himan Trail, and we also got a
Speaker 2: piece of northeastern Cambodia. And interestingly enough that area of
Speaker 2: I mean it was all there was a major supply
Speaker 2: route slicing through the southern portion of of the Laotian
Speaker 2: Panhandle that went into the Triborder area, and part of
Speaker 2: that road continued on into South Vietnam, although it was
Speaker 2: all overgrown by that point. And then there was at
Speaker 2: least two branches of that road that went into Cambodia
Speaker 2: went south into Cambodia, UH and everything. And I later
Speaker 2: found out that that particular area was an NBA base
Speaker 2: area for UH. It was called Base Area six O
Speaker 2: nine UH and UH there was a concentration of enemy
Speaker 2: troops and enemy UH logistics located there. UH and that
Speaker 2: logistics fed not only into South Vietnam into the Central Highlands,
Speaker 2: but it also fed into UH the border area along
Speaker 2: the Cambodia South Vietnam border. So it was a vital
Speaker 2: area of interest to the enemy. And because of that,
Speaker 2: it was extremely well guarded and uh UH and very
Speaker 2: hazardous territory for for operations. So I later on found
Speaker 2: out that our S two shop had failed us in
Speaker 2: a number of respects by not providing us UH the
Speaker 2: intelligence that I that was was at McFee headquarters j
Speaker 2: J two and never seemed to wind up uh down
Speaker 2: at our level, and UH disseminated among the team leaders
Speaker 2: and UH, I can tell you about a couple operations
Speaker 2: that for me that revealed these kinds of things about
Speaker 2: what I was really getting into. And it turns out
Speaker 2: that the casualty rate for our reconn company at FOB
Speaker 2: two was one hundred UH or over one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: rather than the seventy percent that I had been told earlier.
Speaker 2: And of course casualties include k I A, w I A,
Speaker 2: M I A and UH. UH. So the the reason
Speaker 2: why the casually rate was so high was that guys
Speaker 2: would get wounded and they would come back come back
Speaker 2: to the FOB UH from the hospital. Directly from the hospital,
Speaker 2: they they many of them were to be medev act
Speaker 2: and they declined meta medevac to Okinawa or back to
Speaker 2: the States and UH and escaped from the from the
Speaker 2: hospital and UH hitchhike back to the FOB. An example
Speaker 2: of that was a guy by the name of Norm
Speaker 2: Doni Norm Domiy Dony. After Howard became UH an officer
Speaker 2: and came back to command UH the Recon Company f
Speaker 2: w B two. Norm Dony Dony had been with Delta
Speaker 2: Project UH at Natrange and UH for reasons that I
Speaker 2: can discuss later, he decided to leave Delta and he
Speaker 2: was first sergeant a recon comp but he had Delta
Speaker 2: Project and he wanted to be first sergeant a recon
Speaker 2: company at FOB two. So he was an outstanding individual.
Speaker 2: Brought a lot of experience. He had run recon himself
Speaker 2: before he took the first sergeant's job. He wanted to
Speaker 2: prove his medal to to the to the personnel that
Speaker 2: he would be in charge of as first sergeant. So
Speaker 2: he took I think it was RT. Texas and he
Speaker 2: took several operations and on one operation he got wounded. Uh,
Speaker 2: and it was his left eye, a fragment grenade fragment
Speaker 2: penetrated his his left eye. Uh, and they you know,
Speaker 2: evacuated in the hospital and he just he shiked his
Speaker 2: way back to the fob. They were going to avac
Speaker 2: him to the States to perform surgery on the eye,
Speaker 2: and he refused and uh he uh. He had optic
Speaker 2: fluid coming out of his eye and down to his cheek,
Speaker 2: and his remedy for that was just he had a
Speaker 2: hanky and he had pad it and continued to dry
Speaker 2: on and then he did another couple of missions with
Speaker 2: that before he before he became first started. So that
Speaker 2: was the kind of guys that we had there in
Speaker 2: the leadership positions that we looked up to set the
Speaker 2: example for us.
Speaker 1: Could you tell us about your first mission and kind
Speaker 1: of jocking up for that and you know what the
Speaker 1: the kind of preparation was that your one zero gave
Speaker 1: you before you went out.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a nasty story. Actually, Uh, there were a
Speaker 2: couple of guys at CCC who had gotten into Special
Speaker 2: Forces through the back door. Uh. The fifth group in
Speaker 2: the Trang had a lot of vacancies A teams, B
Speaker 2: teams and special projects. So uh, they would accept u
Speaker 2: a h an infantryman with combat experience with the you know,
Speaker 2: the rank of staff sergeant or above into the Special
Speaker 2: Forces ranks. You would come to the TRAG and they'd
Speaker 2: give them a beret. Then never went through uh the
Speaker 2: selection process, never went through Special Forces training. And UH
Speaker 2: A couple of these guys really turned out to be
Speaker 2: really bad. And among them was my first team leader. Uh.
Speaker 2: And he didn't train the team, He was not particularly
Speaker 2: involved with the mont yards. Ah, and he he did
Speaker 2: some things that were unacceptable as a team leader. The
Speaker 2: only deployment that I had under him was to a
Speaker 2: bright Light, a week long bright light assignment. Bright Light
Speaker 2: was conducted out of our launch site, and the bright
Speaker 2: Light operation consisted of a special you know, a recon
Speaker 2: team designated to go to the the rescue of a
Speaker 2: team in trouble or recover the remains of those who
Speaker 2: had been killed, or rescue and or recover crewman, aircraft crewman,
Speaker 2: and there it was often a very hazardous job. So
Speaker 2: we went up to uh To doc To, which was
Speaker 2: the lawn site, and we were not called out for
Speaker 2: any rescue operations or recovery operations, which was fortunate because
Speaker 2: this team leader had never trained us. The training consisted
Speaker 2: of going out in the helipad and running through an
Speaker 2: immediate action drill or and do that a couple of times,
Speaker 2: and then go to the range and shoot your weapons
Speaker 2: and not even run battle drills and then come back
Speaker 2: and that was it. And both Saint Martin and I
Speaker 2: were very concerned about that. Plus his behavior was I
Speaker 2: don't want to even talk about his behavior frankly, I
Speaker 2: could tell you offline, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, inappropriate for the position.
Speaker 2: Inappropriate for a Special Force a soldier, inappropriate for any
Speaker 2: soldier at any rate. Saint Martin and I went to
Speaker 2: see Bob Howard and told him what was going on
Speaker 2: with a guy, and he said, don't worry, I'll handle it.
Speaker 2: After that bright light, this team leader was going on
Speaker 2: leave to Okinawa, where he alleged that he had a wife,
Speaker 2: and while he was gone to Okinawa, Howard ensured that
Speaker 2: he never came back or it didn't come back. Uh
Speaker 2: and uh he should have he should have been ejected
Speaker 2: from Special Forces, but apparently that didn't happen. And I
Speaker 2: ran into him later on when I was an instructor
Speaker 2: at Camp McCall as a student. He was a student,
Speaker 2: and he was he deserted.
Speaker 1: He deserted in the United States.
Speaker 2: Deserved the United States while he was going to that course.
Speaker 2: So that that gives you some inkling of the yeah
Speaker 2: of the camera. So uh, Saint Martin took us out
Speaker 2: on uh one operation into a very hot area called
Speaker 2: Hotel nine.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, just one second d before that. So when
Speaker 1: that team leader gets fired by Bob Howard, then Saint
Speaker 1: John becomes the team leader. Is that how that worked?
Speaker 2: That was the way it was supposed to work. But
Speaker 2: Saint Martin only had three missions under his belt, and
Speaker 2: that included the mission at the one zero school got
Speaker 2: one zero, So realistically he only had two missions on
Speaker 2: the ground. Uh and uh uh And the reason why
Speaker 2: that loser had become team leader uh was because just
Speaker 2: before I got there, Uh, the team had gotten into
Speaker 2: a contact and the team leader had been killed and
Speaker 2: the assistant team leader had been uh severely wounded to
Speaker 2: meta back back to the States. So the radio man
Speaker 2: wound up being the team leader, and he wound up
Speaker 2: being the team leader because he had claimed to have
Speaker 2: been a recon team leader in the one seventy third
Speaker 2: and uh uh.
Speaker 1: It was just yeah, so Hotel nine who was running
Speaker 1: the team when you guys went in.
Speaker 2: So Saint Martin was given the team, but we already
Speaker 2: had a designate oh to take over the team identified
Speaker 2: And at this point I think, uh, well, this was
Speaker 2: another guy from the one seventy third and the yeah,
Speaker 2: he was uh bad in a different way from the
Speaker 2: original team leader we had. And I was beginning to
Speaker 2: think that our team New York was a bad luck
Speaker 2: team at this point because he didn't train us any
Speaker 2: better than our first team leader. He was an alcoholic.
Speaker 2: He would come from training and go directly to the
Speaker 2: club and start drinking, and that was his practice every day.
Speaker 2: And we had the first operation with him was a
Speaker 2: very simple operation. We were going into a very hot area,
Speaker 2: but the mission was to drop off a transponder into
Speaker 2: an area called Oscar three for B fifty twos to
Speaker 2: home in on beacon bombing. Yes, And it was basically
Speaker 2: fly in, jump off the helicopter, hide the transponder, call
Speaker 2: the helicopter, come get you, and go back and that
Speaker 2: was it. So the first two people off the helicopter
Speaker 2: supposed to be the team leader and the radio man,
Speaker 2: which is what I was at that point, and he, uh,
Speaker 2: I lost my balance. I was. I was standing on
Speaker 2: the skid ready to jump off the helicopter under the ground.
Speaker 2: I lost my balance and got to the ground before him,
Speaker 2: and he was very upset that I got onto the
Speaker 2: ground before him. Uh, and chewed me out and it
Speaker 2: went downhill from there.
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Speaker 2: Bye. We were giving another mission and he was It
Speaker 2: was an area Tango seven, which was a very hot
Speaker 2: area and uh uh he really disliked Saint Martin and
Speaker 2: and me. Uh he and he swore that, uh we
Speaker 2: were incompetent and would get him killed. That was his
Speaker 2: point of point of view. Uh. And he would he
Speaker 2: would go to the club and talk about those kind
Speaker 2: of things. And and he would, uh, you know, talk
Speaker 2: about other team leaders give his uninformed opinion about them.
Speaker 2: And he talked about us. Saint Martin and I like dogs,
Speaker 2: and we knew about it. Ah, but uh he we
Speaker 2: got this mission to Tango seven and we're up at
Speaker 2: the the launch site. Uh and he's he tells the
Speaker 2: launch officer. The launch officer tells him get ready to go.
Speaker 2: We got a window. Uh and he says, I can't go.
Speaker 2: I refuse to go. I feel sick to my stomach.
Speaker 2: And uh so the launch officer radio is back to
Speaker 2: the fob. The fob commander personally comes out and goes
Speaker 2: to uh confronts him and his face is just purple
Speaker 2: with rage. Uh and he said, are you going to
Speaker 2: take this mission or not? And the guy said, no,
Speaker 2: I don't feel good. Wow. Uh. So he said, you're relieved,
Speaker 2: you releaeve him on the spot, turned to Saint Martin
Speaker 2: and said, can you take the team on this op?
Speaker 2: And Saint Art looks at me and I nod. We
Speaker 2: agreed that we were going to take the team shorthanded
Speaker 2: and go on the op. And it was a successful operation.
Speaker 2: And this guy from being relieved, they sent him to
Speaker 2: the security company to run guard posts and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: He was relieved for cowardice and he should have been
Speaker 2: kicked out of Special Forces or the army and the Army.
Speaker 2: But interestingly, because we were so classified, nobody was ever
Speaker 2: given an article of fifteen. Nobody was ever court martialed,
Speaker 2: even though some earned it, include me.
Speaker 1: So did urt New York start to get back on
Speaker 1: track now that it was YouTube guys kind of running
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: That's correct. We acquired another radio man by the name
Speaker 2: of John Blow and we started running ops. Uh, and
Speaker 2: every one of them was in a in a hot
Speaker 2: target area. Uh, and every one of them we got
Speaker 2: into contact. Uh and we round about four ops, I
Speaker 2: would say, uh before uh we got into a a
Speaker 2: very serious situation and John got shot up very badly.
Speaker 2: UH and UH fortunately we were uh we were able
Speaker 2: to get out of there in a very dramatic fashion.
Speaker 1: Could you could you expand a little bit about what
Speaker 1: happened to you guys on the ground.
Speaker 2: Okay? So uh we landed on an l Z Tango
Speaker 2: seven uh New Yars Dream Valley. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that John did that wasn't particularly smart, mind you,
Speaker 2: John had never been tutored by a decent team leader. UH.
Speaker 2: So John would would take a nasmuth from the l
Speaker 2: Z and go straight to his target, which was an
Speaker 2: invitation UH two for the NBA to set up an ambush.
Speaker 2: Once they realized that you were on an asmuth, they
Speaker 2: could they could find you and get ahead of you
Speaker 2: and and set up blocking force for you. UH. Normally
Speaker 2: within a couple of days we would be tracked down
Speaker 2: by uh uh the tracker teams uh NVA squads typically
Speaker 2: with Laotian tribes and trackers. And these were the excellent troops.
Speaker 2: These were outstanding troops, but at any rate, Uh. Two
Speaker 2: days into the op they had not yet tracked us down.
Speaker 2: And we came upon an area of dead bamboo. Uh
Speaker 2: and Uh. If you know anything about dead dead bamboo,
Speaker 2: particularly if it's fallen, and they make a god awful noise,
Speaker 2: it's impossible to get through a patch of dead bamboo,
Speaker 2: almost impossible to get through it without making an eye
Speaker 2: of a lot of noise. Ah and Uh as cause
Speaker 2: as cautious as you could be. And uh. So we
Speaker 2: entered that area of dead bamboo, which is fairly extensive
Speaker 2: area probably had been killed by Asian orange. Ah and
Speaker 2: Uh got to the other side, and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden we heard shouting from the green periphery uh, inside
Speaker 2: inside the vegetation, uh and Uh. At this point, John,
Speaker 2: being the second guy in in order of the file order,
Speaker 2: he saw and the point man saw buildings, and they
Speaker 2: gave the sign for buildings, which is basically like that.
Speaker 2: And I assumed that they were the typical bamboo huts
Speaker 2: kind of thing that the NBA used in the field.
Speaker 2: And just at that point there was yelling in Vietnamese
Speaker 2: from inside this this area. Uh. And for some reason,
Speaker 2: our translator or interpreter did not translate what was being
Speaker 2: said to John, and I found out later after John
Speaker 2: had been all shot up and we got back to
Speaker 2: the FOB that they were saying there's Americans in the
Speaker 2: dead bamboo. Uh. So we got into inside the verge
Speaker 2: and I was confronted by something I really didn't expect,
Speaker 2: which is really big buildings under canopy, heavy log structure,
Speaker 2: long buildings, a cluster of four of them, and the
Speaker 2: grounds surrounding these buildings there wasn't a leaf or a
Speaker 2: twig on it. It was totally pleased up. And right
Speaker 2: before this cleared area where these buildings were there was
Speaker 2: a fallen log, a fallen tree. And we assembled there
Speaker 2: and John got this great idea that we would attack
Speaker 2: the the largest building in the hopes of capturing NVA
Speaker 2: officers and documents of you know, of importance and things
Speaker 2: like that. And uh, I I suggested to him that
Speaker 2: maybe we ought to bomb at first before we assaulted
Speaker 2: it with an eight man recontem you know. Uh. And
Speaker 2: he agreed with that. So he we got in contact
Speaker 2: with our communication relay site and they passed the word
Speaker 2: back to the FOB. At this point, it was getting
Speaker 2: near dusk. It was about an hour or a half
Speaker 2: an hour before dusk, uh and UH the order came
Speaker 2: back from the FOBI commander to to bomb the facility
Speaker 2: and then police up whatever we could. But we were
Speaker 2: so close to those buildings that the only thing that
Speaker 2: would penetrate the canopy would be a white phosphorus grenade.
Speaker 2: And if we set off a white phosphorus grenade, then
Speaker 2: the enemy would know exactly where we were. So we
Speaker 2: summoned air support, which came in the form of a
Speaker 2: one fighter bombers, and attempted to adjust fire by sound.
Speaker 2: We tried to you know, zero them into where we
Speaker 2: were located by the sound of their engines, told them
Speaker 2: to do a ninety degree turn or you know whatever
Speaker 2: to get us in the visa entity so that they
Speaker 2: could then and we had hoped that they that would
Speaker 2: be close enough where they could drop their bombs. They
Speaker 2: were they were only carrying uh heavy bombs, cased caste bombs,
Speaker 2: fragmentation bombs, and that didn't have anything else to uh
Speaker 2: for We're loaded on those aircraft at that point. Well,
Speaker 2: they dropped some ordinance and it was totally way off
Speaker 2: uh in the in the distance, not even close uh.
Speaker 2: So John decided, the hell with it, We're going to
Speaker 2: go and assault that building. So we go back to
Speaker 2: where this fallen uh fallen log is, and he divised
Speaker 2: the team into two parts. At that we were running
Speaker 2: an eight man team, so they were three Americans and
Speaker 2: the rest were mont Yards, three three mont Yards, So
Speaker 2: it was Saint Martin and I and two Martyards UH
Speaker 2: up in the the front and the the second of
Speaker 2: UH wave was to be our radio man with the
Speaker 2: two N seventy nine grenadiers and A and A and
Speaker 2: a third Montyard and the grenadiers were too bracket our
Speaker 2: our contested area with m you know h G while
Speaker 2: the first wave you know, assaulted this building. Uh. And
Speaker 2: just at that point, so John and I were up
Speaker 2: at the up at that log and we booth, both
Speaker 2: pulled pins on grenades, uh and getting ready to assault
Speaker 2: the building. And John stepped over the log and just
Speaker 2: out at that point, out of the corner of my eye,
Speaker 2: I saw a squad of MVA infantry with their weapons
Speaker 2: at high port, walking along the periphery of this cleared area,
Speaker 2: pretending that they didn't see us, but they did, and
Speaker 2: they hit us on the flank and John fortunately threw
Speaker 2: his grenade and then fell back from stepping over the log.
Speaker 2: I threw my grenade and opened fire on this squad
Speaker 2: of MVA. John had been hit three times. He had
Speaker 2: been hit in the ankle. If you know anything about
Speaker 2: an AK, it has a muzzle rise as it fires,
Speaker 2: so it rises up and to the left, because the
Speaker 2: ejection porter is on the right. Would hit him in
Speaker 2: the ankle, hit him in the leg and then sliced
Speaker 2: across his ad to him and which emptied his intestines. Oh,
Speaker 2: my god, to the ground uh and uh so uh
Speaker 2: Fortunately we were sheltered by the UH, by the log
Speaker 2: and my firing and possibly the firing of the the
Speaker 2: grenadiers had knocked out some some of the NBA squad
Speaker 2: uh so uh. I had not been trained how to
Speaker 2: administer morphine, but John was in extreme pain. He was
Speaker 2: screaming and hollering, which of course pinpointed us the team leader. UH.
Speaker 2: In sag recon teams always called what was called the
Speaker 2: one zero kit, which had medicines tetracycling uh, the modal uh,
Speaker 2: the cure chrome, all this kind of ship and uh
Speaker 2: and also had the morphine ceretes in them. And I
Speaker 2: wasn't taught how to use the morphine cerettes. Uh. And
Speaker 2: uh this was like my maybe my fourth operation on
Speaker 2: the ground. And everybody who went to uh to sag
Speaker 2: to the sag fobs who were too who were destined
Speaker 2: for recon or exploition exploitation force were supposed to go
Speaker 2: through the one zero course a long time, and uh,
Speaker 2: they forgot about me. So I it might have been
Speaker 2: that I missed that course on the serettes because I
Speaker 2: was I never went to long time everybody else went
Speaker 2: for some reason they missed me at any rate. I
Speaker 2: tried to mister the morphine and and it wouldn't eject H.
Speaker 2: And John was still carrying on and screaming and shit,
Speaker 2: And I said, all right, enough of this. I took
Speaker 2: his intestines. I piled him back on top of his
Speaker 2: ad abdomen, tucked his undershirt in, and tightened down his
Speaker 2: belt to contain his intestines. Uh. And then I UH,
Speaker 2: I got his his rucksack and gave it to one
Speaker 2: Montyard to carry, gave his weapon too another Montiard to carry,
Speaker 2: and gave his webyeard to another Montyard to carry. And
Speaker 2: then for the remaining people I had you know. I
Speaker 2: tried to get them to help me drag Saying Martin
Speaker 2: to an LZ, which was the dead the area of
Speaker 2: de dead bamboo from whence we came. And it turns
Speaker 2: out that Montyards could carry a load equivalent to that
Speaker 2: of an American any day. They were really small in stature,
Speaker 2: but they could really carry a lot of weight. But
Speaker 2: their upper body strength was absolutely terrible, and they couldn't
Speaker 2: They couldn't carry a Saint Martin and they couldn't drag him.
Speaker 2: So I wound up dragging him back to the to
Speaker 2: the l Z, and we were just reached the LZ
Speaker 2: just as my strength ran out. I mean, he outweighed
Speaker 2: me by thirty forty pounds, and it was just.
Speaker 1: How far how far did you have to drag him?
Speaker 2: Oh, thirty meters forty meters something like that. I was
Speaker 2: dragging him by the I couldn't put him in a
Speaker 2: fireman's carry because of his intestines, you know stuff, And
Speaker 2: so I dragged him and all this while he's he's
Speaker 2: coming in and out of consciousness, and every time he's conscious,
Speaker 2: he's you know, he's screaming out in pain and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So we get in you know, about ten
Speaker 2: fifteen meters inside the uh the bamboo, and two of
Speaker 2: them Montyards had their street smarts about them, and they
Speaker 2: went along the periphery of the dead bamboo where there
Speaker 2: was some live bamboo, and they shook the bambo who
Speaker 2: away from where Saint Martin was to distract the enemy,
Speaker 2: away from where Saint Martin was moaning and groaning and
Speaker 2: where the rest of the team was, and and attracted
Speaker 2: the firing towards where the bamboo was being shaken. So
Speaker 2: we called, you know, an emergency for an emergency extraction.
Speaker 2: And by now it was dusk uh and uh uh uh.
Speaker 2: We had a Ford Air controller by the name of
Speaker 2: Don Fulton, a captain, and he had a Covey rider
Speaker 2: which was a senior n c O and he's seven
Speaker 2: uh and uh who was hitting in the back seat.
Speaker 2: And we started taking fire and and uh. So the
Speaker 2: the pilot had had four rockets under his slung under
Speaker 2: his wings uh and uh most of them were uh.
Speaker 2: They all were as a matter of fact, white phosphorus.
Speaker 2: So he did strafing runs with these rockets and fired
Speaker 2: them into the into where these where the fire, the
Speaker 2: weapons fire was coming from. And at dusk. He could
Speaker 2: now see the muzzle flashes from these weapons, and he
Speaker 2: estimated that we had a company closing in on us
Speaker 2: based on the amount of fire. They weren't just firing
Speaker 2: at us, they were firing up at him because he
Speaker 2: was making low passes. They ran out of rockets. So
Speaker 2: the n c O, who was sitting in the back
Speaker 2: of the aircraft opened the window and was firing his
Speaker 2: M sixteen out the window at the enemy as they
Speaker 2: were closing and the fire, the amount of fire that
Speaker 2: they were taking as they were doing these strafing runs
Speaker 2: was increasing increasing, And then they said, you got a
Speaker 2: battalion coming at you, and he had summoned, of course,
Speaker 2: air assets. And by the time they got there, it
Speaker 2: was starting to rain and it was dark, and the
Speaker 2: first helicopter came in and they had to turn their
Speaker 2: landing lights on in order to see us and to
Speaker 2: see how close they were to the ground and to
Speaker 2: the bamboo, which made them a perfect target, and they
Speaker 2: started taking all kinds of hits. Now we at that
Speaker 2: at that point the helicopters would not land because of
Speaker 2: the because of the bamboo. So uh at that point
Speaker 2: in time, we were using an extraction rig called the
Speaker 2: Hanson rig, and what it was was a a twelve
Speaker 2: to sixteen foot length of one and a half inch
Speaker 2: one and a half inch webbing with a very stout
Speaker 2: buckle on it. It was used for, you know, to
Speaker 2: tie down cargo on aircraft palates and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And we found a way to use those which which
Speaker 2: if properly donned, could basically create kind of like a
Speaker 2: a basket arrangement so that you wouldn't fall out of
Speaker 2: a handsome rig unless you actually tried, and so we
Speaker 2: used those. At that point it had replaced something was
Speaker 2: called the McGuire rig, and the McGuire rig was simply
Speaker 2: a loop, a padded loop that you would sit on,
Speaker 2: and we lost a pilot that had been rescued because
Speaker 2: he didn't know how to use it. He thought it
Speaker 2: was like the CIA rescue where you put it under
Speaker 2: your arms. He had to sit on it. He fell
Speaker 2: out of that, you know, the circulation was cut off,
Speaker 2: and he just fell out of it while he was
Speaker 2: being rescued and died anyway. So you were supposed to
Speaker 2: rig these up and carry them on your web gear,
Speaker 2: hooked onto your web gear with a carabiner, and mine
Speaker 2: was all hooked up. It was you know, the webbing
Speaker 2: was cut, you know, set to the my length from
Speaker 2: my shoulders down to my feet. Uh and and was
Speaker 2: laced through this very robust steel buckle and was tied
Speaker 2: off and all that good stuff, and mine was ready
Speaker 2: to go. Saint Martin had never rigged his his his
Speaker 2: hands and ring, so it was just a sixteen foot
Speaker 2: inch belt. Oh my god. So I gave Saint Martin
Speaker 2: my stable rig and hooked him up. Uh. And when
Speaker 2: the aircraft came in, they dropped ropes uh with the
Speaker 2: loops in them at the bottom and at midway on
Speaker 2: on the on the rope five eighths inch repelling rope effectively,
Speaker 2: I hooked him into that and uh and three of
Speaker 2: the other mont yards uh maybe four uh And I
Speaker 2: charged them with, you know, taking care of John. And
Speaker 2: he was still screaming bloody murder and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and that helicopter took off and that's when I found
Speaker 2: out that John's that I I didn't have time enough
Speaker 2: to rig the hansom rig to my dimensions, so I
Speaker 2: tied it into a Swiss seat. Never do that, by
Speaker 2: the way, if you can avoid it. Uh And uh.
Speaker 2: And when the second ship came in again with landing
Speaker 2: lights on and taking fire. Ah uh our our radio
Speaker 2: man and the remaining montyard hooked on and I hooked
Speaker 2: up the radio to another string uh and uh. As
Speaker 2: the helicopter gained altitude, we started taking any aircraft fire
Speaker 2: from twenty three mic mic and thirty seven mic mic
Speaker 2: uh any aircraft fire, and it was starting to rain
Speaker 2: like hell, and we saw the detonations of the U
Speaker 2: of the any aircraft artillery built below us as we
Speaker 2: were and the so we were flying back to our
Speaker 2: launch site over all this rugged uh rainforest and mountains,
Speaker 2: and I started feeling a lot of pain from the
Speaker 2: from the webbing which had bound up and was really
Speaker 2: slicing into my groin area. And at the same time
Speaker 2: that was going on, I was dealing with that the
Speaker 2: radio Prick seventy seven was flying out like a pendulum
Speaker 2: in coming back and smacking me repeatedly. So I managed
Speaker 2: to grab the radio, got a hold of the handset
Speaker 2: and begged the pilot to set us down so that
Speaker 2: I could because I was in pain and I was
Speaker 2: afraid that my circulation we cut off and that I
Speaker 2: would fall out of the harness. He refused to do that,
Speaker 2: and we flew through a torrential rainstorm at the the op.
Speaker 2: You know the cruising speed for the UH one D,
Speaker 2: which is probably around one hundred and twenty miles an
Speaker 2: hour something like that. So that was a you know,
Speaker 2: kind of a complimenting, complimentary effect, the rain hitting you
Speaker 2: at that speed while you were flying at one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty miles an hour. And the rain was so
Speaker 2: heavy and cloud cover was so dense that Saint Martin's
Speaker 2: helicopter entirely missed the UH the launch site and flew
Speaker 2: all away to Contome Airfield. Oh my god. And they
Speaker 2: landed and got Saint Martin loaded up on the helicopter.
Speaker 2: They had a Chase medic with him, and they got
Speaker 2: him to the Plaikoup hospital and they had to put
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of blood into him just to save
Speaker 2: his life. And they have that you know. Of course,
Speaker 2: when they got him stable, they met it acted him
Speaker 2: uh first to huh uh Okinawa and then to the States.
Speaker 2: That round that hit his thigh shattered, his thigh bone,
Speaker 2: his ankle was shattered, and of course you know his intestines,
Speaker 2: you can you can imagine, and so my helicopter was
Speaker 2: able to see the launch site airfield airstrip because there
Speaker 2: was a jeep there that had its headlights on illuminating
Speaker 2: the airstrip for them. So he comes in in the
Speaker 2: usual flight pattern, and he came in too low, and
Speaker 2: I hit the asphalt pretty hard, and then he started
Speaker 2: dragging me all the way down the airstrip towards where
Speaker 2: the launch site was, and I had this I looked
Speaker 2: like a comet because something metal on my backpack was
Speaker 2: dragging on the concrete and it's a shower of sparks
Speaker 2: all around me, and their eyes laying on my back. Well,
Speaker 2: this was going on. I'm looking up at the helicopter
Speaker 2: and there's the crew chief looking out looking down at me,
Speaker 2: and I'm going, you know, like you know what, you know,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do about this kind of
Speaker 2: a I'm sure he couldn't see my expression, but finally
Speaker 2: he was able to communicate with the pilot, and the
Speaker 2: pilot gained altitude to get me up off the asphalt
Speaker 2: close to where the launchide was and then dropped me
Speaker 2: like a sack of potatoes again on the asphalt. Well,
Speaker 2: it turns out that this was the new commander of
Speaker 2: the fifty fifty seven helicopter Company and this was his
Speaker 2: cherry flight. So he was a he was a major,
Speaker 2: and he was every time you take over a helicopter company,
Speaker 2: you want to take a lead one one flight with them,
Speaker 2: and particularly since this was uh a deep penetration operation,
Speaker 2: he'd never been on one before. So this was this
Speaker 2: was his cherry flight for uh FA Sad. And he
Speaker 2: comes out of the the helicopter, runs over to me
Speaker 2: and begs my forgiveness, and he said he had lost
Speaker 2: uh ah, his between night vision, the glare of the
Speaker 2: head headlights on the jeep. Uh and uh, he was,
Speaker 2: he had lost the it's like depth perception, deep perception,
Speaker 2: thank you very much. He lost depth perception. And it
Speaker 2: was just uh. So he apologized all over the place,
Speaker 2: and I said, don't worry about it. I'm happy to
Speaker 2: be here kind of a thing. Uh. We were transported
Speaker 2: back to to the FOB and we were met by
Speaker 2: the new commander of Recon Company by the name of Gulay,
Speaker 2: great guy, and the first sergeant which I think it
Speaker 2: was DONI at that point, and the tradition for us
Speaker 2: was you come off and op and you would be
Speaker 2: taken to the miss hall and fed a steak dinner.
Speaker 2: So they had to wake up the They had to
Speaker 2: wake up the mess sergeant to cook us some steaks.
Speaker 2: M and me. I. I was sitting at the table
Speaker 2: with the commander and the first sergeant and John Blough
Speaker 2: was sitting with me, and they wanted an account of
Speaker 2: what had happened. Uh, and I gave them, you know,
Speaker 2: the story, and then uh, it it kind of hit
Speaker 2: me how ridiculous this whole thing was about an eight
Speaker 2: man recon team attacking uh an NBA installation. And I
Speaker 2: started laughing like crazy. Uh and uh. At some point,
Speaker 2: uh Blow saw the humor in it too, and he
Speaker 2: started laughing. But I caught a strange look between the
Speaker 2: commander and the first argument, UH that I must have
Speaker 2: must have gone off my rocker. But at that point
Speaker 2: then I became the team leader of our two New.
Speaker 1: York did uh did they finally send you to one
Speaker 1: zero school?
Speaker 2: Ever? Really it was Uh, I was into my I
Speaker 2: I guess a year and a half point UH had
Speaker 2: basically a full year as a one zero and uh
Speaker 2: the first sergeant said, you know, I've been looking at
Speaker 2: your your record. Did you you went to one zero school,
Speaker 2: didn't you. I said no. He said, Jesus Christ, you
Speaker 2: couldn't believe it. Uh, And I said, I'm not going now,
Speaker 2: you know. And I have my own views about the
Speaker 2: one zero course. I mean, this one zero course was
Speaker 2: taught by former team leaders, but they wound up homesteady.
Speaker 2: Uh and as the tactical situation on the ground changed,
Speaker 2: they didn't and they So what you got out of
Speaker 2: the one zero course was valuable, mind you, but it
Speaker 2: was in my view of basic special reconnaissance course where
Speaker 2: you got your advanced training was at the hands of
Speaker 2: a multi tour team leader.
Speaker 1: And what was it like for you running the team
Speaker 1: from then on out?
Speaker 2: Uh? It was interesting? Uh yeah from the get go. Uh.
Speaker 2: The Montyards on the team had really loved Saint Martin.
Speaker 2: He really could relate to them. They adored him his
Speaker 2: physical presence, you know, you know, muscles, and you know,
Speaker 2: always had a sense of humor about him. Uh. And
Speaker 2: the Montyards absolutely loved them. And because he was so statuesque, ah,
Speaker 2: they thought that he was, you know, invulnerable. Ah. And
Speaker 2: Uh then I take over the team and I don't initially,
Speaker 2: I don't enjoy the same ah relationship Ah And I
Speaker 2: was more I love the yards and they and we
Speaker 2: got along great, but not in the same sense, not
Speaker 2: as close as the same Martin was with him, and
Speaker 2: I was more directive in nature. Uh and uh uh
Speaker 2: and I the first mission that we had was uh
Speaker 2: kind of uh raised their level of concern about me.
Speaker 2: So that first mission was at this At this point,
Speaker 2: the first sergeant was guy by the name of Pappy Greenwood,
Speaker 2: Master Sergeant good guy. He had been in the Provincial
Speaker 2: Reconnaissance Unit under associated with Phoenix program and he came
Speaker 2: to SOG and it was the first sergeant and uh
Speaker 2: uh he uh. He said, we got a mission for you.
Speaker 2: Right at that point, I was on bright light duty
Speaker 2: and he called me back from bright light and said,
Speaker 2: we've got a mission for you. That's the way it went.
Speaker 2: He said, there's going to be a B fifty two
Speaker 2: strike along the MSR and we're going to send you
Speaker 2: in on a bomb damage assessment b d A. And
Speaker 2: he said, you've never been on a b DA before,
Speaker 2: so I'll tell you what what typically happens you land.
Speaker 2: It's tough getting through all the tangle of trees that
Speaker 2: have been tossed up by the B fifty two strikes,
Speaker 2: you wind up spending nighting over and then commencing your
Speaker 2: reconnaissance the following day. And he says, every time the
Speaker 2: teams get run out of the target area before they
Speaker 2: can accomplish the mission because the North three lads have
Speaker 2: figured out where you are and they're waiting for you.
Speaker 2: And they know that every after every beef it to
Speaker 2: two strike, a BDA would follow, so they were always
Speaker 2: waiting for us on a BDA. So H I said, okay, well,
Speaker 2: why don't we do it this way? Why don't you
Speaker 2: just land me on the beaten zone. I'll conduct my
Speaker 2: recon right then and there, and then I'll get extracted
Speaker 2: before nightfall, rather than landing outside the beaten zone, which
Speaker 2: was the usual protocol, land me right there. And he
Speaker 2: said he was really shocked at that suggestion, and he said,
Speaker 2: are you sure you want to do it that way?
Speaker 2: I said yes, and he said, all right, it's your call. UH,
Speaker 2: And so we were inserted by a H thirty four
Speaker 2: helicopter and UH landed down in this stream valley that
Speaker 2: was at the foot of this ridge, and the MSR
Speaker 2: followed along at the base basically at the base of
Speaker 2: this ridge towards the triborder area, and it was an
Speaker 2: all it was an all weather road and was vital
Speaker 2: to the enemy. So we landed there and we scaled
Speaker 2: up the side of this ridge to get on top
Speaker 2: of the road, and I started taking pictures, and there
Speaker 2: was bunkers along the side of the road for North
Speaker 2: Viet meats to take shelter from air attack and whatnot.
Speaker 2: We walked a kilometer in the open along the road
Speaker 2: after B fifty two strike had cleaned out all the vegetation,
Speaker 2: so anybody who was on a ridge on the other
Speaker 2: side of the beaten area of the other side of
Speaker 2: the stream valley could have seen us very easily, but
Speaker 2: they but nothing happened untoward. And we got to a
Speaker 2: to a point in the road which kind of formed
Speaker 2: the loop around a finger of this ridge, and I
Speaker 2: sad and my montyards were getting extremely nervous, and my
Speaker 2: point man kept on drifting back so that I so
Speaker 2: that I got the message that he didn't want to
Speaker 2: go any further, and so I decided that we would
Speaker 2: climb this ridge and get to the top of the
Speaker 2: to the ridge and get some more perspective, which is
Speaker 2: what we did. And we got up to the top
Speaker 2: of the ridge and there was this bomb crater from
Speaker 2: a five hundred pound bomb right where that finger was,
Speaker 2: and some trees had been knocked out, knocked off around there,
Speaker 2: but this bomb crater. We looked at the bottom bomb
Speaker 2: crater and there was a tunnel. It had breached the tunnel,
Speaker 2: a top of a tunnel, And that gives me remind
Speaker 2: me to come back to this this tunnel issue, because
Speaker 2: it gets back to the intelligence issue that I mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier on in the conversation. So so I say to
Speaker 2: my one of my grenadiers that I wanted him to
Speaker 2: go down into the tunnel because he was not only
Speaker 2: armed with a with a M seventy nine grenade launcher,
Speaker 2: but he also was carrying a forty five pistol and
Speaker 2: I had a flashlight for him. And he refuses, so
Speaker 2: I decide I'll do it. I'd take his forty five
Speaker 2: and I go down into the to the bottom of
Speaker 2: the crater and go into the into this this tunnel
Speaker 2: has been exposed, and I'm there with my flashlight and
Speaker 2: my forty five and I'm crawling into the around in
Speaker 2: this tunnel and come to a point where there'd been
Speaker 2: a cave in, and I couldn't go any further, so
Speaker 2: I was contemplated what I was going to do next.
Speaker 2: Just then I get a shout from my assistant team
Speaker 2: leader saying nvah and uh, so I have I can't
Speaker 2: turn around, so I wind up scooting back until I
Speaker 2: get even with the opening and uh. I get a
Speaker 2: hand up and we all get into the bomb crater
Speaker 2: and uh. They tell me where they see these see
Speaker 2: the NVA the NVA had crossed. They say it was
Speaker 2: an NVA squad that had crossed the beaten zone for
Speaker 2: the beef at the juice strike and was now on
Speaker 2: our side of the road and on the ridge where
Speaker 2: we were, but at some distance. So I said, all right,
Speaker 2: that's enough. I've gotten all the photos that I that
Speaker 2: I need. I take another photos from this elevation. Not
Speaker 2: a single bomb from the two struck strike had had
Speaker 2: had hit the road, not a single one, which was
Speaker 2: disappointing to me. So I called for an extraction and
Speaker 2: they send again the H thirty four to pick us up,
Speaker 2: and the blade length was such that they could not
Speaker 2: land or even get close to this finger that was
Speaker 2: on the ridge. So the Ford air controller directed us
Speaker 2: to another open area that was further along the ridge.
Speaker 2: That open area was separated from my open area by
Speaker 2: a finger of you know, a ansmiss of vegetation. Now,
Speaker 2: I had tried to knock down a tree with a
Speaker 2: claymore and all it did was knock off the bark
Speaker 2: from the tree. So that wasn't a solution. So I
Speaker 2: tell the point man who was big fan of John
Speaker 2: Saint Martin. His name was Jerong and he had a
Speaker 2: brother on the team. It was one of my ends
Speaker 2: seventy nine guys, I said, I point him and I said,
Speaker 2: we go there, l Z over there, And as soon
Speaker 2: as we get inside the green verge, he takes off
Speaker 2: running in a panic, trying to get to the LZ
Speaker 2: to get the hell out of there. And I then
Speaker 2: become the point man, and I'm really pissed off. Uh,
Speaker 2: And you know, we get we get through this this
Speaker 2: green patch and we wind up where the the C
Speaker 2: thirty four had enough room to pick us up. And uh,
Speaker 2: my interpreter taps me on the shoulder and says, one
Speaker 2: of the montyards says, there's n v A. There were
Speaker 2: in an ambush and an ambush position that we just
Speaker 2: walked right past them and they were pointing their weapons
Speaker 2: at us, and the Montyard pretended as though he didn't
Speaker 2: see them, because he was afraid that if he acknowledged
Speaker 2: them and started a firefight, that they had to drop
Speaker 2: on us and would wipe us out. The reason why
Speaker 2: those NVA did not open up their ambush on us
Speaker 2: was because we had Cobra Cobra aircraft flying overhead and
Speaker 2: they were and they had just suffered a B fifty
Speaker 2: two strike, so they were they were not they didn't
Speaker 2: want to invite a fight. Well, that pissed me off
Speaker 2: because it could have gone all wrong. He should have
Speaker 2: opened fire on them. And because the if they had
Speaker 2: been able to initiate the ambush without us initiating first, uh,
Speaker 2: it would be a you know, a gunfight at six
Speaker 2: you know, the OK Corral kind of a situation. Uh.
Speaker 2: Better to initiate the gunfight than to, you know, let
Speaker 2: them have have first shot. That was my view. And anyway,
Speaker 2: got back to the to the fob and I was
Speaker 2: going to fire the point man and his and his
Speaker 2: brother just a pointment. Actually he beat me to it.
Speaker 2: He quit and his brother went with him. And that's
Speaker 2: why it was my first inkling that my team was
Speaker 2: a little concerned about my acceptance of risk, you know.
Speaker 2: And but I had always tried to measure the risk
Speaker 2: against uh opportunity uh and uh and way the the
Speaker 2: odds other thing based on experience. So to circle back
Speaker 2: to this intelligence issue. Yes, so my next operation was
Speaker 2: in the same vicinity. And I'm not gonna talk about
Speaker 2: that operation right now, Listen, you asked me to. But
Speaker 2: suffice to say that operation with Saint Martin and I
Speaker 2: discovered a major what apparently was not a logistics facility,
Speaker 2: but a major headquarters. These log structures. A regimental headquarters
Speaker 2: would be constructed of bamboo, a major headquarters be constructed
Speaker 2: a log semi permanent kind of a thing. I reasoned
Speaker 2: that out. When we came back from an op, we
Speaker 2: would go to the S two to get a debriefing,
Speaker 2: and we described these these structures. We described how, you know,
Speaker 2: the how well kept this whole area was, and how
Speaker 2: was how was sheltered by the terrain, and how was
Speaker 2: sheltered by uh the canopy h And you know, gave
Speaker 2: them all, you know, everything that I could, uh the
Speaker 2: divine from from the operation. And they never went back
Speaker 2: in S two or the the Intel office at Sog
Speaker 2: could not make the connection, uh, that this was more
Speaker 2: than just something out in the woods, you know, like, uh,
Speaker 2: you know logistics, and Saint Martin hadn't taken a photo so,
Speaker 2: which he should have done, definitely should have done. That
Speaker 2: would have validated everything we were saying about it. But anyway,
Speaker 2: then the second mission, I find an underground tunnel. Now
Speaker 2: you report an underground tunnel to headquarters. That's back in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: and that's fairly commonplace. That was commonplace in Vietnam, but
Speaker 2: the North Vietnamese owned the entire length of the Hochiman Trail.
Speaker 2: They had no need to build tunnels go to that effort.
Speaker 2: What was there in that tunnel that was required such care?
Speaker 2: So it was something spectacular to me. It was not
Speaker 2: so spectacular to an Intel analyst beck ATSOG headquarters who
Speaker 2: had never been on the ground, who did not connect
Speaker 2: the dots that this was an anomaly that you did
Speaker 2: not see in Laos but did see in South Vietnam.
Speaker 2: The third mission was in the same area again, Tango
Speaker 2: seven and I discovered on one side of a river,
Speaker 2: a north south river, a set of high speed trails
Speaker 2: heading towards Cambodia. On the other side of that river,
Speaker 2: I discovered a hidden road. So when I get back
Speaker 2: from the operation again, I get debriefed and I tell
Speaker 2: them this time this kind of stuff, and no one
Speaker 2: seems to connect the dots because this is another route
Speaker 2: from the MSR into Cambodia, and no one is recounting
Speaker 2: that area to find out where it leads. You know,
Speaker 2: what encampents lie along that river, along those trails and
Speaker 2: roads and all that other kind of stuff. And so
Speaker 2: there was no follow up to the kinds of things
Speaker 2: that we discovered, which was appalling because what we were reconed, right,
Speaker 2: we were supposed to discover this kind of stuff and
Speaker 2: then we expected some sort of follow up, some sort
Speaker 2: of action when it was discovered, and it wasn't happening.
Speaker 1: What do you think led to that analytical failure on
Speaker 1: the S two side.
Speaker 2: Some of the So the way I reasoned that this
Speaker 2: out subsequently was and I'll make an analogy here. So
Speaker 2: during the the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: we had special operators who were teamed with CIA analysts
Speaker 2: because whoever the leadership was at that point in time
Speaker 2: in the CIA realized that the analysts didn't know what
Speaker 2: they were looking at, but the operators did, so if
Speaker 2: something was an anomaly, the the analysts wouldn't know if
Speaker 2: it's an anomaly unless the operator told them, he said, oh,
Speaker 2: this is something unusual, this is something that bears, you know,
Speaker 2: a second look, et cetera, et cetera. An example would
Speaker 2: be UH, the Russians and probably the Chinese, it's certainly
Speaker 2: uh so the Soviets and and the Russians in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: UH would use penal battalions the Russians during civil war,
Speaker 2: and these were criminals or deserters or slackerts UH who
Speaker 2: refused to fight and they were sent to penal battalion.
Speaker 2: Penal battalions were used as they were suicide units. They
Speaker 2: were they were the point the end of the spear
Speaker 2: UH to draw fire, and they were sent they were
Speaker 2: the first one sent against UH UH you know AH
Speaker 2: and the the Allied units, and they got slaughtered. And
Speaker 2: when they were encamped, they were encamped basically in a
Speaker 2: an enclosure UH logs like a fort, a fort, barbed
Speaker 2: wire on top of the you know, the logs, but
Speaker 2: the guards were on the outside looking in. So if
Speaker 2: you saw that, you might think, oh, the guards are
Speaker 2: looking out, but no, the guards the good. If the
Speaker 2: towers were on the outside, they were protected by the
Speaker 2: by the wall, they were looking inward, and then you
Speaker 2: would say, oh, all these soldiers that are inside this
Speaker 2: enclosure or none of them are carrying weapons. Okay. So
Speaker 2: unless you told an analyst what to look for not
Speaker 2: carrying weapons, morale looks low. Their their comportment is bad,
Speaker 2: and they're being guarded from the outside. You wouldn't know
Speaker 2: that they're a penal battalion. So that's the same kind
Speaker 2: of thing that I think is a problem with all
Speaker 2: intelligence analysts unless they are informed by somebody who has
Speaker 2: the tactical wisdom. Wisdom is training plus experience, Okay, and
Speaker 2: so uh that's I chalk that up to them. And
Speaker 2: what do you call it? Intellectual incuriosity, failure of the imagination? Yeah,
Speaker 2: just just staring at photos all day, staring at all day. Uh,
Speaker 2: you probably don't get it, so uh, but anyway, that's
Speaker 2: what I chalked it up to to be. Uh. And
Speaker 2: I found out other things in my experience. Uh. So
Speaker 2: this disease went all the way up to J two
Speaker 2: at MCVEE. Yeah. Yeah, And example was a sod team
Speaker 2: discovered tank track tracks near the across the border from
Speaker 2: the Long Long Vey a camp in I Corps reported
Speaker 2: it back. They bring the team leader down to mcviee
Speaker 2: headquarters and he explains what he's seeing and he's got
Speaker 2: photographs of the tracks and the U The staff officer
Speaker 2: in charge of J two was a major general and
Speaker 2: he says, not possible. There are no tanks. The norfield
Speaker 2: means don't have any tanks, and the north of me
Speaker 2: could never get tanks down into through these mountains. That's
Speaker 2: what that was his opinion. And the I guess then
Speaker 2: it was Westmoreland, and Westmoreland listened to him and then
Speaker 2: they attacked Longvai. The funny part about this story was
Speaker 2: he did it again. Ben Heat, down the Triborder area
Speaker 2: got attacked by tanks again special Forces and SOG teams
Speaker 2: that had discovered tracks on both occasions. This major general says,
Speaker 2: those are caterpillar tracks from earth moving equipment, and they
Speaker 2: attacked ben Hett. Of course they got wiped out, but
Speaker 2: it was a surprise to ben Heat that they were
Speaker 2: being attacked by tanks and they they actually fired. They
Speaker 2: had knocked out one of our forty seven, so m
Speaker 2: forty eight tanks and killed. They voted. But so it's
Speaker 2: the same major General says, not possible, and this time
Speaker 2: it's I don't know if it's still Westmoreland or if
Speaker 2: Abrams had taken charge at that point, but.
Speaker 1: So take us through. I mean the kind of the
Speaker 1: tail end of Vietnam for you, Did you have a
Speaker 1: break in service or did you re enlist? What was
Speaker 1: sort of the next step in your army career.
Speaker 2: Well, I had originally thought that I that I might
Speaker 2: get out of the army and go back to college.
Speaker 2: That was my initial intent, but I changed my mind.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed the military. Uh, and my experience with
Speaker 2: SOG was all positive. I never got wounded. Only two
Speaker 2: guys on my team got wounded other than Saint Martin,
Speaker 2: And that was a remarkable This is a by the
Speaker 2: way comment. It was that was a remarkable feat because
Speaker 2: for two years SOG had it our ccc FB two
Speaker 2: had in access of casualties and not me and one
Speaker 2: American and one Yard got wounded for the entire eighteen
Speaker 2: months plus that I was a team leader. It's not
Speaker 2: all positive. And I really enjoyed my Special Forces experience
Speaker 2: to that point, and then wound up, you know, re enlisting,
Speaker 2: and I became an instructor at the Special at the
Speaker 2: h Special Forces Reconnaissance Course at Camp McCall. Now, as
Speaker 2: I mentioned in the book, UH, at long time, all
Speaker 2: the POI primary instruction and lesson LANs were all destroyed,
Speaker 2: gone forever. As the United States started as drawed down,
Speaker 2: they still had the necessity SAD was still going on
Speaker 2: for several months, and they still needed uh the new
Speaker 2: folks who were due to to come to the fobs. Now,
Speaker 2: at that point there was two fobs I guess to
Speaker 2: go through that training. So they had begun at this
Speaker 2: course at Camp McCall. So I was there briefly, but
Speaker 2: the position actually called for an eleven foxtrot and I
Speaker 2: was not eleven foxtrot yet, So they sent me off
Speaker 2: to to own high school and by the time I
Speaker 2: got back, they had discontinued the course and again they
Speaker 2: destroyed all the lesson plans of POI. So one of
Speaker 2: my challenges then was to kind of not only come
Speaker 2: up with the the old you know, the tactics, techniques,
Speaker 2: and procedures, but also make them relevant to today, right,
Speaker 2: And that was why I wrote the first.
Speaker 1: Book and what job did they give you? Since the
Speaker 1: Reconnaissance School was shut down.
Speaker 2: I went to the seventh Special Forces Group and I
Speaker 2: was just you know, a team member. UH. And at
Speaker 2: that point, UH Special Forces was under a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2: They had already deactivated the sixth Special Forces Group. They
Speaker 2: were working on the third and the and the seventh
Speaker 2: Special Forces Groups to deactivate them. Fortunately that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: But I saw the handwrite into the wall. I decided, well,
Speaker 2: I might as well go to o c S going off,
Speaker 2: which is what I did. And when I got into
Speaker 2: o CS, uh, I mean. My experience in the seventh
Speaker 2: Special Force Group was my sergeant major loved me and
Speaker 2: he sent me to you know, courses. I was number
Speaker 2: one in the NCAO Academy Distinguished undergrad that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: He thought I was. I walked on water. He sent
Speaker 2: me to Halo School, which at that point was going
Speaker 2: to that was an exception rather than the routine as
Speaker 2: it is now, as a reward for my performance. And
Speaker 2: so I went to OCS and in my platoon there
Speaker 2: was a one of my fellow candidates was an EOD guy,
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, you ought to consider going
Speaker 2: into EOD because as a second lieutenant you get to command,
Speaker 2: which is probably the only occasion where uh, a second
Speaker 2: lieutenant would command a unit, actually lead a unit, yes,
Speaker 2: but command no. So the uh so that and he said,
Speaker 2: and all you know, you learned some new stuff and
Speaker 2: uh uh and it's an actual mission and all that
Speaker 2: good stuff. And that appealed to me. And I reasoned
Speaker 2: that if I, h if another war came along, I
Speaker 2: could do a branch transfer and go back to special Forces. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh and uh so that was my decision. I went
Speaker 2: into ordinance and I commanded a UN detachment and then
Speaker 2: I had subsequent Uh. I was in Berlin Brigade as
Speaker 2: the EO D Officer for the American sector and had
Speaker 2: a couple of other hats I were as well. Great assignment,
Speaker 2: accomplished a great deal uh and then commanded a company
Speaker 2: back in uh in West Germany, which is a very
Speaker 2: challenging assignment. Uh And I did very well there. So
Speaker 2: my experience to that point was that I I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed my military experience. Uh And uh So that answers
Speaker 2: your question.
Speaker 1: I guess, did you ever work with the green Light program?
Speaker 2: No? Interestingly, when uh, the the not the green Light,
Speaker 2: but Delta I tried to rescue UH the embassy employees
Speaker 2: from irant uh the UH I was still in at SOG,
Speaker 2: and I knew a number of these So they decided
Speaker 2: that they weren't going to use SOG for that raid
Speaker 2: because they were convinced that SOOG had been penetrated.
Speaker 1: What wait, are you talking about the sun type raid?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'm tracking okay.
Speaker 2: Uh So, by then I knew that we were we
Speaker 2: had been penetrated uh and uh So I didn't hold
Speaker 2: a grudge, but I knew a number of those guys
Speaker 2: who went in on that operation who were former SOG.
Speaker 2: And I also knew that others who were in Blue
Speaker 2: Light were former SOG. Yeah. And so when I was
Speaker 2: still in UH the EOD detachment, I got a call
Speaker 2: from my boss and he said that Delta was looking
Speaker 2: for Special Forces qualified EOD officer. And the commander of
Speaker 2: Delta at that point was Charlie Beckwith, And I knew
Speaker 2: something about Charlie Beckwith. There was a number of guys
Speaker 2: who were in SAG who left Delta because of Charlie Beckworth.
Speaker 2: They could tolerate him. Yeah, And there were other things
Speaker 2: about Charlie beckwith that I had learned as well, and
Speaker 2: among them was he didn't take advice. He thought he
Speaker 2: knew everything. And I knew that that was a prescription
Speaker 2: for or that was not. Yeah, that was not a
Speaker 2: guy that you wanted as your commander, and did I
Speaker 2: declined that position and it was And that was a
Speaker 2: good thing because then I went onto the advance course
Speaker 2: and my subsequent subsequently went to Berlin, which was a
Speaker 2: great assignment. Great assignment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all the Cloak and Dagg are going on there
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: What in Berlin? Yeah, yeah, Well I worked with with
Speaker 2: uh dead a. Uh. They stored their ammunition with us,
Speaker 2: with me, uh and I had ammunition depots within the city.
Speaker 2: Uh and uh they had some special ammunition as you
Speaker 2: can imagine, that had been given to them by the agency. Uh.
Speaker 2: And so it went or shelf life and they come
Speaker 2: to me for disposal of it, stuff like that. I
Speaker 2: visited them on a couple of occasions.
Speaker 1: Uh, they're like sub sonic ammo with stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, here's this is kind of interesting. So one uh
Speaker 2: not sub sonic. I didn't see any subsnic. Uh they
Speaker 2: had and send your delay and sendiary devices interesting, But
Speaker 2: the most interesting thing was it came to me with
Speaker 2: a can of forty five ammo, ah special AMMO with
Speaker 2: explosive warheads ah and uh so there was fulminated mercury
Speaker 2: inside inside the head of the forty five caliber pistol round.
Speaker 2: Uh So that was that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh and tell us about, you know, kind of retirement,
Speaker 1: how you retired from the military and what you did
Speaker 1: in civilian life.
Speaker 2: Well, uh. On the to kind of finish off on
Speaker 2: my my career story, I worked with Special Forces again
Speaker 2: when I was at UM Approving Ground where I was
Speaker 2: a test manager and because of my clearance of my background,
Speaker 2: I was given any of the projects associated with with
Speaker 2: Special Forces, so they had special munitions requirements and I
Speaker 2: was the project engineer on those kinds of things. H.
Speaker 2: I was also given uh some really high tech uh
Speaker 2: projects to handle smart, intelligent, brilliant minitions, UH, semi autonomous
Speaker 2: munitions UH and directed energy weapons. And I thought, you
Speaker 2: know this is you know, this is really great. It's
Speaker 2: another great assignment for me. I didn't expect it to
Speaker 2: be because frankly, Human proven Ground is the asshole of
Speaker 2: the world. But it was. It was a good, really
Speaker 2: good experience. I got to do some interesting, really stuff
Speaker 2: and I work with Special Forces in developing uh some
Speaker 2: of the smart, intelligent, brilliant minitions and and some of
Speaker 2: the booby trap devices that are still in their inventory.
Speaker 2: They also had a munition developed specifically for them. Uh.
Speaker 2: Uh what was the name of it.
Speaker 1: Uh, there's a pursuit deterrent mind pursuit the pursuit deterrent munition.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was the project engineer for that.
Speaker 1: Oh no kidding, Yeah those are still around.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, so uh yeah, yes, I was the project
Speaker 2: engineer for for that munition. Uh and uh I could
Speaker 2: wish that I could have had one of those, you know,
Speaker 2: some of those when I was in Saga.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah yeah uh so uh.
Speaker 2: I and also did some some work for the agency
Speaker 2: uh where and it was kind of a curious event. Uh.
Speaker 2: At this point, I was a major uh And my
Speaker 2: boss came in to my office and said he was
Speaker 2: really flustered, and he said, we've got a problem. We
Speaker 2: need you in the conference room. We have some folks
Speaker 2: from the agency here who think they're supposed to be
Speaker 2: here to run a test, and no one knows about it,
Speaker 2: you know, So I go into the conference room. I
Speaker 2: sit down, and there's five guys from the agency and
Speaker 2: my boss and my boss's boss, and they describe the
Speaker 2: problem and and they asked me if I could, if
Speaker 2: I could handle this, because it had been a cock
Speaker 2: up they had they had come to the months prior
Speaker 2: and went to the wrong off us to coordinate the test,
Speaker 2: and and so then they show up with the with
Speaker 2: the expectation that it was the test would be he
Speaker 2: kicked off on time, and no one knew in the
Speaker 2: test director at all at any rate. So I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can do this, And I looked across the table.
Speaker 2: I looked around the table, and then across the table
Speaker 2: from me was the guy from CCC by the name
Speaker 2: of Joe Walker. Oh yeah, Joe Walker was probably the
Speaker 2: best team leader I'd ever encountered, UH and very well respected,
Speaker 2: formerly with Delta before he came to CCC. And then
Speaker 2: he had and the ammunition that they were testing was
Speaker 2: foreign ammunition and it was the one twenty two millimeter rocket.
Speaker 2: And when Joe Walker was at SOG he had gone
Speaker 2: to some of these ammunition holding areas for farm munitions
Speaker 2: to police up stuff that he might be able to use,
Speaker 2: and he saw all these stacks of one twenty two
Speaker 2: millimeters rockets and he started thinking about how he might
Speaker 2: be able to use those time passes. He's in the agency,
Speaker 2: he has an opportunity to use them. But he had
Speaker 2: They don't have launchers. They have to figure out how
Speaker 2: to how to.
Speaker 4: Use them in a innovative way.
Speaker 2: So they had to create lunchers out of PBC pipe
Speaker 2: and then they had UH. Then the those were propped
Speaker 2: up by angle iron well tied together or welded together
Speaker 2: uh in across crucifix, you know that like that? Uh
Speaker 2: And then UH their handler there uh their liaison was
Speaker 2: a guy who had developed a uh a potted uh
Speaker 2: a timing device. So they wanted to test these and
Speaker 2: get figure out elevation, deflection, and range characteristics firing from
Speaker 2: this this jury rigged system. And they also wanted to
Speaker 2: test a fuse that was used that they thought might work.
Speaker 2: They didn't have enough uses for all the the one
Speaker 2: twenty twos that they had, and they wanted to test
Speaker 2: the different fuse to see if that would work. And
Speaker 2: it didn't. And so they had a fairly significant inventory
Speaker 2: of one twenty two's that were restored here in the
Speaker 2: United States in bunkers on installation storage ammunition storage areas.
Speaker 2: So that was my purpose is to try and Joe
Speaker 2: tried to recruit me into the agency, but I said,
Speaker 2: I don't have my twenty years in yet, so I
Speaker 2: don't want to forego by military retirement. And then so
Speaker 2: I declined the opportunity, but said check with me later.
Speaker 2: You know, after I hit my twenty I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to get in contact with him. Actually, but years
Speaker 2: later I discovered that he's working out at Harvey Point.
Speaker 2: Now he had been operational. So this thing with the
Speaker 2: one twenty two's that is a legendary op that has
Speaker 2: never spoken about, I guess among But Joe Walker became
Speaker 2: a legend and at Harvey Point, his picture is all
Speaker 2: along the hallways in the in the main building at
Speaker 2: Harvey Point.
Speaker 1: So they used those for some deniable operations somewhere in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it was astounding what it did. About one
Speaker 2: hundred wow rockets fired uh in UH on timers and
Speaker 2: basically wiped out an enemy installation with them. So you
Speaker 2: got a lot of creds for that. I ran into
Speaker 2: him later UH and paid a number of visits as
Speaker 2: a as a contractor because I had some things that
Speaker 2: I thought the agency might use, and I had I
Speaker 2: basically had a contract working with them, a classified contract.
Speaker 2: You know what masn't is signals and measuring intelligence, correct, So, uh,
Speaker 2: we had a program doing that for them. So like
Speaker 2: the people who work for me in my division, my
Speaker 2: corporate division, we're doing that kind of stuff out in Nevada.
Speaker 2: And then uh, you know, so it was at the
Speaker 2: Harvey Point again, and so I met up with him
Speaker 2: a couple of times, and he was running, he had
Speaker 2: had a well, he was still operationally. He had this
Speaker 2: really serious accident. He was on a railroad platform, fell
Speaker 2: off backwards and broke his back, and uh, and that
Speaker 2: was it. So they hired him at Harvey Point to
Speaker 2: be an instructor, and then when he reached retirement there
Speaker 2: at the agency, they hired him back as a contractor
Speaker 2: to do the same thing he had been doing as
Speaker 2: a as a an agency employee. And he passed away
Speaker 2: from Parkinson's a couple of years ago, and I I
Speaker 2: helped get him recognized as a distinguished member of the
Speaker 2: Special Forces Regiment before he passed.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great, and do you want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your book.
Speaker 2: Oh you asked me about my my corporate career. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry I failed to tell you so. Out of the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: which is my worst my worst assignment in my my career.
Speaker 2: I absolutely hated it. Uh. And then I the day
Speaker 2: after I retired, I went to work for a contractor
Speaker 2: and I was working in the a Joint Program Office
Speaker 2: for Biological Defense. And President Clinton had read a book
Speaker 2: about Ebola and started asking questions about it from the
Speaker 2: science Advisor and was convinced that we needed to up
Speaker 2: our game in biological defense, and so they started up
Speaker 2: this office and I was like, very very early into
Speaker 2: that program and was there for four or five years
Speaker 2: or so. And during that timeframe, I went from you know,
Speaker 2: a research analyst all the way up to a senior
Speaker 2: vice president within my firm and had the biggest division
Speaker 2: within the firm. Because I'm naturally aggressive, and I went
Speaker 2: after business. Any business that I thought I could win,
Speaker 2: I went after it. And I left that corporation because
Speaker 2: they had someone savory business practices that I couldn't tolerate,
Speaker 2: and the president of the corporation and I didn't like
Speaker 2: each other. So I left and became a consultant and
Speaker 2: kept working on classified programs here and there, and worked
Speaker 2: in business development for to do proposals to win contracts,
Speaker 2: mostly defense contracts, and then retired, but have been keeping
Speaker 2: my hand in and like writing all these issues and
Speaker 2: giving presentations to people who really care about these things.
Speaker 2: I hope, and I'm kind of like wedded to these
Speaker 2: campaigns about getting prepared for the next war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I wanted to get into with you.
Speaker 1: Next was, you know, you're very passionate about jungle warfare
Speaker 1: and the training and doctrine that we give our soldiers
Speaker 1: around that. Could you kind of lay out from your
Speaker 1: point of view what the current deficiencies are, what lessons
Speaker 1: maybe need to be relearned in the forest today.
Speaker 2: Well, Americans are particularly bad at forgetting past practices that
Speaker 2: I've worked. They constantly reinvent the wheel, and every time
Speaker 2: that happens, casualties result, lost lives, lost treasure, and all
Speaker 2: that good stuff. That's the reason why I wrote my
Speaker 2: first book there. And in the course of my research
Speaker 2: for the first book, I literally read hundreds, that's plural,
Speaker 2: hundreds of books and field manuals and tech manuals and
Speaker 2: also non military authors who wrote on military affairs, and
Speaker 2: so I wrote an article for the Marine Corps Gizette
Speaker 2: which is kind of sets up my concern about being
Speaker 2: prepared for jungle operations. Anybody who reads it should take
Speaker 2: the lesson from that article and say, Wow, this happened,
Speaker 2: then it could happen again. Shouldn't we do something about
Speaker 2: that now? I'm afraid that it hasn't had enough circulation
Speaker 2: where it's been sufficient to have an impact. But just
Speaker 2: a couple of brief notes about that. That would be
Speaker 2: during World War one crushed World War two, shortly after
Speaker 2: Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded Malaysia and at that point
Speaker 2: the Brits had a multinational corps in Malaysia one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand something like that. You know a lot of people,
Speaker 2: and the Japanese kicked their asses. So they had Brits,
Speaker 2: they had Australians, they had Indian and they had Malaysian
Speaker 2: troops and they had some Dutch casualty rate and lost
Speaker 2: Malaysia within two months something like that and UH, and
Speaker 2: then then the Japanese invaded a Pua New Guinea UH
Speaker 2: and the Australians has sent three divisions to fight in
Speaker 2: North Africa and they did a great job fighting in
Speaker 2: North Africa. They were considered by the Allies as an
Speaker 2: elite echelon to forces because they had light infantry and
Speaker 2: it's like the outback, right, Yes, they had the outback. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's true. They had that kind of territory. So the
Speaker 2: the Japanese were after Port Moresby, which was on the
Speaker 2: southern coast of uh Pa Pula and New Guinea and
Speaker 2: right across the channel from Australia. And if the Japanese
Speaker 2: were able to take Port Moresby then that would be
Speaker 2: a major threat to Australia. So Australia called in, pulled
Speaker 2: back one of its crack divisions from North Africa and
Speaker 2: they had about a week I think it's probably probably
Speaker 2: true about a week, maybe as much as a month
Speaker 2: before they were committed to a combat in North Africa
Speaker 2: against the Japanese, and the Japanese kicked their asses. This
Speaker 2: is an elite unit. Now, the New Zealand's weren't equipped.
Speaker 2: They were still wearing in rainforest, wearing shorts and knee
Speaker 2: socks and low cut boots and short sleeve shirts in
Speaker 2: an infested area. And long story short, seventy casualties for this,
Speaker 2: I think it was the seventh Australian Infantry Division. Then
Speaker 2: the Americans were called to participate, and what they wanted
Speaker 2: to do was to clean the uh, the Japanese from
Speaker 2: the ports that were on the northern coast of Papua
Speaker 2: New Guinea. UH. Now, the reason why the Australians eventually
Speaker 2: succeeded in beating back the Japanese was because our navy
Speaker 2: had cut off supply lines to Rabau and uh other
Speaker 2: islands where their bases were, and they weren't getting any supplies,
Speaker 2: they weren't getting personnel replacements, and the Japanese were starving
Speaker 2: to the point where they were actually indulging in cannibalism.
Speaker 2: Uh and UH so they they were they retired to
Speaker 2: these ports that were, you know, on the northern coast.
Speaker 2: And so the Australians and the Americans teamed up. So
Speaker 2: there was an American division that was literally boarding vessels
Speaker 2: to take them to Ireland heading in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2: When they were recalled put on trains sent across the
Speaker 2: United States, put on votes sent to Australia, sent to
Speaker 2: New Guinea. They had a seven percent counter degree. And
Speaker 2: this story goes on. You know, over and over and
Speaker 2: over again, these guys were not trained for jungle operations,
Speaker 2: and they paid for it all the way to and
Speaker 2: even when they are trained. So I mean Merrill's marauders
Speaker 2: were trained by the Chindts in India for four months
Speaker 2: I think it was, and they were effectively almost a
Speaker 2: brigade and strength by the time they were committed to Burma,
Speaker 2: and within five months they were reduced to about one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five people who could still stand on
Speaker 2: their feet. And these were trained. So I take a
Speaker 2: look at the the Chinese, and the Chinese have got
Speaker 2: military districts and two to three of them are along
Speaker 2: their southern border, are far jungle and rainforest. They obviously
Speaker 2: train in that environment and and we don't.
Speaker 1: One thing I would just point out before we move on,
Speaker 1: is that right now there's a real focus on drones,
Speaker 1: and everyone thinks drones or the future of warfare, whether
Speaker 1: it's the larger ones, airplane sized ones that fly surveillance
Speaker 1: missions or the small quad copter drones that you see
Speaker 1: in Ukraine all the time to fly in and kill
Speaker 1: soldiers or blow up vehicles. If we have to fight
Speaker 1: in the jungle again, I'm not saying that we won't
Speaker 1: ever use drones, but it'll be in a very very
Speaker 1: different manner than what we've seen so far.
Speaker 2: That is an excellent question. So about three years ago
Speaker 2: I went to the Soft Week here in Tampa.
Speaker 1: I'll be there this year, no good.
Speaker 2: And I went. They have a vendor displays there at
Speaker 2: their convention center here in Tampa. So I went to
Speaker 2: every drone manufacturer US drone manufacturer that was there. There
Speaker 2: was about four or five. I asked every one of them,
Speaker 2: do you have a drone that can operate under jungle canopy?
Speaker 2: And every one of them said no, And I said
Speaker 2: why not? And the answer was almost uniformly. Some one
Speaker 2: of them said I don't know, but the answer was
Speaker 2: because there was no requirement for it.
Speaker 1: There's no market for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there is no requirement for that for a
Speaker 2: drone with that kind of a capability or that wasn't then.
Speaker 2: And they said, they're not going to waste their R
Speaker 2: and D dollars on something that the military doesn't want.
Speaker 2: Why And so I've mentioned to some a number of people,
Speaker 2: uh who ought to be influential at at the six
Speaker 2: level so forth, and I said somebody needs a state
Speaker 2: of requirement for drones that will operate under canopy. Whatever
Speaker 2: that would take. I can think of a number of
Speaker 2: ways that could be done. Uh. There are ways where
Speaker 2: uh drones could be used in an unconventional warfare setting.
Speaker 2: Uh So, for example, when the Chinese it, when the
Speaker 2: Chinese UH invade the country in the Pacific island chain,
Speaker 2: they have to get there somehow, and that will be vessels,
Speaker 2: you know, Chinese uh, the p L A N the navy,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh they'll be loaded with a lot
Speaker 2: of ammunition and fuel and so forth and so on.
Speaker 2: So launching drones that those kinds of targets would be
Speaker 2: very productive because then you're cutting off their logistics change,
Speaker 2: right and uh, and so that would be productive. But
Speaker 2: how do you resupply uh an a team or a
Speaker 2: special operation team of any any service when the when
Speaker 2: we don't own the skies and we don't own the water,
Speaker 2: uh and uh uh you don't you don't have a
Speaker 2: U an adequate supply of drones? You know, how effective
Speaker 2: are you going to be? Right? The other end? Interesting
Speaker 2: thing is, and I asked this a couple a couple
Speaker 2: of times. Two military folks officer officers to include officers.
Speaker 2: I said, have you ever seen an OP plan or
Speaker 2: an OP order for that matter, that has an annex
Speaker 2: in it that describes what your unit will do if
Speaker 2: they're cut off by the enemy, which, of course I
Speaker 2: discuss in my second book. Because partisans are different from guerrillas.
Speaker 2: Partisans are conventional troops and conventional units comprised of military
Speaker 2: personnel who have been cut off from their parent unit.
Speaker 2: Gurillas are basically civilians, some of whom may have military
Speaker 2: backgrounds but are not no longer military generally speaking. So
Speaker 2: if you're cut off and in the island chain someplace
Speaker 2: from your parent unit, one of your duties is to
Speaker 2: try and reunite with your parent unit. But if not,
Speaker 2: then you should be conducting unconventional operations against the enemy,
Speaker 2: and you should be trained accordingly, and you should have
Speaker 2: some part of your UP order and your OP plan
Speaker 2: indicating what you do in the event that you're cut off.
Speaker 2: And everybody that I've asked, everybody has said they've never
Speaker 2: seen such a thing, So you know, their head is
Speaker 2: not in the game. If you follow my.
Speaker 1: Drift, yes, absolutely, And your second book that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: it's going to be sort of a manual and I'm
Speaker 1: guessing like your special Reconnaissance book, but about unconventional warfare.
Speaker 2: Yep, there's a cover out on it to cool see
Speaker 2: on Casemate would have a cover.
Speaker 1: Okay, so people can people can probably go and pre
Speaker 1: order it.
Speaker 2: They can pre order. They can pre order it from
Speaker 2: Pen and Sword and Casemate. Casemate is the US distributor
Speaker 2: for Pen and Sword, which is my publisher. It was
Speaker 2: on Amazon for pre order, but because there's been a
Speaker 2: delay in the printing, release of publish publication and release
Speaker 2: of the book, they they pulled that advertisement down from
Speaker 2: the from the page at Amazon until they have something
Speaker 2: a commitment from the publisher on when it's actually going
Speaker 2: to be available.
Speaker 1: What's the name of the book so people can go
Speaker 1: find it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just just search under my name. There's always
Speaker 2: two books.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Wolcoff w O L C O
Speaker 1: O C O.
Speaker 2: F F that's correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and just a few other things. As we start
Speaker 1: to wrap up here, you also have a new article
Speaker 1: coming out about military intelligence.
Speaker 2: I've started writing on it, but I've been diverted on
Speaker 2: writing a novel right now. Okay, that I got it
Speaker 2: working on a deadline to get done. And as soon
Speaker 2: as i've i've i've dropped that, then i'll I'll finish
Speaker 2: off this article, and and that that is It goes
Speaker 2: back to this same issue. You go and ask a
Speaker 2: military audience of whatever size you like, and you ask
Speaker 2: them how many of you know what the uh the
Speaker 2: Chinese armies uh T tps and battle drills are and
Speaker 2: you will not get a single hand. I could almost
Speaker 2: guarantee ith uh and uh ah if you don't know
Speaker 2: how the enemy is going to come at you, and
Speaker 2: and then but you can be guaranteed that they know
Speaker 2: how you're going to come at them. But they don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't know how they're going to come
Speaker 2: at us unless we start studying these these things and
Speaker 2: incorporating those into train. So force on force, red on
Speaker 2: blue kinds of training needs to be done, incorporating these
Speaker 2: Chinese tactics and the interesting history history about the development
Speaker 2: of their tactics.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'm actually yeah, I'm fascinated to read that myself.
Speaker 1: But you told me this novel you're working on is
Speaker 1: like ninety five percent done in the ballpark there. Do
Speaker 1: you want to give people like a thumbnail sketch of
Speaker 1: what do expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some. As a novel, of course, I take
Speaker 2: some literary license. Some of it is true, some of
Speaker 2: it is not true. Some it's based on actual events.
Speaker 2: Some are embellish events. Some of the personalities are by name,
Speaker 2: some of them are not. And but it is based
Speaker 2: on SAG operations and some of the operations that I
Speaker 2: was involved in and that materialized or did not. I know,
Speaker 2: I'm being a little mysterious here, but uh. The core
Speaker 2: of the book is about a Special Forces SAG team
Speaker 2: leader who goes off as rocker uh and uh because
Speaker 2: of the pressures of deep penetration operations, and he has
Speaker 2: personal tragedy uh with uh with a wife who committed
Speaker 2: suicide on him and stuff like that. Uh and uh
Speaker 2: he uh is uh his uh. His team teammates are
Speaker 2: thinking that he's suicidal and he's They're concerned about not
Speaker 2: only his welfare but their own. So, I mean that's
Speaker 2: that's kind of like the theme of.
Speaker 1: It, a little bit of an Apocalypse Now meets macv SAG.
Speaker 2: You know, Apocalypse Now. There was actually a character in
Speaker 2: there from SOG Yeah, the assassin captain Yeah, uh, which
Speaker 2: I didn't know that actually for years until I read
Speaker 2: an article about it. Yeah. The uh so that so
Speaker 2: that there are any number of operations that came out
Speaker 2: of SOG that could be turned into movies. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: could be turned into uh series, TV series. Uh hm
Speaker 2: that and and you know, Apocalypse Now isn't too far from.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm shocked that they haven't done that already. And
Speaker 1: the only reason I can kind of, in my imagination
Speaker 1: chalk it up to is that still to this day,
Speaker 1: there's got to be some trepidation in Hollywood about the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. But even then, I mean, they did we
Speaker 1: were soldiers films like that. So I really don't know
Speaker 1: why they haven't made a song.
Speaker 2: If it's anti war, they'll be happy to.
Speaker 1: We were soldiers. Wasn't very anti war, It was fairly.
Speaker 2: No. You mentioned that we were soldiers, which is uh,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you at some point, I'll give you a
Speaker 2: critique of that operation. Uh. That kind of dovetails into
Speaker 2: some of the things I'm doing about uh intelligence failures. Yep,
Speaker 2: but uh, the one not Apocalypse Now, but the platoon platoon, Yes,
Speaker 2: so platoon was definitely anti war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You got how many Academy words, I don't know. But
Speaker 2: if the if the message is anti war, then I
Speaker 2: think Hollywood would you know, entertain it. Ah. But if
Speaker 2: it's to celebrate a military operations, then you're probably right
Speaker 2: there is poison ivy to them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we we at least ought to be able
Speaker 1: to celebrate the bravery and the heroism that some of
Speaker 1: these guys showed out there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so it is would make really really dramatic impact,
Speaker 2: horrific I mean Gore so kind of yeah. So you know,
Speaker 2: to kind of give you an example of that before
Speaker 2: you know, you run out of time. Here is shortly
Speaker 2: before I arrived, maybe three months before I arrived at
Speaker 2: the CCC, UH, the fobs were organized differently. Uh. There
Speaker 2: was a commander of all the fobs H and later
Speaker 2: on they were separated out to individual fobs, all under
Speaker 2: command of lieutenant colonel. And it was at the at
Speaker 2: that juncture about a month before I got there, maybe
Speaker 2: a couple of months before I got there, where those
Speaker 2: those fobs were actually separated out under separate command. UH.
Speaker 2: And there was no capstone uh c c C or
Speaker 2: c n C commander so to speak, other than so
Speaker 2: headquarters itself.
Speaker 5: Uh and uh so the uh.
Speaker 2: You know, I forgot forgot my thread here, all right.
Speaker 2: So there was a a team leader whose name evades me,
Speaker 2: who had been on an operation uh about three weeks
Speaker 2: four weeks prior to the one I'm about to mention,
Speaker 2: and for that operation, he was put in for the
Speaker 2: medal of honor and received it. His name evades me
Speaker 2: right now, and he was Yeah, his subsequent assignment was
Speaker 2: bright Light. So he's a doctor. So a team goes
Speaker 2: is sent from CCN. Uh and at this at this point,
Speaker 2: c CC is commanded by a major, so this is
Speaker 2: lieutenant colonel sends a team to uh CCC to launch
Speaker 2: into c CC's AO, and the the team leader is
Speaker 2: kind of arrogant, thinking that he's seen everything there is
Speaker 2: to see based on his you know, the work that
Speaker 2: he did up at c c N. He goes into
Speaker 2: an area near the area that I referred to as
Speaker 2: Hotel nine earlier in the conversation and they for about
Speaker 2: a day they're moving freely, and their practice was two
Speaker 2: when they make a night defensive perimeter. Back then we
Speaker 2: called it ro o n rest. Overnight they formed a
Speaker 2: linear arrangement where the yards and the Americans would sit
Speaker 2: in a line back to back, you know, facing out,
Speaker 2: which is a horrible thing to do. That this was
Speaker 2: being taught actually at UH a long time and it's
Speaker 2: literally one rocket or would would kill most of a team,
Speaker 2: if not all of them, if fired along the long axis,
Speaker 2: So very very stupid in my view. And you don't
Speaker 2: have visibility over terrain as it varies from from where
Speaker 2: you actually are, so you catch my point. So they're
Speaker 2: in that UH and comes dawn, which is normally UH
Speaker 2: a period of a point of extreme caution. I want
Speaker 2: to be an extreme caution because that's when the North
Speaker 2: through North Vietnamese would hit reconteam after tracking them. They
Speaker 2: would close the distance and get ready to assault as
Speaker 2: dawn strikes, as the sun starts to come up. So
Speaker 2: as always, you know, you should always be very careful
Speaker 2: around that time, and this team did not take that
Speaker 2: care and one American, uh, the assistant team leader, gets
Speaker 2: up and he has to go take a crap, takes
Speaker 2: off his web gear, his rucksack is laying on the ground,
Speaker 2: He takes his weapon, and he goes down to take
Speaker 2: take a crap downslope, and just then the NBA attack, uh,
Speaker 2: and they kill everybody on the team except for the
Speaker 2: two Americans, the team leader and the radio man, two Montyards,
Speaker 2: the guy who's taking a crab, and another Montyard who
Speaker 2: managed to break away. These are north through to ME
Speaker 2: special operations personnel, and one of them is carrying a
Speaker 2: flamethrower and he lights up part of the perimeter and
Speaker 2: kills some of the montyard with a plant thrower. They
Speaker 2: capture two Montyards and the two Americans, and they take
Speaker 2: them off and they tie them to trees, and along
Speaker 2: comes an MVA officer who speaks perfect English. He knows
Speaker 2: their names, he knows the name of the team, uh
Speaker 2: and uh, who's in charge? You know, who's the team leader?
Speaker 2: All that kind of detail he knows, and he's he's
Speaker 2: happy to tell the team leader and the radio man
Speaker 2: that he knows this. And then he said, basically, he
Speaker 2: directs the flamethrower. The guy who has the flamethrower to
Speaker 2: use the flamethrower on the two Montyards who are tied
Speaker 2: to trees and burns them to a center. And meanwhile
Speaker 2: the team leader is screaming at the north end of
Speaker 2: Me's and telling him, you know, he's trying to put
Speaker 2: the bravest front that he can. He knows he's doomed,
Speaker 2: so he's basically telling him, you know, fuck you. Uh.
Speaker 2: So the uh, you know, do your worst, and and
Speaker 2: and the the this officer directs the flamethrower, tell operator
Speaker 2: to turn the flamethrower on on the team leader and
Speaker 2: burns him to a center. He doesn't do anything to
Speaker 2: the radio man, and he tells the radio man, I'm
Speaker 2: going to let you go, yeah, uh. And my purpose
Speaker 2: is that I want you to tell everybody what you've
Speaker 2: seen here today. So the uh, the guy who's out
Speaker 2: taking a dump and the other Montyard wind up getting
Speaker 2: to an Elsie and they're extracted, and the NVA take
Speaker 2: the radio man to an LZ without his equipment, without
Speaker 2: his weapon, and so forth. They leave him his his his.
Speaker 1: Panel, the VS seventeen panel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so a search is conducted and they and
Speaker 2: they see the panel, and they recover this guy from
Speaker 2: an LZ and the NVA don't attempt to bring down
Speaker 2: the helicopter that retrieves him, and they take him back
Speaker 2: to the FOB and he tells this story about how
Speaker 2: they were compromised and the use of the flamethrower and
Speaker 2: all this shit. And the commander from CCN who controlled
Speaker 2: all the fobs, flies down by helicopter to doct and
Speaker 2: gets nose to nose with this poor guy, this radio man,
Speaker 2: and tells him that he's a liar and he's a coward.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, Sabatowski is the guy who got the middle
Speaker 2: of honor. Zabatowski is there at the at the launch site.
Speaker 2: And Zabatowski goes to this officer and confronts him and says,
Speaker 2: don't you dare you know challenge that this this young man.
Speaker 2: I'm convinced that he's telling the truth, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to go in under bright light and find the remains
Speaker 2: of this team. And by now they're still trying to
Speaker 2: find the you know, the yeah, the other American and
Speaker 2: the Montyard. And he says, and if you got any
Speaker 2: hair on your balls at all, you'll come with me,
Speaker 2: And this lieutenant colonel refuses to do that. Ah, So
Speaker 2: he goes in on the operation and he finds the site.
Speaker 2: You know, he follows the trail from the US back
Speaker 2: to where this incineration had been done, and he finds
Speaker 2: all these these burnout corpses and he retrieves them, and
Speaker 2: Chief Zog finds out about how this lieutenant colonel treated
Speaker 2: this radio man and relieves him for what he did.
Speaker 2: And so wouldn't that make a great episode in a movie.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, it's a high drama a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally insane stories that came out of some of
Speaker 1: these missions. So again, I want to tell folks about
Speaker 1: special reconnaissance and advanced small unit patrolling written by our
Speaker 1: guests here, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Wolcoff. This is available now
Speaker 1: you can go find it, and his new book about
Speaker 1: unconventional warfare can be pre ordered over on the Casemate website.
Speaker 1: And I'll be looking forward to some of the other works,
Speaker 1: you know, your novel and your article that you're working on,
Speaker 1: Ed and otherwise. I just wanted to say thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Okay, appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Any final thoughts before we check out for tonight.
Speaker 2: Well after you check out, wh then we can have
Speaker 2: you know, a couple other okay mentions?
Speaker 1: Okay, absolutely, So for everyone else out there, we will
Speaker 1: see you guys next time. Thanks for joining us. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about my new novel The
Speaker 1: Most Dangerous Man out in June. It is a novel
Speaker 1: about a Regimental Reconnaissance Company soldier who gets kidnapped while
Speaker 1: he's on a mission to West Africa, and when he
Speaker 1: wakes up, he finds that he is now being hunted
Speaker 1: for sport by a group of tech billionaires through the
Speaker 1: wilds of West Africa. This book is based on stories
Speaker 1: that I heard over the years about safari guides taking
Speaker 1: wealthy clients hunting for poachers on game reserves in Africa.
Speaker 1: I took that and I took a century old short story,
Speaker 1: The Most Dangerous Game, and modernized it. And the product
Speaker 1: is this book, which I think will feel contemporary and
Speaker 1: resonate with audiences today. Thank you and please check it out.
Speaker 2: S