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529: Firebase Kate Was Under Siege, Surrounded, Outgunned. With Capt. Bill "Hawk" Albracht
03:53:45
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- [00:00]
A
This is Jocko podcast number 529 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.
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B
Good evening.
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A
All that I knew of this war was that America was fighting communists and it was my duty to help my country. At age 21, I believed that I was 7ft tall, bulletproof, invisible when needed, and that Vietnam was to be the greatest adventure I could ever hope for. I had had three years of service, but not a minute in combat. My troops were very young, many still in their teens. Like me, most had enlisted or been drafted straight out of high school. A few had several months of combat under their belts. But even they could not have been prepared for what awaited us in late October 1969. And so we went more or less happily onto the isolated hilltop called Kate, ignorant of the misaligned forces that controlled our fate, never expecting a bloody five day monsoon of steel and fire. And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Abandoned in Hell, written by William Bill Albrecht and Marvin Wolf and Bill R. Brack, call sign Hawk, served as the youngest Green Beret captain in Vietnam, where he experienced significant combat not only at Firebase Kate, but later as a Mike Force leader. He is the recipient of three Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars, several of those with the combat distinguishing V, three Purple Hearts, and most important, the Combat Infantryman's Badge. And upon leaving the army, he served 25 years in the Secret Service. And it is an honor to have him here with us tonight to share some of his stories and lessons learned. Bill, thanks for joining us. Absolute honor to have you here.
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C
Absolutely, it is my honor. I've been following you for some time and the way you interview and how you delve into the subjects and get to the heart of the matter as well as the individual I am just blown away with and it's, it's like one of the most, one of the most important things I've ever done in my life is sitting here across from you on this table.
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A
I'll tell you what, just, you know, going through this book, which is incredible and you know, if you're listening right now, just order the book immediately. Abandoned in Hell. I obviously can only touch on the like, the wave tops of the book, but the book is just absolutely phenomenal. One of the, one of the most incredible things that you do is like a, like a, almost a mini biography of the guys that were with you. It's a real tribute to their bravery and not only their bravery of the Americans that were with you, but then of the Mont Yards as well, who served were incredibly tough fighters. And you, you make sure to pay them their, their credit as well. And the amount of research that's in this book and the fact that, the fact that you have the RA radio transmissions in the back of the book and being a radioman, when I was in the SEAL teams, of course I was very interested in reading those things because it provides so much. It provides, it's like you're there, you know, when you read some of these transmissions that are going back and forth between you and the guys in the air. It's just phenomenal to read those, but just incredible book. And what you and your guys went through at this fire base in the middle of Vietnam. It's like a, you know, and the book has some cool pictures of what the fire base looked like. And you know, as I was reading the book, I'm kind of trying to imagine what it looks like. And then you and I had a pretty good picture in my mind and then I opened the, to the, got to the point where the pictures and you can see what the fire base looked like and you can see what Ambush Hill looked like and you go. And it all kind of comes to life. So the book is phenomenal and it's just, it's just great to have you here to, to capture some of this stuff and, and honor the people that served like yourself. So thanks for coming out.
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C
I want to say one thing before we get into this. Marvin J. Wolf, let me just take it back a step. So I came home from Vietnam in 1970 and yeah, there was nothing wrong with me. Uh huh. And so college and so on in 2008, and we'll talk about coming home. We'll do, we'll talk about it. 2008, I sat down and not, not to write a book, but just to put on paper this battle. And the battle led to the book, the book led to a documentary, and by God, there's even a country song about this thing here. But the guy who was initially the Thruster in this whole thing was this guy named Ken Moffat. Most most tenacious individual I've ever met in my life. I wouldn't want to owe him money, okay, let's just put it that way. He, he started, said, my God, this is a book. And he went out and he ended up talking to Joe Galloway. And Joe Galloway said, boy, this is up my alley. Wrote the foreword, but I have a guy, I'm busy. Marvin J. Wolf. And Marvin said, yeah, I can do this. This book is a tribute. It's a tribute to the men, but also the writing capability, investigative background that Marvin did. Marvin is this book, would not be this book without Marvin Wolf. He's incredible. Written a lot of things too. So I want to give him his homage. He is the best, the absolute best. Having said that, please.
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A
And, and so he was a Vietnam veteran as well.
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C
Yes, he's, he was a decorated captain and yeah, he, so he knew, he understood everything.
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A
Yeah, that makes a huge difference. I know one of my friends wrote a book about the SEAL teams and the origination of the SEAL teams and where it came from starting in World War II. And, and you know, he was, a name is Ben Milligan. But just the fact that he had been through hell week, just the fact that he had been in combat, it just gave him a way to tell that story even, even from, you know, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, gave him an ability to tell that story from a perspective that he truly at least understood it more than someone had never served before. And that comes through in this book. Again, it's just, it's, it's an amazing book.
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C
The insight is provided.
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A
Yeah, yeah, because you got to know, you got to kind of know what questions to ask, you know, because somebody will tell you something. But if you've been in combat before, especially, oh, you were in combat in Vietnam, when you say something, you go, what kind of air coverage do you have that night? What was the weather? Because you know, a lot of people, they think, oh, you just call the aircraft. Well, a Vietnam guy will go, what was the weather like? Because if there's bad weather, there's no aircraft. And so all those little tiny questions that he asked that, that really brought out this incredible story. And you know, part of the story is your story. And just to go to the book a little bit, get a little background on you, you say this. I was born in rock island in August 1948, the third of the third of five children of second generation American farmers. I'm certain that my father, Leander, a welder at John Deere, the giant manufacturer of tractors and farm implements, loved me and all his children. But he rarely showed this affection. Taciturn and emotionally closed, a compact, muscular and short fused man, he punched like a prize fighter and relied mostly on his fist to communicate his displeasure with me. As I entered puberty, my beloved mother, Germaine, a sensitive, intelligent woman, was diagnosed with depression and hypertension. Like many depressed women of that era, she was severely over medicated. She was soon bedridden and rarely left her room for days on end. My mom died Of a stroke in 1965. My relations with dad, which never had been good, chilled to an icy truce. So that's growing up for you.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And this over medication of moms, they were given like moms, like opiates and stuff.
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C
Valium.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Like candy, like Chiclets. You would just give it to them. And the thing was, there was no way that one pharmacy checked with another pharmacy, anything. So I remember as I get on my bicycle, going to one pharmacy, picking up this, another pharmacy picking up this, another picking up this. And I remember looking and I didn't understand what these medical names were, but I do remember Valium. But each was a different doctor. So yeah, she was over drugged. Yeah.
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A
And so you had. You're the middle child.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Right. You got. Nancy and Bob were older.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And then Don and Mary followed you.
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C
Yeah.
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A
So you got five, five kids running around. You went to Catholic schools.
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C
Absolutely.
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A
Which may have been the result, the cause of all these kids in the first place.
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C
That's true.
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A
You worked at a grocery store. You're. And again, the details in this book are awesome. You say this in the book. At this time in my life, academics didn't interest me much. Studying was not my thing at all. Instead, I devoted my high school years to enjoying myself. The soon the nuns had labeled me. I was the boy who would never live up to my potential. Held to such low expectations, I did my best not to disappoint anyone. So you weren't super academically inclined? You're having a good time?
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C
No.
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A
And what is this, like early 1960s?
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C
Yeah, sure. It was like 63, 45 and then 6. And I knew that I was going in the military. I knew that. So I knew I didn't have. I knew I had to have a high school education. That's all I was shooting for. The most important thing I did my entire high school career was play varsity football. After that, forget it. It was a ride.
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A
So, uh, yeah, you're playing varsity football. Fast forward a little bit here. With my best friend, Joe Murphy, I spent a few weeks considering service options. I could enlist for three years in the army or four years in the Marines, Air Force or Navy. I could volunteer for the draft or wait to be drafted, which meant only two years. Joe and I decided that the marines offered the biggest challenge and the most possibilities for adventure. I idolized my brother Bob. And he wouldn't hear of me joining the marines. After completing a four year hitch in the air Force. Instead of returning to Rock island, he re upped. Reenlisted in the army, spent eight weeks in advanced infantry training, then went to jump school and volunteered for Special Forces. Bob was a paratrooper. In the entire 18 years of my life, I had never even met a paratrooper. So when Bob said, forget about the Marines, I listened. In the gospel according to Brother Bob, Special Forces was where the action was. He laid it out for us. Enlist in the army, volunteer for Airborne Infantry.
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B
The.
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A
Then ask for Vietnam. Boom, boom.
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C
Yeah. And I'll see you there.
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A
It's funny. I had Dick Thompson on, who was a SOG guy in Vietnam. Yeah, you know, he says, you know, I. I volunteered for ocs. I wasn't. Was it hard to get an ocs? He goes, no, you just had to volunteer. He said, I volunteered for Special Forces. I said, was it hard to volunteer for Special Forces? No, you just had to volunteer. He volunteered for Saga. Was it hard to volunteer for sag? He goes, no, you just volunteered. And, you know, I forget, you know, like, this is the height of Vietnam, so if you're saying, hey, I'm ready to go to Vietnam, they're. They're ready to take you.
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C
Yeah,
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A
you Fast forward. There's a funny story here about, you know, how when you tell the guy,
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C
you know, hey, oh, the recruiter. Murph and I go down to the Sergeant Carlos, Rock Island, Illinois, and we graduated high school and Vietnam was heating up like crazy. 66 walked in there. How can I help you boys? Well, we want to. We want to join the army, and we want to be Airborne infantry and go to Vietnam. And he looked at us like we each had two heads. And he talked to Luke like there's a camera somewhere. And he looked around, and when he finally figured it out, he goes, well, this is your lucky day. I just happen to have two slots, but I don't know if I have any. End of day and God knows what, I'll get them again. Oh, Joe, come on. We gotta sign up. And off we go.
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A
There you go. That recruiter did his job. He saw some ripe recruits, and he got him. Got him to sign the paper. October 2, 1966. Joe and I took the train to Chicago. You guys go to basic training. You have to take an OCS test. And you say, this Joe, who'd earned better high school grades than I did, wanted that kind of responsibility. His. His score on the Officer Candidate exam missed the cutoff by one point. I passed by one point. So you get to boot camp and they give you a test.
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C
Well, they. They give you a series of tests. Back then, and to see if you were worthwhile giving the first of all, they said based on the scores because like earlier, the nuns and priests were correct. I was not applying myself. So I was taking these General Intelligence aptitude tests and I was doing quite well. And then they came and said, all right, here, take the OCS test. No, Jocko, I thought all army officers came from West Point, period. The end. I had never heard of ocs, never heard rotc. This could. OCS could have meant Oklahoma Cook School to me. I had no idea what it was. But they said, take it, and I took it. Then I passed and that's it.
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A
So you're 18 years old.
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C
I am 18 years old. Not by much. And then they called us all in. You know, base trains like about 220 guys or so, good company. And the, the captain, who was a Vietnam vet, called us in. It was like 20 of us, maybe 22 of us. And he goes, all right, you all pass the OCS test, you're all going to ocs. He says, pick your branches, don't get exotic. Keeping the combat arms. And I'm going, oh, shit, I don't want to go to ocs. That's not what I signed up for. I don't want to be an officer. And he goes, hey, questions? I raised my hand. He goes, yes, Private, sir, what if you don't want to go to ocs? He goes, uh huh. So I have a levy. I have a levy of 20 names. And he says, I got 20 here that pass. And you're going, any other question? No, sir.
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A
That's wild. That's wild. That, and I guess that's just the Vietnam timeframe. They just took.
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C
Oh, they couldn't get it off. Yeah, yeah. And it was like when I graduated in the middle. So I turned 19 mid August and I was commissioned August 31st of 1967. Damn good news. I was a kid in high school. I had to buy the beer, so I always looked older.
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A
When you go to, when you go to ocs, is there any infantry officer course? Was there any challenges that you had? Are you pretty good to go?
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C
It was very, very tough physically, okay. But, you know, I was in pretty good shape. And then after basic and advanced individual training, I was in better shape. So that never really got me. And the academics were very, very capable. I mean, it's things you had to know as an infantry officer, you know, how to call an artillery, how to, you know, map reading, certain amount of math was involved, but it wasn't anything overwhelming. So if you studied, you did well. However, the biggest thing that was leadership, showing leadership. And so they'd, as you well know from buds, they get around you and start screaming at you and make a decision candidate. And some guys disintegrated. Just disintegrated. Some guys broke down and, and that's what they were looking for and that's what they wanted to make sure that you wouldn't, as you well know, you wouldn't be doing this in comment combat when you're supposed to be in charge and people are screaming at you, what do we do? You shouldn't have be. That question shouldn't have come up because you already done it. So there was a lot of harassment, a lot of harassment until you became a senior candidate and then you were giving out the harassment. It was good program.
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A
And you guys knew, I mean, you had to know that you're just going to Vietnam.
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C
Oh, yes, absolutely.
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A
So I can't even imagine the amount of attentiveness you had, like learning to call for fire and learning the comms plans and learning the weapon systems. You guys must have been. Is it naive of me to think that you guys were extremely focused knowing that you were going to nom?
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C
Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, the first thing you look for when our instructors, because the infantry All CS bedding school for boys, right? And the first thing you look for when an instructor got up there was a combat instruments badge, the, the rifle with the wreath and the blue back, the blue badge of Courage, first thing you look for. And when they spoke, you listened. And not to say we didn't listen to the other ones, but you listen to them harder and better. But I want to add one thing here, and this is. So it was like the first week of Officer Kennedy School Week 1. And they run us over there and we get in the infantry hall and we hold our pens and papers and we're all ready to go. And this guy got out there and he says, this is your first class on leadership. So I'm going to teach you everything you ever need to know about leadership here today and now. Now this is 1967 March. It's called the three M's of leadership, the mission, the men and me. He says, number one, you will accomplish the mission at all costs. Number two, once the mission is accomplished, you will take care of your men, because without your men, you would not have been able to accomplish that mission. And number three, at a distant third, me, accolades, promotions, anything comes your way and you've done the other two. Take It And Jocko, I gotta tell you that that simple pro. And I know you know it too. I have led my life that way all my life from that day forward, I've let it on the principle of the three M's of leadership, and it has never let me down. I know you know what I'm talking about.
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A
That's good advice. Good advice. Getting to getting that. Day one. So you finish the, the officer infantry course. You go to Airborne school.
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C
Yeah, volunteer.
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A
Volunteer, yeah, volunteer. Jumped out of the towers and everything. I went to. I was lucky enough that I, when I went through Navy training, we went to the army for Airborne school. So I had to go down there to Fort Benning and.
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C
Yeah.
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A
See the black hats and whatnot and get involved, get it, get my arm.
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C
They just love the seals and Force Recon Marines. They love putting them through.
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A
So then it's off to the Q. How hard was it to get the Q course? Same thing. Like, oh, hard, very hard.
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C
Hard to get in because we had a lot of SF guys who were getting assigned to Smoke Bomb Hill to the Special Forces detachments that were there and they only had so many slots. I think there was, oh, God, I don't know, maybe 125 or so per class, four classes a year. So I had me. This is the way my life goes. And there was a big waiting line to get in. Well, my two, My two best friends in OCS and then SF stateside, Lex Crane and Ed Balsley. We got out and they're hidden. They're New Yorkers. They're going home after jump school. I said, I'm going to go to Bragg. I'll see you there. So I walked in, I checked into the cq and he goes, hey, Lieutenant. And I said, yes, Major. He goes, so you're going to sign Special Force? Yeah. He goes, listen, we just had a guy. Just had a guy drop out of, out of the Special Forces Officers course. Could you attend? Start 10 tomorrow. See, the same me started calling around. He goes, I said, yes, sir. Boom, there I am. So I show up, I got in and it was. I tell you, physically, it was. It was very, very demanding physically. As you know, spec ops is always demanding physically and. But I was in. Oh, my God, I was in such shape at 19. Mentally. Wow. It was tough. It was college level and it was really, really hard. Now, I wasn't at the bottom of the class, but I could see it from where I was.
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A
Had your brother given you any heads up about the Q course or anything?
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C
His was totally enlisted he was a command and it was totally different. We did all the little jobs of this and that. Bars was intelligence and operations planning, leadership, etc. Etc. So ours was pretty much different and ours is only three months long. Where he was in school for like a year and a half or something, it seemed like.
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A
Had to learn that Morse code.
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C
If you had to learn that. I don't think they do that.
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A
I get. I was lucky. I was. I guess I'm old enough that I had to learn Morse code. Forget how many groups a minute. I did, but boy, that was torture for some guys. You have a cool thing about Q course and here you say I was the only student just out of ocs. Most of my classmates had served a year more in various infantry units and very few, if any, lacked at least some exposure to post secondary education. But time in a college classroom doesn't always prepare an officer for the challenge of high risk, high stress, unconventional warfare. I recall a particular lieutenant who was brilliant in class but could not operate in the field. He was reassigned to the 82nd Airborne a few days before he would have graduated. By then I had realized that Special Forces was where I wanted to be as long as I was in uniform. I. There was nothing about it that I didn't like. I'd found a home, a real home with brothers for whom I would die. Yes, seeing that they just weed. They weed guys out. Like this guy, you know, who's. I'm sure he's a patriotic guy. I'm sure he's a good guy. But, you know, he just couldn't get it done in the field.
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C
Tell you what, dude, he screwed up the curve. My God, he was. He was blowing it out of the water on these, these tests. You know, the old thing, okay, the C141 is going so many knots and you have six door bundles and they weigh so much. And the LZ, how big, you know, how big does the LZ have to be based. He was. He ripped those things out. I'm like, oh my God, this is math. So, yeah, but it was. It was kind of sad, but it was showed. How was the. Literally the day before we graduated, he was in there and they called him in and they came back in. Gathered says, where are you going? He says, 82nd Airborne. Because this guy could not find his ass with both hands in a flashlight in the field. He was horrible. So therefore, off he goes.
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A
So you get done. And of course you put in to go to Vietnam.
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C
Yes.
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A
And your brother's over there at this time.
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C
Yes. He is.
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A
Gosh. And for some reason you get assigned to the 46 Special Forces Company in Thailand.
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C
I know maybe because Bob was. Probably because Bob was there in the same unit I would be going to.
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A
So they looked and said, you know, like the, like the brothers, the Sullivan brothers in World War II. They might have looked at you and said, hey, we don't want to have two guys brothers engaged in combat Vietnam with Special Forces at the same time
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C
that you would like to think that. But. And that's what, that's pretty much what I think too. So I went to Thailand for a year.
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A
And were. How disappointed were you when you got orders to Thailand? Very.
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C
You know, I trained and trained and trained to go to Vietnam. And they got. That's all the training focused. That's where it vectored into then Vietnam and what to do. And now I'd been trained for two years and now I go someplace else. Now I taught, I taught the Royal Thai army and they had a lot of returning. They had a lot of Vietnam veterans, SF guys coming over there, Green Berets. And I went down to. I was an executive officer down in Southern Thailand, down by. It was called Trang. And There was only 13Americans there, our team of 12 special forces and one CIA operative. And then we were at the Malaysian border and we trained them down there in the Queens National Forest. So I'm thinking I'm, I shouldn't be done yet.
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A
So that's what a year long billet that you do that for? Yes, one year and then you're, you're basically. Your time, you're served. You're served your time.
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C
Two years as an officer and you
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A
have that opportunity to get out. And you say in the book here, A month before I was due for discharge, I told our personnel officer that I'd stick around for that extra year, but only if I could serve it in a Special Forces unit in Vietnam. He gave me a funny look. The personnel officer smiled that my. This, my friend, is your lucky day. Yeah, my dream to become real. I was headed for combat with the Special Forces. So there you go. Say you, you, you're like a recruiter's dream and a personnel assignment officer's dream.
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C
Yeah. I was like, yeah, yeah, I know. I've heard this before. Go on.
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A
Just so you extend for another year. Is that what it is?
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C
I did I stay extended for one more year. Some guys went indefinite. I didn't want to do that. I mean the handwriting's on the wall. I mean, I knew that when. That we had Lots and lots of company grade officers with no college. And when the risk came, reduction in force started coming. They were the first to go. And I knew that, I mean, you know, Ray Charles could see that coming. Okay, So I just said, one year, one year will do.
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A
Yeah, you say, I arrived in Vietnam August 25, 1969. And of course you get tasked with a headquarters job and you know, there's a thing called the MIC force, which give us a quick brief on what a mike force is.
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C
Certainly. Well, I didn't get tasked with an administrative job off the top, so to speak. First you go to Contrary island for two weeks. It's combat orientation course. Pretty good. And when I sat down with the deputy commander, he said, where do you want to go, young captain? And I said, I want to go to the, the two Corps. Because Vietnam was broken in. I core in the mountains up by the dmz. Two Corps Central Islands, three Corps and then four Corps was the Delta. I said I wanted to go to two Core. That's where Bob had been. And I want to be with the mobile strike force. Now they're special ops. Now there's a distinction in special ops in Vietnam. There is the SOG guys, the special operations Group who you've talked about and interviewed. John Stryker, Meyer Tilton. I mean those guys are just half nuts, if not completely. They go out in groups of eight, maybe more. And their whole job is to snoop and poop and find the enemy, locate them and then bring smoke on them. But the last thing in the world they want to do is be discovered. Our job, the mifforce, we go out with a battalion of highly trained airborne mountain yards and our job was to find and hook up with them and kick their ass. Totally different job. So the my force was broken down into battalions in corps, two corps being the biggest. We were in the Central highlands, we had four battalions and that would be about 300, I'm sorry, 400 to 450 mountain yards. All highly paid, airborne, and they were way above the mountain yard skill level at the A camps on the border. And we would go out with them with a team of American special forces. And either you were going into combat because one of the camps was in trouble, or you were going where likely the enemy was crossing over from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Your job was to find, engage and kick their butts. So we went out packing for bear every time we went out. And that was the difference between the two special ops. I asked for the battalion or the mike for our and young captain you have not been in combat, you have not heard shot fire and anger. But we got a hot area we want to send you to as the executive officer to a senior captain in Bu Prang, which is the southernmost camp in Tukor, Special Forces. And that's where I went.
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A
And then you show up there and you're on the ground there for not very long and you get your next assignment, which is order to go to this fire base called Fire base Kate.
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C
The monsoons, when the monsoons come in, it's rain you can't believe. And it's just regular clockwork. And what it does to your defenses, your sandbags, if it's not concrete, it's going to deteriorate and float away. So you have to rebuild everything at the end, refortify. So I was in the middle of refortifying because the enemy, all the enemy indications and it was pretty rudimentary back then. Intelligence was saying that the NVA was coming down. The nva, North Vietnamese army was coming down from the north and they were going to hit the camp of Bu Prang and then move to the district capital of Bami Thuit and then proceed over to the coast and cut the country in half. That was going to be the big push. And in 75 they actually did that. So I was very busy working with the local mountain yards doing that. And a colonel came out from B team, we were a team, B team in Bambi 2. And I gave him an intelligence briefing, just said what I just told you and he goes, yeah, okay. He says, yeah, okay. Well he says, by the way, you're going out to fire base gate for 30 days. Captain Barnum is there and he's coming in. And I said but sir, but sir, you don't understand. They need me here. I'm getting this. Uh huh, uh huh. Hey, get our next chopper out there. Yes sir. So.
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A
So Butrang, how far was it from Bootring to Buprang was prank?
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C
Not that many miles or clicks. It wasn't that many. Maybe eight.
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A
So was it like a substation of
- [29:19]
C
Buprang Firebase Kate for those three of them around Annikate Susan and they were mutually supporting each other in the support of fire of Buprang in anticipation. These were the smallest fire bases that you could have. I mean it was, it wasn't as big as a football field. They usually had 2155 howitzers and 1105 howitzer and they were in the middle of nowhere. Now I'd never been to Annie and Susan, but I had been to Kate, a little factoid. The lieutenant colonel of the artillery named the fire bases and Kate and Susan after his three daughter, kind of a forebearer of Dien Bien Phu, where he named the mountains after his mistresses. Anyway, so I got sent to Kate. We were the ones. We were maybe a kilometer from Cambodia, the Cambodian border, by the way. I have been back there and I got there.
- [30:22]
A
Are they, you know, looking at the pictures of Firebase K, you know, it looks like a little mountaintop like you said, it's about the size of a football field or so. Now did, did coalition forces or I don't know what you call did the, the mountain yards and the, and the Americans cut down the trees up there and make that. Or is that just naturally like formed in that way where there's not trees on top of the fire on top
- [30:45]
C
of that hill in that part of southern Thailand, it's gorge Vietnam. It's gorgeous. There's rolling hills, rolling hills, some significantly high, dense triple canopy jungle at the bottoms of them, where the, where there's moisture and creeks and everything. And then there's hills, there's fields that are like thigh high grass and then there's more vegetation. Fire base Kate had a lot of vegetation, thigh high grass on it, somewhat level. And I think they dropped the bulldozer in there and just scraped it off.
- [31:18]
A
Got it.
- [31:18]
C
And then they, and then they dug parapets.
- [31:23]
A
You say in the book here again, get the book. I just jumped through. You go into such great detail on this stuff. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. From high above Firebase Kate was a mottled red football field with dark laces on a bed of green felt. The pilot put the nose down and as we descended, the felt became jungle. The football resolved itself into sandbagged gun pits and bunkers, carved out a red dirt and the laces turned into curving lines of foxholes. So this is you from the air looking down at Firebase Kate. Now as you're going in there and you cover this in the book like you didn't want to go, primarily because it seemed like it was gonna be boring.
- [32:03]
C
Oh my God. Yeah, sit on my ass for 30 days.
- [32:06]
A
So you're like, well, you know, why am I gonna be out there in your. But in your mind when you see it isolated like that, or you're like, oh, this, this could get spicy at some point.
- [32:17]
C
Well, in my mind going in there and seeing where it's on the map, I was thinking, my God, there's There's no help run. There's no roads. There's no. There's only two ways in. Helicopter or walk, and that's it. So that, that kind of said, huh, Gotta make sure this, this place is best.
- [32:35]
A
Fast forward a little bit. We settled down in a dust cloud and the crew chief began tossing out boxes of ammo and C rations. I grabbed my car 15 assault rifle rucksack and hopped off. It was about 1500 local time on the afternoon of October 28, 1970. I looked around unhappily, noticing the high forested ridge to the southeast. Why in God's name did they put a fire base here? I thought from that ridge, the enemy could shoot down at us with flat trajectory weapons, small arms, rockets, recoilless rifles. It felt like we were in a punch bowl. I flashed on what I'd read of the Denb Few fiasco where the French cited their guns in a valley surrounded by big high hills. Convinced that the Viet Minh could never haul artillery to those heights. They learned that, that they in fact would haul artillery to those heights. I put those thoughts aside as Sergeant Dan Pirelli came to meet me. As we moved toward the command post, I looked around noting the two big 155 millimeter howitzers and the small 105 millimeter gun pointed north toward Ambush Hill. And again, just to describe this, there's Firebase Kate, which is a knoll sticking up. And then adjoined to it by little fingers is this other hill to the north. Yeah, to the north, called what you guys called Ambush Hill, which is also cleared off. So it looks very similar.
- [33:51]
C
No, no it's not actually. No, it's not.
- [33:53]
A
It looks to be in the pictures.
- [33:55]
C
Well, that's because that's the after.
- [33:57]
A
Okay, makes sense.
- [33:59]
C
Let me best describe this way. So you had this smaller than a football field fire basin around it on three sides, east, west and south, down about 60 to 80 meters was dense, dense jungle. That 60 and 80 meters between the top of fire base and down was thigh high grass. So basically cover, but I mean concealment but not cover. To the north you had a gentle slope because the rest of them were steep slopes. A gentle slope that ran north ran down a gentle slope and into the lower basin of it. And there was dense, dense jungle there, but there was a gap, a natural gap. You probably drive a deuce and a half through it and then you go on to. So you call that a saddle. And then the other half of the saddle was a smaller hill by much smaller hill and it had thigh high Grass at the top with dense jungle on top of it. But it wasn't big. Maybe it was about feet, 50 meters by 50 meters of wooded area on top of there. And every night we call it Ambush hill because we put about five, four or five guys out there as a listening post to detect because this was a, this was a way we figured the enemy would come.
- [35:19]
A
And this is Sergeant Pirelli, am I saying that right?
- [35:23]
C
Yes.
- [35:23]
A
And he's an SF guy as well.
- [35:25]
C
Oh, Buck Sergeant. Probably one of the, one of the finest guys I ever served with in my life. God knows. He was my right hand man. He was my number two. He was, he, he was exemplary. He passed not too long ago, but I couldn't have done without him. He was just that good.
- [35:43]
A
But other than that, you have on this base 150 or so mountain yards.
- [35:49]
C
Yes.
- [35:50]
A
And then 30 or so 27American artillery soldiers.
- [35:56]
C
Yes.
- [35:57]
A
And that's their job. So they're not special forces guys, they're regular soldiers.
- [36:01]
C
They're not infantry. They are artillery cannon cockers.
- [36:04]
A
Right. Continuing on here, not understanding until years later artillery in Vietnam operated in 360 degree world. I wondered why the big guns had no overhead cover, only chest high sandbags. Then I turned my head to take another look at the thickly form forested sharply defined ridge to the southeast. I knew that we were less than 4 km from the poorly defined border. Positioned within a bulge that my map showed jutting into Cambodia, a disputed zone claimed by both countries. It was a reminder that Cambodia was to the north, east and west and that even paven troops, there's a People's army of Vietnam troops were not on that forested ridge. Kate was still well within range of their 82 millimeter mortars, 75 millimeter mortars and 75 millimeter recoils rifles, their B40 rocket propelled grenades, and of course their big 120 millimeter rockets. Not a good feeling to have.
- [36:55]
C
No, no, not at all.
- [36:58]
A
I shook hands with Lieutenant Smith and Kerr, dropped my gear in a little sleeping hooch that I would share with Pirelli and got a wake up call. The roof was a row of sandbags on a sheet of plastic. It would keep the sun and rain out, but wouldn't stop a rifle bullet, let alone a mortar. The front side facing away from the hill was exposed. In short, it was a half assed attempt at best. Together we started a slow thorough inspection of the perimeter. So that's kind of your welcome to Kate and you know I was saying that it didn't. You didn't Think there was going to be much action there and there really hadn't been much.
- [37:32]
C
Absolutely none.
- [37:33]
A
These guys were playing volleyball. These guys were, you know, they didn't feel like the need to really dig in the way somebody that feels like attack is eminent. And so that's kind of what you see when you get there.
- [37:43]
C
Well, talked to Danny, Danny got there the day before I did. And I says, danny, what we got here and I dumped the gear and he goes, best we take a walkabout. So we did walk around the perimeter and the fighting positions weren't deep enough. No overhead cover. The concertino wasn't corrected. There was enough of it. The weeds were overgrown, the fields of fire weren't clear. There wasn't enough claymores. It was bad. And then the, and everybody else, they were playing cards, sending themselves. They were, they, you know, just weren't like in a combat zone. Volleyball. And the yards were playing volleyball too. And now, oh, what are we on a resort here on?
- [38:26]
A
You got to be there for a while before you get the mountain yards and start playing volleyball.
- [38:29]
C
That's right.
- [38:30]
A
That's the next level right there.
- [38:32]
C
What is this, boy? So I, I said this is, this is ridiculous. So I called a meeting of all the, the artillery guys and, and the mountain yard leadership because see, they have their own leadership. We're in charge. But they have, and it's kind of by a village. This guy may be in charge, he may be the captain of the guard, the, of the mountain yards, but there's a village elder there that will tell him what to do. So you have to be aware of that. So I called him, I said, no more cards, no more volleyball. We're going to get this, we're going to dig in, blah, blah, blah. Let him go, let them know. And they said, well, what's going on now we get this hard ass captain come in here, tell us all this, are we going to get hit? I said, I don't know anything about intelligence here, but I tell you right now, we cannot sustain anything in the condition we're in. So now the sun is getting low, so I got there at three, now it's about five, pushing six. And when that sun sets, there is no ambient light. It is as dark as you could imagine it to be. So I said, nothing can be done now, but tomorrow morning we're going to start. And Danny and I went, yeah, you know what, we're going back our hoots now. I think, I think we're on the right track. And I said, Danny, when's the last time they ran a patrol, he goes, well, the other captain let him let the yards go out hunting. Yeah, and they killed a monkey and I don't know what else. And you know, I'm sure they went the deep dive into the, into the vegetation hunting. I said, well, tomorrow morning let's take about 20 guys, let's go out there and do a cloverleaf patrolling around Firebase Skate and see what's out there. Not much we can do now. It's dark. So I did something jocko that for all the guys that have been in a combat situation will be nodding their heads right now. I took my boots off because I felt that safe and we were in a combat situation. But any night that you could actually take your boots off and not sleep in them, well, now that's a good night. And I took my boots off until 11:30,
- [40:44]
A
half an hour before midnight. I was jarred awake by the rattle and pop small arms fire. I opened my eyes, struggling to comprehend, to orient myself in time and space. Pearl, he said, it's Ambush Hill. We put a listing post out there at night. A few minutes later, I heard the outpost strikers coming in. Six or seven men beating feet as fast as their legs could carry them down steep Ambush Hill to the nearly flat saddle between the peaks, then up into Kate. More than a football field expanse and all they kept. They came in yelling beaucoup vc. They spoke a few words of French are strikers. And that's a term that you use to that you call the mountain yards strikers. And to them there was no difference between Viet Cong and Pete Pape pavan, which is again the People's Army. Many enemy soldiers is what they were saying. So this is sort of your first indication that something's absolutely happening.
- [41:35]
C
Absolutely.
- [41:36]
A
You have a AC47 Spooky aircraft arrived overhead about 40 minutes after I made the call and began laying curtains of fire all around Kate. So you guys got air support pretty quickly, pretty quick. At 0300, with no further sign of the enemy, Spooky departed for its base and I slipped back into my fart sack for a few winks. A good thing, because it was the last interrupted sleep I would enjoy for days to come. Wednesday, October 29, 1969. Something loud and close jarred me awake at dawn. I opened my eyes. It had to be Mike Smith's gun bunnies firing. Nothing to worry about, I told myself. So you know, you get here the big bangs, you think it's outgoing, fast forward a little bit. By the time Pirelli and I were up and out of the sack. It was a drummer symphony. Symphony of explosions. Boom, boom, boom. Shells from recoilless rifles and mortars and rockets landing everywhere. A muscular black gunner named Rudy Childs burst into our hoot, screaming, we're taking incoming. I'm hit. I'm hit. I called for the medic. We put Childs out on our floor. He was in shock, really freaking out. His back was peppered with shrapnel and bleeding badly. Dan and I pulled out our field dressing and started to patch him up as bad as he looked. We tried to reassure him, to calm him down. Hey, you're gonna be okay, I said, repeating it a couple of times. It's not that bad. You're just bleeding a lot. You'll be fine. Oh, am I? He said, and we both nodded, yes. And this had an almost immediate effect. Child's calmed down a lot, allowing us to bandage him. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, holy, this guy is really shot to pieces. So this is like it's on. And the horror of incoming, indirect and direct fire.
- [43:15]
C
Yeah.
- [43:15]
A
And it's. It just blankets you guys.
- [43:18]
C
It does. It just hit us all at the same time. And. But, you know, it was a barrage and lasted minutes. And then it ceased. And then we were, you know, patching people up, calling medevacs and stop here. Medevax, Dust off. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. They. Those guys are the bravest men I've ever met. They were phenomenal. And they come in and, you know, you deployed you some fighter or a gunships, maybe a couple Cobras or anything, but they'll come in, they'll get you. They'll get you. Never had one even. Even hesitate to come in, no matter what, and get the wounded. But I wanted to say something about those brave, brave men that flew those, oh, unarmed big red brick sighting cross on the side of it for them. Yeah. So we called it in and I said, that's. I said, danny, let's go.
- [44:11]
A
I'm thinking this stat off the top of my head. I think I have it right. 5, 000 Hueys were sent to Vietnam. 3, 200 of them were lost in combat.
- [44:19]
C
I believe every bit of that. Absolutely.
- [44:21]
A
And those guys flew those things. I've had a few of those Hilo pilots on here. Those guys flew those things like they were rented vehicles.
- [44:27]
C
You know, they.
- [44:28]
A
They were freaking hostile with those things.
- [44:31]
C
Things. I never heard that before, but. That's right. Except the Marines. The Marines felt that if they one went down, they had to pay for it.
- [44:38]
A
The army guys did not give a about those birds. And they flew them in all kinds of crazy conditions. You know, I've had Seawolf pilots on here, the Navy 6, the Navy Huey pilots. And like they were, they would run out of fuel. There's, there's pictures of them there. They ran out of fuel to, in order to stay on station and then had to just set down in a random rice paddy where they use ammo cans to siphon gas from one other Hilo into their Hilo to get it back up in the air. Yeah, those Vietnam Hilo pilots were something else.
- [45:10]
C
Cowboys.
- [45:11]
B
Yep.
- [45:11]
C
True. And I don't mean that a derogatory term. I mean that in the best term they were cowboys.
- [45:16]
A
Yes, indeed. In the greatest sense of the word.
- [45:19]
C
Yes.
- [45:21]
A
Fast forward. A bit less than 20 minutes after the barrage stopped, I assembled two dozen strikers armed with M16 rifles, grenade launchers and a couple, couple of M60 machine guns. We, we left circle, we left the circle of foxholes, threaded our way to the through the gap and moved across the grassy saddle and up Ambush Hill. So you see what's happening. You want to be at least go on the offensive a little bit, see what you can get.
- [45:44]
C
No idea what we're up against. Exactly.
- [45:46]
A
And this is like your second time, second day of interacting with these mountain yards.
- [45:52]
C
Not even a day, maybe 12 hours
- [45:53]
A
had they been trained by special forces guys. Okay, so that's where it is.
- [45:57]
C
And they were all from different camps. There'd be like a platoon from maybe 30, 40 guys from one camp, 30, 40 guys from another camp. They're all from different camps. They blended well, they worked well together. So they weren't all from one particular camp. And anyway, so.
- [46:14]
A
But you got that connection with them pretty, pretty straight that they had been trained with special forces guys.
- [46:19]
C
Yes, yes, they knew what to do
- [46:20]
A
because otherwise grabbing a bunch of people that you never work with before and going out, that's a pretty aggressive move.
- [46:27]
C
They're all infantry, Chuck.
- [46:30]
A
Ambushol was about the same elevation as Kate, or perhaps a few meters less. Unlike Kate, it offered somewhat gentler slope in three directions down to the jungle below. The summit was much smaller than Kate's, maybe 30 meters across and topped by a copse of trees surrounded by a veil of thick brush offering good concealment. We reached the hilltop without drama and in the tall grass we found a pavement pith helmet and numerous blood trails. I sent a point man down Ambush Hill toward the jungle. The rest of us followed single file through waist high grass down the slope as a slope that Grew steeper as we descended. About 30 meters from the tree line, the jungle turned into the fourth of July and Bastille Day. At least one machine gun and several AK47s. We went prone and returned fire, and a shit storm of flying lead came running right back over our heads. The grass was high enough to hide us, but offered no protection. I called to Dan and he blooped a few M79 grenades into the tree lawn, that tree line that quieted them down until we could pull back to a sort of berm, a long, knee high mound of soil covered with grass that offered, at least for a few minutes, both cover and concealment. Three of my men were wounded, but still ambulatory. For just a second or two, I was back at ocs. One of our tactical officers, officers is speaking. Gentlemen, goes this voice in my head, a hundred times faster than in real life. A lot of you are new to the army. You're young guys with no experience. We're training you to be infantry officers, leaders of men. When you become a new second lieutenant, you will be tested. You'll be the butt of jokes about being green and inexperienced. But when your men hear their first shots fired at them, they're all going to look to you. Your privates, corporals and, and sergeants, even your senior platoon sergeants, they will all look to you. That's how the army works. They're going to look to you, and you better goddamn be well ready to make the right decisions. Sure. As. As soon as the shooting starts, my striker said, what do we do? I've been an officer for two years, Special Forces, trained. I'd been around many senior noncoms and they had taught, tutored mentored me. I wasn't afraid. I knew what to do. And I was pissed about being ambushed. I couldn't tell whether it was a squad down there or a regiment, but if they wanted to dance, Arthur Murray was my middle name. Yeah, that's. I really like that because you go through that moment where you're. You realize in that moment, yep, everyone's. I got to make the decision. I got to make something happen. That's the leadership position.
- [49:00]
C
Do something and do it now. Yep, don't freeze
- [49:06]
A
you. So you get in kind of a skirmish line, you start to sweep down the hill, and meanwhile a helicopter shows up like a observation helicopter called a Loach. Oh six. And this guy shows up. And as you're starting to kind of flank the enemy, you starting to move in sort of a big wagon wheel type sweeping mode movement, kind of Reminded me of little round top.
- [49:30]
C
Exactly what I said.
- [49:32]
A
Yeah, it's like a little round top maneuver that you're starting to make. And meanwhile, this Loach guy says, let me see what's going on there for you. He said, hovering just off the treetops, he rose maybe twice treetop level and called back, get out of there, man. I see you. I see where you're going. And they're mounting a force to flank you. A whole shitload of guys coming, a lot more than you've got. I told everybody to pull back up to the berm. As we moved, I heard the Loach pilot flying over the enemy, meanwhile hollering on the tactical frequency for more help. This was one crazy dude. It takes two hands to. And two feet to fly a helicopter. But while he slid sideways and I blink off the trees and talking on the radio, he was also shooting out the window with his.45 sidearm. And the enemy, of course, was shooting, shooting back with automatic weapons. He ran out of ammo, put in his second and last magazine, an act that required two hands, and resumed firing. What a freaking maniac.
- [50:28]
C
I so much wanted to meet this guy.
- [50:32]
A
What a beast. Hey, you got to get out of there, he called. Half a minute later, he's back in the air. You've got one down in the tall grass. It was the point man. I couldn't leave him dead or alive. I took three men and we charged down the the hill, catching the enemy by surprise. And fortunately, we didn't have to go far. He was hit in the head, barely alive. Then it was Rice Krispies time. All snap, crackle and pop. As the pavement opened up with dozens of rifles. My strikers fired back. I reached down, picked up the wounded striker and put him across my shoulders in a fireman's carry and grabbed his weapon, just like in the movies. Then I discovered this is a lot effing harder in real life. We moved as fast as we could back up the hill, steel jacketed, hornets buzzing and whining all around us, and somehow got back behind the berm unscathed. So you freaking charged down to grab this wounded guy.
- [51:23]
C
Let me, let me mention something about this. And when I, when I do seminars or talk events. Okay, so one of the first questions you would ask is why? I mean, you as the leader, as the one that's on the radio calling in the airstrikes, and Danny's quite capable, but it was pretty much on me at that time. Why would, why would I do that instead of having somebody else do that? And the Reason is these mountain yards didn't know me from an egg. They knew nothing about me. And by doing that. First of all, let me go back to this. I've never asked anyone to do anything that I hadn't done or wouldn't do. That goes right with the three M's of leadership. Never. So I said, let's go get him. And in the doing of that, they saw that I valued my life the same as their lives, the same as I value my own life. Now, I don't think I'd ever had any problem. Would have had a problem, but they understood that we were all in this together and that I didn't put myself up here. And I was one of them and I was in command. So thank God I didn't get a shot, but I did was able to get them back there. And that's why I did that, because I've been asked many times about that.
- [52:34]
A
Yeah, yeah, we had some. Not quite the same thing, but a similar. A similar element working with Iraqi soldiers. Yeah, The Iraqi soldiers were not well trained. They were not very motivated. They were not educated. They were very unskilled. And so, you know, sometimes it was like, well, why do you guys go out with them? So we would train them, but we didn't get a lot of time to train, but we'd do some training with them. But then we'd have to go out in the field with them on patrols and. And some of the questions were like, well, why are you going out with them? Why don't you just let them go out with, you know, let them go out by themselves. Well, first of all, that would be a disaster. They couldn't. They couldn't call for fire support. They couldn't get casualty evacuation done because they just didn't have the capability to do that. So that was part of it. But the other thing is exactly what you're saying. You have to show them that, like, hey, we're gonna bear some of this burden with you.
- [53:28]
C
Yeah.
- [53:29]
A
And so that they. So you develop a actual relationship so that they can hopefully end up in a position where they can defend their own country. And, you know, this is a lot more extreme example of that, of you saying, hey, listen, we're here.
- [53:44]
C
Same principle. Yep, same principle.
- [53:48]
A
You go on to say, a couple strikers took the wounded man. And I paused 10 seconds to think. Strange. Strange had said that we had to get out of here because they were closing in on us as we were moving back up the hill. Then he added, they're going to cut you off at the gap, that meant that they were moving southward, using the jungle to mask their project and were planning to take us off. As we came toward the narrow passageway leading into the fire base, the one and only thing to do was to beat them high diddle, diddle, right up the middle, the most direct route straight across that grassy saddle and hope to hell we got there first. We took off moving as fast as we could, two guys carrying the head shot man and others helping out our ambulatory wounded. And we ran like the devil was on our heels. Safely back at Kate, I learned that the striker res striker I had rescue rescued, the one with the head wound had died. And that's a classic like leadership scenario, right. You hear word that the enemy's maneuvering to cut you off and you have to make a decision right then. And there's a constant battle for a leader between speed and security. Want, you know, hey, we move fast, we can get something done quickly, but we're going to sacrifice some security when we do that. Or we can be very secure, but we're going to move slowly. And you had to make that call instantly. Hey, we're gonna just haul ass and beat them and get across that gap before they can cut us off.
- [55:13]
C
Right.
- [55:13]
A
Which thankfully, that's a call that you made. Yeah, otherwise it would have been a nightmare. So this, how this is like your first day of real combat?
- [55:23]
C
First for shot fire, Nager, I know I've said that several times, but yes, it, it's, it's I, I just in, in one fell swoop, I received, I, I earned my combat infantry was bad maneuvering against a hostile enemy force while in the infantry.
- [55:38]
A
How well did you think you were prepared for that, looking back now?
- [55:41]
C
Oh, I was very prepared. And people ask me that a lot of time. I just did a seminar here in Florida and They said at 21 years old, barely 21, first time in combat and this five day ordeal, how did you do it? I said I was trained, I was trained. The army trained me to do this. And when Reagan was shot, okay, when President Reagan was shot, the guys reacted as they were trained and they, and in the doing of that, they saved his life. And it's the same thing. I reacted, it all kicked in right away. You've been there, you don't even think about it. You do it because this is the way you trained and you've done it a million times. So that's the same thing.
- [56:21]
A
Yeah, I've had some guys, I had James Webb, who was the Secretary of the Navy but, you know, same thing. You know, he went to. He went to the Naval academy, got done with the naval academy, went to the basic school, went to the basic school, went to infantry officer course for the Marine Corps, had nine days of leave or whatever it was, gets to Vietnam. They put him in a jeep, they take him out in the jeep. They drive out there, they walk a little while, they point up at a ridgeline. They go, hey, your platoon's up there. Am I relieving anybody? Nope. The last platoon commander got wounded or killed or whatever. He's not there. So you're just taking over. He gets up there, and that night he's in this massive gunfight, calling for fire, the whole nine yards. And I asked him how prepared. Prepared were you? He's like, I was totally prepared. And it's. Again, you know, and we were talking about this a little bit before we hit record today, but just the experienced people, that combat experience guys that were putting you through training, that they are able to, like, 1 to 1, directly transfer that information to you and the other guys so that they know it. And when you get there, you're ready. And I, unfortunately, I think once you lose that direct combat experience as instructors, you, you, you start losing some. It's that, that knowledge transfer, it becomes less accurate and less intense. And, you know, I was lucky. I learned from some Vietnam guys.
- [57:40]
C
Yeah.
- [57:40]
A
And then, and then we learned from guys that had learned directly from Vietnam guys. And I still felt like it was a good transfer. But I think over time, you know, administrative constraints come in and people, they start, you know, it's like they start relating more to what they see in the movies, to what actually happens, you know, when you're talking about carrying your wounded, carrying this wounded guy. You know, people don't realize how hard it is to pick up and carry a wounded guy. It's freaking, It's. It takes four guys, you know, to truly pick up and carry someone for a long time. It. It really takes you out of the fight and, you know, can you do it? Yeah, you can. You did, obviously. But those kind of little lessons, over time, they get lost. So the fact that you were able to step up day one and lead troops in combat with that, just proof
- [58:31]
C
of
- [58:33]
A
the, the experience and the attitude of the people that taught you and trained you.
- [58:37]
C
Yeah, they were good. They were very. And they were all. We said this thing called lessons learned in Vietnam and, and they were all, all the stuff they were teaching us, little tricks and things like this. That's what they had.
- [58:49]
A
Yeah, yeah. Fast forward a little bit. Around ten hundred hours almost before my strikers were back in their foxholes, PAVEN 82 millimeter mortars, B40 rockets, recoilless rifles, machine guns and small arms slammed Kate with a typhoon of steel and fire. Most of this, but not all, came from those easterly heights. The 105 millimeter howitzer guarding our north and our most vulnerable quarter was knocked out. Its tires flattened so it couldn't be aimed. Nevertheless, its crew disregarded the mortars and rocks to remain at their gun. They manhandled it around to where they could fire at the ridge and started shooting. The previously damaged 155 Howitzer was hit again. The only bright spot was that Air Force Major George Latin, a forward air controller Nelson circling high overhead in his bird dog to serve as our primary aircraft manager. He was our lifeline, the only thing that we that could save everyone on Cape from certain death. Latin, call sign Walt20, was on his way to becoming a legend in his own time. But like me, this was his first engagement on his first day of combat in Vietnam. Outnumbered and outgunned, effectively surrounded by a vastly superior Pavan force, later estimated at between 4,000, 6,000. By the way, you have 150 or 200 guys. Yeah, they have 4,600. We would have been overrun that very day had not Latin vectored fast mover helped to our tiny outpost. First in were the burly but surprisingly agile F4 Phantoms from the 559th Tactical Fighter Squadron, call sign boxers out of Cameron Bay. Latin brought them in swift and deadly, then brought in swift and deadly F100 super sabers from the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing called call sign blades. And you go on to just talk about how these guys show up and the incredible difference it makes and we get into napalm scenario. The tumbling napalm canisters exploded, spilling liquid fire to boil across the dark green jungle. The heat warmed our exposed skins skin and the wind wafted the sharp metallic taste of charred petroleum to bite deep in our throats. When the Phantoms were gone, the super Sabers appeared low and fast, flitting seemingly almost close enough to touch. Sweeping across the ridge to our east, black finned tailbone or black finned bombs seemed to break loose of their own volition. Slanting downward, the blast, perhaps a rifle shot distant, hurled a concussion wave that seemed to bend the air before staggering us with its invisible force. It was great theater, truly un, unforgettable performance. Yeah, and you're so you're talking directly to Latin.
- [61:31]
C
This Guy, the Ford air controller, you know, the bird dog. Right. Single engine. I can. I. I can't talk to the fast movers. I can't talk to the jets, the Air Force. But I talked to him. He. I'll in. In my. Visually, I'll say, okay, you see that ridgeline? Da, da, da, da to this. And I'm shooting azimuth or whatever. He said, I think I see where it is. And then he would put a rocket in. A white phosphorus rocket marker. Yeah. And I'd say, no, it's about. About 50 meters. Da, da, da. And then he would call in the guy, the jets, and then in vector them in using the correction. And it worked pretty well until it didn't work. Until it was the jungle all looked kind of the same. It was getting very hard. So I took a magazine and I went to our ammo supply and I took all the tracer rounds and I loaded up a magazine with tracer rounds and I said, okay, watch this. And I went to the edge of the perimeter and I laid down on my stomach and I started shooting these tracer rounds exactly where I wanted it to go. And he says, got it. And he put a round in exactly where I was shooting. And they came in and just bombed the piss out of it. So I went to the other side and I started doing it again. Again. Bullseye. I went to the third place. Well, they were catching on now. And. Hey. So we had to. I had to back that up a couple clicks. But once he established where it was, they came in and did well. But I could. I could talk to him. I mean, but I couldn't talk to the jets. Chopper is a different story. Talk right to them.
- [63:07]
A
Yeah, that's something that. When I was a young radio man in the SEAL teams, we would care. I would carry a mag of all tracers to mark the target, you know, and never got to do it. But apparently it worked out about two
- [63:20]
C
times, about all you can do.
- [63:21]
A
I would say by the third time, you'd be a real bullet magnet, though.
- [63:25]
C
Yeah. Yeah.
- [63:27]
A
Fast forward a little bit. It's about 1100 hours. I called for the medevac choppers to take out our wounded.
- [63:32]
B
Wounded.
- [63:32]
A
This proved to be a dangerous procedure not only for the pilots and crew who flew. Flew through fire to land on Kate because you had taken a bunch of wounded in these attacks, these mortar, rocket, artillery attacks, you'd taken a bunch of wounded. Also for the men who was obliged to stand in the open while directing the chopper to safely land on our small, crowded Hilltop. That was me as the medevac slowly hovered in. Both pilots had their eyes riveted on me seconds from touching down. From the corner of my eye, I saw B40 rockets fiery launch from the hillside to our east. I was poised to dive behind something, but the pilots didn't see the rocket frantically milling my arms. I waved them off, but the bird kept coming. In my mind's eye, I saw the rocket and helicopter arriving simultaneously. Finally, the pilot realized what was happening and started to peel off. The rocket landed with a fiery explosion. Something red hot slammed in my up lever, upper left arm staggering me. Jagged holes appeared in the Medevac Huey's underside as it shuddered upward. It dipped from sight into the valley below and then climbed back into the safety of the clouds. My arm was on fire. The worst pain I'd ever felt. Dark blood soaked my fatigue jacket as I ran to Kate's makeshift aid station. Doc clean the entrance and exit wounds. It seemed that the shrapnel went all the way through. He wrapped my arm in a big bandage, what we dubbed an elephant codex. The red hot steel and prompt disinfectant ensured that there would be no infection. Doc told me I was very lucky. Then he said another medevac chopper was inbound and asked if I wanted to get on it. Until then, I hadn't even thought about leaving. I shook my head. I wasn't going anywhere. So you're wounded. How bad was it? Could you move your arm?
- [65:21]
C
It got better. Yeah, I didn't put a sling or anything. Just bandaged it up, took some. Took some pills.
- [65:28]
A
Oh yeah, that's right. What kind of pills did you guys have? You guys had like the stay awake pills, which is just basically meth.
- [65:35]
C
It's. Yeah, we'll talk about that right now. When I got to Vietnam, they gave. Gave me a jar of dextral amphitamine. And I never heard of this. I didn't know what it was. And I said, what are these? I said, stay away pills. And I said, what are they for? And they said, you have to be up on the radio all night or at some point running for your life in the jungle. You're going to want these and you're going to give them to your men too. Okay. I never thought about it. Put in a rug. I started using them then. Now the after story is when I'm going home, Deros and going home, and I've told this story a few times, I go, oh, well, these might come in handy in the States. So I threw him in my shaving kit and I'm going through and you're leaving Vietnam and all these signs. If you have any drugs from in this bin, no questions asked, you cross this line, you're going to jail. Okay, fine. Now I'm in a war suit, I got the beret on, khakis, ribbons, jump boots, spit shine. I'm looking pretty goddamn sharp. And I walk up there and there's this private E3, you know, and he's MP and he's going through and he opens my bag and he pulls this out like this. He goes, freeze dextroamphetamine on there. And he goes, sir, are these yours? I said, yeah. And he goes, sarge, I go, yeah. So the sergeant comes and he looks at this and he was kind of a gruff guy and he looks at me and he goes, so are these years. I said, yeah. And he goes, he says, keep behind a curtain. He goes, where did you get these? I said, they were issued to me. He said, do you know what these are? And I said, yeah, they stay weight pills. And he goes, this is speed. And I went, you know, that's a good name for it. And he, he's probably in a bar somewhere now telling that story. And he said, go, go. Put him in that container out there and then get, get sir through. Go. Yeah, true story. And it's got its own legs, but yeah, that's what happened. So yeah, I was on dextroamphenamide. I was taking that in. My God. Does that work? Check.
- [67:41]
A
Fast forward a little bit. A little later, Ch47 Chinook swooped in to drop sling load gear and then flew away. Just before dark, the Chinook was back with a new 105 millimeter howitzer dangling from its belly. So you know the guns that have been damaged, they bring in new guns. Thankfully, one gun. Oh, one gun. A little after the Chinook departed, a line of five UHD1 Hueys, the flying delivery trucks known as Slicks and armed only with door mounted machine guns, approach low and slow, Approach low and fast from the west. They were escorted by two Huey gunships. All seven aircraft were from the 48th AHC out of BMT. In the right hand seat of the leading gunship was Chief Warrant Officer Ben gun gay, age 20, out of Richmond, Virginia, serving as aircraft commander and leader of this two ship fire team. Across the valley to the southeast, our Pavan neighbors had been planning a big reception in our honor. When the party committee saw that we had invited more friends to share the fun, they were furious. As the first slicks approached the neighbors began shooting them with 12.7 millimeter heavy machine guns, small arms and RPGs. My strikers were in the fighting positions shooting back, but it didn't seem to have much effect. I. I told Garman. Am I saying that right? German. German. Garmin, the generator man, as well as Hopkins and Coon and whoever else I could lay hands on to find spots and fire at the enemy positions. The 105 crew cranked their gun around to the east and opened up direct indirect fire mode. So this is again, number one, you guys are on in a seriously bad position. And number two, the everybody that's coming in to try and help you is getting like engaged in a real big way.
- [69:23]
C
Yeah.
- [69:26]
A
Now you say here, and I'm fast forwarding a big chunk here. I spent the night of the 20, or this isn't you talking. I spent the night of the 29th in a generator pit on the radio with Spooky and Shadow, the gunships John, Kura, Carl, and again, listen, you introduce all these characters and you give an awesome biography of who they are, where they come from, and I'm not the guys on the ground with you. Some of the pilots that you did were able to track down. So the book has just got so much incredible detail of these heroes. Here's one of them. I spent the night of the 29th in a generator pit on the radio with Spooky and Shadow, the gunships. John Kerr recalls. I enjoyed that. We had really good support that night. On the dawn of, at dawn on the 30th, as soon as the last gunship left, incoming fire resumed. Then it was all Brack and me sitting in this foxhole, kind of staring at each other as if to say, what are we going to do now? As soon as that barrage began, we, I started prepping to defend against a ground attack. The night before, I'd send a coded message requesting more reinforcements, lots of ammunition and water. We were running low on everything. So when you're, when it's nighttime and you got the gunships out there, it keeps the enemy kind of keeps their
- [70:36]
C
heads down, does them at bay.
- [70:38]
A
Yeah. And then as soon as the. They go away because the gunships don't fly at night. And again, these are, if you don't know, these are the what, AC47 gun gunships. They're. They fly low and slow and they just orbit around the, the ground forces and they can be hit by ground fire. So they, generally speaking, they do not to this day, like AC130, those things do not fly during the day they will leave and go back to safety. And so that's what's happening here.
- [71:08]
C
There's, there's that critical time, as you well know in, in combat when you're, when you're having that much support. Once the, the night warriors go home because they can't be out there at dawn. But prior to enough light for the choppers to come in or the jets to come in is a very crucial time because they'll hit you with everything plus the kitchen sink. And that's what they did every free time. But we, and we knew that and we were ready.
- [71:37]
A
And you're sending messages, we need ammunition and we need food and we need water.
- [71:42]
C
Food, not so much water and ammo. Absolutely.
- [71:51]
A
You say this. I took stock of our ammo and found that we had very little left and we had fired off all our claymore mines, usually to good effect. Even if we were to get more of these anti personnel mine, there was so much incoming that I didn't see how my men could leave cover and place them a safe distance below their fighting positions. Several aircraft tried to bring us ammo, but each time was driven off by intense fire. Around noon there was a break in the action. By now we were virtually out of water and many of my strikers only had a couple of 20 round magazines left. While we redistributed what little ammo we had, I called again for resupply. 20 round mag and you guys are pretty much out of water.
- [72:30]
C
That was horrible. Being out of water.
- [72:32]
A
It's the worst. Fast forward a little bit. Black and Nolan arrived over Kate in their gunships at almost the same time as Matlock and Guthrie in their slick. And again these names that I'm throwing out there, you give great background on who these guys are, where they come from, where they're flying out of, what their job was like. It's, it's incredible. So get the book. The Joker's guns gave them cover on their approach. Then our fact directed Gay's fire team to find and finish a suspected Paven anti aircraft site with at least one 12.7 millimeter heavy machine gun. I located the area of the AA site and began an attack at about 150ft above the jungle. Followed by Blackie and Hearn in the second aircraft. Gay wrote in his after action report. Matlock and Gun 3, Guthrie in Ghost Rider 12 were just then hovering on decate. As we passed over the wire and bunkers, the men in the cargo compartment kicked out the water and ammo, wrote Guthrie. Matlock flared the Huey and stood on its tail to stop it. The medevac helicopters came in like a shot, recalls the slightly built Jimin. They were so amazing. They came in at full speed just above the treetops, and as soon as they got close to to the base of our hill, they would gun it to get up the slope and then circle around in what seemed like full power. Then they'd stop and hover just a little above the ground so that they didn't have to build up momentum to lift off. It seemed like it just took a couple of minutes to come in, reload, and take off because the enemy was constantly shooting at them. I landed on the H for helipad. It should have been R for mortar registration point, says Matlock. Jeremy manhandled a wounded, wounded Striker toward the landing Huey. Neither was neither the first nor the last time he would do so on Kate. He was shot up so bad that when I lifted him, he could barely hold his head up. And he was so bloody that I had to put my arms under his armpits and grab his other hand or would have just slipped out of my grasp, Jeremy said. Covered with the wounded man's blood, he put the Striker on the Huey's cargo floor. The crew chief beckoned German to come aboard, but he shook his head. I'm not hurt. It's not my blood. He yelled over the engines. A beat behind Jeremy, more than a dozen strikers mobbed the aircraft. A yard unharmed and carrying his weapon jumped on. The gunner yelled to us, is he supposed to be going? Says Jeremy. If he isn't wounded, he's not supposed to go. Jeremy yelled. The Gunner aimed the M60 at the yard and told him to get off or you'd blow him away. So he jumped off another yard, grabbed him, disarmed him, and two more yards. Yards took him away, and a few seconds later, I heard one shot. And then the two yards walked away without the guy. Without the guy they'd pulled off the chopper. Jeremy believes the Striker was executed for desertion. That's kind of a wild story. It is like this guy was going to try and get out of there, and his buddy said, no, actually, you're not going anywhere.
- [75:24]
C
Yeah, and your honor, I don't. I know nothing about that.
- [75:29]
A
Matlock now tried to hover off the helipad, but the overloaded ship, with wounded men standing on the skids and clinging to sides, couldn't rise. We shooed the excess away and lifted off just. Just as an 82 millimeter mortar rounded round landed under us. Right on the H. Matlock recalls. The blast wave blew the helicopter off the lz, doing some structural and sheet metal damage to the bird. We also took a few rifle rounds coming out. In fact. Fact, the mortar's steel tail fins were driven almost completely through the aircraft's hardened aluminum fuselage. Working to Kate's north, Gay had made several passages passes each time followed by Black and Heron all firing rockets at pavement at the paven machine guns. As I turned behind Blackie, I observed AA fire, ground fire on from a second 12.7 millimeter gun hidden about 90 degrees from the first one, Gay recalls. It was a flak trap. The second gun had remained silent and hidden until the first gun had lured a gunship into range. I saw, I saw Black's ship getting hit, says Gay. The bottom of the aircraft was struck in the fuel cell by a 12.7 millimeter rounds and immediately burst into flames. I called immediately, eight, five, this is seven three. You're on fire. You need to put it down. Both aircraft were so low they couldn't see very far. Black replied, where's the field? Before Gay could respond, the stricken Huey's tail boom separated from its fuselage and the ship flipped upside down, plunging 50ft into the jungle and exploding on contact with the ground. The aircraft was so close that I felt the blast intense heat on my face and arms. A spectacle that haunts me to this day as the reality of what it just witnessed, what I just witnessed sunk in. I felt hollow, fighting nausea. I struggled to focus my attention on the multitude of other urges, urgent issues confronting me. Where would the next ground attack come from? Did I have enough men to hold the flank? Enough ammo? Meanwhile, Matlock and Gun three were fighting gravity and blast damage, nursing their overloaded Huey up from the trees and out of small arms range. To them and to many on Kate, it appeared that Joker85 had been hit by an RPG. We were taking off to the west and they just crashed into the jungle to the north of our flight path. As we passed over the wreckage, I saw paven troops shooting into the cockpit. Gay began to circle the flaming wreckage, but immediately came under heavy fire. The FAC ordered him to leave the area. I thought about mounting a rescue for any survivors. After a few seconds, I realized that no one could have lived through that explosion, and that would have been suicide to venture among the hostiles swarming around the crash site. Every man on Kate who witnessed this horrific event was damaged inside way for the rest of his life. None of these, none of us had met these aviators Black Hearn, Canada and Lot didn't then didn't even know their names. But they were our brothers, American soldiers who had repeatedly risked their lives for us and they were now dead. The thought of it was overwhelming. Even now thinking about it is painful.
- [78:33]
C
To read it as graphic as it is is one thing, but to have seen it, those of us that did and then felt that heat from the explosion was a tough time for all of us.
- [78:53]
A
Now, did this from a tactical perspective, did this in your mind inhibit any other birds from coming?
- [79:04]
C
Oh, yeah, it was suicide. They brought in a 37 millimeter, an aircraft gun too. And so it was now suicide for. Come in for. We had these chopper pilots, these fighters, these gunships were coming in fast and dumping rockets and, you know, grenades and everything. They had the machine guns, the miniguns and everything. And then we can't do that anymore because it was suicide. And so we gave up that close air support and rightly so. So now it was. They had to come from a fair. So our we, we were in a bad situation. It just got worse.
- [79:46]
A
This fighting continues on. Fast forward a little. I was running on adrenaline and the tiny dextrometafine amphetamine pills that special force provided extended combat situations. You already talked about that. Late that night, I was back on the radio with Spooky six one orbiting overhead since full darkness, firing at any light they saw on the ground and anything that we heard from the darkness outside our stronghold. So this is it. You're honkered down. You're, you're, you know, got Spooky out there thankfully, laying down fire, taking out whatever they see. Fast forward a little bit here. I never saw the B52s. I never heard their engines. At 10:11 local time, 36 seconds after the first bomb was released, as it reached a velocity of just over 800 miles per hour, it slammed into the ground and detonated. It was followed by 323 more bombs. 90 tons of high explosives packed in steel landed a half a kilometer or less from Kate. Not knowing what was coming in, I glanced eastward and beheld the first few massive explosions. For a fleeting moment, I thought they were back. Blast from some indirect fire. Weapon recoiling, shocked, I thought, oh my God, if that's the back blast, how in God's name will we ever survive the impact? Then the incredible shock waves and deafening sounds rolled over me and my nose went in the dirt on Kate. It was like being camped out on the road between Sodom and Gomorrah while fire and brimstone rained from the heavens, an unearthly roar assaulted our ears. The earth bucked up and dipped and shook for minute, for a minute that seemed like an eternity. Although they slept on clean sheets, showered daily with hot water, eat, ate an air conditioned mess hall and nobody was shooting at them. I've got to applaud those airmen for putting their bombs just where I wanted them. Any one of those 500 pounders had landed on Kate, I'm certain that it would have killed me and everyone else on our hill. As it was, one bomb landed in the gully to our east, close enough for shrapnel to kill one of my strikers and wound two others. 323, 500 pound bombs.
- [82:02]
C
It was amazing. I've never seen it. Well, you're never that close. That's way beyond danger close. But we needed it.
- [82:10]
A
What was the coordination like for that? Did you pass it? Did you pass it? They give you a timeline.
- [82:16]
C
Not until the last moment. Until the last moment. They said, take cover, deep cover. And I put the word out really quick. I still didn't know what was going on. I didn't mean I had asked for everything in the kitchen sink, but I had no idea they were actually going to put a B52 strike in. But they did. And it was truly one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in combat. No, the most amazing thing I've ever seen in combat. Be that close to it. So too close. Too close. Yeah, but it had to be.
- [82:50]
A
So it was that 10 minutes after the devastation of the B52 strike, the shit storm battering Kate resumed. Rockets, mortars, recoilless rifle, small arm fire smash Kate from every direction. So even after that, massive.
- [83:04]
C
What happened, and I found out this after the war is a lot of those, they launch out of the Philippines and they fly in a certain direction and those, those Russian trawlers that are out there in the ocean, they tracked them and they would be broadcasting it. And then when they make their turns and then they started heading for a
- [83:25]
A
hot area, they kind of estimate where they were.
- [83:27]
C
They would broadcast to the NVA and the NVA would let them say, hey, so believe it or not, they had, they had actual warning and they, they, if you caught them, if you caught them without warning, oh my God, you'd have break the back of any, any major battle. But they knew and although I'm sure we did massive damage, they not enough to break, break their backs. So they came back out of their caves and bunkers and resumed resume the fight. I was a bit disappointed yeah, it
- [83:56]
A
is always crazy how what we think is going to, like, totally decimate the enemy. Look at the island campaigns over in the Pacific theater. Like, those guys would get. The Japanese would get bombed for days. And, you know, the Marines be thinking, oh, there's no way anyone survived that. And sure enough, they're just dug in a caves.
- [84:14]
C
That.
- [84:15]
A
That's just a crazy concept to think about because you. You see it happening, you think, no way could anybody survive that. But if you dig in, it's survivable. You know, you say here. Our last functioning howitzer, the 105, took its second direct hit from a recoilless rifle and was finally knocked out. A little later, I made the rounds of the perimeter with Ross, and we took advantage of a lull in the action to chat about personal things. So Ross was a guy that had showed up as a replacement for Kerr. For Kerr, because Kerr had been actually
- [84:46]
C
a replacement for Mike Smith, who had been wounded. And I. And he didn't want to go, but I said, no, we can't take care of you here.
- [84:55]
A
Right.
- [84:56]
C
So he showed up for them on October 30, but I couldn't meet with him until the 31st of October,
- [85:05]
A
you say. So I made. As I made rounds of the perimeter with Ross, we took advantage of a lull in the action to chat about personal things. He was from a small town in Wisconsin, grew up 150 miles away in a neighborhood in neighboring Illinois. Our backgrounds, or sorry, I, grew up less than 150 miles away in neighboring Illinois. Our backgrounds were similar, although he'd been to college and was a bit older. During our conversation, he had noticed he was wearing a wedding band. So I asked about his wife. Ross replied that he was due to meet her and their newborn son, John, a child that he'd never seen in Hawaii. When he went on RnR, Ron went on to talk about his son, how proud he was to be with father, about how he could not wait to hold the infant, about his hopes and dreams for his little family's future. Then the shooting resumed. In a moment, we were pinned down on the northwest side of the perimeter. We were safe for that moment, but I couldn't run the show from there. When things slowed down around 1120, and after a few minutes with only occasional incoming, I decided we had to risk moving. We were high on the military crest. As soon as we stood and moved to the top, we'd be silhouetted, silhouetted against the sky. I pointed out the sandbagged command bunker and told Ross that that was where we were headed. I described its L shaped entrance and blast wall in front to protect it from near misses of flying explosives. I told Ross, we're going to run to that bunker. When you get there, enter from that side. Ross nodded his head to show that he understood. There's no point in giving them two targets. I continued. I'll go first. Let me get to cover behind the blast wall before you follow. Understand? Got it. Ross nodded again. I got was 50 or 60ft to the bunker, the first part uphill, but altogether no more than a four second sprint. I took off running as fast as I could. The enemy was only about 125 meters away on the opposite opposite hillside. When I was about halfway to the bunker, I heard Ross's footsteps behind me a few steps back and closing. Then I saw the rocket. Time seemed to slow down as I heard the B40s distinctive scream. From the corner of my eye, I saw its fiery red tail heading right at me. I hit the entrance behind the blast wall and the exploding warhead's shock wave blew me inside the bunker to safety. Behind me, Ross lay crumpled in the doorway. One more step and he would be telling this story. Instead, a jagged hole in his neck pulsed a fountain of blood. I slapped my hand over the wound. Someone from inside the bunker moved up behind me to help. I have no earthly idea who that was, but despite my hand clamped over his throat, Ross was still squirting blood. In a half a minute the fountain slowed to a trickle. Deathly pale, Ross was not breathing, and I realized he would never see his new son. I had told him to wait until I was in the bunker. He said that he understood. Why the hell didn't he wait? I felt rotten. Empty. I needed time to come to terms with his death, but I didn't even have a few minutes. I tucked the thought away and returned to the urgent work of getting more air support and preparing for yet another ground attack. An hour later, I zipped Ross into a body bag. I noticed that he'd neglected to button the top of his flak vest, leaving that. Leaving his throat exposed. Had it been closed, would that few inches of Kevlar have saved him? It's very hard to know.
- [88:41]
C
Okay, so one thing about Ross. He had the bluest eyes that I'd ever seen. And I've met Frank Sinatra. And when I held him in my arms, his those beautiful blue eyes just. You could see the. See the life drain out of him. And since he was from Appleton, Wisconsin, and I was from Rock Island, Illinois, I said when I get out when this war is over, if I make it through this, I'm going to go to Appleton and I'm going to go to his parents and his wife and his son, well, his infant son, and tell him that, yes, I was with him the day he died, and he died in the arms of a friend. He wasn't just. Just got killed in a jungle and shipped home. But I actually held him in his last and in my new friend. And, well, time. Time gets in the way and life gets in the way. So in October, so I didn't. Because everything started going and I got so busy and everything, but it haunted me that I never fulfilled this promise that I'd made to myself. And in the writing of the book, in the doing of the book, Ken Moffitt, who I've mentioned was an incredible moving force of this whole thing, found John Ross, the son that his father never saw. He was in Waterloo, Iowa, not that far. He knew nothing about his father because his mother was devastated. His grandparents would never, ever talk about him, which they wouldn't allow to bring it up. They were beyond, beyond grief. So the first army in Rock Island, Illinois, when they got wind of this thing, they had a special ceremony, and we brought John in and they presented him with the flags and Purple Heart and whatever appropriate medals and actually, some of the guys from Kate spoke. But prior to going to the ceremony, I sat down with him in my living room with my wife Mary and his wife, and I told him what had happened. But as I looked into his eyes, there it was again, the bluest eyes you could ever see. There I was back again, talking to Ron, and I told him about it. And he had no idea what had happened to his father. No one wanted to talk about it. So that circle of my life closed and we went to the ceremony and he was presented and told about his father. So to me, I came to peace with a very important thing that I had failed to do, but I finally did do it. And that is not in the book, because it happened after the book, but I really felt like I needed to talk about that right now.
- [91:41]
A
No, that's. I mean, I can't even imagine the. What that meant to him. You know, it's funny, you know, with. With my guys that. That I lost in combat when I talked to their parents, any. Any or siblings, any. Any like, fraction of a. Of a new story that you remember that you can tell them and share with them is like gold. It's.
- [92:07]
C
It's.
- [92:07]
A
They treasure it so much because, you know, the unfortunate truth is when we're with these guys, we're with these guys 24 hours a day, and we see them kind of grow and. And we see them in their final form in a way. And of course, we get the stories too. You know, we get stories about them when they were kids, and it kind of completes our understanding.
- [92:31]
C
But.
- [92:32]
A
And that's that. We treasure that as well. But you can see, you know, sharing with the parents, you know, some. Some silly little thing that they did or said or whatever the case may be, they just relish it so much. And I can't even imagine for. For him not knowing anything that had happened just to be able to understand what. What had occurred and what that meant. It just. That that's incredible service to him, both the son and the dad, to be able to. To be able to connect them.
- [93:03]
C
Oh, the parents. The parents were long gone.
- [93:06]
A
Yeah, but. But even if.
- [93:08]
C
If I would have reacted, if I did. Yeah, that would have been a good thing.
- [93:11]
A
Well, I mean, the dad. I'm saying it's a service to Ross himself because, you know, I see. You know, like, how did he. He would want, you know, he would want his son to know what happened. And now he does. Fast forward a little bit. We needed to plug. We needed more men to plug the gaps in our perimeter. We needed ammunition. I needed to lie down and sleep for a week. I needed a cold beer. Most of all, we needed water. By the after. By the afternoon of October 31st, we were out. Every canteen was dry, and even the canteens of the dead had been drained. 48 hours of fighting under the sun and moon and no water since the previous night. I was learning the hard way that when you're out of water, when you can no longer sweat, when peeing is out of the question because there's no fluid left in your kidneys when you grow lethargic and there's nothing left in your body core to draw energy from, when even standing up and walking around is hard, then you're literally starting to die from dehydration. The only thing you can think about is water. God, I wish I had some water. And this was where I was and pretty much everyone on Kate was. So you guys are now fully dehydrated.
- [94:18]
C
It was terrible. I'm getting thirsty thinking about it.
- [94:24]
A
Luckily, some cobras and a CH47 roll in and they drop off a water buffalo, an M149 water trailer. Was it. 400 gallons of water and somehow that thing miraculously doesn't get shot up or Wounded in any way. So you guys ended up with some water.
- [94:43]
C
But which. Which brought upon another crisis. It was dropped, let's say about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And they all started the yards, all started running towards it. And I'm out there with Danny. Go back, go back. Because the NVA were like, well, look at here, look at here. Target practice. So we got. As soon as a couple rounds landed, we got everybody, whoa, shit. We got to get back to our positions. So now we all had to wait till the sun set, knowing it's right there, and waited till it was dark. Dark. Then I gave the word and everybody started coming up.
- [95:22]
A
Fast forward a little bit. The Paven had respected no rules of engagement. They fired from Cambodia. It made no difference where they came from, if it was 105 or a big or bigger. Another round landed near Kate. Another two more almost together. If this didn't stop soon, we'd all die. Our defensive defenses simply could not take a direct hit from that kind of artillery and survive. I called, screamed actually, for Major Latin to call in the fast movers to silence those guns. And again, this is guns that, you know, you're looking at on the map there in Cambodia.
- [95:54]
C
Yes.
- [95:54]
A
He flew northwest, circling low over the Vietnam side of the international border. A few minutes after a few minutes, he called back, can't do it, Hawk. He said, there. And that's your call sign. Can't do it, Hawk. They're on the other side of the fence. I got back on the radio and told Latin in no uncertain words that I didn't care where they were. I wanted them hit. The only way I can do that is if the ground commander declares a tactical emergency. No sooner had he said these words than my ears, in my ears, that I said, I declare a tactical emergency in the same tone of voice that I might have used to order a cold Tiger beer at the Officers Club. Roger returned Latin. The next thing I knew, the fast movers were screaming eastward to bomb the bollocks out of Camp La Roland. A week later, there was a blurb in Newsweek to the effect that the US Air Force planes had bombed a neutral Cambodian army base. John Kerry mentioned it in his Winter Soldier rants. So let me set the record state straight. For all time. That was me. I did that. If I hadn't, my bones and those of everyone else on on Kate would probably be rotting in the bottom of a big ravine below Kate's ghost.
- [97:00]
C
So, absolutely, that's rules of. Rules of combat. Yeah. Rules of engagement. Yeah, they were. It Was bad. And my name ended up on Nixon's desk in an hour. It's creating an international incident, actually twice, because I have to go back and do it again.
- [97:19]
A
Did they give you any static on round two?
- [97:21]
C
You know what? No, they didn't. They didn't give me any static from, from round one. They just, you know, it was what it was. And they had. Was a. It was a Cambodian army base and they had just taken it over. So we had two infantry divisions, regiments against us. So that's four or five thousand. And plus the, the artillery regiment that was standing over there. They come, they were come loaded for bear. And an interesting fact about this, one of the artillery, one of the infantry regiments, it was the 28th and the 66th. The 66th, Ho Chi Minh's finest. That's the same one Hal Moore fought. And we were soldiers once in the I drang Valley in 1965. So they were hard and hardcore, maybe the best they had. And they fought like it was the best they had.
- [98:13]
A
I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here. We get into some. Well, guys are reaching their breaking point. You say here Hopkins lost it. He was a very brave man, a good soldier. He had done as much he can to defend our little corner of hell. The fact is, however, that under prolonged combat, every man can be broken. There's no shame in it. Hopkins had reached his breaking point and couldn't take it anymore. He began screaming. I said, this is bullshit. You get me the fuck out of here. This is bullshit. If my country's not willing to protect me, you can get me the hell out of here. Our medic, doc, had been in the corner watching and listening. He moved over to Hopkins, repeating his name in a soothing voice. He gave him an injection of some kind. Something to common. And a few minutes, Hopkins was asleep. I called for medevac. I still had to get Red Caldwell out as well. But it would be a long time before anything that didn't explode or ricochet could land on Kate. Not every artillery man in our small garrison was actively involved in our defense. A couple more, a couple more senior noncoms, and I am reliably told, remained undercovered during every firefight. One pfc, he should be very glad that I never got his name, was sent to load wounded men on a chopper. When the medevac took off, he was on it. So some guys, I mean, that hackworth
- [99:27]
C
in about face, he talks about men are vessels.
- [99:31]
A
Yep.
- [99:32]
C
And once in combat, that vessel is full. That's it. And every man's vessel is a different size. Ken Hopkins fought like a banshee. He. These about him and Nelson Kuhn and a couple of these other guys. They were artillerymen, but they took up the infantry banner. And when we would get penetrations in the wire, they'd come in, These guys would be ready Reaction force. They take an M60 machine gun, go to the point of the break, lay down a base of fire, and start driving them back. Brave. Yeah, absolutely. But when we were denied or request abandon, which you'll get to, Hopkins just said, that's it. What the. Then you read what he said. Brave man. But his vessel was filled, and you know that can spread, so best we sedate him. And I didn't call the chopper in just for him. There was other wounded, but I put him on that chopper because you know how panic can spread, and it's. It's like the. Like somebody said, it's like the common cold.
- [100:40]
A
Yeah. Yeah, you say. I pulled my other go to guys, including Kuhn in German and a few other artillerymen who've been active in our defense into the ftc. As I told them what was going on and shared my assessment of our situation, I also explained the very real hope that a mic that the mike force would get us out. So this is stuff you're always getting. It's. Get the book. The.
- [101:01]
C
The.
- [101:01]
A
It explains so well what it's like being in combat. Like all these little details that people. You don't show that in the movies, you know, like how hard it is to get these things to happen. But you. You explain it in the book. You've got this mic force. You're trying to get them to come and help you. As I spoke, I looked around the dim, crowded room, peering at their dirty, stubbled faces. There was hardly water enough to drink, let alone wash or shave. I told them, as if I. As if they didn't already know that the pavement hits with almost every goddamn thing they had for more than two, three days. We had bled and we had died, but we held our hilltop still. As I spoke, updating our situation, I studied their faces. One man, if I ever knew it, I can no longer recall his name, was hunched over, cradling his jaw, looking very much like the famous Rodin sculpture, almost a living the Thinker. I looked into their bloodshot eyes and I said, listen, we're all under some heavy duty pressure here, boys, and we got to watch out for each other. Just then, I saw the Thinker tremble, a tiny movement. In seconds, he was visibly shaking violently. Then he broke down muttering, I'm sorry. I just can't take it anymore. He began to weep. And I could see how strongly this affected all of us, how it created an even more intense bond between us. I told him, hey, it's all right, man. It's all right. After a little while, Doc came in and sedated him as well. In 1969, I had yet to start college. I didn't know how much. I didn't know. Much was then known about what we now call post traumatic stress disorder. In Vietnam, we called it combat fatigue or battle fatigue. Our forefathers generation called it shell shock. All the same thing. I didn't need a degree in psychology to understand what had happened to these men. Lord have mercy. I knew what we'd been through, what we still were going through. I never, ever felt anything but simply sympathy and brotherhood for these guys. And even though we were now desperately shorthanded, they had to be evacuated. I'd rather go into battle with five men I can depend on with my life than 100 that I can't be sure of. That's a tough call to make. But, yeah, you got these guys that are freaking out. There's no point in keeping them there.
- [103:00]
C
No.
- [103:05]
A
Fast forward a little bit. In the dark hours of the early morning of November 1st, I received a coded message from a 236 detachment B20 of the 22 core mobile strike force, headquartered in PLU, but then at Bu Prang would mount the operation to come to our assistance.
- [103:21]
C
Well, one, we're before that. So I had requested. I said, you know, we need boots on the ground. If I'm going to hold this, and I will, I need boots on the ground. So the request went up, went forward, and I went to see the. To the headquarters. And the 4th Infantry Division was about 100 Klux North. There was this 10,000 men, hardcore fighters. And to our west, or sorry, to our east was the 23rd ARVN, South Vietnamese Army, 10,000 infantry. So the request went. And the fourth would have come. Oh, yeah. I mean, we found them, come and help us out. But they said, no, stand down. Nixon was turning the war over to Vietnamization. We're letting the Vietnamese take over the battle, the fights. So no fourth, no stand down. They went to the 23rd Arvin to ban M Tua, the division. They said, hey, you gotta. Gotta go into Kate and get these guys out, otherwise they're gonna be annihilated. And first of all, the Vietnamese have no love for the mountain yards, nor did the mountain yards for the Vietnamese. And he went, yeah, you know what? I'm not going to do that. Oh, no, no, no. This is your war. This is a battle. This is the perfect time. You got to go in and get those guys out. And he goes, yeah, I don't, and I won't, and I'm not. I have to stay here because when they're done there, they may come here and I got to defend this. So nobody's going anywhere and nobody blinks. That's when the two core Mike Force said, well, first this, we're going in.
- [105:04]
A
And, you know, you say, my trooping spirit soared. Obviously my special forces brothers were coming to help us in our dire time of need. Then the PAV dropped the other shoe. A little after daybreak, heavy shelling from Cambodia resumed. Man, they're just. They're just freaking d give throwing everything they can at you. So here's what goes down with the Mic Force. Fast forward a little bit. In the late afternoon, I saw a swarm of dots that represented a dozen or more Huey slicks escorted by several gunships approaching from the northwest. Enough lift ships, I judged to carry one Mike Force company. They dipped down out of sight at a distance that I judged maybe 2km or so. The choppers rose empty and hurried away. A little later, they returned to insert a second company. But before the last of those choppers were down, the the wind brought the faint rattle and chatter of small arms fire, along with the louder echo and crash of mortar impacts and the sharp crack of RPGs. I turned my PRC25 radio to the Mic Force frequency and heard their advisors, Australian Special Air Service, by their accents, talking to Mike Force headquarters. I understood from this that two rifle companies were boots on the ground, but they had been surrounded almost immediately by paving infantry and were taking mortar fire.
- [106:26]
C
And they weren't dug in. We were dug in. They weren't.
- [106:33]
A
It became painfully clear that Kate was cut off, surrounded, dependent for survival on whatever decisions I made next. There would be neither rescue nor reinforcements anytime soon. For the first time since I arrived on Kate, I began to consider abandoning the hill. Do not misunderstand me. I'd come here to fight. My Montagnard strikers had come to fight and had done so individually and collectively with great distinction. Some of the artillery men had joined them and had acquitted themselves well, inspiring one another with their valor no less than they inspired the strikers. No matter how tough things got, I never considered anything except finding a way to hang on. With each attack, I concentrated on what we needed to survive it. And did the same for the next one one. We regrouped, redistributed our ammo, moved our machine guns, shifted a squad here and there, and schemed to get more supplies and ammo. Even so, now I had more than dozen strikers dead in body bags. I would never surrender. I never even considered it. But now our artillery pieces had taken so many direct hits that they were little more than scrap metal. We were defending an impact area, nothing more. Again, ammo was dangerously low, the water buffalo had been emptied, and our water supply dwindled to what remained in our canteens. Any chopper pilot bold enough to try resupplying us to the better than better than chant even chance of being blown out of the sky, I'd be. I had to begin thinking about if and how we could safely abandon Kate. Right on cue, the leaders of the indigenous force came to tell me that they were leaving. They had discussed it among themselves and agreed that Kate could no longer be defended and that we would very soon be overrun. After talking to Smith and Zollner, I went to see the Montagnard leaders. Through an interpreter fighting through the language barrier, I told them that they were right, that it was time to leave, but that we should leave with air cover. We should wait until full darkness. We should leave all the together. They discussed this right in front of me, but in their own language, and after a few minutes, their spokesman replied they would wait. We would all leave together. Through boo prang, I communicated with Major Bryden, and he agreed that his force would send a small element, perhaps a platoon, to infiltrate the area to the north end at the base of Ambush Hill. They would guide us back to the main force dug in several kilometers away. Even then, I didn't re didn't want to leave Kate, But I had to consider the facts. Our howitzers were useless. The enemy was zeroed in on every one of our bunkers. Many had taken multiple hits. Some had collapsed or were partly so. Our defending our physical defenses were crumbling. 15 of the original 27 artillery men on Kate had been wounded, and one of their replacements, Ross, was dead. About a third of my original 156 Indid strikers, which also which included the platoon reinforcements, had been killed or wounded. We had ceased to be a fire support base. A few more artillery shells and our cratered hilltop would look like the surface of the moon, with about the same population. I saw no choice but to send an encrypted message to Special Forces command, declaring the setu the situation untenable and requesting permission to abandon Kate. Their reply was swift and directly to the point. Permission to abandon denied
- [109:58]
C
one thing, and it's really not in there. But the yards did. They said, you know, hey, we gotta, we gotta get out of this place, right? I said, okay, let me. So I got your input and I went and talked to the artillery guys, the NCOs, and Danny probably, Danny probably always. And basically I had a little meeting and I said, we have three options with the yards. We have three options. One, surrender, which we're never going to do. Two, to die in place. But to what end? You know, we're not, we're not the Alamo gathering time for Sam Houston to raise an army. Or three, we're going to attempt to break out of here and we are going to go with three. Now again, as we discussed earlier, touched on, it wasn't a vote. It wasn't a vote. It was a decision that leaders have to make. After taking console, I knew what the yards wanted, but I wanted to hear what the others of the suggestions. And once that was made, once they had their input, then the decision was firmed up and made and had had to be made by me because I was in command, I was the leader, rise or fall, good or bad, all annihilated on the hill, going out, it was all on me. And as that's what a leader does and, and you know that. And it's an awesome responsibility, but that's what you're trained for.
- [111:20]
A
Yeah. And I mean after this many days and this many wounded guys and no guns available and no support available and no resupply available, I mean, this is worst case scenario. And I think, you know what was good, and this is a classic thing, you know, I, I tell people all the time, if you want people to listen to you, you got to listen to them.
- [111:42]
C
Yes.
- [111:42]
A
And so for you, if you would have said, hey, Mountain yards, you know, we're staying until tonight, they might have said, oh, actually we're out of here. But you listen to what they had to say and you, you presented your case and now you get, when, when, when you listen to people, they listen to you as well. And you start explaining, listen, you can leave right now, but tonight we're gonna have gunships overhead and they're going to lay down awesome fire. We're going to be able to maneuver together, we can. So you explain those things together to them and then they understand your position and they recognize that the best decision is the one that you're presenting. You know, option three, let's stick together and leave As a unit.
- [112:19]
C
Yeah. It was not, it was not an ultimatum by any means. It was more like, hey, we got to get out of there. We, there's no, there's no hope left. We, we all want to leave. We all, we want to leave now. It was by no means a demand. Yeah, but it, but it just happened to be. I'm thinking the same thing. We're, we're on our own. We're 100% on our own. If anything's going to happen, it's going to happen here. The calvary is not going to ride in and get us out of this one.
- [112:44]
A
Yeah, yeah, that's actually. Now I think back to the conversation that you had with them. You actually start off with one of the best leadership moves to start this conversation. They present their case and you say, you guys are right. They say, we got to get out of here. And you go, you guys are right. And they go, okay, so he's on our side as opposed to like, you got. No, we shouldn't leave. It's like a little subtle thing that you did as a 21 year old out there in the field, your first time in combat. Like, that's the kind of leadership where people go, okay, that makes sense. You present your case to me and I tell you, you're right, I agree with you. How can we do it best? And that's just a, like a black belt chess move to make that happen and get them on board. Because these guys are near me. I mean, maybe I'm in my own mind, but this could be a mutiny situation, right?
- [113:31]
C
Yeah, I suppose it could have been.
- [113:32]
A
If they didn't, if they didn't respect you.
- [113:34]
C
Yeah.
- [113:34]
A
Like, let's say you didn't run down and grab their wounded point man. Let's say instead you sent two guys down there or you left them behind, then their respect goes down a little bit. Let's say you weren't taking risks as you're trying to reposition the perimeter. Their respect for you is going down. Like all these things you had built up leadership capital with them and respect where when you said, hey guys, here's where we're at. They viewed you as a, not just a leader on paper, but, you know, not just a leader by rank, but a leader like a tribal leader that has stepped up and we are going to follow. And that's a powerful thing.
- [114:06]
C
It's a powerful thing. And they understood that their welfare and my welfare were tied together and my welfare of the men and that we weren't two entities. Mountain yards In Americans, we were one group together. And they, they. They were getting that.
- [114:24]
A
Meanwhile, you get told, no, you can't lose.
- [114:26]
C
No God, I tell you, quick, quick war story. And you know the difference between a war story to fairy tale?
- [114:33]
A
No.
- [114:33]
C
Fairy tale starts out, once upon a time war story starts out, this ain't no. Well, this ain't no shit. So I am. I am working with Marvin. And it was a cold winter night. We're back and forth, word documents, back and forth. And I get to this part here, and I read it, and that's the break in one of the parts of the book. And it comes back, requests permission to abandon fire base gate. And with pretty swiftly, permission denied. Now I know how this is going to end, but that's where it stops. And I push back in my chair. And it's about 10:30 at night, and it's snowy and it's cold and it's winter. I am shaking. My hands are kind of trembling, and I'm like. It all came back. It all came back. And I got up and I went into the bedroom. Mary was reading a book. I said, mary, where's the Ambien? Yeah. That was the first time that I had to deal with that because, I mean. No, seriously.
- [115:38]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's another thing we were talking about before. It's like the. The leader on. The leader on the front is always right. Patton said, I forget who. You quoted a similar quote of like, the person that's on the ground knows what's happening, and you need to try and provide them with support. And. And by the way, when you've lost a helicopter and you've lost multiple people and these guys are surrounded and they ask, and they've been fighting for four and a half days and they ask permission of leave because the position is untenable, you might want to listen to what their request is. Fast forward a little bit. High above Kate, at an altitude beyond the range of even the Pavan's spiffy new 37 millimeter Akak guns, the three star commander of. Of I Force Vietnam and his aid were circling in a Huey fitted out as a command and control bird. Lieutenant General Charles A. Corcoran, who answered only to General Abrams, boss of all US Forces in Vietnam and its waters, had received my classified message. So this guy had heard that you wanted to leave. General Cochrane, General Corcoran, who was. Who. Who as a boy had roamed the streets of Laredo, Texas, decreed that he would be known in the air as Pawnee Bill, a reference to Gordon W. Lilly, a Wild west show performer and contemporary of Buffalo Bill Cody. Pawnee Pawnee Bill Alpha was Cochran's squeaky voiced aide. Recalls Denote and there's another guy telling the story. Pawnee be it Bill Alpha called Bill Albrecht Hawk from way high over Kate. We use several different frequencies at Brew Praying Camp. But for whatever reason Pawnee Bill couldn't communicate directly with Hawk. Denote continues two or three times. Pawnee Bill came back on the air with the same request to verify the size of the surrounding force or the force surrounding Firebase Kate. So I got on the frequency identified by my by myself by call sign and said Pawnee Bill Alpha, if you don't believe them, drop your fucking helicopter 10,000ft and take a look for yourself.
- [117:46]
C
Out. And the Rocco Denote. What a guy stud. Yeah.
- [117:52]
A
And the voice that came back of voice that sounded like God said this is Pawnee Bill. Roger Copy out. Somebody, somebody in the radio bunker said, you fucked up. I said, what are they going to do? Relieve me and send me to the NHA Trang so I can surf and eat the Dairy Queen? Shortly after that exchange, the order was given for Firebase Kate to execute and escape an evasion. That's freaking insane story. The fact that this three star was above you and happened to know what was going on. And then of course he's asking you to verify the number of forces and the radio man says, come see for yourself, motherfucker.
- [118:30]
C
Well, two things. Number one, they were all continually asking us for BD8 bomb damage, how many people we killed. And that was insane. The second thing was in Vietnam at that particular time, countrywide. There was nothing else going on of any note. Nothing of any note. This is where the NVA had all their forces and that is why he was up there. Other than that, you never see a three star venture out. And he was God.
- [119:01]
A
Yeah, so. So you guys get the permission that you need. Fast forward a little bit. I gathered everyone together, strikers and artillerymen, in the vicinity of Kate's north end. The only slope that could easily be traversed. The one from which we had taken the least amount of any enemy fire. It was dark and the sky was clear. Slightly more than a half moon would rise at about 2300 hours. By then I wanted to be long gone. We got busy with preparations to move through our own wire and then through enemy lines. In my heart of hearts, however, I believe that we were merely dead men walking. I didn't see how it would be possible to evade the thousands of pain troops roaming the hills and valleys surrounding Kate. I kept such thoughts to myself as I circulated among the artillery men, telling them how we would jump, how we would join up with the Mike force near the bottom of Ambush Hill. That everything was under control. That if we stuck together and didn't panic, we'd all be fine. After I explained our situation, I told everyone what to do to prepare to escape Kate. And evade the enemy. So you got a hundred, one hundred and something, thirty or forty Montagnards left. You got these artillery men who are not infantry men. They ain't been through the jungle school. They ain't been out practicing patrolling. You know they're going to do the best they can. But this is not the force you choose to go on this operation with.
- [120:20]
C
When you got to go to war with the RB you got.
- [120:24]
A
And meanwhile the. You're entirely surrounded. The whole place is crawling with these North Vietnamese troops. This is a. This is a bad situation.
- [120:32]
C
Couldn't be any worse and. And couldn't be. But yet again, it did get worse.
- [120:41]
A
I had Pirelli and some of the artillery guys to finish the howitzers with thermite grenades. Devices that burn white hot, generating enough concentrated heat to melt the barrels. Hardened steel. Steel cannoneers call this spiking a tube. Apparently this rarely used procedure. So this is. They take thermite grenades and put them into the artillery to ruin them.
- [121:01]
C
Yeah. Just in case. Just in case they could ever rehab them.
- [121:06]
A
But this is a dire situation like this. Like you say, it doesn't happen very often. Yeah. Cuz we don't get overrun very often. As Americans, we also use thermite on the artillery units, heavy communications equipment, the useless 50 cal machine gun, the Fadac computer, the generators and all the documents. I decided it would be hard enough to get everybody off Kate in one piece and then survive a night march of several miles at least through trackless triple canopy jungle. It would become impossible. With the added burden of carrying our debt. It was unfortunate, but I decided that the needs of the living outweighed the respect and courtesies of our dupe do our departed comrades. We would have to leave the dozen or so dead strikers stacked on Kate's helipad.
- [121:49]
C
Let me say something about that. The dead you take with if you can. The wounded you never leave without them. But you see, the dead are going to be just as dead tomorrow. And there's a good chance you can live through it. As much as I would want to. It becomes impossible. And even when we lost a very good friend of mine, Rich McDonald's 4th Battalion Commander Danny Little went down American at Daxiang. And the yards came back carrying his rifle and they said he got stitched from one end to the other part of his head and he's dead. But they're mountain yards. They're not Americans that saw him fall. And they fought. They couldn't bring him back. He was too big, too rich. Modded a tremendous counter attack to get back and recover Danny's body. And he was brutal. And he started taking casualties and he had to pull back because you don't take casualties or get somebody killed to recover a dead body. Because as I said, they're going to be just as dead tomorrow as they are today. And it's a wonderful thought, but when you start losing people for that, that will not happen.
- [123:10]
A
Yeah, yeah. And they don't want you to take that risk for their body. Your friends do not want you to lose more guys to recover their body. Leave me, you know, Leave me. And that's what everybody's attitude is. Yeah, not still. I mean of. Definitely a very harrowing decision that you have to make. You know, this is. It's not what we want to do, but, you know, in a situation like this, you have to make decisions again. This is leadership. Fast forward a little bit and you know, you go through the preparation and stuff. And then I gave the order and we moved out.
- [123:44]
C
Well, go ahead. To actually move. There is one. There was one piece in there, a seminal moment of the whole thing. We were hovered on the north side of the hill of. Of Kate. It was so dark and it was quiet. I have everybody. And now for the first time, I'm not doing anything. Spooky's coming in because Spooky's supposed to come in and they're gonna spray in front of us. And I thought, you know, this, this, this is good. They're gonna be out about 100 yards ahead of us spraying, and we're gonna be walking behind this wall of steel. Spooky's on there. I'm waiting for to come on. Hey, Hawk, remind me I take out my call sign. Hey, Hawk, this is a spooky five eight. Hey, I gotta have got a little problem here with mechanical. I gotta go back. But. But don't worry, we got. We got a second spooky coming. Oh, I gotta wait longer. We're ready to go. We are ready to go. And.
- [124:54]
A
And moon's coming up at 2300, so you got that coming too.
- [124:57]
C
Yeah, I call Spooky. Where are you? Hey, Hawke, this is a spooky five Six. Hey, you got some engine problems. We got to go back to fan rang, but don't worry, another one's coming. Well, Hawk is worried now. Okay, this is the third one they're sending out and it's. It's getting really bad. And I'm. I'm waiting for the third one. And I mean, guys are going around saying, hey, if I'll get out of this, tell my mother this or my. My wife this. And they're saying their final goodbyes. We are so scared. We are scared now that for the first time, the first time, I am so scared. I'm not doing anything now but waiting, waiting to take action. And I got on that microphone at brick 25 mic and I depressed it and I called Spooky Four One. Spooky Four One. Hawk empty air. Spooky Four One had a whisper. Hawk over nothing. And I had comms with him before. And I looked at my radio operator, Tex Artillery guy, and I said, this damn radio is broken. He goes, sir, you gotta release the push to talk switch. And I looked down on my hand and my knuckles in my hand were white. I was so scared. I had pressed down on that to speak and forgot to release it so I could receive. And I released it right away. They, hey, we're coming. I don't know how long it'll be, but we're coming to you. And I went, holy shit. If I don't get a hold of myself, if I panic right now, not only am I going to get misunderstood myself killed, I'm going to get everybody here killed. And that's when it hit me. And I looked down into the night and I saw that gap in the distance. And I said, I'm going to die tonight. And that is where the gods are going to take my life, right there at that gap. And I looked up into the cosmos, to the big ranger, and I said, dear Lord, I know I'm going to die tonight. I know that there's no way. I can't. But please, please let me get as many of these fine young men out as possible and then take me and I'll be ready to go. And Jocko, at that moment, at that exact moment, I was no longer afraid. All of a sudden I had this inner peace and I was no longer afraid. And. And the situation had changed a bit and Spooky hadn't got there. And I said, let's go. Follow me. Here we go. And we. We stepped off into the night.
- [127:48]
A
Well, yeah, waiting is way worse than doing it. Like, I've Always found waiting is way is where. Is where you feel fear. You know, stuff. Once you're doing it, you're doing it. Like we don't have. We don't have time to think about it. You're just doing it. And so you're caught up in doing it, and you do the thing. And when it's over, sometimes you look back and go, damn, that was sketchy. I don't know how I got through that one. But the. The waiting, and especially when you're waiting in a situation like this, like you have no choice. There's no turning back. You guys already spiked all your barrels. Like, everything's gone. You. You're not going to live another night or another day, another sunrise on Kate. That's not happening. So there's no going back. There's only going forward. You might not have air cover, and you're waiting. And that waiting is horrific. The call. The. The call sign Hawk, that. That was like a. That was like an evolution that kind of became Hawk, right? How'd that happen?
- [128:49]
C
Well, because the. The Asian NVA were. They would. They'd have good English speakers and everything, and they would. So they would. They'd monitor our nets and sometimes interfere with them. You know, send false messages. So they'd take ridiculous call signs. Like, my first call sign going out there at Kate was Chicken Wolf. Chicken Wolf. And there was Dashing Lancer and all these just crazy things they put together. You know what I'm talking about? And I am day two. I'm in fighting position, and I'm calling, talking to the Ford air controller, and Walter Wyn says, hey, I gotta go refuel, but don't worry, I got a guy coming. Guy coming. He'll be in a couple minutes. He's coming right behind me. And I said, okay. And I'm again called Chicken Wolf. So I hear a guy, come on. He goes, chicken Hawk. Chicken hawk, Mike A2. And I'm going to. Who the is Chicken Hawk? And why would they put somebody that close the name to mind? Remember, this is my first time, okay, and who's this guy? And he goes, chicken Hawk. Chicken hawk. Mike A2. And I almost said, well, wait a minute. I said, Mike A2, this is chicken Wolf. In the meantime, the world has come down. We're getting martyred in rockets and all this boom, boom, boom. I said, this is. This is Chicken Wolverine. He goes, little joke, right? Oh, I thought your call sign was Chicken Wolf. Yeah, Chicken Hawk. And I said to him, call me Chicken Wolf, Chicken Hawk, or Chicken Shit. Just get me some goddamn air power in here now. Well, it went to chicken hawk, and then it just got shortened to hawk.
- [130:22]
A
Jack.
- [130:24]
B
Yeah.
- [130:26]
A
You know, the other thing thinking about this, the, the, the overcoming of fear is like that full acceptance of death.
- [130:33]
C
Yes.
- [130:34]
A
Which to me is of the most liberating thing. And I always, you know, when I'd see guys that were. Have that fear, it was a lot of times I think, oh, they, they're afraid of dying. Whereas once you go, yeah, I'm pretty much gonna die. That's what's gonna happen. And that's what I signed up for, and that's what we're doing. Okay. And it really does relieve you of a lot of that fear because what else is there, you know?
- [130:58]
C
Oh, it's a real come to Jesus moment.
- [131:00]
A
No real time come to Jesus moment is happening. So now we get to this point. I gave the order and we moved out. But for after 40 or 50 meters, the line stopped. I worked my way to the front and found up the point man 20 meters from the gap leading to Ambush Hill. Frozen with fear, he was unable to move forward. Spooky was still too far out to fire and clear our path. The enemy was on our heels. I must act immediately. I moved up and took point. There you go. Fast forward. I got on the radio call and called the Mike Force element waiting below us to advise them that we were about to enter their perimeter. No answer. A moment later, SAS Major Brighton, the commander of both Mike Force battalions in the vicinity, replied from Bu prang. No Mike force troops awaited us below Ambush Hill. He said they were miles away to the northwest, and we'd have to find them. God, that's freaking ridiculous.
- [132:00]
C
You think so? No air power. Nobody thinks so. Could it. Could it get worse? Well, yes, it could.
- [132:08]
A
I was pissed. But before I could react to this shocker, great green balls of fire came hurtling down the slope just overheads and stuttering. And the stuttering roar of heavy machine gun broke the silence. I thought Spooky was firing on us. I yelled cease fire. Into the radio. The sky Raider pilot came back on that Spooky was not firing and wasn't on station yet. Then through the foliage, I saw that the fire was coming from the top of Ambush Hill. And this is one of those, you know, kind of lucky situations where their, their dishka machine gun wasn't traversed. Couldn't traverse and actually hit you guys. So she got very lucky there.
- [132:43]
C
The tripod had that bar in the front, and we were down deep enough where that shooting about A foot over our heads. Now, if that isn't the hand of God, I don't know what is. And what their tactics was, we come to find out later was they wanted us to go through the gap and we had broadcast in the clear because the Air Force didn't have our codes. I would go to the. To the left of Ambush Hill, to the left. And that's where they were waiting. And the mike force was supposed to be there, but they weren't, of course, as we know. I would go to the left. But see, when I was stood in the gap and was shooing, guys, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. The point man, now back on point, went to the right of Ambush Hill and he took us around that ambush, not even knowing it was there. So that machine gun at top had to traverse around and shoot us at the other side. So as bad as it was, we caught a clean good break again, I always say by the hand of God, because that's the only thing I could think of.
- [133:39]
A
That's the only way you're getting out of there.
- [133:40]
C
And no mic force. And my Lord, chaos isn't the word that is good enough to describe what happened next, because I am putting them in, 150 guys into the jungle single file into this horrible wooded jungle at night. And I put them in. Let's go, let's go, let's go. And then the firefight breaks out and we returned fire. We're now in a battle with this guy. And I'm still trying to get in there. And there is no silence. And God, let's go this way. Come here. I'm in the jungle. Danny's kicking him in the ass in the rear. And we get him in there, and by God, we did get him in there. And of course that's when I found out there's no mic for us to link up to. Okay, good, fine, let's go. And we get away, and we get away. And I got him in a single file and I went back to the lieutenant's in the yards. Do we have everybody? Oh, yeah. Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Off we go. I have a red filtered flashlight, a map and a compass and just echo.
- [134:48]
A
Charles, have you ever been on a patrol at night in the thick jungle?
- [134:54]
B
Me? No, I have not.
- [134:55]
A
Well, let me tell you something. Having. Having a squad of eight guys going through the jungle is like really hard to control. You literally can't see, like the hand in front of your face. Having like 20 guys, it starts to turn into, hey, like, I really. This is just. I can barely even know what's going on right now. So now when you're talking about 150 guys with a language barrier, by the way, like, this isn't. You think about the language. You don't think much of it, but that language. We work with Iraqi soldiers, like, you can't say move left or move right. Like that's when you said that. When I read that in the book, I'm like, oh, yeah, no surprise. We. We Iraqi soldiers didn't even have like words for left and right. They didn't know. And numbers. You couldn't say, like 20 or 30. Not all of them, but a lot of them were uneducated. The yards are not like an educated crew of people. So you got the language barrier and then you're just 100. 150 people deep. You cannot explain how. How challenging that is. You can't explain it. It is so challenging to try and get. It'd be challenging to move 150 people. I'll tell you what, Echo Charles, take 150 people and get them to go from one end of a mall to the end of the mall. Just try and do that. You can barely do that. So this is a. And now, by the way, we got people shooting at us with machine guns. This is a total. This is. This is the. Difficult as it gets. And. And by the way, this whole thing is going to culminate in what I believe to be the most difficult thing to do in combat, which is link up under fire. Linking up under fire. People, people, don't think about it. That is the hardest thing to do in combat. Trying to get two friendly units that don't know where each other are to link up while there's bad guys at night. At night. It is. It is because everyone, you know, the possibility of blue on blue. There's so many things that can go wrong. It's just. It's a nightmare. So that's where we're at. Fast forward a little. Despite the ineffectiveness of their fire, those frightening green traces caused the men in. In our column to panic. Men began crashing pell mell through the brush. I raced ahead to take lead to the main body, yelling for them to continue northward along the tree line. As I had a little earlier, I grabbed every trooper I could find and pushed him in the direction of the column behind me. Pirelli was doing the same. Then fast forward a little bit. Once I found the head of the column, I moved as quick forward as quickly as the darkness and train would allow. After several minutes, I stopped to regroup and assess the situation. I still expected to link up with a might force, but no longer share where we were or where they were, because that's another thing. The disorientation that you get in the jungle is, happens very rapidly and because the maps and the terrain, you can't even see it. So you think you're, oh, I'm on this knoll. But that will, that knoll wasn't even on the map. You just think you just thought it was something or you thought it was a ravine. That ravine didn't show up anywhere. So now you're just in a ravine that's not marked anywhere in the world and you're in it and you think it's three ravines over. Like there's so many complications here, it's ridiculous.
- [137:56]
C
Yeah, it's horrible.
- [138:01]
A
Now again, I'm going to fast forward get this book so you can understand this, how insane this is. Fast forward a little bit. I waited another few minutes, then called Mike Force again. This time they sent the coded grid coordinates of their position. I could only hope that they were as good at map reading as I thought I was. At my signal, the column resumed its slow, stealthy trek through the jungle. I navigated by compass, stopping from time to time to check the azimuth and keeping a rough count of my paces to keep give me some idea of how much ground we had covered. Except for an occasional glimpse of the starry sky, we were in almost total darkness. Each step I took was slow and deliberate. My boot shod toes felt for the ground, trying to avoid a root that I might trip over or making noise crushing a twig. Fast forward. About three hours after leaving Kate, the moon rose, pouring cold bright light on the jungle clearings, enough to allow me to view the terrain features and get a better feeling for our approximate location. We seem to be close to where we I had supposed we were. I altered course slightly and we moved out again, still exercising the greatest caution. Bright as the occasional clearing and small openings in the jungle canopy were beneath the thick rainforest vegetation. It was like wearing sunglasses in a coal mine. About 2:30 or more than six hours after leaving Kate, we reached a point on my map that I judge to be close to the Mike Force perimeter. So you finally get there by by the most awesome land navigation skills ever displayed. And if you're not going to credit a little grace of God to that
- [139:34]
C
one, I will do it for you. Yeah,
- [139:40]
A
so now you call the Mike Force guys You, you ask them, hey, put like I can see it clearly
- [139:45]
C
about an 80 yard field in front of us.
- [139:47]
A
Yeah. And you're like, okay, put a guy out there. And what do they say back to you?
- [139:51]
C
You put a guy out.
- [139:54]
A
So of course again, leadership. What do you do? Do you send one of your other guys out there? Do you send a yard out there? Nope. You know that it's going to be a risky thing and you take the risk yourself. Fast forward a little bit. Feeling naked in the moonlight, my weapon slump, my weapon slung over my shoulder, I stepped into the field, realizing as I did so that even if I was, was walking straight toward the Mike Force, there could also be a thousand guns pointing at me from the jungle on either flank. I took a step forward, then another, calling as I went in parade ground voice, I'm an American. Are you the Mike Force? I repeated several times as I moved across the field. There was no answer. I kept calling and I kept walking. Finally I reached the tree line and there to my left, a Mike Force striker stared back at me from a foxhole. Sergeant First Class Lowell Stevens, the Mike Force ground commander appeared from nowhere to grab my arm. Go back and get the rest of your men, he whispered. So the link up happens.
- [140:53]
C
He, Lolsey was a soldier, soldier, special forces, him and the, the other sergeant, I can't remember his name right now. They were, they were magnificent and they got there and they did the best they could. They fought like banshees in and then were driven back and they just couldn't get anybody out because of the, it was, there was so many there. We were, we were sure fortunate to be able to link up with them
- [141:18]
A
and I'm going to close out the book.
- [141:20]
C
Let me say one thing. There's a quote by a turn of the century 19 to 20 author, poet, female baker and it stuck with me for all my years. And it's about courage and you have to have courage. And I showed courage and my men showed courage. But her quote was courage is fear that has said its prayers and that is so very true. So when we had to link up, there we went Ashley. Then when we got linked up, I was pretty much out of the game. I was unbelievably exhausted mentally, physically and they, the mic force took over. They put us in a sandwich and they led front and back and I just tagged along. I could hardly keep my eyes open. But that was, that was the end of it for me almost.
- [142:15]
A
And I'll close out the book with this. Once we resumed our march My exhausted mind slid into autopilot. I left everything to the Special Forces non comms that led each Mike Force Company Sergeant First Class Stevens and Sergeant First Class Don Simmons, both 10 year army veterans. Most of the remainder of the march is a blur in memory. The only thing I can recall from after the link up and our subsequent departure was that we came out of the jungle and took a dirt road for a short distance to Camp Bu Prang, arriving there about 11:30 hours on November 2nd. When the camp came into sight, I was jolted into full consciousness and then infused with a fleeting moment of pride. One of the artillery sergeants, one that had seen very little of, one that I had seen very little of during the fight, called out, hold your heads high, men. Be proud. We just walked off fire base, Kate. Yeah, just. And, and you know, from there in the book, you do such a great job. You, you know, you, you detail all what happened with people afterwards. You know, you, you talk what it's like for those guys and, and the families of guys that were killed. It's just, it's just really awesome. And, and one of the things that, I guess it's a whole nother book, but, but you get done with this where you barely get out of there alive and instead of you taking a kush job somewhere instead, and you know, you might have only passed that officer candidate school test by one point, and we might know why? Because instead of taking a kush job, you say, no, I actually want to volunteer to go work with Mike Force.
- [144:08]
C
Well, there's a story behind that too.
- [144:09]
A
Let's go.
- [144:12]
C
So I'm back and it was a big, big, big media event because like I said, nothing was going on in Vietnam at the time. And here you have these guys who are totally surrounded and they. 150 of them get out. And so the media was everywhere and it made a big splash. And I was, it was kind of overwhelming to me. Like, okay, enough's enough. Well, the group commander, Iron Mike Healy, he was going to fly out to personally congratulate me. This, this is not done. Okay? So he said, hey, he's coming in now. I'm shaved, I'm in clean fatigues, and my team is back in back of me. And he flies in and sir, Captain Albrecht. And he hugs me. Min didn't hug back then, okay? He hugs me. He goes, God damn it, Albrecht. Finest traditions of Special Forces. I can't believe what you did there. Legendary. He's. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What do you want what do you want to be? Remember he had made mention that in the Trang headquarters there was actually an ice cream store, which we just all consider we always called it the Dairy Queen. Oh, we're going to back in the Trang, get a Dairy Queen. So I looked at him, I said, sir, I'd like to be the OIC officer in charge. I'd like to be the OIC of the Dairy Queen. And my men behind me start all laughing, and I'm smiling ear to ear. He looks at me because there's a lot of people around. He looks at me and he goes, I'm afraid that position's already taken. What else do you want? I said, oh, I'd like to go to the two core Mic Force, done did a bout face, get on a helicopter, flew away, never saw him again. So that was that.
- [145:49]
A
How long did it take you to recover from this? These five days?
- [145:54]
C
Well, considering I'm 21 years old and there was alcohol involved. Well, what happened is about four days later, they had this thing called. In Vietnam, they had this thing called Impact Award. And what they would do is they would give you a medal for whatever the occasion was or whatever you had done. And then they'd back it up with paperwork, and if need be, they would upgrade it. You should never really downgrade it. So one particular day about a week later, Rocco Denote, the guy that told Pona he built a land the fucking helicopter. He says, hey. He says, cochran, the three star, has requested your presence in Bami. To it, he said, there's going to be a ceremony. And it was so windy, every helicopter was grounded. Every helicopter was grounded. Not even Medevax flew.
- [146:55]
A
Damn.
- [146:56]
C
So like I said, Pawnee Bill being God, well, apparently he outranks Mother nature too, because he sent a helicopter out for me. And I'm there, and it's windy, and this chopper's coming in and he lands, and Captain Albrecht says, this is you. We're taking you back to Bambi to it. I said, okay. And just. Geez, Just about then, the Mike Force, who had been around us engaging because the enemy had fallen back to Buprang, put them under siege, had brought in about three or four badly, badly wounded mountain yards. And they said, we've done all we can. And our medic there was really good, had a dispensary. He said, there's nothing I can do. And they said, if we don't get these guys to hospital, they're going to die. And so the Mike Force guy, and I don't remember who he was just, can we use your helicopter? I looked at pilots, I said, can we use this? Go to the helicopter. Said, sir, this is your helicopter. And I said, let me see. Go back to an awards ceremony. Our four guys died. I'll tell you what, load them up and here we go. And we flew back and we got them to the area hospital. And I think one did expire, but three of them were alive when they got them in, and I think they did recover. But then when I got to the awards ceremony, just in time to see the general's helicopter fly away, and the guys are coming out going, the artillery guys, the Americans. Where the hell were you at Pearl Lee? I said, oh, I got held up. And they said, oh, yeah, the general was waiting for you. And then got pissed off and flew away. They said they had an award for you. And I went, I'm sure it'll catch up with me. Well, it did in 2012, but that's another story. So we all went out, all of us, enlisted officers, sergeants, NCOs, whatever, got drunk right there in somebody's. Somebody's bunker. And that was a good damn night, metal or no metal. That was a good way tonight.
- [148:58]
A
And then. So your next move is go with Mike Force.
- [149:01]
C
I did. I stayed there for the siege of Buprang. The Same group followed a 67 and 28th and the OTOA. They followed us back to Buprang and they put Buprang under siege, but they had significantly been weakened. We knocked out about 20% of their strength with all those airstrikes. So they were significantly wound weakened, but it was a pretty good one. They did some ground attacks and. Oh, my God, Kate. They would come out of the jungle. Hundreds of them would come out of. Chopper pilot was said later that he was up there watching in between strikes, and he said it looked like ant. Oh, it was when they were going to drop the B52s and everybody had to back off. He said hundreds of them came out, looked like ants crawling up. Hundreds of black ants. So they came in the booprang and they laid seats to us, but we held good. We never really were in a critical moment of anything, so we were able to repel them there.
- [149:59]
A
How long did that last for?
- [150:00]
C
That lasted from November got back to November 2nd to. Right about a week before Christmas maybe.
- [150:06]
A
It was pretty long.
- [150:07]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [150:09]
A
And. But you had water and you had ammunition.
- [150:13]
C
Ammunition overhead, cover, everything, everything you could possibly want. We had artillery. We had all this stuff. And so then. Then I got my orders, came in And I caught a flight up to Plate Coup and the 2 Corps mobile strike Force, the Mike Force.
- [150:28]
A
And then how was the op tempo up there with those guys, you know.
- [150:31]
C
Okay, so you, you certainly can understand this being a seal, Special Forces, absolutely the same. So I had my, had my face all over the media. I mean this thing was, this thing, I was in Newsweek and Time and there was, it was on every front page newspaper, every free thing, a picture of me in the story of Firebase. Kate. I gotta say, it didn't mean much to me because I'm still inviting into war, but it was like, oh, look at who we're getting here. We're getting this young captain who thinks he's all that in a bag of chips, right? I kept a real low profile and once the guy saw, actually when I, when I went my first op, out for 30 days, came back, I was like, yeah, this guy's okay, he's okay. But I had some like, they were all kind of giving me the hey, how you doing? You know, when are you signed your movie star contract? All this bullshit, you know, I said, look, I had nothing to do with that. But once they understood that, especially at my first op, it was, I had found a home. I, I, this was the best goddamn unit ever been in my life. And not that I'd been to that many of them, but everything was exactly as it, as it should be. And we went ahead and so I ended up becoming a battalion commander. And I had 450, 400 mountain yards, an A team of enlisted guys who were the best you could ever be. And remember, Saad goes out and looks for them. Once they found them, we went out and kicked their ass. But then again, sometimes it didn't really work out where they were. We got our asses kicked in too. So it was the best.
- [152:06]
A
So you're an A team leader, but you have all these mountain yards. 450 mountain yards. So you're a battalion commander, you got a three companies or four companies worth of maneuver elements, all these platoons, how freaking cool is that? For a 21 year old kid, I was in heaven.
- [152:23]
C
It was the best of the best of the thing. And these guys was special ops, special operations. So I had the best NCOs, not that my other NCOs, SF, NCOs weren't good. These were the best of the best. So they, I learned from them again, they mentored me. Once they understood that I did want to learn from them and again I did. And then I made decisions and everything But I always took counsel with them. Oh my God, they were the best I ever could be Now. So three rifle platoons, heavy rifle platoons. You know what our mortar platoon was one mountain yard carrying a 60 millimeter tube, no base plate, just jammed it in the ground and then, you know, hand fired. And everybody would carry ammo for him. That was our mortar, our heavy weapons,
- [153:11]
A
the one man mortar platoon.
- [153:14]
C
And he, he carried. He couldn't carry a rifle, so he carried a.45, which was the envy of every mountain yard there who. He had a sidearm, a.45. But yeah, that. We'd go out and go out for a month and we try to develop where the hot areas were. Or in the case of Doxiang, which was an incredible battle, we went in right into the jaws of the lion.
- [153:37]
A
So how'd you guys get called in to there? Is it like a qrf, a quick Reaction force call that comes out, almost issues and we need help and then are you guys. Hilo. Hilo in?
- [153:49]
C
Yes to everything. Doxiang was up near the. It was very much, very close to the Laotian border. So it was north of. Way north of Buprang in two core in central islands. These were mountains up there. And the next core up was not that far away. It was I Corps. So it was a border camp. And they were in a valley, but it wasn't. The mountains weren't on top of them. They were in a nice valley with a river. There was a village there. So they were dug in there. And Nixon had ordered the army into Cambodia. The Cambodian incursion and that kicked the shit out of the nva. I mean, they had really hurt them bad. So they were doing everything they could to kind of maybe cause some problems. So the guys had come back, so they hit a couple NVA regiments, came down and hit the camp of Dak Siang. And that was a full blown camp, heavy camp, and it was dug in quite well. My brother was actually there at one time and they damn near overrun. They hit him at dawn. No, no idea. There was no intelligence. And they just came this close to April 1, 1970 to overrunning him. But they didn't. They held out. And so the call went out. So that's April 1st then. So they went. They wanted to send a MIC for us in right away. So we had one battalion. I was third Battalion, the first Battalion they called the International Battalion because it had Australian SAs. Matter of fact, Major Beale we made reference to was a different major there then, and he was the battalion commander. Normally Battalion commanders. Americans were captains. And then he had another Australian officers. And all the rest of them. Two of the companies were Australian warrant officers. They didn't really use sergeants, they used warrant officers, good ones. And then the other company was ran by an American captain, Captain Rao, good guy. And had American Special Forces. And then the warrant officers that had the other platoons, they also had American Special Forces sprinkled in there with them like medics and things of this. That was the International first Battalion, good Battalion. They dropped them into the back pocket of Daxiang, several miles away. So the NVA are kicking the ass out of Daxiang. All of a sudden they go, oh, wait a minute, we got a battalion here in our back pocket. So they started turning their resources then, and I wasn't there then. I wasn't there the first day. But Captain Rao got the shit shot out of him. And so they had. And I had gone to the colonel because we all knew what was going on April 1st. And I went to the colonel, Lieutenant Colonel Collins, tremendous officer. I said, sir, I'd like to go in as a first replacement as needed if an American officer gets hit. I hardly got back to my bunk. Tactical operations center. You got your shit back? Yes, sir. Go to hellpad. And so I went in on day two, and I got with them. And it. I think the first day we fought sun up to sundown, and we went 100 yards. Yeah, it was. It was. It was brutal. And we kept just. They just continually, continually were throwing shit at us. And again. Now, being dug in at Cade is one thing, right? Okay, you're dug in. But when you're on the ground maneuvering against a hostile force and they're dug in, well, then it's a different story now we're on that end of it. But we did plug away as long as we could, and then we got a situation where we had to. We had to dig in and hold on, and we did. And we tried to establish from there and we could. Actually, we were pretty close to the camp at that time. We were told to spread out, but we got to the first place. We dug in and kind of set up a base camp for a couple days. Major Beale was his name, and Major Bryden, the sas, he was mentioned in dispatches, which is a big British thing. Do you know anything I ever heard of that before? Yes, I have mid.
- [158:15]
A
Yes, I have heard of dispatches before.
- [158:18]
C
Mentioned in dispatches. A big deal. Big deal in the English and Australian and Canadian army. And that was the kind of Guy. He was. He was just a tremendous guy. Beale, not so much. Okay, more quiet. And they had their perspective of fighting. And Beale even wrote this book. And he talked about this battle. He talked about. He said, the Americans are. There they are. Let's go get them and let's kill every one of them sons of bitches. He says, where the British or the Australian was more. There they are. Let's think this through. Let's think of the best way that we can. Blah, blah. And many. But the Americans are balls to the wall. Well, it really showed. And we were making a lot of progress, but I was just a company commander, and we were getting low on water or getting low on ammo, and they were. Once again, we were having a difficult time getting it in. And he's. And there was a significant amount of NVA attacking us. And on my side of the perimeter, my company. And he was calling in airstrikes, and they were bringing in napalm. They were dropping napalm. And he kept going closer, closer, closer. And this son of a bitch came right in my perimeter. And I remember I was in my position, my company's out here, and I'm listening to this on the radio and going, wait a minute. And this ball of orange fire came roaring into our perimeter. And I hit the ground and I put my nose in the dirt again as it went over me. And all of a sudden I couldn't breathe because it sucks all the oxygen out of the air. So I came back up, and it was. It was horrible. I had probably 30% of my perimeter had been affected. The lucky ones died instantly. The ones that didn't, you know, those serrates of morphine you give them barely took the edge off. It was horrible. So two things had to happen quickly. Well, one had. I had to shrink my perimeter, make up for that gap immediately. But the good news, if there was good news, it did break up the NVA attack because they were out there burning, too. So that damn near broke our back as far as morale and everything. I remember my team, Sergeant Billy Ledbetter. God, he was good. He. So we're getting medevacs in. The NVA are in disarray, too, after this one, because they did. We did a lot of damage. So we're getting medevac. Medevac. Medevac. Medevac in, and we're probably hauled out 25, 30, 30 mountain yards that were born in. And you know, the medic, Eddie Hill, that was first on the scene, Special Forces medic. It when we started, right, we're trying to write a second book about this. And he said, you're going to make me recount that horror show again? I said, yeah, if we want to. If we want to pay tribute. And I hate to do it. So it was really bad. Anyway, he called us back to the little command post that he had set up within our perimeters. We had platoon, platoon, platoon. And things were looking bad for the home team. And I'm new to the 1st Battalion. I've only been there now maybe a week. And I'm with Sergeant Billy Ledbetter, my team sergeant. And the Australians had a Captain Shilston. And then the warrant officers. And the warrant officers were great. And he comes in now, this is. This is. I'm telling you this story. It's hand to God. Hand to God. He sits there and Beal goes, well, he says, you know, we're in a bad situation. Yeah, we know that. And we're running low on water, run low on ammo, and we got some coming in, da, da, da, da. But we're down now maybe 20% of manpower. You know, we went from 450, we're down to 325 or less. And he said, there's a very, very good possibility we're going to be overrun. We go, yeah, tell me something I don't know, right? And he goes, so when they do. If they do. Actually, I think he said, when they do, he says, stand up, throw your rifles down and put your hands up. And I looked at Billy Ledbetter. I had never operated in this battalion before. I looked at Billy Ledbetterly, what the fuck? And he's looking at me a little short cigar in his mouth. And the warrant officers were, like, looking at each other. And this Captain Schulz is going, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Yeah, we should do that. That's for sure. Another story on him later. And so we're walking back and I'm going, billy, what? What? He goes, what the hell's going on? He goes, he says, he's very kind of weak. I said, well, we're going to be dying facing the enemy with guns in hands. And he goes, I know that. I know that. I don't know. And this. This was the orders we got. Well, suggestions, maybe. So it was bad. However, the next day, the 4th Battalion inserted on top of us, Captain Rich McDonnell. Big Mac brought in 450 fresh troops.
- [163:49]
A
Hell, yeah.
- [163:50]
C
Right out of training, right out of rehab. I not rehab, it downtime. And they landed dead in the middle of our perimeter. So now we went. We doubled our strength immediately. They had water, they had ammo, they were fresh. And we dug in. And now we were. We were content. Now we were blowing back their attacks. Matter of fact, it blew them back so fast and so quick. We got orders from headquarters, said, move out, proceed, push to the camp of Daxiang, which we did. So we took off together, the two battalions. Bo, by the way, I'm not exactly sure. Oh, no. Beale was still. Was still. So we took off, two battalions of my company in the lead. Mack was up with his lead company. And then we got to The. Daxiang would be sitting dead in front of us, and there was a small river. He was given orders to cross the river and go east. And I was to stay west and head around Daxiang and engage clear as we went. Now, we didn't have a lot, you know, they had the most men, and that was the least resistance. We had the least men and the most resistance. And we did it as long as we could. We did it for a couple days, and then we got held up on a. And we had to dig in to survive. And it had sloping side, sloping side, sloping side. And then one that. We wouldn't call it a cliff, but you'd call it a very, very, very steep hill. You could never attack up it. There's no way in the world. So we dug in there and we fought. And during that time, Major Beale choppered out and he left command to Peter Shilston. But Peter Shilston couldn't lead an old whore to bed, and he had some issues, and he never got out of his foxhole. So the command shifted to me. So I was now the battalion commander of the 1st Battalion. So I was making all the decisions, calling in all the airstrikes, calling in all the resupplies. And we held on there. And it wasn't as bad as Kate, but you could certainly see Kate from where we were. And it kept continuing to get worse. And finally. And there's a whole backstory to why it got so bad, there was an NVA hospital dug in, in this underground hospital, large hospital not real far from where we were dug in. And they were fighting like banshees to protect it. We didn't know that. So I said, we can't hold this anymore. We're just not, you know, they're. They're. Every probe they get, every attack they get, we're losing more people and they're gaining more ground. So we've got to. You know, I got to plan once again, a breakout as like my, I become known as, that's my forte. So I said this is what we're going to do. We're going to. And I had the Australian warrant officers and everybody was involved in this except for that one particular captain. I tell you a story about him for a minute. We're there and we're trying to figure out how to break out of this thing. And he, he leads his like platoon. He takes a platoon from his company and goes out and gets engaged in this bunkered up area and he's calling for help. I need help, I need, you know, I said sure. So I took a platoon from Mars and, and I went there with him and there I could see him and he's probably 15, 20 meters away from me. I can see him. And I get up with my people and we spread out and we're in with his people and we start moving forward. I say, I got this, we're going and we're starting knocking out bunkers. And I look around now he's not there. He took his people and Drew, I was like, oh, oh, the second shift is here. Okay, I'm going home now. So I mean I'm in the middle of a firefight so there's nothing I could do about it. So this is kind of humorous. We're the last bunker. The sun's getting low, we got to clean this mess up pronto. And the last bunker is really fortified earthen bunker, probably two feet thick. And we're just not getting through to what we bring to it. So I'm to the right of it and I look at my, one of my yards next to me. I said, I want you to drop your gear, take this grenade low crawl lump, get underneath that and toss this into the aperture of that bunker. And he looked at me once again like I had two heads. And I said, not a problem. So I dropped my belly lead better was there. I said, I'll do this. And he goes, I said, I'll be fine. And I dropped it, slung my rifle and I low crawled around and kept underneath the fire. And I got up to that and I'm sitting there with the aperture and I'm going, okay, I know a grenade has like six seconds, right? You know, you pop, the pin goes off. So I said, I want to hold this for about 4 1/2 seconds before I throw it in so they can't throw it out. I pop it, ping@1001. Fuck this. And I threw it in and I roll like this to, to get away from the blast. And at the same time, within second, they threw one of their grenades out. But I didn't see it. And one of my guys was so close. It's called. It was Puppy Medic. Great guy. Lewis was his name. He goes, hawk, grenade, Grenade. And I went, oh, jeez. So two things happened. My grenade went off. American grenade. Oh, my God. They're devastated. Killed everybody in there. Their grenade goes off. And I felt like I was Superman. I was flying through the air, hands out, and for about 15ft. Then, boom, I hit the ground, spread eagle. The guys sweep through and we eliminate that bunker. Papi runs up to me, and I knew I'd been hit. I knew I'd been hit. And he goes, hawk, he says, you're hit. I said, yeah, I know that. Dead in the middle of my back trap. No. He goes, you know, I'm laying there. He says, can you move? I said, I don't know. And he said, well, have you tried? And I said, no. And he goes, well, God damn it, try. So I wiggle this hand, this hand. I go, oh, I guess. Oh, yeah, I can't. So patch me up. And back we go. Because it was. It was. It would turn out I had X rays as close to the spine. But they said, you know, we're going to leave this here because we don't want to go in and with it. This is 1970, right? Anyway, so the. The battle continues. And I said, we can't hold this thing, so we're going to stay here. We're going to feign that we're here. But everybody's going off the side of the cliff or the very, very, very steep hill, regroup at the bottom. And Charlie Childers, who was one of my captains, great guy, ran one of the platoons. There's Charlie. Regroup them down there and start moving out towards the camp. And as the guys come down, regroup and get out, I said, I'll go on with you. Well, so we brought him in. Piece by piece. Piece by piece we were bringing them. So it wasn't. Everybody gets up and leaves the perimeter, and in a certain order, you know, guys were coming back and they would get to the hill and then they would take the slide for life down this thing. And this probably was about 50 yards down. And so, you know, you. You could try to walk it, but you'd end up kind of bowing your butt, sliding. And I said, once again, take only what you need. Take us. We're going to be fighting and running, so don't take your, you know, you Leave your fucking chow and leave your bedroll. Leave that, because this is. We're doing a run for our lives again. So they did. And I said, take only what you have to have. And my mountain yard. Rto the radio guy. Good guy, good guy. So I get there, I'm on the edge of the hill and the guys are coming past me. I said, yeah, go on down, go on down. And it's daylight. It's about 2 o' clock in the afternoon, 3 o', clock, and I start calling the forward air controller. I'm getting nothing. And I call again. Nothing. I look down, I got no antenna. I looked at the yard, I said, where's the antenna? He said, you said, leave everything. I said, go ahead and get the goddamn antenna. So he runs back and he gives it a short antenna. The one, the bendable one. And I'm putting it on the prick. 25 and I'm putting it on there. In the meantime, guys are coming by me. Guys are coming by me. Guys are coming by me. They're doing a slide for life. And I'm finally, I established contact. I said, yeah, right, yeah, Hawk, we got you. Yeah, okay. I said, okay. And I look, I'm the last one there, and through there come probably about 20, about 40 meters through. They're coming into our perimeter. They're walking slow. They think we're still there and their NVA is walking slow. Maybe a dozen of them are coming in there. So I said, okay, here's what I need you to do. I'm going to pop smoke and everything to the northeast. And da, da, da. I said, you need to come in and hit it real quick because there's. They're all, they're almost on me. So he said, roger. So I popped, smoked, sprayed. I sprayed, and I was the only one that had a 30 round magazine. I had acquired that. Everybody else had the 20s. And I did a spray of that and he came in and just bombed the shit out of those guys that were there and then kept it on. And I slid down and I got a hold. I came up and I found Charlie. And they had run smack into a bunker complex. So I said, we don't have time to knock this out. We got a flank around it. So I started, I said, charlie, take this, go this way. So I started maneuvering the battalion around the bunker complex. So we skirted them. We left enough people there to keep their attention thinking that we were still there. And then we all withdrew. In the meantime, the NVA on top side, they're through that. And they see what happens. So they're sliding their ass down this hill, too. They get to the bottom of the hill, we're not there. So they proceed in the most likely way to go, and they run into the bunker complex. And yet another firefighter ups. Oh, yeah, it blew on blue. They start fighting each other. And we're away over here. And we're going. Yeah, yeah. And so we were able to break out, and we got as far as the Runway to the camp. It was all hunkered down, and they kind of realized it and they hot pursuit and we. We engaged again, but we got into the safety of Doxie Yang. Then I got wounded the third time.
- [174:24]
A
I was gonna say, so that's. You've been wounded twice.
- [174:25]
C
And I got wounded a third time. When?
- [174:26]
A
The third time, Cap, what happened there?
- [174:28]
C
I went back for a stand down, and actually I went on R and R and it came back.
- [174:33]
A
Where'd you go? R and R. Thailand or Japan?
- [174:35]
C
Well, I. There was this. No. I went to Hawaii to meet this possible woman that I was very much thought I was in love with. And. Yeah, Jody, you know, you know, whatever. Anyway, that didn't work out, so. So I came back and I went back to the field.
- [174:52]
A
Sometimes it's easier just to be in the field.
- [174:55]
C
Sometimes you want to be in the field. Oh, God. Joined up with the guys and we were real quick.
- [175:02]
A
Was your brother hearing about all this? Like, you were on the freaking cover of Newsweek and all this stuff? Is he going, what the hell?
- [175:07]
C
Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was. Jesus. Because the family would all go to him. What's going on?
- [175:15]
A
Yeah.
- [175:16]
C
And he downplayed as much as possible.
- [175:18]
A
And was he. So was he active duty while you were out?
- [175:22]
C
When I was. He was out then, but he was active duty when I got to Bragg when I was.
- [175:27]
A
So he was out. And now he's seeing all this stuff and he's telling your family, like, oh, it's no big deal. Don't worry about it.
- [175:33]
C
My dad gets another letter that, you know, I'm wounded yet again.
- [175:38]
A
All right, so you get done with R R with incredible R R in Hawaii. And now you're back again. And how'd you get wounded the third time?
- [175:47]
C
We were. Billy Ledbetter and I, we were out and we were in for the night, and we dug in and we went out to. To take. Check out this twilight. Twilight to see the. What was out there kind of the route next day. And we had. I think it was a mortar. Came in and caught both of us was ways away, but caught both of us in the legs, so didn't think much of it. A couple pieces of shrapnel in. In my leg. Come on. So patch that up, but they have to report that. And then so the next day we're moving. And they. They called and they said, hawkeye, there's a. They're send a helicopter out to get you. And I said, I said, what? He said, yeah, be on this helicopter, sending it out his headquarters. I said, yeah, nothing like this. So it came out, and I had some walking wounded. I put them on there, and I sent it back without me. A little bit later, Hawkins had a second helicopter beyond this. Yeah, roger, second one. Some other guys I sent out, I said, hey, bring some ammo with you, you know, So I didn't get on that one either. The third time they me sent, said, if you're not on this helicopter, we will court martial you. Damn. Okay, okay. So I flew back and I said, what. What's going on? They said, down, back, back as well. Three times says three times is a charm. And we're. We're not going to be, you know, your family says, you know, he already. He got wounded three times, and you kept him in the field. What's wrong with you? So we don't want to. We don't want to do that. So that was it. My combat time was over, and I hung up my rifle and picked up a pin.
- [177:24]
A
And then that's where you did some staff job for the last few months.
- [177:27]
C
The last few months I was in the Trang Dairy Queen was no longer there, I might add. And I was a liaison between the First Field Force, Vietnam and Special Forces and II Corps. And it was a plum job I didn't do. I gained like 20 pounds. I went from 55 to 75. 175 was at the beach drinking beer and kind of easing my way into civilian life.
- [177:53]
A
And you were sure at this point that civilian life was the route you wanted to take?
- [177:57]
C
I was sure that I had to get a college education.
- [177:59]
A
Okay.
- [177:59]
C
I love the army. I loved what I was doing. But I knew, like I said, Ray Charles could see this one coming. The rift was coming, and I was 100% right. And when I graduated in 1975 from Augustana in Rock Island, I called up the infantry branch and said, hey, I'm thinking about coming back in. I just graduated. And they said, well, let me pull your file. And they said, well, you got a good combat record, good officer efficiency reports. What's your Master's in I go. Master's, I said I just got an undergraduate. Oh, no, no, no. This 75. You have to have a master's working on your doctor to get in this man's army now. And they were just. They were just getting rid of guys like. Crazy.
- [178:43]
A
That's so crazy. You got. You got the high school graduate to ocs, and now they're saying you can't be an officer unless you're working on your doctorate. Damn. How was it coming home? How was that transition? You know, when you get back? How was the hippies? What was all that like?
- [179:03]
C
I never got bothered by hippies for obvious reasons. I wasn't about to take their shit. And I would. There would. There would have been a lot more fights in there than I already did have. And my position was nothing wrong with me, apparently. I did have some anger issues, though, and I ended up working as a bouncer in a bar for a couple years. And that was therapy. I just. It was just therapy. Yeah. And so. But I was. I was a little fucked up, I'll tell you that right now. Let me tell you this. And I talk about this when I speak publicly. So guys like me and veterans in general, guys like yourself, you. When you're no longer involved in that, you take those horrific memories or bad things that happened, nasty things, and I always say I put them in my mind. I put them. I lock them up like a footlocker and I put those memories in there and wall, locker, footlocker, closet, whatever in your mind, you nail that son of a bitch shut and you padlock it. Because when I got home, my friends that didn't stay serve, you know, they were all, you know, starting on families and education and our apprenticeships or whatever. So I was behind. So I knew I had to. I had to catch up. So I just stowed it all away. But. But sometimes it could be a smell, something you saw, it could be a turn of phrase, and that. And that footlock would come open a little bit and someone come out and all of a hit me. And would you like. Boom. Oh, my God, that memory came right back. Right back like a freight train. Now, I didn't climb any tower and start shooting or anybody. I didn't have a meltdown. I just. I just remembered. Okay, yes, I remember this. I remember this happening. And you process it, and you process it and you remember it, and you think it through and you process it. Okay, now let's put that back in the footlocker and you put it back in there. And you close it, but it just. It doesn't quite go. Once it's open, it never goes back, all the way closed. So you. You do that. And every time, a little bit more. Now, this could be once every six months or once every six days. And in 2008, when I was no longer an agent and I was no longer with Ford Motor Company, and I was just doing consulting work, 2008, the locker came open, the footlocker came open, everything came out. Everything. So I sat down and started to write about it. Now, I had the After Action Report. I had all the newspaper clippings, all the magazine about it. I had a log that I carried with me every day in Vietnam with little notes in it. And I started to write. And some days I'd write for eight hours, and some days I'd write for eight minutes, but I wrote. And I wrote the entire battle down as best I could. And that was very cathartic for me, as the book has, as the documentary has. It was very cathartic, because when I came home to say that Vietnam veterans were unpopular is the understatement of the year. We were maligned. We were baby killers. We were. We were drug addicts. And those were some of the better things they said about us. And it was just a really, really tough time to be a veteran. Very tough time. A buddy of mine, John Catherman, who's now a retired teacher, but he said he was with the CAV in Vietnam. 1st Cav, Combat Infantryman's Badge, Infantryman. He was home In February of 1970, sitting at this local gin mill called Hafner in Moline, Illinois, and he was in the field, like 10 days before. And it's a Friday night. He's waiting for his wife to get off work, and it's cold and snowy outside, and the guy next to him, busy, busy, looks at him and says, hey, man, it's a nice tan you have. Where'd you get that? And he says, I looked at him and I thought about it, and I said, this guy back from Florida. And the guy goes, okay. He says, not because I wasn't proud. I didn't serve without him. No, I didn't want to get into it. I didn't want to have to explain this and start from this with somebody who had no idea of what I had just been through for a year. And that's the way we were. We didn't talk about it unless we figured you had been there or knew something or I could relate to it. And then we didn't talk about horrible things. We talked about things that GIs always talk about. And then the other one I always add is in 1996, Rich McDonald, Big Mac, we stayed close all these years, and Charlie Chilers, too. We went down to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the conference that they have every year, Special Forces Association. And they had this Mike Force reunion there, too. And I got to see Lowell Stevens and Simmons again. First time I saw him since Firebase. Kate got a great picture in the book. It's in there. And that night they had a formal dinner. Suits, tuxes, whatever you want to call it. And I'm in there with Mac. And there is Bo Gritz. Now, Bo Gritz is a legend in the. In this, in the FBI, in the Special Forces. A legend. He. He was very well known. Very, very well known. And I met him in the trang in 1970 at the officers Club, I believe. And I looked, I said, hey, there's Bo Gritz. I gotta say hi. So I went over to him, I said, colonel Greitz? And he goes, yeah. I said, bill Albrecht. I met. I met you in the Training Officers Club when you were there. And I was in Special Forces, too. And he goes, oh, we met in Vietnam. I said, yeah. And he shook my hand, he smiled, and he said, welcome home. I had never heard that before. I was dumbfounded. I was like, and thank you. And now. And of course, it just struck me, I never heard that before. Now, of course, that's the big thing. Vietnam veterans meet each other, it's welcome home. Because we never got a welcome home ever. And not. I'm not whining and I'm not complaining and not being a baby about this, it's just the way it was. And this is what we dealt with, and this is why we had to move on and, and go from there.
- [185:48]
A
And. And so that's pretty much what you had to do, is just, all right, I got to go to school, get a degree. You did, you didn't you do the reserves to the Army Reserves?
- [185:57]
C
Yes, I did. I was four years, company commander of a leg outfit. Good bunch of guys. And they said, well, sir, what do you think would happen if you took us into combat? I said, oh, geez, I'd lose half of you first day, but the half that stayed, we'd be good.
- [186:16]
A
And then how did you end up in the Secret Service?
- [186:20]
C
I was pushing 27, and I was getting ready to graduate from college. And as a matter of fact, I got to tell you, too, when I'd never been to college. So I started off with the junior college at Blackhawk Junior College in Moline, Illinois. And that really got my feet on the ground and got me focused and on the way what I should. How college is and papers and do. And because I didn't have much much to look back on from high school. So then I transferred from there to four year to Augustana, Rock Island, Illinois. Good, good school. So I took it from there. And then when I come time to graduate, well it was 75. Job market was eh. And I could get a job selling insurance and I could do that. And about just starting senior year I go, I don't want to do any of that stuff. And my buddy had applied, was applying for alcohol, tobacco, firearms, he said and different state agencies. He said, you know, you gotta think about law enforcement. And I never did before. So I did. And the more I got into it, the more I thought, you know, this is really what I need to be. So I shotgunned my applications out to the FBI, the Customs, the Secret Service and ATF and waited for a response. And the Secret Service picked it up very quickly because Gerald Ford had just gotten shots taken at him twice squeaky from Sarah Jane Moore. I should have two attempts instead of shots. So they were, they were beefing up and I got was part of that. So in 1975, October, I raised my right hand and was sworn in as a special agent with the U.S. secret Service.
- [188:00]
A
How was the screening process and the
- [188:01]
C
training for all that Screening process was very, very thorough. And in later years I took a job part time job with the Secret Service as a special investigator. And I'd do backgrounds, I'd sit on panel interviews for new hires. Part time, part time. And it was very, very thorough. And they where they went to. I go talk to hey, Jocko's my buddy and I put him down as a reference. I go hey Jocko, how you doing? Hey, you know something about Echo Charlie here? Yeah. Great guy. Okay. You could. There you go.
- [188:36]
A
Better.
- [188:37]
C
Really? Okay. Who else knows him pretty well? Oh, well, you give me about three names, two of which I have third one I don't. I'll go talk to him. So I talked to the third one because I figured the other ones are good. I'm gonna go talk to them. But I figured they're gonna. I got third one. Hey. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's pretty good guy, decent. And who else do you think I would know him? Boom. So you finally get the people that aren't pre warned. Hey, they're coming to say good Things. So they do an in depth background investigation, of course, drug tests, hearing tests, physical tests, all that kind of thing. Now they polygraph them too. They didn't, they didn't when I came on, thank God. And so that Hawaii trip would have popped big time. So there, there it was very, very thorough. And now it's even, it's even more exhausting one and I then in part of my career I taught in the academy and that was kind of fun too.
- [189:33]
A
So what was your job when you were, you know, when you started off in the Secret Service?
- [189:37]
C
I started off in the Chicago district and as a new agent they had these criminal violations at that time, you know, I don't think that. And they were treasury checks, bonds, securities, stolen, forged, cashed. And this is what you did. They kind of broke your, your teeth on investigations. They were very low, low profile. Nobody really cared much shit about them, tell you the truth. But it's a good thing, good learning process. And then you did counterfeit money. Ah, now we're talking, now we're talking. Some great investigations. That was fun. And then threats against the President, the Vice President, their families. You would investigate those and things of this nature. Those are the three primaries. And then always, always protection. No matter what you're doing, you drop it. But if you're in the field, then you're not going to be in D.C. the White House, on that inner perimeter. So you're going to be in the field. And they'll say, hey, the President or the Vice President's going to Cincinnati. We need 52 poststanders, we need 52 agents. And they go, okay, Chicago district, give up. So many, so many here, so many there. And you go, they report and say, okay, today you're going to be at this location and this is your job. And then we intermix with the police, and that is paramount importance without the local police. And we intermix with them. And so that's what you do. And then after a certain time, then I went from there to New York field office and ended up in the Counterfeit squad, which was the elite squad criminal of the entire Secret Service. Now LA will say they are, but I will argue with that. So we were always in competition, New York and la. Why is it competition for shutting down counterfeit plants. And we would work a counterfeit case like was murder one. And that was quite the deal. So we did that. And about that time in 79, terrorism was on the rise. And they came out and said, you know what? We are going to start an anti Terrorist unit in the Secret Service. We're going to call them CAT Counter Assault Teams. And Ernie Kuhn started putting together teams in the summer of 79 and they started asking for volunteers. They wanted them in the field offices because the detail guys who were with the President and Vice President, they're just too damn busy and they don't have enough of them. They tried it but it didn't work. So Washington Field Office, Louisiana, New York. We fielded teams and they would have us come out and we went through a then two week course of. And three of us were Vietnam combat veterans and there was tactical motorcade assaults.
- [192:19]
A
So the President gets hit or the Vice President gets hit and they. You could do immediate like counter assault check.
- [192:25]
C
Exactly. And that's kind of stuff you used to do.
- [192:27]
A
Yeah. So that's like as good of a job as you can want, huh? Although you got to, you don't want to be hoping that something bad happens. The President obviously, in order to get to do your job. And then how long did you have that role for?
- [192:38]
C
Well, so I was working criminal work in New York and the counterfeit squad. God that was the best of times. They worked us like Ren and Mules though, and we loved it. And then the CAT came in. It was like playing football in high school. As long as your grades were up, you could still play football. So we trained as best we could and then we'd be depressed, deployed. And after a while the Special Agent in charge of New York said hey, hey, they're either mine or yours. Make a decision. But you can't be hauling these guys out all the time. Because we had some very, very good agents. Team would be five or six guys. So they said okay, we centralized them in 82 down in Washington D.C. and that became the special operations of the Secret Service. So I took the transfer down. I went down and, and became a plank holder on the Counter assault teams as well. So it was like three, three or four teams back then and did that for a couple years. And now this is where the journeyman level at that time was a GS12. GS12 plus 25% pay. 13 was, was a promotion. Now journeyman levels are 13, which it should have been back then. And I went and Talked to After two years in D.C. two years, I mean two years in New York, two years in D.C. well it was a, it was a. Considered a, a career suicide to be in Cat.
- [194:08]
A
Keep, stay on Cat. Yeah.
- [194:10]
C
Now it's like, holy shit. That all changed when the, when my partner in New York and my partner one of my team leaders in D.C. also special forces, Vietnam, became the director of the Secret Service, Bloom Merletti. Great, great guy. So I went in, they said, hey, we got you. I said, are you gonna make us team leaders promote us? Yeah, well, Bill, you know, we're thinking about that. I go, so that's a no. All right, So I need to get off, get off Counter Assault Teams. He goes, okay, we got your slotted to go to ppd. President of protection, Reagan. I said, no, I don't want to do that. Reagan was 70 plus years old. He didn't like to travel. He liked to go to the ranch and he liked to go to Camp David. And he just didn't like to go out and do all these other things. He just didn't like to go foreign travel. He just didn't like to. He didn't care to do that. So that meant his agents were not getting the experience of going out and doing advance work as much as George Bush. George Bush was non stop travel. Reagan would call him in his office and say, from my lips to your ears, this is what I want you to tell so and so. So he was non stop. So I said, I want to go to the vice presidential detail with George Bush. So I did.
- [195:35]
A
So you travel with him all the time?
- [195:36]
C
Oh, yeah. Oh my God.
- [195:38]
A
Did you ever go to Kennebunk, Maine?
- [195:40]
C
All the time.
- [195:41]
A
So I was probably about, I don't know, 10, 12 years old or something like that. And my dad worked up in Kennebunk. And so the vice president was coming and he was giving a speech in like the little port town, like in this little town. And so I'm there, my dad takes me see, you know, the vice President giving a speech. And you know, it's tiny town and like this little square is very small area. And so I'm standing there and I can't really see too much because I'm a little kid. And I'm also like a punk ass kid, you know, even though I'm only 12 or whatever, I am 10, 12. And so I'm standing there, I can't really see anything. And so then my, my dad gives me a camera and it's, it's like this is, this is 1980 something, right? I don't know what specific year. But this is, you know, old, like respectful times, right? These are, these are respectful times. And it's a small New England town, very respectful. And so my dad says, hey, you know, can you get a picture? I'm like, well, I can't Say anything. He said, well, and there's a little windowsill behind us. And he goes, well, get up on that windowsill and see if you can get a picture of him. And so he gives me a camera and I have a little kid. I stand up there and I get the camera up and. And I go, hey, George. Just like that. I mean, the whole. Like, I've got a loud voice anyways, hey, George. And he know. I mean, he can hear clear as day. And he, like, looks over at me and I click a picture. And none of your guys, like, jumped me or anything like that.
- [197:08]
C
Oh, God, that's great.
- [197:09]
A
That was pretty, pretty funny. I'm sure I. I'm sure I made a fool out of, you know, my dad and the family.
- [197:15]
B
Oh, no, whatever. But
- [197:18]
A
so. But like I said, none of your guys tackled me or anything.
- [197:21]
C
Well, I got big stay ass. Where's that picture now?
- [197:23]
A
I. I think it's just lost in the history time, which is a bummer, you know, because it was probably, you know, just one of some little cheap film camera. But I remember seeing the pair, like, we got it developed, and it's not a spectacular picture because it's not like a telephoto lens. It's like the picture of Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address. You know, it's kind of like, wait, where is he?
- [197:43]
C
That guy?
- [197:44]
A
But you could tell it was him. You know, he's a little town circle. You could see him. It was pretty cool. But that's my George W. That's my George Bush story.
- [197:51]
C
That's a good story. Yeah, that's a good story. He's a good guy. Both those guys, what you. What you saw is what you got. If you didn't like what their appearance in public was, well, you wouldn't like him in private either. They were just true Americans, really. It was a. We look back, you know, the Secret Service is going through some transitions now, and there's some scandals and things of this nature. Us old guys, we hang and we talk and we have to consider ourselves the golden age. We had some of the sharpest, brightest, best guys, and some. A lot of these guys went on to be captains of industry in the security world and everything. You know, Merletti was up with the Cleveland Browns for years as a VP and so on. But back then, my God, we had good. I mean, competition was incredible.
- [198:42]
A
I was going to say, imagine that. Just the screening process and not just the initial screen to get in, but, like the screening as you go up the chain of command and you get Those billets, like, how many people do you have to select for in the whole country? And then down select for this group and then down select, down select to where you're guarding either the President or the Vice President. Like, these have got to be like the best, most capable humans we have.
- [199:02]
C
It's. It's not quite that much. It's. They're going to be looking at you as a field agent, what you do as a field agent, and then your different protective assignments. Because as a field agent, when the Chancellor of Germany comes in to your district, you're going to be the one doing the advance with the Germans and so on. And they're going to be looking at the kind of work you do. So when your number comes up, your bill comes up to be transferred. And they need people on PPD or vppd, they're going to be looking at that. Now if you're some slug. No. Got a great story about one guy who was. Came to New York. I won't mention his name, but he was very, very much overweight. Now, most of us guys, very fit, PT tests and all that. He was very, very overweight. And we're like, oh, God, he was from Do Daddy, Mississippi or something, you know, hey, how you guys doing? You know, And. And we're. Oh, man, this guy, he gets there and he starts going out and locking up the world. He goes out to Bedford Stuyvesant of Brooklyn and starts bringing in these Czech forgers. And next thing I know, his new name was Sheriff of New York City. And I go, my God, this guy was good, but he was very much overweight. And the boss would go to him is, God damn it, you got to lose some weight. You're too stamped. I know, I know, sir, I know. And then that's the line. I heard he was up there. Are you losing weight yet, son? And he goes, sir, they hired me fat. Well, guy like that. No, but he went to Miami and made a. Just. Just set up a whole new career of locking people up and doing things. Organized crime down there. And so no, he was not going to go. Or somebody this nature. And then if they get a bad. Not a bad apple, I don't want to say that, but they get to somebody that doesn't fit in or can't fit in, they won't be there long other bury them. And another interesting thing too is that one thing you got to always understand when you're in protection and you've protected enough people to understand that you are not there. You know, friend, you're there to protect them. And when I first got to the VP detail, the special in charge had, they bring them in in groups of ten to a dozen so that the Vice President comes out or Reagan that comes out one day and he's got all new agents around him. You know, he, they just bring him in so slowly they interject new people. So we're in the, the kind of where their orientation and I'm in there with the other new guys and the specialty in charge gets in. And just his little greeting, he said, george Bush is one of the finest men that I've ever met. Truly is. And he did a little bit of his background. World War II pilot shot down, da da, da. And he says, you know, he's got this resume, just won't stop. Probably our next president after Reagan. But he said, and he said, George Bush obviously knows my name, of course. And he knows my wife's name, he knows my children's name, he knows my anniversary date, he knows my birthday, he knows my wife's birthday. He's tell you one thing about George Bush. He's not my friend, nor will he be yours. He said, this is a great guy, great personality, but you're not here to be their friend. If you're their friend, you're not doing proper protection. If we detect anybody trying to be their friend, you won't be on this detail. And that was the way it was because you're not their friend. You're there to work.
- [202:45]
A
Yeah, yeah, you gotta have that little bit of separation for sure. You know, they're looking out for guys that are trying to, you know, kiss ass to the big boss, which certainly is not going to be prudent for good security work. So how, and how long, what year did you retire from that?
- [203:03]
C
2001. Before 911. 2001, I got a, an offer from Ford Motor Company I couldn't refuse. So, so I went to Ford Motor Company and executive operations. I was a manager there for. And I did security work for when Bill Ford and Nick Shaylo would travel, go out there and do advances and travel with them as security and for the World Trade Center, I mean the New York world headquarters, the New York Ford Motor Company world headquarters and the research and engineering center. Had you had security fire people there. So you'd have 50, 60 guys that you're responsible for to do that when you weren't traveling.
- [203:41]
A
And how long did you do that gig?
- [203:42]
C
For about four years. And then they started downsizing because the auto industry was starting to slide and Ford had Some great top end people and they saw it all coming. And when it really hit, they were the only ones that didn't take a bailout.
- [203:59]
A
Yep, they are.
- [204:00]
C
And they were in position. They had repositioned and I was making a lot of money and my number two guy was not making that kind of money. Good. But not, certainly not I was making. And when the, when they called me and said, hey, great job, Bill, you've done a wonderful job, what do you think about this buyout thing here? And I looked at him thinking, who the fuck do I got to kill for this? You know, I came from the government, we didn't have buyout. You just, you just laugh. And anyway, yeah, they were very, very kind to me and by all my duties and responsibilities of the protect that protection, not that shifted to them. And they never raised his salaries or anything. They said, well, you're in charge now. No. And so this is what kind of things they did. They were very, very good about it
- [204:53]
A
and hence they ended up surviving without a bailout. And then how did you, how did. So how long did you do that for?
- [205:01]
C
About four years.
- [205:02]
A
Four years?
- [205:02]
C
Yeah.
- [205:02]
A
And then what came after that?
- [205:04]
C
Well, I'm hometown boy. I went back to the Quad Cities and got back there and just kind of hung on my shingle to do security consulting. And there's a whole network and they call, hey, are you available to do this, this, this. Nope, I'm going to go skiing. Or no, I'm, you know, but. Or yes, I am. So I just pick and choose the different jobs. I did not want a full time job again.
- [205:31]
A
And then you, you, you know, this third silver star which you didn't get until 2012. How did that come about?
- [205:39]
C
Good story.
- [205:39]
A
Because, because you went, you know, you told the story already that you went to get an award. You didn't know what the award was. You decided that was more important to save people's lives than to get an award. So you end up showing up late to your own award service and you end up getting no award. And you said, I'll catch up with me at some point. You never saw it. So how'd that come about?
- [205:59]
C
In 2010, Bobby Schilling was where I lived in Rock island county was same or maybe more per capita Democratic tickets as Cook county in Chicago. It's incredible Democrat. And that brings upon their own problems that people have with one party control either party, you're going to have problems. So Bobby Schilling decided to run for Congress in 2010 and the guy he was running with was a slug and another veteran by the name of Ken Moffitt. He's come up. He really liked him. He said, hey, would you help me with the veteran angle to help Bobby get in? So I heard him talk, and I talked to him. I met him, and I said, yeah, so we did. We formed a pac, actually, a Veterans for the Constitution. And we were very helpful in getting him into office. He won. He won. First Republican congressman they had there in, oh, my God, 40 years. So he got in, he came to me, and he said, bill, I want to offer you a job as my veteran constituent working in my. Blah, blah, blah. No, thanks, but no, thanks. But I say, who would be good is Ken Moffitt. He goes, well, that'd be my second choice. Ken would be good. And he was. He was just great at it. He said, but is there anything I can do for you? I said, yes, there is. There is one thing. I. And I told him a little bit story about Kate and I missed the ceremony. I said, if you could look into that and see what happened to it, I would. I would appreciate that. So he said, absolutely. So Ken, now, being the veteran guy, comes to me. He says, you got anything on this written on? I says, well, remember I told you 2008. I wrote it all down as this. As a matter of fact, I do. So I handed it over to him. He then took the ball and ran with it. Oh, my God. Started looking up people, interviewing people. He was the basis for the research, the starting research of the book. And then Marvin took it over. Now, listen. So they did, and they decided, not me, I had nothing to do with this, that they were going to submit me for the Medal of Honor. And they did. And it came back, and they said, silver Star is good enough. So I was presented with the Silver Star in 2012.
- [208:32]
A
Jack. Yeah. I'm not sure what else you got to do, but we'll take it.
- [208:38]
C
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I said.
- [208:40]
A
So, yeah. And I've. You know, I've seen stuff with people like asking, you know, the president to intervene to get that upgraded. Let's see where all that goes. You know, we. There's a. A guy in. In Ramadi, a guy named Marquis, Sergeant Marquis, Quick. And he. You know, his. His company sergeant was on this podcast, but he. He jumped on grenades to save some of other guys. And, like, he. They're looking to get him the Medal of Honor. Searching for the last few eyewitnesses right now, but what a process it is. But, you know, absolutely. You know, Such a clear case. A guy that sacrifices his life for his friends like that.
- [209:22]
C
Yeah.
- [209:23]
A
And, you know, or. But the, the process of going through and I'm, I'm, you know, just tangentially know what's going on because I'm friends with. Friends with Dan Pinion, who's the, the, the functioning force to try and make it happen. And just seeing from the outside what he's doing to try and push that forward. Huge efforts going forth and hopefully it happens, you know, because, you know, clearly.
- [209:44]
C
Clearly. Well, you know, you know, sacrifices life.
- [209:47]
A
Absolutely.
- [209:48]
C
What else is left?
- [209:48]
A
Nope, nope. Nothing.
- [209:50]
C
Yeah.
- [209:52]
A
So. So what are you doing now then?
- [209:56]
C
Well, I did, I was telling you I was a special investigator for the Secret Service part time. They called me up and I did that for nine and a half years. I didn't even know I was doing it. I was still doing contract work too, so I just stopped doing that. Mary is very happy about that. And now I'm trying to do some of the things, develop what they call hobbies. But I gotta tell you one thing about this. The single sign. Did I. Did I talk about the Warriors Rising?
- [210:23]
A
Yeah, you mentioned before we hit record. Okay, yeah. Let's hear what that's all about. Warrior Rise.
- [210:27]
C
Warriors Warrior Rising. Warriors Warrior Rising. Okay. And basically it is a company. A company company. It's a veteran organization founded by some special forces guys. And right now Casey Maxted is the president of it. And what they'll do is. So if you have developed as I was talking about, this one individual made these beautiful knives, incredibly beautiful. And they were well worth putting them into production. But he didn't have the foggiest idea what do you needed a business plan. He needed business how finance, how to get finances. How do you do a hr, how do you set up a factory? How do you do all these things? That's what Warrior Rising does. They bring these guys in and they take them to school, literally put them in through a school where they learn how to run a business, how to create a business, how to run a business. And they help them all along the ways. And then at the end of this, we're just coming up to one now in Iowa in March. There's going to be a shootout event. All different kinds of guns will be shot. But that's fundraiser, then a dinner where they'll have a shark tank the night before and a top five or six will present their ideas to this panel. And they're not all veterans. They're captains of industry type people.
- [211:41]
A
These, the panel is all captain Panels.
- [211:43]
C
Yes. And then they'll decide who they're going to fund beyond and it's really a cool deal. And then they have this dinner which I always go to and freeload and, and drink for free and eat whatever they have. And I spoke at one of them, so. Not that one.
- [211:57]
A
But you earned your food and booze.
- [211:59]
C
That's right. Pay me. I'll just eat this here. Okay, so. And, and they do this and they do a very, very good job of it. Warriors Rising. So it's, it's a good worthwhile.
- [212:08]
A
Do you know the website by any chance?
- [212:10]
C
I think it's warriors wiseing dot com.
- [212:13]
A
Cool, that's awesome. And then. So does that get us up to speed of where we're at right now?
- [212:18]
C
Yeah, pretty much.
- [212:18]
A
So you're working on another book. What's the next book? The Mike Force book?
- [212:21]
C
Yeah, it's going to be about Daxiang and it's a, it's a, it's a moving at the pace of a glacier right now. See, Kate was simple in that I had control of all this stuff and I could get find out all this other stuff. But this has got another Mike Force unit coming in from the Trang. We have a Ranger unit, a guy named of Latrell, Sergeant Luttrell, he had an Arvin Ranger unit which was pretty shit hot. And they were inserted on top of one of these hills, kind of like a firebase gate type of hills. And they had three, three American advisors, like a major captain and him as sergeant first class, all killed. And plus most of this command structure, the Rangers killed. But he organized them. And the last day they were there, he took those rangers, he let them off that hill with air cover and got them to safety. And he received the Medal of Honor. Gary Byrick at Special Forces Medic at Daxiang received the Medal of Honor. Incredible pass. He's passed. Incredible what he did. So there's a lot of moving parts in this thing and I can focus in on the 4th Battalion and the 1st Battalion. But then I got to bring in all these other things. Like there was more caribou shot down there at Dak Chiang than the history of caribou's in Vietnam. And they had brought in these things, Stinger, who could shoot artillery rounds off the back bunker, penetrate rounds off the back of their platform. A lot of hot shit things was going on there and they're, they're tough to bring in all. All together.
- [214:08]
A
Yeah, that's good. That's definitely a bigger chore than the one where you kind of owned everything
- [214:12]
C
yourself and it lasted for six weeks.
- [214:14]
A
Yeah. As opposed to five days.
- [214:16]
C
Yeah.
- [214:18]
A
And are you still doing, like, you. You mentioned, a little bit consulting and speaking and stuff like that? Yeah, when you feel like it.
- [214:27]
C
Speaking now, you know, they'll. They'll usually be some money involved, unless it's. Unless it's some organization that, you know, and. Yeah. So, yeah, they. They get a hold of me, and I'll say, well, what do you got going? And do that.
- [214:37]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So does that get us up to speed?
- [214:40]
C
I think so.
- [214:41]
A
And people can find you. You got captain hyphen, hawk.com. that's where people can find you.
- [214:46]
C
I think best to go to the website. And that's. Yeah, that's right. You just said it.
- [214:51]
A
Yep. Captain Hyphen, hawk.com.
- [214:53]
C
yes.
- [214:53]
A
That's where I. When I googled you, that popped up right away.
- [214:56]
C
Yeah.
- [214:57]
A
Awesome. Awesome. Echo. Charles, you got any questions?
- [215:00]
B
Yeah. To clarify, the Warriors Rising. Is it Warriors Rising or Warrior Rising?
- [215:05]
C
Warrior. Singularly singular.
- [215:06]
A
Okay.
- [215:07]
B
No S. Okay.
- [215:08]
C
God, I say that. I hope I'm right.
- [215:09]
A
We'll look it up. We'll make sure.
- [215:11]
C
Yeah, Confirm.
- [215:11]
A
We'll connect people.
- [215:12]
B
You mentioned you played football. Varsity football, High school. Did you. Well, first off, what position did you play on?
- [215:18]
C
Right tackle, Offensive, Defensive? Offensive, Hell, yeah.
- [215:22]
B
Online all day. Do you find that. Because I kind of wonder this. Where do you find that, like, the principles of football carried over to the military?
- [215:34]
C
I mean. Let me answer that. That's an excellent question. Let me tell you about that. First of all, I was a little kid, play football, played baseball, basketball, not too much. And I was always one that preferred to go to Blackhawk State park in the woods with my band of. Of warriors and set up ambushes and ambush other kids. Always. The army was always in my heart. So I played football, freshman, sophomore year, and then. And I was no sand out for. That's for goddamn sure. But I really loved the game. Come junior year, my father said, if you want to go to Allman Catholic High School, you goddamn well better get to pay the tuition. So I had to get a job at a grocery store, and that's where I worked. And so I couldn't go out for football junior year. I'm going somewhere with this. So senior year, I was senior at the grocery store, and I went and told them, I'm going out for varsity football and I would like you to rearrange my hours. If not, I can't work here anymore. Yes, they did. So they rearranged my Hours so I could practice, play on Friday night, and work all weekend. So I went out varsity year to play, and I was pretty good, I guess. Okay. But the two guys in front of me had played for four years, so they were first string. So I was absolutely second string. I would be like the third tackle going in, so I never started a game. But I loved being part of a team. Just what we're talking about, being a part of a team. Being a part of something, a force multiplier. Being something bigger than you are because you're with everybody else. I love that. And at the end of the season. We had a good season. At the end of the season, they handed I paid enough to get a varsity letter. And that varsity letter meant so much to me. Right now it is framed and hanging downstairs among my wards and decorations, right between two silver stars. That's the first thing in my life that I ever completed from beginning to end of any substance. And that took me then into the Army. Knowing gave me. It sounds. It doesn't sound like it would, but it gave me the confidence to know that I can start something tough and get through it. So to answer your question, a resounding yes. Yeah, of course. This. You know, you asked me what time it is. I just told you how to build a clock.
- [218:01]
B
No, no, no, that's actually what I was wondering. Laundry. And I have two friends that went into the SEAL teams. They just. They both retired recently. And we played football from childhood to college. And they would say, yeah, you know, it's kind of like football in this way or that way, and all I can do is kind of imagine it or whatever. But then there's a lot of people who don't. Who, you know, who don't play football necessarily, and they go through. So I just kind of wonder when I map it back on my experience, like when I'm trying to imagine this
- [218:28]
C
stuff, I think there's a stage step further. When. When. So interviewing these young applicants for the Secret Service, first of all, you're looking for a veteran and you're looking for a cop, ex cop. That's. I mean, you got to really screw up for me not to get you, because we're. First step. The other thing I found that I looked for is guys that played collegiate athletes and they didn't have to play, you know, Division one or what they could even been in. Played continually in intramural sports, but played on the field, sweated, bumped heads, did physical men and women, and that was. That really showed me some commitment and some Drive. And that is something that I found to be in the applicants that we did get, those that had participated in team sports.
- [219:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. Football too is, I mean, that's the main one that I played and track.
- [219:22]
C
But I'm shocked. Tell you, I'm shocked.
- [219:26]
B
Football is like kind of, I guess, in a way unique, where every single position has this very specific job to do and you have the pairs, right. You have, you know, two tackles too. W. You know, sometimes. But they all have such different jobs. When you compare the different positions. But each job is equally as important, regardless of the glory. You know, like the wide receiver or the quarterback or the Right. They're going to get the touchdowns and all this other stuff. But if the O line in. In any given play, if the, let's say 1o lineman doesn't do his job, the whole team fails on the team. See what I'm saying? So it's like all the jobs are so different, but each one equally as important. I completely agree on every play too. It's like in that, you know, kind of sense.
- [220:07]
C
Look at the line on the super. This last super bowl, what happened with the, the offensive line? Okay.
- [220:13]
B
That's the way it goes.
- [220:14]
C
What was your position?
- [220:15]
B
Oh, wide receiver.
- [220:16]
C
Okay.
- [220:16]
B
I played running back, dude, when I was young, I played like all the ball positions, but yeah, in college. Wide receiver.
- [220:21]
C
Yeah. Yeah.
- [220:22]
B
Yes, sir. Good to meet you, sir.
- [220:25]
C
Yeah.
- [220:26]
A
Bill, any. Any closing thoughts?
- [220:30]
C
I. I'm just thrilled to be here. Now, you guys represent a lot in our community. A lot in our community of veterans and law enforcement and current active duties. And you. Your interviews are incredible. And I think the thing that I find the most is your in depth questioning of what's going on. And that is very, very important. And there are men. I mean, I. First time I ever heard of one. When you would. About John Duffy, I'd get to where I was going and I'd sit in the car for another hour just to listen to that. I was so taken by that and some of the other ones that I've listened. So it's truly my honor to be here. I'm just thrilled I'm going to catch a red eye. Home to Orlando, which, not home, but back to where my wife is, our winter place. And chalk this up to one of the better accomplishments of my life.
- [221:31]
A
Well, honestly, it's a, it's absolute honor to. To be able to meet with you guys. You guys were my heroes when I was growing up. You know, that's. That's what I. Matter of fact, you know, I get asked, like, if I go back in time, what would I. Where would I do? What would I. Where would I go? What would I do? And I always say I'd be a SEAL in Vietnam. That's what, that's what I'd want to do. So for, for me to be able to sit down with, with you and, and hear these things firsthand and capture them and share them with other people, it's just, it's just an absolute honor for me to be able to do. And so thanks for coming out. Thanks for, you know, sharing these lessons learned and the book, like I said, the book is absolutely phenomenal. I hope you pick up the pace on the next book and you write a little bit faster because I'm going to be waiting for it and we'll come back and, and talk about that thing as well. But, you know, so thanks so much for all that. And then most important, thanks for your service to our country and for your service in Vietnam and then your service as a, as a Secret Service member. And really, I pointed this out in the beginning, but the book really does an outstanding job of making sure that we don't forget the sacrifices that our military makes and the heroes that did not come home. So thank you.
- [222:36]
C
It was my honor to serve and thank you.
- [222:40]
A
And with that, Bill Albrecht has left the building. What a story, by the way. 21 years old at that time. Yeah, crazy 21 years old. 150 to 200 guys, all their lives depend on what you're doing as a 21 year old. That, that is, that is outstanding right there. Also, I will note that I think for the first time in the history of this podcast, you got told that your question, I believe the word he used was Excellent, excellent question. So I know you're a fan for life.
- [223:22]
C
Hey, we still here.
- [223:23]
A
Oh, man. And, and that's the crazy thing is like you, you know, you read, you read this book and that book is about five days and you know, even the story he just told and he covers the mike for stuff in, in the book Abandoned in Hell in like a page and a half, you know. Oh, yeah, I was wounded again. Wounded again. And then you start hearing like the little, a little bit of context around those situations and it's just incredible. So awesome to have him on board and share those stories. And just another reminder, man, you got to be ready. You don't know what you're. You don't know when things are going to go down. Even flying in to Firebase, Kate, he's like, can't believe I'm getting stuck out here with nothing going on. This is ridiculous. But guess what? He did got out there. I was like, all right, got to start squaring stuff away now. They didn't even have time because it got dark. But that was the attitude. We got to be ready. Always got to be ready. And that doesn't just apply to fire bases in Nam. It applies to life as well. So that's what we're doing. We're going to be ready for anything. That means training. That means jiu jitsu. That means running, lifting, sprinting. Just overall studying and getting after it. That's what we're doing. And by the way, when that happens, you need some fuel. And we highly recommend Jocko Fuel. We have the pro series out. We have the Warrior Kid series out. Warrior Kid Protein. Have you had any of those yet?
- [224:49]
B
Not the Warrior Kid, but the pro series all day.
- [224:51]
A
Yeah, the pro series. Outstanding. All day. Also the Warrior Kid. So it's. It's protein boxes, you know what I'm saying? Like the little boxes of. It's a drink.
- [225:02]
B
Oh, like a juice box.
- [225:03]
A
Yeah, like a juice box. It's like a juice box. And, you know, they sent me some as a sample. Like, hey, Jonko, you know, here's the finished product, here's the run, here's the packaging, here's blah, blah, blah. So I get them, put them in my fridge, you know, oh, I have one. There's a vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. They're all amazing, right? And I actually ordered more. So even though I have. Look, I have the pro line, I have regular milk all. All day, right? But occasionally just to be able to grab, like, 12 grams of protein, that tastes just absolutely delicious. So. But the kids are loving it. So we got that. We got the energy, we got greens, we got all the supplementation. We got muscle drive, which is a big deal.
- [225:47]
B
Yeah, I need some of that.
- [225:48]
A
Yeah, the muscle drive is no joke. And I'll tell you what's interesting about the muscle drive, is it because it's. It's got, like, all the amino acids that you need in it. And I don't know if it's that psychological or what, but it makes you feel full. You know, you're kind of like. You kind of feel gratified after you have it.
- [226:09]
C
So.
- [226:09]
A
But that's really. That's awesome for people, especially, like, weight cuts or just cutting weight in general. But you want to protect your muscle. Muscle drive all day.
- [226:19]
B
Yeah, absolutely. It goes beyond weight cuts, by the way.
- [226:22]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, for sure.
- [226:23]
B
In any kind of cut, any kind of lose weight. So here's the thing. When you're losing weight, don't say lose weight. That's why I always say, hey, you're on a cut, right? Not to mention it just sounds cooler. But you got to get it correct because if you're like, I'm going to lose weight, it's like, okay, what kind of weight? Like, bro, you can chop off your arm and lose weight, you see, I'm saying, but you want to lose body fat. You want to improve your body fat percentage. Right? That's kind of the goal. And you want to, at the very least, preserve muscle. At the very least, ideally, you want to gain some muscle. Ideally. But keep in mind, sometimes these things go, they work against each other. If you're trying to lose, that means you're on a calorie deficit. But you got to have enough protein and carbohydrates, by the way, to build muscle, generally speaking. So like, how are you going to square that circle muscle drive. Exactly right. So a lot of times, especially if you're cutting hard, you're going to lose that muscle. It's just, that's just how. And you can slow the, the reduction of the muscle you don't want to lift and get enough protein, stuff like that. But it's like, it's natural to lose that muscle. You got to thread the needle pretty hardcore. To be able to maintain or gain muscle while you cut up. It's very, it's, it's a balancing act for sure, especially over time. It's not, it's not easy.
- [227:36]
A
No.
- [227:36]
B
Ask any fighter, when they cut weight, they lose so much muscle, but it's like, you know, it's just sort of working worth it because you're small and you're competing against smaller people. So I get it. Of course, that's how.
- [227:44]
A
But in the game of life, in
- [227:47]
B
the game of life, the whole thing, I mean, I'm just saying the standard is losing muscle when you're losing like any significant amount of weight.
- [227:54]
A
Yeah, the standard, you know, don't accept that.
- [227:56]
B
Don't accept it.
- [227:57]
A
Check out jogglefuel.com you can get it@jogglefuel.com or you can get it up retailers around, around the country. So check that out. Also origin, USA origin, we're making American made clothing, rash guards, GI's, Jiu Jitsu belts. So everything that you need for the mats of justice, origin, usa. But listen, we can't unfortunately wear a GI to the grocery store. We got to wear Jeans, we got to wear hoodies. We got to wear T shirts, we got to wear boots. That's why we have Origin USA Clothing. Whatever you need, we got you covered. And it's all 100 made in America. That's what we're doing. Check out originusa.com also check out jocastore.com
- [228:38]
B
we're representing discipline equals freedom.
- [228:40]
A
Good.
- [228:41]
B
Get after it. Stand by to get some. All these things that you want to, let's say, embrace as an approach to life in any given situation, we can represent. I'm telling you, this is quality, too, by the way. So many people, and I really mean this, so many people have said, like, hey, these are like, of course they look good or whatever, but the real tale gets told because they always want to wear it because it fits them great. See what I'm saying? So all I'm saying is, hey, this is quality stuff. It's not just some giveaway type size. Good. Also, if you want a new subscription scenario called the Shirt Locker, new design every month. A little bit outside the box, creatively. You know, we collaborate with people, sometimes with it. You know, it's fun. The design, same sort of theme, though, more or less. But yeah, check that out. New design every month. It's called the Shirt Locker. It's all on jockostore.com.
- [229:29]
A
check.
- [229:29]
B
Also SOG legacy.com. you want to represent SOG support. SOG support. That's a very important distinction. You know, most of us were. We were not in sog.
- [229:40]
A
Yeah, we were not far from being in.
- [229:43]
B
Bill mentioned SOG today.
- [229:44]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [229:45]
B
Studies and observations group.
- [229:46]
A
Yep. One thing about sog. Universal respect. Yeah, universal. Respectfully. Look, you get the inner service rivalries. I was in this war. You were in that war. I was in this theater. You were in that theater. I was in this group. You were in that group. Blah, blah, blah. Everyone, you know, everyone's got their little beef with everybody else. Except for Sock. Yeah. Universal. Universal respect.
- [230:12]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [230:13]
A
And so we show universal support at the SOG store.
- [230:18]
C
Yep.
- [230:18]
B
It's true. Yeah. SOG legacy.com. you want to check them out? It's cool. There's a cool, really, really good covert black on black one. Brown's really solid. Then you got. Then you get the regular logo one. All of them is just support. See, I'm saying, like I said, we're not in song, but we support.
- [230:32]
A
And that does support SOG history. Yes, it does support SOG legacy by supporting the SOG cast.
- [230:39]
C
It's true.
- [230:40]
A
So that's what we're doing sog legacy.com we got some books, obviously Abandoned in Hell by William Albrecht. This is just an outstanding book. So check that out. Put your Put your legs on by Rob Jones and then Dave Burke. Need to lead. Check out those books. And then of course, I've written a bunch of books about leadership, so you can check those out as well. I also have a leadership consultancy. It's called Echelon Front. You can go to echelonfront.com if you need help with leadership inside your organization. We also have an online training academy. Go to extremeownership.com to learn the skills of leadership. Well, you can learn them right there online, so check that out as well. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help out their families, you want to help out Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom. She's got the most amazing organization. It's a charity organization and it helps out so many of our service members. And so if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org also check out heroes and horses.org and finally, Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org also warrior rising.org so we didn't get that right during the podcast, but if you want to check out that organization that helps helps our veterans transition into the civilian sector, warrior rising.org and once again, if you want to find Bill Albrecht, first of all, you can check out warriors rising.org but also he's on the interwebs. Captain hyphen hawk.com There you go. And for us, you can check out jocko.com and then on social media, I'm at Jaco Willinkan, Echoes at Echo Charles, we don't encourage you to go there though. Once again, thanks to Captain William Hawk Albrecht for joining us today and thank you for your decades of service to the United States of America. We are indebted to you and thanks to all the military personnel out there around the world right now and to all of our veterans with a solemn salute to our Vietnam veterans who fought and sacrificed in that war and did their duty to the utmost. Also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol and secret service of course, and all other served first responders. Thank you for doing your duty here on the home front to protect us and everyone else out there. Just remember that no matter how bad things get and no matter what you're up against, no matter bleak things might appear, you can find a way out Even if, like Bill Albrecht, you have to make that way out. You have to make it yourself. So no matter what, keep fighting. That's all I've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.