#204 Larry Vickers - Delta Force: Operation Acid Gambit

Summary

Shawn Ryan Show Episode #204: Larry Vickers - Delta Force: Operation Acid Gambit

Host: Shawn Ryan
Guest: Larry Vickers, retired U.S. Army Special Forces Operator and Founder of Vickers Tactical
Release Date: May 29, 2025

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1. Introduction and Background

Shawn Ryan welcomes Larry Vickers to the show, highlighting his extensive military background and significant contributions to modern tactical firearms.

Notable Quote:

“Larry Vickers, retired US Army, first SFOD Delta operator... Mastermind behind the HK416, the rifle that took down Osama Bin Laden.” (01:13)

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2. Early Life and Military Career

Larry Vickers shares his upbringing in Adams Mills, Ohio, growing up with maximum freedom, which fostered his love for firearms and hunting from a young age. He discusses his close relationship with his parents, particularly his mother, and how his father's military background influenced his decision to join the Army.

Notable Quotes:

“I was a mama's boy.” (08:54)
“Both my parents were involved in World War II... My dad was a World War II vet in North Africa and Italy.” (04:33)

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3. Selection for Special Forces

Larry recounts his rapid entry into the Special Forces through the informal "SF Baby" program, where he joined as a Green Beret at 18 years old. He reflects on the challenges of the selection process, including the infamous swim test, which he barely passed.

Notable Quotes:

“The hardest thing I ever did in my life. Bar none.” (34:02)
“I knew, I was on my A game and I nailed it.” (36:22)

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4. Operation Acid Gambit and Delta Force Missions

Larry details his involvement in Operation Acid Gambit, a high-stakes mission to rescue Kurt Muse from Modelo Prison in Panama. He describes the meticulous planning, the execution of the raid, and the intense firefight that ensued. The operation was a pivotal moment in his military career and showcased the effectiveness of Delta Force.

Notable Quotes:

“We successfully completed the stress phase of Delta Force selection and assessment.” (85:55)
“I immediately started crying. I mean, I just gushed.” (85:55)

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5. Personal Struggles and Setbacks

Post-mission, Larry discusses the physical and emotional toll of his military service, including surviving three helicopter crashes and dealing with the loss of close comrades. These experiences led him to question his path and eventually step down from his troop sergeant position due to physical limitations.

Notable Quotes:

“I have not been a good husband or a good father.” (256:31)
“I stepped down because I couldn't perform physically.” (215:11)

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6. Transition to Firearms Development

After retiring from the military, Larry leveraged his expertise to co-develop the HK416, a highly acclaimed rifle known for its reliability and performance. He explains the collaboration with HK and the innovative modifications that made the HK416 a favorite among military and law enforcement agencies worldwide.

Notable Quotes:

“We were the parents of the 416. Ernst Malk on HK side and me on the end user side.” (231:02)
“It's yet to lose any trial anywhere in the world as far as I know.” (231:17)

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7. Legal Issues and Current Challenges

Larry opens up about recent legal troubles involving illegal firearm importation. He discusses the circumstances that led to the seizure of his vast gun collection and the impact it has had on his personal and professional life. He expresses his determination to seek a pardon and restore his gun rights.

Notable Quotes:

“I inadvertently violated rules, laws, regulations knowingly... I pled guilty to two counts.” (244:59)
“I'm actively pursuing a pardon and getting my gun rights back.” (246:38)

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8. Personal Reflections and Advice

Reflecting on his journey, Larry emphasizes the importance of adaptability, resilience, and thinking outside the box. He shares lessons learned from his military and entrepreneurial experiences, urging the next generation to remain relentless and mindful of their mental outlook.

Notable Quotes:

“Try to always think outside the box. Don't get set in your ways.” (261:10)
“Your mind is the most important tool you have in life. Be relentless.” (263:57)

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9. Conclusion

Shawn Ryan concludes the interview by expressing admiration for Larry's accomplishments and resilience. Larry reiterates his commitment to personal growth and supporting his family despite past shortcomings.

Notable Quotes:

“I love my son, and I apologize for not being the father I should have been.” (256:18)
“Thank you, brother. It was an honor to interview you, man.” (263:36)

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Key Takeaways:

• Larry Vickers' early life in Ohio and his parents' military background significantly influenced his career path.
• His rapid entry into Special Forces and subsequent missions, especially Operation Acid Gambit, highlight his exceptional skills and dedication.
• Personal setbacks, including physical injuries and legal issues, demonstrate the challenges faced by military veterans transitioning to civilian life.
• Innovation in firearms development, notably the creation of the HK416, underscores his lasting impact on modern tactical weaponry.
• Resilience and adaptability are crucial themes throughout Larry's story, offering valuable lessons for individuals navigating complex personal and professional landscapes.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements and non-content sections from the transcript, focusing solely on the meaningful dialogue between Shawn Ryan and Larry Vickers.

Transcript

[Shawn Ryan]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Larry Vickers, welcome to the show, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it.

[Shawn Ryan]

I appreciate you being here.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, I couldn't be happier to be here.

[Shawn Ryan]

This is a legendary interview.

[Larry Vickers]

Well, thanks for saying that. You're welcome. Humble, bro.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, you know, I mean, I remember, I remember getting connected to Tom Satterley texted me and was like, hey, do you want to interview Larry Vickers? And I was like, yes, I want to interview Larry Vickers. So yeah, fast forward what, maybe six months and yeah, here we are. So I'm really excited, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Thanks, bro. I'm too. I've been stoked about this for weeks now.

[Shawn Ryan]

Good.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, big time.

[Shawn Ryan]

Good. Well, we're going to do a life story on you childhood army career, what happened afterwards, some of the mix ups that you're dealing with right now. But everybody starts off with an introduction, so here we go. Larry Vickers, retired US army, first SFOD Delta operator. Spending 15 years in the unit with over 20 years total in special operations, making you one of the most seasoned warriors of your era. Stormed Modelo prison in Panama during Operation Acid Gambit. Rescuing Kurt Muse under heavy fire. Earning a bronze star with valor for your actions. Survived three helicopter crashes, more than any other operator at the time. And you walked away from every single one of those crashes. You're the Mastermind behind the HK416, the rifle that took down Osama Bin Laden. In a driving force in shaping modern tactical firearms and accessories. Founder of Vickers Tactical and author of the Vicar's Guide. Setting the standard for firearms scholarship. And there's a lot more.

[Larry Vickers]

We had to cut it down, cut.

[Shawn Ryan]

It down just a little bit because we'll get into all the other stuff in the interview and then before we start, everybody gets a gift. Even you, Larry.

[Larry Vickers]

I heard that.

[Shawn Ryan]

So those are legal in all 50 states still until. Until they banned dyes and all the other. But it's just Vigilance League Gummy bears, man. Made in the usa. They taste amazing. Yeah, they're horrible for you, but I love them so.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I heard about this. Everybody told me, hey, you're gonna get a gift.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, man, everybody gets a gift.

[Larry Vickers]

Cool.

[Shawn Ryan]

It doesn't beat yours, though. The Vickers Guide heckler.

[Larry Vickers]

The H and k. Yeah. Volume three.

[Shawn Ryan]

That is awesome.

[Larry Vickers]

Actually, volume two. Excuse me? Volume two? Yeah, the MP, the submachine gun book.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's volume three?

[Larry Vickers]

Roller lock guns, meaning G3 and you know, like HK21 series. And then volume four is coming out this year, which is all the post roller lock guns at 416, G36, 417 G11, XM8, all that stuff. That's the one I'm really stoked about because of my time with the 416 being involved with that particular gun.

[Shawn Ryan]

Cool.

[Larry Vickers]

Really stoked about that one was coming out later this year.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's your. I mean, you've been around firearms for a long time. You're an innovator. I mean, any. Any firearm in the world. What.

[Larry Vickers]

What's your favorite M4?

[Shawn Ryan]

The M4.

[Larry Vickers]

M4.ish. You know what I mean? Semi automatic, different barrel lengths, Just kind of throw them all in the M4 bucket. That would be my favorite.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Larry Vickers]

Because I have so much time with it. And I. I put the 416 in with that too, because it's basically an M4 with a different operating system. That's all it is.

[Shawn Ryan]

I love the 416.

[Larry Vickers]

Thank you.

[Shawn Ryan]

We used to use those. Thank you. But. Well, let's get into the interview. Okay, so we always start at childhood. Where'd you grow up?

[Larry Vickers]

Ohio. A real small town in Ohio called Adams Mills. We don't have a traffic light. I mean, we're talking about small, nice, born in 1963. Classic baby boomer. I was a baby boomer by one year. 1964 is the last year of baby boomers. So I was a baby boomer by one year. Both my parents were involved in World War II. My dad was a World War II vet in North Africa and Italy. My mom worked on the home front making artillery shells.

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, no kidding?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. At a munitions factory making artillery shells.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. So, you know, I kind of grew up from that and then that mindset. And the great thing about it was you had maximum freedom. Like, I would take off at the beginning of the day. You know, the classic deal you've heard about. Take off at the beginning of the day. They wouldn't see me till, you know, time for dinner. You're gone. You're out in the woods, you're taking a BB gun. As I got older, I'd take a bolt action. 22, single shot. 22. I'm hunting, you know, rabbits, squirrels, Groundhogs. And they. My parents, they'd have no idea where I'm at. They know I'm around and whatnot. And another thing they would do is, hey, it's time to come home. We haven't seen Larry. So they'd start calling the neighbors, you know what I mean? Real small town. They knew everybody. They knew everybody's phone number. Have you seen Larry? Hey, yeah, I saw him. They sent him home, dinner' ready, that kind of a thing. And we'd be want, me and my friends, we'd wander miles away, miles away. And my parents would have no idea where I was at. And they were totally cool with it. They never got bent out of shape about why were you down there? Why did you go down by that bridge? Why were you over on top of that hill? They never got bent out of shape about it at all. Maximum freedom.

[Shawn Ryan]

Any brothers and sisters?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I got a brother who's older and a sister who's older as well. I was the baby of the bunch. I used to think my parents, they tried one last chance to have another kid, found out that I was an accident, you know, it wasn't planned at all. It was an accident. My dad was 50 when I was born. My mom was 36.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, so they were basically particularly. My dad is old enough to be my grandfather, so he was 50 and my mom was 36 when I was born.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Wow.

[Shawn Ryan]

So you. What. What age did you start on the BB gun?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, man, if I had to guess, I'd say six. No, no, no, no, that's. That. Not six. Seven. Probably about eight Ish. Nine. Ish.

[Shawn Ryan]

Eight.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, man.

[Shawn Ryan]

I got a son, he's three, and he's. I'm dying.

[Larry Vickers]

I'm wanting. I'm dying to get him a BB gun.

[Shawn Ryan]

No, he doesn't have one yet. I mean, yeah, I'm airsoft, or now he. He has a cork gun.

[Larry Vickers]

Okay.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. The old school. You pull the PVC pipe?

[Larry Vickers]

Yep.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, I'm trying to teach him weapon safety with that. It just. It's. He's not having it.

[Larry Vickers]

He's not having it. He's not dialed in yet.

[Shawn Ryan]

No.

[Larry Vickers]

As he gets older, more mature, he'll get it.

[Shawn Ryan]

So 8. You started hunting with BB guns, going.

[Larry Vickers]

Around trying to shoot squirrel stuff like that.

[Shawn Ryan]

How would you. What was your relationship like with your parents?

[Larry Vickers]

Good. You know, much closer with my mom and my dad. And I told people this when they asked these kind of questions. I don't ever remember. I knew My dad loved me, but I don't ever remember him telling me that one time that, hey, Larry, I love you. My nickname was Jake, by the way. They both called me Jake still to this day. I have no idea why. But hey, Jake, you know, hey, Jake. Hey, Jake. That was my nickname. But I don't ever remember my dad saying, hey, I love you, Jake. I mean, not one time. I knew he did. And honestly, now I'm pinned down. I don't know if my mom ever said it either. They just kind of. Yeah, they just kind of came from that era where it was kind of understood we're putting a roof over your head, we're putting food in your stomach, we're putting clothes on your back. Of course we love you. That's where my head's at and why they were probably thinking that way, to be honest with you.

[Shawn Ryan]

Interesting.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Not. Nothing touchy. Feel like it is today. Yeah, Nothing like that.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah. What? What? Why were you closer with your mom than your dad?

[Larry Vickers]

Because she kind of babied me, you know what I mean? I just, I was just.

[Shawn Ryan]

She.

[Larry Vickers]

She did, you know, and the old classic thing, I had my mom kind of wrapped around my finger. If I needed something, I'd go to her and she would always give in and all. Yeah. So I, you know, I was a mama's boy.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha. Gotcha. What else were you into as a kid? How were you as a student?

[Larry Vickers]

Good. I was a classic B student. I could have been an A student with no problem, but to me it was like, I'll put in enough effort to be a B, you know, B student. I really don't want to put in that extra effort to be an A. If I got an A, it was almost by accident. If I got a C, it was kind of because I was half assing it, to be honest with you. But I was a classic B student. I like to play sports with my friends. Never really did organized sports very much at school, but we would play baseball and football and all. We'd play tackle football with no pads or any of that crap. I did that all the way through, you know, elementary school, junior junior high and high school. We played tackle football with no pads. To us, it was kind of flag football and all that was kind of like, seriously, why aren't you playing, you know, tackle football? But say I was in the sports and whatnot. But from the point of view of playing with my friends, not necessarily organized.

[Shawn Ryan]

Sports at school, did your dad ever. Or your mom, did they talk a.

[Larry Vickers]

Lot About World War II, my dad, a little bit. My mom really never did at all. It was only later I kind of asked her and said, what'd you do? She goes, oh, I worked at a factory. You know, Coshocton, Ohio, which is where I was born, probably 15, 20 miles up the road from where I grew up. And my mom was from there. You know, I worked in our, you know, manufacturing facility in Coshocton that made artillery shells. And I didn't find that out till late in the game, you know. And then my dad, though, would talk about it. He was in North Africa and Italy, and he had some ptsd.

[Shawn Ryan]

Really?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah, he sure did.

[Shawn Ryan]

How do you know?

[Larry Vickers]

Because he would, you know, he would kind of relate and start telling some stories about guys that had died and had been killed that he knew that were friends of his and stuff. And I remember him talking about that on occasion. Not a lot, but on occasion. He would kind of almost ramble in a way, and I'd listen to him, but he would. He had ptsd. I mean, for sure. Absolutely.

[Shawn Ryan]

Did you. When did your. I guess. Are your parents still with us?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, no, now. My dad died. He was 84. My mom was 77. And that date. My God. They died in the early 90s. Yeah, they've been passed away for quite a while now.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, I guess the reason I'm asking is. I'm just curious. I mean, did you and your dad ever relate when you became, you know, a Delta operator?

[Larry Vickers]

A little bit. They never. I mean, he knew about me going in the army, obviously. I mean, I went in the army really, because of my dad. I mean, you know, I mean, that influence. I remember my dad one time specifically, I went in. I went to jump school and all that, and he said, jake, because Jake. I don't. He never flew on an airplane his whole life.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

His whole life, he never flew on an airplane. Neither did my mom. Neither one of them flew on an airplane. So that was totally alien. Alien concept. And for me to jump out of an airplane, my dad said. He goes, jake, I don't know how you do that because I don't know how he goes. That. That's something I just don't even know how you could do. I remember him telling me that. So he related to me going in the army, but there were some things that I was doing that he just couldn't, you know, he couldn't comprehend.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah. Did your. Did your brother or sister go join the service at all?

[Larry Vickers]

My brother's actually on the autism spectrum. Pretty severe.

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, God.

[Larry Vickers]

My Sister, she kind of got married early on. She went on and did some occupational therapy stuff. Neither one of them were really interested in going in the military at all. I was really the only one that, you know, my son, my brother couldn't. I mean, because beyond the spectrum, he. There's no way he could have been in the military. My sister could have, but had no interest in it.

[Shawn Ryan]

What, so was your dad that got you interested in them in the military?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Solely your dad, or was there any other inspiration or mainly my dad.

[Larry Vickers]

But, you know, there were so Many World War II vets in our little town. Almost all the grown men were World War II vets. I can't hardly think of any of them that weren't that were my dad's age or kind of in that time frame. They were all World War II vets. And my uncle was World War II and Korea. He'd served them both. Uncle Bill. Bill R. My uncle was World War II in Korea. So, yeah, they were. That had an influence on all Those World War II vets for sure. Me playing army, which was my favorite game, of course, of all time, playing army as a kid, getting helmets and stuff like that and going around with sticks, you know, sticks. Basically you bent in shape or you snapped in the shape of a gun. But yeah, it was mainly my dad's influence in terms of. That's really the number one reason I went in the military, was my dad's influence.

[Shawn Ryan]

What about. I mean, the Vietnam War was going on at that time. Did that have any influence?

[Larry Vickers]

Not really so much. I was still too young for that because, you know, Vietnam ended 70, early 70s. I mean, I was born 1963. Yeah. So when it's ending, I'm seven, eight years old. So not really. Not really. If I'd have been older, 100%. 100%.

[Shawn Ryan]

How did you. How did you pick the Army? Why did you pick.

[Larry Vickers]

My dad was an army. So right off the bat, and you'll love this, this is a great story. I was telling Scott about this on the way up here. My dad always spoke highly of the Rangers. Always be. He really held the Rangers in high esteem, put them on a pedestal. So I thought, well, I'm going to go in the army and I'm going to be a Ranger. Right. Well, I went down the army recruiter and got a little pamphlet about combat arms. And it, you know, had. The first one was infantry and then artillery had airborne in there and all that jazz. And when Rangers. Well, I know I'm reading about the Rangers. That's where I'm going to go. Well, I noticed there's one. This is no lie. One more page. I'm like, I flip it open. Special Forces. What's this? I started reading about Special Forces and then, you know, at the very end, they had me. I mean, I was hooked. It said, if you don't think you can make it, don't even try because only the best can wear the Green Beret. And that was it, dude. I was. I said, that's it. I'm going to be a Green Beret. I'm going to be Special Forces. At that point that their PR department worked on me. I mean, it worked like a champ. They wanted to snag somebody and they snagged me like a big dog. 100%.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did. What did. So you could go straight into it.

[Larry Vickers]

Back then at that time, yeah, they had what they called, informally we called it the SF Baby program. And they needed bodies because this is post Vietnam. They needed people. So, yeah, you could go straight in off the street as right out of high school and go through the Q course. A matter of fact, I graduated and I was 18 years old from. Yeah, I was for about. I graduated May 7, 1982, and I turned 19. June 27, 1982.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I was a Green Beret for about a month and a half before I turned 19.

[Shawn Ryan]

Holy.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. 18 years old. Didn't know anything, dude. I didn't know anything. In hindsight, that SF baby program was stupid. They didn't have it for very long. I think they kind of realized this is dumb. And then they put parameters on it. You had to be in the army for a certain amount of time before you could try out for SF and all that kind of stuff, which made perfect sense because I got here, I'm on SF team, I'm 19 years old. I didn't know anything. I mean, nothing.

[Shawn Ryan]

You know, I'm curious about your thoughts on this because I think that. I think the didn't. The SF baby, I think it came back.

[Larry Vickers]

I think it's. They call it active today. X ray program. But you have some pretty serious parameters that you gotta meet. I think you have to. Now, don't hold me to this. I could be way off base. But I think one of the things that allows you to go straight in is like two years of college. I think you have to be a certain age and whatnot. But I think it's called the X ray program. So it did come back where it was a GWOT thing. I think they wanted people they needed people, they wanted people. So it was a GWAT style effort that they brought in to get people in Special Forces. The X ray program, as far as I know, it's still in effect.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, I mean, well, when I joined, I mean, that's how I became a seal. Because I originally wanted to be Force Recon, they wouldn't take me. Well, then Green Beret, my dad was in the army. They wouldn't. You couldn't do it, you couldn't get in. And then the Navy recruiter stuck his head out, was like, hey, heard of the seals? And I was like, no, but. And they had the program, they had the, I can't remember what, the BUDS Challenge program or something like that, SEAL Challenge program. But I remember being in and I got, I joined, signed up at 17, waited till I was 18, shipped out.

[Larry Vickers]

I did the same thing. I did that sign up at 17, between junior and senior, you know, senior year, signed up at 17. So I had that one year where it was still worked in my favor for pay, even though no rank. But I did the same thing. I signed up at 17.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, I'm just curious about your thoughts because I go, I still think about it. I go back and forth. And I remember the first time we worked with Green Berets with an SF team. We were in Panama and then we went out to Haiti in 2004 when Aristide got yanked out. But I remember those guys just giving us all kinds of shit because we were so young and yes, we were, especially me, a total immature fucking knucklehead. But, but I was a hard charger. And I always, like back then, I always thought it was dumb to make people go to conventional units and then to come into Special Operations because, Because I think that, what am I trying to. You know, conventional units, they don't think like, like soft guys. And sometimes you can get these guys in from a conventional unit, especially in the Navy.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep.

[Shawn Ryan]

Because there's nothing, there's no, there's nothing else like it. Right. And they come in and they bring what we call that fleet mentality. And they're very, very chain of command. Very. It's not like an open forum like what special operations is supposed to be. Now, on the flip side of that, if you don't send them out there, then you do get a bunch of immature fucking knuckleheads. And that can be hard to. I can imagine that would be really hard to deal with. But I mean, so do you think that people should go to the, to a regular MOS before Joining Special Ops or getting the opportunity to try out for special Ops?

[Larry Vickers]

Yes and no. I tell you, if I'd had it to do over again, if I was going to do it now, I'd go to the Ranger battalion first.

[Shawn Ryan]

Really?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. 100%. 100%. I found out once I got in, that's really the route I should have went.

[Shawn Ryan]

Why do you say that?

[Larry Vickers]

Just because where my head was at, you know, sf, Green Berets, they're force multipliers, man. They go overseas, let's face it. They go overseas and take a bunch of people and train them, basic training, and try to organize them into a fighting unit. I mean, that's really force multiplier, nation building. That's their thing. As soon as I found that out, I was like, dude, count me out. I had no desire to do that at all.

[Shawn Ryan]

No.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, no.

[Shawn Ryan]

You didn't think that was cool at all?

[Larry Vickers]

Not at all. I had no desire. I wanted to be a pipe hitter from day one, bro.

[Shawn Ryan]

You just wanted to be an assault.

[Larry Vickers]

I wanted to be a pipe hitter. And I knew in hindsight that Ranger battalion path before I got in Delta was a better path for me. I knew it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Interesting.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

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[Larry Vickers]

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[Larry Vickers]

Because I wanted to be a pipe hitter, had no interest in this nation building thing, going to a third world country, training, you know, you know, indigenous people to become a fighting force, nation building. I just had no interest in that at all. Not at all. So for me, Ranger battalion would be what is a better path? Coming from conventional army in the soft, that's a tough nut to crack. The good thing about is if you've got a good selection program, you will weed out the people that don't need to be there, the people that don't think right, that aren't out of the box thinkers. You'll weed a bunch of those people out. If you've got the right selection program.

[Shawn Ryan]

It'S almost like a reprogramming for guys, you know?

[Larry Vickers]

Yep.

[Shawn Ryan]

But when you joined, I mean, what was going on in the world at the time? Were we in any conflicts?

[Larry Vickers]

No. The big thing was, and it was a big impact on me was Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan. And when he came in and the motivation to basically become, you know, being an American was a good thing. Again, it was bad under Jimmy Carter, bro. It was bad. Things were not good. Akin to Joe Biden. Akin to Joe Biden. If I had to say two worst presidents that I've been around, without question, Biden, or I say, I've been alive for, I should say Biden and Jimmy Carter. It was not a good time in this country under Jimmy Carter. People were. It was a depressing time. There was no, you know, pride in being an American. It was bad, dude. It just liked the Biden thing. I mean, case in point, if you want an analogy or kind of, hey, I want to be able to relate to that. Just look at how it was under Joe Biden. Not a good time. Ronald Reagan comes in, turns everything around. All of a sudden, now it's great to be an American. You have pride in the country, building up the military. Ronald Reagan was the. My dad, of course, put the bug in my ear to go in the military. But next to that was Ronald Reagan.

[Shawn Ryan]

Your dad put the bug in you?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, Through.

[Shawn Ryan]

Through his stories or.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, through just talking about the Rangers. I mean. I mean, my dad being in the military was a big piece of him, who he was as a person. A real big piece. There was no way around it. And I, you know, so I got engulfed in that, so to speak, and him talking about the Rangers, how he held him in such high esteem. And I started looking into the Rangers and discovered Special Forces, Ronald Reagan coming in. So that's what was going on in my world. I went in. Yeah. I graduated in 1981, and I went into the army like two weeks later. Dude. I didn't, you know, people were like, aren't you going to hang out for the summer? I go, nope, I'm going in, like two weeks after I graduated, I was in the Army.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did your dad say when you told him that you had enlisted?

[Larry Vickers]

He was all for it. He had no issues at all. He. I remember him telling me one time, he said, jake, I don't know what we're going to do here because I don't have money to send you to college. And he was always a penny pincher. They kind of had the money, but, you know, they grew up during depression and one of those things. So the major penny pincher day, old bread. One of those deals. So I don't have the money to send you to college, but I said, dad, don't worry about it. I'm going in the Army. I remember this exact conversation. I said, don't worry about it. I'm going in the Army. So he was totally cool with it. My mom, not so much. When the recruiter came by to pick me up to take me to the in processing station, she was crying. She was not real happy with it, but my dad had no issues with it at all.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did he say when you told him you were going south?

[Larry Vickers]

I don't think he really knew what it was. I don't think he ever really absorbed what it was because it was such an unconventional concept for him. I don't think he ever really Knew when I joined Delta. They told us, you need to tell your family now that you are in a special mission unit, you need. They, we don't want this to be a surprise to them. So I went home and I gave my mom and dad the bare bones. Hey, I'm in a special mission unit now, very highly specialized, very highly trained. And you know, because they want you to tell them to let you know, hey, you're at risk for you, much greater risk now of injury, getting killed, being deployed. I mean, you're, I mean, you're basically the tip of the spear now in terms of the US Army Special operations. So I kind of told them the bare minimum. I could tell it just went right over their head. But I checked the block, you know, I checked the block. I told my mom and dad about it. I told my, you know, my family, my mom and dad. But yeah, they, I, my dad, I don't think ever really grasped what SF was all about. Never? No.

[Shawn Ryan]

Does that bother you at all?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, no, no, not at all.

[Shawn Ryan]

Were they proud of you?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah, absolutely, 100%.

[Shawn Ryan]

Were they? Do they know about Panama?

[Larry Vickers]

Nah, not really.

[Shawn Ryan]

Why not?

[Larry Vickers]

I think I might have told them about it. But, you know, for the longest time, dude, that Modelo prison thing was real hush hush. I mean, big time. We didn't discuss it. It's now decades later, of course, you know, there's been a book written about it, there's in theory a movie coming out, you know, next year or whatever about it. So it's much more open source now. But boy, for the longest time it was not discussed at all. It was real under the radar.

[Shawn Ryan]

It doesn't bother you that they never really grasp the, the magnitude of what you were doing And.

[Larry Vickers]

No, not really. I mean, they were, because like I said, they, by the time I got to that point, they were old enough to be my grandparents.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

So I didn't, it didn't really, didn't really bother me. Never really did.

[Shawn Ryan]

Fair enough.

[Larry Vickers]

And they were cool with me being in the military. They were proud. But what I really did in the military, they knew I was special. I was in a special unit, and that's about it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha. So let's talk about leaving home.

[Larry Vickers]

How was that for you, going in the army? Yeah, I was all about it. By the time that came around, I was chomping at the bit to get on with going in the army. Chomping at the bit. I remember other people's parents would say, oh, as soon as you're out of high school, you wish you were back in. And I was like, I've never felt that. I never felt it when I left. I didn't feel it when I, you know, I was in the army. I was like, are you kidding me? I don't want to go to high school anymore. I'm done with that. I want to get on with life. So I was all about it 100%. Didn't, you know, miss my friends. Yeah. But I would see them when I'd come home on leave and whatnot. But other than that, dude, I was 100%. Like I said, I wanted to be a pipe hitter from day one.

[Shawn Ryan]

You wanted to go to war?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, I wanted to strap it on.

[Shawn Ryan]

So we'll breeze through the boot camp stuff. Let's talk about your selection, sf.

[Larry Vickers]

You know, we're talking about this. Earlier, I, you know, kind of had some questions pop up. Honestly, it wasn't very hard.

[Shawn Ryan]

Really.

[Larry Vickers]

No, it wasn't. You know what? You're gonna laugh at this. You know what the hardest thing was, was the swim test.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was the swim test?

[Larry Vickers]

If I remember correctly, 15 meters with fatigues and boots, web gear, and a Rubber Duck M16. And see, when I was growing up, I didn't swim very often. I really didn't. We didn't have. I certainly didn't have access to a swimming pool. I just didn't swim very often. It just wasn't that big of a thing. And I kind of went into the swim test a little bit nervous, but not really understanding what I was getting into. And when I got in that water and started swimming, fatigues and boots on and that web gear and a weapon, dude, I, I, it was scary. I was floundering big time. You could ditch the weapon and still pass. I ditched it immediately. And I was frantically trying to get down to 15 meters. I, it. That is without a doubt the hardest thing that I dealt with. Going through the Special Forces qualification course. I. And I passed the swim test, but barely, dude.

[Shawn Ryan]

No. So that was probably at the very beginning too, huh?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah, it was 100%.

[Shawn Ryan]

What. What else did you do in there?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, went to phase one, which at that time, because they changed it after I went through, it's been. It's changed so much over time. That's one of the dings on the Special Forces qualification course is they haven't had a lot of continuity, but we did, you know, land navigation. We did survival. Right. And they had, basically, they tried to weed out the people who didn't want to be there, you know, What? I mean, the people that couldn't cut it. So we had some physical stuff to weed them out. Land navigation, survival were two big things that we had. In phase one, did some other stuff like repelling, some stuff like that. We did it out at Camp McCall and out in North Carolina, near Fort Bragg. Famous, you know, famous for special operations or special Forces in particular. Weeded out. I used to know how many guys started and how many guys finished. But when special for in, you know, the, when I went to the Q course. But I do remember this. There were 13 guys that came from jump school that were SF babies. Only two of us finished.

[Shawn Ryan]

Really?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, 11 guys. Now I got a caveat that a couple of them were probably medics who break off for the medic course, which took quite a while longer and then they come back in and finish the Q course. So there may have been a couple of them or whatever medics that did in fact pass, but they didn't, they didn't finish with me. So I lost situational awareness with them. But out of the guys I knew, 13, only two of us finished, or two of us, you know, put on a Green Beret.

[Shawn Ryan]

What happened after phase one?

[Larry Vickers]

Phase two was small arms training because I was a light weapon specialist. So we started doing, we also did some heavy weapon stuff, mortars, anti tank weapons and stuff like that. But it was mainly light weapon stuff. Was, was, you know, was phase two. I got a good story for you. Before I went in, I knew I was going to be a light weapon specialist, so I got these books, Combat Arms and Small Arms of the World. And I would just absorb them, looking at pictures, reading about the guns and everything like that. And I really would study the designs and the parts on them and all that kind of stuff. Instructor came in, we were doing the disassembly and assembly classes and we're on break, came back in. Instructor goes, hey, I got a part right here that somebody left out in the parking lot. If you can tell me what it is and what it's for, I'll carry a rucksack on the next rucksack march. And I saw it, immediately raised my hand, he's what is it? And I go, selector switch for a Thompson submachine gun. He goes, wrong. And as soon as he said it, I went, dumbass, I know what it is and that ain't it. What an idiot. And then a couple other guys, gear, you know, guests and everything. I rose my hand again, raised my hand again, and he goes, do you already guess? I go, no, I know what it is this time. He goes, what is? I go, selector switch for an fnfal dude. His jaw hit the floor. How did you know that? Just keep in mind, I'm 18 years old.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

And he goes, how did you know that? And I told him the same thing you did. I got these gun books. I studied the pictures, read about them, absorbed them, and sure enough, the dude, the next. Whenever we did the rucksack march again next day, or whenever he carried my rucksack.

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, shit.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah. I walked alongside him the whole way.

[Shawn Ryan]

Were you the youngest guy in the class?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, one of the youngest.

[Shawn Ryan]

Pretty close.

[Larry Vickers]

Pretty damn close. Yeah, I think I might have been. Matt kind of rings a bell that I was in fact the youngest guy in the class, but I know I was certainly one of the youngest for sure.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was your opinion of the. Of your colleagues that were going through?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, you know what's interesting? There was a guy named King that I went. He was the other guy who finished with me and he was a dumpy looking dude. If you saw him, you say, hey, by the way, he just finished the Q course and he's now a Green Beret. He'd be like, what? Get the hell out of here. So you. Classic Casey. You cannot judge a book by its cover, bro. And he, he came. I was in jump school with him, became good friends with him because I went all the way through the Q course with him and he. He's the other dude between the 13, me and him. Another guy finished that was King. Totally unassuming dude. Unassuming dude. I mean, classic case of, you know, don't underestimate people, because this guy right here will prove you wrong.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, I'm just curious. I mean, you're one of the youngest guys in the class. You're in a premier unit, you know, at the tip of the spear. It's exactly what you wanted. I mean, the advertising said, don't try if you don't think you're gonna make it, you won't. I mean, so what was that like for you, being 18 years old, going through SFQ course?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, there was guys I really looked up to that I was in the class with. Majority of them came from Ranger battalion. Majority of them came from Ranger battalion. And guys I really hit it off with. I mean, I really looked up to them. They were studs. I really, really liked them. You know, I really looked up to them, got along with them great. And they were all guys from the Ranger battalion. All of them.

[Shawn Ryan]

At what point did you realize you should have gone Ranger probably partway through.

[Larry Vickers]

Phase three, especially after phase three. And I got assigned to a team because phase three was where we're. Now we're going out and, you know, interfacing with gorillas, and we're going to start training them to become a cohesive fighting unit. And now we're doing that nation building thing and all that jazz. That's where phase three comes in. And that's when I kind of started going, this isn't really what I signed up for. This is really not what I want to do. And so it'd been phase three. And then when I got to a team and it became crystal clear what that were really signed up to do, I was like, dude, this isn't at all what I do. Here's another good one. We were in desert training out in. We're at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. We were in desert training when Grenada went down. And we heard about it. And me and a couple of the younger guys were pissed because you were like, wait a minute, we're supposed to be so elite, super elite Green Berets. Why the hell aren't we down there? And then the guys are like, well, that's not our mission. That's not what we're all about. And dude, that was. That was kind of the final straw for me when that went down, because I thought, wait a minute, we're supposed to be so elite, you know, we're this super elite military unit in the US Army. Why the hell are we. They're. There's guys going to combat right now. Why aren't we there? And that did not sit well with me at all. And other guys on the team too.

[Shawn Ryan]

So when you say phase three is nation building, can you walk us through some of that?

[Larry Vickers]

We jumped in to it. We went through Uwharrie. We did it in Uwharrie National Forest, not too far from Fort Bragg, by the way. We jumped in and then we would start linking up with the guerrillas, which are generally guys from the 82nd. They would bring out 82nd guys to act as guerrillas for the SF teams. So we'd interface with them. There was bonafitis. We had to, hey, this is who we are. This is who you are. Yada, yada, yada. We'd go into their guerrilla camp. They'd be very standoffish initially because they don't trust us, that kind of a thing. Then we'd have to prove ourselves to them. They had one classic scenario where the guerrilla leader wants to execute one of his guys, because the guy, whatever, got out of line, slept with somebody's wife, whatever the scenario was. And the detachment commander had to deal with that and try to talk him out of it. And then never flew, by the way, you know, that was part of the scenario. So the guerrilla leader went out, you know, out a little ways and, you know, fired off a blank. And that dude left. And so he was essentially dead for the rest of the exercise. So that was. They purposely put the leadership in that kind of a situation to see how they'd react, the officers, because they were held to a much higher standard, as you can imagine, because they're going to leave and go straight to an A team. And now they're the commander on an A team.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

Whereas I go, and I'm a junior weapon sergeant. I'm down here. This guy's a. He's a commanding officer. He's the A team leader. So they would hold him to a much higher standard. So then we would go through the process with them. We would train with them. I gave him small arms training. They would get some demolition training, stuff like that. And then we would kind of start to integrate with them and they'd start to trust us and that whole nine yards and about a two week program out in the field from when we jump in to when we're done.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha. So you get through phase three, graduate, you go to a. You go to A team.

[Larry Vickers]

I went to A team. Here's the thing now, we should have went to language training. It was an option, but it was for guys who volunteered. I didn't volunteer because I didn't realize the importance of it. You know what I mean? Nobody sat me down and said, hey, dude, you need to go to a language course, you got to learn a language. This is, this is a critical thing. I went through kind of that post Vietnam era where the Q course was like, I told you, it really wasn't that difficult. It was kind of a little bit of a shit show, bro. It really was. Nobody sat you down and said, hey, look, you need a language skill. You need a language skill set here. You need to go take a language, you know, whatever it might have been, you know, German, Spanish, whatever the flavor that, you know that might have been. But you need to go take a language. Now. I want to say, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty damn sure for the longest time now, language is mandatory.

[Shawn Ryan]

I believe it is.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, you got to go take a language, which is what it should be. So it's kind of lip Service back then. Yeah, you know, they would. They'd have what they call these Gabriel detachments or GABE team, I don't know if you ever heard of. They do these demonstrations about, you know, a special Forces, A team. And they have a guy stand up and talk about, yeah, I can speak, you know, German. He. The guy would recite a line in German or Russian. I, you know, I can speak Russian or German. I have a working knowledge of Spanish. It's all. It was all smoke and mirrors.

[Shawn Ryan]

What team did you wind up going to?

[Larry Vickers]

Went to 5211 in 5th Group. 5th Special Forces Group, which, which. Which was a HALO team. So I went to HALO school and sniper school and I was 19 years old.

[Shawn Ryan]

Holy.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Yep. I was in the teen. I got there, turned 19 within that year. I went through sniper school and HALO school both. I was 19 years old in the Halo, qualified and went to sniper school. I got a certificate of attendance at sniper school. Only one of us graduated because we had M21s and the scope mount sucked. They would take the scopes off, put them in one case to put the rifle in another case, and they'd go back to the arms room, come back out to qualify to shoot to, you know, to essentially hone your skills with the rifle, Take the scope out of the case, bolt it back on, you screw it back on the rifle. Oh, yeah, dude. Straight up. Screw it back on and you're out there. Of course, the zero's off. Yeah, it's for shit. Yeah. So I got a certificate of attendance, and there was only one guy who actually graduated the course. The rest of us got certificate of attendance. It was because of the marksmanship part of it.

[Shawn Ryan]

How was Halo?

[Larry Vickers]

Scary, dude. I was scared. I mean, as time went on, I got comfortable, but, boy, that first jump, I was scared. And I was wet bread on the first jump. And the instructor brought me and the other guy who jumped with me over, and he goes, I'm tell you what, it was like a Friday. And he goes, I'm tell you what, next jump was Monday. He goes, you got one more chance. And after that I'm going to have to let you go. And I, dude, I sweated it the whole weekend. Lost sleep, was, you know, working on my positioning the whole nine yards. Come Monday, I jumped much better past the other dude. They cut him loose.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

So you get on the team?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, got on the team, you know.

[Shawn Ryan]

How was that? How is that showing up to an SF team at 19 years old?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, yeah, but, you know, here's the Thing. Once again, post Vietnam, two or three guys on the team smoke marijuana fairly regularly, which really turned me off right off the bat. I was like, are you serious? What is this all about? You know, I mean, that's before they clamped down and really cleaned up the military for, for any drug use and smoking marijuana. They really cleaned it up. One of the best things they ever did, Huge benefit. Yeah, there's guys on there, you know, smoking dope on a regular basis and stuff. I was like. And you know, kind of that post Vietnam era thing and it was. I got along with some of the guys on the team. Other guys, like the dope smokers. I never clicked with those guys at all. I just didn't see where that was coming from. Partially. I was a teetotaler, coming from my mom. My mom basically read me the riot act one time in the backyard. But I don't want to ever hear you smoking, drinking, nothing. I was like, okay, mom, sure will. And I never did.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, it seems like there will be a lot of guys to look up to and a ton of experience on the team being post Vietnam like that.

[Larry Vickers]

Not so much, bro.

[Shawn Ryan]

Really?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, no, not so much because a lot of those guys were gone, they'd left. It's kind of almost like some of the guys that stayed behind, they. They didn't leave because they didn't have anywhere else to go. There just wasn't a lot of like real serious pipe hitters to look up to.

[Shawn Ryan]

No kidding.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, no, it was. It was kind of a mess, bro. It was that early 80s SF thing. Not real impressive.

[Shawn Ryan]

Interesting.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. So what did you impressive?

[Shawn Ryan]

Did you wind up deploying with them or.

[Larry Vickers]

No, matter of fact, never jumped freefall on the team. The only time I ever jumped freefall was in Halo school. Never one time did I jump on the team. Freefall. Not one time.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.

[Shawn Ryan]

So what did you guys do?

[Larry Vickers]

You tell me, how long were you there? I ended up being on the team. It basically took me a year to get through training. I was on that, you know, Q course and all that. Not counting Halo school and sniper school. On the team for two years. And then they were open up first group in Fort Lewis and I got levied to go. They said, you got to go. I didn't volunteer and I said, hey, I want to go. They said, you got to go. So I went up there for a year. I had a four year stint, more or less a year to get through training. Two years on the team, including you know, sniper school and. And HALO school. And then I went up to Fort Lewis for a year. What sealed the deal for me was when I went up there, they made me the armor, the union armor. I showed up, went into the battalion sergeant major's office, and he was, hey, you know, Sergeant Vickers, blah, blah, blah, nice, you know, for you coming. Nice to meet you, whatever. And he goes, I'm gonna. You know, you probably not want to hear this, but I'm going to make you the union armor. And I was like, well, sergeant Major. I said, yeah, his manning board here, the teams and everything. I go, you know, I'm HALO qualified. I'm a weapons sergeant. Who's HALO qualified. And I see you got a guy listed right here who's not HALO qualified on the HALO team, a weapon sergeant. He goes, well, I know. I understand that, but I've already promised him the slot and all that, kind of. And right then I was like, I'm done. I was watching the clock till I could get out in a year.

[Shawn Ryan]

No shit.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep. So.

[Shawn Ryan]

So you were on a team for two years, and you guys didn't deploy it into anything?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, no. What.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, what was the. What was the lifestyle, I tell you.

[Larry Vickers]

You ever heard the deal about picking up pine cones?

[Shawn Ryan]

No.

[Larry Vickers]

Heard that?

[Shawn Ryan]

No.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah, bro. We would get detached to go do stuff, like, stuff on the post, like pick up pine cones.

[Shawn Ryan]

Are you.

[Larry Vickers]

I'm serious as cancer. And, you know, 82nd would be doing it. Special Force Green Berets would be doing it, but, yeah, that's that. Yeah, doing. Yeah. Fort Bragg post cleanup. And that would cycle through you. Not all the time, but you would get that, hey, man, we got to go pick up pine cones. And you would get on a cat, what they called a cattle car, which was essentially a, you know, big open cattle car, for lack of a better term. And you'd get hauled out somewhere, and you'd have to police up the range or, I swear to God, pick up pine cones. I mean, that's where the mentality was at.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

I mean, we didn't even have vehicles. Like, if you had to go over to the hospital or the dental clinic or something like that, you had to take your personal vehicle. You didn't have. You didn't have a team vehicle or anything like that or a vehicle in the company in order to. In function. You had to. It wasn't like you had an option. You had to take your personal vehicle to get over to do stuff like that.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow. Nothing changed over at first.

[Larry Vickers]

No, not first. Was a mess, too. Hot mess.

[Shawn Ryan]

What'd you do over there?

[Larry Vickers]

I was an armor. The only thing we did, we deployed to Korea once. I deployed as the armor and we deployed to Korea once, went into Seoul, had a good time and all that jazz. But that's all we did.

[Shawn Ryan]

So this is, like, miserable for you.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah. And then, remember I was telling you about. Really realized I should have went in a Ranger battalion. It's stuff like this.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep.

[Shawn Ryan]

What a disappointment.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, totally. Total disappointment.

[Shawn Ryan]

How many years did you spend in sf?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, I got out. I got out after four years. I said, I'm out of here. I got out, went back home, went to college, went to a community college for mechanical engineering to get a mechanical engineering associate's degree. Because my thought process was, I'll get into. I'll get a mechanical engineering degree and then I'll get in the firearms industry. I'll go to work for somebody fn, hk, whatever. I was really big in FN at the time, so I really. That's kind of what I was. I want to get a mechanical engineering degree, and I want to go to work for fn. So that's why I got out to do that.

[Shawn Ryan]

You got out the first opportunity you had?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah. Just four years, I'm out, you know. And then I was talking to Scott on the way up here. There was only three options at that time. Get out, which most guys did. Well, actually four. And we used to talk about this. You get out, which most guys did, stay in, which means you're not changing anything. You become part of the problem. You're signing on and become part of the problem. You're not going to change anything. You're like, I'm willing to live with this horseshit and stay in three, go be a pilot in the military somewhere. Chopper pilot. I know one guy left, went to the Air Force to be a pilot. Last try out for Delta.

[Shawn Ryan]

So you knew about Delta?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Why didn't you try out?

[Larry Vickers]

You know what? It's a good question.

[Shawn Ryan]

It would be the same.

[Larry Vickers]

Well, no, I didn't think I'd make it because that's the option that had the least success rate, as you can imagine. And I met numerous guys that tried out. I did not know a single guy that made it. Not one. Until right at the very end, I was getting ready to get out of the Army. One of the guys went and made it. And, dude, you can imagine when he came back, you want to talk about a guy who walked on water? So I knew one guy. They'd tried out and everybody talked about how difficult it was. Everybody. So I honestly, I didn't think I could do it. But that planted a seed that never went away. I got out, went to college. I was in reserves. When I was in college, I signed up for the reserves. I was in 11th group up in Youngstown, Ohio. I go up there once a month. Enjoyed it. We didn't do, you know, we never jumped out of an airplane the entire time I was there two years. I had a good time with the guys and everything, but guys in the reserves at that time or National Guard, they really need to get away from the wife for the weekend and go hang out with their buddies. That's all it was. The training and everything was kind of a joke. They didn't really, you know, they didn't really put their heart and soul into it. It was, hey, I want to get away from the wife for a weekend. So I'm a head out. I'm in the Reserves or National Guard.

[Shawn Ryan]

Did you keep in touch with the guy that made it through?

[Larry Vickers]

No. Saw him later on? No, saw him later on. When I got into the unit, he was in B Squadron. He's an alcoholic and got more than one dui. And at that time, they let you slide on one or two. Now as time went on, yeah, that was. Yeah, they didn't. You didn't slide at all. But they let him slide on one or two. And when he got another one, he's like, dude, you can't. You gotta go.

[Shawn Ryan]

Interesting.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. He was an alcoholic stud. Dude was an animal. He was an animal in sf. Legendary dude. But he was an alcoholic.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, Larry, let's take a quick break.

[Larry Vickers]

Sure.

[Shawn Ryan]

And when we come back, we'll pick up with you getting back in and going to the unit.

[Larry Vickers]

All right.

[Shawn Ryan]

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[Larry Vickers]

I just never, they always that, just that nagging feeling in the back of my mind about could I make Delta, could I do it? Because to me, I mean they were, that's the ultimate pipe hitters to me. I mean come from the army point of view. I mean that was it. And I knew it could I, could I do it? And it just never went away. And I came to that fork in a road, it's like, okay, I'm going to be done here with my associate's degree in mechanical engineering. Soon I'm going to have to decide am I going to stay on this path, get my mechanical engineering degree, four year degree, and then go into the firearms industry or am I going to go back in and try out for Delta? Now this is before you could try out from the reserves or National Guard. So. And I got, there was a guy, a captain actually, who kind of coached me and gave me some info. He had tried out for Delta. He ended up coming to my reserve unit in Youngstown, Ohio. And he had notes and stuff. I want to say he even had the address for the, the CSM that, you know, or the, the sergeant major in charge of selection at Delta. And I wrote a letter to him and said, hey, I'd like to try out. How can I do it? I'm in reserves right now. And they wrote back and said, you're gonna, you know, you have to go, you have to enlist in the Army. We don't have a mechanism for you to try out from the National Guard of the Reserves. So I remember going, oh, man, this is a big deal here, dude, because I'm getting ready if I'm going to do this at one long shot to make it long shot number two, I'm signing up for another four years back in the sf, which I disliked. So I remember talking to my friends, I, you know, I said, hey, man, this is what I'm thinking about doing. And they were all like, oh, dude. They were all like, man, I don't know. I said, you know what though? I got it. It's just one of those, I've got to scratch this itch or it's just never going to go away. So I decided, you know, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go back in specifically to try out for Delta Force. That's why I went back in.

[Shawn Ryan]

How long after you went back in did you get to try out?

[Larry Vickers]

Six months.

[Shawn Ryan]

Six months?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Six months after I went back in. So let me think about when I went in. September. Yeah. Six months, Six, eight months for. I didn't make it the first time.

[Shawn Ryan]

You didn't?

[Larry Vickers]

No, I did not. I over trained real bad because when I was out, me and a buddy would lift weights a lot and we got pretty, pretty big. And I knew all about over training, bro. I knew all about it and I'd over trained real bad. I trained like a madman right up until I left for selection. So I have. My body was tore down. I mean, you know what I mean? And you ain't gonna roll in the selection with a tore down body and think you're gonna gut your way through it. I mean, at least I didn't. I, I wasn't able to do that. So I didn't make it the first time. Second time though, I fell back and I went, you know what I'm gonna learn from my mistake? I'm gonna two weeks out, I'm gonna rest up. I'm not gonna do any PT at all. I'm gonna make sure I'm 100 rested up and I was gonna skip, you know, I was gonna skip a selection, and I went to the spring, didn't make it. I was gonna skip, fall and end up going to the next spring. But I got back and I started thinking about it, you know, nah, dude, I'm going to the fall. What?

[Shawn Ryan]

I'm just. What was it like when you failed the first time?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, I voluntarily withdrawed. I did. Now, I wouldn't have done that if I didn't realize how close, because normally they don't let you come back if you voluntarily withdraw. Normally you're done. I didn't know that until I got the exit interview with the. The selection officer and selection sergeant major. And he's like, why'd you voluntarily withdraw? And I said, I. I overtrained real bad. And they're like, explain that. One of those type of things. I go, well, you know, my body was tore down. I know why I was, you know, the mistake I made. If, you know, when I. When I come back, I'm not going to make it again. And they're like, okay, okay, we'll let you come back. And I was like, whoa. I was that close.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Them saying, you ain't coming back. If I'd have known that, I would have just stuck it in there.

[Shawn Ryan]

How, I mean, how long did you go before you voluntarily withdrew?

[Larry Vickers]

Stress. Day one or two, early on.

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, so right away, almost.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I mean, I went through the training part, you know, the train up, per se, the land navigation train up. And then when I got into stress phase, it was early on one day one or day two, and I knew I was just tore down, man. Could I have gutted it out and made it? I don't know. I just can't tell you. I could have.

[Shawn Ryan]

Maybe.

[Larry Vickers]

Maybe a big maybe. But I said, you know, I just can't do this. And I voluntarily withdrawed. And, dude, that. Oh, man, I. I was like, my God, did I dodge a bullet? Because it was just. Basically, they could have. It's almost like flipping a coin. And they could have went either way. We're like, okay, we're gonna let you come back. I was like, whoa, what do you think? I thought it'd be like, automatic. Okay, you overtrained. Okay, here you go. We'll see you next time. Yeah, man, that's what I thought.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, what is it that you think you have that they wanted to allow you to come back?

[Larry Vickers]

I. I think on paper, because they give you a psych eval. They do. You know, they testing. And before you ever Go. So I mean you, I say psych eval, you fill out this paperwork. They go through this pretty serious process before you ever go. And I think I was, they looked and said, this guy is a really good candidate for making it. And because after being in the unit and kind of knowing the process, they have their eye on different people.

[Shawn Ryan]

No.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh yeah. They're like, yeah, this guy's a high percentage guy, low percentage. And then they'll start cutting and chopping. Okay, we're not going to bring him because he's not, we're not seeing the indicators. We're not seeing the key things we need here to bring him up to this category, to bring him selection. The rule of thumb is that they, they bring in 250 applications and they whittle it down to 100. In my case was 88. 88, 88 dudes out of roughly 250 applications. But they're all, you know, they'll be made some disciplinary stuff. There's going to be different things on there. They go, now this guy's or, you know, a guy's from, you know, we used to talk about it, you know, when you're going to recruit, why are you going to Fort Hood in these different places where the chances of you finding a guy that's going to make it is almost zero. And they go, well, we're looking for that one guy. And they go, you know, if we really wanted to get down to it, we'd only go to the SF groups and Ranger battalions. That's it. That's the only place this is back in the day before they would recruit from the SEALs or the Marines or whatnot. Well, that was way before that era. They go, yeah, we would just go to the ranger battalions and SF groups and that's it. Because that's your higher percentage guys that are going to make it. But we want it. If that's. There's one guy that comes out of Fort Hood, we want him like, okay. But yeah, I was that close to not being able to. But that's my call. They, you know on paper that they were like, hey, this guy's a high percentage chance of making it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, that's my call.

[Shawn Ryan]

And so you go back.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, go back Germany. I was stationed in Germany at Bad Tolz. I don't know if I told you that or not. Which was a superb place to train for selection. Superb. Because we had some real serious hills behind us. Real serious. And once a month, maybe every once a couple weeks, I would, I would Ruck march all the way up this. And I've long since forgot the name of the hill. It was big. And I would mark match all ruck march all the way up, down and back down, all the way to the top and then back down in superb place to try out to train up for selection with bad torch Germany. But I mean superb. So I went back, decided, you know, I'm not going to skip. And there's a good reason. I'm glad I didn't. We'll get to that here later. But I'm glad I didn't skip that selection and go to the next spring. I'm glad I went to that fall and they came out and I want to say they came out and did a PT test just for me at Fort At Bad tolls. Yeah. Actually I know for a fact that's what they did. I did the pt. They came just because I was the only guy that said, hey, I want to go. And they're like, okay. And they came and gave me a PT test to try out. And they came by themselves or, you know, I was the only guy that bad tolks trying out.

[Shawn Ryan]

What. Do you remember what the PT test was?

[Larry Vickers]

It was a standard army PT test.

[Shawn Ryan]

Okay.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. At that time.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. We didn't do a swim test at that time. That, that one. That's when you did a swim test at selection.

[Shawn Ryan]

Okay.

[Larry Vickers]

When you got to camp. Camp Dawson in West Virginia. But it wasn't a swim test. It was just a standard army PT test. You know, push up setups and two mile run. You had, you know, had minimum standards. You had to pass in order to go. And they were pretty low. I mean you go, well, they have to be up here. They're like, no, you know, we're going to let you pass the, you know, and then it's back on you. You know, you, you're the one who has to step up to the plate and get a better PT test score. I mean that was the thing about Delta selection is they always put it back on the individual. They're not going to spoon feed you anything. It's. They're just going to put it back on you and see how you deal with it, how you're going to respond, how you're going to adapt, overcome. It's all on you. They all put everything on you.

[Shawn Ryan]

So what was it like the second time?

[Larry Vickers]

Dude, I kicked ass. My head was where it needed to be. Like I said, two weeks out, you know, I, I completely, I didn't do any PT for two weeks, which drove me crazy, I'm not gonna lie. Drove me crazy because I was a PT animal, as you can imagine, getting ready for selection. Two weeks out, I completely stopped doing pt. I rested the whole nine yards. I told my team sergeant what I'm doing. He's like, okay. And I didn't have to do PT with the team, nothing like that. I rolled in and dude, I was, I was on my A game and I nailed it.

[Shawn Ryan]

What is it like when you first show up?

[Larry Vickers]

First show up, you get into, you know, you bring in, they give you more testing, you get more evals. They're kind of honing it down. If initially it was a big, broad brush type of, you know, coarse screen, now they're getting you in the smaller. They're going to dial things in where they can get a better handle on what you are like as a person, what you think they're going to be like as a Delta Force soldier. Delta Force operator. And they're going to dial you in. Then you do a PT test again. You do another PT test. Day one, once the things get going, do a PT test, standard Army PT test. Push up, set up, two mile run. Then you do a swim test. 100 meters, fatigues and boots, which you can't buff your way through that. You better know how to swim or you're not going to make it. And I knew that. So I trained up over and over and over. And it got to the point where I could, I, I timed myself, I swam an hour in fatigues and boots because I learned how to do it. Not fight the fatigues and boost, just go with the flow. You know what I'm talking about? And so did the swim test and then that night, 18 mile rucksack march. So one day, day one, PT test, swim test, 18 mile rucksack march.

[Shawn Ryan]

Holy.

[Larry Vickers]

And if you don't, if you don't make the cut on any of them, you're, you're gone. I take that back. They will give you a retest on the PT test. I don't. Memory serves me correct. No retest on the, on the swim test and no retest on the 18 miler. But they would have very next day they'll give you a retest on the PT test. And you can imagine, I knew one guy that passed, that was able to pass it the next day that didn't pass it the day prior. Would you kind of go, how is that? But he did. He passed it the second day, but he didn't pass it the day prior. The Average guy. It's going to be impossible after you've done it the first day, failed, done the swift swim test, pass. And did the 18 miler and passed.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

You try to make up the PT test the next day, they ain't going to happen.

[Shawn Ryan]

Is the 18 miler. Is that a land navigation thing, too?

[Larry Vickers]

No, just the rucksack march on roads.

[Shawn Ryan]

Okay.

[Larry Vickers]

Hilly terrain, through hilly terrain, very hilly terrain.

[Shawn Ryan]

How are you treated?

[Larry Vickers]

Totally. No encouragement, no discouragement at all through the whole course. And they did that on purpose to try to get you. Then once again, they put it all back on you. They don't want it like, hey, man, good job. You know what I mean? Or, hey, dude, you got to pick up the pace. None of that kind of stuff. It was. You could walk in. I used to tell people you could walk in with a broken leg. And they go, color, a number, and you have to have a color. And, you know, they give you. At the beginning of the day, they'd give you a color and number. So you'd have to remember, you know, chart two's 43, chartreuse 43. Show me where you're at, where you came from. Because it's all land nab based through serious hilly terrain. Like a buddy of mine said, there aren't mountains there, but there's some damn big hills. And that's the truth. Camp Dawson is surrounded by by damn big hills. So you're doing land navigation, and it's like, show me where you're at. Show me where you came from. And you show them. Came, you know, I'm here. Came from here. And you, you know, you got to show them the right thing on the map. You can't, you know. You know, if the guy got it wrong, you go. You go over there, reassess where you came from. Then you got, oh, I came from here, Sergeant. I'm right there. Okay, your next point's underneath that rock. And you'd have a little, you know, laminated piece of. You know, have something laminated. You flip it over and you write down where you're at. You plot it on the map and you go up. You know, you say, come on up, Chartus 43. Come on up. Show me where you're at, where you're going, I'm here. I'm going here. Have a good one. And that cycle repeated over and over and over again through. And you don't know how long. You don't know how much time you got to get from point A to point B. And you don't Know how many points you're going that day.

[Shawn Ryan]

So each point is timed?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

It's not the full course? No, each, each point, the full course is essentially time. But you don't really know. You don't really know where exactly you're going.

[Larry Vickers]

No. You might have four points one day, you might have six points the next day.

[Shawn Ryan]

How long does this last?

[Larry Vickers]

Six days. And then on the seventh day you do the 40 mile. This is stress phase. Okay. We talked about the PT test, swim test, 18 miler. Now after that you get into basically, for lack of a better term, the training phase. They're going to teach you how to do land navigation. And the reason they did that used to be back in the day, you just went right into stress phase. But they found out this isn't fair because there's guys who would probably make it that don't know how to do. They've never had land navigation training. So they will put you through 10 days to two weeks. Ish, more or less. 10 days of the best land navigation training in the US army has to be the best land navigation in the US Military, probably in the world. Mean magnificent land navigation training. You had cadre living, cadre led, you know, land navigation. It was just magnificent. Really, really good. You know, map reading, you know, dead reckoning, you know, you, you know, go around hills, mountains, all that kind of. It was just really, really good. Training was superb, but it was also kind of grinding you down. So everybody kind of got to a certain level. You have a stud or whatever, he's not going to be 100% going into stress because you're going through the same hills, rocky terrain, twisting your ankle, that kind of stuff. So it's kind of taking even the studs and grinding them down a bit. So when they get ready to do stress phase, they're not on their A game. If they're lucky, they're on their B minus game.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Larry Vickers]

And then you start stress.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's stress?

[Larry Vickers]

Stress phase is that six days with the seventh day being a 40 miler and you stay out in the woods in a tent, in the environment, you're eating MREs. You know, you get. At the end of the day, you'll get in these trucks or Humvees. At the time I did it, it was trucks and you don't know where you're going. The guys who don't make it that day go back to Camp Dawson. The guys that make it for that day pass, they go to the base camp, they put up their tent and you eat your MREs and then you crash out and they tell you what time you got to be up, it's on you. They're not going to wake you up in the morning. You got to be, you know, you got to get yourself up, you got to put away all your gear and you got to be standing by ready to go when the trucks come in to pick you up and take you. Then they take you back out to another point and they, you know, Chartreuse 43, or they're going to give you a different color number that day. Vickers, you know, purple one, two, truck number three, you know, I jump on and I have to remember purple, you know, 1 2, that's my color number for that day. And then you go out, they bring out purple one, two, your, your points over there. You go over the same thing, you take it out. This is where I'm at, this is where I'm going. Map, show me what you got. This is where I'm at, this is where I'm going. Have a good one. That's the only encouragement. You're good. Have a good one. That's it. And the 40 mile process, the 40 miler. Now before I get to that, there were people that didn't finish one day that still made the course. And you're like, how can that be? My call is, and by the way, the standards are the holy grail of the unit. There's only a handful of people that have ever known the standards. I mean they are, that is the deepest, darkest secrets in that organization. I was in the unit for 15 years and I had no idea what the standards were. I could guess. I had no idea. Only when you got to a certain point like the commander or the command sergeant major or you were the selection commander or selection sergeant major, would you be read in on the, on you'd be read in on the tea leaves.

[Shawn Ryan]

So there's only really two people that make the determination if you fit the standard.

[Larry Vickers]

Yes. Really? Yes.

[Shawn Ryan]

The cadre that are there don't standard.

[Larry Vickers]

They have no idea. Oh, I have no idea. None. You call in the Times, you know, purple three, two, Vickers, you tell them what time he got here. He, you know, arrived at 12:15, you know, he left at 12:32.

[Shawn Ryan]

So does that mean it's solely based off of time? Because that to me that means there's a gray area.

[Larry Vickers]

What do you mean?

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, you had mentioned that there are people that didn't maybe make the time, but they still got in.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, here's Michael.

[Shawn Ryan]

Nobody knows the time it's be. I mean, I would, I understand why the guys trying out would not understand the time. But for the cadre to not know the time and only two people, it sounds like four out of all of the unit knows the time. That there's a gray area there where they may have identified somebody that they want that made.

[Larry Vickers]

No, I never did that. Never did that. I know what you're talking about. Never happened. They were Nazis about it, bro.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, wouldn't somebody.

[Larry Vickers]

They would only select certain people to be the selection off, you know, selection commander or selection sergeant Major. There was only certain people that did that. That was not something where they just randomly come down to a squadron. All right, dude, you come on up to, you know, S and T, you're going to be the. No, no, no. You were. You were hand picked, handpicked. And you're. You had a track record in the unit. You'd been in the unit for a long time.

[Shawn Ryan]

No, no, no, no. That's not. I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. That's not where I was going. What I meant was for the selection, for the guys going through selection. If nobody knows the time, then time is obviously important. But they may identify something in. In a. What would you call them? A trainee.

[Larry Vickers]

What do you mean?

[Shawn Ryan]

The guy's going through selection?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, candidate.

[Shawn Ryan]

A candidate. So they would. They may identify a candidate. That doesn't mean the time standard, but they like everything else about it.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah, no, wouldn't matter if you don't meet the time standard. You could be a rock star and it wouldn't matter.

[Shawn Ryan]

How would nobody. How would nobody. This general, it's a genuine question. I'm not like poking holes in it. I'm just trying to understand it because how would. How would more people not figure out what the time is? If you could just go through the times and go, that guy. That guy made it. That guy. Obviously it's under.

[Larry Vickers]

Thing is, all you had was you. The only information you had as a cadre was your little small vision of the world. You didn't see the whole. You didn't see him at this point. This guy at this point. Okay? This guy's compartmentalized. Yeah, it was compartmentalized. You always only saw your piece of the puzzle. You didn't see what, you know he was doing. You didn't see what he was reporting in. The only guy that got all that was the S and TSR major who's out there running it. Yep. And running the numbers. I mean, there would be Something to the point that you would go walk. You'd. If you had to go up to his truck or something, he'd be like, stop. And he would take, put everything away, you know, so you couldn't come up and look over his shoulders. Yeah, what do you need? I mean, it was top secret, bro. Top secret.

[Shawn Ryan]

Do you remember your time 40 miler?

[Larry Vickers]

Yes, 16. Now, according to the book, according to Charlie Beckwith's book, Delta force, you had 20 hours to do the 40 miler. Had to do two hours, two miles an hour in very hilly terrain, very hilly train, some of it on roads, some of them on trails, some of them across country, and you had to do it in 20 hours. I believe that's accurate. I think that's legit. I did 16 hours, 20 minutes, a 40 miler.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn, that's moving.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Now, dude, I know some guys who did it in unbelievable times. Unbelievable.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was your strategy.

[Larry Vickers]

On the 40 miler? Yeah, keep moving, take the simplest path. Because I knew people that had tried to take shortcuts and it bit him in the ass. They got, they got nailed in mountain world and they, they completely lost track of where they're at. They had no idea where they're at. They were trapped and they, that was it. And they were done. They couldn't get out of it. So I would just take like, there's one big hill, gigantic monster hill. After you do a river crossing, it's about, I want to say it's about 25, not about 25 miles in. And you got. Your next point is at the top of the hill. I kept it simple. I basically took, I did the switchback road all the way up. A lot of other guys just did this number and most of them did not make it because they would get caught in mountain war. Well, number one, it would smoke you to death. Yeah, it would be so incredibly difficult to do that. 25 miles into a 40 mile rucksack march and you're, you know, you're going dead reckoning at the top of this hill. I mean, I know people that did it, but as general rule, it was a kiss of death. But I did switch back all the way up till I could see that top road. I cut over to it and came into the point, but I just kept it simple, stayed focused. I didn't try to do anything fancy, kept moving. I stopped one time to have a little bit of an MRE and that was it. I kept moving the whole time. I wasn't worried about running it. I was just trying to stay Positive and stay moving the whole time.

[Shawn Ryan]

When do you find out that you.

[Larry Vickers]

Passed the 40 miler? When you get to the last point, they call up, they, you know, purple 12s here, Vickers, and they'll run the numbers and go, okay, you know, send him one up. And you basically. And they go, okay, you know, Vicker or Purple one two. Your next point is at the top of that. You know, basically it was a power line clearing at the very top. Maybe a kilometer, not very far at all. You're greeted by the S T. SAR Major and the S T CAP or commander. That's who greets you at the top. And if you don't make it, you go over here. If you do make it, you go over here by the fire. And they're like, you know, Sergeant Vickers, congratulations. You've successfully completed the stress phase of, you know, Delta Force selection and assessment.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn, dude.

[Larry Vickers]

I immediately started crying. I mean, I just gushed. I was. And I'm sure I wasn't the only one that did that. Hardest thing I ever did in my life. Bar none. Bar none. Out of 88 people that tried out, that started, 13 made it and 11 got through OTC. So 11 guys made it through OTC, crossed the hall into one of the Saber squadrons out of 88.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Dude. There was classes they had in the hallway outside otc. They had all the different class pictures. There's a guy who. He was the only dude out of the whole class that finished. No, Ray Pfeiffer. Yeah, Ray Pfeiffer. He's standing there by himself in the picture.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Others three dudes. Others two dudes, stuff like that. I remember one, I was an S and T instructor and we had five. Five guys made it through selection.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

We had to do OTC class with like nine dudes because we had those five guys. And then we had four direct support, basically medics combo guys, eod.

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, no shit.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, they went through. They would go through otc, too. Now they. There's certain things they didn't do. They didn't do cqb, but they would do everything else. You know what I mean? All the Hilo operations they would do. They would do patrolling. They do everything else because they're going to be augmenting operators, but they wouldn't do cqb. There's certain things that they didn't do, but, yeah, they would go through otc. So we had nine. One guy broke his ankle. He had to get bumped to the next class. We ended up having eight for an OTC class.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow. What was the conversation like at the campfire?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, they had some Gluvine. You ever heard of that stuff?

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah. German, right?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. I don't drink alcohol, so I didn't have any. But they have that. You can partake.

[Shawn Ryan]

You don't drink alcohol?

[Larry Vickers]

No.

[Shawn Ryan]

You never have?

[Larry Vickers]

No, I never have.

[Shawn Ryan]

Are you serious?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Courtesy my mom. I told you, remember my mom, absolutely do not drink. Because her. My grandfather, who I never met because he'd passed away. My mom's dad had passed away before I was born, was an alcoholic. So my mom was like.

[Shawn Ryan]

This is, like, unheard of in this special op. Oh, yeah, immunity.

[Larry Vickers]

By the way, dude, in Delta, there was more than a few people that didn't drink. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was not uncommon. It was not uncommon. And more than a couple guys drank when they got there and stopped because they realized if they didn't stop and get it under control, they were going to be booted out. They were going to be shown in the door. And I know a couple guys that completely stopped drinking, that had come there because they knew if something went wrong, if they didn't get it under control because they came from SF or wherever, and the drinking was a big part of the culture and whatnot. Now they come to Delta, and it's not. The drinking is not. Not that the guys don't drink, don't get me wrong. But it's not that big culture thing. Like, we're gonna go out and get trashed every Saturday night, that kind of a thing. No.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha. And so what was the conversation like at the fire?

[Larry Vickers]

You remember it basically, how difficult it was comparing notes to you. Hey, you remember that? Oh, yeah. Did you go there? No. Yeah. Because there was one part which they discontinued as you get up to the top of this hill. And this was on day one, I think. Stress day one. And there's a dude sitting there with a steak dinner. He's in a suit. He's got a table there, you know, glass of wine or whatever the hell it is, and a steak dinner. And he's the cadre at the top of the hill. And you're like. And he goes, you know, color number, show me where you're at, where he came from. Your next point's located over there. Okay, color number, show me where you're at, where you're going. Have a good one. Now, here's the thing, though. Not everybody goes to that point. So guys start doubting each other. Like, I didn't see that. What are you talking about? Yeah, man. There was A guy up there. Don't you remember that? No, I didn't see it. I didn't. There was no guy with a steak dinner or at a table. You know what I mean? That kind of little bit of a psyops thing. Over time, they did away with that because they were kind of like, what really is this bringing to the table for us? And so they did away with it. They moved the swim test to otc. And I tell you why they did that. At the time, dude, we didn't. That did not go over well in the unit. We're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop. Timeout. What are you doing? Well, their thing is, like, number one, the guys barely go across any bodies of water in the unit. I mean, they're, you know, in selection and OT or in Selection, you know, there's one river crossing during the 40 miler, and you now you go across a bridge. They used to have a pontoon boat that take you back and forth, and you go across a couple creeks. So having a guy pass a swim test in order to attend selection doesn't really make much sense because back at his unit, he may not have access to a swimming pool where he could practice. So let's bump it. It. Let's say let's get the guy through selection, that one or two dudes, whatever that might be. Let's get him through selection and then an OTC at the very beginning. Now we'll give him a swim test. And then now he's had, you know, a couple months, whatever, to now it's on him. Okay? Now you've got to find the sources. You got to find a pool. You got to find the ability to go and practice for the swim test. You know what the swim test is, and you know you're going to be evaluated on when you get to OT7, OTC. As far as I know, there was nobody that failed it. By the time they got to otc, they're, you know, when they signed in, they got the swim test. It was no problem. Nobody failed it.

[Shawn Ryan]

And so what happens the next day after you pass selection?

[Larry Vickers]

More, well, chilling. You rest. Then more evalu, More psych evals, Lots of psyche. Oh, dude, famous story. What's that?

[Shawn Ryan]

That's. That's the way I always passed them. Think about Fuzzy Bunnies.

[Larry Vickers]

Fuzzy Bunnies. There's a famous story, and I don't know if it's true, but I don't. I don't necessarily doubt it that the unit. Sykes had it nailed down so tight on who would make selection that they would, they put a name, a list of names in an envelope, gave it to like the S T Sergeant Major. And at the end of the core, end of selection, they were going to open it up and see what guys finished selection versus the names on the sheet. And they nailed it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Now that's. That could be a wives tale, it could be an urban. But I, they had it really nailed down. I know more than a few guys who the nsf that once they got to a certain point they were done. They, they send it because they just, they narrowed the, the beam down or whatever you the focus down to the point that they could tell this guy's not going to work out. We, you know, because they had the kind of an institutional knowledge per se of different people in the past and psychological profiles and indicators and you know, little triggers stuff that they can dial in on and go, this guy is just not going to be a good candidate.

[Shawn Ryan]

So they would actually, they would actually pull guys that are making the time just because they didn't think.

[Larry Vickers]

Well, what would happen is they would go to the board and then they'd get cut.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, they would go to the board and they get cut. That's how it would go.

[Shawn Ryan]

And so when did you start OTC.

[Larry Vickers]

Mall selection? Finished October, started it right after New Year. Signed in the unit in December. Got, you know, our. Got her gear, all that deal went on Christmas break and then came back right after New Year and started it.

[Shawn Ryan]

So you had about, you know, what, three months?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, ish.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was that? Three months. What'd you fill that with?

[Larry Vickers]

Went basically went back to bad tolts. And once again now I'm the guy that walked on water. Because you go back to that unit, I mean it's. You can go your entire army career and never meet one guy who, who made it into Delta Real easy. Real easy. And I went back and they were like, I made it. And they were like, I mean, right then, dude, you, I mean, you're like now six inches off the ground. And then you're basically you. Then you have paperwork, you hand your chain of command and it said, you know, individuals been, you know, selected for a special missions unit, orders will be coming down. There is no deferment allowed. He will absolutely basically tell him reading him the ride act, you know, this guy's going to go to Fort Bragg and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it because he's now, you know, he's been selected at this level, you're. At this level, you're not going to stop. And they had to do that because units, you're losing some of your best guys. This guy's a stud. He's one of the best guys, you know, on your team or in your battalion, Ranger battalion or whatnot. And now he's leaving. Now I'm going to do whatever I can to keep him. Boy, they shut that down by the time I went through. I'm sure early on that was a real problem. That's why they give you that piece of paper that you hand, you know, you hand to your chain of command. And they. By the time I went through, there was no issues. Everybody made Delta, he's gone. So they would kind of just write you off. You're kind of on your own, doing your own pt, you know, getting ready, packing up, waiting for the official order to come down. So you know when you're actually leaving.

[Shawn Ryan]

How was it checking into occ?

[Larry Vickers]

Overwhelming at first. You're like, oh, my God, I. I'm coming through the gate into Delta Force. You come in, totally overwhelming. Then you start seeing the guys you. That you made it through selection with. They're going to be in your OTC class. You get the initial in brief from the instructors, different instructors than you saw in West Virginia. That's cadre out of the squadrons. So like A troop, one of the squadrons will go up and rotate through every. You know what I mean? B squadron might have it this time, C squadron. And then those are different guys than you see for the OTC instructors. Totally different guys. It's not one and the same. And then you'll get introduced to the instructors and you kind of get your gear together and all that. Just pretty overwhelming. Fortunately, they ease you into it, you know what I mean? Then you're doing pt. But it's their thing is, like, now we want to keep you in shape, but we don't want to break you down because you've already proven that you have what it needs from what you need from a physical point of view. That's what you just proved in West Virginia. Now we want to train you. We have assessed you and feel like you are the correct raw material to become a Delta operator. Now we want to train you and evaluate you to see if, in fact, you can become a functional member of the unit, a Delta operator. So that's the difference there. The PT isn't designed to tear you down. I mean, it's designed to keep you in shape, team building. Because now it is. Yeah, it's individual, but now it's also. Can you can you function as a team?

[Shawn Ryan]

How are you treated?

[Larry Vickers]

Like adults? Yeah. No, no discouragement? No. Harassment? Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Is there any interaction between the guys going through OTC and the operators?

[Larry Vickers]

Very, very little. Basically no. And it's discouraged. It's very like you hate because a lot of the guys know guys in the squadrons and they're like, you see them in chow hall, you can say hi, but that's it. You don't talk to them. And then the guys in the squadrons are told, don't interact with the guys in OTC because you don't want to give them, hey, heads up, you know what I mean? To my buddy, oh, by the way, watch for this. That kind of stuff.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Larry Vickers]

So you're basically both sides of the equation. The OTC students are told, don't interact with the guys in the squadrons. The guys in squadrons are told, don't interact with the guys in otc.

[Shawn Ryan]

Can you describe day one of training?

[Larry Vickers]

You know, right off the bat, it was all about shooting. The first two weeks was all about shooting, dry fire. We did like, I want to say at least maybe, I don't know if it was a week at least, like three days of dry fire before we ever made it to the range. At least all day, all day long for the first three days. And I could be wrong in that it may be longer, but it was all about shooting right from the start. Because they realized shooting in CQB is what that unit's all about. I mean, that's the meat and potatoes. That's the very core of what that organization's about is Delta Operator. Being able to do shooting and conduct close quarters combat. And that's. Everything in that organization revolved around that. Everything, Everything. I mean, there was different stuff you did, like VIP protection, high speed driving, you know, different airborne operations you would do, helo operations. You know, you do a variety of things. But it all boiled down to what is the meat and potatoes. What's the core? What, what we're all about. Shooting, seeking be. We started out with marksmanship and then that was a common thread throughout.

[Shawn Ryan]

Were there qualifications?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

What were some of the tougher quals?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, we'd have accuracy stuff, bullseyes at 25 yards, pistol stuff.

[Shawn Ryan]

What size bullseye?

[Larry Vickers]

Standard B8. So you're talking a five and a half inch black. Damn. Yeah, oh yeah. You know, and then you'd score it and you have different scoring rings on it. A possibility of 100. You have to score to a certain. And I don't remember what they were but you have to, you know, you have to score to a certain amount or in order to pass. And then you evaluate it on that on a pretty regular basis. Very accuracy oriented. Delta is famous for that. And that's why you see instructors out Delta and they're all accuracy based because under nobody's going to have to tell you, you go, what about speed? Well, here's the thing. Nobody's going to have to tell you to shoot faster in a gunfight. I'm in a gunfight. Nobody's going to have to, hey dude, shoot faster. That's never going to be a factor. The issue is getting hits on target. So you have to make sure, and I have a personal rule of thumb that I go by is under conditions of stress, the best you will be able to perform is 50% of your normal. You know what I mean? If I'm shooting at a certain on the range, the best, the absolute best I can hope to perform under conditions of stress is 50% of that particular standard. So you have to hold yourself to a high standard because you know I'm only going to be here when I'm being shot at.

[Shawn Ryan]

What about rifle, what were some of the tougher rifle quals?

[Larry Vickers]

We had stuff we would do basic rifle marksmanship with M14s when I was there initially accurized M14 national match M14s. As time went on, they did away with that and it was full size M16A2s and then they eventually went to the M4 and it was, you know, different positions, standing, kneeling, prone, you know, basically different position shootings. Once again, very bullseye oriented and for score and you're, you're evaluated to that stuff and ranked and you had to meet a certain standard or you would generally give you get remedial training. But after a certain point and then we had guys fail it and generally they'd be put out of the unit or they would put, they would be put in a support role in unit where they were not an operator, where shooting wasn't necessarily, you know, not important. It's important for everybody there, but not as important as is for an operator. So they put him in a support role. Then once you got to that point, the real thing that weeded people out with cqb, that was really what it boiled down to. That's what weeded people out because you, you know, you can take a guy through selection, you can have him shooting, but when you go into a room and there's somebody shooting past you by a matter of inches, that there's some People that absolutely cannot handle that. And we saw that with guys, you know, about every class there'd be somebody. I remember one guy, everybody liked him. He's a great dude. All the instructors liked him. He just could not do it. He couldn't do it. And he basically said, hey, I can't. I can't do this. I can't do it. And he, you know, we let him go.

[Shawn Ryan]

How complicated does it get?

[Larry Vickers]

Pretty complicated. You know, you've. You know, you can do it with protective mask on and all that jazz, but, you know, it gets to the point where you're coming in on a. You're fast roping in at night, you know, door charges, flashbangs, live people. You have live bad guys. You got to shoot past them and targets. You can even get simunitions going on where you're being shot at with simmunitions. You're shooting back at them with some munitions. That kind of, again, very, very complicated and get really ramped up. And what you see is it really starts separating people. We see as guys that, you know, if I'm coming into the house and it's during the day and I can see all the targets, that's one thing. But now I gotta come in on a fast rope, and it's in the middle of the night, and the helos are flaring and dropping guys off, and there's rotor wash. And then we gotta put up door charges, and then we gotta use flashbangs. And there's a team on this side of the hall, and there's a team on this side of the hall. We have to make sure we're not doing crossfire. All that stuff starts coming into play. Then some guys really stick. Start coming unraveled.

[Shawn Ryan]

How many. I mean, what, What. What is a. Does everybody have CQB experience before they show up from their prior unit?

[Larry Vickers]

No. No.

[Shawn Ryan]

How many?

[Larry Vickers]

We have some. We have now a lot more. Because you get. You see Rangers doing it, Green Beret is doing it, and that kind of stuff because it's trickled down. Because, let's face it, I mean, guys in, you know, those combat arms, they. I mean, we see in infantry units, too, they know they need to know how to do some basic cqb. They need to know how to do it. Because, I mean, it's urban combat. You're flowing into a room with bad guys. You need. You need to know how to be able to do at least a basic level of cqb. Now, they're told right off the bat, how many guys know how to do CQB here, nobody puts their hand up and they go, yeah, you got the memo right. There's the right way, there's the wrong way, there's the delta way. And you don't know shit about CQB till you show up here and we will teach you the way we do cqb.

[Shawn Ryan]

How long do you spend on cqb?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, dude, OTC is basically six months. Throughout the six months, I'd say three months of it is CQB if you, you know, it's spread out because now you're doing, you know, you're doing VIP training and you're doing high speed, you're doing, you, you do a POW training, of course towards the end, but you're doing different segments of the training of otc. But the constant, the common threads are shooting in cqb. So if you go away for VIP training, when you come back, you're going to roll right back into some shooting and roll right back into cqb. So I would say the shooting and the cQB portion in OTC, 6 to 7 month program is probably half of it.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, CQB just gets so complicated. And you know, I'm just curious when you, when you show up at OC, OTC and you have guys that, you know, that have, and it sounds like back then there was a lot of people that had zero exposure to cqb. I mean, I had none. What I'm trying to do here is bring to the audience how complicated this can get. And so when does it move from a center fed door with no windows, no exterior doors, no nothing, just targets in there, to a full building takedown where you got to worry about exterior doors, you're clearing rooms through windows into the next room, you're clearing other. You know what I'm getting at? It's not just targets, it's sectors of fire. It's reading off the guy next to you. It's reading, it's green on green stuff. It's shooting through windows, it's clearing rooms before you even enter. Yeah, I mean how, how fast is.

[Larry Vickers]

The pace that gets? That's the bottom last third. That's the last two months. Okay, I have a six month program. Six, seven month program. That's the last two months.

[Shawn Ryan]

How long do you, how long do you spend on just the basic center, you know, a center fed doorway into a room with no, with nothing exterior to worry about?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh man, that basic, basic level, probably a week.

[Shawn Ryan]

A week?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. And then it just starts going from, from there. Okay. We're in this room now. We got to go to that room. And then that kind of evolves. So that. That. That really basic stuff. Probably two weeks, two weeks, maybe three. And then different structures on the compound. They had multiple structures to do CQB in.

[Shawn Ryan]

Stairwells, hallways.

[Larry Vickers]

Stairwells, hallways, hallways. You get used to this shoot house. Soon as they're used to it. Now we come over here.

[Shawn Ryan]

How many shoot houses are there?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, my God. If I had to guess now when I was there, probably 10.

[Shawn Ryan]

10 different shoot houses.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Yep. If I had to guess, I'd say 10.

[Shawn Ryan]

How long is it before you start using live ammunition?

[Larry Vickers]

Really soon. Lay in on something. There's three things that dialed me into. This is the NFL, this is the big leagues. Number one, when I got there, and we were using gold medal federal gold medal ammunition for basic rifle. We weren't using standard ball. We were using federal gold medal match for our M14s. Basically $1.50 around ammo for M14s. I knew right then, because I knew enough what that ammo, how expensive it was. I'm like, whoa. We had mag 58s instead. M 60s before the M240 was adopted. And, you know, Marines were using the M240 or the. You know what I mean? And the Rangers, not. We were using them before any of them. I knew right then, head and shoulders going over the M60. And we had Mag 58s. Last one, the big one, carried live ammo all the time, everywhere. On Fort Bragg, you saw a guy, a Delta guy, out on a four wheeler on a ruck march or whatever, he's got live ammo on him on Fort Bragg, really low key. That's something everybody did. Nobody talked about. 82nd, 82nd Airborne didn't know anything about unit MPS. I mean, because that's unheard of in the regular army for guys to be walking around with live ammo. You had live ammo on you all the time.

[Shawn Ryan]

Why is that?

[Larry Vickers]

To get you used to having live ammo and being responsible with it. You know what I mean? How to manage the load, manage the weight, knowing when you're. I'm handling my weapon. My. My weapon's loaded, so I have to be aware of muzzle, finger, finger off the trigger. I have to be dialed in on what's going on with this weapon because it's loaded, it's ready to go. Yeah. Whoever dreamed that up, I got to give them. I mean, way back in the day, the OG Delta guys, I got to give him credit. How long had Delta been around before 1977. I got there 1988. So 11 years now. 77 when it started. But that was very much in its infancy. So they really, they didn't get ramped up to about 79. And then desert one was 8, 1980. So really the unit had been up and running about a decade ish by when I got there, maybe a little bit less. And you talking about some Mac V. SOG pipe hitters organized that unit and started. We're talking about some serious OG pipe hitters got that place going that knew from what it worked and what didn't work in Vietnam. And they made sure that we didn't do the same mistakes when they started Delta.

[Shawn Ryan]

So this is where the Vietnam guys went?

[Larry Vickers]

Yes, guys like Dick Meadows, the og serious OG pipe hitter. It was a guy that was in on the ground floor. He was retired. But Charlie Beckwith brought him in to get that organization going and he kind of set the tone, set the standards for the organization, him and others. But you know, macv, SOG legends like Dick Meadows, those are the guys that laid the groundwork. And I'm sure those are the guys that said guys are gonna be carrying live ammo all the time.

[Shawn Ryan]

So you, when you were there, you were probably there with a lot of the plank owners. Do you guys call them plank owners? Yeah, plank owners for the audience means.

[Larry Vickers]

They are the original guys. Yeah, actually there was quite a few. We would there OTC1. The guys that were there from. That were there from OTC number one and on. Yeah. Oh yeah, we were there from some of them.

[Shawn Ryan]

What class were you?

[Larry Vickers]

OTC 23.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

23. Yeah. When I was there, there was about 200 people that had been Delta Force operators.

[Shawn Ryan]

That's it.

[Larry Vickers]

That's it. At that time. I have no idea where they're at now because it's been. I've been out of there for 20 years.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

So I don't know where they're at. But the OTC 23 and there have been about 200 guys that have been Delta operators.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

In. In a decade.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was it like at graduation?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, dude. Well, you know, interestingly enough, they didn't make a big deal about it. It's called crossing the hall. You'd, you'd come in, you'd get an interview, they'd assess how you did an otc and you're going a squadron. That's where I went. And that was it. You packed up your stuff. Your stuff was already packed up because you were going to be moving that day. They, you Knew whether you passed or not or, you know, you're going to the squadron, you just didn't know what squadron you're were going to. And you would take your stuff over and they'd say, yeah, you're on F team or whatever, and you go into F team, put your stuff in the wall locker.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did they say at your review?

[Larry Vickers]

I was, interestingly enough, I was the first guy in West Virginia to go in for the board, and I was the first guy after OTC to go in for the board out of my OTC class. Very first guy in West Virginia that went in for the board, very first guy that went in after otc. And people said, well, that's nothing to it. Bullshit that I know for a fact now because I was on the other end of this. They're bringing in a guy that's no brainer, that's obviously going to go to the unit or he's done, finished otc, because that warms up, that gets the guys who are on the board warmed up to the questions and the sequence and the program of how you're going to interview these guys. I remember at the time, well, there's no rhyme or reason to it. Horse I knew at the time. I go, that doesn't sound right. You know what I mean? They're going to say the guys are questionable towards the end. And they're going to say those guys are questionable towards the end. The guys that may. They may need to grill. And I'm not really talking about otc, they pretty much know, you know, whether you're going to go to a squadron or not, that's kind of a given. Talking about in West Virginia after selection, they keep those guys to the end that they may have to grill for 30 minutes. And, you know, because they've tracked this guy all the way through, they know what he's done right and what he's done wrong. We've had a guide, a couple of guys that, I mean, I thought they were good to go. They got bounced on the board and selected.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did they say at your board, guys?

[Larry Vickers]

I made a classic mistake. I. Oh, my God. I. They asked me a question and they go, why'd you do this? And I go, well, you know, other guys did it too. Oh, dude. Yeah. I mean, I, that's, that's the kind of comment I made. And I go, well, you know, I'm sure other guys were doing it too. Oh, oh, my God, they were laid into me on that one. And I. As soon as I said it, I Was like, why did I say that? And then they start talking to you and they go, well, you need to understand some. Sergeant Vickers, Delta Force is part of the army. You know, you know, you have to be part of the army if you're going to be in. And they kind of lead you up to where you're like, oh my God, they're going to tell me I did make it, that they purposely do that. And then at the very end the commander goes, I want to be the first one to welcome you to Delta Force.

[Shawn Ryan]

How'd that feel?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, unbelievable. I mean, the high of the high. Only one thing was ever higher than that. One thing. Rescuing Kurt Muse, Adam Adela, prison in my life.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep. That's the only thing that is higher than him shaking my hand. And then they all come up to shake her hand. So yeah, they bring in early on they bring in the guy that's a no brainer. This guy's no brainer. He's going to the unit or he's going to a squadron. No brainer. And that's just to warm the, the board staff up. The guys are on the board because quite a few of them, it's the first time they've been on a board. They don't really know the sequence and they're coached. Hey, these are the kind of questions you ask. This is the kind of responses you're looking for. But you know, you got to get them warmed up to being on a board and they, they, you know, they do they. Early on you're bringing in guys that are no brainers.

[Shawn Ryan]

Do you remember what they asked, why you did whatever it is that you did?

[Larry Vickers]

No, I don't.

[Shawn Ryan]

Do you remember any of the specific questions?

[Larry Vickers]

No, I really don't. I just remember that one response that just opened the door for them that I just realized, oh my God, why did I say that? Well, other guys were doing it, you know, or whatever. Something. Well, I'm sure other guys were doing it too. That was stupid. I knew it as soon as it came out of my mouth. But I don't remember exactly what the question was. No, I don't remember exactly what the question was.

[Shawn Ryan]

Where did you go from there from selection or from otc?

[Larry Vickers]

A squadron.

[Shawn Ryan]

A squadron?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, a squadron. I went to a 2 troop F team and I was a junior guy on F team.

[Shawn Ryan]

How did they greet you?

[Larry Vickers]

Good. Tree is a professional. No, didn't look it down on anybody. You know, a little bit of hazing and stuff, but real minor stuff, nothing major because you know, you respected the guy, you probably already gotten word, hey, this guy is a star. He was one of the best guys, you know what I mean? Or, you know, this guy kind of needs, you know, he's okay, but, you know, he obviously met the standard. He wouldn't be going to squadron. Right? But you may have already kind of gotten the word on the guy. He may be a guy who thinks he walks on water. You might need to knock him down a couple notches, you know what I mean? Or, hey, this guy's a stud. We got word. Yay. This dude was an. He killed it in OTC. And they're like, really? He goes, yes. The seal we had, Kevin Holland, superstar, came from ST6. We watched him like a hawk. I put him through selection. He was our number one guy.

[Shawn Ryan]

No.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, dude, he killed it. He absolutely killed it. I remember talking to him, and at the end, I go, dude, do you know any more guys in the SEALS like you? And he goes, yeah, we're gonna. I go talk to him about coming here. I go, because we need all the guys like you we can get. He was a rock star. And we were watching him like a hawk, like, he's a seal. You know, he came from ST6. You know, I mean, dude, he was a rock star. Absolute rock star. He was the number one guy in his class.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

He killed it. Absolutely killed it. By the end of it, any of the cadre would have taken him on his team in a New York second.

[Shawn Ryan]

When you did show up to a squadron, how do you. How do you feel that your proficiency in CQB and just being an operator in general measured up to the guys that were.

[Larry Vickers]

You knew you were at a pretty basic level because the guys there had been doing it, many of them, for years now. You've only done it for a few months now. That being said, I went in, I mean, CQB wise, one thing, a lot to learn. I. I shot at a very high level. As soon as I walked across the hall, I was, you know, within. Probably the top, top five guys shooting wise. As soon as I walked across the hall in a squadron.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah. I've always. One thing I've always, you know, I was just had the ability to dial in on combat marksmanship. And I did. I. I was probably in the top five as soon as I walked across the hall.

[Shawn Ryan]

Is it competitive?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

How so?

[Larry Vickers]

You don't want a team. You don't want. Basically, you don't want to embarrass yourself. So when you go out shooting, you know, there's peer pressure. It's not overt. It's not like in your face or nothing like that. But, you know, if you don't do real well, you beat yourself up. I mean, you're in Delta Force and this organization is known for shooting. If you don't hold the standard, you're going to beat yourself up. If it gets bad enough, you're going to get talked to some. Your team sergeant's going to pull you aside and say, dude, you got to put in extra time. You know, if I need to work with you, I will. We'll get you in, dialed in with one of the best shooters here. You know what I mean? If it gets bad. Pretty rare. That's pretty rare.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's the culture like? I mean, coming from the SF team, which you were really unimpressed with? What's the culture like at Delta, you.

[Larry Vickers]

Know, SF team, We've talked about this a little bit. Kind of. A little bit more of cohesive partying type night. We're going to drink together, you know what I mean? Come over to the house on the weekend. We're going to watch football and drink, that kind of stuff. Delta is much more from when I was there, much more mission focused, really focused about why you're there and what you're all about, camaraderie and whatnot. But it's like. Like, hey, going over to your house on the weekend and drinking beer with you and watching football, that's over here. What we're about is right here, and it's the organization. And once I go back to the Dick Meadows piece, I don't know how much you know about the guy. There's a fantastic book written about him called Quiet Professional. Is that the name of it? I'll think about it. Maybe on break. I'll look it up. But. And this dude set the standard. Never. He was Mac V. SOG legend. Never lost a man in combat.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

In Mac VSOG, 13 POWs captured. He captured. More enemy combats. Enemy combat. Not POWs, excuse me, any enemy combat and anybody. He's the guy that went in and got. He became an officer because of this and eventually became a major. Retired major. He went in and he got video footage, him and his team, video footage of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to prove that the Ho Chi Minh Trail actually existed. No, that was sent back to Congress, and Congress was shown. This is Ho Chi Minh Trail and Dick Meadows is the guy who did it. I mean, we're talking about a Mac B. SOG legend and he. He set the Standard. He was in charge of the assault force on Asante raid. So when you went in there, you didn't know it, but you had that Dick Meadows umbrella or standard set. Unbelievable planning. I mean, detailed planning down to the absolute smallest detail. And Delta, that's what we were all about. So it was a serious, focused organization in terms of mission focus. Partying at your house on the weekend for watching football. That's not very important. This is what's important. So that's. You asked about what's the different culture, what's the different feel? That's it. Delta is all about the mission sf. And I'm not saying it's not, but it's, you know, you got more of a, you know, it's just more of a. It's just a different feel to it. Like I said, come over to the house, you know, we'll drink beer over the weekend. We'll have a team party, we'll cook out. That's all cool. We did some of that stuff in Delta, but nothing like you saw it elsewhere. Nothing. It was all about. And there were some legendary team, team leaders. Some of them were absolute Nazis. Absolute Nazis about stuff like you're supposed to be in at 8 o' clock going on the range. You were firing the first shot when eight o' clock hit.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Larry Vickers]

Not show up. And we're heading to the range at 8, you're on range pulling the trigger and the first bullets going down range when 8 o' clock hits. And dude, there were Olympic. And you've seen them too. You were in the seal, so you've seen what I'm talking about. Olympic level athletes, I mean, guys that were. I still can't believe some of the physical accomplishments that they would do. Yeah, and guys were Olympic level athletes in the organization. You've seen it, I've seen it. I mean, you're, you're a stud to get in that organization to begin with. But guys that are on this level.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get into some of your operations. Did you know Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the US with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to get your dream yard order online and get your plants delivered directly to your door in just a few days without ever leaving home. They're alive and thrive guarantee ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy. Plus get support from trained plant experts on call to help you plan your landscape and learn how to care for them. I've learned so much and the plants they sent me look amazing. I'm ordering oak trees to plant at my new studio and I can't wait to show you you this spring. They have the best deals for your yard, up to half off on select plants and other deals. And listeners of our show get 15% off their first purchase when using the code SRS at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fast growing trees.com using the code SRS at checkout. Now's the perfect time to plant. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Go to fastgrowingtrees.com for details. When your metabolism is working properly, you can feel the benefits in literally every aspect of your life. Lumen is one of the world's first handheld metabolic coaches. It's a device that can help measure your metabolism through your breath. All you have to do is breathe into your lumen and it will tell you what it sees going on with your metabolism and give you a personalized nutrition plan for that day. I check mine before and after meals and I love understanding how my body responds in real time. Your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does in optimal metabolic wellness. Translate to benefits like easier weight management, improved energy levels, and more. The warmer months are coming. Spring back into your health and fitness. Go to Lumen Me SRS to get 15% off your Lumen. That's L u m e n me SRS for 15% off your purchase. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. All right, Larry, we're back from the break. We covered oc, otc. You're at the unit, you're in a squadron. How long are you there before you go on your first operation?

[Larry Vickers]

So I got there summer of 89, and we ended up doing Panama December of 89. So six months.

[Shawn Ryan]

Six months and you're on your first mission.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep. And we'd heard scuttlebutt that there was a guy, we heard it was a CIA guy that was held in Panama in a prison. And there was people working on it in terms of rescue mission. And it followed the squadrons in terms of when you were on alert cycle, you would work on the mission and then when you came off alert cycle, it would go to the next squadron, you would hand it off and they would, they would develop the plan and, and rehearse and they tweak it and Then when they came off Alert Cycle, they'd hand it off to the next. Next, you know, hey, this is what we got. And we didn't know if it would ever happen because it was all part of the bigger picture in terms of. It was called Blue Spoon and eventually became Just Cause. And it was going down to overthrow Noriega and his government is really what it was. The Kurt Muse rescue was a piece of that because one George Bush Sr. Had made it a priority. Hey, we're going to rescue this guy. And we knew he was held in Mandela Prison, which was the premier prison in Panama City. It was basically their model prison or whatever you want to call it. It was the number one prison in the country, and that's where he was being held. It was a block away from the commandancia, which is essentially the Panamanian Pentagon. So it was basically right in the heart of the belly of the beast, for lack of a better term. And we knew if we didn't get him at the beginning, he was going to be killed as soon as the invasion went off. So the Just Cause was initiated by the rescue operation to get Kurt Muse out. That started the sequence of events that became Just Cause in the whole countrywide effort to overthrow Noriega and his government.

[Shawn Ryan]

Can you describe what was going on in Panama at the time?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, a lot of, you know, at one time, Noriega was basically an ally of the United States. Well, that flipped. The guy's corrupt. I mean, he just. He was a shitbird. And there was a lot of unrest. There was a lot of tension between the Americans and the Panamanians, and it was escalating. It just over time, it just got worse and worse and worse. And it all came to a head when just before Just Cause kicked off, a squadron was on our alert cycle. We'd been training for the Modelo prison raid because we'd had it, got a handoff, and we were putting our, you know, tweaking it, putting our touches to the mission. We'd been rehearsing it where there was a. I want to say a Marine lieutenant that was killed at a checkpoint, I want to say, right near the commandancia. They. They started harassing the guy. If memory serves me correct, the way it worked was he was in a. A vehicle with a couple other military, you know, personnel, and he kind of. They kind of went through this checkpoint, and one of the Panamanians shot at him and hit him and killed him. Killed this Marine lieutenant. I think it was a Marine, but I know for a fact it was a US Military personnel lieutenant and was killed. I remember hearing about that on the news. And I went, ooh, this is not going to go well. And sure enough, our beeper went off like that. And I went, oh, I got to go in. And we went in, I saw Eldon Bargewell, the Squadron Commander, Mac V SOG Legend, and he said, blue Spoon's going down two days from now. Like, whoa. And we got on the birds and we were down. And we were the first ones down to Howard Air Force Base before all JSOC came down and basically descended in socom. JSOC and SOCOM descended on Howard Air Force Base and established that as an HQ for the special operations piece of Just Cause. And this has been building up for a while. We've been doing rehearsals. I had some pretty major rehearsals for it. Basically, like I said, it was called Operation Blue Spoon and then became Just Cause. And by the way, it's called Acid Gambit now. Or we. I never heard during the mission, ever heard the terms acid Gambit. Never did. It was only till later, much later, and I'm not sure why that is. You know what I mean?

[Shawn Ryan]

What were you guys. What was the. The FTXs for him? And did you. Did you guys have. I know what they were for. Did you guys have a layout of the prison? Did you know where he was? I mean, how. Nat's ass was the intelligence back from you guys to you guys to plan this?

[Larry Vickers]

There had been an army doctor who'd been allowed to go in and see him. I don't think it was once a week. I think it was once a month. And he was in there nine months. I think it was once a month. This army doctor was able to go in and check on his health and welfare. And the army doctor was debriefed extensively every time he came back. So we started getting really good intel on where he was held inside the prison, you know, what condition he was in, the layout of the prison. We were able to get some really good intel from this army doctor. We would do flybys when we were down there initially. We went down initially to train up. We would do flybys with helicopters and look at the top of the prison from a distance and kind of, you know, take photos and whatnot and kind of get the layout of the top of the prison, you know, because it was right next to Howard Air Force Base. It was right next to it. So it was totally plausible for helicopters to be flying nearby, not right over the prison, but nearby. And we would get Visual on the cupola at the top and the door on the cupola and all that kind of stuff. So we had substantial amount of intel.

[Shawn Ryan]

And would you guys. I mean, I know that there are. Are certain units that can basically build a damn near an exact mock up of the target that they're getting ready to hit. Were you guys. Did you guys have that capability at that point?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, we did. When we had a great tabletop layout. I think the CIA built it. I'm pretty sure they did. And I assume they still have it at the unit was on display. We had a great tabletop layout. You know, model. There was a big blue spoon operation down in Florida, and they built a mock up of the prison down there.

[Shawn Ryan]

They built an entire mock up.

[Larry Vickers]

They built an entire mock up. Prison is four stories, remember? Serves me correct. There's pictures of it online. I'd have to look, but I think the prison's four stories. They were only able to complete three stories before we did the rehearsal. But they had a. They had a mock up of the prison built down on Eglin Air Force Base. And that's where we did the rehearsal out of. And then we hit the prison. That was part of the big blue spoon rehearsal.

[Shawn Ryan]

Did they. Did they move Muse to different cells every time the Doctor would come back?

[Larry Vickers]

No, they settled. I believe initially they. They moving him around, but he got settled in on the. If memory serves me correct, the second floor. We had to go down two floors to get to him. The second floor, they settled him in the one spot, and he was kind of in the VIP prison cell by himself. And we. We'd heard he was kind of in a vip, a little bit bigger prison cell, whatnot, but he was being held in. You know, we knew where he was at the Doctor, and he'd been there a while in that. In that cell.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow. That's actually pretty surprising.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

That they wouldn't move him around every single time the Doctor came just to, you know, to not have you guys have an exact replica of where he's at.

[Larry Vickers]

You know, in hindsight, I really don't think they even visualized us coming into that prison to get him.

[Shawn Ryan]

No kidding.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. I just think that because if you look at it from a layman's point of view, we're gonna break into a prison and get somebody out. It's kind of like, seriously, how the hell is gonna that gonna happen?

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, I'm wondering the same damn thing, to be honest with you. So. So you go down to Panama, you guys got a mock up in Florida. You wind up in Panama. You're doing flybys, you're gathering intel. Let's talk about Muse. Who was he?

[Larry Vickers]

He was an American. Good guy, by the way. We're personal friends now. He's. He calls all the guys that were on the mission every. The anniversary, every year, December 20th. He calls them on every single person and thanks them for their. For rescuing him. Great guy. American, civilian down there. Kind of involved in the community. Very anti Noriega. Kind of started an anti Noriega cell, so to speak.

[Shawn Ryan]

Cell doing what?

[Larry Vickers]

You know, disruptive activities towards the regime. Like, the most famous one was Noriega was going to give a speech, and right in the middle of the speech, they cut in with anti Noriega propaganda over the. Over the radio. That's the one. That's the most famous one. They did exact timeline on that. I'm not sure. But that Kurt said, that's the one that really put them on the radar screen, was when they did that. You know, now General Noriega is going to speech or speak. Bam, they cut in and they're giving out their propaganda against him. So he was a dependent. His wife worked as a school teacher on Howard Air Force Base. So he was a military civilian dependent. She was a, you know, military. She was civilian. DOD civilian, and he was a dependent of her.

[Shawn Ryan]

You had mentioned earlier that you had heard that he was a CIA asset or a CIA guy.

[Larry Vickers]

Was.

[Shawn Ryan]

Was he?

[Larry Vickers]

I, you know, he's talking to Kurt. He said the only support he got from them was real late in the game. He. He met some agency guys in Miami to get radio equipment to help his cause. That's what Kurt's told us. I have no reason to believe otherwise. I mean, he's never given me a reason to, like, you know, he was an agency guy, and he's kind of operating undercover or whatnot. I've never gotten that from him. So I can't speak to. Other than what he said is late in the game. He got some assistance from them.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, I think that pretty much paints the picture that, I mean, I don't think the CIA is just handing out equipment.

[Larry Vickers]

Good point, valid point, but.

[Shawn Ryan]

And so he was disrupting. It was basically propaganda against Noriega.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep.

[Shawn Ryan]

How many people had he amassed? Do you have any idea?

[Larry Vickers]

You know, I only think a handful, because he's obviously stayed in touch with them. I think there was a handful of guys. And he mentions how he got rolled up was basically Noriega went back to his. You know, you basically bribed people, hey, give him up. And one of the wives, if memory serves me correct, one of the wise of his guys, his network gave him up and that's how he got rolled up. Yeah, through a broad.

[Shawn Ryan]

What were they doing to him in prison? Anything?

[Larry Vickers]

No, I don't think they really did much. I think psychological warfare, but I don't think they ever did anything physical like that. I do remember, I don't know if you've ever heard of this or not. There was a coup attempt against Noriega by some Panamanian Defense Force officers, and they actually captured and they had Noriega under house arrest. Noriega was able to talk his way out of it. Those officers got scarfed up. I think they were later executed. But Kurt talked about, if memory serves me correct, talked about one of the officers being strung up to the basketball goal out in the common area of the prison and being tortured. But I don't think Kurt ever went through any of that. I think he was just psychological warfare. I'm pretty confident he never was physically abused.

[Shawn Ryan]

How prepared for the mission did you feel?

[Larry Vickers]

More prepared than any other mission I've been involved with, bar none. We rehearsed it, went over it, refined it, rehearsed it, went over it, refined it to the nth degree. Nth degree? Yeah. We. That up to, you know, of my time in the military was the gold standard in terms of preparation for a specific operation. Operation.

[Shawn Ryan]

At what point did you guys get the green light?

[Larry Vickers]

Once that lieutenant was killed and, you know, beeper went off, I went in. I remember seeing Colonel Bargewell, squadron commander. I was going in to fill up my canteens, and he's going, blue spoons going down to, you know, 24 or 48 hours from now. I was like, whoa. And I knew blue spoon going down, which became just cause meant we were going to initiate Modela Prison, you know, right before the actual invasion kicked off. I knew that's what that meant.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was the briefing like?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, everybody knew what they were going to do because we'd been rehearsing it. It was a two. Actually, it was more than just a two troop. It was a sniper troop as well. A one troop was on a. Basically on standby to react to any of Noriega's henchmen that popped up so they could respond and, you know, scarf them up. Never really happened, by the way, but that's what they were standing by for. A1 troop, a2 troop was involved in the assault, and a3 troop, the sniper troop, was involved in the operation as well, and they basically provided security on top of. In prison.

[Shawn Ryan]

So this was legitimately just a two and some snipers?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, a two troop and all the sniper troop.

[Shawn Ryan]

How. How many guys?

[Larry Vickers]

23. I say all, not all majority. 23 went on the prison, went on the roof. And with Muse coming out, it was 24. How.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, how big was this prison?

[Larry Vickers]

It's pretty good size. I mean, it's pretty good size. If you research it on the Internet, I'm sure you can find some pictures of it. It's pretty big.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah. We'll overlay it right now as we're talking on doing our best, but to.

[Larry Vickers]

Try to find the picks.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, we'll get them. But I mean, how. What were you guys expecting?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, we got word somewhere along the line that they'd ramped up, and they expected if we were going to try to rescue them, it was from the ground. So there was. PDF kind of housed on the ground floor in the prison in an adjacent building.

[Shawn Ryan]

PDF. Panamanian.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep, yep. Panamanian Defense Force. They were housed down there, in theory for a rescue attempt for Kurt Muse. And they.

[Shawn Ryan]

They were expecting this.

[Larry Vickers]

They were expecting it, anticipating it, and it was a possibility. And they expected us to come in on the ground floor.

[Shawn Ryan]

And so what was go time like when you got down there?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, we knew initially it was going to be, I want to say 45 minutes before the invasion kick, but it ended up being 15 minutes before, before the actual invasion kicked off. We got situated on the bur. I remember we were down there. I, you know, we were down there, like I told you before anybody. And then all these JSOC people come in, SOCOM people. And I remember, dude, the night before, I didn't sleep a wink. And I'm sure nobody else did either. Wasn't scared, was just anxious. Edge of my seat going over in my head over and over and over and over. My. My role, what I was going to do, my actions just over and over and over. And I'm going to tell you what else, too. We started getting briefed by the pilots in terms of, okay, if the chopper goes down and we're injured and you need to shut down the rotors, this is how you do it. And I remember looking around the faces, the other guys, and, dude, everybody had their game face on. I mean, it was. It was for real. And I remember Colonel Bargewell, Mac V. SOG Legend, Distinguished Service Cross, Mac V. Sog. I'd heard scuttlebutt. We heard scuttlebutt. He was actually put in for the Medal of Honor. And it was downgraded to the dsc partially because he was a real rebel in Mac vsog. That's what we'd heard. I don't doubt it, but I remember him talking to us going, you know, I can see you guys. I've seen this face before. I had it when I was in Vietnam. Everything is going to be fine. We're going to get in there and get him. We're gonna get out. You guys are gonna be good to go.

[Shawn Ryan]

Was it a night up?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh yeah. 00, 45 hours, 15 minutes before 1 in the morning and we were out on the lined up. Four little birds. Interestingly enough, except for one bird, we had six dudes. Two birds, had two pilots, three guys on each pod. Other two birds had two, one pilot and three guys on each side except for one spot for Kurt Museum. And they had skeletonized the bird, taken out everything. One pilot there, he, I heard him talking about the other day. Had one round in his pistol. He didn't even have a full magazine ammo. We weighed in every day. Our, our kit, we didn't even have a hard plate. Yeah. On our body armor we took the hard. Yeah. I'm dead serious. Every single day we weighed in to make sure that our weight was exactly where it needed to be every day. Because the weight was that critical. Because they wanted as many bodies in there as possible in case things just totally went sideways. You wanted more bodies, more Delta operators than less. So it went down that critical and they skeletonized the birds. I'd heard scuttlebutt and I'm pretty sure this was debunked and I don't think this actually happened. They started the bird and then took the battery out to save weight. I later heard that was bullshit. I think that was discussed, but it wasn't actually done.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

So it's us.

[Larry Vickers]

It was that close in terms of weight.

[Shawn Ryan]

You take off. I mean, this is just. I mean this is your first real world op. Hostage rescue mission in Panama. That's crazy, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Well, and what's interesting, I'll never forget it. Guy went through selection with. Went through selection with him. Went through otc, went to a squadron with him. And now we're on the mission together. We're on the pods, you know, sitting on the bench seat on the pod. He's right here and he's going to be on the roof with a mag 58. I actually go into prison. I'm one of the guys that go in. I was actually the first guy to go in through the prison door. And I'll get to that in a minute. But he looked at me, I looked at him. He. He stuck his hand out, I shook his hand. No words were said. Nothing need to be said. Never forgot it. I mean, it was game time. Nothing needed to be said. I'll never forget it. And then we took off. Interesting enough, I think it's the school that Kurt Muse's wife actually taught at. We flew over. A school on Howard Air Force Base is a school that we did a rehearsal on. We did a rehearsal on it, and one of the little birds that hit a tail rotor and a Chinook had to come in before daytime. A Chinook had to come in and lift it off and get it off the top of the school. This was, you know, a few weeks before, two weeks before, whatever the case was, but it was a. A rehearsal site. And we flew right over that school. So it was kind of like deja vu.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Came in. I was on bird number two, going in, and there was birds behind us. Two birds behind us. We'd gotten word that in the major intersection, right, going down to the commandancia and in the prisons over here, there was a machine gun set up. There was PDF they had to be dealt with or they were in a fire at the birds coming by. We had a sniper team that came down. They came down off a hill overlooking the, you know, the intersection. Guy had a bolt gun, guy had a mag 58, guy had a three dudes, guy had an M203. And the theory was they're in position, they're in overwatch, and as soon as they see one of the PDF do this, they're going to light them up. And what I understood happened was the first two birds go over. I was in bird number two. The first two birds go over. There was nobody in the intersection because I remember looking. I was on the right side. I remember looking, looking for anybody. There was nobody there. We went over, they heard the birds, then they come out. And then they're going to shoot at the. The second set of birds, Bird three and four. And they got lit up by the guys in the overwatch position. Interestingly enough, never forget this, Christmas lights are on the top of the prison. This is December 20th, 1989, right before Christmas. There's Christmas lights. I'll never forget it. Wow. And we were offset from the prison. And then the pilots did this number and then got in line and line landed right on top of the prison and it peeled off. I got in position by the cupola. I had security position looking through the window, down the stairs, the cupola on top. And. And then the second two set of birds came in. They dispersed. Breacher on my team went up to put a charge up, and in the process of. Of pulling the, you know, the time fuse, he knocked the charge down and it fell right in front of me about for me to you. And I was like, what is that? I didn't even. You know what I mean? It didn't even dawn on me it was the charge. Fortunately, when he went to pull it and he didn't ignite it, he did not ignite the time fuse. That area probably would have killed me. His memory serves me correct. It was a C6 charge, which was P for plenty, brother. I mean, we were not going to take any chance of getting in that door. It was P for plenty. It probably would have killed me because I. I ended up going from being the guy looking through the window, now I'm going to be the number one guy, you know, going through the door. And I was down on the knee, and I was like, what is that? I couldn't believe it. It. And I remember my team sergeant came up, he goes, hey, man, get the backup charge ready. Because I had a backup charge. And I go, why am I going to get the backup charge ready? Because the breacher's right there within. The breacher went back around and he said, hey, come. He basically had me come up for cover. I covered him on the door. He put the charge back up. We initiated. And, dude, it was a boom. I'll never forget it. It was a boom. When I was looking in the cupola window, the lights were on. I thought the charge knocked out the lights. And it was because it was pitch black. What had actually had happened. The snipers, the support guys had hit the generator and killed the lights. I didn't know that till later. They killed lights in the prison. So it was pitch black. I come around, door is long gone on the cupola. I step in, there's no landing. Sean, here's the door. The steps go right up to the door. There's no landing like this, where you step in and then go down the steps. It goes right up the door. Like, you know, out here, you guys got. There's none. So I almost, by the grace of God, I don't know how I didn't trip because it's pitch black. I'm walking into it, and by the grace of God, somehow I didn't trip. Went down. The guys are following me, and people Are like, why are you number one man? I was the most expendable guy. It's that simple. I was the new guy on F team. F team and G team were going in. F team secured the inside, the route inside the prison stairwell, the hallway, that kind of stuff. G team was the ones that are going to extract him. They're going to be the team that gets him out.

[Shawn Ryan]

So you basically set up a corridor.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep, we did. Went down, basically. Me, I can't remember who it was. Me and another guy held that first stairwell. G team fall, fled, you know, went past us. Then I go down to the next stairwell. There was actually a room that we were going to clear. Well, we didn't clear it because it was padlocked. We're like, okay, not really a threat. Chances are nobody's in there because it's padlocked from the outside. So we didn't clear it. And I was standing there on the stairs. And then about then, the C130 starts lighting up the commandancia. Yeah. Yep. Specter starts lighting up the commandancia. And it was loud, and I could see right out the window. I mean, right there. I'd look right there, and I could see the commandancia getting lit up by. By the specter. And because they'd given us X amount of time, I. I don't. I'm not sure how much time it was, but not long, Maybe five minutes, maybe not. Who knows? I don't even remember it. It was not long at all to get in, get situated, and then they were going to start lighting up com dancia. So they started lighting it up. We're holding the stairwell. Somebody, a PDF guy, guard or whatever, poked his head around. Gary Harrell was there. He was the troop commander. He shot at him. I think he missed him. Pretty calm. He claimed later he thought he hit him, but I'm pretty sure he missed him not to, because the guy took off. And then they came out with Muse. They put a C4 charge on his door and blew the door wide open. There was a guard that had told Kurt if there was a rescue attempt, he was going to kill him. Because Kurt, I think, asked him, hey, if there's a rescue attempt for me, what are you going to do? And he goes, I'll kill you. This guy was in the room right across from Kurt. So the priority was to get down to Kurt as soon as possible to beat this guy before this guy gets a situational awareness, figures out what's going on, goes over to Kurt cell and kills him.

[Shawn Ryan]

You guys knew that before you went?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, we knew it. Yep.

[Shawn Ryan]

Was he in the cell across?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, he was. He was in the room across. He was in a room cross. And they. G team went in and killed him. Yep. He was armed with a pistol. I think the guy. I think he was in a shower. If memory serves me correct, G team found him in the shower. I think the guy went for his pistol. Already had a pistol in his hand. They killed him? Yeah, they got Muse out. They brought in a little, you know, k aviator kit. Bag had body armor and a helmet. You know, a body armor and a Kevlar helmet. Peeled him out. I remember seeing him go up the stairs. Couple things. We get up, we tell him, hey, you know, PC secure to get the extraction birds out. The reason the book's called Six Minutes to Freedom because from when we touched down to when we called, you know, PC Secure called for xville was six minutes. Just not that we were, you know, it's just the way it worked out. Not like we had a set time standard or anything like that. It just happened. It was six minutes from when we sat down on top the prison to when we were ready to exfil with Kurt Muse was six minutes.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

We were at the very top, you know what I mean? Stairwell. I remember I was here. Kurt Muse is here. And that door is here. Dude. I'll never forget this as long as I live. It got quiet for a minute. I don't know how long, like a C130 maybe was, you know, taking a loop around. Didn't have a, you know, clear field of fire. Whatever got quiet. And you could hear the prisoners screaming. And when you hear somebody screaming, who, honest to God, thinks they're going to die? It's a sound you'll never forget now. I'll never forget it. It's nothing like you see in a movie or any of that other bullshit. These people were convinced they were going to die. And they're trapped in these prison cells. And I'll never forget that sound.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep. So we go up. Birds land. I was on bird two. They get Muse on bird one. They put him and, you know, inside the bird. He's not on the pods. They put him inside the bird. And then they G team who rescued him, and then they're exfilin with him. I remember I got on the pod. I was like high fiving. I didn't even bother to hook up. But my. The combo guy hooked me up, thank God. But I'm high fiving. I go, we got him. You know, yada, yada, yada. Well, the bird lifts up, and Bird one kind of does this number over the prison wall and goes into the blackness. I mean, it's pitch dark. You can't see him go. There was a cemetery right beside us. We lift up, we go over, and I see muzzle flash dude shooting at us. And I'm. I didn't get a beat on him, but I put some rounds down at him to get him, and then muzzle flash stop. And I don't. I'm pretty confident I did not hit the guy, but I at least got him to duck, so he's no longer shooting at her. Bird.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

We lose track of Bird one. We go back to Howard Air Force Base. We land. I'm like, awesome. Bird 1 went down. Bird 1, with Kurt Muse, went down. What happened was they were serious. They had two pilots, they had six dudes with Kurt Muse. They were seriously overloaded. And the pilot tried to gain speed and kick back up, but there was power lines, so he was worried about hitting the power line. So he sets down on a road, a street, right on the other side of the cemetery. Well, four guys from G team jump off and get out, and they're pulling security. The pilot, like, waves him back. Come on. Because he's going to go down. He's essentially going down the street to gain, you know, airspeed, and then he's going to lift off. They get back on. Three of the four guys don't hook back up. So that becomes critical here in a minute. Anyway, they go down. He takes a left on the street, and he starts to lift up, and Bird gets hit, crashes. One guy. Three of the guys all fell off. One guy was still. The team leader was still. He was hooked in, so he was good to go. And Muse, who's in the back, is good to go. And there was a guy from my team. My 2IC assistant team leader was basically with him, escorting him. He was fine, too. Bird goes down, breaks the right strut off. The right strut had landed on one of the guys who fell off and landed on his foot. He lost his big toe, I want to say, on his right foot lost his big toe. And never. He stayed in the unit. But you can imagine when he lose a big toe. Dude, you're never the same. Two of the other guys on the other side got shot. One guy got shot in the leg. One guy got shot. The very bottom of the body armor, they got hit. Bird goes down, tilts to the side. The pilots are doing their best to get to Stop the rotors. There's a rotor still going. Muse gets out. My team, assistant team leader, who's escort Muse, gets out with him. He didn't duck down far enough. My assistant team leader, he gets clipped upside the head. This protect with the rotor knocks him out. He goes down, knocks him out. He wakes up, here's Muse laying down prone. And he, you know, he immediately freaks out. Muse. Muse. He thinks Muse is dead. He wasn't. What happened was Mew sees him go down. So he mimics him. He's. Oh, man, he must have gotten shot. I'm gonna get down prone. So he. They both get out of there. They go and they kind of hunker around the station wagon. If memory serves me correct, there was a station wagon. They hunker around. Team leader hunkers them around, gets the wounded guys over there. Muse is there. My assistant team leader, who's, you know, got clipped upside the head, whose bell is rung. They, you know, they kind of hole up around this vehicle. They. Some Panamanians are coming out. Muse tells him Spanish. He speaks magnificent Spanish to get the out of there. Team leaders on the radio telling them what happened. Elton Bargewell, squadron commander, is still on top of the prison. What had happened was one of the guys on Bird three or four did not get on the bird. Not sure who it was, but he didn't get on the bird. So he missed the exfil. He was left behind. Elton Bargewell sees this. He jumps off, grabs a machine gunner with him, guy armed with an M60, and they set up on top. And Ellen Bargewell is on the, you know, on the horn. He's on the radio dictating what's going on? Well, he hears. Elton Bargewell hears the team leader call, hey, you know, Bird one's down. So once again, remember how he told you we rehearsed this thing to the nth degree. We had ground forces coming in, basically in APCs that were rolling in, and we're going to basically swarm the area. And sure enough, they rolled in. We had Delta medics apc, and they rolled up to the guys, peeled them in. Delta medics started working on them on the spot and took them up to EXFIL to get exfil to cazavac station on Howard Air Force Base. Damn. Yep. We had all that wired for sound. In case, what, a bird goes down, we have to exfil. Birds can't come in to get us out. We got to exfil off the side of the prison via fast rope. How are we going to do that. So we had this whole exvil procedure down. Work like a champ. Contingency program, contingency plan. I remember hearing later the. Because it was conventional forces that were doing this. The APC guys, right? I mean it wasn't us operating and it was the. So we got it. They got attached to us. And I remember hearing some of them go, oh man. One guy goes, dude, I knew it wasn't going to be good. When I saw these guys show up in protects and black body armor, I knew this wasn't going to be good. Yeah, he showed up in black body armor and protects and man, I goes, I just knew this wasn't me going to be good. But yeah, they, you know, moved in. Good thing they did because a good friend of mine was shot in the leg. Really good guy. Probably would have bled to death almost certainly if he hadn't gotten medical treatment that quick.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, he probably would have bled to death. But they were on him in no time. Scarfed them up in the APCs and took off. Then Black Hawk came in and got Eldon Bargewell, machine gunner and the other guy out of there. It took a lot of fire. And then what happened was if your bird was out of action, you were out of action for the opera, for the. The entire mission, just cause you were done. So that bird went back, it hovered over the prison, it took fire from the commandancy area, it took hits. And when it. By the time he got back to Howard Air Force Base, the bird was done. That was a deadline for the rest of the mission. So that pilot and that bird was out of the fight after that.

[Shawn Ryan]

How did Kurt get back?

[Larry Vickers]

Kurt went in, landed basically with the APCs because they lifted off. What happened was the APCs went up to this top of this hill adjacent to where those guys, remember the dudes I told you, the overwatch team, they came down from that hill, they went up to the top of that and got on Black Hawk and then they took off and went back to Howard Air Force Base. Before he left Howard Air Force Base, going back to the United States, he asked to go see the guys that were were wounded in the Kazavak Hospital. And he did. He went in and said hi, thank you for rescuing me, you know, saving my life, that whole thing. And then he went on a bird and he was back to the States in no time.

[Shawn Ryan]

Did you meet him?

[Larry Vickers]

No, not then. No, I didn't. Didn't meet him till actually quite a bit later when he came to a Squadron came to the unit and A squadron and briefed his side of the, you know, of the mission leading up to it all that.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did he have to say?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, he kind of laid out. Very articulate guy. Very articulate, well spoken. He kind of laid out everything that happened from his point of view, you know, how it led up to it, how he got captured, you know, his time in the prison, his perspective for the rescue, that whole nine yards. He laid out all that stuff from his point of view, his. His timeline and his. His perspective on how the whole thing went down.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was that like to meet him?

[Larry Vickers]

It was pretty cool. Fine. We all dug it. We had, you know, I was telling Scott about this on the way up here. We had a picture. The damn guy who took the photo. The whole thing was out of focus.

[Shawn Ryan]

Focus.

[Larry Vickers]

All the guys that were on the mission got a picture with an A squadron classroom, Got a picture with Muse. The whole goddamn thing was out of focus. Everything was blurry. And instead of taking multiple, you know, it was one of those. Got it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

Instead of taking multiple pictures, I mean, it's like, come on, dude. So it was useless. Picture was useless. But yeah, it was pretty cool meeting him.

[Shawn Ryan]

I'll bet.

[Larry Vickers]

Getting him out of there. So that was the only thing that's trump. Me making selection was rescuing him out of Mandela prison.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, what was it like with the team after that mission?

[Larry Vickers]

Very tight, tight knit. The guy who got hit in the head, my 2ic never really recovered. He had the injuries. I mean, he's basically never really recovered from that. He had major headaches, that kind of stuff. Bad thing is, about six months later, we were back down in Panama doing jungle train. And we got on, we were about ready to do an impromptu mission on a suspected drug site. You know, basically, you know, a jungle drug operation. And Elton Bargewell kind of set it up. It was an impromptu mission. We were going to go hit it. We lift off in the Blackhawk. All of a sudden we hear these pop. Almost like the bird had been shot. It wasn't. It was one of the engines that went out. So we start crashing down in the jungle, right? He's setting on an ammo box. Him and a couple other guys are sitting on an ammo box. And the bird comes down, hits, and it. It compacts his spine. And he basically never walked again. Same guy who got clipped in the head. My 2ic never walked again. He was wheelchair bound after that.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Bird comes, I was on the bird. Just so happened I was sitting by a guy we were looking to Ford, looking through the. The windshield or the bird. And the pilots are doing this stuff to try to keep the bird under control. Coming down through the jungle and laid my first of three helo crashes. And he laid back like this. And I just so happened to lay back. So when we hit my was laying flat against the. Against the floor of the bird like that. The only thing I was looking forward and my head bounced off the floor and knocked me out. Turned temporarily my teammate who was beside me, he remained conscious. There was a fire. The bird had caught on fire. Everybody else was knocked out, out of action. He got up, got a fire extinguisher and put the fire out. Basically saved everybody's life. Never got a single award for that. Never got a single. He should have got a soldier's medal for that. Never got.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Delta's real bad about that, and I'm sure they are to this day. The old analogy that I think it was Schumacher, East Commander General Colonel Schumacher said firemen don't get awards for going to fires. That was his quote. You signed up for this organization, you were expected to do these things. And when you do those things, you're not going to get awards for it. We got bronze stars. The guys in the mission all got bronze stars with V device. The exception of the team leader that rallied the guy his team around with muse. He got a silver Star. Melton Bargewell told us we were in. Now we were in a classroom. Whatever. He goes, if this had been Vietnam, in Vietnam, you guys would have all gotten silver stars, which means that team leader would have got dsc. If this had been Vietnam, you all would have got silver stars. And I remember at the time going, and sure enough, he looking at it back on Hindsight. He's right. That's exactly what would have happened.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. That guy who put the fire out didn't get anything. Nothing. Didn't get a soldier's medal. Didn't, you know, barely got a thank you. It's like for real.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

And the units was real bad about that, and I'm sure they still are. Like, you know that Payne got the Medal of Honor out of the unit. I'm gonna tell you what, for that guy to get the Medal of Honor and still be alive out of Delta Force, I can only imagine what that guy had to do to get that award. I mean, we're talking about superhuman out of that organization to get the Medal of Honor. Because the other two guys that ever got it went in Somalia. Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon. What they did, of course, cost them their lives. But what they did was so far above and beyond in order to get that medal. It wasn't even close. It was a. I remember General Downing came over and he goes, you guys need to put it. Put those guys in for the Medal of Honor.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

In Somalia. So for him to get the metal. I've never met Payne. I love to meet him. But for him to get the metal, water and be alive out of Delta Force, dude, he probably earned it three or four times over. And the unit, like I told you, the unit has been real bad about that. Really bad. When I was in. Really bad.

[Shawn Ryan]

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[Larry Vickers]

Belton Bargewell had a talk with us. You know, this is a guy. Mac V. SOG legend. We all just. And I remember I said something the other day. I am glad Elton Bargewell was on that roof. There was one other officer. Gary Harrell was there. He was the troop commander. Elton Borjwa was there. I am glad he was there because of his experience. The guy had seen. I mean, Mac V. SOG Legend. He had a big talk with us and he said, look, I want you guys to understand something. You're coming back here, you're going to go home, you're going to be with your family, your wives. You guys have done something that's as high as it gets. Need to understand they have it. So you have to come in and adapt to them. They don't need to adapt to you. What you've done for your country, they, you know, your country can't ask for more. But you need to understand they haven't done that. They haven't been through what you've been through. And you need to. You need to go home and adapt to that. They don't need to adapt to you. You need to adapt to them. Remember, he had that talk with us. I always hung on every word he'd ever say, literally. He would get us together and talk to us in the squadron classroom about whatever it might be. And I would. I would pay attention to every single word that guy said. Like I told you, he's the guy before the mission that said, I'm looking at you guys, I. I recognize, you know, everything is going to be okay. You guys are going to be fine. We're going to get him out of there. Some of your. Any. I remember him saying, some of your buddies may get hurt, but they're going to be okay.

[Shawn Ryan]

Man, that's pretty incredible, man. Six minutes.

[Larry Vickers]

Six minutes. Yeah. From when we landed to call xville. Wow.

[Shawn Ryan]

In a prison.

[Larry Vickers]

In a prison. Yep. There's a lot of people along the way, like that doctor that contributed stuff. It's hard to measure how important that was, that intel that doctor gave us. It's hard to measure that because we had this. Okay, if he's not in that cell, where's he at? We got to start searching the prison for this guy. So for him to go in there and give us that solid intel, intel, intelligence on where he's at, what status is, you know, what kind of mental, you know, what kind of mind frame he's at physically, what's he like, that kind of stuff was in, you know, was off the chart. We talked to him, too. He came back to the unit one time and briefed us.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn, man, that's impressive.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, dude, I'll never forget it.

[Shawn Ryan]

I can tell.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I get pretty choked up over it, as you can tell. It's kind of hard to fight back the, you know, the emotions because there's a few things along there that really bring them out.

[Shawn Ryan]

That's just crazy too, you know, the apex of your career right off the bat.

[Larry Vickers]

I know, dude. You know, a little over a year after, you know, finishing selection and finished it. October of, you know, 88. Well, OTC six months, selection 88. October of 88. And then to follow, you know, fast forward a year, two months, 12-20-89.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Six months right now. Here's the thing. Remember I told you it was become critical? Thank God I went to selection that fall because if I waited the spring, I'd have missed the whole thing. Think about that. Remember I told you how that became critical? That's why. Because I, you know, initially my head was, I'll wait a year. And then I just said, no, no, no, I'm going to go in the fall. I'm going to do it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

And everything just fell into place.

[Shawn Ryan]

Where do you go from there?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, we went hunting Scuds in Iraq, I mean, which in itself was awesome, but never to the point of model prison.

[Shawn Ryan]

How were you guys doing that?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, once again, Elton Bargewell saw how things were schooling up in Kuwait, because that developed over a period of time. He had the foresight to go, you know, we need to be doing desert mobility operations. You know, we need to be doing that. So we went on training. God, where did we go? Was it Yuma? No, I think it was 29 palms. Went to 29 palms and did desert mobility operations training up, just in case there. We had no mission set. We had no, this is what you're getting ready for. He just said he had the foresight to go, you know what? We may get in a situation with what's going on over there. We may need to do desert mobility operations to operate behind enemy lines. We need to go train on this. And we went out, had a major exercise training, you know, basically sorting out a lot of bugs, shaking a lot of bugs out, you know, getting things sorted out. So we knew what the hell we were doing because we'd done some of nothing like what we needed to be in order to go over and execute in a combat zone. So we went out, shook over and went to 29 palms. If memory serves me correct, that's where we went. And I could be wrong on that. But regardless, we went into an area out west and worked on desert mobility. He had the foresight to do that. He was the only squadron commander that did. B squadron and C squadron didn't see that coming. Schwarzkopf, who ended, of course, being in charge of the coalition for Desert Storm, very anti special ops. Did you know that?

[Shawn Ryan]

I didn't.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, very anti. Based on his experience in Vietnam, kind of saw him as cowboys, was not a fan of sf what flipped the script for him was we had the Delta operators were his VIP protection detail. Now, he had an aic, he had a. Who was an Air Force officer. But all the guys in the detail other than that were all Delta Force operators. And he was so impressed with them and their professionalism that that left an impression on him. In terms of what Delta was all about then, that was one piece of the puzzle. The last piece of the puzzle is when the Iraqis started launching Scuds in Israel and the Israelis were, I've been told this. And I was, this has been confirmed. I asked some people about this, and he said, yeah, this is absolutely what happened. The Israelis were on the airfields ready to launch into Iraq, which would have blown the coalition to pieces. And they said, you guys can stand down. We have our best people going in there to deal with these Scuds. And they said, who's that? And they go, delta Force, they said, and the Israelis stood down. I. I'd heard that. And I went and I asked some people in the Department of Defense, you know, up the food chain, said, oh, yeah, that's absolutely 100% what happened. So combine our preparation vis a vis Bargewell saying, we need to get ready for desert mobility. Schwarzkopf's impression of Delta based on, you know, the VIP protection he had, and then the decision from the command authority, international command authority, to send in Delta to hunt for these Scuds that all lined up in a squadron was back in the, you know, back in the lead again.

[Shawn Ryan]

How are you guys hunting Scuds?

[Larry Vickers]

Went in, got there, you know, in Saudi Arabia, way up close to the border, really close to the border. Got our ducks in a row, went in via helicopter way deep into Iraq, up by the MSR main supply route. And the theory was they were bringing these Scuds down the msr, they would branch off the msr, set up, and then launch into Israel trail. So what we did, we went up there, find some places to hide, which was a bitch because most of the train up there is as flat as a pool table. So we went up, laid down, laid low during the day. And when we go down, you know, we would pull down south of the msr, lay low down in some, you know, gullies and whatnot. And then when it turned dark, we would go back up to the msr. Our drop off sniper teams, we'd withdraw back a little piece just before sunlight, we go back up, get the sniper teams and come back down to our hide positions. And we did that night after night. After night, did you get any Scuds? Yeah, we did at the very end. At the very end. There's a lot of intel after the fact that some of the Scuds we saw were actually decoys. But at the very end, towards, you know, at the end of our tuition, we were out there 19 days.

[Shawn Ryan]

The group were out there for 19.

[Larry Vickers]

19 days doing it. Yeah. We're before the ground invasion ever happened. We were up there for days before the ground invasion swept in towards the very end. We got in a position where we're moving up the msr. We saw these vehicles kind of coming towards our position at an angle. We stopped, kind of set ourselves up, did one of these numbers, got on binos and whatnot. We go, this is some Iraqis, we think this is. These guys are coming in with Scuds, getting ready to set up. Sure enough, they were, got on the horn to the Air Force. They started bringing in F16s, the whole nine yards and started hammering their ass. And they were. They were there for hours, hammering them hours. And finally we went, we need to get out of here because we just stirred up a hornet's nest. We need to split. So we took off, went back down to our hide spot. We were hoping to get a BDA bomb damage assessment. So we go back up and see the debris and what happened when we never got it because the war basically came to an end.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep. So that happened right at the very end of our time there. And then the war ended and basically everything was on a freeze. We were just waiting to get exfilled.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn. How long was that after Panama?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, man, it was 91, so 90. 89. So a year and a half. Ish. I'd have to look at the dates, but I'm going to say a year and a half. Maybe not quite two years.

[Shawn Ryan]

What are you doing in the interim? Training.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, training. I remember I went to Philippines for a little bit, did some VIP protection stuff over there. Training and whatnot. Doing normal cycle, you know what I mean? The training cycle in the unit type of thing.

[Shawn Ryan]

What happens after Iraq come back?

[Larry Vickers]

Normal training cycle. And then next thing was Somalia. 93. Fast forward a couple years. Big event.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's that big event?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah. Well, we'd gotten this mission to go over there and hump for Deeds and his henchmen, like C squad and all he did. And we got it. And it was going to be a troop mission, I think. And we. We had a shipbird commander in a squadron. I don't want to mention his name. But he was a shitbird. And he gave away the mission to Sea Squadron. And it. For whatever reason, God only knows why he gave away the mission to Sea Squadron. And I think his theory was, what's a troop mission now? If it bumps up to a squadron level mission, we'll get it back. Obviously he was off his meds, because like that's ever going to happen. Well, sure enough, C squadron gets it. They start rehearsing and they go, wait a minute, that troop's not big enough for this. What the hell? And they bump it up to a squadron sized mission and they end up deploying over to Somalia. I remember people were pretty butthurt over that. I go, let me explain something to you that was actually fortunate. What do you mean? I go, just think about October 3rd with our leadership and how bad that would have went. And they went, oh, yeah, you're right. I go, c squadron's leadership at the time, much more dialed in, much more squared away than we were at the upper. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, you know, troop level, team level.

[Shawn Ryan]

I know what you're talking about.

[Larry Vickers]

You know what I mean?

[Shawn Ryan]

Just the leadership.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, we're talking about this leadership up here. We had losers. And I just said, you know, it would have been much worse.

[Shawn Ryan]

So did you get over there after that had happened?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, we went over after that to reinforce, man. Yeah, we went over after to reinforce. We got there two, three days later. Wasn't long. When October 3rd went down, we got spun up and went over, I mean, quick. And we were there.

[Shawn Ryan]

Just.

[Larry Vickers]

It was just a few days later. Yeah, we rolled in to reinforce, got a debrief on what happened, you know, in the third. The whole nine yards. We were there actually for. Yeah, the ceremony of the guys who were killed.

[Shawn Ryan]

Did you know those men?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I knew all the unit guys, knew them all. Didn't know the Rangers or the task force. 160 guys. Didn't know them, but I knew all the Unit guys absolutely, 100%.

[Shawn Ryan]

How was that?

[Larry Vickers]

It was pretty spooky. Yeah, it was pretty somber. It was real somber, actually. Yeah, it was real somber because it was. It was a pretty horrific event.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

And there's. I know you talked to Tom and whatnot. There's layers upon layers upon layers upon layers of stories that go along with that mission in terms of heroism that probably should have got the medal of Warner. Guys who honestly should have performed better, not really in the unit, but in the Ranger side. You may have heard some of that. I don't Know, there's a lot of nuances to that, to what happened that day. A lot of nuances. What's happened over time is some of that's been forgotten. But when I was there, it was all fresh, and I got it from the guys who were on the ground, and they gave me a lot of information of stuff that went right and went wrong. A lot of lessons learned. Found out that they were basically running those hilos. Doing. They were running them as if they were doing them in low light at night. But instead of looking at it from, hey, wait a minute, we're up here in daylight. They can easily see where we're at and what we're doing. We need. We need to. We need to change our tactics in terms of the hilo operations to better reflect what's happening during the day. But they were doing it, like, as if it was a night.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

There was a lot of lessons learned out of that. It was a pretty. I wouldn't say pretty. It was a very horrific event.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah. I did a very extensive interview with Tom Satterley, who's a really good friend of mine now, and, like, his account was just.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, just insane.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. I mean, I. I mean, you know, the deal. I mean, you talked to Tom at length about it. I mean, it. It was horrific. And it's. It's hard to really grasp the magnitude or the level of what actually happened at that time and the impact it had on not only the unit, but the Ranger battalion. I mean, it was really kind of hard to at this point because we're so far down the road now. You know, we're decades now down the road. During that time, it was. You know, it really made the organization. I'm assuming the same with the Rangers, but certainly Delta really had to take a hard look in the mirror and what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. Stuff as simple as, why are we wearing PROTECT helmets? Why are we not wearing, you know, Kevlar helmets? Why are we not wearing helmets that are protected? There was a guy in C Squad was killed off a ricochet. I don't know if you knew that or not.

[Shawn Ryan]

I didn't.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, he was killed off a ricochet off the wall. You know, they're moving down the street. And sure enough, he got killed and went right through his protect. If he'd have been wearing, you know, a Kevlar helmet or something protective, probably would have saved his life.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Running around with black body armor. What's that all about? You're in Desert Fatigues with black body armor on. So the unit had to take a real hard look in the mirror. And there was some real serious lessons learned out of that. Some real PTSD out of that. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about?

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

I mean some major ptsd. Yeah, pretty. That was a horrific event. Very horrific. And then I told you I got over there just in time to talk to a real good friend of mine who kind of gave me his data dump of what happened. And then I, I said, hey, I'll see you tomorrow. I never saw him again. He was killed that night.

[Shawn Ryan]

How was it killed more.

[Larry Vickers]

That mortar round landed right behind him. He was outside the hangar. And I remember hearing him because we were in a separate hangar, you know, very close, but, you know, separate. A squadron and then C squadron. And the Rangers were still in this primary hangar where they'd been. And he was outside talking to guys and more around landed right behind him. And they'd been launching mortar rounds throughout the time they were there, but they'd always landed down by the. The beach way over them. They never really be able to vect. Vector it in where. Where they'd hit. In and around the hangers till that night and around Lander right behind him and whole like all the guys, as far as I know, all the guys he was talking to all got, you know, seriously injured. Like seriously injured. But they all survived. And he was killed immediately.

[Shawn Ryan]

This was a good friend of yours?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh yeah, really good friend of mine. Really good friend of mine.

[Shawn Ryan]

Is that the first friend he lost?

[Larry Vickers]

No, six months prior to that, our mutual friend. We used to shoot competition together. Pistol competition. Me, him and another guy, our mutual friend, six months prior, got killed in a parachute accident.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

And then six months later, fast forward and my other buddy's killed. I've never gotten over that.

[Shawn Ryan]

How do you deal with loss?

[Larry Vickers]

Just, you know, internalize it, compartmentalize it. Compartmentalize it. And sometimes it just really comes to the surface. You just saw a few minutes ago when the modela. Prison doc. Yeah, it's just hard to keep it suppressed. But yeah, that was a. I'll never Forget that year, 1993. I'll never forget it. Lost two of my good friends in a manner of six. Six months span. Never forget it, you know, and I wish I'd have been there on October 3rd to help those guys out. There's no doubt we'd have made a difference with, with C squadron. No doubt. Because here's what happened. We got over there and we said there was a Lesson learned. Having Rangers out on the outer perimeter on the roadblocks. And I don't want to rain on the Rangers too much. That's a time for somebody else to talk, you know, somebody else for you to interview. But as soon as we landed, C squadron's like, okay, Rangers, you guys are out. A squadron is going to be on the outer perimeter. The what you guys were doing in terms of security, now a squadron is doing it as soon as we hit the ground. That was decided. And then. Because at that point, it was all about getting Mike Durant, who was being held hostage by the Somalis. It was all about getting him. And we were. Dude, you want to talk about ready to. Ready to hammer people. We would fly over at night and we were begging, begging for somebody to shoot at us because we'd have come down on them like the pouring rain.

[Shawn Ryan]

I can imagine.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, man. Dude, you want to talk about out for blood? And I've heard scuttlebutt it was the ambassador or the assistant ambassador or whatever went and talked to Adid's people about Mike Durant, and they ended up giving him up. As you know, they let him go. But he. I think he told him, he said, you think October 3rd was bad because the Smalleys got hammered. I mean, they lost a lot of people. They Sea Squadron and Rangers and Task Force 160. They. Dude, they went through them. I mean, they hammered them big time. I've heard 45 to 1 kill ratio. Wow, that's. That's what I've heard. For every five to 45 to one. That's what I heard because it's interesting. Sad, but interesting. Delta, including my buddy, he was killed. Including him, Delta lost six operators. Rangers lost six rangers. Task Force 160 lost six guys. Six. Six and six were killed over there. But I want to say it was either the ambassador or the assistant ambassador was negotiating with the deeds people and said, you need to give him up because the next time they come in here, it's going to make October 3rd look like a walk in the park. Because it would have been. I mean, it would have been brutal.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

Because there we were, out for blood, and sure enough, they gave him up. I remember them. See, I remember seeing him carry him on to the burden. I remember that we were lined up and they had car him on a stretcher onto the bird for him to get Xfield back to the States.

[Shawn Ryan]

Where did you go after Somalia?

[Larry Vickers]

Back home. I'm trying to remember what I did. I went over and did a stint as an OTC instructor and I think it wasn't that long after. Pretty sure. Well, I take that back now. Bosnia. Yeah, Bosnia. That's where I went.

[Shawn Ryan]

What were you guys doing over there?

[Larry Vickers]

VIP protection. Commander of S4. Commander of S4. Who was Shinseki? I don't know if you knew who that is or not. General Shinseki, Vietnam vet, kind of an Asian guy. Lost part of his foot from a mine in Vietnam. We liked him, we got along with the guy great. We really liked working for him. He was a really, really good guy to work for. Fast Forward. He was hooked in with the Democrats. I remember Joe Biden, when he was still senator, came over and had a sit down and went out to dinner with Shinseki because from what I understand, Shinseki's daughter and I could be off base on this, but Shinseki's daughter was an intern in his office. So he was tight with the Democrats. Fast Forward. Obama gets in office, Biden's his vp, they put Shinseki in charge of the va, Then all that shit comes out where, you know, soldiers and whatnot are not getting treated the way they should. And Shinseki gets shown the door. And I remember, you know, people asked me about, I said, you know what, we love working for the guy. But he, he was ass clown for hooking up with the Democrats. And I haven't heard anything from him since. But he was a great guy to work for. We really liked him. But yeah, we went over and did VIP protection for 90 days. I did. And we rotated, you know what I mean? Other guys from the unit did it, but I went over, my team went over. We had two or three teams doing it, but we did VIP protection for Shinseki.

[Shawn Ryan]

Where were your other Hilo crashes?

[Larry Vickers]

All right, so the first one was Panama that six months after just. Cause that was the worst. Second one was we were doing desert mobility training and we were in a Air Force helo before they did away with them. Air Force, I want to say shortly after that, just completely got out of the helo business, thank God. But we were in the back. We had our vehicle, Pennsgauer, in the back of the bird and it was, you know, tied down. The crew chiefs had tied it down and we did a landing in the desert and for whatever reason, for the life of me, I don't know why the guy did it. The pilots did a rolling landing in the desert. Instead of just sitting it down and stopping, dropping, you know, the ramp and letting us get out of there, they sat down and they were doing a rolling landing. Well, sure enough. I mean, it's a desert, bro. It hits a gully or hits a, you know, and pulls it. It jams the nose wheel right back up in the bird. So now all of a sudden, everybody gets Jared to the front. Thank God nobody was standing behind the pen. Scour our vehicle because it got slammed up against the bulkhead because the crew chiefs had strapped it down wrong. They strapped it down where, you know, it was limited to go that way, but not that way. And it smacked right up against the bulkhead. If somebody. We were all sitting down, thank God. If somebody would happen to been standing behind it, they'd been crushed.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

And that one was a crash, but it really wasn't. I mean, it technically checks the block for a crash, you know, but the first one and the third one could have been fatal like that third one. Task Force 160 is down. And we're training on Fort Bragg. Little birds, Blackhawks, A squadron, we're hitting them outside on Bragg. I think we hit a site out somewhere else. And we had a follow on mission to the mount site on Fort Bragg, which me and everybody in a squatter knew like the back the of of our hands. I could probably dry a schematic to this day. I mean, we just knew it by the back of our hands. Some of the TF160 pilots didn't know it as well as us. So I was on a little bird. We're coming down kind of, let's say, the east side of the mouse site, right. We're coming down to land, right. Well, we were actually supposed to come in and take a left down the street and sit down. Well, the bird I was on overshot the street. Well, instead of just sitting down, he starts to peel off like this, right underneath Blackhawks. They're coming down, right? And I knew it. And I was the right front on the pod four man team. I was right front on the pod and the birds doing this. So I'm the closest to the ground. I knew immediately what was going on. As soon as he started to do that, I knew. I knew where we were at on the mount side. I knew where we were supposed to be, and I knew where the Black Hawks were going to be landing. And as soon as he did that, I immediately. Right up there and I saw that black bird coming down and I was like. And it. It's one of those things that happens. I mean, what are you going to do?

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

And the rotor wash hits us. If he'd have kept that attitude, we'd have went right in the ground. And I was. I would have. I would have. I was right in the front of the bird. I would have been the first thing that hit the ground. Without question. Would have been fatal. Without question. To his credit, he leveled the bird out, and we plowed into the ground flat. He. That rotor wash kicked us down. I talked to those guys later. They saw us doing that. They were like, whoa. And that bird kicked up the Blackhawk. Kicked up rotor wash, kicked us down. And to his credit, he. He flattened out, and we hit this. He. We hit the ground or the sand, because it's a real sandy area right outside the mount site. We hit the sand flat. Yeah. And when we got off, the pods were level with the ground. The bench seats that we were sitting on were level with the ground. The struts were completely buried in the ground.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

And I remember by that time, it was my third crash, and I was kind of like, for real.

[Shawn Ryan]

Don't fly with Larry Vick.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah. And it became a joke in the unit, dude. Became a joke. And I remember a guy was my behind me. I can't remember who it was. And I was. A team leader was behind me, and he started to get up, and I stopped him because the rotors were still going. I said, I stopped him. I pulled him down and stopped him from getting up till the rotor stopped. We got up, got on the other side. The other guys were fine, shook up. I said, let's go. Let's go to the target building. And I remember one of the guys said, later, dude. He goes, I was done. I was admin. I didn't want to do. I go, no, dude, we're going to the target building. We came in, and you got in late. The damn building was cleared and all that shit. And they didn't know where we went. They lost track. They were like, where's G Team at? We show up. And I said, yeah, we went down. We crashed. You're like, whoa. And then we came back to the. The compound and went back in the A Squadron classroom. And then the pilots all came in, and we just had a big hot wash on what happened. So the first one, by the grace of God, wasn't fatal, and the third one, by the grace of God, wouldn't fail very easily. Both of them could have been. Been fatal just like that.

[Shawn Ryan]

So then you go to otc.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, OTC instructor.

[Shawn Ryan]

How was that for you?

[Larry Vickers]

I loved it. Because the analogy I'd made is maybe not a good analogy, but it was kind of like being a made man. If you are at a standard that they want you to go train the new guys coming out of organization, that is. That's like you're a made man. To me, that was a big deal. And I'm sure all the guys who ever did it would agree. Tom, anybody who's ever been an OTC instructor would agree. I mean, you're in Delta Force. You have established yourself of such a caliber and such a performer. They want you to go train the new guys coming in at a selection that I really. That, to me, was a big deal. I, you know, really, really high on that. I wore that as a badge of honor.

[Shawn Ryan]

How would you treat them?

[Larry Vickers]

The students?

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

Or the candidate? Totally professional. Totally professional. I wasn't a to him, but I didn't cut him any slack either. 100% professional. All the time. All the time. I wasn't a Nazi or anything, but I didn't cut him any slack because I knew firsthand what was needed in that squadron. When they go across the hall, I knew firsthand what was needed, what we needed out of these guys. So if they weren't cutting the mustard or they didn't have the right attitude or whatever, I mean, I didn't. But at the same time, I wasn't a dickhead to them either.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's the instructor student ratio?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, it varies because of the OTC class. Remember the one class we had nine, we probably had a dozen instructors. So we had more than one instructor per student. You know what I mean? It really varies depending on the OTC class that comes out of selection.

[Shawn Ryan]

Gotcha. Gotcha. Is this where you wrap up your career?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, I went back to a squadron as team leader. Nothing super eventful. I end up what the problem is for me, what ended up happening was all these injuries. All that stuff really added up, and it took a major physical toll on me by the time I became a Troop sergeant because I was a team leader twice after coming out of ot, before I went to OTC as a team leader, as an instructor. And I come back after being an OTC instructor. I was a team leader. And then I'm coming up to be a Troop sergeant, a one Troop Sergeant. And I was a one Troop Sergeant for a little while. Physically, though, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I wasn't. I knew I wasn't cutting it. I just couldn't do it because of the toll that all this stuff had taken on me. Turns out, had two bone spurs in my lower back, pushing on my spinal cord. And we finally got to. And I just knew. I. I didn't. I knew I wasn't right. And we finally got to the point where we're going to be doing some stuff with the SAS and we're going to have to go up caving ladders. You got it? Caving ladder. And I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. I knew it. And that's when I went to the chain of command. Squadron chain of command. I said, I. I gotta. I'm gonna have to step down.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn, I bet that was hard.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, dude, it sucked. It sucked because the sky was the limit for me in that organization. I could have eventually been CSM for sure. No question about it. Been a squadron sergeant Major. No question. No question that would happen without question.

[Shawn Ryan]

I'll bet you got a ton of respect over there too.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah, I. Yeah, I. That was a tough, real tough call.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did they say?

[Larry Vickers]

They said, we understand. I said, I just can't. I know I'm not right. I know I'm not right. I just know. And I said, I can't in good conscience stay in this position as a troop sergeant major knowing I can't do the job physically. I can't do it. So I did it. Normally it's a two year stint. I did it for a year and then I stepped down. I stepped down.

[Shawn Ryan]

Is that when you retired?

[Larry Vickers]

No, I went up to weapons R and D, which is where the HK416 story comes about.

[Shawn Ryan]

Perfect. Let's take a quick break and then we'll get into that. I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Elite. Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show and their support allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits, like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month, live zoom calls with me, exclusive merch and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com VigilanceLead that's patreon.com VigilanceLead thank you for listening to the Shawn Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to itunes and leave the Sean Ryan show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Larry, we're back from the break. We're getting Ready to get into the 416. But I just reviewed my notes real quick and I just saw a little blurb that says naked in a hotel. Oh, yeah, what the hell is this?

[Larry Vickers]

Okay, so this is when, at the very end of my career, I did my time up in R and D weapons. R&D.416. We'll get to that. I ended up going back down to OTC to be another OTC instructor. Actually for my second time. This is, I want to say, when me and Tom were instructors together. And this is right at the end before I get out of the army. And we're up at Quantico using the FBI, FBI HRT shoot house. Because our shoot house, this is OTC students. We're up there with our shoot house is down for maintenance. They're rebuilding it. So we go up there. Well, I'm going to go back before the rest of the category and the students head back. I'm going to go back to start out processing. You know, I mean, I'm putting in my paperwork, all that jazz. So I get up, we have our hotel room. Each one of us has our room to ourselves. Instructors. I'm pretty sure the students were two to a room. But I get up naked, right? And I go to the door, and it's the day I'm checking out. And I'm used to USA Today. This is all pre Internet, you know, Pre iPhones. A USA Today right in front of my door. And I open up the door and they used to do one of those deals. The day you're checking out, you wouldn't get a hoax or you wouldn't get a newspaper. You know, up till the day you're checking out, you get a newspaper. But. But the actual day you're checking out, you wouldn't get a newspaper, which was bullshit. Well, I'm half awake, all right? I opened up the door, I noticed there's no USA Today. But right next to me, the door right in front of the store over here, there is. So I go to reach over and grab it. Cha Chink door closes. And dude, I went from half awake to full wake like that. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm out in this hallway and I'm naked. And dude, my heart's racing. I'm like, what? What am I gonna do? So I do one of these scans. I look down the end of the hall and I see curtain, right? You know, there's a window at the end of the hall, wall, curtain. I go, okay, I'm gonna go down, which is Idiotic in and of itself. But I'm gonna go down, pull a curtain down, wrap it around my body, and then I'll go down to the front desk and get a new key. Yeah, I know. Well, I go down there, and I go to grab that curtain, and, dude, that curtain's on their homes. There is no pulling that thing down. That's completely out of question. So right beside me is the stairs. So I go down to the stairs. I think I was third floor or second floor. I can't remember. But I went down to the bottom of the stairs, and I can see through the, you know, window at the bottom, the door at the bottom. I'm like, right there is the gym, the hotel gym. And there's towels. Like, awesome. What didn't dawn on me till later I would have needed a key to get in the gym anyway, so, you know what I mean? But here's the problem. That didn't matter. That was trumped by the fact that right there was the gym with towels that I could have covered myself up with. Right here was the continental breakfast area. Oh, yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Nice.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, that's got people in it. So I went, well, I recognize one of the guys I work with. Bruce Goss is in there. He's back. He's eating breakfast and whatnot. And I open up the door, I go, bruce, Bruce. And he's like, one of these deals. I go, bruce. He turns around, I go. He comes over. I go, dude, I locked myself out of my room. I'm naked. And he's like, whoa. And I said, yeah. And he goes, what room you in? I go, whatever, 204 or whatever. He was. Here, take my key. I'm in room 315. Go to my room. I'll go to the front desk and get you a new key, and then I'll meet you in my room. I go, cool. So I go up to that hall, you know, I go up to the room and. Or the hallway he's on, or whatever it was, you know, second, third floor. And I run down to his room and go in. Nobody saw me, amazingly, because this is breakfast time, dude. Yeah. So I go down there. I'm hanging out. Sure enough, he comes in. He's got my key, and he said, yeah. I went up to the front desk and said, hey, I need a key for room 204. Why? Well, trust me. I need a key for room 204 to the gal at the desk, and she's like, oh, okay, Here you go. He gives me the key. I grab a towel Wrap it around myself. I walk down with a towel right down to the elevator. There's. I open up, get on the elevator, there's a dude on the elevator standing there, a business guy with his briefcase. I'm standing there, I look up at him and I go, yeah, dude, it's pretty much what you think it is. And then he didn't say a word. He was just looking at me weird. And I got out and went down to my room. Amazingly, nobody actually physically saw me naked.

[Shawn Ryan]

Nice. Nice. Oh, yeah, good stuff, man. Larry Vickers, naked in a naked hotel room.

[Larry Vickers]

And I, you know, that story's been told so many times, and it's. It's like, you know, we all have those nightmares about being caught in public naked. And I've actually lived it. Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah. All right, 416.

[Larry Vickers]

Okay. So I go up in weapons R and D, research and development. I got small arms on my plate. You know, I've got a guy who's doing long guns, snipers, you know, whatnot. And I'm doing assault weapons. I'm doing pistols, assault rifles, whatnot. First thing I kick off with is a new pistol, a new service pistol, replace our 1911s. And I had the idea, you know, I need to talk to HK about this because I'd had enough interaction with HK to know, you know, how they build guns, how they test them, they're without peer. And I thought, you know, I need to talk to them about building us a new service pistol, building US AN HK 1911. So I line up a trip, go over to Germany, and I meet with them, and I meet with the CEO and I go, hey, this is, you know, what we got in mine. And yada, yada, yada. And they're like, I don't know, maybe we'll look at it. You know what I mean? They were on the bubble. Well, I happened to be in the CEO's office, Ernst Malk, and I looked up on the wall and he had a schematic of an M4 with a G36 style gas system. And I go, what's that? And he said, oh, that's a concept that we're kicking around. The idea on is putting a G36 gas system in M4. And I go, really? Why is that? And he goes, well, we've read about the Crane report. I don't know if you've ever heard it or not. Crane report, where some seals had issues with high round counts on M4s, and we feel like we can address it with a different gas system. I went, huh? Why? Knew in the unit we had the requirement for a reduced size M4 carbine style rifle because for CQB close quarters battle, the M4 at times is too long, it's just simply too big. We cut our teeth on the MP5, which is a real easy gun to maneuver. Everybody loves for CQB. Problem is it's basically a big 9 millimeter pistol. So if I step outside and I shoot at somebody down, you know, down the street or whatever, I'm shooting at them with a big 9 millimeter pistol. So, you know, we want our, we want to be bringing the 556 in the into combat and we want to bring it to the battle. That means the M4 carbine, which means a gun that's a certain size, which means in certain confined spaces, it's just simply too big. And they looked at different guns. They looked at the G36C, which is a compact G36 and SIG552 Delta is looking at these and none of them really cut the mustard. Also looked at smaller M4 variants, shorter barrels and whatnot. They had fleas in terms of the gas system was just not applicable. If the barrel link shorter than 14, 2 inches, it's just not a good mix. Has fleas. I knew enough about what we needed and I knew enough about weapons design to know this is very possibly the answer. So I said, Ernst, what would it take to, for, for that gun to become a reality? He goes, we need a partner. We need an end user partner that's willing to partner up with us and give us feedback for what we're doing right and doing wrong and what we can bring to the, you know, bring to the market. I said, okay, what's that consist of? He goes, we would need some basically guinea, and I'm using this term, guinea pig guns to work. So I go back to the unit, three squadron SAR majors are in there. And I go, okay, here's the deal. HK is looking at doing an improved M4 style rifle with a different gas system. What that's going to do for us is that's going to give us a gun that's significantly smaller but still very reliable. And they go okay. And I, they go, what do they want? I said, all they want is basically guns to modify and work on to test this theory and that's it. They don't want any money. I go, no, they don't want any money at all. They just need guns that we give to them on loan. They're going to give them Back they're going to modify them, test them and basically give them back to us for us to use them and give them feedback. And the squadron sergeant majors are like, there's no downside to this. Yeah, 100%. So we run it up the chain. We're going to give him X amount of guns. I can't remember what it was. It wasn't that many, but it wouldn't happen. All of a sudden SOCOM goes, stop. We don't know if legally we can loan these guns to them. And right then I thought, oh man, we're screwed. This is over. The SOCOM warriors are going to kill this. I just thought we're done. And sure enough they come back and go, good to go. I was blown away. I couldn't believe it. Now you can do that because they're U.S. government property. You can legally do it, basically transfer it to them and they'll transfer it back. I still to this day can't believe it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

So we sent them the guns. They modify them with the G36 style gas system, sent them back to the unit guns run like a champion. I mean from day one, a 416 ran like a champ. They needed input though on the, on the handguard rail system. They need just, you know, it needed some refinement. So we sent them back, give them, you know, and then they, they finally start making their own guns from scratch. Not just modifying our guns that we supply them. They start making guns from, from scratch prototypes, still pre production prototypes. The last nut to crack was the rail system. Because the way the G36 gas system works, you really can't take it out the front, you have to take it out the back. Which means in order to get to the gas system, to maintain it, you have to take the handguard off. Well, we needed a free float handguard that we could take on and off and retain zero for rail mounted lasers. That was like the stumbling block. Or like, dude, this could be a problem. How are you going to do this? Rail that you can, you know, unbolt, take off, maintain the gas system, put it back on and the laser maintains zero.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

And I was like, man, I don't know if they're going to be able to do this. This might be too much. Sure enough, it's hk. I mean these are the people. Remember the Germans got us to the moon. Sure enough they come up with the rail system. And we tested it out at Gunsight. As a matter of fact, they came out with desert testing. We did desert testing out there. We came and did the attended the testing with them and tested the rail coming on and off and retaining zero with a laser.

[Shawn Ryan]

No.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep. And now that rail system obviously has been hugely successful in the 416. The other people like Geisley's copied it in terms of how his rail goes on and is attached. Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean I use the 416 a lot. Love that weapon.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. And it's been a huge success now. Really? It was a big shot in the arm for hk. Big shot in the arm. Now the German military is using a variant of them. It's now their current and replaced the G36. Or is replacing the G36A variant of the HK416. Huge success. Huge success as far as I know. I could be wrong, but it's yet to lose a trial anywhere in the world.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

The French adopted it, the Norwegians adopted it. Now the Germans adopted. It's yet to lose any kind of a service rifle trial anywhere in the world as far as I know. Wow.

[Shawn Ryan]

That's pretty badass, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, huge success.

[Shawn Ryan]

I did not know you were behind that.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, really. It was a partnership with me and Ernst Mount. You take either one of us out of the equation and the gun wouldn't exist. We were the parents of the 416. Ernst Malk on HK side and me on the end user side side.

[Shawn Ryan]

That is badass. That's badass. I love that weapon.

[Larry Vickers]

Awesome. Yeah, that's a great gun. Fantastic weapon.

[Shawn Ryan]

So when did you get out?

[Larry Vickers]

I got out. Really. Ended 03, technically beginning 04, but I was on terminal leave, so might as well say that, you know, very beginning of 04, I got out. Got out, moved forward. I went to work for HK for a while and then I left. I went back to the unit as a. As a contract instructor. OTC instructor for about a year. And then I went and worked for another government agency. And then I went on my own with Vickers Tactical.

[Shawn Ryan]

What government agency?

[Larry Vickers]

Tosa. I don't know if you've ever heard them or not. Yeah, they were Technical Operations Support Activity and it was a G WAT spin off thing where they were just throwing money. You remember, you know, during G. What? They were just throwing money like there was no tomorrow.

[Shawn Ryan]

What were you doing there?

[Larry Vickers]

Just helping set up, testing and stuff.

[Shawn Ryan]

Okay. Didn't like it?

[Larry Vickers]

No, it was pretty weak.

[Shawn Ryan]

And then you started Vickers Tag and.

[Larry Vickers]

I started Vickers Tactical.

[Shawn Ryan]

Created an entire tactical empire.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, Holy man.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Yeah. It's went pretty well until recently.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, what? Let's. Let's before we get to recently, let's. I mean, where did you start it? What was. What was the premise at the very beginning?

[Larry Vickers]

Training. People are reaching out to me for training. Hey, will you come do this class? Will you come do that class? And it was growing, and I thought, you know, this could go take off. And I had other people saying, hey, dude, you need to make a go of this. And what really gave me the ability to do it is my military retirement. I knew I had my mortgage covered from my military retirement, and that's. If I didn't have that, I don't know that I would have had the balls to do it. But I knew my military retirement covered the mortgage and then some, and that gave me the initiative and the balls to do it.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was it like for you training civilians after coming out of the.

[Larry Vickers]

The.

[Shawn Ryan]

The premier unit?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, that's the. The Unit Delta is so unique in that regard. It's really hard to compare that. You just. You have to set them aside.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

I mean, you really.

[Shawn Ryan]

You were able to do that, though. A lot of. There's a lot of guys to get into the training game. I mean, after. After. After service. I mean, I was one of them. And I mean, it's. It's hard to.

[Larry Vickers]

It is hard.

[Shawn Ryan]

Switch your mindset.

[Larry Vickers]

It took me a while. I was pretty rough around the edges, as you can imagine. You know what I'm talking about?

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, I do.

[Larry Vickers]

I was pretty rough around the edges. I had to really adjust my train of thought. It got to the point, though, as I did it, the more I like training civilians because couple reasons. One, because they were paying for it. In many cases, they were much better students. They would pay attention and apply themselves much better because they were the ones writing the check versus mill le. Somebody else, you know, taxpayers writing their check. And they're like, with exceptions. I mean, you get some mill le guys, which rock stars.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

[Larry Vickers]

You know what I'm saying?

[Shawn Ryan]

You know what I found? If you don't mind if. I mean, if I share a little bit. What I found was I've really liked doing these. All women's courses.

[Larry Vickers]

Really?

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah, because the ego's fucking gone. I mean, you get, you know, you get guys coming in and they're like, oh, I've been shooting since I was 8. And it's like, cool. You're probably shooting wrong since you were 8. And I saw, like, a lot of people that. It's like they regret not going to war. Oh, yeah. You know, and instead of just Learning they have to. They have to throw their ego into it and compensate for whatever they feel like they're missing out on in life. And I started doing these all women's courses, and what I found was, like, there was a lot of, like, battered women who had been raped and sexually abused and beat on by their husbands or their boyfriends or whatever. And they would come in and I mean, just like, terrified just to rack a pistol slide. And I got them pretty damn proficient in one day. I mean, shooting good groups at 10, 15 yards. And no. And to watch a woman that has been through any type of abuse that I just listed off, you know, very, very shy, very timid.

[Larry Vickers]

Scared.

[Shawn Ryan]

And then to watch him leave with that empowerment, like, I know how to work this gun and I know how to use it. And that was very rewarding for me. That was the most rewarding experiences that I had in the firearms industry was watching women leave those courses, knowing that that's not going to happen again to them.

[Larry Vickers]

Cool.

[Shawn Ryan]

But. And, and like I said, I think. And they were great students because they didn't have any egos. They were just. They were just there to learn to. To learn firearms proficiency, specifically in pistols. And it's really like. It's really a cool, rewarding experience to see that empowerment. But, but so you. Who were you training?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, man, everybody. I mean, across the spectrum, some women's classes, not many I'd have women sprinkled in my classes, but by and large it was men. A lot of civilians, some mill sprinkled, and a fair amount of le. Not so much LE agencies, but individual LE officers in my classes. Two, three here, one or two, you know what I mean? So really kind of across the spectrum, mainly pistol, also carbine, but really it boiled down to mainly pistol. That's really where it ultimately boiled down to mainly pistol training. And, you know, one thing I'm kind of known in the 1911 world, building 1911s and teaching people how to build them and all that jazz. But one of my specialty classes became the 1911 class, became a 1911 specific class, teaching people how to use them, how to detail disassemble them, how to maintain them, how to troubleshoot them. Man, I did that class more than I times, more than I can count.

[Shawn Ryan]

Man. I remember watching you when I was getting started, and I was just like, fuck, man, I hope one day, maybe one day I can get to that level. And I never did. But that, I mean, it was. It was truly inspiring. I mean, thanks. What was your first product that you developed other than the 416, the sling.

[Larry Vickers]

With Blue Force gear.

[Shawn Ryan]

That's what I use, man. Yeah, I use. I have that on all my ars.

[Larry Vickers]

God bless you. Yeah, that's.

[Shawn Ryan]

I'm not bullshitting you, like, I love that sling.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I. That's been. Was my first product. Absolute grand slam home run scale 1 to 10. It's a 15. It's been a huge success for me and Blue Force Gear. Close personal friends with the owner Ashley Burn said that was the first product and just set the standard. Set the standard. Second would be the Glock Tango down parts. Jeff Cahilt tangledown Personal friend of mine Way back in the day I started seeing different things that was needed for the Glock and one is a enhanced magazine release. And that was the first Glock part I came out with. Slightly extended with rounded edges.

[Shawn Ryan]

No, that was you.

[Larry Vickers]

Yep. That particular one. Now there's other ones on the market, but the Vickers Tactical Tango down one. Yeah. Came from me and we molded, you know, we set up the mold and did it. Now we got I don't even know how many SKUs now. Slide, stop, slide racker base plates, a lot of different SKUs for the Glock. That's been another grand slam home run. We've been doing those for quite a while. We've expanded out into other pistols, but the Glock rules the world. Yeah, Glocks rule the world. So that's been by far our biggest seller. Next, been really good friends with Paul Buffoni of Bravo Company been a brand ambassador for him. He sponsored my YouTube channel for years. Product development with him. Still on board with him. Great, great guy. One of the best people in the entire firearms industry. Fast forward and I hooked up with James Rupley with Vickers Guide and that's been another grand slam home run. We kicked it off 2015 and now we got. Scott was asked me now I think about 11 titles somewhere in there. Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

You know what I mean? It's. It's been a home run with James. He does the photography and he's co. Co author with me as well. Lives here in Nashville. No, yeah, sure does man.

[Shawn Ryan]

You gotta link me in with the Bravo company guy.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, no worries, dude.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn things. I can't find them. Where the hell do you even get them? I can't find.

[Larry Vickers]

What do you need? Do you need a gun or.

[Shawn Ryan]

I need an ar.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh yeah, I got you.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean I got a lot of ars, but I don't have a Bravo ar.

[Larry Vickers]

Okay.

[Shawn Ryan]

And that's.

[Larry Vickers]

I'll hook you up. Yeah, Man, I'll tie in.

[Shawn Ryan]

Cool. Please do. I'm being serious.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, no, no worries. I got you covered. I'll hook in.

[Shawn Ryan]

But man, you have really crushed that game.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

I mean, you are like the guy when it comes to all of that stuff.

[Larry Vickers]

I appreciate it.

[Shawn Ryan]

How. How long did it take you to grow it into what it is?

[Larry Vickers]

15 years.

[Shawn Ryan]

15 years.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

How long has the company been alive?

[Larry Vickers]

05 to now. But to get it really to 20 years now. But to get it really where it was hitting on us all cylinders. 15 years.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's your favorite part about it? Is it innovating or is it training?

[Larry Vickers]

Both. Equally? I would say both equally. Yeah, I would. I'd say 50. 50 mix.

[Shawn Ryan]

How many people do you think you've trained?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, I did a math on it a few years ago and it was over 5,000.

[Shawn Ryan]

Holy.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Over 5,000. I did the math, I sat down and. Conservative, you know, I was conservative. I didn't, you know, blow it out of proportion. But okay. X number of classes over X number of years. X number of students. Let me, you know, yada, yada yada. And 5,5000 students.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow, that is a lot of people, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Mainly civilians, bro. Mainly civilians, yeah. And then some of those civilians multiple times, some of them will come back for the same class. Yeah, over and over.

[Shawn Ryan]

Pretty cool. Pretty cool. And so now you're in. Now you're in a little bit of hot water.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh yeah. My. Can't talk a lot about it, but I want to talk about how it came about.

[Shawn Ryan]

Okay.

[Larry Vickers]

Because it's still ongoing, like a lot of legal, you know the deal.

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, I know the deal.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. So it came about. My greatest asset became my greatest weakness. Meaning my ability to hyper focus on firearms, really delve in, really just absorb everything, you know, it that comes with firearms allowed me. It led me down a pretty dangerous path. Like I started, you know, violating rules, laws, regulations and whatnot. Knowingly doing. So in order to feed this demon over here, I started doing stuff over here that I shouldn't have been doing and knew it. But you know what? Felt like I'd never get caught. Felt like I'd never get caught. And sure enough, August 2021, I got caught.

[Shawn Ryan]

What happened?

[Larry Vickers]

ATF rolled in the house, North Carolina, Huntersville, North Carolina, rolled in and seized my guns. And it was a trickle down effect from somebody else. And it's like I said, it's still ongoing, still a sticky mess. So I can't really go into details, but it wasn't me specifically. It was a Trickle down. And I was down the food chain and they rolled in on me and had me dead to rights.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

So I ended up.

[Shawn Ryan]

I remember reading about this. Yeah, I thought it was all. I was like, ah, it's probably just some Internet.

[Larry Vickers]

No, it was real.

[Shawn Ryan]

It was real.

[Larry Vickers]

Unfortunately, too real.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

October 23rd, I pled guilty. Two counts.

[Shawn Ryan]

Counts of what?

[Larry Vickers]

Illegal importation of a firearm and violating an Obama executive order. And both of them are ongoing. I mean, both of them. You're talking. October 23rd. My attorney said you most likely will not be sentenced in 2024. I go, really? He goes, I'm serious. Now. He's saying he may not be sentenced till 2026 or even 2027.

[Shawn Ryan]

Holy shit.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. So now really what boils down to is I talked to him at length, as you can imagine, and I could have fought it, almost certainly would have lost. Almost certainly. He said, larry, it would cost you a tremendous amount of money. A tremendous amount of money might even bankrupt me. And it would just drag my family through hell. Even more hell than they've already been through. So I went ahead and, I went ahead and pledged a couple things. We're actively pursuing a pardon and we're also actively pursuing getting my gun rights back. Because you probably heard a little bit about that. Have you heard about it? The ag, Pam Bondi, you heard about that stuff?

[Shawn Ryan]

No, I haven't.

[Larry Vickers]

She's came out recently. I'm talking within the last couple weeks and I'm paraphrasing here, my attorney would be, you know, better able to relay this saying that if you're a non violent felon on a case by case basis, you can get your gun rights back and you appeal directly to the AG's office to do so.

[Shawn Ryan]

Have you done that?

[Larry Vickers]

And we're in the process of doing it right now, getting our paperwork.

[Shawn Ryan]

It'll be done.

[Larry Vickers]

What's that?

[Shawn Ryan]

When will it be done?

[Larry Vickers]

The paperwork? Soon. Because it's really not that extensive. I gotta get three letters. I got my three letters lined up. One's from Kurt Museum and I. So I've got a couple other guys lined up, officers I was in Delta with. So I got those three letters. And then we're going to combine the package together and send it in. We're trying to. I'm really casting the net out. And I was telling Scott on the way, trying to, you know, find anybody that might be able to get us in. Because what we don't want is we submit it and just goes into a black hole. You know what I Mean, yeah, that's what we're, that's what we're worried about. We're trying to prevent that. If there's any way to at least get it, we know it's going to get in front of the AG or get where it needs to go. That's what we're trying to do. Pardon paperwork, same thing. That's much more extensive. The pardon paperwork is, it's no joke. Yeah, it's much more extensive. So we're working on that. We've tabled it temporarily to get the gun rights paperwork done, get it sent off, and then we're going to get back on the pardon paperwork and then we're, same thing, casting out, you know, fishing lines, whatever, to try to get it in front of the President. So that's, that's where we're at. Hoping that my service to the country is going to buy the goodwill to evade, you know, hopefully get a pardon.

[Shawn Ryan]

I got somebody I want to connect you with or try to connect you with.

[Larry Vickers]

Okay.

[Shawn Ryan]

That might be able to help.

[Larry Vickers]

I appreciate it, dude, more than I can say.

[Shawn Ryan]

All I can do is ask.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh yeah, for sure.

[Shawn Ryan]

I don't want to say his name.

[Larry Vickers]

On here, but, yeah, no problem.

[Shawn Ryan]

But he's, he's pretty high up there and he's definitely got a lead in there, so.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, but yeah, that's it in a nutshell. I, I, it's on me. I have to take it. You know, it's, I'm to blame.

[Shawn Ryan]

What are you potentially facing?

[Larry Vickers]

You know, we don't know. I mean, potentially five years, a million dollar fine or whatever, but there's so many variables to it. I've asked my attorney that countless times. Jerry Rooter is my attorney. Jerry with a G, Reuter with a T out of Baltimore. But he, he, I've asked him and he goes, larry, there are way too many variables to deal with here to be able to accurately tell you that. So I, I'm preparing for the worst, hoping for the best.

[Shawn Ryan]

So the worst will be five years and a million dollars, I guess.

[Larry Vickers]

Ish. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. I really thought it through and God only knows. And he legitimately tells me because, because I've asked him more than once, Jerry, what do you really think I'm facing here? He goes, I'm telling you, Larry, there's just so many variables. We really cannot get a handle on where, where this is going to go for you.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn, man.

[Larry Vickers]

So, I mean, he, he was right before he said you. My guess is you Will not be sentenced in 2024. It'll be 2025 before you're sentenced.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

And now Trump getting in office, that throws everything up in the air. Because now the people that would probably be coming after me from the Biden administration or the Biden appointees are gone.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

So now, you know, Trump getting in just changes everything. Brings a pardon on the table. Brings getting my gun rights on the table.

[Shawn Ryan]

What did you import? Did you say that already?

[Larry Vickers]

Illegal importation of a firearm.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was it?

[Larry Vickers]

Basically, I doctored. For lack of a better term. I conspired with people to doctor up paper. And I'm just being, you know, I'm kind of winging it here.

[Shawn Ryan]

I get it.

[Larry Vickers]

Doctored up paperwork to bring in different guns from my collection. It wasn't for, you know, just sell them to the cartel or Ms. 13 or not. It was for my collection. It's like I told you, I fed this demon over here.

[Shawn Ryan]

Addicted to guns.

[Larry Vickers]

Addicted to guns.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, how many guns did you have?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, at the peak, 700 or. Excuse me. 650.

[Shawn Ryan]

650?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Where the hell do you put them all? Oh, dude, they just got stacks of.

[Larry Vickers]

I had two rooms this size full.

[Shawn Ryan]

Holy shit, man.

[Larry Vickers]

650.

[Shawn Ryan]

You shoot them all?

[Larry Vickers]

No.

[Shawn Ryan]

What was your most prized FG42? What is that?

[Larry Vickers]

World War II German paratrooper rifle.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Foster Maker, Gever. 42. FG42. But, yeah, that was my most priced. Made approximately 6,000 of them during the war. Uber rare.

[Shawn Ryan]

Wow.

[Larry Vickers]

Uber rare. Worth the price of a, you know, nice house.

[Shawn Ryan]

Damn.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. FG 42. I had a type one and a type two. There are two different types of wow. That type one in a type two FG 42. Now sold off a lot of the collection after I got cancer. My wife said, hey, what if you die from cancer and all this stuff gets dumped in my lap? What am I going to do? And I went, you know what? She's got a point. Because, like my buddy Ken Hackathorn said, you will always get more for your guns when you're alive than when you're dead. You know, I took that to heart. So I sold off. Oh, man, 80%. Nah, 75%, you know, 60, 75% of my collection. I sold it off in order to put money in the bank for the family in case I died from cancer.

[Shawn Ryan]

Where'd you get cancer?

[Larry Vickers]

I'm confident from the unit. We're at time in the army. I'm confident. Can't prove it that I. There's been so many guys from the unit that have had cancer, died from cancer. Yeah, a lot.

[Shawn Ryan]

Scares the hell out of me, man. It's like every day, you know, I got another buddy or a friend of a friend or. It's just every day, man, somebody else is getting. And cancer and with, with war vets, I mean, it's just, you don't even know where the. Comes from. It's just all these weird cancers keep popping up. I, I interviewed a friend of mine, Chris Fetus, and he was saying that he thinks that, or not that he thinks. There's been some studies that say that it came from the jammers, the, you know, for, for jamming frequencies for the IEDs. And, and I mean, it's just. I just got the screening a couple weeks ago.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Scared the shit out of me. I'm cancer free right now. But. But yeah, the anticipation for that was. So what did you get?

[Larry Vickers]

Follicular lymphoma.

[Shawn Ryan]

What is that?

[Larry Vickers]

Basically a blood disease. And honestly though, it's like a friend of mine said if you're going. He had leukemia, but he said if you're going to have a cancer, you. You got one that you should, you know, to have. Obviously you don't want cancer, needless to say, but if you're going to have a cancer, you got one of the ones that. Very treatable, very treatable.

[Shawn Ryan]

You good now?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, yeah. In remission, like my doc said. A fantastic cancer doc in Charlotte. Fantastic, you know, Novant Healthcare Services. I mean, just fantastic care. And he told me the lymphoma you have is treatable, not curable. He goes, it will eventually come back. He goes, but if it does, we treat it again. And he goes, it might be five years, it might be 20 years. You never know. It may never come back. You may end up taking it to the grave. But he said it's very treatable. It's not curable. It's treatable. And he said it's like cockroaches. He gives an analogy, you have cockroaches, you turn on the light in the room, they start to scatter. You might kill a bunch of them, but you're not going to kill them all. And he goes, and that's what it's like with follicular lymphoma.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, I'm happy to hear you're doing better, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Total, you know, remission, you know, had stem cell transplant. And here's the great thing, it completely wipes out your immune system. I mean, completely. As if you're a Newborn baby. I had to have all my immunizations from when I was a little baby up till now. Had them? Yes. I. Dude, I got over my needle phobia. I remember having six shots in one day. I mean, you name it. Measles, mumps, the whole nine yards.

[Shawn Ryan]

Did you go out of country for this stem cell?

[Larry Vickers]

No. It was here. Yeah, it was in Charlotte. At the Novant Facility? No, cancer facility.

[Shawn Ryan]

Stuff's working wonders for people, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, dude, magic. I really. My cancer wasn't that big of a deal. I had. I got nauseous. Really. Not that. I mean, I lost weight, fatigue, but it really. There wasn't really any pain. I mean. I mean, I hate to say it, but it really just wasn't that big of a deal.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, that's a good thing, you know? And you're married.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Man, I didn't see.

[Larry Vickers]

I've been the world's worst dad, the world's worst husband. I mean, I. Straight up.

[Shawn Ryan]

Why do you say that?

[Larry Vickers]

I just neglected the wife. Should have never. I mean, I've just done her wrong. I really have. I've just been. I haven't been a good father. My son, my. My dad was very standoffish. I've been the same way to my son. I just haven't been a good. To be brutally honest. Brutally honest. I have not been a good husband or a good. Or a good father.

[Shawn Ryan]

Are you improving?

[Larry Vickers]

I'm trying to.

[Shawn Ryan]

How old's your son?

[Larry Vickers]

22. And he's had some real struggles, and, you know, not all my fault, but definitely I've contributed to that. So I'm trying to improve and be better. But if I had to, you know, big chink in the armor is I've not been the husband or the father I should have been. I can't sit here and lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. That's why we brought up the legal stuff. I'm not gonna bullshit you. You know what I mean?

[Shawn Ryan]

What would you say to your son right now?

[Larry Vickers]

I love him, and I really want him to do better. He's more on the right track now than he's been for a long time. He's had some real personal struggles, but he's on the right track now. I'm finishing college and whatnot. Just tell him I love him and I want him to continue on the same path he's on now. Keep the faith. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a good kid. He's real smart. Real smart. He just had some real struggles. And, like, I Said, not all my fault, but I've definitely contributed to it. Not by it. By not being the dad I should have been. You know, I should be.

[Shawn Ryan]

And you're still married.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, still married. It's been real rocky.

[Shawn Ryan]

You got anything you want to say to your wife?

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I love her, and I apologize for being the, you know, the improper, shitty husband that I, you know, I should have been. She deserved 100 times better than what I've been for sure. I provided her a good lifestyle. She lives very well. But, you know, that doesn't compensate for. For not being there emotionally, not being there, supporting her from that point of view. So. Yeah, she lives very well, drives nice cars, lives in a nice house, but, you know, there's a big void on the other end of that that I've. I've not filled.

[Shawn Ryan]

How come you don't wear a ring?

[Larry Vickers]

We're kind of on the outs right now.

[Shawn Ryan]

Sorry to hear that.

[Larry Vickers]

Well, I appreciate it. Yeah, we're kind of on the outs. And I'm not a big ring guy. I've never been a big ring. I didn't even when we were getting along, I didn't always wear it. I just never, you know, that's why I wear this unit ring. But God knows when I'll wear it again.

[Shawn Ryan]

What's the story behind the unit ring?

[Larry Vickers]

Well, if you're in the unit and you basically have served, you know, honorably, you get the opportunity to buy your own ring. If I remember correctly, it was 300 bucks. I could be way off, but, yeah, you can say, hey, you can go buy your own unit ring. And then you set the stone color, and then, you know, platinum or whatever you want gold, and there's a few different flavors. It's the kind of like a, you know, a high school ring or a college ring is really what it is. And then you set your dates in terms of when you came in and when you left. Mine's 88 to 03.

[Shawn Ryan]

That's pretty cool.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah. And uber rare. Uber rare. I. We. Me and Scott, my buddy, who came up here with me, we're trying to find it on the Internet, and you can't even find a picture of one.

[Shawn Ryan]

That's cool.

[Larry Vickers]

They're that rare. Your guys got a pick?

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

Your crew got a pick of it?

[Shawn Ryan]

Oh, yeah, They're. They. They love timepieces, and in sentimental stuff, man. They love that stuff. Everybody does. Oh, yeah, Everybody's. I never envisioned you to be a ring knocker.

[Larry Vickers]

No, I'm not.

[Shawn Ryan]

Just kidding, man. That's the academy guys.

[Larry Vickers]

Tom wouldn't. Didn't have one, or did he not bring one, I guess. Or did you say, man, he may.

[Shawn Ryan]

Have had one, but he didn't. He didn't tell me what it was. I don't. I don't know. I wasn't. I wasn't paying attention.

[Larry Vickers]

But I purposely wore it so you could check it out because I knew you'd appreciate it.

[Shawn Ryan]

I do.

[Larry Vickers]

I purposely wore it.

[Shawn Ryan]

Thank you. Thank you. All right, Larry, we're wrapping up the interview, but I got one thing, and I wanted to. I wanted to wait until the end as this.

[Larry Vickers]

Okay.

[Shawn Ryan]

But I've got a Patreon account and Patreon's, it's a subscription service that we have. I started at the very beginning when I was doing firearms training. And it's grown into, like, this really fucking amazing community. And they're the reason I'm here and.

[Larry Vickers]

The reason you're here.

[Shawn Ryan]

And so one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

And so this is from Eric Alger. What do you want the next generation of warfighters to learn from your story?

[Larry Vickers]

Oh, man, that's a good question. I would say, if anything, try to always think outside the box. We didn't necessarily hit directly on that in our interview, but there was a lot of elements of that we talked about. Try to always don't get set. And I learned that from Elton Bargewell. I've learned that from other guys. Don't get set in your ways to the point where you're no longer think out of the box. And Delta, to their credit, that's kind of a motto they've always lived by.

[Shawn Ryan]

Yeah.

[Larry Vickers]

You know, don't, you know, you know, try not to get locked into one particular thing. Try to always think out of the box, man.

[Shawn Ryan]

That's the way I live my life. Not just in that type of community, but just throughout my entire life and business. And everything is not only think outside of the box, but what fucking box? Yeah, there is no.

[Larry Vickers]

What is. That's right. What box.

[Shawn Ryan]

But. And if you don't mind, I'd like to add something, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah.

[Shawn Ryan]

Because when I think of your stories and your experiences in Delta contingency planning.

[Larry Vickers]

Boy, ain't that the truth.

[Shawn Ryan]

Contingency Contingency contingencies. And you could never have too many of them.

[Larry Vickers]

So, no, you can't anticipate the worst because it's probably going to happen.

[Shawn Ryan]

Well, Larry, I wish you the best of luck and. And you your law stuff.

[Larry Vickers]

I appreciate it.

[Shawn Ryan]

I hope. I hope. I'll be praying for you, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Thanks, man. I definitely appreciate it.

[Shawn Ryan]

And probably even more importantly than that, I just wish you the best luck with your family. I hope everything works out.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, thanks a lot.

[Shawn Ryan]

And I hope you.

[Larry Vickers]

Yeah, I need that. I need to come clean on that. I could have just sat here and, oh, yeah, everything's fine, and. But I'm not going to do that. I mean, you brought me up here as a guest. I greatly appreciate it. I've had a great time talking to you. Fantastic time. Last thing I'm gonna do is bullshit you and lie to your face.

[Shawn Ryan]

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Larry, it was an honor to interview you, man.

[Larry Vickers]

Hey, thank you, bro. I greatly appreciate it. Fantastic time. Fantastic.

[Shawn Ryan]

Cheers.

[Larry Vickers]

Thanks, brother.

[Shawn Ryan]

Thank you. Foreign MLB All Star Sean Casey, AKA the Mayor, keeps hitting it out of the park.

[Larry Vickers]

Take my 30 years of experience. Take the wisdom and knowledge I've learned from the failures when I got sent down my rookie year, all the injuries I had to overcome. Your mind is the most important tool you have in life. Be relentless. Keep charging. It matters how you talk to yourself, how you look at the world. That matters. We talk about that.

[Shawn Ryan]

I don't know.

[Larry Vickers]

I'm fired up. Baseball's back, and it's going to be incredible. I love it.

[Shawn Ryan]

The mayor's office with Sean Casey from Believe, Follow and Listen on your favorite platform.