John Stryker Meyer - MACV-SOG: The Secret War in Vietnam | SRS #193

For the first time, I can tell you I killed the man. Don't feel good about it, but you know that's war. How many enemy combatants do you guys think he that day? They started stacking up the dead bodies so he could climb up on the bodies so he could shoot down at us. So they were using the bodies as a barricade. Yeah. Men who had been wounded, they would disembow them, Their head off, stick their in the in the cavity where the bowels were. Jeez. John Striker Meyer, welcome to the show. Honored to be here.

Honored to be in a seat where Legend Sarah Superb Bad have sat previous before me arriving. I'm honored to be here, sir. Well, I'm honored to have you. Thank you. It's been a long time coming. We've known each other for what? Almost 5 years now. 5 years. Has it been that long? Yes, sir. cuz uh I saw your podcast first one your Sean Ryan's show Numero 001 with you and Mike Glover. I saw that and I couldn't believe it. Got a new mic because he's special forces and uh we had heard about some of the

other Navy Seal podcasters that were popping up and at that point five years ago is when I met Jaco Willink and said who's this Sean Ryan guy? Listen to that show. I was like, "Oh my god." I listened to it Twice and that was such a gripping like a different feel to it. Particularly when you and Mike were sitting there talking about how during your mass depresses times, it's like oh my god. But really well done. Thank you. And I've been a fan ever since. And then I said if when we moved to Franklin, we

were renting in Franklin for a couple months before we bought our house. And uh I reached out and you said, "Yeah, Let's get together for breakfast." Hell yeah, man. I'm glad we did. Me, too. Glad we did. But, um, yeah, it's an honor to have you here, John. It really is. I've been saving this. I've been saving this opportunity. And, um, so it's I've really been looking forward to it. And it's going to be a long day. Hope you're uh hope you're ready. I'm up for it. Absolutely. You kidding? Because um there's other podcasts, but

yours is different and it's the details. And even like you and I were talking before here about uh Tyler and uh what a great interview and those kind of interviews. That's what's making the new media today in America. Yeah. People are turning to that for the truth and then just your interview with Brett. I mean I just turned it on for a minute And go oh this girl nice young girl. Look at Ryan. He's doing he's done this great show here. Brett Cooper. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. I know, right? I kept listening to it.

Anna's listening to it. 23 years old. Who would have thought? Yeah. And she graduated from high school when she's 15. I barely got out of high school when I was 18. I know. Me, too. It's kind of like this young lady is amazing. So, you kept listening to the story and what she's been through and then she lands at the Daily Wire and hits the ground running. It's like just But that's the new media. Yeah. Because the old regular media, it's just the majority of them, sad to say, they don't report the facts. Yeah. But

well, John, I'm excited, man. I've Been, like I said, I've been wanting one to do this for a long time, and I just We've been busy. Yeah, we've been busy. Absolutely. And uh and I wanted to make sure we developed a friendship before before we got you in here. And uh we definitely did that. We absolutely did, sir. But um so a couple I want to this interview is going to be you know it's going to be your life story and all about you know Growing up Vietnam post service journalism we're going to hit all

of it and and but also in this interview I'd like to get a couple of history lessons so I'd like to get you know some history about Vietnam and some history about M Visog and um because a lot of people listening and including myself, we don't know a lot about that lot about that war, what it was about. And uh there aren't a lot of there aren't a hell of a lot of people know about Mag Visog. So Well, yeah. I mean, you look at today, they do these on the street interviews. Mhm. When they

interview the young Americans, majority of them don't know who who was in the North and the South and our American Civil War. They don't even know that, let alone North Vietnam and South Vietnam, what the difference was of what side we were on. And nobody gets the truth about the harsh realities of Communism and anybody that links themselves to communism that you've seen today with Sarah and her people. There are different brands, different names of repression and taking away people's rights and but they're all the same. And thankfully you got people out here talking about

those things. That's why I'm honored to be here. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, everybody starts off with an introduction. So, John Striker Meyer, you are US Army Special Forces Green Beret Veteran who served in Covert Military Assistance Command Vietnam. studies and observation group MAC V SOG or simply SOG during the Vietnam War running dangerous top secret missions in North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Missions that you were unable to talk about for 20 years. You're the recipient Of two bronze stars with V devices, a purple heart, an air medal, the combat infantry badge, US and Vietnamese parachutist

badge, Vietnamese gallantry cross with palm, among others. You completed your college education at Trenton State College after returning from Vietnam and worked as a journalist until 2008. You're the author of Across the Fence: The Secret War in Vietnam and co-author of On the Ground: The Secret War in Vietnam and SOG Chronicles, Sharing your firsthand experiences and those of your fellow Green Beretss. You are host of the podcast SOGcast, where you delve into untold stories of SOG combat veterans, as well as some of the heroic aviators who supported Green Beret teams on the ground across the

fence behind enemy lines. And more important than all of that, you're a husband to Anna of over 30 years whom you have had five children. And most importantly, you're a Christian. Amen. Welcome to the show. Well, thank you again. It's an honor to be here, sir. But um you know, everybody starts off with a gift, John. Oh, indeed. Let me guess. I hope it's legal in 50 states. Even you. Is it legal in all 50 states? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. They I think so, but you know, with RFK in The house,

then uh Oh, they're probably they're probably going to be illegal here any day. But uh Vigilance League gummy bears, I do believe they are still legal in all 50 states. Very good. If they are, I could take it. Made here in the US. But sir, because we're here in in a gift exchange mode, I have for you a special gift that I brought today. I'm a member of the Special Operations Association. And last year, we had our our 48th reunion where we celebrated the 60th year since the secret war was founded. M. VISOG the Military

Assistance Command Studies and Observations Group was founded and started 1964. Last year was the 60th anniversary. And on that coin there is that picture on the back of a helicopter which is from my personal time which was Echo 4. We had a target. We had been in contact for four hours. The South Vietnamese helicopter pilot, Captain Tin, flew in, hovered for 10 minutes while we struggled through elephant grass to get to the helicopter. He pulled us out and uh that helicopter had 48 bullet holes in it. Wow. Wow. He got us back. We get back

to our base at FOB1 in Fubai. I go up, climb up, say, "You saved our ass. Thank you. Come On into the club. I want to buy you a drink." He goes, "I'm sorry. I'm flying home. My wife is holding dinner for me. My Oh, yeah. Damn. Yes, sir. Man, this has my favorite saying of all time on here. You have never lived until you've almost died. For those who fought for it, life Has a special flavor that the protected will never know. Amen. That quote was written on the wall when I got to Afghanistan.

really for the first time in the hooch that we were staying at and I took a picture of it and still to this day uh it's my favorite quote. When I first got to Fubai in 1968, if you're really a cool Green Beret, you got the Zippo cigarette lighter and I Have that on my official FOB1 cigarette lighter. That saying is on it. Oh man. Absolutely. That's part of our SOG history. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. And I got one other one other thing for you. Oh, no. Yeah. So, you know, I'm happy with

the being a Christian. 444. You know what that means? No. 444. This is a number that appeared to me several times uh right after I I found found God. Yeah. And um it just kept appearing. And super long story short, I was driving right after I found God. I had these three appearances like right in a row that just slapped me in the face. And I was I Was driving back to work and I had 4:44 on my clock. 444 gas left empty. And it was 4 hours and 44 minutes after I had had this

conversation with my IT guy, Adam, about guardian angels. He wanted me to know that I had guardian angels watching over me. And so I called um I called Kimble, who runs all the social media here. Yeah. And I said, "Hey, Google what 444 means. I want to talk about this when I get back. There's obviously something." Yeah. Yeah. And he looked it up. We got in. I got in here and it means your guardian angels want you to know they're watching over you. Whoa. How crazy is that? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Because uh there's no doubt

In my mind that the only way I survived the secret war was through the grace of the Lord. There were times when I should have been dead. So dead so many times. And uh there had to be divine intervention. I'm just a dumbass city slicker out there trying to do the right thing by God and country, you know. But thank you, sir. I appreciate that. You're welcome. You're welcome. Absolutely. But um All right, John, you ready to get Into it? Absolutely. Yes, sir. Where'd you grow up? Uh Trenton, New Jersey. Yeah. The capital of uh

New Jersey. We were there. Dad was a milkman and I grew up in a milk truck with dad. a devout Christian and uh mom was a uh a church organist and a choir director and a piano teacher. And so uh they met at a church in Trenton cuz mom drove down from Belme which is about 20 mi away to play organ And tend to the choir. Well, dad could he was a good musician, but he couldn't sing for he he was a horrible voice in his young. But he joined the choir. He joined the choir.

He did. He met Darthy Grace Striker. And in January 1943, they were married up in Harlington, New Jersey, the Dutch Reformed Church. And uh they lived happily ever after. And um so 3 years later, I was born. 1946. 1946. 79 years old. Yes, sir. And uh grew up on a milk truck with dad watched him and uh we we had common interest in baseball cuz that was the sport then and we'd have our catches and uh worked a lot at church. We had a church community there and um um just grew up there, you know,

every Sunday. In the early days, dad's dad delivered milk seven days a week. So on Sundays, um, we get up, do the milk route, change, hit get to church on time. Wow. Absolutely. Any brothers and sisters? Yeah. Uh, we have I got a younger sister, Linda. She's up there in Lakewood, Cal, Colorado, and a little brother, Dave, and he's in Aurora, Colorado. They both went west from Trenton many years ago, but they love it out there. And we lost a little brother. He was we lost him at 5 months back in uh 1951. He had

heart congestion of some sort. Probably if it happened today, they probably could have saved him. But in 19 uh in 1951, they couldn't. They didn't have the medical procedures in place, man. Oh, yeah. What kind of stuff were you into as a kid? Yeah, I was just a goofy kid. Loved baseball. Um started out as a cowboy. You know, my granddad Meyer bought me a Cap pistol. Now, we had no alcohol and no guns in the house. And when Granddad Meyer bought me a cap pistol, there were some issues, but granddad pulled rank on mom

for the one time that I ever saw him do it. And she let me bring the cap pistol in the house. So, we played Cowboys and Indians, went to play little league ball. Uh, I was never the brightest student in school, but usually could get it done well enough to uh to get through The grade, get promoted to the next grade. Uh, played piano. We had a You played piano? Yeah, I could read I could read music before I could read words cuz you think about it with music, you only have eight letters, A through

G. The damn alphabet's got 26 letters, man. In kindergarten, that gets really rough. I could read music before I read words. Do you still play? I'm rusty, but yes, my mom gave me her Steinway, so I go up there and tickle the aries once in a while. Oh, but Anna loves that. Oh, she does. Absolutely. Yes. She's my biggest fan. And we have stories about that. Like the first serious date we had, I took her back to my house and cooked dinner and stuff. I took her into the living room and I turned the light

out. She's like, "Oh my god, what's going to happen? I'm Here with this green beret. She's apprehensive, but I I played Shopan for her. Wow. And I figured this woman is such a classic. If there's any way if she likes classic music, I can use this to try to gain her hand in marriage someday. And the rest is history. Brother, it worked. It did. It worked. Thank God she liked Shopan. My partner, the award-winning precious metals company Gold Co. has a special offer for you right now. You can get a free gold and silver kit.

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market risk and uncertainty? Learn why gold has been breaking record after record. I believe there's no better time to get your free gold and silver kit. Go to shaunlikesold.com. That's shanlikgold.com. What else were you into? Were you a troublemaker? A little bit. Yeah. You know, but again, growing up in the church like that and mom and dad were pretty close reigns on us and if we stepped out of line and even then neighborhoods, if Mrs. Zabrowski saw me doing something like, "Johnny, you shouldn't be doing that." She would kick my ass and then She she'd

tell mom and Mama Meer when she's not happy, baby. So that between that and the church, you always had influences keeping you on the track. And um by the time we got to high school, uh I was in the marching band for a year. We had vocal groups. I was involved with that. Played JV soccer. And uh dad didn't want me to play football. He's worried about my knees even and because I'd hurt my knee playing soccer in 8th grade. But I Finally played football my senior year with Elvin Bethea and a couple other people.

And my high school quarterback, as it turns out, Hal Kroski was uh he went MIA on a mission in Cambodia in February of um 1969. Wow. So whenever February comes around, I think of my quarterback. But I because I had missed the first two years. I was on the team. Did all the practices, went to all the games, geared Up, but never crossed the line. But I loved it. Loved every second of it. So you wouldn't consider yourself to be an athlete? Yeah. Not a very good one. You know, I just love I love baseball.

Such a head game. And I have a a dominant eye. And when I grew up, you know, I I wanted to be an Air Force pilot. had model planes and build them and I had a lot of ear aches. So, mom would always get me a little plane to make or Lincoln logs or Something like that, but deep down inside I wanted to fly to fly a jet. Well, at some point remember talking to one of the eye doctors saying someday I want to be a jet pie. Says, "Nah, with your vision it's not going

to work." So, I settled for the next best thing jumping out of airplanes. Really? Yeah. Of course. Plus, yeah. When I went through jump school, I had a I had a 102% pay raise because in in the May of 67 when I go through jump school, a Private I still I think I was still a private E1. The pay was $50 a month. Damn. Now jump pay for an enlisted scumbag, you know, was not officer pay, but enlisted was $55 a month. So the first paycheck I bought my Cochran jump boots and uh the rest

is history, man. Nice. Yes, sir. It has 16 jumps overall. So, so how do you just go from I mean you was it immediate? You were just like, "All right, I can't be a pilot. I Guess I'll jump out of planes." No, no, it was it much longer uh progression than that. It took me two years to flunk out of college. So, I was there just literally just doing the wrong thing. I went in as a music major, transferred to to be a fizzed major because the music department chairman learned that I was playing soccer.

says, "You either got to be a music major or a jock." Well, I don't like being talked to like That. So, I went to the phys department. I knew the soccer coach because I went out for JV soccer and I knew the baseball coach, a great guy. And uh so they signed me up, transferred to Fizzad, still flunked out. Took me two years, flunked out. And that summer I worked at Yusede National Park. And um when I was up there, I got a letter from dad, hey, you flunked out. Be advised, the draft board's coming

for you. And I swear again, like this divine Intervention stuff within a few days, I my one of my jobs was to pick up trash in the southern part of of um Yusede and is in the Wonu, which is down by the southern gate down by the big trees. So, I used to go out and walk maybe anywhere from 5 to 10 miles, pick up the trash, and I got to the point where I had it really clean. So, I would jog, pick up the trash, and I would go to a bookstore and get a

book. Well, one day I go into the bookstore, and there's a Book, The Green Beretss. Now, this is 1966, the summer of. In 1964, a Green Beret received the first Medal of Honor for combat in South Vietnam. And through high school, we read that we in the history class, it was mandatory reading of the New York Times back when it was a real newspaper. And they talked about Southeast Asia, Kennedy, assassination of DM, all that. And um so we knew about it, but it was Still far away. and if you gave me a map, I

wouldn't have been able to find Indochina. But I read that book. I said, "Son of a [ __ ] If I can make it with these guys, I want to go with them." Cuz I knew at that time in 1966, you know, people were getting drafted. The draft was on and you got drafted, you would have eight weeks of basic training, eight weeks of advanced training, one month leave, you're going to Vietnam. Well, like I Said, I'm a city slicker and I didn't have much experience with weapons. My cousins and I would go out and

shoot when I go up to my cousin's farm, shoot the shotguns and 22s, things like that, but not real training. So, I figured with these guys, I'll get more training. I need that. So, if I can do it. So, enlisted airborne on assigned. I went through basic training at Fort Dicks, New Jersey. And one of my medals that I'm really proud of is the uh expert Badge for shooting. We qualified in the M14. It was when we went to the range, it was 2° below zero. And two degrees below zero in your calling. Qualifying. Damn.

And my last shot I got 60, which you needed to be an expert. I I polished that metal up and wore it proudly for my entire time in the military. After that, we had advanced infantry training. And then during advanced infantry training, they had the uh when it was a rainy day, they would take us to a big auditorium. Everybody would sit on the floor. It would be career day. You learn about different MOS's. So we're sitting on the floor and they had a stage up front with steps on each side. And you have these

cooks that would come up, the military police would come up and the cooks are like, "Hey, Come with us. You'll never be hungry." Okay. But none of those guys were in shape. and other people, signal core came in, crypto people came in. The very last guy was a green beret, a little little tough guy, and it was raining. That's why we're inside. We're all sitting on the floor. He comes up, walks through us, did a vertical jump on the stage, turned around, and goes, "I'm here for special forces. I'm looking. I'm a recruiter. Anybody interested?

See Me. Anybody here interested?" Well, I jumped off the floor. I read the book. me and about oh four or five other guys and I'm looking around like hundreds of people are sitting on their ass said you guys are going to go to Vietnam in a couple months if I can get in with these guys I want to get some more training so yeah that was it went down did the psychological test and uh uh passed all the tests the physical stuff and the How tough was it how tough was the physical test for me

not tough but I was in good shape for running swimming I could swim enough to survive Not not like seal swimming, but just enough to get that old side worst comes the worst, hit the side stroke and just go till the cows come home, you know. What was the psychological test like back then? I don't know. It wasn't too bad. You Kind of figure there's a couple, you know, they're trying to lead you a certain way, so you want to answer it. Just make sure you're right. Well, anyway, whatever it was, fuzzy bunnies. That's what

I tell everybody when they're getting ready to take the psych test. Just think fuzzy bunnies. Yeah. for sure. So he So the final day comes and all the people that had signed up Were there and so he dismissed the people that didn't make it and there was a bunch of us. He brought each one in one at a time. I'm the last one. He brought me in and made me stand there for like it felt like an eternity. And so he finally he goes, "Uh, okay." He said, "You're lucky. They lowered the standards." [Laughter] So

he he either busted my chops or they lowered the standards. Either way, I was I said, "Am I in or not?" He goes, "Yeah, you're in." So went from there, had jump school at the Fort Benning, had a zero week there and uh bought my first pair of jump boots, began to polish them up. three weeks and through all that time it's like that harassment thing, you know, just like in the movies. It's the same. And a jump school is a little different. They literally throw you out of your bunk at 2:00 in the morning.

It's like, okay, I've seen the Movies. I know how this plays out. So, we went through it all. And then, um, we had five jumps to qualify and, uh, went through that pretty much without any major injuries or anything. And um then we went to Fort Bragg and we left on a Friday night. Packed us up on the bus, drove from uh Columbia, Georgia or Columbus, Georgia up to Fort Bragg, North Carolina going. We don't get there till 11 12:00 at night. So the bus comes out, Everybody gets out. We're just waiting to get screwed

with, you know, have people come out and harass and herang and stuff. And uh we're all standing around. Some guy comes out with flip flops and shorts and a shirt with a clipboard. Welcome to Special Forces Training Group. It's Friday night. Here's the barracks for a temporary barracks. You all go find a bunk now. Are is anybody here hungry? We got the messaul over here. The cook is there. Make you some sandwiches if you want. Go. What? The cook's going to make sandwiches for me. A private first class. He kept waiting for him to screw

with you, you know, and they didn't. So, we were there for the whole weekend. He says, "Mom Monday morning, there'll be a formation. Be there." That was it. So, we went to all the meals. We knew the messaul was the little PT just to stay in shape and uh Began training. So, that was May of ' 67. How when did the Vietnam War start? Well, unofficially was in the early 70s, like 56, 57. We had Green Beret teams that went over and the CIA was working with their programs there. And uh after Kennedy became really

unhappy with the CIA after the Bay of Pigs and a couple other incidents, um they put What was the Bay of Pigs? Uh was the invasion of the the CIA was working to take Cuba back from Fidel Castro and it was u a completely botched mission. Um they had planned to attack, go in and then win over the hearts and minds of the Cubans. And the people that worked in the operation side of the CIA had a different location planned and a key part was going to be air support with A1 Sky Raiders and anything

else. But somebody changed the plan and they put it in the Bay of Pigs which was not as well of an area. The other area had train lines, highways, mountains where people could go hide in the mountains from the any communist that would come hunting for him. But this area, the Bay of Pigs, was also where Fidel Castro took vacations. So he and his people knew it. Anyways, that invasion attempt was failed and Kennedy refused to give them air support. And that was the that was a big incident That blew up nationally internationally embarrassing to

the United States and to Kennedy. And by at the end of ' 63 they took away the covert side of the CIA in Vietnam and they formed MC Visab in uh I think it was January 1964 was officially announced. So the military assistance command Vietnam studies and observations group was formed up. It took a while to get things in place like any military operation but um by 55 we Had people that were beginning to form. They had a base up at Cam Duck where they're doing training and um they began running missions across the fence

and some of them would be they just in those days you know the NVA didn't have their act together in Laos or Cambodia. guys could go, they would patrol in, but they often made contact if they were in. And uh by the time I arrived in 1968, they had the NVA had 25,000 troops in Laos. What does the NVA stand for? Oh, sorry. North Vietnamese Army. It was officially the People's Army of Vietnam, but it was the North Vietnamese Army for us. So, it's the NVA. And they were trained up north, had training from the

Russians and the Chinese. And um like by 68, that was our worst year in the Vietnam War, the highest year for casualties amongst all US troops because you had the Ted offensive in the beginning of the year as well as SAG. We Had the highest year of casualties that year. Um so that's just the way that went. I don't know if we get back to the some of the beginning stuff. I've been wandering a little bit. Yeah. No, let's rewind a little bit, please. How How old were you when the Kennedy assassination happened? I was

in high school. We were in choir practice and the choir director who was a Navy veteran. Somebody came in and talked to him. He stopped and he turned around and then he came back and faced us. He said, "We're done." He says, "Somebody just shot the president." So I was uh 17 at the time. 17? Yeah. In high school and we always had choir practice in the auditorium and everybody was stunned. So he said it was it was always the last class of the day. He said, "If you all want to go home early today,

you can. You're dismissed." And he he was weeping. And Harry Moulder was tough but a great guy because I was a we had music classes. We had been in the band for one year and a vocal we had a male glee club had the chorus and then there was a special group and we would meet in the mornings at the an Hour before school started and we'd have practice with the special group. There would be I forget how it broke down. I think we had like 12 guys and 12 girls. M that were taken out

of the choir and we practiced special numbers, did a little choreography and everything and but Harry's just a great guy. What did you think about the Kennedy assassination? Oh, it's outraged. Just couldn't believe What happened. What was the pulse of the country? Just total outrage just to think that some and again we're just reading from the media. Oswald, some scumbag that been to Russia, was able to get up to the book tower and and to shoot the president in Dallas. And you knew that there was a lot of political strife down there. It was not

it was not a democratic stronghold in Dallas at that time. And There had been we had heard within days that Kenny had been advised not to go to Dallas because of hostilities or hostile attitude towards him. And um as it all involved, as it evolved, then when Oswald gets killed, you figured that we've lost the source of what what really happened that day, hoping that somebody give him some truth serum or something and say, "What really happened here?" Cuz he looked too stupid to be Able to do anything that would be that sophisticated to get

a weapon and go up and kill the president. Mhm. and go into this building that you just assume the CIA, I mean the Secret Service would have more of a protective um before they go into a target area, before the president goes anywhere, they look at all the buildings supposed to scope those things out. There's a lot of questions to ask, but Even in my little fertive mind. Yeah. I mean, just go down a little rabbit hole here. I mean Oh, yeah. you know, all these years later, they're getting ready to release the files supposedly.

You know, I know they released a bunch. I don't know what's in them yet, but I mean, what do you think? What do you think that was? Well, recently Glenn Beck has done some some stuff on it, did a little bit of a Deep dig, and uh when he talked to to Cass Patel, Cass said when you look at this stuff, it's not who, it's what was what was going on. And so they're beginning to roll up a lot of strings are coming off of that from, you know, apparent CIA involvement at some level. And

on the internet, there's at least one guy saying, "I killed the president." And I've never listened to it because I just figured he's a cook. Um, but again, Glenn Beck is saying at Least there was things there that there was CIA involvement. And you know when we were involved with the CIA most of the times it was doing things that were missionoriented to hurt the communists. So everything was like missionoriented and um you know we had mixed emotions dealing with the CIA even in ' 68 and 69 it was a one-way street. Give us information

but we never get anything back which is fine. We're we're trained professionals. Were out there snooping the poop and like one of the things we would do uh we do wire taps and the CIA says if you listen to the wire there's nothing going on tape it anyway tape it we have at that time state-of-the-art cassette recorder for the cassette and then the wire would go up and then our our little people that's an affectionate term for my South Vietnamese we had them trained up they would climb the pole or the tree tap the tap

it in and then if it was on A telephone pole they took mud with them and they would cover the wire so anybody going by they wouldn't see the wire and we would tape it and um when we were done we turned in all the blank tapes for us it sounded like blank tapes but the CIA would amplify it a 100 times and they said they were able to get great intel off of those tapes. Wow. To me it just sounded like nothing. Interesting. So if the CIA's happy, I'm Happy. At least in that case.

And we get there be a couple other war stories later. We have some CIA angles. But let's get back to our rewind. Yeah. So let's So back to you show up. Yeah. Special forces training. Yes. You get the weekend. You get your sandwiches made for you. What was that Monday like? Oh, from that time on it was just like um I couldn't believe I was there. It was just um growing up as a kid and thinking about this is an opportunity by now everybody knew the Green Brace. The song had been out, the Battle of

the Green Brays and u so the book had been out and of course Roger um Roger Donan was the recipient of the first Medal of Honor from the Vietnam War. his a camp got overrun in July of uh ' 64. He earned the Medal of Honor. So that was the first Medal of Honor awarded by President Johnson to Roger who fortunately I became friends with years later. But so we knew about that and knew about that history and more stories were appearing in the paper. In ' 65 you had the Irang Valley with we were

soldiers once. That story I mean never told that way in the media But took the movie and the book that uh that Joe Galloway did that was just give you accurate insights into that but that was an obvious escalation. We knew the 173rd Airborne was there, the Marines were there and uh you know you have footage there's footage of the Marines going into Daang. Well, the the special forces story side of that, the Marine photographers were really pissed with the Green Berets when the Marines invaded Daang when they went in with Their beach assault because

some of the Green Berets have been out water skiing and they're in the background water skiing. So, they had to edit out the Green Berets water skiing. Oh [ __ ] That's one of my favorite uh That's hilarious. Oh yeah, absolutely. So there's that fun side of life there too, you know. Well, what was the training like? And how how many how many of you guys were There? You know, it's I'm I'm no good on numbers. I was strictly focused on me. Got to know a couple guys. And uh and in the beginning, we had

phase one, which is general training, you know, mission, map reading, uh orientation. Can you get to point A to point B? I instantly found a guy from Texas who had grown up in the woods. Me and him were really good friends because I knew I wasn't quite sure of my compass Trainings and bearings that way. But we got through it all. Had a little bit of hand to hand and uh force marches, things like that. And uh then after phase one, you went to phase two, which was MOS training. So with special forces, you have

five MOS's. como, demolitions, weapons, intel, and medics. And the medic course at that time, the Green Berets, as they are today, the medics are the best in the world. Their training was over a year Long. Now, in fact, it was so tough. I knew that was an MOS that I couldn't take because they had classes. They would go in and do a class all day and first thing in the morning they would be getting tested on what they what they had been taught the day previous and they they lost a lot of people cuz that

was a rigorous course and then when they're done you had the dog lab where they would wound the dog. You had to patch up the dog sew its leg back on and Then they would go to um emergency rooms around the country. They still do this today with the emergency they'll do it send their guys to the Yeah. Sure enough. We had for years the SEALs were coming through that medic course. Now I don't know if they still do or not cuz the SEALs have expanded so much their training. I don't know when I was

then they were still doing it but yeah but it was good. And so that's our MOS and so I got commo at that time was Morris code was the key part of the commo. We had other classes on on you know just FM radios, AM radios, handheld stuff. You had the basic train, but the hard part was the Morris code. Myself, Johnny McIntyre, Tony Herrell, we all flunked out. We got we got recycled. And when we got recycled, there was a Sergeant First Class Villa Rosa, Paul Villa Roza. He took us under his wing. Now,

he had been the N three times. On his neck was a tattoo cut here. And he was tough. And he was amazing. He could He tattooed a line that said cut here. Oh yeah. He had a couple other tattoos which I don't remember but he was um an amazing Morris code. He had been in um in the maritime service previous as a communicator and he could take he could do Morris code with both hands. He could send and receive at the same time. And his speed was so fast. Um, and they had the thing is

called the bug. And the bug was a uh a handheld for you to do your Morris code signals, but it's really fast. Well, he would make that thing sing. So, he took us in. He came in at night. We could come back at night for extra. He would be there with us. We went in for the weekends. We finally got with Morse code, you had fiveletter groups And you had to get 15 or 18 word groups per minute to graduate from Kamo. It took a while, but we we made it. Well, what was So, you

wanted to go to Vietnam? Yeah. I've seen all the war movies. to grew up with with the Duke and everybody else with their more movies and um um God and country. So what did you what was it like for you getting trained by Special ops guys that are coming back from Vietnam? It you know it was really it was just I just felt like I was in the element that it was new and different for me. It was so so far out that I was just happy to be able to and be able to every

time I graduated to the next phase kind of like we made it. You know, I kept waiting for them to say like that recruiter, you're lucky we lowered the standard. Somebody's going to come along and have a reality check. And so, how the hell did you get in here this far? Get out of here. Go to go be a cook somewhere. The leg unit, you know. I kept waiting for that, but uh we kept going on and we made it through. How' they treat you guys? You know, it was it was different. It wasn't like

basic AIT and jump school. There they gave you rules. You had to abide by them. They whatever they told You to do, you had to do it. But they also it if you asked a question, a lot of times they would answer the question. And it just felt like they were training us to go to Vietnam. And we knew that we had this mission against communism. We had seen what communism had done in Hungary. We had seen and heard about things in Russia and we heard about Mayo Test. We never realized just what a brutal

killers they were of their own people, mass murderers Effectively. But we knew communism sucked. We saw Fidel Castro and what happened to Cuba. Um, and so we knew that we're up against the forces of darkness at that time and we're training for that. And at that time, the Green Berets, only thing we knew about were the Green Beret A teams that went over. So you had an A team, there would be a senior medic and a junior medic. and for all the MOS's and then you'd have the u the team leader And then there'd be

an officer who would be a captain and then there'd be executive officer and but the team sergeant ran the team but there'd be that delicate balance between them. So that's what we trained up for was a teams going to Vietnam and um through that training we came to finally to the FTX. You put together your first a team with a without the officers and we would go in as a team had Missions the com guys we had to set up the wires and of course here's army training. This is December 1967. Our training is in

the Urari National Park, National Forest in North Carolina. It snowed. We had like a foot of snow for our training prior to going to Vietnam, which is like the perfect icy moronical WTF situation, you know? It's like what? We're going to go to NAM and we're here in the snow and and and of course my my Texas buddy who had got Helped me get through with the orientation. We were in the combo together and he was he was my joint mate. We were supposed to take turns sleeping. Well, he fell asleep on his watch. The

instructor came by, tore down our tent, kicked our ass, put us out in the snow, but we survived it. Got through to put up the antenna and we jumped. our jump. So, we finally jumped at night and we jumped at night at 800 feet and that's a Pretty close jump. I mean, yeah. The only ones I heard about some of your programs, some of the guys from today when they jump at 400 ft and we had a couple guys later on with SOG, we had five halo jumps into Laos and then we had 12 or

13 depending who you talk to, static line jumps, some in Laos and then some in South Vietnam when they were supporting a camps that were under siege. But they would talk about jumping at 500 Ft, no reserve, cuz you just go out, the string pulls, you're landing. And in my case, 800 ft happened really quick cuz I was the combo guy. So you had your parachute and emergency parachute, your equipment bag, your M14 bag, and then we had an additional bag cuz we had to carry uh we had a our radio was a uh we

called the angry 109 and you used that for Morris code. And uh in order to get that radio, you had to have a handheld generator That sat on a metal frame that you sat on. So you would have somebody would sit there cranking the generator and then you put the antenna up and communicate back to base. So I had to you had that metal seat. Yeah. The generator which was heavy complete with the handles and then the radio plus the M14 and plus other equipment, sleeping bag and stuff like that. So when he jumped, I

was I jumped heavy and Jumped out and just by the grace of the Lord again. There was one little road and I came out, the wind took me and I landed, did a PLF there and uh went and did the FTX, a field training exercise. We were out there for five or six days and nights. Got through it, came back for some final classes and it was around, I don't know, December 14th, 15 somewhere's around there. uh this is graduation. Here's your certificate. Congratulations. Here's Your pass for leave for Christmas. In our case, uh the

commo guys, there was a bunch of us that went TDY to Fort Gordon, Georgia for 12 weeks of radio teletype cuz the A camps needed and of course we didn't know it, but SOG needed communicators with topseker clearance to run the radio teletype. Did you know what SOG was at the time? We we had heard something about a deadly top secret mission in Vietnam and it was Scuttlebutt and you know once and with our commo class particularly once we got recycled so we knew all the instructors and they knew us and so as you get

near the end they could tell who's going to graduate and at the end there' be a coffee break or something and we get to talking you've been to Vietnam They've all been there at least two or three times like Sergeant Villa Rosa. And so we're going through this and uh they go, "Look, when you go to Vietnam, you're Going to get incountry training and when you're done with that, get assigned to an A camp. There's operations out there. People just die and they're going to come out at the end of your inountry training going to

say we're looking for volunteers." But they won't tell you what it is. Don't do it. go to an A camp, get used to Vietnam. Okay. So, we go through our radio teletype training and Johnny McIntyre and I, we got busted. We got busted from A private first class to private educe. Those legs down. They just didn't like us leaving base at night going downtown to howl the wolves. So, Johnny and I got going downtown to where to to Augusta. We called the Disgusta, but Augusta, Georgia. Disgusta, huh? Yeah. It's right outside. What happens in Disgusta?

Well, it was amazing. They had a couple of really cool nightclubs there. You Could drink a lot. My dad was kind enough to let me take take our Pontiac down there. So, I had a car and uh Johnny McIntyre and I we drove down. We're there. So, at night, they come by with a base inspection like at 10:00 10:30, all tucked in. We had our clothes on. The second he left, man, bang, we're out to the parking lot. They were downtown. The bars would close at two o'clock and Mac and I would go across the

border to South Carolina cuz they Didn't their bars there were open till 5. So we leave about 4:30. So we get back to base. We would have got along great together. Oh yeah. that this is like so at some point during this training, you know, McIntyre and I drove home and that night we stopped at at a at a bar and John and I are sitting there and on the TV so this is now the Ted offensive was kicking in and we're going through This training and on the TV I don't know if it's CBS

but here's a you can see this grainy picture of a tank and they said this is a NVA tank that broke into Lang Vet, a Green Beret camp, which is in the northwest corner of South Vietnam, right just south of the DMZ, not far away from Laos. And this NVA tank tried to overrun the base last night. Those Green Beretss were fighting for their lives. McIntyre And I go, "Holy [ __ ] we're going to die when we get there." We drove home, took our money out of the bank. We didn't want our family fighting

over our money if we died. We go home, take all our money out, drove back to base, and uh every night we went out for steak. We spent all our money. Of course, went to the bars. Spent it all in disgust. Indeed, there was a little sweetheart down There. Johnny had his good girlfriend and I met this gal. And uh before we were done with the training, then we had a month leave and then we went to Vietnam. I arrived in uh in Vietnam um at the end of April 1968. So before we before we

get into Vietnam, so are you saying that when they would take these volunteers Yeah. that was Saab? Yes, absolutely. And they had a couple other operations by the time we got there. They had the Mike Force with which had been operating since ' 63. And the mic force was the first QRF basically. And uh when the A camps would get hit, they would need someone to come in to help them break break the fight. And uh Mike Force was just outstanding. We had a friend of mine, his name was Jack Jack Tobin. He was in

the mic Force. Had several tours over there. Highly respected Green Beret. Met him years later. He was president of the Special Forces Association and I was on the Special Operations Association board of directors. We met at the reunions and uh Jack introduced me to a friend. He goes, "This is my friend Tilt Meer here. He was a SOG." Now SOAG, they'd be out there snooping and pooping and he was just doing intel work. Yeah. They made some contact with the NBA. But with Mike Force, we were out there hunting for those commie [ __ ]

and that was the difference. And Mike Force would go out and they they just had an outstanding reputation. They broke many a siege. uh that the a camps would be under siege by the NVA and the Vietkong. But that was the difference. But I learned that years later in this case um we heard a scuttlebutt. Heard the scuttlebutt. So we went through the country training Which is three weeks. So can you can you describe what the war was about at that time before you went? Well, we knew that the Vietkong and and you you heard

about all the legends. The Vietkong is just the the peasant fighter, the farmer by day, fighter by night, defending what he thinks is his country. They don't talk about any of the NVA, the communist people that are supporting them that are in country that are with the majority of the Vietkong Units. And um so we knew and of course when we go through some of the special forces training we're told about the communist infiltrations told about how they're operating. Of course we had horror stories about what the Vietkong would do to a village or to

people that weren't friendly. What would they do? You name it. Um we had one of our um Medal of Honor recipients had um he was in a special forces Operation. They had gone into a village and worked with the people the children there for a period of time and it was you know strictly a hearts and minds operation. They would go in the medics would go in always do sick call every day work with the children. They built some schools, other training facilities, things like this. At some point, the Vietkong came in and killed everybody,

every man, woman, and child To send a message to any other village that would think about working with the Green Berets or Americans. They were just profoundly cruel and heartless that way. And uh you know that shook John. How would they compare to like a modern-day like ISIS, al-Qaeda with where they're beheadings, where they're I mean they burn people alive today in today in Syria, you know, they're crucifying People and shooting them at the back of the head. Yeah. They the Christians there were hurt. I don't know if they would be specifically targeted. I don't

I'm just I don't mean just the Christians. I mean, I know. But yeah, so were they gruesome burning people alive. They would they would do it all. Um, you know, during the Ted offensive uh in the in the town of Wei, which is the old Imperial capital, they had killed a bunch of civilians, anybody who was educated, nurses, doctors. They took a bunch out and killed them. They had a mass grave which received not enough publicity. But this is during the Ted offensive. And uh we had other cases where they would torture people to get

them to come over to the side. If they did, they would kill them. And for me, when we get How would they torture them? Well, you you name it. They would do the fingernail thing, beat him up, get them to come around. If they didn't, then they would just shoot him. And you know, of course, the guys that were in country, the A camp guys, they always had to worry about booby traps. Even if you saw the movie, the Green Beret, they had those big puny ambush things where if you walked in it, it would

pick you up and then a rope would pick you up and your weight of your body would swing you Into like punges that were all coated with animal dung. So when you slammed into it like like in the movie where the picked up the one guy and his body was impaled on those puny stakes and they had punchy pits and if anybody stepped in it you of course you have the infection off of those. And in my case with Paul Villa Rosa our hero the guy helped us get through training. He ran the first mission

out of FOB4 his Fourth tour of duty. He ran a mission into Laos. They ran into a heavy unit. He was wounded and at some point they he was captured. They killed several other team members, but they kept one American alive, an SF guy who's we never knew who it was, but Villa Rosa, they got him and they came in with a with a flamethrower and literally burned him alive at the stake. And they killed a couple other Vietnamese. They torched them too. So when we got done our briefing, we heard about Paul Var Roa

and it was like that was culture shock to the max cuz here is he was our hero. He was just a guy did three tours, survived all that and his first mission out of FOB4 killed and tortured. Wow. And of course you always had the story. We had teams where um men who had been wounded, They would disembow them, cut their head off and stick their head in the in the cavity where the bowels were. Jeez. And and the other part was sometimes they would cut their dick off and stick it in their mouth and

then put that in. Now, I never saw that personally. Any of that? Say again. You never saw any of that? Nothing like that. But we heard about It. And it was from our guys before you went. You heard about it some before and then some while we were there other what other teams that come up against? And so the premise of the Vietnam War was the NVA and the Vietkong pushing communism into Vietnam, right? And so where does where does Laos and Cambodia come into play? Well, they were quote neutral countries. In the beginning we

had uh operation whitestar which had green beret teams in Laos but under that change of plan of converting to MV so Kennedy uh they had an accord of some some kind of a political agreement that America would pull any and all combat troops out of Viet out of Laos and out of Cambodia and the and the North Vietnamese and the communists would do the same thing. They were all there and They agreed to this accord. Well, of course, the commies are just lying douchebags as we all know and publicly they said, "Yeah, we're out." Well,

in 57 they had started to open up the reopen the Ho Chi Min Trail which went from Hanoi down to Vietnam across down through Laos into Cambodia. And there'd be trails that would come in to South Vietnam and that would be the Ho Chi Min Trail. And that would be the way that supplies The manpower. And um as early as 57 they began working on it. By 59 the polit uh in Hanoi said um we are going to form an official unit for the Ho Chi Min Trail. It'll be 559 May 59. So that's when

it was formed. They had a colonel in charge of it. other people. So from 59 into the 60s they already had rudimentary supplies and manpower coming south, agents etc. And um so we would go not we but they would go through that Expanding and so then the air force would start targeting the Ho Chi Min trail and it it wasn't just a trail it would be different branches coming down and going into the country into South Vietnam and that's what that was designed for and uh so by the time I arrive our first before we

go there sure what was the pulse of the about Vietnam at the time. Well, we believed we believed our Presidents, even that lion scumbag, Lyndon Johnson, saying that this is communism. They're here to take overtake the country. And we were familiar with the domino theory from Eisenhower. And here's Dwight David Eisenhower, our World War II fame and uh a good president. And if he's saying we've got the domino theory were of great concern to us, well, we all believe them and you know, anything we could do to stop condis having seen what it was. So

The majority of the country, I would say, was very supportive of it. And by 66, you're beginning to get some protesters. And you know, there might be other quote Vietnam experts to talk about the protest and who was really against it, but um I I always felt supported from the from the beginning. And by the time we land in ' 68, there's now more demonstrations, some college campuses, whatnot. And uh But I always felt like they're just so far removed from it and you never know who's putting the anti-war sentiments in their head. Mhm. And

I mean there are things the South Vietnamese did wrong. Um you know, President DM who was assassinated with a coup in November of 63, he was really harsh. He was a Catholics were a minority, religious minority. And then you had the Buddhists that were against Him and some of the things that that family did made it very difficult to support and that then the media of course would play up these things and report that's what actually happened. But meanwhile you had the communists that were coming into the country thwarting the people and wanting to take

it over so that they could control the people and the land. And uh you know like my classic example for me once I got on my recon team, we had people um Three members of our team had grown up in born in North Vietnam, came south with their families in 54 and they all knew our government is corrupt in South Vietnam. But we prefer corrupt government over communism with Ho Chi Min because we can live here. We can still flourish. I can raise a family. I can do my crops. We know when the communists take

over, they're going to [ __ ] you over any way they can as only communists do. And they were willing to Die for it. And that was my bond with my little people. And there are other people in Vietnam. Again, there are some that didn't want anything to do with the war. And again, there's people like peasants who are there getting whatever they're told from the Viaong or the local villagers. You know how it is with the uh getting accurate information to y out to the huddle masses. Well, John, let's take a quick break. Okay.

When we come back, we'll pick up with uh stepping ground on Vietnam. I'll drink to that. If you ever feel like the modern world is wearing you down, things like EMFs, artificial light, seed oils, microlastics, chronic stress, it seems like our biology wasn't designed for these modern assaults, and it's probably taking a toll on all of us. Armor colostrum is a bioactive whole food that Can help revive cellular signaling and help bolster our health from within. Colostrum is nature's finest whole food packed with over 400 bioactive nutrients that work at a cellular level to help

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back from the break. One thing I forgot to do at the beginning is we have a Patreon account. Oh, indeed. Yeah. our Patreon account is uh it's a subscription network and these guys a lot of them have been with us since the very beginning and uh and we built it into quite a community and so one of the Things that uh I do for them is I give them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question indeed. So this is from Rich Benjamin. Does Tilt think we waged the Vietnam land war in the

wrong country? How does he feel the end result would have been if we waged a land war in Laos and Camb and Cambodia? Oh, good question. um in the very early days if we had really been in the military world war II frame of mind to Win and uh if we had cuz the it's been documented the North Vietnamese most feared particularly in the early days around 64 65 that the US would cut off the Ho Chi Min trail completely go in with a however do it so in answer I I mean I'm biased I

think that had we addressed that war as we did World War II with the win mentality, not let the State Department dictate dictate terms such as when we Have MVISG running missions. They wouldn't even let us run missions in Cambodia until ' 66. And when they ran the missions, they even dictated the type of weapons initially you could carry. And when I ran missions in Cambodia, I was down to TDY for a couple weeks. We had no TAC air. What we had was helicopter gunships and we had the 20th um special operations squadron from the

Air Force, the Green Hornets. Those guys were hot [ __ ] I mean, all of our helicopter, majority of our helicopter assets were host, but those guys were the hottest because they were the Air Force, had the latest state-of-the-art Hueies, most powerful, had the mini guns that were flexible, and they saved my ass. They saved our team ass. So, an answer to that, I think it would have been different. Mine H High Pong Harbor, cut off Cambodia so they can't come in with the supplies. Tell the Russians and the Chinese, we're not fighting you, but

don't you bring supplies. We cut off all our supplies. I think it would have been it would still would have been a long one, but eventually it could have been a different outcome. Thanks for answering that. Rich is a huge fan of yours, so I'm going to have you sign this card for him. Gladly. And I know Rich. He was at our last reunion. He He was a videographer there. Oh, really? Absolutely. He's got some incredible footage of A1 Sky Raiders and some interviews with our Sky Raider pilots. Good man. Oh, man. Well, he'll love

this then. Absolutely. I'll sign it with a capital X just for him. Perfect. Perfect. All right. So, let's move in to Vietnam. Yes, sir. Let's go. Let's go all the way back. Very first day in country. Well, you know, I had uh we had a month or I went up to my cousins. They were farmers up in New Jersey. I hung out with my cousins, worked the fields up there with them. It was spring, early April, and just hung out there for a couple weeks with them. went back home to my family, left and uh

we took the flight in and when we landed in uh in uh Cameron Bay, it was just like it's just hard to believe. Like you've heard, you've had other people describe this to you, but when you get to that door and the airplane door is open, you walk out and go down that first step. You look out, here's all these Vietnamese and and we were told in training group, advanced infantry training, everybody could be the enemy. So your first thought is, "Oh my god, these are potential enemies out Here. I don't have no gun, no

nothing except my duffel bag, right?" And but the stench of the countryside because they always had rice patties around and they used human defecations to fertilize their fields and when it's about 100° it just felt like I needed a knife just to cut through the humidity to walk down the steps and the stench. It was just unbelievable. And we went down had a little quick Incountry briefing. We got transport the fifth special forces group headquarters in the train and that was in two core had a beautiful beach and at that point in uh April of

1968 that was where all the training was done for incountry. So we're there. We had uh I think it was three weeks of incountry training. Everything from patrols and our patrols we had no combat no combat of any sort but we learned all the patrol tactics that they used and uh worked tack air Helicopters had classes on again about communism and whatnot. And um we had every kind of helicopter except an H34 which we'll get to in a few minutes. And uh and then at the end of the training oh and the last week they

showed the film the Green Beretss with John Wayne. It's like far [ __ ] out man. Look at this. Hell yeah. Yeah. So the so we get done and just Like they told us in training group the last day we're there you know we had do all the needles and stick yourself and all this stuff you know how to survive basic first a day stuff combat wounds and things like that little guy comes out we're looking for volunteers so my good buddy Johnny McIntyre goes for what Sarge can't say either you're in or you're not

well hell we just saw the movie what would the Duke do. I don't care what the guys in training group Said. The Duke would go sign me up. So, we all volunteered. All of you guys did. Yeah. A lot of us. The uh we had gone through the combo training together that we had been together for a year since training group basically by the time uh April got there. So, me, Rick Howard, John McIntyre, Tony Harrell, our hands popped right up into the air. We all volunteered. We go up to uh to Daang and this

is our first culture shock. We Stayed at a safe house, a Daang safe house. It's house 22. And uh so we go in, we have food, eat. They got security. The area is secure. And uh they told us not to worry about anything, but whatever you want, you can eat. Just go up to the bar, tell them what you want. If you want to drink, eat, drink, be merry. And uh I forget what the prices were for the prostitutes up on the second floor, but we had lovely ladies up there that spread their Wares around,

you know. So that first day, Mac and I, we're there, we're eating and whatnot, and uh they had a couple of barmaids there, and one was really nice. She was really educated, good English. So we talked to her, and Mac and I both had girlfriends, so we weren't interested in anything. So she could tell we were harmless. and we set up with her. Went upstairs, had to take a shower. So, as we go up, there's this Big open floor area with all these beds. You can hear a couple guys getting it on right there. So,

we go into the shower. There's a guy taking a shower. And in the corner, there's a young lady squatted down, shaking that Coke up and douching with a Coca-Cola. So, we just found a new a new use for Coca-Cola, you know. Holy [ __ ] So this is like growing up in Trenton, New Jersey. Welcome to uh welcome to South Vietnam. Wow. So that's a little bit of culture shock. So while we're there, um some of the guys from the Mike Force came in and they stayed overnight and they were talking they could tell that

we're green as grass. So they had nothing to do with us because we're just green ass green berets. But they were talking about the [ __ ] they had been in. and they had helped to relieve somebody either in the Ashaw Valley and the Ashaw Valley was up north right on the border Of Laos. It was very ragged border but that was one of the main places when the Ho Chi Min trail came down there's at least two separate branches off of the Ho Chi Min trail that came into the Ashaw that would then go

into South Vietnam to Wei and then Fubai and then later down to Daang area. So, um we were there um just that that moment of time hearing these guys talk about it and it's going like this is where we are. So, What were they talking about? They talked about the actual combat and they they were dirtied up. They had they were just they literally came in dropped their gear at the gate and they're sitting there just talking obviously still sweaty and wherever they had been and it was just like okay these are SF guys that

helped some SF team somewhere now I'm not sure I just too long ago to remember they cuz we're new they probably wouldn't talk about specifics Anyway but they were in contact and they had talked about what the enemy was doing how how tenacious they were. So, um, the next morning we, McIntyre and I and, uh, and John, we all get together to go to the Daang airport to get a flight to Fubai. And, uh, oh, we had our briefing first. I'm sorry. We had our briefing. So, in the morning, we go down, we get a

briefing, go into the room, curtains are on the windows up front. There's a map With a sheet over it. And uh and so we've been students for over a year now between basic and everything. So we're all like pulling our pads and pens out. Sergeant Major walks in. Put that [ __ ] away. This is a top secret briefing. And um right in front of you there's an NDA. Read it. And if you want to stay, sign it. If you want to leave, you're welcome to leave. There's no hard feelings. And this is a top

secret briefing. said it again for good luck. So we all signed And then the curtain they pulled the sheet off the map. So there's a map we're looking at. Here's South Vietna say say yeah. What did the NDA say? Oh, you can't talk about it for 20 years. If you talk about anything or take any pictures, you could be prosecuted federally. And I forget what the penalties were, but they had prison terms and fines that were all defined in The NDA. had you you talked about anything about and sergeant major the first thing you said

was read these you can't talk to your mama your girlfriend or anybody no pictures no nothing you can't talk to anybody about this mission unless it's somebody else that you're working with at your base welcome to the secret war this is top secret and your reports go directly to the white house okay so there's the map Vietnam I core Is up North two core which is Konou the Trang on the on the beach three core which is Saigon four core which is much bigger but it's all the swamps and waterways just a horrible horrible AO

I've never got down there fortunately and um um we go through the then look at Laos here's target boxes 6x6 target boxes all the way up and down and then in the Cambodia some targets And so he went on to explain a little Bit. This is what we do. We go across the fence into Laos or into Cambodia. You'll run top secret missions. You either be with a recon team or a hatchet force. So a recon team will be two or three Americans. And you'll have indigenous personnel. And that would be they could be Montine

yards, South Vietnamese, they could be nungs or Cambodians. In some cases they have Cambodian hatchet force. So the recon teams would be small units like They could be teams that run a mission could be four, six, eight, maybe up to 12. And then a hatchet force is a platoon or a company size operation. And there you would have number of green berets for each each squad and a platoon leader and explain that basic structure. So we all signed him, did the briefing, and then they took us over to uh to get a helicopter up to

FOB1 the next day. We get the helicopter ride up. So again, it's culture shock. We had all that Training with helicopters, but nobody told us about a King, a South Vietnamese Air Force H34 helicopters developed during the Korean War and they're built by Sakorski. They had a B17 rotary engine that the pilots essentially sat on top of. So it's a 9 cylinder B17 engine and then the back had a a a passenger compartment with one door on the right side and for where we sat when we looked up we could see the pilot's feet on

the pedals. So We're down and so for our flight it's like what the hell is this? And all of a sudden, here's a South Vietnamese guy flying our helicopter where we're used to Americans. It's like, "Okay, here we go." And so me, Johnny McIntyre, and uh and John, we get in and as I sit down, I see the guy in a microphone go cuz we're green. You got new starch pad, new jungle boots and everything. So we go up, we're flying up Highway 1, going down Highway 1, and it's just just for The first flight.

And so we're going along, we come, we go past the Fubai airport, and we go past the second Arban training division. And all of a sudden, the helicopter goes like this to a 90° on its side to a turn, and it did a 360. Well, I saw that guy. I thought they were going to do something like that. But McIntyre and John Hutchkins are going like, "Oh, [ __ ] me the terrorist. What's going on?" You know, they're hanging on like that And the and the door guard is going, "We got him." So, we turn

around and we land. We get off the helicopter. A recon team gets on the helicopter. Spike Team Idaho. The team leader who I didn't know is Glenn Lane and his 111 assistant team leader is Robert Owen. I forget they either had four or six indigenous troops. They take off never heard from again. Welcome to the secu war. So we go into base sign in and uh as we go there's a long pathway and the second arvin compound was right here. big fence and then there's the road in and then you turn left there was S1,

S2, S3 and then on the other side was S4 for supply. So we go in reported in S1 and I come out and I hear this voice T me and I'm with John McIntyre. So I was in A company in training group, Johnny Mack was in B company and we beat his softball team in every game. And the reason why we beat him was Spider Parks was our pitcher. And I hear Tilt Meer Spider Parks. Holy [ __ ] Spider, you're here. We had gone through training group together. And of course, he made fun of

Johnny McIntyre because he's a B company puke, you know. And so then Spider took us around, showed us the the base and uh Mac went to a separate room and Spider said, "No, you come down. You stay with me. You know, us a company guys. You B Company guys, you go somewhere else." So I went down with Spider, had a bunk with him and uh they were monitoring the team progress and uh after lunch um Spider goes, you know, I'm going to go to S3. Come along. I want to you can meet the people in

S3. He says, uh we haven't heard from the team. Well, they never heard from the team ever again. And uh two days later, one or two days Later, Spike Team Oregon went in with um George Sternberg and Mike Tucker. They went in with I think it was five or six in dig. They flew into the LZ that Idaho had landed on. They found they saw some tracks in the grass that where the team could have gone. They began to move, following it, trying to figure out where the team might be. And uh they moved for

short distance. They saw uh a checkpoint down on a road that was far off. I forget how far away It was, but bottom line, the NVA knew they were there. They turned around and came back and began to make contact with them. And the team went into a big bomb crater and the whole firefight started. They're in that bomb crater for a long period of time and they started throwing hand grenades in and then they started throwing in American hand grenades. And so George caught the first hand grenade and threw it out. The second or

the third hand grenade that came in. Mike threw one out, but the next one went down further and he couldn't get it in time. And when it went off, it exploded. It literally blew his jungle boots off. put his plus shrapnel and the medic on the team was uh severely injured and he was paralyzed from the waist down from the impact of the grenade. So there's firefights going on. Uh they do tack air. They finally bring in the first King. That's the code name for the South Vietnamese H34s. First King B comes in. They get

the wounded and the medic get them and put them into the helicopter. They take off. The second helicopter comes in. And so it's just down to George and a couple of people and they're right in the middle of the firefight. They're going back and forth with each other and again tack air is being used. Helicopter comes in. George gets to the helicopter and one of the Guys have been wounded. So he puts the wounded guy in. As he turns around he sees an envo. George is left-handed. He turns around and this guy shot George with

his AK. And George turned around and killed him. But before he did, there's another NVA popped up. He goes to the NVA. Then he shot him. Damn. Now, he never knew this cuz it happened so fast, but Spider Park saw him do it cuz Spider was in the third helicopter. Was it what we called the Chase Medic? Because whenever the first one or two helicopters are designed for the team, the chase helicopters there in case the other one gets shot down or if you need a medic and so um Spider was there on the chase

ship, saw George do that, but they got pulled out and they were several months recuperating from those from those wounds and things and we never heard from Idaho again. So, uh, with our team very, we were just, again, divine intervention in my opinion. We Had Spider Parks who had been on Idaho. He had just been promoted to a brand new team. He's going to be the one zero of another recon team. He had been promoted. Glenn Lane signed off on it, recommended he get his own recon team cuz Spider was just really sharp. and uh

Heep the interpreter who spoke four or five languages. He used to improve my English once I got to know him. And then S who was the Vietnamese team leader, the Counterpart to the team leader, the American Green Beret. Uh Heep was sick, didn't go. S was not his rotation. They rotated cuz they had a 12 10 or 12 South Vietnamese on the team. So when you ran a mission, we' only take four or six indig with you, indigenous person that we just said indig. And on this case, S missed. So with Spider, he got Don

Wal who had some experience in country. We built the Team. Spider was the one zero team leader. Don was the one assistant team leader. I was brought on as the one two, the radio operator. And uh we rebuilt the team. Sal and Heep went out. They hired four three or four new guys. Three of them were 15 years old. 15 years old. 15 years old. Son Ciao and Cal were hired up, brought them in and then Spider put us through the whole training Process and he and S worked together and um every day we did

everything from the ground up. Uh everything from just basic patrols. go out go outside the base and then go down through the village and they had trails and things down there and we would go down do contingency drills, work through live fire. Then we go up to the range for live fire. Do the same thing with the contingency drills. Repelling off the tower and then just Classes on basic first aid stuff and then repelling from helicopters getting pulled down on strings because one of the innovations that SOG made was um this whole extraction by ropes

and uh so that was all part of the training. even trained our team so that a helicopter would come in if we would we would be pretending that we're in a firefight helicopter would come in and with the H34s when the indig would get in the Helicopter first one would go to the window on the left side and another would go to the window behind the door so that would give us increased firepower on both sides and then everybody else would get in the helicopter and then you every kind of training you could think of.

And we just went down to the range, put thousands and thousands of rounds down range. And uh that was part of the training up Idaho, ST Idaho, FU by FOB1. And um you know, Johnny Mack was the he had the first mission. He went out and um they had a team. They inserted an elephant grass and they had a lieutenant who was a team leader and he jumped out of the helicopter before his wheels cuz elephant grass can be anywhere from like 8 to 12 13 ft tall and Spider told us when you're in elephant

grass wait till you see the ground. Do not jump. You can't see the Ground cuz you might hurt yourself. Well, this young lieutenant didn't listen to Spider jumped out and broke his ankle. So they were compromised and um because Mac was new on the team, they decided to pull the whole team out. Well, they came back, they made contact before they came in uh with the helicopter to pick him up and uh Matt came back cuz holy [ __ ] Joe, you should have seen this firefight. Said these these NVA are serious out Here. And

uh when he came back, put the lieutenant and then uh on a 4th of July, John was working with his web gear and he cut through the web gear and it hit a bed post. It ricocheted up and came back, cut him through the lower lower through the eye and through his up here on his lid. And uh it was like he came out and the medic said, "We got to take you down to the Marines and they took him to the to the closest medical facility." And uh they Passed him up a little bit.

They said, "We're going to we'll let us sit overnight because we got a Fourth of July party going on tonight." And uh during that night, the infection set in and uh they took John back and we never saw John again until we got back in the States. He was medevaced. It was like my best buddy went down. Damn. Right. Just like this on a on a on an accident. So so trivial, horrible. Let's talk about your very first mission. So Well, the first three are kind of boring really. They were very successful. Minimal gunfire. Um

what was the mission? They were to insert air force sensors. And by August, September, we had the monsoons that were going on. So when the weather would break, we try to run as many missions. So, we had trained up the Air Force had a um threepart sensor. They had a central unit with an antenna on it and then it had a coaxial cable that ran for several feet and then each unit everything had to be buried with only the antennas behind vegetation. And so the first one we put in was in the Ashaw Valley, which

was at that time we had three Green Beret camps in the Ashaw Valley that were further south of where we went into this trail. And each a camp had been overrun Just the NVA said this is our territory. They ran those a camps out. And there's a great book out that's called um Assau Valley and it just talks about that camp. So each of those three camps are overrun and pushed out. We knew that history. We go in um Spider was the one zero. We took a an E8 with us from S3 who was familiar

with the equipment and we had another one zero very experienced Les Daniels from Spike Team Rhode Island. And so because Don and I were new, the plan was we would go in and Don would take some people to the north end and I would take a couple guys to the south end of where they were operating and they would all in install those those monitoring devices. So we were on the ground few hours and this was the ashaw and we knew the ashaw by that time. We had heard about it and it had this huge

punchy piss. There had been a lot of rain. The Monsoons had washed away some of the cover for these puny pits. Some were as big for animals, but there were smaller ones. And as we were coming back, uh Don and I were walking past one of those puny pits and he and he slipped and started to fall into the punge pit. And I grabbed him. I said, "Get back here. I'm not ready to be the one one yet. I'm just the radio operator here." We came back. We got pulled out. We were working the first

cab did the insertions and the Extraction on that and uh they thought we we were going to get hit hard being in the valley. Nothing happened and we had tack air stacked up. So when we left the 51 caliber opened up on the east side of the ashaw well they hit that thing with nay palm. They hit him with a gun. They wiped that 51 caliber out several times but we didn't get shot at. And then September we did the same thing. We had another mission. Um, we inserted the same device, but this time It

was just our team, Spider, Don, and I. We went up. What was the device doing? It was monitoring anything on traffic. Anything that went by, they could tell from the vibrations what it was, whether it was people, animals, or trucks or tanks. And so they would record and then the Air Force would come by and electronically pick up the intel from that central command box we put in. Gotcha. That's what we're told. Now I'm, you know, I'm just like the low man on the totem pole here. So my job was you're going to be security.

You're going to go here. You see bad guys, kill them. And if we need help, you'll be on the radio. Call Tac Air. That was my job. So I don't anything beyond the specifics and then the second one uh the Don and Spider did the assertion with SA and the HEP they did the Assertion but I was still overseeing possible attack air if we needed it and security for one of the perimeters but it was in it was right next to uh the Kesan Marine Corps base there was one of the main roads that went

past that went past Kesan. What were you carrying for weapons? What was your load out? Oh, um I had a CAR15 which was a modified M16. Had a shorter barrel and then it had the first Classable stock and uh I loved it. It was a great weapon and that's what I carried the whole time. So in the beginning I was only carrying maybe 500 rounds plus hand grenades. And by by August we had developed saw off M79s. We cut the handle down as much as we could, just so you had enough to hold it. And

then we cut the barrel back as close as we could to the end where the wood comes out of the platform that holds the bar, the metal barrel. Cut it Right to that. And um then we trained up on that because it was just extra firepower. So we always carry 10 to 12 rounds for that. 10 to 12 hand grenades, smoke grenades. Uh we had both large and small smoke grenades and then in the beginning I said like around 500 rounds and then Spider and Don and other teams like I talked to John Walton who

had been on u another team and they had a couple of missions where they barely got out alive And they ran out of bullets and so I then carried over 600 rounds and we had only 20 round magazine, no 30 round magazine like today. So, you had 20 round magazine, but only 18 cuz we were told that if you had too many, the spring would not work. It may not feed them correctly. So, we had um the old um bar web gear had nice shoulder pads, had pouches, the pouches could hold three or four magazines,

then one on top, and then we had electric tape on them. And So that's what we trained in just how to get those things out, swap them out as fast as fast as you could. And um what about a secondary sec say again secondary pistol? No, we had the sawduff M79. We always carried um either double odd buck or fleshes because um we didn't I didn't carry a pistol um because most of the times we were so Efficient at the quick magazine change that if we were caught in a situation where they charged us and

we didn't have a magazine we still had the fleshets and that double odd buck with a M40 with the M79 that was just devastating stuff and then later some of our guys messed around. They began putting fleshetses in them. What is a fleshet? Like a small dart. And so when they would come out be just Like a small pair of these darts and just kill anything in it range within and again it's close like a super big shotgun you know blade. Yep. They developed some of those. Now again I'm told this what I personally had.

We always had a double odd buck and Doug and Lynn Black, couple of these other they were all the weapons guys. They were always tinkering with these things to improve them and they had Those flash sets that they personally designed. They would carry a couple cuz if he needed it that first round would slow down anything coming at you. Knife. I mean, oh, I'm sorry. We had a SOG knife specially designed. We had our own supply system. SISO was based out of Okinawa. And uh early on they were set up so any supplies that went

to fifth vessel forces group and SOG sometimes things would go to the agency uh for Weapons that they needed them. And uh they developed what was called a SOG knife. And uh when I went through my end processing with S4, got the web gear and everything, I got my SOG knife. And so we always carried that right on the web gear on the on the shoulder straps. Had the SOG knife right there upside down. So if you pulled it out, it's ready to go. Whereas if you're in the jungle, sometimes reaching out might be a

little bit too difficult. But down here, you Can pull it out quickly. So that's where the SOG knife would go, car 15, magazine pouches, hand grenades. We always had to take a mask, a gas mask with us. And uh then we had um after the second insertion of the uh Air Force sensors, we had a mission in the Ashaw Valley, but it was on the east side of the Ashaw. And Spider Parks at that time said, "We're just going to do a practice mission. Our team's going to go in. Another recon team is going to

go in. We're going to do parallel movements. And if we make enemy contact, we're going to have tack air stacked up. And we just want our team to get used to a new team. So, uh, we went out, made no contact. But the second night we were on the ground, we were in an area heavily infested with mosquitoes. And in the morning, cuz I I had a night watch up till about midnight or 1:00, but I fell asleep. When I woke up in the Morning, mosquitoes had bitten my face so much I could barely open

my eyes. I poured water on them and everything else just to get my f like all puff face from those damn mosquitoes. I've never seen anything like it. But the other team was so good they ambushed a path that Lao ambush that was set up for them. The path that Lao was the le Oceanian version of the Vietkong, but they weren't as good as the Vietkong. And uh we didn't come into Contact with them too often. But this this other team ambushed them. So we got pulled out and uh Spider got promoted to CVY rider

and a CVY was our was our Ford air controller. And Cubby was the code name for ourfax. So was an Air Force O2 at that time. A Cessna pushpull engine in the front, engine in the back. And a spider would be the cubby rider. And the way that was designed was he always had a cubby rider who had experience on the Ground so that when a team made enemy contact, the cubby rider could fill in the pilot as well as the team on the ground and talk to them through experience. And so um one of

our learn greatest learning centers for us was in the clubhouse. All the guys that would come back from a mission, they would talk to us. And there's a few senior NCOs like Spider Parks, Pat Watkins, John McGovern, they would all answer any questions we had. And when a recon team would come back from a mission, we would definitely talk to them if they would talk to us. And that's how I got to know John Walton. John was um an SF medic and he was just an outstanding guy. And we met. It's one of those deals

where what does your dad do? Well, well, my dad's a milkman back in Trenton, New Jersey. What does your dad do? He's got a five and dime store. He's running with his brother up in Bentonville, Arkansas. So, what the hell's Bentonville? We teased him more and more more about Bentonville than than we should have, but John was a good sport about it. So, I got to know John and he had run a mission where they were TDY down in Cambodia. They got put into a target that's supposed to be a two-day mission, but it stressed

out to five. They ran out of water, ran out of food, and he came back. They were in a really nasty jungle, some kind of gross, but his arms Came back all cut up. His pants and everything were torn to shreds from the thorns and stuff. And they made contact. And what I remember most was John talked about it. He talked about every little thing. And that's when we began to talk. We bonded our friendship all we played poker together a lot. John was a phenomenal poker player. And uh so that relationship grew with him

and other guys. Whenever a team came back after a mission, if they would talk about it, We'd talk about to see if we could learn anything off of it. So I went through those three missions. Why wouldn't they talk about it? Well, some guys were just uh we had one team that came in. They had a inexperienced radio operator that called in a a gun run on his own team, killed two, wounded a couple others. And uh sometimes things like that you just don't want to talk about. Gotcha. So we had August the 3rd, 1968,

John Walton's team, which was Spike Team Louisiana. They were into a target on the ground a couple hours. they got overrun by the NVA and uh in between times there was one time where John was sitting there and to his left was an indigenous soldier, one of the South Vietnamese. John was left-handed, so his car 15 was pointed this direction and he heard a noise. He looked over his shoulder and It was an NVA that popped up out of the jungle with a big chest shower grin on his face. He stood up with his AK

and John saw him. He's coming around. This guy opened fire with his AK. Put four rounds into the South Vietnamese and was shooting at John, but John killed him, blew him back in into the jungle. So John began to do first aid, patch up the South Vietnamese. This thing went on. They got overrun a second time. And on the last time they they were Getting overrun, the team leader called in a gun run on the on the team itself. and to the A1 Sky Raider making the A made a 20 mic mic 20 mm gun

run across the team. The rounds killed one of the South Vietnamese team members and a second with Tom was Tom Cunningham who was the radio operator. He came into camp on Sunday or Monday. This was Saturday, August the 3rd 68. And the gun run 120 mic mic round hit his radio. This his prick 25 PRC 25 FM radio. The Shrapnel exploded wounding the team leader. The second round hit his leg and took off his leg and he was flying through the air. He had an out-of body experience seeing himself flying through the air with his

leg dangling by sinu and he landed. He called his name out and then he returned to his body and within seconds John was there began to patch him up. He passed up the team leader who had been severely wounded also and um they called in air strikes. First helicopter comes in. Captain Tin, who was the same captain that we talked about a little earlier. Um Tank comes in, picks up Pete Bogs, Tom Cunningham, and the South Vietnamese who's wounded. The team member who was dead, they left him at the LZ. Because it's August, they're in

high Le Ocean Mountains. He can only take three, so he took off. Second King B came in and got shot out. The third King B attempted to come in and got shot out. Well, Captain Tin Heard this. He turned around and came back and landed and picked up John who was on the ground with the South Vietnamese and he could see the NVA coming up there. They're going shooting in with their M79 car 15s and John told the uh uh cubby rider, "If you don't get us now, we're dead." Captain 10 comes in. Now, the

H34 is too heavy to take off. He had the struts on the side of the wheels. He lifted it up, Gets running downhill all while under enemy fire. Had enough lift just to get over the treetops, but not enough transitional lift to leave. He dips down into the valley. Did two or three laps in the valley, get up speed all while under enemy fire, then takes off and comes back to the base. They went right to the um to the medical center. And even there when they go into this to the medical center, John goes

in, they roll in. Pete Bogs was the team leader. They Roll Tom in and they put the third stretcher. John puts the indigo on the stretcher. They're going in. They go, "No, no, no. We don't do South Vietnamese here." Because it was an American facility. John turned his car 15 and said, "You will do it or you'll die right here. So they let him in. So they heard about this exchange and they they went to give Tom uh an intervenous cuz he lost so much blood And uh because of all the commotion with John they

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small footnote, he's left-handed. He's dealing poker that night. So, we're put he's dealing the cards. I go, "Hey, John, what's this thing across the top of your wrist?" Well, I hadn't seen that. Says, "It must have been from that NVA that that shot my my teammate there." So when he was Pulling his gun up, his car 15, the round went across and took three layers of skin off. Wow. Yeah. You talk about divine intervention. So we get to October. Um Spider Parks is flying CVY. Don Walman is now the team leader. I'm the assistant team

leader. And we had Jim Davidson that came on the team. We were assigned a mission for October 6th. And For October 5th, just a quick footnote because this is one of our most historic SOG missions. We had a nine-man recon team that went into the Ashaw Valley and they ran into 10,000 NBA and we lost three men that day and the NBA lost 90% casualties that day. They had a 10,000man NBA division. The reason why we know that Len Black who was on the team had had a tour duty previous with the 173rd. He took

over the team because the team Leader, the point man were killed. The team leader was inexperienced. He walked the team into an L-shaped ambush with 50 men. One of the men up there was a colonel, an NVA colonel. Well, that colonel called Lynn Black 20ome years later. today. Um, the government had gone back to try to find the team leader body and Lynn had worked with the government, gave Matt coordinates, things like this. Well, Lynn gets a phone call and this Guy's a he was a colonel in ' 68, but now he's a big general

up in North Vietnam. He goes, he says, um, I was the commander that ambushed your team that day. So, they talked back and forth, and then at the end of it, Lyn goes, we had a bad day. We lost three men. So we know this from the colonel. He of course then a general. He says, "We had a bad day, too. Between your recon team, tack air helicopter gunships, you inflicted 90% casualties on our 10,000man division." Wow. Wow. Now that's October 5th. At during the a during the right around noon time, they talked about putting

a bright light in. And a bright light would be a team that would go in to get down pilots or in a case like this where a team is under heavy contact or they got wounded, the bright light would go in to help relieve them and help get them out. So, we were given bright light duty for that. But Lin Black said, "No, we got too much here. There's too much anti-aircraft fire. We don't want to risk bringing another helicopter in." So, we canled the bright light. Um the next day we launched for the target

and that is the photograph on the front of across the fence where we took pictures and we never did it again because if you look closely at the picture he and S are really unhappy. They didn't want to take pictures. They were superstitious. But Six-man team we got up early launched into a target Echo 4. Um, we had two kingies for the insertion. So, Don was the team lead. He jumped out first and we were the helicopter came in with the right wheel and the right door facing a bomb crater and there was elephant grass

on the bomb crater and the helicopter because of the time of day was warm. It was kind of moving up and down. It couldn't come to a complete hover or stable hover because the other Wheel was dangling off the side. So Don jumped out and disappeared and the helicopter moved over. I waited a little bit and I thought it was close to the to the to the bomb crater. So I jumped out, missed the bomb crater cuz I was carrying so much weight. I rolled down the hill and then Don had rolled down the hill

and then uh Fuk, who was our point man, he jumped out and landed on the uh bomb crater. So the second helicopter came in. All the guys got Out, but Don and I had to crawl back up the hill, up that bomb crater to just get get to the damn team. And by the time we got up there, I was sweaty. I was ready to go back. I was ready to get back to I was tired. But we moved for a couple of hours. And once we moved, we in triple canopy, we moved for 10

minutes, stopped for 10 minutes just to listen because the jungle had its own own vibration of life. And when we stopped moving, eventually it would come Back and you hear the birds, the crickets, the insects, and all this kind of stuff. And the thought was, if you stop for 10 minutes and that doesn't come back, you've got company. How do you learn that? Just from our little people. That's part of our training. We talked about it all the time. So, we moved 10 10 and 10 through the jungle. And um about we've been in maybe

two 2 and 1/2 hours and All of a sudden there is this ruckus coming towards us in the jungle and it just sounds like what the hell is it the NBA? So we hear the noise. Folks the point man pulls over. Don gets behind him. I'm behind and we got the car 15s out getting ready to pull the pins off the hand grenade. You know, you know how the pins go through, get it ready so you can pull it quickly. And we get online, here they come. We got overrun by monkeys. By monkeys. Monkeys. What

do you call a flock of monkeys? A herd of monkeys. This call for this purp. It had to be combi monkeys, but they overran. We're sitting there going, "Oh, Jesus." So, we put the pins back in and get everything back, get back online. How many monkeys were there? A lot. We didn't take time to count. We were just so happy to see monkeys and Not NVA soldiers charging at us with AKs. So we moved maybe another hour or so, got hit by bees. Foot got stung. Don got stung really bad. So we had to stop

putting mud on the on the bee wounds. And we moved for the rest of the day. By around about 4:00 or so, we began to hear trackers shooting. and the NBA when they would knew a team was in the area, they would have code back and forth with weapons. Of course, they had radios of Some sort, I assume. And we heard them begin to shoot. Sometimes we could never quite tell if they're trying to direct us into a way to go, but our mission was initially a uh area recon just to find out what was

going on. But they told us that there was an American P camp that was in that target box. So Don was like, "That's my priority mission. If we can get to that American P camp, that is what we have to go for." So in our minds, that's what we're going towards. We move up until last light. We get in and set up an RN, a rest overnight slot. And right before right before final dusk, at the last 5 or 10 minutes, there's a gunshot from one of those trackers who had come within 10 yards of

us. And that was jarring. They fired that shot off to have them that close. So we set up the RO. We put out claymore mines at night. And of course with the uh during the night we would take turns Rotating and uh my tour duty was around 1:00. So within 10 yards somebody shoots. Yeah. But again the jungle so thick you couldn't see. I mean with triple canopy like I could see Don when he's in front of me but I couldn't see the point man who Don could see and the person behind me could see

me but and that was Hep the interpreter. and he couldn't see Dawn. That's how thick that vegetation is when you're Moving. That's about the width of this room. Yeah, absolutely. We have our six men in this in this area and not able to see each other. Wow. Sure. So, so you guys only moved during the daytime? Oh, yeah. We had We would have We would have killed for some of your nogs. And uh so we set up the RO. I was up at 1:00 and I heard something move. I could have sworn it moved and

it finally got in front of one of our claymores. I couldn't tell it was a tiger or if it was that that SK the um the tracker. I wasn't sure. I told Don, I said, "Look, I've been listening to this thing. It's in front of the claymore." And of course, what we had been told was the NVA, if they had a chance, they would Get a claymore and turn it around. So if you fired it off, it would come back and you get the whole blast of the ball bearings on the claymore mine. So I

told they were that good. Oh yeah, they had done. We had teams that they had done that to. So I told Don, I said, I think I got an NBA in front of the claymore. There's something out there. I Want to blow it. And he said no. I said I thought he said go. So I clacked that. get that old MK57 and clack that claymore. It goes off. It was quiet for the rest of the night, but Don was pissed. S was really pissed with me for firing that thing off. So, first light we moved

out. We moved u again 10 and 10 throughout the day. around about 12:30, 1:00, we had to we were trying to get up this one mountain to go down and the and the jungle was so Rugged with the rock formation, everything and the growth. There's like a little goat trail that kind of started down here, went up and so we got out in the goat trail. How could you guys I mean, how do you navigate and [ __ ] that thick? Our little people were so good. Don was good with a compass and we just,

you know, S and [ __ ] [ __ ] was our point man for that mission and then S had trained him up. So we told him where we're going And they knew they worked it. Of course on that mission Don was doing all the coordination between the point man and talking to he for anything further. So looking looking for a P camp. Yeah. Within a target square. How big is a target square? 6x6 box. Six click. Six click. six click by six click. So how would you guys how would you look for what was

the method to find a PO? In this case, we we had to we knew we had to move away from the LZ and go to a general area that the intel reports were approximate where it was. So we were in route to that. We had been in the jungle moving. It got so rough and we found this little goat trail. So, normally we just stayed away from trails, but on this day we went out and by now I was the fifth man in the formation. S was the tail gunner, I'm fifth man, he and then

uh Don and then Faulk running point And and Robinson, our sixth man was uh between us and uh so we're going up this trail maybe for must been like a half hour or so. We really done some extensive climb. It's pretty steep. At one point when you get near the top and it start to turn, S is back there says he and I. He goes, he makes this really loud hissing sound. I turn around and he's looking backwards and he's pointing down the hill where we had come. There were two NVA, tall NVAs With pith

helmets, AK-47s at port arms stand there at black and they look tall. They may have even been Chinese. So I told S I'm going to get the 779 and put around on those [ __ ] He said, "No, no, tell Walan." So I told Don at that point he took us straight up the hill, got to the top of a little null. We got up there about 2:00 or so. We set up a defensive perimeter up there. He says, "Get on get on the line. Call Tac Air. We're going to be in a Prairie Fire

emergency." So, I get on the radio, make a couple calls. No response. And we were on the perimeter. We had a little break. I get a can of apricots out. I could use a break. So, I'm opening my apricots. Folk, he s opened fire. And then Davidson opened fire and it's like doom mammy and up the hill we're coming NVA and S had heard them first and blew them Back down the mountain. Well I spilled my apricot nectar put the can down get into the firefight and the firefight went on. They kept coming back at

us time after time up that up that little mountain up the hill. But the hill was small enough that there could only be so many people and some guys came up from the side and some came up from the left side. But the vegetation was rough where on top of that hill s could tell when they were coming and foot could hear Them. And this went on now I'm on the radio. We have a prairie fire emergency. So when a team is on the ground and when we're in Laos, not in Cambodia, but in Laos,

if you caught a prairie fire emergency, any and all attack air that was within any distance would be diverted from their targets to come cover us. And of course, that would include the A1 Sky Raiders, the uh the old Korean War planes, but those are the ones we love The best. They could stay on station the longest with the most orders. They could carry the same amount of weight that a B17 carried in World War II. So, but this was a single engine, huge engine. And most of the most of them were single pilots. The

A1E was a two-face with a pilot and a co-pilot, but they didn't use those too much for SOG missions because they were just so they just needed much orders as we could get. And uh nobody answered the radio. This Firefight went on for well over two hours. Finally, um I forget, we made contact with somebody. It may have been a a Phantom jet. He gets a hold of Spider. Spider Parks comes over. Um we were close to this uh the hill there was a little bit more open area. I was able to get the mirror

flash it in so spider could locate exactly where we were. And then within a short while we attack air. And um how close were these guys getting? Well, if we were like here, the jungle would be that wall and they would be coming out of that wall. Holy [ __ ] So we're talking Yeah. five, six yards at the most. And again, a lot of it's so weird cuz the jungle was so thick cuz they could see what they're coming towards us. if they're coming up the hill, they would be firing at us and then

we would see The the gunfire or their or their feet or something from their bodies first. We would never even see their face of them, but they kept coming, you know. And at one point, and I forget if it was before or after we reached Spider for the Tack Air, but Don Wilin came over to me cuz there sometimes there would be like a little break and he goes, "Look at what they're doing." I couldn't tell. He says, "No, look." He says, "You see the bodies?" They started Stacking up the dead bodies at the top

of that hill cuz they wanted to get the bodies stacked up so he could climb up on the bodies so he could shoot down at us. So they were using the bodies as a barricade. Yeah. And to climb up on it cuz they knew that we had the advantage on the height and they wanted to get the dead bodies so they could shoot down at us. They stacked them up. We stacked them up. You stacked them up. Well, we killed them. Then they stacked the bodies. And it was like that stuck with me because at

the NVA after you kill them and they put their dead buddies there to climb up to kill us, that tells you about the dedication of these guys. So at some point I'm firing into the into next batch of of NVA coming at us and [ __ ] opened fire and I thought he was shooting over my Shoulder. So my ear was shattered. I just couldn't hear for [ __ ] And um I didn't say anything because we were just so busy fighting. Um so the next day when we debrief in the in the in the

hooch, we all came back after mission. We'd always talk about it with the entire team with Spider and the He at the end of I turned the [ __ ] I said, "Fuck, why were you shooting over My shoulder?" He goes, "Dumbass." There were three NVA that were crawling up the hill. They were aiming at you. I killed them before they killed you. And so I was so focused here and thank God folks saw them there. And so uh we went on uh that was the first time. How did that I mean how did that

end? But we finally had tack air and the first run we had was an A1 A1 Skyraider, a Napon run specific. I'll never forget It. And um Spider got low on fuel. He connected me with the Skyraider pilot. So he knew where we were. We popped spoke smoke. He came in and said, "We're going to do a napon run." And I told him, "Bring as close as you can." because they kept coming at us. And he and he says, "Now y'all put your head down. It's crispy critter time." He came in with that napon run.

It's the first time I ever smelled human flesh Burn. He was that close. Just takes your air away. Came back with gun runs. They did CBU runs, cluster bomb units, and then the uh the judge and the executioner showed up and they were gunships attached to from the American division, the 176 and the musketss and they had boarded with us at FOB1. So we knew them by name and they did amazing gun runs on all three sides because they're coming at us from the front and on the sides. And uh at one point um they

were crawling up the hill. I was on the radio with Spider. I could you could just see this guy crawling up the hill. So I'm talking to Spider quietly and then the guy stuck his head up and I just fired one round. But I forgot to to let go of the radio and the shot hurt his ears. But he could tell that we had been in this contact for so long. So finally he sees an LZ that we couldn't tell but it was Elephant grass. And the elephant grass is 8 to 12 feet tall and

it was right behind us where we had no or only minimal enemy contact. He says you just go past that. There's the elephant grass and it was maybe again 10 or 12 yards at the most. But it was that thick stuff. So we go, we're pushing through it, but it's so hard to get through it. I fell down, then Walen walked across my back. All the guys walk on my back. Walen fell down. We stood at His back. Meanwhile, I'm directing gun runs with the helicopter and a Kingby that came in on that coin that

we showed you earlier. Captain Tin from the South Vietnamese Air Force, the 219 squadron came in and hovered in that elephant grass because he couldn't land. There were small trees there. Had he landed, the blades would have just destroyed the helicopter. But he hovered for 10 minutes. So we struggled to get through this elephant grass in between shooting At the NVA directing gun runs. And we finally get to the KingB. And at one point, the gun runs came by so close. It was the first time I had shell casings go down the back of my

neck from the judge and the executioner. And uh but I was like, "Oh shit." But that's like, "That's cool. Thank you." You know, cuz they were that close shooting the NVA coming at us. And Captain Tin hung up there. We Don and I threw all the guys in. Don grabbed my Shirt and his hand slipped. And by now my adrenaline's pumping. I grabbed him and threw him up all 220 pounds up into oop up into the Kingbe and then he reached down and grabbed me, pulled me in and we left. Now I'm down on my

last magazine, last hand grenade. And as we pulled out, it's almost almost dark. And it was just the weirdest thing cuz we're as we're leaving you to look back at the jungle. This rich dark green emerald green. Here's all these little Sparkling lights from AK-47s and green tracers coming up at our KingB. So for me, that's my first major firefight. Holy [ __ ] And only by the grace of the Lord did we get out of there. And thanks to Captain Tin, this is another significant moment for me. We're in the helicopter now. We lift

up. We're finally past all that. We fired off our last bullets. The last grenade. We're flying back. It's beautiful Sunset. Most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in my life because we're like alive, you know. And so I look over at S and S goes, he gave me a nod. When Spider introduced me to Spike Team Idaho, S turned the hemp. He goes, "He's too tall. His feet are too big, and he looks stupid." [Laughter] But on that day, October 7th, 1968, He gave me that nod. It's like, you done good. And to me, I'll never

forget that moment cuz by that point, we were on a team. We're tight. Saved us on the ground. I did all the air strikes. Get back to Fubai. Captain Tin, you saved our ass. Come on, let me buy you a drink. No, my wife is holding dinner for me at home. I want to see my children. So two days later he comes back. He goes, "You know, we had 48 bullet holes In that helicopter." Well, needless to say, whenever the King pilots came, they never purchased any drinks. Not in our club. And so, Captain Tin

saved John Walton on August 3rd. That was our day. Wow. He came back. key and those guys later on several missions they just under enemy fire and there was at least that day there's at least one other day where we had been in a firefight well hold on So you guys come back yeah there's a floor show on a what a floor show there was some kind of a floor show like an Australian floor show in the club normally when team would come back after a firefight like what we had been through there would be

guys out there with beard there'd be a truck and everything and uh but this night there was just one guy with a truck, no beer and we took us back and because I was The radio operator, Don went in to to report to S3 or to S2, give them the intel briefing, I got the team, gave them the food and stuff and there was a floor show so nobody came out and so I go into into the club there's John Walton's John's there and we're talking back and forth. for and so he John goes, "Hey,

did you kill anybody today?" Yeah. So, you know, for the first time I can tell you I killed a man. Don't feel good about it, but you know that's war cuz that guy stuck his head up and I hit him and uh it sticks with you. You know, Spider Parks came over and said, "You know, you had that firefight. you hurt my ear. He said, "But you did the right thing." Cuz if you didn't kill him, think about what he could have done to the team. So that was my uh my welcome. You know, that's

the real war right there, man. And they were serious. And we never forgot that moment of them stacking up the bodies of their comrades so they could kill us. And we're just lucky to get out of here. Captain Tin. He's still alive today out there in down in Carl'sbad, Kal, California. He's down there with his son. Every once in a while, we talk to him to try to give a little call, stay in touch. So, when that guy stuck his head up, what went through your head that exact moment? Oh, he's a bad guy. He's

got to go. Didn't even know. No, not none of this thinking about it. Um, you know, there are other times we were in firefights. I can remember my third grade teacher, Sunday school teacher, Myrtle Riker. She said, "Thou shalt not kill." I heard her voice more than once saying, "Thou shalt not kill." But I Said, "Sorry, Myrtle." You know, this is uh us or them. We're at war right now. I'm sure the Lord understands that. Besides, we're killing communists. my favorite kind of communist is dead. And uh so I really didn't think about it. Now

I talked about it with John. It really hit home. And then Spider afterwards came by and talked to me and says, "Remember in the future, don't you let that radio go when you're shooting Cuz you heard our ears up there in the plane." And then we had the team meeting the next day when [ __ ] told me that. and um learned lessons learned what we could do better and then uh with that Don got promoted to a cubby rider. How many enemy combatants do you guys think he killed that day? I have no idea.

Um because of the limited frontage and the fact that ones that came up from the Sides, I know [ __ ] had killed some more that came up and from the ones in front. I mean to have enough to stack up bodies that were as I looked at it looked like they had to be at least a foot off the ground maybe more from the dead bodies that they're stacking and they were stacking them down the hill. So they wanted to get up on that stack could shoot at us. So we never counted and the

majority of them were just in the front of that Jungle edge and into the jungle that went right down the hill cuz they had to get up that hill to get to us. So probably two, three bodies high. Yeah. Yeah. So we don't we never knew how many or how many were wounded. We had cases other teams when they would kill the NVA and they'd go over the area and there'd be no bodies, but you see the blood trails where the NVA would pull their dead out. They were hardcore. And by 1968, the NVA had

25,000 troops that were in Laos at least. And they were they had developed um hunter killer SOG teams. These teams were designed to hunt our SOG teams and make contact. And they would be sappers. They only wore a loin cloth, maybe some sandals, and they would carry an AK and a magazine. And they would come in or a hand Grenade. And they would come in just to kill the Americans, to leave the indig alive, just for scops. And the sappers uh in August 23rd of ' 68, the sappers had hit our base camp at Daang.

and they had prepared for it for over a year and they killed 16 green berets in one day in uh FOB4 and uh that was the most serious casualties in SF special forces history was that day at Daang and uh I wasn't there for that I was up at FOB one heard about it and we sent down a relief force that went down and relieved the camp and uh helped them clean it up get the dead bodies and stuff but I missed thought that cuz we were getting ready for our our insertion the next day

on the um sensors. We were doing mission prep on that with the team. How quick after that first firefight was the next mission? Well, Don got promoted And a couple days after the mission, Jim came up to me and Jim was uh he was outstanding on that day on that hill. He was there rock solid. He said, "Till," he says, "I spent a year with the 173rd in combat. I ain't never seen no [ __ ] like this. Never. I can't do it, brother. I don't want you to feel like I'm letting you down." Said,

"No, no, no." So, I'm I'm glad you told me cuz that day you were there with me, our team, And you were part of us against them. And uh you can always tell your grandchildren that you and me and Don the team, we stood up against the communists and you were an outstanding soldier. I'll be forever in your debt for that. And so, you just tell me what you want to do and thank you for being honest. So I went to the sergeant major. We got him a new assignment and then he left a couple

weeks later but he never said Goodbye and uh but he did well that day and it was not an issue. So then I had to get a new assistant team member and uh couple days later Bubba Shore and the Frenchman Don Doug the Frenchman Lerno arrived at FOB1 and these new guys just gone through training group. They came up to the base and um John McGovern somehow he had heard about the Frenchman and he liked the Frenchman. So he told the Frenchman, "We got to get you on Spike Team Virginia." And so Doug went to

Spike Team Virginia and we heard about John Bubbasure. And so, uh, we recruited Johnny, came over, trained him up, and, uh, by the end of the month, we ran a couple of general missions. And then November, we just had balls to the walls. And, um, we got several several different missions out of there that were uh, just amazing. And, uh, was just Bub and I. And by that time, I so respected the Vietnamese on our team. I didn't want a third American cuz our little people were so good in the jungle. They always ran point.

We usually had them on the tail gunner position. And uh so that's where we started up. How did you feel when you got the nod? I carried that too with me today. The sound gave me that nod. I was just like, "Oh my god." I was officially not of approval. It took a while, you know, from From June or the end of May there uh till October the 7th, 1968 AD. But it was well worth the wait and we never and we we always got along, but that was the official, okay, you're part of the

team, you done good. And we all knew about S because he he and he by 68 they've had been running for over two and a half years missions across defense. Wow. Oh yeah, I know. Two on had been running for a couple years. He was our Grenadier. He could put a 40 mm grenade up a Nat's ass at 500 yards. I mean, he was so good with that thing. Just phenomenal firepower and good people. So Bub and I, we had a in early November, not one of my finer moments, but we had trouble finding LZ's.

So somebody came up with the bright idea of let's get a daisy cutter, a two look For a swath of jungle where there's no trails, no roads visible from the air. We'll drop a daisy cutter in it. They'll knock down all the trees and then the team can land or repel in. They get on the ground and then do an area recon right there. Okay. So, that's us. So, um the first day I forget what the aircraft was that carried the 2,000 pounder, but it had a daisy cutter. So, I'm the team leader. I'm on

the uh kingbe has two steps into The kingbe and uh I'm stepping out and the the bomb goes off. We can see the bomb and the king bee's falling in right behind it. You know, the dust is settling and the kingbe couldn't land. So he hovered. I repelled down halfway down the rope. I could hear somebody yell across that area where the again there's still dust in the air, but nobody's shooting at me. So, I'm going down the rope and I hear another Voice. So, there's one up to where I'm facing and one back here

in the area where we just blew up a bomb. So, I land and I give Henry King, who was a strap hanger with us that day, I gave him the sign, "No, the mission's canceled." I get on the radio. I tell CVY, "We're compromised. There's people here." Cuz when you're compromised, why go on with the mission? Our job is to go in, snoop, and poop. So, the mission is canceled. I Unhook. The king takes off, and I'm on the ground for a while, and I can hear more people coming back and forth. And finally, I

see an NVA come down. Open fire on him. Don't have it anymore with him. But they're still they're talking back and forth. I can't tell what they're saying cuz I just grew up in Trenton. My foreign language is English, let alone Le Ocean or whatever we're speaking. So finally the Kingbe comes back. Captain Tuang is flying. Drop the Rope down. I hook in and we had a Swiss seat and it's a rope Swiss seat. You tie it in, tie it off on the side and then you have a D-ring and then the Swiss seat comes

down with a sandbag and a D-ring on it. You hook the D-ring in, you get pulled up, and then you have a D-ring on your shoulder harness that you're supposed to hook into. So, if you get shot, your body remains in the seat and on the rope. Well, as Captain Tuang begins to lift off, I gave him the sign. He lifts off. I can see the NVA again. So, I shoot another NVA soldier. They're coming coming up the rope. Somebody else is shooting at the helicopter now. So, I turn around and shoot where the gunshots

are coming from, but I can't. I don't see any people. I just see the gunshots. I turn around, fire an M79 round at them. Now, we're getting lifted up. Captain Tuong hears the gunfire. I'm not out of the jungle yet. So, he pulls me through the jungle. So, now it's like We're playing pinball, but I'm the pinball here. and we're ricocheting off the trees and I had not hooked up my D-ring yet. So, I ricochet a few times and I get bounced back and forth and the both of my arms are cut up from the

rope as we're getting as we're getting bounced around. Finally, we come out of the jungle and he lifts up further and we're going back to South Vietnam and I I tried to get the D-ring horn. I couldn't get a Hook because of the wind. you know what we're flying 90 90 miles an hour whatever the speed is we're going and uh I point up the king I go let's go down you know and uh so I can see him but he's like 150 ft away I'm down there dangling and I'm moving I'm rotating my arms

because my arms have been really cut up here and u as I went to rotate hit a packet of air or something flipped me upside And as I'm upside down now, I look up One more time. I go to king like this. My web gear and my backpack all comes back on my neck and I got my leg spread. The Swiss seed is down to my knees. [ __ ] Oh yeah. And so and I can feel this choking off. I'm trying to pull the web gear and and the backpack. It's all on my neck.

I can't get it off. It's like, ah, this is not good. So, finally, we get another air pocket and the rope goes down to my Feet and I'm hanging by my feet. The Swiss seat is on my feet. I'm choking out now and um I'm just like a New York City hooker, my legs spread there, just trying to keep that rope on my feet. And um my life flashes before my eyes right before I'm ready. I know I'm going to pass out. I've passed out once before in my life. I knew what that feeling was.

So I'm getting ready to pass out. Bing, there's the front page of the newspaper back in Trenton. I'm Really pissed because the front page of the Trenton Times has my death in South Vietnam. Ay, I died in Laos. B is below the fold. By 1968, our guys had been dying in such a common news that we didn't rate above the fold on page A1 of the Trend Times. I saw my girlfriend from kindergarten, the girl who broke my heart when she moved to California, Dolores, saw my car, a couple other things, my dad's milk truck,

and I passed out. What I didn't realize was Captain Tuang had been descending. And when I passed out, it was right over a patch of elephant grass. So I fell maybe 12, 15 ft at the most. I was unconscious. Henry King jumped out, took off my web gear, pulled the stuff off my neck, picked me up, threw me in the kingbe, and it was one of those moments where as I hit the floor, I was like, "Oh god, that hurts." But oh, I'm happy. That's happy pain. I'm Alive. And all my web gear with my

car 15, my sawolf M79 with a with a stylized holster and my SOG knife. They're all still there in Laos. But we got out, flew back, went to S4, went to S3 first, gave them a quick briefing, and um we um um had to get new gear, geared up, and the next day we were back for another mission. Damn. Oh yeah. And the other the other sidebar to that, the day before that I repelled in, they did the daisy cutter and the daisy cutter exploded. And as I was going to as the helicopter began to

descend, we had secondary explosions. They had over a dozen secondary explosions. So here we were with the best intel available at the time, figuring this is a chunk of jungle where there's nothing there. We just repel in, do an area recon. We blew up one of Ho Chi Min's cashes. Wow. And to this day, Ho Chi Min is trying to figure out how we figured that out by mistake. Damn. Just another day in SOG. Oh, yeah. Just crazy. John, let's take a quick break. Sure. Then we'll just pick up right where we left off. All

right, fair enough. I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Shawn Ryan Show is we are Developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that

we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign superb bad. She's made two different appearances here on the Shawn Ryan show. and some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind-blowing. And so I've asked her if she would Contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's going to be all things terrorists, how terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout

the world are up to. And here's the best part. The newsletter is actually free. We're not going to spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two shows. The Only other thing that's going to be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up. Links in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter. Join me and my special guests for the next behindthecenes experience exclusively available on Vigilance

Elite Patreon. The behind-the-scenes footage Is raw and uncut. This is as close to the set as you can possibly get. You can expect anything from off-topic conversations, studio tours, the final moments before the interview starts, and everything in between. The behindthe-scenes content is constantly evolving and we'll continue to bring you more as we grow. You can gain access for just $15 a month exclusively at Vigilance Elite Patreon. All right, John, we're back from the Break. Indeed. Thank you. We're getting ready to hit November. November 68. November 68. First though, where did the name tilt come

from? You ever play pinballs? Yeah. See, when you play a pinball machine and you lose, you walk away pissed off. When I play a pinball machine and lose, I shake the [ __ ] out of it. See my name in neon, then I walk Away. Right on. Indeed. Let's get into November. Yeah, November. That was that was one of our crucible months there. Um, you know, Bob and I um we teamed up. By that time we were comfortable with each other and the little people they really liked Bubba a lot. Good man. And uh so

after after that mission we had we had a couple days where in the morning we would fly into an LZ Primary get shot out secondary get shot out and then the alternate again get shot out go back have lunch. They they wanted to get a team on the ground so bad that they would say, "Here's your new target." And then here's CVY. Cubby, go find him in LZ. Because before that, we were doing visual reconnaissance. We fly over the target area, look for pick out LZ's, get familiar with it. But one of the issues by

that time, one of the issues that we were dealing with was how Much SOG was compromised. We knew that wherever we took off from, whether it was from FOB1 or whether it was we had a launch site at Quang Tree and then later we had uh FOB3 which was at Quesan that was closed in June but they moved the title to Milo and they were there until the end of November. They suspected that they had observes there. So whenever arc helicopters would fly west from South Vietnam into Laos That they would give a vector of

where we were going. And we know that they had observers at the borders. So when we went across into Laos, we assumed that somebody would say, "Here comes the helicopter. There are this vector." Boom. We never knew how much we were compromised. That's why it's going to be uh a next story in my fourth book that I write. This is just how much we were compromised. And during this time, Bob Bub and I learned that one morning in the in the South Vietnamese Air Force when they inserted a team, they didn't do a low nappy

earththing because in last we had the mountains and everything and they had what they called falling yellow leaf where they would because of the way the engine was designed, they could put it in neutral and they would spiral down at the last second. And they would engage, flare, land. Bing, we're out the door. They Take off. The second chopper would come in. The same thing. On this mission, we had gotten shot off an LZ. We're going to the secondary. We're going in. As we're doing this to start the spiral, [ __ ] or s, I

forget which one. Yell to the door gunner and we aborted. I'm going like, kumbak, what happened? and they saw a wire. Somehow they saw a wire across the LZ. That wire was attached to a 500lb bomb. Had we hit the wire, it Would have triggered the bomb, which would have destroyed us and the helicopter. Wow. So, we knew You were able to see that coming in. I know. Not me. We're talking about my little people here. Oh, they were phenomenal. It was like a miracle. It's just another day in SOG, but this is today's miracle.

For us to get out of Echo 4 in my mind to this day is always A major miracle. But in that case, it was just unbelievable. So we go back, we had this, we finally had another mission. We're on the ground. We get shot out within a day. Leave with not too heavy contact. When was that mission? It It was just an aerial recon. They put us in. We're on the ground. We had trackers early and some guys would tend to uh elongate the mission and I would try to push it as far as we

could but Once I thought we were compromised and then as Spider Park said if you're compromised they know where you are. It's just a question of time before they get enough people together to wipe your team out like they did with Idaho in May. So I tended to be very conservative that way. We got out no problem. So next day another day we go in primary secondary alternate lunch primary secondary Alternate. We finally on the next day we finally got inserted in the afternoon and the weather was spotty. We get inserted and we had Henry

King with us and he was carrying the experimental pump M79 just for extra firepower. We were going into the target was Echo8 was a target that had um a lot of enemy activity. We didn't know quite why and we got in and the uh the LZ the Leosians do slash and burn. So they would slash an area, cut down all the vegetation, grow crops until the soil got depleted. then they would burn it out. We had an area where we landed. I put the team on the ground. We went up this mountain and then um

instead of doing the 10 and 10, I just wanted to do something different. And we got on the ground, we moved for almost an hour. We finally came to a trail. The trail was big enough to drive A tank down it. And it was a kind of trail from the air. You couldn't see it because the NVA and their and the indigenous people they forced to work with them tied branches over so you would never see it from the air. So we get this big trail. We cross it. There's a telephone pole. S goes up,

hooks up the wire tap. We set up a an ambush. And our ambushes were designed where uh this is by Lynn Black who specifically designed this where we had a block of C4 So that 6 ft away from that block any person would be knocked unconscious by the blast of the C4. Anything outside of that blast would be claymore minds that would kill everything else both in front, excuse me, and in back of that person that was knocked unconscious. So we set up the ambush. Clay wars are put out. Clay wars were side security. Claymores

in the back. S's running the wire tab. We're sitting there and Bubba Goes, "Hey, we can get us an RNR because they had the rule. If you capture the live P, you got $100 and you got a R&R anywhere in the world." $100. Yeah. Big. That's It's 1968. That's big money in ' 68, man. Was it? Well, you hear me tell that's still big money today for this beyond. But anyways, so we're like, "Yeah, we're joking about it. Spider came out for combo check. Now we've been on the ground now for three or four hours

and he's flying CVY and I give him the code, Spider code, whatever it was. We got a P. We'll have one. We'll meet you at the LZ in 1 hour. He comes back and says, "I'm at 10,000 ft. I can't see the mountain you're on, let alone an LZ. I'm telling you, whatever you're doing, Stop. Get to the top of the mountain and wait till the weather blows over. The weather closed in. We're going to be socked in for three or 4 days. So, don't make enemy contact. If you do, we can't come and get

you. And there's no tack air. Okay. So, we pulled down the wire tab, pulled in the ambush, and as they're doing that above us, we hear tanks up the mountain. literally a tank sounding and another truck starting Up. And when we had the uh we first got there and we set up the the ambush, the NVA are walking up and down the road. Kai had the they had their AKs on their shoulders. We saw a couple officers, but I wanted to get the clearance from spiders. So, if we could blow it to get a quality

P. Well, the spider says don't do it. We pulled everything in and then we went to the left because we had come up the mountain And we moved out. We crossed the trail cuz the trail kind of bent up the mountain and we cross it again. And when we cross it, we do one man at a time. Person in the same footsteps going across and the tail gunner comes by and cleans it up. We moved for a while and it's getting dark now and then we could hear dogs down by the LZ. So it's almost

dark now. S climbs up the tree. I have S go look see what we got Coming at us. He comes back. His eyes are like saucers. He told Buku VC and we can hear the dogs now. There's several dogs coming up that mountain. and he goes there's buku VC and he says they're from here meaning all this area is down the mountain from us with buku lights and he could see some places where there's actually NVA behind the lights so we don't know how many but they're coming and coming hard so we moved a little

further right about dusk We got into a a stream and we turned left and went up the stream for maybe a half hour 45 minutes And I had the team go out a couple times and make foss trails for the dogs. And then we put down black pepper and powdered mace. So if the dog hit it was [ __ ] up their nose. So we went further for like I said it's dark. We're not used to moving at night but I wanted to set get as much distance between us and the dogs as possible. S

agreed cuz Whenever I did anything like that through he I would talk with S let Bubba and Henry King who was strap hanging with us let them know on this mission we had eight men. So we finally come to an area in that stream bed. We climb up and we set up an RO with the eight guys and I'm facing the little stream bed or the creek whatever it is but there's water in it. So, we hear more dogs. We can hear the noise down there. About midnight, 1:00, 2 NVA walk past us in the

stream or the creek. They go up for a while. Their lantern ran out of fuel. They turn around, they come back. Now, I can hear him. I don't know if anybody else in the team could later on. A folk told me he could hear him, but again, we're not talking cuz I'm facing that. and book was on my right, but he was facing another direction, but I could have touched him if I wanted to. So, I'm pointing here. They walked past right About here in front of me in that little creek. He coughed. They stopped.

At that point, one of them turned around and only when the wind blew, he would start crawling up the mountain towards me. when the wind blew, I could hear him move. When the wind blew, and I'm sitting there like this, feet spread, car 15 on single shot. So, I figured if it happens, it's going To be just one shot. It's all it's going to take because at that point is we're playing hideand go seek with the NVA army there. They're trying to find us. Well, eventually he gets to me. So, they knew you guys were

there. Oh, yeah. How did they know? Helicopter. It's just so damn noisy. Did you guys ever do false insertions? Oh yeah. Yeah, we did that. Uh fake Insertions sometimes do two or three touchdowns and then get out of the helicopter. The third LZ. We did that. We did it in Cambodia as well as Laos. And Laos was a little harder because of the mountains, but it was a tactic. One one thing we did and plus with the concern about being compromised, we would have a briefing and we put down primary, secondary, alternate LC, send it

to Saigon. Then when we had the actual pre-m mission briefing with the helicopter pilots and CVY, we pulled CVY aside and say, "Go find us another LZ and and in a secondary cuz we know we're just compromised. we don't want to take a chance on them waiting for us again with another 500 lb bomb. So that that was one way to deal with it. So um anyway, this guy comes up. He touched my boot. I could hear him catch His breath. I'm just waiting. If he had moved suddenly, he would have been dead. But he

touched your boot? Yeah, my size 10. I was wearing a size 10 regular at the time. Touched my left foot. He touched it. I heard him catch his breath. If he moved suddenly, it would have been his last move. But he waited. I mean, he sat there for Well, by this time, you know how how time extends itself. I mean, seconds turn into minutes and Hours. But when the wind blew, he backed up. Wind blew again. It went down. Finally gets to his buddy and both of them left. So, this is all It took a

while. And I want to say it happened around maybe two or three o'clock in the morning. I just forget. I mean, I had the my Seiko watch on. I could see look at what time it was after he left, but I just forget what time. At first light, we were up and out of there. And we Moved up that mountain all day. And uh twice once or twice our point man who now was son and he has s right behind him they encountered wood cutters but none of the wood cutters had weapons and they were

indigenous people and there was nobody there to make it appear as though they were affiliated with the NVA in any way. So we continued to move and um you know we had gotten near the top and at one point we took a break and I'm Beat cuz we had moved all day and we just broke you know here we were doing 10 and 10 to really be cautious but we're going up that mountain and then we took a break for cow but we continued to move as much as we could because we just wanted to

get to the top of the mountain before dark set up a strong ro with extra claymores and uh I went to stand up and I fell down. I literally fell on my face. So I get up again, fall down again. I land on My face and I'm lying there. It's like all I wanted to do was roll over and go to sleep. I was so tired and so beat. And after last night with the uh cuz I didn't get much sleep that night and uh but I knew the whole team was looking at me and

I'm going like you just got to get your weary ass up. So I finally got up. We got up to the top of the mountain set up a nice ro Sal's guys did wonderful work with the claymores. And that night around about 1 2:00 and we Always had combo checks. They had an airborne command control ship that flew over Southeast Asia 24/7. In our case, they would usually fly by around midnight, 1:00. We do a combo check and because the NVA had really extensive RDF, you know, the radio direction finding equipment. Um, we would just

do click click with the handset and then they would say, "Roger, received." So they knew we were okay. after was a situation we had to report. But anyway, they did the midnight midnight comma check about an hour and a half, two hours later. Um, Bubba wakes me up. He goes, "You won't believe this [ __ ] Look at the mountain." So, like couple mountains over, the whole mountain side lit up with bright lights. So, we begin scanning on the dial, we get Russian. There's a Russian aircraft coming in for an aerial resupply in Laos to

the NVA. Wow. So now I get on I'm on the radio. I'm doing my IRK 10, my emergency radio frequency, which is like 243 uh ultra high. And we carried those if the other radios didn't work. And uh did the radio all different frequency. I can't get anybody. It's like where's the cop when you need one? But they came in, they did the resupply and left. And uh that was a weird night. So we were up there for three more days. Spider would come by with combo check just to let us know how high up

he was, but no breaking the weather during the day. And uh finally the fifth the fourth night we moved downhill say you can move out now and uh try to continue with the mission. So we got down halfway down the mountain and we came to one of the weirdest things. It looked like Stonehedge in the middle of Laos here. These huge monoliths that looked like Stone Hedge. They didn't have any across the top, but these big things that came out of the ground. So we set up our RO in the center of this. Put out

the claymore mines and um set up the RO. It was a quiet night and then in the morning first light we could hear dogs and the dogs picked up our trail. You could just tell they're barking more excitedly and so spider came by. I told them that they were on us. Be a question of time before we made contact and we moved out And we moved to an open area where Spider said go take this vector here. You've been on the ground for 5 days. uh we'll pull you out. And um he came back 10

minutes later said, "Well, we're going to be delayed. There's another team that declared a prairie fire emergency." So, we had to wait. Well, they kept coming and they went through that RO and we had uh Bubba put down a claymore mine and then South put down a couple of toe Poppers. So, the claymore was triggered. We knew they're pissed now. And then they heard at least two toe poppers go off. So during that time they came out. S and HEP were in the back. They had a light contact. Then we got the word from Spider

that the 101st Airborne was going to come in to pick us up. And that was the first time we had had American Slicks since the mission valley cuz we had always used the South Vietnamese, the King beast. And uh at one point the Gunships came down. Scarface, Marine Corps Scarface came in. They got shot to [ __ ] They made a second run. They got shot up again and we could see the enemy up the hill on the backside and we went out with our M79s and King had that pump. He went ching chung chung.

Me, Bubba, and Tuon also fired our M79s up that hill where the gunfire was coming from on the ships on the airships. I slowed him down. 101st came in and I told Bubba, "You got To be the first man out there. You tell those young guys that are door gunners, we got South Vietnamese, don't kill my little people." So he did because, you know, we had bad experiences with that with young door gunners that shot up some of our little people by mistake without realizing because some of the guys just thought all South Vietnamese were

NVA. So we got out, had a good extraction. That night back at the bar, we finally Get back to the bar and Scarface is there and there's Lieutenant Colonel Robinson who was the OIC and he was like pissed. He said, "Look, you see my helicopter? The plexiglass had been shot out, had bullet holes in it." And uh so he's really said, "You guys, every time we come out to get you, my helicopters get shot up and I want to be out there supporting you guys." He's so I buy him a few drinks. He get three

or four drinks in him. And I went back To S2, gave a debrief, came back and Robson, Colonel Robson was still there. Still bitching and moaning. I said, "Sir, does that mean you're not going to come next time?" He said, "No, I didn't say that. We'll be you call, we'll come and they did. They got shot up really bad." And they were flying those old UIs, UI gunships. Mhm. That when they had a full load of orders, they could barely get off the Ground. Sometimes with the heat the door gunners would get out and run

alongside the helicopter where they started getting a little momentum going and then they jump back in the helicopter just seeing those guys do that. So right after that we um we were called into S3 and they said we want to send you TDY to FOB6 which was down at Honukta and at that time there were six FOBs uh that were operated. FOB1 was FUI, two was KUM which was in two core And they did targets in both Laos and Cambodia. FOB3 had been Quesan which when Quesan was closed the Marine Corps base was closed in

68 June. Uh they transferred RFO to Milo excuse me. FOB4 was Dang. FOB5 was Bammy to it. All targets for Cambodia. FOB6 was Honal was northwest of Saigon and they were all Cambodian targets. They were low on operational teams. So we were sent down to TDY. So just Bob and I and the team went down and uh we had Been there a day and a day before Thanksgiving the OIC um Colonel Drake called us in and said look we got a mission tomorrow and said S3 is going to brief you but it's Thanksgiving day and

if you guys pull this mission off before you go into the target we'll bring you a Thanksgiving dinner. Good to go Colonel. we go in for the briefing and um the mission was to find one or any of the three missing NBA divisions. So this is November, near the end of November, like This is November 25th, 68. And we knew that they were missing. And the concern was because the Ted offensive in early 68 that the NVA were winding up for another Ted offensive in ' 69. And with 30,000 NVA missing in action, WTF times

2. Mhm. So we we're up late and during that briefing we got pictures from um really high up about different areas and the pictures were the first pictures taken by The uh Blackbirds the uh the 72s the S72s and um they were amazing. So we had all that and we had the latest intel reports were there with the colonel. We got a approximated target area and we were working with the u the Green Hornets, the Air Force special operations squadron, and those guys were hot [ __ ] They had the latest UI, the latest weapons,

and those UIs were more powerful than anything we have seen with The army. But the rules of engagement were different in Cambodia. No tack air, no CVY. Only thing that was up were helicopters. And the only support we had would be helicopter gunships, which would be 2.75 rockets or miniguns or M60s. And fortunately here, um, these guys were just hot [ __ ] pilots. So we did, uh, went in the morning, we got up, first light, we go to the launch site, Here comes a helicopter with Thanksgiving. So we sat down, had Thanksgiving, had our

big meal, jumped on the helicopters, launched into the target, and u we get in the target, we moved for a while, and we literally walked into an NVA base camp. And later, what S figured and folk, they thought that one of the NVAs had just left because there are still fires burning and one fire like had a pot still hanging over it. So, one NVA division Had just left and another one was coming in. Well, when we were there, we went in, we started taking some pictures and Sal gives me that sound, that hiss of

his. And then he goes, "Buku VC." And his eyes are like saucers. And he points up to the north and off in the woods. Now, this is Cambodia. This is not Laos. Cambodia, the vegetation was different. maybe one canopy and it was open. You could see for almost 100 yards some Places, maybe a little bit longer. And off in the distance, we could see NVA soldiers with pith helmets with their AKs running down port arms looking for us. [ __ ] Oh yeah. And somehow cuz we didn't make any noise or anything, but they they

turned and started coming towards us. So we began to move back. We got it. We go into our full retreat move. Go back. I declare a prayer of fire emergency. As we're beginning to move back, S goes Dum mah. And now from the south, we got the same thing coming up. NVA with AK-47s and pith helmets running up. They see the other unit and they both all come towards us. So now we open fire. Two on. Myself and Bubba hitting him with M79s. We began falling back. We put down claymores to slow them down. At

one point, Bubba had a claymore with a 5-second fuse on it. We put that in the ground and then move back. Of course, it's in front of the tree so the back Blast wouldn't get us. And we had that claymore and we're moving back, rotating each other, going back. And we finally get close to the LZ. We put down two claymores. As the envy got really close, Bubba blew off one and I waited and then the helicopter landed. In between, right before he landed, we had two gun runs, at least two gun runs with their

miniguns and it just slaughtered them. It just killed them. We don't know how many. No time to count. The helicopter lands, everybody's loading up. As I see more NVA coming, they're right in front of my claim. and click that MK or M MK57 clacker blows them up. Run back. We get on a helicopter. We're pulling off. It's me and Fuk. And so there's a little bit of jungle and some of the NVA are running and we're in the opening area. It had been raining a couple days before and a couple of the NVA come out

and they're trying to stop and you can see the mud From the boots coming up and hitting the propellers. Wow. Oh yeah. And so me and the door going to hit this one guy, full hit the other guy and they blow back and we're pulling off. As we're leaving, I get a white phosphorus grenade. We've been told no white phosphorus in Cambodia, but this was so close. I can see those NVA down there. I threw a white phosphorus down at them. And we leave. Helicopters all Get shot up. Our helicopter had over a dozen hits,

but none of our guys, none of the Air Force guys got hit. And that those Air Force guys from the green horns were hot [ __ ] They just saved our ass that day. We go back to the launch site now with the Air Force guys and they go, "Hey, it's Thanksgiving. Come on in, have a Thanksgiving dinner with us." So we gave a quick ver verbal report on the radio back to headquarters. Went in, sat down with the Air Force, had Thanksgiving dinner. As we're wrapping up, somebody comes out and says, "Hey man, they

want you back at Honel ASAP." And I said, "Okay." So, we go back to Honukttow, talked to the colonel, talked to S3, gave them all of our reports. Bubba took the team out, gave them overnight passes, took care of that. And u uh after we're done with the debrief, it was around 54 to 6 or so. Colonel Drake goes, "Hey, you guys, it's Thanksgiving. Come on down and get a Thanksgiving meal. You have one for breakfast, you can have one for dinner." So we had three Thanksgiving meals in one day. Unbelievable. So the next day

we we just cleaned our weapons. We did some weapons, some practice on the range. The next day we had an insert. We wanted to do a trail watch and we wanted to get a PS really bad. Perfect insertion. We get on the ground and we go over to I think it was like Highway 31 in Cambodia. And it's one of these deals where the jungle is like still one canopy, but it's thick. And it's so thick that when you go up, like you push your hand through and it's all clear. There's your road. But anybody

on the road can't see you. Even if they're like you and I distance, the jungle is so intense. Wow. We can't see each other. So these trucks are coming down. I'm taking pictures of The NVA and the trucks and just some civilian cars. And there have been, of course, motorcycles and mopeds and stuff like that going by. So in between, Bubba went out and put it in an anti-tank device, buried it, put it out there, brought back the death cuz we weren't, we're going to blow up a truck with troops in it, capture a live

P, and get out because the Air Force was so quick to respond. We knew we could pick it up and be out of there in 20 Minutes or less. Get it all set up. We pull back in the clear on my radio. I'm carrying the radio. I always carry the radio. ST or RT Idaho. You are to stop the mission. Return to base ASAP per the order of General Kraton Abrams. He replaced West Morland and he was now the overall commander for all armed service troops in Vietnam. Like WTF. So instead of being a good

combo gun, say I can't hear you. We did It. We pulled back and we did a extract. No gunfire. They just came in, pulled us up, took us back to base and we got back to base. It's like WTF. We had the ambush set up. We could have had a P. Premier Cyanuk in Cambodia filed a protest over a white phosphorous grenade that we threw down on the NVA. He wasn't upset about the 100,000 NVA who were in Cambodia. That was cool. But us and our white phosphorous grenade He was upset about. So to Colonel

Drake, he was really cool. He says, "Okay." He said, "What happened out there?" I said, "Well, sir, you know, we got pulled out under fire. I put that thing right down that guy's head. I wanted them to suffer as much as they could. He says, "You forgot about the rules of engagement." I said, "Well, yes, sir. I just bent them a little bit." He said, "Okay, well, what's the official story?" I said, "Sir, I really regret that that hand Grenade threw a fell at the helicopter and I still don't know how it exploded on contact

with the ground. It must have been that fall." He says, "Okay." Said, "Don't do it again." He covered my ass with Crabs on that. But that's how upset they were. They pulled us out of the [ __ ] field on that. Just unbelievable. So the next day we're back. We got inserted. Perfect insertion again. And there we did that multiple touch. Pulled you out of the field for a [ __ ] white phosphorus grenade. Yeah. And a complaint from the premier of of Cambodia Syuk. You talk about political bullfucking [ __ ] Excuse my French,

sir. God, it was just we were furious cuz they didn't know we were there. It was the perfect insert. That ambush, we would have gotten the P and wore out of there. We had all the handcuffs ready to go, the plastic timing downs and everything. We Were psyched. Bub and I once again were planning our RNRs, you know, cuz it was just it was like a dream mission, a perfect insertion. We did the fake fake land, get got right there south, took us right out to the road, set everything up, put the claymores out for

security, and man, we were ready to roll. And Bubba was just so good with the explosives and stuff. So the next day we get inserted again and this time it was in the Afternoon. We had a good insertion. We're set up at night. Put up the RO but it was hanky. Just hanky being in the on on the ground in Cambodia because everything's so flat. There's no mountains and minimal vegetation. The south find a couple of places where we could pick for a good RON. put out double claymores and uh during the night I was

just just tanky all night. We got up in the morning, moved out and we were going to Go back to uh try to do another P snatch and again Cubby came back or somebody from the uh the 20th came out, gave a combo check and said, "By the way, go to an LZ. You're being extracted ASAP." And I said, "Why?" He said, "We can't say." They pulled us out again. This time we came back and Colonel Drake was there and said, "Hey, uh, you just lost a helicopter up at FOB1. A King went down with

seven green berets and they lost the whole crew. So, I've got to send you back to FOB because you're low on personnel up there." Now, he says, "Our guys are training up, but we'll be able to cover our missions here." We went back on November, I'll never forget it, November 30th. 1968 at Kingbby, we had a mission that was called Eldest Son and this is part of the SCOPS where the ammunition was doctorred. So they fired an AK-47 round that had been doctorred. It was eldest Son. It was explode in her face. And they put

the uh they used 82 mm mortars and those were doctorred. And so when they popped it in the tube, it would explode and just kill everybody cuz the shrapnel from uh from the tube as well as the rocket would kill any of the NVA right next to it. And it had a psychological impact on the NVA to um discourage them from using their ordinance. Have to question it. And so this unit, it was just a throw, It was a strap hanger mission. Somebody up at the base said, "Hey, um, we want to do an elder

son mission. We need six or seven guys. We got a site." So they gave him extra ordinance and they're going to go through this cash, put in the stuff and leave and just leave it out there for the NBA to pick up and use and blow themselves up. While they're in route, they got hit by anti-aircraft fire. The king went down and crashed and they lost Everybody. Damn. Horrible. Yeah. November 30th. So we went back north and uh within a few days we had another mission which was just a routine mission and then we had

uh some downtime because of weather and then we came to Christmas Day uh 1968 and uh didn't even realize it was Christmas because we had been so busy planning working things out and they had a mission where they wanted us to go in on a mountaintop for a trail watch and Also to look for enemy fuel lines because the NVA were bringing down fuel lines from North Vietnam that were coming down into Laos and the fuel lines would come down to refuel the trucks as they came down the Ho Chi Min Trail, but nobody had

found any yet. So, our mission was to get us to Hilltop, get inserted, do a general area recon, then the next day move out to try to find some of those fuel lines. So um In November of uh ' 68, President Johnson declared a bombing hall in North Vietnam and all of not all but a lot of the anti-aircraft weaponry that had been up in North Vietnam began coming south. So on Christmas day uh our target was just into Laos, maybe five or 10 clicks into Laos and the uh we had a Kingbeast, Captain Tuong,

the one who pulled me out when I Was upside down. Uh he was our pilot that day and instead of doing the yellow leaf espro, he wanted to just go in low level, go right up and set down. Well, somewhere he made a mistake and we came in. We went up the mountain side and halfway up the mountain there was this little null. He touched down on the null instead of going all the way up. But we got out and there was a lot of elephant grass. So he's right there in the elephant grass. He

took off and the Elephant grass was thick again. It's 10 to 12 feet to the south and to the west and even to the northwest. It was so steep we couldn't go anywhere. So [ __ ] led off to the east. He's our point man and with Bubba May Lyn Black was there with us and then we had uh Tuon [ __ ] and Heb. And so we're there moving out and within a half hour or less he made we made contact light contact with the NBA. So we came back and we're back on that

Little null and Lynn and I are talking. And it's like, well, the northeast is the last place that we can go. And Ling goes, but there's no activity there. We don't see anything. We've had contact here. And then people started shooting at us from down the hill in the south. And we were throwing hand grenades. All of a sudden, the elephant grass catches fire down the mountain, and the wind from that mountain area was blowing those flames Up the hill. And then the NVA were going around when they saw that they were going around and

setting fires on the base of that null that we're on. So at one point the elephant grass was burning. We're looking down the hill. You have all these smoke waves and then that heat waves you see. You could look through and you could see the NVA there lighting stuff further down the mountain, but they weren't shooting at us. They were all lighting up the Mountain side. So I declared a prairie fire emergency. Spider was flying cubby that day. We couldn't go. Oh, and Spider comes out. He goes, "Do not go to the northeast." We had

an intel report. There's an NVA ambush waiting for RT Idaho there. I never had an intel report like that. So, we didn't go. Now, we're fighting the fire. Landon Bubba cut S4 tried to blow the literally try to blow the flames back down the hill, but the Mountain and the and the wind and everything was blowing that stuff up. Thankfully, Captain Tuon got there and he came up above us and he came down the mountain flying sideways and I looked up and saw Captain Tuon and I recognized him because from that day mission when I

was upside down in other missions and we of course had bought him drinks. He came down and he landed and the prop war was blew back all the flames. We jumped on that KingB when he Lifted off whoosh. All of the LZ was covered with flames. Wow. And of course we left under fire. So we were firing at the NVA as we pulled out. So that was Christmas and we barely got out of there that day. And that night I took a shower and when I'm walking back to my hooch from the shower cuz the

shower's over to the left past the officers barracks and our hooches were here and um we uh as I Walked back to my room I hear this little cheap transistor radio playing Silent Night. I son of a [ __ ] it's Christmas. I'm thinking about chatting to mom and daddy grandma. You know what they're doing on Christmas day. And then I thought, you know, this is [ __ ] crazy. Um, I don't think I'm going to see my birthday. We keep having missions like this. Thanksgiving Day, the upside down, October 4th, Echo 4, Echo 8.

This is uh I don't think I'm going to see my birthday, but we'll just keep pushing on. My birthday was January 19th, but that moment in time standing there, I just didn't think we'd ever see the light of day until the new year. cuz they were bringing in more NBA and their tactics were getting tougher to more of them. What did the rest of the team think? Never talked about it. That was just Private. Um, we closed FOB one in the early January. And of course, New Year's Eve, everybody's worried about a big they had

intel reports were going to get hit. So, New Year's Eve, nobody got hit. We played poker. They clubed the they closed the clubhouse early and spider we had a team on the ground and they got inserted on the New Year's Eve day and they weren't happy about it but they got inserted. Spider went up at midnight made a combo check with him and said Look guys be alert. First thing in the morning that team got hit. All the three Americans were killed. The three indig were left alive and uh the bright light went in later

that day and they were able to recover the bodies, bring them back. And uh that really struck home because again there are some teams that didn't have like the close relationship that I had with our little people, our South Vietnamese. I talked to he south said look this is Some Americans and even some of the dig are going like why did the Americans die and and the Vietnamese didn't die said if you hear anything you let me know well we didn't have any problem but there are some people that were really unhappy about it and

it had an impact in the camp just the fact we lost three men from FOB4 and uh that was just another example of them changing their tactics and they hit them hit them So within the next couple weeks, we had to begin to pack up for the move. Um they were closing FOB1 at FUBI. What we didn't know at the time was intel had a report that the NVA were preparing another attack on FOB1 like they had done at FOB4 in August the 23rd of 1968. We didn't learn that till years later. We packed up

and we went down. They flew us down to King B. Captain Tin flew us down to FOB before we moved in down there and then Um Bob and I had one more mission and um we had a mission that was I forget what the mission was but we got on the ground again spotty weather. It's January. We get inserted, we're on the ground and we moved. It was a little bit more it was um not as high in the mountains. We were closer to the Vietnam border, so the mountains weren't as severe, but there's still

hills and things. We moved for a few hours and then uh Bubba had left behind a claymore mine that was Rigged. That claymore went off. So, we knew that the trackers were at least there and they would be trying to track us. So, we moved for a while longer. We're getting near the end of the day now. And uh we found a little clearing and I called a tactical emergency and I got a hold of CVY and CVY said he'd be there shortly and while we're waiting S was putting out a Claymore mine and when

he was moving back he opened fire on the NVA coming at us from the north. Opened Fire, reloaded, hit him threw a hand grenade and came back. Then they hit us from the other side, which would be the east. And then later they came at us from the side on the south side. So they were coming at us, but we're just a little bit of a high ground where they're coming off of that climbing up the mountain and we were like at a little small plateau and CVY arrives. We get tack air licky split and

we were just really lucky. But We had been in contact. They kept coming at us first from the south. I mean from the north then from the east and then from the south and it just different troops would come and we had those firefights. It got pretty intense with the south and the east side. So Cubby goes, "Hey, try to blow down a couple trees so we can get a helicopter in." So in our spare time in between the firefights, Bubba rigged um death charges to chop down the trees. Well, he Chopped down two or

three trees, but there was enough vegetation around that the trees couldn't fall. Then once he blew him off the stump, the other trees would catch him. So no helicopter could land. We had to do strings. So now we're back. The helicopter comes back and we tell he tells us you're going to be extracted on strings. We'll do it in two helicopters. And in my mind, it's beginning to rain. It's near the end of the day and the Helicopter looked so high up when he threw those ropes out. I couldn't believe the ropes even reached us.

We were just really lucky. They came down. There were four ropes and I told the team, "We're going to all go out of here together." So, we put together three of the Vietnamese, two Vietnamese together, and then Bubba and I have separate strings and then the third Vietnamese. And um so we had a two and two, however it was, we figured it out. We all put Our Swiss seesaw in the middle of the firefight. And then I talked to Bubba. I said, "Hey, you know that claymore mine with the white phosphorus you got taped to

it?" Said, "Do me a favor. Put that on the tree here so we get extracted. Put a time fuse on it. So when we get extracted, that'll blow and that'll buy us some time to get out of the jungle." He looked at me like, "WTF? are you out of your mind? I said, "Bubba, do this." He said, "So, if we don't get out of Here now." So, he did it. He put it up there, put a time fuse on it. We all hooked up. They were lifting out. I was on the rope that was the

longest, the lowest. Bubba goes out as he's going out. He pulls that fuse and they lifted us straight up. And, uh, we were just really lucky because we weren't in the super high mounds and it was January, so it's cooler. And I I rolled the dice saying take all six of us now because it was just the dark was closing in Darkness. And as we went up that thing exploded. You just see the claymore with the white phosphorus hitting those troops. And for the first time we could see their faces and stuff from well from

above as we got pulled out. And then right near the end they were able to get us completely cleared. They didn't drag us through the trees. There's 101st airborne guys that did that. And uh we got pulled out, got back to base. And I yelled to Cubby as Soon as we cleared that tree. I said, "Hey, we got all six here. Don't bring the second helicopter." And we had done A1 Skyraider gun raids. We had 500 lb bombs that we used. And it's one of those deals when you're on the ground, you just get elevated

from the concussions. You know how it is with the 500 pounders. And it was just uh really close. Just another day in song, you know. Geez. Oh yeah. A couple days later, Bubba came up to me and said, "You know, this has been a long run." He says, "Would you mind a day offering me a job up in headquarters?" I said, "Bubba," he said, "you've been a [ __ ] stud, man. If you want to go to headquarters, please go because I just forever be in your debt. you've just been a complete stud with me

all these missions, all we've been through and we're still alive to talk about it. That's fine. You go. So, he went up to headquarters and then Lynn Black came on the team and Lynn was he had been the 173rd. He had that mission on October 5th that we were briefly mentioned. He was just amazing guy. Did you ever want to leave? No. No. Why not? Because um well, two things. I just like after all that training, we knew that The Green Berets in Vietnam were special, but SOG was special within the special unit and it

was just really an honor to be there. You know, we had all those special little privileges and quirks like if we had to get on a flight to go to Saigon as a corer or something, we had passes. If we flipped that pass, if that plane was loaded that somebody had to come off so we could get on it and fly. So we knew that we were the tip of The spear. It was just an honor to be there to operate under those rules of engagement. Even though we couldn't tell anybody about it, you know,

you write letters home to mom. Hey, the weather was nice. Yeah, you like my Vietnamese team members there. Just wonderful guys. We have a good time together. I would have letters from grandma striker and mom and mom would always write and dad would write and of course brother and sister have a little correspondence but Never anything about what was going on. And uh know years later when my first book came out, dad read it. He goes, "You know, I can never figure out why that black guy came by and picked up our trash." He said,

"He would come by regularly and pick up the trash." Well, dad got a job at the post office, and the post office was where the FBI was located. And dad saw that guy coming out of the FBI office. He goes, "Oh, they picked up your trash to see if you said anything or if we said anything to you that would have violated your NAD." Wow. That's how serious they were about it. That's a real kick in the pants. Those those FBI agents were on it. So Lynn was there. U we had couple of missions, nothing

really that extraordinary. And then we planned for a special mission where we were going to Go up to Muia Pass. And Muia Pass was up in Laos above the DMZ River. You had the DMZ River that flew flowed through. That's what divided North Vietnam from South Vietnam. And then when it entered Laos, it still continued to flow from the west to the east. And that was divided. We had targets that would be like MA 10, MA 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. And those were the areas that we were working really hard to try to find

those pipelines. And um we had um and then above that further north of this pipeline of the uh river was the Mugia Pass which was where any of the any vehicular traffic from Hanoi coming south had to go through the Mia Pass and Air Force knew it, the NVA knew it, and they had all kinds of anti-aircraft weaponry there. And uh the plan was for us to go up on a plateau, go in heavily armed with mortars, take in extra guys, extra claymores, And then set up with the air force with the weather being clear

for the next 48 hours just to back up that pass and then wipe out any supplies coming down to Ho Chi, Montreal, cuz the intel report said there weren't many quote many enemy there. So, we were going in heavy. Lim was going to take an M60. We had a Captain Ourn with us, Michael Burn for intel purposes. And um we were just wired up. And that's the picture of my Second book of being inspected was prior day prior to that mission when we launched for it. Now, we launched and when we're in to Laos above

the DMZ River, they called us off. They said that an aircraft had been shot down. One or two aircraft had been shot down at the Mugia Pass either that night or the day before and they said they shot down Phantom jets. Maybe they might shoot down a slowmoving helicopter. They canceled it. We came back and then I went home two days later at the end of my first tour duty. So the end of April, went back to the train, signed out, went back home, saw mom and dad for a few days. I had a little

sweetheart down in Georgia. visited her for a couple days and then reported to Fort Deans, Massachusetts um up in the 10th group and was there and that was just god awful duty. Just hated every second of it. And uh a lot of guys like Spider, Pat Watkins, Jeff Junkkins, Tony Herrell, Rick Estus and there those guys all went to 10 special forces group but they were in D company and D company was a full Green Beret company with a team set up their training they were doing missions and um so it was a real a

real company with green braids. I was sent to signal company because of my MOS and it was chicken [ __ ] The they had two young lieutenants in there. They ran it like basic training almost. And then We had the uh fellow platoon sergeants that were had been in 10th group and all none of them had been to Vietnam and they were proud of the fact that they had not been to Vietnam. They were proud that they had not been to Vietnam, that they had gotten out of it. And they were they were kind of

at one point they were kind of like, "How could you be so stupid to not figure out a way to get out of that?" I said, "What are you wearing on your head, asshole?" We have Some words. So, I was there for 5 months, just got off of duty, but uh we had young kids and we had competitions for signal competitions, you know. So I tell these kids, "Look, we've gone to win this competition just to piss everybody off because they hate me and they hate you guys because we keep winning the contest." So my

guys were sharp. You had to go out, set up the net. Whoever could set up the net The quickest and make combo back to base the quickest and all this kind of stuff. Our guys did it. And uh so at the at the we had a couple incidents at local bars and uh I decided Spider Parks told me that there's a gal in the Pentagon, Billy Alexander. There's a wonderful woman. Her sole job was assigning Green Berets to Southeast Asia, which would include that as well as Okanawa. We had the first special forces group assigned

there. So um it was like a Wednesday or Thursday. I drove down overnight down to the Pentagon first light. Pentagon opens the o'clock in the morning. I was there with a bottle of wine, whatever her favorite wine was. Spider told me and we had flowers. Ask for Billy. Then back then it's like the doors are wide open. You walk in. Hey, where's Billy Alexander? Oh yeah, she's down here. So I go down, knock on the door, walk in, ask for Billy. She was over in the corner desk. Hi Billy. My name's John Meyer. Um, up

10th group. I hate it. And I really like to go back to CCN. Oh, we could use people like you. You've been there before? Yes. And uh, so we chatted a little bit. I gave her the flowers and the wine. Went back to my car, took a nap, came back about 3:00. Billy says, "Here's your orders. Go back." Um, cuz my ETSs was up uh, December 1st. She said, "If you really want to go back, I Got to extend your get extend your ETS into April." Said, "Please do it." Says, "I don't want to be

at Fort Deans another day." Went up to Fort Deans, cleared the next day, cleared the base, cleared the company, uh went home to mom and dad, gave him the news I was going back, and uh on Monday morning, had a flight back to Fort Lewis and u heading back to Vietnam. And I arrived up at Fort Lewis. Jeffrey Junklings was there. Jeffrey Lived in La Hoya. We had served together one. He had a couple amazing experiences that we could talk about another day. So Jeff and I flew back to Vietnam together. We land in Cameron

Bay. The same culture shock getting off the plane just smelling everything about it. But instead of waiting in line and being processed, we had our duffel bags. We had our orders already. And we saw a Jeep that wasn't being used. We requisitioned it. drove up to Natrang And um he had a house up there where he had some friends that he had known from his he had had four tours of duty previously. So we visited this house and some of the mamaans and uh um they had these huge beds with mounds of marijuana and they

had three women on each bed all rolling joints to sell to the GIS. Amazing. I wasn't into that. I just But Jeff was up there and we hung out. They had a nice lunch. We finally reported For duty at NRA because we had been there before. Um cleared the base, went right up to CCN, reported into Sergeant Major John Hobbs and uh I asked him if I get back on Idaho. He said, "Yeah, Lynn Black is out there. He could use a 1-1." I said, "Yeah, let Lynn be the one zero because he's been on

the team for a while." So it just one of those great moments. I walked from headquarters down to the hooch. Nobody was there. I could hear Shooting out in the range. So Idaho was out on the range. Lynn was running through the drill. And as I'm walking out, the shooting stopped. They were coming back. And that was such a joyous occasion seeing them. Of course, like you know, they did everything. Attack my sexual preferences on down to being dumb and stupid and everything. It was really great to see the boys again. So we celebrated, had

a great Vietnamese meal that night with them over in the Vietnamese messaul and uh we were back on the team. So Lynn was the one zero for a while. We ran a couple missions and then um I became the one zero and then the sergeant major goes look you got too much experience here. So Lynn, I want you to go somewhere else tilt just take over Idaho again. So I took over RT Idaho, went back and uh it was it was a interesting time. Lyn and I put together in our spare time, we worked on

a um on a on a manual for running recon Talked about the SOPs and and Lyn was just a phenomenal artist. He drew up artwork for uh LZ's, helicopters, strings, tractions, anything we needed art for. Lyn did it all. put it together, turned it in, never heard another word about it. But, uh, I was there until, um, early part of April. We had a mission. We had a disagreement with our base commanding officer. And then, uh, um, we had a hellacious party when I left at that time. I was Down to trying for two weeks.

Then my ETSs ran out. I did guard duty at night. The sergeant major told me, he said, "You know, you got a choice. You can extend. I'll give you any I can give you any assignment because your experience or you go home and the reinductions the reductions in force were starting at that time and I knew that was all bad you just going through those reductions and force are horrible and u I said well I'll just go Home went back April 25th signed out went through the out processing and that you get the physical doctor

looks at your ears and he goes hey you know your ears are bad you should never have been in the army You should have never been here with ears like that. I said, "Well, it's a little too late, Doc. Did you ever get shot over there?" Uh, no. No, I had shrapnel. Um, and again, talk about just the luck Of the draw. We had shrapnel a couple times. One time a piece of shrapnel came up and I had a a a weak little skimpy blonde mustache. hit me right here and knocked my head back and

stuck in, but I ran out of energy. The worst injury I ever had was from shrapnel uh when Chow didn't throw the hand grenade. We were doing a we were practicing on base and child threw the hand grenade and it went off and it's just like ah. And so the Shrapnel went through and I I was wearing uh jungle fatigues with buttons on them and the shrapnel went through the button and it went into my groin and uh bled like a pig and our medics were busy some kind of training. So they packed me up

and took me down to the army hospital down there and the army doctor went in with the sutures and they're digging around. Well, they said, "Wait a minute. I no antithe no an no anesthesia or anything. No Anesthesia. He goes, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought they gave it to you." Well, he gave it to me again. He was in there digging around. He couldn't find it. He said, "Look, that piece of shrapnel will let you know when it wants to come out." Passed me up and the second he left, man, I cleaned up. I stole

a pair of fatigues and I was wearing another pair of jungle boots or something because they what I was wearing all bloodied up. So all my Bloody clothes were left. I jumped in them and walked out of the hospital, found the telephone, called base, they came and picked me up. I'd rather be in the hands of Green Bay medics than those doctors that would dig around. Now, talking about that piece of shrapnel, this past Wednesday, I was in for an MRI because my urologist wanted me to go in to get an MRI cuz my PSA

numbers are up a little bit. I've always had high PSA numbers, but she was Concerned. So, I go in for the MRI and I told the guy before he put me in the tube, I said, you know, be advised. I have shrapnel in my groin. Okay, let's take a picture. I go in there, we get all wound up, put the stuff on. It goes in there, thing is gone and it stops suddenly. He pulled me out and he said, "That shrapnel is so big that we can't get a clear picture of your prostate or anything

else." It had a big black blob. Damn. On their photo. So that little piece of shrapnel came back. But now 55 years later. Damn. Yeah. What was it like coming home for you? each time for me it was good. I mean I didn't have what a lot of the other vets had. I wore the uniform. People knew the special forces guys. So I don't think a lot of SF guys were messed around with and I was proud of the uniform and uh Each time when I came home I had mom and dad were there and

um family. I had my old church and the guys that I grew up with. We played softball. We had a bowling team. put together a bowling team with the young guys and uh the transition for me was relatively uh compared to what other guys went through, you know, and I had flunked out of college. That's why I went in the army. So, I knew I had to get I wanted to get my degree um cuz mom had a degree Or certificate from her days at when she was a young girl and I really wanted to

get a degree and I went back to school had been fizzed but they came up with a political science major. I loved it. So, I became a political science major and a minor in English for writing. And uh at that time, the GI bill was $200 a month. Whether you went to Harvard University or Trenton State College, as I did, $200 a month was your GI bill. And uh so I went back to Trenton State. My dad got Me a job driving school buses. And um during that time, got involved in the school newspaper there.

and uh drove school buses just for the chump change and uh ran my GI bill right down to the so I used all 36 months of it. What was it like in school for you with a bunch of kids that had never been to war? Yeah, it was really different but in some ways um the majority of the of the kids there's never never much of an Issue. They they we had other veterans on campus and I wore my fatigue jacket for several years. I and my footwear was my jungle boots. My original pair of

jungle boots. I wore them for years on on on campus. What was it like not being able to talk about what you did? Um, that's Dave Regor. That's what you're supposed to do. So, and anybody who really was was trying to ask questions about I said, "Well, you know, We were special forces. We did a lot of hard work, dangerous stuff." And I talk about my little people right away. So, we worked with the South Vietnamese. My story about Vietnam's different than a lot of regular Vietnam vets who went there. I mean, they would go

there without any culture indoctrination at all or appreciation of their history. When your dad read your first book and read it, what was that conversation like? It was pretty quick. It was quick. Yeah. Yeah. because um he read it and you know at that point in time um I was living in California. Mom and dad had moved from Trenton to Colorado where my brother and sister were living and uh Dave had three kids there so they had they were close to those grandkids and um they love Denver area so they were there and we talked

on the phone but it was about that garbage man the first and Foremost said you guys did some crazy stuff but never never too much beyond that and he was always like respectful and distant, always very supportive, never ever any doubt or anything from dad or mom for that matter. Now, when I went back to Vietnam a second time, mom cried. H that wasn't easy, but I had to do the right thing for me. Explain to her why I had to do it. And of course, what I Didn't tell about the MPs coming in the

base on Monday, the day after I left, and uh they were they wanted to talk to me about a couple bar fights. There had been some property destruction. Allegedly. Allegedly. But at this point, I'm taking the fifth. You could talk about SOG, but you can't talk about the bar fights. Well, it was Spider Parks and the guys, you know, Tony Harrell. I mean, Tony, he Was like a a bruiser. Let's hear what. Well, we were in this bar and uh there's some other army personnel there. There's words between a regular army guy, a leg, and

one of our guys. And so there's words that one guy throws a punch and Tonyy's there supporting our guy. And um there's a couple fights. So whenever there's a fight, I would always be rear security. So those guys are doing the fighting. I'm making sure nobody hits Them from the back because I'm not a really good fighter. I never was good with my hands other than playing the piano, you know. And somebody and I to this day I don't know who but somebody had picked up one of those chairs and threw it at the six-foot

mirror and the beer b not beer but all the wick liquor bottles and the mirror shattered. So somebody thought that may have been me but I I don't know. Back then I drank a little bit more than I do now. In fact I don't drink now. So anyway, that may have been the incident. And while I was there, you know, I had a I got a job pumping gas on the weekends and uh just to make extra money. I had a really nice 442 W30. It's a 1969. That car was slick. And uh so we

had that for a few months and then the insurance got too costly and uh I blew up the engine on the on the New Jersey Turnpike at 130 m an hour going home. But the warranty covered it. The car dealer was really kind and then we got it rebuilt. And uh what about the aftermath, John? I mean, all the killing, all the adrenaline, everything you did. Well, that adrenaline thing was always something that you clearly missed. I mean, you know, you you and everybody you ever talked to been through that. In my case, um I

tried to stay physical. Um, I went back to school. I was on I played soccer, the JV soccer team. I wasn't that good, but I knew the coach and the coach let me come out and play because I was a veteran. And I'd get a little game time at the end of the game when either we had lost or won the game. But it's part of the just being physical with it all, you know. And my new mission was I had to get back and I wanted to get that degree. So, I really focused on

that. Um, had a few Interesting girlfriends along the way. and then got involved in the school newspaper. Um was the signal and um there was an ad in the paper for a sports writer. So I did some sports and then uh did some features like book reviews, movie reviews, of course record reviews, Led Zeppelin, you know, Emerson Lincoln Palmer, all this great music that was coming out then. I mean, good times, bad times, King Crimson. So, I was did all that, but I started doing opinion columns. I was the only voice on the paper that

was when we invaded Cambodia, I talked about say, "This is cool. It's a good deal. We should have done it a long time ago." People flipped out. But, and in fact, one time after one of my calls, I get a phone call from this kid. He's crying. He says, "You got to stop writing that shit." I said, "Why?" He says, "Well, my name is John Meyer and my mother thinks It's me writing that [ __ ] that you're writing." So, so I from that point I made my by line Jay Striker Meyer and that was

my by line for the next 30 years. And uh but I did that and then we got involved in news and then in the spare time I was doing photography. I just love shooting and they had a little cheap uh uh Yashika camera that was a signal camera. So that was mine and I used it and we finally got a photo lens. So I did Photography and uh spent a lot of time in the dark room, wrote stories and then became editor. And our editorships ran from January to December so that when the new school

year started, the editorial board would be strong and we could recruit new people into the newspaper from there. So I was editor for two years um day and night worked every day on that paper for two years and then at the end of it got hired by the Trenton Times in Trenton, New Jersey. And uh I hadn't had a vacation in over like two and a half, three years. So I drove out to uh Colorado to see my sister for a couple days. Spent a couple of days with her and then on the way home

saw Tony Harrell and a couple of friends I served with. and then um went to work at the Trenton Times, reported in there January, middle of January of 1975. Worked there for 10 years as a reporter and then u it was owned by the Washington Post. So this is in the Glory days, 1975, we had Katherryn Graham came to our Trenton Times newsroom at least three different times, twice to the auditorium with Woodward and Bernstein who were like journalistic guides. They were all there talking about Watergate and about our newspaper because it was a proud

property of the Washington Post. And uh I started out as a reporter just covering local governments. I was a good reporter, but My writing was weak. And uh after my first seven months, the editor who was a World War II vet who hired me said, "The other editors here want you to work on your writing. I'm going to hire you. I'm going to fire you as a full-time staff writer, but I want to hire you back as a stringer. He said, "Uh, so you we'll pay you for any article and you're shooting pictures, any pictures

you shoot." So, I did both. I made more money as a stringer than I did as a staff writer. And I still covered my old beats. And then, um, after, I don't know, eight or nine months, he hired me back. I came back as a full-time reporter and um did um a little bit more in the m municipal beast and I covered the courts and I covered the courts for seven years. Did investigative reporting along the way in my spare time cuz the courts you always had recess in the summer. They're taking vacations whenever they

had an excuse. And so between covering the courts, we Had a opportunity a couple twice we made new law in New Jersey for first amendment rights for reporters in New Jersey on court cases that I covered and we took the cases all the way to the Supreme Court. Wow. And worked with the New York Times attorney Floyd Abrams on it. And um 1981, the Washington Post sold the Trenton Times to a company that was just on they came in, their management Was there on Friday. They said, "We're we're here. There's not going to be any

cuts or anything." And that was Friday. On Monday, when everybody came to work, there were 60 less people there. We had a staff of 120 on Friday. On Monday, there were 60. And they laid that many people off. I was one of the ones that remained on cuz a courthouse beat my investigative reporting and stuff. And uh then uh in ' 82, one of my editors had Moved to San Diego and he offered me a job. So I came out and interviewed for it. But uh for some reason it just didn't work out. and my

first wife was pregnant. And uh so we had our first child in Trenton and I worked at the Trenton Times for two more years and then uh on February 1985 we moved to San Diego. Lived in North San Diego County, worked at the San Diego Union there for um eight years. than a year as a freelance writer working or I mean a General assignment reporter working it could be nights covering the Clintons when they're coming to town for NAFTA or dead bodies floating in the Tijana River things like that and of course in 1985 Kiki

Camarina DE agent was killed after he was tortured by the Mexicans and uh the FBI had tapes of the torture and we learned erned about who was there. There's state attorneys, uh, cops, federalis, state police, all these top people were there. They were trying to Get Kiki Camarina to tell them who his sources were cuz they were DEA was hurting Mexican drug trafficking and they knew that Kiki Camarina was the point man on that mission. Wow. Just horrible. So we did a bunch of stories and at least two of the stories particularly we did a

story myself and another investigative reporter John Stannifer we were there and we filed a report we had to meet with our lawyers in the morning talk to the editors tell Them what we're doing and then um the Mexican government filed formal complaints against our newspaper and us particularly and they went right to Ed me who was the attorney general and they did nothing about because the stories were accurate. Wow. Oh yeah. Did you deal with any type of depression or any anything after Vietnam? No. I mean some nights you just go you that adrenaline kick

and the guys and Being a Green Beret in a secret war at the top of our game. I missed being a part of that. But also thanks to the NVA, I also knew that the life expectancy wasn't wasn't that good. We had high casualty rate, one of the highest cases in the Vietnam War. Um, we've recently had more accurate numbers on that. So, but just from sheer experience, just from my introduction to Spike Team Idaho, you know, the team gets wiped out. There's an opening now. And that happened several times. We had by the time

that happened we had had two other teams wiped out in SOG. We had possibly had Villa Rosa and his team. Everybody was killed except for the American and that American was sent back to bring back the message of what they would do to our SAG guys in in in Laos. Did you ever go back to Vietnam? Never. Why do you think so many Vietnam vets Move back to the area? Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the people, you know, when again once once you deal with the people who live there, not the politicians, not the [ __ ]

communists, and certainly not any of the law enforcement that's there, cuz that's corrupt also, basically. But it's the people. Any American that goes back to Vietnam today is always greeted warmly 99.99% of the time because the people realize The difference between being under communism and being free and uh they appreciate what we had done to sacrifice. They know the sacrifice. What did you think about the pull out? Oh, it sucked. I mean, it seemed very similar to what we just experienced in Afghanistan. Yep. And again, politicians are involved. The two key reasons for the pullouts

in our case, uh, we had the Easter offensive in 1972, And they, the NVA had planned that so that they would hit all of our major cities as they did in ' 68, and they would crush and just take over Vietnam by force. Well, they didn't. And there's also a secret so SOG story here that's never been told before as one of the reasons why they didn't. And if we want we could talk a little bit about that. But in 1972 they were held and they didn't break. And from that point on we we removed

more people and we had no Combat troops left by 73. And even SOG was shut down in 72. The eight-year secret war came to an official end. And the promise was the Vietnamese would fight it and that we would continue aid to support them with tack air and support their air force because their air force and helicopter pilots were phenomenal. And they had some very good units, but Congress withheld the funding and Ford Begged them to keep the money going and they cut off all funding. And without the tack air and that support, you know,

everybody will say maybe they would have fallen eventually. Well, maybe they would have, but the way we did it sucked. And u in my case, I'm in the newsroom and we had seen this happened. Way is breaking down. And then April 30th, it came across the AP clacking across. They tore it off and they announced it in the Newsroom. I went back to the men's room, just sat there for an hour or so just crying. tore up thinking about S, Hep, and the boys and the guys. They're all there. Um, and from it all, Heep

was the only one that got out. On that day, Heep's father had arranged for him to get a pass at the Thompson Airbase. There was a C130 pulling out when Heep got there with his wife and his I think it was his son. And the C130 had the tailgate halfway up. Heep gets behind it. He throws his child in there. Somebody catches the child. He helped his wife get up. Then he fell down. He jumps up because now the C130 is moving down the runway. He runs alongside that helicopter. I mean the C130. That arm

reached out and grabbed him and pulled him into it. He came back came back to the States. Took a while to get through it all with a sponsor and everything. He ended up in Houston and um the History Channel did a piece in 2000 called the Suicide Missions and that was the one of the first productions that aired about SOG and they did a good job with it. And in it, I had that picture that I have on the front page of across the fence of hemp. And the guy from the history channel calls up

and says, "Hey, there's a guy here says his uncle's on his uncles in that picture you showed." Well, I almost [ __ ] a brick. This is 2000. You know, like 25 years after leaving Vietnam. So I he gives me the phone number. I call him up. It was Hef's nephew living in Carl'sbad, nine miles away. So I called this young man up said, "Hey, this is me. I know you. I know your uncle connected with He. We had phone calls and then his nephew told me He's going to be out out to Orange County

for a wedding in a couple of months." I said, "Well, tell me." So he Gave me the flight number and everything. So the night that He flew into Orange County, I was at the airport. He came in on a late flight 9 9:30 or something and I'm there he gets off the airplane. He goes, "My you still buu dingy d you too tall and your feet too big." No. Hello. I missed you. No, it's like right away. He's just the typical smartass, you know. Busting your balls. Oh, yeah. Wonderful guy. I mean, and he was

a great interpreter. I mean, like I said, he spoke four or five languages. He corrected my English. That's how good he was. And of course, he always wore sunglasses. But him and S, we re we built the team around them. And uh live today, thanks to the team and their courage, the King B pilots, aviators that supported us, fast movers, A1 Sky Raiders, you know, even Spectre. I mean, heck, there's one mission. We Went through four Specters on one night, killed thousands, but we could didn't have time to count the bodies. Oh yeah. So I

was very fortunate and again it's like I just felt that there's divine intervention here many times. They helped me get back here. Yeah, I would say definitely so. Oh, absolutely. For sure. Well, John, I just want to say it was an Honor to interview you and have you sitting across from me and um so glad we did this and uh welcome home. Glad to be home and uh glad to be here sitting in the same chair that Sarah sat in and all those other great interviews you've had along the way there. My god, legend. We

just go down the list, man. These shows are phenomenal. Thank you. So, my wife and I are big fans. We'll continue to be so, sir. Thank you, brother. Cheers. Till next time. [Music] [Applause] No matter where you're watching Shawn Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this, please like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, please leave us a review on Apple and Spotify podcasts.