[SPEAKER_03]: This is Jockel podcast number 533 with echo Charles and me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jockel willing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good evening echo.
[SPEAKER_03]: The place is staging Battalion Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of them are in their teens.
[SPEAKER_03]: Private's first class and lands corpals.
[SPEAKER_03]: Among them are the corpals and sergeants.
[SPEAKER_03]: Not much older, breaking into their 20s.
[SPEAKER_03]: They come in all shapes and sizes all hours of the day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of them are young, the new breed of Marines on their way to Vietnam.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sprinkled among this group are the old salts, Marines with many years of service on the record books.
[SPEAKER_03]: Many are veterans of our last war, Korea.
[SPEAKER_03]: For them, this will be their second war.
[SPEAKER_03]: For a few, like me, it's war number three.
[SPEAKER_03]: My thoughts rolled back over the years, 24 years of soldering.
[SPEAKER_03]: 25 if I counted that part time bit in the state guard.
[SPEAKER_03]: It all began during World War II.
[SPEAKER_03]: 1944 was the year and a new recruit was paid $50 a month.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was 17 years old, five foot five and 145 pounds of enthusiasm.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Marine Corps turned to me down.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dejected, I tried them all and received the same reply, sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: Poor eyesight and a history of tuberculosis as a kid just did not help a guy at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was walking in downtown less Los Angeles when I happened to see the sign.
[SPEAKER_03]: American Seaman for American ships joined the U.S. Maritime Service.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was my ticket to the war.
[SPEAKER_03]: We march through the city on our way from the recruiting station to the train depot, our journey had started.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember how people looked and sometimes waved as we marched to buy.
[SPEAKER_03]: We felt like heroes off to war.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hit the deck and move out, suddenly we found out how the road to war would be paved.
[SPEAKER_03]: Still, we were young and eager.
[SPEAKER_03]: Damn the submarines, we are the men of the merchant marine.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I was 18, I volunteered for the army.
[SPEAKER_03]: I could not enlist, but they would accept me through the Selective Service System.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was assigned to an infantry unit as a machine gunner.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, the war ended before I could get any machine gun into action, so it was too Japan for occupation duty.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I can still hear the call.
[SPEAKER_03]: Machine guns up.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would run forward with 35 pounds of MG barrel across my shoulders, and my packing into my back.
[SPEAKER_03]: The corps has been good to me, I thought.
[SPEAKER_03]: The only outfit for a professional soldier.
[SPEAKER_03]: I joined the corps in 1952 after I returned from Korea.
[SPEAKER_03]: That war was still going on and the corps no longer cared about my poor eyesight or that I had TB as a kid.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are right, there are some excerpts from a book called Vietnam 68 Jack's Journal, written by Jack W. John who spent almost 34 years in the military, as you could hear.
[SPEAKER_03]: started off serving service as a merchant marine in World War II and became a soldier at the end of World War II.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then he served as a soldier in the Korean War where he participated in seven campaigns including duty with the British 29th Brigade and as a soldier he also served with the first marine division during his time in Korea.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was wounded, received the purple heart,
[SPEAKER_03]: And as you just heard after Korea, and after seven years of Army service, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard to get in the Marine Corps right now with prior service.
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't really take that anymore, but during the Korean War, prior service, we don't care.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, we joined the Marine Corps, eventually served, and Vietnam, including time during the Ted Offensive, and some other significant operations there, Operation All-Burn, Operation Mead River.
[SPEAKER_03]: During that time, he was promoted to Sergeant Major, and also during that time, he kept a journal.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this book is a result of that journal, which was published in 1989,
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually have a signed copy that I'm holding right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: After retirement, he studied history eventually got his master's degree in American history, but
[SPEAKER_03]: This book is a first hand account of American history from a senior enlisted Marine in Vietnam, one who had served in World War II at Font Korea, and he understood the life and the death of the infantrymen.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says this, in the preface, like many veterans of various wars, I remember more than one saying I could write a book about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had that feeling.
[SPEAKER_03]: The two times, probably we say it most emphatically, are during recruit training and during a wartime experience, and ever wrote anything about my experiences in World War II.
[SPEAKER_03]: All that remains are some memories and a few letters I wrote to my mother.
[SPEAKER_03]: I never wrote anything about my experiences in Korea, all that remains are more memories in several letters I wrote to my wife.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did write stories about my experiences in Vietnam.
[SPEAKER_03]: These are compiled now as Vietnam 68, Jack's Journal.
[SPEAKER_03]: This book is a daily record of events, my experiences and thoughts at that time.
[SPEAKER_03]: the stories are true written at the time recorded or very soon after from notes on a desk calendar in a pocket notebook on the backs of envelopes or the top of a sea ration box.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is some advice that I've been trying to give to people to take notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And look, I'm not talking about, you know, you hear like the journaling thing, like do journaling to make your life better and like all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling you do it just to remember what the hell was going on in your life.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you went to college, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah, I bet so many things happen in college that were funny, cool, humorous, and you forgot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, fully.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a, I told you about this, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mother sent me a two-page, you know, the yellow, no pads or whatever, legal pad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, yes, just written in pencil.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I barely remember the incident, but it was of how I like, I
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like about to turn my band in my younger brother, down in the town by my father, and he, after school, I guess we lost him, I think we ditched him, but it's a small little town, close to town, it's small, so it's not like, oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, and apparently it was like this thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, and I'm reading it, she sent it to me recently, like within the last like three years, she sent it to me just not in a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, and then, yeah, I was reading it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, yeah, that's, that's with, it's an interesting little slice of a time long gone, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it really happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a real time and really events, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: And how well did you remember those without seeing the paper?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I would never have thought of it ever in my whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, when I was reading it, little sparks of memories was coming back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like with one, I was like, yeah, I feel like I remember this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't remember writing it, but it, you know, it did bring back the actual memory, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: The way the memories work, I don't know how they work like, technically, via, you know, I'm not gonna give you the physiology, but,
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't make those connections, so here's an example for me like I grew up on the East Coast, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: When I go to my home town, I have, I go to my home town once every 10 years, let's say, on average.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I go there, there's a lot of things I don't remember, like people will tell me stories about me that I don't remember.
[SPEAKER_03]: And part of it's because I don't reconnect those neurons every day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, counter that when I was in the Navy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did 18 out of 20 years, stationed in Coronado, in Seal Team 1, Seal Team 7, and Seal Team 3, and trade it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And all those buildings, when I was at those buildings, because they were in different locations, now like Seal Team 1's in a different location, Seal Team 3's in a different location.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're all in different locations, out trade, that's in a different location.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I was at those commands, they were all 100 meters apart.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when I was 18 years old, I look at those stairs and I was like, I remember walking up those stairs.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and you get reminded of these things.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't get reminded of them, they fade away.
[SPEAKER_03]: They just fade away.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if you don't take notes on what you're doing and what how things are going and where you are, you just forget them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you think about what your life is, your life is memories.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't have memories, what you're a dog, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You ever look at your dog and you're like, I mean, my dog, as smart as they seem, they have no idea what's going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like sometimes, you know, you don't, you don't talk to your dog.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're like, hey buddy, I'm gonna head out for a little while.
[SPEAKER_03]: That dog is just like, this means nothing.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's like, am I going with you or not?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, do I get in the car or not?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the only, it's a binary thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you leave, he doesn't know if you're going forever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or if you're going for five minutes, but he's gonna he just look that's the way he's looking at me He's looking at me like I don't know how long you're gonna be gone for forever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this goodbye?
[SPEAKER_03]: But he doesn't know so he's just there
[SPEAKER_03]: and if you don't take notes on what's going on in your life and by the way, I'm not preaching this because I didn't do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did not do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wish I would have done this.
[SPEAKER_03]: When we had Joe Clayburn on the podcast and he pulled out his journals and he's got detailed drawings if everything that he did for his time in the military, man, that is awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: And look, it's not just military.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why I brought up you going to college.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know, you go to college, you get a job at some place, you meet some girl.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, one thing that's cool is I got letters.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, my wife saved all the letters that I wrote to her, you know, and I actually found some, yes, she was going through some yesterday.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, dang girl.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_03]: But here it was.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't have that, then, you know, what are you going to do?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I was telling her in this letter, I said, hey, you know, when I get out of the Navy, I'll get a job while
[SPEAKER_03]: I said, maybe I'll be a OB lifeguard.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, oh, she beats.
[SPEAKER_03]: I said, maybe OB lifeguard, question mark.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the funny thing is, I remember thinking, that might not be a bad job for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Get out of the Navy, retire from the Navy, and then be a lifeguard, and be on down the beach, surf, whatever, be home, go home for lunch or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that was a real thought that I had.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, but if I didn't read that, I would have never thought about that again.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, if you can make some small notes, even if you just, and you're going to see some of this journals just literally what happened that day, minimal, minimal of what happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: So keep that in mind and you're going to see some of the Some of the pro-found writing that comes out of that in this book I mean, obviously I'm not reading the whole book hit in some highlights This isn't when he's talking about the guys that are getting trained up to go to Vietnam during his training cycle in the company The Marine Replacement spends three days in a minestration Administration matters and then he moves to a field training area for nine days.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here he is giving classes on classes on Viet Kong minds and booby traps
[SPEAKER_03]: search of a Vietcong village, booby trap trails and fires, the various weapons available to him, especially the M16 rifle.
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot has been said about the M16 most of it's good after firing yet I feel it's a good weapon, but must be kept clean to function properly.
[SPEAKER_03]: An entire Vietnamese village has been built at the staging battalion.
[SPEAKER_03]: After a demonstration of the techniques of the village, search each marine applies the lessons learned by going through the village under simulated
[SPEAKER_03]: What struck me about this is this is exactly what we did getting guys ready for Afghanistan and Iraq.
[SPEAKER_03]: We built simulated villages, we sold them how to clear them and what to do with them and then we put simulated conditions.
[SPEAKER_03]: The same applies to the Viet Kong Trail to see if he notices mines and booby traps.
[SPEAKER_03]: By the way, as you heard from Roger Hayden on this podcast, they started doing that point man trail during nom and we still ran the exact same point man trail when I was running training.
[SPEAKER_03]: Upon completion of the training cycle, Marines are sent to one of three bases to fly out, Travis Air Force Base, Northern Air Force Base, or Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, telephone calls are made, letters written, then to Ocanawa aboard a 707.
[SPEAKER_03]: Access uniforms and gear are stored at Ocanawa, a 24 hour to 48 hour stop.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those going to Vietnam landed the name, for me, another tour has started.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he arrives 23 December 1967, it's Christmas Eve, and those going home are trying to get out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some will not make it in time for Christmas at home.
[SPEAKER_03]: Army buses bring them in at all hours of day and night.
[SPEAKER_03]: Many of them are still dirty and only a few hours out of Vietnam.
[SPEAKER_03]: Outside, a group of young marines in their fresh greens, three or four more three or four ribbons on their chest, are smiling and joking waiting to shove off for home.
[SPEAKER_03]: Passing them are another group see bags on their shoulders going to barracks.
[SPEAKER_03]: These Marines are their replacements going south when their flight is ready This is taking place in Okinawa.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't make that clear As a couple past me, I hear one say I sure hope I come back as he looks at the group going home His buddies reply don't worry you'll come back one way or another you'll come back
[SPEAKER_03]: That's like the classic, the classic Vietnam scene, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: The battle-harden guys coming out of the field in jacked-up camis and all that dirty, skinny,
[SPEAKER_03]: worn and then the fresh cuts coming in.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're just fresh off the fresh off the boat getting ready to head over there.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I talked about that on one of the unraveling podcast we had some of the contractors that were getting ready or they swung by this
[SPEAKER_03]: and we like the contractor showed up from like a contracting company and you know they're wearing like brand new gear and you're looking at it and you're like man I don't know if I put my magazines over there like it's going to be hard to get to like what you're in a vehicle you're not going to be like I'll access your pistol like you're having all those thoughts and then the one thing like they were traveling in armored vehicles but armored vehicles
[SPEAKER_03]: A Ford Explorer and they put like armor.
[SPEAKER_03]: They put armored windows in kind of armor the door They they put the trunk or whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you call the trunk of a SUV?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so that thing wasn't armored, but they put like armor behind the back seat
[SPEAKER_03]: So, and they didn't really do much with the suspension, it was just basically the cheapest possible armored vehicle you could make.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I remember asking the guys like, hey, do you guys have run flats, which is the vehicle tire that can run even when it gets shadowed, keep going for a little while?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd like to do you guys have run flats?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, we don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, if you get your tire shot out, you're not going to be able to drive anymore.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was terrible to see.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was a
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Marines live in hooches about eight or more to a hooch many have TVs in the hooch There's a chapel for church services and a recreation hunt for working out drawing sporting gear and some paper back novels The mess hall is large and being fixed up all the time at night movies are shown there One incoming shell hit the corner of the mess hall, but it's repaired now just giving you like some kind of a feel for what the guys are living
[SPEAKER_03]: When arriving in Vietnam, we are taught to respect the native customs, traditions, and religion.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't shoot up the temples or destroy the graves of ancestors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Respect the native beliefs, the Marines tribe, but sometimes is mighty hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: The tracked landing vehicles, LTV's from one of our companies, had been going on a path between some graves in their area of operations when the mine went off, wounding the driver and causing quite a bit of damage, Charlie knew that the vehicles would not go through the graveyard.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as the vehicles were channeled between the graves, he placed his minds in the best position.
[SPEAKER_03]: The company, the company sergeant, company gunner sergeant on a second tour of duty in Vietnam, was suspicious.
[SPEAKER_03]: He ordered the remaining vehicles side to side and drove through the grave yard tearing the graves apart.
[SPEAKER_03]: Many graves in Vietnam are about 18 inches high, small mounds of earth.
[SPEAKER_03]: Afterwards, the Marines dug through the graves, not one body, not a bone, nothing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Charlie had made a dummy grave site knowing that the vehicles would go through and
[SPEAKER_03]: where the vehicles would have to travel.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sort of like fighting a war with the deck stacked against you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes it is hard for the Marines to respect those customs traditions for legends and graveyards, because the enemies are going to take advantage of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now they had that thing where they called the VC Charlie, and then they talk about Charlie as an individual human.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like he planted the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we would call the enemy, Moosh.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: and but you you move just plural is like the mousse it wasn't like a mousse it was the mousse all of them they all planted a mine because but Charlie's singular yeah and so they talk now we talk about the enemy like we would call the enemy he yeah like you'll hear the military leaders will do that yeah we've got the enemy over here we think he might do this they talk about the enemy in a singular way but mousse is a little less singular
[SPEAKER_03]: The moves over here, you know, when I never really said that, I always think thought of the moves as plural.
[SPEAKER_03]: They tried to say we couldn't say moves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this respect force.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because of the traditions, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And Mujahideen is like warrior for God.
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's what, when this word came down, I sent up the chain of command that the local populist who hated
[SPEAKER_03]: The insurgents that we're fighting and killing them, you know what they called the insurgents that we're fighting and killing them?
[SPEAKER_03]: Mujadine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mujadine.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, we were being so aggressively politically correct that it was, we went overboard.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're Mujadine.
[SPEAKER_03]: The local populous who hates them, calls them Mujadine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very principal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Check.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: By the way, this is just a fantastic book.
[SPEAKER_03]: 9 January 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: The young corporal had no statement to make, and by the way, just echo trolls.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he's a senior guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we've read a lot of books from senior officers.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've read a lot of books from frontline kind of soldiers and Marines.
[SPEAKER_03]: This guy's a senior enlisted Marine.
[SPEAKER_03]: So his perspective is a little different than we're used to hearing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, for our podcast,
[SPEAKER_03]: people that write books.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a lot of junior-and-listed guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a lot of officers and then senior officers.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the senior NCL, we've done some, but he's a really good example of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why his perspective is so interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: The young corporal had no statement to make.
[SPEAKER_03]: He had given a written one at the investigation.
[SPEAKER_03]: The company commander and I were at battalion headquarters because the Marine was from our company.
[SPEAKER_03]: The sergeant major had just marched the Marine in and the Colonel asked him if he had any statement to make.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have read your statement said the Colonel.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would you care to repeat it to me to be sure I have read it correctly?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes sir.
[SPEAKER_03]: and the Marine told his story.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Marine, a corporal, had been in charge of an ambush patrol one night outside the wire.
[SPEAKER_03]: His patrol instructions were to set up an all-night ambush for the VC.
[SPEAKER_03]: After the corporal placed his Marines in position, a noise was heard, where no Marine was supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thinking it was the VC, some of the patrol members fired.
[SPEAKER_03]: it was one of their own men.
[SPEAKER_03]: He had moved out a position and wandered into the kill zone.
[SPEAKER_03]: He told his buddies in the patrol to say the VC shot him, he didn't want any Marines to be blamed because the guy lived, so he got shot by his own guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: He lived.
[SPEAKER_03]: and he told his buddies in the patrol to say the VC shot him he didn't want any of the Marines to be blamed.
[SPEAKER_03]: The corporal talked it over with the patrol and they decided to claim it was enemy action.
[SPEAKER_03]: Upon return to camp, the corporal made his report.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a false report.
[SPEAKER_03]: Next day on his own, he decided to correct his report and make a true statement.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now he faced the Colonel for final action on his case.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now what you got to remember about this is if you don't tell everyone what happened, no one learned anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because that's a mistake.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you don't say hey guys, we had one of our guys that had to take a piss or he wanted to go check something out and he left the wire and we shot him.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't say that to everybody, other people will make that mistake.
[SPEAKER_03]: continue on.
[SPEAKER_03]: You step forward on your own, question the Colonel?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, sir.
[SPEAKER_03]: The control of your squad was poor.
[SPEAKER_03]: The corporal, as a squad leader, must have complete control of his squad at all times.
[SPEAKER_03]: He may be called upon to make quick decisions at any moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: They must be right the right decisions.
[SPEAKER_03]: The corporal made an error, corrected it later, but he made the wrong decision.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now he was man enough
[SPEAKER_03]: Marines get killed in war, and sometimes it has been friendly fire that killed them.
[SPEAKER_03]: War is hell, and accidents do happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: No need for a false report.
[SPEAKER_03]: And unfortunate accident, but it was not his fault.
[SPEAKER_03]: A Marine had wandered into the wrong area after he had been placed in position by the patrol leader, fortunately the Marine was only wounded, seriously, but he was recovering in the hospital.
[SPEAKER_03]: Reduction to the rank of Lance Corporal said the Colonel Colonel, considering the excellent service record of the Corporal has performance the duty and based on the recommendation of others, the Colonel continued the sentence is suspended for a period of three months.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he busted him down in rank, but said, if you can keep your nose clean for three months, you'll be okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you can understand that if you're a corporal and you have a blue on blue, you think this is the mortal sin.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you don't understand that the senior leadership goes, hey man, we get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Accent happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when you lie about it, that's a problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, once again, lessons don't get learned.
[SPEAKER_03]: The cover up will always get you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You cannot cover things up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is that understood?
[SPEAKER_03]: Said the Colonel was he looked in the corporal, hard in the eyes, yes sir, replied the corporal, and a very slight look of relief seemed to pass over his face.
[SPEAKER_03]: You showed the mark of a man when you stepped forward and corrected an error.
[SPEAKER_03]: Use better judgment from now on, yes sir, about face order the sergeant major march out.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a young corporal in this battalion that has the mark of a man upon him, a man among many in this battalion of Marines.
[SPEAKER_00]: taking that's what a great story two pages taking ownership of what's going on in your world yeah i mean i know you put the tone on it when you're reading it but he was like accidents happen no need for a fake report
[SPEAKER_00]: like, and that's kind of solid, because there's different ways to say that, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if you're, it was almost like making a fake report seemed kind of understandable, but hey, don't worry, there's no need for that, you know, I see why you thought you had to do that, you know, but hey, there's no need for that, because accident happened and you know, whatever, rather than, let's say, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: accident happens man you shouldn't have made that fake report you know kind of a tone you know now you're really you know it's a different kind of thing where you can now with that first one you can emphasize this like learning process like hey this is like kind of part of the process you know don't jam it up by doing you know this stuff you know it's okay you don't have to do that you know it is very strange how people perceive what is going to get them in trouble yeah right and we've talked about this in a bunch of different ways but
[SPEAKER_03]: thinking, when you cover something up, it's gonna be way worse.
[SPEAKER_03]: You should learn that as a kid, the time that you lied to your parents, the time that you, whatever, you tried to get one over on the teacher, and you try and cover something up, that's when things, that's what you're gonna get in trouble for.
[SPEAKER_03]: People make mistakes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now look, if you're doing something intentionally bad, and you purposely do something, and then you try and cover it up like that's gonna be double bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when you make an honest mistake,
[SPEAKER_03]: I get promise you, no one wanted to freaking wound one of their own Marines guaranteed.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you shouldn't be covering that up, not to mention, like I said, now you've got lessons that are not being learned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is not.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's still funny, I can see these little patterns where it kind of gets all mapped down to this idea of short-term versus long-term, you know, so like covering up something
[SPEAKER_00]: Cope, you know, but if you see kind of the big picture and the overall thing that's going on long-term It makes more sense even from a logical even from a survival standpoint Or even it from a defense mechanism standpoint if you're like thinking of the long-term You're thinking about learning you're thinking about like how is this gonna affect things over time, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: um rather than yeah covering up if you think about how's this how's my cover up gonna affect things over time one you're living a lie which is shameful and you know that I think that haunts most people you know when you're living a lie yeah because it went to gonna come out when they're gonna come out you're getting held hostage about it yeah you know it's like you feel slimy too on the inside
[SPEAKER_00]: And then yeah, like I said, like no one learns from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was saying, but then even when you could expand that out, it kind of makes you think like, hey, let's say you're dealing with kids or your boss or you are a boss and you're dealing with, like, your employees, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of paints a different picture than what you might see normally.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, the kids make mistake, they get punished for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or the kids make mistake, he admits to it and it's like, well, we should admit it to it kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye, kind of.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'd probably be beneficial to be like, hey, I like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You freaking demand up.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what a real human or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what a person with character does.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I notice that good job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep that up kind of a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can kind of engineer it where you're cultivating that, it'll come more natural over time.
[SPEAKER_03]: No doubt.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we lean real hard into you lied to me or you tried to cover this up and you're going to pay for that as opposed to like, oh, you did a good job admitting that something went wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good job leaning it out one more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that positive reinforcement the idea of like problem solving, you know, a problem slash solution kind of way of handling it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like it's been a good move, you know, it's, I don't know, someone forgot to take out trash or someone freaking, you know, spilt, whatever, the problem is, the problem is, okay, my boy spills chocolate milk.
[SPEAKER_00]: whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, the problem is, the smoke is spilled, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, hey, maybe he wasn't mean as careful as maybe he could have, or should have been in the kitchen in that particular moment in that particular place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the problems, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't make another problem by yelling at the kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you've got another problem, most still
[SPEAKER_00]: He still was not very careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you kind of, whether it be damage the relationship, now he's scared, now he, you know, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're like, hey, look, the problem is the mocha is built.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to try to be more careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clean up the mocha, no problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for taking responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's a better way to do it than yelling at him because now he's he cleans it up problem solved he'll be more careful problem solved he took responsibility and is more inclined to take more responsibility in the future when mistakes happen which they do future problem solved seems hey there you go
[SPEAKER_03]: It has been 17 years since my last patrol, Korea, 1950.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was a corporal then and much younger.
[SPEAKER_03]: H&S Company provides the reaction squad for the battalion.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's composed of the Marines from heat and steam.
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe it exemplifies the doctrine of the corps, all Marines, and riflemen first, are riflemen first, and specialists second.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what the group that he's in charge of is kind of like the administrative group, headquarters.
[SPEAKER_03]: and but they are the quick reaction force.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if something happens these clerks and cooks and they're going to get their gear on and go get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're going out of patrol.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward a little bit leave the road now and start across country sometimes referred to as Indian country.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are many native graves through here.
[SPEAKER_03]: We see bullet scars on many a headstone.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are times Charlie plants, booby traps on the side of the dikes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then fires.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you jump off.
[SPEAKER_03]: and into the patty, you may land on a booby trap.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if Charlie fires a few rounds, this old man will fall down on the trail.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's something to Vietnam guys told us.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's always true, like you're walking down the street, and there's like a, if you start getting shot at, and there's a perfect area of cover, chances are, you get blown up if you go in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this got, I didn't experience this, but,
[SPEAKER_03]: In Afghanistan, the IEDs got so bad that even if they got contacted, they wouldn't move to cover.
[SPEAKER_03]: They would stay where they are to get down, but they'd have to be very, very cautious.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward, and it's interesting three-hour walk.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now I've been on patrol, what was a like routine, I guess.
[SPEAKER_03]: After 24 years of soldiering of one type or another, it seems a bit routine.
[SPEAKER_03]: The feeling at 40 is more relaxed than it was at 20.
[SPEAKER_03]: The average age of this squad is probably 20.
[SPEAKER_03]: They are good and know their business.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of them have been hit while on patrols so they know the score.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can tell they like seeing an old salt the long.
[SPEAKER_03]: It gives them a bit of confidence so you do not want to fail them if the chips are down.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has been said that the old salt is the anchor on the line and maybe he is.
[SPEAKER_03]: They know and I know that a first sergeant is not supposed to go out on patrols but
[SPEAKER_03]: 13 young Marines on patrol, and an old salt thinking hell, these rice paddies smell no different than the ones in Korea.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward, 16 January, 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: Rumor is we may have, we may be hit in denang area before tet, the enemy's new year.
[SPEAKER_03]: 100% alert all hands and holes can sleep, but ready for action.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward, according to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam statistics for 1967 are 87,534 enemy dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: The total of the enemy dead is the equivalent of more than 114 NVA battalions.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a different level than I experienced for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward, January 24, 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: The old Warhorse heard the sound of the bugle and trotted off to battle.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was about 430 in the afternoon when the word was passed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Reaction squad and trackers down to the COC bunker now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Draw your ammunition.
[SPEAKER_03]: Draw your rations ammo, radio men, and a corpsman.
[SPEAKER_03]: I went topside and talked to one of my office clerks, Sergeant Tidwell, the assistant squad leader.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why don't you go with us first, Sergeant?
[SPEAKER_03]: I sure would like to, but the old man would probably say no, you could check with the captain.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wasn't too happy about me going last time.
[SPEAKER_03]: The old war horse could hear the bugles.
[SPEAKER_03]: He sort of got that old feeling.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of that gung-hones.
[SPEAKER_03]: Not wanting to be left in the rear with the gear he galloped off to see the company commander for permission to go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can't do it, said the captain.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dammit to hell, why not, Skipper?
[SPEAKER_03]: After some hard talking to the Skipper, the Skipper said, okay, if the exo approves, the exo was the Italian executive officer, so off galloped the old war horse again.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, said the major, how could we justify it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Although the answer was no, the bugle could still be heard, but it was no use.
[SPEAKER_03]: First sergeants do not go with the squads on patrol, or small sized operations, besides the Colonel was against it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was six in the evening, the tracks bellowed or roar with their engines and started through the wire at the back of the CP area.
[SPEAKER_03]: The old warhorse could see the reaction squad atop the tracks, Corporal Scott, the special
[SPEAKER_03]: Corporal Stubs, who would be going home soon, Sargent's re-bornort and Tidwell and others, through the exhaust sand and setting sun, the old warhorse sensed another feeling as the young cults rode off.
[SPEAKER_03]: I damn near Cried.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wants to go get some, and he can't, and they tell me can't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, it's, you know, two tracks going out with whatever, 12, 15 Marines.
[SPEAKER_03]: He, it's just not justifiable.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, he did go out on some controls.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can go out, you know, like the right time.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the skipper said no.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward, seven February, 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: There were two small paper bags on my desk.
[SPEAKER_03]: I knew what they were before I opened them.
[SPEAKER_03]: The personal effects of the bodies of our two Marines killed in action.
[SPEAKER_03]: I opened the first bag, it contained a small religious medallion, insignia of rank and a cigarette lighter.
[SPEAKER_03]: The lighter still had blood on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Marine had been shot three times in the chest.
[SPEAKER_03]: Chris I yelled, yes, top, clean the blood off this lighter, can't send it home like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Chris is a Lance Corporal, Steve, Christian Sin, Boise Eidaho, the company driver, a good Marine.
[SPEAKER_03]: The other bag contained $11 in military script and a religious metal on a chain.
[SPEAKER_03]: One married one signal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Charlie plays no favorites.
[SPEAKER_03]: Chris get the Jeep.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to go to the hospital.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have two wounded Marines there, both from the same operation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Four wounded and two dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: That puttune really got hit.
[SPEAKER_03]: We arrived at the hospital and it was like all the others in a war zone, men sitting around, medics and corpsmen going from place to place.
[SPEAKER_03]: The stretcher bearers waiting for the coppers to come in with the MetaVax, one right there was fresh, must have just arrived.
[SPEAKER_03]: The sign of the door said, Ward 5A, he's in here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lance Corporal Eugene Bevel, from Texarkana, Arkansas, was wounded in the left hand and below the right eye by shrapnel and small arms fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: The LTV he was riding on was hit wall in support of an infantry unit.
[SPEAKER_03]: He saw his buddies get hit.
[SPEAKER_03]: But one with the $11 on my desk was, quote, reaching down to help a wounded grunt when he got hit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Belleville continued to story.
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw him straight
[SPEAKER_03]: Bellville sat there a minute quiet.
[SPEAKER_03]: He had that stair many men get in wars when a battle or a fight is still fresh in their minds remembering what it was like with their buddies dying around them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yet a misty look in his eyes when I left.
[SPEAKER_03]: Probably glad it was over for him, and yet not wanting to leave his buddies behind.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do not know, I suppose it was a look of unbelief.
[SPEAKER_03]: The ambulance was leaving with a load of cases when I climbed aboard the Jeep, among the fringe benefits of being a first surgeon.
[SPEAKER_03]: is the honor of visiting Marines in the hospital, identifying the KIAs and inventoring personal effects.
[SPEAKER_03]: Someone has to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: For my KIAs, it is all over.
[SPEAKER_03]: For the wounded in action, if they're lucky, it's trip back home.
[SPEAKER_03]: For me, it will probably mean more KIAs and wounded in action and more widows and heartbroken parents.
[SPEAKER_03]: that part of war has never changed.
[SPEAKER_03]: a few days later, 13 February 1968 is customary for the skipper to write a letter of condolence to the family of a marine killed in action.
[SPEAKER_03]: After the skipper wrote a letter to the parents of one of our KIAs and the wife of another I sat down to write one of my own.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had some color polaroid photographs of the memorial service held for our two KIAs and thought the parents and wife would like to have them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dear Mrs. Smith and the Smith is just the fake name.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dear Mrs. Smith and closed our two photographs of the Memorial Service conducted by our battalion for your husband and another Marine recently killed an action.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know your grief is great at this time, but it may help to know that when your husband was killed, he was trying to help another Marine.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was among Marines from this company providing support to an infantry company in a battle of few miles from here.
[SPEAKER_03]: When your husband was hit, he was reaching down from his LVT to try to pull a rifleman aboard.
[SPEAKER_03]: His LVT had gone in to try and rescue Marines.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought that you would like to know this very sincerely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jack W. Johnnell, first sergeant of Marines.
[SPEAKER_03]: and later he received this letter, which he published in the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dear first sergeant, Johnnell, I've received your letter in pictures and I will be forever thankful.
[SPEAKER_03]: My husband was a hero and he was a hero to his son.
[SPEAKER_03]: All I knew was that he was killed.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did not know how he died.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was a hero and always will be to his son and I.
[SPEAKER_03]: God bless you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward 25 February 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: I enter the company office and the skipper gives me the scoop.
[SPEAKER_03]: First it will be the same as last night 100% alert.
[SPEAKER_03]: No one sleeps.
[SPEAKER_03]: We will go to the wire at $1,900 and come off at about $0,700 tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_03]: So one of the things that I, you know, I'm fast forwarding through a bunch of the book, but they're on a base, like a forward operating base, and they're expecting attack.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the enemies outside the wire, and they have to protect their small forward operating base.
[SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of times, a lot of their duty, even when they're back in base, they're out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: you know on the line on the wire on the perimeter securing the perimeter and it's long miserable nights night after night so they're out there on this guess I'll go check the line and it's and I start for the first hole it was getting misty now gonna get wet tonight the Marines are awake and alert near bunker three i meet the skipper he's out checking the line also
[SPEAKER_03]: There was that bunker three we had two men wounded in December.
[SPEAKER_03]: Takes me about 45 minutes to check the line on my way back to my bunker I stopped at the mess hall for a cup of coffee.
[SPEAKER_03]: The night cook, Corporal William E. Sterman from Midland, Texas looks up and greets me.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many gallons of coffee have you made tonight I ask?
[SPEAKER_03]: About 45 gallons he replies.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a lot of coffee.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many last night?
[SPEAKER_03]: 90 gallons.
[SPEAKER_03]: We may beat it tonight.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's early yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: We drink a lot of coffee to stay awake these nights.
[SPEAKER_03]: Marines come to the galley and get coffee all night.
[SPEAKER_03]: They filled their canteens and take it back for themselves and their buddy in the hole.
[SPEAKER_03]: midnight it starts to rain.
[SPEAKER_03]: Three o'clock in the morning, I go check positions.
[SPEAKER_03]: How's it going, Marine?
[SPEAKER_03]: Rough, replies the Marine, but at least it stopped raining.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good Marines.
[SPEAKER_03]: Work all day and stay up all night.
[SPEAKER_03]: Two, maybe three hours of sleep in the morning and all over again.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many nights will we do this for?
[SPEAKER_03]: Last time it was 10.
[SPEAKER_03]: that's the duty.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, you know, fast 40 through a bunch of this stuff and he goes through some of the monotony of it, some of the fear of it, some of the stress of it, very, very heavy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just day after day after day.
[SPEAKER_03]: And occasionally, you know, like they'll do that for 10 days and then they'll get a little bit of security or they'll get intel that, you know, the enemy standing down so they'll get a couple of good nights sleep, but
[SPEAKER_03]: And then on top of that, they're going out on patrol on the day, you know, it's interesting, you know, in Vietnam, the VC attacked at night, and the VC owned the night is what they said, but, and the seals were one of the few groups that actively patrolled at night, they met the enemy where the enemy was, but these guys, they sit on base at night, and secure their base, but then during the day they're going out on patrols.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward, 9 April, 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: My gear was in the Jeep.
[SPEAKER_03]: I climbed a board and told my driver to shove off.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was on my way.
[SPEAKER_03]: It had been 13 years since I left Recon.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was looking forward to this assignment.
[SPEAKER_03]: Recon had grown inside over the size over the years from a company to a battalion.
[SPEAKER_03]: I waved to the guard as we drove out the gate.
[SPEAKER_03]: Third Amtrak is a good outfit.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought, but I always wanted to return to Recon and now I was on my way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Last time I was a staff sergeant in a division recon company now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would be sergeant major of a reach recon battalion So he's gotten promoted and he's moving from the track element that it was with now he's going to Be with a recon battalion fast forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: I picked up my gear and walked towards my new hooch It felt good to be back and recon especially as a sergeant major
[SPEAKER_03]: 26 April 1968, one of our reconnaissance patrols by the name of Rice Crispies had been hit about four o'clock in the morning by enemy mortar or rocket fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: Their mission was completed and they were to be lifted out by helicopter a daylight.
[SPEAKER_03]: 7 enemy rounds hit them.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first one hit a rock directly in their position.
[SPEAKER_03]: One Marine was killed.
[SPEAKER_03]: The radio operator, three were wounded one seriously.
[SPEAKER_03]: We arrived at the hospital just as the MetaVac helicopter arrived.
[SPEAKER_03]: as it landed a couple of corn and ran out with a stretcher.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was the KIA, the body wrapped in a rain poncho.
[SPEAKER_03]: We followed them into the receiving hut.
[SPEAKER_03]: The corn and cut the binding and unwrapped the poncho.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a young marine probably no more than 19.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was covered with dirt and blood.
[SPEAKER_03]: And although he had been on patrol for five days, he had very few whiskers, too young to grow a beard yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was hit in the back by shrapnel going through his pack and radio.
[SPEAKER_03]: The back of his head was bloody.
[SPEAKER_03]: Looks as if the one in the back of the head that killed him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I noticed the dead Marines first sergeant had entered.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's a short man, tough and all Marine Corps.
[SPEAKER_03]: I sometimes think of him as a small bulldog, a fighter.
[SPEAKER_03]: I noticed the bulldogs eyes, they look a little misty.
[SPEAKER_03]: He came down to identify the body, one of the more unpleasant tasks of a first sergeant.
[SPEAKER_03]: It hurts the good ones, especially.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was a good man.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remembered seeing the Marine in the area.
[SPEAKER_03]: He looked different then.
[SPEAKER_03]: The corpsmen took off the dead Marines' identification tag.
[SPEAKER_03]: The body was pale, eyes open.
[SPEAKER_03]: It had been about five hours since he was hit.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a little hard to take every time you see one of these wounded or dead Marines.
[SPEAKER_03]: It must be a father-to-release reaction, or maybe I subconsciously think of them as my own sons.
[SPEAKER_03]: As they removed articles from the body, I noticed a small piece of cloth about three by five inches.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was red and white with a small patch of blue and one corner.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dirty.
[SPEAKER_03]: With some blood on it, it was between his chest and camouflage jacket, a small American flag.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was a good marine and he thought enough of this flag to carry it on patrol with
[SPEAKER_03]: as it was taken from his young and now lifeless body, I cannot help but think of the other young men alive who burn or try to burn our flag.
[SPEAKER_03]: The flag this young marine died for.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am in no mood for flag burners today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward 17 May 1968 patrol hit by lightning last night, one man died in the hospital, one man wounded by an enemy booby trap.
[SPEAKER_03]: 19 May 1968, Ho Chi Minh, birthday, you know that that lightning strike, there's more about these lightning strikes never, I never thought about that before in all my reading of Vietnam.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you're out there with an antenna, you're out there with a metal antenna sticking up, there's lightning storms and it was not uncommon that guys would get hit and killed by lightning.
[SPEAKER_03]: when your environment is explosives, helicopters, machine guns, out in the wilderness like there's a lot of violent ways and accidental ways to die.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you often don't think about that as much.
[SPEAKER_03]: 22 May, 1968, one KIA reported in two wounded in action.
[SPEAKER_03]: Staff Sergeant Hughes killed with the first aircraft.
[SPEAKER_03]: He told me what happened and he was right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a couple of Marines that get attached to the first aircraft, and Sergeant Hughes didn't feel good about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Staff Sergeant Hughes didn't feel good about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: 24 May, 1968, Major Keating, our S3 officer died of wounds, our observers were with teams from the air cab to view their methods of operations and exchange of tactical ideas, especially recon inserts.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they'd sent two guys with the air cab and they both end up getting killed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Memorial Services, 26 May, 1968, Memorial Services for Major Keating and Staff Sergeant
[SPEAKER_03]: 28 May 1968, team in trouble, one killed an action for fell off a cliff.
[SPEAKER_03]: 29 May 1968, tried to go out with the rescue team, rest the team brought in at 1230.
[SPEAKER_03]: 30 May 1968 went out to Hill 10 and back, patrol ran into trouble, one killed an action, one wounded an action, 30 May, 31 May, 1968, two patrols in trouble, four wounded an action.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is again, these are small notes that he's taking, but at least you can look back and remember what happened on that day.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you can see what their days are like day after day after day.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's absolutely brutal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fast forward 29 June, 1968, two killed an action, one wounded an action from company A, three July, 1968, lost eight men, went down and copped or shot down all lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: Four July, 1968, Lieutenant wounded in head today while on patrol.
[SPEAKER_03]: Five July, 1968, visited patients in hospital.
[SPEAKER_03]: 7 July 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: The chapel was almost filled when I entered.
[SPEAKER_03]: It would be crowded a day with Marines outside listening before the memorial was over.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a rough one to take 8 men lost all at one time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our largest single lost to date.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of our recon patrols was being inserted when their helicopter came under enemy fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: The helicopter almost landed when Charlie opened up.
[SPEAKER_03]: The pilot radioed under fire tried to take off and as he did the chopper was hit.
[SPEAKER_03]: The report from the escort aircraft said it went up in a ball of flame fell to the ground and exploded.
[SPEAKER_03]: The pilot copilot pilot two crewmen and our eight men were killed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our reaction force went in and brought out the bodies.
[SPEAKER_03]: The only man not burned was the pilot he'd been blown out of the aircraft.
[SPEAKER_03]: I looked at the memorial program.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were all listed by faith.
[SPEAKER_03]: Latter day Saints, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish.
[SPEAKER_03]: The body's straightened as they sang the hymn and the words became stronger at the end as the hymn faded away.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone came to attention as they heard the firing squad, ready, aim, fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: ready aim fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: As the saluting volley was fired, I noticed a young sergeant in front of me his soldiers twitched with every crack of the rifles.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ready aim fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the sound of taps flowed through the air through the chapel on the hill and across the fields.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no sound more fitting for the military than taps, sad and yet beautiful.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can make the tears flow.
[SPEAKER_03]: There'd been a tear or two in the eyes of those in the chapel.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is hard to keep that small wet trail off the cheek.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: 14 July 1968 attended church services for two more KIA, 15 July 1968 two men lost on patrol got separated.
[SPEAKER_03]: 18 July 1968 put a sign up on the LZ named in honor of major
[SPEAKER_03]: point where you're kind of going to do what you're going to do out there, you know, you have to, I'll have to remind myself and talk to Lave about this, but like, there's some kind of protocol, like when Mark was killed, we just renamed, you know, this now can't markly, like there's some protocol to follow.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do not think we did any of the protocol.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to do what you're going to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's a weird thing like what matters, you know, you lose eight guys, you lose Keating, you lose these, you're losing guys all the time, you know, these rules and regulations will stick to the big ones, but some of this bullshit ain't happening.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we're doing what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: 28 July 1968, 0700 had scare, H53 Helicopter exploded in air, fought 25 of our recon Marines were on board.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was the wrong chaper chopper, but all hands were lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is after you was eight guys, you hear rumor that Helicopter went down with 25 guys on board.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a nightmare.
[SPEAKER_03]: 29 July 1968, Recon team shot out of a landing zone.
[SPEAKER_03]: A 30 July 1968 killed an action.
[SPEAKER_03]: Last night was a Marine who took my photo on a patrol and he, this is part of the book that I didn't read.
[SPEAKER_03]: He goes on a patrol and you know, they're out there in the field and a guy took his picture and that guy has killed an action.
[SPEAKER_03]: August 1, August 1968, OP on Hill 200, over run by NVA, 11 wounded in action, 5 killed in action, Reaction Force Company E, 3 wounded in action, Bibubi trap patrol hit 1KIA.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is a brutal deployment.
[SPEAKER_03]: six august 1968 accidental discharge of a 45 on hill 200 metavac with a man of little toe with a man's tip of little toe shot off.
[SPEAKER_03]: So again, you got guys with, you know, a battalion worth of guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: Seven august 1968 went to the first hospital company, three Marines from Hill 425 brought in injured from 50 caliber machine gun exploding all
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, you're around freaking explosives.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what a bull it is, little explosive, 11 August 1968, won killed an action, won wounded an action from our own claymore accident on hell for 25.
[SPEAKER_03]: How does that happen?
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a million ways that can happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did it, did it, did it Claymore fall down?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, you have the Claymore aimed in one direction.
[SPEAKER_03]: It falls over, it gets tripped over, whatever it now is pointed the wrong way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Claymore is our directional.
[SPEAKER_03]: You need to Claymore minus.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, front towards enemy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Bro, when I was a young kid, we, we blew claymores and, you know, our, our instructors are cadre.
[SPEAKER_03]: We, what we did was not, I wouldn't, it's not safe.
[SPEAKER_03]: You shouldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we would detonate those claymores like we would be a few feet from them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you'd be like in a,
[SPEAKER_03]: Depression, you know, with like maybe a little rock-out-cropping, just Clacking off claymores again, do not do this because it's too loud and it's too loud It's dangerous like there's all kinds of all the one million reasons not to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Overall bad idea bad idea But you can be very close to them
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, the explosion, you're gonna feel the backlash, I mean, you get your bell freaking wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, this is stupid, don't do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's what we did back then.
[SPEAKER_03]: Part of it was, you know, you know, we thought we were going to nom, you know, you might still think, still think that, you know, it was 1991.
[SPEAKER_03]: But hey, you got to know how close you can be to these things in case you got to clap one off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now we know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me ask you this about the claim more by your estimation.
[SPEAKER_00]: How far if the front right straight up front towards and how what kind of range does that have like little what it called lethal distance or whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the kill zone is probably like I figure what the official kill zone is but it's probably like 20 meters maybe 25 meters or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Strong it has stuff in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got like little ball bearings.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah These are like we had to know how many of those ball bearings there were how many are they?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've had them for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is yeah, but like what is it like 10 20 or is it like 100 Yeah I feel like that's going to like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to jam you up.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are like 20 like the size of You know, they're like a small ball bearing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like tiny ball that a BB bigger than a BB
[SPEAKER_03]: So that that kills on but there's all kinds of ways like first of all, you know, someone could be planning it go off It could fall down and now it blast towards people someone someone could set up in the wrong direction that should happens Yeah, that's why it literally says front towards enemy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but if you're new guy and you're you make a mistake Boom, you crack off a clay more and you wound your own guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, or you're distracted or whatever, but when you get
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have a lot of respect for that notion right there where it was like frontwards enemy and still people jamming up I don't I don't think that's stupid You understand that it's written on there for a reason.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, and it's still can get over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, cuz shit be happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the So every time I got surgery, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They They mark they put an arrow on your arm like in my on my knee It's like a they dry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just with a pen before I go ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like probably even doing
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, oh, well, that's to make sure that the doctor operates on the correct arm.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like, bad, the chart, you have a drawn-out thing here with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says right here, right, distal.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the whole freaking jargon, and they're like, I'm just saying like this, there's a reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this kind of stuff can happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this hospitals are hectic, like just the whole thing, and it's like, it just helps assure that the job is done correctly in it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like all right cool man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, who am I would say X on the other arm?
[SPEAKER_03]: I cut this on right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, exactly right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So who might have say like playing for real because putting an arrow to indicate like that's Not as good because you could still like pull the other arm out, but you forget about the arrow right I put a freaking X on that thing like not this arm I would write an English not this arm the other arm.
[SPEAKER_03]: Please
[SPEAKER_03]: 14 August 1968, 1500 Memorial Service for KIA, 22 August 1968, held 200 hit, won KIA, 300 in action, company E reaction force in at 0600, visited wounded in hospital, repelled out of helicopter with company A, surprised the hell out of the first sergeant.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's, you know, going, I'm fast-forwarding through all kinds of good stuff here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Get this book.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's out of print.
[SPEAKER_03]: Get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Get a copy of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: This was kind of an interesting series here.
[SPEAKER_03]: 12 October, 1968, Monsoon Reigns all morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: 13 October 1968 some rain not much behind on helicopter lifts 14 October 1968 monsoon rains all day no coppers flying 15 October 1968 rains most of the morning but clear most of the afternoon 16 October 1968 monsoon rains six inches in the morning supposed to last for another 48 hours can't get patrols in or out by air no copters so that's
[SPEAKER_03]: 18 October back to reigns almost all day not as heavy couple teams three days overdue 1300 general lame for briefing on recon plenty of security It's always interesting when you connect these names 19 October 1968 got two patrols in three days overdue because of bad weather Tired wet and hungry.
[SPEAKER_03]: How'd you like to be out on patrol?
[SPEAKER_03]: You get extended three days in the field
[SPEAKER_03]: 20 October 1968 Memorial Services for Marine killed by fire and burns.
[SPEAKER_03]: Marine was okay when the Colonel and I visited him at the hospital wasn't spirits by the time we got back to the C.P.
[SPEAKER_03]: Info the Marine had died.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have a nice spell, but I'm going to fast-forward 7 November 1968, had a first KIA since August, Sergeant from Force almost blown in half by grenade, went to ID the body at Med Battalion.
[SPEAKER_03]: The sergeant had been killed, the Battalion police, NCO, and wanted to be in the bush with a re-conpetrols, why I asked him even though I knew the answer.
[SPEAKER_03]: I supported his request for reconnaissance duty hell, I remember how I felt during World War II.
[SPEAKER_03]: He came to see me before his first patrol, got my transfer sergeant major, thanks for your help.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now he was dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: From his chest to his groin was a big hole.
[SPEAKER_03]: 10 November 1968 Marine Corps birthday on her 93 years old ceremony visited hospitals visited hospital patients and break.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's got people in the break goes and visit those guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: He I wish you he didn't talk about what they who they were or what they did but 12 November 1968 bad accident grenade went off on LZ killed two Marines two and serious condition five wounded with small two small cuts wounds visited wounded in the hospital.
[SPEAKER_03]: in the Batalic Fast Forward 5 December 1960 in the Batain area, the only the regulation cap was authorized.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when on patrol in the bush, Reconmarines could wear almost anything on their heads, most of the Reconmarines like the RVN Jungle Hat or Burais, several ward their marine issued field cap, some starched.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like one of the most classic pieces of
[SPEAKER_03]: the pirate, a green or camouflage cloth tied around the top of their head, duck hunter, a small brimmed field hat front down and back up, collegiate, a small brimmed field hat turned up all around.
[SPEAKER_03]: For an aft, the brim of the jungle hat was turned up in front and back
[SPEAKER_03]: A large brimmed Australian-type bush hat with the side turned up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes the side was pinned up with a black Marine Corps emblem.
[SPEAKER_03]: Safari, a large brimmed Australian-type bush hat with the brim turned down all around.
[SPEAKER_03]: This type was favored by Corporal W.D.
[SPEAKER_03]: Paul, his buddy Lance Corporal Grudonsky, favored the duck hunter, both Marines or members of company being just returned from the bush.
[SPEAKER_03]: the cowboy, the new jungle hat with the sides turned up and creased on the crown of favorite.
[SPEAKER_03]: The bere, favored by private first-class W.G.
[SPEAKER_03]: Burton of company A, Simbrero, the new jungle hat with the brim turned up all around, old core.
[SPEAKER_03]: The new jungle hat shaped like the Marine Corps campaign hat of yesterday year.
[SPEAKER_03]: My favorite.
[SPEAKER_03]: We, it's a bummer that we wear helmets now.
[SPEAKER_03]: You liked that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, yeah, I liked that, but also, I, when, when I went through buds getting a floppy hat, was like, you kind of, when I got a sealed team one and I got issued my floppy hat, I felt like I was in the day.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I felt like I was a knob right before that you're wearing this we can start cover like a baseball hat looking type thing This eight point cover.
[SPEAKER_03]: They called it, but then when you get your your your jungle hat your boonie hat your floppy hat Your bush hat that's all the Call whatever in the floppy hat to clear floppy hat you there's a picture of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like this right like a
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like just even to her did in Predator, you ever watched Predator?
[SPEAKER_00]: But he went Australian style, because one side was up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really Australian style.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a floppy hat though.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a floppy hat.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'd have to see it, because it looked like it is a little, that looked a little bit more like up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Corgil or like a little bit more official or more formal look like a more formal the way I remember it But a floppy hat, you know, or a bush hat or a boony hat or a bucket hat sometimes they call them they call them all kinds of different things But getting that back in the day was like for me Because I'd always seen the the frog man from Vietnam the seals from Vietnam in the floppy hat and so that was You know that was the deal and then you did wear it
[SPEAKER_03]: with a little bit of, you know, it has characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: And how you wear it has characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, you've ever seen like a cartoon where the characters face or like hat kind of shows that are expression.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_03]: So like let's say you're wearing your your boonie hat and you're like kind of in the game You can like flip the fun up and you're kind of paying attention But then you can get tired you can like pull the front down if you're feeling cocky Maybe you put up go go like cowboy style like you can you can kind of like reflect your mood Okay, let your guys know where you're at With the floppy Yeah, floppy out of the floppy out of the floppy but I still have The floppy hat that I got issued
[SPEAKER_03]: I was a new guy at CLT 1 and I had my whole career and unfortunately I never wore it I'd never wore it in combat because we were wearing helmets.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like we switched to helmets You know right around when the war started
[SPEAKER_00]: When in the floppy hat that you have, I know, oh well, I know some of this because I have some pictures of you wearing your floppy hat and you looked very pleased with the whole scenario for sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought I was a knob.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you weren't in the jungle though.
[SPEAKER_00]: The picture that I have, like, your favorite jungle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where is that, like, warmer or something?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think, well, was either over in Southeast Asia.
[SPEAKER_03]: Kind of sounds like nom, but I wasn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, go on, rose and Thailand, or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or we also used to go to jungle training in South America.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that broke out that floppy hat and just getting rained on and just feeling like you were in nom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, that's what the picture looks like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your facial expression.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're all the guys in nom, salute, man, those guys are my heroes, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: and you know even like now you know just having to have the opportunity to talk with all these guys the guys from sag the infantry guys the the Marine Corps grunts guns up you know what I'm saying this like these guys that war and you know me growing up always
[SPEAKER_03]: That was kind of what I want.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I went through when I was younger.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was World War II, you know, but then when I got older like once I turned like 13, 14, um, yeah, you know, um, because also they put out a apocalypse now, yeah, that put out full metal jacket, they put out platoon, all the those anti war movies that to me were just war pro war.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it did have a have like kind of like a vibe, you know, the whole thing, like with the even like with the rock and roll stuff and the whole, you know, the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all reviving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I told you this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The drummer for Credence Clearwater Revival.
[SPEAKER_00]: His name Doug Clifford.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: My family knows him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're first.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just finding this out right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is how, because my mom is a real estate person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm quiet, so he, and this was like, what's it in this heyday?
[SPEAKER_00]: You figured this was like 90s, like early 90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he was a client of my mom's, and she sold them a chicken house and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they kind of hated it off or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had kids that were our age, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, oh yeah, go to the house, drink it, drink it, and they'll probably know what the whole deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, the Clifford, I didn't know, because I didn't know Credence, you know, like a little kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, my mom's like, hey, yeah, he's a drummer of this Credence, clear water, my dad's like, oh yeah, he's like a famous person, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay, cool, and I kind of look into, I was like, oh yeah, it's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Old school, you know, some classes are great band.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a cover band in my high school.
[SPEAKER_03]: That covered Credence, and they were called the Credence Clearwater Revival Revival.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you know, let's go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was and but I knew some of the songs that they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh, that's them, you know, that kind of was
[SPEAKER_03]: I see them, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all that, that's all the Vietnam vibe, that's the vibe.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we elevate it, you know, in my mind, and then, you know, what these guys went through was just absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, look at the one I'm just reading this guy's journal, which is K-A-K-A-K-A-K-A-A-K-A.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's as glorified as it was, you know, to a young kid in my head.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, as you learn more about it, you realize these guys went, you know, went through such an ausetrocious combat.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, now we reflect on it and thank God, you know, if I had the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you meet the seals from Vietnam, when I got to team one, Perk in the day, it's like, these are what these guys were my heroes, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, wild.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been so cool to learn so much more about Vietnam than I knew when I was younger.
[SPEAKER_03]: here's an anonymous 24 December sounds like Christmas Eve 1968 also if you remember he showed up this was a year tour basically back in those days in Vietnam so he arrived just before Christmas so he's getting towards the end of his tour.
[SPEAKER_03]: To as the night before Christmas and all through my bunker
[SPEAKER_03]: My buddies were snoozing, less than sound slumber.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our stockings were hung to drive from the ceiling, and mosquitoes were biting the bites that were healing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I, in fatigues and a pot on my head, was thinking of home and a warm, cozy bed.
[SPEAKER_03]: went out to my flank and a cut field of fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: I spotted some movement first low and then higher.
[SPEAKER_03]: I started to stare, then remembered my training.
[SPEAKER_03]: Night vision is better when the eyes are not straining.
[SPEAKER_03]: As the object approached, I was glad that the sound was not like the scream of an incoming round.
[SPEAKER_03]: I gasped with surprise as the object grew nearer.
[SPEAKER_03]: The image of Santa, grew clearer and clearer, traditional suit and a beard flowing white.
[SPEAKER_03]: I shook Joe beside me to wish witness the sight, a man and his reindeer, a sleigh full of cheer just as we remembered from Christmas last year.
[SPEAKER_03]: But spirits declined as he passed overhead.
[SPEAKER_03]: We hoped he would land, but he did it instead.
[SPEAKER_03]: there you go Christmas 1968 and there's a great I can't read the whole section but there is a great section chapter in this book 25 December 1968 of him going out to deliver hot meals
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, to all the different elements that are out in the field.
[SPEAKER_03]: The child Chuck arrived from the mess hall and we loaded it up.
[SPEAKER_03]: The chopper warmed up, the tailgate closed and we took off.
[SPEAKER_03]: First stop was Hill 200, a complete upletoon from company B was on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: We headed for Hill 146, the Marines from company E. Hill 146 is about the same size.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hill 200 except the area to land on a smaller.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hill 2425 was next.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be company D. It wasn't much larger than the last one.
[SPEAKER_03]: but at least the landing zone was down from the bunkers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, we passed out the packages.
[SPEAKER_03]: The chaplain spoke.
[SPEAKER_03]: We climbed aboard our birds and took off for bay knot.
[SPEAKER_03]: One mile in the air.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was cool up there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clouds all around.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wonderful to be socked in.
[SPEAKER_03]: At times bought bay knot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Bay knot is socked in.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can't get aircraft in for days.
[SPEAKER_03]: One time we had a platoon up there for 21 days before the weather cleared to fly in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today the clouds are closing in, looks like we can make it, an open spot and the birds started in we could see the marines began to gather at the landing zone as we unloaded our word from the pilot, low on gas, can't return for another takeoff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Besides, clouds are moving in.
[SPEAKER_03]: The chaplain cut is greeting short and we boarded the aircraft.
[SPEAKER_03]: We flew back to the lowlands to refuel at hill 55.
[SPEAKER_03]: One more stop, Dong Dan, if we can get in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dong Dan was manned by company sea marines and looked like we might not get in no sunshine there too many clouds and opening we went in nice try we touched down and we were off again we tried again marines below guided us in over a little more down hold it okay touch down
[SPEAKER_03]: We were on the ground.
[SPEAKER_03]: I realized how small the spot the LZ is, damn good pilot.
[SPEAKER_03]: This would be a fast stop, unload a few words, and we were off before the clouds closed in.
[SPEAKER_03]: We swooped down fast under the clouds and then sunshine.
[SPEAKER_03]: made them all, I shouted, the pile looked back and gave me a big grin and a thumbs up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Before we left our LZ, he said we would make them all and we did.
[SPEAKER_03]: Back to the area and a Christmas meal except for the patrols in the bush.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm finished playing Santa Claus this year, but it did make a Christmas worthwhile.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was Christmas in Vietnam 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: He end up going home shortly after that little piece here from the epilogue.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been 20 years since these stories were first written.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some are fresh in my mind as the day they happened while others are less remembered.
[SPEAKER_03]: Each is a reminder, a reminiscence of Vietnam 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes I still see the body of the young marine sergeant who's almost blown in half by an empty grenade, by an enemy grenade.
[SPEAKER_03]: And staff sergeant Hughes telling me they're going to get us killed sergeant major.
[SPEAKER_03]: many names and faces had been forgotten over the years.
[SPEAKER_03]: After three wars and 12 campaigns and over 33 years of military service, I was retired from the Marine Corps on 1 May 1978.
[SPEAKER_03]: At the time, I was sergeant major of the Fleet Marine Force Atlantic Norfolk, Virginia.
[SPEAKER_03]: The formal ceremony for my relief and retirement was held on 26 April 1978, 10 years from the date.
[SPEAKER_03]: I noticed a small piece of blood stained cloth being taken from the dead body of a young recon marine.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want to close out the reading that I'm going to do from this book, from something that Sergeant Major General included in his book, and it's actually something that he didn't write.
[SPEAKER_03]: This was something that was published in something called Sea Tiger, which was a weekly newspaper published by the Marine and Fabius Forrest during the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1971.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is two August, 1968.
[SPEAKER_03]: The following letter was written by Marine Lance Corporal Donald E. Griss Company A fifth shore party battalion and printed in the sea tiger.
[SPEAKER_03]: And here it is, quote.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just imagine, most of the guys over here are 18 and fighting to make it to 19.
[SPEAKER_03]: The average age of the combat soldier in many units here is 18 and a half.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what a man he is.
[SPEAKER_03]: A pink, chicked, tussle-haired, tight, muscled fellow who under normal circumstances would be considered by society as half-man and half-boy, not yet dry behind the airs, and a pain in the unemployment chart.
[SPEAKER_03]: But here and now, he is the beardless hope of free man.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is, for the most part, unmarried, and without material possessions, except possibly for an old car at home and a transistor radio here.
[SPEAKER_03]: He listens to rock and roll, and a hundred and five millimeter howitzers.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's just out of school, received so-so grades, played a little football, and had a girl who promised to be true.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has learned a drink beer because it is cold, and it is the thing to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is a private first class, a non-year veteran, with one or possibly three years to go.
[SPEAKER_03]: He never cared for work, preferred waxing his own car to washing his fathers, but now he is working or fighting from dawn to dark even longer.
[SPEAKER_03]: He can dig a fox hole, apply first aid to a wounded companion, march until he is told to stop or stop until he is told to march.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has stood among hills of bodies, and he has helped to build those hills.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has wept in private, and in public, and has not been ashamed of doing either, because his pals have fallen in battle, and he has come close to joining them.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has become self-sufficient.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has two pairs of fatiques, washes one and wears the other.
[SPEAKER_03]: He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but not as rifle.
[SPEAKER_03]: He keeps his socks dry and his cantines full.
[SPEAKER_03]: He can cook his own meals, fix his rips, material, or mental.
[SPEAKER_03]: He will share his water with you if you are thirsty, break his rations in half if you are hungry, and split his ammunition if you are fighting for your life.
[SPEAKER_03]: He can do the work of two civilians, draw half the pay of one, and yet find ironic human is all in it all.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has learned to use his hands as a weapon and his weapon as his hands.
[SPEAKER_03]: He can save a life or most assuredly take one.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is now 19 of veteran and fighting to make it to 20.
[SPEAKER_03]: What a man.
[SPEAKER_03]: go.
[SPEAKER_03]: What a man indeed out there living like that, dying like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what a man that can do.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what we can make ourselves, you know, there's one more thing that I found from Jack Jarnl that he wrote in on Memorial Day of 2003 and he, this is a little bit of an expanded version, you know, he mentioned that there was a sergeant that had asked him if he could go in the field and, you know, he says,
[SPEAKER_03]: Why do you want to go in the field?
[SPEAKER_03]: And he already knew the answer, but he asked him, you know, he wanted to be with his boys.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wanted to be, he wanted to serve.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he wrote a little bit more of a detailed account of that and he published it on Memorial Day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said in 2003, and it says, quote, during my service in Vietnam, I was Sergeant Major of the first reconnaissance battalion, first Marine Division.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a young Sergeant and our battalion, who was the battalion police sergeant.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Battalion Police Sergeant was responsible for the cleanliness of the Battalion area other than what each company was responsible for.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was the duty he did not care for.
[SPEAKER_03]: Often during the day he would greet me with a cheerful, high sergeant major, and sometimes who would have a brief conversation.
[SPEAKER_03]: One day he told me that he wanted to go to the bush on patrol and asked if I would help him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I told him he had a good deal, and he should take advantage of it, besides he was a good police sergeant.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, I remember how I felt during World War II,
[SPEAKER_03]: and wanted to get into the action and said I would help him if that's what he really wanted.
[SPEAKER_03]: I informed the Battalion Agitant that I was in favor of the sergeants returned to his company.
[SPEAKER_03]: Besides, there were some Marines that would like to stay out of the bush for a while.
[SPEAKER_03]: A few days later, the sergeant knocked on the door of my hooch, a wood frame with a tent over it, and I told him to enter.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wanted to tell me he was back with his company and was going on his first patrol.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to thank you, Sergeant Major, for helping me get back to my company.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had a few more words, and just before he left, he turned to said, thank you, Sergeant Major.
[SPEAKER_03]: The next time I saw that young sergeant was at the first medical battalion hospital grave's registration.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was on stretcher, dirty, pale and bloody.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a large hole from the top of his chest to his groin as if a giant spoon had scooped out his insides.
[SPEAKER_03]: As I looked at his bloody body, I remembered his last words to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, sergeant major.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today, I remember the words of that young sergeant, and quote, and Jack Johnnell died 8 April 2012.
[SPEAKER_03]: But he thankfully left us these memories and left us these lessons.
[SPEAKER_03]: And let's make sure that we all remember these sacrifices that have been made in the opportunities that we have.
[SPEAKER_03]: How about some, how about some deep compression echo trials?
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you have for me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes sir.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you help me out over here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it, uh, so it's kind of evaluating this whole situation and it kind of, I keep getting reminded from, uh, with what you said in the beginning, like, where you just take notes of, or journal and, you know, like, take notes of these things that happen, you know, and it kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: If you apply it to this, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where it's like, yes, especially that end part and actually kind of throughout the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he didn't do this, a lot of this guy like this last guy, like all these guys is just not even a memory.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, just sort of just came and went and, you know, kind of nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like man, it's like that applies to kind of everything that kind of goes on now over time, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you really got to help your memory out.
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to record stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're going to learn some so much from it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to make your life more valuable.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to help other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a this kind of random, but it's not the movie seven ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the movie seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you got to want this so that it was great by the way, but he was like, they were driving in the car some scene some transitional type scene and they were like, hey, if you ever shot your weapon in, you know, in the line of duty or whatever and he was like, oh, I only drew it once or whatever and he goes, what about you he's like, oh, I
[SPEAKER_00]: And he starts to kind of telling the story and he's like the guy who that was with him or whatever, he's like he got hit and it's like you could tell he was really trying to remember the incident.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like man, spawn him like a top and he was like cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: that was that guy's name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, you can tell he was really like turmoiled by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember thinking like, that's a random scene, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's kind of like, maybe it was that or maybe you know, maybe that scene was meant to have more depth than maybe I interpreted it at the time, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like your memory, you lose things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, even those heavy things, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's like, yeah, he's trying to remember that guy's name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's like significant, you know, like that dude he went in first, took the hit, you know, kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I don't even remember his name kind of a thing, you know, weird.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you got it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of know you got to take notes on what's happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, it's a nice thing is Voice recording like voice memo.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's so much easier.
[SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, nowadays with Voice to text, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you just like talk about what you did on this day, but put it out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Put out the word
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you'll be able to look back and look.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a decent chance that 90% of it is like either you remember it anyways or it doesn't really matter But man 10% of that stuff It's pretty legit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my dad used to do that oddly.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a tape recorder like for real tapes tape recorder and I remember Me and my brothers will tease each other from time to time
[SPEAKER_00]: But before bed or when we all just happen to be laying around or whatever, you know, this is like the 80s, so it's like you just lay down and go there for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But um, and he just needs to just blabbing to us, you know, like what's this, you know, and I think it was my brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told the story about, we used to catch totes, little totes and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: easy to catch a toad, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So we lift it up this board or he lifted up this board and Because he saw a mouse going to there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was like he did up and he's telling the story as like a literally like a six-year-old kid And we're listening to it as like kind of young adult, you know, so it's like wow that's it's crazy How this thing happened in this detail and this it's all captured right there in this little old school You know the orange cassette tape something in front of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like orange.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's like, yeah, I lifted up the the board real quick and I preached for the mouse but I didn't grab the mouse because it escaped and I just grabbed the toad because when you lift up board those toads under there too, you know, so he just was telling the story about how he was trying to catch this freaking mouse which is impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: any grab the tilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we still tease each other about us like, you know, you just grab it because you said it in a certain tone as a little kid, it's a whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's like, and then you can kind of make your mind go deep and inadvertently because it's like, man, that's such, that was an actual time that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: decades ago, an actual time.
[SPEAKER_00]: This person said these actual words, you know, and you were there, you know, kind of a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, then it would otherwise be just because some of the God's things were lost there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't let that happen, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right him down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right him down.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Speaking of decompression.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: What other things can we do to decompress?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, you know, maybe some shoes yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe some lifting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good training today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good training today.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was it was it was good training.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, I could look sometimes you're the hammer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you're the nail.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't stand one of those things.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never say that phrase.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need ever use that expression.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you're the hammer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you're the nail.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're the hammer, you never say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'd be weird too anyway, but nonetheless it is funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's just say you heard me saying you know, I'm here to tell you sometimes in the hammer sometimes in the nail But a good session overall, you know, because I mean let's face it, you know, I'm I train very sporadically, you know, over the past year or so whatever and Through that actually last time we trained was pretty solid too with everybody, but um, it was like, you know, you get the opportunity to train with these guys really good Yeah, like kind in and all you know these guys
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean, it was somewhat of an enoculation for sure a little a little something like a enoculation Did I use that or what are you trying it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah doesn't really make sense like to shock the system to get you back Okay, I guess I don't think that's a true enoculation Maybe like any
[SPEAKER_02]: Bro, the funniest thing was when you got done trading with kind and you sat against the wall It like you look at your face That was so funny and I said how you do it
[SPEAKER_02]: because you do not look like you were doing good.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, here's the, you wanna know the kind of a little backstory.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm saying with Jeff Glover on the side, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did, I did three rounds, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're usually we do five in, for some reason, when you're so used to over the years doing five rounds, now it's six or six minutes, five minutes, now it's six minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That extra minute is like, who, yeah?
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of can take the creep off on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, after the three rounds, I'm like, alright, I'm good, and I was like, but I got to take her ass around, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I didn't feel too bad because there was other guys doing it too, so I'm like, cool, but I'm sitting next to Jeff Glover, and we're in a were talking to whatever, and then Kaine and Kaine is, he was kind of coaching some people, you know, and he looked like,
[SPEAKER_00]: It looked like he maybe would have done the round, you know, but no, you know, I'm just trying to use, he was helping out, you know, coaching or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So about halfway through the round, I'm like, oh, let me get some reps with him, just like hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had finished out the round, no big deal kind of a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I tell, I expressed this to Jeff Glover, he's like, I can't proud do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm thinking of my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if I'm just getting straight up body slammed against the freaking concrete, at least it's only for three minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You seem to say it's not the full same.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was part of the thought process.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I go ask my coach, you know, like you want to finish the round.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, no, no, no, you rest will get the next one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna be defeated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, I got to rest, so I'm like whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was like a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I go back to Jeff and he's just laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, you know, we had the conversation before it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, yeah, thing you saw, you know, we got some trained, let's just say I learned, you know, we learned some good stuff, and actually to be honest, like you could tell, especially after the first little bit, he was like, okay, like he was not like trying to kill me even I almost did, but you could tell he was like, kind of letting me work a little bit, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is the mark of its professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good training.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good season for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is a good way to, you know, like we got done training, you know, just like happiness.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: What's that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you for?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You for you're going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as we were doing, we're training.
[SPEAKER_03]: When we got done training, I had a hydrate.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had a mo- a cookie, a mo- protein cookie and I had a vanilla ready to drink and then I cracked open a go because I'm going to be tired.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's that was my immediate like fuel post training post training and by the way I had a hydrate during
[SPEAKER_03]: training and also I had a go prior to training to kind of just joccal fuel up to the gills right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's what you need, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good fuel.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, check out joccalfield.com, get yourself some good fuel, get yourself some protein, ready drink protein, get yourself energy, clean energy, like it's nice that you can you can have an energy drink and you don't like sometimes if you take the wrong kind of energy drink for jiu-jitsu you're going to die like you're
[SPEAKER_03]: your heart's going through the roof.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's total chaos.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's crashing fall apart.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a disaster.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jocco fuel goes just as good as it's going to get.
[SPEAKER_03]: The hydrate same thing like just the perfect hydration and then get done with a little recovery hit that protein.
[SPEAKER_03]: Not to mention joint warfare.
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe
[SPEAKER_03]: is why I'm sitting here right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just get an after it, join one for SuperCo.
[SPEAKER_03]: Check out jockofield.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can you can get it at jockofield.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're also in like retailers all over the country.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you go into your grocery store.
[SPEAKER_03]: You go into your your uh your supplement store.
[SPEAKER_03]: You go into your local gym.
[SPEAKER_03]: You go into your grocery store.
[SPEAKER_03]: You should have jockofield there.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you if you don't have it in there, ask them.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can get it your way, but we want you to have the clean fuel Jockel fuel check it out also.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're training in a full origin get up by the way We're training no-gui today and I was wearing a no-gui rashguard from origin USA I was wearing no-gui shorts from origin USA the best the most comfortable Totally good to go and made a hundred percent America
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw you noticed my rash guard today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh yeah, you did have that custom rash kind of representing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that origin.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the thing is origin can make some custom rash guards.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you are interested in that, you can check it out.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you have an academy and you don't want to have communist rash guards, you can get freedom rash guards, you know what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_03]: And on top of that, jeans, boots, t-shirts, hoodies,
[SPEAKER_03]: anything that you need.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jackets.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just everything that you need.
[SPEAKER_03]: OriginUSA.com made a 100% America.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are rebuilding the manufacturing in this country.
[SPEAKER_03]: Go to originUSA.com and get some.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, jocustor.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dislinicals freedom apparel and merch.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not as not the like a like a giveaway quality like this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, heaven no.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm wearing right now
[SPEAKER_00]: Dude, when you get a giveaway, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I know it's wearing that stock.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what, but he's wearing that stuff, yeah, exactly right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, this is quality for real stuff, a peril.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same thing, but anyway, yes, black on black, do you know how we did this?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not some special process, but it was still deliberate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same thing, because usually you can't see the stuff when it's black on black.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the black is almost has like a little bit of a shine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a little bit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Goddard.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not Goddard.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not a...
[SPEAKER_04]: Not, not a gold plated.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm probably probably not going to use the big get after it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, you seem saying at the nice stay coasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you can't, don't get it wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not get it wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: But.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a little bit concerned about your look, you seem saying you wear the black on black.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doing, you're not doing too much with that, you know, that thing, not too little either of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You seem saying, so you still can represent and look, you know, stylish as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, it's a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, you know, this is of these things, these ideas and concepts are available to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as a pair of clothes on jockless door.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's other stuff on there too, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got some shorts on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: hoodies, all kinds of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, also, the shirt locker, subscription scenario, you already know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna help you send it anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: People seem to like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a new design every month.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good one.
[SPEAKER_00]: A little bit outside the box, more creative fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a good one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all a chocolate store.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, check out some books, put your legs on by Rob Jones, Dave Burke, need to lead, check that out.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've written a bunch of books, you can check those out as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you need leadership inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you need leadership for yourself, you can go to echelonfront.com or you can go to extremownership.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: and we can train you on the skills of leadership.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what we do.
[SPEAKER_03]: So check those out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help go and serve families, check out Mark Lee's mom, mom Lee, she's got an amazing charity organization.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to americazmidewoirures.org
[SPEAKER_03]: Also check out heroes in horses.org and Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to connect with us, check out jockel.com and then on social media.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a jockel willing to echoes that echo Charles.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just be careful because there's an algorithm on there and it's disgusting.
[SPEAKER_03]: It'll trap you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Without you knowing it, it's like Sun Siu.
[SPEAKER_03]: You won't know that it trapped you, but it did.
[SPEAKER_03]: So pay attention.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also thanks to all Americans past and present who put on the uniform to go and fight.
[SPEAKER_03]: especially those overseas right now in the Middle East in harm's way we thank you for your service in sacrifice and as I mentioned our veterans that served in World War II and Korean Vietnam World War I all those sacrifices that were made for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we thank you all, also thanks to our Police Law Enforcement Firefighters, Paramedics, EMTs, Dispatchers, Correctional Officers, Board of Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for your service here on the home fund.
[SPEAKER_03]: And everyone else out there, just remember.
[SPEAKER_03]: that young Marine and that letter, trying to be like him, type muscle, working from dawn till dark, often longer.
[SPEAKER_03]: He can dig a foxhole, apply first aid, march until he's told the stopper, stop until he's told the march, self-sufficient.
[SPEAKER_03]: He can do the work of two with less pay.
[SPEAKER_03]: And find ironic humor in it all.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's fighting to make it to age 20, and he's not going to stop, to be like him, and don't stop fighting.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's all I've got for tonight, until next time.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is Echo and Jocco.