[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's jump into this piece here. Back to the book. On April 14th, we received a radio call that Firebase Charlie was under attack by two regiments, 3,000 soldiers of the 320th NVA Infantry Division, and 130 millimeter artillery shells were pounding the position. So you guys get this call.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This, this friendly base is being overrun, basically.


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[Assistant] And here you show up on the scene, now you're flying a Cobra, which for those of you that don't know, a Cobra is a gunship, as you just said.


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[Assistant] It's still in service today. The Marine Corps still flies Cobras. And very narrow, skinny. It's based on a Huey, right?


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[Assistant] Rolling in on a 51 position is always dicey. So this is a 51 caliber. It's a Dishka. It's an anti-aircraft machine gun. And they actually had those when we were in Ramadi. They still had Dishkas.


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[Assistant] And they used them against us. Tracers come at you and miss by a few feet. You try to get rockets onto him before he gets lucky and blasts you out of the sky. We took small arms hits.


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[Assistant] My knees vibrated like a sewing machine, but I focused on controlling the helicopter, lining up the gun sights and shooting. I was scared, but had no time for it.


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[Assistant] Who's there? So there's an American advisor on the ground with a bunch of South Vietnamese soldiers. They're being overrun. You come in. You're taking heavy fire, but you're giving back fire. You tell him, hey, we gotta go and get some more ammunition. He's saying, good job. Hurry back.


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[Assistant] And when you do show up back, the NVA attack is now more intense.


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[Assistant] And here's the call that you get when you show back up. Panther. That's you by the way, Panther. Pink Panthers is your, is your call sign. That's your call sign is Panther. Here's the call you get. Panther. The battalion commander is dead. Acting commander wounded. Enemy broken through on the southwest. Put it there first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So for those people that don't understand what this means, when you're on the ground calling for fire,


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[Assistant] It's, it's, and I've talked about a lot of fratricide and blue on blue situations. I've, I had them on my deployment and it's, it's a very scary thing and it's even scarier from the air to the ground. It's, it's, it's hard for people to understand this. When you're in an aircraft, it's very hard to see what's happening on the ground. It can be very easy to get confused. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard to bring fire very close to your position unless you are just in a terrible situation. And so when you get a call that's saying put the fire all around us as close as you can, you know this is a desperate scenario. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll go back to the book. Roger Dusty, we've got him. After a number of Cobra attack runs, Duffy called Panther lead, this is Dusty Cyanide, so that's the guy on the ground, that's his call sign, Dusty Cyanide. You've broken the enemy attack for now. Hundreds of bodies in the wire, maybe a thousand, but we cannot hold.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After a short break, he continued, we are leaving Firebase Charlie now. Stop them from following us, whatever it takes. Put your stuff right on top of the Firebase, now.


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[Assistant] And again, this is something that... i-it just...


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[Assistant] To explain what that means, if you don't understand what, if you're never in the military, to explain, you're calling for people to drop fire onto your own position so that you can get away. It doesn't get any, there's nothing, it doesn't get any more intense, it doesn't get any more dramatic, it doesn't get any more sketchy than that right there.


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[Assistant] Absolutely unbelievable and I know you wrote in here that


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[Assistant] Major Duffy was recommended for the Medal of Honor, and he got the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions. Which, if you don't know what that is, it's the second highest award underneath the Medal of Honor.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and you actually talk about possibly writing about that battle. Did you?


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's one of the, one of the most interesting things for me about doing this podcast and we're, again, another thing we're talking about is,


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[Assistant] There's so many, you know, I didn't know about that battle, and I'm a pretty decent student of military history. I didn't know about that battle, and...


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[Assistant] Didn't know about Major John Duffy. I absolutely should. And we all should.


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[Assistant] And, and what you realize is that battle, that man.


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[Assistant] Again, this is fast forwarding a little bit through the book and, and by the way, I didn't mention the name of the book yet. Oh yeah, thank you. The name of the book is Through the Valley, My Captivity in Vietnam by William Reader and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A situation where you've got, and I'll go to the book, Tanks in the Wire at Polyclang.


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[Assistant] Launch now and call me Enroute for their Radio Freak. Hawksclaw will get up later. You'll be covering him too. You have tail numbers 053 and 682. Go. So, that right there is something bad is happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you gotta go now. And what's interesting, and I'll point this out for, again, people that aren't in the military.


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[Assistant] By the way, a lot of guys that listen to this are in the military, a lot of law enforcement, but there's a lot of civilians that don't know everything that I'm talking about or that you're talking about. So what I like about this is that what they're telling, what they're telling the Colonel to do


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So again, this is an in extremis situation. What we would do that would be similar to this in the SEAL teams is we would go on QRF missions, quick reaction forces, where they would call, they'd happen to me where they'd call up and say, hey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something's going on here at this location. Go! And I'd say, who's the unit? We don't know yet. Any frequency, what's, what radio frequency are we on? We don't know yet, we'll get it to you. Launch. We'd get in our vehicles and launch.


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[Assistant] Exactly. Back to the book. I stuffed a small emergency radio into one of the pockets of my survival vest. No time to perform the normal check on the radio. I had to include that. There's a lesson learned there. I had to include that. It's, you know, the radio will always work if you test it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, you're heading to a place called Ben Het.


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[Assistant] Two jet fighters bombed next to the camp. NVA rockets, artillery and mortars exploded in the camp.


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[Assistant] Enemy tanks breached the perimeter. One inside and part way up the hill looked like it had been killed already. I couldn't be sure. An AC-130, an Air Force AC-130 Spectre gunship was leaving. He'd worked the area over with 20mm Vulcan Gatling guns and 40mm cannons, probably hitting the tank.


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[Assistant] Enemy infantry moved through openings in the jungle canopy. I could see groups assembling to join the attack.


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[Assistant] Now, once again, you, you had some time on station, you did a bunch of shooting and running and gunning, you had to go back to reload, refuel, and I'm going back to the book now. On our way back to Benhet, we could see the battle continuing at Ploy- Polyclang. Polyclang.


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[Assistant] Vietnamese Air Force A-1 Sky Raiders dove, dropping bombs. We passed close enough to see one as it trailed smoke and flame and went into the ground in an awful explosion. I saw a parachute, and a mayday call came over the radio, emergency radio frequency.


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[Assistant] I called headquarters to tell them I was diverting for a few minutes to help cover the downed VNAF, so the Vietnamese Air Force pilot.


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[Assistant] Negative, Panther36. Permission denied. Proceed direct to Ben Het.


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[Assistant] Yeah, no, that's a tough decision for command to make, but from my position, I look at it like, okay, the command has a better overall view of the battlefield right now. And if they're telling me to proceed on to Ben Het, got it. Even though you obviously as a pilot, you have a little good. I'm glad you have that perspective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's interesting. There definitely was, when I was in Iraq, there was very tight control over...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Decentralized command was the tanks, and the tanks that we worked with, they would, they would come and they had pretty good control over what, you know, I'm talking the tank commander.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At least at the company command level, we had some company commanders that would just get after it and they would make stuff happen. So we felt really comfortable working with the tankers and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, they couldn't, they had to use some, they obviously used discretion, but they had a lot of authority out there, which was great for us.


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[Assistant] And now what you're doing, when I'm gonna pick the story back up here, there's a Huey that's got resupply.


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[Assistant] So he's got, you know, bullets, probably bullets, water and food, maybe at this point just bullets. And they need to get that gear down to the guys on the ground.


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[Assistant] The enemy opened up on our two cobras with everything they had. My view left, right and above and below was filled with tracers. Tim fired continuously and Tim was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tim fired continuously on those firing at us. We took large caliber hits all over the aircraft. 51s like I talked about and 14.5mm rounds came through the cockpit. Hits from small arms always felt something like Jiffy Pop popcorn popping against its tin foil cover.


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[Assistant] These seem like jackhammers slamming into the aircraft. Beginning in the rear, working up the side, and then into the cockpit.


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[Assistant] The tail rotor was shot off, and the engine was shot up.


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[Assistant] Every system on the helicopter was damaged in some way. Without the tail rotor, the aircraft began to spin. Fuel lines ruptured and we were burning. I keyed the microphone. This is 36 taking fire from 4 o'clock, taking fire everywhere, taking fire, taking hits, going down, panther going down. The engine quit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The rotor RPM caution light flashed. The audio warning sounded announcing that my rotor blades were turning dangerously slow. I slammed the collective down hard to auto-rotate. Under optimal conditions, this is a controlled emergency descent. Under these conditions, I could only hope to lessen the severity of the crash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We corkscrewed down in flames. As I wrestled the aircraft, I radioed my wingman, Flame, you better get in here and get us out quick. There was no answer.


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[Assistant] My Cobra came down spinning and burning. It hit the ground hard, nose low on the left side. It bounced back into the air, spun another turn and a half, and crashed. It settled nearly upright, fire engulfed the cockpit.


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[Assistant] Pilots are known for maintaining their composure, right? And I've heard pilots do it.


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[Assistant] And, and clearly, you know, you're saying we're taking hits, we're taking fire from everywhere, we're going down, Panther going down.


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[Assistant] Are you so tracking on controlling the aircraft that you're, you're just completely focused on that, that the rest of what's happening is a little bit blocked out or what?


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[Assistant] Are you not worried about the fact that when you get on the ground, hey, now I'm gonna be surrounded by enemy?


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[Assistant] And so your aircraft's on fire and yeaah, I guess you're not sitting around pondering much when your aircraft's on fire and you're stuck and they're trying to get out. You get hung up while you're getting out by the way. I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get in some distance away. You lo- you lost your wing, man, right? Or, sorry, you lost your- your, uhm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, inside Manhattan, one of the American advisors, Mark Truhan, watched us get shot down and crash. He saw Tim exit the aircraft. He saw me hanging out of the side of the Cobra, head down with my feet stuck in the cockpit, the helicopter burning.


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[Assistant] He'd seen a truck driver die in agony in a blazing semi-wreck years before, and had sworn he would not let that happen again.


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[Assistant] As he began to squeeze the trigger to put me out of my misery, a cloud of smoke billowed from the exploding aircraft. It obscured me from his view. When the smoke cleared, I was gone.


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[Assistant] So I'm going back to the book. You're, you're... This is the state you're in. The pain in my back was intense. It was broken. The fire had burned the back of my neck. I had lesser burns on my face. My hair was singed. I had pulled a shell fragment out of my ankle. Superficial lacerations covered my face and forehead. Bleeding badly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was a mess, but I was motivated. I wanted to get away. I staggered from the crash site and headed southeast towards Contum. Contum. Contum. As it was getting dark.


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[Assistant] I had not gone far when I heard helicopters approaching. Cobras came in low, shooting.


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[Assistant] And you had your little, uh, strobe. And so, here we go. I held the light over my head, pointed it toward the aircraft. It flashed a few times. The gunner in the lead Cobra opened up on me with his minigun. A stream of tracers came right at me, which is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is something we, we learned in Iraq as well. When you fire off a strobe, if someone-


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[Assistant] This is a little bit about your attitude. I was cocksure. If anyone could survive this, it was me. I'd been a boy scout. Though I was one of the trouble makers in my troop, I'd learned a lot.


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[Assistant] I'd backpack 65 miles through the mountains in 5 days and practice survival skills. My troubled youth got me suspended from school a number of times, but it also taught me lessons.


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[Assistant] I learned to street fight, take care of myself. I had boxed, played football, and run track. I majored in forestry, worked cattle ranches, rode broncs.


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[Assistant] In small rodeos, fought forest fires, worked construction, and was an electrical lineman for Southern California Edison.


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[Assistant] I remembered a little ditty my mother had taught me. The Lord helps those who help themselves.


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[Assistant] I knew I could depend on its absolute truth to get me through this. The Lord helps those who help themselves. God, I'll do that. Do all I can. Muster every bit of what's inside me. I'll do my part.


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[Assistant] I'll do all I can to help myself. So please, please do yours. I need your help.


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[Assistant] I said it again to myself, drawing comfort and strength. The Lord helps those who helps themselves. I would repeat it often as I set my mind to doing all I must to survive.


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[Assistant] It's interesting that you're, you're saying, look, I'm going to do everything I can, but I'm need some help. Yep. Yep. And you know, certainly, you know, when you, when you say that other people, you know,


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[Assistant] We'll be able to find, absolutely. I mean, just me reading this, I've found all kinds of...


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[Assistant] Not just inspiration, but practical guidance, which, you know, one of the things you just said is practical guidance on, you know, someone that's been through what you've been through. There's so much that everybody else can take away and learn from.


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[Assistant] And yeaah, that's, that's one of them right there. Do what you can.


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[Assistant] Do everything that you can and then have some faith on the things that you can't control are gonna work out your way.


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[Assistant] You know, one of the similar things that I always felt was, you know, in Iraq, one of the biggest threats to us was IEDs.


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[Assistant] They're random. They're gonna hit you or they're not gonna hit you.


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[Assistant] And when you, every time you go outside the wire, there's, there's a chance that it's your day.


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[Assistant] And you know, kinda what I told my guys and the way I felt myself was, okay, I know they're out there.


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[Assistant] We've done everything we can to mitigate the risk, we've done our planning, we've done our drills, we've gathered our intelligence. There's nothing else we can do to control it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Right. And I've done everything I can, but like you said, I've helped myself as much as I can, and then after that, it's out of my hands. And the more you worry about it,


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[Assistant] Like you said, well does it, does it really matter? I continue to worry about it, but doesn't matter. Gotta, gotta move forward.


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[Assistant] Here's, you, you do a couple days, three days worth of evasion of the enemy, and now,


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[Assistant] You're out hiding, you hear some voices, you crouch down, you hide, you know they're people.


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[Assistant] And here we go back to the book. A lot of crashing around came from the direction of the voices. I looked up and saw uniformed NVA soldiers pointing AK-47.


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[Assistant] rifles at my head. They shrieked something in motion for me to stand up. I did. I was captured.


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[Assistant] I felt indescribably sick in the pit of my stomach as the world fell away.


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[Assistant] I'd been struggling for three days to stay alive. I was in miserable shape. But I had been free, and I had options. No more.


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[Assistant] My soul was awash with anguish. I was no longer a free man. In that instant, I'd become a captive of the communist North Vietnamese army, a prisoner of war, another American POW in the long Vietnam conflict.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had no idea how long they might let me live, or if I was about to die.


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[Assistant] We stood in utter silence for a moment. They glared at me, I glared at them. For that tense instant, I didn't know if I'd be riddled with bullets or be allowed to live. One barked something at me I could not understand. Another joined in, then a third. I looked right into their eyes. I was an American.


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[Assistant] I would show them the best American fighting man that I could.


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[Assistant] They finally get you to sort of like a camp, sort of the first interrogation camp.


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[Assistant] You start getting your, you know, start getting the soft interrogation is what I put down here. A guy says,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we found pictures of a pretty lady with your children in your wallet, obviously your family.


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[Assistant] And you say yeaah. I know you miss them and are very worried, and they are very worried about you. You follow the rules and you will be home soon. You will receive humane and lenient treatment. You will be allowed to go home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I put that in there because that's a refrain that we hear quite a bit. Humane and lenient.


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[Assistant] Weren't fully cooperative at all with them and what they're asking you so they're there they went from that idea So they start stepping it up on you and you know Here's an example of the things that they say do you are a war criminal and the Geneva Geneva agreements do not apply to you You have no rights, but we will still give you the deserved humane and lenient treatment


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All you have to do is cooperate with us and acknowledge your crimes. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Awesome. Here, here's an example of that. Is, back to the book. Here, please sign this. He handed me one of the sheets of paper and a pen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked at the paper. It was typed in English. As I began to read the words, my interrogator interrupted. This is simply a form that acknowledges your status. We need it so we can begin to process you for release. So we can send word to your family of your status. Please just sign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I read the words. I could not believe what I was reading. There was a blank face place for me to fill in my name. The text said that I was an American war criminal who had been conducting illegal acts against the Vietnamese people, including biocide, genocide and ecocide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had dropped fire bombs and chemical bombs. I had killed old men, pregnant women, and babies. Biocide? Genocide? Ecocide? What a bunch of crap.


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[Assistant] I raised my head and looked into his eyes. No. I will not sign this.


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[Assistant] There, I had spoken. You must. I will not.


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[Assistant] His agitation returned now. You must! I glared at him.


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[Assistant] He got up and came at me. He smacked me across the face. You must!


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[Assistant] He turned to his sidekick and spoke quietly and the man got up. At his direction two guards dragged me up against a tree, a broad trunk of a tree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been bent over since the crash, unable to stand erect. They forced me up into a straight sitting position and tied me to the tree. It hurt like hell. I couldn't keep my face from contorting in anguish. Now you sign. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More orders. They pulled on the ropes to bring my arms closer together behind me. The pain in my back increased.


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[Assistant] New pain was introduced in my shoulder joints. More demands to sign. More refusals. The ropes tightened further. They moved my elbows closer together. More demands. More refusals. Ropes ever tighter. More pain. I was uncontrollably grimacing and cursing. I would not sign.


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[Assistant] I could have been broken and made to sign eventually, there's no doubt. No man can resist forever. But this interrogator would not bring me to breaking point on that day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His demands continued and so did my refusals. The ropes tightened more and more. Pain screamed through me. My anger swelled against this asshole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I began grunting an audible attack against the agony.


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[Assistant] The guards gave the ropes one huge last pull which brought my elbows together behind me. I felt a pop as each shoulder dislocated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pain shot through my torso, up my neck, into my head, and down my back, through my groin, and into my thighs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've never felt such pain, my vision narrowed, and I nearly passed out. Sign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The interrogator scowled angrily, turned, and left.


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[Assistant] A little bit further on. And he's saying that he's giving you one last chance to sign this paper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one last chance to cooperate, will you?


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[Assistant] I'm going back to the book now. My head hung down partly in exhaustion and partly in an intentional rudeness. Not paying him any attention. I looked up when he finished. I saw his sadistic minion standing a few yards in front of me holding an AK-47 at the ready. Your last chance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The assistant raised the rifle and pointed it at me. I stared ahead and said nothing.


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[Assistant] No heroism was involved. I was wrung out at the end of everything I had to give.


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[Assistant] I'd been so close to death for so long, was so angry, and so absolutely drained. A faint spark was all I had left. I felt numb, detached from what was happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was not resisting, I was just giving into the flow of whatever was destined to be. That might be death. It might not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd seen army training film, an army training film years before showing the mock execution of a Korean War POW.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remembered that scene. The action of the trigger being pulled went over and over in my mind. Click, click, click. BAM! I flinched as the soldier jerked the trigger back, but nothing happened. No shot. No loud bang. No bullet ripping my skull or chest. Nothing. The soldier laughed. My interrogator smiled. I am done with you. You will be taken away from here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, so it's something that definitely I've experienced doing these readings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've talked about it before, that you know, when I read something in my head,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it, it kind of, I go, oh that's, that's powerful. But then when you read it aloud, and you hear it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like I'm hearing my own thoughts or something, you know, it's just, it just, it brought him back. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reality, where it's one step further detached from reality, and obviously sitting with Jodie, sitting here with you, and knowing that this is you. You know, one point that I make all the time when I cover these historical books,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always remind people that, cause you know, people in this day and age, we're used to seeing movies. We're used to seeing, watching TV. And I always say that this guy that I'm talking about, this is a person. You know, this guy in World War II, this is a person. This guy in World War I, this is a man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get turned over to some other, some other guards. Right. And they start taking you on a walk. You're walking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To somewhere else in your own, you know, you talked about the conditioning by the way, you have a broken cross vertebrae at this point, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your legs swollen, I mean you got all kinds of issues and now you're, now you gotta walk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had a old Vietnam SEAL when I got the SEAL Team 1 in 1990, and he would run barefoot all the time. And, you know, one day it was, hey, hey sir, why you, you know, why you run barefoot? And he says, the first thing the goops do, take your shoes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gotta have hard feet. I was like, okay, I guess I'm running barefoot now. I was thinking, cause when I showed up at CLT1, I always joke about this, I thought I was going to the Vietnam War in 1991 when I got there. I thought, I'm going to Vietnam now. You know, I was that, how you were, but I was a little off, you know, historically. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the situation you're in, going back to the book. They've been saying a phrase, so as you're marching with these guys, they've been saying a phrase for the past two days that I couldn't understand. I thought it was Vietnamese. As we pushed up the road,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They walk behind me, poking their rifle barrels into my kidneys, my ribs, shouting with increasing urgency, GO KOKOTAI! GO KOKOTAI!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then after a while, for the first time I understood what they were saying. Go quick or die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had been taught one short phrase in English, it was all they knew, and they had pronounced it so poorly that it took me two days to figure it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I moved as fast as I could, but I was at the end of everything I had. I struggled on. And you know, I'm just noticing this.


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[Assistant] Back to the book, I found myself mentally reciting what I could recall of the 23rd Psalm.


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[Assistant] I repeated one line over and over in my head. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.


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[Assistant] That wasn't the only time during my captivity that the 23rd Psalm came to my lips.


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[Assistant] After, and, and please forgive me for, like I already covered three days of misery, now we're talking about, and I'm doing it in three minutes.


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[Assistant] The cage was about 12 feet wide and 20 feet or so long.


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[Assistant] It could not have been more than 4 feet high. 26 prisoners were stuffed inside. All South Vietnamese soldiers.


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[Assistant] Heat hung in the cage, heavy and stale. The air smelled of filth and putrid wounds. People moaned in a constant dull rumble.


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[Assistant] The occasional wail was met with sharp shushes and guard, guarded whispers. The doorway was shut and secured. I lay there, thankful I'd survived the journey of the past three days. What would become of me now?


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[Assistant] Back to the book. My broken back screamed every time I tried to lay down.


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[Assistant] Just tried to lie down. With my feet in the stocks. So they'd put your feet in the stocks, wooden bamboo stocks. There was no way I could lay on my side. I couldn't lay straight back, so I sat upright in the dark in agony.


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[Assistant] I thought of my family. Thought of my day, of where I'd been, where I was now, and what might lie ahead.


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[Assistant] I can live this way. I can do this. I can survive. I will survive.


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[Assistant] I sat there, thoughts drifting across the landscape of my life, shaped by these extraordinary circumstances. Eventually, I fell asleep, sitting upright that night, dreaming of what might become of me.


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[Assistant] I jolted awake. Something scampered across my legs. Something was on my feet. Something small, cool, and wet touched my arches and soles.


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[Assistant] Little rat noses poked and sniffed at my feet. Tiny teeth gnawed my pulverized raw flesh. My arms swung without command as I batted a large rat off my lap.


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[Assistant] Others scurried away, I screamed inside, lips pressed tightly shut, a muffled shriek of terror. I thrashed, my legs flailed, but went nowhere. I wiggled my feet as well as I could in the socks, and got the rats off. They fled into the night, only to return when I fell back asleep.


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[Assistant] They would return to torment me nearly every night in that jungle prison.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I definitely, that's one of the things that I specifically highlighted, you know, was I can live this way, I can do this, I can survive, I will survive. I still, I had hope.


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[Assistant] And I read it just the way you just explained it. It hit me that hard.


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[Assistant] Some cautiously whispered to their neighbor. Most, like me, just sat and stared. That's what I did. I sat and stared at them sitting and staring at nothing.


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[Assistant] I wondered if I would go crazy here. Would I die here? What would happen first? Insanity or death?


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[Assistant] I snapped back to what little grasp I had on reality. Hold it together.


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[Assistant] Focus. Spence and Vicky. We'll hike. We'll play. Get back home for those kids. You can do it. You can endure.


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[Assistant] I couldn't allow my thoughts to drift in dark directions. I forced myself into logical, structured thinking.


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[Assistant] Well, that's awesome. And one of the things that I, again, I specifically highlighted was the fact that, you know, you, you, you would be drifting in these dark directions and you would force yourself.


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[Assistant] With such, with such authority and power over what your brain was thinking.


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[Assistant] Back into the camp and back into the book, the camp provided a miserable existence on the edge of madness. All was filth and disease and suffering.


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[Assistant] Moans and wails of pain and anguish cried from the enclosures as we walked by. I caught glimpses of sick and wounded men inside cage after cage, their eyes white orbs of desperation peering from grimy faces through the din of the grey world inside.


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[Assistant] And now you're back in the stocks. Sitting there wounded in stocks in a bamboo cage in an unknown jungle prison camp with death all around me. I began to wonder, how long can I endure this? Then my voice said out loud, as long as it takes.


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[Assistant] Incredible. And here you meet, in this prison camp you meet Wayne, Wayne Fitch.


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[Assistant] And you, Wayne, the crew, now you're gonna get put on a long march. They say we're gonna move you out of this prison camp. Do you know you're going to Hanoi at this point?


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[Assistant] He was, you know, obviously you formed a really good relationship with him. Here we go back to the book.


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[Assistant] We trudged out of the valley up onto a rising ridgeline. There wasn't much talking. When we began to climb up a steep, long trail, I was already exhausted. I had to push hard to make every step. My swollen, infected ankle throbbed with pain.


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[Assistant] I wondered, is anyone else having this much trouble? How long am I be able to keep going? Only then did the words of the lead guard really hit me. As long as 11 days, try very hard to make it. My being revolted.


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[Assistant] My being revolted. Eleven days of this, how the hell am I gonna be able to do that? In two seconds, I answered. Got to. As long as it takes. Reach down deep. Gotta go. Keep going. God help me.


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[Assistant] Wayne was stoic. He was in better shape than I was, but still it had to be tough for him. He just bored down and put out what was needed to keep on going. Some of the other prisoners did as well.


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[Assistant] Many like me had trouble. A number complained, and a few cried. Other prisoners berated them. A couple of them fell down and whimpered, and the guards yelled at them, slapping, kicking, and hitting them with rifle butts until they got up. I thought, this is gonna be a long eleven days.


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[Assistant] Continuing way past 11 days. You're now just beyond that. Continuing with the story. As the days continued, I became weaker and lost weight. Fevers followed waves of shivering chills. Might be malaria. I suffered from diarrhea. Probably dysentery.


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[Assistant] My festering ankle wound hurt more. The swelling grew worse, aggravated by the journey. Leeches plagued me, sucking my blood and adding infections of their own. My right leg became a heavy, painful mass that I dragged along the trail. I must have been a sight.


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[Assistant] Though my moot wounds placed me in a worse situation, Wayne was sick and deteriorating too. He had some sort of jungle fever and lost his appetite. He quit eating regular rice, preferred only the crispy layer that formed right next to the surface of the cooking pot, what the Vietnamese called com che, or fire rice.


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[Assistant] Zahn was having troubles too. Injuries from his chute down, decline from months in captivity, poor diet, disease, then the daily toll of this horrendous march north.


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[Assistant] Every step of the way, our personal demons threatened our physical ability and mental willingness to press on.


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[Assistant] Everyone suffered. We looked like the walking dead, struggling to survive each agonizing mile of that march.


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[Assistant] Most of us stoically face the challenges that beset us. Sometimes selfishness and self-pity erupted and tempers flared. Pain and suffering took its toll.


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[Assistant] The senior ranking prisoner in our group was Pham Van Thanh, a major in the South Vietnamese Army. He tried his best to be a leader for the 25 South Vietnamese officers and two American helicopter pilots under the most trying conditions.


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[Assistant] The enemy gave him no authority to lead. I had a lot of respect for what Thanh tried to do. I felt the frustration he had to endure. Morale sunk lower and lower. Bickering grew rampant. Prisoners died.


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[Assistant] Don was senior, but most dismissed his efforts as they struggled to survive. And now there's a prisoner that goes down on the trail.


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[Assistant] The guards yelled back and forth at each other. They ranted at the prisoner lying on the ground.


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[Assistant] They barked orders to the rest of us. I didn't understand any of it. Zahn said softly but earnestly to Wayne and me, keep walking, no stop. We continued. One guard stayed with the prostate prisoner where he lay. We walked on. After a short while. Bang. One shot. Sometime later the guard caught up. A dull sense of disbelief and shock overcame me.


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[Assistant] And that's why, that's one of the reasons I included that piece because it was such a coincidence or fate that you guys were, that was him. There you were.


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[Assistant] Back to the book. The journey was a nightmare. A horrid soul-wrenching nightmare.


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[Assistant] It grew worse. Others fell out and died. Each step every day wracked my body with pain. My infections became worse. Disease was taking me.


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[Assistant] I knew I was sliding closer to death, but I kept fighting as hard as I could. To keep my spirits up, I continuously thought of my family. Of things I would do with Spencer and Vicki when I got home.


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[Assistant] Thinking of those two kids gave me strength. Always bolstered my hope.


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[Assistant] My leg was now swollen to twice its normal size.


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[Assistant] Dark colored filled with pus. Long splits formed in the skin. Pus and bloody stinking fluid oozed from the cracks.


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[Assistant] I dragged it along like a sodden club. Every movement lashed me with searing pain that kept my face contorted. I shrieked a silent cry within. Pain burdened a blackened scar deep in the center of my soul.


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[Assistant] Gangrene set in. My bloody dysentery worsened. I had chills and fevers. I would find out later that I had three different kinds of malaria. Each morning, I fought a battle to stand.


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[Assistant] It was hard, but it was necessary. Spirit is the most important factor in survival. A sense of human humor, even under the worst conditions, helps maintain spirit. And in spirit lives hope.


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[Assistant] I was determined to survive. Still, I owed so much to Wayne and Zom.


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[Assistant] They helped me through the worst and were always concerned about me. They did all they could to help me. Zahn especially helped me remain positive, to be hopeful.


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[Assistant] As bad as things ever got, I never gave up hope.


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[Assistant] I mustered all my will each day just to wake, stand, and take a step.


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[Assistant] Then I fought hard for the remainder of the day to keep going, moving along the trail. I could barely walk, but somehow I did.


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[Assistant] I survived each day to open my eyes in the morning to the gift of one more dawn.


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[Assistant] The realities of my miserable world were clear. Death, our constant companion, stalked us, waiting for us to give in to its relentless temptation.


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[Assistant] That would be the easy thing to do. In normal life, you have to take some overt action to die. You have to kill yourself.


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[Assistant] As a prisoner of war under these circumstances, that is reversed.


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[Assistant] Stop gagging down food, stop struggling to walk, stop fighting, and you will die.


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[Assistant] I think we're getting to the low point here. The worst day of my life came a few weeks into this trip. I fought hard to continue the march, but I faltered. I dug deep inside myself for strength. There was nothing there.


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[Assistant] I struggled more. I reached deeper yet. I prayed for more strength. There was none. I collapsed.


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[Assistant] I collapsed and couldn't get up. I could not will myself up. I was at the end of my life. The guard looked down on me. He ordered me up. He yelled at me. I could not. It was done. I knew my life was ended. Here on this miserable muddy jungle trail. It was over. Would my family ever know what had happened to me?


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[Assistant] Looking worried, bending over me, the guard yelled at him to stop. Undeterred, Zon reached down to help me.


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[Assistant] The guard yelled louder, but Zan's face was set with determination.


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[Assistant] In spite of whatever threats the guard was screaming, Zahn raised me up, turned, and pulled me onto his frail weak back.


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[Assistant] He wrapped my arms around his neck and clasped my wrists together in front of him.


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[Assistant] The rest of the day he pulled me along, my feet dragging on the ground behind. Part of the time he was helped by Lieutenant Hung.


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[Assistant] Nong Li, a big impish brute, helped briefly, but it was Zong Nong who carried the burden that day.


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[Assistant] It was Zahn who risked his own life to lift me from death. It was Zahn who carried me and cared for me until we completed that long day's struggle at another wayside camp.


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[Assistant] You fall into this river, back to the book, Zahn and Wayne came off the log, and down the high steep bank to my rescue. They waded into the turret and pulled me back onto the bank.


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[Assistant] With Wayne shouting in English and Son in Vietnamese, they pleaded for the group to stay at the camp until I was able to travel again. They were ordered away.


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[Assistant] They wouldn't leave me. Guards dragged them away and forced them across the log bridge at gunpoint. They marched off with the rest of our prisoner group. Everyone believed I was left at that camp to die.


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[Assistant] And now you're on the trail, you're with one guard at this point, right?


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[Assistant] And you're, again, you're hiking again, challenging terrain, and going back to the book, we continue day after day after miserable day. The journey was taking its toll, stretching my will to press on again.


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[Assistant] It's like, you just keep getting to the bottom and finding more. Unbelievable. Each day's trek demanded more than I thought I had to give.


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[Assistant] I was able to go on only by scraping up the few remaining bits of grit that remained in the most obscure recesses of my heart and soul. I prayed, I commanded, I willed myself to take step after impossible step.


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[Assistant] That effort itself fed an agony festering within me which swelled and gnawed at my core as weak followed wretched weak.


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[Assistant] Malaria attacks and bouts of bloody dysentery tortured me.


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[Assistant] The pain of my broken back pierced me every day. The soles of my feet were mosaics of raised welts and open bleeding gashes and punctures. Previously broken toes throbbed as I broke them again.


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[Assistant] This is it. His finger's on the trigger. He's gonna kill me. And then you. I missed the trail. I got lost.


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[Assistant] He didn't shoot. He pointed his rifle away in a sullen voice he commanded, Get up, you do very bad. You have big problem now.


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[Assistant] He was shaking, enraged, he motioned down the hill, and said, GO!


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[Assistant] Nothing more was ever done to me. Never heard about the incident again.


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[Assistant] Now, again, fast forward. You're now in a truck. You're now moving in vehicles.


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[Assistant] And, and of course, as you said, I think you described this to your wife as a series of unfortunate events. So. Yes. Now you're out there and you see a flare in the sky. You recognize immediately, you know what's coming, you know it's a hairstrike.


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[Assistant] And then here we go, back to the book. The first F-4 screamed down from altitude and bombs exploded nearby. NVA anti-aircraft fire responded. The next F-4 screeched toward us. More bombs, more anti-aircraft.


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[Assistant] I began repeating, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, for thou art with me, good God.


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[Assistant] The earth shook. Our truck banged about as if in an earthquake. Soldiers yelled from other trucks as some were hit. The world shuddered in explosions and flames. Then it was done.


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[Assistant] A South Vietnamese prisoner entered behind him. Lieutenant Hung. My god. I knew. It was Wayne who had died in this camp. Captain Wayne Finch. Wayne was dead. My god.


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[Assistant] Hung stared as if at a ghost, astounded to see me alive. He cried. I sat slumped, devastated at the realization that Wayne Finch was dead. My friend Wayne, who had helped me, cared for me. My friend Wayne, who I owed so much. He was dead.


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[Assistant] Shocked, disbelieving, I introduced Hung to the others. He told us how everyone thought I was dead, how the group suffered on the march north after they left me, how two tall American pilots joined them, how Wayne continued to get sicker, lost hope, and grew weak.


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[Assistant] I fell into sadness, twisting it into melancholy self pity, sinking to the lowest point I had known.


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[Assistant] Unbelievable. The, uh, one more thing that happens with Kay, you're getting ready to leave the camp to go to a new camp, and Kay tapped my arm. Look, he said, the curious militia guard who'd been so interested in learning about South Vietnam and America, who'd fetched my potatoes, stood there looking like a kid with a new puppy.


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[Assistant] He came close to the truck, and I leaned against the stake, sighed. Goodbye, he said, grinning.


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[Assistant] His simple humanity made me smile, and I said goodbye.


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[Assistant] K saw my astonishment. He want to learn to say goodbye to you when you leave. I teach him. He good man. Yes, I thought.


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[Assistant] No doubt he is. There are good men everywhere.


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[Assistant] It's the governments, the systems, the leaders that are bad. It's communism that sucks, not the people of North Vietnam. They are not so different from the South. Not so different from me.


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[Assistant] And there was even times, I mean, when you're walking through a village, and now you're in North Vietnam, where what you're just talking about, they'd been bombed, they lost their sons, and they're trying to basically attack you, they're throwing rocks at you, and the guys that are guarding you actually


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[Assistant] I don't think they shot at them, but they fired a shot over their heads to protect you all. Which I found to be


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[Assistant] One time, going back to the book, the guards start screaming, be numb, hey, be numb, hey. Yeah, bottom up, bottom up.


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[Assistant] Nam 5, Hai 2. And for those of you that don't translate that real quick, that's B52. The bombs dropped, hundreds of bombs fell.


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[Assistant] All around us. Big bombs. Nearly on top of us. I knew there was little chance of living through a B-52 strike, but by the grace of God, no bombs fell in our crater.


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[Assistant] The earth trembled, it shook, it ruptured and heaved. Waves of crushing pressure blasted through us, squeezing, hurting my head and ears. The suffocating pressure was painful, awful, frightening. It stopped. Always cry it. I was dead. I knew it. I felt ringing in my ears, throbbing in my head. I must be alive.


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[Assistant] Next to me, the officer sat up and holstered his pistol. By the way, you'd, the guy had drawn his pistol and held it to your head to make sure you didn't try to, yeah.


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[Assistant] No one spoke. We crawled out of the hole and started walking in the direction we'd been traveling.


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[Assistant] Here's, uh, as this continues, you're in Hanoi. I'm going back to book. I stood in a cell about 12 feet wide and 25 feet long. Six bunks lined up to my right. Head


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[Assistant] And against the wall. Two others lay lengthwise against the wall to my left. The bunks were three by six foot pieces of wood resting on sawhorses of the same width. Each was covered with a bamboo mat, a blanket neatly folded on one end. Between the bunks on my left I saw two buckets just like the ones in my solitary cells.


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[Assistant] And you know, this is one of the things that I talked about you as we were getting ready to record. I said, look.


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[Assistant] Wonderful and a beautiful job of describing and telling the stories of all these other heroes.


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[Assistant] That you're with and as a matter of fact, you call this chapter, chapter 12 in the company of heroes with all these other Americans that, you know, you, you told me on the way over here and you talk about it in the book. You'd been in, you were there for at this point, what, six months? Were you there at this point? Seven months?


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[Assistant] Of describing, you know, them, who they were, what they've been through. Bill Gaunt, Al Kroboff. Yep. John Parcells, Bill Thomas, Bill Henderson, Dave Mott. Just, you go through the guys. Those were the guys.


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[Assistant] Is Colonel Ted Guy. He's in the shed up on top of the camp.


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[Assistant] That's where they've segregated the senior officers and NCOs from the rest of us. He's an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who must have been promoted to full bird by now. He went down over Laos in an F-4 in 1968.


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[Assistant] He's a good leader and a real hard ass. He runs a tight ship. Doesn't allow making any propaganda statements. No one can accept early release. We live by the code of conduct.


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[Assistant] He's taken a lot of beatings and torture for us. We call him the hawk.


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[Assistant] You know, you, you, again, you go through all these guys and what they've done. And you also talk about


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[Assistant] You talk about some of those heroes that held the line, and you also talk about another group.


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[Assistant] Who I'll go to here. Sometimes I could hear a lot of noise from the other side of the wall separating our rove cells from those on the further end of our building. I could see the top of a basketball hoop.


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[Assistant] An occasional volleyball arched high over an out of sight net. What's up with that? I asked.


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[Assistant] That's the peace committee, came the answer. What's the peace committee? Eight guys who collaborate with the enemy. They've been ordered to stop, but they won't.


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[Assistant] They study communism, do propaganda, make radio broadcasts, even rat on other Americans.


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[Assistant] For that, they get packages, get to write letters, and can go outside whenever they want and play games. We call them the ducks because the way they followed, follow the guards around and do their bidding.


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[Assistant] They'll rot in hell, I said. That they will.


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[Assistant] Collaborators were but a small but significant minority among us. There were 107 prisoners at plantation gardens and except for the eight in the peace committee, all were patriotic loyal Americans who resisted enemy interrogations, propaganda, and pressure to sign statements and make radio broadcasts. We resisted with everything we had.


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[Assistant] You go through these stories of, of some of the other heroes. You just mentioned Dennis Thomas, Harvey Brand, Bill Murray. I mean, you just, you go through these stories and then they're just all phenomenal and you do them such, such an honor telling their stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, buy this book so that you can read these stories, because I don't have time to go through them all here. Right.


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[Assistant] Oh, the one thing I want to point out though is, going back to the book, we also tried to keep our humor going within the cell. And Al and me,


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[Assistant] As the central culprits telling disgustingly bad jokes back and forth. Al was getting a lot better. His nausea was subsiding because he was really sick. His naughty was subsiding and his boils healing.


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[Assistant] Some of the guys exercised to fight the deterioration of their bodies. I couldn't even lie on my back, let alone trying to do sit-ups. What I could do was try to get into


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A position to try pushups. I tried once in the jungle and failed. I couldn't raise myself up off the ground. Now I was able to push all the way up once and halfway through a second. Pretty sad for a guy who could do a hundred pushups before.


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[Assistant] I kept at it for weeks until I was able to do several as part of my daily routine. And the reason I point that out is because


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[Assistant] I always say, you know, cause people get injured, people come with sickness, do what you can. Yes. And do what you can and that's exactly what you are doing. So important.


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[Assistant] December 18th, 1972, after many weeks of quiet, we got bombed like none of us had ever been bombed before. Air raid sirens, wailed barrages.


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[Assistant] No sense in worrying about something you absolutely have no control over which is the conversation we already have.


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[Assistant] And I, I, I had to put this part in here, I had to read it.


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[Assistant] So after those, after that massive bombing. Repercussion. So there's a guard that you, that you would nickname Repercussion. Repercussion, a guard so named because of his violent outbursts and threats against prisoners, stood against the wall as we milled around the water trough. He spoke some English.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Old Bill Thomas walked over to him and said, you think those airstrikes were bad?


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[Assistant] What, the guard asked? You think those airstrikes were bad last night, Bill said again. Yes, bad bombing.


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[Assistant] Well you ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till they drop an A-bomb on your fucking ass.


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[Assistant] I gasped and smiled. Old Bill, proud Marine. He'd been a pretty quiet guy, but not anymore. We all glowed inside after the bombing. It was a huge morale boost. The bombings went on night after night, not without impunity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] B-52s got shot down, their ghastly, giant carcasses burning, falling. We wondered sadly about the fate of the crews. We lost aircraft, yet they kept coming. Quietly, we cheered them on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, they set up like a little movie night for you guys. Oh, for the, at the Hanoi Hill, a little movie night, and they set you down for the movie night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys are making fun of the projector operator. And finally they tell you, quiet, no talk. And then the movie starts. Back to the book. The film was of Jane Fonda visiting North Vietnam.


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[Assistant] We saw an American cavorting among the enemy leadership, supporting their cause.


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[Assistant] Scenes appeared of her climbing into the gunner's seat on an NVA anti-aircraft gun, wearing a clean white blouse, smiling broadly, laughing, donning a North Vietnamese army helmet with live ammunition at her feet that would later shoot down American planes.


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[Assistant] In the film, she sent a message to American servicemen, calling us war criminals.


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[Assistant] She said we were following the orders of other war criminals that were like the leaders of Germany and Japan in World War II who were executed for their crimes.


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[Assistant] I was stunned. We didn't dare speak out loud, but we had plenty to say to each other when we got back inside our cell.


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[Assistant] Days later they showed us some news clippings from American newspapers and magazines. They all had news of war protests. One, one was former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark demanding that Americans stop bombing North Vietnamese dikes.


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[Assistant] He had been Attorney General under President Johnson during the buildup of American forces in Vietnam. Now he was making statements from Hanoi that it was inhumane to bomb dykes and that we should never do it again.


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[Assistant] A photo showed him standing beside a dike with a single bomb crater.


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[Assistant] I knew he did not have an air campaign to destroy the dykes. This was an errant bomb. The war protesters at home never bothered me.


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[Assistant] In fact, I took pride in fighting communism in this far corner of the earth so Americans could have the right to protest in the streets.


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[Assistant] It was a sacred honor to defend the right of other Americans to disagree with me or anything within our American system of government.


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[Assistant] I'm just gonna go to the book. We join the wrist, rest of our cellmates.


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[Assistant] And pressed close to Jose Anzaldua. Anzaldua. A tall marine, a tall marine corporal, captured a couple years before. He quietly related what he'd gathered from the broadcast. So he was a translator, he was eavesdropping, listening to the radio.


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[Assistant] A peace agreement was signed and the wars ended. And...


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[Assistant] You kinda get that confirmed. Back to the book. That afternoon we were taken to the courtyard with our fellow plantation gardener prisoners from the cell next door. Film crews stood behind a couple of big old funky cameras set up on tripods. We stood in rows as instructed, waiting for whatever might come.


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[Assistant] An order passed through the ranks. Hawk says if it's good news, no reaction, no smiles, no shouting, nothing for propaganda.


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[Assistant] I love that. He's just hard to the end. And then Duck, who's the camp commander, he says, he looks up and says, the peace agreement is signed. You all go home.


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[Assistant] The whole points of, of what the peace accord has in it, right? And as he read the remaining highlights, all faded into a dull drone. I'd heard the most important one to me. The war's over. We're going home within 60 days. I made it. Thank you, God. We went back to ourselves.


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[Assistant] Back to the book here, after the new group joined us, we'd hear god-awful shrieks in the middle of the night. I thought it might be Ted Gostis.


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[Assistant] An intelligence officer captured in At Hui in 1968. He'd been hung from ropes, denied water, severely beaten for extended periods, bashed in the head with an AK-47 and kicked in the stomach in an effort to gain valuable intelligence he never revealed.


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[Assistant] Gostis was now a physical wreck who'd been driven to the precipice of insanity, sometimes dangling dangerously over its edge. But it wasn't Ted who was screaming in the night.


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[Assistant] It was Jim Thompson. Jim kept to himself. He was hard to get to know.


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[Assistant] He was only 39 years old and god he looked like hell.


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[Assistant] He'd been through more shit for a longer time than any other American soldier in history.


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[Assistant] Nine years and you do a beautiful job of recounting the story that he told you. So this is the first person


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[Assistant] The first person report of, of what happened. And again, it's an incredible, incredibly horrifying and heroic story that everybody needs to read about.


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[Assistant] And when he finishes telling you the story of, of, of how, what he'd been through up to that point, I'm going back to the book, I looked into his eyes and saw a troubled soul.


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[Assistant] He'd survived captivity for nearly nine years, longer than any other American soldier in history. It had taken a lot from him. My god, Jim, that's incredible, I said. He smiled weakly and looked down. Prisoner releases began a few days later.


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[Assistant] Well, we will do our, our best to spread that word on here and I've actually ordered a book about him and I will.


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[Assistant] The way you do it in here is an incredible tribute to what he went through as well.


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[Assistant] The days go by, they finally pack, get you to pack up your gear, give you some new clothes, put you on a bus, and take you out.


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[Assistant] Here we go. Back to the book. We milled around for half an hour talking amongst ourselves and getting no information from the guards.


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[Assistant] The staff car returned and we were soon back on the bus, afraid we were heading back to the Hilton.


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[Assistant] I beheld one of the most wondrous sights I had ever seen.


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[Assistant] Before us was a big, shiny, beautiful C-141 medevac plane parked on the ramp. The American flag and a red cross were painted high on its tail.


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[Assistant] And here we go back to the book. I was happy yet anxious as the big jet rolled down the runway. Once airborne, we remained silent, absorbed in our thoughts. We seemed to be waiting for something, but none of us knew quite what it was until the pilot came on the intercom.


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[Assistant] Thought you would all like to know that we have just passed beyond Sam missile range. We erupted in a spontaneous cheer. I was overwhelmed with joy. It was real. We were free. We were going home. Nothing could stop that now.


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[Assistant] Again, skip through, we're almost, we're running a little long on time and, but one of the things I wanted to point out in here,


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[Assistant] Is that you got back, you're going through, you're in the hospital, you're going through some of your recovery.


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[Assistant] You get asked one more time and I'll go to the book. I just want to ask you please to consider one last time.


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[Assistant] This group is the Bataan Corregidor Survivors Association and they really want one of the returned Vietnam POWs to talk to them at their gathering tonight. You're the only one still here.


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[Assistant] And this is the part that I wanted, especially the vets, cause a lot of vets listen to this.


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[Assistant] By giving me an opportunity I couldn't refuse. They made me come out of my shell and speak publicly about what I'd been through.


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[Assistant] They opened the door to what would become the greatest therapy possible to help me deal with all that had happened to me.


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[Assistant] Many of my friends who have not been able to talk about what had happened to them have not readjusted well. Several still have major psychological issues haunting them.


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[Assistant] A couple of days later, I got an invitation to speak to a high school assembly, which I accepted. In the weeks and months ahead, I'd be asked to talk to various groups, and I agreed to do as many as I could.


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[Assistant] I strongly believe that the opportunity to share my experience has been one of the principal reasons I've been able to readjust and deal with life as well as I have.


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[Assistant] That coupled with my faith in God, love of family, and my inherently optimistic nature.


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[Assistant] Totally agree. I totally agree. It's uh, beautiful advice.


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[Assistant] And to close out the story here, you say in the book that


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[Assistant] You greet your children at the time you greet your children every day with good morning. It's a beautiful day and you explain why you do that in the book and I quote, I truly believe


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[Assistant] That every day God has given me on this earth since I came home from captivity is a beautiful day.


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[Assistant] I know to be true and it's something that I talk about all the time here.


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[Assistant] Some eight, the eight steps to survival in a POW campaign.


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[Assistant] They're not just for survival in a POW camp. They're for life. They're for life. They've been tested in the absolute harshest of conditions in a POW camp, but they can be applied to life. And, and it's actually things I talk about all the time, and it's amazing that, that they are so much alignment. Number one. Eat. Sounds simple, doesn't it?


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[Assistant] But when you've gotta force down nothing but plain boiled rice day after day, month after month, eating becomes a difficult chore. Some found death easier. Now how does that apply to life for me? Eat.


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[Assistant] Next one, practice personal hygiene. When you are sick and starving, it's hard to motivate yourself to keep your body and surroundings clean. Do the best you can with what you have.


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[Assistant] Filth leads to disease, and disease leads to death.


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[Assistant] Even, you know, we've talked about, one of the stories I talk about on here is the uh, the Russians fighting the Chessians, and one of the things that in the debriefs, in the post-operational debriefs, when they lost that first push down there, they said, you know, once the guys stop shaving,


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[Assistant] Set up a daily exercise, period. Do something.


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[Assistant] Even if you are in stocks and chains, you can at least flex a few muscles and do some deep breathing. Okay.


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[Assistant] Do not give up the fight to stay alive. This is number four. Do not give up this fight to stay alive. No matter how sick you are, how serious your wounds, or how hopeless the situation is, there's always a chance you can make it. Take that chance. With your deepest courage, fight for it.


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[Assistant] Then again, you apply this every day. Look at the opportunities you have.


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[Assistant] Number five, establish communications with other prisoners. Use your initiative and imagination to make contact with others and then develop a chain of command.


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[Assistant] Build relationships with people. Just build relationships with people.


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[Assistant] Number six, follow the code of conduct. You must know the code before you find yourself in a prison camp. Then you should adhere to the articles as strictly as possible.


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[Assistant] And that's one of the things, again we were talking on the way over here, that was one of the changes after the experiences that you all had is what initiated those changes in the code of conduct to give it some flexibility. Right.


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[Assistant] Is perfect for everyday life. You fall off the wagon on something. Okay. It doesn't get back on it.


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[Assistant] Number seven, keep the faith. Faith in your family, your religion, and your country may be all that keeps you alive and sane. Hang in there. You are not forgotten.


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[Assistant] Helps keep away fits of total depression.


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[Assistant] Well, I've talked about that as well and we would be in the worst situations possible and always someone would be laughing about something and that's what, like you said, that's what keeps the spirit going and keeps you on the sane side of things is to have fun with it.


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[Assistant] Anything else that, that, that you would recommend or you


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[Assistant] There's no doubt, and even though I may have done a thorough job, I read less than 10%, much less than 10%. There's so much more that you went through that you experienced, and the other people that you talk about who went through what they went through,


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[Assistant] So thank you. I know you have work to attend to and I dragged you out here when you're already working hard.


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[Assistant] Thanks to you, thanks to your cousin Ryan Summers, who actually


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[Assistant] Contacted us through the interwebs and linked us up together. So thanks to Ryan for doing that Appreciate it and actually echo speaking of the interwebs If anybody wants to support


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[Assistant] While you're clicking through Amazon, again, pick up this book right here. There you go. Pick up this book. Through the Valley. My Captivity in Vietnam. By William Reader. It's an unbelievable book.


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[Assistant] Cover to cover. It's an unbelievable book, so get it. Get yourself a copy of Extreme Ownership. If you don't have it, buy it. If you do have it,


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[Assistant] If you don't have it, buy it. If you do have it, buy one for all your subordinates, your boss and your boss's boss. Do it immediately.


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[Assistant] And Jocko White Tea, you can get it on Amazon. You can also pre-order, if you want, Way of the Warrior Kit. Order it now.


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[Assistant] Order it now so you can get a copy of it when it comes out, otherwise you're gonna be waiting for it. And that's not gonna be fun. And lastly, if you haven't signed up for the muster, New York City, May 4th and 5th, do it this week. Prices are going up Friday. So,


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[Assistant] That Facebooky, we are there. Are you on social media at all, sir?


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[Assistant] You'll connect with the Colonel here. Echo is at Equatorials, I am at Jocko Willink. Echo, do you have anything else to add?


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[Assistant] Thanks again to Ryan Summers for linking this up. It has been an absolute honor. Thank you for coming on.


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[Assistant] Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for talking to us today, but more important.


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[Assistant] Thank you for your incredible determination and discipline and your unrelenting will.


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[Assistant] And the evil in the world and despite the discomforts and the hardships we face and the challenges that all people must confront despite all that.


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[Assistant] That it doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing, windy or calm, sunny or overcast.


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[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 71 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.


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[Assistant] A ponto for my bed. My rifle rests across my chest. The stars swing overhead.


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[Assistant] Into your holes and gun pits. Kill them with rifles and knives. Feed them with lead until they are dead and widowed are their wives.


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[Assistant] Closing, they charge all howling, their breasts all targets large. The gun must shake, the bullets make a slaughter of their charge.


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[Assistant] Red are the flashing tracers. Yellow the bursting shells. Horse is the cry of men who die. Shrill are the wounded's yells. God, how the night reels stricken.


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[Assistant] She streaks with orange spark. The mortar's lash and the cannon's crash have crucified the dark.


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[Assistant] Saint Michael, angel of battle, we praise you to God on high. The foe you gave was strong and brave and unafraid to die.


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[Assistant] Speak to the Lord for our comrades, killed when the battle seemed lost.


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[Assistant] They went to meet a bright defeat. The Hero's Holocaust.


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[Assistant] False is the vaunt of the victor, empty are living pride. For those who fell, there is no hell. Not for the brave who died.


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[Assistant] From a poem that opens a book called Helmet for My Pillow. And the book was written by a guy named Robert Leckie. Otherwise known as Lucky. Everybody called him Lucky. And he was a machine gunner. And then a scout.


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[Assistant] And it's based on a bunch of different books and a bunch of different events from the Pacific and a lot of them, Eugene Sledge, that's another one.


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[Assistant] And there's other, a bunch of other books. We've done a bunch of them on this podcast. And this one is another one.


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[Assistant] And you think to your, and I was thinking to myself, like, well, you know, should I do helmet for my pillow? I'd read it a long time ago. And I thought to myself, you know, we've kind of covered, you know, the Pacific pretty well.


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[Assistant] And I'm just straight up wrong. So wrong. Because everyone's experience is different. There's things that are the same. And his viewpoint on things is, is just a different viewpoint.


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[Assistant] And equally important to understanding not only the war, not only what they experienced in war, but also a whole nother side of human nature that we need to learn about and


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[Assistant] Yeah, there's a lot to go over. So a little, there's a little introduction here and just to give you a little background on, on Lucky Lucky.


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[Assistant] He enlisted on January 5th, 1942. He tried to join up the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but a surgically correctable condition disqualified him. Now he was back and acceptable.


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[Assistant] Just that tells us a lot. He was a civilian, not a professional fighting man, but he became a warrior.


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[Assistant] The author was one of those young men. Many, not yet 20.


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[Assistant] Who were gentle human beings that were transformed by training, hardship, and the war into fighting marines.


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[Assistant] These were the boys who became men, then stood against and then beat back two of the world's most vicious fighting machines.


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[Assistant] So, again, after World War, after Pearl Harbor, there was some, you've seen pictures, you've seen pictures of guys wrapped around the block, waiting to go to the recruiting office, and he goes to the recruiting office, he can't go in at first, eventually he gets in, it takes him a month to get in, and then he's off to boot camp, and we've seen all kinds of


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[Assistant] Representations in books and in movies of Marine Corps bootcamp and in bootcamp in general.


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[Assistant] What I just had to hit on this one a little bit, cause it's just another perspective that shows you, shows you his son, his view of it and gave me a,


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[Assistant] Not even a better understanding, a clearer understanding of what people are going through when they're going through bootcamp.


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[Assistant] And I remember, actually I remember this about bootcamp.


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[Assistant] I, they, they wrote, we had to write something when I was going through bootcamp.


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[Assistant] And, I don't know if I've talked about this before, but when we were going through bootcamp, they said, eh, write down, you know, the top three things you're learning. Right? You had to? We all had to. Okay. This is a Navy bootcamp. And I wrote down something along the lines of, I wrote something along the lines of,


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[Assistant] And, that's cause I was a rebellious kid, right? And so I'm thinking, they're brainwashing us. And I wasn't against it. It was kind of one of those statements where I was saying, I was kind of being sarcastic, but I was also kind of being true, truthful.


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[Assistant] Okay, we'll roll with that. So that's what I was doing.


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[Assistant] And I remember, they didn't say anything about anything anyone had written about what we were learning or whatever. They called that one out. The, the, the chiefs that were running my bootcamp company, they were, you know, said, and if you think you're getting brainwashed,


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[Assistant] You know what? This is what's gonna save you and they went on this big thing. To counter my, uh, my assessment.


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[Assistant] So, there's a little bit of that here in what, what, what Lucky's saying. He says the same kind of thing and he gets the same kind of, he gets to the same place. But, here we go, going to the book, they're at boot camp, Marine Corps boot camp in Dock.


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[Assistant] And here we go. Sergeant Bello marched us to the quartermasters.


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[Assistant] It was there, we stripped off all vestiges of personality.


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[Assistant] It is the quartermasters. So if you don't know, a quartermaster in the military is someone that basically runs supply. They give you gear. That's what they are.


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[Assistant] So, it is the quartermasters who make soldiers, sailors, and marines. In their presence, one strips down.


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[Assistant] With each divestment, a trait is lost. The discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy.


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[Assistant] I take off my socks. Gone is a propensity for stripes or clocks or checks or even solids. And it is a tendency to combine purple socks with a brown tie.


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[Assistant] Until one stands naked, struggling with an embarrassment that is entirely lost on the laconic shades who work in the quartermaster's sheds. Thus naked, thus quivering, a man is defenseless before the quartermaster.


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[Assistant] Character clings to clothes that have gone into the discard. As skin and hair stick to adhesive tape, it is torn from you.


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[Assistant] Then the quartermaster's shades swarm over you with measuring tape. A cascade of clothes falls upon you, washing you clean of personality.


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[Assistant] 20 minutes before, there had stood in your place a human being surrounded by some 60 other human beings. But now there stood one number among 60 others. The sum of all to be a training platoon.


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[Assistant] But the parts have no meaning, except in the context of the whole.


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[Assistant] So there's a little psychological reason why they do that, how they do it. And you can see it works.


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[Assistant] You know all those little things that you have, all the little things that make you you? We're gonna take them away. That's what we're gonna do. And they're so... There's this weird thing. Because...


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[Assistant] Take it away from me, and, and I've said this before on the podcast. You, you, it's a blank slate. When you get, when you go into bootcamp,


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[Assistant] They shave your head, they take your clothes, they take all that personal stuff and you get a blank slate. They tell you like, this is all you need to do to succeed here.


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[Assistant] All that stuff you've done in the past, your knucklehead, we don't care. Here's what you gotta do now. And, and it's awesome. And,


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[Assistant] For a lot of people, myself included, you're now, you're becoming part of something that's bigger than you.


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[Assistant] That's a good feeling. You know, it's a good feeling. I liked it. I'd go so far as to say I loved it.


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[Assistant] And they do the same thing, by the way, they do the same thing to you when you get to...


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[Assistant] Your seal training class? Your buds class? You get your head shaved again? You get another set of uniforms? You're all gonna dress the same? You're all gonna look the same?


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[Assistant] Listening to lectures on marine jargon. From now on, everything, floor, street, ground, everything is the deck.


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[Assistant] Cleaning and polishing one's rifle until it's shown like an ornament, shaving daily, whether hairy or beardless, it was all a jumble.


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[Assistant] What are we gonna do? Salute the Japs to death? No, we're gonna blind them with spit and polish. Yeah, or barber the bastards. All the logic seemed to be on our side. The Marine Corps seemed a madness. So they're thinking, what are we getting out of this?


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[Assistant] Continuing on. It was a madness. But it was discipline.


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[Assistant] Apart from us recruits, no one in Paris Island seemed to care for anything but discipline.


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[Assistant] There was absolutely no talk of war. We heard no fiery lectures about killing Japs. Such as we were to hear later on in New River. Which is a place where they go to train. Everything but discipline. Marine Corps discipline was steadfastly mocked and ridiculed. Be it holiness or high finance.


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[Assistant] These drill instructors were dedicated Martinets. Like the sensualist who feels that if a thing cannot be eaten, drunk, or taken to bed, it does not exist. So were these Martinets in their outlook. All was discipline.


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[Assistant] There you go. I actually, that word struck me. Martinets.


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[Assistant] I did a little, you know, I looked it up, and the etymology of it is there was a French general that created a certain type of drill, close order drill procedures, and his name was General Jean Martinet. Jean Martinet.


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[Assistant] So that's where he, that's where that word comes from. And it means that you're strict, disciplinarian.


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[Assistant] Did not know that story. Oh, that's right, cause you were friends with Jody, Jody Minick. You, you and him bonded. Yea, we bonded. Over your Canadian roots. 100%, yea. Nice.


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[Assistant] Another great example or great paragraph about what this feels like. Back to the book. It is a process of surrender.


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[Assistant] At every turn, at every hour, it seemed a habit or a preference had to be given up.


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[Assistant] An adjustment had to be made. Even in the mess hall, we learned that nothing mattered so little as a man's own likes or dislikes.


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[Assistant] And I think that's what it is. That's what's so cool about, that's what I loved. Right? When you join the military, all, it's all stripped away. All these little comforts that you have, they strip them away.


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[Assistant] And you're left with the raw self. Right? The raw self. That's what you're left with. You, and you start putting everything else above yourself. It's a very humbling process.


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[Assistant] Back to the book. Worst in all this process of surrender was the ruthless refusal to permit a man the slightest privacy.


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[Assistant] Everything was done in the open. Rising, waking, writing letters, receiving mails,


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[Assistant] Receiving mail, making beds, washing, shaving, combing one's hair, emptying one's bowels. All was done in public and shaped to the style and stricture of the sergeant. So that, that one right there, go into the bathroom.


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[Assistant] And you get to, like, in Navy boot camp, you, the first time you go in the bathroom, there's just toilets. There's no doors, there's no walls, just, just, 30 toilets in a row. Dang, prison style. A prison style. And you're actually, prisons have you're only in there with your little roommate. Not even prison style.


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[Assistant] You sit down, and by the way, you can't say I'm gonna wait until no one else is in there, because they give you, you know, you have to go from this to this to this, and then okay, we're back in the barracks, you can go to the bathroom now. So there you go, you're gonna sit down,


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[Assistant] In front of another human being. Most people haven't, why would you? So you have this, you have this little sanctuary, right? Where you gonna get be private?


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[Assistant] I re- I actually remember that. Because I had never, I was whatever I was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nineteen years old. Sitting down next to a dude for the first time taking a crap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back to the book, if you are undone in Paris Island, which is where Marine Corps bootcamp is, or one of the, there's also one here in San Diego,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you are undone in Paris Island, taken apart in those first few weeks, is at the rifle range that they start to put you together again. So that's, and he goes into some pretty good, he talks about now the rebuilding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And finally, and again, it's great details, great information, very cool read, very cool perspective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another week of training remained, but the desired change already had taken place. Most important in this transformation was not the hardening of my flesh or the sharpening of my eyes, but the new attitude of mind. I was a Marine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now like I said, they go, they go to start their advanced training. So in bootcamp,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't, you're not learning, you're learning some technical stuff, but you're basically just learning a new attitude, right? You're learning to be a marine, and then they go from there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They go to a place called New River where they're gonna do some more training and they're gonna start learning to be actual fighting marines. So, here we go back to the book. It's talking about New River. Here, the only talent


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was that of the foot soldier. The only tool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some other veterans that come to start help them prepare for combat, and here's what he says about that. The first, and this is the first Marine Regiment, the first also received a vital leavening of veteran NCOs. That's non-commissioned officers, so these are like the mid-level enlisted guys that run the show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They would teach us. They would train us. They would turn us into fighting troops. From them, we would learn our weapons. From them, we would take our character and temper. They were the old breed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we were the new, the volunteer youths who had come from the comfort of home to the hardship of war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the next three years, all of these would be my comrades, the men of the 1st Marine Division.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] True, you know, they always try and take...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Veterans. I shouldn't say always. Cause actually in D-Day, they wanted a bunch of new guys. They wanted people that hadn't been in combat before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, you know, in the SEAL teams we do that. I got back from Ramadi with my task unit. They took my task unit. We didn't, and they split them up. All put them in all different task units. So we had all these guys with all this experience going to these other task units. This is pretty normal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's where the true learning comes from, right? You're gonna get that, that face-to-face, that, that hands-on, and that true connection to what's going on overseas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here's some of the things that they did. Back to the book. Gun drill and nomenclature. Know your weapon. Know it intimately. Know it with almost the insight of its inventor. Be able to take it apart blindfolded or in the dark to put it together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Be able to recite mechanically a detailed description of the gun's operation. Know the part played by every member of the squad, from gunner down to the unfortunates who carried the water can or the machine gun boxes, as well as their own rifles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Better than, better than the inventor is what they're saying. That's how well you need to know it. And you know what? I believe that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That inventor doesn't do what these guys do with that machine gun. I'll tell you, if you, if you, like the guys that I, the pig gunners we call them, guys that carry the Mark 48, which is our big heavy weapon, guys that carry that, when you watch them,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's beautiful. It looks the most, it's beautiful. The how quick and how fast and how they combat load that thing and hit the ground and clear reloads. It was like magic.