[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Professionalism and watching for my soldiers. Hackworth was, was just a master at that. He never put us in a position.


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[Assistant] My company in the Delta, we actually had a last operation because President Nixon started withdrawing units from Vietnam in 1969.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, my unit was one of the first units that was selected.


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[Assistant] So, here I am, a company commander, infantry company commander, we're out in the middle of nowhere in the Delta.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had our final mission come down and we were air mobile. So, uh, you know, we were limited by the number of slicks or Huey helicopters that we could get to go on an operation. So that limited me as to how many soldiers I could take. Okay. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not knowing how my soldiers were going to react to a quote unquote last operation, uh, I had a certain number. I couldn't take everybody. I had more people who wanted to go that I could take.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because, I mean, we were hardcore. That was the nickname of our battalion. And we basically, you know, we wanted to, they wanted to be on that last operation, you know. I mean, I had my machine gunner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who had a broken thong. Okay, now talk about a guy who could beg off on an operation. He, he insisted on going and he was my best machine gunner and I said, you're going. There's no question about it. And so we, so we go on the operation. The point I'm trying to make here is I was extremely careful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't know if something had come up that I'd have to do, you know, we would have done it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing unusual came up during that operation. And when we came back, there was another company that was operating in the same area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The commander of that company was, and I talk about it in the book, was my roommate from the University of Illinois.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we were both in a military honorary society, we were both


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[Assistant] So can you imagine how cool that was to, when you're in a battalion and you are, I commanded battle company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he commanded Claymore company. Uh, and by the way, that was one of Hackworth's really great things. He used to, he used to use words.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To motivate people, so instead of an alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, you know, phonetic alphabet,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've got, there's actually a photo, not in the book, but there's a photo I have of he and I.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ready for this date? They went back to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I coulda, I coulda taken my company back to Hawaii. But I said, no, you know, I'd only been there five months, five, six months. And I said, no, I gotta, I gotta do the full tour because I was a bachelor. I didn't know my wife at the time. Uh, I had


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Friends, classmates of mine who have been killed there, who


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[Assistant] Some guys were married going back for their second or third tours. And I said, no, it's not right. And you know, I'm, so I called Hackworth and he had already moved up to the central Highlands as an advisor for the Vietnamese at a very high two core level.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I contacted him, I said, sir, you know, I'm, by the way, my nickname Muk came from Hackworth because he couldn't pronounce Muko Yama. And I called him sir. So, uh, he, but anyway, I, so I contacted him and I said, sir, I'm, you know, I'm not going with, back with the company, you know, could you use me? I had orders the next day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely. Now, regarding that,


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[Assistant] This Vietnam was different when it came to end of a deployment, uh, because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We did not, towards the middle of the war and towards the end, our rotations were not unit rotations. They were individual replacements. And so, uh, that really,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this, this was, I, I actually, you know, cause I was, I was the young stud infantry guy, you know, just graduating from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From my basic officer training. I volunteer for Vietnam, right? And keep in mind I'm a regular army officer. Normally, one of the so-called benefits of being regular army is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I thought Vietnam was a no-brainer. I mean, I'm an infantry guy, we got a war going on, you know, I want to go there. They sent me to Korea, okay? Once again, this was a God thing, because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have, the United States, uh, has part of the DMZ, which is the 38th parallel that separates North Korea from South Korea. It's about a two to four thousand meter band.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's a no man's land. Nobody's supposed to be there. And if you find anybody in there, you can, you can, it's, it's, you can shoot to kill. You know, and, uh, the North Korean special forces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Used to try to infiltrate through the DMZ.


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[Assistant] To get into South Korea to attack, uh, you know, power plants, uh, disrupt the government, assassinate the president in, in the Blue House, which is their equivalent of our White House. And so we were there to, number one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so we did have the special forces guys come through. Uh, 13 months I was there, we had 12 guys killed and about 40 wounded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, my first experience with mass casualties was, uh, one of our compounds had a sapper attack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, because these are special ops guys. These weren't, these are not guys who wanted to be detected. They wanted to get in, do their jobs and disappear, which they were very good at. And so they, they attacked one of our camps in the DMZ area and they blew up a couple barracks. And, and so that's the first time I had seen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, so to see 18, 19 year old medics having the triage and to make life decisions about who lives and who dies, you know, lining up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wounded. And there they are, cause seeing the DMZ, we were not permitted to have helicopters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get to the scene of the situation and, and here are these young medics just, you know, doing their jobs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, this, this was the beginning of my connection, lifelong connection with Korea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which, which obviously was culminated when I married my wife, who happens to be Korean. Uh, so this was kind of the primer for me. Uh, so I'm in, I'm in Korea, I'm a platoon leader of a weapons platoon company on the DMZ.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, I've only been in country four months or something and the battalion commander


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[Assistant] Whoops. You know, I'm a, I'm a young first lieutenant now and I'm, so I go down to the battalion headquarters and he said, Lieutenant Mukayama, how you doing? And I said, sir, I'm now


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After 11 years of training to be an infantry officer, have the honor to command soldiers on the DMZ combat patrolling. And I said, I'm having the time of my life and I'm really enjoying it. And he said, I noticed you have a degree in English.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, uh, yes sir. And he said, I notice you have a master's degree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I could see where this was going, right? And I said, yes sir. And he said, how would you like to be the battalion adjutant? Now this was a captain's position, right? And I'm, I'm a first lieutenant, you know, and I, but I told him, I said, sir,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm honored that you would, you know, even consider me, but I'm really happy, you know, leading soldiers. His response was, Lieutenant, I'm not looking for happiness in my battalion. He said, you will report on Monday. Yes, sir. I saluted and about face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On Monday I was there, and so, but what that hap- what that helped me with was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was, I was in a position as the battalion adjutant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew all the personnel records of my soldiers, and I knew what their civilian background was. So, uh, yeaah, we did establish the Chang Parikh Community Assistance Fund. Uh, and that was kinda neat. You know, in those days, we used to get paid in cash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once, once a month, the pay officer would be sitting at a table with his 45,


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[Assistant] And each guy would come up, you know, salute, name, you know, whatever. And the payroll officer would, now, in Korea, like in Vietnam, we didn't, we weren't paid in US dollars. We were paid in what were called MPCs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That type of thing. And then every now and then what they would do, this is, this was to combat the black market. Cause US dollars were very valuable and, you know, compared to the local currency. Okay. So they changed to MPCs and so, and then every now and then they would, they would cancel the current


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] G.I.'s are, I mean, American soldiers, sailors, marines, they're


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Organizations that they owed money to, right? Collecting money. At the end of the table, I put a coffee, uh, coffee can and I just had a label on it and said, you know, Chang Pari Community Assistance Fund. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, guys would put in 50 cents or a dollar, well battalions, 1300 soldiers. You know, it's a decent amount of money. And so we, we were able to get that money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if a war came, they'd be the first to go. So the country did not invest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In infrastructure, uh, there were no paved roads. There were only gravel roads. Electricity was like three hours a day. I mean, you know, that's, you know, people were still living in, in literally houses with dirt floors and straw, you know, thatch roofs and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so basically, uh, there was a fire in the village and two homes were destroyed.


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[Assistant] And so we just went to the families and we gave them a grant of so much money. And we just said, we know, you know, you're hurting, so.


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[Assistant] You know, here, they had a school, a, a, uh, they had two schools in Chang Pari. They had a private school for the rich, and then they had a public school for everybody else. The public school, uh, keep in mind, this is only, uh, this is 60, 66, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Less, it was about 15 years after the end of the Korean War, 13 years. And wood was very scarce in Korea, because they had burned a lot of it for fuel and things. And so this public school had no chairs, no desks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They didn't have blackboards. Okay. And so we bought them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 40 desks and chairs and three blackboards, uh, you know, for the, for the school. And we did other things too for a local hospital, a church, uh, the church needed some construction. So being the S1, the personnel officer, I knew the guys who were carpenters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I sent them down to the church so they could help, you know, work with the church doors and things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because wood was so scarce, they used to build houses or build buildings out of cement blocks. Okay. Well, in order to make cement, you need sand. And we were right near the Imjim River.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and banks of the river had sand, right? So I got, uh, five-ton trucks, and maybe a deuce and a half, from our SNS battalion, uh, supply and support battalion, go down to the river bank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get the sand, bring it up to the church, so they could mix the cement. So, my soldiers used to joke about how I could have run for mayor of Chiang Kri and won.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, the insight it gave me was that the army...


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[Assistant] It was very clear. It was sad, in a sense, but then it also started to chip away, as I said, at my...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, number one had, was ignoring everything that I, I had ever asked for. You know, they wouldn't even throw me a bone, right? You know, make me a little happy. Uh, but also I saw what they did with leadership. And you know, Hackworth was your...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, perfect example. Here's a guy who stood up, you know, and, and he was just, you know, you're, you're the nail sticking out and you get pounded back down, but he wouldn't stay down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was, uh, like I said, he, he just had that knack, but, uh,


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[Assistant] And he was very accurate. It was uncanny. It was just unc- and that's why he was so successful. Cause he surrounded himself with really good people. That's the first thing I noticed when I got to Vietnam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I met the officers of the battalion. These guys were all extremely competent and I didn't see one that I wouldn't serve with later. Because he had already called out the people that he didn't want.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he, you know, he, he just wouldn't put up with, with, uh, people who.


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[Assistant] You know, he, you could make a mistake with him as long as you were giving your best. Cause we all make mistakes. Uh, but if he saw a slacker, I mean that was it. Gone. He wasn't there to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Win the hearts and minds of, of people who are not willing to pay attention, especially in combat. You know, you can't put up with that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, no, uh, that was a good battalion. I had an excellent battalion commander, uh, what, and so he, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were short officers, uh, in the training units at that time, rightfully so because we needed guys, you know, in combat to fight. And I was, we didn't have an executive officer in our battalion. I was the senior company commander, data rank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when the battalion commander went on leave, I would be the acting battalion commander, okay? And so that's when that incident occurred with, with, uh, Hacker's drill sergeant. Now, he was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a Vietnam veteran.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Airborne guy, you know, an E-7, a real honest to goodness E-7, and, uh, who had been in combat. And so, but now he's a drill sergeant, one of Hackworth's guys. And our, our two companies shared a company street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so my, his drill sergeant was in his car and one of my recruits was walking.


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[Assistant] In, in the company street with his hands in his pocket. Not a good idea. And which we, we used to refer to them as Air Force gloves, but so he, he stops his car, rolls down the window and tells the recruit, you know, recruit, take your hands out of your pockets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The recruit then says something about the sergeant's wife or mother. And so he gets out of his car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Picks the guy up by his collar, takes him into a day room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, with, you know, a way so nobody can see what's going on. And he bounces him off the wall a couple times to get his attention. Doesn't break anything, you know, but trying to put the fear of God in him. There was one person in that day room, which was one of my NCOs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, but he was, he was what they called an instant NCO. In Vietnam, we became short


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, non-commissioned officers, especially the junior ones, the E5s and the E6s. So they had a special program where the best graduates out of the advanced individual training would stay for 90 days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Further training, and they would graduate as E5s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we used to call them shake and bake NCOs or instant NCOs. So that, that was one of, the guy who's in the, you know, day room, right? Well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, he had enough knowledge of uniform code of military justice to be dangerous. Okay. So he said, well, you can't do this. You know, I'm going to get you court martial because this is trainee abuse, you know, which in those days in the training, I mean, that was, that was a big deal, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the good news was that the drill sergeant and the trainee were both black. Okay. Had, had one been white and the other black, it would have been even worse. Okay. But so that was the good news. And so the NCO, when, when the, when my trainee said that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he just looks at the other NCO, and he says, you don't have a witness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, anyway, that's, and so I get a call from the staff duty officer, cause I'm the acting battalion commander, right? I'm at home, and I get this call, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one of our trainees has been beaten up by, you know, I mean, so I said, don't call Brigade. I said, wait until I call you back. I call Hackworth right away. I said, sir, we have a problem, you know, and he said, well, let's meet, you know, at your headquarters. So we both went and got together and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we came up with a plan, and so I talk about it in the book, but a long story short is this happened right before Christmas. Okay? And there was going to be a Christmas


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at least give them time with their families at, you know, Christmas time. So they're all kind of, you know, wanting to go there, right? So Hackworth and I bring the trainee in, but I'm the battalion commander, so Hackworth's just sitting on the side. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and I said, you know, tell me what happened, you know, and of course the story is totally different. You know, I was just innocent. I was walking in the company street and this Joel Sargent for whatever reason took me into a room and beat me up. And you know, that was his story, right? So I'm sitting in there. I say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we want justice to be done for you. What do you want? I want this guy court martialed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, okay, we could, we could probably make that happen. Uh, I said, uh, uh, but you know, you're, for a court martial, this is pretty important stuff and, uh, you'll have to be a material witness for this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the trial will probably go on for a little while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I can do Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 15, non-judicial punishment, and he lists all the major punishments, you know. Oh yeaah. You know, reduction. Bread and water for 30 days. You know, hard labor. Exactly. All that. Forfeiture of pay, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he said, but we want justice done for you. Now it's my turn. You know, but we want justice done for you, trainee. So what do you want?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, well, I'm, I'm pretty confident in Colonel Hackworth. I'm sure he could handle this. I said, fine. Then we'll, we'll proceed that way without a court martial. And I said, you're dismissed. Now I wanted to really go up one side and down the other about his.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, his part of this deal, but I didn't want to jeopardize what we had just done, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, we bring in the, uh, Hacker's Drill Sergeant, and Hacker says, okay, Article 15,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we're gonna take a rank, one rank away from you, you know, uh, months pay is suspended for 90 days. And for those of us who have been in the military, all that means is for 90 days, if you keep your nose clean for 90 days, it goes away. And so that's what we did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know, Don was, uh, Don was like six foot four.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to review, I was five foot four and a half. Yes sir.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we would walk around campus and it was, it was like, well, a lot of young people won't even know who Mutt and Jeff was, but, uh, we were like Mutt and Jeff, uh, and we did, you know, we both came from


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rather modest backgrounds, to say the least. Although he did have a car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We both lived in the dorms because we couldn't afford an apartment. It was the cheapest way to live. But the dorms didn't serve dinner on Sundays. Okay. So he and I would go down to, you know, the, uh, the local,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And each of us got a beer, okay? And we would sit there literally, one shrimp for you, one shrimp for me, two for you, two for me. We'd actually count the shrimp. And, but you know, we had good times together in, at the university. And so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be with him in Vietnam, it doesn't get any better than that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We go out weekly, uh, three or four days. We didn't have long operations. Hackworth basically


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, his theory, now keep in mind, we were in the Mekong Delta. We were not fighting NVA. We weren't fighting North Vietnam Army regulars. Right. We were fighting guerrillas who were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just as dedicated, I might add. I mean, I'll never forget the one important battle we had. I was with Hackworth, who was in his helicopter over this battle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Watching him, this is a culmination of, of about a week and a half of preparation. We had gotten intelligence that there was a Vietnamese, really it was a training battalion, or a battalion, you know, of new recruits in our area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Hackworth could smell it a mile away, and he said, this is, this is rock solid. We, we gotta act on this. So, one, in the night,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. And then the next morning, he, he put in the third and fourth companies and we kind of encircled this area and then he called in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Artillery, naval gunfire, artillery, you know, gunships, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was like a turkey shoot. It was incredible. I'm in the helicopter with him because I'd only been in country about a month and, and he wanted me to, to learn operations, right? And so I'm sitting there and watching him, the way I phrase it, orchestrate the battlefield.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He knew where the companies were. He, you know, we had a map. We're flying over this whole thing, right? And at the beginning, before we even had contact,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, everybody's in position and we got a radio contact from one of our company commanders and he said, just had a contact, killed three VC, uh, you know, captured a couple of weapons. They're heading.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Northwest, okay. So Hackworth's sitting there and he said, Mook, about 15 minutes we should hear from Claymore. Okay. 15 minutes! Claymore comes up, you know, and, you know, same thing, contact, we killed so many, and blah blah blah, and then, and in the meantime he's still pouring all this


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're trying to get out, but they're already encircled. You know, and this went on all day. And in fact, it got so, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, and higher headquarters found out what was happening, you know, cause all this traffic. And, uh, the brigade commander comes, now he's above us, right? Circling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, then the division commander, I mean, this, this was nuts, you know. And Hathworth gets on the, on the line, he said, listen you guys, I'm calling in artillery, I'm calling in our airstrikes, I can't worry about you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, if you want to meet me somewhere, you know, I can give you a brief, but get out of my AO. That's, you know, that's what he said, right? So, so the division, well, I want you to meet me at, you know, X. Okay. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Hackworth is really, really upset and, and the S3 major, uh, murderer, uh, he


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, you know, it was just, uh, just incredible. But the thing that, the reason I brought this up is I started by saying the VC and how dedicated they were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During Vietnam, we had, unfortunately, body counts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They wanted us to report how many we had killed and wounded and then how many weapons we had captured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way you could get a credible body count was that the number of weapons was kind of close to the number of people who had been killed. But let's say you say, you know, we killed 20 and we have two weapons. That's kind of, you know, the VC knew that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and by the way, they had AK-47s, which were much better weapons than our M16s, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when, when I say that, that, you know, you could, you could pick up an AK-47 out of mud almost and fire it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. So, so I saw the dedication of, of the, the VC. I always, that's one axiom in combat is always respect your enemy. Never underestimate them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, you know, I really, I really can't think of it. Well, I mean, I, I, after Hackworth left, he had a, we had a new battalion commander come in. Nobody could fill Hackworth's shoes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was right. So here I am. I'm now the company commander of battle company and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What we used to do is we'd be out in the field, all the companies were not out at the same time. You know, we'd rotate, okay, because one company might be manning the security.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you're guarding the, the, uh, the perimeter and, uh, so you're out on, you're out on patrol and then you come back, you're out on operations and you come back and you're supposed to get like a break.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uh, to recover while the other companies go out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a situation where my guys were being sent right out again, while other companies could stay longer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That didn't fly with me, so I went to the battalion commander. In fact, once again, they used to joke about a path between my, my hooch and the battalion commander's hooch. Right go and I'd say, hey listen, you know, sir,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just wanted to remind you that we've been out, you know, and these guys are still here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and they're staying and we have to go out again. I think, uh, maybe somebody missed something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, what happened was that we, we had, uh, in this particular operation, which wasn't a heavy operation, uh, he basically detonated a booby trap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And sucking chest wounds, uh, I was near him, so I got a little shrapnel, but it wasn't a big deal, just scratches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, so we called the Medevac helicopter. There were some other guys wounded too. So, uh, there was a UPI photographer on that helicopter and he snapped a photo of my guys carrying Barry on a stretcher towards the helicopter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it's a very action packed photo. You can just see the, the expression on my guys carrying, you know, of concern, carrying his, his uh, wounded body to the helicopter and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the background, I'm standing there watching all of this because I have my radio in my hand. I just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] had called in the helicopter and you see the, all the debris and smoke around it. Because in Vietnam, when you called in a medivac, you would take a smoke grenade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had different colors of smoke grenades. So you could, you would say like, let's say it's a yellow smoke grenade. So we're popping yellow, you know, and that's so the Medevac helicopter knew that's where it came from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The story behind that photo was, and as you said, I didn't know about that photo until about three years later after I'd come back from Vietnam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was now working for a, I, I had left the regular army, which is part of my book story, but I left, I left the regular army and I joined the reserves, uh, cause I had a commitment frankly of, I was going to serve 20 years no matter what. Turned out to be 32, but you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but what happened was I was working for a Japanese trading company. We were importing bicycles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And bicycle parts to Schwinn Bicycle in Chicago. So I'm, I'm, I'm paying a sales call on, on the guys at Schwinn. I'm in the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the waiting area, you know, they had a coffee table with magazines and there was a US News and World Report magazine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it had an article about Vietnam. So I said, Hey, I'll take a look at this. Kind of interested. And that photo was there, but it was only like three inches by three inches, you know, and then, and so I looked at it and then I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw guys who were in my company. So I knew it was our company and then I saw I was in it. So then I, I wrote, uh, the magazine. I said, how can I, how can I get a copy of this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they said it was UPI, so I contacted UPI. And ironically, the photographer was a Japanese.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, photographer and so it got the photo, but the story is that was selected as the UPI photo for the day that kind of went around the world about Vietnam because it was such an action packed photo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it got in Stars and Stripes. Okay. Pacific Stars and Stripes, uh, which, which as you know is, is the newspaper for service members throughout the world. Yep. And it was on, uh, Stars and Stripes. And so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fast forward 50 years, I'm now at a reunion of the hardcore in Tampa Bay, Florida, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're in this general session, and one of the, one of the guys, uh, one of the infantry soldiers raises his hand, and he says, I've got something for General Muk, okay? So I don't know what, you know. So I go, go up there, and he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had the Pacific Stars and Stripes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Issue that he had saved for 50 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he gave it to me because I, you know, I was the company commander and I was, I was in it. And I, I said, I can't take this. You know, you saved this. You said, sir, you were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you are the commander, you need to have this. And as I say in the book, that just shows you the bond.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Between soldiers who have, who have fought together and the respect that we have for each other. That he would give that up, you know, for me. It was just an honor. Yea, no doubt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, we really didn't have a big ceremony. I mean, you know, I mean, there was a change of command, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't, uh, you know, we're out in the middle of, we're in a fire support base. I mean, you know, it's gonna be like five minutes. It's not gonna be a band and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and all that stuff happening, like you have stateside. But it was very moving for the guys, cause he had taken the hardcore from, and I didn't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe I talked about a little bit, when Hackworth was assigned to be that battalion commander, it was one of the worst battalions in Vietnam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically draftees, you know, he had commanded a battalion of the 101st. Little different quality of soldiers, okay. This was an all, this is basically a draftee battalion and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll just say the previous leadership was not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they, they, they were taking casualties, morale was down, uh, Hackworth gets there and he turns it around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A thousand percent, not a hundred percent. To make it one of the most efficient.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fighting machines, and our ratio of kills to our soldiers getting wounded or killed was, you know, I don't know what it was, but it had to be like, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 80 to 20 or something. If not higher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know, this, this, uh, I talk about survivor guilt, which is related to something that I've been very passionate about. So, and I'm sure you were gonna talk about it, but I, I think this is a good time. And that has to do with the invisible wounds of war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, especially, you know, I go around the country giving speeches about this. And I literally have been to medical colleges. I've spoken at the American Psychological Association.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] District 19, which is the military psychologist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody knows what PTSD is. I mean, you'd have to live in a burrow not knowing what that is. People also know what traumatic brain injury is. Okay? Especially sports, too. And then military sexual trauma, uh, both male and female.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So those are, these are not physical wounds, but they're wounds that are internalized. And, but there's one that is not spoken about very much and that is moral injury. And so, when I talk about moral injury,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I asked for a show of hands. You know, how many people are aware of PTSD? Every hand goes up. How many are aware of, you know, traumatic brain injury? Every hand goes up. How many are aware of moral injury? I might get a few hands go up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But no, actually to be fair, in the last couple years, moral injury has surfaced more into the discussion about, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wounds of war. And, and that's because of the high suicide rates. And I am, my organization, Military Outreach USA, uh, which is a faith-based non-profit, uh, to help veterans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We concentrate in two specific areas. Cause not, you know, there are thousands, literally thousands of non-profits out there wanting to help our veterans. Uh, so you can't be everything to everyone. And so our niches are one, homeless veterans. And number two, reducing the suicide rate. So when it comes to homeless veterans,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have, uh, we had an agreement signed by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2016 that recognized Military Outreach USA as an organization that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Could, we created a program called Veterans Exiting Homelessness. Okay. Now you have to understand military outreach is a small organization. We're just a handful of volunteers, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very, uh, there's only two people that get any pay and it's not a lot. Like part-time pay is what I'm talking about. And, uh, we basically, uh, have set up this program for veterans working with the VA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who are working with VA social workers and they get them stabilized where they can function and get them into what they call permanent housing, which is really a one bedroom apartment that's subsidized by a HUD-VASH voucher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They give them the keys to the apartment, but that's all they give them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So imagine the first time you moved into an apartment, you kinda need stuff like Lysol, toilet paper, towels, sponges, buckets, uh, how about a bed? Right? They don't have a bed. They might have a cardboard box or sleeping bag or a blanket. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We worked with the VA because, as I said, we're a small organization. There's no way for us to vet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of houses of worship of all faiths


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we've expanded that network to include American Legion, VFW Post, uh, other VSOs, veteran service organizations, uh, we have, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lions clubs, rotary, even of high schools, and we


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We made a list of what we call move-in essential items. These items that somebody needs when they, you know, move into an apartment. And we said, could you kind of have a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, get your congregations or parishes and make a collection of this stuff or your high schools and, uh, we'll arrange with you to have it, we'll co- we'll pick it up and then the VA social workers will come


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And take it away. And they then give it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Raise over 1.3 million items, uh, over 1 million dollars worth of items, and we just delivered our 2,600th bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These are people who are no longer sleeping on the floors or streets or whatever. And, uh, so that's one program, veterans exiting homelessness. The other program is about moral injury and the invisible wounds of war, where I go out and I actually


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Explain what it is, but in 2015, so that's like eight, you know, eight years ago, we published a book, Military Outreach, which is on our website. It's in a resource. Oh, by the way, our website is militaryoutreachusa.org.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] militaryoutreachusa.org. Go on our website, resources.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The name of the book is They Don't Receive Purple Hearts. And it's all about the invisible wounds of war. We talk about moral injury. Uh, moral injury is nothing new.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, if you read, uh, the Iliad, if you read Shakespeare, you will read the Bible, uh, the book of Numbers, chapter 31.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the Jewish warriors return from defeating the Midianites, Moses greets them outside of the camp, but he will not let them reenter until they go through a purification process.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The knights, when they came back from the crusades, were not permitted to participate in the holy sacraments until they went through penance and reconciliation. The Native American Indians have had sweat lodges, you know, so basically,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our, our societies have known for millennia, if you send warriors out to war, when they come back, you gotta help them reintegrate. Well, we so-called modern society people have forgotten a lot of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, our, that's why the suicide rate of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The number is, is, is questionable. Uh, you know, the VA, there was at one point they said 22 plus per day veterans. Now we're not talking about active, we're talking about veterans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just like PTSD is not. You, you gotta, the way moral, and by the way, when I go out, I give a definite, uh, what definition of moral injury is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, as you know from the book, I'm a pretty simple minded guy and I try to, you know, boil things down to the essentials. So, moral injury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It goes like this. From the time you're born until you're 18 years old, you develop a personal moral code. A sense of right or wrong. That could come from your family, your religion, your friends, your community, whatever. Then you join the military, and you learn a warrior


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Warrior code is superimposed on your personal moral code, and in fact transforms it somewhat


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you might have to participate in operations or activities that violate your personal moral code, such as killing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't have to be the person that pulls the trigger. You could be a witness, or you could feel you should have prevented it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or let's say you follow another unit and you see that innocent civilians have been killed. Or you handle body parts. At that time you sustain a so-called invisible wound of war, moral injury. And it is the position of Military Outreach USA


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That the main approach for healing moral injury is not a medical doctor with prescription drugs. It's the forgiveness and grace of a moral authority, a loving God


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The counseling of clergy or sensitive therapists and the support of a community offering hope and help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I can't tell you how many times I've gone out and given presentations and afterwards, veterans or their spouses walk up to me in tears and they say, now I get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was told I had PTSD, but I know I don't have PTSD. I've got something else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and when I give my presentations, I talk about there's a healing process here. Number one, you have to know what you have. You can't address the problem unless you know what you have. Number two is forgiveness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to obtain forgiveness, and this is a moral injury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I'm not a, I'm not, no, I have to be very clear about all this. I'm not a psychologist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, psychiatrist, social worker, I'm just a guy who's walked those boots and shared some of these things with my own moral injury that I've talked about in the book. Uh, and I've been doing this for 20-something years now with veterans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and I've seen, uh, really good, competent psychologists at the VA who have helped veterans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and so that's the second part of it. And forgiveness could be something that happens quick or could take a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the third part of the healing process is when, when you have moral injury, you feel as if you have participated in such bad things that you have no sense of self-worth. You are worthless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nobody can love you. God can't love you. In fact, you get mad at God, which is okay. He can take it. But you know, you really, you feel that you have no worth at all. That's why people with moral injury will not talk to their families.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, there are two things. Number one, they want to protect them from what they've experienced. But number two, they don't want to lose their self respect or their love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they don't talk about it. You know, and what we do is we try to educate the public, i.e. the families of veterans, because we found out that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, vets normally will not admit that they got a problem. It's, you know, suck it up, move forward, you know, don't show a sign of weakness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get all that stuff, but it's not right. And oftentimes it's the family, the spouses, that force the veteran to get help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's either like, it's either me or, you know, I'm gone. Unless you get help. That type of thing. So we're trying to educate the families. And also to let the families know that this is not something they've done wrong. You know, and they can help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we try to get veterans to understand this, uh, and seek help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, through, you know, different opportunities that are available and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I wanted to get that right out front about the passions of what I'm into now, today in my life. I've been so blessed and I'm hoping that this book,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not about Jim Mukuyama. In fact, people who read the book will see that I have no acknowledgement section.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the reason I don't is I mention as many names as I can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, of people, because it's not about me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's about how God has given me blessings and encouragement through all these people that have been my mentors, that have helped me, uh, become what I can be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that is to serve others. That's my life, my life mission at a very early age. I, I know I talk about this in the book when I was nine years old and I have no reason, I still, I, I, I try to rethink, you know, why would a nine year old do this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day I said to myself, self, why are you here? What is your


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, what's your mission? You know, and my answer was to try to serve and help people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just, I, I, you know, I wasn't looking to find a cure for cancer. I wasn't, you know, looking to be this great, you know, leader or whatever. All I want to do is help people. And I figured if everybody did that, you know, the world would improve.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, if everybody had that type of a mission or a purpose in life, and I only found out later as my faith matured about really servant leadership.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is, you know, which is what my faith teaches. And the best servant leader of all times, in my opinion, was Jesus. Because he's the guy who gave up his life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For us. And in fact, if you read the Bible, he says, you know, I didn't come here to be served. Served. I came to serve others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that to me, you know, servant leadership, one of the best books I've read on leadership was something called The Servant by James Hunter. And it's, it's fictional, but it, it talks, what he does is he takes the, the leadership pyramid, so to speak, and he turns it upside down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, instead of the leaders being at the top.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All everybody else down kind of at the bottom. It's everybody else on top and the leader at the bottom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was a really, you know, another thing I should say is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always thought, when I was a kid and growing up, that I led a normal life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I was an American, I was just, you know, I was enjoying life, uh, and, you know, I didn't realize until later when I got experience


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As, as a young officer, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In combat and then dealing with veterans later, I have led an abnormal life because I've had a stable nuclear family. I've had a strong faith foundation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had, you know, my wonderful wife of 52 years who's put up with me. And you know, guys, it doesn't get any better than that. And then plus, which, which we haven't talked about here, but I, I will now among these God things that I mentioned, uh, I'm an Agent Orange survivor. Uh, and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I've always been pretty healthy. I've, I've been into martial arts. Uh, oh yeaah, I should say something about martial arts even though I'm sitting across from one of the best. I, you know, and martial arts of course was part of the samurai tradition and all that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a young kid, I realized I have a problem with anger. Anger management. And again, it's amazing how I realize this at such an early age, but I, I have a terrible


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I worked on that as a kid. Okay, so, and I was always the smallest, the smallest guy in my classes. And so the bullies and the playground used to pick on me, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I was an inviting target, right? Well, I knew I had to control myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I just brushed it off. You know, I shrugged it off and I just said, I considered the source and all that. And, but one day, once again, I was about nine years old in the playground. The big bully called me a jamp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I lost it. I literally lost it. I had him on the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In about 10 seconds. And I was on top of him and I was beating him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so kids were pulling me off of him, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're saying, where's the Jim Mukuyama that we knew? You know, and, and I didn't, I didn't break anything. The guy, you know, the guy was more embarrassed than anything else and I was never picked on again in the playground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I'm just giving you the background that I've had this problem, I still have it, that I know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's why I got into martial arts. Because if anybody is really a student of martial arts, they understand that it's really self-discipline and self-control.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you're really studying. And, and in fact, once you get to a certain level, and I know I'm preaching to the choir with you in echo, but you know, once you get to a certain level,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can do serious damage, you know, but the good news is you know you can also control the situation. And you don't have to prove it, because you know you can do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I studied martial arts to be able to control myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, you know, I got, that was very, I never made a black belt. I, it's, it's a long story about that. I, I actually, when, when our son came along, Jay, you know, uh, and you know, my wife's Korean and Jay is adopted from Korea, uh, we got into taekwondo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before, like, he was 10, you know, and, but we started him very early, though. And then...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got, I got up to a brown belt and then I injured myself and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty much ended my, my career. I mean, I could have gone back, you know, but by that time I was now...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but that, that's my experience with, you know, self-control and, and the martial arts, which I, I was fortunate because at the University of Illinois, I actually joined the karate club.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the U of I and the teacher was the sensei was one of our students who had a black belt and this is the Japan Karate Association, JKA, which is really the classical stuff. None of this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, show thing, it was really, it was really tough though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I mean, I was happy to get a yellow belt. I gotta tell you, I'm not kidding. You know, uh, but then later on I did the Taekwondo stuff and I got up to a brown belt. So I, I've, I've been blessed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's right, I kind of got off the track for your question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, integration for me, uh, from Vietnam was once again abnormal for those times. Now you'll get what I'm getting at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we came back from Vietnam, and it's hard for young military today to understand this, we were told when we landed in California not to wear our uniforms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, a very dear friend of mine who just passed away, uh, Vietnam veteran with the 101st, uh, this poor guy was from San Francisco.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was Italian and he was race Catholic, uh, and so he goes to Vietnam, uh, was a platoon leader, saw a lot of combat, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he wasn't, he wasn't real happy, uh, coming back from Vietnam, from this whole experience, but he lands in San Francisco and all this


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thinking that he's gonna get some, you know, some sensitive or some, you know, response and, and the priest said, you were in Vietnam. He said, and you fought in Vietnam, you're going to hell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he turns around and he doesn't go back. You know, now later on in life he, he, he, he was able to forgive the priest and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't forget those things. Just like Jane Fonda, I might add. I've got to get this out too. Jane Fonda was the definition of treason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She did that in spades, going to North Vietnam, sitting at an anti-aircraft gun that was being used to shoot down American planes, wearing an NVA helmet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she's an actress with, you know, world popularity, you know, the, the, you know, daughter of Henry Fonda, and there she is giving propaganda.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm trying to be kind when I say that. But to give you an idea, one of the favorite sales items for Vietnam veterans are urinal covers with her photo on it. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, and I'm not proud of this, but I'll just tell you that I, for many decades guys, I mean decades,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hated that woman so much, had there been a call for a firing squad, I would have been the first guy in line. I mean, that's how much I hated this woman, okay? Well, once again, through the grace of God and my faith, I have come to understand that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can forgive her, I cannot forget what happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I can, when I say I can forgive her, I can stop hating her and stop letting that bitterness control me. And that's one of the things about moral injury is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't want to let the past control your presence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was like a big weight lifted off my shoulder when I said, you know, I forgive her, I'm moving on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And really, it's not really for me to forgive her, it's for God to forgive her. Because only He knows what's in her heart. And I've never heard her


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, she's sorry for what she did to the veterans and their families and, you know, I mean, she could do a little restitution maybe, you know, like donate to, you know, veterans organizations or something. Uh, but I've never seen that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, uh, but she's got to do with that and I'm not in control of that. So where were we?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The reason why mine was abnormal, again, was my church supported me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause I was going to a Japanese American church, right? So, you know, in the mess hall, I couldn't get, you know, I was lucky to get rice every now and then. And it was mostly, you know, Uncle Ben's or something. It wasn't, you know, Asian rice. And so anyway, that was, uh, but they, when I came home, they treated me like a hero.


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[Assistant] And the reason for that is our congregation was constituted of many World War II veterans who had fought in the hundredth


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[Assistant] Battalion 442nd Regimental Combat Team.


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[Assistant] Uh, during World War II and it served in the military intelligence service. So they knew what, you know, and they wanted to talk to me about it.


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[Assistant] You know, because I was an infantry guy. You know, I had seen some combat, you know, so, and they were so proud of me.


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[Assistant] You know, when I was promoted in the army, when I became a general, I mean, that was...


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[Assistant] That was huge, you know, and then later on in life, when I talk about in the book, I,


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[Assistant] I've had, I got involved with the building of a national Japanese American memorial in Washington DC. That took seven years out of my life because I walked around the country on my own dime giving speeches, raising money for the memorial.


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[Assistant] It's a national memorial authorized by Congress. Okay? And they pass a law.


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[Assistant] And what they do is they give us the land for the memorial, but that's it. So whoever is sponsoring the memorial has to raise the money to, for the architect, for the, to build the memorial, and it has to be approved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By, in Washington DC, where this memorial is at, there's like


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[Assistant] I want to say a dozen commissions. You know, the, you know, the garden club or the, uh, national umpty um.


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[Assistant] Uh, you know, commission that you have to go through to get, you know, I mean, they control the height, the height of the memorial, how far away it is from the curb, uh, the material you can use in it and all that stuff. So for seven years of my life, that's,


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[Assistant] The neat thing about it was I would go around the country to these Japanese American


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[Assistant] With your lifetime heroes, you know. And here I am, I'm meeting all these guys from World War II.


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[Assistant] Who have been through battles, they've been through prejudice, they've been in camps themselves. Imagine you're 18 years old, you just graduated from high school, right? And you get a knock on your door, it's a local FBI agent, and you said,


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[Assistant] Be on the corner of State and Madison on Monday morning with two suitcases.


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[Assistant] And that's it. You know, you're put on a train, you're put in some godforsaken camp in the middle of nowhere, and you're there for three years.


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[Assistant] And your family, let's say you owned a business.


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[Assistant] You know, you, you can't survive. You know, you have, you lose your business, you have a home, you can't pay the mortgage because you have no income because you're in a camp.


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[Assistant] You know, and, uh, and then the local army recruiter comes, and he says, I want you to go die for your country. And I don't, guys, I don't know what I would have done.


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[Assistant] If I were in their shoes, I might have told them to take a hike, you know. Uh, but these guys volunteered. And the reason they volunteered is they wanted to prove to the rest of America that Americanism is not a matter of race.


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[Assistant] We're all red-blooded Americans. We all blood red. And bleed red.


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[Assistant] They wanted to prove that we were loyal. The Japanese Americans were loyal. And the only way you could prove it was by dying.


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[Assistant] And that's, that's what they did. And they were the difference.


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[Assistant] Because of their example, in the European theater of operation, let's say we had nine million, I'm just using, I don't know if that's the right figure, but let's say nine million soldiers, sailors, marines, you know, serving, uh,


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[Assistant] And in combat areas, as Jocko can attest, the reputation of units, good and bad, spread like wildfires.


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[Assistant] You know, fifth army commander, uh, they just wanted those guys, you know, in, in, uh,


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[Assistant] I was just so blessed. So I would go around giving speeches, right? And these guys...


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[Assistant] You know, the company commander who's the captain is like a god.


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[Assistant] Right? And, and so a general, I mean, they, they hardly ever get to speak, see one, much, much less speak to one, right? So I'd go to these events and they all want to get their pictures. We didn't have selfies in those days, but they would, you know, they wanted to get their picture taken with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, on the other hand, I wanted to get my picture taken with them.


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[Assistant] So it was, so my return and integration back into society was, was smooth to say the least. Cause my church really supported me. Uh, when I came back, they immediately, they said, we want you to teach the teenagers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the church and everything. And so, uh, it was unusual. It was abnormal once again, which some people might think is normal. It was really abnormal and that helped my healing and my ability to integrate.


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[Assistant] Rejection like my friend that I told you about where the priest told him, you know, it was, you know, that's the kind of stuff that happened.


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[Assistant] You know, and so it's, it's like, uh, cancel culture 50 years ago. You know, where they found out that they, you know, people, guys in the reserves.


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[Assistant] You know, because we had to have our hair cut short, you know, people could see right away we're military. Guys in the reserves used to wear wigs, you know, during the week, you know, so people wouldn't know that they were, you know, that's how bad it was.


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[Assistant] It was incredible, but I had a smooth integration. Very blessed.


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[Assistant] Well, it's not quite, it's, it's, I have to be very accurate about this, okay. She, it was for me, love at first sight. I mean, I just, I knew.


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[Assistant] The moment I saw her, uh, it wasn't quite the same on the other side. I was just some guy who's showing up and.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I did, but, uh, once again, that's, that's the God thing I talk. Those are the type of things in my life that, you know, are almost unheard of things that happen.


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[Assistant] You know, our, the reason we did that is our kids were very young when we put that out, by the way. They were like four and five years old. Okay?


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[Assistant] But the surprising thing though, you'll be surprised to hear this, that four and five years old,


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[Assistant] We made it a special occasion, right? Mom and dad have a surprise for you. You know, that's always, you know, and, uh, you know, these are kids who can't read cursive or can't actually read a lot, you know, so,


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[Assistant] I printed everything on the original Mukhiyama family code using, uh, colored markers, you know, to make it interesting for them. They were all in plastic pages and then our daughter's favorite color was purple. So I put it in a purple binder, right?


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[Assistant] It became known as the Purple Book because the advance- the whole purpose of it was one day


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[Assistant] KJ and I were talking and we said, you know, if something happens to us, if God takes us, while the kids are still young, we want them to know what our values are.


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[Assistant] The benefit that we received, which I did not anticipate was that number one, when we had the special occasion, we had ice cream, you know, after dinner. And then, so, so I go ahead and read page by page, item by item about this.


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[Assistant] You know, so, but the other benefit was...


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[Assistant] As they got older in life, okay, if they did something that upset us or got me mad, okay, instead of my going on a tantrum, I'd say, let's get the purple book out. Okay. And you see this line where it says,


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[Assistant] You know, don't be greedy or don't, you know, don't be jealous of your friends if they're successful, but rather be happy for them.


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[Assistant] You know why Papa wasn't real happy with you today? They couldn't say, you never told me.


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[Assistant] Well, you know, the military, so I have a master's degree in the teaching of social studies, okay. The reason I did that, even though I was going to make the military a career, you know, I knew I was going to be infantry, I knew I was going to Vietnam, so the odds of my being


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[Assistant] Wounded or perhaps disabled, we're not small.


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[Assistant] So I had to have a profession to fall back on. And as you and I have talked about both being English majors, English wasn't the greatest livelihood producer, shall we say. And so I had to have a backup profession in something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doesn't, didn't require me to run the 20 yard dash and it was teaching, which I always considered to be an honorable profession.


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[Assistant] You know, so I made, I got my degree in the teaching of social studies. The reason I'm saying all this is that you mentioned about the military, uh, I found out


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[Assistant] I was taking all these graduate courses of history and philosophy of education, psychology of education, and I learned that the military had one of the best training programs anywhere, which was tasks, conditions, standards.


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[Assistant] You know, you let them know what the task is, you tell them the conditions under which it's gonna happen, and you tell them the standards you expect them to meet. No slack. And that's worked very well.


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[Assistant] Well, but once, eh, that's true.


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[Assistant] What I classified that as another god thing, which was that he was, in fact,


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[Assistant] My wife, when this all happened, and I'm having, now I'm having kind of a pity party, because, you know, my 32 year career has just gone literally down the drain, right? And so KJ says to me, wait a second, she said, you know,


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[Assistant] You survive Vietnam, yea, actually two combat tours, Korea, Vietnam, and


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[Assistant] You had your Agent Orange experience, where you had your kidney transplant, where our adopted daughter was the donor, by the way, uh, and a match, which was another kind of thing, uh, and,


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[Assistant] So how, how could I argue with that? That's right. And, and you know, she was right. And it was time for me, you know, God was giving me a message that this chapter in my life,


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[Assistant] Uh, is, has ended. He's got other plans for me. And I just said, okay, whatever. Let's, uh, let's move forward and see what you have in store for me.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I appreciate you asking me that, Jaco, because it gives me an opportunity to educate people about hospice, first of all. Uh, number one,


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[Assistant] Uh, hospice is for people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness with a prognosis of less than six months to live.


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[Assistant] Okay, once a person has reached those criteria, they're eligible for hospice. Hospice is one of the most wonderful services that


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[Assistant] Our society has, has volunteers who are willing to do this. A hospice team is comprised of a doctor, a nurse,


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[Assistant] A certified nurse's assistant, a therapist, could be physical, could be spiritual, a chaplain, and a hospice patient volunteer.


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[Assistant] Okay, all of this is provided at no cost to the patient. And by the way, the unit of care is not only the patient, it's also the caregiver. Because often times, the caregiver is the one who needs the help.


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[Assistant] And the person who is dying sometimes does even know what's going on.


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[Assistant] Almost all, all know, no matter what, uh, you know, we're, we're taught, we're trained that, uh, even when a patient is lying in a bed, can't talk, don't open their eyes, you assume that they can hear everything that's going on.


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[Assistant] And you treat them as if they're part of the conversation.


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[Assistant] You don't ever say anything negative in front of them, uh, which could, you know, be really a downer, so to speak.


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[Assistant] And the way, the way I got involved in it was KJ saw this ad for a very wonderful hospice organization called Rainbow Hospice in the Chicago area where we live and they offered training


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[Assistant] Uh, sessions, but it was like a six week training program in the evening, a couple days a week, you know.


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[Assistant] You know, being the guy that I am, I went, I didn't want her to go out at night, you know, by herself. So I said, well, I'll drive you.


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[Assistant] And I'll take a book or I'll take work with me. You know, while you're going through the training, I'll just kind of, you know, do my thing. Well, I got sucked up into the training with her because I've


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've, I've always tried to help her whenever she's, when she was in school and, and, uh, I helped her with her, her, uh, studies and so, uh,


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[Assistant] I got involved in the training, so we both were qualified as hospice patient volunteers. Now, the average, at least at that time, the average hospice patient volunteer lasted about 18 months.


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[Assistant] Uh, the reason for that, it is extremely strenuous, uh, stressful. Uh, you know, you understand the contract.


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[Assistant] You know, the person is dying, okay, and you're there to provide comfort and help to not only them, but to the family or caregiver. So you, you come in as a patient volunteer for maybe three hours at a time so that the caregiver


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[Assistant] Take a break. Maybe they can take a nap. Maybe they can go to a movie. Maybe they can, you know, get their hair set or do whatever, and we take care of the patients.


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[Assistant] So, uh, we did that for six and a half years. And it was, it was stressful, but the good news is we


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[Assistant] The way, what happened was, in our training, we were told that, that, uh, and it makes sense. It's, it's not easy to get hospice patient volunteers. So each team has one volunteer.


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[Assistant] So she, so KJ and I would be split, we're gonna be split up now. You know, cause she'll be with one patient and I'll be with another patient, you know. And one day a friend of ours who, and I talk about it in the book, a friend of ours whose husband had died from cancer, uh, was visiting us.


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[Assistant] And uhm, we, we told her about what we were doing and she said, you know, the, the most effective help I got when my husband was going through the cancer was when a married couple came.


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[Assistant] To visit us. Cause the husband would spend time with my husband. And the wife would spend time with me.


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[Assistant] So, all kinds of bells and whistles go off in our mind, so we go to our hospice patient volunteer. And we said, hey, you know, have you ever thought of assigning, you know, a husband and wife as a team?


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[Assistant] You know, for hospice, and she said, you are the first husband and wife team that's ever trained here.


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[Assistant] So she said, we'll give it a shot. And that's what we did. And so that's how, you know, we were able to last so long.


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[Assistant] Uh, in that, in, I'll tell you the, the, to answer your initial question, the insight I got into dying was a totally different thing in terms of, uh,


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[Assistant] People of faith really handle it much better. And I can make that general statement because we did that for six and a half years. And, uh,


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[Assistant] It was, and, and most, and a lot of people who are dying cared more for us than they cared about their situation. Cause they could see that we were volunteering and helping them, but it was also


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[Assistant] A Chinese lady who didn't speak English. So we, and she never spoke.


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[Assistant] Who, uh, her name, the patient's name was Mrs. Chen.


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[Assistant] Her caregiver was related to her through marriage. You know, Mrs. Chen's nephews, you know, married this other woman's second cousin or something. And this other woman was a professional CNA.


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[Assistant] And so she took Mrs. Chen into her home.


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[Assistant] And set aside a bedroom just for her, and she was her caregiver.


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[Assistant] Okay, and so that, you know, the relationship was so beautiful, you know, from two different cultures, uh, and so anyway, what I'm getting at is,


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[Assistant] When it came, when she was dying, I mean, we knew the end was coming fairly soon, you know. And KJ and I visited her, and we were leaving.


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[Assistant] And Mrs. Chen said thank you. I mean it was like...


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[Assistant] It was like she was saying goodbye to us. Cause she knew that she didn't have, we had other wonderful experiences. I had a Vietnam veteran who was an enlisted man.


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[Assistant] And an army guy, a man of great character obviously, and, and he...


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[Assistant] When he found out I was a general, and he was in a wheelchair, and he had cancer, and I was taking him around the facility, you know, and he would tell everybody, I have a general who's taking me around, you know, and then he said, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was the touching part. He said,


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[Assistant] When I beat this thing, a guy was a fighter, you know, and he had cancer, and he said, when I beat this thing, I'm gonna become a hospice patient volunteer like you and KJ.


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[Assistant] Man, I gotta tell ya, that's... So when he died, we had a policy of not going to funerals. I mean, it just would have been...


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[Assistant] And he was Greek, and his mother, uh, immigrated from Greece, uh, her husband had been killed in the Greek Civil War, and he, uh, it was just he and her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was like 65 or something and just retired from government service and never married. And you know, he was devoted to his mom and she was devoted to him and he had planned to take her around the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so we go to the funeral at this, you know, Chicago is a city of neighborhoods and of ethnicities. Okay, well there's this one funeral home that most of the Greeks go to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and so we, we go to the funeral service and, you know, we're the only non-Greeks there, much less they're only Asians, right? And his mother knew exactly who we were. And she was so grateful to us.


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[Assistant] Uh, so yeaah, hospice was a, a very eye-opening, but I'm very, we're very grateful that we had that experience and it really taught us about dying, how people can be so gracious.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I know where you're going. They wanted to omit the names of the non-Japanese Americans who served in those units.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I.e. they were the officers. Because although the unit, you know, at that time the military was segregated, so they put together this Japanese American unit.


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[Assistant] But they, all the officers were Caucasian or non-Japanese. There was actually a Korean captain who, who was, who was assigned and he, bless his soul, his name is, uh, Colonel, uh,


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[Assistant] Was given the opportunity by the commander, regimental commander, not to serve because he was Korean.


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[Assistant] And he knew the animosity between the Koreans and Japanese. And Colonel Kim, to his credit, said, these are Americans. I'm an American. You know, I will not be transferred. I'll serve with them. And he was with the 100th.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it was kind of nice to be a general sometimes, because a lot of the people on the committee were former service members, but you know,


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[Assistant] It was so ridiculous. I just said, that's it. You know, I've got enough.


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[Assistant] Uh, you know, there were 830 plus names that eventually got on the memorial and, you know, we dedicated it in 2000. Uh, knock on wood for those not on, can't see me, I'm hitting my forehead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there have been no changes, no corrections. That's impressive. For the names.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that was, that was interesting. Uh, a very dear friend of mine, his name was Joe Gray. He was a, uh, a Major General in the Army Reserves when I was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was, uh, active as a general, we go to these, these general officer conferences, and Joe was a strong man of faith. In fact, uh, in his civilian life, he was the public relations guy, uh, for, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, 700 club. I mean, so he, you know, he was.


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[Assistant] And he said, Jim, do you know anybody at Great Lakes? You know, I'm an army guy. You know, I don't, I don't know the Navy guys, you know. And I said, no, I don't. He said, listen, you know, we're trying to get into Great Lakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To give these classes, to help, to help supplement the command religious program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're already at Fort Benning with the infantry army.


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[Assistant] We're already with the Marines. We're already with the Air Force at Lackland Air Force Base. We can't, we haven't been able to break the code at Great Lakes. Okay, cause Great Lakes is, is the Navy's only recruit training center now. They closed out the other two, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I said, well, I'll give it a shot, but you know, I can't promise you anything. So I called up there.


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[Assistant] And I, and I say, this is Major General retired Jim Mukoyama.


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[Assistant] Uh, can I speak to the Admiral, who was, you know, the command, I just, I wasn't going to, you know, stop and go and collect $200. So I, so I get right through, right? And I say, Admiral, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we have a program, I'd like to introduce you to an organization that is willing to come and volunteer to supplement


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your chaplain's command religious program. Could we come talk to you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure, bring them up. Okay. So I called Joe Grayback and I said, okay, now I got the toe in the water. You gotta, you gotta make it swim, right? And so we go up there and the rest is history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the epilogue of my book, okay, I volunteered for 20 years as an instructor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the chapel at Great Lakes. Okay. Now I didn't go every Sunday. I went about two Sundays a month, but you know, for 20 years, you know, cause I, this was, it was always on Sunday. So I'd have to miss my church on Sunday, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was willing to do that because I wanted to recruit. See, I didn't care if they stayed in the Navy for a career. I wanted them to have the foundation in life that I had to get them through what they're going to struggle with in life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if they have that, it's good enough for me. Okay. So for 20 years, I volunteered as an instructor at the chapel. Our average attendance was maybe between 20 and 50 recruits. Okay. Now you have to understand the chapel there seats 1200. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so, well no, the chapel had this main cha- the building had this main chapel, then had smaller chapels. Okay. Okay, so we get, obviously, a smaller, uh, chapel. So for 19 years, that was the average. COVID hits.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. We had to close down for about a year and a half, you know, because the base was closed, you know, to outsiders. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they reopened it. And we changed from Sunday classes to Friday night classes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what that did was when recruits went on Sunday,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some had to choose between services and our class. Now they didn't have to do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They could just come to our services if they wanted to. All of this of course is voluntary, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our attendance, well, two things, number one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Covid's over, so people now could fellowship together, which they hadn't been able to do for over a year. Okay? Number two, we, we had


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had access to them without having to fight the services. Our attendance exploded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Literally exploded. We, I told you we had these small chapels, then we got larger chapels, then we got THE chapel. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get up there for my last class. The chapel was packed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 1200 recruits. And I'm, I'm up there giving my class and I'm looking out there and I'm saying to myself, only God. It was just incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Military Outreach actually is doing quite well. Uh, we have expanded our program. We've actually teamed up with an organization in Alabama.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One is called Invisible Scars, and that talks about PTSD. The second one


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way this happened was, I saw that first video, uh, about five years ago. And it was the best thing I've seen on PTSD at up to that point. Cause they had individual soldiers, sailors, marines give their stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they gave their names, they gave their services and the wars that they were in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, and then they had chaplains, they had social workers and psychologists. Okay. Talk about PTSD and what could be done, et cetera. So I called them and I said, Hey, I want you to know this is the greatest thing since life spread that I've seen. Are you thinking of doing one on moral injury?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the guy said, well, general, you know, we're like your organization, Military Outreach. We're a small, you know, really local organization. We don't have a lot of funding.


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[Assistant] And, and I said, his name was Bob Waldrop. He's the, he's the guy who runs it. And I said, Bob, we're losing 22 plus veterans a day.


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[Assistant] We gotta move on this. It's the same thing like in Vietnam, after Vietnam. PTSD was ignored. Agent Orange was ignored.


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[Assistant] For decades, you know, and vets were dying and suffering and they weren't getting the aid that they could have gotten.


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[Assistant] You know, and so I said, you know, we can't wait. We gotta take action on this side.


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[Assistant] Do I know veterans with moral injury? I mean, I had a whole bunch of them lined up. They came up to Chicago. They did filming of the DVD. So the second DVD is called Honoring the Code.


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[Assistant] And it's all about moral injury. You know, and the purpose of these DVDs is to educate the public, encourage people who have it to seek assistance because it's there. And as I said earlier, it's not


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[Assistant] It is not a death sentence. This can be beat, but it's gotta be with people who understand it, and the person has to seek to help.


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[Assistant] You can actually go to crosswindsfoundation.org and they don't charge for this. I think it's streaming. Okay, yeaah.


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[Assistant] They used to, uh, mail them to people, free of charge, to veterans or family members.


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[Assistant] Well, I do talk about, right at the end of the board, in the last chapter, speaking of choices, about a Dr. Edith Egger, whom I met here in San Diego, actually, and you probably know her because she, she was a holocaust survivor. She, after


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[Assistant] After World War II, she got her PhD and, and she's, but she is actually trained for the armed forces about choices and pos-, positive approach to life.


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[Assistant] And she's, you know, her whole thing is, we all have choices in life. And she said she could have chosen to, you know,


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[Assistant] Be a victim, I mean, you know, family members were killed, she went through


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[Assistant] Wow. So I hope she's still alive. But when I met her, she was already like 94, I think. And she, when she walked into the room, it, you know, her presence, there was just an aura about her.


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[Assistant] Of positivity and grace and, uh, she was just incredible. So I have a, in the book, there's a picture of me with her, which is so nice.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I would, I would say one, one other thing about military outreach that you asked me how are we, how are we doing. We've also added a program, uh, it's, it's, uh, we, this is another God thing, about four years ago.


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[Assistant] We lost our, our executive director, which created a huge hole, cause this guy was the guy who authored the book.


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[Assistant] They don't receive Purple Hearts and without him, we would have never gotten to where we were at as an organization. And unfortunately, he had a lot of pressures and he had to, uh, leave that position. So now I'm looking for an executive director, right?


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[Assistant] I wear this hat, this Vietnam Veterans hat, wherever I go, every day. And I do it because number one, I want people to know that we have veterans in our communities. You know, not everybody wears a hat like I do, but you know, we have them.


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[Assistant] And it also generates conversations and you can understand this when


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[Assistant] Uh, you know, when guys are veterans and they, they'll come up to me and they'll start


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[Assistant] Uh, I met my Cadillac dealer, my car dealer, and


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[Assistant] We talk, I give him my card, I always carry my card and brochures about military outreach, and he said, I know a guy who's doing exactly kind of what you're doing, you know.


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[Assistant] He's in my American Legion post and blah blah blah and I said, hey, you know.


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[Assistant] Tell them about me and, and, you know, have them contact me.


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[Assistant] That, so he does. He contacts me. His name is Chappie Farrer. He is the current executive director of Military Outreach USA. He had his own 501c3 called Stand By Me Heroes.


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[Assistant] And the whole idea of that is to reduce the suicide rate. Sound familiar? And he basically has what he calls foxhole soul counseling.


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[Assistant] And the whole idea behind it is one on one, peer to peer.


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[Assistant] And so what we do is our offices are called Dunkin' Donuts and we establish a one-on-one relationship with a veteran who might need help.


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[Assistant] And once the trust thing is established, that's the thing you have to do first. But once you can get the trust established, then we can talk about, you know, the serious stuff and how to get them help.


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[Assistant] We have prevented suicides. There were two marines who were, had a pact.


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[Assistant] To, they selected a date, they pressed their uniforms, they had their dress uniforms pressed, they cleaned their weapons, and one of them met one of our Foxhole Soul counselors, who worked with him and talked him out of it.


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[Assistant] And you know, that's, that's worth everything we've done.


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[Assistant] That's a close, at 79, I think that's a little, uh, no, but seriously, no, I, it would be something, you know, if I,


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[Assistant] I think though I've, I've slowed down and I don't think I'd, I'd do, I wouldn't do justice to the dojo. You know, and I, I would not do anything that I didn't feel I could really do 100%.


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[Assistant] Well, my mantra every day is a great day. I have my faith, my family, live in the finest country in the world, and I get a lot of sometimes feedback about the finest country in the world thing. And I tell people, listen, I've been around the block a few times when


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[Assistant] You know, I've seen an African American elected president of our country and re-elected. I've seen an African American secretary, two secretaries of state, male and female.


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[Assistant] I've seen Asian Americans succeed.


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[Assistant] I've seen, in my lifetime alone, major changes.


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[Assistant] Attempts for our society to improve and also to recognize the errors of our past such as, uh,


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[Assistant] Illuminating redlining for real estate.


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[Assistant] Uh, also eliminating, uh, uh, intermarriage, racial intermarriage prohibitions. Uh, I've seen, uh, you know, education opportunities improve. I've seen the integration of our armed forces.


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[Assistant] You know, the military was the first major