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[Assistant] Master Sergeant Spencer is carrying a 40 pound block of C4 explosives slung over his shoulder. It is to be used to blow the bridge. It turned out to be a good shield for him.


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[Assistant] As we landed and spilled out of our helicopters, Spencer and Murray immediately rushed towards their objective, the guard shack by the south wall. Spencer took a couple rounds from a guard with an AK-47 in the block of C4 he was carrying.


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[Assistant] Joe Murray would not be that lucky and that's something that surprises people is that C4 is relatively stable when it's by itself. Right.


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[Assistant] That's why you have blasting caps or detonation cord, cause those things will blow up and then they make the C4 blow up. But, but C4 by itself is relatively stable.


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[Assistant] That delayed Spencer just such that Joe arrives at the guard shack alone. The building needs to be cleared immediately before the enemy troops inside can all emerge. So Joe decides to use a frag grenade instead of a concussion grenade. As he is about to toss it in the window, he feels his leg push forward with a burning sensation.


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[Assistant] Joe tosses the frag grenade in, neutralizing the guard shack. He then turns to eliminate the threat. Spencer, now arriving, fires his machine gun first and eliminates three guards. Joe is the only army raider to receive a Purple Heart.


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[Assistant] That's crazy. That's, and there's like, is there just a massive amount of gunfire at this point?


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[Assistant] And you have one guy get hit in the leg. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Going on for Captain Dan and me, the objective is to get to the communication buildings as fast as possible to prevent them from calling for reinforcements. It's a good 50 meters ahead of us and it's an open area with no cover. We have two buildings to clear before we clear the communications building. We were told that we would not take any North Vietnamese army prisoners and neutralize everyone.


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[Assistant] We will be coming back through this same area and Bull doesn't want anyone preventing us from getting back to the choppers. To do this, we have to ensure that there is no one alive to ambush us on our way back.


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[Assistant] Captain Dan and I are getting closer to the communications building. We can see the main guard houses on fire and people are running away from us. Clearing the main guard house was the job of another red wine element and they apparently are succeeding.


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[Assistant] We still have two more buildings to clear. The first one is empty. The second one has a few North Vietnamese Army soldiers.


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[Assistant] I toss a concussion grenade into the room and as soon as it explodes, Captain Dan drops to the floor and I stand in the door straddling him. We create a crossfire with me firing fully automatic from right to left and he from left to right. He yells clear and I back out and shine my flashlight so he can confirm we've neutralized everyone.


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[Assistant] Because there are a number of them, we do a closer check that they are all neutralized.


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[Assistant] In the clearing of the buildings at Sante, Captain Dan and I are the only two man team. Depending on how close you are to the grenade, when it explodes, it can bust your eardrums and pretty well mess you up. In building 12, as I'm confirming everyone is dead, it's a grim task. Whatever you're thinking right now, it is far more grim than that. A guard raises his weapon behind me.


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[Assistant] Captain Dan neutralizes him. There is no doubt, with that decisive action, Captain Dan saved my life.


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[Assistant] So you're sitting, you're going through the buildings. Are you just doing security rounds in these guys? Yeah. And then one of them that you haven't gotten to yet.


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[Assistant] Approaching 0228, Lieutenant Colonel Sidner receives notification that Greenleaf Group is not out of commission.


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[Assistant] You go on here at 0229, we had just reached the communication buildings. When I heard on my headset, negative items.


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[Assistant] I told Captain Dan, he asked me, are you sure?


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[Assistant] Items was the code word for POWs. It didn't make any sense. The next radio call I heard was at 0230. Begin extraction to Chalpers. We entered the communication buildings without tossing a grenade. It was empty.


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[Assistant] This time we started to move back to the LZ for extraction. We still moved with the assumption that there could be more enemy soldiers lying in the bushes. While the helicopters were en route returning to extract us, one of Red Wine's roles


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[Assistant] Was to clear the planned LZ by cutting down certain light poles. That task revealed one frustrating surprise. We had brought a chainsaw to cut down certain wooden telephone poles, but Sergeant First Class Charles Mastin and Sergeant First Class Ronnie Strahan were to blow up a tall concrete light pole.


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[Assistant] The moment that Mastin and Strahan finished placing the four one-pound packets of C4 explosives were ready to blow and were confirming that they should activate the fuse, Apple One was arriving.


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[Assistant] You can see that this was not a light pole. It had four large high tension power lines. Dancing sparks were everywhere as the four huge power lines hit the rice paddies. The very rice paddies in which our soldiers and POWs would be marshalling to load the returning choppers.


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[Assistant] We were going to have to find a new location. Were we going to have to find a new location for the LZ? Mastin, Strahan, and Captain Jim McClam, as the marshalling area control officer, immediately set about ensuring they understood the location of all the lines and whether they were hot.


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[Assistant] After assessing the situation and ensuring there were no other potential hazards, they began placing the bean bag lights in an area suitably distant from the power lines.


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[Assistant] As everyone returned to the LZ waiting for the helicopters, we had a few minutes to gather people and equipment to load on Apple One and Apple Two.


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[Assistant] You snuck one of your life lessons in here. Don't be a complainer. The world is moving on and needs people to solve problems. Evaluate your situation, make a decision and execute any new plan without complaining and feel sorry for yourself.


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[Assistant] Not gonna help. Not gonna help the situation. We gotta make things happen.


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[Assistant] No POWs was not something we had spent time thinking about.


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[Assistant] I could hear chatter on my headset. I heard the RTO for Bull say that Bull was coming into the compound. Bull had to verify with his own eyes that there were no POWs.


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[Assistant] As 02-37, Apple I landed facing east toward Hanoi and loaded Red Wine Group and Blue Boy Group. Captain Dan and I were the last ones to board. The two of us sat in the tail of the chopper, loading the door fully down and open with a minigun mounted right between us, manned by an Air Force PJ.


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[Assistant] At 0240 we lifted off and turned west, looking out of the tail.


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[Assistant] We had a front row seat with a bird's eye view of Hanoi. I will never forget that view.


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[Assistant] I couldn't believe how big Hanoi was and how close we were to it. It looked like any major city in America. We were only about 20 miles from the capital of North Vietnam.


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[Assistant] Never before had the North Vietnamese army been violated like this. That's when it really hit me, what we had just done.


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[Assistant] We were rising only a minute or two after liftoff. Suddenly our chopper took a hard dive to the left. What looked like a telephone pole with a bright red fireball shot by us. I yelled over to Captain Dan, what the hell was that?


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[Assistant] And this is what you were talking about before. On the ground, I have a fighting chance, but being in a chopper at 600 feet, you feel like a sitting duck. Thank God for some of the best pilots we could have. These guys knew how to handle it. We were soon out from the threat into the dark jungle mountains and headed for Udorn.


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[Assistant] During the next three hours on the flight back to base, I had plenty of time to replay what we had done that night. Like the rest of the Raiders, I was very disappointed that we came home with no POWs. I kept thinking, what went wrong? Why? When? When had the POWs been removed?


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[Assistant] That flight returning to U-Dorn seemed a lot longer than the flight to Sante. We'd been so pumped up about our mission. To find no POWs was the last thing that would have ever crossed our mind beyond the two wounds received.


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[Assistant] U.S. Air Force Tech Sergeant Leroy Wright's ankle was broken during one of the crash landings and Sergeant First Class Joe Murray, America's only casualty, our night, that night was our morale.


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[Assistant] And that's something again, you, you covered these details in the book, but one of the, one of the aircraft actually crash landed on purpose into the compound.


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[Assistant] You say this, to say we were disappointed would be an understatement. Some of us talked about how maybe we should have gone into Hanoi. We were thinking crazy thoughts like that. That's how confident we were. When we got some rest that you doing for a couple hours, we flew a C-130.


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[Assistant] And we were briefed again in the auditorium what to say and more importantly what not to talk about. We packed our duffel bag, secured our equipment, and had a few hours to relax. The C-141 that we boarded was one that had been prepped for medevac, ready to bring POWs home. Now its mission was just to bring us to Eglund.


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[Assistant] All the after actions reports were finalized auxiliary field number three and we spent two days before heading home to North Carolina on C-123s.


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[Assistant] So that's it. You do like a debrief. You fill out your paperwork explaining what exactly you did.


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[Assistant] And then you wrap up your, you know, at that training site where you had spent all this time preparing for the mission. And then you say this, landing at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina a couple days later was a very happy time.


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[Assistant] It was happy for the Raiders and for all the people awaiting us. Families, friends, and the army support personnel there to process us back to our normal world at Fort Bragg. In fact, for me personally, that is the most memorable moment.


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[Assistant] It was not the training or the day of the launch or the landing at Sante. For me, it was the landing at Pope Air Force Base. I will never forget what I witnessed that day.


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[Assistant] I was a single guy so a couple of my buddies came to pick me up, but standing there on the flight line when I looked around at the men unloading from the airplane I saw their wives and children running out to meet them. It really hit me.


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[Assistant] The bull had warned us that we had a 50-50 chance of not coming home. A 50-50 chance of this moment never happening.


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[Assistant] These warriors had laid their lives on the line to rescue fellow warriors.


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[Assistant] Four days after the raid on Wednesday, November 25th, 1970, President Nixon honored the Sante Raiders by having Raider representatives in a televised ceremony in the White House's East Room. That had to be pretty...


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[Assistant] Pretty cool. Pretty crazy. So it was on the news and everyone now almost immediately knew what had happened.


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[Assistant] This is, uh, how would you say this level of, uh, of media attention compared to the Bin Laden raid?


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[Assistant] I mean the thing about the bin Laden raid was we weren't the-


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[Assistant] The war wasn't as intense at that point as Vietnam was. I mean Vietnam was full on. So it would have gotten a little bit less attention. I mean the bin Laden raid was...


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[Assistant] I mean, uhm, I know, I know you know, uh, Admiral McRaven, he wrote,


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[Assistant] It was sorta like his, uh, thesis when he was at the post-graduate school about all the


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[Assistant] Most important special operations missions in history. Right. And he wrote about the Sante raid. And then he was also one of the guys.


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[Assistant] Senior guys conducting the planning for the Bin Laden Rage. So yeaah, there's a direct connection between the lessons learned and the protocol that you use to get this done and yeaah, no doubt about that.


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[Assistant] You say here, I remember being told to report to the parade field in my dress greens. This is December 9th, 1970 for an award ceremony.


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[Assistant] It was a nice, sunny, cool day when Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird personally presented the medals to the members of the Sante raid. There I stood, spit, shine, jump boots, jump wings, expert rifle badge, and the 7th Special Forces Group Risen. Ribbon.


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[Assistant] Brigadier General Henry Emerson, the Commander of Special Forces at Fort Bragg, thanked the Raiders for their courage and dedication. We had reflected well on the Green Berets.


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[Assistant] And then you all were awarded, it was I think 6 Distinguished Service Crosses, 5 Air Force Crosses were awarded, there was a total of 85 Silver Stars which included all of the Raiders.


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[Assistant] And the following comments were made by Secretary, uh, Defense Melvin Laird. He said this.


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[Assistant] We are here to honor the brave, the brave and dedicated men. We confer on them today awards that express their gratitude, their country's gratitude and admiration. The mission for which these men volunteered called for undaunted courage and deep compassion.


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[Assistant] They were asked to go deep into enemy territory to search for and if possible to rescue their comrades in arms who are prisoners of war.


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[Assistant] They performed their mission flawlessly. From the outset, the President, the nation's top military leadership, and I, gave total and unqualified support to this mission. I knew, as these men did, how grave were the risks they willingly undertook.


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[Assistant] I knew, as these men did, that there was a chance of disappointment and even of failure.


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[Assistant] But the reasonable chance to return to freedom Americans held captive made this mission well worth the risk. If a similar chance to save Americans were to arise tomorrow, I would act just as I did in approving and supporting the effort at Sante.


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[Assistant] Man, that's uh, not too often the secretary of defense shows up at your command to start handing out 85 silver stars. Huge deal. Uhm, after that, I'm going to the book here. You say they gave each of us 30 days of leave, uncharged against our balance. So you got 30 days of free leave. That's nice. So I went home for a whole month of December.


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[Assistant] Back home in Missouri, we talked about a little about the mission, but not too much. It's funny how some people don't understand the significance of a combat raid. I wasn't going to try and impress it upon them. Most of my friends had not gone into the military, so I didn't have any significant conversations with them about the raid.


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[Assistant] Some had gotten married and were busy with their own lives. My dad was a good listener for me. He expressed his pride. And after a few beers at the Eastside Tavern in Moberly, he even told me some of his friends.


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[Assistant] Even told some of his friends what I had done. But to tell you the truth, after about four or five days,


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[Assistant] I was ready to head back to Bragg and my army buddies.


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[Assistant] And you got life lesson eight here. It says, veterans, we all have a mission. Listen to your fellow veterans. It is important for the veteran, but it's also important for the listener. It is important for America. Good stories and bad. They need to be told. Please take my request to heart and talk with a veteran. And that's one thing that you have in this book.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you've got a whole, it's over 140 pages of this book, is all the different perspective, we just told your perspective. And it's very interesting to hear your perspective as the youngest guy on the raid, somebody with no combat experience.


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[Assistant] But you have the perspective of a bunch of different people, not just the raiders, but the support people, the aircraft, the pilots, the crew. You've got an incredible amount of stories to be told that are told in this book that every one of them gives a different angle of the story.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm not gonna read it today, get the book, but the story about the guys that got hit with a frag from the surface-to-air missile and ended up punching out. Just hearing that story with him talking about, you know, they're just having a conversation. Like, we're about to eject from an aircraft, which by the way is


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[Assistant] You know, ejecting through the canopy going 400 miles an hour or whatever it is. That was Ted Lowry. Yeah.


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[Assistant] There's a decent chance you're gonna die just from that. And then you're gonna land in wherever. Vietnam, Laos, the ocean. You don't know what the hell's gonna happen. And these guys are talking about it like, hey, I think we're gonna have to punch out. Yeah, okay. Well, let me know when you're ready. They're doing it like this. Freaking calm, cool, and collected.


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[Assistant] Man, and then, and then of course they end up having to get picked up, you know. Next day. Yea, the next day they spend the night. It's like a little afterthought of the book, but it's, it's it's own story in itself. So, you're, uh, taking your own advice on Life Lesson 8 and getting these other stories out there, uhm.


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[Assistant] So check that out, check out, get the book for that stuff as well. You say here life goes on. The next week I was back at D company, 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. That's it.


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[Assistant] You end up getting involved in the sport of orienteering, which is like map and compass while you're running. Basically the next year, uh, you, you spend time doing this orienteering. So like as the, as part of the team of seventh special forces group, um,


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[Assistant] You say by December of 1971, our team had represented special forces in several orienteering meets. I finished 15th in the US Military Championship, 7th in the US Championship, 45th in the Canadian Championship,


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[Assistant] So you go through that, and then, uh, you say, when I heard in December 1971 that the Army was offering early outs, that really appealed to me. I felt ready to do my own thing, and not to be told what to do all the time. I took advantage of the opportunity separating January 5th, 1972. Started back at junior college, January 7th, back home. So, how long was your total service?


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[Assistant] At one of the Sante Raiders, uh, reunions, you, you get connected with Ross Perot.


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[Assistant] And is that still running today? Yes. What's it called? Delta Systems. Delta Systems.


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[Assistant] And then you had a, so you had a son. Aaron. And then your daughter, she ended up joining the army. Yes. So you got a third generation army. That's true.


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[Assistant] That scene as we arrived at Pope Air Force Base back in November 1970 really made an impression on me.


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[Assistant] It's not only the soldiers, but also their wives who are heroes. These families are the type of people our world needs. People who know this life is not just about their own convenience.


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[Assistant] I am thankful for what these families and also those of first responders in civilian life do for our country and for freedom around the world. And that's your, uh, that's sort of your final life lesson there. And like I said, the stories in the book


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[Assistant] And we only covered a fraction of the book today, but it's packed full of more information. Just, it's very powerful.


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[Assistant] And there's one thing I wanted to cover which we haven't really touched on yet, which is the impact of the raid.


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[Assistant] Right? Because clearly going on this operation, the operation is to rescue, uh, POWs and as we've covered, there was no POWs there. And it'd be easy to think, well, then that must be a failed mission. But,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Couldn't be further from the truth. There was a huge impact for the POWs and part of the section of the book where you have other people's stories, you have a bunch of commentary from some of the people that were POWs in Vietnam and we've had some of these heroes on this podcast, incredible human beings.


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[Assistant] Uh, you have some, I'm gonna just read some of these highlights. U.S. Air Force First Lieutenant J.H. Spike Nazmuth. POW from 1966 to 1973. He says, I was in Hanoi six and a half years.


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[Assistant] After the raid, the guards were clearly shaken by what they heard. They were digging holes like mad. It was a real show to watch. At dawn, the NBA were still running around.


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[Assistant] You've heard of a Chinese fire drill. They're digging foxholes right outside our cell. They've got machine guns set up all over the prison yard. They're digging in foxholes real deep. I can't believe all the freaking foxholes. First time I'd seen the little bastard to work up a sweat.


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[Assistant] U.S. Air Force, 1st Lieutenant Joe Kreka, POW, 1966-1973. On the night of November 21st, 1970, I was a POW in Camp Faith, a camp just about 10 miles south of Sante, and about the same distance west, uh, of Hanoi as Sante.


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[Assistant] It didn't come out until a few days later what had happened. Within 48 hours we were all packed up, placed onto 6x6 trucks and ferried into Hanoi.


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[Assistant] So this is an impact, direct impact of the raid. They started consolidating these prisoners, which is a massive morale boost. He says, whereas before we had been held in much smaller groups, one, two, three, four, or even eight or ten,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were now 50 of us all together in a room of about 35 feet by 70 feet. New faces, new stories to tell and hear and putting faces of fellow Americans we only knew by main, by name. Language classes were taught in German because they, they organized like a educational system. Once they were together they had a, just a, they started being more productive.


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[Assistant] Language classes were taught in German, Spanish, and even Russian. Math classes were divided into three levels, appropriately X, Y, and Z.


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[Assistant] We also had courses in history, sociology, politics, religion, wine selection. Yes, we had a wine tasting class, meat cutting, and lumber selection.


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[Assistant] And I taught a course in physics, automotive theory and practice as well as one on classical music themes and composers.


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[Assistant] He said we were still being held captive, but since the raid on Sante prison camp by the incomparable Sante raiders, life was so much better. Hats off to all the raiders and those who supported the raid, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and all those at their support bases on land at sea. Bravo.


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[Assistant] Another one. Captain, U.S. Air Force Captain Leon Lee Ellis. Sante POW Camp.


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[Assistant] From 1967 to 1973, the night of November 20th and 21st at Camp Faith, we POWs were awakened in the middle of the night, hearing explosions, aircraft, Sam's launching, and several minutes of chaos. We could not have guessed that our old camp at Sante just a few miles up the road was entertaining guests.


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[Assistant] Uninvited guests for sure. The next morning we saw fear in the eyes of the guards and turnkeys and within 48 hours we were loaded up and moved back to Hanoi. For the first time ever we were in large groups.


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[Assistant] But we were not rescued by the raid. In many ways, our sanity and teamwork were saved by that event. We will always be indebted to the Raiders for what they did for us.


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[Assistant] U.S. Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Porter Halliburton POW 1965-1973 at Camp Faith on November 21st. We heard gunfire and jet noise from somewhere close by but had no idea what was happening. The elation we felt knowing that our government had tried to rescue us was the most powerful morale booster imaginable.


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[Assistant] We were especially thankful to the guys of the Sante Raiders who had volunteered for this mission and risked their lives to try and rescue us.


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[Assistant] Another one. U.S. Navy Commander Paul Galante. Sante COW Camp. He said, the Sante raid itself was the most memorable moment of my captivity. We knew Uncle Sam wouldn't forget about us. The Sante raid proved that.


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[Assistant] U.S. Air Force First Lieutenant Mike Burns, POW, 1968 to 1973. We were all jubilant because after so many years of waiting, something finally happened. Fighter pilots like to make things happen and are probably the worst, probably worse than most people at doing nothing.


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[Assistant] U.S. Air Force Major D.W. Wayne Waddell, POW, 1967 to 1973. You guys made the biggest positive change in our sojourn in North Vietnam and we can never repay you for taking that risk. Thanks.


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[Assistant] And I'll read one more, this is U.S. Air Force First Lieutenant Larry Lucky Chesley.


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[Assistant] We had prayed for months that God would move us to a better camp. He did on July 14th. I guess a person needs to be careful what he prays for. He might get it.


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[Assistant] We loaded in the trucks and went to a better camp, which fulfilled our prayers. Then the raid came. We were blessed once more. We were moved to a better camp in Hanoi where we had big rooms, about 48 of us in a room. We could now teach each other things such as languages, choir, movie. We told movies and we had programs on each Sunday.


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[Assistant] And also for Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, Marine Day, etc.


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[Assistant] When we got packages, and that was not very often, those who got packages shared them with those that received nothing. I never received any packages or letters for four years. Yes, for four years my wife and family did not know if I was alive or dead. I am eternally grateful.


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[Assistant] To the heroic things that the men of the Sante raid did for our country and those incarcerated in Vietnam.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and as I said, I was just hitting the highlights. I didn't even cover all these POWs, the impact that you all had.


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[Assistant] Conducting this operation, which by the way, I haven't mentioned the operation name was ivory coast. That was the name of the operation.


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[Assistant] You know, the, the impact that you all had was just incredible and amazing to be able to sit here and, and talk to you some, someone from a raid that I've studied and read about for many, many years, uh, and, and just an incredible,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Opportunity to be able to sit here and talk to you and hear these stories.


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[Assistant] From you, uhm, for everybody out there, uh, the book is just an incredible piece of history and it's, it's available on Kindle if you're one of these digital people. There's an audiobook, uhm, traditional print


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, whether you want soft cover or hard cover, but just an incredible book. Go out and get it. We just covered a fraction of the stories today. Uhm, it's an amazing, amazing piece of history.


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[Assistant] Uhm, probably a good place to, to wrap it up. Echo, Charles, do you have any questions?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably different ways that wine are made to taste different ways, and... No, I think he goes deeper. When you talk to the POWs, we've talked to POWs, the, the uh...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's amazing. I know I'm due to have those guys back on the podcast. It'll be, it'll be awesome to be able to ask them, you know, what they remember about, about this and how it impacted them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amazing story, Terry. You got any final thoughts you want to share?


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[Assistant] Well you, you all, uhm, have given us lessons learned and, and thank you for your, for your service and for your contribution to America and for your contribution to


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[Assistant] Special forces and really to special operations as a whole. Uh, as I said.


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[Assistant] You and your, your brothers in arms that conducted this, this operation. You made a huge impact. Not only, like I said, to the POWs, but


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[Assistant] You made a huge impact to the morale of the country and you made a huge impact to special operations and our trajectory in history.


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[Assistant] So, thank you for coming on and thank you for everything that you and your fellow son Tay Raiders have done. We will not forget you.


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[Assistant] And with that, Terry Buckler has left the building.


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[Assistant] Pretty awesome to be able to sit down and talk to him echo. How do you feel about, how do you feel about that whole scenario not knowing where you're going to execute this massive mission and you don't know where you're going until an hour before you go.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Tara was a reporter. For a full career, by the way.


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[Assistant] And there's something to be said for, that's the way veterans have done it for a long time. I mean the World War II veterans came home and they went and got


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[Assistant] Jobs doing things, you know, they went back to school, they did the GI bill, like,


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[Assistant] You don't have to, you know, not everyone's gonna come home and start a tactical shooting company. You know, like that's not...


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[Assistant] It feels that way. It feels that way because there's no one that went to college and studied, uh, you know, studied economics and then started a tactical shooting company, right? That's true. So you don't have that data in your head.


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[Assistant] So you think, well, oh, this guy's got a tactical shooting company, he was a veteran, another guy has a tactical shooting company, and he's a veteran, another guy has, so all veterans must start tactical shooting companies. No, a lot of veterans go and start.


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[Assistant] Well, data processing companies and I work with, I mean I work with a lot of companies where I work with veterans all the time.


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[Assistant] You know, we're talking about their business, we're talking about what they do, and then occasionally, oh yeaah, well, I was in the army, or oh, I was in the Marine Corps. And they have a totally separate job. And they have a different career. And that's very normal.


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[Assistant] It's actually more normal. It's more normal to do that than it is to start a tactical shooting company. It's more normal.


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[Assistant] I think it's your awareness bias, because when you become aware of something that sounds like that, you go, what's that person's background? Oh, they were a veteran, that makes sense.


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[Assistant] You don't look at an accountant and say, whoa, I wonder what military branch they were in. When they probably were. There's a decent chance that they were in the military. There's all kinds of veterans out there working. I mean, I meet veterans all the time when I go and work with companies. Companies, just so you know,


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[Assistant] Companies have veteran programs inside their company, so I'll work with a financial company, and inside their financial company they have like a veterans group. And they'll say, hey, can we spend 15 minutes doing a Q&A with you?


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[Assistant] And I go, Oh, with who? And they go, Oh, we have a veterans group. We have, you know, of our 2000 employees, we have 274 veterans and we, we, we sell


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[Assistant] Insurance or we manufacture widgets or whatever, but they have a bunch of veterans that work there. And that's every, I mean, when I work with big tech companies, they have veterans. When I work with financial companies, they have construction companies. Everyone's got veterans.


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[Assistant] It's just that it stands out in your head when someone owns a shooting company because you think it's cool.


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[Assistant] So it's normal for a veteran to come home and do what they're gonna do. That's, that's, that's the way the world works. But, and this is a good example. The interesting thing about his career was just


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[Assistant] It's, it's almost like this guy was in the NFL for...


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[Assistant] One season, and he didn't play any games except the Super Bowl. Right?


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[Assistant] And went out there, won the championship, and, and then carried on with the rest of his life. Did three years.


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[Assistant] Three years like and doing that such a such a high profile Mission probably one of the most well the most high profile mission for special operations at that time


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[Assistant] So, uh, good stuff, awesome to be able to talk with him and this is a hugely influential mission for Special Operations. Uh, we appreciate you supporting us, by the way, out there.


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[Assistant] If you want to support us and you want to support yourself, get, go to JockoFuel.com. Get some of these beverages by the way. Freaking, I did not get a lot of sleep last night. Got, I got stuck in my


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[Assistant] In my roller coaster of brain thought, which is, which is not, I, I can't stand it, you know.


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[Assistant] I can't stand it. And I, here's what was a bummer, was I, I had bad sleep the night before and I was like, oh, I had a good workout and I thought, oh, I'm gonna be sleeping like a baby tonight, I'm going to bed early, like, you know, 9.30, I'm getting ready to go to sleep, I'm thinking, oh, this is gonna be great, I'm gonna feel great, I went to bed, but, you know, 10, 10, I'm laying in bed in the darkness.


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[Assistant] This is the way it feels. Have you ever been to, uh, uh, Disney land? No. Okay, there's a ride there, it's called Space Mountain.


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[Assistant] And in Space Mountain, you're on a rollercoaster, but you can't see very much in front of you. It's in the dark, basically. So you're, suddenly you're going in one direction, then you go in a different direction, then you go in a different direction.


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[Assistant] So that's what my mind is like. I'm on, I'm on a roller coaster, it's dark, but I just keep seeing like a new idea comes up, then another new idea, then another new idea, then another new idea, and it just doesn't stop.


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[Assistant] And maybe sometimes it does circle back to the original idea, which just starts the whole process again. But, I am getting, I probably slept two and a half hours last night. Which, which sucks, I wanted to sleep more. But, here I am.


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[Assistant] Here I am. So, and I drank, this is, I normally don't have two goes in one podcast, but I did today. So, you may need some clean energy in your life.


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[Assistant] You don't need to have necessarily some jittery energy. You don't need to have, you don't need to have sugar intake. You don't need to give yourself type 2 diabetes. You can just get yourself a go. Get yourself a go. Jockerfuel.com. Get yourself some mocha. I'm going to go home and have mocha by the way because I haven't eaten yet because I fasted. So, we're feeling that.


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[Assistant] Which I did lift this morning. By the way, bad workout. Not a great workout. Like I mean, I was borderline, hey,


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[Assistant] Am I gonna get the benefit from this workout right now? The answer was finally yes.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I, I don't know, I don't know, but I will get good sleep tonight. That's the nice thing.


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[Assistant] Dips to feel good, but muscle ups too. Like when you get done with muscle ups, you feel like kinda jacked all the way around.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so, you know what, when Jason Gardner said the other day that he takes one discipline go-pill in the morning, I haven't tried it yet, but that seems like a


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[Assistant] Feel those things, for real. Uhm, so there you go, you want some MOLK, you want some joint warfare, you want some krill oil, go to JockoFuel.com. You can get the drinks at Wawa, by the way. We're moving to some other convenience stores right now. Also some other...


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[Assistant] Some other big, uh, news coming on the front. Yeah. For Jocko Fuel. Vitamin Shop, you can get it there as well. So, check that out. JockoFuel.com.


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[Assistant] We will have a hunting line this summer, late summer, to be prepared for the hunting season in September. That's hunting season. Well, there's other hunts, but the hunting season we're aiming for is that September hunting season. So yea, we're coming.


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[Assistant] Different places, different animals, different weapons.


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[Assistant] Yes, different, different animals, different weapons, different seasons, you got a bunch of stuff to contend with, uhm, and we'll be making stuff for all of it, uh, very, very cool venture, working with some great people.


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[Assistant] Working with Cam Haines, which is awesome. I mean, he's just a machine. So it's, it's, that guy is possessed and obsessed with hunting. And so it's great to have him giving guidance on making the gear exactly


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[Assistant] As it should be made. No compromise. Hey, it has to be able to perform. If you're gonna keep up with Cam Haines in the woods, like that clothing has to keep up with Cam Haines. That clothing is thinking to itself, alright, I'm gonna be put through the wringer.


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[Assistant] So originusa.com if you want to check some of that stuff out. Oh yea, of course.


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[Assistant] Maine and North Carolina, we're making it. It's unbelievable. Bringing it back. Also, there you go.


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[Assistant] My daughters speak in a kind of their own language, and I went and saw one of my daughters up at my middle daughter up at college and got to listen to her and her friends and they have their own words, their own language, and it's pretty funny to listen to.


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[Assistant] No, but you could also say, oh that, that chair is suspect, whether it's going to, you wouldn't say suspicious, you'd say that thing is suspect.


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[Assistant] If you're in the game. It's part of the culture. Yeaah, it's part of the game. Part of being in the game. I remember when we first kinda had the podcast, I would say like, well how'd you get into the game?


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[Assistant] So there you go, if you want to get in the game, DropTheStone.com.


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[Assistant] Unraveling. Unraveling with Daryl Cooper. We're getting kinda crazy sometimes on those.


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[Assistant] DC's got a long trajectory of thought. He's, he's gonna make his case over...


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[Assistant] A extended period of time. So if you, if you hear him say something, and when I say, say something, when you hear Daryl Cooper say something for three hours, he's only representing, that's like the warm up for him.


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[Assistant] You know, you gotta take, you gotta listen to DC. You gotta listen to the man. So check out, check out that one, Jocko Unraveling, uh, grounded podcast, Warrior Kid podcast. We got the Jocko Underground. Appreciate your support there. JockoUnderGround.com if you want to support freedom of speech.


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[Assistant] That and putting rockets into space and making electric, electrical cars. It's true. Made in America. So there you go. That's uh, jock on the ground.com. If you want to help us out there, check out the YouTube channel, check out psychological warfare, check out flip side, canvas, Dakota Meyer, Dakota Meyer. We gotta get, he just went to Ukraine by the way.


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[Assistant] Whatever. This is Dakota Meyer. He's a Medal of Honor recipient. I was talking to him yesterday. He's like, I just got back. I'm like, oh, how was Ukraine? He was in Kiev, right? Dude, I mean, just getting after it. So.


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[Assistant] If you want to help, uh, support Dakota Meyer and all of his madness, go to flipsidecanvas.com. Buy some something cool to hang on your wall.


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[Assistant] That's what you should do, in my opinion. Got a bunch of books. Check out the books, who will go into Sante.


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[Assistant] POW Camp. That's what we covered today. We covered a fraction of it today. Terry Butler. Check that out. I written a bunch of books too. If you want to get some more of the conceptual


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[Assistant] Ideas that I speak of, you can check out any of the books that I wrote. You can check out, we have a leadership consultancy called Echelonfront, echelonfront.com. If you want to come check some of that out. We have an online academy.


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[Assistant] For human beings that have to interact with other human beings, go to extremeownership.com. You got a question for me? Come and ask me. You can ask me on a zoom call. I'm there. You can just ask me your question about your boss, about your employee, about your girlfriend, about your boyfriend, about your kid, about your jujitsu tournament. Whatever you want to ask me.


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[Assistant] We want to hear your questions. Go to ExtremeOwnership.com. Take, we got a bunch of courses to take.


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[Assistant] About how to utilize the dichotomy of leadership. About how to utilize cover and move.


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[Assistant] Lots of important things. ExtremeOwnership.com if you want to help service members.


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[Assistant] Active and retired. You wanna help out their families. Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom. Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. It's a wonderful thing that helps out in incredible ways.


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[Assistant] HeroesAndHorses.com Mike a Fink


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[Assistant] Who I think you mentioned a few minutes ago. Yep. Yeah, cause you're like, well, what is Micah Fink gonna do when he gets done with his time in the SEAL teams?


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[Assistant] He's probably gonna do something badass. Yes sir. So heroesandhorses.com, check that out. As far as Echo and I go, we're both on, we're on Twitter, we're on the gram, we're on Facebook. We're, we're possibly,


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[Assistant] Gonna pull you into the algorithm, but we don't want you to get pulled into the algorithm. We want you to cut away from the algorithm. Echoes at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. You can also check out


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[Assistant] Terry Buckler, he's got a Facebook page. If you want to check out his Facebook page, see what he's up to. Uh, Facebook at Terry Buckler and


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[Assistant] Thank you once again to Terry Buckler for coming on for sharing his experiences and thanks to Terry and the rest of the Sante Raiders.


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[Assistant] The mighty special forces green braze and the other support personnel, the pilots, the air crew that took the risks to attempt to rescue our fellow servicemen.


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[Assistant] And thanks to all the military personnel out there right now, who are willing to take risk to protect and secure freedom around the world. And thanks.


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[Assistant] For the work done by our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all first responders who sacrifice to protect and secure us and our way of life here at home.


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[Assistant] And to everyone else out there, remember some of the key lessons from Terry Buckler today. Add humor to your life.


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[Assistant] Be patient, but know when to be aggressive. Don't be a complainer. Don't be indispensable. Be thankful for those who sacrifice for our freedom. And be prepared for death.


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[Assistant] Make sure the day that you meet your maker isn't the first time you've been introduced.


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[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 312 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.


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[Assistant] We'd been passing by the Olympic hotel for the third time doing 50 knots at about 75 feet when an RPG round rocketed into the tail section.


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[Assistant] But that was 35 feet behind me. The aircraft was 18,000 pounds of metal muscle and it certainly wasn't coming apart. At least not yet.


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[Assistant] I looked quietly, I looked quickly around the cockpit while Ray did the same. Both of us testing the controls and checking the gauges.


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[Assistant] Everything was in the green. No flight control problems, engine malfunctions, or weird noises. No one in my bird said a word.


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[Assistant] And then, Super64, you're hit bad. It was Matthews, up in the C2 bird. You better put it on the ground.


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[Assistant] From his position high over the battle, he had seen the rocket impact just below my tail, raking pieces away and pinwheels as it detonated.


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[Assistant] No shit, I thought as I rolled out of the turn. Just ahead, maybe a mile off was what appeared to be a clear area. Certainly large enough to land a Black Hawk.


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[Assistant] But the aircraft seemed to be flying normally and I was facing the decision to crash in the middle of a firefight or fly just two more miles to the safety of the airfield.


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[Assistant] I didn't hesitate or discuss it with anyone. It was my decision to make. We'd go for the field.


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[Assistant] Still, I kept my eye on that midway point. It sorta looked like a city park, which was what it had been long ago when the place was prosperous.


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[Assistant] Now as we closed on it, I could see that it was covered with tin shacks and huts.


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[Assistant] But none of that mattered, because within a few seconds, the world went completely to hell.


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[Assistant] The RPG had smashed into the rear gearbox a fixture the size of a big watermelon and full of oil and gears where the drive shaft came in to have its speed and direction ratios altered for the tail rotor.


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[Assistant] The bottom of that box had been blown off. The drive shaft bent and twisted.


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[Assistant] I heard a rapidly accelerating whine and unearthly building scream.


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[Assistant] And then, the tail rotor assembly completely disintegrated into vapor with an ear-splitting bang.


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[Assistant] The nose of the helicopter immediately started to spin to the right. The tail rotor on a Blackhawk counters the torque created by the main rotor system and the pedal, pedals control the pitch of the tail rotor.


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[Assistant] As we passed through the first 90 degrees of rotation, I instinctively countered with the left pedal, and I knew we'd lost it.


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[Assistant] I'll never forget looking down to make sure I was pushing the pedal and seeing my boot jammed all the way to the floor.


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[Assistant] My body was reacting properly, but my Hilo was not. I keyed the mic. 6-4 has lost the tail rotor. We're going in hard.


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[Assistant] I looked over at Ray and said, I guess we better pull him off.


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[Assistant] I was referring to the engines, because the only way to counter that spin was to shut them down and eliminate the torque.


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[Assistant] But just as the Black Hawk manual describes such an emergency, if you don't kill the engines right away, the force will make it physically impossible to reach up for the power control levers. I'd always thought that sounded a little extreme.


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[Assistant] It wasn't. Super64 started to spin so fast that the sky and ground became nothing but two blurred stripes of blue and brown in front of my eyes. It was like riding a merry-go-round looking straight out from the side of your horse while the teenage operator goes nuts and hauls it up to 50 revs per minute.


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[Assistant] I was hurled against my harness, my hands desperately yanking and twisting the controls and I looked over at Rey to see him fighting the force with every muscle, his gloved hands quaking as he tried to reach up for the power levels.


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[Assistant] And that right there is an excerpt from the book called In the Company of Heroes, which was written by retired Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Durant.


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[Assistant] Who was a member of the legendary Nightstalkers.


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[Assistant] And who was shot down during Operation Gothic Serpent.


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[Assistant] And was held captive during the Battle of Mogadishu.


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[Assistant] That operation was documented in the book Black Hawk Down by author Mark Boden.


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[Assistant] And the book was eventually adapted into the movie Black Hawk Down.


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[Assistant] But it is an honor tonight to have Mike Durant with us to discuss his lessons learned, his experiences from the army, from the night stalkers, from Somalia and beyond. Mike, thank you for joining us.


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[Assistant] It's a rough way to start off this podcast, I guess, putting you through those, uh, those moments.


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[Assistant] Alright, so, I like to start at the beginning. So, we're gonna jump into a little bit of the childhood. Where you came from, how you ended up being you.


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[Assistant] You say in the book, as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Sure, other dreams flash by when you're a kid in a small New England town, firefighter, policeman, sports hero, brain surgeon. I never had the brain surgeon one.


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[Assistant] But the idea of flying for a living had always enthralled me the most. My father was a full-time first sergeant in the Army National Guard, and many of my uncles and cousins served there as well, but I didn't have fantasies about flying off into battle and coming home a hero with a chest full of medals. I grew up during the Vietnam era.


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[Assistant] When none of the kids around me wanted anything to do with wearing a uniform. So it wasn't about patriotism or flag waving or anything like that. My feelings about duty, honor, and country would evolve over time. But back then the army was just a way for me to get the best flight training without having to pay for it.


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[Assistant] I got asked this question the other day. I was on the special operations now has their own podcast.


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[Assistant] And they asked me, they set me up with this really nice question, you know, can you tell us about when you realized that


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[Assistant] Service was gonna be a part of your life and you wanting to be


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[Assistant] Yeah, uh, you say I was barely 17 when I sneaked off to a briefing at the local recruiting office. The army sales pitch was slick. I'd be attending all these advanced and top secret training schools and have all sorts of incredible adventures. And I swallowed it hook, line and sinker.


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[Assistant] I wanted to get into flight school right away, but the recruiter told me that was not possible.


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[Assistant] Uh, a year later, shortly after my graduation from high school, I found myself in basic training. So you go to basic training. How's that?


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[Assistant] Yeaah. I grew up in Connecticut and Maine, so yeaah, New England definitely has a lot of nice things about it, that's for sure.


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[Assistant] Uh, so you end up going to DLI, Defense Language Institute. How, how, what, did you just get a good score on the D-Lab or something?


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[Assistant] And then, then what? Did you get stationed down in Panama after that? I did, yeaah. And what were you doing? Flying up and listening, listening in on comms?


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[Assistant] And you start putting in for flight school.


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[Assistant] And that's right, going right back into bootcamp when you, when you go to Fort Rocker, Alabama, as far as they're gonna tighten you up and.


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[Assistant] So you start off in a, a th 55, which I thought was funny. You say in the bucket, they had those things painted bright orange. Hey, stay away from this student.


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[Assistant] And then you go from that bird to a Huey. Right. Did you think you were a nom when you were flying the Huey?


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[Assistant] It seems like, again, from my rudimentary knowledge, and from being in, you know, flying around in a Huey, it seems like when you're in a Huey, you're in...


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[Assistant] Like electronic everything. Is that accurate or am I just dumb?


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[Assistant] And then what was your, so you get qualified in the Blackhawk and then you go, you end up getting stationed over in Korea to be, uh, to be a medevac pilot.


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[Assistant] And you've got life and death situations happening because you're going to pick up guys that are injured in training operations and what have you. So you, and uh, I haven't said this yet, but obviously I'm not reading this whole book right now. You know, there's so much detail and you talk about the lessons you learned there. That's some of the stuff that's in the book, the books.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and that's what you talk about. Some of those, some of those situations that you were in where you had people's lives on the line and you're making decisions as a young warrant officer flying those birds. Definitely a lot of lessons learned there.


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[Assistant] When you're there, I'm gonna go to the book here. January 1986, I reported back to Fort Campbell and with another pilot from my medevac unit in Korea bought a house off base. I remember it well because I was, as I was unpacking gear, the television was on and I stood there open mouth watching the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.


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[Assistant] It was a national tragedy, but considering how long the space program had gone without a fatal mishap, I wasn't at all surprised. It's a reminder that if you spend your career in the air, you can't get complacent.


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[Assistant] The next day I was ready and raring to audition.


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[Assistant] It was almost like a little mix up when you went there because you went and you signed into the 101st and sort of checked on board. And once you checked on board,


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[Assistant] The guys at the 160th were like, you already checked on board with the 101st, sorry.


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[Assistant] And so then you spend that time at the 101st, uhm, and you're, you're, are you figuring out more about the Nightstalkers at this time? Are you learning more?


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[Assistant] And then what was the selection process once you got over to, to the 160th?


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[Assistant] And just to give people some, some background, cause we're kinda talking about it, cause you and I know about it.


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[Assistant] You say in the book here, to clarify what the one sixtieth is, which is their, their nickname, their call sign is the night stalkers. You say this, the night stalkers or strictly a special operations outfit.


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[Assistant] They had the best helicopters, the latest equipment, and an unlimited acquisition budget. They flew mostly at night, using the latest technology, night vision devices, deep behind enemy lines, racing just above sand dunes, ocean waves, or jungle canopies to deliver special ops teams.


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[Assistant] Their missions were hostage rescues, snatching grabs of bad guys, even liberations of enemy equipment.


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[Assistant] Their customers were the elite of the elite and strictly classified, meaning Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, or other special mission units. The existence of the Nightstalkers was officially denied and their pilots had reputations as the James Bonds of the community.


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[Assistant] If a mission was regarded as impossible, the Nightstalkers would get it.


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[Assistant] So that's a little bit of what, what, what the night stalkers do, what their mission is, what their mission set is. Uhm, so you end up, obviously you, you get there.


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[Assistant] December 17th, I was packing up bathing suits and suntan lotion at my house in Clarksville when my pager beeped and hummed.


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[Assistant] At the time, Clay Hopmacher had become my platoon leader, but he was already more than that. Clay lived right above Lori and me, in our two family house, so we'd spent a lot of time together on and off base. He was my boss, but he was also my friend.


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[Assistant] I called into Fort Campbell and he picked up on the first ring.


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[Assistant] Hot Mocker. Durant. Come on in. Roger that.


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[Assistant] I did not experience even a twinge of surprise and I quickly switched my vacation suitcase for my combat duffel.


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[Assistant] Like many special operators, I was a news junkie watching and listening international flare ups the way stockbrokers scan the ticks in the market.


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[Assistant] I knew that Manuel Noriega had already pushed the United States over the edge. On Saturday night, four young officers had been driving downtown in Panama City in the search of the perfect pizza.


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[Assistant] Outside Noriega's military headquarters, they had been stopped at a PDF roadblock.


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[Assistant] When members of the national, the police began beating on the car with batons and hauling the, hauling on the door handles, the young Americans concluded that they were about to disappear into one of Noriega's notorious dungeons forever. The driver hit the gas pedal as the Panamanians opened fire, killing Marine First Lieutenant Robert Paz.


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[Assistant] It hadn't ended there. An American Navy Lieutenant Adam Curtis had witnessed the shooting incident along with his wife. Both of them were dragged off


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[Assistant] While Mrs. Curtis was forced to assume the position against a prison cell wall and repeatedly threatened with rape, her husband was gagged, pistol whipped, and kicked in the groin right in front of her.


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[Assistant] This had gone on for four hours until the battered young couple was released to collapse into a public street. Noriega's message had been clearly received in Washington. Come and get me, gringos.


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[Assistant] So that's what you're getting called in for and an interesting side note here, the officer, the Navy officer that you talk about here, Adam Curtis.


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[Assistant] He was actually a SEAL. And, uh, I worked with him. He was my task unit commander in a platoon, and I think it was 1995. So, five or six years after this happened, he was my, yeah, he was my, my task unit commander.


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[Assistant] Interesting. It is a small world, especially in the soft world. So talk to us a little bit about Panama.


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[Assistant] Yeah, well, the good thing is, in the book, you detail, you go through a lot of those details, talk about what those missions were like, uhm, yeaah, it's...


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[Assistant] Well, I'd love to take some kind of credit for that, but when we were lucky enough to be in those situations where, I mean, I was just working side by side with those guys and there was just no doubt in their professionalism.


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[Assistant] Doing an incredible job taking the fight to the enemy and, and they, you know, I told Colonel Gronsky he came on this podcast.


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[Assistant] 100% my, some of my guys are alive because of the lessons that we learned from the National Guard when we showed up there. And then when the 11AD showed up, 100%, some of my guys are alive because when we called, they came. The 11AD, whatever battalion came.


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[Assistant] And there was multiple, over and over again. So, we owe so much to those guys, and we won't ever forget them, but uhm, I think you're right, you know, when I was in the SEAL teams in the 90's, you know, we, we, we definitely were, I think, partially just ignorant, and, and, and partially arrogant, right.


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[Assistant] They did indeed. It's a tribute. It's a, it's a testament to the American warfighter. Uhm, fast forward a little bit more.


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[Assistant] You say here the war had been ramping up since the Iraqis invaded Kuwait in August. Those of us who had been invited were pleased to be there. No one was happier about it than Cliff Walcott.


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[Assistant] His innovative concept, the direct action penetrator, configuration of a Blackhawk, which had missed the party in Panama, was finally going to see some action.


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[Assistant] However, while Charlie Company and its, and its DAPs, that's the Direct Action Penetrator, had drawn us the assignment to provide four of the gunships for scud hunting, they didn't have enough qualified pilots for this operation, so five of us from Delta Company, myself, Cliff, Clay, Hot Mocker, Eddie Mole, and Stan Wood, have been called upon to complete the package. So this is kind of a new deal.


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[Assistant] He outfitted these, these uh, black hawks with more weapon systems so they could, they could bring some firepower, more firepower.


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[Assistant] Uh, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here. You're out on an operation. You're scud hunting. Uh, Zulu32. This is Charlie7. Charlie47.


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[Assistant] It was Lieutenant Colonel Doug Brown, Battalion Commander of the 1st Battalion of the 160th, making contact from the Jock in Arar.


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[Assistant] Roger, 47, I answered, go ahead. I have a mission change for you, 32, he said. Colonel Brown's voice was usually cold as ice water, but on this night he actually sounded a little keyed up. Copy these coordinates. Roger that, I said.


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[Assistant] As, and as Lance continued the lazy orbit over the activities below, I repeated the coordinates back to Brown.


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[Assistant] You are cleared direct to the target, 3-2. The Colonel ordered.


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[Assistant] Target is a possible and you couldn't hear him transmission and broken up on the last word for seven. I said, say again, all after coordinate.


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[Assistant] And then you knew it was a scud. And again, this is interesting because the individual that you're talking about, Lieutenant Colonel Doug Brown, ended up being the four star


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[Assistant] So calm commander in charge of all special operations. And when he was in that job, I was actually the admiral's aide for Admiral Joe McGuire and


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[Assistant] We would see General Brown all the time and did a bunch of trips with him and got to know him. Just what a great guy he was as well. And yea, you know, you say he's usually cold as ice water. He's super.


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[Assistant] I mean just super unemotional, very, very calm, laid back. And here you are have this opportunity to get these scuds and.


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[Assistant] Attack. Your weapons didn't work, right? Yes. Talk us through that. So. That's gotta be just a little bit frustrating. Cause the scuds, the scuds at the time.


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[Assistant] Cause I was, I was in the Navy now. But the Scuds were this huge threat. Like this was the major threat that they had. They could arm them with chemical weapons. It was this, that was the big focus. You heard all the news all the time. Was, Scud, Scud, Scud, Scud. We gotta get these Scuds. We gotta stop these Scuds. And they had launched Scuds.


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[Assistant] And so here you are, you finally get one of these scuds and you got your, your new aircraft with all of its weapons on it and you roll in to shoot that thing. What happens?


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[Assistant] It's the biggest buck of it. The whole, the entire nation is wanting you to hunt this buck and get this buck.


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[Assistant] Eventually, you guys did get a scud. They talk about that in there. Uhm, you talk about that in there. The war ended. Uhm.


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[Assistant] Over pretty quick, obviously, but at the same time, you know, much like in Panama, you, you, you, the Hilo went down. Um, you lost Mike Anderson and Chuck Cooper, uh, Chris Chapman and Mario Vega of Alaska's and another special operator and they went down, lost those guys. Um,


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[Assistant] You get done with that and then it's redeployed back to America after that one. Uhm, you got, I mean going in the 90s, 80s and 90s getting like,


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[Assistant] Real world experience in both Panama and then going over to the Persian Gulf. That's, that's freaking legit for back then.


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[Assistant] That's a nightmare. I got very, very lucky my whole career. I got very, very lucky my whole career. And I was always on the...


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[Assistant] The lucky side, not the unlucky side, you know, standing around going, I wish I would have been there for that. Not including the first goal for which I missed because I was still in training.


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[Assistant] But yeaah, that had to be an interesting, uh, dynamic in the locker room.


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[Assistant] I know the, uh, the Vietnam guys. So, we used to call them new guys. If you hadn't been on deployment...


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[Assistant] Then you were a new guy. And as soon as you went on your first deployment, didn't really matter where you went, then you weren't a new guy anymore. But the Vietnam guys,


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[Assistant] Unless you were in combat, you were a new guy. So you could have been a new guy in their mind for 10 years. Yeah. Cherry boy. Right. They would bring it to some of those old Vietnam guys. Um, all right. I'm going to fast forward a little bit.


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[Assistant] It was a perfect day for prayer, a bright and tranquil Sunday morning. The skies and seas were polished blue, soft winds bore sea-silver edged clouds and the coastal sands gleamed white like ribbons of salt. It would have been easy to believe it in some sort of heavenly power.


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[Assistant] But for the most of us in Task Force Ranger, the helicopter pilots and our crews, the eager young rangers and the squint eyed special forces, the muscled armorers and whiz kid intelligence analysts, these autumn mornings in Mogadishu all ran together.


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[Assistant] A Sabbath day felt hardly different than any other, bleeding into the work week like the steamy, bleached,


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[Assistant] Hues of the african vista sure a few guys knelt before the army chaplain with heads bowed praying for salvation The rest of us prayed for another mission


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[Assistant] Going into 3 October when you, how often would you conduct an actual mission, like a hit?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I was trying to get a feel for, you know, like, I only did two deployments to Iraq, but, you know, my first deployment...


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[Assistant] Obviously those are my first real missions and


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[Assistant] Like the mindset of how long it took to where we as a platoon felt like, yea, this is what we're doing. Sort of like, this is our job, this is, I don't want to say mechanical, but we just were well rehearsed and we just, we were just doing our job and it was like doing any other job.


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[Assistant] It didn't take that long, you know, because we were doing a lot of operations. We were basically going out almost every night and doing another hit, another hit, another hit. So you do that five, six, eight times. Alright, what's the next target? And you kind of get in that mode. And it sounds like you were, you all were getting, getting in that mode where this is what we're doing. We know how to do it.


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[Assistant] Fast forward a little bit. In the bustling jock, the mission was developing very rapidly. We couldn't wait to see if our targets would just hang around drinking tea and bullshitting about women and weather. We couldn't hope to have a CIA asset wander into the target building, snap a covert photo of the party and hustle back out with a 100% confirmation.


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[Assistant] We had to go on information and belief and faith.


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[Assistant] But in a special ops environment no element leader can afford to be shy about offering solutions or raising dilemmas. I was a combat vampire who loved the night.


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[Assistant] But I held my peace about the risk of a daylight op because there was no other option.


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[Assistant] Yet a number of other officers quickly voiced issues to a background score of distant Helo turbines winding up and desert combat boots thumping across the tarmac like heavy hail. Sir, someone said to General Garrison, I've got some exfil issues. What's on your mind?


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[Assistant] But I think we might wrap it up long before the vehicles are in position. We'll be there when you're ready said Colonel McKnight. His lightly armored Humvees and five ton trucks were already assembled to move to a rendezvous point near the Olympic Hotel. I wondered if the hotel had a single client this year or ever.


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[Assistant] But that, but that place is nasty with skinnies today, someone else said using the nickname for hostile Somalis. We might get boxed in on the return.


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[Assistant] And there's an antenna tower on the target building. An SF officer jabbed at a video monitor with his gloved finger. We'd have to blow it before the helos came back in and it'll take time. Don't sweat it boys, McKnight said to his ranger officers. Your convoy will be there.


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[Assistant] And if it's not, Garrison grinned around his cigar stub, the Helos will come in and pull your asses out like they always do.


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[Assistant] And that was it. We'd been there for all of ten minutes.


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[Assistant] Was this like TST time sensitive target where it came up real quick?


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[Assistant] You were, you were, the daytime portion of it, the fact that you were going out in the day, you say you like going out in the night, uhm, but it was the target that was driving you to do this during the day. They were there. You had a pretty good confirmation, not a hundred percent like you said in the book, but a pretty decent confirmation and that's it. They're there. We're going to go get them.


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[Assistant] I know we did a lot of daytime oper- my second deployment did a lot of daytime operations. My first deployment we did limited daytime operations for that very reason. We'd go at 2 o'clock in the morning.


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[Assistant] There's no, no, no factor, no resistance, but sometimes same exact thing. We'd get, hey, this guy is here now in this market, in this village, in this building. We just, we would go. Uhm, so there's, there's definitely an elevated risk during the day.


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[Assistant] And the tactical advantage that you have at night can't be, cannot be understated at all.


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[Assistant] And you had done a daytime operation, or other daytime operations.


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[Assistant] And so you had thrown those passes before and they were caught by the receiver like you intended and hey, we're gonna do it again because we've done it before.


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[Assistant] And again, you gotta buy this book because there's more details in there. Obviously I'm not covering the whole thing. I'm fast forwarding a little bit here. The Rangers and the Delta Force guys being inserted.


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[Assistant] It was a well rehearsed routine. All I had to do was keep it steady holding the forward left box position with chalk 2 right behind me, chalk 3 a beam to the right, and chalk 4 right behind him.


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[Assistant] The pilot of the last chopper, Super 67, had been flying C2 Bird until today. Just up there, boring holes in the sky, and this was his first encounter with the mou- with the brown monster. The dust cloud was more than a hundred feet high, and he felt his way down to it like a waiter tiptoeing into an ice cold lake.


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[Assistant] He deployed his ropes too early and they were 30, only 30 feet long. A ranger went out his door, lost his grip on the rope and fell into oblivion.


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[Assistant] It was right there and then that the mission started to unravel. Like the hem of an old sweater as you tug on one loose strand. But I didn't know any of that at the time. I was having problems of my own.


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[Assistant] Right ropes hung up on a wire. It was Bill's voice in my ear, dead calm and steady telling me we'd snagged on probably the last telephone wire still intact in Mogadishu. Of all the damn phone lines in the city, I thought. Forward ten, Bill offered a correction as he peered down past his minigun


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[Assistant] I could tell by his tone that the rope was dangling straight and free, and I held it steady while our eighteen rangers leaped for the lines like comic book heroes. I could hear Steel's chalk leader barking, go, go, go, and the butt plates of M16s and M60-like machine guns scraping and banging against my floor as the troops dove into the dust storm.


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[Assistant] Within seconds, they were all gone. Good luck guys, I whispered as Bill and Tommy tripped the releases and the ropes fell from their mounts like limp cobras. None of us had a clue that those young rangers were in for the fight of their lives. Ropes clear, Tommy announced, and I hauled the helo into a rising left bank as I keyed my mic. Super64 is out. And that was it. I thought it was over.


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[Assistant] And like other operations that you've gone on, that's, you go out in your holding pattern, everyone, the boys on the ground do what the boys on the ground do. Uhm, didn't take them very long. Seemed that they were getting the target secured, getting the principles, you know, taken, getting them controlled, getting them blindfolded, getting them cuffed.


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[Assistant] Uh, that ranger that had fallen, he was critically injured. On top of that, you, you learned that he, they weren't near their designated area either. And I was watching some video, uhm,


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[Assistant] Though that brownout situation was great. I've been in ton of brownout. I guess it was because it was in the city brownout. Is that what made it worse? Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and in an open desert, the, the, the dust has somewhere to go. You know, it'll, it'll expand out to the, or expand out to the sides. And you could see on these videos I was watching, that dust has nowhere to go, so it's going straight back up into the air. Right. There's the biggest dust clouds I've seen. Massive.


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[Assistant] You're in, you're now monitoring radius. Were you on one net? Were you on monitoring the ground net and the air net? Was there multiple nets or were you on one net?


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[Assistant] I had in my platoons in my task, you weren't allowed to talk on the radio.


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[Assistant] Like you weren't a lot, like everybody knew they wouldn't say something on the radio unless there was no possible other way of communicating it. For this very reason. Because when things would go sideways, everyone, if they think they can just start talking about what's important to them, the, the nets get cluttered up. Then you put five nets of that.


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[Assistant] And especially pilots, they talk real smooth and quick and fast and they're almost immediately they'll dump the first part of their call sign when you start talking to them. Right, right. That's just habitual for them.


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[Assistant] The Exville convoy was starting to take heavy murderous fire. We've lost a five ton truck. I heard that and Ray and I glanced at each other. The ground transmissions were broken and hard to understand.


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[Assistant] We switched radios for better reception. Things were starting to heat up down there, but we just sat there and breathed and flew around and around waiting. I knew Cliff Walcott and his co-pilot Donovan Briley were back in there with Super 61 giving fire support from three SF shooters on board and their crew chief's miniguns.


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[Assistant] From what I could gather as I squinted straining to hear the Somalis were coming from every doorway and from behind every wall.


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[Assistant] But all we could do is sit up there in our safe haven, feeling helpless while our people were in deep shit. And we knew it.


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[Assistant] Super 6-1 is going down. It was Cliff's voice.


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[Assistant] He was talking about himself and his own Hilo. Something had hit his bird and he and Donovan were going to crash. I swallowed disbelieving what I'd heard. Super 6-1 is going down. Cliff Walcott and Donovan Briley were real good friends of mine. We were all from the same platoon. We were close.


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[Assistant] We'd been together for a long time, traveled on the road together, partied together, our families knew each other very well.


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[Assistant] I shook it off, they'll be alright, I decided. They'll have to land, maybe a hard landing or something, but the Tsar bird will fly in and pick them up, and we'll all go home.


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[Assistant] The possibility that Cliff and Donovan might die didn't cross my mind. I couldn't see them from my position so I painted it the way I needed to see it at the moment. As it was, an RPG round had blown a big chunk off their bird. They started spinning out of control while Donovan shut down the engines and Cliff tried to get the aircraft on the ground in one piece.


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[Assistant] Sure, we'd all prepared for the possibility of a bird going down, but the timing and location were about as bad as they could be.


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[Assistant] The ground assault element with prisoners already in tow was ordered to regroup at the fresh crash site. The Exville convoy suddenly had a new and even more deadly labyrinth to fight through. Air elements were being summoned for support. It was now constant chatter back and forth, the voices still steady, but ominously urgent.


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[Assistant] On this mission, the worst had happened. We had a bird down and the survivors were surrounded.


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[Assistant] When you, when you compare your mindset at the time, clearly you know that things are going bad.


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[Assistant] Was it possible for you to tell how bad they were going with the, with the situation that the ground force was in? I mean they were getting smashed. Were you aware of that?


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[Assistant] Going back to the book here, Colonel Matthews called me on the net. 64, I need you to go and take 61's place over the target.


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[Assistant] I was expecting that call to come. We had practiced this exact contingency just a few days before the mock shoot down of 6-1 and I was rolling in, I was rolling out of holding, even as I answered, Roger 6-4 going in.


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[Assistant] We broke formation, no one in the helicopter said a word. Ray, Tommy, Bill, and I all knew what had just happened to our friends. One bird was down in the city, another was hit, and the ground force was decisively engaged. We were playing for keeps on this one. I broke silence on the intercom. It may get a little sticky in there, let's all keep our heads in the game. There was no response.


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[Assistant] I headed back for the target site at full power, running right along the rooftops. We were going to provide fire support for the ground elements, but I realized that everyone had been told now to consolidate at the crash site. Platoon, squads, and sections would be racing door to door toward that new position. It would be very hard to distinguish friend from foe in such a melee.


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[Assistant] We couldn't just cowboy in there spewing 4,000 rounds a minute. Tommy and Bill's electrically controlled mini guns could be armed only by me throwing a switch in the cockpit. I spoke to them very carefully. Okay, I said, I'm arming your guns, but we're not doing any shooting until we figure out where everyone is. Roger that. They grunted. Raj.


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[Assistant] Within seconds we were back over the target area, flying a wide circular pattern, trying to locate Cliff's crash site, and clearly spot the enemy before we opened up on him.


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[Assistant] We were in a hard left bank with me up high in the right seat, so I was peering past Rey and down into total confusion. It was just smoke and dust and indistinguishable sprinting forms. I tried to raise Super 6-2, Cliff and Donovan's wingman,


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[Assistant] But the air to air net was jammed up and the AMC kept telling us to vary our pattern and minimize exposure time.


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[Assistant] I jinked it up and down, getting high, getting low, trying to make us hard to hit, all too aware that the Somalis were now shooting at us from every rooftop and street corner.


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[Assistant] Something slammed into my helicopter and that's where we opened this up. That's where we started the podcast.


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[Assistant] This, I was, again, I was watching some videos, the actual videos, and there's freakin' Somalis everywhere. Because you're seeing different angles, and there's just Somalis everywhere. And they were just lighting up everyone and everything and all the birds. Uhm.


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[Assistant] It's like a mile away, two miles away, this whole thing.


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[Assistant] Is all, I mean you're out at sea, hovering in your safe spot, and seconds later you're over the target. How long were you over the target for before you got hit?


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[Assistant] Have you ever been to Fallon, Nevada, flying up there? Oh yea. So I was like a new guy, and I was a radio man when I was an enlisted guy. And so I was always calling the Hilo's for extract and stuff. And I was calling them Hilo's, it was daytime. I'm calling in Hilo's, we're in Fallon, Nevada, so this is a desert environment. It's open desert. And there's some little shrubs, but not much.


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[Assistant] And I'm calling this helicopter and I'm looking at them and they are not far away and I have like probably a little, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] And so I go, hey, you know, I mark you identify and I'm sitting there looking. They couldn't have been more than 200 yards away. Maybe 300 yards away. It's a freaking giant helicopter. I'm holding up this aircraft panel, bright orange aircraft panel for them to see me. And they're like, uh, we don't see you.


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[Assistant] And I'm thinking to myself, what are you, you're kidding me? There's two aircraft. I got a, a squad of seals out here. There's eight seals. Sure, we're wearing camouflage, but we feel completely naked. I'm thinking if you would have asked me to put money, I would have bet, you know,


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[Assistant] Two months pay that this, that this, these helicopters can see us 100%. And I'm gonna hold this aircraft panel up. They couldn't see us. It is so different when you're up there.


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[Assistant] So different when you're up there. And they didn't find that, those two helos didn't find us until we popped purple smoke. And then they were like, oh yea, we got you. It was crazy. So what you are seeing when you're in the air and you're moving, it's really hard to figure out what's going on down there.


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[Assistant] I woke up in the silence of my own grave. At least that's what I believed in that first moment because the last flash of consciousness I had clearly seen the clawing hand of the Grim Reaper.


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[Assistant] I did not know where I was. I did not know who I was. It was like emerging from an altitude chamber with a case of hypoxia as my mind began to stagger slowly through the dark, darkened hallways of my concussed brain.


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[Assistant] When my eyelids finally fluttered open, I was stunned to take in light.


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[Assistant] The chopper's windshield was almost completely gone, pierced and disintegrated by a slab of corrugated metal that had stopped only inches from my face. Yet my first sense of emotion wasn't relief, but a fury at the disfiguring of my helicopter by that rusty blade.


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[Assistant] I reached up to shove the thing from my cockpit and then pain swept over me like a wave of molten lava. My back was broken.


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[Assistant] I sure as hell was fully conscious now, although my thoughts and reflexes seemed to trudge through a sort of syrupy fog. Slowly I moved my aching head and glanced around the cockpit and found I was sitting level with the floor.


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[Assistant] The seats in the Blackhawk are designed to stroke downward in a major crash and mine had done that and more. My right leg felt strangely numb and as soon as I tried to move it I knew that the femur had broken clean in half over the edge of my Kevlar seat. My M9 pistol was still strapped to my right thigh.


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[Assistant] And it, and it's weight shifted, I could feel splintered ends of my bones grinding against one another.


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[Assistant] But it didn't hurt all that much. My crushed vertebrae were monopolizing my pain centers. I was dead sure that I couldn't get myself out of the cockpit.


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[Assistant] They black hawks hard enough to get out of when you're healthy. You have to contort yourself and maneuver your limbs around the seat and the controls. I could barely move. I saw my MP5 submachine gun lying on the floor near my left foot where I left it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I reached for it, I made sure it was cocked and locked and laid it across my lap. I could hear some thin muffled shouts in the distance. The Somalis would surely try to overrun us. And it looked like I'd just have to fight it out right there where I sat. And then I remembered I wasn't alone.


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[Assistant] I looked over at Ray. His helmet was gone and he was slowly edging himself off his seat, which had collapsed to the floor just like mine. The acrid smell of spilled jet fuel mixed with dry dust.


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[Assistant] I glanced up at the power control levers. You got em half way.


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[Assistant] He didn't say anything for a moment and then, left tibia is broken I think. Right femur here. And ba- and my back too. Yeaah, he said. And then he slowly maneuvered himself until he was sitting in the door sill with his back to me. I'm moving Mike, he said. I'll be right here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ray nodded, and then he gripped the sill with his hands and carefully lowered himself to the ground. I couldn't see him anymore, and I would never see him again.


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[Assistant] And your femur's broken. Your back is totally jacked up.


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[Assistant] Fast forward a little bit. Just then, Randy Schuchart and Gary Gordon appeared on the right side of our chopper. They were Delta operators, and although I didn't know them personally or by name, I certainly knew who they were. More than once I'd brief them and the other members of their teams prior to assaults in the city.


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[Assistant] Since they were wearing no helmets, I recognized them instantly. Randy was carrying a high tech sniper rifle and Gary had a Kar-15. The short barreled version of the M16 assault rifle and their load bearing harnesses were slung with ammunition and grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Brandy and Gary didn't say very much. They knew the situation was critical and they were there to work, not chat.


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[Assistant] They asked me about my injuries. Well, my right leg's broken, I said, and I think my back. Uh huh. They nodded and set themselves in position to lift me out of the cockpit. They raised me up gently.


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[Assistant] So they take you, they carry you out of the cockpit and put you in a, in a position.


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[Assistant] You say Super 64 sat in the pale dirt, its belly smeared into the ground, its big rotors dead still and drooping like wilted palm fronds. I couldn't see anyone in the cargo bay. Tommy, Tommy Field's minigun had swung around hard and struck him full in the chest upon impact. It was a very heavy weapon and crushed his entire ribcage.