[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's, so that's Operation Tailwind. Operation Tailwind, and that, that book, Saw Chronicles Volume 1, and I, I hope there's gonna be about 30 more volumes of Saw Chronicles. We're gonna be working on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When, you know, people say, well you should have more guys from to your bruiser on there. You have to have more guys, more seals on. The seals that I know that I would want to have on, a lot of them, they're still in. Or they don't want to come on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They can't, they won't say a word. Yeah, they're like, hey, no, I'm good, you know. And then obviously I got a lot of my friends that do come on and it's great when they come on. But yeah, a lot of guys are still doing it, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, hey, that's the way it is. Once those guys retire, and I do have some friends that are retiring soon, and they're becoming one, so that's pretty awesome. Oh yeaah. But uhm, yeaah, so the SOG Chronicles, uh, you've, like I said, hopefully there's 30 volumes of that, right now there's just one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your training. How ready do you think you were when you got to Vietnam? How ready were you for what you were about to encounter?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you, when you were calling for fire, so I don't know if you know this, but now it's like a school you go to. You, you go to a joint tactical intercontroller school and that's sort of your specialty is calling for fire, calling for bombs. But you just, you trained in country to learn how to do it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeaah, that does not surprise me at all. I mean when I'm listening to or reading your books,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fact that you guys were doing that, you obviously had a massive amount of skill to not have that happen. Cause like I said, these guys are looking at a jungle canopy. They're looking at some random bit of smoke that came out and yet you're directing fire based on that. It's, it's, it's awesome. But I could see where somebody could easily


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, make a mistake, you know, you give the wrong direction, you, you know, you look at your compass is spinning the wrong way, you know, it's too close to your weapon, you got your cardinal directions, I mean, there's so many things that could go wrong that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yea, and yet you're just doing, I mean there's times we're out there doing gun runs for, for 12 hours straight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, that's, it's weird because Leif and I wrote Extreme Ownership and we didn't really coordinate


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stories that we were talking about and yet there's multiple stories in there about either blue on blues or potential blue on blues because Man in a city like that with all these different different units running around all on different radio frequencies Oh, yeah, and a bunch of enemy Mujahideen fighters running around in there, too it was blue on blue is a very real thing and there would be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably one case of blue on blue, a day that would happen, and maybe one a week that would get reported. You know, but just, and I'm not talking where someone gets shot, but like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, just all of a sudden you're taking rounds and you're like, where are those coming from? Oh, that's another unit down there. That's an M4, that's an M4 and an A1 opening up on me. Exactly, exactly. So that, it would happen all the time. Uhm, and that's one thing that was nice about, well for you, not nice but it's less complicated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know, in one of the books you're talking about how the, the NVA treated the, the Indige people there so horribly that the Indige troops that you worked with hated the NVA. They hated them. These NVA had raped their women, beat their wives, and just done horrible things to them. So they were there for, they were there to fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you, so the, so you would come up with some of the missions, some of the missions would come down to you. Majority came. Majority came down to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you ever, what if you, what if there was a mission that you looked at and you said, hey, this is dumb. This doesn't make sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you say that's what you believed, you, you believed that it was a bad target?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, did you ever get that feeling again?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had some guys that thought they were gonna die every time we left the wire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure. Like I, I was more worried about guys that were like hesitant or I felt like if they were hesitant on the battlefield, that would work out bad for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The guys that I always felt like, okay, if someone's aggressive, not, not, not unafraid and suicidal like that, but just, hey, oh yeah, I'm gonna go do, I'm gonna, we're gonna go kick ass right now. I always felt that was the attitude to have, was to be aggressive, was to be like, okay, yeah, we're,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, you want, you got an op for us? Cool, we'll go do it. Now, we turned down ops too. There was ops where we looked at and said...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man, this is not good, and this is a massive amount of risk. I mean, there was areas where, there was areas where, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, you know, when a big IED hits a Humvee, everyone dies or three out of five people die or something like that. I mean, it's very catastrophic. And there was one target they were looking at for us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They asked us to do and there was like one road going in that had multiple big IED strikes and then they wanted us to, they were asking if we could take out mortars, it was either a mortar team or an IED emplacer but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were looking at it and where the mortars had been launched from were all over the place. So, it was just, it was one of the-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I would say my first deployment, it was go capture kill bad guys. That was my first deployment to Iraq. We were in Baghdad. That's mostly what we were doing. In the middle of the night, we'd find out where a bad guy was, we'd go get him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Ramadi, mostly what guys were doing was Overwatch, sniper Overwatch positions set up in buildings so that when the bad guys would either maneuver on friendly forces or they'd be out doing what they shouldn't be doing. Right. The guys would take them out. So that's, that's pretty much the, and then there's all kinds of crap in between that, everything from, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything from doing just reconnaissance of areas to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Primarily it was direct action missions going out to take out a target or these sniper overwatch types. But you know, we'd be doing big clearances too. Big conventional clearances. You know, we had our


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We call them Jundis, which is, Jundi means, it means soldier in, in Arabic. Right. And, and so we call them Jundis, that's what they call themselves, Jundis, but, so we had Jundis, like you guys had little people, like you had indige forces, we had indige forces, they were Jundis, and so we would do,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very conventional missions with the Jundis of them and us, you know, we'd be overseeing them as they cleared big sections of the city and we'd be working in conjunction with the army. So, yeaah, we did a little bit of everything. But, uhm, see that brings us back to our side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, so I guess my point was I looked at it and I still look at it. If you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like when you're doing a, even when you're doing like a sport, you know, even when you're doing some physical activity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was your, uh, your mission planning like? So, you guys get a tasking, how long did you guys plan for?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as far as the actual mission planning of, okay, here's where we're going in tonight. It didn't take you much because you were running repetitive type missions. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was your degree of certainty on where you were inserted?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember when we first, you know, as a radioman, believe it or not, when GPS's first came out, the radioman kinda got saddled with the GPS because it was a piece of electronic equipment. Right. And no one else could work with electronic equipment. So, so I would be, a lot of times be carrying the GPS as opposed to the point man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the point man, you know, which was still using map and compasses in the early 90s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the GPS wouldn't always work well in a helicopter. And so, sometimes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They took me, you know, this was some training operations where I learned, oh, so I'm not where I think I am. And you get out and that GPS finally finds itself and you realize you're three clicks away from where you're supposed to be or whatever and it's bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why we'd go, I went back to, hey, when I'm in a helicopter, I'm on a map. So that way when my boss looks at me and says, hey, where are we supposed to be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either yes or no. Like don't get out of the bird or okay, we're good. But, but that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was thinking about that, for you guys, you'd be doing the same thing as you approach to, okay, yup, there's that terrain feature, there's this other terrain feature, cool, where, where, where we're supposed to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you guys have, you guys, did you guys use imagery at all? Like overhead imagery? Nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But no, you guys wouldn't see photographs of the areas where you were going into at all. No, the only time was down


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then what was your, what was your op tempo like? In other words, how often were you going in the field?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then how often would you get legitimate R&R?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And that's it. Other than that, there's no, no. One R and R.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was the offer for catching a bad guy


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I cried when Spider said nooo. A hundred bucks. How much was a hundred bucks? How much was your normal paycheck? How much did you make a month back then?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when you guys would come back, you were talking about this, how you would sit there and debrief. Would you debrief your, your team? Would you guys sit down and debrief what happened, what went wrong, what went right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I've seen this much. So you guys would not run missions during the monsoon season? No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's, so you'd been in the army for like a couple years and you were in charge of a recon team. Yeah, got in the army.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How much did you see the tactics that you guys were using change over time?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the biggest thing that changed was the guy started going in heavier and actually bringing automatic weapons or belt fed machine guns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what about the mission set itself? Did you guys, did you notice that change over time while you were there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you put, you actually have a section in Saw Chronicles, and it's in Across the Fence too, where you talk about stuff you carry and stuff that you didn't carry. And, uh, some of the stuff that you didn't carry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No underwear. Never. No socks. Never. And that's because you just want to stay dry as much as possible. Yea. And both those things just hold water and keep moisture in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No helmet? Never. No body armor? Nope. And your body armor sucked back then? It sucked back then. It was big, clunky. It was just heavy, it didn't work well. It didn't work well yet. Uh, no entrenching tool?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No sleeping bag, no hammock, no poncho, no poncho liner, no ground path. Correct. You are not traveling for comfort.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys, uh, no dog tags, no military ID or ID of any kind, no rank, no name tags, no jump wings, no CIB, no patches, no unit identifier, nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No pictures of mama. No pictures of mama. Right. Totally slick. So those are the things you didn't carry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Things you did carry. Car 15. Ah, love it. You love the Car 15.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's weird so many people and myself being one of them complain about the car the car 15 or the m4 Frame and now the m4s are a lot nicer. I mean them for a lot


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's awesome. You used a cravat for your sling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We would get, sort of, uh, one of those things that never wear a sling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some guys would say that, get caught up, and that's just, man, especially when you're in a leadership position, you need a sling. Cause you gotta look at your map, you gotta pull out, you know. Oh yea. You gotta do stuff, you know. And the other thing is, you don't have a sling and you get blown up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Where's your weapon? You have no idea when you wake up. So, yeah, uhm, but then there's some, you know, some people just, they wouldn't carry a sling. Mark Lee was one of my machine gunners. He just, no sling. Nope. That was like the man thing to do was no sling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On an M60, or these days a Mark 48. Really? Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You carried. Sawed off. Oh yes. I cannot believe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You still have all the firepower. Oh yea. I mean that cut that weapon down by half. Oh yea. I was looking at the pictures you have of it in your book. It's, that thing is tiny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 34 magazines, and you went on, you mentioned you had a few missions where you were down to your last one or two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I came in, we'd stuff mags in our shirt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, but with body armor you can't do that. So now guys carry like pouches or just dropping their leg cargo pockets or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 20 round magazines. That's a lot of, just, you know, we would normally carry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seven to ten, thirty round max. So we carried like, I mean sometimes I guess more than that, but not no six hundred rounds. But you weren't anticipating being alone for a while. No, we weren't fighting divisions worth of people either, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know, and I guess we did, what we did have is we always had heavy machine guns, you know. So that makes a big difference too. I guess, you know, we would have Mark 48, which is 7.62 and then the Mark 46, which is 5.56, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's basically like a little stoner and uh, and uh, and 60, the modern versions of those two things. But yea, you know, so you had a saw too, right? Yea, well that's, the Mark 46 is a saw. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, so we had those, and those guys would carry a lot of rounds. A lot of rounds. Like 800 to a thousand, sometimes more on the 5, 5, 6. Yeaah, stuff like that, carried like that. Over a thousand. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I had guys go Winchester. Go run out of bullets. Really? Yeaah. With that many.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yea, I guess maybe that was the differentiator. You carried 10 to 12 frag grenades. That's a lot of frag grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess when you're going picking fights with divisions you gotta carry a lot of frag grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We would carry, I don't know, well I would carry like one or two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How often would you, how often would you need more than two though? Hopefully never. Yea. You know? And especially I'm in a leadership position. I'm hopefully not fucking grenades. But, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, you know the big difference, especially in Ramadi, I mean, in Ramadi, I remember explaining to the guys that relieved us, you know, we had a big overhead imagery. Yeah. And I put my hand on the map and I said, no matter where you put your hand on this map,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll be touching a friendly unit. So like, and you know, this is, you know, probably within three to five hundred meters of you. Anywhere you are in Ramadi, there's a friendly unit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's why, you know, you were going to get reinforcements, you were going to get tanks, you were going to get Bradley fighting vehicles, so yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was talking to Leif, well Leif, that's another thing, so Leif, Leif's got a chapter in dichotomy of leadership where he's talking about preparing, over, over preparing for too many contingencies. And he talks about, it was his first patrol out on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out going out with the Marine Corps in the daytime patrol, and he's talking about how much stuff he carried. He carried all this stuff, but one of the things he carried is, you know, eight grenades or something like that. And, you know, he reflects on how that was just way too many. I was like, hey man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing that's interesting is one of the reasons why you wear a helmet now isn't just to protect your head, it's because that's where your nods mount onto.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your night vision. Oh yeaah. Your night vision mount on your, so you, they do have a contraption that's like a headband looking thing. I don't even think they make it anymore. Right. But, well you could wear that, but you know, your nods mount on your, your night vision mounts on your helmet, your, that's just the way it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and that's something that we did too. So we did, even before, even in the 90s, before everyone, cause now the fatigues come issued with pockets on the arms and everything, but we used to take them off and sew them on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's where you'd keep your, your pens and your notebooks and your pen flares and your, and your signal mirror. Yeah. And then on the ones on your chest, you had maps and morphine, your extra notebook, your URC 10 emergency radio.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you had a, you wore a watch, a Seiko. Yeah. A luminous watch. You wore gloves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Same thing, same thing we would do. But you always wear gloves, otherwise your hands are just getting destroyed down in the jungle. Forget about it, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I used to, uh, this was like the most brilliant thing, I think it was an Australian guy who told me this. You, I would, to have like a little square of mosquito netting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when we would stop patrolling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would take out that little square, put it over my head, right over my floppy hat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And tuck it in and all of a sudden you're not getting chewed apart by mosquitoes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should have thought about, I should have thought about that one. I had a guy, we were doing some training and none of us had mosquito netting except for the officer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so the officer was sleeping heartily, like just fully. And one of the other young enlisted guys was catching mosquitoes and putting them inside this guy's food while he was asleep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hadn't thought about that one. Leeches. You guys ran into a lot of leeches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you spray the bug repellent on him once you got sucked on by a leech.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you had your, on your web gear, which was the old World War II web gear, you had on your left harness, you had your K-bar, handled down. Or a sawed knife. Or a sawed knife until you lost it. Until I lost it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, handle down. Sure. That's how you rolled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got it. Got it. Uh, you had hand grenades there, cause you were basically covered in hand grenades. Oh yea. Uh, smoke. You had there, you had some, some, you know, bandages there. On your right harness, you had your strobe light. You had more hand grenades. You had your D ring. And you had more smoke grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then on your belt you had one canteen usually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You normally wouldn't get, would you get thirsty? Was there normally enough water?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you had one canteen, you had a Willy Pete grenade, you had your Survival Axe, which was the Frank and Warren Survival Axe Type 2. Indeed. That's what you got.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked him up and, uh, had like a hook at the top. Like another blade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the belt I was talking about before is the belt of your web gear, but just the belt of your pants was just a, was a cravat. You carried a swiss army knife. You carried a gas mask. Always. You always carried a gas mask.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was gonna say, but, and this is, this was the, the concern was tear gas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause yea, that's what I was thinking, with all this crap that you're carrying, and a gas mask are just huge and bulky.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you carried, uh, you usually carried one grenade for your 40 Mike Mike that was tear gas? Always, sure. In case we needed it. And that was, what would your, what would your tactic be on using that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the idea would be, hey, this is gonna linger. Whereas a frag grenade, it goes off, you either wound guys or you don't, you either kill guys or you don't, but that's it, it's over. Whereas gas, you can really disrupt them because now you got guys coughing and puking or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got it. Left pant pocket, you got a marking panel, large and small. Right pant pocket, pen flares, dehydrated Lerp ration.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bug repellent for leeches, an extra cravat, an extra bandage. Did anybody carry IV? Uh, several guys did. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You got your, you got your PRC 25, which you guys called the Prick 25? Yea. I think I was, I think I was outlawed from calling it a Prick. Cause that, that PRC 25, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I wanna say it was 1969 or something like that. When I got to Seal Team 1, that's what I used. It was one of the radios that we had in our inventory. It was a PRC-77.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which came directly from the PRC 25. So you'd carry that, you had the big whip antenna, but you wouldn't, you'd have the little tape antenna on there, so you don't get identified as the radio guy, cause otherwise you're gonna, uh, target on your head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you had, uh, your, your one sea rat of fruit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was like your, that was, that was your, your go to. Indeed. And you carry one of those, two of those, something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you had, you had your extra mags in there, you got your extra m79 rounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had your army long sleeve sweater. You had a plastic rain jacket. Toilet paper even though you apparently never used it. Correct. But you could also use it to pack wounds. There you go. Uh, extra battery. For the, for the Prick 25 and the URC 10. Extra smoke grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, extra canteen of water, extra ration, and then you had your Claymore or Claymores with 5 and 10 second fuses.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And on top of that, the 22 caliber hush puppy on some operations. Sometimes, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all this when you'd weighed yourself, you'd be about 90 pounds heavier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that's a heavy loadout. I'll tell you right now, that's a heavy loadout. That is absolutely all of 90 pounds. When you start talking about 600 rounds of ammunition, we start talking about 10, 10 to 12 hand grenades. Smoke, smoke grenades are heavy as hell. They got all that material in them that smokes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I guess, like I said, and like you said, you're carrying all that firepower because of the operations. You're carrying a crazy amount of firepower because you're doing crazy operations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Awesome. Well, you know, that's a little over two hours right now, and uh, it's been a quick night. Yeah, indeed, indeed. But, uhm, you got any, you got any closing thoughts?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we'll, we'll bring you back on and we'll get, and I know you and I are talking about other guys that we're going to get to come on and all those stories of those heroes. We'll, we'll get them out there. Cause


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People want to know. I want to hear them. I want to know as much as I can about them and, and, and, you know, we'll get you back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you're on Twitter. You and Echo Charles, get me squared away. You're on Twitter. We haven't quite figured out Twitter yet, apparently. That makes two of us. Your old Twitter handle was at Sog Chronicles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your new Twitter handle is at John Strykermeyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, that's where it's at right now. Yes sir. That's right. Alright, so people will start trying to communicate with you on that. Good luck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the incredible thing about Twitter. Everybody has a platform. It's incredibly good, sometimes it's incredibly bad, but everybody has a platform. So, no, the cool thing about it is people have been, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talking to me and hitting me up and just thanking you for your service. Thanking you for coming on. Thank you for sharing the story so it'll be cool that they'll be able to actually thank you instead of just telling me to tell you thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanted to close out reading one last thing and this is your, your dedication for the book Sog Chronicles 1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it said, it says, this book is dedicated to the SOG men and their courageous indigenous team members who went across the fence into Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam during the eight year secret war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to the, and to the brave aviators and crew members of the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and our fearless allies from the 219th South Vietnamese Air Force's Special Operations Squadron, the legendary King Bee's who supported, who supported SOG teams on the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This book is also for every man in SOG and the aviators who made the ultimate sacrifice far outside the boundaries of conventional Vietnam war that America saw reported on the nightly news.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either on Saw Chronicles put a link to how people can support that cause. People will absolutely support that cause. Oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we'll do that. Absolutely. They deserve it. Yes, absolutely. We can make that happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Thank you. You're born. All right. Well, like I said, you have an open end invite on here anytime you want. You let us know we're here, uh, and we'll get some of your friends on and thanks for coming on yourself. Thanks for sharing your stories and most of all more than anything else. Thanks for your service and sacrifice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's, that's the definition that John Stryker-Meyer just gave you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would say, no, awesome, awesome to have, uh, John Streikermeyer on here, and just to hear him talk about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What human beings can do, right? What people, human beings can do. And it's interesting because you ever look at dogs and you think oh there's a little tiny Chihuahua and then there's like a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A German Shepherd. Yea. And you think those are the same animal? Yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Human beings. Same deal. Like, you look at John Stryker-Meyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's like a German Shepherd. Yeah. And then you got people running around their Chihuahuas. No offense against the Chihuahuas, but your Chihuahua's not gonna... Yes. ...fend off hordes. No, no. Chihuahua's not calling in airstrikes, danger close. No. So I guess my point is that human beings do have capabilities, and I think that when you listen to Tilt, you realize that I can probably do better. I know that's what I realize, I think. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can do better than I'm doing right now. I think I can push the envelope a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes sir, there is. Maybe sleeping without a ground pad is one of them. Yea. Maybe another one is training jujitsu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What about the days, what about sometimes when people don't want to train, they let the jujitsu window close, which we confirmed is a thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have a feeling sometimes when I change it to where I'm literally


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, kind of beside myself with how fun that just was. Oh yeaah, yeaah. And that's, sometimes I'm getting beat down and I'm thinking that sometimes I'm winning and I'm thinking, but either way I'm like, wow that was, it's kind of like, uh, a feeling that's very hard to, to,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made in America, yeaah. And just got a massive shipment of cotton. And I'm not, I'm talking not talking woven, I'm talking unwoven little strands of cotton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Check out, check out, check out the Instagram. There's palettes and palettes that are there, and it's just, you think, okay, this cotton is gonna get woven, and then turned into geese that I'm gonna


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of, and it's not even, it's not just cotton by the way, it's, it's a blended material. It's a modern, like a spool, but it's thick, a little bit thicker. Gotcha. And that all gets woven together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get your krill oil. Get your discipline. Get your discipline. Go. Get these things. They will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They will, they will make your life better. Oh yeaah. As crazy as that sounds. Yeaah. They will make your life better. As will... Mulk. Yes. And some people say, what is Mulk? And the answer is very clear. Mulk is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Moke is Moke. That's right. Moke is Moke. You can't just call it something. You can't call...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't call a knife by some other name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so you can't call MOLK. You can't say MOLK is something else. No, MOLK is MOLK.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so you can either call it that or you can call it mulk. It tastes like dessert and yet it's good for you and gives you protein. Strawberry is delicious. Mint chocolate chip, I had a, I had so much strawberry, I had to go back to mint and I was like, good lord, mint is crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you want? Mint chocolate chip ice cream milkshake or do you want a mint mulk? Oh, I'll take the mint mulk all day long.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Short and long term pay off. Peanut butter? Reese's cup?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if you're allowed to say Reese's cup, but that's basically what it is. Peanut butter Reese's cup, but it's peanut butter and chocolate. Molk. Tasty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What am I missing? Vanilla. I'm not a vanilla guy. I don't like the vanilla yogurt, I don't like the vanilla, the vanilla mocha's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, if you like vanilla, you're good. If you don't really like vanilla, you know, don't get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yea, for sure. And the thing that's cool about vanilla, I guess, is that you can do other things with it. Yea. Jason Gardner put it in your morning coffee. Yea. Hit it with the, he likes to say, hit it with the blender stick. Sure. Right? You know how some people like to say things?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there's Jason Gardner. So, and, and Jason Gardner's in great shape getting after it. So maybe it, uh, maybe it's a positive thing. And don't forget that there's Warrior Kid Moke. Cause do you want to feed your child poison?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do not. Okay, cool. Then you get a mulk. Do you want your kid to be miserable when they eat because what you're feeding them tastes disgusting?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. Okay, cool. So you could give him mulk and you're being healthy and you're taking care of your kid and you're actually being a good parent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Otherwise, you're neglecting your child's welfare. Don't do it. Get a mulk. Strawberry mulk. Chocolate mulk. Get some. That's true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll start to chafe your arms a bunch. Which is no big deal, but then you get like, you know, you're, if you're doing jujitsu, then you're starting to get little infection exposures going on, so just wear the rash guard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So basically what you're saying is get a rash guard from the Jocko store so that you're not weird to other people. That's what I just heard. Correct. Just to break it down. Correct. Simplify what you're saying. Also, subscribe to the podcast. Uh, as I was, uh, my kids, my children.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just by clicking the button. Don't worry about smashing. If you're gonna smash something, smash your next workout. Don't worry about the like button. Don't worry about the subscribe button. Smash a metcon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's never forget it. Never forget. It's hibernating a little bit. Sure. Some people have been commenting now. Yea. Somebody posted a picture of like someone that was like undead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And since I have just wrapped up a major project, I will have some time, hopefully before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It doesn't have to come back, it's there right now. You can go listen to an episode. It's not, that's there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, we got a YouTube channel if you wanna watch YouTube videos. If you're not getting inundated with enough YouTube videos, wasting your time watching videos of street fights.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Watching videos of car crashes. Watching videos of acrobatic people climbing around in the city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. These are the things, like, oh, you like to watch street fight videos. The thing is YouTube knows what you like to watch. So it just puts up, you know, uh, three on one jujitsu involved. I'm like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you want to see the videos that we put out. Otherwise, go watch some more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What should they replace all donut shops with? Steak houses.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you don't want the audio version of that, but you want a visual version, you can check out flipsidecanvas.com. Run by my brother, Dakota Meyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he makes things for you to hang on your wall. High quality things for you to hang on your wall. To remind you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of what it is that you're doing here. So check it out. If you have any suggestions, you can hit up Dakota on...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Social media, and tell them what you wanna see. So, there you go, flipsidecanvas.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What kind of a guy likes cool socks? I don't know. It's just, but there's a whole industry out there. Used to be, and for me it still is, socks means one thing. What? Para white socks. That's what socks means.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also we got some books, the books that were written by John Stryker-Meier, the books were written by Tilt, you can get those on Amazon, Across the Fence, The Secret War in Vietnam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the ground, the secret war in Vietnam, and SOG Chronicles Volume 1. Check those books out there. They're really amazing to read, especially, and they're kind of books that when you read them,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to actually slow down and think about what the hell is actually going on. Because when you think about what's actually going on,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll realize that what these guys were doing was just absolutely completely insane. So, check out those books. Also check out Way the Warrior Kid 3, Where There's a Will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you listen to JP Donnell, he says that these warrior kid books are a flank on the parent too. Dang.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, as is Mikey and the Dragons, which is a book for kids to learn how to overcome fear. So check those out. Then we've got the Disciplinical Freedom Field Manual.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which will tell you how to get after it. You don't need to ask. You can just get the manual. Wouldn't that be nice?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, you get that field manual and you're good to go. If you want the audio version of that, it's on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, and other MP3 platforms. And then of course you've got Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership, the two books that I wrote with my brother Leif Babin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talking about everything that we learned in combat and how you can take those lessons and you can utilize them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With your business, with your team, with your life. So check those out. Also we got Ashley on front. That's my leadership consultancy and what we do is solve problems through leadership.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every problem that exists in your organization is a leadership problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you need help fixing that leadership problem and thereby fixing the problems that you have inside your organization, go to AshtonOnFront.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Need further instruction. If you want something beyond this podcast, if you want to come to the muster, the muster is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go deep dive, get granular on leadership. The next one is September 19th and 20th in Denver. And then after that, it's December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia. Every single, we've done seven.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've all sold out. These are going to sell out too. So if you want to come go to ExtremeOwnership.com and sign up. And if you can't come to that, you can go to EFOnline.com and that's our


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Leadership, training, interactive, online platform. Where you can get the skills, you can reinforce the skills.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The skills that I talk about on this podcast, the skills that we wrote about in the books, those skills need


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Further training all the time. You never master these things. So go to efonline.com and check that out. And then there's of course, EF Overwatch, where we've been taking proven leaders, tested leaders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From special operations and from combat aviation and putting them into companies in the civilian sector that need leadership. So if you're looking to hire, don't always hire just because someone has experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Higher for character, higher for leadership capability.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you teach them the industry specifics. Cause that's easier than trying to teach someone character or trying to teach someone leadership. EFOverwatch.com if you need leadership. And if you want to converse with us further.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, we are on the interwebs. On Twitter, on Instagram, and on that shhhhhh. Feijibohash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the same thing goes for our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all first responders out there, you put your lives on the line to keep us safe. And we thank you for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might be scared and you might be tired and you might be surrounded by the enemy who is preparing to attack, but you know what? You're still alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looking forward to it. So, let's start at the beginning. Where'd you grow up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, South Carolina, a little town called Walhalla, uh, not far from Clemson University.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My father, yeah, my father was, uh, World War II in Korea. Uh, my mother had five brothers on World War II.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I was around it, you know, like from the start, cause our family was together a lot, so we had a lot of discussion, you know, about the war and things that were going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was always asking questions and how do you do this and how do you do that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do you organize? So I was interested, you know, right from the beginning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some of it. He didn't talk a whole lot about exactly what he did, but he would talk in general about what was going on, about the kinds of operations and things. What theater did you fight in? He was in Germany most of the time in that area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how long was he in the army for? Uh, army was about four years and then he got out. And then when Korea came along, then they called him back in. And that's really where I started to hear about it because I was old enough by then to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would hear people talk about Korea and about the war and uhm, I would, you know, he would write letters home and talk about how deep the mud was or how cold it was and things like that. So, uh, I was hearing about the war, you know, first hand then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And were you thinking, I'm going in the military?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was probably four or five when I started thinking about that. And interestingly enough, I did find my old log book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I also got interested in the rangers. I wanted to be a ranger when I went in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I found a log book that I created when...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had all the members of our arranger company listed, which was primarily my cousins. But uhm, you know, we had some other people we had recruited in. And uhm, we had the journal of things that we did. People who got promoted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the time I was six, I had an army pup tent that I would take up on top of a hill in the woods, put it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I sleep up there by myself that night, take some eggs and stuff with me, build a little fire, you know, cook. As I got a little older, had my BB gun, take out some birds, roast them over the fire. So, doing things like that, that I thought rangers did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was better than average on, on the team. I wasn't, you know, uh, college material, but, you know, cause I was relatively small, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I could hit really hard. Uh, my senior year, they even moved me from running back to defensive end, which I was on a line that weighed over 200 pounds and I was 140. You didn't want to come around my end. My other skill was, you know, I was very fast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when the quarterback had dropped back, he'd see me in his face because I could get there really quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I started college and after about a year and a half, you know, Vietnam was going hot and heavy. You saw it on the news every night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that's, that was when I think we discovered the North Vietnamese had a real army. And they were very good. Much better than anybody thought at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and over the next few years, I mean you, you could place them probably in the top four in the world in terms of, of armies. Uh, plus we were fighting in their backyard. They knew the terrain. They knew how to operate there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They didn't stop. They just keep coming. Their biggest disadvantage was they didn't have the technology that we did. They didn't have air superiority. Just a lot of things they didn't have that held them back or it would have been much worse than it was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I made a decision that what I wanted to do was take a break from school because Vietnam was going on. I felt an obligation, you know, to go do something, do my part. And actually was on my way to the Marine recruiter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that's who you saw on TV every night. But stopped by the army recruiter who was next door just to see what they had to offer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I went with the Army, and I knew that would give me a chance to do the Rangers if I decided that's what I wanted to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By then I was also a chemist. About 13, I developed a passion for chemistry. So in addition to all the outdoor stuff, you know, I was, I set up my own laboratory, uh, in the barn at home. I spent all my money, uh, on chemicals and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back in the day, you could, you could go into a pharmacy and buy all kinds of things. I mean, you could buy, you know, nitric acid and all, I mean, just unbelievable the chemicals, you know, you could buy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was getting close maybe to a successful brain exchange between birds and frogs. Uhm, I could get it in there, I just couldn't get them, you know, to start breathing again afterwards, so I have a lot of, a lot of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the intent was to be, uh, you know, get a doctorate in chemistry and be a researcher. But then, uh, I decided to take the break, do three years in the army, and then come back and finish the degree. So, so is it 1960?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, not as much as some of the other parts of the country, you know, but it was still there. It wasn't something that everyone thought we should be doing, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm just taking a three year break. I'll come back and finish the doctorate and everything will be fine. She said no you won't. I said yes I will. I'll be back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, uhm, when I got in, they started talking about, man, you gotta go to airborne school, you need to be airborne, uhm, and they said you need to go to OCS, you need to be an officer. So at what point?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They ask you day one when you go into an induction center. Do you want to volunteer to be airborne? My response was no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, when I first entered, first couple days, it was, you know, three years, I'm out, go back to school, be a chemist. Uhm, I guess it was maybe the first morning, we were in the barracks, and, you know, about 3.30, 4 o'clock,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lights come on, somebody starts yelling and screaming and hollering to get out of the, out of bed, fall in, you know, get in formation in front of the box, and then I hear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, when double bucks, I hear them start crashing onto the floor. Then I jump out and I look and here's this guy, smaller than me. He has a big, you know, smokety bear hat on, a Ranger tab. I said, wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And everybody there jumped when that guy said to do something and I said okay, I need to start rethinking here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, this guy was impressive and, and, you know, that brought back all the Rangers stuff. And it started to override the chemistry, you know, so then, then we get out, we're on the firing range, you know, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was an expert marksman before I ever, you know, went in. So, you know, I'd max out the marksmanship. Uhm, I was in, you know, good physical condition, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything they were doing I could do. I learned it really fast. One night I was on, uhm, CQ duty. I had to work in the orderly room with the person who was there all night. And I saw this book laying on the table.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This tells you everything about, you know, right face, left face, when to call the command, all the... I'd say it's all written out right here. I mean, if I'd had this book for the last couple weeks...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I read the book that night, you know, I read pretty fast. The next day, I could see the mistakes that the drill sergeants were making.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I was the, put in charge of my platoon, as a platoon guide, because, you know, physically, mentally, everything I was doing great. Uhm, so, I, I had a good time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I figured I can do this for three years. I can still go back and be a chemist if I want to. But they let you change. They let you stay. They said, okay, cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to change the infantry during Vietnam, it was no problem. No problem. Anybody that would volunteer for that, I mean, you got it right away. And then next up, how did you volunteer for airborne school? Same thing? Uhm, yeah, I mean, I just, I had an opportunity to volunteer. Uh, well, after boot camp, you go to,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in my case I went to Advanced Infantry Training. AIT. Yeah, so you, you know, and there you're volunteering for different things, so I volunteered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Neither that time. They're like, hey, you're smart. Lieutenants were getting killed so fast. I mean, they couldn't produce lieutenants fast enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, you know, Lieutenant had a life expectancy of about a day and a half in Vietnam. So, you know, that was easy to get in. And, you know, I did that. I did, you know, really well in OCS. So it was easy when I said, okay, I want to go to airborne school and I want to go to Special Forces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I had done well. I got accepted to that. So I had to... How old were you at this point? Uhm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I think it did a, it didn't prepare me for SOG necessarily. It gave me a lot of the basics. Special Forces is not just about going in and conducting a raid or something like that. It's really about going in and working with the people. We did a lot of training on insurgencies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Governments are overthrown, different things like that, so, uh, particularly since I was an officer, I was on the officer track, so, uhm, we were doing a lot of the bigger picture stuff, plus,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, coming, coming out of the qualification training, you go to be a weapon specialist or to be a medic or whatever. You, you go into a specialty area. Officers have to be trained in all of them so that you understand what the people are talking about if you're gonna lead them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, I enjoyed that. Did well in it. Volunteered for ranger school. And then you went to ranger school after? Went to ranger school after. So, a lot of harassment. My ranger buddy and I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'd been together forever, so we'd go there, uhm. And was that Bob? Yeaah, that was Bob. And we have to, you have to go knock on the door to get in, to report in to ranger school, and you can't knock on the door hard enough, so Bob and I got back and ran into it, and just knocked it off the hinges almost, and then reported in, and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the instructor that's there, he looked at us, he looked down at the paper, and he told the other guy that was with him, he said, we've got two snake eaters here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's, it's really infantry, but it's, uh, patrolling operations, um, raid ambushes, uh, all, you know, those kinds of things that we're doing in SOG.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, when I first got to SOG, when I went in with my group, uh, everybody that I arrived with,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Went to what they call the 1-0 school, the SOG team leader school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm standing there and everybody else is walking away and I say, what about me? And you don't need to go to one city or a school. You're a ranger. You're going to a team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, tomorrow you'll be on a team. So at what point did you hear about SOG?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You heard rumors, you know, when you're at SF at Fort Bragg, every once in a while somebody would mention the term SOG, and you'd say, what is that? What are they doing? Oh man, it's top secret. You know, nobody can tell you what it is, but they really do some really cool missions. I mean, that's the elite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But nobody can tell you what they really do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'd already, we were in, there was a little interim in there before Ranger School. Uh, so we were already assigned to an A team, to a B team. I was already targeted toward Africa and actually, uh, in mission preparation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I had volunteered to, I had put in the paperwork to go to Vietnam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, right after Ranger School, that came through. And you went to all these schools with your friend Bob? Yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How did you know him? Where did you guys meet? We, we met, uh, in advanced infantry training, right off the bat. So, I mean, it was, it was unreal. We just, every school, we had the same interests. So, I mean, we went to every school together, you know, the whole time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's a choice in the military, if there's a choice between


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sending someone to Africa or sending them to Vietnam, at that time Vietnam was going to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew I was going to Special Forces. I knew I'd get a Special Forces assignment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then when, when we got there, there was a, a guy who was already there working at a mic for us, but he was there in the, on the train. And so we linked up with him, we went to a bar that night, and you know, he kind of updated us on things that were going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one of the things he said was, uhm, tomorrow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Toward the end of the day, one of the last things they're gonna do is they're gonna ask you if you want to volunteer for SOG. And he said, whatever you do, don't do it. Just tell them no. They'll say thank you. And, you know, you move on to your Special Forces assignment. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The next day, toward the end of the day, where Bob and I were sitting in the office waiting to go in to see Colonel, you know, Jones or whatever, and he said, what are you gonna do? And I said, I'll make my decision, you have to make yours.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, this is not a joint decision on this thing, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I went in and he asked me about SOG, told me just a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then said, you know, if you want to do that, you have to sign a bunch of papers here. Uh, you volunteer in for six months, basically go anywhere, do anything. And you said, you gotta understand I'm saying anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. And then, you know, you have to sign this other thing. You can't tell anybody for 20 years, you know, what you do, stuff like that. So I volunteered. He sent me out the back door and brought Bob in the other door. I went back over to the little bar to meet up with our friend. And I came walking in and he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You did it. I can see it on your face. You are a dead man walking. I told you not to do that. And, you know, when Bob showed up, it was the same way. You could say, I knew he was going to do it. But, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, the chances of survival, if you ended up on a team, if you went to, you know, a staff position, it's a little different, but if you were on a team, you knew, at minimum, you were going to get wounded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had to fly from Nha Trang up to Da Nang.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the next day, because if you're going to Sog, you had to go to Da Nang. Uhm, so when we go to the airfield, they take us to a restricted area of the airfield. Uhm, and the C-130s and 123s that came into that part of the airfield were black.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get on, on the aircraft, and there are no seats. There are seatbelts on the floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So something was happening in the front of those planes that we were not allowed to go see. So we sat on the floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, we fly up there and we get off. Escort picks us up and he says, uhm, there'll be a bus here to pick you up in a few minutes to take you over to CCN.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The windows are shot out. There must have been 200 bullet holes in the bus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, we're looking at the bus thinking, oh jeez, what have we gotten into?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, the main thing for you two to remember is if...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The stuff starts, you get on the floor of the bus and do whatever the team tells you. They'll take care of everything. You just do what they tell you if you want to live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They assigned us to, uh, a bunk and told us that we would get briefed the next morning on what we were gonna do and told us just, you know, get something to eat in the mess hall, relax, there'd be a movie showing that night and we were thinking, a movie?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, they had constructed some kind of like bleachers out in this little open area, nailed up a few sheets of plywood, and had a movie projector, and they would get movies from somewhere, and they would show a movie out there. Uhm, so we went, let's go watch the movie. And behind that screen was Marble Mountain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Juts up out of the sand, 450 feet, just out of nowhere. This thing is jutting up there. And there's two peaks. Each peak up there has, uhm, a combat outpost on it. Because if the bad guys, you know, got up there, they could shoot right down into the compound.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, every night, they try to get the guys off the combat outpost and, you know, they put on a little light show up there. It'll be fine. They won't, they don't shoot down here because they're getting shot at and they shoot back at those people. Wow. Well, that's interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we went into the, to the headquarters, into the briefing room and, you know, the colonel came in and said, okay, let me, uh, let me tell you what SOG's about. Let me tell you what you're gonna be doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he uncovered some maps on the wall and started talking about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had heard rumors that maybe they operated outside of Vietnam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, so it didn't surprise me that much when he started talking about the countries we were going to actually go into. Uhm, the kinds of missions didn't surprise me too much. I mean, a few of them did, but uhm, for the most part it was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, yeaah, so I went to FOB1 at Fubi, uh, with a group of other people and when we got there, uhm, they grabbed everybody but me and said, you know, you guys are going to 1-0 school, uhm, so a week long course to teach them how to be a leader, small team in the jungle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were a few things that they probably got that I hadn't done already.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But not much. So I was assigned, or told I'd be assigned to a team the next morning. Told me to go report over to the supply room. They had a mission for me first that I needed to do. So when I got there, they told me that uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had had some casualties and that their personal effects had to be inventoried, you know, by an officer before they could be sent home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said, you know, their duffel bags are in there. You know, if you just dump them out, go through them, look for anything, uh, that might be classified.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's any correspondence in there, read it. Make sure it doesn't say anything about any of the missions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, get all the pictures out, uh, so pretty well, you know, sterilize their, uh, their gear. So, the first bag I picked up when I read the name, I thought, wow, you know, I know him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, this was a guy that uhm, you know, we had run around with some at Bragg, so I already knew him, and he came over, you know, about a month before me, and now I remember him doing his stuff. So, kinda got my attention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regardless of your rank and just, you know, say I'm here and I'm the team leader.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you had to, regardless of your rank, you had to go out as an assistant or, or, or lower and learn how to lead a team. Learn what's going on out there. Uh, and eventually get checked off by the team leader. He would, you know, like Sergeant Deck had to say, okay, Thompson can lead a team now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, myself, uhm, and, you know, Sergeant Deck, myself, and another American, and then, you know, we had probably nine, uh, indigenous members on the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the team. I mean, we just, we started training right away. Once I was assigned, you know, your deck grabbed me up and started talking to me. This is what you gotta do. Here's what I'm looking for. Here's where we're going, what we're gonna do. We took the team out. We started doing immediate action drills, uh, and in preparation for what we were gonna do on the mission. How long did you guys have to train before you guys rolled out on here?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very good for the interpreter, and the others, they understood some words, you know, the common words that you would use, get down, stop, you know, things like that, that you used all the time, but, I mean, you couldn't carry on a conversation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, this is real. So, totally fuck this. There's nothing else on my mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, we had a, we had a little theater there at Fubi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a little top on it so if it rained we didn't get wet but some old benches we were setting on, a piece of plywood the movie was on. So I went to a movie after a couple days they had one I went to the movie that evening and I'm sitting there and I hear this loud POW when the guy next to me falls off on the ground and I'm thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, cause we're, we're setting outside. We just have a little top on. He falls over on the ground, hitting the shoulder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Testing, among other things, in addition to just sending us on a mission that we're trying to figure out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was the best time to put a team on the ground? Should you put them in right at first light, so when you get off the aircraft, you can move out and, and head to wherever you're, you're gonna go, you, you're getting away from the LZ quickly, you know, because they, the bad guys would figure out that you've been inserted and they'd come out and start looking for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Orange was the best way to do it, go in at last light, so it's dark. You get off the LZ, you set up in your remain overnight position, and then head out at first light. So if the NVA or trackers are coming after you, then they were having to do it in the dark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so our team had been selected to be a last light insertion to see how that worked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, and I had already been briefed on some things like we go in high, we go in 3,000 feet or so when we're flying to the LZ to avoid the small orange fire coming up at us. And then when you get out there to the, to the LZ, he's gonna bank the aircraft on the side, and he's gonna put it in auto-rotate,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's just gonna fall out of the sky in a spiral until he gets to where he wants to make his short final coming into the LZ and then he'll put the power back on and slow it down and will come in. I was not quite prepared for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm just hanging out there in the air, holding onto the side of the aircraft, looking down 3,000 feet and saying, this is not good. You know, my stomach's up in my throat and it's like a thrill ride at the fair or something and this thing is falling. And I'm, I'm just trying to hang on and stay in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we spiral them down, we come around and we're coming in on a short final. It's on a ridgeline, uh, and they had dropped, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, what was called a daisy cutter, 2000 pound bomb, uhm, to blow a hole in the canopy big enough that we could set the helicopter down. And we're coming in, we're flying over a little pond on the ridge line and we're, and I'm


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, climbing out on the skid of the helicopter, myself, and the other American, the team leaders on the other side. So we're climbing out on the skid, and I'm thinking, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, we're going really slow, and I'm just a sitting target. I mean, they could just knock me off of this thing anytime. This is not, not good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we come up and we had to literally go straight down into the bomb crater. So the pilot's trying not to clip trees as we're setting down. It's just getting dark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're going in and myself and the other guy are on the skid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're close enough and he slowed down enough. I said, okay, this is it. We're going to have to jump on, you know, down into the bomb crater. I bent my knees to jump and just as I did, I saw this guy pop up on my right about 10 feet, you know, kind of off to the side with an AK-47.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just instantly, instead of jumping, I push back, jump back up on the edge of the helicopter, and just as I jump up, you know, he opens up with the AK, and then the bullets come right across where my legs were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I'm grabbing the back of his harness with my left hand, and I put a half a magazine in the guy, you know, that's right there. I hosed him down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I managed to jerk, you know, the, the other guy up onto the floor of the helicopter and then I could turn and put a, you know, I could just see muzzle flashes right in front of me so I put the other half of the magazine there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now I'm empty, you know, and when, when we'd go in, when you'd go in, you would have gunships who would come in alongside you. Uh, so in case something happened. So we're in a full-fledged ambush now all the way around us. Two copper gunships open up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm trying to pull him, I'm trying to pull him back up inside the helicopter. I've got the door gunner on my side, full blast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the Cobra's coming in and they're also shooting 40mm grenades at 250 a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we've got that going on. I've got two team members behind me using me for cover. So I've got a muzzle on each side of my head right here and I'm getting powder burns, you know, from the muzzle flashes coming out of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got hot brass coming from them, coming from the door gunner, going all over me. The floor is now covered with blood, blood squirting out of his legs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm, my magazine's empty. So I'm trying to get the magazine out of my, my pouch that I've got it in. And, you know, one of the things I talk about in the stress book is that when your stress level gets really high,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you lose your fine motor coordination. Things that you can do very easily when you're not stressed just don't work for you anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm trying, I'm having trouble getting the magazine out of the pouch to start with. I finally get it out and then I can't get it in the weapon. And I'm, I'm sitting there and I'm just seeing hundreds and hundreds of bullets and tracers coming. Green tracers crisscrossing inside the aircraft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, what kind of deal is this? I came over here to do something, so that little voice that's going on back there, and the other one's saying... Yeah, this is like 15 seconds into...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, it's right there, ricochets are going all over the place from, you know, from the, the cobras and things and, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the other guy's rolling around screaming, holding his leg, and you know, the blood squirting around. Uh, and you're also hearing this metallic clang. Just clang, clang, with the bullets hitting the helicopter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, you're thinking too, this thing's gonna go down. We're gonna end up in this bomb crater, right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so all of that's going on. I finally managed to get the other magazine, you know, in, so then I can start to shoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At, uh, you know, the muscle flashes that I'm seeing and, you know, the second time I go to reload I was a little better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, with that one. Got it in there a little faster. The aircraft's starting to really vibrate now because he's trying to lift up, you know, out of that little hole in the canopy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm thinking at least we're trying to start up, but this stuff is still coming. It's still hitting us. You've got the, you know, Covers making more raids and now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's also happening, I can't really see it, but the A1E Sky Raiders that are out there on station with us, they give us some protection. They're starting to drop


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 500 pound bombs just a little away from us because those little thatched roof huts that I saw out there as we were spiraling in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Turned out to have tanks underneath them. So they had just put that thatched stuff around and make them look like a, you know, a little hoots, but really it was tanks. So when the tanks started moving, you know, the Sky Raiders went after them and so you got


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the bombing and strafing of those guys going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You got the gunships shooting all around us. We're trying to come out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And eventually we managed to get up out of that hole. The fire just shifted and now the tracers are going up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as we pulled away from it, then, you know, that fire stopped because now the cover really opened up, you know, on the ambush site. And I look across at Sergeant Deck, sitting over on the other side, and he looks at me with a big grin on his face and giving me a thumbs up when I'm thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I experienced a level of fear that I didn't know existed. I mean, I had tried to imagine a lot about, you know, what's it like?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, when people start shooting at you, of course you're going to be a little anxious. So what is it going to be? I had no clue. I couldn't even imagine a level of fear like that. But, you know, fortunately,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was able to control that part of the field. I could still shoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It didn't stop me from returning fire and doing what I needed to do, but man, it scared me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, having those two weapons right next to my head, I mean my high frequency hearing was steadily going away, permanently. Getting burned, you know, with the muzzle flashes coming out of there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I killed my first two people, for sure, the guy down below and the first guy I shot at in the tree because I saw him come out. I know I took those two out and I hit several others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, save the first American's life, because if he had fallen in the crater...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It had been gone. A second later we'd have both jumped in that crater and we'd have both been gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, a couple minutes later I'm thinking, man, we got out of that, and I look down, and here comes a stream of tracers coming up out of a, what, 51 caliber or something. They were trying to hit the helicopter, they were, you know, away from us, but, uh, still, I think it's not over yet. I mean, we gotta get out of here and get back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I told, I told the door gunner, I said, you know, we gotta go straight to the hospital. You know, we gotta drop this guy off. Uh, he's gotta have medical attention right away. You know, so we did that. We dropped him off. Then we went back to the launch site, uh, to drop the team off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I asked Sergeant Deck, I said, uhm, I'm just curious, how many magazines did you fire when we were back there? And he said, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I emptied five, I had, I had the six put in. I was getting ready to start on that. I threw two fragmentation grenades and a smoke grenade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he said, Lieutenant, you need to practice so you get faster reloading when people are shooting at you or you're gonna die. I said, okay, I'll practice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's, you know, and that's part of the problem with training.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You train to get a good sight picture, sight alignment and all that and you squeeze the trigger and hit your target that's not shooting back at you and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you get in a firefight like that, and your stress level skyrockets, and when it does, you can't see the sights on a weapon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you trained to use those sites, and now all of a sudden, you, your vision changes as the stress goes up. You can't focus on the sites. So you can't, you can't do it the way you trained. Uh, you can't reload the way you trained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You train to turn sideways and shoot, and all of a sudden when all the stuff is coming at you, your body, your brain takes over and says, face the enemy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you gotta train to shoot at the enemy. You gotta train to shoot, uh, without aiming, so to speak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, pretty extensive course on something that we call quick kill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And shot at little miniature silhouettes on a two by four. Shooting from the hilt with a BB gun until you could knock them all down. And then we started throwing a disc up in, you know, a three inch disc up in the air and you shoot with a BB gun until you could hit that moving disc.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the disk would get smaller and smaller and then we would go onto a course where the targets popped up and it was live fire in terms of, you know, you were using your weapon and shoot from the hip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you can hit all the targets. So we practiced, uh, a lot. And with the teams that I had, I just drilled it in their head. You've got to be able to shoot without aiming. You don't have time to bring up and try to look through a site. It's happening too fast. You'll be dead before you can get it up there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there were a lot of techniques that I had brought in, that I had learned before I got here. And then, you know, kind of developed across time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Always train the teams, do this, do it like this, this quick. Uh, one of the NCOs had told me, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody is the enemy. You don't have to worry about shooting a friendly by mistake. They're all enemy. And the person that shoots first has the highest probability of surviving. Pull the trigger and never, ever shoot anybody less than three or four times. And if he still moves, you shoot him three or four more times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no one shot and move to the next guy. You make sure they go down. So that was kind of the strategy I adopted and practiced to be able to do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can, I can go from the safety position on the selector switch to fully automatic faster than most people can pull the trigger with the safety already off. I used to practice that. I used to practice it going down. I also discovered that with an AK-47, as soon as they start to shoot after the barrel rises,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they don't hit you with that first or second round, if you can get down, you got a chance to survive. And I used to practice shooting on the way down. And put silhouettes out, hit them all before I hit the ground as I'm going down. I'd empty that magazine. So, anyway, that's kind of getting off track here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What should we have done? What should we have trained on beforehand? What did we do there? Were we prepared for an ambush like that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was there anything else we could have done? So I was playing...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, through our preparation, play in my, in my mind through what we actually did. Uh, what could we do differently next time? So...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my mind, you gotta get better every time. Every time you do something, you need to be better than the last time that you did it. You need to understand it's gonna, you're gonna always have to adapt. Whatever you plan, you're gonna have to adapt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] War is just, it's not predictable. The predictability is that it's going to change. And you've got to be able to do that and do it on the fly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've used up more lives than a cat just during that time period. You used up nine lives that night. I never thought that I would. Those two minutes. I never thought I'd see my 21st or 22nd birthday. No way. You just can't get there from here. Okay, so there you go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm going to take as many of you with me as I can. You might get me, but you're going to pay for it. I'll be really upset if you knock me off with the first round and I don't get a chance to get some of you, but you better, you better do it quick. Cause I want to take as many as I can with me. Cause I'm, I'm coming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean why would you drop a 2,000 pound, one 2,000 pound bomb out here on a ridgeline and not do anything else? Unless you're coming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were a lot of things like that I thought about, you know, once I got back, you know, I was making a list. Uhm, unfortunately, I shared some of my lists with the commander of the camp, because he was excited and telling me, uh, I told you we could get you out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me share some thoughts with you. Unfortunately, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I probably had talked to Mr. Jack Daniels too much before I had that conversation, and I shared a little too much of my thoughts. He wasn't exactly, you know, happy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I still think they're right, you know. You put one, like you said, you put one day's gutter out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, why don't we put up a flag for everybody to say, hey, you're coming here soon, you know. Uh, alright sir, then what's the next mission looking like?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, let's see, then I think the next one, the next one we actually had to spend the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, we did a lot, a lot of planning, uh, and at this point, you know, Sergeant Decks starting to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listen, you know, I've got more credibility now. I've been shot at. And, you know, we did okay. Uhm, so we, we put a lot more planning into it, a lot more rehearsal into it. And went in, got on the ground, uneventful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and when you would get on the ground, uh, you would, you would move a hundred meters or so into the jungle. You would stop, set up a security perimeter, and then you adapt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you listen? Do you hear any bad guys? What do you hear? You gotta adapt to the sounds of the jungle for, because the last 45 minutes, an hour, all you've heard is this wop, wop, wop of the helicopter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, so you've had a temporary threshold shift in your hearing. You can't hear as good. You can't smell as good because you've been smelling the JP-4 and the helicopter all the way out there. So you have that security halt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you adapt to the sounds. What's out there? What do you hear? What do you see? Uhm, in my case, I was very fortunate that, uh, I had spider senses, so to speak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I didn't quite have spider hearing after that first little episode, uh, but I still, I still had the rest of it. I mean, I, I could smell ya. In more than one case, I sniffed out an ambush. I could smell him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Late afternoon, but yeaah, it wasn't the last light thing again. You know, so we had time to move for a ways and then, you know, eventually stop, you know, for the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And typically what we would do is, uhm, do like, we call it a fish hook. You'd move along a little ways and then you would make a turn and you would come back down 50 meters or so. So if someone was tracking you, you'd hear them go by because they're following your trail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and I would put, very quickly I learned to put out, uhm, what we call tow poppers. It was a little small anti-personnel mine, uh, plastic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I had C4 in it and it would take your leg off or most of your leg if you stepped on it. And I had a lot of experience in the woods. I know how people are going to track you. I know where they're going to walk. I know where they're going to step. And particularly if there's a log,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For someone to have to go across, they'll always step right on the other side of it. And that's where I'd put it. You know, I'd put it right where they're gonna step and I'd cover it back up. And sometimes I'd put my foot, just a light footprint on top of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Typically they would open fire. They didn't know where you were. They'd just start spraying the woods. But you know, you're way back here. They're up in front of you now. So that gives you a chance to decide if you're gonna move out or not. So anyway, we set up in the jungle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The jungle just swallows you as it starts to get dark. It just closes in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All around you, and if you're under...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, double canopy jungle, it gets dark fast. If you're under triple, it's pretty dark during the daytime. But at night, you can't see anything. It's just totally dark. And I was thinking, as it was getting dark,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, at first I thought I'm a little nervous because I can't see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though I had just, you know, I had tremendous night vision. Like an owl. But I couldn't see. And then I thought, they can't see either.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the differences between us and them is we're not moving. They have to move without making any noise. And if they make any noise, we know where they are. We know they're out there. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's out there? What sounds do I hear? What bugs do I hear? What noises do I hear?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'd take the next quadrant and the next quadrant until I'd gone all the way around. So I knew the sounds in all four quadrants. And then I would raise it up because up above you, I mean you got birds, you got monkeys, you got different things that were happening in the trees, different sounds up there. And you, you incorporate all this together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now you're used to a particular level of noise in each one of these quadrants. And then the sound of silence with the trigger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I developed, you know, to where I could actually wake up if any quadrant went quiet, it would wake me up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If anybody moves in one of those quadrants, the bugs in that area will stop chirping. They'll just get quiet all of a sudden. And if they get quiet, something is out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that alerts you, you know, where they're coming from. And it might be a tiger, you know, it might be, you know, some other large animal, but something just stopped them, scared them. Uhm, so I said, you know, the darts my friend, they can't see me. And I've got area weapons out there, claymores.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can set off the claymore. They see a big ball of fire and I take out a bunch of people, uh, but they don't know where I am.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, you know, the next level of the fried grenades, you throw a grenade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Big ball of fire, a lot of fragments, but they don't know where it came from. So they still don't see it. As long as you don't pull the trigger on the weapon, they don't know where you are. So, I decided this is pretty cool when it gets dark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the rule was, once you're down, you're down. You do not move again until morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because any body moving is a bad guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we would, we would all position ourselves so that, you know, I could reach Echo over here, uhm, or the guy on the next side of me to wake him up or alert him something was happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Echo's arm's so big I can't really do this, but if I could have your arm, if you want to wake somebody up without terrifying them,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Grab em right there and just slowly squeeze.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you just slowly squeeze like that, what you'll see is their eyes start to open up. And they just come to. And, you know, and we train to do that. So people knew, if you get squeezed, you open your eyes. That's the only thing you move. Start listening. What do you hear?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes we drop down to 30%, but I mean, I know teams, everybody goes to sleep, but I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not with me. I'm not going there. Somebody's going to be awake when we're here. And, you know, sometimes you had to sleep. You wouldn't sleep on top of the ridge. You had to get off on the side and you try to get into a thicket. You try to get into a steep area. So you learn to sleep straddle trees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you straddle it so you won't slide on down the hill at night. Uhm, it's a little uncomfortable at first. You gotta get set up right, but once you do, uhm, you know, you can sleep like that. Keep your arms through your rucksack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, you could put your hands on it real easy and turn it and shoot it if you had to. You had your knife where you could access that, you know, easily, quietly, in case you needed it. So, and then, nobody


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, it sounds a little crazy. It sounds a lot crazy. One of the things you have to understand about a SOG team is SOG teams were small.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they carried a really big stick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and sometimes an hour, but man, you had a big stick, because, uh, if you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Engage the enemy. As soon as you transmitted the word prairie fire, uh, over the radio, everything flying within range of that team was diverted. Everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any aircraft that had ordnance on it, any mission that was going on was set aside, it all came to you. It was unbelievable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a mission one time where I had 14 Cobras in orbit waiting on their turn to come in because I had to bring them in, in between the L4s that were coming in and the Sky Raiders that would come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, it was just unreal, you know, what would show up once you got in trouble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Night time? Uhm, you could do some at night time, but you know, we didn't have the night vision, the aircraft didn't have the technology that they have today, so night time was a problem for them.