Pod Insights Jocko Podcast 258: Impossible Missions Across The Fence in Vietnam, with Kingbee Pilot, "Cowboy" Khanh Doan About this episode 0:00:00 - Opening
0:06:13 - Across the fence with Cowboy Khanh Doan.
2:51:27 - Final thoughts and take-aways.
3:01:47 - How to stay on THE PATH.
3:23:53 - Closing Gratitude.
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Transcript 29,803 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is Jocko Podcast number 258 with me Jocko Willink.
0:07 Jocko Willink? Several AK-47s opened fire before the King B's wheels touched down. Nonetheless, Black and the remaining three Vietnamese ST Alabama team members exited the H-34. As the King B lifted off, the NVA gunfire increased significantly and moments later, the laboring Sikorski H-34 crashed.
0:31 Jocko Willink? Although this was Black's first SOG mission into prairie fire, he knew the odds were stacked against ST Alabama. He and Cowboy argued vigorously for an immediate extraction. The team had been compromised. The element of surprise was gone. The other American who had not gone through special forces qualification course at Fort Bragg remained silent. "No," said the new 1-0. "I'm an American. No slant-eyed son of a bitch is gonna run me off." Watkins offered the 1-0 a chance to extract. The offer was declined. The team was to continue. The team leader ordered the point man to walk down a well-traveled trail away from the LZ into the jungle.
1:17 Jocko Willink? Black, Cowboy, and the point man, Hoa, argued against heading down the trail. The first rule of recon was to never use trails, especially well-traveled ones. The 1-0 pulled rank and ordered the team to move down the trail with Hoa leading the way and the elder Green Beret following a short distance behind him.
1:40 Jocko Willink? The trail wound into the jungle and curved to the left. ST Alabama moved cautiously. As the team went down the trail, it moved parallel to a small rise on its right that was about 10 to 20 feet above the team. On it, the NVA Colonel had quickly assembled a force of 50 NVA soldiers who set up a classic L-shaped ambush.
2:03 Jocko Willink? The quiet of the early morning jungle was shattered when the NVA troops opened fire with their AK-47s and SKS rifles. The AK rounds ripped into the point man's chest and face. The fatal impact of those rounds lifted the canteen covers around his waist, appearing to keep his body suspended in air. What had been a human body milliseconds earlier was being chewed into an amorphous form that hit the ground with a sickening thud. Arterial blood spurted high into the air. Three rounds slammed into the 1-0's head, blowing off the right side of his face, killing him instantly. Nothing could prepare ST Alabama for the grisly horror unfolding at that moment.
2:47 Jocko Willink? The 1-1 buried his face in the dirt and started praying. Black and the remaining ST Alabama team members returned fire. The Green Beret stood there firing on single shot, picking off NVA soldiers on top of the rise. He loaded his Kar-15 and went down the line, shooting them one after another. Sometimes they spun, and he shot them a second or third time. As the NVA continued to fire on the team, Black and Cowboy formed the team into a circle and directed a barrage of M79 grenade rounds and Kar-15 fire into the surrounding jungle. Then, startling eerie silence. Black thought he was in his grave.
3:28 Jocko Willink? ST Alabama was in a low spot with the ground rising 10 to 20 feet on both left and right. Both the NVA and ST Alabama tended to their wounded, while the living combatants slammed loaded magazines into their hot weapons. There was moaning and groaning, human suffering on both sides. Black got on the PRC-25 to tell Covey about ST Alabama's tragic turn of events. Black and Tho scavenged weapons and ammo from the dead ST Alabama team members. Fortunately Covey was still airborne. Black reported that he had two KIA's and two WIA's and was surrounded by NVA troops.
4:11 Jocko Willink? Covey responded, "You're not a doctor, nor for that fact a medic. You can't determine who's dead or alive. Bring out all bodies for verification of death."
4:23 Jocko Willink? Then, more than 100 NVA regulars opened fire on ST Alabama as enemy troops had reinforced the initial ambush unit. By now, the NVA were two rows deep. The front row fired AK-47s. The second row threw grenades or fired RPGs. Now that is a story from the book Across the Fence by John Stryker Meyer, also known as Tilt. It's a story of October 5th, 1968, a special forces SOG mission over the border into Laos.
5:06 Jocko Willink? The story is also covered in the book Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which is by Lynn Black, codename Black Jack. And for a variety of reasons, Lynn was not able to join us on the show, but through Tilt and his friends in the special operations community, we are absolutely honored to have with us tonight Khan Cowboy Doan, a Vietnamese soldier that fought for freedom alongside American special forces soldiers from SOG. Khan, thank you for joining us. It's an honor to have you here.
5:46 Speaker 01 My pleasure.
5:49 Jocko Willink? And also joining us once again is John Stryker Meyer, the man himself, Tilt, a special forces soldier and member of SOG who has been on the podcast before, 180, 181, 182, 186, 247, and 248. Good to be back, sir. Good to be here with Cowboy. Thank you. Khan, it's awesome to have you here. And so your nickname is Cowboy? How do we get the nickname Cowboy?
6:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, one mission, I have a code name for radio contact. They put me name Cowboy. And then a last up guy, it going, I still survival.
6:35 Speaker 01 So my man, a American man called me Cowboy from then.
6:41 Jocko Willink? It's a good name.
6:41 John Stryker Meyer? We always called him that in camp. Nobody called him Connor. It's like, hey Cowboy, we knew who Cowboy was.
6:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, kind, a little bit difficult to pronunciate or by American. So it easy or, you know, like for friendly say, hey Cowboy at all the time. Even my commanding officer, Bill Shaton, Major Snell.
7:09 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
7:09 Speaker 01 Call, when we got information, every single morning, call me Cowboy. Everybody will know who I was and.
7:24 Jocko Willink? Well, that's awesome. Before you became Cowboy, what, let's go back to your, you know, where you're from, where you grew up, what that, what that was like. A lot of, a lot of Americans, we don't know what that's like, uh, growing up in, in Vietnam. So what, what year were you born?
7:40 Speaker 01 I was born from North Vietnam, the Ninh Bay, Pro Bay. And then I was very young. I don't know anything. But nineteen fifty-four, my family moved to the South in order, the communists took over North Vietnam. We immigrated to the South and we living in Saigon for two years. My family moved up to Dalat City, you know, Dalat, the high central, they're very nice city.
8:20 John Stryker Meyer? Beautiful.
8:21 Speaker 01 Beautiful and the weather it like the, just normal. And you can see the, you can see Dalat like the young lady, like nineteen or twenty years old. You like it. So we living there.
8:41 Jocko Willink? What was it like when, before you left, what was it like when the communists came and took over?
8:45 Speaker 01 Over the North Vietnam.
8:47 Jocko Willink? What was that like for your family? What did it, what did they do? What did that seem like? What happened?
8:54 Speaker 01 I don't know because I was young. But I understand after that that the communists want to kill everybody. And they want to collect, you know, property from their citizen. To build, you know, like the communist party. And that's why my fam- my family moved from north to the south. What was your father's job? What did he do? Uh, actually, I still, now I still don't understand what he did.
9:33 Speaker 01 He only the businessman. He was in the business of business. Businessman. Yes. And he moved down to the south. He businessman, but inside, you, you know, the, uh, the back rise. The gun in there, but I don't know who, who he was. Okay. And sometime he be the taxi driver. Okay. And motorcycle driver to take care of the people. But I understand, now I understand, like he is spy. Now he work under, undercover, anywhere, anytime.
10:19 Speaker 01 And nineteen sixty-three.
10:24 Speaker 01 President Nguon Jim.
10:28 Speaker 01 You know him? He was assassinated. Before Kennedy. Before Kennedy, yes. And I, I, I strong believe that he worked with him.
10:40 Speaker 01 And after revolution, revolution from the, uh, from the, uh, Vietnamese army.
10:51 Speaker 01 They put my father in jail.
10:54 Speaker 01 Because he worked for the old government, he worked for the president Jim.
11:00 Speaker 01 At that time, I was like the, uh...
11:05 Speaker 01 Twelve years old, thirteen years old. I still don't understand it.
11:12 Speaker 01 But when I visit him, the time he was in jail, I learned something.
11:20 Speaker 01 I learned something about him. And
11:26 Speaker 01 I'm thinking about, you know, what I'm trying to do to pay back the people, you know, debt to my father.
11:37 Speaker 01 And then
11:40 Speaker 01 he in jail. But he very smart man. He told me, American gonna go to Vietnam.
11:52 Speaker 01 When I was young, I study French. And then when he in jail, he say, hey, I better learn English. Because he understand American gonna come to Vietnam. And study, I I'm study English at the time. Lucky for me, it, uh, my family very close to, you know, they use it, that mean Vietnamese American Association. So I study from them. And then my father still in jail. And my family, you know, the economic, it, it going down a lot.
12:39 Speaker 01 So I try to survive
12:42 Speaker 01 by myself and for my family.
12:46 Speaker 01 And I'm very lucky when I study English, my teacher, he's American.
12:55 Speaker 01 He understand my situation and my family. And he advise me to join to the army.
13:06 Speaker 01 And I but I be I I don't know about him too, but he probably nice guy.
13:12 Jocko Willink? Uh huh. Meaning you don't know what his actual job was?
13:18 Speaker 01 He only teacher.
13:19 Jocko Willink? Just a teacher?
13:20 Speaker 01 Yes, a teacher. But I thought in my mind. He was.
13:25 John Stryker Meyer? He do extra work for the government sometime.
13:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, he something.
13:29 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
13:31 Speaker 01 He gotta go, you know, to pick up the who's the bad guy or who's the good guy? Because in the class, he had he all the all the time ask where where your family? What he uh what what happened, you know, or a situation in my family? About the money, about, you know, how do we survive? He he learn from us a lot from the student. And I believe, you know, after that, he pick up the student to become, you know, the the employee for the US government. That's what I talk right now.
14:10 Jocko Willink? Oh, so he was a recruiter looking for good people that will do a good job fighting for
14:17 Speaker 01 Or like your people and good man or do something or smart man. That the way I'm talking about my teacher.
14:28 Jocko Willink? So when you, when he told you to join the army, how did you feel about that idea?
14:32 Speaker 01 Oh. He showed me the uh
14:37 Speaker 01 the movie.
14:40 Speaker 01 P T one oh nine. Yeah, P T one oh nine.
14:43 Jocko Willink? About JFK?
14:44 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
14:44 Speaker 01 Yes.
14:45 Jocko Willink? Okay.
14:46 Speaker 01 And in the class, you know, he showed the movie. He say you wanna be John App Canada, I said, why not?
14:56 Speaker 01 And not only one time he asked me, he asked me a lot.
15:02 Speaker 01 And he know something going on to my family. And he can read. What are gonna do? Say, just join to the army. But I said, I don't know anything about it. That's what he told. And he called my friend, another friend, say, take him to the, uh, join with the special force. I said, what the hell, this special force? The people crazy? Because the Vietnam war, we understand situation like you know now the marine or you know coast guard. You know, like infantry, you like airborne.
15:47 Speaker 01 So you know who's the one, which one the hero? And I don't know anything about it. Say, try it, try it.
15:58 Speaker 01 And they written letter to Saigon, to pastor, to, uh, to SOG headquarters.
16:05 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, headquarters.
16:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, headquarters.
16:07 John Stryker Meyer? On pastor street in Saigon.
16:08 Speaker 01 Pastor Street, Saigon.
16:08 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
16:09 Speaker 01 And I say, yeah, I, I, I go.
16:12 Jocko Willink? So how, how old were you at this time?
16:14 Speaker 01 I seventeen.
16:18 Speaker 01 Seventeen.
16:19 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
16:20 Jocko Willink? And what year was it?
16:21 Speaker 01 Uh, nineteen sixty-six.
16:23 Jocko Willink? So nineteen sixty-six, you're seventeen years old. And you send, or they send a letter to SOG telling that they've got a good recruit.
16:31 John Stryker Meyer? He speaks English. And as a hot commodity, we need a good English speakers, interpreters.
16:36 Jocko Willink? Did you have any idea what you were getting into?
16:39 Speaker 01 No.
16:39 John Stryker Meyer? No.
16:40 Speaker 01 No. I don't know, but you know, when we were young, we're gonna be hero. We're gonna be, you know, like stronger more than another one.
16:51 John Stryker Meyer? Like JFK.
16:52 Speaker 01 So I just join it like JFK. John F. Kennedy can do everything. Didn't, at the time, you know, he from this one, he swim to another Iceland. I love it.
17:05 John Stryker Meyer? Saved his man, took his man in, saved him.
17:07 Speaker 01 Handsome guy.
17:09 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
17:11 Speaker 01 I like him very much. So that's why I'm joining.
17:17 Jocko Willink? So what was your view of America at that time? You must have had a pretty positive view of America. You knew you were going to join the army and you were gonna support the American efforts there.
17:28 Speaker 01 I don't pay attention to anything. I just want to join and join. Do it, whatever they need to me to do it.
17:37 Speaker 01 And he's, you know, the, my man. Actually, you know, my, on behalf of my father. You know, most of them, like a Ton, Kai, Kao, everybody in my village, I mean, the county.
17:54 Jocko Willink? These are, we're talking about the Nungs, the Chinese.
17:56 Speaker 01 So they know who I was. They know who am I. So they work together. We work together at all the time in the camp. So that's why I can go with the Frenchman team.
18:09 Jocko Willink? Right, on Virginia.
18:10 Speaker 01 I go with the Rose Island team. I go with the Mississippi team.
18:15 Jocko Willink? Alaska before it becomes Alabama.
18:18 Speaker 01 I go anywhere because they say, hey, Cowboy, you're a good man. We need to learn from him. So that's why, you know, I like to go with him, with them. Because on behalf, you know, the attitude, my fam- my family and my father to their family. So we work together all the time. Even he, one day I just, you know, vacation, I want a vacation. He say, hey Cowboy, tomorrow I gotta go. You gotta go with me. I said, yes, I do. And then I quit my vacation. I go with the team. So to training each other, to learning from each other.
19:02 Speaker 01 I'm not saying, you know, I'm a good man, but my experience.
19:09 Speaker 01 When I was young, I'm in younger with my family. We work farmer.
19:15 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
19:15 Speaker 01 So I'm, you know.
19:17 Jocko Willink? Strong.
19:17 Speaker 01 Look skinny, but strong.
19:20 Jocko Willink? Right.
19:20 Speaker 01 And sometime, sometime, you know, I'm, I'm thought, we gotta do it, we gotta do it. You can see my hand here. Scare.
19:32 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
19:33 Speaker 01 It, I can cut the bullet.
19:39 Speaker 01 Throw right to the enemy. So.
19:43 Jocko Willink? Catching bullets, cowboy catching bullets. Got the scars to prove it.
19:46 Speaker 01 Okay, see here, I got wounded, yeah, I got wounded everywhere in my body, but I still survival.
19:54 Jocko Willink? And I'll tell you, you're lucky you were skinny, because if you were any bigger, those bullets would have, would have hit worse spots.
20:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:02 Jocko Willink? You were hard to shoot at.
20:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're right, not big like a him. When I saw him, the first I saw now the him, he said, hey, this guy too big. And he foot it longer.
20:16 Speaker 01 That's what Sal said. Yeah. Normally American, the big guy like you and like him, but you know, when we there, we very skinny and a small one.
20:27 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
20:28 Speaker 01 Like a hundred, hundred and twenty pound or a hundred pound, you know, look, look at hey, that's a baby son, right? Right. That American call my people, they baby son. Little people. Yeah, little people. Yeah. Affectionate term.
20:44 Jocko Willink? Yeah, yeah, and but you grew up in the jungle, so for you, being in the jungle was just, just normal, that's just.
20:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:52 Jocko Willink? Nothing to get used to, you're just, that's the way you lived, that's the way you grew up, so that's a real advantage.
20:58 Speaker 01 Yes. And he spoke English.
21:00 Jocko Willink? Unlike the round eye over here.
21:03 Speaker 01 The city slicker. I can, I can, I know, honor to tell you, we can smell V C, this smell.
21:14 Speaker 01 Because when we go land down the jungle.
21:16 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
21:17 Speaker 01 They got a flower, right? They got a plant, the rice, or they got a plant, own kind of thing in the jungle.
21:24 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
21:25 Speaker 01 We know, we can imagine, say, what they gonna do where the, they live it and where their post guard. Where the hospital and we, we can smell it.
21:41 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
21:42 Speaker 01 And then my six hand can withstand.
21:47 Speaker 01 How communist activity there. They can grow up, they can do anything because we we are local people.
21:56 Jocko Willink? Right.
21:57 John Stryker Meyer? That's why the Green Berets love our indigenous people.
22:01 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
22:02 John Stryker Meyer? The Nungs, like you said, he could smell, they had the extra sense that we never had, particularly somebody like me, a city slicker. That's why people like him are number one and they kept us alive.
22:12 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
22:13 John Stryker Meyer? In the jungle, we we yielded to them. They always ran point, not us.
22:19 Speaker 01 That because we local, local, local people there. And we can smell different, like the bird. Whack, whack, whack, or chicken. Whack, whack, whack. We we can comparison right away. Inside the jungle, if you see it quiet. That mean nobody move.
22:40 Jocko Willink? Right, that's a problem.
22:41 Speaker 01 That's a problem.
22:42 John Stryker Meyer? Trouble is close.
22:43 Speaker 01 We understand exactly right. I always say, hey, keep your fucking head down.
22:51 Speaker 01 I'm sorry. But that's true.
22:54 Jocko Willink? Sometimes people need to keep their fucking heads down.
22:57 John Stryker Meyer? That's the fucking truth.
23:00 Speaker 01 But it true. I'm not tell you liar, you know. And then.
23:06 Jocko Willink? What was the training like that you went through to get you ready to work with the special forces team? Did you go into the regular army? Did they process you into the regular army or did they just take you up to one of the, one of this, one of the C C N or something?
23:21 John Stryker Meyer? Camp Duck, which was, you first went to Camp Duck. That was the first SOG training base was up I Corps. And Camp Duck was open, had bad weather, but that's where they did the initial training.
23:33 Speaker 01 Next to allow border.
23:35 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, very close to the border.
23:37 Jocko Willink? How long did they train you for?
23:40 Speaker 01 Long time, even now.
23:45 Speaker 01 When they send you there, you're free to do. It mean not in the law, not in the morning, wake up six o'clock. Whatever they needed to train it, they call you. One or two P A M or one A two P M. And they let you free. I mean, uh, tomorrow, we gotta go range. Arrange many times. Arrange and then what what do you think when we you got young? The first time you carry gun. We got it like a ten, you know, box of the bullet. Right. We go there, we sit it free.
24:31 Speaker 01 Only my friend say, hey, how to. Work the weapon. How to work the weapon and then next day we gotta go range to fire. How to clean the weapon and. Yes.
24:44 Jocko Willink? Would you were you carrying an A K or you carrying a car fifteen?
24:48 Speaker 01 Okay, the first thing when I enjoy what enjoy it, enjoying that only carbine.
24:54 Jocko Willink? Okay.
24:55 Speaker 01 And then later carbine M one and M two. And then after that, they change to uh, Swede and K. Swedish K.
25:07 Jocko Willink? Swedish K.
25:08 Speaker 01 Swede and K and then Stan.
25:11 Jocko Willink? Oh, the Stan.
25:11 Speaker 01 Stan gonna have both. Stan the silent, you know.
25:16 Jocko Willink? Yeah, the magazine out the side.
25:18 Speaker 01 Yes.
25:18 Jocko Willink? Okay.
25:19 Speaker 01 And later on, we move to the full buy, we usually M sixteen. A R fifteen. And then the car fifteen. And then M sixteen and a car fifteen.
25:33 Speaker 01 Cause they are hard to come by. Mm hmm. But we we training every weapon like a motor eighty two sixty. Put on, you know, right here. On the leg, yeah. To to punch to the enemy. Sure. We train whole kind of weapon or B forty, M seventy two.
25:54 Jocko Willink? And were these special forces, American special forces soldiers that you guys were in charge, or some group was in charge of training?
26:00 John Stryker Meyer? Yes, that was a camp at Camp Duck, it was the first camp, so so many early SOG guys were there, and that was part of the recruitment that came through Saigon. And that's why I cowboyed and ended up there. And it was training, and plus the camp was so close to the border, you had self-defense at night.
26:16 Jocko Willink? Yes.
26:16 John Stryker Meyer? There would be, there would be pods, and the NVA attacked the camp several times prior to May 68, when the camp got overrun.
26:24 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
26:25 John Stryker Meyer? And it was, there's a whole book about that called Bait. And after that, they closed Camp Duck, and by that time, Alabama was already at FOB-1. When they closed Camp Duck.
26:36 Speaker 01 We moved Camp Duck and then we jump over to FOB-1.
26:41 John Stryker Meyer? I get there in May of 68, late of May, McIntyre, and these guys came in with his team. And of course, you want to tell them about Alaska.
26:49 Speaker 01 Alaska, yes.
26:50 Jocko Willink? Yeah, what happened with ST Alaska?
26:52 Speaker 01 They blow out.
26:54 John Stryker Meyer? Everybody was killed except for the 1-0, John Allen, who escaped. And he came, he needed for two days, and they caught, and one of the helicopter pilots brought him back, and they said, "We want to change the name of the team." They changed it from Alaska to Alabama. And then Tim Schaaf was the 1-0 when they were training.
27:14 Speaker 01 John Allen, John Allen.
27:16 John Stryker Meyer? John Allen first.
27:17 Speaker 01 Davis.
27:18 John Stryker Meyer? Dave, I forgot about Davis, yes.
27:19 Speaker 01 Davis, John Allen, and then Tim Schaaf, and then FOB-1 closed.
27:27 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, later.
27:29 Speaker 01 We, we gotta go FOB, no, Denon, FOB-4, CCN.
27:35 John Stryker Meyer? CCN. But that was, they had to be closed, FOB-1, but this is like, May was a very incremental month.
27:40 Jocko Willink? So was that, was that where you first checked in? You went to, you went to Alaska, or had Alaska just become Alabama?
27:46 Speaker 01 Yes, the first, the first.
27:49 John Stryker Meyer? The only reason why you didn't go on the mission, he just turned and missed the mission, or he would have been on that mission with Alaska.
27:55 Speaker 01 No, I'm from the Hatchet Force.
27:58 John Stryker Meyer? Oh, that's right, I forgot, I'm sorry.
28:00 Jocko Willink? Okay, so you started with the Hatchet Force?
28:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, Hatchet Force. We work, you know, like at the Platoon or Company, to go with, after team got a contact with the enemy. And the people from the recon go down to the hot of fuck, looking who's the bad, who's the good. And they say, hey cowboy, you wanna be recon team? I say, why not? I try my best.
28:29 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
28:30 Speaker 01 And the first thing I came to the team, recon team, I scanned everybody looking, you know, bad guy, looking.
28:41 John Stryker Meyer? Cause the nuns are taller than the other Vietnamese on the team.
28:46 Speaker 01 And people say, hell, okay, try, try your best. And I joined the team. At the time, at the time of that, Alaska is burnt out, they didn't blow out. And when I joined it, they got to rebuild the team. And they say, hey, Alaska is no good. Too many goats, because too many people died. So we need to change the name. And change to Alabama. And then we worked with Alabama until FOB one closed. We came to the now, CCN.
29:29 Speaker 01 So in CCN, they got an Alabama team there too. So my name got changed to Indiana.
29:38 John Stryker Meyer? That was early sixty nine, after they closed FOB one.
29:42 Jocko Willink? And Tilt was telling me about one time when you were getting taken out on strings. And somehow you ended up upside down or something like that.
29:51 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:52 John Stryker Meyer? The Swissy.
29:53 Speaker 01 Just normal thing, but I remember we had a contact with the enemy. But we cannot move out to the, to the, to the, to the R, LG. We inside the jungle.
30:14 Speaker 03 And then the chopper came in, throw down the rope.
30:22 Speaker 03 One of each, we got a rope, different rope. Mm-hmm.
30:27 Speaker 03 But, uh, tactical for, for safe, for the team. Four guy come up, pick up the, uh, the rope to hang it up. And another four guy still, you know, keep them safety. Right. Security. Keep shooting, right. And then after the chopper left, pull out the four guy, we came over.
30:57 Speaker 03 And then another four rope, throw it down, we try to hook it up.
31:04 Speaker 03 But I, and John Allen, another two Vietnamese guy, hook up the rope. When I turn over, you know, I try to hook, hook myself into my rope. But I look it up, you know, the tree here, the rope, it turn over. Oh. The tree. So what happened?
31:26 Speaker 03 What we gonna do? I saw, I say, hey, Allen, look it up.
31:31 Speaker 03 And then, you know, we, we got a stable rig, we don't have a stable rig. No, just a Swiss seat. Yeah, we have a three row to, one for seat and one for here, and then another two for seat. Right. And John Allen saw it, he give me one from him. Oh. If I hook it up there, you know, the chopper gonna cut it down. And I drop it back to the, to the plan I gonna die. And then they, they pull up. I only one string in here.
32:09 John Stryker Meyer? Wow, with the D-ring holding you in.
32:12 Speaker 03 In here, and when they going up like at the thousand feet or two thousand feet something. And then I got a ruch up here, I got a gun, I got a, you know, the, my web gear here.
32:28 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
32:30 Speaker 03 And then it going down, turn over to here, to my knee.
32:34 John Stryker Meyer? You're upside down there.
32:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, upside down.
32:36 John Stryker Meyer? I know that feeling.
32:38 Speaker 03 And then John Allen wanna warp it, but, but the wind cannot be together at the time. So, when I warp it, it going down to, to my, my here.
32:53 John Stryker Meyer? To your feet?
32:54 Speaker 03 Going down here, yeah.
32:55 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
32:55 Speaker 03 But luckily, we got a jungle boot.
33:00 Speaker 03 You know, the, the form of the jungle boot.
33:03 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
33:03 Speaker 03 It's still tight here, and I all the way down.
33:09 Jocko Willink? So you were hanging on the rope by just your ankle and your jungle boot?
33:12 John Stryker Meyer? His jungle boot, yeah.
33:15 Speaker 03 And then, John Allen shoot up.
33:21 Speaker 03 Because we got a flare gun, right? We would shoot flare gun.
33:24 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
33:25 Speaker 03 And, you know, the, the chopper still flow. And we here, we understand that we, we, we, we thought, you know, they might not, might not know something of, of, you know.
33:38 John Stryker Meyer? You're upside down, yes.
33:39 Jocko Willink? So, so John Allen was shooting the flare gun to try and get the helicopter pilots to realize what was happening?
33:46 Speaker 03 To looking down, but, you know, the communist underground, so how do we do?
33:55 Speaker 03 To, you know, it flow, that still flow, flow, flow. And then my, my body it up and down.
34:04 Speaker 03 And until we go to the full by.
34:08 Speaker 03 And the chopper drop out now.
34:12 Speaker 03 When, when I lie down on the ground, I still understand.
34:18 Speaker 03 I looking down the my gun, the magazine, it empty. I change the magazine, lock and load again and do it. And then the pilot coming down to pick me up to the, put inside the chopper.
34:33 Jocko Willink? Right.
34:35 Speaker 03 And I don't know anything anymore.
34:38 John Stryker Meyer? You're unconscious.
34:39 Speaker 03 Yes.
34:43 Speaker 03 From there to the, to the Fubai. Bruce Johnson? You know Bruce Johnson?
34:50 John Stryker Meyer? Right, yes, the medic. By that time, he was unconscious and the medic was Bruce Johnson on that mission or in the helicopter.
34:58 Speaker 03 No, he, he, inside the camp.
35:01 John Stryker Meyer? Okay, he, he died. And Bruce, what did he do, his elbow in your chest to wake, to get your heart going?
35:08 Speaker 03 I still, I still know everything, even I die.
35:12 John Stryker Meyer? Wow.
35:14 Speaker 03 Then Bruce Johnson shoot the gun. Hey, medic! And the car coming in, pick me up to the, to the eighty feet hospital.
35:24 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
35:26 Speaker 03 And on the way, uh, he, he tried to, you know, wake me up. He use the elbow when I lie down here. Punch in here, you can see the bone coming out right here.
35:40 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, Bruce was our medic and so he died three times. And Bruce told us about that years later, about how he brought him back to life. And they thought he was dead, they took him down to the field hospital right there at Fubai.
35:53 Speaker 03 Say, hey, I beat you up, you, you don't wake up, you are die, buddy.
35:59 John Stryker Meyer? You say, I love you very much.
36:01 Speaker 03 Yes, he love, he love me very much. But I don't know anything. I remember I, what he taught. I remember who got it, who got the thing. But I cannot do anything. Then we, I die for something.
36:22 Speaker 03 And then they brought me to the hospital. Doctor say, hey, can't do anything to me anymore.
36:30 John Stryker Meyer? Do you remember, do you remember hearing the doctor say that they can't help you anymore?
36:34 Speaker 03 Yes, I still alive.
36:40 Speaker 03 Even I don't do anything, I can't do anything. The people thought I'm, I'm dead. But myself, I'm still alive.
36:48 Jocko Willink? Wow.
36:49 Speaker 03 I hear what you say, I know something going on, knock something. I live in there.
36:57 John Stryker Meyer? You feel bruise on your chest.
36:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, even, even in my, in my chest, right here. Right here, you can see the bone here.
37:05 John Stryker Meyer? There it is. The special forces medics, man, they're relentless. They'll do anything to keep you alive.
37:14 Speaker 03 Yes, everything.
37:15 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
37:16 Speaker 03 The first thing he put in here. Wake up. He, he almost cried, I know that, but I can't do anything.
37:27 John Stryker Meyer? Upside down a long time.
37:29 Speaker 03 And then, after he, he tried to wake me up by this one. And then, arrow. You see how big the bruise, right?
37:40 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, oh yeah. He was in shape then.
37:44 Speaker 03 After that, two hour, three hour, I think three hour.
37:49 John Stryker Meyer? I forget.
37:50 Speaker 03 Three hour, my team came by club. Alcohol. He say, hey, Cowboy, you're good, good, good man. We gotta bring him back. Everybody drunk. Uh, John Allen, yeah, John Allen, uh, can't cry, took a zip.
38:12 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
38:14 Speaker 03 Drew up to the hospital, pointed gun to the doctor. Say, you better take care of him, or you wanna, you die.
38:24 Jocko Willink? So, so John Allen went to the doctor and brought a gun and said, you either take care of our boy Cowboy.
38:30 John Stryker Meyer? Sometimes the doctors, the American doctors there were reluctant. John Walton did that, had the same problem after his mission in August. And with Cowboy, they heard they weren't getting the right treatment. The one zero and right down there and they addressed the doctor. Cause they had a policy, no indigenous people at the hospital.
38:49 Jocko Willink? Oh, okay.
38:50 John Stryker Meyer? And that's what they were up against. And our team leaders had to get a little aggressive.
38:55 Jocko Willink? Had to solve that problem.
38:57 John Stryker Meyer? Well, in this case, it was a car 15.
39:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, we got, we got the team.
39:02 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, with John Walton, he just threatened to beat him.
39:04 Speaker 03 Okay. You MP right now, right? In the front of my chest, play my my.
39:14 Speaker 03 Car fifteen, handgun net.
39:16 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
39:17 Speaker 03 What do you think? What will you do?
39:19 Jocko Willink? Yeah, I'm gonna do whatever you want me to do, actually.
39:24 Speaker 03 They they came up to you, the hospital saying, you better take care of cowboy. And my friend, you know, the people drunk, crying, miss me. I knew, I hear that. But I can't do anything. And Ma, you give me a coffee, you give me a smoke. And then I don't know, maybe they put the the hot water in into my mouth. And I feel something go through here and then I wake up. Say, hey, what the hell going on here?
40:01 John Stryker Meyer? Where's the party?
40:04 Speaker 03 And later hour, we come back to camp.
40:12 John Stryker Meyer? This is all before October fifth.
40:13 Jocko Willink? Yeah, yeah. Did you now, did you did I hear right that you had a relative that was also?
40:20 John Stryker Meyer? Well, his wife's brother was on S T Idaho when Idaho got wiped out in May of sixty eight.
40:27 Jocko Willink? That was your wife's.
40:28 John Stryker Meyer? Brother.
40:29 Jocko Willink? Wife's brother.
40:30 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
40:30 Speaker 03 I have a two brother, one of the uh got a P O W at the Langway. And another one with Idaho team.
40:41 John Stryker Meyer? And Langway was the aid camp that got overrun on Tet. When he had the N V A tank and they captured some of our people as well as some of the indigenous people that took them back to P O Ws. That family paid a high price.
40:56 Jocko Willink? How often? So now it's nineteen, how how long were you in the job for?
41:04 Speaker 03 The total time from sixty six to seventy two.
41:09 Speaker 03 In sixty six to middle up to sixty seven, the time is for training. In sixty seven, I'm joined to the Alabama team. Till to August seventy two. I lost my leg.
41:30 Jocko Willink? Wow. And so these, so these guys, you're going out, the whole time you're just going out on mission, mission, mission, mission.
41:39 Speaker 03 Yes.
41:40 Jocko Willink? No, I mean other way, maybe you go back to town, get a little break for a week or something, a month, but most of the time it's just work.
41:48 Speaker 03 Yes, sometime, you know, like the, yes, I just count, uh, a month for one mission. Total time, sometime only ten day, sometime one month, three time.
42:05 Speaker 03 So that's why we receive the money, get paid for two time or three time. Okay, for example, uh, on the first day of the month, we take the money. We go downtown for two, three day. And after two, three day.
42:24 Jocko Willink? We have no more money left.
42:25 Speaker 03 Mission, yeah, mission.
42:27 Jocko Willink? Many mission.
42:29 Speaker 03 Mission, I say, okay, we go. And we stand by there for a week because the weather or whatever, you know, the some reason, we, we can not go. And then we went there, but you know the, you know the shock law, right? And when we come up to the LG, the communist shoot up, we, we came back, we not jump it down.
42:57 Speaker 03 And then after few day, one zero, we gotta pass, go pass. He say, okay, for one day. And you know, I tried to do it. He, he understand it, no money.
43:14 Speaker 03 He, he talked to the, yeah, ask one to gather money. And then we on, uh, we on pass for two day or whatever we can, we came back. Because the reason we stand by for that target, we cannot go, you know, the long trip, like go Saigon or Dela.
43:35 Jocko Willink? Just go away.
43:36 Speaker 03 Yes, and then come back for the mission again.
43:42 Speaker 03 We come up there because the weather or whatever. For after a week, we cannot go at the weekend. I say.
43:51 John Stryker Meyer? That's why it's October 5th, the beginning of the month, they got through the payday. And the weather broke. Cause we'd had rains and some at the end of the monsoon season.
44:00 Speaker 03 We stand by for, for the target for like two week, three week or one month. A lot of reason, we cannot go there. Weather or the communist activity underground. I, I bet, you know, like at the, when we ran out of mission. Everybody know, even the Pentagon or even, you know, the headquarters, Asia.
44:27 John Stryker Meyer? Headquarters in Saigon and the White House.
44:29 Speaker 03 Saigon or whatever.
44:30 John Stryker Meyer? We had a attach at the White House.
44:32 Speaker 03 We work together, I think so. So that's why, but we can't, I cannot remember how many mission I gotta go. I cannot remember.
44:45 John Stryker Meyer? Too many, cause you're busy.
44:46 Speaker 03 Too many, yes.
44:47 John Stryker Meyer? You didn't write a diary, you couldn't write a diary.
44:49 Speaker 03 No, no, no. We can't do anything. We can, we, we can say, hey, I go there, I go there, I go there. But when we received the mission, like the one zero say, hey, we gotta go our south. We understand our south. We gotta go DMV. We know the DMV. Or we gotta go Laos, we know. We gotta go Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, the border. We know situation from them. Because we learn from, from training, from the north move to the south.
45:31 Speaker 03 They got so many secret zone from the, from the communist.
45:38 Speaker 03 And we know when they move from the north to, from the north to the south.
45:44 Speaker 03 How they working on it? Our people wearing too heavy. Like a root shock, like a web gear who got it like a hundred pound or more than hundred pound, right? Some, yes, close to it, yes. But the communist, they don't wear anything. Just AK forty seven and AK vest. Because they living there, they don't need food. They don't need carry water, they don't need carry food with them. Because they living there, like my house. We came down there, we carry thing the heavy.
46:27 Speaker 03 Then we learn from them, we know how their activity. But our job protect this guy. He, he tall big. And you know, we, we easy to move. And we easy to understand them. But he from here, he came to Vietnam. Into jungle, he can't do anything. Young and dumb. Young. But you know, they good. Good more than else. So, uh. They smart more than else.
47:12 Speaker 03 We learn from the Vietnamese.
47:14 Jocko Willink? So on this mission on October fifth, the, the helicopter puts you guys on the ground. You're getting shot at before you land. One of the helicopters then gets shot up and crashes. And, and the one zero says, we're still going.
47:34 Speaker 03 Correct. Uh, yes. Okay, when, when we came down to flood chopper? And me, Jim Strong, and another two, uh, another two Vietnamese, we gotta go, now you got it. We came down. The communist way, we dropped down, the ground, they suit it up.
48:04 Speaker 03 And we are not surprised about it. Because we understand the situation.
48:09 John Stryker Meyer? Did you see the flag that was flying?
48:11 Speaker 03 Yes.
48:12 John Stryker Meyer? The NVA flag?
48:13 Speaker 03 NVA flag.
48:14 Jocko Willink? Oh, there's an NVA flag?
48:16 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
48:16 Jocko Willink? That has to be a little bit of a warning sign.
48:19 John Stryker Meyer? That's why Lynn argued with the 1-0, saying that flag is just at least 3,000 people here and we're nine.
48:25 Speaker 03 Like, yeah, like the, uh, the flag, according from the flag, we can make it out like the, not division like regime, like a 3,000 guy on the, on the ground. We understand that 3,000.
48:39 John Stryker Meyer? Boku.
48:41 Jocko Willink? We understand boku.
48:42 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
48:45 Speaker 03 Then Lynn Black tried to get down. They got shot. Then King B leap out. And another King B, they got a tactical from the chopper. They land this way, down this way, land this way, down this way, and shoot another place to make it difficult to, for communist adjustment where we're going down.
49:10 Jocko Willink? Right, right.
49:12 Speaker 03 And then another chopper, let me, H34, it burn out. Drop it out.
49:19 John Stryker Meyer? Crash.
49:20 Speaker 03 Yes, crash. But, you know, we half on the ground, half of the chopper. What you gonna do? We gotta go.
49:30 John Stryker Meyer? Mm-hmm.
49:31 Speaker 03 And Lynn Black dropped out. When we dropped out, you know, that a plant algae, we gotta move to the jungle right way to hide them.
49:44 Speaker 03 And we got a very quick briefing.
49:49 Speaker 03 Say, what you gotta do next?
49:53 Speaker 03 According from the pack working of the, uh, of the COVID.
49:57 John Stryker Meyer? I walk was just from the COVID.
49:59 Jocko Willink? Okay, got it.
49:59 John Stryker Meyer? When they did the insertion.
50:01 Speaker 03 And we got a briefing with them. The pack working say,
50:08 Speaker 03 if the team want, wanna attraction, you have a right to do it.
50:15 Speaker 03 But James Dry, the big guy.
50:17 John Stryker Meyer? The 1-0 says no.
50:19 Speaker 03 Said no. He thought, you know, we're very strong, but he, he forgot to understand that. Not in there, three thousand guy there.
50:33 Speaker 03 And not our homeland, they're the communist land, right?
50:39 John Stryker Meyer? And Laos.
50:40 Speaker 03 Yes, and then I say.
50:47 John Stryker Meyer? To continue to march.
50:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's what he said. And then Lindblad told me.
50:55 John Stryker Meyer? Let's go, we should go back.
51:02 Speaker 03 And then we go.
51:03 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, that was the last wrong decision he made in his life.
51:06 Speaker 03 Yes. And we move about like, nah, like fifteen feet.
51:15 Speaker 03 We show, you know, the post guard from the communist. Lindblad forget to tell you, we found the AK forty-seven magazine.
51:25 John Stryker Meyer? Really?
51:25 Speaker 03 Yeah. And then we found, you know, the raincoat.
51:29 John Stryker Meyer? Oh, is that right?
51:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, from the, from the, from the, from the communist.
51:34 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
51:35 Speaker 03 And the tree, they let, they seated, you know, very clean. So I understand, you know, the.
51:42 John Stryker Meyer? They're sitting there watching.
51:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, they sit there for the post guard from the communist.
51:47 John Stryker Meyer? There's an LZ watch stand.
51:49 Jocko Willink? Oh, man.
51:50 John Stryker Meyer? They had a lot of those set up, the different LZs that were, because there's only so many in Laos at that point. So they had LZ watchers and they had some that were beginning to get platforms, and that's one of the first ones I forgot about.
52:03 Speaker 03 Yes, you forget about.
52:05 John Stryker Meyer? But they had the platform, that's what he's talking about. They saw, so addition, they knew that they were compromised by the gunfire. They saw the platform, so he didn't go back, and yet the one zero said, go down the trail.
52:16 Speaker 03 With a helmet, the communist hat.
52:20 John Stryker Meyer? This helmet.
52:20 Speaker 03 Yes.
52:21 Jocko Willink? Did the, so what was the one zero's background right now, like in this operation?
52:26 John Stryker Meyer? He had come from Germany. He'd been assigned to Germany, he has stateside duty, but he'd never been to Vietnam. So he was not familiar with working with our Vietnamese counterparts, listening to people like Cowboy. And listen to Lynn, Lynn had a whole year experience. And so he was one of these old school guys, I'm the, I'm the leader, we're gonna do this. And that was the last bad decision he made in his life, took the team into it.
52:53 Speaker 03 I still tell him.
52:58 Speaker 03 And then we're not, you know, going out the trail. We, we go by in the jungle.
53:05 John Stryker Meyer? So when you're down that trail.
53:08 Speaker 03 That a big mistake.
53:09 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
53:10 Speaker 03 That never happened.
53:12 Jocko Willink? Would you guys ever have situations where the team would look at the one zero and say, no, we're not doing that?
53:19 John Stryker Meyer? Well, that's what they had there and the one zero overruled them and most of the times. Are we would listen to our, our business people, our little people. If they said don't go to the reason and uh. That's just the mutual respect we had for them.
53:38 John Stryker Meyer? Particularly, once you're on the ground, so it's just a matter of rapport between. This was a new team that come together and they had just taken the experienced one zero off, who had combat experience, he had many missions. That Tim Shaw was the one zero prior, because the other person, Jim Stride was more ranked. They appointed him the team and they told Tim to give him another team.
54:05 Jocko Willink? Yeah, this is why when you're in a leadership position, you listen to people. You listen to your team, I mean, this is why, there's nothing. If you let your ego get in the way and you say, I'm gonna let these people tell me what to do, it's like, okay. Doesn't work out well, you gotta stay humble as a leader.
54:23 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, any leadership class, if you wanna show what you shouldn't do, this is a classic example.
54:29 Speaker 03 But uh, we don't have a training with him.
54:31 John Stryker Meyer? No.
54:32 Jocko Willink? Oh, and you never even trained with him, no?
54:34 John Stryker Meyer? No.
54:37 Speaker 03 Retraining the other Haven Pass.
54:42 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
54:43 Speaker 03 And then.
54:43 John Stryker Meyer? You're out on the island with Tim Shaw.
54:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
54:46 John Stryker Meyer? Pre-training mission where they're.
54:48 Speaker 03 Pre-training for the mission. But the team shot.
54:51 Jocko Willink? Oh, okay, so different one zero.
54:53 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
54:54 Jocko Willink? Yeah, so this is just a bad, this is bad all the way across the board.
54:57 John Stryker Meyer? And this is the one where the Navy saved.
54:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
55:00 John Stryker Meyer? Saved the S T Alabama. Cause they were on this training mission and they had a lot of, it's an area where you had Vietcong and N V A.
55:08 Speaker 03 But Thailand before, but Thailand and V A.
55:12 John Stryker Meyer? And so they, they got into a world of trouble there, a world of shit with them.
55:17 Jocko Willink? On a training mission.
55:18 John Stryker Meyer? And they drove, and the N V A drove them down to the South China Sea from their high ground. Cause they had higher ground, drove them down and then fortunately had a frequency for the Navy. And one of the Navy, not a P T boat, but a boat that had two, two or three fifty cal.
55:34 Jocko Willink? Uh huh.
55:35 John Stryker Meyer? And they came in and picked a team up. Otherwise they would have been wiped out. Right on a training mission.
55:43 Jocko Willink? It's a rough training mission.
55:45 John Stryker Meyer? It was. Cowboy wasn't happy about that either.
55:48 Speaker 03 No, I like it because it's free, you know. You can go.
55:53 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, now.
55:57 Jocko Willink? Fishing. Let me, uh, let me pick this back up from the book on this mission on, on October fourth. So where we left off, or sorry, on, on October fifth, where this left off was the N V A are two rows deep. The front row firing A K forty sevens, the second row throwing grenades and, and firing R P Gs. And then I'm going to pick this back up, it says another Vietnamese S T Alabama team member was wounded. The team had to get out of the hole or die in it. The bold N V A told the S T Alabama members to chui hoi, or surrender. Speaking first in French, English, and finally Vietnamese. S T Alabama's weapons drowned out further chui hoi requests. The one one.
56:40 Jocko Willink? So they, so they asked you to surrender and you shot at them.
56:45 Jocko Willink? And the Chuhoy was a whole program, right? It was a whole program to get people to switch sides from.
56:52 John Stryker Meyer? We had a Chuhoy and then they knew the program. So they used the same word surrender. And ST Alabama answered it in fine style with the carpet.
57:03 Speaker 03 With one handgun, one magazine.
57:07 Speaker 03 That answer to them.
57:11 Jocko Willink? Uh, then it says, "The 1-1 continued to pray." So the 1-1 got, he, he kinda lost it a little bit.
57:20 John Stryker Meyer? Totally.
57:21 Jocko Willink? And he was curled up in a ball. He was putting his face in the sand and he was trying to pray.
57:25 Speaker 03 I can tell.
57:28 Jocko Willink? Got it.
57:28 Speaker 03 Because he on my team.
57:30 Jocko Willink? Got it.
57:31 Speaker 03 He was on my team. I need to protect him. He need to protect me.
57:35 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
57:36 Speaker 03 He on my team.
57:37 Jocko Willink? Well, it says here, Black couldn't believe it. And Black says, "This is no time to pray. Do unto others before they do unto you," he yelled. "Whether or not the NVA soldiers were praying, they continued to move around ST Alabama, some climbing into trees. Cowboy and Black crawled 15 feet toward them, close enough so that Cowboy heard the NVA commander tell his troops to prepare to charge ST Alabama's position." So you, you actually heard their commander give the order, "Prepare to charge."
58:07 Speaker 03 Yes, sir.
58:10 Jocko Willink? "The commander also told his troops on the long side of the L ambush not to fire. Black quickly rigged a claymore mine in the direction of the pending charge. The fearless NVA mounted a charge toward ST Alabama with AK-47s on full automatic. Black detonated the claymore mine. It blew a huge hole in the NVA ranks. Before the smoke cleared, ST Alabama ran through the human carnage, firing CAR-15s on full automatic and throwing M26 frag grenades while dragging their three wounded team members. Miraculously, ST Alabama made it through the NVA wave of attackers and moved back towards the LZ, leaving their dead behind."
58:52 Speaker 03 We tried to bring them with us, but we could. I tried to move up, to wrap the hand, the dead man. AK forty-seven.
59:06 Speaker 03 I gotta move back, I'm glammed back, going up. You know, the strike, hit the big guy. Too big. Hit the fast guy. Too much. Yeah, I tried to glammed over. And when they shoot it, hit to the strike body. And I can feeling his body shake when he hit the bullet.
59:29 Jocko Willink? So you're trying to drag his body and his body is getting shot?
59:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
59:35 Speaker 03 I understand exactly when. I told them a lot, but they never listen, he never listen to me. Even there, I heard, hey, communist say ambush, don't kill them, that mean don't kill us.
59:53 Jocko Willink? Oh, because they wanted to capture you?
59:54 Speaker 03 They wanna capture.
59:57 Speaker 03 And then I s- I do it a lot.
1:00:01 Jocko Willink? So, for those of you that are just listening to this, cowboy keeps giving the hand signal for, hey, we need to circle up and get out of here, get the helicopters and get out of here. That's what you're giving the hand signal the whole time.
1:00:13 Speaker 03 Jumper. Get the king bees. Up. And then he never listen to me. He say, go. He, the point man, the Vietnamese team leader here, and Jim Strike, I'm back up him. And then, Lynn Black. Right. Another AM seventy-nine here. He say, go. You know the, you know, you know the rule from the team. The first man, get up. First step, second step, third step, another man stand up.
1:00:52 Jocko Willink? Okay.
1:00:54 Speaker 03 And step to, to the boot where, where the first man has stepped. And he stand up, I saw, I saw him because I hate him. I say, he said, no, a lot of time, but he never listened to me. And first step, he going down, second step, third step, I hear the bullet
1:01:21 Speaker 03 and he down. I turn around, I'm not stay there for, for save my life. I gotta turn around and then the big tree, I lay there. And it come and it shoot again, because we very close, like here to here.
1:01:39 Jocko Willink? What, ten feet?
1:01:42 Speaker 03 I thought no more than ten feet.
1:01:44 Jocko Willink? Hmm.
1:01:44 John Stryker Meyer? Wow.
1:01:45 Speaker 03 No more than ten feet. The bush, he living there. And then when I try to move into gathered like the SOI map and then the, the thing for survival in his pocket.
1:02:03 John Stryker Meyer? Survivor radio.
1:02:05 Speaker 03 And the radio, radio SOI, SOI, right? SOI radio frequency. I try to do, hold everything in his body, given to lean, given to black. And try to take him out. I say, hey, strike, strike, strike. If nothing happen, what will you do? I try to climb up and they shoot me again.
1:02:33 Speaker 03 I'm lucky, I'm very lucky because, you know, his body is very big. When I try to move it, especially the, uh, deployment.
1:02:46 Speaker 03 That too. So what we gonna do?
1:02:51 Speaker 03 We can't do anything. But when later on, the team later in here, the gun, you know, point like to hit hat. But he didn't see it. Like here, hit hat here, the AK-47 gun right here.
1:03:12 Speaker 03 And the communist afraid. When he shoot it, we gotta find out where he at.
1:03:21 Speaker 03 And I observe this and I say, hey, AK-47, pointed the lock here.
1:03:29 Speaker 03 And he say,
1:03:31 Speaker 03 and hit, you know, the lock.
1:03:34 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
1:03:35 Speaker 03 Hit down, going down here. And he shoot the comment, it dropped out the AK-47 here. You never know it from here to here.
1:03:44 John Stryker Meyer? Uh huh.
1:03:45 Speaker 03 How do we survive?
1:03:48 Speaker 03 And up in my mind, we got a training in camp. We say,
1:03:58 Speaker 03 one handgun, one magazine.
1:04:01 Speaker 03 That mean you have a handgun
1:04:04 Speaker 03 and you have a magazine.
1:04:07 Speaker 03 When we throw down handgun, we cannot throw it too far.
1:04:12 Speaker 03 We throw it down, it mean clear communist around us. One handgun, one magazine. When we throw the grenade too close, we afraid the communist pick up the grenade, throw it back.
1:04:27 Speaker 03 So that's why we got it. One handgun, one magazine. We throw the grenade and we got a single shot. Bing, bing, bing. Be sure the communist keep their hat down. They don't have a time to looking to pick up the grenade.
1:04:43 John Stryker Meyer? You don't wanna play catch with a handgun.
1:04:44 Speaker 03 Yes. I said, one handgun, one fucking handgun, one fucking magazine. When, because we AI drill in home, right?
1:04:55 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
1:04:56 Speaker 03 And we throw the grenade, ping, ping, ping.
1:05:00 John Stryker Meyer? So that helped to get you guys out of that hole then? That's what he was talking about at that point.
1:05:04 Speaker 03 We don't have a, we, the communist, we have, they don't have a time to thinking.
1:05:11 Speaker 03 What we gonna do?
1:05:12 Jocko Willink? Hmm.
1:05:13 Speaker 03 And then after my, my magazine is empty, he shoot it up, ding, ding, ding. How the communist doing? Nothing, can't do anything. And then when we clear around us and another, another wave, one negative one magazine. And then like a T, we got a big company. Because everybody want throw the one, one negative, what do you, what do you think? What do you hear? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
1:05:50 Speaker 03 So they scared us, how we, how we fighting? So that's why, you know, we try to clear around us.
1:05:59 Jocko Willink? Hmm.
1:06:00 Speaker 03 And then we be shaped at the time.
1:06:04 Jocko Willink? Me- meanwhile, go- going back to the book, uh, Covey says, "The King bees had to return to Fubai to refuel. No extraction was possible for at least two to three hours."
1:06:17 Speaker 03 They're bad lucks.
1:06:20 Jocko Willink? Meanwhile, the relentless and, the relentless and bloodied NVA ran after the Spike team. Black planted a claymore mine with a five-second time delay fuse. It wreaked havoc on the hard-charging NVA. At, as the smoke cleared and the body parts settled back to the earth, ST Alabama split in half again and charged through the battered, torn ranks of the NVA warriors, killing any standing enemy. They counted at least fifty NVA dead. Again, eerie silence engulfed the team and ST Alabama regrouped. Just as suddenly, a new wave of NVA soldiers rushed the beleaguered team. ST Alabama had been pushed near the cliff. It was a thousand feet to the ground if they went over the edge.
1:07:05 Jocko Willink? Now online, ST Alabama charged through the weakest NVA flank, killing more enemy soldiers. So you guys are, there's thousand-foot cliffs? There's a thousand-foot cliffs that you guys are up against?
1:07:21 Speaker 03 Whatever you believe or not, but it's happened.
1:07:26 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
1:07:27 Jocko Willink? And then, so you guys, this is, this is an important lesson for people is every time you guys are put into a tough situation, you go on the attack. You attack through the flank, you attack through the ambush. And right here, ST Alabama charged through the weakest NVA flank.
1:07:44 John Stryker Meyer? That was, they did that several times. I mean, that's what the NVA, they're not used to recon teams charging.
1:07:50 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
1:07:50 John Stryker Meyer? And that's what saved their lives at that point.
1:07:53 Jocko Willink? Yeah, that's even the Vietnam guys that taught us when I was a young SEAL. They would say if you get caught in an ambush, you have to attack them. You, if you stay there, you're just gonna die. So you have to attack.
1:08:03 Speaker 03 Exactly, exactly. If we, if we not attack them,
1:08:09 Speaker 03 they're gonna run over us. So we're gonna attack them. And that they scanning, we can run over to them.
1:08:18 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
1:08:19 Speaker 03 Exactly about.
1:08:21 Jocko Willink? I'm continuing on here. Something hit Black on the side of the head, knocking him to his knees. He was scrambling to get up when the grenade went off. The last thing he remembered was being slammed into a tree face first and the CAR-15 handle digging into his chest. So somebody hit him in that head with a grenade.
1:08:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, we don't know. Where is that? Where that from? Lucky for him, from the China.
1:08:44 John Stryker Meyer? It was a Chinese hand grenade.
1:08:45 Speaker 01 They're the Chinese.
1:08:45 Jocko Willink? Poorly made.
1:08:46 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
1:08:48 Speaker 01 They made it by them, by them Chao in the jungle.
1:08:52 John Stryker Meyer? Was that right?
1:08:52 Jocko Willink? Okay, it was like a homemade grenade.
1:08:56 Jocko Willink? He thought he was drowning, but he, but then he felt feet kicking him and hands slapping him all over. It was the team. They were beating Black back into consciousness and pouring water on his face. He tried to get up, but his legs didn't work. From the knees down, there were no fatigue pants, just surface bleeding. One of the guys started smearing gelatinized rice on the one, two's legs, arms and chest. Black's web gear and what was left of his fatigue jacket were lying shredded, bloody on the ground. The CAR-15 was bent where the barrel meets the receiver and the bolt couldn't be pulled back. One of the team buried it. By 0900, word of ST Alabama's precarious position had spread through FOB-1, through FOB-1 like wildfire.
1:09:36 Jocko Willink? Requests were made for an extra assets. It was now an official prairie fire emergency. All aircraft were pulled from their missions and sorties to support ST Alabama. Any gunships attached to SOG were summoned to their aid. The first gunships to arrive were Marine Hueys known as Scarface. With them was a CH-46 with a ladder attached for jungle extraction. When the twin rotor helicopter entered the AO, it was hammered by heavy enemy ground fire, as were the Marine gunships. Green tracers were seen going toward the CH-46. The ground fire became too intense and the Marine chopper had to withdraw and make an emergency landing at Camp Eagle in the 101st Airborne compound. Despite this, despite the hits, Scarface gunships made several passes,
1:10:20 Jocko Willink? expending all ordnance before returning to base to reload.
1:10:25 Jocko Willink? King B officers regrouped and prepared to fly back to Laos to extract what was left of ST Alabama. The S3 asked for volunteers for a Bright Light mission, and every recon man and FOB1 volunteered. ST Idaho was scheduled to insert into the Prairie Fire AO the next day, 6 October. Because the team was ready to go, there was some initial discussion about Idaho being the Bright Light team. As the day dragged on, however, and the perilous nature of ST Alabama's situation worsened, the Bright Light option faded because the original LZ was now too deadly for any helicopter to attempt an extraction.
1:11:04 Jocko Willink? So you, were you in ST, were you the 1-1? Were you the 1-0 in ST?
1:11:12 Jocko Willink? So you guys are going leg, we'll go, we'll go now?
1:11:14 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, we're getting ready for our mission on October 6th. And then we were all ready. They said, "You guys are ready, so we're gonna do the Bright Light." And then they changed their mind later because of all the intense fire and another helicopter got shot down in the process.
1:11:31 John Stryker Meyer? Unbelievable, man.
1:11:32 Jocko Willink? So Watkins, Watkins was the Covey?
1:11:35 John Stryker Meyer? Right, they rotated Watkins, then when the Covey got low on fuel and Spider Parks was there, and he got low on fuel, Pat went back.
1:11:42 Jocko Willink? Back.
1:11:43 John Stryker Meyer? So there was both the two Covey guys were there because they were really familiar with that target button.
1:11:48 Jocko Willink? So here we go, when Watkins, who's the Covey, returned to the FOB. For the Cessna to refuel, he told the others that it didn't look good. He wasn't sure if they'd be able to get them out. He explained the low sunken area in the LZ, the spotty weather, and how smoke from the expended ordnance hung over the LZ, making it more difficult to spot the team and to deliver airstrikes accurately. A resupply of ammo, grenades, claymore mines, M79 rounds, water, bandages, and morphines. And morphine was placed on a King B and launched towards ST Alabama. In Laos, Cowboy worked on Black's legs. He told Black that the last wave of NVA had continued onto the LZ. Cowboy and Black heard more US Marine Huey gunships arrive overhead
1:12:29 Jocko Willink? and witnessed the NVA on the LZ open fire, hammering the lead aircraft. Again, the 1-1 panicked, cried, and shouted skyward. The Vietnamese team member speaking through Cowboy told Black that they were going to kill the 1-1 if he didn't shut up. Black agreed, "I'll pull the trigger myself." "God forgive you," the 1-1 responded tearfully. "You and your God have no place here," Black retorted. Cowboy grabbed the startled Black by the throat and lifted a Catholic crucifix from his neck and shoved his lips to it. "It's the God who have allowed us to get this far, round eye."
1:13:07 Jocko Willink? Oh, so this is just a nightmare of a situation.
1:13:13 Jocko Willink? What are you guys doing on the ground while all this close air support is coming in?
1:13:19 Speaker 01 I can tell you, the first thing in the air that, you know, when, when, when the Black down, you know the water in the jungle. We cannot, you know, wave it, right?
1:13:31 Speaker 03 Right.
1:13:32 Speaker 01 But we still pour whole kind of water to him to make him wake up. I mean, we don't know our situation. We don't know the water, how, how we don't know the water in, in the jungle. But we still do it because we love him very much.
1:13:49 Speaker 01 And the thing, you know, we...
1:13:53 Speaker 01 I don't know how to tell you.
1:13:57 Speaker 01 I don't know how to tell you, but.
1:14:00 Speaker 01 We gotta protect by God.
1:14:03 Speaker 01 At all the time.
1:14:04 John Stryker Meyer? Divine intervention.
1:14:06 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:14:09 John Stryker Meyer? Maybe wanna pray.
1:14:12 Speaker 01 You know, we only pray. Only, only pray. At the end of the, the way we go on at the end of the, the thing in my mind.
1:14:24 Speaker 01 We shoot them. They shoot us.
1:14:28 Speaker 01 And then if the God not protect me. Not protect.
1:14:34 Speaker 01 Our team member. We not stay here.
1:14:39 Speaker 01 That hundred percent for true. That's what I told you, I can tell you. I can imagine.
1:14:49 Speaker 01 The time he lie down, I'm crying, I say, hey, black, black, black. He only one, you know, we can believe.
1:14:58 Speaker 01 One, one, I cannot tell anything. Now, he can't do anything to team. Even, you know, we respect him a lot.
1:15:09 Speaker 01 But at the time, what should we do? In my mind.
1:15:15 Speaker 01 God protect us.
1:15:18 Speaker 01 Please. Because we have no change, we have nowhere to go. We can't do anything. They got a thousand, thousand, we have only few guy. Only seven guy.
1:15:34 Speaker 01 Because we dead two already. And three wounded. I got wounded myself. I'm seventy-nine wounded.
1:15:43 John Stryker Meyer? Black.
1:15:44 Speaker 01 Black wounded. I'm seventy-nine, run out the. The ammo. The bullet.
1:15:54 Speaker 01 And almost we use a knife. But lucky for us. I mean, we can pick up the.
1:16:04 John Stryker Meyer? AK forty seven.
1:16:05 Speaker 01 AK forty seven and the weather from the communists. And we still protect, we can protect us out on the ground.
1:16:15 Speaker 01 So I can tell you.
1:16:20 Speaker 01 That's all my heart and all in my heart. Even, you know, Jim Stride is still back, still back there.
1:16:30 Speaker 01 Two or three Vietnamese bodies still back there. We can't do anything. When we ring up that.
1:16:38 Speaker 01 Make me feel, you know, depressed. Again, honor to tell you about.
1:16:46 Speaker 01 So. I don't know. Why Meyer and me still alive in here? I don't know. That imagine.
1:17:06 Jocko Willink? By the way, this isn't even over yet. That's not even close.
1:17:09 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
1:17:09 Jocko Willink? Going back to the book, The Sound of the Approaching King Bees ended the religious debate as the realities of a surviving A Shao hell became center focus. The able bodied picked up the wounded and moved toward the LZ. Spider, the Covey Rider at the time, told Black that the first King Bee was en route to the LZ. But they planned to work the area surrounding ST Alabama with tactical air support first. In this case, an F four Phantom jet pilot told Black to key your handset for ten seconds and put your head in the dirt. Black acknowledges his radio transmission and told his teammates to put their heads down. As he looked into the sun, he observed the slowest moving, full flapped Phantom he had ever seen. The glide path ratio was critical.
1:17:50 Jocko Willink? Seconds later, he saw the tree line across the LZ explode into sheets of white, yellow, and orange flames, setting the jungle on fire with napalm. The ship banked sharply, appearing to stand its wingtips on the ground. The pilot cranked the burners, dropped down into the valley below, and then began a vertical climb. NVA small arms opened up on all sides of the valley. The F four took numerous hits on its armor plated underbelly. Among those shooting at the fast mover were several NVA troops about twenty feet from ST Alabama's perimeter. As the napalm torched the jungle, dozens of NVA soldiers scurried into the open field to escape the instant inferno that engulfed their comrades.
1:18:32 Jocko Willink? As a second jet rolled in for a gun run, the NVA initiated what they called "getting close to the belt." In this case, the NVA soldiers moved toward or outright charged ST Alabama to get as close to the team members as possible to avoid being hammered or burnt by the Air Force Marines or Army air ordinance. Firing on single-shot, ST Alabama picked off each of them as they came out of the burning jungle. The Phantoms returned with two cannon and minigun runs along the team's perimeter. Before the dust settled, the Vietnamese team leader Tho and Cowboy crawled out and recovered several AK-47s and precious ammunition from the dead enemy soldiers as their Kar-15 ammo was dwindling to a few precious rounds.
1:19:21 Jocko Willink? So you're crawling out and actually grabbing the enemy weapons and grabbing enemy ammunition?
1:19:26 John Stryker Meyer? From the dead soldiers.
1:19:28 Speaker 01 Dead soldiers. They lying out there, I pick it up, deliver to another team member. Because in order to survival, we gotta do it. We gotta do it. We carry body, enemy, put up, make the sandbag to protect our people too.
1:19:51 Jocko Willink? Using enemy bodies as sandbags to protect yourselves?
1:19:54 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:19:56 Jocko Willink? It goes on here, "Two of the nine-cylinder King Bs came chugging up the valley toward ST Alabama. Black popped a green smoke marker. The NVA popped an identical smoke marker, confusing the pilots with devastating results. The first King B followed the NVA's smoke marker and took a direct hit from a rocket which toppled on its side, smashing each rotor blade into the ground. The approaching ST Alabama team members narrowly missed getting hit with shrapnel from the crash. Black, Cowboy, and another team member charged the rocket position, killing the three NVA before a hail of NVA fire drove them back into the team perimeter. The second H-34 hit an outcropping of rock on the western side of the knoll.
1:20:38 Jocko Willink? After taking heavy enemy gunfire, it exploded and fell thousand feet to the valley floor below, taking with it ST Alabama's resupply."
1:20:51 Jocko Willink? Covey barked, "Nice going Blackjack." "Fuck you Covey," he replied. Cowboy told the 1-1 to pray for everyone except Black because he was going on the devil's side. Black broke into laughter as he assessed ST Alabama's predicament. Ammo was desperately low, the blood trails looked like slug slime, the F4 Phantoms had expended their ordinance, and Covey was belligerent. His nerves were shot, training and a man's basic survival instinct had completely taken over. Then the NVA bugles sounded. So, at this point,
1:21:29 Jocko Willink? this scene, you guys are running out of ammunition, you got three wounded, you got two dead, no, more than two dead. You're taking enemy weapons off the ground, you're building a bunker with enemy bodies. The helicopters finally show up to get you out of there, and they both get shot out of the sky.
1:21:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:21:56 Jocko Willink? What do you think your chances are for survival at this point?
1:22:00 Speaker 01 Only can I can say that God protect us. No one can, no one can. Even not only to chop it down, we got a lot of support up the air. Like a Phantom, like a Sky Rider, like the CH53 Jolly Green Giant.
1:22:26 Speaker 01 We can see the bird. You know, it's over the air. Other time, not only two, a lot.
1:22:34 Jocko Willink? So you can actually see your air support, they're flying around, they're dropping bombs, they're dropping napalm, but it doesn't really help, I mean the fact that you guys are on the ground, even though you can see them.
1:22:45 Speaker 01 Yes. I can see it, and then any enemy very scanning. And then we on the ground, we can point.
1:22:56 Speaker 01 Sky Rider, bomb is in there.
1:23:00 Speaker 01 And then they very skinny, that's why we survive. Another reason that.
1:23:06 Jocko Willink? In this day, God came in the form of close air support.
1:23:09 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:23:12 Speaker 01 You, you can see that. Keep your fucking head down. That mean bomb neck to me.
1:23:18 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
1:23:19 Speaker 01 Bomb neck to me. Because they up the air. They know what's where, where we are. You know, in the hat, we got a panel.
1:23:29 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm, yep.
1:23:30 Speaker 01 We turn over.
1:23:31 Jocko Willink? Yep.
1:23:31 Speaker 01 Show the airplane can see where we were.
1:23:34 Jocko Willink? Right, we used to do the same thing.
1:23:36 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:23:37 Jocko Willink? Yep. That's another thing the Vietnam guys taught us inside of our floppy hat, we would sew an air panel in there. So we could flip it over and let, let the helicopters or gunships know where we were.
1:23:46 John Stryker Meyer? I should have worn a floppy hat.
1:23:48 Jocko Willink? What were you wearing?
1:23:49 John Stryker Meyer? My little bandana.
1:23:50 Jocko Willink? Uh, you're too cool for the floppy hat, huh?
1:23:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, we, we, we, we have a hat.
1:23:57 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
1:23:57 Speaker 01 Inside a hat, we got it.
1:23:58 John Stryker Meyer? Sure.
1:23:59 Speaker 01 The, the panel. The communist, they don't, they don't know anything about. And then exactly bomb to the, to the enemy.
1:24:11 John Stryker Meyer? And that's when the black was on the radio running.
1:24:14 Jocko Willink? Calling in the airport.
1:24:16 Speaker 01 Like it right there, they say, hey.
1:24:20 Speaker 01 Now club. But two hundred feet bomb it there right away. And I want to hit you, I say twelve club.
1:24:32 Speaker 01 Five feet. And neck to me, you see it?
1:24:35 Jocko Willink? Jeez.
1:24:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, we, we, we can't control the airplane. Because the pet and the pet walking and then spider up there.
1:24:46 John Stryker Meyer? For the cubby, yes. And they're able to give them the control.
1:24:50 Speaker 01 We work together. We, we control everything, but.
1:24:55 Speaker 01 The people outside say, hey, how how do we survive? It easy to survive. Because we there, we shot the bomb.
1:25:06 John Stryker Meyer? Cause like you said, you read earlier in the story, they did tear the Paris fire emergency. So when the first ones out of Marines Scarface, when they expended, then the the F ones came in, then the A one sky raiders. And then later we had Army.
1:25:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:25:19 John Stryker Meyer? You know, judge and executioner.
1:25:21 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
1:25:22 John Stryker Meyer? They came out.
1:25:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, we we understand exactly communist, you know, very afraid the airplane.
1:25:27 John Stryker Meyer? Uh huh.
1:25:27 Speaker 01 Even they got a big gun or they got a tank, they very skinny.
1:25:32 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, and two seven five rockets.
1:25:34 Speaker 01 Because we we on the ground. They wanna kill us, it very difficult.
1:25:43 Speaker 01 And they wanna kill us because they afraid of, you know, their. Their area got destroyed by the bomb. We there, we not authorized to shoot the people. But we can call airplane, even at night or day. We got it, you know, like communication with the with the air, right? Like at the, at night, we got a moonbeam.
1:26:08 John Stryker Meyer? Moonbeam at night.
1:26:09 Speaker 01 And then green ball.
1:26:10 John Stryker Meyer? Airborne.
1:26:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, airborne something?
1:26:13 John Stryker Meyer? Airborne command.
1:26:13 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
1:26:14 John Stryker Meyer? For all of Southeast Asia. So they would fly over and they would do column checks and.
1:26:18 Speaker 01 Right.
1:26:19 John Stryker Meyer? Which is moonbeam during the day would be Hillsboro, so.
1:26:22 Speaker 01 Hillboro, yes.
1:26:23 John Stryker Meyer? They stayed close, support, they were way above all the activity, the covey and the fast movers. So that that's one other level of communication, so if anything dropped off, like the coveys were in between. They could still talk to Hillsboro and then still direct the gunships, and then talk directly to the gunships or helicopter crew. And and Lynn did all that.
1:26:45 Speaker 01 Yeah. Good shock.
1:26:46 John Stryker Meyer? When he was, yeah.
1:26:47 Speaker 01 Good shock, we got it, you know, the system, we understand exactly, so we not afraid it. We only small group, they cannot find us. But they got big group, hey, you there, you got a big tank, thank you, hello, how you doing, buddy?
1:27:05 John Stryker Meyer? Bye.
1:27:06 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:27:07 Jocko Willink? Well, I'll tell you, speaking of communications, I can't imagine a more horrific sound to hear than the sound of the bugles from the communists.
1:27:20 Jocko Willink? Getting ready to attack, that's gotta be a nightmare.
1:27:26 Speaker 01 Well, we, we, we come there, there, their house. They operate to destroy their house.
1:27:37 Speaker 01 So, we wanna, they wanna kill us, it's not, not easy.
1:27:42 Jocko Willink? Not gonna be easy.
1:27:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, not easy, because we learn a lot, we're training a lot.
1:27:50 Speaker 01 We know, when, when we came down there, we got a big thing, right? How many enemy on the ground? Where we can hide them? Where we can put the, uh, the top, I mean, M fourteen mine? Where, uh, top up, where we can put it, claymore mine? We can put it, uh, C four? And we know situation on the ground. We know everywhere, especially we got experience in the jungle.
1:28:29 Speaker 01 And you, American, you know situation, you know our knowledge with the American. I'm Vietnamese or whatever, I'm known, I'm better than the people from the north.
1:28:46 Speaker 01 So we, I understand exactly when they moving. I look in the jungle, I, I look in the mountain? And I can see it, how, where are they?
1:29:01 John Stryker Meyer? And that way you could help them in black, direct the airstrikes, you saw the most enemy activity.
1:29:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, right here. By the way, day by day, we got experience. I'm not too good, but with my experience, I can look in up the jungle, the mountain here, mountain here. I can say, hey, I'm right here.
1:29:24 Speaker 01 Say, hey, black, we down here. I read the, uh, location for him. And then, that way it is.
1:29:34 John Stryker Meyer? But then after the bugles blew, then things got ugly again.
1:29:39 Jocko Willink? Yeah, here.
1:29:39 John Stryker Meyer? But then you had your walls built.
1:29:41 Jocko Willink? Yeah, let me pick it up. So, the NVA bugles sounded. Waves of NVA troops carrying SKSs with fixed bayonets advanced on ST Alabama. When they were fifteen feet away, ST Alabama opened fire. The semi-automatic SKSs were no match for the fully-automatic firepower of the Spike team. After the first burst of full-automatic fire, the team went to single-shot. It was another turkey shoot. Without a word, a look, or a plan, acting solely on instinct, all of them, except the 1-1, scurried forward and dragged back dead NVA, placing the bodies in a circle around them and stacking them high. The deadly skirmishing continued for several hours,
1:30:24 Jocko Willink? before Covey told Black that more gunships and five jolly green giants with heavily-armored Sikorsky HH-3Es were en route. Blackjack, Covey, what you're up against is the regiment you were sent to find. Over. And Blackjack replies, "Is that all? Only 3,000 of the bastards? Well, I think we made a dent in them. Who's winning?" "They are," Covey responded. As Black finished his commo, he saw sight he would never forget. The NVA formed a front line of NVA troops who were firing their AK-47s. Behind them were several NVA soldiers swinging thongs made of leather and cloth, which held three to five hand grenades each.
1:31:07 Jocko Willink? With a jerk of their collective wrists, the NVA hurlers launched more than two dozen communist-manufactured grenades at ST Alabama. The sky was full of grenades. Fortunately, they weren't US grenades. They hit the ground and threw dirt, smoke, and dust all over the place. ST Alabama looked up just as the AKs started again. And behind them, the thongs whirling overhead like helicopter blades. When the AKs stopped, the grenades were released. ST Alabama fired. More grenades were released. Alabama threw some back. ST Alabama... Alabama was caught in a deadly version of the kid game, Pop Goes the Weasel.
1:31:48 Jocko Willink? The AK-47s continued to roar, Alabama ducked, the grenades were launched, Alabama rocked. Catch, duck, throw, duck, catch, throw. The NVA advanced. Grenade shrapnel several severed the antenna of the PRC-25 radio. He quickly, Black quickly rigged an impromptu antenna from wire. The relentless NVA continued to advance inch by bloody inch.
1:32:17 Jocko Willink? Cowboy took two Vietnamese team members over the cadaver walled perimeter, seeking to get another line of fire to direct at the advancing NVA. The advance continued despite firing from Black and the remaining Vietnamese team members. The NVA were now merely feet away from the perimeter. Jeez.
1:32:36 Speaker 01 Do you believe it?
1:32:39 Jocko Willink? I can't believe you're sitting here talking to me.
1:32:42 John Stryker Meyer? Really, even now?
1:32:43 Jocko Willink? Yeah. Jeez.
1:32:48 Jocko Willink? Throwing bunches of grenades. That's just a horror show. That's crazy.
1:32:56 John Stryker Meyer? That's the first time we ever saw that, right?
1:32:59 Jocko Willink? Yes.
1:33:01 John Stryker Meyer? A new tactic.
1:33:06 Speaker 01 We live in here.
1:33:09 Speaker 01 They here. Here the bell is going down here. The first thing, we are the top.
1:33:17 Jocko Willink? So there's a ri- so there's a little ridge line?
1:33:19 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:33:20 Jocko Willink? And they're on one side of the ridge line?
1:33:22 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:33:22 Jocko Willink? You're on the other side of the ridge line.
1:33:25 Speaker 01 And then they shoot up, we're going down here, we move to, you know, we gotta hide in here to cover us. And grenade throw here.
1:33:34 Jocko Willink? Oh, so they're throwing grenades over the ridge line at you?
1:33:37 Speaker 01 And then.
1:33:40 Speaker 01 As you, as I say, that communist is not training well. So if, you know, they throw it out, come in here, one, two, three, four, they throw it. We're gonna die everybody.
1:33:57 Jocko Willink? But they just pull the pin through.
1:33:59 Speaker 01 Put a pin and throw it.
1:34:00 Jocko Willink? They cook them at all?
1:34:02 Speaker 01 Yes, and we have a time. We have a time to pick it up and throw it back. Because, because they are not well training. But with us, hand grenade, put it out, throw it, one, two, three, throw it. When they pick it up, it grenade, blow it out. That's why we can accept it. Communist is not well training. Or whatever, they're not training at all. They just know, put it out and throw it. That's why we still, yeah, we still survive.
1:34:45 Speaker 01 And the people that they don't understand, they say, hey, the guy is liar. No, it's not a liar, but they're training it not, not, not, not well, not good. So that's why we, we here, Meyer. That's why we here.
1:35:08 Jocko Willink? Going back to the book, at the last moment with the NVA, a few body lengths away from the perimeter, two Huey gunships from the Americal Division, 176th Aviation Company, the Minutemen, muskets of the 36th Charlie arrived. The UH-1B pilots were codenamed the Judge and the Executioner. They roared into battle, first with a minigun blast, followed seconds later with several 2.75 millimeter rockets placed in the NVA ranks. Alabama was saved, if only for a little while. The NVA backed off for a few moments, briefly licking their collective wounds, although they were far from whipped. New assault lines of the NVA troops formed. Before the NVA opened fire on ST Alabama, however... The executioner confronted the NVA head on.
1:35:53 Jocko Willink? With both door gunners blazing away with their handheld M60 machine guns, he hovered inches off the ground between the team and the front of the NVA, and skipped several 2.75mm rockets off the ground into the NVA. Before the bleeding startled NVA could respond, the pilot lifted the old UH-1B model gunship over the tree line, and ducked down into the canyon, regaining enough airspeed to return for another pass at the ST Alabama perimeter. Before ST Alabama could celebrate, the NVA charged again. Three more dead NVA were added to the cadaver wall. Silence dominated the battlefield. No bird chirps, no speaking, no noise of any type. Even the aircraft over the scene had flown far enough away
1:36:37 Jocko Willink? that their absence amplified the empty air. The 1-1, who hadn't fired a single shot, continued to pray. Black patched up a bleeding cowboy. He gave him some morphine before bandaging a wound on the right side, on his right side, from an AK-47 round. "Where's John Wayne when you need him?", cowboy asked.
1:36:57 Jocko Willink? The others laughed. "Chu hoi du ma, give up, motherfuckers", an enemy soldier yelled. Another NVA told Black to "chuhoi" in English. Black flipped him the bird as a sniper shot Alabama's tail gunner, Kwong, is that right Kwong? Kwong, yeah. Kwong, in the crotch, hitting an artery. As though a prior direct pressure to Kwong's wound, an A1E Skyraider lumbered into the AO, flown by pilot codenamed Snoopy. He roared in from Black's left, brushing the treetops, full flaps, working his throttle. The aircraft was so close to the team that Black could hear the distinctive metallic click-click of the napalm canisters being released from the old Korean War-era plane.
1:37:43 Jocko Willink? The Skyraider appeared to be falling, but it actually slipped down into the valley to escape NVA gunfire as the American UH-1B gunships and fast movers had maneuvered earlier in the day. His wingman appeared as he flew, and he, as he flew over the team, they could hear the nuts and bolts of god knows what creaking and groaning as he salvaged the rockets. The NVA were pissed. Again, the hot shell casings from the airborne warships rained down on ST Alabama. Where's John Wayne when you need him?
1:38:14 Speaker 01 That's a great line. That's my cowboy.
1:38:19 Jocko Willink? Oh, and where, what, did you got, you got shot with AK?
1:38:23 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:38:26 Speaker 01 You went to, you wanna see a scar? In my butt.
1:38:30 Jocko Willink? I'll take your word for it, sir.
1:38:33 Speaker 01 He's got so many scars. Many scars.
1:38:41 Jocko Willink? Yeah, it's crazy to think you're so close to these guys that you're talking to them. Yelling out Chu Hoi, Chu Hoi Duma.
1:38:48 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
1:38:51 Speaker 01 They all away cold.
1:38:52 Jocko Willink? They what?
1:38:54 Speaker 01 The enemy all away Chu Hoi.
1:38:59 Speaker 01 Get the fuck there.
1:39:03 Jocko Willink? Uh, then three small mortars opened fire. Black knew there was no way in hell any of the teams could catch the mortars and throw them back. He and the Vietnamese team leader Tho rolled over the cadaver wall toward the mortars cautiously picking their way through the charred NVA bodies and carnage from the previous airborne assaults. They moved into the jungle within twenty feet of them first mortar tube. Tho drew a plan in the ground. He would hit tube one, Black would hit tube three, and they'd combine on tube two. After the mortarman launched three salvos, Tho opened on his target while Black attacked his target tube and several NVA, several nearby NVA soldiers. The survivors chased Black. In the confusion, the NVA opened fire on each other as Black headed toward tube one.
1:39:45 Jocko Willink? With NVA soldiers still chasing him, where Tho was pinned down. Black threw a hand grenade and killed at least three NVA with a blast of gunfire to free Tho. They turned on the NVA chasing Black and dealt with them. Then he and Tho wiped out the NVA at the second tube before they quickly returned to the team. All while picking up ammo and loaded AK-47 magazines from dead or wounded NVA soldiers. By now, Watkins had returned to Flying Covey Rider above SC Alabama. Spider had called the US Air Force Thirty-seventh Air Rescue and Recovery Group in Da Nang to attempt to rescue S, the rest of SQ. Alabama during the Vietnam War when pilots were shot down in the north in North Vietnam
1:40:25 Jocko Willink? or Laos and all else failed the Jolly Green Giants were called the Sikorsky HH3E weighed 22,000 pounds loaded and had two General Electric T58 GE5 turboshaft 1500 horsepower engines extra armament and firepower and they were manned by remarkable Air Force pilots and crews the first heavily armored Jolly Green Giant code named JG28 started its descent to the LZ from 4,000 feet as it approached the JG crew was looking for an orange panel on the southeast side of the LZ however as the aircraft was about to touch down crew members noticed a second panel the NVA had an identical panel the momentary pause was
1:41:06 Jocko Willink? nearly fatal for JG28 as the NVA opened fire on it from several sides the heavy gunfire severed the main fuel line causing a massive fuel leak inside the helicopter JG28 had to withdraw from the LZ in a matter of seconds there were two or three inches of aviation fuel on the aircraft's cabin floor the fumes temporarily blinded the crew members the pilot was able to stabilize and return to Da Nang as JG10 hovered a safe distance away from the LZ Watkins directed a few more airstrikes around ST Alabama with the hope that the communist soldiers would put their heads down long enough for the team to get out after a few airstrikes JG10 piloted by Air Force Major Vernon Sam Grenier was called
1:41:51 Jocko Willink? to attempt the extraction for Grenier this was his first assignment in the Prairie Fire AO as a Jolly Green Giant pilot way welcome to welcome to Prairie Fire when the call from Covey came Grenier knew that there were two US Green Berets on the ground with their Vietnamese team members and that the majority of the team was wounded he didn't hesitate Grenier piloted the Jolly Green Giant toward the LZ unlike JG28 Grenier knew which side of the LZ ST Alabama was on as he approached the LZ NVA gunfire again reached a deafening roar despite ST Alabama directing firepower at the communist soldiers as Grenier began to hover over the LZ JG10 was hammered by enemy gunfire
1:42:34 Jocko Willink? His crew chief reported that one NVA round had tore a six inch hole through the floor. The round apparently slammed into one of the engines. Both engine warning lights went on. Both engines were on fire. Grenier did a 180 degree turn and moved to damaged aircraft away from the deadly enemy fire and away from the team, struggling to keep it airborne, calling upon all the training he had received to continue flying. Both crew members continued firing their machine guns as Grenier battled to keep the ship in the air. Time ran out for JG-10. After traveling several hundred yards, Grenier warned his crew to brace themselves for a crash landing. Both crew members continued firing their weapons until the burning HH-3E slammed into the jungle.
1:43:18 Jocko Willink? ST Alabama was stunned. Covey and all the men flying over the target area viewed the horror in grim silence.
1:43:29 Jocko Willink? What's that, four helicopters have gone down now? Five? Including the first, the first one on insert?
1:43:35 John Stryker Meyer? Four.
1:43:36 Jocko Willink? Four.
1:43:39 Jocko Willink? The men back at FOB-1 monitored the radio transmissions on their PRC-25s as Covey talked to Black. Spike Team Alabama's radio signal was too weak to hear any response. The word spread through camp that the latest horrific turn of events surrounding ST Alabama. The usual hustle bustle of a Saturday at FOB-1 was replaced by quiet hushed tones as the entire compound feared the worst, but continued to pray for the men of ST Alabama. Word of a proposed ArcLight mission reinforced the gravity of ST Alabama's situation. An ArcLight was a strike by a B-52 bomber from more than 25,000 feet. Back in Laos, the stunned members of ST Alabama returned to their cadaver perimeter
1:44:24 Jocko Willink? once again, nearly out of ammo. One-one was facing down, muttering, "The Lord is my shepherd." One of the Vietnamese went about collecting AK-47s and ammo from the dead NVA as Spider and Watkins directed more airstrikes around the team. Within 10 to 15 minutes after Grenier's burning HH-3 crashed into the jungle, Covey learned that there were two survivors from the Jolly Green Giant and asked ST Alabama if they could locate the remaining crew members.
1:44:55 Jocko Willink? Grenier had broken his back but somehow pulled himself from the burning helicopter. The other Jolly Green Giant survivor Sergeant Ernest Dean Casbeer had been thrown clear of the crash. Neither knew the location of the other. Watkins told Black where the Air Force survivors were and that they'd run a daisy chain between his position and the men, hopefully to clear the area enough for the team to get to both of the survivors. The NVA threw one more curve at ST Alabama. When Black tried to talk to Covey, he found the primary, secondary, and alternate FM frequencies jammed by the NVA. Frustrated, Black smashed the PRC-25 and pulled out his URC-10 High Frequency Survival Radio. He was
1:45:38 Jocko Willink? told an arc light strike was being planned for this area as soon as possible. By now, all air assets, Navy, Marine, and Air Force, which had been scheduled to fly sorties into North Vietnam, were diverted to the prairie fire emergency surrounding ST Alabama. Covey directed numerous airstrikes, including more gun and rocket runs from helicopter gunships. Scarface and Hueys from the Marine Light Helicopter Squadron 367 returned to make several runs. After refueling and reloading in Phu Bai, the Minutemen Muskets returned to wreak havoc on the persistent NVA troops. They pounded the jungle area between ST Alabama
1:46:16 Jocko Willink? and Air Force survivors. Around 1800, a Jolly Green pilot, Air Force Major Don Olson, called over the radio. "Blackjack, JG-32, over. I'm parked down in the draw in the trees from you. You have 20 minutes of fuel before I leave. The first person we must see is an American. Hurry, we're taking heavy ground fire." Jeez. So now it's 6 o'clock at night. You've been there all day on the ground, four helicopters down. You've got two survivors that you're gonna try and link up with.
1:46:56 John Stryker Meyer? Jolly Green just came down to the jungle and hovered in the jungle just to
1:47:00 Jocko Willink? Just waiting there.
1:47:00 John Stryker Meyer? Lower his profile and to wait.
1:47:03 Jocko Willink? Yeah, it's a it's a counterintuitive thing that when you're in an aircraft and when you're in a helicopter or a plane, when you're up higher, it makes you an easier target. It's better to get low where the enemy can't see you. So I know it's it might not make sense. People might think, oh, it'd be better to go up, but it's actually in a lot of cases better to go down. And that's what this guy's doing.
1:47:27 Jocko Willink? Anything that couldn't be carried was thrown over the side of the cliff. As quickly as the wounded could move, they headed toward the Jolly Green Giant. Could you guys hear the helicopter? Did you know where it was?
1:47:37 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:47:38 Jocko Willink? So you could hear it and you're like, okay, we gotta go for it.
1:47:41 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:47:43 Jocko Willink? The chopper had literally cut away the treetops and branches to nestle into the thick, dark green foliage, thus reducing its profile to enemy gunners. Olson had to keep the aircraft stable as there were large trees on all sides of the aircraft. The trees were large enough that they could severely damage the five rotor blades and cause the trapper to crash if any of them got hit. Covey directed more airstrikes in a daisy chain fashion in the portion of jungle between ST Alabama and the hovering Jolly Green Giant. Watkins hoped this would drive out or kill NVA in the zone. Even that task became more difficult as smoke from all the ordnance continued to hang over the trees, decreasing the visibility for pilots and helicopter gunners.
1:48:25 Jocko Willink? As they moved toward the hovering helicopter, ST Alabama entered a cool ravine before climbing a final hill to the chopper. There, they encountered a village with hooches built on 10-foot stilts, complete with large pots cooking rice and vegetables. Instead of NVA troops, Black found an American taking food from one of the pots. He was the flight engineer. Sergeant Ernest Dean Caspier, one of the two Air Force survivors from the crashed helicopter. Soon they found Grenier, who had assisted in directing the hovering Jolly Green to this area in the jungle despite his broken back. You want to talk about miracles?
1:49:03 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
1:49:04 Jocko Willink? Randomly running into these guys?
1:49:07 Speaker 01 In the village. In the village. Jeez. But we know, we knew two guys still survive. Yeah, you knew that. Looking for them. Well, LG is here. The Jolly Green tent it dropped down here, it crashed. We run from here all the way down here. You know, the communist house around here. We got a difficult time to join with them. So that's why we take,
1:49:43 Speaker 01 you know, very crazy decision. We go or we go fast or we go slowly or we go, you know, the, by another way to get in, to join with them.
1:50:00 Speaker 01 This from, from, from the hill here to the crash side, it very difficult time for us. But we gotta do it. You know, like at eighteen o'clock. Right. It little bit dark. So it's starting to get dark. And blood and angle key wanna say, hey, we stay here for overnight.
1:50:28 Speaker 01 But I thought in my mind, if I stay overnight, I gotta die because my bleeding in the back, everything in my body. I say, hey, let me, let me join first.
1:50:44 Speaker 01 And I run too. But we had a tactical to escape from the, from here to the crash side. I say, go fight. And Quan and Ju got a two gun. This fought ding, ding, ding, and then I run.
1:51:10 Jocko Willink? So you just kinda went for it?
1:51:11 Speaker 01 Yes. And, and. They still.
1:51:15 Jocko Willink? And were you, were you trying to get to where the helicopter was?
1:51:19 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:51:19 Jocko Willink? And you were just gonna go by yourself?
1:51:21 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:51:21 Jocko Willink? Because otherwise you were gonna bleed out?
1:51:23 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:51:24 Jocko Willink? At what point did the rest of the team decide to go with you?
1:51:27 Speaker 01 They stayed there, they stayed there. I'm the policeman.
1:51:30 Jocko Willink? Uh huh.
1:51:31 Speaker 01 To open the, like the blood way. To let if I'm die, if the team get it, to be the safety.
1:51:43 Speaker 01 If I run through, and then when I get there, I gotta shoot by, ding ding, and the team run.
1:51:50 Jocko Willink? Okay, so you were gonna, they were covering for you?
1:51:53 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:51:53 Jocko Willink? And then when you got there, you covered for them?
1:51:55 Speaker 01 Yes. And then when I run there, I say, hey, I saw the truck there, and I stay there, I say, go. When, we don't have a radio, but when I saw it, the people understand I'm safety. And then Quang, they gotta run through my, my way. We rejoin in there with the helicopter side.
1:52:23 Speaker 01 But we understand, if I'm stay overnight, I gonna die because of bleeding.
1:52:29 Jocko Willink? Sure.
1:52:30 Speaker 01 And then, anyway, I gotta, I die, let's try. Let's try to looking for the way for survival.
1:52:39 Jocko Willink? Right. So you, you didn't, you were either gonna die trying to run there, or you were gonna die staying there overnight?
1:52:47 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:52:47 Jocko Willink? So you might as well go for it?
1:52:48 Speaker 01 Either way, either, either thing, I gotta die, if I'm stay there.
1:52:53 Jocko Willink? And you already had died, what, three times, four times at this point in your career?
1:52:57 Speaker 01 But, you know, how do we hear? We still, you know, understand we training well, we training good. And then we work together really good, if I'm running.
1:53:13 Speaker 01 If Kwan and Black or whatever can protect me.
1:53:19 John Stryker Meyer? They give you cover.
1:53:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:53:20 John Stryker Meyer? Cover fire.
1:53:20 Speaker 01 I gotta die in my way.
1:53:23 John Stryker Meyer? And the NBA wasn't used to you guys running.
1:53:26 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:53:28 Jocko Willink? They didn't expect it.
1:53:29 John Stryker Meyer? No, again, they just before they charged through the rank several times. And in this one here, he's running and then the others follow.
1:53:37 Speaker 01 Another one ding ding ding ding, you know, right there.
1:53:40 John Stryker Meyer? And you're firing with AK forty sevens by now, so that way. Um, the NBA maybe wouldn't be so alert. They heard car fifteens, they would come quickly for the car fifteens, but hearing AK, maybe they weren't sure. That may have helped.
1:53:54 Speaker 01 No, we still have a one or two car fifteen.
1:53:57 John Stryker Meyer? Really?
1:53:58 Speaker 01 You know, we, you know, the way car fifteen, the the front.
1:54:02 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
1:54:03 Speaker 01 We put, we take it the in the front of the M sixteen.
1:54:08 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
1:54:08 Speaker 01 We put in in car fifteen, different sound.
1:54:14 Jocko Willink? For a different what?
1:54:15 Speaker 01 Different sound.
1:54:16 Jocko Willink? Oh, okay.
1:54:17 Speaker 01 Different sound. So when I saw that, bam, like it, yeah, like it, like a machine gun.
1:54:25 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
1:54:26 Speaker 01 But the car fifteen, the the long one in here.
1:54:28 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
1:54:29 Speaker 01 It's very small, but when we shoot it by the, I don't know how to call it, but you know, the front of the.
1:54:39 John Stryker Meyer? It's the, it's the flash on the end.
1:54:40 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:54:40 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
1:54:41 Jocko Willink? Oh, a different flash.
1:54:43 John Stryker Meyer? This is about two inches.
1:54:44 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
1:54:45 John Stryker Meyer? They had the early M sixteen.
1:54:47 Jocko Willink? Oh, okay.
1:54:47 John Stryker Meyer? Three prong one.
1:54:48 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:54:48 Jocko Willink? Oh, okay.
1:54:49 John Stryker Meyer? Very early M sixteen with a three prong, they they changed the flash.
1:54:53 Speaker 01 Different sound, different sound.
1:54:55 Jocko Willink? So a different sound.
1:54:55 John Stryker Meyer? Very different sound.
1:54:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, very different sound, yeah. You know, the comment is.
1:55:00 John Stryker Meyer? One more thing that saved you.
1:55:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, one more thing.
1:55:03 John Stryker Meyer? You're running, you're bleeding, and you're firing car fifteens, but different sound, along with the AKs.
1:55:09 Speaker 01 And they knew that and then they follow me. And then at the time they follow me, I got ping ping, just single shot.
1:55:18 Jocko Willink? Just single shots.
1:55:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, if you pull it full automatic, you don't have a good enough, you know, the ammo.
1:55:24 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
1:55:25 Speaker 01 So the ping, we count, maybe we can play game with them. One, two, three, ping. One, two, three, ping ping, sometime, and then they scan it.
1:55:40 Speaker 01 If you fool, you know, the automatic, they say, hey, that guy had no experience in the war.
1:55:47 Jocko Willink? He's an amateur.
1:55:48 Speaker 01 Yes. And easy to run out the ammo.
1:55:52 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
1:55:52 Speaker 01 Bing. Not ping, ping, ping, ping.
1:55:56 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
1:55:56 Speaker 01 Different, different way, different style. So they know the, uh, the people with the enemy, they understand exactly those guy that, how, how they learning. So according from the, uh, from the training, we're doing well, we're doing good, very good. So any situation, anywhere and anytime.
1:56:23 Jocko Willink? Training counts.
1:56:24 Speaker 01 Yes. So just, you know, just let the people understand that in the army now, you better learn, you better train. Don't be, don't say, hey, I'm hero, I'm hero, I'm the big guy. No.
1:56:38 John Stryker Meyer? No.
1:56:39 Speaker 01 We need to training.
1:56:40 Jocko Willink? Always train.
1:56:41 Speaker 01 Training all the way. Learn from each other. If James Stride, he listened to me, he say, hey, how do we get out? And that easy, right? Call the chopper, I need attraction. And then we saved the everybody.
1:57:01 John Stryker Meyer? Let's get back to here where you are now.
1:57:03 Speaker 01 Yes, sir.
1:57:03 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
1:57:05 Jocko Willink? Well, where we are right now is back to the book. The NVA focused heavily on the chopper easing the pressure on ST Alabama. As they neared the Jolly Green, Black thought it felt like they were moving closer to the gates of hell itself. The NVA were pouring small arms fire and RPGs at the hovering ship. All the door gunners and pilots intermittently fired the minigun, M79s and M60s, and the helicopter gunships and Skyra- Skyraiders made gun runs around it. Time was against them. The weather was beginning to close in. The smoke from previous airstrikes hung over the area for longer and longer periods of time before clearing enough for the next attack from the air. On the ground, the men of ST Alabama heard an NVA running through the bushes around them. Fortunately, the NVA failed to spot the Spike team or the Air Force crewmen.
1:57:49 Jocko Willink? Black had to move his team onto a trail so it could move to the hovering helicopter more quickly. As the team moved up the trail, the tail gunner was shaking violently and had turned to pasty white. Team members set Quong down and proceeded to the aircraft. At the crest of the hill, they saw the helicopter taking hits and dealing out its own. The M60 was red hot. Black saw someone firing an M16 out of one of the windows. As Black moved to the chopper, the intensity of gunfire seemed to multiply. The air was so full of lead, he could see it. Fuel and bits of metal skin fell from the aircraft as they reached its underside. The jungle penetrator smashed to the ground next to him and raised three feet before he could put three team members on the first load.
1:58:33 Jocko Willink? Grenier, the Air Force Flight Engineer and a wounded ST Alabama team member were second, were on the second hoist lift. The wounded Vietnamese became entangled in jungle vines and while was, while he was being hoisted upward, the Air Force hoist operator had to stop the hoist, lower it, and give him enough time to untangle himself. When the hoist moved up toward the aircraft, the Vietnamese was not sitting in the seat, but hanging on with assistance from Air Force Sergeant Caspier. Despite the NVA gunfire, Black ran back to the bamboo thicket where he had left the remainder of the team. Quong, the dying tail gunner, pointed his 45 caliber pistol at the advancing NVA and said, "Toi kyet."
1:59:18 Jocko Willink? "I die." He motioned Black to return to the helicopter before shooting himself. Black was running back to the ship when two NVA stepped onto the trail and pointed their AK-47s at him. "Chu hoi," one of the soldiers shouted. Black stretched out his arms and continued walking towards them. When he was only a few feet away, he said, "Chuh hoy." The young NVA soldiers appeared surprised. Before they could react, Black grabbed the AK-47s by their searing barrels and stripped them from their soldiers. He backhanded the soldier on his right and smashed the other soldier in the face with one of the weapons. He left the stunned soldiers lying there as he sprinted to the chopper where he found
2:00:03 Jocko Willink? the praying 1-1. The rest of the team was onboard firing any weapon they could get their hands on. As the jungle penetrator lift Black and the 1-1 upward, they were showered with hot spent casings from the M60 and other weapons being fired from inside the aircraft. The entire team fired out the windows and from the back door as the overloaded helicopter began to lift out of the jungle. Major Olson told Covey he was at maximum power. As the Jolly Green Giant slowly rose, Black felt the ship making upward surges from B-40 rockets slamming into the armor plated underside of the aircraft. It felt like it was a giant, it felt like a giant slugging the ship in the stomach, boosting it upward with each rocket blast.
2:00:47 Jocko Willink? From his view above the fray, Watkins couldn't believe the bird kept flying. Somehow, the pilot got the Jolly Green Giant out of there. Once clear of the jungle hole, the ship began its ascent out of the valley and the shadow of death. The door gunner removed his helmet and placed it on Black's head. The pilot told him, "We're on our way home." Not quite. From above, Watkins saw the crippled ship catch fire and try to make, and try to make it out of the killing zone. It crossed two ridge lines before descending into a clearing where it crash landed. Olson had gotten them out of the killing zone, but JG-32 had flown its last rescue mission. Everyone except Black and the 1-1 were transferred to another Jolly Green Giant piloted by a
2:01:32 Jocko Willink? Coast Guard Exchange pilot, Lieutenant Commander Lonnie Mixon. Mixon took over 30 hits, picking up ST Alabama and others. After everyone
2:01:45 Jocko Willink? After everyone knew that Black, the remaining personnel from ST Alabama and the Air Force survivors from JG-10 were cleared from the original target area, they hammered it with everything they had, including more napalm, bombs, and gun runs. Captain Hartness, the pilot of Watkins' FAK plane, was so mad at that he flew the O2 down into small arms range and fired his 2.7mm rockets into the area where the NVA had knocked down JG-10. He and Watkins took a hit to the front and the engine died. Hartness somehow got the Sky Master O2 up out of the area and back to Fubai. There was no engine pressure when he landed.
2:02:28 Jocko Willink? A Cobra gunship landed and opened the armament compartment doors, which had seatbelts attached to them. Black and the 1-1 buckled up and were soon airborne alongside the Jolly Green Giant returning to Da Nang. They were flying so fast that Black had to turn his bloodstained face away in order to breathe. Within minutes, he was so cold, he was shivering uncontrollably. The Cobra landed at a Marine medevac site, where the Americans were wrapped in poncho liners and helicopter to Da Nang. At the Da Nang infirmary, everyone was getting patched up. When Tho saw Black, he raised his right hand and a fist above his head. "Chu hoi du ma!" he yelled. Surrender, motherfuckers.
2:03:15 Jocko Willink? Man, that's a crazy mission.
2:03:20 Jocko Willink? What do you think, just another day in SOG?
2:03:23 Speaker 03 Absolutely.
2:03:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, it is another day in SOG.
2:03:30 Jocko Willink? And that was, I mean, that's one mission, but that was your life. That was your life. That's what you did. Every day, or multiple times a month, over and over and over and over again.
2:03:44 Speaker 01 Over, over, over, and over again.
2:03:48 Jocko Willink? I mean, the casualty rate for SOG was was over a hundred percent.
2:03:53 Speaker 01 Correct.
2:03:54 Jocko Willink? So if you were going to SOG, you were gonna get wounded probably more than once. You may be killed, obviously. I can't imagine that the survival rate for the Vietnamese that aren't going back to America, you're just staying in that job for years. I mean, their kid, the survival rate must have been miniscule for you to be standing here is crazy.
2:04:18 Speaker 01 Absolutely. It's a miracle. Actually, in our situation that we have no choice. We have no choice. We gotta go forward.
2:04:31 Speaker 01 Okay, Vietnam, Vietnam situation, Vietnam war country.
2:04:40 Speaker 01 If I'm not joined to the army, I get back home, I cannot survive. I must go with the another unit, like infantry or local, local army.
2:04:57 Speaker 01 Why not we stay with the shock? We got a lot of offering. We got a lot of money. Fair pay. Yeah, we got, you know, the, a lot of power when we on, go back to town. Mm hmm. We got, we, we wear the
2:05:18 Speaker 01 N V, N V A uniform. Nobody can touch it because we have it, right? And the, the car, employee of the US government. So nobody can toast. Whatever they cut, they wanna toast it. We got an MP, military police there to protect us. And we got a gun in the front, we got a gun, pistol in the back.
2:05:48 Speaker 01 Come on, whatever, ten guy or twenty guy. Have you watched it, the Rambo movie or something? We did like, hundred percent like him.
2:06:01 Speaker 01 We got a claymore mine here, we gotta go somewhere. We pull over here, nobody know. Anything happen?
2:06:10 Jocko Willink? Just walk around with a claymore mine on your chest.
2:06:12 Speaker 01 Right here. You wanna play? Go ahead, come on please. Even you know, the police station. Whatever they wanna do with us. We join together with one team. Three American. And nine Vietnamese, we went together. Nobody can stop us.
2:06:35 John Stryker Meyer? At the time, Quang was in jail, you had to go get him out of jail?
2:06:38 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:06:39 Jocko Willink? Had to break him out of jail?
2:06:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:06:42 Jocko Willink? Did they, was it, was there resistance from the jail? Or did they just let you guys take him? When they realized who you guys were?
2:06:48 Speaker 01 No, we, we went there for free. Nobody can stop.
2:06:54 Speaker 01 We, we, we went there. Up in here.
2:06:57 Jocko Willink? Claymore's on your chest.
2:06:58 Speaker 01 Come on here, please.
2:06:59 John Stryker Meyer? And also had a couple guys in their sixties.
2:07:02 Speaker 01 Car fifteen, we got a whole kinda thing. They look in car fifteen, they say, hey. What the hell the gun they that, right?
2:07:09 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
2:07:10 Speaker 01 Nobody know. And we got AK forty-seven. If they shoot up. Claymore mine gotta blow out.
2:07:19 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
2:07:19 Speaker 01 So. They let us do it for free.
2:07:23 Jocko Willink? Quang got out of jail. He got to get out of jail free claymore.
2:07:27 John Stryker Meyer? So he could go on a mission on October fifth. And that's where he died.
2:07:30 Jocko Willink? Yeah. Oh, so that, that's when you had to break him out was before this mission?
2:07:35 John Stryker Meyer? Before this mission, they broke him out of jail.
2:07:37 Jocko Willink? Jeez. So basically, so, so, so basically. You were in that job. Because you guys were the baddest motherfuckers in Vietnam and you did whatever you wanted to.
2:07:50 Speaker 01 Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
2:07:55 Speaker 01 Even you know, the strong guy.
2:07:57 Jocko Willink? Hey, a claymore beats a strong guy all day long.
2:08:01 Speaker 01 You know, I can count the, the piece up the, the inside. Five hundred fifty-five piece.
2:08:08 John Stryker Meyer? Ball bearings.
2:08:09 Jocko Willink? Oh, the ball bearings inside the claymore, yep.
2:08:11 Speaker 01 I can count it.
2:08:14 Speaker 01 Sometimes we play, just play the game.
2:08:17 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
2:08:18 Speaker 01 Put it out with C4 inside. We took out the, uh, we took out the C4.
2:08:23 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, sometimes they take it out and cook their coffee and stuff.
2:08:26 Jocko Willink? Oh, yeah.
2:08:26 Speaker 01 And then we put it in here and nobody know. Did it real well or the fake.
2:08:31 John Stryker Meyer? It's a little science.
2:08:32 Jocko Willink? Yeah, it's good, good psychological operations. When did you, uh, cause I know you ended up getting wounded badly in your leg. When did, when did that happen?
2:08:42 Speaker 01 It, uh, happened, uh, August 30th, 1971.
2:08:48 Jocko Willink? And then what, what happened? Did you get shot?
2:08:51 Speaker 01 I got shot.
2:08:53 Jocko Willink? And how did you get out of the, how did you escape the situation?
2:08:57 Speaker 01 The, uh, we don't know underground, but the water in there, swam in there. And then we get out there.
2:09:09 Speaker 01 We're looking for, with the people experienced like me, we're looking for the high, the place and under the tree to stay there.
2:09:19 Speaker 01 And they wanted, they wanted, uh, me to be, be able to play with them. I mean, they wanna catch the team.
2:09:27 Speaker 01 They, the first thing get.
2:09:31 Speaker 01 They want, the first thing like it, they wanna shot like it to, uh, French man.
2:09:36 John Stryker Meyer? They're out there to get a POW.
2:09:38 Speaker 01 They want to.
2:09:39 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
2:09:39 Speaker 01 They want me to do it. They want me to, they want, they wanna catch me.
2:09:46 Speaker 01 But we, we, we, we wanna not let them do it.
2:09:52 Speaker 01 And, but after that, they want, but they wanna catch the team. They, they don't wanna kill the team.
2:09:58 Jocko Willink? Okay.
2:10:00 Speaker 01 They say surrender like a chill hoy. And then we answered the, uh, by the cop 15. Here the cut chill hoy.
2:10:11 Speaker 01 But they very close to us. They got a bunker around there. And then they shoot the guy with the radio. Before they wanna catch the team, they gotta kill the radio man first.
2:10:23 Jocko Willink? Okay.
2:10:25 Speaker 01 Like the French man, he got the radio. They wanna con, make the contact to the team, they gotta kill the radio man first.
2:10:37 Speaker 01 And then my leg it neck to the radio. I pull. I kick the radio out. But they shoot the radio, including my leg.
2:10:53 Speaker 01 And maybe two, three down into my leg, they they shoot by R P D.
2:10:59 Speaker 01 I hear the shower, I know that R P D. And then I pull out my leg. That time we just get out there for ten minutes. And team, I just report to uh. The Bingham, Bingham just report to the uh K O V say team safety, team okay. And they can go home. Bingham was the team leader. Yes. They can go home, say in say in Bingham. Yes. And then. Later on, they got a hit right away. And my friend, they carry me out the uh. They call back, they call back, they call back to the chopper, the chopper come back. But, you know, I got it uh.
2:11:45 Speaker 01 P R C uh sixty eight. Oh, later on. No, P R C sixty eight, the radio. Mm hmm. Emergency radio.
2:11:54 Jocko Willink? Emergency radio.
2:11:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, emergency.
2:11:56 Jocko Willink? The P R C sixty eight. That was still around when I came in till.
2:11:59 Speaker 01 Really?
2:12:00 Jocko Willink? Yeah, it was it was getting phased out, getting replaced by the P R C one twenty five, but there was like one or two of them that you could go look at the radio shop.
2:12:06 Speaker 01 The small one.
2:12:07 Jocko Willink? Yeah, it's a small one.
2:12:08 Speaker 01 First one, we got it, no. The O K ten. Uh, O K ten, right? Yes. We got a O K ten. O K ten, we cannot talk. But P R C sixty eight, we can change the frequency to talk. Oh, okay. That they gotta develop the the new thing. And then when I turn it on, you know, when I pull out the, they gotta pull, try to be, pull out me to the L G. Mm hmm. And then I put it on and then. The uh chopper coming back. And shoot up to the enemy. And I turn over my leg, it it really hurt, really pain. I told my uh.
2:12:48 Speaker 01 P R C sixty eight away, I'm dropped somewhere. And then they they thought I'm I'm dead. Because after ten minutes. I cannot and you know, turn on, turn off the P R C twenty eight, that mean I am the one dead. And they wanna kill. They wanna blow out the P R C sixty eight, they don't want P P R C sixty eight. To to the enemy. The enemy. And and that's why I survived. And they they shoot around us by the rocket, by the missile, own kind of thing, and the N V A thought.
2:13:32 Speaker 01 You know, like the the chopper know where they are. They move out. Oh, they they they were scared. They scan it, they move it out. And I'm free, I'm not free, but you know, I got it. I got accepted if it's a situation. And the chopper land down, pick me up. And the first chopper land down. I smell the gas. Because the enemy shoot up the chopper. To the gas tank. I say, get out of the way, I I cannot shoot because I shoot it. The the chopper gotta burn it out. And I wait my hand, I say, go, go, go, go, go, go.
2:14:16 Speaker 01 And they talk to hold the team, I say, don't shoot anything, don't shoot anything. And after that, you know, the the pilot. They knew, you know, the gas is spread out. And then they left, I don't know what happened, what happened with the chopper. But the second land down, pick me up. They take me to the nine ninety fifth hospital. And then. Later on today, I got inspection.
2:14:46 Speaker 01 And then doctor cut off my leg.
2:14:51 Speaker 01 Only.
2:14:54 Speaker 01 Twenty minute on the ground. Only twenty twenty minute when we land down.
2:15:00 Speaker 01 But I'm okay now.
2:15:05 Speaker 01 I'm okay now.
2:15:06 Jocko Willink? So then, what was it like as the war was over and America was leaving and the communists are taking over? I mean, you had to be kind of a marked man, being this former, you know, special operations guy that was working alongside the Americans. They must have wanted to find you.
2:15:26 Speaker 01 That's why I told you that we need a training.
2:15:32 Speaker 01 After I got wounded, I was sent to work with the American Embassy.
2:15:41 Jocko Willink? Okay, so after you got wounded, you went to work at the American Embassy?
2:15:43 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:15:44 Jocko Willink? Got it.
2:15:45 Speaker 01 My station in Da Nang, at fifty-two, Badang, US consulate, General One, in Da Nang,
2:15:57 Speaker 01 until to nineteen seventy-five.
2:16:02 Speaker 01 The day we lost Da Nang at the end of the March nineteen seventy-five.
2:16:14 Speaker 01 With my experience with the shock, we understand enemy situation. They fight from north to the south. But I worked in Da Nang at the time, you know, the, they want to take Da Nang. I move up to the south. I hit a lot of enemy. I contact a lot of, you know, like the security or police.
2:16:47 Speaker 01 What do you think they move, they attack from the north to the south, but I'm from the south, move up to the north. They thought I'm, I'm their, their friend.
2:17:00 Speaker 01 That's why I'm telling you that we need to train.
2:17:03 Jocko Willink? So you did the opposite of what they thought you would do?
2:17:06 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:17:07 Jocko Willink? You went from the south to the north.
2:17:09 Speaker 01 To the north, that mean I'm the people from the north. They not pay attention about the people from the south to the north.
2:17:20 Speaker 01 But if you move from the north to the south, they got a checkpoint. Where you go, what is your name, where do you work? Everything they ask the question, but I'm from the north, from the south to the north. The reason that my father-in-law of the way, of the Fubai, Fubai camp. And then we stayed there.
2:17:48 Speaker 01 Until to they took over the Saigon.
2:17:54 Speaker 01 We almost crazy, we don't know where to go. We don't understand situation, but my family in the Saigon and Dalat. And in Bin Hoa.
2:18:09 Speaker 01 And after they cover to the South Vietnam.
2:18:16 Speaker 01 You know, I use it enemy paperwork. That mean enemy ID card and enemy certificate, I mean from, from the north. By the way.
2:18:31 Speaker 01 My relative, my uncle, my something relative, my nephew of the north.
2:18:40 Speaker 01 Going to the south to see me. That mean when, when the first thing we nineteen fifty-four, we still have the people living in, in the north. And when they came down, they looking for us. Because between Saigon and North Vietnam, it very difficult, very difficult.
2:19:01 Speaker 03 Sagon, it drags people. And, you know, gnarly people. But in North Vietnam, they only, you know, gnarly by the communist. They limit, limited with education.
2:19:19 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
2:19:20 Speaker 03 So when I, when they came down, when they came down to the south to see our family, they don't have nothing, but they still say, hey, we got a TV over the town, we got all kind of thing. But they have nothing. But at the time, they ask for the money, they ask for the gold, they ask for the drink. That's why I learn from them too. So, I'm not stay only one place.
2:19:51 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
2:19:51 Speaker 03 Today, I'm in San Jose, tomorrow, I'm down here, Los Angeles. Los Angeles, I gotta go Tennessee, and then I gotta go Washington DC, I gotta go...
2:20:04 Jocko Willink? You gotta keep moving.
2:20:05 Speaker 03 Keep moving.
2:20:05 Jocko Willink? Keep the communist guessing.
2:20:07 Speaker 03 Yes. And then, I buy something, everything in, in the communist, uh, situation, government, everything is not free.
2:20:20 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
2:20:21 Speaker 03 Like, I wanna, uh, I wanna fish.
2:20:26 Speaker 03 I gotta go down to sea, some, then I'm or somewhere, I buy the fish. Took from there, back to Sagon to sell to super, uh, black market. So I found out the way. By the way, I'm looking for the way to escape.
2:20:45 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
2:20:46 Speaker 03 From Vietnam. They give me some time of free because they know, they knew I was from the shock man, SOZ, for free. They invited us because they gotta go, but they don't know how to do.
2:21:03 Jocko Willink? Oh, so they actually invited you, the communist invited you to...
2:21:06 Speaker 03 No, the, the people in the South Vietnam.
2:21:09 Jocko Willink? Oh, South Vietnam. They invited you to start training them?
2:21:13 Speaker 03 No.
2:21:15 Jocko Willink? To just do security for them? To do what?
2:21:18 Speaker 03 To, if we see anything happen in, overseas, I gotta shoot the communist, yes.
2:21:24 Jocko Willink? Got it.
2:21:24 Speaker 03 Then I protect them.
2:21:27 Speaker 03 And then... Until to nineteen eighty six.
2:21:36 Speaker 03 October. I successfully to come to.
2:21:42 Speaker 03 Malaysia.
2:21:43 Jocko Willink? And how did you do that?
2:21:45 Speaker 03 By small boat.
2:21:47 Jocko Willink? Small boat?
2:21:47 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:21:49 John Stryker Meyer? And you had tried fourteen times before that?
2:21:52 Speaker 03 The last time I did fifteen time. I got a paperwork right there.
2:21:56 Jocko Willink? And what is that? You tried to escape, so you tried to escape fourteen times, you were successful on your fifteenth time?
2:22:02 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:22:02 Jocko Willink? What were the other methods that you tried to do? Was it always by boat?
2:22:06 Speaker 03 By boat, yes.
2:22:07 Jocko Willink? Always by boat?
2:22:07 Speaker 03 Always by boat. I I I thought I gotta I gotta go, I can go by kitchen. Or whatever the. Lounge. But my leg. Cannot walk. Because I know where the way to go.
2:22:24 Jocko Willink? Right.
2:22:24 Speaker 03 I know where the way to go, but you know, my leg.
2:22:27 John Stryker Meyer? Go west, but you couldn't walk?
2:22:28 Speaker 03 No, yes.
2:22:31 Jocko Willink? And then what happened once you got to Malaysia?
2:22:34 Speaker 03 I be there for way for the UN, I mean.
2:22:45 Speaker 03 I stay there. I see the American delegation. And they come to interview me.
2:22:58 Speaker 03 So they say, and then they take me to the to come to the United States.
2:23:04 Jocko Willink? How do they go, how do they confirm who you are?
2:23:08 Speaker 03 I have nothing, but you know, they got a special interview. From the people from from the US, I mean, GVA, I mean, Joy Volunteer Agency. When I came there, I have nothing.
2:23:25 Speaker 03 But they asked me. And I talk my history.
2:23:31 Speaker 01 They called back here, they called back state to check up.
2:23:35 Jocko Willink? Right.
2:23:36 Speaker 01 And after one month, they say, hey, you come US.
2:23:41 Jocko Willink? So they did that pretty fast.
2:23:43 Speaker 01 Yes, because they asked me, they got it, you know, group like it looking for the for the POW or whatever MIA. They asked me the question, do I know any American mission in action or I said, yes, I did. I talk, uh, Poking, uh, Camp Cry, James Stride.
2:24:10 John Stryker Meyer? These are all people who are teens that got killed.
2:24:13 Speaker 01 They got.
2:24:13 John Stryker Meyer? The two other Americans on Alaska, when it got wiped out, when Jim, when Allen survived.
2:24:17 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
2:24:18 John Stryker Meyer? The two Americans were crying in camp.
2:24:20 Speaker 01 I only, I only remember with three, but they asked me, uh, do you know where the location? I said, yes, I did.
2:24:29 John Stryker Meyer? Sure.
2:24:30 Speaker 01 And they tried to bring me back to the Vietnam to tell them. But, uh, they could because the time I stayed there for six months for waiting to come back to Vietnam. But I don't know why they sent me to the Philippines for education training.
2:24:55 Jocko Willink? For what, what kind of education training?
2:24:57 Speaker 01 For learning, learning, you know, like it for orientation.
2:25:00 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:25:01 Speaker 01 For how the American life.
2:25:04 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:25:05 Speaker 01 And in there for six months, I came over here, San, San Francisco.
2:25:12 Jocko Willink? And then what was it like when you landed in San Francisco?
2:25:15 Speaker 01 Nineteen eighty-eight, something.
2:25:17 Jocko Willink? Nineteen eighty-eight?
2:25:18 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:25:19 Jocko Willink? What'd you do when you landed? Did you have any family here?
2:25:22 Speaker 01 Yes, I got it, uh, my sister in, in San Jose.
2:25:27 Jocko Willink? And had she escaped from Vietnam?
2:25:29 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:25:30 Jocko Willink? Already?
2:25:30 Speaker 01 Yes, nineteen seventy-five.
2:25:32 Jocko Willink? And how did she escape?
2:25:34 Speaker 01 Uh, by, uh, because some.
2:25:38 Speaker 01 She had a husband like the uh the Vietnamese pilot.
2:25:44 Speaker 01 And they out of Vietnam by the way, you know, the her husband.
2:25:50 Jocko Willink? Wow. So what did you do when you when you landed? Just have to start get a job and I mean, you couldn't strap a claymore to your chest anymore and walk around town taking what you wanted.
2:26:07 Speaker 01 My sister, she be here like at the uh seventy five. And then she got like a few gas station. Five gas station.
2:26:19 Speaker 01 So one, uh Shell, Echo. And then I got I when I came, I work for her like a family job.
2:26:30 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:26:31 Speaker 01 Until I got, you know, like a uh.
2:26:35 Speaker 01 I got stroke.
2:26:37 John Stryker Meyer? Fifteen years ago.
2:26:39 Speaker 01 Fifteen years, seventeen years ago, I got stroke. And then that no more, no more job, no more work.
2:26:48 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, that happened. We all thought Cowboy Finney will never see Cowboy again. We all heard that.
2:26:54 Jocko Willink? I don't know. I'm I'm I don't think there's anything that can kill Cowboy at this point. Cowboy's gonna live forever.
2:27:00 John Stryker Meyer? So he has a stroke, it was a bad stroke, but yet he's back.
2:27:03 Speaker 01 My mouth, you know, it was like over here and I cannot move. But now I'm still okay, but another trouble. But uh eight inch or.
2:27:16 John Stryker Meyer? Eight and orange.
2:27:17 Speaker 01 Eight and orange.
2:27:20 Speaker 01 I got a kidney problem. I got a dialysis.
2:27:24 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:27:26 Speaker 01 Now at home.
2:27:28 Jocko Willink? And you managed somehow to have kids during all this. You have children?
2:27:33 Speaker 01 Yes, I do.
2:27:34 Jocko Willink? And how many children do you have?
2:27:36 Speaker 01 Totally ten.
2:27:39 Speaker 01 Do you believe it?
2:27:41 Jocko Willink? I don't, I don't, I believe anything that you tell me.
2:27:44 Speaker 01 But three, three dead in Vietnam.
2:27:47 Jocko Willink? Okay, so you lost three kids in Vietnam.
2:27:49 Speaker 01 Because when the newborn, they don't have, you know, any food. They don't have any uh like the energy to to stay.
2:28:00 Speaker 01 Right?
2:28:00 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:28:01 Speaker 01 Three dead.
2:28:04 Speaker 01 And then when I had scap, with the two of my son came over here with me. My wife, at the time, is still back in Vietnam. And then I do my paperwork. All my family here right now. I got five son and two girl in here with me, in the United States with me.
2:28:25 Jocko Willink? Oh, beautiful.
2:28:26 Speaker 01 One of the Texas, one of the North Carolina. And three in here with me. And two of my girl, one in here with me, and another one of the, I believe, Louisiana. And then I have sixteen, no, eleven grandchild.
2:28:50 Jocko Willink? Eleven grandchildren.
2:28:53 Jocko Willink? Wow.
2:28:53 John Stryker Meyer? Eleven little cowboys.
2:28:55 Jocko Willink? Eleven little cowboys. So you are gonna live forever, no doubt.
2:29:01 John Stryker Meyer? No doubt.
2:29:02 Speaker 01 I try my best, I try my best. I cannot tell, whatever, you know, like it. When I got shock, my, my, my wife say call 911, when I say, hey, don't do it. And then my son say call 911, when I say, don't do it. Let me stay. I cannot sit, I cannot lie down.
2:29:25 Jocko Willink? This is when you had your stroke?
2:29:27 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:29:27 Jocko Willink? You said, don't call 911?
2:29:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, no.
2:29:32 Jocko Willink? You didn't wanna call a prairie fire emergency on that situation?
2:29:35 Speaker 01 No, I call chopper.
2:29:36 John Stryker Meyer? Call PB.
2:29:37 Speaker 01 Call PB. And, you know, I pull, because I have a training, when, when I was young, I have a training Kung Fu. I got a training, training yoga.
2:29:49 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
2:29:50 Speaker 01 And I keep, you know, I keep my body, you know, free.
2:29:53 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm.
2:29:54 Speaker 01 I keep my mind going. And later about hour, I back to normal, not normal. That time, you know, we cannot, we can, we can use it, you know, medication. I say, okay, now, call 911, take me to the doctor. But the time for emergency, I learn from my father. He crying when I lost my leg. He say, he told me why I'm not use it to help.
2:30:26 Speaker 03 You know, hope, right?
2:30:28 John Stryker Meyer? Hope?
2:30:29 Speaker 03 Hope, hope medication.
2:30:31 Jocko Willink? Hope is the medication.
2:30:32 Speaker 03 Yes, not, you know, use it by the American way medication like take pill or get shot. They're no good, so that's why I'm say don't call nine one one.
2:30:44 John Stryker Meyer? Wow.
2:30:45 Speaker 03 And then I survive right now, you see it?
2:30:51 Speaker 03 I got a lot of trouble. I know it affect by the war.
2:30:55 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:30:56 Speaker 03 You know, sometime it make me depressed. I got a lot of medication.
2:31:03 Speaker 03 And you know, they spread everything in the Vietnam, uh, Agent Orange.
2:31:11 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:31:12 Speaker 03 We came down there.
2:31:15 Speaker 03 You know that we very shock with the water.
2:31:20 Speaker 03 We put out the rock, the water in there, we take an hour drink.
2:31:25 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:31:27 Speaker 03 That's why I got a trauma with my age right now.
2:31:32 Jocko Willink? Because the Agent Orange?
2:31:34 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:31:39 Jocko Willink? Well, I'll tell you what, I don't know, uh, we've been going for two and a half hours.
2:31:44 John Stryker Meyer? No.
2:31:44 Jocko Willink? Till, what do we, what do we miss? What do we, did I miss anything?
2:31:47 John Stryker Meyer? Well, the only thing we missed would be if we, if you want to talk about the day he was with the Frenchman. That historic day when the Frenchman got shot in the back four times.
2:31:58 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
2:31:59 John Stryker Meyer? If you remember that.
2:32:00 Jocko Willink? Okay, so one month later, you guys are on another mission and I'm going, I'm going back into across the fence. Here we go. Later in the afternoon, Childress signaled to the team to pull their claymore mines and prepare to move out. Due to the combined weight of the rucksack and web gear, Laterno, this is the Frenchman, moved to his knees and slung his rucksack on his back. Just as it landed on his back, AK-47s opened fire. Laterno was slammed to the ground face first. Face first, the impact so severe, he had thought he had broken his nose. Startled, Laterno jumped up with his Car 15, pointing it toward the AK-47 gunfire that was near the front of the team.
2:32:38 Jocko Willink? Surprised that there were no NVA near him, Laterno removed the rucksack to discover that four AK-47 rounds had ripped through the 23 pound PRC 25.
2:32:49 Jocko Willink? He reached into an especially tailored pocket on his fatigue shirt, which was sewn with vertical zippers, one on the left of his shirt, one on the right side, between the top and bottom of the pockets on his shirt, and pulled out his URC 10 emergency radio and broadcast a general alert for any aircraft in the area. ST Virginia was declaring a prairie fire emergency. Then there was a sudden, complete silence, eerie silence. Amazed at the quietude, Laterno walked to Childress, who asked him what he had done with the PRC 25. Laterno explained that four rounds had ripped through the radio and that it was probably useless. "Get the fucking radio," Childress yelled. "What if it's working? We leave it behind for those assholes to use." Stunned, Laterno went back, picked up the rucksack, and walked to Childress, who grabbed
2:33:34 Jocko Willink? the handset as NVA troops began firing at ST Virginia and yelled into the radio, "We have a fucking prairie fire emergency. Get us the fuck out of here, or I promise we'll I'll kick your ass all the way back to Saigon." As the firefight raged on, the remainder of the team was lying down on the ground, firing at the NVA while Childress and Laterno continued to argue while standing up, oblivious to the AK-47 rounds cracking over their heads. Laterno yelled back at Childress, "It won't work," while pointing to the PRC 25 radio where the antenna had been shot off. No antenna, no commo. Laterno grabbed a spare whip antenna and handed it to Childress, who screwed it into the radio. This time, Childress screamed in the radio, "We need an exfil now. I'm
2:34:16 Jocko Willink? declaring a prairie fire emergency. Is anyone out there?" Within a second or two, there was a response. "Calm down, Childress. I realize you're under fire," said a Covey rider. Just at that moment, several AK-47s opened fire from the wood line near the log where Laterno had been unceremoniously slammed onto his face. Lap and Cowboy returned fire. Covey rider continued, "We heard your team declare a prairie fire emergency on guard frequency, and I've rallied the cavalry. What's your mark? Do you have an LZ in sight?" Before Childress said a word into the radio, he turned to Laterno and said, "See? It works."
2:34:56 Jocko Willink? "Suppose we had left it for the NVA?" "Never. I say again, never, ever leave behind a radio." As if to emphasize that point, the NVA opened fire again, as Lap began looking for an LZ while moving the team down the hill, away from the most concentrated NVA gunfire. Cutting Laterno no slack, Childress roared, "Tell Covey we'll give him five, we'll give him a fix in five minutes. We'll probably need strings to get out of here. I doubt we can make it down to the valley where a king bee can pick us up." Without missing a beat, Laterno, who for the first time felt four burning stings in his back, repeated those words to Covey, while he and Cowboy began providing cover fire as the tail element of the team.
2:35:36 Jocko Willink? Laterno, then Laterno nodded to Cowboy, who ignited several claymore mines that the team had set out on its perimeter. Those mines only slowed the NVA for a few seconds. Before the dust and debris from the blasts had settled, NVA soldiers were moving through it toward Cowboy and Laterno. Without saying a word, the two men took turns firing at the enemy while moving downhill. Rotating around each other, Cowboy would fire several bursts from his Kar-15 and then reload. As he reloaded, Laterno would open fire, providing covering fire for the team. During one short lull, Cowboy even planted a claymore mine in the direction of the advancing NVA, and Laterno dug out another claymore from his rucksack and placed a 10-second delayed fuse on it.
2:36:20 Jocko Willink? When the NVA advanced again, Cowboy ignited his claymore mine. The NVA moved towards the team again. Laterno ignited his fuse and ran down the hill with Cowboy to catch up to their team. Before they reached the team, two B-40 anti-personnel rockets slammed into the trees above them, showering them with shrapnel. A few more exploded as Laterno and Cowboy moved down the hill. Then the 10-second fuse ignited another claymore. It brought precious time for the gun-run team of Laterno and Cowboy to turn to cover ground and catch up to the remainder of ST-Virginia. As Childress called in airstrikes, Laterno reflected on how surreal the firefight had been. It wasn't anything like he had witnessed on television or in any movie. Instead of men charging each other and killing each other in plain sight,
2:37:04 Jocko Willink? here in triple-canopy jungle, he observed green tracers from AK-47s first, or at the most, an enemy hand or foot. And somehow, the NVA found firing lanes where they could launch shoulder-held B-40 anti-personnel rockets that slammed above them and around them as they raced down the hill.
2:37:24 Jocko Willink? Again, the voices of his special forces instructors echoed in his mind. They had told the young aspiring Green Berets at Fort Bragg that the NVA was a tough resilient opponent. Many had fought against the Japanese during World War II and against the French, driving them from Vietnam in 1954. The sounds of King Bs in the distance and the crashing thunder of B-40 rockets slamming into trees above his head shook Laterno out of his moment of introspection and turned his undivided attention to the crescendo of AK-47 fire from the enemy. ST Virginia responded with volley after volley of full and semi-automatic gunfire, while Laterno and Cho fired several M-79 rocket rounds toward the densest section of jungle
2:38:07 Jocko Willink? where the AK-47 gunfire was emanating. Through the gunfire, someone popped a smoke grenade, which brought the King Bs closer to RT Virginia's location in the jungle. Over the din of gunfire, Childress and Cowboy told everyone to put on their Swiss seats and prepare for string extraction. In short order, a King B was hovering over ST Virginia, more than 125 feet above the jungle floor. Laterno, Cowboy, Cho, and Hawn hooked their D-rings into the old Maguire rig that hung from the end of the ropes and shortly were being lifted out of the jungle. As a quartet of recon men was being lifted into the air, the NVA released another salvo of AK-47 and B-40 rockets. Shrapnel from the rockets hit them with varying degrees of size and velocity.
2:38:52 Jocko Willink? All of them were wounded. It was during these explosions that Laterno realized his Car 15 had somehow become caught in the rope above him just far enough away that he couldn't reach it. He pulled out his M-79 and launched a grenade toward the NVA positions. Now, all he could see of the enemy were hundreds of muzzle blasts from AK-47s and green tracer rounds climbing upward toward the quartet of ST Virginia men.
2:39:16 Jocko Willink? Before he could reload his M79, the King Bee began to move away from the target area, surprising him because the men had not cleared the jungle yet. Instead of continuing to climb out of the target, moving straight up until the men cleared the jungle's triple canopy of trees and vegetation, the King Bee was moving away from the target area due to the heavy enemy ground fire. In recent months, at least two King Bees were shot down during the string extractions from hot targets, but these facts were unknown to Laterno at the time. Shrapnel from B40 rockets exploded around the ST Virginia men, stringing them with pieces of hot metal, stinging them with pieces of hot metal, further spooking the King Bee crew. Laterno began to violently collide with the tall jungle trees.
2:39:57 Jocko Willink? Feeling like a metal ball in a pinball machine, Laterno carooned off several more trees, at least one more B40 exploded in the treetops, again showering in with shrapnel. A tree branch hit Laterno from one side and turned him upside down in his Swiss seat, as the rope seat began to slip down his hips. Laterno remembered Spider telling how 1-0 from another team had recently been shot out of his Swiss seat during a rope extraction. Another tree struck Laterno before he was able to muster the surge of strength and momentum to reach up and grab the rope above him as his body finally cleared the treetops. The only thing between him and certain death below was the jungle floor.
2:40:40 Jocko Willink? 200 feet below was the single piece of rope tied into the King Bee. With one final urgent pull, Laterno was able to move himself upright in the Swiss seat as the King Bee continued to climb higher into the sky, distancing itself from the fury of exploding B40s and AK-47 gunfire while gaining airspeed.
2:41:07 Jocko Willink? Well, there you go.
2:41:08 John Stryker Meyer? And Cowboy was there for that and had, he was still recovering from the wounds from October 5th. Here he is at round Thanksgiving.
2:41:17 Jocko Willink? Yeah, so a month and a half later, after your October 5th insanity, you're out there again.
2:41:23 Speaker 01 Almost healed.
2:41:24 Jocko Willink? Almost healed.
2:41:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, almost healed. Because the tree up, damn one.
2:41:31 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
2:41:32 Speaker 01 Uh, no.
2:41:35 Speaker 01 And another one that Sam my village. And they want me to go with them.
2:41:42 Jocko Willink? Oh, so they're they were from your village and they wanted you to go and help them?
2:41:45 Speaker 01 Go have them. And then, by the way, the new man.
2:41:50 John Stryker Meyer? Lap?
2:41:51 Speaker 01 No, the Frenchman.
2:41:54 Jocko Willink? Oh, was this the Frenchman's first mission?
2:41:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, the first, the first mission, we we don't trust, we don't trust how he learning.
2:42:02 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
2:42:03 Speaker 01 So that's why we gotta go strong enough to protect him.
2:42:08 John Stryker Meyer? Sure.
2:42:08 Speaker 01 And by the child, child of it, he very good, perfect. He he perfect man, but he only one. And then, Frenchman, he the new guy. We don't know about him, but you know.
2:42:23 John Stryker Meyer? You know, one zero in several missions.
2:42:25 Speaker 01 Yes, one zero, it it they they gotta experience. I don't want. You know, the Frenchman, like a James Strong. James Strong, the first mission.
2:42:37 Jocko Willink? Mm hmm.
2:42:38 Speaker 01 He going. And the first mission, it easy to go. That's why, you know, I'm volunteer to go with the Virginia. To take care of my my three friend. Sam my village. And by the way, that the Frenchman, he the very new man. So that's why, yes, baby son, that we call him baby son.
2:43:04 John Stryker Meyer? Well, you did okay.
2:43:04 Speaker 01 But he perfect.
2:43:06 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
2:43:07 Speaker 01 But he good. He training good.
2:43:10 John Stryker Meyer? Did you train how to kill the dogs?
2:43:13 Speaker 01 I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, but you know. We we very like the machine.
2:43:20 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
2:43:20 Speaker 01 When I shoot something, he he knew I run out the ammo. He cover me. And when he run out the machine, uh, the ammo, I cover him. So I, I cannot just it, he like the number two.
2:43:38 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
2:43:39 Speaker 01 He number two. Because the first time, later on, you know, I, I know he run a lot of mission.
2:43:47 John Stryker Meyer? Thirteen.
2:43:48 Speaker 01 Yes, I know about it. I know he run a lot of mission, but that's why he's su- he's still survivor.
2:43:55 John Stryker Meyer? But that makes you autumn were amazing.
2:43:57 Jocko Willink? Yeah, cuz he did thirteen.
2:43:58 John Stryker Meyer? A month and a half.
2:44:00 Speaker 01 Only month and a half.
2:44:01 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, you go from October fifth to this mission.
2:44:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's.
2:44:03 John Stryker Meyer? Part of your six years.
2:44:04 Speaker 01 Almost heal with my scar, almost heal, not, not really heal, almost heal.
2:44:10 John Stryker Meyer? Well, you got new shrapnel too.
2:44:12 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:44:12 John Stryker Meyer? New shrapnel wounds from that.
2:44:15 Speaker 01 But in order, you know, to, because like you and me right now, I cannot, you know,
2:44:25 Speaker 01 leave you alone. I gotta go with you.
2:44:28 John Stryker Meyer? Sure.
2:44:29 Speaker 01 Because we close friend, very close friend.
2:44:33 Jocko Willink? Well, that's, that's what it's all about and it's, uh, it's amazing to be able to sit here and talk to you. I can't believe that I'm sitting here and talking to you. Uh, I can't believe that you survived one of those missions, never mind.
2:44:45 John Stryker Meyer? Six years.
2:44:45 Jocko Willink? Yeah, six years of those missions.
2:44:48 Speaker 01 I thought just normal.
2:44:50 Jocko Willink? No, no, it's not just normal.
2:44:53 Speaker 01 Like somebody else.
2:44:55 Jocko Willink? No, that's no one else doing that.
2:44:57 Speaker 01 We got pay, right? And then we got a bonus if we do it a good thing, like we have a camaraderie.
2:45:06 Jocko Willink? Do you remember how much you got paid?
2:45:08 Speaker 01 One picture, it five hundred dollar, oh no, five hundred piastres.
2:45:13 Jocko Willink? How much is a piastre worth?
2:45:14 Speaker 01 Like.
2:45:15 John Stryker Meyer? Depends what time of day it is, maybe a dollar.
2:45:18 Jocko Willink? So you go and do these missions for a dollar. You're a cheap date.
2:45:21 Speaker 01 Like a five dollar.
2:45:22 John Stryker Meyer? Five dollars?
2:45:23 Speaker 01 Five dollar for a picture.
2:45:24 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, okay.
2:45:25 Speaker 01 And then.
2:45:26 Jocko Willink? For a recon picture?
2:45:29 Speaker 01 We can learn a lot from the song. Like you remember sometime we got a radio, small radio.
2:45:36 John Stryker Meyer? Right.
2:45:37 Speaker 01 We get in the jungle, we throw it. And then some special camera. And we throw in the jungle. And we learn a lot.
2:45:52 John Stryker Meyer? We put in the sensors too.
2:45:53 Speaker 01 Yes, and the sensor. Cameras and sensors. Camera and sensor and radio.
2:45:59 Speaker 01 You, you, you gotta ask me why you throw the radio into the jungle, right?
2:46:05 John Stryker Meyer? Right. I never knew about that, so this is all top secret.
2:46:08 Speaker 01 Okay.
2:46:09 John Stryker Meyer? So top secret, even I didn't.
2:46:09 Speaker 01 Even Tilt didn't know, then you know it's top secret. Another, another system, another system from the, from the, from the department.
2:46:21 Speaker 01 But we don't know, or whatever, do I have authority to speak in that? The radio we throw in the jungle. That's mean, you gotta have a question. If the communist pick up the radio, who's the one use it?
2:46:42 Speaker 01 That squad leader, a platoon leader, or company leader?
2:46:46 John Stryker Meyer? That blow up?
2:46:47 Speaker 01 No, they not blow up. Inside the radio, they got a something.
2:46:55 Speaker 01 When they order anything?
2:46:56 John Stryker Meyer? Mm-hmm.
2:46:57 Speaker 01 Airplane? Mm. Know what's going on. There you go. Now, we, we, we learn from them a lot.
2:47:06 John Stryker Meyer? Okay.
2:47:07 Speaker 01 We learn from, we learn, we learn from them a lot. See it? Or like the flashlight?
2:47:14 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
2:47:16 Speaker 01 We throw the jungle, nobody know. And when we training to throw the flashlight in the jungle,
2:47:26 Speaker 01 the first question that they ask me,
2:47:30 Speaker 01 if you see the flashlight in the jungle, do you pick it up?
2:47:36 Speaker 01 I'm gonna say no. You say no, it, you know past the test. You should, you should pick it up.
2:47:42 John Stryker Meyer? The NVA might pick it up.
2:47:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, NVA, you gotta pick it up. Oh, they're gonna pick it up, but I'm saying I wouldn't pick it up. Cause you'd have that thing booby trapped or something. Because you, you thought, you thought it, it, it important thing, just normal thing.
2:47:59 Speaker 01 Okay, the first question they ask you. You see the flashlight in the jungle, do you pick it up? You say, "No." That mean something wrong with you.
2:48:08 John Stryker Meyer? Uh huh.
2:48:09 Speaker 01 I say, "Yes, why not?" And I pick it up. And the second question. What? What do you do with the flashlight when you pick it up?
2:48:21 John Stryker Meyer? Turn it on.
2:48:23 Speaker 01 Turn it on? You fail the task.
2:48:29 Speaker 01 Because it mine in there. How do you know? When you turn it on, it blow up.
2:48:34 John Stryker Meyer? Blows up.
2:48:36 Speaker 01 So many, so many learning from. I, I don't know how to tell you, but you know.
2:48:43 John Stryker Meyer? You did a pretty good job.
2:48:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, I gotta learn a lot. I got to learning a lot. Okay, team moving. Three NVA that followed you. Enemy followed you. The first question. You want a three enemy dead? Or you want a three, three enemy wounded? If I answer the three enemy dead. You go home. You cannot run recon anymore.
2:49:16 John Stryker Meyer? You want POWs.
2:49:18 Speaker 01 I want a three guy, at least one guy wounded. Why? Because the team still on the mission. The wounded, another, another NVA gotta take care of them, right?
2:49:36 John Stryker Meyer? Uh huh.
2:49:37 Speaker 01 So that delay the time that they follow the team.
2:49:43 John Stryker Meyer? And if you get a POW, you get a bones.
2:49:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. A lot of piasters for a POW.
2:49:49 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
2:49:50 Speaker 01 BMW a lot.
2:49:51 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah.
2:49:52 Speaker 01 Buku piaster. Buku, like the.
2:49:56 Speaker 01 Like a hundred thousand something? Yeah, hundred thousand piastra.
2:50:01 John Stryker Meyer? Yeah, we only got a hundred dollars. I don't know what you would get. I didn't hear about that, so I don't know.
2:50:07 Speaker 01 The reason that we got a bonus. But now I found that bonus. Before that, I don't know anything. I don't know, just exactly, just empty. I don't know anything about it. But we learn. We learn from him. We learn from you. We learn from him. We learn a lot. Every, every different guy.
2:50:28 John Stryker Meyer? We learn from you. We talk back to him.
2:50:29 Speaker 01 Yes, like I learn from him, he learn from me. So we, we sit down, we show our experience. Like I told you, if I saw the enemy in the jungle, I kill him, it easy.
2:50:46 Speaker 01 But in order to complete my duty, I gotta stay on the ground about five day. That's why I'm not kill the enemy. I just stay there. And they, they test you how smart to handle the, the thing happen. That's why I wanna become, you know, the recon team. It's very difficult. Especially
2:51:14 Speaker 01 the first thing, protect this guy. Protect American guy. The first, the first choice, protect American guy. But we understand that we was recruit to refill the American came to the Vietnam.
2:51:35 Speaker 01 That's why I can tell you that I'm so lucky. I'm not good, but you know, just normal. Just bring everything is normal, better, better than for me.
2:51:50 Jocko Willink? Well, you're definitely, uh, you're definitely lucky and I can tell from everything I've seen, you're damn good too.
2:51:56 Speaker 01 Perfect, perfect. Very lucky.
2:52:01 Jocko Willink? Yeah, amazing. It's just an amazing, uh, story to sit here and, and talk to you and, and get this information and, um, you know, get other people to be able to hear this story is just, it's awesome.
2:52:13 John Stryker Meyer? Indeed.
2:52:14 Jocko Willink? You, you got anything else to tell?
2:52:16 John Stryker Meyer? No, this is it. It's been a great ride and thank you for bringing us together. This is really a special day.
2:52:21 Jocko Willink? It's awesome. You, you got anything else, Khan?
2:52:24 Speaker 01 Thank you
2:52:28 Speaker 01 to invite me to be here today.
2:52:34 Speaker 01 Our country situation right now.
2:52:38 Speaker 01 I am very sad.
2:52:41 Speaker 01 I can tell you my dad
2:52:44 Speaker 01 got to die by the sociolip. My father
2:52:51 Speaker 01 dead because, you know, he, he the capitalist. He not very rich man, but he middle guy. He middle in the Vietnam.
2:53:04 Speaker 01 But the communism, it no good at all. Please send a message to the people. Don't trust the communism. That's all I can say. That we here, we shaped it. But after the, uh, the vote for president situation right now, I am sad
2:53:32 Speaker 01 to let the, at my knowledge, I don't know it true or not. But another hand from the communism
2:53:45 Speaker 01 touch to the United States of America.
2:53:49 Speaker 01 I be here for ADA for thirty-two years. I never, never get back the country. I never visit the Vietnam. Even I wanna go back there, but
2:54:01 John Stryker Meyer? For the funerals?
2:54:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, for the, uh, from our friend is still back in the Vietnam. But the Vietnamese government will let me get in.
2:54:14 Speaker 01 If you don't trust me, I got a paperwork in here.
2:54:19 John Stryker Meyer? We trust you.
2:54:20 Jocko Willink? We do.
2:54:22 Speaker 01 I work with the General Schmidt, who's the MIA accounting. He's came in the Hawaii Schmidt, Cam Schmidt.
2:54:39 John Stryker Meyer? This is several years ago, right?
2:54:40 Speaker 01 No, it like the fifteen, twenty years ago.
2:54:45 John Stryker Meyer? Okay.
2:54:47 Speaker 01 I work with him regarding about our people, yes. Can't cry, Robinson, and Hong Kong, you know, like the helicopter. Yes, strike. But they won't, let me get there. I have met family with the our friend. Paul King, Paul King, I'm pick up the name of Paul King right now. Because.
2:55:15 John Stryker Meyer? Oh, Paul King.
2:55:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, Paul King.
2:55:17 John Stryker Meyer? Yes.
2:55:17 Speaker 01 Because we have the Paul King.
2:55:19 John Stryker Meyer? Just King crying over KIA in Alaska with John Allen.
2:55:27 Jocko Willink? Well, I can tell you, I think one of the reasons that you start seeing these things in Americas, people don't understand communism and they don't realize how evil it is. And so you coming on here and sharing your story and explaining what you went through, what your father went through, what your family went through at the hands of the communists. I can assure you that there are, look, there might be some Americans that don't understand, but there are plenty of Americans that do understand and we will never let that evil form of government control take over this country. It will never happen.
2:56:07 Speaker 01 I believe so, I believe so, but in my side I hear, you know, the communists wanna talk over the, uh, the, uh, US because they mess up, you know, the voter, they mess up the computer for, for the president term, it turn over to, uh, Mr. Joe Biden. I heard a lot of information, so I scan it. I wanna buy boat, another boat now, if I got a money. In order to happen, you know, I escaped from United States.
2:56:46 Jocko Willink? You're not gonna need another boat to escape from the United States. We will make sure that doesn't happen. And America is stronger than one person and, and our roots are deep and we will stay a free country. And because of men like you, we're, we're able to be here today.
2:57:03 Speaker 01 How, how they mess up the country right now? The defense of the fan, Mr. Expert, get fired and a lot of man get fired. They under careful cover to another country. Why? You said very strong, but we gotta take care. We gotta be careful with it. Remember, communism, control the people by food. You don't have a food, you can't do anything.
2:57:44 Speaker 01 That's what they control the people in China, they can control the Cuba, they control the North Korea. You outside the, them, their country, you see, hey, hey, look good, look good, look good, but inside the country.
2:58:04 Speaker 03 No good.
2:58:06 Speaker 01 It no good. They say you want food, you gonna do it. They want water, you do it. They want fish, one month for two or three fish, you gonna do it. I give you the paperwork to go buy from the store. It not free. Like here, United States people, you want anything, you have everything.
2:58:37 Speaker 03 You can work.
2:58:37 Speaker 01 But in there, you want anything, you gotta listen and obey me. What to do? Trust me about the way it is. You say very strong country, no.
2:58:55 Speaker 01 You see it?
2:58:57 Speaker 01 It know COVID.
2:59:00 Speaker 01 How the government say you need to take a mask. Thinking about, listen, why, you know, Mr. Exper, he commander with the United States Army? He got fired, and another three got fired too.
2:59:22 Speaker 01 Okay, I'm looking back, I, I, I ask you the question. American don't lose anything, right? But why we still get out of Vietnam? Why we lose Vietnam? You told me politic.
2:59:37 Speaker 01 Because now it politic, but with my experience, the politic, they can control, you know, the hero guy like you, like me. And then we trust them, we gonna die. Like at the, the time, you know, Mr. Obama? You see the, do you see the picture of Marine in the boat surrender with the? What do you think?
3:00:07 Jocko Willink? Uh, that was not a good situation at all.
3:00:10 Speaker 01 But why? Why we still have a picture? Because the people fight in the Washington.
3:00:18 Speaker 01 Like the Mr. Trump, they can't do anything.
3:00:24 Speaker 03 We're the soldiers, we gotta do and we gotta follow with the order. But they order us to come to die. So I'm not a politic guy, I'm, you know, retired man, seventy-two years old. I can't do anything, I can't make any money, but
3:00:47 Speaker 03 I'm afraid of my children, my grandchildren grow up living under communism.
3:00:55 Jocko Willink? Mm-hmm. Well, that's a good point, and I appreciate that point, you know, I'm sitting here, sitting here saying, oh, America's strong, but your point is, we can't get arrogant and think that it can't happen to us. We have to remain vigilant all the time.
3:01:10 Speaker 01 Yes, sir. Trust but verify.
3:01:12 Jocko Willink? Indeed.
3:01:12 Speaker 01 Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
3:01:15 Jocko Willink? Well, once again, thank you for coming on, thank you for sharing your stories. You're always welcome here, both you guys, obviously, are always welcome here. Khan, thanks for coming and sharing your story. And, and thank you, more importantly, for your service to your country, to this country, to defend freedom and democracy in the world. And thank you for taking care of your big American brothers on the battlefield and your Vietnamese brothers as well. And, and thank you for you and your family's sacrifice on the altar of freedom.
3:01:54 Speaker 01 Thank you, sir.
3:01:55 Jocko Willink? Thank you.
3:01:56 Speaker 01 Amen.
3:01:58 Jocko Willink? And with that, Tilt and Cowboy Khan have left the building, leaving
3:02:07 Jocko Willink? nothing but respect and admiration for incredible service, incredible men, and everything that they've gone to.
3:02:15 Jocko Willink? Everything they've gone through Echo Charles, you were sitting in the corner.
3:02:18 Speaker 04 Yes.
3:02:18 Jocko Willink? We didn't have room for you at the table.
3:02:21 Speaker 04 That's okay.
3:02:21 Jocko Willink? Pretty, pretty insane, right?
3:02:23 Speaker 04 Yes, very much. So yeah, it's a, it's a little bit different when I'm like X, not excluded, but X not in on the table.
3:02:33 Jocko Willink? You were detached.
3:02:34 Speaker 04 Detached. Yeah, I'm detached even more.
3:02:36 Jocko Willink? Hmm.
3:02:37 Speaker 04 So yeah, it is interesting. You can sort of see and imagine really kind of what's going on and what like everyone went through and how it was being like in a different culture, you know, and with military and stuff. And then you kind of compare it to all the people that have come on and shared their story. Yeah, very interesting.
3:02:57 Jocko Willink? The crazy thing is though, all those back to back to back to back to back years of doing these missions. I mean, the Sog guys could barely get out of there alive.
3:03:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:03:05 Jocko Willink? And here's, there's no getting out.
3:03:07 Speaker 04 Okay, so there's this part, this might seem kind of random, but there's a part of that I remembered where he said that he could smell, they could smell.
3:03:15 Jocko Willink? He kind of opened up with that, yeah.
3:03:17 Speaker 04 Yeah. So, and I was thinking about it where it's like, yeah, I, I see how that could be really, when you're so used to a certain environment, you can tell just a little differences, like.
3:03:28 Jocko Willink? Hundred percent, man.
3:03:29 Speaker 04 So, uh, you ever, here's an example, like when you're at home, right? And if someone just came over and just left, you come in, I don't even know if you can smell them, but it's probably has something to do with smell.
3:03:44 Jocko Willink? Oh, you can definitely smell it.
3:03:45 Speaker 04 But you know how you, but put it this way, that's what I thought too, that you could smell them, but I can't smell something specific. I know it just smells different, you know, that feeling. So it's, it, it almost does feel like a little bit of a sense, you know?
3:03:58 Jocko Willink? Hmm.
3:03:59 Speaker 04 So imagine that like, or like, you know how like your, your furniture will be moved just a little bit and you walk in, like, like, you know, I have a little home office, whatever, and there's this couch. And when I put it in there, it is, it's the perfect, like I painstakingly put it a certain distance from the, there's a TV in there too. And so.
3:04:20 Jocko Willink? So in your, in your home office, you have a couch and a TV?
3:04:25 Speaker 04 Yes, some other stuff.
3:04:26 Jocko Willink? That's cool.
3:04:27 Speaker 04 Hey man, I make videos, got it, you know.
3:04:28 Jocko Willink? Good, good point.
3:04:29 Speaker 04 Anyway, so one time I was fixing something underneath the couch and I just, you know, I had to apparently move it just a little bit and just didn't think about it. And then when I walked in like later that night or whatever, I was like immediately felt it. It was, it was off by like literally one inch, literally. And I could feel it. I looked at it, it was like threw me off, you know? So that's kind of the kind of stuff he was thinking.
3:04:53 Jocko Willink? Yeah, and those guys growing up in the jungle, they grow up in the jungle.
3:04:57 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
3:04:58 Jocko Willink? And so they're just a hundred percent in tune with it. And then you got the big gringos coming in, you know, and tell, he kept calling himself a city slicker.
3:05:09 Jocko Willink? Amazing, amazing guys. Well, when I hear stories like that, it certainly makes me feel like, like we can step up our game. Like I can definitely step up my game. Like I can
3:05:23 Jocko Willink? do better.
3:05:24 Speaker 04 Do better. Oh, he's training like Cowboys.
3:05:26 Jocko Willink? Oh man, Cowboys. And you know what? I don't know if we captured it because we were talking before we pressed record, but he started getting really into training. You know, it's like how well, how well they trained.
3:05:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:05:36 Jocko Willink? And, and he did mention it a bunch, you know, he did mention a bunch, but he, he gave kind of the foundational part about training before we pressed record, you know, like the foundational, how much it meant. So he kept saying it and he really reiterated it, especially at the end, you know, he was reiterating it, but yeah, it's no doubt, you always got to train, always got to be prepared. You never know, you never know what's going to happen. Train harder.
3:06:02 Speaker 04 Yeah, kind of applies to everything too. Even if you don't necessarily want to think of it in terms of like, oh, there's an enemy out there, you know, literally. Or even figuratively, if you, if you don't necessarily want to think about that part of it all the time, it's, it has to do with capability. Cause enemy, that can be anything if you want to go metaphoric.
3:06:23 Jocko Willink? You're preaching the wrong guy here. I'm down with.
3:06:26 Speaker 04 All of it.
3:06:29 Speaker 04 Well, let's face it. If you have a, let's say you're bringing home a, you know, those big water jugs, five gallon water jugs. You put in a water cooler, whatever. Let's say you're bringing some of those home.
3:06:39 Jocko Willink? Okay.
3:06:40 Speaker 04 And let's say you don't have a lift gate on your truck or you just have a car, you have a car, but it's in the backseat. And now you gotta reach in there and you gotta grab it at this awkward angle. See what I'm saying? That in and of itself could be an enemy.
3:06:55 Jocko Willink? Yeah. Never mind the NVA storming your position.
3:06:59 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:06:59 Jocko Willink? More important could be the water bottles.
3:07:02 Speaker 04 The chances of a NVA storming your position today, a little bit lower than you grabbing a water jug. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know. Everyone's different. I get it. Nonetheless, point still remains, look, we're trying to keep ourselves capable. We're trying to train, want to keep training. Regardless of how often you are, what's performing. Perform, we'll call it a perform.
3:07:25 Jocko Willink? Well, you are actually are performing all the time. It's another way of thinking of things.
3:07:29 Speaker 04 And performing and training all the time. Cause you gotta learn from your performance, right? See what I'm saying? It's like a.
3:07:35 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
3:07:36 Speaker 04 Anyway, all right, we're doing it. Through training comes beatings, comes breakdowns.
3:07:46 Speaker 04 More or less, most of the time, actually all the time.
3:07:49 Jocko Willink? Sometimes I just gotta leave you to figure it out. Like those statements right there. I can tell you're, maybe you threw it out there as if you'd get some support. But it didn't come.
3:07:58 Speaker 04 I do do that sometimes, but this was not one of those times.
3:08:04 Speaker 04 Anyway, when we build ourselves back up, the benefits of training, sometimes we get little nagging things. In our joints or other places, whatever. We don't want to worry about that kind of stuff. So Jaco has joint warfare, super krill oil. These, these are supplements, supplementation for your joints. Okay. So the whole line is called Jaco Fuel. So with that Jaco Fuel for your joints has, like I said, joint warfare, super krill oil. We also have for your brain and body, by the way, is a.
3:08:36 Speaker 04 I don't want to call it a product, even though it is a product.
3:08:39 Jocko Willink? Okay.
3:08:40 Speaker 04 I'm gonna call it a product. We have a product.
3:08:42 Jocko Willink? Don't call it a product.
3:08:43 Speaker 04 Alright, see, okay, you feel me then. Uh, well, a thing.
3:08:47 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
3:08:48 Speaker 04 That's better. We have a thing called.
3:08:49 Jocko Willink? Substance.
3:08:50 Speaker 04 Discipline, right? So it's discipline. You can take this form of supplementation. And actually, in a few forms. So you got the powdered version, mix it with water.
3:09:00 Jocko Willink? Hmm, that's what I did do today.
3:09:02 Speaker 04 Yes, sir. Pill, don't mix it with water, just swallow it.
3:09:06 Jocko Willink? Just swallow it.
3:09:07 Speaker 04 Maybe with some water, whatever.
3:09:08 Jocko Willink? Quick hitter.
3:09:09 Speaker 04 Quick hitter, or in the cans. Kind of like an energy drink, if you will.
3:09:15 Jocko Willink? Except for one that's literally good for you.
3:09:18 Speaker 04 Actually healthy.
3:09:19 Jocko Willink? Actually healthy.
3:09:20 Speaker 04 Yeah. So, yes, so boom.
3:09:22 Jocko Willink? Real energy.
3:09:23 Speaker 04 Yes.
3:09:23 Jocko Willink? Not fit. You know what else gives you energy? Cocaine, apparently.
3:09:27 Speaker 04 Alright, uh, that's what I heard.
3:09:29 Jocko Willink? Apparently cocaine gives you energy, makes you feel like, hey, I'm gonna go and work hard right now.
3:09:34 Speaker 04 Energetic.
3:09:35 Jocko Willink? Or crystal methamphetamine, apparently that gives you energy too.
3:09:38 Speaker 04 A little bit different, but yeah.
3:09:39 Jocko Willink? Now, you don't go around saying, hey, you should, oh, you need some energy? Do some cocaine.
3:09:44 Speaker 04 Right.
3:09:44 Jocko Willink? We're not doing that.
3:09:45 Speaker 04 It's unhealthy.
3:09:46 Jocko Willink? It's bad for you.
3:09:46 Speaker 04 We'll say it's unhealthy, sure.
3:09:48 Jocko Willink? There's other, the category that you just used, quote, energy drinks, which are in the same realm.
3:09:56 Speaker 04 Potentially, not quite, but.
3:09:58 Jocko Willink? Okay, maybe not quite.
3:09:59 Speaker 04 I understand what you're saying, no fully, yes. So, yeah, a lot of times when an energy drink, you're like, hey, let's take, let's drink all like two, three, four, five energy drinks. You're gonna be like, mm, I don't know about all that. Shouldn't we not be drinking energy drinks? It's kind of, you have that feeling a lot of the time.
3:10:13 Jocko Willink? Yes.
3:10:14 Speaker 04 See what I'm saying? But this one go in the can may even, actually might even kind of look like an energy drink. It doesn't, it's just not like that. It's, this is the actual healthy thing.
3:10:23 Jocko Willink? Real energy. Cause that's what I was gonna say. Cause cocaine, it's not real energy.
3:10:27 Speaker 04 Well, it depends on what you mean by real, and it depends on what you mean by energy.
3:10:32 Jocko Willink? Okay.
3:10:32 Speaker 04 I mean, in the spirit of fairness.
3:10:34 Jocko Willink? We'll have to get some, uh, some, somebody with some expertise in cocaine in here to discuss.
3:10:39 Speaker 04 And energy.
3:10:40 Jocko Willink? And energy drinks.
3:10:42 Speaker 04 Nonetheless, you know what I'm saying? Healthy energy drink.
3:10:44 Jocko Willink? So don't do cocaine.
3:10:46 Speaker 04 Yes.
3:10:46 Jocko Willink? Instead.
3:10:47 Speaker 04 Correct.
3:10:47 Jocko Willink? Try discipline go in a can. All of the zing, none of the bad, negative benefits.
3:10:54 Speaker 04 No.
3:10:54 Jocko Willink? Dude, you remember that?
3:10:55 Speaker 04 No, not all those.
3:10:56 Jocko Willink? No, check it out. I brought, I was on Theo Von's podcast.
3:11:00 Speaker 04 Sure, hell yeah.
3:11:01 Jocko Willink? And he was drinking a discipline go and he said something really funny. He's and he just it's kind of slid under the radar comment.
3:11:09 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
3:11:10 Jocko Willink? But he said something comparing it to cocaine and he said, actually, I'm, I think I'm going back on a cocaine.
3:11:17 Jocko Willink? I think that's what's in my brain right now.
3:11:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's weird because I don't like, I don't power it well. I have, I won't like drink the whole thing super fast, but then actually that's not true. I have, but when you drink it super fast, then yeah, I think you'll get a like a little jolt.
3:11:33 Jocko Willink? Yeah. Well, super fast being how long?
3:11:35 Speaker 04 When you down it like in three, four or less hits.
3:11:40 Jocko Willink? Oh, that's a, that's definitely.
3:11:42 Speaker 04 Down in it.
3:11:42 Jocko Willink? That one for sure.
3:11:43 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, for sure. But no, if I, if I drink like two over the course of a podcast, like I will not feel like what I imagine cocaine feels like.
3:11:54 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
3:11:55 Speaker 04 I've never done cocaine.
3:11:55 Jocko Willink? Yeah, me neither.
3:11:57 Speaker 04 Nonetheless, it's not cocaine. It's good for you.
3:11:59 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
3:12:00 Speaker 04 It's a.
3:12:01 Jocko Willink? Crystal methamphetamine and cocaine are not good for you.
3:12:04 Speaker 04 Are unhealthy, yes.
3:12:06 Jocko Willink? Jocko Dismonggo is good for you.
3:12:09 Speaker 04 Okay.
3:12:10 Jocko Willink? I think that's what we're trying to say over here.
3:12:12 Speaker 04 All right. Yes, it's true. Also, speaking of good for you, uh, vitamin D three.
3:12:16 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
3:12:16 Speaker 04 Jocko fuel very good for you. Keep you healthy, immune system, strong, also immune system, strong stuff. Cold war is another one. So boom, you got the whole gambit.
3:12:29 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
3:12:30 Speaker 04 What's gambit, right? That's correct.
3:12:32 Jocko Willink? That's good, good usage, word usage approved.
3:12:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. Um, of stuff, you know, for, for that kind of stuff, stuff you don't want to worry about. See what I'm saying?
3:12:40 Jocko Willink? Yeah. Plus we got milk. We got warrior kid milk, which is protein that tastes good. Plus we got Jocko white tea. And plus all this stuff that we're talking about, you can get it at originmaine.com or you can get it at the vitamin shop or you can get it at Wawa.
3:12:54 Speaker 04 Wawa.
3:12:54 Jocko Willink? In Florida right now. And it looks like very soon, Wawa.
3:13:01 Jocko Willink? All over the East Coast. It looks like we're heading in that direction.
3:13:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:13:04 Jocko Willink? So everyone that's been, oh, by the way, everyone that in Florida has been going out and basically getting after it, clearing shelves. Thank you. Thank you. We're heading in the right direction. Beach, the beach head is under the process of being secured at this time, which we feel good about.
3:13:24 Speaker 04 Yeah. Yeah. Also, yes. So you mentioned origin main.com at or back to origin main.com. This is what you where you can get American made stuff.
3:13:36 Speaker 04 Including but not limited to Jujitsu geese, rash guards, some hoodies on there, some joggers on there, some shorts on there, which I don't, I haven't been talking about, but they're aside from board shorts, they're the only shorts I wear.
3:13:51 Jocko Willink? But you don't really wear board shorts very often.
3:13:54 Speaker 04 Oh, yes, I do.
3:13:55 Jocko Willink? Oh, in the, on the mats of justice?
3:13:57 Speaker 04 Mats of justice, uh, workout, uh, pool, uh, every single day in Hawaii. It's all, yeah, it's either board shorts or that straight up.
3:14:06 Jocko Willink? Got it. Check. I jumped the proverbial gun on that one.
3:14:10 Speaker 04 All good. Hey, we're all here training, learning. Also.
3:14:13 Jocko Willink? Cause I only see you in the origin shorts, the shark fin short. That's the only shorts I see you in. Cause unless we're on the mats.
3:14:21 Speaker 04 Right. Yeah.
3:14:23 Jocko Willink? Of justice.
3:14:24 Speaker 04 Yep. It's true. Also at origin main, still on our domain jeans, American made denim. From the, from the cotton grown to make the fabric, to make the denim, to make the jeans. All made in America.
3:14:39 Jocko Willink? Yep.
3:14:39 Speaker 04 By the way, um, also boots on there.
3:14:42 Jocko Willink? Okay, jeans are back in the game, by the way.
3:14:44 Speaker 04 Delta six.
3:14:44 Jocko Willink? I'm wearing them right now.
3:14:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, I saw that.
3:14:46 Jocko Willink? Yeah. And I saw you, you kind of like gave me a, you grabbed the material and kind of pulled it.
3:14:52 Speaker 04 Right.
3:14:52 Jocko Willink? What was your assessment?
3:14:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. Well, my assessment was that they have some give, some legitimate give to them. And it, I just reflected on the fact that I don't have any.
3:15:02 Jocko Willink? I'm really sorry, but the new Delta jeans are freaking, and they are a little bit new. So we had the original Delta jeans and then during COVID, we re-engineered some stuff. We got some denim that we liked even more.
3:15:17 Speaker 04 Read the, the, what is it?
3:15:19 Jocko Willink? The cut.
3:15:19 Speaker 04 The cut, hell yeah.
3:15:20 Jocko Willink? Yeah, and they're just, they're just freaking awesome now, so.
3:15:23 Speaker 04 Um, were they always dark, like that dark?
3:15:27 Jocko Willink? You probably see I, my OG pair of deltas that I just wore, I wear them all the time. And so they, they're like jeans, cause they fade a little bit. They fade as time goes on. So the pair that you're seeing right now are basically brand new.
3:15:39 Speaker 04 Gotcha. No, I, I like the dark denim.
3:15:42 Jocko Willink? Yeah, well, it will fade over time.
3:15:45 Speaker 04 Right on. Cool. Yeah. So, what do you mean? Dot com. Also.
3:15:48 Jocko Willink? Boots. I forgot that.
3:15:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:15:50 Jocko Willink? Don't forget about boots.
3:15:50 Speaker 04 Same deal. Yeah. Works of art.
3:15:53 Jocko Willink? Art of work. For your feet.
3:15:56 Speaker 04 For your feet. Made in America. All good. Also, Jaco's store is called Jaco's store. This is where you can get, uh, discipline equals freedom shirts, hats, hoodies, lightweight and heavy weight. By the way, um, some women's stuff on there, some beanies, some rash guards.
3:16:12 Jocko Willink? Some soap.
3:16:13 Speaker 04 Some soap.
3:16:13 Jocko Willink? Some warrior kid soap.
3:16:14 Speaker 04 Warrior kid soap, Jaco's soap, Trooper soap.
3:16:18 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
3:16:18 Speaker 04 Killer soap.
3:16:19 Jocko Willink? By the way, all this stuff that we're talking about, i- if you want to support the podcast, you want to provide some level of
3:16:27 Jocko Willink? support. All this stuff helps us out, you know? That way, that way we don't have to get sponsors.
3:16:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, there's that.
3:16:36 Jocko Willink? Cause look, this might be annoying, which I'm sure it is. Like this whole thing, right?
3:16:40 Speaker 04 No, no.
3:16:41 Jocko Willink? But, okay, maybe not for you, but for a lot of people, this might be super annoying. But the cool thing is you don't have to listen to it. We didn't put it in the middle of, you know, cut off cowboy and just start, eh, here's a word from, you know, whatever. We're not doing that.
3:16:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, that is true.
3:16:57 Jocko Willink? So we appreciate it when you get, if you, you, look, we need stuff and I'm not a big, what's the, what's the minute? Well, look, we all want to be a minimalist, right? Want to be a minimalist, don't want to buy a bunch of stuff, but there's stuff that you do need. For instance, do you need a gi? Yes, you do. Do you need a pair of jeans? Yes, you do. Do you need a t-shirt? Yes, you do. Do you need food? Yes, you do. Do you need supplementation? Yes, you, like, all these, we're just making stuff that you need. So if you need it, you can get it from us. It helps out the podcast and provides a little bit of that support.
3:17:28 Speaker 04 So it's, yeah, it's like a win-win. Kind of helps everything.
3:17:31 Jocko Willink? Yeah. You could go to, like, a local store and buy, right?
3:17:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, you could.
3:17:37 Jocko Willink? A pair of jeans that were made in China. You could do that. I mean, you are allowed to, but it's not really, it's not really. Let's face it, it's not really what you want to do.
3:17:50 Speaker 04 Very questionable, for sure.
3:17:51 Jocko Willink? Questionable behavior. Anyways, speaking of this podcast.
3:17:55 Speaker 04 Oh, wait, wait, wait. No, no. Okay, speaking of subscribing, actually, so Jaco Store, back to Jaco Store.
3:18:01 Jocko Willink? Okay.
3:18:02 Speaker 04 So, we have a t-shirt club. We'll call it a subscription scenario where you get like a, how should I say, like a unique, unique, I guess, yeah, I guess that's a given. Anyway, you get a shirt every month that's kind of more like, it's different, but it's still in the game, on the path, etc. Anyway, go to JacoStore.com and you can check them out, see if you like that one. But yeah, that's a cool little thing people have been doing that we offer. It's pretty cool.
3:18:30 Jocko Willink? And then if you get a t-shirt from this thing,
3:18:35 Jocko Willink? you can't get it anywhere else.
3:18:36 Speaker 04 No, you can't even really get it on the store, really. If they're only for like, you'll see, like, when you see kind of the examples of someone, you'll be like, okay, this kind of makes sense. They're fun and they're, you know. So, yeah, we have, there's always all kinds of cool ideas that come in for shirts, for this, for that.
3:18:54 Jocko Willink? But we can't just execute them all.
3:18:56 Speaker 04 No, they're varying levels. Yeah, so, you know.
3:19:00 Jocko Willink? We're doing it on an exclusive scale.
3:19:04 Speaker 04 Kind of, yeah.
3:19:05 Jocko Willink? What do you mean, kind of?
3:19:07 Speaker 04 I don't know. I don't know what you meant by scale. That's a.
3:19:09 Jocko Willink? On an exclusive scale, meaning we're not doing it on a mass scale. Hey, everyone that wants one of these, no, it's on a more exclusive scale. Like, oh, we don't have to make, whatever, however many, whatever the number of t-shirts is, because we don't know what someone's going to order.
3:19:23 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, you're correct.
3:19:24 Jocko Willink? If they're in the game, then we know it, and you get a shirt. That looks cool. That has more layers.
3:19:29 Speaker 04 There are many layers, all infused in that situation. Nonetheless, yes, JacoStore.com. Also, like Jaco indicated, you can subscribe to this podcast on.
3:19:41 Speaker 04 Where have you subscribed to podcasts? There you go.
3:19:44 Jocko Willink? Boom. And don't forget about the unraveling podcast that I that I also record. And don't forget about the grounded podcast, which we are supposed to record, but we haven't recorded a lot of. Don't forget about the warrior kid podcast, which hopefully during Thanksgiving, when some people don't have to work, I'll be able to slip in there and record some warrior kid podcasts. So we're going to work on that one. Don't forget about, we have a YouTube channel, a YouTube channel. And this is where the creative mind of Echo Charles manifests itself via explosions, tanks, airplanes. And if you want to watch a video that's 30 seconds long, that has a lot of stuff blowing up, go there.
3:20:29 Jocko Willink? If you also want to watch a video that's four hours long with nothing blowing up, also go there.
3:20:33 Speaker 04 Yeah, boom. Yes, that is true. YouTube channel. Well, good official, by the way. Also psychological warfare, if you don't know what that is. It's an album, audio album with tracks of Jaco telling you, explaining to you how to get past your moments of weakness in the event of them arising, which they do from time to time. Let's face it. But yeah, have Jaco there to just tell you, hey, you shouldn't do this. You should do this. See this thing you're thinking about doing that you won't want to have done?
3:21:05 Speaker 04 Don't do that.
3:21:05 Jocko Willink? Don't do that thing.
3:21:06 Speaker 04 Jaco version of that. It's actually really helpful. My opinion.
3:21:10 Jocko Willink? Uh, we also have a visual version of that. Flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Meyer, making all kinds of cool stuff. There's a bunch of books. What books do we cover today? Well, we're talking about Sog. So if you're going to jump into Sog, you can get across the fence on the ground and Sog Chronicles by John Stryker Meyer. And then you can also get Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by Lynn Black.
3:21:35 Jocko Willink? You get about faced by David Hackworth. There's a new version out, a re-release that I wrote the foreword to. There's Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. There's the code, the protocols, and the evaluations. There's Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual. There's a brand new version of that out. That's, that's a good go-to for that Christmas scenario. The holiday scenario. Check that one out. Way the Warrior Kid Four Field Manual is also, I think it's live right now. Yeah, it's live. Way the Warrior Kid Four Field Manual. Here's the thing on all these. From what I understand, Intel, there's going to be a shortage of aircraft,
3:22:14 Jocko Willink? trucks, and laborers, drivers, pilots during Christmas, because everything is going to be shipped. So if you want to get any of this stuff, even though I know you, we're all trying to be minimalist, but kids need a freaking book to read. So get them Way the Warrior Kid Four Field Manual, Way the Warrior Kid One, Two, and Three, Mike and the Dragons, and then Extreme Ownership, and then Economy of Leadership. I have a leadership consultancy called Echelon Front, where we solve problems through leadership. You can go to echelonfront.com for that. We have EF Online, which is where we do leadership training, online, interactive. So you can go check that out, efonline.com. We got the muster in Dallas, Texas. You can come check that out
3:22:58 Jocko Willink? in extremeownership.com. We have EF Overwatch, which is executive leadership for your company that understands the principles that we talk about. If you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, Gold Star families, if you want to help out veterans, and if you want to help out American service men and women, then check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She has a charity organization. You can go and donate or get involved at Americas MightyWarriors.org.
3:23:33 Jocko Willink? And if you like to torment yourself,
3:23:38 Jocko Willink? well, you can do so with more of my protracted pronouncements, or maybe some more of Echo's hyped up hypotheses. You can find us on the interweb, on Twitter, on Instagram, and just so Echo knows, because he only refers to Instagram as TheGram, and also on Facebook, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I'm at Jocko Willink. And it should, more importantly, be known that John Stryker Meyer is on Instagram at J Stryker Meyer. And once again, thanks to Tilt and Cowboy for their incredibly heroic...
3:24:14 Jocko Willink? We need a new word beyond heroic, for their service to America and freedom. We will not forget the sacrifice or the legacy of these warriors. And thanks to all the warriors all over the world, in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and also to those foreign nationals that we fight alongside.
3:24:42 Jocko Willink? Thank you for defending freedom. And the same to police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders.
3:24:57 Jocko Willink? Thanks for keeping us safe here at home.
3:25:02 Jocko Willink? And to everyone else out there, I've got one thing to say. Chuhoi Duma! Until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.
Previous 257: You Have to CHOOSE to Get Stronger. "Tip of the Spear" with Green Beret Ryan Hendrickson Next The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke #9: How To Prioritize and Execute While OVERWHELMED. Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
