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Speaker 1: M h utful. If it doesn't work, you're just not

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Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military

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Speaker 1: news and straight talk with the guys in the community.

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Speaker 1: Hello again, everyone, Welcome back to Software Radio Software Bradio.

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Speaker 1: Long time on targeting. I'm your host this evening. Steve

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Speaker 1: bel Sturt joining me is a very very special guest. Uh,

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Speaker 1: somebody I've known for quite a few years, although we

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Speaker 1: lost touch for a little a while, my old commander

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Speaker 1: from Panama. Uh at that time it was Major Kevin

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Speaker 1: Higgens and retired as a colonel. Uh. We're gonna take

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Speaker 1: a break a little bit from Afghanistan tonight. I know

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Speaker 1: everyone's been inundated with that stuff. I'm gonna be talking

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Speaker 1: about Latin America and and Kevin is the subject matter

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Speaker 1: expert on Latin America. We're gonna talk about s F

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Speaker 1: in Latin America from sixty two through present day, and

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Speaker 1: we will, uh, we'll touch on a bunch of different

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Speaker 1: subjects that I believe our listeners will really enjoy. But

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Speaker 1: before we do that, Kevin, welcome to the podcast. We

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Speaker 1: appreciate your time. And I gotta tell you, Europeans a

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Speaker 1: lot better looking than mine is. Well. Good to see again, Steve,

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Speaker 1: and congratulations on this the software program. That's really uh

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Speaker 1: an important contribution to the community. Well, we appreciate that,

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Speaker 1: especially coming from someone like you, because I don't believe

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Speaker 1: there was a harder working guy at the time when

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Speaker 1: we were all stationed at Pantama than yourself. And I

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Speaker 1: had to Brandon on the podcast a few months ago,

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Speaker 1: and we we were laughing about how at times we'd

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Speaker 1: have to drag you out of the uh the office

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Speaker 1: to get you to get a meal in. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was Uh, those are some good times there. We had

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Speaker 1: some good nations back then, we did, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of good people. Uh. But uh, yeah, Steve, as you

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Speaker 1: were saying, I guess the last forty six years I've

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Speaker 1: been affiliated with Latin America, I didn't anticipate it would

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Speaker 1: turn out this way, but uh, I guess my association

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Speaker 1: began as a cadet at West Point. When we enter

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Speaker 1: the academy, you have to take some tests to see

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Speaker 1: how you're gonna do in certain subjects, and they saw

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Speaker 1: that I was going to be pretty weak in math

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Speaker 1: and science, which is the whole program there. They have

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Speaker 1: engineering program, so everybody has to take a language, and

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Speaker 1: the easier language department was the Portuguese Language department because

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Speaker 1: it was run by the Brazilian officers, the exchange officers,

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Speaker 1: and they said, this is gonna be where we're gonna

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Speaker 1: put you for your language, because you're gonna need all

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Speaker 1: the time. You can get to dedicate to math and

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Speaker 1: science there. And uh, as I was studying Brazilian Portuguese,

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Speaker 1: I started to learn a little bit about Latin America

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Speaker 1: from Detroit. No I had no affiliation at all with

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Speaker 1: Latin American my whole life is growing up. But as

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Speaker 1: I started to study about Brazil and stuff like this.

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Speaker 1: When it came time as we were getting ready to

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Speaker 1: graduate and you have to pick your next assignment, I

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Speaker 1: saw Panamas up there as one of the options, and

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Speaker 1: so I said, well, gosh, I'm gonna go to Panama

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Speaker 1: because maybe I can catch a mac flight down to

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Speaker 1: Brazil when i'm there and see some of these places

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Speaker 1: that we've been studying about, you know that you see

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Speaker 1: in the magazines Etanama, Beach, Copacanana. You know, maybe I

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Speaker 1: could get there because I just assumed that in Panama

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Speaker 1: was gonna be a ditch running through the jungle But

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Speaker 1: when I got off the plane in Panama as a

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Speaker 1: second lieutenant, I saw Panama City, million people. There, quite

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Speaker 1: a an explosive city there on the Caribbean and on

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Speaker 1: the Pacific, and I realized that this was a part

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Speaker 1: of the world that, you know, UH was not well known.

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Speaker 1: And I said, you know, maybe I'm gonna hang my

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Speaker 1: hat here and and and put my energy and force

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Speaker 1: into knowing about Latin America and learning about it. We

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Speaker 1: had enough Soviet experts at that time, Middle East experts,

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Speaker 1: North Korean experts, and so I says, I'm gonna go

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Speaker 1: ahead and become H drilled down here, and UH I

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Speaker 1: showed up there in the one Brigade, I was UH

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Speaker 1: there on the Atlantic side and the fourth of the

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Speaker 1: tenth Infantry. UH I was living at Fort Gulic, which

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Speaker 1: was at the time the home of the third Battalion,

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Speaker 1: seventh Group. So I was sharing the same bo q

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Speaker 1: with these lieutenants and captains from the UH the third

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Speaker 1: of the seventh and we would exchange stories, and so

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Speaker 1: I learned about SF. During that time, UH lose with

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Speaker 1: the Jimmy Carter years, so they weren't deploying much, but

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Speaker 1: they were helping the seventh the infantry brigade there to

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Speaker 1: train up. At the time, we were still in the

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Speaker 1: Canal zone. This was the U. S Canal Zone, which

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Speaker 1: was put in existence in nineteen o three, and UH

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Speaker 1: included UH the canal plus five miles on either side

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Speaker 1: of the canal, about sixty thousand Americans there. They had

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Speaker 1: their own post office, their own police force, their own

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Speaker 1: government um. But in NY seven there was people their

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Speaker 1: third generation, some even fourth generation coming up. And now

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Speaker 1: as I show up there with the canal, treaties are

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Speaker 1: in play and they general feeling in the US was

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Speaker 1: that the canal was belonged to the US, the U

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Speaker 1: S National strategic asset. But at the time we were

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Speaker 1: getting a lot of heat from these different insurgent groups

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Speaker 1: that were growing up around Latin America, Panama itself or

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Speaker 1: Marjorie Host Their leaders said this canal was a dagger

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Speaker 1: stuck in the heart of Panama, and I and Castro

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Speaker 1: was trying to foment revolutions in different countries from Colombia

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Speaker 1: and Nicaragua and stuff, and and so I think that

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter strategy was, let's turn this canal back over

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Speaker 1: to the Panama and maybe that'll take a little bit

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Speaker 1: of the wind out of the sales and UH it did,

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Speaker 1: and so we were there during this treaty negotiation process.

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Speaker 1: We would practice UH civil disturbance exercises as the infantry

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Speaker 1: unit and counter gorilla exercises because Tario said that if

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Speaker 1: the US doesn't vote, this canal over to us. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna go in and take it. And so the one

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Speaker 1: brigade focused on different UH contingencies and UH we UH

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Speaker 1: we had the Jungle School of course over in Panama

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Speaker 1: where units would rotate into Fort Sherman to do a

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Speaker 1: three week course hundred first Airborn, eighty second the range

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Speaker 1: of Italians, and then the final week of that they

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Speaker 1: do a counter guerilla exercise and they would tag our

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Speaker 1: one night third of gade to be the aggressors. So

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Speaker 1: we had a lot of time practicing being like the

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Speaker 1: guerrilla force working against the conventional force. And the rest

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Speaker 1: of the army at that time had this is seven

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Speaker 1: three years after Saigon fell, so the rest of the

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Speaker 1: army had put Vietnam behind and they're now focusing on

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Speaker 1: the Middle East folded gap. But in Panama we were

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Speaker 1: still locked in that moment where we were turning over

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Speaker 1: a lot of the lessons learned from Vietnam, and it

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Speaker 1: was a beneficiary of that as a second lieutenant. Our

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Speaker 1: company commander was Rudy Jones. Uh. He was a career

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Speaker 1: seventh Special Forces Group guy and he was coming over

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Speaker 1: to fourth for the tenth to get his company command

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Speaker 1: time and Vietnam veteran he would be able to. And

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Speaker 1: he just came out of Delanaga, Georgia as the lane

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Speaker 1: walker there and so when he took over as our

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Speaker 1: company everything was kind of like a range of school

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Speaker 1: without a graduation date. And uh, on Monday morning, we

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Speaker 1: would pull our weapons out of the arms room. We

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Speaker 1: would go into the jungle for four days, come in

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Speaker 1: Friday morning, clean up the weapons, and then do that

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Speaker 1: uh four weeks a month and so at the end

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Speaker 1: of the month we had twenty days out there on

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Speaker 1: the jungle doing these different count of guerilla or guerrilla

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Speaker 1: warfare things under the tutelage, let's say of Rudy Jones.

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Speaker 1: And I think that was a great background experience. They

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Speaker 1: have to understand that concept because as a time that's

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Speaker 1: set the stage for the next forty six years for

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Speaker 1: me to have that kind of the experience. I think

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Speaker 1: your first tour as an officer is always an important one.

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Speaker 1: You get the guy that goes to Germany for his

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Speaker 1: first tour and fifty years later he still has those

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Speaker 1: UH beer steins up on his fire in place, he

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Speaker 1: still goes to October Fest. The guy that went to

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Speaker 1: Korea on his first tour, He's studied taekwondo, he's watching UH,

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Speaker 1: you know, the different UH martial arts movies and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that. So your your first to are really kind

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Speaker 1: of is a benchmark for you for the rest of

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Speaker 1: your career. And so that would be some advice to

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Speaker 1: be careful what your what's the first tour is going

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Speaker 1: to be UM And then UH. I was of course

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Speaker 1: an easy cell to go to Special Forces. When I

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Speaker 1: left there, it's a two year tour. I went to

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Speaker 1: Fort Bragg and UH went to the Special Forces course

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Speaker 1: in April's UH in April seventy nine, ninety nine. UH

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Speaker 1: there's only three groups at the time. We had tenth

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Speaker 1: group in Fort Devans with four Italian and bad Tools,

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Speaker 1: and then UH we had the seventh group with a

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Speaker 1: Ford battalion and Panamon and the two other battalions and

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Speaker 1: Fort Bragg and then fifth group, the three Italians were

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Speaker 1: also at Fort Bragg, and we're all there at the

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Speaker 1: smoke bomb hill. You know when the wooden buildings are

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Speaker 1: at work, and you know, each wooden building would hold

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Speaker 1: one company. So the bottom floor of that company would

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Speaker 1: be like the supply room and the storage area, and

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Speaker 1: then the second floor would be all six team rooms

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Speaker 1: with the be team. And so in your team rooms

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Speaker 1: were about the size of you know, closet type thing.

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Speaker 1: You just had enough room for your metal wall locker,

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Speaker 1: maybe put your rucks at on top of that wall locker,

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Speaker 1: one desk in there, and a typewriter. Maybe there was

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Speaker 1: one guy in the team that could use the typewriter.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't hard to get a company meeting. You

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Speaker 1: just yelled down the hall and everybody stick your head

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Speaker 1: out and you put the information out and you can

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Speaker 1: move on with with yourself and and and then there

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Speaker 1: was no reason to hang out in your team room

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Speaker 1: because it was very much like being in a telephone booth.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of guys would, you know, do what

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Speaker 1: they had to do, and then we would go out

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Speaker 1: to do the training. We weren't well resourced, so a

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Speaker 1: lot of the training was getting National Guard aircraft. Harley

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Speaker 1: Davis was our lieutenant. Colonel Davis at the time was

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Speaker 1: our Italian commander. He flew us out to Puerto Rico

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Speaker 1: and we went up to Toro Negro for a month

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Speaker 1: see rations three dollars and fIF decents a day for

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Speaker 1: incidentals and then UH we'd come back from there and

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Speaker 1: he took us out to the Mojave Desert and dropped

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Speaker 1: us in there for a month. Same thing. We were

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Speaker 1: creative on a low budget. We were able to do

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Speaker 1: some through training. UH. The the third Italian fifth Group

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Speaker 1: was dedicated to Cuba. That was our focus area, and

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Speaker 1: so we had a repository of Spanish speakers there UM

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Speaker 1: and we UH each of we divided Cuba up between

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Speaker 1: the teams. I had the East Lid binos and we

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Speaker 1: UH had all the maps and the paperwork and UH

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Speaker 1: books reference materials, and we stored them in the A. S. T. Building,

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Speaker 1: which was a big barn like building there in the

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Speaker 1: Snoke Bomb Hill area. Obviously, at this time there's no

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Speaker 1: discs or USB drives and stuff like that, so everything

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Speaker 1: is paper companies and every ninety days we would have

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Speaker 1: to brief our group commander of Italian commander on this

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Speaker 1: is what we're gonna do. This is what our area

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Speaker 1: looks like. This would be R S E and each plan.

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Speaker 1: These are the optimal drop zones. Well, of course we

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Speaker 1: never went to Cuba. But when the Cuban revengee UH

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Speaker 1: flotilla came from Mariel, Cuba, and I went with twelve

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Speaker 1: eleven guys to Fort chaff the Arkansas. There aren't twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand Cubans that came in and they sent them to

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Speaker 1: Indiantown Gap, Fort McCoy, all these names that I'm hearing

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Speaker 1: on the UH the news these last couple of days,

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Speaker 1: and I went to Fort Chaffe UH. And Fort Chaffee

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Speaker 1: was also I had. It was in World War Two.

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Speaker 1: It was a former German pow camp, but they had

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Speaker 1: buildings of wooden World War two style barracks. We put

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Speaker 1: twenty thou guys and then we divided that area up

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Speaker 1: into four areas and they put three s F guys

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Speaker 1: in each area. So it was a total Inbed language,

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Speaker 1: Inbed language, Human Spanish, and that that was our experience. Um.

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Speaker 1: I was on the green Light team. I was on

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Speaker 1: the Halo Stadium team there and so that was some

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Speaker 1: good training, but I kept looking for that mission. You know.

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Speaker 1: Here I was a Green Bay green right. Uh. I

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Speaker 1: was supposed to be doing adventurous things. And I kept

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Speaker 1: reading the paper and looking for that moment, you know,

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Speaker 1: because I would have to go to the team room

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Speaker 1: and listened to the Vietnam War stories from Richmond Nail.

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Speaker 1: He was there, and Johnny sent these guys. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: I said, I've got to be that. I'm supposed to

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Speaker 1: be that. When is my time coming? And then um,

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Speaker 1: we had some guys filtered down to Panama. We had

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Speaker 1: the Spanish speakers in Panama. When President Reagan took over,

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Speaker 1: he had seen Nicaragua fall and he said, we don't

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Speaker 1: want that to happen again. And uh, Salvador was the

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Speaker 1: next one that looked like it was in danger. So

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Speaker 1: he started launching training teams there from third of the

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Speaker 1: seventh in Panama and one Gonzalez, he had had been

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Speaker 1: third of the fifth with us on the Scooba team.

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Speaker 1: He had gone down to Panama and he come back

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Speaker 1: on leave and he started telling I, say, this is

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Speaker 1: what's going on there, and I said, that's that's where

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Speaker 1: I've had to be. I've got to go there. And

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Speaker 1: so I got on the phone with DA and I said,

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Speaker 1: I gotta go back to Panama. And they said, well,

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Speaker 1: you've already done the Panama Panamas a backwater. Uh, that's

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Speaker 1: not what's happening now, he said, And you can't go

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Speaker 1: to SF. You know before this wasn't a brand. Sit

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Speaker 1: were all infantry, and you know back to back SF

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Speaker 1: tour is going to be suicide. You've already done a

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Speaker 1: pretty good job of destroying your career already, you guys,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna send you back to Panama, I said,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna send you to Fort Jackson to be a

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Speaker 1: basic Infantry company commander there. And so I thought, oh gosh,

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Speaker 1: you know the war is gonna be over before I

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Speaker 1: could never get back there. And uh, but two weeks

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Speaker 1: later the guy called me back and he said, uh,

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Speaker 1: the assignment's officer and he said, I can't get an

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Speaker 1: infantry guy to go to the Air Defense Artillery Advanced

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Speaker 1: Course and now pass them. Can you help me and

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Speaker 1: be the infantry rep and now pass them? And I said, well,

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Speaker 1: you think I could get my assignment of choice after that?

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Speaker 1: And he goes, well, what do you got in mind?

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Speaker 1: I said, I'd like to go to the Sralevant and Panama.

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Speaker 1: I said, that's a good He said, that's a good idea,

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Speaker 1: said we can do that, and then after you're done there,

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Speaker 1: we'll get you your infantry company commanders. So that was

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Speaker 1: my ticket to get to back to Panama, to get

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Speaker 1: in the fight, to to get to El Salador and

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Speaker 1: and be that advisor there. That was this sort of

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Speaker 1: thing that all the SF training and all the SF

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Speaker 1: guys that we know would like to be there. That's

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Speaker 1: uh uh and so uh. But Albasa turned out to

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Speaker 1: be a pretty good trip because it's right across the

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Speaker 1: river from Warez. I was able to work the Spanish

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Speaker 1: thing and I watched Spanish TV all day to perfect

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Speaker 1: my Spanish. Uh. And then I show up in UH

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Speaker 1: in Panama on September of eighty two. And when I

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Speaker 1: got there, uh, a lot of the guys from third

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Speaker 1: Italian fifth Group had beat me there because they were

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Speaker 1: because there were so many missions popping up in Honduras

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Speaker 1: and in um El Salvador. They put the battalion at

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Speaker 1: a hundred thirty percent strength and all the Spanish speakers,

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Speaker 1: as I mentioned, were from third of the fifth and

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Speaker 1: fifth group. At that time was in that moment where

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Speaker 1: they were looking at redeploying them either to El Paso

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Speaker 1: or Fort Campbell in the end Fort Campbell one, and

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Speaker 1: they were learning to farm guys into Arabic school. And

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Speaker 1: so guys had to make a decision. Do I stay

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Speaker 1: with that fifth group flash because some guys that you know,

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Speaker 1: they had gone back many years with a fifth Gree

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Speaker 1: flash and that was part of their identity. Or do

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Speaker 1: I deploy down with my language and get into the

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Speaker 1: fight here that looks like the next new adventure. And

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Speaker 1: so when I showed up there, there was a lot

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Speaker 1: of guys uh Kenny McMullen, uh, Gordon Smith, Robert Smith,

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Speaker 1: Chuck Buro, all these guys had already beaten me there

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Speaker 1: because I had that detour over in Al Paso, and

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Speaker 1: so it was like old home week there. But again

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00:17:29,119 --> 00:17:30,879
Speaker 1: they had like the unit was at a hard and

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Speaker 1: thirty percent strength because they were getting sent everywhere. When

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Speaker 1: you're a four deployed unit, you don't need a JCS

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Speaker 1: deployment order. You know, you need the j CS deployment

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Speaker 1: order to remove KNUS forces to Ocona's location. But if

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Speaker 1: you're already oconis the sink can call you on the

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Speaker 1: phone and say, can you send somebody to look at

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Speaker 1: this problem? I got in Honduras tomorrow and you're gone.

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Speaker 1: And so that's a much more convenient thing for them

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Speaker 1: to do. And when they started tagging the RAG units

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Speaker 1: for different missions in Central America, they were the ones

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Speaker 1: that they could look out, you know, a few six

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Speaker 1: seven months out ahead, and the units could then get

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Speaker 1: their stuff ready to go. But the stuff that would

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Speaker 1: be popping up overnight, those little crisis action things, they

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Speaker 1: would send a third of the seventh that was That

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Speaker 1: was very useful to have a four deployed s F

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Speaker 1: unit there and use you know, Hugh Scrubs was a commander.

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Speaker 1: He had been there for for many years, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I had met him there when I signed in, I

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Speaker 1: came up to his office here and I remember when

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Speaker 1: I went to the office there, I saw that hall

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Speaker 1: of heroes, you know, the previous battalion commanders, and the

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Speaker 1: first one, uh, you know being Bull Simons. You know,

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Speaker 1: uh it was still the eighth Group in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty two, and you know, he was the guy that

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Speaker 1: was the Sante guy. In the nineteen seventy he led

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Speaker 1: a mission as to he did, I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: lose and lose on. Yeah, they were freed to five

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Speaker 1: guys and maybe a lot of them were from the

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Speaker 1: Baton Death March that he was at. It was World

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Speaker 1: War two. And then uh, even as a retired guy

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Speaker 1: in ninety eight, he did that mission for Ross Barrow

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Speaker 1: and then you go down the line and you uh,

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Speaker 1: we saw bow Grits. Uh. He was the battalion commander

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Speaker 1: down there. I never met bo Grits, but I met

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Speaker 1: all the guys that worked for him, like Strugs and

340
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Speaker 1: Jones and Remo Butler and uh, all these bow Grid stories.

341
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Speaker 1: But you know, General west Marland gave him that mission

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Speaker 1: to go and find the down spy aircraft and Cambodia,

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Speaker 1: which he was successful in doing. It was highlighted in

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Speaker 1: Robin Moore's book The Green Berets. Uh. But he kind

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Speaker 1: of set the tone. All of those guys who were

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Speaker 1: as team leaders and company commanders, they went on to

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Speaker 1: become general officers and stuff like that. Now. I think

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00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:59,360
Speaker 1: he retired as a lieutenant colonel, but he had probably

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Speaker 1: twenty officer general us for letters are recommended his because

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Speaker 1: he would do stuff that would really he really knew

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Speaker 1: how to uh get the men's attention. Like, for example, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, Doug Days was telling me he just arrived

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Speaker 1: in uh in Panama and he's on his way out

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Speaker 1: to his first jump night jumped unto lake get to him,

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Speaker 1: uh sixth jump, and he's sitting there and waiting, you know, waiting,

356
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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, bo grights in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the thing comes in. This is Days getting the door.

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Speaker 1: You're the jump master, the Doug says, he goes in.

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Speaker 1: Mary Collum raised his hands around and uh nobody died.

360
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Speaker 1: But he always remembered that with rights, you have to

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Speaker 1: have your your head in the game. And then Chris

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Speaker 1: Saint John told me about this time they are in

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Speaker 1: pt formation, you know, with their shorts and their T

364
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Speaker 1: shirts on, everything, in a hilicopter there with blades turning,

365
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Speaker 1: and he sent the guys over a team over to

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Speaker 1: the hilo and they he look flew into the interior

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Speaker 1: of Panama and dropped the guys off one by one

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Speaker 1: and they would have to come back on their own

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Speaker 1: using their own devices, no money, no uh wallet, and

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Speaker 1: and um that really got their attention on the importance

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Speaker 1: of the language training. And then uh The best one

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Speaker 1: I think was uh An n c O McMullan. He

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Speaker 1: told me that they had put him in isolation in

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Speaker 1: Panama and they said, you're going to jump into the

375
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Speaker 1: Sierra Maestro in Cuba. And uh they did all the

376
00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:30,479
Speaker 1: brief things and they gave them live immitiution and everything.

377
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Speaker 1: They got in the sea one thirty and they jumped

378
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Speaker 1: out over and they landed in there and they're trying

379
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Speaker 1: to link up with the partisans there in the Sierra

380
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Speaker 1: Maestro in Cuba. You know, they didn't know they had

381
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Speaker 1: to do their wills and they didn't know if they're

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Speaker 1: going to come back. And when they link up with

383
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Speaker 1: the partisan, it's companies started major. They're not in Cuba,

384
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:52,040
Speaker 1: they're in Turo Negro, uh Puerto Rico. They were pissed

385
00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 1: at first, but they said, you know, that was the

386
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,440
Speaker 1: best training we ever had. And so this was the

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00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,200
Speaker 1: kind of spirit that was inculcated. I think was a

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Speaker 1: very key key moment there. Now, roger Donalan took bo

389
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Speaker 1: grights is uh slaught as a hard act to follow,

390
00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 1: But roger Donalan was a hero in his own right.

391
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Speaker 1: You know, he was the first Medal of Honor winner

392
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Speaker 1: and U and then h after him was Chuck Fry

393
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Speaker 1: and so, and now we have Hughes Crooks, uh and

394
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 1: he's the group com manner. And so when I go

395
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:26,439
Speaker 1: in there, he said, no, we can't send you right

396
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,240
Speaker 1: away to El Salvador, which is what I anticipated going

397
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Speaker 1: because he says, we were limited to fifty five people there,

398
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Speaker 1: and I got to make sure I pick and choose, uh,

399
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: you know, proven commodities. He goes right now, the emphasis

400
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 1: is taking the Salvador Army, which was a ten thousand

401
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 1: men ceremonial army, and building up for fifty four thousand

402
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 1: uh formidable counterinsurgency force. And the guys that I need

403
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,480
Speaker 1: now are guys that might have Vietnam experience, or guys

404
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 1: that have n c os that have a training experiencing

405
00:22:58,119 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 1: in equipment these raw recruits into these cassador and dairy battalions.

406
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Speaker 1: And he said, there's plenty of other missions here, and

407
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: you know, if you prove yourself, you know, we might

408
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: be able to look at you going here in a

409
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:16,359
Speaker 1: year's time. So okay, game mom, I'm gonna go ahead,

410
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: and you know, attack all of these different missions he

411
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: might give me. Uh. We ended up getting into the

412
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Speaker 1: fifty five man limit problem because when we started sending

413
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: trainers there under Ronald greg And, there was some consternation

414
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:36,439
Speaker 1: in Congress that we could be going down the slippery slope.

415
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: It's only five years after, you know, And they said, well,

416
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: how many guys are you gonna send there? You had

417
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 1: twenty last month, now you got thirty. Now you got

418
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: how many you got down there? And they reported that

419
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 1: what we havet okay, let's keep it at fifty five. Okay,

420
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:55,199
Speaker 1: let's do that. And that hamstrung us. But it was

421
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: they did a big favor for the salvador and army

422
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: because there's no way that fifty five guys are gonna

423
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:03,400
Speaker 1: win the war. Uh. Had they not put those uh

424
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: ceiling on us, we could have likely sent the hunt

425
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: first down ere eighty second. We could have just shoved

426
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:13,360
Speaker 1: the Salvadorans aside. But now you can't because now you've

427
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: got fifty five. And how are we going to design

428
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: these fifty five guys to have the best impact? Now

429
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,160
Speaker 1: you still have to take this ten thousand men largely

430
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: ceremonial army and train them into a fighting force. How

431
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 1: do you do that? So we came up with the

432
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: Krim the Central regionalde and Training Ento Militar, the Regional

433
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: Military Training Center, which was built wooden sea huts were

434
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 1: established up on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. UH, Honduras

435
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,439
Speaker 1: and El Salvador. They're part of the five Central American republics.

436
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: But Hell, Honduras and El Salvador have had, you know,

437
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: I love hate relationship because their border was really well

438
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: marked on the hundred sixty mile border that they shared,

439
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,399
Speaker 1: and so the Hondurans were, uh, they were threatened by

440
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 1: nicarag When Nicaragua, the Sandiniss had just taken over in

441
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 1: September of seventy nine, and the Soviets and Cubans had

442
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: built their army up to fifty thousand, providing main battle

443
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: tanks and other wheeled armored vehicles, and the Honduran forces

444
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:25,400
Speaker 1: only at fifteen thousand. So they were willing to kind

445
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,640
Speaker 1: of cooperate with us with the understanding that for every

446
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: Salvadoran battalion we could train in the crem in Honduras,

447
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: we would also train a Honduring battalian so they could

448
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: keep that sort of parody thing going. So that mission

449
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: was tagged to seventh through a bit fort Bragg and

450
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: they carried that mission for ten years, UH, turning out

451
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: unit after unit, and you could see the huge difference

452
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: when these units came back after having that training. That

453
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: all slight training in Honduras and they came back into

454
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: the war made a big difference because in Ol Salvador

455
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: at the time, if you had men, they were manning

456
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: the perimeter because tonight could be the night there's going

457
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: to be an attack. So we let the guys sit

458
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: there and do some f t X or some range

459
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 1: training thing when we have an ambush here on the

460
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: Pan Americana, and so they would constantly abort training. But

461
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 1: when you could send the men up to Krim, up

462
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: to Honduras, they were in an isolated area and they

463
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: went through the full package deal. UH. The other thing

464
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: we had was the School of America's in Panama that

465
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: started in and was there all the way through eight four.

466
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: So when when I got there in eighty two, the

467
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: School of America's was still there. As part of the

468
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 1: Panama Canal Treaty draw down, the school would eventually be

469
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: relocated to Fort Benning, but at the time the School

470
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: of America's was running a full curriculum there and so

471
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: they designed it to bring in more Salvadorans from commando

472
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: courses and econcourses and stuff like that. And so, uh,

473
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: the storm of seven teams that were in Panama, they

474
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: got tagged to run an eight week recondo course, eight

475
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: week you know, long range of consistance courses, and I

476
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,479
Speaker 1: got tagged for two of those. I got tagged with

477
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: my team. I was on eight. To use a single

478
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: letter numbering system back then animal O d s one

479
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: through sixteen, and my team was given the mission to

480
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: train the Salvadoran recon elements, uh two of them, one

481
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: was the Naval Special Commando Unit and then we did

482
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: another three month exercise and that was very valuable to

483
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: learn Salvadoran Spanish or how they would respond, so that

484
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 1: when I finally did get Tell Salvador in October of

485
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: eighty three, I had a pretty good feel for what

486
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: that basic building block was going to be alike. And

487
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 1: I think that you know, uh, Hugh scrub showed a

488
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: lot of wisdom by giving people a chance to kind

489
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,679
Speaker 1: of get their feet went with these different sort of

490
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: off site training things before he launched them into the

491
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: super Bowl. There in El Salvador Um, we also had

492
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: the Salvador and Military Academy. Uh. They were normally cranking

493
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: out fifteen graduates a year, the cadets. But this war, uh,

494
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: you know, when the army is growing from ten thousand

495
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 1: fifty four thousand, what do you need? You need platoon

496
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: leaders and they, you know, cranking out sixteen second lieutenants

497
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: a year is not going to cut it. So the

498
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: Fort Benning guys they opened up the the School of

499
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:29,919
Speaker 1: America's I mean the Officer's Candidate School in Spanish. Uh.

500
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: And so they would send these first year cadets up

501
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: to a six month carbon copy version of OCS and

502
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: they would come back and as a second year cadet,

503
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: he's now a platoon leader taking the men out on

504
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: the ambush patrols and small unit operations. And they were

505
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: doing about a hundred fifty to a hundred eighty graduates

506
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: a year, and that was that was helpful. We also

507
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: had the Immediate Reaction Rettalion Bayoso. The Souber created six

508
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: thirteen n large mobile forces called Beerys, the tim the Infantaria,

509
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 1: the react on the Media, and the second one was

510
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: Theosa Batalian that was sent up to Camp McComb and

511
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: now Rudy Jones is a major and he's the S

512
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: three of the battalion, and he sets up that training

513
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: program and that was six months long, and when they

514
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: came back, the guerrillas had several huge defeats back to

515
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: back to back, and so they would not even want

516
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: to get in the same department as the daeos. It

517
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: was in this department they would cross the river just

518
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: to avoid contact because at that time, you know, the

519
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: guerrillas in the early days, there were these highly motivated

520
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: university students twelve thousand, fifteen thousands strong, probably ages twenty two.

521
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: And then our army, on the other hand, might have been, uh,

522
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: you know, the younger on the younger side, eighteen years old,

523
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: not really understanding why I'm here, you know, maybe rafted

524
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: conscript army and uh. The so when the Viosa shows

525
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: back up, you could really see that that significant difference.

526
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: And that was one day to skin the cat. The

527
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: cat being how do you train a ten thousand man

528
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: army if you can only have fifty five guys in country.

529
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 1: So the fifty five guys in country mainly came from

530
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: third of the seventh in Panama, and they put three

531
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: guys in each of the six military zones. There's fourteen

532
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: political departments in our Salvador, and so they put three guys.

533
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: It was a major warrant in a n c O.

534
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: Normally the warrant program now is starting to kick in.

535
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: Up to this time we had about four. We still

536
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: have first lieutenants as exos of the teams, but now

537
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: we have the warrant that more than likely went to

538
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 1: eighteen foxtra training and stuff like that simheres like. And

539
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: so when they broke down the duties of the team,

540
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: they would have the n c O focusing on training

541
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: and the civil defense I'll talk about that in a second,

542
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: and then the warrant officer would be working with the

543
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: intel sections, the fusion centers, and then with maybe psyops

544
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: would be as other area, and then the officer would

545
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: be maybe looking at operations, current operations, future operations, and

546
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: advising the different commanders that were in that military zone. Again,

547
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: there's fourteen departments and they divided them up into six

548
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: military zones, and so each of the military zones has

549
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: a three man team like that. And then we had

550
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: another split team six guys that were in laone where

551
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: we had the National Training Center with sem Centro. The

552
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: training into military forces are modest and this this team,

553
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: UH is there running basic training courses, then corporal promotion courses,

554
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: maybe some other recondo type stuff. And that took the

555
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: heat off of a lot of the departments that up

556
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: to now we're doing their localized training. They could then

557
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: export their men over there, they would get trained and

558
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: then they would come back with standardized training. UM. So

559
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: my my first tour, there was an eight three to

560
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 1: eighty four. I was actually on two back to back

561
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:25,719
Speaker 1: t u I s from Third of the seventh as

562
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: the eight commander. Now, at the time I was there,

563
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: there was three commanders of one wasn't on during, one

564
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: was in a Salador, and one was I think in Ecuador,

565
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: and so we did we didn't even have an even

566
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: though there was three guys up on the board. We

567
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: were in three different countries. That's just the way the

568
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 1: storm was mounting. There, UH a lot of great opportunities

569
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: for guys, and so Third of the seventh became a

570
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: magnet for guys that wanted to deploy. It was a

571
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: self filtering systems, so the guys would hear the stories

572
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: about what the guys were doing, so you would get

573
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: this certain type of guy that was feeling bad if

574
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: he was not deployed, if he was walking around and

575
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: the p exparking around and Ford gool like, he wouldn't

576
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: feel good about himself until he got on the plane.

577
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: That was the type of guy we were getting. And

578
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: so it was a good, good time to be there,

579
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: and so UM I ended up doing my year there

580
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: as the advisor. They that's when they started the civil

581
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: defense program that was an important component of the uh

582
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: A counterinsurgency. Bruce Hazelwood, famous Bruce Hazelwood, he came out

583
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: to San Decente, That's where I was, and that's where

584
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: he came to set up the the civil defense program.

585
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: And that was kind of a pivotal experience because I

586
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: just watched him kind of an action, how he set

587
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: up the civil defense program, how we conducted training, and

588
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: uh I realized is that all these years I was

589
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: doing it wrong and from there I was able to

590
00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: kind of get the right way of approaching things and

591
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So it's kind of like a living

592
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: laboratory for me to watch him how he set that up.

593
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: And basically the idea on his particular civil defense program

594
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: was that each of the municipalities. Each department has a

595
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:32,240
Speaker 1: twenty municipalities, and each municipality has a town, mayor, town, principal,

596
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: town and h. The Civil Defense Force would have fifty

597
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: weapons assigned to it, and you would try to recruit

598
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: five men from the municipality, so that every ten days

599
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: you would do one day uh duty. So three nights

600
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: a month you're doing and you get some basic training,

601
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 1: you know, fire and movement range training, patrolling training. They're

602
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: basically guarding the town square, which has the mayor's office,

603
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: the church, the other administrative buildings, and then you go

604
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:10,360
Speaker 1: out to the perimeter. Nothing uh spectacular, nothing fancy, pretty

605
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: simple stuff. They were armed initially with the M one

606
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: carvings from the Korean War, and then uh they had

607
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: a trouble getting magazines form, so they switched to the

608
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: END fourteen. By the end of the war, the D

609
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: fourteen was what they or handling. But this really bothered

610
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: the guerrillas because uh heretofore, the gorillas could come into

611
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: town without any opposition to buy a Coca cola, or

612
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 1: to go to the pharmacy to get medical supplies, or

613
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: go to the hardware skirt buy a bag of nails,

614
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: to create a roadside bomb, but now they can't do

615
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: it because these guys are preventing them from doing it.

616
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 1: But more than that, the grillas can live with a

617
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: passive population, but they can't live with people that now

618
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: are taking a step against them because their narrative is

619
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: we are fighting for you, you're fighting for the people.

620
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: But now they have these five hundred guys that has

621
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: said the opposite. And these five hundred guys have daughters

622
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,479
Speaker 1: and mothers and wives and stuff like this, and they're

623
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: now the eyes and ears because they know that their

624
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: uncle is on the civil Defense force and they see

625
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: a guerrilla unit walking across the open field there, and

626
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 1: they're going to report that because these guys are not

627
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: just recruited from the town, they're recruited from a twenty

628
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: kilometer radius around the town. So now you have a

629
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: situation that the gorillas didn't like very much, and so

630
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: they would attack these different things and try to take

631
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: this program down. And and granted, the area where the

632
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: gorillas were most predominant UH predominant were the areas it

633
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: was harder to recruit and UH on the areas where

634
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: the guerrillas, like on the west side of the country,

635
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: it was easy to recruit guys, and why not was

636
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: kind of like a uh, you know, a club atmosphere

637
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: you go out to shoot at the range and low

638
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: risk situation and they would have thousands and thousands of

639
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: guys come to be recruited. But then when you go

640
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: to Northern Morizon or something, that would be a suicidal

641
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: mission to say, I want to be in the civil

642
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: defense here. But the areas that we were focusing on

643
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: with those conflicted areas, the areas that were being contested

644
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 1: with the fark and stuff like that. But that was

645
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:22,919
Speaker 1: a brussa wood project that ended up working really well

646
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: because it gave the small Salvadoran army at fifty four thousand,

647
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: another group of people that could hold down static positions

648
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: in towns so that that would free them up to

649
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:37,240
Speaker 1: go out and do patrolling and actual offensive operations against

650
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: the guerillas. One of the guerrilla strategies was to do

651
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: economic sabotage to blow up all the bridges, the power lines,

652
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: and that they were doing like about three hundred million

653
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 1: dollars a year of sabotage, and that would be three

654
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars less that the Salvadoran government could use

655
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 1: to improve the life of the town scope by building

656
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: wells or schools or something. Had they had to rededicate

657
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: this money just to rebuild the same bridget he's there

658
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 1: the day before. So having the civil defense guys there

659
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: helped hold down the package a little bit. And um,

660
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: So when when I did my tour there, I said,

661
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: I gotta get back, um and UM, I said, what's

662
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: the quickest way back. I'll go to Korea because I

663
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 1: was still in the infantry and you have to check

664
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 1: that block to get the infantry the company command or

665
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: else you're you're dead in the water. And I said, hey,

666
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: to save this place, to go to Korea, because you

667
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: know they're one year two of those guide once falling

668
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: off all over the place. But I got to create

669
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:39,400
Speaker 1: They don't know that. No, we don't do it that way.

670
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to do one year as a guy

671
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 1: in the G three year and then after that, if

672
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: you prove yourself in the G three, will give you

673
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: that company commn. So I did a two year hiatus

674
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: there in Korea where my dad had served in UH

675
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 1: following the inch On invasion. Was able to that, you know,

676
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: I was able to discuss UH that with my dad,

677
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: his his time and more h detailed manner walking some

678
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,839
Speaker 1: ground that he had walked. And then uh I came back.

679
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 1: Because when you go to Korea you can get your assignment,

680
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: your first assignment of choice anyway, so I said, well,

681
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: I want to go to El Salvador San Miguel, And

682
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 1: so I came back again at this time for a

683
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: year and a half, and I could see the difference

684
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: because the the s F training that had come in there,

685
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: the you now had an n C O cores. These

686
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,879
Speaker 1: kiddets that were just coming out of the uh iobcure

687
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: the officers o c s, they were now seasoned uh

688
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: platoon leaders. We hadn't gone from zero to fifty helicopters.

689
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: And the helicopter was a huge difference. They were Huey's

690
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: with an M sixty door gun. But up to that time,

691
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 1: the girls were allowed to walk in groups of four

692
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: hundred in noon. You know, in the open fields, you

693
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:55,479
Speaker 1: know from one area to another, who's gonna stop them.

694
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 1: But as soon as you put that first hue up

695
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 1: with the M sixty delta in there, it's a game

696
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: changer because you have the high ground always with the helicopter,

697
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,439
Speaker 1: and then they brought in the mic models, which were

698
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: the Huey's with the two point seven five rocket pods

699
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 1: on each side, and then they created the d C three,

700
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 1: the C forty seven Phantasma, and then of course they

701
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: had their complement of A thirty seven's that we're out

702
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: there as well. But the helicopter really made a huge

703
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: difference because Salvator is not a big country, you know,

704
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 1: three hundred kilometers wide and about a hundred sixty kilometers high,

705
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 1: and so you can fly from here to there. It's mountainous,

706
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 1: so there's some good places where the grillas are going

707
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: to be able to hang out without you be able

708
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: to get getting to them. And but that that air

709
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: thing really made a big difference in um getting support

710
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: to units that were attacked or evacuating guys medical evacuations.

711
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:53,839
Speaker 1: When I first my first tour there in eighty three,

712
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: we had ten jazz at these a day friendly forces did,

713
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 1: and almost all of them for in front and entos

714
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: encounters with gunfire. But then my second tour there was

715
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,359
Speaker 1: also ten kids with these day that eight of them

716
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: were due to minds and booby traps. The minds and

717
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: booby traps. While I was in Korea, they came out

718
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: with the minds and booby traps, and uh there's very

719
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: predictable places to land those helicopters and very easy ways

720
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: to shut down these different traditional trails that the government

721
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 1: forces would walk down. And so eight out of ten

722
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: guys and that last part of the war were suffering

723
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: from minds and booby trap injuries. And the gorillas were

724
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: able to perfect the quantity of the explosives that they

725
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: put in each of these uh toe popular type devices

726
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: that they made all homemade devices. None of them were

727
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: commercial uh fabricated devices. They were all homemade and just

728
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: enough explosives to shatter the guy's foot without killing them.

729
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: Because now they know they have to do extensive amvitation

730
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: and they don't have a veterans administration program there and

731
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: the only way to keep paying these guys to keep

732
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 1: them on the rolls. So in the in the San

733
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: Miguel where I was there with three thousand men, there

734
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: was five hundred that were on one leg or less

735
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: that were you know, battalions were for people that were

736
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: taken out of the field by the time there and

737
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: d M four they had two hundred men assigned and

738
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,919
Speaker 1: all in Morison, but they also had five hundred guys

739
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: on one leg or less. So you would see on

740
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: pay day, you know, when they could come in to

741
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: get their pay, the guys would come in on you know,

742
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 1: the crunches and wheelchairs and stuff like that. And remember

743
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:40,840
Speaker 1: General McCaffrey was there and he goes, hey, you know

744
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 1: this is not good. You look at this unit going

745
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: out from an operation there watching these guys come in.

746
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: And the colonel said, no, because this is good because

747
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 1: the men will know that we're not going to abandon

748
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: that no matter what happens to them after, we're gonna

749
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 1: still stick with them. We're going to keep them paid

750
00:42:56,920 --> 00:42:58,879
Speaker 1: and make sure their families are okay and stuff like that.

751
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: Uh um. And when I left there, uh, that's what

752
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: I ended up doing my master's thesis, Sounds Countermine Operations

753
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 1: in Alsalvre, because I said, there's got to be a

754
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: solution to this. And so when I went to Fort

755
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 1: Level with like gove In and I said, let me

756
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: see if I can come up. There's something out there.

757
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: And you know, leaven Worth got a vast library and uh,

758
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: most of the stuff that was valuable was from Vietnam,

759
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: you know, in the leader Wars of the Vietnam concept

760
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: that was their main problem as well, the same types

761
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,479
Speaker 1: of movie tracks and stuff. So I tried to see

762
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: what I could do to turn that around. And where

763
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: I was and let me let me interrupt for just

764
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: a second. I wanted to ask you something. Did you

765
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: notice a difference in the level of training for the

766
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:51,280
Speaker 1: fml nds between your first deployment in their second one? Yeah,

767
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 1: I think what you ended up was they didn't have

768
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: a deep bench. Uh. You know, they had some very

769
00:43:56,640 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 1: um ideologically motive they did uh uh you know, the

770
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,720
Speaker 1: Universitario type guys at the beginning, and then they start

771
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 1: taking casualties. But then there isn't that another Universitario guy

772
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: to take their place. So now they're doing stuff like

773
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: pulling kids out of the houses, you know, twelve year

774
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: olds and saying carry this mortar base plate for me

775
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: for two weeks. Um. And then towards the towards the

776
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: end of the war, um, we start seeing maybe up

777
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,879
Speaker 1: to females now because they're they're ready to put anybody

778
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: into the ranks, and we start seeing twelve thirteen year

779
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: old stuff like that, and the That's what brought them

780
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 1: to the piece table because they were looking at the

781
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: road ahead and they said this is not the arc

782
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: was not going in their favor, so they went to

783
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:59,359
Speaker 1: the peace tables. That's essentially what happened because they could

784
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: they could see uh and and their their campaign to

785
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: do the minds and boobie traps was very effective, hugely effective.

786
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: But Salvador being the most densely populated country in the

787
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: Western Hemisphere all the a a rural country, you also

788
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 1: have civilians walking around, the old lady, the little kid

789
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: that's also stepping on that mind and so they might

790
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: the f m l AND may have had some popularity

791
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: in Europe, uh in Mexico. Mexico had recognized the f

792
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: l AND as a belligerent force, as did France. But

793
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: now there's this big turnabout in this effective tool that

794
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: they were using against the military now has a negative

795
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: effect on their their international support because we weren't using

796
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: minds of book chest. We had claimers that was all

797
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: only claimant and so any of those sorts of activities

798
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 1: was clearly on their shoulder. They couldn't say, well, that

799
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 1: was a military booby trap or something. Uh And so

800
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: That's what I saw towards the end that the they

801
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: were desperate to kill the ranks up. Um. There were

802
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 1: some hardcore guerrillas there. They were out there for three

803
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: or four days at a time, eating two or three tortillas. Uh.

804
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 1: They were always on the run. Now that were the

805
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 1: intel was getting better so that they could not feel

806
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:32,919
Speaker 1: comfortable in a place for a long period of time.

807
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: That was another thing as you were saying, yeah, it's

808
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 1: just such a small country. It's you know, as granted

809
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 1: there was mountainous and thickly vegetated, but still it's a

810
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: small country with the military getting better by the day. Yeah,

811
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,759
Speaker 1: they put us put a damper on their offs. Yeah

812
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: I did. And the like I said, there was no

813
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:00,919
Speaker 1: n c O core. When I first got there would

814
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: be a single cadet that might wear a bright colored

815
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: scarf and say you hundred guys follow me, and they would.

816
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: But then as we got down just that short tour

817
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: I took in career, when I came back, I saw

818
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: that the seven group guys that created this nice SF

819
00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: this nice uh n c O core that was doing

820
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: that sort of small uh leadership, small unit leadership. It

821
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: was needed to win this thing right after, right after

822
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: your last tour, that's been everything started heating up in

823
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 1: pent Well before that, we had this other thing that

824
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 1: happened to us in six and that was the drug

825
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: situation in the Indian Ridge, Bolivia, Peru, Columbia, and so

826
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: simultaneous with this Central American thing that we were doing

827
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 1: from now, all of a sudden they hand us this situation. Now.

828
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: Colin Paul at the time said, I don't want our

829
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: guys to be the lead, but we will support the

830
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: State department with training. And so that's what we get.

831
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:16,759
Speaker 1: And each of these countries in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia,

832
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: they needed to have a special UH counternarcotic force that

833
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: would be air mobile because of the vast distances, that

834
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 1: would understand small unit tactics, because the narco traffickers would

835
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:32,760
Speaker 1: often be guerrilla forces like the Sin Cheese and Trew

836
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: or the FARC or the E L N in Columbia,

837
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: or they just might be well armed. So the types

838
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 1: of skill sets that they needed to the police forces

839
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: needed to be trained in do not sit with the

840
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Police Force, but with seven Special Forces Group. And

841
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,879
Speaker 1: so the p O I S that we had were

842
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 1: fairly consistent with what we were doing in the crem

843
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: and Honduras and in these UH Salvadoran missions. So we

844
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:02,800
Speaker 1: had eyes that were really up in their game with

845
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: language and running these training programs. And they were then

846
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: UH spun off to go to Bolivia to set up

847
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: the Garas training program. That was Captain Charlie Cleveland was

848
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: the first one there, and almost everybody from seventh group

849
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: had been there once in their life by now, and

850
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: then UH we talked about Bob Clawson going down with

851
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 1: Mike Coup to do the assessment of the Colombian Narcotics

852
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 1: Police which later became the Hunglass. They stayed behind to

853
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: work with the British s a S. The British s

854
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,800
Speaker 1: a S ran the first iteration of the Colombian Hungla

855
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: course in I was able to go to the thirtieth

856
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Hunglas in Bogata in nineteen ten. The

857
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,320
Speaker 1: s the S a S guys and three s a

858
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 1: S guys were there and they all talked about Bob

859
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: Classon and Mike Coup. Three years later they had helped

860
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 1: them because they were excellent Spanish. Because as you know,

861
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: Mike and Bob. Were were very familiar with Latin America

862
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 1: and the SAS guys were just showing up for the

863
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: first time into the region, and they provided them a

864
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,879
Speaker 1: lot of great help out there to put that together. Um.

865
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: And then we had the Yeah, and then we had

866
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: the Cincies in the Wayaga Valley in Peru and we

867
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: sent Blue Venture down there. The sentis were established by

868
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 1: seven Threw back in the nineteen sixties, but then we

869
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 1: rejoined them again in nineteen eighty nine with UH Captain

870
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: Ben's cholic and mess started Fromkowski went out there and

871
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 1: they were followed by ed reader Dan Tomlinson went out there,

872
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:52,399
Speaker 1: UM and UH they were a key unit to help

873
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,359
Speaker 1: the d E A low, you know, take down these

874
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: uh drug labs that they would identify. And so now

875
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: we've got these things going on. And then in Um,

876
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:04,920
Speaker 1: as you mentioned on top of all that, in now

877
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: we've got the Noriega situation. Uh. This is our home

878
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: base uh Panama, and he's uh creating a consternation while

879
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: we're a deployed. When I took command, when I got

880
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: out of eleven Worth, I took command of Alpha three seven,

881
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 1: our company, and there was only two guys standing in

882
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:31,439
Speaker 1: Formation Sergeant Deck then and starting Deck were the only

883
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: two guys there because everyone else was in a Salvador, Ecuador, Columbia.

884
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 1: Everyone was deployed and UH when the first thing I

885
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: did after I took command in July of eighty nine

886
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 1: was to go out and visit them as many as

887
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:48,800
Speaker 1: I could, and they were all coming back uh in

888
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 1: December of eighty nine two then do a handoff. UH.

889
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: The other company was Beat Company, Bruce Jos Company, and

890
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 1: they were the ones that were focusing on t aiming

891
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 1: up for the event of the potential just cause invasion.

892
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: And so from July to December, they did a couple

893
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: of short like three week trips to Costa Rica through

894
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 1: trip to uh Guatemala or something. But their main focus

895
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: was to train up the different missions. We had, like

896
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 1: twenty different scenarios that we were training for, primarily to

897
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:27,880
Speaker 1: uh prevent Oreega from escaping different air fields that he

898
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: might have escaped from. We would send his teams there

899
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: to kind of put eyes on those areas, and Brucios

900
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: and his teams were training up that and then I

901
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: was supposed to take over from Bruce in uh uh

902
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:45,320
Speaker 1: you know, December nineteen was our handoff or something, but

903
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 1: that turned out to be when they let the fused

904
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,799
Speaker 1: for just can So Bruce's guys are already farming out

905
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:56,440
Speaker 1: to Bolivia ed readers getting on planing to go to Peru,

906
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: and meanwhile my guys get coming. Alpha three seven's coming

907
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 1: off the planes. But by this time we've already set

908
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:07,879
Speaker 1: up in the hangar at all Brook ready to start

909
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 1: launching out the h our missions. And so when guys

910
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 1: were landing in uh Howard Air Force Base to thinking

911
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 1: you're going on Christmas vaccasion or something after their six

912
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:20,439
Speaker 1: months tour in Bolivia, I would tell Stan Brown, I says,

913
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 1: you can't go to the Fort Davis right now. You

914
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: gotta come to this hanger and I'll let you know

915
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:26,800
Speaker 1: what's going on. So he shows up the hangar and

916
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 1: I said, okay, in six hours the phenom invasions can start.

917
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:36,480
Speaker 1: So we uh, you know, we had guys who were

918
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 1: well trained to do the Panama invasion, but a lot

919
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: of them were on already down on the ground in

920
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: Bolivia and they had you know, we're back at they

921
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:48,360
Speaker 1: then they're change over. But luckily all that training that

922
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 1: the guys were doing in uh downrange turned out to

923
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:56,360
Speaker 1: help us throughout the invasion because everybody's Spanish is on

924
00:53:56,920 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 1: par uh. For example, when we did a couple of

925
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 1: our h our emissions, the one on the Pacora Bridge,

926
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 1: for example, I had Mitch Williamson with me and he

927
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: was the guy that trained the two or three gunners

928
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: of the Sin Chiefs for six months. And so I said, Mitch,

929
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:14,800
Speaker 1: I said, can you lay two oh three fire along

930
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 1: this river bed? We think guys are in that river bed?

931
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:19,879
Speaker 1: And he said I can do that. And I knew

932
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: he could because he had fired thousands and thousands of

933
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:26,320
Speaker 1: rounds and uh. And so we had like this, this

934
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: all star team, albeit we hadn't worked together. You know,

935
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 1: some of the guys. I said, you don't know me

936
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:32,880
Speaker 1: yet because I didn't get a chance to see you

937
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:35,880
Speaker 1: that I'm your company commander. And in six hours we're

938
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: gonna get on this black Hawk and we're gonna go

939
00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:41,080
Speaker 1: cure and uh. But it was a fast learn you know,

940
00:54:41,160 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 1: as we went out to the countryside and did two

941
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 1: different missions and you're there in close quarters everybody. Uh.

942
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 1: He had that high maturity level and they understood what

943
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:52,680
Speaker 1: was going on. I remember when we went out on

944
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:56,160
Speaker 1: Christmas Day to David and I had Chief que back

945
00:54:56,280 --> 00:55:00,879
Speaker 1: with with me and J. J. Johnson, and they had

946
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: just come back from El Salvador where they ran their

947
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 1: fusion centers there, Intel Fusion Centers and Sulutan and in

948
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: Um Charlatanango and I said, okay, remember what you did

949
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:14,719
Speaker 1: in the Sulutan, JJ, do that right now for me

950
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:17,360
Speaker 1: and Davy. Here's the big map here in the conference

951
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: room that we just took over from the PDF, and

952
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: start plotting things and interviewing people and do everything that

953
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:25,360
Speaker 1: you did there. And he said, okay, I got it.

954
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:27,479
Speaker 1: So you can do that in audible at the line

955
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 1: of scrimmage because everybody kind of understands what the situation

956
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:33,399
Speaker 1: is going to be and what needs to be done.

957
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:36,920
Speaker 1: And then when we did our promote liberty following that,

958
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:39,719
Speaker 1: we pretty much used the Salvadoran model, you know, where

959
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:41,960
Speaker 1: you have a small amount of guys. We had eight

960
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 1: guys in the company, we have to spread them out

961
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 1: over these different provinces. And so the guys were doing

962
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 1: basically the O pat mission that we did in El Salvador.

963
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 1: But now they're in in your case and Chapo Uh

964
00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:57,000
Speaker 1: doing the same thing that I was doing in Santa

965
00:55:57,080 --> 00:56:00,319
Speaker 1: Center in a salvadory, you know, reporting, observing, advising, uh,

966
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 1: you know, kind of giving uh the commanders back in

967
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:06,399
Speaker 1: the rear of the sort of information that you're you're

968
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:11,399
Speaker 1: not gonna get from flying a drone overhead or something. Yeah.

969
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:16,640
Speaker 1: I remember in Chapel the cops were, um, they were

970
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:20,239
Speaker 1: very motivated to please after the war, you know how

971
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: it is because they knew, you know, we had to

972
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:25,880
Speaker 1: cut down a lot of uh strength there. And then

973
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:30,560
Speaker 1: they gave us an army reservice who was a actually

974
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 1: a National Guard guy SF National Guard guy who was

975
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 1: a Swat Team member from St. Petersburg, and he made

976
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:41,600
Speaker 1: up Chapo Swat Team t shirts for all the cops.

977
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: And then somebody sorry said the general field, aren't you

978
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: guys jumping the gun a little bit with this, you know,

979
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:58,600
Speaker 1: Chapo Swat Team. But yeah, those were those were fun times.

980
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:02,879
Speaker 1: That's when I first met you back then, you know. Yeah. Yeah,

981
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 1: then wa waite Chapel and I've got at the same time. Yeah,

982
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:15,280
Speaker 1: and and so you know, following uh that promote Liberty

983
00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 1: operation in Panama, they redeployed Third Italian to Fort Brant

984
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 1: as part of the Panama Canal Treaties that were signed

985
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 1: in October of seventy nine. We had a twenty year

986
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: period whereby the year two thousand we were supposed to

987
00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:33,920
Speaker 1: have withdrawn and turned over all of these installations UH,

988
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 1: and which we did. We we complied with debt and

989
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 1: as part of that draw down UH, they sent the

990
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:43,880
Speaker 1: third Italian back. But luckily guys like U Hugh Scruggs,

991
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:47,040
Speaker 1: who was now the seventh Group commander, and Roy Trumbull,

992
00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 1: who was our Italian commandity. So we've got to keep

993
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:53,040
Speaker 1: at least a foothold here because during the time that

994
00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:55,600
Speaker 1: I was a captain, Roy Trumbull was there as the

995
00:57:55,680 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 1: A three seventh commander and he was out there deploying

996
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:01,520
Speaker 1: to Honduras and these different locations, and he saw the

997
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 1: value of having the in country forces there, as did

998
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 1: Hugh Scruggs, who he did captain major lieutenant colonel time

999
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 1: in Panama. And so we were able to keep Charlie

1000
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 1: three seven there for another ten years and then UH

1001
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:19,120
Speaker 1: from there they moved to Puerto Rico to kind of

1002
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:22,920
Speaker 1: keep that same sort of in country or that in

1003
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,960
Speaker 1: theater response thing. And that was a very good decision

1004
00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:30,480
Speaker 1: because they had to get launched a few times on

1005
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:33,480
Speaker 1: a few good missions Charlie three seven. During the time

1006
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 1: they were UH, there was the one that we think

1007
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:43,920
Speaker 1: about as the Peruvian UH mission where they jubut tomorrow

1008
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:47,440
Speaker 1: took over the Japanese a Vassador's residents. We had um

1009
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: George Franco Captain with zeitsins as I said, Chris, as

1010
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:55,280
Speaker 1: I stay. They had just come from there doing a

1011
00:58:55,800 --> 00:59:00,880
Speaker 1: six week deployment, and then a week later this situation

1012
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:05,000
Speaker 1: and with the Japanese Ambassador's residents there and the unit

1013
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 1: that was sent to respond was the unit that they

1014
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 1: just trained, and so UH they turned around, sent George

1015
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 1: back down there and he was able to get access

1016
00:59:14,880 --> 00:59:18,120
Speaker 1: right up onto the target because the guys had their

1017
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:21,479
Speaker 1: diplomas from Charlie three seventh the ink head and dried

1018
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:23,720
Speaker 1: on it yet and so these were their friends and

1019
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 1: they explained everything what was going on. So this sort

1020
00:59:27,040 --> 00:59:30,080
Speaker 1: of thing where we build these Milton Mill relationships in

1021
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 1: order to have the doors open for different things. That

1022
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 1: was a perfect example of where it would have been

1023
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 1: hard for just a random guy up the street to

1024
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 1: come up on the target to ask what's going on.

1025
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 1: It wasn't hard for zights or for Franco to go

1026
00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:46,800
Speaker 1: in there and get that information, so that paid dividends.

1027
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:48,880
Speaker 1: They have the Charlie three seven there, but now we

1028
00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:52,040
Speaker 1: don't have the in theater forces now they're all located

1029
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:57,240
Speaker 1: now in Egglin there. But through the nineties we continued

1030
00:59:57,320 --> 01:00:01,640
Speaker 1: the the counter drug thing. They and the Salvadoran thing.

1031
01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:05,080
Speaker 1: They signed our peace treaty in ninety two, uh, and

1032
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: so that kind of quieted things down a little bit

1033
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:09,840
Speaker 1: in Central American. So in the nineties we then put

1034
01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: our full focus down in the Dayan region and the

1035
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 1: narcotics thing, and kind of culminated in the development of

1036
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:19,640
Speaker 1: Planned Columbia nine or Year two thousand was signed in

1037
01:00:19,760 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 1: July at two thousand and uh. It was now the

1038
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 1: Mill Group commander in Columbia when that had happened, and

1039
01:00:28,160 --> 01:00:31,800
Speaker 1: then uh, you know, we went ahead and um over

1040
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: the next twelve years, the Seventh Group would have four

1041
01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 1: teams in Columbia to working with the police, to working

1042
01:00:41,120 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 1: with the army. This is even after the Iraq invasion,

1043
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:49,919
Speaker 1: because it wasn' until the Iraq invasion that Seventh Group

1044
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:52,440
Speaker 1: got pulled into the mix. Because when we were just

1045
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:55,320
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, the fifth group kind of had a nice

1046
01:00:55,440 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 1: rotation working. But then when you developed that second operation

1047
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: with Iraq, then it's all hands on deck because this

1048
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:05,280
Speaker 1: thing looks like it's going to be a long thing,

1049
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:07,280
Speaker 1: and of course it did turn on to be a

1050
01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 1: long thing, and so everyone has to kind of get

1051
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:13,120
Speaker 1: into the rotation. And so in around two thousand three

1052
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 1: seven through of only in instead of eighteen O T

1053
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 1: A s to deploy down range each quarter, they now

1054
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:23,240
Speaker 1: only have four. And so they they look at the

1055
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 1: map and say, well, if we're gonna have anybody go anywhere,

1056
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 1: it's got to be Columbia, because that's where the more

1057
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:31,440
Speaker 1: intense activity was taking place, and that's where all the

1058
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:34,800
Speaker 1: US agencies were working. So they d D wanted to

1059
01:01:34,920 --> 01:01:38,360
Speaker 1: join up with the rest of the State Department and

1060
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:42,440
Speaker 1: the U D, A, U S, A, I D. And

1061
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 1: so we all worked there together during those years and

1062
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:51,800
Speaker 1: that that culminated in a peace treaty as well into

1063
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:57,080
Speaker 1: sixteen and you know, the farc were brought, you know,

1064
01:01:57,160 --> 01:01:59,360
Speaker 1: pretty much to their knees, and so they realized that

1065
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:02,640
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to group, much like the salvadren guerrillas

1066
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:09,080
Speaker 1: did in but Columbia is a vast country, and uh,

1067
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:14,240
Speaker 1: you had sixty six different fronts in the FARC, and

1068
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 1: each of them are very locally recruited, and you don't

1069
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:22,560
Speaker 1: have that sort of centralized leadership like the f fml

1070
01:02:22,760 --> 01:02:24,680
Speaker 1: N did. When the FLEN said okay, everybody, puts your

1071
01:02:24,720 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: weapons down. Uh, that was an easy thing to do.

1072
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:32,960
Speaker 1: And of course most people were willing to put their

1073
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:35,640
Speaker 1: weapons down because they were eating that one tortilla every

1074
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 1: three days and getting rained on and uh, sleeping under

1075
01:02:39,400 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: a poncho tip thing. But now with the FARK situation,

1076
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:45,600
Speaker 1: you have this uh, you know, billion dollars and years

1077
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 1: sort of industry going on, and then this guy is

1078
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:51,959
Speaker 1: going to far combatant for twenty years. What's he gonna

1079
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 1: do now? So, uh, you might have still a lot

1080
01:02:57,840 --> 01:03:01,160
Speaker 1: of conflictive zones going on in Colombia even though this

1081
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:04,680
Speaker 1: peace treaty has been signed. Because of that other aspect

1082
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:08,720
Speaker 1: of the thing. There's a lot more different motivations other

1083
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:13,160
Speaker 1: than an ideological push to get these guys out there. Um,

1084
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:18,000
Speaker 1: Central America, I guess to close up, we we had

1085
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 1: a great displacement internally in the Central American countries, but

1086
01:03:21,560 --> 01:03:23,440
Speaker 1: also a lot of them went to the States and

1087
01:03:24,720 --> 01:03:27,440
Speaker 1: you'd have these uh Salvadorans that would show up in

1088
01:03:27,520 --> 01:03:31,640
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and they would get picked on. Uh. They

1089
01:03:31,680 --> 01:03:33,920
Speaker 1: would be these newcomers that would come there and people

1090
01:03:33,960 --> 01:03:37,360
Speaker 1: would you know, assault them on the streets or whatever.

1091
01:03:37,440 --> 01:03:41,080
Speaker 1: But they would get together and form these sorts of

1092
01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:46,520
Speaker 1: defense groups there in Los Angeles to fort these attempts

1093
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: of other organized gangs you know, from the fifties and

1094
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:54,440
Speaker 1: sixties that were harassing them. But those things kind of

1095
01:03:55,880 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 1: spiraled into the MS thirteen and the Pandia Desio show,

1096
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 1: the two big gangs that we have now in the

1097
01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 1: Central American countries. Uh, those guys would get in trouble

1098
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 1: in the United States and they'd be decorded and they

1099
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:13,240
Speaker 1: would come back to a Salvador in the nineties and

1100
01:04:13,320 --> 01:04:17,120
Speaker 1: the early ads here and they would bring some of

1101
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:19,560
Speaker 1: the skill sets that they had learned these self to

1102
01:04:19,640 --> 01:04:23,280
Speaker 1: Film's forces in Los Angeles ended up then asking different

1103
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:25,919
Speaker 1: businesses in the area, Hey, could you please contribute money

1104
01:04:26,040 --> 01:04:29,040
Speaker 1: to this gang we have here so that we can

1105
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:31,760
Speaker 1: protect you. And then it's called extortion. And then maybe

1106
01:04:31,800 --> 01:04:35,080
Speaker 1: they want to supplement their income by selling drugs. That's

1107
01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:38,920
Speaker 1: called drug dealing, and so they become illegal groups, and

1108
01:04:39,280 --> 01:04:44,200
Speaker 1: UH Salvador Propio, the actual Salvador, hadn't seen anything like

1109
01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:48,720
Speaker 1: this before. So these guys pretty much gave the scury

1110
01:04:48,760 --> 01:04:51,000
Speaker 1: forces here a run for their money because they were

1111
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 1: a couple of steps ahead of them. And so that's

1112
01:04:54,120 --> 01:04:57,120
Speaker 1: a persistent problem that we're dealing with here now, even

1113
01:04:57,200 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: in two thousand twenty one. But that was kind of

1114
01:04:59,720 --> 01:05:04,000
Speaker 1: the roots of the of the gang. The creation of

1115
01:05:04,040 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 1: the gangs was they started in the US. These guys

1116
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:10,440
Speaker 1: ended up getting recorded. They come here and provide some

1117
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:14,280
Speaker 1: mobile training team type advice to the guys here, who

1118
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 1: end up becoming even more skilled at it than the

1119
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 1: original UH founders. The main problem that we have is

1120
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:27,760
Speaker 1: extortion in El Salvador right now, that every business is extorted,

1121
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:32,640
Speaker 1: whether it's the bakery or the gas station. And they

1122
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 1: kind of the gangs are they divide up the neighborhoods

1123
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 1: each click a small group of gangs. They have twenty

1124
01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 1: by twenty block area they're responsible for, and there might

1125
01:05:44,360 --> 01:05:48,080
Speaker 1: be thirty businesses in that area, and they kind of

1126
01:05:48,160 --> 01:05:50,280
Speaker 1: gauge how much they're going to charge you for this

1127
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:53,600
Speaker 1: protection money monthly could be fifty dollars, it could be

1128
01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:56,960
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty dollars. They kind of do an assessment.

1129
01:05:57,120 --> 01:06:01,440
Speaker 1: They don't want to kill the golden goose. Uh. They

1130
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:03,440
Speaker 1: want to make sure you still have some money at

1131
01:06:03,480 --> 01:06:05,400
Speaker 1: the end of the month to pay your light bill,

1132
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:08,120
Speaker 1: because if they do too hard of an extoration, the

1133
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 1: guy's going to close down the business because he doesn't

1134
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:13,760
Speaker 1: want to end up working through free um. And so

1135
01:06:14,160 --> 01:06:16,800
Speaker 1: you can report yourself to the police, but if they

1136
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:19,840
Speaker 1: find out, they'll kill you or a family member. So

1137
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:24,400
Speaker 1: that's kind of a dissuasive measure, uh that they use

1138
01:06:24,520 --> 01:06:29,720
Speaker 1: the threat of force. You do have some safety because

1139
01:06:29,800 --> 01:06:31,920
Speaker 1: that you know that each of these cliques are extorting

1140
01:06:32,040 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: thirty different pleases, so um, you will they won't be

1141
01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:39,760
Speaker 1: able to figure out which of these thirty people are

1142
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:43,600
Speaker 1: adding us out. So you've got some prediction there. Once

1143
01:06:43,640 --> 01:06:46,840
Speaker 1: you go to the ante extoration forces, they're pretty professional

1144
01:06:46,960 --> 01:06:51,800
Speaker 1: here in El Salvador. They'll set up some over uh

1145
01:06:52,400 --> 01:06:56,320
Speaker 1: site positions. They don't just want to arrest that kid

1146
01:06:56,440 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 1: on the bicycle that's sent to the bakery to pick

1147
01:06:58,800 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 1: up the thing. He's not a key player in this,

1148
01:07:02,080 --> 01:07:04,040
Speaker 1: but they kind of tracked the kids, see where he goes,

1149
01:07:04,120 --> 01:07:06,920
Speaker 1: and then they wait to maybe they can develop a

1150
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 1: situation where they can pounce and break the whole structure down.

1151
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 1: And so when you're reading a newspaper that they captured

1152
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:15,640
Speaker 1: fifteen people in this town, that might have been a

1153
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 1: mission that was six months in making. But while they're

1154
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:21,440
Speaker 1: waiting for that six months in the making mission to

1155
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:25,200
Speaker 1: really hammer them, you as the vapory guy, are still

1156
01:07:25,280 --> 01:07:28,400
Speaker 1: paying months. They're still losing your money, and you're still

1157
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:31,080
Speaker 1: wondering whole is Tonight to night they're going to find

1158
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:34,560
Speaker 1: out that I was the guy that snitched on him,

1159
01:07:35,160 --> 01:07:40,600
Speaker 1: and so you're feeling very nervous. Uh. Once they captured

1160
01:07:40,680 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: the gang that used to bust it up, and then

1161
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:45,640
Speaker 1: maybe you would have a respite for several months or

1162
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:49,400
Speaker 1: years or forever. But now the gangs are more organized

1163
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 1: so that when they see the one element that gets captured,

1164
01:07:52,160 --> 01:07:54,919
Speaker 1: they go ahead and back fill so that they don't

1165
01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:58,320
Speaker 1: lose those months of extortion. So now you think you

1166
01:07:58,400 --> 01:08:00,640
Speaker 1: have a respite. You might get a month off, but

1167
01:08:00,760 --> 01:08:03,600
Speaker 1: then the next month they're coming a new guy and saying, okay,

1168
01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:05,800
Speaker 1: here I am. I'm the new guy, and now you

1169
01:08:05,920 --> 01:08:08,440
Speaker 1: have to pay me that two hund fifty bucks and

1170
01:08:08,560 --> 01:08:11,720
Speaker 1: you just went through this harrowing six months wondering if

1171
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:14,360
Speaker 1: these guys are gonna find out. So then you decide

1172
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:17,439
Speaker 1: do I go back to the police again or do

1173
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:20,200
Speaker 1: I just pay the light bill, pay the water bill,

1174
01:08:20,280 --> 01:08:25,280
Speaker 1: and pay the gang bill and so? Or do I

1175
01:08:25,360 --> 01:08:27,559
Speaker 1: go to the United States? Do I try to start

1176
01:08:27,640 --> 01:08:30,040
Speaker 1: over there because I'm not going to grow my business

1177
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:32,080
Speaker 1: because the money that I would have used to fix

1178
01:08:32,160 --> 01:08:34,560
Speaker 1: the rough or hire another worker is now going to

1179
01:08:34,640 --> 01:08:37,120
Speaker 1: the gang. So is it better? Am I better going

1180
01:08:37,240 --> 01:08:41,680
Speaker 1: to the States at this point? And so a lot

1181
01:08:41,760 --> 01:08:43,639
Speaker 1: of the people that you show up at our border

1182
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:47,599
Speaker 1: are saying that I am endangered there in a sense

1183
01:08:47,680 --> 01:08:50,679
Speaker 1: that they would be endangered they weren't paying that explorion fee.

1184
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:56,640
Speaker 1: And uh. They're also seeing that their ability to expand

1185
01:08:57,080 --> 01:09:01,040
Speaker 1: is limited, and even though they might have no direct

1186
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:04,840
Speaker 1: physical threat, uh, they don't want to continue on with

1187
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 1: this uh young this carousel right. Um. So if we

1188
01:09:11,400 --> 01:09:13,600
Speaker 1: can fix that problem, then I think a lot of

1189
01:09:13,680 --> 01:09:17,680
Speaker 1: people will feel content because the pain you know that

1190
01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:20,400
Speaker 1: that was you know the Irish the data family. We

1191
01:09:20,520 --> 01:09:22,400
Speaker 1: ended up with a big immigration because the pain of

1192
01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:25,240
Speaker 1: staying in Ireland where your family was for two thousand

1193
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:28,640
Speaker 1: years becomes greater than the pain that you might experience

1194
01:09:28,720 --> 01:09:31,120
Speaker 1: from leaving your grandmother behind. So a lot of people

1195
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:33,560
Speaker 1: got on the boats because it was either that or

1196
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:37,799
Speaker 1: they're going to die. So most people are probably content

1197
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:42,000
Speaker 1: to stay where they're at. You know. The other problem

1198
01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:44,560
Speaker 1: we have is the magnet in the United States. You know,

1199
01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:52,920
Speaker 1: you have a three minimum wage a month m in Salvador,

1200
01:09:53,200 --> 01:09:57,000
Speaker 1: and maybe a good job is getting that Coca Cola

1201
01:09:57,360 --> 01:10:01,360
Speaker 1: delivery truck job where you're paid seven books today, and uh,

1202
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:04,680
Speaker 1: you were fighting to get that job, but then you

1203
01:10:04,840 --> 01:10:07,799
Speaker 1: hear from your cousin in Houston who's making seven dollars

1204
01:10:07,800 --> 01:10:11,280
Speaker 1: an hour. And then if you think to yourself at

1205
01:10:11,280 --> 01:10:12,960
Speaker 1: the end of that hard day and the hunter to

1206
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:15,640
Speaker 1: re temperature in San Miguel, whether it was worth it

1207
01:10:15,760 --> 01:10:19,280
Speaker 1: or whether I should go to Houston. And so you

1208
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:21,519
Speaker 1: have that sort of phenomena, even though you're not being

1209
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:24,920
Speaker 1: messed with by all out of gangs, you realize that

1210
01:10:24,960 --> 01:10:26,760
Speaker 1: if I do take a risk to go up there,

1211
01:10:26,960 --> 01:10:30,040
Speaker 1: I might be able to improve my position. And so

1212
01:10:30,240 --> 01:10:32,479
Speaker 1: that that's uh why you see a lot of guys

1213
01:10:32,560 --> 01:10:35,600
Speaker 1: going up there obviously, And so even if we do

1214
01:10:35,840 --> 01:10:41,080
Speaker 1: fix the security situation, you'll still have that magnet scenario

1215
01:10:41,200 --> 01:10:45,280
Speaker 1: that we have to contest with. That's kind of uh,

1216
01:10:45,720 --> 01:10:50,200
Speaker 1: Latin America. In the last forty nine years, I think

1217
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:53,439
Speaker 1: we've touched on a lot of stuff there. So yeah,

1218
01:10:53,600 --> 01:10:57,120
Speaker 1: it was it was the best time of my life

1219
01:10:57,400 --> 01:11:00,240
Speaker 1: being stations down there. You know, we got to visit

1220
01:11:00,320 --> 01:11:03,519
Speaker 1: a lot of different countries. Um. You know, I worked

1221
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:06,240
Speaker 1: in some of the same places you did at different times,

1222
01:11:06,360 --> 01:11:10,800
Speaker 1: and um, you know in the Indian Ridge stuff. I

1223
01:11:10,960 --> 01:11:15,000
Speaker 1: remember when I was they whittled the uh, the drug

1224
01:11:15,080 --> 01:11:19,640
Speaker 1: training mission from eighteen downs. The three guys and h Me,

1225
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:23,719
Speaker 1: Danny Carponetti, Dave Ortiz were down there, and Colonel Scruggs

1226
01:11:23,800 --> 01:11:26,920
Speaker 1: came down to visit us with a remo, and um,

1227
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:32,360
Speaker 1: he's a lot of the Honda uh excuse me, Bolivian

1228
01:11:33,000 --> 01:11:39,479
Speaker 1: um hierarchy. I guess had fond, fond memories of Colonel

1229
01:11:39,520 --> 01:11:41,880
Speaker 1: Scrugs and it greased a lot of skids for us

1230
01:11:41,920 --> 01:11:46,360
Speaker 1: down there. Yeah. No, it was a long term relationships

1231
01:11:46,439 --> 01:11:48,800
Speaker 1: worked good. It was a good time because we had

1232
01:11:48,840 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 1: autonomy and responsibility at the small team level, you know,

1233
01:11:53,160 --> 01:11:57,240
Speaker 1: like that three man team that you mentioned with Danny Carponetti. Uh,

1234
01:11:57,400 --> 01:12:00,320
Speaker 1: you guys were you know, the US represented. It is

1235
01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:04,200
Speaker 1: in a wide swath of territory in Bolivia, and that's

1236
01:12:04,240 --> 01:12:06,719
Speaker 1: a that's a big responsibility. You're not just a cog

1237
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:09,880
Speaker 1: in the machine of our you know, a conventional force

1238
01:12:10,040 --> 01:12:12,880
Speaker 1: moving across the d m C in Korea. You are

1239
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:15,840
Speaker 1: this guy that is the US representative down there. You're

1240
01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:18,320
Speaker 1: doing training and diplomacy and stuff like that. And I

1241
01:12:18,439 --> 01:12:21,600
Speaker 1: think that was uh, you know a big attraction of

1242
01:12:21,680 --> 01:12:26,920
Speaker 1: being in the Seventh Group at the time. Oh yeah, absolutely,

1243
01:12:27,320 --> 01:12:29,720
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, you know, we got to do so

1244
01:12:29,920 --> 01:12:34,600
Speaker 1: much great stuff, all of us, and it was just

1245
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:38,720
Speaker 1: a really good time to be in Seventh Group during

1246
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:41,240
Speaker 1: that era because like you said, you know when you

1247
01:12:41,320 --> 01:12:47,599
Speaker 1: took over the company, they were telling two standing there. Yeah. Yeah,

1248
01:12:47,680 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 1: that was the yeah that I see now the teams

1249
01:12:53,479 --> 01:12:55,719
Speaker 1: that are coming, Uh, they've you know, I've been working

1250
01:12:56,080 --> 01:13:00,080
Speaker 1: with the State Department UH since two thousand one, and

1251
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:03,200
Speaker 1: I've had pretty much during that whole time, UH and

1252
01:13:03,479 --> 01:13:06,320
Speaker 1: SF team that's helped me do the training of the

1253
01:13:06,400 --> 01:13:08,560
Speaker 1: Humblas for the ten years I was there, and in

1254
01:13:08,720 --> 01:13:12,000
Speaker 1: Honduras for five years, and I was there and I

1255
01:13:12,080 --> 01:13:16,600
Speaker 1: could see a very uh more intense, uh maturity in

1256
01:13:16,680 --> 01:13:19,360
Speaker 1: the sense of, you know, the combat skills, because the

1257
01:13:19,439 --> 01:13:23,559
Speaker 1: guys knew from their multiple tours into those combat zones

1258
01:13:24,200 --> 01:13:27,280
Speaker 1: that tonight could be that night, and so their war

1259
01:13:27,439 --> 01:13:33,000
Speaker 1: fighting skills are very supreme in that sense. But what

1260
01:13:33,160 --> 01:13:35,600
Speaker 1: they miss out on was that trip to Equitor, the

1261
01:13:35,640 --> 01:13:38,520
Speaker 1: trip to Bolivia, the counter of the comparison with Honduras

1262
01:13:38,600 --> 01:13:41,200
Speaker 1: with a Salvador, and that sort of stuff that can

1263
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:45,960
Speaker 1: only come from being there on the ground. Um. But

1264
01:13:46,080 --> 01:13:48,759
Speaker 1: when it came to putting together an eight week training program,

1265
01:13:48,880 --> 01:13:51,880
Speaker 1: let's say, in La Pato Rickue, Honduras, the guys did

1266
01:13:52,200 --> 01:13:55,320
Speaker 1: a great job. That had just come out of Afghanistan

1267
01:13:55,560 --> 01:13:59,400
Speaker 1: a month prior, you know, so as far as that

1268
01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:02,040
Speaker 1: sort of quality we had, you know, it's as good

1269
01:14:02,120 --> 01:14:08,120
Speaker 1: as as it's ever been in that sense. Excellent. Well sir, um,

1270
01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:11,040
Speaker 1: we don't want to take up all your your over

1271
01:14:11,120 --> 01:14:14,320
Speaker 1: your vacation time. I know you're visiting family members here

1272
01:14:14,360 --> 01:14:17,240
Speaker 1: in the States right now, and uh, I want to

1273
01:14:17,280 --> 01:14:20,120
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. It's been a pleasure. It

1274
01:14:20,280 --> 01:14:24,360
Speaker 1: was great to talk to you again, and let's do

1275
01:14:24,560 --> 01:14:28,439
Speaker 1: this again so soon, all right, Steve, Well, thank you

1276
01:14:28,600 --> 01:14:31,080
Speaker 1: very much, and I'm glad I was able to catch

1277
01:14:31,160 --> 01:14:35,160
Speaker 1: up with you. Yeah. Absolutely okay. For all of us

1278
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:39,160
Speaker 1: here at radio and suffer up dot com, thanks for listening.

1279
01:14:39,960 --> 01:14:42,920
Speaker 1: Uh please check out our podcast once we post it

1280
01:14:42,960 --> 01:14:45,680
Speaker 1: up it'll be there'll be a video on YouTube of

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Speaker 1: this and as well as an audio version on our website.

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Speaker 1: From all of us here, it's soft up Radio. We

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Speaker 1: want to thank you all for listening and thanks to

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Speaker 1: our guests. Kevin Higgins, Sir, it was again, it was

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Speaker 1: a pleasure. Thanks for joining me. Well, thank you, Steve.

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Speaker 1: You have a great day YouTube use them listening to self.

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Speaker 1: Rep Lydia M.