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Speaker 1: Mute forms. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to software Radio, special operations, military mails, and

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

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Speaker 2: Welcome to another wonderful episode of soft Rep Radio and

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Speaker 2: I am your host, rad But first, before I introduce

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Speaker 2: my next guest, I got to point out that we

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Speaker 2: have a merch store, and if you go to soft

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Speaker 2: reap dot com, check out the merch store. That's what

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Speaker 2: keeps the lights on, right, That's what keeps it going.

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Speaker 2: These coffee mugs, these shirts you guys are picking up

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Speaker 2: with our names on it and supporting it. Antagon us

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Speaker 2: keep doing that. Also, we have a book club, something

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Speaker 2: that's a little cooler than the merch store or is

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Speaker 2: reading books. Okay, so go check out soft rep dot

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Speaker 2: com Forward Slash Book hyphen Club and get in on that.

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Speaker 2: And we might just have our next guests book in

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Speaker 2: our cycle of over a thousand books that we have

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Speaker 2: already rotating. And my next guest is Robin Bartlett, and

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Speaker 2: he wrote the book Vietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History,

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Speaker 2: and I want to welcome him to the show. Thank you, Raed.

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Speaker 3: It's wonderful to be here.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 3: So much for having me today.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you for reaching out and wanting to be

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Speaker 2: on the show and wanted to tell your story and

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Speaker 2: talk about your book that you've got coming up. I

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Speaker 2: know you have a lot going on, and you've taken

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Speaker 2: the time out to give us some of your insight

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Speaker 2: into Vietnam and really just what's been going on in

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Speaker 2: the sixties, seventies, eighties into today. So with that, I

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Speaker 2: want to introduce you again. What was the rank that

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Speaker 2: you got out as second lieutenant?

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Speaker 3: Well, I went over to Vietnam as a second lieutenant,

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Speaker 3: that's right, and then after one year, just one year,

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Speaker 3: I was promoted to first lieutenant. Huh. And that was

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Speaker 3: the day that I joined my battalion in Vietnam. There

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Speaker 3: were four officers, all the same roughly the same data rank.

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Speaker 3: We marched into the battalion commander's office bunker, i should say,

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Speaker 3: and in alphabetical order. So I went in first, and

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Speaker 3: this lieutenant colonel who was the battalion commander, was just

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Speaker 3: totally beat. He was totally exhausted. He gave us the

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Speaker 3: two minute speech and then asked the s one, the

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Speaker 3: personnel officer, where do we need officers? And he said

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Speaker 3: the s one said we need one in A, two

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Speaker 3: and B and one in C. So I was assigned

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Speaker 3: to a company. The three other officers did not complete

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Speaker 3: their tours. They were either killed or wounded. So my

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Speaker 3: first story is the luck of being in alphabetical order

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Speaker 3: and assigned to a company. So I was the only

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Speaker 3: officer to survive. The other two were The other three

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Speaker 3: were either wounded or killed.

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Speaker 2: So let me just ask you this. You know, as

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Speaker 2: a young man, how old were you?

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Speaker 3: Twenty two years old?

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Speaker 2: And here you are, okay, realizing that you're being pulled

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Speaker 2: in because the other gentlemen that we're in your position

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Speaker 2: are no longer doing that position because of war. What's

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Speaker 2: going through your head right now? Just like I'm the guy?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, part of the reason why I wrote

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Speaker 3: this book is because I had some experiences that were

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Speaker 3: kind of unusual, and I've talked to a lot of

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Speaker 3: it about and found that I had had some things

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Speaker 3: happen to me that didn't happen to them, and each

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Speaker 3: one of these stories ultimately became a chapter in my book.

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Speaker 3: They're rather unusual stories, some are horrific, and some are

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Speaker 3: really just unbelievable. They're funny, and unbelievable.

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Speaker 2: It's like life happens and then horrific situation. All of

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Speaker 2: a sudden, You're just like walking along and telling a

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Speaker 2: joke and talking about your girlfriend, and the next thing

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Speaker 2: you know, it's combat.

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Speaker 3: That's pretty much it.

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Speaker 2: Yep, and you probably dealt with a lot of ambush

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Speaker 2: tactics coming at you being on the ground. Tell me,

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Speaker 2: tell us about your unit, tell us who you got,

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Speaker 2: who's siverer with Let's just dive right into it.

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Speaker 3: So I went through the ROTC program because you know,

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Speaker 3: as a military brat, I went to thirteen different elementary

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Speaker 3: and middle schools and at four different high schools and said,

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Speaker 3: I have had enough of the military. I want no

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Speaker 3: part of it. But in college it was the height,

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Speaker 3: you know, the war was building and my classmates were

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Speaker 3: being reclassified one A during the summer months, and I said, well,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to serve my It looks like I'm going

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Speaker 3: to serve my obligation. I want to serve it as

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Speaker 3: an officer. A lot of family tradition in my family.

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Speaker 3: My grandfather went to West Point, father went to West Point,

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Speaker 3: brother went to West Point. All served military careers. But

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Speaker 3: I went through the ROTC program. I turned down an

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Speaker 3: appointment to West Point Wow, and after graduation, I was

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Speaker 3: a distinguished Military graduate and just fell naturally into the routine.

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Speaker 3: Volunteered for Airborne Ranger and was assigned to the eighty

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Speaker 3: second Airborne Division. Was there for about nine months, and

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Speaker 3: then transferred to the one hundred and first Airborne Division

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Speaker 3: in Vietnam.

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Speaker 2: Oh Wow.

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Speaker 3: When I arrived in Vietnam, it was just after the

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Speaker 3: Tet Offensive of nineteen sixty eight, and they said all

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Speaker 3: orders are for officer. Orders are canceled. There have been

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Speaker 3: so many casualties. I was reassigned to the first Cab Division,

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Speaker 3: and that turned out to be a wonderful assignment in

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Speaker 3: many ways because the whole air mobile concept was to

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Speaker 3: bring fresh troops to the battle by helicopter. You didn't

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Speaker 3: have to walk, didn't have to hump through the boonies

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Speaker 3: to get to the battle. You went in on helicopters.

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Speaker 3: You carried more water, you carried more ammunition, and you

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Speaker 3: flew to the battle. My other colleagues officers, they carried

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Speaker 3: seventy pound packs. My pack was forty five. But the

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Speaker 3: other side of that coin was that sometimes we went

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Speaker 3: into hot alz's I.

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Speaker 2: Say, you're going into the bush, you are like getting

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Speaker 2: dropped into hells and ferno. And to put that extinguish that.

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Speaker 3: I made more than fifty helicopter combat assaults, and when

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Speaker 3: it was my platoon's turn to lead the assault, I

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Speaker 3: will always rode in the first helicopter. And this was

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Speaker 3: pretty harry.

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Speaker 2: Follow me, boys, here we go.

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Speaker 3: That was pretty harry. Even though they would prep the

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Speaker 3: LZ with artillery and we had Cobra helicopters overhead gun runs,

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Speaker 3: the enemy somehow, somehow was able to survive. Now, they

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Speaker 3: liked to let the first helicopter land, but then they'll

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Speaker 3: take out the second one and then that would divert

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Speaker 3: the rest of the helicopters from coming into that LZ.

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Speaker 3: They would divert to another LZ landing zone, and the

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Speaker 3: men on the ground had to fight it out on

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Speaker 3: their own.

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Speaker 2: And those down copters and trying to figure like take

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Speaker 2: care of their casualties, take care of themselves. Fight this

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Speaker 2: overwhelming number coming from the trees in every direction. I

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Speaker 2: can only from the ground too.

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Speaker 3: It could be overwhelming, or it could be just a

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Speaker 3: sniper with an LPG shot.

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Speaker 2: I got you. That's So did you ever encounter the

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Speaker 2: So I've heard stories of smoke getting popped and like

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Speaker 2: they say, Roger that we're coming in for a landing,

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Speaker 2: golehea and pop your smoke. And they're like, okay, we're

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Speaker 2: popping yellow. And then yellow smoke would pop all over

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Speaker 2: the place, and you guys are like, let's fix this,

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Speaker 2: let's say, well identify it. Is that a thing? Am

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Speaker 2: I tripping?

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Speaker 3: It was the reverse of that. I mean I never

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Speaker 3: actually had that happen to me. But when the helicopter

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Speaker 3: pilots were coming in to bring supplies or to they

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Speaker 3: would ask you to pop smoke and then you would

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Speaker 3: tell them that you had pop smoke and they would

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Speaker 3: verify the color. So the enemy was be listening to

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Speaker 3: our radio, so once you said pop smoke, sometimes you know,

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Speaker 3: they would pop a different color smoke. They had access

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Speaker 3: from somehow, they had access to our.

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Speaker 2: Cancers su grenades, right from policing up those that left

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Speaker 2: them behind, you know.

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Speaker 3: A market wherever. I mean, yeah, supplies were left all

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Speaker 3: over the place exactly.

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Speaker 2: It was just kind of just such, that's a crazy war,

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Speaker 2: you know, and I don't want it to let it

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Speaker 2: be forgotten. And you don't either, And that's why you've

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Speaker 2: written your book. You know, at Vietnam combat and you

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Speaker 2: were there. This is what I want my listener to know.

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Speaker 3: I wanted to tell it from a boots on the

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Speaker 3: ground point of view. I mean, I didn't have a

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Speaker 3: fifty thousand foot view. I had boots on the ground

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Speaker 3: point of view. I wanted to tell it what it

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Speaker 3: was like to lead twenty eight men through the jungle.

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Speaker 3: These were draft e's, almost all of them were draft Ese,

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Speaker 3: and I was the second oldest man in the platoon,

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Speaker 3: yet responsible for their welfare and in many cases, you know,

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Speaker 3: giving them orders and direction on what to do and

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Speaker 3: how to do it.

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Speaker 2: Did you ever come into contact and all of a

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Speaker 2: sudden you have to go for some other weapon because

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Speaker 2: youre's jammed. There's out ammo, and you're just like, maybe

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Speaker 2: there's an AK and you grab that. If you were

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Speaker 2: swapped out weaponry to just do your mission.

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Speaker 3: Actually no, not quite that way. We always had superior firepower,

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Speaker 3: but the enemy was incredibly competent. That was one of

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Speaker 3: the misconceptions that we had. We always thought that the

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Speaker 3: VC were, you know, they were citizen soldiers and walking

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Speaker 3: around with a little ball of rice on their hip

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Speaker 3: and ak with one or two magazines.

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Speaker 2: Not true.

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Speaker 3: They were tough soldiers, especially at night. They were the

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Speaker 3: best night fighters around, far superior to what we did.

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Speaker 3: And they had this unique ability. We would hole up

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Speaker 3: for the night and night defensive position, dig fox holes,

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Speaker 3: put out Claim our Minds and trip flyers. But they

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Speaker 3: had this uncanny capability of penetrating our wire and penetrating

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Speaker 3: our defensive positions, getting in, throwing hand grenades or satchel charges,

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Speaker 3: and they just had an amazing ability to fight at night.

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Speaker 3: The only times we were successful at night would be

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Speaker 3: when we set up an ambush and they would walk

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Speaker 3: down the trail and we'd blow Claim our Minds, which

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Speaker 3: was just an awesome, awesome weapon. But no, I never

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Speaker 3: really had occasion to be that. I only had one

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Speaker 3: occasion to it. It was close in far close end fighting.

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Speaker 3: Everything else was that fifty fifty meters maybe or or less.

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Speaker 2: That's amazing that we stand to hand and when you're

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Speaker 2: firing these claym wars there are attached to like a

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Speaker 2: device like a remote control that's called what a clacker?

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Speaker 2: Is that right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like almost looks like a handheld vice gript.

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Speaker 3: It's like a stapler. Yeah, and there's about a seventy

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Speaker 3: five foot wire that goes out to the claymore mine

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Speaker 3: three hundred steel balls in a semi circle, and we'd

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Speaker 3: plant two or three of them in front of us.

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Speaker 3: You fire those suckers, and we'd go out in a

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Speaker 3: cone six inches or foot off the ground, six feet

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Speaker 3: in the air, and in a code cone three hundred

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Speaker 3: meters wide. Nothing survived.

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Speaker 2: The nothing survived, just flying out boom, and it says

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Speaker 2: front towards enemy on those for my listener or my viewer.

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Speaker 2: If you're not sure, that's the one. Very stick it in,

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Speaker 2: point it away from yourself and make sure it's still

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Speaker 2: pointed away from you. Geez, seventy five feet you are close.

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Speaker 2: That is danger close.

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Speaker 3: The backblast wasn't much. It was all going out toward

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Speaker 3: the front.

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Speaker 2: Interesting ingenuity that we have to check.

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Speaker 3: It was an amazing resource that we had available that artillery.

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Speaker 3: I shot a lot of artillery. I got good at

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Speaker 3: shooting artillery.

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Speaker 2: Man. Let me tell you, well, you want to know

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Speaker 2: what's going on nineteen sixty eight. There's two things that

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Speaker 2: I learned about nineteen sixty eight. One, the big Mac

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Speaker 2: was invented in nineteen sixty eight. Okay, I just want

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Speaker 2: to say to my listener, to the Big Mac. Okay,

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Speaker 2: so while the Big Mac tonight's coming out on the market,

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Speaker 2: he's in Noam. And then also Jumping Jack Flash from

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Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones was the album number one album. And

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Speaker 2: that's where you start getting like painted black. You get

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Speaker 2: all these songs that are so synonymous with Vietnam in

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Speaker 2: movies that they use from the Stones. So I thought

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Speaker 2: it was relevant to say what was going on in

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Speaker 2: sixty eight. You were there in sixty eight, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's just the things going on in the US. Everybody's

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Speaker 2: still trying to live and you're in there plant and

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Speaker 2: Claymores and the Big Mac is coming out of the market.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Do you remember your first Big Mac?

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Speaker 3: It was a long time after that before I saw

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Speaker 3: the first Big Mac.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right right. Did you have any like USO

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Speaker 2: shows where any like you know and Margaret or anybody

241
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Speaker 2: showed up and did a dance or anything like that.

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Speaker 3: Where I was with the first cab division was up

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Speaker 3: in iCore, that's right along the demilitarized zone in the

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Speaker 3: northern part of South Vietnam. And we operated from the

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Speaker 3: Gulf of Tonkin on the east, so you had sandy soil, tumbleweed,

246
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Speaker 3: no overhead cover all the way to the Laoshan border,

247
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Speaker 3: which was three canopy jungle, and we were in a

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Speaker 3: free fire zone. There were no friendlies, especially toward the

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Speaker 3: Laoshan border. We were trying to prevent infiltration from the

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Speaker 3: Hochi Min trail anything. I only encountered friendlies on one occasion,

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Speaker 3: and that was when we were in a blocking force

252
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Speaker 3: around a village and that was being searched by Arvin troops.

253
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Speaker 3: Otherwise we were in a free fire zone and if

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Speaker 3: we encountered anything or anyone, we killed it.

255
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Speaker 2: What will you say what Arvin stands for for Mike,

256
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Speaker 2: do you do you remember? That's?

257
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Those were

258
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Speaker 3: South Vietnamese soldiers.

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Speaker 2: An icor man, that's a that's a word that radar

260
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Speaker 2: O'Reilly used on mass Let me get icor on the phone,

261
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Speaker 2: Let me get icor on the phone, let me get

262
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Speaker 2: icre on the phone. So you're just saying.

263
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And depending upon where we were, it was

264
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Speaker 3: for it was like three different wars. You could have

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Speaker 3: sandy soil, incredible heat one hundred and five hundred and

266
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Speaker 3: ten degrees. We had to be very careful about men

267
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Speaker 3: staying hydrated, and it was not uncommon, even with experienced

268
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Speaker 3: soldiers for men just to be walking with us and

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Speaker 3: keel over from heat exhaustion.

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Speaker 2: Right, And to me once just total heat casualty.

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Speaker 3: Heat casualties and ha percent and then you had a metavac.

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Speaker 3: You had casualty and you had to get them out

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Speaker 3: of there.

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Speaker 2: And it's real, you know, fevers and over. It's just

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Speaker 2: you know, what can you do to the body when

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Speaker 2: it's burned out like that? Right? And you are a

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Speaker 2: casualty of the war? Dang hod.

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Speaker 3: It happened to me on one occasion. I started having

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Speaker 3: leg cramps and I had drunk all the water I had,

280
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Speaker 3: and I carried two gallons of water, but I was

281
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Speaker 3: so hot and so humid, I drank all the water.

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Speaker 3: I took my salt pills. Those are the days they

283
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Speaker 3: thought salt pills would help. You just got incredible leg

284
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Speaker 3: cramps and I had to be medovac.

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Speaker 2: Did you ever as an officer, did you ever have

286
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Speaker 2: to sign some paperwork to like give somebody an accommodation

287
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Speaker 2: that they had done some active valor and combat, and

288
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Speaker 2: do you remember what that might have been.

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Speaker 3: I was a comparative literature major in college, and so

290
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Speaker 3: they found out very quickly that I was a good writer.

291
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Speaker 3: So the answer is, every time we needed to have

292
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Speaker 3: a citation written, I got the job.

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Speaker 2: Okay, because you could type? Could you type? Oh? You

294
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Speaker 2: can write? And really it's really yeah.

295
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Speaker 3: I rarely got close to a typewriter, but I wrote.

296
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Speaker 3: I wrote them out on paper.

297
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Speaker 2: And as you're writing these out with your eloquent style

298
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Speaker 2: as an English you know, savant, I'm going to call

299
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Speaker 2: you that what was going through mind? Where you reading

300
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Speaker 2: like young Joe Private Joe here had stormed them hill

301
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Speaker 2: and deserves this and he lost his life. I mean,

302
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:26,440
Speaker 2: what's going on? You know?

303
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, the people I was writing up were

304
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Speaker 3: the men in my own platoon who had been involved

305
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Speaker 3: in actions that I had been involved with. So I

306
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:38,480
Speaker 3: could reconstruct the actions in the territory and the and

307
00:15:38,560 --> 00:15:41,640
Speaker 3: the discussion of what that soldier had done, as well

308
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Speaker 3: as the posthumous write ups that I had to write

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Speaker 3: on occasion as well.

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Speaker 2: And I just want to touch on that because you know,

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Speaker 2: it is it is a part of the whole situation.

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Speaker 2: You know, these young men and young women who gave

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Speaker 2: their lives deserve to have that noted in our halls

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Speaker 2: of history, if you will, Okay, so love that you

315
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Speaker 2: wrote that. They probably eloquently as well.

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Speaker 3: To this day, I try to It was not an

317
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:09,080
Speaker 3: easy task, especially if you had a KIA killed in action.

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Speaker 3: It was the officer's job to the soldiers. They would

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Speaker 3: bring the body back, but they didn't want to be

320
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Speaker 3: involved in the preparation of the body to go back home.

321
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Speaker 3: That was the officer's job, and my medic would give

322
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Speaker 3: me a death card. It was basically three by five

323
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Speaker 3: card with a hole punched in it a piece of string.

324
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Speaker 3: You fill out that card and for the first time

325
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Speaker 3: we actually recorded the coordinates as best as we could

326
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Speaker 3: as to where that soldier had been killed. So we

327
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Speaker 3: kept I don't know where that data ended up, but

328
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Speaker 3: they tried to record exactly where that soldier had had died.

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Speaker 3: And you attached the card to the boot along with

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Speaker 3: one dog tag. The other dog tag remained around his neck,

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Speaker 3: and it was my job to go through the pockets

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Speaker 3: make sure there was nothing that shouldn't be there, remove

333
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Speaker 3: any personal effects. Then we didn't have body bags, but

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Speaker 3: we had ponchos. I would wrap the man in the poncho.

335
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Speaker 3: But you know these choppers when they came in a

336
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Speaker 3: lot of rotor wash. So I had a ball of

337
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:18,000
Speaker 3: twine and I would tie off the poncho around the head, waist,

338
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Speaker 3: and feet so that the poncho wouldn't flop around, and

339
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Speaker 3: then we'd call in a helicopter to come in and

340
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Speaker 3: begin the journey back home.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you for that, and on behalf of them, right,

342
00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:32,640
Speaker 2: thank you, and for that that person you're thinking about

343
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Speaker 2: right now. I mean, you can say the name if

344
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Speaker 2: you want to, but thank you.

345
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Speaker 3: You know, tried to do it with respect every time

346
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Speaker 3: that had happened, and it did happen to me a

347
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Speaker 3: number of times. Was not easy. I guess my men

348
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Speaker 3: were a little superstitious about doing it because they thought, well,

349
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Speaker 3: maybe it would be me the next time.

350
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Speaker 2: So I see. But if you keep doing it, then

351
00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:57,480
Speaker 2: you have a job to do to keep doing it,

352
00:17:57,520 --> 00:17:59,399
Speaker 2: and they're like, they're going to fight for you, but

353
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Speaker 2: you keep doing Okay, Oh what a job here you

354
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:05,159
Speaker 2: are going through out TC and now you're you know,

355
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:07,840
Speaker 2: doing that detail and where in the manual. Does it

356
00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:09,920
Speaker 2: teach you to do all of that right? No, where

357
00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:11,520
Speaker 2: does the teacher to get the twine? Where's it teach

358
00:18:11,560 --> 00:18:14,040
Speaker 2: you about the rotor washing? So here you are trying

359
00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:18,240
Speaker 2: to be so ceremonial, ceremony, you know, respectful to these,

360
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:20,520
Speaker 2: to these fallen, and you got rotor washing, and you

361
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:23,399
Speaker 2: got you know, back to action, back to the jungle.

362
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Speaker 3: Yeah, some of that I learned in ranger school. Ranger

363
00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 3: School was the best training that the army had to offer.

364
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:33,679
Speaker 3: It was the best insurance policy, wow, for a new lieutenant.

365
00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:37,320
Speaker 3: And Ranger school took us to the point of physical

366
00:18:37,359 --> 00:18:41,680
Speaker 3: and mental exhaustion and hunger because if you didn't make

367
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Speaker 3: your objective, they didn't feed you. And then at that point,

368
00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:48,280
Speaker 3: when you reached that point, that's when they made you

369
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Speaker 3: the leader and put you to the test to lead

370
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Speaker 3: the patrol. So there was really never once in Vietnam

371
00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:59,040
Speaker 3: that I did not feel in control of a situation.

372
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Speaker 2: Now.

373
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Speaker 3: I was scared to death, no doubt about that. When

374
00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:06,119
Speaker 3: the bullets fly, you are scared. But I always that

375
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:10,480
Speaker 3: training instilled in me a sense of tremendous confidence that

376
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:14,480
Speaker 3: lives with me to this day. My wife tells me

377
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:18,320
Speaker 3: your greatest strength is that you are fearless, and your

378
00:19:18,359 --> 00:19:22,080
Speaker 3: greatest weakness is that you are fearless. Right, But that

379
00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:24,560
Speaker 3: comes from Ranger School. It was the best training the

380
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:28,359
Speaker 3: Army had to offer, now, Seal training, I admit, I

381
00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:31,199
Speaker 3: will go on record to say that that was tougher.

382
00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:33,480
Speaker 3: I didn't go through it, but I know it was

383
00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:38,639
Speaker 3: tougher physically. But Ranger School demanded a lot from us,

384
00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:44,680
Speaker 3: both physically and mentally, planning the operations, writing an operation

385
00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:48,680
Speaker 3: plan and executing it.

386
00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:51,760
Speaker 2: Kind of groomed in a green beret fashion as a

387
00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:54,040
Speaker 2: ranger to see if you could be pulled into the

388
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:55,880
Speaker 2: next echelon upwards.

389
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Speaker 3: At the time, if I had stayed in the Army,

390
00:19:58,320 --> 00:20:01,119
Speaker 3: that that would be the direction that I probably would

391
00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:01,600
Speaker 3: have pursued.

392
00:20:01,720 --> 00:20:03,639
Speaker 2: Because your glasses that you're wearing right now are totally

393
00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:07,720
Speaker 2: green beret style, you know, officer glasses, sir.

394
00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:12,159
Speaker 3: That's true, that's true. And I have sunglasses just like yours.

395
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:14,000
Speaker 2: I love it. I thought i'd give you the flare

396
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:17,960
Speaker 2: of the sixties and seventies, baby, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,

397
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:21,760
Speaker 2: So here we are sixty eight sixty nine. Rolling Stones

398
00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:25,400
Speaker 2: are in the background playing some music. You're moving, there's

399
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:28,600
Speaker 2: smoke popped. Ever, it's just tell me something. What are

400
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:30,879
Speaker 2: you feeling? You know, like you got a unit with

401
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:33,560
Speaker 2: you're you're on the trail. What are you looking for?

402
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 3: Well, when I came into my unit, I did something

403
00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:42,920
Speaker 3: that I think was allowed me to survive my tour

404
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,720
Speaker 3: because the life expectancy of a lieutenant ap platoon later

405
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:47,720
Speaker 3: was ninety days.

406
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:48,120
Speaker 2: Right.

407
00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:53,720
Speaker 3: I got wounded twice, but I did survive. Why. One

408
00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 3: thing was I tried really hard not to do anything stupid.

409
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,000
Speaker 3: It was easy to do stupid stuff over there, but

410
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,719
Speaker 3: I worked hard at not at trying not to do

411
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:07,680
Speaker 3: stupid things. Secondly, I sat down with my platoon sergeant

412
00:21:08,119 --> 00:21:10,800
Speaker 3: and my squad leaders and I said, listen, you know

413
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:13,680
Speaker 3: more about what's going on here than I do. You've

414
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:17,800
Speaker 3: had more experience, more in field, So I want your advice.

415
00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:20,440
Speaker 3: I want you to tell me if you think I'm

416
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:23,880
Speaker 3: doing something that's wrong, and I want your advice. Now,

417
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:28,680
Speaker 3: I didn't always take it, but I established that rapport.

418
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:32,520
Speaker 3: And the other thing that happened after a period of

419
00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 3: time is that you know, officers in Vietnam were measured

420
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:43,360
Speaker 3: by BodyCount. That was the metric by which junior officers

421
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 3: and senior officers were measured. But I suspect I never

422
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:51,439
Speaker 3: would have been a really great commander because after a

423
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 3: period of time, the welfare of my men became more

424
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:59,119
Speaker 3: important to me than BodyCount. For example, if my point

425
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:03,199
Speaker 3: man alerted, I would he would call me forward and

426
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 3: I'd talk to him and he says, sir, or they

427
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:08,440
Speaker 3: didn't call me sir. My name was one six. That's

428
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:11,080
Speaker 3: you didn't call anybody sir. You never saluted, there was

429
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:13,879
Speaker 3: no insignia. The only way you knew I was an

430
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:18,680
Speaker 3: officer is that said Lt. Bartlett on my camouflage band cover.

431
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:19,560
Speaker 2: That was it.

432
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 3: So he would say, I got a bad feeling about

433
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,160
Speaker 3: what's in front of us. I don't hear any monkeys,

434
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:32,600
Speaker 3: I don't hear any birds. And I respected that, and

435
00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:35,920
Speaker 3: I trusted my point man. I also got really good

436
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 3: at firing artillery. I was great. In fact, I shot

437
00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:45,120
Speaker 3: so much artillery that the battery that supported us got

438
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 3: to know my call sign, and I would do what

439
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:52,640
Speaker 3: was called reconnaissance by fire, meaning I would shoot artillery

440
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 3: in front of where we were going to be walking through.

441
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 3: And they actually ended up putting a budget on me

442
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 3: of twenty five us. That's the most I could shoot. Yeah,

443
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:08,119
Speaker 3: but when we walked through that area, my men felt protected.

444
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 3: You know, at least we had put a lot of

445
00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:13,160
Speaker 3: artillery out in front of us before we walk through.

446
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 2: You're giving them the best opportunity in the situation to

447
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:18,439
Speaker 2: move through that to live. They're looking at you like,

448
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:20,439
Speaker 2: all right, because you have a job to do, and

449
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 2: we don't want you to do that to any of us.

450
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:23,959
Speaker 2: That's the job they want you to have to do.

451
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 2: They don't want it to be done so blast that.

452
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, they wanted to know that their welfare was foremost

453
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:32,639
Speaker 3: in my mind over bodycoumt.

454
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:36,199
Speaker 2: Yes, And obviously, I mean for the situation. I'm not

455
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:38,680
Speaker 2: trying to make light of war, okay, but when you're

456
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 2: in it and you're doing your job as told, you're

457
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 2: just clearing a path for your men to move through

458
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 2: the fight. And so so you know, as we just

459
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 2: talked about previously, you know, in your book it talks

460
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 2: about war and you know, being trained to lead and

461
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 2: like born to kill. You know, it's just this this thing.

462
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,120
Speaker 2: Then you get out and do you ever look back

463
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 2: and feel like there's an atrocity situation that happened to Vietnam.

464
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 2: Can I ask you that, do you feel like, you know,

465
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 2: what's your thoughts looking back today to then? I know

466
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:13,199
Speaker 2: you went, my dad went, you know, the whole nine yards.

467
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 3: I was there at the height of the war sixty

468
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 3: eight to sixty nine, and that was well before the

469
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 3: Cali atrocities and some of the other things that happened.

470
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:27,119
Speaker 3: And the whole character of the war changed as you

471
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 3: hit seventy and seventy one seventy two, because the American

472
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 3: soldiers figured out that this was not a war we

473
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 3: were going to be able to win. But when I

474
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 3: was there, it was still on the cusp of transition

475
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 3: from we can win this. We're going to prevent Communism

476
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:48,920
Speaker 3: from taking over the South, and that's right. We're defenders

477
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 3: of the face, defenders of democracy. But once seventies came

478
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:58,199
Speaker 3: in to effect, that whole attitude changed in American soldiers.

479
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 3: Nobody wanted to die for a if you know what

480
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 3: I mean.

481
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, hey, you know, so, you know, there's

482
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 2: got to be another cause, right, could have maybe let

483
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 2: the French fight it out, or could have let the

484
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 2: Japanese and the Vietnamese fight it out. When they're originally

485
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 2: ticking off each other in the beginning, and then the

486
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 2: French were there, and then they called us up to

487
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 2: come and you know, in the fifties, late fifties, to

488
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 2: come and try to help, even early fifties, right like

489
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 2: we're there, like fifty one fifty five, you know, and

490
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden you get jfk saying we

491
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 2: need a special warfare, we need to have That was

492
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 2: like in fifty two fifty three he's like green berets. Ye,

493
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 2: the British like, take our green beret. We're like, okay, no,

494
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 2: I love it. I love the whole story. I know,

495
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 2: when I think about how sneaky the enemy could be,

496
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 2: it reminds me of the movie with John Wayne in

497
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 2: the movie The Green Beret, and he's sitting there talking

498
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 2: to him. He's like, you never know where the enemy's at,

499
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, it's got a little

500
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 2: dude with an RPG if crawl through his wire while

501
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 2: they're sitting there talking to him. In the daylight. Yep,

502
00:25:58,600 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 2: in the daylight.

503
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 3: It was a pretty amazing time.

504
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 2: You know.

505
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 3: I had ninety percent of my platoon was were draftees.

506
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 3: My platoon sergeant was supposed to be the most experienced

507
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 3: man in the unit. They usually have, you know, ten

508
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 3: years of experience, but mine went through the instant NCO

509
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 3: program and he had his nineteenth birthday.

510
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.

511
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 3: So here was supposed to be the most experienced man

512
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 3: in the in the unit, and he and I had

513
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 3: about the same level of experience in terms of leading

514
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 3: leadership and being able to handle these soldiers.

515
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:45,360
Speaker 2: You guys are rock paper scissoring it together, okay, street right, right,

516
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,680
Speaker 2: So that's like an FNG type of thing. And you

517
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 2: talk about in your book, you know, fucking new guy,

518
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 2: freaking new guy, new guy in the field. You know,

519
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 2: here you are, lieutenant, you're being coiled up to go

520
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 2: over there. You're meeting a bunch of draftees. Who are

521
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 2: you know, happen to go? How'd you do it? Like?

522
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 2: How'd you guys all? Did they look at you like,

523
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,880
Speaker 2: smell you a little bit? Or were they like, what's up? Doc?

524
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 3: We smelled pretty good because we would be out in

525
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,479
Speaker 3: the field for four to six weeks at a time

526
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 3: and no showers. You had enough water to drink and

527
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 3: occasionally brush your teeth. That was it. So unless you

528
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 3: got it monsoon rain and then you showered off real quick.

529
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 3: You know, you could wash a little bit, sure, but

530
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 3: your clothes would stand up on their own after about

531
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 3: four weeks. But these men were draftees. But we were

532
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 3: all in it together. We were all I mean, I

533
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 3: ate the same food, I wore the same clothes. I

534
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 3: got just as dirty.

535
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: Right.

536
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 3: But when the bullets started to fly, if you were

537
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 3: in a firefight, everybody immediately hit the ground. But you

538
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 3: could as the leader, You could actually feel the eyes

539
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,679
Speaker 3: of twenty eight men on you, saying, Okay, give us

540
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 3: some direction, give us an order. What do you want

541
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:09,360
Speaker 3: us to do? Stop hugging the ground and praying take

542
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 3: action right or wrong? And sometimes it wasn't right. But

543
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 3: it was better to give orders and take the steps

544
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 3: necessary to combat the situation.

545
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 2: Decisive decision has to be made and then deal with

546
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 2: it and make it.

547
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 3: It came from ranger school. That was the training we

548
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 3: got in ranger school.

549
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 2: You got to make a decision.

550
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,199
Speaker 3: You know, you mentioned John Wayne, but John Wayne's and

551
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 3: John Wayne never served in the military. Oh he did,

552
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 3: but his comment, you know, courage is being scared to death,

553
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 3: but saddling up anyway, Yeah, that was the true grit

554
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 3: of an officer, of a leader of a small unit

555
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 3: in Vietnam. That's what you had to do.

556
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 2: You know about John Wayne real quick, he was filming

557
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 2: The Green Beret and he got to go overseas and

558
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 2: work with a unit for like three weeks, an SF unit,

559
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 2: and they just kept him inside the fob the Ford

560
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 2: Operating Base and didn't want to let him go outside

561
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 2: the wire. And they're like, one day it was like,

562
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 2: let's go on a mission. And he's like, can I

563
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 2: go with you and let me just do it? I'm good, guys,

564
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 2: And they're like, you don't tell us how to do

565
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 2: our job, and we won't tell you how to act.

566
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 2: And that's that right, I mean, all the way to

567
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 2: that point, he thought he could go out with them

568
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 2: and set Claymores. Yeah he was.

569
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 3: He was an amazing actor, amazing person, right, And the

570
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 3: soldiers just loved the guy, absolutely loved him. I mean

571
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 3: I can remember being a Travis Air Force Base waiting

572
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 3: for the flight to go over.

573
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 2: I've been there.

574
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 3: Everybody was singing that song. I mean they kept playing

575
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 3: it on the juke box again and again all the time.

576
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 2: Oh my dad would played around the house, and I'd

577
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 2: listened to it in the armory in the eighties. It's like,

578
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 2: you know, growing up in a green Beray culture, in

579
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 2: the Rangers style of life. You know, it's just what

580
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 2: it is. Man. But you were one of those that

581
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 2: went on to get the Ranger and a mission and

582
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: have that confidence instilled in you from the confidence course,

583
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 2: and let me go, let me, let me paint a

584
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 2: scenario for you. Okay. So I do wargames in Utah.

585
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 2: I do large scale wargames, and we set up ambushes

586
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 2: and all this stuff, do night operations, and so here

587
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 2: we are in the mountains and I've got probably forty

588
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 2: sixty people out in the field and we're playing till

589
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 2: about two in the morning. But I'm stalking somebody and

590
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: we're good at it. We're doing it, and we're stocked.

591
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 2: We hear the movement, we hear them brushing in through it,

592
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 2: and out of nowhere, before we thought we were gonna

593
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 2: engage them, a deer just bolts right out in front

594
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 2: of us, a deer. So we use airsoft guns, which

595
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 2: are non lethal. And I'm sitting here with this BB

596
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 2: gun and this deer and I'm like this deer could like,

597
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 2: you know, dear boy, me to death. And I'm just

598
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 2: out here. What am I doing? I have a bb gun,

599
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 2: So funny, store, that's funny. It's fun and it's funny.

600
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 2: Have you ever had a situation and now I'm where

601
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 2: it was like you're in an ambush and the jungles

602
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 2: all around you and tigers, lions or bears.

603
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 3: Well, I had too interesting a case like that. One

604
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 3: was again, your point man's out in front of you

605
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 3: about fifty meters and they passed the word back to

606
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 3: have me come to the front. And as I got

607
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 3: up close to the point man and the cover man,

608
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 3: I noticed they're lying on the ground and behind cover.

609
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 3: And here I'm walking down the trail and I immediately

610
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 3: sort of went down to a duck walk. And here

611
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 3: in front of me walking up the trail was an

612
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 3: enemy soldier about fifty feet away, maybe seventy five feet away,

613
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 3: and he's got his rifle on his shoulder and he's

614
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 3: looking at me, and I'm looking at him. So I

615
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 3: have my weapon in my hand. I had an AR

616
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 3: fifteen out of sixteen, and I flip it to full automatic.

617
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 3: And we carried twenty magazines with eighteen rounds in a magazine,

618
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 3: and that weapon would fire eighteen rounds in two and

619
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 3: a half seconds. Two and a half. You didn't even

620
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 3: have to aim. You just pointed it and it rode

621
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 3: from the lower left to the upper right. And that's

622
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 3: exactly The weapon performed exactly as it's supposed to. And

623
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 3: the bullets just traced a path from the lower left

624
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 3: to the upper right. And this soldier fell dead.

625
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 2: Oh wow, it's different kind of animal.

626
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 3: But the point man had alerted heard this man coming

627
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 3: up the trail and they called me up to the front.

628
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 3: But I'm looking at them and they're on the ground

629
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 3: behind cover and I'm just.

630
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 2: Staring at the sky. So they didn't even know exactly

631
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 2: where he was. But you're just eyes to eyes with

632
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: him and got the drop, that's right.

633
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 3: And he had his weapon on his shoulder and I

634
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 3: had mine in my hands ready to go.

635
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't ready, was it. He had slung up

636
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 2: and you were just carrying it. Yeah, you're like, what's up.

637
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 2: That's the way we can't.

638
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 3: We never put our weapons on our shoulder. We've never

639
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 3: slung our weapons. We always carried them. Now we kept

640
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 3: it unsafe. The only man who was allowed to have

641
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 3: it on fullto was the point man. Everybody else had

642
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 3: to have their weapon on safe, loaded with rounds in

643
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 3: the chamber, but on safe. Occasionally the point man would

644
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 3: trip and fall and pull the trigger and everybody would

645
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 3: hit the ground, which is scary, and the word got

646
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 3: passed back, it's okay, it's okay, just he tripped. He tripped,

647
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 3: It's all right, no problem.

648
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 2: So is that something through like special training that they

649
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 2: talk about that, because my dad also talked about like

650
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 2: never having a sling and always carrying it around the ring,

651
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 2: you know, just like always on a march or whatever.

652
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: He's never slinging it and you know, never he says,

653
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 2: if it's not in your hand, it's not ready. That's

654
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 2: what he said. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Huh.

655
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 3: The other interesting occasion, going back to your question, was

656
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 3: I came up with this very creative idea with our

657
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 3: mortar platoon to set out trip players in a saddle

658
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 3: between two hilltops that were about about a kilometer away.

659
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 3: We have happened to have a night defensive position and

660
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 3: DP and we could over these two hilltops with the

661
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 3: saddle in between. We had a direct line of sight

662
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 3: was unusual, and I came up with this wonderful idea

663
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 3: to sighte in the mortar on the on the saddle,

664
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,359
Speaker 3: and we walked out and put trip flares right along

665
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 3: the saddle because it was a natural point for the

666
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 3: enemy to come through. So we had a man stay up,

667
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 3: you know. We had guards awake and alert all night long,

668
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, about two o'clock in the morning,

669
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 3: one of the trip flayers goes off and we started

670
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 3: pumping mortar rounds down the tube everything we had. So

671
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:40,879
Speaker 3: the next morning we went out to look at the

672
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 3: area where all the mortar rounds landed. We ended up

673
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 3: killing about three gazelles.

674
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 2: Three gazelles tripped your flare. Oh wow, bad day for

675
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 2: the gazelles. Yep, good thing. They only give you twenty

676
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 2: five rounds. I know, it's a mortar. It's totally different,

677
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 2: not artillery.

678
00:34:58,400 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 3: This was a order.

679
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have any of those.

680
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 3: Six or eight rounds. That's all we could shoot, that's

681
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 3: all we could carry. I mean they brought they would

682
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 3: bring in supplies to us every night by helicopter and

683
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 3: then come in the morning and put it back on

684
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:11,399
Speaker 3: the chopper.

685
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 2: And just reload you that way.

686
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 3: That was Yeah, couldn't carry that much weight.

687
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 2: Wow. So that's the cowboy hat. Guys with the rope

688
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 2: around their hat right first calf, I have.

689
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 3: A hat like that sitting right over here next to me.

690
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 2: That's legit. No, that's yeah. You're what movies are made of.

691
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 2: I have to say that, you know. And do you

692
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 2: find any movies out there that you've seen? Did you

693
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 2: can suck? Can you muster it? Or do you just

694
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 2: move on from those?

695
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 3: I can kind of move on from them, Yeah, I can't.

696
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 3: Many of them had parts that were very well performed,

697
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 3: were well done, yeah, but you always look at things

698
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 3: like the uniform and how clean it was, and whether

699
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 3: there were any patches on it, and whether they were

700
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 3: wearing their helmets and whether the helmet had camouflage on them.

701
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 3: And there were a number of things that mediate giveaways,

702
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:05,280
Speaker 3: you know, mostly how clean the uniforms were, right, Yeah,

703
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,240
Speaker 3: we did not. We were not clean. We were dirty.

704
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 2: It's the little things Like in Rambo, my dad would

705
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 2: always say at the end of it, they would all die.

706
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 2: I'm like why, He's like, well, the RPG in the

707
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 2: helicopter when he shoots the helicopter down. It would blow

708
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 2: all the POW's way in the back because he holds

709
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 2: up this RPG in Rambo, you know. And it's like

710
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 2: my dad would always just say, as he'd look over

711
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 2: at the TV, oh yeah, they'd all die, a little

712
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 2: twelve year old me learning, you know, the little things.

713
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 2: It's the little things. It's the little things it is.

714
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 2: But today you have TV shows that are using airsoft

715
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 2: guns like what I work with to use in these

716
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 2: movies and use them to you know, society the real

717
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 2: gun aspect, and they're a lot more cost effective, less

718
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: lethal first and foremost, and they look the same. So Hollywood,

719
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,959
Speaker 2: hit me up and hit up my man Robin too. Please,

720
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:00,200
Speaker 2: do you have a movie coming out or anything? What's

721
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 2: going on?

722
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 3: No, I'm just working to try and promote my book

723
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 3: and get people to read it and buy it so

724
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 3: that you know. My publisher is actually in the UK

725
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 3: Case Made Publishers, and they did a beautiful job on

726
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 3: the cover. I'm very very happy with the cover and

727
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 3: the design. They included a lot of photographs in the

728
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 3: book and I was very very pleased with the production.

729
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 3: But their marketing department here in the US is a

730
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 3: small operation so and I come from a publishing background,

731
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 3: so right here, I know.

732
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 2: I'm not the fanciest, you know, it's me and you

733
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 2: and we're doing the show. And I got my phone up.

734
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 2: But you can see on the cover right here at

735
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 2: the back of the first half patch on the helmet

736
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 2: and then out the door, probably the gunner's door. There,

737
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 2: you've got a line a column of all of these.

738
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:53,799
Speaker 2: Huey's probably just going and he's got the book right there. Yeah,

739
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 2: show that. Oh yeah, Vietnam Combat.

740
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 3: Now you do know that that first camp patch was

741
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 3: was added to the back of the helmet. All all

742
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,800
Speaker 3: the chopper pilots did have various different stickers and things

743
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 3: on the backs of their helmets, but mostly it was

744
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:10,720
Speaker 3: ID I had that added.

745
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right, because you just wanted to make that

746
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 2: a point. Yeah sure, yeah, no, I mean you got

747
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: to be why not. And they probably love it, I'm

748
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 2: sure you know, oh yeah, one hundred percent. This is

749
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:22,839
Speaker 2: gonna be huge with the first first.

750
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 3: Instantaneous they know.

751
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're showing it off right here software dot Com,

752
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:31,479
Speaker 2: Rad and Robin talking about first Cave baby all day.

753
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 2: Look at that column of Hughey's in that picture. You

754
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 2: guys got to go check out this book, Vietnam Combat,

755
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 2: Firefights and Writing History, Robin Bartlett. You know, there's so

756
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 2: many reviews. Everybody's talking good about it. Can you get

757
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 2: it locally? Is it online? What are we going to

758
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 2: do with it? How were we going to get it?

759
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 3: You can get it at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

760
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,879
Speaker 3: It's in a lot of bookstores. You can also buy

761
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 3: it off my website, which is www dot Robin Bartlett

762
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 3: dot Robin Bartlett a third dot com.

763
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 2: Robin Robin Bartlett, author dot dot com. And we'll have

764
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,320
Speaker 2: that put on the website down below our you know,

765
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 2: our conversation here so when folks that might be reading it,

766
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 2: they can just tap on that. So we'll make sure

767
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 2: that that goes right to your link so that it

768
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 2: gets that.

769
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 3: And they'll get an autograph copy with free shipping and

770
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 3: save thirteen dollars off the cover price. How about that?

771
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 2: Yes? And you're supporting you know, local if you will,

772
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 2: that's right, local American And also it's out of England.

773
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:34,839
Speaker 2: You know your publisher. Give them a shout out again

774
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 2: and thanks for believing in you to write your story.

775
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 2: And whoever took the I mean really a lot of

776
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 2: folks are like, how do I write a book? How

777
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:43,799
Speaker 2: can I get published? How can I how can I

778
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:45,959
Speaker 2: you know you've done it? Is there is there something

779
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 2: that you can maybe give my listener who might be

780
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 2: let's say they've written something. Let's say they've gone and

781
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 2: they've written something and they don't know what to do

782
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 2: with it. What's your advice for somebody.

783
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 3: The one thing that helped me the most was that

784
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 3: I had a college actually a college classmate who was

785
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 3: with me in Vietnam, but his wife, also a college classmate,

786
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 3: was just an incredible proofreader. She went through that manuscript,

787
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 3: caught every misplaced comma, every misspelled word, and ask a

788
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 3: whole ton of WTF questions. And I figured if she

789
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 3: didn't understand what I was talking about, I needed to rewrite.

790
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 3: So that was probably the most important thing that I did.

791
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 3: And I also demilitarized it to find every acronym, every term.

792
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 2: I love that.

793
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 3: And I had some people read it, a couple of women,

794
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 3: and she said and they told me that, I guess

795
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 3: you just want to sell this to the military, right,

796
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 3: And I said, no, I want this to appeal to

797
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 3: general readers too. I want people to understand about the war.

798
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 3: And they said, well, you need to add more of yourself,

799
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 3: more of your emotions into the book. And I remember

800
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 3: that my mother had saved every letter that I wrote home,

801
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 3: over one hundred letters, and she kept them in the

802
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 3: envelope so they were all date stamped, and I put

803
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 3: them in chronological order and re read every letter that

804
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 3: I wrote home, and I reached in and I grabbed

805
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 3: snippets of the letters and I put them into appropriate

806
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:18,720
Speaker 3: chapters so.

807
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 2: You could read.

808
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 3: You could read what I wrote about what happened, and

809
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 3: then you could read what I wrote home about and

810
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,320
Speaker 3: they weren't always quite the same story.

811
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 2: I'm okay, everything's good. I love you, don't worry.

812
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 3: I know I haven't written for a while. But by

813
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 3: the way, I was wounded, but I never told.

814
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 2: Him I know you got or what no.

815
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 3: I never told him. And the way they found out

816
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 3: is I sent a box of stuff home and it

817
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 3: had my purple heart in it, and that's how they

818
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:50,720
Speaker 3: found out that I had been wounded.

819
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 2: The enemy's marksmanship badge, or as my father called it.

820
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't want that.

821
00:41:57,360 --> 00:42:00,320
Speaker 3: The only award that's awarded by the enemy, that's.

822
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 2: Right, He's like, I don't need it. I don't want it.

823
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 2: You don't want it, That's what he would tell me,

824
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,000
Speaker 2: don't ever want that. Nope, it's like, how can we

825
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 2: don't have a purple heart? Little me, little me and

826
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 2: all the little questions, you know. But now I'm forty

827
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 2: five year old me and he's up above with my mom. So,

828
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 2: like I said, I love to immortal lives my dad

829
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 2: and my mom in here because you know, we want

830
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 2: to keep their names going. So John and VICKI radel

831
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 2: out there forever right now. So you like to just

832
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 2: like that. You're a good dude, Robin, and a good dude, sir.

833
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:32,399
Speaker 2: I give you that salute, sir. And you know what's

834
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 2: your hobbies today? How are you just? Are you just

835
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:36,919
Speaker 2: writing another book? Are you just gonna go surf out?

836
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 3: I'm still I still work full time, Okay. I actually

837
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 3: work for my college and I call senior alumni and

838
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:46,759
Speaker 3: I try and get them to pony up dollars for

839
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:49,919
Speaker 3: the college. So that's what I do on a part

840
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 3: time basis, and I'm very active. I'm actually thinking about

841
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 3: writing another book, but I want to write it as

842
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 3: a fiction account. One of the best books so I've

843
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 3: ever read is by Carl Malantes Matterhorn. It is the finest,

844
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 3: probably the now he was a marine, so I have

845
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:09,800
Speaker 3: to give him a little bit of a hard time there.

846
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 3: But it's one of the finest books I've read. And

847
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 3: he's written two non fiction books which did pretty well,

848
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 3: but his matter Horn went to the Moon. Sure. I

849
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 3: think it's because it was a fictionalized account, and that's

850
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 3: what I have in mind. Once I finished the promotion

851
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 3: of this book, I've got a lot more stories in

852
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 3: me and I'd like to go back. But I believe

853
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 3: in embellishment a little bit. Maybe here there.

854
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 2: Right, Sure you can have a big beer to be

855
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 2: a second lieutenant in Vietnam and look like me. You

856
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 2: could be me and Vietnam right now, go ahead, cast me.

857
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 2: It's okay, I'll be here. I'll play you. I'll do that.

858
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 2: Just give me those glasses. Where's mine?

859
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 3: Not?

860
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 2: I wanted to give you my eyes right here so

861
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 2: you can see them. They're there. I just wanted you

862
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 2: to know. Let me put these back on, though. See

863
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 2: that's how you should look in noam right here there?

864
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 3: You go right well, And if you look at one

865
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 3: of the pictures in my book. I'm wearing those glasses.

866
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 2: I love it.

867
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 3: I call it my badass photograph.

868
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,799
Speaker 2: All right, that's Elvis, baby. I got to give it

869
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 2: to the King and hail to him. These are the

870
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: Elvis shades. You know. I met my wife wearing these

871
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:14,919
Speaker 2: twenty three years ago. This is not just a thing

872
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:19,839
Speaker 2: I got sucked into. I thought, who's cool? Elvis absolutely

873
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 2: a glasses brother, like what you're wearing. He's the king.

874
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 2: He is. If only his colonel would have let him

875
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 2: go travel to England. I never until I saw Elvis,

876
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 2: I never knew that he was confined to Vegas like that. Huh.

877
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 3: I didn't know that either.

878
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 2: You didn't know. No, he was. He was trapped like

879
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 2: a lion in the zoo. His colonel was like, oh,

880
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 2: it's too dangerous for you to travel. Elvis, He's like,

881
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:42,839
Speaker 2: but they want me over there. He's like, but it's

882
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 2: too dangerous because he didn't want to go because, oh,

883
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:47,400
Speaker 2: you gotta watch that movie. Have you not seen the

884
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 2: Elvis movie?

885
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:50,359
Speaker 3: No, I haven't seen that. I'll have to watch it.

886
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 2: Please do that, Okay. I had no idea Elvis was trapped.

887
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 2: The Beatles like come over, and he's like, why can't

888
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 2: I go over and they're like it's too dangerous. They

889
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 2: offered him f like four million dollars. He didn't know that.

890
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 2: His managers like denied it, just kept him at the

891
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 2: Vegas casino. Man. Yeah, you know Elvis wanted to come

892
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 2: visit another veteran right there, Elvis Presley, Oh yeah, baby.

893
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 2: When you write your book, I'd love to have you

894
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 2: on again. If you're going to write something out or

895
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 2: you do come up with something that's fiction nonfiction. I

896
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:22,799
Speaker 2: think my point what I was going to say is

897
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 2: when it comes to nonfiction, and when I've interviewed folks

898
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 2: who have written nonfiction, there's a little bit of a

899
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 2: scare thing when they have to write something that's real. Yep, right,

900
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 2: how am I going to write this? You know who

901
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 2: wants to read data?

902
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 3: Well, I was raising a family. It took me ten

903
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,240
Speaker 3: years to write this book, sure, because I was raising

904
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 3: a family and I had a job that took me

905
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 3: on long airplane plights. So that's when I wrote. I

906
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 3: would whip out my laptop as long as it wasn't

907
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:55,440
Speaker 3: too bumpy, and I'd work on a chapter. And my

908
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 3: favorite author is Stephen King, and he talks about In

909
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 3: a book called on Writing, he talks about falling into

910
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 3: the typewriter, and by that he means you become so

911
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 3: engrossed in the story you're writing that you block out

912
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 3: everything that's going on around you.

913
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 2: M you see it.

914
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 3: And that's what happened to me. I would be so

915
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 3: involved in writing this chapter and recalling what happened that

916
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 3: it was just amazing how much detail my mind could

917
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 3: bring back. I would come away from some of these

918
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 3: writing events just sweating with perspiration on my face and

919
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:37,959
Speaker 3: recalling the events. I could see the colors, I could

920
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 3: smell the smells. It was pretty amazing.

921
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, you were just it was vivid. You

922
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 2: were just there. It was almost like out of body

923
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 2: experience with Yeah, really one hundred percent. You're really passionate,

924
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 2: emotional about it. And I think you're going to put

925
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 2: that right into your writings. And I don't think you

926
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 2: should have a problem writing a fiction book. It should

927
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 2: be probably pretty fun. I think you want to do it.

928
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 3: I got to work on some technique, but yeah, that's

929
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 3: the next goal that I have for my writing.

930
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 2: I love that. And so, since you are a Stephen

931
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:06,359
Speaker 2: King fan, you.

932
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 3: Said that, right, Oh, yeah, I've read every one of

933
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 3: his books. Now, I just saw Boogeyman, So.

934
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 2: I just I just want to let you know about

935
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 2: trying to boast or brag. But I have a little

936
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 2: Stephen King something for you. So he's born in September

937
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 2: twenty first. I was also born on September twenty first.

938
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:26,359
Speaker 2: Cool okay. But I also play Andy McGee in Firestarter

939
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:30,400
Speaker 2: to the fire Starter for Stephen King. Oh that's cool, okay.

940
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 2: So in the series for Sci Fi Channel, I have telepathy.

941
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 2: She starts fires. Her mom and I met in the

942
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 2: Lot six experiment, you know, and then we become one

943
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 2: and then we're the only two survivors out of the experiment,

944
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 2: and then we marry each other, have her and Charlie

945
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:50,359
Speaker 2: goes off and starts fires with her mind. And then

946
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: the series I was picked up as the reoccurring Andy

947
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 2: McGee through all of her flashbacks and all these demons

948
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 2: that she dealt with with her fire starting, so she

949
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 2: gets hot and bothered later in life. It's kind of interesting,

950
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 2: so very cool. Yeah. That was with Dennis Hopper, Malcolm McDowell,

951
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 2: Danny Nucci from Titanic. I have to say that, you know,

952
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 2: he was like Leonardo's buddy that was stuck down below.

953
00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 3: Oh so yeah, well I have an interesting set of

954
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 3: dates as well. You know, the tour in Vietnam was

955
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:23,439
Speaker 3: three hundred and sixty five days, and I went over

956
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 3: on May the ninth, nineteen sixty eight, and you couldn't

957
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:31,919
Speaker 3: determine exactly when you came back. But I actually came

958
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:35,439
Speaker 3: back on May the ninth, nineteen sixty nine, one year

959
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 3: to the day day. It just happened that way. My

960
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 3: wife was born on May the ninth, My youngest son

961
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 3: was born on May the ninth, and I have played

962
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 3: those numbers in every possible combination to try to win something.

963
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 2: Never wont to Nickel's see what's going on in August

964
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,799
Speaker 2: at your house? Is it your birthday? May? No? I

965
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 2: know May's the birthday when we were on vacation. Yeah, yes, yes,

966
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 2: I'm like, wait there here, so you're trying to figure

967
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 2: out the numbers. I'm like, let's go back nine months.

968
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 2: All my kids are born in October, so you know

969
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:12,880
Speaker 2: it's cold here in Utah in January. Okay at my

970
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 2: house because nine months later my kids, all of them

971
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 2: are October.

972
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, my oldest was born in May, and my second

973
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 3: son was born in April, but he came early. So yeah,

974
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 3: May is my month.

975
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:34,400
Speaker 2: Yeah May is your month, nine months before that's your month, homie. Now,

976
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 2: I've taken about an hour of our time to talk

977
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:38,919
Speaker 2: and and I loved it, and I've had a great time,

978
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 2: and I hope you had a great time being here

979
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 2: and talking with me just about everything life in general

980
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 2: and a great candid conversation. I just want to drop

981
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 2: your book again as Vietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History

982
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 2: by my wonderful friend and guest here, Robin Bartlett, the author,

983
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 2: veteran and father. And yeah I add.

984
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 3: One final note. You know, it's very common these days

985
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 3: to say to a veteran thank you for your service,

986
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,400
Speaker 3: and there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying that. But Vietnam

987
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:12,840
Speaker 3: veterans now are starting to walk in the boots of

988
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 3: Korean War and World War Two veterans. They're all up

989
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 3: there in their high nineties and hundreds. So if you

990
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 3: want to acknowledge the service of a Vietnam veteran, the

991
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 3: code words are welcome home. And if you say welcome

992
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 3: home to a Vietnam veteran, it's a game changer. You

993
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 3: will see them stop in their tracks, tears to their eyes,

994
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 3: lumps and throat. It makes a big difference. Nothing wrong

995
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 3: with thank you for your service, No, but I the

996
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 3: home is the code word.

997
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:48,840
Speaker 2: I could not agree with you more. And honestly I

998
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 2: say the same exact thing. And I was going to

999
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 2: tell you, welcome home. You have you are for sure.

1000
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 2: I know it was tough and it wasn't a wanted

1001
00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 2: thing and it was a very different time then. We

1002
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 2: live in Iraq and Afghanistan. Everybody coming home after nine

1003
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,480
Speaker 2: to eleven and everybody's like these big, huge greetings. So

1004
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:10,800
Speaker 2: from me for my father and my welcome home to yourself,

1005
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 2: and thank you know, and to my listener, welcome home

1006
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:15,879
Speaker 2: to you as well. And we do welcome you home.

1007
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 2: And you know, you can hit me up on Instagram

1008
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 2: if you want to say hi. I'm cool like that.

1009
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:24,080
Speaker 2: Whoever's out there, all right, So that's cool. With that said,

1010
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 2: I'm going to close out one more time with Robin's

1011
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:31,080
Speaker 2: book Okay, which is Vietnam Combat Firefights in Writing History,

1012
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 2: and you can check it out, Google it, find it online.

1013
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:36,160
Speaker 2: You can check soft rep dot com. We could try

1014
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 2: to get it in the merch not our merch, but

1015
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 2: our book club if be happy to Okay, we'll work

1016
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 2: something out'll get a guy to get involved, and we'll

1017
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:43,920
Speaker 2: try to get you in the book club.

1018
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:44,879
Speaker 3: I'd be glad to.

1019
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 2: And you know, we'll have you back on and we

1020
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 2: could talk more Vietnam more. That's it, that's it. I

1021
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 2: got no problem with that, and we'll dive right into it.

1022
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be those podcasts that take fifty

1023
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 2: minutes to get in ten minutes at the end of

1024
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 2: the juice. That's why we went write at it. So

1025
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:04,320
Speaker 2: thank you for your stories. Thank you all right, and

1026
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 2: it's been a pleasure. Okay on behalf of Robin Marlott

1027
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 2: and my name is Rad sayin peace.

1028
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 1: You've been listening to your self Red Radio.

1029
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 2: H