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Speaker 1: The link is also in our show notes below. Pushkin.
Speaker 1: It was late on a summer night, and Dwight Birdwill
Speaker 1: could sense something was wrong. He was a specialist in
Speaker 1: the Army in command of a tank, and that tank
Speaker 1: was parked alongside a main supply out near a little
Speaker 1: village in South Vietnam. The year was nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Dwight could hear a group of water buffaloes shuffling and
Speaker 1: grunting in a pen nearby. He had grown up in
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma countryside, and he knew that livestock wouldn't move
Speaker 1: at night unless something was disturbing them. He knew in
Speaker 1: his bones that something was wrong. He peered out of
Speaker 1: the turret of the tank, using his starlight scope to
Speaker 1: cut through the blackness of the night nothing, but he
Speaker 1: couldn't shake the feeling. He decided to go out and look.
Speaker 1: He woke up the driver of his tank, a gentle
Speaker 1: guy named Bill Watts, and asked him to take his
Speaker 1: place at the turret, and then Dwight headed out into
Speaker 1: the night. He crossed the road, moving quietly through the brush,
Speaker 1: listening intently to see if he could hear whatever it
Speaker 1: was he felt. He crept house to house in the village,
Speaker 1: shining his flashlight over families sleeping on bamboo platforms, finding nothing,
Speaker 1: hearing nothing, just the slow breathing of sleeping civilians and
Speaker 1: the sound of the insects in the night. So Dwight
Speaker 1: turned to head back to the tank, and at that
Speaker 1: very moment, three or four rocket propelled grenades flashed by him,
Speaker 1: hissing as they went. It was a sound that Dwight
Speaker 1: was horrifyingly familiar with. Dwight watched as they hit his
Speaker 1: take the tank's cash of ammunition was set off, fueling
Speaker 1: the explosion. The noise of the blast rocked a little village.
Speaker 1: Then he saw something bright like a comet, fall from
Speaker 1: the tank. It was Bill Watts. He was on fire,
Speaker 1: and Dwight bird well started running I'm j R. Martinez
Speaker 1: and this is Medal of Honor Stories of Courage. The
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the
Speaker 1: United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery and combat at
Speaker 1: the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty.
Speaker 1: Each candidate must be approved all the way up the
Speaker 1: chain of command, from the supervisory officer in the field
Speaker 1: to the White House. This show is about those heroes,
Speaker 1: what they did, what it meant, and what their stories
Speaker 1: tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. That moment,
Speaker 1: that night at the tank changed the course of Dwight
Speaker 1: Birdwell's life. It transformed him from a tough twenty year
Speaker 1: old determined to fight into someone who could not look
Speaker 1: away from the terrible cost of war, someone who would
Speaker 1: ask God at that moment and for many years afterwards,
Speaker 1: why was I the one to survive? Dwight's story is
Speaker 1: about a lot of things. It's about the prior he
Speaker 1: feels in being part of the Cherokee Nation, a community
Speaker 1: with a remarkable history of military service. It's about his
Speaker 1: extraordinary bravery in the battlefield. An episode that feels like
Speaker 1: it's straight out of a Rambo movie. Dwight it turns out,
Speaker 1: is a guy who put himself in harm's way over
Speaker 1: and over again because that's where he felt he belonged.
Speaker 1: But most of all, it's the story of a man
Speaker 1: coming to grips with the feeling of guilt that even
Speaker 1: the highest honor in the military cannot absolve. Dwight Birdwell
Speaker 1: never really knew his father. His dad was an oil
Speaker 1: filled worker of Cherokee descent, a hard drinking man who
Speaker 1: was in and out of jail a lot. He pretty
Speaker 1: much disappeared from Dwight's life when he was little. When
Speaker 1: Dwight was three, his mother met and married Ed Birdwell.
Speaker 1: They settled in Oklahoma in a town called Bell Here's
Speaker 1: Dwight remembering.
Speaker 2: The community was about ninety percent Cherokee, maybe more. It
Speaker 2: was a very very rural area, an area of poverty.
Speaker 1: It was a hard life what people may do.
Speaker 2: I lived right on a creek, and every morning I
Speaker 2: remember a Cherokee lady coming down the creek. In the evening,
Speaker 2: she would come back and she would have a shring
Speaker 2: of fish over her shoulder that she had caught to
Speaker 2: feed her family.
Speaker 1: Dwight's stepdad was a farmer and his mother worked in
Speaker 1: the fields picking beans and strawberries. Even though Dwight was
Speaker 1: a talented student, he was discouraged from even thinking about
Speaker 1: going to college. The message from his high school counselor
Speaker 1: was essentially, you're an Indian, you won't amount to anything.
Speaker 1: But Dwight was determined. He decided to find his own
Speaker 1: way out by joining the military. He knew the GI
Speaker 1: bill would send him to school, and he liked the
Speaker 1: idea of service.
Speaker 2: A lot of the Cherokee man in the community and
Speaker 2: area had served in World War Two and served in Korea,
Speaker 2: and they emphasized that it was a Cherokee tradition to serve.
Speaker 2: So I did it out of a sense of duty
Speaker 2: to the country and out of a sense of obligation
Speaker 2: to Cherokee ancestors.
Speaker 1: Dwight was eighteen, with deep set eyes and a crooked smile,
Speaker 1: and dark hair parted on the side. He was already
Speaker 1: fit for the army, but not because he played football
Speaker 1: or basketball or wrestled. Get this, because he worked chasing
Speaker 1: chickens six nights a week.
Speaker 2: We left home about five retractions in the evening and
Speaker 2: went to northwest Arkansas and caught chickens all night until daybreak.
Speaker 2: You go in and catch the chickens, and then you
Speaker 2: would run outside and you would climb up onto a
Speaker 2: flatbed truck and load the chickens, run back down and
Speaker 2: go get another bat. Shopping all night long.
Speaker 1: That's a random detail, but I love it. I'm just
Speaker 1: not sure I've ever heard of a night time chicken
Speaker 1: catcher before. What even is that? Anyways, back to Dwight
Speaker 1: in the Army. When he enlisted, he asked to be
Speaker 1: sent straight to Vietnam. This was spring of nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six and the war was just warming up. Even though
Speaker 1: Dwight tested so well that he could have gone to
Speaker 1: office a tree and at West Point, he chose combat instead.
Speaker 2: I felt like that was my duty, my mission, to
Speaker 2: go where I was most neated, and I felt like
Speaker 2: I was most neated in Vietnam. Of course, I didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily want to die, but if that was my destiny,
Speaker 2: that would be my destiny.
Speaker 1: In September of nineteen sixty seven, Dwight landed at Tunsut
Speaker 1: Airport outside of Saigon. He remembers marveling and how beautiful
Speaker 1: and green the countryside looked from the plane, and he
Speaker 1: remembers seeing a line of body bags on the side
Speaker 1: of the runway and thinking this is it. I'm here.
Speaker 1: Dwight was assigned to Troop C, third Squadron, fourth Cavalry,
Speaker 1: twenty fifth Infantry Division, which we're going to refer to
Speaker 1: the way that he did as the three quarter calf.
Speaker 1: It was task was securing Highway One, the main supply
Speaker 1: route running north from Saigon to the Cambodian border. Dwight
Speaker 1: was well liked and for once his intelligence was recognized,
Speaker 1: he was given a spot doing radio repair, but he
Speaker 1: didn't like the relative safety of the rare echelon. He
Speaker 1: wanted to fight, and before long he joined a tank
Speaker 1: crew as a gunner. He knew exactly how dangerous it
Speaker 1: would be.
Speaker 2: If you're going to tank you've got an iron coffin.
Speaker 2: It's just a matter of time.
Speaker 1: Dwight was convinced that the US was right to be
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. He saw the bodies of town officials assassinated
Speaker 1: by the National Liberation Front. He knew how brave they
Speaker 1: must have been to stand up for their values. But
Speaker 1: he saw dead via Con guerrillas too. They were young,
Speaker 1: about his age, and Dwight looked at them and thought
Speaker 1: they aren't evil. They're just as idealistic as I am.
Speaker 1: But as nineteen sixty seven turned to nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: Dwight and his this platoon began to stumble across well
Speaker 1: hidden bunkers, caches of weapons, signs of movement of change,
Speaker 1: And then the early morning of January thirty first, it
Speaker 1: happened a coordinated attack throughout South Vietnam. It would be
Speaker 1: known as the Tet Offensive. Here's a news report describing
Speaker 1: the situation in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 3: It all amounts to the most ambitious series of communist
Speaker 3: attacks yet mounted, spreading violence into at least ten provincial capitals,
Speaker 3: plus American air bases and civilian installations, stretching the entire
Speaker 3: length of the country.
Speaker 1: The order came down to Dwight and the three quarter
Speaker 1: Calf to get to Tan Sanute Airport. It was the
Speaker 1: most active air base in the country.
Speaker 2: They said, there is a squad of VC breaking into
Speaker 2: the wire at Tan Shanut with preeport. Cab was so
Speaker 2: confident that we sent two turns down. There were only
Speaker 2: about sixty off. It went down and overtook ptains.
Speaker 1: They thought they would only be fighting a ragged handful
Speaker 1: of viacom. They'd outpowered and outgunned. That kind of enemy
Speaker 1: forced before. So the men got into their tanks and
Speaker 1: went But what awaited was in a skirmish. It was
Speaker 1: an ambush. The tanks of the three quarter calf barreled
Speaker 1: down Highway one toward the Tansanute airfield. The second platoon
Speaker 1: was at the lead, third platoon Twipe's platoon followed behind.
Speaker 1: Third tracks kicked up dust as they rumbled forward. Through
Speaker 1: their early morning hours, the sky grew lighter and overcast gray.
Speaker 1: The trip down was abnormally quiet. The convoy passed no
Speaker 1: civilian traffic on the road, and the nearby houses seemed
Speaker 1: to be deserted. It was almost peaceful. Then the lead
Speaker 1: tank reached the airport and a wall of fire erupted
Speaker 1: from a hamlet along the side of the road.
Speaker 2: Chaos. They let us go right into the middle and
Speaker 2: then cut loose, and within a very short period of
Speaker 2: time a couple of minutes to laid patone was pretty
Speaker 2: much wiped out.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a scrappy group of Vietcong that was waiting.
Speaker 1: It was the North Vietnamese Army, and they now surrounded
Speaker 1: the convoy on three sides. The sky was suddenly filled
Speaker 1: with eerie green lights falling towards the American tanks. They
Speaker 1: were tracers which the North Vietnamese used to see where
Speaker 1: their fire was going.
Speaker 2: And there's all these green craisiers coming out and all
Speaker 2: these rockets coming in. Boom boom, boom boom, and I'm
Speaker 2: thank you. What in the world's going on?
Speaker 1: Dwight's tank was at the very front of his platoon.
Speaker 1: As the lead platoon exploded, his tank pulled in right
Speaker 1: behind them. One of Dwight's friends, franklin Kuff, was in
Speaker 1: the lead platoon. He and other veterans who knew Dwight
Speaker 1: spoke about their experiences in a documentary made by Osio
Speaker 1: voices of the Cherokee people. Frank remembers seeing Dwyke's tank
Speaker 1: rattle into place.
Speaker 4: Man, it's seeing good. We gotta do something. And that's
Speaker 4: when Sir Petun Comb pulling up and there's Doy like
Speaker 4: a Knight in shining armor.
Speaker 1: Almost instantly, Dwight's tank commander was hit a bloody hole
Speaker 1: where his left eye had been. Dwight got down and
Speaker 1: lifted his commander out of the tank under heavy fire
Speaker 1: and put him in the ditch that ran just along
Speaker 1: the side of the road. The injured gis from the
Speaker 1: lead platoon were gathering there as well, and then Dwight
Speaker 1: returned to his tank and took command. Every vehicle ahead
Speaker 1: of him had been put out of action, and there
Speaker 1: was no way to retreat. There were too many wounded
Speaker 1: that would be left behind.
Speaker 2: I can't remember the bullet climb by my head, you know,
Speaker 2: just thank boy, that's an unpleasant sounds. But I kept going.
Speaker 1: He started firing back. He didn't have time to fill
Speaker 1: any fear. There was no place for it. He used
Speaker 1: the tank's cannon, he used the tank's machine gun. His
Speaker 1: head and torso were exposed to enemy fire, but somehow
Speaker 1: the bullets didn't find him. In the meantime, more survivors
Speaker 1: from the Leeds platoon were making their way to Dwight's position.
Speaker 1: The ditch beside his tank was the only spot with
Speaker 1: any kind of relative safety. Even though the enemy was
Speaker 1: advancing close on Dwight's left, he couldn't fire the tank's
Speaker 1: cannon in that direction because he would hit those wounded gis.
Speaker 1: So instead, he got up on that tank, took aim
Speaker 1: with his machine gun, and opened fire. David Young was
Speaker 1: one of those soldiers taking cover in the ditch that day.
Speaker 4: If it hadn't been for these high fired rounds going
Speaker 4: over my head the other way, I wouldn't be here today.
Speaker 1: Dwight was fully exposed to enemy fire. Bullets whizzed by,
Speaker 1: close enough to blow the communication device off of his
Speaker 1: tanker helmet, but still he didn't get hit.
Speaker 2: What was going through my mind was to keep fighting
Speaker 2: until I went down, and if I went down, I
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna shop.
Speaker 1: Part of his helmet was shot off. He could no
Speaker 1: longer provide battlefield updates to his commanders. He couldn't get
Speaker 1: any guidance either. All he could do was shoot and
Speaker 1: drive the enemy back until he used.
Speaker 2: Up all my ammunition.
Speaker 1: There was a helicopter directly above him. It was the
Speaker 1: three quarter Calves Commander Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Otis. He was
Speaker 1: circling the action, leading from the sky. All of the
Speaker 1: men in a three quarter Calve adored Otis. He was
Speaker 1: a brilliant leader, fair and brave, ready to be as
Speaker 1: much a part of the action as his men were.
Speaker 1: And then Otis's helicopter took a direct hit. It was
Speaker 1: about to crash, and it was heading straight for Dwight's position.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm watching a helicopter come down. It's thinking
Speaker 2: this is not real.
Speaker 1: The helicopter hit the ground, bounced hard, and came to
Speaker 1: a stop, the skids mashing down the bar wire fence
Speaker 1: that ran alongside of the airport. Otis and his crew
Speaker 1: got out and ran from the helicopter as fast as
Speaker 1: they could in case it caught fire. Dwight watched them
Speaker 1: scramble away, and then he thought that helicopter has something
Speaker 1: that I need. He hopped down from the tank and
Speaker 1: raced to the chopper, cutting his legs on the concertina wire.
Speaker 1: Dwight made it to the chopper, pulled two machine guns out.
Speaker 1: He passed one to a front, got the other back
Speaker 1: on top of his tank and opened fire.
Speaker 2: He wasn't slowing down at all. He just kept doing
Speaker 2: a job.
Speaker 1: He kept going, protecting those wounded men in the ditch
Speaker 1: next to him, holding off the enemy. And then inevitably
Speaker 1: he was hit.
Speaker 2: I just remember a big flash and Lord of blood
Speaker 2: coming out of my head and down my face, at
Speaker 2: my chest and what have you.
Speaker 1: He had shrump, no wounds. He was bleeding badly, but
Speaker 1: Dwight wasn't worried about that. He didn't feel like he
Speaker 1: was particularly injured. He was worried about his gun, and
Speaker 1: of course.
Speaker 2: That sixty was in two pieces. I'm looking at my gun.
Speaker 2: It's like a toy, you know. I had torn a hack.
Speaker 2: What am I gonna do now?
Speaker 1: He only had the side arm in his holster. It
Speaker 1: would have to be enough. They were shooting all around him,
Speaker 1: and the enemy was still on every side. He was
Speaker 1: bleeding from his head. He was majorly outnumbered, but he
Speaker 1: hadn't lost his resolve.
Speaker 2: So I just felt like, I'm going to fight as
Speaker 2: long as I can. I wasn't gonna say die until
Speaker 2: I was dead.
Speaker 1: So I got off the tank and went down to
Speaker 1: the ditch where the other soldiers were. He rallied three
Speaker 1: of them to advance to the front of the column
Speaker 1: of tanks to set up a defensive position. It was
Speaker 1: a crazy move, four guys trying to hold off a
Speaker 1: ton of enemy fighters, but to Dwight, it was the
Speaker 1: only move, the only way to keep the enemy from
Speaker 1: coming over the top and get into the wounded gis.
Speaker 2: One guy was a non Indian from our harbor Main,
Speaker 2: and I got two Native Americans from Port Gambo Washington,
Speaker 2: who was actually a medic Oliver Jones, and then there
Speaker 2: was an Ottawa from Michigan, and we went down the ditch,
Speaker 2: took up a position to hold off the North Vietnam mainons,
Speaker 2: and we were pretty low in the ammunition and it
Speaker 2: looked like that it was almost over with.
Speaker 1: They huddled in front of the convoys lead tank, but
Speaker 1: little big tree that stood alone by the road. When
Speaker 1: they peeked over the edge of the ditch, they could
Speaker 1: see hundreds of enemy soldiers. They were massively outnumbered. Dwight
Speaker 1: looked over at the airfield where he arrived in Vietnam
Speaker 1: less than a year before, where he'd seen those green
Speaker 1: body bags.
Speaker 2: It was an eerie feeling at that point because we
Speaker 2: were right on the runway and these large airliners then
Speaker 2: PanAm World air Waves were sitting out there just ready
Speaker 2: to check off.
Speaker 1: Those airplanes were filled with people getting out of Vietnam,
Speaker 1: escaping from the war, going home to safety.
Speaker 2: Here we were about to die looking at those big planes,
Speaker 2: and just was very very strange. Failing.
Speaker 1: Dwight and the other soldiers threw grenades at the enemy.
Speaker 1: Machine gun rounds hit the tree above their heads. Showering
Speaker 1: them with leaves and branches, and then they heard the
Speaker 1: rumble of vehicles. Troop BE of the cavalry was coming
Speaker 1: to help. Even with his life on the line, Dwight
Speaker 1: saw some humor in that.
Speaker 2: You know in the movie the cab is always saving
Speaker 2: nine Indians from Indians. Here's these three Indians being saved.
Speaker 2: That wasn't a movie script. The cabs saving the Indians.
Speaker 1: Helicopters flew low over the open fields. Dwight remembers them
Speaker 1: laying down a smoke screen to conceal the arrival of troopy.
Speaker 1: Then the air filled with the sound of American tanks
Speaker 1: taking out the enemy positions. The wounded gi started getting
Speaker 1: loaded onto Metavac helicopters. Dwight was ordered to board one too.
Speaker 1: Remember he was bleeding from his head. He got on
Speaker 1: it all right, but then he just slid across and
Speaker 1: out the other side of the chopper and returned to
Speaker 1: the fight.
Speaker 2: I had to get back on the battle. I could
Speaker 2: still go.
Speaker 1: He helped the other men, those wounded guys in the ditch,
Speaker 1: loading them onto helicopters, getting them to safety, and then
Speaker 1: finally he was forced to get help himself.
Speaker 2: I've put on a helicopter and it was full of bodies.
Speaker 1: That helicopter felt like an airborne morgue. But it could
Speaker 1: have been so much worse.
Speaker 4: He saved many, many, many lives that day. You just
Speaker 4: can't believe what he did that name. It's hard for
Speaker 4: me to believe it, and I saw it.
Speaker 1: The Army agreed with Frank. Dwight received a Silver Star
Speaker 1: for his actions that day. He was, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: a bone of fide hero. He knew that his survival
Speaker 1: was nothing short of a miracle, but the thought of
Speaker 1: the people he couldn't save nagged at him. And then,
Speaker 1: several months later, on a creepily quiet night, it all caught.
Speaker 2: Up with him.
Speaker 1: After ted the war and Vietnam changed, the enemy suddenly
Speaker 1: seemed to be everywhere. Morale among the American troops was terrible.
Speaker 1: Their focus went from winning the war, whatever that might mean,
Speaker 1: to just surviving and getting home. Dwight had been a
Speaker 1: true believer, but he began to feel dragged down and depressed.
Speaker 1: All the same, he still had his unique capacity to
Speaker 1: keep pushing forward, and even when he wavered, he took
Speaker 1: his commitment to service seriously, which meant that his fight
Speaker 1: of a lifetime kept happening. Here's his friend Ted Bagley,
Speaker 1: who served with him, speaking on that Ossio documentary. We
Speaker 1: talk about Tomson Knut and the things he did, but
Speaker 1: he did that the whole time we were in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a one time as fair. That's what people
Speaker 2: don't understand.
Speaker 1: Dwight received another Silver Star in July of sixty eight
Speaker 1: for going back into an enemy occupied village to rescue
Speaker 1: stranded American troops. Nobody had wanted that assignment, but Dwight
Speaker 1: volunteered for it, not once, but twice, over and over again.
Speaker 1: Dwight put his life on the line and survived. Birdie
Speaker 1: had at least ten tons of news. He became commander
Speaker 1: of a tank and was particularly close with two of
Speaker 1: the soldiers that served with him, Bill Watts and Harold Donnelly.
Speaker 1: Harold and Dwight were best friends, pretty much inseparable, and
Speaker 1: Dwight looked up to Bill.
Speaker 2: Bill Watch was very tender guy, very compassionate, had a
Speaker 2: view of life that took me years to get.
Speaker 1: Two Which brings us to that night by the road
Speaker 1: in that little village, the one I told you about
Speaker 1: at the start of the episode. A stifling hot July
Speaker 1: night in nineteen sixty eight, Dwight's platoon was set up
Speaker 1: along the roadside. The water buffaloes moved in their pen
Speaker 1: as Dwight peered out into the darkness to figure out
Speaker 1: what he was sensing, what felt wrong.
Speaker 2: I got bailed up and I put him in a turret.
Speaker 2: I said, you take over. I'm gonna go out there
Speaker 2: and do some recon. So I went out searching for
Speaker 2: North Vietnam ass and I couldn't find anything.
Speaker 1: And that's when he turned and saw the RPGs hit
Speaker 1: the tank and his friend Bill fall out of it
Speaker 1: on fire from head to toe.
Speaker 2: Bill Wats came out of that tank tent a ball.
Speaker 1: Of fire, just like in tons of nude. Dwight didn't hesitate,
Speaker 1: so I run.
Speaker 2: Back to the tank, didn't get Bill. But as I'm
Speaker 2: carrying him out, my friend Harold Donaldy said, Dwight, help me,
Speaker 2: help me.
Speaker 1: I'm hurt.
Speaker 2: I said, Harold, I'll be back and help you when
Speaker 2: I can. You be a man, you take that pain.
Speaker 1: Being a man taking that pain was the logic Dwight
Speaker 1: had learned over all those months in Vietnam. But after
Speaker 1: he got Bill out, of Harm's way and went back
Speaker 1: for Harold. He saw what had become of his friend.
Speaker 2: So I got back after I'm taken care of Bill,
Speaker 2: got Harold, picked him up. Harold was mangled his splash. Listen, patients, strings,
Speaker 2: hang on, and forever to this day, feel bad about
Speaker 2: what I said too. Hold on.
Speaker 1: I just want to pause here and point something out.
Speaker 1: This recording was made more than fifty years after that
Speaker 1: terrible traumatic night, and Dwight is still crying when he
Speaker 1: remembers the way he spoke to his friend. I think
Speaker 1: that tells you more than anything else. Who Dwight birdwill is.
Speaker 1: A day or so later, he went to see Bill
Speaker 1: in the hospital. He was racked with guilt. He kept
Speaker 1: thinking it should have been me. I should have been
Speaker 1: able to prevent this. He was looking for his friend,
Speaker 1: not seeing them anywhere, when.
Speaker 2: I heard this boy and it was Bill. Don't you
Speaker 2: recognize me? I didn't recognize the burns he had. I
Speaker 2: were fierce, and I knew he was dying. And we
Speaker 2: talked for a bet and afterwards went out. I sat down.
Speaker 2: I just cried and cried and cried.
Speaker 1: And then he noticed people next to him sitting in
Speaker 1: that same waiting area.
Speaker 2: He's a bit a family, come I right, and they
Speaker 2: had a young girl, probably six or seven years old.
Speaker 2: Incredibly beautiful young lady. They're so pretty, and she was
Speaker 2: so happy.
Speaker 1: Here is something Dwight hadn't seen for months, something beautiful
Speaker 1: and peaceful and warm, an antidote to the pain of
Speaker 1: seeing his dying friend.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, she turned her whole
Speaker 2: face to me, and it was blown away on the
Speaker 2: right side of her face.
Speaker 1: The side of her face was a mass of scar tissue.
Speaker 2: Her eye was gone, and I just thought, noted it out.
Speaker 1: No more.
Speaker 2: I can't take this anymore.
Speaker 1: Dwight Birdwill, the truest of the true believers, the first
Speaker 1: to volunteer for action. The warrior was done with the war,
Speaker 1: just done. He served the rest of his tour, and
Speaker 1: then he got out as as fast as he could.
Speaker 1: When his flight left Vietnam, Dwight looked out the window.
Speaker 1: The green paradise that had greeted him when he'd flown
Speaker 1: in sixteen months before was gone, and its place was
Speaker 1: a landscape that looked like the surface of the moon,
Speaker 1: pock marked with craters, burned and destroyed. He wondered to himself,
Speaker 1: what was it all for? Bill died of his injuries.
Speaker 1: Harold Donnelly survived, but with medical issues that would plague
Speaker 1: him the rest of his life. He and Dwight stayed
Speaker 1: in touch until he died. Dwight always felt that he
Speaker 1: had been bad luck for Harold. Dwight took Bill's dog
Speaker 1: tags with him when he left Vietnam. He carried it
Speaker 1: on his keychain for years, as a reminder, maybe or
Speaker 1: a pendance Dwight's story does it end there? Of course,
Speaker 1: the army gave him the ability to do the thing
Speaker 1: everyone said he couldn't do, go to college become a lawyer.
Speaker 1: He married a sweet girl named Virginia, who had also
Speaker 1: grown up poor in a Cherokee community near his They
Speaker 1: had two kids, a daughter and a son. But none
Speaker 1: of it was easy for him. When Dwight first returned home,
Speaker 1: he drank, He had nightmares. He carried those memories of
Speaker 1: Bill and Harold, of the other men and the civilians
Speaker 1: he couldn't save with him like a sack of stones,
Speaker 1: And like so many veterans, he cannot talk about the
Speaker 1: war at all.
Speaker 2: The war haunted me for years, particularly the salt of
Speaker 2: why did I survive and so many other UH purists.
Speaker 1: Then, late one night in nineteen seventy nine, as Dwight
Speaker 1: was drinking himself, as he puts it, to the bottom
Speaker 1: of a fifth of bourbon, he decided two things. The
Speaker 1: first to stop drinking. The second was to stop obsessing
Speaker 1: over the things he could have done differently in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: I had a reckoning. I came to the conclusion that
Speaker 2: there was nothing I could do about the past. I
Speaker 2: could just live for the future.
Speaker 1: Right around that time, something else happened. Dwight saw his
Speaker 1: old commander, Glenn Otis again in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: He had told me a few days after talk said,
Speaker 2: he said, I'm going to recommend you for the Medal.
Speaker 1: Of Honor, but nothing had ever come of it. No
Speaker 1: out here was Otis, who had become a four star
Speaker 1: general since the two had parted ways in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: He asked me, what happened to the medal of honor?
Speaker 2: Are not? Probably me said we're going to have to
Speaker 2: do something about that, And I just felt like that,
Speaker 2: you know, if that's one of those changes would never happened.
Speaker 1: The years kept going by. In addition to his law practice,
Speaker 1: Dwight went to work for the Cherokee Nation, serving as
Speaker 1: one of three justices of the Supreme Court. Eventually he
Speaker 1: served two terms as Chief Justice of the Cherokee Nation.
Speaker 1: It's a fitting role for a man who could so
Speaker 1: clearly see both sides of a conflict, and all during
Speaker 1: that time and for long afterwards, General Otis worked to
Speaker 1: get Dwight his Medal of Honor for his brave stand
Speaker 1: at the airport that first day of the Tech offensive.
Speaker 2: I never wanted the medal of honor. All I wanted
Speaker 2: was a fair consideration. General ODIs got me that per consideration.
Speaker 1: Finally, in May of twenty twenty two, more than five
Speaker 1: decades is that action at Tons newd It happened.
Speaker 2: I got a call from President Biden and he said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to award to you Adelbonner, and he talked
Speaker 2: to me very graciously for about ten minutes. Going into
Speaker 2: the conversation, he said, this is a big deal. And
Speaker 2: then somewhere else in the conversation on down the road,
Speaker 2: he said, this is a big deal.
Speaker 1: It is a big deal. But like so many men
Speaker 1: who have been awarded the medal, Dwight doesn't see it
Speaker 1: as something for him. He sees it as something for
Speaker 1: all those other men who fought and didn't survive.
Speaker 2: This medal is for the men who went down that day.
Speaker 2: It's for the family except those who didn't make it.
Speaker 2: It's for those who were injured and later died or
Speaker 2: later lived impaired lives. I'm thankful for it. I don't
Speaker 2: mean to show you that I'm not thankful, but for
Speaker 2: doth Men, their family, for the Tree Quarter k and
Speaker 2: the twenty fifth Temperantry Division.
Speaker 1: President Biden put the medal around Dwight's neck.
Speaker 5: And at a long last, at long last, your story
Speaker 5: is being honored as it should have been always.
Speaker 1: Some of Dwight's friends from the calv were there at
Speaker 1: the ceremony. So was his daughter, Stephanie, who currently serves
Speaker 1: as the director of the Office of Tribal Government Relations
Speaker 1: at the Department of Veteran Affairs.
Speaker 5: And I might know, Native American communities serve in the
Speaker 5: United States Armed Forces at a higher percentage rate than
Speaker 5: any other cohort in America.
Speaker 1: Dwight's daughter thinks she understands why.
Speaker 2: That might be. Native people, as the original inhabit to
Speaker 2: this land, have an especially strong connection.
Speaker 4: To the land we live on.
Speaker 2: It is truly our homeland, and that can be a
Speaker 2: powerful inspiration and source of motivation to serve.
Speaker 1: When Dwight walked away from the war in Vietnam, he
Speaker 1: stopped doing one kind of service, but he didn't stop serving.
Speaker 1: He worked to help the Cherokee nation as persistent as
Speaker 1: he ever was on the battlefield. I think his devotion
Speaker 1: to service must stem in part from the guilt that
Speaker 1: he still carries even today about the people he wasn't
Speaker 1: able to save. But it also stems from his deep
Speaker 1: bedrock of faith. He believes that when his time comes,
Speaker 1: he will stand before his God and maybe then finally
Speaker 1: he will find the absolution that he can't give himself.
Speaker 2: And then, but I did go up for Judge Vun.
Speaker 2: If I had the courage, I would ask God, why
Speaker 2: did you let me lay up? Did I fulfill your flirtation?
Speaker 1: The Medal of Honor, by definition, tells the world that
Speaker 1: Dwight Birdwill didn't just fulfill expectations. He went far, far
Speaker 1: above and beyond them. I can't imagine his Maker will disagree.
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor. Stories of Courage is written by Meredith
Speaker 1: Rollins and produced by Mereth Rollins, Jess Shane and Suzanne Gabber.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Ben Adolf Hoffrey. Sound design and additional
Speaker 1: music by Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer is Constanza Gallardo.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Arthur Gomperts. Original the music by Eric Phillips.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, the
Speaker 1: US Department of Veteran Affairs, and Cherokee Film Productions for
Speaker 1: sharing material from At Long Last, Dwight Birdwell's Medal of
Speaker 1: Honor from the docu series Oscio Voices of the Cherokee People.
Speaker 1: We also want to hear from you, so send us
Speaker 1: your personal story of courage or highlight someone else's bravery.
Speaker 1: Email us at Medal of Honor at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1: You might hear your stories on future episodes of Metal
Speaker 1: of Honor or see them on our social channels at
Speaker 1: Pushkin Pods. I'm your host, JR. Martinez