Speaker 1: Hey, everyone is Jarrel Martinez. Before we get into this episode,
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Speaker 1: Now to the episode.
Speaker 2: This July fourth marks the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 2: of America, two hundred and fifty years of rebellion and innovation,
Speaker 2: of struggle and survival of liberty and courage and sacrifice.
Speaker 2: As many times over the past quarter millennium, our American
Speaker 2: experiment looked like it could fall apart at the seams
Speaker 2: when you look closely at those moments, though, it wasn't
Speaker 2: politicians who held us together. It was ordinary people, people
Speaker 2: who spoke up, who protested, who fought. Regular people in
Speaker 2: times of great strife, grabbed at the frayed fabric of
Speaker 2: this country and pulled it together. In this season of
Speaker 2: Metal of Honor, as America celebrates its semi quinn centennial.
Speaker 2: We're telling the stories of some of those people because
Speaker 2: bravery is in all of us, and because the same
Speaker 2: qualities that carried us through the first two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty years, courage, honor, and loyalty, will help us endure
Speaker 2: the next two hundred and fifty. This is season three
Speaker 2: of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: The helicopter made its way up the river. The rotor
Speaker 1: blade was humming against the sky. There was thick jungle
Speaker 1: on both sides of the river bank, bright green against
Speaker 1: the rushing brown water. It was November twenty sixth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight, and that river separated Cambodia from South Vietnam.
Speaker 1: The pilot of the chopper followed its path, heading towards
Speaker 1: the sound of gunfire, towards the battle. The mission had
Speaker 1: started with five helicopters, but three of them were already gone.
Speaker 1: The pilot of this one was twenty five year old
Speaker 1: James Fleming. He could see a down chopper burning on
Speaker 1: the river bank. He knew exactly how dangerous the situation was,
Speaker 1: and as he got closer, shots started coming at him
Speaker 1: from both sides. Of the river. The noise of gunfire
Speaker 1: crackled through the jungle. The enemy was everywhere. He was
Speaker 1: supposed to touch down in the middle of this mess.
Speaker 1: But even if he could get to the riverside without
Speaker 1: being shot, he knew there wasn't enough space for him
Speaker 1: to land. But Jim Fleming also knew something else. There
Speaker 1: were seven soldiers down in that jungle who were about
Speaker 1: to be captured or killed by the North Vietnamese Army.
Speaker 1: They had fought their way to the river bank, and
Speaker 1: Jim was their own only chance to get out of
Speaker 1: their live Jim remember what he told those same guys
Speaker 1: just a few hours earlier when he dropped them there.
Speaker 1: He had told them he would put them in, but
Speaker 1: he would also get them out. Jim looked at his
Speaker 1: fuel gauge and it was almost empty. He looked at
Speaker 1: the terrain. Impossible. And then he banked his helicopter and
Speaker 1: started in. I'm j R. Martinez and this is Medal
Speaker 1: of Honor Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor is
Speaker 1: the highest military decoration in the United States. It's awarded
Speaker 1: for gallantry and bravery and combat at the risk of life,
Speaker 1: above and beyond the call of duty. Each candidate must
Speaker 1: be approved all the way up the chain of command,
Speaker 1: from the supervisory officer in the field to the White House.
Speaker 1: This show is about those heroes, what they did, what
Speaker 1: it meant, and what their stories tell us about the
Speaker 1: nature of courage and sacrifice. I'm an army veteran, and
Speaker 1: in the military we talk a lot about no man
Speaker 1: left behind, you know, the concept that troops will do
Speaker 1: anything to protect each other from harm. But the guy
Speaker 1: you'll meet in this episode, Jim Fleming, doesn't just see
Speaker 1: that as a concept. He sees it as a responsibility,
Speaker 1: something we owe each other. It's something he feels deep
Speaker 1: in his bones, the importance of staying true to your word,
Speaker 1: being there, showing up. And that's why this story really
Speaker 1: stuck with me. It makes me think about the way
Speaker 1: we show up in our own lives, because for Jim,
Speaker 1: that responsibility isn't a burden, it's an honor, the kind
Speaker 1: of honor that would lead him straight into a death trap.
Speaker 1: When Jim Fleming tells the of his life, he begins
Speaker 1: with the moment he was left behind.
Speaker 3: I was born in Saday, in Missouri on the twelfth
Speaker 3: of March nineteen forty three. We were abandoned by my
Speaker 3: father right after my brother was born. He was born
Speaker 3: in forty four and she was a single mother working
Speaker 3: in a town and country combat boot shoe factory in
Speaker 3: Saday in Missouri.
Speaker 1: Jim's mom met John Fleming, an Air Force pilot stationed nearby.
Speaker 1: They started dating, and before John left that base for California,
Speaker 1: he asked her to marry him.
Speaker 3: They got married in Las Vegas. He came back and
Speaker 3: took my brother and myself and her to California.
Speaker 1: John Fleming taught Jim two things. First, what it means
Speaker 1: to have a dad, an all in fully committed father. Second,
Speaker 1: he taught Jim how to love the Air Force. John
Speaker 1: was a career pilot. He served during World War two, Korea,
Speaker 1: and even the early years of Vietnam.
Speaker 3: My father was the driving force behind everything I did.
Speaker 4: He was my hero. I really looked up to him.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to work for a living, and I
Speaker 3: always wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force.
Speaker 4: I never wanted to be anything else.
Speaker 1: Halfway through his pilot training, Jim volunteered to go to Vietnam.
Speaker 1: By that time, the war had been going on for
Speaker 1: more than a decade. Jim was married. He had two
Speaker 1: little girls at home, but he couldn't wait to get
Speaker 1: into combat and serve his country.
Speaker 3: I was terribly excited to go. If you talk to
Speaker 3: my wife, she'll probably tell you that I was apprehensive
Speaker 3: that it would be over by the time.
Speaker 4: I got there. I wanted to go and.
Speaker 1: Fly in war, but Vietnam wasn't exactly what he'd imagined.
Speaker 1: Jim remembers how it felt when he arrived in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight.
Speaker 4: As we get off, the flares are going off around.
Speaker 3: You can see artillery going off over here, and it
Speaker 3: was just no question in your mind.
Speaker 4: You're somewhere you've never been before.
Speaker 3: We probably got there midnight and got in our barracks
Speaker 3: probably four in the morning or whatever, to get a
Speaker 3: couple hours of sleep. And I remember turning over and
Speaker 3: a tear comes out of my eye and down my nose,
Speaker 3: and I said to myself, damn, only three hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty four more of these.
Speaker 4: To go where I got.
Speaker 3: You already knew I didn't like it there.
Speaker 1: Jim did three days of jungle survival training, you know,
Speaker 1: just in case the chopper went down. It scared the
Speaker 1: hell out of him.
Speaker 4: I didn't like that at all.
Speaker 3: It taught me I did not want to go down
Speaker 3: and have to walk home.
Speaker 1: But dropping people into the jungle was what Jim was
Speaker 1: in Vietnam to do. Okay, here's the deal. The North
Speaker 1: Vietnamese Army n VA for sure needed to supply their
Speaker 1: forces fighting in South Vietnam, so they built a supply
Speaker 1: line through two neutral countries, Laos and Cambodia. The Americans
Speaker 1: called it the Hochi Mantrail. The US wanted to stop
Speaker 1: that flow as supplies, but they couldn't officially be in
Speaker 1: either of those countries, so they secretly sent in small
Speaker 1: teams of Green Berets. They were the Studies and Observations
Speaker 1: Group or sg for short. It was totally covert ops.
Speaker 1: Those SOG teams were inserted by Air Force pilots from
Speaker 1: the twentieth Special Operation Squadron, otherwise known as the Green Hornets.
Speaker 1: They flew UH one helicopters. In the military, we call
Speaker 1: them Huey's. You know this kind of helicopter. You've seen
Speaker 1: it in every single movie about Vietnam. Jim was one
Speaker 1: of those Green Hornets, and on the morning of November
Speaker 1: twenty sixth, nineteen sixty eight, he got ready for a drop.
Speaker 3: The first mission of the day was to insert a
Speaker 3: seven man special team, three Americans and four mercenaries.
Speaker 1: Those mercenaries were referred to as Montignards. They were members
Speaker 1: of a try from the highlands of Vietnam. Montaignards were
Speaker 1: a key part of any SAG team because they were
Speaker 1: not only seasoned soldiers but also expert local guides and translators.
Speaker 1: So this SAG team was going to be dropped right
Speaker 1: at the border of Cambodia and Vietnam. Their target was
Speaker 1: the time Laysan River. They suspected it was a route
Speaker 1: for the NVA. SAG had already tried to get there
Speaker 1: twice before, but each attempt had ended in a scramble
Speaker 1: to pull the team out under heavy weapons fire from
Speaker 1: the enemy. But they needed the intel, so back they went.
Speaker 1: The team would be taken to their mission by a
Speaker 1: convoy of five helicopters, two gunships, and three slicks. Jim
Speaker 1: flew a slick, which was essentially a bus.
Speaker 3: Take the guns out, take the pockets off, open up
Speaker 3: the cab and it's completely empty.
Speaker 4: You carry troops. It was a slick.
Speaker 1: A slick's only job was to bring guys in or
Speaker 1: pick them up. Each slick had a pilot, a co pilot,
Speaker 1: and two gunners, one at each door. The convoy always
Speaker 1: traveled as a unit. It was safer that way. Plus
Speaker 1: there was a Ford Air controller plane, what the guys
Speaker 1: called a fact. The choppers didn't have much navigation, so
Speaker 1: the fact had to lead them in and out. The
Speaker 1: saw guys and the green hornets gathered on the runway
Speaker 1: the way they did before every mission.
Speaker 3: Before you took off, you would brief and you would
Speaker 3: shake hands and hug the team members and the crew members.
Speaker 3: Not a lot talking going on. And what's going on
Speaker 3: here is what you see in football when men stand
Speaker 3: around hold hands. These big guys hold hands. There's a
Speaker 3: bonding going on there. What you're doing, you're saying, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna take you and I'm gonna put you out in
Speaker 3: the middle of hell. If you have to come home,
Speaker 3: I'll bring you home. That's my duty, it's my honor.
Speaker 3: I will do that for you. It seems simple enough
Speaker 3: to Jim. You make a promise and you keep it.
Speaker 3: But this was Jim's second day as an aircraft commander.
Speaker 3: He was a lieutenant way younger than the other pilots
Speaker 3: less season. He didn't know that. It wasn't going to
Speaker 3: be so easy.
Speaker 1: The fact left first, then the Hueyes, they headed towards
Speaker 1: the drop location. When they got close, the choppers split up.
Speaker 1: To evade detection.
Speaker 3: You'd send five helicopters and one of them peels off,
Speaker 3: and then another one peels off, and if anyone's watching
Speaker 3: or listening, they don't know who lands.
Speaker 4: So we did that and I put the team in.
Speaker 1: After the SAW group was on the ground, the Green
Speaker 1: Hornets met up at a refueling stop. They kicked back
Speaker 1: and waited to hear how the mission was going.
Speaker 3: We're sitting around listening to rock and roll from Armed
Speaker 3: Forces radio and eating sea rations and smoking cigars, and
Speaker 3: you know, sett an alert out in the middle of
Speaker 3: this miserable little place.
Speaker 1: After Jim dropped them, the seven members of the SOG
Speaker 1: team moved into the jungle. The trees were so tall
Speaker 1: and so dense that the canopy totally covered them, and
Speaker 1: that was dangerous too. Those trees were filled with monkeys
Speaker 1: ready to scream and tip off the enemy to their location.
Speaker 1: The men would have made their way towards the river,
Speaker 1: setting up a perimeter of Claymore mines for safety, but
Speaker 1: then out of nowhere, a huge enemy force was on them.
Speaker 1: Suddenly the jungle was blazing with gunfire, monkeys screaming, bullets
Speaker 1: zipping past the trees. The SOG team knew how outnumbered
Speaker 1: they were. They had to get out now.
Speaker 3: The radio operator with them keeed the mic and said,
Speaker 3: tango five one contact, need extraction. As soon as that happens,
Speaker 3: we get it. We're on our way.
Speaker 1: The pilots scrambled to their choppers and took to the
Speaker 1: air for the SOG team on the ground of Vietnam.
Speaker 1: The situation had gone from bad to really really bad.
Speaker 1: Jim Fleming and the rest of the Green Hornets were
Speaker 1: getting updates from them over the radio. The NVA had
Speaker 1: the SOG team on the run.
Speaker 3: Now they're after them, and they chased them all the
Speaker 3: way to a riverbank, this large river which is the
Speaker 3: border between Cambodia and Vietnam. And they can't get across
Speaker 3: the river it's two wide. So there now, with their
Speaker 3: backs to the river, set up a defensive position, put
Speaker 3: Claymore minds out and fighting off these people that are
Speaker 3: starting to come in on them.
Speaker 1: The Ford air controller got to the area first, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't find the men. The jungle canopy was just
Speaker 1: too dense.
Speaker 3: The fact has identified where he thinks they are because
Speaker 3: they're moving. He knows they're on the river, but exactly
Speaker 3: where he can't really tell.
Speaker 1: Then came to helicopters, two gun ships, and three slicks.
Speaker 3: The first guy is to get there are the gunships?
Speaker 3: What a gunships like to do more than they like
Speaker 3: to do anything else, rock and roll.
Speaker 1: They were blazing gunfire and rockets towards the enemy, which
Speaker 1: was both helpful and not because he created a totally
Speaker 1: new problem. Before the soal team had just been facing
Speaker 1: the men in front of them, the ones who had
Speaker 1: chased them to the river. But after a few gunship
Speaker 1: passes and even larger group of enemies knew they were there,
Speaker 1: they suddenly began taking fire from across the river. It
Speaker 1: was coming from six enemy machine guns hidden over there.
Speaker 1: They had nowhere to hide. The gunships knocked out two
Speaker 1: of the machine gun positions, but then.
Speaker 3: They hit the first gunship. He starts trailing blue smoke
Speaker 3: and he yells, I'm hit, I'm hit.
Speaker 4: I'm going down.
Speaker 3: He turns back, goes across the river and crash lands.
Speaker 1: One of the slicks spiraled down and landed next to
Speaker 1: the gunship. Their job was to rescue that crew and
Speaker 1: take them to safety immediately.
Speaker 3: They go home. They can't help anybody, so they're going home.
Speaker 1: Only three of the five helicopters were left. Everyone on
Speaker 1: the ground, the enemy and the special forces men had
Speaker 1: seen the crash, and they watched as yet another Slick
Speaker 1: flew off engine trouble, low fuel, So now just two
Speaker 1: helicopters left.
Speaker 3: The second gunship, Leonard Gonzalez goes across the team and
Speaker 3: takes battle damage and starts trailing blue smoke.
Speaker 4: So whaile this is going going on?
Speaker 3: The Ford air controller is talking to me and he said, damn,
Speaker 3: what are we going to do? I said, well, I'll
Speaker 3: tell you what. This is really a lot of chaos.
Speaker 3: I bet you I can get in there and get him.
Speaker 3: I'm the only one here. Get me low way out,
Speaker 3: throw me in there. I bet you I can sneak
Speaker 3: in there and get him.
Speaker 1: Jim knew what kind of danger was waiting for him
Speaker 1: on the ground, but he and his crew of three
Speaker 1: other guys were in total agreement they had to try, so.
Speaker 3: He puts me low way out to go down the
Speaker 3: river and come back around. So I hit that river
Speaker 3: bank and my right door gunner starts shooting. He says,
Speaker 3: go right, go right, and I'm starting to go down
Speaker 3: the river looking for him, and going right, going right,
Speaker 3: sort of backing up, actually going.
Speaker 4: Down the river.
Speaker 1: The chopper was skimming over the water, flying through the bullets.
Speaker 1: His door gunners and co pilot returned fire and search
Speaker 1: for the team. The SOG teams saw Jim's chopper come in,
Speaker 1: but as they started to move towards it, the woodline
Speaker 1: in front of them erupted with gunfire. There was no
Speaker 1: way for the men to make it to Jim.
Speaker 3: The radio operator says, get out, get out. They got us,
Speaker 3: get out. Jim got out as fast as he could.
Speaker 3: He moved up and away his safety. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Jim had made the man on the ground a promise,
Speaker 1: a promise to come back. Remember no man left behind.
Speaker 1: And now he and the rest of his crew had
Speaker 1: to decide if that was a promise they could keep.
Speaker 1: Daylight was fading and down on the ground. The gunfire
Speaker 1: was so thick you could practically walk on it. Jim
Speaker 1: was desperately low on fuel and Ammo. The last remaining
Speaker 1: gunship with Gonzalez was still trailing smoke. Jim called out
Speaker 1: to him.
Speaker 4: He says, we've got some damn. He says, I got
Speaker 4: to take this home or we're going to live out here.
Speaker 1: We're going to live out here in the jungle. Remember this,
Speaker 1: this is Jim's worst nightmare. But his mind flashed back
Speaker 1: to the men on the ground. They had to get
Speaker 1: them out before dark, if they were going to get
Speaker 1: them out at all.
Speaker 3: I put the nose down, go down the river, and
Speaker 3: as I come up and I look over, there are
Speaker 3: people everywhere. The enemy is now focused in where they are.
Speaker 3: They found him because they saw me. So the enemy
Speaker 3: is starting to go in and I tell the fact,
Speaker 3: bring me in one more time. I know where they
Speaker 3: are now, bring me in one more time. As I
Speaker 3: say that, Leonard Gonzalez says, you going back in and
Speaker 3: said I'm gonna try it one more time. He said,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what he says, follow me. I'll go
Speaker 3: over one more time. I'll give him everything I got,
Speaker 3: and I gotta go home.
Speaker 1: Gonzalez hit the enemy with the final blazing pass.
Speaker 3: He goes over him and he rock and rolls, he
Speaker 3: shoots all his rockets. They give him everything they got
Speaker 3: and he says, see at home, Jim, and he takes off.
Speaker 1: Jim's chopper was the only one left. He started back
Speaker 1: down the river. One of his two gunners, Fred Cook,
Speaker 1: was hanging out the door scanning for the team on
Speaker 1: the ground.
Speaker 3: And as we get further down, we're starting to take
Speaker 3: some pretty good damage and Fred is shooting and yelling and.
Speaker 4: Go right, go right, stop stop. I got him.
Speaker 3: They had made it down to the river bank and
Speaker 3: they were half in the water in the reeds, the
Speaker 3: sort of underbrush and the blades had blown those reeds,
Speaker 3: and we found them.
Speaker 1: Jim knew there was nowhere big enough for him to land,
Speaker 1: but if he hovered just above the water with his
Speaker 1: landing skids against the river bank, the team might be
Speaker 1: able to make it to the chopper. It would be
Speaker 1: a balancing act that required some truly insane piloting skills,
Speaker 1: and it would only work if, by some miracle, his
Speaker 1: helicopter wasn't hit and disabled altogether. Jim hovered the UH
Speaker 1: one against the river bank, his tail boom hanging just
Speaker 1: above the water, and he waited for the saw team
Speaker 1: they spotted it and race forward, but as they did,
Speaker 1: two NVA burst out of the reeds and opened fire.
Speaker 1: The men shot back, and they kept on running.
Speaker 3: So I'm hovering over the water as close as I
Speaker 3: can get to the bank and Fred Cook, God bless him.
Speaker 3: I hear him go hold your hover, hold your hover.
Speaker 3: I got one. And what he's doing is he's leaning
Speaker 3: down and grabbing these guys and jerking them, scrambling them in.
Speaker 1: The chopper was taking fire from all sides now, but
Speaker 1: Jim just kept hanging in there as calmly as a
Speaker 1: mom in the school pickup line. Bullets snapped through the windshield.
Speaker 1: They had four men on the chopper, then five, then six.
Speaker 3: And I'm looking around and I see people darting up
Speaker 3: and just sort of jumping up and down, up and
Speaker 3: down and shooting. And there are seven of them out there.
Speaker 3: We only got six. Now I'm thinking, gosh, maybe they
Speaker 3: got one of them. I've got enough.
Speaker 1: He had enough men, but he didn't have all of them.
Speaker 1: And for Jim, was six really enough. The bullets were
Speaker 1: getting closer. Now he knew there were seconds, not minutes
Speaker 1: away from all of them going up in flames.
Speaker 3: We got to get out of here. Sooner or later,
Speaker 3: they're gonna get us. Brown's going to hit the me
Speaker 3: or is going to hit the engine.
Speaker 1: Where was the seventh guy? Jim knew who he was,
Speaker 1: Randy Harrison, the commanding officer of this group of Green Berets.
Speaker 1: He had volunteered to go on this mission. Jim wanted
Speaker 1: to wait for him, but he knew he was pushing
Speaker 1: his luck too far. He looked over his shoulder one
Speaker 1: last time.
Speaker 3: And as I look over, Randy Harrison jumps up. He's
Speaker 3: a fair haired guy, and he's all painted up, and
Speaker 3: he's got a bandana on because he wore a bandana
Speaker 3: over his light hair. I see him jump up, and
Speaker 3: he looks at me, and I look at him. He
Speaker 3: was the last man, and he waited till everybody was aboard.
Speaker 3: He gave him a last burst of his automatic weapon,
Speaker 3: threw it down, and took off to the helicopter. Randy
Speaker 3: took about four steps and jumped in the water, sort
Speaker 3: of a flying jump in the water, trying to hit
Speaker 3: the helicopter. Missed and took about one stroke in the
Speaker 3: water and got his arm over the skid. And Fred
Speaker 3: Cook reaches down and grabs him by the rooksack and
Speaker 3: yells let's go, and we drug him through the water
Speaker 3: and off we went.
Speaker 1: All of the men were on board, The fuel tanks
Speaker 1: were pretty much empty. The windshield was shattered. Jim hadn't
Speaker 1: even noticed it until he felt the air rushing in
Speaker 1: as the chopper flew away. Not a single man had
Speaker 1: been wounded, and not a single man was left behind.
Speaker 1: After Jim Fleming's daring rescue, he stayed on in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: taking care of his men, bringing them to danger and
Speaker 1: bringing them home. He was wounded in January of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine and spent a few months in the hospital
Speaker 1: in Japan. Then he got picked up by a helicopter,
Speaker 1: of course, to head back to Vietnam. The pilot was
Speaker 1: a friend of his.
Speaker 3: He said, well, Jim, you're going home. I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I got another three or four months of this left.
Speaker 3: He said no, he says you're going home tomorrow. I said,
Speaker 3: I'm going home tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Why.
Speaker 3: He says, the President is nominated here for the Medal
Speaker 3: of Honor. And I said, yeah, great, because we used
Speaker 3: to joke, you know, how can you get.
Speaker 4: Out of here? Well, you can be nominated for the
Speaker 4: Medal of Honor. You have to go home.
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, okay, right, right right. He said no,
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding. He says, you're going home. I'm saying, okay.
Speaker 3: This is a good one.
Speaker 1: It was a good one because it was true. James
Speaker 1: Fleming was awarded the Medal of Honor on May fourteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, by President Nixon at the White House.
Speaker 5: As we think of the beginning of this country one
Speaker 5: hundred and ninety years ago, we think of it as
Speaker 5: the land of the free. We should all be reminded
Speaker 5: that it could not be the land of the free
Speaker 5: if it were not also the home of the brave.
Speaker 5: And today we honor the brave men, the men who
Speaker 5: far beyond the call of duty, serve their country magnificently
Speaker 5: in a war very far away, in a war which
Speaker 5: is many times not understood and not supported by some
Speaker 5: in this country.
Speaker 1: The ceremony took place just ten days after the massacre
Speaker 1: at Kent State University, when members of the Ohio National
Speaker 1: Guard shot into a crowd of unarmed students. The students
Speaker 1: who were protesting the expansion of the war into Cambodia.
Speaker 1: Nine students were wounded, four of them were killed, and
Speaker 1: in response there were angry protests everywhere.
Speaker 4: Washington, d c. Is a battleground. We had escorts everywhere
Speaker 4: we went.
Speaker 1: The tide was really turning against the war in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: but it would take another five years for it to end.
Speaker 1: Jim believes that in all those years, many men did
Speaker 1: exactly what he had done.
Speaker 3: How many helicopter pilots are in Vietnam thousands? How many
Speaker 3: helicopter pilots did what I did and got shot down
Speaker 3: and died no one saw it? Hundreds? I know that.
Speaker 1: While Jim did a return to Vietnam, he stayed on
Speaker 1: in the Air Force. He became a colonel and taught
Speaker 1: at the Officer Training School at Lachlan Air Force Base
Speaker 1: in Texas. He finally retired in nineteen ninety six. By then,
Speaker 1: his decorations included the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross,
Speaker 1: and eight Air medals. To me, what's cool about Jim's
Speaker 1: story isn't just the fireworks, you know, the adrenaline of battle.
Speaker 1: After all, he wasn't rocking and rolling in the gunship.
Speaker 1: He didn't even shoot a gun. He flew a bus.
Speaker 1: But I think that bus was more powerful than any gun.
Speaker 1: Could be because it was a symbol of his rock
Speaker 1: solid reliability. That's what Jim is all about, and he
Speaker 1: feels like that devotion to helping one another is deep
Speaker 1: in our DNA.
Speaker 3: I never picked up an American in combat that did
Speaker 3: not when he got to the helicopter turn around and
Speaker 3: put his hand out to the next guy. Never they automatically,
Speaker 3: no matter how bad things were going. When he hit
Speaker 3: that helicopter, that American turned around and looked for the
Speaker 3: next guy to help him, made sure everybody was there.
Speaker 4: That's who we are, That's who we are.
Speaker 1: Jim left no man behind.
Speaker 4: That was my duty, my honor.
Speaker 3: My job was to take these soldiers into enemy territory,
Speaker 3: to drop them off, to let them do their mission,
Speaker 3: and go back and bring them home.
Speaker 1: All of us understand the importance of showing up, of
Speaker 1: keeping our word, but I think some people feel that
Speaker 1: more deeply, like Jim. Maybe it was because his dad,
Speaker 1: John Fleming, was there for him, showed him the power
Speaker 1: of keeping a promise. Jim kept his promise to those
Speaker 1: seven men in that jungle, and by doing that, he
Speaker 1: gave them the chance to show up for the people
Speaker 1: in their lives, just as Randy Harrison, remember him, the
Speaker 1: last man on the helicopter, the fair hair guy in
Speaker 1: the bandana. Here he is speaking at an event at
Speaker 1: the Air Force Museum in two thousand six sixteen.
Speaker 6: There is an ancient American spiritual, the words to which sorry,
Speaker 6: all right. I looked over Jordan, and what did I
Speaker 6: see coming forward to carrying me home? It was a
Speaker 6: band of angels coming after me, coming ford to carry
Speaker 6: me home. Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low, coming for
Speaker 6: to carrying me home. It would be incredibly presumptuous of
Speaker 6: me to assume that twice in my life a band
Speaker 6: of angels and a sweet chariot will swing low to
Speaker 6: carry me home. But I'll tell you what, if it
Speaker 6: happens again, I'm going to know it before I see it,
Speaker 6: because I've heard the sound of angels wings before. They
Speaker 6: sound like a uh one ten feet off the deck,
Speaker 6: coming in at full speed to carry me home, home
Speaker 6: to a completed college education, home to great work, home
Speaker 6: to wonderful friends, home to marriage, and home to children,
Speaker 6: two sons that I would never have known were it
Speaker 6: not for the Green Hornets on that day in that terrible,
Speaker 6: terrible place.
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor Stories of Courage as written by Meredith
Speaker 1: Rollins and produced by Meredith Rollins and Ryan Swiker. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Lydia gan Kott, Sound design by Jake Gorsky,
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Gonstanza Gayado. Fact checking by Arthur Gomberts,
Speaker 1: and original music by Eric Phillips. Special thanks to the
Speaker 1: series creator Dan McGinn, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society,
Speaker 1: and the National Museum of the Air Force. If you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about this story, take a look
Speaker 1: at our show notes, or we have some of the
Speaker 1: resources we use to put this episode together. We also
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. Send us your personal story
Speaker 1: of courage or highlight someone else's bravery. Email us at
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor at Pushkin dot fm. You might hear
Speaker 1: your stories on future episodes of Metal of Honor, or
Speaker 1: see them on our social channels at Pushkin Pods. I'm
Speaker 1: your host JR. Martinez might have had spen