Speaker 1: Ah, beaut Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military
Speaker 1: news and straight talk with the guys and the community
Speaker 1: soft rep dot com on time on Target. He has
Speaker 1: got to hear Jack Murphy is here. And I gave
Speaker 1: a little recap from Shot Show and from the team
Speaker 1: Room Party for people who earned the episode two episodes ago,
Speaker 1: the one you did in the field. Yes, so cool man,
Speaker 1: but yeah, people probably want to hear from you about
Speaker 1: what you thought of Shot Show. And of course the
Speaker 1: team Room Party. Well, the team Room Party went good.
Speaker 1: It was in a smaller, quieter venue this year, kind
Speaker 1: of off the beaten path in Vegas, and I think
Speaker 1: it was it was good. It was better. It was
Speaker 1: easier for us to like talk to each other or
Speaker 1: talk to the people came to the party meet each other. Actually,
Speaker 1: the food was very good, beer was good, and you know,
Speaker 1: I can't complain. I was happy with it. And I
Speaker 1: think it was just probably a bigger crowd of people
Speaker 1: in terms of members, because I think the few years
Speaker 1: before that that we did the team Room Party at
Speaker 1: the House of Blues, we had some like probably more
Speaker 1: friends who came. But this was a lot of members
Speaker 1: of the site of team remembers, the people that we
Speaker 1: don't know probably what do you think, like a hundred people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was around there, and it was a good mix
Speaker 1: of familiar faces but also people who are brand new
Speaker 1: to the site and also, um, there were even a
Speaker 1: couple of people, Um, James Powell was telling me who
Speaker 1: was who were like, oh, you guys have a website,
Speaker 1: my you know, my wife. Just a great club And
Speaker 1: I wasn't even aware. So that's cool. Is a mix
Speaker 1: of all different people who we gotta do some better
Speaker 1: cross promotion, I guess no, But I think that's that's
Speaker 1: good to see too though, that the Great Club is
Speaker 1: doing really well. And um, yeah, every every part of
Speaker 1: Hurricane Group I think has it's like core uh membership.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's good. Um. The Shot show itself interesting
Speaker 1: as always, in exhausting that that was my seventh year
Speaker 1: in a row. Wow, alright, the Shot Show. So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of like, as far as like the actual show itself,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty burned out on all that. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: I got to see friends of mine, I got to
Speaker 1: see people I haven't seen a long time. I got
Speaker 1: to see guys. You know, I served within range of
Speaker 1: battalion that I haven't seen in years. Um, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's great for that, you know, and it's great for
Speaker 1: seeing some of the software writers who are spread out
Speaker 1: around the country you don't get to see every day,
Speaker 1: so it's a good experience in that sense. He has
Speaker 1: My first time meeting Kurt, who was awesome, first time
Speaker 1: meeting b k Rooman Terius. Uh. And I'm the one
Speaker 1: who tends to know everybody from the site, but even
Speaker 1: Alex I never met. So I had never met Alex
Speaker 1: in person actually, and I said it on two shows
Speaker 1: back when I met Alex. When I met these guys,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like I was meeting a new person.
Speaker 1: Alex is exactly who I to be. Yeah, yeah, Alex was.
Speaker 1: I felt like I had met him before. Um. But
Speaker 1: when it was good, you know, we we have. We
Speaker 1: had a pretty good group of our guys out there too.
Speaker 1: Jason from on Terius. I don't know if you want
Speaker 1: to say James bow No, I mean, he's his name
Speaker 1: is out there, so it doesn't matter. Um, I still
Speaker 1: say James pal Mr Odissean his his name. You can't
Speaker 1: say who else was out there, Kurt, and then of
Speaker 1: course they're a writer for the other sites like Travis Scott. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: Jen's Hammer. Yeah yeah, it's a really good group of guys.
Speaker 1: Miller Mark Miller was there and we were we were
Speaker 1: at a house and like the worst part of Daggan's
Speaker 1: where we heard cops coming by all night. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: we need to do a better job with that. Like,
Speaker 1: and I'm tired of sleeping on the couch. That's not fun.
Speaker 1: But you also came later than other people, so that's
Speaker 1: why that happened. I had a bed. I usually don't
Speaker 1: have a bed. I got a bed last year only
Speaker 1: because we got kicked out of the taj mahole you
Speaker 1: guys were staying in and we were in another like
Speaker 1: rent airbnb house again in the ghetto. I gotta bed
Speaker 1: that time. Um. And then the other thing I gotta
Speaker 1: ask you about is, prior to going the Shot Show,
Speaker 1: you went to what someone says like the Polar Opposite
Speaker 1: with your wife. You went to the March. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: my wife has spent you know, a good bulk of
Speaker 1: her career as a journalist covering um social conflicts and
Speaker 1: protest movements and stuff like that. So she wanted to
Speaker 1: go take a look, and um, we didn't actually see
Speaker 1: the march itself. Like beforehand they have like all the
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're protesters necessarily, I guess so,
Speaker 1: but they have them all corralled like behind these like
Speaker 1: steel fencing and then they released them and they get
Speaker 1: to go march past Trump Tower. Um, so we weren't
Speaker 1: there for that. We just kind of saw like the
Speaker 1: beginnings of it as people were like, oh, going to
Speaker 1: the rally point. Yeah. The Trump Tower thing reminds me, um,
Speaker 1: there is I'll be politically correct on here, even though
Speaker 1: I don't have to be a transgender person I went
Speaker 1: to school with. And it's a picture of this person him,
Speaker 1: her whatever, topless in front of a Trump tower. So
Speaker 1: like that. The Women's March awesome. Uh so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you think of the message or I don't know.
Speaker 1: With all these protest movements, I mean a loose For me,
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard And that's my main problem
Speaker 1: with them. It's really hard to know exactly what it
Speaker 1: is they want. And you know this this goes for
Speaker 1: like Occupy Wall Street, this goes for Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 1: this goes for the Women's March. It's they're all formed
Speaker 1: around this sort of like emotional cathartic experience that they
Speaker 1: want to have, this like sense of togetherness, and we're
Speaker 1: all in opposition to this thing um but like reform wise,
Speaker 1: like what policies do you want put in place? And
Speaker 1: that's my problem with all these protest movements, that they're
Speaker 1: not focused around programmatic reform. So I don't even it
Speaker 1: gets to the point where I don't even know if
Speaker 1: I agree or disagree with them, because I don't know
Speaker 1: what they really stand for. And every single person you
Speaker 1: talked to is probably going to say something different. See,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of in disagreement with you on this. And
Speaker 1: I was at Occupy Wall Street when it happened, which
Speaker 1: was interesting. I wasn't there is like a protester. I
Speaker 1: went to cover it with Will cow and Mike Binns
Speaker 1: and we got some audio yet people who were like,
Speaker 1: they don't know why they're there. It was it was
Speaker 1: just funny. But my feeling, and I said it to
Speaker 1: you when we were, you know, texting back and forth
Speaker 1: for the show. I feel like Occupy Wall Street, Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter, the Women's March, it's it's all one and
Speaker 1: the same. It's all kind of the same message of
Speaker 1: that they want liberal policies, and it's a lot of
Speaker 1: identity politics, so that if you say, I don't stand
Speaker 1: for what the Women's March stands, or oh why do
Speaker 1: you eight women, I don't like Black lives matter? Oh
Speaker 1: why don't you care about it? There's definitely a strong
Speaker 1: undercurrent of identity politics. But that's true throughout all of
Speaker 1: America at the moment. It's all about identity and how
Speaker 1: you identify yourself. I mean, I would say there's no
Speaker 1: right wing um there is, there's nothing that's like a
Speaker 1: white man's well well, I mean we've seen some of that,
Speaker 1: but it's really minor covered. The Women's March is a
Speaker 1: big thing. If you talk to conservatives, their identity is
Speaker 1: very very important to them. I don't think it's as
Speaker 1: important as a lot. It's extremely important, and now they
Speaker 1: identify is extremely important. But the reason I say it's
Speaker 1: all just left wing is all, right, one of these
Speaker 1: these three marches are are left leaning, yeah, and a
Speaker 1: left wing yeah, I'm not, And I think that's all
Speaker 1: that the politics is about. Like I was listening, But
Speaker 1: if you go up to them and you ask what
Speaker 1: would you like your government to do? I think some
Speaker 1: I think the more informed people, Um, there's somebody would
Speaker 1: say they would say they want government to pay for
Speaker 1: birth control the care they want. They want um abortion
Speaker 1: to be legal in all fifty states. It's already legal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they want to make sure that there's not a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice that would overturn Roe v. Wade. That's
Speaker 1: not like a reform, that's not a policy, that's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid the Supreme Court's gonna change, like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I think that's why they want
Speaker 1: to stack Democrats in there. That's one of the main
Speaker 1: rings they do. And you know, but these also they
Speaker 1: want that they want quote women to run what kind
Speaker 1: of women Definitely not republic but no nobody. I mean
Speaker 1: you can look at the women's march or even attended,
Speaker 1: and that's not what you come away with. Like, I
Speaker 1: don't understand what they wanted. I know they are opposed
Speaker 1: to Trump. They don't like sexism. I would say the
Speaker 1: birth because the thing is one policy. You know, they're
Speaker 1: they're very against uh companies opting out of birth control
Speaker 1: for religious reasons. Remember the hobby lobby thing. You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's one message I've seen that I think is
Speaker 1: pretty good. I didn't take that away from it, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, so you know. But I mean I
Speaker 1: also didn't go around and interview people. And if I
Speaker 1: was actually, if I was actually covering the march, I
Speaker 1: would do that. I would go and talk to more
Speaker 1: people and see what their thoughts were. Um, but with
Speaker 1: all these movements, I just come away from it more
Speaker 1: baffled than when I started. What about is one of
Speaker 1: the coherent themes? Trump is literally hitler. I didn't see.
Speaker 1: I didn't see any like signs like that. Well, let
Speaker 1: me think, I don't think I saw anything about like
Speaker 1: Nazis or anything like that that I recall. Well, it's
Speaker 1: just interesting because you go to from there to shot Show,
Speaker 1: which really is the opposite. Because I said this when
Speaker 1: I went to shot Show last year on the podcast
Speaker 1: that and if you think people at the shot Show
Speaker 1: don't have an identity, no, they're not identifying different though
Speaker 1: I think it's I I personally see it as I do,
Speaker 1: I guess just the way I see it as different.
Speaker 1: But um, I said that when I went last year,
Speaker 1: just looking at it objectively, I felt like the people
Speaker 1: walking around SHOT show where the people forgotten about by
Speaker 1: you know the quote coastal elites, Yeah, why did you?
Speaker 1: How did Trump get elected? These are the people that
Speaker 1: many of them elected Trump, and they did feel forgotten about.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, a hundred percent. I agree. And when
Speaker 1: I the last last year SHOT Show, this is hilarious.
Speaker 1: I I walked in the last day of the show,
Speaker 1: and um, it was totally quiet. Like if you ever
Speaker 1: been to the SHOT Show. It's at the Sands Expo Center.
Speaker 1: It is huge, huge, and there's just thousands of thousands
Speaker 1: of people packed in there. And I walk in there
Speaker 1: that last day and it's like you could hear a
Speaker 1: pin drop, and I'm like, oh my god. I thought
Speaker 1: my first thought was it must be because it's the
Speaker 1: last day and everyone's so burned out on partying and drinking,
Speaker 1: like everyone must be hungover and exhausted. But then as
Speaker 1: I'm walking around, I realized they have these projection screens
Speaker 1: all over the place and it's Trump's inauguration and everyone's
Speaker 1: there with like their hand over their heart, like getting
Speaker 1: a little tear eyed, like we're making America great again.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and they were totally quiet, like you literally
Speaker 1: hear a pin drop in this in this convention center. Um.
Speaker 1: And yes, so these are people who have a whole,
Speaker 1: i should say, a whole separate um set of values,
Speaker 1: but a different set of values that isn't um represented
Speaker 1: in the media, um in Hollywood and television. But nonetheless
Speaker 1: it is they are. They do constitute a culture. It's
Speaker 1: a culture. There are people, they have jobs, they have
Speaker 1: families or you know, if they're unemployed, they have problems
Speaker 1: putting food on the table. They have concerns just like
Speaker 1: anyone else in America. And it's not totally a mistake
Speaker 1: that they felt forgotten about. You know, most of the
Speaker 1: most of the poverty in America is white poverty. Most
Speaker 1: of the people on welfare in America is not like
Speaker 1: black welfare mothers in New York City. Although to be fair,
Speaker 1: the people at shot Shore or not. Yeah. And they're
Speaker 1: they're small bit small business owners, large business owners. You know,
Speaker 1: they're successful people. On making a kind of statement about
Speaker 1: people in Middle America, Um, who you know, some of
Speaker 1: them are a lot of them are not doing so
Speaker 1: well and economically the places where they live have been
Speaker 1: neglected and passed over and I think yeah, they absolutely
Speaker 1: responded to Donald Trump because he was coming in. He's like, listen,
Speaker 1: we're gonna focus on America again. We're gonna put America first. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're not going to try to shut down coal factories.
Speaker 1: We're going to try to stimulate American industry and business.
Speaker 1: And whether or not that like the are the jobs
Speaker 1: coming back, that's another debate, and that's like an economic conversations,
Speaker 1: very complicated. Um, but I think that emotionally they responded
Speaker 1: to that. And yeah, these are the people, um from
Speaker 1: you know, not coastal elites like Donald Trump as a
Speaker 1: coastal elite, but um, there are people who live, you know,
Speaker 1: in the Square States, you know, in the middle of America.
Speaker 1: They're not on the left coast or the right coast.
Speaker 1: And um, I think, yeah, it's a culture that has
Speaker 1: been forgotten about and no one really talks about. And
Speaker 1: you know, they responded to that. Yeah, which is a
Speaker 1: nice transition to tonight as a recording this. By the
Speaker 1: time you'll hear it, it will have happened. But is
Speaker 1: the State of the Union address. And the one thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention is there's quite a few Democrats
Speaker 1: who are just not going. Um, I wrote down all
Speaker 1: of them. So there's a representative John Lewis of Georgia,
Speaker 1: Maxine Waters of California, for Rica Wilson and Florida, Premia
Speaker 1: Jaia Paul might be saying that wrong with Washington. Earl
Speaker 1: Bloomin Hour of Oregon, Gregory Meeks of New York, Danny
Speaker 1: Davis of Illinois, Jens Shakowsky of Illinois, Bobby Russia, Illinois. Like,
Speaker 1: it's quite a few people who were just not going,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to look it up. So if
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong on this, feel free to correct me.
Speaker 1: But I'm pretty sure, like unprecedented for this amount of
Speaker 1: people to just not go to the State of the Union.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about before. My feeling is, no matter
Speaker 1: how you feel about this current president, you may not
Speaker 1: be obligated to go to the State of the Union,
Speaker 1: but it is a tradition that you go, you listen
Speaker 1: to this president speak and show your participation in the process.
Speaker 1: And well, I mean Donald Trump himself has broken from
Speaker 1: tradition nearly every single thing. So I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know that one thing justifies the other, you know, But
Speaker 1: I mean personally, I don't care like this is like entertainment. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not about politics. So it's like people like criticizing
Speaker 1: Trump because he plays golf too much. It's like, I
Speaker 1: don't care. I don't, I don't. I don't care about that.
Speaker 1: People would criticize um Obama for playing too much golf.
Speaker 1: People would criticize George W. Bush because he spent too
Speaker 1: much time at his ranch in Texas. I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't care that. That's that's entertainment. That's not about policy,
Speaker 1: that's not about passing legislation. So I mean, like, to me,
Speaker 1: this is like a reality TV like who's going to
Speaker 1: the State of the Union address? Who's not? And I
Speaker 1: can see like already Fox News having like a ticker
Speaker 1: are you going? Are you not going? And here's the
Speaker 1: ones who are going? You're the ones who aren't. Who's
Speaker 1: gonna go? Yeah? Yeah, it definitely you know, as you said,
Speaker 1: this president is certainly broken from tradition himself, but it
Speaker 1: does break from a pretty long tradition in this democracy
Speaker 1: that you go and you watch a president do the
Speaker 1: State of the Union and I think, whether you like
Speaker 1: the guy or not, you should be there. That's that's
Speaker 1: my feeling on it. As we were saying earlier before
Speaker 1: we recorded. You're not obligated to go, but I think
Speaker 1: you should be there, like if you if if you
Speaker 1: ran for Congress and you won. I think for the
Speaker 1: most part, your constituents want to want their voice heard,
Speaker 1: to be there, even though it's not a vote. Nobody's
Speaker 1: voice is gonna be heard as Donald Trump's unless uh
Speaker 1: someone pulls a who was it Congress that yelled at Obama? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that. I'll fact check that, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that one. I think that's more participating in
Speaker 1: the process, honestly, to go and shout something out than
Speaker 1: to not go at all. Again, it's entertainment, and he
Speaker 1: got a ton of donations after that, you know, the
Speaker 1: anti Obama. Crawt was like, I like this guy at
Speaker 1: the balls to shout something out. I'm gonna donate to
Speaker 1: this campaign. I don't want to see America end up
Speaker 1: like having the Taiwanese parliament where they're like throwing fisticuffs.
Speaker 1: You know. British Parliament gets pretty uh pretty crazy too.
Speaker 1: Not they don't throw fisticuffs, but they know they yell
Speaker 1: they yeah, they yell at each other and they criticize
Speaker 1: each other. And Um, American presidents couldn't handle that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think even Obama could handle that. He seemed
Speaker 1: like he kind of had thick skin. Donald Trump, he
Speaker 1: definitely wouldn't be able to handle it. Um. I don't
Speaker 1: think Bush would have been able to handle it either.
Speaker 1: Like American presidents, I don't think they can handle that
Speaker 1: kind of like criticism. It's just not part of our institution.
Speaker 1: Congressmen are kind of being forced to handle it because
Speaker 1: now when they have these town hall meetings there are
Speaker 1: large groups of protesters. You show up, shout shit out, disrupt,
Speaker 1: you know, don't wait for their turn to ask, and
Speaker 1: they want their representative to be like the most extreme
Speaker 1: person possible. Yeah, well in some case, but you know,
Speaker 1: in other cases where let's say it's a Republican congressman,
Speaker 1: they'll have a huge constituency of left wing people, some
Speaker 1: not even in the district be like, you know, why
Speaker 1: don't you want women to have birth control? You fascist
Speaker 1: pig and ship like that. You know, I've seen it.
Speaker 1: I believe it. I believe it. Yeah, And so they
Speaker 1: kind of have to handle that type of stuff when
Speaker 1: when they hold these public town hall meetings and then
Speaker 1: if you don't hold the public town hall meeting, people
Speaker 1: will be like, you don't want to listen to your constituents.
Speaker 1: So I mean that's why I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: smartest people out there are not gonna ever want to
Speaker 1: get into politics because it's like who who wants? Who
Speaker 1: wants to deal with that mess? You know, And that's
Speaker 1: kind of sad. Although you know, this is another precedent
Speaker 1: said like it used to be that if you said
Speaker 1: any you know, remember Bill Quinton, Like I smoked marijuana
Speaker 1: Inhale and it was a huge like oh my god moment.
Speaker 1: At this point, Trump has done at all, Like we've
Speaker 1: talked about him banging born stars, grabbed by the pussy comment, Like,
Speaker 1: I think anything is fair game after that. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: long as you would as long as you admit certain
Speaker 1: things like how Obama even came out and said, like, yes,
Speaker 1: experimented with cocaine in college. No one talked about it
Speaker 1: again because said he did it. Whatever. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: if you own up to that kind of stuff, people
Speaker 1: are more forgiving the understand like, okay, you were a kid,
Speaker 1: like you did some dumb stuff, and you know, if
Speaker 1: you lie about it and then it comes out then
Speaker 1: that becomes a problem, like the same thing like Clinton.
Speaker 1: Even if he had said, yes, I I did in
Speaker 1: fact have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, I think it
Speaker 1: would have been easier for for everybody, whole parties concerned.
Speaker 1: Probably he wouldn't have gotten impete. He would not have
Speaker 1: gotten Yeah that that whole like deposition and yeah, all
Speaker 1: that stuff would not have happened. Yeah, Um, all right,
Speaker 1: listener email before you get to Mike Vining, which I
Speaker 1: know that you are um nerd ing out hardcore. I'm
Speaker 1: super stoked that I have to dial it down a
Speaker 1: little bit because I get all excited when we talked
Speaker 1: to I don't think I've ever seen you more excited
Speaker 1: to have a guest on. So yeah, I mean I've
Speaker 1: I've wanted to have a Sergeant Major vinding on for
Speaker 1: a long time. He's just a fascinating guy. He has
Speaker 1: a wealth of knowledge locked up in his mind that
Speaker 1: he can share with you. It's gonna be great. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, right before we get to that email sent
Speaker 1: to soft Rep dot Radio at soft rerep dot com.
Speaker 1: I thought this was a really good one. Um, and
Speaker 1: keep them coming high, lads. I've recently been getting right
Speaker 1: into your podcast. As a serving member of Australian soft
Speaker 1: I really love what you're putting out. My question for
Speaker 1: you today is this, what is your feeling towards the
Speaker 1: current trend of soft personnel being brought more and more
Speaker 1: into the public eye. Does the boost and recruitment from
Speaker 1: all these books and movies come at the cost of
Speaker 1: t tps potentially being gleaned by hostile stakeholders. I see
Speaker 1: videos of the Taliban's Red Unit and can't help them
Speaker 1: think that this may be a result of one too
Speaker 1: many seal videos popping up on YouTube. What other considerations
Speaker 1: are there for doing this? Love your work, so please
Speaker 1: keep doing what you're doing. And he uh signs simply
Speaker 1: as see. So those are some really interesting comments. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'll say there's a very big cultural difference between
Speaker 1: the Australians and the United States and as far as
Speaker 1: how they regard special operations and how they handle it.
Speaker 1: And it's not true just for Australia also UM, the
Speaker 1: European countries. UM, for the Canadians. I met with some
Speaker 1: Canadian special operations guys that shot UM. The everything for
Speaker 1: those countries is like super super sensitive, super political. UM.
Speaker 1: Austral in special operations. Whenever they have their pictures taken,
Speaker 1: they're wearing Bala clavas and ski masks and stuff, because
Speaker 1: we can't compromise our identity and the terrorists will know
Speaker 1: who we are. They'll come and kill our families. And uh,
Speaker 1: they go and they do. They'll do a mission like
Speaker 1: a foreign internal defense mission overseas and that is like
Speaker 1: the deepest, darkest secret of say Australia, that is like
Speaker 1: super classified. Nobody talks about that. In the United States,
Speaker 1: we'll send special Forces out to do a similar mission
Speaker 1: and there's like a press release. It's like completely out
Speaker 1: in the open and they'll interview at Special Forces members
Speaker 1: but they're not wearing any masks. And here we are,
Speaker 1: we're training uh you know, our host nation partners in
Speaker 1: uh you know this West African country and this is
Speaker 1: kind of what we're doing over here. And it's all good.
Speaker 1: It's totally different, like cultural differences and how we handle things.
Speaker 1: And um, I think part of it is because America
Speaker 1: has there's a bunch of different reasons why, but I
Speaker 1: think America, you know, we're a democracy, as is Australia,
Speaker 1: but we also have the freedom of speech, freedom of
Speaker 1: the press, and UM, we're just much bigger, you know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of the We're the world leader, world's most
Speaker 1: powerful military. So our approach to public engagement is different
Speaker 1: by necessity. UM the does is it a good thing
Speaker 1: or a bad thing that special operations soldiers are more
Speaker 1: in the limelight than they were in the past. Um,
Speaker 1: I think it has both good and bad aspects. Uh.
Speaker 1: I really do believe that in a democratic country like
Speaker 1: the United States, that there has to be public engagement,
Speaker 1: that the taxpayers should know that this is where your
Speaker 1: money is going towards that you have this capability. You
Speaker 1: have this unit that does unconventional warfare. Um, you have
Speaker 1: this unit that does counter terrorism. And this is a
Speaker 1: little bit about them and what they do and why.
Speaker 1: And that's really important because in a democracy, you need
Speaker 1: public support for these people for these capabilities, and these
Speaker 1: units need um, congressional support, they need congressional funding. So
Speaker 1: there has to be some sort of like engagement and
Speaker 1: back and forth, especially when UM, we live in a
Speaker 1: time where like what's the statistic like point zero five
Speaker 1: percent of Americans serving the militaries around that currently. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of veterans, but who are draftees
Speaker 1: from Vietnam and World War Two. But like people in
Speaker 1: modern my generation, you know, a very small number of
Speaker 1: Americans are serving, and a lot of those who serve
Speaker 1: are serving because their dads were in the military. So
Speaker 1: it becomes almost like a family tradition. UM. And so
Speaker 1: when you have so many people in America who have
Speaker 1: never served in the military, it becomes even more important
Speaker 1: to have that sort of UM education and public relations
Speaker 1: to reach out to them and talk to them and say,
Speaker 1: these are your soldiers. They're they're serving you in your country,
Speaker 1: and you should know about them. It doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: have to know everything. It doesn't mean that you have
Speaker 1: to be a military you know nerd like I am.
Speaker 1: But you should know something about them, and you should
Speaker 1: know why we're sending these guys overseas and why some
Speaker 1: of them come home in body bags. You know. So
Speaker 1: that's really important. UM. But it does have negative aspects
Speaker 1: and it can turn into like a feeding frenzy. You
Speaker 1: know there's um uh one person I know, a retired
Speaker 1: Special Forces officer, you know, he said, we call ourselves
Speaker 1: the quiet professionals. UM. That it can become a problem
Speaker 1: if we're the silent professionals and we say nothing, and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, the we should really put the
Speaker 1: emphasis on professional rather than quiet. You know, it's okay
Speaker 1: to talk, it's okay to um, you know, discuss what
Speaker 1: you did in the military, but we should probably be
Speaker 1: professional about it. And that's something that I've even thought
Speaker 1: about as I'm writing my memoir right now, which is
Speaker 1: something I didn't want to do for a long time.
Speaker 1: But as I'm writing this book, I'm thinking about what
Speaker 1: do I want to say and how do I want
Speaker 1: to say it? And I, UM, I want to be
Speaker 1: candid and honest about you know, myself and mistakes I made,
Speaker 1: UM also about the good things I did, but I
Speaker 1: also want to be honest about the war in general
Speaker 1: and like what went right and what went wrong. But
Speaker 1: I don't want it to be like unprofessional. I don't
Speaker 1: want it to be like you know, a Facebook rant.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't really want it to be like that.
Speaker 1: So UM, that's something to think about, I think, and
Speaker 1: I think all veterans should um think about that. And
Speaker 1: I encouraged them to share their experiences UM and just
Speaker 1: think about how they want to represent themselves and how
Speaker 1: they want to represent the military. Uh. And the last
Speaker 1: point I thought that that this are this reader brought up,
Speaker 1: which I think is very interesting, is about the enemy
Speaker 1: starting up Special Forces quote unquote units, and is that
Speaker 1: because they saw too many Seal Team six television shows
Speaker 1: or something that's part of it. I do think that's
Speaker 1: part of it. That they see this is the cool thing,
Speaker 1: so we want to be cool too. I've seen cool
Speaker 1: guy videos that rebel groups made in Syria that are like,
Speaker 1: holy crap, Like these guys are dressing like a Call
Speaker 1: of Duty characters. They're trying to look like American Special Operations.
Speaker 1: They're riding dirt bikes and they're going in and shooting
Speaker 1: up people. And I think part of that is they
Speaker 1: see RPR and they're trying to replicate it. The other
Speaker 1: thing we have to consider is that there's been people
Speaker 1: like me, people like this writer, this guy who says
Speaker 1: he's in Australian Special Operations. They've been over to Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: And what's also happening is that the enemy is getting
Speaker 1: smarter by fighting us. So we fight them, they lose,
Speaker 1: they get their guys get killed, and they also learned
Speaker 1: from that experience. It's military Darwinism. So they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we need to start doing what those guys do because
Speaker 1: we want to win. So the enemy gets stronger by
Speaker 1: fighting us. And there's also some counterinsurgency theory about this
Speaker 1: um that whenever a strong power fights a weaker power,
Speaker 1: the stronger power gets weaker, the weaker power gets stronger.
Speaker 1: There's some inverse relationships there. So that's a that's a
Speaker 1: kind of a second and third word or effect of
Speaker 1: the war on Terror. We also need to consider, well
Speaker 1: said man. I mean, if you guys heard that little
Speaker 1: chirp as uh Jack was speaking before, that was actually
Speaker 1: UM Army Sergeant Major Mike Vining, and he was saying,
Speaker 1: I'm set to go, let's bring him on, Let's give
Speaker 1: him a call. So joining us for the first time
Speaker 1: on Software Radio, and I know you're very excited for Jack.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have on the U S Army Sergeant
Speaker 1: Major Mike Vining, one of the original Delta Force operators,
Speaker 1: attended the first ever Operators Training course, which is OTC,
Speaker 1: and he's now working at the National e O D
Speaker 1: Association and the e O D Warrior Foundation. And it's
Speaker 1: an honor to have you on sir, thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be on. Yeah, thanks Mike. I mean it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know you uh, you know, just for some of
Speaker 1: the readers who perhaps are familiar. You know, Sergeant Major
Speaker 1: Vining helped me out a little bit when I was writing,
Speaker 1: uh an article about blue Light, which was, um, you know,
Speaker 1: one of America's first counter terrorism units and uh, Mike
Speaker 1: Vining was one of the original Delta Force operators. So
Speaker 1: to kind of understand the history of counter terrorism, I
Speaker 1: think you have to understand both of these units and
Speaker 1: the interplay between the two of them. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I found that Sergeant Major Vining just has a wealth
Speaker 1: of knowledge and a lot of information. You know, Like
Speaker 1: I've said in the past, this is like a living history.
Speaker 1: You know, these things aren't necessarily written down in books,
Speaker 1: and if you want to understand them, you have to
Speaker 1: go and find the actual people who are there and
Speaker 1: uh and maybe they'll talk to you and um, you know.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to have h Sergeant Major Vining
Speaker 1: on today to really discuss, you know, his military career.
Speaker 1: He served for a long time, um, continues to stay
Speaker 1: engaged in the community, and UM, I just think he
Speaker 1: has a fascinating experience. Thanks. Thanks jack Um. Do you
Speaker 1: want to talk about you know, your service began and
Speaker 1: uh in the Vietnam War. You want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you came into the military and
Speaker 1: some of your early experiences and e O. D. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I came into the Army in nineteen I had just
Speaker 1: graduated from high school. Two weeks after I graduation high
Speaker 1: school had joined the Army. UM. So I was interested
Speaker 1: in the Army bomb disposal program, but you couldn't enlist
Speaker 1: for it. You had to enlist for another school and
Speaker 1: have an MS before you were selected to go to
Speaker 1: the explosive Ordinance Disposal program. So I went in the Army,
Speaker 1: went to Basic Training Fort Knox. I took my A
Speaker 1: I t at red Stone, which was Ammunition Renovation Charlie
Speaker 1: UH so that I would learn about ammunition. And it
Speaker 1: was there during the part of the school we had
Speaker 1: to go out to the e O. D Range and
Speaker 1: dispose of munitions that were unserviceable. E O. D. Taught
Speaker 1: us how to dispose of these unserviceable munitions, and of
Speaker 1: course they asked for volunteers and then I volunteered. So
Speaker 1: right from the school, Ammunition school I went into went
Speaker 1: down to Fort mccollin for two weeks Phase one e
Speaker 1: O D school, Chemical phase bio phase, and then went
Speaker 1: to the Surface School Indian Head, Maryland. And uh, that's
Speaker 1: about a twelve fourteen week school Indian Head in Maryland.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's the proponent for video D is the Navy.
Speaker 1: The Navy runs the school today the school is at
Speaker 1: Egglin Air Force Base and the Navy is still the
Speaker 1: proponent for e O D. And uh. Then after you
Speaker 1: O D School, I went to tech Escort in Edgewood, Arsenal, Maryland. Um,
Speaker 1: but I really wanted to go to Vietnam. That was
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of me and listing Um, was to
Speaker 1: go to Vietnam to serve my country and to see
Speaker 1: what the ground truth was in Vietnam. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people talked about whether we should be there
Speaker 1: or not. Most of those people who talked about it
Speaker 1: never were there. Um, And so I wanted to find
Speaker 1: out for myself. So I put in paperwork three times
Speaker 1: before I got orders came down on orders for Vietnam.
Speaker 1: So so you were you had to you know, Luckily,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of draftees kind of went straight
Speaker 1: to Vietnam after their initial training. It sounds like, you know,
Speaker 1: you had quite a bit of training before you landed
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. Well, yes, in the U D program, they
Speaker 1: wanted you to before you They didn't want to send
Speaker 1: you right from e O D School to Vietnam. They
Speaker 1: wanted you to spend a east a year in the
Speaker 1: field working doing E O D work prior to going
Speaker 1: to Vietnam. Now that changed later in the war, and
Speaker 1: I knew several people that went right from school to Vietnam.
Speaker 1: But they wanted you to have at least year's experience
Speaker 1: before you went to Vietnam. And when you when you
Speaker 1: arrived in country, Um, and you started to do your job.
Speaker 1: I know you were involved in disposing of some fairly large,
Speaker 1: you know, caches of enemy munitions. What did you find
Speaker 1: in Vietnam? What? What was the ground truth you uncovered there?
Speaker 1: What was the ground truth in Vietnam? Um? My opinion
Speaker 1: was that, you know, in the rural countryside, it didn't
Speaker 1: matter who, what, what form of government was in Saigon. Um,
Speaker 1: they were still going to go out and harvest their rice,
Speaker 1: and and life was still gonna you know, they were
Speaker 1: just trying to lived subsistence out in the real country.
Speaker 1: You know, you had a corrupt government, pretty corrupt in place. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't know all about the you know,
Speaker 1: the reasons why and stuff like that. But as far
Speaker 1: as e O D went, I learned in one year,
Speaker 1: you know, I learned, But what you know, it would
Speaker 1: probably take at least ten years to learn state side.
Speaker 1: It was an intense one year. What as a you know,
Speaker 1: bomb disposal technician, what was you know, your actual job?
Speaker 1: What did that consist of? I mean, I can certainly
Speaker 1: talk about some of the experiences are seeing e O D.
Speaker 1: Guys work in Iraq when I was over there. But
Speaker 1: what was it like for Vietnam? Um doing your job there? Well,
Speaker 1: I I was signed to the ninety nine Ordinance Detachment
Speaker 1: EO D. At FuG then Uh is also known as
Speaker 1: Camp gor Vad. It was later changed to Cap Casey,
Speaker 1: named after General Casey of the First Calf who died
Speaker 1: I think in May nine seventy his plane, his helicopter
Speaker 1: and they ran into a mountain and everybody on board
Speaker 1: his helicopter was killed. So they named Fire Support Base
Speaker 1: after him. This for the job, we would were like
Speaker 1: a fire department we had a ten man unit. We
Speaker 1: would wait for the call to come in. Some unit
Speaker 1: would request, usually through the brigade. First we supported for
Speaker 1: all of first Calves, First Calorie Divisions operations UH in
Speaker 1: the northwest corner of three Corps. We supported a little
Speaker 1: bit of first Infantry Division in our area and one
Speaker 1: ninety ninth Light Infantry Brigade. So anybody called us they
Speaker 1: had a booby trap, they came across an enemy bunker
Speaker 1: complex that was booby trapped, before they would move in.
Speaker 1: They would call us. UM if they found some tunnels
Speaker 1: and stuff that proved too dangerous, like in one case,
Speaker 1: this office lieutenant went into a tunnel and there was
Speaker 1: booby trapped. He was actually blown out of the tunnel
Speaker 1: grenade and wounded and invact and meta act. So after that,
Speaker 1: nobody would go into the tunnel, So then we went
Speaker 1: into the tunnel. UM. You know, if they find dead
Speaker 1: ordinance out in the field, like a five pound bomb
Speaker 1: that didn't go off, they call us and we'd get
Speaker 1: rid of it and you know, the enemy cash sites
Speaker 1: were dispose of it. Any any problem like that with ordinance,
Speaker 1: they would give us a call and we would fly in.
Speaker 1: Normally in two man teams. Uh, they would provide us transportation.
Speaker 1: We'd go to the helicopter, pad, get on the helicopter,
Speaker 1: go in, link up with the team. Sometimes have to
Speaker 1: walk into the site and do the mission and fly
Speaker 1: out and go to the next mission. Most missions just
Speaker 1: were day missions, but some of the missions were as
Speaker 1: long as a week. That must have been a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting experience as a young man that, you know, you
Speaker 1: suddenly have a lot of responsibility put on you and
Speaker 1: you're working. It sounds like just you and one other guy. Yes,
Speaker 1: we operated just usually in two man teams. Depending you know,
Speaker 1: we might request more O d uh, depending on the
Speaker 1: size of the operation, would ask for help. But normally
Speaker 1: we would fly in. We would have three days worth
Speaker 1: the food and water that we would carry. I carry
Speaker 1: two haversacks one to two haversacks of explosives, so either
Speaker 1: pounds of C four priming systems and everything, and we'd
Speaker 1: fly in. If we needed anything more than that, the
Speaker 1: unit that was on the ground would have to supply
Speaker 1: us with more explosives, bring it in and after after
Speaker 1: your year in Vietnam, you know when you returned home, Well,
Speaker 1: could you talk a little bit about coming back home
Speaker 1: and I could take it. You wanted to remain in
Speaker 1: the military, No, I didn't. I am Vietnam war was
Speaker 1: winding down. When I got I was asked to extend
Speaker 1: UH and I was asked to do some work, classified
Speaker 1: work in Cambodia where you'd wear civilian clothes. But everything
Speaker 1: was winding down, so I didn't think the military was
Speaker 1: for me. So I actually was discharged after and I
Speaker 1: was out for two and a half years. UH. I
Speaker 1: went to Michigan. I worked for its company that as
Speaker 1: a press operator building stamping out body parts for Ford
Speaker 1: cars in Michigan. UM. But after two and a half
Speaker 1: years of doing that and seeing that this job was
Speaker 1: really a you know, going nowhere is a good paying job,
Speaker 1: but really I wasn't satisfied. UM, I tried to go
Speaker 1: back in. And this is course after Vietnam, you know,
Speaker 1: the army was downsizing. At first they said, um, I
Speaker 1: couldn't go back into the army. They said they weren't
Speaker 1: taking anybody. But then when I checked later, they said
Speaker 1: that I could go back in, but it'd have to
Speaker 1: go back in as e O D. And I said
Speaker 1: that's great. So I went back in in October of
Speaker 1: seventy three and I was assigned to the sixty three
Speaker 1: Ordinance Detachment EO D at Fort leonard Wood, Missouri. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about your friend um Ken Foster who passed away in
Speaker 1: what you know what today the public knows quite well
Speaker 1: as an I E D. At that time. I you know,
Speaker 1: I imagine it wasn't something that's in the public consciousness
Speaker 1: the way it is today. No, it wasn't. Uh one
Speaker 1: of the things you do in E O D. Is
Speaker 1: you do uh secrets of HISS V I P support
Speaker 1: You know all today all four services provide support for
Speaker 1: bomb disposal, support for Secret Service, the military. Does you know,
Speaker 1: to go into any place of building that he's got,
Speaker 1: there's a speaking engagement. It's the military U D that
Speaker 1: worked with the Secret Service that go in and help
Speaker 1: clear that area and then stand by in case something's discovered.
Speaker 1: So nineteen seventy six I spent the that year basically
Speaker 1: on the road doing Secret Service support the presidential campaign
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy six. It was in Quincy, Illinois in
Speaker 1: October of seventy six. I don't recall the exact day,
Speaker 1: but we were. Senator Bob Dole was speaking in Quincy, Illinois.
Speaker 1: He was running for Ford as Ford's vice president. So
Speaker 1: we he was speaking at the high school. And uh
Speaker 1: so after his speaking engagement was done that evening, Ken
Speaker 1: Foster and I, we were working as a two man team,
Speaker 1: we went to help to eat for supper and while
Speaker 1: we were eating, we heard explosions going off in town.
Speaker 1: So they County Sheriff, the Secret Service and another two
Speaker 1: man you D team responded to these the explosion site.
Speaker 1: One at a bridge. Uh there was four explosions at
Speaker 1: this um. There's three explosions at this cult compressor factory.
Speaker 1: And they just went and responded, you know, just seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of damage at the bridge and at the factory.
Speaker 1: But there at that time there was no threat called in.
Speaker 1: There was just these explosions going off in town. So
Speaker 1: the next morning, uh, Senator Doe was leaving by charter
Speaker 1: plane at the airport. We searched all the luggage and
Speaker 1: stuff that was going on the charter plane. And uh
Speaker 1: while we were doing that, a bomb threat came in
Speaker 1: against Senator Dole at the airport and so but we
Speaker 1: knew we had searched everything. We did a good job.
Speaker 1: So we said, there's nothing more here to do. So
Speaker 1: they got on the airplane and took off and everything
Speaker 1: was fine. County Sheriff asked us to go out after
Speaker 1: we got released from Secret Service support, to go out
Speaker 1: and look at the damage and just to give our
Speaker 1: opinion of what took place that night. So we went
Speaker 1: out there and at the cold compressor factory, the fire
Speaker 1: they were doing a continued the search the fire department
Speaker 1: was and then they found another bomb that had not
Speaker 1: gone off. I E ed or back then it was
Speaker 1: just a homemade momb It was several sticks of dynamite,
Speaker 1: a large alarm clock, a six vote battery. So they
Speaker 1: took a polaroid of it and where the bomb was
Speaker 1: actually placed in a trailer of a truck. The whole
Speaker 1: trailer of this truck was a compressor. That's what they
Speaker 1: made at the factory. So they took a picture. Then
Speaker 1: they closed the sliding door on the bomb, and then
Speaker 1: when we got there, we were told that they had
Speaker 1: found a bomb that had not exploded, and then we
Speaker 1: sat look at the polaroid picture. But you had to
Speaker 1: walk down between these parked truck trailers narrow and uh
Speaker 1: so Ken Foster said he'd go down and do a recon.
Speaker 1: The Illinois Arson Inspector was there. He he wanted to
Speaker 1: go down and look at it too. They were just
Speaker 1: going down for a recon. I was getting the tools
Speaker 1: ready in case we have to do something. So Ken
Speaker 1: went down. The arts inspector stayed out of little ways.
Speaker 1: Ken went down opening up the sliding door in No,
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what happened, but we believe when
Speaker 1: he opened up the sliding door, he looked at the
Speaker 1: alarm clock. And what they had done is took a
Speaker 1: screw put it through the face of the clock, and
Speaker 1: so it was when one of the hands on the
Speaker 1: clock hits the screw, it connects the deta. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that time delay, but what but what happens sometimes
Speaker 1: is what these people. There's usually paint or varnish on
Speaker 1: the hands, so it doesn't make good electrical contact. So
Speaker 1: we believe the bombs were all went off about the
Speaker 1: same time. This one had timed down but failed to
Speaker 1: go off. It wasn't making good electrical contact, so I
Speaker 1: believe Kan thought he needed to do something right then.
Speaker 1: So normally what you do is remove the blasting cap
Speaker 1: try to remove it out of the dynamite. I think
Speaker 1: that's what he was trying to do, and that slight
Speaker 1: movement just moved it enough so it made better electrical
Speaker 1: contact and it detonated, killing Ken instantly. That has got
Speaker 1: to be one scary job. Yeah, I mean you're staring
Speaker 1: down the barrel of a gun so to speak. Yes,
Speaker 1: so yeah, but once they found that bomb, they stopped
Speaker 1: searching for any other explosive devices, so before you know,
Speaker 1: there was nothing. Ken was killed instantly. He was very
Speaker 1: close to the explosion site and um so we had
Speaker 1: to continue to make sure the area was safe and
Speaker 1: then we got the corner down there and put Ken
Speaker 1: in a body bag. So we had you know, there
Speaker 1: was four of us on the team. We had drove
Speaker 1: up from four Bragg to Quincy, Illinois, and then only
Speaker 1: three of us, you know, drove back. So that's lonely. Also,
Speaker 1: I didn't after that bomb went off and killed Ken,
Speaker 1: another bomb threat came in at the high school, so
Speaker 1: they had to evacuate the high school. So we went
Speaker 1: to the high school and we contact you know a
Speaker 1: few teachers and people and like the janitors and told
Speaker 1: them to quit you know, look at you know, go
Speaker 1: around the building in high school to see if there's
Speaker 1: something there that's out of place, that's not normally supposed
Speaker 1: to be there, because you know, we go into a
Speaker 1: high school, you know, we don't know what's supposed to
Speaker 1: be there and not supposed to be there. So the
Speaker 1: people that worked there no better. So they did a
Speaker 1: search of the building and found nothing, but had a
Speaker 1: couple more bomb threats come in and then we were
Speaker 1: relieved by another E O D team from Granite City, Illinois.
Speaker 1: What was the motivation for the bombing, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know that today. It was a two juveniles, teenagers
Speaker 1: and a I think he was twenty eight year old, uh,
Speaker 1: that had planted the bombs there. The juveniles were acquitted
Speaker 1: in trial. Uh. The the twenty eight year old. Trying
Speaker 1: to think of what his sense was, it was a
Speaker 1: he didn't he didn't get a sentence for murder. It
Speaker 1: was for a manslaughter or charge because he didn't intend
Speaker 1: to hurt anybody. He was just destroying property. I think
Speaker 1: his ex girl, former girlfriend worked there. Um, she's the
Speaker 1: one that actually tipped off the police and turned her
Speaker 1: boy ex boyfriend in And so basically he had spent
Speaker 1: a few years in jail, and just recently the guy
Speaker 1: who planted the bombs, his daughter contacted me just I
Speaker 1: mean just maybe a month or two ago, and she
Speaker 1: emailed me. And she was ten years old at the time.
Speaker 1: Her dad did that, and she had heard stories, but
Speaker 1: she never she never knew she was I knew the truth.
Speaker 1: So she mailed me and wanted to know the truth,
Speaker 1: what happened, what did her dad do really do and
Speaker 1: all that. So I gave her a copy of my report,
Speaker 1: and I gave her a copy of the newspaper, clipping
Speaker 1: scan copies and gave it to her. That was kind
Speaker 1: of interesting being hearing from the guy who built the
Speaker 1: bomb's daughter asked, I mean, it's kind of the past
Speaker 1: coming full circle. You know. It is this gentleman was
Speaker 1: killed all those years ago, Ken Foster, and you know
Speaker 1: it continues to haunt the people involved. Yeah, and his
Speaker 1: daughter apologized for her dad. You know, it's just sorry
Speaker 1: that her dad did all that. And each one of
Speaker 1: these experiences in Vietnam and then the presidential campaign. I
Speaker 1: mean it sounds like was a learning experience for you
Speaker 1: as an e O D tech and UM and I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you next, you know, how did you
Speaker 1: you know it's the nineteen seventies. How did you initially
Speaker 1: hear or learn that there was some sort of new
Speaker 1: outfit being stood up, that there's some sort of counter
Speaker 1: terrorism endeavor? How did you come to be involved in
Speaker 1: all of that? That's a good question. I was actually
Speaker 1: getting bored with State Side e O D. Going down
Speaker 1: to the hand garnade range and destroying the hand garnade
Speaker 1: that somebody throw down range that forgot to pull the
Speaker 1: pin out, or and they would wait till the end
Speaker 1: of the day to call and say they got a
Speaker 1: dead grenade down at the end and on the hand
Speaker 1: grenade range. Um, it was just getting boring state Side
Speaker 1: e O D in the nineteen seventies. So I decided
Speaker 1: I wanted to go into Special Forces. I took e
Speaker 1: m T training after Kena UM. There was nothing I
Speaker 1: could have done even with e m T training, but
Speaker 1: I didn't went through the U D pro I mean
Speaker 1: the Emergency Medical Technician program UM. And then I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to Special Forces as a medic. I put
Speaker 1: in a request for medic Special Forces school and it
Speaker 1: was approved and I had a school day. Meanwhile, uh,
Speaker 1: sergeant major at our Control Detachment got wind of a
Speaker 1: new unit being formed up at Fort Bragg and they
Speaker 1: were looking for some E O D texts to join
Speaker 1: the unit. They wanted six U U D texts, preferably
Speaker 1: n C O s that had Vietnam experience. So the
Speaker 1: sergeant major gave me the phone number. I called up
Speaker 1: and talked to an admin guy at Fort Bragg at
Speaker 1: the stock A the old Butler's Buttoner Road, the old
Speaker 1: socaid there at Fort Bragg, and they asked told him
Speaker 1: who I was, you know a little bit about myself,
Speaker 1: and they said would you want to come for an interview?
Speaker 1: And I said, sure, I'd come to. So I came
Speaker 1: to for an interview, and then two weeks later I
Speaker 1: was assigned to this new unit being formed up at
Speaker 1: Fort Bragg. Colonel Charlie back With was the commanding officer.
Speaker 1: And UH, that was the beginning of the first Special
Speaker 1: Forces Operational Detachment DELTA. And at what point did you
Speaker 1: get wind that, like, actually, this was kind of a
Speaker 1: big deal, this unit that you just volunteered for. I
Speaker 1: got with the sergeant major UH gave me up phone number.
Speaker 1: I called, and within maybe two or three days I
Speaker 1: had t d Y orders to go to Fort Bragg
Speaker 1: for an interview. UM. I went from my interview. Two
Speaker 1: weeks after the interview, I was signed. It was to
Speaker 1: the unit that was b March of nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: I was assigned. The units formed up in November of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven UH on smoke Bomb Hill. They had
Speaker 1: an old World War two m barracks that they started up.
Speaker 1: Then then they got the stockade. There was about two
Speaker 1: or three prisoners in the stockade. They put him in
Speaker 1: the county jail, Cumberland County Jail, and we took over
Speaker 1: the stock aide. So it was kind of and we
Speaker 1: had to take up, you know, going there with torches,
Speaker 1: cut out the jail cells and re and we did
Speaker 1: all the work ourselves to remodify the stockade that turned
Speaker 1: it into our headquarters. What was that like those first
Speaker 1: couple of years that, you know, standing up any unit
Speaker 1: from scratch, um, you know, if I helped stand up UM,
Speaker 1: you know my battalion in fifth Special Forces Group, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's always a painful experience. Well, what was that
Speaker 1: like for you standing up this new unit and building
Speaker 1: this new capability that America didn't have at the time.
Speaker 1: It was it was it was really interesting. It was
Speaker 1: a UM we they were getting ready as soon as
Speaker 1: we got there, they were getting ready to start the
Speaker 1: first Operator Training Course O t C one. So we
Speaker 1: went through. We did the you know, we did a
Speaker 1: eighteen mile night road march, the five event PT test,
Speaker 1: the swim test. The O D guys that were selected
Speaker 1: to go through O t C we did not go
Speaker 1: through the selection Assessment course that the other guys did.
Speaker 1: We just jumped in with it through the Operator Training
Speaker 1: course and so that was like a five month program,
Speaker 1: the Operator Training Course, and then after we finished the
Speaker 1: Operator Training course, then the D folks that went through
Speaker 1: had to go through and pass the Selection Assessment course
Speaker 1: that fall fall of seventy eight. So we kind of
Speaker 1: did it backwards. We went to we went to O
Speaker 1: t C, then we went to Selection Assessment. Not only
Speaker 1: two of us made it through Selection Assessment No TC
Speaker 1: one E O D types and then we had to
Speaker 1: go to jump school. Yeah, you're right, so you did
Speaker 1: in reverse order we did, and uh, what what did it?
Speaker 1: What was OTC like at that point I learned in
Speaker 1: a previous conversation you mentioned how UM you know, a
Speaker 1: gentleman from the S A S had come down and
Speaker 1: helped teach marksmanship, and there's a lot of skill sets
Speaker 1: that I've come to learn that the Brits were actually
Speaker 1: a little bit further ahead of us at that point
Speaker 1: in time. They were um Uh. Colonel Beckworth had spent
Speaker 1: time with the British s A S. So he would
Speaker 1: and he modeled us after the British S A S. Uh.
Speaker 1: The d c O. Bucky Burris, he he had actually
Speaker 1: gone through the S A S School, the complete school,
Speaker 1: and spent time with the S A S. So we
Speaker 1: were our selection assessment, our training, everything was modeled on
Speaker 1: the British S A S. We had instructors come over
Speaker 1: from the S A S and teach us marksmanship where
Speaker 1: we learned how to double tap. The biggest thing that
Speaker 1: we we would shoot. One of the things that was
Speaker 1: funny is that three by five cards. Our targets were
Speaker 1: three by five I don't we shot up a bunch
Speaker 1: of three by five cards, but uh, that was our
Speaker 1: main targets to hit hit that small of an area.
Speaker 1: Did a lot of shooting. Usually all all the morning
Speaker 1: were spent in some form of shooting, whether it be
Speaker 1: out in the rain shooting with forty five or shoot
Speaker 1: with our M three grease guns. That's what we had
Speaker 1: for an assault rifle, was the M three grease gun.
Speaker 1: And and back With had all of our sites cut
Speaker 1: off our grease guns, so we had to instinctively fire. Um.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of funny stuff. We played
Speaker 1: a lot of football for Pt. Back with be out
Speaker 1: there with the whistle, you know he was. He was
Speaker 1: on the football team when he went to University of Georgia,
Speaker 1: So we were out there. We would play football through
Speaker 1: the wall. Um. We did a lot of brick pete
Speaker 1: and brick pet is that we had these red bricks
Speaker 1: and we would have to hold them straight out and
Speaker 1: do different exercises arm strengthening exercises with these red bricks. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was. It was quite interesting. Could you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your teammates in the unit, that first
Speaker 1: generation of guys. I mean, who were these men? What
Speaker 1: were they like? Well, most a lot of them were
Speaker 1: Special Forces in rangers UM and came in a lot
Speaker 1: of them. We had a few them that were on
Speaker 1: the Sante Raid. UM. Jack Joplin was on the Sante Raid.
Speaker 1: Dick Meadows was on Sante raid Um. So we had
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that spent UH in Fifth Group
Speaker 1: in Vietnam UM and we had rangers and so. But
Speaker 1: back with his vision for a counter terrorist unit was
Speaker 1: that he did not want to be locked in with
Speaker 1: certain moss. He wanted to recruit army wide because in
Speaker 1: a seat in going say undercover, low low visibility, you
Speaker 1: might have to pose as a cook, as a heavy
Speaker 1: equipment driver, uh, different skill sets for counter terror as them,
Speaker 1: and so he so he wasn't locked in from recruiting
Speaker 1: just the rangers and special forces, but he wanted to
Speaker 1: have at least six e O D folks incorporated, you know,
Speaker 1: going through the operator training course, being operators first and
Speaker 1: having the skill e O D skill set in case
Speaker 1: there was booby traps, UH, hostages with body bombs that
Speaker 1: would have to be removed or you know that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So it was a very close knit and
Speaker 1: we still are very close knit. Those first group of
Speaker 1: guys that went through, I still email and talked to
Speaker 1: them regularly. At that time, what was what was the threat?
Speaker 1: What was it What was the perception of what your
Speaker 1: unit was going to have to deal with downrange? When
Speaker 1: something popped off. Well, you know, our uncle, we had
Speaker 1: an unclassified mission our and our unclassified mission was POW rescue.
Speaker 1: You know, there was still the thought that there might
Speaker 1: be some POW is being held in Southeast Asia. Uh.
Speaker 1: Hostage taking was the big game in town terrorists taking
Speaker 1: over aircraft with hostages, um, and trains and like in
Speaker 1: the in the Holland with the Malaccans they took over
Speaker 1: a train. Uh. So it was mainly counter terrorism and
Speaker 1: hostage rescue, you know, doing a lot of room clearing,
Speaker 1: close quarter battle firing. Um, that's what we were mainly
Speaker 1: concentrating in. And then as you know, as Delta got established,
Speaker 1: do you want to talk about the first mission that
Speaker 1: came down that the unit was assigned. Yeah, we were
Speaker 1: just we just became Valida. It didn't as a unit.
Speaker 1: Uh And um, well we I was in B squad
Speaker 1: and we were actually out in breck and Ridge, Colorado,
Speaker 1: ski and doing winter training. And when on November four,
Speaker 1: the for the second time, the Iranians took over the
Speaker 1: American embassy. That would have been November four, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: and they it was supposed to be that, I guess,
Speaker 1: and initially it was just a short takeover, but it
Speaker 1: became a siege. And so they had collected a bunch
Speaker 1: of hostages, American hostages at the embassy. Uh some of
Speaker 1: them were later released. Uh that everybody, uh, the African Americans,
Speaker 1: all except for one was released. Um. So that in
Speaker 1: the end they had fifty three hostages. Fifty being held
Speaker 1: at the American Embassy and three was were held at
Speaker 1: the Defense Ministers building, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of
Speaker 1: Foreign Affairs. The three had gone over there for a meeting. Uh,
Speaker 1: the the charge de Fair how you just say that
Speaker 1: he was there Langley Langley, And so we had two
Speaker 1: different locations and fifty three hostages. So immediately we were
Speaker 1: called back from We didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1: They just told us to go back to Fort Bragg immediately.
Speaker 1: So we flew back to Fort Bragg, landed at mccamp McCall,
Speaker 1: and they took us into isolation and we started being
Speaker 1: briefed what happened hostage taking, and we started immediately doing
Speaker 1: the planning. We had a three D model made up
Speaker 1: of the embassy camp own the buildings. You had models
Speaker 1: of the buildings that you could take apart and look
Speaker 1: at the different rooms. It was a huge like a
Speaker 1: ten ft by ten ft mock up of the whole
Speaker 1: compound um and then we started practicing. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of different options of how we would go in
Speaker 1: and do it. One was to do you know, go
Speaker 1: in and do a static line jump, uh, and then
Speaker 1: the hellic and then also they dropped bladders in a
Speaker 1: fuel at the Desert One site and helicopters would come in,
Speaker 1: we refill them up and go in. That was determined
Speaker 1: that we might have too many casualiusy casualties if we
Speaker 1: do a static line jump. So then we came in
Speaker 1: and we went in by MC one thirties into Desert one.
Speaker 1: What we eventually did. Could you talk a little bit about,
Speaker 1: you know what, you know, the role, the job that
Speaker 1: you were assigned on the mission, because I remember you
Speaker 1: had told me a little bit about doing all the
Speaker 1: mission rehearsals over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: We did. We we had a wall built effects similar
Speaker 1: wall built at the stock aid, and every day we'd
Speaker 1: have to load up our with all of our gear
Speaker 1: and practice going over this wall. We had ladders that
Speaker 1: we would place up against the wall, and then we
Speaker 1: had a knotted rope that we would be that we'd
Speaker 1: throw over the wall tied to the ladder and we
Speaker 1: would have to go over the wall as quietly as
Speaker 1: possible and to go hand over hand down this knotted rope.
Speaker 1: We did that every day. We would lay out engineer
Speaker 1: tape on the ground to UH to the right size
Speaker 1: all these the compound, and then we would have to
Speaker 1: after we got done training, we would have to remove
Speaker 1: the engineer tape. UM. They were worried about Russian sad
Speaker 1: lights seeing us layout these engineer tapes. UM. So we started,
Speaker 1: you know, we every day. UM my team that I
Speaker 1: was assigned to. Our mission was the second floor of
Speaker 1: the ambassador residents. Once we go over to the wall,
Speaker 1: we would move to a side door that entered the
Speaker 1: kitchen of the Ambassador's residents and we would go up
Speaker 1: a stair in the kitchen to the second floor. And
Speaker 1: then our mission was to secure the second floor. The
Speaker 1: team I was on. And once the second floor was
Speaker 1: secure and we had all the hostages that if there
Speaker 1: were any on the second floor, which we believe there were, UH,
Speaker 1: then two of us would go to the roof of
Speaker 1: the building. And then I had a rope and I
Speaker 1: throw the rope down over from the roof down to
Speaker 1: the ground. Bucky Burris, he some of the guys were
Speaker 1: carrying laws and sixties six mile Miryam seventy two laws.
Speaker 1: They would drop them off there at where Bucky Burriss was.
Speaker 1: He would tie the laws to the rope. We would
Speaker 1: haul him up to the roof and then we would
Speaker 1: overwatch the main entrance gate with these laws. Wow. So
Speaker 1: as you were going through this, you know, these uh,
Speaker 1: these rehearsals again and again, what was what was your
Speaker 1: thoughts about this operation? I mean, we're guys pretty nervous
Speaker 1: about this, where they in high spirits, So what was
Speaker 1: the thoughts about how this was gonna actually play out?
Speaker 1: I would say we were all motivated in high spirits.
Speaker 1: I mean we did this every day this training. I
Speaker 1: would even at night in my sleep dream about exactly
Speaker 1: the going through the whole deal, uh in my sleep. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we we we were really you know, pumped up
Speaker 1: to do this mission to rescue the hostages. Um In
Speaker 1: our training though, we had the biggest problem was the helicopters.
Speaker 1: And we had these Rgift three D helicopters. They were
Speaker 1: the only helicopters and inventories that could do the distance
Speaker 1: and do the lift that we needed for them to
Speaker 1: do that. R three D helicopters were Navy helicopters and
Speaker 1: they were used in counter mining. They would their normal mission,
Speaker 1: they would go out in a body of water and
Speaker 1: they do a grid pattern, carrying these sensors that would
Speaker 1: detect minds and so they would tow those behind dragon
Speaker 1: in the water. So they would just do grid patterns
Speaker 1: in the daytime. So we had these Navy crew now
Speaker 1: they were expected to you know, do desert training flying
Speaker 1: at night with night vision goggles, and they had no
Speaker 1: experience at all doing des it flying with night vision goggles.
Speaker 1: And well, so that first group of Navy pilots were
Speaker 1: relieved and then we got in Marine pilots and marine crew.
Speaker 1: We had one one guy was an A one pilot
Speaker 1: was Air Force, but otherwise they were mostly Marines and
Speaker 1: so they too had a learning curve to fly in
Speaker 1: the desert and stuff. They would get lost they sometimes,
Speaker 1: so they wouldn't land where we wanted them to land.
Speaker 1: They would, you know, the desert. When they'd come in
Speaker 1: with these RH fifty three's, they kick up the dust
Speaker 1: that get vertigo and couldn't see then they would lift
Speaker 1: off and we had they would break down. You know,
Speaker 1: we never had it, never had anything that really when
Speaker 1: we worked with the helicopters, it never worked right, and
Speaker 1: that was probably our weakest length. That turned to be
Speaker 1: that was our weakest link in the operation, was the helicopters.
Speaker 1: The crews, you know, they tried their best, but they
Speaker 1: you know, we had been training for two years to
Speaker 1: do this kind of mission and they've only had weeks.
Speaker 1: I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think
Speaker 1: one of the big lessons learned from Eagle Claw was
Speaker 1: that we can have the greatest operators in the world.
Speaker 1: We can have the Charlie Beckwith's, the Bucky burris Is,
Speaker 1: these great men, but if we can't get the operators
Speaker 1: to their target, then then of course none of it matters.
Speaker 1: You know. That was our You know, some people tried
Speaker 1: to compare this to in Tebby, but this was a
Speaker 1: lot bigger operation than the Israeli and Tebby operation. We
Speaker 1: had a lot of more distance to go. We had
Speaker 1: sophisticated UH, the Iranians had sophisticated radar. UH. This was
Speaker 1: a very complicated mission, and you have the Soviets looking
Speaker 1: over your shoulder too, we did. They were they were
Speaker 1: monitoring the fleet, you know, the carrier fleet that was
Speaker 1: out there. The U. S. Nimbits was the one that
Speaker 1: you know, Kitty Hawk was on station and Kitty Hawk
Speaker 1: was relieved by the Nimbits. So our eight helicopters were
Speaker 1: on board the U S S Nimits and they were
Speaker 1: being monitored. It's we have a few different accounts written,
Speaker 1: you know, including from colonel Colonel Beckwith's book about how
Speaker 1: things went down at Desert One, but it's not so
Speaker 1: often that you get the chance to talk to somebody
Speaker 1: who was actually there because there aren't that many of you,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a small operation, relatively small. Um. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you could tell us about what happened
Speaker 1: at Desert one that night when you guys got to
Speaker 1: and for the listeners who don't know, Desert one was
Speaker 1: the staging area in the desert of Iran before the
Speaker 1: operators would be transported to the embassy. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: one comment about his book. It was interesting to read
Speaker 1: his book because my perspective of what some of the
Speaker 1: events that he wrote in the book was different than
Speaker 1: his suspective. It's interest and see as a commander looking
Speaker 1: down what he thought took place, and then in somebody
Speaker 1: at the bottom, UH that was really interested in reading
Speaker 1: his book. Is what took place? Is that I was
Speaker 1: on the first m C one thirty that landed in
Speaker 1: Desert one. John Carney, the CCT guy who had set
Speaker 1: up the lights went in earlier and set up the lights,
Speaker 1: was on that plane. We had the Ranger roadblock team
Speaker 1: on that plane. So as we were coming into Desert one, UH,
Speaker 1: there was traffic down below. There was a road that
Speaker 1: we were gonna be landing next to. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: be no but there's no traffic on this road has
Speaker 1: been watched and watched and no traffic. Now there's headlights
Speaker 1: on this road. So we did a couple of passes. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then we went down to land. As soon as
Speaker 1: we land and they opened up the ramp and we're
Speaker 1: coming off the ramp. Next thing you know, you see
Speaker 1: headlights coming down the road again. So it was a
Speaker 1: it was a bus and UH and back with Hollard.
Speaker 1: You know, stop that bus. So somebody shot a forty
Speaker 1: millimeter around in front of the bus and the bus stopped,
Speaker 1: you know, missed the bus but went out in the
Speaker 1: desert and detonated UM and bus stopped. We boarded on
Speaker 1: the bus uh and we took and then we had
Speaker 1: forty four hostages, civilian hostages of our own off the bus.
Speaker 1: So we took him off the bus. We searched him
Speaker 1: uh um, and we put him in a ditch, handcuffed
Speaker 1: some of the people with flex ties the mails uh
Speaker 1: and started guarding him. Meanwhile, the roadblock teams went down
Speaker 1: and here comes some another vehicles up the road. There's
Speaker 1: a fuel truck with a pickup drop behind it. So
Speaker 1: one of the rangers fires their law at the fuel truck.
Speaker 1: It actually hits underneath the field truck detonates UM and
Speaker 1: causes the field trucks starting to burn. People in the
Speaker 1: fuel truck jump out, hop into the pickup and then
Speaker 1: they took off and they got out of the out
Speaker 1: of there. So we got a fuel truck now this
Speaker 1: setting there burning um. But then we have no helicopters.
Speaker 1: Were waiting and waiting and waiting for the helicopters and uh,
Speaker 1: finally the field truck det debtonates. It's like a huge explosion,
Speaker 1: fireball going up into the sky guy. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: so much for secrecy. Um. Then the helicopters saw our fireball.
Speaker 1: They came in and they had you know, when we
Speaker 1: we had a dust storm go on while we were
Speaker 1: flying into the desert one site and Iran uh and
Speaker 1: the fixed wings the three M C one thirties and
Speaker 1: the three E C one thirties bladder birds the C
Speaker 1: one thirties, we flew above the dust storm. One of
Speaker 1: the things dust storms do is they mask radar, so
Speaker 1: you can fly above the you know, and still be undetected.
Speaker 1: So what since that was good helicopters. The helicopter crews
Speaker 1: flew through the dust storm instead of getting on top
Speaker 1: of the dust storm. They were told that they had
Speaker 1: to stay low for the radars. Uh. They never were
Speaker 1: briefed about weather conditions such as you know, the haboos,
Speaker 1: the dust storms that could occur. So they just charged
Speaker 1: on and we couldn't talk to the helicopters secure. Back
Speaker 1: then with satellite radio, what the helicopters would have had
Speaker 1: to have done is to sit down in the desert,
Speaker 1: set up a sackcom radio and and and then talk
Speaker 1: to somebody about what was going on. So they so
Speaker 1: they just kept plowing through one dust storm, they got
Speaker 1: out of that, and then they plowed through another dust storm.
Speaker 1: When the helicopter cruise finally landed and there was only
Speaker 1: six helicopters there weren't eight. You can look at the
Speaker 1: faces of the crew. They were at the point of exhaustion.
Speaker 1: They had been through the Ringer and UM so we
Speaker 1: had to they renumbered the helicopters UM and so we
Speaker 1: were getting into I think helicopter number five. Well, helicopter
Speaker 1: number five developed a hydraulic problem and it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be fliable. So now we're down to five helicopters.
Speaker 1: Five helicopters is was the bare minimum to do the mission.
Speaker 1: To get all of the rescue force out and all
Speaker 1: of the hostages out, we needed no less than five helicopters.
Speaker 1: And we had actually planned on losing another helicopter at
Speaker 1: our hide site, because we from that night we would
Speaker 1: move to a hide site out of Tehran by aware
Speaker 1: by these buildings where our trucks were being stored UM,
Speaker 1: and we would spend the daytime there and then uh
Speaker 1: we we figured that one of those helicopters wouldn't start up,
Speaker 1: there would be a problem, uh would lose another helicopter,
Speaker 1: and because the helicopters would After we secured the host
Speaker 1: you know, all the hostages at the American Embassy, we
Speaker 1: went across Roosevelt Road to the there's a soccer stadium,
Speaker 1: and the soccer stadium was where we were going to
Speaker 1: set up for the helicopters to come in and evacuate everybody.
Speaker 1: So I was determined with five helicopters that was not
Speaker 1: we couldn't do the mission. Yes, So at that point
Speaker 1: the mission scrubbed greg. Then the accident happened when the
Speaker 1: helicopter crashed into the one B squadron. We were all
Speaker 1: loaded into this e C one thirty to fly back.
Speaker 1: The mission was canceled. We were actually the plan was
Speaker 1: to fly the hostages out with US, Iranian hostages out
Speaker 1: with us later you know, you know sent you know,
Speaker 1: being able to repatriate them back, um and um. So
Speaker 1: we're going to abort the mission. So we be squad
Speaker 1: and we loaded up into this EC one thirty. This
Speaker 1: bladder bird that still had you know, had initially five
Speaker 1: thousand gallons of aviation fieled to hit Philip the helicopter,
Speaker 1: So it was like a giant water bed, and so
Speaker 1: we got in there and it we buttoned up and
Speaker 1: the props were going. The next thing you expected, everything
Speaker 1: was dark inside. The next thing you expected was the
Speaker 1: brakes to be released and you'll start taxing. Well, what
Speaker 1: happened was that behind us was the two helicopters that
Speaker 1: were refilled from this airplane. The CCT UH they were
Speaker 1: getting dust from our props. So the CTCT wanted to
Speaker 1: move the helicopters, just reposition them. We were going to
Speaker 1: leave first. The helicopters would leave after us, so they
Speaker 1: were just repositioned in the helicopters. Well, the one helicopter
Speaker 1: behind us, when it landed, it landed hard and it
Speaker 1: had flat tires. It flattened its wheels, so in order
Speaker 1: to it couldn't taxi away. It had to physically lift
Speaker 1: up off the ground to move away. When it lifted up,
Speaker 1: they got vertigo. They came in and crashed into our
Speaker 1: rights left right side by by the where the cockpit was.
Speaker 1: Next thing we know, who're inside the helic inside the aircraft,
Speaker 1: the props are cutting through the top of the fuselage
Speaker 1: where there's an explosion. Were rocked and then the left
Speaker 1: front cockpit door actually blows in on the C one
Speaker 1: thirty and nothing but a ball of flame comes into
Speaker 1: that cockpit area. And uh and only one of the
Speaker 1: Air Force crew that was up in the cockpit was
Speaker 1: able to escape out of the emergency cockpit hatch up
Speaker 1: in the front. Uh. So you know that five So
Speaker 1: the five Air Force crew that were up in the
Speaker 1: cockpit were trapped and they were killed. But this so
Speaker 1: here comes all this fire and flame in through our
Speaker 1: C one thirty and so we don't know what what
Speaker 1: is the cause of all this. We don't know that
Speaker 1: this helicopter just crashed into the side of us. We
Speaker 1: all we know is that we are now on fire.
Speaker 1: So they tried to lift the left you know, the
Speaker 1: left rear cockpit, I mean the parachute door, tried to
Speaker 1: open that well, that was aside the helicopter had crashed
Speaker 1: into and there was nothing but flames. As soon as
Speaker 1: they cracked it, they put it back down because there
Speaker 1: was nothing but flames. And the helicopter had an internal
Speaker 1: fuel tank and that had ruptured and that had blew
Speaker 1: up three marines that were in the crewmen that were
Speaker 1: in the back of the helicopter. They perished, but we
Speaker 1: initially disappeared in that fire initial fireball. For observers that
Speaker 1: were watching what was taking place outside, UM, they thought
Speaker 1: the whole we were all gone. So they opened up
Speaker 1: the right rear paratrooper door and there was even though
Speaker 1: our crops were still going and there was fire whipping through,
Speaker 1: we were able to jump out of the right rear
Speaker 1: paratrooper door and Dave Cheney, this was all be squad
Speaker 1: and it was on there, Dave Cheney's you know, hollered,
Speaker 1: don't panic, and so we were just lining up going
Speaker 1: out that door, and I was up near the front
Speaker 1: and I really did not think it was possible for
Speaker 1: me to where I was to make that door. I
Speaker 1: thought I was going to perish that night, and that,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought that this is how my life
Speaker 1: is going to end. In the back of that thing.
Speaker 1: The fire was starting to get pretty intense. Small arms
Speaker 1: was cooking off, and finally I was able to reach
Speaker 1: that door and I jumped out and dis dove out,
Speaker 1: rolled got to my feet and out. I could hear
Speaker 1: hand garnades detonating that we had UH on board. UH.
Speaker 1: We had six red eye missiles on that aircraft and
Speaker 1: they started catching on fire and you could see the
Speaker 1: missiles just shooting it out into the desert. Um. So
Speaker 1: then when we got out, you know, all the other
Speaker 1: aircraft were moving away from us because it was just
Speaker 1: intense the explosions and fuel and going on fire. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So finally I got to a first aircraft. I tried
Speaker 1: to get on. They waved us away and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on, but they were just
Speaker 1: trying to reposition to get away from the fire. And
Speaker 1: so when I got on the back end of this
Speaker 1: other air fixed wing, it was another e C one
Speaker 1: thirty bladder burden. I said, oh boy, it was on
Speaker 1: one bladder burden. Now I'm getting on another one. Um.
Speaker 1: Then the pilot was on the ramps one of one
Speaker 1: of the the I guess the CCT guys carried the pilot.
Speaker 1: The pilot and co pilot of the helicopter actually got
Speaker 1: out of the helicopter and they they were there. So
Speaker 1: on the on the flight back, I did medical aid
Speaker 1: for the pilot for the whole flight back. Um. That
Speaker 1: must have been a long fight. Hume. Yeah. Yeah, once
Speaker 1: we had not a head count, there was no head count.
Speaker 1: We didn't know who was in those aircraft and who
Speaker 1: we had left behind. There was no you know, that
Speaker 1: fire was so intense you once you left that area,
Speaker 1: there was no going back to see you know, to
Speaker 1: recover anybodies that night. That was impossible. Uh So when
Speaker 1: we took off our aircraft, we actually hit that dirt
Speaker 1: burm on the road and it just we ran into
Speaker 1: that dirt bird dirt burn and then we finally got airborne.
Speaker 1: And then so I we provided kept the talk to
Speaker 1: the We had some morphine that we gave the people
Speaker 1: that were burnt. Um and but no no medical really anything,
Speaker 1: no I VS. No no medical kits. All they had
Speaker 1: head on the aircraft was those little kits that they
Speaker 1: have on the you know in the Yeah, we didn't
Speaker 1: have a medical package there. In hindsight, there should have
Speaker 1: been a medical package on each aircraft with all the
Speaker 1: stuff that we needed, but we didn't have any of that.
Speaker 1: Um that they told us that came on the speaker
Speaker 1: and said that our landing gear may have been damaged,
Speaker 1: that we may not have any landing gear when we
Speaker 1: get back to massarea and oman where we were landing.
Speaker 1: And uh then they then they came over and said
Speaker 1: we may not have enough fuel to make it back
Speaker 1: because we were a state on the ground, we may
Speaker 1: have to ditch it. See it was and finally we
Speaker 1: landed back in Oman, and then that's when we took
Speaker 1: head count. I didn't, you know, on the aircraft. I
Speaker 1: only knew Chris Able, Um. I didn't see my other
Speaker 1: two teammates, Bill Zuma, Eric Keney. They weren't on that aircraft.
Speaker 1: So we didn't know who until we got back to
Speaker 1: Almand and they took a head count who was where
Speaker 1: and who were left behind. At that point, you probably
Speaker 1: weren't even sure who survived. Right right back was book.
Speaker 1: He says, we had accountability that was not true. And
Speaker 1: before we left, well, you know, when I interviewed, I
Speaker 1: was doing that article about Detachment A, which had a
Speaker 1: small role in the in the mission, one of the guys,
Speaker 1: one of the dead A guys, said he jumped in
Speaker 1: front of us. He won thirty that was taking off empty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no one on and he jumped in front of
Speaker 1: it with his submachine gun. It was like stop, stop, stop,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, there's I mean, that's horrifying to think.
Speaker 1: I mean, guys would have at that point being left behind.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. It is very possible we I that somebody
Speaker 1: could have been left behind that night. Luckily nobody was
Speaker 1: left behind. And uh And Jerry Boykin's book, he also
Speaker 1: talks about running at full speed to catch up with
Speaker 1: an airplane as it was leaving and like jumps on
Speaker 1: at the last moment, right, Yeah, they were, they were
Speaker 1: moving out, you know, like the first plane. I tried
Speaker 1: to get down. They waved us away and the ramp
Speaker 1: was opened as people on the back and they just
Speaker 1: waved us away. But they were just trying to get
Speaker 1: away from all the fire and explosion. What was the
Speaker 1: the impact that that desert one had on on the unit?
Speaker 1: And you know what, what did you guys come home
Speaker 1: and um, I know you began planning for um what
Speaker 1: was an operation Snowbird, Honey Badger, Honey Badger, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: called it Honey Badger. That would have been the second one.
Speaker 1: We never they took people, scattered him through and put
Speaker 1: him in prisons throughout Iran. We never had a fix
Speaker 1: on locations, and Honey Badger, you know, never really happen.
Speaker 1: And the morale, you know, we were disappointed, we were
Speaker 1: we we knew if we could have gotten to the embassy.
Speaker 1: That was the big if. If we could have got
Speaker 1: to the embassy, we were very confident that with our
Speaker 1: training and everything, that we would have been able to
Speaker 1: rescue the hostages. Our belief was that we would have
Speaker 1: gotten to the embassy, everything would have been fine, would
Speaker 1: make it. We were really more concerned about after we
Speaker 1: got the hostages, would those helicopters show up at that
Speaker 1: stadium and pick us pick us up? That was one
Speaker 1: of our big concerns. We practice our E and E plan. Um.
Speaker 1: We you know, we were carrying five thousand dollars US money,
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars uranium money. We had maps and so
Speaker 1: into our field jackets that we were wearing. You know,
Speaker 1: we had we we were taught how to hot wire cars,
Speaker 1: which cars to steal? Um, and so we all had
Speaker 1: an E and E plan and how we would try
Speaker 1: to get out and work our way safe to Turkey. Uh,
Speaker 1: if we had to escape and evade and well, there's
Speaker 1: so many questions and so many different things we could
Speaker 1: get into. But um, you know, I know we only
Speaker 1: take up so much for your day. I did want
Speaker 1: to ask you a few years later, um, involved in
Speaker 1: another conflict which unfortunately is nearly forgotten today and probably
Speaker 1: most Americans, uh, don't have much memory of this. But
Speaker 1: in three the United States launched an invasion of the
Speaker 1: island of Grenada, and I was wondering if you could
Speaker 1: um talk to us a little bit about your experiences. Sure. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, after the Iran hostage, there is the Holloway
Speaker 1: Commission and they did the investigation, and Joint Special Opera
Speaker 1: Rations Command was formed up to solve these inner Service
Speaker 1: problems that we had during the Iran rush rescued. So
Speaker 1: the next mission that came along night October of nineteen
Speaker 1: three was the Grenada and again we were out west training,
Speaker 1: got the word that we had to go back to
Speaker 1: Fort Bragg. And when we got to Fort Bragg, we
Speaker 1: found out that we were going to invade the island
Speaker 1: or grenade. A lot of guys didn't even know there
Speaker 1: was a you know, anything about grenade, and that we
Speaker 1: were too. One of the big concerns was the medical
Speaker 1: students that were on the island. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: big area for Americans to go to get their medical degrees,
Speaker 1: and so there was a lot so Reagan and you know,
Speaker 1: they had a coup and they had they overthrew the
Speaker 1: government and they had a Marxist government now in there
Speaker 1: with ties to Cuba. Cube you know, Cuban engineers were
Speaker 1: there rebuilt and making meg hangers and making that a
Speaker 1: forward base for say meg hell mag jets. So we
Speaker 1: were told a matter of few days we had to
Speaker 1: plan the invasion of Grenada. So so we did that
Speaker 1: and I was with B Squadron and our mission was
Speaker 1: the the Richmond Hill Prison. A prison is a pretty
Speaker 1: hard target, difficult target to take down. Yeah, the reason
Speaker 1: we were Our mission was the Richmond Hill Prison. That's
Speaker 1: where the political prisoners were being held, and we were
Speaker 1: to go there and secure them. The rangers were to
Speaker 1: rescue the you know, round up the medical students, but
Speaker 1: we were to get the political prisoners. So we flew in.
Speaker 1: We had eight helicopters. B Squadron was on the first
Speaker 1: UH six helicopters. The last two helicopters carried the seal team.
Speaker 1: Their mission was the Governor General's residents. He was also
Speaker 1: being held on home arrest in his residents, so the
Speaker 1: seals would break off and they would go to the
Speaker 1: Governor General's residents to rescue him and then they broke
Speaker 1: off and we went into Richmond Hill Prison. Uh. We
Speaker 1: were supposed to go in there at first light. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of delays for whatever reason. It was
Speaker 1: broad daylight when we went into. Uh. When it flew in,
Speaker 1: we heard on radio Grenada that the American invasion has begun.
Speaker 1: Go to the big grab your rifles, go to the
Speaker 1: beaches and meet the Americans. Uh. We As we flew
Speaker 1: over the coast the beach with our helicopters, we saw
Speaker 1: a bunch of people down below waving at us. Uh.
Speaker 1: There you could hear somebody, you know, a rifle shooting
Speaker 1: here and here and there. When we got to the prison.
Speaker 1: As we flew over the prison, um, we're gonna do
Speaker 1: the fast ropes. This would be the first helicopter assault
Speaker 1: using fast ropes, and this is the first time use
Speaker 1: of the black Hawk helicopters. So we came in and
Speaker 1: but there's this other fort, Fort Frederick, right next to
Speaker 1: us that's on a higher ground overlooking the prison. Well,
Speaker 1: they had the Zeus twenty threes twelve point seven millimeter
Speaker 1: and with their you know, seven point six to they
Speaker 1: opened up with everything thing that they had on our
Speaker 1: six helicopters and we were getting hit right and left.
Speaker 1: Immediately our door gunner on the left side was shot.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, you know, Jerry Boykin took actually a
Speaker 1: twenty three millimeter around in his He had a Sackcom
Speaker 1: radio on his back. The round hit his Sackcom radio
Speaker 1: and detonated. Uh. He lost a part of his shoulder
Speaker 1: muscle area when that took place. Um, So we were
Speaker 1: getting guys getting we're just taking heavy fire and they
Speaker 1: were coming out of the prison from down below us
Speaker 1: shooting up and bullets were going through the floors of
Speaker 1: the helicopters. So we pulled away. You know, we hovered.
Speaker 1: We're just wanting to get down the fast ropes down
Speaker 1: to get onto the ground and fight. Our helicopter is
Speaker 1: supposed to land outside the prison. There was a guardhouse
Speaker 1: and we were to take the guardhouse, but we pulled off.
Speaker 1: The firing was two tents, so that pulled off and
Speaker 1: helicopter for war in front of us. The pilot was
Speaker 1: mortally shot and that helicopter four went down and then
Speaker 1: we circled around and we came back around and we
Speaker 1: went through it a second time. Very intense, you know, firing, Uh,
Speaker 1: we there was I don't know why we didn't have
Speaker 1: jets we could are a C one thirty support to
Speaker 1: suppress the fire. Why why that wasn't part of our plan.
Speaker 1: But they were totally ready for us. So we hovered
Speaker 1: around again. We couldn't get we couldn't get low enough
Speaker 1: for us to put the fast ropes down, and then
Speaker 1: we pulled off and landed out there by the airfield,
Speaker 1: Selina's airfield. We only had one helicopter that was fliable,
Speaker 1: so we loaded to put two teams in that helicopter.
Speaker 1: Are the team. I was on another team, and we
Speaker 1: flew back to where helicopter four had crashed and we
Speaker 1: secured that site. So we got a medivac helicopter in
Speaker 1: there to get those guys out of that there. And
Speaker 1: then after we had pulled off the site, they opened
Speaker 1: up the jail and released all the political prisoners and
Speaker 1: that was it. Our mission was done. We had of
Speaker 1: our I think we had seven team wounded guys from
Speaker 1: Delta on that mission. It's incredible. Yeah, And because of
Speaker 1: that mission, they looked at what went wrong with you know,
Speaker 1: the interface with the Marines doing the Marines doing the
Speaker 1: amphibious landings. And all the coordination problems. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of uh, friendly fire deaths more than tolerable. And
Speaker 1: so after reviewing what went wrong in Operation Urgent fury Um,
Speaker 1: that's when USOCOM was formed up to correct those problems,
Speaker 1: right right, That was the Goldwater Nichols act Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I guess it's important to remember for you know,
Speaker 1: some of the people who are listening that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that the United States Military does
Speaker 1: better than anyone else's joint operations. But it wasn't always
Speaker 1: like that. You know, there are some really hard lessons learned. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know that Stargeant major Windings talking about you know,
Speaker 1: so Calm and Jay Sock and all these great things
Speaker 1: um or other, just general you know, interoperability between these
Speaker 1: four services. You know that there's a long time for
Speaker 1: that to come around and get to where it is today.
Speaker 1: It is, there was a lot of growing pains, costly
Speaker 1: growing pains, UM. But I'm proud of the special operations
Speaker 1: capability that we have today and all the spe show
Speaker 1: operators that we have today. Well, you know, I came
Speaker 1: into the Army in two thousand two, so I feel
Speaker 1: like I really inherited you know, something that you had created,
Speaker 1: you and your peers had created for you know, my generation,
Speaker 1: and we got there. We really stood on your shoulders
Speaker 1: when we went into Iraq, we went into Afghanistan. We
Speaker 1: didn't have to repeat all those same mistakes because of
Speaker 1: what you guys had built. And you know, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that, and that's why I love having people like
Speaker 1: you on this podcast. Yeah, you know, you know, being
Speaker 1: it to communicate, uh using satellite communication that was in
Speaker 1: the infancy, satellite communications secure was and all that stuff
Speaker 1: was developed and all the different equipment was developed from
Speaker 1: all those early missions. Well, I know we're we're like
Speaker 1: plowing through things so quickly, and um, you know your
Speaker 1: career is so extensive, and there's no way where we're
Speaker 1: going to example, and yeah, we could do a part
Speaker 1: two if if if Sergeant Major Vinding is willing, because
Speaker 1: I feel like we're just scratching the surface, I'd be willing. Um,
Speaker 1: yeah you want, you want to do that, but um,
Speaker 1: and we can talk because uh there's also desert storm
Speaker 1: in Haiti and maybe we can talk about that next time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a ton to get to. I I agree.
Speaker 1: I think that this is you know, we've spoken with
Speaker 1: you for well over an hour right now, there's a
Speaker 1: ton Okay, yeah, yeah, maybe we'll not uh, you know,
Speaker 1: give give Sergeant Major Vinding a break if I just
Speaker 1: throw in one question that that you know, just from
Speaker 1: all these fascinating stories that you've told, Sergeant Major Binding, Um,
Speaker 1: I have to ask, like, do you feel lucky to
Speaker 1: be alive? I mean not only alive. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: you right now. You're not only in one piece. You
Speaker 1: look to be in in great health. And you've probably
Speaker 1: had more brushes with death than just about anybody with
Speaker 1: all these stories that you've told. I have. I was
Speaker 1: actually one time in Vietnam, I had a rock get
Speaker 1: blow up at XM seventy four liquid and cindery rocket
Speaker 1: right in front of me. Um blow up in a
Speaker 1: pile of ammunition. We were doing an ammo dump. It
Speaker 1: blew up, and we were doing cleanup on that, and
Speaker 1: that rocket detonated, and Um, I thought I was dead.
Speaker 1: Everything was orange, everything was hot. I thought that whole
Speaker 1: pile of ammunition had just detonated, and I was dead
Speaker 1: until I felt pain and I grabbed my arm and
Speaker 1: I ran, and then I looked down and to see
Speaker 1: if they even had legs that I was even running,
Speaker 1: and I did. I had my jungle fatigues on, my
Speaker 1: bush hat on, and but I looked like that cot
Speaker 1: Wiley coyote who had just went into the dynamite locker
Speaker 1: and lit a match to see where he was. Uh,
Speaker 1: my had holes in my uniform, was smoking. And then
Speaker 1: there four guys that were helping us. Um, they were
Speaker 1: burn't really bad, and so we had to get them
Speaker 1: out and meta act. But I thought I was actually dead.
Speaker 1: I didn't think i'd survive. Uh in that C one
Speaker 1: thirty and on Desert one, I thought that there was
Speaker 1: impossible to to exit that aircraft. Um, yeah, there there's
Speaker 1: been many times. Um. There's also you know when we
Speaker 1: have when we do part two. Also, I want to
Speaker 1: ask I'll talk a little bit about your retirement, because
Speaker 1: the whole life after service is something important also, and
Speaker 1: I get the sense that you and your wife have
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of fun traveling around the country. We did,
Speaker 1: we travel like last year we were gone. We were
Speaker 1: more than we were at home traveling. We'll have to
Speaker 1: talk about all that. I think it's great. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mentioned it earlier for those wondering what major binding started.
Speaker 1: Major binding is up to now. UM. He's currently working
Speaker 1: at the National e O D Association and the e
Speaker 1: O D Warrior Foundation UM, the first of which you
Speaker 1: can visit online at any T e O D A
Speaker 1: dot com and a T e O D a dot
Speaker 1: com and then e O D Warrior Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that that you want to get
Speaker 1: out there now? Just my recent work is we're doing
Speaker 1: research from the past from World War Two to Korea
Speaker 1: and looking for UH names that were lost to history
Speaker 1: that should be on the e O D Memorial that's
Speaker 1: located in Eglin Air Force Base. So like this year
Speaker 1: right now and May first Saturday in May is National
Speaker 1: e O D Day. So far this year we're gonna
Speaker 1: add six army names from the past and three Navy
Speaker 1: names from the past to the e O D Memorial.
Speaker 1: And I have a team that helps me and we
Speaker 1: reserve going through old documents and the Internet trying to
Speaker 1: find names UM that we have missed on our UD Memorial,
Speaker 1: which was first established in nineteen seventy. So we've you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a good handle on those early deaths
Speaker 1: from wor War two and Korea. Well, thanks for all
Speaker 1: the work you've done and continue to do well. You know,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. And um, you know, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that we could have you on today. Well, thanks
Speaker 1: you and Jack, thank you so much that well, we'll
Speaker 1: have to give you a colon. Will will schedule to
Speaker 1: have you on another time and you know that works
Speaker 1: for you. Okay, but this has been super cool. It's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure. All right, we'll talk again soon. Thank you. So,
Speaker 1: I guess before we head out of here, the only
Speaker 1: other thing I wanted to mention, Um, if you know
Speaker 1: I was going to play the audio, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you want to save it for maybe next show.
Speaker 1: Since we've gone pretty long here, I'm down to keep going.
Speaker 1: But we have throw a punch of the week, which
Speaker 1: I think rightfully goes to this California history and social
Speaker 1: studies teacher Gregory uh South Sito Rancho High School. It's
Speaker 1: up to do you think we should play the audio now?
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want to play the audio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was too awesome of a show to damper it with.
Speaker 1: So people can go and Uh, I think Alex wrote
Speaker 1: an article about it on Software and they can go
Speaker 1: and listen to it if they want. Yeah, we can
Speaker 1: maybe even play it. But yeah, that that the public
Speaker 1: school teacher. And he went on like a huge rant,
Speaker 1: like anti military range six minutes long. So it's not
Speaker 1: like he could say, oh, I misspoke, and it was
Speaker 1: you know, he compared military recruiters on campus to having
Speaker 1: like pimps on campus recruiting prostitutes. It was it was
Speaker 1: it was super unprofessional, and you know, it goes beyond
Speaker 1: you know, I as a teacher, a public school teacher,
Speaker 1: I mean it's always hard to be you know, give
Speaker 1: a totally unbiased view. You know, those things are going
Speaker 1: to seep in. Like if I were to teach a class,
Speaker 1: you know, I would probably be more pro military, you know,
Speaker 1: and people go, well, you're biased, Well yeah, you say
Speaker 1: that Army rangers are cool or the Navy, Yeah, well something.
Speaker 1: Some of that stuff will come through a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I think we can understand that. But this guy
Speaker 1: was just like going off on a tangent to the
Speaker 1: point that it's like it's not even expressing an opinion,
Speaker 1: like the military is bad because of this and that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just really childish stuff. So I don't know why
Speaker 1: the guy felt the need to do that, especially in
Speaker 1: front of, you know, a bunch of kids. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is the third time he's been put on administrative leave.
Speaker 1: So this guy is a history. He's also a politician. Um,
Speaker 1: like local politician two ten threatened to kill a sixteen
Speaker 1: year old girl in the class, or at least said
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you twelve. He bullied some kids and
Speaker 1: called them chas bonus. We'll leave it at that. They're
Speaker 1: a punch of the week. Gregory south Sito, Um, after
Speaker 1: you're in, Mike Vining, I feel like he'd be a
Speaker 1: great guy to do some guest pieces for software. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's definitely a really smart, well spoken guy, and I
Speaker 1: bet he can write some really interesting stuff. He has
Speaker 1: written some stuff. I don't know if he would be
Speaker 1: in rested in having it published or not. If he is,
Speaker 1: I'd be absolutely thrilled to host that. I mean, the
Speaker 1: amount of stories this guy has. He's been there, been there,
Speaker 1: done that. Um, you know, he really was on the
Speaker 1: ground floor for you know, American counter terrorism, you know,
Speaker 1: all through the seventies, eighties into the nineties. I mean
Speaker 1: he was there. Um, he's definitely got some stories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now I loved hearing from him. Um. And also just
Speaker 1: the jobs that he did must have been terrifying, you know.
Speaker 1: And and we always talk about how guys in the military,
Speaker 1: guys in special ops, it's not that they don't have fear,
Speaker 1: they just have to put that fierce side and do
Speaker 1: the job. And to hear about that Bob Dole bomb
Speaker 1: scare which turned into you know, an actual bombing good
Speaker 1: friend of his getting killed. Yeah, I couldn't imagine having
Speaker 1: to do that line of work. It's yeah, it's wild,
Speaker 1: you know, being on trapped on an aircraft that's on
Speaker 1: fire and there's just a fireball coming down behind you
Speaker 1: through the fuselage, Like I can't even begin to imagine.
Speaker 1: And and the crazy thing is like this is a
Speaker 1: name that overall not a lot of people know and
Speaker 1: probably should know. I have my opinions, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't I try not to go off on
Speaker 1: you know, like hero worship or anything like that, because
Speaker 1: I'd really embarrass some of these guys. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: I actually I called a retired squadron commander one time
Speaker 1: and talked to him and he's like, Murphy, do not
Speaker 1: get into like calling me a hero or any of
Speaker 1: that kind of business. I'm like, I'm not don't. I
Speaker 1: just want to talk about, you know, what happened, what
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Um. This was actually when I was writing
Speaker 1: that Blue Light article. Um, but you know these guys
Speaker 1: are you know, there are predecessors, you know, And I
Speaker 1: wasn't kidding what I what I said to Mike finding
Speaker 1: was they built something that when nine eleven happened, America
Speaker 1: wasn't completely fat, flat footed. We had the organizational structures
Speaker 1: we had so um, we had Jay socer, we had
Speaker 1: these elements that could respond. If Mike Vining and his
Speaker 1: peer group had not created those things and built those
Speaker 1: capabilities up, imagine if nine eleven happened and we're starting
Speaker 1: from scratch, we wouldn't have been able to do anything.
Speaker 1: And he truly is an originator because when you see
Speaker 1: that he was in the first OTC class OTC Class one. Amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so great having Mike on. I'm I'm you know, it's
Speaker 1: awesome that we have you and he's a he's a
Speaker 1: super nice guy too. Yeah, he really was absolutely uh so,
Speaker 1: last thing before we get out of here, and of
Speaker 1: course it's always important to talk about as a reminder
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