Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Software Radio Special operations, military news and straight
Speaker 1: talk with the guys in the community. Hello and everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to Software Radio. I'm your host this afternoon,
Speaker 1: Steve blis Rary, and we want to welcome everyone back
Speaker 1: to Software Radio. We have a great guest lined up.
Speaker 1: It's a guy that I've seen on many occasions when
Speaker 1: we were down station in Panama, but I've never asked
Speaker 1: we talked to him, so this uh was the first.
Speaker 1: We were talking earlier, uh, you know, before the podcast started.
Speaker 1: But Rick Lamb is going to join us here and
Speaker 1: in just a moment. But before I bring him on,
Speaker 1: I'll give you a little a little bit of a
Speaker 1: bio on Rick. Rick was you know, we used the
Speaker 1: term loosely in special operations a legend in the special
Speaker 1: operations community, but this one's well deserved. Rick's a member
Speaker 1: of the Ranger Hall of Fame, the Commando Hall of Fame,
Speaker 1: and he's been and I want to say, to range
Speaker 1: of battalions, four or five special Forces groups, a bunch
Speaker 1: of theater Special operations commands, and a and a bunch
Speaker 1: of those uh s F units that begin with a J,
Speaker 1: so we'll just leave it at that. Um, he's joining
Speaker 1: us today. He now works for Global Soft Foundation. And
Speaker 1: as most of you know, Stu Braden, who's the the
Speaker 1: CEO over there, and I work together and Panama, Rick
Speaker 1: was down there around the same time, so we all
Speaker 1: kind of chewed the same dirt at one time or another.
Speaker 1: But we want to welcome him to the podcast. Rick,
Speaker 1: how you doing this Afterno, I'm doing great, Steve. I
Speaker 1: I can't complain all. It's it's generally a good day
Speaker 1: to be Rick. So in Florida looking outside the window
Speaker 1: and just yeah, I look outside and it was like,
Speaker 1: I really don't have that much to complain about, you
Speaker 1: know when I look out and I see the weather
Speaker 1: and got the swimming pool in the backyard, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just the weather down here. It's just suits me
Speaker 1: to a t. For those of us who you know,
Speaker 1: used to be in Panama, this is very similar, it is.
Speaker 1: And that was you know, those were the that was
Speaker 1: in the decision matrix of where I was going to
Speaker 1: retire because I spent six years in Panama and I
Speaker 1: love that climate. The wife loved it too, So uh,
Speaker 1: it was either here Savannah, and I think we toyed
Speaker 1: around with, you know, somewhere further north, but we we
Speaker 1: came down here to Tampa just fell in love. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love Savannah as well. And I'm sure being from
Speaker 1: the range of Itatalion, you're a lot more familiar with
Speaker 1: Savannah than I am. But that's just a beautiful city.
Speaker 1: I mean that it's like the hidden gem of the South. Ipink, Oh,
Speaker 1: it is it. And they love their rangers too, and
Speaker 1: there's quite a good community. So uh and then uh
Speaker 1: and then here you know, with the with the McDill community,
Speaker 1: that uh, that's that's one of the hard things for
Speaker 1: guys as they get out, you know, they they missed
Speaker 1: the guys, they missed the purpose. And you know, we
Speaker 1: used to laugh at him, Remember guys to get out
Speaker 1: and they stayed near Benning or Bragg or somewhere and
Speaker 1: we're like, no, man, I'm going to the mountains and uh,
Speaker 1: here we are. Oh yeah, because they you know, especially
Speaker 1: at Fort Bragg, you know all the old sergeant majors
Speaker 1: who retired, you'd see them all the time like come on, guys,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of loose a little bit. And now
Speaker 1: we all do the same thing, right, so exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, I was telling you about my buddy
Speaker 1: Dave or Tiez. It was SF medic, a great medic,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we used to always make fun
Speaker 1: of those old guys. And then right before you know,
Speaker 1: he retired and I got out and you know, we
Speaker 1: we were talking with some other guys that we were
Speaker 1: telling old stories and telling lies and you know, general
Speaker 1: s F stuff, and uh, you know, one of these
Speaker 1: young guys came up to us and said, wow, you
Speaker 1: guys are really old, and we were like, hey, when
Speaker 1: did we turn into those old guys who used to
Speaker 1: make fun of That kind of happened overnight? Oh it,
Speaker 1: did you know what? Uh? So I think when we
Speaker 1: first came down here, right, they just retired. I'm like
Speaker 1: forty four and probably in the best shape of my life.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, my wife, she's a little Korean gal,
Speaker 1: and we we go down to mcdillan. She goes chuggy,
Speaker 1: she's everybody here's so old. You know, we're going through
Speaker 1: the p X and everything. Now we are there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's it, man. I mean, it happens so fast.
Speaker 1: It seems like one day, you know, you're the young
Speaker 1: guy on the team, and uh, the next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, where'd all this gray hair come from?
Speaker 1: And you know, guys telling me I'm a fo g.
Speaker 1: You know, well that's true. That is a fact. And
Speaker 1: it is it's seasons and it uh you know, the
Speaker 1: things that didn't hurt then hurt now. Oh yeah, So
Speaker 1: it's it definitely is. I mean, it's just it's just
Speaker 1: different seasons, different chapters, and and I think that's part
Speaker 1: of the allure to being around the guys as Uh.
Speaker 1: It was as you get older, they've they've as you're
Speaker 1: a young man, you know, they've walked, like you said,
Speaker 1: you the same dirt. And uh, now as an older guy,
Speaker 1: you know, they've they've walked the same real estate. So uh,
Speaker 1: I mean linking up with stew again after years, I
Speaker 1: remember him as a crazy captain. It was all the
Speaker 1: young maybe a staff startant down there in Panama. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, bumped into him again. I followed
Speaker 1: him into Charlie one ten, uh, you know, and when
Speaker 1: he was leaving the company and bumped into him again
Speaker 1: at Sacom. So it's been the been the guys that
Speaker 1: you that you just keep bumping into throughout your career,
Speaker 1: and here we are. You know, he's uh, he's the
Speaker 1: crazy retired colonel and I'm the crazy retired star major,
Speaker 1: and you just fall into those roles. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: had just come out of the warrant course and I
Speaker 1: got down to Panama and so they put me in
Speaker 1: Alpha Company and so talking to Kevin Haggin's and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you knew Kevin, and Kevin's talking to me, and
Speaker 1: and then he's smiling, and I was like, what's up, sir,
Speaker 1: And He's like, I think you're gonna fit in with
Speaker 1: Stu Brady. I'm gonna put you on team. So that
Speaker 1: was one of all the nonsense was going, right. That
Speaker 1: was right in the middle of all that with Noriegan.
Speaker 1: So I get out there with stew And and now
Speaker 1: I'm meeting the guys on the team and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: the captain will be in here in just a second.
Speaker 1: He was. They were in the interior of someplace, and
Speaker 1: so I'm waiting on him and he comes in with
Speaker 1: you know, Oakley's and green string around him, with the
Speaker 1: shoulder holster and no shirt on, no hat and yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's when we had some command. Some general from
Speaker 1: the fifth Mac came around to the team and and
Speaker 1: he's like, can I ask you guys a serious questions?
Speaker 1: She was like yeah, you know, yeah, bro, you know
Speaker 1: Stu is go ahead. He's like, does everyone in Special
Speaker 1: Forces not wear a hat and carry a different weapon?
Speaker 1: It was like pretty much, you know, it was It
Speaker 1: was perfect that you guys were you were Alpha Gators
Speaker 1: in Alpha Company because you know you're Kenny Mac. The
Speaker 1: legend that you will us was. It was the perfect
Speaker 1: steady hand shard major to have a guy like come here, Braden. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well then you know we uh Stu left, It was
Speaker 1: like a year and a half. Two years later he
Speaker 1: left three seven and went to uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: fail course and he was getting his U his advanced
Speaker 1: degree and something or other. But so then Dave Ortiz
Speaker 1: and I have down in Bolivion and they were like,
Speaker 1: we need a fail officer. So Dave and I looked
Speaker 1: at each other, we know just the guy. So we
Speaker 1: called stew up and and he's like, hey, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And I was like, you got an assignment yet?
Speaker 1: And he's like no, they want to put me in,
Speaker 1: you know, some disgusting place. I forget where he said
Speaker 1: they wanted to put him, and like, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: we got just the place for you. So him and Kelly,
Speaker 1: you know, we got them fast track down there. So
Speaker 1: Stu became one of the the guys down in Bolivia
Speaker 1: and we had a blast while he was there, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's what actually makes stew so good, is it? Uh?
Speaker 1: I mean he's he is um, he has widely traveled
Speaker 1: and he spent a lot of time overseas. He uh,
Speaker 1: he was he he actually did some time I think
Speaker 1: at the schoolhouse. I think in uh what is it
Speaker 1: the command General Staff College there leave Worth. So he
Speaker 1: got the he got the mentor and meet a lot
Speaker 1: of guys that um, you know that that we're on
Speaker 1: the up and coming that they would then you know,
Speaker 1: subsequently become commanders his time forward over in uh at
Speaker 1: soccure when they stood up to you the NATO Soft
Speaker 1: headquarters in the school house. I mean again, he got
Speaker 1: got the chance to to groom and mentor a bunch
Speaker 1: of guys that ended up commanding a lot of the
Speaker 1: NATO Soft units. So when he fell into this, uh,
Speaker 1: we had this idea, this epiphany that you know, so
Speaker 1: comed being U you know, part part service, you know,
Speaker 1: with service responsibilities, part of geographic or you know global
Speaker 1: combat command. UM, you know, with the doctrinal type you know,
Speaker 1: man train, equip responsibilities. And they had no advocate. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the Army's got you know, the UH Association
Speaker 1: United States Army at USA, you know, the Navy, the
Speaker 1: Navy League, but so calm with its uh it's g
Speaker 1: c C and service like responsibilities, you know, with troops
Speaker 1: from the Navy, Air Force, Marines and just being you know,
Speaker 1: back to back to back deployed for the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: They had no advocate. So again that's what the Global
Speaker 1: Soft Foundation uh, you know global being we we do
Speaker 1: international and US saw from across the board and it
Speaker 1: uh he's been at about seven years now and really
Speaker 1: now starting to catch stride with a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that he's doing. Yeah, there was two of us
Speaker 1: from software. There were just up at UH the symposium
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago up in Tampa. We missed
Speaker 1: you there by the way. We were hoping to link
Speaker 1: up with you, but I was I just had surgery,
Speaker 1: so I was I was curled up in the fetal
Speaker 1: position for myself. Yeah. Well, yeah, you were missed that day.
Speaker 1: But it was great. It was great on a couple
Speaker 1: of things. I mean, the the the Global SOOFT they
Speaker 1: put on a great program and they went all out
Speaker 1: for this, but it was just after the past year,
Speaker 1: it was just really nice to have a bunch of
Speaker 1: people all in the same room and you get to
Speaker 1: sit down and talk to people. You know. It sounds
Speaker 1: strange to say that, but you know, after a year
Speaker 1: of COVID, I mean it really you you don't realize
Speaker 1: how much you missed that stuff. Oh, that's that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I tell you the Uh, it's great to have
Speaker 1: the technology to do stuff online, but there's nothing like
Speaker 1: sitting down and breaking bread or or having a drink
Speaker 1: with you know, some im getting to know him. No
Speaker 1: a face. I mean you can run through your rolloex
Speaker 1: and aims and uh and not be able to put
Speaker 1: a face on it these days, and it's it's uh
Speaker 1: totally different if it's if it's in person. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I like too is is is
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, as you a lot of times,
Speaker 1: if you're online and you're discussing a problem set or
Speaker 1: a requirement, you you don't have the ability other than
Speaker 1: sending a guy a point of contact hoping that they'll
Speaker 1: link up at some point in time, but put at
Speaker 1: these in in person events. You know, guy says, man,
Speaker 1: I've got this problem set, I need this capability, and
Speaker 1: you can walk over to a guy that he can
Speaker 1: you have from academia, they can either expound on it.
Speaker 1: You know, a guy from industry that that has the
Speaker 1: widget that you need, or an international uh partner that's
Speaker 1: what that's got the same problem set and the same requirement,
Speaker 1: and you guys can can join forces there. So it Uh,
Speaker 1: it really is a unique way of doing business, you know,
Speaker 1: just bringing that community together, whether you're in uniform, you're
Speaker 1: out of uniform, uh, you know, you have an interest
Speaker 1: in niture, in the intelligence, or you're in some type
Speaker 1: of business. Uh. To bring all that stuff together is
Speaker 1: a is a neat thing to watch. Yeah and yeah.
Speaker 1: Up there when we were there for the symposium, one
Speaker 1: of the more intriguing parts of it was the well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know Dennis Blasco who's a China expert,
Speaker 1: and Dennis had a couple of academia guys up there
Speaker 1: with them, and they had a Korean s o f
Speaker 1: retired general was there. Yeah, virtual and talk about a
Speaker 1: nice blend of guys talking with you know, their piece
Speaker 1: of the pie kind of thing. It was great. It
Speaker 1: was really really great. Well you know, and also you
Speaker 1: you talk about the you know, the quality of the people.
Speaker 1: I mean Chunn and Bum here's the guy you pluck
Speaker 1: out of Korea, I mean, retired three star general. He
Speaker 1: was He saved saved part of the Korean um you know,
Speaker 1: national leadership during the Rangoon bombings. I mean he had
Speaker 1: he had run North Korean insurgents to ground who had
Speaker 1: come to come ashortness marine. I mean the guy was
Speaker 1: like he took i think the first contingent of Koreans
Speaker 1: off in Afghanistan. I mean, so you get quality guys
Speaker 1: like that and again speaks fluent English and uh just
Speaker 1: a just a super super guy and uh and Stu
Speaker 1: has a knack of just knowing those guys be able
Speaker 1: to bring him in. Yeah, well it's his way. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, he could talk to anybody, as we said,
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, he could get down and dirty with
Speaker 1: the grunts on the ground or you know, talk to
Speaker 1: you know, high level U cabinet member and they all
Speaker 1: seem to like him. I mean he has that likability
Speaker 1: that goes a long long way in this business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something that I just I just recently became aware of too.
Speaker 1: But you know, his father passed away. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: did a little um. He was a calve guy, So
Speaker 1: we did a little um little you know, calves send off.
Speaker 1: And when we're up at the rain, it for Bragg
Speaker 1: and uh you did a toast and and uh you
Speaker 1: have read the poem Fiddler's Green, you know, because no,
Speaker 1: no cavalrman die and go to hell. They all go
Speaker 1: to a bar called Fiddler's Green, and uh and they
Speaker 1: and they drink at the bar right and then uh,
Speaker 1: they get on their horses and they head head to hell,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're following the infantry guys. And uh,
Speaker 1: but they run out of liquor in their canteens, so
Speaker 1: they have to turn around and go back to Fiddler's Green.
Speaker 1: And that's why none of them. So we're we're gonna go.
Speaker 1: We're reading this poem. And Stew's dad was a stone
Speaker 1: cold stud as well. I mean he was a calve guy.
Speaker 1: Uh went in with the first cab in Vietnam and obvious,
Speaker 1: so the the apple didn't fall far from the tree,
Speaker 1: so you can you can see a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of Stew's dad and Stu have never known the man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: funny story while we were tying in Panama, UM, Stu
Speaker 1: was on the phone with his dad and he was like,
Speaker 1: hold on a second. He was like, he wants to
Speaker 1: talk to you, and I was like to me, so,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah. So I get on there and I
Speaker 1: say hello to his father and his father said, so
Speaker 1: you're Stuart's XO. And I said yes, sir, and he said, son,
Speaker 1: you have my undying gratitude, And boy do I feel
Speaker 1: sorry for you because my son's a handful. Thanks dad.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, I I never actually got to meet
Speaker 1: him face to face, but I did talk to him
Speaker 1: on the phone. That Yeah, I met him on mountain
Speaker 1: of a guy just like Stew. I mean, they get
Speaker 1: cut from the same cloth. I did see that video
Speaker 1: of you guys doing that send off for his dad.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really cool. But let's talk about
Speaker 1: your career a little bit. Entered the Army back in
Speaker 1: eight which puts you in my time frame with the
Speaker 1: airborne enlistening Airborne ranger enlistening. Yeah, actually I had it easy.
Speaker 1: I was you know, my dad was a history buff
Speaker 1: Civil War, Korea, Vietnam and he he uh, World War two.
Speaker 1: I mean, so there was a lot of that literature
Speaker 1: around and then the uh we we and there was
Speaker 1: the family stories, right, so uh you know that. I
Speaker 1: remember John Rendon tell me one day that you know,
Speaker 1: people love stories, that's why you got Facebook. And uh
Speaker 1: we've we've been telling stories, you know, for millennia, ever
Speaker 1: since we were in caves. And we know this because
Speaker 1: there's cave drawings, you know. And I had to laugh
Speaker 1: because it's it's true. I remember, you know, hearing stories
Speaker 1: about you know, James lamb and in the charge of
Speaker 1: the light brigate at the Battle of Balaklava, you know,
Speaker 1: and and his uh, his brother John comes to the
Speaker 1: States and has a son named James, who ends up
Speaker 1: fighting in the Civil War with the under the ninety
Speaker 1: nine Indiana and uh you know his kid, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: my grandfather ends up on the Mexican Punitive Edition as
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old kid. Uh. They pulled him back
Speaker 1: to Iowa. By that time he turns like eighteen, and
Speaker 1: then he joins the army again and goes over on
Speaker 1: the American Expeditionary Force in World War One. So he's
Speaker 1: got like three three sons, you know. One uh joins
Speaker 1: the Marines in forty two, and he's in World War
Speaker 1: two Korea, Vietnam. And then my dad he's the middle guy. UM,
Speaker 1: he was in He was in during the Korean War,
Speaker 1: didn't deploy the Korea, but I was in uniform. My Uh,
Speaker 1: I still got great memories of him and Harry bone Twill,
Speaker 1: you know, cleaning a nineteen eleven and an then one
Speaker 1: car being on the back stoop. And then his younger
Speaker 1: brother was in during Vietnam and uh so you know,
Speaker 1: every every guy like that I respected um or loved,
Speaker 1: you know, was war uniform and and took a gun
Speaker 1: to work. So when I uh in high school, I
Speaker 1: joined the Iowa Guard because my dad was in the Guard.
Speaker 1: His his younger brother was in the Guard. And so
Speaker 1: I go to basic and a I T and my
Speaker 1: first platoon sergeant is my uncle. He's got he's got
Speaker 1: a Recmplitude in the thirty fourth Division there in Iowa.
Speaker 1: And we're up at like Camp McCoy and Wisconsin, and uh,
Speaker 1: we're all cammed up, you know, and we had. We're
Speaker 1: doing our our pre combat checks and you're checking to
Speaker 1: see if anything's uh it was is shining or rattling.
Speaker 1: And we're sitting in these two files and we have
Speaker 1: sand bags over our head, and he's going through the
Speaker 1: center of the two columns. We're in this GP medium
Speaker 1: tent and he's going through you know, who's got point,
Speaker 1: who's got trail, who's uncompassed, who's alternate compass, whose pace
Speaker 1: alternate pace? You know, what are the what are the
Speaker 1: critical nath points? You know, when did we change asthmas
Speaker 1: And he's just he's from the time we leave the
Speaker 1: line of departure, you know, up through uh you know,
Speaker 1: you hit hitting the objective and then uh successful, you
Speaker 1: know x fill. He was just going through like the
Speaker 1: dirty doesn't right and uh And we've got sand bags
Speaker 1: on our heads. And the reason we have sand bags
Speaker 1: on our heads is because we started this forty five
Speaker 1: minutes before e n T in evening nautical twilight. Because
Speaker 1: it takes forty five minutes for the rods and the
Speaker 1: cones and your eyes to adjust to the darkness. So
Speaker 1: forty five minutes we're wearing sandbags, so our rods and
Speaker 1: cones have already adjusticed. So by the time we hit
Speaker 1: the LD the line of departure, and they're counting us
Speaker 1: through the wire, you know, we gotta jump on Charlie
Speaker 1: because our eyes are already adjusted. So so that's my uncle.
Speaker 1: And so one day, you know where he sits down
Speaker 1: and he goes, because I'm in college at this point, right,
Speaker 1: and he goes, do you like college? I said no,
Speaker 1: and he said I didn't think so, and he said,
Speaker 1: you need to do this for a living. And uh
Speaker 1: so he walks me through the Airborne Ranger and listen
Speaker 1: an option to get me out of the Guard and
Speaker 1: then the active duty and then I report to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Fort Benning for a I t go to
Speaker 1: jump school and then off to a first Ranger battalion
Speaker 1: and Savannah and uh and yeah, so I had it.
Speaker 1: I had it pretty easy, man. I just that That's
Speaker 1: all I really ever wanted to be. Yeah, that's um,
Speaker 1: that's that's really cool. I remember when I signed in
Speaker 1: the Fort Bragg, you know, uh to go s F.
Speaker 1: My uncle's brother, Um, he was a Sante raider and
Speaker 1: a sergeant major by this time, and uh so I
Speaker 1: want to go see him and he was like, do
Speaker 1: yourself a favor when you get out to camp called
Speaker 1: don't tell anybody who you know we're related to. And
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, because because it's gonna be hard enough.
Speaker 1: So he said, if you tell any of those guys
Speaker 1: out there that we're related, it's just gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot tougher run. So just keep it between us. And
Speaker 1: I was like that sage advice right there, because you know,
Speaker 1: they I always uh, I reported into the Rangers right
Speaker 1: in the h and there was there was some hazing,
Speaker 1: but but I always took it that they messed with
Speaker 1: you because they liked you. You know, the guys that
Speaker 1: they didn't like that you just weren't cutting it. They
Speaker 1: just get rid of him. But I remember walking on
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, I met my fire team leader,
Speaker 1: Corporate Dojer, and uh, I love this kid. He was
Speaker 1: young guy, and I mean there was it was probably
Speaker 1: like two years difference between us and the only the
Speaker 1: only difference was that, you know, he had spent those
Speaker 1: two years in the first range of Battalion and I
Speaker 1: had not, So I mean there was a big, a big,
Speaker 1: you know, um wide information gap. So he comes up,
Speaker 1: but he goes, I'm corporate, dojer, I'm your fire team leader.
Speaker 1: You know I'm where You're an alpha fire team, first
Speaker 1: Squad Deppetun Charlie Company and uh so, and I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the first fifteen seconds he he tells me
Speaker 1: who I am and what I do? You know, and
Speaker 1: that my motto is following me and do as I do.
Speaker 1: And he says, you're a rifleman, and uh, there's forty
Speaker 1: guys in this partunion. They're accounting on you to be
Speaker 1: the best rifleman in this battalion. And the he hands
Speaker 1: me that little remember this little blue training circulars, a
Speaker 1: little tcs at you know that came with every weapon.
Speaker 1: And he hands me that and he says, I want
Speaker 1: you to know every every spring, every every pen um.
Speaker 1: He says, I want you to know everything about this
Speaker 1: weapon and be truly an expert. And he he goes,
Speaker 1: it's the M six ten A one. It's a lightweight
Speaker 1: gas operated air cool magazine fed shoulder fire weapon lit'll
Speaker 1: fire automatic or semi automatic or you know, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: the automatic or semi automatic by use of a selector switch.
Speaker 1: I mean he just quotes like the first paragraph and
Speaker 1: uh and he goes, he goes, Now, when you become
Speaker 1: an expert with this, and I'll be watching, He says,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a bipod and I'll issue you
Speaker 1: a magazine pouch and and three more thirty round magazines
Speaker 1: so everybody else carries at seven, I get uh, you
Speaker 1: know eight or nine rather and uh or ten? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know you get three magazine potches or everybody
Speaker 1: else carrying too. And uh so when he says, because
Speaker 1: then your mission, we'll go from you know, targets to
Speaker 1: area targets, and you'll you'll operate this weapon in full
Speaker 1: automatic with a three to five round burst. And he said,
Speaker 1: once you've identified and become an expert with this, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put an m to a three forty forty millimeter
Speaker 1: grenade launch or any of it. You'll be a gretted Ere.
Speaker 1: And he just walks me through all the steps and
Speaker 1: he said, finally, you'll take my position as the fire
Speaker 1: team leader. He says, because I'm gonna move out to
Speaker 1: to be the squad leader. And and and that was
Speaker 1: the coolest thing that I ever heard, because he's telling
Speaker 1: you exactly what's expected, exactly what you need to do.
Speaker 1: Uh and and he's not threatened by me doing well
Speaker 1: and and going after his position, because he actually wants
Speaker 1: me in his position, because he's moving out to take
Speaker 1: certain chandler's position as the squad leader. If you if
Speaker 1: you compare that to any other industry that's out there,
Speaker 1: any other business is out there, you know, the uh,
Speaker 1: it just it doesn't compare. No, And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that businesses are finally starting to learn now
Speaker 1: is as how you know, especially and special operations how
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, we trained our replacement, you know, and
Speaker 1: they don't do that in business, and they're starting to
Speaker 1: catch on that that's the way to go. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you, you know, you're a young guy
Speaker 1: in the range of Battalion. You were there for the
Speaker 1: Iranian hostage rescue mission. Pure yes, yeah. Our our company
Speaker 1: commander was again kind of like a Steve type of guy,
Speaker 1: just this wild eyed captain and Dave Grange and again
Speaker 1: his father, I think, had jumped into Normandy as as
Speaker 1: a young paratrooper World War Two and uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was he was from military stock. Uh he was
Speaker 1: a Lima Company ranger in Vietnam, and so he hit
Speaker 1: us right about the time they take the embassy and
Speaker 1: uh again, you know we were we were Infantry seven
Speaker 1: dash eight, you know, if a few manual seven dash eight,
Speaker 1: you know, the inf Troop two Inn squad. And that's
Speaker 1: how we task organized, that's how we had our mission sets.
Speaker 1: But but he did things a little bit different. And
Speaker 1: one day he brought us into the day room and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, back in that day, they had a day
Speaker 1: room with a pool table and a foodsball table, you know,
Speaker 1: in a place for the guys to go and watch
Speaker 1: movies or whatever and just take a break. And uh,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to know who the best snipers were,
Speaker 1: you know, who the who were guys that owned jeeps
Speaker 1: and drove off road vehicles. Who were the guys that
Speaker 1: drove motorcycles and had licenses to drive them. Who were
Speaker 1: the best machine gunners? Um. Then he wanted to he
Speaker 1: was actually looking for the strengths that he knew he
Speaker 1: would need when he retasked organized the company to actually
Speaker 1: have now have motorcycles to be on jeep teams and
Speaker 1: uh and then retask organized, you know, for to have
Speaker 1: a jump clearing element, to have an airfield clearing element. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean the guy taught us how to drive trains.
Speaker 1: He taught us how to drive bulldozers, you know, and
Speaker 1: in the event that you had to move things off
Speaker 1: of the airfield, we the you know Paul climbers climb
Speaker 1: up and chopped the electricity to it was it was
Speaker 1: very interesting to watch how he thought, um, how he
Speaker 1: played our strengths and then how he retask organized for
Speaker 1: all the missions that we would need to do, uh
Speaker 1: to to execute the Iranian hostage rescue and uh and really,
Speaker 1: I mean that guy was the father of modern the
Speaker 1: modern day ranger because a lot of those t tps
Speaker 1: that uh, you know that the guys had to actually
Speaker 1: think up. How are you going to get him on aircraft?
Speaker 1: Are you gonna get him off the aircraft? You know
Speaker 1: that we when do you do your your your checks,
Speaker 1: on your on your nods, you know, when you chamber around,
Speaker 1: when you when you fire up your your radios, you know,
Speaker 1: all these kinds of things to include ratchet strapping the
Speaker 1: vehicles down and when you pop chains and how do
Speaker 1: you you know, drive them on and off the ramp. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, not everybody had There wasn't a set of
Speaker 1: nods for every man. There wasn't a radio for every man.
Speaker 1: So so a lot of those things that you know
Speaker 1: survived to the ranger missions of today. Uh, we're actually
Speaker 1: invented under Dave Grange and Charlie Company. Yeah, and Grange
Speaker 1: is another one that's I mean, you ask any ranger
Speaker 1: about Dave Grange and you know he's right there under
Speaker 1: maybe you know some of the guys from World War Two,
Speaker 1: but William O. Darby and Dave Grange. Yeah, yeah, Darby Grange,
Speaker 1: you know guys like that. I mean, that's a pretty
Speaker 1: heavy company there. But can you talk about anything that
Speaker 1: went on on the ground while you were down there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Actually the UM I was there, there were two, two
Speaker 1: separate missions. I mean you had the the guys that
Speaker 1: went to Desert one and I think we had about
Speaker 1: a platoon minus of the guys that were going to
Speaker 1: secure UM the air field or the It was actually
Speaker 1: just a dirt strip, you know, there was it was
Speaker 1: a road in the middle of the desert. And again
Speaker 1: if you look at the way that UM you know
Speaker 1: that the mission was stovepiped and think every element in
Speaker 1: their Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, they were the best
Speaker 1: in the world at what they did. But but actually
Speaker 1: putting it all together, you know, underneath the chain of command,
Speaker 1: command and control. Um, that's that's where we started, Beau.
Speaker 1: There were there were some subtle nuances, you know, putting
Speaker 1: an Airborne Army ranger on an Air Force or Marine
Speaker 1: Corps helicopter and then taking that Air Force and Marine
Speaker 1: Corps helicopter on and off of a carrier deck. You know.
Speaker 1: So so all the different things that that they've since
Speaker 1: you know that the one has figured out. Um, you
Speaker 1: know they were they were they were kind of you know,
Speaker 1: flying blind in that day. You know, different aircraft, different capabilities. Um,
Speaker 1: the whole air refuel piece. So so the Charlie Company
Speaker 1: had one platoon that that went in with the the
Speaker 1: C one thirties, the refuelers and then also the waiting
Speaker 1: on the paved lows that we're gonna come in and
Speaker 1: refuel there in the desert. And uh, you know intel,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a lot of a lot of intel.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the typical and I learned this lesson at
Speaker 1: least three different times throughout my career that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in America, we have yards with fences, so we think
Speaker 1: that you know, if there's no fence, that nobody lives
Speaker 1: there right, not realizing that no, there's people out there
Speaker 1: that live in that desert and they traverse it. So
Speaker 1: uh so a bus shows up I think they pulled
Speaker 1: that over a um there was like a I think
Speaker 1: a tanker truck that it was coming through and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop. So kid by the name of Robert Rubio,
Speaker 1: you know, boom blows up the tanker truck. But again
Speaker 1: as it is that starts falling apart. The the mission
Speaker 1: has already done because the a couple of the birds
Speaker 1: um one had to shut down I think on the
Speaker 1: actual uh in the actual desert itself, and another one
Speaker 1: got lost, so so they'd get they had gotten lost
Speaker 1: in this uh, this sandstorm. So they were late coming
Speaker 1: in and the time of the year was that, you know,
Speaker 1: we went at the time when we had the maximum
Speaker 1: amount of darkness so that we could get in there,
Speaker 1: refuel and then go to the go to the hide
Speaker 1: side up in the mountains. But but they were unable
Speaker 1: to make the timelines and they didn't have enough aircraft
Speaker 1: now to actually do the mission. So they had already
Speaker 1: called the mission. And then in the in the the
Speaker 1: haste I guess to get out of there to get
Speaker 1: the birds refueled. One of the one of the helicopters
Speaker 1: clipped the the C one thirty refuel bird and that
Speaker 1: caused this massive fire and that's where most of the guys,
Speaker 1: most of the guys were killed. So they just just
Speaker 1: the ability to put all that stuff together. Uh and
Speaker 1: actually came out in the Holloway Commission because they Admiral Hallway,
Speaker 1: retired Navy admiral, he was tasked to UH to actually
Speaker 1: do the after action report, and so he came out
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, these guys were the best
Speaker 1: in the world at what they did, you know, in
Speaker 1: each individual service. But we need to bring them together.
Speaker 1: We need some type of organization that does a man training,
Speaker 1: equip resource. They need their own budget, you know. And
Speaker 1: he's described in so calm and so if we want
Speaker 1: to do this again, we want to be able to
Speaker 1: have an organization that does that. We also need a
Speaker 1: dedicated command and control that we're we're able to uh
Speaker 1: to command and control these that we know, you know,
Speaker 1: within reason, the logistics with the capabilities of all the
Speaker 1: different services and uh so as they're looking at those
Speaker 1: organizations that they need, the Army, you know, which loves
Speaker 1: the hates off. I mean, because you know, for us,
Speaker 1: we're kind of a distraction. Um, you know, we're not
Speaker 1: worth the money they spend on us, and especially when
Speaker 1: you're up against a new B two bomber or aircraft carrier,
Speaker 1: a big old tank. So the army sat on it,
Speaker 1: or on our arm but the Defense Department sat on
Speaker 1: it for a long time until the non cooing Amendment
Speaker 1: cranks up and actually legislated us so common into existence
Speaker 1: some four to six years later. And uh so, so
Speaker 1: that was the uh you know, the was it the
Speaker 1: I think Schumaker called it, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: most successful failures, and that you know, we learned a
Speaker 1: lot and we're able to set up you know, and
Speaker 1: and it actually built the force that we enjoy today
Speaker 1: with the ability to have our own our own funding,
Speaker 1: our own school houses, our own ability to train you know,
Speaker 1: man train, equipped and resource. So yeah, all that happened.
Speaker 1: There was a second part of that mission, uh man, sorry,
Speaker 1: which our Mansaria, which was actually the the X filled
Speaker 1: air air field there in Iran, and that's the one
Speaker 1: that I was on. So but we learned a lot
Speaker 1: of good lessons from that and uh it actually you know,
Speaker 1: kind of gave us the impetus to to get serious
Speaker 1: about what we do. You know, we'd being soft and
Speaker 1: uh and and gave us the capabilities that we have today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I was kind of lucky that that I was.
Speaker 1: I was able to um, you know, I I touched
Speaker 1: soft it at just a couple of places that you know,
Speaker 1: in those missions that again had lasting impacts. I was.
Speaker 1: I was very fortunate. Yeah, and today the guys, you know,
Speaker 1: they worked showing your operations now like there's it's nothing,
Speaker 1: no big deal, and uh, you know that's where all
Speaker 1: of that came from. So you know, it was tragic
Speaker 1: the way it turned out, but in the long run,
Speaker 1: it caused the Pentagon that finally take a good hard
Speaker 1: look at things and we have what we have today. Grudgingly, grudgingly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you uh. And then then in um, I
Speaker 1: wasn't in uh Grenada, but if you Grenado was like
Speaker 1: prior to know the non Cooin Amendment. But if you
Speaker 1: look at Grenada, there was a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of issues again that resurfaced. You know, the Defense Department
Speaker 1: was sitting on these these recommendations from Adduel Holloway weren't
Speaker 1: willing to make a decision. Um. I think when we
Speaker 1: launched our seals, the seals never made it ashore. By
Speaker 1: many of the seals drowned out out there in the ocean.
Speaker 1: The aircraft over shot the drop zone and the proponents
Speaker 1: of the rangers were dropped into the water. Um you
Speaker 1: know they I think that the National Mission guys were
Speaker 1: wearing you know, hockey helmets and and or no helmets.
Speaker 1: They were carrying you know, submachine guns and you know,
Speaker 1: stuff that they had that they had pioneered for you know, planes, trains, automobiles,
Speaker 1: you know, close in uh fighting, but then when you're
Speaker 1: up against a Cuban dude with an a K forty seven,
Speaker 1: you know, and again another lesson to learn. And again
Speaker 1: the aircraft, um weren't used to working with our soft guys.
Speaker 1: So as they're flying into the valleys, you know, you
Speaker 1: quickly realized that from from the ridge lines on either side,
Speaker 1: you know, the enemies got fire on you. So so
Speaker 1: a lot of those lessons were relearning. And I think
Speaker 1: really the Grenada was the impetus for None, None and
Speaker 1: Cohen to step up and say, hey, we gotta do this.
Speaker 1: And then that's when uh, you know, so calm and
Speaker 1: the services came in well excellent. And before we go on,
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Speaker 1: Coaching Tool today. Thanks. So we're back here with Rick Lamb.
Speaker 1: We're talking about ricks. You know, military career. After you know,
Speaker 1: you spent some time in the range of Italian you
Speaker 1: ended up with the u N Support group in Korea
Speaker 1: and that's uh an interesting story because during quote unquote
Speaker 1: a time of peace, you ended up with the Silver star,
Speaker 1: and could you tell our listeners a little bit about this.
Speaker 1: It was it was all dumb luck and timing, I
Speaker 1: mean the story of my life. But uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: reported to Korea and and again the Ranger, the Ranger
Speaker 1: of Mafia, and I'm supposed to go to second Infantry Division.
Speaker 1: So I'm at the Turtle the turtle farm there, and
Speaker 1: all the all the guys that are going into Korea
Speaker 1: are called turtles, you know, the all the new guys.
Speaker 1: Because the place where you in process is literally across
Speaker 1: the street from the place where your out process there
Speaker 1: on Camp Coiners, so it takes you three sixty five
Speaker 1: days to walk across the street. So you're a turtle
Speaker 1: the the and then the turtle ditches are the big
Speaker 1: when they have the monsoon range over there, you know,
Speaker 1: the the drainage ditches on either side of the road.
Speaker 1: They were like tiger traps, you know, for for a
Speaker 1: kid who's inebriated. So they call those turtle ditches. So
Speaker 1: I'm at the Turtle farm and uh incomes an old
Speaker 1: platoon sergeant from first Ranger Battalions Arnold Ways and he goes, lamb,
Speaker 1: you're coming with us, and uh so they take me
Speaker 1: up to the United Nations Command of Support grouped up
Speaker 1: there in the Joint Security Area, and it was a
Speaker 1: it was an infantry battalion and uh, you know you had, uh,
Speaker 1: you had four companies within that within that battalion and
Speaker 1: each or I'm sorry, platoons rather within the within the
Speaker 1: js F company, the Joint Security Force Company had the
Speaker 1: four platoons and they were they were fifty rock you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Republic of Korea soldiers and uh US guys. So it
Speaker 1: was a truly joint platoon and about forty guys, right,
Speaker 1: So we had a we had both the US and
Speaker 1: a Korean platoon leader. I had a platoon sergeant who
Speaker 1: was an old LIMA Company rangers starting Dave Mark, who
Speaker 1: forgot more about soldiering than than I ever knew. It
Speaker 1: was our steady hand as the platoon sergeant. And so
Speaker 1: my alpha fire team leader was a Korean kid, uh
Speaker 1: let and uh. And then I had a my Bravo
Speaker 1: fire team leader was it was a young American kid.
Speaker 1: But I had like eleven guys in the squad back then,
Speaker 1: so it truly was joint. The start major was a
Speaker 1: was a fifth group guy in Glenn forsythe and because
Speaker 1: I was back before we branched, So you were you
Speaker 1: were levin Bravo Sierra if you were wearing a Green beret,
Speaker 1: a victor if you were wearing a Ranger tab. And
Speaker 1: then you could go back and forth between. And so
Speaker 1: they were going down and they were cherry picking at
Speaker 1: the at the Turtle Farm, anybody who had been in
Speaker 1: the Rangers, who was SF, who was airborne, had been
Speaker 1: in division, anybody with any combat experience, and they were
Speaker 1: they were cherry picking the guys and then dragging them
Speaker 1: up to the j s A. The cool thing about
Speaker 1: the j s A was you were you were right there.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're the southern wire on on the compound
Speaker 1: was was actually the southern end of the military, the
Speaker 1: DMZ rather, so you're our little fourth there. Camp Kittie
Speaker 1: Hawk was was in the d m Z. And so
Speaker 1: our our day to day job was was in the
Speaker 1: the militarized zone. And we we did a rotation where
Speaker 1: you're either on a Quick Reaction Force, you know forty
Speaker 1: Mampatune there was a q r F two days, you're
Speaker 1: you're up in the Truce Village man and the bunkers
Speaker 1: and the checkpoints, pulling security in the truce village. You
Speaker 1: had two days where you were doing ambushed patrols and
Speaker 1: then a couple of days where you're doing training, and
Speaker 1: then you had two days off. So it was like
Speaker 1: an eight day work week and you just rotate between
Speaker 1: these uh these different jobs basically, so uh and everything
Speaker 1: was like staff sergeant run So it was kind of
Speaker 1: like being at UM being at Derby week UM in
Speaker 1: the rangers doing ranger school because you'd have we had
Speaker 1: had a little covered squad bay where you do your
Speaker 1: you plan your patrols and general of this. You know,
Speaker 1: the staff sergeant, the squadly you guys that would plan
Speaker 1: them and you go through your pre combat checks. And
Speaker 1: this was back in the old days when uh you
Speaker 1: didn't have computers, not every man had a radio. And
Speaker 1: uh so if you wanted to go there to guard
Speaker 1: you know, outposts, you know old Vietnam style, you know,
Speaker 1: fire bases and in the demilitarized zone or lett and
Speaker 1: call your and you had to physically drive up there
Speaker 1: and coordinate the passage. You're friendly forward unit. You had
Speaker 1: to coordinate your mortar fire, you had to coordinate your
Speaker 1: artillery fire by going south to meet the Red Legs
Speaker 1: and uh so all this stuff is going on and
Speaker 1: the sergeants are running at all, your your testifying your weapons.
Speaker 1: So it's really and you're carrying live ammo, you know,
Speaker 1: back in that day and you're carrying you know, live
Speaker 1: ammo six out of every eight day work week, which
Speaker 1: was just a great, great place to be. Company commander
Speaker 1: was a kid by the name of Bert mitzs Ala,
Speaker 1: the ranger guy and just a very very smart you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a detail oriented kind of guy, right, so
Speaker 1: he was he was constantly testing the guys, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean he was. He's one of those hands on
Speaker 1: kind of guys, you know, led by by moving around
Speaker 1: and he would uh he would actually uh you know,
Speaker 1: react the guys, give him the trucks and time them
Speaker 1: see how fast it took us. Because so you if
Speaker 1: you're on the they expected us to be in that
Speaker 1: truck within a matter of minutes. So consequently you you
Speaker 1: come out of your gear and lay it on the
Speaker 1: on your seat in the truck, um in reverse orders
Speaker 1: that you can put it on quickly as the trucks
Speaker 1: moving and uh, because you know you expected account and
Speaker 1: then go. But just just an awesome, awesome cat so
Speaker 1: on on on the particular day of the firefight, the
Speaker 1: everything that we did that day had been rehearsed, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so we would rehearse taking down the q
Speaker 1: r F site, which was in the d m Z.
Speaker 1: You know, we'd have to stop short, provide security, move forward,
Speaker 1: you know, breach the gate, cleared the building, and you
Speaker 1: so do it. You you do all that stuff just
Speaker 1: by rote memorization. You know, how the trucks would move,
Speaker 1: how you would move dismounted. So on that that particular day,
Speaker 1: I think we're down. We're eating lunch in the chow hall.
Speaker 1: We're about a kilometer or two south of the Truce
Speaker 1: village and normally we would have moved up within three
Speaker 1: but on that particular day there was nothing going on.
Speaker 1: So we're down in the base camp and one of
Speaker 1: the Rocks soldiers he comes over, he goes, they started
Speaker 1: lamb the The old man's in the the tacticle operations center.
Speaker 1: He's in the Sivilian clothes, but he's got all his
Speaker 1: battle rattle on. And so I said, okay, he's gonna
Speaker 1: react us. He's gonna he's gonna have his load trucks,
Speaker 1: and I said, just everybody quietly, get it. Stop what
Speaker 1: they're doing, get up and go load the truck. I'll
Speaker 1: go see what's going on, because I so wanted to
Speaker 1: just have him turn to me and go load trucks
Speaker 1: and like just given the thumbs up like it's done.
Speaker 1: So uh so I could talk. And he turns to
Speaker 1: me and he goes load trucks. That's it is done.
Speaker 1: But but he's not laughing serious. You can hear gunfire,
Speaker 1: you cackling in the background on the radio. And he
Speaker 1: goes load trucks, Get get into the DMZ, goes shots fired.
Speaker 1: We've got men down. There's a there's a rushing defector
Speaker 1: somewhere in the in the south of the military Demarcation
Speaker 1: Line and uh and the North Koreans have pursued him.
Speaker 1: He said, so you need to uh get in there,
Speaker 1: you know, secure the secure our guys, you know, secure
Speaker 1: the southern part of the NBL, secure the clear. It
Speaker 1: pushed the North Koreans out, grabbed this Soviet guy and
Speaker 1: get him get him in able back here. And I mean,
Speaker 1: so it's just you know, he's just doing short burths, right,
Speaker 1: And I said, hey, so we don't have a portune leader,
Speaker 1: patoon sergeant. They went down because we're gonna do an
Speaker 1: ambushed patrol that night. So they're down with the red
Speaker 1: legs coordinating the the artillery because you had to actually
Speaker 1: take an ascetate overlay you with your frequencies and call
Speaker 1: signs and uh and all your routes and and actually
Speaker 1: coordinate that in person with the the artillery guys. And
Speaker 1: he goes, yeah, I know, I just dispatched my driver
Speaker 1: because that day. You know, back in that day, if
Speaker 1: you were away from your jeep, you're away from your radio.
Speaker 1: Didn't have cell phones. So he dispatched his jeep. He says,
Speaker 1: I will meet you up there. So we we loaded,
Speaker 1: we go up and he sent that patoon into combat
Speaker 1: with staff sergeants and uh so we get in and
Speaker 1: we do, you know, get get the trucks and formation serpentine,
Speaker 1: get the get the know the perimeter out and we say, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna send gun heavy up to secure the HLZ
Speaker 1: to get the wounded out. It's also the high ground
Speaker 1: and it protects our flank and it ties in with
Speaker 1: the guys that are already in the in the d
Speaker 1: m Z and then we'll take three squads you know too,
Speaker 1: two abreast one, uh, you know, fifteen meters to the
Speaker 1: rear and prepared to maneuver left or right. And it's
Speaker 1: just seven dash eight stuff. And uh so the old
Speaker 1: man shows up and then he I mean this where
Speaker 1: I love this guy because he's like he was everywhere.
Speaker 1: He's up checking the guns, he's tied in with the flanks,
Speaker 1: he's back with me, he's he's pushing pushing guys left right,
Speaker 1: and just you know, the typical dude that was like
Speaker 1: everywhere and just an awesome guy to to this day.
Speaker 1: You know, we still stay in contact. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: ended up basically rolling their flank. So as we um
Speaker 1: as as the North Koreans came in, you know, the
Speaker 1: Soviet kid had run Matusak, he had run uh all
Speaker 1: the almost to the checkpoint and was hiding in some
Speaker 1: scrub and we saw him and grabbed him and that
Speaker 1: was about the time the jeep shows up. So it's
Speaker 1: just again perfect timing. We throw him in the jeep,
Speaker 1: send him back down to Seoul, and uh and then
Speaker 1: we continue to continue to push, you know, make contact,
Speaker 1: this movement to contact, and so we ended up rolling
Speaker 1: the flank of the because as they came across, you know,
Speaker 1: they were somewhat linear, and we just happened to roll
Speaker 1: their left flank. So it was like shooting turkeys in
Speaker 1: a barrel. We pushed into this um, this sunken garden area,
Speaker 1: and they had scrambled out of that and into another
Speaker 1: sunken garden. We'd actually um when they him across, you
Speaker 1: were a full up infantry patum with a double basic load.
Speaker 1: So uh you know, we we basically had twice the
Speaker 1: ammunition that you would normally carry. And uh the North
Speaker 1: Korean kids for passards, they when they came across, they
Speaker 1: had like a pistol or a scorpion or an a
Speaker 1: k with a magazine and it, and uh so we
Speaker 1: just they just ran dry. And uh so we we
Speaker 1: came to a point where, you know, we weren't gonna
Speaker 1: shoot on armed guys anymore. So we told them, hey,
Speaker 1: but now now is the time for you to surrender,
Speaker 1: and they actually did so they surrendered, they put their
Speaker 1: hands up. I think there was at least three, maybe
Speaker 1: four dead by that point. And uh, right at that
Speaker 1: lull of fires, we're coming out of our last cover
Speaker 1: and concealed to uh to you know, flex stuff these
Speaker 1: guys and and take them prisoner. We get the word
Speaker 1: that CP. Soul said stop and uh you know, let
Speaker 1: them go, let them get their bodies, let them get
Speaker 1: their guys, and let them you know, get the hell
Speaker 1: out of South Korea and then you just just clear
Speaker 1: the the NBL. You know, let him save face. They
Speaker 1: made a mistake, they realized it, and let him get
Speaker 1: the funk out. So, uh we we had lost one kid,
Speaker 1: uh um John Young Ki was was a young I
Speaker 1: think corporal Korean kid shot right in the eye. All right,
Speaker 1: well guy, so he he died early on. And I
Speaker 1: think Mike Burgoyne was a young sergeant who was shot
Speaker 1: in the throat and which you know, we we thought, okay,
Speaker 1: their marksmanship is pretty good because they're all head shots, right,
Speaker 1: and uh so we ended up again pushing pushing them out.
Speaker 1: And what happened was that you know, everything is there,
Speaker 1: there's there's at least at that time, there was about
Speaker 1: a brigade size element right around um you know there
Speaker 1: in our area, the U S sector, and there was
Speaker 1: there was a brigade out of that was it Camp
Speaker 1: Liberty Bell, which was out of the first of the
Speaker 1: ninth the man choose, we had our guys they're kitty Hawk,
Speaker 1: and then you had a from the second I D
Speaker 1: there would be a battalion up at Warrior base in
Speaker 1: the tents and and every that's those are the guys
Speaker 1: who would that would uh run the firebases or letting
Speaker 1: callier and then they would do the patrols in their
Speaker 1: sector of the d m Z. And so there was
Speaker 1: a better part of three battalions on the road induced
Speaker 1: the halves and five tons sitting on stacks of ammunition
Speaker 1: and are they're like in a berserk or rate where
Speaker 1: they're beating the side rails ready to go to their
Speaker 1: battle positions. And so it's serpentine down the MSR as
Speaker 1: far as a lot as the I can see. And
Speaker 1: they had they had um uh planes up that are
Speaker 1: shooting camera images across the the NBL and there's a
Speaker 1: similar size North can Korean contingent on the other side
Speaker 1: of the bridge and no return. So it was fixing
Speaker 1: to get really ugly as they start feeding battalions into
Speaker 1: this fight and they said stop, you know stuff that
Speaker 1: you're doing and uh and let them go, which was
Speaker 1: the oddest thing, you know, because you had to go
Speaker 1: you had to flip the s which from uh you know,
Speaker 1: get some to uh what just happened. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: you were awarded a silver star and your c I B.
Speaker 1: Which during a time of quote unquote peace as we
Speaker 1: all know there really isn't. But you know, that was
Speaker 1: pretty interesting day, there wasn't it. Oh it was, And
Speaker 1: I mean it actually happened fairly early in my tour,
Speaker 1: so it uh, it just set the stage for the
Speaker 1: rest of the rest of the tour because the but
Speaker 1: prior to that, it wasn't as tense. And uh but
Speaker 1: then after after that fight, I mean, everybody knew that
Speaker 1: we had because what would happened. I think some years earlier,
Speaker 1: I think it was seventy six, they had an axe
Speaker 1: murder and uh to where it was. It was the
Speaker 1: tree dropping incident Exack JSF guys had gone forward their
Speaker 1: escort and a tree trim in detail and the North
Speaker 1: Koreans came out. They had axes and I mean it
Speaker 1: and the two officers that were killed I think Bona
Speaker 1: Foss and I can't remember the other general's name, but
Speaker 1: they were they were armed and but there they were
Speaker 1: they were practicing such restraint that they allowed themselves to
Speaker 1: be actually, you know, chucked to death rather than pull
Speaker 1: a pistol. So is the as as that I think
Speaker 1: as that time wore on, you know, every I think
Speaker 1: every guy from that time forward said that's not gonna
Speaker 1: be me. And so when we went in, you know,
Speaker 1: with the double basic load, it was it was kind
Speaker 1: of game on infantry stuff and not so much guard duty.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Well let's fast forward a few years. You're
Speaker 1: now s F guy, you're signed down a Panama Charlie
Speaker 1: Company and you know, as we all know what happened
Speaker 1: on the December there because of noriega Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you were down in Panama. Like I said, we were
Speaker 1: all kind of chewing the same darted at certain points
Speaker 1: down there, but were you were part of the Charlie Company,
Speaker 1: guys who are in extremist forces, guys who took down
Speaker 1: the radio station where you're not correct, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and this this ties back to Korea that the
Speaker 1: you know, star Major Glenn Forsyth was an SF guy,
Speaker 1: and uh so he called about four or six of
Speaker 1: us together as where our tours are starting to close
Speaker 1: in Korea, and he says, you guys are next your
Speaker 1: next step in your military careers is you're all going
Speaker 1: to group. I see how you interact with the Korean
Speaker 1: soldiers and you guys got a knack for it, and
Speaker 1: you're all going to group. The recruiters gonna come up.
Speaker 1: You'll do your PT test or swim test, your road march,
Speaker 1: you're five mile run and he said, I know all
Speaker 1: your scores. You will do your best, and uh and
Speaker 1: we're off the group. So, uh so I go to
Speaker 1: the Q course and I get through the Q course
Speaker 1: that I put Panama, Panama, Panama because there was a
Speaker 1: guy in the Q course that had come up from
Speaker 1: ANIMI was a Commo kid that was going through the
Speaker 1: Q course and uh so he says, man, he got
Speaker 1: to go to Panama. There in El Salvador. You know
Speaker 1: they're there, Nicko Rockwather doing all these things. And so
Speaker 1: I put Panama, Panama, Panama, and then ended up in
Speaker 1: Panama and uh and it's like what happen? I ended
Speaker 1: up in in Sea Company and again just with you
Speaker 1: know John Humphries, Chris Sett's, I mean the you know
Speaker 1: Bill Painter, the Dan wheelis you know Huliu di Filippo.
Speaker 1: I mean, the guys were just it was an awesome team,
Speaker 1: you know, and I, you know, I had some degree
Speaker 1: of street creds going in until I got on that team.
Speaker 1: And then I must have spent like the first you know,
Speaker 1: a few months just in the corner watching as these
Speaker 1: guys just an awesome team, very seasoned guys in and
Speaker 1: out of Salvador. But yeah, we ended up yeah, because
Speaker 1: Blue Spoon was the mission prior to UM just cause,
Speaker 1: so we actually did a lot of the target folders
Speaker 1: on on some of the the you know, the targets
Speaker 1: that we were going to take down. Specifically, I think
Speaker 1: are are going in mission was going to be the
Speaker 1: president and the vice president of Panama, and prior to
Speaker 1: the invasion, we were going to go in. And remember,
Speaker 1: things started deteriorating real fast. You know, that navy kid
Speaker 1: get killed and and uh, you know, finally President Bush
Speaker 1: just said, all right, this is it. But but you know,
Speaker 1: we had we had been planning for this as the
Speaker 1: places deteriorating for a while. So the night before the invasion,
Speaker 1: they actually got this great idea where they called in
Speaker 1: Dhara and uh, you know, the president and the two
Speaker 1: vice presidents and said, hey, listen, come to the embassy.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have dinner. And so as soon as they
Speaker 1: got into the embassy, they said, we're locking you down.
Speaker 1: So so our our d day mission to go secure
Speaker 1: these guys and bring them back um didn't happen. So
Speaker 1: now we're up for lines of communication and uh and
Speaker 1: I think the we had just hit I think a
Speaker 1: TV station and uh. And we came back to the
Speaker 1: we're launching out all Brook and one of the kids,
Speaker 1: Brad Smith, I think, uh, spoke fluent Spanish. His dad
Speaker 1: was an SF guy. He's on the radio and the
Speaker 1: little transistor radio, and he hears in Oriega, you know,
Speaker 1: saying vava grab kitchen knives and uh and fight back.
Speaker 1: And so some wise guys said, what frequency is that?
Speaker 1: You know what radio station? Another guy runs and gets
Speaker 1: a phone book and they look in the phone book
Speaker 1: and they realized that the radio station is just right
Speaker 1: down the street on Balboa. So it was truly wasn't
Speaker 1: an inn extremist operation. To where the the planes were are.
Speaker 1: Their aircraft were already raged with fast ropes. We identified
Speaker 1: the building. Uh, they identified assault teams, and we fast
Speaker 1: roped onto the top of the this I think it
Speaker 1: was like a thirteen or fourteen story building, and uh,
Speaker 1: they dropped the fast ropes on on top of the
Speaker 1: building and we run over and so they were gonna
Speaker 1: blow the box there at the with the radio tower.
Speaker 1: And we get over to the door and it's one
Speaker 1: of those one hour doors. You know, it's the solid core,
Speaker 1: you know, metal code, you know, it's super good tolerance
Speaker 1: on the So it would take us an hour literally
Speaker 1: to beat this door off its hinges in order to
Speaker 1: gain access into the to the building unless we blew it.
Speaker 1: So then the demo guy he's like, man, I don't
Speaker 1: have enough charges to knock out this radio tower. Uh,
Speaker 1: and breached this door. So we're rummaging around. It's night.
Speaker 1: We grabbed the fast rope and we tied around this
Speaker 1: this big old industrial air conditioning unit up on top
Speaker 1: and we throw it over the side and then we're
Speaker 1: looking over, you know, peeking over, and there's a balcony
Speaker 1: about where the end of that fast rope is Danklin
Speaker 1: and we fast roped on to the top of that,
Speaker 1: I think me and Brad Smith, and then we breached
Speaker 1: the uh the glass door basically on that the sliding
Speaker 1: glass door on the balcony, got into the office building,
Speaker 1: ran upstairs, let the boys in, and then we we
Speaker 1: ran down to the to the radio station because we
Speaker 1: think Noriega is in there, right that at least there's
Speaker 1: a possibility, we're hoping, but it's a tape. So they
Speaker 1: so they destroy the uh, you know, the broadcast facility.
Speaker 1: They dropped the antenna and uh. So as we're going
Speaker 1: down to Xville the at that time, the city is
Speaker 1: on fire. You know, it's just everybody's going there's there's
Speaker 1: remember this uh, this volkswagon. There's got a big sofa
Speaker 1: on the roof, and there's there's guys. You know, they're
Speaker 1: trying to hold this this sofa on the roof of
Speaker 1: this little volkswagon as they're going through and there's h
Speaker 1: and everybody's giving us the USA number one signal, but
Speaker 1: there's there's guys in the street. They're shooting down. I
Speaker 1: think J. J. Johnson and I were running across the
Speaker 1: street to uh to secure onto the beach, to secure
Speaker 1: the landing zone for the helicopters come and pick us up.
Speaker 1: You know, rounds are skipping around everywhere. It was just
Speaker 1: just a frantic night. But yeah. So the radio station
Speaker 1: was like, uh, I think are one of our first targets.
Speaker 1: And then we get this call from the Rangers and uh,
Speaker 1: they said, hey, we need a Spanish speaking team to
Speaker 1: go up to Panona May because the third Battalion just
Speaker 1: jumped into Rio Hato and they were gonna push out
Speaker 1: from Rio Hato and they're gonna start taking down the
Speaker 1: concerns for the Concerns or the you know, the the
Speaker 1: headquarters for the different um, you know, Panamanian forces outside
Speaker 1: of Panama City. So we we got our own black
Speaker 1: hawk and they flew us up there. We had to
Speaker 1: I think we had a reinforced a team and uh
Speaker 1: we went up and we linked up with the Rangers,
Speaker 1: and I mean, because I love the Rangers, right, they said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna uh you guys, we're gonna go in there
Speaker 1: and we're gonna, uh, we're gonna surround them. You guys,
Speaker 1: go in you speak Spanish. If they don't want to
Speaker 1: come out, we're gonna kill them. Um if they change
Speaker 1: your mind as they come out, and we're gonna kill them.
Speaker 1: And so as we're talking to we're like, hey, we're
Speaker 1: in between like you and all this killing and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so we're we're we're a little bit you know,
Speaker 1: uneasy about the control majors here. And so the guy
Speaker 1: asked you what do you what do you suggests? And
Speaker 1: we had just done this training where we used a
Speaker 1: series of camel lights to control movement. You know. Then
Speaker 1: so you'd have an area where uh, red cam lights
Speaker 1: in a box, you know, basically a large, large area
Speaker 1: that would say, all right, anybody within this red area
Speaker 1: is has not been searched or he's just had a
Speaker 1: cursory search. And you have a blue area, which is
Speaker 1: like a wash area, right, anybody that's in that area
Speaker 1: is getting searched, and there's priorities of work and people
Speaker 1: you don't know how to search. And then anybody in
Speaker 1: this green area has been searched, and you can do
Speaker 1: it out of a perimeter. You can bust bust the
Speaker 1: perimeter in half and and you use this series of
Speaker 1: kim lights and then train the different portunis to do
Speaker 1: the priorities of work and you can, you know, within
Speaker 1: relatively short order, the you can you can you can
Speaker 1: make the thing safe. And then all all muzzles are
Speaker 1: pointing in a you know, in a three D sixties
Speaker 1: degree and you can fight out of the perimeter. So
Speaker 1: we we just kind of messed around with this technique
Speaker 1: a few months earlier down in Colombia, and uh so
Speaker 1: we briefly to the Rangers and they're like, well, it's
Speaker 1: a great plan, but man, it's kind of complex. You know,
Speaker 1: we've never done it before. I don't know if I can,
Speaker 1: you know, if I could control it. So you know,
Speaker 1: outsteps uh one of the Ranger guys who had been
Speaker 1: in first bat and they said, we'll just let Rick
Speaker 1: do it, and uh, and I say, I wasn't looking
Speaker 1: for a job. I was just trying to make a suggestion.
Speaker 1: So so we ended up they said, all right, the
Speaker 1: SF guys will do it. Uh they'll they'll take care
Speaker 1: of you know, setting it up and everything and and
Speaker 1: and and working it and uh but if it goes bad,
Speaker 1: they just need to get the hell down because they
Speaker 1: we're gonna kill everybody. So the uh we ended up
Speaker 1: I think calling and what had happened was I think
Speaker 1: there was one of the guys and I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is wives tale you know, or you know,
Speaker 1: old old story, but one of the guys I think
Speaker 1: who was in the back at the socks at eight.
Speaker 1: We we've worked with the Penonam guys before, because you
Speaker 1: know the jumping the Jumping Ambassadors, which was the team,
Speaker 1: you know, the parachute team out of a third battalion there.
Speaker 1: They won the Noriega a couple of couple of times.
Speaker 1: And they said, these guys are Pennonyma, they're pretty good
Speaker 1: skydivers in the we've worked them before. We don't we
Speaker 1: don't think they want to fight, and so they still won't.
Speaker 1: We just call them. So that's why it was called
Speaker 1: the mob Bel. You know, the mob Bel was the
Speaker 1: uh was the you know, the company, the telephone company
Speaker 1: at the time. So they just picked up the phone
Speaker 1: and called the guy as a Penona man and said
Speaker 1: what are your intentions? And they said, we don't want
Speaker 1: to fight, We want of surrenders. So they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we need a formation on the soccer field. We need uh,
Speaker 1: you know, list of who's there, list of who's not there.
Speaker 1: We need all your sense of items and we need
Speaker 1: the keys your arms from so lock everything up in
Speaker 1: your arm room. Gives the keys with the inventory and uh,
Speaker 1: you're your list of a personnel present for duty those
Speaker 1: not there and uh, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll come, we'll come,
Speaker 1: get your squared away. And so that's basically how we
Speaker 1: walked in and found him. We'd we'd take them out,
Speaker 1: you know, the team would usher them out, put him
Speaker 1: in the dirty area. The rangers that would put pust security,
Speaker 1: uh squad from the rangers would would then pick up,
Speaker 1: you know, um, the files that we would drop off,
Speaker 1: take them through the wash area and make sure that
Speaker 1: they were that they were patted down and searched, you know,
Speaker 1: thoroughly searched, and then put him into the clean area
Speaker 1: again with rangers pulling security. And we took about eight
Speaker 1: prisoners all during the hours of darkness, and uh, within
Speaker 1: just just a few hours, without it without firing a shot.
Speaker 1: And there was only one point and that whole thing
Speaker 1: where it started kind of looked like it was going
Speaker 1: to break down because the guys, the rangers were in
Speaker 1: this this darkened perimeter and uh, you know, they're doing
Speaker 1: all their stuff on nods and the Panamenians didn't. They
Speaker 1: all they saw was just the same three or four
Speaker 1: s F dudes and so but the good thing is
Speaker 1: that we spoke Spanish, so we could hear him say,
Speaker 1: you know, we can take these guys. Man, I only
Speaker 1: see like four of them. What do we do it?
Speaker 1: And uh, and we need to get out of here, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you It started breaking down right,
Speaker 1: So we called up the A C. One thirty said hey,
Speaker 1: we need you to burn our our position and uh,
Speaker 1: you know we we mean, you know, we need to
Speaker 1: We asked him to light up our position. Is what
Speaker 1: it was that we met with, you know, white light,
Speaker 1: dred candle lot xenon searchlight. With the guys on the
Speaker 1: plane thought that we wanted them to light up the
Speaker 1: soccer stadium where all these kids were. So there was
Speaker 1: some bag of forth where we're like no, no no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, we don't want you to fire, we want
Speaker 1: you to light up with your candle light search And
Speaker 1: so as soon as they lit up the area, they
Speaker 1: saw how many rangers were out there, and uh, they
Speaker 1: just went back down, your head down, boat up, shut up,
Speaker 1: and uh and that was that was the closest we
Speaker 1: had anything anything going south. Yeah, that's uh, I remember
Speaker 1: you know that. You know when you tell people that story,
Speaker 1: people don't believe that. Oh, you know, handful of SF
Speaker 1: guys got a whole battalion the surrender. But that's the
Speaker 1: way it was back then. But luckily nobody was hurt there,
Speaker 1: and uh, it was shortly after that. It was a
Speaker 1: sad day for the guys in three seven when you know,
Speaker 1: they they moved most of the battalion, with the exception
Speaker 1: of Charlie Company, back to Bragg. And that's when you, uh,
Speaker 1: you did something that nobody really had done at that point.
Speaker 1: You went back to the Rangers. From that stuff. Tell
Speaker 1: tell our listeners a little bit about that. And you
Speaker 1: know there's a story, right so the uh I was
Speaker 1: I put four sevens, you know, which is the paper
Speaker 1: we're asking for a transfer back to the Rangers. And
Speaker 1: uh but in the meantime, you know, since I had
Speaker 1: reported to Panama, you finished the key course and reported
Speaker 1: into Panama, Special Forces branched and we became our own branch.
Speaker 1: So we're now eighteen Series Special Forces guys. The Rangers
Speaker 1: are eleven, you know, Series Infant treatment and and the
Speaker 1: two don't mix anymore, I mean a separate career paths.
Speaker 1: I put in these these requests for transferring over when
Speaker 1: I leave Panama bes out down there about six years.
Speaker 1: This is ninety two by then, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: get reassigned to the Rangers, and they said, we can't
Speaker 1: do it. So I'm going I think from third Battalion.
Speaker 1: I was assigned the first h third Battalion, seventh Group.
Speaker 1: I was assigned the first Battalion, seventh Group at BRAG
Speaker 1: but I'm still in Panama. I'm on uh, I'm on leave. Basically,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd already packed out of our house. We had, um,
Speaker 1: we've done a lot of uh. My wife and I
Speaker 1: were actually on the Pacific side in a hotel at
Speaker 1: this point, waiting on the Freedom Bird to take us,
Speaker 1: take us up to Brad. So I end up getting
Speaker 1: a phone call and it's the team. The my team's
Speaker 1: over on Fort Sherman and you had they had that
Speaker 1: air strip out there Fort Sherman and they're doing the
Speaker 1: fault and extraction. So they've got you know, the style
Speaker 1: birds are out there with the with the big hooks
Speaker 1: on the front, and uh, they've got the big you
Speaker 1: know like in the in the if anybody's seen the
Speaker 1: movie The Green Beret, you know, where they put the
Speaker 1: guy in the suit and he's tied up to a
Speaker 1: balloon and then the plane comes and snags the balloon
Speaker 1: and they yanked him into the back of the C
Speaker 1: one thirty. They were they were actually practicing that on
Speaker 1: on the airfield and so they said, rack man, you
Speaker 1: gotta come out and see this when we think we
Speaker 1: can do a live yank and uh, so like, oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta do that, you know there. So they said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you you poop yourself when when they yank
Speaker 1: you up. And at the last minute, the I think
Speaker 1: was s F commander use of so said, now we
Speaker 1: ain't doing a live yank, but we were doing the
Speaker 1: two pound you know mannequins, the sand bags. So we're
Speaker 1: out there and we're doing you know, they're they're dropping
Speaker 1: the they're dropping the canisters and we're firing them up.
Speaker 1: We're operating the balloon and we get the whole thing
Speaker 1: going on and they're they're coming and yanking. He's, uh,
Speaker 1: these uh you know test dummies, right, and so uplocked
Speaker 1: the rangers. So third Ranger Battalion just jumped into the
Speaker 1: tune drops on and uh. The the battalion commander was
Speaker 1: my former company commander, uh Captain Keneely, So he's now
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Kenneely. The guy that he had relieved was
Speaker 1: was Dave Grange. So, Dave Grange is now the the
Speaker 1: the Ranger commander, the Range Regiment commander. He's the r
Speaker 1: c O. So Grange is the r c O. Jumps
Speaker 1: in with Canneely, who's the commander of a third Ranger battalon,
Speaker 1: and they jump in and they do the twelve mile
Speaker 1: road march up to the airfield there because they're going
Speaker 1: to go through the jungle school and they come out,
Speaker 1: they'll see the faulton extraction thing going on. And the
Speaker 1: Grange goes, lamb, when are you coming back to regiment?
Speaker 1: And I said, hey, sorry, I've tried, and you know
Speaker 1: it's eighteen. So he turns to Leon Guerrero and he goes, LG,
Speaker 1: just get Land back in the in the regiment. And
Speaker 1: LG goes, hey, sir, I mean it's it's harder than
Speaker 1: just getting him back in the regiment. So he goes,
Speaker 1: he goes, what are you doing now? I said, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm onna leave. You know, I'm gonna report into Bragg
Speaker 1: next week and uh so, you guys, how much leave
Speaker 1: do you have? And uh so, so I got forty
Speaker 1: five days. He goes, all right, don't sign in. He says,
Speaker 1: I'll come up to Brag and we'll meet you at
Speaker 1: Bragg and we'll go see um Downing. And I said, sir,
Speaker 1: they will burn you know, they'll castrate me if I
Speaker 1: walk to the office. And uh he goes, okay, we'll go.
Speaker 1: We'll go and see Dick Potter first, because Dick Potter,
Speaker 1: I think had it wasn't even SF command there, it
Speaker 1: was like Special Forces Integration Command is the forerunner of
Speaker 1: of s F Command. So we go see Dick Potter
Speaker 1: and and and Potter says the old man Downing who
Speaker 1: is at Yusasak. He doesn't like the fact that the
Speaker 1: Rangers and the s F guys have split. And we
Speaker 1: always thought in the SF we thought that you know,
Speaker 1: an other Rangers like this, and uh so, but Downey
Speaker 1: didn't like the fact that they had split. He liked
Speaker 1: the cross polonization. So he wanted to do this thing
Speaker 1: called cross Walk. And so cross Walk would take a
Speaker 1: kid that was that started out in one of the battalions,
Speaker 1: went to and they would they would identify him. So
Speaker 1: when he becomes a squad leader, you know his his
Speaker 1: the next move is go to the Q course would
Speaker 1: be a junior weapons guy, gets some advanced in in
Speaker 1: field schools and some other, um your weapons courses, and
Speaker 1: then he goes back. He takes a patoon and the Rangers,
Speaker 1: and then from there he goes back he becomes a
Speaker 1: senior guy. Uh, senior weapons if you will, and then
Speaker 1: and then back and forth. And so I got to
Speaker 1: do that and uh and it was awesome. I ended
Speaker 1: up going to uh third Ranger Battalion with Kenneeli, who
Speaker 1: had uh you know, had been my company commander prior.
Speaker 1: And so when I signed him. By the time I
Speaker 1: get up there and I get signed in the I
Speaker 1: go over to see CANNELI and he was dead. The
Speaker 1: uh he had him in the first Ranger Battalion commander.
Speaker 1: We're out at Salt Lake, UM and had there was
Speaker 1: one of those two crap those two Blackhawks crashed and
Speaker 1: they lost both the bottalion commanders. So so we uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I missed servant under him again, but again got got
Speaker 1: two years uh at at third Range Battalion. And actually
Speaker 1: the st. Major who uh Salinas was the was the
Speaker 1: seventh Group guy. I don't know if you remember Reggie
Speaker 1: Sealinus or not. I went through these Reggie, did you
Speaker 1: really got? And so so Reggie's the third range of
Speaker 1: Battalion Major and so I go in, I reported and
Speaker 1: uh and I'm supposed to go to a platoon and
Speaker 1: he goes not so fast, and he says, I just
Speaker 1: fired my Battalion Ops guy who was a master shortan right,
Speaker 1: and uh, and I'm only starting first class. I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be a tune sort and he says, I know
Speaker 1: you got oh, and I I know you've got, you know,
Speaker 1: operators intelligence. Of course, he says, I need you to
Speaker 1: to run the Battalion Ops shop until I get a replacement.
Speaker 1: And he says it could be six months, could be
Speaker 1: a year. And so I ended up in Battalion Ops,
Speaker 1: which was awesome because then you can you can kind
Speaker 1: of pick the company you wanted to go to and
Speaker 1: you know, learn how to because I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: using I just spent six years in in SF and uh.
Speaker 1: You know there were people within the range of Battalion
Speaker 1: that didn't know if I knew how to get a haircut,
Speaker 1: you know. So so it was good. It was a
Speaker 1: good way to get in, get in there, and get
Speaker 1: after it. I it up in Alpha Company as a
Speaker 1: patine stard. But but initially when I went to Somalia,
Speaker 1: I was the battalion ops are yeah, and and Somalia, Um,
Speaker 1: you got shot in the head, didn't you. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was it was an RPG UM that that kind of
Speaker 1: skidded off the roof, you know, the hood of the
Speaker 1: vehicle and then exploded on on one of the buildings.
Speaker 1: And uh. And you know how everything slows down when
Speaker 1: you're when all the blood goes your eyes and and
Speaker 1: then everything just kind of slows down the and you
Speaker 1: can actually track the RPGs is going across the front
Speaker 1: and uh. Yeah, so I took a piece of shrapmul
Speaker 1: off of that. But you know, and it was because
Speaker 1: I had the I was the ops guy in the talk, right,
Speaker 1: so my job was to uh and this was back
Speaker 1: before computers, I mean it was it was really really
Speaker 1: was analog type stuff. And so when the we had
Speaker 1: these big set of satellite imagery up on the wall
Speaker 1: and then we gritted it right, and so the entire
Speaker 1: wall was the entire city. And then each each one
Speaker 1: of those grids had a had a sub um sub
Speaker 1: picture that was that was um you know, in large
Speaker 1: to where the guys could do their actions on the objective,
Speaker 1: so you can go in there and you get so
Speaker 1: the rangers would come in. We said, we we gotta
Speaker 1: hit we think he's here in this building. See a
Speaker 1: circle that and uh. So then the rangers come in
Speaker 1: and they look at their routes and they can draw
Speaker 1: their routes out, you know for primary altar in the contingency.
Speaker 1: And then the guys are going in on the X.
Speaker 1: You know, the uh they're gonna put the security out
Speaker 1: of either fast rope or air land. They can they
Speaker 1: can look for their fast rope hl zs or their
Speaker 1: airline h l zs. You get the uh conboy guys
Speaker 1: going in and uh and then the air guys, you know,
Speaker 1: they start working the air corridor. So you can work
Speaker 1: all of that off of the off of the series
Speaker 1: of satellite images. And it was just the leadership that
Speaker 1: would come in right well. The well, the guys were
Speaker 1: loading vehicles, you know, topping off water, making sure that
Speaker 1: you getting in convoy march order. They're they were doing
Speaker 1: the pre flights on the on the aircraft and so
Speaker 1: my job was to as they're as they're going through it,
Speaker 1: as I'm on to dry a race board, and I'm
Speaker 1: actually drawing out you know, the actions on the objective
Speaker 1: and where the helicopters are going, and where the where
Speaker 1: the vehicles are going, and you know where the breach
Speaker 1: point is and uh. And it was one of those old,
Speaker 1: you know, high speed dry race boards where you could
Speaker 1: actually print the picture that you just drew. So I
Speaker 1: was the old man Garrison when he would slap the
Speaker 1: table and said, go, you know, I'd I'd hit the
Speaker 1: hit print and then I'd do like thirteen or fourteen copies,
Speaker 1: and then the boys would run them out and they
Speaker 1: brief everybody either curbside or or bird side, and then
Speaker 1: they go do their thing. Now we're watching it because
Speaker 1: we had we had an oriyon that was up overhead
Speaker 1: and you can just see it deteriorating and you can
Speaker 1: see that they had assembled quickly, that that they had
Speaker 1: massed quickly. That uh, I think we had the kid
Speaker 1: fall the blackburn I think had fallen off the fast rope.
Speaker 1: So he's uh, he's you know, a casually that's coming in.
Speaker 1: So we had to dispatch guys out there. And so
Speaker 1: the I end up to can every able bodied ranger
Speaker 1: off of the wall or awful whatever job he was in,
Speaker 1: and we had kids cutting cash offt to get back
Speaker 1: into trucks, and so we took a convoy out initially
Speaker 1: to pick up Blackburn and the guys and then uh second,
Speaker 1: let me let me get this dog real quick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Take your time while Rick is uh calming
Speaker 1: down this dog. Let me read our other ad for
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Speaker 1: Thank you. So Rick to get the dog calm down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think mama took him in the locked him in
Speaker 1: the back room. So he said, before time out, I
Speaker 1: had to put my English bulldog in the other room
Speaker 1: because she snores so loud. I really didn't understand how
Speaker 1: loud it was. But then it came through loud and
Speaker 1: clear on the podcast, so it sounded like we were
Speaker 1: boring some of my family members here, because yeah, dogs
Speaker 1: can still really loud. But yeah, you're, you know, filling
Speaker 1: us in about um you know, you're you're taking somalia
Speaker 1: and you know you were going out to uh recover
Speaker 1: one of the rangers. I remember seeing that Blackburn did.
Speaker 1: Did he uh did he come through that alright? Or
Speaker 1: was he seriously yeah, the I believe he did. I
Speaker 1: believe he he did a full recovery. I'd have to
Speaker 1: check that, but but but I want to say he
Speaker 1: did because we initially um got them and uh that
Speaker 1: those guys and took him back to the compound and
Speaker 1: then we uh we were sent out a second time
Speaker 1: because we're gonna meet the guys from the Tenth Mountain,
Speaker 1: the q r F that we're coming down from the north,
Speaker 1: and we both got repulsed. I mean, the whole city
Speaker 1: was just on fire at that point, so we got repulsed.
Speaker 1: Uh that the that that one of the I can't
Speaker 1: remember the K two traffic circlin was and just we
Speaker 1: we actually, you know, they went back up north because
Speaker 1: they had they had doze to an end run around
Speaker 1: the west end of the city, and so they went
Speaker 1: back up north and they went around the west end
Speaker 1: of the city, met us at the at the airfield
Speaker 1: and then there was a back door into the port
Speaker 1: facility off of the airfield. So we went over to
Speaker 1: the port and that's where we linked up with the
Speaker 1: uh the Malaysian Anti Personnel cares in the Pakistani tanks
Speaker 1: and had a quick um, you know, brief on on
Speaker 1: how we're gonna move and uh, you know, what our
Speaker 1: actions on enemy contact we're gonna be. And at this point,
Speaker 1: because we had we had been out twice and we
Speaker 1: had lost two vehicles, you know, a vehicle each time.
Speaker 1: And the second time we went out, like my uh,
Speaker 1: my driver Easter Brooks, he was like the AMMO n CEO, right,
Speaker 1: the great kid. Yeah. But but but I mean the
Speaker 1: AMMO n CEO, the the the the Commo guys, the
Speaker 1: the um the cooks, they're all they've all been to
Speaker 1: ranging school, so you know, they're all they're all ranger kids.
Speaker 1: And uh so we were able to uh So. It
Speaker 1: was just a good team. They just never worked well,
Speaker 1: were worked together, they worked well, never never as a
Speaker 1: as an integrated team. So they so they were they
Speaker 1: were easy. So I figured, Okay, now we're gonna get um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get a uh you know, a personnel vehicle.
Speaker 1: But they gave us this open top cargo hummer and
Speaker 1: uh so, and they said, your your mission is to
Speaker 1: be the ground security for the Pakistani tanks. So every
Speaker 1: time the convoy stopped and the tank would go into
Speaker 1: a position, we'd have to push out in front of
Speaker 1: it and uh and keep people you know, off the
Speaker 1: tanks basically. And so I was scared to death that
Speaker 1: I was gonna lose one of those kids, you know
Speaker 1: that uh he would just disappear in the night or
Speaker 1: he would miss the ride, you know, as well as
Speaker 1: the convoys begins to move. So I spent my my
Speaker 1: whole night. They're just running around counting hedge, touching, touching
Speaker 1: foreheads and you know, getting faces and making sure that
Speaker 1: I had everybody and but every you know, we didn't
Speaker 1: have a gun, so we'd have a Most of the
Speaker 1: hummers had either Mark nineteen or fifty cow on it,
Speaker 1: so you know, generally the fifty cow go through the
Speaker 1: U through the the intersection. You know, they're lighting stuff
Speaker 1: up on either side, and then we go through right
Speaker 1: behind them. After everybody's head is coming up and they're shooting.
Speaker 1: So you can just hear, you know, the rounds pinging
Speaker 1: on the on the vehicle. I mean all of our
Speaker 1: all of our tires were flat. I mean the oil
Speaker 1: pan had had a hole in it. We was those
Speaker 1: are tough trucks. They kept kept rolling on the on
Speaker 1: the run flats. But we finally took an RPG that
Speaker 1: skidded off the hood of the vehicle and the Easterbrooks
Speaker 1: had got wounded like the the intersection before, and so
Speaker 1: we did the dead driver drill pulled him out of
Speaker 1: the seat, you know, and then I'm over as the
Speaker 1: t C I I jump in. You know, we're working
Speaker 1: the working the hand throttle and uh and he was
Speaker 1: wounded in the hands. So I'm I'm steering with my
Speaker 1: knee and uh and and bandage in his hand with
Speaker 1: a with a pressure dressing and uh. So I just
Speaker 1: pushed my helmet back and wiped my forehead, going oh man,
Speaker 1: and this sucks. We get hit again. The RPG goes
Speaker 1: across and I'll followed my eyes and bam, I remember
Speaker 1: my head, you know, kind of snapping back. And I
Speaker 1: saw this spurt of blood go onto the running blackout drive.
Speaker 1: So I saw it, you know, running onto the uh
Speaker 1: the lights on the on the dashboard, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: damn it, I just got killed and uh and then
Speaker 1: everything goes to this pristine point of light right and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sounds of the battlefield are gone, you know,
Speaker 1: the prickly heat. You don't feel that anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: hear any Uh. I'm not uncomfortable. I'm feeling uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm dying. And so and then the next thing I
Speaker 1: remember is the uh, the kids in the back or
Speaker 1: because because I I stood you and you do you
Speaker 1: you kind of you do go through your life, you know,
Speaker 1: and you regrets and everything is as as you're ed
Speaker 1: you're passing over and uh, and then you feel guilty
Speaker 1: for all this stuff. You're screwed up and and uh
Speaker 1: and then you start, you know, kind of uh dealing
Speaker 1: for a second chance. And I'm thinking, man, because my
Speaker 1: son was literally born the day that we left, so
Speaker 1: I got got to hold in like thirty minutes and
Speaker 1: then handing back to his mom. And then you know,
Speaker 1: we had to get on the get on the vehicle
Speaker 1: and deploy, and so I'm thinking, man, what's gonna happen
Speaker 1: to those guys? You know my wife, you know there's
Speaker 1: a new kid. You know, he'll never know me. Then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, bamp power back up and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the lights are back, and I'm feeling uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: got got the splitting headache and uh and the kids
Speaker 1: are hitting me in the back of the k pot
Speaker 1: going do not stop here, You're all you can hear
Speaker 1: all the ping, ping, ping ping, So I we're just
Speaker 1: pushing the helmet forward, you know that the onto my
Speaker 1: forehead because I could I had blood draining into my
Speaker 1: eye and uh, mashing the accelerator and then it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: it's about I think, and we didn't get out of
Speaker 1: the until about zero six the next morning. So by
Speaker 1: the end of the day or the beginning of the
Speaker 1: next morning, it was it's like you're you're you're on
Speaker 1: an all night drunk and you get that kind of
Speaker 1: second wind, you know, about the time the sun comes up.
Speaker 1: That Uh yes, it was. It was surreal. I remember
Speaker 1: just going to the Yeah, we got to the it
Speaker 1: got to the point where we had to ditch our truck,
Speaker 1: so I didn't do the full Mogadishu mile. You know,
Speaker 1: I crossloaded the guys into vehicles that were given me.
Speaker 1: A lot of the kids were wounded by that, so
Speaker 1: we crossloaded into any vehicle we could find. But they
Speaker 1: were everybody was working and they were just packed in
Speaker 1: like sardines. So we ended up running beside the vehicles
Speaker 1: for a while. And uh so I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: have to run all the way to the stadium. I
Speaker 1: did like the Mogadishu half mile because the tenth Mountain
Speaker 1: there were some kids in a hummer and they grabbed
Speaker 1: us and bandais Is up and threw us in the
Speaker 1: back of their hummer. And so I got of the stadium,
Speaker 1: and I mean there were seventy five kids that were
Speaker 1: you know in some you know, dead dying and wounded,
Speaker 1: and they were laid out in the treage there, and
Speaker 1: so they started bringing the helicopters in and uh they
Speaker 1: were packing us in as many as they could. And
Speaker 1: there was a guy on the floor and I'm so
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the seat and I'm looking down between
Speaker 1: my legs, and there's a kid on a stretcher. You
Speaker 1: know what we're talking and uh So we get to
Speaker 1: the hospital and because I was ahead wound, so I
Speaker 1: was on one of the first lifts and uh so
Speaker 1: we get to the hospital and they're they're all apologizing
Speaker 1: because you know the kids that are in the emergency room,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're just running back and forth. And then
Speaker 1: you know those guys, guys going out on the table,
Speaker 1: and uh so they said, hey, we'll get to you.
Speaker 1: We'll get to you. And so I finally asked, can
Speaker 1: I get some bedded iron scrubs, because you know, I
Speaker 1: don't feel bad at this point. And I go in
Speaker 1: and I cleaned up my face and and it doesn't
Speaker 1: look too bad. I'm just swollen on my forehead. And
Speaker 1: so then I started thinking, you know, it's probably a
Speaker 1: piece of concrete from the wall that kind of snapped
Speaker 1: back and hit me in the head, and and uh
Speaker 1: that's all it was. So I go back to uh
Speaker 1: and I get my my gear and catch it right
Speaker 1: on the helicopter, go back to the hangar because I'm thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got I got a two o'clock m duty at
Speaker 1: the radio, watch right, and uh so I had to
Speaker 1: tend to right. So tend and uh ten pm to
Speaker 1: two am. It was my shift in the talk And
Speaker 1: as I go in, I lay down, I go to sleep.
Speaker 1: I get up and about two days later, um, Doc
Speaker 1: Marsh goes by because here you lamb. I said, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: and he goes, you're a wall. He said, you never
Speaker 1: walk out of the hospital like that. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: we could, we could court martial your dumbass if we
Speaker 1: wanted to, but we're not gonna. Uh he said that
Speaker 1: you need to go back to the hospital and uh so,
Speaker 1: I said, And so he said, what happened? I said,
Speaker 1: as probably piece of concrete. And he goes, follow my finger,
Speaker 1: you know, he traces his traces my eye movement with
Speaker 1: his and he goes, now, he said, that's an entrance wind.
Speaker 1: I said, no ship, And so we go in there
Speaker 1: and they do the CT scan and bigger and stut
Speaker 1: gartmenter's uh about even with the temple. So it uh
Speaker 1: it went in the middle of the forehead, clip the
Speaker 1: left front lobe and uh and then stopped between the
Speaker 1: left and right front lobes about you know, two or
Speaker 1: three inches in behind the temple. And they're they're showing
Speaker 1: this on the on the CT scan and they go, man,
Speaker 1: we're looking at a dead man. There's there's no way
Speaker 1: you should be alive. And so I'm getting worried. I'm like,
Speaker 1: am I going to die? And the guy goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid. So and these are young, you know, young doctors,
Speaker 1: you'll probably fresh out of med school and uh, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I just had a baby, and you know, I'm almost
Speaker 1: crying here. And they started laughing or going, well, everybody's
Speaker 1: gonna die one day. Stop. So so I like, I,
Speaker 1: you know, I stood up and then I went down
Speaker 1: on my knee and then I fell on the ground.
Speaker 1: I started, you know, flopping around, and they're calling for
Speaker 1: a crash card. And then when they came with a
Speaker 1: crash card, I jumped up and said, got you. But
Speaker 1: you know, Dr humor. But yeah, so they they sent
Speaker 1: me home and I ended up going to a launch
Speaker 1: tool and then from launch tool down to uh to
Speaker 1: Keisler and and that was a sad thing because all
Speaker 1: you know, all my buddies are getting off at Walter
Speaker 1: Reed and they're they're like, no, not so fast, go
Speaker 1: sit down, and they take me to launch tool or
Speaker 1: not launched tool, but Keisler Air Force Base where they
Speaker 1: had this Air Force kid and he was captain and
Speaker 1: it might have been a major, but he had cut
Speaker 1: his teeth at Cook County Medical when he was in
Speaker 1: med school as uh so he was like the front
Speaker 1: trauma dude, and uh he ended up, you know, popping
Speaker 1: my nugget and uh because they take it forward and
Speaker 1: they cut into the airline and then they kind of
Speaker 1: peeled the skin down and then they they'll cut a
Speaker 1: cut about a battalion coin sized piece of skull out
Speaker 1: and then they go in there and they start breeding
Speaker 1: the tissue because they're trying to get the shrapnel but
Speaker 1: they couldn't get to it, and uh so he just
Speaker 1: left it in there, you know, he cleaned up what
Speaker 1: he could and sewed it back up and then it
Speaker 1: got infected. And I end up staying there for a
Speaker 1: couple of months, you know, just until they could kill
Speaker 1: the infection because they didn't want to do a second surgery.
Speaker 1: And uh and then you know, made a made a
Speaker 1: full recovery after that. So because as he was digging,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, he came in, you had all
Speaker 1: your faculties. I didn't want to be the guy that
Speaker 1: shut you down, so so we just left it in.
Speaker 1: And uh, sometimes if you tune a hand one it'll
Speaker 1: it'll it'll beat. But other than that, so it's still
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah's still in there. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My dad was a tank destroyer commander on World War
Speaker 1: Two and his his tank got hit and blown up
Speaker 1: and by the Germans, and he had so much travenel
Speaker 1: in his knees and he had some in his hands
Speaker 1: that when we go to the airport you go through
Speaker 1: the metal detector. He set it off and then the
Speaker 1: guys would be like, oh, would you come back, and
Speaker 1: he's like, take the one and run it over my knees.
Speaker 1: And they were like do you have you know, uh,
Speaker 1: metal in your knees And he's like, I got lots
Speaker 1: of metal in my knees, you know, it's from a
Speaker 1: German eight eight and the guys who are just wavings
Speaker 1: through go on and yeah, that's a hard one to
Speaker 1: talk you And I can remember. I can remember Grange
Speaker 1: because Grange had had a wound from Vietnam on his neck.
Speaker 1: He was peppered, you know, uh where a grenady going
Speaker 1: off and every now and then a piece of metal
Speaker 1: would would come out of his neck, you know, like
Speaker 1: was it and it was a little piece of Travenel.
Speaker 1: Jesse Leigh start Major Lee came in, uh because I
Speaker 1: want to say when I was waiting on the metal
Speaker 1: back bird right, the that's when the you know, the
Speaker 1: Golden beebe came in. They had that that mortar it
Speaker 1: hit and took out like the chain of command that
Speaker 1: we're on a fire barrel. And uh so Doc Marsh
Speaker 1: I think was down, jesse La was down, Harold went down.
Speaker 1: I mean, let you a lot of the a lot
Speaker 1: of the I mean, I think I can't remember the
Speaker 1: uh the sucom commander was there and it just stretched
Speaker 1: and said I'm going I'm going to my going to
Speaker 1: my quarters and so you know he wasn't there, but
Speaker 1: uh so I remember, you know, jesse Lay came in
Speaker 1: and Uh, Matt Ryerson had taken the brunt of the
Speaker 1: mortar round, so he was he had a lot of
Speaker 1: Matt Ryerson on him. You know, there was his blood.
Speaker 1: So they just cut all his uniform off. But he
Speaker 1: also had shrapnel in his neck, and so he's buttass
Speaker 1: naked and uh, you know, just being being the trusty
Speaker 1: star major that he was, and uh, he told him
Speaker 1: just just get you know, don't I don't need any anesthesia.
Speaker 1: Just get to get the four steps and pull that
Speaker 1: stuff out. And you can actually hear it, you know that,
Speaker 1: because you know the four steps are you know, they're ridged,
Speaker 1: so you can hear it, like grinding on those pieces
Speaker 1: of metal as they're pulling them out of his neck,
Speaker 1: a little metal bowls and said that. He goes, all right,
Speaker 1: bandage it up. I'm going to the hangar, and he goes.
Speaker 1: He goes, LAMB, give me your uniform, and so so
Speaker 1: I go over because I've been you like hospital, Jammy's right,
Speaker 1: So I give him my uniform and the shirt fits fine.
Speaker 1: But he's an older guy, older me anyway, and so
Speaker 1: he's a little widen the hips and the he grabbed
Speaker 1: some galle He says, give you your pants, great journey goes,
Speaker 1: I don't mean those, but give me a pair of
Speaker 1: your pants. And so he was able to scrape up
Speaker 1: a uniform to get back to work and uh yeah memories,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and uh you know later on you you
Speaker 1: ended up going back to s f um I did. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you went to Germany and sure enough, first of
Speaker 1: the tent. Now that's where you linked up with Mr Braden. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but I actually went to third group because when
Speaker 1: whenst yeah, when the Haiti thing was going on, right
Speaker 1: the uh they actually I was, I was scheduled to
Speaker 1: PCs to third group, and uh so they held me
Speaker 1: as um because you know it was I would I
Speaker 1: took a patun and then came out on the eight
Speaker 1: list and got promoted to eight and then ended up
Speaker 1: right back in battalion ops. And uh so when when
Speaker 1: Hey rolls around, you know, we're taking the battalion down
Speaker 1: and we'd already done all the rehearsals and we're gonna
Speaker 1: actually jump in a far fob site. Um that would
Speaker 1: so is the first and second battalion. We're coming in
Speaker 1: off of the aircraft carriers, then their helicopter, you know,
Speaker 1: the third battalion would jump in on just east of
Speaker 1: Porter Prince set up a far you know, before their
Speaker 1: refueling site, and uh so we would secure that. So
Speaker 1: once they dropped the first and second battalion guys off
Speaker 1: and Porter Prints, they'd come in. They land at the
Speaker 1: far fob, they pick up the third battalion guys and
Speaker 1: then would they take us into Porter Prints to hit
Speaker 1: our targets. So you know, if you remember the we
Speaker 1: didn't we ended up not doing a forced entry operation
Speaker 1: and so so they had held me over to do
Speaker 1: that operation. And then when when they ended up negotiating
Speaker 1: a settlement, they said, Ricky got a PCs. So I
Speaker 1: walked into third Special Forces Group and they had already
Speaker 1: deployed to Haiti. So when I get down to when
Speaker 1: I get to the third Group, they sent me down
Speaker 1: to Haiti and I pick up a team uh down
Speaker 1: in the Lacai, which I mean that was in retrospect,
Speaker 1: that was one of the best deployments that I was
Speaker 1: ever on. And uh just the that that was where
Speaker 1: where you could truly see an a team shine And
Speaker 1: because we're out in the middle of this uh nowhere
Speaker 1: and uh we're in charge now, right, I mean everything
Speaker 1: from security, to electricity, to running water to to you
Speaker 1: name it. And initially when when the combat operation was on,
Speaker 1: everybody knew that, Okay, I'm gonna take this concern. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill everybody in front of me. We're gonna hold
Speaker 1: this for a for a short period of time until
Speaker 1: we're relieved. I mean so, so from a combat perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, the jobs easier. But then as you walk
Speaker 1: in and uh the mission changes to foster democracy and
Speaker 1: uh so we're we're cranking on the radio headset. We're going, hey,
Speaker 1: what what does this mean? Foster democracy? And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, foster democracy. And so we're trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out. And again that's where the A team is. Uh.
Speaker 1: In my medics, Sean Piatt, smart kid. He looks at
Speaker 1: me and he goes star lamb. He said, it can't
Speaker 1: be that difficult, he said. When I was in college,
Speaker 1: you know, they had this thing called Maslow's hierarchy and needs,
Speaker 1: and he's said, right now, they're scared, and you just
Speaker 1: needs security. He said, Once we provide security, then they're
Speaker 1: not gonna be scared anymore than they're gonna say, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm hungry, So we gotta get the food.
Speaker 1: The food role on it. We gotta get food into
Speaker 1: him because once they're fed, they're gonna say, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's raining and I need a roof over my head.
Speaker 1: He says. All these things are going to change and
Speaker 1: it depend on their circumstances. So we're like, all right, Pias,
Speaker 1: look at the big brain on Pias. We uh we
Speaker 1: asked for when we get trucks and uh and they
Speaker 1: give a structure. We have to man teams that we
Speaker 1: go down, we see the mayor, We get the Haitian
Speaker 1: constitution translated into uh into English because it's in creole, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, so we figure out how their government is
Speaker 1: supposed to run. And so we sent our two man
Speaker 1: teams out to the different districts and we have civic
Speaker 1: classes and we say you, you're an elected guy, and
Speaker 1: this is what you're supposed to do. And basically it was,
Speaker 1: you know, you take the grievances of your um, your
Speaker 1: your your your area out here, and then you come
Speaker 1: together into capital city. We're gonna run this meeting. And uh.
Speaker 1: We taught them how to do Robert's rules of orders.
Speaker 1: You know, be recognized, you know, old business, new business,
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll thinking how to run an agenda. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do three things and uh, this guy killed my
Speaker 1: goat ten years ago. What we're not going to discuss that.
Speaker 1: What we're gonna do is, you know, we want to
Speaker 1: do security, you want to do electricity, you want to
Speaker 1: do running water, and uh, you know, then then we'll
Speaker 1: go to roads, we'll go to infrastructure and those kinds
Speaker 1: of things. And so we were able to kind of
Speaker 1: to do this. And so one day, you know, the
Speaker 1: tenth Mountain rolls in in Porter Prince and the tenth
Speaker 1: Mountain Division Star major is Jesse Lee. So uh so I, uh,
Speaker 1: I drive into uh Porter Prince to see Jesse and
Speaker 1: uh and I said, you know what I said, we're
Speaker 1: out there in the hinter land. I said, it's pretty secure,
Speaker 1: but you know, up until when it's not. And you know,
Speaker 1: you guys don't know what we look like. We don't
Speaker 1: know what you guys look like. You've never been on
Speaker 1: our h l z s. You know, you've never been
Speaker 1: to our safe house because we had we had actually, um,
Speaker 1: there was a vacation place, I mean at one time
Speaker 1: and then it flooded out. There was three ft of
Speaker 1: dirt in there. And we we actually went to the
Speaker 1: lady and we said, hey, we'll get the pool back up.
Speaker 1: We'll get the gym back up, we'll get the you know,
Speaker 1: your mess haul back up, your restaurant back up, and
Speaker 1: we'll get this bungalow over here on the on the compound.
Speaker 1: We'll get it back up or landscape. But we'll clean it.
Speaker 1: You know if you uh, if you do the laundry,
Speaker 1: cook of some meal, you know, we start doing that
Speaker 1: SF thing. And so we had a nice walled compound
Speaker 1: with a generator and we had it secured the typical
Speaker 1: one way in, one way out. You know, we knew
Speaker 1: where the where the breaking the wire was, we had
Speaker 1: the link up locations, but but none of the q
Speaker 1: r F knew it. So I said, why don't you
Speaker 1: give us a portune a week and we'll take that
Speaker 1: petun and uh, they can spend a day at the
Speaker 1: beach and uh because we had a little little beach
Speaker 1: area so they can do a little R and R.
Speaker 1: We'll take them on security patrols for a day. We'll
Speaker 1: do a day at the range with him, and then
Speaker 1: we'll do a day of just you know, running through
Speaker 1: our area and just they know, you know where the
Speaker 1: link up points are and where our our safe house is.
Speaker 1: And I said, it will be a good a good
Speaker 1: tour for them, You're rather than sitting to hangar over here.
Speaker 1: And we'll just rotate a squad per day and then
Speaker 1: at the end of the week we'll give it back
Speaker 1: to you. So we started doing that and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: some a team gets in trouble doing something dumb. Right,
Speaker 1: So the General Scott used to stock commander ranger guy
Speaker 1: didn't like SF he's coming down to do headhunting, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, he's got a jerk or not. And so
Speaker 1: they said, lamb, you got him. Just speak ranger to him,
Speaker 1: keep him out of trouble, you show him what you
Speaker 1: guys are doing, and then send him home. So he comes.
Speaker 1: So that's about the time that jesse Ley gives me
Speaker 1: his reconvoys, and his reconvoys have motorcycles and they got
Speaker 1: you know, hum v So we got additional trucks, we
Speaker 1: got motorcycles. So we did we did a picket fence,
Speaker 1: you know, we did. Uh, we had we had motorcycles
Speaker 1: on the intersections, you know, we had we had a
Speaker 1: cat team crisis Action Team at this parallel and the
Speaker 1: convoy and we retreated him like the VP that he was.
Speaker 1: We took him to our our compound and we had
Speaker 1: a we had a full up jock, you know, we
Speaker 1: had a big overhead imagery, we had all that everything.
Speaker 1: We told him what we were doing, how we'd and
Speaker 1: then we took him to go see the mayor because
Speaker 1: the mayor loved this. We had just cleaned the park
Speaker 1: and we had we had gotten donations from some of
Speaker 1: the local businesses, and then we had a bunch of
Speaker 1: you know, the people volunteer to clean the park. We
Speaker 1: repainted and then we had the the high school band
Speaker 1: come and play, you know, for the grand opening. And
Speaker 1: it's like right across the street from her, from her house,
Speaker 1: and so we go to the uh her place by
Speaker 1: this time the company command and it's our major there
Speaker 1: because they're gonna go upstairs and uh you know talk
Speaker 1: you introduce the old man to the mayor and uh
Speaker 1: so all the Haitians come out as soon as they
Speaker 1: see the convoy. We're packed into the point of where
Speaker 1: you know, now my guys are pulling security right and
Speaker 1: we're packed into point where the convoy can no longer
Speaker 1: move and uh, so I'm getting the slash across the
Speaker 1: throat from the star major Who's that means I'm gonna
Speaker 1: kill you unless you get these people out of here,
Speaker 1: because it's time to leave. And so I I make
Speaker 1: a sign like a gun sign with my finger, like
Speaker 1: would you want to shoot him? And uh just like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: shaking his head and so I choke up on the
Speaker 1: roof of the hummer and uh and I do you know?
Speaker 1: Because Haiti is divided in two parts, the Dominican Republic,
Speaker 1: who are Spanish speakers on the east, and then the Haiti,
Speaker 1: which is the French speakers on the west. And so
Speaker 1: I figured the odds were pretty good about fifty fifty
Speaker 1: that there was gonna be a Spanish speaker somewhere in
Speaker 1: that audience. So I jump up on the hood, you know,
Speaker 1: the seventh group guy so speak a little bit of
Speaker 1: Spanish and Spanish. I said, who here speaks Spanish? And
Speaker 1: this kid says, I do. I's all right. An't used
Speaker 1: to translate, So I said, who here wants to see
Speaker 1: a white man dance? And they just went crazy. They're
Speaker 1: all laughing and they start singing, you know, and the
Speaker 1: uh and and now the star Major is really mad
Speaker 1: because he's looking out there, like what the heck is
Speaker 1: going on out there? And so I start dancing on
Speaker 1: the on the hood of this humpy and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do the robot and the raggedy Andy. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of moon walk and uh
Speaker 1: and and so I just stopped in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: I go, stop, stop, stop, said, I can't do any
Speaker 1: of my power moves on the hood of this truck
Speaker 1: and uh and we're a full battle rattle too, I said,
Speaker 1: but but I can do it over there in the park.
Speaker 1: And there's a big old picnic table, there's a bohello
Speaker 1: over there, and I can I can show you some
Speaker 1: some power moves over in the park. So we just
Speaker 1: pied Piper everybody over to the park. And now that
Speaker 1: allowed the convoy to go out and so on. On
Speaker 1: the way out, the as they drive by, because they
Speaker 1: left me there, they just they did dispatch one of
Speaker 1: the infantry kids to be my security, and we ended
Speaker 1: up walking home. But but I seen this big grin
Speaker 1: on Scott's face, and then I get a note later
Speaker 1: from him that says, I understand now what special Forces do.
Speaker 1: But that whole trip was like that. It was just
Speaker 1: I think we spent three or four months down there
Speaker 1: and they actually cried when the guys left because the
Speaker 1: mayor said, this is the best it's run since the
Speaker 1: Marines were here. So yeah, yeah, Haiti, so I did.
Speaker 1: I did a tour in Haiti with the third group
Speaker 1: worked Africa for a while. We did the African Crisis
Speaker 1: Response Initiative, which I think is now a coda, I believe,
Speaker 1: you know where where you would we would train up
Speaker 1: battalions in Africa to do a crisis response um you know,
Speaker 1: peacekeeping either Chapter six, chap or seven. And there was
Speaker 1: an equipment package with that and then so it was
Speaker 1: it was great we get the um that that was
Speaker 1: a good uh a good tour there. In third Group.
Speaker 1: I ended up going down to you know, getting selected
Speaker 1: for because as cross for Crosswalk, I was supposed to
Speaker 1: go back UM as an E eight to UH one
Speaker 1: of the Ranger battalions and my plan was to serve
Speaker 1: in all three Ranger battalions and all five Special Forces Group.
Speaker 1: So what I was trying to do was get an
Speaker 1: assignment to second Ranger Battalion on the West Coast as
Speaker 1: a first sergeant and then I popped for E nine
Speaker 1: for the academy, and so that was the end of
Speaker 1: my cross what career ended up going to the Sergeants
Speaker 1: Major Academy and then out of there I had like
Speaker 1: the choice job, which was going to Korea, right and
Speaker 1: it was going to be the the assaud k um
Speaker 1: Sartain Major UH for Detachment kay Over in Korea. And
Speaker 1: right like maybe two weeks before we're getting ready to
Speaker 1: going to cut the orders, um stor Major Bishop comes
Speaker 1: down and he goes, hey, they're doing Piffwick stuff with
Speaker 1: the SIF over in Charlie one ten and they need
Speaker 1: a steady hand and he says, I want to send
Speaker 1: you over there. And I thought, okay, they're doing stuff
Speaker 1: from Bosny and Kosovo score and this. I went home
Speaker 1: to my wife because she's from Korea. You know, she's
Speaker 1: all happy, but she's gonna be home home and Sould
Speaker 1: where her family lives. And I said, baby, you never
Speaker 1: you never believe this. The Army screwed us again and
Speaker 1: going to Germany. And that's where I link open Stu
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there's there's probably enough stories and that
Speaker 1: part of your career to fill up three or four
Speaker 1: more part podcasts. Oh yeah, it was what a great run.
Speaker 1: I mean they because at the time, you know, Bosnia
Speaker 1: was still in Kosovo and they were heating up, and
Speaker 1: you had the j d O s in there. The
Speaker 1: actually the guys were doing a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 1: That's where I got. I got probably the uh, the
Speaker 1: worst asked tune that I've ever received as as an
Speaker 1: E nine. Um who was the Who's the He was
Speaker 1: a master startan made brigadier. He was the great guy.
Speaker 1: He just passed away not too long ago. Tractor roll over. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: I know he's saw guy. I mean DSc um, super
Speaker 1: super guy. I thought that just blurted out his name
Speaker 1: here in a minute. But very serious guy. So he
Speaker 1: was actually um he had the the gesota over there
Speaker 1: at u at at Leasta at Leasta in um Bosnia.
Speaker 1: And so I was cutting up with somebody and I
Speaker 1: walked into his talk and he didn't say a word.
Speaker 1: He just looked at me and our eyes met and
Speaker 1: and as he looked at me like, men are doing
Speaker 1: serious business in here. If you want to take your
Speaker 1: jackassro somewhere else, I'd appreciate. He didn't say a word.
Speaker 1: That's that's all he said with his eyes. And I
Speaker 1: just kind of, you know, sulked out of there. But
Speaker 1: yet gray guy. Also guy, he was actually the sock
Speaker 1: commander of the stock down in Panama. What's do when
Speaker 1: I were there too? Uh oh and I can't remember
Speaker 1: his name. Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about too.
Speaker 1: It's gonna drive me crazy now if I can't remember
Speaker 1: barge Well, Elden barge Wall, Yes, a soft legend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm sorry for gim me Eldon. Yeah, because he's
Speaker 1: up there with the big ranger, this guy looking down
Speaker 1: like seriously, hey, you know we're getting older now, we
Speaker 1: we we have built in you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: of yeah, you know, excuse in there now. So but then,
Speaker 1: you know, you retired as the command side, you made
Speaker 1: you a fifth group, and you ended up in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, so you you kind of did everything, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And and again I was I was just
Speaker 1: fortunate about the time when I was I was going
Speaker 1: to retire in Germany and uh and I actually put
Speaker 1: in the paperwork to retire, you know, in theater. And
Speaker 1: because we had done a they did they would do
Speaker 1: a staff ride with soccer every six months and uh
Speaker 1: and we a lot of guys had motorcycles over there,
Speaker 1: so we would, uh, we would take our motorcycles and
Speaker 1: we would go to these different cemeteries around Europe and
Speaker 1: uh so you know, the ride over there was great.
Speaker 1: But then we did into our dress uniform. We had
Speaker 1: the company guide on and we go in and we'd
Speaker 1: we'd we'd lay you know, a wreath or a flag
Speaker 1: or something. So one year we we did Normandy, right,
Speaker 1: and we did the bike ride to Normandy. But we
Speaker 1: had an old the General John Ron, who's down here
Speaker 1: in Florida. In fact, you and I gotta go go
Speaker 1: see him once they opened back up, because he's he's
Speaker 1: like ninety eight years old, still sharp as attack. But
Speaker 1: he was Captain John Ron. We went ashore on dog
Speaker 1: Red Omaha Beach and uh yeah, just a terrific dude. Man,
Speaker 1: he was. He's the real deal. And so you know,
Speaker 1: John Ron was gonna come over and as part of
Speaker 1: the staff, right, we're gonna go to dog Red and
Speaker 1: then walk the bluffs and go all the way into
Speaker 1: into veer Ville and uh and so I met him
Speaker 1: at the airport and we brought him in and it
Speaker 1: was you know, I had been to France, but maybe
Speaker 1: once or twice. So there's this one part where you're
Speaker 1: coming out of Paris and I think you're on seven
Speaker 1: and you're going, uh, you're going down, you know, towards
Speaker 1: the beaches, and um, you know, one way it takes
Speaker 1: you to con another way way it takes you to
Speaker 1: pay you and if if you make the wrong turn,
Speaker 1: then you've gotta circle back. And so I'm I'm asking
Speaker 1: my uh and my my map. Guy, I said, am
Speaker 1: I am I going left? Here? Am I going right?
Speaker 1: And uh? The general from the back seat he goes,
Speaker 1: you want to stay to the right, and uh, so like,
Speaker 1: oh you you'd be back here before he goes, uh,
Speaker 1: I was well out of you know where were you're at.
Speaker 1: And he goes the Invasion match. He said, I studied
Speaker 1: the Invasion match. And he says, you know, over here
Speaker 1: is Calvados and this regional beer is this And he goes,
Speaker 1: Calvados is famous for horses and apples and says they
Speaker 1: make this apple liqueur called Calpatos. So I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna buy a bottle and he said, no, I can't
Speaker 1: drink it. He said every court martial that I uh
Speaker 1: presided over in France had something to do with that liquor.
Speaker 1: And he said, I refused to drink it even today.
Speaker 1: But uh an incredible guy. But but you know, through
Speaker 1: these going to these cemeteries, I run into General Lozinski retired,
Speaker 1: you know, old Rangel Lozinski. So he's got American Battle
Speaker 1: Monuments Commission and uh so I put my name in
Speaker 1: to be the deputy director of the Normandy Cemetery there
Speaker 1: at Coville and get it. And so I'm gonna retire.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do that job. The only stipulation was, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to learn how to learn to speak French.
Speaker 1: And they had a tutor that would almost guarantee that
Speaker 1: you're going you're gonna learn within that time timeline. And
Speaker 1: they run those those cemeteries. You know, they have an
Speaker 1: officer as the director and the list of guys the
Speaker 1: deputy and uh that would have done all the PCMs,
Speaker 1: you know, the prevent emintenance checks and services on the stones.
Speaker 1: You know, you're keeping those up, you're keeping the grounds.
Speaker 1: They had trees that they harvest, I mean, so you're
Speaker 1: running the patuna. You know, forty frenchmen to just make
Speaker 1: it so. And then you're doing all the uh what
Speaker 1: do you call it them, the the events, you know,
Speaker 1: for the for the different and then also you know,
Speaker 1: talking to the guy that was there, he was an
Speaker 1: old s F star major that was going to another
Speaker 1: cemetery down in closer to France. But he said, also
Speaker 1: you'd get um letters from somebody, you know, uncle Bann
Speaker 1: or grandpa or somebody. You know, they they died, they're
Speaker 1: buried there, but we don't know much about it. So
Speaker 1: you do a rubbing of the stone and then you'd
Speaker 1: find out, you know, go through the archives and you
Speaker 1: know he was initially fell here, was was in turn disinterned,
Speaker 1: and then in turned here and so it was just
Speaker 1: a great great place. But then the towers fell and
Speaker 1: uh so I was stop lost. But Scotty Brazil had
Speaker 1: already shown up. So now he's sitting in my company.
Speaker 1: So I can't go back to Charlie company. So they
Speaker 1: sent me. They pinned me CSM and then I go
Speaker 1: to Jibouti and stay end up the uh the JTFHA
Speaker 1: for the Horn of Africa, and in that I ended
Speaker 1: up working with the Alpha one five and Bravo uh
Speaker 1: second Battalion third, you know, the other two crisis response elements.
Speaker 1: And I actually end up getting assigned to First Battalion,
Speaker 1: fifth Group, who was already in you who came into
Speaker 1: theater UH seven months later getting ready for the Iraq invasion.
Speaker 1: I just took you know, theater air from JABOUTI and
Speaker 1: then went over to met what met up with first
Speaker 1: Battalion in UH. I think they were in Jordan's at
Speaker 1: the Hotel five I think, and then we ended up
Speaker 1: doing the doing the the push into Iraq and oh
Speaker 1: three the first Battalion, and that's that's what I decided
Speaker 1: to hanging up. I actually called my wife and once
Speaker 1: we got back from Jordan, and she's like hung up
Speaker 1: on me twice because she's she's still sitting in Germany
Speaker 1: and I had actually left her your plus in Germany
Speaker 1: in housing and I'm not even assigned a us U
Speaker 1: S Army Europe anymore. And they're telling her, hey, you
Speaker 1: get moved to Fort Campbell. She said, I've never been there,
Speaker 1: and that yeah, she was just fit to be tied.
Speaker 1: She says, I'm done, and uh, you could you could
Speaker 1: go ahead and serve in your your last ranger Battalion
Speaker 1: and your last special wards of the group. But you
Speaker 1: you're gonna do without me, So I cut my losses.
Speaker 1: She's a good gal. She's a keeper and uh then retired.
Speaker 1: Explained to our listeners what it was like, real quick.
Speaker 1: I know, we I asked you for an hour, we've
Speaker 1: got we've already gone two hours about real quick, explain
Speaker 1: to our listeners what it was like standing up on
Speaker 1: the stage there to be inducted in the so Calm
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. I know you also were inducted in
Speaker 1: the Ranger Hall of Fame. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about those you know, humbling because the uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was just working on on a project today for
Speaker 1: Chelsea are marketing gal. So as we do our our
Speaker 1: seventh and versary reception here in Tampa on the seventeenth
Speaker 1: of May, which you're vititude the UH and any of
Speaker 1: the listeners that that that are that are nearby can
Speaker 1: come on down and UH, well it'll be at the
Speaker 1: Armature Works on seventeen May, and it's our seventh anniversary.
Speaker 1: And so Chelsea wants to do around a golf you know,
Speaker 1: nine holes of golf, and so she said, let's do
Speaker 1: some kind of historical soft something and so you know,
Speaker 1: she she said, could could you work something up? And
Speaker 1: I and I say, yeah, yeah, we'll just do uh,
Speaker 1: We'll do like a soft icon per hole. And so
Speaker 1: I'm doing this research, you know, and every every soft
Speaker 1: icon gets uh gets a hole of golf and you're
Speaker 1: gonna learn about the about the soft icon and so
Speaker 1: you know, I start with William O. Darby on hole
Speaker 1: one and our major tyrone adult utterly you know a
Speaker 1: Sante raider, uh William Yarborough. You know the guy that
Speaker 1: designed the jump wings and the Bara trooper uniform and
Speaker 1: uh you know the guy that got us the green
Speaker 1: b start. Major Galen Kittleson, I mean Kittleson was in
Speaker 1: three you know the pow Rescus, not only Sante but
Speaker 1: two during World War Two, you know, the one with
Speaker 1: the Rangers hit Cabanitouan and uh Sydney Shack Now, I
Speaker 1: mean a kid who was in the camps uh as
Speaker 1: as as a as a Jew in the concentration camps
Speaker 1: and was like days away from being gassed with the
Speaker 1: rest of his family. And when he escapes and I
Speaker 1: met General's Shack. Now he was a very humble man
Speaker 1: and you're right, and I mean the fact that he
Speaker 1: had because he went into the camp when he was
Speaker 1: like seven and he doesn't get to the States until
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty And I'm so the first time he
Speaker 1: goes to schools, he's got to learn English and he's
Speaker 1: got to learn uh. That's the first time he hit school.
Speaker 1: But he he ends us. I mean, you know from
Speaker 1: a list of guy going to o CS as a
Speaker 1: D seven and coming out the other end uh as
Speaker 1: as the two starts way and uh, you know Harry Beale,
Speaker 1: the first Seal, Chapman, the young controller kid that just
Speaker 1: got the Medal of Honor. I mean, you got Merritt
Speaker 1: Edson who was World War One marine who ends up
Speaker 1: World War Two, you know, forming the uh the Marine Raiders.
Speaker 1: And then you got John sing Lab. So so those
Speaker 1: are the guys that will have each one round of
Speaker 1: golf that the guys will learn about as they're going
Speaker 1: to UH to play golf. So those are the guys
Speaker 1: that that you're that you're hanging with when you're in
Speaker 1: the Ranger Hall of Fame. In fact, I think Adderle
Speaker 1: was in was in that induction. So that the one
Speaker 1: word is humbled and not worthy because you're standing there
Speaker 1: and you're truly just surrounded by legends. I mean, another
Speaker 1: guy that was in that Ranger Hall of Fame class
Speaker 1: was the Navy seal that I can't remember his name.
Speaker 1: He got shot in the eye and he's laying there
Speaker 1: in the hospital bed and uh, the guy comes in.
Speaker 1: He says, what are you gonna do now? I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't do the seal thing. He says, I want
Speaker 1: to do. I want to go to the FBI. And
Speaker 1: they said, well, if you can make if you can
Speaker 1: make it, all the standards will put you in this.
Speaker 1: We did a full career in the FBI afterwards. Loner guy.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, it's just it's humbling to be up
Speaker 1: there because you just think, man, I've been I've been
Speaker 1: surrounded by heroes of my entire life and I was
Speaker 1: just fortunately a little bit rubbed off, well a lot
Speaker 1: of it rubbed off. So you know, now you're you're
Speaker 1: one of those legends. So we're really pleased we got
Speaker 1: to spend some time with you today. A quick funny
Speaker 1: story General Downing, because I you know, General Downing loved
Speaker 1: his Rangers, but he loved his s guy. Um, so
Speaker 1: we were tasked to go down and train some Paraguay
Speaker 1: and guys in the early mid nineties, and they had
Speaker 1: just had a coup, as so often happens in South America,
Speaker 1: and no one really knew who was in charge of
Speaker 1: the military down there. So General Downing, Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to go over and get briefed by the General and
Speaker 1: I'm going down there with my intel sergeant and you know,
Speaker 1: we're doing our site survey and so we're going down
Speaker 1: there and we're gonna find out, you know, what the
Speaker 1: losses and we're gonna train the Paraguayan guys for what
Speaker 1: they need. So General Downing tells us before we leave,
Speaker 1: find out who's in charge down there, because we really
Speaker 1: have no clue. So okay, so we get down there.
Speaker 1: The guys from the embassy meet us, we meet the
Speaker 1: Paraguayan commander of this SF unit we're gonna be working with.
Speaker 1: Everything's great. So then they were like, well, it has
Speaker 1: to get approved by the Army Chief of Staff, and
Speaker 1: we're like perfect, because this is the guy we want
Speaker 1: to find out what is So they bring us in
Speaker 1: this room, this big long conference table. They give us
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee. We're waiting for the General we're
Speaker 1: at one end. They put his coffee at the other
Speaker 1: where you need binos to find out who the guy
Speaker 1: is at the other end of the So, so we're
Speaker 1: sitting there and you know, it's kind of awkward at
Speaker 1: first because he walks in, and then he was like,
Speaker 1: I can't even of you guys down there, come on
Speaker 1: up here. So we're all talking Spanish and first and
Speaker 1: then in perfect English, he's like, hey, let's work on
Speaker 1: English for a while. So I haven't spoke English for
Speaker 1: a long time, and it was perfectly on accent, and
Speaker 1: my you know, my intel sergeant and I just looked
Speaker 1: at each other like, wow, this guy speaks really good English.
Speaker 1: And where to school? Yeah, And he said to us,
Speaker 1: didn't they tell you who I am? We're like, to
Speaker 1: be perfectly honest, no, because nobody really knows is in charge.
Speaker 1: And he's like, well, you guys worked for Wayne Downing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: He's like Wayne was my roommate at West Point, no way,
Speaker 1: and uh So we were looking at each other and
Speaker 1: I know, all right, it's got big because we just
Speaker 1: sat there like what and he's like, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: an Allied officer at West Point. And he was like,
Speaker 1: let me tell you what, I love the United States,
Speaker 1: but winters in New York you can keep them. And
Speaker 1: and he's like, Wayne was my roommate. So we were like,
Speaker 1: holy crap, right, so you know, and he's like, before
Speaker 1: you guys take off and go back to brag, come
Speaker 1: by my office. I got some stuff I want you
Speaker 1: to bring up because you know, when you guys come back,
Speaker 1: I would love Wayne to come down and visit. So
Speaker 1: we're like, okay. So he gave us this big bag
Speaker 1: of stuff to give the General Downing. So we get
Speaker 1: back from our site survey and you know, we have
Speaker 1: to go brief to staff again. You know how the
Speaker 1: drill is. So we're in there and the staff is
Speaker 1: asking all these questions. In General Downing interrupts. He goes
Speaker 1: a chief that, uh, you know, do we know who's
Speaker 1: in charge down there? And I said, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, and you roll roommate. He's like, come again,
Speaker 1: and I said, General san Diego and he goes, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute. Last year he was a lieutenant colonel. No,
Speaker 1: he's got four stars. Now he's in charge of the
Speaker 1: military and he is. And then he was like, okay,
Speaker 1: staff can go. He's like I need to talk to chief.
Speaker 1: He throws them all out, he goes, get the funk
Speaker 1: out of here. Sandy Sandy Sandiegos a four star. I said,
Speaker 1: he's the chief of staff. So he's like, oh, he
Speaker 1: calls his aid in. He's like, find out when the
Speaker 1: chief's gonna be down there. We're going to visit. He's like,
Speaker 1: we got to spend some time with him. He goes,
Speaker 1: he's a great dude. He speaks a great English. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he told us all about that. So what else did
Speaker 1: he tell you? Yeah? So, you know, we we went
Speaker 1: down there, they treated us like absolute gold. I've never
Speaker 1: been treated better on any deployment anywhere. Um, the guys
Speaker 1: we were working with were awesome. We we trained him
Speaker 1: up to a certain degree and then they went over
Speaker 1: with the Delta guys and they got their training level,
Speaker 1: you know, increased to the level that they were looking for.
Speaker 1: But you know, in general, down and came back. And
Speaker 1: every time I've seen him after that, he always wink
Speaker 1: at me and he was like, so, when's the next
Speaker 1: time we're going on in the vecture. But he was
Speaker 1: tremendous guy, and uh yeah, I was sorry to hear
Speaker 1: about him passing a few years. Yeah, me too, ill
Speaker 1: you know, and that's actually the last thing I'll shut
Speaker 1: up after this. But the h that's when I found
Speaker 1: in my entire career is that there was always you know,
Speaker 1: a guy like Grange or Murk or you know, just
Speaker 1: somebody that was that that would shepherd me through that
Speaker 1: you know, that was a bit rambunctious when I was younger.
Speaker 1: They would take that, you know, that that exuberance, if
Speaker 1: you will, that that overabundance of energy, and they'd focus
Speaker 1: it to uh two two better ends. And I mean
Speaker 1: they and they took the Abrams Charter seriously, you know,
Speaker 1: to where the you would start in the Rangers, and
Speaker 1: they go out and make the army better. I mean
Speaker 1: they all live by a standard. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the standards that the guys keep and how hard they
Speaker 1: trained and and it uh. I tried to put it
Speaker 1: together once. I just I called it the soldiers Promise,
Speaker 1: and it kind of reads that the people of the
Speaker 1: United States expect me to be an elite warrior capable
Speaker 1: of doing things with my hands and weapons better than
Speaker 1: anyone else in the world. I will not violate that trust.
Speaker 1: Live by the Special Forces and Ranger Creed committing their
Speaker 1: words to my memory. Wherever I go, I will make
Speaker 1: it apparent that I am the best. I will learn
Speaker 1: the lineage and honors of Special Operations Forces and be
Speaker 1: a proud contributor to that heritage. I will show disdain
Speaker 1: for those who have no respect for themselves, their detachments
Speaker 1: to their unit. They are not worthy of my respect, trust,
Speaker 1: or friendship. I will study the art of war, learning
Speaker 1: the lessons of those who fought before me. Combat application
Speaker 1: will dictate everything that I do. I will possess and
Speaker 1: nurture the soul and mind of a warrior. I will
Speaker 1: be a master of my profession, the profession of arms.
Speaker 1: I understand that those who do not know history are
Speaker 1: doomed to repeat it, and those who do not revere
Speaker 1: the warriors that sacrific eyes before them are condemned to
Speaker 1: live a life with no heart, no soul, no conscience,
Speaker 1: no honor, and no purpose. I'm prepared to die for
Speaker 1: my teammates in my unit. I will become a rock
Speaker 1: when my mates are weak. No one will stumble because
Speaker 1: I failed to motivate. I will fill with rage at
Speaker 1: the sound of battle, knowing that the selfless acts of
Speaker 1: the individual soldier will always carry the day. I understand
Speaker 1: that all men die, but few men truly live. I
Speaker 1: choose to make my life the stuff of legend, in
Speaker 1: the shadow of every team mate, lies of family. I
Speaker 1: understand that the council of a loved one is an
Speaker 1: aspect of warfare older than time itself. I will take
Speaker 1: care of my teammates and their families because our collective
Speaker 1: lives depend on it. I realize that carrying means making
Speaker 1: times tough, because tough times will ensure survival. A hardship
Speaker 1: born by one will be born by all, and trust
Speaker 1: in me will be sacred. If I am unwilling to sacrifice,
Speaker 1: unable to commit to the principles and lifestyle but fitting
Speaker 1: a professional soul, I understand that I must leave, and
Speaker 1: doing so, I will join the masses of citizenry who
Speaker 1: depend on others to keep them free. All this I
Speaker 1: swear to that which I hold sacred. So it really
Speaker 1: is just that easy. Huh well, uh, Rick, You know,
Speaker 1: we want to thank you for for taking the time
Speaker 1: because you embody every one of those And you know,
Speaker 1: like I said it at the outset, you know, we
Speaker 1: throw the words legend around a little too liberally at times,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to certain people, I think it's
Speaker 1: well deserved in your amongst those people. UM, and it's
Speaker 1: been a real pleasure I finally get a chance to
Speaker 1: talk to you. I know we've passed and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know cross paths more than once. But it's been
Speaker 1: a lot of fun for me this afternoon, when I
Speaker 1: I appreciate and I'm looking forward to seeing you down
Speaker 1: here in uh in May on the seventeenth at the
Speaker 1: at the reception. Yes, I look forward to that as well.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to make that I know, I UM.
Speaker 1: That weekend I have uh SF Association meeting elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the state, but I'm gonna try to zip up there
Speaker 1: on the seventeen as soon as that other thing is over.
Speaker 1: So I look forward to that. I UH and meet
Speaker 1: you in person, so and and the great people at GLOBALSOF.
Speaker 1: You know's all you do. I mean, especially the uh
Speaker 1: because it hit home, you know with the the I know,
Speaker 1: the commercials you did about you know, reaching out the
Speaker 1: UH there there. I mean, nobody our age anymore. UM.
Speaker 1: Mrs tries to miss a phone call or a text
Speaker 1: message from a buddy because you know that might be
Speaker 1: the last one he's gonna send you, or the or
Speaker 1: the time that he's reaching out, you know. So it uh,
Speaker 1: it truly is a and it's it's all goes back
Speaker 1: to that lack of purpose. So thanks for thanks for
Speaker 1: doing everything you do. Brother. Yeah, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was a shocker last year. One of our old you know,
Speaker 1: comrades from three seven took his own life last year
Speaker 1: and uh Bob Bob Jarman. And I was shocked when
Speaker 1: I heard that because I had just spoke with them
Speaker 1: maybe two weeks before, and everything seemed great with him. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it shows that some guys are hurting inside and we
Speaker 1: all have to look after each other because our numbers
Speaker 1: get fewer. Unfortunately, that is a fact. Man is great,
Speaker 1: Lincoln up, Yes, absolutely. Before we go, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to read one more quick thing. If you want to
Speaker 1: get soft Reap on your phone, download our free mobile
Speaker 1: app and get easy access to our articles, podcast gear reviews,
Speaker 1: all perfectly formatted to your device. Please subscribe to softwap
Speaker 1: dot com to get access to our library of e
Speaker 1: books and our exclusive team room forms and content available
Speaker 1: in all your Apple and Android devices. We want to
Speaker 1: thank all of our listeners us for hanging with us
Speaker 1: this afternoon. It's been a blast. We want to thank
Speaker 1: our guests, Rick Lamb from Global Soft, member of the
Speaker 1: Ranger and Commando Hall of Fame from So Calm. Rick,
Speaker 1: Let's do this again real soon. Yes, yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: an honor man, Thank you much. The honor has been
Speaker 1: ours so but yeah, thanks again for listening. We'll be
Speaker 1: back with another podcast real soon. Love been listening to
Speaker 1: self red lyd