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This episode is sponsored by 511, a company I've used personally for well over a decade

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If you want to learn even more about the company, listen to episode 338 with co-founder and

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CEO Francisco Morales.

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Welcome to episode 450 of Behind the Shield Podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show Major James Capers.

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Major Capers is one of the earliest members of Marine Recon in the Vietnam era, the early

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Vietnam era, but also was one of the very first African Americans in that division and

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the first at multiple ranks that he held.

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What makes this conversation so powerful is here is a man who is now 84 years old that

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as a child entered the Marines, entered combat and volunteered for combat in Vietnam, saw

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horrific things, had to do horrific things and to this day he carries that with him.

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So I urge you not only listen to the full conversation, but make it to the very end

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where you will hear one of the most powerful closing thoughts I have ever had in 450 episodes.

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Before it gets to that conversation, as I say every single week, please just take a

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moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, hit subscribe, leave feedback.

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I love reading your thoughts on the podcast and leave a rating.

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Every five star rating this podcast gets elevates it, make it more and more visible for others

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to find.

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And this is a free library, as I mentioned, 450 episodes.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

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I can get them to everyone else who I know needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Major James Capers.

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Enjoy.

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Well Major Capers, I just want to start by saying thank you so much for inviting me to

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your home here in North Carolina and taking the time to talk to me today and come on the

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Behind the Shield podcast.

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James, thanks for coming.

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Really appreciate it.

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Especially with a name like James, you've got to be okay.

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Absolutely.

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So obviously this is an audio recording for people that are listening where on planet

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earth are we sitting right now?

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I live at Jacksonville, North Carolina, about 20 minutes outside of Camp Lejeune.

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I've been in this home for going on 43 years now.

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And my wife and my son, who have since passed on, so I live here with the assistance of

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some stepchildren like Bill and Carmen, they helped me out quite a bit.

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But all is well.

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Absolutely.

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Well, I want to start chronologically at the beginning because I know your early life obviously

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has a lot of depth to it and obviously there's things in your early life that definitely

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carry over later in life.

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So tell me where you were born and then tell me about your family dynamic, what your parents

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did and how many siblings.

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Yeah, I was born in Bishopville, South Carolina in 1937 or so they tell me.

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I don't have a birth certificate.

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So a lot of my early childhood is what the family told me, aunts and uncles, and they're

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all gone now.

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I have no biological family anymore.

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And so most of my memory is what I was told about South Carolina.

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My folks were sharecroppers.

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In other words, we shared the crops with the folks who had the money, which means that

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being African Americans, we weren't called African Americans back in those days.

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We worked for the white landowners and we picked the cotton, cropped the tobacco and

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worked the farm.

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And at the end of the year, you're supposed to share the profits with the owner.

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Didn't happen very much.

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We didn't get very much.

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And by the time you bought seed and got ready for the next season, you didn't have anything.

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So you had to kind of improvise.

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And it wasn't just us.

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A lot of the African American families back in those days in the rural South, you know,

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I'm about four or five generations away from slavery.

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You know, I don't know how old I am.

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I have no birth certificate and there is no pictures of me as a child.

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So a lot of what I will tell you is what I was told growing up.

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And in the South, of course, you can read many books these days that talks about, you

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know, the difficult times in the South, no respect and you didn't own the property and

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it didn't have a lot going for you.

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But a lot of times there were people there who were benevolent, who went out of their

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way to help you.

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It didn't matter if they were black or white.

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As the story goes, when I was sick, I was given to a white family who took me in.

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And I don't I can't confirm any of these stories, but these are the stories that I was told

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growing up.

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And after we moved to Baltimore, you know, my father did a little time in the chain gang.

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Very brutal system of justice or lack of justice back in those days for something that he was

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innocent for as well.

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And it's for something he was falsely accused of.

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And he moved on to Baltimore and eventually as I was cured by this family, I don't have

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no names.

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I have no idea who they were.

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But these are stories that was handed down to me.

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So I was lucky in a way that I survived.

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And early on, the first James Capers Jr. passed away.

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I was the last James Capers Jr. and I have no birth certificate, as I said.

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So the family members passed away in early childhood.

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Back in those days, you didn't have access to doctors or hospitals, those type of things.

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And so as I was told, I was given to this family and obviously they must have gotten

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me back to health.

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And we moved on to Baltimore, was left to the family and joined up with my father.

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And I went to school there and I didn't go to what they would call kindergarten or first

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grade.

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I have no memories of going to any schooling in South Carolina.

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But when I got to Baltimore, they put me in a class that they thought I could handle.

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So I went to school there and I went to middle school and went to church and met friends

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and was amazed at what I saw there.

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A little different than cotton fields and tobacco fields and corn fields, row houses

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and there was lights and stores on the corners.

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I made friends and in 1956 I graduated high school.

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And back in those days, when you turned 17, 18, you expected to rest before the draft,

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which meant you were probably going to go in the Army.

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So my buddy and I, he's gone now.

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We both decided to join the Marine Corps and off we went to Paris Island and the adventure

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started.

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And that was Pitt, your friend?

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Yes.

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Now, just to go back for a second, because I was not was curious.

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One thing that just literally astounds me is you grew up when World War II finished,

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which is also an interesting thing because your instructors in the military were vets

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as well.

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So through your lens now with this whole career that you've had, one thing that I don't understand

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is how we went to war with the Germans and the Japanese and all colors and creeds fought

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side by side, even though when I explore it a little more deeply, some of those units

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were segregated.

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They all laid their lives on the line for the greater good.

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And then fast forward to the 50s right after World War II and people are being hung from

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black people are being hung from trees again.

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So how you know, what was it?

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What was broken that we went through a world war that was based on race hate and genocide

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and all these things?

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And yet when that war finished, that that was still allowed to thrive in the US.

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That always baffled me.

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Well, because that was the law of the land, even though the Civil War was many years over.

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But then you had the Knight Riders and the KKK and basic segregation never went away.

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You can watch the news from yesterday.

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You know, it's still an issue that we have to deal with.

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Everyone is not bad, but this is a systemic problem that we've had with that kind of problem.

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And for us, say us as a people in the slavery years and just during those years, the African

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American slave was not allowed to be educated, could own property, could marry or you couldn't

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buy your freedom.

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Every civilized nation in the world, those things were even in Roman days, you could

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buy your freedom.

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You could be educated, but not the African American slave.

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All those things was denied.

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And so we're still quite a few generations away from freedom is accepted because of your

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valor and your sacrifice you've made for this country.

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You know, I taught for many years in the military.

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I was director of a military school.

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And a lot of the youngsters who come into the Marine Corps or the services didn't know

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about the history because at times it moved on.

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And a lot of the history of what we as a people went through was systematically taken out

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of the history books.

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It didn't talk about a lot of the heartaches and the 15 million Africans who died on the

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way to this country.

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So there are a lot of heartaches and things that's hard to talk about, even to understand

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how could human beings do this to other people.

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I went through that.

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But then on the other end of the spectrum, I was taken in by a white family who fed me,

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clothed me.

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Someone must have held me, laid me down and stood watch over me while I slept.

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So I didn't come away from the South with any anger or bitterness because I didn't see

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that.

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The families obviously protected me and fed me, but then handed me off to a family that

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didn't look like me.

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But they had a good heart to take in a black child.

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So looking at that scenario, this is probably during World War II because I have two birth

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dates.

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I don't have a birth certificate, so I guess they rolled a dice and gave me a birth.

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So there are a lot of things that occurred with my family history.

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And there are some things I know to be true.

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And there are some things I'm just rolling a dice and thinking that this is what must

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have happened.

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But with respect to how young Americans went overseas and came home and still couldn't

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ride a bus or eat in a restaurant.

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It's amazing how the ones who had the power to make those decisions were just not willing

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to accept those who risked their lives and laid down their lives as equals.

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I'm sure you know a lot about my career and how I had to struggle and finally get to the

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point where I was considered the best of the best.

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Yes, sir.

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Well, and you see, that's what confuses me because if you look at the history of slavery

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and I'm in Charleston staying tonight and we went last time we were there, there's the

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Slavery Museum and what it screams to me is the root of so many problems, whether it's

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the health problem we have at the moment, the mental health, the addiction, all these

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things is the foundation.

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I mean the addiction problem we have, the foundation is racism.

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Harry Anselinger back in the 30s.

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With slavery, only a few people would have really gained from that.

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The people selling, the African people in Africa itself, the British making the trades,

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the Americans buying, but it was only the plantation owners and some few out there.

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So that's what is crazy is this issue that we have now, if you reverse engineer it, it's

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still down to power and greed of a very few people.

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The blacksmith in Iowa had no idea probably that there was a slave trade going on.

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But now, here we are and in some areas this racism has become so cancerous when it came

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from just a few people wanting human beings, regardless of what colour they were, to work

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for free so they could be rich.

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That's fundamentally what it was and that's just the most disgusting notion.

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Well, the Romans had slaves, but the difference was they could buy their freedom, they could

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marry, they could be educated, but the black slave was denied all of those benefits.

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We didn't have that.

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They took a civil war with hundreds of thousands dead Americans to get beyond those years and

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we still, even after that, we still had the KKK and the Knight Riders and the greedy plantation

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owners.

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Then when you look at the Walmart guy, old Sam Walton in Arkansas, he made a lot of his

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money and I guess this is pretty accurate, selling stuff to black folks on the plantations.

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Oh really?

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I didn't know that.

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Yeah, there's a lot of history behind old Sam Walton and how he made a lot of his money.

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He probably wasn't the only one.

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When I left the Marine Corps, I joined an organization as Vice President and they sent

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me to Harvard Business School.

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I had been educated, but not to that level and I learned a lot of things about the Hershey

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guy and the Walton guy and a lot of the ones that had the money.

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It's amazing how we look at these organizations now and they made b's and dollars on the backs

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of poor farmers, not just black farmers, but white farmers also.

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And nowadays that goes on and most of this stuff is... I lectured it for many, many

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years about what I saw and what I lived, not only in combat, but just coming home and being

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denied the things that I thought I was fighting for.

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But I was strong enough to realize that I'll make this work best where I can.

231
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:05,840
And I had some hard times, obviously.

232
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:09,240
In the military you have rank and those types of things.

233
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:19,760
And my rank didn't come as easily as I thought it was going to, but I survived and in spite

234
00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:32,160
of that and just reading about... Dr. John Hope Franklin, he wrote a book, From Slavery

235
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:34,680
to Freedom.

236
00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:38,320
And that was my Bible that told me so much.

237
00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:46,760
Dr. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom.

238
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:55,920
He's passed away now, but the book is a very good source of understanding the history of

239
00:21:55,920 --> 00:22:02,200
this country and how we evolved where we are today and how it still lingers on.

240
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:09,080
And not just with the corrupt placement or this or that, but there's so much that we

241
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:16,080
can learn from that particular book.

242
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:23,640
And when I was lecturing at the military school there, I used that as my Bible to talk about

243
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:27,360
how this country evolved, the right things and wrong things.

244
00:22:27,360 --> 00:22:35,360
And I would give my perspective on racism, because we went through a period of time in

245
00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:40,960
the military that we had some real issues there.

246
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:45,840
A lot of the youngsters were not getting promoted and things were going wrong.

247
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:48,840
And so the leaders didn't get it.

248
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:56,960
And so they were middle level guys like me who picked up the books and was, here's what

249
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:57,960
happened.

250
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,200
You can read it for yourself.

251
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:06,040
So there's a lot of things that I read and talked about and to those young military people

252
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:09,200
or civilians that were willing to accept the reality.

253
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:10,560
Here's how it got to this point.

254
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:11,560
Yeah.

255
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:13,680
I think it's important for people to understand why.

256
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,160
Same with the Native American story.

257
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:20,000
If you look at the Thanksgiving story, it doesn't seem to be as accurate as what actually

258
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:21,000
happened.

259
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:26,640
Well, I want to get to something we talked about before we started recording, because

260
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:28,320
I think it's important as well.

261
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:38,300
One of the issues that I've seen with my generation is they were raised on basically like a Hollywood

262
00:23:38,300 --> 00:23:40,240
facade of what a man is.

263
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:47,160
It's two dimensional Rambo type and I think it's very dangerous as you progress into later

264
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:51,200
years, especially in our professions, if you buy into that.

265
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,200
The beautiful part of your story is me and Dottie.

266
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:59,080
So tell me about that.

267
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:04,280
You're in school and how that romance evolved, because obviously that's going to be a through

268
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:07,480
line through your whole life here.

269
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:12,480
Did you get it?

270
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:13,480
She denied it.

271
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:20,480
When I was walking by one day and I saw this beautiful young lady there and I stopped.

272
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,960
It just got my attention.

273
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:29,720
And through the years, I always told her that she winked at me and we always laughed about

274
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:30,720
that.

275
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:40,000
But 15 years old, 16, love of my life, my only real love.

276
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:54,400
And we married 50 years and there was funny things that occurred in my class.

277
00:24:54,400 --> 00:25:00,120
My old buddy, Pitt, we were in the same class.

278
00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:05,720
And we were sort of the romantic couple in the high school there.

279
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:13,680
And my teacher, they all sort of caught on to it and they would send Dottie down to my

280
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:14,680
class.

281
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:16,880
The boys were in one class and the girls in another class.

282
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:20,680
There was no coed classes back in those days.

283
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:31,560
So her teacher would send her down to my classroom extensively to tell the teacher there something.

284
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:39,880
And when she walked in the door, all the guys would say, Jim, there she is, there she is.

285
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,300
And it was sort of a romantic thing there.

286
00:25:43,300 --> 00:25:53,640
And as we were married and had a life together and a child, when she was dying of, she was

287
00:25:53,640 --> 00:26:02,280
a stage four cancer, she died of cancer of the liver and she died in the hospice program.

288
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:06,440
And I moved into the room there with her.

289
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:09,680
I lost my son by that time.

290
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:15,240
And so we would sit there a lot at night and we'd talk about those early days and she had

291
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,720
a version of it and I had my version of it.

292
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:30,840
But it was a wonderful relationship and that I felt love first time in my life that I knew

293
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:32,440
that she loved me.

294
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,480
I felt it.

295
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:40,520
And then she went on to college and she got a scholarship and I went on to the Marines

296
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:50,560
and did three years of hard infantry time and deployed most of that time.

297
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:59,720
Killed my first man, bailed out of my teens in Lebanon in 1958.

298
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:05,120
Scary thing, but we were trained to do certain things to hold this post and I was given this

299
00:27:05,120 --> 00:27:06,120
post to hold.

300
00:27:06,120 --> 00:27:12,120
And I held it, but some other folks wanted it.

301
00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:16,440
I went through these type of things in my first three years in the Marine Corps and

302
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,280
I stayed in touch with what we wrote.

303
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,280
Didn't have computers and all those things back in those days.

304
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:30,880
When I came home on leave, I'd go see her and we'd go to movies and all those type of things.

305
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:41,120
Didn't have much money back in those days, but it was something that keeps me going today.

306
00:27:41,120 --> 00:27:43,680
Those wonderful memories.

307
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,520
We'd go to the movie and go do different things.

308
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:51,400
And finally, my three years was up.

309
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:57,440
I'd made Marriott to a sergeant and I guess I learned quick life.

310
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:08,600
I was a good student and they told me I could get out or my contract was up or I could stay

311
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,600
in the Marine Corps.

312
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:21,920
I never had a real job and I talked to Dottie about it and I told her that my time is up

313
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:29,800
now and I could get out of the Marine Corps or come home or I could stay in.

314
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,200
And she said, well, what will you do?

315
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:34,200
Where will you go?

316
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,800
And I told her I'd never been to California.

317
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:41,000
I asked her would she like to go with me?

318
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,280
She didn't bother asking to marry me or anything like that yet.

319
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:46,200
But she said yeah, right away.

320
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,280
It was one of those things that meant to be.

321
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:53,160
So she did wink at you then?

322
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,280
She always denied that.

323
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:58,120
But she was funny.

324
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:02,240
She had a great sense of humor.

325
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:03,240
Great sense of humor.

326
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,440
We had a wonderful time.

327
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:16,600
That day on the 28th of June at 2 31 the afternoon she closed her eyes and I told her I'd see

328
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,320
her again.

329
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,280
And for me the clock is ticking.

330
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,800
I'm 84 this year and I went to visit her.

331
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:31,360
I said earlier I went to visit her all into the National Cemetery a few weeks ago and

332
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:37,080
I put some flowers on her graves and I gave my son a teddy bear.

333
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:41,400
Made my report to her.

334
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,600
I said you know, babe, there's going to be a young man named James coming to talk to

335
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:46,600
me about our lives.

336
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:50,760
So I better get this together.

337
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:56,280
But yeah, she passed away and I crashed and burned.

338
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:57,560
Couldn't handle it.

339
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,600
I lost my child.

340
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:01,440
Lost her.

341
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:02,440
So I went away to California.

342
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,440
Lived in a hotel.

343
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,760
Got an apartment.

344
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:10,760
Went to therapy.

345
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:14,880
Every Tuesday at 1 o'clock I went to therapy.

346
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:20,740
But I was able to, I did the documentary when I was living out there and I wrote the book.

347
00:30:20,740 --> 00:30:21,740
Made some friends.

348
00:30:21,740 --> 00:30:31,760
I'm going back next weekend for another mission I guess with the Ghost Star Widows.

349
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,840
But Dottie was special.

350
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,080
She was an artist.

351
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:47,480
She took care of the house, the baby.

352
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:56,760
And I don't know that I could have had a better life with anybody else.

353
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:57,760
She sounds amazing.

354
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:01,960
We'll get into it as we talk about deeper in your career.

355
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:07,320
But I think one of the big, the lesser discussed areas is the partner.

356
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:13,800
Where we're out in the military and in fire and police, whatever it is, they're everything.

357
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:14,800
Especially if they have a child.

358
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:16,120
And you had a special needs child.

359
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:21,240
So that's an even higher level of care.

360
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:27,440
But even when you transitioned out, and we'll get to that, but your struggles when you first

361
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:31,080
came back to the US.

362
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,600
So many relationships fall apart.

363
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,360
And I know you guys had some struggles.

364
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:42,760
But to meet your childhood sweetheart and then stand by you through that whole thing

365
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:46,080
and then pass away in your arms.

366
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:52,280
Makes this tragic story and this story of bravery that we'll get to is this beautiful

367
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:53,280
love story.

368
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:57,320
I think it's important for people to hear that.

369
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:01,260
Just because you're a soldier or a Marine or a firefighter or a police officer doesn't

370
00:32:01,260 --> 00:32:02,880
mean your marriage is doomed.

371
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:08,280
It doesn't mean that you have to be promiscuous or anything else.

372
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:15,660
That soft side, you can be a romantic and still be a Marine recon warrior as well.

373
00:32:15,660 --> 00:32:19,040
That's why I'm going to California next week.

374
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:30,440
I want to tell those young ladies who lost sons or husbands about my life with my wife

375
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,160
and she's gone now.

376
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:37,240
And I've had to do a lot of praying.

377
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:44,000
I've always believed in God, still believe in God, but it was kind of tough.

378
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:51,280
I lost everything I cared for and loved and it's all gone now.

379
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:52,280
All gone.

380
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:57,320
I lost my mother, my father, lost my sister, my brothers all in.

381
00:32:57,320 --> 00:32:59,820
They're all gone now.

382
00:32:59,820 --> 00:33:04,800
So I had those memories of her because she was an anchor.

383
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:09,840
She kept the family going.

384
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:16,480
When I came home from Vietnam, they said I would never walk again.

385
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:18,920
And she said, you will walk again.

386
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:19,920
And I believed her.

387
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:26,960
She'd be there every day sitting at the hospital holding my hand while I went through some

388
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,760
painful procedure.

389
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:39,720
But she believed in me and I was able to walk again and do the normal things.

390
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:41,040
And there was always Dottie.

391
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:50,360
She was always there to hold my hand and now I miss her.

392
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:58,800
Sit around here some afternoons and this is what we retired to.

393
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,000
First home we've ever owned.

394
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,200
We didn't own a home in the military.

395
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:08,600
We lived on the basin.

396
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:16,800
And now I wish she could be here today to see what we've done with the property.

397
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,800
It's beautiful.

398
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:28,440
The fruit trees and the fish pond and the palm trees and the banana trees.

399
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,640
She would have loved all of this.

400
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:38,200
But God has called her home.

401
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:45,680
I guess when I'm at the end of the line now, so they tell me.

402
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:50,880
But that's up to God and I don't worry about those kind of things anymore.

403
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:55,320
We all think you're going to live to be 150 years old.

404
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,880
But I've had 50 years of marriage.

405
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:04,760
A week before she passed away, we decided to renew our vows.

406
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:05,760
Oh really?

407
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:12,800
And we called a pastor in and we did it all over again.

408
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,360
And she passed away the next week.

409
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:24,600
Yeah, by that time our sonnet was gone and the pastor came in and then our friends came

410
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:30,200
in and watched us renew our vows.

411
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:44,000
And so 50 years we made it from young teenagers who sneaked in another classroom to get a

412
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:45,000
glimpse.

413
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:51,560
But we went to prom together.

414
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:58,880
We were a quintessential couple and she had this good heart.

415
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:09,120
She would take in some of the younger families and not physically take them in, but they

416
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:10,960
needed money.

417
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,720
I was drawing jump pay at that time.

418
00:36:14,720 --> 00:36:21,680
So she'd always go in her little person, help another family.

419
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:26,520
She was so kind, had that great heart.

420
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:27,520
And she was always that way.

421
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:31,440
I mean that's what I love so much about her.

422
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:40,640
She was always willing to take somebody in, which is one reason.

423
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:49,640
In August I'm going to have a family lunch here for the homeless in my backyard.

424
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:57,560
I'm going to bring them over and I'm going to feed them and have some of the family members

425
00:36:57,560 --> 00:36:58,560
help out.

426
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:01,840
And the city is going to help out.

427
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:03,920
This is what I do now.

428
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:09,400
We're at the Donnie and Gary Capers Foundation.

429
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:16,280
And so we did a barbecue a few weeks ago, donated all the money to the Human Resource

430
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:24,960
Center and I've done well financially.

431
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,840
Every dime from my book goes to charity.

432
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,080
So I've been lucky.

433
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:39,760
After I left the military, I used my old basic military skills.

434
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:49,440
I bought a radio station and construction company and did some business things.

435
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:53,600
Took advantage of this great economy in this country.

436
00:37:53,600 --> 00:38:00,080
Made a lot of money, but it doesn't do me any good now.

437
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:01,960
They're all gone now.

438
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:06,720
So I donate monies to wherever I can.

439
00:38:06,720 --> 00:38:12,160
Now we're going to concentrate on the homeless.

440
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:14,720
So that's what I do now.

441
00:38:14,720 --> 00:38:22,040
And I still have the memories of kind Dottie and my son who was blind, special needs.

442
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:26,240
He played the piano, the flute, the melodic, the organ.

443
00:38:26,240 --> 00:38:27,240
Amazing.

444
00:38:27,240 --> 00:38:28,240
Yeah.

445
00:38:28,240 --> 00:38:33,240
He was an amazing, amazing child.

446
00:38:33,240 --> 00:38:36,720
And he died in my arms of appendicitis.

447
00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:45,120
So I still have those wonderful memories.

448
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,120
That's my personal life.

449
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:57,620
But as far as my military life, we were together.

450
00:38:57,620 --> 00:39:04,440
They kept the home fires going when I was overseas doing what I needed to do, doing

451
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:08,560
what I thought was right.

452
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:14,160
Back in those days, you were a patriot.

453
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:16,480
World War II was over.

454
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:24,160
Korea was, they were just digging out of Korea.

455
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:31,000
And so I think that you expected a Serb country.

456
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:32,000
And I did.

457
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:33,000
I mean, I couldn't wait.

458
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,000
I couldn't wait.

459
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,800
And there were some days I wished I hadn't.

460
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,360
I wanted to ask you just to interject for a second.

461
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:49,440
So one thing that really jumped out at me from your early years was you seemed to become

462
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:53,160
an absolute student of your craft, even at the beginning.

463
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:58,240
When some guys were going out and drinking everything you were studying and working on

464
00:39:58,240 --> 00:39:59,240
your tools.

465
00:39:59,240 --> 00:40:00,240
Yeah.

466
00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:01,240
Where did that come from?

467
00:40:01,240 --> 00:40:05,600
And then how did that kind of pay off later in your career?

468
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:08,520
Well, I was in high school.

469
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:09,520
I was a reader.

470
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:10,520
I was a late bloomer.

471
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:13,640
I didn't go on dates and things like that.

472
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:18,280
You know, I didn't have a car and folks didn't have a lot of money.

473
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:24,800
And I didn't get to go to college until many years later in the Marine Corps.

474
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,040
I went to the University of Maryland.

475
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:35,520
And when I was a captain, I went to the University of Chaminade University in Hawaii.

476
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,880
But I never got a degree.

477
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,680
I got enough stuff.

478
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,320
I should have gotten something, but I just...

479
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:46,320
They're overrated.

480
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:47,320
I have one.

481
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:48,320
I have a bunch.

482
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,320
It gave me a lot of debt.

483
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:52,320
Yeah.

484
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:59,000
Well, I think that just looking back on it and what did you...

485
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:00,000
Oh, I'm sorry.

486
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:05,480
It was about you being a student of the craft in the Marines.

487
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:10,160
I used to go to the Enot Pratt Free Library.

488
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:16,800
It was a library that was built for slaves after the Civil War.

489
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:23,080
And I used to go there in the evening after I got off work, got out of school, and I'd

490
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,040
read all kinds of stuff.

491
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:30,880
I was a student of the generals, I guess it was, because they were the ones getting the

492
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:32,720
press.

493
00:41:32,720 --> 00:41:41,600
And I kind of enjoyed reading about the Romans and everybody else who was out there.

494
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:49,120
I started a program called Social Studies back in those days, and you learn so much.

495
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,800
My world was open by reading those books.

496
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:56,880
And I finally got to the Greek Acropolis.

497
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:05,720
And when I was a young man, I think I was 57, I guess it was.

498
00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:12,800
So I studied hard before I got into Marine Corps, and then after I joined, of course,

499
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,280
boot camp, you learn the basics.

500
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,880
But I was a quick study, I guess it was.

501
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:25,920
And I was the great young guy that had this high IQ, and I was a high school graduate.

502
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:31,360
We didn't have many high school graduates back in those days.

503
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:41,080
And so I learned from guys that were Moffat Point Marines.

504
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:44,880
They were the first African Americans who were allowed to come into the Marine Corps

505
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:47,160
in 1942.

506
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:52,180
Up until that time, blacks could not join the Marine Corps.

507
00:42:52,180 --> 00:42:59,240
You could join the Army, Navy, didn't have much of an Air Force those days.

508
00:42:59,240 --> 00:43:07,680
So they let 20,000 African Americans join the Marine Corps in 1942 to 1949, and they

509
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:14,320
fought all over the Pacific, but they didn't really get to fight long enough, say that

510
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:20,720
famed First Marine Division that went in Guadalcanal and Ujama, places like that.

511
00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:24,840
So they were mostly support personnel.

512
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,280
They were drivers of Cook's Tobacos.

513
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:32,680
They were loyal and good Marines.

514
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:39,320
But even when the war was over, a lot of them were not allowed to stay in.

515
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,480
They were put out of the Marine Corps.

516
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:55,480
So in 1947, I think it was Truman who integrated the services.

517
00:43:55,480 --> 00:44:01,120
And African American Marines were allowed to join the regular Marine Force and go to

518
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:06,760
a place called Parris Island to be integrated.

519
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:14,280
And Moffat Point, where the basic black Marines were going at that time, till 1949, that was

520
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,520
close.

521
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:26,520
So I think that it was hard to define why it was that the Marine Corps didn't want

522
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:27,520
African Americans.

523
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:32,760
Maybe they thought we weren't smart enough for this or that.

524
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:40,680
Just like when I joined, after my time in infantry, did three years of infantry, and

525
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:51,040
I decided I wanted to go into, we had something called the Pathfinders and Triple Threat.

526
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,920
We did it all, jumping, swimming, and diving and all that.

527
00:44:54,920 --> 00:45:00,640
And I was a young man, and I joined that organization, spent three years there.

528
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:07,200
And I got to go to jump school and did all of the fun things.

529
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:11,960
But it was hard to get into those organizations because they too didn't want African Americans

530
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:14,000
in it.

531
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:20,240
So I had to go through all of the, it was a tough program to get into.

532
00:45:20,240 --> 00:45:24,600
You had to be okay to pass all of the tests.

533
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:30,680
Of course, I was a young guy, I could run all day long and do all those things.

534
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:37,680
I went to jump school in Fort Benning, Georgia, where I had 101st Airborne there.

535
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:40,080
So I did that.

536
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:46,000
And then I went to all the other training, jungle warfare and mountain leadership and

537
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,320
a lot of misery.

538
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:56,400
But once you passed the program, I was sent to the Pathfinder platoon.

539
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:04,360
And you jump in ahead of the advanced force and take out the bad guys so the good guys

540
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:05,360
could land.

541
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,280
So I did that for three years.

542
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:13,360
And that was my first time in reconnaissance.

543
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:19,480
I went on to train troops for a while.

544
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:26,600
And then I got into not the spy business, but I went to work for the National Security

545
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:27,600
Agency.

546
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:29,720
Did that for two years.

547
00:46:29,720 --> 00:46:37,880
Then I went to Vietnam, 65, 66, 67.

548
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:42,440
I spent 68 in the hospital.

549
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:47,440
And I think went back to the Marine Barracks for what made that's where my family was.

550
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:52,080
And they sent me to Europe to do some more interesting work.

551
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:58,720
We still had the Russians, they were creating all kinds of problems.

552
00:46:58,720 --> 00:47:05,760
And so I got to do a little bit of that work, working with some of the emissaries, American

553
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:07,760
emissaries.

554
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:12,560
But all that is pretty much well documented by now.

555
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:21,360
And there's so many things that I could tell you, you're gonna ask me about some things

556
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:22,800
I can't even remember anymore.

557
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:24,360
I don't want to remember maybe.

558
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:25,360
Yeah.

559
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:26,360
Well, and that's the thing.

560
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:28,280
The book is very beautifully written.

561
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:29,280
There's so many accounts.

562
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:33,080
There's obviously some that were officially written, especially in the Medal of Honor

563
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:34,480
review.

564
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:36,560
So I don't want to drag you through all these memories.

565
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:37,560
Oh, I don't mind.

566
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:41,400
But there's a couple obviously I'd like to talk about.

567
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:46,260
But before we do that, one thing that again popped out a couple of times was martial arts.

568
00:47:46,260 --> 00:47:50,480
So how did you get into that?

569
00:47:50,480 --> 00:48:03,720
When in boot camp, they give you a basic martial arts, bayonet training and those types of

570
00:48:03,720 --> 00:48:06,880
things.

571
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:12,760
That was the basics, throw each other around and all that.

572
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:23,840
But then a few years later, I got into karate, sabate, kito, judo, because I was in pretty

573
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:26,560
good shape and it was interesting to me.

574
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:34,280
So I found a guy that was an army guy stationed at Fort Meade.

575
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:40,640
And he'd always come over to the barracks there and he helped me with my katas and all

576
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:43,160
kinds of stuff there.

577
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:45,640
And I learned quite a bit from him.

578
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:51,280
And I got to the point where I got the third degree black belt.

579
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:54,680
And then I started my own teaching program.

580
00:48:54,680 --> 00:49:01,480
But it was this guy, he was a big guy and he had this big, huge belly.

581
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:04,640
I've seen those kind of instructors before.

582
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:05,640
But he had good balance.

583
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:08,920
Oh, he could do real good.

584
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:14,600
So I learned from him and I took it on.

585
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:21,320
And I would teach from the army special services.

586
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:29,400
I'd go and teach every Thursday night to all the guys who wanted to learn martial arts.

587
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:35,560
And I became a martial arts instructor for the recon guys.

588
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:46,360
And I don't know, I guess in order to be in reconnaissance you had to have this exceptional

589
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:54,600
PT and be able to do all those things, make night jumps and warm my body out.

590
00:49:54,600 --> 00:50:00,560
Now in my 80s I have trouble getting up these days.

591
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:03,520
Both my legs were broken, both my arms were broken.

592
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:08,680
I'm carrying like seven pieces of metal.

593
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:18,800
And I think the 20 some years I spent doing that line of work, we had to take the PFT

594
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:24,880
test every quarter and make some of these jumps every quarter and swims and dives.

595
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:29,040
And I made three combat dives in Vietnam.

596
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:33,600
I did a ship bottom search on the USS Boxer.

597
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:37,120
It was almost a thousand feet long.

598
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:42,800
And we went on there looking for explosives and whatever it was.

599
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:46,280
Didn't find anything.

600
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:47,920
And we did so much water work.

601
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,160
We went amphibious.

602
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:57,440
And so we did a lot of diving and brought up ammunition and it was stored in rivers

603
00:50:57,440 --> 00:50:59,960
and places.

604
00:50:59,960 --> 00:51:06,840
I was a dive master and a jump master and a demo master because I'd been doing this

605
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:07,840
stuff so many years.

606
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:14,360
And I was a staff sergeant then and a young officer that we had.

607
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:16,480
He was not very good.

608
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:29,800
He was physically fit but he wasn't able to understand the basics of special operations.

609
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:31,280
And I'd been in 10 years.

610
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:38,200
And I was a martial arts guy and I was a platoon sergeant.

611
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:41,480
Then when I got commissioned, I kept doing the same thing.

612
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:45,240
I kept doing the martial arts and all that, jump master.

613
00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:48,880
We made one parachute jump in Vietnam though.

614
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:54,240
Made a lot in other Okinawa, Philippines, different places.

615
00:51:54,240 --> 00:52:02,600
But we had a couple jump schedules when we were going to get these POWs out of this POW

616
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:03,600
camp.

617
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:09,560
We didn't get them when we got there and killed the guards but they had moved the POWs at

618
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:13,400
that time.

619
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:15,840
So I got my first Purple Heart on that mission.

620
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:22,320
I know that wasn't any fun.

621
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:24,120
You said you saw part of the documentary.

622
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:28,120
No, I haven't seen the documentary yet actually because we were waiting for it to come out

623
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:29,520
on Amazon but I read the book.

624
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:36,080
But with the POW story, what I thought was interesting is, and I'd love to hear it in

625
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:43,120
a little bit more detail, but you went there at that point the POWs had been moved at some

626
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:49,440
point and so there was always that feeling that you wondered what happened to them.

627
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:54,000
It really reminded me of what most firefighters do when they go into a house.

628
00:52:54,000 --> 00:53:00,080
Very rarely do we find a person but we all take that same risk when we go in.

629
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:03,840
To me it was like, there's no guarantee that you're going to be able to make that rescue

630
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:09,120
but the fact that you and your men risk their lives to go and facilitate that save, the

631
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:14,120
result was almost, not irrelevant, but you took the same risk whether you made the rescue

632
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:16,360
or whether you didn't.

633
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:22,920
Well there was 12 of us went in.

634
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:31,920
I had the intel guy in, I had a young Vietnamese called Lap and he had been in the POW camp,

635
00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:35,320
knew where it was, so CIA brought him to us.

636
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:41,080
I took him with me on the rescue.

637
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:45,080
He led us right to the POW camp but it was empty.

638
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:49,920
We killed the guards and blew up everything else.

639
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,960
Then the problem was getting out of there.

640
00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:58,080
That was kind of hard because the chopper couldn't land and so we had to hoist up.

641
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:02,520
I was the last man on the ground and I got hit going up.

642
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:08,840
It wasn't that bad but it scared the hell out of me because it hit me in the head there.

643
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:19,400
So they gave us all ron stars and they gave the young officer who led the mission, gave

644
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:20,720
him a silver star.

645
00:54:20,720 --> 00:54:23,720
He didn't deserve it.

646
00:54:23,720 --> 00:54:35,760
But we did a lot of good missions.

647
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:44,920
That Rambo movie, ours wasn't as flamboyant as that thing but we were there.

648
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:50,120
We got into the fire fights and did all of that.

649
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:56,640
Our unit ran something like 55 missions and we took it to them.

650
00:54:56,640 --> 00:55:03,800
There's a lot of things, you probably read a lot of it anyway, but it was a hard tour

651
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:04,800
for us.

652
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:11,840
We only had 40 men and then we lost a good bit of those on the way.

653
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:19,960
We got some new guys in as replacements and most of those guys are gone now.

654
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:28,400
My team was called team Broadminded and there's only three of us left now.

655
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:32,320
We did good, ran some good missions.

656
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:38,920
We spent time up in a place called Quezon which was a nasty place.

657
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:49,040
If you have time, I'll have Bill set up the documentary so you can see it's an hour and

658
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:50,040
a half.

659
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:51,040
That would be great.

660
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:52,040
Thank you.

661
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:59,960
I have to get someone who can show it to you because I don't know how to do this stuff anymore.

662
00:55:59,960 --> 00:56:02,040
Computers and all that.

663
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:07,080
I think these days as well, there's a code so you can watch it anywhere and you just

664
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:08,080
punch it in.

665
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:11,400
I have to see what kind of copy they've got.

666
00:56:11,400 --> 00:56:14,200
I've been waiting for it to come out for everyone listening.

667
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:16,960
It should be coming out soon on Amazon I believe.

668
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:26,920
We've been working on this thing now but unfortunately, ran into a problem with the music.

669
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:27,920
We didn't own the music.

670
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:28,920
The copyright problem?

671
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:31,920
Yeah, so we're working on that now.

672
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:38,000
As a matter of fact, I'll call Hollywood later on today and see.

673
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:46,160
I'm going to meet with them next week when I go out to LA or San Diego.

674
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:50,560
It's a good documentary.

675
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:54,880
My old platoon sergeant, he lives about 20 minutes from here.

676
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:55,880
Oh really?

677
00:56:55,880 --> 00:57:02,280
Sergeant Yermont, he started off as a young land's corporal and a good man.

678
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:08,560
He's got some serious issues, PTSD.

679
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:11,920
He lived as a hermit for 15 years after the war.

680
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:18,120
A lot of the guys such as me, that's an air freshener.

681
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:21,720
Yeah I know, it's funny, it sounds like a cat getting throttled.

682
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:32,960
Yeah, but we ran a lot of good missions and I remember some of it and some of it.

683
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:44,240
I think that year in the hospital, they tried to get me to forget some of this stuff there.

684
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:46,360
But lately, I'm doing much better.

685
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:47,920
I take medication.

686
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:57,320
I take medication for PTSD, for grieving, for pain, for sleeping.

687
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:08,160
A lot of stuff they give me because the pain I go through, I'm dealing with it.

688
00:58:08,160 --> 00:58:15,440
I don't know that the medication helps me that much, but at least I can sleep a little

689
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:16,440
bit better.

690
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:25,800
Yeah, a lot of the things that you would probably want to ask, I have to think about it and

691
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:29,800
see whether I even know the answer to it anymore.

692
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:36,840
One thing I did want to talk about, because I think that it's very rare that we hear mental

693
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:39,600
health discuss, especially in the Vietnam generation.

694
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:44,640
It's funny, you've got Karl Malanta's book on your side there, I've got the same one

695
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,680
speaking of that.

696
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:53,520
When I was reading, it seemed like the first time that you really felt the weight of that

697
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:59,040
was when you lost Corporal Michael Scanlon.

698
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:05,360
If you're okay recounting that, tell me about his heroism, another Medal of Honor-worthy

699
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:11,840
moment and then why that one particular one was like that, that critical mass for you.

700
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:13,840
Well, he was like a son to me.

701
00:59:13,840 --> 00:59:18,680
He was a young guy from Boston, Springfield Mass.

702
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:26,560
Once I came home, I went to see his mother, told her how sorry I was.

703
00:59:26,560 --> 00:59:36,200
I thought for sure I'd get him home and work that way.

704
00:59:36,200 --> 00:59:43,520
There's some thought that one of the grenades that came in, I wasn't with him on that mission,

705
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:49,000
but he apparently had pulled it under him because when they looked at his body at great

706
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:52,600
restoration his sternum was crushed.

707
00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:59,400
So I flew down to denying I was in Quezon at the time.

708
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:04,440
He was our first Kensley at the Quezon.

709
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:11,280
Red-headed kid, freckled face, smile all the time.

710
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:14,160
He's like a son to me.

711
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:24,640
When I got the word that he was killed, it hurt.

712
01:00:24,640 --> 01:00:33,800
I went to denying to the hospital because one of the other men, Sergeant Ernst, he's

713
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:37,040
gone too.

714
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:43,600
I went to see him to see if he could tell me what the hell happened out there.

715
01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:45,600
I was on the POW mission.

716
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:54,560
That was a hard one for me, I think, because when I went in, it was raining outside, I

717
01:00:54,560 --> 01:01:03,240
caught the chopper from Quezon down to denying, which was only about 30 miles away.

718
01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:18,080
When I got a jeep and I walked it in the hospital, as I was walking down the aisle, I heard this

719
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:20,960
baby cry, a little girl cry.

720
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:26,960
I stopped and I couldn't believe it.

721
01:01:26,960 --> 01:01:36,000
She was blind and was tied, tethered to the bed there.

722
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:38,560
She had one leg and one arm.

723
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:40,640
It was so sad.

724
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:42,120
She was crying.

725
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:49,880
I stopped and I went over.

726
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:57,080
I heard babies crying in war zones, but I picked her up and she tried to hold on to

727
01:01:57,080 --> 01:01:59,760
me.

728
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:06,000
I knew I had to go down to see Sergeant Ernst because I needed to get back to Quezon because

729
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:08,360
they would be coming in.

730
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:13,960
The 324B division was hitting us pretty hard on 120 rockets.

731
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:20,160
I picked the child up, rocked her, and she stopped crying.

732
01:02:20,160 --> 01:02:26,480
I looked at my watch and I said, oh man, I've got to get out of here.

733
01:02:26,480 --> 01:02:27,480
I couldn't put her down.

734
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:31,320
She wouldn't let me, wouldn't turn me loose.

735
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:42,120
At any rate, I laid the child down and went down to where Ernst was.

736
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:46,040
He had that big old city grin on his face.

737
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:50,560
I was a lieutenant at that time.

738
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:53,640
This was January.

739
01:02:53,640 --> 01:03:06,720
I was standing talking to Ernst.

740
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:09,320
He had been hit both arms.

741
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:14,040
I think he was trying to throw a grenade.

742
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:16,160
The thing was a dud.

743
01:03:16,160 --> 01:03:21,200
He got shot in one arm and eventually got hit in both arms.

744
01:03:21,200 --> 01:03:22,200
He was counting the story.

745
01:03:22,200 --> 01:03:24,200
We were going to send him home.

746
01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:30,280
When I was talking to him, I heard this Marine crying.

747
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:32,440
He gave me water.

748
01:03:32,440 --> 01:03:34,280
I need some water.

749
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:35,280
Somebody help me please.

750
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:41,360
I turned around and I said, Ernst, what's going on?

751
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:45,680
He says, Lieutenant, he's dying and they can't give him any water.

752
01:03:45,680 --> 01:03:48,160
Well, if he's dying, why?

753
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:49,160
He was crying.

754
01:03:49,160 --> 01:03:55,480
I went over to the corpsman and I said, Doc, can't you do something with this kid?

755
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:57,320
He said, no sir, I can't do anything.

756
01:03:57,320 --> 01:03:58,320
He's dying.

757
01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:06,240
He had a big old stomach wound and a mess.

758
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:08,440
You could smell it all over the place there.

759
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:10,520
I said, Doc, you got to do something.

760
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:13,720
You can't let this kid.

761
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:17,520
He said something I didn't like at night.

762
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:19,000
Probably said something else to him.

763
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:25,120
The next thing I know, Ernst was saying, Lieutenant, let him go.

764
01:04:25,120 --> 01:04:31,320
By that time, I had seen so much death and destruction that it just broke my heart.

765
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:39,520
The little girl up there and Ernst here and the Marine dying and couldn't give him any

766
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:40,520
water.

767
01:04:40,520 --> 01:04:52,640
A nurse came over and said, Lieutenant, can I talk to you?

768
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:55,360
I said, yes, ma'am.

769
01:04:55,360 --> 01:05:00,400
She said, why don't you come with me for a minute?

770
01:05:00,400 --> 01:05:03,840
I said, okay.

771
01:05:03,840 --> 01:05:08,880
The Uerman is still alive.

772
01:05:08,880 --> 01:05:11,880
Ernst is gone now.

773
01:05:11,880 --> 01:05:13,920
Ernst said, Lieutenant, behave yourself.

774
01:05:13,920 --> 01:05:15,400
I said, all right.

775
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:17,040
She took me back in the office there.

776
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:24,120
I had soft music playing and she said, Lieutenant, sit down for a minute.

777
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:28,240
She said, who the hell are you?

778
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:31,960
I said, I'm Lieutenant Jim Capress.

779
01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:32,960
I come from Kaysan.

780
01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:34,960
Look out for one of my Marines.

781
01:05:34,960 --> 01:05:37,080
I said, oh, Sergeant Yermont.

782
01:05:37,080 --> 01:05:41,200
I said, Yermont what?

783
01:05:41,200 --> 01:05:49,560
Ernst is buried up in Arlington and she said, you look pretty bad.

784
01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:54,960
When was the last time you ate?

785
01:05:54,960 --> 01:06:05,040
I said, nurse, I don't remember.

786
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:11,000
She said, the doctor's not going to let you out of here.

787
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:20,720
I got wounded down in Fulau.

788
01:06:20,720 --> 01:06:22,040
She said, why don't you stay here?

789
01:06:22,040 --> 01:06:29,760
We'll send a message to your command because you need to be hospitalized.

790
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:31,360
She said, how long have you been here?

791
01:06:31,360 --> 01:06:36,040
I said, I joined the unit in November 1965.

792
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:41,800
She said, Lieutenant, this is February 1967.

793
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:47,520
I said, yeah, but I've been a staff sergeant and I'm filling in for some of the officers

794
01:06:47,520 --> 01:06:49,840
till we get some supplies, get some replacements in.

795
01:06:49,840 --> 01:06:53,320
She says, I think you're done.

796
01:06:53,320 --> 01:07:00,480
I think you need to see the doctor and have them do something with you because you obviously

797
01:07:00,480 --> 01:07:07,840
got blood all over you, got mud all over you and don't know if you've eaten anything.

798
01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:10,120
I said, well, I'll eat when my troops eat.

799
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:13,080
She said, let me give you something else.

800
01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:16,240
I said, no, I won't eat now.

801
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:18,240
You feed Sergeant Ernst.

802
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:21,000
But I can't eat now.

803
01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:27,080
I got to get back to Kaysan because we're going to be expecting an attack tonight.

804
01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:29,280
She said, how do you know that?

805
01:07:29,280 --> 01:07:30,720
Because that's what they always do.

806
01:07:30,720 --> 01:07:32,760
So I got to get back.

807
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:34,920
She said, well, you need to eat something.

808
01:07:34,920 --> 01:07:37,480
I said, no, I can't eat till my troops eat.

809
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:41,240
That's just something, you know, officers never eat until they've been eaten.

810
01:07:41,240 --> 01:07:48,920
How am I going to sit down there with music playing and a plate of food?

811
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:51,760
No, you know, can't do that.

812
01:07:51,760 --> 01:07:53,840
That's not where it goes.

813
01:07:53,840 --> 01:08:00,120
In a way, I was taught, you know, coming up in a line of work I was in.

814
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:07,000
So the doctor came in and he said that I heard that you were here and I want to come in and

815
01:08:07,000 --> 01:08:12,240
tell you that it's no shame in us keeping you here.

816
01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:19,240
We think that you had, you got combat fatigue and we want to keep you here.

817
01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:24,000
And I said, Doc, I can't stay.

818
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:31,040
He said, well, we also know you got to get away from the sun back home.

819
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:41,200
And so I was supposed to go home in April and this was February.

820
01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:48,320
I said, Doc, you know, let me talk to my sergeant and I got to get out of here.

821
01:08:48,320 --> 01:08:50,640
He said, you know, I could have the MPAs keep you.

822
01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:56,560
I said, Doc, you and I both know you don't have enough men in here to keep me.

823
01:08:56,560 --> 01:08:59,320
He said, no, I don't.

824
01:08:59,320 --> 01:09:03,760
Let's don't get carried away with this thing now.

825
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:08,800
So I got up.

826
01:09:08,800 --> 01:09:11,120
Actually, he left.

827
01:09:11,120 --> 01:09:14,520
He said, I got to go see another patient.

828
01:09:14,520 --> 01:09:18,800
I want to say go take care of that boy who's dying out there.

829
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:26,400
And he said, why don't you sit here and I can smell the nurses perfume.

830
01:09:26,400 --> 01:09:29,920
And I had to smell perfume and I don't know when.

831
01:09:29,920 --> 01:09:37,480
And I said, that pretty white smock on, pretty girl, young.

832
01:09:37,480 --> 01:09:42,920
I thought too young to be in a war zone like this, but a lot of young ladies, they volunteered.

833
01:09:42,920 --> 01:09:48,400
I mean, they were really heroes.

834
01:09:48,400 --> 01:09:53,720
They were just so, so brave when the hospital got hit.

835
01:09:53,720 --> 01:09:58,560
They grabbed those M16s, they go out there and they'd get their helmets and jump on the

836
01:09:58,560 --> 01:09:59,560
lines.

837
01:09:59,560 --> 01:10:02,200
Amazing young women who did those kind of things.

838
01:10:02,200 --> 01:10:05,040
I admired them so much, the nurses.

839
01:10:05,040 --> 01:10:06,480
And she sat down there with me.

840
01:10:06,480 --> 01:10:11,000
She said, Lieutenant, take your boots off.

841
01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:18,600
Take your boots off and relax for a minute.

842
01:10:18,600 --> 01:10:26,800
And I said, I'll sit down for a minute, but I need to get back to K-San.

843
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:33,440
She said, you know, if you go back to K-San, you're probably going to die.

844
01:10:33,440 --> 01:10:37,600
I said, nurse, been a story of my life.

845
01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:42,600
And she said, why don't you sit down for a minute.

846
01:10:42,600 --> 01:10:45,600
I sat down for a minute and I dosed off.

847
01:10:45,600 --> 01:10:46,960
I was just tired.

848
01:10:46,960 --> 01:10:48,480
Body was worn out.

849
01:10:48,480 --> 01:10:55,240
I weighed 125 pounds when I come home.

850
01:10:55,240 --> 01:11:01,080
I weighed 206 pounds now.

851
01:11:01,080 --> 01:11:04,360
Most of that's fat right now.

852
01:11:04,360 --> 01:11:09,400
But I said, no, I need to get back.

853
01:11:09,400 --> 01:11:14,840
So I went out and I said hello to, goodbye to Sergeant Ernst.

854
01:11:14,840 --> 01:11:19,920
And he died of brain cancer from ancient orange.

855
01:11:19,920 --> 01:11:31,820
And I was going back up to get my Jeep and I heard the little girl crying.

856
01:11:31,820 --> 01:11:34,160
My mind was fried.

857
01:11:34,160 --> 01:11:36,720
I can't do this anymore.

858
01:11:36,720 --> 01:11:37,720
Just couldn't do it.

859
01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:41,360
I couldn't, I wanted to go over and grab a hugger.

860
01:11:41,360 --> 01:11:45,680
My heart was broken.

861
01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:49,440
I didn't know whether Ernst was going to live or die.

862
01:11:49,440 --> 01:11:53,120
Well there's the rain over there, the bad stomach wounds.

863
01:11:53,120 --> 01:11:58,640
Now I've got this child I could hear.

864
01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:02,960
I could hear, but I couldn't do it anymore.

865
01:12:02,960 --> 01:12:12,080
So the nurse come behind me and she said, Lieutenant, your Jeep is out there.

866
01:12:12,080 --> 01:12:21,640
And it was raining and the Jeep pulled up and she had this beautiful white smock on.

867
01:12:21,640 --> 01:12:27,040
And she come out to the Jeep where I was and grabbed me by the arm.

868
01:12:27,040 --> 01:12:31,320
She said, Lieutenant, don't go to K-Son.

869
01:12:31,320 --> 01:12:33,280
You won't make it out of there.

870
01:12:33,280 --> 01:12:35,840
You need to be in the hospital.

871
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:42,600
I said, nurse, I appreciate it, but I told you, my men are up there.

872
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:44,200
As long as they're up there, I'll be there.

873
01:12:44,200 --> 01:12:50,280
If I got to die, I'd die with the only friends I ever had.

874
01:12:50,280 --> 01:12:57,920
And she was saying something to me and she tripped and stumbled in the mud.

875
01:12:57,920 --> 01:13:04,160
And damn it, she said, Lieutenant, come on with me.

876
01:13:04,160 --> 01:13:07,760
And I got in the Jeep and didn't say goodbye.

877
01:13:07,760 --> 01:13:11,520
The Jeep drove off.

878
01:13:11,520 --> 01:13:19,920
I got me a helicopter and drove back to K-Son.

879
01:13:19,920 --> 01:13:23,040
And that night they came.

880
01:13:23,040 --> 01:13:35,120
You hear the whistles blowing and hop up on opium and morphine and hear the whistles blowing.

881
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:37,040
And they'd come through the lines.

882
01:13:37,040 --> 01:13:39,520
They had something called sappers.

883
01:13:39,520 --> 01:13:43,800
They'd blow themselves up and blow a hole in the barbed wire and they'd come running

884
01:13:43,800 --> 01:13:44,800
in.

885
01:13:44,800 --> 01:13:48,920
It was like suicide bombers.

886
01:13:48,920 --> 01:13:52,500
But there were wonderful young troops there.

887
01:13:52,500 --> 01:13:55,800
They picked up entrenching tools.

888
01:13:55,800 --> 01:14:01,760
I wasn't able to do anything that night.

889
01:14:01,760 --> 01:14:07,640
You could hear them yell, come on.

890
01:14:07,640 --> 01:14:16,440
Then we had this setup run by a lady named Hanoi Hannah.

891
01:14:16,440 --> 01:14:23,600
And she would be broadcasting these Yankees, something like the old Japanese thing there.

892
01:14:23,600 --> 01:14:26,320
Yankee, go home.

893
01:14:26,320 --> 01:14:27,320
You die.

894
01:14:27,320 --> 01:14:32,520
And they'd be broadcast over there.

895
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:39,080
But they came, blowing those buoys.

896
01:14:39,080 --> 01:14:45,200
And they didn't take K-Son.

897
01:14:45,200 --> 01:14:59,360
But when I think of those nights, I needed to rest.

898
01:14:59,360 --> 01:15:02,920
I was tired mentally.

899
01:15:02,920 --> 01:15:09,440
Plus I never healed from that POW thing when I got hit.

900
01:15:09,440 --> 01:15:16,320
And I called my corpsman.

901
01:15:16,320 --> 01:15:22,200
I was lieutenant at that time, packing K-Son.

902
01:15:22,200 --> 01:15:23,640
And I called my corpsman.

903
01:15:23,640 --> 01:15:25,360
I said, Doc, come with me now.

904
01:15:25,360 --> 01:15:29,680
Come with me because I'm going to need you.

905
01:15:29,680 --> 01:15:32,400
Doc says, you okay, Lieutenant?

906
01:15:32,400 --> 01:15:36,040
I said, yeah, Doc, I'm okay.

907
01:15:36,040 --> 01:15:40,360
This might be a haunted force.

908
01:15:40,360 --> 01:15:44,200
And he followed me around a little burn.

909
01:15:44,200 --> 01:15:50,120
And that's when the flares were coming down and everything was going on there.

910
01:15:50,120 --> 01:15:54,920
I said, Doc, stay with me now because they'll be coming soon.

911
01:15:54,920 --> 01:15:57,440
It was dark.

912
01:15:57,440 --> 01:16:06,320
You see the flares dropping down.

913
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:18,160
And the corpsman said, Lieutenant, he said, you know, I don't feel well.

914
01:16:18,160 --> 01:16:21,440
I'm just a little tired.

915
01:16:21,440 --> 01:16:27,640
Can I rest for a moment?

916
01:16:27,640 --> 01:16:31,840
I said, yeah, Doc, we've got a little time.

917
01:16:31,840 --> 01:16:35,320
He sat down next to me.

918
01:16:35,320 --> 01:16:40,720
My right foot, he leaned against my right foot and he died right there.

919
01:16:40,720 --> 01:16:43,640
He never got up.

920
01:16:43,640 --> 01:16:49,480
I had to hold his chest.

921
01:16:49,480 --> 01:16:54,200
I never knew the boy had been hit.

922
01:16:54,200 --> 01:16:55,200
He followed me.

923
01:16:55,200 --> 01:16:59,680
He said, I'm just a little tired.

924
01:16:59,680 --> 01:17:03,080
Let me rest for a minute.

925
01:17:03,080 --> 01:17:07,080
He didn't complain.

926
01:17:07,080 --> 01:17:10,680
He died in his post.

927
01:17:10,680 --> 01:17:16,720
And so I think that's when the demons come home.

928
01:17:16,720 --> 01:17:20,600
I didn't even know his name.

929
01:17:20,600 --> 01:17:24,760
When I looked at him, he had a big hole in his chest.

930
01:17:24,760 --> 01:17:26,880
I never said a word.

931
01:17:26,880 --> 01:17:31,280
I said, let me rest for a minute.

932
01:17:31,280 --> 01:17:39,160
And you know, I think when I go back into those days, those dark days, you know, you

933
01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:42,200
wonder who was this boy?

934
01:17:42,200 --> 01:17:45,200
Where did he come from?

935
01:17:45,200 --> 01:17:52,040
How did he know that he was supposed to stay on his post?

936
01:17:52,040 --> 01:17:53,040
Where did he come from?

937
01:17:53,040 --> 01:17:57,640
Where do we get these young men from?

938
01:17:57,640 --> 01:17:58,840
I never knew him before.

939
01:17:58,840 --> 01:17:59,840
I don't remember.

940
01:17:59,840 --> 01:18:06,200
I knew he was a corpsman, so I must have known him from somewhere, but I was gone for a little

941
01:18:06,200 --> 01:18:09,720
while and the boy died right there.

942
01:18:09,720 --> 01:18:12,480
So it's at night.

943
01:18:12,480 --> 01:18:13,480
Things are going on.

944
01:18:13,480 --> 01:18:16,800
People are yelling and screaming.

945
01:18:16,800 --> 01:18:25,760
And I thought maybe I lost it just for a little bit.

946
01:18:25,760 --> 01:18:36,600
I put down my rifle and I looked up in the sky and I said, God, I need you tonight.

947
01:18:36,600 --> 01:18:37,600
I need you.

948
01:18:37,600 --> 01:18:41,320
I need you to help me.

949
01:18:41,320 --> 01:18:47,040
I said, hit me with a bolt of lightning and do something.

950
01:18:47,040 --> 01:18:58,720
And God didn't answer, didn't say anything, nothing I could recognize, no bolt of lightning.

951
01:18:58,720 --> 01:19:05,080
So I wondered if God was listening.

952
01:19:05,080 --> 01:19:11,120
So much chaos.

953
01:19:11,120 --> 01:19:17,800
But I got up, picked up my rifle and I went back to the war.

954
01:19:17,800 --> 01:19:28,000
And they pulled us out and sent me back to Fubi.

955
01:19:28,000 --> 01:19:32,520
And I wanted so badly to hear God say, it's going to be okay.

956
01:19:32,520 --> 01:19:39,160
I didn't hear anything, nothing I could recognize.

957
01:19:39,160 --> 01:19:43,880
So eventually we got out of there and moved on back down south.

958
01:19:43,880 --> 01:19:45,680
And it started all over again.

959
01:19:45,680 --> 01:19:49,560
God Almighty.

960
01:19:49,560 --> 01:19:56,720
I didn't hit twice at K-San, but I only had one purple heart from the POW thing.

961
01:19:56,720 --> 01:20:03,600
If you had three purple hearts, they would send you home.

962
01:20:03,600 --> 01:20:05,320
And I never said nothing to anybody.

963
01:20:05,320 --> 01:20:07,720
You didn't want to leave your men?

964
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:10,440
No, couldn't do that.

965
01:20:10,440 --> 01:20:18,640
Old Don was gone, Spain I was gone, Kettison was gone, Barnes was gone.

966
01:20:18,640 --> 01:20:22,600
And I'm a staff sergeant.

967
01:20:22,600 --> 01:20:26,760
I'm running this thing now, staff sergeant.

968
01:20:26,760 --> 01:20:29,840
They turned me down in 1964.

969
01:20:29,840 --> 01:20:34,840
In 1965, I applied for officers training.

970
01:20:34,840 --> 01:20:40,280
They said consider it, but not select it.

971
01:20:40,280 --> 01:20:48,320
But then again, that day in 66, my colonel called me in and put some lieutenant Barnes

972
01:20:48,320 --> 01:20:50,720
on me.

973
01:20:50,720 --> 01:20:53,360
No officers training.

974
01:20:53,360 --> 01:20:55,880
I went there a few weeks ago, Quantico.

975
01:20:55,880 --> 01:20:58,280
Finally let me see it.

976
01:20:58,280 --> 01:21:00,920
This is what you missed.

977
01:21:00,920 --> 01:21:05,800
But we lost so many men at that K-San.

978
01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:11,040
The 324th B Division hit us hard.

979
01:21:11,040 --> 01:21:12,040
They they could fight.

980
01:21:12,040 --> 01:21:18,600
They'd been there since Dien Bien Phu when they fought against the French.

981
01:21:18,600 --> 01:21:20,840
But they never took K-San from us.

982
01:21:20,840 --> 01:21:29,880
No, when they never took it, they'd come pretty close because some of that West Moline came

983
01:21:29,880 --> 01:21:32,200
at it one time.

984
01:21:32,200 --> 01:21:37,600
He flew in and looked around and left.

985
01:21:37,600 --> 01:21:44,040
And he was the commanding chief at that time.

986
01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:49,520
But we got out of there and flew south and then it got worse.

987
01:21:49,520 --> 01:21:57,920
So in between we went on special missions and I can't remember all of the missions,

988
01:21:57,920 --> 01:22:01,560
but if you can tie all this together.

989
01:22:01,560 --> 01:22:05,680
No, I mean, it flows the way it's supposed to.

990
01:22:05,680 --> 01:22:10,720
But one thing I wanted to ask you, and I always ask every member of the military this that's

991
01:22:10,720 --> 01:22:22,720
been deployed, the scene combat, because there is no worse example of how abandoned our men

992
01:22:22,720 --> 01:22:27,600
and women in the military were than the Vietnam era.

993
01:22:27,600 --> 01:22:33,440
And even to this day, I think that the civilians of the world, or at least in the US and maybe

994
01:22:33,440 --> 01:22:38,280
the UK, get given a very polarizing view.

995
01:22:38,280 --> 01:22:43,440
These days now, you could think of it as a pro-war view, like kill them all, let God

996
01:22:43,440 --> 01:22:48,440
sort them out and then you have the baby killer side.

997
01:22:48,440 --> 01:22:53,080
So what I always ask people so that people listening can get a view of what it's like

998
01:22:53,080 --> 01:22:59,120
to be a member of the military wearing a uniform standing in that combat zone.

999
01:22:59,120 --> 01:23:06,000
When you got there, let's say Vietnam specifically, regardless of politics that sent you there,

1000
01:23:06,000 --> 01:23:11,480
because often there's people on this show that were in a war they didn't agree with.

1001
01:23:11,480 --> 01:23:18,000
What were some of the things you started seeing done by the VC and the MVA to the Vietnamese

1002
01:23:18,000 --> 01:23:24,040
people that made you realize, regardless of politics, there are some horrible people that

1003
01:23:24,040 --> 01:23:25,520
we need to take care of?

1004
01:23:25,520 --> 01:23:40,680
Well, I think earlier on, we knew that they were the North Vietnamese, because we came

1005
01:23:40,680 --> 01:23:50,920
in on the side of the South Vietnamese, because they divided the North and South at the end

1006
01:23:50,920 --> 01:23:54,920
of the Dien Bien Vũ thing.

1007
01:23:54,920 --> 01:24:03,240
And the North Ho Chi Minh, I think he's running that.

1008
01:24:03,240 --> 01:24:07,640
Forget the President of South Vietnam, but we were on the side of the South Vietnamese.

1009
01:24:07,640 --> 01:24:18,400
We came in, the army came in with big divisions, and my unit, we were in 40 men, whole train,

1010
01:24:18,400 --> 01:24:22,880
top of the line, you know, Team Broadmontet.

1011
01:24:22,880 --> 01:24:31,040
We had a 12-man group, but we had other train commandos also.

1012
01:24:31,040 --> 01:24:41,680
But Team Broadmontet, which was my team, were very good, dangerous, I would say.

1013
01:24:41,680 --> 01:24:50,320
Whole young men, trained by the sergeant here and led by the lieutenant.

1014
01:24:50,320 --> 01:24:58,880
But the Vietnamese, we had something called a National Liberation Front, and these were

1015
01:24:58,880 --> 01:25:01,160
some of the Viet Cong.

1016
01:25:01,160 --> 01:25:10,400
And the Viet Cong would go into some of the villages and rape the women, recruit the young

1017
01:25:10,400 --> 01:25:16,520
men, take all of the rice.

1018
01:25:16,520 --> 01:25:22,240
And if they had a chief, they would take the chief and hang him up, rip his stomach out,

1019
01:25:22,240 --> 01:25:27,840
let the hogs eat his entrails.

1020
01:25:27,840 --> 01:25:30,960
They'd burn what was left.

1021
01:25:30,960 --> 01:25:35,440
And my job was to go and find them.

1022
01:25:35,440 --> 01:25:37,520
And I did.

1023
01:25:37,520 --> 01:25:43,960
We hunted them down.

1024
01:25:43,960 --> 01:25:45,960
And we killed one of them.

1025
01:25:45,960 --> 01:25:49,880
But didn't they come back again?

1026
01:25:49,880 --> 01:25:56,200
So we hunt them down to their villages, to their hideouts in the mountains.

1027
01:25:56,200 --> 01:25:58,600
They'd drop us in by helicopters.

1028
01:25:58,600 --> 01:26:10,480
We spent five or six days out there and found out they're cooking pots.

1029
01:26:10,480 --> 01:26:16,920
And we track them down at night.

1030
01:26:16,920 --> 01:26:22,760
We had artillery, a wonderful battery called Yankee Battery.

1031
01:26:22,760 --> 01:26:27,560
And they were 105s.

1032
01:26:27,560 --> 01:26:29,800
And they could move pretty much close to us.

1033
01:26:29,800 --> 01:26:30,800
They were the 175s.

1034
01:26:30,800 --> 01:26:37,320
Then we had the 175s at Kaysan.

1035
01:26:37,320 --> 01:26:42,200
But the artillery were guys that would back us up because we didn't have enough men to

1036
01:26:42,200 --> 01:26:45,120
fight them toe to toe.

1037
01:26:45,120 --> 01:26:54,560
So we had the gunships that we'd give them the coordinates and they were scared of us.

1038
01:26:54,560 --> 01:26:57,280
They needed to be.

1039
01:26:57,280 --> 01:27:01,120
We had what we call free fire zones.

1040
01:27:01,120 --> 01:27:11,200
And anything in that zone there, I could hunt down and kill.

1041
01:27:11,200 --> 01:27:13,200
Killing and I hear these noises here.

1042
01:27:13,200 --> 01:27:18,360
You're in the zone and all of a sudden the air freshener goes off again.

1043
01:27:18,360 --> 01:27:22,320
I don't plan that stuff, but that's where it is.

1044
01:27:22,320 --> 01:27:28,080
But we were good at that and we'd hunt them down.

1045
01:27:28,080 --> 01:27:36,360
Sometimes we were not to get a prisoner.

1046
01:27:36,360 --> 01:27:45,800
And sometimes we didn't bring them back for a lot of reasons.

1047
01:27:45,800 --> 01:27:48,640
But they were so violent.

1048
01:27:48,640 --> 01:27:51,640
They were so violent.

1049
01:27:51,640 --> 01:27:59,320
I was a little older at the time.

1050
01:27:59,320 --> 01:28:02,600
I was a little older.

1051
01:28:02,600 --> 01:28:07,080
A lot of the guys were barely out of their teens, but they were young and strong and

1052
01:28:07,080 --> 01:28:13,280
they volunteered and I needed them.

1053
01:28:13,280 --> 01:28:19,560
When I was up at Arlington a few weeks ago, my point man was there.

1054
01:28:19,560 --> 01:28:26,280
Sergeant Dorosky, point man, an interesting person.

1055
01:28:26,280 --> 01:28:29,000
Lord knows interesting person.

1056
01:28:29,000 --> 01:28:38,320
And the one mission that he didn't go on was the one that we battled a Fulock.

1057
01:28:38,320 --> 01:28:43,600
I lost my war dog and all of us got pretty much banged up.

1058
01:28:43,600 --> 01:28:46,920
But we accomplished the mission.

1059
01:28:46,920 --> 01:28:54,920
We needed to blow the leeward side of the mountain range.

1060
01:28:54,920 --> 01:29:03,720
And we called in phantoms and artillery because that's where they were based in the hit Way

1061
01:29:03,720 --> 01:29:06,720
City.

1062
01:29:06,720 --> 01:29:13,440
We didn't stop them going into Way City, but we slowed them down a lot.

1063
01:29:13,440 --> 01:29:19,480
I had 10 men in my war dog, Cango, had been with me a long time.

1064
01:29:19,480 --> 01:29:20,960
He was killed right in front of me.

1065
01:29:20,960 --> 01:29:25,080
Probably saved my life, but we brought his body out.

1066
01:29:25,080 --> 01:29:33,800
I tried to talk about that as best I could, but so many missions we ran, it's hard to

1067
01:29:33,800 --> 01:29:39,960
remember them all or certain degree of accuracy.

1068
01:29:39,960 --> 01:29:49,720
But you asked me about the cruelness of the enemy soldiers and why it was so important

1069
01:29:49,720 --> 01:29:58,080
for us to make sure they knew if they come into this area, we're going to find them.

1070
01:29:58,080 --> 01:30:02,560
Because you had Green Berets protecting areas too, didn't you?

1071
01:30:02,560 --> 01:30:08,400
So I think that's an important thing is that in these combat zones, people forget that

1072
01:30:08,400 --> 01:30:14,760
American, British, Australian, wherever, the Allied forces are protecting the native people

1073
01:30:14,760 --> 01:30:18,320
of that country, whether it's Iraqis, whether it's Afghanis.

1074
01:30:18,320 --> 01:30:25,280
I think, again, the distortion of what these often drafted men and women were asked to

1075
01:30:25,280 --> 01:30:30,360
do in Vietnam, the worst case scenarios are reported.

1076
01:30:30,360 --> 01:30:34,920
The massacres that did happen at the hands of the Americans, which were an anomaly versus

1077
01:30:34,920 --> 01:30:39,040
all the good that you guys were doing amidst this battle zone.

1078
01:30:39,040 --> 01:30:44,800
So it's so important that we civilians, myself included, get to hear these firsthand accounts

1079
01:30:44,800 --> 01:30:51,600
of where Americans were dying, protecting South Vietnamese.

1080
01:30:51,600 --> 01:30:56,400
We had the Australians there.

1081
01:30:56,400 --> 01:31:02,160
We had the two divisions from South Korea.

1082
01:31:02,160 --> 01:31:12,120
We had the Korean White Horse Division and the Korean First Division, First Marine Division.

1083
01:31:12,120 --> 01:31:15,280
And they were good fighters.

1084
01:31:15,280 --> 01:31:19,880
And I didn't fight with them, but I was with Australians.

1085
01:31:19,880 --> 01:31:21,360
And they had some British there.

1086
01:31:21,360 --> 01:31:25,440
I don't remember running into too many of them there.

1087
01:31:25,440 --> 01:31:30,000
But always our best allies.

1088
01:31:30,000 --> 01:31:36,960
And I worked with them in my early years when I was on the Med Cruises.

1089
01:31:36,960 --> 01:31:47,040
And we would see the British in the Middle East with the French Foreign Legion in places

1090
01:31:47,040 --> 01:31:48,040
like Italy.

1091
01:31:48,040 --> 01:31:51,320
The Legion was there and the British was there.

1092
01:31:51,320 --> 01:31:53,800
It was the NATO forces.

1093
01:31:53,800 --> 01:31:58,400
And as a young guy, I saw this happening and I was soaking it all up.

1094
01:31:58,400 --> 01:32:05,200
But I found out that the British and the Legion, they were older guys.

1095
01:32:05,200 --> 01:32:08,000
My guys were 19, 20 years old.

1096
01:32:08,000 --> 01:32:17,680
Some of these guys, you know, in World War II, you know.

1097
01:32:17,680 --> 01:32:26,260
I never really saw too many of the Foreign Legion in a combat environment.

1098
01:32:26,260 --> 01:32:31,240
And I don't remember seeing it in Vietnam, because they had this shot at it when they

1099
01:32:31,240 --> 01:32:32,240
lost Dien Bien Phu.

1100
01:32:32,240 --> 01:32:35,480
With the French.

1101
01:32:35,480 --> 01:32:39,760
But the British, they had to be there.

1102
01:32:39,760 --> 01:32:40,760
I don't remember war.

1103
01:32:40,760 --> 01:32:41,760
We fought the British.

1104
01:32:41,760 --> 01:32:42,760
We might have been in the SAS.

1105
01:32:42,760 --> 01:32:45,760
They were probably hiding in all the shadows.

1106
01:32:45,760 --> 01:32:53,520
Well, I know that one of the reasons behind the documentary, the reason that I came across

1107
01:32:53,520 --> 01:32:58,680
your story in the first place, and it's one of so many that people should be hearing,

1108
01:32:58,680 --> 01:33:00,440
was the Medal of Honor component.

1109
01:33:00,440 --> 01:33:06,840
Now, you know, I mean, when people read your book, there are so many acts of valor in those

1110
01:33:06,840 --> 01:33:08,200
stories with you and your men.

1111
01:33:08,200 --> 01:33:09,200
It's incredible.

1112
01:33:09,200 --> 01:33:13,520
But so let's kind of transition to that point now.

1113
01:33:13,520 --> 01:33:16,960
Tell me about April 3, 1967.

1114
01:33:16,960 --> 01:33:22,840
And then I think that that part is important, but also the events following and finding

1115
01:33:22,840 --> 01:33:28,840
yourself back in American soil and not receiving the hero's welcome that our World War II vets

1116
01:33:28,840 --> 01:33:29,840
did.

1117
01:33:29,840 --> 01:33:43,160
Yeah, coming out of a caisson, we went into a place called Phu Bai.

1118
01:33:43,160 --> 01:33:52,400
Then we launched a mission into Phu Loc, you know, to hopefully stop them from going into

1119
01:33:52,400 --> 01:33:55,320
Hue City, because that was already planned.

1120
01:33:55,320 --> 01:33:58,480
It wasn't no big surprise to anybody.

1121
01:33:58,480 --> 01:34:03,000
But the South Vietnamese, they fought relatively good.

1122
01:34:03,000 --> 01:34:15,320
But I got nominated for the Medal of Honor in 2006, years after the war, because I got

1123
01:34:15,320 --> 01:34:20,600
nominated by both my battalion commanders for the Medal of Honor.

1124
01:34:20,600 --> 01:34:23,800
They gave me the Silver Star.

1125
01:34:23,800 --> 01:34:28,400
And the Navy gave me the Commando Medal of Honor.

1126
01:34:28,400 --> 01:34:31,000
And you know, I got a lot of stuff around here.

1127
01:34:31,000 --> 01:34:40,160
If you see over there, the governor gave me awards and the North and South Carolina governors,

1128
01:34:40,160 --> 01:34:44,800
recent years they gave me these governor's awards.

1129
01:34:44,800 --> 01:34:52,880
And they did the documentary and I wrote the book, but I never got the Medal of Honor.

1130
01:34:52,880 --> 01:34:59,760
There are some who didn't think I did enough.

1131
01:34:59,760 --> 01:35:07,160
In our line of work, we didn't stand up and fight against tanks and whatever.

1132
01:35:07,160 --> 01:35:11,040
We would drop behind enemy lines and do what we were trained to do.

1133
01:35:11,040 --> 01:35:14,880
We had to slow them down a little bit.

1134
01:35:14,880 --> 01:35:23,960
And we fought pretty good battles up in Khe Sanh, Phu Bai, Phu Loc, and we made four infamous

1135
01:35:23,960 --> 01:35:27,640
landings up near the DMZ.

1136
01:35:27,640 --> 01:35:37,480
We fought against the divisions up near the DMZ.

1137
01:35:37,480 --> 01:35:47,680
And that was a, we had 1st Battalion 26 Marines and I was attached to it to provide reconnaissance

1138
01:35:47,680 --> 01:35:48,680
for those guys.

1139
01:35:48,680 --> 01:35:52,600
And we lost 37 men killed, over 200 wounded.

1140
01:35:52,600 --> 01:35:55,680
I only had a couple wounded.

1141
01:35:55,680 --> 01:36:01,640
I didn't have any KIAs on that one.

1142
01:36:01,640 --> 01:36:09,640
So, we were violent up near the DMZ.

1143
01:36:09,640 --> 01:36:16,360
My team rescued a bunch of Marines that had been surrounded and they brought us in by

1144
01:36:16,360 --> 01:36:26,560
chopper and I flanked them, the enemy soldiers, and got as many as I could.

1145
01:36:26,560 --> 01:36:28,800
Then we brought them out.

1146
01:36:28,800 --> 01:36:36,080
We were operating from ships, I mean, four amphibious landings from ships and Amtrak's.

1147
01:36:36,080 --> 01:36:39,720
We'd go in and do what we needed to do against the enemy.

1148
01:36:39,720 --> 01:36:47,000
Then we had the Australians and the 173rd Airborne Battle Group.

1149
01:36:47,000 --> 01:36:55,840
Australians came in from the west and the Airborne came in, they were our anchors.

1150
01:36:55,840 --> 01:37:03,600
We came in from the sea and the Australians over here and the Army was coming in, putting

1151
01:37:03,600 --> 01:37:05,640
an anvil right there.

1152
01:37:05,640 --> 01:37:11,600
Unfortunately, we came in, the Army had a little bit of a gap.

1153
01:37:11,600 --> 01:37:18,480
They jumped off a little bit late so we didn't kill as many as we would have if they'd had

1154
01:37:18,480 --> 01:37:20,600
that anvil there.

1155
01:37:20,600 --> 01:37:24,320
Because the Australians, they did good.

1156
01:37:24,320 --> 01:37:29,800
They did good.

1157
01:37:29,800 --> 01:37:42,400
We killed 990-something on two missions and went back and killed another 200-something.

1158
01:37:42,400 --> 01:37:47,160
But the battalion wasn't just us recon guys.

1159
01:37:47,160 --> 01:37:55,080
We left them until we thought the bad guys were rescued, a few guys, and did the best

1160
01:37:55,080 --> 01:37:56,080
we could.

1161
01:37:56,080 --> 01:38:07,920
But on to the Medal of Honor, right now my senators have recommended that I be awarded

1162
01:38:07,920 --> 01:38:12,160
the Medal of Honor.

1163
01:38:12,160 --> 01:38:14,800
Marine Corps is kind of hard on awards.

1164
01:38:14,800 --> 01:38:21,400
They turned me down, said, no, you didn't do enough.

1165
01:38:21,400 --> 01:38:29,760
But back in those days, we've never had any history of the whole Marine Corps dating back

1166
01:38:29,760 --> 01:38:38,440
to 1775, because we didn't have black officers back in those days.

1167
01:38:38,440 --> 01:38:43,440
We've never had a black officer receive the Medal of Honor or be nominated in the history

1168
01:38:43,440 --> 01:38:44,440
of the Marine Corps.

1169
01:38:44,440 --> 01:38:46,560
I was the first one ever to be nominated.

1170
01:38:46,560 --> 01:38:52,880
I got nominated, didn't get it, they dropped it down to the Silver Star.

1171
01:38:52,880 --> 01:38:56,080
And they gave me some other stuff, but I never got the Medal of Honor.

1172
01:38:56,080 --> 01:39:05,200
Now Congress is picking it up now, and I met with some of the senators, congressmen, who

1173
01:39:05,200 --> 01:39:08,040
said, hey, this is BS.

1174
01:39:08,040 --> 01:39:10,280
This guy should have got the Medal of Honor.

1175
01:39:10,280 --> 01:39:19,560
Given what we did and all of the missions we ran, but they will only give you the Medal

1176
01:39:19,560 --> 01:39:24,360
of Honor for one mission.

1177
01:39:24,360 --> 01:39:31,600
And I ran 50, 60 missions over there, and diving missions, and special ops missions,

1178
01:39:31,600 --> 01:39:40,600
and POW missions, and it was my team that found that aircraft, B57, came there and it

1179
01:39:40,600 --> 01:39:44,480
was crashed in the mountains and we located it.

1180
01:39:44,480 --> 01:39:50,120
And it was outfitted to carry a nuclear weapon.

1181
01:39:50,120 --> 01:39:51,360
But then they left us out there.

1182
01:39:51,360 --> 01:39:53,520
We had to walk home.

1183
01:39:53,520 --> 01:39:56,520
Walk home is not half a mile down the road.

1184
01:39:56,520 --> 01:39:58,720
You were there for what, five days or something?

1185
01:39:58,720 --> 01:39:59,720
Yeah.

1186
01:39:59,720 --> 01:40:00,720
Yeah.

1187
01:40:00,720 --> 01:40:01,720
And you wrote a book?

1188
01:40:01,720 --> 01:40:02,720
Yes, sir.

1189
01:40:02,720 --> 01:40:03,720
Like I said, it was a great read.

1190
01:40:03,720 --> 01:40:04,720
Yeah, thank you.

1191
01:40:04,720 --> 01:40:12,880
It's not the book that I wanted to write, but I had to hire a ghostwriter.

1192
01:40:12,880 --> 01:40:19,760
Paid him 10 grand to help me with the spelling and all of that.

1193
01:40:19,760 --> 01:40:29,280
And a lot of the things that I wrote didn't make the cut.

1194
01:40:29,280 --> 01:40:30,280
Oh, really?

1195
01:40:30,280 --> 01:40:31,280
Yeah.

1196
01:40:31,280 --> 01:40:36,160
He said people won't read any more than 300 pages.

1197
01:40:36,160 --> 01:40:38,520
So he could have let his stuff out.

1198
01:40:38,520 --> 01:40:41,960
That was pretty good stuff.

1199
01:40:41,960 --> 01:40:46,200
Maybe you can release a second portion of all the bits that were cut out.

1200
01:40:46,200 --> 01:40:47,600
I'm thinking about that.

1201
01:40:47,600 --> 01:40:48,600
An addendum.

1202
01:40:48,600 --> 01:40:49,600
Yeah.

1203
01:40:49,600 --> 01:40:57,400
And we, a group of young men, I'm telling you, they were really good, hard guys.

1204
01:40:57,400 --> 01:41:08,520
And of course at that time, you know, I'd been handpicked to do whatever it was we did.

1205
01:41:08,520 --> 01:41:20,240
And I think when I got hit the last time, they sent me to the Nang, and they shipped

1206
01:41:20,240 --> 01:41:24,640
us off to Japan.

1207
01:41:24,640 --> 01:41:27,680
And from Japan, they sent us to Alaska.

1208
01:41:27,680 --> 01:41:32,800
It was 10 degrees below zero and snow all over the ground.

1209
01:41:32,800 --> 01:41:40,480
Snow was falling and they took us off the aircraft and refueled it to go to Virginia.

1210
01:41:40,480 --> 01:41:45,520
And you were, you had shrapnel on your abdomen, your leg was broken.

1211
01:41:45,520 --> 01:41:46,520
So you were in a bad way.

1212
01:41:46,520 --> 01:41:47,520
Bleeding out.

1213
01:41:47,520 --> 01:41:48,520
Yeah.

1214
01:41:48,520 --> 01:41:53,520
That was a tough, took us five days to get home.

1215
01:41:53,520 --> 01:41:54,520
Yeah.

1216
01:41:54,520 --> 01:42:06,640
I think the sadness of it, when I was in Japan, Air Force Base there, there was a young Marine,

1217
01:42:06,640 --> 01:42:13,840
I mean I was the only officer that was going to Alaska.

1218
01:42:13,840 --> 01:42:26,120
And the young Marine who was in the wreck next to me, he lost his right leg and lost

1219
01:42:26,120 --> 01:42:28,480
his right leg.

1220
01:42:28,480 --> 01:42:33,480
And he was a lieutenant.

1221
01:42:33,480 --> 01:42:36,800
I said, yeah, what do you got?

1222
01:42:36,800 --> 01:42:38,240
He said, you want to have my milk?

1223
01:42:38,240 --> 01:42:41,320
I'm not going to drink my milk.

1224
01:42:41,320 --> 01:42:45,120
You didn't get much milk in the country, you know, them things there.

1225
01:42:45,120 --> 01:42:48,000
But I said, no, no, no, you will need your strength.

1226
01:42:48,000 --> 01:42:53,120
He said, you know, I'm going to marry a girl named Mary Lou.

1227
01:42:53,120 --> 01:42:55,800
And she's waiting for me.

1228
01:42:55,800 --> 01:42:57,280
But I don't know now.

1229
01:42:57,280 --> 01:43:02,120
He said, you think she's still going to love me now I lost my leg?

1230
01:43:02,120 --> 01:43:03,440
I said, don't worry about it.

1231
01:43:03,440 --> 01:43:09,120
She's going, long as you're home, she can't wait to have you home.

1232
01:43:09,120 --> 01:43:10,120
And don't worry about it.

1233
01:43:10,120 --> 01:43:12,440
Mary Lou is going to be there.

1234
01:43:12,440 --> 01:43:16,120
I never knew if Mary Lou was there or not because the boy died and they didn't make

1235
01:43:16,120 --> 01:43:17,120
it.

1236
01:43:17,120 --> 01:43:21,640
So that's the kind of sadness.

1237
01:43:21,640 --> 01:43:27,920
You wonder why didn't he make it?

1238
01:43:27,920 --> 01:43:28,920
Why did I get home?

1239
01:43:28,920 --> 01:43:29,920
Why did I get home?

1240
01:43:29,920 --> 01:43:38,200
You know, I had a wife and a son waiting for me, but the boy didn't make it.

1241
01:43:38,200 --> 01:43:44,040
And we lost four on the way home.

1242
01:43:44,040 --> 01:43:48,040
And I think, you know, when I got off the aircraft, son of a bitch, pardon my language

1243
01:43:48,040 --> 01:43:49,040
there.

1244
01:43:49,040 --> 01:43:50,040
Oh, please.

1245
01:43:50,040 --> 01:43:53,240
He pissed on me.

1246
01:43:53,240 --> 01:43:55,520
So because I heard you talk about that in the other.

1247
01:43:55,520 --> 01:44:02,240
So so you were basically on a stretcher on on the airport ground in the tarmac.

1248
01:44:02,240 --> 01:44:04,880
Who, who the hell was that?

1249
01:44:04,880 --> 01:44:05,880
Good question.

1250
01:44:05,880 --> 01:44:11,600
So so you're lying there near mortally wounded and someone peed on you.

1251
01:44:11,600 --> 01:44:12,600
Cruelty.

1252
01:44:12,600 --> 01:44:17,960
You know, we didn't get the bands.

1253
01:44:17,960 --> 01:44:22,640
Nobody reached down and say, hey, welcome home.

1254
01:44:22,640 --> 01:44:25,920
Thanks for doing a good job.

1255
01:44:25,920 --> 01:44:26,920
Can I help you?

1256
01:44:26,920 --> 01:44:28,920
Can I give you a drink of water or whatever?

1257
01:44:28,920 --> 01:44:31,160
No, then get that.

1258
01:44:31,160 --> 01:44:33,360
Nobody say hello.

1259
01:44:33,360 --> 01:44:34,360
People walk by.

1260
01:44:34,360 --> 01:44:37,200
You're bleeding on the sidewalk.

1261
01:44:37,200 --> 01:44:46,800
And on the way to the hospital that put me in the ambulance, I had all this urine on me.

1262
01:44:46,800 --> 01:44:49,760
And that was my welcome home.

1263
01:44:49,760 --> 01:44:51,200
One.

1264
01:44:51,200 --> 01:44:55,120
You know, it hurt.

1265
01:44:55,120 --> 01:45:00,280
But then I figured, you know.

1266
01:45:00,280 --> 01:45:07,600
I remember this guy in my mind, God, please let me remember this person.

1267
01:45:07,600 --> 01:45:09,320
But God didn't work that way.

1268
01:45:09,320 --> 01:45:12,120
No, no, you've had enough.

1269
01:45:12,120 --> 01:45:14,120
No more.

1270
01:45:14,120 --> 01:45:25,720
So I went on to the hospital and they call my.

1271
01:45:25,720 --> 01:45:30,440
Oh, they sent a they used to have telegrams.

1272
01:45:30,440 --> 01:45:32,440
They send telegrams.

1273
01:45:32,440 --> 01:45:35,120
Somebody was wounded or killed or whatever.

1274
01:45:35,120 --> 01:45:40,480
Or they would try to send an officer out to like they sent an officer out to my wife's

1275
01:45:40,480 --> 01:45:44,280
apartment where she lived in Baltimore.

1276
01:45:44,280 --> 01:45:49,380
And she didn't want to open the door because she didn't want to.

1277
01:45:49,380 --> 01:45:50,380
She saw the car.

1278
01:45:50,380 --> 01:45:54,580
She looked out the window because she had this feeling all day long.

1279
01:45:54,580 --> 01:45:59,240
And she called her mother and say, I think something wrong.

1280
01:45:59,240 --> 01:46:01,160
And I got this feeling.

1281
01:46:01,160 --> 01:46:03,000
And then she saw the car pull up out there.

1282
01:46:03,000 --> 01:46:05,480
She said, oh, boy, he's gone.

1283
01:46:05,480 --> 01:46:10,400
And then two officers come up to the door, knock on the door.

1284
01:46:10,400 --> 01:46:14,620
And they try to they try to tell her that I was OK.

1285
01:46:14,620 --> 01:46:19,080
And she was hearing I was dead and she wouldn't open the door for him.

1286
01:46:19,080 --> 01:46:21,480
So they finally convinced him he's alive.

1287
01:46:21,480 --> 01:46:23,240
He's alive.

1288
01:46:23,240 --> 01:46:30,600
And then then she was able to come to the hospital, but she couldn't find me because

1289
01:46:30,600 --> 01:46:34,440
they told her they didn't have any black Marine officers.

1290
01:46:34,440 --> 01:46:38,080
I was a little commission over there.

1291
01:46:38,080 --> 01:46:42,480
They gave me a new dog tags, new ID card.

1292
01:46:42,480 --> 01:46:49,400
They changed my social security number.

1293
01:46:49,400 --> 01:46:54,640
You know, I went over the staff, so I can come back as a lieutenant.

1294
01:46:54,640 --> 01:46:56,360
Well, all new stuff.

1295
01:46:56,360 --> 01:46:59,240
Staff Sergeant Capers didn't didn't exist anymore.

1296
01:46:59,240 --> 01:47:02,960
The ultimate spy, really.

1297
01:47:02,960 --> 01:47:04,320
Yeah.

1298
01:47:04,320 --> 01:47:10,360
So we got home and she come to see me.

1299
01:47:10,360 --> 01:47:15,800
But I'm not sure so sure how I felt.

1300
01:47:15,800 --> 01:47:21,360
I felt the shame because I wrote to her, you know, all those letters and.

1301
01:47:21,360 --> 01:47:28,160
You know, when I get home, you know, we're going to go to lunch and dinner.

1302
01:47:28,160 --> 01:47:29,160
We're going to go dancing.

1303
01:47:29,160 --> 01:47:32,160
We're going to go to dinner.

1304
01:47:32,160 --> 01:47:35,160
I left in sixty five.

1305
01:47:35,160 --> 01:47:38,160
Now this is.

1306
01:47:38,160 --> 01:47:42,400
April sixty seven.

1307
01:47:42,400 --> 01:47:47,360
And and.

1308
01:47:47,360 --> 01:47:50,760
All that time had gone by.

1309
01:47:50,760 --> 01:47:53,560
She brought the baby with her.

1310
01:47:53,560 --> 01:47:58,840
He remembers that.

1311
01:47:58,840 --> 01:48:05,380
But when she brought in there, he would hold her hand.

1312
01:48:05,380 --> 01:48:08,680
But some kind of way.

1313
01:48:08,680 --> 01:48:16,560
He got away from her and come into my room and put his hand on my on my bed and says,

1314
01:48:16,560 --> 01:48:19,800
hi, daddy.

1315
01:48:19,800 --> 01:48:22,800
And the question was, how did he know what room I was in?

1316
01:48:22,800 --> 01:48:25,400
Because he said he was blind.

1317
01:48:25,400 --> 01:48:26,400
Yeah.

1318
01:48:26,400 --> 01:48:27,400
Amazing.

1319
01:48:27,400 --> 01:48:34,760
There's so many moments in your stories as well where there's that kind of divine intervention

1320
01:48:34,760 --> 01:48:37,880
moment now, obviously, with one of them.

1321
01:48:37,880 --> 01:48:38,880
Well.

1322
01:48:38,880 --> 01:48:45,480
So when I was telling you when I was a case on and I'm pleading for God to help me out

1323
01:48:45,480 --> 01:48:46,480
here.

1324
01:48:46,480 --> 01:48:49,680
And I see no bolt of lightning.

1325
01:48:49,680 --> 01:48:51,800
God didn't say anything to me.

1326
01:48:51,800 --> 01:48:55,080
But on the way home, the battle of Fulock.

1327
01:48:55,080 --> 01:48:58,800
Got hit real bad and.

1328
01:48:58,800 --> 01:48:59,800
Chopper landed.

1329
01:48:59,800 --> 01:49:04,320
I got my all my troops on there and.

1330
01:49:04,320 --> 01:49:08,160
Yes, we could and.

1331
01:49:08,160 --> 01:49:11,440
Got my dog's body on, then we couldn't get off the ground.

1332
01:49:11,440 --> 01:49:16,880
It was one of them little small eights, thirty fours.

1333
01:49:16,880 --> 01:49:23,200
But everybody got on board bleeding and guys were kind of a mess.

1334
01:49:23,200 --> 01:49:26,840
And I was in pretty bad shape.

1335
01:49:26,840 --> 01:49:34,920
And when the choppers took off.

1336
01:49:34,920 --> 01:49:38,360
I didn't think it was gonna make it.

1337
01:49:38,360 --> 01:49:41,600
It took off and it started.

1338
01:49:41,600 --> 01:49:44,720
The second or third time it started going down.

1339
01:49:44,720 --> 01:49:52,720
Then all of a sudden, like the hand of God reached up and took it up and send it home

1340
01:49:52,720 --> 01:49:56,440
toward the hospital.

1341
01:49:56,440 --> 01:50:00,240
And years later, when I thought about what happened at Kason, when I was pleading for

1342
01:50:00,240 --> 01:50:07,560
God to help me, that's when God said, you know, I heard you.

1343
01:50:07,560 --> 01:50:08,560
I wasn't asleep.

1344
01:50:08,560 --> 01:50:09,560
I heard you the first time.

1345
01:50:09,560 --> 01:50:12,640
I heard you the first time.

1346
01:50:12,640 --> 01:50:14,840
I am God.

1347
01:50:14,840 --> 01:50:16,960
I can fly this helicopter.

1348
01:50:16,960 --> 01:50:18,240
I don't need any gas.

1349
01:50:18,240 --> 01:50:19,680
I don't need a pilot.

1350
01:50:19,680 --> 01:50:23,280
I'll get you home.

1351
01:50:23,280 --> 01:50:27,760
And the next time it crashed, it crashed in the hospital yard.

1352
01:50:27,760 --> 01:50:34,240
I could see the red cross there and it crashed there and got all my guys off.

1353
01:50:34,240 --> 01:50:38,080
Everybody survived except the dog.

1354
01:50:38,080 --> 01:50:43,440
And we're still fighting that same old battle.

1355
01:50:43,440 --> 01:50:48,080
Now what was really powerful to me about that moment is you try to take off the first two

1356
01:50:48,080 --> 01:50:49,640
times and the weight was too much.

1357
01:50:49,640 --> 01:50:55,880
You were hanging on to the landing gear and not one moment was there the thought to remove

1358
01:50:55,880 --> 01:50:58,880
the dog because you saw the dog as another Marine.

1359
01:50:58,880 --> 01:51:02,680
I mean, for me, I've actually have a German shepherd myself as well, but I thought that

1360
01:51:02,680 --> 01:51:03,680
was very powerful.

1361
01:51:03,680 --> 01:51:10,400
You know, and then the way that, you know, when you landed, the dog was still continued

1362
01:51:10,400 --> 01:51:14,080
after you made sure, continued to be treated as a Marine.

1363
01:51:14,080 --> 01:51:16,800
So I think that was, you know, a very, very powerful part.

1364
01:51:16,800 --> 01:51:21,880
That third time, like you said, that that thrust was found through, you know, divine

1365
01:51:21,880 --> 01:51:25,080
intervention and the craft got you guys back.

1366
01:51:25,080 --> 01:51:42,040
Through the years when my son was dying and I was holding on to him and he stopped breathing

1367
01:51:42,040 --> 01:51:43,840
and I got on my knees again.

1368
01:51:43,840 --> 01:51:51,880
I said, God, you know, I am again.

1369
01:51:51,880 --> 01:51:59,280
But he died my arms and demons come home.

1370
01:51:59,280 --> 01:52:02,520
I got angry again.

1371
01:52:02,520 --> 01:52:16,480
And God works in mysterious ways, but I always worried about my son being blind and special

1372
01:52:16,480 --> 01:52:18,360
needs.

1373
01:52:18,360 --> 01:52:26,000
What would happen to him when mom and dad is gone?

1374
01:52:26,000 --> 01:52:28,480
Would he ever be cold?

1375
01:52:28,480 --> 01:52:31,320
Would he be hungry?

1376
01:52:31,320 --> 01:52:33,320
Would he be abused?

1377
01:52:33,320 --> 01:52:36,840
Who would care for him?

1378
01:52:36,840 --> 01:52:38,200
We wanted those things.

1379
01:52:38,200 --> 01:52:40,920
We discussed it.

1380
01:52:40,920 --> 01:52:45,600
But then God said, I heard you.

1381
01:52:45,600 --> 01:52:48,320
He's with God now and he's with his mother.

1382
01:52:48,320 --> 01:52:50,320
He'll never be cold.

1383
01:52:50,320 --> 01:52:52,320
He'll never be hungry.

1384
01:52:52,320 --> 01:52:56,280
He'll never be abused because he's in heaven with God.

1385
01:52:56,280 --> 01:53:02,880
God has assured me of that and I believe I'll see them again.

1386
01:53:02,880 --> 01:53:07,280
But God never does things when you want them done.

1387
01:53:07,280 --> 01:53:12,560
But he answered my prayer.

1388
01:53:12,560 --> 01:53:16,720
So he's no longer blind.

1389
01:53:16,720 --> 01:53:19,640
No longer blind now.

1390
01:53:19,640 --> 01:53:24,880
So I have to take these things with me.

1391
01:53:24,880 --> 01:53:33,600
I wish I had him here because God gave me a gift because he was gifted.

1392
01:53:33,600 --> 01:53:34,600
He was gifted.

1393
01:53:34,600 --> 01:53:41,040
And he was such a wonderful, wonderful child.

1394
01:53:41,040 --> 01:53:48,240
And he was so much part of my life in the days when I thought that I would make it,

1395
01:53:48,240 --> 01:53:50,200
he gave me that inspiration.

1396
01:53:50,200 --> 01:53:57,360
I'm going home to give him sight.

1397
01:53:57,360 --> 01:53:58,820
He will be able to hold on to me.

1398
01:53:58,820 --> 01:54:03,560
But if I fail now, who will carry my child?

1399
01:54:03,560 --> 01:54:09,080
I was holding him when he closed his eyes.

1400
01:54:09,080 --> 01:54:11,800
It was hard on me.

1401
01:54:11,800 --> 01:54:13,200
The demons come by again.

1402
01:54:13,200 --> 01:54:22,760
And it seemed like the next day Dottie passed away of liver cancer.

1403
01:54:22,760 --> 01:54:29,280
But now on the positive side, she doesn't have cancer anymore.

1404
01:54:29,280 --> 01:54:31,000
She didn't have cancer anymore.

1405
01:54:31,000 --> 01:54:32,000
She's healed.

1406
01:54:32,000 --> 01:54:33,920
God has healed her.

1407
01:54:33,920 --> 01:54:37,000
These are things that I have had to hold on to.

1408
01:54:37,000 --> 01:54:40,400
And I believe today and I believe that I will see them again.

1409
01:54:40,400 --> 01:54:43,080
Definitely.

1410
01:54:43,080 --> 01:54:46,280
I know for me the clock is ticking.

1411
01:54:46,280 --> 01:54:49,280
I know that.

1412
01:54:49,280 --> 01:54:54,240
And I've fought some good battles.

1413
01:54:54,240 --> 01:54:59,600
It depends on which side the coin you're on.

1414
01:54:59,600 --> 01:55:04,360
I always like to think I did what was right for my country.

1415
01:55:04,360 --> 01:55:14,840
Even though the places I went to, there were signs up, no Negroes allowed.

1416
01:55:14,840 --> 01:55:18,200
Even in Hawaii you experienced prejudice, didn't you?

1417
01:55:18,200 --> 01:55:19,200
Yeah.

1418
01:55:19,200 --> 01:55:20,200
Oh yeah.

1419
01:55:20,200 --> 01:55:26,280
I mean, that's the way our country has evolved.

1420
01:55:26,280 --> 01:55:29,120
We're getting better.

1421
01:55:29,120 --> 01:55:37,880
It's sad that we have so many young people killing, being killed on both sides.

1422
01:55:37,880 --> 01:55:46,440
But I wonder sometimes when I start to write the book, my wife and I start to write it

1423
01:55:46,440 --> 01:55:47,440
together.

1424
01:55:47,440 --> 01:55:57,320
Then when I got to California, I was in a hotel and I finally got an apartment.

1425
01:55:57,320 --> 01:56:05,680
And it's kind of hard because everything I ever wanted and cared about was gone now.

1426
01:56:05,680 --> 01:56:09,720
This house didn't exist anymore.

1427
01:56:09,720 --> 01:56:13,600
Only in my mind.

1428
01:56:13,600 --> 01:56:17,960
And I went from hotel to hotels and then I would try to call my wife.

1429
01:56:17,960 --> 01:56:29,320
I take my cell phone out and I try to call her and tell her that I'm in LA now.

1430
01:56:29,320 --> 01:56:32,680
But she wasn't able to hear those calls.

1431
01:56:32,680 --> 01:56:33,680
She was in Arlington.

1432
01:56:33,680 --> 01:56:40,400
But in my mind, I was in denial.

1433
01:56:40,400 --> 01:56:44,160
I went to tell her I'm okay.

1434
01:56:44,160 --> 01:56:45,880
Okay.

1435
01:56:45,880 --> 01:56:53,120
But I told her a couple weeks ago when I was up in Arlington, I told her I'll see you soon.

1436
01:56:53,120 --> 01:56:56,560
We'll be all right.

1437
01:56:56,560 --> 01:56:57,560
God has promised us that.

1438
01:56:57,560 --> 01:57:01,920
She was a very deeply religious woman.

1439
01:57:01,920 --> 01:57:13,120
And she told me before she closed her eyes, I'll see you again.

1440
01:57:13,120 --> 01:57:17,360
But this time she didn't wink at me.

1441
01:57:17,360 --> 01:57:20,360
She will when you get up there.

1442
01:57:20,360 --> 01:57:21,360
Yeah.

1443
01:57:21,360 --> 01:57:34,080
Hopefully, hopefully I'll make it because the life I live, you know, I did what I thought

1444
01:57:34,080 --> 01:57:35,080
was right.

1445
01:57:35,080 --> 01:57:36,080
Killed a lot of people.

1446
01:57:36,080 --> 01:57:41,080
A lot of people along the way.

1447
01:57:41,080 --> 01:57:45,840
I'm not sure if I'm proud of that.

1448
01:57:45,840 --> 01:57:47,840
I'm not sure if I'm proud of that.

1449
01:57:47,840 --> 01:57:58,040
But at the time, it didn't make much difference to me.

1450
01:57:58,040 --> 01:58:03,240
I was trained and I got good at my craft.

1451
01:58:03,240 --> 01:58:05,280
I was very good at it.

1452
01:58:05,280 --> 01:58:13,040
Yeah, they run up on Team Broadminded, they had a hard time.

1453
01:58:13,040 --> 01:58:20,680
We'd go out and it wasn't unusual for us to kill 20, 30, 40.

1454
01:58:20,680 --> 01:58:23,840
And we would do that with small arms.

1455
01:58:23,840 --> 01:58:28,160
I would usually open up.

1456
01:58:28,160 --> 01:58:32,480
And then my M79 man would open up.

1457
01:58:32,480 --> 01:58:38,200
My M60 would open up and then we would smoke the area.

1458
01:58:38,200 --> 01:58:46,440
And in a matter of minutes, there'd be smoke and death all over the place.

1459
01:58:46,440 --> 01:58:54,640
And I don't know how you're proud of that, but they didn't harm any innocent farmers.

1460
01:58:54,640 --> 01:59:03,240
And then we'd back off, then call in artillery, burn the whole area, then the choppers would

1461
01:59:03,240 --> 01:59:19,040
come in and then we would get on the chopper to go back to our base and nobody would speak.

1462
01:59:19,040 --> 01:59:21,880
We were just staring.

1463
01:59:21,880 --> 01:59:32,920
And you could, as the chopper turned around, you could see nothing but a burn drop zone,

1464
01:59:32,920 --> 01:59:35,200
fire all over the place.

1465
01:59:35,200 --> 01:59:37,600
Because Team Broadminded had been there.

1466
01:59:37,600 --> 01:59:46,920
And if you're not careful, we're coming back again and again and again until they feared

1467
01:59:46,920 --> 01:59:47,920
us.

1468
01:59:47,920 --> 01:59:51,480
They feared us.

1469
01:59:51,480 --> 02:00:03,000
And then some of my guys, unfortunately, I worried about them because that's what they

1470
02:00:03,000 --> 02:00:05,080
wanted to do.

1471
02:00:05,080 --> 02:00:07,600
They want to kill people.

1472
02:00:07,600 --> 02:00:13,080
I had to say, okay, it's not what we're here for.

1473
02:00:13,080 --> 02:00:14,940
We kill what is necessary.

1474
02:00:14,940 --> 02:00:23,320
And you saw that slowly grow from that what was an innocent, blank canvas mind, new marine

1475
02:00:23,320 --> 02:00:24,320
to that point.

1476
02:00:24,320 --> 02:00:31,200
See, again, we hear some of these stories where that's gone too far.

1477
02:00:31,200 --> 02:00:35,840
And it wasn't like you arrived in that place with that mindset.

1478
02:00:35,840 --> 02:00:41,360
And I think that's what we've got to remember as well, especially in drafts, that we picked

1479
02:00:41,360 --> 02:00:47,800
these kids from this one country and we dropped it in this other one, children.

1480
02:00:47,800 --> 02:00:49,640
And we told them to go kill.

1481
02:00:49,640 --> 02:00:54,880
And then what's disgusting is then when they come back, they're pissed on and spit on and

1482
02:00:54,880 --> 02:00:56,760
call baby killers and all this.

1483
02:00:56,760 --> 02:01:02,840
And then we wonder why that generation now is taking their lives at an astounding rate

1484
02:01:02,840 --> 02:01:05,680
because we abandoned them.

1485
02:01:05,680 --> 02:01:06,840
We forced them to go out there.

1486
02:01:06,840 --> 02:01:08,520
We forced them to kill.

1487
02:01:08,520 --> 02:01:12,080
And then when they came back, we left them out to dry.

1488
02:01:12,080 --> 02:01:19,680
So I mean, it's it's an absolute embarrassment, I think, what we did to that generation.

1489
02:01:19,680 --> 02:01:22,400
Yeah.

1490
02:01:22,400 --> 02:01:25,400
The other day, I got a.

1491
02:01:25,400 --> 02:01:31,800
This there was Tuesday, I got a call from a very successful businessman.

1492
02:01:31,800 --> 02:01:40,080
He asked me if I'd come to this very prestigious golf course.

1493
02:01:40,080 --> 02:01:46,000
And he said they want to hear my stories of Vietnam.

1494
02:01:46,000 --> 02:01:51,000
And these are folks who got plenty of money and they go play golf.

1495
02:01:51,000 --> 02:01:57,400
And they read about me somewhere along the line and they contacted me and said, say,

1496
02:01:57,400 --> 02:01:59,520
would you come and tell us what it was like?

1497
02:01:59,520 --> 02:02:05,640
At first, I said no, I don't know if I want to go down this road again, you know.

1498
02:02:05,640 --> 02:02:08,880
Let's take it enough for me to go to.

1499
02:02:08,880 --> 02:02:13,160
San Diego next week and talk to the Gold Star Widows.

1500
02:02:13,160 --> 02:02:15,480
But I said, yeah, I'll come.

1501
02:02:15,480 --> 02:02:18,040
And these guys never wore the uniform.

1502
02:02:18,040 --> 02:02:19,600
Very successful.

1503
02:02:19,600 --> 02:02:25,440
But they want to hear how I suffered and my generation suffered.

1504
02:02:25,440 --> 02:02:30,840
You know, nobody gave me anything when I come home.

1505
02:02:30,840 --> 02:02:34,760
You know, I mean, you know, it was kind of hard.

1506
02:02:34,760 --> 02:02:46,320
But when I look at the totality of kindness, when I got home from Alaska to Virginia, to

1507
02:02:46,320 --> 02:02:51,760
the hospital before my wife come in, and I was a mess.

1508
02:02:51,760 --> 02:02:54,840
I'd been in five days getting home.

1509
02:02:54,840 --> 02:02:58,480
I'd been four days in combat.

1510
02:02:58,480 --> 02:03:02,920
You know, I was bloody and dirty.

1511
02:03:02,920 --> 02:03:14,080
And this young nurse came in and I was, you know, my wounds was open and draining.

1512
02:03:14,080 --> 02:03:19,120
And I was in serious pain.

1513
02:03:19,120 --> 02:03:27,360
And she sat down next to me and she left the room for a minute and then come back with

1514
02:03:27,360 --> 02:03:30,360
a pail of water, scented water.

1515
02:03:30,360 --> 02:03:35,080
And she took my hands and rubbed my hands in this water and the dirt and blood came

1516
02:03:35,080 --> 02:03:37,600
off my hands.

1517
02:03:37,600 --> 02:03:39,400
And she massaged my hands.

1518
02:03:39,400 --> 02:03:45,200
And that's the first time I had a human touch in I don't know how long.

1519
02:03:45,200 --> 02:03:52,720
And she said, Lieutenant, they tell me your wife is coming tomorrow.

1520
02:03:52,720 --> 02:03:55,440
She's coming tomorrow.

1521
02:03:55,440 --> 02:04:05,480
And you know, but the little touch, little touch of kindness that I'd had flesh and whatever

1522
02:04:05,480 --> 02:04:08,320
all over me, hadn't shaved and hadn't bathed.

1523
02:04:08,320 --> 02:04:11,240
You know, but there she was sitting there.

1524
02:04:11,240 --> 02:04:13,640
I must have smelled awful.

1525
02:04:13,640 --> 02:04:21,040
You know, she sat there with that pretty little white outfit on, washing my hands and couldn't

1526
02:04:21,040 --> 02:04:23,760
get the blood off my hands.

1527
02:04:23,760 --> 02:04:28,200
Flesh under my fingernails.

1528
02:04:28,200 --> 02:04:33,520
My eyes were sunken back in my head.

1529
02:04:33,520 --> 02:04:37,000
I must have looked terrible.

1530
02:04:37,000 --> 02:04:43,240
But she rubbed my hands and says, your wife is coming tomorrow.

1531
02:04:43,240 --> 02:04:45,840
She's coming tomorrow.

1532
02:04:45,840 --> 02:04:57,400
And those little things, they help in the healing process.

1533
02:04:57,400 --> 02:05:10,280
So you begin to heal by somebody doing something, some little kindness to you.

1534
02:05:10,280 --> 02:05:12,960
And you take that with you.

1535
02:05:12,960 --> 02:05:19,760
They don't remember the person who pissed on me.

1536
02:05:19,760 --> 02:05:26,080
But it's those kind things of kindness.

1537
02:05:26,080 --> 02:05:31,360
A blind child finds his way into a hospital room.

1538
02:05:31,360 --> 02:05:34,440
He says, hello, daddy.

1539
02:05:34,440 --> 02:05:38,960
How's that happen?

1540
02:05:38,960 --> 02:05:43,600
The doctor said he didn't know it, he must have felt it.

1541
02:05:43,600 --> 02:05:46,080
He could have known I was in that room.

1542
02:05:46,080 --> 02:05:53,400
But you know, there are things that we don't quite understand yet.

1543
02:05:53,400 --> 02:05:55,480
But I knew it was my son.

1544
02:05:55,480 --> 02:05:57,360
I felt it.

1545
02:05:57,360 --> 02:06:00,560
He didn't cry.

1546
02:06:00,560 --> 02:06:02,160
He didn't cry.

1547
02:06:02,160 --> 02:06:04,160
I was a mess.

1548
02:06:04,160 --> 02:06:14,340
And those long nights, all these wounds were draining and the pain I was going through.

1549
02:06:14,340 --> 02:06:17,520
And sometimes I would take my clock.

1550
02:06:17,520 --> 02:06:21,200
They would give me a shot of morphine every four hours.

1551
02:06:21,200 --> 02:06:23,360
I had a clock over my bed.

1552
02:06:23,360 --> 02:06:26,320
I had turned my clock up and I called my nurse.

1553
02:06:26,320 --> 02:06:28,600
The nurse, you forgot to give me my medicine.

1554
02:06:28,600 --> 02:06:31,280
Come look at my clock there.

1555
02:06:31,280 --> 02:06:32,680
I was a junkie.

1556
02:06:32,680 --> 02:06:35,640
I was so used to that morphine.

1557
02:06:35,640 --> 02:06:38,160
That's what kept me alive, that morphine.

1558
02:06:38,160 --> 02:06:41,880
I just wanted to say, come get me my morphine.

1559
02:06:41,880 --> 02:06:42,880
Look at this clock.

1560
02:06:42,880 --> 02:06:43,880
You forgot.

1561
02:06:43,880 --> 02:06:46,440
She didn't forget.

1562
02:06:46,440 --> 02:06:49,840
Just that that's what I wanted.

1563
02:06:49,840 --> 02:06:54,560
I can know how a drug addict feels.

1564
02:06:54,560 --> 02:07:08,200
And all those long nights I laid there in that bed, hearing those cries and trying to get

1565
02:07:08,200 --> 02:07:18,040
through the night, the dreams I had and things that occurred to me in that time there.

1566
02:07:18,040 --> 02:07:23,880
You don't know what's real or what's imagination.

1567
02:07:23,880 --> 02:07:28,400
You're trying to put it out of your mind, but you can't.

1568
02:07:28,400 --> 02:07:29,720
You can't.

1569
02:07:29,720 --> 02:07:33,320
And so many things occurred in that hospital.

1570
02:07:33,320 --> 02:07:43,240
When I had the near death experience, when at 6.31 that morning, a nurse and a doctor

1571
02:07:43,240 --> 02:07:55,760
came into my room and they looked at me and said, we have some news for you, Lieutenant.

1572
02:07:55,760 --> 02:07:59,080
We have some news for you.

1573
02:07:59,080 --> 02:08:07,440
And we're here to tell you that you've been killed in action and you're going home to

1574
02:08:07,440 --> 02:08:08,880
see God.

1575
02:08:08,880 --> 02:08:10,760
This is in my mind.

1576
02:08:10,760 --> 02:08:15,960
I'm going through this and they were standing at my bed and they said, if you look to your

1577
02:08:15,960 --> 02:08:19,560
right, you're going to see God.

1578
02:08:19,560 --> 02:08:24,160
And I looked to my right and I saw this big ball of light.

1579
02:08:24,160 --> 02:08:28,040
I heard this loud explosion.

1580
02:08:28,040 --> 02:08:31,400
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor.

1581
02:08:31,400 --> 02:08:35,400
Didn't know how I got there.

1582
02:08:35,400 --> 02:08:46,000
And the psychologist come down and told me it was a near death experience and that I'm

1583
02:08:46,000 --> 02:08:49,280
here for a while longer.

1584
02:08:49,280 --> 02:08:50,680
I didn't go see God.

1585
02:08:50,680 --> 02:08:53,280
Apparently God didn't want me.

1586
02:08:53,280 --> 02:08:54,280
Yet.

1587
02:08:54,280 --> 02:08:55,280
Yet.

1588
02:08:55,280 --> 02:08:58,960
But these are things that occurred when you're there.

1589
02:08:58,960 --> 02:09:06,480
There were occasions when the little candy stripers would come there and bring me a book

1590
02:09:06,480 --> 02:09:07,680
or something.

1591
02:09:07,680 --> 02:09:09,960
The chaplain would come by and pray for me.

1592
02:09:09,960 --> 02:09:15,080
But up until that time, I was isolated.

1593
02:09:15,080 --> 02:09:18,120
You couldn't come in my room except for family.

1594
02:09:18,120 --> 02:09:24,240
So I had to go through all that and they skin grass.

1595
02:09:24,240 --> 02:09:27,400
It was 10 months you were in hospital for?

1596
02:09:27,400 --> 02:09:28,480
I don't really remember.

1597
02:09:28,480 --> 02:09:34,480
They let me out for a while.

1598
02:09:34,480 --> 02:09:44,120
And I remember I got out of the hospital on March 12th, 1968.

1599
02:09:44,120 --> 02:09:51,320
Yeah, that's pretty much a year since when you got blown up.

1600
02:09:51,320 --> 02:09:55,440
Now what about, this will be the last thing and I want to wrap this up because we've been

1601
02:09:55,440 --> 02:09:58,440
talking for over two hours and I want to be mindful of your time.

1602
02:09:58,440 --> 02:10:09,280
But a big part is the abandonment of these Vietnam era warriors.

1603
02:10:09,280 --> 02:10:11,000
You talked about the opium.

1604
02:10:11,000 --> 02:10:18,400
I mean, excuse me, the, why am I forgetting the name now?

1605
02:10:18,400 --> 02:10:19,400
The morphine.

1606
02:10:19,400 --> 02:10:20,400
The morphine.

1607
02:10:20,400 --> 02:10:21,400
Thank you.

1608
02:10:21,400 --> 02:10:27,120
Now we see so many of our veterans that are stuck in addiction, that are homeless.

1609
02:10:27,120 --> 02:10:31,920
And again, that era seems to be a large portion of that.

1610
02:10:31,920 --> 02:10:35,840
You, I know that you said you had the demons, you went to some dark places, your marriage

1611
02:10:35,840 --> 02:10:38,760
was strained for a while, Doughty stood by you.

1612
02:10:38,760 --> 02:10:43,080
So just going to walk me through where the lowest part that you found yourself and then

1613
02:10:43,080 --> 02:10:47,160
what were the tools that you personally used to get yourself back out of that?

1614
02:10:47,160 --> 02:10:53,920
When I looked out the window one morning and I said, you know, all this pain I'm going

1615
02:10:53,920 --> 02:10:59,680
through, I can open up this window.

1616
02:10:59,680 --> 02:11:02,440
Dark places.

1617
02:11:02,440 --> 02:11:04,960
But God kept it shut.

1618
02:11:04,960 --> 02:11:07,800
It didn't open.

1619
02:11:07,800 --> 02:11:09,440
Window of a tall building you're talking about.

1620
02:11:09,440 --> 02:11:10,440
Yeah.

1621
02:11:10,440 --> 02:11:12,800
I was on the 14th floor.

1622
02:11:12,800 --> 02:11:22,200
And so you're right, we could talk for weeks about how I got to this place here without

1623
02:11:22,200 --> 02:11:28,000
my wife and my child.

1624
02:11:28,000 --> 02:11:33,520
You're so kind to come all the way up from Florida to talk to an old guy.

1625
02:11:33,520 --> 02:11:37,280
Talk to a fascinating old guy.

1626
02:11:37,280 --> 02:11:38,280
The hell of a story.

1627
02:11:38,280 --> 02:11:48,440
Well, if they give me the Medal of Honor, maybe somebody will hear your story and say,

1628
02:11:48,440 --> 02:11:50,080
yeah, give it to the guy.

1629
02:11:50,080 --> 02:11:57,120
Well, I mean, like I said, it's listened to a lot now and there's a large community that

1630
02:11:57,120 --> 02:11:58,120
does listen.

1631
02:11:58,120 --> 02:11:59,120
So I hope it helps.

1632
02:11:59,120 --> 02:12:01,440
I hope it's part of the push.

1633
02:12:01,440 --> 02:12:08,200
But you said about the window not opening, what were some of the things you used that

1634
02:12:08,200 --> 02:12:13,800
helped you heal, helped you grow, helped you get over that survivor's guilt and the inability

1635
02:12:13,800 --> 02:12:19,080
to save and all these things that a lot of this audience are familiar with?

1636
02:12:19,080 --> 02:12:25,040
Well, I keep saying it's God.

1637
02:12:25,040 --> 02:12:27,680
Not everybody believes in God.

1638
02:12:27,680 --> 02:12:32,200
I believe in God because I can't explain my being here.

1639
02:12:32,200 --> 02:12:33,720
It makes no sense.

1640
02:12:33,720 --> 02:12:39,800
My wife and my child are up in Arlington and I feel guilty because I felt like I should

1641
02:12:39,800 --> 02:12:40,800
be there.

1642
02:12:40,800 --> 02:12:43,800
They were the innocent ones.

1643
02:12:43,800 --> 02:12:52,160
When I stood at their graves, I made my report to my wife and my son, told him I'll see them

1644
02:12:52,160 --> 02:12:59,720
soon but I'm not going to get used to this thing one of these days.

1645
02:12:59,720 --> 02:13:04,600
It's always at the most poignant moments as well, the air freshener goes off.

1646
02:13:04,600 --> 02:13:12,240
How do you get through something like this that I've been through?

1647
02:13:12,240 --> 02:13:13,880
I hadn't put all that together yet.

1648
02:13:13,880 --> 02:13:23,520
I went all the way to California after I left my wife and son up in Arlington and a lot

1649
02:13:23,520 --> 02:13:27,920
of other friends up there and on the Vietnam Memorial.

1650
02:13:27,920 --> 02:13:30,840
It's a process, I think.

1651
02:13:30,840 --> 02:13:43,200
I don't know if I can point to one thing that helped me get through the violence, the war.

1652
02:13:43,200 --> 02:13:50,240
I killed my first person when I was not quite 20 years old yet.

1653
02:13:50,240 --> 02:14:00,040
That was many, many years ago and about a month ago, some young people took me out to

1654
02:14:00,040 --> 02:14:06,520
a firing range and put some targets up and said, Major, why don't you go ahead and take

1655
02:14:06,520 --> 02:14:08,280
a few shots?

1656
02:14:08,280 --> 02:14:17,240
The first time I fired a weapon in years, but I never lost it.

1657
02:14:17,240 --> 02:14:20,080
It was a dead shot.

1658
02:14:20,080 --> 02:14:24,080
I didn't see anything in the target.

1659
02:14:24,080 --> 02:14:30,800
I wasn't even any person, just a regular silhouette target, but I could always shoot.

1660
02:14:30,800 --> 02:14:36,640
I'm alive today because I was that good of a shot, but it's not something that I would

1661
02:14:36,640 --> 02:14:37,640
want to do anymore.

1662
02:14:37,640 --> 02:14:48,440
A friend of mine sent me a 9mm from Czechoslovakia and that's the weapon that I use, but it was

1663
02:14:48,440 --> 02:14:50,200
awkward for me.

1664
02:14:50,200 --> 02:14:53,640
I'm no longer a violent man.

1665
02:14:53,640 --> 02:15:02,240
We're going to bring some homeless people over here and going to feed them.

1666
02:15:02,240 --> 02:15:06,680
We just did a barbecue for single mothers.

1667
02:15:06,680 --> 02:15:07,680
That's where I want to be.

1668
02:15:07,680 --> 02:15:17,160
I don't want to be remembered as Major Capers, kill more people in the law of the loud.

1669
02:15:17,160 --> 02:15:22,600
I don't know that I'm happy with that.

1670
02:15:22,600 --> 02:15:24,680
My tombstone is already there.

1671
02:15:24,680 --> 02:15:29,800
My name is on it with my wife and my son.

1672
02:15:29,800 --> 02:15:36,200
I don't want people to see that with such a wonderful woman and a wonderful child and

1673
02:15:36,200 --> 02:15:38,200
with a guy like me.

1674
02:15:38,200 --> 02:15:47,800
A lot of these things I did because I wanted to do.

1675
02:15:47,800 --> 02:15:48,800
Wasn't by accident.

1676
02:15:48,800 --> 02:15:59,240
I hunted them down and I would track them.

1677
02:15:59,240 --> 02:16:11,120
I'm talking about the enemy soldiers who created so much violence on farmers that they were

1678
02:16:11,120 --> 02:16:14,400
leaving those areas.

1679
02:16:14,400 --> 02:16:22,560
I would track them and they would find their stool and I'd pick it up in my hands and

1680
02:16:22,560 --> 02:16:32,160
I'd test it to see if it was hard or soft that I knew how far they were gone.

1681
02:16:32,160 --> 02:16:41,480
Then I tracked them and I killed every one of them.

1682
02:16:41,480 --> 02:16:49,200
My son Bill who was here a little bit ago, he said, you shouldn't talk about that.

1683
02:16:49,200 --> 02:16:51,520
That's the world I lived in.

1684
02:16:51,520 --> 02:16:54,120
You'll need to hear that, the rawness of those stories.

1685
02:16:54,120 --> 02:17:02,320
How do you pick up stool and if it's hard, they've been gone for a while.

1686
02:17:02,320 --> 02:17:06,000
If it's soft, I got them.

1687
02:17:06,000 --> 02:17:08,120
I got you.

1688
02:17:08,120 --> 02:17:09,760
You're like an animal.

1689
02:17:09,760 --> 02:17:11,080
You sleep on the ground.

1690
02:17:11,080 --> 02:17:19,760
You eat one meal a day and everything you have is ammunition and grenades but you keep

1691
02:17:19,760 --> 02:17:24,600
going and you think you're doing the right thing.

1692
02:17:24,600 --> 02:17:32,800
But there are things in my line of work when they drop you behind the lines.

1693
02:17:32,800 --> 02:17:38,080
So we'll pick you up in four or five days and you come back and tell us how many you

1694
02:17:38,080 --> 02:17:43,320
killed, how many was wounded, how many prisoners you come back.

1695
02:17:43,320 --> 02:17:52,000
Then you write it down on the board and then you go back out in two days and you come back

1696
02:17:52,000 --> 02:17:54,840
and you write more names on that board.

1697
02:17:54,840 --> 02:18:00,000
They give you two beers when you come back.

1698
02:18:00,000 --> 02:18:03,720
After all the hell you've gone through, they give you two beers.

1699
02:18:03,720 --> 02:18:05,080
What a great job you've done.

1700
02:18:05,080 --> 02:18:15,520
Now you drink these two beers as our reward for you killing so many human beings.

1701
02:18:15,520 --> 02:18:21,440
But that's what we did.

1702
02:18:21,440 --> 02:18:25,920
And some of the guys got drunk and they were so happy.

1703
02:18:25,920 --> 02:18:31,240
Hey, we killed 15 today.

1704
02:18:31,240 --> 02:18:32,440
We killed 20 today.

1705
02:18:32,440 --> 02:18:40,200
We dropped in 175, 155's artillery.

1706
02:18:40,200 --> 02:18:52,880
Our choppers came in and you could see parts of bodies lying around.

1707
02:18:52,880 --> 02:19:00,720
And you sort of get addicted to that lifestyle.

1708
02:19:00,720 --> 02:19:05,320
And then you're too sick to eat.

1709
02:19:05,320 --> 02:19:12,960
When you wash your hands, you got a human being stool in your hands and you get flyers

1710
02:19:12,960 --> 02:19:13,960
all around.

1711
02:19:13,960 --> 02:19:25,120
How do you measure that?

1712
02:19:25,120 --> 02:19:32,880
And you come back and you write a letter to your loved ones and today I killed 25 enemy

1713
02:19:32,880 --> 02:19:39,360
soldiers and I blew his head off.

1714
02:19:39,360 --> 02:19:43,560
Ha ha ha.

1715
02:19:43,560 --> 02:19:47,000
Ha ha ha.

1716
02:19:47,000 --> 02:19:56,360
I'll be home soon and we're going to go to the movies.

1717
02:19:56,360 --> 02:19:59,880
The Dichotomy of the Human Brain.

1718
02:19:59,880 --> 02:20:10,200
Yeah, I'll be 84 in a few months.

1719
02:20:10,200 --> 02:20:19,600
And the doctor told me a few weeks ago that for me the clock is ticking.

1720
02:20:19,600 --> 02:20:26,640
You have you like an old car.

1721
02:20:26,640 --> 02:20:30,920
The parts are falling off now.

1722
02:20:30,920 --> 02:20:39,040
But if you can equate your heart to an engine, it's still ticking.

1723
02:20:39,040 --> 02:20:47,600
He said, I'm not God, but you're an amazing human being.

1724
02:20:47,600 --> 02:20:51,000
He was a new doctor in the hospital.

1725
02:20:51,000 --> 02:20:53,280
I don't think I've seen anything quite like you.

1726
02:20:53,280 --> 02:20:56,680
I don't know what to say.

1727
02:20:56,680 --> 02:21:05,440
I look at all your scars and I read your history and whatever the battles you fought.

1728
02:21:05,440 --> 02:21:09,360
That's amazing you're still here.

1729
02:21:09,360 --> 02:21:19,360
But he also said that he wasn't God so he could tell me.

1730
02:21:19,360 --> 02:21:24,200
He couldn't tell me that time went a place.

1731
02:21:24,200 --> 02:21:34,560
But he said, even though the clock is ticking, I look forward to seeing you for a long time.

1732
02:21:34,560 --> 02:21:39,640
I'm not only your doctor, I'm your friend.

1733
02:21:39,640 --> 02:21:43,200
And if you need me, you call me.

1734
02:21:43,200 --> 02:21:46,440
I'll be here and we'll go down the road together.

1735
02:21:46,440 --> 02:21:49,640
We're on the road together.

1736
02:21:49,640 --> 02:21:52,720
Said, thanks doc.

1737
02:21:52,720 --> 02:21:56,000
See you next time.

1738
02:21:56,000 --> 02:21:59,360
Then he transferred him.

1739
02:21:59,360 --> 02:22:00,880
That's a horrible ending to that story.

1740
02:22:00,880 --> 02:22:04,800
I was just about to say you found an amazing doctor.

1741
02:22:04,800 --> 02:22:06,800
He transferred him.

1742
02:22:06,800 --> 02:22:09,520
Wait a minute, what happened?

1743
02:22:09,520 --> 02:22:15,720
But anyway son, I'm going to figure out a time to show you the documentary.

1744
02:22:15,720 --> 02:22:17,160
Beautiful.

1745
02:22:17,160 --> 02:22:22,320
And a lot of what we just talked about is in the documentary, it's not half long.

1746
02:22:22,320 --> 02:22:26,080
Hollywood produced it, won four awards so far.

1747
02:22:26,080 --> 02:22:29,560
It hadn't been on the market as of yet.

1748
02:22:29,560 --> 02:22:33,000
And I'm supposed to get a percentage of this for my foundation.

1749
02:22:33,000 --> 02:22:34,560
So let's talk about that first.

1750
02:22:34,560 --> 02:22:39,880
Tell everyone about the foundation and where they can donate, where they can support it.

1751
02:22:39,880 --> 02:22:47,120
Well, the foundation, I started when my son passed away.

1752
02:22:47,120 --> 02:22:52,960
And again, the demons come home.

1753
02:22:52,960 --> 02:23:00,140
When I lost my son, I had some pretty bad thoughts.

1754
02:23:00,140 --> 02:23:01,320
My wife was not at the hospital.

1755
02:23:01,320 --> 02:23:06,120
I had to call her and tell her that she had been diagnosed with cancer.

1756
02:23:06,120 --> 02:23:12,120
When I called her to come to the hospital, we'd lost our only child.

1757
02:23:12,120 --> 02:23:19,000
Bill is my godson.

1758
02:23:19,000 --> 02:23:24,720
I became angry.

1759
02:23:24,720 --> 02:23:33,040
And the chaplain come in in the hospital room out there and try to pray with me, but I told

1760
02:23:33,040 --> 02:23:35,360
him to stand back.

1761
02:23:35,360 --> 02:23:38,360
It's not the time.

1762
02:23:38,360 --> 02:23:40,920
And I want everybody to walk easy now.

1763
02:23:40,920 --> 02:23:43,960
Nobody talks now.

1764
02:23:43,960 --> 02:23:44,960
Nobody talks.

1765
02:23:44,960 --> 02:23:54,240
Then my wife come over and held me by the hand, said, let's go home now.

1766
02:23:54,240 --> 02:24:01,080
We left our child there at the hospital.

1767
02:24:01,080 --> 02:24:02,080
Then we buried him.

1768
02:24:02,080 --> 02:24:07,680
It didn't seem like the next day we buried her.

1769
02:24:07,680 --> 02:24:15,280
And the demons kept sitting on my shoulder saying, you know, all those people who killed

1770
02:24:15,280 --> 02:24:20,760
your wife and your son, let's go do that.

1771
02:24:20,760 --> 02:24:26,440
And I thought, well, I got nowhere to go now.

1772
02:24:26,440 --> 02:24:31,520
Everything I had is gone.

1773
02:24:31,520 --> 02:24:36,320
So I don't make them pay.

1774
02:24:36,320 --> 02:24:42,840
But my wife took all my weapons and I'd been given a collection of weapons, different people.

1775
02:24:42,840 --> 02:24:51,640
I don't have any more, but I see she took them and locked them all up.

1776
02:24:51,640 --> 02:24:56,400
She says, I know that look.

1777
02:24:56,400 --> 02:24:57,960
And I gave them away.

1778
02:24:57,960 --> 02:25:08,880
I got one pistol now that a friend of mine said, check those Avakian non-millimeter.

1779
02:25:08,880 --> 02:25:09,880
But I was angry.

1780
02:25:09,880 --> 02:25:19,760
I wasn't angry at God, but I was angry because how could this happen to my family?

1781
02:25:19,760 --> 02:25:24,400
So I want somebody to feel the pain that I'm feeling.

1782
02:25:24,400 --> 02:25:26,400
Then God stepped in again.

1783
02:25:26,400 --> 02:25:29,400
No, no, no.

1784
02:25:29,400 --> 02:25:34,960
And I went to California, went to therapy every Tuesday at one o'clock.

1785
02:25:34,960 --> 02:25:45,120
Finally got an apartment and lived in hotels and ate in some little dive somewhere.

1786
02:25:45,120 --> 02:25:46,120
Trying to get it all together.

1787
02:25:46,120 --> 02:25:49,840
But God stepped in and brought me home.

1788
02:25:49,840 --> 02:25:55,240
And young God Sunday, he picked me up at the airport and brought me home.

1789
02:25:55,240 --> 02:25:57,680
Where I am now.

1790
02:25:57,680 --> 02:26:01,920
So the time for me, you never know.

1791
02:26:01,920 --> 02:26:04,640
You might come back when I'm 105 years old.

1792
02:26:04,640 --> 02:26:06,600
My grandmother's about to turn 104.

1793
02:26:06,600 --> 02:26:09,600
So that's a possibility.

1794
02:26:09,600 --> 02:26:15,760
So I'll show you the documentary.

1795
02:26:15,760 --> 02:26:19,800
And what's the documentary called for people listening?

1796
02:26:19,800 --> 02:26:22,440
The Legend of Major Jim Capress.

1797
02:26:22,440 --> 02:26:24,440
Beautiful.

1798
02:26:24,440 --> 02:26:28,920
And the book is entitled Faith Through the Storm.

1799
02:26:28,920 --> 02:26:34,240
I've written other pieces.

1800
02:26:34,240 --> 02:26:37,040
The book I wrote a little piece about, Devil's Mountain.

1801
02:26:37,040 --> 02:26:38,040
You probably read that.

1802
02:26:38,040 --> 02:26:39,040
Yes, sir.

1803
02:26:39,040 --> 02:26:47,320
So, you know, as I try to come up with different things, I had another young man that was a

1804
02:26:47,320 --> 02:26:54,680
cranky vet and he had PTSD, PTSD, real serious.

1805
02:26:54,680 --> 02:27:03,200
So he would come to visit me here at the house before my wife passed.

1806
02:27:03,200 --> 02:27:08,720
And after my wife passed, I moved him to California with me.

1807
02:27:08,720 --> 02:27:12,440
He lived in my apartment with me.

1808
02:27:12,440 --> 02:27:19,560
Another nice young man from his name was Rooster Dixon.

1809
02:27:19,560 --> 02:27:20,560
Rooster.

1810
02:27:20,560 --> 02:27:25,360
Wonderful young man.

1811
02:27:25,360 --> 02:27:33,800
He went home to Georgia to see his folks and he got shot and killed.

1812
02:27:33,800 --> 02:27:37,060
And the police had surrounded his house.

1813
02:27:37,060 --> 02:27:41,000
He called me on the phone and told me Major, they got me surrounded.

1814
02:27:41,000 --> 02:27:44,240
I said, stand down, I'll come get you.

1815
02:27:44,240 --> 02:27:49,920
Next time I knew the phone went dead, they'd kill him.

1816
02:27:49,920 --> 02:27:58,560
So I went to his funeral in Georgia, met his mother and father and his sister.

1817
02:27:58,560 --> 02:28:03,160
I delivered the eulogy at Rooster's funeral.

1818
02:28:03,160 --> 02:28:04,160
Wonderful young man.

1819
02:28:04,160 --> 02:28:08,200
He went to California to help me out.

1820
02:28:08,200 --> 02:28:09,920
We both had PTSD.

1821
02:28:09,920 --> 02:28:12,040
We were holding on together.

1822
02:28:12,040 --> 02:28:17,660
It seemed like there was always so much tragedy.

1823
02:28:17,660 --> 02:28:22,800
So much tragedy, you know?

1824
02:28:22,800 --> 02:28:27,120
And I try to catch my breath.

1825
02:28:27,120 --> 02:28:37,680
I get these emails from somebody that I served with years ago to remind me that someone that

1826
02:28:37,680 --> 02:28:42,120
I knew years ago just passed away.

1827
02:28:42,120 --> 02:28:52,720
And yesterday I talked to a young man named, his name is Mark American Horse.

1828
02:28:52,720 --> 02:29:03,360
And he'd called me a few weeks ago and he and his girlfriend of 30 years was going to

1829
02:29:03,360 --> 02:29:04,360
get married.

1830
02:29:04,360 --> 02:29:08,520
And he asked me, could he get married at my home?

1831
02:29:08,520 --> 02:29:16,280
He wanted me to give away the bride and he wanted me to have my pastor conduct the services.

1832
02:29:16,280 --> 02:29:24,360
He called me two days ago, this Tuesday, and he said he has stage four cancer.

1833
02:29:24,360 --> 02:29:25,360
Oh God.

1834
02:29:25,360 --> 02:29:28,280
And he had to cancel the wedding.

1835
02:29:28,280 --> 02:29:33,480
He didn't think he'd make it.

1836
02:29:33,480 --> 02:29:38,680
And I talked to his, Sarah's fiance.

1837
02:29:38,680 --> 02:29:43,520
I told her I didn't know what to say.

1838
02:29:43,520 --> 02:29:48,360
He wanted to be married at his commanding officer's house.

1839
02:29:48,360 --> 02:29:54,960
And we were just getting our backyard ready for that wedding.

1840
02:29:54,960 --> 02:30:02,000
He was going to bring members of his tribe with him.

1841
02:30:02,000 --> 02:30:04,200
Good horse, good man.

1842
02:30:04,200 --> 02:30:06,720
He's caper's train.

1843
02:30:06,720 --> 02:30:09,400
And now we had to cancel the wedding.

1844
02:30:09,400 --> 02:30:16,200
So you know, he's still alive though.

1845
02:30:16,200 --> 02:30:19,080
And I gave him a direct order.

1846
02:30:19,080 --> 02:30:23,800
You'll be here for this wedding and I'll be here.

1847
02:30:23,800 --> 02:30:26,920
And I talked to Sarah, his wife.

1848
02:30:26,920 --> 02:30:29,920
It's a wonderful love story.

1849
02:30:29,920 --> 02:30:38,160
But it seemed like sometimes I can't catch my breath.

1850
02:30:38,160 --> 02:30:48,320
They give me 16 pills a day for PTSD, for sleeping, for breathing, for breathing, and

1851
02:30:48,320 --> 02:30:53,240
for pain, and God knows whatever else.

1852
02:30:53,240 --> 02:31:00,560
And I didn't know you were coming today.

1853
02:31:00,560 --> 02:31:03,800
Bill called me and said, guess who's coming today?

1854
02:31:03,800 --> 02:31:07,080
This was coming to dinner today.

1855
02:31:07,080 --> 02:31:08,080
I had forgotten.

1856
02:31:08,080 --> 02:31:09,080
Carmen had told me.

1857
02:31:09,080 --> 02:31:10,080
But I really had forgotten.

1858
02:31:10,080 --> 02:31:14,880
Well, there was a few.

1859
02:31:14,880 --> 02:31:17,200
I think we arranged it a few weeks ago.

1860
02:31:17,200 --> 02:31:21,120
And then I only asked her if we could do it in person.

1861
02:31:21,120 --> 02:31:22,520
I think it was only a couple of weeks ago.

1862
02:31:22,520 --> 02:31:28,240
So there's plenty of room to forget because that's why I even called this morning to make

1863
02:31:28,240 --> 02:31:31,120
sure because I know it had been a while and I forget.

1864
02:31:31,120 --> 02:31:32,360
My mind's like a colander.

1865
02:31:32,360 --> 02:31:35,680
So I'm glad you came.

1866
02:31:35,680 --> 02:31:36,680
It's been good for me.

1867
02:31:36,680 --> 02:31:48,800
And I'm a little apprehensive going out and talk to these young widows and mothers in

1868
02:31:48,800 --> 02:31:52,760
San Diego, the ghost law mothers.

1869
02:31:52,760 --> 02:31:55,200
And what do you say?

1870
02:31:55,200 --> 02:31:57,840
What do you say?

1871
02:31:57,840 --> 02:31:59,720
But I'll be there with them.

1872
02:31:59,720 --> 02:32:03,240
I'll go to dinner with them.

1873
02:32:03,240 --> 02:32:07,120
And they'll want to know how did I get over losing my wife and my child.

1874
02:32:07,120 --> 02:32:08,120
I don't know.

1875
02:32:08,120 --> 02:32:11,560
I don't have the answers.

1876
02:32:11,560 --> 02:32:13,920
I wish I knew.

1877
02:32:13,920 --> 02:32:17,120
How did I get through all of the hardships?

1878
02:32:17,120 --> 02:32:24,240
I lost my mother, my father, my sister, aunts, uncles, everybody I knew.

1879
02:32:24,240 --> 02:32:26,840
They're all gone now.

1880
02:32:26,840 --> 02:32:28,560
So I pretty much live by myself.

1881
02:32:28,560 --> 02:32:30,040
Carmen comes in and helps out.

1882
02:32:30,040 --> 02:32:32,680
Bill lives next door.

1883
02:32:32,680 --> 02:32:37,320
They all looking to take care of me.

1884
02:32:37,320 --> 02:32:44,600
Then you show up and bring back all these memories.

1885
02:32:44,600 --> 02:32:53,600
I hope what we've talked about that you remember these homeless veterans, the ones who got

1886
02:32:53,600 --> 02:32:58,600
PTSD.

1887
02:32:58,600 --> 02:33:00,800
I'll leave you with this.

1888
02:33:00,800 --> 02:33:01,800
Then I'm through talking.

1889
02:33:01,800 --> 02:33:13,640
During the Civil War, there was a song, Johnny Comes Marching Home.

1890
02:33:13,640 --> 02:33:21,000
When I was a child, I used to sing this song, Johnny Comes Marching Home.

1891
02:33:21,000 --> 02:33:30,920
Well during the Vietnam War, we had a lot of young Johnnys that grew up wanting to serve

1892
02:33:30,920 --> 02:33:31,920
their country.

1893
02:33:31,920 --> 02:33:37,200
They joined the Army, Navy, the Air Force, Marines.

1894
02:33:37,200 --> 02:33:39,160
They went to Vietnam.

1895
02:33:39,160 --> 02:33:44,680
Did the best they could.

1896
02:33:44,680 --> 02:33:51,480
But when Johnny come home, nobody gave a damn about Johnny anymore.

1897
02:33:51,480 --> 02:33:58,680
He spilled his guts on battlefields, Hamburger Hill, Kaysan.

1898
02:33:58,680 --> 02:33:59,680
Now he's home.

1899
02:33:59,680 --> 02:34:08,100
He can't find a job.

1900
02:34:08,100 --> 02:34:11,880
Nobody wants him anymore.

1901
02:34:11,880 --> 02:34:14,560
But Johnny is home now.

1902
02:34:14,560 --> 02:34:18,340
Who cares for Johnny now?

1903
02:34:18,340 --> 02:34:22,960
What does Johnny do?

1904
02:34:22,960 --> 02:34:29,800
He can't find a job because he went to Vietnam.

1905
02:34:29,800 --> 02:34:34,000
He has memories of all of the friends he lost over there.

1906
02:34:34,000 --> 02:34:41,120
And they tell him, well, you can go to Washington and see a monument.

1907
02:34:41,120 --> 02:34:42,880
Look at their names.

1908
02:34:42,880 --> 02:34:48,520
That's what Johnny gets, a piece of marble.

1909
02:34:48,520 --> 02:34:51,720
But Johnny is home now.

1910
02:34:51,720 --> 02:34:57,440
What are we going to do with Johnny?

1911
02:34:57,440 --> 02:34:59,240
He signed the contract.

1912
02:34:59,240 --> 02:35:01,540
He did what he was supposed to do.

1913
02:35:01,540 --> 02:35:06,800
He went overseas and served his country now, but Johnny's home.

1914
02:35:06,800 --> 02:35:09,040
What do we do with Johnny now?

1915
02:35:09,040 --> 02:35:16,600
Well, since nobody had the answers, Johnny couldn't find a job.

1916
02:35:16,600 --> 02:35:19,120
He tried his hand at marriage.

1917
02:35:19,120 --> 02:35:23,880
That didn't work out for him.

1918
02:35:23,880 --> 02:35:32,880
So Johnny says, you know, I gave everything I had to this country and then some, but nobody

1919
02:35:32,880 --> 02:35:35,960
want to give me anything now.

1920
02:35:35,960 --> 02:35:39,720
Nothing.

1921
02:35:39,720 --> 02:35:51,920
So Johnny goes out on the street and begs for a few dollars and he goes and gets a hotel.

1922
02:35:51,920 --> 02:36:01,040
He goes in that room and locks the door and shoots himself.

1923
02:36:01,040 --> 02:36:08,720
Johnny is home now, but you don't have to worry about Johnny anymore because Johnny's

1924
02:36:08,720 --> 02:36:09,720
gone.

1925
02:36:09,720 --> 02:36:19,880
Johnny's come marching home, but nobody gave a damn.

1926
02:36:19,880 --> 02:36:22,320
Let's go buy some hamburgers.

1927
02:36:22,320 --> 02:36:25,920
Who cares about Johnny?

1928
02:36:25,920 --> 02:36:34,400
What's on TV tonight?

1929
02:36:34,400 --> 02:36:42,840
But there's a young man named James who come on away from Florida to hear that story.

1930
02:36:42,840 --> 02:36:45,280
I hope you won't forget it.

1931
02:36:45,280 --> 02:36:49,960
I have a lot of Johnny's that come home.

1932
02:36:49,960 --> 02:36:56,480
We can't afford to forget those Johnny's, those veterans that 22 commit suicide every

1933
02:36:56,480 --> 02:36:58,480
day.

1934
02:36:58,480 --> 02:37:00,480
Yeah.

1935
02:37:00,480 --> 02:37:16,480
Yeah.