All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
My name is Dale Throneberry and today is a best of Veterans Radio from 2021.
We're going to be talking with James Kittfield, he's the author of In the Company of Heroes,
the inspiring stories of Medal of Honor recipients from America's longest wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
It's a great story and I think a really good interview.
So I want you to stick around and listen to that.
And we'll get right into that.
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All right, so here we go.
Straight into our interview with James Kittfield in the Company of Heroes.
Well, I was always reading this book in the Company of Heroes and thinking about all of
these amazing men who are in a volunteer army to begin with.
I don't know about you, but that takes a lot of courage right there, I think.
Their missions that they had, especially in Afghanistan that I've been reading about,
of course, in Iraq and Fallujah and the stories that we've heard about these men on Veterans
Radio, actually, I just had to get ahold of this book.
So I want to bring on the author of In the Company of Heroes.
His name is James Kittfield.
He is a senior national security and foreign affairs correspondent for the National General
Magazine.
He has written on defense, national security, and foreign policy issues from Washington,
D.C. for over two decades.
He has written about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he's been reporting from
the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Africa.
Seems like you've been everywhere, so I want to welcome and just get you right on the air.
So James Kittfield, welcome to Veterans Radio.
It's great to be with you.
Thanks for having me on.
Thank you very much for agreeing to be on the program.
As I was reading through the book and about all of the SEALs and the combat-controlled
guys from the Air Force and Marines, everything else that is out there, how did you get involved
in this particular story?
Well, as you mentioned, I've covered these conflicts from their inception, so for a couple
of decades, but mostly for National Journal, which is kind of a policy magazine.
So my reporting was typically talking to the generals and the senior leadership about how
they thought their strategies would be implemented, et cetera.
But I was always struck by the young men and women who served so courageously on the front
lines.
The Air Force ran across them many times on my reporting trips, and wanted an opportunity
to tell their stories, because it's their lives that are most directly impacted by these
strategic decisions that I've covered for so long.
And I got an opportunity, the Navy Department reached out to me, the most recent Medal
of Honor recipient at that time a couple of years ago was Navy SEAL named Britt Slavinsky.
And I just, in the interviewing Britt Slavinsky, I was just so amazed at the story.
It was almost Homeric, and it's kind of dimensions.
And there's all these quick decision points where each time Slavinsky and his whole team
could have done the easy and the safer thing, and they chose to do the hard and dangerous
thing, because it meant going back up on a mountain and getting a fallen comrade.
And I was just so inspired by the drama, but also from the courage that these men to a
person show that I wanted to tell more stories like this.
Well, I mean, his story is, they're all amazing stories.
I mean, they just make the hair in the back of your neck stand up every time you read
them.
And I mean, the interesting thing about Slavinsky is that he is, I guess you could say his
friend John Chapman received his Medal of Honor for the same battle, isn't it?
Right.
And that's pretty rare.
There are three battles depicted in the book where there are not one, but two service
members received the Medal of Honor, which is exceedingly rare looking back in history.
And so, yeah, that's very rare.
And they were bunk mates in their tent in the Special Forces camp.
You sit plate chess all the time to take their minds off the war.
And it was just hard, it was heartrending because they lost John Chapman up on top of
that mountain and thought he was shot and killed.
But it turns out a drone captures him.
He was knocked out, but he was not killed, woke up and fought bravely for another 20
minutes, and eventually sacrificed his life, left his fighting position to give play down
cover for a quick reaction force helicopter that's coming to try to rescue him.
So it was, you know, these stories are full of braver but also heartrending tragedy as
well.
And it's part and parcel of these stories.
You can't get away from it.
No, you really can't.
I was thinking before we were going on the air, we had a Medal of Honor recipient here
in our local area.
Charles Kettles was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and he received a, I think it was
number two, the number two medal.
A service medal.
It could be with River Cross, I think, probably.
Right.
Finally got it upgraded when you only less than a year before he passed away.
But he was probably, and you mentioned this in a book, and this is kind of a common theme
that runs through all of these men that you've talked about here, how humble he was about
the award to begin with, which everybody looks up to, he can't help but look up to it, and
that he always gathered his whole crew around him.
Whenever he was talking about what occurred on the day that he earned the Medal of Honor,
he always talked about his crew and how he could never have done it without them.
And this seems to be a running theme throughout all of these, that they could not accomplish
their missions without the teamwork that was involved.
And when I said at the beginning of the program that I was part of Army Aviation and the motto
is above the best, I didn't even really appreciate that myself until I started talking through
Veterans Radio really to all those men and women who have been on the ground.
Because those, I mean, that is really where everything happens.
Sure.
And you mentioned that is a common thread to these stories is humility, these remarkable
individuals show.
And the comment was made more than once to me that, although this is a great honor, it's
also a very weighty burden because it reminds that these individuals of the worst day of
their lives when they lost friends and comrades and brothers in arms and just saw horrific
things and had to do extraordinary things to survive.
But they bear that burden because they want to bring attention to their teammates and their
colleagues and their brothers in arms.
And so there are 25 individual stories here of Medal of Honor recipients, but it's not
just stories of them, it's stories of their units and their teams because without exception,
the teams show just extreme, extreme valor.
Yes, these individuals stood out, but the company of heroes reflected in this book is
not just the Medal of Honor recipients, there's many of the service members around them who
have their back.
Right.
Yeah, there's a lot of great side stories that you bring into this.
We're talking with James Kittfield, he's the author of In the Company of Heroes.
It's the inspiring stories of Medal of Honor recipients from America's longest wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
And in fact, I'm going to read, there's a quote on the back cover here.
And this is from General David Petraeus, former commander of the Surgeon in Iraq, US Central
Command Coalition Forces in Afghanistan and former director of the CIA.
And he says, a tremendous tribute to the bravest of the brave in Iraq and Afghanistan.
James Kittfield, In the Company of Heroes is a dramatic and throw and enthralling reminder
that even in the toughest of times in the post 9 11 wars, the extraordinary men and
women in uniform who fought America's longest wars, never back down from the enemy, never
quit on the mission.
And most important, always remain true to each other.
This important book describes brilliantly why those of us, why those of us privileged
to lead our men and women in combat truly considered them America's new greatest generation.
I cannot recommend it too highly.
That's from General Petraeus.
And I was, you know, I was listening to some of the other interviews that you that you have
given and this is a kind of a topic that comes up because of the withdrawal from Afghanistan
that was so chaotic that some of these people are are some of these men and women are probably
suffering from post traumatic stress, just from the idea that we didn't accomplish our
mission.
Yeah, I, you know, to a person and I've written a lot recently in my journalistic had about
the withdrawal from Afghanistan and how it went so wrong, but it's suffice to say, I
mean, it is a gut punch to all who serve there.
I mean, the scene that it's bad enough pulling out, but to see the Taliban rolling behind
you was just, it was just heartbreaking for those who, you know, lost blood, sweat and
tears over there.
And there's no doubt that this will cause them to, you know, relive, you know, some
of the worst days of their lives.
And so, you know, the question was asked to me a number of times, you know, so what,
what we did, what we sacrificed was it in vain.
My answer is always no.
I was in Washington DC as a national security correspondent on 9 11 and spent the next,
you know, five to 10 years in in growth to try and understand how we got hit like that,
who did it, why, and understand everything about al-Qaeda.
And I can tell you personally for all the many counterterrorism experts I spoke with
in and out of government thought we would going to be hit again with successive 9 11
type terrorist by factors in the years to come.
And we weren't hit again left that because we sent our service members over to fight
the terrorists where they were home base.
And that meant going to Afghanistan toppling the Taliban, decimating the top leadership
of al-Qaeda, including Assad bin Laden, it meant after the Iraq invasion, fighting al-Qaeda
in Iraq and decimating that organization and killing its leader Abu Musab al-Qarwi.
And we also decimated the leadership and decimated the caliphate of the Islamic state of Iraq
and Syria.
So, those, all of those groups want nothing more than to strike a 9 11 type blow against
the West.
And the reason they weren't able to is because we had pressure on them.
They were constantly looking over their shoulders, having to wonder if we were coming to get
them.
And that's what kept us safe.
So that is that is not in vain.
That service kept us safe.
The question, you know, they were thrown off Afghanistan raises.
Will we be able to continue to keep the country safe now that that region is now pretty fertile
ground for them to lay roots again?
And we will find out about that.
Yes, it's that's always the issue.
And you know, when we leave these places is what happens to the people that are left behind.
And we can see some of the results from what news is coming out of Afghanistan.
And you know, I keep flashing back, of course, to Vietnam when we were when we were out of
there in 75 and you know, we had left behind with that.
But that's that's getting way off topic.
And I apologize for that, James.
Let's go back to the Medal of Honor.
Let's talk a little bit about the history of the Medal of Honor.
How did this award come about?
It's not it was started by President Lincoln during the Civil War wanted to honor.
Originally it was just for NCOs and enlisted personnel, but it was expanded in 83 to include
officers as well.
Just in time for Chamberlain who led the bayonet charge down a little round top to save the
flank of the Union line during the during the Battle of Gettysburg to to receive the
Medal of Honor.
And after from then on, you know, in every war we've had there have been Medal of Honor
recipients showing from showing, you know, just extraordinary valor and that, you know,
right up through World War I or World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and now the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
It's just that when you when you have, you know, hand it, you know, face to face combat,
some people will distinguish themselves in those situations.
And we, you know, the services want to draw attention to that because those people are
exemplary and they want to they want to show the bravest of the bravest.
General Petraeus said.
Right.
And it's not the easiest award to be given because of there are, I guess, the rules and
regulations that go behind it because they're they're supposed to be witnesses and, you
know, written statements and so on and so forth, aren't there?
Right.
So it's a it's a very involved process, which is why in many cases there's years past between
the the action itself and the receiving of the award.
And so your your chain of command has to recommend a service member for the Medal of Honor.
It has to go up through the chain of command investigate if they think it's indeed as worthy
of launch an investigation that talks to witnesses, interviews, witnesses, looks at all the data
from the battle.
And these wars is obviously a lot more data because we have full full video in some cases
of these wars because there's surveillance drones circling overhead.
But it goes up to the investigation.
And finally, the Secretary of Defense has to sign off on it in the final decision of the
President of the United States makes the decision and and the awards are are given at the White
House.
So it's a it's a quite involved process.
It's not it's not something that's done lightly.
No, not at all.
And in your book, you mentioned that you had the privilege, I guess you could say of going
to a Medal of Honor reunion where there aren't that many left.
No, and yeah, there is they have each year the Medal of Honor Society holds this annual
meeting.
The one you're referring to was held at the at the Naval Academy a couple of years ago.
But I went to the one just before COVID, which was in Tampa.
And it's a chance to honor all of these individuals and they go out and speak to local schools.
And, you know, it's just, you know, it is the most exclusive fraternity in the world.
And so people are just flocked to be able to meet these people.
And and for good reason, they're just extraordinary individuals, like you said, them for all of
their accomplishments and achievements, they remain a very humble crowd.
I should also say that a lot of them have have been very public about their own struggles
with post-traumatic stress mental issues, and, you know, they're the bravest of the
brave, but they talk about this because they want they want, you know, veterans and others
combat veterans and service members to seek out help when they are trying to cope with
their own post-traumatic stress.
And that would be a good time if I don't mind, I can give the number out to the National
Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is 800.
Don't get right in, I'm sitting here in front of me too.
Yeah, that's 800-273-8255.
That's the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
So these these individuals almost to a person have suffered post-traumatic stress.
I mean, if you and you read these stories, you understand why what they've been through,
what they've seen, what they've lost.
And they are very open about those struggles, because in one example was an attempted suicide
himself, one of these Medal of Honor recipients, Dakota Meyer.
They want they want those stories out too, because they think that, you know, it's they
want to get rid of the stigma about seeking help for post-traumatic stress, because they've
all been through it.
Absolutely.
And I think I think the other thing probably is they don't want people thinking of them
as, you know, Superman.
And you know, that they're above the fray, but they're not.
They're just, you know, as we always say, you know, they're just ordinary people who
did extraordinary things in the service of their country.
And I can't remember the particular story where the Medal of Honor recipient, another
one of his team members after the after the battle and everything in a way came home that
did eventually, unfortunately, did commit suicide.
And you know, for our audience out there that's listening right now, we're all very familiar
with the number 22 a day, and even though it has dropped miniscule, if that's a word,
there's still over 20 veterans a day that are committing suicide.
So we have to we have to make sure that they're aware that help is out there and that it is
not it is not wrong to seek out that help.
And every one of these stories that I've read in this book, talk about the survivors that
are talking about, yes, seek help.
We can't fight these battles by ourselves.
That's exactly right.
And these individuals are very outspoken about, again, what they've been through because
they want other combat veterans to know that there's help out there.
And there's, you know, the bravest of the brave need help too.
And they want to make sure that if people need that kind of help, they seek it out because
you're right, you can't you can't fight those battles alone.
No, not at all.
I want to read another quote here.
This is from Stanley McChrystal, General Stanley McChrystal.
And he says, every generation must do its part.
Unfortunately heroes emerge.
In his fascinating account, James Kittfield shared stories that will inspire Americans
of this and future times.
And I think we'd better get into some of these stories.
And I know I asked you earlier if you had any that you would prefer to talk about or
she want to talk about.
Well, you know, it's like choosing between your children, right?
There's 25 just unbelievable stories in this book.
Each one of the individuals is extraordinary in their own right and did extraordinary
things.
I'll talk a little bit about Bruce Levinsky since he started that interview started me
on this journey, if you will.
So he was a he was in Afghanistan as a young team leader in 2002.
So very early in the post 9-11 wars.
And they had, if you'll remember, an initial battle in Torobor.
They had al-Qaeda had been allowed to help Salman Laden and his team, the tenants had
been allowed to basically get away into Pakistan because we had trusted some local warlords
to close the news around it.
So this battle was to had singled out a group of al-Qaeda's that were in the mountains and
they were trying to close the net on them.
He was in charge of an overwatch team and they were inserted at night on top of this
mountain.
Snow in the middle of February, snow drifts up there freezing cold.
Because of a screw up and timing, they can't disembark and sneak into their overwatch position.
They have to, the helicopter has to drop them off right at the top of the mountain.
Helicopters ambushed.
And in the ambush trying to get out of it and use the helicopter power to understand
this is miraculous.
They took RPG hits.
They did get out of it and crash landed a few miles away.
But in the confusion, one of the seals falls out of the back of the helicopter.
So they've crashed, before even sunrise, they crash landed in a helicopter, got taken back
to, they've been ambushed, they've lost a man and they go back to base.
And Bricks Levinsky, this is one of those decision points.
They have to decide, do I risk my whole team and what is certainly going to be a suicide
mission to go rescue the Navy Seal Roberts, New Roberts?
Or do I just say that that's, you know, or do I save my team because it was clearly going
to be something like a suicide mission.
The Al Qaeda group on top of the mountain was bigger than they were dug in and they
would be fighting uphill through snow drifts.
And yet they decided to go back and he announced that decision to his team and to a person,
including John Chapman and all five of them, shook their head and said, let's go get them.
And knowing what their odds were and they weren't good.
Indeed, when they went back up helicopter again, as they ambushed, they get out this
time, they fight really fiercely.
But John Chapman is hit and presumed that another Navy Seal shot through the leg would
lose that leg.
So he's a major casualty.
They have to retreat off that mountain or at least down the mountain.
But as I said before, the drone catches the firing position where John Chapman was laying
unconscious for 12 minutes.
He starts moving around and then starts fighting fiercely and in a couple cases, hand to hand
combat as he held off the Al Qaeda group, almost out of ammunition when the quick reaction
force helicopter appears to try to rescue him and he exposes himself to what he knew
was mortal danger to try to lay down fire for that helicopter and he's killed.
So just a heart-rending tragic story but full of inspiring men who live by decree, we leave
none of our own behind.
And there's inspiration in that that I wanted to share with readers.
And there's 25 stories like that.
Exactly.
And that's something that is instilled in you from the first day of basic training, I think,
is that you never leave anyone out on the field.
I can think of so many missions where we would go back to try and find people and the helicopter
pilots that receive the Medal of Honor in from Vietnam, we're all going back to pick
up people that were still on the ground.
And you can't leave them.
That's just the way it is.
And these mountains that you were talking about in Afghanistan are not, these are 15,
16,000 foot up.
Yes, the Hindu curse is, you know, if it wasn't for this conflict, I've heard this comment
by many people who serve there to some of the most beautiful mountains in the world,
but they are, they have some of the most remote valleys, you know, valleys where the inhabitants
have never even seen the people in the next valley, much less American troops.
So we spent, you know, probably five or six of these stories are from units that we put
up deep in these mountains to try to sort of plug the infiltration routes of the Taliban
and al-Qaeda we're using to come from the Pakistan sanctuary, then to Afghanistan.
And those stories are harrowing because they are typically outnumbered surrounded by these
wily mountain fighters who grew up in those mountains, and they are very hard to be reinforced
and very hard to get air cover because they're so remote.
And there are just a number of really, really dramatic battles in those, in the Hindu curse,
this really heart-rending stuff because, because it was the probably the toughest terrain on
earth to try to fight in.
I know, and they were out there in such small fire support bases, you know, their bases
were not very big at all.
No, and if you'll remember, this was when, this was largely, it was when, you know,
the Iraq war was not going well.
So we had to siphon off the majority, but the Iraq war was the major effort in Afghanistan,
it was like a holding mission.
And because of that, they didn't have anything like the heavy lift helicopters, the ISR in
terms of surveillance drones.
They were short-handed and they were short-equipped and in these terribly remote places, often
outnumbered because the Taliban can choose when to mass its forces on one of these remote
bases.
So that was a tactically really, really difficult duty in those mountains.
And eventually after the last one, Kop Keating, which is another one of these famous conflicts,
where there were two Al-Avana recipients from that same battle, they were very nearly
overrun.
There was inside the, the enemy got inside the wire, killed a lot of Americans, and
they, they were just able to fight them off.
But after that, the US military put all of our forces out of those mountains and bombed
them, and to, not that they could fall into the hands of the enemy, but they realized
they did, they resisted putting, putting these units in really indefensible positions.
Yeah, and some of them, their positions were outrageous.
I mean, when, I think it's that story we're talking about where the base was between the
mountains, it was in the valley, everything was above you.
Right.
It was, that was Kop Keating, yeah, but they called it the fishbowl because everyone, and
one of the Al-Avana recipients said, looked up and said, you know, and I'm gonna, I'm
gonna have a very sore neck after this year deployment because I'm constantly looking
up this whole time and they were, and they were, they were, you know, shot at by snipers
so regularly that they were afraid to, to, in daylight, to even go to latrine.
They, they had to wait till night to crawl to the latrine because there were so many
snipers and hiding the rocks on the mountain sides.
So, easy an idea of how, what kind of duty that was.
We're talking right now with James Kittfield.
He's the author of In the Company of Heroes, the Inspiring Stories of Medal of Honor recipients
from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
We have to take a quick break.
So James, if you'll stick around, actually this is where we pay a little respect to one
of the Medal of Honor recipients that is in your book and that is going to be Paul Smith.
So you're listening to Veterans Radio and we'll be right back after this short break.
The Medal of Honor is the highest awards for valor and combat given a member of the Armed
Forces of the United States.
There have been over 3,400 recipients of the nation's highest award.
This is one of them.
Sergeant First Last Paul Smith gave his life to protect his troops.
Tales after this.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-693-4800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-693-4800.
On April 4th, 2003, a call went out for a place to put some Iraqi prisoners.
Sergeant First Last Paul Smith volunteered to create a holding pen inside a walled courtyard.
Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith's position.
Smith was accompanied by 16 men.
Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid-fire cannon.
It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis.
The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position, but then, in a move
that baffled in angered Smith's men, the Bradley left.
Smith's men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.
Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw.
Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize
about 100 GIs outside, including medics at an aid station.
He manned a.50 caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought
off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition.
With a battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head.
He died before he could be evacuated from the scene.
The Medal of Honor series is a production of Veterans Radio.
Military veterans touch everyone's life.
I'm guessing right now you're thinking of a veteran, a close friend, relative.
Maybe it's you.
Even the toughest of us sometimes need help, but don't know where to turn for support.
You don't need special training to help a veteran in your life.
We can all help someone going through a difficult time.
Learn how you can be there for veterans.
Visit veteranscrisisline.net.
Veteranscrisisline.net, a message from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
We're back here on Veterans Radio, and we are talking with James Kittfield, the author
of In the Company of Heroes, the Medal of Honor recipients from Iraq and Afghanistan,
that Medal of Honor that just played was about Paul Smith.
And I just wanted to read a paragraph from the end of the chapter on Paul Smith in here
called The Gates of Baghdad.
It's evidently when Paul Smith's belongings were sent home, his parents found a letter
that he had written from Iraq but had never mailed it.
An entity told his parents how proud he was of the privilege to be given 25 of the finest
Americans we call soldiers to lead into war.
And then Paul Ray Smith made a pledge to put their welfare first, which he would honor
with his life.
He was prepared, Smith wrote, to give all that I have to ensure all of my boys make it home.
And this is like a common story for all of these Medal of Honor recipients, James.
Yes, that's exactly right.
And the thread that runs through all these stories is people who are selfless.
And when they had a brush with eternity, instead of doing the safe thing, they put their lives
on the line in order to save their buddies.
There were seven, I believe, that were actually through themselves on a grenade or tackled
a suicide bomber to absorb the blast and protect their brothers in arms knowing that they were
about to die.
But they went ahead and did it.
And certainly Paul Smith, I was actually embedded with the small headquarters element, tactical
headquarters element right behind his unit.
And so that was the original invasion of Iraq.
And I mean, that his engineering battalions did amazing things.
They captured a contested bridge and waded into the water and were cutting the wires
of the demolition that the Iraqis, Republican guard types had put on the bridge to blow
it up.
So they were just, they were a quieter unit.
And at the Air Force battle, the Baghdad airport was from the very beginning, the place where
we were going to try to capture and then launch the battle for Baghdad, if you will, from
the airport complex.
And that little courtyard that he set up and was going to be for prisoners, that turned
out to be the flank of the unit that was fighting to capture the airport.
So if he had allowed the Iraqi, the Republican guards to sweep through them, he would have
jeopardized the whole, the flank of the whole effort to capture the Air Force.
So he, the airport, I should say, so he was, he was an amazing guy and he was determined
that they would go no further than him and his PPP-Helper machine gun on top of a armored
personnel carrier that was disabled.
So he couldn't even pull that out of the field of fire if he wanted to.
And he never left.
He just said, keep feeding me the, keep feeding me bullets and I'll keep firing.
So he was, he was an extremely heroic sergeant.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Waz.
And you were talking about the couple of people who jumped on brigade, on grenades.
And I'm, you know, we, we have another one of our Medal of Honor segments to where we
talk about Ross McGinnis.
Can you talk about what he did?
Ross McGinnis.
Well, I'm trying to remember right off the top of my head.
Oh, so he was, he was in Iraq, his, his, you know, fighting in a, what they call it, sort
of the really, really rough part of Baghdad.
I've actually been through myself, wouldn't want to go back again.
And they were in a convoy.
He was, he manned the machine gun on top of a Humvee.
And so he's the gunner and they turn a corner, you know, down a dusty street and someone
dropped a grenade through the, the, you know, through the, his turnstile, if you will.
And at that point, he was the only one in this armored Humvee who could get out.
He could have just hopped out the top because he was standing up, you know, behind his machine
gun.
Instead of that, he drops down into the, into the Humvee and basically captures the grenade
against the ballwork with his, with his, you know, his body armor, knowing that that was,
that was going to be the last thing he ever did.
But he saved every one of his, he saved everyone else in that Humvee by that heroic sacrifice
of his own life.
I can't, I just can't believe what these, these people did.
We talked with Flo Groberg on Veterans Radio back in December of 2017.
He, his Medal of Honor was received for, for basically tackling a suicide bomber who was
trying to get to a, I believe it was a general or some brigade commander or something along
those lines and pushed him aside and the vest went off.
Yeah.
And Flo is a great guy and yeah, he, he not only tackled this, the suicide bomber, but
he, you know, he went through just incredibly difficult rehabilitation.
He lost most of us, one of his legs.
You know, he had been a kind of a standout track star in college.
He's an immigrant and yeah, his story just was just amazing to how he found his inner
warrior again, that allowed him to, to, to press through really excruciating rehabilitation
and become this really, you know, interesting entrepreneurial guy who has a great life.
But it was the story of how he struggled.
I mean, the survivor's, survivor's guilt that he suffered almost drove him crazy.
And he admits this in his book and he's, and his lowest point, another one of the soldiers
at Walter Reed who had lost, I believe, all those arms and both legs came to him and said,
you know, look, I know you're having a bad time.
There's people in this hospital who haven't even worse than you and you need to, you need
to rediscover your warrior and he's, and Pro-Burg said that that person saved his life.
So just, that's another one of the stories in there that just shows you how these people
all have each other's back and, and, and really showed amazing courage in coming to each other's
aid when it mattered most.
I think it's really interesting and just, I don't know, awe inspiring when you, when
you think about, especially some of the ones that did survive you, you talked about in
the book you're talking about Corporal Kyle Carpenter.
And then we had a privilege of talking with him back in December of 2019, but he was literally
blown apart and survived.
Absolutely.
He's, he's an amazing person.
You know, another case, a young Marine in, in Afghanistan and the Kandahar, you know,
sort of the birthplace of the Taliban and they're manning an overwatch position on top
of a roof on their little makeshift base and a, and a grenade gets thrown on top of the
rooftop and he jumps on top of it to try to save his friend.
And you know, he was hurt so badly that I don't think many people thought he would
survive, but it was miraculous that he survived.
He had to go through more than 40 operations to put himself back together and, and really
excruciating pain.
You know, you're doped up on a lot of pain medication.
You're having hallucinations.
He hallucinated the solid zone burial and none of his Marine friends came to see him
because they were mad at him for leaving them in, in Afghanistan.
If you can imagine that.
But this, you know, so this, this young man, you know, who could have been totally embittered
by this experience really found his meaning in life and it's become a motivational speaker.
You've talked to him.
He's just a really inspiring person and has a Twitter handle chicks, Doug digs cars,
you know, has a sense of humor, but he's almost like a warrior philosopher.
And he, so he took the worst, the worst day of his life and he made it life changing.
And just an amazing, amazing young man.
I, you know, to our audience out there, as I mentioned, we're, we're talking with James
Kittfield.
The book is in the company of heroes.
I could, I can't recommend highly enough that you go out and read these stories.
These, and I know that sooner or later there's going to be a woman is going to receive the
Medal of Honor and it's, it's, it's going to be the same thing.
They're just, they just go above and beyond.
Never it isn't.
And they never, ever give up.
I can't.
I can't exactly.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
I'm just going, I'm looking at the names on the list here, you know, and I can't even,
you know, I don't even know where I want to go first because they're all such just fantastic
stories.
I'm going to ask you a while I'm going to go on here for a minute about Kyle White and
in a second.
But there are 25 stories in the book about Medal of Honor recipients and, you know, luckily
it seemed like most of them survived.
Some of them did not.
But I wanted to ask you about Kyle White.
So Kyle White was with a unit in again, one of these units I talked about in the Hindu
deep in the Hindu curse.
They go into a village late at night and camp out and they're supposed to meet with the
elders the next morning to do outreach like what their mission really was was try to gain
at least the trust of these mountain villages.
So they would be told when the Taliban was lurking around and something didn't feel right.
They were, the meeting kept getting pushed back and pushed back.
And when it finally happened, almost every man of fighting age showed up and they started
hearing strange, strange commands on the radio in a language that even their interpreters
didn't understand.
So something didn't feel right.
So they exited this village and were walking back in a single file on this goat trail trying
to get home.
And they go to a park named ambush alley because it's famous for the Taliban like an ambush
people there.
And indeed they do get ambushed.
He gets knocked out by an RPG and when he awakens almost his whole unit has disappeared.
He doesn't know where what happened to them.
But he and a couple of Afghans and a couple of the wounded Americans are the only people
left on this ridgeline.
And he helps save one person.
He increases wounds.
He's fighting off the enemy.
And it wasn't for him, you know, everyone who was left in the mountain would have died.
He's calling and finally he's calling in, you know, airstrikes, et cetera.
And quite famously had almost every commander in Afghanistan was on the radio.
And that listen to this young trooper who I think was, you know, early 20s at the time
was just managing this fight all on his own.
And he was the last person to, the last person to, he made sure that they evacuated every
one else besides himself.
And finally he was the last man off that mountain and saved a lot of life in the process.
It's just, it's awesome.
I know that's not the right word, but it's just, you know, what these people can do.
Your last story in the book is about Army Sergeant First Class Thomas Payne and you
call that chapter Last Man Out.
Why is that?
So Sergeant Payne was a member of the Ranger Regiment.
They famously fought in so many battles in these wars, especially in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
But he's involved in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
So he's the most recent and the last, chronologically the last Medal of Honor recipient when I wrote
this book, which is, you know, I finished last, end of last year.
So they get word that ISIS is going to execute these hostages, more than 80 hostages, Kurdists,
most of them Kurdist military types and Kurdist civilians.
And they're digging, the ISIS is already, they're seeing them, they're digging the graves
outside the prison where they're going to shoot them and execute them, which is their
sort of brand, if you will.
And they launch a very dangerous hostage rescue mission.
And during that mission, they lose, Thomas Payne lost one of his, lost one of his, you
know, colleagues.
But the prison is burning.
It gets lit on fire during this firefight trying to rescue the hostages.
And he has the bolt cutter.
So he runs into under machine gun fire.
The firing, ISIS is firing from within the prison.
He goes under machine gun fire three times into a burning building where the smoke is
so deep, so dense, it's about knee high that you could get a breath.
And three times he goes back in there to try to get open this door on the fire.
And eventually actually does do that and is able to then usher out.
Many of the hostages were so scared because there was still an ongoing firefight inside
the building.
And they were just burning and he had to basically, you know, bodily sort of get them out of
there.
And they rescued all 80 hostages.
And it was just an amazing thing to hear how this, this, this, I'm assuming not very
big guy, like you think the Tolkien guys and their, their, their wiry types frequently.
But he just, you know, was telling me this story and I was, I was just, I couldn't imagine
what it would be like to, to be him and to decide not once, not twice, but three times
to run down a hall while you're getting machine gun shot at you into a burning building.
You know, it's about to collapse at any moment and to, to, to save strangers.
That's what he did.
And yeah, it's an inspiring story, but it was harrowing as well.
Every one of these, as I mentioned earlier on, I got the hair on my neck standing straight
up going, why, why, you know, it's like watching a movie.
Let's go in there because it's not going to be good for you.
What would you say would be one common trait that all of these, these men had?
I mean, most of them, as you mentioned, were, were fairly young.
Right.
So there is a selflessness in all of these stories that when it came right down to it,
they were willing to sacrifice their lives to save the lives of their fellow servers,
members and brothers and arms.
And that is, that comes through in literally, I think, every one of these stories.
Yeah, they could have taken the easy way out there and no one would have thought less
of them because some of these things were, you know, like I said, as stark as jumping
on a grave knowing you're going to die or going back up in a mountain when, you know,
it's a suicide mission.
But they did it and they did it because they valued the lines of their colleagues and the
creed that you, that you, you leave no man behind more than their own lives.
And that's a common thread that comes through all these stories.
And that's, you know, that's the inspiring part, I think, that we have such a, you know,
this force of volunteers that we sent to fight these wars as are as good as any force we've
ever fielded in our country's history.
And each one of them volunteered for duty.
They weren't drafted and they didn't have to do it, but they volunteered to do it.
And so many of them were on their fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth tours.
Granted, they're not a year long, but they're, you know, still just a psychological buildup
to going back into combat is just, is so foreign to my thinking.
I know there wasn't any way you were going to get me to go back to go back to Vietnam.
And then keep going back.
And that's, you know, that was one of the, you know, military would never go back on
the all volunteer force, but one of the repercussions of having a fairly small volunteer force that
fought our longest wars was they did have to go back and back and back and back.
And each time, you know, studies have shown your post, your likelihood of having post-traumatic
stress issues goes up.
And it's also very tough on families to go through that again and again and again.
So that was one of the detriments of having an all volunteer force that was relatively
small that we never reinforced with an all-round draft.
The military would tell you that the fact that their volunteers is why they're so good,
you know, it's a professional force, but it did have some drawbacks in the sense that
we had to send it back to so many times and that, you know, they suffered for that.
I can't imagine.
I mean, I know, you know, the draft supposedly, you know, went after everybody and we know
that didn't necessarily work out quite evenly, but, you know, they weren't professional.
They just, you know, okay, I'm going to be out in two years or I'm going to be out in,
you know, 60 days or whatever it might be.
You know, the politicians couldn't stand up under the pressure of the people at home
saying, no, no, no, not my son.
And, you know, right now you're talking about an elite fighting force that's from all over
the country.
And that's a great thing.
I liked about the military is you've got to meet people from everywhere.
And you know, you'd never would have, you know, I'm from New Jersey originally and I
never would have hung out with people from Mississippi or Texas or Kansas or California
if I hadn't gone into the service.
I would have known nothing about that part of the world.
That's right.
And that's one of the beauties of military service is that you are thrown together, you
know, with people who you would never normally associate with or even have a chance to meet.
And I found that to be one of the most ennobling things about military service.
And I think, you know, we lose something when we don't have that.
But, you know, like I said, the military, you know, politicians were not anxious to
make a tough decision on reinstating the draft and the military didn't want it because they
had these really good volunteers who were professionals who stay around a lot longer
and for a high tech military.
That's what you, that's preferable than having drafties who don't really want to be there.
Can I read you a quote from David Belavia who's one of the Medal of Honor recipients
in here?
Sure.
Absolutely.
So he, this stuck out to me because it gets to this partisanship that we're experiencing
this country now and how these stories, none of that comes through.
And he says, he said, there's a million plus reasons why Americans are divided right now.
And throughout our history, we've always disagreed and dissented, but we always found a way to
put our differences aside and focus on what's best for the nation when it counted most.
He's talking about the army here.
We don't care if your dad died and left you millions of dollars from that.
I personally never cared what God a soldier worship, what color they were or who they
love.
I was willing to get shot at for me and my buddy.
I will lead or follow you anywhere.
I think that's pretty reflective of the values of these guys put on the teamwork and the bonds
of friendship and brothers and arms that form.
And no one's asking what part of your from they're a team and they'll literally die for
each other.
That's something you don't see very often in American society anymore.
No, you don't.
And unfortunately, we are coming up against the clock.
So I want to make sure I get this out one more time.
James Kittfield, the book is in the company of heroes, inspiring stories of Medal of Honor
recipients from America's longest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
James, I want to thank you very much for your time today.
I encourage people to go out and buy this book.
I think you're going to be really impressed with the kind of men and women that we've
gotten today's military.
Thanks for having me on.
Thank you very much.
I hope you enjoyed today's program in the company of heroes, the book by James Kittfield.
Wow.
These men that have been awarded the Medal of Honor are just so special and they are
all so humble.
I've had the privilege here on Veterans Radio of talking to about 30 living Medal of Honor
recipients and it's been such an honor to talk to these men.
But that common thread that runs through all of them is how humble that they are, how it's
never them.
It's always the other troops that deserve the award and just great men.
So anyway, I hope you enjoyed the program.
It was very meaningful to me to play this today.
Somebody was asking me, Dale, why are you playing God Bless America and America, the beautiful
at the end of the programs these days?
I said, well, mainly it's to remind everybody of what an incredible, wonderful country that
we live in.
It's not perfect.
We know that.
But we are a work in progress and we are still continuing to try and try and try.
And I just feel that I am so fortunate and lucky to have been born in the United States
of America.
I just want to share that enthusiasm with you every week.
So we're going to go out today on a version of God Bless America and America, the beautiful
done by the brothers of the heart.
This is one of my favorite versions.
So until next week, this is Dale Throneberry for all of us here at Veterans Radio.
You are dismissed.
Thank you.
doors.
Alright.
Oh God bless America, my home sweet home
Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of green
For purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea
From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam
Oh God bless America, my home sweet home
Sweet home