June 11, 2025 • 37 mins
As a proud member of the Cherokee Nation, Dwight Birdwell was determined to fight for the country he loved. And his actions on the first day of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam are stuff of legend. But Dwight’s story is also about survival: not just what it takes to live through a terrible battle, but how that survival changes you– forever.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Pushkin. It was late on a summer night, and Dwight
Birdwill could sense something was wrong. He was a specialist
in the Army in command of a tank, and that
tank was parked alongside a main supply route near a
little village in South Vietnam. The year was nineteen sixty eight.
(00:33):
Dwight could hear a group of water buffaloes shuffling and
grunting in a pen nearby. He had grown up in
the Oklahoma countryside, and he knew that livestock wouldn't move
at night unless something was disturbing them. He knew in
his bones that something was wrong. He peered out of
(00:54):
the turret of the tank, using his starlight scope to
cut through the blackness of the night. Nothing. But he
couldn't shake the feeling. He decided to go out and look.
He woke up the driver of his tank, a gentle
guy named Bill Watts, and asked him to take his
place at the turret, and then Dwight headed out into
(01:16):
the night. He crossed the road, moving quietly through the brush,
listening intently to see if he could hear whatever it
was he felt. He crept house to house in the village,
shining his flashlight over families sleeping on bamboo platforms, finding nothing,
(01:39):
hearing nothing, just the slow breathing of sleeping civilians and
the sound of the insects in the night. So Dwight
turned to head back to the tank, and at that
very moment, three or four rocket propelled grenades flashed by him,
hissing as they went. It was a sound that Dwight
(02:01):
was horrifyingly familiar with. Dwight watched as they hit his take.
The tank's cash of ammunition was set off, fueling the explosion.
The noise of the blast rocked a little village. Then
he saw something bright like a comet, fall from the tank.
It was Bill Watts. He was on fire, and Dwight
(02:25):
Birdwell started running. I'm Jr. Martinez and this is Medal
of Honor Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor is
the highest military decoration in the United States, awarded for
(02:46):
gallantry and bravery and combat at the risk of life,
above and beyond the call of duty. Each candidate must
be approved all the way up the chain of command,
from the supervisory officer in the field to the White House.
This show is about those heroes, what they did, what
it meant and what their stories tell us about the
(03:08):
nature of courage and sacrifice. That moment that night at
the tank changed the course of Dwight Birdwill's life. It
transformed him from a tough twenty year old determined to
fight into someone who could not look away from the
terrible cost of war, someone who would ask God at
(03:30):
that moment, and for many years afterwards, why was I
the one to survive? Dwight's story is about a lot
of things. It's about the priority feels in being part
of the Cherokee Nation, a community with the remarkable history
of military service. It's about his extraordinary bravery in the battlefield,
(03:52):
an episode that feels like it's straight out of a
Rambo movie. Dwight, it turns out, is a guy who
put himself and harm's way over and over again because
that's where he felt he belonged. But most of all,
it's the story of a man coming to grips with
the feeling of guilt that even the highest honor in
(04:14):
the military could not absolve. Dwight Birdwill never really knew
his father. His dad was an oil filled worker of
Cherokee descent, a hard drinking man who was in and
(04:37):
out of jail a lot. He pretty much disappeared from
Dwight's life when he was little. When Dwight was three,
his mother met and married Ed Birdwell. They settled in
Oklahoma in a town called Bell. Here's Dwight remembering.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The community was about ninety percent Cherokee, maybe more. It
was a very very rural area, an area of poverty.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It was a hard life, but people may do.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I lived right around a creek, and every morning I
remember a Cherokee lady coming down the creek, and the
evening she would come back and she would have a
shring of fish over her shoulder that she had caught
to feed her family.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Dwight's stepdad was a farmer, and his mother worked in
the fields picking beans and strawberries. Even though Dwight was
a talented student, he was discouraged from even thinking about
going to college. The message from his high school counselor
was essentially, you're an Indian, you won't amount to anything.
(05:42):
But Dwight was determined. He decided to find his own
way out by joining the military. He knew the GI
bill would send him to school, and he'd liked the
idea of service.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
A lot of the Cherokee man and the community and
area had served in World War Two and served in Korea,
and they emphasized that it was a Cherkey tradition to serve.
So I did it out of a sense of duty
to the country and out of a sense of obligation
(06:14):
to Cherokee ancestors.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Dwight was eighteen, with deep set eyes and a crooked
smile and dark hair parted on the side. He was
already fit for the army, but not because he played
football or basketball or wrestled. Get this, because he worked
chasing chickens six nights a week.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
We left home about five or six in the evening
and went to northwest Arkansas and caught chickens all night
until daybreak. You go in and catch the chickens, and
then you would run outside and you would climb up
onto a flatbed truck and load the chickens, run back
down and go get another batch of them all night long.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
That's a random detail, but I love it. I'm just
not sure I've ever heard of a nighttime chicken catcher before.
What even is that? Anyways, back to Dwight in the Army.
When he enlisted, he asked to be sent straight to Vietnam.
This was spring of nineteen sixty six and the war
(07:20):
was just warming up. Even though Dwight tested so well
that he could have gone to officer training at West Point,
he chose combat instead.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I felt like that was my duty, my mission, to
go where I was most neated, and I felt like
I was most neated in Vietnam. Of course, I didn't
necessarily want to die, but if that was my destiny,
that would be my destiny.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
In September of nineteen sixty seven, Dwight landed at Tunsanut
Airport outside of Saigon. He remembers marveling and how beautiful
and greening the countryside looked from the plane, and he
remembers seeing a line of body bags on the side
of the runway and thinking, this is it. I'm here.
(08:11):
Dwight was assigned to Troop C, third Squadron, fourth Cavalry,
twenty fifth Infantry Division, which we're going to refer to
the way that he did as the three quarter calf.
It was tasked with se carrying Highway One, the main
supply route running northwest from Saigon to the Cambodian border.
Dwight was well liked and for once his intelligence was recognized.
(08:34):
He was given a spot doing radio repair, but he
didn't like the relative safety of the rear echelon. He
wanted to fight, and before long he joined a tank
crew as a gunner. He knew exactly how dangerous it
would be.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
If you're going to tank, you've got an iron coffin.
It's just a matter of time.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Dwight was convinced that the US was right to be
in Vietnam. He saw the bodies of town officials assassinated
by the National Liberation Front. He knew how brave they
must have been to stand up for their values. But
he saw dead via Con guerrillas two. They were young
about his age, and Dwight looked at them and thought,
(09:16):
they aren't evil, They're just as idealistic as I am.
But as nineteen sixty seven turned to nineteen sixty eight,
Dwight and his platoon began to stumble across well hidden bunkers,
caches of weapons, signs of movement of change, and then
the early morning of January thirty first it happened, a
(09:40):
coordinated attack throughout South Vietnam. It would be known as
the Tet Offensive. Here's a news report describing the situation
in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It all amounts to the most ambitious series of communist
attacks yet mounted, spreading violence into at least ten provincial capitals,
plus American air bases and civilian installations, stretching the entire
length of the country.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
The order came down to Dwight and the three Quarter
calf to get to tan Sanute Airport. It was the
most active air base in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
They said, there is a squad of VC breaking into
the wire at tan Sanut. The three Quarter calv was
so confident down that we sent two turns down. There
were only about sixty of us that went down, and those.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Two contains, they thought they would only be fighting a
ragged handful of Via coom. They outpowered and outgunned that
kind of enemy force before. So the men got into
their tanks and went. But what awaited was in a skirmish.
It was an ambush. The tanks of the three quarter
(10:58):
calb barreled down Highway One toward the Tansanute airfield. The
second platoon was at the lead, Third platoon Twipe's platoon
followed behind. Third tracks kicked up dust as they rumbled
forward through their early morning hours the sky grew lighter
and overcast gray. The trip down was abnormally quiet. The
(11:20):
convoy passed no civilian traffic on the road, and the
nearby houses seemed to be deserted. It was almost peaceful.
Then the lead tank reached the airport and a wall
of fire erupted from a hamlet along the side of
the road. Chaos.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
They let us go right into the middle and then
cut loose, and within very short period of time a
couple of minutes to laid patone was pretty much wiped out.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It wasn't a scrappy group of Vietcong that was waiting.
It was the North Vietnamese army, and they now surrounded
the convoy on three sides. The sky was suddenly filled
with eerie green lights falling towards the American tanks. They
were tracers which the North Vietnamese used to see where
(12:13):
their fire was going.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And there's all these spring Chraisier's coming out and all
these rockets coming in boom boom, and I'm typo what
and the world's going on.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Dwight's tank was at the very front of his platoon.
As the lead platoon exploded, his tank pulled in right
behind them. One of Dwight's friends, Franklin Kuff, was in
the lead platoon. He and other veterans who knew Dwight
spoke about their experiences in a documentary made by Osio
voices of the Cherokee people. Frank remembers seeing Dwight's tank
(12:47):
rattle into place.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Man, it's seeing good. We got to do shelting. And
that's when third petun come pulling up and there's Doight
like a Knight in shining armor.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Almost instantly, Dwight's tank commander was hit a bloody hole
where his left eye had been. Dwight got down and
lifted his commander out of the tank under heavy fire
and put him in the ditch that ran just along
the side of the road. The injured gis from the
lead platoon were gathering there as well, and then Dwight
(13:21):
returned to his tank and took command. Every vehicle ahead
of him had been put out of action, and there
was no way to retreat. There were too many wounded
that would be left behind.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I can't remember the bullet climb by my head, you know,
just thank boy, that's an unpleasant sounds, but I kept going.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
He started firing back. He didn't have time to fill
any fear. There was no place for it. He used
the tank's cannon, He used the tank's machine gun. His
head and torso were exposed to enemy fire, but somehow
the bullets didn't find him. In the meantime, more survivors
(14:05):
from the Leeds platoon were making their way to Dwight's position.
The ditch beside his tank was the only spot with
any kind of relative safety. Even though the enemy was
advancing close on Dwight's left, he couldn't fire the tank's
cannon in that direction because he would hit those wounded gis.
(14:25):
So instead he got up on that tank, took aim
with his machine gun, and opened fire. David Young was
one of those soldiers taking cover in the ditch that day.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
If they hadn't been for these high fired rounds going
over my head the other way, I wouldn't be here today.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Dwight was fully exposed to enemy fire. Bullets whizzed by
close enough to blow the communication device off of his
tanker helmet, but still he didn't get hit.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
What was going for in my mind was to keep
fighting until I went down. If I went down, I
wasn't gonna shop.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Part of his helmet was shot off. He could no
longer provide battlefield updates to his commanders. He couldn't get
any guidance either. All he could do was shoot and
drive the enemy back until.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
He used up all my ammunition.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
There was a helicopter directly above him. It was the
three quarter Calves Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Otis. He was
circling the action, leading from the sky. All of the
men in a three quarter Calve adored Otis. He was
a brilliant leader, fair and brave, ready to be as
(15:44):
much a part of the action as his men were.
And then Otis's helicopter took a direct head. It was
about to crash, and it was heading straight for Dwight's position.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, I'm watching helicopter come down, thinking this is not real.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
The helicopter hit the ground, bounced hard, and came to
a stop, the skids mashing down the barred wire fence
that ran alongside of the airport. Otis and his crew
got out and ran from the helicopter as fast as
they could in case it caught fire. Dwight watched them
scramble away, and then he thought that helicopter has something
(16:26):
that I need. He hopped down from the tank and
raced to the chopper, cutting his legs on the concertina wire.
Dwight made it to the chopper, pulled two machine guns out.
He passed one to a friend, got the other back
on top of his tank and opened fire.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
He wasn't slowing down at all. He just kept doing
a job.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
He kept going, protecting those wounded men in the ditch
next to him, holding off the enemy, and inevitably he
was hit.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I just remember a big flash and a lot of
blood coming out of my head and down my face,
at my chest and what have you.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
He had shrump, no wounds. He was bleeding badly, but
Dwight wasn't worried about that. He didn't feel like he
was particularly injured. He was worried about his gun, and.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Of course that M sixty was in two pieces. I'm
looking at my gun. It's like a toy, you know.
That's torn a hack. What am I gonna do now?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
He only had the side arm in his holster. It
would have to be enough. They were shooting all around
him and the enemy was still on every side. He
was bleeding from his head. He was majorly outnumbered, but
he hadn't lost his resolve.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So I just felt like, I'm going to fight as
long as I can. I wasn't gonna say die until
I was dead.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Dwight got off the tank and went down to the
ditch where the other soldiers were. He rallied three of
them to advance to the front of the column of
tanks to set up a defensive position. It was a
crazy move, four guys trying to hold off a ton
of enemy fighters, but to Dwight, it was the only move,
(18:22):
the only way to keep the enemy from coming over
the top and getting to the wounded gis.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
One guy was a non Indian from our harbor, Maine,
and I got two Native Americans from Port Gamble, Washington,
who was actually a medic, Oliver Jones, And then there
was an Ottawa from Michigan. And we went down the ditch,
took up a position to hold off the North vietnamions,
(18:49):
and we were pretty low on the ammunition, and that
looked like that it was almost over with.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
They huddled in front of the convoys lead tank big
tree that stood alone by the road. When they peeked
over the edge of the ditch, they could see hundreds
of enemy soldiers. They were massively outnumbered. Dwight looked over
at the airfield where he arrived in Vietnam less than
a year before, where he'd seen those green body bags.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
It was an eerie figiling at that point because we
were right on the runway and these large airliners Esetern
PanAm World Airwaves were sitting out there, just ready.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
To check off. Those airplanes were filled with people getting
out of Vietnam, escaping from the war, going home to safety.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Here we were about to die looking at those big
planes and just was very, very strange figling.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Dwight and the other soldiers threw grenades at the enemy.
Machine gun rounds hit the tree above their heads, showering
them with leaves and branches, and then and they heard
the rumble of vehicles. Troop B of the Cavalry was
coming to help. Even with his life on the line,
Dwight saw some humor in that.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
You know in the movie the cab is always saving
non Indians from Indians, and here's there's three Indians being shaved.
That wasn't a movie script. The cabs saving the Indians.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Helicopters flew low over the open fields. Dwight remembers them
laying down a smoke screen to conceal the arrival of
troop B. Then the air filled with the sound of
American tanks taking out the enemy positions. The wounded gi
started getting loaded onto Metovac helicopters. Dwight was ordered to
(20:48):
board one two. Remember he was bleeding from his head.
He got on it all right, but then he just
slid across and out the other side of the chopper
and returned to the fight.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I had to get back from the battle. I could
still go.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
He helped the other men, those wounded guys in the ditch,
loading them onto helicopters, getting them to safety, and then
finally he was forced to get help himself.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I've put on a helicopter and it was full of bodies.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That helicopter felt like an airborne morgue. But it could
have been so much worse.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
He saved many, many, many lives. At Mey, you just
can't believe what he did that. Nay, it's hard for
me to believe it, and I saw it.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
The Army agreed with Frank. Dwight received a Silver Star
for his actions that day. He was, by all accounts,
a bone of fied hero. He knew that his survival
was nothing short of a miracle, but the thought of
the people he couldn't save nagged at him. And then,
(22:02):
several months later, on a creepily quiet night, it all
caught up with him. After ted the war and Vietnam changed,
the enemy suddenly seemed to be everywhere. Morale among the
American troops was terrible. Their focus went from winning the war,
(22:23):
whatever that might mean, to just surviving and getting home.
Dwight had been a true believer, but he began to
feel dragged down and depressed. All the same, he still
had his unique capacity to keep pushing forward, and even
when he wavered, he took his commitment to service seriously,
(22:43):
which meant that his fight of a lifetime kept happening.
Here's his friend Ted Bagley, who served with him, speaking
on that Ossio documentary.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
We talk about Tossin Knut and the things he did,
but he did that the whole time we were at Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It wasn't a one times fare. That's what people don't understand.
Dwight received another Silver Star in July of sixty eight
for going back into an enemy occupied village to rescue
stranded American troops. Nobody had wanted that assignment, but do
I volunteered for it, not once, but twice, over and
(23:23):
over again. Dwight put his life on the line and survived.
Birdie had at least ten tons of news. He became
commander of a tank and was particularly close with two
of the soldiers that served with him, Bill Watts and
Harold Donnelly. Harold and Dwight were best friends, pretty much inseparable,
(23:47):
and Dwight looked up to Bill.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Bill Watch was very tender guy, very compassionate, had a
view of life that took me years to get.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Two which brings us to that by the road, in
that little village, the one I told you about at
the start of the episode. A stifling hot July night
in nineteen sixty eight, Dwight's platoon was set up along
the roadside. The water buffaloes moved in their pen as
Dwight peered out into the darkness to figure out what
(24:18):
he was sensing, what felt wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I got bailed up and I put him in a turret.
I said, you take over. I'm gonna go afterre and
do some ricon. I went out searching for North Vietnam
Asians and I couldn't find anything.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And that's when he turned and saw the RPGs hit
the tank and his friend Bill fall out of it
on fire from head to toe.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Bill Wats came out of that tank tent of ball
of the fire, just.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Like in Tons and Nude. Dwight didn't hesitate, so I.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Run back to the tank, didn't get Bill. But as
I'm carrying him out, my friend Harold Donald said, Dwight,
help me, help me.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I'm hurt.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I said, Harold, I'll be back to help you when
I can. You be a man, you take that pain.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Being a man taking that pain was the logic Dwight
had learned over all those months in Vietnam. But after
he got Bill out of harm's way and went back
for Harold, he saw what had become of his friend.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
So I got back after I'd taken care of Bell,
got Harold, picked him up. Harold was mangled, his slashless, impatience, strange, haining,
and I forever to this day feel bad about what
I said to Harold Donald.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I just want to pause here and point something out.
This recording was made more than fifty years after that
terrible traumatic night, and Dwight is still crying when he
remembers the way he spoke to his friend. I think
that tells you more than anything else. Who Dwight birdwill is.
(26:22):
A day or so later, he went to see Bill
in the hospital. He was racked with guilt. He kept
thinking it should have been me. I should have been
able to prevent this. He was looking for his friend,
not seeing them anywhere, when I heard.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
This boy and it was Bill. Don't you recognize me?
I didn't recognize the burn he had. I were fierce
and I knew he was dying. And we talked for
a bet, and afterwards went out. I shot down. I
(27:06):
just cried and cried and cried.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
And then he noticed people next to him sitting in
that same waiting area.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
There's a vietnamaged family. Come I right, and they had
a young girl, probably six or seven years old, just
incredibly beautiful young lady. They're so pretty, and she was
so happy.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Here is something Dwight hadn't seen for months, something beautiful
and peaceful and warm, an antidote to the pain of
seeing his dying friend.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
And then all of a sudden, she turned her whole
face to me, and it was blown away. On the
right side of her face.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
The side of her face was a mass of scar tissue.
Her eye was gone.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And I just felt not well. No more. I can't
tape this anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Dwight Birdwill, the truest of the true believers, the first
to volunteer for action. The warrior was done with the war,
just done. He served the rest of his tour, and
then he got out as fast as he could. When
his flight left Vietnam, Dwight looked out the window. The
(28:33):
green paradise that had greeted him when he'd flown in
sixteen months before was gone, and its place was a
landscape that looked like the surface of the moon, pock
marked with craters, burned and destroyed. He wondered to himself,
what was it all for? Bill died of his injuries.
(28:57):
Harold Donnelly survived, but with medical issues that would plague
him the rest of his life. He and Dwight stayed
in touch until he died. Dwight always felt that he
had been bad luck for Harold. Dwight took Bill's dog
tags with him when he left Vietnam. He carried it
on his keychain for years, as a reminder, maybe or
(29:22):
a penance. Dwight's story does it end there? Of course,
the army gave him the ability to do the thing
everyone said he couldn't do, go to college, become a lawyer.
(29:48):
He married a sweet girl named Virginia, who had also
grown up poor in a cherro Key community near his
They had two kids, a daughter and a son, but
none of it it is easy for him. When Dwight
first returned home, he drank, He had nightmares. He carried
those memories of Bill and Harold, of the other men
(30:12):
and the civilians he couldn't save with him like a
sack of stones. And like so many veterans, he cannot
talk about the war at all.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
The war haunted me for years, particularly that saw Why
did I travive? And so many other.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Purists. Then, late one night in nineteen seventy nine, as
Dwight was drinking himself, as he puts it to the
bottom of a fifth of bourbon, he decided two things.
The first to stop drinking. The second was to stop
obsessing over the things he could have done differently in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I had a reckoning. I came to the conclusion that
there was nothing I could do about the past. I
could just live for the future.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Right around that time, something else happened. Dwight saw his
old commander, Glenn Otis again in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
He had told me a few days after Tom said,
he said, I'm going to recommend you for the Medal
of Honor.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
But nothing had ever come of it. And now here
was Otis, who had become a four star general since
the two had parted ways in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
He asked me what happened to the medal of honor
and I told him. He said, We're going to have
to do something about that. And I just felt like that,
you know, just one of those changes that would never happened.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The years kept going by. In addition to his law practice,
Dwight went to work for the Cherokee Nation, serving as
one of three justices of the Supreme Court. Eventually he
served two terms as Chief Justice of the Cherokee Nation.
It's a fitting role for a man who could so
clearly see both sides of a conflict, and all during
(32:08):
that time and for long afterwards, General Otis worked to
get Dwight his Medal of Honor for his brave stand
at the airport that first day of the tet offensive.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I never wanted the Medal of honor. All I wanted
was a fair consideration. General Otis got me that pair
of consideration.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Finally, in May of twenty twenty two, more than five
decades is that action at Tons Newt it happened.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I got a call from President Biden and he said,
I'm going to award to you medal of honor. And
he talked to me very graciously for about ten minutes.
Going into the conversation, he said, this is a big deal.
And then somewhere else in the conversation down the road,
(33:00):
he said, this is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It is a big deal. But like so many men
who have been awarded the medal, Dwight doesn't see it
as something for him. He sees it as something for
all those other men who fought and didn't survive.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
This medal is for the men who went down that day.
It's for the family except those who didn't make it.
It's for those who were critically injured and later died
or later lived in parad lives. I'm thankful for it.
I don't mean to say you that I'm not thankful,
but it's for those men, their families, For the Tree
(33:41):
Quarter cab and the twenty fifth Temperature Division.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
President Biden put the medal around Dwight's.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Neck and that a long last, At long last, your
story is being honored as it should have been always.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Some of Dwight's friends from the Cave were there at
the ceremony. So was his daughter, Stephanie, who currently serves
as the Director of the Office of Tribal Government Relations
at the Department of Veteran Affairs.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
And I might know Native American communities serving the United
States Armed Forces at a higher percentage rate than any
other cohort in America.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Dwight's daughter thinks she understands why that might be.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
Native people, as the original inhabitants of this land, have
an especially strong connection to the land we live on.
It is truly our homeland, and that can be a
powerful inspiration source of motivation to serve.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
When Dwight walked away from the war in Vietnam, he
stopped doing one kind of service, but he didn't stop serving.
He worked to help the Cherokee Nation as persistent as
he ever was on the battlefield. I think his devotion
to service must stem in part from the guilt that
he still carries even today about the people he wasn't
(34:59):
able to save, but it also stems from his deep
bedrock of faith. He believes that when his time comes,
he will stand before his God and maybe then finally
he will find the absolution that he can't give himself.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And then when I did go up for Judge Fund,
if I had the courage, I would ask God, why
did you let me go up? Did I fulfill your expectation?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
The Medal of Honor, by definition, tells the world that
Dwight bird Will didn't just fulfill expectations. He went far,
far above and beyond them. I can't imagine his Maker
will disagree. Medal of Honor. Stories of Courage is written
(36:08):
by Meredith Rollins and produced by Mereth Rollins, Jess Shane,
and Suzanne Gabber. Our editor is Ben Nadaf Hoffrey. Sound
design and additional music by Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer
is Constanza Gallardo. Fact checking by Arthur Gomperts. Original music
by Eric Phillips. Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of
(36:30):
Honor Society, the US Department of Veteran Affairs, and Cherokee
Film Productions for sharing material from At Long Last Dwight
Birdwell's Medal of Honor from the docu series Ossillo Voices
of the Cherokee People. We also want to hear from you,
so send us your personal story of courage or highlight
(36:50):
someone else's bravery. Email us at Medal of Honor at
Pushkin dot fm. You might hear your stories on future
episodes of Medal of Honor or see them on our
social channels at Pushkin Pods. I'm your host, JR. Martinez
Pushkin. It was late on a summer night, and Dwight
Birdwill could sense something was wrong. He was a specialist
in the Army in command of a tank, and that
tank was parked alongside a main supply route near a
little village in South Vietnam. The year was nineteen sixty eight.
(00:33):
Dwight could hear a group of water buffaloes shuffling and
grunting in a pen nearby. He had grown up in
the Oklahoma countryside, and he knew that livestock wouldn't move
at night unless something was disturbing them. He knew in
his bones that something was wrong. He peered out of
(00:54):
the turret of the tank, using his starlight scope to
cut through the blackness of the night. Nothing. But he
couldn't shake the feeling. He decided to go out and look.
He woke up the driver of his tank, a gentle
guy named Bill Watts, and asked him to take his
place at the turret, and then Dwight headed out into
(01:16):
the night. He crossed the road, moving quietly through the brush,
listening intently to see if he could hear whatever it
was he felt. He crept house to house in the village,
shining his flashlight over families sleeping on bamboo platforms, finding nothing,
(01:39):
hearing nothing, just the slow breathing of sleeping civilians and
the sound of the insects in the night. So Dwight
turned to head back to the tank, and at that
very moment, three or four rocket propelled grenades flashed by him,
hissing as they went. It was a sound that Dwight
(02:01):
was horrifyingly familiar with. Dwight watched as they hit his take.
The tank's cash of ammunition was set off, fueling the explosion.
The noise of the blast rocked a little village. Then
he saw something bright like a comet, fall from the tank.
It was Bill Watts. He was on fire, and Dwight
(02:25):
Birdwell started running. I'm Jr. Martinez and this is Medal
of Honor Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor is
the highest military decoration in the United States, awarded for
(02:46):
gallantry and bravery and combat at the risk of life,
above and beyond the call of duty. Each candidate must
be approved all the way up the chain of command,
from the supervisory officer in the field to the White House.
This show is about those heroes, what they did, what
it meant and what their stories tell us about the
(03:08):
nature of courage and sacrifice. That moment that night at
the tank changed the course of Dwight Birdwill's life. It
transformed him from a tough twenty year old determined to
fight into someone who could not look away from the
terrible cost of war, someone who would ask God at
(03:30):
that moment, and for many years afterwards, why was I
the one to survive? Dwight's story is about a lot
of things. It's about the priority feels in being part
of the Cherokee Nation, a community with the remarkable history
of military service. It's about his extraordinary bravery in the battlefield,
(03:52):
an episode that feels like it's straight out of a
Rambo movie. Dwight, it turns out, is a guy who
put himself and harm's way over and over again because
that's where he felt he belonged. But most of all,
it's the story of a man coming to grips with
the feeling of guilt that even the highest honor in
(04:14):
the military could not absolve. Dwight Birdwill never really knew
his father. His dad was an oil filled worker of
Cherokee descent, a hard drinking man who was in and
(04:37):
out of jail a lot. He pretty much disappeared from
Dwight's life when he was little. When Dwight was three,
his mother met and married Ed Birdwell. They settled in
Oklahoma in a town called Bell. Here's Dwight remembering.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The community was about ninety percent Cherokee, maybe more. It
was a very very rural area, an area of poverty.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It was a hard life, but people may do.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I lived right around a creek, and every morning I
remember a Cherokee lady coming down the creek, and the
evening she would come back and she would have a
shring of fish over her shoulder that she had caught
to feed her family.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Dwight's stepdad was a farmer, and his mother worked in
the fields picking beans and strawberries. Even though Dwight was
a talented student, he was discouraged from even thinking about
going to college. The message from his high school counselor
was essentially, you're an Indian, you won't amount to anything.
(05:42):
But Dwight was determined. He decided to find his own
way out by joining the military. He knew the GI
bill would send him to school, and he'd liked the
idea of service.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
A lot of the Cherokee man and the community and
area had served in World War Two and served in Korea,
and they emphasized that it was a Cherkey tradition to serve.
So I did it out of a sense of duty
to the country and out of a sense of obligation
(06:14):
to Cherokee ancestors.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Dwight was eighteen, with deep set eyes and a crooked
smile and dark hair parted on the side. He was
already fit for the army, but not because he played
football or basketball or wrestled. Get this, because he worked
chasing chickens six nights a week.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
We left home about five or six in the evening
and went to northwest Arkansas and caught chickens all night
until daybreak. You go in and catch the chickens, and
then you would run outside and you would climb up
onto a flatbed truck and load the chickens, run back
down and go get another batch of them all night long.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
That's a random detail, but I love it. I'm just
not sure I've ever heard of a nighttime chicken catcher before.
What even is that? Anyways, back to Dwight in the Army.
When he enlisted, he asked to be sent straight to Vietnam.
This was spring of nineteen sixty six and the war
(07:20):
was just warming up. Even though Dwight tested so well
that he could have gone to officer training at West Point,
he chose combat instead.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I felt like that was my duty, my mission, to
go where I was most neated, and I felt like
I was most neated in Vietnam. Of course, I didn't
necessarily want to die, but if that was my destiny,
that would be my destiny.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
In September of nineteen sixty seven, Dwight landed at Tunsanut
Airport outside of Saigon. He remembers marveling and how beautiful
and greening the countryside looked from the plane, and he
remembers seeing a line of body bags on the side
of the runway and thinking, this is it. I'm here.
(08:11):
Dwight was assigned to Troop C, third Squadron, fourth Cavalry,
twenty fifth Infantry Division, which we're going to refer to
the way that he did as the three quarter calf.
It was tasked with se carrying Highway One, the main
supply route running northwest from Saigon to the Cambodian border.
Dwight was well liked and for once his intelligence was recognized.
(08:34):
He was given a spot doing radio repair, but he
didn't like the relative safety of the rear echelon. He
wanted to fight, and before long he joined a tank
crew as a gunner. He knew exactly how dangerous it
would be.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
If you're going to tank, you've got an iron coffin.
It's just a matter of time.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Dwight was convinced that the US was right to be
in Vietnam. He saw the bodies of town officials assassinated
by the National Liberation Front. He knew how brave they
must have been to stand up for their values. But
he saw dead via Con guerrillas two. They were young
about his age, and Dwight looked at them and thought,
(09:16):
they aren't evil, They're just as idealistic as I am.
But as nineteen sixty seven turned to nineteen sixty eight,
Dwight and his platoon began to stumble across well hidden bunkers,
caches of weapons, signs of movement of change, and then
the early morning of January thirty first it happened, a
(09:40):
coordinated attack throughout South Vietnam. It would be known as
the Tet Offensive. Here's a news report describing the situation
in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It all amounts to the most ambitious series of communist
attacks yet mounted, spreading violence into at least ten provincial capitals,
plus American air bases and civilian installations, stretching the entire
length of the country.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
The order came down to Dwight and the three Quarter
calf to get to tan Sanute Airport. It was the
most active air base in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
They said, there is a squad of VC breaking into
the wire at tan Sanut. The three Quarter calv was
so confident down that we sent two turns down. There
were only about sixty of us that went down, and those.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Two contains, they thought they would only be fighting a
ragged handful of Via coom. They outpowered and outgunned that
kind of enemy force before. So the men got into
their tanks and went. But what awaited was in a skirmish.
It was an ambush. The tanks of the three quarter
(10:58):
calb barreled down Highway One toward the Tansanute airfield. The
second platoon was at the lead, Third platoon Twipe's platoon
followed behind. Third tracks kicked up dust as they rumbled
forward through their early morning hours the sky grew lighter
and overcast gray. The trip down was abnormally quiet. The
(11:20):
convoy passed no civilian traffic on the road, and the
nearby houses seemed to be deserted. It was almost peaceful.
Then the lead tank reached the airport and a wall
of fire erupted from a hamlet along the side of
the road. Chaos.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
They let us go right into the middle and then
cut loose, and within very short period of time a
couple of minutes to laid patone was pretty much wiped out.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It wasn't a scrappy group of Vietcong that was waiting.
It was the North Vietnamese army, and they now surrounded
the convoy on three sides. The sky was suddenly filled
with eerie green lights falling towards the American tanks. They
were tracers which the North Vietnamese used to see where
(12:13):
their fire was going.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And there's all these spring Chraisier's coming out and all
these rockets coming in boom boom, and I'm typo what
and the world's going on.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Dwight's tank was at the very front of his platoon.
As the lead platoon exploded, his tank pulled in right
behind them. One of Dwight's friends, Franklin Kuff, was in
the lead platoon. He and other veterans who knew Dwight
spoke about their experiences in a documentary made by Osio
voices of the Cherokee people. Frank remembers seeing Dwight's tank
(12:47):
rattle into place.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Man, it's seeing good. We got to do shelting. And
that's when third petun come pulling up and there's Doight
like a Knight in shining armor.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Almost instantly, Dwight's tank commander was hit a bloody hole
where his left eye had been. Dwight got down and
lifted his commander out of the tank under heavy fire
and put him in the ditch that ran just along
the side of the road. The injured gis from the
lead platoon were gathering there as well, and then Dwight
(13:21):
returned to his tank and took command. Every vehicle ahead
of him had been put out of action, and there
was no way to retreat. There were too many wounded
that would be left behind.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I can't remember the bullet climb by my head, you know,
just thank boy, that's an unpleasant sounds, but I kept going.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
He started firing back. He didn't have time to fill
any fear. There was no place for it. He used
the tank's cannon, He used the tank's machine gun. His
head and torso were exposed to enemy fire, but somehow
the bullets didn't find him. In the meantime, more survivors
(14:05):
from the Leeds platoon were making their way to Dwight's position.
The ditch beside his tank was the only spot with
any kind of relative safety. Even though the enemy was
advancing close on Dwight's left, he couldn't fire the tank's
cannon in that direction because he would hit those wounded gis.
(14:25):
So instead he got up on that tank, took aim
with his machine gun, and opened fire. David Young was
one of those soldiers taking cover in the ditch that day.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
If they hadn't been for these high fired rounds going
over my head the other way, I wouldn't be here today.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Dwight was fully exposed to enemy fire. Bullets whizzed by
close enough to blow the communication device off of his
tanker helmet, but still he didn't get hit.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
What was going for in my mind was to keep
fighting until I went down. If I went down, I
wasn't gonna shop.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Part of his helmet was shot off. He could no
longer provide battlefield updates to his commanders. He couldn't get
any guidance either. All he could do was shoot and
drive the enemy back until.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
He used up all my ammunition.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
There was a helicopter directly above him. It was the
three quarter Calves Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Otis. He was
circling the action, leading from the sky. All of the
men in a three quarter Calve adored Otis. He was
a brilliant leader, fair and brave, ready to be as
(15:44):
much a part of the action as his men were.
And then Otis's helicopter took a direct head. It was
about to crash, and it was heading straight for Dwight's position.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, I'm watching helicopter come down, thinking this is not real.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
The helicopter hit the ground, bounced hard, and came to
a stop, the skids mashing down the barred wire fence
that ran alongside of the airport. Otis and his crew
got out and ran from the helicopter as fast as
they could in case it caught fire. Dwight watched them
scramble away, and then he thought that helicopter has something
(16:26):
that I need. He hopped down from the tank and
raced to the chopper, cutting his legs on the concertina wire.
Dwight made it to the chopper, pulled two machine guns out.
He passed one to a friend, got the other back
on top of his tank and opened fire.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
He wasn't slowing down at all. He just kept doing
a job.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
He kept going, protecting those wounded men in the ditch
next to him, holding off the enemy, and inevitably he
was hit.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I just remember a big flash and a lot of
blood coming out of my head and down my face,
at my chest and what have you.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
He had shrump, no wounds. He was bleeding badly, but
Dwight wasn't worried about that. He didn't feel like he
was particularly injured. He was worried about his gun, and.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Of course that M sixty was in two pieces. I'm
looking at my gun. It's like a toy, you know.
That's torn a hack. What am I gonna do now?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
He only had the side arm in his holster. It
would have to be enough. They were shooting all around
him and the enemy was still on every side. He
was bleeding from his head. He was majorly outnumbered, but
he hadn't lost his resolve.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So I just felt like, I'm going to fight as
long as I can. I wasn't gonna say die until
I was dead.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Dwight got off the tank and went down to the
ditch where the other soldiers were. He rallied three of
them to advance to the front of the column of
tanks to set up a defensive position. It was a
crazy move, four guys trying to hold off a ton
of enemy fighters, but to Dwight, it was the only move,
(18:22):
the only way to keep the enemy from coming over
the top and getting to the wounded gis.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
One guy was a non Indian from our harbor, Maine,
and I got two Native Americans from Port Gamble, Washington,
who was actually a medic, Oliver Jones, And then there
was an Ottawa from Michigan. And we went down the ditch,
took up a position to hold off the North vietnamions,
(18:49):
and we were pretty low on the ammunition, and that
looked like that it was almost over with.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
They huddled in front of the convoys lead tank big
tree that stood alone by the road. When they peeked
over the edge of the ditch, they could see hundreds
of enemy soldiers. They were massively outnumbered. Dwight looked over
at the airfield where he arrived in Vietnam less than
a year before, where he'd seen those green body bags.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
It was an eerie figiling at that point because we
were right on the runway and these large airliners Esetern
PanAm World Airwaves were sitting out there, just ready.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
To check off. Those airplanes were filled with people getting
out of Vietnam, escaping from the war, going home to safety.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Here we were about to die looking at those big
planes and just was very, very strange figling.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Dwight and the other soldiers threw grenades at the enemy.
Machine gun rounds hit the tree above their heads, showering
them with leaves and branches, and then and they heard
the rumble of vehicles. Troop B of the Cavalry was
coming to help. Even with his life on the line,
Dwight saw some humor in that.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
You know in the movie the cab is always saving
non Indians from Indians, and here's there's three Indians being shaved.
That wasn't a movie script. The cabs saving the Indians.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Helicopters flew low over the open fields. Dwight remembers them
laying down a smoke screen to conceal the arrival of
troop B. Then the air filled with the sound of
American tanks taking out the enemy positions. The wounded gi
started getting loaded onto Metovac helicopters. Dwight was ordered to
(20:48):
board one two. Remember he was bleeding from his head.
He got on it all right, but then he just
slid across and out the other side of the chopper
and returned to the fight.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I had to get back from the battle. I could
still go.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
He helped the other men, those wounded guys in the ditch,
loading them onto helicopters, getting them to safety, and then
finally he was forced to get help himself.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I've put on a helicopter and it was full of bodies.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That helicopter felt like an airborne morgue. But it could
have been so much worse.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
He saved many, many, many lives. At Mey, you just
can't believe what he did that. Nay, it's hard for
me to believe it, and I saw it.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
The Army agreed with Frank. Dwight received a Silver Star
for his actions that day. He was, by all accounts,
a bone of fied hero. He knew that his survival
was nothing short of a miracle, but the thought of
the people he couldn't save nagged at him. And then,
(22:02):
several months later, on a creepily quiet night, it all
caught up with him. After ted the war and Vietnam changed,
the enemy suddenly seemed to be everywhere. Morale among the
American troops was terrible. Their focus went from winning the war,
(22:23):
whatever that might mean, to just surviving and getting home.
Dwight had been a true believer, but he began to
feel dragged down and depressed. All the same, he still
had his unique capacity to keep pushing forward, and even
when he wavered, he took his commitment to service seriously,
(22:43):
which meant that his fight of a lifetime kept happening.
Here's his friend Ted Bagley, who served with him, speaking
on that Ossio documentary.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
We talk about Tossin Knut and the things he did,
but he did that the whole time we were at Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It wasn't a one times fare. That's what people don't understand.
Dwight received another Silver Star in July of sixty eight
for going back into an enemy occupied village to rescue
stranded American troops. Nobody had wanted that assignment, but do
I volunteered for it, not once, but twice, over and
(23:23):
over again. Dwight put his life on the line and survived.
Birdie had at least ten tons of news. He became
commander of a tank and was particularly close with two
of the soldiers that served with him, Bill Watts and
Harold Donnelly. Harold and Dwight were best friends, pretty much inseparable,
(23:47):
and Dwight looked up to Bill.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Bill Watch was very tender guy, very compassionate, had a
view of life that took me years to get.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Two which brings us to that by the road, in
that little village, the one I told you about at
the start of the episode. A stifling hot July night
in nineteen sixty eight, Dwight's platoon was set up along
the roadside. The water buffaloes moved in their pen as
Dwight peered out into the darkness to figure out what
(24:18):
he was sensing, what felt wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I got bailed up and I put him in a turret.
I said, you take over. I'm gonna go afterre and
do some ricon. I went out searching for North Vietnam
Asians and I couldn't find anything.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And that's when he turned and saw the RPGs hit
the tank and his friend Bill fall out of it
on fire from head to toe.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Bill Wats came out of that tank tent of ball
of the fire, just.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Like in Tons and Nude. Dwight didn't hesitate, so I.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Run back to the tank, didn't get Bill. But as
I'm carrying him out, my friend Harold Donald said, Dwight,
help me, help me.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I'm hurt.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I said, Harold, I'll be back to help you when
I can. You be a man, you take that pain.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Being a man taking that pain was the logic Dwight
had learned over all those months in Vietnam. But after
he got Bill out of harm's way and went back
for Harold, he saw what had become of his friend.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
So I got back after I'd taken care of Bell,
got Harold, picked him up. Harold was mangled, his slashless, impatience, strange, haining,
and I forever to this day feel bad about what
I said to Harold Donald.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I just want to pause here and point something out.
This recording was made more than fifty years after that
terrible traumatic night, and Dwight is still crying when he
remembers the way he spoke to his friend. I think
that tells you more than anything else. Who Dwight birdwill is.
(26:22):
A day or so later, he went to see Bill
in the hospital. He was racked with guilt. He kept
thinking it should have been me. I should have been
able to prevent this. He was looking for his friend,
not seeing them anywhere, when I heard.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
This boy and it was Bill. Don't you recognize me?
I didn't recognize the burn he had. I were fierce
and I knew he was dying. And we talked for
a bet, and afterwards went out. I shot down. I
(27:06):
just cried and cried and cried.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
And then he noticed people next to him sitting in
that same waiting area.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
There's a vietnamaged family. Come I right, and they had
a young girl, probably six or seven years old, just
incredibly beautiful young lady. They're so pretty, and she was
so happy.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Here is something Dwight hadn't seen for months, something beautiful
and peaceful and warm, an antidote to the pain of
seeing his dying friend.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
And then all of a sudden, she turned her whole
face to me, and it was blown away. On the
right side of her face.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
The side of her face was a mass of scar tissue.
Her eye was gone.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And I just felt not well. No more. I can't
tape this anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Dwight Birdwill, the truest of the true believers, the first
to volunteer for action. The warrior was done with the war,
just done. He served the rest of his tour, and
then he got out as fast as he could. When
his flight left Vietnam, Dwight looked out the window. The
(28:33):
green paradise that had greeted him when he'd flown in
sixteen months before was gone, and its place was a
landscape that looked like the surface of the moon, pock
marked with craters, burned and destroyed. He wondered to himself,
what was it all for? Bill died of his injuries.
(28:57):
Harold Donnelly survived, but with medical issues that would plague
him the rest of his life. He and Dwight stayed
in touch until he died. Dwight always felt that he
had been bad luck for Harold. Dwight took Bill's dog
tags with him when he left Vietnam. He carried it
on his keychain for years, as a reminder, maybe or
(29:22):
a penance. Dwight's story does it end there? Of course,
the army gave him the ability to do the thing
everyone said he couldn't do, go to college, become a lawyer.
(29:48):
He married a sweet girl named Virginia, who had also
grown up poor in a cherro Key community near his
They had two kids, a daughter and a son, but
none of it it is easy for him. When Dwight
first returned home, he drank, He had nightmares. He carried
those memories of Bill and Harold, of the other men
(30:12):
and the civilians he couldn't save with him like a
sack of stones. And like so many veterans, he cannot
talk about the war at all.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
The war haunted me for years, particularly that saw Why
did I travive? And so many other.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Purists. Then, late one night in nineteen seventy nine, as
Dwight was drinking himself, as he puts it to the
bottom of a fifth of bourbon, he decided two things.
The first to stop drinking. The second was to stop
obsessing over the things he could have done differently in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I had a reckoning. I came to the conclusion that
there was nothing I could do about the past. I
could just live for the future.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Right around that time, something else happened. Dwight saw his
old commander, Glenn Otis again in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
He had told me a few days after Tom said,
he said, I'm going to recommend you for the Medal
of Honor.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
But nothing had ever come of it. And now here
was Otis, who had become a four star general since
the two had parted ways in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
He asked me what happened to the medal of honor
and I told him. He said, We're going to have
to do something about that. And I just felt like that,
you know, just one of those changes that would never happened.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The years kept going by. In addition to his law practice,
Dwight went to work for the Cherokee Nation, serving as
one of three justices of the Supreme Court. Eventually he
served two terms as Chief Justice of the Cherokee Nation.
It's a fitting role for a man who could so
clearly see both sides of a conflict, and all during
(32:08):
that time and for long afterwards, General Otis worked to
get Dwight his Medal of Honor for his brave stand
at the airport that first day of the tet offensive.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I never wanted the Medal of honor. All I wanted
was a fair consideration. General Otis got me that pair
of consideration.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Finally, in May of twenty twenty two, more than five
decades is that action at Tons Newt it happened.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I got a call from President Biden and he said,
I'm going to award to you medal of honor. And
he talked to me very graciously for about ten minutes.
Going into the conversation, he said, this is a big deal.
And then somewhere else in the conversation down the road,
(33:00):
he said, this is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It is a big deal. But like so many men
who have been awarded the medal, Dwight doesn't see it
as something for him. He sees it as something for
all those other men who fought and didn't survive.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
This medal is for the men who went down that day.
It's for the family except those who didn't make it.
It's for those who were critically injured and later died
or later lived in parad lives. I'm thankful for it.
I don't mean to say you that I'm not thankful,
but it's for those men, their families, For the Tree
(33:41):
Quarter cab and the twenty fifth Temperature Division.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
President Biden put the medal around Dwight's.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Neck and that a long last, At long last, your
story is being honored as it should have been always.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Some of Dwight's friends from the Cave were there at
the ceremony. So was his daughter, Stephanie, who currently serves
as the Director of the Office of Tribal Government Relations
at the Department of Veteran Affairs.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
And I might know Native American communities serving the United
States Armed Forces at a higher percentage rate than any
other cohort in America.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Dwight's daughter thinks she understands why that might be.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
Native people, as the original inhabitants of this land, have
an especially strong connection to the land we live on.
It is truly our homeland, and that can be a
powerful inspiration source of motivation to serve.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
When Dwight walked away from the war in Vietnam, he
stopped doing one kind of service, but he didn't stop serving.
He worked to help the Cherokee Nation as persistent as
he ever was on the battlefield. I think his devotion
to service must stem in part from the guilt that
he still carries even today about the people he wasn't
(34:59):
able to save, but it also stems from his deep
bedrock of faith. He believes that when his time comes,
he will stand before his God and maybe then finally
he will find the absolution that he can't give himself.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And then when I did go up for Judge Fund,
if I had the courage, I would ask God, why
did you let me go up? Did I fulfill your expectation?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
The Medal of Honor, by definition, tells the world that
Dwight bird Will didn't just fulfill expectations. He went far,
far above and beyond them. I can't imagine his Maker
will disagree. Medal of Honor. Stories of Courage is written
(36:08):
by Meredith Rollins and produced by Mereth Rollins, Jess Shane,
and Suzanne Gabber. Our editor is Ben Nadaf Hoffrey. Sound
design and additional music by Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer
is Constanza Gallardo. Fact checking by Arthur Gomperts. Original music
by Eric Phillips. Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of
(36:30):
Honor Society, the US Department of Veteran Affairs, and Cherokee
Film Productions for sharing material from At Long Last Dwight
Birdwell's Medal of Honor from the docu series Ossillo Voices
of the Cherokee People. We also want to hear from you,
so send us your personal story of courage or highlight
(36:50):
someone else's bravery. Email us at Medal of Honor at
Pushkin dot fm. You might hear your stories on future
episodes of Medal of Honor or see them on our
social channels at Pushkin Pods. I'm your host, JR. Martinez
Host
Malcolm Gladwell
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