Combat Leadership and Cold Truths with Major General (Ret) William M. Matz

Major General William M. Matz, Jr, U.S. Army (Ret), was appointed as the eighth Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission in January 2018 by President Donald Trump, a position he held until March 2021. 

General Matz is a highly decorated combat veteran of the United States
Army with a distinguished military career spanning four decades. As an
infantryman, he served in Korea and Panama, and as a company commander with the 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam, where he was wounded in action in the 1968 Tet offensive. He served multiple tours in the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions and was executive secretary to two secretaries of defense, Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci. During the Vietnam War, he served two years with the Navy/Marine amphibious forces in the Pacific and deployed with the 7th Infantry Division to Panama during Operation JUST CAUSE in 1989. 

Upon retirement from the Army in 1995, General Matz worked nine years in the defense industry. He was first employed by Raytheon Company as vice president, Army Programs; and later as general manager for Vinnell/Northrop Grumman’s Saudi Arabian National Guard Modernization Program in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, returning to the United States in June 2004. 

In 2005, President Bush appointed him to the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission, where he served until the commission rendered its report to the Congress in 2008. He is also past President of the National Association for Uniformed Services (NAUS), a national veteran’s organization that advocates in Congress for service members, veterans and their families. 

He is on the Eisenhower Institute National Advisory Council and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association. 

He is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Airborne and Ranger Schools, the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Gettysburg College and a Master of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of San Diego. He is also a graduate of Harvard University’s Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security. 

Among his military service awards and decorations are the Distinguished Service Cross (second highest award our nation bestows for valor on the battlefield), Silver Star, Bronze Star for Valor, Purple Heart and the Combat Infantryman Badge. 

General Matz was born in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Linda, reside in Naples, FL, and have three children and seven grandsons. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hey, what's going on.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
This is rad your host for soft Rep Radio and
I have a really awesome episode today. As always, I
have to talk about the merch store. So let's go
check out softwarep dot softwap dot com Forward Slash Merch
Store and go check out the latest from Brandon Webb
and the guys behind the scenes who are making cool
branded merch like soft Rep shirts. And we love being

(01:03):
tagged in those pictures on the Internet, so keep it up.
The other thing that we love talking about, and if
you're new to the program, welcome, But that's our book
club and we have soft rep dot Com Forward Slash
book hyphen Club and you can go in there and
just peruse the library of books that have been put
together by the operators behind the scenes here at soft
Rep for you so you can enjoy it. And if

(01:23):
you've already been a part of the book club, continue
reading books and using that gym for your mind, which
is a book.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Now today we have.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
A very distinguished guest, I should say okay, many titles
from American patriot to general, to secretary to probably father
and son. We have former retired Major General William M.

(01:53):
Katz also current Secretary at the American Battle Monuments Commission
on the show welcome.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
No, no, no, it's nice to be here. I'm not
currently the secretary, though, I'm the former secretary.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Former secretary, Ah, distinguished. Okay, excuse me, former second. We're
cool with that.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
I'm going to read I'm gonna drop your bio. We're
going to read this here, okay, and then get to
know you a little bit and then just go from there.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
All right, Is that cool with you, William?

Speaker 4 (02:19):
That's fine.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Major General William M. Katz, US Army, retired, was a
Secretary of ABMC, appointed by President Donald Trump in January
twenty eighteen. Matts is a highly decorated combat veteran with
a distinguished military career spanning five decades. As an infantryman,
he served in Korea and Panama, and as a company
commander with the ninth Division in Vietnam, where he was
wounded in action in the nineteen sixty eight offense. He

(02:43):
served in the eighty second and one hundred and first
Airborne Divisions and was executive secretary to two Secretaries of Defense,
Casper Weinberger and Frank Carlucci. Matt served two years with
the Navy Marine Corps Amphibious Forces in the Pacific during
a second tour in Vietnam, and deployed with the seventh
Ftry Division to Panama during Operation Just Cause in nineteen

(03:03):
eighty nine. Upon retirement from the Army, Matts worked for
Raithian Company as Vice President Army Programs, followed by General
Manager of Vinyl North Grummans Saudi Arabian National Guard Modernization
program in Riad. Saudi Arabia. President George W. Bush appointed
him to the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission. He is also
past president of the National Association for Uniformed Services. He

(03:25):
is on the Eisenhower Institute National Advisory Council Council and
a member of the Board of Directors of the American
Armed Forces Mutual Laid Association. He received a Bachelor's of
Arts degree in political science from Gettysburg College and a
master's degree in political science from the University of San Diego.
He is also a graduate of Harvard University's Senior Executives
and Government management course. His military service awards and decorations

(03:47):
include the Distinguished Service Cross, Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star,
Legion of Merit, Bronze Star for Valor, Purple Heart, and
the Combat Infantry Infantry Badge. Mats was born in drex Hill, Pennsylvania.
He and his wife Linda reside in Great Falls, Virginia,
and are the parents of three children. Welcome again to
the show, sir.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Well, thank you. It's nice to be with you, right.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yes, And you know, Daniel said, hey, Rad, I've got
someone that would like to be on your show.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Let's get them on and here we are. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Well, well, Rod, you know you mentioned about the many titles. Yes,
the best title I ever have is Grandpa.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Grandpa another title, right, see there's another title.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yeah, seven grandsons.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Seven grandsons. Wow, they've got some lineage to look up
to there, don't they.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Well, you know that's one reason Rad I sat down
and actually wrote the book. I was penning out notes
to leave to my grandsons. Oh yeah, as sort of
a written legacy. I wish my dad had done that
for me as a World War Two vet, but he
left all too early and he didn't do it. So
when I left the Trump administration, I told my wife,

(04:55):
this is a good time to start to write out
something and lead to the grandsons of the kids. So
so anyway, that's how I got there. I got one grandson,
Rad that still thinks I fought in the Civil.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
War, So because you fought so many Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
So I thought i'd better leave him a written legacy.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Your classic. That's great, you know. And and where did
you come up with the title of your book? Uh?

Speaker 4 (05:21):
You know, I came up with that because really, as
you can see in my book, it's really a soldier's
lifelong struggle with polio. It's overcoming polio as a young child.
So my toughest battle, Rad has been overcoming paralysis as
a young boy and then coping with and fighting with

(05:44):
the with the after effects of polio my entire life
as an infantryman in the army, which which really wasn't easy.
So I titled the book my toughest battle.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
You know.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
When I went into Air Force, Uh, as young man,
they made me drink some polio as the vaccination, just
to make sure that I had that.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah, no, that was the liquid vaccination.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, I got that, you know, me, So you had
to overcome it, just like some great presidents had to
overcome it as well.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yes, yes, no, no, you're you're exactly right. I was
stricken with polio as a young boy. I wasn't quite
six years old in nineteen forty four, living outside of
Philadelphia with my mother and my sister. My dad was
in the Pacific overseas in the war, and I came
down with polio.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
One day.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
I couldn't get up and walk. I fell down. I
tried to get up again and fell down. They took
me to the hospital, gave me a spinal tap, and
diagnosed me with polio myolitis another name for polio rad is.
And I say this because this generation living today, thank god,
they haven't had to deal with polio, right, they don't

(06:56):
know much about it. But it was also called infantile paralysis,
that's right, and my leg was parallels. My right leg
was paralyzed from hip to toe. And the doctor said
at that time that I would never be able to
walk again without the use of a crutch or a brace.
So obviously, as the story goes, I proved them wrong.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
You did. Airborne had a.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Lot of wonderful medical help, and it was my father.
But he came home from the service, got out of
the service at Christmas was it Christmas Eve? Nineteen forty five?
He didn't want that crutch or that brace anywhere around.
One day he told me, he said, Bill, you take
that crutch and brace, you throw it under the bed.

(07:42):
I don't want to see it again. I don't want
you to be a cripple. And of course my mother
was very upset. She said the doctor said he needed it, etc.
But a couple of days of arguing why he wanted
a brace went under the bed. That was probably a
seminal moment for me in my recovery because it did
get me up and having to push and walk following

(08:02):
many times, but getting up on my own two feet.
I just tell that because that's part of the story
in the book.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
No, it's and it's amazing, right because you've gone on
to get into the military. So so, so here you
are as a young man with polio, right, okay, and
then what was your favorite sport that you like to
be a part of. Were you a scout growing up
as a young man and you know, dealing with this,
were you trying to be in boy Scouts and you
know how did you how did you get to the
run face?

Speaker 4 (08:29):
Yeah? Well yeah, so yeah, you can retill call your
days as a young boy. You know, young boys want
to do everything. You want to keep up with your friends.
And I had a very difficult time doing that. Once
I was released from the hospital.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, I was still on.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
An outpatient protocol, but I tried to keep up with them.
My one leg was after feed so to this day,
I were a size twelve on my left foot and
size nine. I had a I had a permanent lib
but but all the time, my my, uh my anterior
horn cells which are destroyed by the polio virus. They

(09:11):
were starting to grow and reinvigorate as I grew as
a boy. But it was tough. I mean, I couldn't
ride a two wheeler when all my buddies were I
was still on a three wheeler. Can you imagine?

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, no, it's yeah, right, you want to.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
They would make fun of me, rat you know, and
laugh and so forth, and yeah, no, I would fall
down every once in a while trip, but I'd get
back up, hould in and get back up. I wanted
to be with them and I wanted to play football
in uh in grade school.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
So, uh, I think you get a call.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
Yeah, So I worked real hard to make the football
team uh in uh in our junior high school football team.
So that that's a partial answer to your question on
what sport did I want to do? But I just
wanted to push myself and make sure I could do
everything a normal boy would do.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
I get that from you. That's why I was asking
that question. You know, it's because you've gone on to
do those things. You've gone on to exceed that I
already know, you know with just your your titles.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Right. I mean, let's talk about the general.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Right, you had to get in the military, and being
in the military, you had to do pt and physical
training against everybody who didn't deal with the pole.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Well not everybody.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Some people probably had to deal with polio in their
life like you did, right, you know, and get through
and so I mean you had to run, did you
have to? I mean, what was your what was your
enlistment like, because it's Korea, right, are you enlisting in Korea?

Speaker 4 (10:37):
No? No, I went through Army ro OTC at Gettysburg College, Right.
I was commissioned to second lieutenant through the college. And
when you filled out the questionaire to go into ROTC.
Why I wanted the disqualifiers was was polil and of
course I had to check that I had to be
honest and to get into the program though, they sent

(10:59):
a neurosurgeon up from Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in
d C to give me a final examination, et cetera,
and he reluctant me past me. Had he had he
failed me, my life would have been different. So just
a series of how there's a little bit of luck
in everybody's life. So so yeah, I got into the

(11:22):
RTC program. I managed to play lacrosse in Gettysburg College.
I had a lot of wonderful coaches and mentors that
pushed me and helped me along. And I think having
at Pollio was a young man and just driving myself
and not wanting to be a cripple, not wanting to
be embraces or a wheelchair gave me that grit and

(11:45):
that perseverance and that personality that I have to day
that I'm not gonna quit, I'm gonna I'm gonna make it,
I'm going to get through. And so that's what got
me through some very difficult times in the Armies. You
can imagine I went into UH Airborne School, I went
into UH ranger training. I had had a very difficult

(12:06):
time in ranger training. If it wasn't for one of
my ranger buddies, I probably wouldn't have gotten through that.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
But why why why? What was the what was the
difficult training?

Speaker 4 (12:15):
Ranger training RAT is the toughest training the Army has.
It's a nine nine and a half week course. The
last phase of the course by and I describe all
this in my book by Toughest Battle. Yes, yeah, yeah,
I I tripped tripped on a on a we were
on a night reconnaissance uh missig uh on Santa Rosa

(12:36):
Island in the Florida phase of ranger training, and I
tripped and uh uh really had a difficult time getting up.
So this big ranger buddy of mine, Paul Stanley, picked
me up, put me over his shoulders and carried me
through the rest of that course. Had I not, had
I not made that last phase, why I may not
have gotten a ranger table. It's another, you know, another

(12:58):
simple full example there of somebody helping me. But also
I think of my ability and wanting to get through it.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, and just just to push yourself through just to
say you can do it.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
I feel that just comes right out of you as
a young man. It's like, you know, to lose something
and then to regain it, you just want to run
with it.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well you're exactly right right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yes, one hundred percent. Am inspired by that.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
And I think that people going out to get your
book or checking that out would also find a lot
of the same kind of goosebumps.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Really, you're giving me goosebumps. Yeah, well, just how cool
it is because you push through.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yeah, and I also I also elected you into the infantry.
I don't know how familiar are with the army, but
there's about eighteen branches within the army itself. So I
could have taken an easier track, you know. I could
have could have gone into one of the combat support
or combat service support units. But I chose the infantry,
which is the tip of the spear. They're the guys

(13:58):
on the ground that winning the last one hundred yards
of any fight. So I went in the infantry. I
was intury officer all my life, and in that role,
while you you're out with UH with the infantry units, companies, battalions, brigades,
they run do pet every morning up I went and

(14:20):
did it with him, and it was very, very painful
on some mornings because a lot of times as you
listed soldiers, they wanted to outrun the old man.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
You know, of course, Well it's a pir right pa,
just like a parachute infantry regiment.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Right.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
You guys are like airborne. You guys are always staying
keeping your legs. Your legs have to be toned. My
father was My dad was a Green Beret, so yeah,
and so his legs look like like really horse stable,
like horse racing legs, like a horse, you know, just
nice and tapered and just like bam. But that was Dad,
and now I'm trying to chase that in my forties.

(14:54):
I'm like going to the gym every day, boxing, doing
flutterkicks and just trying to push myself to get those
same type of like you know, I know Dad had it.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
I'm like, I can get there. Come on.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Well, you know, I mean, that's interesting you say that, rat,
because the good bit of my career in the Army
was with the airborne units, the eighty second and one
hundred and first Airborne units. I mean, I wanted to again,
I wanted to prove myself that I could do that,
I could do everything the West Point officer could do, right,
everything everybody else did. So I kept pushing myself wanting

(15:28):
to get into the elite units, and that took a
toll on my leg over the years.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, and going in through rangers and just so much running.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
And then just winding up in this like what the
All American AA, the eighty second Airborne, the.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
Eighty second Airborn Division, right, the All American and the Screaming
Eagles is one hundred and first.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
So what, of course, were you like a brigade commander
over the eighty second at one point or is it
a division? How did your command over in eighty second work?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
How did that work?

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Yeah? Well, first of in one hundred and first Airborne Division,
I was a battalion commander and you have about six
hundred and six hundred and fifty men under you there
in the eighty second. And I actually had two tours.
I started out there as a young lieutenant back with
sixty two and went through the Cuban Missile Crisis for
them and some very other very interesting events that happened

(16:24):
during the Cold War, and then I came back to
the eighty second in nineteen eighty and I was the
G three or the operations officer of the eighty second.
So boy, that really kept me busy. He kept me running.
And you know, a lot of parachute jumping, a lot
of exercises, operations and so forth.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
How many theaters did you jump into theaters of operation that?

Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah? How many different theaters?

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah? Did you get the stars on your jump on
your jump wings? Do you have different stars?

Speaker 4 (16:53):
No? No, no, I don't have any stars on my
jump wings. I am a master.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Umper ago right, so you have the main star on
the top of it.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yes, I got the mains right, right, I'm a master jumper.
But no, I jumped into the deserts of Egypt on
a bright star operation back in nineteen eighty one, eighty two.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Static line all the way, dude.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, no, it was quite an operation. Yeah.
So but you know, with an atrophy leg and a
bad leg, you're you're constantly right, you're constantly protecting it,
you know what I mean. Sure, So jumping out of
an airplane is easy, it's the landing that stuck.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Right. Knees together, right, that's what Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Knees together and toes on the ground. But I always
you know, it's funny how you compensate when you know
you have a weak member of your body, right, So
I was very careful always to try and not land
on that right leg at all, and I always favored that,
and so the left leg took all the eating and

(18:00):
so forth.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
So you kind of had a different kind of gait
when you walked as well. Is that is that what
I'm understanding or did you you know?

Speaker 4 (18:07):
I did know you're understanding, is right. I always had
a limb and uh, of course, when I was a
young boy growing up and having this atrophied leg which
is thinner than the other and the foot shorter than
the other, and I had dropped foot, I always disguised
that lint, you know, I was. I was ashamed of it.
I didn't want other people to know that I had

(18:27):
that right. So so it was a difficult time for
me growing up and getting getting through and a lot
of people that I had been friends with all my life, Uh,
they never really realized I had polio until I wrote
my book and they started reading about it. I mean,
that's how I was sort of able to disguise it

(18:47):
and get through life.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, and I'm sure some shininess on your shoulders made
everybody look kind of face forward, you know.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
My eyes are up here, yes, right.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Here, looking at my feet, right.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they should be looking at your straight ahead,
at the shininess whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
I just see shiny. That's great.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
And so you achieved the rank for my listener that
may not be familiar of major general and if I may,
that's two stars?

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Two star?

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Right? That first star?

Speaker 4 (19:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Wow?

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Two star general is the right guy achieved before I
retired from the army in what September of nineteen ninety five,
So yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Just after a Blackhawk down operation Gothip Serpent and ninety
three was in that timeframe, and just after all of
the ninety five So you've.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Served under multiple presidents.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah, I did, right, And you always seem to transition
with the different presidents that were coming in with you
as an officer. And you know, do you mind giving
a little feedback on what your mental toughness is about,
you know, maintaining your bearing when there's a transition of
presidencies in this modern day?

Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, Well, as I say, I served on active duty
from what was at sixty nineteen sixty two to nineteen
ninety five. As you know, Arad, that was the ultimate
period of the Cold War. Sure was, so I went
through a lot of operations and exercises as a young lieutenant.
The eighty second was alerted to go down to Cuba.

(20:33):
When krush Cheff put those missiles in Cuba, I'll tell
you we were all set to go. That was thirteen
thirteen very tough days there. In October sixty two, we
were all set to go. They broke out ammunitiative plane side.
They sent some airborne units to forward air bases down

(20:53):
in Florida. We were ready to fly in and jump in.
I can remember this day. He drop zone I was
going to jump into, moved north across the Almendares River
link up with the Marines that were coming across the beach.
But thank god, we never had to do that. As
you know, Kennedy, the young President Kennedy back crushed off
and he pulled the missiles out. So that was one

(21:14):
major major event that I was involved in. And then
I was also involved in, of course, the Vietnam War. Vietnam, Yeah,
was the big one. I was a rifle company commander
in the Mekong Delta in the ninth Infantry Division sixty
seven sixty eight. The period sixty seven sixty eight RAD

(21:36):
was probably the toughest ground fighting that took place in
Vietnam with during those two years. They were the two
years I was there. I went through the Tet Offensive
in January sixty eight and then came home in what
November sixty eight. Then I was also involved when I

(21:58):
was with the seventh infit Treaty of Vision in nineteen
eighty nine. You may remember Operation just Cause that was
the US invasion of Panama. Yes, we went down and
got Oreega, that's right. Yeah, he was threatening Americans down there,
and his pdf Panamanian Defense Force really one day killed

(22:22):
one of the Americans down there, and that's sort of
what precipitated the first President Bush to launch that operation.
If you'll recall, during that operation, a Chairman of Joint
Chiefs was Colon Powell, and so I was with the
seventh Infantry Division at that time, stationed at Fort Ord.

(22:42):
We got the alert it was three or four days
before Christmas nineteen eighty nine, that we were going down
and we got eight infantry battalions down there. The air
Force did a tremendous job bringing the aircraft in and
we flew out of two departure airfields Travis Air Force Base, Monter.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Ray out of California. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah, civilian based at California, and we got our infantry
down there very quickly. They joined up with the paratroopers
that had jumped in and uh right, that was That
was one of the best operations I think the Army
in recent years. Uh well, all services executed. It was
well planned, well executed, and we took down a PDF

(23:25):
very quickly and eventually captured Noriega, set him in handcuffs
back to the States, and we reinvigorated the Panamanian government
and uh you know, the story goes from there exactly.
So that was so that was quite an operation that
I was involved in.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, I think I have a friend who was involved
in that operation. Maybe I could say Nightingale. Yah, yeah,
is it Colonel Nightingale?

Speaker 4 (23:51):
Yeah, colonel is he? Is it Keith Nightingale?

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
I don't think I've ever met him, but he and
I are sort of about the same year group, you know.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Sure, yeah, because I had him on the show. Sure,
I know he.

Speaker 4 (24:06):
Writes a lot of books at all, So please tell him.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
I said, hello, I will, I will.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
And so it's just it's just cool to hear your
perspective of it, and you know, the way that you're
approaching it, just so deliberate, direct, just concise about the
situation and you know, and he was like, he's a
part of all that South America stuff going on in
Panama and you know, you guys have just you know,
you mind me and my dad. I'm not gonna lie, Okay, Right,
he was in Vietnam, green beret and nothing but love

(24:33):
for you. And I don't know if you've ever been
welcomed home officially from nom but let me be someone
to say, welcome home from there.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Okay, so welcome back.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
Well I appreciate, yeah, I you know, there's a lot
of there's a lot of stories rat about the troops
from Vietnam not being properly welcomed home.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
I actually I hate to use the words, but being
spit on and things like that. You know, when I
came home for my first tour in Vietnam, I didn't
experience any of that. I mean I got off the
airplane in Philadelphia, my family was there to meet me.
I had a young wife and our son was what
I forget, he was like maybe twelve thirteen months old
at the time. But we were very well received by

(25:20):
the people there in Philadelphia in nineteen sixty eight, no
vendor sixty eight when I got off that airplane. But
things started to turn really bad then in the sixties,
as you know, and during the latter part of the
Vietnam War, I mean it got bad, man, and yeah,
a lot of our troops they received very unpleasant welcomings,

(25:40):
I guess when I got back, and even after they
were back.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
You know.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
I've had my experience with some veterans from Vietnam who
have talked about that same exact thing what you just said,
and some have said, hey, you know, I didn't experience it,
but friends did in different demographics of the country. Yeah,
more in the cities it was more, you know, but
in the Midwest where he was from, he didn't really
receive any you know, pushback during that time. But you know,

(26:05):
we in today's modern media, it's just everything so quick.
We just are like, if we're not seeing the war
as a civilian, is it even happening?

Speaker 2 (26:14):
You know? And in Vietnam.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
It took maybe two weeks to get the article of
the ambush that went wrong or went right.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
To the States.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
You know, the reporters would have to you know, truck
it and get it back, you know, send their papers.
Fax machines weren't really a thing, you know, and computers
and cell phones. What we're using starlight, you know, to
try to use night vision in Vietnam, trying to use
billows to capture the light.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
You know, it's nothing like.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Today's modern technology of PVS fourteen's where it's just like
you're just.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Like right into green eye mode.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
I mean, so much technology has you know, come and
and put itself into the military. And one of my
veterans that I was talking to just the other day,
he said, you know, well in Vietnam, rat they did
try to drop ground sensors you know, into the bush
to try to you know, get movement of enemy movement
in there. So they were trying to use technology back
in that timeframe, you know. And I guess to just

(27:05):
bring that full circle with the news media coming back
to telling the people on TV, you know, the stuff quicker, faster,
that's worse, you know, and so that probably you know,
the sixty sixty nine, seventy seventy one. You know, at
that time when everybody's like, you know, trying to say
in the war, they were getting faster and faster media

(27:26):
brought to them, I think, is what it was.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
Yeah, you know, well you're absolutely right there. I mean,
you know, there were no cell phones, there were no computers,
but you did have the woller cronkite to the world
and the news media who got their cameras there and
then brought it right back and throw it into the
living rooms of every American and right they did it

(27:50):
in such a way as to sort of turn America
against the Vietnam War. Yet our soldiers over there were
fighting your ass off doing a damn good job. Believe me,
I was there.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
I know you were.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
And and to see that Korea and Vietnam were to
help thwart communism from you know, seeping itself is really
good versus evil. The situation was just still, you know,
the thirty eighth parallel in Korea, where they decided, you know,
if I understand that correctly, is like a circle over
the area of a longitude latitude that dictates the South

(28:22):
and the North Korea. You know, de Militarized Zone right
the thirty eighth parallel, and so you know that's still
going on today. These guys are still stuck in North
Korea has never conceded.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Right, No, no, no, that's right. And a chapter in
my book that sort of skipped over right before I
went to Vietnam and after the eighty second the Army
sent me to Korea for a year. This was nineteen
ninety five, and I was assigned right up on the DMZ.
It's called the demilitarized Zone. It's one hundred and fifty

(28:56):
one miles across across the Korea. On the north side
is you've got the North Koreans. In the south side,
you get the South Koreans. And I was right up
there on the DMZ and our mission at that time,
this is even before Vietnam really started to really seriously escalate,

(29:17):
but our mission at that time was to capture, capture,
or kill North Koreans who were infiltrating South they were
tunneling under coming through the wire, et cetera. So that
was quite experience for me as a young officer.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
How old were you doing that? How old? How old?

Speaker 4 (29:34):
I was probably twenty four, twenty five years.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Old, probably a first lieutenant.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
I was a first lieutenant and actually I was promoted
the captain during my tour over there. Oh wow, I
was in the first cave up in the DMZ. It
was it was a great experience for young officer who
was still not quite sure he was going to make
the army a career. But yeah, we we lived with
live ammunition as at at a bunk every night. Uh.

(30:04):
It was a real live mission. It opened my eyes. Uh.
And then I came back and went to Infantry Officer
Advanced Course at Betting and then over to Vietnam.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
What do you think about the current situation there where
they are digging the roads out around the Did you
hear about this in the media or you know in
the national in the international news where they started digging
out the roads and like taking the roads away from
the DMZ in the north?

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Is that is? This?

Speaker 4 (30:31):
Is this in Korea?

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Right? Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (30:33):
Uh, you know I haven't seen that. No, No, I
haven't read that one.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, They're they're like bulldozing the roads so that no
one can drive on them. North Korea is bulldozing like
their own roads.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Oh, I see.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Within the DMZ area, like so that no one could.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
Even well, you know, get to get back to your point.
We still theoretically, as you know, we are at war
with still in North Korea the South because there was
never a treaty. There was only there was only an armistice.
So we have signed an armistice, and an armistice was
across the thirty eighth parallel, and the South Koreans face

(31:10):
the North Koreans every day. And we still have about
thirty thousand American troops over there in.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Korea right now, right just you know, training.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
Yeah, yeah, just as we talk, Well, they're actually training,
but they actually have operational duties too. I think I
think our troops still have part of the DMZ that
they're responsible for in terms of surveillance and anti infiltration.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Operations holding it down. Yeah, exactly like what you were doing.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
Exactly And in fact, I guess you would say they'd
be a trip wire if anything happened there.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
But yeah, then then if it goes off, they're the
first line that's going to go off, and then everything
goes from there. M No, if it's gonna be if
it's gonna.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Be so guerrilla style or something coming through the wire there,
I mean, I can only imagine the battles in Korea,
the feet and everything from all our soldiers. You know,
today we have at least boots that have better installation,
you know.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you some of the coldest nights
I ever spent was up there in the DMZ in Korea.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Oh boy, cold yeah, cold, yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
You know, elect of the Korean War in nineteen fifty
through fifty three. Talk to the Marines and the army
guys who fought there the elements. The winter was as
bad as fighting the fighting the Chinese communists in the
North Koreans.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Right, it was like I think we got involved in
forty five to fifty and then in fifty to fifty
three is when we got action in Korea, right, And
I think Armstice was signing fifty three, yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
July fifty three exactly.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah. Right. See, that's it's not toped enough. There's not
enough about that.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
You know, there's not enough like movies put out there
about Korea. You know that we have all the other conflicts,
but a lot of folks forget that. You know, a
lot of our troops like yourself went over there to
you know, protect them from communism.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yet again.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
So that's why I asked, how many times have you
jumped into a different theater? Right, because you've been in Korea,
You've been in you know, Vietnam, you've been in Panama.
It's like, you know, I was just curious about that
for my own self at the beginning of our conversation.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, yeah, well there are the theaters that I operated in. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
And did you ever you got your Combat Infantry Badge.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
I got my Combat INFANTRYW Badge after thirty days in
combat in Vietnam.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
In Vietnam. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
The requirement back then when we were fighting in Vietnam,
as I recall, you had to have thirty days combat
time in Vietnam and you had to be in an
infantry unit at the time. So yeah, that's where I
got my CIB.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Dang thirty days. It's like, I mean, you probably can
get action on day one. Yeah, you're like yeah, You're
like yeah, rad, Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
That's exactly right. Look at your smile. Yeah, I love
that smile. There's so much going on there.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
Those thirty days. I mean, you know, you're just so busy.
I mean my units, I was in the field almost
the entire time in the meat Cong Delta, trying to
flush out the enemy, meet meet the v C those
days when by pretty quickly though.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Yeah, I mean, you're just but that's your constant. You
were just constant. You were just like, yeah, and is
it is it? Can you just give me a little
bit of insight. Is it more rice field warfare that
you were dealing with, like rice patties and trench foot
or was it jungle warfare with trench foot?

Speaker 4 (34:40):
No, rod. I was in the Delta uh So, which
is south of Vietnam all the way to the tip
of the southern part of Vietnam. And that's what they
call the meat Cong Delta, one of the one of
the world's biggest rice producing areas, and it's laced with
rivers and and uh and canals and things like that.

(35:03):
It's all rice patties. So we were almost every day
we were trudging through at least a foot foot and
a half maybe two feet of water. If you got
up on the dikes, the dry land dikes, the VC
would booby trap them, you'd lose a soldier, you know.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
So you were you.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
Were constantly one search and destroy operations, moving out based
on based on intel. They gave you to try and
flush out and find the VC. But you were, yeah,
you were constantly at water. Your your your your second enemy.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
There was.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
There were terrible fungal and dermatology diseases that our troops
picked up there. In fact, I write about it in
the book Again, I got one that was diagnosed that
it took years to actually finally get rid of it,
so that if you got it too bad, you couldn't
stay out too long. You had to get back and
dry out. That's the only way you could take care

(35:58):
of it.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
But we had a lot of soldiers often on sick
call because of these derbatology diseases that went up their
legs as a result of being in that filthy, putrid
delta water.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Right and and not being acclimated to it.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Yeah, yeah, and you weren't. I mean, you know we were.
We were white skinned, black skin guys weren't acclimated like
the leathery skin of the of the local inhabitants.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Exactly.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
They knew how to handle it. They're they're they were
immune to those kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
I mean, they'd wear sandals.

Speaker 4 (36:37):
Carried the feed out. We couldn't wear sands. We were
in combat booth. So yeah, yeah, yeah, the Delta. The
Delta was very tough. I'll tell you it was very
tough on an infantryment. Not only were you fighting fighting
the enemy, the VC, and not only were they trying
to kill you, but you were fighting the terrible elements
of the delta. Uh, the putrid waters and the right

(37:00):
and the leeches that would get up into your skin
and you have to either burn them out the next
night or dig them out.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
A little bit.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah, So Delta was tough.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Delta was tough. It was tough, It was.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
Not friendly, and it was roaring hot too down there.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Why do I just envision like mortar fire in the water,
hitting and all that kind of combat is what you
had to go through.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Yeah, yeah, well, I'll tell you. We fought mainly the
main force VC units. They were well armed with Chinese
communists and Russia weapons and ammunition. They were indigenous to
the area. They operated in sandpans at night, and they
could move at night. They were wiry, tough, battle hardened

(37:50):
troops that we had to fight and dig out. It
was not easy in that they were a tough enemy.
I learned to respect him, as did my men early on,
and they they booby trapped the hell out of everything.
They knew the American soldiers' weaknesses. They knew we couldn't
operate in that delta too long. Eventually you'd get up

(38:10):
and walk on a road or the hard stand or
a dyke. So they booby trapped all that. As soon
as you did that, you lost the soldier or two.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
And then that just affects the whole entire element that's
moving along in that area to have to fix a casualty,
take care of somebody that just got wounded. So they're
trying to take the whole the whole platoon that's moving
out out of the line, out of the fight.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
You know right, You're exactly right. You get a wounded
man like that, you have to stop operations and bring
in metavacs.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
You know right. And then they're like waiting for that.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Yeah, and then they're waiting for a yellow smoke to
be called out so they could throw a yellow smoke.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
Yep, no, no, no, you've got it. Yeah, you're exactly right, yep.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yep, it's it's it's wild.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
So were you wearing solid green odes olive drab ods
that was at your uniform one of the things.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Yeah. Yeah, it was solid, it was solid, drab, a
very light, a very light fabric because of the heat
in the water. And then we wore we wore the
Delta combat boot, which was more porous than the others, uh,
you know, to allow the air to get in and
out as much as possible.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Of course the water drainage holes.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
Yeah, yeah, And we didn't we didn't travel with heavy rucks.
We didn't need to. We had a small delta pack.
We mostly just carried ammunition, uh, as much ammunition as
you could, and many canteens of water ye uh and
also as h many pouches of first aid equipment things

(39:46):
like that is what we carried. We didn't have the
heavy rucks. At night they would bring in your food, mortar, ammunition,
things like that. So we had to travel light because
just trudging through that delta and that mud, it was
a sucking mud, you know, you can just imagine.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
And that was law rockets you were.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yeah, you were using law rockets right, and the whole
kit and kaboodle, I mean whatever you could. What was
your main weapon? Was it an x M one seven
seven car being? What were you using?

Speaker 4 (40:16):
Well, no, our main weapon was the M sixteen, and
I carried the AR fifteen as a rifle company commander.
I was a captain at the time. The troops had
an M six and then we had the M sixty
machine gun, and we had the M forty nine grenade launcher,
and we also carried with us on operations a crew

(40:40):
served ninety millimeters rocket rocket launcher which was shoulder fired,
and each platoon had at least one of them, and
that was a two or three man team that would
take turns carrying that. That weapon came in handled handy,
often blowing up bunkers and things like that, and then
at night they would bring in heavier weapons. As you

(41:02):
set up your perimeter at night, they bring the mortars in,
set them up, base plates, tubes, eightml watars, and occasionally,
if we had the fields of fire with they bring
in a fifty caliber machine gun which you could set
up on a tripod. But they came in at night
with the with the helicopters bringing your chowl and things

(41:24):
like that. That's essentially how we operated. Some nights sometimes
they couldn't get those choppers in, so you just went
into a perimeter defense out there pretty much naked with
what you had.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
That's what I was just gonna say, because I'm listening
to what you're saying, and you're basically just creating these
quick fobs here and there, just setting up a perimeter
and then they're flying in, and then you're just setting
up a perimeter around where you guys are at a
defensive perimeter.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
And like you said, if they.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Can't fly in, then it's just you guys with the
amo that you took and the canteens of water because
you can't drink the muck that your friends in.

Speaker 4 (41:59):
Yeah, no, no, no, that's right. And they gave you
pills to disinfect the water, but hey, let me tell
you those didn't work, and we were we were not
going to drink the water where they just didn't work.
So water was very key and essential. Ammunition obviously obviously,
and then having enough medical uh uh raps to stop

(42:23):
the bleeding when a soldier, you know, you.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Probably gus uh you know, chest chest chest packs, you know.

Speaker 4 (42:34):
Uh those kind things.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, yeah, those types of things is what you guys
would be carrying because you're seriously just going up against
the enemy, right and man like tunnels have to just
been something you weren't prepared for either, right, was there's
a lot of tunnels in that area.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
Uh well, uh, you know, as I say, it.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Was most there was low light lying huh, low light.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
The towns and villages were all along these stuees and
canals and the Mekong River and the Basic River which
flowed into it. Uh so there was some hard stand
where that was. That's where the villages, yeah, were et cetera.
And they dig they did dig some tunnels down in
there where they could, and uh that was another whole operation.

(43:19):
When you came across the village where there were tunnels,
then you got your guys who were tunnel rats. These
were usually my uh my Puerto Rican soldiers, young, you know,
not real big framed, wiry, and they would get down
in the tunnels with a flashlight and a pistol and
some concussion grenades and flush out what was down there.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
That's incredible, just the spirit of a human being to
go into the unknown of an abyss of a tunnel. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
Yeah, I mean I couldn't fit down one.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
You know, I would write, well, I'm six foot four
to seventy the military two thirty. I'm not the tunnel guy.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
Yeah, I know, you're right, but I had some good
tunnel rats and believe me. And walking point, Brad, walking
point and going down into the tunnels of the two
most difficult jobs. And if you have manhad in the delta.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Man, why the point? Why do you think walking point?
Don't you get to see it first?

Speaker 4 (44:24):
Well, walking the point, you're the first one out there,
and you got one hundred anywhere from one hundred and
forty to one hundred and fifty men in tune formations
behind you spreading out the point. Guy is the first
element up the trail or on the dyke, et cetera.
And he's going to trip the wire. You know, the
enemy's going to see him first, shoot at him first.

(44:45):
So he's very vulnerable, Yeah, very vulnerable.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
And then also he's got everybody behind him that he's
worrying about returning fire over him. So he is basically
just maybe even laying down flat trying to return fire.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Well, that's another point. You're exactly right. You know you
had to be careful then, you know, not to hit
your own men. Sometimes when you're in a firefight.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
You have to try not to do that, you know,
like I understand it.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Yeah, it's well, I mean, you really tried terribly hard
not to do that, and just like you try not
to hit the civilian population, the innocent civilians. Right, but
war war rob is terrible, I mean battle, battle on ground, battle, infantry,
battle is terrible. I mean, you're going to there's always
going to be some fratricide. There's always going to be

(45:37):
some innocent people who are who were wounded or killed
in the casualties of war. And believe me, it happened
in Vietnam too.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
I did you know. It's not like that's the goal.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
It's just that how do you start differentiating when you know,
you go into a village and there's hooches everywhere and
it's just the consistency, and you're like, you know, you
don't have to wear just a black pajama to be identified.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
You know, could be right.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
And they could take off their uniform and blend in
just like a native and you'd be like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yeah, And if you don't speak the language they got
you that that's it. It's like they came here.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
No, you're absolutely right. It was an irregular war we
fought in Vietnam, and your US Army was not prepared
to fight that war.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
In the nineteenies.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
We got better at it as time went on. But no,
it's tough now. I had some two Hoys with me.
I read about this in the book. Two Hoys were
Vietnamese who defected from the VC or the North Vietnamese,
and they came over, were captured by the Americans or

(46:43):
the South Vietnamese, and they were sent to a schooling
of about eight or nine weeks. Uh, and they actually
they actually turned and then they joined US units or
South Vietnamese units. I had three or four. We called
them two hoys, uh, which means open arms, you know,

(47:04):
come over to us. It was quite a great program
they had there. Marines had them up north, we had
them in the South.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
And they were they were a big help to you
because they knew the area. Uh. And they could tell
you when you picked up or captured a few, even
captured a few women, whether or not they were trustworthy,
whether or not they were VC, or whether or not
they were actually friendly. So you use them an awful lot.
They were. They were real force multiplier for me, even

(47:32):
out at my my level.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Oh yeah, because they would just tell you right away.
They would know, they just know.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
And they and they believe me. They hated they hated
the the North Vietnamese and the v C. They saw
what they did to their families. They saw what they did.
They knew they were the communists, and uh uh we
paid them. They were actually on the on the American payrolls,
the most most infantry units in the army atys with them,

(48:00):
at least in the Delta.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Delt That's incredible. I hadn't heard about the Chew hoys,
you know, in that respect, you know, but it makes
total sense because they're also being you know, brutally killed
in the war, you know, and seeing their families die,
even by the hands of their own countrymen, and so
they're like, you know, I'm over this. I'm not gonna

(48:22):
Communism is not for me. I'm not cool with this.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
So no, that's right. I've got a photo, one of
the photos in my book is me with a couple
of my Chwo hoys there.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
That's so cool.

Speaker 3 (48:35):
I mean, it's just so cool that you're telling us
about it. We're just going to capture this, you know,
so it's out there. So as you mentioned, one of
your kids can maybe hit it, hit play, you know,
and be like, what did dad say? To this guy
on this podcast. What are we listening to right now?
He just call him dude. Isn't he a sir? A secretary?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Oh man?

Speaker 4 (48:59):
Yeah, yeah, right, it's an excellent podcast. I feel very comfortable,
and so do you. We're discussing back and forth, yet
you're learning and the facts are getting now for your
radio audience, you know.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Yeah, And it's just it's just the best way for
me to go, right. I like, I want to get
to know you, like my listener or viewer wants to
get to know you. And this is exactly it. You know,
your stories are so genuine and captivating the way that
you present them, and I know there's so much that
goes on in here. I know you've been privy to

(49:30):
so much in your life and that you're taking things
with you like my father took with him no matter
how much I pestered him.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Yeah, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad Dad. He's like some things
just go with me. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
I'm just like, okay, So, you know, on behalf of
being a selfless person yourself, you know, and just doing
all these things for the nation, you just seem, you know,
to persevere when someone says you know you can't. You're like, no,
I can't, you know, And and I think that that's
what's inspiring about your book. And you have every right

(50:03):
to call it my toughest battle, and the fact that
your toughest battle was just getting away from polio.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Yeah, to prove that you could do.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Anything you want, you know, and that it's all just
a matter It seems like of mind is what you're saying.
You know, you just have to put one foot literally
in front of the other and chase your dream or
your life, right.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Yeah, And you know, I'm glad you said that rad
for your viewers too, and for me because yeah, my publisher, Casemate,
they were looking at maybe different titles for me, et cetera.
But I selected the title and I hung with it
and kept put it the entire time, and it yeah, yeah,

(50:46):
it does ring true. This has been my toughest battle.
And of course I'm suffering with what they call post
polio syndrome now and being treated at the National Rehabilitation
Hospital in Washington, DC. The polio patients these are kids
like myself in the forties, fifties, and sixties who had

(51:07):
polio and have survived it and are still living many
of us are being diagnosed with what they call post
polio syndrome, where after all these years, your interior horn
cells start to disintegrate again. Your leg GE's weaker and weaker.
So I've got to wear a brace and use a
cane right now. But it really is amazing what I

(51:28):
was able to do in the army all those years
before this hit me. And I'm not complaining, believe me,
because some of my troops have a couple of their
legs off, you know, So I'm splaining about it. But
that is all part of what went into my title.
It's been my toughest battle fighting these debilitating effects of polio.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah, you just did, you know?

Speaker 3 (51:52):
And I think that's what probably gives your soldiers the
confidence to follow you into battle, is because they probably
picked up on some of these things. Maybe you didn't
talk about it, maybe you just kept moving on and
no one needed to know anything about your personal history
with your medical condition. But people can pick up on things,
and there's probably people chattering and they're just like, you.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Know what, if he can do it, I can do it. Yeah,
And if he's going to go, I'm gonna go. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
Well that's a good point. I mean, no, I never
talked about it, right, I never I never talked about
having polio. I mean, my father wanted to hide it
from day one, you know. And even when I was
in the locker room changing, when I was on the
football or lacrosse teams, I always tried to hide that
right leg because people could see it was a little thinner,

(52:37):
you know what I mean. But you're right, the soldiers
the bet are smart. Some people could pick up on it.
A lot of people picked up on my limp. I'd
be walking along and they say, hey, so you got
a little bit of a limp there, you know. I
didn't even answer it.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, up here right right here, right.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
And so uh and I always had a special boot
and a special limp in my boot. But but they
didn't see that. And you know, yeah, it's just just
just one of those things.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Maybe it's such an entered determination and just your overall
uh you are in the life you're supposed to lead,
how about that?

Speaker 4 (53:14):
Yeah? Yeah, well uh uh right, I'll tell you, the
life you live is the life that you make for yourself,
you know. And I wrote it afterward in my book.
I don't know if you've seen that It's just a
two page afterwards where I wanted to for the reader.

(53:34):
I wanted to compare the years that I grew up
to what America is like today. When I grew up
and you, when your dad grew up, rad there were
no safe spaces to run to. No nobody lowered the bar,
nobody felt sorry for you. People worked worked with you,

(53:56):
helped you, tested you, mentored you. But you were on
your own. And I'm glad I was brought up that way.
I had a tough German father, uh And I mean
he was air for me when I needed him, but
he didn't baby me. He didn't coddle me like you
see today, particularly in our academic institutions. It was just

(54:16):
it was just a different world. I mean I grew
up at a time when you were accountable for things. Yeah,
you screwed up, You got your hand slapped, got your
ass kicked, where you were thrown in jail for three
or four days. Yeah, so you were accountable. I also
grew up in a meritocracy. You were tested, you know.

(54:36):
I mean I got where I was. I guess because
either I failed to test or I didn't fail to test.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
So I grew up at a time of accountability and meritocracy. Hopefully,
hopefully rad that we're seeing some of this come back
today in America, but totally different time.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
When I grew up, you know, I got a friend
that's a recruiter and he said that, you know, he
he seems to be talking to kids still and they're
still you know, he thinks that the people that he's
enlisting are battle ready, you know. And we've had that conversation,
you because there's a lot of the speculation that, like,
our people aren't you know, physically fit or capable. But no,

(55:19):
I feel that he's doing the right thing to enlist
these young men and women, you know, and making sure
that they're capable. And as long as we have these
career counselors out there in the military who are talking
to the youth and just making sure that they're able
to go and talk to them and say, hey, you
interested in the Marine Corps, you're interested in the army,
You want to see what you can do, you like skydiving,
you know, things like that. It's just you know, give
him a talk to because you know, they are a

(55:40):
career counselor. And now, as I learned with like blended retirement.
These days, there's options in the military that people have
to enlist in. You know, it's you know, that's why
I kind of brought up, you know, how did you
transition from like one president who was say, you know,
Republican through another president who came in as a Democrat
and you still maintain age yourself without politicizing you know,

(56:02):
the military, right and so you know.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
You know, as you get as you're a soldier there
going through the ranks, major captain, major, lieutenant, colonel, colonel,
the general officer, Rob, you don't get involved in the politics,
you know that, you know, I mean each one was
my commander in chief, whether it was Bush, Obama, Reagan, Trump, Clinton,

(56:26):
you know whoever. I was down in the lower grade.
I mean, I never never got too involved with them
except where I except where I did work a little
bit closer in some organizations where I did get a
little bit closer, say to the White House. When I
joined to Reagan administration, as you cited in my bio,

(56:49):
I was the executive secretary to the Secretary of Defense
Casper Weinberger and Frank Carlucci in the late eighties. That
was a period of time when America was rebuilding from
those terrible Carter years when he gave away the Panama Canal,
when he when he sort of demolished the military services.

(57:12):
We had to rebuild from those four years. And so
that was a very interesting time working for Carlucci and Weinberger,
two great men. I had great respect for him. Weinberger
had been an infantryman in World War Two in the Pacific.
And yeah, so so, uh, you didn't you didn't really,
as I say again, as a career officer, you didn't

(57:35):
get you didn't get involved in the politics. Some administrations
I would say, probably were more fun to work work
in than others, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Sure, sure you could say that that's fair. You can
have that.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
You know, maybe there's a pizza party more than the other.
But you know, yeah, I respect that, you know, I
respect that you put the US first in front of
your name. You know, US Army, US Marines, US name,
US Air Force. You know all of the men and
women who serve currently with the US in front of
their name tape. You know, they took on the US

(58:09):
oath and I'm grateful for that one percent. You know,
I just want you to know, so that's positive.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
That's interesting. You said you talked to your friend who
was a a what a military career counselor, Right.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
That's what they like to go by. Yes, well it.

Speaker 4 (58:25):
Sounds like, you know, it sounds like he's got a
good attitude that there are some great young Americans out
there something that's right. I'm seventeen, eighteen, twenty year old
kids today that are fit, uh and can serve in
the military, because you know, you you only get your
news from what the what they broadcast, right, a lot
of it, a lot of it. They say sixty or

(58:45):
seventy percent of today's youth are not fit to serve
in the military. Well that really bothers me as an
American because it wasn't that way when I grew up.
But right, I hope that's not true, you know.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Right.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
And when I'm talking to these guys they come into
my you know, I talk to them, I really do, sir,
and it's like they seem to just say not us,
And I'm like, okay, cool, as long as I'm hearing
it from you guys, and you know, friends with them,
and and you know, if you're someone out there that's
thinking about joining and uh, you know, you listen to
this conversation, which is not regular media. I am like

(59:20):
a soft I am a radio podcast, Jock okay, And
we are talking and having a normal conversation, and I
talk to these people like you, and I can say, hey,
you know, I talk to you the other day and
this is what you had to say about Vietnam, you know,
And so it's just it's it's a it's a it
could be a small world, and it could be a
good world if we all just you know, stop evil

(59:42):
men from doing bad things and not just standing by idle.
And so I guess the youth need to step up
on that as well. And just know that it's on
your shoulders.

Speaker 4 (59:53):
Well, it's good that in your podcast, in your radio
shows like this, you bring these things out for you listeners.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
You know, yeah, I do, and I just want to
hear it here real takes. You know, we all hear
the straight gut shot. You know, what was it like
taking your first shot at somebody, or what was it
like doing this or that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
But it's different to.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Actually just have a casual conversation with someone whom you've
never met, show that you don't have to get to
each other's throats in this day and age, and you
can gracefully say it's been great to see you today.
Have a nice day, you know, And that's what we
just did. Ye right, And I blame my parents. I
blame my parents for raising.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Me that way.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
Where were you raised, Rod?

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Oh? So?

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
I was raised here in salt in Salt Lake City,
just outside Hill Air Force Base. So my dad was
with the nineteenth Special Forces Group here at Camp Williams.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
Oh yeah, I know Hill Air Force Base real well yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Yeah, so through the eighties.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
So I transitioned with him when I was seven, I
moved he was already here in eighty one, and then
we came in eighty three to Utah from California.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
So I was born in Cali, California.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Kid, I was transplanted to Utah. I'm the California they
fear here California moved here, Yeah, from eighty three.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Bro.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Well, I'll tell you right. No, keep having these veterans
like myself, thank you and listening to their stories and
asking them the right questions like you're doing. That's great.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Well, thank you so much, And I just want to
say that it's been a privilege to talk with you
and to get to know you, and you know your
six boys and your kids, and your grandkids and their grandkids.
Just like your grandpa and his grandpa. Somebody had to
fight to get you here today, to get them here today.
It's just some type of a lineage that we all
have in our bloodline. We're not here by chance. We're

(01:01:45):
here because somebody fought to make sure that we could
be here. So we have to continue to just be
the best stewards of what we have at our disposal
in our lives. And that's what I am is just
a steward of what I'm available with around me. That's
what I could do the best with. So I hope
that my listener enjoyed this show. I hope that they

(01:02:05):
go out and pick up My Toughest Battle, written by
General William Matts legitimately.

Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
Yeah, and Rod, you can get that. You can get
that on Amazon real quick, you know, or you can
buy it in a Barnes and Noble store.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
Get it on if you get it on the big River,
leave a review for the general because that helps.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
That helps, leave a review where you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Buy your book, all right, if you're going to one
hundred percent and you know, I've had your time for
an hour. You still seem vibrant, as if you're ready
to just get right back into the me Kong. I
don't think you want to, but.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
I think, hey, Rod, I got my kne right here ready.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
You know, I always want to go visit Vietnam, just
so I can say that back. And Nom, I just
want you know, I want to go there today, just
to go visit, check it out, see the beach, have
a beach party Vietnam, just so I can say back
when I was at the beach. Okay, a lot of
respect for you, and a lot of respect for everything
that you had to go through and everything that you

(01:03:07):
had to lead. And I'm not gonna cry. I was
gonna have chills and goosebumps and I want my list. Yeah, dude, yeah,
I know it's real. It's really You're very I know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Okay, it was just you gave us just a tip
of the snowflake of the iceberg of what you dealt with,
and My.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Toughest Battle talks about it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
More So, go check out My Toughest Battle, written by
my new friend Bill Mattz. So thank you so much
for being on the show.

Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
No, thank you, Thank you for all you're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Thank you all right, thank you and again. Check out
the merch store and check out the book club which
is soft rep dot com Forward Slash Book hyphen Club.
And my name is rad On behalf of Bill Say
in Peace Ye.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Use them.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Listening to self red Radia