Ep. 346 - Jim Morris, Vietnam veteran Green Beret - SOFREP Radio

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Ah beaut force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
using enough. You're listening to software Radio, Special Operations, military
news and straight talk with the guys and the community

(01:09):
soccrep dot com on time on Target. You know what,
I'm gonna mention that the background music figure hearing once again,
my friend John Burns did an amazing intro for this show,
which I don't mentioned often enough. Oh, I didn't know
that he did that. Ross Yeah, that's that's my friend.
Like custom theme song, and I remember I mentioned in
an email UM that people said it sounded similar to
the Top Gun theme and it does because I said, like,

(01:32):
think the Top Gun game, because our audience likes that.
So yeah, check him out. It's John Burns, but it's
John j O h n b y r n e
S just because he really hooked it up, did a
great job. So I don't I don't mention it every episode,
but uh yeah, and I also want to mention, uh
correct myself. Last episode while I was editing it edding

(01:54):
editing the show, I noticed that I mentioned that uh
soldier um who molested those underage girls, I said, Thomas Rosick.
I don't know why his name was William Rosick, but
I noticed that when I wasn't back, so it might
have been his middle name. But regardless, yees I was
like the issue point correction if I screw up. So

(02:14):
William Rosick getting into everything. I saw via social media
that you got to meet favorite of the show, which
I believe was the most listened to episode we've ever done.
In the first episode with him Mike Vining in person
for the first time, Yeah, um, you know, Mike and
I had corresponded for years, and um, he had mentioned

(02:34):
that he was coming through the city. Uh so we
got together and um, you know, met up and had
a coffee on Sunday morning before I had to head
off to a Yankee game. And uh yeah, it was
a great seeing him in person. He's a super interesting guy.
He's got like way more stories than even people realize.
So why was he in New York? Um just I

(02:54):
mean he's he's you know, enjoying his retirement. Um, I
guess coming to New York City the um was on
his wife's bucket list, something she wanted to do. So
they were going off to a play. Um. So yeah,
like I said, he's enjoying life. I just wish we
would have got him in studio, we have to. It
would have been cool. Um. But yeah, and he's telling
me a lot of stories about rock climbing and mountaineering

(03:18):
and um, he has a whole background. That's his hobbies
and so he has a whole background there and just
skiing I think too. King. Yeah, there's a lot of
interesting stuff that he's done. Um. He's even telling me
about how well he took a Delta team UH to
climb Denali Uh and he and also r near I believe.

(03:40):
And he was telling me this story about how when
China opened up on the Chinese side of Mount Everest,
he was supposed to go with some S A S
guys and climb Mount Everest. Well he's like, I don't
know if I would have been on the summit team
or not, but I would have gone up there to
the base camp at least. Um. And he said that
the S A S guys his So he was still

(04:00):
in Delta at the time. His commander UH denied him
t d Y said he couldn't go. So the S
A S guys what's t day temporary duty. Um, So
it wouldn't release him because he was an important person
in the unit. Like if something happened like you kind
of want, like you know, your senior E O D
guy there, um so that he was telling me, you know,

(04:22):
he he stayed home and the S A S guys
went and they got hit by an avalanche and one
guy got killed. Another dude broke his back. They lost
like all their equipment. How many times does this man
escape death? Like between that? It's true, I don't do
rally uh Granada just getting raked by machine gun fire.
I mean, like I said, he's an interesting guy and

(04:42):
that totally humble down to earth quaiet guy. You know,
did he say anything about the response to the episode.
I'm sure he's heard some people uh not really know.
He's kind of off the internet though, right, So yeah,
I mean he I mean, he stays in touch with
his friends and teammates and stuff. But I mean I
don't I don't think. I don't know it's crazy because

(05:05):
like I do think that episode got a bigger response
than any other episode we've ever done, more listens than
any episode we've ever done. So yeah, he's it's you know,
he's probably unaware of the memes that go around him
and all this other stuff. Yeah, I mean That's why
when I posted that picture up, people are like, did
he ask you if you operate? Yeah? But I'm glad

(05:30):
that that podcast got so many listens because you know,
Mike Vining was one of the originals and he served
this country for a long long time. Um, so I'm
god people are getting to hear his story. Does he
still talk to Jerry Boykin? I don't know. Yeah, I
just wonder because Jerry Boykin is a guy who's very
out there in the media and in the forefront, you know,
regularly on like Fox News, regularly on radio, and Mike

(05:52):
Vining keeps, you know, to himself for the most part. Yeah. Well,
I mean, yeah, Boykin is kind of a different, uh,
different ballgame, I guess. I mean they came up together,
so oh yeah, no, they were in the unit at
the same time. But a Boykin is h he's a preacher,
you know, so he's out there live from the word
of God. I guess, yeah, he's well, he's also very

(06:12):
big on that. You know. We tried to get him
on one the American Family Research Family Research Count and
I think that they like turned us down. I tried
to get him on before though, and you know, I
do know about the American Family Research Council, And they're
like a group that's very vehemently like antire marriage, yeah,
very conservative, yeah, and like very yeah social conservative values

(06:38):
type of group. And which is interesting because that stuff,
whatever your opinion on it, maybe it has nothing to
do with the military, which is his expertise. You remember
when we interviewed Oliver North and I asked him about
that operation in Sudan, and that was Jerry Boykin who's
there for that and uh and Oliver North had to
get out of jail free said it was actually a

(06:59):
letter signed by Ronald Reagan basically I get out of
jail free cards and saying these guys can do what
they want. We got to get him back on Yeah,
I would love to. I't have to get him in studio.
He's got some stories for sure, and he really does um.
All right, So before we get to Jim Morris, who,
by the way, former Green Beret serving in Vietnam. I

(07:21):
was looking at our emails and I think, because we've
been paying attention to the emails, you're bringing up the
big bang in Pyeongong. I'm swear to god, Hey, you
brought it. Uh. So we got a ton of emails
sent to soft rep dot radio softrep dot com, and
I'm gonna try to get to all of them because
they're all pretty good questions. Uh. This is from Joseph

(07:41):
Gent's first off outstanding job with the site and the
podcast specifically. I've been listening to the podcast podcast for
quite a long time and noticed that normal content on
soft rep is always better reported and oftentimes better written
than what is put out on the mainstream media. That
being said, I noticed very little has been mentioned about
the issues going on in Yemen. From the layman's perspective,

(08:03):
it almost seems like Yemen is on the brink of
collapsing into another serious situation, but conveniently gets overlooked, under
reported because if Saudi Arabia's vested interest in the region.
Just wondering if any of you guys had more to
say about it, cheers Joe, and then he says, PS
haven't listened to most of the earlier episodes. I just
wanted to give a quick kudos to e in the

(08:24):
overall quality and way out of the show has changed
for the better since he was brought on, and I
just wanted to say it hasn't gone unnoticed. Great job, dude,
So thank you, Joe. It's also funny to say, like
since I've been brought on, because there were only like
a few early episodes without me and it's been twenty
five maybe quite a few years. But thank you, man,
I really appreciate it. So anyway, onto Yemen. Totally legitimate

(08:45):
point about Yemen. Um. You know, we still are a
small news website and there's only so much ground. We
try to cover as much ground as we can. But
I think he's totally right about Yemen being under reported
and that we haven't done enough on Yemen. UM. I
think probably the reason why it's gone largely unreported, and
quite frankly about this is I think because Americans aren't there.

(09:08):
I think if Uncle Sam rolled into town, suddenly had
become a big story for the American press. But since
it's mostly um, you know, as you mentioned the Saudias,
there's a bunch of other people there, um, and you
know there there are Americans there but in and out. UM.
But I think we could do more on that, and uh,
I'd really have to go and invest myself in that

(09:29):
or get one of our writers to focus on it.
Be great if we could find somebody who really specializes
in that area and that subject because it is incredibly complicated. Um.
So yeah, I can. You already got the gears turning
in my head because there's a couple of stories Yemen
related i'd like to work on. One is about the
private military companies in Yemen. Um, there's a lot there

(09:50):
and it's a it's a very interesting story, very interesting country.
To get that out there at some point. Yeah, well
we'll have to talk about that. Um alright. This is
actually You've been asked this type of question before, but
I wanted to get to it because of this guy's background,
which I thought was interesting. Uh. Hey, guys, just wanted
to start off and say I love the show. It

(10:10):
keeps me saying at work while swinging a hammer. Awesome
to hear the life stories of the guys you've had on.
Favorite recently was Pat McNamara. He's one bad dude. Originally
he was listening to Brandon Webbs audio books and got
me tuned into the app and eventually becoming a team.
Remember my question for Jack, long story short, I'm a
professional m a competitor from Pennsylvania and by the way,

(10:32):
he is, which is ja hass j H A H
A A S. I looked him up, which is pretty
cool to see. Although from what I know with like
m m A, unless you're in the UFC or bellator, like,
there's not a lot of money in being a pro
mm A fighter, which you know he's not in the
big organization. It's like pro boxing probably yeah, which I
would hope we do see him there one day. Uh

(10:53):
turn pro at nineteen and twenty seven now, made a
deal with myself to give fighting a go until twenty
six or a list with eyes on a shot at BUDS.
I had a little brother in N s W and
a friend in the team, so I was biased there
but ended up in the Army office filling out paperwork
with intentions on an A T next contract. My guess,

(11:13):
I guess. My question is what would you tell someone
who's preparing for selection or going in as an SF
baby uh p S I N I know you're into
m m A and do some training whereat if you're
ever in p A looked me up. We running gym
down here with a few UFC bellator vets, would love
to have you in. Thanks in advance, keep it up,
And I did let him know i'd responded my Uh,

(11:33):
actually I go to a UFC. Jim, I do not
train a m M A or any of that. UM.
But it's you know, cool to see. But anyway, I
know you've gotten that question before. But yeah, UM, well
Jay is in a unique situation. UM, and you know,
good for you man going into the military. UM. I
think the main question he has to ask himself is

(11:54):
what does he want to do in the military. UM.
If he wants to go and be, you know, a
maritime commando, then should definitely go and join the seals. UM.
I think s F would probably be a good fit
for him because he's a quote unquote older guy. He's
twenty seven. UM. A lot of guys you know are
eighteen when they joined the military. UM. It sounds like

(12:14):
he were. He has experienced as a carpenter, talks about
swinging a hammer. He's probably in carpentry, UM, so he
has some work experience. He's probably a little bit more
mature than the average dude who's joining the military. UH.
For him, I would recommend going in as a Yes,
Special Forces is probably good for him, but a good
fit because that's a job that requires a little bit

(12:36):
more of a cool head, a little bit more of
a mature personality, and he could go in and be
an eighteen Charlie, which is a Special Forces engineer UM
and his carpentry experience will help bring a lot to
the table there um And of course in special Forces
they also practice army combatives, so his uh mixed martial

(12:57):
arts background will also be a big step up, a
big leg up for him, and he'll be able to
bring you know, this background, he has an m m
A and carpentery both and bring that into his military career.
And we talked about that at length, the combative stuff
with Matt Larson. He was on He's been on two episodes.
Actually you were only on one of them and then

(13:17):
the other was just me, Jim and Matt. Okay. Cool. Yeah,
So if people want to go back in the archives,
that was a really cool one. And thanks for the email.
All right, So this is from Kirk Whissing. Hello, guys,
I'm wondering if there are any foreign military units that
operate like green Berets training conventional forces of partner countries,
either overtly or covertly. If so, has the United States

(13:41):
military engaged these foreign forces during the g Watt through
engagement with their proxy forces. To the interested civilian, it
seems like this would be inevitable in modern combat. Thanks
to your time and then another ps, the George Hand
interviews have been awesome. So the answer to the question
is yeah, absolutely, there are other countries that have special

(14:01):
forces types type units UM that can engage in either
foreign internal defense or unconventional warfare. A lot of times
what you see is that with foreign countries is they
don't have the UM money and resources to have these
highly specialized units like we have. So what you'll find
is even like the Canadians and the Australians that their

(14:23):
version of rangers um SE soar in Canada and the
commandos Aussie commandos in Australia will do foreign internal defense missions.
So they will be deployed to UH. Like let's see
um SE sire UM was quite publicly deployed and sent
to Central Africa part of the Flintlock Exercise training UM

(14:48):
foreign militaries. The seashore guys will be deployed, you know,
over to some areas in their area of responsibility in UH,
in the South China Sea and Southeast Asia. UM. So
you see a lot of that um as far as
like actual like like the same, like replicating the same

(15:08):
capabilities as you as special forces. At the only time
I've really seen that sort of thing is where US
Special Forces, rightly or wrongly depending on your point of view,
went and deliberately tried to recreate ourselves. We tried to
build a mirror image of ourselves, and I saw that
in the Philippines. Um. And but see their special forces,

(15:29):
Army special forces, they train, um, indeedge people in the Philippines.
They don't go external, they don't conduct external operations, so
they're mostly trying to create, you know, a counterinsurgency movement
inside their own country. Cool alright, great answer to that question. Uh.
And this is from Kyle. Hey, guys, just wanted to

(15:52):
say thank you for the podcast. I look for military
related talk often. Typically it is for the e O
D related material, and it's it's extremely difficult to find.
It seems like the only one you have, But I
just listened to the one with Mr Raridan, but we
also have uh, I should say, Um, Mike Vining uh
and enjoyed it during a workout. I'm one of your

(16:13):
listeners looking forward to more e O D related content
whenever possible, as it is a desired goal in my
naval career. Thanks again, p O three Snyder Kyle Cool. Yeah,
that's awesome man. We we love doing those. Uh. And
as we said, like brings up a topic that you
don't hear about often. So if we get in touch
with any other e O D guys will do it

(16:35):
or Mike Vining in studio. Yeah, I need to I
I know I've said this before, but I need to
get ahold of um some guys from psy ops and
civil affairs, which are kind of like the forgotten branches
of special operations. UM. But and people ask us about
that too, like what do these guys do? I'm interested
in enjoining that? What? What's what's that job? I know
one psy ops guy, I'm sure I could get to
come on. UM, I have to find I know some

(16:56):
civil affairs people. UM, I'll work on it. Yeah, it's
not special ops unless they're are guy. I wouldn't know,
but I've said that I'd like to get someone who
operates like drone strikes. Oh what do they call rp
A pilots and interesting episode I think because it's just
a newer warfare. So i'd love to get one of

(17:18):
those guys on the show. I'll keep that in mind.
That's interesting. Yeah, I think it'd be cool because also
you hear about the PTSD these guys go through, and
it's different because they're basically they're like operating a video
game and a remote location, but they're very real consequence. Yeah,
and you're watching little people walk around on the screen
and then you vaporize them. And not to mention the

(17:38):
amount of civilian deaths, you know, as opposed to a
sniper like you are for the most part taking out
bad guys. Yeah, well, even if you miss, you're gonna
take out one innocent person. You're not gonna blow up
like a whole houseful of people. Yeah. And you know,
just looking at the statistics of civilians killed in drone strikes,
it's pretty horrifying. Yeah, especially like Pakistan. Yeah, jeezus, alright, Uh,

(18:03):
here we go. This is from Trey and the It's
titled settle this argument for me. Hey, guys, a short
time fan here, but I love listening to you guys. Uh,
please help me settle an argument once and for all.
I'm a senior in college that is about to graduate
with my bachelor's degree and who's tough for Force Navy Seals?
Now it said that my bachelor's degree in criminal justice

(18:25):
with a certification and criminal profiling and security management. That's
pretty cool. I plan on joining the military after I
graduate with my degree because my college is already paid
in full. I want to sign up for an Option
forty contract, but I've been told by recruiters and people
online that if I want to go in as an officer,
I will not be able to pick my mls. This

(18:46):
has caused several arguments between my mother and I because
she wants me to go in as an officer, but
I want to be sure that I'm able to get
an Option forty contract and so that I can go
to GRASP. I hope you guys can help me out here.
Keep up the awesome podcast. So the deal is officers
don't have an MS. They have a branch. UM. So
when they go through their officer training, whatever route they

(19:08):
take West Point or Green and Gold and they go
to what is it, O, B C and all that
kind of stuff, um there will be assigned a branch
and um they I was never an officer, never wanted
to be. I don't care about them. But if you
want to be an officer, I believe the way it
works is they take a certain percentage of each you know,

(19:30):
they look at like where you graduate, on what your
scores are, and they'll take a certain percentage of the
A students and the B students and try to evenly
distribute them into each branch. That's the way I was
told it works. So you don't, because otherwise what would
happen is all the studs would just go to the
infantry and the other branches would get screwed. Um. So

(19:51):
I believe that's how it works. Um. I think maybe
if you're like the honor grad at West Point, you
get to choose your branch. But otherwise it's kind of
like needs of the me right. Um So yeah, I
mean what he's saying isn't wrong. I mean, when you
join as an officer, your branch is probably gonna be
chosen for you. You're probably gonna be able to make
a suggestion like this is what I want to do,

(20:12):
but it's gonna be more needs to the army. If
you go and as enlisted, you're gonna be able to
choose your ms. Like you said, you can get that
option for d contract, which is just gonna put you
right onto the pipeline to be a ranger. Cool. All right, Well,
thanks Dray. Keep the emails coming. Soft Up dot Radio
a soft up dot com. We got to a lot
of them today. We don't usually do all that. But uh,

(20:34):
not so much news going on, you know, of course
the uh you know, there's Barbara Boush funeral and stuff
like that, but nothing really in our wheelhouse. To mention
of note, by the way, I noticed it's like quiet
and here today. I think everybody because the weather is
absolutely beautiful everyone. I think, you know, like we're in
and we're moving to a new office, but we're in
an office of all these startup companies, uh where I

(20:55):
think people it's almost like us. They get to like
pick your schedule a little bit. There's those first couple
of warm days in New York City, even more so
than the summer. It's like those first couple of warm
spring days. The girls in this town just stopped wearing clothes.
I love it, like all together, like barely wearing clothes.
I'm all about it. Absolutely can't complain. I wasn't complainings

(21:16):
pointing something out. If you're a tourist coming into the city.
You know, it might be a good day to come.
I would agree, alright. So with that, let's get over
to Jim Morris for the first time on with Us
is Jim Morris. This guy's got an awesome background, so
we're psyched to have him on. It's cool, Jack, you
make contact with a lot of the vets from the

(21:36):
Vietnam generation, and we've been bringing a lot of these
guys on, so I'm excited to hear the story Jim.
Just just a little background, Um from my perspective, is um.
You know, Jim is one of those guys who came
back from the Vietnam War and articulated his experiences very well.
And he wrote one of my favorite books I read
while I was in Fifth Special Forces Group called War Story,

(21:57):
which is about his experiences as a as a captain
and Special Forces in the Vietnam War. And it was
just really striking to me how similar our experiences were,
even though they are separated by you know, forty something
years and him in Southeast Asia fighting you know, communism
and maybe in the Middle East fighting terrorism. But there's
so many similarities and that's why I'm really happy that

(22:20):
I've been able to you know, reach out to Jim
and you know, we've been able to correspond over the years.
And I saw I should say that Jim has written
quite a few books other than War Story, Above and Beyond,
a Battle of Sorcerers, um, and and you know, just
a white guys know the background. Jim is a former
Green Beret during Vietnam, served in three tours. So it's
great to have you on, great to be here. Yeah,

(22:43):
thanks for coming up. You guys have been a great thing. Um.
Soft rep Is is just a major source for me
and and I hope for a lot of my guys
my age, because some of them know about it and
some of them don't. Yeah, we really, you know, have
a lot of pleasure in uh, you know, giving you
guys a voice and you know, like, uh, you know,

(23:06):
Mike Vining was also a Vietnam veteran. John Striker may
or another Vietnam vete that we have on the show
from time to time. Um. So, I mean it's really
important to me that you know, we we reflect back
on our past experiences and hopefully learned something from them. Well,
you know, there's there. It's so instructive to look at

(23:28):
both the similarities and the differences. I mean, the internal
dynamics are pretty much the same, but um uh minor changes.
You know, you change one factor in the formula, you've
got a different formula. And there are there are a
few things that have changed that that frankly scare me.

(23:48):
There's the improvements. Um Like, for instance, when I when
I first joined Special Forces, I was the first lieutenant,
and in those days at a long time to make captains,
so first lieutenant was a pretty good choice for an exit.
Um now you have to be a captain to join.

(24:09):
What I fear and this is okay, this is this
is me asking you, not you asking me about how
that's working out, because it seems to me that there's
a danger that the that the newbie on the team
is the top guy on the team, and that seems
dangerous to me. Yeah, that kind of is an issue,

(24:29):
and I think most of the captains, the Special Forces
captains realized that, and the n c O is kind
of regard them. I mean, I remember guys on my
team saying, you know, the captain is just a tourist
on the team because he's only here for two years
and then he's off to a staff position or something
like that. Um, it is an issue. I mean, I
don't think that you want to take a butter bar

(24:51):
and put them in charge of an SF team though. Um.
But maybe what you could do is take a lieutenant
and make them the assistant team leader, which is current
a spot held by warrant officers. UM. But I don't know.
I mean, that's something that you'd have to make a
very thorough study of. I'm not sure I'm qualified to
start rearranging the entire force structure like that. Um. But

(25:12):
it's an interesting question, and maybe it would help alleviate
some of the problems that you're that you're referring to. Well, Okay,
my best friend here in l A is Ken Miller,
who was a ranger in Oh yeah, Ken, and there's
also a super author and Ken Ken keeps telling me

(25:32):
that n c o s hate s F being a
branch and uh, that it's a good deal for the officers.
And it is because when I when I joined Special Forces,
it was career suicide. Um. But the what that led
to was an an officers corps that basically didn't give

(25:55):
a rats ass man. They were there to work, not
to not to pad their part or become generals or
do any of that thing. They wanted to get down
in the weeds and do the work, and we got
it done. Yeah. I mean I I agree with you
for sure on the team level that that's an issue.
I think part of it. Also, the idea of making

(26:16):
Special Forces a branch was so that we could have
Special Forces colonels and generals who could compete for resources
up at the Pentagon. UM. I think that was also
a concern because, as you know from your day, special
Forces is kind of like the redheaded stepchild of the military. Uh. Yeah,
we'll put Jim, do you want to? UM. I don't

(26:40):
know where to of course, when I do these interviews
with people who have such an extensive biography, I don't
know where to begin. But I guess maybe could you
begin telling us a little bit about you know, your
upbringing and how you found your way into the Vietnam
War by UM. Well, for one thing, I was the
first lieutenant when it started, so I let's see, I was.

(27:04):
I was a rocky kid. I went through r OTC
at the University of Oklahoma, and before that I was
a PFC in a reserve MP unit. UM and UM
then okay, this was before the days of training group. Well,
and it wasn't before training group, but it was before
selection and all of that. And I had I didn't

(27:29):
get to jump school when I first went through Infantry
Officers Basic course, so I went I had to get
back to it more than a year after I was
on active duty, so we I was a two year guy.
I didn't want to stay any army. What I wanted
to do was go home and join a Special Forces

(27:49):
Reserve unit, which they had one in Oklahoma City where
I came from. And um, so I I went back
and just, um, oh, I'm getting kind of kind of
off topic here. But in any case, I went to

(28:10):
the Pentagon to see about getting out. I was afraid
i'd catch an overseas to her because I had to
extend to go to jump school. And this major down
there said, have you been talking to anybody down here, Lieutenant?
And I said, no, sir, um, I just I just
need to I need to be getting out and going home.

(28:31):
And he said, well, I've got a set of orders
here sending you to Okinawa for three years. And he said,
now it's not too late. And you know, I felt
like i'd won a lotto. I said, it never even
occurred to me that I could even get in Special
Forces with the background that I had. And um, so

(28:52):
I said, no, sir, that's that's okay. You just leave
him alone. And I left the Pentagon and I was
laughing so hard that I fell down. I mean, I felt,
I felt that. I mean, I knew that my life
had changed completely and forever in that moment. And Ah,
you know, I can't tell you how much I love.

(29:14):
I don't. I don't. I don't really know what life
is like in the Forces now, but I can tell
you what it was like in the first Special Forces
group when I joined it on Okinawa, and it was
the happiest place I'd ever been. Everybody there loved what
we were doing. They loved the guy we were working for.
Um you know, I was at that point of first

(29:35):
lieutenant and the team sergeants that they had their mostly
the team sergeants, the senior n c O. S. I
was in awe of those guys. I was in literal
all all the time, and I studied them and I learned,
and it was, um god, it was fun. I mean,

(29:57):
you know, you kind of get the sense, but God,
it was fun. Well, what were the Salty Team sergeants like,
well when you got there, I mean, what what was
their background were? They'd been in White Star. Uh. There
was Tony Dawarty who was Bill Grace's team sergeant. And
let's see, he had, as I recall, he had a

(30:18):
six degree karate black belt and he was also a
judo black belt. He'd been in I don't know what
his combat situation was. I know he'd been in Korea U,
but he was he was This guy was a movie
star handsome. And there were two big magazine articles about
special forces that came out in that time, one on

(30:40):
the Saturday Evening Post and one in Life. And he
was on the cover of both of those magazines because
he totally looked the role. And uh, and he was
the role. I mean, it wasn't that this guy looked
a part. He was the part. He was terrific. Um.
Probably the smartest guy I ever met in the army

(31:02):
was was Bill Edge, who was an SSD when I
met him and retired as I think a command sergeant major,
but I'm not sure. Um and um uh, I just
love that. Okay, Bill Edge, for one thing, you know
that saying, yeah, though I walked through the Valley of
the Shadow of Death. I will for you're know evil,

(31:23):
because I know I'm the baddest motherfucker there. Ed said
that he was a guy who said that, and he
had he had another one. Uh, he was he was
a It's interesting because when he was dying, his daughter
was putting out prayer requests, which I hauntored. But he

(31:44):
was a militant atheist when I knew him. And another
joke that he he had that I thought was just
great was biblical quote, which was and the Lord was
making his way to Jerusalem. While on his way to Jerusalem,
he came upon a leopard and the left were looked
upon the Lord and spake unto him, Lord quinsny, for
I am a leper. And the Lord looked upon the

(32:04):
leper and said, sit calls an eight o'clock motherfucker. So
he's a cynical guy, yeah, really really smart. And the
other one aries Zaki. I can't I can't tell you
much about Zachie. I just remember what he looked like,

(32:25):
and he looked like a cross between the tank and
the Green Beret um and Willie Cards who Willie was.
I was talking to him one time. A lot of
these guys incidentally were jumped up to captain from Master's
sergeant during the course of Oh they were they were
branched field promotion. Yeah, exactly because they were. They were

(32:49):
hurting for hurting for officers and uh and here were
all these guys who were well, look, you know, I mean,
I'm not sure if this if this is still true,
but when I imagine it is. When I was in SF,
the minimum g T or i Q for a Special
Forces soldier was ten, which was the minimum for o

(33:13):
c s. And the only difference between the requirements for
o CS and Special Forces at that time is you
couldn't get an o CS without I think a high
school diploma at least. And um, you know, you couldn't
become an officer with a criminal record, and you couldn't
get in Special Forces if you couldn't swim. Those are

(33:36):
the differences. And I always say that, you know, if
if a Special Forces in C O is not an officer,
it's because he doesn't want to be, or he hasn't
gone around to it yet, you know, I mean, in
in the in the big Army. When I was in
the Big Army, the officers had a little bit of
a little you know, hey, we're ledge graduates for blah blah,

(34:01):
and uh, they kind of felt they were better than
the n c o s were officer and special forces.
Who have that idea is an idiot, you know, because
the officers aren't better than the n c o s.
They just do a different job. I also wanted to
ask you, Jim, because I know you're you're a very

(34:23):
like deep thinker, and even in your book you can
see it. You know that you know your thoughts about
the war, and as we have this opportunity to talk
to you, I wanted to ask you at that time,
I presume this was like what sixties seven or so,
what were your thoughts about Vietnam in the state of
the world and the Cold War? And are our standoff

(34:43):
with the Soviets at the time, how did you perceive
the world around you? Okay, your your timeline is a
little off. I first went to Vietnam in December of
nine three. Oh jeez, so you were really early. Yeah.
We were the we were the third team. We were
going on uh six month tours. So you came right
after Billy Bowles left. Um, yeah, just well, he was

(35:09):
in what he was in one of those UMU Tony
Doherty whom I mentioned was his team sergeant. And the
article it was not in the Post, it was in Look.
That was Duardi was on the cover of Look. And
there was a first time I ever even heard of
Billy both was he was. He was coming out of

(35:32):
hooch and saying, somebody was bemoaning their fate of being
in this horrible place, and he said, it could have
been worse. You could have been born here and uh,
and then I kind of got to know him a
little bit later. Was a great guy and that anyway, Yeah,

(35:54):
I was. I was there just a little after Billy Bowles,
um a in. I was the excel on that team.
And um the my commander had been the okay what
what it was now in Special Forces battalion was in
a company and what was you know, you know how
that that change came into effect. But the my CEO

(36:20):
had been the company adjutant, and they they told him
to put two teams together, and they gave him the
commander for the other one, and he let that guy
who he wanted as much as he could, and with
the other team he built his dream team and then
went in to get the CEO to let him take it.
And I still consider the highest compliment I have ever

(36:42):
been paid by anybody is that that man chose me
to be his ex o H in any case in
terms of his choices. UM. I later I went over
to Group personnel and checked everybody g T and the
average IQ on that team was about a hundred twenty

(37:03):
five h including Pancho Santiago who didn't speak English when
he took the test, and Uh, Poncho, I guess he
later retook the GT because he went to O C
s he UM. He had a heart attack and died
as a major in tenth group at Devon SO and

(37:26):
he was a junior man on the team. And of
course the thing I remember most about Poncho is he
could fall in love with the guy with with with
any girl he saw at a range of about a
hundred and fifty meters. Really had guys for that UM.
But all of the all of the junior n c
os on that team retired his officers. Let's see this

(37:53):
junior or second junior man owner team was Bill Frutie,
who is our junior medic and he had been the
undergraduate of his medical course, and then they came to
Elkinawa and they made him an armor because they had
too many medics. So he was the undergraduate of that course.
And when he retired he was a full colonel in
the Air Force surgeon. And he started out in the Army,

(38:18):
but they needed surgeons so bad that the surgeons could
never go to the necessary school, so the pediatricians were
being promoted over them, so he just changed to the
Air Force, where they probably gave him an eagle. Wow.
So you know, these were really extraordinary people, and we

(38:41):
had a great team, and we had some good breaks.
We've been for one thing, we was a third team
in that area, so you know that it was pretty well.
We we had a pretty good intel on it. And
then I had the good fortune to hire um, a

(39:01):
great quote interpreter unquote uh, Philip Drew in the Cowboy
and Dan Ford who wrote um the book Incident at
Muckwaff in which the movie Go Tell the Spartans was made.
That one writing a book about Cowboy. Now that will

(39:21):
be up hey, because he was just amazing. And I've
spent oh maybe four months trying to put together an
intelligence net and then one day I had this epiphany.
The light bulb went on over my head and I
yelled at cowboy. I said, hey, Phil, go hire some spies.

(39:42):
And the next day I had my intelligence net and
immediately became the highest scoring team in two corps. Which, okay,
this was an interesting thing. Um. We had four core
areas in Vietnam and two corps of Central Highlands the
land area of Vietnam, and it had twenty six teams

(40:05):
with one V team over them. So nobody told us
what to do. You know, there are teams in two
corps area of responsibility that's correct, with one V team
over them at that time. And um, so basically they

(40:29):
gave us what we asked for. We did what we
had to do and told him what they wanted to hear.
And you can't do that now because, as I understand it,
you've got a B team commander emailing you every twenty
minutes trying to tell you what to do or not.
He can't smell it. He doesn't know the players, you know,

(40:52):
so he's working off principles that he learned in some
other eight team in some other area of operation. That
is correct, yeah, out, well it's also bullshit. Yes, that's
also true. That's also true. You know, you've got to
give it. You've got to pick the right people and
give them their head. I've heard you kind of make

(41:15):
that comment before to Jack where you say, like, the
military decisions aren't made from you know, the starship Enterprise. Yeah. Well,
I mean they'd like to think they are, um, but
I mean it's you know, we had that whole conversation.
We had Dr Leonard Wong on to talk about how, um,
you know, amongst other things, this technology allows you know,

(41:37):
colonels and generals to reach all the way down through
the command structure and tell some you know, staff sergeant
what to do or what about when we had Michael
Behanna on, remember who you know was put in Fort
Leavenworth for decision made on the ground, And I remember
you kind of made that comment to him as well. Yeah, yeah, um,
but that is a big difference. And I noticed that

(41:58):
when I read your book, Jim, because you mentioned at
one point about you know, your guys on your on
your A team would take turns going out taking the
indig people that you're training, the South Vietnamese and going
out on presence patrols out in the jungle around the
FOB and I was like, that's something we could never
get away with today. Really. Yeah, they'd never let you

(42:20):
do that. Risk assessments would be maxed out. Yeah, some
colonel would lose his mind. Uh, risk, risk assessment. You know,
if it's not worth the risk, why are you having
the war? Exactly? If we want to be safe, let's
just stay home, Yeah, exactly. You know. Um, well, okay,

(42:44):
you guys are giving me chances to bitch about all
the stuff. I was, well, it's it's because you know,
I mean, we're it's a little mutual exploration here. I'm
learning a lot about what's what's happening today. Um. But
at the time I was there, I considered my biggest

(43:04):
enemy to Joint travel regulations because it took us you know,
we were there for six months. It took us four
months to get grounded, and um, our most effective time was,
um it was the last two months, and we we
cleaned house in the last two months. I mean the

(43:26):
first four months we wandered around, UM just you know,
wandered around until somebody shot at us and we killed him. UM.
And this second two months, we knew where the roots
were and we kind of knew when they were running
on those routes, and we just go sit there and

(43:46):
wait for him. You know, before we were running. Well,
we continued to run five day patrols, four and five
day patrols, but but our greatest success in the last
two were overnights. We just go out and set up
on the right trail and hack whoever came down it
and done. You know, these were like VC supply routes

(44:12):
and things like that. Well they're okay. Um. For instance,
the best operation I ever ran, um, and I really
didn't run it. I just told Cowboy what to do.
And my contribution to the thing was that we went
into get clearance from the district chief and he gave

(44:34):
me a line of rather obvious bullshit about how we
couldn't go where we told him we were going because
he had patrols in that area. That's nonsense. He never
had a night drill out in his life. And um,
so I could tell right then that that the other
guys had got to him, and um he was steering

(44:55):
us away from where we might make contact. So he
lived in Philly. Cowboys said to me said, uh, we
cannot go where? He say, uh, there you know there's
nobody there, and I said, fuck him, We'll do what
we want to, you know. And so we had coordinated
and then uh, he lied to me, and I lied

(45:16):
to him, and we went out and rant a success
and uh we uh what we did was okay. A
ten a ten man group came by and they were
We later found out that the head hauncho was was
an NBA colonel. Mind you, this was in March of
sixty four when there when there was when it was

(45:38):
allegedly all VC and this guy was was coming through
to do a survey um in advance of their advanced party,
in advance of their main body which came in out
a year later. And we whacked this dude and seven
of the ten of them were coming down the trail

(45:59):
and they had it was interesting they were They were
much better uniform than what we usually ran into. They
were much better equipped than what we usually ran into.
They had check a case um and um, just a
lot of Eastern block stuff. So they were they were

(46:20):
getting a lot of help from a lot of different places.
And so anyway, we whacked those guys and stopped for
a beer on the way home, and we're back for lunch,
you know. And on top of that, just to make
it wonderfully perfect, Colonel Leonard, the group commander, came in

(46:42):
with Robin Moore, who was researching the Green Berets at
that time, and so you know that they happened to
just show up the day after my best operation. And
uh and Robin and I stayed friends until he died.

(47:03):
Is Jim I have to ask, I'm trying to remember now,
is Cowboy the interpreter, you know who he went and
told the American military At one point he was with
like the Airborne Mechanized Battalion or something like this. So
that was okay, that was full rope. Yes, yeah, okay.

(47:24):
And in the last a couple of months of I
can't remember exactly when it was, but the old man,
my CEO, Cruis McCullough, went on a on a company
sized operation in the chewed La area down south of
where we were, which was um it was a VC

(47:44):
safe area, and so they got in a in a
pretty big battle down there. Food he got food, he
got shot in the leg. Ken Miller got shot in
the hand that he beat out his own evact message
on UM. And but while they were on that Operation

(48:05):
Cowboy told told crews that we were that the that
the yards were going to revolt, and he gave him everything.
He gave him their table of organization, he gave him
their constitution, he gave him their assault plan, he gave
him everything. And so Cruise promptly we called the B

(48:27):
team commander. He came down. He was pretty excited about it.
Um and crews went to Saigon and went to J
two McVie to explain what was going to happen, and um,
he said, so what do you guys think you might
want to do about that? And the J two McVie
officer that he spoke who said, gee, I don't know,
I don't know who's in charge of putting down revolts around.

(48:52):
So he came back to the camp and about uh
two days later, a quote coach tri l anthropologist unquote.
It was incidentally not Jerry Hickey, who was a real
cultural anthropologist and wrote I think five books about Vietnamese

(49:12):
village life in the Mountain York. Great great man. Um,
but um, this guy was, you know, he was he
worked for those guys and Um he got Cruise aside
and he said, we traced every report of this impending revolt.

(49:36):
Back to back to your team and captain, what I
want to know is what do you hope to gain
by making up this preposterous story? And the old man
threw him out of the camp and he flew away.
And then we went home. And in October here comes
the revolt and the teams that knew it was coming. Um,

(50:01):
they did very well and the others had some problems. UM.
There was a there was a great story in the
National Geographic. UM. A guy named Howard Socirek, another another
journalist to them, had friends with their Howard m was
doing he wanted to do a story for National Geographic

(50:22):
about the relationship between s F and the Mountain Yards,
and he happened to show up right in the middle
of the revolt. So he did the story about how
Verne Gillespie, who had the camp at boon brink Uh
handled the revolt, and it was a beautiful story. UM,
and Verne just handled it really well. UM. The B

(50:47):
team commander was actually made the cover of the Geographic.
And this was interesting because, okay, you know what I
said about the joint travel regulations. Well, after after our
team got back, I tried to do two things. I
tried to be the CEO of the team that replaced

(51:07):
our team, and I tried to be the J two
the or the G two of the BT, or the
the S two of the B team, And um my
interview with that with that B team commander was just startling,
I must say, because I went in there and I

(51:28):
told him, you know about my intelligence net and the
contact I had not And he said, I want an
officer who speaks Vietnamese. And I said, well, I don't speak.
I can kind of get by in duly and right,
but I don't I don't really speak Vietnamese, but you

(51:49):
know the blah blah blah, and I said. He said, well,
I want to get in there, and you know, do
this before the war is over. And I said, Major,
we're going to be in this country for at least
twenty years. And he was just recoiled. And that's the

(52:11):
that's the entire career of army officer. And I said,
this is going to take the entire careers of quite
a few army and he threw me out of his office,
as you know, an inflammatory dolt. And boy, this sounds familiar.
What other what other country are we probably going to
be in for a while. Well, um, hey, I want

(52:33):
to ask you guys a question about Afghanistan. All right,
I'll try. All right, how can you win a war
in a country where the national sport of civil war? Well,
how do you? How do you win a war with
the whole season? But how are you going to win
the war the whole? The whole premise is wrong because
we're trying to create an Afghan state where there's never

(52:55):
been an Afghan state before. Yeah, well that's that's another
thing that Okay, this is that was that was true
of the Central Highlands in Vietnam, wasn't it? Uh? That
wasn't that true of the Central Highlands in Vietnam? That
they never really had a state, They never really wanted one.
Oh god, no, they didn't have They didn't have a

(53:16):
state when we were there. They had basically they had
a racket. Um but that probably also sounds yeah a
little bit, but yeah, that's true. There's there's never been
a national state in Afghanistan. It's just kind of a
cobble together thing out of tribes, arts and um uh

(53:44):
so yeah, yeah, that was well, Okay, The point I
want to make is that, yeah, you can do nation building.
But you've gotta from the get go, you've got to
realize it's going to take you at least thirty years
to do it. Yeah. Generations, Yeah, generation because nobody ever
changes their mind about anything, and the guys that are

(54:05):
in charge there are not going to change their mind
about how they want to run things. What's going to
happen is you've got to catch him as cadets, and
by the time those cadets are generals and presidents, you
might have something. I mean, you can even take away
the war and it still takes a long time. You know,

(54:26):
you didn't just automatically decree in democracy in Japan or
the Philippines after World War Two. It took It was
a hard slog to mold those countries into and those
were those were countries that had a tradition of governance.
I mean, Japan had a you know, a high culture

(54:46):
and a very institutionalized system of governance. You look at Afghanistan,
they don't have any They've never had anything like that.
Everybody wanted to make it work. The indigenous personnel I
wanted to make it work, and the and the Americans
wanted to make at work. And it really worked out
pretty well. Not so much in the Philippines, where you know,
forty years was not war everywhere, little little wars here

(55:09):
and there, but not war everywhere. And it's still took
well except for the I mean, we've been there since
the Spanish American War when World War two came and
we hadn't made a country out of it yet, and
then World War two came and threw things back another
at least four years. And uh and and that was

(55:35):
not while fighting the counterinsurgency at the same time. And
you can see in the Philippines they're still having challenges
to the to the Philippines state and entire towns, their
cities taken over by insurgents and Zamblanca in Morrow. We
just last year. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, Well that's that's

(55:56):
the Philippines here again. It's like you know, you're we
can we can change the we can change the form,
but we can't change the the subject. We can't change
the culture. You know, we're not going to change the culture,
uh in um in these places. So yeah, well you

(56:16):
guys got it. And I've said this many times. You're
the you're the first people that ever said at the
enemy it takes at least in generation. What was it
that was Mark Boot said, like several generations? Was like, yeah, well,
Mark Boyott. I don't know if you know him. Jim
he was the third Special Forces Group commander during the nineties.
He said something like yeah, well he he made the

(56:39):
point that part of the problem, or he said, you know,
we haven't been in Korea for fifty years. We've been
in Korea for one year fifty times, meaning that there's
never been a long term cohesive plan where each year
we moved things a little bit further on the plane. Instead,
it's like every year a new group of people come
and start over from scratch. Yeah, Roger, that um, that

(57:01):
is exactly correct. And this is like me and Miller
having a lunch you know together, will ever run Ken?
Ken Miller is a super smart guy. I've I've gone
back and forth with him. He is a very very
intelligent person. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and so pessimistic. And

(57:25):
he's a China expert though on on China and Taiwan.
Oh absolutely, you know, speaks the language, knows, the culture knows. Uh.
He looked. Ken Miller writes poetry in Mandarin. Really, I
didn't know that yeah, uh yeah, I just oh, what

(57:47):
a thrill um I had. I had a friend, Bob McNeely.
Bob was um a ranger in Vietnam, and then years
later he was Clinton's White House chief White House photographer
for six years. Um and um he um. He turned
me onto Tiger to work dog Kin's first book, and um,

(58:12):
I was just blown away by it, and then I
was okay. I worked for Soldier of Fortune for a
couple of years, and then I edited their principal competition,
which wasn't really much competition in New York for I.
Let's say I worked for Eagle that was the name
of the magazine for two and a half years, and
then I was a book editor for five years in
New York. And um uh, so Ken and I got

(58:37):
to be friends of long distance, and then when I
moved to l A, he was the first person I
made contact with and we've been pretty tight ever since. Um.
It's it's like it's like the brother I didn't grow
up with, you know, when you hear these stories, it
almost seems like Soldier of Fortune was like the predecessor

(58:58):
to what you do. Jack. I feel like I've met
Bob Brown a couple of Times. And you know, Jim
wrote for the magazine as he said, and yeah, I
feel like that that what Bob Brown did. And I'd
like to hear your take, Jim. But I think what
Bob Brown did, which is really remarkable, is he gave
a platform in a voice to a lot of Vietnam
vets in a time when people did not want to

(59:20):
hear about the war. Totally true, totally true. I was, Okay,
what was I doing? I was. I was working as
a PR guy for the Oklahoma City District Recruiting Command,
which I have to say is the worst job I've
ever had. And Um, I heard that some Nut and Boulder,

(59:44):
Colorado for mercenaries, and so I I had a cardboard
box full of stuff I'd written about Vietnam that I
hadn't been able to sell anywhere. So um I called
him and told him, and and he said, well, I'm
going on I'm on my way to a reserve weekend

(01:00:04):
or no, a reserve summer camp, and I'll come see
you on the way. It was only five miles out
of his way. And he showed up, had dinner with us,
um ate his salad with his hands, which kind of
kind of crossed out and took my cardboard box and
went away and promptly lost it. And so in subsequent

(01:00:31):
years I took maybe four four trips to Boulder just
looking for my cardboard box. Finally, he hired Bob Poos
as managing editor. Poos went over everything they had, he
found my cardboard box, and eventually they bought all of it.
And um uh it was it was just I cannot

(01:00:51):
tell you how much fun it was working for those guys.
You know, I mean Brown for one thing is he's
very smart and just a little uh what what he
basically did was he gave um. He was his people

(01:01:11):
don't realize his branch was m I. You know, with
us is before we had branches and before there was
an s F branch, and his his basic branch was
m I. And his contacts were at d I A.
And what we did basically was give the the d
I A a free m I detachment. Because we sent
those guys so much stuff that we couldn't publish in

(01:01:34):
the magazine because it would get people killed or because
it was you know, whatever, um okay for one thing
or for instance, I my first good story for them
is great experience was to go and live live for
a month with the with the Christian Militia and Lebanon

(01:01:58):
Lebanese Forces militia. And you talk about the girls at
high heels and a K forty seven dashing across the
street Roger that that was just oh god, so many stories.
But um, they didn't really. I mean, these guys were
making it up as they went along. And um, for instance,

(01:02:18):
I visited their artillery FDC and I realized they weren't
using artillery terms and um, because they had just captured
these guns. And some of them were engineers and some
of them are architects, and they did the math and
figured out their own firing table and are the guns
and and uh they were. They were really good. But

(01:02:41):
they didn't know the lingo, and so I teased them
about that and they just you know, gave it back
to me. Um. But um, okay, the best friend. In fact,
thank god for Facebook. I've Facebook friends with some of
those eyes today. And one of them was okay, I

(01:03:05):
called him Jack Tabot. His name is Jacques Tabby um
and his father was a Lebanese ambassador to Canada and
his mother was Canadian. So um, uh, you know, he
had a very different approach. And the first time I
saw Jack, he was wearing jeans, sneakers, a T shirt,

(01:03:29):
a French Airborne Camo jacket with an a case slung
over his shoulders. And so one day I asked, I said, Jack,
why why don't you Why don't you wear a uniform?
All these other guys wear uniforms. They don't have rank,
but they have job titles and stuff, and they were uniforms.
And he said, I don't like him. And I said, well,

(01:03:51):
you know, he said, what are they gonna do. They
can't fire me, they can't find me, they don't pay me,
they can't bust me. I don't have a rank. You know,
I'm a volunteer. And I volunteered to do it this way.
And he said, I got a friend. He fights in

(01:04:12):
flip flops. He can't fight in boots. They inhibited his
movement or something. Was this? No, that was that? That
was in Beyrout. Yeah, and Beyrout And my roommate there
was Claude. I can't remember Claude's last name, but he

(01:04:34):
was a one armed Commando platoon leader and he had
been he had lost his arm at the Battle of
Till's Attar, which was the first major engagements of that war. Uh,
and he was always in forever figuring out what he
was one of the few guys that carried a M
sixteen because he could operate at one handed. You know,
he'd just lay it over his forearm and fire it.

(01:04:56):
Um and Uh. One of the things I noticed in
their route was that, uh, people had their ladies, had
their priorities straight. You know, in most countries, women are
attracted to rock stars and sports heroes, but in Beirut,

(01:05:16):
the one armed commando platoon leader got more trim than
anybody else. And in the country. I'd be there. One time,
I was just I was just hanging out in the
room and Clode wasn't there, and there was a black
black on the door, and I opened it and there
was this young woman standing there, who oh my god,
she was. She was gorgeous and um and and she

(01:05:41):
said do they clothe? And I tried to explain to
her that he was off with some other chick obie.
I didn't want to say that. And finally she you know,
she just went away. But that was I mean, this guy,
he just he ran through him like kleenex. It was

(01:06:03):
na I've been to Beirut, you know, during peacetime. This
is just like what two years ago. It's a beautiful study. Gorgeous, Yeah, gorgeous.
But when I went in there were the thing I noticed.
I landed at Junior and I didn't have I didn't
have a visa, you know. But I was met by

(01:06:26):
the by the local, by the Lebanese Forces. Guy and uh.
For a while, I wasn't sure whether I was an
honored guest or a prisoner. It turned out to be
an honored guest and I had I had such a
great time. Did you have a cross paths with a
guy named John Conan? I know that name he was,

(01:06:49):
and I hope I'm saying the name right. He was
a force recon marine and Nam and then he served
with the Rhodesian Rhodesian versus. I can't remember what unit
he was with. Um. I think he was with r
L I with the Rhodesian White Infantry. And he got
kidnapped in Lebanon after the war. Right. No, I knew

(01:07:16):
one of those guys that was kidnapped in Hill for
six years, Terry Anderson, who was an ape reporter. Um. No,
you know this guy was kidnapped for like twenty four hours,
he managed to get away. Ah, well, gee, I don't
know when Larry was there. I said, Larry Dring up
to go to Lebanon to teach a tank warfare to

(01:07:37):
the Lebanese forces, which he did. He went around Where
where do I know Larry drink from? Did you ever
read Fighting? Then? My other book Heard Of It is
about him? Yeah? Okay, was he like lang Vay or
something like that. I'm trying to place it. No, that's
that's Paul Long. Oh I'm sorry, I'm getting my names confused. Yeah. Well,

(01:07:58):
you know, I mean you can't tell of players without
a scorecard. I mean, you know, you know everybody, you
know who everybody you know is. You can't be expected
to know who everybody you've read about it. But now Larry,
Larry Dring, I mean that name definitely rings a bell. Well,
he was Larry was the best combat commander I personally
ever knew, and he was he was just an amazing guy.

(01:08:22):
I met him. We used to We used to fly
over from Okinawa and jump in Korea at night and
there was a big long sand bank by the Han River. Yeah,
wonderful staw sand except when we jumped on it in
the wintertime, it was frozen solid then and the first
time I ever did it, I fractured my coxics. And

(01:08:45):
Larry was a guy that picked me up and took
me to the hospital. And the time we got to
the hospital, we were buds. I was yeah, I was
the first lieutenant, then he was a staff sergeant and
um oh. And while at at the hospital, they gave
me a chemical heating pad and a bottle of Darvon
and I said, that's it. The doctors contrary to personal

(01:09:08):
popular opinion, young man, we cannot put your ass in
the sling. I always always thought that was a good line.
But anyway, so Larry and I became buddies. And um
he Um he had been on the resident team in Korea. Yeah,
and he happened to be um. He happened to be

(01:09:31):
back there visiting people and he was trying to get
you know, the Koreans didn't play the one jump and
you get the wings game. They made you do the
seven that they had to do to qualify, and he
had six and he was going to get his seventh jump,
and they had a they had a revolution, the revolution
that installed Chunky Park. While he was there trying to

(01:09:52):
m and so. Um he's walking down the street and
a buddy of his Korean captain said, they drink. You
know where you going? He said, no place specialties that
we'll get in and he said, what's going on, Well,
we're having a revolution. This guy here in the in
the back of the back of the cars as John Chang.
He's a miniature of agriculture. He's my prisoner. Were going

(01:10:15):
to the band of hotel and you know, right out
this coup and uh so they're sitting there and they're
having a couple of drinks and playing cards and uh
this captain says to drink. He said, you know, hey,
this guy is still legally the Ministry of Agriculture. How
would you like to be the Minister of agriculture? So

(01:10:37):
Larry was for about twenty four hours. I don't think
this made it into the history books, but he was
the Ministry of Agriculture for the Republic of Korea. Was
was this where he correct me if I'm wrong, get
Larry have to be sent home ahead of time because
he was on inadvertently associated with the Q. Yeah, you

(01:11:02):
just dropped. You just dropped like a huge puzzle. Piece
right in there for me because I I know of
this incident, I didn't know it was Larry Dring was
the guy was Oh my gosh, he said he sent
a message back to Hokey when he got when he arrived,
he hadn't you know he was. He looked pretty rank
because he was wearing the same clothes he's been wearing

(01:11:24):
for three days. And uh, and there were Korean fatigues,
which you know we didn't wear on Oklahoma. Jim, I'm
gonna I'm gonna have to email you the sergeant major
a message, Pappy, I didn't do it. I'm gonna have
to email you. The big article I wrote about the

(01:11:46):
history of of SF Detachment K and uh it talks
about that, and then it talks about the other Q
two where Chuck Randall was like on house arrest for
you know, about twenty four hours, and they were like
trying to get him to approve the new Korean kind
of atitution. He was like, I'm an s F captain.
I can't do that, man. I bet, I bet. A

(01:12:07):
big source for that article was Mark Smith. Uh No,
I don't believe I ever spoke to that gentleman. Really well,
it wants to. I'll set it up. We're in a
we have we belonged to an internet group called the
Shooter Channel is creaky old starts who reminisce. I'd love
to talk to him. I'll send you that article. You'll

(01:12:27):
get to see, like most of the sources are named
in it, um and you'll you'll get a kick out
of that. It took a while to write, but it
was worth it. It was a lot of fun. Well,
Mark was the it was the regular Armies, only high
school dropouts. Feel great officer and he's he's a character.
But I met him in I met him in in Thailand.

(01:12:50):
He'd come over for a jump, and they had a
thing they call well, uh, probably pronouncings wrong, but friendship
and tis metropop. And they had what they called metropop jumps.
And the idea was that a bunch of ties and
um and Americans would put on a a demonstration jump

(01:13:15):
and use it to sell tickets and make money to
replenish schools in Thailand. And they did this a lot
of times. Didn't you and Bob Brown do one? After
the war? Uh? He may have. Um, I thought I
read about that in your book, But well, Bob jumped
the balloon with us. That was when Mark came back,

(01:13:35):
and we went up and jumped the balloon, and then
we went out and then jumped a one thirty with
the third third. What would they what would they call him?
There were second classman the juniors at the Thai Military
Academy that afternoon, and uh that was kind of weird
because they gave me a steerable T ten and I

(01:14:03):
went out up wind. Uh So before I could even
get the get the risers loose, the wind had turned
me and handed me right towards the stick that went
out the other door, and I ran. I ran across
this kid's canopy and my shoots collapsing at his shoots collapsing,

(01:14:26):
and I'm like six ft or like four ft deep
in his canopy. You know, it's like building up around me.
And then I kind of slide off the other side
and our shoots inflated. And it was fine, but it
was it really got your attention there for a minute. She's, uh, well, Jim,
before I wanted to get into some of the other

(01:14:46):
stuff we had we had talked about before. But before
we move on, I do want to ask about your
reflections on the Vietnam War because we could talk. I
could talk to you for hours about this stuff. But
I did want to pin that down. You know what
you think when you look back on the war, what
was what was the war about? What did it mean
for you personally? I wondered about that for a very

(01:15:07):
long time because nobody ever wrote it down anywhere. We
didn't have a mission statement. Um, you know, we've The
closest thing to a mission statement was Lyndon Johnson saying
they'll at coon skin to the wall and what say what?
So you know, I did a lot of reading, a

(01:15:28):
lot of research, and the closest thing to a mission
statement I came from, which was also from Johnson, was
that he wrote Senator Richard Russell, the chairman then of
the of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he said
that he couldn't see any strategic reason why we should

(01:15:53):
be in Vietnam, but he went in anyway because we
had a treaty with him, and he wanted to demonstrate
to Aeto and seto that we would live up to
our treaty obligations country, that we had totally made up
and that we had what I think was the major

(01:16:14):
mistake was that they staffed the Republic of Vietnam when
when it started, and it was an agency project, and
they staffed it with guys who had fought for the
French and the only in that country that I mean,
which was to say, quidlings and losers, and the only
the only people in that country, and there were plenty

(01:16:37):
of them who knew how to fight that kind of war,
were non communist former vietmin. And all of every competent
officer I worked with in Vietnam at that point in
time was a non communist former vietmin. And they they
were they were clean, they were honest, they knew their stuff,

(01:16:59):
and uh, the other guys would just send us more
money so we can steal it. And um. But the purpose,
the only actual goal that I've ever seen that we
went there to realize, was to convince our allies that
we would stand by our treaty obligations. And we did that,

(01:17:25):
and we stuck with it. If we'd stuck with it
any longer, they would have just thought we were crazy
and that you know, we were recording nuclear war. So
we made the point that yeah, we'll sacrifice sixty guys
to live up to our our treaty obligations and we're
not going to start a thermonuclear war. And so that's

(01:17:52):
the reason I say that Vietnam was not really a war.
It was an infomercial and it was really about what
was happening in Berlin at the same time frame. Yeah
a lot, Yeah for sure. And um, so we accomplished
everything we set out to accomplish in Vietnam and then

(01:18:13):
we bailed. Now, we totally betrayed the people that we
had led down a garden past for sixteen years in
the process of bailing. And I think that was because, um,
if we had backed them, now we don't know that
you know, uh there. We did not resupply them after

(01:18:34):
we left, you know, and we trained them to fight
with an American supply train and the logistics are just operated. Yeah.
So so they got you know, overrun in what forty days?
Do you think it was dishonorable for us to leave
under those circumstances or yeah, how could it be anything else?

(01:18:57):
But what it was was that the democ Credit Congress,
which is what we had then, was not going to
risk Richard Nixon getting a victory. I'm sorry, but that's it.
And so I always and this is I say. This
is what I say. If soldiers do not win or

(01:19:20):
lose wars, soldiers either accomplished or failed to accomplish their
assigned a mission. If you get accomplishment of all missions
assigned and lose the war, the place to look is
not at the soldiers, right. I mean one of the
things said about Vietnam is that, you know, it was

(01:19:40):
a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat. Yeah, we'll same
with the Tet offensive, you know, I mean that was
you know I thought in the Tet Offensive for well,
actually I was only actually involved in actual combat for
about twenty four hours. Um. But in the next couple

(01:20:02):
of weeks, I was all over the country and morale
was so high because we had kicked their ass all
the way around the block. And then the press reports
started coming in, you know. I mean my first clue
as I got the Far East edition of Newswork Newsweek,
and UM was rather vociferously informed that my the victory

(01:20:28):
of which I was so proud, had been a defeat. Well, no,
it wasn't. Why do you think the press reported it
like that? Let's book the press all right, Now, I
chased around all during the eighties, I was chasing around
with S O. F. And I interacted a lot with
the press, and um, my first experience with that was

(01:20:53):
in Tom Penn and seventy three, and those were great guys.
But they all they all lived together, and um, they
all worked for for they all worked for editors who
and this is television and um news newspapers both who

(01:21:16):
basically read The New York Times on their way to
work on the train into Manhattan every morning, and then
whatever the Times had, that's what they wanted. And um, uh,
you know, and look for for for fifteen years, I
didn't go more than fifteen minutes thinking about anything but Vietnam.

(01:21:40):
I read everything I could get my hands on. I read,
you know. I mean, first it was how are we
going to do it? And the second was how what
what happened? And um, there is a herd mentality in
the press. And um. So the all those guys they

(01:22:00):
have they have dinner together, they drank together, they smoked together,
they get they reach an agreement on what the story is.
And you are not gonna rise in that profession by
writing something that runs counter to the story, to the narrative. No,
that's exactly right. You can't. You know, that's that's just

(01:22:24):
not going to happen. I mean, well, okay, and I
was an outcast from the get go because I worked
for that infamous, that infamous Robert K. Brown publication. Yeah.
So you think so that's why the Ted offensive was
reported as a defeat. Yeah, I think so. Um. Well,

(01:22:46):
that and the fact that the guys who ran to
find at five o'clock follies in and Saigon didn't know
what they were talking about because they, you know, they
were quarters and jerks. Um. And also the fact that
the the other guys got on the embassy grounds, you know,
I mean, they got six guys over the fence at

(01:23:08):
the embassy and they were promptly hosed down. But the
fact that they breached the fence at the embassy and
they didn't they didn't draw the conclusion at some clown
breached the fence at the White House two weeks later.
They didn't think that meant that the but somehow they
thought that meant that Vietnam was And then I know,

(01:23:32):
we we had talked about it a little bit before
and I wanted to, you know, get your perspective is,
you know, since you know, retiring and uh, you know
in the civilian world, you talked a little bit to
me about, um, your interest in shamanism and how you
related that to your military experience. I was wondering if
you had a really interesting perspective on that as as

(01:23:55):
far out as it seems to me, because I have
nothing to compare it to or no EXPERI varience and
what you're talking about. But I related to the feelings
that you were expressing. Well, UM, yeah, I you know,
if if after after Vietnam, if you had suggested that
I had PTSD, I would have hit you. And um,

(01:24:17):
but the truth is, I later realized that I had
lived a disordered life after a period of traumatic stress,
which kind of sounds like post traumatic stress disorder to me.
And um, my third marriage was falling apart. That's another clue.
And um, so I was. I had a tech writing

(01:24:39):
job for the Post Office Department, and um, I had
I did a little time in motion study because I
had six months to do the job, and I finished
one third of it by noon the first day. So
I thought, you know, I got to slow down, and
I started reading in my spare time, and I started
reading casting ada um and for people who don't know Castaneda.

(01:25:03):
This might not make much sense, but anyway, Castaneda was
an apprentice shaman to a a medicine man named Juan
Mattus and Sonara. At least that's the backstory, and um,
the backstory is questionable, but the principles he taught are terrific.

(01:25:27):
And Uh. What he always talked about was what he
called the Warrior's Way, And basically he said he felt
that the attitudes that you needed to take into shamanism
were the same attitudes you needed to take into battle.
And they had a breakdown of them, and the four
that really took hold were loose self importance, your race,

(01:25:51):
personal history, used death as an advisor, and accept responsibility
for your own acts. And um, I realized that the
happiest I've ever been was my first six months in Vietnam,
and that all of those principles were we're opera. You know.
I had no self importance because Jesus, you know, this

(01:26:11):
big war was going on around me, and I had
no personal history because I just got there. And I
had to use death as an advisor because people were
shooting at me, and uh, and I had to accept
responsibility for my own acts because I was in charge.
And a friend of mine who was a he was
a c I, a paramilitary contractor in Afghanistan, and he's

(01:26:32):
described that he'd say war was my guru. Yeah, yeah,
that's well it was. It was a lot like that
for me, because you know, I was your basic squarehead
um American ascher Speine when I when I went to
I went to Vietnam, and it's just such a weird place.

(01:26:53):
I mean, m everybody there. You could sense spirits there,
you know, I could every day as Halloween and Vietnam
and um, you know, and and weird things would happen
like um. A friend of mine was telling me about
this guy that I was going out on patrol the

(01:27:14):
next day and he pounded down a beer and he said,
well that's the last one. And the guy said, you
mean until after the operation and he said nope, ever
and he didn't come back, and um, well, you know,
tilt Meyer was was in SOG and um I was not.
And at one point I was presented with an opportunity

(01:27:37):
to volunteer for SOG and I really wanted out of
the job I was in. So I was sitting in
the club thinking about that and all of a sudden,
I had liked this perceptual change that I was looking
down at corridor that led to looking down a corridor
that led to some slot machines back there, and there

(01:27:58):
was a red light back there, and suddenly the corridor
was three times longer, and it was just it was
just all different. And I knew, I absolutely knew that
if I volunteered for SAGA, I would die. And I
didn't do it. And um, later I was talking to

(01:28:18):
a guy who was in it, and I told him
that story and he said, oh, you would have been
a bunch of a bunch of captains they brought into
command hatchet teams. And I said, yeah, I guess, so
what happened to those guys And he said they all died,
So yeah, incredible. Something to be said for gut instinct, huh, absolutely,

(01:28:42):
there is a lot to be said for it. I
use it, um. I use logic and gut instinct as
like binary vision, you know, but if if, if they
really don't line up, I go with the gut instinct. Well,
what I found helpful reading over the or maybe a
year ago now is the hockey gut, which is the
kind of the um their texts about the Way of

(01:29:05):
the Samurai written by Um, you know, a Japanese samurai
during the feudal period. Um. And he writes a lot
about interesting stuff about the samurai and the right way
to live your life and and how to you know,
I guess integrate and function in larger society as well.
And it sounds like you found some of those answers

(01:29:25):
in u in shamanism. Yeah, that is absolutely true, and
in fact I am not the only one. Um. I'm
having lunch Friday with a friend of mine, James Morgan Ayres,
who was He did a hitch in the in the
seventh back in the day and about sixty two I think,

(01:29:48):
and um, he got involved in an investigation and some
guys that we're uh diverted, you know, stealing weapons and
stuff and did well with that, and so he was
kind of snatched out of Fort Bragg and did some
things for some guys and um. Then anyway, the thing

(01:30:14):
about the thing about Morgan is that he has essentially
the same outlook and similar training, but his is all
Chinese martial arts and tai chi and she gung and
that kind of stuff. And so we we have a
lot of fun Um, you know, comparing principles and finding
out that they're just different iterations, so pretty much the

(01:30:35):
same principles. Uh. And and then of course we wind
up planning patrols will never run. It's just something you do,
you know. I mean, it's it's it's ridiculous, but you know,
I mean some of us can barely walk, but that's
what we planned, patrols will never run. What would you say,

(01:30:57):
Jim to a lot of the guys who are coming
home now or veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and the
other little bush fire awards we have going around the
world and they're now back on city street living. You
know what you referred to as a disorganized life. Well,
you know, it's it's a real joke. I mean, that's

(01:31:17):
another thing that Indians have is they have they have
ceremonies and stuff for guys coming out of battle. Uh.
Kind of bring you back to planet Earth and um
uh the temptation is just to go crazy. Um and
I kind of did. Um. You know, you immediately discover

(01:31:43):
a that you don't have any any any your strong
goal outside yourself. You need that you know, you you
That's that's the whole point. Of a spiritual life is
to is to have something that's more important to you
than you are. And uh, if you don't have that,
then your life is horribly unbalanced. But the other thing

(01:32:07):
you learn is that that the social dynamic is different.
You know. Um now, I think it's still true that
this is true in the military, and it certainly wasn't
my day. If you were Alan sack of ship, you
were ostracized and um uh. In in civilian life, people

(01:32:30):
will just automatically tell you what you want to hear
rather than what you need to know, because they don't
want to hassle with, you know, a frown or whatever.
And it takes a while to get used to that,
you know, I mean you you know, you think, well,
somebody told me this, so it must be true. And
when you walk into the office and just say the blunt,
honest truth, it shocks people there there there, Yeah, what's

(01:32:54):
the term I'm looking for? You? You're grinding against the
gears like there there. It's just like you know, you
can see a visible reaction on their faces, right yeah,
you know, and it's um, it's like the old song
Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch onto the affirmative
and don't mess with mr in between. Well, that's that's

(01:33:15):
that's that's a good way to keep people happy, but
it's not a good way to get anything done. I
think when I when I look at you know, some
of the things you did after the war, Jim, and
I can see that I did some of the same things,
And I just wanted to get your take on it,
because you know, you got out and you went to
work for Soldier of Fortune magazine and you wrote that

(01:33:38):
What came out of it in the end was that
terrific book, The Devil's Secret Name, which recounts a lot
of those trips you took overseas, the different war zones,
reporting on them. You know, I got out of the military,
and like you said, I also worked very working, very hard,
almost frantically, um trying to do all these different things, writing,
traveling to different war zones, reporting on them. And when

(01:34:01):
I look back on it now, I realized, I think subconsciously,
what I was trying to do with all that was
makes sense of what I had gone through Interraq in
Afghanistan and to try to understand my own experience absolutely,
and and it's important that this be done you know.
I mean it's important that this be done too so

(01:34:26):
that it won't be done again, you know that, so
that the next guy that has to go will have
a uh, have a a little bit of a handle
on what he's getting into. Now that said, if if
that's what you're gonna do with your life, if if
you know that, at least at some point in your life,
you're gonna soldier and you're serious about it. I mean,

(01:34:49):
I read before I went in the army. I had
read From Here to Eternity eight times, and you know
that doesn't end well for its hero. And I had
read Catch twenty two six times, and you know that
was just about guys getting blown out of the sky.
And all it did was making me. Yeah, I want
some of that, you know, And I got it. And

(01:35:13):
I'm glad. That's the weird thing. I'm glad I got it.
I wouldn't surrender it. I would I wouldn't have it
any other way, but damn you know. Yeah, are you
familiar with Joseph Campbell's work? Oh? Yeah, what do you
What do you think of that? Because he talks about Yeah,
he talks about the importance of um like rituals and Um,

(01:35:38):
rites of passage for young men, and you know, for
for people like us, I mean, war was that right
of passage? It seems like as Americans it's one of
the few kind of I don't know, like primal ceremonies.
I guess you could say that's that's left for us. Well,
you know, I had, I had. I went to a
military high school and uh so you know, uh segueing

(01:36:01):
into the army, it was the life was not that dissimilar.
The army was a little less military. That was about
the big change. Um so, um, we you know, we
had a rite of passage that basically they just beat
the ship out of you for six weeks and then

(01:36:22):
they shook your hand. And do you think we have
a problem with that? On the other side, like you mentioned,
the Native Americans have you know, sort of like cleansing ritual. Um, yes,
absolutely absolutely, that's um. You know, I won't say that,

(01:36:43):
you know, shamanism per se is the is the the answer,
but the techniques that shamanism uses are a big part
of the answer. And there are other groups Morgan's uh
she Gun and all of that that do similar things.

(01:37:06):
And um, yeah, you've gotta find you gotta find a
life for yourself. I have a I have a friend
here in l a Miguel Rivera, who who does sweats
and um, you know, the sweat lodges is a tremendous,
transforming ritual experience and it will it won't in itself

(01:37:31):
change your life, but it'll start to change. And you
know that you you. I'm trying to I'm trying to
think how to explain what the difference is. But I
used to have a mechanistic view of the universe and
now I have a much more organic view of the universe.
And it's, um, it's okay. What I was what I

(01:37:57):
was hoping to find when I started study in this
was a way to be as happy as I was
at first six months in Vietnam. And and sometimes I am,
what techniques did you find we are helpful for you?
What techniques did you find were helpful for you? And
kind of finding that happiness? Well, the loose self importance thing, um,

(01:38:23):
you know, loose self importance of race, personal history. I
use that as a checklist for a long time. UM
and uh, you know, if if I was unhappy about something,
I knew that UM, I was violating one of those principles,

(01:38:44):
and all I had to do was um go through
them and kind of compare what what I why, until
I found why I felt like I did that wasn't
how I should. And then I would apply that principle
and it would just go away. And then later when

(01:39:04):
I started taking courses. I didn't take him from casting Ada,
who was a great writer but something of an asshole. Frankly,
Um I took him from Don Miguel Ruiz, who is uh,
He's just the sweetest guy in the world. And and
he is um a different lineage of Mexican shamanism, all

(01:39:28):
coming back from the Toltecs. And Um I learned his
four the four agreements. If I was going to advise
anybody to do, the one thing they could do to
get started on getting their acts squared away is to
read the four agreements. And the four agreements are be
impeccable with your word, by which he means not just

(01:39:51):
don't be a liar, but don't bullshit yourself. The second
one is um okay uh, be impeccable with your word.
Don't make assumptions. And they have a saying in the military,
you know, assumption is the mother of all funk ups.
Don't make assumptions and don't think anything take anything personally

(01:40:14):
because it's not personal. If somebody says something insulting about
you or something derogatory about you, all that means is
he doesn't know you and he's talking about himself. And
the other one is um uh okay. It's always do
your best, which is the same as accept responsibility for

(01:40:34):
your own acts. So it's basically it's Miguel's version of
the same thing. And I would if if if you're
having if you've got problems and with your own attitude
in life, pop out and buy a copy of the
Four Agreements. It will solve your problems. Right now, It's
crazy that Jim's bringing that up because I've I've heard
this book reference how many times from different people walks

(01:40:57):
a lot. I mean, like you know him, a guns
in a row, a spinatic, uh jack uh. You know
the drummer Stephen Adler, so you know, had heroin abuse problems,
all this stuff, and I've heard him on a recent
interview saying like that that book changed his life. I'm
gonna have to go look for life around So but
I think you hear a lot of similar principles from
different things. Like I think there's like a loudso quote

(01:41:18):
of uh, you know, if you're living in the past,
you're depressed. If you're living in the future, you have anxiety.
If you're living in the present, you're at peace. It's
you know, and I'm probably butchering quote. It's something to
that in fact. But like I think from all different
walks of white people who are Christians, people who are Buddhists,
you hear a lot of these similar principles that you

(01:41:39):
could use in your own life. Yeah. Well, that's one
of the great things about the tele Texas Um. What
they teach is it's not a religion. They teach you
a set of principles that work for you and help
you practice them. And I know I know a couple
of the Teletech teachers who are Jewish. Uh. I know

(01:42:00):
another one who is a Flamer. He was boy. Um
let's but a lot of people like myself, I mean,
I don't consider myself a Christian, but I do consider
myself a big fan of Jesus. What I'm saying, no,
I understand that completely. I mean I was raised Jewish,

(01:42:22):
but I think, like a lot of the teachings of
Jesus could be applied to all of us today, and
the stuff that you read in Buddhism. That's why, I mean,
this is getting totally off software types, but personally that's
why I don't like subscribe to any one religion. I
like to learn from all of them. And another quote
that I love is the Bruce Lee quote to absorb
what is useful, to discard what is useless, ad what

(01:42:44):
is uniquely your own. And I do try to live
by that, if you know, if I find something useful
in what he's saying about shamanism, doesn't mean I'm going
to become a shaman, but I could use that principle
in your own walk of life. Well, yeah, I I
certainly don't consider myself shaman. I just consider myself a
guy who um tries to be a little aware of

(01:43:06):
some of these other currents that are floating around that
you don't learn about in school. Yeah, and it sounds
like these are very like practical pragmatic principles that you
can apply in life. It's not oh yeah, totally down
to earth, totally down Yeah, it's kind when you get
into the esoteric stuff. I mean, I have I have
seen and had happened to me and done things which

(01:43:30):
anybody will tell you are not possible, but they're possible
and they have you know, And I've concluded that we
don't really um that we there. There is a collective
consciousness and there is access to it. And recently, Okay,

(01:43:50):
at the start of the conversation, you realized that my
you know, I mentioned that my wife is very ill
and she's bedridden and we do a lot of you know,
that's that's the main thrust of my life right now,
just to make her happy. And um, she's in a
situation where I would have killed myself a long time ago.
Um and um she Um. What I've discovered I started

(01:44:17):
studying some of these alternative healing modalities. I just picked
up one called the emotion codes, and you realize that
you can access people to Um. Okay. The premise of
the emotion codes is that we have trapped in our
oric field. I'm sorry, but I have to get into
this kind of j jargon. Uh, certain emotions we picked

(01:44:41):
up along the way, and that whenever that emotion is activated,
you're not dealing with the crisis that you're dealing with.
You're dealing with every time you've ever dealt with it
your whole life long. And they have a technique. The
guy who invented this at Dr Bradley Nelson for removing
these and it involved must testing and magnets and and

(01:45:03):
I've learned to do it for and I have successfully
done this technique on people who lived two thousand miles
from me. And um, you know since I've stripped. First
of all, I did it on myself, and I just
felt all of these trapped emotions. I learned to deal
with them, but they were just gone. And um, since

(01:45:27):
I've done it, I have one friend who used to
call me every couple of weeks to tell me his
wife was driving him to suicide. Haven't heard from him
since I did that. Not about that. Um My, my
daughter in law used to call me every couple of
weeks wanting my my help and getting my son committed
to psychiatric observation because they fight a lot. But herbiean

(01:45:51):
comanche that has really nothing to do it anyway, that
doesn't happen anymore. I did it on them, and on
a bunch of other people, including Morgan, my friend that
I'm meeting, the guy you used to be in the
in the seventh um the she Gung guy and I
did it on him and he called me. He said,

(01:46:14):
what time did you do it? And I told him
and he said, well, that's when my blocked up nasal
passages instantly opened and my eyes cleared up. And I
mean at that time when I did it. And so
this this sounds kind of fantastic because it's something I
learned to do in a day, and but it works.

(01:46:38):
It worked on me, and it worked on everybody I've
used it on. Well, I mean, it's one of those
things and it works for you, it works for you, right, yeah, yeah,
Well I did it. I did it for my wife
and she was in there at the time with her
caregivers and she was just climbing the walls over something.
I forget what it was, but she wasn't having it
whatever it was. And I went out there and and

(01:47:01):
did the went out back and did the codes on it.
When I came back, they were laughing and smiling and
talking and un together. And that was five minutes later. Jim,
this is This has been a terrific interview and we've
covered so much. I'd love to have you on again
sometime because, like We've just scratched the surface here. There's

(01:47:22):
so much more we can talk about. Well, um, guys,
I in my present situation, I don't leave the house
for more than three hours because I don't want to
be away from her more than that. I understand. So
you want to talk, I'm here. That's great. Yeah, we'll
definitely do this again. And I should let the audience know.

(01:47:42):
You know, first of all, I mean the amount of
subject matter here. You know that Jim has written so
much great work, So check out his books. Check out
war Story is the biggest, the Devil's Secret Name, terrific book,
above and beyond the Battled Sorcerers. I mean, there's close
to what ten books that you've written, Jim, eight, But

(01:48:02):
there I should make the Battle of Sorcerers is um uh,
it's not a war book. It's it's if you're interested
in the shamanism stuff, that's that's the place to start.
There you go. The only the only concession to war
is that my my h uh, my protagonist is a
former SF warrant. I just I don't understand other kinds

(01:48:25):
of protagonists. I don't get them. You know, the idea
of spending your whole life as a civilian seems like
such a waste, I would know. But I know, we
appreciate you going really long with us. I know originally
you thought you'd be here for half an hour, and
an hour and a half later we've covered a ton
of ground, and I agree we could we could talk

(01:48:46):
much longer. Um, I love them I go out, you know,
I mean, we talked so much soft stuff. What I meant,
you know, you guys get me. I appreciate you know,
But and I was saying, you know, we talked a
lot of soft stuff. But I do love when we
enter out I had that realm and talk about different stuff.
And when Nick Irving was on, we talked about some
actually similar stuff the last time he was on. Well, Jim,

(01:49:07):
Jim has lived life and it's interesting to see where
things have taken him. And it's interesting to get into
the experience of after the military, and how do you
reconcile all of these um extreme experiences. You know, Okay,
I guess that's it. Yeah, absolutely, Thank you so much, Jim.
If there's anything else you want to plug feel free? Great,

(01:49:29):
thanks a lot. Yeah, thanks Jim, it was really great
talking to you. You bet Oh wait a minute something
else to plug silent Man Miller's Anna Miller and Ray
Martinez and Gary Linderer's history of of the hundred First
Alerts Slash Rangers in Vietnam. This is this is a

(01:49:52):
kind of a masterpiece. It's the entire history of the unit,
written by staff Sergeant or below who were in it.
And it's great. Yeah, I read it. I read it
before I came in the military. Actually, it's a terrific series.
Super alright. I'm glad we got that in Catch You Later. Excellent,

(01:50:13):
excellent episode with Jim Morris. Really loved having him on,
and I didn't expect we'd get into all that material
we did. I mean when you said the shaman stuff,
and I know we'd go that deep into it. It
was cool. And dude, I'm not gonna lie. Speaking of
sweat lodge, I feel like I'm in a fucking sweat lodge.
The sun coming through the window. Yeah. And also I
don't know, it's just the A C and all that.

(01:50:34):
I tried to, you know, put something on. It is
very hot in here. So we're gonna wrap this up
to our episode. I really enjoyed it, and we'd have
to have him back on UM. I wanted to mention
that we are holding a raffle on Software dot Com
until May sixte and it benefits the Special Children Center
in New York City which provides services to families of

(01:50:55):
four fifty children actually with disabilities. UM and with the raffle,
you're bidding to win some great gear in this package
along with John stryker Meyer's book. The chronicle is appropriate
with what we're just talking about. Uh. Currently we're just
about at that goal of a thousand dollars, so by
the time you hear this, we probably are. But you
could still you know, we'll go above and beyond that

(01:51:16):
goal and you could still get raffle ticket and help
out a great cause. Uh. There's one club out there
with gear handpicked by Special Operations military veterans from several branches,
and that of course is Great Club. Past items we've
had in our Premium Creates have been an E d
C Med kit put together by ben Ghazi survivor and
Army ranger Chris Tonto Pronto, and a ballistic shield insert

(01:51:40):
for your backpack made by cry Precision. Well. Create Club
is really stepping up its game right now as progresses
by putting out custom products that you're not going to
find anywhere else. We have different tiers of membership depending
on how prepared you want to be, and gift options
are available as well. You can check that all out
at Great Club dot Us. Once again, that's great Club

(01:52:05):
dot Us for your dog owners. Check this out. You're
gonna love this. We've also just launched Kuna and we
just sent out our first box. I saw Scott Whitner
post it Um, which includes like a multi vitamin for
your dog um, which I'm sure it's very helpful. I
remember when I had a dog to get them to
take pills. It's a little bit of a tough process though.

(01:52:25):
Pain in the ass. Have you ever have you ever
heard of a frosty pause, which is like it's like
ice cream for your dog they sell at the supermarket,
Like it's okay for them dogs like normal ice cream,
of course, yeah, but it's not good for them. It's not,
no dude, all that sugar and all that, because just
like how dogs can't eat chocolate, they definitely should not
be eating ice cream, although people do tend to do that.

(01:52:47):
But I was gonna say, like, if you put your
you know, pill in that frosty pause or real ice cream.
If you want to do that, they'll they'll have it. Um.
You know, then they won't know the difference. But we
have a train We have a team of trained can
i and handlers picking out a box for dog each
month of healthy treats, training aids and it's custom built
for your dogs size and age as well. The products

(01:53:08):
are US sourced, all natural and they not only promote
a healthy diet, but also promote being active with your dog.
So whether we're talking to pitbull, Wow, this is just
what you're looking for. You can see all of that
at Kuna dot Dog. That's Kuna Dot Dog cu n
A dot d O G. Like I said, the first
boxes out there, and I'm looking forward to seeing how

(01:53:30):
people respond and you know, then we'll send out some
new boxes as everything approaches, but I'm sure we're gonna
see some great feedback. Um. And as a reminder for
all of those who are listening, for a limited time
you can receive a fifty percent membership to the spec
Ops Channel, our channel that offers the most exciting military
content today. The spec Ops channel premier show Training Cell

(01:53:53):
follows former Special Operations Forces as they participate in the
most advanced training in the country, everything from shooting schools,
defensive driving, jungle and winter warfare, climbing, and much more. Again,
you can watch this content by subscribing to the spec
ops channel at spec ops channel dot com and take
advantage of a limited time offer of fift off your membership.

(01:54:16):
It's only four a month. Um. And I just actually
saw that Chris, our web developer, is doing. You know,
we now have an iOS app for the spec ops
channel and it looks fucking awesome because Chris is great.
And in early June that will be available on Android
as well, just like how I know when we did
the software app. You know, the Apple one was out

(01:54:39):
a little bit earlier and people like whereas the Android.
So early June Android people, you'll see that spec ops
channel dot com. I don't know if there's anything more
to say. We've talked for two hours altogether here and uh,
excellent episode with Jim Morris. Really enjoyed having him on
and and I think you guys will hopefully enjoy as well.

(01:55:00):
If you did leave us review and Apple podcasts, follow us,
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(01:55:20):
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Ep. 346 - Jim Morris, Vietnam veteran Green Beret

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 346 - Jim Morris, Vietnam veteran Green Beret