February 5, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, Doyle Glass shares his unique journey from Assistant District Attorney to sculptor and author, exploring the importance of preserving military history through story-telling. He reflects on the roles of prosecutors, the heroism of veterans, and the significance of remembering and honoring those who have served.
• Discusses the critical role of prosecutors and the legal system
• Emphasizes the importance of chain of custody in prosecution
• Shares personal reflections on the influence of the Alamo
• Highlights transition from sculpting to writing
• Explores challenges and approaches to interviewing veterans
• Discusses the camaraderie and faith of Marines in combat
• Urges listeners to remember and honor Vietnam veterans
• Advocates for recording veteran stories for future generations
• Highlights the lessons learned from military leadership and experiences
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
you have one right now.
Hey, welcome to the protectorspodcast.
We are here with doyle glass.
What a cool name, man.
Oh, thanks appreciate it.
Thank my parents for that well,you know, with with a
background in sculpting it, justit.
You know, if your whole careerwas about art and about
sculpting, it would still be areally cool name oh, thanks, I
(00:36):
appreciate it it's a good authorname too.
You know, before all that,though you were, you were in an
ada man assistant districtattorney.
That's a talk about a gig man.
People don't understand.
When you're doing prosecutionsand stuff, that's really like
you could arrest people all daylong, all day long.
But unless you have a solid ADA, those people go right back on
(01:01):
the street.
Baddest, worst people in theworld.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Right, people go right back on the street.
Baddest people, worst people inthe world.
Right, and I was, you know,worked on.
I worked in mcclennan countydistrict attorney's office here
in texas and temple, and then Ialso lived in kentucky for a
while and was an assistantcommonwealth I'm sorry, an
assistant attorney general there.
And without the great case workby the officers in preparing
(01:28):
the case, knowing how to presenta case to a jury, knowing
what's important, you know, itmade our job just so much easier
to have good folks on theground that are having to
respond to the tough situationsand then to build the case,
present the case to us so thatwe can prosecute it and get the
(01:51):
bad guys off the street.
So without the police officersand the detectives doing a great
job, you know, our, our, ourhands were, were tied.
So I was, you know, reallyblessed to have a number of
great officers who I worked with.
That made my life easy.
Well, relatively speaking.
(02:11):
Burden of proof.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Doyle, I tell people this detectives and special
agents and stuff, I mean theirlife is writing.
But a lot of the times, thepatrol officers out there, the
people the first encounters, thewitnesses taking witness
statements, gathering evidence,chain of custody leading up to
the interviews andinterrogations, and then the
case presentations and thearrest and all that, but the
(02:36):
little things.
The little things matter somuch when it comes to
prosecutions and, like I said inthe beginning, it's like you
could.
You could arrest the worstperson in the world, but if you
don't have a competent team allthe way from the first responder
, all the way up to theprosecutor, that person is not
going to jail and they couldoffend again.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, exactly, and just a little thing.
That's not a little thing.
Chain of custody doing thatcorrectly, that's not a little
thing.
Chain of custody doing thatcorrectly, knowing that you
can't have a break in the chainof custody at any time you do,
and that key piece of evidenceis gone, and even if you admit
it, with a faulty chain ofcustody, the case is going to
(03:18):
get reversed.
So that sort of competence whenyou get a case and you see all
right, that sort of competencewhen you get a case and you see,
all right, the chain of custodyand I'm using that as one
example when you see that it'sclear and there's no break and
all is good, you just kind ofbreathe a sigh of relief that
that's not going to become anissue.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You brought up a great point that you admit to
that.
You admit to that.
You admit to a lot of people.
I'm like.
You know the worst thing in theworld is like when you're first
, when you're first specialagent, officer, agent or
whatever is thinking aboutgetting on the stand and you
don't, or even testifying togrand jury.
You don't want to be the bad,you don't want to be the bad
person, you don't want to seemincompetent.
(03:58):
But if you stick to the factsand stick to the truth, the
truth will set you free.
And it comes down to like look,if you didn't gather the
evidence in its right way, ifyou broke the chain of custody,
admit it.
Never, ever, ever, lie underoath oh no, never, never.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
But you're exactly right.
You, you have to and everyonemakes mistakes and those, those
things.
But you're right, you tell whathappened, because it will come
back to haunt you if you don't.
And you know that's what has tobe done.
Anyway, we all.
The truth will set you free.
You said it right there.
(04:37):
Tell the truth, reasonabledoubt.
Just put the bad guy away.
Keeping the bad guys away, thatwas a different struggle.
Let's put the bad guy away.
Keeping the bad guys away, thatwas a different struggle.
You know, I prosecuted in Texasover 20 years ago and if you
got a 12 year sentence, forexample, you spent about 10
months in jail.
(04:57):
That's a non aggravated offense.
Now that may have changed nowbecause I'm I'm not in the
prosecution game, that I haven'tbeen in a long time, but that
was pretty frustrating.
When a jury thinks thatsomeone's going away for quote
12 years, in reality it's.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You know depending on the situation, it could be a
year maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So that's frustrating , but you know you got.
You have to keep on keeping on.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Now you were in Temple right.
Is that Temple by Fort Hood?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Okay, well, were you already there?
What years?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Well, we're talking, let's see 80s, 90s.
Late 90s, early 2000s, I movedfrom Texas to Kentucky in about
2004.
It's all kind of no, I'm sorry,that's not right.
(05:52):
I moved to from Kentucky toTexas in 1997.
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
It was a long time ago, but yeah, it was Fort Hood
back then Killeen, and we workedwith a lot of military, yeah,
officers and a lot of cases yeah, I was there in 95 and I
remember like and I was, becauseI the first thing I'm thinking
about is like some of the guysin my unit got popped for armed
robbery back in 95, 95, 96 timeframe and I'm like you might
(06:20):
dealing with, you're like you'redealing with a whole bunch of
different things.
You're not just dealing witheveryday civilians, you're
dealing with, like, like themilitary element too.
So like, yeah, man, temple was,temple was a lot a different,
different area than people think.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
A different area and from our point of view I was
with the Bell County DA's office.
The majority of cases thatwould come in we would consult
with the JAG attorney and mostof the time we said, take care
of your own, and we'd send themright back to the military and
we would never see the casesagain.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, because imagine it's a lot easier for them to
do any type of prosecution underUCMJ than you guys could ever
do.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And do real time too, whenyou're looking at time too, when
you're looking at 12 years,you're looking at 12 years yeah,
exactly, yeah, go wherever,yeah it.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That was.
That was always the argumentwas got a bad person here, did
something bad.
Where are they going to get themost time?
And usually that was alwayswith the military.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You know you grew up in Texas.
I love Texas and you said theAlamo was a really big influence
on you, kind of jumping intothis next phase of your life.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, Even back as a kid though.
I mean back when, oh I don'tknow, say I was 10, say this is
early 70s, 1972 or 3, you go tothe alamo and if you walk, in
and there was a plaque in frontof the door, which may or may
not even be there anymore.
I haven't gone, I think.
(07:58):
I don't think it is.
But it would say speak softly.
Heroes died here for yousomething to that effect, and it
was just an awe-inspiring place.
You would go in and there was aplaque that had Travis's letter
you know his victory or death.
I will die with honor letterthat I used to have memorized.
I could probably spiel it offto you now if I thought about it
(08:21):
, but that was just as a kid.
That was just veryawe-inspiring to me that these
heroes existed so that I couldbe free and have the life that I
lived.
And you know, and at the.
Alamo and Battle of Thermopylae.
Those types of battles great,greatly outnumbered, and the
guys didn't live.
So it was.
(08:42):
It was an love of history,early love of Texas history, but
more importantly, an earlyadmiration and love for heroic
history and ordinary peopledoing extraordinary things.
So that started as a kid and Ihad a love of history all the
way going through college andeven in the law career that's
(09:04):
what I would read.
So it was just natural for meto kind of, as the next phase of
my life and career, to fallinto something history related.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Now were you always have some sort of like art bug
in you, Like you were good at it.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I did.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Scoping's like it's solid man.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, it did, and you know I still do.
I don't do it anymore, but as akid I always drew and I always
liked art.
There was always that creativeside.
You know, writing is alsocreative, so there's a common
element you wouldn't think of it, but something visual like
sculpting and painting.
There's a almost a similar urgewhen you write.
(09:47):
It's just kind of channeleddifferently.
So with the medal of honormemorials in the mid-2000s, you
know, when I sculpted both ofthose, I was enamored by the
stories.
First was the kentucky medal ofhonor memorial.
John squires, 18 year old youngman from louisville, kentucky,
(10:07):
was killed at anzio.
But basically as this like Isaid, 18 year old, took out an
entire german company in italyand spackastassi creek.
There's a.
I have a great kind of writtenhistory of what that guy did.
And then when I came back, well, also being from Texas, I
(10:30):
wanted to do a Texas Medal ofHonor Memorial.
So George O'Brien from myhometown of Midland fought in
the Korean War.
He was a Marine and he led acharge against Chinese at the
hook in Korea.
Just incredible stories and youcan.
There is actually a videointerview of O'Brien online.
(10:51):
That's very moving.
I think it's the Medal of HonorMemorial whatever that website
is where they catalog that he'ssince passed away.
So I just love those stories andthe art bug was always there
and I enjoyed it.
But then I kind of realized youknow, I can't sculpt every
great story that's out there andwhen you talk about something
(11:17):
like the Alamo or the greatbattles of history, there are a
lot of people involved.
So I naturally fell intowriting as kind of a consequence
of the art and the sculptingbit, and realized that I enjoy
telling the stories more, evenmore than the sculpting, the art
part, which I definitelyenjoyed.
(11:37):
But you know, you have to makechoices in life when you close
one door and other opens.
So I said OK, let's focus onthe stories.
And that led me to vietnam.
I grew up during the vietnam war.
I was too young to serve, but Iremember it and I remember how
those guys were treated whenthey came home, how it was a war
(11:57):
that everyone wanted to forget.
But these were the sons and,you know, nurses, the daughters
of our greatest generation whowe celebrated strongly, as we
should Band of Brothers SavingPrivate Ryan in the late 90s
when those guys were passingaway.
So, being someone who grew uphearing about the Vietnam War
(12:21):
and having the movies areplatoon and all of those that
have kind of a political bent.
I wanted to do a story thatjust told the veteran story In
their words, what they saw, whatthey did not.
Me I wasn't there.
So long story short.
I wrote two books Lions ofMedina, which chronicles Marines
(12:44):
from boot camp to an operationin the Highland National Forest
of South Vietnam, october of1967.
And then my second book, whichis in its second edition now,
swift Sword, which chroniclesbasically a 24-hour period of
firefight, a battle of Marinesin September of 1967 in the
(13:09):
Quezon Valley of Vietnam.
And in both cases, both storiesit's almost completely all oral
history, meaning I spentseveral years interviewing these
guys, recording theirinterviews, transcribing them.
I'd say half of those guys aregone now.
A lot of the guys have passedaway from cancer, likely caused
(13:29):
by agent orange.
You know they would drop thatdefoliant to these guys.
We just walk patrols justthrough it every day and, and
there's some they're they'redying of cancer.
Basically a lot of them.
So it was, it's been reallyfulfilling for me to knowing
that a lot of the stories arenow gone to get it down and get
(13:54):
it right and get it to whereit's preserved for future
generations and told in theirwords what they experienced.
Not a Hollywood director, notsome you know armchair warrior
or anything like that, but letthem tell the story.
So I'm pretty proud of it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
When you talk about like 17, 18 year old kids, cause
I'm thinking back to the worldwar two still and I just had an
interview where we're talkingabout like my son is 16 and a
half now and I kind of think andI'm like man, a lot of people
are lying to get into world wartwo, a lot of kids, you know, 16
(14:36):
, 17 years old old and then tothink about the bravery not the
bravery first to sign up and goright, but the brave, the
stories of brave kids,essentially kids who are now men
and in war in combat, like itjust amazes me, the, the spirit,
the human spirit of like beingin such a horrific yet like just
(14:57):
adrenaline-fueled, just combatman.
Just I think about these kidsand it's just wow.
And then it pushes me on toVietnam and like me I grew up in
.
You know I was born in the 70sbut the 80s were all about the
Vietnam, the platoons, theHamburger Hill movies.
Later on the books, a lot oftons of books about Lerps, long
range recon, not many booksabout just regular infantry
(15:22):
straight infantry.
And a lot of times when you getbooks, you're getting one
perspective, like we WereSoldiers Once and have colonel
hackworth's books and stuff likethat.
But I love the books where youget the perspective of other
people.
Now, when you're when you'rebuilding out these books and
you're when you're like I'mgonna, here's the, here's the
(15:43):
battle, it was great.
But how do you track down andhow do you interview all these
people?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I'll tell you it's a challenge.
It's similar to building athree-dimensional jigsaw puzzle
without the pieces, meaning yougot to find the pieces and you
have to find the pieces that fitbecause some don't.
And the only way you know thatis you just start talking to the
guys.
And that goes from LieutenantColonel Murray.
(16:14):
He was a Lieutenant Colonelwhen he retired.
He was a Lieutenant in chargeof a company of Marines on
September 4th 1967.
And one thing stuck in my mindabout him is that when I first
told him what I wanted to do, hesaid you need to use as your
example Eugene Sledge's memoirof World War II with the old
(16:36):
breed.
And if you have never read thatbook, it is sobering.
It is not easy to read.
Sledge was a Marine veteran ofTarawa Peleliu, from combat,
from combat, and he would writesomething down and put it in his
(16:58):
tunic and if he survived, hewas going to write a memoir and
he did.
It's very raw, it's real.
Murray told me you need towrite a book.
If you're going to do this, youneed to write a book like this,
because this is ugly stuff,it's hard stuff, it's not fun.
You need to.
This is what it was like.
So, with that in in mind, Iinterviewed all the guys and
(17:23):
they were they were great, totrust me.
It took a long time back andforth to piece this battle
together because in combat thatI learned you know it could be
just the two feet in front ofyou and by your side if you're
holding a perimeter, so youdon't know what's going on
behind you or to your left oryour right.
You know what's in yourperimeter right here, which you
(17:46):
can see.
So putting it all together wasa lot of fun, but it was a lot
of work.
Other was a lot of fun, but itwas a lot of work, and I
originally published the book in2014.
At that time, I was married andmy wife had breast cancer and I
had a small child.
She eventually passed away.
The reason I'm saying that isthat I was distracted from the
(18:08):
story of Swift Sword with my ownstruggles in life.
When I went back to it in 2023,I said this story is not
finished.
It's incomplete.
What I wrote and originallypublished is fine.
It's not complete.
What is missing?
What was missing are the voicesof the men themselves, which
(18:30):
you just said Perspective frommany of the different guys that
were in the battle.
So I went back to all of theold interviews and found the key
quotes and basically integratedthem into my prior text and the
whole thing just came alive,because then it was them telling
(18:51):
their story.
All I'm doing is kind of justorganizing it and then it just
it became just a great thing,because it's that similar to
when you see band of brothers,the interviews of those veterans
in the beginning, those guyshave all passed away, it's like
that, and these guys are sayingthis is what, what happened,
(19:13):
this is what I felt, and youhear it from um, from them.
So I'm I'm pretty proud of it.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Well, you know, when you interview people and it's
same thing when you do podcasts,but a little bit different but
like so when you're, you havethe background as an ADA, so you
know how to build rapport.
You know how to elicitconfessions from people.
So when you're to build rapport, you know how to elicit
confessions from people.
So when you're, when you comeup with your list of people who
you want to talk to, you draftout some notes and stuff like
that you want to talk to.
(19:39):
But how do you, how do you?
This is some of the the worstdays of their lives.
So how do you get into thatmode where, like, okay, I'm
going to try to el list a lot ofinformation on some of the some
of the worst days of theirlives?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Well, you first have to get their trust and you'll.
Usually you would start withthe officers that saw the combat
, lieutenant Colonel MurrayAgain, I bring him up because he
kind of rallied the troops, sospeak, meaning he talked to me,
he vetted me, felt that like Icould be trusted, so he would
(20:17):
say, all right, this guy's gonnawrite a book, he wants to do it
right, he wants to get ourstory.
Who wants to help him out?
You know, let for our, the guysthat didn't come home, let's
get the story complete andfinished the best way.
So then, so he would do a callto action and a lot of guys jump
(20:37):
, you know, said, yeah, I'llhelp other ones.
I can't do that man, I can'ttalk about it.
I mean ptsd, just the horrorsof war, and in those situations
I understand I mean I don'tunderstand because I never saw
that, but I certainly respectand the horrors you've seen you
don't want to visit.
(20:58):
So a lot of several guys didn'ttalk to, and that's perfectly
fine.
Then you would then start,almost like I said, the Marine
organization, you know thecompany commander, the platoon
commander, start with them andthen kind of go down the
organizational structure topiece things together and then
(21:22):
kind of work your way back upand to build it if that makes
sense.
An organizational standpointthat's the main thing is just
where was first platoon, wherewas second platoon, where was
third?
Where's the command creator?
Who's in charge, what's goingon?
So I would start with thecompany commander and work down
(21:43):
and then kind of work back upand then put everything together
.
And as a prosecutor, one of thethings that you learn very
quickly is if everyone istelling their witness, they're
witnessing an event, and ifyou've got two or three people
that say the exact same thing,you know they're lying no one,
(22:03):
no one, no one witnesses thesame event the same way.
They see different things.
They see things that othersdon't see and they see it in a
different way.
So there was some conflict ondid this happen or did not, did
that, did that happen or itdidn't happen?
And to me that was wonderfulbecause I knew it was all so
(22:28):
true and real and you know, justan incredible true story.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
What hit you the most , like when you were talking to
all these people, like thesoldiers, I mean the marines.
What was the one of the mostpoignant stories that you heard?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
well, there were so many um, as far as things that
hit me, the um, the love andcamaraderie that these guys had
for their brother Marines nextto them on the perimeter.
I mean these guys fought fortheir brother Marines.
(23:04):
You know those guys were goingto save their.
You know, if you're going tosave my life, jason, I'm going
to save yours.
And that brotherhood Iwitnessed when I went back to
Vietnam in 2009 with a lot ofthese veterans.
We visited the knoll where thisbattle occurred and I saw those
those guys then in their 60s,and that brotherhood between
(23:27):
them was awe inspiring to watch.
Faith was huge.
A lot of these guys, theconnection with God and their
faith, the old adage there areno atheists and foxholes, sort
of thing.
That was incredible.
As far as specific heroism orincidences, there's so many.
(23:52):
Father Capodano, the Catholicpriest, who was a stowaway on
the chopper when these guys wentout.
Mike 3-5 was a quick reactionforce.
It was called a bald eaglecompany.
Another company got intotrouble.
They were being ambushed byoverwhelming North Vietnamese,
(24:12):
so my company was called out toprovide reinforcement for that
company and Father Capodano wasordered.
He was ordered to stay atbattalion in the rear with the
gear and he didn't.
He said I'm just going todisobey that order.
On the chopper with the Marines, when the company was ambushed
(24:34):
on the Knoll by an overwhelmingforce of North Vietnamese At
least three to one the oddscould have been even greater,
closer to five to one FatherCapodano was out administering
first aid, helping the corpsman,administering last rites,
oblivious to the machine gun andmortar fire around him, and he
himself was killed, going to theaid of a corpsman who was
(24:56):
mortally wounded.
So for that he earned the medalof honor.
That's incredible.
Another medal of honorrecipient on the same day was
Larry Peters, who was a veteranof 20.
I mean, this guy's a veteranand he's 20 years old.
I mean, on his second tour ofduty.
He's a salt.
You know, I'm 63.
(25:18):
I'm a veteran because, justbecause I'm old, this guy was
the real deal.
He was ordered to take a squad,when the ambush was sprung, to
envelop a tree line to try totake pressure off the company so
that they could form adefensive perimeter, as he took
roughly 12 to 16 men to envelopthis tree line.
(25:43):
The tree line stood up becausethere were North Vietnamese
soldiers that were so wellcamouflaged that you couldn't
even see him on a bright sunnyday.
These were veteran NVA, veryexperienced, battle-hardened
troops.
Sergeant Peters saw that andone of the hardest maneuvers is
(26:26):
a tactical retreat under fire.
Normally if these men frommortar fire, pointing out
positions of the NVA with hismachine gun, fire and he leads
them calm I want I use the wordcalmly, um, that's not the
(26:48):
correct word in order in controlback up the hill to enclose
that perimeter.
In the process, he himself wasshot and killed when he was
standing with that machine gunfiring to show where those NVA
were so that the other men couldfire back and hold them off.
(27:09):
And this is all going on, witha lot of men having an M16 that
would jam and after one or tworounds they'd have to get a
cleaning rod out and ram it downthe barrel, come almost like a
Revolutionary War musket and tryto fire.
So a lot of odds were againstthese guys.
Those are just two examples.
(27:30):
I hate to single anyone outbecause there's so much heroism
here.
Lieutenant Colonel I call him acolonel.
He was a lieutenant in chargeof a company, normally a
captain's in charge of a company, but because he was one of the
few guys that had combatexperience wisely, the powers
that be made him and put him incharge of Mike 35.
(27:53):
His cool leadership under firecoordinating air support,
coordinating mortar fire,controlling the companies and
making sure the perimeter staysintact All of this going on in
the midst of being overrun bythree to four to one odds that
(28:18):
leadership under that fire heearned the Navy Cross for that
was.
It's justinspiring that he wasable to keep such a cool head
and to juggle so many pieces Atone point his platoon commanders
and the platoon commanders.
One of the faults in Vietnam isthat you would graduate from
(28:39):
the basic school in the UnitedStates and you're 21, 22.
You're sent to to Vietnam andyou're in charge of a platoon in
combat.
Well, the life expectancy of afirst lieutenant was, in the
second, not very high, but youdon't have any experience.
So his platoon commanders wereall fresh from the United States
, doing their best, theirdamnedest, but they had never
(29:01):
seen combat and they had nevertrained as a company.
A lot, of, a lot of thingsagainst the men.
But murray said knock it off,give a report.
This is what we're going to doand what I'm inspired by and I
could talk about it forever ishow, despite all these odds and
these are just some of thethings I'm talking about these
(29:23):
men, men, were able to prevail,to keep their heads, to win
really the battle.
I mean tactically, in Vietnamwe won almost every battle.
Strategy is a different issue.
But not only was the companypreserved, but Operation Swift
then lasted, I think, maybe aweek or 10 days.
(29:46):
They crippled the NorthVietnamese in the Khe Sanh
Valley and you have to rememberbig picture, the North Vietnam
was planning the Tet Offensivefor January of 1968.
Well, one key element of theTet Offensive that was not in
place was their offensive in theQuezon Valley because of the
(30:08):
Marine action beginning onSeptember 4th basically crippled
the North Vietnamese in thevalley at that time.
So I know I've given you a lotof information.
It just it's very awe-inspiringto me when I have struggles in
my life and my peaceful officehere and my living in America in
(30:29):
free will and I think, well, Ican't do that, I'll just pick up
this book and read about theseguys.
My life's pretty soft and good.
I think I can handle it.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, you know, the thing about these books is like
there are a ton of books outthere about vietnam, but a lot
of them are about one person'sperspective or specialized units
in order to keep people'smemories alive.
And, like we, we know the bandof brothers crew, we know we
know the infantry people fromback then.
But, like vietnam, we needtheir stories.
We need stories need to be told.
(31:01):
I would love to have a bookabout firsthand perspectives
from from Civil War, but nobodywas recording, nobody was
writing the books like that.
But now, like with the Vietnamand even with the GWAT
generation and Desert Storm andeverything in between Granada,
panama, somalia, we have certainstories.
(31:21):
But the more stories that wecould write and the more memory
we can have for people out there, their memory stays alive, not
just for the reader but for thefamilies too.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Oh, and for future generations.
I mean, and you know I have, Ihave a son who's 28.
Young men are struggling in ourcountry now.
I mean you know there are a lotthere's you talked about
earlier the World War Two, the18 year olds, the 16 year olds
and the 14, you know getting in.
So I want to go serve thesestories, act as inspiration and
(31:58):
for generations, now for my son,grandson and then 100 years
from now, from ancient rome werewritten down a thousand years
from now.
Hopefully somebody would pickup these stories and go, wow,
this was this kind of fits, anancient heroic tradition.
That's.
(32:18):
That's great, that you know thestoics, the heroes, what's
really important in our culture.
You know, know every day.
So you know, if I could be alittle bit of a part of that to
tell these guys stories, thatdefinitely makes my day.
I think your mic's off.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
You know, hey, welcome to podcasting.
You know everything's audio,but I'm looking forward to
reading this one.
I am.
I love hearing firsthandperspectives, so the book is
Swift Sword.
Let me make sure I get thetitle now for everybody the True
Story of the Marines of Mike3-5 in Vietnam for September
1967 by Doyle Glass, 1,697reviews.
(33:03):
Wow, that's solid man, reallysolid.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah, it's been a great, a great journey and with
this book, what I want to, wouldlove to see happen is our
grandfather's uncles you've gota friend who served in Vietnam
go up and thank them.
You know they wear the hat thatthey're a veteran, and this,
this goes for all veterans, butI'm speaking specifically about
(33:27):
the Vietnam veterans becausethey're now in their 70s and
we're losing them so and theyweren't treated with any kind of
you know, for the most partwell when they came home.
But thank them and give them acopy of the book if they, if
they, want it.
And give them a copy of the bookif they, if they want it.
They might and they might not,but it's.
(33:47):
It's something to to say look,we honor what you guys did.
This is representative of whatall of you guys did the true
story of the Vietnam veteran andthe heroes of Vietnam, and
let's get their legacy right.
Let's give them the legacy ofheroism that they earned and
(34:11):
deserved and many you know theVietnam wall died for and thank
those guys and share their story.
And you know, if you've got aloved one who was in Vietnam and
they're willing to talk, recordit record it who is in Vietnam
and they're willing to talk.
record it.
Yeah, record it.
And I think that Texas TechUniversity has a repository of
(34:36):
Vietnam veteran interviewsspecifically for the Vietnam War
.
Not 100% sure about that, butyou know.
Contact that university and putit in their archive.
But even more important foryour family, for your kids and
grandkids record what they did,because it's important and it's
really important to know.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, it's not just that.
If you're even like theuniversities, the ROTC programs,
the NCO courses, it's alwaysgreat to have different
perspectives for leadershiplessons learned.
So that's another avenue forthese books as well.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And you know, what's great about these books is it
shows what not to do in a lot ofways, the individual
replacement system which was,you know, you'd have a young guy
fresh from the States boot camp, dropped into a combat company
where all the veterans well,their buddy just got killed and
you replaced them.
They don't want anything to dowith you, but you're going to do
something to get us all killed.
(35:30):
So that's very lonely.
Luckily that's not done anymore.
You know, units train togetherand fight together, and the same
goes.
I mentioned before the officersgetting that experience.
But as a treatise for militaryleadership, what not to do?
(35:59):
Taking a hill costing lives,only to move off that hill three
or four days later and had theenemy take it back and then to
have to go back two weeks laterand take it again.
You know that's not great formorale and it's also not great
tactically or strategically.
But this is the kind of thingthat happened in Vietnam
constantly Equipment, a faultyM-16.
You know you better have yourbureaucracy in order so that you
(36:22):
don't cost lives because yourequipment is no good.
So there are many lessons to belearned by reading this book.
I think that our military hasdone a whole lot because of
Vietnam to improve, but there'salways room for improvement in
all our lives.
But, yeah, you bring up a greatpoint.
And, what's even better, whatdoes leadership look like when
(36:48):
really it's life or death?
Yeah, and that applies to oureveryday life.
You know, if you've got asituation in our family or at
work or anywhere, what?
How did lieutenant murrayhandle that leadership situation
?
How did serge Murray handlethat leadership situation?
How did Sergeant Sullivan inthe front crater handle his
(37:08):
leadership situation?
You go, okay, I'm going to usethose guys as an example because
they did it right.
So if they could do it, I thinkI could do it too, or at least
I can try to come close.
Maybe not make it all the way,but try to come close.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, I appreciate it .
I'm glad for you to come on too.
I want everybody to take a lookat this book.
Swift Sword Doyle welcome.
Thanks, man.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Oh man, jason, it's been awesome.
I appreciate what you do andit's been a real honor to be
here.
I mean I'm glad you'reinterested, your, your listeners
.
It's something that we don'thear about or talk about in our
culture and just to have you outthere kind of spreading the
word is pretty inspiring.
So I appreciate what you do andthanks and thank you for having
(37:56):
me thanks, I appreciate it.
you have one right now.
Hey, welcome to the protectorspodcast.
We are here with doyle glass.
What a cool name, man.
Oh, thanks appreciate it.
Thank my parents for that well,you know, with with a
background in sculpting it, justit.
You know, if your whole careerwas about art and about
sculpting, it would still be areally cool name oh, thanks, I
(00:36):
appreciate it it's a good authorname too.
You know, before all that,though you were, you were in an
ada man assistant districtattorney.
That's a talk about a gig man.
People don't understand.
When you're doing prosecutionsand stuff, that's really like
you could arrest people all daylong, all day long.
But unless you have a solid ADA, those people go right back on
(01:01):
the street.
Baddest, worst people in theworld.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Right, people go right back on the street.
Baddest people, worst people inthe world.
Right, and I was, you know,worked on.
I worked in mcclennan countydistrict attorney's office here
in texas and temple, and then Ialso lived in kentucky for a
while and was an assistantcommonwealth I'm sorry, an
assistant attorney general there.
And without the great case workby the officers in preparing
(01:28):
the case, knowing how to presenta case to a jury, knowing
what's important, you know, itmade our job just so much easier
to have good folks on theground that are having to
respond to the tough situationsand then to build the case,
present the case to us so thatwe can prosecute it and get the
(01:51):
bad guys off the street.
So without the police officersand the detectives doing a great
job, you know, our, our, ourhands were, were tied.
So I was, you know, reallyblessed to have a number of
great officers who I worked with.
That made my life easy.
Well, relatively speaking.
(02:11):
Burden of proof.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Doyle, I tell people this detectives and special
agents and stuff, I mean theirlife is writing.
But a lot of the times, thepatrol officers out there, the
people the first encounters, thewitnesses taking witness
statements, gathering evidence,chain of custody leading up to
the interviews andinterrogations, and then the
case presentations and thearrest and all that, but the
(02:36):
little things.
The little things matter somuch when it comes to
prosecutions and, like I said inthe beginning, it's like you
could.
You could arrest the worstperson in the world, but if you
don't have a competent team allthe way from the first responder
, all the way up to theprosecutor, that person is not
going to jail and they couldoffend again.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, exactly, and just a little thing.
That's not a little thing.
Chain of custody doing thatcorrectly, that's not a little
thing.
Chain of custody doing thatcorrectly, knowing that you
can't have a break in the chainof custody at any time you do,
and that key piece of evidenceis gone, and even if you admit
it, with a faulty chain ofcustody, the case is going to
(03:18):
get reversed.
So that sort of competence whenyou get a case and you see all
right, that sort of competencewhen you get a case and you see,
all right, the chain of custodyand I'm using that as one
example when you see that it'sclear and there's no break and
all is good, you just kind ofbreathe a sigh of relief that
that's not going to become anissue.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You brought up a great point that you admit to
that.
You admit to that.
You admit to a lot of people.
I'm like.
You know the worst thing in theworld is like when you're first
, when you're first specialagent, officer, agent or
whatever is thinking aboutgetting on the stand and you
don't, or even testifying togrand jury.
You don't want to be the bad,you don't want to be the bad
person, you don't want to seemincompetent.
(03:58):
But if you stick to the factsand stick to the truth, the
truth will set you free.
And it comes down to like look,if you didn't gather the
evidence in its right way, ifyou broke the chain of custody,
admit it.
Never, ever, ever, lie underoath oh no, never, never.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
But you're exactly right.
You, you have to and everyonemakes mistakes and those, those
things.
But you're right, you tell whathappened, because it will come
back to haunt you if you don't.
And you know that's what has tobe done.
Anyway, we all.
The truth will set you free.
You said it right there.
(04:37):
Tell the truth, reasonabledoubt.
Just put the bad guy away.
Keeping the bad guys away, thatwas a different struggle.
Let's put the bad guy away.
Keeping the bad guys away, thatwas a different struggle.
You know, I prosecuted in Texasover 20 years ago and if you
got a 12 year sentence, forexample, you spent about 10
months in jail.
(04:57):
That's a non aggravated offense.
Now that may have changed nowbecause I'm I'm not in the
prosecution game, that I haven'tbeen in a long time, but that
was pretty frustrating.
When a jury thinks thatsomeone's going away for quote
12 years, in reality it's.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You know depending on the situation, it could be a
year maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So that's frustrating , but you know you got.
You have to keep on keeping on.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Now you were in Temple right.
Is that Temple by Fort Hood?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Okay, well, were you already there?
What years?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Well, we're talking, let's see 80s, 90s.
Late 90s, early 2000s, I movedfrom Texas to Kentucky in about
2004.
It's all kind of no, I'm sorry,that's not right.
(05:52):
I moved to from Kentucky toTexas in 1997.
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
It was a long time ago, but yeah, it was Fort Hood
back then Killeen, and we workedwith a lot of military, yeah,
officers and a lot of cases yeah, I was there in 95 and I
remember like and I was, becauseI the first thing I'm thinking
about is like some of the guysin my unit got popped for armed
robbery back in 95, 95, 96 timeframe and I'm like you might
(06:20):
dealing with, you're like you'redealing with a whole bunch of
different things.
You're not just dealing witheveryday civilians, you're
dealing with, like, like themilitary element too.
So like, yeah, man, temple was,temple was a lot a different,
different area than people think.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
A different area and from our point of view I was
with the Bell County DA's office.
The majority of cases thatwould come in we would consult
with the JAG attorney and mostof the time we said, take care
of your own, and we'd send themright back to the military and
we would never see the casesagain.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, because imagine it's a lot easier for them to
do any type of prosecution underUCMJ than you guys could ever
do.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And do real time too, whenyou're looking at time too, when
you're looking at 12 years,you're looking at 12 years yeah,
exactly, yeah, go wherever,yeah it.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That was.
That was always the argumentwas got a bad person here, did
something bad.
Where are they going to get themost time?
And usually that was alwayswith the military.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You know you grew up in Texas.
I love Texas and you said theAlamo was a really big influence
on you, kind of jumping intothis next phase of your life.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, Even back as a kid though.
I mean back when, oh I don'tknow, say I was 10, say this is
early 70s, 1972 or 3, you go tothe alamo and if you walk, in
and there was a plaque in frontof the door, which may or may
not even be there anymore.
I haven't gone, I think.
(07:58):
I don't think it is.
But it would say speak softly.
Heroes died here for yousomething to that effect, and it
was just an awe-inspiring place.
You would go in and there was aplaque that had Travis's letter
you know his victory or death.
I will die with honor letterthat I used to have memorized.
I could probably spiel it offto you now if I thought about it
(08:21):
, but that was just as a kid.
That was just veryawe-inspiring to me that these
heroes existed so that I couldbe free and have the life that I
lived.
And you know, and at the.
Alamo and Battle of Thermopylae.
Those types of battles great,greatly outnumbered, and the
guys didn't live.
So it was.
(08:42):
It was an love of history,early love of Texas history, but
more importantly, an earlyadmiration and love for heroic
history and ordinary peopledoing extraordinary things.
So that started as a kid and Ihad a love of history all the
way going through college andeven in the law career that's
(09:04):
what I would read.
So it was just natural for meto kind of, as the next phase of
my life and career, to fallinto something history related.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Now were you always have some sort of like art bug
in you, Like you were good at it.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I did.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Scoping's like it's solid man.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, it did, and you know I still do.
I don't do it anymore, but as akid I always drew and I always
liked art.
There was always that creativeside.
You know, writing is alsocreative, so there's a common
element you wouldn't think of it, but something visual like
sculpting and painting.
There's a almost a similar urgewhen you write.
(09:47):
It's just kind of channeleddifferently.
So with the medal of honormemorials in the mid-2000s, you
know, when I sculpted both ofthose, I was enamored by the
stories.
First was the kentucky medal ofhonor memorial.
John squires, 18 year old youngman from louisville, kentucky,
(10:07):
was killed at anzio.
But basically as this like Isaid, 18 year old, took out an
entire german company in italyand spackastassi creek.
There's a.
I have a great kind of writtenhistory of what that guy did.
And then when I came back, well, also being from Texas, I
(10:30):
wanted to do a Texas Medal ofHonor Memorial.
So George O'Brien from myhometown of Midland fought in
the Korean War.
He was a Marine and he led acharge against Chinese at the
hook in Korea.
Just incredible stories and youcan.
There is actually a videointerview of O'Brien online.
(10:51):
That's very moving.
I think it's the Medal of HonorMemorial whatever that website
is where they catalog that he'ssince passed away.
So I just love those stories andthe art bug was always there
and I enjoyed it.
But then I kind of realized youknow, I can't sculpt every
great story that's out there andwhen you talk about something
(11:17):
like the Alamo or the greatbattles of history, there are a
lot of people involved.
So I naturally fell intowriting as kind of a consequence
of the art and the sculptingbit, and realized that I enjoy
telling the stories more, evenmore than the sculpting, the art
part, which I definitelyenjoyed.
(11:37):
But you know, you have to makechoices in life when you close
one door and other opens.
So I said OK, let's focus onthe stories.
And that led me to vietnam.
I grew up during the vietnam war.
I was too young to serve, but Iremember it and I remember how
those guys were treated whenthey came home, how it was a war
(11:57):
that everyone wanted to forget.
But these were the sons and,you know, nurses, the daughters
of our greatest generation whowe celebrated strongly, as we
should Band of Brothers SavingPrivate Ryan in the late 90s
when those guys were passingaway.
So, being someone who grew uphearing about the Vietnam War
(12:21):
and having the movies areplatoon and all of those that
have kind of a political bent.
I wanted to do a story thatjust told the veteran story In
their words, what they saw, whatthey did not.
Me I wasn't there.
So long story short.
I wrote two books Lions ofMedina, which chronicles Marines
(12:44):
from boot camp to an operationin the Highland National Forest
of South Vietnam, october of1967.
And then my second book, whichis in its second edition now,
swift Sword, which chroniclesbasically a 24-hour period of
firefight, a battle of Marinesin September of 1967 in the
(13:09):
Quezon Valley of Vietnam.
And in both cases, both storiesit's almost completely all oral
history, meaning I spentseveral years interviewing these
guys, recording theirinterviews, transcribing them.
I'd say half of those guys aregone now.
A lot of the guys have passedaway from cancer, likely caused
(13:29):
by agent orange.
You know they would drop thatdefoliant to these guys.
We just walk patrols justthrough it every day and, and
there's some they're they'redying of cancer.
Basically a lot of them.
So it was, it's been reallyfulfilling for me to knowing
that a lot of the stories arenow gone to get it down and get
(13:54):
it right and get it to whereit's preserved for future
generations and told in theirwords what they experienced.
Not a Hollywood director, notsome you know armchair warrior
or anything like that, but letthem tell the story.
So I'm pretty proud of it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
When you talk about like 17, 18 year old kids, cause
I'm thinking back to the worldwar two still and I just had an
interview where we're talkingabout like my son is 16 and a
half now and I kind of think andI'm like man, a lot of people
are lying to get into world wartwo, a lot of kids, you know, 16
(14:36):
, 17 years old old and then tothink about the bravery not the
bravery first to sign up and goright, but the brave, the
stories of brave kids,essentially kids who are now men
and in war in combat, like itjust amazes me, the, the spirit,
the human spirit of like beingin such a horrific yet like just
(14:57):
adrenaline-fueled, just combatman.
Just I think about these kidsand it's just wow.
And then it pushes me on toVietnam and like me I grew up in
.
You know I was born in the 70sbut the 80s were all about the
Vietnam, the platoons, theHamburger Hill movies.
Later on the books, a lot oftons of books about Lerps, long
range recon, not many booksabout just regular infantry
(15:22):
straight infantry.
And a lot of times when you getbooks, you're getting one
perspective, like we WereSoldiers Once and have colonel
hackworth's books and stuff likethat.
But I love the books where youget the perspective of other
people.
Now, when you're when you'rebuilding out these books and
you're when you're like I'mgonna, here's the, here's the
(15:43):
battle, it was great.
But how do you track down andhow do you interview all these
people?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I'll tell you it's a challenge.
It's similar to building athree-dimensional jigsaw puzzle
without the pieces, meaning yougot to find the pieces and you
have to find the pieces that fitbecause some don't.
And the only way you know thatis you just start talking to the
guys.
And that goes from LieutenantColonel Murray.
(16:14):
He was a Lieutenant Colonelwhen he retired.
He was a Lieutenant in chargeof a company of Marines on
September 4th 1967.
And one thing stuck in my mindabout him is that when I first
told him what I wanted to do, hesaid you need to use as your
example Eugene Sledge's memoirof World War II with the old
(16:36):
breed.
And if you have never read thatbook, it is sobering.
It is not easy to read.
Sledge was a Marine veteran ofTarawa Peleliu, from combat,
from combat, and he would writesomething down and put it in his
(16:58):
tunic and if he survived, hewas going to write a memoir and
he did.
It's very raw, it's real.
Murray told me you need towrite a book.
If you're going to do this, youneed to write a book like this,
because this is ugly stuff,it's hard stuff, it's not fun.
You need to.
This is what it was like.
So, with that in in mind, Iinterviewed all the guys and
(17:23):
they were they were great, totrust me.
It took a long time back andforth to piece this battle
together because in combat thatI learned you know it could be
just the two feet in front ofyou and by your side if you're
holding a perimeter, so youdon't know what's going on
behind you or to your left oryour right.
You know what's in yourperimeter right here, which you
(17:46):
can see.
So putting it all together wasa lot of fun, but it was a lot
of work.
Other was a lot of fun, but itwas a lot of work, and I
originally published the book in2014.
At that time, I was married andmy wife had breast cancer and I
had a small child.
She eventually passed away.
The reason I'm saying that isthat I was distracted from the
(18:08):
story of Swift Sword with my ownstruggles in life.
When I went back to it in 2023,I said this story is not
finished.
It's incomplete.
What I wrote and originallypublished is fine.
It's not complete.
What is missing?
What was missing are the voicesof the men themselves, which
(18:30):
you just said Perspective frommany of the different guys that
were in the battle.
So I went back to all of theold interviews and found the key
quotes and basically integratedthem into my prior text and the
whole thing just came alive,because then it was them telling
(18:51):
their story.
All I'm doing is kind of justorganizing it and then it just
it became just a great thing,because it's that similar to
when you see band of brothers,the interviews of those veterans
in the beginning, those guyshave all passed away, it's like
that, and these guys are sayingthis is what, what happened,
(19:13):
this is what I felt, and youhear it from um, from them.
So I'm I'm pretty proud of it.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Well, you know, when you interview people and it's
same thing when you do podcasts,but a little bit different but
like so when you're, you havethe background as an ADA, so you
know how to build rapport.
You know how to elicitconfessions from people.
So when you're to build rapport, you know how to elicit
confessions from people.
So when you're, when you comeup with your list of people who
you want to talk to, you draftout some notes and stuff like
that you want to talk to.
(19:39):
But how do you, how do you?
This is some of the the worstdays of their lives.
So how do you get into thatmode where, like, okay, I'm
going to try to el list a lot ofinformation on some of the some
of the worst days of theirlives?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Well, you first have to get their trust and you'll.
Usually you would start withthe officers that saw the combat
, lieutenant Colonel MurrayAgain, I bring him up because he
kind of rallied the troops, sospeak, meaning he talked to me,
he vetted me, felt that like Icould be trusted, so he would
(20:17):
say, all right, this guy's gonnawrite a book, he wants to do it
right, he wants to get ourstory.
Who wants to help him out?
You know, let for our, the guysthat didn't come home, let's
get the story complete andfinished the best way.
So then, so he would do a callto action and a lot of guys jump
(20:37):
, you know, said, yeah, I'llhelp other ones.
I can't do that man, I can'ttalk about it.
I mean ptsd, just the horrorsof war, and in those situations
I understand I mean I don'tunderstand because I never saw
that, but I certainly respectand the horrors you've seen you
don't want to visit.
(20:58):
So a lot of several guys didn'ttalk to, and that's perfectly
fine.
Then you would then start,almost like I said, the Marine
organization, you know thecompany commander, the platoon
commander, start with them andthen kind of go down the
organizational structure topiece things together and then
(21:22):
kind of work your way back upand to build it if that makes
sense.
An organizational standpointthat's the main thing is just
where was first platoon, wherewas second platoon, where was
third?
Where's the command creator?
Who's in charge, what's goingon?
So I would start with thecompany commander and work down
(21:43):
and then kind of work back upand then put everything together
.
And as a prosecutor, one of thethings that you learn very
quickly is if everyone istelling their witness, they're
witnessing an event, and ifyou've got two or three people
that say the exact same thing,you know they're lying no one,
(22:03):
no one, no one witnesses thesame event the same way.
They see different things.
They see things that othersdon't see and they see it in a
different way.
So there was some conflict ondid this happen or did not, did
that, did that happen or itdidn't happen?
And to me that was wonderfulbecause I knew it was all so
(22:28):
true and real and you know, justan incredible true story.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
What hit you the most , like when you were talking to
all these people, like thesoldiers, I mean the marines.
What was the one of the mostpoignant stories that you heard?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
well, there were so many um, as far as things that
hit me, the um, the love andcamaraderie that these guys had
for their brother Marines nextto them on the perimeter.
I mean these guys fought fortheir brother Marines.
(23:04):
You know those guys were goingto save their.
You know, if you're going tosave my life, jason, I'm going
to save yours.
And that brotherhood Iwitnessed when I went back to
Vietnam in 2009 with a lot ofthese veterans.
We visited the knoll where thisbattle occurred and I saw those
those guys then in their 60s,and that brotherhood between
(23:27):
them was awe inspiring to watch.
Faith was huge.
A lot of these guys, theconnection with God and their
faith, the old adage there areno atheists and foxholes, sort
of thing.
That was incredible.
As far as specific heroism orincidences, there's so many.
(23:52):
Father Capodano, the Catholicpriest, who was a stowaway on
the chopper when these guys wentout.
Mike 3-5 was a quick reactionforce.
It was called a bald eaglecompany.
Another company got intotrouble.
They were being ambushed byoverwhelming North Vietnamese,
(24:12):
so my company was called out toprovide reinforcement for that
company and Father Capodano wasordered.
He was ordered to stay atbattalion in the rear with the
gear and he didn't.
He said I'm just going todisobey that order.
On the chopper with the Marines, when the company was ambushed
(24:34):
on the Knoll by an overwhelmingforce of North Vietnamese At
least three to one the oddscould have been even greater,
closer to five to one FatherCapodano was out administering
first aid, helping the corpsman,administering last rites,
oblivious to the machine gun andmortar fire around him, and he
himself was killed, going to theaid of a corpsman who was
(24:56):
mortally wounded.
So for that he earned the medalof honor.
That's incredible.
Another medal of honorrecipient on the same day was
Larry Peters, who was a veteranof 20.
I mean, this guy's a veteranand he's 20 years old.
I mean, on his second tour ofduty.
He's a salt.
You know, I'm 63.
(25:18):
I'm a veteran because, justbecause I'm old, this guy was
the real deal.
He was ordered to take a squad,when the ambush was sprung, to
envelop a tree line to try totake pressure off the company so
that they could form adefensive perimeter, as he took
roughly 12 to 16 men to envelopthis tree line.
(25:43):
The tree line stood up becausethere were North Vietnamese
soldiers that were so wellcamouflaged that you couldn't
even see him on a bright sunnyday.
These were veteran NVA, veryexperienced, battle-hardened
troops.
Sergeant Peters saw that andone of the hardest maneuvers is
(26:26):
a tactical retreat under fire.
Normally if these men frommortar fire, pointing out
positions of the NVA with hismachine gun, fire and he leads
them calm I want I use the wordcalmly, um, that's not the
(26:48):
correct word in order in controlback up the hill to enclose
that perimeter.
In the process, he himself wasshot and killed when he was
standing with that machine gunfiring to show where those NVA
were so that the other men couldfire back and hold them off.
(27:09):
And this is all going on, witha lot of men having an M16 that
would jam and after one or tworounds they'd have to get a
cleaning rod out and ram it downthe barrel, come almost like a
Revolutionary War musket and tryto fire.
So a lot of odds were againstthese guys.
Those are just two examples.
(27:30):
I hate to single anyone outbecause there's so much heroism
here.
Lieutenant Colonel I call him acolonel.
He was a lieutenant in chargeof a company, normally a
captain's in charge of a company, but because he was one of the
few guys that had combatexperience wisely, the powers
that be made him and put him incharge of Mike 35.
(27:53):
His cool leadership under firecoordinating air support,
coordinating mortar fire,controlling the companies and
making sure the perimeter staysintact All of this going on in
the midst of being overrun bythree to four to one odds that
(28:18):
leadership under that fire heearned the Navy Cross for that
was.
It's justinspiring that he wasable to keep such a cool head
and to juggle so many pieces Atone point his platoon commanders
and the platoon commanders.
One of the faults in Vietnam isthat you would graduate from
(28:39):
the basic school in the UnitedStates and you're 21, 22.
You're sent to to Vietnam andyou're in charge of a platoon in
combat.
Well, the life expectancy of afirst lieutenant was, in the
second, not very high, but youdon't have any experience.
So his platoon commanders wereall fresh from the United States
, doing their best, theirdamnedest, but they had never
(29:01):
seen combat and they had nevertrained as a company.
A lot, of, a lot of thingsagainst the men.
But murray said knock it off,give a report.
This is what we're going to doand what I'm inspired by and I
could talk about it forever ishow, despite all these odds and
these are just some of thethings I'm talking about these
(29:23):
men, men, were able to prevail,to keep their heads, to win
really the battle.
I mean tactically, in Vietnamwe won almost every battle.
Strategy is a different issue.
But not only was the companypreserved, but Operation Swift
then lasted, I think, maybe aweek or 10 days.
(29:46):
They crippled the NorthVietnamese in the Khe Sanh
Valley and you have to rememberbig picture, the North Vietnam
was planning the Tet Offensivefor January of 1968.
Well, one key element of theTet Offensive that was not in
place was their offensive in theQuezon Valley because of the
(30:08):
Marine action beginning onSeptember 4th basically crippled
the North Vietnamese in thevalley at that time.
So I know I've given you a lotof information.
It just it's very awe-inspiringto me when I have struggles in
my life and my peaceful officehere and my living in America in
(30:29):
free will and I think, well, Ican't do that, I'll just pick up
this book and read about theseguys.
My life's pretty soft and good.
I think I can handle it.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, you know, the thing about these books is like
there are a ton of books outthere about vietnam, but a lot
of them are about one person'sperspective or specialized units
in order to keep people'smemories alive.
And, like we, we know the bandof brothers crew, we know we
know the infantry people fromback then.
But, like vietnam, we needtheir stories.
We need stories need to be told.
(31:01):
I would love to have a bookabout firsthand perspectives
from from Civil War, but nobodywas recording, nobody was
writing the books like that.
But now, like with the Vietnamand even with the GWAT
generation and Desert Storm andeverything in between Granada,
panama, somalia, we have certainstories.
(31:21):
But the more stories that wecould write and the more memory
we can have for people out there, their memory stays alive, not
just for the reader but for thefamilies too.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Oh, and for future generations.
I mean, and you know I have, Ihave a son who's 28.
Young men are struggling in ourcountry now.
I mean you know there are a lotthere's you talked about
earlier the World War Two, the18 year olds, the 16 year olds
and the 14, you know getting in.
So I want to go serve thesestories, act as inspiration and
(31:58):
for generations, now for my son,grandson and then 100 years
from now, from ancient rome werewritten down a thousand years
from now.
Hopefully somebody would pickup these stories and go, wow,
this was this kind of fits, anancient heroic tradition.
That's.
(32:18):
That's great, that you know thestoics, the heroes, what's
really important in our culture.
You know, know every day.
So you know, if I could be alittle bit of a part of that to
tell these guys stories, thatdefinitely makes my day.
I think your mic's off.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
You know, hey, welcome to podcasting.
You know everything's audio,but I'm looking forward to
reading this one.
I am.
I love hearing firsthandperspectives, so the book is
Swift Sword.
Let me make sure I get thetitle now for everybody the True
Story of the Marines of Mike3-5 in Vietnam for September
1967 by Doyle Glass, 1,697reviews.
(33:03):
Wow, that's solid man, reallysolid.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah, it's been a great, a great journey and with
this book, what I want to, wouldlove to see happen is our
grandfather's uncles you've gota friend who served in Vietnam
go up and thank them.
You know they wear the hat thatthey're a veteran, and this,
this goes for all veterans, butI'm speaking specifically about
(33:27):
the Vietnam veterans becausethey're now in their 70s and
we're losing them so and theyweren't treated with any kind of
you know, for the most partwell when they came home.
But thank them and give them acopy of the book if they, if
they, want it.
And give them a copy of the bookif they, if they want it.
They might and they might not,but it's.
(33:47):
It's something to to say look,we honor what you guys did.
This is representative of whatall of you guys did the true
story of the Vietnam veteran andthe heroes of Vietnam, and
let's get their legacy right.
Let's give them the legacy ofheroism that they earned and
(34:11):
deserved and many you know theVietnam wall died for and thank
those guys and share their story.
And you know, if you've got aloved one who was in Vietnam and
they're willing to talk, recordit record it who is in Vietnam
and they're willing to talk.
record it.
Yeah, record it.
And I think that Texas TechUniversity has a repository of
(34:36):
Vietnam veteran interviewsspecifically for the Vietnam War
.
Not 100% sure about that, butyou know.
Contact that university and putit in their archive.
But even more important foryour family, for your kids and
grandkids record what they did,because it's important and it's
really important to know.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, it's not just that.
If you're even like theuniversities, the ROTC programs,
the NCO courses, it's alwaysgreat to have different
perspectives for leadershiplessons learned.
So that's another avenue forthese books as well.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And you know, what's great about these books is it
shows what not to do in a lot ofways, the individual
replacement system which was,you know, you'd have a young guy
fresh from the States boot camp, dropped into a combat company
where all the veterans well,their buddy just got killed and
you replaced them.
They don't want anything to dowith you, but you're going to do
something to get us all killed.
(35:30):
So that's very lonely.
Luckily that's not done anymore.
You know, units train togetherand fight together, and the same
goes.
I mentioned before the officersgetting that experience.
But as a treatise for militaryleadership, what not to do?
(35:59):
Taking a hill costing lives,only to move off that hill three
or four days later and had theenemy take it back and then to
have to go back two weeks laterand take it again.
You know that's not great formorale and it's also not great
tactically or strategically.
But this is the kind of thingthat happened in Vietnam
constantly Equipment, a faultyM-16.
You know you better have yourbureaucracy in order so that you
(36:22):
don't cost lives because yourequipment is no good.
So there are many lessons to belearned by reading this book.
I think that our military hasdone a whole lot because of
Vietnam to improve, but there'salways room for improvement in
all our lives.
But, yeah, you bring up a greatpoint.
And, what's even better, whatdoes leadership look like when
(36:48):
really it's life or death?
Yeah, and that applies to oureveryday life.
You know, if you've got asituation in our family or at
work or anywhere, what?
How did lieutenant murrayhandle that leadership situation
?
How did serge Murray handlethat leadership situation?
How did Sergeant Sullivan inthe front crater handle his
(37:08):
leadership situation?
You go, okay, I'm going to usethose guys as an example because
they did it right.
So if they could do it, I thinkI could do it too, or at least
I can try to come close.
Maybe not make it all the way,but try to come close.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, I appreciate it .
I'm glad for you to come on too.
I want everybody to take a lookat this book.
Swift Sword Doyle welcome.
Thanks, man.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Oh man, jason, it's been awesome.
I appreciate what you do andit's been a real honor to be
here.
I mean I'm glad you'reinterested, your, your listeners
.
It's something that we don'thear about or talk about in our
culture and just to have you outthere kind of spreading the
word is pretty inspiring.
So I appreciate what you do andthanks and thank you for having
(37:56):
me thanks, I appreciate it.
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