December 23, 2025 • 33 mins
Author James Bradley joins Michael Berry to reveal the hidden truths of the Vietnam War, the failures of U.S. leadership, and the untold stories of those who lived — and died — through it.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Trump can't handle strong successful women.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You can't handle women, particularly strong women.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Donald Trump, you never see him around strong intelligent women.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am woman.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Hear me wrong?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
At fifty four years old. We will undertake I am
a job.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The son of the Vietnam War generation. It is probably
the most profound, impactful historical event in American history that
gets the least amount of attention relative to the impact
it made on this country now. It is more recent,
(00:58):
of course, than say the Revolution or the Civil War,
World War One, or World War Two, but the profound
cultural change it precipitated cannot be measured yet and will
not be measured for decades to come. Families torn apart,
(01:22):
women left without their husbands, children left without a father.
In some cases, children made, father goes to Vietnam, father
does not come home except in a coffin, and the
child never knew their dad, A very, very troubling scenario.
Those who came home from World War Two were heroes.
(01:45):
Those who came home from Vietnam were spat upon. There's
been some argument over the last few years whether they
were spat upon or not, I've had enough tell me
they were that. I believe it, But either way it
was troubling. Why were we there, Why weren't we winning
when we left? Why did it take so long? And
how did the other side win, if in fact they did,
(02:09):
what were really the goals? These things bother me. I
wrestle with them, and I wrestle with them because, as
you know, I had a club called the RCC, and
I would get up every night that we had a
big concert, and I would say from the stage, Hey,
we're gonna do three things. You know, kiss your bride,
this is date night. Or number two, make a friend.
Number three. I want all my veterans to come down.
(02:30):
And I would call out the veterans of every conflict,
including at that point when we started twenty thirteen, there
were still World War Two veterans Korea. I would skip
Vietnam and I would go to all of the conflicts since,
and then I would do Vietnam last, and I would
see grown men in their seventies, tears streaming down their faces,
and their children my age would come up to me afterwards.
(02:51):
They have never seen my dad cry. You hit him,
you punched him.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
In the gut.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
This was a moment that he emoted publicly, and he's
never done that. So with that in mind, we do
a fair number of I don't like the word interview,
I like the word discussion on the subject of Vietnam,
and today is further to that point. The author of
Flags of Our Fathers has released a new book about
the Vietnam War. It's called Precious Freedom, a novel, and
(03:19):
James Bradley, the author, is our guest.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Welcome to the program, James, Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It's good to be with a czar.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Let's start with why I write this book. What's the purpose?
What do you hope to accomplish?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I tried to figure out what happened. I was thirteen
years old when my brother went off to the Marine
Corps in nineteen sixty seven. So I watched everything on
TV that Walter Cronkite had to tell me, and I
wrote a book, Flags of Our Fathers, about how my
father won with the Marine Corps in World War Two
(03:57):
and then we lost in Vietnam. So my brother's with
the Marines, my father's with the Marines. In one family
and one generation, totally different outcome. So I wrote four
books on the Pacific War, Why we got there, Teddy Roosevelt,
Franklin Roosevelt, George Bush, my Houstonian buddy, getting shot down.
(04:23):
And then I thought, what about this Vietnam? So I
went to Vietnam. You know, I had four books under
my belt, and I thought, I'll just spend three years
here and have a book done. And it took me
about eleven years to figure out what happened. So the
first reason it took me so long is because I
(04:45):
had to disentangle from all the propaganda that we're still
enmeshed with, even the wording, even the wording. If you
want me to continue, or you want to, I mean,
I can give you some example.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I should have warned you when I am really interested
in an interview. My New Year's resolution this year was
to stop interrupting people. So I literally turned my mic
off and become a member of the audience. If I
need to interrupt you, I will, but by all means
speak on. I am listening, not waiting to ask a question,
but learning from you.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So you go ahead, Well, I'll give you some examples
of why I was dumbfounded. You know, this is after
reading like two hundred books on the Vietnam War. Interviewing
Vietnam vets, I was immersed in the American narrative. And
I go to Vietnam and I go in as a
Vietnamese veterans house and he says, mister Bradley, look at
(05:42):
your feet, and my feet were in my socks on
his floor. And I said, what about him? And he said,
this was a marine base. Your brother thought this was
American territory. He said, there was no north in South Vietnam.
He said, the New York Times drew a line across
the country called it the DMZ. We never thought there
(06:04):
was a north and south. He said. I didn't think
I needed a visa to visit my uncle in another country.
I mean, Michael, I had to go back to my
hotel room, like, oh my god. This is like Canada
invades Texas and draws the line down the middle and says, now,
(06:24):
look at Michael, there's a East Texas in a West Texas.
In East Texas loves Canada and West Texas were the
bad guys. And there's two countries here. Michael, you wouldn't,
I mean, what are you talking about. You're from Canada.
So we went and we imposed. There was no DMZ,
there was no International Boarder because Vietnamese never thought is
(06:48):
the North invaded the South. That was all made up
gobblinggook from the CIA, Walter Cronkite, Ken Burns and every
documentary you've ever seen. So the Vietnamese, you know, if
you look at a diagram of Vietnam, they say, we say, oh,
we sent your father to South Vietnam to fight North
Vietnam to make South Vietnam free. And the Vietnamese were like,
(07:13):
there's one Vietnam. Hanoi is the same as Saigon. There's
some traders that are bribed, you know, the guys who
ran South Vietnam, the Vietnamese. These were the guys who
fought for the French against Ho Chi Minh. So it's like,
you know, Britain loses in the Revolutionary War, and then
(07:34):
Britain stays in like Virginia, let's say, and France comes
in and gives them money, and they keep telling the British,
you know, there's a there's a British America here. We
didn't really lose, and all the traders to the American
cause are getting pumped up with money. There was no South.
(07:54):
In North Vietnam. That's one thing another thing. So it
took me about six months of drinking tea for them
to part the veil. I got to talk to people
VC viet Cong whod you know, never talked to foreigners.
It took so long to get into this. Mister Bradley,
you want to meet this famous sniper? And I said, yeah, sure,
(08:17):
So I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
James Bradley, hold right there. I'm up against the break
hold type. The book is called Precious Freedom, a Novel.
We'll continue with our guest, James Bradley.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Come out.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
You've got the Michael Berry's show. James Bradley is our guest.
He's the author of Flags of Our Fathers. He has
a new book about the Vietnam War. It's called Precious Freedom,
a Novel. I had to interrupt you in the middle.
You were talking about visiting the home of a Vietnamese
Vietnam War veteran.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Pick up where you left off, if you would please her.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, so you want to meet it a famous sniper? Yeah,
of course, so sniper. You know, I'm thinking of a
lanky guy, you know, stumble And I walk in and
it's a sixty five year old former principal, a female,
and she's sitting there. This is the famous sniper, and
this is what she's the main character in the book.
(09:13):
Her name is May. May, said mister Bradley. When I
was fifteen years old, a Marine walked into my front yard,
shot my father in the head and killed them. And
I said to myself, I'm going to kill every American
I ever see. So I'm an American in her living
room and I said, well, how did you do? She said,
(09:34):
I killed five Americans. It's easy if you have patients.
So she was fifteen, you know. We asked like, how
do people get radicalized? Why do they hate us? Well,
I'm from Wisconsin. If a Canadian walked into my front
yard shot my dad in the head, I can recognize
that Canadian uniform. I know exactly what those Canadian helmets
(09:56):
look like. I'm fifteen. I'm going to run to the
four get trained like she did. And she sat up
in a tree and she snipered to death five Marines.
She probably killed twenty to thirty, but she got medals
for five that were witnessed. Now, the number one Marine sniper,
(10:17):
there's a book about him. Carlos hathcocked he's very, very famous. Carlos,
he snipered ninety to the dead. I've got a picture
I'm looking at right now of a beautiful Vietnamese girls.
She's twenty two years old. She killed one hundred and
seventy four Americans. It was their country. They were not
(10:39):
in uniforms. They could be up in trees. I mean,
think of it. When you're fifteen and a foreign army
comes into town. Well, the foreign army's in a bunch,
they're in a group, they're making noise. They come in
armored carriers, and you're fifteen sitting there at barefoot, and
you know all the alleyways. I could run like four
(11:00):
or five blocks across my hometown when I was fifteen
at night, and I knew where every fence was and
where every open window was, and you know a basement
that was open in somebody's house. And they just energized
all these kids. And what the book is about. My
(11:21):
brother goes to this base called dong Ha. It's a
marine base, well the Marines, and this is not publicized.
It's hard to find this. They leave in nineteen sixty nine,
not nineteen seventy five with the helicopters the Marines are
pushed out. Well, they weren't pushed out by the North
Vietnamese army. They were pushed out by kids, by civilians
(11:44):
with old French rifles. They were being tricked and snipered.
So another story. I'm thirteen watching Walter cromerits CBS News,
and they show me Route nine. Well, what's Route nine
across the neck of Vietnam, right below the DMZ. So
it goes from the South China Seed to Laos and
(12:07):
it's the main thoroughfare and Route nine. I saw it.
I remember, I'm thirteen, and there's the news. Here's Route
nine and the Marines are in complete control. And I
saw tanks and armored cars and well I went out
with the with the tiger of Route nine. Mister Soone,
who's in the book? And I said, mister Soone, I
remember seeing this on TV with marines all over. And
(12:30):
he said, yeah, you didn't see me in the pictures
in the film. I said, what do you mean? He said,
we never fought during the day, He said, mister Bradley,
all those newsreels you saw Vietnam, he said, those are
all shot during the day. We didn't fight during the day.
We were sleeping during the day, talking to our girlfriends,
doing medical care, you know, judicial work, getting food in
(12:54):
in these underground cities that we had. And he said,
we came out at night. He said, it's easy to
be successful at night. He said, your brother probably never
swept hardly, slipt the wink at night because we were,
you know, attacking. So Michael, every day at four pm,
the Marines retreated from Route nine and I'm like, oh
(13:17):
my god, we never controlled Vietnam. We said we controlled Vietnam,
like this area, that area, it's under control. We never
controlled it for a full twenty four hour period. The
Marines had to retreat every single day at four pm
and foxholes or you know, put out the concertina wire
(13:38):
and the mines and all this and prepare for the night.
And that's when the Vietnamese came out. I saw guys
special forces of Vietnamese. They were trained to spider walk
through these minefields, you know, like acrobats. They built replicas
(13:59):
of this and they knew how to like spider walk,
clip all the wires and then boom. Their buddies would
come and the Marines would be hunkered down. The guys
on the perimeter might get shot. The guys inside, you know,
jangled nerves, and then when they came out in the morning,
they had to mind sweep the area. Again. The Marines
(14:20):
couldn't just get up and run out of their sleeping quarters.
They had to have mine sweepers. So, you know, I'm like, what,
you didn't fight during the day, he said, No, ho
Chi Min said, the Americans had a surveillance during the day.
Why would we go out during the day and you
guys had an air force. We didn't have an air force,
(14:42):
he said. We were sleeping during the day, and it's
hot as hell during the day, so we let the
Marines go out and sweat and not find us, and
then we came out at night when it's easy to
be successful. So I'll tell you, mister son takes me
to a battle site. Now, if you listen to Americans,
(15:03):
we think in terms of battles. Rat cat, that cat.
You know, thirty guys there and thirty guys here, and
we're fighting like a football game. You know, thirty here,
thirty there. Boom boom boom. And he said, I'll take
you out to this battle. So we go out. Well,
the Americans landed with a helicopter on a river bank,
(15:25):
and then they had to walk along a trail on
the river and go through a village. And then the
intelligence was was that there was VC up in the
hills after the village. So they walked through the village
and the village has the usual toothless gramma on grandpa's
and little kids. Well that was the intelligence net for
(15:46):
the vietnamemes. Those grandmas were measured, were memorizing every single
This guy had a handgun, and that guy was pointing
his rifle bes way, and the radio man was in
the fourth position and they were memorizing everything. So the
marines go up into the hills. Well, the VC they
were looking for was hiding behind the village. And then
(16:08):
they came out and interviewed all the grandmas and grandpa's
and they got they got one sad when the Marines
walked through the village, they walked with their rifles pointed downs.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
James Bradley is our guest. The book is called Precious Freedom,
a novel. He's the author of Flags of Our Fathers.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
More on Very Troubled Vietnam. There. James Bradley is our guest.
The book is called Precious Freedom, a novel. He is
the author of Flags of Our Fathers. James, let me
ask you a question. I am a believer in picking
at scabs, and whether that is the deaths caused by
(16:51):
the COVID virus, for instance, or the lies about weapons
of mass destruction. And one of the things I find
is that one has to tread lightly. Let's take Vietnam
for instance. We love and respect and honor the people
like your brother who went off to war. Many of
(17:13):
them didn't sign up to go serve. Many of them
were drafted, the most the most recent, the last time
that happened in America. So you really have some folks
that are walking the streets on Monday, and on Tuesday
their ping pong ball comes up and they're sent off
to war. They were not ready for this and certainly
didn't want to go, but they didn't flee. They didn't,
(17:33):
you know, take deferments and do all that. How do
you navigate such an honest conversation where you're doing what
I think the scientific method and good journalism, good investigation requires,
and that is asking tough questions. Because as I would say,
of a number of our conflicts, it's not the problem
of our boys. It's the problem of our generals and
(17:55):
our government putting people in a bad situation. How do
you navigate that without I don't think you intend to
dishonor Vietnam American Vietnam veterans, So how do you navigate that?
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I am trying to help the Vietnam veterans out. I'm
the this is this is Here's a sad fact. I'm
the only American author that ever went to Vietnam and
asked the people who won the war, how did you win?
I mean I caddied for Vince Lombardi of the Green
Bay Packers, bart starluved three doors down up at bass Lake,
(18:31):
and it was win or lose. And when you lost,
you studied. We looked at the films. How did we lose? Well,
the United States got kicked out of Vietnam, and we
never admitted why and had nothing to do with these
vets that were that had nothing to do with my
brother or your father. It had to do with our leadership.
(18:54):
And this is not me analyzing this. Commandant David Shute
US Marine Commandant David Shupe Medal of Honor winner TARROWA.
Tarrowa World War Two Medal of honor. He was giving
speeches all over the United States in the nineteen sixties saying,
Hoaching then has a plan to beat us. They're fighting
(19:18):
that night. We can never beat the Vietnamese because they'll
spend twenty years in this war. They have nowhere to go.
And David Shoop, you'll see in the book, is tirelessly
saying LVJ and all these guys know that we can't win.
He said, this is not James Bradley, this is Commandant
(19:39):
Medal of Honor, David Shupe saying this war Vietnam is
not worth the life of one American man. We should
get out of there immediately. They're lying to you. The leadership,
the leadership of America, including the press, screwed the American veterans.
(20:01):
And that's the purpose of this book. I went and said,
how did you win? And I was shocked that David
Shupe and other guys were technically, strategically, tactically giving speeches
about how we knew we couldn't win. But there were
(20:22):
some top guys, you know. I mean, let's talk about
Brown and Root and Halliburton and Bell Helicopter and Lyndon
Johnson getting rich. You know, Johnson said to the Joint
Chiefs the Staff after they offed JFK. At nineteen sixty
three Christmas party in the White House, Johnson said to
(20:44):
the Joint Chiefs the Staff, you give me my election
and I'll give you your war. They wanted war because
it was just going to last a few months, and
it was going to test out some fancy weapons. And
they had no idea that they were going to toss
in the blood of you know, the guys I went
(21:04):
to high school with, and I'm pissed about it, and
somebody should be held to account. And it's not the veterans.
They were put in an impossible situation and this is
not again. You know, you can say James Bradley, never served,
doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe I don't, but
(21:25):
Commandant David shupe knew what he was talking about, and
he said, this is a loser before we go in.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, and then I guess our next question is I'm
going to ask the question. It's gonna seem like a
stupid question, but I assure you I've spent a lot
of time pondering this, studying this in your heart of hearts,
Why do you think we were really there.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
We were there because the Vietnam War. You know, if
you look at ken Burns and Walter Cronkite and all
these propaganda things. Kennedy was juggling some hot balls and
then it exploded in Johnson and all of a sudden,
you know, Tonking, No, no, no, no, no. Harry Truman
(22:19):
started the Vietnam War. We sent the equipment that was
out in the Pacific to Vietnam, and in August of
nineteen forty five, before even Japan surrendered all that equipment
out there, Charles de Gaulle said, we have to reassert
France in Vietnam. And Harry Truman, you know, where's Vietnam.
(22:44):
I don't know anything about Asia. I'm Harry Truman. And
Degall said, there's communists out there, and you got to
get him. So we supported France. Well, who was the
head of the Congressional Committee, the Naval Affairs Committee that
moved had equipment in nineteen forty five out to Vietnam.
(23:04):
It was a guy called Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam
War began in August of nineteen forty five, not nineteen
sixty four. We were supplying ninety percent of the French
costs of the Vietnam War. People say, oh, Vietnamization. Let's
see Vietnamization. That's Richard Nixon nineteen seventy No, no, no, no, no.
(23:29):
I'm looking at a photo of Richard Nixon in nineteen
fifty three in Vietnam when the French were losing and
they said, we have this plan called Vietnamization, and Nixon
and Eisenhawer said great, We'll give you all the money
you need. And then the French blew it at den
Ben pewed in nineteen fifty four. We fought the Vietnam
(23:52):
War for thirty years, nineteen forty five to nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Is it dan Benhou where the French were absolutely routed.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, but that was all I interviewed guys. You'll see
in the book the Vietnamese winners are jumping over crates
at Denver and Puke, and it says in the USA
all that was when we were told the French were
doing that, right. I get you that.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I think that is consistent.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think that tracks whatever they said because there was
an interest for the United States in keeping a colonial
power in Southeast Asia at that time, and the French
were trying to manage the last remnants of their empire.
They were also having they also had a lot of
trouble in Africa at the same time. In our involvement
(24:48):
to a limited extent, not in a little less than
Lynn Lease in World War Two, but there's no doubt
that there was involvement. James Bradley is our guest. His
book is called Precious Freedom, a Novel. He's the author
of Flags of Our Fathers. And we will continue our
conversation with him for one more segment coming Home. Joe Kungla,
(25:10):
Michael Bay, Good Show, Bablum. James Ridley's our guest. He's
the author of Flags of Our Fathers. He's written a
new book about the Vietnam War called Precious Freedom, a Novel. James,
I want to get into a couple of things that
are not as much in the book, But about the book,
(25:31):
I've talked a little bit about the Vietnam veterans. I
have a number of Vietnam veterans in our listening audience.
Have you have you tested this with the Vietnam I'm
just curious how what the response of Vietnam veterans has been.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's clear to me, your intentions are pure, but I'm
just curious what it's been.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They finally know the truth. Sad to say, I'm the
only American author that went to Vietnam and said, how
did you win? The American narrative if you read two
hundred books on Vietnam, it's boy. I went there and
we did all the stuff, and boy it was really
but they don't get to the bottom line, you know,
(26:13):
but we lost. It didn't work out. So we were
doing all these technically amazing things. The vets performed well,
the soldiers and marines performed like they were trained. But
if you put them in a situation where they cannot win,
and you know that in advance these guys, we should
(26:35):
burn down the LBJ library. McNamara should be dug up.
If you read this book, and our Vietnam veterans should
be honored. The Vietnam vets who have looked at this
book love it because they finally know. Oliver Stone says
about this book and on the back cover he says,
(26:56):
if we knew back in the sixties, well, James Bradley
has revealed, we American mothers would have never sent their
sons to Iraq and Afghanistan. This twenty years is screwing
around thirty years in Vietnam, twenty years in Afghanistan. These
are deaths, these are limbs that are lost. And it's
(27:18):
not the fault of the fighting men and women. It
is the fault of our leadership, and that includes the media.
And you'll see it in the book. How is it
possible that a Medal of Honor winner is giving speeches
in America? He said, the Joint Chiefs we looked at
Vietnam and we said there's absolutely no way we can win.
(27:40):
So what Johnson did is cleaned out that Joint Chiefs
of Staff and got a bunch of guys who would
agree to go in Vietnam. He had to pump up,
you know, those suitcases of cash. And there's many other reasons.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
The book is special novel by the author of Flags
of Our Fathers. James Bradley, You've made a reference in
our first segment today, and I want to explore you
made you bundled the Cia ken Burns and Walter Kronkite.
I have a very very healthy skepticism of a lot
of people who are supposed at historians or newsmen, and
(28:14):
I think that the CIA has caused us many problems
abroad in and lied to the American people in order
to still be able to get young men to go
and fight their wars. What was your meaning behind ken
Burns and Walter Kronkite? And the suggestion was that not
only were they not perhaps being honest about what was
happening in Vietnam, but that they were reading from a
(28:37):
CIA script. I don't want to put words in your mouth.
That's the sense I got.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, CIA script. It's like, if you want to be
in the game, you got to play with these guys.
I mean the ken Burns thing. I was living in
Vietnam when that when that documentary came out, and it
was like hot heels of lives the American vets, why
it with me in Vietnam? Most of the so called
(29:04):
Vietnamese telling the truth and the ken Burns documentary are
CIA connected. There's a woman whose husband was you know,
working you know, I mean it would take twenty minutes
to do the names and the connections. But ken Burns
flew in and out of Vietnam. You know who was
(29:24):
in the editing room with ken Burns. The John McCain's
ghostwriter Mark Salter. Yeah, Ken, you can say this. Yeah,
Senator McCain approves this and that. You know, how are
you going to get on PBS public broadcasting systems supported
by the United States government and tell the truth about Vietnam?
(29:46):
If they told the truth about Vietnam on PBS, they'd
burned down the LBJ library. This is three to five
million Vietnamese dead, fifty eight thousand Americans on the wall.
There's three hundred thousand wounded Americans wheelchairs, crutches, and the
military knew. The top ranks of the military had all agreed, well,
(30:10):
we can't win this puppy, but we'll just throw the
American boys into the Charnel House here and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
It is very troubling to me to think how many
people of my father's generation and now over the last
particularly the last twenty five years. You know, I go
back to as late as as the botched Afghanistan would
draw and I think of how many men with the
(30:42):
best of intentions from small towns all across Texas, the
South and the country, who when we were attacked on
nine to eleven, or when they see the news of
America being attacked their inner sheep dog comes out, and
they are willing to give no greater love hath any
man than it laid on his life for a friend.
(31:03):
They're willing to give the one thing that they have,
which is their life, for their country. And I think
we should honor that by never taking them up on
it unless it is absolutely necessary. And I see these
conflicts that are started on false premises, and by the way,
I think you can make mistakes. I think we learned
a lot of things in Vietnam that maybe were different
(31:27):
than we expected. But I think you owe a duty
to these young men and their commitment and their sacrifice
to say, all right, let's pull back. When Nixon begins
bombing in Cambodia, because it's a parallel pathway without congressional authority,
that is an overstep on a level that I don't
(31:47):
see any way you come back from. You are the
complete imperial presidency at that point, and if Congress does
not rein that in I don't care Domino theory or not,
Kissinger or whatever or not.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
That to me is a very very bad moment.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
There. My dad fought on the Rejima. There were colonels
in front of him. There were colonels getting shot, getting
blown up, you know, leading. Come on, boys, they were
right out in front Vietnam. The colonels were in air
conditioned helicopters. You know, you boys, go out there. The
colonels weren't leading. The military changed, Michael. After World War Two.
(32:31):
It's a different military now. There was like one I mean,
look at the general failures we have. Now, there was like,
you know, like twelve generals running the World War two
something like that, five stars, you know. I mean, I'm
getting off on the statistics. But now there's all sorts
(32:54):
of generals and admirals all over I have been to
the bases all over the world. We've got you know,
a thousand bases with burger kings and schools and you know,
paved roads and you know, people taking care of apartment buildings.
We have an empire. When my dad fought, it was
the War Department and we knew how to do it.
(33:16):
And there were generals getting killed and colonel's getting killed
leading from the firm Vietnam. No, they pushed those boys
out there and said you do it.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
That's exactly right. And that was James Bradley. I'm up
against the clock. I appreciate your time. Okay. He's the
author of Flags of our Fathers.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
His newest book is Precious Freedom, a novel about the
Vietnam Book
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Trump can't handle strong successful women.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You can't handle women, particularly strong women.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Donald Trump, you never see him around strong intelligent women.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am woman.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Hear me wrong?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
At fifty four years old. We will undertake I am
a job.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The son of the Vietnam War generation. It is probably
the most profound, impactful historical event in American history that
gets the least amount of attention relative to the impact
it made on this country now. It is more recent,
(00:58):
of course, than say the Revolution or the Civil War,
World War One, or World War Two, but the profound
cultural change it precipitated cannot be measured yet and will
not be measured for decades to come. Families torn apart,
(01:22):
women left without their husbands, children left without a father.
In some cases, children made, father goes to Vietnam, father
does not come home except in a coffin, and the
child never knew their dad, A very, very troubling scenario.
Those who came home from World War Two were heroes.
(01:45):
Those who came home from Vietnam were spat upon. There's
been some argument over the last few years whether they
were spat upon or not, I've had enough tell me
they were that. I believe it, But either way it
was troubling. Why were we there, Why weren't we winning
when we left? Why did it take so long? And
how did the other side win, if in fact they did,
(02:09):
what were really the goals? These things bother me. I
wrestle with them, and I wrestle with them because, as
you know, I had a club called the RCC, and
I would get up every night that we had a
big concert, and I would say from the stage, Hey,
we're gonna do three things. You know, kiss your bride,
this is date night. Or number two, make a friend.
Number three. I want all my veterans to come down.
(02:30):
And I would call out the veterans of every conflict,
including at that point when we started twenty thirteen, there
were still World War Two veterans Korea. I would skip
Vietnam and I would go to all of the conflicts since,
and then I would do Vietnam last, and I would
see grown men in their seventies, tears streaming down their faces,
and their children my age would come up to me afterwards.
(02:51):
They have never seen my dad cry. You hit him,
you punched him.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
In the gut.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
This was a moment that he emoted publicly, and he's
never done that. So with that in mind, we do
a fair number of I don't like the word interview,
I like the word discussion on the subject of Vietnam,
and today is further to that point. The author of
Flags of Our Fathers has released a new book about
the Vietnam War. It's called Precious Freedom, a novel, and
(03:19):
James Bradley, the author, is our guest.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Welcome to the program, James, Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It's good to be with a czar.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Let's start with why I write this book. What's the purpose?
What do you hope to accomplish?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I tried to figure out what happened. I was thirteen
years old when my brother went off to the Marine
Corps in nineteen sixty seven. So I watched everything on
TV that Walter Cronkite had to tell me, and I
wrote a book, Flags of Our Fathers, about how my
father won with the Marine Corps in World War Two
(03:57):
and then we lost in Vietnam. So my brother's with
the Marines, my father's with the Marines. In one family
and one generation, totally different outcome. So I wrote four
books on the Pacific War, Why we got there, Teddy Roosevelt,
Franklin Roosevelt, George Bush, my Houstonian buddy, getting shot down.
(04:23):
And then I thought, what about this Vietnam? So I
went to Vietnam. You know, I had four books under
my belt, and I thought, I'll just spend three years
here and have a book done. And it took me
about eleven years to figure out what happened. So the
first reason it took me so long is because I
(04:45):
had to disentangle from all the propaganda that we're still
enmeshed with, even the wording, even the wording. If you
want me to continue, or you want to, I mean,
I can give you some example.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I should have warned you when I am really interested
in an interview. My New Year's resolution this year was
to stop interrupting people. So I literally turned my mic
off and become a member of the audience. If I
need to interrupt you, I will, but by all means
speak on. I am listening, not waiting to ask a question,
but learning from you.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So you go ahead, Well, I'll give you some examples
of why I was dumbfounded. You know, this is after
reading like two hundred books on the Vietnam War. Interviewing
Vietnam vets, I was immersed in the American narrative. And
I go to Vietnam and I go in as a
Vietnamese veterans house and he says, mister Bradley, look at
(05:42):
your feet, and my feet were in my socks on
his floor. And I said, what about him? And he said,
this was a marine base. Your brother thought this was
American territory. He said, there was no north in South Vietnam.
He said, the New York Times drew a line across
the country called it the DMZ. We never thought there
(06:04):
was a north and south. He said. I didn't think
I needed a visa to visit my uncle in another country.
I mean, Michael, I had to go back to my
hotel room, like, oh my god. This is like Canada
invades Texas and draws the line down the middle and says, now,
(06:24):
look at Michael, there's a East Texas in a West Texas.
In East Texas loves Canada and West Texas were the
bad guys. And there's two countries here. Michael, you wouldn't,
I mean, what are you talking about. You're from Canada.
So we went and we imposed. There was no DMZ,
there was no International Boarder because Vietnamese never thought is
(06:48):
the North invaded the South. That was all made up
gobblinggook from the CIA, Walter Cronkite, Ken Burns and every
documentary you've ever seen. So the Vietnamese, you know, if
you look at a diagram of Vietnam, they say, we say, oh,
we sent your father to South Vietnam to fight North
Vietnam to make South Vietnam free. And the Vietnamese were like,
(07:13):
there's one Vietnam. Hanoi is the same as Saigon. There's
some traders that are bribed, you know, the guys who
ran South Vietnam, the Vietnamese. These were the guys who
fought for the French against Ho Chi Minh. So it's like,
you know, Britain loses in the Revolutionary War, and then
(07:34):
Britain stays in like Virginia, let's say, and France comes
in and gives them money, and they keep telling the British,
you know, there's a there's a British America here. We
didn't really lose, and all the traders to the American
cause are getting pumped up with money. There was no South.
(07:54):
In North Vietnam. That's one thing another thing. So it
took me about six months of drinking tea for them
to part the veil. I got to talk to people
VC viet Cong whod you know, never talked to foreigners.
It took so long to get into this. Mister Bradley,
you want to meet this famous sniper? And I said, yeah, sure,
(08:17):
So I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
James Bradley, hold right there. I'm up against the break
hold type. The book is called Precious Freedom, a Novel.
We'll continue with our guest, James Bradley.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Come out.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
You've got the Michael Berry's show. James Bradley is our guest.
He's the author of Flags of Our Fathers. He has
a new book about the Vietnam War. It's called Precious Freedom,
a Novel. I had to interrupt you in the middle.
You were talking about visiting the home of a Vietnamese
Vietnam War veteran.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Pick up where you left off, if you would please her.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, so you want to meet it a famous sniper? Yeah,
of course, so sniper. You know, I'm thinking of a
lanky guy, you know, stumble And I walk in and
it's a sixty five year old former principal, a female,
and she's sitting there. This is the famous sniper, and
this is what she's the main character in the book.
(09:13):
Her name is May. May, said mister Bradley. When I
was fifteen years old, a Marine walked into my front yard,
shot my father in the head and killed them. And
I said to myself, I'm going to kill every American
I ever see. So I'm an American in her living
room and I said, well, how did you do? She said,
(09:34):
I killed five Americans. It's easy if you have patients.
So she was fifteen, you know. We asked like, how
do people get radicalized? Why do they hate us? Well,
I'm from Wisconsin. If a Canadian walked into my front
yard shot my dad in the head, I can recognize
that Canadian uniform. I know exactly what those Canadian helmets
(09:56):
look like. I'm fifteen. I'm going to run to the
four get trained like she did. And she sat up
in a tree and she snipered to death five Marines.
She probably killed twenty to thirty, but she got medals
for five that were witnessed. Now, the number one Marine sniper,
(10:17):
there's a book about him. Carlos hathcocked he's very, very famous. Carlos,
he snipered ninety to the dead. I've got a picture
I'm looking at right now of a beautiful Vietnamese girls.
She's twenty two years old. She killed one hundred and
seventy four Americans. It was their country. They were not
(10:39):
in uniforms. They could be up in trees. I mean,
think of it. When you're fifteen and a foreign army
comes into town. Well, the foreign army's in a bunch,
they're in a group, they're making noise. They come in
armored carriers, and you're fifteen sitting there at barefoot, and
you know all the alleyways. I could run like four
(11:00):
or five blocks across my hometown when I was fifteen
at night, and I knew where every fence was and
where every open window was, and you know a basement
that was open in somebody's house. And they just energized
all these kids. And what the book is about. My
(11:21):
brother goes to this base called dong Ha. It's a
marine base, well the Marines, and this is not publicized.
It's hard to find this. They leave in nineteen sixty nine,
not nineteen seventy five with the helicopters the Marines are
pushed out. Well, they weren't pushed out by the North
Vietnamese army. They were pushed out by kids, by civilians
(11:44):
with old French rifles. They were being tricked and snipered.
So another story. I'm thirteen watching Walter cromerits CBS News,
and they show me Route nine. Well, what's Route nine
across the neck of Vietnam, right below the DMZ. So
it goes from the South China Seed to Laos and
(12:07):
it's the main thoroughfare and Route nine. I saw it.
I remember, I'm thirteen, and there's the news. Here's Route
nine and the Marines are in complete control. And I
saw tanks and armored cars and well I went out
with the with the tiger of Route nine. Mister Soone,
who's in the book? And I said, mister Soone, I
remember seeing this on TV with marines all over. And
(12:30):
he said, yeah, you didn't see me in the pictures
in the film. I said, what do you mean? He said,
we never fought during the day, He said, mister Bradley,
all those newsreels you saw Vietnam, he said, those are
all shot during the day. We didn't fight during the day.
We were sleeping during the day, talking to our girlfriends,
doing medical care, you know, judicial work, getting food in
(12:54):
in these underground cities that we had. And he said,
we came out at night. He said, it's easy to
be successful at night. He said, your brother probably never
swept hardly, slipt the wink at night because we were,
you know, attacking. So Michael, every day at four pm,
the Marines retreated from Route nine and I'm like, oh
(13:17):
my god, we never controlled Vietnam. We said we controlled Vietnam,
like this area, that area, it's under control. We never
controlled it for a full twenty four hour period. The
Marines had to retreat every single day at four pm
and foxholes or you know, put out the concertina wire
(13:38):
and the mines and all this and prepare for the night.
And that's when the Vietnamese came out. I saw guys
special forces of Vietnamese. They were trained to spider walk
through these minefields, you know, like acrobats. They built replicas
(13:59):
of this and they knew how to like spider walk,
clip all the wires and then boom. Their buddies would
come and the Marines would be hunkered down. The guys
on the perimeter might get shot. The guys inside, you know,
jangled nerves, and then when they came out in the morning,
they had to mind sweep the area. Again. The Marines
(14:20):
couldn't just get up and run out of their sleeping quarters.
They had to have mine sweepers. So, you know, I'm like, what,
you didn't fight during the day, he said, No, ho
Chi Min said, the Americans had a surveillance during the day.
Why would we go out during the day and you
guys had an air force. We didn't have an air force,
(14:42):
he said. We were sleeping during the day, and it's
hot as hell during the day, so we let the
Marines go out and sweat and not find us, and
then we came out at night when it's easy to
be successful. So I'll tell you, mister son takes me
to a battle site. Now, if you listen to Americans,
(15:03):
we think in terms of battles. Rat cat, that cat.
You know, thirty guys there and thirty guys here, and
we're fighting like a football game. You know, thirty here,
thirty there. Boom boom boom. And he said, I'll take
you out to this battle. So we go out. Well,
the Americans landed with a helicopter on a river bank,
(15:25):
and then they had to walk along a trail on
the river and go through a village. And then the
intelligence was was that there was VC up in the
hills after the village. So they walked through the village
and the village has the usual toothless gramma on grandpa's
and little kids. Well that was the intelligence net for
(15:46):
the vietnamemes. Those grandmas were measured, were memorizing every single
This guy had a handgun, and that guy was pointing
his rifle bes way, and the radio man was in
the fourth position and they were memorizing everything. So the
marines go up into the hills. Well, the VC they
were looking for was hiding behind the village. And then
(16:08):
they came out and interviewed all the grandmas and grandpa's
and they got they got one sad when the Marines
walked through the village, they walked with their rifles pointed downs.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
James Bradley is our guest. The book is called Precious Freedom,
a novel. He's the author of Flags of Our Fathers.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
More on Very Troubled Vietnam. There. James Bradley is our guest.
The book is called Precious Freedom, a novel. He is
the author of Flags of Our Fathers. James, let me
ask you a question. I am a believer in picking
at scabs, and whether that is the deaths caused by
(16:51):
the COVID virus, for instance, or the lies about weapons
of mass destruction. And one of the things I find
is that one has to tread lightly. Let's take Vietnam
for instance. We love and respect and honor the people
like your brother who went off to war. Many of
(17:13):
them didn't sign up to go serve. Many of them
were drafted, the most the most recent, the last time
that happened in America. So you really have some folks
that are walking the streets on Monday, and on Tuesday
their ping pong ball comes up and they're sent off
to war. They were not ready for this and certainly
didn't want to go, but they didn't flee. They didn't,
(17:33):
you know, take deferments and do all that. How do
you navigate such an honest conversation where you're doing what
I think the scientific method and good journalism, good investigation requires,
and that is asking tough questions. Because as I would say,
of a number of our conflicts, it's not the problem
of our boys. It's the problem of our generals and
(17:55):
our government putting people in a bad situation. How do
you navigate that without I don't think you intend to
dishonor Vietnam American Vietnam veterans, So how do you navigate that?
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I am trying to help the Vietnam veterans out. I'm
the this is this is Here's a sad fact. I'm
the only American author that ever went to Vietnam and
asked the people who won the war, how did you win?
I mean I caddied for Vince Lombardi of the Green
Bay Packers, bart starluved three doors down up at bass Lake,
(18:31):
and it was win or lose. And when you lost,
you studied. We looked at the films. How did we lose? Well,
the United States got kicked out of Vietnam, and we
never admitted why and had nothing to do with these
vets that were that had nothing to do with my
brother or your father. It had to do with our leadership.
(18:54):
And this is not me analyzing this. Commandant David Shute
US Marine Commandant David Shupe Medal of Honor winner TARROWA.
Tarrowa World War Two Medal of honor. He was giving
speeches all over the United States in the nineteen sixties saying,
Hoaching then has a plan to beat us. They're fighting
(19:18):
that night. We can never beat the Vietnamese because they'll
spend twenty years in this war. They have nowhere to go.
And David Shoop, you'll see in the book, is tirelessly
saying LVJ and all these guys know that we can't win.
He said, this is not James Bradley, this is Commandant
(19:39):
Medal of Honor, David Shupe saying this war Vietnam is
not worth the life of one American man. We should
get out of there immediately. They're lying to you. The leadership,
the leadership of America, including the press, screwed the American veterans.
(20:01):
And that's the purpose of this book. I went and said,
how did you win? And I was shocked that David
Shupe and other guys were technically, strategically, tactically giving speeches
about how we knew we couldn't win. But there were
(20:22):
some top guys, you know. I mean, let's talk about
Brown and Root and Halliburton and Bell Helicopter and Lyndon
Johnson getting rich. You know, Johnson said to the Joint
Chiefs the Staff after they offed JFK. At nineteen sixty
three Christmas party in the White House, Johnson said to
(20:44):
the Joint Chiefs the Staff, you give me my election
and I'll give you your war. They wanted war because
it was just going to last a few months, and
it was going to test out some fancy weapons. And
they had no idea that they were going to toss
in the blood of you know, the guys I went
(21:04):
to high school with, and I'm pissed about it, and
somebody should be held to account. And it's not the veterans.
They were put in an impossible situation and this is
not again. You know, you can say James Bradley, never served,
doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe I don't, but
(21:25):
Commandant David shupe knew what he was talking about, and
he said, this is a loser before we go in.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, and then I guess our next question is I'm
going to ask the question. It's gonna seem like a
stupid question, but I assure you I've spent a lot
of time pondering this, studying this in your heart of hearts,
Why do you think we were really there.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
We were there because the Vietnam War. You know, if
you look at ken Burns and Walter Cronkite and all
these propaganda things. Kennedy was juggling some hot balls and
then it exploded in Johnson and all of a sudden,
you know, Tonking, No, no, no, no, no. Harry Truman
(22:19):
started the Vietnam War. We sent the equipment that was
out in the Pacific to Vietnam, and in August of
nineteen forty five, before even Japan surrendered all that equipment
out there, Charles de Gaulle said, we have to reassert
France in Vietnam. And Harry Truman, you know, where's Vietnam.
(22:44):
I don't know anything about Asia. I'm Harry Truman. And
Degall said, there's communists out there, and you got to
get him. So we supported France. Well, who was the
head of the Congressional Committee, the Naval Affairs Committee that
moved had equipment in nineteen forty five out to Vietnam.
(23:04):
It was a guy called Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam
War began in August of nineteen forty five, not nineteen
sixty four. We were supplying ninety percent of the French
costs of the Vietnam War. People say, oh, Vietnamization. Let's
see Vietnamization. That's Richard Nixon nineteen seventy No, no, no, no, no.
(23:29):
I'm looking at a photo of Richard Nixon in nineteen
fifty three in Vietnam when the French were losing and
they said, we have this plan called Vietnamization, and Nixon
and Eisenhawer said great, We'll give you all the money
you need. And then the French blew it at den
Ben pewed in nineteen fifty four. We fought the Vietnam
(23:52):
War for thirty years, nineteen forty five to nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Is it dan Benhou where the French were absolutely routed.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, but that was all I interviewed guys. You'll see
in the book the Vietnamese winners are jumping over crates
at Denver and Puke, and it says in the USA
all that was when we were told the French were
doing that, right. I get you that.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I think that is consistent.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think that tracks whatever they said because there was
an interest for the United States in keeping a colonial
power in Southeast Asia at that time, and the French
were trying to manage the last remnants of their empire.
They were also having they also had a lot of
trouble in Africa at the same time. In our involvement
(24:48):
to a limited extent, not in a little less than
Lynn Lease in World War Two, but there's no doubt
that there was involvement. James Bradley is our guest. His
book is called Precious Freedom, a Novel. He's the author
of Flags of Our Fathers. And we will continue our
conversation with him for one more segment coming Home. Joe Kungla,
(25:10):
Michael Bay, Good Show, Bablum. James Ridley's our guest. He's
the author of Flags of Our Fathers. He's written a
new book about the Vietnam War called Precious Freedom, a Novel. James,
I want to get into a couple of things that
are not as much in the book, But about the book,
(25:31):
I've talked a little bit about the Vietnam veterans. I
have a number of Vietnam veterans in our listening audience.
Have you have you tested this with the Vietnam I'm
just curious how what the response of Vietnam veterans has been.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's clear to me, your intentions are pure, but I'm
just curious what it's been.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They finally know the truth. Sad to say, I'm the
only American author that went to Vietnam and said, how
did you win? The American narrative if you read two
hundred books on Vietnam, it's boy. I went there and
we did all the stuff, and boy it was really
but they don't get to the bottom line, you know,
(26:13):
but we lost. It didn't work out. So we were
doing all these technically amazing things. The vets performed well,
the soldiers and marines performed like they were trained. But
if you put them in a situation where they cannot win,
and you know that in advance these guys, we should
(26:35):
burn down the LBJ library. McNamara should be dug up.
If you read this book, and our Vietnam veterans should
be honored. The Vietnam vets who have looked at this
book love it because they finally know. Oliver Stone says
about this book and on the back cover he says,
(26:56):
if we knew back in the sixties, well, James Bradley
has revealed, we American mothers would have never sent their
sons to Iraq and Afghanistan. This twenty years is screwing
around thirty years in Vietnam, twenty years in Afghanistan. These
are deaths, these are limbs that are lost. And it's
(27:18):
not the fault of the fighting men and women. It
is the fault of our leadership, and that includes the media.
And you'll see it in the book. How is it
possible that a Medal of Honor winner is giving speeches
in America? He said, the Joint Chiefs we looked at
Vietnam and we said there's absolutely no way we can win.
(27:40):
So what Johnson did is cleaned out that Joint Chiefs
of Staff and got a bunch of guys who would
agree to go in Vietnam. He had to pump up,
you know, those suitcases of cash. And there's many other reasons.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
The book is special novel by the author of Flags
of Our Fathers. James Bradley, You've made a reference in
our first segment today, and I want to explore you
made you bundled the Cia ken Burns and Walter Kronkite.
I have a very very healthy skepticism of a lot
of people who are supposed at historians or newsmen, and
(28:14):
I think that the CIA has caused us many problems
abroad in and lied to the American people in order
to still be able to get young men to go
and fight their wars. What was your meaning behind ken
Burns and Walter Kronkite? And the suggestion was that not
only were they not perhaps being honest about what was
happening in Vietnam, but that they were reading from a
(28:37):
CIA script. I don't want to put words in your mouth.
That's the sense I got.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, CIA script. It's like, if you want to be
in the game, you got to play with these guys.
I mean the ken Burns thing. I was living in
Vietnam when that when that documentary came out, and it
was like hot heels of lives the American vets, why
it with me in Vietnam? Most of the so called
(29:04):
Vietnamese telling the truth and the ken Burns documentary are
CIA connected. There's a woman whose husband was you know,
working you know, I mean it would take twenty minutes
to do the names and the connections. But ken Burns
flew in and out of Vietnam. You know who was
(29:24):
in the editing room with ken Burns. The John McCain's
ghostwriter Mark Salter. Yeah, Ken, you can say this. Yeah,
Senator McCain approves this and that. You know, how are
you going to get on PBS public broadcasting systems supported
by the United States government and tell the truth about Vietnam?
(29:46):
If they told the truth about Vietnam on PBS, they'd
burned down the LBJ library. This is three to five
million Vietnamese dead, fifty eight thousand Americans on the wall.
There's three hundred thousand wounded Americans wheelchairs, crutches, and the
military knew. The top ranks of the military had all agreed, well,
(30:10):
we can't win this puppy, but we'll just throw the
American boys into the Charnel House here and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
It is very troubling to me to think how many
people of my father's generation and now over the last
particularly the last twenty five years. You know, I go
back to as late as as the botched Afghanistan would
draw and I think of how many men with the
(30:42):
best of intentions from small towns all across Texas, the
South and the country, who when we were attacked on
nine to eleven, or when they see the news of
America being attacked their inner sheep dog comes out, and
they are willing to give no greater love hath any
man than it laid on his life for a friend.
(31:03):
They're willing to give the one thing that they have,
which is their life, for their country. And I think
we should honor that by never taking them up on
it unless it is absolutely necessary. And I see these
conflicts that are started on false premises, and by the way,
I think you can make mistakes. I think we learned
a lot of things in Vietnam that maybe were different
(31:27):
than we expected. But I think you owe a duty
to these young men and their commitment and their sacrifice
to say, all right, let's pull back. When Nixon begins
bombing in Cambodia, because it's a parallel pathway without congressional authority,
that is an overstep on a level that I don't
(31:47):
see any way you come back from. You are the
complete imperial presidency at that point, and if Congress does
not rein that in I don't care Domino theory or not,
Kissinger or whatever or not.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
That to me is a very very bad moment.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
There. My dad fought on the Rejima. There were colonels
in front of him. There were colonels getting shot, getting
blown up, you know, leading. Come on, boys, they were
right out in front Vietnam. The colonels were in air
conditioned helicopters. You know, you boys, go out there. The
colonels weren't leading. The military changed, Michael. After World War Two.
(32:31):
It's a different military now. There was like one I mean,
look at the general failures we have. Now, there was like,
you know, like twelve generals running the World War two
something like that, five stars, you know. I mean, I'm
getting off on the statistics. But now there's all sorts
(32:54):
of generals and admirals all over I have been to
the bases all over the world. We've got you know,
a thousand bases with burger kings and schools and you know,
paved roads and you know, people taking care of apartment buildings.
We have an empire. When my dad fought, it was
the War Department and we knew how to do it.
(33:16):
And there were generals getting killed and colonel's getting killed
leading from the firm Vietnam. No, they pushed those boys
out there and said you do it.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
That's exactly right. And that was James Bradley. I'm up
against the clock. I appreciate your time. Okay. He's the
author of Flags of our Fathers.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
His newest book is Precious Freedom, a novel about the
Vietnam Book
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