May 29, 2023 • 34 mins
Honoring those who fought and died for our freedom
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show. It is the Jesse
Kelly Show. Final hour of The Jesse Kelly Show on
our Memorial Day edition where we honor the fallen for
three hours, just once more a reminder veterans, it's a
day where you can get low if it happens. All right,
(00:35):
if you're there, If you're low today, put the bottle down,
pick up a phone. Nine eight eight is what you
call them. Then press one nine eight eight. But that's
just one number. There are so many resources out there now.
The only shame is not talking to somebody. Okay. So
if you're dwelling on your brothers that are no longer
(00:55):
with us today and you're getting too low, reach out, okay,
reach out and remember look, you can always email the
show Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com. Jesse at Jesse
kellyshow dot com. The first hour we kind of did
a World War two centric thing. Then the second hour
we did Korea. This hour, we're gonna do Vietnam. In
(01:18):
just a couple of minutes. I'm gonna finish this list
of names. These are combat training deaths men who died
in training. Captain Michael Quinn, Lance Corporal Joshua E. Barron,
Lance Corporal Matthew J. Detterman, Captain Brian Kennedy, Captain Kevin Roche,
(01:38):
Captain Brian Kennedy, Sergeant Jeffrey Sempler, Corporal Matthew Drown, Corporal
Thomas Jardis, Lance Corporal Ty Hart, Captain Stephen Torbert, Major
Sean Campbell, Sergeant Dylan Semolina, Sergeant William Sergeant Adam Schuler,
(02:02):
Corporal Christopher Orlando, Pfc James Beach, Major Dennis Doggs, Corporal
Michael mccallich. And remember this, these training dying in training
while you're in the military, that's just as heroic. It's
just as honorable as the guy who died on the
(02:25):
beaches of Normandy. If you're a family out there today,
maybe remembering a son or a daughter, husband, wife, whatever,
whoever died in a training accident. No, they don't make
movies about what your loved one did, but it's just
as honorable and heroic. Military training is dangerous and has
(02:49):
to be dangerous, and you die in training so that
others may live so they can work out what went wrong,
and you'll never see it. They'll never come knock on
your door and tell you, but people will live because
of the sacrifice your loved one made in training period.
All right, now, let's go to Vietnam and talk about
(03:12):
a couple of Vietnam things before we check out it
here this hour. First. I know a lot of this
stuff will be basic. But again, you know, there was
North Vietnam and South Vietnam. South Vietnam the Vietnamese who
were fighting against us there, they were the gorillas, the
viet Cong. In North Vietnam, they had the North Vietnamese Army,
(03:36):
regular army troops, regular uniforms, that kind of stuff. But
all that man in the black pajamas talk you hear,
those are gorillas from South Vietnam. Gorilla fighters. What's a
gorilla fighter. Well, he's somebody who you look out at
his field and he appears to be a farmer. He's
just all look at him. He's working the rice fields
(03:56):
and he is a farmer until you leave. Then he
goes to his hut and he digs up the AK
forty seven he had hidden there, and he heads out
to a spider hole and he waits in a little
hole in the ground for your patuon to walk by
again where he'll snipe your best friend in the face
and then go hiding right back down on that hole.
(04:17):
He's a goerilla fighter. He's the one putting booby traps
up everywhere. He's the one recruiting other people and threatening
other people in the South. Now, it's very, very, very
difficult if you're going to fight a modern war with
modern sensibilities to root out gorilla fighters who are entrenched
(04:41):
in the population. It's very very difficult. Let me, let
me explain why. Uh, well, I'll give you the other
how the other half lives. First, if you're Genghis Khan.
If you're Genghis Khan and you have an area with
a bunch of gorilla fighters who are giving your people trouble,
(05:02):
well that's not that big of a deal if you're
Genghis Khan, because he doesn't have our modern sensibilities. Meaning
if there's a let's say, the state of Arkansas, the
state of Arkansas, the Mongols have taken over America and
the state of Arkansas, they're giving him trouble because in
city after city and town after town, these frigging gorillas
(05:24):
are making life miserable for Genghis Khan. Well, Genghis is
not going to stress about that. He's just gonna go
kill everyone because it's a different moral code, because the
human life is not as valuable. Each human life is
not a unique god breathed soul, none of that stuff,
because there's no value of human life. Well, it's easy
(05:44):
to clear out a gorilla insurgency. Just kill them all, men, women, children,
It's fine, kill them all, raise the buildings to the ground.
Look at that. We solved the gorilla problem, didn't we
Everyone's dead problem solved. But that's not modern sensibilities and
the modern era. It's very very very difficult, not just
for us, for any nation to fight in an area
(06:06):
where a significant portion of that area they don't want
you there and they're fighting a gorilla war against you.
It's just very, very very difficult. In empire after empire,
from Britain to France to America, they've had to go
through exactly this shoot. France went through this in Vietnam itself.
It's hard when the people around you, when enough of
(06:31):
them don't want you there and want you dead. It's
a constant stress. A constant strain. Is my meal poisoned?
As I walk across the street, Am I going to
get sniped from somewhere. It's a problem. We were dealing
with how to deal with this problem in a I
(06:51):
really don't want to use the word humane, but we
didn't want to go full Genghis Khan. But in South
Vietnam there would be areas, and many of them hotter
than others that were just hotbeds of the Vietcong. Picture
it like there were provinces. Okay, So there's a province
and it's in South Vietnam, so technically we're kind of
on their side, except the Viet Cong are really causing
(07:14):
us huge problems from that area. Because there are so
many of them, we weren't sure what to do, so
we began what we're called search and destroy campaigns. They
sound intense, and they were intense. When I say campaign,
I mean it wasn't one patrol, It wasn't an afternoon.
(07:35):
You would have a province, okay, the Province of Chris
in South Korea, and this province is annoying obviously, and
that it has a bunch of Viatcong guerillas in there,
and I want to get rid of I want to
clean out the Province of Chris. And I'm the United
States of America. So what am I going to do?
What we would often do And you can laugh at
this all you want, but again, we were trying to
do it humanly kind of. We would fly overhead and
(08:00):
we would drop leaflets all over the place. We would
tell them, hey, civilians, you might want to get out, Hey,
get out now, this is a problem area. We are
coming in. Get out. Just to heads up everybody. You
don't want to be here when we come back, get out,
get out, get out, and then we will begin search
and destroy. Search and destroy can take the form of
many things. It's a platoon walking into a village and
(08:25):
interrogating the villagers. Hey, who's a Vietcong? Who's not searching
the village for weapons and food supplies? And when I
say food supplies, supplies, you can tell when a village
has enough food for the village and when enough village,
and when a village has enough food for Wait a minute,
this looks like you're supporting some sort of an army unit. Again,
(08:47):
you look for secret weapons stashes. If you find any
of these things or enough suspicious activity, well, war's an
ugly thing. You start burning down the village, refuge hit
the road. They're in the course of our search and
destroy campaigns, there were millions of refugees created by US
(09:08):
and the Vietnamese. As again, I mean, wars fought amongst
civilians wherever they're fought are the most horrible wars. You've
seen enough pictures and video out there of just line
after line after line of women and children walking up
the roads with the belongings they can carry. That's all
the belongings to have left in the world. And so
we're burning out villages, we're running people out, we're also bombing.
(09:31):
These search and destroy campaigns were also aerial bombing campaigns.
What you're trying to clear with a search and destroy
campaign is an area. It's an area focused thing, and
they last thirty days, forty days. A sustain campaign over
and over bombs patrols, bombs, patrols, bombs patrols. You're trying
(09:52):
to clear an area out. That's a search in destroy campaign. Now,
were they successful or not? Everyone can argue about this,
because everyone argues about everything when it comes to Vietnam.
The military just started counting bodies to try to report
how successful it was. Because we always killed more of
(10:12):
them than they could kill of us. We had better training,
more firepower. So they'd go attack an area for thirty
days and at the end of it day say, NIC's
we killed two thousand of them, we lost one hundred
of ours. We won. Kind of it's still a bad area,
all right. So that's search and destroy. We'll read you
a search and destroy citation and email recommendation. Next Jesse Kelly.
(10:40):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show, honoring the fallen on
this Memorial Day and kind of did World War two
first hour, Korea second hour talking about fallen troops. This hour,
we're going to focus more on Vietnam. Was kind of
just going through search and destroy missions. And you should
know before I go into this whish service cross citation
(11:02):
and the email someone emailed in, you should know that
they were extremely nerve racking, very difficult campaigns for the
troops themselves. Think about what a mission that is. You
have to go root out gorillas. Well, gorilla fighters fight dirty?
Why because they have to, You fight as dirty as
you have to. So these were the campaigns where our
(11:24):
guys would routinely be sniped and that was such a
problem in Vietnam. Sniper fire it's always difficult, it's always horrible.
But when you're in that kind of an environment, there's
a lot of easy places for a sniper to hide,
especially when they have holes in the ground. The booby
traps were terrible. You know about pungy sticks or pungee pits,
(11:48):
at least I hope you've heard of them before. They're
just long, sharpened wooden steaks, and the Vietnamese would make well.
They used them in a bunch of different ways, but
one of the main ways, the main way they used
them is they would simply have a pit. They would
dig in the ground, call it a few feet deep
three four feet deep, and they cover up the pits.
(12:09):
You wouldn't know there was a pit there, and if
you stepped on it, you would fall through. Well, it's
not just that there were wooden sticks there. They would
uh go number two on them, and what that did was,
as you can imagine, would create basically an instant infection.
And unless you have a strong stomach, I wouldn't bother
(12:29):
looking this up, but you can look this up and
see pictures of guys who have stepped on them with
wooden stakes through their feet, through their legs to there.
It's debilitating. So that's one of the things they went through,
then you have to get metavact out of there. They
would have not all booby not all booby traps are
made to kill you. They would put booby traps up
(12:49):
like glass jars at eye level. That won't really create
enough shrapnel to kill you. But one moment you're walking
with your buddies. The next moment, boom, there's an explosion,
and your buddy doesn't have eyes anymore. He's blind now
for the rest of his life. These search and destroy
missions were intense, and they were very, very difficult, and
very difficult on the troops. And this is well. We
(13:12):
got this email about a Joseph Andrew Garcia. The email
said this, Jesse, I don't know if I should read
his name. I probably can, but Jesse, I don't want
to read his name without permission. Jesse, my name is Blank.
I was the combat medic in Joe's infantry platoon and
was in the same firefight in which Joe was killed.
A day doesn't go by that I don't see Joe
(13:34):
in my mind's eye leaping from the irrigation ditch and
charging across the road with his M fourteen rifle in
his right hand and the laws rocket anti tank rocket
in his left. Please don't misunderstand. I'm fortunate to have
never suffered from pro traumatic stress. It's just that I
always want to always remember that, for one brief period
(13:55):
in my life, my boots walked on the same ground.
I shared jokes and drank beer with the true American hero.
And without further ado, this is the American Hero Joseph
Andrew Garcia's Distinguished Service Cross. The President of the United
States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July ninth,
nineteen eighteen, amended by Act of July twenty fifth, nineteen
(14:19):
sixty three, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross
posthumously to Specialist fourth Class Joseph Andrew Garcia, United States
Army for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving
conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam,
while serving with Company A, first Battalion, eighteenth Infantry, second Brigade,
(14:43):
First Infantry Division, our first Infantry Division Specialists for Garcia
distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on the thirty first
of January nineteen sixty eight, as a member of an
infantry unit conducting search and destroyers operations near Tan Sun
Nut Airbase. His patoon, the lead element of the company,
(15:07):
was suddenly subjected to intense machine gun, automatic weapons and
small arms fire from an insurgent force of unknown size.
Serving as point man, Specialist Garcia remained completely exposed to
the ravaging enemy fusillade to provide covering fire for his
comrades as they deployed in defensive positions. During the ensuing firefight,
(15:29):
he located a Vietcong machine gun emplacement that had inflicted
several casualties to his unit. With complete disregard for his safety,
Specialist Garcia armed himself with a light anti tank weapon
and crawled across an open field toward the hostile position.
He was severely wounded by a burst of enemy automatic
weapons fire as he maneuvered forward. Heedless of the hail
(15:53):
of bullets continually striking around him, he fearlessly rose to
one knee and fired his weapon from point plank range
at the machine gun, destroying it and killing its crew.
As he fired his weapon, Specialist Garcia was mortally wounded
by an enemy sniper bullet. Specialists for Garcia's extraordinary heroism
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and devotion to duty at the cost of his life.
We're in keeping with the highest traditions of military service
and reflect reflect great credit upon himself his unit in
the United States Army nineteen years old. Nineteen years old
died that day, died low crawling across to enemy fire
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so he could fire an anti tank weapon into an
enemy machine gun emplacement and stop that machine gun emplacement
from killing his buddies. Nineteen years old. That's something we
don't think about enough either, is it. Reagan talked about
this once during one of his favorite famous speeches. But
(16:56):
it's true. The mind plays a trick on you. Make
sure these guys as old men, right, because that's how
we picture them. But they were kids man, nineteen nineteen
year old lions is what they were, all right. We
have another one, maybe some POW talk next. It is
the Jesse Kelly Show on a Memorial Day, a Memorial
(17:19):
Day where we are honoring the fallen. Remember you can
email the show if you want, Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow
dot com, Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. Before we
move on to this POW story, Vietnam POW. I thought,
as long as we're on that same search and destroy mission.
Now that we've kind of gone over what those were
in a little way, I thought maybe we should do
(17:40):
one more of those. Here this is for a Julius
Maddox US Army Distinguished Service Cross. The President of the
United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July ninth,
nineteen eighteen, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross
posthumously to Private first Class Julius Maddox, United States Army
(18:02):
for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving conflict
with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam.
While serving with the Headquarters Company, first Battalion, fourteenth Infantry,
fourth Infantry Division, Private first Class Madics distinguished himself by
exceptionally valorous actions. On the sixth of February nineteen sixty eight,
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as medical aid man of an infantry company on a
search and destroy operation near hoy Ann. While crossing an
open dry rice paddy, his unit was hit by devastating
fire from enemy soldiers entrenched in camouflaged positions within two
meters of the friendly forces Goahly. The ravaging small arms
(18:47):
and machine gun barrage killed or wounded many of the
men in his platoon during the initial moments of the
ambush and the remainder of the friendly force withdrew to
concealment offered by a nearby cane field. With complete disregard
for his welfare, Private Mattocks sprinted across the bar terrain
under a hail of fire to reach a wounded comrade
(19:10):
and carry him to safety. Seeing a fellow medic hit,
he returned through enemy withering or through with withering enemy
machine gun fire to move the man to a helicopter
evacuation landing zone. When the rescue ships arrived, he placed
his patients aboard, secured a litter from one of the crews,
and returned to aid soldiers still trapped in the deadly
(19:33):
killing zone. He was shot in both legs by North
Vietnamese fire, but ignored his wounds to carry another casualty
to the waiting aircraft. He was urged to board the
helicopter for evacuation, but he refused any aid for himself
and returned to rescue more wounded. Only when he was
(19:54):
certain that all his injured comrades were safe did he
allow treatment and evacuation for himself. His courageous and selfless
action and the heat of battle were directly responsible for
saving the lives of several fellow soldiers. Private first Class
Mattox's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty. We're in keeping
with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great
(20:15):
credit upon himself his unit in the United States Army.
And he was killed in action sixteen days after that. Again,
like I've explained, we read Medal of Honors citations every
single money as part of our Medal of Honor Monday,
But those aren't the only awards for valor. And you
read through these other awards for valor, and you say
(20:38):
to yourself, how does that guy not get a Medal
of honor? The dude just keeps charging into the teeth
of an ambush to pick people up and carry them
to safety, including being shot in both legs and still
carrying them to safety and refusing to be evacuated. Not
that there's anything wrong with the distinguished Service Cross, mind you,
but how in the world is that not a metal
(20:59):
of honor? What does a guy gotta do for a
medal of honor? Around these parts, which brings me to
the final part of our show today on Medal of
Honor Monday. POW's. We talked about POW's briefly in the beginning,
when it came to Japan and the Pacific portion of
(21:20):
that war. The POW's in general, it's a difficult conversation
to have. It's always a difficult conversation to have because
when you're a family member of a POW, what's going
through your head? Is there anything worse? If your son
(21:42):
is he's not killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, he's
captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan? Do you ever sleep
again as a parent wondering what your child is going through?
Wondering what are they doing to him? Is he already dead?
They're torturing him as he's suffering from disease. So the POWs,
(22:04):
they don't get I know, I shouldn't say they don't
get enough credit, because we do honor POWs a lot,
but POW's, especially in these conflicts where you're facing a
power who doesn't believe in any kind of ethical treatment
for POW's, it's something. Now let's discuss these some of
these some Air Force things. When it comes to Vietnam,
(22:25):
we had these planes called RF four c's phantoms is
what they were called. But don't worry about details. Don't
worry about that. What these planes were, where they had
cameras attached to them. Daytime, nighttime didn't matter. You would
fly reconnaissance missions around to see where things are. Always remember,
(22:45):
we take for granted because of modern technology, we make
the mistake of thinking that, even today, that we just
know where things are. I know they have this many
artillery pieces here, and I know that this unit of
a thousand strong is here, and this unit of two
thousand strong is there. But even today, with all the
(23:05):
fancy satellites and fancy spy planes, we don't know where
many things are. And things get moved, and things stay hidden,
and you try to offuskate where things are. Chris, No, seriously,
you try to cover up where things are. Now, that's
with today, that's what's satellite imaging from today. Go back
to the basically the rest of human history. Half the
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battle is trying to figure out where they are and
how many of them are they. Again, because we read history,
we always read about a battle. In hindsight, we read
about a battle where one hundred men will take on
a thousand men. Well, the hundred men will usually take
(23:51):
on a thousand men because they didn't know there were
freaking thousand men over there. You don't know. It's not
like the enemy walks around with a big billboard. We
are one hundred miles to the east and we outnumber
you ten to one. That's not how it works. And
when you have a country like Vietnam, with all those
mountains and all those jungles and things, it's hard to
get accurate information. Where is the enemy, how many are there,
(24:12):
how much equipment does he have? What do you do?
So reconnaissance was huge in Vietnam, But the problem with
that is our air force had gotten way more modern
and way better. So now we're not dealing with prop
planes propeller power planes. We're dealing with jet fighters now.
So that's good. Well, wait, nice technology, jet fighters. Except
(24:32):
technology goes both ways. Yeah, it's a jet fighter. But
now the enemy he has surface to air missiles that
can track your jet fighter on radar, meaning he has
things on the ground. And again it's not like there's
a billboard. Hey be careful of this area. There are
(24:53):
surface to air missiles here. Don't fly over it. You
don't know until you're in the cockpit and it starts
beeping at you, uh oh, missile incoming. And the North
Vietnamese army was not ill equipped. Now they didn't have
near our equipment, don't get me wrong, but the Soviets
were helping them out with equipment. The Chinese were helping
(25:14):
them out with equipment. And do you think, look, look
what we're doing to Russia today, sending them tanks, sending
them all these missiles and things like that. That's the
same kind of thing that they were all doing in Vietnam.
Do you think Russia was sitting back smiling every time
a surface to air missile took out an American fighter jet?
Of course they were. Again, this is the ugliness of
(25:34):
the proxy war situation. All right. Back to these fighter pilots.
I've always viewed this as one of those really really
nerve wracking things. But most of the pilots, virtually every
military pilot I've ever known, had gigantic brass ones, so
they probably just didn't think about this at all. Getting
shot down in enemy territory, specifically getting shot down in
(25:59):
enemy territory in a place that you have been bombing.
Picture that a place you've been bombing. Just do yourself
a favorite well we'll come right back and we'll finish
this thought. I want you to think about your city,
your town, your area being bombed. Think about that for
a moment. Hang on the Jesse Kelly Show. It is
(26:22):
the Jesse Kelly Show, final segment of this Jesse Kelly
Show on a Memorial Day, and we will be back
to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. We just we have always,
we've always thought it was important to come do a
show today, a special show today, no live ads, no
nothing like that. It's just to show to honor the fallen.
(26:44):
We get one of those a year, So that's what
we're doing today. Now back to the pow thing, back
to because we're finishing up with our thoughts on Vietnam.
Remember part of the reason it's so brutal for pilots
who get shot down in war wars that take place
where civilians are, which, let's be honest, that's most wars
(27:06):
you don't arrange to go meet out in the countryside.
Wars today are fought where civilians live. Planes drop explosives,
Explosives kill people, They kill people you love, they destroy
things you love. Picture this, Picture this, and I'm not
(27:28):
doing this we're the bad guy thing. That's not what
I'm doing at all. I'm trying to explain why it's
so dangerous for these pilots when they get shot down.
Picture your town, your area, your your neighborhood. What if
enemy planes, Chinese planes? What if they started strafing your neighborhood.
What happens the day a kid gets killed? What if
(27:50):
it's your kid? What happens today they drop a bomb
or two in your neighborhood. What if it blows up
your church on Sunday with everyone in it. What if
it destroys the local school, the hospital. You see your friends,
your neighbors, your family members, You see them die because
(28:13):
of these planes, day after day after day. They're flying overhead,
flying overhead. Now picture this moment, I just a you're
picturing that. Now, picture this. The day comes, you look
up and you see one of those pilots eject out
of that plane and he is descending down to you
on a parachute. What kind of a reception do you
(28:35):
think he just might get when he hits the ground.
How is he received by the family who just lost
their toddler out front? Now, picture American pilots in Vietnam.
That's what they oftentimes went through. Oftentimes, these pilots, they
would be beaten to death by the villagers before the
North Vietnamese or the viet Cong could even take possession
(28:57):
of them. They torture them. They they'd stab them with pitchforks, knives.
There are all kinds of these horrible stories of things
that happened to these pilots when they dropped in. You
didn't want to be caught by. It was not just
like you had to avoid the military, dude, you had
to avoid the civilians who don't appreciate having ordnance dropped
on their villages. They were as dangerous as the military. Okay,
(29:21):
so that brings us to this. We're going to read
the Air Force Cross citation of A. Edwin Lee Adterberry.
You finally do get taken prisoner, let's say you didn't
get killed. Then you're being held prisoner in one of
the various prisoner camps or just prisons, I guess you
could call them for the POW's over there. You're not
(29:44):
only subjected to torture pretty routinely, you're also being used
as a propaganda piece, which we'll go into that in
just a second, you're also struggling with disease. Your nutrition
is never where it should be. Therefore disease creeps in easier.
And this is an area with disease all over the
place anyway, So you're fighting malaria, you're fighting barry, barry, dysentery,
(30:09):
you're fighting there's so much working against you here. Now,
let's clarify something about the propaganda. For instance, this Air
Force cross citation, it was in a place, a prison
camp that was known as the zoo. The zoo is
what our guys called it. It was known as the
zoo because there were these concrete enclosures where our guys
(30:32):
were held, and really the only way you could see
out or anyone could see in is they had to
pretty much crack the door a little and peek in
like an animal. So they called it the zoo. But
this place is horrific. And they would have our guys
go out and they'd hand them a basketball, and there'd
be a basketball hoop there and they take a picture
(30:52):
of them, and then they'd propagandize that out there and say,
look how well we're treating it. These guys are playing hoops,
when really they were just torturing all the guys hour before,
but they would routinely do things like this, this really
really ugly affair. Anyway, here's the Air Force Cross citation
of an Edwin Lee Adterbury. The President of the United
States of America, authorized by Title nine or authorized by
(31:15):
Title ten, Section eighty seven forty two United States Code
takes pride in presenting the Air Force Cross posthumously to
Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Lee Adderbury, United States Air Force for
extraordinary heroism and military operations against an opposing force as
a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from the eleventh
of May nineteen sixty nine to the fourteenth of May
(31:37):
nineteen sixty nine. On the eleventh of May nineteen sixty nine,
Lieutenant Colonel Aderbury escaped from the North Vietnamese prison camp
known as the Zoo and was recaptured twelve hours later.
He was subjected to brutal torture for confessions pertaining to
camp leadership, organization and details of his escape plans. He
(31:58):
was last seen by other prisoners of war on the
fourteenth of May nineteen sixty nine, and the North Vietnamese
later reported that Lieutenant Colonel Adderbury had died through his
extraordinary heroism and willpower in the face of the enemy.
Lieutenant Colonel Adderbury reflected the highest credit upon himself and
the United States Air Force. You should know a couple details. One,
(32:23):
we ended up recovering his body from the Vietnamese government
five years after the fact, and I always liked that
he eventually came home. He'd been held for six hundred
and forty six days when they captured him. Well, what
we know is one of the buddies he was captured with.
We know his name. His name is Drameshi Dramesi, Drameshi John,
(32:45):
A Dramesi John was captured with him, and John lived,
but they pinned him face down to a table and
beat him with rubbers, They tied up, they put his
ankles in irons. They torched these guys horribly. And that's
how that's how mister Edwin Lee Atterberry met his end.
And that's what he did on behalf of this nation.
(33:08):
So that's why we did a medal of honor or
a Memorial Day show the way we did it today,
to honor people, honor the fall, and honor the Adderberries,
the POWs, any veterans of any war ever, any veterans
of any military service, whether you dried or in whether
you died in training or in combat, we honor you
a great deal. God bless you, God bless your families. Today,
(33:31):
that's all
This is a Jesse Kelly Show. It is the Jesse
Kelly Show. Final hour of The Jesse Kelly Show on
our Memorial Day edition where we honor the fallen for
three hours, just once more a reminder veterans, it's a
day where you can get low if it happens. All right,
(00:35):
if you're there, If you're low today, put the bottle down,
pick up a phone. Nine eight eight is what you
call them. Then press one nine eight eight. But that's
just one number. There are so many resources out there now.
The only shame is not talking to somebody. Okay. So
if you're dwelling on your brothers that are no longer
(00:55):
with us today and you're getting too low, reach out, okay,
reach out and remember look, you can always email the
show Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com. Jesse at Jesse
kellyshow dot com. The first hour we kind of did
a World War two centric thing. Then the second hour
we did Korea. This hour, we're gonna do Vietnam. In
(01:18):
just a couple of minutes. I'm gonna finish this list
of names. These are combat training deaths men who died
in training. Captain Michael Quinn, Lance Corporal Joshua E. Barron,
Lance Corporal Matthew J. Detterman, Captain Brian Kennedy, Captain Kevin Roche,
(01:38):
Captain Brian Kennedy, Sergeant Jeffrey Sempler, Corporal Matthew Drown, Corporal
Thomas Jardis, Lance Corporal Ty Hart, Captain Stephen Torbert, Major
Sean Campbell, Sergeant Dylan Semolina, Sergeant William Sergeant Adam Schuler,
(02:02):
Corporal Christopher Orlando, Pfc James Beach, Major Dennis Doggs, Corporal
Michael mccallich. And remember this, these training dying in training
while you're in the military, that's just as heroic. It's
just as honorable as the guy who died on the
(02:25):
beaches of Normandy. If you're a family out there today,
maybe remembering a son or a daughter, husband, wife, whatever,
whoever died in a training accident. No, they don't make
movies about what your loved one did, but it's just
as honorable and heroic. Military training is dangerous and has
(02:49):
to be dangerous, and you die in training so that
others may live so they can work out what went wrong,
and you'll never see it. They'll never come knock on
your door and tell you, but people will live because
of the sacrifice your loved one made in training period.
All right, now, let's go to Vietnam and talk about
(03:12):
a couple of Vietnam things before we check out it
here this hour. First. I know a lot of this
stuff will be basic. But again, you know, there was
North Vietnam and South Vietnam. South Vietnam the Vietnamese who
were fighting against us there, they were the gorillas, the
viet Cong. In North Vietnam, they had the North Vietnamese Army,
(03:36):
regular army troops, regular uniforms, that kind of stuff. But
all that man in the black pajamas talk you hear,
those are gorillas from South Vietnam. Gorilla fighters. What's a
gorilla fighter. Well, he's somebody who you look out at
his field and he appears to be a farmer. He's
just all look at him. He's working the rice fields
(03:56):
and he is a farmer until you leave. Then he
goes to his hut and he digs up the AK
forty seven he had hidden there, and he heads out
to a spider hole and he waits in a little
hole in the ground for your patuon to walk by
again where he'll snipe your best friend in the face
and then go hiding right back down on that hole.
(04:17):
He's a goerilla fighter. He's the one putting booby traps
up everywhere. He's the one recruiting other people and threatening
other people in the South. Now, it's very, very, very
difficult if you're going to fight a modern war with
modern sensibilities to root out gorilla fighters who are entrenched
(04:41):
in the population. It's very very difficult. Let me, let
me explain why. Uh, well, I'll give you the other
how the other half lives. First, if you're Genghis Khan.
If you're Genghis Khan and you have an area with
a bunch of gorilla fighters who are giving your people trouble,
(05:02):
well that's not that big of a deal if you're
Genghis Khan, because he doesn't have our modern sensibilities. Meaning
if there's a let's say, the state of Arkansas, the
state of Arkansas, the Mongols have taken over America and
the state of Arkansas, they're giving him trouble because in
city after city and town after town, these frigging gorillas
(05:24):
are making life miserable for Genghis Khan. Well, Genghis is
not going to stress about that. He's just gonna go
kill everyone because it's a different moral code, because the
human life is not as valuable. Each human life is
not a unique god breathed soul, none of that stuff,
because there's no value of human life. Well, it's easy
(05:44):
to clear out a gorilla insurgency. Just kill them all, men, women, children,
It's fine, kill them all, raise the buildings to the ground.
Look at that. We solved the gorilla problem, didn't we
Everyone's dead problem solved. But that's not modern sensibilities and
the modern era. It's very very very difficult, not just
for us, for any nation to fight in an area
(06:06):
where a significant portion of that area they don't want
you there and they're fighting a gorilla war against you.
It's just very, very very difficult. In empire after empire,
from Britain to France to America, they've had to go
through exactly this shoot. France went through this in Vietnam itself.
It's hard when the people around you, when enough of
(06:31):
them don't want you there and want you dead. It's
a constant stress. A constant strain. Is my meal poisoned?
As I walk across the street, Am I going to
get sniped from somewhere. It's a problem. We were dealing
with how to deal with this problem in a I
(06:51):
really don't want to use the word humane, but we
didn't want to go full Genghis Khan. But in South
Vietnam there would be areas, and many of them hotter
than others that were just hotbeds of the Vietcong. Picture
it like there were provinces. Okay, So there's a province
and it's in South Vietnam, so technically we're kind of
on their side, except the Viet Cong are really causing
(07:14):
us huge problems from that area. Because there are so
many of them, we weren't sure what to do, so
we began what we're called search and destroy campaigns. They
sound intense, and they were intense. When I say campaign,
I mean it wasn't one patrol, It wasn't an afternoon.
(07:35):
You would have a province, okay, the Province of Chris
in South Korea, and this province is annoying obviously, and
that it has a bunch of Viatcong guerillas in there,
and I want to get rid of I want to
clean out the Province of Chris. And I'm the United
States of America. So what am I going to do?
What we would often do And you can laugh at
this all you want, but again, we were trying to
do it humanly kind of. We would fly overhead and
(08:00):
we would drop leaflets all over the place. We would
tell them, hey, civilians, you might want to get out, Hey,
get out now, this is a problem area. We are
coming in. Get out. Just to heads up everybody. You
don't want to be here when we come back, get out,
get out, get out, and then we will begin search
and destroy. Search and destroy can take the form of
many things. It's a platoon walking into a village and
(08:25):
interrogating the villagers. Hey, who's a Vietcong? Who's not searching
the village for weapons and food supplies? And when I
say food supplies, supplies, you can tell when a village
has enough food for the village and when enough village,
and when a village has enough food for Wait a minute,
this looks like you're supporting some sort of an army unit. Again,
(08:47):
you look for secret weapons stashes. If you find any
of these things or enough suspicious activity, well, war's an
ugly thing. You start burning down the village, refuge hit
the road. They're in the course of our search and
destroy campaigns, there were millions of refugees created by US
(09:08):
and the Vietnamese. As again, I mean, wars fought amongst
civilians wherever they're fought are the most horrible wars. You've
seen enough pictures and video out there of just line
after line after line of women and children walking up
the roads with the belongings they can carry. That's all
the belongings to have left in the world. And so
we're burning out villages, we're running people out, we're also bombing.
(09:31):
These search and destroy campaigns were also aerial bombing campaigns.
What you're trying to clear with a search and destroy
campaign is an area. It's an area focused thing, and
they last thirty days, forty days. A sustain campaign over
and over bombs patrols, bombs, patrols, bombs patrols. You're trying
(09:52):
to clear an area out. That's a search in destroy campaign. Now,
were they successful or not? Everyone can argue about this,
because everyone argues about everything when it comes to Vietnam.
The military just started counting bodies to try to report
how successful it was. Because we always killed more of
(10:12):
them than they could kill of us. We had better training,
more firepower. So they'd go attack an area for thirty
days and at the end of it day say, NIC's
we killed two thousand of them, we lost one hundred
of ours. We won. Kind of it's still a bad area,
all right. So that's search and destroy. We'll read you
a search and destroy citation and email recommendation. Next Jesse Kelly.
(10:40):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show, honoring the fallen on
this Memorial Day and kind of did World War two
first hour, Korea second hour talking about fallen troops. This hour,
we're going to focus more on Vietnam. Was kind of
just going through search and destroy missions. And you should
know before I go into this whish service cross citation
(11:02):
and the email someone emailed in, you should know that
they were extremely nerve racking, very difficult campaigns for the
troops themselves. Think about what a mission that is. You
have to go root out gorillas. Well, gorilla fighters fight dirty?
Why because they have to, You fight as dirty as
you have to. So these were the campaigns where our
(11:24):
guys would routinely be sniped and that was such a
problem in Vietnam. Sniper fire it's always difficult, it's always horrible.
But when you're in that kind of an environment, there's
a lot of easy places for a sniper to hide,
especially when they have holes in the ground. The booby
traps were terrible. You know about pungy sticks or pungee pits,
(11:48):
at least I hope you've heard of them before. They're
just long, sharpened wooden steaks, and the Vietnamese would make well.
They used them in a bunch of different ways, but
one of the main ways, the main way they used
them is they would simply have a pit. They would
dig in the ground, call it a few feet deep
three four feet deep, and they cover up the pits.
(12:09):
You wouldn't know there was a pit there, and if
you stepped on it, you would fall through. Well, it's
not just that there were wooden sticks there. They would
uh go number two on them, and what that did was,
as you can imagine, would create basically an instant infection.
And unless you have a strong stomach, I wouldn't bother
(12:29):
looking this up, but you can look this up and
see pictures of guys who have stepped on them with
wooden stakes through their feet, through their legs to there.
It's debilitating. So that's one of the things they went through,
then you have to get metavact out of there. They
would have not all booby not all booby traps are
made to kill you. They would put booby traps up
(12:49):
like glass jars at eye level. That won't really create
enough shrapnel to kill you. But one moment you're walking
with your buddies. The next moment, boom, there's an explosion,
and your buddy doesn't have eyes anymore. He's blind now
for the rest of his life. These search and destroy
missions were intense, and they were very, very difficult, and
very difficult on the troops. And this is well. We
(13:12):
got this email about a Joseph Andrew Garcia. The email
said this, Jesse, I don't know if I should read
his name. I probably can, but Jesse, I don't want
to read his name without permission. Jesse, my name is Blank.
I was the combat medic in Joe's infantry platoon and
was in the same firefight in which Joe was killed.
A day doesn't go by that I don't see Joe
(13:34):
in my mind's eye leaping from the irrigation ditch and
charging across the road with his M fourteen rifle in
his right hand and the laws rocket anti tank rocket
in his left. Please don't misunderstand. I'm fortunate to have
never suffered from pro traumatic stress. It's just that I
always want to always remember that, for one brief period
(13:55):
in my life, my boots walked on the same ground.
I shared jokes and drank beer with the true American hero.
And without further ado, this is the American Hero Joseph
Andrew Garcia's Distinguished Service Cross. The President of the United
States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July ninth,
nineteen eighteen, amended by Act of July twenty fifth, nineteen
(14:19):
sixty three, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross
posthumously to Specialist fourth Class Joseph Andrew Garcia, United States
Army for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving
conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam,
while serving with Company A, first Battalion, eighteenth Infantry, second Brigade,
(14:43):
First Infantry Division, our first Infantry Division Specialists for Garcia
distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on the thirty first
of January nineteen sixty eight, as a member of an
infantry unit conducting search and destroyers operations near Tan Sun
Nut Airbase. His patoon, the lead element of the company,
(15:07):
was suddenly subjected to intense machine gun, automatic weapons and
small arms fire from an insurgent force of unknown size.
Serving as point man, Specialist Garcia remained completely exposed to
the ravaging enemy fusillade to provide covering fire for his
comrades as they deployed in defensive positions. During the ensuing firefight,
(15:29):
he located a Vietcong machine gun emplacement that had inflicted
several casualties to his unit. With complete disregard for his safety,
Specialist Garcia armed himself with a light anti tank weapon
and crawled across an open field toward the hostile position.
He was severely wounded by a burst of enemy automatic
weapons fire as he maneuvered forward. Heedless of the hail
(15:53):
of bullets continually striking around him, he fearlessly rose to
one knee and fired his weapon from point plank range
at the machine gun, destroying it and killing its crew.
As he fired his weapon, Specialist Garcia was mortally wounded
by an enemy sniper bullet. Specialists for Garcia's extraordinary heroism
(16:14):
and devotion to duty at the cost of his life.
We're in keeping with the highest traditions of military service
and reflect reflect great credit upon himself his unit in
the United States Army nineteen years old. Nineteen years old
died that day, died low crawling across to enemy fire
(16:36):
so he could fire an anti tank weapon into an
enemy machine gun emplacement and stop that machine gun emplacement
from killing his buddies. Nineteen years old. That's something we
don't think about enough either, is it. Reagan talked about
this once during one of his favorite famous speeches. But
(16:56):
it's true. The mind plays a trick on you. Make
sure these guys as old men, right, because that's how
we picture them. But they were kids man, nineteen nineteen
year old lions is what they were, all right. We
have another one, maybe some POW talk next. It is
the Jesse Kelly Show on a Memorial Day, a Memorial
(17:19):
Day where we are honoring the fallen. Remember you can
email the show if you want, Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow
dot com, Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. Before we
move on to this POW story, Vietnam POW. I thought,
as long as we're on that same search and destroy mission.
Now that we've kind of gone over what those were
in a little way, I thought maybe we should do
(17:40):
one more of those. Here this is for a Julius
Maddox US Army Distinguished Service Cross. The President of the
United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July ninth,
nineteen eighteen, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross
posthumously to Private first Class Julius Maddox, United States Army
(18:02):
for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving conflict
with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam.
While serving with the Headquarters Company, first Battalion, fourteenth Infantry,
fourth Infantry Division, Private first Class Madics distinguished himself by
exceptionally valorous actions. On the sixth of February nineteen sixty eight,
(18:25):
as medical aid man of an infantry company on a
search and destroy operation near hoy Ann. While crossing an
open dry rice paddy, his unit was hit by devastating
fire from enemy soldiers entrenched in camouflaged positions within two
meters of the friendly forces Goahly. The ravaging small arms
(18:47):
and machine gun barrage killed or wounded many of the
men in his platoon during the initial moments of the
ambush and the remainder of the friendly force withdrew to
concealment offered by a nearby cane field. With complete disregard
for his welfare, Private Mattocks sprinted across the bar terrain
under a hail of fire to reach a wounded comrade
(19:10):
and carry him to safety. Seeing a fellow medic hit,
he returned through enemy withering or through with withering enemy
machine gun fire to move the man to a helicopter
evacuation landing zone. When the rescue ships arrived, he placed
his patients aboard, secured a litter from one of the crews,
and returned to aid soldiers still trapped in the deadly
(19:33):
killing zone. He was shot in both legs by North
Vietnamese fire, but ignored his wounds to carry another casualty
to the waiting aircraft. He was urged to board the
helicopter for evacuation, but he refused any aid for himself
and returned to rescue more wounded. Only when he was
(19:54):
certain that all his injured comrades were safe did he
allow treatment and evacuation for himself. His courageous and selfless
action and the heat of battle were directly responsible for
saving the lives of several fellow soldiers. Private first Class
Mattox's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty. We're in keeping
with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great
(20:15):
credit upon himself his unit in the United States Army.
And he was killed in action sixteen days after that. Again,
like I've explained, we read Medal of Honors citations every
single money as part of our Medal of Honor Monday,
But those aren't the only awards for valor. And you
read through these other awards for valor, and you say
(20:38):
to yourself, how does that guy not get a Medal
of honor? The dude just keeps charging into the teeth
of an ambush to pick people up and carry them
to safety, including being shot in both legs and still
carrying them to safety and refusing to be evacuated. Not
that there's anything wrong with the distinguished Service Cross, mind you,
but how in the world is that not a metal
(20:59):
of honor? What does a guy gotta do for a
medal of honor? Around these parts, which brings me to
the final part of our show today on Medal of
Honor Monday. POW's. We talked about POW's briefly in the beginning,
when it came to Japan and the Pacific portion of
(21:20):
that war. The POW's in general, it's a difficult conversation
to have. It's always a difficult conversation to have because
when you're a family member of a POW, what's going
through your head? Is there anything worse? If your son
(21:42):
is he's not killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, he's
captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan? Do you ever sleep
again as a parent wondering what your child is going through?
Wondering what are they doing to him? Is he already dead?
They're torturing him as he's suffering from disease. So the POWs,
(22:04):
they don't get I know, I shouldn't say they don't
get enough credit, because we do honor POWs a lot,
but POW's, especially in these conflicts where you're facing a
power who doesn't believe in any kind of ethical treatment
for POW's, it's something. Now let's discuss these some of
these some Air Force things. When it comes to Vietnam,
(22:25):
we had these planes called RF four c's phantoms is
what they were called. But don't worry about details. Don't
worry about that. What these planes were, where they had
cameras attached to them. Daytime, nighttime didn't matter. You would
fly reconnaissance missions around to see where things are. Always remember,
(22:45):
we take for granted because of modern technology, we make
the mistake of thinking that, even today, that we just
know where things are. I know they have this many
artillery pieces here, and I know that this unit of
a thousand strong is here, and this unit of two
thousand strong is there. But even today, with all the
(23:05):
fancy satellites and fancy spy planes, we don't know where
many things are. And things get moved, and things stay hidden,
and you try to offuskate where things are. Chris, No, seriously,
you try to cover up where things are. Now, that's
with today, that's what's satellite imaging from today. Go back
to the basically the rest of human history. Half the
(23:29):
battle is trying to figure out where they are and
how many of them are they. Again, because we read history,
we always read about a battle. In hindsight, we read
about a battle where one hundred men will take on
a thousand men. Well, the hundred men will usually take
(23:51):
on a thousand men because they didn't know there were
freaking thousand men over there. You don't know. It's not
like the enemy walks around with a big billboard. We
are one hundred miles to the east and we outnumber
you ten to one. That's not how it works. And
when you have a country like Vietnam, with all those
mountains and all those jungles and things, it's hard to
get accurate information. Where is the enemy, how many are there,
(24:12):
how much equipment does he have? What do you do?
So reconnaissance was huge in Vietnam, But the problem with
that is our air force had gotten way more modern
and way better. So now we're not dealing with prop
planes propeller power planes. We're dealing with jet fighters now.
So that's good. Well, wait, nice technology, jet fighters. Except
(24:32):
technology goes both ways. Yeah, it's a jet fighter. But
now the enemy he has surface to air missiles that
can track your jet fighter on radar, meaning he has
things on the ground. And again it's not like there's
a billboard. Hey be careful of this area. There are
(24:53):
surface to air missiles here. Don't fly over it. You
don't know until you're in the cockpit and it starts
beeping at you, uh oh, missile incoming. And the North
Vietnamese army was not ill equipped. Now they didn't have
near our equipment, don't get me wrong, but the Soviets
were helping them out with equipment. The Chinese were helping
(25:14):
them out with equipment. And do you think, look, look
what we're doing to Russia today, sending them tanks, sending
them all these missiles and things like that. That's the
same kind of thing that they were all doing in Vietnam.
Do you think Russia was sitting back smiling every time
a surface to air missile took out an American fighter jet?
Of course they were. Again, this is the ugliness of
(25:34):
the proxy war situation. All right. Back to these fighter pilots.
I've always viewed this as one of those really really
nerve wracking things. But most of the pilots, virtually every
military pilot I've ever known, had gigantic brass ones, so
they probably just didn't think about this at all. Getting
shot down in enemy territory, specifically getting shot down in
(25:59):
enemy territory in a place that you have been bombing.
Picture that a place you've been bombing. Just do yourself
a favorite well we'll come right back and we'll finish
this thought. I want you to think about your city,
your town, your area being bombed. Think about that for
a moment. Hang on the Jesse Kelly Show. It is
(26:22):
the Jesse Kelly Show, final segment of this Jesse Kelly
Show on a Memorial Day, and we will be back
to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. We just we have always,
we've always thought it was important to come do a
show today, a special show today, no live ads, no
nothing like that. It's just to show to honor the fallen.
(26:44):
We get one of those a year, So that's what
we're doing today. Now back to the pow thing, back
to because we're finishing up with our thoughts on Vietnam.
Remember part of the reason it's so brutal for pilots
who get shot down in war wars that take place
where civilians are, which, let's be honest, that's most wars
(27:06):
you don't arrange to go meet out in the countryside.
Wars today are fought where civilians live. Planes drop explosives,
Explosives kill people, They kill people you love, they destroy
things you love. Picture this, Picture this, and I'm not
(27:28):
doing this we're the bad guy thing. That's not what
I'm doing at all. I'm trying to explain why it's
so dangerous for these pilots when they get shot down.
Picture your town, your area, your your neighborhood. What if
enemy planes, Chinese planes? What if they started strafing your neighborhood.
What happens the day a kid gets killed? What if
(27:50):
it's your kid? What happens today they drop a bomb
or two in your neighborhood. What if it blows up
your church on Sunday with everyone in it. What if
it destroys the local school, the hospital. You see your friends,
your neighbors, your family members, You see them die because
(28:13):
of these planes, day after day after day. They're flying overhead,
flying overhead. Now picture this moment, I just a you're
picturing that. Now, picture this. The day comes, you look
up and you see one of those pilots eject out
of that plane and he is descending down to you
on a parachute. What kind of a reception do you
(28:35):
think he just might get when he hits the ground.
How is he received by the family who just lost
their toddler out front? Now, picture American pilots in Vietnam.
That's what they oftentimes went through. Oftentimes, these pilots, they
would be beaten to death by the villagers before the
North Vietnamese or the viet Cong could even take possession
(28:57):
of them. They torture them. They they'd stab them with pitchforks, knives.
There are all kinds of these horrible stories of things
that happened to these pilots when they dropped in. You
didn't want to be caught by. It was not just
like you had to avoid the military, dude, you had
to avoid the civilians who don't appreciate having ordnance dropped
on their villages. They were as dangerous as the military. Okay,
(29:21):
so that brings us to this. We're going to read
the Air Force Cross citation of A. Edwin Lee Adterberry.
You finally do get taken prisoner, let's say you didn't
get killed. Then you're being held prisoner in one of
the various prisoner camps or just prisons, I guess you
could call them for the POW's over there. You're not
(29:44):
only subjected to torture pretty routinely, you're also being used
as a propaganda piece, which we'll go into that in
just a second, you're also struggling with disease. Your nutrition
is never where it should be. Therefore disease creeps in easier.
And this is an area with disease all over the
place anyway, So you're fighting malaria, you're fighting barry, barry, dysentery,
(30:09):
you're fighting there's so much working against you here. Now,
let's clarify something about the propaganda. For instance, this Air
Force cross citation, it was in a place, a prison
camp that was known as the zoo. The zoo is
what our guys called it. It was known as the
zoo because there were these concrete enclosures where our guys
(30:32):
were held, and really the only way you could see
out or anyone could see in is they had to
pretty much crack the door a little and peek in
like an animal. So they called it the zoo. But
this place is horrific. And they would have our guys
go out and they'd hand them a basketball, and there'd
be a basketball hoop there and they take a picture
(30:52):
of them, and then they'd propagandize that out there and say,
look how well we're treating it. These guys are playing hoops,
when really they were just torturing all the guys hour before,
but they would routinely do things like this, this really
really ugly affair. Anyway, here's the Air Force Cross citation
of an Edwin Lee Adterbury. The President of the United
States of America, authorized by Title nine or authorized by
(31:15):
Title ten, Section eighty seven forty two United States Code
takes pride in presenting the Air Force Cross posthumously to
Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Lee Adderbury, United States Air Force for
extraordinary heroism and military operations against an opposing force as
a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from the eleventh
of May nineteen sixty nine to the fourteenth of May
(31:37):
nineteen sixty nine. On the eleventh of May nineteen sixty nine,
Lieutenant Colonel Aderbury escaped from the North Vietnamese prison camp
known as the Zoo and was recaptured twelve hours later.
He was subjected to brutal torture for confessions pertaining to
camp leadership, organization and details of his escape plans. He
(31:58):
was last seen by other prisoners of war on the
fourteenth of May nineteen sixty nine, and the North Vietnamese
later reported that Lieutenant Colonel Adderbury had died through his
extraordinary heroism and willpower in the face of the enemy.
Lieutenant Colonel Adderbury reflected the highest credit upon himself and
the United States Air Force. You should know a couple details. One,
(32:23):
we ended up recovering his body from the Vietnamese government
five years after the fact, and I always liked that
he eventually came home. He'd been held for six hundred
and forty six days when they captured him. Well, what
we know is one of the buddies he was captured with.
We know his name. His name is Drameshi Dramesi, Drameshi John,
(32:45):
A Dramesi John was captured with him, and John lived,
but they pinned him face down to a table and
beat him with rubbers, They tied up, they put his
ankles in irons. They torched these guys horribly. And that's
how that's how mister Edwin Lee Atterberry met his end.
And that's what he did on behalf of this nation.
(33:08):
So that's why we did a medal of honor or
a Memorial Day show the way we did it today,
to honor people, honor the fall, and honor the Adderberries,
the POWs, any veterans of any war ever, any veterans
of any military service, whether you dried or in whether
you died in training or in combat, we honor you
a great deal. God bless you, God bless your families. Today,
(33:31):
that's all
Host
Jesse Kelly
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