June 24, 2023 • 31 mins
Robin Bartlett takes you back 50 years to a ‘boots on the ground’ account of his extraordinary combat experiences as a 22-year-old 1st Lieutenant with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). As a combat infantry platoon leader, he deployed a 28-man platoon on search and destroy missions and helicopter assaults into hot landing zones at the height of the Vietnam War.
Bartlett’s vivid combat events are brought to light in a fast-moving presentation expressing the horror, fear, anguish, and sometimes illogical humor of that war. He brings to light the long-term impact, both positive and negative, on his home life and business career…. with insights about leadership, courage, PTSD, and life lessons learned. These are stories that will stay with your listeners long past the end of his presentation.
Bio:
Bio: Promoted to 1st Lieutenant after only one year, Robin Bartlett at 22 assumed the leadership of the 1st Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Over the next seven months, he led a platoon on more than sixty helicopter combat assaults and search and destroy missions.
Bartlett grew up in a military family. His grandfather, father and brother all attended West Point, but after thirteen elementary and middle schools and four high schools, he decided he’d had enough of the military. But in college, as the Vietnam War escalated and eighteen-year-olds were drafted daily, Bartlett joined his college’s ROTC program and fell back into a familiar routine. Upon graduation as a Distinguished Military Graduate he volunteered for Infantry, Airborne, and Ranger training, and assignment to the 82d Airborne Division. He got everything he asked for…and more.
Bartlett holds a BA degree in Comparative Literature from Claremont McKenna College in California and a master’s degree in Media from Pace University in NYC. He has written numerous business publications and a professional book published by Dun & Bradstreet.
He is the President of the NY/NJ Chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association, and a proud member of the 82d Airborne Division Association. He and his wife live in Norwood, New Jersey, and have three sons, none of whom have pursued military careers.
Speaker Link: https://robinbartlettauthor.com/speaker/
Video links:https://robinbartlettauthor.com/#Book
Website/book link: www.RobinBartlettAuthor.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/i-am-refocused-radio--2671113/support.
Bartlett’s vivid combat events are brought to light in a fast-moving presentation expressing the horror, fear, anguish, and sometimes illogical humor of that war. He brings to light the long-term impact, both positive and negative, on his home life and business career…. with insights about leadership, courage, PTSD, and life lessons learned. These are stories that will stay with your listeners long past the end of his presentation.
Bio:
Bio: Promoted to 1st Lieutenant after only one year, Robin Bartlett at 22 assumed the leadership of the 1st Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Over the next seven months, he led a platoon on more than sixty helicopter combat assaults and search and destroy missions.
Bartlett grew up in a military family. His grandfather, father and brother all attended West Point, but after thirteen elementary and middle schools and four high schools, he decided he’d had enough of the military. But in college, as the Vietnam War escalated and eighteen-year-olds were drafted daily, Bartlett joined his college’s ROTC program and fell back into a familiar routine. Upon graduation as a Distinguished Military Graduate he volunteered for Infantry, Airborne, and Ranger training, and assignment to the 82d Airborne Division. He got everything he asked for…and more.
Bartlett holds a BA degree in Comparative Literature from Claremont McKenna College in California and a master’s degree in Media from Pace University in NYC. He has written numerous business publications and a professional book published by Dun & Bradstreet.
He is the President of the NY/NJ Chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association, and a proud member of the 82d Airborne Division Association. He and his wife live in Norwood, New Jersey, and have three sons, none of whom have pursued military careers.
Speaker Link: https://robinbartlettauthor.com/speaker/
Video links:https://robinbartlettauthor.com/#Book
Website/book link: www.RobinBartlettAuthor.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/i-am-refocused-radio--2671113/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
You are listening to I AM RefocusedRadio with your host Shamaya Read. This
show is designed to inspire you tolive your purpose and regain your focus.
And now here's your host, ShamayaRead. Hey, you welcome to I
AM Refocused Radio. We are hereonce again, and today we have a
true amazing guest. We're going totalk to Robin Bartlett and his amazing book
(00:31):
Vietnam Combat Firefights in Writing History.And first and foremost, there's so many
details in this story that I justreally want to jump right into the show
and say, first of all,thank you Robin for all you've done and
for writing this project. I understoodthat it took about ten years to write
(00:53):
and another additional two years to getready for publishing. So congratulate your book
and welcome to the show. Thanksfor having me. I really appreciate it.
This is great. Great to bewith you. Yes, sir and
man, I read the chapters youwanted me to read to prepare for this
interview. I must say it's likea roller coaster, right, it was
(01:15):
a pace turner. I couldn't startreading. So kind of start the audience
a little bit about yourself and yourfamily, because I understand that you have
a family that is very heavily involvedin military careers, including your grandfather or
your father and your brother. Sokind of start there about your family,
sure, you know, and justquick background on the book. It did
(01:42):
take me ten years to write thisbook, and I ended up writing it
primarily because I had talked with alot of Vietnam veterans and I found that
a number of things happened to mein Vietnam that did not happen to them,
and so that kind of each oneof those events became a story in
my book. But as you say, I do come from a military family.
(02:05):
My grandfather, father, and brotherall attended West Point, and I
turned down an appointment to West Pointbecause as a military brat, I went
to thirteen elementary and middle schools,and by the time I got to college,
I said, I have had enoughof the military. I had enough
(02:27):
of moving around, and I wantednothing to do with the military. But
it was, you know, theVietnam War was growing and eighteen year olds
were being drafted on a regular basis, and because of my family, I
knew I had to serve as anofficer. So I went into the ROTC
(02:52):
program and it was just really secondnature to me. So I fell right
back into it and graduated as adistinguished Military Graduate and at the ripe age
of twenty one, knowing everything therewas to know. Right now, twenty
one year olds always know everything thereis to know. I volunteered for Airborne
(03:17):
Ranger, infantry and special and assignmentto the eighty second Airborne Division, and
I got everything and I asked forAnd your next chapter was driving from California
to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.And what was that process like in your
mind? Were you excited to turnthe pays to the you know was coming
(03:42):
next in your life? What wasgoing to umi at that time? I
really was excited about it. Igraduated and was commissioned on the same day,
and two days later, my carpacked with all my personal belongings,
I'm driving across the United States enroute to my first duty assignment at the
eighty second Airborne Division and got thereprocessed in and I was what they called
(04:09):
a leg. In other words,I had not gone through jump school.
So when I got assigned to mycompany, my company commander was a very
intelligent man, and he decided hewould not assign me as a platoon leader
with airborne troops, because I wasnot airborne trained at that point in time.
(04:30):
And I worked in the office anddid administrative types of work for about
a month month and a half,and then I got orders sending me on
down to Fort Benning, Georgia,where I went through Jump School and Infantry
Officers Basic Course and Ranger School.And Ranger School was actually the most challenging
(04:58):
training that the Army had to offer, still is really, and it was
the best insurance policy for going toVietnam, and I knew that was in
my future once a gameless time beforehis Radio Tich Guitar special guest today Robin
Bartlett in his amazing book Vietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History. With your
(05:20):
family being heavily in the military,what was the reaction from your parents when
they found out that you were gearingup and being prepared to build to Vietnam.
Well, yeah, again, ifyou come from a military family and
you've served in My father had athirty year career. My brother had had
(05:43):
served in Vietnam already, and therewas a soul surviving son rule which kept
him out of a second tour inVietnam, and they sent him to Korea.
My brother served was a career officeralso, so it was kind of
expected. It was not unusual,and it was just part part of the
(06:09):
my my family took it, tookthe service to our country. Took those
words very, very seriously. Theymeant a lot to us. We were,
in fact, in service to ourcountry. That was the way we
thought about it. Um. Infact, when I answered the phone at
home, I answered it by saying, Colonel Bartlet's quarters may help you,
(06:32):
sir. That was the way asa child I answered the phone and with
this mindset of already kind of knowingthe military lifestyle. Were you Because there's
so many great stories the last seriousstories, but all saw some funny stories
(06:53):
in you book. But there isa project that you were getting assignment to
do some investigating and writing it.I think had twenty two pays before you
gave your superior, as you say, slim it down a little bit.
You can share a little bit oflike a teaser of that story for the
audience. So yeah, I wasa comparative literature major in college, so
(07:15):
I was very comfortable with reading andwriting, and reading and writing. It
just came naturally to me. Andas I mentioned my company commander decided not
to assign me down at the platoonlevel. So I was doing some paperwork,
administrative work, and he assigned mea report of survey. So,
you know, I started to researchall the regulations about writing a report of
(07:39):
survey. And this report had todo with a soldier who had gone a
wall for a period of time andlost all of his belongings. So I
just took this assignment very very seriously, and I interviewed the other soldiers in
the area, and I took statementsand I had them all typed up and
(08:00):
mind, and I wrote up thereport and decided that this soldier should not
be charged because you know, heleft his unit, he left his belongings
properly secured with a lock, blahblah blah. And it ended up about
twenty two pages in length, andI turned it into the S four and
the S four is the property managerof a battalion warrant officer. And he
(08:24):
called me into his office and hethrew the paper back at me and he
said, what the F is this? This is crazy? Rewrite this.
Charged the soldier for the two hundreddollars twenty two pages for a two hundred
penalty, you know, three paragraphsshort words and send it back to me
(08:46):
tomorrow. So I went back tomy company and my company commander was laughing.
They were all laughing at me.But it was a good lesson learned.
I learned. You know, sometimesless is more and you want to
fit the fit the report to thesituation. He did a lot of intense
(09:07):
training in the beginning. And Ibelieve I recall you you met a guy
named Church, he was a seal. If you could uh tell all how
how you met the guy and howmuch of an influence was he during your
training, Well, he actually helpedme get through ranger school. And Ranger
(09:30):
school was the as I mentioned,was that the toughest training that the Army
had had to this day has tooffer. I think seal training is more
physically demanding, um. And Ithink that probably seal training is the toughest
military training there is out there.I would certainly argue that. I argue
(09:54):
that point, um. But Rangerschool for me was was very very demand.
Why primarily because I'm short, haveshort legs, and we went on
a lot of forced marches and Iwould start at the front of the pack
and walk as fast as I possiblycould, and then when I reached the
end of the because everybody was passingme, I'd run back up to the
(10:18):
front. Well, that didn't workvery well, and Church this we went
through with two Navy Seals who werejust incredible, in incredible physical condition.
They could outrun us. They wouldgo through the obstacle course just lickety split,
do pull ups and sit ups andpush ups infinitely. And Church said
(10:43):
to me, here, grab ontomy pack frame and ill you will keep
up with me. And he literallyliterally pulled me along on a twenty mile
force march which we were all requiredrequired to complete in order to earn our
Ranger certification. And then when itcame time for me at Ranger school would
(11:05):
test you at the point at whichyou reached a total exhaustion and fatigue both
mental and physical, and hunger becauseif you didn't make your objective, you
didn't eat. And I appointed Churchas my What we found with the seals
was that we helped them with theplanning and the operational aspect of planning an
(11:31):
operation, and then they helped uson so many times when somebody was having
a tough time physically. They wouldpick up their weapon, they'd carry two
weapons, they'd carry the other man'spack. They were just incredible. Inside
the book before it even starts,you give like a little opinion, petray
(11:54):
of what people were, their attitudewere in the United States during the time,
with how media was showing the storiesand you know, everything in Vietnam.
How important was it for the readerswhen they pray your book to have
(12:16):
both your perspective, your experience,and also understanding the temperature in America and
how the culture was in the UnitedStates. Well, in many respects,
I was fortunate because I went toVietnam before the height of the protest movement
in the United States, and whenI came back, I still was in
(12:39):
the military. I was actually atthat point in time, a regular Army
officer, and I had an additionalduty station to go to, and I
stayed with my parents. I wasa bachelor. I stayed with my parents
and down in Monterey, California,and I was basically removed from any of
the protest movement, which any ofthe soldiers who came back from Vietnam right
(13:03):
after the height of the war.I went over in sixty eight and came
back at sixty nine, and thatwas at the height of the war,
and the protest movement was really growingby leaps and bounds by that point in
time. And I basically avoided avoidedall of that, but the protest movement,
(13:24):
especially after the Tet Offensive of nineteensixty eight, which was really the
turning point for many Americans in theUnited States, because they had been assured
by the President, by west Moreland, by the senior officers, by our
political leaders that we were winning thewar, and then all of a sudden,
(13:46):
this incredible Tet Offensive of nineteen sixtyeight occurred, and while we were
we overcame the viet Cong twenty toone. We lost about three hundred Americans
within a very short period of time. An American was just not prepared for
(14:09):
it. And there was so muchtelevision coverage that and also Walter Cronkite,
who was the Voice of America ontelevision, changed his opinion and said,
we're not winning this war anymore.We're in a stalemate. So that aggravated
(14:31):
and escalated the protest movement in theUS. And it's important to understand that
for Americans, especially if you haveno contact concept of the Vietnam War,
it's important to understand how the publicopinion changed dramatically during that two year period.
(14:52):
One thing I really appreciate about yourbook is you have it throught chapters
like a little letter. Yeah.I felt like it was very interesting to
see. And I want to askthe way you formatted letters or those actually
were by of letters that you wroteduring those times, or is it more
(15:16):
like a summary based on your memory. Now that's what happened there was that
after about ten years, I sentthe manuscript out to a number of friends
of mine and they all these weremilitary people, and they all said,
this is great, go ahead,see try and get published. But two
of the people I sent it to, and they were both women, one
of whom was in the publishing field, the other was a college classmate,
(15:39):
said well, I guess you onlywant to sell this book to veterans,
and I said no, I wantedto appeal to the general reader too.
They said, well, you needto demilitarize it. You need to take
out all these or at least explainall these abbreviations that you've used, and
you need to put more of yourpersonal feelings into the book. And that
(16:02):
was a challenging thing for me todo because I had kept a lot of
those feelings bottled up. I likenedit to having a titanium steel trunk in
the back of my mind, andI locked all those experiences away in that
trunk. And so anyway, ittook another two years to rewrite the book.
And one of the things I recalledis that my mother had saved every
(16:26):
letter that I wrote home, andshe kept them in the envelope, so
they were all date stamped. SoI put them in chronological order, and
I reread every letter, and thenI reached in and grabbed snippets, actual
snippets of the letters I wrote home, and put them into appropriate chapters,
so you could read the story thatI wrote, which was what really happened
(16:51):
to me, and then you readwhat I wrote home about which always didn't
quite agree. There was a littlebit of a juxtaposition there. We're talking
to our special guests today, RobinBartlett and his amazing book Vietnam Combat,
Firefights and Writing History, And man, I must say, when I was
reading the chapters you asked me toread, it really felt like a movie.
(17:14):
It felt like I was watching amovie reading the words on the pages.
There are so many emotions in thisbook. There's a lot of graphic,
dark things that happened, obviously,but there's also some humor as well.
If you have a funny story,which I have a strong fan,
(17:36):
I know what funny is, butit's still a funny story that you share
the audience that you wrote in thisbook. Sure. Now, I'll just
preface by saying, you know,I had a family to raise. I
couldn't sit down and just write everyday I wrote on I had a job
that took me on long airplane flights, and I would whip out my laptop
(17:56):
and i'd work on a chapter,and I would becomes so engrossed in remembering
the detail of the event that happenedto me that I literally would block out
everything that was going on around me. And it was just amazing how much
detail my mind would retain, andcould I could relive the situation. I
(18:19):
could see the colors. I couldthere were times I could even smell the
smells. I know that's crazy,but it's true. And I would come
away from some of these events justsweating. But in answer to your question
about the humor, new people whojoined our unit are were called fnngs that
(18:40):
stands for effing new guy. Andyou couldn't trust one of these new people
until they had had about a monthto six weeks of acclimatization, getting used
to the heat one hundred and fiveto one hundred and fifteen degrees daily temperature,
as well as to the routine andup in the boonies as we used
(19:00):
to call it, and developing someconfidence in a firefight, and just an
awareness certainly weapons security, and anawareness of protocols and things that our platoon
and our company had to do.So we treated the fgs very carefully and
(19:22):
we watched them to make sure thatthey were going to be a productive member
of our platoon. But an FMGin the base camp when we were pulling
base camp security, we would beout in the field for four to six
weeks and then we would come intothe base camp and pull perimeter security for
a week. And that gave youa chance to have some hot food and
(19:47):
shower or two and some clean clothes. But the FMG was given the job
of changing the barrels in the latrine. And the way they handled latrine in
the Army was they had they builtthe engineers built a two man latrine out
of wood and built it up high, and underneath each hole was a half
(20:12):
of a fifty five gallon drum,and so you pooped in the drum.
And then once a day an FMGwould pull out the dirty can and push
in a clean can. So weexplained to this energy exactly what he was
to do. He was to goto the artillery battery and get an empty
(20:34):
shell casing, a one oh fivemillimeter shell casing which was made out of
brass, and fill it with dieselfuel, and then go to the latrine,
pull out the dirty can, pushin the clean can, pour half
of the diesel fuel in one andthe other half in the other can,
stand back and light a match,and then the diesel fuel would would burn
(20:59):
off the fuse and you'd stir it. And this FNG did a great job
on everything, except he filled thecanister with jet fuel with gasoline as opposed
to diesel fuel, because the twobladders were side by side and he didn't
read the sign that was right there. So when he poured half of the
(21:23):
gasoline into one can and half intothe other can, stood back, lit
a match, it actually blew thecan apart. And we had we had
we had shit blown all over allover the area, and it actually caught
(21:44):
the latrine caught on fire, andyou saw these two men running out of
the latrine. The latrine burned tothe ground, and this poor soldier had
to help the engineers. For thefollowing week, he was on latrine duty
and he had to help the hadthe help the engineers to rebuild the latrine.
(22:04):
And that's that's I mean, that'sa visual. Like I said,
this this book reads like a movie. And when you went through the editing
process, your team, your editorsdid they kind of comment as well,
like your your stories is you cansee it like you don't just read an
(22:25):
understanding, you can you can visualizethe details. Well, I had a
marvelous college classmate, actually the wifeof a classmate who was also a classmate,
and she was incredible. She caughtevery misspelled word, every misplaced comma,
and then as she read through themanuscript, she asked a whole bunch
(22:47):
of WTF questions, And I figuredthat if she didn't understand what I was
talking about, I needed to rewritethat section so that it was comprehensible.
And her a great debt of gratitudebecause I don't think the book the manuscript
would have read as well as itdoes. And the fourth proofing of the
(23:08):
manuscript we only found four errors.So and since publication I've only found three,
So that's pretty good. And whenyou look at just the whole process.
After you finished publishing the book,I'm sure you read a ton of
(23:29):
reviews. I mean, if youhad one thing that stuck out and so
on reviewing your book, what sticksout to you most from the reactions of
people learning about your story. Well, I'm really very very proud of three
reviews and four reviews. In particular, I got a review from Jan Scruggs,
(23:52):
who is the founder of the VietnamMemorial in Washington, DC, and
I contacted him. I had actuallymet him on one occasion, but he
certainly wouldn't have remembered me, andhe wrote me just a marvelous advanced review.
He read the manuscript and he gaveme a wonderful review. Got a
(24:12):
review from Barry McCaffrey, who isan MSNBC news commentator at Military Analyst,
and he also gave me a wonderfulreview. But the other two reviews that
I'm most proud of I have onefrom my medic and one from my radio
(24:33):
operator. And I'm still in touchwith a large number of the men who
were assigned to a company, firstBattalion, fifth CAB, first Cab Division.
And my call sign was Foggy Dayone six one being the first platoon
leader and six being the leader andthe name of our group. We have
(24:56):
a Facebook group called the Foggy DayGroup. Now, they weren't all members
of the company at the same time, but they were members of a company,
first Battalion, fifth CAB at onetime or another. And they're about
seventy of us and we try toget together at the First Cab reunions once
again. You listen to Time FocusRadio talking entire special guests today Robin Bartlett,
(25:19):
and you can get his book VietnamCombat, Firefights and Writing History.
He should go to his website RobinBartlett Author dot com. And I wanted
to say that I wanted to bevery careful to this interview because I don't
want to give all the you know, details away from the book. Is
that good? I feel whoever readsit it's going to be very hard to
(25:44):
stop reading. Is so many details, not just about the military, but
how you know you communicated with yoursoldiers and how you all operated on mission.
So many things that you learn andas a reader, it felt like
we were learning with you. Youknow, after emission you reflect on certain
(26:07):
things in the letters and the lessonslearned. You know during emissions. Looking
back, if you were to besomeone's mentor listening this right now, who
who's maybe in the military or isabout to be a military was one thing
(26:29):
that you will give words of encouragementand wisdom to that person to always strive
to be the best and to nevergive up. Yeah, that's that's a
very very broad question and issue.You know, I went through all this
training and I was really a badass, you know, after going through all
(26:55):
this training, and I was tosome extent programmed Airborne Officer ranger trained and
went to Vietnam thinking I was bestof the best. But when when you
face a firefight, when you facean ambush, when the bullets start to
(27:18):
fly, you come, you comein contact with fear, the kind of
fear that sends you to the groundand buries your head in the dirt,
and um, you don't want toget up because you'll know if you do,
there's a good chance you'll you'll bekilled. I think it's the same
(27:42):
kind of feelings that firefighters and firstresponders and police face as well. But
if you're the leader and you're ina firefight, you can feel the literally
feel the eyes of every man lookingat you and wanting you to make decisions
(28:04):
right or wrong. They want toknow what you want them to do.
And as the leader, you certainlyare afraid. There's no question about it,
you know. John Wayne said itbest. Courage is being scared to
death and saddling up anyway, Andthat's what you had to do. That's
(28:27):
what you have to do as aleader, is get tough and saddle up
and make decisions. And sometimes Ihad to put my men in harm's way.
I tried not to do that,but it did happen. I did
lose men, I was wounded myself, but I always felt very confident,
(28:51):
primarily because of my training. ButI felt that I could handle the situation
and and help my men through anadverse situation. So that's kind of a
long answer to your question, buthopefully people be able to kind of take
(29:11):
away some good thoughts there. Yes, and my follow up, follow up
question and last question would be forthose who are non military, they don't
have military career, but they wantto support those who are a military and
veterans. What is the best waythat a person who has good intention is
(29:34):
to support, So in military wasthe best way that they can show their
true support. So there's absolutely nothingwrong with the phrase thank you for your
service. But Vietnam veterans are beginningto walk in the boots of the Korean
War veterans and the World War Twoveterans. And we're kind of a special
(29:56):
breed of cat because for the mostpart, we were not welcomed home when
when we came home, and sofor Vietnam veterans, the code words are
welcome home. If you say welcomehome to a Vietnam veteran, you will
(30:17):
you will and watch the result.It's a game changer. You'll bring lumps
to our throats and tears to oureyes because it because it shows that you
understand and have an appreciation for whatwe went through. So those are the
code words. Once again, listeningwe Focused Radio talking to our amazing guest
(30:41):
today, Robin Bartlet and his bookVietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History.
You can go visit his website.Robin bartlet Arthur dot com first and almost
I hope people really get this bookbecause it's like watching history on the pages.
(31:02):
So I wanted to say thank youfor for writing this, uh,
this book and just lease earlier.Well to you into all Vietnam veterans,
I want to say what you said, welcome home, and thank you for
what you're doing with this book.Well, thank you for being such a
wonderful host. It was it wasa pleasure, absolute pleasure being with you today.
You are listening to I AM RefocusedRadio with your host Shamaya Read. This
show is designed to inspire you tolive your purpose and regain your focus.
And now here's your host, ShamayaRead. Hey, you welcome to I
AM Refocused Radio. We are hereonce again, and today we have a
true amazing guest. We're going totalk to Robin Bartlett and his amazing book
(00:31):
Vietnam Combat Firefights in Writing History.And first and foremost, there's so many
details in this story that I justreally want to jump right into the show
and say, first of all,thank you Robin for all you've done and
for writing this project. I understoodthat it took about ten years to write
(00:53):
and another additional two years to getready for publishing. So congratulate your book
and welcome to the show. Thanksfor having me. I really appreciate it.
This is great. Great to bewith you. Yes, sir and
man, I read the chapters youwanted me to read to prepare for this
interview. I must say it's likea roller coaster, right, it was
(01:15):
a pace turner. I couldn't startreading. So kind of start the audience
a little bit about yourself and yourfamily, because I understand that you have
a family that is very heavily involvedin military careers, including your grandfather or
your father and your brother. Sokind of start there about your family,
sure, you know, and justquick background on the book. It did
(01:42):
take me ten years to write thisbook, and I ended up writing it
primarily because I had talked with alot of Vietnam veterans and I found that
a number of things happened to mein Vietnam that did not happen to them,
and so that kind of each oneof those events became a story in
my book. But as you say, I do come from a military family.
(02:05):
My grandfather, father, and brotherall attended West Point, and I
turned down an appointment to West Pointbecause as a military brat, I went
to thirteen elementary and middle schools,and by the time I got to college,
I said, I have had enoughof the military. I had enough
(02:27):
of moving around, and I wantednothing to do with the military. But
it was, you know, theVietnam War was growing and eighteen year olds
were being drafted on a regular basis, and because of my family, I
knew I had to serve as anofficer. So I went into the ROTC
(02:52):
program and it was just really secondnature to me. So I fell right
back into it and graduated as adistinguished Military Graduate and at the ripe age
of twenty one, knowing everything therewas to know. Right now, twenty
one year olds always know everything thereis to know. I volunteered for Airborne
(03:17):
Ranger, infantry and special and assignmentto the eighty second Airborne Division, and
I got everything and I asked forAnd your next chapter was driving from California
to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.And what was that process like in your
mind? Were you excited to turnthe pays to the you know was coming
(03:42):
next in your life? What wasgoing to umi at that time? I
really was excited about it. Igraduated and was commissioned on the same day,
and two days later, my carpacked with all my personal belongings,
I'm driving across the United States enroute to my first duty assignment at the
eighty second Airborne Division and got thereprocessed in and I was what they called
(04:09):
a leg. In other words,I had not gone through jump school.
So when I got assigned to mycompany, my company commander was a very
intelligent man, and he decided hewould not assign me as a platoon leader
with airborne troops, because I wasnot airborne trained at that point in time.
(04:30):
And I worked in the office anddid administrative types of work for about
a month month and a half,and then I got orders sending me on
down to Fort Benning, Georgia,where I went through Jump School and Infantry
Officers Basic Course and Ranger School.And Ranger School was actually the most challenging
(04:58):
training that the Army had to offer, still is really, and it was
the best insurance policy for going toVietnam, and I knew that was in
my future once a gameless time beforehis Radio Tich Guitar special guest today Robin
Bartlett in his amazing book Vietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History. With your
(05:20):
family being heavily in the military,what was the reaction from your parents when
they found out that you were gearingup and being prepared to build to Vietnam.
Well, yeah, again, ifyou come from a military family and
you've served in My father had athirty year career. My brother had had
(05:43):
served in Vietnam already, and therewas a soul surviving son rule which kept
him out of a second tour inVietnam, and they sent him to Korea.
My brother served was a career officeralso, so it was kind of
expected. It was not unusual,and it was just part part of the
(06:09):
my my family took it, tookthe service to our country. Took those
words very, very seriously. Theymeant a lot to us. We were,
in fact, in service to ourcountry. That was the way we
thought about it. Um. Infact, when I answered the phone at
home, I answered it by saying, Colonel Bartlet's quarters may help you,
(06:32):
sir. That was the way asa child I answered the phone and with
this mindset of already kind of knowingthe military lifestyle. Were you Because there's
so many great stories the last seriousstories, but all saw some funny stories
(06:53):
in you book. But there isa project that you were getting assignment to
do some investigating and writing it.I think had twenty two pays before you
gave your superior, as you say, slim it down a little bit.
You can share a little bit oflike a teaser of that story for the
audience. So yeah, I wasa comparative literature major in college, so
(07:15):
I was very comfortable with reading andwriting, and reading and writing. It
just came naturally to me. Andas I mentioned my company commander decided not
to assign me down at the platoonlevel. So I was doing some paperwork,
administrative work, and he assigned mea report of survey. So,
you know, I started to researchall the regulations about writing a report of
(07:39):
survey. And this report had todo with a soldier who had gone a
wall for a period of time andlost all of his belongings. So I
just took this assignment very very seriously, and I interviewed the other soldiers in
the area, and I took statementsand I had them all typed up and
(08:00):
mind, and I wrote up thereport and decided that this soldier should not
be charged because you know, heleft his unit, he left his belongings
properly secured with a lock, blahblah blah. And it ended up about
twenty two pages in length, andI turned it into the S four and
the S four is the property managerof a battalion warrant officer. And he
(08:24):
called me into his office and hethrew the paper back at me and he
said, what the F is this? This is crazy? Rewrite this.
Charged the soldier for the two hundreddollars twenty two pages for a two hundred
penalty, you know, three paragraphsshort words and send it back to me
(08:46):
tomorrow. So I went back tomy company and my company commander was laughing.
They were all laughing at me.But it was a good lesson learned.
I learned. You know, sometimesless is more and you want to
fit the fit the report to thesituation. He did a lot of intense
(09:07):
training in the beginning. And Ibelieve I recall you you met a guy
named Church, he was a seal. If you could uh tell all how
how you met the guy and howmuch of an influence was he during your
training, Well, he actually helpedme get through ranger school. And Ranger
(09:30):
school was the as I mentioned,was that the toughest training that the Army
had had to this day has tooffer. I think seal training is more
physically demanding, um. And Ithink that probably seal training is the toughest
military training there is out there.I would certainly argue that. I argue
(09:54):
that point, um. But Rangerschool for me was was very very demand.
Why primarily because I'm short, haveshort legs, and we went on
a lot of forced marches and Iwould start at the front of the pack
and walk as fast as I possiblycould, and then when I reached the
end of the because everybody was passingme, I'd run back up to the
(10:18):
front. Well, that didn't workvery well, and Church this we went
through with two Navy Seals who werejust incredible, in incredible physical condition.
They could outrun us. They wouldgo through the obstacle course just lickety split,
do pull ups and sit ups andpush ups infinitely. And Church said
(10:43):
to me, here, grab ontomy pack frame and ill you will keep
up with me. And he literallyliterally pulled me along on a twenty mile
force march which we were all requiredrequired to complete in order to earn our
Ranger certification. And then when itcame time for me at Ranger school would
(11:05):
test you at the point at whichyou reached a total exhaustion and fatigue both
mental and physical, and hunger becauseif you didn't make your objective, you
didn't eat. And I appointed Churchas my What we found with the seals
was that we helped them with theplanning and the operational aspect of planning an
(11:31):
operation, and then they helped uson so many times when somebody was having
a tough time physically. They wouldpick up their weapon, they'd carry two
weapons, they'd carry the other man'spack. They were just incredible. Inside
the book before it even starts,you give like a little opinion, petray
(11:54):
of what people were, their attitudewere in the United States during the time,
with how media was showing the storiesand you know, everything in Vietnam.
How important was it for the readerswhen they pray your book to have
(12:16):
both your perspective, your experience,and also understanding the temperature in America and
how the culture was in the UnitedStates. Well, in many respects,
I was fortunate because I went toVietnam before the height of the protest movement
in the United States, and whenI came back, I still was in
(12:39):
the military. I was actually atthat point in time, a regular Army
officer, and I had an additionalduty station to go to, and I
stayed with my parents. I wasa bachelor. I stayed with my parents
and down in Monterey, California,and I was basically removed from any of
the protest movement, which any ofthe soldiers who came back from Vietnam right
(13:03):
after the height of the war.I went over in sixty eight and came
back at sixty nine, and thatwas at the height of the war,
and the protest movement was really growingby leaps and bounds by that point in
time. And I basically avoided avoidedall of that, but the protest movement,
(13:24):
especially after the Tet Offensive of nineteensixty eight, which was really the
turning point for many Americans in theUnited States, because they had been assured
by the President, by west Moreland, by the senior officers, by our
political leaders that we were winning thewar, and then all of a sudden,
(13:46):
this incredible Tet Offensive of nineteen sixtyeight occurred, and while we were
we overcame the viet Cong twenty toone. We lost about three hundred Americans
within a very short period of time. An American was just not prepared for
(14:09):
it. And there was so muchtelevision coverage that and also Walter Cronkite,
who was the Voice of America ontelevision, changed his opinion and said,
we're not winning this war anymore.We're in a stalemate. So that aggravated
(14:31):
and escalated the protest movement in theUS. And it's important to understand that
for Americans, especially if you haveno contact concept of the Vietnam War,
it's important to understand how the publicopinion changed dramatically during that two year period.
(14:52):
One thing I really appreciate about yourbook is you have it throught chapters
like a little letter. Yeah.I felt like it was very interesting to
see. And I want to askthe way you formatted letters or those actually
were by of letters that you wroteduring those times, or is it more
(15:16):
like a summary based on your memory. Now that's what happened there was that
after about ten years, I sentthe manuscript out to a number of friends
of mine and they all these weremilitary people, and they all said,
this is great, go ahead,see try and get published. But two
of the people I sent it to, and they were both women, one
of whom was in the publishing field, the other was a college classmate,
(15:39):
said well, I guess you onlywant to sell this book to veterans,
and I said no, I wantedto appeal to the general reader too.
They said, well, you needto demilitarize it. You need to take
out all these or at least explainall these abbreviations that you've used, and
you need to put more of yourpersonal feelings into the book. And that
(16:02):
was a challenging thing for me todo because I had kept a lot of
those feelings bottled up. I likenedit to having a titanium steel trunk in
the back of my mind, andI locked all those experiences away in that
trunk. And so anyway, ittook another two years to rewrite the book.
And one of the things I recalledis that my mother had saved every
(16:26):
letter that I wrote home, andshe kept them in the envelope, so
they were all date stamped. SoI put them in chronological order, and
I reread every letter, and thenI reached in and grabbed snippets, actual
snippets of the letters I wrote home, and put them into appropriate chapters,
so you could read the story thatI wrote, which was what really happened
(16:51):
to me, and then you readwhat I wrote home about which always didn't
quite agree. There was a littlebit of a juxtaposition there. We're talking
to our special guests today, RobinBartlett and his amazing book Vietnam Combat,
Firefights and Writing History, And man, I must say, when I was
reading the chapters you asked me toread, it really felt like a movie.
(17:14):
It felt like I was watching amovie reading the words on the pages.
There are so many emotions in thisbook. There's a lot of graphic,
dark things that happened, obviously,but there's also some humor as well.
If you have a funny story,which I have a strong fan,
(17:36):
I know what funny is, butit's still a funny story that you share
the audience that you wrote in thisbook. Sure. Now, I'll just
preface by saying, you know,I had a family to raise. I
couldn't sit down and just write everyday I wrote on I had a job
that took me on long airplane flights, and I would whip out my laptop
(17:56):
and i'd work on a chapter,and I would becomes so engrossed in remembering
the detail of the event that happenedto me that I literally would block out
everything that was going on around me. And it was just amazing how much
detail my mind would retain, andcould I could relive the situation. I
(18:19):
could see the colors. I couldthere were times I could even smell the
smells. I know that's crazy,but it's true. And I would come
away from some of these events justsweating. But in answer to your question
about the humor, new people whojoined our unit are were called fnngs that
(18:40):
stands for effing new guy. Andyou couldn't trust one of these new people
until they had had about a monthto six weeks of acclimatization, getting used
to the heat one hundred and fiveto one hundred and fifteen degrees daily temperature,
as well as to the routine andup in the boonies as we used
(19:00):
to call it, and developing someconfidence in a firefight, and just an
awareness certainly weapons security, and anawareness of protocols and things that our platoon
and our company had to do.So we treated the fgs very carefully and
(19:22):
we watched them to make sure thatthey were going to be a productive member
of our platoon. But an FMGin the base camp when we were pulling
base camp security, we would beout in the field for four to six
weeks and then we would come intothe base camp and pull perimeter security for
a week. And that gave youa chance to have some hot food and
(19:47):
shower or two and some clean clothes. But the FMG was given the job
of changing the barrels in the latrine. And the way they handled latrine in
the Army was they had they builtthe engineers built a two man latrine out
of wood and built it up high, and underneath each hole was a half
(20:12):
of a fifty five gallon drum,and so you pooped in the drum.
And then once a day an FMGwould pull out the dirty can and push
in a clean can. So weexplained to this energy exactly what he was
to do. He was to goto the artillery battery and get an empty
(20:34):
shell casing, a one oh fivemillimeter shell casing which was made out of
brass, and fill it with dieselfuel, and then go to the latrine,
pull out the dirty can, pushin the clean can, pour half
of the diesel fuel in one andthe other half in the other can,
stand back and light a match,and then the diesel fuel would would burn
(20:59):
off the fuse and you'd stir it. And this FNG did a great job
on everything, except he filled thecanister with jet fuel with gasoline as opposed
to diesel fuel, because the twobladders were side by side and he didn't
read the sign that was right there. So when he poured half of the
(21:23):
gasoline into one can and half intothe other can, stood back, lit
a match, it actually blew thecan apart. And we had we had
we had shit blown all over allover the area, and it actually caught
(21:44):
the latrine caught on fire, andyou saw these two men running out of
the latrine. The latrine burned tothe ground, and this poor soldier had
to help the engineers. For thefollowing week, he was on latrine duty
and he had to help the hadthe help the engineers to rebuild the latrine.
(22:04):
And that's that's I mean, that'sa visual. Like I said,
this this book reads like a movie. And when you went through the editing
process, your team, your editorsdid they kind of comment as well,
like your your stories is you cansee it like you don't just read an
(22:25):
understanding, you can you can visualizethe details. Well, I had a
marvelous college classmate, actually the wifeof a classmate who was also a classmate,
and she was incredible. She caughtevery misspelled word, every misplaced comma,
and then as she read through themanuscript, she asked a whole bunch
(22:47):
of WTF questions, And I figuredthat if she didn't understand what I was
talking about, I needed to rewritethat section so that it was comprehensible.
And her a great debt of gratitudebecause I don't think the book the manuscript
would have read as well as itdoes. And the fourth proofing of the
(23:08):
manuscript we only found four errors.So and since publication I've only found three,
So that's pretty good. And whenyou look at just the whole process.
After you finished publishing the book,I'm sure you read a ton of
(23:29):
reviews. I mean, if youhad one thing that stuck out and so
on reviewing your book, what sticksout to you most from the reactions of
people learning about your story. Well, I'm really very very proud of three
reviews and four reviews. In particular, I got a review from Jan Scruggs,
(23:52):
who is the founder of the VietnamMemorial in Washington, DC, and
I contacted him. I had actuallymet him on one occasion, but he
certainly wouldn't have remembered me, andhe wrote me just a marvelous advanced review.
He read the manuscript and he gaveme a wonderful review. Got a
(24:12):
review from Barry McCaffrey, who isan MSNBC news commentator at Military Analyst,
and he also gave me a wonderfulreview. But the other two reviews that
I'm most proud of I have onefrom my medic and one from my radio
(24:33):
operator. And I'm still in touchwith a large number of the men who
were assigned to a company, firstBattalion, fifth CAB, first Cab Division.
And my call sign was Foggy Dayone six one being the first platoon
leader and six being the leader andthe name of our group. We have
(24:56):
a Facebook group called the Foggy DayGroup. Now, they weren't all members
of the company at the same time, but they were members of a company,
first Battalion, fifth CAB at onetime or another. And they're about
seventy of us and we try toget together at the First Cab reunions once
again. You listen to Time FocusRadio talking entire special guests today Robin Bartlett,
(25:19):
and you can get his book VietnamCombat, Firefights and Writing History.
He should go to his website RobinBartlett Author dot com. And I wanted
to say that I wanted to bevery careful to this interview because I don't
want to give all the you know, details away from the book. Is
that good? I feel whoever readsit it's going to be very hard to
(25:44):
stop reading. Is so many details, not just about the military, but
how you know you communicated with yoursoldiers and how you all operated on mission.
So many things that you learn andas a reader, it felt like
we were learning with you. Youknow, after emission you reflect on certain
(26:07):
things in the letters and the lessonslearned. You know during emissions. Looking
back, if you were to besomeone's mentor listening this right now, who
who's maybe in the military or isabout to be a military was one thing
(26:29):
that you will give words of encouragementand wisdom to that person to always strive
to be the best and to nevergive up. Yeah, that's that's a
very very broad question and issue.You know, I went through all this
training and I was really a badass, you know, after going through all
(26:55):
this training, and I was tosome extent programmed Airborne Officer ranger trained and
went to Vietnam thinking I was bestof the best. But when when you
face a firefight, when you facean ambush, when the bullets start to
(27:18):
fly, you come, you comein contact with fear, the kind of
fear that sends you to the groundand buries your head in the dirt,
and um, you don't want toget up because you'll know if you do,
there's a good chance you'll you'll bekilled. I think it's the same
(27:42):
kind of feelings that firefighters and firstresponders and police face as well. But
if you're the leader and you're ina firefight, you can feel the literally
feel the eyes of every man lookingat you and wanting you to make decisions
(28:04):
right or wrong. They want toknow what you want them to do.
And as the leader, you certainlyare afraid. There's no question about it,
you know. John Wayne said itbest. Courage is being scared to
death and saddling up anyway, Andthat's what you had to do. That's
(28:27):
what you have to do as aleader, is get tough and saddle up
and make decisions. And sometimes Ihad to put my men in harm's way.
I tried not to do that,but it did happen. I did
lose men, I was wounded myself, but I always felt very confident,
(28:51):
primarily because of my training. ButI felt that I could handle the situation
and and help my men through anadverse situation. So that's kind of a
long answer to your question, buthopefully people be able to kind of take
(29:11):
away some good thoughts there. Yes, and my follow up, follow up
question and last question would be forthose who are non military, they don't
have military career, but they wantto support those who are a military and
veterans. What is the best waythat a person who has good intention is
(29:34):
to support, So in military wasthe best way that they can show their
true support. So there's absolutely nothingwrong with the phrase thank you for your
service. But Vietnam veterans are beginningto walk in the boots of the Korean
War veterans and the World War Twoveterans. And we're kind of a special
(29:56):
breed of cat because for the mostpart, we were not welcomed home when
when we came home, and sofor Vietnam veterans, the code words are
welcome home. If you say welcomehome to a Vietnam veteran, you will
(30:17):
you will and watch the result.It's a game changer. You'll bring lumps
to our throats and tears to oureyes because it because it shows that you
understand and have an appreciation for whatwe went through. So those are the
code words. Once again, listeningwe Focused Radio talking to our amazing guest
(30:41):
today, Robin Bartlet and his bookVietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History.
You can go visit his website.Robin bartlet Arthur dot com first and almost
I hope people really get this bookbecause it's like watching history on the pages.
(31:02):
So I wanted to say thank youfor for writing this, uh,
this book and just lease earlier.Well to you into all Vietnam veterans,
I want to say what you said, welcome home, and thank you for
what you're doing with this book.Well, thank you for being such a
wonderful host. It was it wasa pleasure, absolute pleasure being with you today.
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