John Fratangelo served in a Recon Platoon with the Big Red 1, 1st Infantry Division. John won the Silver Star and received a Purple Heart for his time in Vietnam mostly as an M60 Machine Gunner.
John never humped his M60 on his shoulder to not let Charlie know he was the firepower. He is a great storyteller and things get very interesting on this episode on Veterans Live Show…
TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors.
good evening vietnam
welcome to veterans live show we are
live from lz bunker
i’m your host ronnie embras served with
honor first airborne division in vietnam
1967 to 1968
with 101st airborne division let’s get
going to bring our guest in shortly
one second we’re going to go to you oh
this is brought to you by our book don’t
forget
photo never forgotten the vietnam
memorials in the usa
each state is representative with a
memorial and we list the guys who didn’t
come home
never forget them okay here’s our
headlines
in vietnam january 20th
the vietnam war memorial replicla the
wall that heals is coming to new bern
north carolina in april
and organizer george haleck is trying to
round up
2 000 motorcyclists as escorts to make
its arrival truly special
so if you live in the new bern north
carolina area
reach out to the american legion post
539 for more information
make it very special okay
okay the vietnam timeline january 20th
1964. the central committee of the
communist party of vietnam adopted
resolution 9
the secret resolution of course declared
all that war on south vietnam
to defeat the arvind before the united
states could introduce
a large number of american soldiers to
the war
the number one song in this date in
january 20th
1964 was
come on all you music buffs bobby vinton
remember bobby vinton there i said it
again
okay the state of vietnam war january
20th 1972
the continued efforts to disrupt an
anticipated communist offensive a
contingent of more than 10
000 south vietnamese troops
began to sweep 45 miles north
west of saigon to find and destroy enemy
bunkers
there was much speculation that the
north vietnamese would launch such a
defensive around the tent
or the chinese new year
yeah that’s what we served up there
coochie and
the iron triangle area on the leosham
border there you go
the number one song on this date 1972
january 20th was by don mclean
american pie i know you remember that
one
[Music]
nick
okay first photo in the photo club
that’s me by the way in case you don’t
recognize me
this is outside the ussr in saigon
after my second wound i got out of the
hospital they reassigned me to
uh division headquarters rear and benoit
and we had i had a pretty lush job but
some of it was pretty bad
14 hours on 58 hours off i’m not
complaining
uh see guys come in and go you know come
in country go out of country
transfers give out r and rs whatever it
was like that and be uh
in charge of the uh division
headquarters here on a shift
i had to drive certain people at the
airport to pick them up with the uco
you know bigwigs politicians generals
whatever
interesting work but thinking about my
guys in the field
okay next picture this is from steve
wickett
on top of marble mountain june of 1970
myself and for the security personnel
went on excursion
went off duty the photo is an example of
a real reason we served in vietnam
you got a great heart there stephen
appreciate that
thank you next picture darren wells who
remembers the re-ups re
up who remembers the amps the real frog
and the lizards in cambodia
how about walking up to find land crabs
lying beside you
or waking up okay it scared me
acid bugs okie me in the middle
gotcha yeah i remember those uh ants
we were in the uh area of uh
the plant rubber plantation the michelin
rubber plantation
northwest of coochie there and on riding
on
apc’s from the 11th calf we hit these
trees
and boom all these ants would fall off
the trees and you had to get naked real
quick man
and that didn’t work and uh yeah snakes
bugs all kinds of things
next marie kenneran thank you marie cw
oh this must be
something very personal to you 92nd
sidekick six landing on the top of a
rotary blade on oui
he was enjoying his cigar in the breeze
he said he was taken at the
173rd airborne base thank you marie
okay john russell wong tao
one day and only 1970. this is an
acquaintance from texas named dewey
darley
hey dewey how you doing you look like uh
who’s that guy
uh in uh apocalypse now with the calvary
first calf hat there i forget his name
robert duvall
very good okay and one more we got here
michael
v mace or macy march 69 in the pineapple
south
southwest of saigon great john wayne gig
john you did good
michael there john wayne michael every
bit of 20 years old
i hear you brother a bunch of kids
all right and this is something i found
was pretty weird
i went to a uh i go to shows to sell my
book
and uh they have other vendors there and
this guy was selling these
vietnamese cards about the war
it’s amazing and they’re all about
all kinds of different things it’s like
vietnam
this is one about pushing the us off the
aircraft carriers at the end of the war
when we had to leave but we didn’t have
to leave but we did
this is one about the village defense
forces trying to do that
uh hearts and lives thing in vietnam
crazy and why is about about
president kennedy making his speech
there you go it tells you a story about
the back very interesting stuff
this says president kennedy’s support of
south vietnam and his concern over the
spread of communism
is illustrated in this excerpt from his
famous speech
let every nation know whether it wishes
us well or ill
that we shall pay any price bear any
burden
meet any hardship support any friend
oppose any foe to assure the survival
and the success of liberty
hello is that enough for an american
citizen not less a soldier or a marine
or a man or a
sailor to uh or coast guardsmen to live
up to
unbelievable
now we’re going to bring our guest in
john frantangelo who served with the
first
division in vietnam in 1967.
welcome john hi ronnie how are you
thanks for having me on
my man you’re looking like you’re in the
jungle back there already
oh like i said before you you can’t you
can take the pet out of the jungle but
you can’t take the jungle out of the vet
that’s it brother okay every day uh
thank you very much thank you for uh
john i want to let you everybody know
that john’s a
author a radio host and he’s a
silver star and a purple heart recipient
unbelievable he was awarded his silver
star and received the purple heart
excuse me about that
he was a black scarf uh battalion and
his nickname was
pizza because he was the only italian in
his
unit whatever that meant or squad or
platoon or whatever
but there you go very good so john give
us a brief
history of your time in vietnam with the
big red one
okay um it all started out when uh after
we took uh took my training
in basically an ait in fort jackson
south carolina
tank hill a lot of guys can relate to
thank you
and when we went over to vietnam i had a
friend of mine that i took ait
we went lucky we got together we went
over there together
and we were online
where they were giving out the units
okay so i always had a habit
of staying back wait the end of the line
ahead of me so eddie my friend eddie was
ahead of me
okay and i was at the end i was the last
guy on the line
like the anchor and uh we’re getting
closer to the
sergeant was giving out the units and
he gets to me and eddie he said well he
says
he looks up he said you know we we’re
you know the line companies are all
filled up we don’t know what to do with
youtube guys
she said he’s looking around he paid me
i’d say what he said i’m going to put
you guys with headquarters detachment
so right away the bells went off from me
and eddie said we think we struck gold
here you know we
hit the lotto and uh but before
before we got a hopes up he says uh
well i’m going to put you at recon they
come they come back from the field short
all the time you know
so right away we didn’t know so we
thought well oh
we know recon was scout like scouts you
know we said oh this is
good is it so anybody that happened to
be it hadn’t worked out for the best
because
being in recon platoon was i mean it was
dangerous you know
but we was out at night a lot on our own
but we weren’t but they left us alone
they didn’t bother us at all so we went
to the
big red one and uh they made me a
machine gun and m-60 and eddie we got so
lucky that he became my ammo bear
and um you know to get into it
we you know we had to go to jungle devil
school what they called jd school
that was that was a one week training to
to familiarize with the jungles in
general warfare
and which we did and when we come out of
that we were i was a plumber
you know by trade so one of the guys
that was there was a short time
which had gotten shot in his foot his
name was bob
and he says to me uh hey john i heard
you know you did plumbing
will you help me build a shower you know
this this is a
base camp was fukvin so i said okay
no problem so we got this done we built
a big shower big you know
double tanks 55 gallon drum back-to-back
spigots we had two we had two uh
barracks
screened in barracks regular barracks
and uh the shower
worked out really good so we were there
we were there for a couple of weeks the
first
we found out that the first operation
like i didn’t know the first thing about
the machine gun
okay and you carry it no
because we trained we trained on the 106
recoilers
any any and a 90 millimeter recoils
right
the 106 was a great weapon but the
vietnam was too muddy so they really
didn’t use it because it was loaded on
his feet
and loaded on a jeep so soon we got that
made us 11 b
11 h was the 106 and they made us 11 b
which is infantry
so uh we’re there and the this
sergeant dutch one of the platoon
sergeants comes over and he says uh
he says look john we’re gonna make you
an m60 machine gunner
and i’m going to introduce you to this
guy ronnie who’s our uh who’s our
machine gun right
and uh he’ll he’ll teach you about the
weapon so he introduces me to ronnie
and we became very close very close
friends and we were telling each other
about each other and i told him i just
got married in basic training
and that my my wife at the time was
craig
became pregnant so he’s
telling me all about the guy i took kim
apart like 33 pieces
and i knew it forwards and backwards
thanks to him
and uh he had just celebrated
getting engaged and we they told us that
we were going to go on our first major
operation
okay uh on june 12th
so now it’s getting close it’s like june
11 and ronnie had just celebrated
his birthday was may 27th which by the
way happens to be my present day
anniversary uh so he
went to celebrate this is the night
before the operation is june 11 now
okay it’s the night before the operation
and he’s out celebrating with the guys
in town i was i was by myself
i never went to town i didn’t like going
to bars
and i was just writing a letters home i
see ronnie
coming in with a book he coming to the
barracks to visit with me
and i’m sitting on the bunk and he’s
facing me on the other bunk
and he’s got this book and
i said what’s up ryan he said john i got
to show you something he was head to
head two sheets to the window okay
so he’s giggling and you know he wore
glasses
so he’s opening the book he said look i
got a show you he’s got gage you know
and
his wife’s nickname was babe which he
got scratched on his cover plate of
mashima
and he showed me his pictures and every
time he chose my pitch he’d slap his
knee in
the back and start giggling you know
really happy you know
so anyways now while we’re doing this
we’re hearing
b-52 bombers bombing where we’re the lz
for the next morning that we’re going to
hit okay and they were like machine guns
500 pounders going down like machine gun
votes
so he walks out of the screen as a
barracks and goes that’s the next
morning we’re up now
now we’re recon so we got to lead out we
got a security lz okay
so we line up and they’ll load us up on
the deuce and a half
and we finally head out to the chopper
pad
now we’re getting the first five
choppers okay
so now i’m gonna i’m on the floor on the
left side with my gun and leg hanging
out the open doors right
and uh two other guys we simon four on
the bench behind
so now like i said this this we’re green
now like this is like first lz i mean
we’ve flown on choppers before but this
is the first
lz that
next thing you know we’re coming to the
lz
and we finally see it and the choppers
start
going down and i’d say but they got
about
when all of a sudden the chopper gunners
both opened fire
okay so right away i think oh we got
income in here as i put my put my leg
and getting ready to fire back
and they they told me no no no this is
this is cover fire we didn’t know like i
said we were green so we didn’t know it
scared the crap out of us
so uh anyway they come down now we jump
off they don’t they just hovered
now we didn’t know because now you got
your full pack of gear on
you know and i didn’t carry the bullets
around my neck i just have one with the
gun pouch it holds about a hundred
rounds
because you gotta run and the bullets
around your neck is gonna be only gonna
interfere with you so
you jump off and we get knee deep shin
deep i’m sorry shim deep
in mud okay because it had rain and now
the trees are down
and you’re picking up your feet sucking
that the mud is sucking down like a
vacuum
right and you’re huffing and puffing
you’re climbing over the trees you got
the machine gun
everybody else because we had to hit
this lz and hopefully that wasn’t a hot
lz
luckily it wasn’t and we finally got the
to the edge the wood line which is about
150 feet
and now we’re setting up okay and we
secure the area
so now the battalion is coming in and
when they come in it’s secure so they’re
coming in like nonchalantly like you
know
rifles over shoulders walking like a
church social and i’m looking
i’m saying eddie hey hey hey look at
this man you know
you’re right yeah right so anyway
we’re there about an hour and a half
okay this is my first now this
this i broke in really fast
with everybody out here we start eating
our breakfast all of a sudden we hear
uh automatic fire gunfire
so i saw santos he come over right
he says pizza come with me hurry up come
on me and eddie right so now eddie
eddie was deathly feared of water
okay so i got held back because i had a
even ian see how to walk through a
puddle i had to hold his hand
you know to assure him that it was safe
you know so the other guys were a little
ahead of me
so i got eddie we got through the water
and
we go and i don’t know who’s hurt yet we
just know one of our guys was hit we
we didn’t know how bad it was hit okay
so now we get to where the
the injury was the injury chosen was and
i see a
medic trying to save this guy right now
we still know who it was because of
jungle and he was down low then i see
that
uh one of our guys baker hoist him up on
his shoulder
all right so he’s carrying him out and
he gets by me now i’m standing with my
machine gun
i got my my ammo bear and david c my
other animal barrier tattooed
and he drops and now i know it was it
was ronnie
okay ronnielle’s the guy who told me his
book
so i said okay so i said to dutch the
others so inside i said god you want me
to carry
so he says to me yeah you think you can
you know i said yeah of course i can
carry no so
now i didn’t know how bad off he was so
i was
trying to be careful so i told i gave my
gun to
david c and i said hold this for me you
know i mean get him i got him on my
shoulder
so i’m carrying him out still trying to
be very careful
you know and i go about i say
50 yards and he starts slipping off
so i said to the dutch i said i got to
put him down he’s slipping off you know
so i put him down really gently
and when he went down he fell back
face up his hands were over his head
his eyes were open he had a big hole in
his chest
that the dog tags was inside his chest i
could put my fist in him
and i said the dutch he’s dead i don’t
know he’s dead that’s why he’s being so
careful you know
as he touched he’s dead he said yeah i
know he’s dead i know so now we had him
we had to dust them off you know we had
a
carrying we made a stretcher out of our
ponchos you know
and i mean this guy texts we carried him
the rest of the way and david seeing
actually four of us we had him and he’s
and his head was bouncing
his arms were laid back bouncing you
know and i’m looking back at him
and there’s the guy that just seen the
night before
happy about his engagement and
he’s lifeless lifeless you know and we
put him under yeah man that’s it it was
first day
first day of an operation i saw my first
d dead gi
i had his blood and his piece of his
skin on my shirt for three days because
you know you don’t change the clothes
for a few days
yeah so i had all this on my so it left
it
like i was quite called pizza stain you
know left the stain in my heart
that i
all right so let’s uh let’s go on to
what why they call it the black scarf
battalion
oh yeah well here’s it here’s what
happened in 1965
the first the first and second infantry
division which is part of the first
intimate division right um uh
destroyed a village vc village and they
they come across
this roll of material this black
material
so we’re going to burn it like you know
search and destroy you burn everything
but the time the commander said no let’s
not burn i got an idea
so let’s make scarfs so we did they make
scarves and they made different colors
like first and second
i don’t know if you can see behind me
yeah but anyway
okay the first and second oz
uh recon was yellow like the bravo color
might be white another one might have
been
green you know they made all different
colors for your particular
company you know that’s how that came
out to be and they and actually
the black scars had bounties on so
if any of the vc killed or even got
black scarf somehow they’d get an extra
pot of rice whatever they gave them you
know
yeah yeah yeah yeah so
okay tell us about this book you’re
writing about the
wind talkers well the book is not don’t
know the book isn’t about the winter
uh i’m sorry yeah the book is called the
last goodbye
and what it was is that um to go back
in 1965 as you all know we were all
knew we were going to get drafted there
was no lotto no lottery
you know and we knew as soon as we
turned 19 we were going to get in we
were going to be drafted
so my cousin tony who came from italy
when he was six
this is one we met up and they lived
with us until they got on their own
we had the seven families that come from
italy my grandmother had 21 kids
okay so we have we have a huge fan
yeah and it’s a naturally natural birth
oh yeah natural birth no twins no
triplets
yeah and believe it or not they had
three steves and three mics
so one steve back then they died young
one steve would die they renamed steve
i’m sorry for laughing
no that’s okay no no it’s it’s it’s okay
uh
but anyway um so they all had who had
seven kids who had five
you know so they all came over so me and
tony got very close we were like
brothers and he came into the same
school as me ps78 in the bronx
and um then they went on their own but
he always came over every weekend
every holiday every summer vacation you
know
christmas we were always together i mean
we were inseparable he loved to come see
me play because i was a drummer
come see me play in the band playing
playing baseball
work out once a while he’d work out me
and uh anyway
uh we grew up together and
and and on thanksgiving day 1965
we were at his house on valentine avenue
in the bronx right
and we said let’s after we after we ate
dinner we said let’s go for a ride
because we just got our licenses
you know he has he just got a 1963 blue
pontiac romance
so we’re going for right he’s driving
and we’re listening to the rating over
here is
vietnam vietnam there’s vietnam that you
know so we figured oh man
it ain’t going to be long before we
we’re going there you know
so we were cruising around fordham and
it was dead the streets were dead
nothing we were looking for chicks
naturally so
anyway we go down and i we pulled over
and i said tony what do you want to do
man you know
he said john he says let’s go home
uh i want to go home every time i tell
this i get teared up
because i want to go home because i
think it’s going to be the last time
we spent a holiday with our families i
say okay tony if that’s what you want to
do let’s
let’s go home all right so we did you
know now
now the next year let’s say he got
he was six months older than me so he
got his draft notice
actually six months before me so i
thought i
before his birth you know my birthday so
i thought i had a little time
he was born in february i was born in
september but
he when he got his he got his like in i
think it was march whatever it was
and in october he went so i figured i
had six months when my tournament
because my birthday was in september
but no as soon as i as soon as i turned
19 i got my letter
in october so we were only one month
apart and i had
i had a report in november okay so he’s
already in fort gordon georgia
and i’m going to foot jackson south
carolina
so now i’m saying to myself jesus i said
just think about this
i’m i’m it’s only november and it’s
before thanksgiving and i’m not home
to spend thanksgiving and neither is he
so i’m flashing back to what he said the
year before
i said man maybe he’s this maybe that’s
something because next year where we’re
going to be
you know and actually we
go to vietnam uh he goes with the 25th
infantry division
stationed at kuchi and i went the
big red one and we corresponded in
in vietnam through letters
and we were planning on going arnold and
we never got to do it
so um i got three of his letters which i
wrote in my book the book’s called the
last goodbye and cover the book
well let me i’ll tell you about the
cover if i tell you what so anyway he uh
on july on july 26 1967
he ends up getting killed okay and i
have to escort his body home
all right so now when they told me this
i was in the jungle
and they one guy comes up to me my first
first my sergeant comes up said john you
know
you i think you’re gonna be going home i
said why
he said well he says um you you chosen
to be an escort general people know this
but everyone was killed in the car at
least during vietnam anyway anyone who
was killed there
had a personal escort take him home okay
so he said you he said you’re going to
be a person let’s go for someone
a dead gi real so at first you know
i’m actually sad to hear about but i was
kind of uh kind of happy that i was
going to go home because my
the time my first wife was five months
pregnant and i get to see her
i didn’t know who i was taking home yet
um
so then this other guy comes over i
didn’t know this guy he’s a sergeant or
something
he comes up to me says uh he had to tell
me about
the escort he said look you’re gonna go
back to the states you’re to escort a
body and he says
you’re going to get your orders he says
but um
he asked me don’t have relatives in the
country
yeah sure i got about four cousins here
he said well it might be one of you
one of your relatives so i said i said
oh god
you know i said i love i love all my
cousins
i said but don’t let it be tony okay
just please don’t let me talk right
so anyway uh they took me out they flew
me but chopper to this
tent his captain was in there and i walk
in there
and he’s standing there and tells me to
come over he has his paper
and he turns the paper around with a
name on it and he says uh
do you know this fellow right it was
anthony you were tickling out
i said yeah i said that’s my cousin he
says okay he says well
he was killed in action on july 26th he
said look you’re going to be going home
on tdy
15 day tdy temporary duty
and you’ll get your orders when you get
to california whatever you know
so i now this is why i wrote the book
that night when i went back to fuku
phuket
uh i dropped i got dropped off at the
barracks and nobody was because
the time was out still in the field and
it was only two two guys there
they were sick or something when i
jungle arriving
and i was in the middle all right my
bunk was in the middle
and you the barracks are screened in all
around
okay half up wood with the rest of the
screen and that two screen goes on each
end
and a dim light outside the door
and one guy was listening to his radio
playing music and he was on right next
to the door on this side on my side
and the other guy was on the opposite
end on the opposite side and he was
right with the fleshlight because he was
dark he was like
the lights were out now it got to be
about one o’clock in the morning
and i’m looking around and these guys
are out because they tell by the slow
breathing
you know that they were sleeping so i’m
thinking about me and tony
the days gone by and all the adventures
we were with and
and next thing i i i’m flying in my bunk
under the sheet i just had my own
shorts on i was there up top and
i hear footsteps outside the door
the screen door and i’m looking and i
see a soldier standing there
who’s this guy so this screen door
swings open
and his sword starts walking as cat he’s
dressing khakis
he has his cap on so now the light the
little dim light that it was
was behind him and i couldn’t see his
face i couldn’t make him out
but i i noticed he was walking towards
me so i sat up
sat up in bed and the soldier stops at
the foot of my bed
and i look up and i say ton it was my
cousin tony
i said tony you know i wasn’t
i wasn’t asking the question i was
saying it tony
it was he was real i he wasn’t a ghost i
couldn’t see through him
you know he wasn’t transparent but he
stood there and he had a little smile on
his face
no teeth shown just a little grin
and he stretched out his hand
and i did the same i stretched my hand
out we clasped my hands
we shook then he never said word not one
word
he turned around walked out the screen
door the screen throws slammed shut
and he just vanished he just disappeared
and i say in the book i said
he could not leave this world without
coming to say goodbye to me
no so that’s why i called the less
goodbye
and and that’s the main reason why i
wrote the books i want to know
i want people to know that my my cousin
existed that he
they lived you know and they died for
this country and
and all my other friends who i name in
the book and i usually i use the real
names
you know i use their real names and i
want everybody wonderful wonderful
tribute
yeah and uh and i tell all his stories
and
because and i the first the first page
of my book
because i want people understand
something it’s called legacy it’s only
one little paragraph
and i say what you’re about to read in
this book
is my story i said there are hundreds of
thousands of men and women out there who
have stories wrong i urge you to tell
them
you know go on and on because i was
worried about
veterans reading my book especially
vietnam veterans
because i figured they could be very
critical because you know that’s why i
want to let look this is my story
i’m telling the truth it’s what happened
to me you got your stories to tell you
know
but people have written i’ve got in
touch with me since they read the book
and they were thanking me vietnam
especially vietnam veterans
and guys look one guy came to my heart
and him no he said john i had to look
you up
when i read your book because it meant
so much to me
it helped me because he had very serious
ptsd
you know actually came to my house to
find me
to talk to me about it so it helped a
lot of veterans you know
to get out there to tell their stories
because don’t leave
i tell don’t leave this world without
leaving behind your legacy because your
family and your children granting
deserve to know what you went through
for this country amen
so let me uh let’s move on to your
photos
we got three photos of you okay
okay that’s me we just actually we just
got back from that operation billings
okay uh that i was telling you about
with my first with ronnie elsa got
killed
right and that’s uh from the left that’s
jerry king abraham
uh james hessel and uh terry
havens and that’s me neil and now king
we never got a hold of
and uh rehard lives in michigan i
finally got a hold of him
and then uh um
james hessel he was he we nicknamed him
baldi we never got a hold of him
but terry havens [ __ ] we called him
funky i got a hold of him
and he i was on the phone with him this
is about
a few years ago that we were all going
to meet up because i met up with seven
seven seven of the crew and he ended up
dying
he told me he had cancer and he ended up
dying two weeks later so i never got to
see him
but a rehab is okay i’m still in contact
with him actually he’s on my he’s on
my documentary that they made for my
book but i met up with
david c who’s in the book texas in the
book
charles pauls they’re all in the book
charles house
i never got that he died recently of a
heart attack all of them agent orange
and uh
david c just passed away too and so did
tex about
a few couples i lost four of them in
three three years
oh that’s me on the machine gun you know
funny the funny thing about this
is that when i first got off the plane
in vietnam
i happened well you know you you’re
driving this this you’re taking my truck
to where you’re going you pooped in and
i happen to see
a group of these gun jeeps and i said to
myself wow that’s great it looks like
rack patrol remember rap patrol on tv
years ago
great right so lo and behold i become
one of the gunners on a
a gun jeep right so but that was great i
used to love that i used to love
barreling on the rope
machine gun on there like that that’s
that’s me
and actually in fort dix uh uh when i
got the
it was on armed forces day in 1968 and
when they
awarded me the silver star that’s the
general
at that time oh congratulations man
thank you thank you okay what is the
name of your book
it’s called the last goodbye okay
that’s a quite fitting name yeah yeah
that’s why
i did uh yeah and yeah do you have a
copy here with you
i sure do yeah could you put it up for
the camera there yeah
this is it
bring it up in the middle uh hold that
right there all right right by the bed
there you go yeah that’s the vision i
wanted to put on
ever since that happened i knew someday
i would write this book i actually i
started writing in 50 years you know
back about 1969 70 you know because
everything was fresh
in my head and uh by writing it then
i’m glad i did because i read the and i
have to after going through all my notes
i said myself man
i would have never remembered this like
i had a certain conversation with
sergeant santos that he would never
that he wouldn’t tell anybody else you
know what i mean because we were
close and he told me these things about
because he got the superstar you know
and uh i said myself man i would have
never remembered that conversation
hadn’t i not read it
wrote it way back then you know right so
i’m glad i did and there’s a lot of
stories in the book from soldiers
different soldiers to tell their stories
you know
yeah that’s a uh interesting aspect
because when i
we we were involved in a friendly fire
incident that killed
12 of our company members and platoon
members like nine four deuce rounds fell
short and uh 22
uh 12 13 killed 22 wounded
and i promised myself that i would go
back home and
visit the friends and our family members
of the
great soldiers that got killed that day
right
and 50 years later 50 years later i
wrote the book
that great yeah you know i mean it takes
it’s just time goes by
you got a picture there we got the
picture here fall never forgotten
and it’s uh it’s a sad i’m going to get
i’m going to read that i want to get it
it’s a
it’s just it’s just one of those things
that
people that don’t are not in war have no
idea what it’s about no
exactly right yeah well i want to thank
you very much
uh about of the stuff that you told us
and continues your good service with the
the books and the the radio show do you
have what’s the name of the radio show
it’s called codewindtalk.com
code codewind yes code will talk yeah
oh guys in world war ii well that’s what
the that’s what this guy called van evie
is
the third who produces produced it i
have a have a host
darren aquino who’s a congressman in
florida he hosted i
it and uh he’s he’s damon’s uh an
advocate for disabled veterans he’s all
after
they were veterans you know yeah yeah so
he hosts it you know
we have guests like you what’s the name
of the show
it’s called the uh code wind talk code
wind talkers
right if you go how can we see it
you can go on triple vibes dot com
triple verbs
yeah dot com or you go on
codewindtalk.com and you’ll have the
link
you’ll see all the links code
covenantful.com yeah
yes yeah and if you go on yeah
c-o-d-e-w-i-n-d
right t-a-l-k and if you go on the last
goodbye dashbook.com
you’ll come up with uh my my book and
the documentaries and pictures and you
know
people people want to know about it too
they could always get in touch with us
okay they go on amazon yeah yeah
you got it well thank you very much man
appreciate it
okay this is uh our
show tonight is brought to you by
simplified home loans
who sponsors our book on these kind of
shows and we’re going to send you one of
these
in the mail so be ready okay
who me yeah you that’s for you oh i was
okay because i was going to go get it on
the no no no you don’t go get nothing
that’s okay simplified home loans does
veteran
loans you know veteran home loans so uh
this is gonna send we’re gonna send this
out to you in care of
them okay i’ll send you one of mine you
know thank you very much bro we’ll do
white
[Laughter]
all right brother thank you very much
god bless you
thank you thanks for having me on
okay we’re in our soundoff section john
get ready for this
okay all right david
sureflip yeah
salute from a vietnam veteran thank you
so much for remembering us
6970 two birthdays and two christmases
in vietnam
he made it home he will never forget
home
was never the same amen brother
thank you david next comment
kilo 19 the big red one a very historic
division
they met from uh g they were in world
war one right
probably even before that next
we got manuela ramos thank you all
vietnam veterans and the ones who didn’t
come home
who have a very home in my heart
very nice
pepito loves and lives in costa rica
loves the pictures there you go
that’s it for the pictures matt okay
marie
is that slices of pizza oh
we have a very very way marie we have
quite a diversified audience out there
mr
that was really cute marie thank you and
jersey joe archino my buddy joe
and us buddy too uh two amazing
americans god bless you both and thank
you for fighting the good fight in
vietnam thank you joe
talk to you soon brother
uh marie kenner and again vietnam
veteran true blood story
and a hero about carrying his buddy the
first time is always remnants of the
past thank you for sharing
at john frat and angelo pizza
[Laughter]
oh you got to be careful over here once
you let out cause you’re going to get
backfired
kilo 19. what do you think of the m60
john he had some experience with it but
not much
oh i had oh i had he oh he he had some
experience oh yeah i know i love the mc
i loved it that was a great weapon great
weapon
as long as your ammo battery was as long
as your ammo bearer was by right
well that’s that’s another story with
the ambush
you never hear about stories from animal
bearers no
i never never heard one i want to do a
story with ammo bearer how they had to
run their ass over and how much they had
to carry and
beside their own equipment
how many metal cans those ammo cans
didn’t carry in bandoliers
two weeks and how many bandoliers
oh they’d usually have maybe one or two
on them and i’d have one on me and i
have to pout
but what to get back to the m60 it
answers john’s question uh
i mean my question i can’t say without
my glasses john
john’s question yeah
i took the the m60 is such a great way i
took the bipods off
right because because uh it used to get
hung up in the bush you know
yeah yeah with the vines and the but
yeah right yeah sure can i tell a little
quick thing about
yeah yeah one thing about the m60
i never carried it on my shoulder never
i always hipped it
no and not even a strap because um when
you’re walking in the jungle
you see from the waist up and and
there’s two reasons why first of all if
you have an m60 on your shoulder by the
time you take it off your shoulder
lift out the cover plate put the put the
belt in there cover the plate
[ __ ] it you’re dead so and
not only that one but i’m just walking
in the jungle you’ll see from the waist
up
so if you’re carrying a machine gun on
your shoulder and and charlie’s out
there
okay he’s going to spot you and know
that you’re the firepower and he’s going
to go right after you the first guy he’s
going to kill
right yeah it’s not only that about
about
uh bringing it down you being dead
but you’re not covering exactly and your
buddies are dead
i say that in the book yep because they
also yep yep
easy to figure out man one on one is two
that’s right okay
one second here all right
the big red one they won the first
battle in world war one
how about that well it’s the bloody one
there you go john thank you very much
we’ll be in touch with you take care
god bless you brother thank you you got
it
okay we got some orange metal foundation
winners get ready for this this
agent arms armsting we talked about last
night
okay uh these were subscribers to the
youtube page vietnam vet uh vis
what what’s the coil of that match
the veterans live show yeah there we go
too many veterans and visuals
um veterans live show the winner is for
the hat
of the uh tom visner
okay the shirt is doug carey
the patch is john moore
the decal is robert conan
and the pin in the pen is
peggy buckley pin pen peggy all right
there you go
we’ll uh get in touch with you on
facebook
and get the dresses and stuff and mail
you out these wonderful prizes
sent to us from the orange heart
memorial
our friend ken gamble out there in
springfield tennessee he’s doing a
wonderful job and next week we’ll have
some more
alrighty thank you very much
talk to you next week god bless you all
and
welcome home
