TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors.
good evening welcome to the veterans
live show this is ronnie embrace
it served in 1967 and 68 in vietnam with
b company um of the first of the 50
second infantry
101st airborne division i want to
welcome home all you guys first
tonight we have a very special guest
master sergeant gene longwell
he served in the 1980s and did a lot of
different things so be very interesting
show
let’s go to the headlines
okay we have three new conditions that
have been added to the vietnam war
veteran
medical problems bladder cancer
thyroidism and parkinson-like symptoms
so if you have those guys get to the va
and
get what you deserve okay there’s a new
vietnam war memorial going up in
lewiston maine
it’s a lewiston veterans park charles
paul
is the leader of the effort and hope the
monument will he hopes the monument will
be placed
by veterans day in 2021 which is just
what 10 months away okay
uh try to donate or visit after it’s up
they appreciate that okay let’s go to
the
vietnam war timeline
alrighty this day in the vietnam war
january 6 1967
the united states marine corps and
arvind troops laws launched
operation deck house 5 in the mekong
delta
area the 10-day sweep
the operation was combined marine and
vietnamese marine
amphibious operation the number one song
on january 6 1967
anybody got it by the monkeys come on
let’s hear it
i’m a believer i know you don’t want me
to sing but there it is
uh in january 6 1970
under the cover of monsoon rains the
viet cong
battalion attacked the 1st battalion 7th
marines at firebase ross
with mortars and sappers penetrating the
wire
the attack was repulsed by 4
am with 13 marines and sadly
at 38 vc the number one song
six in 1970 was perfect for my new
student season in vietnam
raindrops keep falling on my head by b.j
thomas okay
[Music]
okay so now we’re gonna go to the photo
club
here’s a picture of my good old friend
george gibson who i knew from the third
grade
uh we went to parochial school at st
dennis and yonkers together
then we went to yonkers high school
together we ran track and played
football together
and he and our other good friend jim
rooney joined the air force on july 6
1966
and i joined the army on the same day
july 6 1966
somehow uh in my
way back after a wound somewhere and i
guess i was by tui or and uh
in quinyan in the 86 to vac
i decided to try to pay him a visit and
sure enough i found him in the
em club on base in phuket and uh
they had a great reunion it was terrific
okay here’s our picture time john wagner
thank you john
it’s sprinkled a little in quinon camp
there you go quinon
86 the back uh 1970.
nice that jeep is not amphibious wow
monsoon season is great all right next
picture
paul george jones waiting for the u.s to
go back
great picture but you guys were a little
tight man one mortar round could get you
all
okay waiting to go back yeah three days
in the rear and then back out in the
boonies for six weeks
next picture you jogging checking
sandpans
on the perfume river and whey yeah
there you go that’s a nice little boat
we wrote one of those in the air
look at the trees the wind and the
background see that
everybody thought it was a hot crazy
humid place it sure was but there was
very diversified weather at times
okay next picture greg hauser
second 506 recon 101st airborne division
river crossing third quarter 68. 300
meters east of hill 54 was their new
residence
it was a forward observation unit for
the nba rocketing binwa army
air force base okay wow what are the
heck are they doing down there
uh i guess that’s a river crossing with
equipment yeah there you go
but it was too deep so they had to put
those uh
pontoons on there to get their gear
across very very creative guys
next picture mark christ
my brother he was tc on wild one maybe
he was three and four on the muzzle
break
they did hit a mine outside juan locke i
i’m not an
armor guy uh i don’t know what tc on
wild one means could anybody
write that in at the comment section at
the end of the show please
and we could talk about it and what’s a
muzzle break
okay is that that’s it for the pictures
now we’re going to bring in master
sergeant gene longwell
united states air force retired
hey gene how you doing yeah retired in
2002
all right wow so from 82 to 202
81 to 2002. right good for you man
so tell us a little bit about your uh
journey well in 1981 i went to
uh lachlan air force base and did my
basic training there
and then in 82 i went to keisler air
force base and
i graduated technical training school so
i was able to
fly a desk and that was my job
i flew a desk i hear that what was f 100
desk i don’t know
whatever you want to call it well hold
on one second that was not too bad
because when i got out of the hospital
after my second wound they sent me back
to division headquarters ria
and i i got reassigned to be
uh cq they called us like company clerk
right charge of quarters
yeah yeah it was great duty 14 hours on
and 58 hours off how about that and i
had my own jeep
but that was to like pick people up and
driving places big wigs yeah
i was a clerk for like you know the
first eight years of my career
it’s not very exciting stuff that part
of it no well you know
i’ve been following my bull crap let’s
go you help the guys out though
administratively somebody had to do it
right
uh yeah there was like 100 people that
uh supported one
one pilot for the air force
wow something like that i don’t know
what the exact number ratio was but it
was something
they’re raising between like five to ten
in the field
yeah yeah that’s a great supply chain
though for
wow yeah i mean yeah you got bombers and
fighters what
so where where did you get stationed
after you uh left basic
well i went to fairchild air force base
in washington and we had b-52s there
okay nice
i don’t know if everybody knows uh
there’s a there’s a pretty
infamous video um
i was there from 1882 to 83.
but in 94 the base commander um
was flying the b-52 with a with a crew
and it was
they were practicing for an air show and
uh
you can go on uh youtube and look it up
um if you want and um he did an unsafe
maneuver
where he tilted his wing toward the
ground so his wing
one wing was facing the ground and one
wing was straight up in the air
and he actually hit the ground and um
because all the people that died
yeah it was pretty sad the army guys
wouldn’t do that
it was yeah that’s right that’s crazy
it is crazy but i wanted to talk about
the
my favorite playing the a-10 warthog
there you go man
which which was really called the
fairchild republic 810 thunderbolt 2
but it was better known as the warthog
and i i
i swear if you guys in the vietnam war
had this plane
you would have wiped you would have
cleaned clean the big
kong’s uh but whatever with in like two
minutes
does that plane just tear off everything
in sight
yeah and like i guess uh you guys
had the uh a10 skyraider
yeah that was kind of a prop plane
looked like a p-51 mustang kind of thing
from world
from korea and uh world war ii
yeah but but this the a-10 uh replaced
the a1
but um you guys got that plane way too
late i guess
they started production in like 72 and i
was reading a little bit about it and it
didn’t go online until like 76
unfortunately for you guys yeah but we
did have some good
people we had some phantoms and we had
the f-101
[Music]
f4 was a pretty good fighter bomber
yeah it was it was and we still had that
when i first came in the military
i remember that one but there i think
they were phasing that out in the 80s
i believe really you think you have such
great new equipment right then all of a
sudden 10 years later whatever
they’re going it’s going out of business
what was the uh overall best
kind of versatility kind of
aircraft you would you would pick
which was the best one yeah versatility
you know dear speed for me it was the
a10 war hug
okay it just they will flow though
but they were pretty maneuverable and
then they had they provided ground air
support
for you know the army guys and the uh
marines and then
you know their support right if if an
army got in the gym they could have if
they had the plane in the
vietnam war they could have they could
have uh rescued them if
what was it did nobody have a 20
millimeter cannon on there
yeah yeah we’ll stir up a tank they’re
called tank killers
right there you go right yeah okay
and uh where’d you go where were you
stationed outside the country
well after i left the fair todd i went
to a greenham common england
from 83 to 86 and we we encountered the
peace ladies
who weren’t really they uh lived
outside outside the base in tents
year-round
and um there’s uh some documentaries
about uh
the peace ladies in graham common that
you can go online for that too
and the discusses discuss the whole uh
history of the peace ladies and
gentlemen because we had
the grounds cruise missiles um
there are cruise missiles on the back of
uh trucks right
kind of like a shell game and during the
cold war
like we didn’t want the the russians to
be able to find our nukes
that we had in england which were very
controversial to having them there in
the first place
and that’s why the peace ladies were
protesting the whole thing
and um so they would drive around in
trucks and then they would put
camouflage over them and you know
it wasn’t that you know they
reconnaissance wasn’t that
great as it is today i mean now with gps
and satellites
they would have been able to find those
things in the heartbeat that back in the
80s
it wouldn’t have been so easy so the by
the b-52s were stationed
uh the only one placed in england or
very few places um
that’s a good question though uh you
might not know i mean
i just wondered you know i think lake
and he’s had the
i don’t know if b-52s are at lake and
heath or not
um elkenberry had a-10s
the warthogs were there at elkinbury i
believe
or no or was it bent waters
oh you’re going back 30 years out of me
it’s okay
what other kind of bombers did we have
when you were there beside the b-52
well other kind of bombers and yeah
mostly b-52s but
we did have some fighter bombers too
okay yeah right okay i got you
yeah okay and then and then when we bomb
libya
yeah tell me about gaddafi yeah yeah
back in 86 we bombed
libya and uh all the all the planes came
out of england
and um going toward libya
the french of course i remember those
guys
they wouldn’t let us go through their
airspace so we had to go all
france and those planes that we lost a
couple planes
and i believe it’s because they they
didn’t have enough
fuel and um they crashed
but one of the reasons because uh they
had to go all the way around
french airspace yeah down over spain and
portugal
yeah peninsula that’s so so
after that bombing uh the libyans or
lebanese or whatever they
said um we’re gonna
we’re gonna cause retribution to all the
the airmen and
and people that were stationed over in
england because the planes came from
there
so i put my uh
desk away and i became a full-time
security augmentee at 440 rounds of
ammo and an m16 rifle and
where’d they put me but in the world’s
largest bomb dome
i’m smack dab and a bomb dome and
there’s rabbits hopping all around me
and it’s kind of crazy there and
i don’t know what i’m gonna do with a
rifle if i even see anybody that’s
i don’t know if i’m gonna shoot in a
bomb because i feel like
everything’s gonna explode if i fire and
they’re gonna shoot back at you too
and they’re gonna shoot but i guess if
they i guess they don’t care
because you know they threatened
attribution anyway
that was crazy but then um
our donors were off base off greenham
common
so um it’s kind of crazy we’re sleeping
at night
and we’re worried about uh people with
you know truck bombs or
car bombs or something just crashing
right into our barracks
because there was just a straight shot
there was there was no
there was no um concrete pillars or
anything
the block them from just doing that and
i was worried about that the only gave
us a walkie-talkie so we could radio
okay here comes here comes the car
bomber and then boom
that’s about it talking about what
happened in uh
germany uh but germany you know
there was um there’s the disco bomb
right a bunch of airmen lost their lives
at the disco bombing there and
uh they’re blowing up places in france
and so
there are certain times that like when
you’re
in the military you want to see
different places but they
said we couldn’t go here we couldn’t go
there and it was because
they were bombing uh places and
uh you know like uh car bombs or
whatever
and um yeah they drove one into the uh
into that restaurant bar right
yeah there was restaurant bombs yeah but
germany it was a big uh disco that
that a lot of people lost their lives
there that’s it yeah that’s right yeah
that’s it okay what did you do uh that
you spent
how long did you stay overseas well i
spent three years there
and then i went to military airlift
command
in uh scott air force base in illinois
and um while i was there i went uh
tey temporary duty over to south korea
for a month
i was going there they didn’t have they
didn’t have a slot for me
so i said this sergeant long will report
and they go who are you and why are you
here
so i told him and they said well we
don’t have anything for you to do i said
all right that’s fine with me so for 30
days i just partied
i didn’t go i shot during the day and
and
worked out and then the night i drank a
lot all right here’s the big
here’s the big question everybody i
guess
once in a lifetime if you’re not in the
air force you wonder how
you get air force food
oh we had mres oh yeah right i’m sure
you did
already you’ve had food in the world
it’s goofed all over the place
for 50 years maybe longer world war ii
even
the army air force army air corps and
yet
now on on facebook all you see is like
steaks and then pizza and then sea cans
c rations that we had yeah you guys see
rations
we had the the dinan hall i know
it’s like i mean we did have to go
through a line
nice you have to wait you mean right
yeah right
oh my god did you have silverware or
plasticware
silverware cloth napkins or paper
napkins
oh my god that’s one of the biggest
jokes ever with air force food good for
you man
yeah we we had a plush it was probably
because all the army guys were
complaining
about the food that it’s not everybody
the navy could play the navy had
you didn’t have the navy didn’t have
good food like you did and
we had the best we had the best lodging
too
yeah yeah okay how what do you mean oh i
mean they were like
nice hotels like four-star hotels
hotels you slept in hotels yeah well it
was called lodging but
you know they’re baseballs and it was
like four star
oh everywhere you went yeah
except when i went to korea i had to i
had to sleep on a cot
oh my god
that’s terrible
so so from uh after that
uh i went over to turkey and i i was
there for about a year and a half
and i met some really nice people there
and i still talked to some today
i still get some people from england um
and uh some other bases i’ve been at but
i really love the people that
worked in turkey because it was really
close knit there
yeah imagine and i used to dj there
while while i was there and i got
i got paid like 75 bucks a night and
with what american music or turkish
music no it was american music
did they do benny belly is that the nco
club any belly dancing
i did see belly dancers there okay there
you go
all right well here you go how about the
uh you spent some time in new york i
hear
yeah um from there from turkey i went to
griffis air force base in new york and
the first cuomo in his infinite wisdom
pitted
fair on plattsburgh air force base
against griffis air force base
when they were trying to close bases in
the 90s
remember to brac yeah yeah yeah yeah it
was a basic
money save some money based realignment
and something closure
committee uh and um anyway cuomo pitted
the two towns against each other the two
communities against each other
and the brac just ended up closing both
bases
so that that kind of that kind of stinks
for the communities because it kind of
broke
oh yeah lose a lot of income and and
yeah the income
that’s not good you know i’ll be out of
the
place and you know how [ __ ] you know
when you leave the military a lot of
people stay around
that retire from well it kind of breaks
the community when that those things
occur
okay let’s talk about uh
after after what was that
what griffis oh at griffith uh i went to
uh
rit in rochester new york at college oh
okay
i was there for like the rest of my
career
and um i was a mentor and i
help cadets become officers who may
still be
in the service today um i mean they
would be coming up on like
18 20 years in the service right yeah
we’d still be in
maybe one of them watching the show
tonight and write you yeah there might
be
how do you go you never know that’s
right
so okay tired out of there
yeah i retired out of there but um in 19
2001 when
um we had uh nine one nine eleven
right um i felt like we were going to
war
all over again um you know like the gulf
war that
i mean i was during the gulf war and um
and it was the same kind of people were
we’re fighting against
and um you know i was telling the cadets
i said get ready we’re going to war
it was kind of a different war because
it was like a terrorist war
but um i i end
up staying almost a year longer
because the air force uh would not let
anybody get out of the military
until all the everything died down a
little bit
no kidding so yeah so i was supposed to
retire
uh october of 2001 which you know
september 11th and i was supposed to
retire the next month
and i had everything going to get out
after my 20 years as being in the
military but um
uncle sam needed me for one more year so
it was it was great time i i really
enjoyed my time i enjoyed the people i
was
stationed with i had a lot of fun and i
i do miss it and i try to keep up with
the
people that i know through facebook yeah
yeah you’re going to interview yourself
you’re going to be a great thing what’s
that any reunions
it’s now it’s kind of hard to hear you i
don’t know any any reunions
oh any reunions um you know i’ve asked
uh
different people to uh if they want to
get together but
like guys living in hawaii
who doesn’t want to go to why that’s
let’s go to reunion in this
at his house there you go
but um there is no there is facebook
pages for different places that have
been and i’m a member of those
places right because you can always look
that up in the back of uh
american legion or the vfw um
magazines they have everything is listed
by different units and
different branches of the service yeah
that’s true
i’ll make you my used copies okay great
thanks
does everybody know that we used to be
neighbors uh
no we shouldn’t sell them that no yeah
about how long 15 20 15 years
well we’re 10 years and then we still
know each other
that’s right that’s right they come over
your house on monday
saturday to watch the bills win let’s go
buffalo
that’s right there you go so what was
the best kind of moment you had in the
air force
uh the best moments um
well you know actually like when i was
when i became a security augmentee cop
um
or policemen or security um it was
actually when you’re in it it it
it sounds like it sucks and you know
everything about it is
bad but it really is what like brings
everybody together and you
you remember the people and how
how much you pulled together to get
things done it’s it’s kind of weird like
that but
but that’s kind of things i miss but i
did miss
this i did miss being a dj i love that
that was that was a lot of fun um
let’s see going on on special duty
assignments that was great i went to
uh sweden had fun there germany was a
blast
um i went to the the german
um what you might call in
when i was stationed in turkey i went to
the german embassy
and uh for oktoberfest and that was a
kidding
a beer blast how did you wind up going
how did you get an invitation to that
um they just they just had things um
just notices on the base say hey if you
want to come to the german embassy
and celebrate come on down not only did
you get good food the best food in the
services
you got invited to the embassy for
october exactly
yes oh and and when i was over in korea
when i was over
korea they they treated well i did have
blonde hair now it’s more gray but
um i was like treated like a rock star
over in korea
it was like they they didn’t see
where i was at you know they didn’t see
americans that often in the area that i
was at because i was in kente
south korea well you’ve been around man
you got a lot of countries on there like
almost 10 countries right yeah i’ve been
to quite a few yeah
that’s crazy good for you i mean they
say join the navy and see the world
you joined the air force you got you saw
the world
beer and you got the best food
and that’s right first ten years i was
all over the place but the last 10 i was
mostly in new york that’s great though
i want to be closer to home and were you
were you close to home in new york
though
yeah i was uh i lived i was uh born in
geneva new york
in the near lakes area right so griffis
air force base is in rome utica and then
uh
like the last six years or so i was in
rochester new york so it’s like right in
between where i
i grew up that’s great
really you get you know it’s like uh
hey we need everybody we need right
everybody’s got to help out
in everything they do from a truck
driver to the bomber to the pilot to the
admiral on a ship to a grunt in the in
the
in the bush you know what i mean yeah
yeah later on in my career
um i i wasn’t just a pencil pusher i you
know i did a
personnel administration um finance
supply budgets
so not kidding wow i turned that into a
career outside
being a purchasing manager then that’s
what i do today did they send you to
school
but yeah you know they of course the
military you know
sends you to the best schools at least
the air force did i had great leadership
schools
uh managing manager training and um
i took advantage of uh going to college
and got a degree
from uh the air force and got a degree
from rit
oh good for you man see that yeah that’s
great so i’m the one
i’m i’m an alumni of rit
yeah put you in there put you know you
put that in perspective for a lot of
people they
figure like the military is this that
the other thing but orphans a lot offers
a lot of opportunities
oh yeah you if you work hard at it
you’ll get what you want out of life
amen i’m gonna tell you what we’re gonna
be sending you a copy of uh my book fall
never forgotten
oh thank you i’ll autograph it for you
there you go
and uh courtesy of simplified home loans
what do you think about that not bad
from an army guy right
then of course your steak dinner
all right on saturday then okay matt
thank gene sorry we’re gonna go out
sound off thanks for seeing we’ll talk
to you soon buddy
great
okay you’re back cheers
all right here we go marie kenron
ketamer
she loves the monkeys i’m a believer and
bj thomas
keeps falling on my head the raindrops
keep falling on my head
he lives somewhere around dallas texas
oh b.j thomas did nice
and you from texas i guess murray right
all right
next one muslim okay kilo 19. much love
for the 810
worked with him quite a few times the
best plane here is
that’s good little brotherhood next
comment
named after the legendary p-47
no kidding there you go i didn’t know
that
only one thing that can replace an a10
is an a10
i love that math very good
[Music]
a10 plus a10 equals gene do you ever do
refueling missions
uh oh yeah yes i have um when i i took
the cadets um
from rochester we took them to syracuse
and then
we took up some kc-135s
no i’m sorry we went to buffalo
to a refueling station out there at the
air force base out there
and then we went towards syracuse and we
refilled some uh
air national guard uh f-16s from
syracuse
over the end around deck mountains and
that was pretty cool
that was i got to look down and see you
know
where the air force plane flies slow
and the the refiller slides fast as fast
as they can
and they match their speeds and then and
then they link up and then they refill
the planes in midair yep that’s that
that’s
very insane that’s that’s an insane
operation
yeah i watched it i i was i was on my
belly
on my chest looking down at it and you
know because they have an observation
type of area for that
any accidents happening with that stuff
do you know of
um only in the movies um
it was i think was harrison ford i’m not
sure about that uh yeah
i’m pretty sure that in that movie uh
there was a refill an accident
all right thank you any other comments i
don’t know if there might have been but
i’m not sure
how about this 30 millimeter avenger
gatling gun
21 feet long you ever hear about that
all right you never heard you never
heard that or saw that
i i i thought it was i thought it was 20
millimeter
okay 30 20 still does a job right
is is he talking about the 810 no you’re
talking about the
the avengers all right no problem
here oh mre maria
feels rejected by the enemy
i’m going to ask the people out there do
you know you know what the b-52
stood for the buff does everybody know
it since we were talking about acronyms
buffalo new york no buff
yeah i’m saying buffalo uh it
stood for a big ugly fat [ __ ]
i mean bella what jay bro
what’s up man this is going all over the
world we’re gonna edit that out
so hey yeah big ugly fat fella
all right yeah this therefore you
definitely got to relax bro where you
are that’s what it says
i had such a great time that’s why i
still have some air up top they could
imagine
and the only ones who speaks french on
our show
that’s right every infantryman
i know was between 2000 now stands by
that warthog
even my son josh wrote this in he
doesn’t want to see it go
hear that he said josh says
everyone they know he knows in the
service today stands by the warthog
thank you josh
i stand doesn’t want to see you go there
you go
nobody keeps they keep wanting to cut it
and they just keep bringing it back
good next the military but they keep
bringing it back
okay 20 millimeter is the vulcan 30
millimeter is a 10.
ah thank you that’s okay
i didn’t remember that we have we have
like kind of like uh
we call we got these brainiacs that
watch the show all the time and they got
all the info
and they love it thank you kilo 19.
it’s just my favorite part i wish i
should have known that thank you man
we’ll see you
take care of yourself and we’ll get you
that book all right thank you a lot
go bills thank you
okay ladies and gentlemen thank uh any
comments that’s there any more comments
that’s it no
okay thank you very much for tuning in
tonight
and uh we’ll see you next week when they
had a special guest
thank you very much god bless you troops
and welcome home
