TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors.
good evening vietnam
welcome to the veterans live show live
from lz bunker
tonight we have a very special guest
paul locker who served with the 82nd
airborne division
in vietnam and in the states obviously
and we’ll be back to him very soon
let’s go to our oh
this by the way i don’t know if i said
this enough
but this is brought to you by the fall
of never forgotten book
it’s a book about all the guys who never
made it home from vietnam
it’s one state by state by state
every state’s covered and we list all
the guys listed alphabetically
and we give a state memorial
or one of our favorite memorials of the
state
let me give you a profile on that how it
was
funded how it got organized
who did the sculptures who did the walls
little
carvings of the walls the stones where
the granite came from things like that
so it’s a good
situation to check into
okay let’s go to our headlines
a new build get ready for this guys
named
fy 2021
ndaa that’s
fy 2021 ndaa
including the new amendment for orange
linked illnesses so remember that
check it out with your va provider
vietnam veterans and central bank teamed
up
to bring this thing together
two organizations got truckloads of food
and essentials
in areas of clay county for homeless
vietnam veterans are doing their jobs
okay this date in the vietnam war
go to the timeline
january 13th 1972
president nixon announces that 70 000
u.s troops will leave
south vietnam and since taking office
president nixon has withdrawn more than
400
000 troops were down
and casualties deaths were down to less
than 10
per week
and the number one song in january 13
1972
was american pie remember that
okay
[Music]
okay oh the photo section here we go
uh that’s me reading the playboy in
vietnam
a few years later reading the bible
which turned me around
excellent pictures thank you very much
tried to match them up
okay this picture’s from rick harris an
unexploded
406 millimeter mk 13 high capacity shell
fired from a
16 inch gun on the iowa class
new jersey uss new jersey battleship
discovered in quang tree province
vietnam can you imagine
that’s some shell 406 millimeters
okay uh jeff buckley sent this
in his best drinking buddy in vietnam
was jojo
looking good jojo what is that what kind
of can of whatever that is i don’t know
what it is
thought it was falstaff but no okay next
picture
thank you ted faraboo
load of napalm bombs headed to air base
in cameron bay
so i guess it came off a ship onto this
amphibious
assault vehicle and there you go
i think we needed them napalm was crazy
next picture you jorgen
thank you you checking sand pants in
way on the perfume river amen to that
same panzer loaded with stuff man all
the time do a lot of ambushes on that
thank you you thank you you sorry
okay cap addison on ql19
walter daniel medley spec 4
from the 523rd transportation company
54th i don’t know what bn camp means
sorry madison on ql 19
west of october 66
wow you were there early october 67 they
hauled supplies an ammo to the central
highlands
at some base camp boy
i’d be nervous about sleeping in there
with rockets and mortars but thank you
very much walter
next picture dwayne peterson
that’s the kind of picture i like man
like you’re on the beach
1968 milk mikon delta six
fourth of the 47th ninth infantry
division mobile riverine force
don tam a little down time around ted
probably hopefully before that like
crazy time great picture dwayne thank
you very much
and what’s going on with this
steve work it i’m sure you have heard it
before ronnie
you seem to resemble jimmy durante a
little
oh thank you steve you notice my nose
okay
let me give me some of his peppers so
like that’s called money
and i’ll be happy more happy thank you
okay so we’re going to bring up paul
arkan guest in from the 82nd airborne
division
uh served at vietnam and obviously
in uh he was in the golden brigade and
let’s introduce him right now
how you doing paul hey i’m doing great
ronnie uh
an honor and a privilege to be on your
show to
share briefly some of my personal
experiences
no problem and i’d also like to say that
i’m a much better looking guy
in real life the lighting my camera crew
and stuff you know
they’re off today so i had to do it
myself doesn’t do much for the face
that’s okay man we hear you we hear your
voice you know what i mean hey that’s
all we need
hey i got it i got a i got a picture
here real good picture they call me
jimmy durante so we’ll
figure out where you want
i feel that i was on the floor okay
there you go
so let’s go okay tell us about your
favorite
okay well i can tell you first of all uh
what inspired me to
being an airborne soldier was my brother
was in vietnam in 1966
with the 25th infantry uh
and uh when he came back he had this
blue badge on i said what is that
that’s awesome man what is that he goes
well you don’t want that that’s
called a combat infantry badge i’m
looking at i go yeah i think maybe i’d
like to have that
so he took me up to fort lewis
washington to get me uh
to try to talk me out of joining because
i had
quit high school when i was a senior
uh and did a lot of other stupid things
but he took me up there and we were at a
uh
in a post office and i saw two troopers
wearing
dress screens and both of them had the
garrison cap
the glider patch on it blouse
boots wearing cochrans they’re wearing
sunglasses
and they were just both of them were
just sitting like this just stone
cold and i just back from the knob
so i’m thinking that’s what i want
because you know when you’re 18 years
old you know you think you’re 10 foot
tall and bulletproof
and you know i used to think that i was
not tough tough but you know i can
handle my own
but as i got in and i went to the nom
1969 oh there we go
that was about 75 pounds ago
when i when i got there i’d been in the
bush for probably maybe a week or two
and i thought to myself
i used to think i was tough but i can
tell you something
i know what tough it is now and i’m not
it
some of those troopers out they’ve been
out there for a long long time
now i can tell you it’s kind of
interesting about the 82nd the golden
brigade third brigade
left uh fort bragg a strong constantino
wire around the whole brigade
headquarters and uh the two 505s and the
508
and uh 325 and some of the artillery uh
anyway they just locked over there
that’s me artillery 82nd artillery 320.
there you go bro
so you know they we got them all and
they uh
loaded everybody on c141s i mean they
had everybody over there in 48 hours
landed in july and this had been
february in 1968.
what i’m doing is give me a little
history
which is very interesting more
interesting probably than any other unit
in vietnam
landed in chula nixon ordered us over
because uh the ted of 68
and they had moved us up to way fubai
quang tree province is a blocking force
on the west side of the city
of wade uh towards laos
and uh there was a 22nd nba regiment
that
they had uh the infantry guys
chasing them down and they would just
leave it’s a whole regiment they’d leave
a
company to slow us down you know get
into a little firefight here there
and finally they you know they all
scooted over to laos and
that was the end of that so after that
tet
was pretty much done they sent us down
south
uh we went and by the way when we were
up north that’s my squad right there
nice that’s a that’s picture taking the
mekong delta
where everything is wet and i mean
wet uh
in the delta yeah that’s me right there
with the uh
on the right you’re on the right yeah it
looked like i was 12 years old there
12.
i snuck in under the fence i hear you
so the 80 seconds so we went south and
by the way when we were up north
we shared uh because we had no base camp
of our own
because we were such a small unit right
and went
back to vietnam
discovered that about one-third
of the brigade had already been to the
nom with the 173rd and 101st
so all hell broke loose once we all got
there and guess what
those guys got to go straight home which
meant
we were so underpowered it was crazy
so what are they going to do with us
wait wait wait wait what do you mean
they took those guys out on rotation or
they got wounded or
killed they were sent back they all you
know the congressman got in on it and
said look we just got back from don with
other units
and then we you know we come back we get
stationed at bragg we’re the third
brigade and they’re
then they’re deployed
wow so all those guys with the exception
of
some who volunteered to stay
uh thank goodness because they’re gonna
show us the ropes i mean we don’t know
anything
sure yeah so when we were up north up
the nyeshaw valley we used your uh
uh bastone firebase i don’t know if you
remember that rip cord
yeah yeah yeah way up yeah yeah yeah a
matter of fact
yeah we couldn’t uh you know we have no
base camp
and no real resupply so we wore 101st
patches on our jungle fatigues which was
kind of crazy
yeah there we go so we
yeah button up right against the uh
cambodian border
yeah now now we’re gonna reel ahead to
uh i’m going to say
may which is probably my worst month
that i had in country uh
we were what we were were because we
were so small
we were uh whoever was getting into
doo-doo
they put us on helicopters and and ca is
out to
uh some really yeah
lz you’re a reaction a reactionary force
yes exactly that’s what the word i was
looking for so we worked
with the 25th infantry first cav
uh ninth infantry first infantry
division
wow with all of them but you were the
foxy you were the posse in vietnam
yeah yeah i like that i’m going to use
that
thank you oh yeah yeah yeah
right yeah a bunch of gunslingers uh 18
19 year old gunslingers ready to get it
on you know
so you know we had it it was kind of
interesting because
uh i’ve actually run into people’s i
didn’t even know the 82nd was even
in vietnam and to begin with they’re
only there for
20 months i mean the brigade right
so in december
of 69 the colors went back to brag
so i got out a month early because they
needed bodies to get on that c 141
and uh had to go back with the colors
right bro i got out a month early
you know and you know as well as i do
one day out of that bush
early is an eternity thank you i’ll take
it you know
yeah so when we were down south
uh in canaan province which was the uh
kuchi which was the headquarters for the
25th infantry
and the second brigade on our first
airborne division when we flew in
in december 67 that’s where we went oh
really
yeah yeah my brother was there
he was in the operation junction city
which is where the 173rd made that
quote unquote combat
hollywood jump thank you i don’t want to
speak
to any herd brothers man you know
because they get right either but i’m
just saying
you know it was planned well it was
successful
it was fine exactly so they didn’t
there’s a training jump that’s okay yeah
exactly and uh you know so consequently
they all got started
but they got a combat jump star
on their wings that’s right thank you
that’s right
uh something that you don’t haven’t seen
in years
yeah korea there you go
well no there was one in iraq or
somewhere uh
173rd they didn’t want to iraq but
that’s okay in the 90s
yeah that’s great that’s right
so we went to uh we’re there in a place
called
the hobo woods rubber plate
yeah and was a bad
place for me for all of us
we were working with the 25th infantry
and uh
we had uh we’re patrolling
through the hobos and we had a 60 gunner
and his ammo man because we were
didn’t have enough guys and we put two
here we put two over there
but two here well munoz and masada
uh these two troopers that had the 60
and his gunner
is a ammo man we’re going to reel
everybody in and
we can’t find them so
not being able to find them means
their captured bad guys drug them off
so we spent about uh
out of a good part of a week
right along that cambodian border figure
and they drug them over there
but we never did find them
so sadly uh they’re on the wall of
course
but they’re there am i they were mia’s
listed as kias
and one of our in our squad uh
another guy named ronnie ronnie johnson
uh him and another friend of mine frank
walinga were
there was a big tunnel complex there and
they were talking about
arguing who’s going to go down to see
if maybe they drug them down the big
tunnel complex
and normally they argue who’s not going
to go well these two clowns are arguing
they want to go i want to i
i hear you i hate you ronnie you know he
might have been 130 pounds so
soaking wet you know he finally says no
i’m going down
[Music]
and uh unfortunately there was a 81
millimeter
mortar rounds booby trapped in that uh
the entrance uh to the
tunnel complex in the hole you got to
know that’s going to be there
yeah uh he made it he made you know he
made an error
uh and sadly uh
you know it cost him his life yeah
and it uh it wounded remember how many
guys but frank willing was one of them
took a
big head shot you know shrapnel on the
side of his head
heroic deed nice to try to save his
brothers you know
yeah absolutely i mean it’s a it’s a
brotherhood you know that
is uh that’s right that’s what you’re
fighting for
you’re fighting for your country but
your brother the guy next to you is the
guy you’re fighting for
you know exactly and you know i have a a
facebook page too
and i i write uh i wrote for three
straight years in there just to
try to create some healing and try to
create
uh yeah yeah people know
what i call boy soldiers what they had
to endure
the great suffering that took place i
never wrote about
fire fights and people dying and this
and that
i wrote about things that happened in
between
all of that right and i can tell you
a big success with uh people wanted to
know that
especially women i you know i’m on the
admin side so i can count how many
people are
you know peeking in and looking and i
was shocked about how many women
uh were very interested in that and
same op same amount of facebook pages
but they wanted to know what it was like
and i thought you know i’m gonna shed
some light because you know
it’s kind of like and being with the
82nd having no
uh base camp we would stay and i’m not
exaggerating we’d stay in the bush for a
good part of two months at a time
really no no firebase no base camp
we would maybe do five to eight weeks
the most yeah well that’s a stretch
too and then come back into uh you know
landing the
stand down yeah but we’re gonna stand on
it
usually about uh maybe every other month
or something you know eight weeks
nine weeks ten weeks and uh
but people are interested well
you know what’d you do then and i i know
i watched
your course you know we’re talking about
uh
how your skin starts to rot oh my god
yeah
no toothpaste dry brush that’s fine
did you say dry
[Music]
brush oh dry brush okay yeah
you know no toothpaste
yeah you’re not gonna take a shower
anywhere you can you know go swimming in
a bomb crater and being down in the uh
the delta we had all the all the
high-class swimming pools and
any young paratrooper would want to jump
in and you guys are all over the country
yeah pretty much and from the delta to
we worked on a coochie at first yeah
that was where we went with the 25th
again i guess the 25th
for some reason was the older brothers
and the training
accessory and we stayed there a month
and then we
i think they knew ted was coming so then
we flew up north
in early january and uh the crap hit the
fan
and uh yeah that was that
so so the uh where were you there
i was there from january uh 69
to uh december 69. okay
so i came a little bit later uh
i didn’t deploy with a brigade but i
know all about it because
you know i shouldn’t brag so i kind of
know what goes on there and what they
did
and uh right but
a lot of young uh soldiers uh
in my my pages called a company
1508 infantry 82nd airborne vietnam
1968 69 and there’s the current
modern day a company 1508
uh is still there and they were writing
me all the time
just saying they couldn’t believe you
know
how those nom grunts because they don’t
have anything like that at all they
don’t operate like that
right time has changed weaponry has
changed
they invited me to brag and i went down
there and got to address the company
uh these young kids they were getting
too
uh ready to deploy uh to afghanistan
so prior to that they invited me down uh
the battalion commander invited me and a
friend of mine you know to
it was thanksgiving so he served us
personally you know
got the turkey gave it to us you know
that was a big deal for us
even bigger deal for them because
uh the way they operate i mean they’ll
go out for a week and that’s it you know
um and all the weaponry has changed the
communication
i was an rto i humped that brick 25
and uh that’s 22 and a half pounds
for those who don’t know what a radio in
vietnam weighed
and that’s on top of your rucksack extra
extra
right extra extra
and humping that radio uh
my first first first blood i saw
i’ve been in the bush for about two
weeks and uh i was
uh the rto they just got i had training
back in the states for it
right and they needed one and so the
platoon leader
lieutenant batty’s like yeah okay you
know blah blah blah
stay close to me you know keep your eyes
open you know all that stuff and
so we find this uh tricom grenade ones
little chinese
with a big i mean a grenade was like
that yeah long handle yeah right
yeah i’d handle it the wooden handle
yeah
he wanted to blow it up so he called the
company commander on the horn
i know because i had the headset yeah
and
co said no i got i got an engineer out
here so
they’re going to take care of it so
he said screw it screw him i’m going to
blow it up anyway
why don’t you just throw it off the
trail into the bush somewhere like 35
feet in the woods
i mean the jungle who’s gonna find it
yeah i mean it’s like
so he wants to blow in there all right
yeah i’m just kind of hey
i know i’m a cherry okay
you know what is this guy doing so he
throws his little grenade in this small
little
uh mortar crater and
we’re by a rice paddy dyke and it was
maybe
15 feet from us so he runs up there
throws in the hole takes his m26
baseball grenade pulls the pen
firing a hole firing a hole bam and he
comes running
he’s right by me laying down i don’t get
it
he stands up and he starts walking over
towards that hole
oh my god that’s the first blood i saw
it took the whole bottom part of his
face off
and and he was just staggering his eyes
are just bumping i thought he’s dead
and then he finally collapsed and uh i
got to tell you ronnie
uh after being a new guy out there i
thought
i ain’t never gonna get out of here yeah
if that’s what that looks like and i
found out later
many times over you know that you never
get used to it
but you know crying was kind of a taboo
you know that’s it just hold it in you
know it’s just
you just get that man up
that’s it yeah that’s right
and and i think that’s why we had so
many problems when we came home because
it was like i never said anything about
vietnam when i got home
i got married when i was 29 averaged i
never told her i was even
there she had no clue
i locked that out of my mind i wish i
could have done that
you know just and then believe me it
it came out uh some years later oh yeah
i hate yeah
yeah yeah see that’s just you know it’s
there’s no words for it i always say you
know
i don’t want it to go away but i don’t
dwell on it either you know what i mean
yeah yeah i don’t ever want to forget
that and most importantly
and i won’t forget those faces
never you know i found out
through my own psychological
investment the more time
i spend talking to vietnam vets about
their situation
the esd level goes down
and they take part is in the v in the va
and they agreed with that because
there’s so many people
that are like afraid to talk about it
and yet
all they’re doing is keeping it inside
so that
with i you know i go around the country
well not in that lately with the coved
selling my book and yet guys walk up to
and they look at the book
and they they fan through it and they go
no no i can’t
i can’t handle that and yet
20 minutes a half hour hour later they
come back and say give me a book
whatever and that happens all the time
and yet
you know they they you got to face the
music and dance you know what i mean
yes and so all right i’m sorry
hard to do you know it can be very hard
to do i agree with you but you get
you want to take a step back i’ve had
family members say oh my dad was there
but he never said a word about it
you know i always say well i’m sorry to
hear that right yeah
and i am i don’t mean to be rude or
anything but
you’re exactly right when you talk to
guys that will
have gone through this you know then you
know
okay all right i got a better bearing on
all this because that guy’s still here
right life is appears to be pretty good
and mine was a wreck by the way
when i got out oh man that was a mess
uh drank drank myself to sleep i just
couldn’t handle
anything and the sad part about it was i
didn’t know why
you know i’m just like well you know you
did what you did
you know so what it’s over deal with it
you know it didn’t work that way exactly
right
yeah i mean we’re kind of you know
bouncing all over the place here but
you keep bringing up some uh some some
goodies there some good
good advice and and for those
watching right now i would encourage you
would do what ronnie just said
you got to get involved you got to get
involved you got to go to parades you
got to go to the
american legion the vfw the vietnam
veterans association
join the membership get involved talk to
other vets
and the more you’re in the mix which i
call it
right go parades do something wear a cap
a
shirt whatever you got to do and people
are going to talk to you and believe
me the anxiety subsides
guaranteed it does and you know i did a
lot of that and i
i had some a lot of help from different
vets that were
you know embraced me uh you know after
going through all the crying
and you know i just couldn’t stop and
you know and i’ve got
through that i still get choked up when
i see the wall and
you know i did finally go to the one in
dc and
you know i got up on it and i you know i
i just walked away i was just one of
those things you know
but i turned back and i went back in
there again
and uh you know i got my some of my boys
names i always carry them on my uh
sleeve here good for you man
there’s the guys they’re kias from my
squad here i take them with me
everywhere i go
oh yeah yeah all my all this
and you know i
my brother just passed away at two
months ago
so i got to get his his uh 20th century
uh patch put on my arm with his name on
it i gotta tell you a story
i believe i talked to you five years ago
maybe four or five years ago
about researching information
for our book because your name was all
over the internet
i don’t know why but i would i would
uh you know
google where you’re from missouri right
well i’m actually i mean that’s where i
live i’ve lived here for
38 years north carolina i came from uh
california oregon
okay no problem it’s a good job and they
moved me out here i
um i uh i was
trying to get i thought i saw you so
much on the internet i wanted to get in
touch with you about
information about the vietnam memorial
wherever you
wherever it was and and if
i get it it fell through the cracks for
some reason because i looked in the book
in the back of the book we do
all our recognitions from the people who
gave us information about
each memorial and yet uh
it’s kind of sad that uh
i don’t know i’m trying to propose this
thing and i’m gonna have to try to
figure out how to do it i think you know
between the world war
one and world war ii and korea they got
memorials all over the country
everywhere
how about some vietnam memorials in
every town
by city or in the park or something like
that
you know we went through the crap we got
home it was more crap than being there
to tell you the truth yeah you’re right
you know and uh it’s just so sad that
the esprit de corps that we had it’s
it’s still somewhat bottled up and then
mix with the
crap that we saw that we couldn’t
control or anything
to do you had nothing to do with the
circumstances
we just had to make the best we could
and
it’s still working out it’s still
working on our hearts and our souls
yes yeah and we will until uh the lord
calls us home
yeah yeah you go brother i hear that
yeah
tell me a little bit more about your
jump school uh
experience well i went through uh
uh basic training at fort lewis
washington
and he had worked for the airborne
infantry
so i was r.a yeah and uh
i i enlisted on the buddy system with a
friend of mine we went in together we
were gonna be uh airborne we’re gonna be
infantry
we’re gonna go uh get us you know bag
somebody
well here we go basic training is over
and i said man you ready because you
know we got two more stops man he goes
uh i changed my mos i’m like
i went to helicopter mechanics i’m like
i mean which is fine you know that’s my
move i’ll tell you the truth
yeah i mean you know he he had some
wisdom i was dumber in a box of rocks at
the time
i mean i’m a total loser with capital
l i went you know and he wasn’t going to
go with me so
i went to uh fort gordon georgia amen
basic training no that was my uh ait
for me basic training really yeah
well you know they had a an ait there
they started a program and i think it
might have been
late 67 maybe uh
if you were going to jump school then
they put you
all in a company and you did your ait
and it was all old jump masters getting
ready to retire you know
that they ran to school right the ait
and it was a great program
and the reason they did that was because
after you graduated from that ait and i
got to tell you what
the best physical condition had ever
been in my life
you don’t need to do the rungs you know
before you do the chow line
yeah yeah do that and you know
put one foot in you put your left foot
out and shake it all around
all that no that’s a hokey pokey man
ain’t no way
there you go yeah we got the hooky poopy
all right you know where
so so uh what they would do
right a little bit move to your right a
little bit oh i’m sorry here we go
okay good thank you so right they would
take
the whole company and they put us on
buses and bus everybody up to benning
right
and the reason they were doing that was
they minimized their washout rate
you know people change your mind
whatever you know because i’ll volunteer
so they got your mentally psyched
physically chiseled
he was ready for it right so
the pt there was nothing compared to
what we had
for gordon georgia yeah what year were
you at
gordon i was july
66 to uh september 66.
okay because they did shut that program
down in late 69
and there was a place called camp
crockett
that was on that military
uh base and it was one of those airborne
effort schools now i wasn’t on the camp
because that was those old world war ii
bearings which we had
and uh there’s no hot water there i
swear
you googled camp crockett and there’s
guys that were in there
they’ll tell you know how taking showers
you know so let me ask you a question
when you finally
wanted when you got out when did you get
out what what year
i got out in 1972 i was going to stay in
what i did was when i came back to brag
uh i got assigned a headquarters company
so i drove uh the brass around you know
different functions and crap those army
green cars
you know rough job i got to tell you
something funny
i was going to be assigned to fort bragg
when i got back from vietnam i was 100
first
and i only had six months to go i got
back in jan
in december took i had a month’s leave
and they said
so it was day after the jets won the
super bowl
january 12 68 that no 69
was 68 69 69 69
i when i i had gotten out of the
hospital with my second wound
in vietnam and i was a cq in charge of
the division headquarters ria
in benoit so i had time to write all the
politicians i wanted to write i said
look i got six months to go
i didn’t say this to them um
i didn’t want to play mickey mouse
soldier not mickey mouse but you know
shine boots and
whatever the airborne stuff you don’t
understand what i’m saying you know
we lost a lot of guys i had a friendly
fire incident with 13 kills and 22
not good and uh so
the day before i’m leaving i’m packing
my bag and the
the doorbell rings and i said who is it
it’s a four-story walk-up
the guy goes western union like a
western union what the heck come on up i
meet him halfway look at it it says
oh it’s a telegram i open up and it says
stop
do not report to fort bend north
carolina report to fort hamilton
brooklyn
which is 30 miles away from my house in
yonkos new jersey
so yeah it was the united states senator
jacob javits
talk about i just took her call to write
somebody
and it worked out so i know what you
were for you
i didn’t want to be but yeah it wasn’t
good
got to be pray for it i
was put in charge of a ceremonial
platoon to do funerals
there you go and yet if the if the
officer wasn’t there they have to give
the flag to the
wife or the parent and
the guys were like out of control on
that detail
so but yeah aerial detail that’s
horrible
so rob how come you get out of the army
well i’ll tell you what what i
i still had time left when i got back
from vietnam
so with 11 bravo mos i figured they’re
probably going to send me back
and i was like i’m going to last another
day out there so i had to find a
critical mms where they couldn’t do that
so i think it was the first sergeant
told me well they got a drill sergeant
school you can go to
you know that’s critical mls yeah as
i’ll take it where is it
as well there’s two over fort jackson
mississippi and one of fort leonard wood
missouri i said i don’t care i’ll just
go so i wound up going to fort
leonard wood to the uh drill sergeant
academy in 1970.
so i graduated got my hat and i’m going
to tell you i was a 20 year old drill
sergeant
how how many years did you spend in the
service i spent four and a half years in
the army
and you became a drill sergeant and you
went to vietnam or yeah
that’s a story oh my god and you know
the place
because you know the denial was still
going on yeah yeah he couldn’t find
enough drill search i mean that place
i mean every one of those barriers was
jam-packed with trainees
there were thousands of them you know
and uh so i did that
and you know i thought i got screwed out
of a staff sergeant so i then
this isn’t for me i want it to be but
i’m going to get out
i got you so i’m going to give you
i got a couple of gifts for you one
second please yeah
okay we’re gonna send you a book our
fall never forgotten book
there’s a book about one memorial in
each state
and all the guys that never came home
listed alphabetically
and it gives you a profile on how the
memorial was built who
donated to you know who did the
sculptures things like that
so uh how they got the money how they
got the land
and uh uh what do you call it uh you
know
uh landscape architect what happened on
the dedication day
that’s one right and the other one is
our little
petey the paratrooper
for kids there you go i love it
what on the bottom there it says ages
four
fourth to the 173rd
the 25th that’s the fourth brigade
airborne
and they got the 173rd the 82nd on their
first and once yeah
so there you go so you got petey the
paratrooper and there
so thank you so much tonight
and thank you so much for watching thank
you
all good thank you
paul we can see your shirt let’s see can
you stand up
hold on right there it says five volt
508 pirate ship
parachute infantry regiment 82nd
airborne division
amen thank you marie for that fury from
the sky
all right next question
uh kilo 19. i taught the battleship
regularly that
16 inch shell weighs 2 900 pounds
baby in fact they just found one there
you go i saw that
yeah yeah that was found recently i
believe
uh rick harris thank you rick for the
picture unexploded 46 millimeter
could you run that back there matt could
you get
fire from a iowa class like the uss new
jersey thing
do you ever have uh paul do you ever
have uh
support from the battleships no i did
not we did
it was amazing you they sounded like
jets and you’d hear that like off the
coast up north
you know crane tree province there yeah
and and they were offshore
and you hear the the merely the battle
and all of a sudden you hear
this uh sound that would
uh you know sound like a jet fighter or
something
and it would go by and ten miles later
or five miles later it would explode
crazy so that’s
nuts yeah next next question
uh did the mic fall off the table no it
didn’t
it rolled off onto my lap
next question i pre thank you maria i
appreciate your service
you’re all so young and i’m glad you are
here to talk about it because
we know some never came home i love you
guys and every person
i’m a military family and love you thank
you
thank you very much marie and he meant
to that
okay barry prowl welcome home bro that’s
to you paul
salute amen
kilo 19 660 pounds of gun powder
to fire one round
that’s nuts but i’ll tell you what
report
and it it made the size of a 40 by 40
swimming pool when it hit the ground
man next question excellent show
appreciate it thank you very much
we try to do the best we can with all
these shows and all the information that
we have
and uh paul thanks a lot talk to you
soon
and appreciate your service and i
appreciate you
and what you do thank you brother take
care
okay matt take it away
