Jan C. Scruggs served with the 199th LIB in Vietnam. Years later Mr Scruggs decided that those who lost their lives in Vietnam deserve to be honored with a national memorial, and that is exactly what he did.
Through his hard work and dedication “The Wall” became a reality.
Starting with his own donation he laid the groundwork, organized the funding, secured the land and took charge of building the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, which was dedicated on November 13th 1982.
Mr. Scruggs will discuss how the Vietnam Veterans Memorial came to be, how it has affected so many veterans and families, what events will be taking place in DC this year and much more…
TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors.
good evening vietnam
welcome to the lz bunker this is
veterans live show
i’m your host ronnie embrace i served
with the 101st airborne division of
vietnam from december 1967 to december
1968.
tonight’s guest is the former president
and founder of the vietnam veterans
memorial fund
jan c scruggs what an honor this is
going to be
chance jan scrubs served with the 199th
flight infantry brigade in vietnam
years later mr skrugs decided that those
who lost their lives in vietnam deserve
to be honored
with a national memorial and that is
exactly what he did
through his hard work and dedication the
wall became a reality
starting with his own donation he laid
the groundwork organized the funding
secured the land and took charge of
building the veteran vietnam veterans
memorial
in washington dc which was dedicated on
november 13
1982. mr scrubs will discuss how the
vietnam veterans memorial came to be
how the memorial has affected so many
veterans and families
and what events will be taking place in
washington this year and much more
we will speak to jan in a few minutes
but first i’d like to let you all know
that this program
is brought to you by fallen never
forgotten
vietnam memorials in usa fall never
forgotten is a veteran
vietnam veterans memorial book
a tribute to those who never made a home
from vietnam
visit fallen ever forgotten dot com for
more information
or to purchase your book and let’s go to
the headlines
okay memorial day is just around the
corner and we will be streaming live
the veterans live show from washington
dc
we also be doing live streaming events
and doing interviews so if you see us
pop in and get on a show or something
there you go
stay tuned for our facebook pages and
subscribe to the veterans live show
youtube channel
so you could tune in and see if you are
in dc or when you’re in dc
and you can stop by and say hello let’s
go to the vietnam
timeline segment
[Music]
okay this date in the vietnam war may 19
1968
operation mamaloo thrust was the first
marine division attack
into the valleys west of da nang and
around the throng duck
camp the operation lasted nearly six
months
resulted in 27 viet north vietnamese
killed
and captured 47 2700 did i say yeah 2728
pavon killed well and 47 captured
u.s losses of 269.
the number one song on may 19 1968 was
tightened up by archie bell in the
drills
remember that yeah oh my god it’s 50
years ago already well it’s crazy
this state in the vietnam war may 19
1970
a paving rocket attack on placo air base
destroyed an ec 47
and damaged two more the number one song
on may 19
1970 was american woman by the guest
who guess who get it guess who
okay let’s go on to the photo segment
all right first photo from lorenzo jr no
matter how many times the road was
cleared of mines
it was guaranteed to be mined again to
catch the unwary
amen where might this be lorenzo could
you give us a
comment at the end of the show or you
can set it in any time right at the
bottom of the pages questions or
comments
and what kind of vehicle was that okay
next picture
roland stratchwitz u.s marine helps his
wounded combat blinded while fighting
against the nva
crossing flooded fields to a medevac
area in the
quesan valley
where elements of the fifth marines
repulse repeated attacks from the
communist troops
operation swift there you go
that’s a tough one man boy
next picture tom triggs thanks
thanksgiving in july
1966 sea rats ham and beans that was my
favorite
you could always get ham and beans
nobody wanted them
that was crazy okay savator gallo
what is that a dog okay let’s find out
the picture was
pictured by the water hole was taken at
lz ross
the site was rocketed the day before
fortunately no one was there
of course we always had to check for
leeches i guess that’s an animal what
kind of egg salad what kind of animal is
that in that picture
next picture from herman
woodrow use sometimes i get the
impression that the vietnam vets think
only enlisted men did any
real fighting or work maybe thinking
officers just set back in safe areas or
on ships
these pictures i took show the opposite
exact occasionally at least
there you go good
there’s a card of the week
vietnam split there you go this is when
they found the
or founded the both nations after the
defeat of the french at din bin fu
an agreement was reached at the geneva
conference on
july 21st 1954 it was a temporary
solution creating
a north and south vietnam by dividing
the country at the 17th parallel
elections were to be held in july 1956.
hold on a minute matt it says a
temporary solution
now the war really didn’t start with us
with the
what they call those guys uh um
you know those guys are going first
whatever they were that was in 1959
maybe even earlier and still came to no
solution but
okay what are you gonna do there you go
all right let’s bring our guest in mr
jan scruggs
nice to meet you jan the pleasure’s all
mine
welcome boy oh boy this is great last
time we saw each other was two years ago
yeah and that that that uh there you go
wow check that out
i still got that same shirt i got it on
now and you got the same
better looking with age it’s
unbelievable and you’re right you’ve got
better haircuts all right
so what are we gonna do here boy oh boy
this is amazing
that the uh vietnam wall
when i first went there i was so in awe
and i was like so like
afraid to step on eggs you know what i
mean it was like chilling because it was
for me it was
16 so 14 years later
when i got home 68 january december 67
68 yet of november 82 but uh
but after a while but you broke in i
broke in there and uh
uh it took me 40 years
every year i go at least once and maybe
twice
i could not get through that walk the
first walk on the weekend
without breaking down and
this i think it was last year it was the
first time well
last year one of the two times that we
went and that was
that’s my experience there so what
brought this into
to pass how’d you do this thing how did
i do this thing
well i was of course in the vietnam war
and got wounded
once and uh came back and uh
took me a while to kind of get
straightened out i had ptsd
i mean you know to some degree it
affected my life
i almost blew my brains up the 38
revolver
and you know i was 21 years old
you know i’m work going through college
i’m working as a janitor part-time
and i just said to myself i don’t really
need this
i think i’ll just check out and i pulled
the hammer back and
then decided not to do it so if anybody
out there is
considering shooting themselves don’t do
it bad idea you hurt a lot of people
in your life so be a good soldier and
man up and do what you need to do
somehow or another got straightened out
and became
a an expert on post-traumatic stress
disorder
when i was getting my master’s degree in
psychology at american university
and i did some research found that the
the higher the amount of combat that
someone saw
the more sort of psychological
difficulties the person had
you know the more likely he had a
divorce you know
all of these things you know are kind of
logical
but you have to document them you know
so i testified in front of the united
states senate
and uh wrote an article for the
washington post and
uh published it as well in uh military
medicine so i had some credibility
so it’s a they made a movie about this i
don’t know i’ve ever seen it it’s called
two healed nation
you get it free on youtube really great
okay my wife and i went to see this
movie the deer hunter
you know right i mean who plays russian
other than me who plays russian roulette
but robert de niro isn’t that right
here was the whole thing for me it was
kind of like when you go to a war you
are playing russian river whether you’re
a company clerk or a navy seal or
infantry guy you can get killed over
there or get your leg blown off
so i got
that night i i just said look i’m going
to build a memorial with the names of
all the dead on it
from the vietnam war i’m going to put it
in washington dc
i was working there at the time i was
born in washington dc
and it is going to be fantastic it’s
going to help the veterans who recover
and so forth and so on you know and but
of course
i had no idea what i was doing really a
complete idiot
but i could figure out how to do it
what i needed was a team so
a team came to me these were some
fellows who had graduated from west
point and they take the really smart
guys from west point
and they send them to harvard business
school because you know the us army
is like a big corporation it’s bigger
than most courts
military-industrial complex right
they don’t call it that but nothing yeah
so
anyway i got these guys john p wheeler
very famous
graduate of the class of 1966
others a guy named tom schull who is now
the president of afes
armed forces exchange service bob
timmett who became our ambassador later
to germany
and we just started moving down the
highway with
we had legislation introduced this is
we’ve got a three year
time frame we started
the legislative process in november 1979
and we said in november 1982 we’re going
to have this baby built
and we’re going to nice yeah
but everybody was kind of for us and you
know we’re getting all of a sudden
getting money was not the problem
we’d get all the money we needed just by
sending direct mail letters and meeting
with corporations
taking our time we had a grassroots
movement throughout the country
with the support of the veterans of
foreign wars the american legion amvets
afl-cio
i mean it’s all good everyone’s on our
team and uh
we we say so how are we going to design
this thing
i mean what do we do hire an architect
and that’s my idea
look let’s just hire the best architect
there are three of them and
see who does the best job and these
harvard guys says no no mr strokes here
that is not the way we must do this we
must understand the proper way
any american at 18 years of age or older
can become an a a contestant
so we had the largest architectural
design competition
held in the history of western
civilization
i could imagine yeah i can imagine what
you got
1421. and who wins
tell me your name do you know that
something lynn
myelin here you come yeah okay yeah
she grew up in ohio you know both of her
her parents are
they fled communist chinese and all that
type of thing
and they’re both like english professors
i mean this
the hell of a gene pool in this family
these people are really that kind of man
yeah yeah
so ends up she she comes up with
the most the two words we want the
memorial to
be reflective and contemplative
you know and the ones that had a lot of
flags soldiers and all this stuff
and every memorial design had to have
the names of the 58 000
deceased and the jury
these are world-class guys
they unanimously said this design is
better than the other 1440
this will be a piece of art
like the eiffel tower like the pyramids
of egypt this will be worldwide famous
but you’re going to have to explain it
to people because it’s very modernistic
you know black wall names
and maya lynn had this idea maybe her
brother had it
put the names of the guys who died
together
next to each other alphabetize them by
day so if you were to use them
a little firefighter battle you know
maybe eight guys are dead
you look up there the eight guys their
names are right next to each other
so that takes you back in time it’s
absolutely brilliant so
we uh introduced this
and uh we had some good support from a
guy named h ross perot
he actually funded the competition he
has 160
000 she gives 160 000 bucks he gave us a
contribution for another contribution or
ten thousand
twenty five hundred so he’s like our
best buddy he look he looks at the
design in the newspaper calls me up and
says jan
this is not gonna work this is i don’t
like this design
i’m not going to bother you but good
luck but i’m not going to give you more
money
so fine we’ll get money
but this became a national controversy
uh and it was
because it was just so different
people couldn’t understand it and it was
very difficult to show
in two-dimensional art how brilliant
this thing would be you almost had to
build with it
so we continue to fight battles and
finally in
january of 1982 the secretary of the
interior said
you’re not going to build this memorial
because
i got members of congress calling me up
and they don’t want to see it
so problem young man i said yeah
yeah we do have a problem so we go into
a meeting and we bring
some uh some pretty bright guys
a guy named general michael s davis and
news big world war ii hero and he was a
superintendent
uh us military academy at west point
and we had our you know people with
status
and then the opponents came in and they
read
things into this design that weren’t
there
like you know the psychiatrist has a
rorschach inkblot test and they
show you the little ink plots what does
this look like everyone looked at it and
they
read things into it i said the v
this is the peace sign this is the
memorial for jane fonda
this is a memorial because it’s black
you’re saying that the vietnam war was
wrong no really wow all of this stuff
huh
in there yeah yeah and and they kept
piling on
and i’ll tell you what if this was
happening today we never would have made
it because you didn’t have twitter and
facebook and all that stuff back then
you know right go to a fax machine write
a card for newspapers
we were still making progress but as as
we were
stopped we got all the federal approvals
we needed
if we could get this groundbreaking
underway
they couldn’t stop us from building it
and these guys were willing to try
anything
so we go in there to pick up the
construction permit we make a deal
general michael s davison says look this
is a modernistic memorial we need a
traditional element
what about the american fighting man
ross perot says yeah like at west
that the infantry museum american
fighting man
so we’ll have something dramatic like
that we shook hands with everybody
we’re going to get the construction
permit and then they refuse to give it
to us
they say no no no no don’t you
understand that the secretary of
interior was received
22 phone calls this morning from
congressman demanding that he not give
us
a construction permit why don’t you
gentlemen just move along
so i wouldn’t err i would have went
batshit
but we had a very good guy named tom
schull
again harvard graduate west point
graduate you know top of his class
and he goes up to the guy and he says
well you don’t seem to understand that
i am here representing the president of
the united states ronald reagan
and the president wants this done so why
don’t you give me a construction permit
the guys just took it and said okay
take it you’re out of here and
we there was a concern that they would
attempt to get a
legal order overnight you know over the
weekend
to stop the construction going forward
they didn’t
we got it going forward we started
building it and uh
it uh was dedicated in november 1982
great success i mean we have 50 000
vietnam veterans there
and how i’m going to take the
we started building literally on march
26th and we stopped building on november
10. that’s crazy that’s crazy march 26th
yeah i’ll tell you why uh march 26 68
nine rounds fell short on my company
yeah and they were we’ll go we’ll get
into that later but u.s artillery
yeah they say the base plate steps i met
the guy 12 years ago at the
national sheraton national hotel there
we have our 101st uh
they have a hospitality suite every
veterans day memorial day
and so about five years ago i finally
found out that truth about the matter
where he said the
base plate slipped or it would fire
misdirection whichever was
they want to call it yeah right
it’s too coincidental you know what i
mean that date
so yeah do the video
okay right now as well oh here we go
we’re going to
do a video about this at the wolf one
second
okay here we are at the vietnam wall in
washington dc 2018
i want to name off some of the 13 guys
who got killed from friendly fire
incident
march 26 1968.
start off with my uh the two leader
phillip ben
my squad leader philip crack
we got john horton roger linked rrto
glenn hubbard my good buddy from
massachusetts
wayne kruger
michael campos
john barnes
john horton
jack dereko
oh royal terry jr cool country boy from
tennessee
oh i can’t find the rest of them
along with that alvin gibbel
along with those 13 who got killed they
were 22 wounded as well
never forget my puns
okay here we go this is the iconic
etching this is barnes and gibbel
yeah roger link that was the rto yeah
and there’s horton and armstrong i got a
bunch more but that’s enough
the uh the ironic thing about that
incident
link was our rto and when he got hit
and killed with the lieutenant ben yeah
the microphone was locked open yeah
and brigade battalion and
everybody else in the division heard
what was going on all the screaming
and the choppers coming in and
afterwards a small little fight like a
perimeter we had to set up the gooks
were trying to think us get us in there
you know what i mean it was like
yeah okay i’m not yeah that
that was the craziest thing in the world
and i found that years later yeah
yeah they dropped in chainsaws oh there
but go ahead what happened was
to me is very similar it was at january
19 1970 with a
mortar platoon coming back from an
operation
unloading a truck and the
they didn’t put the retaining pin black
back in the shelves you know they had
them
ready to fire at night so three of them
went off
there were 12 guys and uh i was the
first one there
and i think that’s what gave me ptsd
it’s all
blood and brains hanging out at people’s
heads and
all that stuff i just wasn’t ready for
it age at age 19
i’m telling you right and uh
but i was so destroyed by this
that uh it it ended up being
the crucial event that brought the
memorial to to pass
yeah that had never happened to me i
never would have started it because i
probably wouldn’t have gotten huge
there you go all right so as uh
what what are some of the uh rules and
regulations that we don’t know about
about
uh people being found now and or you
know
mia is coming kias and those things
well the the united states government
has
an office in hanoi vietnam and they
they have different categories they’re
looking for one is the bnr
bnr guys that’s when you see a plane go
down there’s no parachute
you know the guy’s probably in the plane
you know it could be down two three four
thousand feet you really can’t get them
but other incidents where people did see
the helicopter go down near some village
in the middle of nowhere maybe in
cointree or something
and uh one of the survivors i know
names colleen shine the kept the
pentagon kept telling her
hey you know we can’t find him we’ve
done everything we can so she gets on an
airplane flies to laos
meets with the village chief and said
trying to find
my father was killed here wow billy
chief says
yeah i have his helmet i
have his helmet in my in my house oh my
god
so here’s the dod we’ve done everything
we can man
and she goes everyone gets it so uh
so when we find somebody uh
and their names already on the memorial
because they’re missing an action so
there’s a little cross
next to the name we put a diamond
together right
okay should have a diamond and other
people
uh oh well why can’t i get my son’s name
on the memorial
well i think they’re putting on three
this year
and uh but you have to die directly as a
result of a wound a physical wound
you’ve received in combat
you know something like that not like ao
not agent orange
no right okay that might be as many as
the memorial for sure yeah okay just
wondering yeah
so and they go on the what panel is that
the farthest ones out that they go on
there’s
it’s called the in-memory plaque it’s
right next to the three servicemen
soldier
oh over there okay really i didn’t know
that when when was that put there
uh that that’s been there for 12 15
years
yeah i guess i’ve just fixed the fixated
on the troops you know what i mean yeah
yeah but look at it every year you know
the ceremonies are held for these people
and
it’s good wow
okay so the first who was the first
speaker
at the vietnam veterans memorial yes i
have no idea
okay i don’t even get invited to these
things
there you go don’t let the boy hit you
in the butt you know what i mean
but i know that i i got a lot of good
buddies with uh
walt sides and the people with rolling
thunder right yeah
new york mike and a lot of characters
like that and they’re a lot of fun
and uh they’re going to be having a
modified rolling thunder they’re going
to start at the dc
stadium used to be this football stadium
now it’s going to be renovated right
it’s
mostly soccer they’ll make the run
around washington
it’s a it’s a really nice event
are they uh is good thunder alley going
to be open
i am almost certain it will great a very
good advocate there a guy named walt
sides who’s a
yeah marine first sergeant a big guy and
uh full-blooded cherokee by the way very
interesting fella
laura is very nice to his wife our sides
yeah he does a great job yeah
she doesn’t know her too i think from
long island
oh really had a video here okay
were you who did we did yeah oh yeah
we’re going to show the video okay we’re
going to show the video now
let’s go here we go
that’s us
yes
yeah so these guys right here yeah
that’s why like even in the uh
center of the book here i’m doing the
muffins on the wall yeah
two years ago when we decided to make it
well pretty interesting yeah
there you go where was that man
that was two years ago muddy water shirt
on here by the way
there you go yeah mississippi uh uh blue
singer yeah he’s also our best he’s also
a short seller in uh
the muddy waters he’s the name of a guy
he’s a big short guy
in the stock market
i can’t wait i really missed it last
year we’re going down there for so many
years
yeah such a bunch of great people you
know
yeah and the the run and the marine we
they had the marine on a couple of weeks
ago the saluting marine
yeah i remember yeah yes yeah that was
active duty is he met no he had just
been a book
he did what you just made children oh
yeah he made a children’s book
he’s still on active duty yeah great he
was in the uh
middle east yeah yeah they’ve got a lot
of work to do over there
yeah well it’s ridiculous to have these
endless wars to me you know what i mean
yeah well any any uh what’s going to
happen this year in
d.c anything special other than thunder
alley and the
and the ride and uh was it rolling
rolling to remember right you’re going
to remember this that’s the name of it
this year rolling to remember
rolling to remember yeah i think that’s
uh that’s a big event
right and there’ll be a ceremony at the
vietnam wall
uh we just got to think it’s going to be
one
thing we got our tickets actually we had
to apply for tickets
1pm
yeah that was crazy i never knew he had
my son he met he uh applied for tickets
for us to go
to be able to get inside you know get
close you know why
that’s because uh of the cobot thing
right
every other chair right park service
needs to kind of control it you know
yeah sure i can understand that
yeah i haven’t been there and
i was just there the other day and had a
just a magnificent time
because there was a set of boots there
that belonged to a
army captain who was killed in action a
little letter
from the family oh wow some beautiful
stuff were along the wall
so there is a spiritual element to the
vietnam veterans memorial
in a very big way they uh
the dead and the living sort of
communicate there
or the living communicator try to
communicate
they meet there it’s a really holy
sacred place
some very uh important articles have
been written by this
in uh significant publications and it’s
been looked at by
psychiatrists and others with advanced
interest
in the morning it’s a good thing and
once the
memorial was up people began leaving
items at uh
you know like scenes of car crashes or
the oklahoma thing
so the the behavior of people bringing
things to the wall
was replicated throughout society you
know there was aids quilt
you know right yeah so it’s all good
it’s all good you know
people so what happens are they still
collecting all the artifacts that are
left there
yeah yeah i mean i uh
that’s the national park service
actually does that
and they become as a legal matter i’m a
lawyer
we always need another one and uh
they’re considered to be abandoned
property
on federal government land therefore
they belong to the federal government
aha yeah okay okay we’re gonna show a
video on that right now hold on one
second go ahead matt run it
good morning here in washington at the
vietnam wall just gonna wish everyone
a safe memorial day i’m here to lay this
book down
fall never forgotten and place
in front of the 13
guys my ballot brothers who lost their
life in a friendly fire incident march
26 1968.
for all the other guys on this wall
yeah so all those things got they
and they just keep them yeah
yeah they re they really do and they’re
stored in acid-free containers in a
controlled temperature environment and
from time to time an organization will
come along
or a museum and they’ll actually have a
curator
maybe have native american items or and
the
items change in their sort of decade by
by decade i mean this memorial believe
it or not was built in 1982
that’s a long time ago yeah well
40 years yeah 40 years whatever yeah
every decade different types of items
are left there oh absolutely yeah
i guess they have the uh what do they
call it the in vogue
item whoever’s in vogue yeah yeah you
see a lot of boots sometimes other times
you see
people i’ve seen drawings and
the the reits don’t stay though do they
the wreaths they go
flowers flowers now they get tossed yeah
okay
there’s a harley davidson somebody left
a harley davidson there too you know
really they walked it down in there you
guys from wisconsin
actually built it you know very nicely
milled parts
and it’s beautiful and they said here’s
the thing
it may can never be started until all of
our powers are back from vietnam
wow how many are still missing
political statement how many they think
they’re still missing
uh well they’re about 1400 on the
memorial
they’re all missing the question is how
many of them really have a good
opportunity to be recovered
right i think
they might over the next five years they
they might get another
let’s say 35 a year but it’s pretty
serious effort yeah they got
an office in hanoi they’ve got some army
officers there they don’t wear their
military uniforms
but uh the vietnamese are very helpful
you know them death and is part of their
culture
and uh they don’t really hold grudges
the way americans do or
europeans right yeah yeah i spent uh
i did ten trips there i took a lot of
very wealthy vietnam veterans there
but i raised a lot of money when i was
working which i’m not
anymore and uh but we were in the
caisson province primarily we removed
ordinance unexploded ordinance
and uh you know we hired the vietnamese
to do it and got them the certification
they needed from the u.n we got money
from the state department
right and my team
25 30 000 pieces of ordnance everything
from the rpg
we found some french artillery rounds
too really
how did the people go back the first
time
yeah the first time going back it’s
really very exciting and all these
emotions are going on
because they’re such nice friendly
peaceful people almost a little
subservient you know
in the hotels and everything right so
it’s just so sad to know that so many of
them
lost relatives in their family so
they’re trying to do
the quaint tree province pretty much
just they have these huge
graveyards all these north vietnamese
got
soldiers they have pictures there but
they were pretty unforgiving towards the
south vietnamese you know
yeah they put the officers into these
special these re-education
camps and some of them stayed there for
10 15 years
you know it’s interesting the uh kids
back then we’re gonna do a kid show
pretty soon and the kids
are now 50 years old 60
you know years old it’s like we were
only 18 19
and then they were 10 so figure it out
you know it’s not a hard math
you remember you’re not getting old
until your your children start looking
middle-aged
okay i agree with that
okay the uh the trip back
and to see da nang with skype well not
i guess skyscrapers 30 40 story
buildings or whatever 20 story buildings
yeah and uh hotels and the beaches and
the surfing and the whole deal going on
yeah i i don’t know i just have no
i i have to go to antarctica to get to
my seventh continent so i’d rather go
there first
and then maybe i’ll go back to vietnam
but like i can’t go back
is it the golf courses are unbelievable
too
oh really there you go yeah japanese
buying
the japanese and taiwan you know they
built them there yeah that’s crazy
so what was your most uh
in the deepest emotional event that
happened
from the first thought you had to the
wall to today
i did an interview on the 10th
anniversary of the vietnam veterans
memorial which was 1992
a guy named alex chadwick was with
national public radio
and he said so you told me the story
about your 12 buddies who got killed
that why don’t we visit their name and i
said
what do you mean visit their name you
mean you have a visitor to the name
and i said no he said okay let’s go
and i completely fell apart emotionally
i got you okay yeah
that’ll do it and the other thing was uh
back in 2017
i uh was getting ready to
go to washington dc and all that and
i i entered into a coma
i passed out wow and endocarditis
heart disease and uh within days i was i
was expected to die
my uh wife was making funeral
arrangements and burial arrangements
at the uh arlington national cemetery i
mean it was all over for skrugs
and i was uh it was kind of stressed out
and here i am retired
no get invited to take part in any of
these vietnam memorial things
kind of like they kicked me to the side
of the sidewalk
and uh i was so stressed out for it it
brought back this disease
which almost killed me it was 22 days in
a
a uh coma and i woke up and
wow within six weeks i was fine and
walking
and the next year i went skiing in
colorado
hallelujah good for you do you guys
remember that there you go
okay so pretty soon are you um
are you going to visit we’re going to
see you again in the thunder rally yeah
you’re going to make the trip in there
yeah let me i can stop by say hello yeah
yeah
all right yeah i’ll make sure make sure
walt sides gives you a good
spot good spot yeah well all spots are
good
yeah you have good good good stuff you
know you got
we can’t miss we’ll do we do find the
restroom it was the best spot yeah
actually yeah
when we they put us in the back by the
two restrooms two outhouses
everybody came back there was great yeah
man
we first said oh no they said it worked
out pretty good yeah
okay so what we gonna do matt okay we
got a question and answer session coming
up here we go hopefully we got some
first question
[Music]
all right first question or comment is
from
stefan cafaro whose idea was that all
the k-i-a and m-i-m-m-i-n-m-i-a names
had to be included in the design that
was my
idea and uh it came about as a result of
reading of some of the theories of a guy
named carl young he was a student of
sigmund freud
and he believed that there were these
societal archetypes
and there was a feelings that society
had
towards people who had given their lives
and bled for their country
and uh that this would be a powerful
element
that would help the veterans to heal and
maybe the nation’s health so it was all
my idea
yeah you can’t exclude that because it
would always be a haunting void
um it makes sense yeah
yes they’re not easy though once you put
names on a memorial
they’re kind of carved in stone so if
you make any mistakes you got to
re-engrave it
oh yeah i don’t mean that i mean i meant
in here
oh yeah in art oh absolutely and up here
yeah
yeah all right thank you stefan for that
one all right next question or comment
susie de giacomo remembering our fallen
thank you susie appreciate that
stefano ollie oliver onward brothers
from new zealand okay there you go
yeah i met some australians they never
met some new zealanders they met some
artillery guys there i think they left
in the early 70s all right
thank you stefan alan pollard okay
airborne you got it
you drop and give me 20.
mary sanderson always remember never
forgotten love you all thank you mary
appreciate the comment
okay please explain again the diamond
and the cross
let me explain it by explaining the
cross first of all
it is not a christian cross it is like a
plus
yeah right the diamond it was designed
in such a way
that when you put the diamond through it
you can see the ends of the cross coming
out
or whatever you want to call it the plus
mark coming out right so that that was
it and maya lynn came up with that uh
that design solution it was very good
actually
and what and which is what now the
diamond represents
killed in action okay yeah
m.i.a yeah okay
all right next matt harry adams that’s
my old buddy he was in my squad
how about that uh yeah roger link was
his replacement for rto when that’s
right
for le pen lieutenant ben was killed
that day he
shortly before that incident and i would
be dead right now
for that changing duties see that
you never know right thank you harry i
appreciate it talk to you soon buddy
richard clinger okay here we go klinger
look back look back on those years after
getting out in 68 and coming back to the
country was
a bad thing it was depressing when we
got off the plane in frisco
not only was it depressing to go through
customs we were treated like smugglers
or thieves by our own government
and as we left to get our next flight to
our homes we were spit on
had some stuff joining us we walked to
our next terminal
they separated us from the civilian
passengers before we had to go through
the gauntlet
uh yeah okay yeah
yeah he’s telling me there was a
a lot of that and that really hurt us
but one thing that the vietnam veterans
did is when these guys came back from
desert storm and
these other wars uh we made sure we were
meeting them at the gate
and uh so we turned that around and the
mantra which
we came up with was we’re going to
separate the war from the warrior
right against the war but these this is
the guy next door who
risked his life don’t take it out on him
he didn’t start it
yeah i got you yeah i i hear you
all right we got next anything last one
is from john sabia
look wait okay sorry love all you being
on warriors thank you john appreciate it
yeah okay i got one more for minnie c
is mia still alive if yes
yeah she uh lives in new york uh
she got two children uh beautiful woman
and she her husband died
unfortunately a couple of months ago
she’s still very young
she doesn’t get to washington that often
but when she does
she certainly gets to the wall she gets
recognized there
and uh she was a victim of a lot of
hatred
really yeah because she’s asian-american
oh my god yeah that’s crazy yes
and i i wouldn’t put up with that it’s
always something you know what i mean
it’s got to be something
you can’t make everybody happy yeah and
there’s never going to be that way until
the time
comes to whatever it’s going to be if
you know what i mean
all right three years is that it matt
okay
jan thank you so much we appreciate it
we’re going to see you down at the
thunder alley
yeah bless you and uh we can watch the
this will be on youtube as well as
uh vietnam veterans photo club great
and uh there you go bro hang in there
thank you and welcome home
youtube group okay thank you very much
for
visiting our show tonight see you next
week with another intriguing guest
they’re getting better all the time
oh we have one more comment what do you
got here matt
jason schuster i finally brought this
book my father specford richard
russell server to see first two seven
that’s 101st and tiger forces over here
on the first
from 67 to 69. he passed away
agent orange on 7 23 17.
i’m very lucky to have picture stories i
know his medals and have talked
to a few of his brothers ronnie emerson
i know you signed the book but
can you add a little thank you to rick
you both chewed the same mud in asia
sure man no problem just send me uh
send the site a name address phone
number whatever and
talk to me in person okay thank you very
much god bless you
and welcome home
