The Art of Manliness - #501： Zero to Hero： From Bullied Kid to Medal of Honor Recipient

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast as a boy alan j

00:00:12.120 lynch was a severely bullied and aimless kid growing up in the industrial neighborhoods of

00:00:15.900 chicago's south side he went on to serve in the army received the medal of honor for the valor

00:00:20.040 he displayed when he rushed to save three fallen comrades during a deadly firefight in vietnam

00:00:24.160 and dedicate his life to helping his fellow veterans today i talked to alan about a story

00:00:28.060 which he shares in his recently published memoir zero to hero from bullied kid to warrior we begin

00:00:32.920 our conversation discussing his childhood when the bullying started and how it affected his youth

00:00:37.020 alan then shares the aimlessness he had as a high school graduate how he carried it with him after

00:00:41.280 he signed up for the army and at first struggled to adapt to military life we then discuss how alan

00:00:45.460 ended up in vietnam the best friend he lost there in the harwin scenario that earned him the medal of

00:00:50.080 honor citation alan then shares how receiving the medal of honor put him on a path of service and

00:00:53.920 helping fellow veterans heal from the wounds of war and we end our conversation with a poignant

00:00:57.400 discussion of alan's own battle with ptsd and how his motto of others not self has helped him deal

00:01:02.280 with it after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash zero to hero alan joins me now

00:01:08.080 via clearcast.io

00:01:09.460 okay alan lynch welcome to the show thanks for having me appreciate it

00:01:27.380 so you just published a memoir of yours it's called zero to hero from bullied kid to warrior

00:01:33.600 and it's about your experience as a child but also leading up to your experience in vietnam

00:01:38.700 where you received the medal of honor before we get to that let's talk about your childhood because

00:01:42.840 this was a i realized it was really interesting because it's your talk you grew up at a time like

00:01:46.500 right after world war ii so it's an interesting time in american history what was it like for you as a

00:01:51.060 kid well my my childhood was uh it was really neat especially you know in looking at it from today's

00:01:58.840 point of view where kids are kind of bubble wrapped one of my first memories is walking to school

00:02:03.920 kindergarten five blocks away crossing a busy street and 111th street in in rosalyn illinois and

00:02:13.780 being able to walk to and from school at five years old playing with my friends you know uh after

00:02:20.960 school until the lights went out playing games outside there was no air conditioning so you know

00:02:27.380 all the windows were open most mothers didn't have jobs so they were home and so there was the kind of 0.98

00:02:34.140 the mother underground so that uh when the boys when me and my friends were out doing stuff there would

00:02:40.720 always be this feeling of being watched from some window somewhere so it was really it was really

00:02:47.320 kind of a neat time and and even then we moved to a trailer park in homewood eli's trailer park and it

00:02:53.500 was the same thing everybody just we we played we had fun we had the run of the trailer park we even

00:02:59.280 crossed a real busy street i think it was lincoln lincoln ave and went into a cross through a graveyard

00:03:05.180 and into a woods into bum town one time that's we called it back then and uh

00:03:10.700 you know we had a lot of adventures a lot of stuff we moved to lake eliza indiana and had the run of

00:03:18.080 the woods i could at you know like seven eight years old i could take a 410 shotgun go out into

00:03:23.980 the woods and hunt squirrels and rabbit and you know it was it was a magic time to be a kid and it

00:03:30.320 was a time when boys could just be boys another huge part of your childhood was your father who served in

00:03:36.380 military during world war ii he seemed like he had a big influence on you as a young man he did my dad

00:03:43.000 was was one of these guys he was of course raised during the depression the the real depression where

00:03:48.300 they they worried about food and heat and clothing and all of this stuff and i was raised on depression

00:03:56.440 stories of you know kicking coal off a freight car so they could heat their apartment at night and

00:04:02.840 you know when the electricity was turned off how they were able to turn it back on so he was a kind

00:04:08.380 of a fix-it man we never had a lot of money growing up so if there had if the house needed repair we did

00:04:15.240 it and of course i being the boy was the helper and my dad gave me that sense of i can fix anything

00:04:23.000 i can do anything did your dad serve in world war ii he never went overseas he was a dog handler

00:04:30.760 gave me a love of dogs and i trained my when i was a kid one of my only friends was my dog duke and i

00:04:37.360 trained him a little bit and taught him a lot of tricks because of you know my dad's influence and

00:04:42.560 how to train a dog properly and so on so but when growing up did your was there like a military ethos

00:04:49.400 in your family like was there an idea that you know if you were a young man if you're a boy like you

00:04:54.500 were supposed to serve in the military at some point or was that not really a thing i was woke up to

00:04:59.380 reveille every morning my my dad would come in and whistle reveille so and and uh that was at 5 30

00:05:07.260 religiously and my dad had this thing of when if my dad was up everyone was up and of course being a

00:05:15.840 traditional family back in in the 50s my dad would would leave for work about 6 15 6 30 my mother would

00:05:23.000 get up and cook him breakfast and of course i would be up and have breakfast with my dad and if i had

00:05:28.720 school i could get ready for school in when we were out in indiana i had chores so when breakfast was

00:05:34.880 done my dad went to work i went out to the garden i weeded the garden cut the grass and all that so

00:05:40.360 there was this kind there was kind of a it wasn't a you have to join the military kind of thing but it

00:05:46.060 was very clear that my dad was in charge it was very clear that i was expected to do certain things

00:05:52.020 every day and you know listening to my uncles talk about their time in the navy my dad's time in the

00:05:58.800 army air corps there was a real feeling of that was something i was gonna i was gonna have to do in

00:06:05.020 my future when you were a young kid like you grew up in a decidedly working class family where did you

00:06:11.180 have high ambitions as a kid or was your goal just like get a steady paying job after you graduated high

00:06:16.800 school what was that like for you i had very little ambition i think what what happened was when i was

00:06:22.440 when i was bullied it kind of just sucked the life right out of me and all i wanted to do when i was in

00:06:26.880 high school was get out and i i did not want to go to summer school again i i had to go because i failed

00:06:33.120 algebra my freshman year so i just basically i wanted to get through high school being white paint you 0.57

00:06:40.040 know you're kind of it's kind of there you know it's there but you don't really recognize it

00:06:44.440 and so basically it was get out of the get out of high school get a job somewhere and wait to get

00:06:51.300 drafted and then i decided well i'll just enlist well let's talk about the bullying you mentioned

00:06:56.000 that because that was a big part of your story when did that start happening to you when you were a kid

00:07:00.240 fourth grade three kids came to class i don't know why they took an instant dislike to me

00:07:06.800 but they did and my mother was a was quite a pacifist she had me convinced i don't know what it is

00:07:13.820 with moms but everything has to do with you can knock out an eye so you know i had this idea that

00:07:19.100 if i hit somebody really hard the eye would pop out and it was the idea of you know how would you

00:07:24.960 feel if you hurt somebody how would you feel if you knocked out an eye or hurt somebody like that or

00:07:29.460 whatever and so i became afraid of hurting somebody and you know when you give fear a place inside of

00:07:37.680 you it grows like a cancer and it grew inside of me and i became afraid not only of hurting but of

00:07:42.900 getting hurt now the funny thing was is as i was getting beat up my eye wasn't popping out you know

00:07:49.560 and my teeth weren't falling out and my jaw was never broken and it was hit plenty of times

00:07:55.520 but it never seemed to register with me that you know i should hit back and so i didn't and they made

00:08:02.700 my life from fourth grade all the way through eighth grade a living hell did it get better after eighth

00:08:07.300 grade you know we we moved to high school uh we moved to dalton illinois and it got a lot better

00:08:13.980 because i was in a different school but i you know it's kind of one of those things of no matter where

00:08:18.680 you go there you are so the kid that was bullied in grade school in junior high was the same kid that

00:08:24.260 went to this brand new high school and it wasn't long before my cover cup got pulled and i

00:08:30.760 basically i confronted a kid he stood up and i stood down i just walked away from him right in

00:08:38.860 front of the whole lunchroom and so i was right back to being that that kid again and uh though

00:08:45.300 the bullying wasn't as bad there was there was enough of it there were some you know of course

00:08:49.920 every class has its bullies and uh they found me and a couple of my friends to pick on and i ended up

00:08:56.760 having a couple fights in high school i lost them both but at least i fought what did your so your

00:09:02.080 mom was the pacifist what did your dad think about it my my dad was not happy with me he wanted me to

00:09:08.240 punch him his whole thing was when you push you push back when when somebody pushes you punch him in the

00:09:14.140 nose someone messes with you you get into a fight you fight him even if you lose and you bloody him 0.68

00:09:19.700 they're not they're they're going to think twice about fighting you again uh so he was not he was not at

00:09:25.560 all happy with me i kind of think he wasn't very proud of me when i was in grade school and high

00:09:30.120 school and being bullied and all that and so i imagine that affected you for a good deal of time

00:09:35.560 right oh yeah yeah you know bullying takes away your self-image it destroys it and and if in a lot

00:09:42.980 of parents don't know a lot of parents don't know that what they feel about their kids comes through

00:09:52.540 if i would tell my dad as an example that i you weren't very proud of me he would go oh i was

00:09:57.460 very proud of you were a wonderful kid but he wasn't he wasn't because i was the kid that was

00:10:04.220 getting picked on i was the kid that had few friends i was the kid that you know they kept

00:10:09.280 asking me why couldn't i be like one of my aunts or my uncles so it it did affect me it affected

00:10:15.680 me greatly it just uh almost destroyed me so you spent high school just ready you know just getting

00:10:21.880 ready to get out of high school and get out of town you decided to join the military why did

00:10:26.700 you sign up was it just to get out of just do something different well i knew it was going to

00:10:30.780 get drafted when i graduated in 1964 there was only a couple places you could go you could go to

00:10:36.840 college or trade school and get a deferment or you got drafted that was it well i wasn't interested

00:10:43.040 in anything i wasn't interested in cars i wasn't interested in getting my hands dirty and

00:10:47.360 you know i certainly didn't have the grades to go to college so i knew i was going to get drafted

00:10:53.580 so i decided i'm going to take control of my life and enlist so i enlisted in the army and i was going

00:10:59.980 to be a personnel specialist and that didn't work out so well why didn't it work out so well they uh

00:11:05.620 no they they offered me ocs uh officer candidate school and i so i had to change my my mos my military

00:11:14.620 occupational specialty from clerk typist to infantry and that set me up of course to

00:11:22.400 go to ocs infantry ocs and then uh when i when i got out of that i went to uh i went to germany

00:11:30.060 and then i volunteered for vietnam from there and what did your parents think when you when you signed

00:11:35.140 up with the military well my dad was happy my mother not so much my dad was you know i think my dad

00:11:42.800 had this attitude of finally he's going to become a man because that's what the military does it will

00:11:47.860 take raw material and make you a man and my mother of course was losing her little boy that you know

00:11:55.120 they basically thought that i'd last about three seconds in the military i mean i'm here i am i'm

00:11:59.540 in a barracks with a bunch of other guys have been bullied all my life how is this going to work out

00:12:03.620 so they were pretty much afraid i know my mom was was not very happy at all and you so you

00:12:10.540 mentioned yeah you did ocs but that didn't really pan out for you what what do you think happened

00:12:13.920 there well i you know i it was another one of those no matter where you go there you are i was

00:12:18.620 i went through basic training a leadership school and advanced infantry training i was a squad leader

00:12:26.020 in basic and a squad leader in ait went through that harassment but ocs the harassment is a lot

00:12:33.280 different and it's it's it makes uh basic training and advanced infantry look relatively easy and i

00:12:42.900 started thinking that you know there this was a personal thing that the tack officers were were

00:12:48.240 out to get me personally which wasn't true and so basically taking everything so personally my morale

00:12:55.580 went down and i was just that that kid again so i i did a drop on request and did you like did you

00:13:03.940 feel disappointed in yourself that you did that or yeah oh man i just i screwed this up again yeah

00:13:08.900 it was well there here's another failure so far i failed everything except basic and ait

00:13:13.440 so you know it's just yeah i was on that that track you know and it was just well i'm a dud

00:13:20.880 that's all i am i'm just i'm a dud you're a zero that's the zero part of the story well so you dropped

00:13:26.940 ocs you went to germany what were you doing there like were you did you think that you were going to

00:13:32.380 end up in vietnam eventually and you just thought this is going to be my little i don't know a respite

00:13:37.780 before that what was the idea about going to germany i went i went to germany i was uh i was just

00:13:44.020 basically sent there and i thought germany would just be my last duty station i'd do my time in germany

00:13:49.520 and in 1967 my three years would be up and i'd go home and that wasn't the case i didn't like being

00:13:58.240 cold and in germany we did a lot of field training exercises out in the winter time and i got frost

00:14:05.520 bite on my feet during one of those those training exercises and i was offered an opportunity to

00:14:11.700 re-enlist i was offered some money a change of duty and i was starting to like the army i was really

00:14:18.140 starting to like it it was that there's just something about being a part of a team and being

00:14:24.660 with a bunch of guys that are doing the same thing and you're learning to trust each other and

00:14:29.100 so in the back of my mind i was kind of thinking this might be what i'm going to do the rest of my life

00:14:36.480 and so i re-enlisted and i ended up going to berlin

00:14:40.060 and i was assigned to a mortar platoon and not what i wanted to do and so again i being immature i copped

00:14:49.760 a bad attitude i ended up getting two article 15s those are non-judicial punishments my first one was

00:14:56.940 because i smarted off to my section sergeant and told him exactly in no uncertain terms what i what i

00:15:03.020 thought of him and that cost me a 15 day confined to the barracks 15 days of extra duty seven days

00:15:10.900 paying a suspended bus to private e3 and then i got a second article 15 for going awol to help a buddy

00:15:18.020 that got some rather bad news from home and it was right about that time that vietnam was really

00:15:23.720 starting to heat up and a lot of my friends were getting levied for vietnam and all of that

00:15:28.280 i still had that stink of cowardice on me i i really needed to prove myself to myself i had

00:15:37.380 i'd come a long way you know i was doing a lot of things for the first time in my life i had i had

00:15:43.360 pretty good friends but i i just really felt the need to test myself and vietnam was the event of

00:15:50.200 my generation so i volunteered you volunteered you didn't get drafted for it you didn't sit there

00:15:55.560 i volunteered for the first cavalry division when i got everything i wanted i wanted infantry i wanted

00:16:02.780 the first cav and i got all of it in spades i mean what did you know about vietnam before you signed up

00:16:08.860 not a lot i mean i knew i could i was really good at giaga in fact that was the only class i did well

00:16:15.180 on in high school so i knew where it was a lot of my friends were getting getting drafted when i was

00:16:20.520 an ocs the first cavalry was was deployed by the time i had gotten to germany the battle of the eye

00:16:26.600 drang had already been fought vietnam was now becoming a major engagement you know it was a war

00:16:33.380 there were levies coming down all the time you know people that had time and service and all that

00:16:38.500 to do to spend a year in vietnam being being levied for it and i just i just needed to be a part of it

00:16:45.860 so you got sent to vietnam where did you serve there central highlands it was a place called

00:16:51.640 bin den province it was the rice bowl of vietnam and what was your role you had you took on several

00:16:56.960 roles while you were there right yeah i uh i started off carrying a um what they call the next m79 it was

00:17:05.080 experimental model it was an m16 with an m79 grenade launcher underneath now it's called the m203

00:17:11.780 a grenade launcher it's the same thing but i carried that and then i realized that that was a real heavy

00:17:18.480 load to carry i carried 35 rounds of he some some white phosphorus willie peter some shotgun rounds

00:17:24.820 smoke and then i carried 35 magazines for the m16 i didn't want to run out of ammunition

00:17:30.980 after about a month and a half of carrying that i was able to get rid of it and just go to an m16

00:17:36.320 for the first several months i was nothing i was a grunt i was just a spec for part of a squad

00:17:43.760 then in november i got the opportunity was late november i got the opportunity to become a radio

00:17:49.500 telephone operator an rto what you're this was 1967 1967 1967 1967 so you got there as you were there

00:17:56.960 for how long were you there in vietnam i got there uh may 31st 1967 i left june 1st 1968 and i mean what

00:18:05.620 were the conditions like when you i mean because sometimes you describe vietnam was kind of sounded

00:18:09.200 kind of nice right you had these like pristine beaches and there's coconuts but then also was also

00:18:15.140 terror sounded terrible at the same time yeah it it was a it was a paradox in 1967 we were still out to

00:18:23.120 win the war at least that's what we thought i wasn't there i think it was about a month and the

00:18:29.220 vietnamese had their national elections we were pulled out of the field and back to lc english

00:18:34.160 so a lot of us thought that we were actually seeing an american democracy you know forming

00:18:41.000 right before our eyes and we were like the uh the french during the american you know um war of

00:18:46.620 independence you know we were we were there to help little did we know and i didn't discover this

00:18:51.440 till i started studying vietnam years later that that the vietnam election was was rigged that it was

00:18:57.560 basically a war that president johnson had no intention of really winning he didn't have the

00:19:03.080 the stones to go in and actually you know fight to win so he was basically wasting us but we didn't

00:19:09.340 know that in 67 we controlled our area of operation the bong song plane we had very we had a lot of

00:19:18.680 contact but we won every battle it was you know we were overpowering the enemy all the time we were

00:19:25.240 fighting both the nva north vietnamese army and the vietcong and we basically you know i wrote home i

00:19:31.680 remember to my mom and dad that we owned we owned the area you know we did our ambushes and our all

00:19:37.360 of that stuff that you do but they would run from us because we had such tremendous support and um

00:19:45.300 you talk about a situation where you you actually you started making some good friends during vietnam

00:19:51.200 you made one really good friend but you lost him quickly tell us about that yeah um his name was

00:19:58.000 jerry bryans and uh we came in country together uh jerry was one of those guys that uh

00:20:04.720 if we were down on our luck if we you know had no c rations or we're running out of cigarettes and he

00:20:13.300 had one he'd share it he was just he was a good he was just a good guy real nice guy and uh when he was

00:20:20.580 from shulzburg wisconsin and he told the story of uh how he was a kid he was out farming he was a

00:20:28.400 farmer he was out on his tractor and lightning struck him and it almost killed him ended up in

00:20:33.460 the hospital and then you know i guess a couple a year later or so he got kicked in the head by a

00:20:38.160 horse ended up back in the hospital and he almost died twice and he said you know three strikes and

00:20:44.520 you're out he says i know if something happens here i'm gonna i'll probably not survive it but he

00:20:50.100 would say it and tell it in such a funny way we just have us in stitches any course with every story

00:20:55.040 added a little bit to it well we were on a on a we were up in a contum province and we were in an

00:21:03.000 area that looked a lot like wisconsin and we had had lunch together we were talking about you know

00:21:08.040 getting going fishing we got back to the world and all that and we started to move down the trail

00:21:13.420 our point men just hadn't gone probably 50 meters and our point men came back and signaled that there

00:21:20.900 was movement and the lt went running up and jerry got behind a tree i got behind a stump and this guy

00:21:27.700 i think i call him fred in the book got behind the bush he was our m60 machine gunner a real gunner was

00:21:35.140 on r&r and so he had been newly assigned i think he came in with us or shortly after us but he had a

00:21:42.380 real bad attitude he was kind of kid from new york real smart mouth we didn't know how lazy he was

00:21:48.200 until the machine gun jammed but lieutenant came running back and he you know called ceasefire ceasefire

00:21:54.040 ceasefire they're friendly unbeknownst to us the special forces were running with some mountain yards

00:22:00.840 in the area we call them cidg civilian indigenous personnel so after yelling ceasefire three times 0.99

00:22:08.400 jerry and i stood up and fred shot him in the chest with the machine gun which immediately jammed because

00:22:14.140 it was so dirty jerry went down like a stone he ended up dying on the helicopter the medevac that

00:22:20.020 came in they didn't tell me that for a few days because i threatened to kill him if jerry died so they

00:22:26.300 gave it time to cool down and then over the course of a few days the a lot of my friends came up and

00:22:34.280 talked about what a great guy jerry was and all of that and you know how sad it would be that if you

00:22:41.620 know something happened to jerry i think everybody knew but me that you know three families would be

00:22:48.340 destroyed the guy that jerry's family my family and the guy that that shot him when i found out jerry

00:22:55.820 was dead i forget who it was probably probably saved me uh came up and had a nice chat with me

00:23:03.040 because i was by myself having a cigarette and he said you know fred's gonna have to live with the

00:23:10.320 fact that he killed one of our own and that kind of hit me and so i i didn't do anything and i told

00:23:16.320 him i wasn't going to do anything but he was ostracized uh we didn't um accept him too easily back

00:23:24.640 into the you know into the fold he earned his way back in and when i left vietnam he had made

00:23:30.820 sergeant and i think he was a squad leader i'd like to think that he lived a good life in replacement

00:23:38.740 for the life he took i that's what i'm hoping and how did that moment influence the rest of your

00:23:44.480 experience in vietnam i never i didn't make a lot of friends after that um i had a lot of acquaintances

00:23:50.220 i was friendly but i never got close to anybody i still i can't i can't i have a hard time getting

00:23:55.720 close to people i just it's very difficult to do that it seems it affected me in a way that

00:24:02.340 you know you make you make friends with someone and they get killed they die and that that that was

00:24:08.060 kind of that's taken me a lot of years to deal with i you know the thing is now i know that i have

00:24:14.120 the issue so i try real hard to you know be a little bit more friendly than probably i normally

00:24:19.960 would but still it's difficult to do it we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors

00:24:24.820 and now back to the show so for most of your life you've been the zero kid that got bullied

00:24:31.880 no ambition uh smarted off to superiors uh would get busted down back to private first class

00:24:39.820 uh but then you had this moment where you had the decision to go from a zero to hero and this is

00:24:48.060 the scenario the situation where you where it eventually earned you the medal of honor can you

00:24:51.800 walk us through that situation that that scenario sure um we had been up in dakto and think about the

00:25:01.460 middle of the middle of november we got taken back to join the battle of tamquan and

00:25:09.560 for my part i was i was now a an rtl radio telephone operator and carried a perk 25 on my back

00:25:17.680 along with basic load of ammunition and all that but i was kind of like my lt shadow

00:25:22.520 and uh i got the day of the incident the day of the action we got a brand new lieutenant uh lieutenant

00:25:29.340 donald sutherland very courageous guy i only knew him for like four hours but what i found out but

00:25:38.240 what i didn't know until i started writing the book is that he pretty much demanded to go out with the

00:25:43.720 unit the day we are assaulted in he talked to our captain captain orsini and he said look i want to go

00:25:50.400 i want to do this i want to be a part of this give me the platoon so he got second platoon i became his rtl

00:25:57.240 and his shadow and is it was right after we had you know a break for you for noon chow and we started moving

00:26:05.980 in to relieve a company and hit the enemy from the side from the flank and we walked into an ambush it was a um

00:26:13.300 like a box like a three-sided box we walked right into the middle of it and all hell broke loose

00:26:18.480 and lieutenant ran up me along with him to the front to see what was happening about that time

00:26:25.540 we were taking fire sending you know traffic back to you know our our company commander letting them

00:26:32.200 know what was going on and we were taking fire from our flank and so on wilhelm who was walking one of

00:26:39.100 the point men came running back got shot about halfway to us i went out and i got him and i think a medic

00:26:46.600 came out as i recall to help us out and we got him back to our lines and he said that casaras uh

00:26:53.880 had gotten shot in both shins you know couldn't walk couldn't move so i asked the lt if i could drop

00:27:00.280 my radio and go out and get him which i went out there with the intention of getting him and coming back

00:27:06.120 and getting a medevac well that wasn't the case as soon as i got in the ditch and started doing what i

00:27:11.680 had to do all hell broke loose again a lot of fire came down and just as i thought well i'm going to

00:27:17.620 put him on my back and then i'm going to carry him out joe esparza came running across and got shot

00:27:23.720 pretty far from us but close enough to me so i could get him so i ran out and i got him and got him back

00:27:29.360 in the ditch and there we stayed unbeknownst to me at the time our company had pulled back

00:27:36.640 because they had taken such heavy heavy fire and they led one rescue mission to try to get to us

00:27:44.560 during that rescue mission lieutenant sutherland got shot in the head and died another guy got wounded

00:27:51.300 so they pulled back again they tried another time to get to us and again that didn't work then finally

00:27:59.360 an apc armored personnel carrier was was sent over they were going to back it up to our position

00:28:04.720 drop the back ramp and then we could load in and go away we saw the apc pull up to us lower its ramp

00:28:14.920 and then it got hit with an rpg and it was like are you kidding me we were literally feet away from

00:28:23.900 being rescued and when the rpg hit the hit the track my my captain orsini was blown out of the

00:28:31.500 the hurt turret the commander's hatch and ended up being severely wounded so they pulled back and that

00:28:38.720 was the last time they tried to get to us they then called in continuous artillery and airstrikes

00:28:43.080 and that went on for for a long time in the meantime we were you know killing a lot of vietcong and nva

00:28:50.680 and whoever was coming within you know place where we could get them

00:28:55.080 and then it got really quiet and so i thought it was time now to to see what we could do so i went

00:29:02.360 up and i made sure there was no vc working in the area and when i realized it was safe and had checked

00:29:09.200 a couple of hooches and some things i i moved i moved i think casaras first and got him to a place

00:29:16.360 then i went back and i got esparza and moved him to an area and then i was going to just start you know

00:29:21.200 doing a little bit of concentric you know trying to find our guys and i didn't go maybe 100 meters

00:29:29.380 and there they were and they called me we went back and got the wounded and we all got medevac together

00:29:34.200 so how long were you guys pinned down you know the citation and some of the stuff had had like two

00:29:40.880 hours i think we were there for about four it was it was right after chow we got in and it was dark

00:29:45.720 when we got out so we were there a long time yeah and it sounds like like you you weren't even like

00:29:51.600 really thinking about like like there wasn't like a point of sitting did you just decide that there's

00:29:55.820 some guys out there need my help i'm gonna go out there and do it like what was going through your

00:29:59.460 mind you just is that what you were thinking is i'm just i gotta go help my buddies yeah you know

00:30:03.840 you're you're trained in in in basic and in ait and it's the the warrior ethos that you never

00:30:10.300 leave your wounded but i i've been asked this question a lot in in a over the years as i've

00:30:16.900 gotten a lot older i've become more reflective and i i think i think the reason that i did what i did

00:30:23.600 was because of the upbringing that i had my mother and dad my grandfather and grandmother my whole

00:30:30.040 family was were made up of people who knew how to sacrifice not only for their family you know my dad

00:30:36.960 sometimes worked three jobs you know because he didn't think my mother should have to work

00:30:41.480 you know she had a tough enough job raising my sister and i my grandmother and grandfather used

00:30:47.020 to take food and clothing to poor people you know back in the 50s and early 60s my mother often took

00:30:53.560 in laundry and prepared meals for people in the neighborhood and such that were sick so this was

00:30:59.360 how i was raised and then you have your drill sergeants that tell you you don't leave your wounded they

00:31:05.100 you know and they they inspire you to you know that's what we don't do and they do that by you

00:31:11.320 know if you fall out on a run if you let somebody fall out on a run or you know during pt and you

00:31:16.880 don't help them out then you do a lot more so there's kind of that negative reinforcement so i think

00:31:22.700 when when that happened there was no time to think or to act there was no time to think you just had

00:31:28.640 had to do what i had to do and after you did it did you like were you thinking like wow that was a

00:31:33.820 that was a pretty crazy thing that i went through like that was that's something that worthy of the

00:31:38.320 medal honor were you just like i just got to go on that was just part of my job now on to the next

00:31:42.740 thing that's it i you know i don't i really don't believe at this point that i deserve the medal of

00:31:55.840 honor i was put in for it by my peers i've always felt that i as a result of that getting that medal

00:32:03.100 that i owed something and i had to give something back which is why i devoted my life to veterans but

00:32:08.060 you know i i look at people that did so much more than me that you know got a bronze star or distinguished

00:32:16.480 service cross or a silver star and i i go you know how did how did i get this and you know it's kind of

00:32:24.400 even when i was going through a lot of stuff the one thing in the back of my mind was that i had to

00:32:29.160 i had to now earn it there there's a scene in saving private ryan where tom hanks is the captain

00:32:37.860 is shot and private ryan runs up to him and he he looks at him and he says earn this and that's kind

00:32:45.660 of how i felt so yeah that changed your life and as you said like you spent the rest of your your your

00:32:50.920 life really you know trying to earn that so talk about what how did you how did you go about earning

00:32:56.240 your medal of honor in your mind well it it uh i started as a veterans benefits concert at va hospital

00:33:02.160 and uh worked with returning vietnam veterans i had ended up doing a couple things there i i worked in

00:33:09.360 a drug unit some of our guys in the 70s were coming back hooked on various drugs and so i i did that

00:33:16.600 the more i got into veterans benefits work i became a veterans benefits counselor and i started

00:33:22.580 filing claims for veterans and helping them with appeals and i really started to like that

00:33:26.920 then i became chief ambulatory care at the north chicago now the level federal medical center

00:33:32.100 and i really worked hard to to make sure that veterans got what they deserved but the biggest thing

00:33:38.000 was when i became a member of the executive director of the vietnam veterans leadership program

00:33:42.380 and started working with my brother veterans and getting them jobs and and helping them to

00:33:47.720 you know get through the the big unemployment that we had back just at in the 70s and 80s and then um

00:33:56.800 the best thing the best thing and something that i turned out to be really exceptional at

00:34:02.260 was as a vietnam veterans of america service officer and i did that through the illinois attorney general's

00:34:09.400 office they only let me work appeals and a lawyer taught me how to write legally and she was she was

00:34:16.740 really good with the red pen and i took i my caseload was nothing but va appeals i didn't cherry pick i

00:34:24.900 worked really hard to get the hardest cases i could find and i won most of them

00:34:29.980 and i probably well i've made millions of dollars for veterans in compensation i i worked in uh my

00:34:39.680 with the first attorney general i worked for neil hardigan and i we went to washington and lobbied

00:34:44.460 for judicial review of va claims with vietnam veterans of america and so i was i'm i'm very very

00:34:51.500 proud of that and then after i retired in 2005 we we formed the lynch foundation to help veterans that

00:34:59.160 of our current war that were coming home that were falling through the cracks and our program is now

00:35:04.620 part of operations support our troops america which we now have care packages we send overseas we work

00:35:11.640 with gold star families and what we call leap of faith and then we have the lynch program that helps

00:35:16.380 veterans with having financial difficulty so yeah you've been doing a lot to turn that metal in in

00:35:23.900 your mind and uh helping your your fellow veterans but you also talk about in the book like while

00:35:28.920 you were helping veterans with different problems not only financial career drug problems but you're

00:35:35.500 helping them with their the problems with ptsd and those emotional problems of trying to figure out

00:35:40.980 sort of go through the the stuff that they went through psychologically during the war but you

00:35:45.840 yourself started experiencing ptsd during this when did that start happening and how did it manifest

00:35:51.460 itself 1973 it was the summer of 1973 it was the first time that i ever had a dive on the floor startle

00:36:01.020 reaction it was hot i had just got off the bus from work i was walking home about about three blocks

00:36:07.600 i was soaking wet when i got home it was hot it was humid got into the house and got in some dry clothes i

00:36:15.640 sat down to dinner there was a flash of lightning and the roll of thunder and i was on the floor

00:36:20.740 and uh my wife said that i got a strange look in my face and ended up on the floor and started with

00:36:29.040 a bad startle reaction sudden noises uh would just you know make me duck and sometimes i was at one

00:36:37.140 event where they fired a civil war cannon i ended up on my in my suit you know diving on into the mud

00:36:44.180 but then i had started having intrusive thoughts and anger and you know the vivid thoughts of vietnam a

00:36:54.040 smell which set me off uh heat different things smells uh a few nightmares suicidal ideation

00:37:03.020 the whole nine yards and it came in waves i would have times when it would be

00:37:08.380 fine and i would have a normal month years you know of not much happening and then something would

00:37:17.220 set me off and i'd get very depressed and angry and reclusive and drink way too much and you know

00:37:24.880 all the all the negative stuff and when did you start you know realize that you got to do something

00:37:30.520 about this at what point it was in the early 90s i had been doing a lot of work with with veterans

00:37:35.820 filing a lot of claims uh and what would happen is i would read the medical records

00:37:40.640 on some of the appeals that i would be fighting and that would bring back even more vivid memories

00:37:47.620 because you're reading about somebody that was in combat and i would go my gosh this is exactly what

00:37:52.260 what i did this is where i was this is what i went through and so that would bring trigger memories

00:37:57.920 so eventually i i realized i needed to get help and things were not going good at home and 0.62

00:38:02.280 i was kind of a well i was a jerk i could put that in a lot stronger terms but i won't

00:38:08.020 and it was made very clear to me that i need to get some help so i went to uh the evanston vet 0.58

00:38:14.200 center in chicago i started seeing betsy tolsted who was the uh psychologist there she wanted to put 0.94

00:38:20.960 me on medication and i told her no i had been worked in a va hospital i saw what the va does with

00:38:26.120 medications so i said no you either fix me give me the tools i'll work hard i'll do everything you

00:38:32.720 say i'm in it to win it i'm not not here to play games i said but i'm not going on medication so

00:38:38.740 we worked and the first time i saw her was for a couple years i think two three years

00:38:43.620 and she pretty much she helped me out she she actually gave me my first good christmas since

00:38:51.240 vietnam i used to go into a deep depression around thanksgiving and it wouldn't end until

00:38:58.340 march april sometimes longer and in therapy we talked about you know some of the things that

00:39:06.860 that were really bothering me and one was the death of my my buddy jerry

00:39:10.800 and she gave me an assignment to find his grave and to film it so i went out and i bought a

00:39:18.920 little camera a little movie camera and i went out and i found his grave which took me

00:39:24.520 the better part of a day finally found out where he was buried and uh i filmed that i talked to him

00:39:32.040 told him what was going on in my life and all of that left my business card on his gravestone

00:39:37.380 and came home and in the meantime my wife had cooked dinner and beef stroganoff was her

00:39:44.480 was and is her her go-to dish she's really good at cooking it each of my kids uh told me what

00:39:52.100 mattered most to them and then i told them about jerry uh my youngest son brian was named after him

00:39:59.540 i didn't know you know in the army we go by last name so all i knew by was brian's so my my son's name

00:40:06.560 my last son's name is brian and he was named after and i explained why and i told him about jerry

00:40:12.540 and it was like i had the best christmas yeah i mean you were able to start treating that wound that

00:40:20.220 you you had yeah and i'm at is it still ongoing yeah yeah yeah i'm able to handle it a lot better

00:40:28.840 but um yeah it's you know obviously it's kind of raw still no of course one thing that struck me

00:40:38.740 something you you wrote about and we've talked about too on this podcast this sort of ethos that

00:40:43.300 you grew up with thanks to your parents your mom your dad grandparents and something that's helped

00:40:48.840 you a lot this idea and i love this mantra it's others not self how has that helped you not only

00:40:57.520 you know i mean that's kind of what helped me made you do the thing that that you got the citation for

00:41:01.880 the medal of honor but it seems like it's the thing that's been therapeutic for you after the war

00:41:07.040 this idea of others not self yeah it it actually it saved my life i was on a very bad path and it was

00:41:16.460 it's one of those you know it's it's like a guy drowning in in a knee-deep water it was right

00:41:22.100 there right in front of me my whole life and i didn't see it what what ptsd does to us

00:41:29.980 is it forces us to dwell in upon ourselves we become almost like a black like a like an emotional 0.69

00:41:38.140 black hole and i can tell you the way my my friends and i talked about it it was my ptsd won't let me

00:41:44.420 my ptsd we own it i had nightmares last night i i my my intrusive thoughts my this my that and and

00:41:53.260 and it's all about you it's all about me it's all about what i'm going through well at the worst

00:42:00.220 possible time in my life i had to focus on somebody else and not me my my dad got terminal lung cancer

00:42:07.560 and spent a year dying and so for that year it was you know at the end at the end of the work day

00:42:15.940 go to the hospital during the weekend go down and give my mom a break because she was she was taking

00:42:21.760 care of him and my sister was you know just a few doors down but they were both being run ragged by

00:42:26.480 him because he was having so many issues and so many problems with the lung cancer and so i would

00:42:32.780 go there on the weekends and stay overnight sometimes i'd go there you know take a day off work and go on

00:42:38.560 a wednesday and come home on a thursday so i was totally focused on my dad my symptoms didn't go away

00:42:44.800 but they just lessened to where they were just very manageable a couple years later my after my dad

00:42:52.740 passed my mother suffered a massive stroke and ended up i ended up going to the nursing home to see her

00:42:58.980 you know when she was close i would go with sometimes during the week and every weekend i would go see her

00:43:03.680 and again i was concentrating on my mom i was concentrating on on seeing her the symptoms mitigated

00:43:11.180 and became a lot less and by accident it kind of hit me um boy when i was taking care of my parents

00:43:19.340 i wasn't having a lot of symptoms going on

00:43:21.740 so and again it's kind of this one of these serendipity things i was at a rotary i think i was

00:43:31.440 given a talk there and one of their things is not self others or others not self something like that

00:43:38.200 well i couldn't remember exactly what it was so i thought that's it that's the key if i focus on

00:43:46.360 the needs of other people and i put them first then my situation my ptsd is no longer the total focus

00:43:56.320 of my life it's other people and so i put that on my challenge coin others not self and i put that in

00:44:04.260 my pocket so when i start getting into that pity poor me mode and you know my ptsd and i even try

00:44:11.100 now not to use any ownership of it i i i view it almost as well i do view it as the enemy it's like

00:44:18.200 the vietcong it's like the nva and i'll be damned if it's gonna win so i fight it like that i i that's

00:44:24.000 why i'm you know i do what i do with uh with the foundation and do other things and the first person

00:44:29.680 i put first was my wife and my kids and my grandkids no i love that that mantra others not

00:44:35.340 self because i've seen that in my own life you know i i don't have ptsd but whenever i get down

00:44:40.800 on myself and feeling down as soon as i shift my focus away from myself like things and focus on

00:44:47.340 others it just it just goes away and it's amazing what that can do yeah yeah i tell you it just

00:44:55.260 i've been um a lot of a lot of veteran friends that i have i i let them know that's for me that

00:45:02.180 was the key it may not work for them but but for me that's that's the big key well alan this has been

00:45:07.900 a great conversation is there some place people can go to learn more about the book zero to hero

00:45:11.960 i know they sell it on amazon i've heard uh some people have founded at borders you know i uh i know

00:45:20.940 it's on amazon and where can people go to learn more about your foundations they can go to operations

00:45:26.880 support our troops america they can google that or just go osot dash america just type it into their

00:45:33.440 search engine and that'll tell you all about what we do well fantastic alan lynch thanks so much

00:45:38.140 your time it's been a pleasure thank you for having me appreciate it my guest today was alan lynch

00:45:42.860 he's the author of the book zero to hero it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you

00:45:47.940 can also find out more information about his veterans foundation at aj lynch foundation.org

00:45:53.020 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash zero to hero where you can find links to resources

00:45:58.360 where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:45:59.820 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website artofmanliness.com

00:46:11.460 where you can find all of our podcast archives got over 500 there and we also got thousands of

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00:46:31.420 continued support until next time this is brett mckay reminding you not only listen to the aom

00:46:34.840 podcast but put what you've heard into action

00:46:37.180 you

The Art of Manliness - April 22, 2019

#501： Zero to Hero： From Bullied Kid to Medal of Honor Recipient

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