#89 A Talk with Medal of Honor Recipient Paul Bucha
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Summary
Captain Paul Bucca talks about the events that led up to his Medal of Honor citation, what it's like being a recipient of the medal, and the burden of responsibility that comes with that. We ll also be discussing what he learned from his service in Vietnam and what he hopes civilians understand about the war and what lessons we can take from it as we approach the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Well, earlier this week, it was Veterans Day in the United States. And today I have the pleasure
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in honor of speaking to a Vietnam War veteran and also a Medal of Honor recipient. His name
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is Paul Bucca. And today we're going to discuss Captain Bucca's service in the Vietnam War.
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We'll discuss the events that led up to his Medal of Honor citation. We're going to talk
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about what it's like being a recipient of the Medal of Honor and the burden of responsibility
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that comes with that. We'll also be discussing what he learned from his service in Vietnam
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and what he hopes civilians understand about the war and what lessons we can take from
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it as we approach the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War. It's a fascinating
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discussion with a very fascinating and he's a heroic man. So let's get on with the show.
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So you are a Vietnam War veteran and also a recipient of the Medal of Honor. But before we get there,
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let's talk about your life before you joined the military, because I'm sure people are curious
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on maybe there was something in the life of a Medal of Honor recipient when they were young that
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helped them become a Medal of Honor recipient. What was your life like before military service?
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And we traveled to Germany and Japan and all around the United States.
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But I guess most of my time, besides trying to do well in school, because my mother and father
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were very strict when it came to that, I would say, at a very early age, a competitive swimmer.
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And that allowed me to travel as well, because we went all over the United States swimming.
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And when I got to Japan, my father had originally, because I had found quite a bit of success in
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swimming, had enrolled me in the Georgia Military Academy with several other swimmers, because
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they were trying to assemble a prep school championship team down there. And I was originally
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scheduled to go there, but I made the decision that anything could happen in swimming or in
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any sport when you bet your future on it. You do everything to make the Olympics, and God
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forbid you have a broken leg and you miss your Olympics.
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So I just told my dad that I understood it probably would mean that I would fall behind
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my contemporaries in the States, but I wanted to go to Japan with the family.
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And I went to Japan with the family, and I swam. They didn't have an indoor pool, except
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at the Fujio Hotel, which is about 100 miles away. There was only one in the country.
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The rest were hot baths. So I played basketball, football, and baseball. Summer, I swam.
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And in the winter, I tried to one day a week swim, and I would go to a large hot bath I knew
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about, put my goggles on, and the Japanese people would separate and give me a path to
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swim back and forth for a half hour or so. So I had a very ordinary life in the sense of
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the military family. And I don't think that the Medal of Honor really finds any genesis in the life
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before. It is more something that comes about when realizations of the moment in ordinary people
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convince them that they have to do something to change destiny as they understand it.
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And they don't do it the day before. They don't do it the day after. And rarely do they do it more
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than once. And therefore, I'm not sure that the life you lead up to that moment has much relevance
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to it, other than being taught to be determined and having confidence, things like that. But they
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don't know that there's much that the family imparts to you or that education imparts to you.
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Okay. Was there an expectation that you would serve in the military, you know, follow your
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No. I, in fact, pledged my fraternity at the University of Indiana because that was one of the
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better swimming teams in America. And then I went to Yale University and picked my college,
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uh, which was the one that all the swimmers went to. And by chance, my father said,
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did we try to go see West Point? And I said, where is it? He said, well, it's around here
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somewhere. And we were coming back from New Haven, heading back to, uh, St. Louis. And, uh, I was
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driving. He said, look, uh, it's gotta be on the Hudson River. Let's just go up the Hudson River.
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And I said, well, West Point's gotta be on the East Bank pointing West. So we got in the car and
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drove up only to find after we'd been driving about two hours up the Hudson that a man at
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the gas station in Poughkeepsie told us that no, it was not on the East Bank pointing West.
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It was on the West Bank pointing East. And so we went back down, found it, uh, met Jack
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Ryan, who was the coach, spent the evening, uh, went back and talked to my athletic director
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about what I'd seen and what I'd heard. And he told me, he says, if you go to West Point for
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one day and then quit, go to Indiana or Yale, you will be a better person for it the rest
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of your life. And I thought that was a pretty convincing thing to say, cause rarely does,
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does a young kid get offered a chance to do something that in the eyes of adults, especially
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adults, he or she respects, uh, could be a life changing experience. So I told West Point
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I would come fully expecting I'd be gone by September and at Yale or Indiana. And I remember
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looking in the mirror, December 5th, we were getting ready to swim Yale and I forgot to tell
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him I wasn't coming. And I called the coach and I said, coach, you know, my gosh, I didn't
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tell coach Moriarty, I'm not coming. I said, he knows you're not. Don't worry. So no West Point
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was something that was totally by chance in a career in the military. My father would be the
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type of person to say, if you decide to do that, you're on your own. Just like when I
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decided to go to West Point, he said, you're doing that on your own. We'll see you when
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you graduate. And they only visited twice during the entire four years. Uh, and his point was
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that if parents push kids to do something that may demands of them sacrifice, it's very easy
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for the children to turn around and blame the family if things don't go well. And my father
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always been one that you pick, you choose to do something that's difficult. You're on
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your own. Good luck. We'll cheer for you. We'll pray for you. We'll hope everything goes
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well, but don't look to us for an excuse for quitting. You decided to go yourself. Don't
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quit. You've been taught not to quit, but we've always also taught you to pick the things
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that you choose to be non-quitter in. Um, and going to West Point was one of those that
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he said he wanted to make it absolutely clear. He thought I was nuts, even though he was a
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colonel in the army. He, he was a, uh, son of the depression. He said, you don't know what
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it would be like to go into Yale on a full scholarship to my generation, how you can turn
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it down. I don't know. And I said, maybe I'm not turning it down. I'll be there in September.
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Well, lo and behold, I was there in December. So West Point, what was it about West Point that
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made you stay? There was a certain excitement. There was a buzz, um, among the cadets. I went
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and ate dinner in the mess hall. And there was that, at that time, 2,800 cadets. Now we have
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4,400 cadets, 2,800. And, and there was just something about all 28 eating together. And the
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athletes had their own section, not that they could be slovenly or come less well-dressed
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than the rest. No, everybody looked alike. The clothes were the same, everything. No one
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got any shortcuts on that. The athletic teams for camaraderie purposes ate together. And I
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just thought that was kind of, that was kind of a neat environment to be in. Again, I was
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young, I was 17 years old, impressionable at the time, but there, this buzz that was in the
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room, this excitement, it was very attractive and made me want to see what it was like.
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Very good. Um, so you had a, so you went to West Point and you didn't go into serve,
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the military service right away. Uh, you went to Stanford to get your MBA after graduating from
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West Point. Why did you decide to do that? Well, first of all, remember I went to Stanford as a
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second lieutenant. So I took the oath along with everybody else graduated, except my first duty
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assignment was the graduate school business at Stanford or others. Their first duty assignment
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might've been Fort Sill, um, Fort Campbell or Fort Benning for airborne and ranger school.
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My first assignment from the military as a second lieutenant was to go to Stanford,
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which meant I would graduate from Stanford as a first lieutenant, having never been in the military
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technically. Uh, but the reason I chose it is that the army had made a policy change the year before
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when due to air forces offered to the top 5% academically at the air force academy and any of
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the other top 5% from the other academies who chose to go air force, they would give them the chance
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because of their academic achievement to go to the graduate school of their choice at the time of
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their choice in the subject of their choice. All they had to do is get in and the rest was paid for.
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So I started thinking, this is probably not a bad idea. I owed the army four years for West Point.
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And then I would owe them four years for going to Stanford.
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But the two years at Stanford counted for my first two years do West Point. And then the next two years
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counted for my first two for Stanford and my last two for West Point, which meant that I got six years
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of college education for four years of obligation. But the, the reason for picking it was that I went
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through my academic experience and basically said, you know, the one thing I know nothing about
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is business. And that perhaps it would be wise to get that under my belt as well. So I went about,
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I applied to Stanford and Harvard and got into both and picked Stanford. And then I picked Stanford
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in March. I'll never forget it. I, it was March 31st, I believe it was, and it was 30 degrees and raining
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with a foot of wet snow on the ground, which is very typical in West Point. So I called Harvard
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and I said, what's the weather like? And the lady said, what? I said, what's the weather? She said,
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I thought you were calling about telling her you're going to matriculate or not. I said, yes, I am.
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But at first I want to know what the weather's like. And, uh, she said, well, it's probably the same
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as yours. It's 30 degrees raining. We've got about six to eight inches of wet snow on the ground.
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And I said, can I call you back in a half hour? She said, sure. So I called Stanford and I said,
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what's the weather like? And the registrar of the business school said 70 degrees, not a cloud in
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the sky. I've been that way for six months. I said, can you put down Paul W. Buca will be attending
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Stanford. So that's, I went, I was a young, I mean, my gosh, just graduated from college essentially.
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And went to the Stanford business school as a second Lieutenant graduated, first Lieutenant
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while at Stanford where everybody goes, gets a job in the summer, you know, for daddy or they go
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backpacking in Kathmandu or something like that, or work for the dad's bank or go out and get a
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legitimate job to try help to further cost. I decided that since my profession, uh, at the moment
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was being in the United States army that I should go to airborne and ranger school. So in the 91 days
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of holiday break we had for the summer, I fit in 90 days of training at Fort Benning, uh, in first
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the airborne school and then the ranger school. Wow. Which was by the way, unique for a Stanford
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student. Oh, yeah, I imagine. All right. So, um, you, you, did you, did you graduate from Stanford
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before you got shipped off to Vietnam? Oh yeah. I graduated from Stanford in the summer
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of 67, drove to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, excuse me. Um, uh, yeah, drove to Fort Campbell, Kentucky,
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uh, where I was a new arrival. I showed up with low quarter shoes, even though I was an airborne
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ranger, I didn't have jump boots. I didn't have starch fatigues like everybody else. I starched
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my own with hand starts and unfortunately put the insignia on the wrong collar and was standing
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there in low quarter shoes when the brigade commander saw me who I was reporting to. And
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I said, sir, Lieutenant, you cover. He said, I know who the hell you are. I just can't figure
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out what you are. Get out of here. And as I was leaving, he said, go stand by that bush
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out there. I'll call you when I want you. And this was six in the morning, six at night.
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He called me and he said, uh, I see you have a master's degree. I bet you're pretty proud
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of that. I said, yes, sir. He said, well, you're going to meet a guy in this unit. He's got
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three master's degrees and he won't be very impressed with you one. I said, sir, I'm very
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confident he'll be impressed when I get a chance to meet him. He says, you're meeting
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him and I'm not impressed. And from that moment on, he was a man that I just idolized. I just
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thought he was one special person. And he told me I was going to have the honor of commanding
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a company in Vietnam and that it was his job to see to it that I was qualified to do so.
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So where were you deployed, uh, exactly in Vietnam?
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Uh, the first deployment we went, we went on operation Eagle thrust, which is there was
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one brigade of the hundred and first already serving in Vietnam at the time, the first
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brigade. So this was when we brought the colors of the whole division over and the other two
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brigades and the headquarters companies and the supporting artillery and armor for the whole
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division. And third brigade, uh, of which I was a part, uh, went to Phuc Vim, which was
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an old French fort in the middle of the rubber plantation area. So it was dense.
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And I, a lot of people are, they're really familiar with world war two because of, you
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know, saving private Ryan and band of brothers and the Pacific. But I feel like a lot of people
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aren't familiar with what war was like in Vietnam. Um, can you describe what the fighting conditions
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were like? I mean, was it, and how it was different from the previous world wars?
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Um, there was no front line. The wire around the place you were sleeping that night was the front
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line. Whereas is the allied forces swept across after North Africa and then into Italy and, uh,
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up through France, there was always a line and you were pushing that line. And as troops fought on the
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front line and were successful, they would consolidate the objective, meaning they would
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set up the defenses and the units behind them would pass through and take up the fight.
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And eventually the unit that won the first battle would be in the back and then it would start all
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over again. So for example, the, a person who served for the duration of world war two,
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the entire time in a combat role would have on average statistics indicate 81 days of combat.
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Whereas in Vietnam, for those on the front line
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in 81 days, you had 81 days of combat, not necessarily hot combat, but you in combat,
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you were looking for the enemy and the enemy was looking for you.
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But the other thing is we had no objective, which to this day, if someone goes back and analyzes
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that war, including why the public turned so, so quickly against the war and why the anger raged
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here at home was that no one could articulate a clear, measurable, finite objective.
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They could articulate wishes like stop communism, but that's not finite until the last person in the
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last book is destroyed. You, you haven't stopped it. It can always resurge. And I mean, it's like
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today destroy ISIL. How does one go about doing that? You would have to kill each and every person
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from here to eternity who embraces the ISIL ideology. But if you took world war two, it was absolute
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surrender of Germany. So what it was is you had to drive against the German and Japan forces until
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such time as they were willing to sign an unconditional surrender.
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Or, uh, you could take George Bush, the first battle in Kuwait, when he said during desert storm,
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the objective is to push the, uh, the Iraqi force out of the country of Kuwait.
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That was pretty simple. If you stood on the border, when the last Iraqi Jeep went across, it was over
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and people criticized and said, you should have gone to Baghdad. And Bush, who had fought in world war
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too, said that wasn't the objective. And therefore we will not do that.
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And the country, what was over in 37 days, whereas Vietnam dragged on and on the mission I would get
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as a company commander would be go to this area, X, Y conduct search and destroy operations
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until told to move somewhere else. And when we would move, the bad guys would come back
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and go to another place and we'd move around. And it was as if we were trying to win a war of
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attrition, but that wasn't an articulated objective. And if you thought about it, if that's what you
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wanted with the population center that Southeast Asia is, uh, and the neighboring countries, albeit
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Vietnam and China were, uh, historical enemies, they'd linked for this particular, uh, endeavor,
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um, especially after Mao, that there was no end. I mean, you, you, you couldn't destroy them all.
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You couldn't kill them all. So you had, someone had to come up with an objective and no one did it.
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Hmm. Was that frustrating for the men on the ground?
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It was frustrating because when many of them would say, what do we got to do to get home?
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And the answer would be survive 12 months. That's, that's not a very professional or wise way to
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expend your youth. Yeah. And that's, that's the problem. There's a bitter taste in wars like that.
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And by the way, all other subsequent wars after George first, the first had been fought the same
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way. There is no clear, concise, finite, measurable objective. And that's the frustrating part.
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When do we come home from Afghanistan? When we succeed, what is success? Well,
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I haven't figured that one out yet. And it's, it's part of the debate that has to go on before you
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commit your youth to war. And the reason you have to do it is once you have, and it, and by it's not
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the military's job, it's the civilian's job. It is not the military's at all. Civilians have to
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conclude because the military is subordinate to the civilian leaders in this land. Civilian leaders have
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to decide why are we considering going into combat? What is it we hope to achieve specifically,
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finitely, and in a measurable format so we can judge progress to or from success? And once they do
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that, you turn it over to the military and say, how long will this take and what will it cost?
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Then the civilian leaders can say, whew, that's too expensive. Is it worth it?
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But we haven't gone through that process. We get surprised. I mean, Stiglitz and
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Billnitz have written a document now that this was the $7 trillion war.
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$7 trillion. And if someone said, what would you achieve by, well, we would have gotten rid of
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Saddam Hussein, but the country of Iraq would be in a very unstable position. Afghanistan would be on
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the verge of reverting back to Taliban control, at least in major areas of the country. And someone
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said, for 5,000 lives and $7 trillion? I don't think so. And that's, that's the sad part. Now,
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the beauty is contemporary society, our contemporary communities do not confuse the warrior with the
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war. The frustration people have with these wars has not yet been focused and directed at
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or burdened upon the men and women who are set to fight the war. And that's good.
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Um, what did you learn about, I guess, men and like how men relate to each other from serving in
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the war? Because I've, I've read in just accounts, uh, there's a journalist, Sebastian Younger, who
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wrote the book war, uh, wrote just about the camaraderie that he's never seen anywhere else. Did you see
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that as well, uh, with the men you served with? I don't use a camaraderie. I say that is the most
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intense love that exists on the planet. And the reason for it is you have to be willing
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to give up your life for that person. And you know it. I mean, it's not like that's in an anomaly.
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That's part of the course of events in war. And for men and women to be willing to do that for each
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other transcends anything that might be described by the word camaraderie. But I don't think it
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transcends the word love. And my men came from all over the place. They were, they were considered
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the clerks and the jerks because the jerks, because vast majority had stockade time and
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clerks, because a very few had extremely high degrees and they were draftees who had, might
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have a degree in master's degree in English or in Elizabethan literature or something like
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that. And they were the speechwriters for many of the generals. And as we mobilized with
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Vietnam at the peak during this period, which is when we went full score or way over the 500,000
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troop level, no one needed a speechwriter. So they got sent to me and no one wanted the stockade
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people. So they were sent to me. So my particular group were considered the losers of all losers.
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And me as a company commander who had never been Vietnam, the only one in the whole 101st who had
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not yet been there, I too was a loser. So we were sort of meant for each other. Differences,
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the men didn't like that. The stockade guys said, look, if I can go back to the stockade and I'll have
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to go to Vietnam with this guy, send me. I'll go. I'll gladly go. I don't want to send me with a
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person who's been there three or four times. You got me. Well, we trained together, worked together,
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stuck together. And out of that came almost this mystical bond among us. And it got to the point
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where everybody else had lost a lot of people because when we came over, the 101st was immediately
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subjected to combat. And because of who my men were, no one wanted us around. So we, we were sent
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out on all these tough missions that we had not lost anybody. It got to the point where someone
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said, we'll send you trucks. We'd say, no, thank you. We'll walk. We'll send you helicopters from the
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82nd. We'd say, no, thank you. If it's not our helicopters, we're going to walk.
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And I couldn't even get people to go on R&R for a while. And so it's a mystical love that comes
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about the, from the realization that in order to be part of this group, you have to be prepared to
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die for the others. That's powerful. Um, so let's talk about the events that eventually led up to your
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medal of honors, um, citation. What happened that, um, that, I guess that fateful day?
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I mean, that, uh, well, there's three days. Okay.
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It's actually more than that. We were, we were, God knows, we were somewhere near Cambodia.
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We had been, um, uh, during Tet, we were brought in to ensure that Comus Mac Lee, the commanding
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general of the United States forces in Vietnam, Westmoreland, particularly in his headquarters,
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which came under attack during the Tet offensive. Uh, the first unit was there was, uh, Wolfhounds's
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nickname. And they went through the basic load of ammunition in like the first three days.
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So I got a call. Westmoreland knew me from West Point. His wife was likely my surrogate mother.
00:26:01.320
Since my parents weren't showing up, if I was, when I made all American or if I got a group, uh,
00:26:06.240
distinguished cadet award for my academics, she would stand there with me and she would come to
00:26:12.900
all the swimming meets. She was a fan of the swimming team. And then because I was in charge
00:26:17.260
of the quote hop committee, which meant social events for my class, I had to introduce the
00:26:22.880
superintendent at every receiving line to the guests. So I got to know the general. Well, my unit was
00:26:30.340
a company within the 187th Airborne Regiment, which he commanded in Korea, the one that which jumped
00:26:37.760
into Incheon. Plus he had been the commanding general of 111st. So if you put it all together,
00:26:42.920
I knew him, he knew me, this was his unit, both of his units. And he said, send in Delta Company,
00:26:49.500
third of the 187th to protect us. So first thing I did is I got, made sure I knew what my orders were
00:26:57.540
and they were to make sure that this place is invulnerable, uh, and make sure it looks like
00:27:04.420
it's just bristling with combat forces ready to do harm. So I tore down the pastel air raid
00:27:12.800
shelters. And since the North Vietnamese didn't have any airplanes, I didn't know why we had air
00:27:17.360
raid shelters. And I made them to pew bunkers, which sent the entire headquarters, la la land on me.
00:27:22.960
They just said, Oh my God, everybody will think we're in a war zone. I said, well, we are, I think.
00:27:28.440
And we were there for three weeks. We didn't fire around. No one got hurt. And we took care of
00:27:33.860
everybody. And it was just my guys, they were very tough, disciplined people. And they had,
00:27:39.440
they knew the difference between a threat and a perceived threat. And in this, in that particular
00:27:45.860
role, it was very important that, you know, we not fire our weapons excessively, uh, because you
00:27:53.520
never know when you might really need all the ammunition, should they be a major, uh, confrontation.
00:27:59.360
And after we did that job for three weeks, we were sent back out to the boonies and I got a call
00:28:04.860
on the radio saying, you're going to be picked up, got a new mission. You're going to basically what
00:28:11.060
they told us your company is going to be the lead element in the counter Tet offensive, trying to
00:28:15.800
maintain contact with and engage in combat. Those forces withdrawing from Saigon, trying to head for
00:28:23.940
the Ho Chi Minh trail. And so that's what the operation was. They inserted us into a landing zone where
00:28:31.200
there was no artillery support because we were beyond that. We were dependent totally on air
00:28:36.500
power. And two or three hours after we landed, like the proverbial dog, we caught him. Uh, the dog
00:28:46.380
catches the bus. We caught the NVA VC battalion with an S and we stayed engaged with him for two to
00:28:53.660
three days. And then, and we moved at night. We never, the philosophy at the time was to form
00:28:59.480
these night defensive perimeters. And I just did not see the logic of that. That meant make all this
00:29:04.440
noise, bringing in all this equipment for the NVA and VC, know where you are exactly where you are.
00:29:11.980
And then your job is to, I guess, coax them to attack you and be believing in your defensive
00:29:18.400
structure. You will kill a lot of them. Well, that didn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me
00:29:24.440
because you don't pick a fight with someone huge compared to yourself. You might be forced to fight
00:29:31.580
it, but you don't pick that fight. So what we did is we followed more of a ranger philosophy and we
00:29:37.180
moved at night, same as they did. And we had chance meetings. So instead of sitting in the middle of a
00:29:43.340
field with barbed wire around us, we would be in the middle of the jungle moving just as quietly as they
00:29:48.260
and periodically we would engage them. And that was our way of staying in touch with them because
00:29:53.960
we knew then they moved at night, we would move with them. And the 18th, 19th, so the last day of
00:30:03.100
the period, I had everybody refueled and resupplied with that new ammunition. We pressed off into the
00:30:11.480
jungle and one of my men said, can I request permission to fire, recon by fire? And I
00:30:18.240
said, why? He said, I've seen water carriers. I've seen women. I don't want to get involved in
00:30:25.200
direct combat until I know what's here. And he said, they don't see us as a large force. We weren't
00:30:31.600
very large. We're 89, but the group that was out front of us was three people. And he fired maybe
00:30:37.940
four rounds and the entire mountain unloaded on us. And at that point I said, oops, we caught the bus
00:30:47.000
and that was, that ended up being the challenges. How could we, they were estimated we didn't, no one
00:30:54.140
knows because they would withdraw before daylight, but because of circumstances I had, um, five or six
00:31:01.020
of the men had been cut off and were actually behind the NBA VC lines and alive and survived.
00:31:07.660
And so they were able to be debriefed and told everybody what it looked like from the enemy side.
00:31:13.280
And as it turned out from the people that were killed on the battlefield that we pulled the insignia
00:31:18.080
of and things like that, if this was a North Vietnamese regular unit and a VC unit, uh, the VC unit was
00:31:28.880
the Dong Nai battalion, which was one of the most respected of their regular fighting units,
00:31:34.860
uh, Viet Cong, VC. And they had the same kind of a unit, which was more of a special ops unit,
00:31:41.640
uh, probably a sapper unit that was coming out of Saigon with the people to bring in explosives.
00:31:46.940
Uh, and we stumbled on them when they were trying to take a break and I guess they didn't like it
00:31:53.720
because they were mad. So, but at the end of the day, um, these guys who were the losers
00:32:02.280
and everybody's opinion ended up being one of the most highly decorated, most, some people have
00:32:09.460
told me the most highly decorated, but I believe there's always a chance where we might not have
00:32:14.180
counted it correctly. One of the most highly decorated unit in the entire history of the Vietnam War.
00:32:19.180
Wow. Um, when did, and tremendous lesson in that, right? For all of us to not prejudge people,
00:32:26.180
Oh yeah. But give them, give them a chance to prove what they are as opposed to presuming, you know,
00:32:30.840
you know. When did you find out that you would receive the medal of honor?
00:32:36.460
Oh, I didn't know anything about it. I, I, uh, I, I heard my men put me in for the Distinguished
00:32:41.780
Service Cross and, uh, I've had, that was awarded to me at, um, Fort Knox while I was going to school
00:32:51.820
after I came back from Vietnam. And then I got a call. I mean, I'd heard people say, Oh my God,
00:32:58.560
that should be the medal of honor. Some of my men wrote me notes from hospitals and I hope to give
00:33:02.960
you the medal of honor for this, this kind of stuff. All of which was, in my opinion, um,
00:33:09.380
enthusiastic response once people realized that they were still alive. Um, and I was bothered by
00:33:18.540
even the Distinguished Service Cross because I lost 10 men. And there's something that's a disconnect
00:33:23.960
between giving someone a medal, which will be honored and revered by others who on their
00:33:34.260
list of accomplishments, uh, that they lost 10 men. Now people say, Oh my God, you could have
00:33:40.640
lost everybody. Fine. But I lost 10. And I had an understanding with my men. I asked them,
00:33:47.880
look, I'm new at this, but I'm not stupid. I've been trained to do this the right way.
00:33:55.800
If you trust me and do as I say and request of you, I will get you home.
00:34:04.160
And 10 guys didn't make it. So, well, anyway, one day I was told, I couldn't understand this,
00:34:13.680
that someone in the personnel office of military told me, you know, the chances of you going to
00:34:17.500
Vietnam again in the near future are slim. I couldn't figure that out. I said, why? I'm an
00:34:24.220
infantry officer. And they said, no, uh, you have any job you might like to do. We could normally
00:34:31.720
send you to business school or graduate school. You've already done that. We could send you to
00:34:36.360
be a staff officer. You've already done that, except you did it in combat. Got any other ideas? I said,
00:34:41.900
well, I could go teach at West Point. And they said, that'd be great. And I couldn't, I never understood
00:34:46.000
that. Then when I was at West Point, um, in May, actually it was, yeah, early May in 1970,
00:34:55.720
the, uh, Sergeant called me and said, actually, when the first call was from, uh, Colonel Hamlin,
00:35:01.720
who was my, uh, uh, director at West Point, he was in charge of me. He was now a general,
00:35:08.980
inspector general of the army. And, uh, he called me to tell me about that. I'd be receiving a phone
00:35:15.440
call because they had upgraded the distinguished service cost of metal armor. When the Sergeant
00:35:21.040
called and told me that, I said, you know, no, thank you. He said, what? I said, no, thanks.
00:35:27.500
I don't deserve it. And he said, can I talk to you candidly and off the record without military
00:35:33.760
protocol? I said, yeah. And he cussed me out one side and down the other. He said, who the hell do
00:35:38.380
you think you are? This isn't for you to decide this. You're not, we didn't win this medal. You're
00:35:43.600
going to have to wear it. You wear it for your men. Wow. I said, what time do I have to be there, sir?
00:35:51.280
But so going into that idea, I mean, you, you had, there was some hesitancy for you to take on that
00:35:58.040
medal. And I, I've, I imagine, um, I mean, there's just this supreme heavy, I guess, I don't know,
00:36:06.340
I don't know if weight's the right word, but like sense of obligation, duty, responsibility that comes
00:36:12.020
when someone earns our nation's highest honor for the military. And I, and I've read accounts of
00:36:18.120
soldiers who were also similarly, you know, honored with the medal of honor and they didn't
00:36:23.860
handle, I guess, the spotlight or that simple, that, that, the heaviness of it very well. I
00:36:31.540
mean, what do you think separates, I mean, what, what happens, I mean, between a man who, you
00:36:36.020
know, or a soldier who can take on the mantle, the medal of honor and those who, who can do
00:36:41.740
Well, I, I don't think it is the fault of the recipient. They didn't ask for it. Yeah. It's how
00:36:52.000
we treat them. And the best way it is, is if I brought all the medal of honor recipients into one
00:37:00.720
room, you looked at them and I didn't tell you who they were. You would say they look like anybody
00:37:07.560
else. And the reason you'd say that is they are just like anybody else. They're not special.
00:37:15.780
There's nothing innate and different about them, except this potential that we realize every
00:37:23.840
single person we meet has to challenge destiny. That potential was called upon by each of these
00:37:35.240
men. Because they found this mysterious confluence of time and circumstances that gives rise
00:37:43.200
to being able to perceive, to see, to recognize your fate, destiny, as it will be absent any
00:37:53.620
change. And when you see it, you refuse to accept it. And you say, not today. And you do
00:38:03.780
something. God knows what you're doing. I mean, you dive on a hand grenade. That's one. I mean,
00:38:09.300
men didn't do that. I mean, it's extraordinary. Uh, you pick up a weapon and you go kill a lot of
00:38:15.200
people. You pick up with a wounded soldier and you throw him on your back and you can save him and
00:38:20.040
rescue him. You're a pilot. You decide to crash land your airplane to try to take care of some
00:38:24.520
prisoners of war that you see are escaping so that you can help them. Uh, or a helicopter pilot goes
00:38:30.920
where everybody tells him not to go to try to pick up the wounded. And they know, and they say,
00:38:36.400
look, I can, I can go back. But faith, destiny, as I see it, is those kids are going to die.
00:38:42.400
They're going to die. And I'm going to live with that. The rest of my life, no way is that going
00:38:45.880
to be my fate. I'm going to go get them. Or a young lady gets on a bus like she did every other day
00:38:54.060
in Montgomery, Alabama, walks halfway down, sees the sign coloreds in back. And she says,
00:39:01.160
not today. And sits down on that bus seat in the middle of the bus and refuses to move.
00:39:08.980
Yet she's seen people have dogs sicked on her. Batons used to beat them, fire hoses to blast them.
00:39:17.300
And in fact, people being shot. And yet she sat down and nobody gave her a medal.
00:39:26.940
But Rosa Parks changed Montgomery. She changed the United States. She changed the world.
00:39:32.640
She saw her destiny in her mind. If I go back there, I will forever be in the back of a bus.
00:39:38.040
So I think that's what occurs. And each of us has that potential. Every single person you meet.
00:39:48.100
And if we would only treat each other as that potential deserves to be treated,
00:39:53.160
just think how more civilized we would be to one another. Whereas now you slap the little
00:39:58.440
ribbon around your neck with the ribbon of blue and everybody stands up and cheers.
00:40:01.800
And the mistake people make is to say that we who wear that ribbon say, we deserve the cheering.
00:40:10.100
We don't. But the men and women with whom we served and those who were not recognized deserve it.
00:40:19.500
And therefore, we accept your applause. We accept your celebration, not for us,
00:40:28.280
but for the men and women with whom we served. Now, what makes it difficult is when people don't
00:40:35.140
accept that. People don't know when to say, you're a hero. Come do this. And if you're 21 years old and
00:40:44.260
everywhere you go, everybody's opening the door and doing all this stuff for you and you won't let
00:40:49.080
you have to hang around with the generals. You can't go be the sergeant that hangs around with the
00:41:00.160
And I imagine there's also, I mean, some exploitation going on. I'm sure people will see this, you know,
00:41:05.020
a young man has a medal of honor and they're like, hmm, you know, maybe I could use this guy for
00:41:13.380
Yeah, I'm sure. And that's not only in the military, it's in civilian life.
00:41:17.520
Yeah. And that's, that's in, I mean, like the kid that wins, becomes the world chess champion.
00:41:24.180
All of a sudden, people who you know have never picked up a chess piece in their entire life
00:41:28.740
become aficionados of chess and have this guy hanging around with them.
00:41:34.700
So, I mean, there's always that. I mean, we, we in our society, uh, have an enormous,
00:41:41.980
um, an enormous fascination, um, and almost, uh, an awe when it comes to celebrity.
00:41:54.000
And I think that's one of our failings and the medal honor recipients, many people think
00:42:01.040
benefit from it, but I think their lives would be easier where the celebrity, not to single
00:42:07.100
them out because in many celebrities, you get singled out until while you're in vogue and
00:42:11.240
you're gone. Yeah. That's also tough for people, especially young people that come up from the
00:42:18.240
ranks and get it when they're private first class and the rest of their life, this is something that's
00:42:23.560
going to be there. There, there comes a time when the spotlight's turned and that's a difficult
00:42:28.340
time for many people. Um, you were, I saw in your bio that you were at one time the, the president
00:42:34.720
of the Medal of Honor Society. Yes. Um, I mean, is there a sort of a fraternity? I mean, is the
00:42:41.100
right word for people who receive the Medal of Honor? Yep. There's a society. There is. And for
00:42:48.340
which there is only one criteria. You must be a recipient of the Medal of Honor, period.
00:42:53.700
Mm-hmm. And there's no grounds for expulsion. So you can be the meanest, baddest crook in the world.
00:43:01.900
Yes. And if you have the medal, you're a member of the society.
00:43:06.620
What do you all do? Do you have like, you know, yearly meetings or?
00:43:09.580
We get together. We do that. Now we try to use the platforms that we've been given and the
00:43:17.860
That's fantastic. Um, so what, looking back on your service in the military, uh, and particularly
00:43:27.180
your service in Vietnam, what, what lessons did you take from that, that helped you in
00:43:32.320
Um, perhaps, perhaps the most one, the unlimited potential that each person has.
00:43:47.180
I mean, when you, you, you, you see these people brought from disparate parts of the country
00:43:51.160
and in Vietnam, they were arriving as single people. They weren't arriving as units and, and
00:43:56.780
leaving as units. You left as a survivor. It was, there weren't the 10 month survivors. No, you
00:44:03.700
either survived 12 months or you're already gone home. So they came as individuals and they returned
00:44:10.720
as individuals. And as a result, you have to know them and recognize them as individuals. And what you
00:44:18.800
come to the conclusion is each and every one of them has this enormous potential to do
00:44:23.800
extraordinary things. Okay. This is the last question. Um, I, I, next year, I, I believe
00:44:32.180
is the 40th anniversary for the end of the Vietnam war. Is that correct?
00:44:36.080
Well, we were, what we call it, I'm on the commission. It's the 50th anniversary of the
00:44:40.320
beginning of the war. Okay. 50th anniversary and the 40th, the beginning 50th of the, 50th
00:44:47.000
for the beginning of the war. Cause we're not really sure when it ended. We're not sure when
00:44:50.280
it started. Okay. I mean, it's been a while, so we have the, you know, we have the, uh,
00:44:54.760
distance of time. What, I guess, what do you hope listeners know and understand about the
00:45:00.340
war in Vietnam and the men who fought in it that they might not know and understand about
00:45:04.860
right now? Well, the most, most important thing is that, uh, these were warriors, uh, selected
00:45:11.140
by the country, not by themselves to go to a far off land whose location, most of them
00:45:16.720
couldn't find on a map, the language they did not speak in, the culture they did not
00:45:20.640
understand, but they went. And that incurs an IOU from society. And therefore, when PTS
00:45:32.480
sets in, some of it's immediate, but in most cases like mine, it took 40 some odd years to
00:45:38.340
set in, um, we owe them. No one owes me, but we owe them and we owe them the finest medical
00:45:49.080
care that can, this country can provide. We owe them a job when the economy pulls a rug
00:45:55.580
out from underneath them and the manufacturing jobs, which they've had and made a career out
00:46:00.380
of disappear. We owe them because they did something for us and they will continue to bear the burden
00:46:08.080
of that service in war the rest of their lives. And therefore we have an obligation that goes
00:46:13.440
along simultaneously with that congruent to their life. And that is to see that they can
00:46:20.460
have a job. And if we have to, we have to retrain them. And if you don't agree with that, don't
00:46:26.420
send them. They didn't ask to go. This wasn't their idea. Someone came up with this concept
00:46:34.320
of the dominoes falling. That would justify it. And most of them would say, what the hell
00:46:40.400
is the domino? The domino is a little black box. Why am I in Vietnam for the dominoes?
00:46:45.120
Well, Vietnam is a domino. And I would explain it to my men and say, ah, some general came
00:46:50.620
up with that. And interesting enough, and that wasn't the general because the general was just
00:46:56.660
disparaging. It was a politician who came up with that. So what you learn is that there's
00:47:03.760
this tremendous obligation the country has to those who wear the uniform or have worn the
00:47:07.660
uniform and their families. And you can't escape that obligation. Period. You cannot. And it's
00:47:16.280
expensive. And unfortunately, you should have thought of that before you sent them.
00:47:21.460
The other thing is, is this thing I repeated earlier, the, that each one of these kids who
00:47:29.880
went over there performed in such an extraordinary way. They didn't lose a battle, not a battle
00:47:36.260
in the war. The problem is there were more, more coming in than they could kill. And that
00:47:43.440
was the only course of action that the political geniuses of the time thought of. Kill everybody.
00:47:51.460
That's how we'll know who's going to kill the VC. That's why they started counting body
00:47:55.220
counts. But the people taking the body counts didn't realize that these soldiers also had
00:48:01.840
a sense of humor and realized how silly it is to ask us how many people you killed. What
00:48:08.220
difference did they make? You didn't have a finite supply coming. And therefore, if you
00:48:14.380
killed 10% of it, they only hit 90. No, there was an infinite supply. So you didn't do anything.
00:48:20.320
You just didn't accomplish anything. Well, these soldiers adopted that somewhat cynical attitude.
00:48:26.200
And you would hear them, I hear my radio telephone operator after a battle, he'd say we had
00:48:30.540
15 VC killed, four estimated to be wounded. No one said, Oh, how do you know? They would
00:48:41.200
just say it. And then they would say, wait, you know, a thousand pounds of rice, this and
00:48:46.080
that, and forced diet Coke cans. And he was, yes, sir, diet Coke cans. You'd hear him say,
00:48:53.960
and I would say, well, what do you mean diet Coke cans? And when he got out, he said, sir,
00:48:57.760
there's some guy counting up the number of diet Coke cans here in Vietnam. I know there
00:49:01.160
is there's gotta be. And you come, you come to love these people because they, in the middle
00:49:07.220
of a, of an experience, which could take their life any second, they got this somewhat cynical
00:49:13.960
sense of humor. Well, Paul Buca, thank you so much for your time. Uh, this has been a,
00:49:19.420
just an enjoyable conversation. Thank you. I appreciate it. God bless you. Thank you.
00:49:24.840
Our guest today was Paul Buca. He is a Vietnam war veteran, as well as a recipient of the medal
00:49:29.840
of honor. And if you're looking for more information about the medal of honor, the history
00:49:33.720
behind it, definitely recommend checking out a new book called the medal of honor, a history of
00:49:37.680
service above and beyond. You'll learn how the medal of honor came about, why we have it. And you'll
00:49:42.900
also learn about some of the stories of the men and women who have received our nation's highest
00:49:47.480
honor for our armed services. So check it out. You can find that on amazon.com.
00:49:51.720
Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,
00:49:57.520
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy
00:50:01.580
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00:50:06.140
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00:50:10.700
And also FYI, we now have transcripts of all of our podcast and text form on the site. So you can go
00:50:16.800
to artofmanliness.com slash category slash podcast, look through the archives of our podcast, and
00:50:22.220
you'll also find text transcriptions. So if you want to read through and not just listen through
00:50:27.740
the podcast, you can do that. So until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.