The Art of Manliness - #89 A Talk with Medal of Honor Recipient Paul Bucha

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:19.600 Well, earlier this week, it was Veterans Day in the United States. And today I have the pleasure

00:00:24.680 in honor of speaking to a Vietnam War veteran and also a Medal of Honor recipient. His name

00:00:30.360 is Paul Bucca. And today we're going to discuss Captain Bucca's service in the Vietnam War.

00:00:35.800 We'll discuss the events that led up to his Medal of Honor citation. We're going to talk

00:00:41.120 about what it's like being a recipient of the Medal of Honor and the burden of responsibility

00:00:45.260 that comes with that. We'll also be discussing what he learned from his service in Vietnam

00:00:50.500 and what he hopes civilians understand about the war and what lessons we can take from

00:00:54.880 it as we approach the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War. It's a fascinating 0.93

00:01:00.420 discussion with a very fascinating and he's a heroic man. So let's get on with the show.

00:01:10.260 Paul Bucca, welcome to the show.

00:01:12.200 My pleasure.

00:01:12.960 So you are a Vietnam War veteran and also a recipient of the Medal of Honor. But before we get there,

00:01:18.840 let's talk about your life before you joined the military, because I'm sure people are curious

00:01:23.580 on maybe there was something in the life of a Medal of Honor recipient when they were young that

00:01:28.540 helped them become a Medal of Honor recipient. What was your life like before military service?

00:01:34.220 I was an Army brat.

00:01:36.060 Okay.

00:01:36.980 And we traveled to Germany and Japan and all around the United States.

00:01:42.300 But I guess most of my time, besides trying to do well in school, because my mother and father

00:01:48.820 were very strict when it came to that, I would say, at a very early age, a competitive swimmer.

00:01:55.680 And that allowed me to travel as well, because we went all over the United States swimming.

00:02:00.380 And when I got to Japan, my father had originally, because I had found quite a bit of success in

00:02:05.960 swimming, had enrolled me in the Georgia Military Academy with several other swimmers, because

00:02:11.700 they were trying to assemble a prep school championship team down there. And I was originally

00:02:17.940 scheduled to go there, but I made the decision that anything could happen in swimming or in

00:02:23.560 any sport when you bet your future on it. You do everything to make the Olympics, and God

00:02:28.620 forbid you have a broken leg and you miss your Olympics.

00:02:31.780 So I just told my dad that I understood it probably would mean that I would fall behind

00:02:37.580 my contemporaries in the States, but I wanted to go to Japan with the family.

00:02:41.680 And I went to Japan with the family, and I swam. They didn't have an indoor pool, except

00:02:46.180 at the Fujio Hotel, which is about 100 miles away. There was only one in the country.

00:02:50.380 The rest were hot baths. So I played basketball, football, and baseball. Summer, I swam.

00:02:56.200 And in the winter, I tried to one day a week swim, and I would go to a large hot bath I knew

00:03:02.520 about, put my goggles on, and the Japanese people would separate and give me a path to 1.00

00:03:07.420 swim back and forth for a half hour or so. So I had a very ordinary life in the sense of

00:03:13.540 the military family. And I don't think that the Medal of Honor really finds any genesis in the life

00:03:26.660 before. It is more something that comes about when realizations of the moment in ordinary people

00:03:37.140 convince them that they have to do something to change destiny as they understand it.

00:03:44.020 And they don't do it the day before. They don't do it the day after. And rarely do they do it more

00:03:47.740 than once. And therefore, I'm not sure that the life you lead up to that moment has much relevance

00:03:55.740 to it, other than being taught to be determined and having confidence, things like that. But they

00:04:03.960 don't know that there's much that the family imparts to you or that education imparts to you.

00:04:09.740 Okay. Was there an expectation that you would serve in the military, you know, follow your

00:04:13.680 father's footsteps?

00:04:15.320 No. I, in fact, pledged my fraternity at the University of Indiana because that was one of the

00:04:22.760 better swimming teams in America. And then I went to Yale University and picked my college,

00:04:27.480 uh, which was the one that all the swimmers went to. And by chance, my father said,

00:04:32.760 did we try to go see West Point? And I said, where is it? He said, well, it's around here

00:04:38.000 somewhere. And we were coming back from New Haven, heading back to, uh, St. Louis. And, uh, I was

00:04:44.440 driving. He said, look, uh, it's gotta be on the Hudson River. Let's just go up the Hudson River.

00:04:48.580 And I said, well, West Point's gotta be on the East Bank pointing West. So we got in the car and

00:04:52.980 drove up only to find after we'd been driving about two hours up the Hudson that a man at

00:04:59.140 the gas station in Poughkeepsie told us that no, it was not on the East Bank pointing West.

00:05:03.360 It was on the West Bank pointing East. And so we went back down, found it, uh, met Jack

00:05:09.640 Ryan, who was the coach, spent the evening, uh, went back and talked to my athletic director

00:05:15.400 about what I'd seen and what I'd heard. And he told me, he says, if you go to West Point for

00:05:20.760 one day and then quit, go to Indiana or Yale, you will be a better person for it the rest

00:05:28.560 of your life. And I thought that was a pretty convincing thing to say, cause rarely does,

00:05:33.600 does a young kid get offered a chance to do something that in the eyes of adults, especially

00:05:40.080 adults, he or she respects, uh, could be a life changing experience. So I told West Point

00:05:47.020 I would come fully expecting I'd be gone by September and at Yale or Indiana. And I remember

00:05:53.240 looking in the mirror, December 5th, we were getting ready to swim Yale and I forgot to tell

00:06:00.320 him I wasn't coming. And I called the coach and I said, coach, you know, my gosh, I didn't

00:06:05.080 tell coach Moriarty, I'm not coming. I said, he knows you're not. Don't worry. So no West Point

00:06:10.920 was something that was totally by chance in a career in the military. My father would be the

00:06:14.940 type of person to say, if you decide to do that, you're on your own. Just like when I

00:06:18.560 decided to go to West Point, he said, you're doing that on your own. We'll see you when

00:06:22.240 you graduate. And they only visited twice during the entire four years. Uh, and his point was

00:06:28.060 that if parents push kids to do something that may demands of them sacrifice, it's very easy

00:06:34.740 for the children to turn around and blame the family if things don't go well. And my father

00:06:40.100 always been one that you pick, you choose to do something that's difficult. You're on

00:06:45.420 your own. Good luck. We'll cheer for you. We'll pray for you. We'll hope everything goes

00:06:50.720 well, but don't look to us for an excuse for quitting. You decided to go yourself. Don't

00:06:57.460 quit. You've been taught not to quit, but we've always also taught you to pick the things

00:07:02.560 that you choose to be non-quitter in. Um, and going to West Point was one of those that 1.00

00:07:10.040 he said he wanted to make it absolutely clear. He thought I was nuts, even though he was a

00:07:14.300 colonel in the army. He, he was a, uh, son of the depression. He said, you don't know what

00:07:19.700 it would be like to go into Yale on a full scholarship to my generation, how you can turn

00:07:24.720 it down. I don't know. And I said, maybe I'm not turning it down. I'll be there in September.

00:07:29.680 Well, lo and behold, I was there in December. So West Point, what was it about West Point that

00:07:35.240 made you stay? There was a certain excitement. There was a buzz, um, among the cadets. I went

00:07:43.800 and ate dinner in the mess hall. And there was that, at that time, 2,800 cadets. Now we have

00:07:50.520 4,400 cadets, 2,800. And, and there was just something about all 28 eating together. And the

00:07:59.320 athletes had their own section, not that they could be slovenly or come less well-dressed

00:08:05.880 than the rest. No, everybody looked alike. The clothes were the same, everything. No one

00:08:10.020 got any shortcuts on that. The athletic teams for camaraderie purposes ate together. And I

00:08:17.820 just thought that was kind of, that was kind of a neat environment to be in. Again, I was

00:08:21.920 young, I was 17 years old, impressionable at the time, but there, this buzz that was in the

00:08:26.840 room, this excitement, it was very attractive and made me want to see what it was like.

00:08:34.040 Very good. Um, so you had a, so you went to West Point and you didn't go into serve,

00:08:38.920 the military service right away. Uh, you went to Stanford to get your MBA after graduating from

00:08:44.520 West Point. Why did you decide to do that? Well, first of all, remember I went to Stanford as a

00:08:50.120 second lieutenant. So I took the oath along with everybody else graduated, except my first duty

00:08:56.080 assignment was the graduate school business at Stanford or others. Their first duty assignment

00:09:01.120 might've been Fort Sill, um, Fort Campbell or Fort Benning for airborne and ranger school.

00:09:07.380 My first assignment from the military as a second lieutenant was to go to Stanford,

00:09:12.320 which meant I would graduate from Stanford as a first lieutenant, having never been in the military

00:09:17.000 technically. Uh, but the reason I chose it is that the army had made a policy change the year before

00:09:26.240 when due to air forces offered to the top 5% academically at the air force academy and any of

00:09:35.800 the other top 5% from the other academies who chose to go air force, they would give them the chance

00:09:41.440 because of their academic achievement to go to the graduate school of their choice at the time of

00:09:47.180 their choice in the subject of their choice. All they had to do is get in and the rest was paid for.

00:09:52.420 So I started thinking, this is probably not a bad idea. I owed the army four years for West Point.

00:10:00.900 And then I would owe them four years for going to Stanford.

00:10:04.020 But the two years at Stanford counted for my first two years do West Point. And then the next two years

00:10:16.560 counted for my first two for Stanford and my last two for West Point, which meant that I got six years

00:10:21.060 of college education for four years of obligation. But the, the reason for picking it was that I went

00:10:28.940 through my academic experience and basically said, you know, the one thing I know nothing about

00:10:34.920 is business. And that perhaps it would be wise to get that under my belt as well. So I went about,

00:10:44.660 I applied to Stanford and Harvard and got into both and picked Stanford. And then I picked Stanford

00:10:49.240 in March. I'll never forget it. I, it was March 31st, I believe it was, and it was 30 degrees and raining

00:10:56.040 with a foot of wet snow on the ground, which is very typical in West Point. So I called Harvard

00:11:03.820 and I said, what's the weather like? And the lady said, what? I said, what's the weather? She said,

00:11:09.540 I thought you were calling about telling her you're going to matriculate or not. I said, yes, I am.

00:11:13.540 But at first I want to know what the weather's like. And, uh, she said, well, it's probably the same

00:11:19.140 as yours. It's 30 degrees raining. We've got about six to eight inches of wet snow on the ground.

00:11:23.420 And I said, can I call you back in a half hour? She said, sure. So I called Stanford and I said,

00:11:28.100 what's the weather like? And the registrar of the business school said 70 degrees, not a cloud in

00:11:33.560 the sky. I've been that way for six months. I said, can you put down Paul W. Buca will be attending

00:11:39.480 Stanford. So that's, I went, I was a young, I mean, my gosh, just graduated from college essentially.

00:11:47.820 And went to the Stanford business school as a second Lieutenant graduated, first Lieutenant

00:11:52.080 while at Stanford where everybody goes, gets a job in the summer, you know, for daddy or they go

00:11:57.900 backpacking in Kathmandu or something like that, or work for the dad's bank or go out and get a

00:12:02.980 legitimate job to try help to further cost. I decided that since my profession, uh, at the moment

00:12:10.340 was being in the United States army that I should go to airborne and ranger school. So in the 91 days

00:12:17.140 of holiday break we had for the summer, I fit in 90 days of training at Fort Benning, uh, in first

00:12:24.940 the airborne school and then the ranger school. Wow. Which was by the way, unique for a Stanford

00:12:30.000 student. Oh, yeah, I imagine. All right. So, um, you, you, did you, did you graduate from Stanford

00:12:37.280 before you got shipped off to Vietnam? Oh yeah. I graduated from Stanford in the summer

00:12:43.740 of 67, drove to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, excuse me. Um, uh, yeah, drove to Fort Campbell, Kentucky,

00:12:53.920 uh, where I was a new arrival. I showed up with low quarter shoes, even though I was an airborne

00:12:59.840 ranger, I didn't have jump boots. I didn't have starch fatigues like everybody else. I starched

00:13:05.980 my own with hand starts and unfortunately put the insignia on the wrong collar and was standing

00:13:12.440 there in low quarter shoes when the brigade commander saw me who I was reporting to. And

00:13:18.280 I said, sir, Lieutenant, you cover. He said, I know who the hell you are. I just can't figure 0.99

00:13:22.380 out what you are. Get out of here. And as I was leaving, he said, go stand by that bush

00:13:26.780 out there. I'll call you when I want you. And this was six in the morning, six at night.

00:13:31.600 He called me and he said, uh, I see you have a master's degree. I bet you're pretty proud

00:13:38.580 of that. I said, yes, sir. He said, well, you're going to meet a guy in this unit. He's got

00:13:41.940 three master's degrees and he won't be very impressed with you one. I said, sir, I'm very

00:13:47.260 confident he'll be impressed when I get a chance to meet him. He says, you're meeting

00:13:50.160 him and I'm not impressed. And from that moment on, he was a man that I just idolized. I just

00:13:57.680 thought he was one special person. And he told me I was going to have the honor of commanding

00:14:04.160 a company in Vietnam and that it was his job to see to it that I was qualified to do so.

00:14:10.180 So where were you deployed, uh, exactly in Vietnam?

00:14:13.620 Uh, the first deployment we went, we went on operation Eagle thrust, which is there was

00:14:18.600 one brigade of the hundred and first already serving in Vietnam at the time, the first

00:14:22.160 brigade. So this was when we brought the colors of the whole division over and the other two

00:14:27.080 brigades and the headquarters companies and the supporting artillery and armor for the whole

00:14:32.160 division. And third brigade, uh, of which I was a part, uh, went to Phuc Vim, which was

00:14:40.600 an old French fort in the middle of the rubber plantation area. So it was dense.

00:14:48.600 Low canopy jungle and rubber plantations.

00:14:54.260 And I, a lot of people are, they're really familiar with world war two because of, you

00:14:59.500 know, saving private Ryan and band of brothers and the Pacific. But I feel like a lot of people

00:15:04.740 aren't familiar with what war was like in Vietnam. Um, can you describe what the fighting conditions

00:15:10.420 were like? I mean, was it, and how it was different from the previous world wars?

00:15:13.980 Um, there was no front line. The wire around the place you were sleeping that night was the front

00:15:22.660 line. Whereas is the allied forces swept across after North Africa and then into Italy and, uh,

00:15:31.360 up through France, there was always a line and you were pushing that line. And as troops fought on the

00:15:38.000 front line and were successful, they would consolidate the objective, meaning they would

00:15:43.500 set up the defenses and the units behind them would pass through and take up the fight.

00:15:48.460 And eventually the unit that won the first battle would be in the back and then it would start all

00:15:54.120 over again. So for example, the, a person who served for the duration of world war two,

00:15:59.140 the entire time in a combat role would have on average statistics indicate 81 days of combat.

00:16:08.820 Whereas in Vietnam, for those on the front line

00:16:11.580 in 81 days, you had 81 days of combat, not necessarily hot combat, but you in combat,

00:16:19.980 you were looking for the enemy and the enemy was looking for you.

00:16:22.620 But the other thing is we had no objective, which to this day, if someone goes back and analyzes

00:16:31.860 that war, including why the public turned so, so quickly against the war and why the anger raged

00:16:43.580 here at home was that no one could articulate a clear, measurable, finite objective.

00:16:52.620 They could articulate wishes like stop communism, but that's not finite until the last person in the

00:17:01.860 last book is destroyed. You, you haven't stopped it. It can always resurge. And I mean, it's like

00:17:10.040 today destroy ISIL. How does one go about doing that? You would have to kill each and every person

00:17:19.220 from here to eternity who embraces the ISIL ideology. But if you took world war two, it was absolute 0.99

00:17:32.860 surrender of Germany. So what it was is you had to drive against the German and Japan forces until

00:17:38.380 such time as they were willing to sign an unconditional surrender.

00:17:41.620 Or, uh, you could take George Bush, the first battle in Kuwait, when he said during desert storm,

00:17:50.820 the objective is to push the, uh, the Iraqi force out of the country of Kuwait.

00:17:56.980 That was pretty simple. If you stood on the border, when the last Iraqi Jeep went across, it was over

00:18:02.580 and people criticized and said, you should have gone to Baghdad. And Bush, who had fought in world war

00:18:09.620 too, said that wasn't the objective. And therefore we will not do that.

00:18:17.560 And the country, what was over in 37 days, whereas Vietnam dragged on and on the mission I would get 0.97

00:18:23.760 as a company commander would be go to this area, X, Y conduct search and destroy operations

00:18:30.520 until told to move somewhere else. And when we would move, the bad guys would come back

00:18:37.200 and go to another place and we'd move around. And it was as if we were trying to win a war of

00:18:44.760 attrition, but that wasn't an articulated objective. And if you thought about it, if that's what you

00:18:51.260 wanted with the population center that Southeast Asia is, uh, and the neighboring countries, albeit

00:18:59.940 Vietnam and China were, uh, historical enemies, they'd linked for this particular, uh, endeavor,

00:19:07.500 um, especially after Mao, that there was no end. I mean, you, you, you couldn't destroy them all.

00:19:16.500 You couldn't kill them all. So you had, someone had to come up with an objective and no one did it.

00:19:21.340 Hmm. Was that frustrating for the men on the ground?

00:19:26.140 It was frustrating because when many of them would say, what do we got to do to get home?

00:19:29.460 And the answer would be survive 12 months. That's, that's not a very professional or wise way to

00:19:37.360 expend your youth. Yeah. And that's, that's the problem. There's a bitter taste in wars like that.

00:19:44.280 And by the way, all other subsequent wars after George first, the first had been fought the same

00:19:49.100 way. There is no clear, concise, finite, measurable objective. And that's the frustrating part.

00:19:57.520 When do we come home from Afghanistan? When we succeed, what is success? Well, 0.99

00:20:03.120 I haven't figured that one out yet. And it's, it's part of the debate that has to go on before you

00:20:09.720 commit your youth to war. And the reason you have to do it is once you have, and it, and by it's not

00:20:17.540 the military's job, it's the civilian's job. It is not the military's at all. Civilians have to

00:20:23.180 conclude because the military is subordinate to the civilian leaders in this land. Civilian leaders have

00:20:29.340 to decide why are we considering going into combat? What is it we hope to achieve specifically,

00:20:37.940 finitely, and in a measurable format so we can judge progress to or from success? And once they do

00:20:46.300 that, you turn it over to the military and say, how long will this take and what will it cost?

00:20:50.100 Then the civilian leaders can say, whew, that's too expensive. Is it worth it?

00:20:55.640 But we haven't gone through that process. We get surprised. I mean, Stiglitz and

00:21:00.320 Billnitz have written a document now that this was the $7 trillion war.

00:21:05.780 $7 trillion. And if someone said, what would you achieve by, well, we would have gotten rid of

00:21:12.160 Saddam Hussein, but the country of Iraq would be in a very unstable position. Afghanistan would be on 0.99

00:21:17.840 the verge of reverting back to Taliban control, at least in major areas of the country. And someone

00:21:25.460 said, for 5,000 lives and $7 trillion? I don't think so. And that's, that's the sad part. Now,

00:21:33.680 the beauty is contemporary society, our contemporary communities do not confuse the warrior with the

00:21:41.120 war. The frustration people have with these wars has not yet been focused and directed at

00:21:48.980 or burdened upon the men and women who are set to fight the war. And that's good. 0.98

00:21:55.860 Um, what did you learn about, I guess, men and like how men relate to each other from serving in

00:22:04.680 the war? Because I've, I've read in just accounts, uh, there's a journalist, Sebastian Younger, who

00:22:08.640 wrote the book war, uh, wrote just about the camaraderie that he's never seen anywhere else. Did you see

00:22:14.080 that as well, uh, with the men you served with? I don't use a camaraderie. I say that is the most

00:22:20.300 intense love that exists on the planet. And the reason for it is you have to be willing

00:22:26.780 to give up your life for that person. And you know it. I mean, it's not like that's in an anomaly.

00:22:36.520 That's part of the course of events in war. And for men and women to be willing to do that for each

00:22:46.320 other transcends anything that might be described by the word camaraderie. But I don't think it

00:22:54.620 transcends the word love. And my men came from all over the place. They were, they were considered

00:23:01.480 the clerks and the jerks because the jerks, because vast majority had stockade time and 0.99

00:23:07.340 clerks, because a very few had extremely high degrees and they were draftees who had, might 0.98

00:23:13.140 have a degree in master's degree in English or in Elizabethan literature or something like

00:23:19.220 that. And they were the speechwriters for many of the generals. And as we mobilized with

00:23:24.380 Vietnam at the peak during this period, which is when we went full score or way over the 500,000

00:23:30.260 troop level, no one needed a speechwriter. So they got sent to me and no one wanted the stockade

00:23:36.720 people. So they were sent to me. So my particular group were considered the losers of all losers.

00:23:43.060 And me as a company commander who had never been Vietnam, the only one in the whole 101st who had 0.96

00:23:48.700 not yet been there, I too was a loser. So we were sort of meant for each other. Differences,

00:23:54.580 the men didn't like that. The stockade guys said, look, if I can go back to the stockade and I'll have

00:23:59.920 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 1.00

00:24:04.220 person who's been there three or four times. You got me. Well, we trained together, worked together,

00:24:09.340 stuck together. And out of that came almost this mystical bond among us. And it got to the point

00:24:19.240 where everybody else had lost a lot of people because when we came over, the 101st was immediately

00:24:24.180 subjected to combat. And because of who my men were, no one wanted us around. So we, we were sent

00:24:31.860 out on all these tough missions that we had not lost anybody. It got to the point where someone

00:24:38.320 said, we'll send you trucks. We'd say, no, thank you. We'll walk. We'll send you helicopters from the

00:24:42.660 82nd. We'd say, no, thank you. If it's not our helicopters, we're going to walk.

00:24:46.760 And I couldn't even get people to go on R&R for a while. And so it's a mystical love that comes

00:24:58.180 about the, from the realization that in order to be part of this group, you have to be prepared to

00:25:06.680 die for the others. That's powerful. Um, so let's talk about the events that eventually led up to your

00:25:15.580 medal of honors, um, citation. What happened that, um, that, I guess that fateful day?

00:25:22.340 I mean, that, uh, well, there's three days. Okay.

00:25:24.680 It's actually more than that. We were, we were, God knows, we were somewhere near Cambodia.

00:25:28.520 We had been, um, uh, during Tet, we were brought in to ensure that Comus Mac Lee, the commanding

00:25:37.740 general of the United States forces in Vietnam, Westmoreland, particularly in his headquarters,

00:25:41.500 which came under attack during the Tet offensive. Uh, the first unit was there was, uh, Wolfhounds's

00:25:48.660 nickname. And they went through the basic load of ammunition in like the first three days.

00:25:54.520 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 0.53

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 0.99

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.52

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 0.98

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 0.93

00:36:36.020 know, or a soldier who can take on the mantle, the medal of honor and those who, who can do

00:36:40.200 it and what, what, what, what goes on there?

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 0.99

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 1.00

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. 1.00

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

00:40:54.040 sergeant. That makes it very, very difficult.

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

00:41:10.120 something, right? For my own gain.

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.

00:41:23.280 Yeah.

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. 0.99

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

00:43:14.700 celebrity we are assigned to serve others.

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

00:43:31.400 the rest of your life?

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 0.99

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. 1.00

00:47:51.460 That's how we'll know who's going to kill the VC. That's why they started counting body 1.00

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 0.72

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 the art of manliness podcast, I'd really appreciate it. If you go onto iTunes or Stitcher,

00:50:06.140 whatever it is you use to listen to the podcast and give us a rating, I'd really appreciate it.

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.

The Art of Manliness - November 14, 2014

#89 A Talk with Medal of Honor Recipient Paul Bucha

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