Vietnam veterans Grady Birdsong, Bob Averill, Paula Sarlls, and Colonel Bob Fisher share powerful stories, reflect on their experiences, and honor veteran legacies.
Announcer
Subscribe in US English Monson World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson.
Announcer
These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.
Kim Monson
Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. Thank you so much for joining us.
These shows are so important. This basically precipitated from a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the anniversary, the 72nd anniversary of the Allies’ D-Day landings. to ultimately free Western Europe, free Europe from Hitler and his evil regime of Nazism and came back, realized that each person’s, each individual story is unique. They might be right next to each other and each story is unique.
They need to be told. So in a way, this is checking out our ancestry of our country, our history of our country. and in studio with me is Paula Sarles. She is a friend.
She is also a hero and a patriot. She’s a Vietnam era Marine veteran, her husband. Well, she’s a gold star wife. So her husband passed on, basically from Would you say it’s injuries?
Agent Orange. Yeah, Agent Orange. And it’s on your heart to remodel and refurbish the Marine Memorial out here in Golden, which is the largest one west of the Mississippi, correct? It’s the
Paula Sarlls
only one dedicated by a Commandant of the Marine Corps. It is the largest Marine-type memorial west of the Mississippi.
Kim Monson
and you’re raising money for this and we’ve talked about this. People can buy a brick to honor one of the family member or a loved one or a friend. And in any
Paula Sarlls
service there’s a walkway for all services
Kim Monson
too. But now we’re doing something really special. We’re going to be doing probably five shows regarding the Vietnam veterans that are noted in this book, Echoes of Our War. And what’s going to happen with that Paula?
Paula Sarlls
Well, the proceeds from this book have been dedicated to, half of them to the Memorial Foundation and half of them to the Hyperbaric Chamber. And so what we’re doing for this series is whoever donates the most money will get a hardback copy of the book signed by all of the authors, plus Kim.
Kim Monson
We just added that one in, huh? Yeah, just
Paula Sarlls
added that in. That’s a collector’s item because only a hundred of these hardback copies were printed, so it’ll be a collector’s item and it’s a great gift, so we encourage people to donate at usmcmemorialfoundation.org and note in the donation block a book so we know that you’re participating in this promotion.
Kim Monson
And we need to have these books in our freedom library. Most, most important for sure. So on the line with us is the author and that is Colonel Robert Fisher, United States Marine Corps retired. Colonel Fisher, welcome to the show.
Speaker 13
Thank you, Kim. I’m not the author, Kim. I’m the sponsor and supporter of the book. and I’ll explain how that happened.
Kim Monson
Okay, thank you for correcting me. We like to get it right, Colonel Fisher, so you put this thing together. Tell us about it.
Speaker 13
Okay, you know that Brady and I have been on your show before and we spoke about Cooper’s Troopers, which is a group we started. Well, I started with just two members back in 1997 with Ed Cooper, and it turned out to be 165 members. Of that 165 members, half were in Fort Logan, But the 10 veterans who are writing in the book, their chapters are all Coopers Troopers. And Paula also is a member of this group.
It began with, I would say, in February of 2017, I was working on my Kovan book. It’s a book about my advisor experience and all. And it dawned on me that I had been on the Ho Chi Minh Trail 50 years earlier, in that February, and I began to discuss the idea for another book with Dan Gunther, who’s an exceptional supporter of my book. What I was thinking about is I wanted to write something, and originally I called it Echoes of My War, and there would have been a couple of other veterans from the Coopers in that book at that time.
It turns out, in discussing with Dan, and then all of a sudden, Grady, thank God, you know my right arm man, my full support. He’s got my back all the time. Those two gentlemen, plus Mark Hardcastle, literally were the anchors of the book. They did all the legwork, all the coordination, all the spacing, all the…
Whatever, the whole thing of the book, as the book comes into being. What I contributed was the original title, Echoes of My War, because at that time I had already written three chapters about Vietnam. And I’ll just give you a little background briefly. I was in Vietnam, I was in Vietnam and almost all the countries in Southeast Asia from 1961 to 1962.
I was captain of the Marines on the 73rd flagship. My Admiral lived there because we had conflicts we had the emerging wars of liberation supported by the Chinese and Russians and I got first-hand looks by going into ports of Saigon in Thailand and you name it in the Southeast Asian countries wherever there’s a port. So the thought came to me why don’t I write a book about that and those three chapters were the beginnings starting with that time of 6162. As it evolved it began to dawn on me that of
Kim Monson
So how did you then start? So you now have ten veterans and actually I highly recommend that people get the book because each of these stories is so important. So did you reach out and interview each of them or how did you come up with these chapters?
Speaker 13
Well the chapters had begun where I’d ask Dan Venter, Brady, and Who else did I get
Kim Monson
in?
Speaker 13
Mark Hardcastle. Oh, Mark was the editor. Mark is an exceptional editor. I don’t know if anyone knows the background.
Mark’s part of our Colorado Publishers, Independent Publishers Group also. And I just want to say kudos to him because he is a superb editor, a taskmaster. He’s the content guy, an airline pilot, veteran. musical conductor, and he’s the author of Symphony of Your Life, Restoring Harmony in Your Life, a phenomenal book.
Grady, as you know, was with me on Miracle Workers, and he’s the integrator on Woods Month, you name it. Got my back. And Dan, who is from the Iowa Workshop of all things, he’s the author of China Wing, Dog City Blues. They were the clutch that I had to use to get those 10 veterans In the beginning, I only had three or four when I called it Echoes of My War.
It was Grady and Dan who reached out and became the coordinators and the pacemakers for the rest of the book and the other authors that were in there.
Kim Monson
As I look at the book, Colonel Fisher, I’m also one of those that goes to the pictures first, I guess I shouldn’t admit that, but the pictures are all powerful here as well. And it is a beautiful, beautiful book. I’m so excited that we’re doing this, this series as well as this very, very cool promotion on this. So let’s talk about you said that you were in Vietnam 1961-1962.
and things were happening, things were heating up. What should our listeners know about the very beginning of this war?
Speaker 13
Well, I’m glad you asked that question. Actually, I was the captain of Marines aboard the 7th Fleet flagship and my Admiral Griffin made sure he was in Southeast Asia because it was a hotspot. I had the opportunity at that time to go ashore in Malaya and study the emergency in its last year. They had a 12-year fight against the communist terrorists there.
The Philippines had their own war of liberation, communist-inspired. Vietnam already had the dead teachers and the North Vietnamese cadres there in 62 when we pulled the ship into Saigon. And then you had Thailand, the 1952 intervention with the Pathet Lao supported by North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh and Jop had the Pathet Lao encroachment into Northeast Thailand, which is very fertile Mekong River country. And it was JFK, right at the same time as he was taking Khrushchev on in 1962, who ordered the Marine Brigade off Okinawa to counter that.
And my future boss, General Simpson, was the brigade commander who went into Thailand. And I was in the port watching the offloading of this Marine Brigade, and they immediately went up to the border and the path that Lao ran for like the college they were and never came back again. That was attributed to JFK. A few people would know that happened.
Now the other side of it is we were there because of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization that we were charter members of. Many people forget that we went into Vietnam and South Korea in those wars because we had treaties, Asian protective treaties. And that’s why my ten veterans for more information
Kim Monson
Okay, Colonel Fisher, and at the end of this series, we’re going to really delve into your, your story. But I think this is important to understand that coming out of World War Two, there was this concern about the spread of communism. And so is that where the South, the Southeast Asia treaties, is that where that precipitated from?
Speaker 13
Absolutely. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization came into being right after the North Vietnamese had defeated the French. One of the major land armies in the world was defeated in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. And that’s when France lost its colonies and exited Southeast Asia, the Indochinese colonies.
Now, that’s amazing, because I would hope to cover at some time the one of the most amazing Marines that I met in 1962 on the flagship, Colonel Victor Koysak. He was our Alpha and Omega of the whole 14 years involvement in Vietnam. And I’m writing about that in my Covan book that I’m rewriting about. What was going on in Southeast Asia at that time is we had a military advisory group in Saigon.
General O’Daniels, Victor was in the mag. And he was also the interpreter for President Xi Jinping. It had been to the close of video in France before Napoleon actually went to school. And Wittner was sent to Vietnam to not only monitor the partitioning of the two Vietnams in 1954, where one million refugees were allowed to leave the North because they were Catholic and Buddhist, and very few went from the South back to the North.
Wittner orchestrated the entire move because he was a veteran of five amphibious landings in World War II. and he knew naval maritime shipping, he got with the French and they pulled half a million of those refugees that came out on ships that Victor coordinated and put to the south. One of those units that came out at that time were the famous Dinosaurs who Bernard Fall called the most famous and most successful fighting force in the Vietnam War. Those were the Catholic and Buddhist commandos who Victor spotted as the first Vietnamese Marine Battalion, pulled himself to the track and set up the first Vietnamese Marine Battalion, and I became a Vietnamese Marine advisor many years later.
And he was the first advisor. So that I saw all that happened too in those days. But I wasn’t there in 54, Victor was.
Kim Monson
Oh my gosh, that is very fascinating, Colonel Fisher. We’re going to go to break. We are setting this whole series up, Echoes of Our War. Vietnam veterans reflect 50 years later.
And Colonel Fisher is really the guy that kind of pulled this whole thing together. Paula Sarles is in studio with me. And we’ve got a really special offering going on. So stay tuned.
We’ll be right back with Colonel Bob Fisher and Paula Sarles.
Speaker 2
REMAX Realtor Karen Levine helps bring to life the individual stories of our servicemen and women. With her sponsorship of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson, Karen honors the sacrifices of our military and is grateful for our freedom. As a member of the National Association of Realtors Board of Directors, Karen works to protect private property rights for all of us. Karen has a heart for our active duty military and veterans and is honored to help you buy or sell your home.
Call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 to help you navigate buying or selling your home. That’s 303-877-7516.
Speaker 14
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of the Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
Kim Monson
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson and be sure and check out my website that is americasveteranstories.com. We are creating an amazing series and it is Echoes of our War, Vietnam Veterans Reflect 50 Years Later. The coordinator, the guy that really put this together is Colonel Robert Fisher, Colonel Bob Fisher, retired United States Marine Corps. And in studio with me is Paula Sarles.
She is a Vietnam era Marine Veteran, as well as a Gold Star Wife. And as we’re going through this, this first segment here with Colonel Fisher, we’re going to actually do at least another interview at the end of this is going to be a four or five week series. I can’t wait. I’m on the edge of my chair right now.
But a friend of mine, Helen Raleigh, has really recommended that we have freedom libraries. I love books. I love to hold them in my hand. With what’s happening in America today, I think it’s more important than ever.
And this Echoes of Our War, we’re doing something very special on this, Paula.
Paula Sarlls
Yes, we are. Whoever donates the most money during this series of shows will receive a signed, hard copy, collector’s copy of the book. and it’ll be signed by all the authors. And how can people?
And they can donate at usmcmemorialfoundation.org and put in the notations book so we know you’re participating in this promo.
Kim Monson
And Colonel Fisher is the one that you write a number of different books, Colonel Fisher, correct?
Speaker 13
So that was my seventh book.
Kim Monson
Okay, I think that actually in your freedom library, you need all of these different books. But Colonel Fisher, what you were talking about, we only have gotten really gotten to 1961 62. When you were over in Southeast Asia, but as you were talking about this, I don’t know, I don’t know about all of this. But you mentioned something about the dead teachers.
What was that exactly?
Speaker 13
Well, the armed forces, stars and stripes and the military publication at the time when we pulled into Saigon. Actually, St. Paul had to be beached, the bayou had to be beached on the Longtao-Syrop rivers to get it up into Saigon. And at that time, we, there was no MAG at that, I’m sorry, there was a MAG at that time, Military Advisory Group.
But in that start, in fact, they had an article that I cut out called The Dead Teachers, and it was where, since 1950, Joseph Stalin called a meeting of Mao Zedong, who had been just one year as the new premier of China, and Ho Chi Minh, who planned not only what was happening in the Korean War, but what was going to happen in South Vietnam in the Vietnam War. And that included the Vietnam War. So the origins go way back of how all this began.
Our book then details much of that, leading up to how we did get in the war. and why we got into the war. And then my biggest point I’m trying to make in the book is the lessons of the war. That would be an entire interview in itself.
We didn’t learn any lessons. We were totally untrained for the war. I wrote an article to the Marine Corps Gazette called The Forgotten Subject in 1962 and had it shoved back down my throat by the editor. who told me I was walking off base when I said Marines were totally untrained to go into the emerging guerrilla wars that were coming.
The dead chiefs were the cadres sent by Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong and Yap into the villages and they were massacring village chiefs and they were taking over a whole segment of the population. Now here I go again. It was a people’s war written by Mao Zedong and General Joppa, and you could buy those books written by them in the Hong Kong and Taiwan libraries. Nobody read those books in the earliest days.
I did, and I also got the Moyad Jungle School syllabus, so I knew more about the war than anybody out there at the time, I think, and I tried to write the article in Marine Corps Gazette. That’s what provoked me to get ECHOES, because ECHOES is to try to show the lessons and the false the false presentation of so many that have interpreted the Vietnam War wrong.
Kim Monson
Colonel Fisher, I remember in one of the interviews that you and I have done together that you had mentioned you were one of the first guys out there that realized that we were going to be looking at a different kind of warfare, guerrilla warfare. And as you mentioned, we were unprepared. That’s why this book that you’ve put together Echoes of our War is so important so that people can understand what happened. I really think I actually had been talking to a young college student that was talking about the Vietnam War and I just knew enough to know that she is being told just a few pieces of truth and then a lot of propaganda.
So as I’m reflecting on this, this book is becoming even more important in my mind just as we’re talking about it in this initial interview. Colonel Fisher, we’ve got about four minutes left, so where would you like to go in this last three to four minutes?
Speaker 13
Well, there’s some truth-telling. The reason I supported this book so much, and why Grady and the rest of us put it together, is we began to see the truth-telling that was coming out that the people have not known for 50 years. For example, the hypocrisy of Walter Cronkite is a whole story in itself. He gave one speech in Saigon a week after Tet, in which he stated unequivocally, and Victor Croizat heard this speech, was there at the time, in the night, America just won this war.
The Viet Cong were 80% decimated. Two weeks later, after Fonda and Kerry got a hold of them and the anti-war types back in the States, it was the famous speech, we’ve just lost the war, and LBJ quit because of that. We’re correcting a lot of this falsity that went in in the earlier stage. The Ken Burns documentary has a brilliant part on the French brutality and the colonialism, but it goes off into liberal interpretation of our war.
The war is a different war, completely different war than people understand. That’s why we did the book.
Kim Monson
and it is so important. And that I have, we definitely have a whole bunch more of information to talk about on this. This book echoes of our war Vietnam veterans reflect 50 years later, we’re going to be talking with Grady Birdsong in this next segment. And quickly you Colonel Fisher and Grady Birdsong have have done something very important to try to help our young guys coming back from the Middle East with this hyperbolic chamber.
You’ve had some great success regarding treating PTSD. Tell us quickly about that.
Speaker 13
Well, our book, Miracle Workers of South Boulder Road, tells how Grady and I became involved back in 2010 as veteran advocates for that clinic. When we saw the miracles being worked, we brought the basket case kids in, IED damaged, brain damaged, PTSD and we put together the only integrated PTSD PBI program in the world and that’s supported by the Israelis. It’s an integrated 40-day program and you know we’ve successfully followed up 450 successful recoveries in there and three are in med school today. They were basket cases when we got them.
Kim Monson
I tell you what, that is amazing and that’s the Miracle Workers of South Boulder
Speaker 13
Road.
Kim Monson
We’re going to go to break here in just a minute and I’ll be talking with Grady Birdsong in segments three and four. This is a series that we will be doing. Many people do not know that in the Hall of Honor in Hanoi today
Speaker 13
There is in the center of the Hall of Heroes and the Hall of Honor that the North Vietnamese pay tribute to are the photos of Karine Fonda and John Kerry right in the center of the Hall of Heroes, the North Vietnamese Hall of Heroes.
Kim Monson
And now that guy is in charge of climate change here in America. Astounding to me. We’re going to go to break. Before we do that, though, to tell these stories, I have many great sponsors.
And one of my great sponsors is on the line with me. And that is Hal Van Hercke. He is the owner of Castlegate Knife and Tool. It’s a family owned business.
located right here in Sedalia, Colorado. Hal, I so appreciate you. You keep our independent voice live and out there and also these stories of these veterans. You are a valued partner of both of my shows.
Castlegate Knife & Tool has knives from the best blade makers from throughout the world.
Speaker 12
Thank you very much, Kim. We’re proud to be part of all the work that you do. We also support our veterans community and first responder community One of the things we do is we provide a 10% discount on everything we sell all day, every day at Castlegate Knife and Tool to veterans, active duty service personnel, and first responders. A couple of the other things that we have going on is that we support directly through financial contributions and participation in the National Honor Tour.
And the National Honor Tour is an organization that’s designed to make sure that first and foremost, no service member that’s laid to rest has to be has to go without having taps played at their memorial service. So we make sure that there’s a live Googler there for the service along with a couple of other national organizations. The National Honor Tour is also in the process of going to the grave site of each Medal of Honor recipient in the United States and playing taps and recording that next to their grave site. And coming up on Memorial Day weekend at Fort Logan Cemetery in Colorado, We’re having a second annual event that we will play Taps live at the gravesite if anybody buried there, including spouses, etc. And all you have to do is go to the National Honor Tour Facebook page
and mention the name of who you would like to have played for on Memorial Day. We do it over a three-day period, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Last year we played Taps over 500 times. This year we expect that we will exceed that.
And we provide, and again, Cassie Gait Magatul is a very proud sponsor of the National Honor Tour, and I participate personally by assisting and playing taps when necessary.
Kim Monson
Oh, Hal Van Hercke, I just got chills just how important this is and honoring those that have put it all on the line and their family members that have put it all on the line to protect our freedoms, to stand against tyranny. And this is a really noble thing that you’re doing with the National Honor Tour on this, Hal.
Speaker 12
Yeah, we’re very pleased to be part of it and pleased to be part of everything that you do for our veterans community on a regular basis, Kim. Thank you.
Kim Monson
Well, it’s my honor to get to do this. And the Castlegate Knife and Tool, the website, it has a lot of information there because you have a lot going on. And so this, you’ll have this on your website very soon as well, right?
Speaker 12
Yeah, you can learn about the National Honor Tool on our website at castlegate.com. on Twitter.
Kim Monson
You talk about an entrepreneur, Hal and Linnea Van Hercke, you are the American spirit to me. So thank you so much and I so appreciate your partnership on both the shows. Thank you very much. And we’ll be right back with Paula Sarles and Grady Birdsong.
Announcer
In tumultuous times, it is necessary that we each have a freedom library to know and understand our history. Bury Him! A Memoir of the Vietnam War by Captain Doug Chamberlain is a must for your personal library. In this honest and gripping memoir, Captain Chamberlain recounts the chilling events that took place during his command of a company of young marines at the height of the Vietnam War.
Chamberlain painfully recalls the unspeakable order he and his marines were forced to obey and the cover-up which followed. Purchase the book at MarineDougChamberlain.com. That’s MarineDoug, C-H-A-M-B-E-R-L-A-I-N dot com so that you gain perspective on this time in our history.
Speaker 8
Eyes peeled and moving quickly, Lance Corporal Jack Swan led 164 of his fellow US Marines from Mike Company 3rd Battalion 5th Marines over the face of a bare rocky knoll to rescue an isolated company of fellow Leathernecks besieged by the Communist North Vietnamese Army. Then, all hell broke loose. Instead of rescuing their fellow comrades, the Marines now faced complete annihilation. Author Doyle Glass tells their story in Swift Sword, a true Vietnam War story of epic courage and brotherhood in the face of insurmountable odds.
Order Swift Sword by Doyle Glass now. They never gave up. We should never forget.
Speaker 5
God bless America
Kim Monson
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. This is such an important show. I’m so excited to have in studio with me Paula Sarles. You know her.
She is a Vietnam-era Marine veteran as well as a Gold Star wife doing all this great work on the Marine Memorial out here in Golden, Colorado. Paula, these shows are so rich with content. It’s just so fantastic.
Paula Sarlls
Yes, they’re very exciting to hear the stories and touching. Too many words to describe him. But I’m very excited to be part of it.
Kim Monson
Well, and this book, Echoes of Our War, by Colonel Robert Fisher, who we just talked with, has told the stories of several of our Vietnam Marine veterans. And what is so exciting, we mentioned it, is for people during this time, it’ll probably be about four or five weeks as we’re going through all these stories, the one that contributes the most gets what? They get a signed
Paula Sarlls
hardback copy of the book. autographed by all of the authors. And that’s a great collector item because there were only a hundred books printed in hardback copy, the rest are paperback.
Kim Monson
Yes. And
Paula Sarlls
all the proceeds from the sales of these books go to, half of the proceeds go to the foundation, the US Marine Corps Memorial Foundation, and the other half goes to the hyperbaric chamber.
Kim Monson
Which is something that is really near and dear on the hearts of both Colonel Fisher and our next guest, and that is Grady Birdsong. Grady Birdsong, welcome to the show. I feel so connected with you because of Cooper’s Troopers, which is this group of Marines that meets on a regular basis up in North Denver. And I consider you my friend, Grady Birdsong.
Speaker 15
Well, thank you very much. Thank you and your audience for for having Paula and myself today. Thank you.
Kim Monson
Well, let’s talk about your story. You are one of the stories in this book, echoes of our war. And where do you want to start with this? Grady?
Speaker 15
Well, let me start this way. Colonel Fisher, God bless him. He’s Colonel Fisher is an accomplished Colonel of Marines. He’s a graduate of the United States Naval Academy class in 1955.
And his best friend was my battalion executive officer in Vietnam in 1968, and that’s how I kind of got connected with him. Colonel Fisher was a co-van, which is in Vietnamese, it meant he’s a friend, a trusted friend. Co-van means trusted friend. He was an advisor to the Vietnamese Marine Corps in the early days of the war.
And he shot the azimuth, he set the compass course, in other words, for this book. This is Three of us contributed to the editing process. Dan Gunther, he was over in Vietnam at the same time I was. He’s an accomplished author himself.
He’s written a number of books. And he formulated all of the questions that we would answer in this book, which one of them are thoughts and feelings that we have today about the war 50 years afterwards. And so I went through and pulled everything together, did all of the developmental, or most of the developmental and content editing, and helped some of the authors enhance their narratives in their chapters. Some of them didn’t need help, some of them did.
Mark Hardcastle, a close friend of mine, Air Force Academy graduate, combat pilot. He’s now a United Airlines pilot and an award-winning author. Asked if he could participate, and he did all the fine-tuning. He knows the English language very well.
He knows the finer points of grammar, and so he went through and fine-tuned it after we got it all put together. But our intended audience on this book, Echoes of Our War, are Vietnam veterans, Marines, corpsmen, historians, anybody that’s interested in the war and the current day military. And it’s a book about the lessons we learned as kids in a war
Speaker 4
in a
Speaker 15
place that nobody had ever heard of. And each of us served different aspects of the theater. Denny Sedlak, the first chapter, he was a corpsman in the Grants. of uh…
and uh… onto the house-to-house fighting in the pet offensive of nineteen sixty eight if we should be bill purcell and gary eichler uh… they were both involved and put to the test their uh… and not since career war two head the marines and uh…
even uh… involved in a house-to-house uh… warfare it all been rice paddy hedgerow jungle warfare to that point and uh… they got thrown into the uh…
the big battle their way city they had ten thousand uh… north vietnamese troops waiting on them uh… when bill and gary walked into it uh… first date january thirty first uh…
actually february first bill i think lasted thirteen fourteen days before he’s uh… was previously wounded and then they sent him back to the states took him A long time to recover from his wounds. Gary made it through the battle without any wounds. He was one of the very few.
Dan Gunther’s chapter, he relates about the Amtraks. Those are the 40 ton behemoths that are designed to land troops ship to shore or across the wide deep rivers. came up with some excellent lessons learned in utilizing the Amtraks in that kind of a topographical arena. Bob Averill’s chapter, he talks about the Combined Action Program.
That’s basically the Marine Corps’ equivalent of the Peace Corps, but with rifles. What Bob and his men did, they helped develop the community during the day. and provided the security at night. And he’s got a great chapter in there.
And he talks about some of the Vietnamese that he came to know and worked with there. Master Sergeant John Decker, retired, USMC retired, gives everyone a glimpse of what it was like to stay in the Corps back in the 70s. John not only did two combat tours, he went on to serve in Italy, took his wife to Italy right after Vietnam, and provided security for some installations over there. And then he went on to do a tour of the drill fields.
He became a respected Marine Corps drill instructor. It’s probably one of the, well, it is the most important job in the Marine Corps. and uh… that drone structure bill it is the actual foundation and formative backbone of the entire organization then we go on to mike frazier in his chapter uh…
he’s one of the grants who got over there early in vietnam and uh… he learned to walk point uh… and he did it quite well he became really good at it uh… but he finally was seriously wounded not many people make it too long walking point and he was evacuated back stateside and
Kim Monson
he
Speaker 15
reflects on his time.
Kim Monson
Grady, what is walking point? What is that? I guess you have to read the book to find out, right?
Speaker 15
They’re the first man down the trail
Speaker 4
or
Speaker 15
the
Speaker 4
first
Speaker 15
man into an unknown territory. There’s a lot to it. You learn to look for booby traps. You learn to look for tripwires.
You don’t know if you’re going to get ambushed, if you walk into a village and all of the little children are quiet, well you know something’s going on. Things like that. It’s a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous occupation. And not everybody’s cut out for it.
Mike was. uh… tom jacobs uh… he uh…
god bless him he uh… he walked point uh… into a well uh… he was in the point platoon when they walked into a battalion size ambush in sixty seven in the jungle west of camp evans up on the DMZ uh…
and he survived that uh… twenty three marines were killed at a hundred and five uh… received real serious wounds Tom was wounded three times, he tells about it, and he ended up being evacuated out, and it took him a long time. Tom’s a successful businessman now, and got a couple of restaurants here in town, Takabi’s American Indian Cuisine, we love that place.
Speaker 4
Wow.
Speaker 15
And then Captain, finally Captain, well Captain at the time, C.R. Kuzak, he tells in his chapter what it was like to fly F-4s on support missions for us Marines on the ground. And he got shot down by a machine gun position on Hill 310 west and a little south of Devang. And I found the guy that of our war.
Kim Monson
I’ve been talking with my friend, Helen Raleigh, who she immigrated from China. She is a true patriot. She’s also an author. But she has really floated this idea initially, and I totally agree with her that each of us needs to start to have the actual copies of books and create our freedom library and our history library.
And Echoes of Our War is certainly a good place to start with that. And I would highly recommend that people do that, Grady.
Speaker 15
Oh yes, oh yeah. There’s a lot of things that went on. Colonel Fisher will talk about the lessons learned. He didn’t talk about it, I’m sure.
Kim Monson
Well, and that is what is so important. So Grady, we’re going to go to break. And when we come back, we want to hear, start with your story. I have a feeling that maybe one segment is not going to be enough for that as well.
Paula Sarles is in studio with me. She is a Vietnam era Marine veteran and really excited about this, this book giveaway, Paula. Yes.
Paula Sarlls
The USMC Memorial Foundation was formed to remodel the Marine Corps Memorial in Golden and Colonel Fisher has been a part of that memorial for many years and he has dedicated part of the proceeds of this book to our efforts to remodel the memorial. and the other part goes to the Hyperbaric Chamber, which we all
Kim Monson
love. Right, and while we’re doing this series, whoever during this series, and it’ll probably be four or five shows for sure, contributes the most, they will get a hard copy, signed copy of the book by all of the people in it. Every one of the authors.
Paula Sarlls
Oh my
Kim Monson
gosh,
Paula Sarlls
how can people contribute?
Kim Monson
And they can
Paula Sarlls
donate by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org And when you contribute, put in the comments book so we know that your contribution goes towards the effort on this project to raise money.
Kim Monson
Most definitely. So we’re going to go to break. Before we do that, though, I have so many great sponsors that I get to work with. and one of the sponsors is Hooters Restaurants.
They have five locations here in the metro area, Westminster, Aurora, Lone Tree, Loveland, and Colorado Springs. And they have all kinds of different specials, whether or not it’s dine-in, to-go, they have party packs, all kinds of great specials. And to get all the details on that, go to my website, kimmunson.com. Click on the sponsor tab.
That’ll drop down and then click on the Hooters icon and that will bring up all the specials that they have. It is time for us to get together with friends and family and to get together over some of those delicious Hooters wings is a great thing to do. We’re going to go to break. We’ll be right back with Grady Birdsong.
Speaker 6
High inflation and increasing property taxes are making it more challenging for seniors to make ends meet. If you’re 62 or older, a reverse mortgage may be the solution for what’s keeping you up at night. It is essential that you understand the process and work with a trusted professional. Mortgage expert Lauren Levy will help you craft solutions for your unique circumstances, whether a mortgage, a second mortgage, or a reverse mortgage.
If you’d like to explore what a reverse mortgage can do for you, call Loren Levy at 303-880-8881. That’s
Speaker 7
303-880-8881. Call now. You’d like to get in touch with one of the sponsors of the Kim Monson Show, but you can’t remember their phone contact or website information. Find a full list of advertising partners on Kim’s website, kimmunson.com.
That’s Kim, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
Kim Monson
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson and be sure and check out my website. That is americasveteranstories.com and we are starting a series, a really important series, based on this book by Colonel Robert Fisher, a retired US Marine Corps. It’s Echoes of Our War, Vietnam Veterans Reflect 50 Years Later. And Paula Sarles is in studio with me.
She is a Vietnam-era Marine veteran as well as a Gold Star wife and is really working diligently to remodel, refurbish the Marine Memorial out here in Golden. And Paula, if people, during this time when we’re doing this series, the person that donates the most will actually get what? They get a hardback copy of the book signed by all of the authors. Something to add to your Freedom Library.
And on the line with me is Grady Birdsong. During the last segment, he went through how he worked with Colonel Fisher and the other authors in creating this book. And I have a feeling, Grady, we’re not going to have enough time just in this segment. So I think we’ll probably record you next week as well.
So where do you want to start regarding your experience in Vietnam and what you’ve contributed to this book?
Speaker 15
Well, okay, let me let me begin with this. And I speak for a lot of Vietnam veterans, there’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t think back about the time that I spent in Vietnam. I spent 20 months over there. Almost two tours, two full tours.
And one of the things that comes to mind when I first got there, I was, I was pretty naive and new troop.
Kim Monson
How old were you, Grady?
Speaker 15
I was 20 years old,
Kim Monson
I had
Speaker 15
already had two years of college. And I enlisted in college or in the Marine Corps and then went right over. And
Kim Monson
what year was that?
Speaker 15
That was in 1968. We got there, the Tet Offensive had broken out. We were in staging battalion in Camp Pendleton and the Tet Offensive broke out. Bill Purcell and Gary Eichler were already over there involved in the battle for Huey.
Kim Monson
Grady, what was the Tet Offensive?
Speaker 15
The Tet Offensive, Tet means the Lunar New Year. Every year, the Oriental people, especially the Vietnamese people, they call it Tet, T-E-T. They celebrate the, it’s kind of like our Christmas celebration. They celebrate the good happenings that are going to happen in the coming year.
and everybody was on vacation uh… the end of january of nineteen sixty eight well every year they do this uh… and uh… there was a wall in the fighting uh…
and uh… what had happened is the north vietnamese uh… had infiltrated most of the major cities in south vietnam below the dmc uh… wayne city uh…
the old uh… capital of Vietnam. It’s what Boston is to us in our revolutionary history. There was probably anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 NBA soldiers infiltrated into Hue City.
They did so in Saigon. They did so in Da Nang. They were up at Quezon. and they staged a major push, a major offensive to come in and crush us, the military, the United States military.
Marines were all in the northern ICOR area. And when the battle for Hue City broke out, a platoon, well actually it was a company, it was a couple platoons, a couple, three platoons, knew that there was a disturbance going on in Waste City and Bill Purcell and Gary Eichler were the two gentlemen that I talked about, the Marines, they were in the point, they were the first ones in there and there was 10,000 NVA waiting on them and they started fighting house to house. and after that after the marines the fifth marines in the first marines uh…
regiments uh… uh… secured the citadel inside the the city of way why my battalion was rushed up there uh… first battalion twenty-seven marines and uh…
they had pushed all of the uh… nba out into the canal area uh… the canal area was the rice patty area out to the coast and uh… we are our mission was to go after them and uh…
curtail them and the reason they were out there is that was the rice producing area that was their food supply uh… and it took us almost three months to uh… uh… secure that area out there and then we went back down uh…
to uh… south of da nang on operation allenbrook uh… which was a major operation that year all this time uh… caissons going on up on the dmc And they were the case of the Marines up there, the 26 Marines were surrounded by probably 20,000 NVA coming in from Laos.
It was a it was a it was the peak year of the war. The Tet Offensive. Does that give you a
Kim Monson
good idea? I think that’s Paula anything else to add to that right now? No. Okay, good.
Okay, let’s continue on then, Grady.
Speaker 15
Okay, when I first got there, right before we went up to Hue City, we knew that there was a lot going on. And we were staging, we were being snapped in, so to speak. We were being trained by the unit that was already there south of Da Nang, getting us ready to take over that area. And I remember in the chow line, I had We had trays, go through the line buffet style, get your food, eat it.
Then you go out to a boiling trash can, boiling water trash can with a heat unit on it and you dip your tray in there and wash it off with a brush. And as I walked up to that washing station, another Marine had a rifle trained on me and he says, get out of the way. was started wrestling a rifle away with it and a bunch of us jumped in and took it away. I wasn’t ready for that.
Speaker 3
Nobody is.
Speaker 15
I had been there probably three or four days and another Marine shooting another Marine. And these guys had been in the field forever, I think. They had 1,000 yards there and they were best friends. And miraculously, the other Marine lived.
But the Marine that shot him, he went to prison over that. And I just wasn’t ready for that. And I didn’t tell anybody about that for a long time. At a reunion about two years ago, I related that to another friend of mine at the reunion.
And he says, I was in the line. He says, I saw that. I never told anybody about that, because I was ashamed of it. I thought nobody would believe me.
Kim Monson
A couple of things on that, Grady. I remember the first time I heard the term 1,000 feet stare, 1,000 foot stare, was from
Speaker 3
one of
Kim Monson
the World War II veterans that I
Speaker 3
interviewed
Kim Monson
that had served in the Pacific Theater. Tell our listeners what that is exactly.
Speaker 15
Well, it’s post-traumatic stress. It’s the beginning of post-traumatic stress. A thousand yard stare, that came from World War II. Everybody was just numb.
Obviously, these two friends had an argument and they got mad at each other. It was normal to have a rifle and take care of the situation out in the field. I’m But I thought it was crazy.
Kim Monson
Well, it really is. And again, I think I said 1000 foot, I meant 1000 yard stare. And my understanding also is, is that looking out to always be watching what is going on out there also is kind of a contributor to that 1000 yard stare as well, Grady.
Speaker 15
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I would I would become numb myself later on, as we got into the war as we went up to uh… to Hawaii city out in the canal area uh… we’ve we’ve met some pretty heavy resistance out there it was it was no cakewalk uh…
we lost a lot of marines uh… and uh… then we went back down on Operation Allenbrook and we lost even more uh… uh…
Denny uh… Denny uh… describes it well in his chapter Denny’s a close friend of mine he was the corpsman anyway that Things like that in the book we reflect back on. And that’s how, that’s why Colonel Fisher, he got me involved in the hyperbaric oxygen situation, healing our heroes, all these kids coming back from the Middle Eastern wars, why I wanted to help
Announcer
them.
Speaker 15
I got to come back, I got to live. So this is the least I can do is help others. Some didn’t get to come back.
Kim Monson
Well, Grady, we are actually just about out of time. So clearly, this is going to be the cliffhanger for next week, because we will get you scheduled to continue with your story. And it seems interesting to me, Paula, that so many people in America today are so interested in their their personal ancestry.
Announcer
But we
Kim Monson
also have to be interested in our, our American ancestry as well, our American history. And that’s why this is such an important series that we’re doing.
Paula Sarlls
Yes it is and it’s very important because these guys didn’t get to tell their story when they got out of the Marine Corps in the seventies and I know my husband and I neither one talked about any of this until 1999.
Kim Monson
Well and Grady that is why Cooper’s Troopers is this group of Marines that meets in North Denver and it’s very supportive of each other because you’ve each seeing different things but in a lot of ways the same things. And that has been such a healing organization for so many people. And you’re very humble about this, but you’ve done a lot to help a lot of different Marines and service men and women in this. So thank you so much for what you do.
Speaker 15
Well, thank you. Thank your audience for listening.
Kim Monson
Okay, so we are going to schedule Grady for next week, Paula. All right. We’ll get that done. And again,
Paula Sarlls
let’s see, how can people? They can contribute to the foundation USMC Memorial Foundation.org. and
Kim Monson
write a notebook there and the person that contributes the most after we do this series will receive a hardback copy with the autograph of all of our heroes here. So, Grady Birdsong, we will talk to you next week.
Speaker 3
Thank you again, Paula.
Kim Monson
Thank you, Greg.
Speaker 3
And Kim.
Kim Monson
Most definitely. My friends, you can see that we as Americans stand on the shoulders of giants. And it is our time to step forward into this as well. We are in an ideological battle right now for the heart and soul of our country.
And I so thank each and every one of these servicemen and women for my freedom. And all I can say is my friends, God bless you. And God bless America.
Announcer
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
