 But frankly, I don't think you've got a snowball's chance in hell of coming back alive We had no orders. We had no weapons We had nothing Of the problem with the team was solved. He said, what did you do? I said, you don't want to know It's sounding a bit like the beginning of apocalypse now. I could summon up a heart No one ever survived the question Suspect Alan, how are you brother? I'm doing well today, Chris. It's beautiful weather here in florida Yes, what kind of season is it there at the moment? Right now we are in what we would call the tourist season The Resorts are all fairly well crowded. Unfortunately any tourists coming down here right now are going to be dealing with the Uh, the cool weather we're having. I mean, it's awful. It's only in the mid 60s And so all those people coming from up north are having to put up with all of us down here wearing our down jackets and our gloves Meanwhile, somebody from up in canada is in shorts You can tell the people from canada because they're the one the sun really glistens off of The rest of us had sort of a permanent light tan, let's say Yes I'm what I was saying to you earlier. I learned to fly in skydiving florida and when I was there my gosh, it was So hot that sun doesn't half beat down Uh, yes, that's what that happens during the warm summer months when it gets up to 115 or so Uh, that's when I go out and play golf at noon because no one else is on the golf course and having spent a time in southeast asia I really have the heat has never bothered me since I spent To our duty in vietnam Where it was really hot and on occasion up in the 120s Miserable for heat without air conditioning mind you Yeah, and i'm guessing no one's uh, well, hopefully not too many people shooting at you on the on the golf course No, uh, I will say that no one has ever shot to me on the golf course I have to admit I have had my share of being shot at in, uh, vietnam And I actually I have never returned to vietnam, but it's on my bucket list Because just once in my life just once I would like to drive north out of denang And go over that hive on pass the hive on pass which has a bunch of switchbacks to go up the mountain side And just once I would like to go over the hive on pass without someone shooting at me Yes And I want to see if that at the top of the hive on pass that little bar was is still there the one where we Used to stop to get a beer or two if we survived getting up incredible I was in vietnam Gosh, probably about 15 years ago now and um I made a schoolboy error in thinking it was going to be hot there As such I just had a small daypack with me with Think I was wearing shorts and a and a t-shirt And when you get up there in those mountains it really Does get cold Yes, it does it it can get very cold at night and damp damp cold or it'll go right through you But uh, I haven't grown up in new england up in massachusetts. I was used to damp cold So that didn't bother me. I got used to the heat fairly quickly. Uh, I'm lucky. I can adjust like that. So that didn't bother me It was a interesting period of time to be in vietnam I was there exactly 50 years ago right now doing during my tour of duty and I have to say that This was one of those unexpected things in life Uh Because this was 19 would have been 1972 when I was in country And this was at the end of the active phase of the of the war which had been going on really since 65 and uh, I had managed to avoid the war and really had thought I had gotten off uh fairly free Going to through a university at syracuse. I had uh had a student deferment And then coming out when I graduated in 68 my draft board was anxious to meet me in person And uh, have me go for a physical, uh, but I wanted to go and do a master's degree In uh library and information sciences and I was enrolled in a college in boston simons college For young women, but that's another story altogether the uh So I went to my draft board and they said well, we're going to send you for a physical and I thought to myself Well, if they're sending me for a physical that means they're going to want to draft me as soon as as soon as they can I had the advantage over the my local draft board. I knew the selective service law and they didn't Because at syracuse I'd worked for the dean of men and one of my duties had been an advisor to the freshman men on the selective service law And I knew they could not draft me out of a semester in which I was currently enrolled So I went to the registrar at Simmons and enrolled for the fall semester The january semester the spring semester the following summer semester. That's as much as they'd let me do And when my draft board called me, uh, I said well, you can't do anything right now because I'm enrolled in school And they said well, when do you but and I explained what I had done to them and They were upset with me So as soon as they could they began to send me for physicals, which I failed I was born with a heart condition Until one day I went for a physical. I think that's the fourth one They sent me into boston for and the doctor was a real old fart You know, he was in his mid 30s or something like that And he must have had a head cold and he didn't hear my heart condition my heart murmur even after I told him And uh, I passed that section. They literally pulled me out of line told me I could get dressed because I was going to be one a Eligible to be drafted right away. I actually needed four more months to finish my master's degree So I had prepared ahead of time And uh, the navy recruiter was a member of the church when my father was the pastor I grew up in a minister's family And so I went to see about this friendly navy recruiter and I said here's my problem I need four more months To finish my master's degree and he said no trouble You can enlist Under a four month delay and finish your master's degree. That's what they did Uh, I had not planned to go into the navy But I had figured I figured actually figured two four years in the navy Was better than two years in the army And because going into the army meant a ticket to southeast asia And I really didn't want to do that. So I enlisted for four years in the navy Figuring that I could study journalism or something like that. They would give me my choice of duty But that's what the recruiter said to me I'm still looking for that recruiter and if I find him I'm going to Figure did we beat the shit out of him? Because it wasn't my choice of duty as it ended up. It was the navy's choice And when it came for assignment in boot camp, uh, I went to boot camp in great lakes and uh, Illinois in the winter. It was brutally cold But the choice of duty I was giving given was on a destroyer escort In uh, February in the march rather in north the north atlantic with on the job training as a bosonsmate Chipping paint or something like that Or my other choice was go to monterey california to the defense language institute west coast And for 50 or four weeks Study north vietnamese and become a linguist in the naval security group The north atlantic in march california Didn't buzz it a big choice. I went to california figuring that by the time I finished school The war might be over And uh, it wasn't And when the rest of my class The linguists went to spend the summer at goodfellow air force base in san angelo, texas The anus of the united states as they told me I had managed to wangle an appointment to office of candidate school in newport road island So I went to spend the summer in ocs Writing to them asking how many tumbleweeds they chased that day while I had been out on narrow gants at day practicing man overboard A drill with the fresh cool breeze out of the north, you know, uh So I I I've actually started my military career As an enlisted man at the defense language institute west coast, which was an army base, mind you So I actually even though I was in the navy, I pulled army kitchen police. I stood army watch I even took some advanced infantry training with the army at fort ord I would I may as well been in the Frickin army at that point, but uh, I was in the navy Okay, uh, I managed to wangle a commission I had always dreamed of being a naval officer And I was looking forward to going to destroyer school And becoming a direct officer of what they call the direct officer of the line eligible for command at sea And the uh, I remember the day the orders arrived in the uh at ocs And everybody except me got their orders in The company compartment I was told I had to report to the old man Down on the his office captain's office So I went down and the captain and I went in to see him and he looked at me and he said I've been here for two years. Mr. Cutter No ensign newly commissioned ensign in that time has orders directly to vietnam You mr. Cutter have orders directly to vietnam and I would like to know why they are sending you directly to vietnam And I looked at my said well captain If you look at my record, you'll see that I was an enlisted man And I went to the language school and I happened to be fluent in north vietnamese He looked at me and he said well that explains why they're sending you in as a naval intelligence liaison officer Do mr. Cutter, you know the life expectancy of a nylo naval intelligence liaison officer And I said well captain the last I heard it was six to eight weeks He looked at me and said well, I'd like to wish you happy sailing and following seas and the old navy tradition But frankly, I don't think you've got a snowball chance in hell of coming back alive This was not encouraging And when I went back to the company compartment and they asked for where to put what would he want to see you I said he wanted to give me my orders And they said well where I said I'm going directly to vietnam with a stop for a little pre-in-country training out in california And they I can remember the the chief petty officers who were in charge of the company the old enlisted Senior enlisted and the officers who were in charge of the company would have been pushing us through Just sort of looking at me and just not saying anything It was a very strange feeling To have been told that I probably wouldn't live through this experience And then no one said anything to me about it when I got back and told them where I was I was going It's sounding a bit like the beginning of apocalypse now Uh Never never get out of the boat. Yeah. Well, I tell you I had signed up to god to go where the navy sent me And I sort of just gulped and I I told my parents and they kind of gulped But I you know saddled up and went out to california for the uh, pre vietnam training, uh, which was interesting, uh, I got the uh, intelligence training And uh, I got sent to seer school survival escape resistance and evasion Where I had the uh, interesting experience of actually being waterboarded As part of the prisoner of war can't experience Uh, the only thing that really taught me was I was determined I would not be taken prisoner Uh, so that was always in the the back of my mind that under no circumstances would I allow myself to be Uh captured if I could if I could prevent it and any by whatever means uh But it was I can remember You one thing about the navy If you're the junior officer You have to do all the chores for all the other offices. You're the one who gets to coffee picks up their laundry and so forth and so on Well, I've barely been commissioned, you know a month when I showed up for pre vietnam training Uh, and with the lieutenants and lieutenant commanders and what have you and here I am an ensign And they took great pleasure in sending me to get coffee and pick up their uniforms and what have you and when I went to survival school it was About 120 enlisted men and four officers The other three of course all outranked me So at survival school they would say well, we were out one night. We were pitched our parachute tents by the sea And then southern california and by the on the shores of the pacific which is a very cold ocean incidentally And we had to forage for our meal that night in the water And the other three officers looked at me and said ensign. You have to set an example for the enlisted men Go forage in the water So I stripped down and went out into the water and that there's absolutely nothing there I mean they've been using this area for long enough even the fish knew to avoid it So, um, that night we didn't have much of a meal. It was my 25th birthday. I can remember that and then the next day we I had an we're up in the mountains doing the same thing and then we had the Evasion course where we had to evade the enemy for four hours and not get captured Then we had the prisoner of war camp experience And I can remember I can remember distinctly That something had happened and the other three officers had all gotten ill and were retching terribly Because they couldn't face eating what it was in front of them But I just sort of ate it and a chief petty officer Senior chief came up and put his arm around me and whispered in my ear Ensign, you'll do just fine That meant more to me than anything else I had heard I Finished the school. I was called into the captain's office at the end and I was told that They had decided I was actually too junior As an ensign To be what they called a naval intelligence liaison officer So they were just going to send me in country to Operate as he said according to the needs of the service since I was already in the pipeline. They couldn't pull me out So I you know, I Went in country got on the plane Flew to Hawaii flew to the Philippines. We landed in Saigon Tonsinute early in the morning And a great big bus came to meet me Big old navy bus with barbed wire on the windows and all sorts of stuff to prevent anybody throwing anything in I was the only navy person on that plane. I was the only navy person on that bus They took me to the in-processing barracks, which was called anapolis and I went in through my Stuff on a bunk and there was an officer there who'd been there 24 hours more who I knew Who was now the old hand? He was a lieutenant Lieutenant and he said to me ball Carter come along with me. We'll go over to mac v military assistance command vietnam headboard is for the briefing Uh check in. I'm okay. I hadn't any sleep. What the hell? We went over there. We had three hours of briefing The first was on getting to know the vietnamese people Well, I'd spent a year getting to know the vietnamese people our native our teachers were native vietnamese at language school The next class was on first aid Okay, the third class was how to order Dishes televisions and anything else you wanted from the pacific exchange and have it sent home to mum and dad to be waiting for you When you returned Then we were told ross and I the other officer that we were not needed for the rest of the day because the afternoon Was going to be devoted to warning all the enlisted men about avoiding vietnamese women And socially transmitted diseases and since we were officers obviously We were not in danger of any of that So, okay We asked how we should get back to uh, the anapolis barracks and they said the world would be no transportation until the enlisted men were finished Well, I Didn't like that much. So I said there must be some other answer And there happened to be a medic there That I knew from my enlisted incarnation who pulled me aside and he said you can walk back easily There's a hole in the fence behind mac v headquarters supposedly the most secure place in the Nation But there was a hole in the fence and if we went out through the hole in the fence and followed the railroad tracks for about half a Mile we come to a Piece of camo cloth tied to a tree and if we turned there and followed that trail It would bring us out through a hole in the fence at taunson newt Where we could go directly and would take us directly to the anapolis barracks. So that's what we did You know, you know, all of a sudden the all everything that I'd heard about the secure stations And the great security and how well we were protected at any of the bases So we didn't really have to worry that much about being attacked just went out the window Literally just out the window Well, we got back there and we had went to the pool The other thing was I was immediately amazed at how comfortable we had made ourselves in country We had swimming pools. We had clubs right by the swimming pools Beer hot dogs, whatever you wanted hard liquor was all right there very we spent the afternoon sitting by the pool drinking and then we went on to That evening my buddy ross said i'm going to take you for a treat I'm going to take you to the bietnamese air force officers club for dinner. I know right how to get there Now the vnaf club as it was called had a reputation It was said you could not go into the front door And go over to the bar in those dim lights without some bar girl undoing your zipper So, okay Let's go to the vnaf club. So we got on the bus that ross said we should get on And uh, all uh, he's sitting there talking to me about his experiences of having been in country for a whole 24 hours And we drive out of the gate of tansinu and I think to myself This is strange I would think the club would be on the base And after a couple minutes I mentioned to ross that this didn't seem to be taking us to the base and he looked out and around and No, it didn't I went up and asked the driver where we were going and we were going downtown saigon Where we had no right to be we had no orders. We had no weapons we had nothing and We got down to downtown saigon and that ross said what are you going to do? I said i'm going to sit on the bus and hope he takes us back Well, the little bit of his driver came down and said he he was getting ready to park the bus and we had to get off So we get off and downtown saigon No idea how to get back. No idea where we were Absent without leave. I hadn't been in country 12 hours and I was already a wall So the lieutenant was absolutely useless Uh, he asked me what what what we should do and I said i'm going to walk across the street And if I don't get killed going across the street There's a big hotel over there and i'm going to go over and see if I can promote us a ride back to the base So I went we went over We survived crossing the street, which was no small feat. I mind you and I went up to the desk in the hotel and I said When's the next bus back to the base And the guys ended up there said both of the bus leaving for mac v out here in 10 minutes I said great We went out. We went back to mac v headquarters Where we knew where we were Walked around the building went out through the hole in the fence down the trail and back through the hole in the gate to the Annapolis barracks my god And no one had missed us And this was my my welcome to vietnam And in some ways it was in many ways it was the high point because things went downhill after that What was the sort of sentiment back home at this stage? This was 72 This was 72 My father as I said was a minister he had a church in Old Newbury, Massachusetts up on the coast and the the man's where he lived looked out over the village green and one Sunday afternoon I was sitting out there and I had on my uniform as a student officer candidate my whites And there were some people playing football in the ground on the green across from us and one of them saw me And yelled yelled out. Hey look over there. There's a baby killer That's what the attitude was in the united states. The war was not very popular Uh people coming back from vietnam Were advised to have civilian clothes with them so they could change in the airport before they tried to Negotiate the airport in san francisco or long beach or wherever so they could avoid being singled out by the protesters It was not a friendly time and uh My own homecoming when that that occurred 10 months later was absolutely horrific But that was 10 months down the line. I had to get get through the my tour of duty in vietnam first of all so, um coming out of uh McVie the briefings there they issued us our Our uniforms our green utilities and with our names all embroidered on them by the little hooch mage and what have you and uh We were told that we could stand down because uh This was two days before christmas. They weren't going to send anybody out on the day before christmas or christmas day No, there's going to be no transport available And I was being sent up north to denang to iCord denang kueh kuang tree To serve up there as an advisor of some sort So um fine i The day before christmas first thing in the morning I'm rusted out and i'm told to report to mac v headquarters I get over there and they say well get back get back pick up all your stuff We've got you on a transport up to uh denang this afternoon. They need you up there Sooner than we expected. They needed a a translator Okay, I went back through my stuff together everybody's looking at me Got my 45 and my m16 and all that crap they'd given me Got out to the airbase got on the transport plane c-130 flew up to denang and you know They're coming in low and you know fast and real because they don't want to get rocketed coming in So we land we've already been briefed that they're going to land Turn the plane around push our luggage on the pallets off and we're to run off the plane Because they're not going to stop they're just going to turn around push the pallets and begin to take off And we got to run off the plane As fast as we can So I did that Got my stuff. I'm again. I'm the only navy person on the plane and I go over to the little Reception place they've got And go in to look for the navy navy liaison. Well, it's the day before christmas. So he took the day off So there's nobody there to arrange for me to get any transportation So uh the uh sergeant in charge was not really very friendly looking at me as a very very junior officer Second lieutenant or a butter bar or an ensign, you know one little gold bar And so I played my enlisted man card that I'd spent a couple years in enlisted man He warmed up to that right away Recognized that I was what they call a must hang in the navy having been enlisted and then commissioned And he actually got a hold of the navy liaison and I went and spent the night at the navy liason's barracks so to speak And then the next day which was christmas day I caught a jeep ride over to the naval installation at camp tinshaw what had been camp tinshaw Now is the tinshaw annex because so much had been turned over to the vietnamese and on the way over I remember this distinctly have a one point we had to pull over to the side of the road The uh the lieutenant to pick me up And uh he said pull out your weapon and is it loaded he said yes I said yes, he said just range it back and forth. Don't let anybody come near the jeep We pulled over because an ammo train was approaching us coming from the The docks and it was full of bombs and what have you and he's as he said If you see one coming you pull over you don't want to get in the way of an ammo train because they're not going to stop anything And they came roaring by kicking up all the dust and what have you And we then continued on our way past the vietnamese rehab hospital Which was known by the lovely name of crippled corner And as we went by crippled corner There were people out there with shovels scooping up the remains of the crippled vietnamese Who had been waiting for an ammo train to come by so they could throw themselves under the wheels And thereby get their families some monetary benefit from the american government and uh I I remember, you know Over there, there's a there's a hand disconnected from anybody and it's like this And I'm you know that became an appropriate representation of What I experienced in country in in in many ways I was a very junior officer When I met the old man that was going to advise me the captain of actually a commander And an alcohol problem I if you remember him looking me looking at me and saying They sent me a goddamn ensign. What am I supposed to do with a goddamn ensign? I never he never called me by name I was always the goddamn ensign And I ended up being the the one uh for those first month and a half I was there that they would send off when something needed to be done something strange Uh A code machine had been left behind they needed somebody to go up and pull it out of uh where it had been left Send me the goddamn ensign They needed somebody to go up and assist somebody, uh an american officer who was closing down or pulling the advisor out of the uh Uh, vietnamese naval installation and they needed some extra hands up there Send up the goddamn ensign So I got sent to these uh various places before I went off for this temporary duty And then when I came back Um I was went back to the same unit and I was an advisor to directly with the vietnamese Working in their command center But that was What ended up being my cover job Because I was pulled aside by the xo and asked if I uh Would do them a favor And I knew that this was not going to be a good thing Because this isn't the way that you're supposed to get orders and all this sort of stuff But they had this small group of people and uh The americans supplied them and would I the guy who had been supplying in them had gone home, but they still needed their supplies, but I Mind terribly supplying them Getting arranging for whatever they needed And I said sure, uh, whatever you want. I'll be glad to you know that want me to Do this, uh, how does it all work? Who do I report to where do I end? You don't I was told you don't report to anybody You meet this guy by the fuel dump He goes by the name of zipper zipper Zips was a term we used to do along with dinks and slopes to describe our ally as a pejorative term I thought it really strange that I was going to meet a vietnamese who went by the name of zipper But I did and he told me what he wanted and it was all kinds of supplies ranging from ammunition to various other kinds of items and uh I went back to the executive officer and asked well one of my guys said get it. However, you can't And I said okay I can get a lot of this at the bx of base exchange from the air force or the army exchange But I need some funds to do that and he gave me a big wad of military currency and said here use this I said okay. I'll need a pass. He said here Gave me a little piece of blue paper That gave me an ensign The authority to go anywhere. I wanted to and commandeer anything I needed I was dumbfounded But I went off and I got the stuff and I came back and I said okay I've got the stuff and he said well just keep on doing it and don't tell anybody what you're doing Especially don't mention it to the to the captain to the commanding officer Because he doesn't want to know anything about it Okay So I kept doing this after about a week or so Things developed in one way or another and uh I was given a list and the zipper said well, what do we do about these people? And I said well, why well the the vc I said the vc do what you normally do take care of it And I went back and I went into the x-o and I said this was a very strange and uh incident And I described what had happened and he just looked at me. He said you know what you've done I said I told him to take care of it take care of them The x-o looked at me and he said you signed their death warrant I said wait a minute And I looked at myself. What am I what am I into here? And that's when he told me It was the remains of what was called Operation Phoenix Which had been a pacification program Uh that had actually been very successful and what it was originally meant to do Although it was very brutal Phoenix had been Hit the american news in the 68 69 something and so it had been Officially the americans had said that they closed it down. It was no longer part of The cords program, uh the civic operations and Refugee development support program. It was no longer connected with that. It had been closed down At the same time as the SOG group, uh studies and operations group, which were The uh seals and what have you those had also been closed down So these these programs that were so controversial and had such Interesting reputations had been closed down the reality was nothing got closed down They were all just given to the vietnamese to operate as they would And we continued to supply them And uh kind of sign off on what they were doing But without keeping any records and that's what I backed into So I continued to do that At the uh, I actually was given a two ammo boxes Full of green backs american hard currency To support what I was doing And along with that the extra Orders Let's say not to keep records Not to tell anybody what I was doing And I said well, what if I got run into something he said do what you think best For god's sakes I'm an ensign Barely commissioned three months And all of a sudden I find myself deep in this And the worst of part of it. Well the reality was I absolutely loved it It was a rush I wanted to know what they were doing Uh, I was told that the guy who preceded me never really wanted to know never asked questions. Well, I asked questions I wanted to know what they were doing how it was working And so I would go out with them on an operation And this was basically murder for hire When you showed up at the place in the middle of the night you went in There were no no survivors Could be with family there whoever nobody survived no witnesses And when I asked why they killed everybody they told me too dangerous for you You you no witnesses. We protect you Right So Shit Uh, but as I as I say I got It was a rush during the day I'd stand boring watchers or died of doing the boat with the watches or you know, there were two other guys we'd rotate it through and Then I'd go off and do this thing with the this little group That I would meet always off base nobody would be asking any questions Could I have the piece of paper that let me go and do what I wanted to do It was Terrible It was horrifying It was You know, I I was not a stranger to combat because I was there two weeks before I was in my first firefight and uh I'd been made the executive officer of a mobile response team and that's another story altogether, but I was being Sent up to a radar site with the vietnamese And there were two jeeps and I was in the second Jeep the first Jeep of vietnamese got ahead of us too far They went around the corner and we could hear the ambush. So when we came around the corner You know, I'd gone through panic and fear and I was just Enraged that somebody was going to be shooting at me. So I rolled out of the Jeep and My my m16 was on rock and roll. I took out black pajama over there Put in another clip took out another one over there It all must have took an all you know 45 seconds. It seemed like forever And when I went out to search the first body, I found that I killed a 16 But what was it recording the idea was a 16 year old girl? I did not envision That war included killing children But it did more than once It was ugly. It was brutal The only thing that Kept me alive Was I fell in love with a vietnamese woman Something else. You're not supposed to do I inherited her Literally from a chief petty officer that was going home and he would took took me over and introduced him. He'd do his his girlfriend The house he'd set up for her in downtown denang it was easy to set up housekeeping with a local if you wanted to Have a family a little wifey over there. What have you? well he got sent back to the states and He gave me some stuff to take to her and I took it to her and found out that He hadn't told her he was going home and I gave her back the key to the compound and she kind of looked at me and she said you you you you come visit me I said well, I'd like to I was nice to have some company that was Wasn't going to shoot at me And so I said well, you need the key So she gave me the key and I took it and over the course of time I fell in love and She did too because she'd never met an American for first of all spoke her language and I wasn't I wasn't you know Brutal, I wasn't really I do you she recognized I kind of backed into this and If she tried to seduce me a couple times it really didn't work because I wasn't Uh That happened after a month or so when thinking about what there was a Something went very wrong and I came back and all of a sudden she discovered that I was and Didn't have an office job. I showed up covered in in blood from a nighttime operation And It was She Cleaned my clothes. I took a shower and things just progressed from there many ways we became a couple And it was that that tenderness that that that sense of love of having somebody who Would would hold me a night That enabled me to keep keep on going It was so ugly what I was doing That I decided that uh This is Lou as I Lou was her name and I should uh, I would disappear into thailand with her So I made the arrangements I had plenty of money Plenty of papers plenty of contacts Remember I stole only an instant for god's sake But uh And I told her what we were going to do And I made all the arrangements and I came back and we were going to do it and she had disappeared And I went into a blind panic trying to figure out what happened what happened whether she'd been arrested brought up caught up in a sweep And I used every contact I had black market and what have you to try and find out and uh, I never did find out what happened I mistakenly at that point exposed myself a little bit to the point where black market was going to take advantage of me and the various knowledge I had of of operations And my little group of assassins were getting even a little more out of hand and People were being withdrawn right and left out of country at that point. I kept asking am I going soon and the XO kept saying you're not on the list to go anywhere. You're staying here and uh Finally I got a week of hour and hour in Thailand So I went to Thailand for a week and had to take the opportunity to kind of sort things out and uh The XO had been after me said can't you close that little group of yours down and just sort of stop it so I decided I could and uh I needed to take care of the black market people that were threatening me as well one in particular So I uh I'd made a discovery during my course of duty about how the targets were identified and uh It was actually through the black market That would hire the group to take care of somebody And I actually tested this out by giving to the black market Uh operator I worked with the chief one The name of a Vietnamese gentleman. I considered expendable And two or three days later that name appeared in front of me from my little group on a short list of people to be taken care of so I signed him off And in due course by black market operator came up to me and said, uh, your little problem has been taken care of and At that point I knew I would I'd come in at both sides of the operation And neither side knew I knew so uh What I ended up doing was uh I told the little group over here of assassins that uh the guy over here Was upset with something they had done and he was going to take care of them and before they took care of him They before he took care of them. They better take care of him So they arranged a a fake rocket attack on his place of business Uh, he lived over his supplies and uh, they actually blew him up And then they told me what they had done and I said good And then I killed all of them I killed the team with a hand grenade Uh If I had to clean it up somehow that was how I did it and I didn't see any other way to do it And then I went and I told the xo that uh, uh, the problem with the team was solved. He said, what did you do? I said, you don't want to know He said well, I need to I said no, you don't want to know But you need do need to know is you need to expedite getting me out of country And so they did Two or three days later of that I was back in san francisco Getting on an airplane fly back to boston my parents were going to pick me up at the airport I got on this plane. It was one of these old planes with three seats on each side And I got into a seat by the window and there were two seats empty beside me and I'm sitting there Nursing a drink that the waitress had brought me the stewardess had brought me And this woman gets on with a young child must have a child must have been four or five Child runs down into the seat beside me because they're the only seats that are open And I look down old childish smile say hi and I hear the mother say that the stewardess You need to change our seats. I don't want my child to sit next to a baby clock There it was And it was more truth to it than I wanted to admit and I knew then that uh I was an alien in my native land stranger not welcome not wanted So I finished out my military military obligation I've been ordered. I've been offered because I graduated the top of my class in ocs I've been ordered a commission in the regular navy just as if I graduated from the academy Rather than the reserve commission which ocs candidates would usually get And that commission that that paperwork caught up with me in vietnam and I've told the old man wanted to see me right away. So I went in and I just come in from a night in witnessing a questioning of a suspect No one ever survived the questioning of the suspect They didn't survive no one survived the questioning So I went in to see the old man and I got blood on me And he kind of looked at me shoot me out for being unmilitary And he threw these papers across at me and said you can sign these you can have a regular commission And be just like me and I remember looking at him. I said thank you. You son of a bitch There's no way in hell. I'm going to be just like you and I was pulling out my Weapon I was going to shoot him And I said I'm going to be going I'm going to be a minister just like my father This was a great surprise to me. I never thought of this and You know when I said it Anyway, the exo wrap wrap me up and pulled me out and you know No, nothing like that came of it because if they brought charges, they would have had to Take the chance that I would talk about what I was doing and no one wanted to do that So it just got all got forgotten And the ceo never spoke to me again and I never spoke to the ceo. So I went, you know, I went back, you know, I turned down the commission I'd always dreamed of being a navy officer for Korea that was out Thought to myself. Well, what have I just said? I'm said I'm going to be a pastor like my father Where the hell did that come from? What is God thinking? You know Uh, anyways, I came back to the United States. So I finished out my military obligation Be damned if I didn't go to seminary It's been the mind of my professional career as a clergyman Uh, this gave me some problems Uh, because uh I was keeping a secret. I didn't want people to know exactly what I done in country Uh, I never told my family I got married had children. I never told my wife Uh, and uh Until I was I was beginning to have severe flashbacks Uh My children were scared of me Because I'd have these rages and I'd go off to isolate myself because I didn't want to hurt anybody Because I'd survived in Vietnam by having rage You know, I couldn't have any other emotion. But if I became angry So I spent a lot of time being angry and I could if the situation arose I could actually feel a white hot heat back of my neck And uh, then I could literally kill without feeling anything Until later then I would drink um I've told this story, uh in the retreats that we've led with with uh Uh, over the years of spiritual healing retreats of veterans and their wives and um They just kind of look at me I I never thought my story was unusual I thought it was you know Until the first time I told it which was when I first, you know, I'd been a minister for a number of years and uh I had moved to a large church in Duluth, Minnesota hoping to hide in the cold weather of Minnesota from the flashbacks that I was having That didn't work too well uh, and I was I'd been there three months and I was in the middle of tremendous flashbacks And on my desk, there was a my predecessor The interim had left a folder of resources and I pulled one up and it was talked about the local vet center veteran senate senate these had been started for vietnam veterans and I looked at it and I finally staggered down into it and uh They sat me down and we began to talk and They wanted to commit me to a psych ward But I didn't have time for that. I had four funerals. I had to officiate at all of them veterans and uh Well They put me in an in-country group in-country combat group and we were talking about it and talking about things But I would sit there very quietly and listen Because I didn't want to talk uh, because I didn't know how to talk and uh I got a letter Passed on to me about this group of vietnam veterans were also clergy That had formed the year before and they were having a meeting over in chicago And if I wrote to this guy father phil I might be able to join the group So I wrote to him and he said well, do you certainly qualify your dd2 14 is you just need to send me 50 dollars So I said 50 bucks and signed up for their conference over in illinois. It was an outside of chicago And I went I had to get permission from the vet center to go and from my in-country combat group I had to get permission to meet a meeting so I explained And the vet center said well we can can we call this father phil and check it out so they called father phil phil selwa and uh They called me how this was another legitimate group and they said and father phil happened to work with the va He was the chief chaplain at the boston va. So that's had My counselor said to him she told me this later. She said I said to father phil There's something really bothering him and we can't crack him because he knows all the tricks See if you can crack him open and get him to talk So I get over there and We go through the the Five or six days of the conference and it starts with a sharing time of everybody telling who they are why they're there I thought I was there to learn about the group And I didn't say much else But father phil kept trying to crack me in various ways and finally he just decided the only way he could do it And then phil selwa for a catholic priest mind you is a crafty son of a bitch And he ambushed me He literally announced one evening that he did not feel that all of the attendees had given Shared sufficiently of their stories. So they were going to have a special sharing session That evening and everybody was to show up at 7 30 in the conference room I went up to my room and I knew he was going to I I knew what he was doing. I knew it. I'm no fool If I was a fool, I wouldn't be here uh I I packed my bags and I said I I called cut and run like and I said no I cut and run Out of this I came here to see if I couldn't Do something positive Let me see if I can cut it out and just get through this. We'll see what he's got in hand So I went down at 7 30 had everybody else come down half an hour earlier so we could breathe him on what he was doing Had the room set up circle candles going incense burning Lights turned down low. He'd chosen the music and uh He had two people primed to speak one who had actually been at my lie another would been a helicopter pilot pulling people out after they'd been shot down he had them speak and Then he played a song from lay miss empty chairs at empty tables where have all my friends gone and then he looked Thing into I'm sitting directly across from it And he looks at me and raises his eyebrows as if to say well And I look back at him and I was I was in agony I was just torn up and I Said to myself fuck it I threw off my glasses and I would put them down and I told them about my what had happened And later I was told I thought I spoke for about five minutes. I was told I spoke for over an hour Uh Another catholic priest who had been a chaplain in country a number of years later Asked me about what I had thought about that experience and I looked at myself Well, tell me what you thought he said you scared the shit out of me. I'd never heard anything like that but I told What I had done and it put me so far outside what you'd call the box of expectations of what would happen What would happen? What should have happened? That I you know, I I sat there and you know, I'd been pushed to the edge of Almost what you might consider treason And I so I finally just admitted it and I just sat back and thought okay now. They're all gonna kill me And that's fine But what happened was uh, we were all chaplains religious people of various denominations and Bread and wine appeared and we had what you might call A ritual of communion sharing a sacred moment and I became part of the group And the question was that they asked fill the next day. Well, how do we know that we've actually helped Alan? And they said, well, we'll know if he comes back to our meeting next year I went back for the next 20 odd years. I never missed a meeting That's what the only group I had that I could have a reunion with Because I did not relate to any other group in country I've since been invited to have a reunion with some seabees And I've been invited to occasionally have a reunion with a group called the big look spooks Who were listening spies on the conny the big planes or the? Listening stations on the ships that I trained with they were the other linguists They invited me to come back to their group. So I have a can occasionally sit in with the big look spooks or the uh, the seabees from camp tinshaw Um, and they're glad to have me there because I can tell them what happened at the very end of the camp that they had built But other than that other than this minister's group. I had no one to have a reunion with so these were my reunions And out of those that group arrived arose our retreat program that martin came to Where we we began to run retreats for people who were suffering from war trauma And we would talk to them about a healing path a path of hope some way to find some sense of wholeness with who you are and Reclaim the promise of life or be able to get on with living Open yourself up to accepting challenges and We had actually been challenged to create this program by the Psychologists and the psychiatrists who were working with PTSD at the boston va and internationally And the international society of traumatic stress studies They came to us in our little group of clergy veterans and said We can treat the uh, the various presenting issues But at the heart of of PTSD we've discovered that it is basically a wound to the human spirit And this is your specialty. So you guys might kindly do something So we've created a retreat program And to our great surprise it it worked And people would come to us that it never and we would always have them come with a partner if we could Spouse the work that they lived with because we wanted to create a base community of at least a couple people that they could talk with And we would have world war two veterans come with their wives 40 50 years and their wives would say during the course of the retreat. He's never said anything like that to me He's never told me that story part of what we were doing was telling stories Father phil once said to me in a drunken moment A very drunken moment He said the only thing we have to give each other is our stories And that was just before I told the next I told my story because he ambushed me But that's true The only thing we really have to give are our stories and how they reflect on our lives and what we've done with our lives The challenges as use word that we use word the word turn the challenges that you accept accept along the way the risks that you're willing to take the Hope that you can find When you don't have to be all consumed to try to keep something a secret Trying to not let out who you are if you can accept who you are what you've done and Recognize that within that Human experience you are not unique And that others have gone down that pathway before and you need to learn from that pathway If you can take that that hope that there's learning out there And if you can open yourself to taking the risk of getting Of things being better Some sort of healing coming Down the line then then then then you can live and I call it living by serendipity Because I'm as I said, I'm I'm kind of a control freak. I like to manage things And I tried to do that with my family didn't work. Well, I tried to do that in vietnam with disastrous circumstances Finally I came to the point where I will set things up as much as I can I'll make arrangements But I have no predetermined outcome of anything If something good comes out of it, it's serendipity and it's a gift to me And I take I take it all as a gift As a matter of fact, that's how I've had to take life Because coming back from vietnam and finally I came to the spot where I had to find a resolution with the Woman I've fallen in love with in vietnam. I had to come to some sort of a conclusion about that. So I did I find a conclusion that gave me permission To accept the love that we had but to move on And I had to come to some sort of a conclusion with my own family My children and my wife about being honest with them about what I'd done and who I was and Why I was so controlling and you have they helped me give that I gave them permission to be my partners in my own healing journey They had a phrase they could use and if they used that phrase It told me I was off going off the deep end again And I had to go talk to my counselor because something was wrong And so they knew they were my partners and this began when my kids were in junior high school So they knew they know that That had some problems for a while And it's okay Because I've also seen In my ministry and what I've done working with other veterans Working with phil and our group We've helped people along the way We've we've given them encouragement. We've opened them up to say that, you know, you can go through some terrible shit And it is shit But everybody's got shit I because I use religious terms I define sin for them a shit Everybody's got it Everybody has to deal with it But nobody likes to talk about their shit And it's the same with sin. So I you know, I can relate it's just like grace And again, I'm coming from a religious background Grace I define as greece because I can talk to any veteran and say, okay What do you do with your weapon to keep it operating it? You take good care of it and that includes you have to get a get a get a keep it well greased so it operates That's what God's grace is all about. It's the grease we get in our lives to keep us operating It's messy. It's dirty. It'll leave a stain. Don't think the great great grace is pure. It's not it's just like grease It's messy. It's just like shit. It'll leave a stain But it'll change your life And that is kind of the the approach that we took in our retreat We never tried to sell who we were as religious people in fact We try and lay down our religious identities as soon as we could and identify more as from our veteran identities because we didn't we weren't We didn't want to make a body count for christ. We've done the body count business already We weren't in the making body count for the for the church But we were there doing there out of our varied religious varied backgrounds We're trying to help our brothers and sisters who were veterans Claimed the fullness of life live up to the promise of life get enjoyment out of life Live life to the fullest possible way that you you could and we tried to show give them Examples and telling our own stories about our own lives and how they changed for the better And the great enjoyment we got out of doing what we did And the great enjoyment we get out of seeing what they do with their lives as many of them are still in touch with us in a variety of ways on email on facebook of Writing letters, what have you and it's just wonderful to see how people have come to the retreats and actually been helped along the way That's really And you know if I were to bring my life into a circle That's what my my parents wanted more than anything else from my brother and me They wanted us to wanted us to be happy in our lives And they wanted to know the the joy that comes in helping other people and being servants Which was part of our faith tradition and uh that has been the story that I've I've tried to live out and I continue to try and live out because I I've still got at least 20 good years ahead of me I'm only 75 I mean geez I can keep on going forever So I keep telling myself even though I know it's not true, but I just keep going going on because uh I wake up in the morning and every day is a gift to me Uh, I went went in country with the idea that I was not going to survive and it was affirmed to be by more than one or two people And uh, those guys that I went through training with intelligence training Other two of them back in Uh, fan Francisco the guys that went on to be nylos neither of them came back Of the three of us. I'm the only one that came back the sole survivor And I'm the sole survivor of a couple operations That I was involved in There's a burden with being a sole survivor um You need the ghosts come and visit you sometimes and that was terrifying hungry ghosts as a phrase in vietnamese culture in Buddhist tradition in some ways the hungry ghosts will come and get you the animus And I experienced those hungry ghosts until uh Finally I made friends with them And they no longer come as hungry ghosts. They still come But they're not they're they're they're coming to get more they're my companions on the journey now And it's a different relationship Like anybody I can talk of a purely practical rational side of things But also I have my own experiences of mysticism and my own spirituality that I fall back on I I that I enjoy tremendously I'm a I'm a presbyterian buddhist I went to retreats with The community of tich Nhat Hanh and actually went to a retreat with him And have always been a great admirer of his writings one of the things they said to vietnam veterans Because he'd always had them sit up front at his retreat when they were there. He wanted to talk to them especially and he'd say You are the burning light at the tip of the candle Only you with the horrors of who you've been and where your stories Only you can tell the truth The truth about war and chaos And to some extent I think that's true There are some parts of the experience that Civilians will never understand But they can touch They can touch it And maybe for a brief moment they can get a glimpse of that in reading a story Or in Seeing a movie like martin's penitent Maybe they can get a touch of it And if they can That's great And if I and my other veterans in our group have been able to contribute to that We could ask for nothing more Yes martin's son Done incredibly well hasn't he to come through what what he's been through Yeah, and we've enjoyed him so much. Yes, it has been a joy to To watch him to listen to his stories to exchange viewpoints back and forth. It is just One of the great joys I hope to get over to to cornwall sometime and actually to drop in on him Got a friend down in australia Uh, I've got a standing Offer to come down and visit with the australian veterans down there I'd love to go be able to go and do that once this cobin businesses reaches a place where I can travel again freely But I'd love to go and meet with some of these people that I've Had been in touch with over the years and get a chance to sit down and talk with them again And see what challenges they've found in their lives and how they've how they've met them Now they've uh, but they've accomplished Why do you think it is that some veterans Reach out for help or start looking for the answers and and others don't make it I think uh Well again speaking from my own experience. My pain was so great Uh, my own conflict within myself was so great that I knew I either either it was going to I was going to find a way out Or I was going to destroy myself one way or the other be it by drinking or by suicide and um My motivation my motivation was I was not going to let that war kill me So I was going to do whatever I could to reclaim some sort of fullness of life so that that On one part the pain was so great. It kept me moving to look for something But there was also the determination that that was actually something more than what I was experiencing Experiencing there was something more out there for me, but I had to find it somehow and so I Decided that I would take the risk You know to go down to the vet center To go into the in-country group to go to the plane to take any risk. I could Knowing that there were always a chance that I would be ambushed again And thrown back a step or two But also knowing that there was a greater chance that something good would come of it And my experience has been yes, there are times when you you have to step back and go and talk to somebody And that's okay because that's who we are. We need to talk to people We need help along the way we need people we can depend upon But also you need to there's something more out there for us And you you need to keep reaching for it and reaching for it I call it Hope and healing and I've actually used that in a book title hope and healing for the journey or something like that I could have used the third word and that would have been love because what you eventually discover is In hope and healing a power that is Greater than what you imagined and it comes under the rubric of the the word that we would define as as love And so when I meet with veterans when I talk with them, uh I find many veterans that are stuck And they've gotten a little bit of progress But they don't think there's something more and they're afraid that if they feel a little bit better If they take the next risk they'll lose what they've got Well, it's you can't hold on to things like that because then they that but you're holding on to like a secret Begins to define who you are You've always got to take the next step and the next step And so that's what I firmly believed is that I have to keep taking that next step that next step next step with whoever god puts in my Petal place or circumstances Put into my place. There's always the next step and there's always going to be some serendipitous surprise for me along the way Yes, do you think if we um Alan if we Buy into a Let's just call it a victim identity that's going to um Shackle us from from finding this love that you that you talk about Yes Being a victim Creates its own set of boundaries its own little box No one's meant to live in a box We're all meant to open the box and box and reach outside I could have you know Just set myself up to be always bitter About the the various things I fell into The various decisions I made that brought on some of those Hard times to myself because I didn't make good decisions all the time. I made some horrendous decisions but I I refuse to think think of myself as as a a victim Uh I would rather be a perpetrator of good than a victim Uh confined by the evil that others perhaps or myself I've done to myself I'd always rather be reaching out and trying something new Uh taking some new risk going to some new spot having some new adventure uh then trying to just exist in my own little box of And wallow in my own pain I say too many people that wallow in Their lives are defined by their bitterness and pain And it's not just veterans It's it's a people in a variety of circumstances Who are hurt and then are scared to go past the hurt the fear of being hurt again Or taking the risk of being hurt again It's not it's not risk not that's not living That's existing It's not even really it's a barely surviving There's so much more than survival Yes I'm thinking too that We hear a lot now don't we about being present living in the in the present And appreciating the beauty of if you want to call it God or nature or spirit or And of course for for veterans a lot of your Identity is hammered into the past And my past has always missed me with me, but I'm always mindful that I'm not living in my past But I'm mindful that I'm living in today and uh Dick Gathan's my mindfulness the way we see mindfulness Coming out in a variety of spiritual paths Whatever the spiritual path or path you follow is is You know, I think the real gift is really living Being very aware of where you are at the moment And uh, uh, not making big plans for the future, but just to you know, I make little plans. I don't make big plans Uh Given my uh physical limitations. I know that uh every day can be kind of an adventure. It depends on how well the medications are working uh, so I I I make little plans and enjoy them And how I do have some big plans like going to australia or what have you Uh, or walking part of the community Camino Santiago in northern spain. I'd like to do that Uh, but that was a big plans but uh day by day I live by the Just savoring every moment that comes looking for the gift that each person will bring to me Uh, like I discovered a whole little bunch of gifts. So we're looking at some of your uh, short videos I mean, those are just fascinating really fun Yeah, it's my gift to it's My gift to you allen and to to everybody I I think um It's like you say it's it's about love and it's about giving and not not keeping Not keeping things too close to your chest yes Well, and it's also about uh feeling free to take the risk just to have a conversation and tell the story You wouldn't believe in front of me the number of uh four by five cards that I wrote out That uh to to prompt my memory along the way Or to uh cover certain things to make sure I did them in order or or what have you and I haven't looked at one of them In part because I don't have my glasses on because they always reflect in the uh screen from the ambient light and without my glasses, uh Uh, I couldn't read the damn cards anyway. So I've just been sitting here Telling a story having a conversation and uh being content to let it be what it is And that's part of part of the gift is being content to Just do it and let it be Yeah, I often say to guests when they they're a bit um How can we say resistant? I say do you prepare to you know if you walked into the bar and Met one of your brothers or your your veteran sisters. Do you do you prepare for that and they're like No, no, well there you go Yeah, I was I was there using that image earlier today because I was looking at all this stuff and that I'd gotten out and I talked to myself Trying to do that is my uh obsessive compulsive self taking control And uh, I don't like that self all that much. So let's just go with it and see where it It takes us and um It's a story and there are all kinds of parts to the story As my children often say when somebody asks me a question they'll they'll say don't ask him that he's going to tell a story And it'll go on and on and on And uh, even with my buddy father phil who you'll talk to I know phil so well and we have told each other's story so often That both he and I can repeat each other's stories back to each other and call each other out You forgot to put them that part about when you you know But we we have worked together for so long and uh heavens fight of We have differences, of course, but we have such tremendous reliance for one another that we we we cherish the moments that we can get together and uh, we still do you know, uh Among the veterans of our conference, uh, there are many that are Remained dear to me uh that I communicate with uh in a variety of ways many veterans that uh You just meet and go along the way and all of a sudden they're part of a larger extended Uh spiritual journey experience of life human experience spirituality is the human experience of the whole human person Whole human person not just part person The whole person the good the bad the ugly God knows I'm ugly Alan can we um Can you clarify for us so this this black market operation is it? Is this what we would know as the phoenix operation phoenix or or was it a similar? Phoenix was it's own a little thing with uh identifying the local a leadership the the the uh, tax collectors the the vc tax collectors who would collect the funds in each village if you could identify them and pacify them neutralize them Take care of them get them to rally to choo-hoi was the vietnamese work to rally to the cause and become part of the south vietnamese Thing that was one thing if you couldn't get them to rally you just killed them That was very effective. We actually uh in the operation phoenix We pretty much wiped out the vc infrastructure to be a kong infrastructure in south vietnam But we didn't realize that they they were all replaced by the north vietnamese army infrastructure So well, we thought we were fighting the vietcong. We were actually fighting the nva and it didn't dawn on anybody immediately Or for a long time if ever That was one thing entirely unto itself the You had over here the operation phoenix working through cords and The saw group the studies and operations group they that that was Very much coordinated with the cia the company and what have you And the other intelligence agencies all the black market is uh law unto itself I do not think there is a war zone that does not have an active black market at some some sort You just have to make the right Touches along the way and make the right people for example, uh I was uh, we advisors were dependent upon the south south vietnamese navy for all of our supplies our vehicles So we would get these old beat-up jeeps that even the americans didn't want But if we wanted to have it really fixed up We would drive the jeep into downtown danang leave it on a corner call a certain number The black market would pick it up and in three or four days. We'd have a nice new refurbished rebuild jeep And you pay for it out of rec funds call it basketball supplies or something like that No, the black market was the way that you would procure what you needed that you couldn't get through normal channels Or procure what you wanted that you couldn't get through normal channels And the black market you had people that were winked at by the Governments, let's say and the by the military and you had people that operated way outside that would take care of some of the Weirder needs that the black market would could supply heroin hard drugs and what have you So the the phoenix was one thing the black market was something else High happened to be working on in both areas uh just sort of fell into them backed into both of them in some way and uh I will say uh as I as I People find it difficult to understand but it War was a real rush in many ways. It was it was exciting It was fun You uh for for an ensign. I had so much power I you know the unexpectedly I I just It almost destroyed me But that doesn't say there was not enjoyment in doing what you were doing There's nothing more Satisfying let's say Then setting an ambush and seeing it work Now that's difficult to explain to uh people, but it's true It's true and for people who talk about the uh And the terrors of war and the horrors Damn it. There are also some pretty good times that you can find in a war zone And there are relationships that are fleeting temporarily. You may only know somebody by a nickname But that is somebody that you know by a nickname that you've gone through a firefight with is your friend for life And you'll never forget that person And if you happen to save each other's life so much the better No, no may never touch but they're part of you and you're part of them there's something something about that experience that We don't seem to capture in civilian life that intensity of of of of of war that that It's the ultimate experience of almost in mindfulness of that living moment by moment second by second and There are some times where sitting in a committee meeting where you you really say oh god, I missed that you know about because because in some ways I think those of us who have been to war Have received That gift of really if we have the courage knowing how to value each moment But it takes it it takes I think courage it as I tell people to take it going to war You know, you're scared. You're frightened, but you still go over there. You get that could take some courage It takes even more courage to risk coming home and living life fully That that's a real courage that veterans need is the courage to come home And Take that that that that love of life that immediacy of life at that That sheer wonderful moment and and expect to experience it in life As a gift Because it is there it is Can you shed some light? It was William Colby. Was it the director of the CIA? Yes back at this time and he he met an untimely End was it in his canoe? Yeah, there's something like that I always felt a little strange about Uh Meeting people who worked for the company. Let's call them And actually in the community where I live here in florida We actually have a couple people here who work for the company in uh, uh, let's put it More restricted modes than field work And in some ways they seem Seems so They see so so caught up so limited they they they're they're very cautious. They're not willing to take uh, uh real That their lives are are very prescribed by the limits they set for themselves Rather than letting life be and taking the risk to see Hell what what box can I break out of now? What limit can I go past what expectation can I go pass people don't expect me to do this? How can I push myself? That's why I went down uh, uh, when I said it was 73 I began to get back on the stage and did improv comedy You know You don't expect people at my age to get up and uh, especially when you're walking with two canes or walker And get up on the stage throw the canes away and fall down on the ground and make a joke out of it That's improv. You know you do what you do Just let go build story I think many people would say improv is braver than Being in vietnam Getting up on that. I don't know about that. It takes a certain amount of willingness to make an absolute complete fool of yourself But in some ways I've been doing that all my life. So what about the hell? Yes, so Sebastian Junger wasn't it that said we need to answer that question that um You can take a man out of the war, but you can't take the war out of the man and some In some ways the war is is always with me because it helped to find me as the person I am now And for that uh, and for the five years that I spent on active duty I remain immensely grateful and immensely proud Of the time I spent in service Uh, there were hard times just uh, so there were strange times But they helped define me and challenge me to uh become the person I am and um Also not to be defined by solely that experience But be to let other experiences come I've never seen such gentleness as I have had in as in combat combat Have you read master horn? Matterhorn uh The name uh rings a bell. I don't know if I've read it or not. Is it is it something to do with climbing the mountain? No, it's um, well it is a mountain But it was one of the names given to the peaks in vietnam up in the i'm guessing up in them in the high country And it was written by chat Yeah written by a former marine called I believe is coal malantes I've read I've read some stuff by the malantes. Yes Uh, and I may have read that I have to admit that uh, sometimes my memory is not too great for what I've Read over the years But I the kind of malantes I've read some of his writings I don't know if I've read that one, but I have right. I know I've I've read a couple of his books just like I've I have to admit uh, people ask me about what They ask me about what my favorite movies are. I I've never seen any of the vietnam movies other than forest gump Uh, I don't I don't do movies. Well, uh Sometimes I I know I'll get into a movie and I'll get an ambushed and sometimes that's not I have to deal with that In some ways, I am a little bit protective of what I see And what I read Uh, I I need to know that if I'm going to see something or read something. I've got to be in A safe place or have a trusted companion with me So I am uh, I have learned that there are certain things I have to do Uh, and especially to have a trusted companion like my wife with me Uh, so if something does happen she can Help me get out of it Or cover for me so I have enough time to do it run my repair tapes as I call Because I can still get that's like anybody else. I can still get caught ambushed And thrown back And was it uh, uh Was it a big battle to get over the alcohol? I gave up drinking, uh for about 13 years altogether Because it was getting in my way of what I was trying to do as a pastor in the church However, when we went to france to to paris I had always promised myself a bottle of wine in its native habitat So I did what I did I had done in country I would have a card in my pocket And every time I had a drink I would make a little mark And I promised it out of myself out of a bottle of wine I would have two drinks so I had that card in my pocket And that's what I did And uh coming out of that I discovered uh oddly enough that uh I can have a bottle of wine and it will not affect me too Other than get me relaxed Uh, and I can't have an occasional cocktail and I do Uh, but in my mind, I'm always mentally ticking Uh, off because when I was doing this in country Where drinking was very heavy I knew especially when I was with the vietnamese because I was most of the time I always had to be I would always be the least drunk or the most sober. Let me put it that way And I made sure that I was always the most sober And they were always more drunk than I was I supplied them with a lot of booze to make sure that happened But I'm very again, I'm very mindful of that and uh, so I'm very aware of uh being very cautious When I gave it up for the 13 years, uh I didn't miss it that much frankly Uh, I think I I I filled that spot with chocolate milkshakes Which didn't help my weight any but Satisfies that one habit bad habit for another let's say Yeah, you're probably not going to wake up feeling so guilty after knocking back a few milkshakes as you are a You know some johnny walker Yeah, uh the uh The great thing about being uh retired now and uh living in in community as uh, we do actually We literally live in a community. I'm living the dream of my youth I'm living in a commune With people all around me and we all share our drugs Because we're all taking medications and some of them taking the same medications So if you run out you go to your neighbor and say do you have any extra warfarin? My prescription hasn't come there yet, or do you have any extra cinnamon? My parkinson's meds haven't come we all share our medications No, it's a dream of my youth living in a commune as we're both authors And as we've got a debt of gratitude from martin martin webster This one arrived a couple of days ago Ah, yes, I have that on my bookshelf Yes, yes, really looking forward to reading it for friends at home if you're not if you haven't seen my podcast with martin webster I think we've done three now martin was the chap that had a witch hunt out for him after he was filmed Or footage of him was shown in the news of the world And he was making comment in iraq on some Locals some young iraqi locals that his regimen had grabbed hold of in a sort of snatch squad operation and Martin subsequently just went through hell with both the the military and the media and And he's now a an award-winning film director And so martin just to say thank you very much for putting alan and i in in touch Really looking forward to uh to reading your book And martin martin is marvelous as we say he's he's just our He's our our new person who'll put us in contact with the the film world and what have you his His capabilities are just blossoming now. I can hardly wait to see his next productions Yeah, he's a great guy, but don't ever lend him any money Uh, would that I had the money to lend him I would freely do so Alan listen, I'm gonna put links for for your books below this podcast so people can um Can get a hold of them Did you want to Give a shout out for your organization if if it can help Help any organization, uh, which was called the national conference of vietnam veteran ministers later the international conference of war veteran ministers has pretty much Seize to exist We were getting so old Uh, we timed ourselves out and uh, we have such trouble even getting a time to get together so other organizations have picked up the mission that we were doing of Using helping veterans along the way. So our organization has actually Kind of come to the end of their useful life as we were almost so I would simply say that I greatly appreciated the opportunity I had to get together with those veterans over the years and the ways it's led me to be with other veterans like you over the over the current years and uh as it did Getting me to meet with martin and the others It's just been a wonderful adventure And if I had to shout out to anything I'd give a shout out to those veterans who are still Wondering if there is something more in life after they came back from the war zone and I would say to them. Yes, there is a lot more to life than uh Than the experience you had in the military. It may help define you. It may help teach you But don't let it limit you Don't let it limit you There's something more There's hope there's healing that love there's joy and I will witness to it all Just as it's been a joy to meet with you today chris I was going to say on that note. What a perfect point to um To bring the podcast to a close alan. It's been absolutely wonderful I hope you do visit cornwall because cornwall is literally About four miles over there for me Really? Yeah, so I can treat you to a cornish pasty Okay, I will take you up on that. Yep Which uh, uh, you're absolutely gonna love. It's the old um It's the traditional food for the tin miners so When they walked from Plymouth, which is Where I am up onto their mine workings up on dart mall or or down there in cornwall They their wives would pack them off with a bag of these pasties, which is a meat pie for anyone who's wondering What we're talking about and uh Yes, I look forward to To sharing one with you And when we do I will tell you a story about pasties Brilliant I'll just stay on the line so I can thank you properly but um, okay Sending all of our love to our american brothers and sisters and and yourself and all of our our veterans family Thank you so much for for sharing your story um it's Would say it's been an eye opener, but it's been an ear opener if There is even such a thing so so thank you And to our friends at home massive love to you all as well If you could like and subscribe to support the podcast that would be wonderful and We'll see you next time