 Our unit was designed to protect Saigon. We knew we made noise and they could smell us. The six guys from our unit were separate from the rest of us. You can't put the genie back into the lamp. Well, get down, get down. Father Phil, it's an absolute honour to have you on my show. And I had the pleasure of chatting to your good friend Alan Cutter the other day. Good. I'm sure he kept you amused. Yeah, he said some great things about you. Oh, they were all lies. He said, don't lend you any money. That's for sure. Which part of the States are you in, Father? I'm in New England. I'm in the Rhode Island, which is about 34 miles from Boston. Oh, wow. So East Coast. Yes. And you've got French-Canadian history going by the surname. My father's side, yes. My father's grandparents are from Canada, the French-speaking Canada. And my mother's a French war bride from Paris, France. Wow. Salwa. Have I pronounced it correctly? Yes, Salwa. And you are the esteemed recipient, Father, of the Silver Star. Yes. Yes, thank you. I am. Yeah. And equally, if not just as incredible is the work you do for traumatized veterans and struggling veterans. Yeah, we've been spent a long haul, but a good long haul, even gone overseas to give conference to the Republic of Georgia in 1989, which was really exciting. Yeah, I bet. Father, can you tell us then, how did you first get to hear of Vietnam? I was drafted in 1969 in March, because I wasn't going to volunteer, but I wasn't going to run away either. My father was a World War II veteran, so I didn't want to bring shame to my family. And so I was... Would you still have joined up now, now that you have a sort of wider perspective on the world? No, because now that I know that war, we should never have been there anyway. But, you know, when you're a kid, it just seems, you know, the thing to do. I didn't know the whole story. That the story didn't really devolve until many years later. People get traumatized. It's very difficult to deal with. And it comes back, comes back in their dreams, comes back flashbacks. It comes back, it could be something that there's a sense of smell that brings them right back to Vietnam. You know, the smell of nuoc mam, which is that fermented fish sauce. And you go buy a Vietnamese restaurant, you get that smell that brings you right back to Vietnam. Yeah, exactly. And it was the light infantry brigade that you joined. The 199th Light Infantry Brigade. It was a sign to me. But it was a great outfit. And it'd be a very good outfit. Still friends with many of them. We have reunions. And when we get together, we don't talk about the war. We just talk about the good times, the brothers together. And the wives get along well together, which is great, you know. Yeah, that's probably the main thing. Yeah, yeah. And what's it like arriving in country? Is it similar to what we've seen in the Vietnam movies? When I first arrived into country, it was quite a shock. First of all, you get off the plane and the heat just hits you right in the face. And the smell of death. It's amazing that the smell of death is all over the country. And you get on these buses with bars on the windows to protect you, to bring you into the confound. And I mean, we're just kids. We don't know what's going on. We're just huddling together. And it takes a while for us to get adjusted to it. They send us to what they call a reassignment camp where they're going to do it. That's where they're going to assign you to the different units. We went there by ourselves. We didn't go there by units. So we went there individually and we came home individually, you know? So that was the bad part of that war. So you were alone at the beginning and you were alone when you came home alone but with other people, but not with the people you fought with, you see. Yeah, there must have been traumatizing in itself to come home. And you guys were taking a lot of unfair criticism. Oh, yes. Well, thank God we arrived at night. And so we, all the protesters had gone home. So I was very fortunate when I got my flight home to Los Angeles. See, I was living in LA at the time, California. And so that was quite a surprise when I went into my parents' house. They didn't know exactly when I was coming. So I went and surprised them, you know, and opened the door. My mother nearly had a stroke. Being an only child, it was very rough on the parents. I remember my father saying not to write to my mother about bad things in Vietnam, because he said, you know, she almost had a nervous breakdown. And so he said, you can write to me anything you want, but don't write those things to her. So I said, you know, when you're young and stupid, you just write whatever comes out of your head, you know? Yeah, well, it's all a new experience for you and such a vivid and extreme one. Well, it's my first time away from home. You know, I'd never left the house before, you know, it was kind of a homebody and it was interesting. I remember my mother, when I was in conflict, I served in the Northern Island conflict. And we had to keep all our details obviously private in communications. I remember us talking to my mother on the phone one time and she said, she said, so when are you back? And I said, well, if you think of the date of my birthday, then add 11 days on to that. That's that's when we're coming home and she went, oh, you mean September the 15th? My code, my code failed. And did you do your beat up training before you went or did you do it in the country? We did more training before at Ford or basic and a it advanced infantry training. And that was the six weeks each six weeks for the basic six weeks for the advanced infantry training. Then when we got to Vietnam, they spent two more weeks training us with the jungle warfare. So we got training again there before we got to our units. And that was quite interesting as well, you know, because they were able to give us more updated information on how the war was going. And but it was quite an interesting experience. There's a lot of it that I don't remember. But I remember pretty much everything until that ambush that we got involved in. And after that, my memory, they call it psychogenic amnesia. It's a way of protecting yourself from further harm in the brain and in your mental capacities. So you can still function. You can still fight the war. So when I got to my reunions, I didn't remember anything after March 1, which is the day that I had from the Silver Star thing. Because I was there till October of that year. So when I get to my reunions, I talk to some of my buddies, they said, we were in another ambush. We were in a couple of other ambushes. Oh, tell me about them because I don't remember. Was I there? He says, yes, you were there. You know, and I said, I hope I didn't do anything stupid. You know, but it was incredible. They were telling me, you know, things that I did that I don't remember. But I guess that's a way of God telling us, you know, you don't want to suffer any more pain. So they block off that brain so that you don't remember anything, you know. And to this day, I don't remember anything after March 1, except until I got my job in a rear. I think in my ninth month, they offered it, they were looking for a company clerk, someone I knew out of type. So I said, why no out of type? I says, I'll take that job. But let me go on my R&R first, said I was going to go to Hong Kong, you know. And he says, oh, no, we need someone now. I says, we'll find someone else. I said, oh, no, I said, fuck the R&R. I'll take the job now because I knew I'd have that job until I went home. And it was a good job back in the rear. It was safe. It was safe and I could take care of my guys on the field. And so that part, I remember being in the company clerk position because that was pleasant. That was fun. It was good, you know. Do you remember Adrian Cronauer? Was that as big as it was made out to be? Yeah, you mean a Good Morning America? Good Morning Vietnam, yeah. I remember the voice. I didn't know what his name was. But I remember we used to listen to him all the time. I had my little transistor radio, you know, and we'd listen to his music. And it was great. It was a little bit of America, you know. Father Phil, do you remember going out on patrol for the first time? Yes, I remember. I remember when they assigned me to the 199th, they were already out in the field on patrol. So they said, oh, good, I'll stay in the rear until they come home. I said, no, no, we're going to drop you right off with them. I said, well, grab. So they dropped me right off where they were right in the middle of the field. And I remember this one guy came up to me. He was a surfer dude from California. And he came up to me and says, you got any Kool-Aid? I said, yeah, I guess I'm a Kool-Aid. He says, you're Kool-Aid of your life. I mean, I didn't realize he was joking. I mean, I thought he was serious. So I gave him my Kool-Aid. Because they were thirsty and I had all sorts of supplies in my bag. So that was my introduction to this. I mean, I was the guy scared the shit out of me. But I remember another man on my first patrols. My squad leader was from Guam. And so he had an Oriental look. He could have passed for a Vietnamese. So I remember one day we were setting up camp. And my squad was going out to put out a landmine. And another squad was going in the opposite direction to put out their landmine. So we're walking out there and with the landmine setting it up, all of a sudden we get receiving rounds. Somebody's shooting at us. So I said to him, what was his name? God, I don't remember his name now. But anyway, I said, you know, they're shooting us. Well, get down. Get down. He says, yeah, stupid me. I was still standing up. And it was ended up finding it was our guys shooting at us because they saw my squad leader and they thought he was a gook. And they didn't know that we were going out to set up a landmine. And I mean, we were, you know, it was just one of those crazy things. Nobody got hurt. But boy, did they get, they get lambasted with, you know, father, did you ever have anyone in your patrol injured or killed? I'm trying to think before there was, we had one that we were doing. We were still in the rice fields and walking along the rice path. I was in the second platoon. This was in the first platoon. I remember one guy stepped on landmine. It was far, far from us. We didn't, I could see him in the distance. He got blown up and the guy behind him got, got hit with shrapnel. Really bad. That was the first kill. I don't remember, I don't remember his name. That was when we first in country. So I was still kind of getting used to the people, you know, but no, I actually, the most time we went out, we didn't meet any contact. It was, it was when we went out for that six months from when I was in, we went in for that big ambush. The North Vietnamese were starting to come down. And we were fighting with Viet Cong before that. And the North Vietnamese were real soldiers. They were on their way down to try to take over Saigon. Our unit was designed to protect Saigon from invasion. We, our unit was supposed to go into this, there was a huge bunker complex. And then North Vietnamese bunker complex. We knew where it was. So we are, it was my platoon, second platoon and first platoon that was assigned to go out there to destroy it. So the first platoon was leading out the first day. And it was February 28th. Actually it was about this time of the year. And one of the guys got killed that day from the first platoon. Got hit. So we were, we were close enough. We decided to take a trail out in the opposite direction, because it was getting dark already. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, but triple canopy jungle gets dark very early. So we set out for a couple of clicks, 2000 meters set up a camp. We thought we were going to attack that night because they knew where we were. I mean, we, we were not quiet. We were, we never could travel through the jungle quietly, you know, we knew we made noise and they, and they could smell us, you know. So, but anyway, we set up camp. Nobody slept that night. I mean, we were supposed to put out guard, but we were also so scared. The next morning we got up and it was our platoon, my platoon that was supposed to lead out this time. And the captain said, let's go down the same trail. Let's not bother trying to blaze a new trail. Let's go down the same trail. Well, that was a big mistake. We never go down the same trail. We started out early in the morning and the break of light. And about 15 minutes in we were, I was in the fourth squad. So I was in the back of my platoon. All of a sudden, all hell broke loose. We started hearing gunfire rifle shots from all over the, from all the three distances from the three directions. Realized that we had walked right into a U shaped ambush. And so immediately we're trying to make a defensive perimeter to get a defensive line to return fire and wish returning fire. We're firing over each other's heads. You know, we're, we're, you know, we're just making lots of noise. And I was carrying a grenade launcher. I didn't have an M16 and grenade launchers in jungles are not terribly useful because you got to aim it at a direction where it doesn't hit a tree. So it'll ricochet back to you. So you have to shoot it right up at a 45 degree angle. It makes a lot of noise and it scares them. So after about 15 minutes, I realized that we were separate for six guys from our unit were separate from the rest of us. And there was an open clearing. And we, and they had the radio, they had the platoon radio. So we had to bring the radio from the first platoon to try to get to touch with them. And they were not responding. So we don't know if the radio got shot up or if they were all killed or what we weren't receiving any, any messages from them. So we just kept returning fire, but we made sure we weren't firing in a direction of the upper left flank, because that's where they were. So I after I got really angry that none of us were trying to make any efforts to save these guys. And if I was out there, I'd want someone to start coming out to help us say, get back to safety. So I'm not done. I said, a prayer to God, I said, God, as I'm going out there to say, rescue these guys. If you get me out of this mess safe and sound without a scratch, I'll do anything you want. And that's the promise I made to God. I went up to the front line. I told the guys, I'm going out there to rescue these guys. He says, you're crazy with a name 75. What are you going to do with that? I said, I don't know, but I'm going to go out there. So one guy came up and said, if you're going to go out there, I'll go with you. He had named 16. That was named Herbert Clug from Dayton, Ohio. So we low crawled out. He said, there's a big boulder out there. Let's crawl out to this boulder and use that as a cover. And we'll just blast that whole right flank with everything we've got. I'll shoot those grenades as fast as I can. And he's going to put on rock and roll as we call it. Full automatic. And we did a good job out of the corner of my eye. I could see one, two, three, four guys, one by one, making a run back to the safety line. We knew that there were two more guys out there because there were six guys when I didn't see any movement. Herb said, we better make a run back ourselves. They're either dead or they're too injured to move. We'll go out and get them after. So on our way back, we low crawled back together, back to our line. I made it back safely. I noticed that Herb wasn't with me. I said, where's Herb? He didn't come back with you. I looked over the berm and he's laying flat on his stomach halfway out. So I go out there and I try to pull him in and I couldn't budge him. He was so heavy. And I later said to myself, that was my first encounter with dead weight. I never knew what dead weight meant until you try to pull a dead man by yourself. So a couple of guys came out and we dragged him in, turned him over and he had received a round in the chin, went out to the top of his head, had ricocheted off the ground and hit him in the chin, went up to the top of his head. Never knew what hit him. The guys said, we need to go out and get these other two guys. I said, okay, but we've got to bring some help. I can't carry anybody but myself. So a couple of guys went out with me. We went back out there and still people were covering fire for us. And we found a lieutenant and the point man. Point man was injured. We carried him back. Come to find out he had lost an eye in that injury. His name was Kamrat. And the lieutenant, Terry Bowell, was killed. We carried him back. So we dusted off Herb and the lieutenant and all of the injured. We had, our platoon was at 27 people in the platoon. We had only seven people that were not injured in that platoon. Everybody else was dusted off in helicopters. We were there all day. We didn't get out until about five in the afternoon. I was one of seven that never got injured except in the head, in the brain. And that, I believe now when it was God was covering for me. He had protected me. And we, we made another camp because it was getting late for the night. And I thought sure that they were going to come and finish us off. We had scattered them. I mean, we, the, and VA bunker people, they, they, they ran off. The bunkers were empty, but we didn't think they ran that far away. And we, and I knew we didn't kill all of them. So I thought sure they were going to come and finish us off that night. Couldn't wait for the morning to come. So morning came and we went up a little ways to another landing zone. They dropped off 12 new guys to replace some of the guys that we dusted off. They put us, they put them in our platoon. 12 FNGs. They call them FNGs, fucking new guys. They didn't know shit from Shinola. So we had to train them pretty quick. I became a squad leader. I was only a PFC, but because I was there for six months, I was the expert in jungle warfare. I mean, it was a crazy war. Never fought a war again like that. It was crazy. But that's basically that story. And it took me 13 years to tell that story. Because I went into hiding when I came home. Nobody wanted to hear that. Nobody wanted to know I was in Vietnam. You know, it was a shameful war. It was a, we were called baby killers. All kinds of nasty names. So yeah, it was a tough time. It was the 60s, the sexual revolution. You know, it was hippies, peace, love and all that. And we were going to war. And it was just the opposite, the contrary thing going on. But it was, took me four years after I went back to work. See, when I was drafted, I was working for an insurance company. So I went back to work. They had to take you back. If you were drafted out of a job, the job had to take you back. They took me and they liked me anyway. They used to send me care packages and all kinds of stuff. So I went back to work. Four years later is when I remembered that promise. You know, actually four years later, I read an article in the paper saying that there was a lot of big shortage of priests, priests were leaving. See, it was Vatican II, you know, the church was changing. A lot of the priests were leaving the priesthood and all that. So I said, well, Jesus, that's too bad. So I kept going back to our article. I kept going back to our article. Maybe, maybe I'm being called the priesthood. I don't know. And so I decided to go to the vocation director for the archdiocese ballet. And in the fall, I ended up enrolling in the seminary. So I went there and I, I said, I hadn't finished college. I only had one year college. So I got, I got to finish my college education. And I ended up leaving the seminary. And not deciding what I wanted to do. I was crazy mixed up, you know, didn't know what to do with my life. My mother kept saying, will you please decide what you're going to do? Either you're going to leave the house, you're going to leave the house. I turn your bedroom into a sewing room now. So that's when I went and got an apartment and all that. Then I, I pastor said, you know, if you, if he told me, says, if God calls you to the priesthood, he never changes his mind. It means that he means it. So think about that and pray about it. Okay. So what I did is I ended up thinking I want to move back East where I grew up. So I wrote to a few orders in the back. Losolat was one of them. Just so happened. One of the guys from Losolat was vacationing in California at the time. They wrote him and sent, set him up to interview me. He interviewed me and like me and said, yeah, I think you have a vocation in the priesthood. So he wrote back to them. He was a former provincial. So he had clout. And within six weeks I was packing my bags and driving back to join his community. And it was until, um, Let me back up a little bit. When I was in the seminary in California. I was in two years. So it was about 1974. Four years after I left Vietnam. When I was saying my rosary and I remembered same to God, how happy I was to be here. And I felt that he had called me here and he told me I had, that's when I heard him say to me in my prayer, you remember that promise you made to me four years ago? I said, yeah, I do now. I said, if you got me out of this mess safe and sound and do everything you wanted. He said, this is what I want for you. And I had never remembered that promise until then. It was really amazing. And it was a confirmation that I was where I was supposed to be. So I never looked back. So I just kept going. And so I ended up getting ordained in 1984. And started my ministry and on an Indian reservation, California, stayed there two years. Then they called me back East to be a treasurer. And they're a big shrine. I didn't want to be a treasurer. But that's when I got involved in veterans groups. And then all of a sudden. Vietnam veterans started coming to me. Telling me about their problems. But the marriage problems or their problems with memories of Vietnam and all that. So I started counseling them. And because I had a, my degree in theology also as degree in pastoral counseling. So. It was taking quite a bit of my time. And the community said that this is good ministry. And so the provincial said, you know, maybe. You should think about getting a job at the VA. The veterans administration. We could work with veterans full time. So I said, okay, I think I'd like that. So there was an opening for a chaplain. At the VA. It wasn't full time. It was four days a week. I applied for it. And because I was a Vietnam veteran. And because I had a silver star. I was put on a priority. They would have to hire me before they hired anybody else. So I got a job right away. And I got a job at the, at another VA. For one day a week. At a PTSD center. As a spiritual advisor. So I did that for a year. When a full time position opened up. At the VA I was working at. I applied for the full time position. So I could, because two full, two part time positions. Didn't equal a full time. So I want to be full time. So I got the full time job. In Boston. And. I stayed there for 27 years. Just retired in 2015. It was during that time that I started that conference. National conference of Vietnam veteran ministers. We changed it into international conference of war veteran ministers. That's where we invited veterans from England, Australian, New Zealand to come. And that's when Martin joined. And we, we remained. Together for like 25 years. We kept having retreats and doing that. But then we, you know, Alan guy, I got old. A bunch of us got old and we got tired. And the Gulf War was happening. And people were in the Iraq war was happening. And, and there was a lot of similar groups. They were doing spiritual healing. For their particular. Veterans. And so I said to Alan and Jack day. And I'll say again. So there's a lot of organizations that are doing the same kind of work we're doing now. For the new veterans. Because we couldn't talk to young veterans as they come into service. And so I said, maybe we should think about dissolving. And, you know, Alan was having some health issues with, we're all sorry, I mean, health issues. So we decided to just fold up, you know. And, but I kept doing it at the VA until I retired. Now I'm still working full time with veterans in my local community. I'm the chap on all of my veterans organizations. VFW, American Legion and vets disabled American veterans. Vietnam veterans of America. I'm still a national champion there. The 35 years have been the national champion. VVA. Military veterans of foreign wars. All of them. And so I'm busy. And I like that. I'm busy or none of them when I was working. You know. But that's basically a story in my life. Do you have any questions? Wow, I've probably got loads father. What, what does spirituality mean to you? Well, in my, as I was counseling the guys, very few of them are religious. Most of them had given up religion. See what my, my generation in the 50s, we all grew up going to church, whether it was a Catholic church or a Protestant church, you know. And so when we went to war, many of the guys lost their faith, lost their religion, because they blame God for bringing them there. They couldn't believe that God will allow such death and destruction to happen. So where is God now? God has abandoned us. You know, they said God is a wall, a wall absent without leave, you know. So when I came home, I had to develop a different way of speaking to my veterans, because I never lost my faith. I never lost my Catholic faith. That's what kept me through a life going through Vietnam. And so when we came back, I had to learn new language. I had to say, well, you know, all of us have a soul. And our soul is individual. And it's a spiritual part of our lives. It's not in the brain. It's in the heart, so to speak. But we all have to learn that we're not like animals. We're different from animals. That's what makes us different from animals. We have a soul. We have emotions. We have feelings of sorrow, of emotional hurt, psychological hurt. Well, you know, those things we can heal. These things we can talk about. And so I would try to introduce, you know, God in different ways without using the name God, you know. And many people develop a spirituality around that. And that's when Alan and I decided, maybe we need to develop a retreat that will speak about that and let their stories be their spirituality. Let that be their spirit. And by sharing their stories with other veterans who had similar problems, like when I finally was able to tell my story, it enabled someone else to tell their story. It freed them up. It said that they weren't alone. That they were someone that felt, had similar feelings, similar reactions to things. And that's where healing takes place. And, you know, you never, PTSD never goes away. It'll always be with us. It's like a scar, you know. I always compare it like a jigsaw puzzle, you know. I hate jigsaw puzzles. There are too many pieces. I have too much patience to put all the pieces together. But if, and when you do finish a jigsaw puzzle, it makes a nice picture. You know what is different about jigsaw puzzles? You can't get rid of the lines in between. There's always the lines in between to separate the pieces. Those are the scars that we wear, the emotional scars. We'll never get rid of those scars. We don't want to get rid of those scars because those scars are a reminder of where we've been. And that helps us to help heal other people. So I go by calling ourselves like Henry Nowan was a Catholic Jesuit. He called us, we're wounded healers. And so I use that theme. We all have to become wounded healers to each other. And that works. And I was able to work with the psychology department at the VA. They were finally at that point opening up the point where they were allowing me to come in there because science and religion, they don't mix too well. And they were always very suspicious of me, you know, until they heard my story. Until they heard the way I was talking with the veterans. And they saw that what I was doing was good. So they invited me to some of their groups, their psychological groups. And it was good. And that's how they start opening up their... What do they call it? Their therapies anyway. Do more spirituality type of spiritual rounds. And they develop different kinds. They go to yoga. They develop yoga, develop different kinds of meditations. Using meditation for healing. A lot of Eastern types of things, Buddhist type of things, you know. I went to a Buddhist retreat with Thich Nhat An. And that taught me a lot about healing as well. I don't know if you've ever heard of Thich Nhat An, but he was a Vietnamese monk who was exiled from Vietnam who gave retreats to Vietnam veterans. And for healing, he was a marvelous man. He just died recently. But he was a great man. Wrote several books. Anyway, I keep babbling on. No, it's wonderful, Father. And what's your relationship with Jesus? Oh, we're like this. You know, I pray to Him every day. I pray for Him in the morning. I never lost my faith in Jesus. He is... I can't wait to meet Him. You know, I mean, I'm always prepared to die. I always say, Lord, take me anytime you want. And, but, you know, it's His time. It's His choice. And I'm very, very religious, you know. But I don't push it to people, you know. They know I am. But I don't push it on anybody. Even my local veterans group is only like one that goes to church every Sunday. Others don't. A lot of them are brought up Catholic, but they're not. But they, you know, they have their own spirituality. They have their own beliefs, you know. I don't push anybody. They've got to do it on their own, you know. It's if it's something they want, you know. Father, when did you find out that you'd been put forward for the Silver Star? It, I came back home. And two years later, they, I got a letter in the mail. This was in us living in California. So you got a letter in the mail saying, oh, we, we finally approved your Silver Star. That was two years later. And we're, we'd like to have you come to Long Beach and we'll pin it on you. And of course I was so bitter against the war, bitter against the military. I said to them says, fuck that. Just mail it to me. I'm not interested in you pinning it on me. So they ended up mailing it to me. I got it officially pinned on them when it went back in the reserves. While I was working at the VA. One of my chaplains, the rabbi was a full colonel in the army reserves. And he for two years kept after me to join the reserves because they were so short of Catholic priests. And by that time I was, I was, I was like, I was open to the military. I had gotten over that. And so I, it took me two years from to convince me, but I had to do it. Well, before I was turned 42, because once you're 42, they don't take people because you're too old. So I said, okay, I'll go. So when they, when I got my commission as a first lieutenant, I went and went to the base. They knew they knew that I had my silver star. They knew that was never pinned on officially. They said, we would like to officially pin that pin your silver star on you. I says, okay, I'm ready for that ceremony now. I wasn't then, but I am now I had my mother with me. My father was deceased. And the mayor of my town came. A lot of my community people came. And it was a nice little ceremony and it on. I got my commission. So I served in the reserves for 12 years. The reason I got out is they were going to go to Iraq. And my mother was 84 years old. And I couldn't do that to my mother to leave her again. She was, that would have killed her. I had a hard ship out. Otherwise I would have stayed the entire 20 years. So I got out there as a captain. One thing I didn't tell you. I think it's important. Is the year I started the. The conference. More veterans conference. 1990. Was also the same year that I went back to Vietnam. I went back to Vietnam with a group of veterans. The VA has put out a. Program. The psychology department, psychiatry department. Same with organizing a trip back to Vietnam. For war veterans. To bring you back to your area where you served. To see if it would be healing for you was a test. And we will have a VA psychiatrist go with you. And you will have. Sessions every night. To debrief. So I signed up for that. And I got approved. I didn't go on the first trip. I was gone for the second trip. Of 12 veterans. All of them were Marines. Except for me and a couple of other gun or army guys. So most of the guys. Serve were in the northern part of South Vietnam. I was in the south. And it was one woman. A nurse had served in July. So we went back to Vietnam. And. Oh boy. My mother thought I was crazy. My Vietnam friends at home thought I was crazy. Why are you going back there? You're going to you're going to crack up. You're going to go nuts, you know, you know. So I said, I got to go back. I really hated Vietnamese people. I needed to be healed. And I had to figure out a way to. Fall in love with them again. So I went back in there. Back. But the first place we went to was Hanoi. North Vietnam. So. Went to North Vietnam. Got off the plane. And it was soldiers with their pit helmets. Are we running out of. Tape. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Are we running out of tape? No, I'm just looking at my map here. Just to. Orientate myself in country, so to speak. Okay. All right. So. I got off the plane and still the smell of death. From 20 years before. Incredible. 25 years before. And. It was really shocking going to go there. I got, I started having an anxiety attack. In the airport. At the Hanoi airport. So the, the, the lady came with us, the nurse. She gave me a valium, half of a valium. She says, take this half a valium. Give me the whole thing. She says, oh, half will be enough. She says, yes, nurse. So I took it and it calmed me down for a little bit. You know. Went. Selling our hotel. Went to our first restaurant. And. Eating all kinds of strange food. And. I broke down at the table. I started crying. I said, I don't think I should have been here. I think everybody was right. I think that was, I was wrong to come here. And. It's, it's just not going to make. I'm not going to be able to stay. It's a trip was for three weeks. And I, I break down the first day. So the psychiatrist, the VA psychiatrist, takes me out onto the balcony and talks to me. He puts his armor on me. He says, what's going on? I said, I don't know. I'm breaking up. I says, I think I'm going to, I think I'm going crazy. He says, you know something. You're not. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do. You're just, you're the first one. To do it from this group. You just got to relax. And take everything in. And we'll talk about it. But you'll be all right. You'll be fine. He calmed me down. And. You know, the next day we started walking through the streets of Hawaii. And the first thing that the kids do, there's children all over the place. They see white skinned people, Caucasians. And they run up to you. They come and they circled. And they're all around you. They're like four or five year old kids, seven year old kids. And I sit to them. I says, oh my God. And I never liked children to begin with that much, you know, especially a lot of them. They make me nervous. So anyway, they wanted this. They wanted to touch us. They said they kept touching us and all that. And the guys were saying they've never, they don't see white people often, you know, and they don't see white people at all. And so you're, you're different to them. And that they had to harm you. I said, okay. So that night we talked about, it says, you know, I remember the passage in this gospel where Jesus said, let the little children come to me. Do not harm the least one of these children. And I said to them, I says, yeah, you know, it's the children that are trying to heal me. It's okay. I can love them. And it was through the children's eyes that I was able to start looking into the eyes of the men, my age, the Vietnamese men, because I kept thinking you could have been an NVA or a Viet Cong fighting against me. You know, and it was, and we did meet former soldiers, you know, and that was the intent to talk to each other and to heal. So it was, then I moved on to my area and I'm going to skip until the end, the day before we go back. I celebrated Mass at the Cathedral in Saigon. I asked the priest, the pastor, if it'd be okay. See, he knew, he didn't know English and I didn't know Vietnamese. The only common language we had together was French. So I spoke to him in French and I asked him if I could kind of celebrate the Mass with him. And he said, yes, come back tomorrow. And it was a daily Mass. It wasn't a Sunday Mass, but daily Mass, the church was full of people, Vietnamese people, and they sing everything. And it was beautiful. And he asked me to speak to them at the homily. I spoke to them and I said to them in French. I said, 20 years ago, I was here fighting people who looked like you. And here I am, 20 years later, here to ask forgiveness for my participation in the war and for you to forgive me and for me to forgive you for the hurt that you've caused us and me. And it was very healing for me to say that. After communion, I sat down and I looked at this and I said, wow, who would have thought 20 years ago I was fighting in a war against these people that I would be here as a pre-celebrating a massive reconciliation of forgiveness. It was so powerful. When I went back to the hotel, one of the guys that was at that Mass came up to me with his daughter. And he spoke to me in French. And he said, Father, can you help me? I said, I don't know. We're leaving tomorrow to go back to the United States. What can it do for you? He says, I adopted two Amaritan children. You know what Amaritans are, right? American Asian? Yes, where Americans they get pregnant with their Vietnamese women and they become an outcast to the Vietnamese people, the Amaritans. So he adopted two Amaritan children and he had two children of his own. And he asked me if I could help him come back to the United States on the Amaritan program. See, if they had Amaritan children they were first priority to come back to the United States. However, not the entire family, just the Amaritans. So let's do what I can. So I got his name, his information, all that. When I went back to the United States I wrote back to the ODP people the departure program from Bangkok. They were the ones that were doing processing. I can't remember what it's called. My age, I don't remember a lot of things. Yeah, it's okay. So anyway, I wrote them back and see if that family was in the list. He said, yes, this family is at the bottom of the list. I said, I would be willing to sponsor them. I don't know what it means to sponsor them, but I would be happy to sponsor them. He says, wonderful, they wrote back. They were immediately put to the top of the list. All they were doing was waiting for someone to adopt them. Okay, I sponsored them. They went to Hawaii for six weeks to a reeducation camp to learn English, to learn quite a few things about the culture and whatever. History of the United States. And then they came at the time, six weeks later they came to Boston. So I had a bunch of my Vietnamese, Vietnam friends come to greet them at the airport with me. And we had the press there. We want to make an interesting story. And I had gotten an apartment for them in Adelborough. Really cheap. And so we got them, we greeted them, we greeted them with flowers and all that. It was a wonderful experience. And they're four children. They're four children were adults. And they're still living with them right now. They stayed about six months there. Then they disappeared. They found that they had relatives in Santa Ana, California. Santa Ana, California is called Little Saigon. Because that's where it's like Chinatown in Los Angeles or New York. So they wanted to move back there, but they didn't want to tell me because they thought I would stop them. Because they were, I had adopted them. I wouldn't have done that, but they ended up saving money. And they flew back there. And it was little while later when they contacted me. And they apologized for leaving without telling me, but they were afraid that I would stop them. I said, of course not. So I was happy for them. Now they're all become citizens. And when my mother died in Boston, I flew her body back to California to be buried with my father at the cemetery, the veteran cemetery. They, the whole family came to the graveside for the ceremony to be with me because they called me papa. Then they brought me to their house for dinner that night. So they still write to me every father's day. They send me happy father's day. So it was an interesting story. So I've got a family that I adopted. That was part of my healing. Yeah. Yeah, part of my healing. I love the Vietnamese. I love Vietnamese food now. So it seems crazy to think that you've kind of come through the years with your story. And then of course, the people that didn't come back or at least they didn't come back alive there. It seems always crazy to think their families have had to continue to and that they're out there somewhere. Yeah. And there's that. There's been that gap in their lives. It's, you know, yeah. Yeah. In fact, in May, we're going to be dedicating a gold star family's memorial finally in our cemetery. We don't call them gold star mothers anymore. We call them gold star families because it affects the entire family, mothers, fathers, sisters, sons and daughters when someone is killed in war or missing in action or a prisoner of war. And we're still receiving the remains of missing in action from France, from Vietnam, from Korea as many years later. And that's part of our mission as veterans is to never forget the missing in action and the prisoners of war. In fact, my chapter, my Vietnam-Venus America chapter is named after James Michael Ray, the only member, the only prisoner of war from my city. And we keep praying for him to be returned, but we know he probably never will. But his brothers, two brothers are all Vietnam veterans and they belong to my chapter. So it's nice to have their brothers as a presence there. Do you think if people would listen to God, then there'd be an end to war? Yeah, I do. But we're living in a canceled culture now where they're canceling out Christianity and anything that has to do with religion. And it's all going for political capitalism, communism. It's just very, very difficult. It's a very tough time right now. And in America, we're fighting, Christianity is really fighting to keep a voice, a loud voice. But in Europe, Christianity is pretty much dead. I don't know about the UK, but I know European Union, even Italy has become very socialist, very, you know, even the Vatican. The Vatican has become that one world, that one worldism. I'm trying to make that whole idea of losing everybody's identity, becoming blending into one, and that's just not going to work. We're too different. And I don't know what's going on with that philosophy. I don't know what you guys think about that. I think looking to the positive, which I think we must, there seems to be a beautiful awakening of a different kind. So not your strict religion that we were all brought up with that kind of didn't fit for us because we probably didn't really understand it. But I think particularly off the last couple of years, a lot of people seem to be listening to... I call it the universe, but many people will call it God. Getting rid of the noise, the endless noise of capitalism, of consumerism, of politics, of division, of race, all this stuff that distracts us from realising that we're supreme human beings. We're a manifestation of something so much bigger and so much so incredible. And my experience now is a lot of people are waking up to this and I think it's really positive. Is that what they call the great reset? I think it's the opposite of the great reset. I think the great reset is the kind of shenanigans of the globalists, is it not? Oh yeah, you're right. Anything that's got the word great on just is a red flag. Was it under Chairman Mao? They had the great leap forward and it's never going to be good. But no, I think it's funny enough, it's actually referred to as the great awakening. So perhaps that's another flag. But I think people are fed up with the nonsense now. They realise that human beings, we just love each other. The division is always created. This false enemy, as you found out, as I'm coming to find out that life's too short for all this hatred. And we can't put this on to our children. We can't, but I think the narrative now of these, I don't know what you call them, psychopathic, sociopathic. They use the word elites, but obviously it's not the most appropriate word. But I think it's coming to an end. People see through it. And once you've seen through it, you can't put the genie back into the lamp. It's out. The truth is out. And the truth will always reign supreme over fear, slavery and control. Have you ever heard of Charlie Ward? Yes, Charlie and I have been in contact. I've been watching a lot of his podcasts. Very, very good. Very interesting. He's very spiritual. Very spiritual man. I get what I've come to realise in my life is I listen to it all. And I think you have to listen to all the narratives out there to find which one is the truth. I would say the truth for you, but I don't think it's individual. I think the truth is the truth and it's good for all of us. I have been greatly led by a chap called John St. Julian. And I would encourage anybody to check out John's YouTube channel. Can you just, when we finish, send that to me in Messenger. The contact information. I would like to do that. Yeah, and I learn each week that goes past, Father. I learn more in that week than I did in my lifetime. And I love it. And as a parent, I feel it's my duty to rise above the mainstream media and not let that control my life and create the best life for my child that I possibly can. And I also think it's the definition of being a Marine. These are all the qualities that we stood out for that we believe that we were. And look, I stand by that. And I'm going to be honest, not. I don't see many of my colleagues doing the same. No. Particularly with respect to, if I just say, recent narratives. Yeah, I think people have a hard time understanding. Do you have the game Monopoly in the States? Yeah, you probably have your version because obviously in England or in the UK, it's London names. But when you play that at Christmas, most people just play it and they're having fun and they're having a drink and they're cracking open some walnuts or whatever it might be. And there's always one though that takes it so seriously. And they've got to end up with all the money and they've got, you know, a secret stash of cash on their lap. I think we need to realise that that's a good metaphor for the planet or an analogy. It's that some people are of that nature. And unfortunately, they tend to get into what we would call power. Not the power that you and I believe in, which is a higher power, but they get into this phony, fake, low level human type of power. And we've got to see through it. You know, we've got to stop being led by the greedy guy that just wants to win the Monopoly. Right, right. And I just feel fortunate that I've kind of got to this place in my life and that I have some, you know, I have a relationship with Jesus, probably not the sort of orthodox one that most people do, but I just would always consider him a best friend and also the epitome of what being a hero is, you know, that being prepared to give your life for what is right. Right. And I have a beautiful relationship with the universe or God. I just know everything's always going to be all right and I'm so fortunate to have this experience of this life in what I call this set of molecules that people refer to as Chris. And I finally got to that place that I kind of always knew through my life. It was there, but I never felt like it was for me. I always felt that it was just not achievable for me. But by perseverance, Father, I've got there and it's wonderful. And I'd encourage everybody, everybody to do likewise. Are you involved with anybody you served with? Have you had reunions or anything like that? Yeah, we have. We've had several. I organize one every year. Good. It's healing. Yeah, that's for the Marine Corps in general. And we've had, I think it's two troop reunions now. So the troop I was in training with. And it's kind of interesting, you know, we all rock up. And I've stayed as handsome as I always was because I was probably, I think I was the most handsome guy in our troop unquestionably. And these guys are all really rough looking now, you know. So a bit of jealousy going on there. But no, it's incredible. You know, it's the, again, it's the work of a great power that's brought us all together. And we shared something special back then and we still share it now. Wonderful. Did you serve in other places besides Northern Ireland? And that was the only conflict that I saw. I underwent Arctic warfare training in the north of Norway, which was extremely cold for a naive 19 year old. It was, it was a lot to, I found it quite a lot. Other people take to it. Easier than I did. And I was very fortunate. I was on an aircraft carrier for a year. So I was on the Marines Detachment just, I think there was 12 or 14 of us. We sailed the world. We went to a wonderful nation called the United States, full of incredible people, beautiful people, kind, genuinely kind people. We met our USMC brothers in a place called Sigonella in Sicily. Oh yeah. And they took us under their wing and they just spoiled us incredibly. And yeah, that was an incredible year. We saw the pyramids, visited the old town in Istanbul. We sailed to Barbados one time, which was almost unbelievable. They were paying us for that. Wow, that's great. And I was going to ask you, did you know somebody by name of Mark Ormrod? Yes, Mark. We come from the same city. Yeah. We're friends on Facebook. He's a double amputee. Triple. Oh, triple. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. He's a courageous man. Yeah, he recently swam across, there's a channel. The English Channel? No, it's a channel in our city. And it's between the mainland and an island that we've got out in the bay. Oh, wow. Or out in the harbor, I should say. And it's almost like a mild swim. And he swam that with just one arm, which is... Wow. She's incredible. Yeah, it is. And it's a good example to all of us that have suffered, whether it be trauma or physically that life goes on. Yeah. And we just have to make our peace for the past, move on from it and seize the day because it's a great place to be. One of the things that I wanted to mention to us, and I just touched upon at the beginning, was let me just take a sip here. It was an opportunity to go to the Tbilisi, Georgia. And it was a conference called Peaceful Caucasus. And the intent was, it was supposed to be a healing conference for the Georgian veterans who served in the Soviet military in the war in Afghanistan. And so it was veterans from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and from Russia attended this conference called Peaceful Caucasus. And I was able to give a talk about PTSD and spiritual healing. It was given in English and simultaneously translated into Georgian. And in the book that they published, because it had to be printed out, they published it in Georgian, English, and Russian. And it was just the Georgian people were just so wonderful. And I kept in touch with them for many years later. One of them was of general. One of them was a lieutenant colonel in the army. That was a Soviet army. But none of them were getting benefits. And it was a very sad situation because one of the problems that they were suffering from is they were serving under the Soviet army. So the Soviet Union didn't exist anymore. So Moscow had no obligation to pay any pensions or disability to those veterans who served under them. And so they were caught in a no-zone. And so many of them are homeless, street people. They've got disabilities that they can't afford to take care of. It's just very, very sad. But we've kept in touch over the years. They went back the following year and went to Azerbaijan and got interviewed on one of their radio programs in Baku about my work with the veterans and all that. And so it was kind of exciting to meet veterans from the former Soviet Union that we've come to really a respect. And they respect us very much. The Chechnyan was one from the Chechnya. He was an amputee above the waist. One leg. He had one leg. He came and boy, was he tough as nails. But it was interesting to meet with all these different people. Yeah. And we should, before we go, say a big thank you to Martin Webster for putting us in contact, Father. Absolutely. Martin's a great guy. Yeah. I like my chats with Martin. You live nearby in Cornwall? We live fairly close to each other. Oh, good. I was privileged to go to the premiere of his last movie. The Penitent? Yes. Oh, yeah. I haven't seen it yet. It's not over here. Yeah. Oh, you're in for a treat when you get hold of it. I'm sure Martin will send you a copy. Yeah. Spreading the word again about trauma. Yeah. Well, Father, it's been absolutely wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. I think it's good to keep these, you know, to record these stories for the future, not to let these voices get forgotten and the message as well. So I'll say goodbye to our friends at home. Massive love to you all. If you could please like and subscribe. And Father, yes, what can I say? Absolutely great to meet you and keep up the wonderful work. They will meet together. We'll meet in person. Yes. Yes. I'm going to be a bit wary because like Alan said, you might try and borrow that money off me.