HOST: [00:00:00] I need you to help me set this up a little bit.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:00:03] Sure. I’d be happy to.

HOST: [00:00:05] I’m talking to Jim Knotts, our CEO and frequent contributor to the podcast.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:00:09] In early August this year, I got to go to Tama, Iowa with The Wall That Heals. You know, our replica of The Wall that travels around the country. I usually only get to go to one or two stops each season, and I had never spent any time in that area of the country. And this, this stop was unique because we were actually setting up on the Meskwaki settlement, which is an area, uh, very close to Tama, Iowa, that is the home of the Meskwaki, uh, Indian tribe. So I wanted to go to this stop, uh, to be able to spend some time with the Native American culture and, uh, also talk to some of their tribe members who are Vietnam veterans. Never had that opportunity before. And I thought it might be interesting.

HOST: [00:01:05] What were your impressions as you got to know the people and saw what was going on there?

JIM KNOTTS: [00:01:10] Well, the first thing I noticed was just how welcoming and accommodating uh, the people from the tribe were. Uh, we had a huge number of volunteers come to help set up The Wall, and almost all of them were from the tribe. Uh, we had activities morning and evening, every day we were there. And there was one day that was the tribe’s day to do those ceremonies. They were a part of everything all along the way. Um, and they were just incredibly gracious hosts. They were the nicest people. There were a lot of veterans, uh, of different eras that came out and participated in The Wall being in their community, and they just seemed so thankful that we were there and we chose to bring The Wall That Heals to, um, their tribal lands.

HOST: [00:02:04] Yeah. And while you were there, we gave you sort of an additional assignment, which was to try and capture some audio that we might use in a future episode about Native Americans who served in Vietnam. And, uh, I think you talked to, what, four or five people and recorded interviews?

JIM KNOTTS: [00:02:20] I did, yeah. You know, I asked Dixie Kapayou, who is one of the tribe members and, uh, she is a leader among the veterans groups there, and I asked her if she could introduce me to one or two Vietnam veterans who might be willing to just sit down and have a chat like this.

HOST: [00:02:40] Uh, it’s one of those things where you, you know, you just sometimes you get lucky, right? Sometimes you hit the record button, and, uh, magic happens.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:02:47] Alex is amazing. He’s kind of slight of build. Um, but I’d be hard pressed to find someone I’ve met who is quite as intense. He has amazing stories of things he did in places he went. His experiences were amazing. Um, but I always felt whenever he answered a question that there was a whole lot more he could say. But he probably shouldn’t.

HOST: [00:03:19] When I heard the interview with Alex Walker, Jr., I just thought, you know, I don’t, I don’t want to wait and fold this into a larger episode about Native American service in Vietnam. This story, this story kind of stands on its own.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:03:34] He exemplifies, you know, the larger warrior ethos, which also is something that is part of his cultural heritage. Um, so it absolutely is just an amazing story. I think he is an amazing person, um, who really went to great strides to do his best while he was serving his country. He wanted to be the best soldier he could be and in the most dangerous places. Um, and that’s one of the things that is, I think most interesting about Alex Walker’s story is just the personal code, I think, he adopted of he wanted to be in the craziest places that soldiers were needed, and he was going to be in front. You know, he says he was trained as a combat engineer, but he really acted as an infantryman, which is much more likely to have direct combat. So, um, his experience is a bit unusual. And, um, I’ve never talked to anyone that had this kind of, uh, experience.

HOST: [00:04:51] I think it’s a great interview. I thank you for capturing it. So I think now all that’s left to do is share it with our listeners.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:04:57] Let’s hear Alex.

HOST: [00:04:59] Stick around. From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Founders of The Wall. This is Echoes of the Vietnam War. I’m your host, Michael Croan, bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact of that conflict nearly 50 years later. This is Episode 37 “No Limit.” Let’s do something a little unusual here. I’d like to present Alex’s story without any interruptions, so I’m going to take care of a few announcements up front. By now, you know that this year we’re celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. To commemorate this milestone, every day at 3 p.m. eastern, we read the name of each Wall honoree who died on that date. This is an addition to the live in-person reading of the names that will be held in Washington, DC beginning on November 7th. You can visit vvmf.org/rotn for more information about the daily virtual reading of the names and about the in-person event. And we know not everyone can travel to Washington, DC to visit the memorial. That’s why VVMF created The Wall That Heals, an exact replica of The Wall at three-quarter scale that travels to communities all across America. The Wall That Heals, and the Mobile Education Center that travels with it will be in Methuen, Massachusetts, September 29th through October 2nd and Sayre, Pennsylvania, October 6th through nine.To see the rest of this year’s tour schedule, and to learn how you can bring The Wall That Heals to your town, visit vvmf.org.

HOST: [00:06:58] For 40 years, VMF has led the way to help heal our nation. Remember those who gave all and honor all who served. Our new legacy endowment will ensure that we can continue honoring Vietnam veterans for the next 40 years and beyond. We launched the Legacy Endowment with a $500,000 matching gift campaign, the Legacy Challenge. Each new outright gift or gift established through a will will be matched up to 50%, with a maximum of $50,000 matched per gift. All qualifying gifts established or newly identified before November 12th of this year are eligible for the match. Learn more about that at vvmf.org/legacy. And one last thing before I introduce you to Alex Walker Jr. His account does contain one instance of mildly salty language, probably not a big deal for anyone who has spent time around military people, but it also contains some very graphic descriptions of combat fatalities that some folks will find upsetting. If you’d prefer not to hear them, we suggest skipping this episode.

[00:08:21] [RHYTHMIC TRIBAL CHANTING]

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:08:37] My name is Alex Walker Jr.

HOST: [00:08:40] Like a lot of the men fighting in Vietnam, Alex wasn’t called by his name. He was given a nickname. One that stuck no matter where he went.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:08:49] Chief. And they said it with respect because they said I was crazy.

HOST: [00:08:57] And like a lot of the men fighting in Vietnam, Alex felt compelled to follow in the footsteps of his elders, both in his family and among his tribe.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:09:07] I had an uncle that was with the 75th Rangers, which later became the Airborne 75th Infantry Rangers, and my dad was also, I think he was with the Red Bull Division. He fought against Rommel in North Africa, Sicily, France. Germany. My. my dad never spoke about his experiences, but his friends would always tell me, “your dad was a hero.” Because apparently he shared stories with them. But his experiences. When I used to go to Indian ceremonies here, they would have the, uh, war veterans talk about their war experiences during an Indian ceremony. I used to go to Wolf Clan ceremonies, and they would have, they would have the warriors talk about their personal experiences. And there was a guy his name was, um, Bernard Papakee. He jumped twice during the Korean War with the Third of the 187th, and he was talking about his personal fighting. You know, he said they ran out of ammo and he killed a lot of people with his knife. The, the people that normalized it for me, with, with, with the killing were the guys from World War II. There was a guy that was a machine gunner. His name was Dewey Roberts, Sr., and he normalized the killing for me because he would always say, “What? I could take off a person’s head at 100 yards and give him hell at a thousand.” And it was because of everything that was said to me by veterans that made me want to prove myself. The day I got drafted out of high school and nobody told me I could have gotten a student deferment.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:11:02] Nobody told me. So I ended up going. I went to basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas. Uh, El Paso. And then I took bivouac and, uh, White Sands, New Mexico. I arrived there around on February 16th of 1969, and I extended a little bit beyond that a year later. My, uh, specialty was combat engineer. But while I was in Vietnam, I actually spent more time with infantry than any other occupation. I was out there 30 days at a time on combat operations, and we carried everything the infantry carried, which meant you carried five days worth of rations, you carried 200 to 300 extra rounds of M60 for that M60 gunner. Uh, you carried all your water. But, uh, like I was saying, uh, most of the time I was out with either the 1st of 327 Airborne Infantry or five-o-deuce Airborne Infantry, 1st or 2nd, and then 501st Airborne Infantry, and then 3rd of the 187th and the 506th. So I served with a lot of different infantry units. We were in I Corps and Camp Eagle was at uh, by Phu Bai. Second Brigade was north of uh, LZ Sally was north of, uh, the Imperial City of Hue. And farther north toward the DMZ was 3rd Brigade Camp Evans. I went as far south as Danang all the way to the DMZ. I could see into North Vietnam. I also was with recon, five-o-deuce recon, and a lot of the times the guy commanding us told us: “Back there at that landmark we passed, we’re now in Laos,”… Super-hostile territory.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:12:58] I mean, it’s all hostile. That was along the Ho Chi Minh trail coming out of North Vietnam. They kind of bypassed the DMZ, and then it followed the, uh, contours of the enemy’s mountains. We were looking for the enemy. Uh, trying to establish contact. Also, um, calling in for fire support missions. We were calling in for artillery. Sometimes if we ran into a big enough unit, uh, they’d call in for, I don’t know how fast they could respond, but sometimes you could call in for, uh, Arc Light missions. And those were B-52 airstrikes. I saw those, and when they’re landing close by, everything shakes. Even if you’re back at base camp, which might be 20 miles away from the A Shau, you know, 20 to 30 or 40 miles is the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Brigade base camps. And even if you were back at base camp, the, uh, like this structure would be shaken, the ground would be shaken because those are 500-1000 pound bombs that they’re dropping. One time I remember I was south of Phu Bai. I might have been with a recon team then, but I was on a ridge top going up into the mountains by a place called Bach Mao. And then there was a village to the south of us named Phu Loc. And then. On that, on that ridge that pointed to the east, on the left was a Marine compound, and on the right we had airborne infantry out on ambush.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:14:37] They both had action going on at the same time. So it was kind of, in a way, it’s kind of cool to see the fireworks because it’s like if you in the old days you could uh, but of like 500 on a two strings, black cats, set them off. That’s what a firefight sounds like. But the Marines were also getting hit and they responded with 50 calibers. And that’s when I realized how how far those rounds can go. I mean, they were bouncing off cliffs and going up into the mountains to the north of me. But I was like watching all these spectacular fireworks. Obviously, you know, it’s not cool when you yourself are under fire because, I mean, I got shot at with yellow tracers, white tracers, blue tracers, green tracers. And if we were getting shot at with red tracers, it was they were shooting at us with our own weapons. I’ve seen all the different war movies, and I’ve seen some stuff that’s actually more terrifying and more unbelievable than what you see. You know, sometimes we’d be, um, we’d be like, uh, security for a fire support base in the A Shau right along the Laotian border. And, uh, I think I might have been on either Whip or Lash, one of our, um, fire support bases that supported 101st Airborne. And I remember when I was there, um, sometimes we’d have incoming and you’d be picking up body parts. I mean, they the guys that were picking up body parts, like, were picking them up and, uh, sand bags.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:16:24] And I remember I was cleaning my M60 machine gun at one point when we had incoming. And like, the concertina was right in front of me, probably 15-20 feet. And I don’t know what the hell it was, like a I think it must have been a lung or something, but it was like it was the inside, the internal part of somebody, and it landed right in front of me, and it was like dropping blood. And then that must have been the heaviest part. And then, like later on, the other parts of the flesh and bones started hitting me. So the heaviest parts land first, like arms or legs. In the A Shau Valley the trees were 300 feet tall. Three levels of jungle, so we could safely drink out of the mountain streams. And that’s where I drank all my water was out of the streams. At one point on an NDP, which is a night defensive position, we killed two really big, uh, Black Panthers. And we were always running into Tigers, and those were even monstrous in size. I mean like way bigger. I also had to constantly watch out for poisonous… There was one snake so poisonous they called it the Asian Two Step. It bites you – and I had guys that were friends of mine that observed those things – they said the guy started foaming at the mouth and just keeled over, dead in two steps. And that’s why it was called the Asian Two Step.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:18:06] Most of the guys I fought initially were Viet Cong, and then after that, I transitioned to the harder when I started humping with the airborne unit… It was nothing but NVA. And some of those guys must have been Chinese because they were six foot one or taller, and they were big, I mean solid. The beauty of me being small, a lot of the guys that were six foot four, six foot five, used to make fun of me for being a little guy. Those were the ones that got shot first when we were going out on patrol and elephant grass. The tall guys got hit. I was in the same AO as the Marines, so any place where the Marines were is where I was. And, um, I saw a lot of people that got killed at a place called Quang Tri. A lot of Marines. We were flying all the way to the DMZ north of Con Thien to go on a combat operation out of, I think it was Camp Eagle or LZ Sally. And our commander told us to get out of the Chinook to stretch. And when I was outside, I heard some guys say, hey, Chief, come check these out. And I walked over there. It was a probably 10 to 15 Marines, dead Marines. And they all had holes, like right through their helmets. There was, uh, I forget what they were called. Dragunov sniper rifles. That’s what they were using. I think it was like 7, 7.62. They had bigger rounds and we were shooting at them with 5 point.. 5.56. So a lot of their weapons were actually superior to ours.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:19:49] They threw a whole bunch of stuff at us. They would shoot mortars. Do I mean mortars – all the time. And then if you were out in the open toward the DMZ, which is the Piedmont, it’s single canopy. They’re shooting at you with 106 recoilless rifles or 105 recoilless rifles. And when those things flash, the rounds already hit where you’re at. Those were the fastest weapons I encountered. And then in the A Shau when we were out making contact, they had 40 pound claymores so they could take out our helicopters. If one of our either Ranger teams or long-range recon teams, or even regular recon, if they were getting extracted, they would set those off and kill most of the guys that were getting extracted and plus blow the helicopter out of the air. And so they had, we had 50 caliber machine guns. They had 51 caliber machine guns. We had light anti-tank weapons, they had B-40 rockets, they had RPG seven, RPG eights. And those could easily destroy any of our tracked vehicles. They blew up, blew apart, uh, our tanks, our APCs, uh, our eight-inchers that were on track. And, um, I don’t remember which RPG it was, but it could go through eight feet of sandbags before exploding. In fact, one of the places where I was along the DMZ was west of Charlie two, north of Con Thien, Marines called the Rockpile. One of those 122 millimeter rockets that hit fire support, i think it was Charlie two, killed a little over 50 guys, one round.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:21:45] We had, uh, bird dogs, and we were, uh, we were in constant communication with them. If we made contact during the day, he’d already be saying, um, mark your front with your willy peter, M79. We’d mark where the enemy was, and then he would shoot his rockets. And as soon as he was on target, um, the RTO would tell him you’re on target. And he would, uh, um, bird dog would say, I’ve got three fast movers coming in, and it was almost within five minutes we had napalm coming in. You could smell the burning flesh. “Crispy critters” is what we call them. I’ll tell you the truth. The last 16 days over there in Vietnam, I did, uh, opium because I figured I had seen guys get killed with three days left in the country, or one more patrol, and they got killed. And I figured if I’m going to die, I might as well die happy. It’s instinct that tells you what you can do and what you can’t do. And at that point, I knew I had to leave that behind, just as I was leaving Vietnam behind. Although, it’s still here. You didn’t want to mess with me when I first came back because I could, I could still kill somebody. I got spat at and I called, got called a baby killer at SeaTac… I mean, never shot any babies. After getting my orders at, um, Fort Lewis, from there, I went to Minneapolis. And then I caught a Frontier Airways to, uh, Waterloo, Iowa. And I got a guy that saw all my things with me, and he said, “Did you just come back from Vietnam?” And I had one of my bottles left, and I said, yeah. He said, well, he said, if I see you’re back from Vietnam, he said, if you’re celebrating, he said, I’ll drink with you. And I popped that open. And he was drunk by the time he dropped me off, I don’t know whatever happened to him. When I came back, I went back to high school and the teachers were all scared of me because they, you know, coming back from a place like Vietnam, you know, they obviously think you’re, like, violent or prone to doing crazy shit. Pardon my French. After that, I went to, um, University of Northern Iowa at Cedar Falls. I got a teaching degree there. Then I went to University of Iowa as a Regents transfer student. So I got my undergraduate degree from the University of Northern Iowa, but finished out at the University of Iowa. And then I, uh, started a master’s program at the University of Iowa. So I have a master’s in social work from the University of Iowa. Then while I was there, I also was able to teach interpretation of literature, because I was in a PhD program under the rubric of American studies.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:25:18] My specialty would have been American Indian Studies if I had continued, but they wanted me to help start the casino gaming on the settlement, and I came back to help the tribe. I had a friend about a month ago ask me, does it seem like such a long time ago, so far away? And I said, all I’ve got to do is hear gunfire. Or, um, even, um, thunderstorms. They’ll look like artillery working out, a loud thunder could be incoming, 122 rounds. Like, sound. Hell to think about… I mean, and it’s it’s affects me to this day. I mean, and people don’t get it. People don’t get it. It’s kind of like I can get set off, like, really easy. I still have, I think, a rage. A lot of the guys that I knew either drank themselves to death or they committed suicide. I’m talking about even tribal members from here. What boggles my mind is that, um, and this is probably not politically correct, but I was just wondering, why? Why is it we had to go to war? I mean, for me, it’s, you know, personally, for me, it made me. I think I would have gone crazy if I hadn’t gone. Because, um, if I stay behind, that means I’m a coward. That means I don’t have any backbone, so I was happy to go.

ALEX WALKER, JR.: [00:27:09] I told all of my kids, I said, I don’t want you guys going into the military.I said, I suffered enough for you guys. I mean, I suffered enough for the United States of America. And I think what I did was, I think above and beyond what most people did. I mean, I mean, obviously there’s always the heroes. I knew guys personally that killed hundreds of our enemy. I knew them personally. I knew the guy that saved Oliver North’s life twice in July of 1969. He was a six-foot-four Creek and Pottawatomie machine gunner from Calvin, Oklahoma, and his name was Randall Herrod. He’s a really good looking American Indian Marine, United States Marine. He got put in for a Navy Cross when he he he saved Oliver North’s life twice in one night southwest of Con Thien. And I knew the guy. I knew a lot of guys that were squad leaders and, uh, Special Forces, uh, even Navy SEALs. There were American Indian. A lot of the times when I was out, like a lot of the Airborne Rangers, there was like a lot of Navajos and some Cherokees and some Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne and different tribal groups were in a lot of the elite units. And a lot of the times on point. They had American Indians or guys from Kentucky, they call them Ridge Runners because they were good. They grew up hunting and, you know, hunting, fishing. So they were like similar to the Native Americans. I grew up killing a lot of animals, and, I mean, I think that was a prelude or a segue into actually hunting people for me. I’m still kind of like, gung ho. I kind of like the idea of maybe getting killed. It’s like what they used to say, like with a Special Forces, you’re not so much alive as when you’re on the verge of death, of getting killed. So I was kind of like adrenaline, for me. It was testosterone. It was all the different emotions and chemicals surging in your in your system. I mean, like, I kind of liked the sound of gunfire and I was like attracted to it. I mean, like, I like the idea of contact. Because it does make you feel alive, I mean. It’s adrenaline. There’s another, there’s several terms for all the different chemicals that you experience… Dopamine when you’re excited and you’re it’s like you’re so alive. It’s like it’s kind of crazy. I’m just glad that I’m able to speak on behalf of the Meskwaki veterans that served over there, but also for all the veterans that served over there, because we did our duty. We, our nation called us, you know, to sacrifice and, I, I don’t regret my experiences. I think it’s, um, it’s like one of Clint Eastwood’s sayings: “A man’s got to know his limits.” I know I have no limits. I can go into any situation. And more than likely, I’m going to survive.

[00:30:49] [RHYTHMIC TRIBAL CHANTING]

HOST: [00:30:57] We’ll be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice, and healing. See you then.

Full Interview with Alex Walker Jr.

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