[00:00:18] (Host) Alfred Coke served two full tours in Vietnam, first as the company commander of a combat infantry unit and the second as a military advisor. Of those 730 days in Vietnam, he estimates that he received enemy fire on 400 of them. He was wounded multiple times, and he has both the scars and the decorations to prove it. The lessons he learned leading men into combat informed his second career as a leadership consultant. But outside of that specific context, he never really opened up about what he did and saw and endured in Vietnam. That is, until he struck up an unlikely friendship with Allan Danroth, an industrial engineer from Canada. Nearly three decades his junior. Why, after all those decades, did Allan unearth his long-buried memories and feelings with Allan Danroth? Because Allan Danroth wanted to listen.

[00:01:16] (Allan) It’s certainly been impactful for me, and there’s been more than a few times where I’m like, thinking to myself, why me? And I’ve even asked him and he just he just shrugs it off and says, well, you’re my buddy and you seem interested.

[00:01:31] (Host) In this episode, we bring you an inspiring story of friendship and the healing power of just being interested. 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 more than 50 years later.

This is episode 74, The Hero in Your Midst.

Just a quick warning this episode does contain some colorful language. Nothing you haven’t heard before, especially if you’ve spent any amount of time around military people. But we thought you should know up front.

Allan Danroth is an engineer and a business executive. If you totaled up all of his experience as a documentarian or a memoirist, you’d get exactly zero. And yet, Allan has become those things for Alfred Coke, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who went on to earn three master’s degrees and a PhD doctor. Dr. Coke participated in seven campaigns in Vietnam, earning two Purple Hearts, three Bronze Stars, one with a V for Valor, a Combat Infantry Badge, and an Expert Infantry Badge. Along with his Aircrew Wings and Parachutist Wings, his Expert Marksmanship Badge for multiple weapons, Jungle Expert Badge, and Army Staff Badge. He’s lost count of the close calls he experienced during his two years of combat. But he survived three aircraft crashes with fatalities, including being shot down in Cambodia. The stories of Al Coke’s combat experience could fill several volumes of a book. And that’s just two years out of 20 in the Army, Dr. Coke also served in Berlin during the Cold War in Korea and at the Pentagon. He’s written two books, but neither of them describe his combat experience. Those memories were bottled up and stowed away for decades, while Dr. Coke went about the business of building a happy, successful life. He never gave any thought to how those experiences affected him deep down. Until Allan Danroth started asking questions. Together, they have recorded more than ten hours of audio and oral history of Dr. Coke’s life that includes his two tours in Vietnam. Through that process, Dr. Coke has begun to come to terms for the first time with his own trauma. Allan Danroth joined me via zoom from his home in Edmonton, Alberta. I asked him how a Canadian engineer about my age becomes the close confidant and sort of biographer, really, to a highly decorated Vietnam combat veteran from the US Army.

[00:04:46] (Allan) Yeah, it all just sort of happened out of the blue. So, Dr. Coke, was doing after he left the military. He was doing a business consulting practice using his experiences from the military around strategic planning. And he had a lot of clients in Canada, and I had just taken over a big industrial plant a pulp mill out in Atlantic Canada. And he had just concluded a bunch of work out there. And some people that I was working with knew him from his prior engagements. And so he came out to help us. It was, you know, it was a really big change situation. We had a lot of a lot of issues trying to get this plant back up and running and working with the union, and he really helped and we just hit it off, and we just formed this, this friendship. And that was in 2007, 2006. So I was about 35 years old, 36 years old, and he had had been retired from the military. And we just we just hit it off. And then, you know, we stayed together for, you know, in touch ever since then. So it’s been whatever 15, 16 years now. And I would go back and see him at his home in, in Virginia, every year.

[00:06:17] (Host) Later, Allan had taken a job with a large cannabis company where he was responsible for working with Canadian combat veterans suffering from PTSD.

[00:06:27] (Allan) And I think that experience of me talking about that really started to warm him up, if you will, to the concept of, you know, his personal experiences and the things he went through and how it made him feel and, and really, you know, PTSD. So I had gone out there for his 80th birthday and this was 2021. You know, we would just sit he has this magnificent home and this beautiful porch and, you know, it’s a late summer evening and we’re just we it’s our favorite place. We just sit out there and, you know, we’ll sip a bourbon and just talk. And he started to open up and, and he started to get, you know, he had always talked about a little bit about Vietnam, but it was always in the context of, you know, here’s some leadership experiences that I learned while I was in the military. And here’s how you can apply it in your business. And it was sort of that kind of a conversation. And then we were just sitting out there one night and it was quiet and we were talking and then I just asked him, you know, a little more pointedly about, you know, I’d heard some of his stories, but I was I really wanted to understand, like how did you not come back with PTSD, you know, how are you so well adjusted? And sitting there asking that question just started to open him up over the coming days and, and, and then in our visits after.

[00:08:16] (Host) And is it your sense that this was the first time since the war that he had opened up like that?

[00:08:24] (Allan) Yeah. I’m really close with his wife as well. The three of us were just we’ve really formed this incredible friendship. And she remarked, and he and he would remark that that a lot of the stuff he was telling me and the stories he was telling me, he had never told anyone and even his as kids. And that was the point where I said to him, look, you need to talk about this, not just to me. First off, I think you need to talk to a professional. And secondly, you know, you need to talk to your kids and your grandkids about this. I just think it’s hard sometimes to open up to your family that way. But he just kept opening up. And at some point I said, he’s always been a writer and he’s written his memoirs and he’s given me a copy, and he’s started in this late stage of his life to document things. But I said, we need an oral history of this. His experience, I think, is probably not unlike a lot of other combat guys that were over there. You know, he did two full tours, so 730 days. And I asked him at one point how many times, you know, he had been shot at and he laughed and he said, I couldn’t tell you. And I said, okay, well, how many days have you been shot at? And he said, shoot, probably 400. And I just, I was I was stunned, I was stunned at like that concept that that volume. He started to talk about all these different things. And then he tied it into wanting to go and look at a couple of names on the wall and an audio history of this. And, and then the other thing that happened out of that talking about that was he let me know that he had never been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

[00:10:39] (Host) And he lives in Virginia.

[00:10:41] (Allan) He lives in Virginia and he worked at the Pentagon. He lived in D.C., I think, for a decade. So I was like, I just remember thinking, you haven’t been. And he said, no. And I said, well, we gotta like, if you want to go out, I don’t, you know, it’s your choice. But if you want to go I’ll go with you. And because he’s, he’s getting a little bit older and also it’s just it can be quite traumatic, I think to go by yourself and then he came back to me after a while. I can’t remember if it was weeks or months, but he came back to me and he asked me if I had come back out again and, go with him there, take him there. And, and that’s what we did. And so we did that, this spring in March of 24. But it was interesting when we got there. It was emotional. It was something I’ll never forget. Something I’ll never forget.

[00:11:49] (Host) It was a long time coming, right? So it was a lot of a lot of pent up emotion.

[00:11:54] (Allan) Um, yeah.

[00:11:56] (Host) Was his wife with you or was it just you two guys?

[00:11:59] (Allan) No, no, it was just the two of us. And one of the comments he made, he said. He said, you know, we were walking away and he said, you know, I thought there’d be more veterans there? And I said, well, you know, let’s be honest, we’re a little bit late. Most of the veterans didn’t wait until they were 82 to come and see The Wall. And he said, yeah. But that was his, he acknowledged that his way of dealing with his PTSD and realizing he’s had it this whole time was to immerse himself in his work as he started to recognize that there was some trauma with what he did. And as he, you know, maybe started to be so humble, but maybe he started to recognize a little bit that, you know, he really did and has led an extraordinary life. And I just we just felt like I kept saying to him, you got to get this down. We got to record this, you know, we got to find somebody. And of course, he didn’t really want to talk to anybody else. And so then finally I just said, look, can we do. Can we do a recording like a podcast? He didn’t even know what a podcast was. So I explained to him what podcasts were, how they worked. And he’s like, do we have to go to a studio? I’m like, no, we could get pretty good quality just sitting in your back porch. And then I left. One of my last trips there, and then he called me up and again he asked me to, you know, take him to The Wall. And he said, I want to do our recordings. And he kept talking about this. And, and so then my preparation for that, I’ve never done this. I’ve been interviewed a few times before, but I’ve never been on the other side, that’s for sure. And, I listened to a few podcasts, and you were gracious enough to talk to me and give me some guidance. And I talked to a few other people and just read some things, some do’s and don’ts, and, and I just finally thought, you know, I’m not a I’m not a professional and we’re just going to let this happen organically. And, and that’s what we did. And now, you know, we’ve got a lot of hours I think we’ve got about ten hours of this and, and he’s, he says there’s even more stories and, and what we do with it you know, we’re not really sure this, you know, neither of us are podcasters, that’s for sure. But the biggest thing was for me was to get this down for his kids. He’s got four kids and for his grandkids. And just when he goes to have that history and, and just have that there for the family so that they understand the kind of man he was and the things that he did.

[00:15:05] (Host) And what’s his wife’s name?

[00:15:07] (Allan) Ann.

[00:15:08] (Host) And did you talk to Ann about any of this?

[00:15:11] (Allan) I did not, and we he got very involved in this project. And the two of us are, I think, world class talkers. And he just uh, for me anyways, I just kept thinking, boy, this stuff is gold. The stuff that just keeps coming out. Like there’s more and more and more. And so by the time we, you know, did the interviews, did the trip, came back, did the interviews, and I had to go the next day. There just wasn’t enough time to talk to Ann. But he wants me to come back and do some more recordings, and I’m happy to do that. And I’m certainly, hoping that I’ll be able to talk to her a little bit as well.

[00:15:50] (Host) Yeah, well, let me know if you do, because, um, I’d be very interested in her perspective on how this friendship and this this, you know, this opening up has changed him in her eyes.

[00:16:06] (Allan) Sure, sure. Yeah. I’d be I’d be happy to do that. And I know she would, too. She’s remarked more than a few times when we first started hanging out. You know, she used to say, I don’t know why, you know, the universe puts you two together, but it’s for a reason. She would say that he’s never talked about this stuff. Very little to her. And the one thing that’s been really interesting. Oh. Since he turned, you know, around his 80th birthday, he’s 82 now. He’s gotten emotional and he’s talked about things that he never talked about before. And sometimes he’ll just he’ll get quite emotional. You know, all the years I’ve hung out with him these last few trips for the first time I’ve ever seen him cry. And he apologized. And I just kept telling him, don’t like, don’t apologize. I’m happy to be here and listen.

[00:17:07] (Host) And it really is a gift, right? I mean, without getting too esoteric you know, we’re 99.5% identical genetically to chimpanzees. So how different can we be from each other? Right. The only thing that makes you Allan Danroth and me Michael Croan is our stories. We’re like walking bags of narratives, right? Other than that, we are almost exactly identical. So when somebody opens up that bag and starts sharing their stories, what more precious gift can there be?

[00:17:44] (Allan) Yeah. It’s interesting. I’ve never thought of it that way. That’s a really. Mm. The stories define us, I guess. Right?

[00:17:52] (Host) Yeah. After a short break, we’ll hear some of the audio that Alan has recorded so far with Dr. Coke. Stick around.

[00:19:34] (Host) Here’s Allen Danroth with Dr. Coke.

[00:19:38] (Allan) So you go there and in and in the totality of your time there, you end up with two Purple Hearts and three Bronze Stars and a number of Vietnamese medals. But go back to the start. You show up, you leave Alaska, you land there and just kind of walk through, like sort of what you were doing and what you’re kind of daily routine was.

[00:20:04] (Dr. Coke) They threw us on (unknown) and send us up to the 25th Division, the ones that were going to the 25th Division. And I’m thinking, shit, you know, we could get ambushed along the way here because this is bad country here between here and Cu Chi base camp. But we got there. They assigned us to the brigade that we were going to be in. So we go meet the adjutant. He said, why are you guys late? I told you that. Yeah, well, I don’t know, you know.

[00:20:32] (Allan) Yeah.

[00:20:33] (Dr. Coke) They screwed it up in Panama, I guess. Yeah. We all knew why the hell we were late. So the brigade commander lined us all up. They were probably, like, a dozen of us. Said, okay, who wants to be a company commander? Me? We raised our hand. If you wanted to be a company commander. Well, there were a whole bunch of guys that just didn’t raise their hand. He said, okay, you guys are going to be company commanders. You’ll get your time. I can’t promise you win, but you’ll get your time. So they assigned me to a battalion and I was the S-3 Air. That’s the operations that deals with aircraft and bombs and, you know, that kind of sort of stuff coordinates with the Air Force and so forth. And you got flight pay 110 bucks a month. That ain’t bad.

[00:21:22] (Allan) It ain’t bad.

[00:21:22] (Dr. Coke) So I was the S-3 air, and while I was the S-3 air, we had some incidents where, like, my S-3 got wounded and in the hospital. So I ran the show. I was the S-3. I was the operations guy. And I guess I must have impressed the battalion commander, because at some point in time, he called me in. One night, I was out in the field. He called me and I went, oh, shit. What? You know, what’s all this about? I said, can it wait till tomorrow? And they went, fuck, no! Get your ass in here! The battalion commander wants to talk to you. So. Okay, I’m on my way. So I got a chopper and went in, and he said the company commander of company B, Roger Donlon, decides he doesn’t want not Roger. Uh, Roger. Uh, Pierce. Roger Pierce decided he didn’t want to be company commander anymore. And you’re going to be the new company commander for B. Any questions? Move out. Just. Just like that. Yeah. Yeah. So the next morning, I took a chopper out to company B and picked up and became a company commander. So. But we had several incidents. And the reason my S-3 was in the hospital was a freak accident. We’d been in we’d been out on an operation, and we came in and we had a hooch, and it was just a shed kind of thing. And they had beer and stuff like that. And so we were sitting around the table. This other guy and I were sitting at this table having a beer, and the brigade commander and our battalion commander and our operations guy were all three sitting at the table next to us, just this little round table, and all of a sudden there was a bang, and a bullet came through the wall right here by me. Hit the guy under the in the leg, under the table. Knocked, splattered, knocked all three of them flat off. Flat back. I mean, it’s like a hammer had hit him. Well, a bullet spattered, and the shrapnel hit all three of them. So that put my battalion commander out of operation. He was ready to leave in a week.

[00:23:34] (Allan) And this was a this was an enemy bullet.

[00:23:36] (Dr. Coke) This was. No, this was a friendly. This was a friendly bullet. This was friendly fire. This was a friendly bullet. My battalion commander was to leave in a week, so his loss was no problem. My S-3 was fairly new there, and he was a good guy. He was an ex-special forces guy, and I ran into him a couple times later, and he was a good guy. Took him out. So they’re all in the hospital. Um, what the shit. What had happened was a guard mount was forming up outside to go on guard duty on the perimeter. This was back at base camp, and a kid set his rifle down. Bang. Like that when the stock hit the ground, it fired. The bullet came through the side wall of the building and knocked out three people. So we get a new battalion commander. He’s got a Distinguished Service Cross from Korea. He’s an old guy. He doesn’t like to fly. He’s scared shitless of flying. And he and I hit it off and he said, okay, you’ve got to do three duties while Major Boyd’s in the hospital. Okay, that’s fine with me. I know how to do that. So I would fly and he would stay on the ground. So I would fly on all the operations and he would be on the ground. Not necessarily at the operation level, but. So I got my wings there. I got I got good opportunity because he trusted me and he believed in me. So when I got wounded the first time, he was going to send me off to a camp up in north to where his brother runs run the Special Forces camp. His brother was head of Special Forces. He was a full colonel, and James K. Ladd was a lieutenant colonel. And I told him I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with the battalion and do something.

[00:25:24] (Allan) So you got wounded the first time?

[00:25:26] (Dr. Coke) Yeah.

[00:25:27] (Allan) What happened?

[00:25:28] (Dr. Coke) Shot through the leg. Right there. Out on patrol. We were on an operation. Yeah.

[00:25:45] (Allan) Take your time.

[00:25:49] (Dr. Coke) It’s a straight story. I don’t know why I’m getting emotional about it.

[00:25:53] (Allan) Well, partly because you didn’t talk about this. For a long time.

[00:25:59] (Dr. Coke) We were doing an airmobile. My company. Yeah. We had about 70 people. We were down. I mean, we had taken casualties out the wazoo. Most of them were wounded. Nobody had been killed. But man, the wounded were all over the place. So we did an airmobile, ran into a rainstorm, had to sit down on a rice paddy dike. So we sat down in the helicopters. So that put us like two hours late till this thunderstorm thing blew over. So we were late moving. So that meant we were not going to make our objective by the time frame. So it’s twilight, my troops are spread out all over the place. My command group, my lieutenants, I called them to say, okay, we need to we need to parlay here because we’re not going to make our objective by dark because it’s it’s dark. I mean, it’s twilight. So we’re standing on a dike and we all squat down, and I got my flashlight and he got the filters over your flashlight. But you filter, you cover them anyway. So we’re down like this looking at the map, and there’s. two. I don’t remember this. I’ll have to check my notes. There were 2 or 3 of my platoon leaders with me there. My medic was standing right nearby. My radio operator was standing behind me, and we’re all kneeling down around the maps, and we’re talking about where we’re going to put first platoon, second platoon, third platoon. And as I got like this, I looked up like that and I saw twinkling lights coming. Oh, no. Coming toward us. Fuck I knew what that was. So what it was, is we had not cleared enough territory. My troops had just not. We just crossed a rice paddy dike, a pond or canal. So they had not gotten far enough yet, and we were too close to the front. And I saw what was happening and I jumped, spun to the right, and dove took a big flying leap like Batman, you know? Like boom. Like this. And he caught me in mid-air. Shot me through the leg. One bullet went through my trousers. Went through my set of maps that I had in my pants pocket. But never touched me.

[00:28:24] (Allan) Man.

[00:28:24] (Dr. Coke) Yeah. Yeah. I wish I had those maps, but I gave those maps to (unknown name), my executive officer, when he took the company while I was in incapacitated. But I dove for cover and my medic got hit. My radio operator didn’t get hit, but he got his antenna shot off the radio. All of the other officers got wounded, some of them really bad. All evacuated because they were laying on the dyke and you could hear the bullets thumping them. So we evacuated them and I didn’t have any other officers, so I put a.

[00:29:16] (Dr. Coke) I’m sorry.

[00:29:18] (Allan) No, no. You wanna take a break?

[00:29:21] (Dr. Coke) No. I took my belt off and put it around my leg. Yeah, because I was bleeding. I didn’t know how bad, but I could feel a lot of flesh. Going back there. So I told the battalion commander I’m not. I’m not going to be evacuated. So I stayed there until about midnight, and I was hurting so bad because we were down in rice paddy water. And that’s dangerous because you can get terrible infections.

[00:29:50] (Allan) Yeah.

[00:29:51] (Dr. Coke) And so I was starting to really hurt. I mean, you know, shot in the fucking leg, you know?

[00:29:57] (Allan) Yeah.

[00:29:58] (Dr. Coke) So one of my sergeants called the battalion and said, you got to get him out of here. So instead of going out, by dust-off the battalion commander, send his helicopter in, picked me up and I remember riding out. I was sitting sideways in the door with my legs straight out like that, because I couldn’t bend it with a strap around my leg. And, my company the next day found a village where this shit took place. It was a there was a couple of structures close by.

[00:30:34] (Allan) Yeah.

[00:30:35] (Dr. Coke) And they burned that son of a bitch to the ground. You don’t do that to our company commander. So anyway. But it made the battalion news there that night. And shit, I had a whole welcoming party there to meet me when I got to the got to the medic and he dressed my wound, and they put me in the hospital, the 1/25 Evac Hospital. And I stayed there for. I don’t remember. 3 or 4 days, maybe. And funny incident happened at the, I hated shots. I’ve hated shots my entire life. I’m talking about.

[00:31:17] (Allan) We’ve had this discussion on other health matters-get the damn shot.

[00:31:25] (Dr. Coke) So I knew I was going to get shots. I mean, I knew I was going to get them because, man, they pump you full of stuff. When you’re in a place like that with all that stuff that can happen to you. Of course, I’d been out laying out in the rice paddy for like 4 or 5 hours in the in the water.

[00:31:40] (Allan) Yeah.

[00:31:40] (Dr. Coke) So they were real concerned about infection. So I got I figured out what time the nurse came. Male nurse came to give me my shots in the morning. So one morning, I said, I ain’t taking the fucking shot this morning. It’s not going to happen. So I get up, hobble out to the little train on my crutches and hide in the latrine. I’m a captain like you got to be kidding me. So I stay there about 3 or 4 hours. I mean, sitting in the crapper.

[00:32:14] (Allan) Oh, that’s gonna stink.

[00:32:16] (Dr. Coke) So I get ready, I said, well, he’s got to be. He’s got to make the rounds now. I mean, he can’t be there for 3 or 4 hours. So I said, okay, time to go back to my bed. So I hobble back to my bed and there was his cart at the foot of my bed. He said, well, I see you. You’ve been ducking out. Bam! It’s funny. Oh, shit.

[00:32:42] (Allan) So that’s Purple Heart.

[00:32:46] (Dr. Coke) One.

[00:32:46] (Allan) One.

[00:32:47] (Dr. Coke) Yeah.

[00:32:47] (Allan) Now it is. The Bronze Stars are separate from that. Yeah. Yeah. Were they in the first tour? The second tour?

[00:32:54] (Dr. Coke) I got one Bronze Star for my tour of duty. For first tour.

[00:32:59] (Allan) For the first tour?

[00:33:00] (Dr. Coke) Then I got a second Bronze Star for my tour of duty for my second tour.

[00:33:04] (Allan) Right.

[00:33:05] (Dr. Coke) And then I got a Bronze Star with V for an action that occurred when I was an advisor. Right? It was a Silver Star kicked down to a Bronze Star.

[00:33:15] (Allan) The Silver Star kicked down to a Bronze Star?

[00:33:17] (Dr. Coke) Yeah, that happened all the time.

[00:33:18] (Allan) That was politics.

[00:33:21] (Dr. Coke) The guy who overflew the operation.

[00:33:26] (Allan) He got a Silver Star.

[00:33:27] (Dr. Coke) He got the Silver Star, and he later became a general. He was the aviation commander. He never set foot on the ground. He never did anything except flew around in his helicopter.

[00:33:36] (Allan) Can we say his name?

[00:33:37] (Dr. Coke) I don’t know if he. Yeah, well.

[00:33:42] (Host) When we come back, we’ll finish up my conversation with Allan Danroth. Stick around

[00:36:31] (Allan) I’ll never forget. Where we were when I asked him that question about just how many days had you been shot at? And I kind of, you know, I chuckle here, but not because it’s humorous, obviously, but just because that’s just. I’m just so gobsmacked, right? Like 400 days. And then in typical Coke fashion, he’s like some of sometimes there’s just a bullet going past your head, just some farmer trying to get lucky. I just remember thinking to myself, oh my God, I yeah.

[00:37:12] (Host) If I had, if I had one day where a bullet whizzed past me because a farmer was trying to get lucky, now I would, I would dine out on that for the rest of my life. You know what I mean? That would be a.

[00:37:23] (Allan) I’ve known a lot of a lot of cops. Again, I’ve got family members that are police officers and. You know, like certainly in Canada 20, 30 years ago, it was, you know, it was not common for a cop to ever pull his gun, like there would be police officers that would go through their entire career and not pull their gun. And I know cops that have, you know, been in really heated situations and pulled her gun and not discharged her gun or had anything discharged at them but the PTSD and let alone when a gun gets discharged PTSD. And I just remember thinking, man like people rightfully people are off, you know, on PTSD because a gun got discharged in their direction once or maybe twice, but it’s like 400 days, right? Like probably over a thousand times. I just remember thinking, I looked at him, I laughed, I looked at her. It was late at night. We’d had more than a few Bourbons and I laughed and I said. I said, yeah, I said, just time for bed. But I said, I’m pretty sure you got PTSD. Like I just remember wrapping it up that way the next day over breakfast, you know, and afternoon coffee and stuff. He was like, I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe I do have that. I said, well, I wouldn’t surprise me.

[00:38:45] (Host) Well, so that leads to my next question, which is, you know, you’d mentioned that you suggested that he speak with a professional. So what’s what do you think is his relationship to his own PTSD? Is the recording, you know, the catharsis that you think will that be sufficient? Yeah. What does he think?

[00:39:05] (Allan) Yeah. You know, he’s an incredibly bright man. He has a doctorate degree in org design. And he’s just he’s well read. He’s you know, he’s just a very intelligent, thinking human. And he did go and talk to someone and he said it really helped. And as we talked about it and this is a very similar comment that the folks that I interacted with that had gone to Afghanistan had had made it different times, which is it wasn’t the fight, the engagement, the killing, if you will, with the enemy that was the problem. It was when the people around you got killed. And there was a couple of instances that and one in particular that really shook him. And those were the ones that he really, really struggled with that he felt responsible for and felt like he could have done more. And I’m as these things go, you know, I’m sure there was survivor guilt and a few other things that kick in, but he felt good after, you know, after visiting the counselor and, and working through the veterans branch down there. And to your point, these recordings were really helpful for him. Just everything that came out in these recordings was just I had no script. I had no note.

[00:41:05] (Host) It is remarkable that this man, after all this time, chose you to open up to. And it is remarkable that you’ve gotten him to talk with a professional about it. Uh, because, you know, you he would never have considered that maybe he was carrying around some stuff that he needed to let go of or just acknowledge and deal with. He might not have ever gotten to that point. And what you’re saying is it has helped him. He is better. He is better because he shared it, because he opened up. And, you know, so many guys never get to that point.

[00:41:48] (Allan) Yeah, yeah, I mean, thanks for saying that. And it’s definitely. It’s certainly been impactful for me. And there’s been more than a few times where I’m like, you know why? You know, thinking to myself, why me? And I’ve, I’ve even asked him, you know, once or twice, like, why are you. And he just, he just shrugs it off and says, well, you’re my buddy and you seem interested and there’s just not a lot of time left for people to be interested.

[00:42:24] (Host) That’s right.

[00:42:25] (Allan) You know, I mean, like most 82-year-old men, he’s slowing down. And as he likes to put it, he’s been in a few helicopter crashes and he’s been shot at a few times and banged up and beat up and, that, you know, factors even more into the slowing down. Right. And we just we got to try to catch, you know, capture these stories while we can. So be curious. And yeah, the stories are out there like you said, there’s a vet in in every neighborhood.

[00:43:11] (Host) It’s pretty unusual, I’ve found, for a Vietnam veteran to open up about his experience to anyone but another Vietnam veteran, or maybe a therapist. I consider it a small miracle when one of them agrees to share his experience with me, and I do this for a living. But if Allan Danroth can do it, maybe you can too. If you have a close relationship with a Vietnam veteran, consider inviting him or her to talk with you about the war, about coming home, about whatever he or she is comfortable sharing. Don’t push too hard. Just be a buddy and seem interested. You might be surprised how much healing starts with listening. Just listen. Big thanks to Allan and Dr. Coke for letting us share their stories with you. With their permission, we’ll try to bring you more of Dr. Coke’s stories in future episodes. We’ll be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice, and healing. See you then.

No video interviews are available for this episode.

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