[00:00:00] (CARLOS) Everywhere I go, every speech I give before I talk here recently, I talk about the bravery of these young men and women in the Red Sea. Over the course of the last six months, have been battling back daily Houthi attacks and have been conducting strikes off the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the Red Sea and the Sea of Aden.

[00:00:27] (HOST) That’s the Honorable Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy, addressing a group of Vietnam era SEALs and Frogmen through a bullhorn. Our honor Flight San Diego contingent has stopped for box lunches near the FDR Memorial in Washington, DC, and through a chance family connection, Del Toro got wind of our group’s presence. He then blew a hole in his day, just the right size to fit in this unscheduled appearance, and he’s taking the opportunity to connect the dots between today’s Navy and the men gathered respectfully around him and to express his gratitude for the legacy they created.

[00:01:03] (CARLOS) I talk about those brave men and women on the (unknown). It’s just completed an eight-month deployment and prevented a disaster Gaza from escalating, and the Hezbollah from escalating the war even more. I talk about the brave men who also served for eight and a half months. Just recently, the US (unknown) disturbed that deployment, also serving our national security interests. So please know that the example that you all set in Vietnam makes a difference. It has made a difference for those who serve today. That’s deeply honored. This is divine intervention. I just wasn’t expecting to be here with all of you this morning. It’s divine intervention that I’m here with all of you to say thank you. Thank you for your service. God bless. Thank you.

[00:01:59] (HOST) In this episode, we’ll explore more connections between these special warfare operators and the people whose lives they’ve impacted, including each other’s. We’ll hear from the daughter of one of the very first Navy SEALs, from a Medal of Honor recipient from two Vietnam era SEALs on a mission to correct a misunderstanding of history, and from a SEAL currently serving on active duty. 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.

Episode 78 The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday, Part 2. Right after this.

[00:04:51] (HOPE) My name is Hope Gehlbach.

[00:04:53] (HOST) After his service in the Navy, Bob enjoyed a long, successful career in the restaurant business with a couple of other former SEALs. Other than his business partners, Bob wasn’t very connected to the SEAL community or the larger veterans community, and it sounds like he didn’t give Vietnam a whole lot of thought. It was Hope who discovered Honor Flight San Diego through an article in the Coronado paper. She lives in the Bay area now, but still considers Coronado her hometown, so she gets the Coronado Times online. This was about five weeks before the Honor Flight, where I met her and Bob. Kind of last minute, but Hope thought this might be a great experience for her father, who was fully retired and recently widowed. She called Honor Flight San Diego and asked whether there was room for one more. There was. And not only that, this would also be a special flight for only Vietnam era SEALs and Frogmen. Hope was all in. Now all she had to do was to convince Bob.

[00:05:53] (HOPE) So I just said, okay, dad, I’m going to send you the link to the website and just no pressure or anything. Just maybe take a look at it, like sooner than later. So I sent it to him and I went on a long walk on the beach. Actually, I was in the mountains. I went for a long walk in the mountains at my house, and I said, no, I’ve. I’ve got to. I have to push him. There is pressure. I’m going to give him some a little bit of pressure. And so I came back and I wrote this in an email to him and I said, I know I originally said no pressure. But I really think this is an opportunity of a lifetime to reflect and honor that time in your life. And meanwhile, I believe I had heard that I could go as a family guardian, which was just beyond. So I just said, I’d love to, to this time to experience it with you. I said, I’ve always been proud of your Navy service and the part you played in history, being a Plank Owner of SEAL Team One. And then he called me and he said, I just got back from a drive on the beach, and I read your email and I think you’re right. I think this is an opportunity of a lifetime. And I think, I think we should go. And I just said, I’ll take care of everything, dad.

[00:07:15] (HOST) Of all the Honor Flights for you to discover this one when you did. Yeah.

[00:07:20] (HOPE) Divine intervention for sure.

[00:07:23] (HOST) Yeah. It’s amazing.

[00:07:24] (HOPE) I don’t know much about what he did and what I don’t really know much. And he doesn’t talk about it much. And his wife was a talker. And whenever we’d get together, she did most of the talking. So my dad, I always thought my dad wasn’t much of a talker, but she had him up on a pedestal, you know, and vice versa. And she did everything for him, and she cooked and she celebrated every possible thing to celebrate and, um, you know, do all the talking when they went anywhere. And since she’s passed away, he’s reconnected with friends. He’s having coffee on Tuesday with his buddy John Alderson, and he’s doing these things. And I’m just super proud of, you know, he could have easily gone into hiding of sorts. And I’m doing my best to keep him out and about and involved. And if I can have a small part in that, I’ve done my job.

[00:08:17] (HOST) Yeah. Yeah. How has your perception changed of, of what it means to be a Navy SEAL? Does the phrase Navy SEAL hit you differently now than it did before?

[00:08:29] (HOPE) Well, the morning I got home, I went down to the ocean and saw them out there swimming. And that sure felt different than the other times I’d seen him swimming. You know, it was like. Huh? It just that same beach in the late 50s and early 60s, you know, they were doing probably exact same training, doing the exact same everything. And that hit differently. The fact that my dad alone got about 80 letters from around the world, around the country. It was. That was overwhelming. I thought he’d get ten.

[00:08:58] (HOST) Here Hope is talking about Mail Call, a very special part of the Honor Flight experience. Somewhere over middle America, the Honor Flight team hands each veteran two bags of mail. One bag contains letters the team has solicited from schoolchildren and the general public. The other bag contains letters the team has solicited, unbeknownst to the veterans from their friends and family members. It’s an emotional high point in a weekend that is already cranked up to 11.

[00:09:28] (HOST) I know he got one from each of, you know, my sister and I and our immediate families. That’s all the family we have. But I to this baggie of 80. I counted them there’s 82 letters in there. And it was everything from, you know, a brief handwritten letter to a full-blown typed letter to just a drawing from a child. I heard different stories later about people who couldn’t look at those letters. It was too hard. Well, my dad opened them up, looked at 1 or 2, and he kind of said, “okay, I look forward to looking at those when I get home.” And I literally looked at them and I go, “dad, we’ve got about four hours and 20 minutes left of this flight.” And he said, “oh, oh, okay, okay. And so we he…”

[00:10:06] (HOST) Yeah, but they got the Barbie movie on the entertainment thing. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:10:09] (HOPE) I just downloaded Barbie.

[00:10:11] (HOST) I want to watch it twice. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:10:14] (HOPE) I’m like, “dad, we got nothing else. Nothing but time right now.” So I kind of made him go through all of them, and he read each one, and it was the family ones. And if I do say so, my family letter that he said I, I have to read that later. Like he knew that would push me over the edge.

[00:10:34] (HOST) It’s the final night of our honor flight experience. Dinner in the BWI Hilton’s largest banquet room features a number of speakers, including Walter Dittmar, the Force Master Chief of the Naval Special Warfare Command. In other words, the highest-ranking enlisted person in the Navy Special Forces. Dittmar enlisted in the Navy in 1992 and graduated with BUDS Class 188. He’s been a SEAL for more than 30 years, and some of the men who prepared him for success are here on this Honor Flight. In this room.

[00:11:08] (DITTMAR) Sorry, folks. Frogmen. Good evening veterans and guests. It is my honor to be here tonight. Many of the mentors that I have had in the last 32 years of my service are in this room tonight. Many of the mentors that I met, um, immediately arriving at the team, influenced me then, and they have continued to influence me throughout my entire career, as every veteran in this room has had an impact on all of us in NSW. You and your entire generation not only prepared me, but you prepared Naval Special Warfare for something that they had no idea was coming. You taught us discipline. You taught us how to survive in combat. Attention to detail. You hammered rehearsals, tactics, movement, how to take care of our gear. How to take care of each other. You taught us how to be ready. You taught us how to adapt. Taught us how to think. That is what you gave us. That was your gift to us. Because I joined in 1992, I did not see full scale combat for a decade after I joined. Wasn’t until after 9/11 that things got very real again for Naval Special Warfare. It was on my sixth platoon. When I finally had the first opportunity to see it all come into action. And as platoon members, as instructors, our generation, those of us that came in under your guidance, we did everything we possibly could to instill the discipline, the preparedness, the tactics, the readiness. We listen to you, and we gave it to the generation that we were raising to come behind us. And what I witnessed in combat. Was nothing less than miraculous. I watched senior operators and brand new guys on countless combat operations responding with precision and lethality under direct enemy fire. Time and time again. Only every time. Because of what you gave us. Gentlemen, you need to hear me. The success that Naval Special Warfare has had in the last 20 years, the last two decades in combat is because of you. Our success is because of you. And it was you who prepared us for what would come. It is you who prepared us, who are serving now on active duty to prepare the next generation of the Frog And. Those of us who have survived owe you our lives. Thank you.

[00:15:02] (HOST) The keynote speaker for this evening’s festivities is Medal of Honor recipient Mike Thornton. I told you we’d come back to him. And we will in just a minute. While we’re on the subject of the impact these men had on others and each other, I have to tell you about one of the many moments where being in their presence had an impact on me. At this dinner where Mike Thornton is about to speak, I’m sitting next to a Vietnam era SEAL named Woody Woodruff. Woody is going to feature pretty prominently in Mike Thornton’s story and in his speech, but I don’t know that yet. We’ve only just met. Woody is not the towering, imposing specimen of warrior manhood that you picture when you hear the term Navy SEAL. In fact, most of these guys aren’t. Mike Thornton is definitely an outlier in that regard. Woody is of average height and has a lean, athletic build, but nothing about him screams Iron Man. But he’s gotten very into gravel biking, and he’s telling our tablemates about a recent experience he had. Woody had signed up for a ride with some friends who were pretty serious cyclists. The ride had three routes to choose from 100 miles, 200 miles, and 300 miles. Woody and his group signed up for the 200 miles, which is no joke on any bike, but especially not on a gravel bike. Woody’s friends, being serious cyclists, are all riding pretty high end bikes, the kind that serious cyclists spend a lot of money for. Woody, being relatively new to the sport, has a bike he bought at well, I don’t know where he bought it, but let’s just say Target because it was definitely not high end. So they ride out and after a few hours they reached the turnoff for the 200 mile route. Woody is all set to make the turn, but his friends continue to go straight. And what he calls out, hey, aren’t we supposed to turn here? And one of his friends says something like, oh, didn’t you hear? We decided to do the 300-mile route instead. So what does Woody do? He rides the 300-mile route with his friends on his cheap-ass bike with probably not enough water, because what the hell else would a Navy SEAL do? And that’s the difference between these guys and guys like me. Yes, they’ve served their country and exhibited daring heroism in the face of impossible odds. They’ve taken enemy fire and risked their lives to save each other. All that is real. But sitting next to Woody, who must be 20 or 25 years older than I am hearing this silly story about the bike ride. Well, somehow that just made it all more concrete. It’s a mindset, you know?

[00:17:52] (THORTON) I want to thank my good friend Woody Woodruff for picking me up off of the Biên Hòa River, North Vietnam.

[00:17:59] (HOST) That’s Mike Thornton, our keynote speaker this evening. And look, I could have asked Mike to recount the story behind his Medal of Honor for this podcast. I mean, we’re both named Michael. We’re both from South Carolina. We’re both friends with a Sea Wolf we call Tex. We’re connected, you know. But the time these men have together is so precious. And Mike has told that story so many times. I just can’t bring myself to treat him like a jukebox while we’re on this trip. If you want to hear the whole story, you can find it very easily. Just go to YouTube and search for Medal of Honor SEAL Mike Thornton, and you’ll find plenty of videos of Mike telling that story. For now, let me give you the Reader’s Digest version, just for context. It’s October 1972, and there are only about a dozen SEALs left in Vietnam. Petty Officer Mike Thornton and his senior officer, Lieutenant Tommy Norris, are among them. On Halloween, Tommy and Mike go out with three South Vietnamese SEALs called LDN to gather intelligence about enemy strength, positions and movement near the DMZ. A mistake in triangulation puts the five men ashore much farther north than they had intended, and they soon find themselves in a firefight with about 150 North Vietnamese regulars. It’s 150 to 5, but remember, two of those five are United States Navy SEALs. Over the course of about four hours, Mike managed to retreat to the shoreline. When Mike asks one of the LDNs where Tommy is, he’s told that Tommy is dead, shot through the head. Now remember what Bob Conger told us in the last episode.

[00:19:54] (Bob) SEALs don’t leave anybody behind.

[00:19:58] (HOST) So Mike turns around and runs 400 yards back in the direction of enemy fire and picks up Tommy, who was missing a significant portion of his head. Mike has already been injured multiple times, but he lifts Tommy across his shoulders and starts running. About that time, a friendly shell explodes near them. Tommy had called in gun support from a nearby destroyer, and the explosion throws Mike and Tommy 15 or 20ft through the air. Mike picks up Tommy again, and this time Tommy speaks to him. Tommy is unbelievably still alive. So Mike Thornton runs and shoots and runs and shoots and finally makes it to the water with Tommy. At some point, Mike has been shot through the leg, but he swims out to sea, keeping Tommy and a wounded LDN afloat and alive for several hours until finally they are fished out of the sea by Woody Woodruff.

[00:21:00] (MIKE) I’m glad he was fishing that day, because if he hadn’t been, I’d been crab meat. So he asked me if I wanted a ride, and I said, “sure do, buddy.”

[00:21:13] (HOST) When Mike Thornton received his Medal of Honor, he busted Tommy out of the hospital so his friend could attend the ceremony. Tommy later received the Medal of Honor for a different action prior to the one where he was shot in the head, which makes Mike Thornton the only Medal of Honor recipient who has saved the life of another Medal of Honor recipient.

[00:21:34] (MIKE) I look out in this audience. And I believe that each and every one of you guys that fought with me as comrade in arms, and I know you know how we feel about what happened when we came back. But I’ve always said, be very, very proud of what we’ve done. Be proud of what we did. Be proud that we served our great nation when they asked us to go. And did anybody say no? Nobody said no. Brothers are always there next to you. We’re friends. There’s something you can never take away. That you’re there. We’re swim buddies. And we stand together. And so it’s my honor to be here. Amongst my warriors, my brothers, my comrades, and I’m looking forward to another day and time that we’re together once again. So right now, what we need to do is you’ve got to take a vacation. You need to come out and visit each other, because soon we’re all going to be gone. And we wish we’d have taken that extra time to be there to hug you and let you know that we care for each other. It’s okay to cry there, buddy. I cry all the damn time.

[00:23:18] (HOST) And with that, I think it’s time for a short break. Don’t you? Stick around

[00:26:21] (CHUCK) I’m Chuck Todd. You can call me Chuck. And you? My name is Kirby Harrell. Call me Kirby. Okay. And when were you there? We were at a place called Sea Float in the summer of 1970, and we were the Echo Platoon of SEAL Team One.

[00:26:41] (HOST) Why is it important for you guys to tell me this story? Why is this important to you?

[00:26:46] (CHUCK) Because the families of the people who were killed need to be satisfied. And about the fact that their loved one was on a real mission, because there was discussion that the bird crashed because of administrative issues. And that’s what the investigation shows.

[00:27:12] (HOST) Families are still under that misapprehension.

[00:27:14] (CHUCK) Well, because we have told them they understand it was a combat op, but there is information out there that disagrees with what we have told them. Okay. And the only reason that there is no better information is the people who gave permission for that operation to go down. Sending that bird down to sea float are no longer living, and they cannot change the details of what is in that report. And we can write the things, whatever we want to. But that report still stands out there that that was an administrative operation. And it was not. It was three different ops. Yeah, there were three different ops during that day, and they caught fire on all three of the ops. The bird was full of holes, and it took years for the Navy to recognize the fact that it was a combat op that caused the situation. And it wasn’t just a vacation bird going someplace, it wasn’t a mechanical failure. And those guys were on those ops earlier in the day. It’s just the bird was recovering and there were many of the Army people disagree with us on this situation. And when the investigations went down, they said, they said as much as that it was an administrative issue that caused that bird to go down. And that’s what they told the families of some of the people that were out there. That bird was returning from a combat operation where they absorbed bullets within that helo. Nobody was wounded on any of the ops, but there were numerous bullet holes in the airframe and around the engine pod, and in all probability, because they couldn’t stop the blades, they did not want to stop the blades because they knew if they stopped the blades, they would never go airborne again, because the blades would go out of sync. So they kept it turning as long as they could. And midway back to their landing site in Dogtown, the bird went down.

[00:29:21] (KIRBY) And it kind of was a typical day on Sea Float, because and this is the 23rd of June, 1970. Sea Float was a group of barges.

[00:29:32] (CHUCK) 13 ammunition pontoons chained together.

[00:29:35] (KIRBY) The Wall had towed up the San River right in the middle of VC country, giving it to us to start operating off of. Gave it to a number of boat units to operate off of. They have a great website that you can go to. That’s Sea Float and the San (unknown) River. That was where the barges got pulled up the river. A couple of big anchors got set in the river because the current and the river ran 14 knots every day.

[00:30:05] (CHUCK) And it ran in both directions because it connected the Bay of Thailand with the South China Sea. And depending on the set of the moon for a couple of days, it would run east to west, and for a couple of days it would run west to east.

[00:30:20] (KIRBY) Depending on the on the height of the tides. So that’s kind of where we start from. That’s where we start this story from. So after the bird had gotten back, back to Sea Float after a couple of earlier day operations, because we would run two, three, four operations a day and maybe a night operation off of Sea Float to keep the enemy off balance, we Foxtrot Platoon got on the bird and used the bird to go to this village where we had Intel that this Russian advisor was. As I said earlier, we landed a little bit away, probably a click- [kilometer], click-and-a-half away, and we patrolled into the village and we hit the hooch that this Russian advisor was supposed to be in, and hitting the hooch he squirted out of the back and started running down the rice paddy. The rice doc we started I started chasing him down the rice dike. Everybody else set up a skirmish line of fire. I didn’t get very far. And the jungle he was running at just exploded with fire. So there we found out later that there was a like a battalion of NVA back there that he was running back to. We turned and ran the other way. We laid down a base of fire. We had scrambled the Sea Wolves. The Sea Wolves come in. We caught the Helo in for extraction, and we’re shooting law rockets and everything else at this, at this line, trying to suppress the fire. We were unable to do that. We were able to get on the helo. The helo set down behind the hooch so we could load on it, and it took off with all of us on board. The platoon, I think there was six of us on that particular op. All six of us got back on the bird and we lifted off and we’re flying. We were taking hits in the airframe all the time. When we were coming off, nobody was nobody was shot, but fire was coming off. And you could see the aluminum pieces of the helo coming off. We made it back to Sea Float. I got off the bird. I was the point man. I told the pilot, I said, you got to shut this bird down. I think we got you got hit a lot. That was when the pilot told me, no, I don’t want to shut it down. And I believe with Chuck is the reason why is because they didn’t want to stay on Sea Float overnight. So our guys got on the helo, headed back to (unknown) for another adventure intel gathering stuff. And I think they were going to take a couple days leave, but they had intel that they needed to push to us from. So the five guys, which were Toby Thomas, Jack Donnelly, James Gore, James Ritter, and, and Robert Sedano, they all got on board the plane or board the helo. Um, not shutting it down. And the helo lifts off and they take off. All the rest of us go back to you.

[00:33:21] (HOST) You six get off, these five get on?

[00:33:24] (KIRBY) Right. Right. That’s exactly how it happened. And then we went back, and we went back and stowed our gear and everything else and got ready for the next stop. If we got scrambled to do something else. The bird took off. We assumed that the guys were going to make it to (unknown), and that they were going to go do what they needed to do. Uh, that didn’t happen. We got a call, probably. I want to say it was probably maybe 5:30. It was later in the evening. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but that’s when we got the call that the bird had gone down.

[00:34:02] (CHUCK) James Ritter was not aboard. John Durlin, Toby Thomas, Jack Donnelly, Jim Gore and Rick Solano were the people the SEALs that were aboard. Plus, there were two corpsman from Sea Float. And there were there’s a Vietnamese woman, two Vietnamese women and a Vietnamese youth who were aboard, plus four people from the helo crew. And my information on it was the helo was at about 2000ft on its way back to either Canto or Dong Tam. Dong Tam was the larger army base. Canto was just kind of a waypoint before they went back to Dong Tam, but they were actually out of Dong Tam, and it was about 40 minutes away from Sea Float, and they were midway back to their destination when the rotor came off. And what happens when the rotor comes off is the engine spins up and it’s a jet engine in such a small airframe starts shaking everything, and it threw everyone out except the pilots because they were strapped in. Uh, even the door gunners, went out of the helo and yeah, they crashed into rice paddies. And the whole place is laced with rivers and streams. So some may have hit in some of the rivers, but most of them landed in rice paddies. The helo was assigned to Sea Float for the day. And so my platoon, Echo Platoon from SEAL Team One had the first two ops of the day. Our, uh, first squad took the helo for a morning operation where we went in and we picked up prisoners in a village or little hamlet. They were about three hooches in the place that we went into. And before we landed, we caught fire and a couple of rounds, at least a couple of rounds about everything was so exciting at the time. It was hard to tell how many rounds hit the helo, but we know as we’re coming back to the heel, we could see a couple of holes in the airframe and we brought back a couple of prisoners, and then our second squad took the helo after it fueled up again and went back out. And that was they stopped, and did not stop turning. They kept the rotors running. They just refueled and took us off again because we wanted to get the maximum number of operations out of the helo before it went home. Oftentimes they would come a little late in the morning, so we’d only get 1 or 2 ops out of it, but they arrived early in the morning. We took off about nine or so, and the op only took an hour and a half to two hours. But we went in. We picked up prisoners and brought them back to gather information from them. And, uh, to understand the situation there, south of the Kulen River, was all Vietcong controlled. There were three battalions that were resting there. It was a rest and recreation area. Basically, they would feed up. They would take on ammunition, and then they would move into different areas and separate. And they pretty much controlled that whole area south of us, which was about ten miles deep and about 20 miles wide. So we were constantly raiding their areas and the areas to the north of there. Since they had full control, they didn’t have full control north of the river, so they would send large and small groups that would either embed with the villages so that they could tax the villages for rice and meat and other things, and fish, so they could take to their comrades to the south. So it was our job to keep them off balance, like they were doing to the north of us, against larger American elements. So we conducted two operations like that and brought back two prisoners on the first op and 1 or 2 prisoners on the second OP. So but it was hot when we went in and the helo collected bullets on both of those operations, came back and refueled and picked up their squad and went out again for, uh, another the third operation of the day. So I can’t give you the specific intel that we had for those first two ops in the morning. I just can’t remember. But I do remember that we brought back at least a couple prisoners on the one op, and at least one prisoner on the other op. I know it was two in the morning. I don’t know whether it was 1 or 2 in the afternoon that we brought back, and we tried to bring them back and question them about their activities, but we didn’t always get current information that was usable. But that was the objective is to try to get some current information and go back again on a follow up op to keep them off balance. And you know, if they didn’t know whether someone was killed or captured, we could catch them in the open. But they had quick reaction forces and whenever we set any kind of op into an area, they would try to counter ambush us on the way out or up on the way in. If we had a long trek that we had to make over land, or if we had a long water op that we had to go on to get to our objective and back again. And it’s it was a matter of whoever got to a point. A first usually won. And because it was a specific ambush situation. And in an ambush, usually you have people that are set up, they’re armed. They’re ready to go. As soon as somebody heaves into view, You either kill or capture. Right. Or and pick up what’s left. Either information or personnel. Take them back so you can gather more information for the next op.

[00:40:28] (HOST) So you said 2000 feet. It was clear that they had taken some fire.

[00:40:34] (BOTH) Right? Yeah.

[00:40:36] (CHUCK) The crew knew it.

[00:40:38] (KIRBY) Everybody. Everybody in that bird knew it. Everybody.

[00:40:41] (CHUCK) The issue was the rotor came off. They didn’t have a way of staying airborne. The heels start shaking and it violently as the engine spins up and it just, you know, just think about a jet engine out of control. Right. Because it’s turning that blade and all of a sudden the blades gone and the engine. Yeah. Yeah. It just goes up just like that. And the whole bird just starts shaking.

[00:41:07] (KIRBY) Many times they would invert and just head straight for the ground. x

[00:41:13] (HOST) So, what happened to the crew?

[00:41:16] (CHUCK) The crew? All the crew and all the other passengers were killed.

[00:41:19] (KIRBY) Then the guys come down from up north to recover the bodies.

[00:41:23] (CHUCK) Yeah, there was a and there was an investigation crew that would that came down as well as people to pick up those parts that they could from the helo. So if there was anything that was usable it would go back. But they also had to do an investigation as to why the helo went down. And there was a disagreement from the investigators as to what exactly occurred. So there’s disagreement for the next ten years about what happened. There was one idea. And there when the information came out, people said, no, that’s not what happened. That’s not the objective of the crew of the helo at that time. And we tried to correct that. So but the issue of the thing and what we’re talking about here and why we’re here right now is to comfort the families of the people that were killed? Yes. And that’s part of the reason we’re here. Not only to heal our own wounds, but to heal the family’s wounds, because we talk about things like Memorial Day and Veterans Day. And those are just one day out of the year for people. But every day that the family of somebody that’s killed gets up and they look themselves in the eye, they look in the mirror, and they’re a part of them that’s gone.

[00:42:44] (HOST) Is there anything about these men as individuals that you say? Well, I mean, these were these.

[00:42:51] (CHUCK) Were these were family members. Yeah. What do you say about a family member? It’s somebody that you love. These guys went through training. Three of them went through training with he and I. And the two other guys went through training before us, but they were members of other platoons. Right. So that’s the issue.

[00:43:12] (KIRBY) And that’s the depth of what we know about them. I mean, there’s not anything that they were teammates. They were training mates. They were brothers. And we laughed with them. We drank beer with them, you know, we lived life with them. And then all of a sudden they’re gone.

[00:43:30] (CHUCK) So and we have stayed in contact with those families for 50 years. I speak with Jack Donnelly’s brother, Dennis, on a monthly basis. I speak with his sister. I went to her 50th anniversary in a nunnery back about seven years ago.

[00:43:51] (HOST) What do you remember about Jack Donnelly?

[00:43:59] (CHUCK) He and Toby and John Durlin were spark plugs within our, they were very young. Yeah. Um, 19 years old. 18 years old. Jack and Toby had a pet spider, a black, I mean, a tarantula. They had a pet tarantula. And because we were worried about running out of ammo, you know, if we got into a firefight, the two of them practice with Blowguns. And they were concocting different poisons to put on the tips of the darts for their blowgun. These guys were coming up with all kinds of different ideas. What if we’re without weapons? What if we don’t have our knife? How are we going to defend ourselves? How are we going to take care of the enemy? And these guys were coming up with all kinds of they were things that were.

[00:44:51] (KIRBY) They were characters, and they come up with all kinds of things, and it just kept their minds busy. That was the whole thing. And all of them were like that. It wasn’t just.

[00:45:00] (CHUCK) They were funny.

[00:45:00] (KIRBY) Those guys, they were like that. It was they were great SEALs.

[00:45:05] (HOST) How many tours did you do, Chuck?

[00:45:07] (CHUCK) I did two tours as a SEAL.

[00:45:09] (KIRBY) One?

(HOST) You did one. But you said that, uh, you were telling somebody earlier that you were on active duty ‘til 2015.

(KIRBY) Yes.

(HOST) So how many, how many years total is that?

[00:45:19] (KIRBY) I don’t know. Close to 40.

[00:45:21] (HOST) It’s a lot of time, man.

(KIRBY) It is.

(HOST) It’s SEAL the whole time.

[00:45:24] (KIRBY) Yeah. Well, not the whole time. I want to say. When? In ‘67, when I came in, I had to do a Westpac tour.

[00:45:32] (HOST) Okay.

[00:45:32] (KIRBY) Over on a ship.

[00:45:33] (CHUCK) …as well. I was on a ship. My first ship was the USS Yorktown.

[00:45:36] (KIRBY) Then, which.

[00:45:37] (CHUCK) Is a museum in Charleston Harbor.

[00:45:39] (HOST) Right, right, right.

[00:45:39] (KIRBY) And then we could then then we could go to training. I took my training test…

[00:45:42] (HOST) …Because, you know, I mean, it’s not unusual for somebody to make a career out of the military.

(CHUCK) No kidding.

(HOST) You did something extremely dangerous as a career in the military.

(KIRBY) Oh, sure. I mean, decades and decades.

[00:45:56] (CHUCK) And our job was like your vacation.

[00:45:59] (KIRBY) Yeah.

[00:46:00] (CHUCK) Our job was like your vacation.

[00:46:01] (HOST) How do you figure?

[00:46:03] (CHUCK) Jumping out of airplanes, swimming in the ocean?

[00:46:07] (HOST) Yeah. Running down.

[00:46:08] (CHUCK) But running down the beach? Yeah, but I had a lot of experience before I became.

[00:46:12] (KIRBY) An adrenaline junkie. We’re adrenaline junkies, and we love that shit. We needed it. And when we were young, we had to have it. That’s why we were there. I, it took me longer to get over that, I think, than most people. Because when I, when I got off of active duty in ‘75 and we started the SEAL Reserve unit in Coronado, it was called PAC 119. We started that and I was in that until 1990. But we still trained, you know, once a month when we went in and all that kind of stuff kept our walls up, all that. So in 1990, when they called us back to active duty for Desert Storm/Desert Shield, I didn’t feel like I lacked anything or more than capable of doing anything. I was older, I was 44 years old when they brought me back on active duty, and with the help of the people that I had worked with, uh, down at SeaFloat. The one of our boat drivers down there was a Lieutenant Smith, who was now working for the Secretary of the Navy. Uh, and a four star, uh, remembered us down at SeaFloat because it was such an adventurous time for him as a young naval officer. He helped us. There was 12 of us that came back on active duty. And, um. And then our careers continued to grow. So we were on at, um. And all of us that came back on, there were two that didn’t make… not two, but like 4 or 5 that didn’t make Master Chief. All the rest of the people that came back on active duty made Master Chief in the Navy. So it was a it was a blessing not only for us but for the Navy. And I think that we were very useful to SEAL team. We brought a lot of knowledge there. And being able to bounce around and doing all the different commands that I did in Europe and the East Coast and Hawaii. I think it was a benefit to the Navy.

[00:48:10] (CHUCK) You heard what Master Chief Dittmar had to say about the carryover of the training from our era to his era, and the reserve unit was the chain that connected us together.

[00:48:24] (KIRBY) Well, that’s a good point, Chuck.

[00:48:25] (CHUCK) Because many of the active-duty guys went to administrative jobs and they weren’t involved in training anymore, were the guys who were in the reserve units. It’s like they’re almost brand new guys coming back in, but they were 20 years older, yet they still had the experiences because on a monthly basis, they came back in to practice the trade.

[00:48:48] (KIRBY) All the operational skills that they needed. That’s why they brought us back on active duty. So I think that’s, um, that’s a wrap.

[00:49:02] (HOST) A few hours later, we’re back at the San Diego International If you listen to our two parter about the Sea Wolves, you already know what happens here. The city of San Diego really knows how to welcome its heroes home.

[00:49:17] (HOST) What’s your name?

[00:49:17] (SCHELL) Name? Pardon?

[00:49:18] (HOST) What is your name?

[00:49:19] (SCHELL) Catherine Schell.

(HOST) Catherine Schell, are you here with? Are you with Kirby?

[00:49:23] (SCHELL) No, no, I’m just here because I just love veterans. And I just think that they get under acknowledged. And it’s just really.

[00:49:30] (HOST) Well, this crew in particular was not acknowledged at all 50 years ago when they came.

[00:49:35] (SCHELL) Well, we can’t make up for the past. We can only go forward and try to have some healing. Right?

[00:49:39] (HOST) Yeah, yeah. I just think it’s great that you that you came out for that. It’s wonderful.

[00:49:42] (SCHELL) Really special.

[00:49:43] (HOST) Yeah. San Diego is an unbelievable. I mean, I’m not from here, but I’m kind of knocked out by this community.

[00:49:48] (SCHELL) Yeah, it’s really amazing. Everybody showed up the way they did. Look, it. I mean, it’s just amazing to have that appreciation and the respect and the regard. I think I’m going to buy some cookies now.

[00:49:58] (HOST) Yeah, well, thanks for chatting.

[00:50:00] (SCHELL) Thanks.

[00:50:00] (HOST) Of course.

[00:50:03] (HOST) Even in this huge roaring crowd. I have no trouble spotting JJ. An active duty SEAL who served as a guardian on this honor flight. JJ probably doesn’t get to spend a lot of time at home, but he signed up to be on this flight to support Vietnam era SEALs who could use a little help getting around. On a whirlwind tour like this, little things like getting on and off of a plane or a bus, or checking in and out of a hotel or standing in line for this or that can add up. JJ and half a dozen other active duty SEALs have come along to make things easier and safer for these veterans. And JJ absolutely is the towering, imposing specimen of warrior manhood that you picture when you hear the term Navy SEAL. In fact, he’s a little bigger.

[00:50:50] (HOST) How long have you been a SEAL?

[00:50:52] (JJ) Uh, 21 years.

[00:50:53] (HOST) 21 years. God, you start when you were eight? I didn’t know they were taking SEALs out of elementary school.

(JJ) They do. They recruit hard. Yeah.

(HOST) I mean, if the guy can pass the test, Then you’re good.

(JJ) Yeah, exactly.

(HOST) So how much did you know about, uh, the SEAL’s from Vietnam before this trip. I’m assuming this is your first time.

[00:51:12] (JJ) This is my first time doing this honor flight. But for any frogman of my era, like the reverence we hold for our Vietnam era frogmen and UDT, um, you can’t measure it. Um, those are the guys we look up to. Um, those are the guys we revere. Those are the guys whose legacy and history we try to cherish and preserve and move forward. Mhm. Um, and we just want to try to do, you know, anything we can to, to continue to make them proud. You know, and know that their legacy is secure and the legacy, you know, for our um, that they secured from our frogmen forefathers in World War Two from UDT coming forward. So um, you know, know we know all the stories about all the frogmen, but I didn’t know about the honor flight. I didn’t know about the honor flight until, like, I think a month before I got a call from, um, from Joe and them at, you know, war com and said, hey, we need an extra guy. I’m like, for what? And they’re like, if we’re on a flight for the Vietnam frogman, I’m like, I’m in.

[00:52:08] (HOST) Really? You didn’t have to think about it.

[00:52:10] (JJ) No, I said I’m in. Yeah, let’s do it.

[00:52:12] (HOST) And you had no idea what you were getting into.

[00:52:14] (JJ) I had no idea what I was getting into. They said, hey, you’re just going to be with another Vietnam era frogman, and you’re going to help out in any way you can. And I’m like, done. Yeah. I’ll be a swim buddy. Yeah. These are the, the original barrel chested frogman, right? Um, last of the freedom fighters. Um, and just getting to, to be around them and hearing their stories, especially this weekend was incredible. You’re just hearing these stories. You’re just hearing their, like. Like they’re back in the platoon and they’re firing, their trash, talking each other. And it is incredible, man. It’s incredible. Yeah.

[00:52:44] (HOST) Do you think you’ll do this again.

[00:52:46] (JJ) If they ask me to do again 100%. You know, uh, it’s it’s, uh, when you see the look on their faces and, you know, a lot of them say, I’m just so overwhelmed right now. I can’t believe all this stuff. And, um, everything they’re doing for us. And, you know, when you go in, you’re touring the DC mall and you’re seeing all the monuments and everything. Uh, you just see them caught up. And these are very stoic men, right? And you see them caught up in the emotion of it, and you get caught up in the emotion of it. Uh, it’s one of those things like you’re just honored you get to be a part of.

[00:53:16] (HOST) I know exactly what he means. I feel honored just to have witnessed it.

[00:53:33] (HOST) If you want to learn more about the Navy SEALs in Vietnam, check out a book called The Men Behind the Trident, which is available on Amazon and features stories contributed by some of the same people you’ve heard about in these two episodes. For more about the history and evolution of Frogmen and SEALs generally, I can’t recommend highly enough, the PBS documentary called Navy SEALs Their Untold Story, narrated by Gary Sinise. I found it on Amazon Prime Video in the PBS documentary section. If there’s one group of people who are maybe even more impressive to you than the Navy SEALs, it’s the team at Honor Flight San Diego. They’re tireless, selfless and relentless all at the same time. And they run like a Swiss clock wrapped in a warm hug. Julie Brightwell, Dee and Leon Foltz, Alder Chapman and Sue Szabo spent more time with me than I deserved, and the incomparable Melanie Taitano made sure I hit all my marks and had fun doing it. Det OT. Will be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice and healing. We’ll see you then.

No video interviews are available for this episode.

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