Show Transcript

0:00:01 - (Kevin Lowe): How much do you know about the Vietnam War? Have you ever had the opportunity to sit down with somebody who served in Vietnam? I haven't, until I met Robin Bartlett. Robin is the author of a book called Vietnam Combat, firefights and writing history. Through his experience talking to others who served in Vietnam, he realized something kind of unique is that a lot of his stories were different than most, and most people encouraged him to put it into a book.

0:00:37 - (Kevin Lowe): And that's what he finally did, some 50 years after serving in Vietnam. Now, I'll be honest, when I first heard Robin's story, I wasn't sure if it would be the perfect fit for this podcast because, well, it's a little bit different than most. Most of the guests on here, as you know, if you've been listening for a while, they've had something happen in their life, a life changing event, a disability, a diagnosis, and they've overcome that to get them to where they are today.

0:01:11 - (Kevin Lowe): Robin, his story is different because his life changing event, well, it was a war. It was the Vietnam War. And once I met Robin and I realized how amazing this guy is, I knew it was indeed a perfect fit. Now, here's the important thing in this conversation with Robin. You're going to laugh. You're going to be mesmerized, you're going to be left in awe at his stories that he has to share. But the most meaningful thing comes at the end.

0:01:45 - (Kevin Lowe): I always want this podcast to mean something to you, to impact your life. And, well, at the end of our conversation, Robin shares the most powerful thing ever. It's two simple words that he asks you to say to a Vietnam vet, and he said, most likely you'll bring a tear to their eye. I hope you'll stay till the end so you can find out what that is, so that this episode can mean more to you in your life.

0:02:19 - (Kevin Lowe): My friend, I welcome you to episode 264. What's up, my friend? And welcome at Degrit, grace and inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery, only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself. And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you. Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

0:03:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Have you ever been on a sailboat when there is no wind? If so, well, then you know you are not getting anywhere fast. That is for sure. Well, the same is said for a life without purpose. A life without purpose is like a sailboat without wind. You have nothing to push you forward, my friend. I encourage you at whatever stage of life you're in. If you are not crystal clear on your reason why your life's purpose, well, it's time for you to discover.

0:03:36 - (Kevin Lowe): I invite you to text the word discover to 5544. Again, text the word discover to 5544, and I'm going to get you information into how I can help you to finally discover your purpose and get that wind in your sails.

0:04:00 - (Robin Bartlet): I come from a military family, and my grandfather went to West Point. My father went to West Point. My brother went to West Point. I turned down an appointment to West Point. I said, enough is enough. I went to 13 elementary and middle schools, four different high schools, and I said, I don't want any more of this army life. But when I started college, it was the build up of the Vietnam war. My classmates and I were actually getting reclassified during the summers to be drafted. And I said, well, that can't happen. I've got to serve my obligation as an officer, and I'm not going to be drafted.

0:04:41 - (Robin Bartlet): So I went into the ROTC program at my college, and that was really second nature to me. It was very easy for me to adjust, having literally been raised in a military family for my entire life.

0:04:55 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Now, out of curiosity, was your family upset with your decision to not go to West Point?

0:05:03 - (Robin Bartlet): I would say that my father was a little bit concerned, a little bit upset, but ultimately, I think he recognized that I was different from my brother, had a different attitude and mentality. But when I graduated from college, I had just done 180 deg turn. I was a brilliant college graduate. Right. Having learned everything there was to learn and having a college degree, I was a distinguished military graduate.

0:05:35 - (Robin Bartlet): I decided, you know, I'm going to choose the toughest thing that I can think of. Never been challenged in my life, really. So I volunteered for airborne ranger and assignment to the 82nd Airborne Division, and I got everything I volunteered for and more.

0:05:54 - (Kevin Lowe): I can imagine that. Oh, my gosh. Now, for those of us who don't know the lingo, talk to me about what your position was.

0:06:05 - (Robin Bartlet): So I was commissioned on the same day as I got my college degree as a second lieutenant in the infantry. That was my branch of service. I was in the army four days later. I had everything packed in my car. Driving across the United States, reporting in to the famous 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I was there for about a month and then received orders sending me down to Fort Benning, Georgia. By the way, all these military posts now have been changed. So Fort Bragg is now Fort liberty, and Fort Benning is Fort Moore.

0:06:43 - (Robin Bartlet): They've changed all those names from the confederate generals that they were named after and went through the airborne course, jumped out of airplanes, went through the basic officers training course, and then through ranger school. And ranger training was, and still is the toughest training program that the army has to offer. It was a nine week course, and it was the best insurance policy and training one could have for assignment to Vietnam. So all infantry officers had to go through that course.

0:07:18 - (Robin Bartlet): It was pretty much mandatory, although it was voluntary once you got there. And if you said, you know what? I've had enough of this, they'd put you on a truck and you were out.

0:07:27 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes. They only want those who are in it. Yeah. So now, when you actually were finally deployed to Vietnam, how long had the war already been going on?

0:07:39 - (Robin Bartlet): So this was 1960. I graduated in 67, and after my training, I went back to the 82nd Airborne Division. I was there about six months and was deployed to Vietnam, to the 101st Airborne Division, initially arriving in Vietnam in May 1968, which was just after the major Tet offensive of 1968. And that was really the political and psychological turning point of the Vietnam War. It was the height of the war.

0:08:13 - (Robin Bartlet): There were more american soldiers in Vietnam in that year, 1968, and there were more casualties in that year than any other year during the war.

0:08:26 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. And so at the height is when you show up.

0:08:31 - (Robin Bartlet): Yes. So I received orders, and they wanted to try and keep airborne officers in airborne units. So I was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, arrived in Vietnam, went to the in Benoit, which is in three core. South Vietnam was divided into four parts. I core, two core, three core, and four core. And Benoit was located in three core near Saigon and now called Ho Chi Minh City. When I arrived, I was informed that because of the extensive officer casualties, because of the Ted offensive of January and February 1968, all orders were canceled and to stand by, they'd let me know where I was going.

0:09:14 - (Robin Bartlet): And about three days later, at 04:00 in the morning, I was awakened and said, get ready to go. You're going to the first cavalry division. And my brother, who served a tour in Vietnam before me, had been assigned to the first cavalry division. And this was an air mobile division, meaning the air mobile concept was to transport combat troops to the battlefield via helicopter as opposed to having them march to battle.

0:09:40 - (Robin Bartlet): And so the first cab division had more helicopters in it than in all of Vietnam, and we literally flew everywhere. And the good news was that allowed us to carry lighter weight packs, more water, more ammunition. But it also meant that sometimes we were assaulted into hot lzs landing zones. That was the nature of the air mobile concept, to identify, find the enemy and engage them and then bring these tremendous air mobile resources to bear on the enemy.

0:10:16 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes, yes. Talk to me. What it was like first landing in Vietnam, getting to the base. Walk me through that.

0:10:26 - (Robin Bartlet): So as we got off the first thing and we went over on a commercial flight. I went over on a commercial flight with mostly other 1st 2nd lieutenants. We were all what we call butter bar lieutenants. The flight attendants asked us to pull the shades down to keep the interior aircraft as cool as possible, because departing troops were going to load right after we got off. And that was the case. As we got off.

0:10:53 - (Robin Bartlet): Here were a bunch of straggly soldiers in fatigues. We were wearing khaki uniforms with jump boots. And here were all these other soldiers who'd spent a year in Vietnam who were loading up to take our places on this plane. But what I remember most is this intense heat. I mean, the average daily temperature was 105 degrees. And it was not uncommon, especially in some of the areas that we went into deep three canopy jungle, to have the humidity take us up to 110, 115.

0:11:32 - (Robin Bartlet): Had to be very cautious about heat stroke and heat exhaustion. I remember that. And I remember the smell. The smell, I don't know what it was, but the smell in that area, you got used to it after a while, but it smelled like a sewer, to be honest with you, it was pretty horrendous. It was terrible introduction to the country, I guess.

0:11:53 - (Kevin Lowe): So. Wow. Now, after landing, how soon did you go out on your first mission?

0:12:01 - (Robin Bartlet): So, again, I spent three days at the repo depot, replacement depot, and then was assigned to the first cavalry division. And they had, by this point in time, learned that it really took about three weeks to get soldiers and officers adjusted to the heat. So we were transported to the division rear, which was in two core. So I went from three core to two core to a base camp called Enkey. And that's where we drew our uniforms and rifles and equipment and everything except ammunition. They didn't trust us enough to have ammunition at that point.

0:12:38 - (Robin Bartlet): We did get to sight in our rifles and hung around there for about three or four days, and then we were shipped again by helicopter up to Icor to a new base camp called Camp Evans, which was near the city of Kwantri. And that's where the first cavalry division had been assigned to operate along the demilitarized zone. So the terrain was the Gulf of Tonkin on the east. And as you came further west along the demilitarized zone border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, you had kind of sandy soil, tumbleweed, no overhead cover.

0:13:20 - (Robin Bartlet): And then as you progressed to the west, you got into hills and mountainous. And then finally, as you got close to the Laochan border, three canopy jungle and mountains. So you might be in the beach one day and in the jungle the next. It all depended upon where the intelligence of the enemy locations might be.

0:13:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes. Now, with your position, were you leading a troop of soldiers when you guys went into battle?

0:13:56 - (Robin Bartlet): Yes. So when I reported into my battalion, the first battalion, Fifth Cavalry division, I had served about this point in time one year in the army, and I was instantaneously promoted to first lieutenant from second lieutenant. And I joined the unit with four other officers. And five of us were all promoted to first lieutenant on the same day and ushered into the battalion commander's bunker at about 08:00 at night. And this poor man was just dead on his feet. I don't think he'd slept in about three days.

0:14:29 - (Robin Bartlet): He gave us a two minutes. We went in in alphabetical order. And I was first. I happened to be. There was no a's, so I was a b. And we saluted, stood at attention. And he gave us about a two minute speech, of which I have absolutely no memory whatsoever. And he said to the s one, who is the personnel officer in the unit? Where do we need these officers? And the s one said, well, we need one in a, two in b, one in c, and one in D. And so he said, well, I guess it doesn't make any difference. And he pointed at me, he says, you go to a, you and you go to b, you go to c and you go to d.

0:15:07 - (Robin Bartlet): And as it turned out, I was the only officer to complete his tour. The other four officers were either killed or wounded. So I call that the luck of alphabetical order.

0:15:22 - (Kevin Lowe): It pays to go first, I guess.

0:15:24 - (Robin Bartlet): Sometimes it does.

0:15:25 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, sometimes.

0:15:26 - (Robin Bartlet): And then after that, I was assigned to a company, and I was the first platoon leader of a company, and I had between 28 and 32 men in my command of this platoon, most of them draftees. I would say 90% of them were draftees. And we did what was called humping the boonies. That's what we did. We humped the boonies.

0:15:51 - (Kevin Lowe): And what does that mean?

0:15:52 - (Robin Bartlet): Means we were looking for Charlie. We were looking for the enemy. Both VC and north vietnamese regular soldiers and battalion intelligence and division intelligence would identify areas where they thought the enemy might be concentrated. And we would be combat assaulted by helicopter into a landing zone that was near that area. And for an average of four weeks at a time, we would be in the field conducting daily patrols, trying to find and locate the enemy, fix them, and engage them in battle, and then hopefully try to find a very large enemy force that we could bring these tremendous air assets to bear. And that included helicopter gunships, Cobra helicopters, jets.

0:16:42 - (Robin Bartlet): We even had some naval bombardment if we were close to the beach, and B 52 strikes if we had encountered a very large north vietnamese enemy force.

0:16:52 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. Before I ask you anymore about the mission, just to get a little bit of context at this point, how old were you and what was the average age of the soldiers you were in charge of?

0:17:04 - (Robin Bartlet): So I was 22 years old. I was the second oldest man in my platoon. We had one old man who was 24. My soldiers, as I mentioned, 90% of them were drafted, but they were all very, very good soldiers and dedicated. Average age was 17 and 18. My platoon sergeant, who was supposed to be the most experienced man in the unit, usually that platoon sergeant is what they call a sergeant. E six, has about ten years of experience.

0:17:35 - (Robin Bartlet): Mine had gone through what they called an instant NCO training program, and after six months, came out as a platoon sergeant, and he had his 18th birthday in Vietnam. So he and I had roughly the same amount of training and experience together. So I was dealing with 17 and 18 year olds for the most part. But they were strong and good soldiers.

0:18:00 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. So walk me through what a mission would look like, especially with you guys flying in via helicopter. Walk me through what that looks like.

0:18:11 - (Robin Bartlet): So I made more than 50 helicopter combat assaults. We called them Charlie Alpha Ca for combat assault. And when it was my platoon's turn to lead the assault, I was always in the first helicopter. So we rotated the responsibility of being in the lead helicopter among the three platoons in our company. And it was the only time that you got to cool off was when you made one of these helicopter sites, because you got up in the air and it was nice, the sweat would dry.

0:18:46 - (Robin Bartlet): So as you came in on one of these, about five minutes out from landing, there would be an artillery barrage, and they would open up with 105 millimeter howitzers on the landing zone and the surrounding area, and you would swear that absolutely nothing could survive a barrage like that. And the last round fired was a white phosphorus round. And then that was the signal for the cobra helicopters. These were two cobra helicopters that would come in, and they had miniguns that could fire at a rate of 3000 rounds per minute and 76 rockets.

0:19:29 - (Robin Bartlet): And they would fire around the edge of the perimeter, and they would remain overhead as the lead helicopters came in to support the landing. The first helicopter, the door gunners on either side of the Huey helicopter, and we carried eight men on that helicopter, would also open up and fire at the perimeter. When it was my turn to lead the assault, I always went heavy, meaning I took extra reinforcements. I had my machine gunner, my m 79 grenade launcher, rifleman, ammo bearer, squad leader, radio operator, and myself.

0:20:05 - (Robin Bartlet): It was amazing how the enemy could survive that barrage, but often they did. And they would wait until the second helicopter came in. Not the first, but the second. So the first one had offloaded, and the report had been given back to the command and control helicopter flying overhead that the landing zone was clear. And then they would pop up and fire rocket propelled grenade at the second helicopter and take it out.

0:20:36 - (Robin Bartlet): They wouldn't risk the additional helicopters to come in. When the second helicopter crashed and the men on the ground basically had to fight it out on their own, there was always an alternate landing zone, and the rest of the helicopters would land in the alternate landing zone and then rush to try to relieve the men from the first and the second, if anybody survived the second. So that was the typical scenario of a helicopter combat assault when you were in the first helicopter anyway?

0:21:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Did the training you received prepare you at all for landing?

0:21:14 - (Robin Bartlet): It really did. I mentioned that ranger school was the best insurance policy any platoon leader could have. That training was so arduous, although I think Navy SEAL training is probably physically more demanding, at least that's what I have seen and understand to be the case. But ranger school not only was physically demanding, but mentally demanding as well. And they taught you how to prepare yourself to go on a patrol, lead a patrol, lead a combat mission, and have a plan.

0:21:47 - (Robin Bartlet): There really was never once in my experiences in Vietnam when I did not feel in control of the situation because of that training. Now I was plenty scared. There were many times that I was afraid. It didn't take away the fear, but it gave you a tremendous sense of confidence, because this training took you to the point of mental and physical exhaustion. And also, if you didn't make it to your objective, at the end of the day, you didn't get any food.

0:22:19 - (Robin Bartlet): So there was a great incentive to achieve each day's objective. I lost about 20 pounds in ranger school, but again, it gave you this tremendous sense of confidence that you could handle any situation and prepared you to be able to lead men in combat and under crisis types of situations.

0:22:41 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank goodness. And, I mean, as brutal as the training was, I mean, thank goodness that you had that to be prepared for something that I would think there's no way that you could be prepared for such a thing. So that, I mean, hats off to the training 100%. I listened to a little bit of audio on your website, and I believe it's maybe taken from your book, and it was talking about the significance of the trail, and I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. I'm assuming the trail referring to as you and your men are making your way through this terrain, the jungle, not really knowing what's coming, could you speak to that?

0:23:25 - (Robin Bartlet): There were three things that I did that I think helped me to have a successful tour in Vietnam. The first thing was that I sat down with my platoon sergeant and squad leaders, and I said, listen, you guys have had more field experience than I. I'm still the leader here, but if you see me doing something wrong, I want you to tell me. And that kind of set the tone for my platoon. The second thing I worked very hard at doing or not doing was not to do stupid stuff.

0:23:58 - (Robin Bartlet): Now, that may sound funny, but there were occasions where officers did stupid stuff, and it cost lives. So just trying to be smart, trying to be intelligent, trying to be cautious. And then the third thing I did is to trust my point man. I always walked fourth in line. And when we were out in the jungles near the Laochan border, as I mentioned before, it was mountainous, three canopy jungle, and often you had to cut your way with a machete. So the point man, who is out 25, 30 meters in front of you, he's cutting his way with a machete often or following an animal trail, and he has a coverman that's 5 meters behind him. But those two men are at tremendous risk from ambush or from booby traps.

0:24:52 - (Robin Bartlet): And I trusted their instinct and their concern. So if they stopped and called me forward and they just said, I just don't feel right about where we are. I don't hear any monkeys. I don't hear any birds chirping. We would pull back, and I would fire artillery out in front of us. This was called a technique called reconnaissance by fire, and I fired a lot of artillery in fact, I fired so much artillery that the battery got to know my call sign very well.

0:25:27 - (Robin Bartlet): My call sign was foggy, day one six, and I fired so much artillery that they put a budget on me of 25 rounds. That's all I can speak. But when you put 25 rounds of artillery out in front of what you're going to walk through, you have a much higher degree of confidence of not encountering enemy ambush or enemy problems from the enemy.

0:25:50 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. I definitely don't blame you for doing as much of that as you possibly could. You talked about earlier that you hoped that you would make it to your destination so you could have dinner. Were there some days that you didn't make it to that destination?

0:26:09 - (Robin Bartlet): Now, this was in ranger school. If you didn't complete the day's mission in ranger school, that's where the food was at the end of the mission. And if you didn't get there, you didn't get your sea rations for that day. But in Vietnam, we carried sea rations with us, and as I mentioned before, we had this tremendous helicopter support. So even in dense jungle, if we could cut down enough trees and open a hole in the canopy, they could fly over, hover, and kick out sea rations to us.

0:26:45 - (Robin Bartlet): We weren't allowed to drink the water from streams because of agent orange poisoning. So when the helicopter could land, they brought water into us, had to be very cautious and conserve water on a daily basis. And in deep jungle, that's difficult because the humidity is high, temperature is 105 110. And I had to be very careful about men just literally keeling over from heat stroke or heat exhaustion.

0:27:14 - (Robin Bartlet): And when that happens in deep jungle like that, the only way to get them out is via jungle penetrator, which is the cable. You've seen that on television where they drop a cable and man sits on a seat, they strap him into a seat and haul him up. And that happened a few times, and it's not an easy thing to deal with because there was no gps and the helicopters had a hard time finding.

0:27:39 - (Kevin Lowe): You in deep course of wow. Wow. When you kind of look back on it today, the time that you spent in Vietnam, was there a particular moment that you could say was your lowest, your scariest, the worst moment of that time?

0:27:58 - (Robin Bartlet): Well, the answer to that question is yes. We were very cautious. We knew that the enemy, especially the VC, Vietcong, were watching us all the time. They were masters at camouflage, and occasionally we would spot them and engage them. This would be one in two man teams who would be monitoring where we were. And so each platoon would send out an ambush every night. I'd lead it one night, my platoon sergeant would lead it the next.

0:28:29 - (Robin Bartlet): And the ambush would consist of a reinforced squad, about ten men, and they would set up on a trail network. But we wanted to make sure that we weren't ambushed as we went out to our ambush locations. So we made a big fuss over two or three different ambush locations. So hopefully, the enemy that was watching us wouldn't know which one we chose. But on one occasion, I did everything by the book, and perhaps that's why we got ambushed. I got ambushed near a rice patty field.

0:29:03 - (Robin Bartlet): And the standard protocol is to send two men across the rice patty, check out the opposite side, and then they give you. This was dusk. They give you two blinks on the flashlight with a red lens on it. And so my reinforced squad began to cross this rice patty next to a rice patty dike. And the enemy had actually sighted in that rice patty dike. So they waited until we were completely exposed, and then they started dropping mortars on us and engaged us with machine gun fire. And I had three men killed immediately and two others wounded.

0:29:41 - (Robin Bartlet): This rice paddy dike is like concrete. So we hunted down behind the rice paddy dike, and I called for artillery. As I mentioned, that was my favorite. My weapon of choice was artillery. And as the first rounds came over and I put my arm up on top of the rice paddy dike to see where the rounds would land so I could adjust them, a mortar round went off, and a piece of shrapnel caught me in the shoulder, and it knocked me backwards.

0:30:11 - (Robin Bartlet): My helmet came off, and I ended up on my knees with my back to the engagement. And about that time, another mortar round went off in front of me. And the only thing that really saved my life was the fact that we were in a muddy rice patty, and this mortar round penetrated into the mud and exploded. So I just got splashed with mud and water, and a piece of shrapnel did catch me in the groin, knocked me backwards, and I hit my head on the rice patty dike.

0:30:47 - (Robin Bartlet): So I was out of it. I was literally knocked cold. And my squad leader saved the day. He pulled all the dead and the wounded back to the treeline, set up a return fire, directed the artillery, and he pulled me back to the tree line because I had blood on my shirt and on my pants, and I was out. They thought I was dead, so they put me in the dead pile. I woke up after a while, and I sat up. But by this time, I had lost a lot of blood, and I fainted. So the second time I woke up, I moaned and somebody said, hey, he's not dead. So then they came over and they put pressure bandage on me. But this happened now at 10:00 at night, so there's no way that they could get a medevac in. So I laid on the ground from about 10:00 at night until six the next morning when they could get helicopters in.

0:31:42 - (Robin Bartlet): And that was a real turning point for me because, of course, they kept slapping me in the face to make me stay awake. My wounds were not that severe, but I had lost a lot of blood, and we had nothing that they could do to prevent that. But I went through quite a catharsis at that point in time, evaluating whether or not it would have been worth it for me to have died at that point in time. And it really changed my opinion about the war, about what I was doing, and really caused me to evaluate the value of this effort, my own personal effort, as well as the effort that America was exerting.

0:32:24 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Would you mind diving in a little bit deeper into that topic?

0:32:29 - (Robin Bartlet): Well, this was the height of the Vietnam War, as I mentioned before, and up until the Ted offensive of 1968, in which the North Vietnamese were able to successfully attack more than 200 cities throughout South Vietnam and really have a tremendous impact on the psychological conduct of the war. And up to that point in time, McNamara and Johnson were saying, oh, we were winning the war. And Wesmoreland, too, who was the commanding general in Vietnam. We're winning the war.

0:33:08 - (Robin Bartlet): I know we have half a million troops in Vietnam. We need more. We need 10,000 more. And even Walter Cronkite, who at that point in time was the voice of american political thought on tv. Newscaster famous newscaster, he said, we were winning the war. But after this Ted offensive, which was a brilliant psychological move on the part of the North Vietnam, he said, I have changed my opinion. We're no longer winning the war. The most we could hope for is a stalemate.

0:33:40 - (Robin Bartlet): And it was true because we were fighting a committed north vietnamese enemy or soldiers who were fighting for their homeland, and they would fight till the very last man, until we killed every single person. So the war for them was never going to end. And that was something that I don't think America came to understand. We kept thinking that we could beat them back, and that was not the case. So unfortunately, the war was prolonged, and it was prolonged unnecessarily by Johnson and especially by Nixon, who kept thinking that, well, we'll just bomb them to hell. And they did.

0:34:21 - (Robin Bartlet): We bombed and bombed and bombed, and we killed a tremendous number of civilians, but we were never going to win that war. And we kept losing american lives, in my opinion, unnecessarily. Now, my point of view was a boots on the ground point of view. I was not in the higher ups, never was. Always. I was a platoon leader on the ground, and then I worked on the division as a division staff officer. So I don't have a very high political view, but that's my opinion.

0:34:52 - (Robin Bartlet): Those are my feelings.

0:34:53 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. What was the feeling when you were there amongst the soldiers about the war?

0:35:00 - (Robin Bartlet): So we didn't have any news. There was no tv. There were no newspapers. There were no magazines. We were out in the boonies, and we stayed out in the boonies for four to five weeks at a time. The longest I stayed out was six weeks. And you got pretty ripe after that period of time without any. You had enough water to brush your teeth and maybe wipe the sweat off your face, but that was it. And you wore the same clothes for that period of time.

0:35:31 - (Robin Bartlet): When you got new soldiers in. Occasionally they would bring some news from the home front. But at that period of time, we just didn't know what was going on in the United States. Didn't know about protests, didn't know about draft burning, draft card burning, protests on campus. None of that reached us. We read the Stars and Stripes, which was an american newspaper. Everything's going well. We're doing so well.

0:36:00 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, wow. Well, talk to me, then, about returning home, because I know from what I've heard that many of our soldiers were not welcomed home.

0:36:13 - (Robin Bartlet): Yes, you're right. They were not welcomed home. An officer spent six to seven months in the field and then received a transfer to a staff job. And my staff specialty was as the s one, as the person